The artist Heine, who had an eye for scenery, wrote of Izu: "At many coastal spots, walls of rock soar from the water, vertical for a thousand feet and more. Plateaus can often be descried, several thousand feet above the sea level, with wild-looking rugged ridges towering still higher…Lusty brooks dance through them to the ocean, and cities and towns nestle like strings of pearls on the emerald velvet of meadows and fields."