"The top of the column," Shusaku Endo wrote in his novel, "Volcano," "expanded into a shape like the round head on a sprig of cauliflower." Alluded to in the book as "Akadake," the landscape described by the author is widely understood to represent Sakurajima, a volcanic island located in the bay of Kagoshima, at the southern tip of Kyushu. In order to complete his research, Endo is said to have hired a helicopter to lower him into the island's periodically toxic crater-peak.

My first glimpse of Sakurajima — its outline shimmering in the heat — is from the relatively safe distance of Sengan-en, an Edo Period (1603-1868) circuit garden, and one of Kagoshima's main draws. An elevation in one corner of the garden affords fine views of the island across an expansive bay that has given rise to the city of Kagoshima's self-branded epithet, the "Naples of Japan."

It's a forgivable exaggeration for a marine-scape that is, in fact, rather impressive, but struck the writer, Will Ferguson, as not a little ironic, commenting in his travelogue, "Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking in Japan," that the sister-city relationship between Kagoshima and Naples was akin to a "suicide pact," both spots "primarily known for the imminent annihilation facing their people."