On the gulf side of these islands you may observe that the trees - where there are any trees - all bend away from the sea; and even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks...I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair, bowing grievously and thrusting their arms desperately northward as to save themselves from falling. And they are being pursued indeed - for the sea is devouring the land. -Lafcadio Hearn, Chita: A Memory of Last Island (1889)