Diary Entry
Dear Diary,
We have arrived in the most breathtakingly beautiful land, though it is strange to the eye! We are accustomed to mountainsides covered with forest but crowned at the peak with bare rock. Some of the terrain here is of that style, but there is also the opposite: red sandstone abutments rise steeply up, entirely stone, yet crowned on top by greenery! I have never before seen the like.
I had taken the term “the land of perpetual summer” to be hyperbole, but no, it is quite literal. But for a few species that flower only in the spring—such as the ornamental cherry—the fruit falls ripe from the trees here all year round. The foothills are terraced by tea plantings which yield three harvests a year, each season imbuing a different character and flavor. While scientifically speaking I knew such variation should be possible, it is the first time I have beheld this distinction with all my senses, taste included.
I have yet to lay eyes on the “blossoms of summer” and I have been told that it may be some time before we receive a reply to our entreaty. The heat, which I expected to find oppressive, is tempered by the mountainous breezes, making each day a delight, but also contributing to a certain languidness of the people. Perhaps when ones days are always long, the habit of hurrying never takes hold?
In this land, one cannot strut about in quite so much clothing as we are accustomed without being overcome by the temperature, and some of the airmen have adopted the local custom of wearing a long tunic, open at the neck, that allows for full circulation of a cooling breeze. The captain has stated that he allows it so long as they do not expose themselves indecently.
I for my part have retained my trousers, but the only cloth that sits around my neck now is one dampened and sweetened with the local perfume, such that it tickles the senses with invigorating and cooling zephyrs. The airmen heartily extol my new manner of dress, remarking that my lack of shirt proves the long months of travail have transformed me from pale, bookish weakling into a bronzed Prussian. They could not know, of course, that one reason I was seduced by Botany rather than one of the other Sciences was that I indeed preferred the invigorating effects of outdoor toil over the enervating effects of laboratories or libraries where my colleagues in Chemistry and Mathematics are required to pass their time. Never let it be said that I was loath to get my hands dirty! I accept the crew’s chiding in the spirit in which it is meant: they now accept me as one of them.
We passed the afternoon today in a shade pavilion constructed of bamboo and silk by the locals alongside our mooring, sipping herbaceous concoctions cooled in the streams which run from the mountaintops, utterly at our leisure. I am anxious that our mission should advance as quickly as possible, but until our messenger returns, there is naught to do but wait and enjoy the hospitality that is offered.