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 OF JAPAN 
 
 
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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 
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 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
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 1891 
 
 ...A-iHiii& ^f/i^i^M. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 SB 466.J3P63 1896 
 
 The garden of Japan.A year's diary of it 
 
 3 1924 002 823 775 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002823775 
 
THE GAI^DE]N[ 
 
 OF JflPflf4 
 
 A YEAR'S DIAHY OF ITS Fl^OLUEf^S 
 
 Cu 
 
 F. T. PIGGOTT. 
 
 LUITH FOUR PICTURES BY 
 
 
 
 
 m''^'s^:^(^ 
 
 ■€-a« 
 
 m e-3 
 
 ALFRED EAST, R.I., 
 
 illlMllER OF Tin; MI.IJI BIJVTSL' KU'JI. 
 
 i3 
 
 ^ 
 
 ©EORCEE SlaIaEJ<I, 
 LUSKIN HOUSE, LON DON. 
 
 <P 
 
 SECOHD EDITIO]^, 
 1896. 
 
(i)C 
 
 all ujho haoe: usandered \n U)he. Oarde:R. 
 
/ have endeavoured to keep the Illustrations of the Book 
 at a very respectful distance from the Pictures with tvhich 
 Mr. Alfred East has so kindly embellished it. 
 
 The formal decorative designs used on the Title-page and 
 elsew/iere need some explanation. They are tracings front the 
 gold ornamentation on lacquer boxes — black having been used in 
 the place of the gold. The design on the Dedication page is of 
 " The Three Friends in Winter'' alluded to in the text. 
 
 The end-papers have been reprodu-ced from the design on 
 a lady's kimono. It represents the rafts of flowers which are 
 sent floating down the 7'iver at the festival in the month of 
 August, held in honour of the Goddess of Broideresses. 
 
 The cherry design used for the border of the cover is from 
 a surimono, by Keisai Yeisen. 
 
 Tfie little flower-types, used to divide the entries of the 
 Diary, have been specially cast by Messrs. Cloives, from Japanese 
 models. 
 
 The Diary was written in the year 1890. 
 
 F. T. P. 
 
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 THE PAPER PLAUT-£DG/-H'0/<: r/f/.-l t'APVRlFEl 
 
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Janaapy. 
 
 January 1. — Half the entire population of Japan, grown 
 and ungrown, is at the present moment, the afternoon of New 
 Year's Day, flying kites or playing battledore and shuttlecock 
 — the kites making a musical murmur in the air with, their cane 
 vibrators: the bats gorgeous with historical romances brocaded 
 and papered into high relief — the other half is paying New 
 Year's visits pour fMciter, as the French say. We also write 
 "p.f." upon our cards, and assist in the holocaust of paste- 
 board which is going on. Also there is much wearing-out of 
 many gorgeous uniforms, for these visits are paid en grande 
 lenue, and the streets simply glisten with gold lace. It is 
 indeed the time of delights. The procession of cocked-hats 
 passes under an arcade of crimson and white. At the doorway 
 of every house in the land, from the almost-untidy hovel to 
 the palace, wave two national flags placed crosswise — the red 
 ball for the sun upon a white field of morning light — and under- 
 neath the flags a trophy of lobster, seaweed, straw rope, and 
 paper gohei : emblems of happiness and long life. Before each 
 door, too, are planted Pine branches and clumps of waving 
 Bamboo, emblems also, of passing time. 
 
 Kadomatsu wa 
 Meido no tabi no 
 Ichi-ri-zuka 
 Medeto mo ari 
 Medeto mo nashi. 
 
 So sang the Abbot Ikyu Osho of Kyoto long ago of the New 
 
 B 
 
Year's festival, and his song may be translated somewhat as 
 follows : — 
 
 /mtist remember sad days ; 
 But thou, think thou of glad days 
 While the pine-trees standing greet 
 New Years pilgrims in the street, 
 Green milestones as they travel. 
 Some weeping, some with laughter, 
 From this life to unravel 
 The calm that follows after. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Nature is somewhat sombre at this time ; she has more than 
 enough to do to keep her offspring alive through the cruel 
 piercing winds that sweep over the country, following the 
 unnatural heat of the midday sun as surely as night follows 
 day ; but she does her best to add to the pleasantness of things 
 in general. If Pine branches are somewhat stiff and formal, the 
 Bamboo waves and bends its jointed stems whichever way the 
 wind may blow, whether it rushes straight down the street, or 
 seems, where the crossways meet, to come from every quarter 
 under heaven. And there are plenty of small Jonquils (Narcissus 
 Tazetta v. chinensis) for the vases ; and the crimson-berried 
 Nanten {Nandina domesticd) for the pots, whose clusters of shining 
 red serve us well for Holly berries, with its scarcer yellow sister 
 for variety. We adapt ourselves to many far-eastern modern 
 ways, but still we do our best to preserve childhood's traditions 
 of the home four thousand and odd miles away : so the Nanten 
 is an especial favourite just now. 
 
 A pink-berried Mistletoe (Loranthus Yadoriki, or a species 
 of Viscum distinct from V. album) helps to keep up the illusion 
 of an absent yet present Yuletide — somewhat, but not quite 
 
 2 
 
successfully ; for as some old singer said, " the white is better 
 than the red " — better, I suppose, for those quaint youthful acts 
 of ours on which we were wont to invoke its silent benison. 
 Some few homely memories this strange country preserves for 
 us by means of its flora, in which, as the learned botanists tell 
 us, Nature, by some quaint trick of her own invention, has 
 contrived to mingle the loveliness of the Alps with the splendour 
 of the Tropics. Even Nature has been eclectic : no wonder 
 therefore that man has, in all Japanese time, followed suit. But 
 she does not allow us to forget that she is Japanese here, and 
 so she gives us something quite unique in the tiny plum-trees 
 {Prunus mume), with the tiny buds which are just opening into 
 flowers. 
 
 The Pine, the Bamboo, and the Plum are the "Three friends 
 in winter " — Saikan no san yu — and they are used as the bearers 
 of good wishes for the New Year : the Pine for longevity, the 
 Bamboo for uprightness, the Plum for sweetness. 
 
 To the Japanese people life would indeed be dreary and 
 monotonous without the flowers, and the desire for them is 
 gratified all the year round, now with profusion, now scantily ; 
 but still there is always something, some spot of Nature's 
 colouring, on which the eye may gladly rest during those odd 
 moments of leisure which so abound in the Japanese day. Such 
 genuine, and withal such peaceful admiration I have never seen 
 before, and probably shall never see again after I leave this land 
 of ever-opening flowers. In what it differs from our western 
 ways of admiring it is difficult to say. We are not unconscious 
 of the softening influences of Nature's choicest works. Herrick 
 has sung of their beauties, and of the lessons of their little lives, 
 as no Japanese poet even has ever sung — though somehow we 
 seem to take it all for granted ; but in Japan the flower, and 
 more especially the first of its kind, is actually greeted with a 
 solemn and becoming reverence. The admiration is active, not 
 passive ; it is derived, not from a passing glance, but from a 
 steady lingering look ending in one of those soft gurgling 
 
 3 
 
sounds which are potential in expression of infinite and com- 
 plete satisfaction. 
 
 Looking back through the year just past, the path of Time 
 seems literally to have been strewn with bright falling petals. 
 It matters little what the incident may be on which one's 
 thoughts linger, it had always its floral accompaniment ; now 
 rich in tone and colour, now sad and plaintive, as the seasons 
 passed. So pleasant has this made the memories of the days, 
 that this year I have resolved to keep a floral diary, jotting down 
 therein the story and the songs of the flowers by the wayside, 
 as they bud and bloom and fade. It will, I fear, be unscientific 
 to a degree: nothing but casual notes and recollections, very 
 far from complete ; the slightest of records ; faint impressions 
 of seasons that I would were both of them not quite so fleet 
 of foot : of the weeks and days of winter growing gradually 
 in delight as they brighten into spring : of the springtime as it 
 blossoms into summer : of the over-heated summer as it mellows 
 into the full rich-tinted autumn, till that too fades and dies, and 
 sharp winter comes again. Maybe its only value will be to 
 recall to some who have wandered there one that is not the least 
 of the charms of this beautiful land. 
 
 A 
 
 To the short catalogue of flowers noted on this first of 
 January, I have to add a bright yellow Aj-abis. 
 
 I have also a stray branch of single crimson Camellia gathered 
 in one of the sheltered valleys which abound in Tokyo ; but 
 the time of the Camellias is not yet, a few buds only have 
 been deceived by the noontide brilliancy of the sunshine into 
 premature flowers. The garden is brown and bare and un- 
 interesting as a door-mat, and will scarcely repay a day's labour, 
 though it costs but thirty cents. There is, it is true, much 
 promise for the future ; the lingering warmth of the late autumn 
 days pushed on apace the bud preparation ; but we will not 
 disturb them for the present, rather let them sleep on in their 
 4 
 
cases. The trees are bare, the turf to all appearance dead and 
 past regeneration, at least to those who do not know the habits 
 of Corean grass ; the sub-tropical plants, the Palms and Bananas, 
 are wrapt up in their warm winter dresses (literally " dresses " — 
 kimono in the Japanese). These are made of straw, of course — 
 everything is made of straw that is not made of bamboo ; but, of 
 course, in the hands of the Japanese they become quite graceful. 
 
 A SAGO-PALM IN ITS WINTER DRESS. 
 
 It is at this time of the year, however, that the floral instinct 
 of the people is especially noticeable. None of the many sights 
 in the streets which strike strange eyes as eccentric, is so 
 strange as to see people carrying home, with a tender care 
 bred of admiration, big bunches of bare twigs, with perhaps not 
 more than two or three half-open blossoms. After a while one 
 gets accustomed to it, as one gets accustomed indeed to other 
 amiable eccentricities ; but in the fulness of time we come to 
 learn what the flower-worship of the Japanese really is, and to 
 realise that it is a thing which has not been, as yet, vouchsafed to 
 
 5 
 
our civilisation. We come to learn that flowers and leaves are 
 not the only parts of Nature's handiwork worth setting store 
 by ; that they are but part of the system which includes twigs 
 and branches as well ; and that it is in the completed system 
 of flower and leaf and bough that our great art-mistress has 
 elaborated the fundamental laws of decoration. At length we 
 come to realise that the pleasure in the whole must be greater 
 than the pleasure in its part. The science which the Japanese 
 have constructed for the arrangement of flowers, based as it is 
 on a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the laws of beauty 
 and harmony, is one of the most striking evidences of the per- 
 fection of their civilisation. The whole scheme of the science 
 has been mapped out for us by a patient and enthusiastic 
 student, and does more than well repay perusal. Here I need 
 only dwell for a moment on the pleasure-giving capacity of these 
 bare twigs, which so abound just now. The branch, set in due 
 order in its vase, the beauties of its lines emphasised, delights us 
 first ; and then day by day it gives evidence of its vitality, as 
 one by one the budlets, of which at first we were unconscious, 
 grow to buds, then blossom into flowers, until the whole branch 
 is covered as it were with a snow-white veil. Thus, after the 
 pleasure in the arrangement, comes the pleasure in the flowers 
 themselves ; and to this is added the true joy of the gardener, 
 which delights in watching the gradual growth and development 
 of his treasures. 
 
 I should trespass too much on ground which belongs entirely 
 to Mr. Josiah Conder, if I dwelt at any length on the beautiful 
 science of Japanese flower arrangements. I must content myself 
 with giving here a typical example of the arrangement of a 
 bough of plum-blossom, and occasionally a few other examples 
 reproduced from the native works on the subject. Mr. Conder's 
 delightful book, " The Flowers of Japan, and the Art of Floral 
 Arrangement," is full of such drawings, and sets out for us the 
 whole of the art and the mystery. 
 
 On the other hand, however, there is a mystery about this 
 6 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF BOUGH OF PLUM-TREE. 
 
matter which I confess I am quite unable to solve. The demand 
 for these branches is inexhaustible, and so apparently is the 
 supply ; and yet it takes the growth of many years to furnish the 
 adornment of as many days. This reckless and ruthless lopping 
 of big branches jars somewhat upon my gardening instincts. 
 
 January 7. — To-day is the domestic festival of the 
 " seven herbs " — Nana kusa — one of those old-time ceremonies 
 which abounded in Japan, but which are fast passing out of 
 memory. The master of the house, rising betimes, and robed 
 appropriately, proceeded to the kitchen ; and there, in the 
 presence of his servants, he took an equal quantity of each of 
 seven herbs, which he chopped up fine. The herbs were then 
 boiled in a species of rice gruel, and served for breakfast to all 
 the household, with an ordered ceremonial that only the Japanese 
 mind could conceive. 
 
 The names of the herbs form a verse of 5, 7, S< 7> 7 Japanese 
 poetry : — 
 
 Seri, Nadzuna, 
 Gogio, Hakobera, 
 Hotoke-no-za, 
 Suzuna, Suzushiro, 
 Korede Nanakusa, 
 
 which being translated botanically runs thus : — 
 
 Qlnanthe stolonifera, Capsella Bursa-Pastoris, 
 CratcBva falcata (f), Stellar ia media, 
 Lainiuin amplexicaule, 
 Brassica cainpestris, Arabis flagellosa, 
 These are the " Seven-herbs!' 
 
pebpuatry. 
 
 pebf Uapy 6th. — A long interval since my last entry, 
 which has been filled almost exclusively with plum-trees and 
 plum-branches. In the garden nothing has occurred to vary 
 the monotony of Nature's most uninteresting proceedings — I 
 should say, absence of proceedings. This long sleep makes one 
 think that, perhaps after all, the flowers of Japan may only be 
 the fairy flora of a dream. 
 
 The cold dry weather has given place to snow, a variation 
 which is not specially charming, but the farmers are pleased, so 
 there is nothing more to be said ; after all, snow, if only it would 
 not turn quite so rapidly to slush, is neither more nor less 
 unpleasant than driving north-east winds and dust. The status 
 quo of impatient expectancy is maintained. To-day, however, I 
 can make an addition to my still slender catalogue ; some little 
 yellow flowers, on the barest of bare twigs of course, force 
 themselves on our notice, in spite of, and through the snow 
 which almost hides them. They are welcome little strangers, 
 to me quite unknown. The coolies insist on caUing the trees 
 yellow Plums ; but my more accurate gardener gives them a 
 name which I have since been able to convert into Chinionanthus 
 fragrans — ^japonice Nankin-mume — the "Nankin plum." The 
 flower is insignificant, and does not cluster about the stems so 
 freely as the pink or the white plum ; but it is curious, and 
 
 c 
 
makes a pleasant little addition to our stock of colour. A 
 further note on this flower will be found in April. 
 
 Now, as for these Japanese names, I think they had better be 
 omitted in future, except where they have passed into our 
 botanical vocabulary. Mr. Matsumura's valuable catalogue of the 
 flowers of Japan enables me to trace the classical name after I 
 have, not without difficulty, deciphered my gardener's coolie 
 pronunciation of the native name. 
 
 Ltattef End of pebfUapy. — Old winter lies a-dying ; 
 and these many days past we have been busy gathering, not 
 rosebuds, but every other sort of bud while we might ; " buds 
 which," as the Japanese saying is, "will never see the leaves." 
 Like King Charles' head of undying memory, I find these buds 
 cannot be kept out of my diary for the present. They are the 
 only food on which our sesthetic feelings are fed now, and so we 
 continue breaking off" big boughs in reckless fashion : we con- 
 tinue tenderly to carry them home, and — having set them in the 
 most honourable place — to watch, with ever-growing delight, the 
 old round of bud and blossom and falling petals. The process 
 of development is a little more rapid now, for the midday 
 warmth quickens the rising sap. Again I wonder, as I see the 
 flower-shops and barrows filled with branches, whether the lucra- 
 tive business engendered by the bud craze is not too practical 
 an example of the bird in the hand. Surely no garden can 
 stand it ! and then there will be no flowers in the bush ! I reflect 
 sadly that it is all too characteristic of the people to whom the 
 pleasure of to-day is all in all ; these light-hearted folk always let 
 to-morrow look after itself If there should be no flowers, well 
 shikata ga nai — it can't be helped — we must try and grow some 
 for next year. In shikata ga nai the whole philosophy of the 
 nation lies embedded ; paraphrased, it seems to be equivalent 
 to "eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow too there will 
 doubtless be more food." So too the summer will doubtless 
 find flowers for itself; let us set to work again, and, somewhat 
 
 lO 
 
changing Herrick's reason, "gather plum-buds while we may," 
 and cherry-buds, and magnolia-buds, and every sort and shape 
 of catkin which Nature has devised. 
 
 (^^MID the branches of the silv'ry bowers 
 ^A. The Nightingale doth sing : perchance he knows 
 That Spring hath come, and takes the later snows 
 For the white petals of the Plum's sweet flowers. 
 
 Sosel.— Prom Chamberlain's " Classical Poetry of the 
 Japanese." 
 
 niafch 3Pd. — At last ! In spite of gloomy forebodings 
 that there would be no trees left to flower, the time of the full 
 blossoming of the plum-trees is at hand, and the gardens are 
 beginning to dress themselves for their long festival. The great 
 trees, pink, white, and occasionally crimson, have begun to light 
 up the dun-brown landscape, of which we are quite weary by 
 this time. Boughs of the crimson Peach are wanted for the 
 decorations for the Girl's Festival — Jomi no setsu — which is held 
 to-day. The Plum shares with the Nightingale the honour of 
 being the herald of spring-time ; its buds are the first to yield 
 to the genial influence of sun and shower, and receive from this 
 nation of nature-worshippers abundant and appropriate homage. 
 The artist paints their charms, the poet sings them, calling 
 them "the first of flowers," "the eldest flowers of mother earth." 
 
 II 
 
Everything that is white and bright affords him subject for his 
 graceful imagery. 
 
 ^T^HE flowers of the plum-trees 
 
 j[^^ A II throicgh the day make snowlight, 
 
 Moonlight through the night. 
 
 Like the ice-spray which the breeze 
 
 Scatters from the stream, 
 
 Like the snow-flakes' flight, 
 
 Falling petals seem. 
 
 Many a temple is famous for its ancient trees, and takes rich 
 tribute from the people who come to gaze, write poetry, and 
 drink tea under their boughs. Age never seems to make them 
 weary of flower-bearing ; year by year their blossoms increase in 
 multitude and beauty, wreathing the old and withering trunks in 
 white and pink robes, as it were for an annual wedding with the 
 youthful year. Like the river, they seem to be endowed with life 
 perpetual. The fashion of the old order may change, the grace 
 of the old national dress may give place to the crude outlines of 
 occidental garments, the country may flourish under its new 
 Constitution, and the people delight in vain things at election 
 time ; but let us hope that lovers will still be simple enough to 
 hang their verses on the flower-laden branches, and maids still 
 coy enough to don their prettiest old-time raiment wherein to 
 wander forth to read them, and wonder how they came there. 
 The plum-tree at home, the bearer of Nature's first flower-offering 
 to the family circle, always finds a warm corner in the Japanese 
 heart. Cettria cantans, the Nightingale, hides and sings among 
 the flowers, and thus sight and hearing are both gratified. 
 
 ^^IftOME friends change and change, 
 ^2. Years pass quickly by, 
 Scent of our ancient plum-tree, 
 Thou dost never die. 
 
 12 
 
Home friends are forgotten ; 
 
 Plum-tree blossoms fair, 
 Petals falling to the breeze, 
 
 Leave their fragrance there. 
 
 Cettria's fancy too 
 
 Finds his cap of flowers, 
 Seeks his peaceful hiding-place 
 
 In tlie P hem's sweet bowers. 
 
 Though the snow-flakes hide 
 And thy blossoms kill. 
 
 He will sing, and I shall find 
 Fragrant incense still. 
 
 Iiatef in mafeh. — Buds, still buds ; and, except for 
 the evergreens, not a leaf to be seen : but of buds an ample 
 supply of Mume, Pyrtis, and Magnolia. At a ball given in 
 commemoration of the Constitution, with the exception of 
 a few early Camellias, the decorations consisted entirely of 
 branches of Pine and boughs of buds, all arranged with the 
 most consummate taste. One of the hanging baskets was 
 made of split bamboo, of a truncated 8-shape not unfamiliar 
 to us in the West ; within the basket an upright glass vessel 
 full of water in which gold fish disported themselves, and inside 
 this again a dark green joint of Bamboo holding branches of 
 Camellia — a thing of joy to be remembered. A few days 
 later arrive pots with dwarf trees simply smothered with 
 bloom — among them the lovely white Pyrus japonica, almost 
 a stranger, I think, in England. A few days later still the 
 Camellia season is full upon us. Of course we know all about 
 Camellias at home ; I have even seen moderate-sized trees 
 growing out of doors in England ; but in Japan C. japonica 
 
 13 
 
\it^^^'^^^.' L. 
 
 GARDENERS GOING TO A FLOWER FAIR WITH DWARF TREES. 
 
 grows in the most reckless profusion, and in protected spots 
 to an extraordinary height ; it is indeed the queen of flowering 
 shrubs. The wind even is not now without a charm, for it 
 drives the flaming petals like crimson dust-clouds before it, 
 and piles them in heaps by the wayside ; the air at a village 
 wedding is not fuller of flung rose-leaves. And where the wind 
 does not intrude, in secluded villages where the trees grow 
 more in peace, the streams run seaward laden with a rich red 
 burden. I think it is the Camellia that first brings home to the 
 mind the fact that we are living under the influence of a different 
 climate ; the plum-trees as they are grown here were of course 
 quite new, but these wild giants covered with flowers impress 
 one more, and make one wonder whether, after all, the biting 
 14 
 
A DWARF TREE OF PRUNUS MUME. 
 
cold and piercing winds are only the eccentricities of a climate 
 which is in truth more genial than our own. 
 
 I have the wish, but not the power, to devote some space to 
 the delightful little flower-trees which are so characteristic a 
 feature of Japanese gardening science. I have, however, been 
 quite unable to get any reliable information as to how the wealth 
 of flowers is produced, beyond the fact, which will probably 
 suggest itself to gardening minds, that the root-growth is 
 retarded by tight straw bandages. The accompanying illustra- 
 tion of a dwarf plum-tree will give some idea of the great beauty 
 of these little trees. The trunks are often thirty, forty, or more 
 years old, but they are covered with a cascade of blossom, the 
 young flowering branches being arranged with a profound art. 
 The science of this arrangement is traditional, and, I believe, 
 unwritten. It is based, of course, on the predominant idea of 
 all the flower arrangements, which is — beauty of line. The 
 trimming of the buds is so arranged that you seem to see every 
 flower on the tree at once — no one standing in another's light. 
 
 By this time, the end of the month, which has been a very 
 lion among the months, March seems to have spent his rage and 
 has begun to don his lamb's clothing. The sunny air is full of 
 the accumulated scent of a thousand Daphnes {D. odord), pink 
 and creamy white. Every garden is full of the small shrubs, 
 and every shrub is full of flowers. Someone has said somewhere 
 that in Japan the flowers have no scent, the birds no song. There 
 never was a more hasty or a falser generalisation. The Daphne 
 and the Nightingale would alone belie it, and they are not alone. 
 The garden grows daily in colour. I have to note four shrubs 
 all new to me, all brilliant with yellow flowers, and at present 
 all leafless. The Mitsumata, or three-pronged-fork paper plant 
 {Edgeworthia papyriferd) with its golden balls, from which the 
 Japanese make their tough fibrous paper ; the jasmine-like 
 Forsythia suspensa, its boughs simply smothered in bloom ; 
 the pendulous Corylopsis spicata, and Stachyuriis prmcox, the 
 " Cowslip tree," as some have christened it ; also the cousin of 
 i6 
 
the Chinese " yellow Plum," Hamamelis japonica. Of Camellias, 
 the cry is still. They come : in many varieties of Camellia 
 japonica (Tsubaki), the chief of which are a small compact pale 
 pink flower, the common brilliant red single one, and a double 
 variety of this with larger petals of an intensely deep crimson. 
 And of Boke, the charming PyriLS, four varieties : the crimson, 
 so familiar to us at home, which grows here into vast shrubs ; 
 the pure white ; and two intermediate pinks, the darker a 
 beautiful flower of very regular shape. Lastly, for the houses, 
 yet another Pyrus, which with its long stalks seems to be almost 
 a Cherry — P. spectabilis — the Kaido of the Japanese, which they 
 call the "noble flower," whose praises the poets never weary 
 singing, and whose charms maidens never weary worshipping. 
 
 Here is a poem to its honour, Hana wo netamti,, which the 
 translator has christened 
 
 JEALOUS OF A FLOWER. 
 
 ^ff THOUSAND drops lie glisfning, 
 ^/^ Fair relics of the night, 
 Soft rain has gemmed tJie petals 
 With pearly tears, and bright 
 The flashing diamonds display 
 All sparkling, mirrored by each ray, 
 Morn's glorious, gladsome light. 
 
 'Fore all the noble Kaido 
 
 Stands radiant in the glow ; 
 Each blossom gently trembling 
 
 Appears to smile, as though 
 It fain would speak and coyly sigh 
 For mortal love that passes by 
 
 The flower that pines below, 
 
 u 
 
A maid steps from her chamber 
 
 Where winds the garden way, 
 And wanders, idly dreaming, 
 
 Dreams of a morn in May ; 
 And as she slowly homeward wends, 
 A II graceful from, her hand there bends 
 
 A dainty Kaido spray. 
 
 The maiden seeks Iter mirror, 
 
 And musingly her mind 
 Compares the rival beauties 
 
 Most glorious of their kind — 
 The loveliest floiver 'neath Heaven, and e'en 
 The sweetest maid those eyes had seen — 
 
 No answer can she find. 
 
 So, turning to her lover. 
 
 With wanton lips she cries, 
 " Which, deai'est, think you fairer ? " — 
 
 With laughter in his eyes, 
 " The flower, szueetheart, the gardens pride, 
 Quite kills the beauty at my side I " 
 
 Her love at once replies. 
 
 The maid in sudden passion. 
 
 Scarce waits the words shed meet. 
 
 But rising, lifts the flower 
 A nd casts it at his feet : 
 
 From mocking lips the words burst forth, 
 
 "'Tis well, you seem to know its worth; 
 This night embrace the Kaido, sweet I " 
 
Rpmi. 
 
 Eaf ly Apfil. — The Plums being over, I note the follow- 
 ing varieties which have done common service as flower- trees 
 at different times during the past months. I give the Japanese 
 names, as illustrative of the botanical knowledge of the Japanese.* 
 Primus per ska (peach), deep crimson double flower — moino, 
 white variety, shiromomo ; P. communis — sumomo ; P- pseudo- 
 cerasus — sakura, with enormous pink double flowers the size of a 
 silver dollar ; P.japonica, small double pink, the earliest arrival, 
 niwa mume ; P. miime — miime — in four or five varieties. The 
 catalogue gives in all eighteen species. I have jotted down a 
 few of them in the accompanying page from my sketch-book. 
 In giving the name Nankm-mume — " the Nankin Plum " — to 
 Chinionanthiis fragrans, noted in February, the Japanese botanist 
 was not far astray. Lindley gives the position of its family in 
 "The Vegetable Kingdom" thus: — Rosacecg, Calycanthacece, 
 PomacecB — midway, that is to say, between the Roses and the 
 Apples, which, with the Plums, form part of the Rosal alliance. 
 Another instance of this knowledge I may give here, though 
 somewhat before its time. The Japanese name for Pceonia 
 moutan is Botan, and this word enters into the names given 
 to two varieties of Clematis — both Pczonia and Clematis 
 belonging to the Order Ranunculacece. In the case of C. tubulosa 
 
 /^ 
 
 • " The anolent Chinese system of medicine In particular, 
 ■which was followed until the Restoration, reauired a know- 
 ledge and precise Identification hy name and form of hundreds 
 of plants; and a highly developed lore of nature, especially 
 a capacity for enjoying- beauty in flowers, did the rest. No 
 other people in the world, except the Chinese, has so old and 
 elaborate a veg-etahle nomenclature as the Japanese. These 
 popular names for so large a number of wild plants are one 
 of the best proofe that an appreciation of nature and keen 
 observation were here very early developed."— 7^^/wV Japan- 
 
 19 
 
{Kusa botan), this accurate grouping appears to be most 
 remarkable. The Almond {Amygdabis microphylla) is also in 
 full bloom here and there. 
 
 The gnarled dwarf Pines {Pinus parviflora) must not be for- 
 gotten ; they are one of the characteristic features of Tokyo, 
 lining all the Palace moats, and many of the roads running by 
 the river. I have three on a rising mound in a corner of my 
 garden, with a stone lantern, to all of which I have done but 
 feeble justice in my sketch. 
 
 A CORNER IN MY GARDEN. 
 
 middle of Hpfil. — The promise of the early spring has 
 been fulfilled ; buds no more delight us, but fuller flowers in plenty 
 have full sway. After a fortnight of cold winds and still colder 
 rain the sun has won his wooing, and the glad earth puts on her 
 bridal veil of cherry-blossoms. And underneath that wondrous 
 veil, the like of which — this I write deliberately — no western 
 mortal has ever seen before, she has completely changed her 
 vesture. The dun-brown dead grass has passed like a dull 
 
and ugly dream away ; a new spirit has come, like the 
 bridegroom in the night, over the landscape, and one wonders 
 if it really be the same, or whether the whole scene has changed. 
 Curious effect of the delight a Japanese scene evokes ; it is not 
 only a joy for ever, leaving in its train a hundred tender 
 memories, but it blots out, as the daylight blots out dreams, 
 the very recollections of wind and driving rain ; those too 
 turbulent elements cease to have had existence. What wonder 
 that man's ideas in this strange forgetful land have been 
 fashioned by Nature's teaching! As for the past — was it dull and 
 drearily uncomfortable, shikata ga nai ; it is dead and must bury 
 its dead : as for the present — it is beautiful, let us enjoy it. 
 
 Tokyo is one vast garden. In the painting of her picture, 
 Nature has laid on her colours thickly, and with no sparing 
 hand ; the grass below and the trees above are all bursting — no, 
 that does not adequately express what is now taking place — 
 rushing, racing into leaf Here, great patches of white cherry- 
 blossom ; there, great patches of pink cherry-blossom ; and, in 
 between, a flaming crimson Peach. Camellias, first in the flower- 
 race, still linger to see the sight they preluded ; ever and anon 
 Magnolia trees, leafless as yet, with blossoms standing up like 
 great candles, which seem to make the daylight linger and live 
 long into the night ; and lastly — sight of all sights, the strangest 
 and most new — the budding Maples floating across the landscape 
 like crimson clouds in the sunrise of a dream. 
 
 "There is snow lying thick on the Yoshino mountain." "A 
 tinted waterfall comes headlong from the sky." " A white cloud 
 hides the mountains." But there is neither snow, nor water, 
 nor thick vapour ; they do but live in the poet's imagination 
 as he looks at the blossoming cherry-trees. And on this 
 mid-Sunday of the fragrant month, every woman in this land 
 of fair and gentle women dons her finest raiment and her gayest 
 dresses, and goes forth as it were to a wedding festival. In 
 the temples where the trees are, the gods who gave them, or 
 
 21 
 
the ancestors who planted them, are roused by many a tinkling 
 bell and gong, that they may share in spirit-land this most 
 divine of earthly joys. Merry, laughing, pattering, toddling, 
 nonsense-talking people, may you keep this happy festival for 
 many and many a year to come, through all those " ages eternal " 
 of which your Constitution so boastfully speaks (in English ; 
 though in Chinese it speaks more soberly of the ages eternal 
 of the past) ; and when the order has changed completely, and 
 all that is yours of loveliness and grace has passed utterly 
 away, may this day, with its many consorts of yesterdays and 
 to-morrows, keep green the festal memory of old Japan. 
 
 TO A MAIDEN OF OLD JAPAN. 
 
 [In very irregular metre. 
 
 ^^\^^iAIDEN childlike, in thy hands 
 ^/ /^ Old Japan must live, 
 When the customs of strange lands 
 
 Cn?-ioiis blessings give. 
 When thoiii't learned in foreign ivays 
 
 Think thine own the prettier ; 
 Fragrance in the memory stays, 
 Fragrance of the vanished Mays ; 
 Mark, then, all these cherry-days 
 
 With ilie reddest letter. 
 
 Dainty breath and dainty finger 
 Keep the dust and moth atvay 
 
 From thine old-tvorld vesture. 
 Let thy dress of soft cloud-grey, 
 
 22 
 
With its silken textitre, 
 Be the fairyland and gay 
 Where old Japan may have full sway, 
 A nd memories fondly linger. 
 
 New Japan ! No softer hours 
 Than those we spent among the flowers 
 The Gods can ever send her. 
 Then once a year forget the West, 
 Take from thy closet what is best ; 
 Go forth in flowered garments dressed, 
 Thy form by all their folds caressed ; 
 Brave in them the blossom-showers, 
 Then lay them by in lavender. 
 
 The gentlest breeze, away the flowers fly, making the air 
 glitter in the sunlight, and the girls cower and bend their heads 
 as it were before a gusty snowstorm ; and then they brush the 
 petals from each other's shoulders, calling them snowflakes, and 
 the air is full of the ripplingest laughter that ever was laughed in 
 the land of make-believe. And then, how strange ! what food for 
 more light laughter! the more the petals fall, the whiter look the 
 trees, and still more full of flower. Those that have fallen have 
 but made room for those that are left behind to be seen, to feel 
 the breeze, and fall. Again the simile of the snow : " The drift 
 looks whiter as the wind blows away its outer coating in clouds." 
 
 A petal of cherry-blossom sayings picked in passing : — " One 
 day Kinto Fujiwara, Great Adviser of State, disputed with the 
 Minister of Uji which was the fairest of spring and autumn 
 flowers. Said the Minister: 'The Cherry is surely best among 
 the flowers of spring, the Chrysanthemum among those of 
 
 23 
 
autumn.' Then Kinto said, ' How can the cherry-blossom be 
 the best ? You have forgotten the Plum.' Their dispute came 
 at length to be confined to the superiority of the Cherry and 
 the Plum, and of other flowers little; notice was taken. At 
 length Kinto, not wishing to offend the Minister, did not argue 
 so vehemently as before, but said, 'Well, have it so; the Cherry 
 may be the prettier of the two ; but when once you have seen 
 the red plum-blossom in the snow at the dawn of a spring 
 morning, you will no' longer' forget its beauty.' This truly was a 
 gentle saying." 
 
 If the blooming of the' flowers touches to the quick the 
 susceptibilities of, the .Japanese for beautiful things, their fading 
 appeals to the sentimental side of their nature. "The cherry- 
 blossoms,'' says one, " are ineffably lovely ; but my joy at 
 gazing at them is marred by the knowledge that they must so 
 soon pass away." And the poet Korunushi sang 
 
 "■ ^^fO man so callous but he heaves a sigh 
 ■ ^ X. When o'er his head the ivithered Chen-y flowers 
 Cdme fluttering down. Who knows? the Spring's soft showers, 
 May be' but tears shed by the sorrowing sky.'' 
 
 From Cliamtierlaiii's "Classical Poetry of tlia Japanese." 
 
 Just now the round of flower-visits is in full swing. Some 
 Westerns have, been known to wonder at the time spent upon 
 them, and to regard them as a purely Japanese craze, worthy only 
 of an indolent,' time-oblivious people. Yet I have seen — or have 
 I dreamed it t — advertisements on the Underground Railway at 
 home, directing public attention to the fact that the Chestnut 
 trees at Bushey Park were in full bloom ; and, more curious 
 still, I seem • to have some dim recollection of people — British 
 people — going to see them. If these things be so, then truly 
 is there nothing new under the sun, not even the Japanese sun. 
 These delightful flower-days even have their counterpart in 
 24 
 
IN THE TIME OF CHERRY BLOSSOM 
 
 ALFRED EAST. 
 
the old world ; the only difference is, that in Japan they are 
 more elaborated, more carefully thought out, with a view to the 
 extraction of the greatest amount of pleasure sans alloy. 
 
 A brooding philosopher says of these flower excursions, half 
 regretfully, " If there were no charming cherry-blossoms in the 
 world, the mind would be left undisturbed in spring-time." 
 
 Yononaka ni taete sakura no nakari seba, haru no 
 kokoro ya nodoke karashi. 
 
 The curious twist of the Japanese mind reads between the 
 characters, and says he is no philosopher at all who speaks, 
 but a disappointed lover railing at woman and her disturbing 
 presence in the world. Such a lover as he who once thus cried 
 to his cruel fair : " The cherry-blossoms have come and passed 
 away without my seeing them, the while I am trying to win 
 your love." Your true philosopher, however, thus points his 
 moral to those less brilliant ones who have to wait their turn 
 until the lustre of others' fame has faded : " The cherry-trees in 
 the far-away mountain villages should keep back their blooms 
 until the flowers in the town have faded, for then the people will 
 go out to see them too." 
 
 Miru hito no naki yamazato no sakura hana hoka 
 no chirinan nochi za sakamashi. 
 
 Apfil 20t:h. — To-day the sunlight and the grass have 
 begun to work their never-failing charm, and my mind is full of 
 memories of green lawns at home. Even this strange, straggling, 
 rootless product of the Hermit Kingdom is potent with the spell ; 
 and the brilliant Kerria japonica, now in full orange bloom, 
 helps to fill in the mind-picture with cottages in the balmy South 
 of England, over whose trellised portals the charming flower had 
 spread. It was a domesticated homely flower as I knew it, long 
 
 E 
 
ago, before I could even have spelled "Japan;'' and has entered 
 into the flower memories of earliest days. I grasp its long 
 tendrils, shaking them as the hand in the greeting of old friends. 
 With an old a new friend makes his appearance, one destined 
 hereafter to form part of every thought of Japan. Ruminations 
 in the wander round my garden are suddenly cut short by the 
 appearance of a thick spike, some eight or nine inches high, which 
 seems to have pushed itself through the turf in a single night. 
 After a while I notice many more, and the ground seems full of 
 spikes of lesser magnitude in process of mushroom-like develop- 
 ment. Something quite new ! my slender stock of botanical 
 knowledge suggests Aloes — at the mention of which, in the 
 Japanese tongue, my gardener laughs, but vouchsafes no intelli- 
 gible explanation, wondering at ignorance so profound. On the 
 morrow, when I notice at least two inches growth in the shoots 
 of yesterday, and many new spikelets, I learn at length that it is 
 Tak^, anglice, Bamboo ; and that these are the young shoots of 
 the plant which, as a staple, plays a part in Japanese economics 
 as important almost as rice. It would be an easier task to say 
 what is not made of Bamboo, than to convey any idea of the 
 thousand-and-one ways in which shoots, stalks and stems great 
 and small, joints, twigs, scales and leaves, are used by this 
 astonishing people, who not only know how to make the best of 
 things which nature provides, but do better still. My diary is, 
 however, botanical and not economic, and I note, therefore, 
 imprimis, the simply astounding rapidity of growth, which 
 transforms a shoot into a tall plant in a few days. The tall 
 stems seem to attain to their full height almost as quickly as the 
 smaller ones. I fancy, the accurate way of describing the different 
 growths would be to talk of the shoots from the old, or the young, 
 "leaders" under ground; one is rather disposed, nevertheless, to 
 apply the words old and young to the shoots themselves. The 
 stems do not increase in diameter after they emerge from the 
 ground; they are covered with dark-spotted scales folded one 
 within the other, a scale for every joint. They grow like whips, 
 26 
 
i'A U-. -."•■ 
 
 
 \* * 9 
 
 
 '^jO^ - /• 
 
 ,> / 
 
 ;? 
 
 f ^1 f I,' 
 
 . h 
 '/ 
 
 \ f 
 
 ' f 
 
 .• 7 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 r 1 
 
 -*fc.\ 
 
 /^ C 
 
 \ ^ 
 
 ., '-/' 
 
 t 4^ ■• N 
 
 -fe 
 
 J 
 
 
 € > 'I - 
 
 
 r 
 
 , ^A 
 
 
 YOUNG BAMBOO SHOOTS. 
 
without a sign of branch or leaf until three-fourths of their 
 full height; then, the cold nights having quite gone, the stem 
 needing no more protection, and the embryo branches being 
 fully set, the scales drop off one by one, revealing the delicate 
 green stalk, and alternately at every joint a tiny branch. For 
 another fortnight the growth of parent stalk and branches goes 
 on rapidly; but there is no sign of leaf until the full growth is 
 finished, when they look like so many waving and branched 
 fishing-rods. Then suddenly, after a few days of sun and shower, 
 the stalks are hidden in a wealth of foliage of the tenderest 
 green, which waves to the slightest breeze, making a delicious 
 picture with softest lights and shadows, an ideal fairy grove. 
 
 RpPii SStll. — After a feast of double cherry-blossoms 
 in the Imperial gardens, I find in my own garden, with an 
 abundance of flowers, Aquilegia atropurpurea, purple and white 
 varieties of the ever-welcome Columbine; Epimedium macran- 
 thum, a berberid, but not unlike the Columbine in form ; 
 Magnolia obovata v. purpurea, a very magnificent bush with 
 great dark purple flowers ; the white and the lilac Fuji — 
 
 Wistaria chinensis, of which more anon ; and My Lady's Slipper, 
 
 Cypripediu m japon icu m. 
 
 Hpfil 28th.— How can I describe a Japanese garden } 
 Words fail me when I attempt to portray its delicate delights. 
 Yesterday a quiet ramble through Count Okuma's garden at 
 Waseda, on the outskirts of Tokyo, revealed, as I had never seen 
 them before, the thousand little charms which go to make up the 
 sum of any single day of pleasure in Japan. As you step from the 
 verandah, the calculated convenience of the stepping-stones first, 
 and then the gold-fish in a huge Chinese tank of clearest water, 
 fill in a pleasant moment. The lawn has never yet known the 
 whirr of the patent mower, but is kept soft and smooth and 
 trim by an army of men, who minister to its daily sleekness with 
 small reaping-hooks and scissors. Walking delicately, you come 
 
 29 
 
to the dry watercourse, its stepping-stones laid with marvellous 
 care. With an eye to effect ? — no ; apparently there is no effect 
 at all, everything seems so natural and in its place ; the only care 
 has been to efface all trace of effort. Every stone has been 
 selected for shape and colour and fitness, the large ones at a 
 great price. Of course, the soles of European boots leave horrid 
 marks behind ; one longs to stop and rub them away. The 
 minute labour of crossing the stream accomplished, a clump of 
 tree Paeonies — Botan {Pceonia moutan) — invites you to dwell 
 awhile before you climb the tiny Fujiyama beyond. Then a path 
 set in a graceful line, and hedged with many-tinted Maples {Acer, 
 palmattcin, of which, if my memory serves me right, there are 
 seventy-eight varieties in the garden), green and white, orange, 
 crimson, brown, leads you up the miniature precipitousness of 
 the mountain, modelled after that peerless one, the worship of all 
 Japan. On its summit a shrine and a resting-place, from which 
 you may look back on the beautiful simplicity of a Japanese 
 house, a harmony in brown wood and cream-coloured mats, with 
 here and there a flash of light as the sun strikes on some half- 
 hidden gold screen or sliding door. 
 
 Next, a shady glade of trees and flowers, leading to a rest- 
 house, wherein is served minute refreshment after so much 
 minute labour — tiny cups of scented tea and oranges. What a 
 gem of a house ! what a picture ! with its adornments of 
 fantastic natural wood, and delicately-toned screens. Every- 
 thing in most delightful miniature: its curiously twisted bamboo 
 fences, its stone steps, its bowl of gold-fish ; the gold-fish them- 
 selves ; even the time of resting. The only thing not in little is 
 the infinite labour that welded so many minutiae into so charm- 
 ing a whole. Still more glades, more bridges bosomed in Maples, 
 more trees, more flowers ; and then there comes one of the most 
 charming features of a Japanese garden — the sub-tropical green- 
 house. It is the simplest thing possible in construction : four or 
 five tiers of benches some fifty feet long, with ample space 
 between, screened from the north by bamboo fences, and for 
 30 
 
shelter from sun and rain movable mats stretched out on a 
 slender framework. On the benches, flowering plants and trees 
 of curious growth, each in a pot of great beauty and value. The 
 difficult question, which is to be admired most, the plant or its 
 pot, is settled for one in the Japanese manner. If the plant is to 
 be specially admired, the pot ought not to detain you ; if the 
 flower is modest, the beauty of the pot will complete the picture. 
 Above all things, the characteristic of an English greenhouse is 
 wanting : there is no crowding, no confused hodge-podge of 
 colour ; each occupant has a particular space devoted to it ; he 
 claims your notice, and he gets it, though it be for a moment, all 
 to himself: his beautiful comrades will get theirs in turn. Then 
 back over bridges and under trees, past the gold-fish bowls once 
 more, over the spotless mats, and past the priceless screens, and 
 so sayonara to the statesman and his flowers. The blooming of 
 the Botan at Waseda has been like the blooming of the Roses at 
 Hughenden — a consolation in the hour of bitter defeat. 
 
may. 
 
 may 5th. — The festival of boys — " Tan-go " — and of the 
 early Iris. The Iris is supposed to be a specific against all 
 disorders, a charm against all evil spirits. The bath-houses 
 provide Iris-water for the bathers, and the superstitious hang 
 bunches of leaves and flowers from the eaves of their houses. 
 Probably the same superstition led to the common custom of 
 planting beds of Iris along the ridges of the thatched cottages 
 in the country. In days gone by, boys wore wreaths of Iris 
 leaves, and made ropes of them to dance with, and beat the 
 ground to frighten away the demons from their festival. 
 
 may l-4th. — Within the last week three famous gardens 
 have been at their best, and crowded for many successive 
 days with the merry laughing Japanese crowd which is so 
 delightful when one is in a good humour ; and it must be a very 
 bad temper indeed that cannot put off its churlishness in the 
 presence of so much spontaneous, unaffected gaiety. 
 
 At Okubo, a flower village on the skirts of the capital, where 
 dwell market-gardeners innumerable, are fields and fields 
 " brocaded" with dark crimson Azalea (Rhododendron indicum v. 
 obtusiim) ; every tree is a thick mass of blossom ; many of them 
 are old, and apparently long past flower-bearing, but they are 
 more prolific even than their youthful offspring. In the gardens 
 choice specimens are grown of every shade of yellow, salmon, 
 and tawny rose. 
 
 At Shoko-yen a tiny garden nestles in the sheltering hills, its 
 owner devoting himself to the culture of the tree-pseony ; a 
 hundred varieties, wonderful in size and colour, are in full 
 bloom. 
 32 
 
A WISTARIA ARBOUR. 
 
Lastly, there are the Temple grounds at Kameido, where the 
 white and the lilac Wistaria grow in astounding profusion. 
 The racemes of lilac -flowers are hardly ever less than three, 
 and often five feet long, and they hang down from the trellis 
 work in a dense mass of colour. " The reflection in the lake 
 makes it look," says the poet, " as if from its bottom there also 
 grew a harvest of flowers." Under the many trellises the world 
 sits and sips its tiny cups of tea, gazes at the fish in the ponds, 
 wonders at the beauty of the flowery tassels overhead, and 
 laughs at the unsuccessful attempts of others to get gracefully 
 over the semi-circular bridge. Then the frivolous maiden buys 
 herself a new hair-pin with pendant Wistaria, in memory of the 
 pleasant day. The white Wistaria {IV. brachybotrys) has larger 
 flowers but much shorter racemes than the lilac, and is not 
 of such free habit. Arbours are, however, often covered with 
 it. Used as a dwarf tree for the house it is exceedingly 
 handsome. 
 
 The Plum and the Nightingale are the harbingers of 
 spring, the Wistaria and the Cuckoo of early summer. 
 Hitomaro, an old Japanese poet, sings of them thus : — 
 
 /N blossom the Wistaria trees to-day 
 Break forth, that sweep the wavelets of my lake : 
 When will the mountain Cuckoo come and make 
 The garden vocal with his first sweet lay ? 
 
 From Chamberlain's " Classical Poetry of the Japanese." 
 
 Yet another poet likens the fragrance of the drooping flowers 
 to true friendship : " What," says he, " though I be outside the 
 ring-fence and cannot sit beneath thy shade, thou sendest, gentle 
 Wistaria, thy fragrance across it to me, treating me like a 
 friend." 
 
 In the garden at home Lilies of all sorts are sprouting 
 vigorously, and the early Iris shows its bloom ; also the rich 
 34 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF WISTARIA AND IRIS. 
 
 orange Lonicera sempervirens v. minor, which we call Japanese 
 Honeysuckle ; SpircBa cantoniensis, a charming, compact white 
 flower quite unknown to me ; Polygonatiim canaliculaltim and 
 its minute companion, P. humile ; Bletia hyacinthina, a hardy 
 orchid growing in clumps with many flower spikes, also in two 
 varieties, bluish crimson and white ; and Asartim catdescens, the 
 
 35 
 
tiny flower whose leaves furnished the great Tokugawa Shoguns 
 with that famous crest which ghtters on a thousand shrines 
 and temples. Best of all, the great bare poles of the 
 Pa7ilotvnia Imperialis are just bursting into leaf and flower, 
 the imperial Kiri, which furnishes the second of the Emperor's 
 crests, sharing the honours with the Kiku. Seen to perfection 
 in full flower, and when it has not been bullied by the wind, 
 it is an exceedingly handsome tree ; clumps of them on the 
 warm hill-sides, with their great spikes of flowers, tinge the 
 landscape with a violet hue. The leaves of the young trees 
 are something prodigious : a sapling five or six feet high will 
 bear leaves often more than eighteen inches across ; this is 
 probably due to the extraordinary vitality of the tree. Lately 
 I used some old pieces of a tree, uprooted for three years, in 
 making an arbour ; they had not been in the ground a month 
 before they began to sprout, and were soon covered with small 
 leaves. 
 
 fnid'-may. — I have reserved my notes on the night flower- 
 fairs until to-day, when the Roses are in bloom, for the Rose 
 fair is the prettiest of the year. First, however, the quaint 
 story of the introduction of Roses into this country. 
 
 In the early days when the West was as interesting to Japan 
 as Japan is even now to us, the Japanese showed their aptitude 
 for entering the communion of the civilised States by starting 
 crazes for European things. Three famous crazes still dwell 
 in the memory of men — Pigs, Rabbits, Roses ; and stories 
 are plentiful of the almost fabulous prices paid for them. I am 
 afraid to trust myself to figures, but two to three hundred 
 dollars for Rose, or Rabbit, or Pig, is, I believe, well within the 
 mark. The Rose seems quickly to have found its way to the 
 Japanese heart, as well it might, for all hearts at all times 
 have paid it tribute. Prices went to an extraordinary figure. 
 There lived then a man in the city who saw a road to fortune 
 strewn and scented with rose-leaves ; the savings of a life- 
 36 
 
time were invested, the garden planted with trees paid for 
 literally with the weight of their flowers in gold. The sun 
 shone, they were digged and trenched, and the Roses bloomed. 
 But the favouring gales brought other ships freighted with 
 the fragrant flower ; then came the collapse ; the roseate bubble 
 burst ; the price so fell in a single day that one could scarcely 
 write sen in the place of yen. The rose-trees went on blooming 
 unconscious of the evil they had wrought, but there was none to 
 tend them, or gather their flowers. The ill-fated gai'dener had 
 vanished ; no one knew where to set up a floral tribute to his 
 memory, and none but the birds where to scatter rose-leaves at 
 his burial. 
 
 Most curious are these flower-fairs, which go on all the year 
 through. Each district has one every month, when its inhabi- 
 tants take a holiday ; many of the days being fixed so that the 
 evening fair may come as a pleasant termination to the festival at 
 the Temple hard by. 
 
 The gardeners have thus a regular succession of markets 
 to attend, but I am bound to say I have never yet understood 
 how, after a short time, they have anything left to sell, for 
 they bring large trees and shrubs for sale besides their innumer- 
 able plants. Of course it is something like the stage army, the 
 larger trees moving on from market to market until they are 
 disposed of; but the impression left on the mind is, that the 
 majority of the gardeners are being sold out of house and home. 
 And yet the supply goes on all the year round. The most 
 amusing part of the business is, first, the exuberantly extravagant 
 price asked for the flowers ; secondly, the ridiculously diminutive 
 price actually taken. It has indeed passed into a proverb, for 
 the custom is not reserved for foreigners, but is applied to 
 Japanese as well, that any tradesman who asks high prices 
 "charges like a florist at a festival." But one is compelled 
 again to wonder, after a few fine sturdy plants have been bought 
 for a few sen, how the peripatetic florist can live, for it must be 
 with difficulty that he can sell a dollar's worth in an evening. 
 
But it is always the same in Japan — the difficulty of finding out 
 the true value of anything ; " what it will fetch " seems to be 
 the only rule. Two commercial ideas seem alone to prevail. If 
 anything has cost money, it must rise gradually in price so long 
 as it is unsold, in order to bring in interest on the original 
 outlay ; the older the stock, the higher the price. Secondly, if 
 only that worthless commodity, labour, has been expended 
 in production, the price really is unimportant so long as you 
 get something. The only result is that one hour's work may 
 bring in less or more than another, and, what can that 
 matter .' 
 
 With this perpetual round of fairs the Japanese house need 
 never be without its branch or pot of flowers. To the foreigner 
 they give the first insight into the astonishing skill in transplanting 
 trees, which the Japanese gardener possesses. Nothing is too 
 big to move ; they know the times and the seasons for doing it, 
 and the way moreover to do it successfully ; transplanting a 
 garden is indeed as much in a day's work as planting it. The 
 law and the custom have grown up side by side ; under the old 
 law, which remains unchanged, trees and shrubs are movables, 
 and belong to the tenant who planted them ; they are part 
 of the slender stock of household gods which he carries with 
 him in his frequent migrations. At certain times of the year 
 whole copses come upon you, climbing up the hills and wandering 
 through the streets. 
 
 38 
 
Jane. 
 
 The Ealrly Oays of June. — Grass cutting at the rate 
 of about four square yards, or less, per man per day. 
 
 Of flowers : Spircea japonica, two varieties, light and dark 
 pink, in masses ; 6'. purpurea, nearly allied to Lindley's favourite 
 flower; and Astilbe japonica, the old white Spircea, so abundant 
 in greenhouses at home. Twining over the arbours the rich 
 purple Clematis florida, the same size, but a fuller colour even 
 than C. Jackmanni ; and its delicate white companion, C. florida 
 V. alba. Lilium longiflorum, the handsome white gun-shaped Lily 
 (japonice Teppo ytiri) ; L. Thunburgianum, in several varieties, 
 one especially handsome, with large crimson flowers dashed 
 with orange ; also the beautiful yellow " day-lilies," Hemerocallis 
 flava, the brilliant orange H. fulva, and a small-flowered variety 
 of the same family, probably H. minor. 
 
 Seeds have produced the handsome thistle-like orang£ Cartka- 
 mus tinctorius, and the delicate little Acorus gramineus. And 
 among " weeds," Lappa major, Chenopodium album, noticeable for 
 the lustrous red of the new leaves of the young plants ; Potentilla 
 fragarioides V. stolonifera ; and in great abundance everywhere 
 the curious white-flowered Houttuynia cordata. 
 
 A country walk in the mountains round Miyanoshita, full- 
 bosomed with dark green trees suggesting depths unfathomable, 
 and pine-trees standing up " islanded in the immeasurable air ; " 
 then a break, and a waterfall tumbling down the green hill-side. 
 
 The banks of purple Iris on the roofs of the cottages which 
 glisten in the sun are in full bloom ; and by the wayside are 
 great clumps of Iris japonica, its pale grey flowers lit with bright 
 spots of purple and orange ; dwarf Wistaria peeping out in odd 
 places; some small varieties oi Spircea; Diervilla versicolor and 
 D. grandiflora, of the tribe and lineage of the Honeysuckles ; 
 
 39 
 
Deutzia scabra, the old familiar friend ; and growing by the 
 active sulphur-beds of Ojinoko, a charming little family of 
 hardy Orchids, Calantlies and Cephalantheras. Lazily drifting 
 on Hakone lake in the shadow of Fijiyama, we seem to pass 
 into the eternal depths of the ever-present mountain. Per 
 contra: heat, rain, fleas and mosquitoes. 
 
 JUOe 20th. — Before the wind, remorseless, blows out the 
 lantern-candles of my memory, and scatters, like flower-seeds, 
 the impressions of a lovely little trip up the Sumida river, I 
 must try to get on paper the recollections of it. How the wind 
 howls ! all days are not calm in Japan, though they glitter with 
 gold sunbeams. No poet ever sang a welcome to the wild wind 
 of Dai Nippon : I suppose, because poetical necessity demands 
 that the subject apostrophised should at least be knowable by 
 some name, and he would be a hardy poet who should attempt 
 to localize the quarter of the globe whence come these gusty 
 billows of impetuous air. Yet another name for these islands of 
 the East — " The Land of the Rising Wind." 
 
 On this day, then, full of golden sunlight, the wind wafted us 
 (though that is but a foolish word wherewith to express the 
 force which it expended on the sail, driving the boat before it) 
 up the Sumidagawa towards Hori Kiri — the " beautiful ditch " — 
 in which the lovelier and loveliest Iris have their dwelling. Half 
 an acre : in which room has been found for a tea-house on an 
 island, a, rest-house on a knoll, a long winding path lined with 
 bright yellow day-lilies to a rest-house on a hill, meandering 
 paths to a dozen smaller rest-houses, and yet room enough for 
 the watery bed of a thousand purple Iris here, and for another 
 of a thousand white Iris there, and in the remaining space 
 thousands more of every tint from purest white, through the 
 purples, down to pale crimson. Large flowers of many hues 
 40 
 
HORl KIRf. 
 
have been seen in Tokyo for some time past, but the size of 
 these in the beautiful ditch is extraordinary. " How shall I tell 
 how many Mays the Iris flowers have lived through ? Every year 
 they look younger," as the setting sun, glinting their petals, 
 lights the coloured fires of the fairies' home, through which 
 we can see them waking from their day-dreams, one by one, to 
 join in the sunset dance.- • As if by magic the turbulent wind has 
 fallen asleep, and we walk back to the boat through the paddy 
 fields, glowing as though the earth had opened her mouth to 
 show the great furnaces below. The little maidens of the 
 riverside tea-house busy themselves with our embarcation, which, 
 being effected, becomes the sum total of a hundred sweet little 
 nothings done with a grace divine. Then, with lighted lanterns 
 casting pale-tinted reflections on the water, with " sayonara, 
 sayonara" sweetest of all sweet Japanese words, softly and still 
 more softly dying away in the darkening distance, to the tinkling 
 music of the Samisen we drift away — to dine. 
 
 June 22nd. — Hydrangeas: H.hortensis v.Azisai, the ever 
 variable, now pure white, now electric blue, and changing to red 
 as its clusters fade ; H. hortensis v.japonica, whitish-green centre 
 with red external florets ; H. virens, blue centre, with white and 
 pink florets. 
 
 Lilies : L. concolor v. fulchellum {Hime yuri, the "young lady 
 lily " of Japan), a small, rich orange flower ; L. medeoloides, the 
 " wheel " Lily, so called from the whorl of leaves thrown out at 
 the first joint. 
 
 Generally : Punica granatimi, single, double, and variegated 
 Pomegranate ; St. John's wort in several varieties ; Fimkia lanci- 
 folia, with a spike of dark purple lily flowers, its pale taller 
 brother, F. Sieboldiana, both brought down from the hills last 
 year, and a gardener's variety of F. ovata with handsome varie- 
 gated leaves. Also, from the hill gardens, a few plants of the 
 crimson Lychnis grandiflora, and from the hill-side hedges its 
 Indian-red brother, L. Miqneliana. 
 42 
 
The golden clusters of tiny flowers of Diospynis kaki give 
 promise of a rich harvest of luscious fruit in the autumn — the 
 Kaki loved of the Japanese. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF LEAVES, BUDS, AND FLOWER OF IRIS. 
 
 43 
 
July. 
 
 July 7th. — Plots of grass everywhere pink with the tiny 
 spiral Orchid, Spiranthes aiistralis. 
 
 On this day occurred in times past one of the most graceful of 
 the fast disappearing customs of old Japan. The Goddess, 
 whose dwelling was in the Star " Vega " — " The Weaver " — - 
 whose care was for all women who lived by the needle, was 
 wont, on this day, to meet her lover — " The Herd Boy " — in 
 the Milky Way. Then all those women worshipped them, 
 invoking the blessing of these happy lovers on their embroi- 
 deries and on all kinds of needlework. At the close of the day 
 they made them little rafts of wood, fixing in each a votive 
 spray of flowers, and sent them drifting down the river. 
 
 July loth. — Summer heats have begun to make work 
 impossible, and to drive people to the mountains. Tokyo 
 moves itself somewhat arduously, bag and baggage, chairs and 
 bedsteads, to Hakone or Nikko. For me Nikko, dampest yet 
 pleasantest of places. The train leaves before seven, the station 
 is five miles off, and that means rising at half-past four. At four 
 the vigorous patter of rain-drops wakes one, only to encourage 
 further sleep and forgetfulness ; but visions of a day in Tokyo, 
 with cook and luggage gone before and the house packed up, 
 44 
 
suggest that even a long damp journey is not the greater of the 
 two evils. Energy meets with its reward. Before the railway 
 journey was finished the clouds had packed themselves away, 
 and the sun shone out gloriously, making the five hours in a 
 jinrikisha tolerable ; for in the sunshine not even a foot of 
 mud, and consequent jerkings innumerable, can destroy the 
 indescribable grandeur and charm of that avenue of Cryptomerias, 
 which looks from the Nikko hills like a great dragon stretching 
 itself lazily through the landscape. The new railway has now 
 brought peace to the giant trees, and has taken the Nikko traffic 
 off the road. But the sacred avenue has been desecrated ; the 
 iron road cuts through it in two places. 
 
 On the morrow, a ramble over the wonderful hills, whereon 
 are great bushes of crimson Azalea {Rhododendron indicum 
 V. macranthum) still in flower, peeping out from between the dark 
 Pines. "Are they flowers, indeed } " says the poet ; " I thought 
 they were the woodmen's fires upon the hillside :" " I thought that 
 the mountain goddess Sao-hime had passed by, and I had caught 
 a glimpse of the scarlet skirts of her raiment:" "I thought the 
 red-leaved autumn had come before its time." 
 
 In the village gardens is Lychnis grandijlora transplanted from 
 the hills. Under cultivation the flowers often exceed two inches 
 in diameter, and their natural crimson intensifies to blood-red. 
 But it is still early for the hills ; and though there is an abundant 
 promise of beauty in the hedges, at present there is little else but 
 Actinidia polygama, with flowers to be mistaken for orange- 
 blossom ; and the double Deutzia {D. scabrd), which sheds its 
 delicate petals like snow-flakes in the way. Again the poet 
 sings of moonlight, snow, and waves, as he looks on this charming 
 flower ; and yet again, as he looks at the lanes, lined with the 
 white bushes, he likens them to the long strips of cotton stretched 
 out to bleach, which are so common a feature in the summer 
 landscape. 
 
 45 
 
^ ^^\H0 hung that cloth so fine 
 ^^^ To bleach in the white sunshine ? 
 Who owns that cloth so rare, 
 
 That only a maid should wear ? 
 
 Nay, but we are di'eaming : 
 
 It is the moonlight streaming 
 
 Through the hedges and the trees ; 
 
 The summer is not glowing, 
 
 'Tis winter that is blowing 
 
 Those snow-clouds on the breeze. 
 
 tjuly 20th. — Notes of a country walk. There will be now 
 nothing but a diary of country walks, not through meadows, but 
 over great plains of flowers changing week by week, now white 
 with Hydrangea, now crimson with Lychnis, now purple with Iris. 
 To-day the plains are white as with the bridal-veil of summer : 
 the wreath is of Veronicas, small feathery Spiraeas, " Meadow- 
 sweet " making the air redolent with scent of home, and clumps 
 of Hydrangea {H. panicidata), YiVire white in the hills — all this 
 whiteness dashed with the delicate colours of Spircea purpurea 
 and the graceful lilac spikes of Funkia ovata. 
 
 In the hedges one Orchid {Epipactis gigantea), with a spike of 
 small orange flowers, varying between two and four feet in 
 height ; the dark purple star of Vincetoxicum Nikoense, and here 
 and there clumps of dull crimson and white Canterbury Bells 
 {Campanula punctata), together with quantities of bright blue 
 Commelina communis, and occasionally the scarcer white variety. 
 The blue Spider-wort is much used in dyeing ; and as it gives 
 off its colour easily, the fickle mind and transitory love are 
 compared to it. 
 46 
 
And then — how can I describe the effect of the first sight of 
 that king among the flowers, the wonderful Lilium aiirattim, 
 wild in its mountain home ! As you walk, suddenly it arrests 
 you, as it were a great white eye staring at you through the 
 bushes. Another week there will be thousands of them, but 
 to-day, it is this one, this first one, which makes you pause and 
 wonder at Nature's marvellous handiwork, the delicate stem 
 bending but never breaking beneath its weight of flower, and, 
 hanging over it, a fragrant haze of scent. 
 
 July 21st. — Something quite new, and perfect in its 
 beauty — the creeping Hydrangea [H. petiolaris), winding round 
 the tall pine-stems and enveloping them with a myriad clusters 
 of white flowers. Also another new flower, Lilium cordifolitim, 
 growing in damp places, with curious elongated, primitive- 
 looking green flowers, with dark brown centres ; the old bulbs, 
 bearing a dozen flowers or more, are exceedingly handsome. 
 
 A bunch of flowers from the upper regions : — Aquilegia 
 glandulosa, the dark red Columbine ; Scutellaria indica v. 
 japonica, with purple flowers, growing in clumps by the moun- 
 tain paths ; Thalictrum aquilegifolium, and T. tuberifertcm, very 
 handsome and feathery, with four other species, noted in the 
 catalogue ; Philadelphus coronarius, with clusters of Syringa- 
 like flowers; the pink Polygonum bistorta ; and Wickstrcsmia 
 canescens v. ganpi, with its small spikes of white flower. 
 
 47 
 
August. 
 
 flUQUSt 1st. — To Chiuzenji, of the charming lake and 
 pilgrim mountain Nantaizan. Trees covered with festoons of 
 pale green Lycopodium Sieboldi, making charming patches of 
 light among the dark trees. This curious plant, at a certain 
 altitude, attaches itself to the trunks of the numerous dead trees 
 in the forests, and covers them to their topmost branches. I 
 have never seen it on a living tree. 
 
 The Camellia-tree {Stitartia pseudo-camellia), covered with 
 white flowers, is also a noticeable feature on the hill-sides. Also 
 I note Adenophora trachelioides and A. verticillata, sisters of 
 the family of Campanulas, purple, lilac, and white, the latter 
 variety often throwing up spikes three feet high ; Hydrangea 
 hirta, with its curious colour mixture of vivid blue flowers and 
 bright yellow-green leaves ; H. invobicrata, with handsome lilac 
 clusters, and of course gleams of their shrubby white brother 
 creeping in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners ; Tricyrtis flava, 
 quaintest of the Lily tribe, in waxen abundance, with here 
 and there the white red-spotted T. macropoda ; Pertya scandens, 
 twin to the Groundsells ; tall purple spikes of Phyteuma japoni- 
 aiin, and crimson Pedicularis resiipinata ; and above all the 
 regular-petaled orange vermilion cinquefoil oi Lychnis Miqueliana, 
 which, unlike its crimson relative, is as handsome wild as it is 
 under cultivation. 
 
 By the lake, bushes just coming into flower of Tripetaleia 
 paniculata and T. bracteata ; Hydrangea cordifolia ; also beds of 
 Aconitiim Fischer i. 
 
 fl feuu days later. — Across the beautiful Yumoto plain, 
 which, for all its square miles, is one vast Iris bed. To-day in the 
 sunshine it is literally one huge purple sheet, patched here and 
 48 
 
FROM THE NIKKO HILLS. 
 
 ALFRED EAST 
 
there with Lilium tigrinum and L. inedeoloides. In the long 
 grass dwell Parnassia palustris, Geraninm Sieboldi, Epilobium 
 angustifolium, and the deep orange Groundsell Senecio flammeus ; 
 also a spike here and there of the large bright yellow S.japoni- 
 cics ; abundance of delicate white Spiraea and the white " Man- 
 orchis " ; by the lake the yellow Spir^a-like flower Patrinia 
 scabioscefolia. In the damp woods, hidden in the under-growth, 
 the delicate tinted cups of Pyrola rottcndifolia, and the tender- 
 hued pine-root parasites, Monotropa hypopitys v. hirstcta, like the 
 pale yellow ghost of a hyacinth, and M. icniflora. 
 
 Coming back to Nikko, I find the handsome Thistle, Cnicus 
 piirpiiratus, in full flower in the pass, the flowers full two inches in 
 diameter. 
 
 August lOttl. — There comes over me the refrain of the 
 song, '" Oh ! my garden full of Lilies ; " the garden is the broad 
 swell of the mountain side, and the Lilies, both in number arid size, 
 exceed those of the gentle poet's dream. The spikes of Z. auratiim 
 with eight and ten flowers, one for each year of life, so the 
 Japanese say, surrounded on all sides by their abundant, off- 
 spring, are a sight for weary eyes. The larger heads are rarely 
 found now in the woods : collectors have been too greedy in their 
 search ; but in' the cottage gardens fifteen to twenty floweirs is no 
 uncommon sight. Yesterday the coolies brought in a spike, over 
 nine feet high ; the house for a week was heavy with the scent of 
 forty-two flowers, each of them about ten inches in diameter ; a 
 thing of joy to be remembered ; it cost twenty-five sen. Stories 
 are rife at this time of year of even bigger heads of flower, but 
 I think the palm must rest with mine. Investigation showed 
 that most of those that were talked about, with sixty, and even 
 eighty flowers, were flat-stemmed ; three or four stems had 
 been thrown up, but the plant had not sufficient strength to 
 separate them. Mine was single and true-stemmed. In the 
 gardens too there are beds of L. speciosicm, the lovely pink 
 flower we know so well in the West, with two varieties, one a 
 
 II 
 
very pale pink, the other pure white with a green vein in the 
 petals, very handsome ; spikes also of L. Tigrinum {Oni-yuri) 
 with fifteen to twenty flowers, and its blood-relation, L. Maxi- 
 moiviczii {Ko-oni-yuri), six or seven feet high, with twenty to 
 thirty blossoms. The flowers are hardly to be distinguished, 
 but the stem of the latter is covered with a white wool, and 
 bulbils are thrown out from the leaf bases. 
 
 Great trees of Clerodendron trichotommn give a new and charm- 
 ing tint to the landscape. Among the lesser flowers, the large 
 white Ftcnkia has given place to the smaller purple one, L. lanci- 
 folia. Pardanthus chinensis is in flower, and the hedges are full 
 of the stinking Pmderia f(£tida, Impatiens noli tangere, I. textori, 
 and the delicate electric-blue Clematis tuhdosa. On the mountains 
 the magnificent purple Campanula, Platycodon grandiflonnn, with 
 pale Hlac and double varieties in the gardens. I can never forget 
 the effect of thousands of these beautiful flowers carpeting the 
 hill-side of Bandai-san ; and the terrible transition from the field 
 of radiant blue- to the vast expanse of desolation, as we came 
 suddenly to the terrible track of last year's explosion. 
 
 To be noted also, that delightful cousin to the Anemones, 
 Anemonopsis macrophylla, the pink spike of Lythruin virgaUtm, 
 and (hiding its delicate orange flowers in the undergrowth of 
 the hedges) the Quince, Pyrus japonica v. pygmcea ; also in great 
 abundance, Cimicifuga simplex, the " Candle-plant," its beautiful 
 spikes of white flower, often a foot long, standing erect above 
 the more humble flowers of the plain : and the mighty creeper, 
 the red-flowered Pneraria Thunbergiana covering up every waste 
 spot by the roadside. 
 
 From Chiuzenji comes a bunch of quiet, interesting flowers : 
 from the hedges the Blackberry, Rubus idceits v. strigosiis; Pertya 
 scandens, Maci-oclinidiiim robustum, and Saussttrea Tanakce, 
 their habits different, but their groundsell flowers alike, those of 
 the last two, in fact, being almost identical ; the two Salvias, 
 Chelonopsis moschata, Salvia nipponica ; the pale yellow Lysi- 
 machia damirica ; the dark-tinted bell of Glossocomia lanceolata 
 SO 
 
which creeps over the mountain hedges ; Aster trinervis, a 
 Michaelmas Daisy ; Halenia sibirica, with small vivid green 
 flowers, in shape like the Aquilegia ; Aconitum lycoctonum ; the 
 beautiful spotted Ophelia, bimaculata from the Yumoto plain ; 
 the small red and yellow Melampyruni I'oseum v.japanicmn, and 
 the clover-headed Poterium officinale, which covers the plain 
 with great patches of dark-crimson. 
 
 flugust 20th. — The Lilies are nearly over, and Nature 
 seems to rest until the Amaryllids are ready. The gap is filled 
 with the scent of the Lotus, the wonderful sacred flower, which 
 comes from afar across the heated plains. 
 
 In the crannies of the temple walls, the little red corolla of 
 Conandron ramondioides, and everywhere else the giant Macleya 
 cordata, which artists have seized on as one of the typical floral 
 features of a Japanese landscape. 
 
 August 23Pd. — Belated at Shirakawa, and wandering 
 through the country in the fierce' heat of the midday sun, I 
 stumble unexpectedly on a bed of Lotus, and I gaze for the first 
 time on the lovely flowers, which, growing in the black mud, are 
 to the Japanese the symbols of purity— " A pure and beautiful 
 woman in a haunt of vice : " — "A man of stainless honour in a 
 wicked world." Such exquisite tender colours, such perfection 
 of form, such stately grace of growth, — set round with mighty 
 and shapely leaves with their under-colouring of pale blue, which 
 seems in the sunlight to reflect the heavens, — has the Lotus, that 
 it is no wonder religion has set it on the highest pinnacle of its 
 symbolism. The beautiful pencilling of the veins on the petals 
 seems to have been the fount of inspiration for the old Buddhist 
 artists, whose work was never perfect until the gold lines on the 
 flower they loved to paint vied with Nature in her accuracy. 
 
 In the early morning the rising sun receives a royal salute of 
 welcome from a hundred and one opening buds. 
 
 51 
 
Later on, in the journey to the pine islands of Matsushima, 
 fields of the pink Amaryllis Belladonna ; and in the country 
 round about, purple Lobelia sessilifolia and pink Lythrinn 
 inrgatnm ; and fields " brocaded with bush-clover," Lespedeza 
 bicolor. 
 
 August 28th. — Returning to Nikko after my ramble, I 
 find Lycoris aurea in full bloom ; and two old friends, the 
 vivid blue Corncockle to remind us of those fields of corn 
 at home, which we miss so in a Japanese landscape, all too 
 green ; and great masses of a Clematis, twin-brother to the 
 " Traveller's Joy," Clematis panicidata, in whose fragrance, 
 though it be not the true Joy, but rather a more perfect flower 
 in form and scent, home memories are embalmed. 
 
 To be noted also, a cluster of the Vetch tribe, Lespedeza 
 bicolor, pale yellow and purple, and a white variety : L. bicolor 
 V. Sieboldi, crimson and pink : Vicia cracca v. japonica, purple 
 and white, trailing in reckless profusion over the hedges : and 
 the buff-tinted Amphicarpcea Edgeworthii v. japonica. Also a 
 somewhat scarce white-flowered creeper in the hedges, Cucubalns 
 bacciferus ; the large Evening-Primrose, Qinothera biennis ; and 
 the minute St. John's wort, Hypericum erectum. 
 
 ^ ^ W 
 
 52 
 
LOTUS. 
 
 ALFRED EAST. 
 
Septembet*. 
 
 September 14th. — The return to the capital. Last 
 year I remember the country gardens full of Balsams and blood- 
 red giant Coxcombs, and my own a blaze of Marigolds and 
 " Morning-glory," Asagao (Ipomcea hederaced) ; common enough 
 flowers, but delightful for their starlike multitude, the rains and 
 intense heat of the Japanese summer drawing up seedlings to an 
 almost unrecognizable height. But this year a typhoon of 
 terrific force and long duration swept over the country in the 
 budding-time of autumn flowers, leaving floral death and desola- 
 tion in its track. The country gardens are bare, and at home, 
 nothing but a litter of dead leaves and broken branches ; 
 Paullozvnia trees uprooted ; the shrubs standing in holes in the 
 ground as if the many-handed spirit of the storm had caught 
 each one and made it dance a pirouette in its bed ; not a flower. 
 " Et devastavit " must be written in the indictment of Nature for 
 her wild freak. 
 
 Many days spent in clearing away, resetting trees and bushes, 
 and pronouncing sentence against cumbering the ground. One 
 survivor alone I found growing in odd sequestered nooks, the 
 long slender spikes of Polygonum filiforme, with its tiniest 
 flowers of crimson, and handsome dark-barred leaves. 
 
 September 20th. — Toil rewarded. The extraordinary 
 recuperativeness of the Japanese nature, that delightful power 
 of throwing off the remembrance of troubles past in the joy of 
 present delights, finds its prototype in Nature herself When 
 the last vestiges of the wreck have been swept away, and all 
 memories of the storm have been obliterated, the garden forgets 
 her sorrow in the joy of decking herself anew. The " Glory of 
 the morning" has renewed its youth, and, sending out fresh 
 
 53 
 
growth of stem and leaf, welcomes the sun again with its many- 
 tinted lovely flowers. These my sluggard friend who rises 
 betimes never sees, for they roll themselves up to sleep long 
 before the sun has mounted to mid-heaven. He revels in 
 the " Evening glory," and will not believe the poet when he says, 
 that for all its beauty it cannot compare with the exquisite 
 clouds of colour which deck the path of the morning. 
 
 Here, with the poet's leave, I note for its preservation what 
 many another note-book will assuredly have preserved as well : 
 
 Asagao ni 
 Tsurube torarete 
 Morai midsu. 
 
 Which means literally : — 
 
 Convolvulus 
 Bucket taking, 
 I borrow water. 
 
 And as our English poet has rendered it : — 
 
 ^^HE " Morning glory" 
 
 j^ Her leaves and bells has bound 
 
 My bucket-handle round. 
 
 T coidd not break the bands 
 
 Of those soft hands. 
 
 The bucket and the well I left ; 
 
 Lend me some water, for T come bereft. 
 
 rrom Sir Edwin Arnold's " Letters Idj Sea and Land." 
 
 After the Ipomcsa, the most striking thing in the garden is 
 Hibiscus coccineus, with its stalks six feet high and huge crimson 
 54 
 
flowers-; even more beautiful are the delicate white and pink 
 flowers of the low-growing Hibiscus mutabilis. A maryltis Candida, 
 and a flame-coloured Ipomma quamoclit grown from seeds, a 
 Chinese flower I think, help to keep us gay. 
 
 At the festival of the full moon, cakes were made in old days 
 and offered to the Queen of the Night. The floral decorations 
 consisted of seven wild flowers in full bloom at this time : they 
 are the autumn Nana kusa. Like the " seven herbs " of winter 
 their names run into a 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 couplet. 
 
 Hagi, Kikio 
 Obana, Kusubana, 
 Asagao no 
 Hana, Omineshi, 
 Nadishiko no hana. 
 
 Which being translated botanically runs thus : — 
 
 Lespedeza bicolor, Platycodon grandiflorinn, 
 Eularia japonica, Pueraria Thimbergiana, 
 Of Ipomcea hedei'acea 
 The flower, Patrinia scabioscefolia, 
 And the flower of Dianthus super bus. 
 
 OUP Ltady'S Day. — The fields between Tokyo and 
 Yokohama are resplendent with the crimson Amaryllid, Lycoris 
 radiata. Among the Japanese this delightful plant, looking 
 like a huge spider with the long stamens from half-a-dozen 
 flowers ranged in a regular circle round its head, is looked upon 
 as an emblem of death ; it is left to bloom in the fields by the 
 side of the withering Lotus leaves, and is never brought into the 
 house. 
 
 55 
 
In the gardens many-hued Coxcombs have revived, and are 
 growing and flowering apace. Olea fragrans is full of amber 
 blossom ; and the flaming Clerodendron squamatum from China 
 lights up the dark corners of the house. The skies of these 
 early autumn days are serene, the air balmy as if it never knew 
 disturbance ; but the dearth of flowers in the markets, and the 
 giant trees of Salisburia adiantifolia all seared on the seaward 
 side, look as if a gust of fire had swept by them, and remind 
 us unpleasantly of those few stormy summer days. The leaves 
 of Salisburia are used in the hot weather to keep moth and 
 damp away. 
 
 Octobett. 
 
 Oetobef 25th. — ^My diary draws to a close. To-day I have 
 a very short list to note : a dark red-spotted Tricy7-tis macropoda, 
 a clump of double red Anemone japonica, and the delicate 
 Camellia Sasanqtia in several varieties of colour, from white, 
 palest pink, to red. The petals of the red flowers vary in colour 
 considerably, and are often dashed with large spots of white. 
 
 'Scl 
 
 J^ovembei^. 
 
 " Let the Emperor live for ever. May he see the 
 Chrysanthemum Cup go round autumn after autumn for a 
 thousand years ! " 
 
 The Chrysanthemums, whose virtue as a specific against 
 malaria when dipped in sak/ is referred to in the above quota- 
 tion, are in full bloom. They are of every hue and of. every 
 
 56 
 
shape and size. " The white ones gleam so in the sunshine that 
 in the early morning I can scarcely distinguish the flowers from 
 the hoar-frost laid so gently on them." The long thread-like 
 petals of one class are new to me ; and at one of the shows in 
 the neighbouring village I have just seen the very latest 
 triumph of horticultural art, a Chrysanthemum with a small 
 flower of vivid apple-green. This was its first appearance in 
 public, and larger flowers are promised in a season or two. 
 I need not dwell long upon the Chrysanthemum, for the 
 Imperial emblem of Japan is too old a friend at home to need 
 special notice, and I am not at all sure that we do not see 
 a finer exhibition in the Temple Gardens every autumn, so 
 far as size and colour go, than even in the Palace Gardens 
 here. 
 
 The Chrysanthemum is the last of the " Four Gentlemen," — 
 Shi kunshi — so called for the qualities of which they are typical. 
 The four are : Mmne, the Plum, — vigour, by reason of its being 
 the first flower to brave the snows, and sweetness : Ran, the 
 Orchis — grace in adversity, for it preserves all its elegance 
 though it grows wild on the mountains : Tak^, the Bamboo — 
 uprightness : and Kiku, the Chrysanthemum — the emblem of 
 To ye mei, a distinguished Chinese official who, many centuries 
 ago, retired from the Government service on account of its 
 corruptness. 
 
 One or two curiosities I must notice. The Japanese gardener 
 knows, among his manifold secrets, a special method for pro- 
 ducing flowers in great numbers on a single stem. In every 
 garden now there are two or three plants, set in a special place 
 of honour, each with three to four hundred blooms, not of the 
 " pom-pom " variety, which is also much grown, but good blossoms 
 three inches in diameter. There were three plants in the 
 Imperial Gardens with over four, five, and six hundred flowers 
 respectively. Another but much less interesting habit is that of 
 grafting five, six, and as many as ten varieties on one stem. 
 The result is nil. 
 
 I 
 
A GARDENER CARRYING CHRYSANTHEMUMS TO MARKET. 
 
 But the fair in the village of Dana Saka is most curious and 
 interesting. In the booths are represented scenes of Japanese 
 romance ; the figures are either life-size or colossal, the faces and 
 hands of clay exceedingly well modelled, and all the body built 
 up with Chrysanthemums, in many parts growing shrubs being 
 used. My friend Mr. J. B. Rentiers, of the British Legation in 
 Tokyo, has allowed me to reproduce a photograph of the seven 
 Gods of Happiness in their Treasure-ship, which he succeeded 
 in obtaining, in spite of the darkness of the booths. 
 
 58 
 
THE SEVEN GODS OF HAPPINESS, AT DANA SAKA, 
 
mid"]*ioVettabef. — The last pilgrimage of the year ; 
 across the paddy fields to Oji, where you come suddenly on 
 an old Temple, and a little secluded valley glowing like a furnace 
 with the colours of the dying Maple leaves. It is the last spot of 
 colour in the year ; in a week or less the earth will have resumed 
 her dun-brown mantle. The cycle of flowers is complete, and 
 my too prolix diary at an end. The Maples gather round the 
 closing scene ; they are the crimson clouds which hang about 
 the sunset of flower-life in Japan. 
 
 60 
 
A CONVENTIONALISED SPRAY OF PAULLOWNIA IMPERIALIS. 
 
^ 
 
 
 
 3^^ 
 
 CJIiOUGE AIqMi.K. 
 
 \