OCR Text |
Show The Climate of Japan. Really it rains far too frequently in this otherwise charming Japan, and one can indeed scarcely expect any permanent dry weather except in autumn. Every wind seems to bring rain-clouds up from the encircling Pacific to break upon the evergreen peaks of Nippon; while in winter, so great is the influence of the neighboring neighbor-ing Arctic circle, with its cold currents of air and water, that Christmas in ICiu-Shiu which lies in the same latitude with the mouths of the Nile sees the thermometer sometimes below zero. Except for certain delicious periods of the year one cannot honestly honest-ly praise the climate of Japan; but it has certainly divine caprices; aud when the suushine does unexpectedly come, during the chilly and moist months, the light is very splendid and of a peculiar silvery tone, aud the summer days are golden. For this the tea-plant, tea-plant, and young bamboo-shoots, and the other subtropical vegetation wait patiently underneath the snows; indeed, in-deed, all the sun-loving plants of the land have lurked, like the inhabitants, to "wait till the clouds roll by." Some of the most beautiful know how to defy the worst weather with a curious hardihood. You will see the camellias blossoming with the ice thick about their roots, and the early plum-blooms covered with a fall of snow which is not more white nnd delicate than the petals with which it thus mingles. Scribuer. |