 Chapter 15 of East by West by Henry W. Lucie This, November the 3rd, is the Mikado's birthday, and his faithful people, who do not often have the chance of beholding his sacred person, have had opportunity provided of at least looking upon the closed carriage that contained it, and the horses that drew it. Mutsuhito, the reigning emperor of Japan, was born in Kyoto on the 3rd of November, 1852. He succeeded to the throne on the death of his father on the 13th of February, 1867, and was crowned at Kyoto in October of the following year. It is customary for Mikado's to select a name to designate the era of their reign. Mutsuhito calls his era Meiji, and in all official documents and records time is so kept. Thus it was in the first year of Meiji, February the 9th, 1869, that the emperor took him to wife Haruko, daughter of a Japanese noble of the first rank, who is two years the junior of her imperial consort. Of this union there are two children, Yoshihito, the prince imperial, now in his third year, and Akika, a little girl two years of age. Mutsuhito is the 121st emperor of a family that runs back in unbroken line to Jimu Jeno, a warrior king who reigned six hundred and sixty years before Christ. The celebration of the Auguste event today commenced with a review of the troops in a large open space adjoining the foreign office. By eight o'clock in the morning some eight thousand men, horse, foot, and artillery, were under arms. Half an hour later came the foreign ministers in full uniform, and the small number of private persons privileged to enter the enclosures. Outside in the broad street that flanks the review ground, and along which his majesty would drive, there were gathered a few thousand spectators. But considering the rarity and importance of the occasion, popular excitement was kept well in hand. In the bay the foreign men of war were flagged, and in due time salutes were fired. The foreign office was gaily decked with arches of evergreen and chrysanthemum, and displayed festoons of Chinese lanterns in anticipation of the night's festivities. But for the most part Tokyo went its ordinary way, scarcely seeming to know that this was the anniversary of a stupendous event. A few minutes after nine o'clock the white plumes of the lances of the imperial bodyguard were seen advancing along the road. In the middle of the escort was a plain broom with closed windows, drawn by a pair of bay horses. As the cavalcade passed through the crowd in the streets, no cheer was raised, or sign of welcome or recognition given on either hand. When the Mikado's carriage entered the grounds, the silence was broken by the thunder of artillery, and the strains of three bands, all playing the national anthem. The brilliant throng of foreign ministers, plumed and epauletted, many of them wearing the insignia of high orders, were gathered in a pavilion near the saluting point. Close bias was a smaller tent, embroidered with the imperial chrysanthemum. Inside was set a richly lacquered chair, and a table covered with a gorgeous cloth. In attendance were a number of dismal-looking men, with respect to whom it was after prolonged consideration, hard to decide whether they were mutes from a funeral establishment, or city-waiters who had been up all night. They were dressed in black European suits made for somebody else, and apparently not out of the clothes-press since the last birthday. Each had a chimney-pot hat of various antique makes, and every man's hands were loosely hidden in white cotton gloves, several sizes too large. These were, I finally ascertained, the servants of the imperial household in their best clothes. The Mikado, leaving the broom, mounted a nice little bay pony with yellow reins, and followed by his staff and military attachés of the foreign ministries, slowly rode round the ranks of the soldiery, stiffly standing at attention. The Mikado is thirty-one years of age, tall, but not graceful in figure. He has the sallow complexion and black hair of the Japanese. Except for something of sensuality about the thick lips and heavy jaws, his face has about as much expression as a brick wall. His seat on horse-back is the most remarkable I ever saw. Holding a yellow rein in either hand, with elbows squared, he leaned over the pony's neck as if he were about to get off in that direction without assistance. Thus he sat whilst he walked the pony round, and thus he remained, blankly staring straight ahead whilst the troops marched past. The start was a little unfortunate. One of the princes of the imperial family lost the epaulette from his left shoulder, and was nearly thrown whilst endeavouring to fasten it on. Halfway across the review-ground the Minister of War's horse bolted, presently depositing its rider in the roadway, where he was picked up and brought back in a carriage happily unhurt, but what an augury at a military display of a great empire. The Mikado, always desperately clutching the yellow reins, walked his pony round the field in safety, and taking up his position at the saluting point the march past began. As a military display, the review can scarcely have been imposing to the German Minister who critically surveyed the scene. Immediately after the restoration the French army was taken as the model of the imperial forces of Japan. After Sedan it was thought that on the whole the German system would be a safer model. Amid these changes the Japanese regiments have not perfected themselves in drill. But the men, though small, are hardy fellows, and as was shown during the Satsuma Rebellion and in other civil wars they are full of fight. The honours of the day were unanimously voted to the artillery, who trotted past in smart style. The soldiers of the line were dressed in varieties of blue faced with red. The band came out in rainbow tints of sky blue coats, red trousers with gold stripes, and white plumes in their helmets. As the imperial guards strode past the band played a march into which at brief intervals the air of God saved the Queen was introduced. The review over the Mikado dismounted and withdrew to his tent. Knowing that there were two foreign visitors present, an English MP and the present writer, he graciously intimated his desire that they should be presented. This was an act of condescension sufficient to cause his hundred and twenty predecessors on the imperial throne to turn in their tombs, but it was nothing to what followed. There were two ladies on the ground, one the wife of the honourable Baronette alluded to, and the other a young American lady. These also the Mikado desired should be presented, a ceremony gracefully performed in full view of the astonished army. Mr. Trench, the British chargée d'affaires, told me that this was the first time such a thing had been done in the history of Japan, where court etiquette is preserved with fantastic strictness, and strangers, above all ladies, approach the imperial presence only through difficult and well-regulated processes of preparation and ceremony. The incident may appear trifling in a grave narrative, but it really marks an era in the court life of Japan. The presentations over, the emperor returned to his palace, where at eleven o'clock he entertained the foreign ministers at breakfast. This was, I gathered from one present, a poor tenter's affair. The Mikado was seated by himself at a table raised on a dais. At another table a few feet distant were the princes of the imperial family. The representatives of foreign powers sat by themselves at a third table. The solemn gravity of the occasion was relieved by the difficulty attendant upon the disposal of the food. The meal was served strictly in Japanese fashion, with the exception of the use of tables and chairs. But there were no knives or forks, only chopsticks. I have reason to believe that in anticipation of the ordeal more than one of their excellencies had spent some time on the previous day practising, but the art of eating with chopsticks is not learned in a day, and the efforts made on behalf of England, France and Germany to secure a mouthful of rice or a piece of fish were not wholly successful. The only minister who was fully at home was the Chinese, who triumphantly plied his chopsticks, conscious that here at least France had no chance with him. All the food was placed on the table at once, and with it a wooden box of considerable size. Despite as a specimen of modern Japanese decoration, the box was perfectly hideous, being picked out with white flowers and bright green leaves. It opened in a series of trays after the fashion of a lacquered box. On each tray was a supply of food, fish, jelly, vegetables, seaweed and sweet meats. On leaving, each minister found one of these boxes in his carriage, a delicate and hospitable attention with which the Mikados have been wwn't through a thousand years to speed the parting guest. With the plain wooden box containing the meats was presented a beautiful little porcelain cup, from which the guest was supposed to have drunk his sake. The wooden box, with its green leaves, its white flowers and its uninviting cold meats, was a thing to be got rid of as quickly as possible, but this little cup, with the royal chrysanthemums in gold shining upon it, would fittingly remain as a souvenir of the interesting occasion. In the evening Madame Inuiye, the wife of the foreign minister, gave a reception at the foreign office, to which eight hundred guests were bitten. The Japanese never danced, they get it done for them, but on this occasion, a considerable proportion of the guests being foreigners, dancing was provided for and thoroughly enjoyed. It was pleasing to find most of the Japanese ladies, including the hostess, arrayed in their own graceful and becoming dress. The gentlemen were without exception in European dress. Everything about the arrangements was European, including the supper furnished on a scale of royal magnificence. Each guest on entering was presented with the programme of the dances, bearing the familiar imprint de la Rue. The band played English dance music, and with the exception of a little difficulty in the lances, abruptly closed in the middle of the fifth figure, it got on admirably. Many of the Japanese ladies were very pretty, and took a keen interest in the dancing, which seemed to be token that at no distant day this European custom will be added to the others that already dominate Japan. At supper, I noticed one charming little Japanese lady execute a neat manoeuvre with a plate of cakes which she had on her knee. Diving into the voluminous recesses of her sleeve, she produced a piece of paper, and daintily wrapping up one of the cakes, put it into her sleeve, repeating the peculation with the assistance of the other sleeve. Finally was this accomplished, when Mr. Inouye came by and stopped to talk to her. It was pretty to see the winning innocent look with which she conversed with her host, all the time conscious of these two pieces of his cake in her guilty sleeves. The imperial share in the festivities of the season was brought to a conclusion some days later by a garden party given in the grounds of the palace. The Mikado, but a few years ago a sacred personage, as jealously hidden from the vulgar gaze, as is the miraculously discovered image of Kwan Non in the temple of Senso-ji, has now been educated up to the point of holding two garden parties in a year. One is in the time of the cherry blossom, the other of the blooming of the chrysanthemum. Just now the chrysanthemum is brightening all the highways and byways of Japan, and the sovereign Lord, whose family have for centuries worn the flower as their crest, bade some five hundred guests to see the show in his palace grounds. And as a flower show there is nothing in the world equal to the spectacle. Three single plants, occupying a shed of considerable size, displayed between them over twelve hundred perfect flowers. One counted four hundred and thirteen, and the others were less only by few units. In Japan the art of the gardener seems to be guided in the direction of producing a chrysanthemum of feathery form and delicacy, long slender petals rising in exquisite fringe. Of these there were abundant specimens, perhaps nothing rare in colour, but in development of size and graceful form beyond anything dreamt of in the temple gardens. The flowers were worth spending an afternoon with, but far more curious and striking was the Japanese court taking the leading part in this modern western institution of a garden party. The Mikado, dressed alas in European costume, received his guests in a room opening out into the garden. On his left stood the Empress, gorgeously and stiffly arrayed in scarlet robes. In Japan, as in some countries further west, the imperial colour is red. Walking through the gardens after the reception I picked up the crimson heel of a shoe, and a few paces ahead saw one of the princesses ambling along with one heel on the ground and the other raised full two inches high, with imperial affectation of nothing particular having happened. The Empress wore a voluminous cloak of red silk, richly brocaded with white chrysanthemums. The wide drooping sleeves opening disclosed vistas of a yellowy pea-green, an underskirt of red of darker shade, with scarlet shoes tipped forward by uncomfortably high heels, completed a costume many sizes too large and bulky for a little person. This was marvellous, but the crowning grace was the arrangement of her hair. It was flattened out something in the shape of an immense banjo of the thickness of a little finger, the tail being bound with knots of paper, such as mutton cutlets are trimmed with, save the fringe. Her face was powdered to a ghastly white, relieved by a dash of crimson on the lower lip. In spite of all this, the Empress has a pretty face, favourably contrasting with the stolid countenance of her liege-lord. The imperial princesses were dressed much the same in respect of colour, the ladies of the court running to purple and green. All the ladies had their hair dressed in the banjo's style, with some sight variation in the mutton-cutlet paper trimming. The ceremony of presentation was very simple. The guests, being passed by the officers of the household at the entrance, advanced to the end of the room where their imperial majesties stood, surrounded by their court, and made their abasons first to the Mikado, then to the Empress, and retiring backward, disappeared in the gardens. The Mikado stood impassive, staring straight before him. The Empress, like a pretty wax figure endowed with eyes, showed some curious interest in the two or three European guests, but neither acknowledged the salutation. After the first presentations were over, the great body of the guests did not advance up the room, but bowed on entering, and again on vanishing through the doorway into the garden. At the further end of the grounds there were three bands of music, which incessantly and distractingly played together the melancholy monotonous tune which is the national anthem of Japan. The only variety contributed to the proceedings by the bands lay in the fact that the one drafted from the navy was clad in scarlet, whilst the army contingent was in light blue. A magnificent luncheon was spread in a marquee, at the upper end of which was a pavilion tent, with a table set at right angles with the longer one. After a due interval the Mikado, with the Empress on his left, and the many hued court following, stoned through the grounds towards the tent. The Mikado, who does not speak any language but his own, halted here and there before one or other of the foreign ministers, of whom there was a full muster. His Majesty's conversational powers are not exhaustive. He, without looking at the minister, addressed a few monosyllabic remarks to the interpreter. The minister, bowing low, made courteous response, and the image of imperial authority, as if wound up afresh, moved on, and went through the same formula with the representative of some other of the great powers, who are keenly watching the great and interesting country he rules but does not govern. Several ladies were presented to the Empress, and found in her a less immobile acquaintance. The Mikado and his consort were led to the table under the small tent, where they took their seat at a table loaded with the choicest violins and abundant wine. The princes of the imperial family, of whom there were some half-dozen present in military or naval uniform, seated themselves at some distance below the Mikado on the right. The princesses sat below the Empress on the left, and below them were disposed the purple and green-clad ladies of the court. Mr. Inuye, who had stood on the left of the Empress during the presentations, now hospitably engaged himself on behalf of the guests. No one would have guessed that the plainly dressed gentleman who always kept in the background, looking from afar upon the pageantry of the court, was Mr. Ito, one of the main factors in the new empire of Japan. He now busied himself carrying about plates of salad, cold meat, and glasses of wine, his principal state care, seeming to be that the Emperor's guests should feel themselves perfectly at home. Wine was poured out and served to the circle at the imperial table, but following the example of the Mikado, no one ate or drank, and his majesty, after staring straight before him for the space of a quarter of an hour, rose and passed away, with the rainbow throng of red and green and purple ladies in train. Chapter 16 of East by West by Henry W. Lucy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. Chapter 16 Across Country in Gin Ricochets. The ball at the foreign office was over at half-past one, and four hours later I was awakened by the chamberman at the hotel, announcing Bath Lady. Had I been able to consult my private inclination, I would have let the bath remain ready for an indefinite period, and continued my sleep. But we were on a pleasure trip, and in order thoroughly to enjoy yourself, private inclination must frequently be sacrificed. We were bound for Niko, taking the first stage of the journey by train, and the station was about as far off as it could possibly get and still be in Tokyo. We were in the Gin Ricochets by a quarter-past six, and the train started at seven. But Ito, our guide, was already fearful that we should miss the train. Two men were harnessed to each Gin Ricochets, and away we went at incredible speed through waking, yawning Tokyo. A Gin Ricochets man thoroughly enjoys himself when he is running in couples with a train of Gin Ricochets. The spirit of competition sends him bounding along at racing speed, which he will keep up for miles. The way he turns a corner is enough to whiten the hair in a day's journey. He shouts, and dashes round with the Gin Ricochets swaying over on one wheel. Before we had gone half a mile I felt thoroughly convinced that the Gin Ricochets would be in time to catch the train, but where I should be depended upon the particular corner at which the rickety little carriage gave an extra lurch. It seems cruel work for the men who frequently run along bare-headed with the perspiration dropping off their face like rain. But both they and their fares get used to it in time, and certainly the men make no complaint. Kansa Luski, the Austrian minister, who has just arrived and seized Japan for the first time, tells me he has already learned one Japanese word, which being translated means Go Slower. This he constantly addresses to his Gin Ricochets men when they break into anything beyond a trot. But whether owing to imperfect accent or to willful disregard of the kindly men in junction, he finds that nothing comes of it. I heap! Our men dash on round corners and through narrow alleys, startling women, frightening children, and only by utmost dexterity avoiding collisions. There seemed no end to Tokyo, but it came at last, and we found ourselves at the station, with fully ten minutes to spare. The train was very full, and though we had paid for first-class tickets, we were glad to find seats in a second-class carriage. This line, which goes in the north-westerly direction from Tokyo, is only partly open, but the people of the locality lose no time in availing themselves of it. We went as far as Kumagai, passing through a pretty country, cultivated with loving hand. Here we saw, what became familiar enough in subsequent journeying in the interior, the newly harvested rice hung up to dry round the trunks of trees, where on moonlight nights it stands out in the landscape like great ghosts. At Kumagai the gin-richisher man appeared in his true colours, which are almost entirely flesh-like. It is a little startling to the foreigner landing at Yokohama to discover a race of half-clad men, but the Yokohama Cooley is overdressed, as compared with his brethren in the interior. If when he is running, the country Cooley, in addition to a loincloth of narrowest limits, wares of blouse coming down to his waist, he has sacrificed much on the altar of decency. It is quite as common to meet one with nothing on but a pair of sandals and a pocket handkerchief girt about his loins. On entering the tea-house at Kumagai, to wait whilst Ito arranged matters with the Cooleys, the women kneeling on the floor and bending their heads till they touched the ground, murmured words of welcome. One brought us tea in tiny cups, from which we drank without finding refreshment. Japanese tea is a weakened, almost tasteless beverage of a pale yellow colour, served without sugar or milk. Its chief recommendation is that it is brought in small quantities, and if courtesy compels one to drink it, the infliction is not serious. Always remembering that we were on a pleasure trip, having drunk the tea, we ordered sake. This liquid, upon the manufacture of which much good rice is wasted, was stored in a clean-looking little tub in the part of the house that would be the kitchen when the panels were up. Drawing out the spigot, the landlady filled two small blue and white jars, such as are used in England for holding a single flower. These she deposited for a few minutes in hot water, serving the sake lukewarm. It tasted as if it had been procured by washing out a decanter that had held sherry, and leaving the liquid to acquire a fine, stale flavour. With the sake was brought a little pot of pickles, chiefly consisting as far as I was able to identify the ingredients of sour turnip and sodden celery. The very smell of this dish, which the soul of Japanese love is enough to make a European ill. I first detected it at a house in Yokohama, and thought the drains were out of order. At a dainty and costly Japanese dinner at which a week later I was privileged to sit, a plate of these pickles, wildly smelling, was served to each guest, and I noticed that Japanese ladies and gentlemen ate it with gusto. Kumagai is a busy little place, doing a big business in cotton and the eggs of silkworms. An industry that is even more in evidence is that of basket making. These woven of bamboo are of all shapes and sizes, are wonderfully cheap, and are the prettiest things imaginable. As in all other Japanese villages we visited, everybody in Kumagai was hard at work. There was, it is true, a temporary cessation of labour on the part of a body of men, women and children who followed us round, dumbly staring. But generally the people went on with their work, evidently pleased with the attention it attracted from the foreigners. All the implements in use were of the most primitive description. A gang of fourteen men were driving piles, preparatory to building a structure of heavier cast than the average Japanese house. Standing on a scaffold, the fourteen men hoisted the ram a few feet, and letting go their hold, it fell with whatever impetus was to be derived from the height it dropped. Then precisely the same way we saw a gang of men driving piles for a bridge, some fifty miles inland. A common object in Japanese towns and villages is the rice-pounder. A man, or sometimes a woman, steps on the end of a long beam, at the other end of which a stout piece of wood is fixed at right angles. The weight of the man raises this beam, and when he steps off it falls into the scoop filled with rice, by which treadmill work an appreciable portion is pounded. The same primitive kind of tools are in use through all the earlier processes of rice-growing. The rice harvest was in full swing as we drove along, and Sunday though it was, there was no cessation of labour, whether in field or homestead. In a journey of nearly two hundred and fifty miles through this portion of the interior I did not see a single plow. In the course of a subsequent journey through the southern portion of the island I saw two miserable little things which a man could easily lift, drawn by an undersized ox. In almost universal use is the earliest idea of a plow. It is a spade, with a narrow blade about three feet long. The farmer thrusts this well into the soil, and turning it over on one side makes a furrow. The action and the results being identical with that of a plow. Only watching the laborious process one thinks of the enormous strides agriculture will take in Japan when these rude instruments are cast aside and the plow is put to work. When the rice is cut and dried it is stripped by the simple process of drawing the heads through a small iron comb, which does a handful at a time. It is threshed by a flail, precisely of the same make as that in use in the threshing floor of Nikon, what time Uzzah put forth his hand to steady the Ark of God that David was bringing up from Kiryath Jirin. When the rice is stripped it is laid out to dry on mats spread in the sun. In passing through a village these mats covered with rice are frequently to be seen flanking the full length of the road on both sides. Japan has many arts. Porcelain and earthenware are manufactured in every province. Its enamelers on copper have no rivals in the world. It has workers in bronze, carvers of ivory, and is the home of lacquer work. But it is essentially an agricultural country living by the fruit of its land. According to the last census taken in 1880 the total population was thirty-six millions, and of these nearly sixteen millions were farmers in almost equal proportion of sexes. Under the present order of things dating from the Revolution of 1868 the people own the land paying tax for it to the government. About three-tenths of the tilt land of Japan is in the hand of small proprietors, who with their wives and children do all the farm work. Of the balance, though held in larger sections, there is nothing akin to the large farms of England. In addition to the population returned as farmers there is a considerable proportion of farm labourers. An able-bodied farmhand receives wages at about the rate of tenths a day with board. As he is almost a vegetarian his food does not cost much, consisting chiefly of rice, barley, peas, beans and turnips, with occasional relishes in the shape of eggs or saltfish. Rice is the principal product of the empire, being grown in all its provinces. Tea, silk and cotton come next, and in addition there are grown tobacco, wheat, barley, millet, peas and beans. Of late years much attention has been given to the culture of grapes, and the Japanese are not without hope that within the next ten years they may introduce and popularise in Europe a new vintage. In a barber's shop at Kumagai we saw a man at work in a pink costume of unusual fullness. This was a convict out for the day. It is the custom of Japan to permit convicts under certain conditions to go out and apply their trades, the money received being credited to them when the term of their imprisonment is complete. At Tokyo we saw a gang working as excavators. These labouring in a populous town were lightly chained to each other to prevent any mistakes. At Kumagai being a small place and opportunities for escape being limited the convict barber was at large being simply under bond to return to prison when he had shaved his customers. We took a shortcut out of Kumagai passing through fields and long hamlets rarely visited by the foreigner. It was terribly rough, though full of interest at every step. Our coolies were in high spirits at the prospect of extra pay and an engagement to last for a week. They rushed along through holes and over boulders shouting warnings to each other as they came to a fresh obstacle. At noon we came to a broad river which we crossed Jinrikusher and all in a ferry boat. There was a strong current running down but the boatman using a single pole skillfully punted us across. There was a good deal of traffic, junks sailing down to Tokyo with country produce. They had curious sails made in slips, sometimes laced together but not unfrequently flying loose like so many ribbons. This kind of sail is in use on all the inland seas of Japan. By its means the force of the wind is regulated. When a Japanese sailor wants to take in a reef he unlaces one or more of these strips and the amount of sail is reduced accordingly. We stopped for Tiffin on the other side of the river and had our first taste of Ito's cookery. He is the guide who served his apprenticeship with Miss Bird and proved a perfect treasure. In height he is fully five feet and according to English reckoning is twenty-one years old though habits of reflection and constant searching after fresh knowledge made him look forty. In mentioning his age with the proviso that it was according to English way of reckoning he explained that according to Japanese custom age is counted from the first day of January succeeding birth. And that day the child is one year old, whether born the previous January at mid-summer or on the thirty-first of December. Ito made an excellent omelet which with a dish of cold tongue and a cup of cocoa completed a luxurious luncheon. After an hour's rest we were off again and presently reached the Rehei Shikaito, the road which used to be followed by the envoy of the Mikado in his annual pilgrimage to the tomb of the First Shogun at Nikko. This road, one of the great highways of Japan, is in a condition almost as bad as the road leading city-wards from the Steamboat Wharf at New York. I understand that improvement will shortly take place in this respect. Minister Ito, the Minister of State, recently made a journey over the road, and received a strong impression that the Prefect might find more useful opening for his energy elsewhere. He was accordingly removed, a new Prefect appointed, and already the long delayed work of road mending has commenced. As it was, we were frequently compelled to make detours in the woods and fields that flank the highway. In one of these, seamed with the roots of ancient trees, a young gentleman from Glasgow, companion of our voyage, was pitched out. He took great credit to himself and to his gymnastic training, that whereas the gin ricocheter fell on the left side, he tumbled out on the right, but it is easy enough as I presently did it myself, and Ito, whom long practice has enabled to bring to high perfection the art of sleeping in a gin ricocheter, was frequently picked up by the wayside. This road is, for many miles, a magnificent avenue of cryptomeria. Tall, solemn trees flank the road on either side, often interlacing at the top. The avenue was planted in a bygone age by a daimio who desired to do honour to the shogun. The tombs of the shoguns, both at Shiba and Niko, are surrounded by costly presents from the old nobility, who thereby performed a pious act and at the same time ingratiated themselves with the ruling powers. This offering of a few thousand puny cuttings planted by the roadside was sneered at at the time as a cheap and inadequate way of performing a duty. Now there is nothing either in stone or metal that equals this magnificent avenue raised to the glory of the shoguns. We spent the night at Tochigi, having done thirty-five miles in the gin ricocheter. At the thirty-second mile the leader of my tandem team stopped to tie his straw sandal. The wheeler, with a merry laugh, bowled on ahead, and having got a few minutes' start, kept it up till the other Cooley overtook him and took his share in the pulling again. When we reached the tea-house the Cooleys washed their feet, covered their semi-nakedness with their cotton blouses, and sat down contented and happy to their evening meal. This consisted of two soups, which always introduce a Japanese dinner, a bowl of rice, some eggs, and a dubious vegetable. A meal not too heavy after the day's work, and with the prospect of one on the morrow equally exhausting. For liquid refreshment they had a cup or two of tasteless tea, the banquet being rounded off by three whiffs from their lily-fusion pipes. As for us, all preconceived notions of personal discomfort and even semi-starvation when travelling in the interior were agreeably dispelled. We had two rooms on an upper floor, spotlessly clean, the straw matting shining with polish, and the walls partially formed of painted screens. There were a table and three chairs, which looked grotesquely out of place, but were nevertheless acceptable. The tea-house provided a small oil-lamp, and one of those large circular white paper lanterns which, with the expenditure of a little oil burned through two wicks like wax matches, diffuse a surprising quantity of soft light. We had brought candles, and two of these stuck in bottles completed an illumination that left nothing to be desired. For dinner we had mulligatourney soup, roast mutton and curry with rice, soup and meat out of tins, it is true, but skillfully rendered by Ito. This is a fair specimen of our meals throughout the trip, whence it will appear that with a little forethought and a good guide, travel has no unusual discomfort in Japan. I went over before dinner to see the public baths. They consisted of a room about twenty feet long and eighteen broad. At the further end were two tanks of hot water steaming. In one, three men were sitting up to their necks, placidly enjoying the refreshment. In the other were as many women. It cannot be said with literal exactness that men and women bathed together, but the partition is not jealously fixed. In all tea-houses there is a bath varying in size and convenience with the importance of the house. At Todchiki the bath was a recess about twelve feet square. As we passed it on the way to our room, two young men, stark naked, were drying themselves after their bath. I do not like positively to make so grave an assertion without proof, but I have strong reason to believe that later, just before going to bed, the servants of the tea-house, male and female, took their bath in company. Our bed was made up on the floor. The process of bed-making consists of laying down two or three wadded quilts, then come our own sheets brought from Yokohama, and one or more quilts completed the operation. The Japanese do not use a pillow in our sense of the word. They have a small piece of wood, something like a clog in shape, and not exceeding it in size. On this they lay their heads. The girls and women serene in the consciousness that their hair will not be disarranged. The wonderful structure of a Japanese headdress is usually made up once in four days. It is evident that if it were tousled on a down pillow it would have to be dealt with every day. Not waited with the responsibility of such a coiffure we were glad to have for pillow one of the quilts rolled up, and slept as comfortably as in the best bed in Europe. Amongst the many evils predicted in advance of the excursion was the incessant tack of fleas, which are reported to abound in Japan. Probably owing to the colder weather, and in something due to the strategic use of insect powder, we were throughout all this tour, and on a subsequent one in the south, entirely free from this pest. We had, for personal attendance in the tea-house, two young daughters of the proprietor, as merry as crickets, and regarding the advent of strangers as a huge joke which it behoved them thoroughly to enjoy. They had very pretty ways, kneeling on the threshold of the room as they entered, kneeling again when they withdrew, and always presenting food in this attitude of graceful humility. They chattered all through the meal, regardless of our ignorance of their language. The lady of the party was a subject of never-fading interest. As usual it was the arrangement of the back hair that chiefly attracted them. I got a cold bath in the morning under somewhat perilous circumstances, seeing that there was no door to the bathroom, and that the passage was the common one of the house, but no one else seemed to mind particularly. Other guests and members of the household freely entered to perform their morning ablutions. There was in one part of the room a small wooden bowl of salt. To this every one came, took out a few pinches, and washed his mouth. Apart from the bathrooms the arrangements for a morning wash were very simple. An open gallery runs round the sleeping rooms. Here are placed a tub of water. You bring your own soap and towels, if regarding them indispensable, and under the high heavens and before the gaping village you wash. We started in good time next morning in splendid weather, and with our coolies as fresh as if nothing particular had happened on the previous day. About half the town assembled to see us off, providing a favourable opportunity of studying the various fashions in which the children's hair is arranged. In some cases the head is closely shaved, but more often the hair is fantastically cultivated. A favourite style is to shave the head all round the crown, leaving that covered with hair shaped like a skull cap. As all is shaved save a few locks over the forehead. Another rather fetching design is to leave a couple of well-defined locks over either ear, just enough to hold the child up by if that were deemed a desirable disciplinary process. The children are disgustingly dirty. The evening bath, which forms a daily habit with their parents, apparently never being open for them. Our drive today was through a country beautiful beyond description. The mountain range of Nikko, a grey shadow on the horizon when we left Kumagai, was now almost within reach. We neared it, passing always through this solemn avenue of cryptomeria, with people busy in the fields on either side gathering in the bountiful rice harvest. Very few horses were met with, and these were chiefly engaged in drawing loads of bamboo. Bundles of the thick end of the cane are laid upon either side of the pack saddle, the thin end trailing on the ground far in the rear. Like the Cooleys the horses are shot with straw sandals. Of these the consumption must be enormous, since they do not last more than a day or at best two days. When new they cost a penny a pair, and all the high roads of Tapan are strewn with castaways. We met scores of men dragging incredible burdens in long hand carts. They harnessed themselves to a rope tied to the axle. The cart is tilted back, and with the rope on shoulder and body bent forward they go along uphill or on level roadway. The women take their share in this work as in all others. As we descended a hill we met one with a baby at her back and a rope across her chest, manfully tugging at a cart with her husband in the shafts. Nikko struggles for over a mile up the hill, at the top of which is the tomb of the first and the third, mightiest among the shoguns. The tea-house where we stopped is at the top of the village. It was of better style than any we had sojourned in, and it was charged for accordingly. The natural consequence of the more widely known attractions of Japan is discovered in the gradual rise in prices. So recently as two years back, seventy-five sen, equal to about three shillings, was the usual price for a day's sojourn in the Japanese tea-house, and for this the foreigner was entitled to board. For the same accommodation, though less ample in respect of sleeping accommodation, the Japanese pay even now eighteen pence ahead. Our party was charged at the rate of five shillings ahead at Nikko, which, seeing that we took nothing in the way of board except a little rice and a few eggs, was not cheap, as compared with the twelve shillings a day, wine included, which we paid at the Grand Hotel at Yokohama. Still the rooms were very pretty and scrupulously clean. We had a suite of three, making the centre one our dining-room. From the balcony outside there was a splendid view of the hills of Nikko. The larger pretensions of the house were shown amongst other things in the bathroom, which stood by itself in a range of buildings flanking the courtyard. This little house came near to being the scene of a tragedy, which is recorded here as a warning to travellers. Coming back from an excursion to the Chinzenji, the lady of our party went to take a bath. A quarter of an hour later she was discovered partly dressed, lying insensible across the threshold of the bath-house. These baths are heated with charcoal, and in the great majority which are built in the passages of the houses, there is always sufficient ventilation to carry away the poisonous fumes. At Nikko, the bath having the rare accommodation of a door, the fumes are retained within the chamber. The lady, having taken her bath, was dressing when she was suddenly overpowered. She had just strength to struggle towards the door against which she fell. Fortunately the door opened outwards, and she got her head in the passage. Had the door opened from the inside, there could have been only one result, from an accident which in all probability would not have been discovered for half an hour. We had bought a pheasant on the road, paying as much as one and eight pence for it. Dear Ito admitted, but the season had only just commenced. It was small but full of flavour, and proved a great addition to our funeral-tinned meats. At daybreak I was awakened by an unmistakable British voice crying aloud for a towel. Looking out at the courtyard, I saw a gentleman whom we had passed on the road, standing barefooted and dripping wet by a bucket of water in which he had been washing. He had only at this critical moment discovered that the Japanese do not regard the towel as an absolutely necessary appanage to a toilet set. TOWEL! roared the wet and angry Britain to the trembling Japanese, who stood there ready and willing to go anywhere and do anything if he only knew what. HATE! the Japanese said aimlessly hovering about. TOWEL! TOWEL! the Britisher roared, trying all possible forms of accentuation in the hope that one might strike a chord of intelligence in the mind of this ineffably stupid man. The Japanese evidently began to think that whatever might be wanted it would be safer for him to go and look for it inside and not to be in a hurry coming back. TOWEL! the Englishman roared again. HATE! said the Japanese and ran nimbly into the house. But he did not come back again, and the Englishman, after stamping around, disappeared in his own room, partially dried in the wind. I learnt from him later that he had had a good deal of trouble from this unpardonable and unaccountable ignorance of the English language among Japanese in the interior. He had walked for fifty miles through glorious scenery heading for Nikko. The only word he could pronounce in the Japanese tongue was Nikko, and by dint of repeating this he got along moderately well. His main difficulty was in the matter of food. He lived chiefly on rice and tea, and had arrived at the tea-house on the previous night half-famished. I fancy that in the best of circumstances he was naturally of an irascible temperament. But after living on rice and tea for two days, to reach Nikko and find no towel after he had trustfully washed himself was, he admitted, more than he could bear without protest. The famous shrines of Nikko lie outside the town at the foot of the hills on the other side of the bustling river Daiya Gawa. The town itself was not born yesterday, but the temples and tombs count their years by centuries. There is record of a Buddhist temple here in the middle of the eighth century. The importance of Nikko dates from the seventeenth, when Ieyasu, the founder of the mighty race of tycoons, who for 250 years held imperial sway in Japan, was buried here. The first tycoon, or shogun, as he was earlier called, was deified, and religion was called in to aid courtiership in making Nikko a holy place. The vassals of the reigning shogun vied with each other in the magnificence of the presence with which they endowed the tomb of the founder of the race. A prince of the imperial blood became abbot of Nikko, and through the year solemn processions were made to the tomb. In 1868, when the revolution broke the power of the shoguns, there was a prince abbot of the Mikado family at the head of the monastery. The shogun party played their last card when they seized him, carried him off to the north, and proclaimed him Mikado. Victory still clung to the banners of the reigning Mikado. The young pretender surrendered, the power of the tycoon was irretrievably broken, and with his fall much of the glory of Nikko has departed. There are two bridges across the river leading to the temples and the tombs. One is painted a bright red, of the glaring colour in which the temples flame forth. It was built in the year 1638, and it is boasted that since then the cost of repairs has been merely nominal. This is the less marvel since the bridge is very rarely used, being opened only once or twice a year for pilgrim processions, and for the rest being close barred. A little lower down the stream is the more ordinary looking and much more useful structure over which traffic passes without restriction. Crossing this, turning to the left and walking up the bank lined on either side with cedars, we come upon a temple, the name of which being translated is the Hall of the Three Buddhas. These three Buddhas are the Thousand-Handed Kwan-Non, the Horse-Headed Kwan-Non, and Omidok Nyorai. The title of the Thousand-Handed Kwan-Non is rather boldly assigned, since the great guilt doll that bears the name has only forty arms. Quite enough it is true, but it is well to be exact, and a good deal happens between forty and the thousand. On the matting before these images copper coins were sprinkled the gifts of the faithful. They were minute in value, being almost exclusively written, ten of which go to make a happening. Some had placed their offerings in paper, a mark both of deeper respect and greater affluence, as seldom less than five ring were placed in the packets, and occasionally the contents ran as high as ten. The money-box forms a prominent feature in all the temples. There is none here approaching the proportions of the vast gridiron into which Rin are reigned at Asakusa on the fake day of the God of Happiness, but each shrine has its money-box outside, while single gifts in coin may, without incurring reproach, be strewed on matting before the God whom it is desired to propitiate. In truth the hat goes round with great persistence in the temples of Japan, whether Buddhist or Shinto. On approaching nearly every one of these sacred halls, wherever situated, the visitor will note a hoarding, sometimes two or three, erected upon upright wooden posts, and covered with writing, just like the advertisements in railway stations or on hoarding before unfinished buildings. These boards are truly advertisements, but have about them nothing relating to the modern bill-poster. Each strip of wood contains a record of the name of a donor to the building or Sustentation Fund in connection with the temple, together with the amount presented. I was not able to learn where this clever device was first establed, but it has proved highly successful, and is now common in all the temples. Any man at the expenditure of a few yen may have his name thus set up on high in holy places. Before the hall of the three Buddhas is a curious sundial consisting of an upright post. From the shadow cast on the ground the time is ascertained and the great bell struck. This most musical instrument stands on a mound a little to the right of the temple. As the hours come round a man mounts up to the bell, and with the whole weight of his body pulls back a wooden ram slung at right angles with the bell. This being released falls back and strikes the bronze casting, and through the valleys, up the hills, and across the little town of Nikko, there floats a note of exquisite melody. At the back of the temple is a black pillar, crowned with a series of six gilded cups in the form of lotus flowers. This grim copper column is erected to celebrate the memorable feet of an early bishop of the Buddhist Church, who in honour of the first Shogun, reared at a single stretch the ten thousand books of Buddha. This feet occupied him seven days, during which neither meat nor drink passed his lips, only the names of Buddha. By the side of this well authenticated feet Mr. Bigger's famous effort, when in the house of commons he, through four hours, read blue books to the speaker and the clerks at the table, becomes of small account. Sigen Daishi was the name of this hero, in whose too early birth, Mr. Parnell lost the opportunity of securing a notable follower. Behind this temple is a smaller one, on the pillars of which are pasted numerous slips of paper, containing the names and addresses of pilgrims who have wended their way hither from all parts of the empire. The way to the tomb of the first Shogun leads up a broad stone stairway with ancient cryptomeria towering on either side. These steps are called the steps of a thousand measures, because there are ten of them, and on each a hundred men may stand. At the top is the granite Torii or archway, presented to the temple by one of the princes, who helped to establish the power of the first Shogun. The height of the arch is a little over twenty-seven feet, and the diameter of the columns is three feet six inches. The stone which forms the gateway at the top, is composed of a single block of granite. How it was brought here from the distant quarries where it was delved, is an unexplained marvel. Our local guide told us that when the Torii was being erected, the workmen stood upon piles of bags of rice, which finally reached within three feet of the summit. When the work was finished the bags were cut open, and the poor people of Nikot spent a pleasant time. Passing under the Torii into the courtyard, we come upon a lofty pagoda of blazing red, and a quieter but more interesting memorial, in the shape of an old tree carefully guarded with a grey stone pailing. This we learned was the identical tree which, when it was not too large to go into a pot, the first Shogun carried about with him when he went on journeys. Coming out of one of the temples, we passed a small chapel in which passively sat a figure dressed in white robes. I took it to be a priest, but the guide said it was a woman, and if I put some money in the ever-open box, she would dance. We deposited coin, a few havens, and the figure promptly rising at the chink of money went through a melancholy kind of dance, accompanied by the shaking of bells which she held in her hands. It was over in a few seconds the conclusion being announced by the priestess bowing till she touched the ground with her forehead, and then resuming her passive attitude, waiting till someone else came by with a few coppers to spare. It is behind these temples reached through a beautiful approach of grey stone steps with moss-grown walls, the sunlight peeping through the trees beyond, that the tombs of the great Shogun's lie. Here, remote from human life, sleeps the great soldier Ieyasu, and his greater-grandson Ieyamitsu, the one, the founder, the other, the consolidator of the mighty line of Shogun's. Their moss-grown graveyards are girt about with solemn cedars, and the only sound that breaks the stillness of the place is the sighing of the wind through the branches. The tombs are impressive by reason of their simplicity, but I confess that the red temples with their gilt and gingerbread gods had nothing to say to me. There is some wonderful carving, but it is white-washed and painted till the patient art of the carver is piteously obscured. Supposing the outside of Westminster Abbey were painted a bright red, and some of its choicest carvings in the interior were picked out with blue and vermilion, water, glory would be departed from the nation. Yet it is thus that at Nikko the Japanese have dealt with what they are disposed to regard as their best shrines. During the heyday of the power of the Shoguns the paint was laid on afresh once in twenty years. Now that the power is broken, and it is not the policy of the present government to keep its memory green, there is hope of the shrines of Nikko improving as the gaudy colours fade and the paint is rubbed off the carvings. In the afternoon we walked to the falls of Kirifuri, taking a wide sweep round the base of Toyama. It is interning from the temples in Nikko and looking for a moment on the works of nature spread around that one feels most angrily impressed with the vulgarity of the painted structures. Just now nature is putting on her richest colours, some brighter than any which variegate the temples. The maple and mountain ash flame blood red through the woodland, and the birch is running through all the tints of yellow. The sky is the brightest blue, the river rushing down to the sea is a foaming white. Yet all these colours blend in exquisite harmony and compose a scene to which one is glad to turn from the pinch-beck grandeur of the pagan shrines. The walk to Kirifuri is not far, even for a lady, and the cargo or basket chair which we took with us was scarcely used. The pathway turns and winds through scenes of ever-varying beauty, till suddenly we come upon the waterfall, a gleam of white foam falling through a bank of autumn foliage. Regarded as a waterfall it is not much, but its setting makes it exquisite. The walk to Chinzenji is a somewhat different affair, it being a good sixteen miles there and back, with some stiff climbing before the mountain lake is reached. The weather looked very doubtful, but we determined to start, doubt being presently solved by the commencement of a downpour of rain which practically lasted through the day. We had a cargo and four men, an indispensable escort for a lady on this trip. On the outskirts of a little village near Nikko we had the good fortune to purchase two waterproofs, made of oiled paper, a beautiful yellow in hue. They were a little lacking in fit, but not much can be expected for half a crown, the price of the two. They proved invaluable during the journey, resisting the persistent rain and adding but two or three ounces to the weight of the walking costume. The way to the lake leads by the winding path which the river has won for itself on its way from the lake through the mountains. Many times we crossed the river by rustic bridges, pausing to look down at the steel-blue water gliding over gigantic stones and dashing itself in foam at their feet. Halfway up is a farmhouse. On the lintel of the dwelling were pasted three charms, one for keeping away general sickness, the second specially concerned with fever, and the third warranted to bring general happiness to the proprietor. The charm against fever represented a devil in a highly dislocated state, this peculiarity being due not to intention so to represent him, but to the fact that the picture is produced by drawing a brush dipped in black paint over a stamped metal pattern. Very stupid, Ito said, looking at this with the clear eyes of a believer in the Shinto faith. Only very old women's and men believe in that. Observation subsequently made over a wide extent of the interior, convinced me that in such case old women's and men must form the largest proportion of the agricultural population of Japan. These charms were the rule rather than the exception. Chinzenji is one of the most famous show places in Japan, attracting natives as well as foreigners. It was curious to note that the Japan Ari has the same passion as his brother from London for carving his imperishable name on memorial trees and stones. Only to the uninformed eye Ari's name traced in Japanese characters has a respectable, even and imposing appearance. The last hours climbing up to the level of the lake tests the strength of wind and limb, but the four Kaga men bearing their burden lightly stepped it, murmuring a monotonous chant which though not musical helped them to keep step, and in other more occult ways seemed to do them good. There is a splendid view of the lake from the tea-house, and a really big waterfall on the way back. We saw a little but the rain, one gleam of sunshine fortuitously opening at a turn in the steep descent showing what it might be in other circumstances of weather. As it was it was well worth doing. We saw it in the green leaf and cheerfully resolved to imagine what it would be in the dry. After dinner we had the accustomed visit from the curio men, made the more exigent on their part by the knowledge that this was our last night in Nikko, and if we did not now buy a few carved ivories, a sword or two, an armful of lacquer boxes, and above all that exquisite little cabinet inlaid, lacquered and ivory mounted, really not dear at twenty pounds, they would have no other chance. The curio men are one of the institutions of foreign travel in Japan. They live in the places principally resorted to by Europeans, and take note of every fresh arrival. On the afternoon of the Mikado's birthday, when we lunched at the British Embassy at Tokyo, the drawing-room was crowded with curio men who had heard there were guests, and scented business from afar. They entered the house uninvited but not unwelcome, for there are worse ways of spending an hour in the afternoon than in examining the varied stores of a Japanese peddler. They fully recognise the justice of the understanding that since no one asked them to come, there is no compulsion of buying, and they also know by experience that in the course of the season they get through a deal of trade. At Nikko the curio men hunt in triplets. The panel of sitting-room or bedroom noiselessly draws back. A figure in Japanese costume glides in, bowing low, and making that curious noise of sucking in the breath, which, with the Japanese, is meant to be at once self-depreciatory and exaltatory of the presence in which he stands. The first figure having deposited a bundle on the floor, a second glides in, and after due interval a third. A timid stranger unaware of the custom, and recalling earlier habits of the Japanese in presence of the foreigner, might well suppose his last hour had come, and that the softly treading, darkly-clad, mysterious personages with bundles were his executioners. It is a matter of honour among curio men, and in accordance with the polite habits of the people, that one man shall not interfere with another's prospects by unduly thrusting his wares under notice. While ostensibly observing this rule, one of the three curio men of Nikko, a tall, crafty-looking man who always secured the central place of the group, had a notable way of pushing his goods. While you were looking at something submitted by number one or number two, a brown hand holding a piece of carved ivory or a lacquered box, would slowly move across the table, placing the article under the eyes of the purchaser. A violent sucking-in-of-breath followed, and then a low-voiced solemnly intoning very old, very cheap, number one. If you asked the price, the prefatory form of answer was always the same. Drawing himself up to full height, and holding up both hands, with fingers outstretched to assist in the enumeration, he began slowly and solemnly to intone one price, very old, number one, very cheap, fingers beginning to work like a semaphore, twenty-four yen, prolonged gust of in-drawn breath, Shifty sang. Shifty was as near as he could get to the pronunciation of fifty, having just sucked in half the cubic measurement of air in the room. The one price was meant to indicate that whereas other Curio men, knowing the habit of foreigners promptly to offer half the price first named, stuck it on with deliberate intention to take it off if pressed. This paragon of perfection, this inexorably just dealer, had merely added a small commission on the amount of his original purchase, and was not to be beaten down. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of East by West by Henry W. Lucy. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Chapter 18. Roadside and River We left Niko at eight o'clock in the morning, our cavalcade as usual, the centre of a dumbly staring throng comprising one third of the population of the village. As we dashed down the uneven street, with a stream of fresh water running in the middle, another third of the population, chiefly women, were kneeling on either side, washing pots, pans, kettles, dishes, everything but the children. These last were running about, hideous in their dirt, yet with all plump and well made. In those reforms which the wise and far-seeing statesmen who now rule Japan are pressing forward, it should not be difficult to introduce one on behalf of the children who swarm in the streets of country hamlets. When Mr. Ito, not our guide but the minister of state, recently made his journey to Niko, his quick eye noticed the condition of the roads, and his practical hand promptly plucked at the root of the evil. He must have seen something worse in the pitiable state of the children, which varies only in degree of dirt and consequent disease, whatever road be taken through the interior. The Japanese Government, with all its newly grafted Western ideas, is essentially paternal. It should not be difficult to make and enforce a few simple sanitary rules on behalf of the children. Their mothers and fathers could not take it unkindly, since they are scrupulously clean about their own persons, and would rather go without their evening meal than their evening bath. At the end of the long street which is Niko, stretches a shady avenue of cryptomeria, with the sunlight gleaming at the far end. In hot summer whether this must be a grateful place for the dusty traveller, like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. In November the mornings are like those in late spring in England, and almost as leafy, though the trees have taken on autumn tints. In addition the chrysanthemum is blooming in every garden, and often by the wayside. The rice harvest is in full swing, and close by the brown wet earth whence the crop has been cut, there are long forrows in which bright green shoots of some other crop boldly stand up. So fruitful is the soil of Japan when skillfully treated, and so kind the weather that in many places two crops are garnered in every year. I read a good deal about Japan before starting to visit the country, and it is with ever increasing astonishment I recall the fact that from no book did I get the impression that Japan is a country beautiful to look upon. Yet it is surprisingly fair in all the varieties of hill and dale, fruitful plain, and water everywhere. We stopped at Osawa for Tiffin, Ito providing for us in the accustomed civilized bountiful style, whilst the men who had run twenty miles since morning contentedly ate their eggs and rice, deftly fishing the latter out of bowls with their chopsticks. Across the beam of the tea-house were pasted sheaves of little bits of paper, being the introductions of travellers who have stayed there. These letters of introduction form a connecting link between series of tea-houses throughout the country. One landlord passes his guests on to a friend at the next stage, as he has guests recommended to him from the preceding halting-place. The abundance of these scraps of paper testifies to the popularity of the tea-house. At Osawa we were introduced to a fowl of great and peculiar beauty, though not unknown to poetry shows in England. He was of perfect shape of bantam size, and his manifold feathers were turned the wrong way. As he strutted about, conscious of the important part he was playing in maintaining the prestige of Japan, the tip of his tail feathers tickled his comb with a persistency maddening to a bird inspired with less lofty purpose. Ito was much interested in this phenomenon and wondered how it was brought about. At Nikko there is a temple where a portion of the elaborate carved work on a pillar is turned the wrong side up, with intent to defeat the maligned purpose of evil spirits. It is believed that if the temple were finally completed the demons envious of its perfection would destroy it. Therefore a few inches of the carving is turned the wrong way to show that the building is not finished. Remembering this I suggested that the bird's feathers would turn the wrong way to show that it was not finished. I don't think it's that," Ito said, though there was no tone of strong conviction in the assertion. Poultry is the one livestock in which Japan made glory. The horses are miserable, the cattle what there is of them are stunted and ill fed. The dogs are the various cures, not worth the trouble of tying around their necks the little wooden labels on which are written the names and addresses of their owners. But poultry are abundant. They take kindly to their food, and though not particularly good when brought to table yield large returns in the way of eggs. More rice fields on both sides of the road all the way to Omaya, men, women, and children busy in the fields, and the old men and women at home spreading out the rice on the drying mats. We passed a little might certainly not more than four years old, trotting along the road bravely carrying a big teapot in front balanced by a baby strapped on her back. Placed in the scales, baby and teapot would have made the little woman and the other scale kick the beam. But having them once fixed on and being set going, she trotted along, dressed in clothes exactly like her mother's, cut short to her size. We reached Omaya just before dusk, completing 46 miles in the day, and having done one spurt of fourteen miles in an hour and three quarters. Ito does not think much of this. We have each two coulis whilst he has done fifty-five miles in a day with a single man. Moreover, there are three men in Tokyo who can do seventy miles in a day, and one, a prince among his fellows, who does this distance within twelve hours. Whilst dinner was being made ready, I wandered about the roomy kitchen of the tea-house, and held a good deal of conversation with his inmates. Scarcely any the less interesting, because neither understood the other. The Japanese are such a good-tempered merry race, that it is a pleasure to talk with them, even when nothing comes of it. The grand floor of the tea-house, open to the street, silent, saved the voice of the blind shampooor calling for custom, formed a striking picture. Outside, after the manner of the old English inn, there swung a signboard covered with cabalistic signs, whose meaning was plain enough to the way-worn native traveller. There was no door, porch, or entrance-hall. The front of the house had simply been taken down or pushed back, disclosing a long low interior. Its recesses and unexpected nooks dimly lighted with oil lamps, and here and there a Chinese lantern. From the thick and blackened beams of the ceiling hung sheaves of letters of recommendation, mementos of vanished travellers. The room on the left, by day or passage and by night or bedroom, had, all to itself, an oblong lantern eight feet long, furnished with farthing candle-power, but diffusing a wonderful soft light. It was well it was not too brilliant, for a little further on, in a recess leading out from the main passage, was the bathroom, with four men naked and not ashamed. On the right, a few steps along the raised matted floor, which no boot or shoe has ever pressed, was a broad flight of eight steps, leading to the only upper story. Little waiting maidens, always chattering and laughing, were running up and down, serving the dinner of the native guests. The kitchen ran the full length of the house behind the staircase. It was full of twinkling lights, amid which moved dusky figures bent on domestic duty. On the right, behind a charcoal stove, with many openings the pots and pans, stood the Japanese cook in the flush of evening work. A little lower done, kneeling over a modest hibaiichi, was Ito cooking our dinner. The glow of the fire reflected on his face, brought out the supernatural gravity, with which he tested the savouriness of the Malagatani. In a dark shadow, in a part of the kitchen nearest the street, squatted an old gentleman, with head closely shaven, save for a love-lock over his left ear. He was making tea by a fire sunk in the floor, only making belief to brew tea, I suspect, his principal interest being to retain a snug place by the fire. As he spread his skinny hands over the glowing charcoal and felt the fire, the expression of his face resolved itself into a fixed, mild smile, that began on his thin lips, illuminated his bare-brown face, and shone with subdued luster over his shiny shaven head. Our bedroom, which served also the purpose of dining-room, was neat and clean. Over one war was a large scroll with writing on it. I thought this was what is known in Japanese house furnishing as a poem, but Ito explained that it was an injunction to temperance. If you drink, Ito literally translated it, you will miss your hairs. A poetical fancy which seems to require some thinking over as a preliminary to comprehension. We started from Omaya to catch the steamer at Koga, our men trotting merrily along as if they had been resting through the earlier days of the week. It was again a bright English May morning, so clear that among the clouds in the horizon to the left we could distinguish the white cap of Fuji. We had a desperate rush to catch the steamer, and would have failed but for a strategic movement on the part of Ito. Taking on a fresh kuli he went in advance, and reached the pier just as the little steamer had got into the middle of the stream and was heading for Tokyo. In obedience to Ito's signals the steamer obligingly put back and awaited our arrival. It also waited till Ito had concluded a purchase of crockery, for we were to lunch on board, and plates are not included in the odd property of a river steamer. It was a curious little craft, with paddle-heels, and a hurricane-deck on which passengers stepped from shore, and went in reaching the cabin they made a perilous descent onto the bulwarks. Captain, officers, engineer and crew, about seven all told, were in a condition of wild excitement on discovering the nationality of their passengers. As far as they were concerned Ito might have lingered to buy up all the plates in Koga so long as they were permitted to revel among our belongings. Our coats, our dress, our pipes, and our boots were in turn the object of their curious regard. But the great object of interest was a pair of air cushions, which, by the way, persons about to make a journey in Jean Ricochet should never be without. These puzzled them beyond measure, till the captain, observing the brass nozzle, ventured to blow into it. To see it gradually inflate, filled them with unalloyed delight. The first mate, who had apparently been having his watch below, and called up by a sudden alarm, had forgotten to put on his trousers, seized upon the second cushion, and blew into it till I was obliged to take it from him another blast than it would have burst. All this time the crowd on the beach had been gathering, including a large contingent of two-headed children. There was some fear that we should never get away, but Ito having come aboard, and a deputation of two Jean Ricochet men having come down to bow their acknowledgments of a little present made in recognition of their manful work. The engineer, who had not been able to get hold of one of the air cushions, spitefully blew his whistle, ropes were cast off, and we moved out into the eddying yellow stream of the Tonigawa. We passed onward through a level and sparsely populated country. The banks were flanked with willow trees, and now and then, from under their overhanging shadow, we disturbed a flock of wild ducks. We steamed past several junks, floating with the current, and by many men fishing out of punts. Our young gentleman from Glasgow was, at this stage of the journey, the most interesting feature in the landscape. Seated on the deck, his boots, at any time an appreciable object on a square acre of ground, came into full and prominent view. They were shooting boots, made to his order, with exaggerated soles, spreading beyond the uppers, and the tops lacing well above his ankles. The bare-footage Japanese crew regarded these monstrosities first with awe, then with an overmastering curiosity that brought them at whatever risk, to group themselves on the deck around the boots. I suppose someone was steering the steamer, and I could see the anxious engineer with his body thrust upward through the circular hole that gave ingress to the engine room. But I declare there was no lookout. Every other man of the crew from the captain downward being seated round the young gentleman from Glasgow, examining his pipe, feeling the texture of his scotch tweed, running their fingers over his ribbed stockings, or glancing sideways at his boots. He, on his part, freely entered into conversation with them, having great faith in the English language when slightly improved by use in Glasgow. Moreover, he had a small glossary of Japanese words. With this in his hand, he managed to conduct a conversation of much length, though of doubtful meaning. When, in a fix, and having slowly repeated syllable by syllable what he had to say in the English tongue, he finally put his mouth to the ear of his interlocutor, interlocutor, and bawled the words over again, as if deafness naturally accounted for the difficulty of comprehension. At length the united efforts of the captain and crew succeeded in making clear that they wanted him to take his boots off. One naturally supposed that the steamer being so small they wanted to trim her, but as they left the boots together on the same side of the vessel they were probably afraid of the ravages of the nails upon their deck. When the excitement had subsided and the crew returned to their posts, I saw the captain heave alongside take up one of the boots, gaze reflectively upon its broad, spike-studded sole, put it gently down and go away. After a few more turns he would stop take up the boot again, turn it over in his hand, and replace it. In the afternoon, coming on deck after luncheon, we caught the first mate still without his trousers in the act of trying on the boots. Right away in the stern of the little steamer, only approachable with infinite peril of tumbling overboard, was a minute cabin registered for the conveyance of sixteen passengers. If the sixteen had been herrings they might have been packed in, but it was difficult to see how any other kind of passengers could be so dealt with. Nevertheless, if we wanted deliverance from casual passengers, we three must pay sixteen fares, which in the end we did the total amounting to a little less than three pounds. Forward of our cabin, separated from it only by sliding panels with glass windows, was another cabin. There was no one in it when we went on board, but presently it began to fill, and long before we reached Tokyo we had ceased to regret the little extravagance in the matter of a private cabin. And hour out we began to pick up passengers. Thereafter they came and went on crowded wharfs through miles and miles of country, gradually increasing in signs of life and labour. The steamer did not always stop to be moored at the wharf. Out from some little ferry would shoot a punt with a solitary passenger on board. The steamer slowed but did not take the trouble to cast out a rope. When the punt got alongside, the passenger, taking off his clogs, threw them on board, then jumped on himself. The steamer puffed ahead and the punt soon faded in the distance. All the native passengers before touching the spotless deck of the steamer took off their clogs. One of the crew, or possibly it was the purser, handed each a wooden check. A corresponding one was tied on the clog, and as the passengers departed the clogs were claimed. At a place called Saki the river divides, and the little steamer went through a difficult and dangerous passage to reach the branch that leads to Tokyo. What had frequently been threatened occurred, and she ran aground. After a desperate struggle she was pushed off and safely reached the pier at Saki, where a great crowd of passengers awaited her arrival. Saki is a busy place with a considerable number of junks and sandpans, a double row being fastened to the wall. The river-junk is a Japanese home, and we saw varied domestic arrangements going forward in these lying quietly moored. Looking at one junk slowly making its way into the broad stream, we saw two naked bronzed figures under the overhanging stern. It seems to be the maritime habit of Saki that when a junk puts out two of the crew jump overboard and push her from the stern through the shallow water, which not infrequently merges in a mud-bank. Passengers came on board, squatted on the floor of the cabin next to ours, sitting as near the hibachi as possible, though the sun was streaming hotly down out of a cloudless sky. Most of them were smoking, men and women. They seemed to pass the time pleasantly enough, bowing recognitions or farewells, chatting, smoking and laughing. At five o'clock we turned into the canal and made our way through a densely populated quarter of this suburb of Tokyo. The canal which lay almost due west was the pathway of the setting sun, and was a blaze with splendour in the borrowed rays. The town itself was not without interest seen from this new approach, but the captain, through Ito, earnestly besought us not to remain on deck. It seems the little boys of Tokyo have discovered that it is very hard to catch them after they have thrown stones at the steamer as it makes its way through the canal. Accordingly, with the pleasant humour peculiar to little street boys in all parts of the world, they stoned the steamer, not without result as some broken windows in the cabin testify. But we did not remain below long. It was worth risking something to pass through this busy hive of life, with the Chinese lanterns beginning to glint amid the growing dusk, and all the glory of the setting sun crowning the head of Fuji.