i^M CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES ITHACA, N. Y. 14853 Charles W. Wason Collectioa on China and the Chinese DS 809.S64"'" """'"'" '■""•"'■>' .Ten weeks in Japan / 3 1924 023 219 714 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023219714 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN LOKDOir PEINTBD BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. IfEW-SIBEET 8QUAKE _J«^ M i Prut d t_ ] Lc^puLLiawoodt; Ot Uo. TUE .lAPAKKRE A^l nASSADOHS AT M'ASHlNr.TOV, TEN WEEKS IK JAPAN GEOEQE SMITH, D.D. BISHOP OF VIOTOEIA (HONGKONG) LONDON LONGMAN, GllEEN, LONGMAN, AND llOBERTS 1861 :;i ill. -Ml S &H ^Y]\ PREFACE. The title prefixed to this volume, " Ten Weeks in Japan," wUl give the reader at the very outset some idea of the nature of its contents. It makes no pre- tension of being a profound or elaborate treatise on Japan. It is a simple record of facts ■which the Author witnessed during his brief visit to the coim- try, and on which he has grounded some general observations respecting the moral, social and political condition of the Japanese race. Some few topics have been incidentally noticed, on which the Author felt considerable difficulty and scruple. In reviewing the true character of Japanese civilisation and the present position of Europeans in that newly-opened country, he considered that he had no alternative but that of facing such ques- A 3 vi PREFACE. tions and designating evils by their real name. Their omission, though more agreeable to his own feelings, would yet have rendered his description of the national character partial and incomplete. The Author desires to express his acknowledg- ment of Messrs. Negretti and Zambra's kind per- mission to use some of their valuable photographic "Views in Japan" in the pictorial illustrations of this work. Five out of the eight wood-cuts were taken from their photographs, by Mr. G. Pearson. CONTENTS. CHAPTEK I. INTRODUCTOET. Relative importance of Japan. — Geographical position. — Phy- sical advantages. — Her seclusion a modern policy. — Former intercourse with surrounding countries. — Arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries. — Expulsion of Europeans — Traditions of national invincibility. — Repulse of Tartar invasions. — New era of hope .... Page 1 CHAP. II. ABEITAI.' AT NAGASAKI. Voyage from Shanghae to Nagasaki. — Lodging in Budhist temple. — View of city and harbour. — British Consulate. — Dutch factory. — Former Japanese arrogance and humiliations of Dutch. — Their imprisonment in Desima . . 9 CHAP. III. CITT OF NAGASAKI. Street-scenes and native trades. — Japanese cemetery. — Chinese graves. — Grand religious holiday. — "Octave" of Budhist ser- vices. — Devoutness of multitude. — A Japanese preacher. — Popular respect for priesthood . . . .25 CHAP. IV. EELIGIONS OF JAPAN. Visit to a Sinto temple. — Leading religions in Japan. — Tole- rant spirit of Government. — Sooto, or Confucian moralists, — A 4 Vlll CONTENTS. Sintoism. — Sun-goddess. — The " Kami." — Sinto priests Interior of temple. — Sacred mirror. — Native worshippers Juvenile pastimes. — Sintoism and Budhism contrasted. — Their mutual assimilation in Japan. — Syncretists. — Metem- psychosis. — Underlying truth of a future state. — Guesses of unenlightened heathen. — Eoman Catholic and Budhist resem- blances. — Eeligious mendicants . . Page 41 CHAP. V. LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF NAGASAKI. Visit to the Governor of Nagasaki. — Conversation. — Native reporters — System of dualism. — Spies Difficulties of local government Independence of foreign products. — Obstruc- tions to growth of foreign commerce Sunday services for Europeans. _ " Temple of Great Virtue" . . 61 CHAP. VI. CITY OP NAGASAKI. Local Chinese factory and commercial guild European sailors. — Overdrawn pictures of Japanese character by Thunberg Intemperance. — Superior cleanliness of Japanese streets Semi-nudity of people. — Scenes in a Japanese thoroughfare. --Oil-paper coats.— Frequent conflagrations. — Quack medi- cines. — Medical practitioners. —Priestly incantations in sick- ness •••... 78 CHAP. VII. SCENES OF JAPANESE LIFE. Statuaries. -Schools. -Budhist prejudice against slaughtering of animals— Ordinary vehicles. -Kagoo. - Norimon. - Loo- chooan experience. - Thievishness of natives. - Severe laws. -Public bathing-houses. -Non-seclusion of Japanese CONTENTS. IX CHAP. VIII. POPULAR CUSTOMS. Marriage customs of Japanese. — New-year holidays. — Five great national festivals. — Budhist purgatory. — Flying kites. — Girls' holiday in a temple. — Minstrels. — Street comedies Page 109 CHAP. IX. JAPANESE DRAMA. Superior class of theatrical exhibition Actors. — Moralising chorus. — Scenes. — National tragedy. — "Happy despatch." — Harakiri. — Japanese ideas on legal suicide. — Disregard of death. — Old duelling plea .... 127 CHAP. X. PUNEKAL CEREMONIES. Mortuary and funeral rites of Japanese. — Description by a native informant. — Coroner's inquest. — Mode of sepulture. — Ascending and descending relatives. — Posthumous names. — Services of priesthood. — Ancestral tablet. — Accounts of Dutch writers. — Spectacle of Japanese funeral near temple lodging. — Period of mourning and defilement. — Fear of ghosts ....... 143 CHAP. XL NATIVE VISITORS. Scenes of temple life. — The priest Ein-Shan. — Douceurs to native authorities. — Impartiality of Japanese law. — Effec- tiveness of government. — Priest visitors. — Two-sworded officers. — Native interpreter. — Native disposition and cha- racter. — Doctor Kasatu. — A Japanese surgery. — Details of a native gentleman's costume. — Universal thirst for in- formation and purchase of foreign books . .157 X CONTENTS. CHAP. XII. EUKAL DISTRICTS NEAE NAGASAKI. Excursions into surrounding Tillages."— Kestive horses Anglo-Frencli Commissariat from China. — External aspect of villages. — Rural scenery. — Governor's aquatic gala. — TokitZi — Material comfort of population. — Cutaneous dis- eases. — Yeddo road. — Refectory-houses. — Trip over the Hills. — Japanese Flora. — Agriculture — Villages . Page 176 CHAP. XIII. FOEMEK RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS. Fort of Simabara. — Papenberg. — Earthquakes. — Persecu- tions. — Francis Xavier. — Roman Catholic expulsion. — Dutch complicity. — Trampling on cross. — Inscription over slaughtered Christians' place of sepulture . . 193 CHAP. XIV. A BUDHIST COMMEMORATION. Colonel von Siebold. — Grand commemorative Budhist fes- tival. — Horenji Monastery. — A national hero in the Corean war. — Hospitality of priests. — Procession of children. — Priests. — Abbot. — Liturgical service. — Ser- mon. — Religion wearing a holiday dress. — Ineffectual moral restraint ..... 207 CHAP. XV. STATISTICS OF LOCAL HEALTH AND TRADE. Dr. Pompe van Meerdervoort. — Medical School. — Japanese class. — Lectures. — Naval School. — Different classes of native population. — Sanitary condition. — Moral state. — Climate of Nagasaki. — Consular statistics of trade . 218 CONTENTS. XI CHAP. XVI. CLOSING INCIDENTS OP STAT AT NAGASAKI. Japanese Engine-factory. — Diving-bell. — " Emperor'' yacht. — Hopefulness of Japanese race. — European cemetery. — Farewell Sunday service among Europeans . Page 230 CHAP. XVII. VOYAGE TO KANAGAWA. Voyage along the Japanese coast. — Kewsew. — Sikok. — Niphon. — Simoda. — Bay of Yeddo. — Arrival at Kana- gawa. — Yakoneens. — Visit to Yokuhama. — Mount Fusi. — Moral condition of European settlement. — Currency questions. — British Envoy's despatch . . 240 CHAP. XVIII. INCIDENTS AT TOKUHAMA AND KANAGAWA. Streets at Yokuhama. — Recent assassination of two Dutch captains. — Prince of Mito. — Excesses of individual foreigners. — Feeling towards native races. — A Chinese in difficulty. — Local custom-house. — Secret obstacles to foreign trade. — Kanagawa. — Earthquakes. — Sur- rounding country. — Japanese guards . . 254 CHAP. XIX. ARRIVAL AT TEDDO. Journey to Yeddo. — Scenes on the way. — Kawasati. — Eiver Loco. — Public refectory-house. — Female attendants. — Sinagawa. — Approach to Yeddo. — British Legation. — Earthquake ,..,.. 268 xii CONTENTS. CHAP. XX. IMPERIAL GOVEKMMENT OF JAPAN. Historical sketch of Japanese Government. — Spiritual and secular Emperors. — Tyco-Sama. — The Mikado a political nonentity. — Absorption of power into the Tycoon. — The increased power of the great Council of State. — A plurality of mayors of the palace. — The great Daimios of the empire. — The " Go-san-kay." — The " Go-san-kio." — Kecent feuds. — Dualism and system of mutual control , . Page 286 CHAP. XXI. KIDES THROUGH THE CITY OF YEDDO. Excursion into the city. — " Official quarter." — Citadel moat. — Scene of the Goteiro's assassination. — Details of plot. — Tycoon's palace enclosure. — Groves of cypress and rural landscape. — " Belle vue." — Palaces of Daimios. — " To-jin.'' — Dogs. — Excursion into the " commercial quarter." — " Nipon-bas." — Scenes in streets. — "A-tang-yama." — "Grande vue." — Panorama of Yeddo. — Estimated population. — Monas- teries. — Beggars. — Pilgrims .... 298 CHAP. XXII. FOREIGN LEGATIONS IN YEDDO. American Consul-General. — Recent treaties Japanese ministers of foreign affairs. — '• Governors " of consular ports. — Japanese embassy to United States. — " Temple-lords." — Higher class of priesthood. — Prospective toleration of Christianity. — Old placards prohibiting the Christian religion. — A body of here- ditary religious detectives. — Ao-yama. — French Charge d' Affaires. — Abbe Girard Yakoneena . .314 CHAP. xxni. THE LOOCHOO ISLANDS. Nature of Loochooan dependency upon Japan. — Captain Basil Hall's account. — Loochoo naval mission. — Early difficulties of missionaries. — Embarrassment of native government. CONTENTS. XIU Passive resistance. — Abandonment of mission. — Author's visit to Loochoo in 1850. — Loochoo a fief of the Japanese principality of Satsuma. — Biennial tribute-junk to China. — Character and appearance of people. — Explanatory official despatch from the Kegent of Loochoo. — His historical and statistical facts respecting the Loochoo Islands. — The French mission. — Liberal policy of the late Prince of Sat- suma ...... Page 334 CHAP. XXIV. THE TEEBITORIAL PEDiTCES OF JAPAN. Their relative power to the central government. — Extent of respective limits of subjection, independence and territorial revenue. — Numerous armed retainers. — No middle class of Japanese society. — Our Plantagenet princes. — " Haraliiri " the usual solution of a ministerial crisis. — Families of princes continually resident in Yeddo. — Hostages of fidelity. — Occa- sional defiance among their number. — Effects of centralisation upon the capital. — List of the richest Daimios, with amounts of territorial income ..... 354 CHAP. XXV. EXCURSION TO OJI. Suburban beauties of Yeddo. — Villages and gardens. — Moat of citadel. — Outlying aristocratic quarter. — Palaces of gran- dees. — The "Imperial Brothers." — Prince of Kii. — Prince of Owari. — Prince of Mito. — Prince of Kanga, the wealthiest Daimio, and head of the conservative party. — The reputed liberals of the empire A nursery-garden. — Richly culti- vated country. — Refectory-house at Oji. — Inconsiderable rivers in Japan. — Imperial archery-ground — Tycoon's shoot- ing-box. — Japanese sentimentalists and poets. — Rain-coats. — Return through the "commercial quarter" . . 364 CHAP. XXVI. PURVEYORS OP PUBLIC AMUSEMENT. Vast numbers of idle population among the princes and their retainers. — Wrestlers, play-actors, and jugglers. — Masque- xiv CONTENTS. rades. —Spinning-tops. — Acrobats. —A celebrated juggler's exhibition of skill at the British Legation. — His various feats. — The butterfly scene .... Page 371 CHAP. XXVII. THE JAPANESE "WKITTEN LANGUAGE. Mr. Rutherford Alcock's grammar of the Japanese language. — ^--Ohinese system of ideographic symbols. — Two indigenous systems of Japanese phonetic syllabarium. — Hiragana charac- ter. — Katagana character. — Kaisho style of writing Chinese symbols. — Giosho. — Losho. — Koye mode of reading Chinese. — Kung. — Total dissimilarity of Japanese and Chinese spoken languages . ..... 382 CHAP. XXVIII. LOCAL OBJECTS OF PUBLIC INTEREST AT YEDDO. Primary and secondary schools for youth Confucian text- books. — Academies. — Terakoya. — Military and naval schools of exercise. — Medical schools. — System of diplomas. — Noso- logy. — Dissection of human subjects.— Japanese improvement in arts and sciences. — Gold-mines — Temptations to foreigners. — Breach of custom regulations. — Smuggling. — Venal con- nivance of native officials at Yokuhama. — Special dangers created by unprincipled foreigners ... 394 CHAP. XXIX. DEPARTURE PROM YEDDO. Return from Yeddo to Kanagawa. — Sunday service among Europeans at Yokuhama. — Oppressive treatment of natives connected with foreigners. — Appearances of a cordon drawn around Yokuhama. — Budhist college for training priests. — Japanese agriculture. — Peculiar mode of burning off the ears of ripe corn. — Periodical seed-times and harvestings of various crops. — Intemperance. — Total abstinence vow to the god Kompira. — No slave caste. — Strict registration. — Good conduct in recent cases of foreign wrecks. — Edict CONTENTS. XV of deportation against Chinese at Yokuhama. — Local trade. — Visit from local governor. — Summary view of missionary- openings. ..... Page 405 CHAP. XXX. DEPAETDRE FROM JAPAN. Brief notice of Hakodadi. — Voyage to the Californian port of San Francisco. — Local excitement at recent arrival of Ja- panese embassy. — The author's public letter to Judge M'Al- Hster on the local oppressiveness of American law against the Mongolian race. — Probable early connection between Japanese race and some of the North- West American Indian Tribes. — Ethnological interest attaching to the subject. — Letter of Lieutenant Bi'ooke, U.S.N, to Mr. Secretary Toucey. — Con- clusion. ...... 427 ILLUSTRATIONS. The Japanese Embassy at Washington: — Simme-Bujen-no-kami, First Ambassador ; Muragake-Awage-no-kami, Second Am- bassador (see page 321) . . . Frontispiece. Map illustrative of Japan and the adjacent countries ..... A Japanese official gentleman A Japanese family scene in common life Japanese ladies .... A scene in a Japanese dwelling of the better class Approach to the British Legation at Yeddo A Loo-chooan gentleman and priest Japanese houses on the shore in Yeddo harbour Toface page 1 J) 66 J) 108 J) 166 )j 266 n 281 >j 342 j> 396 EEEATUM. Page 251, fifth line from bottom, for "Kanagawa" read " Yokuhama.' London. Lontinian S: C? london.LonqnilUX S: Cf TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. CHAPTER I. INTKODUCTORY. RELATIVE IMPOET/USrCE OF JAPAN. GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES. HEK SECLUSION A MODERN POLICY. FORMER INTER- COURSE WITH SURROUNDING COUNTRIES. ARRIVAL OF ROMAN-CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES. EXPULSION OF EUROPEANS. TRADITIONS OF NATIONAL INVINCIBILITY. REPULSE OF TARTAR INVASIONS. NEW ERA OF HOPE. The internal condition of the Japanese empire is a' subject which commends itself at all times, and especially at the present juncture, as one fall of at- tractive interest and instructive information to the merchants, the politicians, and the philanthropists of Christendom. Situated midway in the ocean-track between the world's two great Isthmuses, and lying on the high-road and thoroughfare of maritime traffic across the Pacific between the Eastern and the Western hemispheres, Japan at the present time concentrates upon herself no ordinary amount of attention and inquiry. Her situation on the globe permits her no longer to retain her isolation and seclusion from the rest of mankind. The world revolves with accele- 2 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. rated speed on the busy axis of colonisation and com- merce; and Japan is borne involuntarily onward and around in its progressive and ever-ceaseless motion. The vast and increasing extent of British and Ame- rican trade with China, — the necessities of foreign steam-vessels in those eastern seas, and the abundant supply from the Japanese coal-fields, — the various European settlements in the adjoining Indian Archi- pelago, — the discovery of gold-fields on either side of the Pacific, — the progress of our Australian colonial trade and the numerous vessels which sail from Sydney to the regions bordering on the Chinese and Japanese waters, — the rapid development of the material re- sources of California, — the newly-founded settlements of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, — the connection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a railway across the Isthmus of Panama, — the stream of population attracted to new scenes of enterprise in the Sandwich Islands and along the western coasts of North and South America, — the numerous whaling- vessels visiting the Japanese coast from the North Pacific, — the encroaclunents and extension of the Russian frontier along the banks of the Amoor river and on the Kurile Islands, — and, lastly, the thin end of the wedge of foreign diplomacy and European intercourse already inserted and likely to penetrate stiU further the compact mass of her social and political institutions, — aU constitute a new era in the history of our relations to Japan, and combine in bringing that empire, even in spite of herself, into more inti- mate fellowship with the outer world. PHYSICAL ADVANTAGES. 3 The many remarkable traits in the national cha- racter of the Japanese help also to deepen the interest of European observers, and to excite sanguine hopes respecting the future destiny of Japan, when the present restrictions on her intercourse with foreign nations are removed, and her bold and enterprising children are brought into free contact and competition with the other portions of the human race. Japan possesses many external advantages which fit her for taking hereafter a high position as a mercantile and manufacturing people among the nations of the earth. Placed in an intermediate position between the ex- tremes of cold and heat, she enjoys the blessings of a salubrious climate and a moderate range of tempera- ture, best suited for rearing a hardy and adventurous race. The prevalence of fogs and mists, with alter- nate sunshine and rain, has probably contributed its share with other influences in imparting to the people of Japan some of the solid, stable and ener- getic qualities of natural disposition, which are the characteristic marks of the population of the humid climate of Great Britain. Not unlike in her geo- graphical configuration and position at the extremity and border-edge of a continent, Japan seems adapted to assume that relative place among surrounding na- tions in the East which Great Britain has long filled in the countries of the West. The Japanese coast is in- dented with bays, and her seas studded with islands. Superiority in nautical affairs will be an accomplish- ment easy of attainment to her maritime population of fishermen and sailors. Her soil invites the indus- B 2 4 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. try and returns an ample recompense to the toil of the cultivator. She is exempted from the enervating influences which tempt the natives of the tropics to an indolent and listless contentment with the spon- taneous gifts of Providence amid the sedative and seductive repose engendered by their balmy sunny skies and a sense of few wants amid the lavish bounty of the Creator. She is, at the same time, released from the hard and toilsome struggle for daily food amid the rigorous severities of perpetual winter, which chills the hopes and stunts the energies of the inhabitants of the polar regions. The people of Japan enjoy that healthy and pro- portionate intermixture of physical advantages and material wants, which has always been found the most effectual incentive to human exertion, and which has ever proved in the regions of the temperate zone the most favourable condition of external circumstances for developing national character — and for nurturing, training and finally sending forth upon their career of progressive power and civilisation the great colo- nising and conquering races of the world. It is important too to bear in mind that the seclu- sion of Japan is a comparatively modern policy; and that there was a time when that country was fully accessible to Europeans. Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch vessels traded openly and unrestrictedly with the ports of Bungo, Nagasaki, and Firando. The English East India Company, in the early part of the seventeenth century, sent for a time their vessels to the last-named port. The Japanese themselves in SECLUSION A MODERN POLICY, 5 large numbers visited foreign countries. The edu- cated youth of Japan were accustomed in former times to repair to China for the purpose of completing their literary studies and of being instructed in the moral tenets of the Confucian sages. The neighbouring seas and shores bore evidence of the courageous and daring prowess of her sailors. The peaceful popula- tion of the Chinese coast often suffered from the piratical raids of Japanese free-booters ; and the tra- ditionary remembrance of their lawless incursions for a long period of time inspired terror among the inhabitants of the maritime parts of Chehkeang and Keangsoo provinces. Japanese trading settlements existed on the island of Formosa. Throughout the Indian Archipelago, Japanese adventurers were wont to hire their services as armed mercenaries to the petty native sovereigns or to the governors of the rival European settlements. Siam, Gambodia, Am- boyna, Java and even the shores of India witnessed the presence of her fleets and the indomitable enter- prise of her mariners. Francis Xavier and his fellow-labourers in the sixteenth century found here a people singularly prepared to appreciate the high moral truths of the Christian religion, and an open field for their mission- ary enterprise. Portuguese traders and settlers were allowed to intermarry with Japanese ladies. The Portuguese Jesuit, Louis Almeyda, was everywhere welcomed among the territorial princes of Kewsew. Sumitanda, Prince of Omura, lives in Roman Catholic histories among the royal names of converts to their B 3 6 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. missions. Four Japanese of noble rank were per- mitted to go as an embassy from the Princes of Bungo, Arima and Omura to Pope Gregory XIII. at Eome, and spent eight years of absence from Japan. The Roman Catholic fathers were held in honourable re- pute, and gained a wide-spread influence in various parts of the country. Japan, to all human appear- ance, seemed on the verge of becoming a professedly Christian nation, and of being enrolled among the adherents of the Papacy. But these flattering appearances were soon changed ; and for nearly two centuries and a half Japan has closed her gates against the rest of the world. The period of Roman Catholic missions was marked by the first inauguration of the restrictive policy of the Japanese. The firm hand and resolute determination of the well-known Tyco-sama repressed the threat- ening combination of Christian converts and their partisans among the sovereign princes of the empire. His successor in the ofiice of secular emperor, Eyay- yes, filled up what was wanting to give completeness to the overthrow of the dreaded and detested sect. The Christian religion and foreign nations by the Imperial edict of a.d. 1G38 were involved in one common expulsion and extermination from Japan. More modern times have witnessed some partial and unsuccessful efforts to re-open the closed portals of Japan. The native government sometimes re- sented with measures of sanguinary retaliation the supposed audacity of these affronts to her pride. The execution of the Portuguese deputies sent from TRADITIONS OF NATIONAL INVINCIBILITY. 7 Macao, and the destruction of a Spanish galleon in the harbour of Nagasaki, were a terrible comment, written in letters of blood, on the unrelenting policy of their national seclusion from the rest of the world. Our King Charles II. made an abortive attempt to revive the English trade in 1673. The Dutch settle- ment at Nagasaki and the neighbouring Chinese guild were alone permitted to remain. The traditions of their own early history combine with their more recent recollections of the successful ejection of Europeans from the country in rendering the government and people of Japan proud and haughty in the conscious invincibility of their race and the natural impregnability of their coasts. In the year a.d. 799 the Tartars, who had invaded Japan and overrun a portion of the country, lost their fleet in one night from one of the severe gales which prevail on their shores, and were in turn attacked, routed and exterminated by the Japanese army, so that not a man was left to carry back the news of their disaster to their country. In the year A.D. 1281, the Tartars, with an army of 240,000 invaders under the Emperor Kublai Khan, after sub- duing Corea, renewed the attempt of conquering Japan, and sustained a similar defeat and destruction. The complete success which has attended the at- tempts of the Japanese government to exclude foreigners and exterminate the native Christian party are too well known to need further mention. A new era of hope has commenced for the empire of Japan ; and she at length appears likely to cultivate B 4 8 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. friendly relations with European powers. May the failures arising from the want of dignified firmness and conciliatory forbearance in the demeanour of foreign diplomatists, — of moral integrity and virtuous self-respect in European mercantile residents and traders, — and of zeal tempered with wisdom, of cau- tious abstinence from political afi"airs, and of mutual harmony among themselves, on the part of Christian missionaries, — which are among the lessons inscribed for our admonition in the past history of foreign connection with Japan, — prove in our future inter- course with that people a beacon of warning against the errors of former times, and a chapter of human experience not altogether written in vain ! CHAP. II. ARRIVAL AT NAGASAKI. "VOYAGE FEOM SHANGHAE TO NAGASAKI. LODGING IN BUDHIST TEMPLE. VIEW OF CITY AND HARBOUE. BRITISH CONSULATE. DUTCH FACTORY. FORMER JAPANESE ARROGANCE AND HUMILIATIONS OP DUTCH. THEIR IMPRISONMENT IN DESIMA. On April 7tli, 1860, I embarked at Shanghae in the steamer "Yangtze," by the favour of an English mercantile friend, on the voyage from China to Japan. Our destination was the port of Nagasaki, the nearest point of the insular kingdom of Japan to the Chinese continent, and distant about 450 miles from Shanghae. Our course lay at first to the southward down the river Yang-tze-keang, .from the mouth of which we sailed on a course between east and north- east. On the morning of the 9th we came within sight of the Gotto head-land, and were soon after in smoother and more sheltered waters. Yarious small islets with their weU-wooded landscapes soon came into view; and at length the great island of Kew- sew in all its bold and varied outline of mountain- ridge, undulating hill and fertile vaUey, was within sight. We were approaching the shores of Japan. 10 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. Sailing up a deep bay opening outwards to the west, we passed each successive point of the adjoining shore, and gradually were enabled to obtain a clearer and more detailed view of the various objects which met the eye. Villages of fishermen's huts, a few inter- spersed farm-houses, some temple-like buildings, and occasionally a little beacon or wooden watch-tower perched on some elevated summit, were descried with increasing clearness and precision. Soon again a battery of guns, with mat-sheds affording a shelter from the inclemency of the elements, presented a front of frowning menace on the adventurous stranger who came unbidden to these proverbially inhospitable shores. Nearer still we approach, and human forms are distinguishable on land. Eeaching the extremity of the outer bay, we bend our course to the north; and passing on our left the small precipitous island of Papenberg, with its verdant foliage and its dark and mingled historical associations of persecutions and martyrdoms, we enter the inner harbour which stretches towards the city of Nagasaki lying four miles distant. Coppices of evergreen trees dotted on the hill-sides to their highest sunmiits, 'and patches of agricultural crops of every colour and hue divided by hedge-rows into a network of richest verdure, gave a fascinating appearance to the landscape, and formed a striking contrast to the tame, dull monotony of the low level land on the mud-banks of the Yang-tze-keang and in the alluvial plain of Shanghae. Signs of busy excitement were soon apparent in ARRIVAL AT NAGASAKI. 11 the numerous native boats plying their oars, or, more strictly speaking, working their sculls, and hasten- ing to anticipate our arrival at the anchorage. Three hours earlier the customary signal-gun, reverberating from hill to hill, had announced a foreign vessel in sight ; and our actual arrival in port took them not by surprise. We steamed onward through the rapidly- increasing throng of boats, and dropped anchor within a few hundred yards of the shore. A crowd of Japanese officials, each girded with two swords, climbed up the vessel's side, and were soon inter- mingled with a number of European mercantile resi- dents recently settled at the port, and anxious to receive the latest news. The usual excitement and noises of Asiatic crews soon prevailed ; and everything wore the appearance of busy animation on the deck. As we adjourned to the dinner-table in the principal saloon, the Japanese official visitors were left to them- selves outside, and patiently bore the lengthened de- lay in the hope of receiving the highly-prized luxury of a glass of foreign liqueur. Every race, colour and costume had its representative on board; and European, American, African, Parsee, Chinese and Lascar, forming a motley assemblage on the deck of the newly-arrived steamer, were a practical illus- tration of the revolution of policy and custom which has begun to dawn upon the destinies of Japan. An English acquaintance from Hongkong was soon along-side in his boat, and conveyed me to the nearest landing-place on the beach. Threading our way through the rugged fragments of rock, we walked by 12 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. a slight ascent to the point of shore, where a due array of pendants and flags, and a cannon pointed outwards on the bay, signified to a stranger the locality of the Receipt of Customs. Here a few native officials were standing and watching each boat which conveyed foreign cargoes to the shore. We pressed onward with- out any interruption into a narrow dirty suburb now occupied as the foreign trading quarter. There was no time nor leisure for dwelling on the scenes of novel interest which met the eye at every turn, or letting loose the imagination to roam over the past, present and future of this long-secluded land. Weak- ened by the voyage, I was glad to accept the proffered loan of a Japanese pony to carry me to my destination in the city. Emerging from a narrow by-lane, I was soon riding through the more spacious and well-paved streets, amid the usual crowd of native way-farers, who evinced no surprise at the presence of European visitors, and readily furnished information in reply to my English guide inquiring the nearest route. My way afterwards lay in the direction of a hUl over- hanging the city and covered with temples, in one of which I was to be domiciled during my stay. Two hundred feet of ascent by flights of steep and conti- nuous steps were a feat easy of achievement to my sure-footed unshod native steed. After a few devious turns and renewed ascents, we came at last to the Budhist temple, in which my friend and host. Rev. CM. Williams, resides as a missionary from the Pro- testant Episcopal Church of the United States, and LODGING IN BUDHIST TEMPLE. 13 which for more than five weeks became the pleasant scene of my temporary abode. On the following morning the priest of the temple came to pay his respects ; and soon after a couple of two-sworded gentry waited upon us. Whether the visit of the latter was prompted by curiosity or was secretly arranged by their official superiors for the purposes of espionage, it was difficult to determine. They were open, frank and respectful in their de- meanour, readily exhibiting any article of dress, and taking pride in displaying the keen edge of their swords, which in temper and sharpness equalled the best Damascus blades. A troop of fifteen Japanese coolies soon after arrived with my Chinese servant in charge of my baggage from the ship. They seemed highly pleased with the gift of two hundred iron-cash each (equivalent to the sum of two-pence) as a reward for their toil in bearing it up the hill. Mr. Williams inhabited two rooms boarded off from the general area of the temple, and sheltered by a partition from the cold wind. One of these was appropriated to my use. My camp-bed was spread; a table, chair, and other necessary fiirniture were extemporised for the occasion. In half an hour's time I was comfortably domiciled in my new abode. Our priest-landlord took considerable interest in the arrangement of my quar- ters, and betrayed no scruples in volunteering to remove the image of Budha's mother and the usual implements of idolatrous worship fi^om a small chapel in the adjoin jng court, in the event of our requiring an 14 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. extension of our lodging. A little yard upon which our apartments opened contained some fine specimens of Japanese floral beauty. Camellias, fuchsias, double- blossoming peach and cherry trees, and rhododendrons displayed their richest tints and varied colours. Pines, firs, coppices of larch and the gracefully- waving bamboo, with a number of species of larger timber trees with their wide-spreading branches beginning to be covered with the green foliage of spring, rose on all sides around and above us ; and the calm quiet still- ness of the scene lent a peculiar charm and enchant- ment to the spot. The hill on which our quarters were established rose immediately from the eastern portion of the city of Nagasaki. From our elevation of 200 feet above the general level of the city, we commanded one of the finest views which imagination could picture to the eye. At our feet lay the city, streets and thoroughfares, crowded with busy way-farers. Beyond it stretched the magnificent harbour with its spacious waters, the upper part of the inner bay being covered with sliipping, native and European. In the distance a grand amphitheatre of verdure-clad hills closed in the prospect ; while every spot of the rising acclivity in the immediate vicinity of our own dwelling was crowded with tomb-stones and family mausoleums, interspersed amid plantations of green trees and shrubs, which were fi-equented every even- ing by crowds of worshippers visiting the tombs of their fore-fathers and renewing the pious offerings of fresh garlands and newly-gathered flowers. The VIEW OP THE CITY AND HARBOUR. IS external aspect of this city, with all the varied picturesque beauties of the surrounding country, possesses for a European visitor lately arrived from the opposite coast of China a peculiar attractiveness and novel delight. The climate too gave a zest to one's enjoyment of the scene. A blue sky, a bracing air, and frequent showers in the spring season, impart an English character to the temperature, and permit an abundance of out-door exercise in sur- veying the various objects of local interest. I took an early opportunity of visiting the British Consul, and calling at the houses of the principal European and American mercantile residents, form- ing at the present time, with the captains of a few foreign vessels in port, and a small number of officers of the Dutch factory, a community of about sixty persons. Descending the hill in company with my host, I was at once introduced to the realities of Japanese daily life. Groups of native children, seated on the flights of stone steps or engaged in their lively and uproarious pastimes in the temple- courts, everywhere awaited us with their juvenile greetings. My companion seemed to be a well-known friend and favourite among them. The friendly salutation " 0-hio " was shouted forth by their little voices, while the more nimble portion of the company endeavoured to shake the missionary's hand, or pleaded with him for the gift of a button. The adult portion of the neighbours in the subjacent streets partook also of these indications of friendly feeling, exchanging bows and good-natured recog- 16 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. nitions as we passed before their doors. Our way lay to the south, through one of the widest and best- paved streets of the city, skirting a portion of the bay and conducting us at the distance of a mile and a half across a little rivulet to a slight eminence, forming a promontory overhanging the harbour, on which the British union-jack flying aloft pointed out the site of the British Consulate. A temple situated on a fine point of shore and looking down upon the harbour towards the west, had been converted into a consular dwelling according to the usual practice rendered necessary in the want of private houses suitable and available for the residence of foreign officials. A large number of Japanese labourers were engaged in excavating a hill abutting on the adjoining suburb, and filling up a portion of the bay with the removed materials as a foundation for the site of the future foreign settlement. At the present time the foreign merchants and traders were lodged in small Japanese houses temporarily adapted to European use, and inconveniently situated for the stowage of goods. / After visiting the mercantile residents dispersed over the southern suburb, we retraced our steps towards the old Dutch factory in Desima, situated on the western extremity of the city and spread out in a fan-like form on the edge of the harbour. It is impossible to visit this spot without having powerful associations of mingled and opposite interest called into remembrance. The very name of Desima has long been con- DUTCH FACTOKY. 17 nected with everything calculated to inspire a sense of Japanese arrogance and Dutch humiliation. Eaised from the bottom of the sea and projecting into the harbour, it is said to have been artificially called into existence as a locality exempted from the rigorous proscription and exclusion of foreigners from Japanese soil. To this spot the Dutch were confined on the expulsion of the Spaniards and Portuguese. The island of Firando, a site of com- parative freedom and independence of vexatious control, was the original settlement ceded to the Dutch. But at a later period they were compelled to break up their mercantile establishments and to migrate thence to Nagasaki, in order to aiford relief to that city now impoverished by the cessation of the Spanish and Portuguese trade, and to facilitate the newly-established system of native espionage and police. Here in the limited area of Desima, they were guarded as in a prison-house, and subjected to all the jealous vigilance of their Japanese keepers. A little stone bridge connected the island Avith the streets of the city and formed a guard-house with sol- diers constantly on duty. In the opposite direction two strong gates facing upon the harbour were never opened for the egress or ingress of the imprisoned Dutchmen, except on the occasion of loading or unloading their vessels. A high wall of planks ran around the little settlement, surmounted on. the top with a double row of spikes. Extending in the form of an oblong square, it was traversed by a c 18 TKN WEEKS IN JAPAN. central street about 250 yards in length, containing on either side a few residences for the Dutch traders and warehouses for storing merchandise. Another path ran along the whole extent of the outer side towards the harbour, terminating at its northern extremity in the spot occupied by the garden and dwelling of the superintendent of the factory. The utmost breadth did not exceed 100 yards. At a short distance a palisade of thirteen posts erected in the water contained wooden tablets bearing Japanese inscriptions warning under the severest penalties all native boats and vessels from holding intercourse with the foreigners or approaching the site .of Desima. On the narrow bridge leading to the city public no- tices of the most offensive character were placarded prohibiting all ingress except to "courtesans and men- dicant priests of the mountain Kofu." The accounts of Dutch writers who have recorded their experience of Desima, abound with incidents partaking of the ludicrous and the pathetic. Kaemp- fer, Thunberg and Titsingh have handed down in their narratives the details of their humiliation. On the first day of the arrival of the vessel from Batavia, a cordon of guard-boats was drawn around her ; the rudder was unshipped and carried to the custom-house ashore ; all powder and ammunition was delivered up ; and (as if to give a finishing stroke to the com- pleteness of the degradation) all prayer-books, bibles and hymn-books were collected from the crew, and placed in charge of the native police during the de- tention of the ship in port. A register was kept of DESIMA. 19 every foreigner on board, with their names, ages, and emplojTnents duly recorded. The muster-roll was called over every day, in order to prevent any one escaping from the factory, or being left behind on the departure of the vessel. The common sailors were every day searched with a strictness often amounting to personal indecency, lest any foreign goods should be illicitly smuggled among their garments. The Dutch captains enjoyed at first an exemption from this vexatious process, and were reported to make large profits on the goods furtively introduced in their well- wadded uniforms as they twice or thrice daily visited and returned from the vessel. The large capacious trousers and stout obesity of these privileged ofiicers, who sometimes required two or three sailors to assist in supporting them at the landing, soon roused the suspicions of the ever-wakeful spies. About the same time the wreck of a Dutch vessel was drifted upon the shore of the neighbouring province of Sat- suma, and supplied from the ship's papers incon- testable proofs of the illicit trade which had long pre- vailed. This led to a stringent order that even the Dutch superintendent and captains should be searched. From this date they rapidly dwindled down in bodily size to the average scale of dimensions ; and the profits of the voyage from Batavia to Japan were propor- tionably diminished and rendered less an object of desire. During the two or three months' stay of the vessel at Nagasaki, the ofiicers and crew were lodged in De- sima. Boats rowed round the vessel the whole night c2 20 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. on the water, and watchful sentries guarded the little immured community on land. On the appointed day for the ship's sailing from the outer anchorage no violence of weather or tem- pestuous raging of the elements was accepted as an excuse for delay. Convoyed- and guarded into the outer waters, the Dutch vessel was forced to take her immediate departure from the Japanese coast. The director or superintendent of the factory, with about ten subordinate officers, alone remained, each possess- ing a slave-attendant brought from Java. Exposed to all the irksomeness of exile from civilised society, and exempted from the usual incentives to exertion during nine months of the year, the Dutch residents gradually relaxed the moral restraints of Christen- dom and sank by degrees into a state of social demoralisation, which called forth the severe and just reflections of Thunberg. Tobacco, drinking and il- licit connection with native women formed the usual routine of life, varied once or twice in each year by an excursion into some neighbouring locality, under the charge of a numerous Japanese retinue, for which they were mulcted in heavy and exorbitant charges. A bastard-progeny of mixed descent was sometimes to be seen in the streets immediately bordering on the island-settlement. But generally few children were observable of Dutch parentage ; and their ab- sence or removal has afforded to former -writers an occasion of speculation on the secret causes. The annual journey of the chief of the factory to Yeddo helped to diversify the monotony of this un- DUTCH HUMILIATION. 21 fortunate company of exiles. Treated with the external marks of respect usually accorded to the great territorial princes and feudal lords en route to the Imperial capital, they were at the same time exposed to acts of degradation and restriction which converted their visit into one continuous series of vexatious annoyances. Prohibited from speaking to any one on the road, they were hurried at the close of each successive day's stage unceremoniously into some retired room at the rear of the public refectory- house, and there guarded as culprits on their way to punishment rather than as envoys from an inde- pendent foreign nation to the Imperial presence. Admitted to a hasty interview with Japanese royalty, they had to bear the slighting hauteur of the monarch and the rude curiosity of the palace oflS.cials ; and then forthwith to return by the same long, tedious journey, only to experience anew the recurrence of the monotonous incidents of their cap- tivity. The Japanese officers who guarded the settle- ment were bound by oath and exposed to the severest penalties for breach pf regulations. Middlemen prac- tised their extortionate exactions and levied their arbi- trary rates of payment for every article of purchase. Letters from abroad were first examined, opened and perused by Japanese officials before delivery to the Dutch. Every missive despatched from Desima was subjected to the same scrutiny. And such for two centuries has been the melancholy and humi- liating tale of Dutch intercourse with Japan ; one unvarying series of injuries, slights and insults per- 3 22 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. severingly inflicted and patiently endured, — and with but slender and occasional modifications continued to within a few years of the present generation of living men, — all borne by the representatives of a former first-rate European maritime power in the interests of commercial gain, and offered up as a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of Mammon. Among the records even of the East India Company's inter- course with Chinese ofiicials at Canton, it is difficult and (it is to be hoped) impossible to single out any acts of abject servility which can admit of reasonable comparison with those of the Dutch government and their official representatives in Japan.* * Kaempfer, in Book V. ch. xii. of his work on Japan, thus de- scribes some of the details of the audience given by the emperor in 1691 to Von Butenheira, who is styled by Kaempfer "Director of our trade and ambassador to the emperor's court." " Having waited upwards of an hour, and the emperor having in the meanwhile seated himself in the hall of audience, Sino Kami and the two commissioners came in and conducted our resi- dent into the emperor's presence, leaving us behind. As soon as he came thither, they cried out aloud ' Hollanda Captain!' which was the signal for him to draw near and make his obeisances. Accordingly he crawled on his hands and knees to a place showed him, between the presents ranged in due order on one side, and the place where the emperor sat on the other; and then kneeling he laowed his forehead quite down to the ground, and so crawled backwards like a crab without uttering one single word. So mean and short a thing is the audience we have of this mighty monarch." The particulars of Kaempfer's second visit to the Imperial Court at Yeddo in 1692 in the suite of Van Outhoorn, brother to the Dutch Governor-General at Batavia and director of the Dutch factory at Desima, are (if possible) more humiliating than the px'evious visit. " The emperor and two ladies sat behind the grated screen on our right, and Bingo-Sama, President of the Council of State, op- DUTCH AMBASSADORS AT YEDDO. 23 I took an early opportunity of paying my respects to Mr. T. K. de Wit, who has recently arrived as posite to us in a room by himself. Soon after we came in, and had, after the usual obeisances, seated ourselves on the place assigned us, Bingo-Sama welcomed us in the emperor's name, and then desired us to sit upright, to take off our cloaks, to tell him our names and age, to stand up, to walk, to turn about, to dance, to sing songs, to compliment one another, to be angry, to invite one another to dinner, to converse one with another, &c." " We were then further commanded to put on our hats, to walk about the room discoursing with one another, to take off our perukes." " They made us jump, dance, play gambols, and walk together; " " then they made us kiss one another, like man and wife, which the ladies showed particularly by their laughter they were well pleased with." " After this farce was over, we were ordered to take off our cloaks, to come near the screen one by one, and to take our leave in the very same manner we would take it of a prince or king in Europe, which being done, seemingly to their satisfaction, we went away." The following is the account of the farewell interview with the Council of State four days later : " Having stayed about half an hour in the waiting-room, the 'captain' (Dutch ambassador) was called in before the Coun- cillors of State, who ordered one of the commissioners to read the usual orders to him, which they do by turns. The orders were among the rest, and chiefly to the following effect, — that we should not molest any ships or boats of the Chinese or Li- queans {i.e. Lewkewans, Lewchewans or Loochooans), nor bring any Portuguese or priests into the country on board our ships, and that upon these conditions we should be allowed a free com- merce. The orders being read, the ambassador was presented with thirty gowns laid on three present-boards, each of which was somewhat longer than two mats, and a letter of fortune, as they call it, as a mark of the emperor's favour; upon which he crept on all fours to receive the same.'' At another interview with the emperor these poor Dutchmen were compelled again to exhibit themselves as a laughing-stock t,o the Imperial Court. Kaempfer says afterwards: — " The obei- sances made, I was ordered to sing a song." " The two commis- sioners and the governor went with us as far as the waiting- room, where we took our leave of them amidst the compliments c 4 24 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. president of the factory ; and also to his predecessor in office, Mr. Donker Curtius, who negotiated the last Dutch treaty with the Japanese government at Yeddo. My narrative will comprise also some inci- dents of my subsequent intercourse with Mr. Von Siebold, and other Dutch officials who are now resi- dent in Nagasaki. To all these gentlemen, and to the captain of the Dutch war-steamer then in port, I was indebted for kind attentions during my stay ; and I should be sorry if the preceding comments on the history of past Dutch intercourse with Japan should be construed into anything like invidious reflections upon the gentlemen who compose the Dutch factory at the present time. and loud acclamations of the courtiers, for so favourable a recep- tion as we had met with from his Imperial Majesty, being much beyond whatever they remembered anybody could boast of." — (Kaempfer, Book V. chapter xiv.) 25 CHAP. III. CITY OF NAGASAKI. STREET-SCENES AND NATIVE TRADES. JAPANESE CEMETERY. CHINESE GRAVES. GRAND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY. " OCTAVE " OF BUDHIST SERVICES. DEVOHTNESS OF MULTITUDE. A JAPANESE PREACHER. POPULAR RESPECT FOR PRIESTHOOD. A SKETCH of my daily movements among the people will be a convenient mode of illustrating the ordinary life of the Japanese; and enable the reader to form his own estimate of their position in the scale of com- parative civilisation. As a newly-arrived stranger walks securely along the streets and thoroughfares of a Japanese city, he finds it at first difficult to realise the fact that he is moving freely among scenes which until recently no modern European visitor was permitted to explore. In such circumstances novelty, surprise and a sense of freedom are apt to produce an elation of spirits and a disposition to regard every object from the most favourable point of view. Hence there arises a per- ceptible danger on the part of a traveller of his carry- ing away a few hastily-formed impressions from a superficial view of the daily habits and life of the people, and grounding thereupon an exaggerated idea 26 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. of the external prosperity and civilisation of the nation. The author wUl deem himself happy, if he is preserved from both extremes in judging and de- scribing the condition of this interesting race. The first feelings excited by a visit to a Japanese city, are a sense of bewilderment and awe caused by the very novelty of the situation, and the remembrance that the scenes, habits and customs, so new to him, are but the reflection of above two thousand years of continuous national life, without any great change in the physical or moral aspect of the country. Those over-hanging hills covered with the rich foliage of perennial green, among whose shadows the city of Nagasaki lies embosomed in the sheltered valley 2000 feet below, looked down in ages long lost in the deep oblivion of the past, on scenes and occurrences in no important particular differing from those of the pre- sent hour. The ordinary appearances and incidents which we witnessed in the city of Nagasaki were pro- bably also a correct picture of similar scenes in every part of Japan. The busy crowd of population was borne onward through the city thoroughfares, each individual intent on his own object, and every man pursuing his separate vocation. In one part a confectioner's shop attracted its eager company of old and young engaged in the purchase of sweetmeats, or endeavouring to appease hunger by the more homely fare of rice-dumplings and rye-cakes. In another part, a fishmonger's stall, covered with conger-eels, mackerel,, soles, lobsters and cray-fish, or with sliced cutlets of star-fish and cuttle-fish, invited the more affluent to STEEET-SCENES. 27 purchase the materials of a feast. Occasionally a butcher's shambles were the scene of attraction, where a whale lately stranded on a neighbouring beach, or harpooned by an adventurous fleet of fishing-boats, furnished an over-abundant and cheap supply of coarse red meat resembling raw beef, and gave for some days an impulse to the carnivorous tastes of the lower classes. Next we come to fruiterers' shops well supplied with the fruits of the season; green- grocers' stalls decked out with bunches of turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, egg-plants and the usual horticultural produce of a semi-tropical vegetation. We pass next in succession numerous flower-shops exhibiting their tastefully-arranged garlands, minia- ture-shrubs, and dwarfed trees resembling in all the fantastic imitation of an artificially-stunted growth of a few inches high the spreading boughs and gnarled trunks of the giants of the forest. Sellers of dried fruits and candied preserves, grain-dealers, poulterers, egg-merchants, weavers, cotton-cleaners, tailors and umbrella-makers, now in their turn fill up either side of the way. Soon again we pass the spacious ware- houses of the dealers in sauces, condiments and soys, where large jars lie fiUed with decoctions of pulse and rice, and are left to ferment and become mellow with exposure and age. Wine-taverns and spirit- shops occupy no inconsiderable space, displaying their numerous rows of sakee-jars, and plying a successful trade among the alcohol-loving natives. In another part silk-mercers display their glossy wares and gorgeous folds hanging from the ceiling and form- 28 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. ing a little labyrintli of briglit-flowered festoons and embroidered drapery. Further on book-stalls and picture-shops, exhibiting every variety of native cos- tume and exposing for sale some grotesque carica- tures of European visitors, foreign vessels and Dutch uniforms, attracted the more idle class of gazers. Again we pass the usual assemblage of money- changers, glass-blowers, incense-stick manufacturers, idol-makers, shoe-makers, lantern-makers, braziers, old-clothes dealers, needle-makers, tobacco-leaf cut- ters, druggists and herb-sellers, doctors' shops and vendors of quack-medicines, stationers and pen-and- ink manufacturers, opticians and spectacle-makers. In another quarter, pipes, toys, spinning-tops, knives, swords, scissors, metal head-pins and female orna- ments, Chinese mariners' compasses and clumsy imitations of Dutch telescopes are exposed to view. Soon again we reach shops of a higher class, where porcelain ware of exquisite quality and surpassing in delicate transparency and thin substance the egg- shell from which it sometimes derives its name; lacquered cabinets and household furniture richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl figures; tortoise-shell ornaments worked into every conceivable device and pattern ; and antique vases of bronze metal boasting an almost mythological period of origin and bearing a proportionably fabulous price, — invite the more wealthy class of native purchasers, or (as is now be- coming more generally the case) command increas- ingly high prices from the European frequenters of Japanese curiosity-shops. And (to anticipate the EXTERNAL APPEARANCE OE NATIVES. 29 more detailed descriptions in the subsequent parts of my narrative) I may here state that after visiting this medley throng of Japanese traders, shop-keepers, and artisans, the first impression generally borne away is a sense of tawdriness and want of finish in the products of native industry and skill; a feehng that if here there are no commonly observable signs of extreme destitution and want, there are also on the other hand no generally prevailing indications of great wealth or luxurious and expensive tastes. The forms of misery too are not wholly absent from the scene ; and the newly arrived European stranger has to banish from his mind some of the more highly coloured views and over-drawn pictures which have enlisted his prepossessions in favour of the Japanese race. Cutaneous eruptions, loathsome sores, and a multitude of bodily ailments, disfiguring the personal appearance and bearing the hereditary taint of pa- rental disease, are frequently observable in the streets. And yet there is something pecviliarly striking in the universal neatness of their private dwellings and the graceful appearance of their dress. The fine loose flowing robe and capacious dependent sleeves which form their ordinary outer dress, each individual bear- ing on his breast and shoulders the neatly embla- zoned figures of his family armorial bearings, give a semblance of dignity to their exterior bearing and address, as they pass onward and exchange the fre- quent salutation of a low formal bow and mutual greeting. A person unfamiliar with this striking oriental garb might picture to himself a whole nation 30 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. clad in tlie every-day costume of the Roman toga, or attired in the Academic gown of an English graduate in Arts. The large number of public bathing-rooms and the frequency of their bodily ablutions have also earned for the Japanese the character of personal cleanliness as a nation. Few wants, simple habits, prescriptive usage, settled forms and a rigid subdivi- sion and mutual separation of classes, all combine in withdrawing many of the usual incentives to exer- tion, and imparting a dull unvarying uniformity to their pursuits. Order, tranquillity, subjection to rule, and obedience to authority, are the natural results of a widely-diffused system of police-agents and govern- ment spies, and are deeply-seated principles of con- duct in the national character. In the early part of the second day of my sojourn I accompanied Mr. Williams on a pedestrian excursion on the adjoining hill-side, which is here covered with grave-yards and forms one of the most crowded cemeteries of the city. Nothing is to be seen in the country affording more beautiful specimens of their architectural taste, than the variety and elaborateness of their solid and finely-carved granite monuments. They consist of every kind of pattern and degree of costh- ness, from the simple upright stone pillar standing on its square pedestal below and inscribed with the name of the deceased, — to the figured column adorned with gilt characters, rising from the centre of square steps forming an extended basement gradually con- verging inwards, and terminated at the top by the image of a Budhist devotee seated on a gigantic lotus- JAPANESE CEMETERY. 31 flower. Some of them were arched over at the top, or surmounted by a miniature roof. A close inspec- tion of these family mausoleums, with their areas carefully swept and surrounded by rows of upright monuments, gives a favourable impression of their regard for the dead, and forms a striking feature in the landscape. Observed at a distance from the opposite side of the harbour, these hills have the ap- pearance of one great grave-yard with its white obelisks and pillars emerging into view through the trees. The tombs are treated with great respect by the people, and are frequently revisited for the pur- pose of placing presents of flowers or offerings of cakes. A small trough of water stands before each tomb, and on either side are two little bamboo joints as receptacles for incense-sticks. A Japanese boy whom we met, accompanied us on our walk and readily volunteered his explanations, especially en- deavouring to impress us with the certainty of misfortune happening to those who refused to worship the spirits at the tombs. The inscriptions bore the posthumous names given by the priests to those persons whose surviving friends deemed it worth while to invite sacerdotal offices at the funeral and to expend the customary fees on the Budhist temples. The title " sin-sze " (believer) was in such cases ap- pended to the name. The corpses are all buried in a sitting crouching posture, with the palms folded in front in the attitude of devotion ; and the coffins are consequently of a narrow circular form. We saw one middle-aged Japanese ascend a slight eminence 32 TEN WEEKS XS JAPAN. near to the spot at which we were standing, and enter a little shrine of the Sinto sect hollowed out from the rock. The hill-side resounded with the im- passioned tones of his voice, as he poured forth his prayers to the imaginary divinity and unburdened his heart of some heavy grief. In another part, some young person handsomely attired might be seen more quietly engaged in re-lighting the extinguished incense-sticks or replacing the faded garlands with newly -gathered flowers. Generally speaking, the visits to these ancestral tombs appeared to partake less of a funereal mourning than of a holiday recrea- tion ; and the beauties of the scenery were calculated rather to excite in a Japanese mind associations of light-hearted joy than of depressing grief. The secluded Chinese community who reside in Nagasaki compose a trading guild and factory, sub- jected for ages to all the past vexatious restrictions experienced by the Dutch. Amounting generally to a few hundred persons, a large number die at a dis- tance from their father-land, and their graves occupy a considerable space in the rear of our dwelling. Their mode of sepulture however is different from the Japanese. The corpse is buried in a coffin of the usual shape, in which the body is stretched at full length, and their graves resemble the ordinary tombs of a European cemetery. They are generally covered with a kind of stucco or fine mortar, with head -stones; elaborately gilded and inscribed with the names of the deceased, the district of China to which they be- longed, and the Chinese Imperial dynasty during BUDHIST SERVICE. S3 which they lived. Both Japanese and Chinese tombs are alike inscribed with the ordinary characters of the written Chinese language* The wealthier Chinese who die in Japan are accustomed to be borne in their coffins to lie in a temple, until a junk takes its departure on its return to China, and the opportunity is afforded of sending back the body to be deposited in their native soil. In the afternoon we passed through one of the temple-squares lying at the foot of our hill, and had some difficulty in stemming the current of a popular crowd flowing in the opposite direction to that in which we were proceeding. The throng was occa- sioned by a great Budhist festival celebrated at this season, during which the temples of a particular Budhist sect are kept open day and night for con- tinuous services and orations from the priesthood. For eight days the neighbouring streets were deco- rated with flags by day and illuminated with transparent emblems in the night commemorative of some Budhist saint who 500 years ago went on a pilgrimage to India, and on his return became the founder of the temple and the author of a new Budhist sect. During this Budhist " octave " the neighbouring inhabitants, who were said to pay little attention to religion at other times, w6re per- vaded with a suddenly revived zeal, and crowded the avenues and approaches to the temple-'shrines. The sect of Budhism which attracted the attention of the multitude and enjoyed a brief sunshine of popular favour, seemed to be a liberalised form of .Ji TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. Budhistic asceticism, and dispensed with the neces- sity of celibacy in the priesthood, who were permitted to marry wives, to eat flesh, to drink wine, and in various ways to depart from the rigid laws usually imposed on the monastic institutions. In the principal temple nearly a thousand people were seated on the floor in a half kneeling, half sitting posture, and listening in apparent devotion of manner to half a dozen priests in a monotonous low voice intoning the Budhist liturgy. From time to time new worshippers entered, prostrated themselves with their head to the ground, and joined in the hurried repetition of sounds. Occasionally copper coins or small iron-cash were thrown over the heads of the congregation and scattered on the floor, to be subsequently swept together and gathered into the temple-treasury. A priest also sometimes threaded his way between the closely-packed rows of people on their knees, holding out a little bag suspended from the top of a rod for the reception of their gifts. On all the pillars wooden alms-boxes were fixed, with apertures into which the offerings of the faith- ful might be dropped, securely chained to the post and duly guarded mth lock and key. Occasionally some person exceeding in intensity of feeling his other fellow-worshippers, renewed his bodily pro- strations and gave vent to some audibly expressed groanings and sighs. Two or three men and a woman were engaged in smoldng tobacco in the outer part of the crowd while ostensibly Imeeling on the ground ; but the generality of the people observed BUDHIST PREACriEE. 35 a strict propriety of appearances. About a dozen priests performed the service and alternated their parts in the recitation. They were variously deco- rated with robes of different colour ; and there appeared to be a gradation of rank among their members. After a quarter of an hour the presiding priest, seated in the usual posture on his knees with the calves of his legs turned up beneath and forming a natural cushion and seat on the floor, commenced his harangue to the crowd. Robed in a silk vestment of pure white, with his entire head clean shaven, and wearing a rich purple hood over his shoulders, he first reverently closed his eyes in prayer, and com- posed himself for the delivery of his address. He was a middle-aged man of prepossessing looks and with an air of intelligence and self-respect, enjoying a high repute as a Budhist preacher among the eccle- siastical fraternities of the city. Raised on a high central platform, he commenced in slowly articulated tones, passing on to a more rapid style and at last rising to a fervour of impassioned utterance. The subject of the oration we were of course unable to ascertain in detail; and were forced to be content with the general information that it was a highly elaborated panegyric on the glories of Budhism and the special virtues of the saint. From time to time the whole assemblage joined in responsive prayer with closed eyes and folded hands, bending to the ground, and apparently carried away with the earnest appeals of the preacher. Among aU the scenes D 2 3G TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. whicli I ever witnessed, I seldom beheld in a pagan country an assemblage of native worshippers so nearly approaching the appearance of a Christian assembly and the details of an ordinary Christian service. If a European visitor suddenly brought into the vicinity of such a scene had been led to expect the sight of native Christian worship, he might have mistaken the true character of the religious spectacle before him, and have remained some mi- nutes before making the discovery of its real nature. No one could look on that scene of ignorant devotees without an affecting sense of the spiritual darkness in which this benighted multitude now lies, and without the encouraging hope that when Japan shall obey the universal decree of the Almighty maldng the progress of Christ's religion co-extensive with the prevalence of that taint of human sin and woe for which it is the divinely-appointed and predicted re- medy, — her interesting and earnest-minded popula- tion, made willing in the day of God's power, will embrace the gospel of Christ with no common ardour, and furnish her full proportion of confessors and martyrs to the church of Christ. Although the female portion of the assembly were more conspicuous for their zeal and devotion than the men, it must nevertheless be allowed that the male population of Japan appear generally exempt from that insincere, heartless and unimpressible scepticism, which prevails in China and renders the Chinese on the one hand indifferent to their OAvn superstitions, SOCIAL STANDING OF PEIESTHOOD. 37 and on the other too generally apathetic to the claims of the true religion. The Budhist priests too belong to a relatively higher social class in Japan, and re- ceive a fair amount of respect from the gentry and higher ranks, as well as from the poorer people. I have frequently seen even the higher class of two- sworded officials greeting with a bow almost to the ground a priest as he passed in the streets. Occa- sionally also I noticed a Japanese officer passing along one of the streets of the city in which the temples were more than ordinarily numerous, and stopping for a few moments before the outer entrance to each temple-court, in order to fold his hands in an attitude of respect and bow reverently towards the ground as he turned his face in the direction of the sacred locality. This act of devoutness was after- wards placed in a somewhat different light to that in which it first struck my mind. It is said that the local gentry adopt on the new-moon holiday this mode of doing reverence to the temple-shrines by bowing at a respectful distance from the threshold, as a com- promise for the actual visit withm the temple exacted from faithful Budhists by the prescriptive etiquette of Budhism. Probably it partook of the more vague and spontaneous respect paid by ordinary Romanists in boAving towards the altar, or by Protestants in un- covering the head on entering a sacred edifice. During the next day or two, I frequently renewed my visits to the outlying parts of the city, and ex- plored the various temples of the eight Budhist D 3 38 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. sects*, which exist at Nagasaki. On each day we found the same throngs of people crowding the tem- ple below, and commemorating the special holiday which has been before described. The same renowned preacher, Avith sacred vestments changed on each day, and attended by a number of subordinates similarly arrayed, was stiU to be seen haranguing the attentive and ever-increasing multitude. Temporary booths were erected in the outer court to accommodate the surplus congregation ; and idols were set up for the occasion, before which the people worshipped. Two lay Budhists seemed particularly devout in their pro- strations before a large gaudily -painted paper dragon. Lanterns with sacred devices were suspended across the neighbouring streets ; and tall pillars of paper on wooden frames and illuminated within, displayed in conspicuous writing a notice to the people of the services which were being held. Sign-posts pointing in the right direction to the favoured temple, abounded at every corner and turn of the streets. A Japanese layman of our acquaintance meeting * The names of the eight sects or orders of Budhist priests are as follows, according to the information supplied to me by a native acquaintance at Kanagawa : — 1. Tendai. 2. Shinngong. 3. Dzen. 4. Oobaku. 5. Jiodo. 6. Hokki. 7. Ikko. This sect allows marriage to its priests. 8. Nichiren shiu. The -word sMu, shu, or ju is generally placed after the proper name desiajnating each sect. A NATIVE THIEF. 39 US in our descent through the temple-court, took an opportunity of calling us aside, and whispered to us the great inconvenience occasioned by the pony which I was riding, to the people assembling in the crowded thoroughfare to the sacred building. He begged that we would oblige them by riding down the hill through a less frequented range of temples until the festival and its crowds were ended. We gladly took the opportunity of complying with his request, and begged him to convey to his friends our regret at having inadvertently caused any inconvenience to the priests. This Japanese gentleman Avas an old ac- quaintance of my American companion; and lately afforded him a substantial service by acting as a friend in need. My host was robbed of a parcel of Japanese silver coins amounting to the value of thirty dollars ; and being unable to detect the thief, called in the aid of his native friend. The latter took up the matter in an earnest spirit, and went to work with all the practised skill and ingenuity of a detective. He spent some little time in investigating the recent expenditure of the natives about our temple ; and at last discovering that the Japanese servant of a mis- sionary colleague was making extravagant purchases of native luxuries and otherwise showing indications of a fast mode of life, he suddenly seized upon the culprit and turned a deaf ear to his indignant denials. By main force he had him stripped to nudity ; and at length drawing forth from his intei"ior garments a secreted sum of money, he brought him to a confes- sion. By a species of Lynch-law often practised in i> 4 40 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. a land where the forms of justice are sometimes sIoav, and ■willingly endured by a criminal under a code of laws Adsiting such offences with a more than Dra- conic severity of punishment, — the thief was bound and mercilessly beaten by our Japanese acquaintance, acting in the threefold capacity of police-detective, judge and executioner ; and the stolen property was duly returned to its lawful owner. 41 CHAP. IV. RELIGIONS or JAPAN. VISIT TO A SINTO TEMPLE.— LEADING RELIGIONS IN JAPAN. TOLERANT SPIPJT OF GOVERNMENT. SOOTO, OE CONFUCIAN MORALISTS. SIN- TOISM.— SUN-GODDESS. THE "KAMI." SINTO PRIESTS. INTERIOR OF TEMPLE. — SACRED MIRROR. NATIVE WORSHIPPERS. JUVENILE PAS- TIMES. SINTOISM AND BUDHISM CONTRASTED. THEIR MUTUAL ASSI- MILATION IN JAPAN. SYNCRETISTS. METEMPSYCHOSIS. — UNDER- LYING TRUTH OF A FUTURE STATE. — GUESSES OF UNENLIGHTENED HEATHEN. ROMAN CATHOLIC AND BUDHIST RESEMBLANCES. RE- LIGIOUS MENDICANTS. OuE walk was extended along a street occupied for half a mile on one side by an uninterrupted succes- sion of temples, and hence generally called by us " Temple-street." It lay along the lower edge of the hill which flanks the eastern portion of the city. We diverged thence into a series of streets leading to the northern end of the city; and at every turn of the thoroughfares the well-wooded summits of the hiUs and the rich foliage of the landscape continually presented a most beautiful panorama of rustic beauty in the very centres of population and commerce. We arrived at a stone bridge crossing a moun- tain-torrent, which ran through the city and turned in its course some water-wheels of mills for grinding corn. A few Japanese gentry, and occasionally one or two priests were to be seen fishing in the stream and whipping its surface with a fly -rod, with which 42 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. every second or third minute they succeeded in cap- turing a small kind of fish resembling a roach. At the foot of this bridge lay the entrance to one of the principal temples of the Sinto religion ; and a description of its interior may serve as a general re- presentation of the worship of this form of supersti- tion, which has been denominated the national religion of Japan. Although from time to time various new forms of superstitious error have arisen in Japan, it may he correctly stated that in the present age there are but two leading religions which exercise any wide-spread ascendency over the national mind: viz. the primi- tive religion of Sinto^ and its comparatively modern rival of exotic growth — the religion oi Budh. The only other creed which exercises any percep- tible influence is the doctrine of the Confucian sages, commonly termed Sooto — "the way or method of the philosophers," and comprising the general system received among the literati of the Chinese empire. The moral maxims of Confucius are more a code of political ethics than of religious doctrine; and, as expounded by the Chinese materialists of the Sung djmasty, they recognise no existence of a supreme moral governor of the universe beyond a mere anima mundi, an universal spirit, soul or power, animating all things, and pervading external nature. This is the atheistic creed of a large portion of the Chinese literati, and appears to be a deterioration from the comparatively purer tenets of more ancient times. This politico-rehgious system of the Confucian phi- RELIGIOUS LATITUDINARIANISM. 43 losophy has gained a wide influence in Japan; but can hardly be numbered among the religions of the country strictly so called. Sintoism and Budhism are the only two influential systems of religious belief according to the general sense of the term. Religious animosity or rivalry in the European sense of the word hardly exists between these two opposite forms of belief. Both systems continue side by side, mutually influencing and influenced by the other. The government -vdews with indifference the prevalence of various sects, and in a spirit of latitu- dinarian liberality treats them all with an impartial rule. Liberty of conscience in matters of religion appears to be the national policy ; and only when the institutions of the country are endangered and its political fears are aroused, does the government of Japan abandon the strict line of non-intervention with the religious belief of its subjects. An old chronicler of the Roman Catholic missions relates the incident of a petition being presented to the Emperor Nobanan by the Budhists, praying for the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries of old, when His Majesty put to them the question, " How many religions are there in Japan?" "Thirty-five" was the reply. " Well then," continued the monarch, " we may easily bear a thirty-sixth : let the strangers dwell in peace." Even the Chinese temples in Nagasaki contain tutelary divinities of their own; and the popular idols peculiar to each district in China are trans- ferred and tolerated without scruple on the soil of Japan. Christianity alone has incurred the unre- 44 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. lenting hostility of the Japanese rulers and is pro- scribed by the severest penalties of law. In the history of Roman Catholic missions in their country and of former religious civil wars, they deem themselves to have a justification and a valid excuse. Even in this case their fears appear to partake more of a political than a religious character. In ages long anterior to historical records the people of Japan appear to have held an elementary form of supernatural belief and to have possessed a primitive national religion of their own. Amid their wild vague traditions of cosmogony there are a few dim obscurely-shadowed intimations of a Supreme Being now lost in remote mythology and ancestral legends. The Japanese term for this religion is Kmni-no-Mitst, " the way of the Kami." It has been rendered into Chinese by the two characters shin-taou^ " the path of the shin," the term employed in China for desig- nating the popular demigods and false divinities of the country. The words shin-taou have been slightly modified in their transference into the language of Japan, and are pronounced " sin-to" although every- where written in the temples in the commonly prevailing form of Chinese character. These terms contain in themselves the chief characteristics of the religion in the prominent regard and reverential worship given to the Kami, the popular demigods and canonised heroes of the country. The title Kami was originally given to the seven mythological personages who figure in the earliest ages of their history as the celestial gods who composed the first THE "KAMI." 45 Imperial dynasty. It was also conferred on the five terrestrial gods who ruled in the second djmasty. It was in a pre-eminent sense given also to the whole race of succeeding monarchs who ruled over the empire, and who now have their lineal representative in the Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Emperor, at the sacred capital, Miako. In the person of this semi- divine personage all the functions of deity are sup- posed to centre by virtue of his direct descent from Ten-sio dai-sin^ the great Sun-goddess, the first and chief of the gods, and the great object of Sinto wor- ship and belief. In every age additions are made to the number of the Ka7ni ; and every patriot, hero, warrior or benefactor of the race, who by warlike deeds, superior sanctity, alms-giving or repute for miraculous deeds, has earned a place in the memory of his fellow-countrymen, is exalted by the Eccle- siastical Emperor to the rank of a Kami, and under- goes a regular apotheosis and canonisation at his death. In addition to these meritorious saints and heroes of the popular superstition, special Ka7m or demigods are supposed to preside over the respective elements and various departments of nature. Each district and neighbourhood possesses also its patron- saint ; and hence it has come to pass that the Sinto religion is in a peculiar manner " the way of the Kami" and abounds with shrines erected to the popular divinities of the earth and water, the sea, the sky and the mountains, peopling every nook and corner with the objects of idolatrous worship, and teaching the common people to find a god in every 40 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. place.* The temples of tlie Sinto worship are called Mia, and are ordinarily situated on little elevated spots in retired localities, surrounded by groves and coppices of shrubs, and often approached by an avenue of trees. The Budhist temples are dis- tinguished by the name of Tera. The great "Sun-goddess" at the present time seems to be the principal object of divine adoration to the multitude. It is to her alone that supreme worship is paid; and the varioizs subordinate Kami are regarded in the light of mediators and angels. The simple furniture of a Sinto temple consists of a mirror occupying a conspicuous place on the altar, and regarded as an emblem of the purity which is needed in true worshippers. No idol or image is visible within the sacred grating ; and a few written sentences alone are inscribed above and around. The Sinto temple which we now visited was called Dai-jing Gu, " Temple of the great god (or spirit)," and also Teen Sho Dai-jing Gu, " Temple of the heaven-enlightening great god." We passed into the temple-court under a gateway or arch peculiar to the temples in this country, consisting of two sohd posts about twenty feet high, generally painted of a red colour, and surmounted by two cross beams of similarly solid material at a yard's interval from each other. The extremities of the cross beams project sideways with a slight curve; and the whole forms the usual sign of approach to consecrated ground. * An educated Japanese, who was questioned in my presence as to the number of their deities or demigods (Kami), replied in round numbers that tliey amounted to a " million." SINTO TEMPLE. 47 On the left hand of the spacious open court lay a few neat-looking houses, which served as dwellings for the priests and their families. The sacerdotal class in the Sinto religion are free from the vows of celi- bacy and permitted to mingle without restraint in the usual business of secular life. Their wives are recognised as priestesses, and have peculiar duties as- signed to them. Supported by the eleemosjmary offer- ings of the devout and the revenues of the temple endowment, they are able to pass a life of moderate affluence and to exercise the duties of a frugal hospi- tality. From the wooden archway already described a festoon of slips of white paper and pieces of straw was hung across the way. In the middle of the paved court there was an obelisk-like structure of granite resembling a lamp-pedestal on a large scale, and forming a handsome pillar about eight feet in height. These pillars usually stand on a basement of ascending atone steps, and have a small curved branching roof at the top sheltering a lantern-shaped box or receptacle with circular openings on four sides in which the sacred fire was preserved in olden times. They often exhibit signs of architectural taste in their form and decoration, and are usually inscribed with Chinese characters denoting the " eternally resplen- dent lamp." This granite lantern is a conspicuous and characteristic object in such localities, and is not exclusively confined to the Sinto temples. Like the red wooden archways before mentioned, they seem to resemble the cross in European counti-ies, and to be appendages to the temple precincts of every native 48 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. religious sect in Japan. About fifty yards further on lay what appeared to be the principal shrine of the establishment; and there in the inner recess of a dark room, carefully separated by a screen of pali- sades, the " holy of holies " was supposed to exist. On the interior altar no image was visible ; aU was silent, dark and mysterious. In the centre of the outer room the worshipper was required to kneel be- fore the symbolical bright metal disk a foot in dia- meter, and a corresponding one of a dusky red colour representing the sun suspended above his head, with the titles of the great " Sun-goddess " emblazoned on the sides. We had not been long at the spot when an elderly gentleman approached to perform his de- votions. He first took hold of the handle of bell- rope suspended from the roof in the centre of the outer room, and commenced ringing an old cracked bell which gave forth jingling and most discordant sounds. He then sat on the matted ground in the usual squatting posture with his legs doubled up un- der his seat and his heels and toes projecting from behind. He gave two loud clappings with the palms of his hands and commenced muttering a half-audi- ble form of prayer. Occasionally he rose upright on his knees and renewed the clapping of his hands, falling back into the sitting posture and repeating his devotions with occasional bending of his forehead to the ground. After a silent prayer and renewed prostrations, in about five minutes he rose from his knees and entered into conversation with us. Be- fore he had concluded his prayer a second gentleman SINTO WORSHIP. 49 from the city entered, and placed himself in the usual half sitting, half kneeling posture at the side of the earlier worshipper. They turned to each other with bows and salutations, and paid the usual marks of respect, while the former gentleman seemed to be in no way discomposed by the interruption of his devo- tions, or disconcerted by any sense of intrusion in having his prayers to the goddess disturbed by the interchange of compliments between himself and his fellow-devotee. They each continued their low pro- strations before the large polished metal disk, which served as the mirror-emblem of the deity; and on concluding their prayer passed with a quick trans- ition to diversions of a more secular kind. They were very willing to supply information respecting the Sinto temples and the nature of the service in which they had engaged, explaining that the ringing of the bell and the loud clapping of their hands were intended to arouse the goddess and to awaken her attention to the prayers of her worshippers. One of them in reply to our question said that they had no regularly appointed number or time of temple ser- vices which they were enjoined to attend, but that each man followed in this particular the promptings of his own inclination. The elder man volunteered the statement that he himself ordinarily visited the temple four or five times in each month. They after- wards accompanied us into an inner portion of the temple court extending a hundred yards further, and surrounded by a wall against which were placed a number of miniature red-coloured wooden archways E 50 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. such as have been described as marking a sacred en- trance, and sent to this temple as offerings from in- dividuals supposed to have received some marked favour and blessing from the gods. In the centre of the spacious court there was an enclosed area leading by a flight of steps to a higher and more sacred shrine, into which none but the priests were permitted to enter, and from which lay visitors were excluded. A few low pillars were placed around the court, sur- mounted by a rude stone apparently the symbolical representative of some divinity. Large chests and alms-boxes were scattered over every portion of the establishment, chained to the pillar and guarded by massive locks. As we returned to the outer court and the vicinity of the principal scene of worship, we had an oppor- tunity of observing a curious specimen of the man- ners of the juvenile population. On the very spot in which the two senior Japanese had recently prostrated themselves before their chief deity, a number of boys had collected themselves in a group and proceeded to indulge in the boisterous pastimes of a play-ground. Close to the very shrine they danced, leaped, wrestled, threw somersets in the air, and shook the roof with their merry laughter, as they tinpped each other up by the heels and exulted in any one of their number coming down with a more than commonly heavy fall on the ground. Not even the sacred bell was spared. Seizing the bell-rope they vied with each other in trying to climb or pull themselves by the hand to the ceihng, and in converting the whole place SINTOISM CONTRASTED WITH BUDHISJI. 31 into a gymnasium. The elder men looked on, and no one interfered with their boisterous games, it not being apparently considered irreverent or undevout to continue their playful amusements in such a spot. I was informed that in this respect the Budhists are more strict in preventing such uproarious pas- times in their sacred places; although, on a subse- quent occasion, I witnessed an approximation to the same noisy merriment even in a Budhist tem- ple. Budhism has the character of being a more gloomy and austere religion than the Sinto creed. The former professes to regard sorrow as inseparable from existence, to condemn emotional feeling as the exhibition of the inferior part of human nature, to view moral excellence as consisting in abstraction from the busy world around, and to place the only ultimate escape from moral evil in the absorption of personal identity into the Deity, — or, in other words, in annihilation of all separate existence for each soul. The adherents of Sintoism on the other hand appear to make happiness in the enjoyment of the present world the great object of aim, taking a more cheerful view of human life, and preferring to contemplate the brighter side of mundane affairs. Turning their religious festivals into occasions of holiday, they regard sorrow and distress as an unfit disposition of mind in which to approach the gods. Believing their divinities to be susceptible of the joys and sorrows of the lower world, they profess the de- sire of reheving them from the contemplation of human misery, and refrain from disturbing the divine E 2 52 TEN "WEEKS IN JAPAN. mind by obtruding upon their vision the spectacle of pain and misery. It is often hard to distinguish at first sight the temples of the two religions from a hasty and cursory view of the exterior. The true facts of the case appear to be that Budhism, transplanted from China and Corea into Japan in the sixth century after Christ, has here easily assimilated and adapted itself to the more ancient forms of popular belief. A national hero has often been adopted into the Bud- hist pantheon in Japan; and the Bonzes have adroitly contrived to make a profitable investment in pandering to the most ancient superstitions of the country. They have peopled heaven with Japanese saints, and found a niche in every Budhist temple for idols universally worshipped by the multitude and representing some deified hero of Japan, who lived and died many ages before Budhism had pene- trated the country. Sintoism also has more than gone halfway in meeting the friendly advances of the more modern superstition. The distinction between the two is generally more perceptible in the vestments of the priests than in any well-defined notions of doctrinal difference in the minds of the Japanese people at large. Sectarianism exists not beyond the circle of the ecclesiastical societies; and the laity appear to regard every development of their native supersti- tions with equal favour and indifference in turn.* * Since these remarks were written I have met with the fol- lowing statement of Kaempfer (Book III. ch. ii.), which conveys a summary view of the religious sects of the Japanese, and SYNCEETISTS. ■J"> After these preliminary statements it will easily be understood how a belief in the transmigration of spirits and the corollary articles of the Budhistic explains some facts connected with the mutual assimilation of Sintoism and Budhism in Japan. " The whole Sintos' religion is so mean and simple, that besides a heap of fabulous and romantic stories of their gods, demi-gods and heroes, inconsistent with reason and common sense, their divines have nothing, neither in their sacred books nor by tra- dition, wherewithal to satisfy the inquiries of curious persons, about the nature and essence of their gods, about their power and government, about the future state of our soul, and such other essential points, whereof other heathen systems are not altogether silent. For this reason it was, that when the foreign pagan Budsdo (Budhist) religion came to be introduced in Japan, it spread not only quickly, and with surprising success, but soon occasioned a difference and schism even between those who remained constant and faithful to the religion of their ancestors, by giving birth to two sects, which the Sintoists are now divided into. The first of these sects is called Juitz. The orthodox adherents of this continued so firm and constant in the religion and customs of their ancestors, that they would not yield in any the least point, how insignificant soever. But they are so very inconsiderable in number, that the Canusis or priests them- selves make up the best part. The other sect is that of the Riobus. These are a sort of Syncretists, who for their own satisfaction, and for the sake of a more extensive knowledge in religious matters, particularly with regard to the future state of our souls, endeavoured to reconcile, if possible, the foreign pagan religion with that of their ancestors. In order to this, they suppose that the soul of Amida, whom the Budhisls adore as their saviour, dwelt by transmigration in the greatest of their gods, Ten Sio Dai Sin, the essence, as they call him, of light and sun. Most Sintoists confess themselves to this sect. Even the Dairi, or the ecclesiastical hereditary Emperor's whole court, perhaps sensible enough of the falsity and inconsistencies of the religion which they profess, and convinced how poor and weak their arguments are whereby they endeavour to support the almost divine majesty and holiness which their master arrogates to himself, seem to incline to this Syncretism. Nay, they have. E 3 54 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. creed have obtained a general currency in the coun- try and universal ascendency over the popular mind. Both in China and in Japan and throughout all the shown not long ago that they are no great enemies to the foreign pagan worship ; for they conferred the archbishopric, and the two bishoprics of the Ikosiu, the richest and most numerous sect of the Budhists, upon princes of the imperial blood. The secular monarch professes the religion of his forefathers, and pays his respects and duty once a year to the Mikado, though at present not in person, as was done formerly, but by a solemn embassy and rich presents. He visits in person the tombs of his imperial predecessors, and frequents also the chief temples and religious houses where tliey are worshipped. When I was in Japan myself, two stately temples were built by order of the secular monarch in honour of the Chinese philosopher Koosju, or, as we call him, Confucius, whose philosophy they believe was com- municated to him immediately from heaven, which same opinion the Greeks formerly had of the philosophy of Socrates. One thing remains worth observing, which is, that many, and perhaps the greatest part of those who in their lifetime constantly pro- fessed the Sinios' religion, and even some of the Sootos or Moralists, recommend their souls on their death-bed to the care of the Budhist clergy, desiring that the Namanda might be sung for them, and their bodies burnt and buried after the manner of the Budhists. The adherents of the Sintos' religion do not believe the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, although almost universally received by the eastern nations. However, they abstain from killing and eating of those beasts which are serviceable to mankind, thinking it an act of cruelty and ungratefulness. They believe that the souls, after their departure from the bodies, transmigrate to a place of happiness seated just beneath the thirty-three heavens and dwelling-places of their gods, which on this account they call Takamanofarra, which signifies high and sub-celestial fields ; that the souls of those who have led a good life in this world are admitted without delay, but that the souls of the bad and impious are denied entrance, and condemned to err, with a time sufficient to expiate their crimes. This is all they know of a future state of bliss. But besides these Elysian fields, these stations of happiness, they admit no hell, no places of torment, no Cimmerian darkness, no JIETEJIPSYCHOSIS. 33 numerous oriental regions over wliicli this -wide- spread form of superstition extends, the doctrme of a metempsychosis is the only deep-rooted principle of an idolater's creed, supplying to liim a few dim glim- merings of the nnderlpng truth of a future state of rewards and punishments. God has not left himself without witness in the souls of the heathen. " The work of the law written in theii' hearts " exerts its power on behalf of truth, '' their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhUe accusing or else excusing one another." The various fictions of an idolater's belief, as the transmigi-ation of the soul and the various stages of its future exist- ence in the higher and more perfect, or in the lower and more debased classes of animals — the dogma of a human spirit receiving hereafter in the form of a horse, a dog, a reptile or a man, an apportionment of punishment for the sins or of reward for the "sdrtues unfortunate state attending our souls in a world to come. Nor do they know of any other devil but that which they suppose to animate the fox, a very mischievous animal in this country, and so much dreaded that some are of opinion that the impious, after their death, are transformed into foxes, which their priests call Ma, that is, evil spirits. " The chief points of the Sintos' religion (and those the observation whereof, its adherents believe, makes them agreeable to the gods, and worthy to obtain from their divine mercy an immediate admission into the stations of happiness after their death, or, what is more commonly aimed at, a train of temporal blessings in this life), are, — 1st. The inward purity of the heart. 2nd. A religious abstinence from whatever makes a man impure. 3rd. A diligent observation of the solemn festival and holy days. 4. Pilgrimages to the holy places at Isie. To which by some very religious people is added, 5. Chastising and mortifying their bodies." E 4 56 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. of the present life — are all but illustrations of the same great moral law — an originally-prevailing though subsequently well-nigh obliterated conviction of the existence of a great Almighty Lawgiver and Judge — an indefinite expectation of a judgment to come. These delusive hopes and expectations of the unenlightened heathen are but the feeble vague guesses of unassisted nature, guiding them to some theory of belief or some invention of superstition by which they may correct the anomalies of prospering crime in the world, and holding out to the votaries of false religions some vindication of divine justice in the punishment of the wicked. The religion of a Japanese may be summed up as consisting in attendance upon the temples and the observance of festival-days. With the Sintoists he has some vague notions of merit in the preservation of pure fire in the family-shrine, in an imaginary purity of soul, in pilgrimages, in periodical prayers, in prostrations, in contribu- tions to the alms-box in the temples, and in wor- shipping the Kami. Abstinence from animal food is also a meritorious act in the eyes of the people, and a duty especially incumbent on the priest- hood. But this is probably a principle of political economy aiming at the conservation of the species of animals most useful for beasts of burden and tillage of the soil, rather than a religious principle of action. With the rites of the Budhists an ordinary Japan- ese is equally familiar and at home. All religious BUDHISTIC AND ROMISH RITUALS. 57 observances possess equal favour in his eyes, which afford a sense of self-righteous merit or promise him a festive holiday. The detailed workings of the system have a marked counterpart among the populations of continental Europe. The various particulars of Budhistic worship have often pro- duced a strange sense of resemblance to the cere- monies of the Eoman Catholic Church. The simi- larity between the two systems has often been a stumbling-block to a European visitor, and long ago bewildered and distressed the ancient Jesuit and Dominican missionaries to Japan. The interior of a Budhist temple suggests many points of identity with the gorgeous forms and ritual of the Roman Catholic system. Prayers in an unknown Indian tongue — the fumes of incense-sticks — the burning candles on the altar-table — the tinkling of bells — the shaved head and flowing vestments of the priest- hood — the processions in the temples — the existence of monasteries and nunneries — the vow of celibacy the merit of fastings and of pilgrimages to the more renowned and sacred localities of the country the vain repetition of the same sentence and counting their prayers with a rosary of beads — the institution of an itinerant mendicant order of priests — and, above all, the lucrative trading in the superstitious fears of the vulgar, and the all-prevalent custom of prayers and intercessions for departed souls imprisoned in the gloomy horrors and tortures of purgatory — form a strange combination and collection of undesigned coincidences of likeness, well calculated to embarrass 58 TEN WEEKS IN JAl'AN. the first emissaries of the Papacy to this country, and to impress every impartial and unprejudiced spec- tator with a conviction of their having originated in the independent and mutual afiinities of error. Ordinary beggars form a spectacle by no means uncommon in Japan. They beset the stairs leading to the temples, and are very importunate in their solicitations of ahns from the passing crowd. The Japanese of our acquaintance discouraged us from affording relief evert to the sick and diseased, the halt and maimed, the blind and aged, who frequently threw themselves in our way. They dissuaded us from giving eleemosynary relief by the assertion that there was no such thing as pauperism in Japan, — that a feeling of clanship and the duties of family-relationship were a sufficient safeguard against the prevalence of real destitution and want, — that helpless strangers overtaken with disaster or atSicted with sickness at a distance from their homes are immediately provided for by the magistrates and sent back at the public expense to their native dis- tricts, — and that consequently every beggar in the public streets might reasonably be suspected as being an idle, worthless or dishonest man. Only one class of mendicants seems to find favour with the Japanese. These consist of companies of beg- ging priests perambulating the streets, and by din of voice and tinkling of bells exacting a gift from every shop and dwelling which they pass. Occasionally a long string of these bare-shaven itinerants exceeding twenty in number, might be seen chaunting a melan- irEXDICAXTS. 59 clioly monotonous dirge-like tune, each carrying a lac- quered vessel for the customary dole of rice, shaking a pole covered with little bells to attract attention to their demands, and levying their contributions on every house in the neighbourhood. Sometimes Ave met a couple of these priests wearing a straw hat and ac- coutred in a light travelling dress, acting in partner- ship ; one bearing on his back a light paper shrine about a yard high, on which an idol T\"as seated, while the other collected alms and afterwards divided the collec- tion. The Yammabosov "mountain-soldiers" — a clas? of austere hermits — are the most noted of this class of mendicant vagabonds and religious impostors, who live upon the superstitions of the ignorant populace and their own lying assumptions of fictitious merit and miraculous wonders. To another class of beggars whom I frequently observed in the streets it is more difiicult to assiom their real position and character. A solitarv mu- sician might sometimes be seen clad in the hum- blest garb and wearing a straw-plaited hat. which in the form of a bee-hive reached down to liis neck and concealed his features. Only a few small slender openings in the pattern of the plait enabled the wearer to view the external world throui^h his visor and to thread his way from house to house. Playing a slow mournful tune on a flute, he passed tardily and wearisomely along his route, abstain- ing from all importunate demands and conten- tedly receiving only such alms as spontaneously were dropped into his suspended bag in front. An 60 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. obscure mystery hangs over the real character of these men. Common rumour assigns them as be- longing to the class of disgraced officers who having incurred degradation and punishment by the ruling powers are condemned to live upon the alms of the charitable, with the permission or prescriptive custom of veiling their face and concealing their coun- tenance from the rude gaze of their possible acquaint- ances in the passing throng. 61 CHAP. y. LOCAL GOVEENMENT OF XAGASAEJ. VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR OF XAGASAKI. COJv"VEBSATIOX. XATTTE £E- PORTEHS. SYSTEM OF DCALISJI. SPIES. DUllCLLTIZi OK LOCAL GOVERNMENT. IXDEPESDEXCE OF FOREIGX PKiPUCTS- OSfTErC- TIONS TO GROWTH OF FOBEIGS COlUtEECE. ;rST>AT SEEVICJi; FOR EUROPEANS. " TEMPLE OF GREAT VIBTTX." Nagasaki is one of the five imperial ciries of Japan, unincluded in the territory of any of the vassal prince? and feudal lords of the soil, among -svhom the whole country is divided and to whom the people in each district are subjected according to the principles of the most absolute and despotic form of government. The imperial cities are governed bv officers speciallv delegated from the Secular Emperor and respon-ible to the imperial Court at Yeddo. He enjovs a peculiar jurisdiction over these cities; and their revenue thus forms an appanage of the monarch of Japan. This local exemption of Nagasaki from the authority of the surrounding territorial princes is often a source of jealousy and occasionally a ground of dis- pute to the petty despots of the adjoining districts. The governor of Nagasaki holds his appointment direct from the central imperial authority; and on account of the recurrence of grave matters of foreign diplo- macy and the danger of local complications with 6-2 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. European nations, this post is usually filled by some officer in whose administrative skill great con- fidence is reposed. One of my earliest excursions into the city was a visit of ceremony paid in company with the British Consul to the governor of Nagasaki. The nature of my office had been previously explained to him, and my ministrations among the foreign community on the Sunday had doubtless been duly announced by native spies. The proposed object of the visit was to give me an opportunity of paying my personal respects to the constituted authorities of the city. The prevalent rules of native politeness and their desire to cultivate friendly relations with foreign officials, doubtless influenced them in naming a day for the interview and inviting us to a Japanese repast. Accordingly the British Consul, the con- sular surgeon and myself, after crossing in a boat over a part of the harbour and landing on the north- eastern side of the bay, proceeded on small Japanese horses through a few streets, and at length arrived before what must in courtesy only be called the palace of the governor. We passed into an outer court surrounded with a few sheds and outhouses, some of them stored with lumber and none of them affording signs of marked affluence or wealth. At the entrance of an outer room the governor and the two vice-governors received us with due formality and preceded us into the inner refection-room. Two rows of tables extended do-wn the length of the room; and probably in order to avoid all errors VISIT TO GOVERNOK. f.3 of etiquette in the adjustment of our respective ranks, the three highest native officials were placed at one table immediately facing and seated on chairs corre- sponding with the three foreign guests. Nearly a dozen other two-sworded officials were seated lower down in the room ; and only the native interpreters and reporters occupied the usual squatting posture on the ground. In accordance with Japanese custom their sandals were left at the entrance, and they wore only white stockings with a cloven space for the shoe latchet to enter at the side of the great toe. The governor was a man apparently about thirty -five years of ao-e. His two subordinates were men more advanced in life, and probably between fifty and sixty years of age. A collation of tea, hot wine and spirituous liquors with sweet-meats, cakes and fruit, was handed round, and the usual civilities of Japanese hospitality were exchanged. After a few preliminary compliments an attempt was made to enter upon a conversation; but here- upon great difficulties were experienced. The chief governor was afraid to commit himself by any definite reply on any given subject however trivial or un- important ; and referred to the vice-governor, his official subordinate and spy. He again referred to the third official, himself fulfilling also the duties of deputy, councillor, controller-general and spy. Every- thing passed through a native interpreter, a young man of intelligent, quick and cunning aspect, who, alternately rising on his knees and bowing to the floor, rendered our English sentences into Japanese, 64 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. adding explanations and suggestions of his own, and joining in the laughing tones in which every sentence was repeated. The miserable system of espionage and magisterial dualism rendered each man distrustful of his neighbour; and even the most common-place subject of conversation seemed to excite an anxious sense of danger in their minds. Everything was re- ceived with aiFected peals of laughter. They chuckled and laughed again, and endeavoured with an ill suc- cess to assume the manner of persons well at ease. Every question was handed about from one to the other ; and then when they had turned it round and round, and surveyed it from every point of view, they commissioned the interpreter to give some vague reply, and thus endeavoured to pursue the even tenor of official non-committal and reserve. The Consul informed me that this is their usual levity of manner, and that the announcement of some great calamity of wide- spread conflagration or swallowing up of a city by an earthquake is introduced with more than ordinary accompaniments of light-heartedness and laughter. Although unwilling to communicate in- formation, they were inquisitive in seeking intelli- gence respecting foreign places. They asked the amount of the population of Hongkong, How many stories in height did the English houses contain? would the new foreign dwellings at Nagasaki be built of a similar height? Would not high stories shut out the sea-breeze? Of what materials would the houses and the doors be composed? They remarked that the liability to earthquakes in Japan prevented TOPICS OF CONVERSATION. 65 the building of lofty solid houses, and mentioned the difficulty of the Japanese government at Yeddo complying with the demand of the Russian govern- ment to erect a lofty stone monument sixty feet in height to the memory of the two Russians from their fleet lately assassinated in that neighbourhood. The interpreter stated to us that such a monument would be demolished on the first occasion of their frequent earthquakes. On our part a few questions were put, but we could with difficulty extort any definite reply. I casually alluded to the fact of my having visited Loochoo ten years ago in a Queen's ship, and inquired whether it was a part of the territory of the Emperor of Japan. In reply they professed to be unable to give me any definite information ; they ventured to express their humble opinion that Loochoo formerly belonged to Japan ; and then the laughter gave the usual finish to their reply. Were the Loochooans permitted to trade with Japan? They regretted their ignorance and excused their inability to give us the required information. After many parryings and subterfuges, they at last went so far to compromise themselves as to express their belief that the Loochooans were not of pure Japanese origin, but were a mixed race com- posed of Japanese, Chinese and Formosan descent. It was not until the close that we noticed the rapid motion of pen with which a native reporter was re- cording our words and passing with hurried move- ment from page to page. Every incident of the in- terview was doubtless made the subject of an official 66 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. report, which was soon on its way to Yeddo 700 miles distant. He once turned round and compared notes with a second reporter more retired from view and seated behind the chair of one of the oflicials ; who acted in his turn as a secret watch and spy, and checked by the most precise details the accuracy of the other writer. This system of espionage and checks is a heavy restraint upon the public officers, spreads abroad a universal spirit of mutual distrust, sows the seeds of conspiracy and false accusation broad- cast over the land, and operates prejudicially on the national character by fostering a body of hypocrites and spies in every rank of society. The government is indeed by this odious system rendered almost omniscient in the details of official life. But a heavy price is paid in the universal suspicion and heartless treachery which separates. man from man. The remains of the feast were according to Japanese usage afterwards sent to us at our own houses. The three officials accompanied us on our departure to the outer vestibule, and with greetings and low bowings bade us farewell. Their dress in no respect differed from that universally worn by the wealthier classes in the streets. No official costume beyond the wear- ing of two swords and the family arms embroidered on each man's outer robe, served to distinguish him from any other respectable Japanese whom we met in the streets. The extension of foreign trade and the increased intercourse with the subjects and representatives of the European and American treaty-powers, form the Priutcd byj [apoiUawoodt Sc Co FOEEIGN POLICY. 67 great difficulty of Japanese officials at the present time. Individual Japanese appear to be friendly to foreigners, and to view with favour enlarged oppor- tunities of commercial dealings and pecuniary gain ; but the Imperial Government at Yeddo is known to regard with anxiety the encroachments of foreigners, and has been notoriously influenced by fear in making concessions to Europeans. The presence of foreign armaments and fleets in the vicinity of the Japanese waters exerted a heavy pressure in moving the Im- perial Court of Yeddo from their prescriptive and traditionary policy of exclusion. They succumbed to a present necessity; but they have not yet been disarmed of their fears of a collision with European powers. If we study closely the present condition of Japan and make due allowances for a nation among whom there prevails a spirit of intelligent inquiry and many of whom have a knowledge of the general history of the progress of British dominion in Hindostan, we shall not be greatly surprised at their adherence to the policy of their isolation and their shutting themselves out from foreign revolu- tionary influences in the seclusion of their insular iu- dependence. Proud in the national traditions of their invincibility by foreign invaders, and enjoying the advantage of one continuous line of natural bar- riers and defences in the fogs and mists which pre- vail at all seasons on their coasts, and the tornadoes and typhoons which have wrecked every hostile fleet assailing their native shores, they have never bowed the neck to a foreign yoke and continue to shut them- V 2 gg TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. selves up in the fancied security and impregnability of their insular position. It is among the great princes and the members of the imperial adminis- tration that this jealous exclusiveness more parti- CTilarly prevails. They remember the former civil wars which convulsed the nation ; and they bear in mind that European nations bore their part in aggra- vating the mischief of civil discord. They know too that the ignorance of the multitude is the only foundation on which the continued stability of their own absolute power and feudal despotism can be based. Extorting from the cultivators of land the greater portion of their agricultural produce, and wringing from the peasantry the hard earnings of their daily toil in order to support the numerous and costly army of their own idle and insolent retainers, the vassal princes of the empire make common cause with the Imperial Court and join in riveting more firmly the chains of oligarchical tyranny on the lower classes of the population. Hence arises a sense of insecurity, a dislike of foreign intercourse, a fear of revolutionary ideas, and a continued persistence in the policy of restriction. The known advantages of foreign commerce are outweighed in the view of most of the Japanese rulers by a consideration of the perils caused thereby to the continuance of their political and social system. There are enlightened and liberal men among the Daimios, the princes and lords of the empire; but the majority see no ade- quate inducements to undergo the risk of obvious and grave dangers to their continued rule for the sake MATERIAL ADVANTAGES OE JAPAN. 69 of inconsiderable and uncertain benefit to their ma- terial wealth. The physical aspect of Japan gives plausibility and countenance to such a view. Pos- sessing a fine chmate, a fertile soil, a region of rich mineral wealth, a country teeming with every variety of agricultural produce, a coast indented with mag- nificent harbours, a land of picturesque landscape beauties, and an industrious population skilful and imitative in improving the productive resources of the country, the empire of Japan contains within her own borders everything needful to supply the wants or to minister to the luxuries of her people. Deem- ing themselves therefore independent of foreign sup- plies, and deriving no adequate benefit fi-om the extension of foreign commerce, the rulers of Japan entrench themselves behind their own isolation from the outer world, and reduce to the smallest amount the privileges and concessions of an extended inter- course with the interior of their country. It will be well for foreign governments to remember and make allowances for this public sentiment. The power of the feudal princes is universally felt throughout the empire; and it is not beyond the bounds of possi- bility that a war against foreigners and a repulsion of European encroachments might revive the dor- mant military ardour of the nation and unite the whole Japanese race in a war of patriotism against the intruders. In such an event the mountain fast- nesses of the interior would afibrd an impregnable stronghold to their armies; and the history of our English Edwards ineffectually pursuing the Scottish F 3 70 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. highland rebels to their mountainous retreats may find its parallel and counterpart in an inglorious and impolitic struggle with the government and people of Japan. The local government at Nagasaki in their rela- tions to the foreign consuls have the character of being civil, courteous and yet obstructive withal. Foreign intercourse and trade is the great difficulty of Japanese officials, willing to act with friendly urbanity towards foreigners on the one hand, and at the same time unwilling to incur disfavour with the native Imperial Government on the other. They re- gard the newly-extended commercial intercourse as more troublesome and dangerous than lucrative. The fact is universally apparent that the governing class do not want us in their country ; they desire to be left alone in their isolation and (if it be so regarded) their semi-barbarism; and every new blow which drives inward the inserted wedge makes its shock per- ceptible in the vibrations of alarm through the whole body politic. Many sources of local irritation and misunderstanding occur between the Japanese custom- house and the foreign mercantile residents. At one time the Japanese officials give an arbitrary high conventional value to the native gold and silver coin, in which they compel all ti'ansactions of barter to be made, thus depreciating the silver Mexican dollar which forms the general medium of exchange in China and surrounding countries, and proportionably raising the price of every article purchased. At another time they endeavour to limit all foreign trade SOUECES OF LOCAL IRRITATION. 71 to licensed native buyers and sellers, who are known to be mulcted in a per-centage of the moneys received, and to find relief in a necessary addition to the prices charged to foreigners. Sometimes all native boatmen are prohibited from hiring themselves to foreigners except those who bear a written permit from the custom-house. Large stores of Japanese pro- duce are bargained forj and the transaction is at the last moment delayed or frustrated by the withhold- ing of the requisite sanction of the native authorities. Cases of larceny and petty theft are sometimes detected, and treated with lenient indifference by the magis- trates. In such circumstances, Europeans of warm temperament and rash judgment sometimes take the law into their own hands; and mutual altercations and embittered feeling may be supposed to survive in the remembrance of the injured parties. The ordi- nary mercantile classes of the Japanese, if left to them- selves, would gladly enlarge their dealings and brmg down from the interior districts almost any desired amount of merchandise. The tradesmen and boat- people are in the highest degree friendly ; and in no part of the East do foreigners and natives appear (as a general rule) to live together on better and more harmonious terms. The English and American resi- dents speak in uniformly favourable terms of praise of the native disposition and their amicable feelings to- wards foreigners. The Japanese merchants are repre- sented as more dilatory, undecided and unmethodical in business transactions than their Asiatic neighbours on the continent of China. They consume as many F 4 72 TEN WEEKS TN JAPAN. days in visits and bargainings in disposing of a few hundred dollars' worth of oil or vegetable wax, as the Chinese merchants would occupy in disposing of a million dollars' worth of silk and tea. The truth is that matters political and social, international and commercial, are as yet in an elementary and imper- fectly developed state. Impatient haste may mar the promise of a healthier growth. The conduct of Europeans will be the one great element of favour- able or unfavourable influence operating on their minds. Integrity, fair dealing, and a respectful conciliatory bearing wiU do much in breaking down the moral and social barrier which separates the two races. Foreign residents must ever bear in mind that they are strangers and guests among an inde- pendent and unconquered people. They must learn to lean less upon the threatened intervention of foreign armaments and the presence of foreign fleets, than upon an improvement in their own de- meanour and an exhibition of the courtesies and graces of a Christian life. The British flag flying aloft over any foreign settlement is an £egis of protec- tion and carries with it a moral power in every part of the globe. A British subject or an American citizen bears with him to every land the prestige of his nation's maritime supremacy and strength. But when the plea " Civis Romanus sum " is heard as a ground of immunity and privileged exemption from wrong, let it ever be remembered also that citizenship has its reciprocal duties as well as its prescriptive rights. An overbearing insolent demeanour towards DANGERS OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE. 73 the native races has been the great bane of European intercourse with aboriginal tribes. It will be a dangerous experiment to press too heavily in this respect on the forbearance of a sensitive vindictive race. Large powers must be vested in the consular representatives of foreign nations for checking the earliest symptoms of a reckless spirit of contemptuous defiance of Japanese prejudices, and controlling the disorderly lawless elements which too often pervade a newly-formed mercantile settlement in the remote countries of the East. Care too must be taken that the individuals selected for consular posts and made the depositaries of such large administrative correc- tive powers, be themselves men of high moral charac- ter, and fitted by their ability and judgment for wielding the authority reposed in them for the benefit of their fellow-countrymen and the protection of the native race. On Sunday April 15th I held our first public service according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, which I was able to continue on each of the five Sundays over which my stay in the city extended. Our congregation consisted of British, American and a few Dutch residents, augmented by officers and seamen from some of the merchant- vessels in port. Our number varied from twenty to forty persons according to the state of the weather. The scene of our little assemblage was a building named Dai Toku ji, " the Temple of Great Virtue," being one of a series of Budhist temples forming an extensive monastery on the 74 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. summit of a picturesque hill overhanging the gene- ral level of the city, and rising by an abrupt ac- clivity of one hundred feet from the southern suburb occupied by a portion of the foreign residents imme- diately below. The British Consul and his staff, an officer of Royal Engineers and a few other persons attached to the commissariat or transport service in procuring horses and stores for the ex- peditionary force in the north of China, were among the attendants at the service. The occasion was one of almost historical interest to our minds, — the first formal gathering of our countrymen for divine wor- ship in this long-exclusive land, — the first instance of an Anglican clergyman and bishop officiating among his fellow- Christians in the territory of Japan, offering up their prayers to the Almighty through that Sa- viour whose cross had been the material emblem on which the surrounding pagans were taught to tram- ple with hatred and contempt, — and singing the praises of the Redeemer in that same locality which had ever previously resounded with the chaimtings of Budhist monks and prayers to false gods. I was assisted generally in reading the lessons by my friend Mr. WUliams, who has had the privilege of continuing the Sunday service then inaugurated until the present time. There were present in the congregation not a few young men, trained amid the healthy influences of a Christian home, cast adrift upon the untried moral dangers of an isolated foreign settlement in a pagan land, wandering as sheep without a shepherd in the wilderness, and placed in imminent SUNDAY SBEVICES. 75 danger of making shipwreck of their souls. The Japanese system of licensed brothels as a source of revenue to the government, and the sad undermining of moral principle caused by the facilities of concu- binage with native women, have (it is to be feared) combined in producing among a considerable portion of the foreign community a state of dissoluteness exceeded in no part of the East. I write these things in the fearless yet sorrowful candour of truth. The temple in which our Sunday services were held was occupied at the present time by two English oifi- cers and three private soldiers, who were lodged at the request of the Consul in this quarter of the build- ing. It was by their invitation and arrangement that I was enabled to hold divine service in a central posi- tion for the foreign residents. The scene of our assembling together was ordinarily used as their din- ing-room, temporarily converted into a place of wor- ship. Situated in a spacious area at the top of the hill, and connected with a lovely garden on one side abounding in richest flowers and spreading trees, it commanded a fine view of the harbour and the city with the surrounding country. The building itself bore signs of elaborate and expensive decoration in the bright gilding of the Chinese inscriptions and the mother-of-pearl ornaments profusely inlaid on the lacquered material of which the lintel and door-posts of the main entrance were composed. The images removed, the room cleanly swept, and a few foreign articles of domestic furniture introduced, our military friends were comfortably quartered in a salubrious 76 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAIJ. residence, and the payment of a small monthly rent to the priests rendered all parties superlatively happy and content. A day or two after our first service, there were in- dications of Japanese displeasure at this audacious and novel precedent. A native interpreter attached to the local custom-house informed a mercantile friend of my acquaintance that the occurrence would not be suffered to pass unnoticed, and that an official protest was in course of being drawn up for transmission to the British Consul. It appears that the Prince of Satsuma, a neighbouring province bordering on the limits of Nagasaki to the south, possesses an ancient prescriptive right of precedence in claiming this tem- ple lodging as his own. Powerful in extent of terri- tory, enjoying an immense revenue, and possessing the Loochoo Islands as an appanage of his principality, this high provincial potentate had strengthened him- self by intermarriages with the imperial family, and enjoyed all the prestige and dignity of an independent sovereign. Holding a higher rank in the empire at large, he disdained to make fi-equent visits to the city of Nagasaki, where a functionary of inferior rank held a higher local command and took prece- dence over the proud vassal lords of the neighbouring soil. By beautifying the " Temple of Great Yirtue" and laying the priests under a sense of obligation to their munificence, the Princes of Satsuma had esta- blished an hereditary claim upon their good offices, and the monastery itself was assigned to them as their peculiar lodging place on the rare occasion of their PRINCE OF SATSUMA. 77 public visits to the city. The Prince of Satsuma is largely engaged in foreign enterprise and mercantile speculations on his own account ; and for this purpose he has his agents and establishments in different parts of the city. We subsequently discovered that the reported remonstrance was only the officious act of his subordinates jealous for the supposed rights of their chief, and never proceeded so far as to take the shape of an official communication between the local authorities and the Consul. We had the express stipulation of recent treaties on our side permitting the celebration of Christian services among British and Americans ; and the fact that our place of assembly was the ordinary dwelling of an individual Englishman sufficiently relieved us from the appearance of any violation of Japanese rights or of outrage upon the native religions. After some loud talking and half- menacing on the part of some officials at the customs, the matter was allowed to drop, and we quietly pur- sued our weekly course in continuance of the services. 78 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. CHAP. VI. CITY OF NAGASAKI. LOCAL CHINESE FACTOET AND COMMEHCIAL GUILD. EUEOPEAN SAILOES. OVERDEAWN PICTDEES OF JAPANESE CHAEACTEE BY THUNBEEG. INTEMPEEANCE. StJPEKIOE CLEANLINESS OF JAPANESE STEEETS. SEMI-NUDITY OF PEOPLE. SCENES IN A JAPANESE THOROUGHFARE. OIL-PAPEE COATS. FREQUENT CONFLAGRATIONS. QUACK MEDI- CINES. MEDICAL PEACTITIONEES. PEIESTLY INCANTATIONS IN SICK- NESS. The Chinese form no unimportant part of the foreign community in Nagasaki, and are regarded with much dislike by the Japanese. In ancient times there was a free intercourse and unrestricted commerce between the two countries. But the change produced by former European difficulties and ciAdl wars in the poHcy of the Japanese government towards the Spaniards, Portu- guese and Dutch, was extended also to the Chinese mercantile strangers. After the severe edicts against the Christian religion and the prohibition of Christian books, the Chinese were detected importing Roman Ca- tholic publications, and incurred the heavy displeasure of the government. In the year a.d. 1688 they were forcibly confined to a small settlement on the edge of the harbour, and subjected to the same restrauits as those endured by the Dutch in the neighbouring scene of their imprisonment in Desima. In the year a.d. 1780 the Chinese trading guild was removed a CHINESE AT NAGASAKI. 79 couple of hundred yards further back from the har- bour to a Budhist monastery lying near the foot of the hill which has already been described as the locality of our Sunday services. Rigidly guarded and watched, the Chinese factory shared with the Dutch the humiliation and inconvenience of a com- mon captivity. The various European treaties have secured some privileges for those of the Chinese residents who are in any way connected with Europeans and entitled to the benefits of the new system of foreign trade. A Chinese acquaintance from Hongkong, whom for obvious reasons I shall designate with no more distinc- tive name than the common surname of Mf. Cheung, was often a visitor at my quarters, and supplied me with many details of information respecting the Ja- panese character, regarded of course from the Chinese point of view. My Chinese friend gave a decided preference to the habits of cleanliness which pervade a Japanese dwelling over that which prevails in China, asserting that the Chinese custom of small-footed women ren- dered Chinese wives slow and awkward in their movements, and unable to attend to active household duties with the same effectiveness as their large-footed sisters in Japan. He and the two other Chinese in our own house often discussed in our presence the relative condition of civilisation and morality preva- lent respectively in China and in Japan. Even a Chinaman expresses his disgust at some of the cus- toms of the Japanese, which will be noticed in a subsequent portion of my narrative. 80 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. On one or two occasions I visited the Chinese guild in their confined factory in the southern suburb. A number of Japanese sentries were standing outside and prevented any communication with the inner part. On seeing an Englishman approach, they gave the signal of warning ; and suddenly a number of native officials rushed to the main entrance and closed the postern-gate at the side. No amount of entreaty could induce the guards to relax their strictness. Gradually on receiving our promise not to force an entrance through, they cautiously opened the gate and allowed us to take a brief glimpse of the interior, a mere outer court capable of accommodating only a small proportion of the Chinese settlement. For- merly the Chinese were not allowed to walk into the city; but now they are permitted to stroll about by day on condition of returning to their factory before night. At the present time they amount to about four or five hundred persons, their number being diminished or increased by the departure or return of their junks trading to Japan. The other Chinese who reside outside among the general foreign com- munity attached to European establishments are un- included in this estimate and reckoned as British subjects or American citizens. They drive a petty trade, underselling foreigners and often successfully competing with them in their deahngs with Japanese, through their penurious mode of living and the ab- sence of expensive establishments. There are at the present time three Chinese junks annually permitted to make a trading voyage to Japan. They are sometimes stated to belong to CHINESE GUILD. 81 Chapoo situated in the Bay of Hangchow and lying iatermediate between the consular ports of Shanghae and Ningpo. The more correct statement appears to be that they belong each vessel respectively to the three cities of Soochow, Shanghae and Chapoo, and take their final departure from the last-named city as their common rendezvous. They import large quantities of foreign herbs and "medicines," long- cloths, and the general assortment of Chinese gro- ceries and dry provisions included under the term (tsak-fo) "mixed merchandise." Opium in small quantities is also imported, but only for Chinese con- sumption in the factory, the Japanese not having as yet contracted a taste for this deleterious drug. The Japanese women are permitted to dwell with the Chinese traders, and a few of them are said to have been inveigled into acquiring the habit of indulging in the fumes of the opium-pipe. About three and a half chests each year find their way into Nagasaki, being smuggled through the native custom- house by the furtive introduction ashore of single balls of the inspissated juice, or by boiling it to a fluid in small square tin boxes, and importing it under the general head of " medicines." An English doctor on board a merchant-ship has the unenviable reputation of having ineffectually tried the experi- ment of inducing the Japanese to acquire a relish for opium, and of having failed to reap his expected harvest of iniquitous gain from corrupting the tastes of a hitherto intact race. Above one-half of the Chinese are included under the term of the " Foo- G 82 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. chow guild," and apparently come to Japan by way of Chapoo. The remainder come from Chapoo, Shanghae and other places in the province of Keang- soo, and a few also belong to the city of Ningpo. A few tens of Cantonese are also found among their number ; but these are almost universally attached to European establishments at Nagasaki. The Japa- nese, with the usual tolerant policy of the govern- ment in all cases in which their political fears are not excited, have permitted to the Chinese a free exercise of their religious ceremonies, assigning them special temples and burial-places in the city, and allowing them to establish their national divinities within the factory. Within its precincts are contained the chapel of the "Pruice of Heaven," — the shrine of the guar- dian-spirit of their native district in China, — and a small temple of Kwan-yin, the universal deity wor- shipped by Chinese idolaters and designated by the title of the " Goddess of Mercy." The Chinese community in Nagasaki are exposed to great distress at the present time through the war- like preparations and proceedings of the Anglo-French expedition in China. They often applied to us for information as to the probable tendency of affairs and the prospect of a termination of the war. The three junks which arrived in the previous autumn, after laying in their cargo and being prepared for their voyage home, have been detained here through fear of being captured and becoming a prize to our men- of-war. The time for the second annual trip was approaching, and they were still delayed. Pecuniary CHINESE TEADERS. 83 embarrassment was producing its usual effects, and they were constrained to part with their Japanese cargoes at a diminished and ruinous price. The whole Chinese settlement at this season were begin- ning to feel the effects in a general impoverishment and panic. My Chinese acquaintances endeavoured to impress me with the belief that as a body they were better liked and more popular with the Japanese than the generality of European residents. I cannot say that my observations tended to confirm this view. The rough primitive comfortless mode of Chinese life, and a mutual approach in personal habits, may have brought these two Asiatic races to terms of closer familiarity and enabled them to form acquaintances more extensively with the lowest class. But the personal demeanour of a Chinaman is sometimes parti- cularly insolent and overbearing towards the natives whom he meets. I saw a Chinese inflict a severe kick on a Japanese lad in one of the public streets for no other offence than that he was not sufliciently nimble in getting out of his way. He knew himself to be in the wrong, and avoided our rebuke by a sudden flight down an adjoining lane. A few Chinese strangers may be seen bargaining with the Japanese at the curiosity-shops, and making purchases of lacquered ware and porcelain as presents to their friends in China. Intermingled with the crowd may occasionally also be seen some three or four European or American sailors from a whaling vessel in the harbour, enjoying a cruise in the streets G 2 84 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. after being for two or three years immured on board their ship, and sometimes risking misunderstandings and quarrels by their foolish pranks and noisy frolic. A good-natured exhibition of high overflowing spirits commenced in the best of humours, often embroils a reckless company of foreign seamen in a fracas, and unfortunately sometimes terminates in bloodshed and death. It is absolutely necessary to the per- manency of pacific relations with these oriental nations that stricter regulations be adopted with parties of sailors on liberty ashore, and that a proper officer be appointed on each visit personally respon- sible for their good conduct. On reading the accounts of writers who described Japan a century ago, and comparing their estimate of the national character with the spectacles and ex- hibitions of native customs and usages now to be commonly observed in the streets of Nagasaki, the inference is unavoidable either that those writers, limited in their opportunities of observation, gave an exaggerated and overdrawn picture in favour of the native character, or that the Japanese of the present day have in some important particulars degenerated from the Japanese who lived a hundred or two hundred years ago. Dr. Thunberg, a Swedish physician attached to the Dutch factory, wrote nearly a century ago as follows : — "Japan is in many respects a singular country, when compared with the different states of Europe. In it we behold a form of government, which has existed THUNBEEG. «.5 without change or revolution for ages; strict and un- violated laws; the most excellent iastitutions and regulations in the towns, the villages, and upon the roads ; a dress, coiiFure and customs, that for several centuries, have undergone no alteration; innumerable inhabitants without parties, strife or discord, without discontent, distress or emigrations; agriculture in a highly flourishing state, and a soil in an unparalleled state of cultivation ; aU the necessaries of life abound- ing, even to superfluity in the land, without any need of foreign commerce ; besides a multiplicity of other advantages." " Among the rulers of the country are to be found neither throne, sceptre, crown, nor any other species of royal foppery, which in most courts dazzles and blinds the wondering eyes of the simple multitude ; no establishment of a I'oyal household, no lords in waiting, nor maids of honour ; no extensive and mag- nificent range of stables, no profusion of horses and elephants, nor masters of horse ; no equipages, wheel- carriages, nor cavalry; no wars nOr ambassadors, no public functionaries unused to or unqualified for their respective posts; no corporations, imposts, nor other monopolies ; no play nor coff'ee-houses, no taverns nor alcjhouses ; and consequently no consumption of coffee, chocolate, brandy, wine or punch ; no privileged soil, no waste land's, and not a single meadow ; no national debt, no paper currency, no course of exchange, and no bankers." One is required to stop for a moment's breathing- time in reading this long catalogue of enumerated ills G 3 86 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN- which follow in the train of European civilisation, against which the honest prejudiced Swede pours forth this torrent of radicalism. Without noticing in detail this picture of an oriental paradise which his imagination has painted, I shall leave the incidents which I observed during my stay to speak for themselves and to correct any mis-impressions which this description might be calculated to convey. I cannot however abstain from adverting even at pre- sent to such exaggerated assertions as the following : — " Frugality has its principal seat in Japan." This may possibly be true as to moderation in eating; but never in any portion of the East have I witnessed so large a proportion of cases of drunkenness as in Japan. Again : — " They (the Japanese) have a fixed dislike to gluttony and drunkenness''^ I The present sur- geon attached to the Dutch factory stated to me his belief that after the hour of nine p.m. nearly one-half of the adult population to be met with in Nagasaki are more or less inebriated from the intoxicating draughts of sakee. Reeling men may be seen fre- quently in the streets; and spirit-shops and wine- taverns abound ia every quarter. Again : — " Dearth and famine are strangers to the country." " In the whole extent of this populous empire scarcely a needy person or beggar is to be found." This is also an exaggeration, which is reflated by the presence of numerous beggars, and the ghastly sights of mutilated limbs and running sores which are frequently to be seen. Lastly : — " As the soil is not wasted upon the cultivation of tobacco, or of any other useless plant. TOBACCO. 87 neither is the grain employed in the distillation of spirits or other idle, not to say, pernicious purposes." In no part of the world is tobacco more universally consumed. A tobacco-pipe with metal bowl and short cane tube, and steel, flint, tinder-box and matches for striking a light, are suspended from every girdle, and a necessary appendage to every man's person. Tobacco is grown throughout the country, and its preparation for smoking gives employment to large numbers of the people. Either the writer of these statements must have had his eyes but half open, or the Japanese must have undergone a wonderful change. Thei'e is one particular in which the Japanese are superior to their Chinese neighbours. The fortune- tellers' tables and gambling stands so numerous in the cities of China, are here nowhere to be seen. The laws of Japan interdict gambling by the severest punishments; and no gamester dares to pursue his calling in public. The nearest approximation to gambling which I witnessed was a species of betting on the feats of a tame mouse. A man was generally observed in one of the thoroughfares exhibiting the little animal. Its owner opened a wooden drawer, from which it forthwith escaped, crossed a miniature bridge, pulled open a small door, drew out one of ten papers each enclosing its own number, brought it thence to its master, and then running up his full loose sleeve, buried itself in its folds. Purchases of fruit, sweetmeats and cakes, or a stake of money, were G 4 88 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. decided by the chance number which the mouse singled out from the parcel. In other respects the Japanese manifest a pecu- liarity of their own in the absence of shops for' selling opium, — their exemption from lawless mobs and jostling crowds, — no fights, quarrels or violence in the streets, — the habit of self-control, and the universal ascendency of law preventing a breach of the public peace. Many of the offensive sights and odours com- mon in Chinese thoroughfares are also absent from the scene; no filthy jars and disgusting spectacles in the public resorts. But if some of the disagreeable objects in Chinese streets are absent, it must not be understood that the Japanese have in all these re- spects attained to an English standard of good breed- ing. The Japanese norimon-bearers are often very offensive in their violation of decency; and the de- licacy of a foreign lady must often be sorely tried by the habits of the common Japanese. Even when the thermometer stands below 70° of Fahrenheit, the Japanese labourers and artisans throw aside their upper garments, and pursue their work with nearly their whole person exposed to view. A small strip of cloth or a cotton rag three inches wide by half a dozen in length, connected with a slight piece of string running around the body, is the nearest ap- proach to a loin-cloth and the flimsiest apology for a covering. The children run about at such times of temperate season in a state of perfect nudity. The women suffer their bosoms to remain exposed, and sometimes divest themselves of sleeves, which hang in PERSONAL HABITS. 89 a loose bundle from the tightened girdle confining their nether dress, and thus lay bare the whole upper half of their persons. Naked infants clinging to the bare breasts of their semi-nude mothers are a fre- quent spectacle in the streets. Though they are generally neat and cleanly in their habits, and sca- vengers may be seen sweeping their dwellings and the sides of their streets, it must not be supposed that this favourable verdict is given so much after an European as after an Asiatic standard of judgment. Even in the matter of personal cleanliness there is a strange combination of opposite qualities. Bodily ablutions and unwashed clothing mark the habits of one and the same individual. When they lie down at night, the same clothes which they have worn during the day are taken from their person to become, with the quilt of the mattress on which they sleep, their only covering in the shape of bedclothes. Their gar- ments are worn sometimes for months or even a longer period without being washed; and a warm bath for washing the person appears to be with many of the lower classes an economical provision for sav- ing the trouble and inconvenience of washing their clothes. One peculiar feature in a Japanese street-scene is the number of high wooden pattens making their clattering sound in wet weather, and the slip-shod noise of the ordinary shoes of pedestrians. Their shoes are attached to the front portion of the foot by a piece of string which fits into an aperture of the stocking between the first and second toes. The heel 90 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. of the shoe being unconfined rises and falls on the stone pavement with every step, and in a crowded thoroughfare gives forth a continuous tramping din. The common shoes of coolies and working people are made of straw, and are bound fast to the ankle by ligaments of the same material, enabling the wearer to walk more at ease and at a more i-apid pace. The horses are shod with sandals of the same perish- able material, resembling a whisk of hay tied like a bag around the hoof, and laced with straw bands around the fetlock. At the distance of a few miles a pair of straw shoes, whether for man or beast, is speedily worn out and easily replenished in every village on the way-side. Stockings are universally worn in winter by the wealthier class of people ; and even worsted gloves are not uncommonly to be seen, a piece of foreign luxury introduced by contact with Dutch usages. In the absence of woollen fabrics a sti-ong article of oUed paper manufactured from the inner bark of the mul- berry-tree forms a material widely employed in meeting the necessities of out-door life. Oil-paper outer coats rivalling our mackintoshes and capable of repelling any amount of rain, are sold in the shops at a very trifling cost, and sometimes supplied me with a ready means of escape from a sudden shower. Umbrellas of the same material and in a form resembling the* Chinese are in universal use. Oil-paper is extensively used as wrappers and envelopes for enclosing silk goods in packing, and in stoutness and durability answers every purpose of tin or leaden casing. In the interior FIEB-PROOF STRtrCTUEES. 91 of Japanese houses the walls are papered with an elegant material of similar manufacture, covered with a white glossy figured pattern and giving an air of neatness and comfort to the rooms. Wall-paper appears to be an indigenous invention peculiarly belonging to Japan, and to have preceded by many ages its introduction into Europe. The ravages of fire spread fi'equent disaster and conflagration through the cities. Nagasaki has had its fuU share of these terrible visitations. The foreign dwellings and warehouses at Desima and its vicinity have once or twice fallen a prey to the de- stroying element since the recent opening of foreign commerce. The houses of native tradespeople and shopkeepers generally contain a slight upper story, in which the inmates of the household have their sleeping- room, leaving the required space for trade and barter in the ground-floor below, b'ome white-looking erec- tions of more than ordinary size and finish, stand out occasionally from the general level of roofs and tiles. These are fire-proof enclosures specially raised for holding the more valuable portion of their merchan- dise and as stores for the safe custody of their perish- able treasures. Built of strong materials, they are covered with a thick coating of chunam or white stucco plaster, and have the entrance and windows closely fitted and fastened in a shape which might have sug- gested the original of our own Chubb patent fire-safes. These square buildings are to be met with in every street, and are the only preservative against the oft-recurring devastations of fire. 92 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. The tall perpendicular signboards of Chinese cities are not generally to be met with in Japanese streets. Sentences written in the ordinary Chinese character or in the irregularly flowing easy current style of the Japanese Hiragana character, are to be met with in every direction, inscribed on wooden slabs or moderate-sized frames and containing notices of the articles on sale within. Advertisements of quack- medicines meet the eye at every turn; and Chinese pills and medicinal compounds are emblazoned in bright gUt characters rivalling in their boasted effi- cacy and power of cure the wondrous effusions of our poetical Morrisons and HoUoways in the west. Their medical practitioners sometimes sit for con- sultation in their own homes and receive visits from their patients in their surgery or dispensing-room. Sometimes a native doctor may be seen with the usual distinguishing dress, half resembling a native gentleman and half like a Budhist priest, with a single sword suspended from his side and with bare clean- shaven crown, pacing with erect dignity the street and followed by a servant bearing on his back a portable dispensary with well-furnished fittings of small labelled drawers. Possessing at hand an abun- dant supply of medicines, the native practitioner visits his in-door patients and makes up his prescriptions on the spot. The monotonous sounds of a Budhist chaunt and beating of a hollow piece of wood, are frequently heard from the interior of a Japanese dwelling, in which some inmate of the household lies prostrate INCANTATIONS IN SICKNESS. 03 with fever or is afflicted with any other of the preva- lent forms of sickness. The priests employed belong to various classes of sacerdotal rank and wear diffe- rent styles of vestment, from the coarse garb of the priestly servitor and acolyte to the prelatic robe of the abbot of the temple. Many of the priests are boys serving an apprenticeship to some elder priest, engaged partly in studying the ceremonies of their office and employed partly in the menial duties of the temple. Budhist nuns too are not uncommon of all ages, from the young girl of tender years to the decrepit and septuagenarian priestess. In the houses of the sick boy-priests are often seen engaged in their superstitious rites for expelling the evil demons which bring calamity and for propi- tiating the favourable influence of their divinities. Charms and incantations performed by the priesthood are supposed to have their meritorious power; and the Bonzes are in greater request than the physicians. On one occasion observing a sick man surrounded by the noisy clatter of Budhist sound-boards and beUs accompanying the monotonous prayer of the priest, we learnt on inquiry that the friends of the sufferer had not yet sent for medical help. On other occasions we discovered proofs of the popular mind in such cases being more impressed with the supernatural than with the physical remedies within their reach. A priest's gratuity is more willingly paid than a doctor's fee. 94 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. CHAP. VII. SCENES OF JAPANESE LIEE. STATUAEIES. SCHOOLS. BUDHIST PREJUDICE AGAINST SLAUGHTERING OF ANI5LiU:.S. ORDINARY VEHICLES. KAGOO. NORIMON. LOO- CHOOAN EXPERIENCE. THIEVISHNESS OF NATIVES. SEVERE LAWS. PUBLIC BATHING-HOUSES. SOCIAL EVIL. NON-SECLUSION OF JA- PANESE WIVES. AxTHOTJGH we miss in Japan that spectacle so com- mon in Chinese cities and in rustic pathways — the ela- borately sculptured stone archways and monumental inscriptions erected by Imperial permission to comme- morate some eminent instance of virtuous widowhood or filial piety, handed down for the example and reve- rent memory of posterity, the Japanese are not desti- tute of taste in matters of sculpture and stone orna- ment. Statuaries and ornamental stonemasons abound in every street. Their workshops are strewed with rough blocks of granite in every stage of progress, from the rough rhaterial newly dug from the quarry to the smoothly-chiseled slab, pillar and top-stone ready to complete the sepulchral monument. Grave- stones form the chief demand in the statuary's art, and afford employment to vast numbers of artisans. Sacred inscriptions and massive ornaments for the temple-courts supply also their proportion of work. Their deities and the dead receive all the tribute of architectural art ; while the living are content to SOCIAL DEilARCATION. 93 dwell in buildings of more frail and primitive structure. Literary eminence carries with it no social or political rewards in Japan. The Chinese system of promoting successful graduates independently of birth or wealth to magisterial ofl&ces in the state, gives an impulse to the study of the Confucian classics which renders education in China co-extensive with the pecuniary means of jDarents enabling them to send their boys to school. But in Japan every man's social condition is irrevocably fixed by his birth, and the line of demarcation which separates class from class is impassable and clearly defined. The labouring man continues to labour, the artisan remains an artisan, the merchant remains a merchant, the soldier remains a soldier, and the prince hands down his princely dignities to the tenth or the twentieth generation without hope of pi-omotion or fear of degradation. Hereditary distinctions appear here to operate with aU. the permanency, though without the cruelty, of the Brahminical system of Hindoo caste. Hence literature presents no attractions to the poor scholar in the hope of rising by competitive examinations to the honours and emoluments of the state. There are nevertheless numerous Japanese schools, and the ability to read and write is regarded as an accom- plishment generally sufficient to induce parents to send their children to school. No native gentleman is to be found who would like to confess his inability to read the common Chinese character employed in books. 96 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. On one or two occasions we visited a native school, and were pemiitted to remain awMe in the school- room to observe the details of management. Thirty pupils principally boys were kneeling or sitting on the calves of their legs on the ground learning their lessons from a book, or occasionally rising on their knees and leaning against a low writing-stand placed before each pupil. The venerable schoolmaster sat at one corner of the room listening to the recitation of a lesson, and having a ferule before him ready to inflict correction. His wife and another woman were employed in winding a skein of silk-thread, and ap- parently about to assist in teaching sewing and em- broidery to the female pupils. The girls sat in a side-room by themselves, but learnt the same course of lessons as the boys. There were none of the loud bawling repetitions of every boy learning his task at the highest pitch of voice tolerated by Chinese pedagogues; and everything wore the semblance of orderly and decorous quiet prevalent in a European school. Some were engaged in writing copies ; others in committing to memory portions of the Chinese " Four Books." Mencius and the " Ta Hioh" (Great Lesson) were among the text-books, and furnished a specimen and a proof of the wondrous and widely- diffused ascendency of the sage Confucius over the nations of Eastern Asia. Brief aphorisms and moral sentiments were suspended in large writing around the walls. Chinese books are extensively read throughout the land. Chinese literati have stamped upon Japan the impress of their own peculiar civilisa- NATIVE SCHOOL. 97 tion; and with the deductions and explanations which will subsequently be appended, the Chinese system of ideographic symbols may be asserted to have well- nigh overpowered and supplanted all indigenous systems of literary composition in Japan. The young people in the school seemed to regard our entrance as a period of licence, and to cherish no feelings of excessive awe towards their venerable preceptor. Merry voices and loud laughter were freely indulged in ; and all the laws of discipline fell into temporary abeyance. Large quires of paper entirely covered with ink, resembling bundles of black rags, are frequently seen hanging in the fronts of houses or exposed for sale in stationery-shops. These are an economical con- trivance for enabling Japanese boys to write and re- write their copies on the same blackened surface. The wet marks of the ink-brush being suffered to dry, the sheet is soon ready for a fresh copy. During a stay of ten weeks in this and other parts of Japan it was not my lot to witness a single quad- ruped reared for the purpose of becoming food to man. No goat, no pig, no sheep, came across my view either in the streets of the cities, in the court-yards of private dwellings, or in my excursions among the distant vil- lages and rural homesteads. The only exception was a pet-lamb belonging to a Japanese family near our dwelling in the temple, which we saw led out by the children to feed on the hill-side. It was the offspring of a small flock of sheep presented to the governor of Nagasaki by some American gentlemen connected H 98 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. with Commodore Perry's expedition. Pork is abun- dant in the shops of butchers ; and pigs are kept in swineries away from the public road. Near my residence subsequently at Kanagawa, above a hun- dred pigs were housed and fattened for the butcher's knife in a farm-yard within two hundred yards. The oxen commonly to be seen are regarded more as beasts of burden than as food for man. Probably the Budhist prejudice against eating the flesh of animals extends also to Japan. In China Budhist mendicant priests are sometimes to be seen perambulating the streets and distributing tracts warning mankind of the sin of eating animal food. One such broadsheet once came into my possession, on "which was printed a large outline figure of an ox, the interior of which was filled up with Chinese sentences and poetical verses dwelling with pathetic sorrow on the wrongs inflicted by degenerate Budhists on the bovine spe- cies, and appealing to the religious principles of the sect to spare so useful an animal from the slaughter- house. A small species of black ox bearing a pair of heavy panniers across the back is a frequent and character- istic object in a Japanese thoroughfare. These ani- mals give notice of their approach by tinklings of the bells which are suspended over their haunches and shaken with every movement of their limbs. The small horses of the country are usually ridden by persons of official rank. No wheeled carriages are to be seen in the streets of Nagasaki. The nearest approach to such a vehicle NATIVE VEHICLE. 99 which I observed was a solitary machine used in a timber-yard for transporting immense trunks or beams from place to place, and supported by a pair of wheels. It is not, however, correct to state that wheel-carriages are altogether unknown throughout the country. In the streets of Yeddo the capital, I saw hundreds of carts laden with mercantile goods ; and the roads were cut and indented with deep ruts in rainy weather. The ordinary vehicle of a Japanese who wishes to escape the fatigue of walking or to pay visits to his friends in a style of fashionable gentility, is a square oblong box covered over at the top and open by a sliding door at the sides, in which he is compelled to crouch in a squatting posture, and is borne along by two bearers, one before and the other behind, carrying on their shoulders a long heavy beam from which the machine is suspended. Borne or rather swung along at an uneasy pace, an English- man finds this rude conveyance a most uncomfortable mode of travel. The common kind formed of bam- boo, and used by the middle class of natives, is called a kagoo. The more spacious and more elegantly- finished vehicle employed by the officials and richer Japanese, is made of lacquered wood and more costly materials, and is called a norimon. The squatting posture which seems easy and natural to a Japanese, is very painful after a short time to a European accustomed to sit. I felt compelled to place my legs across in front, and on a longer journey I was under the necessity of occasionally thrusting a leg out of the side to ease the cramped limb at the risk of H 2 100 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. suffering its sudden amputation or fracture by a norimon rapidly crossing us in the opposite direction. I was not altogether unused to this mode of convey- ance, and here append a description of the same kind of carriage in which I took some short excursions in Loochoo in the year 1850.* " The kagoo in which I was borne, is a vehicle only one remove above the contrivances of savage life. It is a mere box, similar in size and shape to that m which meat is hung on the poop of a ship. This little machine, being about two feet and a half in height, and slightly roofed at the top, is open at the sides, with the exception of a little loose blind used at option, and is borne on the shoulders of two men, one before and the other behind, who run along with the weight suspended diagonally forward, at an uneasy, irregular pace of five miles an hour, resembling a jog-trot. The traveller enters at the side and has to squat or sit in Turkish fashion on the bottom of the vehicle, occasionally grasping the pole above to prevent being shaken out into the road, and generally clasping his knees with his hands close to his chin. A more primi- tive invention it is impossible to conceive. This is the only carriage known in Loochoo; and the only improvement in those used by the highest I'ulers con- sists in a little additional width to the floor." Even the ordinary kagoos in Japan are somewhat larger and of lighter construction than those in Loochoo. The most expensive kind of norimons are * Loochoo and the Loochooans, by the Bishop of Victoria. Hatchards, London. JAPANESE. COOLIES. 101 probably a very tolerable mode of conveyance to those who are habituated from infancy to sitting on their heels and knees. The common Japanese coolies who hire themselves as kagoo-bearers, are a far less docile and tractable race than their kinsmen in Loochoo. They are somewhat independent in their bearing and have begun to adopt the unpleasant habit of deeming a foreigner a fair victim for their extortions. Once or twice when everything was ready for a short jour- ney, the kagoo-bearers commenced bargaining for an unreasonable amount of pay; and unless their terms were complied with, they delayed us by their long parleyings, and sometimes even threatened to lay us down and disappoint us of our excursion. The Japanese boatmen also are ready to reciprocate any loud tones of high domineering language, and repel any attempts to treat them as an inferior race of people. It is right to state too that it is a European's own fault if he does not find them generally a most easily managed and friendly race. We are strangers in the land, and we must not too loudly complain if they deem foreign employers a class of men possessed of more wealth than themselves and able to afford an extra rate of remuneration. Their thievishness is the most unamiable part of their character, and the long deep sleeves worn by all classes furnish a ready means of secreting stolen articles. An umbrella or a pocket-handkerchief, a book or any small article of household furniture, is alike acceptable to their highly- developed faculty of acquisitiveness, and is deemed fair H 3 102 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. game for their furtive capture. We had a native ■watch- man during the whole night pacing round our tem- ple dwelling. He was honest according to the current morality of his class, and while he practised largely a series of pilferings on his own behalf, he deemed him- self in duty bound to protect us from the nocturnal depredations of other men. On one occasion a second watchman was placed as a secret watcher on the first ; and the result was a detection of the first in the very act of stealing wood and provisions, and his imme- diate dismissal after being compelled to disgorge a portion of his mal-appropriated booty. Pleasant pictures are sometimes drawn of Japanese manners as resembling Arcadian scenes of innocence, simplicity and bliss. It is not an agreeable discovery to find these glowing bright scenes on nearer aspect a mere series of dissolving views melting away into the sober tints of prosaic reality and commonplace fact. If the Japanese are more exempt than other eastern races from the darker crimes which infest society and desolate the world, the explanation must be sought rather in the sanguinary severity of their laws than in the prevalence of any high moral standard of action. A man who offends in one point is guilty of all and liable to the consequences of disobedience. Death is the one general penalty of transgressing the law. Even thefts of property amounting to forty itzebus (a little more than three pounds sterling) in value, are liable to be visited with the punishment of death. Highway robbery and murder are not of very unfrequent occurrence. During the present year two SEVERITY OE JAPANESE LAW. 103 men waylaid a traveller near the suburbs of Naga- saki, who was known to possess a small siim of money on his person; and after beheading him with their swords, robbed him of the booty. They were de- tected and suifered decapitation for the crime. Hu- man nature itself must indeed have undergone a change, if the severe penalties impending over the criminal operated effectually to the extermination of crime. It is nevertheless undoubtedly true that from the combined influences of the sanguinary and merci- less severity of their punishments, and the ordinary certainty of detection through the ubiquity of spies, Japan seems more than usually favoured among the countries of Eastern Asia, by its exemption from civil tumults and the general security of life and per- son. The division of the whole country into districts, and every district into wards, and every ward into its own little company of family-heads, all mutually re- sponsible and punishable for a breach of the peace or the commission of crime, lends also a powerful help in vindicating the law and causing order to prevail. The public bathing-houses are an institution of Japan which has often been adverted to by those who have visited the country. I shall not dwell longer upon this subject than will suffice to state that they are the ordinary resort of the poorer classes who pre- fer paying a few iron cash for the national luxury of a warm bath in common, to incurring the expense of boiling the necessary quantity of water for a private ablution of their persons at their own homes. To- wards the latter part of the afternoon or at an early 104 TEN WEEKS IK JAPAN. hour of the evening, all ages and both sexes are inter- mingled in one shameless thi^ong of bathers without signs of modesty or of any apparent sense of moral in- decorum. Some persons palliate this custom of pro- miscuous bathing in public by assuming the innocent simplicity of their primitive habits, and dwelling on the wide difference of every country in the conven- tionalities of moral right and wrong. The obvious reply to this charitable theory is that the Japanese are one of the most licentious races in the world. I abstain also from making a more than passing allusion to another of the national institutions of Japan, the government regulation of houses of in- famy and the public revenue accruing from the systematic licensing and control of these resorts of the dissolute. Young females of handsome appear- ance are sold by their venal parents, and consigned at an early age to a life of degradation. At the expiration of their term of service, they are not unfrequently taken in marriage by the middle class of Japanese, who regard it as no disgrace to select their wives from such institutions. The social position of the female sex among the Japanese appears to be more favourable than in most pagan countries. It is Christianity alone which has fully emancipated and enfranchised woman and se- cured to her in the family and in society the exalted station of moral influence, as a virtuous companion, a sympathising counsellor and an .unselfish sharer of man's sorrows and joys, originally designed by a merciful Creator amid the primitive purity and in- SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMAN. 105 nocence of Paradise. Paganism and Mahomedanism have systematically degraded woman and reduced her to the position of an inferior and a slave. The daughters in a Japanese family appear to receive an equal amount of parental care and atten- tion with that bestowed on their male offspring. The ideas which prevail among the Chinese of the misfor- tune of having female children do not seem to exist among this people. No waihngs of grief and sounds of mourning are heard on the birth of a daughter. Female infanticide, which in some of the maritime villages of Amoy and the adjoining parts of the pro- vince of Fokien reduces by nearly one-half the pro- portion of female children among the poorer classes of rustic population, does not extend to the country of Japan. Neither excessive destitution, nor the Chinese sentiments of the degradation of woman and the uselessness of daughters in a household, have operated in producing this cruel and mnatural prac- tice among the Japanese. Among the groups of little children which line each side of the more retired streets or the pathways of the rural hamlets, girls seemed to be held in equal estimate with boys, and to occupy no lower place in the circle of home affections. Their little daughters are caressed with aU the manifestations of fond endearment by every class alike of rich and poor. Even in China, where the absence of male offspring carries with it a peculiar weight of domestic calamity in the prospect of no male descendant to pay worship before the ancestral tablet and to make sacrificial 106 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. offerings at the tomb, natural affection generally asserts its supremacy, and female children entwine themselves around a parent's heart. In Japan, nothing beyond the universally prevalent pagan sen- timent of the inferiority of females, operates to the disadvantage of woman in the family circle. Japanese girls have much care bestowed upon their instruction in the accomplishments of life. Among the better classes they are taught in the arts of playing the guitar, dancing, singing songs, and ministering to the amusement of the other sex. Women may sometimes be seen engaged in agri- cultural employments in the fields. But they do not appear to' be reduced, even among the lowest classes, to the hard servitude of out- door bodily toil often seen in other countries. Japanese ladies are accustomed on their marriage to extract the hairs of their eyebrows from the roots and dye their teeth with a black colour. A mixture of iron-filings, acids and other materials is applied, and the white teeth of the maiden are changed into a jet black, which gives a repulsive and disgusting ap- pearance to Japanese married ladies. The universal custom of dyeing the lips with a deep red colour, and the plentiful besmearing of their faces with white powder or flour-dust, excite a disagreeable impression of a Japanese lady's toilette. Black teeth are a protec- tion to their wearer. The wives are the best-con- ducted portion of the population. The laws concerning adulteiy are rigidly severe against the female offender. A.n injured husband may also himself inflict death on JAPANESE WIVES. 107 the spot upon a guilty male paramour, provided that he visit the offending wife with the same severity of vindictive retribution. Japanese husbands give themselves a universal licence ; and their dissolute life carries with it no disgrace or punishment. But the women, when once they become the mistress of a household and blacken their teeth, are separated for ever from the temptations and the dangers of un- married life. The wives in a household appear to hold a more independent and less secluded position than in China. It is not an unfrequent sight to see a husband and wife eating their meals in common, sitting together in the same room exposed to the public gaze of passers-by, and assisting each other in the ordinary transactions of their business and trade. The wives often take their place in a shop and relieve their husbands of the more sedentary portion of their duties. They appear also to occupy more fully than elsewhere in the East a post of confidence and part- nership in the cares and occupations of daily life. A married woman seems to be admitted among the lower and middle classes to an intimacy and familiar intercourse with strangers, visitors and customers, which presents an appearance of approximation to the ideas and habits of European society. Sometimes a Japanese woman of respectability and moderate means may be observed visiting the counting-houses of some of the newly-settled English or American merchants, and plying a barter or closing some com- mercial transaction in the articles of silk, tea or 108 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. vegetable wax. A Japanese wife sits with her husband in the shop, not only helping him in his accounts, but advising him also in his mercantile dealings, and bearing her share in the calculations of loss and gain. Their children too form a part of the family picture, and engross no small amount of pa- rental fondness and care. They are apt to indulge their children in their capricious childish whims, and give them a wide margin of licence in their infan- tile sport and play. I saw one child old enough for correction deliberately seize and break some little glass ornaments one after another exposed for sale in the shop, scattering the fragments on the ground and receiving in return the laughter and renewed pettings of its admiring and over-fond parents. A family scene in the middle rank of society is not the least pleasing and redeeming feature of Japanese life.* * Thunberg writes in the usual strain of what has been termed a " Japan-stricken enthusiast : " — " Subordination to govern- ment and obedience to their parents are inculcated into children in their early infancy, and in every situation of life they are in this respect instructed by the good example of their elders, which has this eifect that the children are seldom reprimanded, scolded or chastised." 109 CHAP. VIII. POPULAE CUSTOMS. MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF JAPANESE. NEW-YEAK HOLIDAYS FIVE GREAT NATIONAL FESTIVALS. — BUDHIST PURGATORY. FLYING KITES. girls' HOLIDAY IN A TEMPLE. MINSTRELS. STREET COMEDIES. The marriage ceremonies of the Japanese are related in lengthened detail by some European writers, and are no unimportant part of social etiquette. Diplomatic mediators are commissioned to negotiate between the parties, and the customary presents and tokens are duly established by usage. The wedding is celebrated at a convivial meeting of both families ; and the place of every relative is arranged on the strictest rules of precedence. Deep potions of sakee form no incon- siderable part of the festival ; and the bridal pair are launched upon matrimonial life amid the exuberant hilarities of family feasting. In the upper ranks of life the principals in the marriage-contract are interdicted by the polite usages of aristocratic custom from having a personal inter- view before the celebration of the marriage. Various methods however are adopted by Japanese gentle- men of youthful age for eluding this inconvenient and unreasonable interdiction ; and in later times it appears that the rule has been often thought as better honoured in its breach than in its observance. Stolen 110 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. opportunities of observing the lady's personal claims to beauty are contrived by the inventive ingenuity of intending bridegrooms, before matters have pro- ceeded so far as the delegation of a middle person to initiate the proposal of a matrimonial alliance. Among the lower classes the formalities and obligations of etiquette are less binding. A Japanese of moderate wealth and station may proceed so far as to obtain a personal interview ; and if he be dissatisfied with the personal appearance of the lady, he is not yet irretrie- vably committed to the step of making her his wife. The advantages of family connection and good birth exert also their influence in leading to his decision. The frequent disappointment experienced by expec- tant brides is said to have gradually abolished the custom of formal interviews; and a young man is obliged to content himself with a transient view of his intended, as she is carried by in her norimon or visits the temples in a passing throng. If the view prove satisfactory to his tastes, a married friend of his acquaintance is delegated with the grave negotiations and makes his formal visit for the purpose to the lady's parents. It is to be feared that among people of quality the Chinese usage of affiancing their children in infancy more ordinarily prevails, and that husbands in the higher classes are bound for life to wives in whose selection they have had no voice. The usual evil consequences of such ill-assorted marriages naturally prevail; and Japanese gentlemen in such cases deem themselves at liberty to take into their house as many MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. Ill concubines as their wealth and inclinations may de- cide. The custom of purchasing secondary wives or concubines, though less common, is not unknown among the lower classes. The children of all alike are deemed legitimate offspring and adopted by the prin- cipal wife or mistress of the household. In former times a betrothed bride was not allowed to contract a second engagement in the event of her husband-elect dying before the consummation of the marriage. The cruel tyranny of such a custom was not hkely to be respected or to hold a perpetual sway over the lower orders in a land where practical com- mon sense maintains its habitual ascendency and power. Even the vassal princes and feudal lords of the empire have gradually relaxed the rigour of this rule. In the various branches of the imperial family this regulation appears to have been very recently in force. Titsingh relates in the latter part of the last century: — "If the present Djogoun" (Siogoon, Ty- coon, or secular emperor at Yeddo) "who previously to his being elected hereditary prince in 1779, was betrothed to the daughter of the Prince of Satsuma, had died before the consummation of the marriage, the princess would have been obliged to remain single all her life. Had 'he been sooner elected successor to the throne, he would have been obliged to marry a princess of his own family, or of the court .of the Dairi " (i.e. the Mikado, the spiritual or ecclesiastical emperor at the religious capital, Miako). Titsingh relates the following strange illustration of Japanese manners in his day : — " In ancient times 112 TEN WEEKS IS JAPAN. the following custom prevailed in the province of Ozu. "Whoever took a fancy to a girl, wrote his name on a small board called nisi-kigi, and hid it between the mats in the ante-chamber of her house. These boards showed the number of her lovers, and re- mained there till she took aAvay that of the man whom she preferred. At present the choice of a wife de- pends throughout the whole empire on the will of the parents. Of course there is seldom any real affection in these matters, and the husband cares but little about his wife. AU the men, from the highest to the lowest, keep concubines or frequent brothels." The state of Japanese social morals is by universal testimony judged to be very dark and degraded. Titsingh, in the 251st page of his work, mentions in glain terms the existence of a class of infamous houses in their cities, and the practice of abominable vices in the private dwellings of the rulers calculated to paint in the blackest colours the moral and social degradation which then prevailed. The Japanese of the present day affect to disbelieve and strongly deny the prevalence of such forms of criminality at the pre- sent time. There is, however, a palpable shameless- ness in all classes and among both sexes of natives. No delicacy, no modesty, no sense of shame appears to be recognised among the courtesies of life; and scenes which would have produced confusion and embarrassment in the female circles of Europe, were specially pointed at and exulted in as a subject of fair merriment and jocose laughter between married NATIVE LICENTIOUSNESS. 113 persons of opposite sexes within the sphere of my ob- servation. Frequent visits were paid to the dwelling of the two earliest Protestant missionaries on their first arrival by fathers and mothers anxious to gain a temporary settlement for their daughters and to hire them out for monthly wages. Universal incredulity was expressed at the moral purity of the newly- arrived strangers. Even their religious mission and office served not to protect them from these visits and proposals. Female visitors in company with their husbands and above suspicion as to their propriety of life, in the natural course of conversation addressed to them the inquiry as to the detailed arrangements of such an unhallowed relationship universally assumed to have been contracted in the temple. On this par- ticular vice the moral sense seems blunted, and the national conscience is paralysed and disabled from clear perceptions between right and wrong by gross and lengthened familiarity with the evil. Young females themselves, if belonging to families of slender means, evince an ambitious desire of pro- motion into the household of a foreigner ; and regard their improved food, comforts and pay as a preferable lot to the drudgery of an ordinary Japanese house- wife. The Budhist priests show the worst example to the people, and are universally looked upon as violating the vows of celibacy. In the public festivals in the various temples white-toothed maidens of fairest , exterior were often observed among the casual atten- dants upon visitors in bringing refreshments and 114 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. obeying the orders of their priestly master; and popular rumour reports them as generally being per- manent nocturnal inmates of the establishment. The Chinese element is very perceptible in the literature, religion and festivals of Japan, which coun- try owes a large portion of her peculiar phase of civilisation to early intercourse with her neighbour on the continent of Asia. The text-books in their schools, their models of literary style, the very lan- guage itself of native authors, and the whole system of their political ethics are borrowed from the Con- fucian sages and literati of China. The same scep- tical indifference towards the religious observances of the multitude, and superiority to the idolatrous super- stitions of Budhism, which prevail among the scholars and official magnates in China, have reappeared in Japan as the necessary consequence of their study of the Chinese classics and the ascendency of the na- tional sage of China over the educated portion of the Japanese. Hence it arises that amid all the external semblance of zeal and devoutness on the part of the lower orders and the female portion of the Japanese people, the materialism of Chinese philosophers has been transplanted into Japan, and a disbelief in a future state of rewards and punishments very generally pre- vails among the upper classes. Reverence to parents, obedience- to magistrates, peiiodical worship of the presiding tutelary divinity of each district, and, above all, the customary offerings at the ancestral tombs, form here, as in China, the principal part of religious duties. Visits to certain sacred shrines, pilgrimages to holy places and observance of the national holidays HOLIDAYS. 115 constitute the most of what is deemed their religious life. The celebration of holidays and festivals is a grand commemoration in which all classes alike participate. Many of these have been introduced from China in early ages, and have now become deeply rooted in the time-honoured institutions of Japan. The Japanese are essentially a holiday-keeping race. The sentiment of religion helps the natural bias of their disposition. Strictly defined social divisions, hereditary trades, the bonds of prescriptive custom, the distinction of classes and the ordinary impossibility of a man rising above the rank and calling of his father, remove many of the inducements prevailing elsewhere for the accumula- tion of wealth and dispose the majority of persons to pluck the fruit of present enjojnnent of their money. Hoarded riches present fewer attractions to a people who cannot (as in China) purchase honorary rank from the government. Ambition is checked and sen- sual indulgence receives a proportionate impulse. On every fine day numbers of the middle class of tradesmen may be seen going forth in family groups and gay holiday attire to rusticate on their pictu- resque hills and to enjoy a refection in the public houses of refreshment which form a peculiar feature in their highways and scenes of resort. They seem to regard it a religious duty to keep holiday and make merry. Often this sentiment makes itself perceptible in the questions put to foreign visitors in their distant excursions. As we rode on horseback through the villages, the people generally asked us if this day I 2 116 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. were Zondag (Sunday). It is to be feared that the foreigners with whom they have been too frequently brought into intercourse, and especially the Dutch of former times in their long isolation from the moral restraints of Christendom, have given a general cur- rency to the idea that the Zondag (Sunday) was a day of pastime. This Japanese transferred term from the Dutch word for the holy day of Christians ap- pears to be suggestive to their minds more of a holi- day excursion than of a rehgious observance and day of rest. Sometimes a Japanese neighbour or some friend of our acquaintance walking in the street with his gaily-attired daughters or by the side of some elder lady of his household riding in her noriraon, would answer our inquiries by saying that he had been taking his Zondag in a holiday-trip of pleasure. The great holiday of the new year, extending over the former half of the first month and generally falling during our month of February, exists in Japan in all the gala-day jubilant rejoicings of its great Chinese original. Visits of ceremony, presents in families, feastings among friends, fireworks and crackers, fine clothes and universal idleness, mark this recurring season of the new year. The period of new and full moon brings with it also its customary relaxation from business, but is not marked by any general signs of holiday. The special festivals of the various Budhist sects or the commemorative religious anni- versaries in honour of the founders of particular temples, have also their attractions with the idle or carry their obligations on the devout. The anni- NATIONAL FESTIVALS. 117 versaries of the decease of parents and the sacred days fixed by the Budhist calendar after the funeral of a recently-deceased member of the family, form also to each individual a special season of religious obser- vance. But the great periods of the five national holidays of Japan are more especially the season of universal holiday and popular rejoicing. Compared with these the other observances which have been described, are partial and local. On these five special seasons the whole population of Japan keeps its national holiday, and the Japanese race throughout the islet-studded archipelago of its many shores and provinces relaxes from care and gives itself to merriment and joy. They are considered pre-eminently fortunate days, and are a time for grand levees and mutual visits. They possess also the prescriptive authority of a long and venerable antiquity, and the additional force of owing their time of observance to the special appointment of the supreme spiritual authority of the nation. In the seventh century of the Christian era, the times of their observance, previously irregular and uncer- tain, were finally settled and fixed by the Dairi or Court of the Ecclesiastical Emperor, before he was denuded of his temporal dominion and reduced to a mere shadow of power. The first national festival of Japan occurs in the mid- dle of the new year's holidays and is held on the seventh day of the first month. It is called by the learned the " Day of Man." People entertain their friends with a pottage of peculiar composition, exchanging I 3 118 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. Tisits of congratulation, and wishing each other a long and fortunate life. The second is usually termed by Europeans the " Feast of Dolls," and is observed on the third day of the third month. A small stage in every house is covered with small images representing the Dairi and commemorating famous personages in the national mythology. Miniature temples, the interior of the imperial palace, the members of the court, the furni- ture and decorations of grandees' houses, and various utensils of cooking and kitchen use, are set out in ornamental and gorgeous array. A beverage distilled from peach-blossom, a supposed prophylactic against all kinds of infectious disease, is handed to their visitors, and neighbours pay each other the compli- ment of mutual good wishes for prosperity and hap- piness. This festival is supposed to have the advantage of familiarising young girls with the sight of the interior arrangements of high life, and of initiating them into the arts and duties of a good Japanese housewife. The third great festival is called the " Feast of Flags," and is annually commemorated on the fifth day of the fifth month. For a period of six days silken, canvas or paper flags are suspended from a long bamboo- pole, inscribed with the armorial bearings of some prince or with the representation of the heroic achievements of popular legend, exciting the martial ardour of the Japanese youth and arousing a spirit of noble emulation of their bravery. Boys receive pre- sents of wooden sabres, swords, pikes, bows and NATIONAL FESTIVALS. 119 arrows, and are reminded by the playthings of child- hood of the military achievements of their ancestors and the glorious reminiscences of their race. A pre- dilection for military service is thus encouraged in the young men, and the rising generation is excited to imitate the bravery of their forefathers. TYie, fourth festival is held on the seventh day of the seventh month, being termed the " Evening of Stars," and founded on some fiction of Chinese origin. It was instituted in honour of two constellations, to whom offerings of incense are made and prayers for a blessing are offered up. The Jifth national holiday is called the " Festival of Motherwort," at which a spirituous liquor distilled from this herb is drunk, and servants are accustomed to pay their respects to their masters and to attire themselves in their finest garments. It appears to be founded on some obscure legend respecting an ancient Chinese monarch. At Nagasaki it is celebrated on the seventh day of the ninth month, and has assumed the character of a special local holiday resembling a fair, at which public dances are held in a square of the city, and gaily-dressed children form a part of the pageant in honour of 0-souva-sama, a god of the Sinto religion. The eighth day is one of rest. On the ninth the dances are renewed, and prayers are offered to this divinity that he will procure by his intercession a blessing on the local trade with the Dutch at Nagasaki. In addition to these five national hohdays cele- brated by canonical authority and original appoint- ment by the Dairi, the people of Nagasaki observe a I 4 120 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. festival at the full moon of the seventh month, which Dutch writers have termed the " Feast of Lanterns." It was introduced from China in the eighth century of our era. Offerings are made and prayers recited on behalf of deceased relatives ; lanterns are suspended and a feast is spread at the tombs ; and the services of the Budhist priests are largely called into requisition. The existence of this superstitious observance is another instance of the intimate intercourse between China and Japan which existed in early times, and of the widely diffused influence exerted by the former nation on the religion, literature and history of the latter. This holiday is doubtless the same superstitious observance as came within my observation in the Chinese city of Ningpo in August of the year 1845, and my narrative of which*, published some years ago, will probably be the most convenient mode of description at the present time. " During the first two nights after my return to Ningpo, I could get but little sleep amid the continued sound of drums, gongs and flutes, caused by the superstitious observances prevalent among the people on the occasion of the fang yen how. This is the tenn used to denote the ceremonies performed in the seventh month of the Chinese year, on behalf of de- parted spirits, in order to rescue them from the Budhist purgatory. The rites are explained as having originated in the supposed misery and po- * Rev. George Smith's Exploratory Visit to China in 1844-6, Seeleys, London, pp. 208—210. FEAST OF LANTERNS. 121 verty, in the spiritual world, of svich persons as had left behind no surviving offspring or relatives to make the accustomed offerings of gilt money and paper garments to their manes. Lanterns are hung in all directions ; platforms are erected and covered with provisions ; the hungry spirits are invited to partake of a repast ; and the people observe a kind of vigil. A general subscription of money is raised for the occasion. " The Chinese tenants of the house adjoining my own on a subsequent evening hired the attendance of some priests, who for three or four dollars devoted the whole evening to singing a number of dirges on the occasion of the natal day of Te-wang, the prince of the infernal regions. At this period of the year popular superstition commemorates the release of many spirits from their prison below, and their tem- porary admission into the upper regions, to receive the offerings of food, garments, and money. The melancholy chauntings to the king of the infernal realms, and the offerings of food to the spirits of the dead, are supposed to possess the meritorious efficacy of propitiating the imaginary deity, and hastening the deliverance of their friends from destitution in the other world. On the latter occasion, I congratulated myself on their terminating the sound of the bells, gongs and discordant voices, at so early an hour as that of midnight. Cases of similar superstition are often to be seen on the occurrence of sickness in a family. The inmates commence beating drums and gongs, and set out a feast, in the superstitious belief that some 122 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. deceased member of the family is starving in the world below, and that, in revenge of their neglect, his spirit is come to feed on the body of the sick person. Hence they seek by the bribe of a feast and the intimidation of sounds to expel the unwelcome author of their calamity. The educated Chinese are often raised above the influence of these vulgar terrors ; but the empire of superstition is almost universal." If the Japanese do not enjoy the blessings of what is called in the West constitutional freedom, and know little about theories of civil and religious liberty, they contrive to make daily life flow smoothly in the stream of time, and are content to be borne along on the tide of present sensual enjoyment and careless ease. If we could dare to exclude from our estimate all thought of an Almighty Ruler of the world, the holy purity of the divine law and the certainty of a judgment to come, a Christian narrator might find less difficulty in coinciding in the gene- rally received expressions respecting the happy con- dition and external prosperity of the people of Japan. Exempt from political cares, they know few trials apart from bodily wants and the hard toil of labouring for the meat that perisheth. They compensate them- selves for the absence of the comforts of a civilisation to which they are as yet strangers, by helping them- selves liberally to those material comforts which a little money at any time places within their reach. Old and young banish care by a plentiful intermix- ture of pastimes in the occupations of life. ELYING KITES. 123 At this time the flying of paper kites afibrded a large fund of amusement to the male inhabitants of the city. In every direction the sky was dotted with fantastic imitations of birds, beasts and serpents dancing up and down or imitating a creeping crawling move- ment as the string by which they were confined regulated their motions. The hill-sides were covered with kite-flyers chiefly boys and young men ; but elderly men often joined in the prevailing amusement. Even some of the priests of the neighboui'ing temples joined in the game, and evinced all the exciting eager- ness of the lay multitude. The Japanese system of dualism extends even to their kites, which may be generally seen in pairs attached to separate lines and possessing each their separate owners. Every kite possesses its own fashion and a conspicuous device or armorial bearing in various colours, identifying when far aloft in the air the name and family of the owner. A pecjahar game is played between a pair of kites. Two persons engage in a match of attacking each other's kite, the one bringing his line suddenly against that of the other kite-flyer and by means of a quick sawing motion cutting it asunder, thus setting his adversary's kite free to descend to the ground. The string is made of a thin wiry hemp strengthened by a kind of size and mixture of sand, so as to give it a tough texture and sharp edge ; and the wayward careeiing descent and occasional loss of the vanquished kite afi'ords great amusement to the watching crowds. If the Sinto temples are not free from the irreverent 124 TEN WEEKa IN JAPAN. games of boys, the Budhist temples are not altogether exempted from the holiday pastimes of the opposite sex. In one of the temples near our dwelling, in which we had a few days before seen a thousand worshippers prostrating themselves in apparent devoutness of demeanour before the images of the gods, we once saw a large assemblage of young ladies who told us that they were come to enjoy a Zondag. Above fifty girls of ages varying from ten to twenty years were holding in the temple and in close vicinity to the idols, a grand gala-day and holiday rejoicing. Dressed out in their gayest silks and brightest coloured robes, with a broad red girdle confining their flowing grace- ful folds and fastened into a large knot behind, they formed a lively group of dark-eyed merry damsels who shook the roof of the sacred edifice with their merry peals of laughter. They romped and shouted, danced and played in turn, rushing to the entrance at the sight of two foreigners with fearless glances and noisy recognitions, and the next moment co- quettishly shutting the doors amid the renewed mer- riment of the girlish crowd within. At a distance their rosy lips and fair cheeks, with the well-propor- tioned contour of face, gave them a handsome appear- ance ; but a nearer approach and view revealed the unpleasant sight of red daubs of paint and a plentiful shower of white powder which disfigured the features. Their lively nimble dances were a strong contrast to the limping slow crippled gait of Chinese ladies visiting the temples. It was pleasing to observe the naturalness and simplicity of manners which prevails MINSTRELS AND MUSICIANS. 125 as one of the results of the comparative non-seclusion of the female sex in Japan. Minstrels and musicians are another source of amusement to the people. Public singers go from house to house, singing their national melodies and accompanying their voice with a long three-stringed guitar struck with a small bamboo plectrum. In the inner part of the houses amateur songsters were often heard, and a tune on the guitar is a frequent sequel to the evening meal. In the southern suburb an elderly woman was often to be seen singing in some shop for hire in the deep tones of an acquired baritone voice, and forming a strange contrast to the high shrill falsetto notes of male Chinese singers. The tune was generally slow, pathetic and in a minor key. The art of music, however, appears to be at the low- est point, when judged by a European ear. Another class of purveyors of amusement is to be seen in the professional jesters or reciters of comic tales, who go from house to house and earn money by their exhibition of wit. The " laughing-talk man" is one of the institutions of Japan. Sometimes by reading a low native novel, or by extemporising some story of vulgar fan, he gathers a little audience around him in the public street, or exhibits for a pecuniary reward his mimic powers among the in- mates of a private dweUing. Low street comedies are, however, the more com- mon spectacle which excites the applause of the laughter-loving populace. Itinerant play-actors dis- play their theatrical powers and block up the public- 126 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. thoroughfare with a crowd. A large proportion of these consists of juvenile performers trained from earliest childhood to imitate the tones and assume the airs of adult men and women acting with impassioned voice and gesture the incidents of some romance of real life. On one occasion a party of youthful actors prevented our passing through the crowd until a momentary cessation of the play was made and the opening in their ranks enabled us to emerge into the opposite quarter. The party consisted of a company of family strolling players. The old father spread a number of mats in the street, and after setting up a few articles of an imaginary room, proceeded to beat a drum which was accompanied by the mother striking a tortoise-shell guitar and singing a deep and plaintive air. Their group of cliildren stood around with thickly-painted cheeks and alternated their parts. First a boy about twelve years of age recited an harangue with passionate emotion. His younger sister bore her part in reply. Then there was the boy's rejoinder, which greatly amused the crowd. Then a still younger girl scarcely five years old acted in prattling half-articulated tones her share in the dialogue. The boy again took up the harangue with energy and emphasis of voice, drawing forth loud and repeated laughter and applause at various points of his address, which, though unintelligible to us, seemed to tickle the popular fancy and to afford a high relish to the admiring crowd. The collecting- box went round at intervals, and the scene of their de- clamation was adjourned to a neighbouring street. 127 CHAP. IX. JAPANESE DRAMA. SUPEKIOK CLASS OF THEATRICAL EXHIBITION. ACTORS. MORALISING CHORUS. SCENES. NATIONAL TRAGEDY. "HAPPY DESPATCH." — HARAKIRI. JAPANESE IDEAS ON LEGAL SUICIDE. DISREGARD OF DEATH. — OLD DUELLING PLEA. During tlie period of my stay in Nagasaki a very celebrated company of actors visited the city from the imperial capital Yeddo. In a large square about two or three hundred yards from our house a tempo- rary shed was erected of bamboo scaffolding covered over with a roof of matting. For ten days they con- tinued to attract large audiences of the wealthy and middle classes. Their performances were often inter- mitted on the rainy days of the now commencing wet season. On the morning of every fine day some member of their body ascended the roof, and for three hours before noon continued to sound a wooden rattle as a public notice that the theatrical exhibitions would on that day be resumed. The feats of martial heroes, valiant deeds of battle and aU the more pro- minent events which have occurred in the history of their country, were acted amid the din of shouting voices, the clangour of arms and the applause of the multitude, and often aroused us from our reading 128 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. amid the quiet monotony of our temple life. The Japanese teachers often mentioned this professional company as something peculiarly raised above the common order, and their plays as belonging to the true style of national drama. They would shake their heads in contempt of the ordinary street-shows as below the consideration of a polished gentleman; but often pointed to the neighbouring scene as a true sample of excellence in its way. In one of my morning strolls into the city I passed close to the edge of the square, and was fortunate in securing a convenient point of observation and a friend able to explain each feature of interest in the passing scene. In a spacious kind of pit about a thousand persons of the middle class of Japanese were stationed, men, women and children, who for a trifling sum had a place on the floor conveniently arranged for sitting. The principal stage extended the whole way across one end of the temporary structure, and from its extreme right a narrower side- stage ran along the whole length of the building, terminating in a modei'ate-sized dressing-room, con- veniently situated for the actors and enabling them to change their garb and to retire outside and re-appear in a difi'erent character from behind the principal stage. On three sides of the pit an elevated gallery was erected, separated into compartments each ca- pable of accommodating a family group. These were partially concealed from the general throng of specta- tors, being occupied at a higher rate of payment by the more aristocratic classes and having their armorial THEATRE. 129 bearings emblazoned in large size on the drapery facing outwards towards the pit. These private boxes for the wealthy were entered each by a sepa- rate approach outside the theatre, and a portable ladder was taken from place to place to enable visi- tors to effect their ascent. In these separate rooms each family or circle of friends was partitioned off by canvas curtains from their neighbours ; and the peo- ple of quality were preserved intact from the vulgar jostling and observation of the crowd. On the principal stage a dozen actors were observed in the middle of some solemn exciting scene of high imperial or lordly life. They were squatting on their knees and heels, and in this kneeling posture declaimed in all the energetic tones of expostulation, defiance, argument, deprecation, love, anger or hate, throwing aloft their arms or Avaving their hands according to the accepted laws of oratorical art. An old musician stationed partially out of sight in a small side-room on the extreme left of the stage, played melodies on his guitar and accompanied the air with his deep bass tones, occupying an important solo part in the scenes and moralising in all the sub- lime virtue of the old Greek chorus, as tragedy, comedy, battle, heroism, virtue or vice formed the musical theme of his running comments, and drew forth his patronising commendation or his denun- ciatory warning. The stage at the time of our en- trance was occupied by a train of lofty personages, acting high scenes of royalty in which princes, nobles and illustrious dames of olden time, with retinues of ]30 TEN "WEEKS IN JAPAN. men and maidens, and the attendant paraphernalia of official pomp, were acted in all their variety of mag- niloquent tone, gesture and dress. The characters of females were sustained by men ; and the faces of all were adapted to their parts by an immoderate use of vermilion and rouge. The evil genius of the plot — the Richard III. or the lago of the piece — had his features distorted into the most savage and sternest of countenances by thick daubs of paint, investing him with the look of a monster or a fiend. He was the schemer, the wicked counsellor, the uni- versally hating and hated man of the plot, as he hurled defiance, threat and scorn at the principal hero of the drama. The piece then in progress was explained to me as being one of the most popular Shakspearian tragedies of the national drama of Japan, and represented (as I afterwards discovered more in detail) a series of occurrences which happened in the interior of the imperial palace of the Siogoon at the beginning of the last century. The prince of Ako, the grand hero of the plot, attracted the jealous enyj, and drew upon him the oft-repeated insults of a wicked rival at the court, the Prince Kotsouki, the author of his subse- quent calamities, and the monstrous impersonation of all that was detestable amid the characters of the play. The former in a moment of passionate excite- ment unable to restrain his ire, drew his sword upon his adversary in the heat of quarrel, but replaced it in his scabbard before he had so far committed himself as to inflict any serious wound. By this rash act he HARAKIRI. 131 violated in the sacred precincts of the palace one of the fundamental laws of Japan, and incurred the penalty of death as a reparation of the insult to the majesty of the emperor. His rival and antagonist himself helped on the fatal catastrophe, and was ap- pointed the official inspector and eye-witness of the closing tragic scene. Seated in the centre of a hall and robed in the resplendent white silken vestment specially worn on such an occasion, the heroic prince had assembled around him a group of his faithful retainers and the members of his household. With his magnificent lady and her female attendants occupying their position on his side, he received the affectionate condolences of his family, and the tearful sympathy of his servants, waiting in calm magnanimity the expected formal sentence which was to seal his fate. The imperial missive soon arrived and was presented in due pomp. The fatal seal was opened, the letter disclosed its startling contents, and the severe sentence of self- inflicted death was read aloud in a voice of calm en- during fortitude. The women took an opportunity of retiring from the scene ; and then followed in all its harrowing details the spectacle of the Harakiri, the " Self-disembowelment," — -the "Happy De- spatch" or national mode of legalised suicide in Japan. The rival plotting prince sat in a chair with another witness, expressly appointed to make their official report of the final scene. The rest of the assemblage, and the heroic prince of Ako himself, continued in their kneeling posture on the floor. The K 2 132 TEN WEEKS IK JAPAN. moralising minstrel of the chorus struck his plain- tive notes in unison -with the sad scene. Surrounded by his faithful adherents and attendants, the hero of the tragedy delivered his harangue of quiet loyal sub- mission to the imperial Avill, and of parting farewell to his household and friends. Long and solemn were the words of his address, and still and deep were the heaving sighs and weepings of the surrounding group, all on their knees, silent, and apparently engaged in prayer. The fatal short sword was drawn from its sheath and held aloft as he concluded his address. With firmly compressed lip and deteraiined grasp of hand, he inflicted the deep mortal wound and delibe- rately drew the inserted blade across his abdomen. By a little adroit management of his robe and by secretly and gradually uncovering a portion of the red cloth of his inner dress, the actor contrived the appearance of having his white official costume deeply stained Avith the fast-flowing crimson blood. Extri- cating the sword, he retained it in his hand; and as the life-blood escaped from his body, he continued his impassioned harangue and bequeathed his last legacy of afi"ectionate counsel to his family and friends. Gradually he became Aveaker, his voice was fainter, and nature was fast sinking. The spectators among the audience Avere carried away by the melancholy details of princely sufi'ering, and intense sympathy was excited in the silent croAvds on behalf of the fallen fortunes of the hero. The aged musician of the chorus first gave forth his commentary in a sIoav dirge-like air, and then sank doAvn to a single slowly- LEGAL SUICIDE. lUS repeated note on his guitar, the recurring solitary twang of which resembled the minute-gun of death or imitated drop by drop the oozing out of life. There were the symptoms of approaching death, the gradual fainting and loss of strength, the spasmodic breath- ing and contortions of the neck. Speech at first became wellnigh inarticulate and at length entirely failed. After a few pantings for breath, nature could no longer prolong the struggle, and he fell prostrate on his forehead in all the established orthodox posture of heroic suicide, with the sword stiU firmly clenched in his hand, and with the marks of ignominious ner- vousness and fear excluded from the falling scene. A favourite attendant or best friend after a few moments' pause reverently approached the spot, and drew the closely-pressed weapon from the dead man's grasp. Life had fled; death received its victim; Japanese law had asserted its inviolable supremacy; and the sanctity of the imperial palace had been vindicated. The individual offender had offered up himself to appease the imperial anger; and by this legally-con- stituted form of suicide his family and descendants were preserved in the possession of their principality and lands and in untarnished rank and honour. A temporary fall of the curtain, or (more strictly speaking) a sliding partition dra^vn from the sides to the middle of the stage, gave the opportunity of the corpse being laid out in state form. On the removal of the curtain, a norimon was standing on a pro- minent part of the stage, in which the body, washed and robed, was observed propped up by supports in K 3 134 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. the sitting, crouching posture in which the Japanese are committed to the tomb. Pale, still and motionless in death, the deceased prince received the adoration of the living. His wife and female attendants reappeared on the scene ; and took their place in a kneeling pos- ture near the corpse. A large group of members of the family and friends of the deceased sat around the apartment reverentially bowing their head in grief and wrapt in deep silence. The funeral ceremonies were commenced by the disconsolate lady proceeding to the norimon and prostrating herself with bitter silent weeping before the body, adoring the departed spirit and observing the usual marks of divine worship to the manes of her husband. She then placed some offerings before the corpse; and cutting off her hair with a knife, placed the shorn locks as a pledge and vow of perpetual widowhood on the ground before him, reciting her prayers and having a rosary of beads suspended from her left arm. Each person present approached singly and in turn the corpse, and knelt in prayer to the departed spirit. At length the norimon is carried off in funeral procession; and amid the sobbings and lamentations of the little assemblage the curtain closes upon the melancholy scene of death. The retainers of the deceased prince quickly re- appear on the stage ; and now commences an ex- citing episode of sanguinary plots and vindictive retribution. Long and animated are the debatings of the servants and dependents. Impassioned harangues are delivered and plans of vengeance are freely EEVENGE. 135 discussed. One old half-witted domestic especially inveighed against the author of their lord's misfor- tunes and their own pusillanimous cowardice in fail- ing to avenge his wrongs. Verging upon his second childhood, the old man returned to his topic with renewed ardour, and worked upon the passions of the group. After advancing a Httle way as if about to quit the apartment, he came back to pour forth anew the pent-up emotions of his loyal indignation and fidelity to his prince. A few comic incidents were interspersed and stirred up some passing merriment in the crowd of spectators after the recent scenes of mourning and death. Again the old man worked upon the passions of his- hearers, and suddenly the whole body of retainers placed their hands with a violent outburst of anger to their sword-hilts and leaped on their feet. The work was done and the old man had achieved his part. A sense of honourable fidelity to their chief and passionate revenge stirred up their souls to madness. They rushed off the stage with some half-formed project of instant retribution. Again they were recalled by the aged man's appeal and formed a little conclave in deliberation on the details of their plot. The sequel was reported to me by a Japanese acquaintance, who expressed much re- gret that I should not have stayed to "witness what he deemed the finest part of the tragedy. The shouts and clashings of armour, the uproar and applause, which during the whole afternoon afterwards greeted us in our apartments at the temple, informed our ears of the sanguinary issue. Revenge and a life for a life K 4 136 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. enters into the very essence of poetical justice among the Japanese. The faithful adherents of the fallen prince imbrued their hands in the blood of his rival ; and bearing off his head in triumph as an offering at the tomb to the manes of their loved hero, fell them- selves in turn victims to the stern penalties of the law. I afterwards discovered the following notice of the principal facts on which this national tragedy is founded, in M. Titsingh's Historical Annals of the Siogoons of Japan. " On the fourteenth of the third month of the four- teenth year Gen-rok (a.d. 1701), Assan-no-takoumi- no-Naganori, piince of Ako, who had been several times treated contemptuously by Kira-kotsouki-no- ski, having received a fresh affront from him in the palace of the Siogoon, drcAV his sabre with the in- tention of revenging the insult. Some persons on hearing the noise, ran up and separated them, and Kotsouki was but slightly wounded. It is an un- pardonable crime to draw a sabre in the palace ; the prince was therefore ordered to rip himself up, and his descendants were banished for ever. His adver- sary who, out of respect for the palace, had abstained from drawing his sabre, was pardoned. " This injustice exasperated the servants of the prince so much the more, since it was Kotsouki who, by his repeated insults, had caused the destruction of their master. Forty-seven of them, having agreed to revenge his death, forced their way in the night of the fourteenth of the twelfth moon of the following PRINCE OF KOTSOUKI. 137 year, into the palace of Kotsouki ; and after a combat which lasted till daylight, they penetrated to his apartment and despatched him. The Siogoon, on the first intelligence of this desperate attack, sent troops to the assistance of the unfortunate Kotsouki, but they arrived too late to save him. The assailants, not one of whom lost his life in the scuffle, were all taken and condemned to rip up their bellies, which they did with the greatest firmness, satisfied with having revenged their master. They were all interred in the temple of Singakousi, near the prince. The soldiers, in token of respect for their fidelity, still visit their graves and pray before them. Kotsouki's son, who had been withheld by cowardice from hastening to the assistance of his father, though he was then in the palace, was deprived of his post and banished with all his kindred to the island of Awasi." The incidents of their drama contain a remarkable exposition of the national life of the people. In the histories of their heroes, the " Harakiri " is the sub- ject of all -attractive interest, and becomes almost a rehgious sentiment of romance. The few notices which follow have been collected together to furnish some further information on this peculiar feature in the Japanese character and national customs. Titsingh when .writing on the " legal suicide of the Japanese " gives the following particulars some of which appear to have become partially obsolete, and others of which bear the stamp of manifest exag- geration. " All military men, the servants of the Siogoon, 138 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. and persons holding civil offices under the govern- ment, are bound when they have committed any crime to rip themselves up, but not till they have received an order from the court to that effect; for, if they were to anticipate this order, their heirs would run the risk of being deprived of their places and property. For this reason all the officers of govern- ment are provided, in addition to their usual dress and that which they put on in case of fire, with a suit necessary on such an occasion, which they carry Avith them whenever they travel from home. It consists of a white robe and a habit of ceremony made of hempen cloth and without armorial bearings. The outside of the house is hung with white stuffs ; for the palaces of the great and the places at which they stop by the way when going to or returning from Yeddo, are hung with coloured stuffs, on Avhich their arms are embroidered — a privilege enjoyed also by the Dutch envoy. " As soon as the order of the court has been com- municated to the culprit, he invites his intimate friends for the appointed day, and regales them with sakee. After they have drunk together some time, he takes leave of them ; and the order of the court is then read to him once more. Among the great this read- ing takes place in presence of their, secretary and the inspector. The person who performs the principal part in the tragic scene then addresses a speech or compliment to the company; after which he inclines his head towards the mat, draws his sabre and cuts himself with it across the belly, penetrating the CONTEMPT OF DEATH. 139 bowels. One of his confidential servants, who takes his place behind him, then strikes off his head. Such as wish to display superior courage, after the cross cut inflict a second longitudinally, and then a third in the throat. No disgrace is attached to such a death; and the son succeeds to his father's place, as we see by several examples in the ' Memoirs of the Siogoons.' " When a person is conscious of having committed some crime and apprehensive of being thereby dis- graced, he puts an end to his own life, to spare his family the ruinous consequences of judicial proceed- ings. This practice is so common that scarcely any notice is taken of such an event. The sons of all people of quality exercise themselves in their youth for five or six years with a view that they may per- form the operation in case of need with graceful- ness and dexterity ; and they take as much pains to acquire this accomplishment as youth among us do to become elegant dancers or skilful horsemen : hence the profound contempt of death which they imbibe even in their earliest years. This disregard of death, which they prefer to the slightest disgrace, extends to the very lowest classes among the Japanese." Some of the concluding parts of this description bear on their very face a self-evident appearance of illusory exaggeration. The simple self-infliction of a death-wound can hardly require some five or six years' careful "practice." Some of our Japanese friends were questioned on these details, and more especially as to whether this mode of self-disembowel- 140 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. ment was " practised " among their boys. My inter- preter put the question in a form which admitted of the ambiguity of the English term being translated into a correspondingly equivocal expression in the Japanese language. They answered in the affirmative that it was thus " practised" among boys; and if we had been satisfied with this sunple affirmative reply, we should have mistaken their entire meaning, and helped to give a currency to this overdrawn picture of juvenile training in the graceful arts of suicidal etiquette. They stated that Japanese were accus- tomed to "practise " this feat of " Harakiri," though in a diflferent sense from that in which Ave put the inquiry. The following fact wMch they related in illustration of their statement will give some idea of the ruthless sanguinary severity extending alike to old and young offenders which prevails in the domi- nions of the various sovereign princes of the empire. An interpreter to one of the local land-officers of Nagasaki asserted it to be a well-known and univer- sally-believed fact that in the last year the neighbour- ing Prince of Satsuma had compelled five boys of ages varying from eight to thirteen years old to undergo the punishment of self-disembowelment for the offence of having drawn their swords and engaged in a fight within the precincts of his palace. The tale of the five or six years' careful training to per- form the act with becoming gracefijlness they treated with derisive jest. Another of our acquaintances, a Japanese teacher, while admitting the fact that instruction as to the HAHAKIKI. 141 approved style of performing the " Harakiri " enters into the course of juvenile training of every polished gentleman, aiForded also additional particulars. He stated that two cross cuts were made over the abdo- men, and one across the jugular vein on the neck; and that the act ought to be performed on an inverted mat overspread with a white covering. It is also a mark of heroic fortitude not to fall backward but forward on the face. During my subsequent stay at Yeddo, in Avhich capital there had been of late numerous cases of " Harakiri " consequent on the circumstances arising out of the assassination of the " Goteiro " or regent of the empire, I was informed that many of the ancient ceremonies attendant upon this horrible custom had fallen into desuetude, and their omission received the connivance of the higher authorities. Three centuries of exemption from war and a lengthened prevalence of peace are stated to have diminished the national prowess and mitigated the excessively sanguinary spirit of their code of honour. They are now less familiar with the deeds of martial valour, and have lost a portion of their former contempt of death. In deference to this imagined degeneracy of the present age, it is now customary for an attendant to carry the fatal sword before the intending victim, who bows his head in low reverence before the blade. The atten- dant then strikes off the head of his lord with one stroke of the weapon; and the ceremonies of the " Harakiri " are held to be adequately performed. The following anecdote of Titsingh is also worth U2 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. being repeated, althougli it is to be hoped that it has now shared the fate of the unchristian custom of duelling in our own land, and now only finds its recurrence in the practice of men inordinately blood- thirsty and maddened by a desperate revenge. " The Prince of Satsuma, whose subjects traffic to the Loochoo Islands and in all the principal commer- cial cities of the empire, with a view to prevent quarrels with other princes, has decreed that if one of his people is insulted by one of the subjects of another prince, he may revenge himself by killing his adversary, provided he takes his own life immediately afterwards. The lives of two persons who by their intolerant dispositions are the cause of their own de- struction, seemed to him of too little importance to involve their masters in disputes which might be attended with fatal consequences." The moralising reflections with which Titsingh fol- lows up the anecdote on the influence of this law in producing politeness of demeanour among the people and diminishing the occasions of sanguinary quarrel, savour of the old plea in favour of duelling, and deserve equally the contempt of every reasonable and Christian man. 143 CHAP. X. FUNERAL CEEEMONIES. MORTUARY AND FUNERAL RITES OF JAPANESE. DESCRIPTION BY A NATIVE INFORMANT. CORONER's INQUEST.— MODE OF SEPULTURE ASCENDING AND DESCENDINO RELATIVES. — POSTHUMOUS NAMES. SERVICES OF PRIESTHOOD. ANCESTRAL TABLET. ACCOUNTS OF DUTCH "WRITERS. SPECTACLE OF JAPANESE FUNERAL NEAR TEMPLE LODGING. PERIOD OF MOURNING AND DEFILEMENT. FEAR OF GHOSTS. The occasional sight of a heathen body committed to the grave amid mournful regrets unaccompanied by the neutralising solaces of Christian hope, is one calculated to deepen in a Christian spectator an affecting sense of pity and compassion, and forms a frequent and sorrowful drawback on the pleasurable emotions excited by an exploratory visit in a new and interesting pagan country. There are few things more calculated to afford an insight into the character of a nation than their demeanour amid the solemnising realities of death and their ceremonial observances at the funerals of the dead. Some notice of the mortuary and funeral rites of the Japanese will therefore be given in order to furnish an exemplification of this principle of judging the native disposition. I shall first give almost verbatim the statements of an educated Ja- 144 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. panese on this subject. I shall next subjoin a few of the notices of former Dutch residents on the same point.' And I shall lastly append my own descrip- tion of a funeral which took place near our dwelling and which I had an opportunity of observing in detail. Urishino Te-ju is a Japanese physician, privileged as such to wear the ornament of a single sword which is the essential appendage of a medical practi- tioner's full dress, but for which on ordinary occa- sions it is usual to substitute a short stick carried in the place of the sword as a badge or emblem of his professional or social standing. He is at the present time the native instructor of my host in the Japanese language ; and is induced by the powerful considera- tion of a daily honorarium of a silver itzehu (about twenty pence) to brave the little loss of social posi- tion and self-respect involved in this connection with a foreign student. He probably disarms the local government officials of a portion of their distrust by acting as informer or spy respecting the proceedings of foreigners. This native gentleman often supplied us with interesting facts which served as data on which to ground general conclusions respecting the habits and customs of the people. This class of teachers soon become intimate friends of their foreign employer; and if care be taken not to involve them in unpleasant relations towards the native authorities, they A^dll readily impart the required information, and render themselves useful auxiliaries in investi- gating the peculiarities of native customs. MORTUARY RITES. US Our medical friend was my principal authority for the following statement of facts. When death has visited a Japanese family, the relatives of the deceased despatch a messenger to some Budhist temple to fetch a priest, who visits the dwelling and performs certain rites over the corpse. At this first visit the priest offers up prayers in the usual unintelligible Indian Palee tongue, and pro- ceeds to hold a kind of coroner's inquest over the dead body, making inquiry into the causes of death, more especially as to whether the deceased has died from natural causes or by violence. If there be reason for suspecting that his death has been pro- duced by unfair means, the priest is bound to refer the matter to the head priest or abbot of his temple, who in turn reports it to the civil authorities and places the matter in train for a judicial investigation. After the departure of the priest, the relatives cause the dead body to be washed with warm water, and make the necessary preparations for placing it in the round circular coffin or tub in which the corpse is deposited in a crouching posture with the palms folded in front in the attitude of devotion. It is then left for a period of from one to four days in the house, during which time the priest (if the family be in good circumstances and able to pay a fee of an itzebu or less) returns to the house and resumes his prayers and incantations, reciting some Budhist office with the customary beating of a hollow sounding- board and the tinkling of a bell in measured time of stroke. During the interval between death and the L 145 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. day of the funeral, there is a gathering of friends, who are regaled with vegetables and sweetmeats. No fish, flesh or fowl is eaten during this time. A solemn offering of confectionary, water and salt is made each day to the deceased. The corpse is then carried to the place of sepulture by common coolie bearers, attended by his relatives, friends and ac- quaintances, who first go in procession to some temple on the way, and then follow the coffin to its last resting-place. The female relatives are all clothed in white garments and white caps drawn down so as to muffle their faces. The sons are differently arrayed in a peculiar garment of a full-dress character co- vering half the body and hanging down from the shoulders, with a coarse kind of under-garment re- sembling sackcloth. All the male acquaintances wear the usual holiday attire of Japanese gentry and officials on visits of ceremony. After the temple services are finished, the corpse is again borne onward to the grave on the shoulders of the coolies, followed by the funeral procession of mourners. The place of burial does not involve (as in China) a period of long delay and the trickery of paid necromancers em- ployed to discover a lucky spot free from the hurtful influences of wind and water. Each family has its own common mausoleimi in which the successive mem- bers of the clan are laid to repose amid the bodies of their ancestors. Armorial bearings and devices mark their common property, and enlist all their sentiments of affection and family pride in its preservation from dirt, decay and contamination. The sons, the female SEPULCHRAL CUSTOMS. 147 members of the household, and the nearest relatives on arriving at the grave are permitted by prescrip- tive fashion to weep; but the Chinese custom of hiring female mourners to indulge in frantic wailings and cries is stated not to prevail at Nagasaki. "The manliness and naturalness of the Japanese cha- racter is observable in such details as these. The cofB.n is deposited in the grave; and sometimes a second coffin is lowered into the circular hole on the top of a previous coffin. A stone slab is placed in front of the tomb with two holes for inserting flowers on either side of a square cavity for holding water. A lotus flower, one of the sacred symbols of Budhism, is carved on the basement of the stone pillar after- wards erected over the tomb. The principal part of the offerings to the dead are made in the house of each family. An ancestral tablet (wei-pae) is formed in the usual Chinese fashion of a little wooden plane or slab a few inches high by two or three inches in width, on which after due invocation by the priest the names which the man bore when alive are inscribed on one side, and the posthu- mous names conferred on him at the temple are written on the other. The latter side stands front- ing outward on the family shrine in which the household gods are enthroned. The prayers of the priest transform the spirit of the deceased into a Budha of inferior class ; and the tablet receives every morning the usual worship in common with the family idol. All these domestic religious observances are performed with greater punctuality and more 148 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. signs of earnest sincerity than among the Chinese. In reply to our question " Whom do you worship?" the educated Japanese invariably reply — " The first thing we do in the morning is to worship the Kami (the gods) ; and after that we worship the ancestral tablet. We worship both objects of devotion; but the worship which we pay to the Kami is of a much higher kind." Their belief in a future state of rewards and punishments is merely the old Budhist metem- psychosis, varied by the imaginary details of pur- gatory. They say that bad men go to hell — Te-yoh^ " Earth's prison;" and good men go to keih-loli^ "in- finite happiness. " Our native friend stated that the burning of corpses is never at the present time practised at Nagasaki; but that it is universally practised at Miako (the capital of the Spiritual Emperor) as being a sacred city and too small a locality to contain the bodies of its numerous dead, unless consumed by fire and reduced to ashes, so as to be capable of being buried within a small space. The funeral observances of the Japanese are repre- sented by various former Dutch writers as of a far more complicated and detailed nature. They speak of two kinds of funerals ; the doso^ which consists in depositing the body in the earth; and the quaso, which consists in committing it to the flames. A Japanese at the point of death signifies to his heir which mode of burial he prefers and gives directions as to the disposal of his body. Sometimes this wish is communicated during the season of full health, FUNEEALS. )40 If a Japanese at Nagasaki express a wisli to have his body consumed by fire, his corpse is borne to the summit either of Kasougasira or of Fondesi- yama, two mountains in the neighbourhood, the former situated on the south-east, the latter on the north of the city. The coffin is first carried to a temple for the performance of the usual funeral solemnities, and thence followed by the relati^'es and friends to the top of the mountain, where it is burnt by a low class of persons named ombos. The bones and ashes are collected in an urn; a priest precedes the fiineral cortige; the urn with its contents is carried back to be deposited in the family mausoleum; and the usual ceremonies common to both kinds of burial are performed. The formal etiquette at funerals prescribed in their books of national customs abounds with de- tailed observances not commonly to be seen among the people of Nagasaki, who are said to have been corrupted by intermixture and association with Chinese and other foreigners, and to have degene- rated from the purity and simplicity of primitive times. The common -people too everywhere are unwilling or unable to incur the expense of these detailed ceremonies. In the funerals of the higher classes the corpse is borne in a quan or coffin to a temple where the priests are assembled to receive the procession. The coffin is set down before the image of the gods, and a Budhist hymn is chaunted. The " ifay," the oblong tablet covered with the sacred posthumous names of the deceased, is placed before L 3 15a TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. the coffin, and offerings of sweetmeats, finit and flowers are placed in front. Relatives in the as- cending line and of senior age are absolved from attending the funerals of their kindred of inferior degree. If a son is carried forth to the tomb, neither father, mother, uncles nor aunts are accustomed to follow him to the grave. If a younger son dies, even the elder brother and elder daughter abstain from accompanying the funeral. During the fifty days of mourning for the dead the surviving relatives are supposed to abstain from animal food and to subsist entirely on a vegetable diet. After the expiration of that time they are permitted to re-enter Budhist temples ; but an interval of one year must elapse before they may enter the temples of the Sinto religion, which deems the inmates of a household visited by death as defiled by pollution for that space of time. A period of seven weeks after the funeral elapses before the temporary furniture of the tomb is removed to make way for the more per- manent erection of the si-seh or grave stone. Dur- ing this interval persons who possess the pecuniary means cause a hut to be built near the grave, where a servant is stationed for the purpose of noting down the names of aU those friends of the family who have come thither to pray. Titsingh naively adds, " His presence serves to protect the quan (coffin) and other things from being stolen during the seven weeks." Every week a priest is hired to attend and recite hymns before the funeral wooden tablet. During the whole seven weeks in all states of the weather the SEPULCHRAL TABLETS. 151 son of the deceased daily visits the tomb and recites a prayer over the grave, covered with a hat made of rushes, which falling down below the shoulders ob- scures his face and prevents him, while recognising other men's features, from being himself recognised and greeted by his passing friends. He suffers his hair and nails to grow dui-ing the whole prescribed period of fifty days' mourning, and never leaves the house, which is kept closed, except for the purpose of making the stated visits to the temples and the tomb. At the close of the fifty days he lays aside his mourn- ing attire and proceeds to pay his respects at the houses of those who attended the funeral or after- wards went to pray at the grave. At the same time two other ifays or funeral tablets are made, var- nished with a black colour and covered with gilt or- namental characters, inscribed with the names of the deceased and the year, month and day of his death. One of these is consigned for safe custody to the priests in the temple ; the other is kept at home and occupies its honourable position on the family shrine, where (as before described) it receives the prayers of the household in common with the images of their gods. A lamp is kept constantly burning before it ; morning and evening prayers are offered to it; and on the one day of each month on which the deceased quitted life special ofi"erings are made of fruits, sweet- meats, tea and boiled rice. About a fortnight after my arrival at Nagasaki an opportunity was afforded me of witnessing the actual celebration of a funeral in one of the family ceme- 152 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. teries -which have converted the hill on which I re- sided into the great graveyard of the city. An hour or two before sunset a funeral procession was seen wending its slow way through the series of temple courts at the foot of the hill below us. The coffin was borne first into a temple of the Ikkoshiu sect of Budhists for the celebration of some superstitious rites. Thence it was carried a little way to the foot of the ascending stone steps leading up the hill-side, at which point there was a second detention. The priest here renewed the. ceremonies, and offered up some prayer or form of incantation. Thence the coffin was borne with a train of followers up the paved pathway, lined on either side with lighted candles, to the family mausoleum, which was a space about twenty or thirty feet square surrounded by walls and containing around its sides the sepulchral monu- ments of the forefathers of the clan. The deceased was the wife of an official gentleman, who was pre- vented by Japanese etiquette from being present at the burial of his wife as being an inferior relative, although it is the custom for wives to attend at the funerals of their husbands. About twenty persons followed the coffin with clean-shaven heads and in holiday attire. Two of them bore the usual insignia of an official person in the two swords which hung from their left girdle, and the majority wore the single sword of an ordinary gentleman. The deceased had died two days previously, and on the preceding day received her new posthumous name from the priesthood to be inscribed on her funeral A JAPANESE FUNERAL. 153 tablet. This little wooden upright plane (the ifay) was carried before the coffin, and a stick or wand wrapped round with white cotton cloth preceded the corpse, apparently in imitation of the Chinese cus- tom of inducting the spirit into its new abode of the tomb. A kind of kagoo or portable swinging box used for travelling, was deposited before the place of sepulture. A few wooden pegs were loosened ; and the kagoo relieved of its movable false bottom was lifted upwards, leaving the circular wooden coffin resembling a tub or barrel exposed to view on the ground. In a corner of the cemetery in a row and on a level with the other grave-stones of the enclo- sure, a round pit four or five feet in depth and nearly a yard in diameter had been dug and well plastered with mortar within. The corpse confined in its sitting posture was lowered into it by a set of noisy coolies shouting and vociferating irreverently all the while. The white wand and an earthenware pot of powdered charcoal were deposited in the grave, the jar being first broken and suffered to spread its black contents around the coffin, apparently as a pre- servative from the effects of putrefaction. The little vault was then covered over with three flat slabs of stone ; a few smaller fragments of stone were fitted into the crevices ; a quantity of mortar was plenti- fully laid on ; and the whole was carefiiUy plastered and rendered air-tight and weather-proof. The earth was then filled in on the top, and the whole levelled even with the surrounding graves. The kagoo which had recently contained the coffin was then placed 154 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. over the grave with an outer roofed covering resem- bling a little hut. Within this some artificial lotus flowers and water-lilies were placed ; evergreen boughs and a trough filled with water were added ; the tablet inscribed with the posthumous religious names of the deceased was set up ; the siolco or small box for burning incense was duly arranged ; and little lamps and tapers were lighted. During this process the party of fidends who by conventionality only could be called mourners, readily entered into conversation with us, and deprecated our leaving the funeral assemblage under the impres- sion of their not liking publicity and exposure to foreigners' observation while engaged in a religious ceremony. They soon undeceived us by their actions, as well as by their words. They were engaged in smoking their pipes and talking unconcernedly all the time, apparently pleased to gratify our curiosity amid the passing scene, and asking many questions in their turn. The coolies, on the completion of their work of filling the grave, closed their palms and bowed their heads, after which they retired. The family group alone remained. The principal mourner, the nephew of the deceased, a two-sworded gentleman of from forty to forty-five years of age, proceeded in a business-like manner to light a bundle of iacense- sticks which he divided among the company. He then knelt before the tomb and waved the incense- sticks before the wooden tablet, bending his forehead so as nearly to touch the ground and offering up a silent prayer. The rest of the company in succession per- JAPANESE MOUENEBS. 135 formed singly the same ceremony ; and they then left in a body. At the bottom of the hill we observed them exchanging a few words with a party of Japanese women on their way to the same tomb to perform their separate offering to the dead, clothed in white garments and wearing a long head-dress of white cloth. The priest afterwards reappeared on the scene and con- tiaued his forms of incantation. On subsequent days as we passed the spot, the incense-sticks arranged in the figure of a long and almost interminable coU and circle within circle were observed still burning. Flowers and fruit were renewed from time to time. At the end of fifty days the wooden shelter was to be removed ; and the usual substantial stone monument would be raised over the spot so as to comprise also within its margin the vacant site hereafter destined to receive the body of the surviving husband. One common monument would then bear the double in- scription commemorating the names and dates of both. Sometimes immense incense-sticks extending several hundred feet in length, and wound up coil -within coU, are to be seen in the temples, burning. at a slow rate and capable of lasting for many months without danger of being extinguished. A very extensive business is carried on in incense materials, the manu- facture of which gives employment to considerable numbers of people in Nagasaki. In one shop and manufactory which we visited some six or eight per- sons were engaged in manipulating these implements of idolatrous service in most expert and expeditious style. Some sandal-wood dust was made into a wet 136 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. pastelike consistency and passed through a press, from which it oozed forth in long shreds of uniform size. These were taken oiF on boards, rearranged in regular rows and lengths, and then put forth to dry in the sun. The quantity of this fragrant composition sold among the people is a remarkable proof of the wide prevalence of this mode of religious observance in every class of the native population. As we returned from our stroU into the city during the same evening, a woman-servant followed us with some native articles purchased at a shop in a remote street. She kept at some little distance from us until our arrival at the ascent of the hill among the nume- rous grave enclosures about the time of evening dusk. She then suddenly pressed upon us in great alarm, and appeared afraid to be left even a yard's distance in our rear. She seemed so overpowered by the terror of ghosts that we were compelled to take her be- tween us and to escort her safely up the hill. Amid all her expressions of fear, she from time to time indulged in hearty fits of laughter. No inducement could persuade her to return by the same way, and we arranged to send her home by another route through a series of temple courts into the streets below. 157 CHAP. XI. NATIVE VISITORS. SCENES OF TEMPLE LIFE. — THE PEIEST EIN-SHAN. DOUCEURS TO NATIVE AUTHORITIES. IMPARTIALITY OF JAPANESE LAW". EFFECTIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT. PEIEST VISITORS. — TWO-SWORDED OFFICERS. NATIVE INTERPRETER. NATIVE DISPOSITION AND CHAEACTEE. DOCTOE KA- SAT0. — A JAPANESE SURGERY. DETAILS OF A NATIVE GENTLEMAN's COSTUME. UNIVERSAL THIEST FOR INFORMATION AND PURCHASE OF FOREIGN BOOKS. My prolonged stay of above five weeks in the So-f-ku-ji monastery brought me into daily contact with various novel incidents of Japanese life, and supplied me with many opportunities of observing the peculiar modes of thought and habits of the people. Japanese priests, physicians, teachers and officials of the lower grades, with a few Chinese mercantile traders, were among our frequent visitors in the temple ; and although their visits were some- times extended to an inconvenient length, I had an ample compensation in their communicativeness and willingness to afford information. My friend Mr. Williams was my interpreter on such occasions. The monastery belonged to the Tenshu sect of Budhists, who adhere to the primitive austerities of their religion and prohibit their priests from marrying. It covers a considerable space on the 158 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. hill-side and contains several out-temples detached from the main temple and placed each under the special charge of a monk, who resides in the smaller temple and regards it as his peculiar benefice. Our own dwelling was one of these lesser detached tem- ples, in which our friend the monk Rinshan formerly resided as incumbent, but in which we were now lodged for a monthly payment. No idols were -now visible, and we were left in peaceful and undisturbed possession of our quarters. Wayfarers from the city used to stop a little while as they passed the entrance to our court-yard in the hope of seeing foreign fea- tures and an outlandish garb. The blast of horns, the beating of a drum and the tinkling of a bell at early matins, sometimes awoke us from our slum- bers long before dawn of day. The loud clangour o f gongs, and the occasional sonorous peal of a large massive bell struck by a wooden beam propelled with a swinging motion against the outer rim, informed our ears of the more special seasons of religious as- semblage. The temple-bell was clapperless and the belfry was on a level with the ground. Our two Chinese servants acted each in the capacity of m,ajor- domo to their respective masters, superintending our household and looking after our room. Two Japanese servants acted under their direction as coolies and under-cooks, and the whole establishment appeared to work together harmoniously and in order. Game, though out of season, was very welcome food to Europeans in a land where beef and mut- ton are comparatively unknown. Pork is easily PROVISIONS. 'IS'J procurable, and fish of excellent quality is abundant. The latter however is a somewhat dangerous article of food and requires great care in the selection. One species of fish, resembling a small mackerel, is apt to convey some poisonous matter into the human system and to produce a violent attack of the most prevalent form of tropical ailments. The officers and crews of some of the ships in Commodore Perry's expedition were seized with severe sickness fi'om this cause, and fish was interdicted from being used as food on board. I was myself attacked by an illness after eating fish, which confined me for two or three days to my bed. The green-breasted and red copper-breasted species of pheasants were frequently brought to us for sale ; and the former supplied my most frequent material of food for dinner. A European may easUy procure all necessary supplies of wholesome food at a small cost; and in the vicinity of every English mercan- tile settlement the wants of foreigners soon become known, and the ordinary laws of demand and supply begin to operate with speedy and advantageous effect. The Japanese servants soon learn a foreigner's tastes and are apt and ready imitators of the culinary ac- complishments of Chinese or European cooks. No Englishman coming to settle in Japan need therefore trouble himself under the apprehension of any great inconvenience or privation in the matter of food. Europeans abroad in the East learn quickly to ac- commodate themselves to the easy pic-nic usages and appliances of a Japanese abode. 1«0 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. Reverting to our friend and landlord, the priest Rinshan, I may introduce him to the reader as a highly respectable specimen of a pagan monk. He bears a good character in the neighbourhood. Popu- lar rumour, often busy at the expense of the moral character of most of the priests, refrains from asper- sions on the good name of Rinshan. He seems to be a sincere man, diligent in the performance of his supposed priestly duties, and true to his vows of monastic celibacy. From early youth an inmate of the monastery, he has passed his hfe in idle seclusion, having few wants and knowing few of the cares or the pleasures of the world. In the whole monastery and outlyuig establishments there are an abbot and about twenty ordinary priests. Among the latter are included both the adult priests and their young pupils passing their boyhood in a term of noviciate under the tuition of the elder monks. Formerly there were between thirty and forty priests in all; but the Chinese traders in Nagasaki, to whom the principal temple in the court below specially belongs, have in recent times greatly degenei-ated in zeal for idolatry, and Rinshan laments the consequent dimi- nution in their offerings and the loss to the temple revenues. On one of his visits he was accompanied by three gentlemen of middle age whom he wished to introduce to us as his personal friends. An elderly lady also accompanied them, who was announced to us as the wife of a priest of one of the non-celibate sects of Budhists occupying a temple in our neigh- bourhood. They stayed some time examining articles NATIVE VISITORS. 161 of European manufacture and gratifying their cu- riosity. The lady seemed quite at ease in visiting abroad without the protection of her husband, and appeared to be a person of honourable repute. The priests too of the different sects of Budhism appear to be actuated by no hostility or jealousy, mingling freely in daily intercourse and interchanging good offices. Although Rinshan himself participates in this absence of bigotry, he sometimes utters insinua- tions and doubts against some of the other priests, and leaves us under the impression of his cherishing no very favourable thoughts of their moral strictness of life. Although religious scruples form no barrier to their letting a portion of their temple to a foreign tenant, it may be imagined that fear of the local authorities may sometimes operate as a check to their willingness to admit foreigners into a lodging. This difficulty is, however, remedied by the priests giving the government officials a per-centage on the rents. Out of twelve dollars a month received by Rinshan for our quarters, he gave at the commencement three dollars a month to the deputy vice-governor of the city. Another missionary Mr. Verbeck, living in a house at the foot of our hill, pays twelve dollars a month as rent to a military officer, who willingly for this high rate gave up his dwelling to a foreigner, and pays probably only three dollars a month for an equally good house elsewhere, the native autho- rities receiving a small monthly douceur to bribe them into a sUent acquiescence and connivance at the M 162 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. deed. Einshan was particularly anxious in his inquiries whetlier I wanted a second lodging and whether I should ever revisit Japan, recommending me to change my quarters and to remove into a cooler summer residence in an out-temple higher up the hill. He explained to us the various parts of the priestly robe, especially the hesu — the Bud- hist hood hanging over a priest's shoulders — which he stated to have been used in ancient times as a pouch for begging rice, but now ordinarily worn as a silken ornament of dress. He asserts that the priests have regularly devoted themselves to their sacred calling, not from poverty or compulsion, but at the wish of their parents or from voluntary choice. The boy-priests are not sold to become the property of the monasteries, but are voluntarily dedicated by their parents to the priestly profession. Even in the more respectable ranks of society the priest- hood is regarded as an honourable calling for a son in the family. He once came to my host with the Chinese cha- racters for Teen choo keaou, the " religion of the Lord of Heaven," — the specific term by which the Koman Catholic form of Christianity is designated, — and requested to know if we belonged to the same religion. He inquired also about the hwui-hwui keaou — the " Mahomedan religion; " also concerning the Dominicans, the Jesuits and the Virgin Mary, and received with satisfaction his explanation of the difference in the more proniinent doctrines and prac- tices of our religion. On various occasions the old OFFICIAL DUALISM. 163 Japanese abhorrence of Roman Catholic Christianity makes itself perceptible in the conversation of native visitors; and the opposition and hatred evinced by the Japanese government is more the result of political fear than the prompting of an essentially rehgious persecution. The open publicity with which respectable Japanese visit us without fear of their local rulers is probably due to the fact that the squeezing extortions of Chinese mandarins are comparatively unpractised in Japan. The law is obeyed and extends equal protection to all. The dualism or double system of government, while it is fall of absurd anomalies and prolific in arts of duplicity, possesses also the counter- advantage of establishing mutual checks to control the dishonest or unjust practices of the subordinate magistrates in the remotest parts. Espionage makes the central government well acquainted with every act of its agents. The Imperial Court becomes im- mediately acquainted with the malpractices of an unjust, corrupt or extortionate ofiicer. Even custom- house ofiicers are taken from difi'erent districts and provinces, as a preventive of secret collusion and a means of mutual control. A general combina- tion of large numbers of ofiicials through all the descending and ascending gradations of rank is necessary before public injustice can be practised with impunity and wicked magistrates can protect each other in a secret course of unjust administra- tion. A public grievance or a popular discontent is certain to be forthwith reported at Yeddo; and M 2 164 TEN WEEKS IS JAPAN. the secret agency of government controllers and spies brings a sure retribution on the ill-doer and a speedy rectification of the wrong. With all these facts before us, we do not probably err far from the truth in sajdng that Japanese law affords a fair security for protecting the life, property and liberty of its subjects; and that Japan enjoys the pre-eminence of possessing one of the most effective governments for the repression of crime throughout the pagan world. On various occasions other priests from the neigh- bouring temples called to make our acquaintance ; and sometimes a married woman would form one of our company. One priest's wife came to our lodging in order to make knoAvn to us a specific for sore eyes and to offer for sale some boxes of salve, for which she had a high repute. Some neighbouring tradesmen brought thin plates of mother-of-pearl taken from the oyster-shell and ground down to a smooth surface on a hone. All of them showed eager curiosity in inquiring about foi'eign nations; but both priests and ladies sometimes addressed questions as to our domestic mode of life the reverse of complimentary to our moral character, and indicating an utterly blunted state of their own moral sense. Among the acquaintances who paid us a visit was a Japanese physician who sent in his name in ordi- nary European writing and with the Dutch word for "physician" attached, all inscribed on paper and in imitation of a foreigner's card. One of our visitors on another evening was an VISITORS. 165 official gentleman lately arrived from Yeddo, and an acquaintance of my host. He was probably a spy in the employment of the government for watching foreigners and reporting our proceedings. He was particularly anxious to know the nature of my office and the object of my visit to Japan. My friend in- formed him that my work in China was to superintend a body of religious teachers engaged in instructing people at Hongkong and in other parts of China; that our religion inculcated the practice of virtue, truth and righteousness ; that I visited Japan in order to exhort my countrymen to a sense of their duty in observing the holy precepts of our religion ; and that we ardently desired to see the Japanese partakers of the benefits which the Christian religion was designed to confer. He listened attentively, and then with genuine courtesy replied : — " The religion of Jesus is very good." About the same time I met in the house of an English acquaintance two other officials connected with the land regulations in the sale of building sites to foreigners. One of them was accustomed to act as interpreter, and spoke the Chinese mandarin dialect as well as a little English. He asked if our religion was the same as the Roman Catholic religion; and was informed in reply of the considerable difference which subsists between our religion, " the religion of Jesus," and the Roman Catholic religion, "the re- ligion of the Lord of Heaven." He inveighed against the malpractices of the professors of the latter relio-ion and the troubles they had caused in former times to M 3 166 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. the Japanese nation. My answer naturally was to the effect that Protestant Christians did not desire to meddle with political affairs in Japan, and that our doctrines referred more to the moral duties of private life than to interference in matters of state pohcy. He asked me to hear him pronounce some English words. He jerked out with some effort the word "concert," and after some renewed endeavours of correct pro- nunciation, he interpreted its meaning in Chinese shang-leang, by which I found that he was vainly trying to pronounce the word "consult." Some of the in- terpreters speak English with tolerable correctness; and every Japanese youth is eagerly ambitious of acquiring the English language. One of our visitors at the temple was a priest partially intoxicated with sakee, and anxious to open some trading connection with foreigners in disposing of a considerable supply of pearls from some brother- priests in a remote interior district of the country. Intoxication is so frequent a spectacle that even a partially intoxicated priest ceased to create any sur- prise after a few weeks' acquaintance with the habits of the people. Another company of our visitors at the temple was a two-sworded gentleman accompanied by four adult women, all married and unaccompanied by their husbands, the non-seclusion of the female sex and the custom of blackening their teeth on their marriage giving greater locomotive freedom to Japanese women than what is usual elsewhere in Asiatic countries. They had all made a call at our dwelling, and we VISITOES. 167 met tliem descending the hill. They returned with us to the temple and spent a considerable portion of the evening in examining European views through a stereoscopic apparatus. The gentleman was a native of Yeddo, and probably a spy. He was anxious to learn English and had been for some little time the pupil of our missionary friend Mr. Verbeck. On the present occasion he was excited by drinking, and left a gourd-bottle of sakee secreted outside the entrance to our room. He made continual efforts to pronounce English words, but with little success in his present state of semi-stupefaction from the effects of alcohol. He grew by degrees almost rude in his familiarities, shouting " Mister, Inglees (English) ah, ah, ah," with a loud peal of laughter, and once or twice proceeding to pat my host on the back in patronising style. The women were exceedingly modest and well-behaved. They wore on their heads hair-pins made of horn or of silver, with other petty ornaments and an artificial flower. One of the younger women was the married daughter of an elderly lady present, and carried her infant in her arms. It has been generally asserted that Japanese women do not value precious stones, jewellery or trinkets. This younger woman however wore such ornaments as her pecuniary means afforded, having a silver-washed ring sfet with a large black bead of native workmanship on the fourth finger of her left hand, and a similar ring set with a star of seven imitation-rubies of Dutch manufacture on the fourth finger of her right hand. Although it is true M 4 168 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. that Japanese ladies are not generally decorated with jewels and gold ornaments, yet not a few of the mid- dle class of Japanese women wear metal rings, placing great value on a steel purse-ring given by a foreigner and showing great eagerness to possess a bright gilt button. Even a sixpence or a franc-piece is some- times set in a native ring, and prized by the ladies of Nagasaki. The general impression left on my mind by our native Adsitors and neighbours was that they are a friendly race of people, accessible, fi'ank, manly, ener- getic and polite ; not very truthful and the reverse of temperate, if our views of temperance be formed after the standard of Asiatic and not of European habits. That they are inordinately addicted to drinking sakee and that this alcoholic drink produces the speedy effect of intoxication is undoubtedly true. It is also not less true that the intoxicating effects of their sakee continue only for a few hours and wear off more rapidly than the effects of drunkenness among Euro- peans. While under its effects they are excited to foolish acts and words : if far gone in intoxication, they become disorderly, riotous and noisy, reeling in their walk and stammering in their speech. The strangest phenomenon consists in the fact that even during the same day they may partially regain a state of sobriety, and that the physical effects are not gene- rally so permanently abiding as in western countries. The physician of the Dutch factory mentions how- ever the fact of sakee-drinking producing, even after these deductions, very prejudicial consequences to the DOCTOR KASATU. 169 general health and average duration of life among the people of the city. One of my most intimate acquaintances was a Japanese doctor of the name of Kasatu, who lived in the centre of the city and sometimes exchanged visits with us, making himself useful in purchasing for us copies of native books and maps. On our first visit to him at his own home, we were conducted to an outer apartment which formed his dispensary, around the sides of which were arranged cabinets with little drawers filled with medical herbs and compounds, and duly distinguished by Chinese labels. We were afterwards led into his inner room in which his pro- fessional hbrary stood. We noticed several volumes published in Chinese ; among them the valuable medi- cal work in four volumes composed by Dr. Hobson and printed at the expense of a high Chinese func- tionary at Canton. It has received also the high dis- tinction of being republished by Japanese imperial authority in the religious capital at Miako. There were also some native works on surgery, probably taken from the Dutch, and containing anatomical diagrams and figures of the various parts of the hu- man frame. We were seated on the ground; or rather, as a Japanese apartment is generally alto- gether destitute of any article of furniture, we had to sit on our knees and heels on the cleanly-swept weH- stufFed frames of oblong square matting let into the slightly raised floor. A patient or the messenger from a patient (for his appearance scarcely denoted sick- ness) soon entered to consult the doctor. He bowed 170 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. very low towards the ground and our medical friend returned the compliment with an equally low bending of his body. Each again renewed the reverent inclina- tion of head and person ; and then the business of consul- tation commenced. The visitor detailed the symptoms of the case, and our friend the doctor took down a volume from his pile of books, in which he perused a few pages and studied the principles of Japanese medi- cal science. The required remedy was prescribed, and tea was served to the stranger and to ourselves, after which he took his departure with the usual salutation of bowings to the ground. When a Japanese wishes to make a very reverential bow to his superior, he places his pahns on the upper part of both thighs, and in this posture bends his head so as nearly to touch his knees. The doctor's wife was present with us in the room, taking her part in the conversation and assisting her husband m paying attention to his guests. She handed to us a paper packet of gingerbread cakes and sweet- meats ; and whatever portion we failed to consume on the spot, she insisted on our taking to our homes. We afterwards made a liberal distribution among the juvenile portion of the persons whom we met in the adjoining street. Both his wife and daughter-in-law paid an occasional visit to our temple-dwelling. Doctor Kasatu soon returned our visit and brought some native books which we had commissioned him to purchase. He left his slippers at the door and walked with his bare white stockings into the room. A little metal inkstand with the accompanying apparatus of DRESS OF A -JAPANESE GENTLEMAN. 171 pen and writing materials in a case, hung suspended from his belt. The tobacco-pipe with steel, flint and matches occupied its usual place on the belt. A pocket-book and fan were suspended from the same girdle, which also confined in its proper place on his left side a short sword with black unadorned hilt without a guard and encased in a dark-coloured finely-polished lacquered wood sheath. The descrip- tion of his dress will serve as a fair sample of that of an ordinary Japanese gentleman. His head was entirely shaven, the usual mark of distinction pe- culiar to the higher class of medical practitioners who have obtained a medical diploma or licence at Miako. His inner robe consisted of a rich blue or purple gown of shot sUk, with a round folded collar meeting over the breast, reaching down to the feet and well wrapped in free folds around the legs so as to answer the purpose of a pair of trousers. Small pieces of thin paper served instead of a pocket- handkerchief, and after being used were stowed away in the capacious folds of the sleeve closed at the extremity of the cuiF and thus resembling a pocket. A shorter robe resembling a deep spencer and of a black colour, was hung over the inner robe, con- taining large loose sleeves and decorated with five white spots marked with the armorial device of his family. These marks consisted of some flower, a geometrical figure or some other fancifully wrought monogram, which serve to distinguish every man as he walks along the streets and proclaim to every beholder the family to which he belongs. They 172 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. occupy a conspicuous position in the dress and must facilitate the recovery of stolen garments, being wrought into the texture of the fabric, one in the centre of the back under the neck and midway be- tween the shoulders, two on the front parts of the arm on the sleeves, and the remaining two being placed on either side of the bosom. Only official men of the higher grades on occasions of special ceremony wear the long loose silken trousers open from the hip downwards and confined at the ankle. Ordinary gentlemen have no other covering for their legs than the loose folds of their inner dress. The common people are a trouserless race, and almost entire nudity is the usual habit of the lower classes of Japanese. Among all classes, except priests and doctors, the front part and the crown of the head are shaved, and the hair on the side and back of the head is collected into a top-knot, glued with a kind of bandoline and plaited into an artificial comb with its end bent upwards, neatly fastened and projecting forwards. Sometimes only the crown is shaved, and the fore-locks are drawn backwards into the central comb. The women wear their jet- black hair gathered tightly over the temples and forehead, and carried back so as to form a high tufted crown, through which large metal hair-pins are passed. Our medical visitor brought us some professional works published at Miako, and exchanged with me a copy of Dr. Hobson's work published in that city for one which I had brought with me from China. He asked also (a most unusual request for a Japanese SPIRIT OF INQUIRY. 173 to make) for a copy of St. Luke's gospel in the Katagana Japanese character published at Hong- kong, for which he proffered payment, but which I induced him to receive as a present. He asked if it was translated by a Japanese and on hearing that it was the work of a foreigner, commended the style. Among the Chinese books which he requested of us was a " History of England " by Eev. W. Muirhead of Shanghae. A considerable demand for foreign books pub- lished in Chinese and imported from the consular ports of China, has been excited at Nagasaki ; and during my stay a large consignment arrived from China of these publications at the request of Mr. Verbeck. An ad valorem duty of 20 per cent, is levied on imported books by the provisions of recent treaties. If the Japanese custom-house officials and the European importer cannot agree on the declared amount of value, the Japanese officers propose a cer- tain estimated sum to which the foreign importer assents ; or if he refuses to accede, the Japanese are bound themselves to purchase the books at the speci- fied price. The foHoAving list of the Chinese works required for sale wiU give some idea of the spirit of inquiry respecting foreign nations which has begun to prevail : — " Herschel's Astronomy " in three volumes by Mr. Wylie of Shanghae. 50 copies. " The Christian Almanack" for 1860, the former half containing an abstract of Christian doctrine with general history. " Circle of Knowledge," a schoolbook in Chinese and English, by Dr. Legge of Hongkong. 20 copies. 174 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. " History of England" by Mr. Muirhead of Shanghae. 2 copies. " A Japanese-English Vocabulary" by Mr. Liggins. Price 3 itze- bus. 147 copies. " A Chinese Miscellany " published monthly by the missionaries at Shanghae. " The Ningpo Serial " by Dr. Macgowan. This last "work, containing a collection of foreign news and notices of current events in China and in western lands, is the favourite publication and greatly in demand. Any allusion to Christianity is rigidly suppressed in all foreign works in the Chinese or Japanese languages republished in Japan. But any Chinese books, which contain a slight admixture of religious matter interspersed amid scientific treatises, are allowed to be imported for sale and doubtless will find their way into all parts of the empire.* One or * Rev. J. Liggins, an American missionary now absent from Nagasaki, wrote on August 10th, 1859, a letter from which the following is an extract. After mentioning various scientiiic works published in Chinese which had been disposed of among the Japanese, be writes : — " These works, of which I have sold more than a thousand copies, are purchased by the higher classes of Japanese, and many of them will, no doubt, be republished by them and circulated throughout the empire. Four scientific works by American mis- sionaries in China have been already translated into Japanese and published by this people, who have a great thirst for know- ledge. " Since viTiting the above, I have learned that some of the Japanese at the capital have already commenced republishing the works with which I am furnishing this people. The one on natural philosophy is already out, and three of the others are to be published at once. This shows how eager they are to become familiar with the superior scientific and other knowledge possessed by the men of the West." NECESSARY CAUTION IN MISSIONARIES. 175 two former cases of a presentation of the New Testa- ment in Japanese were met by a direct refusal ; and in the present temper of the native government the acceptance of the Christian Scriptures would entail the peril of death on the recipient. Even our friend Dr. Kasatu cannot be exempted from the suspicion of having made a request to receive the gospel of St. Luke as a spy in the interest of the local government, anxious to examine every religious book in the Japanese language known to be in our possession. We deemed it the more prudent course not to arouse the jealous fears of their rulers by any premature endeavours to distribute copies of the word of God ; and cherish the hope that with the blessing of the Almighty and the prevalence of a higher moral tone among the representatives of Christian nations, oppor- tunities of more directly aggressive missionary action may hereafter be created, and brighter prospects dawn upon the moral and spiritual destinies of Japan. 176 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. CHAP. XII. RURAL DISTRICTS NEAR NAGASAKI. EXCURSIOKS INTO SURROUNDING VILLAGES. RESTIVE HORSES. ANGLO- FRENCH COMMISSARIAT FROM CHINA. EXTERNAL ASPECT OF VIL- LAGES. RURAL SCENERT. GOVERNOR'S AQUATIC GALA TOKITZ. MATERIAL COMFORT OF POPULATION. CUTANEOUS DISEASES. TEDDO ROAD. REFECTORY-HOUSES. TRIP OVER THE HILLS. JAPANESE FLORA. AGRICULTURE. VILLAGES. Frequent pedestrian rambles into the rural parts immediately bordering on tbe suburbs, and some oc- casional equestrian excursions a few miles into the surrounding country, were among the agreeable in- cidents of my stay at Nagasaki. My first trip was a ride over the hills extending to the south of the British Consulate and the site of the future foreign settlement. My English companion and myself had some difficulty at starting in making our way through the long lines of small Japanese horses in the course of being purchased on behalf of the British and French commissariats for the service of the military expe- dition in the North of China. Near the British Con- sulate a dep6t of mat-sheds was formed; and another at the offices of a Scotch merchant acting for the French Government. During the whole day troops of horses were led up and down by native speculators bringing every pony which they could collect from JAPANESE HORSES. 177 the outlying districts. The measuring rod was ap- plied, they were trotted and put through their paces, and the process of bargaining entered upon. The excitement of the vociferating native salesmen was as nothing compared with the kicking, biting, neighing and prancing of the steeds, which rendered the nar- row lanes almost impassable. Some fifteen hundred horses were collected together awaiting transport to the vicinity of the Peiho. Some were shipped for Shanghae, but an equestrian mutiny on board cost the French Government the loss of three-fourths of their first shipment. The high-spirited ponies broke loose, and struck, bit and tore at everything in their way. The European sailors suffered some severe wounds and refused to go among the infiiriated ani- mals. Out of three hundred scarcely sixty arrived after a week's voyage alive and safe at Shanghae. Some of the MiUtary Train Corps soon afterwards arrived in Japan to break in the untamed horses and prevent a repetition of the disaster. We had not proceeded a quarter of a mile before a shght motion in opening my umbrella caused my own steed to strike out its heels behind, and on looking around I had the misfortune of finding that my com- panion had thereby been literally kicked out of his saddle and was lying on the green crop of a paddy- field by the wayside. He was fortunately but slightly bruised, and after a short delay we resumed our ascent of the hills. There is something exquisitely beautifiil and at- tractive in the appearance of these rural landscapes N 178. TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. in Japan, — the green lanes lined with overhanging hedgerows of honeysuckles and flowering shrubs of every variety and hue, the hiU-tops covered with fir plantations, the valleys sheltering in their irregularly winding nooks the cottages and homesteads of a peace- ful and orderly population, the peasant's hut peeping forth from amid the clustering branches and man- tling shade of the gently-waving grove of bamboos, the fields covered with cereal crops, and the light- hearted thrifty villagers engaged in tilling the soil or in the various other pursuits of agricultural labour. The roads over the hills and through the more retired villages are usually of rude and primitive construc- tion, mere causeways of two or three feet in breadth piled with loose stones between the growing crops, or in the more hiUy rising ground consisting of deep rut- ways hollowed out by the natural action of the de- scending mountain torrent. In some parts a regular flight of stone steps helped to relieve the fatigue of the toiling pedestrian. Alternate hill and valley, — deep-shaded ravine and open pathway, — secluded, bare and desolate aspect, and busy merry crowds of peasants, — succeeded each other by turns. Irriga- ting machines, water-courses, narrow rills bubbling with the turbid stream, and rough implements for threshing and winnowing grain, were to be seen in the vicinity of their dwellings. There were farm- houses of neat exterior, and public wells with their primitive apparatus for hauling up the water. The prevalent Eastern mechanical contrivance of a swing- ing beam moving on a pivot and balanced by a heavy BURAL EXCUESION. 179 attached stone at one end, served to economise labour in raising water and was a frequent appendage to their gardens. Sometimes a well-wooded avenue of cedars conducted us by a silent and less frequented pathway to a village shrine or some rustic temple consecrated to the popular divinities of the district. The villagers were everywhere well-behaved and re- spectful, and readily set us right when once or twice we lost our way. The sun was rather hot and the steep ascents sometimes retarded our pace. In such pauses we had opportunities of turning round and surveying the beautifully picturesque scenes over which we passed, and to hold a few minutes' inter- course with the motley crowds of men and women, old and young, who clustered around us and deemed a foreign visitor the fair subject of curiosity and good-humoured speculation. After a ride of five miles we returned by a different road leading along the projecting summit of a moderately elevated range of rugged stony cliffs overhanging the outer part of the harbour and bordering on a well-cultivated district of fields. At a little distance beyond us lay the clustering islets which guard the bay, and more immediately prominent to our view was the well-known and far-celebrated Papenberg forming the turning-point to the ships arriving from the outer waters. A fine view of the city from the southward on our return rewarded us for our toil- some journey amid the increasingly powerful rays of a noonday sun. We had also an opportunity of witnessing from our elevated point of observation a N 2 leo TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. gala-day state excursion of one of the governors of the city, going forth in official pomp and ceremony to inspect one of the villages which line either shore of the bay. A state barge was towed along by a number of other boats propelled each by an immense scull worked by two or three men at the stern. On board the great man's barge a band of native musi- cians gave forth their notes of noisy minstrelsy and strove with their discordant sounds of flutes, flageo- lets, horns and tom-toms to gladden and glorify the scene. A retinue of twenty boats followed in the rear and closed in the aquatic procession. Guns and a feu de joie were occasionally fired, and the harbour wore for a season the appearance of holiday. On the following day I accompanied a small party of English gentlemen on a more distant equestrian excursion in the opposite direction on the north and west of the city to a place called Tokitz, a large vil- lage situated about ten mUes from Nagasaki and facing southwards to the sea on a beautiful marine landscape in the bay of Ohinura. Tokitz is estimated to contaia about a thousand people, and is situated beyond the limits of imperial jurisdiction, not being included in the territory attached to the city of Naga- saki, but governed by its own territorial chieftain, the lord of the surrounding district of 0-o-mura, which belongs to the province of Hizen or, as it is more commonly called in the slightly varying local pronun- ciation of Nagasaki, Fizen. We rode through the central parts of the city (which is entirely destitute of fortified walls or a LANDSCAPE. 181 fosse) mto the suburbs, and thence turning a little to the left skirted for some time the northern part of the harbour, until we met a stream of water flowing into it. For three or four miles our way lay along the banks or in the stony bed of this rivulet, leading through a series of villages, and crossing flights of steps, which in any other country would be deemed impassable on horseback. As we proceeded further into the country, the view changed from the bold scenery of mountain and sea landscape to a rich and verdant panorama of fertile valleys teeming with agii- cultural produce and covered with growing crops of rice, wheat, rye and rape-seed extending from the low level over the gradually rising acclivities to the sum- mits of hills of moderate height. Coppices of cedar and fir were interspersed like emeralds of fairest set- ting amid the smiling beauty of Nature's golden as- pect. Camellias, roses and evergreens of every variety hung in drooping festoons over our pathway, which widened in this more frequented part into the broad dimensions of a well-paved road. The villagers wel- comed us in every direction, interchanging signs of good-will and offering us sweetmeats, hot tea or cold water. On our return many of the women and boys were standing outside their cottages, offering flowers to ourselves and holding out bunches of green fodder for our horses. Some asked us if this were our Zon- dag (Sunday); others proffered their importunate request for the much-prized ornament of a gilt button. In the narrower parts of the road the females whom N 3 182 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. we met sometimes hastily leaped aside out of our way, apparently through fear of our restive horses more than of the riders, and giving way to loud laughter amid their manifestations of alarm. Sometimes we met the family retinue of a two-sworded gentleman on his travel, and our little cavalcade mingled with his carriers of luggage and chair-bearers. Interspersed throughout these lovely sequestered valleys there was the usual assemblage of village homesteads, temples, shrines, wells and a few shops. We passed under one well-wooded hill on the summit of which a re- markable boulder-stone of immense size looked like an ancient tower buUt by giant-hands, quivering on its narrow base, and threatening every moment to slide from its delicately-poised foundations and to carry crushing desolation and destruction into the vaUey below. We entered the populous village or small town of Tokitz and were an object of some exciting attraction to its crowds of idle gazers. On some former occasions the townspeople had shown their dislike of foreigners breaking bounds and ex- tending their rambles so far by throwing a few missiles and otherwise marking their displeasure at foreign audacity. At this time we were fortunate in meeting with nothing calculated to mingle any unpleasant as- sociations with the reminiscences of the trip. Two of our party remained to bathe in the sea- water at a jetty which stretched out into the bay amid a little fleet of native trading boats and fishing vessels, the stench from which was the least agreeable sensation of our visit. The people took care of their horses while NATIVE VILLAGERS. 1S3 they bathed ; and half an hour afterwards our compa- nions rejoined us at a small village two miles nearer Nagasaki, where we halted on our return and made pre- parations for our dinner. The proprietor of a house on the wayside lent us his principal room and assisted our Japanese coolies in cooking our meal. He readily furnished us with whatever we wanted without pecu- niary reward, receiving two empty bottles as his chief perquisite. A native doctor and one or two other neighbours joined our party, and the gift of a cigar from an Englishman present soon brought them to terms of friendly companionship. The wife also made her appearance and superintended the boiling of the kettle, which was suspended by a neat and clever con- trivance of sliding rods in any position and at any distance over the charcoal-fire from one of the rafters in the roof, regularly built flues and chimney-stacks being as yet a luxurious invention unknown in Ja- pan. The scenery through which we passed would be considered landscape of the highest order in any part of the world, and exceeds anything ordinarily accessible in the British islands in the rich abundance of evergreen trees and the products of a semi-tropical vegetation intermingled with many of the more pro- minent beauties of a temperate region. The people seemed everywhere to possess a fair amount of material comfort; and the signs of prosperity and contentment generally prevailed. Stout limbs and moderate strength of physical frame were the prepon- derating characteristics in their appearance, and told no tale of want, of food in sufficient quantity to preserve N 4 184 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. health and sustain bodily labour. There were visible in these rural parts scarcely any beggars, few diseased persons, and no disgusting spectacles of miserable squalor and putrid ulcers exhibited by the wayside to extort the traveller's coin. The only exception was the wide prevalence of cutaneous eruptions and sore heads, which suggested unpleasant doubts of the cleanliness of personal habits for which the Japanese have gained a good repute as a nation. We passed the boundary line between the imperial regime and the outlying district on our way back to the city. A police-station with a few written notices posted outside, was the only indication of the spot ; and no delay was experienced from the persons in charge. So little did the precise locality attract our notice, that we almost failed to perceive the exact limit between the two territorial jurisdictions, or to mark the moment when on our return we passed again from the domains of a vassal prince into the proper imperial authority of the Tycoon of Japan. A few days later some friends accompanied me on a similar trip into the country on the north-east of the city. On this occasion those of us who had not strength for walking up the long hilly ascent had to employ coolies to carry us in a kagoo. Our trip ex- tended a few miles on what is commonly called the Yeddo road, every milestone in the empire being l^ckoned and numbered from the celebrated "Bridge of Japan" in that capital. Our route lay through a series of winding paths leading from the " Street of Temples " along a beautiful valley of verdant crops JAPANESE HOTEL. 185 and luxuriant gardens interspersed among burial- grounds and little altar-shrines to the base of the hills on the east of the city. Here our way lay between two hill-sides covered with fir coppices and low bushes by a well-formed road paved with flag- stones in some places and at others compacted into the well-trodden hardness of a macadamised surface. The farthest point of our excursion was the top of a hill over which the road extended. From this eleva- tion we were able to look upon the country on the opposite side, and had a clear view of the celebrated mountain known by the name of Unsen-yama. The volcano on its summit generally emits a cloud of smoke environing its highest peaks ; but on this day all was clear and cloudless. The villagers stated that there is an eruption of smoke once in twenty days. A little distance before reaching this pass among the hills, we arrived at a fine specimen of a Japanese hotel or public refreshment-house, at which we rested for four hours on our return to avoid the heat of the noonday sun. There were four or five rooms, as usual, entirely destitute of furniture except the matting on which we knelt or crouched. These apartments are available for each successive company of travellers, and a larger room served for the pro- prietors of the building, who were engaged in cooking a meal for their more wealthy visitors or in selling eatables to the crowd of pedestrians standing outside and satisfying their hunger by more homely food. These refectory-rooms were crowded with guests ; and among them we particularly noticed a party of Bud- 18& TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. hist priests who had strolled out thither on an ex- cursion of pleasure. A little girl of ten jears who accompanied them amused the party by singing airs and performing dances, in which she waved a fan in measured tune and assumed a variety of graceful attitudes. She received presents of sugar and cake from some of the travellers as a reward for her ex- hibition. One of the adjoining reception-rooms was occupied by an official gentleman wearing his two swords and carrying a steel cane-like thin rod as a walking-stick in his hand. He walked on his journey, attended by half a dozen followers ; and soon made way for another batch of travellers. Many of the wayfarers journeyed on horseback, seated in a high clumsy saddle with wooden stirrups of large size, in which the whole foot rested without the possibility of being entangled during a fall. The stirnip-leathers were very short and brought the rider's knees on a level with the horse's shoulders. A long train of these Japanese steeds was stationed outside and gave fre- quent trouble to their owners by their pugnacity and restiveness. Large stores of straw horseshoes were sold close by, and this halting-place served as a con- venient spot for replacing the old pair by a fresh supply. The riders were to be seen on either side of the way tying over the horses' fetlocks these mere woven wisps of straw used as a sufficient protection of the hoof from the stony causeways and rendering the animal less liable to miss its footing on the slip- pery flag-stones of the steeper hiU-sides. A large thickly-wadded bandage under the tail served the RUSTIC RETREAT. 187 purpose of a crupper. An extended frame of light wooden trellis-work ran across the road at this point, on which a beautiful vine-like shrub was trained, and furnished in its shady leaves and droop- ing clusters of purple-coloured flowers a cool shelter for man and beast. It was one of the pleasantest sights in this country to see these clean-swept well-matted cool resting-places filled by a throng of busy travellers or of holiday-seekers from the city, enjoying their simple meal of cakes and tea and indulging in the relaxation of these salubrious retreats. The same good-humoured curiosity was perceptible in the village crowds of old and young, who showed no astonish- ment or alarm at the presence of a foreigner. In some of the public refectories by the roadside we saw companies of singing-girls exercising their min- strelsy. In one place two young men were engaged in a wrestling match, which they carried on in perfect nudity. The rough handling and heavy falls which they sustained on the hard chunamed floor excited the fear of our witnessing a more serious infliction of blows and termination in an angry fight. After a few minutes however they ceased from their severe struggles, covered with perspiration and dirt, but without the slightest loss of temper, responding with hearty laughter to the cheers of the spectators. The number of quack advertisements of Chinese medi- cines which were posted on some of the village shops, were of a most novel and original character. In one place a dentist proclaimed on a suspended wooden frame his scale of prices for extracting teeth. A 188 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. picture was exhibited of a set of men's teeth in the original white colour of nature, and of another set of married ladies' teeth blackened by art. The adver- tiser offered to extract men's teeth at the low price of 300 iron cash (threepence) each, and women's teeth for the still lower fee of 200 iron cash (two- pence). The people at the refreshment-house brought us presents of flowers, and endeavoured to draw us into conversation by explaining the names of the various objects in the court-yard. They were greatly amused by our inexpertness in eating our meal in a room bare of chairs and table, and betrayed great merriment at pei'ceiving the evident pain with which we endeavoured to adapt our limbs to the Japanese sitting posture. In no part of Japan does the native disposition appear more favourable towards foreigners than in the neighbourhood of Nagasaki. Another of my rural excursions in the neighbour- hood of Nagasaki took me to the east and south-east of the city over the range of hills rising above the temple in which I was lodged. We passed by an ascending route some three or four miles to the rear of the eastern suburbs among fields richly culti- vated and furnishing a fair specimen of Japanese agriculture. The most hasty and cursory glance at the natural aspect of a Japanese landscape reveals to an observer the marked approximation of a great variety of species in the Japanese flora to the vege- table productions of the British islands, and the strange dissimilarity in this respect between the country of Japan and Australian scenery. While in JAPANESE FLORA. 189 the antipodal regions of the latter continent the pre- valence of the Eucalyptus family in the vegetable kingdom and of the Marsupial tribe in the animal world exhibits the wide severance and divergence of its indigenous flora and fauna from all the commonly observable types in the natural history of Europe, — in a Japanese country-scene, on the contrary, the beholder might sometimes transfer hunself in thought to his native land and almost reahse the imagination that he is moving among the hiUs, glens and valleys of old England. Without venturing an attempt to give the reader an enumeration of the terms in botanical accuracy, I may mention ia illustration of this resemblance that as we ascended the hilly path- ways in our mountainous excursion to the high land in the rear of the city, the common vegetables, plants and weeds of an English roadside were visible in every direction. Daisies, buttercups, Scotch thistles, milk-thistles, dandelions, sorrels, scentless blue vio- lets, and not a few varieties of British ferns were strewn about our path. Roses, irises, rhododen- drons, peonies and camellias of every hue and party- colour, peach-blossoms, cherry-blossoms and dafFodUs among garden-flowers ; pines, Scotch firs, spruces, larches and cedars among forest-trees ; and wheat, rye, barley, rape, mustard, clover, cinquefoil, vetches, turnips and carrots among the field crops, — served to remind us of the similar agricultural crops and rural scenes of our fatherland; — while rice-fields, orange- trees, sago-palms and other varieties of the palm tribe, a feAV fruitless plantain-trees, and above one hundred 100 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. and fifty species of evergreen trees, luxuriating in all the wild fertility of these liill-sides and unknown tUl recently in the nomenclature of the European botanist, were sufficient to remind us that our foot- steps trod a foreign soil, and that wellnigh half the globe's circumference separated us in these novel out- landish regions from the loved scenes of our youth. Japanese agriculture is still practised in very primitive style. The husbandman pursues his toil with tools of most homely construction. Expe- rimental farming and its train of scientific inven- tions are not likely to invade these unsophisticated tillers of the soil or to change the aspect of their rural homesteads. Small holdings and high rents are a fatal barrier to agricultural improvement in any land. In Japan these causes operate fuUy in conjunction with feudal tenures in reducing the peasant labourer almost to a condition of virtual serfdom, the greater part of the farming produce being surrendered to the imperial or princely lord of the soil. A Japanese ploughman carries on his work by means of a plough formed of a small beam from which a piece of wood projects on the right- hand side to serve as a handle in directing its course over the furrow. The share is a mere double mattock hanging downwards and flattened at the bottom parallel Avith the surface, so as to pull up the soil and throw the sods on the right and left to fall on either side of the little trench. The whole is dragged forward by a single small ox of the country in straggling irregular movement so as to form a AGRICULTURAL SCENES. 191 zigzag furrow almost at the uncontrolled will of the animal. In this way the toiling labourer pre- pares the soil for the seed, or ploughs in a green crop of cinquefoil as manure for the intended rice- crop. The fields are necessarily very small, not exceeding a rood in extent in some places, on account of the numerous level parterres for irrigation and the interspersed rills for conveying the stream step by step down the gradual declivity of the hill-side. The seed is scattered on the top of the slimy marshy surface, and oxen are employed to tread down the sown seed into the yielding muddy soil. Rice is generally first sown in small plots during the month of April, so as to grow up closely clustered in well- watered beds, from which it is afterwards taken in bunches when about six inches in height, and transplanted by women at intervals of a few inches. A graduated supply of water according to the season is brought by irrigatmg machines into the levelled paddy-field. In November the rice-crop is ripe and cut by sickle or moAvn by a scythe. The heads of the sheaves are beaten against a stone or some other hard substance in lieu of being threshed. They then un- dergo a second threshing process by being violently ■stamped so as to separate the grain from the husk. This part of the labour is done either by the help of rude machinery moved by a water-wheel, or by a hulling machine containing heavy blocks of stone, alternately raised and suffered to fall with a crush- ing weight by rice-beaters working under cover of the storehouse. Water-wheels for grinding corn 192 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. - are a frequent sight in the neighbourhood of their homesteads. Over the greater part of our ramble we witnessed nothing like hedges or fences, and no boundaries between the fields beyond the little water- rills dug for irrigation. The waving golden hue of the yellow patches of mustard-seed and cabbage- seed grown for the manufacture of vegetable oU, and crops of wheat, buckwheat and barley, formed an interesting object of variegated beauty in the land- scape. The villages on these hills showed no sign of wealth or afiluence ; and the farming peasantry seemed to be a poorer class of population, though not ne- cessarily on that account to be regarded as destitute of the principal necessaries of life. As we passed through the rural hamlets, the peasants ran forth from their rude and simple dwellings, and shouted words of welcome, sometimes calling to us with an invitation to come to their houses and drink a cup of sakee. 193 CHAP. XIIL FORMER RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS. FORT OF SIMABARA. PAPENBERG. EARTHQUAKES. PERSECUTIONS. — FRANCIS XAVIER. ROMAN CATHOLIC EXPULSION. DUTCH COM- PLICITY. — TRAirPLING ON CROSS. INSCRIPTION OVER SLAUGHTERED christians' PLACE OF SEPULTURE. The view obtained from the summit of this range of hills embraces a wide extent of mountainous scenery and marine landscape, with valleys interspersed among the hills and covered with green crops. Towards the north-west we looked down upon the harbour of Naga- sald with its fleets of native and European shipping. In the opposite direction we commanded an extensive view of the open sea, and across a wide bay were able to descry through the clear atmosphere Mount Unsen- yama (the "Mountain of Hot Springs") with a long low black cloud hovering over its summit and denoting its present volcanic activity in the emission of dark smoke hanging like an extended pillar along its upper margin against the blue sky. The district of Simabara lay at its foot, a name associated with tragic reminiscences as the scene of civil war and the last refuge of the native Eoman Catholics before they were finally exterminated from the empire. Here the last remnants of the persecuted body of Chris- tians entrenched themselves in what has been called 194 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. the Fort of Simabara and long held out against their foes, until the assistance of the Dutch enabled the Japanese Government to reduce them by force of arms and to extirpate the hated religion from their soil. Thirty-seven thousand Christians surrendered in the fort and were all put to the sword in one day. The island of Papenberg visible from the same ele- vated point towards the west was also suggestive of the same tale of commercial rivalry and rehgious dis- cord, which incited the maritime nations of Europe to fratricidal war in these eastern seas and induced the Dutch of the seventeenth century to help in the exter- mination of the Portuguese and Spaniards, involving in their common overthrow the destruction of the Roman Cathohc missions in Japan. Never has a more signal reverse or a more irretrievable disaster been inflicted on a religious sect or a political party. From that time nearly two centuries and a half have roUed onward with all their recurring cycles of change ; and yet no sign of improvement or prospect of amendment has revived the hopes of the fallen and persecuted system. Cannonaded by Dutch artil- lery and compelled to surrender at discretion, the overpowered garrison became the prisoners of their relentless captors. Executions of native Christians caused the land to overflow with torrents of martyred blood, which have not hitherto proved the seed of the Roman Catholic Church in Japan. From the bare rugged top of Papenberg tradition relates that thou- sands of Japanese Christians, who preferred death to an abandonment of their religion, were hurled down PERSECUTION. 19a the precipice into the watery abyss below. The European padres evinced their heroic constancy by sharing with their native catechumens the common punishment of a violent death. One wretched man, the Jesuit Christopher Ferreyra, underwent torture in its most harrowing forms of subtle and refined invention. Human nature could no longer continue the conflict, and the sign of recantation was made. He lived on during a wretched life of ignoble secu- rity, doomed by his merciless persecutors to bear the marks of perpetual ignominy in filling the situation of Japanese inquisitor and spy, and adding to the infamy of a renegade the shame of forced concu- binage with a Japanese woman. The tale of his subsequent contrition and martyrdom has been well observed by former writers to have no better foun- dation than the wishes of his co-religionists and the charitable hopes of Koman Catholic historians. At the present time not a single native Roman Ca- tholic survives throughout the kingdom of Japan, as a monument of former Propagandist triumphs, or as a record of the early labours of Francis Xavier the canonised saint, hero and patron of Papal missions in the East.* * The early Roman Catholic annalists and his companions in missionary travel make no scruple in claiming for Francis Xavier the supernatural power of vrorking miracles. They particularly instance his miraculous gift of tongues and the power of raising a dead body to life. Ordinary Roman Catholics of the present day appear to follow in the train of this superstitious veneration and pay semi-divine honours to his bodily remains. The following description of a congregation of native Roman o 2 196 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. The name of Unsen-yama is also associated with the severest of those wide-spread earthquakes which have rendered the provincial district of Simabara almost proverbial as the historical scene of disaster amid these oft-desolated regions. The whole country of Japan appears to be a focus of volcanic eruption and disturbing force on this barrier-edge of the deep oceanic bed of the Pacific. At the close of the last century (a.d. 1793), one of the most destructive visitations that ever ravaged the surface of our globe Catholics in the East bowing down to the relics of this Eomish saint is somewhat abhorrent to the spirit of Protestant missions and the simplicity of pure scriptural worship : — " Festival of St. Francis Xavier at Goa. " On the 3rd of December, the day of the great feast, the bells rang joyously at the hour fixed for the ceremony of exposition. The litter on which reposes the body of St. Francis Xavier takes out like a drawer from the rest of the case. It was carried by persons of the highest dignity in the city present, and deposited in its shrine in the centre of the sanctuary. The shrine was now surrounded by candlesticks of massive silver and by beautiful silver lamps. High mass followed, during which, after the Gospel, the panegyric of the saint was pronounced by the most eminent preacher in the city, who concluded his address by three Hail Marys, the last of which was for his lordship Mon- seigneur Canoz. During the elevation guns were fired outside the church, as if it had been a military mass. When the most holy sacrifice was concluded, the faithful were permitted to ap- proach the holy remains and to kiss the feet of the saint. Every- thing was so well arranged that there was no coafusion in this ceremony. The people ascended the platform, one by one, by steps at one corner, knelt aaid kissed the holy feet of St. Francis Xavier, and, walking halfway round the shrine, descended by a diiferent way and filed off out of the church. But there were few who did not return at some more quiet time to have a tranquil look at the saintly remains and an undisturbed prayer beside them." — Allen's Indian Mail. VOLCANIC ERUPTIOK. 197 within historic memory occurred in the Simabara dis- trict. The mountain Unsen-yama itself collapsed from its inmost centre and its summit subsided into the yielding cavity, whereby the whole mountain range was altered in shape. Tato months later another volcanic eruption from the summit of Bivo-no-koubi sent forth its desolating streams of lava over several miles of adjacent country. Throughout the whole of the island of Kewsew, and especially in the province of Simabara, a terrible earthquake altered the entire aspect of the country and involved many thousands of the people in a common destruction. The opposite province of Figo shared the full effects of this wide- spread destruction, having the configuration of its coast-line and the general form of its territory entirely changed. The tumultuous war of elements extended even to the neighbouring waters, and ships were sunk at sea. Above 53,000 persons were estimated to have perished. Native drawings and printed books still represent the awful conflagrations and destruction caused by the catastrophe ; and some of the coloured pictures which I saw, descriptive of the scene, abound with horrible detaUs. A whole region has the ap- pearance of a vast seething cauldron with volumes of raging flame shooting forth on every side and bury- ing every mountain and valley in its devouring jaws. The commonly prevailing Budhistic ideas of the future place of torture for the wicked are largely borrowed from the popular tradition of these earth- quakes and volcanic eruptions of the last century. The history of Koman Catholic missions in Japan o 3 198 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. is calculated to raise many inquiries of collateral in- terest; and the question naturally suggests itself — what were the peculiar circumstances which converted this promising field of Roman Catholic ascendency into one of the most marvellous scenes of unpre- cedented reverse and failure? It may be useful to eliminate a few suppositions from the subject of our investigation. No pride of race or hatred of foreigners operated in the Japanese mind as an obstacle to Koman Catholic missions, for the Portuguese new- comers were welcomed by the people and suflfered to contract marriages with the Japanese. The padres who commenced the mission were men of popular manners and accomplished arts, who were well re- ceived in the country. A Japanese youth from Goa returned to his native country -with the missionaries, and spread abroad a good report concerning his foreign instructors and the new religion which he had learnt from their teaching. High Japanese princes were among their early converts. An embassy of Japanese nobles proceeded to Rome. International courtesies were exchanged. Francis Xavier and his companions in missionary travel give one unvarying testimony in favour of the Japanese race as the delight of their heart. The persecutions of Christians were not caused by any inherent bigotry and intolerance in the Japan- ese Government, for the spirit of the national laws of Japan is remarkably tolerant and liberal, and every sect of religionists, — Sintoists, Budhists and Confucianists, — dwell together in peace. The real cause of Roman Catholic disasters and their final ROMAN CATHOLIC FEUDS. 199 expulsion from the empire is to be seen partly in the divisions and mutual altercations of the Roman Catho- lic orders; and partly in the jealousies and conflicts between Spaniards and Portuguese, and subsequently of both united against their commercial rivals and interlopers, the Dutch. Here, as in China, Jesuits, Dominicans and Franciscans pursued a career of sec- tarian discord, and falsified for ever by their acts the boasted theory of a visible unity and infallible head- ship of the Catholic Church enthroned in the seven- hUled city. Early European writers also assign ad- ditional causes in the growing pride and arrogance of the Roman Catholic priesthood in general, and especially in the rencontre between a bishop and one of the great feudal lords of the empire on their way to the capital, who were involved in an altercation on the high road respecting the place of honour in passing each other. Political intrigues have been added also to other charges. Two letters were dis- covered by the Dutch, who turned informers and accused their rivals of conspiracy against the impe- rial throne. The contents revealed the existence of a wide combination among the native Roman Catholic party and a suspected scheme of raising one of the vassal princes who were numbered among their converts to the imperial throne. The flame of civil war was fanned and the national sentiment of loyalty was roused. At one time the whole empire seemed on the point of becoming nomi- nally Christian ; and elated hope brought in its train self-confidence and the arrogance of victory. A re- o 4 200 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. action at length came, and sudden reverse foUo-wed. Roman Catholic missionaries and converts were for ever banished on pain of death from the soil of Japan. The sole present results of a century of persever- ing and successful missionary labour may be soon enumerated. They have bequeathed to all succeed- ing generations in Japan the introduction of tobacco, a hatred of the Christian religion, a distrust of fo- reigners, and the long-continued seclusion of the Japanese nation from the rest of the world. Here, as in Paraguay, all the requisite conditions of success were supplied to their hand. The Jesuits had a clear field, and every obstruction was removed from their path. But no one single moral result survives to prove the vitality of their system, or to authenticate the oft-repeated boast of indestructible unity and progress. The result might have been far different if the translation and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures had occupied a greater prominence in their system of religious instruction. The case of the Malagasy Christians retaining the steadfastness of their profes- sion after but a few years of the residence of mission- aries in the country, — amid the persecution of their pagan queen and the expulsion of their foreign mis- sionary teachers from Madagascar, — is a strong contrast to the transient results of Roman Catholic missions in Japan after a century of successful propagandism and free toleration in the empire. The Holy Scrip- tures in Malagasy were widely distributed among the native flocks; and the little communities of persecuted DUTCH COMPLICITY. 201 believers have in some cases been kept together by the sole bond of a secret treasure held in common, — the interdicted possession of a portion of the Malagasy Bible. In the absence of the human teacher, the Holy Spirit of God in the omnipotence of His operations has sanctified this instrumentality of His own written word for the sustentation of vital religion in the souls of the Malagasy converts. A free and open Bible in the language understood by the people is a necessary supplement to oral instruction and essential to the permanency of missionary results in any land. The degree to which the Dutch of that age were implicated in the final extinction of their commercial rivals and the contemporaneous extermination of Christianity in Japan, is one which it is difficult to decide at the present time. Roman Catholic annalists charge them with the crime of indifference to the sufferings of the persecuted Christians and of forgery in the matter of the intercepted letters which were produced in proof of the collusion of missionaries in the political intrigues of the times and their share in the conspiracy against the reigning monarch. They have reviled the Dutch as enduring every con- tumely for the sake of filthy lucre and of virtually abjuring their Christian profession by their evasive re- ply to Japanese inquisitors. The Dutch are accused of having been led to trample on the cross in attesta- tion of their abjuration of Christianity, and of having helped in giving the final blow to Christianity by im- bruing their hands in the blood of the Christians in Simabara. The apologists for the Dutch on their 202 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. part admit a portion of these charges in their confes- sion of a participation in the closing acts of the tragedy at Simabara. They deny any active co- operation in the storming of the fort, but at the same time acknowledge some compKcity in the transaction by having provided guns and ammunition to the Japanese assailants.* The Dutch also themselves confess the humiliation and degradation by which they have purchased imperial favour and a retention of exclusive commercial privileges. Their officials at Desima have borne testimony to the prevalent laxity of morals and the habit of ignoring the duties of Christianity in their private lives, which unhappily formed the general rule of practice in their factory. And even at the present day the writers and men of science who are occasionally found among the Dutch officials appear to have inherited a traditionary pre- judice against Christian missions and to have imbibed * There is something heartless in the following allusion to these historical transactions and their terrible results to the Roman Catholic party in Japan — from the work of Titsingh. Judged out of the mouths of their own writers, the conduct of the Dutch in those days was intensely cruel, mercenary and selfish : — " The sanguinary war which we (the Dutch) carried on with these two nations (the Spaniards and Portuguese), who were too zealous for the propagation of Christianity, and the difference of our religion, procured us the liberty of trading there, to the exclu- sion of all the other nations of Europe. The Japanese, perceiving that incessant seditions were to be apprehended from the secret intrigues of the Roman Catholics, and the numerous converts made by them, found at length that in order to strike at the root of the evil, they ought to apply to the Dutch, whose flag was then the terror of the Indian seas." DUTCH COLONISATION. 203 from their predecessors a distrust of the veriest sem- blance of propagandism among oriental nations. And yet let it ever be remembered that the Dutch traders and colonists of those early days are princi- pally viewed through the medium of unfriendly an- nalists and hostile critics. Let it be borne in mind that the Dutch navigators and settlers were the first to check Roman Catholic power and the maritime su- premacy of Papal countries. They set the example of ignoring and setting at nought the assumed power of the Popedom to divide by an imaginary line the habitable world and to partition the eastern and the western hemispheres between the rival colonising powers of Portugal and Spain. The Dutch too were the first Protestant nation who endeavoured to chris- tianise the native populations under their sway. ■ By a well-meant though unwisely-conceived policy they instituted a system of proponents or government catechists by whose instructions the native races of Ceylon were prepared for baptism as a pre-requisite for municipal offices and the equal rights of Dutch subjects. Not even the semblance of proof has ever been at- tempted to make good the charge against the Dutch of having joined in treading on the cross as a sign of their abjuring the Christian religion. That such a custom existed among the Japanese at Nagasaki is unhappily too well authenticated by the statements of Dutch writers, and by a clause in the last American treaty with Japan. In the latter document it is declared that the practice of trampling upon the cross is abo- 204 TEN AVEEKS IN JAPAN. lished; and the inference from these words is plain that the Japanese rulers themselves admit the former existence of such a custom. Thunberg, who relates the particular details of its annual observance, ex- pressly states that " of the officers that were at the tinae on the island (Desima), there was but one who professed having once had an opportunity of seeing it on his way, when sent by the chief to the governor of the town about some matters respecting the pre- paration for the intended journey to the court." The following is the description given by Thun- berg in p. 89 of his third volume of the detailed ob- servance of this sacrilegious custom: — " A few days after the Japanese New Year's Day (a.d. 1776) the horrid ceremony was performed of trampling on such images as represent the cross, and the Virgin Mary with the child. These images, which are made of cast copper, are said to be about twelve inches in length. This ceremony is performed for the purpose of imprinting on every one an ab- horrence and hatred of the Christian doctrine and of the Portuguese who attempted to propagate that doctrine, and at the same time to discover whether any remains of it be yet left in any Japanese. The trampling is performed in such places as were for- merly most frequented by the Christians. In the town of Nagasaki it continues for the space of four days ; after which period the images are carried to the adjacent places, and at last laid by till the following year. Every one, except the governor and his train, even the smallest child, is obliged to be present at TRAMPLING ON THE CROSS. 205 this ceremony ; but that the Dutch, as some have been pleased to insinuate, are obliged to trample on these images, is not true. At every place overseers are present, who assemble the people by rotation in certain houses, calling over every one by his name in due order, and seeing that everything is duly per- formed. Adults walk over the images from one side to the other, and children in arms are put with their feet on them." It does not appear that this custom of trampling on the cross was practised in any other city than Nagasaki, where, in the immediate vicinity of the Dutch factory in Desima, it was doubtless intended as a perpetual warning to the neighbouring Europeans and the local Japanese of the unrelenting hatred and persecuting violence of the Imperial Government of Japan against any persons attempting to reintroduce the proscribed religion into the country. After the extermination of the Christians at Sima- bara, the following inscription was set over the vast common place of sepulture in which the bodies of the numerous victims of persecution were buried. Never in the history of the world has any nation been known to avow in its public acts and monumental records a more undying rancorous hatred of the Christian religion. The impious challenge of the inscription is probably unequalled in its daring blas- phemy against the divme name. It has been sup- posed by some that the phrase " the Christians' God" * * The Japanese converts were apparently taught to regard the Pope of Bome as a semi-divine personage and the Vicar of God 206 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. may have been intended to denote the Pope of Rome, who might be imagined in their imperfect knowledge of European nations to stand in the relation of their own semi-deified Mikado or spiritual emperor towards the Roman Catholic world: — " So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan ; and let all know, that the King of Spain himself, or the Christians' God, or the great God of all, if he violate this com- mand, shall pay for it with his head." upon earth. The four Japanese noblemen who proceeded on an embassy to the Roman Pontiff carried letters from the Christian princes of Bungo and Omura, which have been handed down by the ecclesiastical annalists of the mission. The inscription of the former was as follows: — " A celui qui doit etre adore, et qui tient la place du Roi du Ciel, le grand et Tres-Saint Pape." The latter was couched in equally strong terms : — "Les mains eleveea vers le ciel, et dans les sentiments d'une veneration pro- fonde, j'adore le Tres-Saint Pape, qui tient la place de Dieu sur la terre, et lui presente humblement cette lettre." 207 CHAP. XIV. A BtTDHIST COMMEMORATION. COLONEL VON SIEBOLD. GRAXD COMMEMOEATm: BUDHIST FESTR'AL. HORENJI MONASTERY. A NATIONAL HEBO IN THE COEEAN WAB. HOSPITALITY OF PRIESTS. PROCESSION OF CHrLDPj:N. PEIXSTS. ABBOT. — LITURGICAL SERVICE SERMON. RELIGION WEARING A HOLIDAY DRESS. INEFFECTUAL MORAL RESTRAINT. During my stay in Nagasaki I paid two or three visits to Colonel von Siebold, the well-known writer on the antiquities and natural history of Japan. Our route lay northward from Desima through the city to a part of the beach whence we took a native boat across a narrow arm of the harbour and landed in a little bay at the foot of a slightly-rising ground, on the side of which he lodged in a temple. We passed on our way at the edge of the harbour the palace of the Prince of Fizen, or rather the city residence ordi- narily occupied by his agent in transacting mercantile business and watching the general interests of this provincial potentate. There was nothing particularly grand in its appearance beyond the massive solidity of the walls, the sea-buttress, tlie stone steps which led down into the water, and the neatness and spa- ciousness of the garden-ground which faced upon the harbour. On our last visit we passed directly through 208 TEN WEEKS IN JAPAN. the centre of the city, traversing on our way several streets in which the preparations were made for some religious holiday. Festoons were hung across the way. Little shrines, paper lamps with illumined devices and inscriptions, gaudy flags, imageless altars crowned with a metal mirror, fantastic imitations of animals, and occasionally a large wooden money-chest for contributions to the temples, were conspicuous on either side of the principal thoroughfare. We arrived in the neighbourhood of Mr. von Siebold's dwelling, and lingered for a few moments in the picturesque temple cemetery which occupies a portion of the hiU on one side of the principal monastery. Here amid fine trees and in a scene of rural beauty the aristo- cratic portion of the Japanese citizens find a last resting-place on sacred soil and in close vicinity to the temple. The tombstones were in every variety of native style from the suuple headstone to the ela- borately gilded massive granite monumental pillar. They seemed to be generally the graves of the wealthier class ; and the universal inscription of sin-sze " be- liever," and sm-new "female believer," indicated the fact of their having secured by due pecuniary fees the posthumous names and priestly services of the Budhist ritual. This range of temples is called by the general name of the "Horenji" monastery, and belongs to the " Hokkishu" sect of Budhists. Mr. von Siebold has had a somewhat varied ex- perience of Japan and the Japanese. He first came to Nagasaki in the year 1823, and remained in the VON SIEBOLD. 20W ,1,1 1 '^tl CO CO CO i fHNTHCOt>--i>-QD01 * OS CO 62-70 43-88 3 2-18 00 i-H 00 ^1 Oi-H-tJCCSI rHr-lcqcO-*-^JH»OCO «3 (M O 00 «p «5 (>] t^ t^ do CO (N r-( o o II >Hr-15pTHkpU30r-t ■^""^lOCOt^t^OOOO CM 67-55 60-12 55-02 W3 O 00 1 PQ 1 -#OOCDr-(iOiOCiOO (MCO-*l--t-^COCD»X3 *^_ s. 'R. '^- °^„ "^ *^ "^ lMCOCO(N«(M(MlM 00 CSI 00 oT O Oi CO I:- t^ CO 05 as t^ oi ^ a (N (M cq 00 00 CO Os" CSI il G:iioa>co«sc^i>-t— OI>-'OCOi-l->:t*CDCS) Tt 107. their popular customs, 109. marriage ceremonies, 109. degraded state of their social morals, 112. their holidays, 115. their sensual enjoyment and careless ease, 122. tbeir kite-flying, 123. their other public amusements, 125. their national legalised mode of suicide, 131, 137. their contempt of death, 139. their funeral ceremonies, 143. their material comforts, 183. physically incapable of great eiforts or continued labour, 232. hopefulness of the improve- ment of Japanese race, 234. their depreciation of the mer- cantile class, 261. G o 2 452 IJsDEX. Japanese, friendliness of the people, 408. Jesters, public professional, 125. Jewellery worn by Japanese ladies, 167, 168. Jugglers, Japanese, 373. a celebrated juggler's exhibi- tion of skill at the British legation, 374. the buttei-fly scene, 379. Kfempfer, his account of the humi- liating receptions of the Dutch ambassadors at Yeddo, quoted, 22, note. his summary view of the reli- gions of Japan quoted, 53, note. Kagoo, the Japanese, 99. Kamasati, town of, 274. Kami-no-Mitsi, or primitive religion of the Japanese, 44. Kami, or popular demigods and canonised heroes, 44. Kami, or " Lords," rank of, 318, 319. Kanagawa, arrival at, 243. population of, 245. streets and shops of, 263. earthquakes at, 263. fertility of the soil near, 264. opening of the port of, 317. shipment of Japanese horses for the Anglo-French expedi- tion, 416. deportation of Chinese from Kanagawa, 416, 417. visit from the vice-governor of, 421. Ka-nga, Prince of, his palace at Yeddo, 357, 365. his wealth, 365. his army of retainers, 366. head of the Conservative party, 366. Kanghe, Emperor of China, Lexi- con of, 383. Kasatu, the doctor, and his surgery, 169. interview between the doctor and a patient, 170. Katagana form of Japanese writing, invention of the, 386. Kew-sew, island of, 241. approach to the island of, 9. terrible earthquake in the, 197. Kibiko, his invention of the Kata- gana form of Japanese vrriting, 386. Kii, Prince of, a descendant from one of the brothers of Tyeo-sama, 294. election of his son to the su- preme power, 295. his palace at Yeddo, 365. Kinkwa-san, gold mines of, 400. Kiomasa, the national hero, holiday in commemoration of, 210. Kite-flying in Japan, 123. Kobodaisi, the Japanese priest, his iavention of the Hiragana system of writing, 385. the discoverer of the celebrated Dosia powder, 398. Koku of rice, value of a, 355. Kompira daingongngen, the deity supposed to take special cogni- sance of vows, 414. Kublai Khan, the Emperor, defeated witli a large army in Japan, 7. Lacquered ware of Japan, 254. Language of Japan, similarity of pronimciation throughout the empire, 360. remarks on the written Japa- nese language, 382. Mr. Eutherford Alcock's Gram- mar, 382. the ideographic system and the phonetic syllabarium, 383. ancient form of widting now fallen into oblivion, 383. invention of the Hiragana form of character, 385. and of the Katagana form of writing, 386. Chinese books read throughout Japan, 388, 389. various modes among the Ja- panese of reading and writ- ing the Chinese character, 389. the Kaisho, the Giosho, and the Losho styles, 389. Koy^ and Kung modes of reading Chinese books in Japan, 390. total dissimilarity of the Chi- nese and Japanese spoken * languages, 391, 393. f INDEX. 453 " Lanterns, Feast of," 120. Laws, severity of Japanese, 102. impai'tiality of Japanese, 163, 164. assumed in tlieoiy to be per- fect, 293. Levity, affectation of, by Japanese officials, 64. Licentiousness of Japanese, 104, 112. Literary system of promotion not recognised in Japan, 95. Loco, the river, 274. Loochoo Islands, the, 334. an appanage of the Prince of Satsuma, 76. travelling in, 100. nature of Loochooan depen- dency upon Japan, 334. Captain Basil Hall's account, 334. the naval mission to Loochoo, 335. early diificulties of the mis- sionariee, 336. author's visit to Loochoo, 337. Loochoo, a fief of the prin- cipality of Satsuma, 339, 344. origin of the Loochooan people, 339. biennial tribute-junk to China, 339, 344. character and appearance of the people, 341. their principal food, 342. account of the Chinese Chow- hwang, 343. period of the subjugation of Loochoo, 345. official despatch from the Re- gent of Loochoo, 347. his historical and statistical facts respecting the islands, 348. sugar exported from Loochoo to Japan, 351. , of the Christians of, adverted to, 200. Mail, Japanese coats of, 399. "Man, Day of," feast of, 117. Marriage ceremonies of the Japanese, 109. Masquerades, fondness of the Ja- panese for, 372. McAllister, Judge, the author's letter to, 433. Medical schools throughout Japan, ,396. system of diplomas, 397. dissection, 397. the celebrated Dosia powder, 398. small-pox and vaccination, 398. improvements in Japanese me- dical science, 399. Medicine, practice of, in Japan, 92. quack medicines and native doctors, 92. incantations in sickness, 92, 93. Dr. Pompe's medical school at Nagasaki, 219. Mendicants in Japan, 58, 59, 86. religious mendicants, 58. the Yammabos, or " mountain soldiers," 59. mysterious class of beggars, 59. beggai'S near Yeddo, 275, 311. Meno, rice crops of, 400. gold-mines of, 400. Merchants of Japan, 71. Japanese contempt for mer- cantile pursuits, 261. Metals, precious, abundance of, in Japan, 400. Metempsychosis, doctrine of, in Ja- pan, 55. Miako, sacred capital of Japan, 241. the centre of taste and fashion 254. Mikado, the, or spiritual Emperor, 287, 289. reduction of the authority of the, 287, 288. Milestones in Japan, 184. Military schools in Yeddo, 395. Minstrels, Japanese, 125. Mirror, the sacred, of Sinto temples, 48. Missionaries to Loochoo, 335. their early difficulties, 336. embarrassment of the native Government, 336. endeavours to obtain a better position for the missionary, 337. abandonment of the mission, 338. a summary view of missionaiy openings, 421, 423. G G 3 454 INDEX. MitO; Prince of, his disaffection, 255, 256, 267. a descendant of a bi'otlier of Tyco-sama, 294. a candidate for the throne, 294. defies the government, and unfarla the standard of civil war, 295. everypublicoalamity attributed to, 303. his palace at Yeddo, 365. Moat encircling the Tycoon's palace and grounds at Yeddo, 302, 364. Monasteries near Yeddo, 311. Morals, social, degraded state of, in Japan, 112. inadequate moral restraints in Japan, 217. Moreton, Rev. H., missionary to the Loochoo Islands, 338. "Motherwort, Festival of," 119. Mountains, excursion iuto the, near Nagasaki, 178. Mourning dress in Japan, 146. Mourners in Japan, 146, 154, 155. Musicians, Japanese, 125. NagasaM, city of, arrival at, 10. suburb occupied as the foreign trading quarter, 12. lodging LQ a Budhist temple, 12. view of the city and harbour from the author's lodgings, 14. British oonsxilate, 16. Dutch factory in Desima, 16. street scenes and native trades of the city, 26. external appearance of the people, 29. cemetery of Nagasaki, 30. Ohiuese commimity and their burial-place at, 32. Budhist worship in, 33. Sinto worship in, 46. local government of, 61. visit to the governor, 62. first public English Protestant Sunday service in, 73. local Chinese factory and guild in, 78. drunkenness of the Japanese of, 86. fires in, 91. Nagasaki, rural districts near, 176. population of, 209, 222. number of temples in, 209. class of the population of, 222. condition of the labom-ing class of, 233. sanitary condition of the people of, 223. pulmonary consumption in, 224. climate of, 225. consular returns of the present extent of British trade with the port of, 227. capacity of the harbour of, 229. engine factory at, 230. the foreign cemetery at, 234. opening of the port of, 37. governor of, '319. meaning of the name Naga- saki, 349. Nambu, gold-mines of, 400. Names, posthumous, 147, 152. Napa, in the principal island of Loo- choo, 334, 335. Navy, the Japanese, 396. Nee-e-yata, opening of the port of, 317. New year's holiday of the Japa- nese, 114. Niphon Proper, island of, 241. Nipon-bas, the celebrated "Bridge of Japan," 308. Norimon, the Japanese, 99. Nun, a begging, 312. Nuns in Budhist monasteries, 212. Nm-sery garden, near Yeddo, 367. Offerings of children to Budhist idols, 213. _ ,; of wealthy individuals, 214. Officials, Japanese, 11, 13. douceurs, given to, 161. venality of custom-house offi- cials, 402. visit from a spy, 165. Ohosalta, imperial city of, 241. opening of the port of, 317. Oil-paper clothing of the Japanese, 90. coats and umbrellas, 90, 269, _ 271, 370. Oji, village of, excm-sion to, 364. people of, 367. public refectory-house at, 367, 369. INDEX. 455 Oii, imperial arcliei'y-ground at, 368. hawking-grounds of the Tycoon at, 369. Omagawa, a suburb of Yeddo, 279. Opium, not used iu Japan, 81, 224. Osumi, province of, 241. Outhoorn, Van, his reception at Yeddo, 22. Owari, Prince of, his retinue en route to Yeddo, 246, 247. descended from a brother of Tyco-sama, 294. his palace at Yeddo, 365. Oxen not used for food in Japan, 98. but as beasts of burden, 98. Palaces of the Daimios at Yeddo, 299, 365. Papenberg, island of, 10, 179. tragic reminiscences of, 194. Paper coats and umbrellas, 90, 269, 271, 370. Paper-hangings in Japan, 91. Peasants, Japanese, 178, 192. near Nagasaki, 234. Perry, Commodore, scene of the ne- gotiation of his treaty, 243, 249. his treaty, 314. Persecutions, former religious, ac- count of, 193. Physicians, emblem of their profes- sion, 144. Japanese, 164. Pilgrims and Pilgrimages in Japan, Plough, a Japanese, 190. Pompe van Meerdervoort, Dr., 218. his native school of medicine, 219. Population of Nagasaki, 209, 222. of Kanagawa, 245. of Yeddo, 279. Priests, Budhist, social standing of the, 37. the eight sects or orders of, 38. their incantations in sickness, 93. celibacy of Budhist, 157. bojr-priests of the Budhists,162. their hospitality, 212. priests of a Budhist monastery, their part in a liturgical ser- vice, 214, 215, Priests, higher class of, 323. social standing of the Sinto priests, 47. their revenues, 47. Priestesses of the Sinto religion, 47. Princes of the empire, their policy, their retinues, 247. their influence over the policy of the Emperor, 291. government spies over them, 296. their palaces at Yeddo, 299, 311. their arrogant bearing and semi- barbarian pride, 304. said to be the prompters of assassinations of foreigners, 331. their relative power to the cen- tral government, 354. extent of respective limits of subjection, independence, and territorial revenue, 356. their numerous armed retainers, 356. power of each Daimio within his own territory, 358. their families continually resi- dent at Yeddo, 359. hostages of iidelity, 359. occasional defiance amongst their nimiber, 360. effect of the continued residence of their families in the capi- tal, 360. list of the richest Daimios, with the amounts of their terri- torial incomes, 361 — 363. palaces of the princes at Yeddo, 365. the conservative and liberal princes, 366. Rank, social, eight gradations of, 323. Refectory-house, a public, near Yed- do, 276. at Oji, 367. Registration, system of, throughout Japan, 415. Religions of Japan, 41. visit to a binto temple, 46. the religions of Sinto, Budh, and Sooto, 42. tolerant spirit of the govern- ment, 43. 456 INDEX. Eeligions, the Kami-no-Mitsi, or primitive religion, 44. the Sun-goddess, the principal object of divine adoration, 46. Ksempfer's summary view of Japanese sects quoted, 53, note. summary of the religion of a Japanese, 56. holiday dress of religion in Ja- pan, 217. Kepast, a Japanese, 63. Reporters, or spies, native, 64, 65. Eioe, cultivation of, 191. Rice, the best grown in Meno, 400. rice crops in Japan, 411. Rinshan, the Budhist priest, 158. Rivers of Japan, 368. Roads, near Yeddo, 299, 301. Rosaries of pearls worn , by the wealthy, 217. Rural districts, near Nagasaki, 176. Russian treaty with Japan, 314. Russians, buried near Nagasaki, 236. Sacerdotal class. SeeBudhist Priests, Priests, and Sinto Priests. Sado-sima, gold and silver mines of, 400. Sagami, Cape, 242. Sailors, European and American, in the streets of Nagasaki, 83. of the Japanese navy, 396. Sakeeandsakee-shopsinNagasaki,86. universally drunk by the Japan- ese, 168. its effect on their health, 168, 169. manufacture of, 235. Sanitary condition of the people of Nagasaki, 223. Satsuma, Prince of, and the " Temple of Great Virtue," 76. his immense revenue, 76. his decree on duelling, 142. his armorial beai'ings, 275. his government of the Loochoo Islands, 339. his heavy exactions, 345. his reception of embassy from Loochoo to Yeddo, 346. his wealth and power, 859. the late Prince of, his liberal policy, 352. Satsuma, province of, 241. Scenery, rural, near Nagasaki, 177 — 179, 181. in the neighbourhood of Kana- gawa, 264. Schools, Japanese, 95. details of management of, 96. medical and surgical schools in Nagasaki, 220, 221. and throughout the empire, 397. naval school in Nagasaki, 221 ._ primary and secondaiy schools for Japanese youth, 394. Confucian text-books used in, 395. academies of a superior class, 395. girls' schools, 395. astronomical school at Yeddo, 395. naval and military schools, 395. Scriptures, the Christian, not allowed to be distributed in Japan, 175. Sea -weed used as manure, near Yeddo, 273. Seclusion of the Japanese, a modern policy, 4, 67. Sepulture, Japanese mode of, 31. Chinese mode, 32. Sermon, a Budhist, 215. Seu, Commissioner, 345. Shipping at Nagasaki, 228, 229. in the harbour of Yeddo, 279. Ships, size of, regulated by govern- ment, 396. Shoes and pattens of the Japanese, 89. Shops near Yeddo, 280. in the commercial quarter of Yeddo, 308. Shviidi, capital of the Loochoo Islands, 335. Siebold, Colonel von, visit to, 207. his Japanese experience, 208. Sikok, island of, 241. Silver mines of Sado-sima, 400. Simabara, fort of, 191. tragic reminiscences of, 191. earthquakes in the province of, 196. Simoda, city of, 241. earthquake and storm-wave at, 242. occasional storms at, 242. convention of, 314. INDEX. 457 Sinagawa, a suburb of Yeddo, 279. Sinto religion, the primitive one in Japan, 42. visit to a Sinto temple, 40. name of Sinto temples, 46. Sintoism contrasted with Bud- hism, 51. their mutual assimilation in Japan, 52. Singing girls, 187. Skin diseases, frequency of, 184. Siogoon, the title ef, 287. his supreme authority, 288. Siomios, or petty barons, 855. Slaves, public, of the Loo-chooans, 342. Slavery not in existence in Japan, 414. SmaU-pox, ravages of, in Japan, 398. superstitious remedy, 399. Social demarcation of the Japanese, 95. Social rank, eight gradations of, 323. Soldiers, Japanese, 356. Sooto, or politico-religious system of Oonfucms in Japan, 42. Soy, Japanese, manufactm-e of, 235. • Spies in Japan, 63, 64, 66. Spirit-shops, abundance of, in Na- gasaki, 86. |4 Sports, fondness of the Japanese for, «■' 372. . Spy, a Japanese, 165. Spy system throughout Japan, 296. Statuaries, Japanese, 94. Steam-engines at Nagasaki, 230. Stockings worn by the Japanese, 90. $v Storm-wave, destructive, 242. Storms, occasional, at Simoda, 242. Street scenes in Nagasaki, 26. and in Yeddo, 306, et seq. Sugar exported from Loochoo to Japan, 351. Suicide, the legalised national mode of, 131, 137, 358. Sumitanda, Prince of Omura, a con- vert to Christianity, 5. Sun-goddess of the Japanese, 45. the principal popular object of divine adoration, 46. Surgeon, a Japanese, and his surgery, ■169. consultation, 170. Surgery, Dr. Pompe's school of, in Nagasaki, 221. Surgical works, Chinese and Ja- panese, 169. Swimming taught in Japan, 396. Swords, Japanese, 13, 255. Sword-manufacture at Nagasaki, 231. Sword-exercise taught in Yeddo, 395. Syncretists, 53, note. Tartars, their invasion of Japan, 7. defeated, 17. Tea-leaves, infusion o^ drunk, .S09. Teen-tsin, treaty of, its importance to Christianity in the East, 324. Temperature, equable, of Nagasaki, 226. Temples, Budhist, in Nagasaki, 12, 37, 41. visit to a Sinto temple, 46. architecture and materials of, 216. furniture of a Sinto temple, 46. first English Protestant public Sunday service performed in a Budhist temple, 73. number of temples in Nagasaki, 209. and near Yeddo, 280. Zi-sa-bunyo, or "temple lords," duties of, 322. Temple-life, scenes of, 157. Terakoya, or superior academies, in Japan, 395. Theatres, street, 125. superior class of theatrical ex- hibition, 127. Thieves, Japanese, 39, 101. Thunberg, Dr., his pictures of Ja- panese character, 84. Tobacco universally consumed by the Japanese, 87. To-jin, the term applied to foreign- ers, 306. Tokaido, or great imperial highway, 270. ride along the, 308. Tokitz, visit to the village of, 180. lovely scenery of, 181. Tombs at Nagasaki, 31. worship of the spirits of the dead, 31. Tombs, Japanese, 152, 153. 458 INDEX. Tomb-stones of wealthy Japanese, 208. Top-spinning in Japan, 372. Trade, British, with the Port of Nagasaki, 227. prospects of a European trade, 228. secret obstacles to, 262. prospects of, 417. present cond.ition of, 418. Trades, native, in Nagasaki, 27. Tragedy, a Japanese, 129. Treaties, recent, with Japan, 314. Treaty Point, 243. the American, 314. Tycoon, the title of, 287. number of hi s military retainers, 311. his hawking-groimds, 368. his sporting-box, 369. Tyco-sama, the Emperor, his over- throw of Christianity in Japan, 6. his assumption of the supreme power, 288. his extermination of the Chris- tian religion from Japan, 288. Umbrellas of oil-paper, 90. Unsen-yama, volcanic mountain of, 185, 193, 196. Uraga, Straits of, 242. Uragawa, town of, 243. inhospitality of the people of, in 1837, 243. Urishino Te-ju, the physician, 144. his account of Japanese funeral ceremonies, 144. Vaccination little used m Japan, 398. Vehicles, public, of the Japanese, 99. Village, a Japanese, 178. Visitors, priest, 160. ladies, 166. Volcano near Nagasaki, 185. near Van Dieman's Straits, 241. of Pusi-yama, 248. Volcanoes in Japan, 196, 197. Vows, Japanese deity supposed to take special cognisance o^ 414. Waiting-girls in houses of refresh- ment, 276. near Yeddo, 310. Waka-tosiyori, or junior senators, 293. Water, Japanese mode of haulins- up, 178. , Weights and measures, strict sur- veillance of, 400. Wheat, Japanese mode of cultivating, Williams, Rev. C. M., missionary at Nagasaki, 12. favoui'ably received among the people, 15. Wine-tavems, abundance of, in Na- Wives, ancient and modern modes of choosing, 112. Women in Japan, the distinction be- tween singleandmarried,106. non-seclusion of man-ied wo- men, 107, 166. a girl's holiday in a temple, 124. funeral of a lady of Nagasaki, 152. youthful attendants in monas- teries, 212. nuns, 212. women in Kanagawa, 251. waiting-girls in the houses of refi-eshment, 276, 310. girls' schools in Japan, 395. Worship, ministers of public, at Yeddo, 321. Worshippers of Budh, in Nagasaki, 36. in a Sinto temple, 48, 49. Wreck, kindness and hospitality evinced in recent cases of, 416. Wrestlers, Japanese, 187. Xavier, Francis, reception of, in Japan, 5, 195. veneration in which his re- mains are held, 195, note. Yakoneens, or guai-ds, their espion- age on the movements of fo- reigners, 244, 267. a Yakoneen officer, 272. at the British Legation, 288. every where present, 330, 332, 333. Yeddo, journey to, 268. scenes on the way, 270. suburbs of Yeddo, 279,329, 367 INDEX. 459 Yeddo, population of the city, 279, m, 311. temples near, 280. Britasli legation at, 281. earthquake at, 284. cemetery of the secular Em- perors, 298. official quarter of the city, 298, 365. moat of the citadel, 299, 364. roads of Yeddo, 299, 301. scene of the assassination of the Goteiro, or Regent of the Empire, 800, 301. the Tycoon's palace enclosure, 302. desti-uction of the palace hy fire, 303. "Belle Tue '' of Yeddo, 803. " Grande vue, " 309. dogs in the streets, 306. the celebrated " Bridge of Ja- pan," 808. shops iathe commercial quarter, 308. hathiug-houses, 309. extent of the city, 810. view from the gardens of the Ei'ench Legation, 332. Yeddo, the city being rendered unap- proachable by ships, 332. local objects of public interest at, 394, et aeq. primary and secondary schools for youth, at, 894. academies, 895. female schools, 395. astronomical school, 895. medical schools, 396. departure from Yeddo, 405. Bay of, view from the, 248. Yokuhama, 246. description of, 249. trade of, 250. moral condition of the Euro- pean settlement at, 251. streets of, 254. assassination of the Dutch cap- tains at 255. first public Sunday religious service performed at, 407. baptism administered to the first child of European pa- rents bom in Japan, 407. cordon di-awn around the town, 409. Y'oritomo, the first Kubo-sama or Lord-General of the Empire, 287 THE END. LONDON PEim'PD BT gPOTIISWOOBB AND KI W'STi; I'.ET SQUARE