Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/unbeatentracksin00bird_0 P: BY ISABELLA BIRD-BISHOP Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. Illustrated. 8° . $2.50 The Golden Chersonese. Illustrated. 8° . $2,00 A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. Illustrated. 8° . >S ^-75 Six Months in the Sandwich Islands. Illustrated. 8° . $2.25 The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. With tiy illustrations. 2 vols. 8°. $6.00 G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS New York .\xd London £ FRuNTIM’ltCf-. I UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN AN ACCOUNT OF TRAVELS ON HORSEBACK IN THE INTERIOR INCLUDING VISITS TO THE ABORIGINES OF YEZO AND THE SHRINES OF NIKKO AND ISE By ISABELLA L. BIRD ADTHOE OF ‘A LADY’S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS’ ‘SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS ’ ETC. ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. — VOL. 1. WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 27 AND 29 West 23d Street STo t^£ fHnnorg or LADY PARKES, WHOSE KINDNESS AND FEIENDSHIP AEE AMONG MOST TEEASUKED EEMEMBEANCES OF JAPAN, 2r{)csc PoIumES AEE GEATEFULLY AND EEVEEENTLI DEDICATED. PEEFAOE. Having been recommended to leave home, in April 1878, in order to recruit my health by means which had ]3roved serviceable before, I decided to visit Japan, attracted less by the reputed excellence of its climate, than by the certainty that it possessed in an especial degree those sources of novel and sustained interest, which conduce so essentially to the enjoyment and restoration of a solitary health-seeker. The climate disappointed me, but though I found the country a study rather than a rapture, its interest exceeded my largest expectations. Tliis is not a “ Book on Japan,” but a narrative of travels in Japan, and an attempt to contribute some- thing to the sum of knowledge of the present condition of the country, and it was not till I had travelled for some months in the interior of the main island and in Yezo, that 1 decided that my materials were novel enough to render the contribution worth making. From Nikkd northwards my route was altogether off the beaten trick, and had never been traversed in its entirety by any European. I lived among the Japan- ese, and saw their mode of living, in regions unaffected by European contact. As a lady travelling alone, and PREFACE. viii the first European lady who had been seen in several districts through which my route lay, my experiences differed more or less widely from those of preceding travellers ; and I am able to offer a fuller account of the aborigines of Yezo, obtained by actual acquaints ance with them, than has hitherto been given. These are my chief reasons for offering these volumes to the public. It was with some reluctance that I decided that they should consist mainly of letters written on the spot for my sister and a circle of personal friends ; for this form of publication involves the sacrifice of artistic arrange- ment and literary treatment, and necessitates a certain amount of egotism ; but, on the other hand, it places the reader in the position of the traveller, and makes him share the vicissitudes of travel, discomfort, diffi- culty, and tedium, as well as novelty and enjoyment. The “ beaten tracks,” with the exception of XikkS, have been dismissed in a few sentences, but where their features have undergone marked changes within a few years, as in the case of TokiyS (Yedo), they have been sketched more or less slightly. ]\Iany important subjects are necessarily passed over, and others are briefly summarised in the “Chapter on Japanese Pub- lic Affairs.” In Northern Japan, in the absence of all other sources of infoi’mation, I bad to learn everything from the people themselves, through an interpreter, and every fact had to be disinterred by careful labour from amidst a mass of rubbish. The Ainos supplied the in formation which is given concerning their customs, habits, and religion ; but I had an opportunity of com- PREFACE. ix paring my notes with some taken about the same time by Mr. Heinrich Von Siebold of the Austrian Legation, and of finding a most satisfactory agreement on all points. Some of the Letters give a less pleasing picture of the condition of the peasantry than the one popularly presented, and it is possible that some readers may wish that it had been less realistically painted ; but as the scenes are strictly representative, and I neither made them nor went in search of them, I offer them in the interests of truth, for they illustrate the nature of a large portion of the material with which the Japanese Government has to work in building up the New Civil isation. Accuracy has been my first aim, but the sources of error are many, and it is from those who have studied Japan the most carefully, and are the best acquamted with its difficulties, that I shall receive the most kindly allowance, if, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen into mistakes. The Transactions of the English and German Asiatic Societies of Japan, and papers on special Japanese subjects, including “ A Budget of Japanese Notes,” in the Japan Mail and Tokiyo Times., gave me valuable help, and I gratefully acknowledge the assistancp afforded me in many ways by Sir Harry S. Parkes, K.C.B., and Mr. Satow of H.B.M.’s Legation, Principal Dyer, Mr. Chamberlain of the Imperial Naval College, Mr. F. V. Dickins, and others, whose kindly interest in my work often encouraged me when I was disJieartened by my lack of skill ; but, in justice to these and other kind friends, I am anxious to claim and accept the full- X PREFACE. est measure of personal responsibility for the opinions expressed, which, whether right or wrong, are wholly my own. The concluding chapter, which treats briefly of Pub- lic Affairs, is based upon facts courteously supplied by the Japanese Government, and on official documents, and may be useful in directing attention to the sources from which it is taken. The illustrations, with the ex- ception of three, which are by a Japanese artist, have been engraved from sketches of my own, or Japanese photographs. I am painfully conscious of the defects of these vol- umes, but I venture to present them to the public in the hope that, in spite of their demerits, they may be accepted as an honest attempt to describe things as I saw them in Japan, on land journeys of more than 1,400 miles. Since the letters passed through the press, the be- loved and only sister to whom, in the first instance, they were written, to whose able and careful criticism they owe much, and whose loffing interest was the in- spiration alike of my travels and of my narratives of them, has passed away, and the concluding chapter has been revised and completed under the shadow of this great grief. I have, therefore, to request my reader’s to pai'don its faults of style and somewhat abrupt termi- nation. ISABELLA L. BIRD. Sepierriber 1880 . CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. Ihtbouuctory Chapter FIRST IMPRESSIONS. First View of Japau — A Vision of Fujisan — A Hybrid City — Japanese Sampans — “ Pullman Cars ” — Undigni- fied Locomotion — Paper Money — The Drawbacks of Japanese Travelling THE OLD AND THE NEW. Sir Harry Parkes — An “Ambassador’s Carriage” — Blurs and Hieroglyphs — Cart Coolies — A supposed Concession to Foreign Opinion — Regulations YEDO. Yedo and Tokiyo — The Yokohama Railroad — The Effect of Misfits — The Plain of Yedo — Personal Peculiarities — First Impressions of Tokiyo — H.B.M.’s Legation — An English Home CUSTOMS AND DRESS. Lifeless Heat — Street Sights in Tokiyo — The Foreign Concession — The Missionary Quarter — Architectural Vulgarities — The Imperial Gardens — Costume and Be-- 1) aviour — Female 1 uelegance TEMPLES. Narrow Grooves — Topics of Talk — A Pair of Ponies — The Shrines of Shiba — “Afternoon Tea” — The English Church xl Page 1 12-21 22-26 26-32 33-41 42-^B CONTENTS. xli CHINESE AND SERVANTS. Dr. Hepburn — The Yokohama Bluff — “ John Chinaman — Chinese Compradores — Engaging a Servant — First Impressions of Ito — A Solemn Contract — The Food Question THEATRICAL. Theatrical Reform — The Ancient Drama — The Modem Theatre — The Stage — The Opening of a Reformed Theatre — The Players — The Opening Address — Moral Reforms — Exasperating Noises — A Comic Pastoral WORSHIP. Kwan-non Temple — Uniformity of Temple Architecture — A Kurama Expedition — A Perpetual Festival — The Ni-6 — The Limbo of Y anity — Heathen Prayers — Binzum — The Fox-God — A Group of Devils — Floral Monstrosities — Japanese Womankind — New Japan — An £l^yante . THE JOURNEY BEGUN. Fears — Travelling Equipments — Passports — Coolie Cos- tume — A Yedo Diorama — Rice Culture — Tea Houses — A Traveller’s Reception — The Inn at Kasukabe — Lack of Privacy — A Concourse of Noises — A Nocturnal Alarm — A Vision of Policemen — A Budget from Tedo FROM kasukabe TO NHIKO. A Coolie falls ill — Peasant Costume — Varieties in Thresh- ing — The Toclugi i/adoya — Fanning Villages — A Beau- tiful Region — An In Mcmoriain Avtiiine — A Doll's Street — Nlkko — The Journey’s End — Coolie Kindliness . KANAYA’S HOUSE. A Japanese Idyll — Musical Stillness — My Rooms — Floral Decorations — Kanaya and his Household — Table Equip- ments 46-54 65-63 64-81 Sa-96 97-106 107-110 CONTENTS. ym nikk6. The Beauties of Nikk6 — The Burial of ly^yasu — The Ap- proach to the great Shrines — The Tomei Gate — Gorgeous Decorations — Simplicity of the Mausoleum — The Shrine of lyemitsu — Eeligious Art of Japan and India — An Earthquake — Beauties of Wood-carving . . . . A WATERING-PLACE. A Japanese Pack-horse and Pack-saddle — The Mountain- road to Chiuzenjii — A Deserted Yillage — The Pilgrim Season — Rose Azaleas — Yadoya and Attendant — A native Watering-place — The Sulphur Baths — A “ Squeeze ” — A welcome Arrival DOMESTIC LIFE. Peaceful Monotony — A Japanese School — A dismal Ditty — Punishment — A Children’s Party — A juvenile Belle — Female Names — A juvenile Drama — Needlework — Calligraphy — Kanaya — Daily Routine — An Evening’s Entertainment — Planning Routes — The God-shelf . EVENING EMPLOYMENTS. Darkness visible — Nikk6 Shops — Girls and Matrons — Night and Sleep — Parental Love — Childish Docility — Hair- dressing — Skin Diseases — The Moxa — Acupuncture SHOPPING. Shops and Shopping — Calculations — The Barber’s Shop — A Paper Waterproof — Ito’s Vanity — The Worship of Daikoku — Preparations for the Journey — Transport and Prices — Money and Measurements SCANT COSTUMES. Comfort disappears — Fine Scenery — An Alarm — A Farm- house — An unusual Costume — Bridling a Horse — Fe- male Dress and Ugliness — Babies — My Mago — Beauties of the Kinugawa — A Buddhist Cemetery — Fujihara — My Servant — Horse-shoes — An absurd Mistake 111-121 122-130 131-140 141-146 146-160 151-166 XIV CONTENTS. DIRT AND DISEASE. A. Fantastic Jumble — The “Quiver” of Poverty — The Watershed — From Bad to Worse — The Rice Planter’s Holiday — A Diseased Crowd — Amateur Doctoring — The Hot Bath — Want of Cleanliness — Insanitary Houses — Rapid Eating — Premature Old Age . . . . HIGH FARMING. A Japanese Ferry — The Wistaria Chinensis — The Crops — A Chinese Drug — Etiquette in Cultivation — A Corru- gated Road — The Pass of Samio — Various Vegetation — An Ungainly Undergrowth — Preponderance of Men — The Shrines of Nature-worship — Apparent Decay of Religion A MALARIOUS DISTRICT. The Plain of Wakamatsu — A Noble Tree — Light Costume — The Takata Crowd — Japanese Paper — A Congress of . Schoolmasters — Timidity of a Crowd — Bad Roads — Vicious Horses — Mountain Scenery — A Picturesque Inn — Swallowing a Fish-bone — Poverty and Suicide — An Inn-kitchen — England Unknown! — My Breakfast Dis- appears EXTREME FILTHINESS. An Infamous Road — Monotonous Greenery — Abysmal Dirt — Low Lives — The Lacquer Tree — Lacquer Poisoning — The Wax Tree and Wax Candles — The Tsugawa Yadoya — Politeness — A Shipping Port — A “Foreign Devil ” A RIVER JOURNEY. A Hurry — The Tsugawa Packet-boat — Running the Rapids — Fantastic Scenery — The River-life — Vineyards — Dry- ing Bailey — Summer Silence — The Outskirts of Niigata — The Church Mission House MISSIONS. Christian Missions — Niigata as a Mission Station — The Two Missionaries — The Result of three Tears of Work — Daily Preacliing — The Medical Mission — The Hospital — Difficulties of Missionaries in Japan .... 107-113 174-179 180-190 191-195 19&-200 201-211 CONTENTS. X\ BUDDHISM. Temple Street — Interior of a Temple — Kesemblances be- tween Buddhist and Romaji Ritual — A Popular Preacher — Nirvana — Gentleness of Buddhism — Japanese distaste .,0 “Eternal IJfe” — A new Obstacle in the way of Christianity 212-211 NIIGATA. Abominable Weather — Insect Pests — Absence of Foreign Trade — A refractory River — Progress — The Japanese City — Water Highwaj's — Niigata Gardens — Ruth Fyson — The Winter Climate — A Population in Wadding . . 21S-224 THE SHOPS. Mean Streets — Curio Shops — Idealised Tubs — Hair-Pins — Coarse Lacquer — Gi-aven Images — Ecclesiastical Par- aphernalia — Shoddy — Booksellers’ Shops — Literature for Women — Careful Domestic Training — Literary Copy- right — Book-Binding — Paper Lanterns — Blue China — Quack Medicines — Criticisms 225-233 ADULTERATIONS. The Absurd in Shopping — Sadness and Jubilation — Con- densed Milk — Lemon Sugar — Essence of Coffee — Shame- less Impositions — Rose Dentifrice — Ito — Provender for the Journey 234-230 FOOD. Fish and Soy — The Use of Game and Poultry — Varieties of Vegetables — The Raphanufs sativus — Tastelessness of Fruits — Cakes and Sweetmeats — Cleanliness and Econo- my in Cooking — Cooking Utensils — Vivisection — Soups — Formal Entertainments — Beverages — The Diet of the Poor 237-246 DISCOMFORTS. The Canal-side at Niigata — Awful Loneliness — Courtesy — Dr. Palm’s Tandem — A Noisy Malmri — A Jolting Journey — The Mountain Villages — Winter Dismalness — An Out-of-the-world Hamlet — Crowded Dw'ellings — Riding a Cow — “ Drunk and Disorderly ” — An Enforced Rest — Local Discouragements — Heavy Loads — Absence of Beggary — Slow Travelling '247-257 XVI CONTENTS. A PROSPEROUS DISTRICT. Comely Kine — Japanese Criticism on a Foreign Usage — A Pleasant Halt — Renewed Courtesies — The Plain of Yon- ezawa — A Curious Mistake — The Mother’s Memorial — The Judgments of Hades — Arrival at Komatsu — Stately Acci.)mmodation — Latitude in Speech — Silk and Silk Culture — A Vicious Horse — An Asiatic Arcadia — A Fashionable Watering-place — A Belle — “Godowns” — The God of Wealth 258-273 A JAPANESE DOCTOR. Prosperity — Convict Labour — A New Bridge — Yamagata — Intoxicating Forgeries — The Government Buildings — Bad Manners — A Filature — Snow Mountains — A Wretched Town 274-288 A FEARFUL DISEASE. The Effect of a Chicken — Poor Fare — Slow Travelling — Stone’ Ropes — Objects of Interest — Kak'ke — The Fatal Close — Predisposing Causes — A Great Fire — Security of the Kuras 289-292 FUNERAL CEREMONIES. Lunch in Public — AGrotesque Accident — Police Enquiries — Man or Woman ? — A Melancholy Stare — A Vicious Horse — An Ill-favoured Town — A Disappointment — A Torn 293-303 POLICEMEN. A. Casual Invitation — A Ludicrous Incident — Politeness of a Policeman — A Comfortless Sunday — An Outrageous Irmption — A Privileged Stare 304-306 A HOSPITAL ’^HSIT. The Necessity of Firmness — Perplexing Misrepresentations — Gliding with the Stream — Suburban Residences — The Kubota Hospital — A Formal Reception — Bad Nurs- ing — The Antiseptic Treatment — A Well-arranged Dis- pensary — The Normal School — Contrasts and Incon- gruities 307-314 CONTENTS. xvii THE POLICE FORCE. A. Silk Factory — Employment for Women — A Police Escort — The Japanese Police Force — A Ruined Castle — The increasing Study of Law ITO’S VIRTUES AND FAULTS. “ A Plague of Immoderate Rain ” — A Confidential Servant — Ito’s Diary — Ito’s Excellences — Ito’s Faults — A Prophecy of the Future of J apan — Curious Queries — Superfine English — Economical Travelling — The Japan- ese Pack-horse again A WEDDING CEREMONY. The Symbolism of Seaweed — Afternoon Visitors — An In- fant Prodigy — A Feat in Calligraphy — Child Worship — The Japanese Seal — A Borrowed Dress — Marriage Arrangements — A Trousseau — House Furniture — The Marriage Ceremony — A Wife’s Position — Code of Morals for Women A HOLIDAY. A Holiday Scene — A Matsuri — Attractions of the Revel — Matsuri Cars — Gods and Demons — Tableaux vivants — A possible Harbour — A Village Forge — Prosperity of Sake Brewers — The Introduction of Sake into Japan — Safce and Revenue — A “ great Sight ” . . . . A NARROW ESCAPE. The Fatigues of Travelling — Torrents and Mud — Ito’s Sur- liness — The Blind Shampooers — Guilds of the Blind — A supposed Monkey Theatre — A Suspended Ferry — A DiflBcult Transit — Perils on the Yonetsurugawa — A Boatman Drowned — Nocturnal Disturbances — A noisy Yadoya — Storm-bound Travellers — Hail Hail — More Nocturnal Disturbances SHIRASAWA. Good-tempered Intoxication — The Effect of Sunshine — A tedious Altercation — “ Harassed Interests” — Foreign Requirements — Village Doings — Homogeneity of Japan — Evening Occupations — Noisy Talk — Social Gatherings — Unfair Comparisons ....... 315-311 318-322 323-336 336-344 346-356 356-363 XTLU CONTENTS. AN INUNDATION. Torrents of Rain — An unpleasant Detention — Devastations produced by Floods — The Tadate Pass — The Force of Water — Difficulties thicken — A Primitive Yadoya — The Water rises CHILDREN’S GAMES. Scanty Resources — Japanese Children — Children’s Games — A sagacious Example — A Kite Competition — Alpha- bet Cards — Contagious Merriment — Popular Proverbs — Personal Privations THE TANABATA. Hope deferred — Effects of the Flood — Activity of the Police — A Ramble in Disguise — The Tandbata Festival — Mr. SatOAv’s Reputation — The Weaving Woman . POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. A Lady’s Toilet — Hair-Dressing — Paint and Cosmetics — Afternoon Visitors — Christian Converts — Popular Super- stitions — Wraiths and Apparitions — Spiritualism — Omens and Dreams — Love and Revenge . . . . PRIMITIVE SIMPLICITY. A Travelling Curiosity — Rude Dwellings — Primitive Sim- plicity — The Public Bath-house — Solemn Queries — The “ Few Stripes ” — A Trembling Hope . END OF THE JOURNEY. A hard Day’s Journey — An Overturn — Nearing the Ocean — Joyful Excitement — Universal Grejmess — Inoppor- tune Policemen — A Stormy Voyage — A wild Welcome — A Windy Landing — The Journey’s End 364 - 37 ) 372-378 379-382 383-395 396-400 401-407 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Yomei Gate, Shkines of Nikk6 . . . FrontUpiect FASI Fujisan 13 Teavelling Restaueant 11 Japanese Man-Caet 24 Stone Lanteens 73 A Kueuma 85 Road-Side Tea-House 91 SiE Haeey’s Messengee 95 Kanaya’s House 108 Japanese Pack-Hoese 123 Attendant at Tea-House 128 SUMMEE AND WiNTEE COSTUME 163 Buddhist Peiests 213 Steeet and Canal 222 The Flowing Invocation 261 The Belle of Kaminoyama 210 Daikoku 272 Toeii 296 Myself in a Steaw Rain-Cloak 346 A Lady’s Mieroe 385 Akita FAitM-HousE 397 ziz GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE WORDS FOE WHICH ACTUAI. ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS DO NOT EXIST SIMPLE RULES FOR THE PRONXTNCIATION OF JAPANESE WORDa The vowels are pronounced as in Italian, with the exception of «, which takes the sound given to the same letter in English in “ put,” “full,” etc. Consonants are sounded as in English ; but g, except at the begin- ning of a word, is pronounced like ng in singing. The h is distinctly aspirated. Hi is almost like s/i. Amado. Outside shutters sliding in grooves; lit. “ rain-doors.” Andon. A square or circular paper lantern in a lacquer or wooden frame, 3 feet high. Bento hako. Occasional meal or luncheon box of varnished wood or lacquer, with several compartments. Butsu-dana. Buddhist altar shelf. Chaya. A house where tea and other refreshments are sold, to be eaten or drunk on the premises; lit. “tea-house.” DaimiyO. Territorial nobles under the old regime, with annual revenues estimated at 10,000 koku of rice, and upwards ; lit. “great name.” Daidokoro. An open kitchen. Doma. A small yard within the entrance of houses; lit. “ earth- space.” Eta. Men who had to do with dead animals, hides, etc. A pariah class estimated at 3,000,000, whose disabilities are now removed. XXI XXll GLOSSARY. Fusuma Sliding screens covered with wall paper. Geisha. A professional woman, possessed of the accomplishments of playing, singing, and dancing. llakama. Full petticoat trousers, formerly worn only by the Samurai. Haori. A short, sleeved mantle worn by both sexes. Ueimin. The commonalty. All classes below the nobility and gentry. Hibachi. A charcoal brazier. llama. An unmatted floor. Applied to the polished ledge on which people sit to wash their feet at the entrance of a house; lit. “board-space.” Irori. A square depression in the middle of a floor, used as a fire- place. Tishindo. A small door in the amado; lit. “ earthquake-door.” Joroya. A house of ill-fame. Kago. A covered basket, in which a traveller is carried by two men. Kakemono. A hanging picture. Kak’ke. A disease similar to the beri-beri of Ceylon ; lit. “ leg' humour.” KaimiyO. The name given to persons after death. Kaitakushi. i Department for the colonisation of Tezo. Kamado. A kitchen fire. Kami-dana. A Shinto shrine-shelf. Kashitsukeya. A non-respectable yadoya. Kimono. A long, sleeved robe, open in front and folding over, worn by both sexes with a girdle. Kuge. Nobles of the Mikado’s court under the old regime. Kura. A “godown.” A fireproof storehouse. Kuruma. AjinrikisJia or man-power carriage ; lit. a “ wheel ” oi “ vehicle.” Kuwazoku. The new name for the nobility in general. Makimono. A picture roll, or illuminated scroll. Mago. A pack-horse leader. Maro (Polynesian). A loin cloth six inches broad. Matsuri. A religious festival. Mekake. Concubine. GLOSSARY. XX 111 Sake. Rice beer containing from 11 to 17 per cent of alcohol. Sakura. A species of wild cherry. \^Prunus cera.s-u.?.] Samurai. The retainers of the daimiyo under the old regime “ two-sworded ” men. Shizoku. The gentry. Equivalent to Samurai. Shogun (Tycoon). The Mikado’s chief vassal; erroneously styled by foreigners “The Temporal Emperor.” Abolished. Full title, Sei-i-Tai ShSgun, “Barbarian-quelling generalissimo,” bestowed by the Mikado upon his son, Yamato-dake-no- mikoto, conqueror of the aborigines of the north and west of the main island, b.c. 86. The first hereditary Shogun was Minomoto Yoritomo, a.d. 1190, the greatest, lyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty two centuries ago, the last, Keiki, now living in retirement at Shidzuoka. Shoji. Sliding screens with translucent paper. Shdmiyd. A territorial noble with an annual revenue of less than 10,000 koku of rice; lit. “ small name.” Tabako-hon. A wooden tray with fire-pot and ash-pot. Tatami. House-mats, 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet, stuffed to a thick- ness of 2^ inches, and covered with a finely-woven surface. Teishiu (pronounced ieishi). Used for the house-master, or host of a yadoya; also for husband by wife. Tokonoma. An alcove with a polished floor; lit. “ bed-place.” Torii. A sacred gateway. A portal over entrance of avenue leading to temples and shrines; lit. “ bird’s rest.” Yadoya. A Japanese inn. Zen. A small lacquered stand 6 inches high, supplied as a dining-table to each person at a meal. WOKDS USKD IN COMBINATION. Bashi. A bridge, as Setabashi. Kawa or gawa. A river, as Kanagawa. Machi. A street, as Teramachi. Sawa. A swamp or defile, as Shirasawa. Toge. A pass, as Sannotogd. Yama. A mountain, as Asamayama. Zan or san. A syllable affixed to mountains whose names are supposed to be of Chinese origin, as Nikkozan. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. To those of my readers who are familiar with Japan 1 offer an apology for a chapter of elementary facts, and ask them to omit it. The few who have never previ- ously read a book on Japan, and the many who have forgotten what they read, or whose far eastern geogra- phy is rusty, or in whose memories the curious inven- tions of some early voyagers stick, or who still believe in hara kiri and the existence of a shadowy Mikado at Kiy8to, and a solid Sh8gun at T8kiyo, are requested to read it. If an eminent writer found that “ educated Britons ” required more than one re-statement of the fact that the coco palm and the cacao bush are not one and the same thing, it is not surprising that such facts as that the “ Spiritual ” and “ Temporal ” Emperors are fictions of the past, and that the most northern part of Japan with its Siberian winter is south of the most southern point of England, are not always fresh in the memory. Were it so, such questions and remarks as the follow- ing could not be uttered by highly educated, and, in some respects, well-informed people. By a general offi- cer’s wife, “ Is Sir Harry Parkes Governor of Japan?” By a borough M.P., “ Is there any hope of the aboli- tion of slavery in Japan ? ” By a county M.P., “ Is tlie 1 2 UNBEATEN TBACES IN JAPAN. Viceroy of Japan appointed for life ? ” By one gentle man holding an official appointment in India to another, both having been crammed for Civil Service examina- tions within the last two years, “ Japan belongs to Rus- sia now, doesn’t it? ” “ Yes, I think China ceded it in return for something or other a few years ago,” and in the same connection, an officer holding a higli military appointment contended not only that Japan belongs to Russia, but that it is on the Asiatic mainland, and was only convinced of his error by being confi-onted mth the map ; the mistake in both the latter cases probably arising out of a hazy recollection that Japan surren- dered Saghalien to Russia a few years ago in exchange, for some small islands. The suppositions that Sir Harry Parkes is Governor of Japan, that Japan is tributary to China, that the Japanese are Roman Catholics, that Christianity is pro- hibited, that the people of the interior are savages, and that the climate is tropical, have been repeated over and over again in my hearing by educated people, and mis- takes equally grotesque frequently find their way into the newspapers ; so true is it that, unless we are going to travel in a country, to fight it, or to colonise it, our information is seldom either abundant or accurate, and highly imaginative accoimts by early travellers, the long period of mysterious seclusion, and the changes which have succeeded each other with breathless rapidity dur- ing the last eleven years, create a special confusion in our ideas of Japan. So rapid, indeed, have these changes been, that on turning to Chambers’s admirable Uncyclopcedia, I find that the edition of 1863 states that there are two Em- perors, Spiritual and Secular, that Japan is ruled by an aristocracy of hereditary daimiyd., that the weapons used by the army are matchlocks and even bows and arrows. VARIETIES IN CLIMATE. a that the navy is composed of war junks, that the iron cash is the only circulating medium, that the most re- markable of existing customs is hara lari., that only men of rank can enter a city on horseback, and that the area of the Empire is estimated at 265,000 square miles, • — mauy of which statements were substantially correct sixteen years ago. I’he few facts which follow are merely given for the purpose of making the succeeding Letters intelligible. Sixteen days’ sail from America, forty-two from Eng- land, and four from Hong Kong, Japan lies only 20 miles from Kamtchatka, and a day’s sail in a junk from the Asian mainland of Corea. The Japanese Empire, which is said to be composed of 3800 islands, extends from Lat. 24° to 50° 40' N., and from Long. 124° to 156° 38' E., that is to say, that its northern extremity is a little south of the Land’s End, and its southern a lit- tle north of Nubia. Straggling over 26° of latitude, and extending southwards to within thirty miles of the Tropic of Cancer, a man may enjoy a nearly perpetual summer in Yakunoshima, or shiver in the rigours of a Siberian winter in Northern Yezo. The traveller’s opinion of the climate depends very much upon whether he goes to Japan from the east or west. If from Singa- pore or China, he pronounces it bracing, healtliful, de- licious ; if from California, damp, misty, and enervating. Then there are good and bad seasons, cold or mild win- ters, cool or hot summers, dry or wet years, and other variations, besides a greater variety of actual climates than the mere extent of latitude warrants. Thus the eastern coasts are warmed by the Kuro Shiwo, the gulf-stream of the North Pacific, and the western are chilled during many months of the year by a cold north-west wind from the Asiatic mainland, which gathers moisture from the Sea of Japan, while 4 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. the climate of Northern Yezo is Siberianised by the cold current from the Sea of Okotsk. Climate is fur- ther modified by the influence of the monsoons, but, on the whole, it may be said that the summer is hot, damp, and cloudy, and the winter cold, bright, and relatively dry ; that the spring and autumn are briefer and more vivid than in England ; that the skies are brighter, and the sun hotter and more lavish of his presence ; that there is no sickly season ; that there are no diseases of locality ; and that Europeans and their children thrive well in all parts of the Empire. There are, however, certain drawbacks, such as the throbbing and jerking of frequent earthquakes, the lia- bility to typhoons in July, August, and September, the uncertainty as to the intentions of certain dormant but not extinct volcanoes, and mild malaria. The area of this much-disintegrated Empire is 147,582 square miles, i.e. it is considerably larger than Great Britain and Ireland, Prussia, or Italy, considerably smaller than France, and not so large as any one of the eighteen provinces into which Cliina is divided. Among its 3800 islands Honshiu [Nipon], Kiushiu, Sliikoku, and Yezo, are the most important. These islands are among the most mountainous in the world ; there are several active volcanoes, and the extinct ones, of which the well-known Fujisan, 13,080 feet high, is the loftiest, are almost innumerable. The area of forest is four times as great as that of the cultivated land ; the lakes are few, and, with the exception of Lake Biwa, small ; the streams are countless, but the rivers are mostly short and badly suited for navigation. There are few harbours on the east coast, and almost none on the west, but such as there are, are deep and capacious The soil is mainly disintegrated basalt, and is not nariiraUj very prolific. The scenery is often grand, and nearly A GORGEOUS FLORA. 5 always pretty, and if there be monotony, it is, as Baron Hubner says, “ the poetry of monotony.” The luxuri- ance of the vegetation and the greenness in spring and throughout the summer are so wonderful that the islands of the Japanese Archipelago might well be called the Emerald Isles. Even winter faUs to bring brownness and bareness. Evergreens of 150 varieties compensate for the leaflessness of the deciduous trees, every land- scape is bright with the verdure of springing crops, and camellias with their crimson blossoms light up leafage covered with snow. The mountains of Japan are cov- ered with forest, and the valleys and plains are ex- quisitely tilled gardens. The Empire is very rich in flowers, and especially in flowering shrubs. Azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas, and magnolias all delight the eye in their seasons with a breadth and blaze of colour which cannot be described, and irises, peonies, cherries, and plums, have their special festivals. The classic lotus with its great pink or white cups, the Paulownia Imperialism a tree which bears erect foxglove blossoms, deutzias with their grace- ful flowers, rhododendrons, wistaria, and many green- house friends, are as common as hawthorns and hedge- roses with us. Savatier enumerates 1699 species of dicotyledonous plants in Japan, and the monocotyledo- nous are proportionately numerous. Among the former are eight species of magnolia, seven of hydrangea, twenty of rhododendron, fourteen of ilex, tweiity-two of maple, twenty-two of oak, four of pine, and nine ol fir. Among the novelties in flowering shrubs and gor- geous lilies, the English ivy, sundew, mistletoe, butter- cup, marsh marigold, purple and white clover, honey- suckle, coltsfoot, sow thistle, veronica, and many others, rejoice the traveller’s eye by their familiar homeliness. Among the trees which claim homage either from theii 6 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. beauty or majesty, the Cryptomeria japonica.iihQ Camellia japonica., the Zelkawa keahi (a species of elm), the Salis- buria adiantifolia, the Magnolia hyperleuca., and the Per- simmon^ are in the first rank, and the eye rests with special delight on the great bamboo, whose feathery, bright green foliage massed against groves of coniferee seems to combine the tropics with the temperate zone. The 26° of latitude tlirough which the Empire extends give it an infinite variety of vegetation, from the rigid pine and scrub oak of Yezo to the palms, bananas, and sugar-cane of Kiushiu. Ferns are abundant and very varied, but indigenous fruits are few, small, sour, and tasteless. The fauna is meagre, consisting chiefly of deer, bears, wolves, wild boars, badgers, foxes, monkeys, snakes, and small ground animals ; eagles, hawks, herons, quails, pheasants, and storks, are numerous, and crows are in- numerable, but birds of sweet voice and brilliant plu- mage are mournfully rare, and silence is a characteristic of nature in Japan ; nor do imported animals make up for the lack of indigenous ones. They have no place in Japanese landscape. There are no grass fields or velvety pasture lands, or farmyards knee-deep in straw, and flocks and herds form no part of the wealth of the Japanese farmer. Oxen are used for draught alone, and not by any means generally. Horses are used as beasts of burden and for riding, but the Japanese horse is a mean, sorry brute, a grudging, ungenerous animal, trying to human patience and temper, with three move- ments (not by any means to be confounded with paces) — a di-ag, a roil, and a scramble. The ass, mule, and pig, are only to be seen on experimental farms. Cow- ardly yellow dogs, much given to nocturnal howling, miserable misrepresentations of the Scotch collie, abound, and are probably indigenous, besides which ‘ OhlENTAL MAGNIFICENCE.” 7 there are imported lap-dogs dwarfish and objectiooable, and domestic cats, mostly with only rudimentary tails. Duc^ks and the ubiquitous barn-door fowl are every- where. Mosquitoes are nearly universal between April and October, and insects which stab and sting abound. Railroads have been introduced between Yokohama and TokiyS, and Kobe, Kiyoto, and Otsu, seventy-sLs miles in all. The main roads vary in width from thirty feet to that of mere rude bridle tracks, and the bye- roads are narrow tracks only passable for pack-horses. Nearly all travelling must be done on foot or on pack- horses, or in covered bamboo baskets, called kago., carried by men, or on the level in kurumas., two-wheeled vehicles drawn by men. There are yadoyas or inns on most of the routes, and post stations where horses and coolies can be procured at fixed rates. The population of 34,358,404 souls, or about 230 to the square mile, is larger by a million than that of the United Kingdom, exceeds that of Prussia by nine mil- lions, and that of Italy by seven millions, but is less than that of France by a million and a half. With the exception of 12,000 Ainos, and about 5000 Europeans, Americans, and Chinese, this population is absolutely homogeneous, and yellow skins, dark, elongated eyes, and dark, straight hair, are the rule. The same lan- guage, with certain immaterial provincialisms, is spoken by all the Japanese of the Empire, and similar uni- formity prevails in temples, dwelling-houses, and cos- tume. Japan is beyond the limits of “ Oriental magnificence.” Colour and gilding are only found in the temples ; palaces and cottages are alike of grey wood ; arcliitec- tiu’e scarcely exists ; wealth, if there be any, makes no display; dull blues, browns, and greys, are the usual colours of costume ; jewellery is not worn ; everything 8 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. is poor and pale, and a monotony of meanness charac- terises the towns. The Japanese of the treaty ports are cont.'iminated and vulgarised by intercourse with foreigners ; those of the interior, so far from being “savages,” are kindly, gentle, and courteous, so much so, that a lady with no other attendant than a native servant can travel, as I have done, for 1200 miles through little-visited regions, and not meet with a single instance of incivility or extortion. Foreigners in Japan are stUl under restrictions, i.e. they are only allowed to settle and trade in Yokohama, Nagasaki, TokiyO, Kobe, Osaka, Hakodate^, and Niigata. Nor can they travel beyond a radius of 25 miles from the “treaty ports,” without a “passport,” or formal per- mission from the Government, obtainable only for a given time and route. Foreigners are not under Japan- ese jurisdiction, but are tried for offences in their own consular Courts, and their privilege of “extra-territori- ality ” is regarded as a great grievance by the Japanese, and is a constant bone of contention between the Japanese and Foreign Governments. The mystery of a “ Spiritual Emperor,” secluded in KiySto, and a “Temporal Emperor” reigning in Yedo no longer exists ; the Shogunate is abolished, Yedo has become T6kiy8 ; the daimiyd., shorn of their power and titles, have retired into private life ; the “ two-sworded ” men are extinct, and the Mikado, a modern-looking man in European dress, reigns by divine right in Tokiy8, with European appliances of “ironclads,” “Armstrongs,” and “needle guns,” and the prestige of being the one hundred and twenty-third in direct descent from the Sun Goddess, the chief deity in the Pantheon of the national religion. His government is a modified des- potism, with tendencies at times in a constitutional OLD ANB NEW JAPAN. 9 direction. Slavery is unknown, and class disabUitiea no longer exist. Shint6, a rude form of nature and myth worship, probably indigenous, containing no moral code, and few if any elements of religion, is the “state,” and “state endowed ” church, but Buddhism, imported from Corea in the sixth century, and disestablished since the res- toration of the Mikado, has a firmer hold on the masses, the higher classes contenting themselves with a system of secular philosophy while giving a nominal adhesion to Sliint6 for political purposes. Christianity is quietly tolerated, and Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Greeks, claim among them about 27,000 converts. Politically, old Japan is no more. The grandeur of its rulers, its antique chivalry, its stately etiquette, its ceremonial costume, its punctilious suicides, and its codes of honour, only exist on the stage. Its tradi- tional customs, its rigid social order, its formal polite- ness, its measured courtesies, its ignorant patriotism, its innumerable and enslaving superstitions, linger still in the interior, specially in the regions where a debased and corrupt form of Buddhism holds sway. Over great districts of country on the unbeaten track which I traversed from NikkS to Aomori, the rumble of the wheels of progress is scarcely yet heard, and the Jap- anese peasant lives and thinks as his fathers lived and thought before him. Since my return, I have frequently been asked whether the rage for western civilisation is likely to be more than a passing fancy, and whether the civilisation itself is more than a temporary veneering ? It is only seven years since the mission of Iwakura and his col- leagues visited Europe and America with the view of investigating western civilisation and transplanting its best results to Japanese soil, and only nine since the 10 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. magnificent and complicated system of Japanese feudal ism was swept away. Of the men who, rule Japan, only two are “aristocrats.” With the impetus of the new movement, springing mainly from the people, and from within, not from without, we have undoubtedly two of the elements of permanence. Many Europeans ridicule Japanese progress as “hn- itation,” Chinese and Coreans contemplate it with ill- concealed anger, not unmixed with jealousy, yet Japan holds on her course, and, Avithout venturing to predict her future, I see no reason to distrust the permanence of a movement which has isolated her from other Orien tal nations, and which, in spite of very many extraA'a- gances and absurdities, is growing and broadening daily. The religion, letters, and civilisation which she received from China through Corea (^“ veenering,” it may have been said), have lasted for twelve centuries. The cm- lisation which comes from the far W est in the nineteenth century is not a more SAveeping wave than that which came from Corea in the sixth, and is likely to produce equally enduring results, specially and certainly if Christianity overthrows Buddhism, the most powerful influence from without which has hitherto affected Japan. The transformations Avhich are being accomplished are under the direction of foreigners m Government serAuce, and of Japanese selected for their capacities, who have studied for some years in Europe and America ; and the Government has spared neither trouble nor expense in securing the most competent assistance in all depart- ments, and it is only in comparatiA-ely few instances that it has been badly advised by interested aliens for the furtherance of personal or other ends. About oOO for- eigners have been at one time or other in its serA'ice, and though they may have met Avitb anno3*auces and exasper A REQUEST. 11 ations, the terms of their contracts have been faithfnllj! adhered to. Some of these gentlemen are decorated with high-sounding titles during their brief engage- ments ; but it must be remembered that they are there as helpers only, without actual authority, as servants and not masters, and that, with a notable exception, the greater their energy, ability, and capacity for training, the sooner are their services dispensed with, and one department after another passes from foreign into na- tive management. The retention of foreign employes forms no part of the programme of progress. “ Japan for the Japanese ” is the motto of Japanese patriotism ; the “ Barbarians ” are to be used, and dispensed with as soon as possible. Of the present foreign staff the great majority are teachers ; considerably more than half are English, and Anglo-Saxon influences in science, culture, and political ideas and economy, are paramount in the transformation of the Empire. With these few introductory remarks, I ask my read- ers to land with me on the shores of the “ Empire cf the Rising Sun,” and to accompany me with patient kindli- ness on my long wanderings. 12 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. First View of Japan — A Vision of Fujisan — A Hybrid City — Japs nese Sampans — “Pullman Cars” — Undignified Locomot.on — Paper Money — The Drawbacks of Japanese Travelling. Oriental Hotel, Yokohama, May 21. Eighteen days of uniutermitted rolling over “ deso- late rainy seas” brought the “City of Tokio ” early yesterday morning to Cape King, and by noon we were steaming up the Gulf of Yedo, quite near the shore. The day was soft and grey with a little faint blue sky, and though the coast of Japan is much more prepos- sessing than most coasts, there were no startling sur- prises either of colour or form. Broken wooded ridges, deeply cleft, rise from the water’s edge, grey, deep- roofed villages cluster about the mouths of the ra'vines, and terraces of rice cultivation, bright with the green- ness of English lawns, run up to a great height among dark masses of upland forest. The populousness of the coast is very impressive, and the gidf every where was equally peopled with fishing-boats, of which we passed not only hundreds but thousands in five hoims. The coasts and sea were pale, and the boats ivere pale too, their hulls being unpainted wood, and their sails pure white duck. Now and then a high-sterned junk drifted bj^ like a phantom gallejq then we slackened speed to avoid exterminating a fleet of triangular-look- ing fishing-boats with white square sails, and so on through the greyness and dumbness hour after hour. A VISION OF FUJI. 13 For long I looked in vain for Fujisan, and failed tc Bee it, though I heard ecstasies all over the deck, till accidentally looking heavenwards instead of earthwards, T saw far above any possibility of height, as one would rUJISAK. have thought, a huge, truncated cone of pure snow, 13,080 feet above the sea, from which it sweeps upwards in a glorious curve, very wan, against a very pale blue sky, with its base and the intervening country veiled in a pale grey mistd It was a wonderful vision, and shortly, as a. vision, vanished. Except the cone oi Tristan d’Acunha — also a cone of snow — I never saw a mountain rise in such lonely majesty, with nothing ' This is an altogether exceptional aspect of Fujisan, under excep- tional atmospheric conditions. The mountain usually looks hroadei and lower, and is often compared to an inverted fan. 14 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. near or far to detract from its height and grandeur. No wonder that it is a sacred mountain, and so dear to the Japanese that their art is never weary of representing it. It was nearly fifty miles off when we first saw it. The air and water were alike motionless, the mist was still and pale, grey clouds lay restfully on a bluish sky, the reflections of the white sails of the fishing boats scarcely quivered ; it was all so pale, wan, and ghastly, that the turbulence of crumpled foam which we left behind us, and our noisy, throbbing progress, seemed a boisterous intrusion upon sleeping Asia. The gulf narrowed, the forest-crested hills, the tei raced ravines, the picturesque grey \allages, the quiet beach life, and the pale blue masses of the mountains of the interior, became more visible. Fuji retired into the mist in which he enfolds his grandeur for most of the summer; we passed Reception Bay, Perry Island, Web- ster Island, Cape Saratoga, and Mississippi Bay — American nomenclature which perpetuates the successes of American diplomacy, and not far from Treaty Point came upon a red light-sifip with the words “Treaty Point” in large letters upon her. Outside of this no foreign vessel may anchor. The ports open to the trade, and under certain re- strictions to the residence of foreigners, are Yokohama, (Kanagawa), Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Hakodate in Yezo. Close within the light-ship is the pretty bay which forms Yokohama Harbour, but the pale blue waters of the Gulf of Yedo, speckled with the white sails of countless fishing-boats, run up for twenty miles to the northwards to the city of Yedo or TokiyQ. The Bluff, a range of low hills running abruptly into the sea on the left, and losing itself inland on the right, covered with bungalows, large and small, and buildings tvith flagstaffs, A HYBRID CITY. 15 which are the English, German, and American Naval Hospitals, and the Bund, an irregular terrace of great length carried along the shore on a stone-faced embank- ment, are the first things which attract attention. Be- low the Bluff is the settlement, mostly foreign, and then a Japanese town of low grey houses and monota- nous grey roofs spreads itself over an extensive plain. Yokohama is not imposing in any way — these hybrid cities never are; its Bluff represents the suburbs of Boston ; its Bund, the suburbs of Birkenhead, with a semi-tropical hallucination ; and the Japanese town, mean and ineffective, represents I know not what, un- less industrious poverty. Along the Bund are the Grand and International Hotels, the club-house, and several of the “ hongs,” or houses of business, that of the old firm of Jardine, Matheson, and Co., being No. 1. All these stand in gardens and shrubberies, and have a broad carriage drive between them and the sea. Then there are the British Consulate, imposingly ugly, the Union Church, partly built with money contributed in the Hawaiian Islands, unimposingly so, a few other buildings scarcely less offensive, the Japanese Post Office, Custom House, and SaibanchS or Court House, new, and built substantially in foreign style by foreign architects, and a huddle of mean erections which look like warehouses. There are two hatobas or jetties, English and French — dreary projections resembling breakwaters, with slop- ing faces of undressed stone, but there are neither docks nor wharves, and a fleet of large ships, mostly steamers, were receiving or discharging cargo at their moorings. Iron-clads and wooden war-ships bearing the flags of England, France, America, Italy, and Russia, lay in apparent amity, and among them a handsome Japanese steam corvette, lately built in Englan 1, flying the Japan- 16 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ese flag — a red ball on a white ground. Among the merchantmen were two fine mail steamers from Hako- date and Shanghai belonging to the Mitsu Bishi Co., a Japanese line which is gradually acquiring a monopoly of the Japanese coasting and China trade. The bustle among my fellow-passengers, many of whom were returning home, and all of whom expected to be met by friends, left me at leisure as I looked at unattractive, unfamiliar Yokohama, and the pale grey land stretched out before me, to speculate somewhat sadly on my destiny on these strange shores, on which I have not even an acquaintance. On mooring, we were at once surrounded by crowds of native boats called by foreigners sampans., and Dr. Gulick, a near relation of my Hilo friends, came on board to meet his daughter, welcomed me cordially, and relieved me of all the trouble of disembarkation. These sampans are very clumsy-looking, but are managed with great dex- terity by the boatmen, who gave and received any num- ber of bumps Avith much good nature, and without any of the shouting and swearing in which competitive boat- men usually indulge. The partially triangular shape of these boats ap- proaches that of a salmon-fisher’s punt used on certain British rivers. Being floored gives them the appearance of being absolutely flat-bottomed ; but though they tilt readily, they are very safe, being heavily built, and fit- ted together with singular precision with wooden bolts and a few copper cleets. They are sculled, not what we should call rowed, by two or four men with very heavy oars made of two pieces of Avood working on pins placed on outrigger bars. The men scull standing, and use the thigh as a rest for the oar. They all wear a single, Avide-sleeved, scanty, blue cotton garment, not fastened or girdled at the waist, straw sandals, kept on MEN ANB MANNIKINS. 17 by a tliong passing between the great toe and the others, and if they wear any head-gear, it is only a wisp of blue cotton tied round the forehead. The one garment is only an apology for clothing, and displays lean concave chests and lean muscular limbs. The skin is very yel- low, and often much tattooed with mythical beasts. The charge for sampans is fixed by tariff, so the travellei TBAVBLLING BBBTAURANT. lands without having his temper ruffled by extortionate demands. The first tiling that impressed me on landing was that there were no loafers, and that all the small, ugly, kindly-looking, shrivelled, bandy-legged, round-shoul- dered, concave-chested, poor-looking beings in the streets had some affairs of their own to mind. At the top of the landing-steps there was a portable restaurant, a neat and most compact thing, with charcoal stove, cooking 18 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and eating utensils complete ; but it looked as if it av ere made by and for dolls, and the mannikin who kept it was not five feet high. At the custom-house we were attended to by minute officials in blue uniforms of European pattern, and leather boots; very civil crea- tures, who opened and examined our trunks carefully, and strapped them up again, contrasting pleasingly with the insolent and rapacious officials who perform the same duties at New York. Outside were about fifty of the now well-known jin- ri-ki-shas.. and the air was full of a buzz produced by the rapid reiteration of this uncouth word by fifty tongues. This conveyance, as you know, is a feature of Japan, growing in importance every day. It was only invented seven years ago, and already there are nearly 23,000 in one city, and men can make so much more by drawing them than by almost any kind of skilled labour, that thousands of fine young men desert agricultural pur- suits and flock into the towns to make draught-animals of themselves, though it is said that the average dura- tion of a man’s life after he takes to running is only five years, and that the runners fall victims in large numbers to aggravated forms of heart and lung disease Over tolerably level ground a good runner can trot fo] ty miles a day, at a rate of about four miles an hour. They are registered and taxed at 8s. a year for one carrying two persons, and 4s. for one which carries one only, and there is a regular tariff for time and distance. The kuruma or jin-ri-ki-sha ^ consists of a light per- ambulator body, an adjustible hood of oiled paper, a velvet or cloth liiiing and cushion, a well for parcels 1 I continue hereafter to use the Japanese word kuruma instead ol the Chinese word Jin-ri-kisha. Kuruma, iiterally a wheel or vehicle, ia the word commonly used by the Jin-ri-kisha men and other Japanese for the “ man-power-carriage,” and is certainly more euphonious. From kunima naturally comes kw'umaija for the kuruma runner. UNBIGNIFIED LOCOMOTION. 19 under the seat, two high slim wheels, and a pair ot shafts connected by a bar at the ends. The body is usually lacquered and decorated according to its owner’s taste. Some show little except polished brass, others are alto- gether inlaid with shells known as Venus’s ear, and others are gaudily painted with contorted dragons, or groups of peonies, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and mythical personages. They cost from £2 upwards. The shafts rest on the ground at a steep incline as you get in — it must require much practice to enable one to mount with ease or dignity — the runner lifts them up, gets into them, gives the body a good tilt back- wards, and goes off at a smart trot. They are drawn by one, two, or three men, according to the speed de- sired by the occupants. When rain comes on, the man puts up the hood, and ties you and it closely up in a covering of oiled paper, in which you are invisible. At night, whether running or standing still, they carry prettily painted circular paper lanterns 18 inches long. It is most comical to see stout, florid, solid-looking merchants, missionaries, male and female, fashionably dressed ladies, armed with card cases, Chinese compra- dores, and Japanese peasant men and women flying along Main Street, which is like the decent respectable High Street of a dozen forgotten country towns in England, in happy unconsciousness of the ludicrousness of their appearance ; racing, chasing, crossing each other, their lean, polite, pleasant runners in their great hats shaped like inverted bowls, their incomprehensible blue tights, and their short blue overshirts with badges or charac- ters in wlnte upon them, tearing along, their yellow faces streaming with perspiration, laughing, shouting, and avoiding collisions by a mere shave. After a visit to the Consulate I entered a kuruma and, with two ladies in two more, was bowled along at 20 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. a furious pace by a laughing little mannikin down Main Street, a narrow, solid, Avell-paved street with well-made side walks, kerb stones, and gutters, with iron lamp- posts, gas lamps, and foreign shops all along its length, to this quiet hotel recommended by Sir Wyville Thom- son, which offers a refuge from the nasal twang of my fellow voyagers who have all gone to the caravanserais on the Bund. The host is a Frenchman, but he relies on a Chinaman ; the servants are Japanese “ boys ” in Japanese clothes; and there is a Japanese “groom of the chambers ” in faultless English costume, who per- fectly appals me by the elaborate politeness of his manner. Almost as soon as I arrived I was obliged to go in search of Mr. Fraser’s office in the settlement, I say search., for there are no names on the streets, where there are numbers they have no sequence, and I met no Europeans on foot to help me in my difficulty. Yoko- hama does not improve on further acquauitance. It has a dead-alive look. It has irregularity without pic- turesqueness, and the grey sky, grey sea, grey houses, and grey roofs, look harmoniously dull. No foreign money except the Mexican dollar passes in Japan, and Mr. Fraser’s compradore soon metamorphosed my English gold into Japanese satsu or paper money, a bundle of yen nearly at par just now with the dollar, packets of 50, 20, and 10 sen notes, and some rou- leaux of very neat copper coins. The initiated recog- nise the different denominations of paper money at a glance by their differing coloirrs and sizes, but at present they are a distracting mystery to me. The notes are pieces of stiff paper with Chinese char- acters at the corners, near which, with exceptionally good eyes or a magnifying glass, one can discern an English word denoting the value. They are very neatly DRAWBACKS OF TRAVELLING. 21 executed, and are ornamented with the chrysanthemum crest of the Mikado and the interlaced dragons of the Empire. I long to get away into real Japan. Mr. Wilkinson, H.B.M.’s acting consul, called yesterday, and was ex- tremely kind. He thinks that my plan for travelling in the interior is rather too ambitious, but that it is perfectly safe for a lady to travel alone, and agrees with every body else in thinking that legions of fleas and the miserable horses are the great drawbacks of Japan- ese travelling. 1. L. B. 22 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. THE OLD AND THE NEW. 3ir Harry Parkes — An “Ambassador’s Carriage” — Blurs and Hieroglyphs — Cart Coolies — A supposed Concession to Foieign Opinion — Eegulations. Yokohama, May 22. To-day has been spent in making new acquaintances, instituting a search for a servant and a pony, receiving many offers of help, asking questions and receiving from different people answers which directly contradict each other. Hours are early. Thirteen people called on me before noon. Ladies drive themselves about the town in small pony carriages attended by running grooms called bettos. The foreign merchants keep kur rumas constantly standing at their doors, finding a will- ing, intelligent coolie much more serviceable than a lazy, fractious, capricious Japanese pony, and even the dignity of an “Ambassador Extraordinary and IMmis- ter Plenipotentiary ” is not above such a lowly convey- ance, as I have seen to-day. ]\Iy last %’isitors were Sir Harry and Lady Parkes, who brought sunshine and kind- liness into the room, and left it behind them. Sir Harry is a young-looking man scarcely in middle life, slight, active, fair, blue-eyed, a thorough Saxon, with sunny hair and a sunny smile, a sunsliiny geniality in his man- ner, and bearing no trace in his appearance of his thirty years of service in the East, his sufferings in the prison at Peking, and the various attempts upon his life in Japan. He and Lady Parkes Avere most truly kind, BLUns ANB HIEROGLYPHS. 23 and encourage me so heartily in my largest projects foi travelling in the interior, that I shall start as soon as J have secured a servant. When they went away they, jumped into kurumas, and it was most amusing to see the representative of England hurried down the street in a perambulator with a tandem of coolies. I wiite of Sir Harry Parkes, as he is a public (iharac- ter, but I can only allude to the kindness shown to me by others here, and to the way in which several people are taking a great deal of trouble to facilitate my ar- rangements for seeing Japan. Though the day is sun- shiny, I don’t admire Yokohama any more than at first. It is dull and has no salient points, and it looks as if it had seen busier if not better days ; but already the loneliness of a solitary arrival and the feeling of being a complete stranger have vanished, and I am suffering mainly from complete mental confusion, owing to the rapidity with which new sights and ideas are crowding upon me. My reading of books on Japan, and the per- sistent pumping of my Japanese fellow-voyagers for the last three weeks, might nearly as well have been omit- ted, for the country presents itself to me as a complete blur, or a page covered with hieroglyphs to which I have no key. Well, I have months to spend here, and I must begin at the alphabet, see everything, hear ever3Thing, read everything, and delay forming opin- ions as long as possible. As I look out of the window, I see heavy, two- wheeled man-carts drawn and pushed by four men each, on which nearly all goods, stones for building, and all else, are carried. The two men who pull press with hands and thighs against a cross-bar at the end of a heavy pole, and the two who push ajiply their shoulders to beams which project behind, using their thick, smoothljr shaven skulls as the motive power when they 24 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. push their heavy loads uphill. Their cry is impressive and melancholy. They draw incredible loads, but as if the toil which often makes every breath a groan or a gasp were not enough, they shout incessantly with a coarse, guttural grunt, something like Sa huida, llo huida, wa ho., Ha huida, etc. The inference from the JAPANESE MAN-CABT. sight is that human labour is cheap and abundant. Government has made nudity a punishable offence in this and other cities, and these poor cart coolies toD in the same precarious and mconvenient garment that the boatmen wear. My inference is, that the compulsor} wearing of clothing is a concession to foreign opinion. I may be wrong m both cases. It is not unwise per- haps to start with Professor Griffis’s dictum that “ the Government is Asiatic, despotic, and idolatrous.” REGULATIONS AND NOTIFICATIONS. 25 first impression is that the country is much governed. One comes in contact with “ regulations ” on landing in the fixed tariff for sampans and kurumas., the notifica- tions on boards, the neat policemen, the lanterns on conveyances, the rejection of foreign coin, ihe postal regulations, and many others; and — must I say it?-- ;n the absence of extortionate demands! I. L. B. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN 26 YEDO. Yedo and T^ikiyo — The Yokohama Railroad — The Effect of Misfiti — The Plain of Yedo — Personal Peculiarities — First Impressioni of T6kiy6 — H.B.M.’s Legation — An English Home. H.B.M.’s Legation, Yedo, 3Iay 24. I HAVE dated my letter Yedo, according to the usage of the British Legation, but popularly the new name of T6kiy6, or Eastern Capital, is used, Kiyoto, the INIika- do’s former residence having received the name of Saikid, or Western Capital, though it has now no claim to be regarded as a capital at all. Yedo belongs to the old rSgime and the Shogunate, Tokiyd to the new regime and the Restoration, with their history of ten years. It would seem an incongruity to travel to Yedo by railway, but quite proper when the destination is Tokiyd. The journey between the two cities is performed in an hour by an admirable, well-metalled, double track railroad, 18 miles long, with iron bridges, neat stations, and substantial roomy termini, built by English engi- neers at a cost known only to Government, and opened by the Mikado in 1872. The Yokohama station is a handsome and suitable stone building, with a spacious approach, ticket offices on our plan, roomy waiting- rooms for different classes — uncarpeted, however, in consideration of Japanese clogs — and supplied with the daily papers. There is a de[)artment for the weigh- ing and labelling of luggage, and on the broad covered RAILWAY TRAVELLING. 27 stone platform at both termini, a barrier •with turnstiles, through which, except by special favour, no ticketless person can pass. Except the ticket clerks, who are Chinese, and the guards and engine-diivers, who are English, the ofl&cials are Japanese in European dress. Outside the stations, instead of cabs, there are kurumas., whi zh carry luggage as well as people. Only luggage in the hand is allowed to go free, the rest is weighed, numbered, and charged for, a corresponding number being given to its owner to present at his destination. The fares are, 3d class, an ichibu, or about Is. ; 2d class, 60 sen., or about 2s. 4d. ; and 1st class, a yen, or about 3s. 8d. The tickets are collected as the passengers pass through the barrier at the end of the journey. The English-built cars differ from ours in having seats along the sides, and doors opening on platforms at both ends. On the whole the arrangements are Continental rather than British. The first-class cars are expensive- ly fitted up with deeply cushioned, red morocco seats, but carry very few passengers, and the comfortable seats, covered with fine matting, of the 2d class are very scantily occupied, but the 3d class vans are crowded with Japanese, who have taken to railroads as readily as to kurumas. This line earns about f8,000,- 000 a year. The Japanese look most diminutive in European dress. Each garment is a misfit, and exaggerates the miserable physique, and the national defects of concave chests and bow legs. The lack of “ complexion ” and of hair upon the face makes it nearly impossible to judge of the ages of men. I supposed that all the railroad officials were striplings of 17 or 18, but they are men from 25 to 40 years old. It was a beautiful day, like an English June day, but hotter, and though the Sakura (wild cherry) and its 28 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. kin, which are the glory of the Japanese spring, are over, everything is a young, fresh green yet, and in all the beauty of growth and luxuriance. The immediate neighbourhood of Yokohama is beautiful, with abrupt wooded hills, and small picturesque valleys, but after passing Kanagawa the railroad enters upon the immense plain of Yedo, said to be 90 miles from north to south, on whose northern and western boundaries faint blue mountains of great height hovered dreamily in the clue haze, and on whose eastern shore for many miles the clear blue wavelets of the Gulf of Yedo ripple, always as then, brightened by the white sails of innumerable fishing-boats. On this fertile and fruitful plain stand not only the capital with its million of inhabitants, but a number of populous cities, and several hundred thriv- ing agricultural villages. Every foot of land which can be seen from the railroad is cultivated by the most care- ful spade husbandry, and much of it is irrigated for rice. Streams abound, and villages of grey wooden houses with grey thatch, and grey temples with strange- ly curved roofs, are scattered thickly over the landscape. It is all homelike, liveable, and pretty, the country of an industrious people, for not a weed is to be seen, but no very striking features or peculiarities arrest one at first sight unless it be the crowds everywhere. You don’t take your ticket for Tokiy3, but for Shi- uagawa or Shinbashi, two of the many villages which have grown together into the capital. Yedo is hardly seen before Shinagawa is reached, for it has no smoke and no long chimneys ; its temples and public buildings are seldom lofty ; the former are often concealed among thick trees, and its ordinary houses seldom reach a height of 20 feet. On the right a blue sea with fortified islands upon it, wooded gardens with massive retaining walls, hundreds of fishing-boats lying in creeks or drawn THE BRITISH LEGATION. 29 up on the beach; on the left a broad road on which kurumas are hurrying both ways, rows of low, grey houses, mostly tea-houses and shops, and as I was ask ing “ Where is Yedo ? ” the train came to rest in the terminus — the Shinbashi railroad station, and disgorged its 200 Japanese passengers with a combined ch tter of 400 clogs — a new sound to me. These clogs add three inches to their height, but even with them few of the men attained 5 feet 7 inches, and few of the women 5 feet 2 inches ; but they look far broader in the national costume, which also conceals the defects of their figures. So lean, so yellow, so ugly, yet so pleasant-looking, so wanting in colour and effectiveness ; the women so very small and tottering in their walk ; the children so formal-looking and such dignified burlesques on the adults, I feel as if I had seen them all before, so like are they to their pictures on trays, fans, and tea-pots. The hair of the women is all drawn away from their faces, and is worn in chignons, and the men, when they don’t shave the front of their heads and gather their back hair into a quaint queue drawn forward over the shaven patch, wear their coarse hair about three inches long in a refractory undivided mop. Davis, an orderly from the Legation, met me, one of the escort cut down and severely wounded when Sir H. Parkes was attacked in the street of Kiy6t3 in March 1868 on his way to his first audience of the Mikado. Hundreds of hurumas., and covered carts with four wheels drawn by one miserable horse, which are the omnibuses of certain districts of T8kiy6, were waiting outside the station, and an English brougham for me, with a running betto. The Legation stands in K6ji- machi on very elevated ground above the inner moat of the historic “ Castle of Yedo,” but I cannot tell you anything of what I saw on my way thither, except that 30 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. there were miles of dark, silent, barrack-like buildings, with highly ornamental gateways, and long rows ol projecting windows with screens made of reeds — the feudal mansions of Yedo — and miles of moats with lofty grass embankments or walls of massive masonry 60 feet high, with kiosk-like towers at the corners, and curious, roofed gateways, and many bridges, and acres of lotus leaves. Turnmg along the inner moat, up a steep slope, there are, on the right, its deep green waters, the great grass embankment smmounted by a dismal wall overhung by the branches of coniferous trees which surrounded the palace of the Shogun, and on the left sundry yashikis., as the mansions of the daimiyo were called, now in this quarter mostly turned into hospitals, barracks, and Government offices. On a height, the most conspicuous of them all, is the gi-eat red gateway of the yashiki, now occupied by the French Military Mission, formerly the residence of li Kamon no Kami, one of the great actors in recent liistoric events, who was assassinated not far off, outside the Sakaruda gate of the castle. Besides these, barracks, parade grounds, policemen, kurumas, carts pulled and pushed by coolies, pack-horses in straw sandals, and dwarfish, slatternly-looking soldiers in European di-ess made up the TokiyS that I saw between Shinbaslii and the Legation. H.B.M.’s Legation has a good situation near the For- eign Office, several of the Government departments, and the residences of the ministers, which are chiefly of brick in the English suburban villa style. Within the compound, with a brick archway with the Royal A.rms upon it for an entrance, are the Minister’s resi- dence, the Ghancery, two houses for the two English Secretaries of Legation, and quarters for the escort. It is an English house and an English home, thouglr UIVIL SERVICE SCHOLARSHIP. 31 with the exception of a venerable nurse, there are no English servants. The butler and footman are tall Chinamen, with long pig-tails, black satin caps, and long blue robes ; the cook is a Chinaman, and the other ser- vants are all Japanese, including one female servant, a sweet, gentle, kindly girl about 4 feet 5 in height, the wife of the head “ housemaid.” None of the servants speak anything but the most aggravating “ pidgun ” English, but their deficient speech is more than made up for by the intelligence and service of the orderly in waiting, who is rarely absent from the neighbourhood of the hall door, and attends to the visitors’ book and to all messages and notes. There are two real English children of six and seven, with great capacities for such innocent enjoyments as can be found within the limits of the nursery and garden. The other inmate of the house is a beautiful and attractive terrier called “ Rags,” a Skye dog, who unbends “ in the bosom of his family,” but ordinarily is as imposing in his demeanour as if he, and not his master, represented the dignity of the Brit- ish Empire. The Japanese Secretary of Legation is Mr. Ernest Satow, whose reputation for scholarship, specially in the department of history, is said by the Japanese themselves to be the highest in Japan ^ — an honour- able distinction for an Englishman, and won by the persevering industry of fifteen years. The scholarship connected with the British Civil Service is not, how- ever, monopolised by Mr. Satow, for several gentlemen in the consular service, who are passing through the various grades of student interpreters, are distinguish- ing themselves not alone by their facility in colloquial 1 Often in the later months of my residence in Japan, when I asked educated Japanese questions concerning their history, religions, oi ancient customs, I was put off with the answer, “You should ask Mr Satow, he could tell you.” 82 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Japanese, but by their researches in various depart- ments of Japanese history, mythology, archaeology, and literature. Indeed it is to their labours, and to those of a few other Englishmen and Germans, that the Japanese of the rising generation will be indebted for keeping alive not only the knowledge of theii archaic literature, but even of the manners and cus toms of the £rst half of this century. I. L. B. LIFELESS HEAT. 33 CUSTOMS AND DRESS. Lifeleso Heat — Street Sights in Tokiyo — The Foreign Concession — The Missionary Quarter — Architectural Vulgarities — The Im perial Gardens — Costume and Behaviour — Female Inelegance H.B.M.’s Lbgatiok, Ysno, May 27. So far I am not much pleased with the climate. There is no elasticity in the air. It has been warm and damp ever since I came, with a sky either covered with masses of clouds or suffused with a grey mist. Friday was admitted by everybody to be a wretched day, with lifeless heat and a continuous drizzle. In the afternoon I drove to the Foreign Concession to pay some visits. We passed miles of yashikis and enclosed vacant spaces, where yashikis once were ; crossed rivers, moats, and canals ; saw hundreds oi boats with thatched roofs lying on water or mud, smelt villanous smells from crowded canals and open black drains ; saw coolies in umbrella hats and straw rain cloaks, and all the world carrying paper umbrellas ; saw a street, a hive of busy, crowded industries, the lower front of each house a shop, whose novel and ingenious wares amazed me ; saw women with bright complexions, shining hair, shaven eyebrows and black- ened teeth, clattering and tottering on high clogs ; saw kurumas with their passengers completely hidden by envelopes of yellow oiled paper ; — but saw never a horse or horse-carriage ! Tsukiji (“ filled-up land ”) is the Concession in which 84 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. alone foreigners may live who are not in Japanese employment. The land is raised upon a fine embank- ment facing the gulf near the entrance of the Sumida River, and is elsewhere moated in by canals crossed by several bridges. As a place for foreign trade Tokiyfi has proved a complete failure. There are very few foreign merchants, and the foreign hotels are insignifi- cant and little patronised. The U.S. Legation still clings to Tsukiji, though the ministers of the othei great powers all live inside the moats in the neighbour- hood of the Government offices. The roads are broad and neatly kept, but the aspect of the Concession is dull and desolate, and people live near enough to each other to be hourly fretted by the sight of each other’s dreary doings. There is a complete nest of Missionary Church edi- fices, a wonderful testimony to the shattered unity of the Christian Church, and the number of houses occu- pied by missionaries is very large. It must be painful to them to be compelled to huddle together in this narrow locality. Besides their houses and churches they have several boarding-schools for girls, and a Union Theological College, supported jointly by the American Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian, and Scotch United Presbyterian bodies. This last body has five missionaries here, one of whom. Dr. Faulds, a medical missionary, has opened a small hospital. The S.P.G. Society has four missionaries here, the C.M.S. only one, and the Canadian INlethodists one. Most of them meet montldy in a united conference. The Young Men’s Christian Association has lately opened rooms in Tsukiji, with more than the usual attrac- tions. At the C.M.S. house I met Mr. Fysou from Niigata on the Sea of Japan, and Mr. Dening from Hakodate ARCHITECTURAL VULGARITIES. 35 in Yezo, with their respective wives, who were very kind, and asked me to visit them. We talked over the pros and cons of my proposed journey, some thinking it impracticable, others encouraging it. The special points discussed were “the Food Question,” which ia yet unsolved, and whether it is best to buy a pony or trust to pack-horses. Everything looked as dull and dismal as wide, de- serted streets, a dead level, and a warm drizzle could make it. I am much astonished by the aggressions made here by western architectural ideas. Yedo is chiefly represented by the grandeur of the castle walls, banks, and moats, the pashikis, many of which are showing signs of unarrested decay, and the crowded streets of warehouses and wholesale produce merchants in the neighbourhood of the Nihon Bashi, the bridge from which all the distances in Japan are said to be measured. Tukiyd and the new regime are architec- turally represented by the ministerial villas of stone- faced brick, with red brick garden walls, the Engineer- ing College, really solid and handsome, and a number of barracks, departments, police stations, colleges, and schools, in a debased Europeanised or Americanised style, built of wood, painted white, with a superabun- dance of oblong glass windows, and usually without verandahs, looking like inferior warehouses, or taverns in the outskirts of San Francisco, as vulgar and dis- mally ugly as they can be, and more like confectionery than building. It is certainly not under the advice of Mr. Chastel de Boinville, the architect of the Engineer- ing College, that the Government has thus vulgarised the new capital, making parts of it, except for the clean, smooth roads, to look more like the outskirts of Chicago or Melbourne than an Oriental city. Sir H. and Lady Parkes enter into my travelling 36 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. plans with much zest and kindness, offering the practi- cal advice and help which their extensive travelling experience suggests, and not interposing any obstacles. Indeed, Sir H. not only approves of my plan of travel- ling northwards through the interior, but suggests some additions. I only hope the actual journey may be as pleasant as planning it on the map has been. Sir Harry advises me not to buy a pony, as it would fall sick for want of proper food, lose its shoes, and involve an additional plague in the shape of a betto. May 29. — The weather is once more fine, with the mercury a little over 70°, and taking advantage of it, we walked in the Fukiagd Gardens, private pleasure- grounds of the Mikado, wliich in these new days are open by ticket to the public every Saturday. They are a noble specimen of the perfection to which the Japan- ese have brought the art of landscape-gardening. The park, for such it is, is so beautifully laid out, and the inequalities of the ground are so artistically taken ad- vantage of, that in one or two places the effect of moun- tain scenery is almost produced. The trees are most tastefully grouped and contrasted, the feathery, light green bamboo being always massed against a dark back- ground of coniferae, while huge deciduous trees with heavy, pendant foliage, and shrubs and ferns at their feet, have been chosen to shade and droop over the winding walks. The broad lawns are smooth shaven, and the gravel walks are as absolutely faultless as those at Kew. Below a very pretty cascade there is a small lake surrounded by trees of great size and beauty, and on its bank a carpeted glass pavilion, in wliich, after much diplomacy, the Milmdo consented to receive the Duke of Edinburgh, and for the first time to recognise a fellow mortal as of royal rank. This park is in the heart of the Castle enclosure, and its associations are all DRl'JSS AND FASHION. 37 with the Sh6gunate. Here former ruleis, unseen of their people, took their dreary exercise, and minute rep- resentations of the Empire which they had never seen were created — a toy-farm, for instance, toy padi fields, and other toy industries. What a contrast ! Instead of the mysterious state of the Shogun and the glitter of the daimiyds trains, there were thousands of gentle courteous people of the lower orders enjoying the bright afternoon in their national costume, which, except in the case of children and very yoimg girls, rarely emancipates itself from the bonds of dull blues, greys, and browns, harmonious but ineffec- tive. The basis of this costume for both sexes consists of the kimono., a very scanty dressing-gown, made of several straight widths of cotton or silk, 15 inches wide, without gores or shoulder seams, but hollowed out at the neck, which it exposes freely. The “ armholes ” are merely long openings in the seams, and the sleeve — a most important part of the dress, which plays a very leading part in the classical dances and in romantic poetry — is simply a width of the same stuff from 3 feet to 10 feet long, doubled, joined, and attached to a portion of the armhole. The sleeve often hangs down nearly to the ground, and women at their work put on an arrangement of braces called tasuki for binding these long bags under their armpits. I call them bags, for the sides are sewn up from the lower end to a short dis • tance below the arms, and are used for stowing away aU sorts of things. Certain charms and “ pocket ” idols are carried in the sleeve, and food, and the paper squares used for pocket handkerchiefs, wliich when new are car- ried in the girdles, after being used once, are dropped into the sleeve, until an opportunity occurs for throwing them away out of doors. The sleeve is used invariably foi wiping away tears, and is mentioned frequently in 38 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. very ancient poetry, as in an ode translated by VIr. F V. Dickens, which is not less than 600 years old. “ When last each other we embraced, A solemn vow of faith we swore, And sealed it with the tears that chased Adown our cheeks, our drenched sleeves o’er.” B ut it is possible to grow prosy over sleeves, so I will only add that it is only women and children who have a prescriptive right to folly, who wear them so long as nearly to touch the ground. The kimono has no “ fit,” and slouches over the shoul- ders. It is folded over in front by the men fi'om left to right, and by the women from right to left, and is con- fined at the waist by a girdle or obi. In the case of men this is the width of a hand, and in that of women it is a foot wide and ten feet long. It is passed twice round the waist, and tied behind in an enormous bow, some- times with two ends, sometimes with one ; but the fash- ion here is to stiffen it and make the bow lengthwise and fasten it up between the shoulders, when it looks like a pillow-slip. It is the most important article of a woman’s dress. No woman, or girl child is ever seen out of doors without it, and the art of tying it is one of the most important parts of a girl’s education. It fre- quently costs more than the whole of the dress. Wo- men carry handkerchiefs, charms, and many other things in its broad folds, and men attach their purses, smoking apparatus, fan, and portable pen and ink to it. The great size of the bow at the back, and the tightness with which the scanty kimono is drawn forwards, makes everj^ woman look as if she stooped. A haori or short upper garment, of exactly the same make, but loose, and only clasped over the chest by a ;ord, is often worn by both sexes over the kimono. The front of the kivw BBESS AND FASHION. 39 no is wide and loose, and is used as a receptacle for manj things. Men sometimes carry their children tucked within the fronts of their dresses, and I have seen as many as seven books and a map taken out of the same capacious reservoir. Many of the younger men now wear hakama, or full petticoat trousers (formerly only worn by the Samurai), drawn over the kimono with the haori outside, but so far as the usual dress of the lower classes is concerned, it is only by the ohi and the hair that you can tell a man from a woman. Foot mittens of white cloth, with a separate place for the great toe, are worn, and make the naturally small feet look big and awkward. It is very aristocratic for women to walk with an infirm gait, turning the feet inwards. The foot-gear out of doors consists of verj^ high clogs made of the light wood of the Paulownia Imperialism kept on by a leather thong which passes between the great toe and the others. These encumbrances increase the natural awkwardness of the Japanese gait, as the foot cannot be raised in walking. Hats are not worn by either sex, but the female hair is most elaborately dressed in chignons and bows, and is carefully drawn back from the face. A great many of the men wear their badge or crest, stamped in wliite, upon their haoris. No jewellery is worn, one or two pins in the hair being the only ornaments. There were hundreds of children, dressed exactly like their parents, except that for them, as for young girls, touches of scarlet are admissible. Boys begin to wear the obi at three years old, girls, in their cradles, I should think. Little, solemn, old-fashioned bundles thej’’ locked, the boys with their heads shaven, except for tufts of hair over the brow and each ear, creatures to whom one would never venture to talk child’s talk oi seduce into a romp. 40 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. The female dress is surely not graceful, tumbliug off at the shoulders, as tightly dragged round the hips as the most inconvenient of English dresses, though to front not the back, so narrow as to impede locomo- tion, and too long for muddy weather. Tottering with turned-in feet on high wooden clogs, with limbs so tightly swathed that only the shortest steps are possible, a heavy chignon on the head, and the monstrous bow of the ohi giving the top-heavy wearer the appearance of tumbling forward, the diminutive Japanese women look truly helpless. We have given Japan radroads, tele- graphs, ironclads, and many other things ; have we bor- rowed from her the “ Grecian bend,” the tied-back, sheath-like dresses, the restricting skirts, and the totter- ing walk ? The women never walked with the men, but in groups by themselves, with their children, and often carried their babies “ pick-a-back.” The men also walked Avith and carried cliildren, but there were no famil}’’ groups. Though the women wear nothing on their heads, there is a gentle modesty and womanliness about their faces which is pleasing. All looked happy, but there was nothing like frolic, and the quiet, courteous behaviour contrasted remarkably with that of a Saturday afternoon crowd at home. There must be a reliable habit of good behaviour among the masses, for there was not a police- man in the Gardens ; and there must be enough of them and to spare, for nearly 6000 are stationed in TokiyO. Though foreigners are so common here, we were re- garded as interesting or diverting objects, and while Sir Harry with great animation was recalling some diplo- matic experiences, a crowd grouped itself about us, staring vacantly with great black eyes, and with open mouths showing blackened teeth, but so courteously that one could not feel being stared at. In going out THE CHINESE MINISTERS. 41 we met the Chinese ministers, big, fat, over-ciothed, and ungainly, in violet brocade robes over primrose brocade skirts, with two much conventionalised boys. When I was presented they bowed nearly to the eaith, and then, by a strange incongruity, shook hands. I. L. B. 42 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAVAN. TEMPLES. Narrow (Irooves — Topics of Talk — A Pair of Ponies — The Shrlrei of Shiba — “ Afternoon Tea ” — The English Church. H.B.M.’s Legation, Ysno. Foeeign life in T6kiy6 is much like life at home, except that it has fewer objects and less variety, and except in a small clique of scholars and savans talk runs in somewhat narrow grooves. Except the members of the legations, and the missionaries, most of the foreign- ers here are in the employment of the Japanese Gov- ernment, and their engagements are for terms of years. It is no part of the plan of the able men who lead the new Japanese movement to keep up a permanent foreign staff. To get all they can out of foreigners, and then to dispense with their services is their idea. The tele- graph department has passed out of foreign leading- strings this week, and other departments will follow as soon as possible. The Naval College has English instructors, the Medi- cal College is under the charge of Germans, the Impe- rial University has English-speaking teachers, the En- gineering College has a British Principal, assisted by a large British staff, and a French IMilitary Commission teaches European drill and tactics to the army. The changes in the teaching staff are frequent, and people talk not only of actual but possible changes, whose engagement expires next month or next year, the proba- bilities of its renewal, the reduced salary on which Mr AN “AFTERNOON TEA.” 43 is remaining, the certainty that Mr. ’s engage- ment will not be renewed, and guess what he will dc with himself and what sum he has saved ; whether Mr. ’s salary is paid in satsu or coin, and the present discount on satsu. One happiness of being at the Lega- tion is that gossip is utterly discouraged, and that one is not subjected to wearisome and profitless talk. If I cannot enter into the discussions on the actual fate of Yoshitsund, or the mysterious meaning of the tomoye., there is a satisfaction in hearing the learned sough about my ears. “ Afternoon teas ” have reached T6kiyo, and Lady Parkes took me to one at the house of Mr. Hawes, one of the teachers at the Naval College. Lady P. drove a pair of chestnut ponies of perfect beauty, fiery creatures, much given to belligerent and other erratic proceedings, and apparently only kept from running away by skilful restraint. The inspector of the escort rode in front, but only to show us the way, for Yedo, which lately swarmed with foreigner-hating, two-sworded bravos, the retainers of the daimiyo., is now so safe that a foreign lady can drive through its loneliest or most crowded parts with- out any other attendant than a hetto. There are no side walks, and the people are so unused to such flying vehicles as Lady Parkes’s phaeton, that only the alarm- ing yells of the hetto who ran in front secured a narrow -ane for our progress. Passing through the mean, bewildering streets of T6kiy8, we drove through a gateway into a region where forest trees make a solemn shade, and the hum of the city is unheard, a region of countless temples and temple-courts, and stately tombs where six of the Sh6- guns “• lie in glory, every one in his own hoiise.” Grandly roofed red portals, arabesques in gold and colour, coloured cloisters in which no footfall is ever 44 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. lieard, groves and avenues of magnificent cryptomeria, cool in summer and green in winter, falling water, blossoming shrubs, marvels of Japanese art in lacquer and bronze, and a hush as of death, make Shiba the most solemn and fascinating resort to which one can betake one’s self. Formerly hundreds of priests lived wthir. the enclosure, and their houses and the guest- .liambers for visitors and pilgrims constituted almost a town by themselves, but the “ old order ” has changed, the bare Shintd faith has displaced the highly decorated ceremonial of Buddhism, the priests are dispersed ; an English Episcopal Service is held in one of the small temples, and the Government has allotted priest and pilgrim liouses, temples and colleges, as residences to the foreigners in its service. Thus only our “ afternoon tea ” deserves mention, for our host lives in the house of the priest of a small Fox temple ; there is a small shrine in his garden, and the priest brings offerings of food every morning to two foxes or badgers which live underneath it. The house, an irregular wooden one, with deep eaves forming the verandah, looks like a doll’s house, not fit to bear the tread of heavy men. By means of grooves in the floor with sliding partitions of lacquer and paper, it can be transformed in two minutes from a house with one or two large rooms, into a house with five or six small ones. The floor is laid with what, if they were upright, we should call panels of matting, very white and fine. All foreigners’ houses here are turned to some extent into museums of Japanese objects of “bigotry and V'irtue,” which furnish both the rooms and topics for talk. The forms and colours, and even the marerials, differ so widely from those used in the West that it must require a prolonged education of the eye for the appreciation of many of them. Some which are TEMPLE SEE VICE IN 8HIBA. 4£ treasured I think decidedly ugly, others take me by storm at once ; but I rebel against being coerced into admira- tion of a work of art because it is old, or because it is Japanese, and I shall not buy anything till I have been in Japan six months, and certainly shall not take home a thousand teapots, as an English lady curio-hunter is doing ! Lieut. Hawes gave us some strawberries, which have lately been introduced, and they had a good flavour, but people think they will soon lose it, as other exotic fruits have done before them. A day or two ago we had some fully ripe strawberries of a pale pea-green colour, with a strong odour and flavour, not of strawberries, but of the Catawba grape ! “ And the next day was the Sabbath.” This is a word which of course has no meaning here, so it was through streets of unresting industries that we drove to the quiet groves of Shiba, to the small temple in which liturgical worship is held, where a simple communion- table has taken the place of the altar and the shrine of Buddha, and a few seats on the matted floor accommo- date the scanty congregation. The temple is open on one side to a wooded creek in which the blue iris and lotus are growing abundantly. Birds, if they did not sing, chirped in the trees, and hundreds of iridescent flies, blue and scarlet dragon-flies, and butterflies with black and gold wings, rejoiced over the water 'u the bright May sunshine. It is not wonderful that the lotus flower and leaf should have been taken as sacred em- blems, they seem so naturally to belong to religious use. At this time the castle moats and the temple ponds are covered with their grand, peltate, blue-green leaves, gemmed with spheres of dew. “ The lotus blooms round every azure creek,” but nobody knows anything about “ the yeliow lotus dust!” I L. B. 46 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN CHINESE AND SERVANTS. Dr. Hepbam — The Yokohama Bluff — “John Chinan an” — Chi- nese Compradores — Engaging a Servant — First Impressions ol Ito — A Solemn Contract — The Food Question. H.B.M.’s Legation, Yedo, June 7. I WENT to Yokohama for a week to visit Dr. aiid Mrs. Hepburn on the Bluff. Bishop and Mrs. Birrdon of Hon^ Kong were also guests, and it was very pleasant. Dr. Hepburn is about the oldest foreign resident, hav- ing been here nineteen years. He came in the strange days of the old rigime as a medical missionary, and, before the Japanese opened hospitals and dispensaries with qualified medical attendance, he received as many as 7000 patients in a year, and they came from great distances to get his advice. He does not consider that the practice of healing is now needed in Japan to secure a hearing for Christianity, and, being in failing health, has retired from medical work. He is a man of exten- sive acquaintance with many Japanese matters, and the standard Japanese English Dictionary is the fruit of his nearly unaided philological laboru’s during a period of thirteen years. He is now one of three scholars who are translating the New Testament into Japanese, and, although a layman, takes charge of a native con- gregation in Yokohama. His extensive information, scientific attainments, calm judgment, and freedom from bias, make him a very interesting man. He is by no means enthusiastic about the Japanese, or sanguine re/ THE INDISPENSABLE CHINAMAN. 47 garding their future in any respect, and evidently thinks them deficient in solidity. The Bluff is very pretty with a New England pretti- ness, and everything is neat and trim. It is well laid out with steep roads with pretty bungalows on both sides, half hidden by thick shrubberies and hedges, and azaleas, roses, and other flowering shrubs just now brighten the daintily kept grounds. Owing to the ex- treme steepness of the hill, both the seaward and inland views are very fine, and the morning and evening glimpses of Fujisan are magnificent. The native town lies below with its innumerable novelties, but I cannot at present attempt to describe what I see, for I have not yet succeeded in grasping even the barest outlines. Japan is a great empire with a most ancient and elabo- rate civilisation, and offers as much novelty perhaps as an excursion to another planet ! One cannot be a day in Yokohama without seeing quite a different class of orientals from the small, thinly dressed, and usually poor-looking Japanese. Of the 2500 Chinamen who reside in Japan, over 1100 are in Yokohama, and if they were suddenly removed, business would come to an abrupt halt. Here, as everywhere, the Chinese immigrant is making himself indispensable. Ho walks through the streets with liis swinging gait and air of complete self-complacency, as though he belonged to the ruling race. He is tall and big, and his many garments with a handsome brocaded robe over all, his satin pantaloons, of which not much is seen, tight at the ankles, and his high shoes, whose black satin tops are slightly turned up at the toes, make him look even taller and bigger than he is. His head is mostly shaven, but the hair at the back is plaited with a quantity of black purse twist into a queue which reaches to his knees, above which, set well back, he 4 ^ UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. weais a stiff, black satin skull-cap, without which he is newr seen. His face is very yellow, his long dark e}'es and eyebrows slope upwards towards his temples, he has not the vestige of a beard, and his skin is shiny. He looks thoroughly “well-to-do.” He is not unpleas- iug looking, but you feel that as a Celestial he looks down upon you. If you ask a question in a merchant’s office, or change your gold into satsu, or take your rail- road or steamer ticket, or get change in a shop, the in- evitable Chinaman a})pears. In the street he swings past you with a purpose in his face ; as he flies past you in a kurnma he is bent on business ; he is sober and reliable, and is content to “ squeeze ” his employer rather than to rob him — his one aim in life is money. For this ho is industrious, faithful, self-denying; and he has his reward. Within an hour of arriving one hears the new word “ compradore,” and it is as compradores that the Chi- nese have the confidence, and in business matters some- thing of the control, of this foreign community. Each firm has its Chinese compradore, a factotum, middle- man, and occasionally a tyrant. The Japanese pro- ducers, and in many cases even the brokers, never see the foreign merchant, but deal with him through this Chinaman, who, having added “ pidgun ” Japanese to “ pidgun ” English, is further aided by his acquaintance with his own written character, which is largely used here. With a certain amount of deference to his em- ployer’s wishes, he arranges the purchase and sale of goods, the hiring and payment of coolies, the changing of money, and much else. Trusted as he is by the for- eign merchants, who scarcely grudge him what he regards as legitimate “ squeezes,” he is abhorred by the Japanese dealers, from whom he exacts “ squeezes ” on everything, and who have no check upon his rapacity. UNPROAIISING CANDIDATES. 49 The Chinamen who are not coinpradores are money- changers, brokers, and clerks, and it is in their power any da-- to lock the wheels of Yokohama finance. You cannot know what your money is worth, or the rate of exchange, or any of the mysteries of finance, without appealing to the sleek well-dressed, imperturbable, “ de- fiantly comfortable,” Chinaman. Japanese politeness is almost servile m its attitude and expression, the China- man is independent, almost supercilious. In life, as in death, he owes nothing to any one. He has his benevo- lent association, guilds, and temple, and if he is so un- fortunate as not to return alive to spend his fortune in his own country, he ensures that his remains shall be taken there for their final rest. A more industrious and thriving nationality does not exist in Japan. Several of my kind new acquaintances interested themselves about the (to me) vital matter of a servant interpreter, and many Japanese came to “see after the place.” The speaking of intelligible English is a sine qud non, and it was wonderful to find the few words badly pronounced and worse put together, which were regarded by the candidates as a sufficient qualification. Can you speak English ? “ Yes.” What wages do you ask? “Twelve dollars a month.” This was always said glibly, and in each case sounded hopeful. Who have you lived with? A foreign name distorted out of all recognition as was natural, was then given. Where have you travelled ? This question usually had to be translated into Japanese, and the usual answer was, “ J’he Tokaido, the Nakasendo, to Kiyoto, to Nikko,” naming the beaten tracks of countless tourists. Do you know anything of Northern Japan and the Hok- kaido ? “ No,” with a blank, wondering look. At this stage in every case Dr. Hepburn compassionately stepped in 50 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAR AN. as interpreter, for tlieir stock of English was exhausted, Three were regarded as promising. One was a sprightly youth who came in a well-made European suit of light- coloured tweed, a laid-down collar, a tie with a diamond (?) pin, and a white shirt, so stiffly starched, that he could hardly bend low enough for a bow even of Euro pean profundity. He wore a gilt watch-chahi with a locket, the corner of a very white cambric pocket hand- kerchief dangled from his breast pocket, and he held a cane and a felt hat in his hand. He was a Japanese dandy of the first water. I looked at him ruefully. To me starched collars are to be an unknown luxury for the next three months. His fine foreign clothes would enhance prices everywhere in the interior, and besides that, I should feel a perpetual difficulty in ask- ing menial services from an exquisite. I was therefore quite relieved when his English broke down at the sec- ond question. The second was a most respectable-looking man of thirty-five in a good Japanese dress. He was highly recommended, and his first English words were promis- ing, but he had been cook m the ser\dee of a wealthy English official who travelled with a large retinue, and sent servants on ahead to prepare the way. He knew really only a few words of English, and his horror at finding that there was “ no master,” and that there would be no woman servant, was so great, that I hardly know whether he rejected me, or I him. The third, sent by Mr. Wdkiuson, wore a plain Jap anese dress, and had a frank, intelligent face. Though Dr. Hepburn spoke with him in Japanese, he thought that he knew more English than the others, and that what he knew would come out when he was less agi- tated. He evidently understood what I said, and though I had a suspicion that he would t irn out to [INPB OMISING CA NBIDA TES. 6 ] be tlie “ master,” I thought him so prepossessing that J nearly engaged him on the spot. None of the others merit any remark. However, when I had nearly made up my mind in his favour, a creature appeared without any recommenda- tion at all, except that one of Dr. Hepburn’s servants was acquainted with him. He is only eighteen, but this is equivalent to twenty-three or twenty-four with us, and only 4 feet 10 inches in height, but though bandy-legged is well proportioned, and strong-looking. He has a round and singularly plain face, good teeth, much elongated eyes, and the heavy droop of his eye- lids almost caricatures the usual Japanese peculiarity. He is the most stupid-looking Japanese that I have seen, but, from a rapid, furtive glance in his eyes now and then, I think that the stolidity is partly assumed. He said that he had lived at the American Legation, that he had been a clerk on the Osaka railroad, that he had travelled through northern Japan by the eastern route and in Yezo, with Mr. Maries, a botanical collector, that he understood drying plants, that he could cook a little, that he could write English, that he could walk twenty- five miles a day, and that he thoroughly understood get- ting thi'ough the interior ! This would-be paragon had no recommendations, and accounted for this by saying that they had been burned in a recent fire in his father house. Mr. Maries was not forthcoming, and more than this, I suspected and disliked the boy. However, he understood my English and I his, and being very anx- ious to begin my travels, I engaged him for twelve dol- lars a month, and soon afterwards he came back with a contract, in which he declares by all that he holds most sacred, that he will serve me faithfully for the wages agreed upon, and to this document he affixed his seal and I my name. The next day he asked me for a 52 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. month’s wages in advance, which I gave him, but Di H. consolingly suggested that I should never see him again ! Ever since the solemn night when the contract was signed, I have felt under an incubus, and since he ap- peared here yesterday punctual to the appointed hour, I have felt as if I had a veritable “ old man of the sea ” upon my shoidders. He flies up stairs and along the corridors as noiselessly as a cat, and already knows where I keep all my things. Nothing surprises or abashes him, he bows profoundly to Sir Harry and Lady Parkes when he encounters them, but is obviously “ quite at home ” in a Legation, and only allowed one of the orderlies to show him how to put on a Mexican saddle and English bridle out of condescension to my wishes. He seems as sharp or “ smart ” as can be, and has already arranged for the first three days of my jour- ney. His name is Ito, and you will doubtless hear much more of him, as he will be my good or evil genius for the next three months. As no English lady has yet travelled alone through the interior, my project excites a very friendly interest among my friends, and I receive much warning and dissuasion, and a little encouragement. The strongest because tlie most intelligent dissuasion comes from Dr. Hepburn, who thinks that I ought not to undertake the journey, and that I shall never get through to the Tsu- garu Strait. If I accepted much of the advice given to me, as to taking tinned meats and soups, claret, and a Japanese maid, I should need a train of at least six pack-horses ! As to fleas, there is a lamentable consen- sus of opinion that they are the curse of Japanese travelling during the summer, and some people recom- mend me to sleep in a bag drawn tightly round the throat, others to sprinkle my bedding freely with insect TBE GREAT FOOD QUESTION. 53 powder, others to smear the skin all over with carbolic oil, and some to make a plentiful use of dried and pow- dered flea-bane. All admit, however, that these are but feeble palliatives. Hammocks unfortunately cannot be used in Japanese houses. The “ Food Question ’’ is said to be the most impor- tant one for all travellers, and it is discussed continu- ally with startling earnestness, not alone as regards my tour. However apathetic people are on other subjects, the mere mention of this one rouses them into interest. All have suffered or may suffer, and everyone wishes to impart his own experience, or to learn from that ol others. Foreign ministers, professors, missionaries, mer- chants, all discuss it with becoming gravity as a ques- tion of life and death, which by many it is supposed to be. The fact is that except at a few hotels in popular resorts which are got up for foreigners, bread, buLter, milk, meat, poultry, coffee, wine, and beer, are unattain- able, that fresh fish is rare, and that unless one can live on rice, tea, and eggs, with the addition now and then of some tasteless fresh vegetables, food must be taken, as the fishy and vegetable abominations known as “ Japanese food ” can only be swallowed and digested by a few, and that after long practice.^ Another, but far inferior difficulty on which much stress is laid, is the practice common among native ser- vants of getting a “ squeeze ” out of every money transaction on the road, so that the cost of travelling is often doubled, and sometimes trebled, according to the skill and capacity of the servant. Three gentlemen who have travelled extensively, have given me lists of 1 After several montlis of travelling in some of the roughest parts of the interior, I should advise a person in average health — and none other should travel in Japan — not to encumber himself with tinned meats, soups, claret, or any eatables or drinkables exfept Liebig’s es tract of meat 54 UNBEATEN TRACKti IN JAPAN. the prices which I ought to pay, varying in different districts, and largely increased on the beaten track of tourists, and Mr. Wilkinson has read these to Ito, who offered an occasional remonstrance. Mr. W. remarked after the conversation, which was in Japanese, that he thought I should have to “ look sharp after money mat- ters ” — a painful prospect, as I have never been able to manage anybody in my life, and shall surely have no control over this clever, cunning, Japanese youth, who on most points will be able to deceive me as he pleases. On returning here I found that Lady Parkcs had made most of the necessary preparations for me, and that they include two light baskets with covers of oiled paper, a travelling bed or stretcher, a folding chair, and an india-rubber bath, all which she considers as neces- saries for a person in feeble health on a journey of such long duration. This week has been spent in making acquaintances in Tdkiyo, seeing some characteristic sights, and in trying to get light on my tour, hut little seems known by foreigners of northern Japan, and a Government department, on bemg applied to, returned an itinerary, leaving out 140 miles of the route that 1 dream of taking, on the ground of “ insufficient infor- mation,” on which Sii’ Harry cheerily remarked, “ You will have to get your information as you go along, and that will be all the more interesting.” Ah ! but how ? I. L. B THE MEDIEVAL DBAMA. 55 THEATRICAL. Theatrical Eeform — The Ancient Drama — The Modern Theatre — The Stage — The Opening of a Reformed Theatre — The Playen. — The Opening Address — Moral Reforms — Exasperating Noises — A Comic Pastoral. H.B.M.’s Legation, Tedo, June 7. On Friday we went by formal invitation to tbe open- ing of tbe new Shintomi Theatre, which is to introduce a new era in the Japanese drama. Hitherto, though a passion for the play is general in Japan, theatre-going has been an enjoyment confined by custom to the mid- dle and lower classes, and the idea of the Mikado, Iwa- kura, Terashima, or any others of the Ministry honour- ing public theatricals with their presence would be regarded as simply monstrous; but there are private theatres at the palace, where the Emperor and Court witness the N6^ the mediaeval lyric drama of Japan, “the very aristocracy of the histrionic art.” But as Japan is following western example in so many ways, it has occurred to Morita, the enterprising proprietor of this new theatre, that a regenerated drama with an improved stage, and a light and well-ventilated audito- rium, “would, as in Europe, be a means of recreation worthy of the highest in the land,” and produce the result indicated in a Japanese proverb quoted by a native paper, the Meiroku ZassM, on this very subject, “ There is nothing that unites the highest and lowest sc much as community of entertainment.” 66 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Theatres are called shihaiya., “turf places,” becaiise the first performances were held on grass plots. The origiii of the drama in Japan, as in most other coun- tries, was religious, its primary object being to propiti- ate the gods. At first it consisted of dancing tc an orchestral accompaniment by masked and quaintly cos turned male dancers. Two such dances, one of Japan- ese origin, founded on some of the oldest ShintQ tradi- tions, and introduced from China in the sixth centur} A.D., still exist ; but the earliest approach to a play was a dance by an actor dressed up as an old man early in the ninth century, and thi-ee centuries later a woman named Iso no Zuiji, who is regarded by some as the mother of the Japanese drama, danced and postured in the costume of the Court nobles. It was only in 1624 that a man by the ShSgun’s order opened the first thea- tre in Yedo. The play-houses are mostly in one street, called after him Saruwaka Street.^ In the last three centuries the drama has come down from legend to history, and from history to the common doings of ordinary men and women, and the adoption of elaborate scenery, the multiplication of performers, and the disintegration of the dramatic unity of the piece, have gradually brought about new conditions, out of winch has been developed the modern drama or melodrama. The best of the Japanese classical plays are still partially historical. One of the most popular 1 In the Cornhill 3Ia\/azine, Oct. 1876, Mr. B. H. Chamberlain gives s very interesting and popular account of the No, the ancient lyric drama, accompanied by a translation of The Beathstonc, a play with two drama- tis personae, a priest and a maiden, and a chorus. The drama opens with a speech by the Priest. “ I am a priest, and Gen-o is my name. With a heart ever fixed upon the path of wisdom, I had long groaned over the imperfection of my spiritual insight. But now I see clear, and with the sacerdotal besom I shall sweep the cobwebs from the eyes cl men.” The Deathstone is well worth reading as a specimen of the per- formances which are among the greatest pleasures of the most highlj cultivated Japanese. THE THEATRICAL PROFESSION. 57 of these is “ The forty-seven Ronins,” founded on the tale so simply told m Mr. Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan. Of the worst, many of which are the most popular, I believe that the .less that is said the better. Several of the native papers accuse the theatre of being the great corrupter of the youth of Japan, and the Meiroku Zasslii advocates theatrical reform on the ground that theatrical performances generally are “immoral, false nonsensical, and tedious.” In the “ Code of morals foi women,” it is enjoined that no woman under forty should go to the theatre, but this wise prohibition is very generally violated among the lower classes. It is only from the best historical plays, however, that the rising generation can learn anything of the costumes, customs, manners, and etiquette of the old regime, and it is easj'' to understand the fascination which the thea- tre wields over people to whom it offers the only repro- duction of that stately national life of which all men of thirty have an adult remembrance. The profession of an actor is hereditary, and MS. instructions are carefully handed down in his family. Actors have been looked upon as a degraded class, but their disabilities along with those of the etd, a pariah caste, are now removed. One family of actors, that to which Ichikawa Danijir6, the most famous of living Japanese actors, belongs, was an exception to the gen- eral rule of degradation. Under the ShOguns women were prohibited from acting with men, but there are female theatrical companies, said, however, to be neither popular nor numerous. The beardlessness of the ordi- nary Japanese renders the “ get up ” of a man as a woman an easy thing, but the imitated voice is most unpleasing, and there is a stiffness and lack of grace about female parts so filled. Women are now being introduced into theatrical companies. The story of a 58 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. play is said to be forcibly told, but the action of the body and face is, according to western notions, forced and exaggerated, while doleful music and the plaintive wailing of the chorus unduly intensify the expression of grief and despair. Many foreigners interested in Japanese archaic matters, and tolerably acquainted with the language, are much fascinated by the classical drama, but if the representation at the Shintomi Thea- tre was at all typical, I should describe it as slow and tedious. An ordinary Japanese play begins at 6 or 10 A.M., lasts the whole day, and possibly two or three succes- sive days, and at Tokiyo extends into the night. There are intervals between the acts in which many play- goers adjourn for refreshments to the neighbouring tea-houses, but it is quite correct for refreshments to be served to parties in the theatre itself, and even on this opening day tea-house servants continuously car- ried lacquer trays with tea, rice, and sandwiches to the occupants of the compartments or boxes. Of course smoking is allowed, as it is in temples and everywhere else. When the performances are carried on after dark, a row of candles is placed in front of the stage, and attendants, with additional candles fixed on long sticks, hold them so as to throw light upon the faces of those actors who are speaking or grimacing. Boys in loose black caps, who are supposed to be invisible, crouch behind the performers in order to remove articles no longer required, or to slip an unseen support under an actor who has to sustain the same position for any length of time. The stage used for the No dramas is a plain, square, wooden room, supported by pillars and open on all sides but one, and that, according to imme- morial usage, is painted with a pine tree, three small pine trees being planted or placed in the court wliicb THE 8HINTOMI THEATRE. 59 separates the stage from the spectators. There is no ornament at all. But the ordinary stage is provided with scenery which is nearly brought to perfection, aod the costumes are gorgeous in the extreme, many of them being of great antiquity and absolutely price- less, owing to the beauty of the antique needlework. Morita’s invitation was extended to the diplomatic body, the foreigners in Government employment, and to a large number of the higher Japanese officials. The whole neighbourhood was en fete. The great tea- houses, which sell theatre tickets which ensure both seats and refreshments, were gay with flags and col- oured paper lanterns, and the theatre doors were only kept clear for visitors by rows of policemen, who quietly kept back the crowd which blocked the street. A steward in European evening dress handed us to our seats in the front row of the gallery facing the stage, one half of which was reserved for foreigners, and the other half for Japanese officialdom, and the seats both in it and the side galleries were covered with very ugly carpets for the occasion. In the long delay before the opening, tea and ices were handed to the invited guests. The building is very plain and bare. The stage for that day was destitute of scenery and ornament, and was arranged for the No performance. Were it not so, it would have been equipped with a turn-table, a trap or ascent, and topsy-turvy scenes. The whole is of pure white wood. The floor or pit is occupied with compartments, which were crowded with men, women, and children, talldng, smoking, and eating. Two raised wooden walks called “ flower paths,” by which the actors enter and retire on some occasions, pass through the pit. There is a very neat ceiling, which, like the whole of the carpenters’ work, is highly finished in 60 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. fine white wood. The greatest innovation is that twc gasaliers have been introduced, and gas footlights have replaced the dismal row of tallow candles and the black “ supers ” who used to follow the actors about with lighted tapers on the end of rods. The theatre is seated for 2000 people, but you must not understand by that that it has seats, for the boxes are only finely matted pens in which the playgoers sit on the floor in the usual position of squatting on the heels. The only decorations were a profusion of white flags with the badges of the actors in red upon them, interspersed with flags and paper lanterns of red and white, the national colours. The efi^ect of this almost monot- onous simplicity was a harmonious prettiness which pleased and rested the eyes. The stage was partially concealed, not by a “ drop scene,” but by a pure white curtain with the badge of the theatre in red upon it, red and white being the only colours used. Before the performance, attendants presented each invited guest with a pretty, white fan, ornamented in red with the Cliinese characters which form Morita’s name. The people are so far fortunate whose written characters lend themselves so readily to the purposes of simple and tasteful ornament. When delay had become nearly insupportable, and the noisy music of marine and military bands, which performed alter- nately, had rasped sensitive nerves to the extreme limit of endurance, a curtain at the side of the stage was drawn aside, and Morita, accompanied by forty actors in European evening dress, advanced to the front and right of the stage, those who perform as females group- ing themselves on the left, dressed in Tcimono and haJcama. The actors in European dress arranged them selves in a dismal line, an awkward squad. Alas foi ihern ! Where was Ichikawa Danijiro, the idol of play THEATRICAL REFORM. 61 goers, with whose stately figure in brocaded robes I had become familiar from countless photographs, and where the host of grand, two-sworded lesser luminaries in the rich draperies of the old regime? Fanuy Parkes, aged six, said, “ Papa, how very funny all those ugly men look ! ” and if she had been aged sixty she could not have made a more apt remark. The yellow, fea- tureless faces, all alike, the bullet-shaped craniums, the coarse cropped hair bristling up from the head, the flat chests, round shoulders, and lean, ill-shaped legs, were exhibited in all their ugliness in western dress, for the first, and I hope for the last time. The clothes looked as if they had all been made for one man, and that man not one of the forty who were present. It is true that they had got into them, but that is very dif- ferent from wearing them. They stood in one deplora- ble attitude, with lean arms hanging limp by their sides, hands crammed into badly-fitting white kid gloves, and looking like miscreants awaiting castiga- tion. Morita read the following address in Japanese : — Spoken at the Shintomi Theatre, Yedo, on the day of the opening of the new house. “Some persons with a taste for histrionic perform- ances, filled with regret at the inutility of these per- formances consequent on their general corruption, ac- quainted Morita, proprietor of the Shimabara Theatre, and the chief actors, with their desire of effecting altera- tions both in the arrangements of the house and the character of the dramas exhibited, of avoiding all in- decency, and making propriety the end and aim of bringing on the boards such living historical pictures as might persuade to virtue and deter from vice, and of thus obtaining, on the one hand, the result of helping 62 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. towards tlie improvement of manners and morals, and on the other that of constituting this house the cliiel place of relaxation for nobles and distinguished men, as also for the Ministers of foreign countries — in a word, for the elite of society — results which might, to some degree, prove of service to the cause of orderly go'vern- ment, and form one feature in the advance of society along the path of civilisation. Morita and the actors have, in consequence, spared no effort; and not only the arrangement of the house and the tendency of the dramas, but even the behaviour and the manners of the performers have been subjected to reform, so as to lead them to hope for the patronage of the elite of societ}'. Now has arrived the day when the theatre stands com- pleted. They solemnly inaugurate it with a ceremonial based on that observed at the inauguration of banks and similiar useful institutions; they have invited the mditary band to discourse music ; they have requested the honour of the presence of all the elite of society, of the Governor, of the greater, middle, and lesser Inspectors of Police, of the higher officials, of the nobility, of the chief merchants, and of the Ministers of foreign countries, and what they expect from the auspices of so brilliant an inauguration is the commence- ment of the era of theatrical reform.” After this the favourite actor followed with another in the same strain, on behalf of himself and Ins brethren. Although one’s sense of the ludicrous must be excited by the aping of European costume, yet Morita’s ad- dress has a special interest and importance as an additional evidence of the desire for ref orm from ivithin, and as being altogether in sympathy with the great Japanese movement in the direction of western civilisa- tion. His attempt to puri^" the stage is in harmony with the action of the Government in prohibiting the COMIC PASTORAL. 63 sale of pictures and figures of an immoral tendency, in suppressing many immoral exhibitions, in enforcing the wearing of clothing out of doors in the cities, in pro- hibiting promiscuous bathing in the public bath-houses, and in many other ways providing for the impro’vement, at least in externals, of the public morals. After an interval, during which tea and champagne were provided in the galleries, and much feasting went on in the pit, the curtain rose upon the No stage and its performers. Mr. Chamberlain, the scholarly author of the paper on this performance, in the CornTiill Magazine for October ld76, tried to rouse me to some enthusiasm about this ancient lyric drama ; but in spite of his ex- planations, the splendour of the dresses, and the antique dignity of the actors, I found it most tedious, and the strumming, squalling, mewing, and stamping by wliich the traditional posturings are accompanied, are to a stranger absolutely exasperating. This was followed by a short play, the scene of which was laid in the Old Palace in Kiybto, and concluded with a comic pastoral, in which troops of actors and “ actresses ” danced and frolicked down the “ flower paths,” waving branches of blossoming cherry. The costumes in the Nd were gor- geous, some of them probably several centuries old, and the di'esses in the pastoral were exquisitely beautiful, The latter was indeed a lovely spectacle. I. L. B. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. G4 WORSHIP. Kwau non Temple — Uniformity of Temple Architecture — A Kura- ma Expedition — A Perpetual Festival — The Ni-6 — The Limbo of Vanity — Heathen Prayers — Binzum — The Fox-God — A Group of Devils — Floral Monstrosities — Japanese Womankind - New Japan — An EUgante. H.B.M.’s Legation, Yedo, June 9. Once for all I will describe a Buddhist temple, and it shall be the popular temple of Asakusa, which keeps fair and festival the whole year round, and is dedicated to the “ thousand-armed ” Kwan-non, the goddess of mercy Writing generally, it may be said that in de- sign, roof, and general aspect, Japanese Buddhist temples are all alike. The sacred architectural idea expresses itself in nearly the same form always. There is the single or double roofed gateway, with highly coloured figures in niches on either side ; the paved temple-court, with more or fewer stone or bronze lanterns ; amainu^ or heavenly dogs, in stone on stone pedestals; stone ' Kuhan-on, pronounced Kwan-non, the goddess of mercy, the most ^Kipular Divinity of the Japanese Pantheon, is imported from China, where she is known as Kwanyin. The following note and legend of her origin havs been given to me by Mr. F. V. Dickens. “ Probably Kwanyin was found as a principal goddess among the Chinese by the Buddhist missionaries on their arrival from India, and by them was made out to be their own deity Avalokiteswara, who is male, and head of the church. Her name mean.s the onlooker, the hearer of prayers, or rather, of the sound of prayers. The Chinese say she was a daughter of Chong Wang (n.c. 696), and was put into a convent and ordered to be executed because she refused to marry in accordance with her father’s wishes The executioner's sword broke, and in consequencn A POPULAR TEMPLE. 65 sarcophagi, roofed over or not, for holy water ; a flight of steps ; a portico, continued as a verandah all round the temple ; a roof of tremendously disproportionate size and weight, with a peculiar curve ; a square or oblong hall divided by a railing from a “ chancel ” with a high and low altar, and a shrine containing Buddha, or the divinity to whom the chapel is dedicated; an in- cense-burner, and a few ecclesiastical ornaments. The symbols, idols, and adornments, depend upon the sect to which the temple belongs, or the wealth of its vota- ries, or the fancy of the priests. Some temples are packed full of gods, shrines, banners, bronzes, brasses, tablets, and ornaments, and others, like those of the Monto sect, are so severely simple, that with scarcely an alteration they might be used for Christian worship to-morrow. The foundations consist of square stones on which the uprights rest. These are of elm, and are united at intervals by longitudinal pieces. The great size and enormous weight of the roofs arises from the trusses being formed of one heavy frame bemg built upon an- other in diminishing squares till the top is reached, the main beams being formed of very large timbers put on in their natural state. They are either very heavily and ornamentally tiled, or covered with sheet copper orna- mented with gold, or thatched to a depth of from one she was stifled. She went to hell, but hell immediately turned into paradise ; and Tama, its king, disgusted with the change, sent her hack to life on a lotus flower. Then her father fell sick, and she cured him by cutting off the flesh of her arms, and feeding him with it. A statue was ordered to he erected to her with eyes and arms complete, hut hy a misunderstanding of the word ch’uen (complete) for Ts’ien, a thousand, it was provided with a thousand arms and eyes.” The “thousand- armed Kwan-non ” came to Japan with the Buddhist propagandists, and her cultus is one of the most popular in the Empire. The temple of Sanjiusangendo at Kiyoto contains (it is said) 33,000 representations of this divinity, a thousand of which are larger than life. It is one of the most impressive sights in Japan, 6d UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. to three feet, with fine shingles or bark. The casing ol the walls on the outside is usually thick elm planking either lacquered or unpainted, and that of the inside is of thin, finely planed and bevelled planking of the beau- tiful wood of the Retinospora obtusa. The lin ing of the roof is in flat panels, and where it is supported by pil- lars, they are invariably circular, and formed of the straight, finely grained stem of the Retinospora obtusa. The projecting ends of the roof beams under the eaves are <;ither elaborately carved, lacquered in dull red, or covered with copper, as are the joints of the beams. Very few nails are used, the timbers being very beauti- fully joined by mortices and dovetails, other methods of junction being unknown. Mr. Chamberlain and I went in a kuruma hurried along by three liveried coolies, through the three miles of crowded streets which lie between the Legation and Asakusa, once a village, but now incorporated with this monster city, to the broad street leading to the Adzuma Bridge over the Sumida river, one of the few stone bridges in TokiyS, which connects east Tokiyo, an un interesting region, containing many canals, storehouses, timber-yards, and inferior pashikis, with the rest of the city. This street, marvellously thronged with pedes- trians and kurumas, is the terminus of a number of city “ stage lines,” and twenty wretched-looking covered waggons, with still more wretched ponies, were drawn up in the middle, waiting for passengers. Just thert plenty of real Tokiyo life is to be seen, for near a shriiu. of popular pilgrimage there are always numerous places of amusement, innocent and vicious, and the vicin- ity, of this temple is full of restaurants, tea-houses, minor theatres, and the resorts of dancing and singing girls. A broad pavmd avenue, only open to fo Dt-passengers, A PERPETUAL FAIR. 67 leads from this street to the grand entrance, a colcissal two-storied double-roofed 7non or gate, painted a rich dull red. On either side of this avenue are lines of booths, which make a brilliant and lavish display of their contents, toy-shops, shops for smoking apparatus, and shops for the sale of ornamental hair-pins predom- inating. Nearer the gate are booths for the sale of rosaries for prayer, sleeve and bosom idols of brass and wood in small shrines, amulet bags, representations of the jolly-looking Daikoku, the god of wealth, the most popular of the household gods of Japan, shrines, me- morial tablets, cheap ex votos, sacred bells, candlesticks, and incense-burners, and all the endless and various articles connected with Buddhist devotion, public and private. Every day is a festival-day at Asakusa ; the temple is dedicated to the most popular of the great divinities ; it is the most popular of religious resorts ; and whether he be Buddhist, Shint6ist, or Christian, no stranger comes to the capital without making a visit to its crowded courts, or a purchase at its tempting booths. Not to be an exception, I invested in bouquets of fire- work flowers, 50 flowers for 2 sen, or Id., each of which, as it slowly consumes, throws off fiery coruscations, shaped like the most beautiful of snow crystals. I was also tempted by small boxes at 2 sen each, containing what look like little slips of withered pith, but which, on being dropped into water, expand into trees and flowers. Down a paved passage on the right there is an arti ficial river, not over clean, with a bridge formed of one curved stone, from which a flight of steps leads up to a small temple with a magnificent bronze bell. At the entrance several women were praying. In the same direction are two fine bronze Buddhas, seated figures, one with clasped hands, the other holding a lotus, both 68 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. with “ The light of the world ” upon their broAvs. The grand red gateway into the actual temple courts has an extremely imposing elfect, and besides it is the portal to the first great heathen temple that I have seen, and it made me think of another temple whose courts were equally crowded with buyers and sellers, and of a “whip of small cords ” in the hand of One who claimed both the temple and its courts as His “ Father’s House." Not with less righteous wrath would the gentle founder of Buddhism purify the unsanctified courts of Asakusa. Hundreds of men, women, and children passed to and fro through the gateway in incessant streams, and so they are passing through every daylight hour of every day in the year, thousands becoming tens of thousands on the great matsuri days, when the mikoshi or sacred car, containing certain symbols of the god, is exhibited, and after sacred mimes and dances have been performed, is carried in a magnificent, antique procession to the shore and back again. Under the gateway on either side are the Ni-d or two kings, gigantic figures in flow- ing robes, one red and with an open mouth, represent- ing the Yo, or male principle of Chinese philosophy, the other green, and with the mouth firmly closed, repre- senting the In, or female principle. They are hideous creatures, with protruding eyes, and faces and figyrres distorted and corrupted into a high degree of exagger- ated and convulsive action. These figures guard the gates of most of the larger temples, and small prints of them are pasted over the doors of houses to protect them against burglars. Attached to the grating in front were a number of straw sandals, hung up by people who pray that their limbs may be as muscular as those of the A7-0. Passing through this gate we were in the temple coimt proper, and in front of the temple itself, a building of PERPETUAL MOTION. 69 imposing height and size, of a dull red colour, with a grand roof of heavy iron grey tiles, with a sweeping curve which gives grace as well as grandeur. The tim- bers and supports are solid, and of great size, but in common with all Japanese temples, whether Buddhist or ShintS, the edifice is entirely of wood. A broad flight of narrow, steep, brass-bound steps lead up to the porch, which is formed by a number of circular pillars supporting a very lofty roof, from which paper lanterns ten feet long are hanging. A gallery runs from this round the temple, under cover of the eaves. There is an outer temple, un-matted, and an inner one behind a grating, into which those who choose to pay for the privilege of praying in comparative privacy, or of hav- ing prayers said for them by the priests, can pass. In the outer temple, the noise, confusion, and perpet- ual motion, are bewildering. Crowds on clattering clogs pass in and out, pigeons, of which hundreds live in the porch, fly over your head, and the whirring of their wings mingles with the tinkling of bells, the beat- ing of drums and gongs, the high-pitched drone of the priests, the low murmur of prayers, the rippling laugh- ter of girls, the harsh voices of men, and the general buzz of a multitude. There is very much that is highly grotesque at first sight. M^n squat on the floor selling amulets, rosaries, printed prayers, incense sticks, and other wares. Ex votos of all kinds hang on the wall and on the great round pillars. Many of these are rude Japanese pictures. The subject of one is the blowing- up of a steamer in the Sumidagawa with the loss of 100 lives, when the donor was saved by the grace of Kwan- non.^ Numbers of memorials are from people who 1 In a native Guide to Yedo, the date of this Temple of Sensoji is attributed to the thirteenth century, and its origin to a noble who fell into disgrace at Court, and having become a Ronin, or masterless man, fell into such straits that he became a fisherman. One day he went U 70 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. offered up prayers liere, and liave been restored to liealtli or wealth. Others are from junk men whose lives have been in peril. There are scores of men’s qiieues and a few dusty braids of women’s hair offered on account of vows or prayers, usually for sick relatives, and among them all, on the left hand, are a large mirror in a gaudily gilt frame, and a framed picture of the P. M. S. China ! Above this incongruous collection are splendid wood carvings, and frescoes of angels, among which the pigeons find a home free from molestation. Near the entrance there is a superb incense burner in the most massive style of the older bronzes, ’\vith a mythical beast rampant upon it, and in high relief round it the Japanese signs of the zodiac, the rat, os, tiger, rabbit, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey, cock, dog, and hog. Clouds of incense rise continually from the perforations round the edge, and a black-toothed woman who keeps it burning is perpetually receiving small coins from the worshippers, who then pass on to the front of the altar to pray. The high altar, and indeed all that I should regard as proj^erly the temple are pro- tected by a screen of coarsely netted iron wire. This holy of holies is full of shrines and gods, gigantic candlesticks, colossal lotuses of gilded silver, offerings^ lamps, lacquer, litany books, gongs, drums, bells, and all the mysterious symbols of a faith which is a system of morals and metaphysics to the educated and initiated, and an idolatrous superstition to the masses. In this interior the light was dim, the lamps burned low, the atmosphere Avas hea^y with incense, and amidst its fumes shaven priests in chasubles and stoles moved noiselessly the Sumida to fish, but at every cast of the net brought up only a small figure of the goddess Kwan-non. To whatever spot he sculled, the same luck pursued him, so carrving home the image he enshrined it, and the endowments of subsequent devotees raised its buildings to the dignity of being the first temple in Teddo. PRAYERS AND PELLETS. n over the soft matting round the high altar on wliich Kwan-non is enshrined, lighting candles, striking bells, and murmuring prayers. In front of the screen is the treasury, a wooden chest 14 feet by 10, with a deep slit, into which all the worshippers cast copper coins with a ceaseless clinking sound. There too they pray, if that can be called prayer which frequently consists only in the repetition of an uncomprehended phrase in a foreign tongue, bowing the head, raising the hands and rubbing them, murmur- ing a few words, telling beads, clapping the hands, bow- ing again, and then passing out, or on to another shrine to repeat the same form. Merchants in silk clotliing, soldiers in shabby French uniforms, farmers, coolies in “ vile raiment,” mothers, maidens, swells in European clothes, even the samurai policemen, bow before the goddess of mercy. Most of the prayers were offered rapidly, a mere momentary interlude in the gurgle of careless talk, and without a pretence of reverence ; but some of the petitioners obviously brought real woes in simple “ faith.” I specially noticed two men in stylish European clothes, who prostrated themselves over and over again, and remained before the altar several minutes, offering low- voiced prayers, with closed eyes, and every sign of genuine earnestness, and several women in obvious distress, probably about sick persons, who offered their prayers with a pleading agony, no less real than that which ascends to our Father in heaven from anguished hearts in England. In one shrine there is a large idol, spotted all over with pellets of paper, and hundreds of these are stick- ing to the wire netting which protects him. A worship- per writes his petition on paper, or better still, has it written for him by the priest, chews it to a pulp, and spits it at the divinity. If, having been well aimed, «1 72 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. passes through the wire and sticks, it is a good omen, ii it lodges in the netting the prayer has probably been unheard. The M-o, and some of the gods outside the temple are similarly disfigured. On the left there is a shrine with a screen, to the bars of which innumerable prayers have been tied. On the right, accessible to all, sits Binzuru, one of Buddha’s original sixteen disciples. His face and appearance have been calm and amiable, with something of the quiet dignity of an elderly country gentleman of the reign of George III., but he is now worn and defaced, and has not much more of eyes, nose, and mouth, than the Sphinx, and the polished, red lacquer has disappeared from his hands and feet, for Binzuru is a great medicine god, and centuries of sick people have rubbed his face and limbs, and then have rubbed their own. A young woman went up to him, rubbed the back of his neck, and then rubbed her own. Then a modest-looldng girl, leading an ancient woman with badly inflamed eyelids and paralysed arms, rubbed his eyelids, and then gently stroked the closed eyelids of the crone. Then a coolie, with a swelled knee, applied himself vigorously to Binzuru’s knee, and more gently to his own. Remember, this is the great temple of the populace, and “ not many rich, not many noble, not many mighty,” enter its dim, dirty, crowded halls.^ But the great temple to Kwan-non is not the only sight of Asakusa. Outside it are countless shrines and temples, huge stone Amainu, or heavenlj^ dogs, on rude blocks of stone, large cisterns of stone and bronze with and without canopies, containing water for the ablu- tions of the worshippers, cast iron Amainu on hewn 1 I visited this temple alone many times afterwards, and each visit deepened the interest of my first impressions. There is always enough of change and novelty to prevent the interest from flagging, and the mild but profoundly superstitions form of heathenism which prevails it Japan is nowhere better represented. PRAYERS AND PELLETS. 73 stone pedestals — a recent gift — bronze and stone lanterns, a stone prayer-wheel in a stone post, figures ol Buddha with the serene countenance of one who rests from his labours, stone idols, on which devotees have pasted slips of paper inscribed with prayers, with sticks of incense rising out of the ashes of hundreds of former sticks smouldering before them, blocks of hewn stone with Cliinese and Sanskrit inscriptions, an eight-sided temple in which are figures of the “ Five Hundred Die ciples ” of Buddha, a temple with the roof and upper part of the walls richly coloured, the circular Shint3 mirror in an inner shi-ine, a bronze treasury outside with a bell which is rung to attract the god’s attention, a striking five-storied pagoda, with much red lacquer, and the ends of the roof-beams very boldly carved, its heavy eaves fringed with wind bells, and its uppermost rooi 74 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. termiDatiug in a graceful copper spiral of great height, with the “sacred pearl” surrounded by flames for its finial. Near it, as near most temples, is an upright frame of plain wood with tablets, on wliich are inscribed the names of donors to the temple, and the amount of their gifts. Among the many shrines is an Inari or Fox temple, fox-worship being one of the most universal supersti- tions in Japan. The foxes, however, are only the ser- vants of a mythical personage named Uga, to whom is ascribed the honour of the discovery and cultivation of the rice plant. Popularly, however, the honours due to Inari Sama (the name under which Uga was deified) are paid to his servants. Before two gilded foxes in this shrine there was a tray on which smaU bowls of rice and foxes moulded in sugar were placed as offer- ings. Shinto goliei, strips of paper cut and folded in a special fashion, and usually attached to a white wand, and supposed to represent the ShintO hami, or gods, who are simply deified heroes, were in the same temple, and there were Shinto torii in wood and stone near the entrance. There is a handsome stone-floored temple to the south east of the juain building, to which we were the sole visitors. It is lofty and very richly decorated. In the centre is an octagonal revolving room, or rather shrine of rich red lacquer most gorgeously ornamented. It rests on a frame of carved black lacquer, and has a lacquer gallery running round it, on wliich several richly decorated doors open. On the application of several shoulders to this gallery the shrine rotates. It is in fact a revolving library of the Buddhist Scriptirres, and a single turn is equivalent to a single pious perusal of them. It is an exceedingly beautiful specimen ol ancient decorative lacquer work. At the back part ARCHERY GALLERIES. of the temple is a draped brass figure of Buddha, with one hand raised — a dignified piece of casting. All the Buddhas have Hindoo features, and the graceful drapery and Oriental repose which have been imported from India contrast singularly with the grotesque ex- travagances of the indigenous Japanese conceptions. In the same temple are four monstrously extravagant figures carved in wood, life size, with clawed toes on their feet, and two great fangs in addition to the teeth in each mouth. The heads of all are surrounded with flames, and are backed by golden circlets. They are extravagantly clothed, in garments which look as if they were agitated by a violent wind ; they wear hel- mets and partial suits of armour, and hold in their right hands something between a monarch’s sceptre and a priest’s staff. They have goggle eyes and open mouths, and their faces are in distorted and exaggerated action. One, painted bright red, tramples on a writhing devil painted bright pink, another, painted emerald green, tramples on a sea-green devil, an indigo blue monster tramples on a sky-blue fiend, and a bright pink monster treads under his clawed feet a flesh-coloured demon. I cannot give you any idea of the hideousness of their aspect, and was much inclined to sympathise with the more innocent-looking fiends whom they were maltreat- ing. They occur very frequently in Buddhist temples, and are said by some to be assistant torturers to Yem- ma, the lord of hell, and are called by others “ The gods of the Four Quarters.” The temple grounds are a most extraordinary sight. No English fair in the palmiest days of fairs ever pre- sented such an array of attractions. Behind the temple are archery galleries in numbers, where girls, hardly so modest-looking as usual, smile and smirk, and bring straw-coloured tea in dainty cups, and tasteless sweet 76 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. meats on lacquer trays, and smoke their tiny pipes, and offer you bows of slender bamboo strips, two feet long, with rests for the arrows, and tiny cherry-wood arrows, bone-tipped, and feathered red, blue, and white, and smilingly, but quite unobtrusively, ask you to try your skill or luck at a target hanging in front of a square drum, flanked by red cushions. A click, a boom, or a hardly audible “thud” indicate the result. Nearly all the archers were grown-up men, and many of them spend hours at a time in this childish sport. All over the grounds booths with the usual charcoal fire, copper boiler, iron kettle of curious workmanship, tiny cups, fragrant aroma of tea, and winsome, graceful girls, invite you to drink and rest, and more solid but less inviting refreshments are also to be had. Rows of pretty paper lanterns decorate all the stalls. Then there are photograph galleries, mimic tea-gardens, tableaux in which a large number of groups of life-size figures with appropriate scenery are put into motion by a creaking wheel of great size, matted lounges for rest, stands with saucers of rice, beans and peas for offerings to the gods, the pigeons, and the two sacred horses. Albino ponies, with pink eyes and noses, revoltingly greedy creatures, eating all day long and still craving for more. There are booths for singing and dancing, and under one a professional story-teller was reciting to a densely packed crowd one of the old, popular stories of crime. There are booths where for a few rin you may have the pleas- ure of feeding some very ugly and greedy apes, or of watching mangy monkeys which have been taught to prostrate themselves Japanese fashion. One of the greatest sights is a collection of tableaux, life-size figures, the work of one artist who, after visiting the thirty-three great temples of the goddess of mercy, w,as so impressed by her power and goodness that he JAPANESE FLORICULTURE. 77 created thirty-five groups, in order to show his country- men the benefits of her cultus. I'hese figures are won- dei’fully true to life, and wear real garments. In most of the tableaux the goddess is represented as a lovely and gentle woman — a Madonna, but with divine power. Mr. Griffis, in The Mikado's Empire, gives an interesting account of each. The two most curious, as representing two articles of the Buddhist faith — future punishment and metempsychosis — are tableaux of a hungry robber appropriating the temple offerings, with a painting near him showing his coming destiny, in which there are devils and a red-hot cart with axles of fire, and one of a man suffering from violent headache, who is directed by Kwan-non to the spot where the buried skull which belonged to him in a former state of existence is being split open by the root of a tree which is growing through the eye-socket. On removing the root the pain ceases ! The catalogue of sights is only half exhausted. Besides the regular sights, there are gardens to the left of the temple, in which dwarf azaleas are still blooming, and which display to thousands of admirers the great floral sights of Japan in their turn, camellias in January, plum-blossoms in early March, cherry-blossoms in April, the sacred lotus in July, and chrysanthemums in No- vember. The Japanese are passionately fond of certain flowers, and the “cherry viewing,” the “iris and peony viewing,” the “lotus viewing,” and the “maple view- ing,” are excursions which are part of the annual rou- tine of Japanese life. The badges of many of the most celebrated families are floral. The Imperial or public badge of the Mikado is an open chrysanthemum with sixteen petals ; his palace, or private badge represents blossoms and leaves of Paulownia Imperialis, and the celebrated badge of the ShQguns of the Tokugawa dy- nasty is three leaves of a species of mallow, united at 78 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tlieir tips. But in the Asakusa gardens at this seasoii it is less the natural than the artificial beauties which attract. Much of the “highest art” in Japanese gar- dening consists in distorting, deforming, dwarfing, ex- aggerating, and thwarting nature. The borders are clipped tea-plants, shrubs and trees are carefully trained and clipped into the likeness of umbrellas, boats, houses, men with foreign hats, tortoises, storks, and cats, and the beloved form of Fuji is represented several times. It is curious that the gardeners choose the most rigid and intractable of pines, the Pinus massoniana or Pinus parvifiora for their most difficult experiments, and that the same pines are subject to operations for the production of dwarfishness and deformity in almost every garden in Japan. There are guilds of florists, the occupation is hereditary, and different families pos- sess hereditar}^ skill in the different deformities which are produced. Carefidly dwarfed trees of various kinds, strange variegation of leaves and flowers, pains- taking exaggerations of calyx, corolla, or pistil, and careful development and perpetuation of sundry strange freaks of nature, make these gardens no less than the grand forest trees left to their own ways, both in them and the temple courts, very interesting to a new comer. But here, as everywhere, people interested me more than things. Their devout but more frequently irrev- erent worship, their gross and puerile superstitions, the total absence of beggars and disorderly characters, the childish amusements of men and women, the formal dress and gravity of children, the singular mixture of religion and amusement, the extreme but not disrespect- ful curiosity with which foreigners are still regarded, the absence of groups in which father, mother, and children, enjoy themselves together, yet the perfect free- dom with which women move among men, the attention WESTERN INNOVATIONS. 79 paid to children by parents of both sexes, the dinainutive size of the people, the exposed but modest faces of the women, tlie clean and well-dressed appearance of all, their extreme quietness, the courtesy and good order preserved by the thousands who thronged the temple and its grounds during the afternoon, and the fact that not a single policeman was present, made a deep im- pression upon me. Though the women, especially the girls, are modest, gentle, and pleasing-looking, I saw nothing like even passable good looks. The noses are flat, the lips thick, and the eyes of the sloping Mongolian type ; and the common custom of shaving off the eyebrows and black- ening the teeth (though less common in TOkiyd than formerly), together with an obvious lack of soul, give nearly all faces an inane, vacant expression. The nar- row, scanty dresses enable one to judge of the fhynque., and physically they look below par, as if the race were wearing out. Their shoulders are round and very falling, their chests and hips narrow, their hands and feet very small, their stature from four feet eight inches to five feet one inch. They look as if a girl passed from girlhood to middle age almost at once when weighted with the cares of maternity. The chil- dren look too big and heavy to be carried pick-a-back by their little mothers, and they too look deficient in robust vitality, and dwindle as they grow up. The men don’t look much better. They are usually from five feet to five feet five inches, and their physique is wretched, leanness without muscle being the general rule. They impress me as the ugliest and the most pleasing people I have ever seen, as well as the neat- est and most ingenious. I’his letter is far too long, but to pass over Asakusa and its novelties when the impression of them is fresli 80 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. would be to omit one of the most interesting sights in J apan. On the way back we passed red mail-carts like those in London, a squadron of cavalry in -European uniforms and with European saddles, and the carriage of the Minister of Marine, an English brougham with a pair of horses in English harness, and an escort of sis troopers — a painful precaution adopted since the polit- ical assassination of Okubo, the Home Minister, three weeks ago. So the old and the new in this great city contrast with and jostle each other. The Mikado and his ministers, naval and military officers and men, the whole of the civil officials and the police, wear European clothes, as well as a number of dissipated-looking young men who aspire to represent “young Japan.” Car- riages, and houses in English style, with carpets, chairs, and tables, are becoming increasingly numerous, and the bad taste which regulates the purchase of foreign furnishings is as marked as the good taste which every- where presides over the adornment of the houses in purely Japanese style. Happily these expensive and unbecoming innovations have scarcely affected female dress, and some ladies who adopted our fashions have given them up because of their discomfort and manifold difficulties and complications. The Empress on State occasions appears in scarlet satin halcama, and flowing robes, and she and the Court ladies mvariably wear the national costume. I have only seen two ladies in European dress ; and this was at a dinner party here, and they were the wives of Mr. Mori the go-ahead Vice-Minister for Foreign affairs, and of the Japanese Consul at Hong Kong; and both by long residence abroad have learned to wear it with ease. The wife of Saigo the Minister of Education called one day in an exquisite Japanese dress of dove-coloured silk cripe., with a pale pink underdress of the same material, AN IJLSGANTE. 81 which showed a little at the neck and sleeves. Her girdle was of rich dove-coloured silk, with a ghost of a pale pink blossom hovering upon it here and there. She had no frills or fripperies of any description, or orna- ments except a single pin in her chignon, and with a sweet and charming face she looked as graceful and dignified in her Japanese costume as she would have looked exactly the reverse in ours. Their costume has one striking advantage over ours. A woman is perfect- ly clothed if she has one garment and a girdle on, and perfectly dressed if she has two. There is a difference in features and expression, much exaggerated, however, by Japanese artists, between the faces of high-born women and those of the middle and lower classes. I decline to admire fat faces, pug noses, thick lips, long eyes, turned up at the outer corners, and complexions which owe much to powder and paint. The habit of painting the lips with a reddish-yellow pigment, and of heavily powdering the face and throat with pearl pow- der, is a repulsive one. But it is hard to pronounce any unfavourable criticism on women who have so much kindly grace of manner. I. L. B. 82 UNBEATEN TBACEH IN JAPAN. THE JOURNEY BEGUN. Fears — Travelling Equipments — Passports — Coolie Costume ~ A Yedo Diorama — Eice Culture — Tea Houses — A Traveller’s Re- ception — The Inn at Kasukab6 — Lack of Privacy — A Concourse of Noises — A Nocturnal Alarm — A Vision of Policemen — A Budget from Yedo. KAstJKAB^, June 10. From the date you will see that I have started on my long journey, though not upon the “ unbeaten tracks ” which I hope to take after leaving NikkS, and my first evening alone in the midst of this crowded Asian life is strange, almost fearful. I have suffered from nervous- ness all day — the fear of being frightened, of being rudely mobbed as threatened by l\Ir. Campbell of Islay, of giving offence by transgressing the rules of Japanese politeness — of, I know not what I Ito is my sole reh- ance, and he may prove a “broken reed.” I often wished to give up my project, but was ashamed of my cowardice when, on the best authority, I received assur- ances of its safety.^ The preparations were finished yesterday, and my outfit weighed 110 lbs., wliich, with Tto’s weight of 90 lbs., is as much as can be carried by an average Japan- ese horse. jMy two painted wicker-boxes lined with paper and with waterproof covers are convenient for the two sides of a pack-horse. 1 have a folding-chair — ' The list of my equipments is given as a help to future travellers, especially ladies, who desire to travel long distances in the interior of Japan. One wicker basket is enough, as I afterwards found. TRAVELLING EQUIPMENTS. 83 for in a Japanese house there is nothing but the floor to sit upon, and not even a solid wall to lean against — an air-pillow for kuruma travelling, an india-rubber bath, sheets, a blanket, and last, and more important than all else, a canvas stretcher on light poles, which can be pul together in two minutes ; and being 2^ feet high is sup- posed to be secure from fleas. The “Food Question’" has been solved by a modified rejection of all advicic ! I have only brought a small supply of Liebig’s extract of meat, 4 lbs. of raisins, some chocolate, both for eat- ing and drinking, and some brandy in case of need. I have my own Mexican saddle and bridle, a reasonable quantity of clothes, including a loose wrapper for wear- ing in the evening, some candles, Mr. Bruhton’s large map of Japan, volumes of the Transactions of the Eng- lish Asiatic Society, and Mr. Satow’s Anglo- Japanese Dictionary. My travelling dress is a short costume of dust-coloured striped tweed, with strong laced boots of unblacked leather, and a Japanese hat, shaped like a large inverted bowl, of light bamboo plait, with a white cotton cover, and a very light frame inside, which fits round the brow and leaves a space of I 2 inch between the hat and the head for the free circulation of air. It only weighs 2^ ounces, and is infinitely to be preferred to a heavy pith helmet, anfi, light as it is, it protects the head so thoroughly, that though the sun has been un- clouded all day and the mercury at 86°, no other pro- tection has been necessary. My money is in bundles of 50 yen., and 50, 20, and 10 sen notes, besides which I have some rouleaux of copper coins. I have a bag for my passport, which hangs to my waist. All my lug- gage, with the exception of my saddle, which I use for a footstool, goes into one kuruma, and Ito, who is lim- ited to 12 lbs., takes his along with him. I have three kurumas, which are to go to Nikk8 84 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ninety miles, in three clays, without change of ronners, for about eleven shillings each. Passports usually define the route over which the foreigner is to travel, but in this case Sir H. Parkes has obtained one which is practically unrestricted, for it permits me to travel through all Japan north of Tokiyo and in Yezo without specifying any route. This pre- cious document, without winch I should be liable to be arrested and forwarded to my consid, is of course in Japanese, but the cover gives in English the regulations under which it is issued. A passport must be applied for, for reasons of “ health, botanical research, or scien- tific investigation.” Its bearer must not light fires in woods, attend fires on horseback, trespass on fields, en- closures, or game-preserves, scribble on temples, shrines, or walls, drive fast on a narrow road, or disregard notices of “No thoroughfare.” He must “conduct himself in an orderly and conciliating manner towards the Japanese authorities and people ; ” he “ must pro- duce his passport to any officials who may demand it,” under pain of arrest; and while in the interior “is for- bidden to shoot, trade, to conclude mercantile contracts with Japanese, or to rent houses or rooms for a longer period than his journey requires.” NikkQ, June 13. — This is one of the paradises of Japan ! It is a proverbial saying, “ He Avho has not seen Nikk6 must not use the word kek’ko ” (splendid, delicious, beautiful) ; but of this more hereafter. Hy attempt to write to you from Kasukabd failed, owing to the onslaught of an army of fleas, which compelled me to retreat to my stretcher, and the last two nights, for this and other reasons, writing has been out of the question. I left the Legation at 11 A.M. on Monday and reached Kasukab4 at 6 PAr,, the runners keeping up an easy COOLIE COSTUME. 85 trot the whole journey of twenty- three miles ; but the halts for smoking and eating were frequent. These ^Mrwwia-runners wore short blue cotton draw- ers, girdles with tobacco pouch and pipe attached, short blue cotton shirts with wide sleeves, and open in front, reaching to their waists, and blue cotton handkerchiefs knotted round their heads, except when the sun was A KtTBUlklA. very hot, when they took the flat, flag discs two feet in diameter, which always hang behind ktmimas, and are used either in sun or rain, and tied them on their heads. They wore straw sandals, which had to be replaced twice on the way. Blue and white towels hung from the shafts to wipe away the sweat, which ran profusely down the lean, brown bodies. The upper garment always flew behind them, displaying chests and backs 86 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. elaborately tattooed with dragons and fishes. Tattoo- ing has recently been prohibited ; but it was not only a favourite adornment, but a substitute for perishable clothing. Most of the men of the lower classes wear their hah in a very ugly fashion, — the front and top of the head being shaved, the long hair from the back and sides being drawn up and tied, then waxed, tied again, and cut short off, the stiff queue being brought forward and laid, pointing forwards, along the back part of the top of the head. This top-knot is shaped much like a short clay pipe. The shaving and dressing the hah thus re- quire the skill of a professional barber. Formerly the hair was worn in this way by the samurai, in order that the helmet might fit comfortably, but it is now the style of the lower classes mostlj^ and by no means invariably. Blithely, at a merry trot, the coolies hurried us away from the kindly group in the Legation porch, across the inner moat and along the inner drive of the castle, past gateways and retaining walls of C3mlopean ma- sonry, across the second moat, along miles of streets of sheds and shops, all grey, thronged with foot-passengers and kurumas, with packliorses loaded two or three feet above their backs, the arches of their saddles red and gilded lacquer, their frontlets of red leather, their “ shoes ” straw sandals, their heads tied tightly to the saddle-girth on either side, great white cloths figured with mythical beasts in blue hanging down loosely under their bodies ; with coolies di-agging heavy loads to the guttural cry of Hai ! huida ! with children whose heads were shaved in liideous patterns; and now and then, as if to point a moral lesson in the midst ol the whirling diorama, a funeral passed through the throng, with a priest in rich robes, mmnbling praj'ers, a covered barrel containing the corpse, and EICE CULTURE. 87 a train of mourners in blue dresses with white wings. Then we came to the fringe of Yedo, where the houses cease to be continuous, but all that day there was little interval between them. All had open fronts, so that the occupations of the inmates, the “ domestic life ” in fact, were perfectly visible. Many of these houses were road-side chayas, or tea-houses, and nearly all sold sweetmeats, dried fish, pickles, moclii^ or uncooked cakes of rice dough, dried persimmons, rain hats, or straw shoes for man or beast. The road, though wide enough for two carriages (of which we saw none), was not good, and the ditches on both sides were frequently neither clean nor sweet. Must I write it? The houses were mean, poor, shabby, often even squalid, the smells were bad, and the people looked ugly, shabby, and poor, though all were worldng at something or other. The country is a dead level, and mainly an artificial mud fiat or swamp, in whose fertile ooze various aquatic birds were wading, and in which hundreds of men and women were wading too, above their knees in slush; for this plain of Yedo is mainly a great rice- field, and this is the busy season of rice-planting ; for here, in the sense in which we understand it, they do not “cast their bread upon the waters.” There are eight or nine leading varieties of rice grown in Japan, all of which, except an upland species, require mud, water, and much puddling and nasty work. Rice is the staple food and the wealth of Japan. Its revenues were estimated in rice. Rice is grown almost wher- ever irrigation is possible. The grain, after being soaked till it is on the verge of sprouting, is sown thickly in small patches, which are flooded every night to a depth of' two or three Inches, and dried off during the day. When the seed- lings are well up, fish manure or refuse oil is put ovei 88 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. them to force them on, and in about fifty days, when the patch is covered with plants about three inches high, whose brilliant green gladdens the eye just now all about Yokohama, the people take them up in bun- dles of three or four, and plant them in tufts, in lines, leaving a foot between each tuft as well as between each line. The planting, however, is by no means general yet, and I saw a great deal of a preliminary operation, in which a horse with a straw saddle, to which an instrument composed of several deep teeth is attached, travels up and down iu the slush, followed by a man who guides him, not by reins, but by a long bamboo attached to the side of his nose. This process tears up the old rice roots, disintegrates the soil, and mixes up the manure with it ; for the rice-fields are very heavily manured — as are all Japanese crops — with everything which is supposed to possess fertilising qualities. Where this ploughing was over, a thick bubbly scum lay on the black water, giving off the smell of a “ pestilent fen ” under the hot sun. Rice is commonly planted in fields formed by terra- cing sloping ground, in which case irrigation is easily obtained ; but on this level plain, water is laboriously raised from the main canals into narrow ditches at a higher level, by means of a portable and very ingenious '‘treadmill” pump, which is made to revolve in a sci- entifically constructed trough, by a man who perpet- ually ascends its floats. It somewhat resembles a pad- i'c wheel of eight feet in diameter. When irrigation is wanted at any particular spot, this contrivance is carried to the intersection of the higher with the lower ?^litch, and fixed there with bamboo uprights on each side, with a rail across to give support to the man who works it with his feet, just as the tread-wheel is worked in prison. When the pump is needed elsewhere it is RICE Culture. 89 only n 3cessary to remove it, and bank up the cutting in the dyke. As far as I could see across the slush, there were wheels at work, up which copper-skinned men, naked, except for the maro or loin-cloth, were industriously climbing. The rice-fields are usually very small and of all shapes. A quarter of an acre is a good-sized field. The rice-crop planted in June is not reaped till Novem- ber, but in the meantime it needs to be “ puddled ” three times, i.e. for all the people to turn into the slush, and grub out all the weeds and tangled aquatic plants, which weave themselves from tuft to tuft, and puddle up the mud afresh round the roots. It grows in water till it is ripe, when the fields are dried off. An acre of the best land produces annually about fifty-four bush- els of rice, and of the worst about thirty. On the plain of Yedo, besides the nearly continuous villages along the causewayed road, there are islands, as they may be called, of villages surrounded by trees, and hundreds of pleasant oases on which wheat ready for the sickle, onions, millet, beans, and peas, were flourishing. There were lotus ponds too in which the glorious lily, Nelumbo nucifera, is being grown for the sacrilegious purpose of being eaten ! Its splendid clas- sical leaves are already a foot above the water. A spe- cies of Sagittaria is also grown in water for food, but both it and the lotus are luxuries. There are neither hedges nor fences anywhere, but the peasant proprie- tors are well acquainted with their boundaries, and no land-gluttons have arisen yet to add “field to field.” Except that in some cases horses and oxen are used for ploughing the riee-fields, the whole cultivation is by hand, and not a weed is to be seen. Rows of the Paulownia Imperialism grown for the sake of the light- ness of its wood, which is used for making clogs, do not improve the somewhat m'^notonous landscape. 90 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. After running cheerily for several miles, my men bowled me into a tea-house, where they ate and smoked wliile I sat in the garden, wliich consisted of baked mud, smooth stepping stones, a little pond with some goldfish, a deformed pine, and a stone lantern. Ob- serve that foreigners are wrong in calling the Japanese houses of entertainment indiscriminately “ tea-houses.” A tea-house or cliaya is a house at which you can obtain tea and other refreshments, rooms to eat them in, and attendance. That which to some extent an- swers to an hotel is a yadoya., which provides sleeping accommodation and food as requii-ed. The licenses are different. Tea-houses are of all grades, from the three- storied erections, gay with flags and lanterns, in the great cities and at places of popular resort, down to the road-side tea-house, as represented in the engrav- ing, with three or four lounges of dark-coloured wood under its eaves, usually occupied by naked coolies in all attitudes of easiness and repose. The floor is raised about eighteen inches above the ground, and in these tea-houses is frequently a matted platform with a recess called the doma., literally “earth-space,” in the middle, round which runs a ledge of polished wood called the itama., or “board space,” on which travellers sit while they bathe their soiled feet with the water which is immediately brought to them; for neither with soiled feet nor in foreign shoes must one advance one step on the matted floor. On one side of the doma is the kitchen with its one or two charcoal fires, where the coolies lounge on the mats and take their food and smoke, and on the other the family pursue theii’ avoca- tions. In almost the smallest tea-house there are one or two rooms at the back, but all the life and interest are in the open front. In the small tea -houses there is only an frorf, a square hole in the floor, full of sand or ROADSIDE TEA-HOUSES. 91 white ash, on which the live charcoal for cookijig pur- poses is placed, and small racks for food and eating utensils ; but in the large ones there is a row of char- coal stoves, and the walls are garnished up to the roof with shelves, and the lacquer tables and lacquer and china ware used by the guests. The large tea-houses contain the possibilities for a number of rooms which ROAD-SIDE TEA-HOUSE. can be extemporised at once by sliding paper panels, called fusuma, along grooves in the floor and in the ceiling or cross-beams. When we stopped at wayside tea-houses the runners bathed their feet, rinsed their mouths, and ate rice, pickles, salt fish, and “broth of abominable things,” after which they smoked their tiny pipes, which give them three whiffs for each filling. As soon as I got out 92 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. at any of these, one smiling girl brought me the tahako- hov., a square wood or lacquer tray, with a china or bamboo charcoal-holder and ash-pot upon it, and another presented me with a zen, a small lacquer table about six inches high, with a tiny teapot with a hoUow handle at right angles with the spout, holding about an English tea-cupful, and two cups without handles or saucers, with a capacity of from ten to twenty thimblefuls each. The hot water is merely allowed to rest a minute on the tea-leaves, and the infusion is a clear straw-coloured liquid with a delicious aroma and flavour, grateful and refreshing at all times. If Japanese tea “ stands,” it acquires a coarse bitterness and an unwholesome astrin- gency. Milk and sugar are not used. A clean-looking wooden or lacquer pail with a lid is kept in all tea- houses, and though hot rice, except to order, is only ready three times daily, the pail always contains cold rice, and the coolies heat it by pouring hot tea over it. As you eat, a tea-house girl, with this pail beside her, squats on the floor in front of you, and fills your rice bowl till you say, “ Hold, enough ! ” On this road it is expected that you leave three or four sen on the tea-tray for a rest of an hour or two and tea. All day we travelled through rice-swamps, along a much-frequented road, as far as Kasukab^, a good-sized but miserable-looking town, with its main street like one of the pc orest streets in T6kiy6, and halted for the night at a lai'ge yadoya, with downstairs and upstairs rooms, crowds of travellers, and many evil smells. On enter- ing, the house-master or landlord, the teislii, folded his hands and prostrated himself, touching the floor vuth his forehead tlu-ee times. It is a large, rambling old house, and fully thirty servants were bustling about in the daidokoro, or great open kitchen. I took a room upstairs [i.e. up a steep step-ladder of dark, polished TRANSFORMATION SCENES. 93 wood], with a balcony under the deep eaves. The front of the house upstairs was one long room with only sides and a front, but it was immediately divided into four by drawing sliding screens or panels, covered with opaque wall papers, into their proper grooves. A back was also improvised, but this was formed of frames with panes of translucent paper, like our tissue paper, with sundry holes and rents. This being done, I found my- self the possessor of a room about sixteen feet square, without hook, shelf, rail, or anything on which to put anything, nothing in short but a matted floor. Do not be misled by the use of this word matting. Japanese house-mats, tatami., are as neat, refined, and soft a cover- ing for the floor as the finest Axminster carpet. They are 5 feet 9 inches long, 3 feet broad, and 2^ inches thick. The frame is solidly made of coarse straw, and this is covered with very fine woven matting, as nearly white as possible, and each mat is usually bound with dark blue cloth. Temples and rooms are measured by the number of mats they contain, and rooms must be built for the mats, as they are never cut to the rooms. They are always level with the polished grooves or ledges wlrich surround the floor. They are soft and elastic, and the finer qualities are very beautiful. They are as expensive as the best Brussels carpet, and the Japanese take great pride in them, and are much ag- grieved by the way in which some thoughtless foreign- ers stamp over them with dirty boots. Unfortunately they harbour myriads of fleas. Outside my room an open balcony with many similar rooms ran round a forlorn aggregate of dilapidated shingle roofs and water-butts. These rooms were all full. Ito asked me for instructions once for all, put up my stretcher under a large mosquito net of coarse green canvas with a fusty smell, filled my bath, brought me 94 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. some tea, rice, and eggs, took my passport to be copied b}" tbe house-master, and departed, I know not whither I tried to write to you, but fleas and mosquitoes pre- vented it, and besides, the fusuma were frequently noiselessly drawn apart, and several pairs of dark, elon- gated eyes surveyed me through the cracks; for there were two Japanese families in the room to the right, and Ove men in that to the left. I closed the sliding win- dows, with translucent paper for window panes, called sMji., and went to bed; but the lack of privacy was fearful, and I have not yet sufficient trust in my fellow- creatures to be comfortable Avithout locks, walls, or doors ! Eyes were constantlj^ applied to the sides of the room, a girl twice drew aside the shoji between it and the corridor, a man, who I afterwards found was a blind man, offering his services as a shampooer, came in and said some (of course) unintelligible words, and the new noises were perfectly bewildering. On one side a man recited Buddhist prayers in a high key ; on the other a girl was twanging a sa7nisen, a species of guitar ; the house was full of talking and splashing, drums and tom- toms were beaten outside ; there were street cries innu- merable, and the whistling of the blind shampooers, anc the resonant clap of the Are watchman who perambu- lates all Japanese villages, and beats two pieces of wojd together in token of his vigilance, were intolerable. It was a life of which I knew nothing, and the mystery was more alarming than attractive ; my money was Ijdng about, and nothing seemed easier than to slide a hand through the fusuvm and appropriate it. Ito told me that the well was badl}' contaminated, the odours were fearful ; illness was to be feared as well as rob- bery ! So uiu’easonably I reasoned I ’ 1 Mj fears, though quite natural for a lady alone, had really no justifi- cation. I have since travelled I'JOO miles in the interior, and in Tezo A NIGHT ALARM. 95 My bed is merely a piece of canvas nailed to two wooden bars. When I lay down the canvas burst away from the lower row of nails with a series of cracks, and sank gradually till I found myself lying on a sharp- edged pole which connects the two pair of trestles, and the helpless victim of fleas and mosquitoes. I lay for three hours, not daring to stir lest I should bring the canvas altogether down, becoming more and more ner- vous every moment, and then Ito called outside the 81B HiiRRY’S MESSENGER. ihdji., “ It would be best. Miss Bird, that I should see you.” What horror can this be ? I thought, and was not reassured when he added, “ Here’s a messeugei from the Legation, and two policemen want to speak to you.” On arriving I had done the correct thing in giving the house-master my passport, which, according to law, he had copied into his book, and had sent a dupli- wltli perfect safety and freedom from alarm, and I believe that tliere is no country in the world in which a lady can travel with such absolute ssecurity from danger and rudeness as in Janan. 96 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. cate copy to the police-station, and this intrusion near midnight was as unaccountable as it was unwarrantable. Nevertheless the appearance of the two manikins in European uniforms, with the familiar batons and buU’s- eye lanterns, and with manners wliieh were respectfiil without being deferential, gave me immediate relief. I should have welcomed twenty of their species, for their presence assured me of the fact that I am known and registered, and that a Government which, for special reasons, is anxioxrs to impress foreigners with its power and omniscience, is responsible for my safety. While they spelt through my passport by their dim lantern, I opened the Yedo parcel, and found that it contained a tin of lemon sugar, a most kind note from Sir Harry Parkes, and a packet of letters from you. While I was attempting to open the letters, Ito, the policemen, and the lantern glided out of my room, and [ lay uneasily till daylight, with the letters and telegram for which I had been yearning for six weeks, on my bed unopened! Already I can laugh at my fears and misfortunes, as I hope you will. A traveller must buy his own experi- ence, and success or failure depends mainly on personal idiosyncrasies. Many matters will be remedied by ex- perience as I go on, and I shall acquire the habit of feeling secure ; but lack of privacy', bad smells, and the torments of fleas and mosquitoes are, I fear, irremedi- able evils. I. L. B. A COOLIE FALLS ILL. 97 FROM KASUKABE TO NIKK6. A. Coolie falls ill — Peasant Costume — Varieties in Threshing — The Tochigi yadoya — Farming Villages — A Beautiful Region — An In Memoriam Avenue — A Doll’s Street — Nikko — The Jour- ney’s End — Coolie Kindliness. By seven the next morning the rice was eaten, the room as bare as if it had never been occupied, the hill of 80 sen paid, the house-master and servants with many sayo naras, or farewells, had prostrated themselves, and we were away in the kurumas at a rapid trot. At the first halt my runner, a kindly, good-natured creature, but absolutely hideous, was seized with pain and vomit- ing, owing, he said, to drinking the bad water at Kasu- kabd, and was left behind. He pleased me much by the honest independent way in which he provided a substi- tute, strictly adhering to his bargain, and never asking for a gratuity on account of Iris illness. He had been so kind and helpful that I felt quite sad at leaving him there ill, — only a coolie to be sure, only an atom among the 84,000,000 of the Empire, but not less precious to our Father in heaven than any other. It was a brilliant day, with the mercury 86° in the shade, but the heat was not oppressive. At noon we reached the Tone, and I rode on a coolie’s tattooed shoulders through the shallow part, and then, with the kurumas, some ill-dis- posed pack-horses, and a number of travellers, crossed in a flat-bottomed boat. The boatmen, travellers, and cultivators, were nearly or altogether without clothes, 08 UNBEATEN TTtACKS IN JAPAN. but the richer farmers worked in the fields in curved bamboo liats as large as umbrellas, himonos with large sleeves not girt up, and large fans attaehed to their girdles. Many of the travellers whom we met were without hats, but shielded the front of the head by hold ing a fan between it and the sun. Probably the incon venience of the national costume for working men partly accounts for the general practice of getting rid of it. It is such a hindrance even in walking, that most pedes- trians have “ their loins girded up ” by taking the mid- dle of the hem at the bottom of the kimono and tucking it under the girdle. This, in the case of many, shows woven, tight-fitting, elastic, white cotton pantaloons, reaching to the ankles. After ferrjung another river at a village from which a steamer pHes to T6kiy6, the country became much more pleasing, the rice-fields fewer, the trees, houses, and barns larger, and, in the distance, high hills loomed faintly through the haze. Much of the wheat, of which they don’t make bread but vermicelli, is already being carried. You see wheat stacks ten feet high moving slowly, and while you are wondering, you become aware of four feet moving be- low them ; for all the crop is carried on horses’ if not on human backs. I went to see several threshing-floors, clean, open spaces outside barns, where the grain is laid on mats and threshed by two or four men with heavy revolving flails. Another method is for women to beat out the grain on racks of split bamboo laid lengthwise ; and I saw yet a third practised both in the fields and barn-yards, in which women pass handfuls of stalks backwards through a sort of carding instrument with sharp iron teeth placed in a slanting position, which cuts off the ears, leaving the stalk unbruised. This is prob- ably “ the sharp thresliing instrument, ha^•ing teeth ” mentioned by Isaiah. The ears are then rubbed be THE TOCHIGI YAHOTA. 99 tween the hands. In this region the wheat was win- nowed altogether by hand, and after the wind had driven the chaff away, the grain was laid out on mats to dry. Sickles are not used, but the reaper takes a handful of stalks and cuts them off close to the ground with a short, straight knife, fixed at a right angle with the handle. The wheat is sown in rows with wide spaces between them, which are utilised for beans and other crops, and no sooner is it removed than daikon (^Raphot/- nus sativus'), cucumbers, or some other vegetable, takes its place, as the land under careful tillage and copious manuring bears two, and even three crops in the year. The soil is trenched for wheat as for all crops except rice, not a weed is io be seen, and the whole country looks like a well-kept garden. The barns in this dis- trict are very handsome, and many of their grand roofs have that concave sweep with which we are familiar in the pagoda. The eaves are often eight feet deep, and the thatch three feet thick. Several of the farm-yards have handsome gatewaj^s like the ancient “ lychgates ” of some of our English churchyards much magnified. As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look ; a mean-looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. I long for the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep At 6 we reached Tochigi, a large town, formerly the castle town of a daimiyd. Its special manufacture is rope of many kinds, a great deal of hemp being grown in the neighbourhood. Many of the roofs are tiled, and the town has a more solid and handsome appearance than those that we had previously passed through. But from Kasukab^ to Tochigi was from bad to worse. 1 nearly abandoned Japanese travelling altogether, and, 100 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. if last night had not been a great iniprovement, I think I should have gone ignominiously back to Tokiyo. The yadoya was a very large one, and as sixty guests had arrived before me. there was no choice of accommoda- tion, and I had to be contented with a room enclosed on all sides not by fusuma but shoji, and with barely room for my bed, bath, and chair, under a fusly green mosquito net, which was a perfect nest of fleas. One side of the room was against a much-frequented passage, and another opened on a small yard upon which three opposite rooms also opened, crowded with some not very sober or decorous travellers. The shoji were full of holes, and often at each hole I saw a human eye. Pri- vacy was a luxury not even to be recalled. Besides the constant application of eyes to the shoji., the servants, who were very noisy and rough, looked into my room constantly without any pretext ; the host, a bright, pleasant-looking man, did the same ; jugglers, musicians, blind shampooers, and singing girls, all pushed the screens aside ; and I began to think that INIr. Campbell was right, and that a lady should not travel alone in Japan. Ito, who had the room next to mine, suggested that robbery was quite likely, and asked to be allowed to take charge of my money ; but did not decamp with it during the night ! I lay down on my precarious stretcher before eight, but as the night advanced, the din of the house increased till it became truly diabol- ical, and never ceased till after one. Drums, tom-toms, and cymbals were beaten ; kotos and samisens screeched and twanged ; geishas (professional women with the ac- complishments of dancing, singing, and playing) danced, accompanied by songs whose jerking discords were most laughable ; story-tellers recited tales in a high key, and the running about and splashing close to my room never ceased. Late at night my precarious shdji were THE TOCHIGI YADOTA. 101 accidentally thrown down, revealing a scene of great hilarity, in which a number of people were bathing and throwing water over each other. The noise of departures began at daylight, and I was glad to leave at seven. Before you go the fusiima are slidden back, and what was your room becomes part of a great, open, matted space — an arrangement which effectually prevents fustiness. Though the road was up a slight incline, and the men were too tired to trot, we made thirty miles in nine hours. The kindliness and courtesy of the coolies to me and to each other was a constant source of pleasure to me. It is most amus- ing to see the elaborate politeness of the greetings of men clothed only in hats and maros. The hat is invari- ably removed when they speak to each other, and three profound bows are never omitted. Soon after leaving the yadoya we passed through a wide street with the largest and handsomest houses I have 3^et seen on both sides. They were all open in front ; their highly-polished floors and passages looked like still water ; the Icalcemonos^ or wall-pictures on their side-walls, were extremely beautiful; and their mats were very fine and white. There were large gardens at the back, with fountains and flowers, and streams crossed by light stone bridges sometimes flowed through the houses. From the signs I supposed them to be yadoyas^ but on asking Ito why we had not put up at one of them, he replied that they were all kashitsukeya, or tea-houses of disreputable character — a very sad fact.^ As we journeyed, the country became prettier and 1 In my northern journey I was very frequently obliged to put up with rough and dirty accommodation, because the better sort of houses were of this class. If there are few sights which shock the traveller, there is much even on the surface to indicate vices which degrade and en.slave the manhood of Japan. 102 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. prettier, rolling up to abrupt wooded hills with moun- tains in the clouds behind. The farming villages are comfortable and embowered in wood, and the richer farmers seclude their dwellings by closely-clipped hedges or rather screens, two feet wide, and often twenty feet high. Tea grew near every house, and its leaves were being gathered and dried on mats. Signs of silk cul- ture Ijegan to appear in shrubberies of mulberry trees, and white and sulphur yellow cocoons were lying m the sun along the road in flat trays. Numbers of women sat in the fronts of the houses weaving cotton cloth fif- teen inches wide, and cotton yarn, mostly imported from England, was being dyed in all the villages, the dye used being a native indigo, the Polygonum tinctorium. Old women were spinning, and young and old usu- ally pursued their avocations with mse-looking babies tucked into the backs of their dresses, and peering cun- ningly over their shoulders. Even little girls of seven and eight were playing at children's games with babies on their backs, and those who were too small to carry real ones had big dolls strapped on in similar fashion. Innumerable villages, crowded houses, and babies in all, give one the impression of a very populous coimtry. As the day wore on in its brightness and glory the pictures became more varied and beautifid. Great snow-slashed mountains looked over the foothills, on whose steep sides the dark blue green of pine and cryptomeria was lighted up by the spring tints of deciduous trees. There were groves of crj'ptomeria on small hills crowuied by Shintfl shrines, approached by grand flights of stone stairs. The red gold of the har- vest fields contrasted with the fresh green and exquisite leafage of the hemp ; rose and white azaleas lighted up the copse-woods ; and when the broad road passed into the colossal avenue of crj-ptomeria wliich over AN IN MEMORIAM AVENUE. 100 shadows the way to the sacred shrines of Nikko, and tremulous sunbeams and shadows flecked the grass, 1 felt that Japan was beautiful, and that tlie mud flats of Yedo were only an ugly dream ! Two roads lead to NikkO. I avoided the one usually taken by Utsunomiya, and by doing so lost the most maginflcent of the two avenues, which extends for nearly fifty miles along the great highway called the Oshiu-kaido. Along the Reiheishi-kaido, the road by which I came, it extends for thirty miles, and the two, broken frequently by villages, converge upon the vil- lage of Imaichi, eight miles from Nikko, where they unite, and only terminate at the entrance of the town. They are said to have been planted as an offering to the buried Shdguns by a man who was too poor to place a bronze lantern at their shrines. A grander monument could not have been devised, and they are probably the grandest things of their kind in the world. The avenue of the Reiheishi-kaido is a good carriage road with sloping banks eight feet high, covered with grass and ferns. At the top of these are the cryptome- ria, then two grassy walks, and between these and the cultivation a screen of saplings and brushwood. A great many of the trees become two at four feet from the ground. Many of the stems are twenty-seven feet in girth ; they do not diminish or branch till they have reached a height of from 50 to 60 feet, and the appear- ance of altitude is aided by the longitudinal splitting of the reddish coloured bark into strips about two indies wide. The trees are pyramidal, and at a little distance resemble cedars. There is a deep solemnity about this glorious avenue with its broad shade and dancing lights, and the rare glimpses of high mountains. Instinct alone would tell one that it leads to something which must be grand and beautiful like itself. It is broken occa 101 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. sioiially by small villages with big bells suspended between double poles ; by wayside shrines with offer- ings of rags and flowers; by stone effigies of Buddha and his disciples, mostly defaced or overthrown, all wearing the same expression of beatified rest and in- difference to mundane affairs ; and by temples of lac- quered wood falling to decay, whose bells sent their surpassingly sweet tones far on the evening air. Imaichi, where the two stately aisles unite, is a long up-hill street, with a clear mountain stream enclosed in a stone channel, and crossed by hewn stone slabs run- ning down the middle. In a room built over the stream, and commanding a view up and down the street, two policemen sat writing. It looks a dull place without much traffic, as if oppressed by the state- liness of the avenues below it and the shrines above it, but it has a quiet yadoya where I had a good night’s rest, although my canvas bed was nearly on the ground. We left early this morning in drizzling rain, and went straight up-hill under the cryptomeria for eight miles. The vegetation is as profuse as one would expect in so damp and hot a summer climate, and from the prodigious rainfall of the mountains ; every stone is covered with moss, and the road-sides are green with the Protococcus viridis and several species of Marchan- tia. We were among the foothills of the Nantaizan mountains at a height of 1000 feet, abrupt in their forms, wooded to their summits, and noisy with the dash and tumble of a thousand streams. The long street of Hachiishi, with its steep-roofed, deep-eaved houses, its warm colouring, and its steep roadway with steps at intervals, has a sort of Swiss picturesqueness as you enter it, as you must, on foot, while your IzurU' mas are hauled and lifted up the steps ; nor is the re- semblance given by steep roofs, pines, and mountains A DOLL'S STDEET. 10a patched with coniferae, altogether lost as 5 ^ou ascend the steep street, and see wood carvings and quaint baS" kets of wood and grass offered everywhere for sale. It is a truly dull, quaint street, and the people come out to stare at a foreigner as if foreigners had not become common events since 1870, when Sir H. and Lady Parkes, the first Europeans who were permitted to visit NikkO, took up their abode in the Imperial HombO. It is a doll’s street with small low houses, so finely matted, so exquisitely clean, so finically neat, so light and deli- cate, that even when I entered them without my boots I felt like a “bull in a china shop,” as if my mere weight must smash through and destroy. The street is so painfully clean that I should no more think of walking over it in muddy boots than over a drawing- room carpet. It has a silent mountain look, and most of its shops sell specialties, lacquer work, boxes of sweetmeats made of black beans and sugar, all sorts of boxes, trays, cups, and stands, made of plain, polished wood, and more grotesque articles made from the roots of trees. It was not part of my plan to stay at the beautiful yadoya which receives foreigners in Hachiislii, and I sent Ito half a mile farther with a note in Japanese to the owner of the house where I now am, while I sat on a rocky eminence at the top of the street, unmolested by anybody, looking over to the solemn groves upon the mountains, where the two greatest of the ShOguns “sleep in glory.” Below, the rushing Daiyagawa, swollen by the night’s rain, thundered through a nar- row gorge. Beyond, colossal flights of stone stairs stretch mysteriously away among cryptomeria groves, above which tower the Nikkfisan mountains. Just where the torrent finds its impetuosity checked by two stone walls, it is spanned by a bridge, 84 feet long l)y 106 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. 18 wide, of dull red lacquer, resting on two stone piers on either side, connected by two transverse stone beams. A welcome bit of colour it is amidst the masses of dark greens and soft greys, though there is nothing imposing in its structure, and its interest consists in being the Mihashi, or Sacred Bridge, built in 1636, formerly open only to the ShSguns, the envoy of the Mikado, and to pilgrims twice a year. Both its gates are locked. Grand and lonely NikkS looks, the home of rain and mist. Kuruma roads end here, and if you wish to go any farther you must either walk, ride, or be carried. Ito was long away, and the coolies kept addressing me in Japanese, which made me feel helpless and soli- tary, and eventually they shouldered my baggage, and descending a flight of steps, we crossed the river by the secular bridge, and shortly met my host, Kanaya, a very bright, pleasant-looking man, who bowed nearly to the earth. Terraced roads in every direction lead through cryptomerias to the shrines ; and this one passes many a stately enclosure, but leads away from the temples, and though it is the highway to Chiuzenjii, a place of popular pilgrimage, Yumoto, a place of popu- lar resort, and several other villages, it is very rugged, and having flights of stone steps at intervals, is only practicable for horses and pedestrians. At the house, ■with the appearance of which I was at once delighted, I regretfully parted -with my coolies, who had served me kindly and faithfully. They had paid me many little attentions, such as always beating the dust out of my dress, inflating lu}' air-pillow, and bringing me flowers, and were always grateful when I walked up hills ; and just now, after going for a fi’olic to the mountains, they called to wish me good-bye bringing branches of azaleas. I. L. B. MT HOME IN NIKKO. 107 KANAYA’S HOUSE. A. Japanese Idyll — Musical Stillness — My Kooins — Floral Decora' tions — Kanaya and his Household — Table Equipments. Kanaya’s, Nikko, June 15. I don’t know what to write about my house. It is a Japanese idyll; there is nothing within or without which does not please the eye, and after the din of yadoyas, its silence, musical with the dash of waters and the twitter of birds, is truly refreshing. It is a simple but irregular two-storied pavilion, standing on a stone- faced terrace approached by a flight of stone steps. The garden is well laid out, and, as peonies, irises, and azaleas are now in blossom, it is very bright. The mountain, with its lower part covered with red azaleas, rises just behind, and a stream which tumbles down it supplies the house with water, both cold and pure, and another, after forming a miniature cascade, passes under the house and through a fishpond with rocky islets into the river below. The grey village of Irimi- chi lies on the other side of the road shut in with the rushing Daiya, and beyond it are high, broken hills, richly wooded, and slashed v/ith ravines and waterfalls. Kanaya’s sister, a very sweet, refined-looking woman, met me at the door and divested me of my boots. The two verandahs are highly polished, so are the entrance and the stairs which lead to my room, and the mats are so fine and white that I almost fear to walk over them even in my stockings. The polished stairs lead to 108 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. a liiglily polished, broad verandah with a beautiful view, from which you enter one large room, which, being too large, was at once made into two. Four highly polished steps lead from this into an exquisite room at the back, which I to occupies, and another polished staircase into the bath-house and garden. The whole front of my room is composed of shoji, which slide back during the day. The ceiling is of light wood crossed by bars of kanata’8 house. dark wood, and the posts which support it are of dark polished wood. The panels are of wrinkled sky blue paper splashed with gold. At one end are two alcoves with floors of polished wood, called tokonoma. In one hangs a kakemono, or wall-picture, a painting of a blos- soming branch of the cherry on white silk — a perfect piece of art, which in itself fills ihe room with fresh- ness and beauty. The artist who painted it painted KAN AY A AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 101 ' aotliing but cherry blossoms, and fell in the rebellion On a shelf in the other alcove is a very valuable cabi net with sliding doors, on which peonies are painted on a gold ground. A single spray of rose azalea in a pure white vase hanging on one of the polished posts, and a single iris in another, are the only decorations. The mats are very fine and white, but the only furniture is a folding screen with some suggestions of landscape in Indian ink. I almost wish that the rooms were a little less exquisite, for I am in constant dread of spilling the ink, indenting the mats, or tearing the paper windows. Downstairs there is a room equally beautiful, and a large space where all the domestic avocations are car- ried on. There is a 7mra, or fireproof storehouse, with a tiled roof on the right of the house. Kanaya leads the discords at the Shinto shrines ; but his duties are few, and he is chiefly occupied in perpetu- ally embellishing his house and garden. His mother, a venerable old lady, and his sister, the sweetest and most graceful Japanese woman but one that I have seen, live with him. She moves about the house like a floating fairy, and her voice has music in its tones. A half- witted servant man and the sister’s boy and girl com- plete the family. Kanaya is the chief man in the vil- lage, and is very intelligent and apparently well educated. He has divorced his wife, and his sister has practically divorced her husband. Of late, to help his income, he has let these charming rooms to foreigners who have brought letters to him, and he is very anx- ious to meet their views, while his good taste leads him to avoid Europeanising his beautiful home. Supper came up on a or small table six inches high, of old gold lacquer, with the rice in a gold lac- quer bowl, and the teapot and cup were fine Kaga porcelain. For my two rooms with rice and tea I paj no UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. 2s. a day. Ito forages for me, and can occasionally get chickens at lOd. each and a dish of trout for 6d., and eggs are always to be had for Id. each. It is extremely interesting to live in a private house and to see the ex- ternalities at least of domestic life in a Janauese middle- class home. I. L. B. THE BEAUTIES OF NIKK6. IIJ nikk6. The Beauties of Nikk6 — The Burial of ly^yasu — The Approach to the great Shrines — The Yomei Gate — Gorgeous Decorations — Simplicity of the Mausoleum — The Shrine of ly^mitsu — Religious Art of Japan and India — An Earthquake — Beauties of Wood- carving. Kanata’s, Nikko, June 21. I HAVE been at Nikk6 for nine clays, and am there- fore entitled to use the word “ Kek'ko ! ” NikkS has a distinct individuality. This consists not so much in its great beauty and variety, as in its solemn grandeur, its profound melancholy, its slow and sure decay, and the historical and religious atmosphere from which one can never altogether escape. It is a place of graves too, of constant rain and strange stillness, and its glories lie in the past. I have paid almost daily visits to the famous shrines ; but their decorations are so profuse, and their mythological allusions so com- plicated, that instead of attempting any detailed description, I must content myself with giving the slightest possible sketch of what I suppose may fairly be ranked among the most beautiful scenes in the world. Nikkd means “ sunny splendour,” and its beauties are celebrated in poetry and art all over Japan. Mountains for a great part of the year clothed or patched with snow, piled in great ranges round Nantaisan their monarch, worshipped as a god ; forests of magidficent timber ; ravines and passes scarcely explored ; dark 112 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. green lakes sleeping in endless serenity ; the deep abyss of Kegon, into which the waters of Chiuzenjii plunge from a height of 250 feet ; the bright beauty of the falls of Kiri Furi, the loveliness of the gardens of Dainichi- do ; the sombre grandeur of the passes through which the Daiyagawa forces its way from the upper regions ; a gcrgeousness of azaleas and magnolias ; and a luxuri- ousness of vegetation perhaps unequalled in Japan, are only a few of the attractions which surround the shrines of tlie two greatest Shoguns. To a glorious resting-place on the hill-slope of Hotok4 Iwa, sacred since 767, when a Buddhist saint, called ShSdS Sh8nin, visited it, and declared the old Shint8 deity of the mountain to be only a manifestation of Buddha, Hidetada, the second ShSgun of the Tokugawa djuiasty, conveyed the corpse of his father ly^yasu in 1617. It was a splendid burial. An Imperial envoy, a priest of the Mikado’s family, court nobles from IviySto, and hundi-eds of daimiyos., captains, and nobles of inferior rank, took part in the ceremony. An arm}' of priests in rich robes during three days mtoned a sacred classic 10,000 times, and lyeyasu was deified by a decree of the iNIikado under a name signifying “ light of the east, great incarnation of Buddha.” An envoy of high rank was subsequently sent by the Emperor to the shrine once a year, to offer not the ordinary goTiei., or shreds of paper attached to a long wand which are to be seen in every Shint8 shrine, but goliei solidly gilt. The other Sh8gun who is buried here is ly^mitsu, the able grandson of lydyasu. He finished the Nikko temples and those of Toyeisan at Uyeno in Yedo. The less important Shoguns of the line of Tokugawa are buried in Uyeno and Shiba, in Yedo. Since the restora- tion, and what may be called the disestablishment of Buddhism, the shrine of lyeyasu has been shorn of all APPROACH TO THE SHRINES. 113 its glories of ritual, and its magnificent Buddhist para- pliernalia; the 200 priests who gave it splendour are scattered, and six ShintS priests alternately attend upon it as much for the purpose of selling tickets of admission as for any priestly duties. All roads, bridges, and avenues here lead to these shrines, but the grand approach is by the Red Bridge, and up a broad road with steps at intervals and stone- faced enbankments at each side, on the top of which are belts of cryptomeria. At the summit of this ascent is a fine granite torii, 27 feet 6 inches high, with columns 3 feet 6 inches in diameter, offered by the daimiyo of Chikuzen in 1618 from his own quarries. After this come 118 magnificent bronze lanterns on massive stone pedestals, each of which is inscribed with the posthu- mous title of lydyasu, the name of the giver, and a legend of the offering — all the gifts of daimiyo — a holy water cistern made of a solid block of granite, and covered by a roof resting on twenty square granite pil- lars, and a bronze bell, lantern, and candelabra of marvellous workmanship, offered by the kings of Corea and Liukiu. On the left is a five-storied pagoda, 104 feet high, riclily carved in wood and as richly gilded and painted. The signs of the zodiac run round the lower story. The grand entrance gate is at the top of a handsome flight of steps fort}" yards from the torii. A looped white curtain with the Mikado’s crest in black hangs partially over the gateway, in which, beautiful as it is, one does not care to linger, to examine the gilded amainu in niches, or the spirited carvings of tigers under the eaves, for the view of the first court over- whelms one by its magnificence and beauty. The whole style of the buildings, the arrangements, the art of every kind, the thought which inspires the whole, are 114 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. exclusively Japanese, and the glimpse from the Ni-6 gate is a revelation of a previously undreamed-of beauty both in form and colour. Round tlie neatly-pebbled court, which is enclosed bj a bright red timber wall, are tliree gorgeous buildings which contain the treasures of the temple, a sumptuous stable for the three sacred Albino horses which are kepi for the use of the god, a magnificent granite cistern oi holy water, fed from the SSmendaki cascade, and a higlfij decorated building, in which a complete collection ol Buddliist Scriptures is deposited. From this a flight oi steps leads into a smaller court containing a bell-tower “ of marvellous Avorkmanship and ornamentation,” a drum tower, hardly less beautiful, a shrine, the candela- bra, bell, and lantern mentioned before, and some A^ery grand bronze lanterns. From this court another flight of steps ascends to the Yomei gate, whose splendour I contemplated day after day Avith increasing astonishment. The white columns which support it have capitals formed of great red- throated heads of the mythical Icirin. Above the archi- trave is a projecting balcony which runs all round the gateway with a railing carried by dragons’ heads. In the centre two white dragons fight eternally. Under- neath, in high relief, there are groups of children play- ing, then a network of richly painted beams, and seven groups of Chinese sages. The high roof is supported by gilded dragons’ heads with crimson throats. In the interior of the gateway there are side-niches painted white, Avhich are lined with gracefully designed ara- besques founded on the botan or peony. A piazza, whose outer walls of twenty-one compartments are en- riched with magnificent carvings of birds, flowers, and trees, runs right and left, and encloses on three of its sides another court, the fourth side of which is a ter GORGEOUS DECORATIONS. 115 rninal stone wall built against the side of the hill. On the right are two decorated buildings, one of which contains a stage for the performance of the sacred dances, and the other an altar for the burning of cedar wood incense. On the left is a building for the recep tion of the three sacred cars which were used during festivals. To pass from court to court is to pass from splendour to splendour ; one is almost glad to feel that this is the last, and that the strain on one’s capacity for admiration is nearly over. In the middle is the sacred enclosure, formed of gilded trellis-work with painted borders above and below, forming a square of which each side measures 150 feet, and which contains the liaiden or chapel. Underneath the trellis-work are groups of birds with backgrounds of grass, very boldly carved in wood and richly gilded and painted. From the hnposing entrance through a double avenue of cryptomeria, among courts, gates, tem- ples, shrines, pagodas, colossal bells of bronze, and lan- terns inlaid with gold, you pass through this final court bewildered by magnificence, tlirough golden gates, into the dimness of a golden temple, and there is — simply a black lacquer table with a circular metal mirror upon it ! Witliin is a hall finely matted, 42 feet wide, by 27 from front to back, with lofty apartments on each side, one for the ShSgun and the other “ for his Holiness tire Abbot.” Both of course are empty. The roof of the hall is panelled and richly frescoed. The ShSgun’s room contains some very fine fusuma on which kirin (fabulous monsters) are depicted on a dead gold ground, and four oak panels, 8 feet by 6, finely carved, with the phoenix in low relief variously treated. In the Abbot’s room there are similar panels adorned with hawks spirit- edly executed. The only ecclesiastical ornament among 116 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. the dim splendours of the chapel is the plain gold gohei Steps at the back lead into a chapel paved with stone, with a fine panelled ceiling representing dragons on a dark blue ground. Beyond this some gilded doors lead into the principal chapel, containing four rooms which are not accessible ; but if they correspond with the out- side, which is of highly polished black lacquer relieved by gold, they must be severely magnificent. But not in any one of these gorgeous shrines did ly^yasu decree that his dust should rest. Re-entering the last court, it is necessary to leave the enclosures altogether by passing through a covered gateway in the eastern piazza into a stone gallery, green with mosses and hepaticse. Within, wealth and art have created a fairyland of gold and colour; without. Nature, at her stateliest, has surrounded the great ShSgun’s tomb with a pomp of moui-nful splendour. A staircase of 240 stone steps leads to the top of the hill, where, above and behind all the stateliness of the shrines raised in his honour, the dust of ly^yasu sleeps in an unadorned but Cyclopean tomb of stone and bronze, surmounted by a bronze urn. In front is a stone table decorated with a bronze incense burner, a vase with lotus blos- soms and leaves in brass, and a bronze stork bearing a bronze candlestick in its mouth. A lofty stone wall surmounted by a balustrade, surrounds the simple but stately enclosure, and cryptomeria of large size growing up the hack of the hill create perpetual twilight round it. Slant rays of sunshine alone pass through them, no flower blooms or bird sings, only silence and mournful- ness surround the grave of the ablest and greatest man that Japan has produced. Impressed as I had been with the glorious workman- ship in wood, bronze, and lacquer, I scarcely admired less the masonry of the vast retaining walls, the stone TEE SEEINE OF lYmilTSU. 117 gallery, the staircase and its balustrade, all put together linthout mortar or cement, and so accurately fitted that the joints are scarcely affected by the rain, damp, and aggressive vegetation of 260 years. The steps of the staircase are fine monoliths, and the coping at the side, the massive balustrade, and the heavy rail at the top, are cut out of solid blocks of stone from 10 to 18 feet in length. Nor is the workmanship of the great granite cistern for holy waterless remarkable. It is so carefully adjusted on its bed, that the water brought from a neighbouring cascade rises and pours over each edge in such carefully equalised columns that, as Mr. Satow says, “ it seems to be a solid block of water rather than a piece of stone.” The temples of Ty^mitsu are clese to those of lyeyasu, and though somewhat less magnificent, are even more bewildering, as they are still in Buddhist hands, and are crowded with the gods of the Buddhist Pantheon and the splendid paraphernalia of Buddhist worship, in striking contrast to the simplicity of the lonely ShintQ mirror in the midst of the blaze of gold and colour. In the grand entrance gate are gigantic iW-o, the Buddhist Gog and Magog, vermilion coloured, and with draper- ies painted in imitation of flowered silk. A second pair, painted red and green, removed from ly^mitsu’s temple, are in niches within the gate. A flight of steps leads to another gate, in whose gorgeous niches stand hideous monsters, in human form, representing the gods of wind and thunder. Wind has crystal eyes, and a half-jolly, half-demoniacal expression. He is painted green, and carries a wind-bag on his back, a long sack tied at each end, with the ends brought over his shoulders and held in his hands. The god of thunder is painted red, with purple hair on end, and stands on clouds holding thun- derbolts in his hand. More steps, and another gate 118 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. contaiiiiijg the TennS, or gods of the four quarters, holdly carved and in strong action, with long eye-teeth, and at last the principal temple is reached. An old priest who took me over it on my first visit, on passing the gods of wind and thunder said, “We used to be- lieve in these things, but we don’t now,” and his man- ner in speaking of the other deities was rather con- temptuous. He requested me, however, to take off my hat as well as my shoes at the door of the temple. Within there was a gorgeous shrine, and when an acv.'- lyte drew aside the curtain of cloth of gold the interior was equally imposing, containing Buddha and two other figures of gilded brass, seated cross-legged on lotus flowers, with rows of petals several times repeated, and with that look of eternal repose on their faces which is reproduced in the commonest roadside images. In front of the shrine several candles were burning, the offerings of some people \vho were having prayers said for them, and the whole was lighted by two lamps burning low. On a step of the altar a muoh-co.atorted devil was crouching un easily", for he was r.ubjugated, and by a grim irony, made to carry a massi\'e ineen.se- burner on his shoulders. In this temple there were more than a hundred idols standing in rows, man}' tf them life-size, some of them trampling devils unde\ their feet, but all hideous, partly from the bright greens., vermilions, and blues -with which they are painted Remarkable muscular development characterises all, and the figures or faces are all in vigorous action of some kind, generally grossly exaggerated. For the second time I noticed the singular contrast between the horrible or grotesque creations of Japanese religious fancy, with their contorted figures and gaudy, (ly-away tags of dress, and the Oriental calm of face, figure, and drapery of the imported Buddha, the crea- AN EARTHQUAKE. 119 lion of the religious art of India. The teeth of all the Japanese gods in this temple were most unpleasantly conspicuous. Some idols (such as the farmers’ and sail- ors’ gods) were in shrines, and there were many small offerings of rice and sweetmeats before them. The priests sell pieces of paper inscribed with the names of these divinities as charms against shipwreck and failure of the rice crops, and Ito bought a number of the latter, having been commissioned to do so by several rice farm- ers at Yokohama. It is not the pilgrim season, but sev- eral pilgrims were there, offering candles, incense, and rice. While we were crossing the court there were two shocks of earthquake ; all the golden wind-bells which fringe the roofs rang softly, and a number of priests ran into the temple and beat various kinds of drums for the space of half an hour. lydmitsu’s tomb is reached by flights of steps on the right of the chapel. It is in the same style as lydyasu’s, but the gates in front are of bronze, and are inscribed with large Sanskrit characters in bright brass. One of the most beautiful of the many views is from the uppermost gate of the temple. The sun shone on my second visit and brightened the spring tints of the trees on Hotok^ Iwa, which was vignetted by a frame of dark cryptomeria. Thus far, with Mr. Satow’s help, I have gone over the principal objects of interest, omitting very many, but I should add that a large temple is being constructed on the right of the entrance avenue for the reception nf the Buddhist insignia, which have been ejected from ly^yasu’s shi-ine. Tickets of admission to each slirine are sold for 7d. each, but it is not clear that the money so raised is for repairs, and as wood, paint, and gilding cannot last for ever, and the Japanese Government is more intent upon material progress than upon pieseiv- 120 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. ing itfj antiquities, it is a question whether these slu inea are not destined to decay with the decaying faiths of tlie people I have reduced my description to the bald- ness of a hand-book in absolute despair. Some of vhe buildings are roofed with sheet-copper, but most of them are tiled. TUing, however, has been raised almost to the dignity of a fine art in Japan. The tiles themselves are a coppery grey, with a suggestion of metallic lustre about it. They are slightly concave, and the joints are covered by others quite convex, which come down like massive tubes from the ridge pole, and terminate at the eaves with discs on which the Tokugawa badge is emblazoned in gold, as it is every- where on these shrines where it would not be quite out of keeping. The roofs are so massive that they require all the strength of the heavy carved timbers below, and like all else, they gleam with gold, or that which simu- lates it. The shrines are the most wonderful work of their kind in Japan. In their stately setting of cryptomeria, few of which are less than 20 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, they take one prisoner by their beauty, in defiance of all rules of western art, and compel one to acknowledge the beauty of forms and combinations of coloui hitherto unknown, and that lacquered wood is capable of lending itself to the expression of a very high idea in art. Gold has been used in profusion, and black, dull red, and white, with a breadth and lavish- ness quite unique. The bronze fret-work alone is a study, and the wood-carving needs weeks of earnest work for the masteiy of its ideas and details. One screen or railing onl}^ has 60 panels, each 4 feet long, carved with marvellous boldness and depth in open work, representing peacocks, pheasants, storks, lotuses, peonies, bamboos, and foliage. The fidelity to form aue is twisted. Her face and throat are much whitened, the paint terminating in three points at the back of the neck, from which all the short hair has been carefully extracted with pincers. Her lips are slightly touched with red paint, and her face looks like that of a cheap doll. She wears a blue, flowered silk kimono, with sleeves touching the ground, a blue girdle lined with scarlet, and a fold of scarlet orepe lies between her painted neck and her kimono A JUVENILE DRAMA. On her little feet she wears white tabi, socks of cotton cloth, with a separate place for the great toe, so as to allow the scarlet-covered thongs of the finely lacquered clogs, which she puts on when she stands on the stone steps to receive her guests, to pass between it and the smaller toes. All the other little ladies were dressed in the same style, and all looked like ill-executed dolls. She met them with very formal but graceful bows. When they were all assembled, she and her very graceful mother, squatting before each, presented tea and sweetmeats on lacquer trays, and then they played at very quiet and polite games till dusk. They addressed each other by their names with the honorific prefix 0, only used in the case of women, and the respectful affix San; thus Haru becomes 0-Haru-San, which is equiva- lent to “ Miss.” A mistress of a house is addressed as 0-Kami-San^ and 0-Kusuma — something like “ my lady” — is used to married ladies. Women have no surnames; thus you do not speak of Mrs. Saguchi, but of the wife of Saguchi San; and you would address her as 0-Kusuvia. Among the children’s names were Haru., Spring ; YuM., Snow ; Hana., Blossom ; Kiku, Chrysanthemum ; Grin, Silver. One of their games was most amusing, and was played with some spirit and much dignity. It consisted in one child feigning sickness, and another playing the doctor, and the pompousness and gravity of the latter, and the distress and weakness of the former, were most successfully imitated. Unfortunately the doctor killed his patient, who counterfeited the death sleep very effectively with her whitened face ; and then followed the funeral and the mourning. They dramatise thus weddings, dinner-parties, and many other of the events of life. The dignity and self-jiossession of these chil- dren are wonderful. The fad is that their initiation 136 UNBEATEN TRACICS IN JAPAN. into aii that is required by the rules of Japanese eti quette begins as soon as they can speak, so that by the time they are ten years old they know exactl}' what to do and avoid under all possible circumstances. Before they went away, tea and sweetmeats were again handed round, and as it is neither etiquette to refuse them, nor to leave anything behind that you have once taken, several of the small ladies slipped the residue into their capacious sleeves. On departing, the same formal courtesies were used as on arriving. Yuki, Haru’s mother, speaks, acts, and moves with a charming gracefulness. Except at night, and when friends drop in to afternoon tea, as they often do, she is always either at domestic avocations, such as cleaning, sewing, or cooking, or planting vegetables, or weeding them. All Japanese girls learn to sew and to make their own clothes, but there are none of the mysteries and difficulties which make the sewing lesson a thing of dread with us. The kimono., haori, and girdle, and even the long hanging sleeves, have only parallel seams, and these are only tacked or basted, as the garments, when washed, are taken to pieces, and each piece, after being very slightly stiffened, is stretched upon a board to dry. There is no underclothing, with its bands, frills, gussets, and buttonholes ; the poorer women wear none, and those above them wear, like Yuki, an under- dress of a frothy-looking silk crepe., as simply made as the upper one. There are circulating libraries here, as m most villages, and, in the evening, both Yuki and Ilaru read love stories, or accounts of ancient heroes and heroines, di-essed up to suit the popular taste, writ- ten in the easiest possible style. Ito has about ten vol- umes of novels in his room, and spends half the night in reading them. Both Yuki and Haru write easily, but female writing CALLIGRAPHY. 137 is differeut from that of men, being, as is usual with us, more of a running hand, and the style is non-classical, and, besides containing many abbreviations and expres- sions not in use among men, a syntax varying from that of the ordinary spoken language is used, and the hiror gana., or simple syllabary, and a special size and quality of paper, and a feminine gracefulness in curving the characters, are also matters of etiquette. Yuki’s son, a lad of thirteen, often comes to my room to display his skill in writing the Chinese character. He is a very bright boy, and shows considerable talent for drawing. Indeed, it is only a short step from writ- ing to drawing. Giotto’s O hardly involved more breadth and vigour of touch than some of these characters. They are written with a camel’s hair brush dipped in Indian ink, instead of a pen, and this boy, with two or three vigorous touches, produces characters a foot long, such as are mounted and hung as tablets outside the different shops. Yuki plays the samisen., which may be regarded as the national female instrument, and Haru goes to a teacher daily for lessons on the same. The art of arranging flowers is taught in manuals, the study of which forms part of a girl’s education, and there is scarcely a day in which my room is not newly decorated. It is an education to me ; I am beginning to appreciate the extreme beauty of solitude in decora- tion. In the alcove hangs a Icakemono of exquisite beauty, a single blossoming branch of the cherry. On one panel of a folding screen there is a single iris. The vases which hang so gracefully on the poiished posts con tarn each a single peony, a single iris, a single azalea, stalk, leaves, and corolla, all displayed iu their full beauty. Can anything be more grotesque and barbar- ous than our “ florists’ bouquets,” a series of concentric rings of flowers of divers colours, bordered by maiden- 138 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. hair and a piece of stiff lace paper, in which stems, leaves, and even petals are brutally crushed, and the grace and individuality of each flower systematically destroyed ? Kanaya is the chief man in this village, besides being the leader of the dissonant squeaks and discords which represent music at the Shinto festivals, and in some mysterious back region he compounds and sells drugs. Since I have been here the beautification of his garden has been his chief object, and he has made a very re- spectable waterfall, a rushing stream, a small lake, a rustic bamboo bridge, and several grass banks, and has transplanted several large trees. He kindly goes out with me a good deal, and as he is very intelligent, and fto is proving an excellent, and, I think, a faithful in- terpreter, I find it very pleasant to be here. They rise at daylight, fold up the wadded quilts or futons on and under which they have slept, and put them and the wooden pillows, much like stereoscopes in shape, with little rolls of paper or wadding on the top, into a press with a sliding door, sweep the mats care- fully, dust all the woodwork and the verandahs, open the amado — wooden shutters which, by sliding in a groove along the edge of the verandah, box in the whole house at night, and retire into an ornamental pro- jection in the day — and throw the paper windows back. Breakfast follows, then domestic avocations, din- ner at one, and sewing, gardening, and ■\fisiting till six, when they take the evening meal. Visitors usually arrive soon afterwards and stay till eleven or twelve. Japanese chess, story-telling, and the samisen fill up the early part of the evening, but later, an agonising performance, which they call singing, be- gins, which sounds like the very essence of heathenish ness, and consists mainly in a prolonged vibrating “ No.’ AN EVENING'S ENTERTAINMENT. 129 As soon as I hear it I feel as if I were among savages. Sake or rice-beer is always passed round before the visitors leave, in little cups with the gods of luck at the bottom of them. Sake., when heated, mounts readily to the head, and a single, small cup excites the half- witted man-servant to some very foolish musical per- fcnnances. I am sorry to write it, but his master and mistress take great pleasure in seeing him make a fool of himself, and Ito, who is from policy a total abstainer, goes into convulsions of laughter. One evening I was invited to join the family, and they entertained me by showing me picture and guide books. Most Japanese provinces have their guide- books, illustrated by woodcuts of the most striking objects, and giving itineraries, names of yadoyas., and other local information. One volume of pictures very finely executed on silk was more than a century old. Old gold lacquer and china, and some pieces of antique embroidered silk, were also produced for my benefit, and some musical instruments of great beauty, said to be more than two centuries old. None of these treas- ures are kept in the house, but in the kura or fireproof storehouse close by. The rooms are not encumbered by ornaments ; a single kakemono, or fine piece of lac- quer or china appears for a few days and then makes way for something else ; so they have variety as well as simplicity, and each object is enjoyed in its turn with- out distraction. Kanaya and his sister often pay me an evening visit, and, with Brunton’s map on the floor, we project aston- ishing routes to Niigata, which are usually abruptly abandoned on finding a mountain chain in the way with never a road over it. The life of these people seems to pass easily enough, but Kanaya deplores the want of money ; he would like to be rich, and intends to build a hotel for foreigners. 140 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. The only vestige of religion in his house is the kami' dana or god-shelf, on which stands a wooden shrine Like a Shinto temple, which contains the memorial tablets to deceased relations. Each morning a sprig of evergreen and a little rice and sake are placed before it, and every evening a lighted lamp. DARKNEHS VISIBLE. 145 EVENING EMPLOYMENTS. Darkness visible — Nikko Shops — Girls and Matrons — Night and Sleep — Parental Love — Childish Docility — Hair-dressing — Skin Diseases — The Moxa — Acupuncture. I don’t wonder that the Japanese rise early, for their evenings are cheerless, owing to the dismal illumination. In this and other houses the lamp consists of a square or circular lacquer stand, with four uprights 2i feet high, and panes of white paper. A flatted iron dish is suspended in this full of oil, with the pith of a rush with a weight in the centre laid across it, and one of the projecting ends is lighted. This wretched apparatus is called an andon., and round its wretched “ darkness visi- ble ” the family huddles, the children to play games and learn lessons, and the women to sew ; for the Jap- anese daylight is short and the houses are dark. Almost more deplorable is a candlestick of the same height as the andon., with a spike at the top which fits into a hole at the bottom of a “ farthing candle ” of vegetable wax, with a thick wick made of rolled paper, which requires constant snufi&ng, and, after giving for a short time a dim and jerky light, expires with a bad smell. Lamps, burning mineral oils, native and imported, are being manufactured on a large scale, but apart from the peril connected with them, the carriage of oil into country districts is very expensive. No Japanese would think of sleeping without having an andon burning all night in his room. 142 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. These villages are full of shops. There is scarcely a house which does not sell something. Where the buy- ers come from, and how a profit can be made, is a mys- tery. Many of the things are eatables, such as dried fishes, 1 J inch long, impaled on sticks ; cakes, sweet- meats composed of rice, flour, and very little sugar ; circular lumps of rice dough, called mochi ; roots boiled in brine ; a white jelly made from beans ; and ropes, straw shoes for men and horses, straw cloaks, papei umbrellas, paper waterproofs, hair pins, tooth picks, tobacco pipes, paper mouchoirs, and numbers of other trifles made of bamboo, straw, grass, and wood. These goods are on stands, and in the room behind, open to the street, all the domestic avocations are going on, and the housewife is usually to be seen boiling water or sewhig with a baby tucked into the back of her dress. A luci- fer factory has recently been put up, and in many house fronts men are cutting up wood into lengths for matches. In others they are husking rice, a very laborious process, in which the grain is pounded in a mortar sunk in the floor by a flat-ended wooden pestle attached to a long horizontal lever, which is worked by the feet of a man, invariably naked, who stands at the other extremity. In some women are weaving, in others spinning cotton. Usually there are three or four together, the mother, the eldest son’s wife, and one or two unmariied girls. The girls marry at sixteen, and shortly these comely, rosy, wholesome-looking creatures pass into haggard, middle-aged women with vacant faces, oving to the blackening of the teeth and removal of the eye- brows, wliich, if they do not follow betrothal, are re- sorted to on the birth of the first child. In other houses women aie at their toilet, blackening tlieir teeth before circular metal mirrors placed in folding stands on the mats, or performing ablutions, Tinclothed tc the waist PATERNAL AFFECTION. 143 The village is very silent early, while the children are at school ; their return enlivens it a little, but they are quiet even at play ; at sunset the men return, and things are a little livelier ; you hear a good deal of splashing in baths, and after that they carry about and play with their younger children, while the older ones prepare lessons for the following day by reciting them in a high, monotonous twang. At dark, the paper windoAvs are drawn, the amado, or external wooden shutters are closed the lamp is lighted before the family shrine, supper is eaten, the children play at quiet games round the andon ; and about ten the quilts and wooden pil lows are produced from the press, the amado are bolted, and the family lies down to sleep in one room. Small trays of food and the tahako-hon are ahvays within reach of adult sleepers, and one groAvs quite accustomed to hear the sound of ashes being knocked out of the pipe at intervals during the night. The children sit up as late as their parents, and are included in all their con- versation. 1 never saw people take so much delight in their off- spring, carrying them about, or holding their hands in walking, watching and entering into their games, sup- plying them constantly with new toys, taking them to picnics and festivals, never being content to be without them, and treating other people’s children also with a suitable measure of affection and attention. Both fathers and mothers take a pride in their children. It is most amusing about six every morning to see twelve or fourteen men sitting on a low Avail, each Avith a chdd under tAvo in his arms, fondling and playing with it, and showing off its pliysique and intelligence. To judge irom appearances, the children form the chief topic at this morning gathering. At night, after the houses are shut up, looking through the long fringe of rope oi 141 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. rattan whicli conceals the sliding door, you see the tather, who wears nothing but a maro in “ the bosom of his family,” bending his ugly, kindly face over a gentle-looking baby, and the mother, who more often than not has dropped the kimono from her shoulders, enfolding two cliildren destitute of clothing, in her arms. For some reasons they prefer boys, but certainly girls are equally petted and loved. The children, though for our ideas too gentle and formal, are very prepossessing in looks and behaviour. They are so perfectly docile and obedient, so ready to help their parents, so good to the little ones, and, in the many hours which I have spent in watching them at play, I have never heard an angry word, or seen a sour look or act. But they are little men and women rather than children, and their old-fashioned appearance is greatly aided by their dress, which, as I have remarked before, is the same as that of adults. There are, however, various styles of dressing the hair of girls, by which you can form a pretty accurate esti- mate of any girl’s age up to her marriage, when the coiffure undergoes a definite change. The boj’s all look top heavy and their heads of an abnormal size, partly from a hideous practice of shaving the head altogether for the first three years. After this the hair is allowed to grow in three tufts, one over each ear, and the other at the back of the neck: as often, however, a tuft is grown at the top of the back of the head. At ten, the crown alone is shav’^ed and a forelock is worn, and at fifteen, when the boy assumes the responsibilities of manhood, his hair is allowed to grow like that of a man. The grave dignity of these boys, with the grotesque patterns on their big heads, is most amusing. Would that these much exposed skulls were always smooth and clean ! It is painful to see the prevalence of such repulsiv^e maladies as scabies, scald-head, ring- DOMESTIC SURGERY 14 b worm, sore eyes, and unwholesome-looking eruptions, and fully 30 per cent of the village people are badly seamed with smallpox. The absence of clothing enables one to study the human frame, and I have been puzzled by the constant appearance of eight round marks like burns, four on each side of the spine, and often as many on the legs, the chest and sides frequently coming in for their share. These marks are produced by onogusa (moxa), small cones of the dried wool of the Artemisia vulgaris^ which are lighted and laid on the skin. It is really the excep- tion where the back is not scarred by its use. Here, these little mugwort cones are to be found in most houses, and people are burned in the spring, just as in England blood-letting was formerly customary at the same season. I saw the operation performed by a mother on her son, who bore it with great equanimity, but the suppurating sore which follows is sometimes very pain- ful. It is not only the old national remedy for many forms of disease, but it is believed that its use six times is a specific against an attack of Icak'he, (the beri-beri of Ceylon and India) which the Japanese justly dread. Another national remedy is acupuncture, and even non- professional people frequently employ it. One evening Yuki suffered from neuralgia or toothache, and Kanaya produced a very fine gilt steel needle, and stretching the skin of her cheek very tightly, thrust it in perpen- dicularly, rolling it gently between his fingers till it attained the desired depth. There is a drug, or compound of “a hundred drugs,” on which they place such great reliance, that the men carry a small box of it with them m their girdles to the fields, to take in case of any pain or uncomfortable feeling. Ito is never without it, and is constantly offering it to me. It is a dark brown powder, with an aromatic taste, and a pinch of it diffuses a genial glow through the whole frame ! M6 U 2s BEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. SHOPPING. Shops ami Shopping — Calculations — The Barber’s Shop — A Paper Waterproof — Ito’s Vanity — The Worship of Daikoku — Prepa- rations for the Journey — Transport and Prices — Money and Measurements. I HAVE had to do a little shopping in Hachiishi for my journey. The shop-fronts, you must understand, are all open, and at the height of the floor, about two feet from the ground, there is a broad ledge of polished wood on which you sit down. A woman everlastingly boiling water on a bronze hibachi or brazier, shifting the embers about deftly with brass tongs like chopsticks, and with a baby looking calmly over her shoulders, is the shopwoman ; but she remains indifferent till she imagines that you have a definite purpose of buying, when she comes forward bowing to the ground, and I politely rise and bow too. Then I or Ito ask the price of a thing, and she names it, very likely asking 4s. for what ought to sell at 6d. You say 3s., she laughs and says 3s. 6d., you say 2s., she laughs agaui and says 3s., offering you the tabako-hon. Eventually the matter is compromised by 3"our giving her Is., at which she appears quite delighted. With a profusion of bows and '•'■myo yiaras " on each side, you go away with the pleasant feeling of having given an industrious woman twice as much as the thing was worth to her, and less than what it is worth to you ! Between your offers the saleswoman makes great use AN EMBARRASSING STARE. 147 of tlie soi’oban, a frame enclosing some rows of balls moving on thick wires, which is used in all business transactions in Japan, and its use is such a habit, that a Japanese cannot add two and two together without it She is so intent upon the balls that you imagine at first that she is making an elaborate calculation as to whether it would be possible for her to make even a fractional profit out of the sum offered. Ito says that they ask a Japanese the sum they mean to take, and that foreigners, by “ bullying ” and beating them down, get things for less than natives, who are too polite to follow the same course. In some shops, when I went away feeling that the price asked, say fifty sen, was quite unreasonable, the saleswoman shuffled after me offering me the same thing for twenty. At each shop, as soon as I sat down, a crowd, mainly composed of women and children, col- lected in front, nearly all with babies on their backs, contemplating me with a quiet, grave, inane stare, somewhat embarrassing. There are several barbers’ shops, and the evening seems a very busy time with them. This operation partakes of the general want of privacy of the life of the village, and is performed in the raised open front of the shop. Soap, is not used, and the process is a painful one. The victims let their garments fall to their waists, and each holds in his left hand a lacquered tray to receive the croppings. The ugly Japanese face at this time wears a most grotesque expression of stolid resig- nation as it is held and pulled about by the operator, who turns it in all directions, that he may judge of the effect that he is producing. The shaving the face till it is smootli and shiny, and the cutting, waxing, and tying of the queue with twine made of paper, are among the evening sights of NikkQ. Lacquer and thinsrs curiously carved in wood are the 148 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. great attractions of the shops, hut they interest me fai less than the objects of utihty in Japanese daily life, with their ingenuity of contrivance and perfection of adaptation and workmanship. A seed shop, where seeds are truly idealised, attracts me daily. Tliirty varieties are offered for sale, as various in form as they are in colour, and arranged most artistically on stands, while some are put up in packages decorated with what one may call a facsimile of the root, leaves, and flower, in water colours. A lad usually lies on the mat behind executing these very creditable pictures — for such they are — with a few bold and apparently careless strokes with his brush. He gladly sold me a peony as a scrap for a screen for three sen. My purchases, with this exception, were necessaries only — a paper waterproof cloak, “ a circular,” black outside and yellow inside, made of square sheets of oiled paper cemented together, and some large sheets of the same for covering my baggage ; and I succeeded in getting Ito out of his obnoxious black wide-awake into a basin-shaped hat like mine, for ugly as I think him, he has a large share of personal vanity, whitens his teeth, and powders his face carefully before a mirror, and is in great dread of sunburn. He powders his hands too, and polishes his nails, and never goes out without gloves. I am surprised at the poverty of these villages. There is no upper class, and a middle class is repre- sented by Kanaya and another man on the other side of the river. The people -‘rise early, and eat the bread of carefulness,” are all in debt, and in Irimichi, which has lately suffered from a great fire, only keep themselves afloat. I am very sorry for them, not only because they are poor, but because, though superstitious, they are materialists, and worship Daikoku, the god of wealth, vrith their bodies and spirits. T wish they were all TBANSPOBT AND PRICES. 149 Christians, i.e. that they were pure, truthful, self-deny ing followers of our Lord Christ, and realised the pithy description of the godly man given in the Prayer-book translation of Psalm cxii., “ He is merciful, loving, and righteous.” To-morrow I leave luxury behind, and plunge into the interior, hoping to emerge somehow upon the Sea of Japan. No information can be got here except about the route to Niigata which I have decided not to take, so, after much study of Brunton’s map, I have fixed upon one place, and have said positively, “ I go to Tajima.” If I reach it I can get farther, but all I can learn is, “ It’s a very bad road, it’s all among the moun- tains.” Ito, who has a great regard for his own com- forts, tries to dissuade me from going, by saying that I shall lose mine, but as these kind people have ingen- iously repaired my bed by doubling the canvas and lacing it into holes in the side poles,^ and as I have lived for the last three days on rice, eggs, and coarse ver- micelli about the thickness and colour of earthworms, this prospect does not appal me ! In Japan there is a Land Transport Company, called Rihu-un-lcaisha, with a head-office in Tokiyfi, and branches in various towns and villages. It arranges for the transport of travellers and merchandise by pack-horses and coolies at certain fixed rates, and gives receipts in due form. It hires the horses from the farmers, and makes a moderate profit on each transaction, but saves the traveller from diffi- culties, delays, and extortions. The prices vary con- siderably in different districts, and are regulated by the price of forage, the state of the roads, and the number of hireable horses. For a nearly miles, they 1 I advise every traveller in the ruder regions of Japan to take a similar stretcher and a good mosquito net. With these he may defy all ordinary discomforts. 150 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. charge from 6 to 10 sen for a horse and the man who leads it, for a kuruma with one man from 4 to 9 sew, for the same distance, and for baggage coolies, about the same. [This Transport Company is admirably organ- ised. I employed it in journeys of over 1200 miles, and always found it efficient and reliable.] I intend to make use of it always, much against Ito’s wishes, who reckoned on many a prospective “ squeeze ” in dealings with the farmers. My journey will now be entirely over “unbeaten tracks,” and will lead through what may be called “Old Japan,” and as it will be natural to use Japanese words for money and distances for which there are no English terms, I give them here. A yen is a note representing a dollar, or about 3s. 7d. of our money; a sen is some- thing less than a halfpenny ; a rin is a thin round coin of iron or bronze, with a square hole in the middle, of which 10 make a sew, and 1000 a yen ; and a tempo is a handsome oval bronze coin with a hole in the centre, of which 5 make 4 sen. Distances are measured by rj, cAo, and ken. Six feet make one ken., sixty ken, one cho, and thirty-six cho one ri, or nearly 24 English miles. When I write of a road I mean a bridle-path from four to eight feet wide, kuruma roads being speci 6ed as such. I. L. B. THE BEFARTUBE FROM NIKK6. 151 SCANT COSTUMES. Comfort disappears — Fine Scenery — An Alarm — A Farm-liouse — An unusual Costume — Bridling a Horse — Female Dress and Ugliness — Babies — My Mag o — Beauties of the Kinugawa — A Buddhist Cemetery — Fujihara — My Servant — Horse-shoes — An absurd Mistake. FuJiHAitA, June 24. Ito’s informants were right. Comfort was left be- hind at Nikk8 ! A little woman brought two depressed-looking mares at 6 this morning ; my saddle and bridle were put on one, and Ito and the baggage on the other ; my hosts and I exchanged cordial good wishes and obeisances, and with the woman dragging my sorry mare by a rope round her nose, we left the glorious shrines and solemn cryptomeria groves of NikkS behind, passed down its long, clean street, and where the In Memoriam avenue is densest and darkest turned off to the left by a path like the bed of a brook, which afterwards, as a most atrocious trail, wound about among the rough boulders of the Daiya, which it crosses often on temporary bridges of timbers covered with branches and soil. After crossing one of the low spurs of the Nikk6san mountains, we wound among ravines whose steep sides are clothed -with maple, oak, magnolia, elm, pme, and eryptomeria, linked together by festoons of the redun- dant Wistaria chinensis, and brightened by azalea and syringa clusters. Every vista was blocked b}" some grand mountain, waterfalls thundered, bright streams 152 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. glanced through the trees, and in the glorious sunshine of June the country looked most beautiful. We travelled less than a ri an hour, as it was a mere flounder either among rocks or in deep mud, the woman in her girt-up dress and straw sandals trudging bravely along, till she suddenly flung away the rope, cried out, and ran backwards, perfectly scared by a big grey snake, with red spots, much embarrassed by a large frog which he would not let go, though, like most of his kind, he was alarmed by human approach, and made desperate efforts to swallow his victim and wriggle into the bushes. After crawling for three hours, we dismounted at the mountain farm of Kohiaku, on the edge of a rice valley, and the woman counted her packages to see that they were all right, and without waiting for a gratuity turned homewards with her horses. I pitched my chair in the verandah of a house near a few poor dwellings inhab- ited by peasants with large families, the house being in the barn-yard of a rich sake maker. I waited an hour, grew famished, got some weak tea and boiled barley, waited another hour and yet another, for all the horses were eating leaves on the mountains. There was a little stir. Men carried sheaves of barley home on their backs, and stacked them under the eaves. Children, with barely the rudiments of clothing, stood and watched me hour after hour, and adults were not ashamed to join the group, for they had never seen a foreign woman, a fork, or a spoon. Do you remember a sentence in Dr. Macgregor’s last sermon ? “ What strange sights some of you will see ! ” Could there be a stranger one than a decent-looldng middle-aged man, lying on his chest in the verandah, raised on liis elbows, and intently reading a book, clothed only in a pair of spectacles? Besides that curious piece of still life, women frequently drew water from a well by the primi- INCREDULITY AND CONVICTION. 153 tive contrivance of a beam suspended across an upright, with the bucket at one end, and a stone at the other. When the horses arrived, the men said they could not put on the bridle, but after much talk it was man- aged by two of them violently forcing open the jaws of SUMIIEB AKD WINTER COSTUME. the animal, while a third seized a propitious moment for slipping the bit into her mouth. At the next change a bridle was a thing unheard of, and when 1 suggested that the creature would open her mouth vol- untarily if the bit were pressed close to her teeth, the standers-by mockingly said, “No horse ever opens his 154 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. month except to eat or. to bite,” and were only con- vinced after I had put on the bridle myself. The new horses had a rocking gait like camels, and I was glad to disj cnse with them at Kisagoi, a small upland ham let, a very poor place, with poverty-stricken houses, children very dirty and sorely afflicted by skin maladies, and women with complexions and features hardened by severe work and much wood smoke into positive ugli ness, and with figures anything but statuesque. I w'rite the truth as I see it, and if my accounts con- flict with those of tourists who write of the Tokaido and Nakasendo, of Lake Biwa and Hakone, it does not follow that either is inaccurate. But truly this is a new Japan to me, of wliich no books have given me any idea, and it is not fairyland. The men may be said to wear nothing. Few of the women wear any- thing but a short petticoat wound tightly round them, or blue cotton troi;sers very tight in the legs and baggj- at the top, with a blue cotton garment open to the waist tucked into the band, and a blue cotton handker- chief knotted round the head. From the dress, no notion of the sex of the wearer could be gained, nor from the faces, if it were not for the shaven eyebrows and black teeth. The short petticoat is truly barbar- ous-looking, and when a woman has a nude baby on her back or in her arms, and stands staring vacantly at the foreigner, I can hardly believe m3’self in “civilised” Japan. A good-sized child, strong enough to held up his head, sees the world right cheerfully looking over his mother's shoulders, but it is a constant distress to me to see small children of six and seven 3’ears old lugging on their backs gristA babies, whose shorn heads are frizzling in the sun and “ wobbling ” about as though the3^ must drop off, their e3’es, as nurses say, “looking over tlieir heads.” A number of silkworms AN UNDIGNIFIED PROCESSION. 155 are kept in this region, and in the open barns groups of men in nature’s costume, and women unclothed to their waists, were busy stripping mulberry branches. The houses were all poor, and the people dirty both in their clothing and persons. Some of the younger women might possibly have been comely, if soap and water had been plentifully applied to their faces, but soap is not used, and such washing as the garments get is only the rubbing them a little with sand in a running stream. I will give you an amusing instance of the way in wliich one may make absurd mistakes. I heard many stories of the viciousness and aggressiveness of pack-horses, and was told that they were muzzled to prevent them from pasturing upon the haunches of their companions and making vicious snatches at men. Now I find that the muzzle is only to prevent them from eating as they travel. Mares are used exclusively in this region, and they are the gentlest of their race. If you have the weight of baggage reckoned at one horse- load, though it should turn out that the weight is too great for a weakly animal, and the Transport Agent distributes it among two or even three horses, you only pay for one ; and though our cortege on leaving Kisagoi consisted of four small, shock-headed mares who could hardly see through their bushy forelocks, with three active foals, and one woman and tliree girls to lead them, I only paid for two horses at 7 sen a ri. My mago., with her toil-hardened thoroughly good- natured face rendered hideous by black teeth, wore straw sandals, blue cotton trousers with a vest tucked into them, as poor and worn as they could be, and a blue cotton towel knotted round her head. As the sky looked threatening she carried a straw rain-cloak, a thatch of two connected capes, one fastening at the ne('-k, the otlier at the waist, and a flat hat of flags 2^ 156 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. feet in diameter hung at her back like a shield. Up and down, over rocks and through deep mud, she trudged with a steady stride, turning her kind, ugly face at intervals to see if the girls were following. I like the firm hardy gait which this unbecoming cos- tume permits, better than the painful shuffle imposed upoji the more civilised women by their tight skirts and high clogs. From Kohiaku the road passed through an irregular grassy valley between densely-wooded hills, the valley itself timbered with park-like clumps of pine and Span ish chestnuts, but on leaving Kisagoi the scenery changed. A steep rocky track brouglit us to the Kinu- gawa, a clear rushing river, which has cut its way deeply through coloured rock, and is crossed at a con siderable height by a bridge with an alarmingly steep curve, from which there is a fine view of high moun- tains, and among them Futarayama, to which some of the most ancient ShintS legends are attached. We rode for some time within hearing of the Kinugawa, catching magnificent glimpses of it frequently — turbu- lent and locked in by walls of porphyry, or widening and calming and spreading its aquamarine waters over great slabs of pink and green rock — lighted fitfully bj the sun, or spanned by rambows, or pausing to rest in deep shady pools, but alwa3's beautiful. The moun- tains through which it forces its way on the other side are precipitous and wooded to their summits with coni- fer® while the less abrupt side, along which the track is carried, curves into green knolls in its lower slopes, sprinkled with grand Spanish chestnuts scarcely yet in blossom, with maples which have not j'et lost the scarlet which they wear in spring as well as autumn, and with many flowering trees and shrubs which are new to me, and with an undergrowth of red azaleas, PECULIARITIES OF BURIAL. 157 syringa, blue hydrangea — the very blue of heaven — yellow raspberries, ferns, clematis, white and yellow lilies, blue irises, and fifty other trees and shrubs en- tangled and festooned by the wistaria, whose beautiful foliage is as common as is that of the bramble with us. The redundancy of the vegetation was truly tropical, and the brilliancy and variety of its living greens, drip ping with recent rain, were enhanced by the slant rays of the afternoon sun. W e passed several crowded burial-grounds ; indeed, along that valley, the dead seemed more numerous than the living. They are very neatly kept, the gravestones, which even the poorest manage to procure, being placed closely together in rows which are three feet apart. On many of these Buddha, or a Buddha, sat with folded hands in endless inanity. Three feet, with our ideas of sepulture, is a small allowance for a grave, but the Buddhists are not buried in a recnmbent position, and the poorer classes are interred in closed pine tubs bound with bamboo hoops, into which the body is forci- bly compressed in a squatting attitude, with the head bowed. The funeral rites, however, in all cases are respectful, and carefully carried out. The few hamlets we passed are of farm-houses ordy, the deep-eaved roofs covering in one sweep, dwelling- house, barn, and stable. In every barn unclothed peo- ple were pursuing various industries. We met strings of pack-mares, tied head and tail, loaded with rice and sake., and men and women carrying large creels full of mulberry leaves. The ravine grew more and more beautiful, and an ascent through a dark wood of ar- rowy cryptomeria brought us to this village exquisitely situated, where a number of miniature ravhies, indus- triously terraced for rice, come down upon the great chasm of the Kinugawa. Eleven hours of travelling have brought me eighteen miles ! 158 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. Ikari^ June 25. — Fujihara has forty-six farm-houses and a yadoya., all dark, damp, dirty, and draughty, a combination of dwelling-house, barn, and stable. The yadoya consisted of a daidokoro., or open kitchen, and stable below, and a small loft above, capable of division, and I found on returning from a walk, six Japanese in extreme deshabille, occupying the part through which I had to pass. On this being remedied, I sat down to write, but was soon driven upon the balcony, under the eaves, by myriads of fleas, which hopped out of the mats as sandhoppers do out of the sea sand, and even in the balcony hopped over my letter. There were two outer walls of hairy mud with living creatures crawling in the cracks ; cobwebs hung from the uncovered rafters. The mats were brown with age and dirt, the rice was musty, and only partially cleaned, the eggs had seen better days, and the tea was musty. I saw everything out of doors with Ito, the patient industry, the exquisitely situated village, the evening avocations, the quiet dulness, and then contemplated it all from my balcony and read the sentence (from a paper in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society) which had led me to devise this journey, “ There is a most ex- quisitely picturesque but difficult route up the course of the Kinugawa, which seems almost as unknown to Japanese as to foreigners.” There was a pure lemon- coloured sky above, and slush a foot deep below. A road, at this time a quagmire, intersected by a rapid stream, crossed in many places by planks, runs through the village. This stream is at once “lavatory” and “drinking fountain.” People come back from their work, sit on the planks, take off their muddy clothes and wring them out, and bathe their feet in the current. On either side are the dwellings, in front of which are much-decayed manure heaps, and the women were en- A ZEALOUS STUDENT. 159 gaged in breaking them up and treading them into a pulp with their bare feet. All wear the vest and trou- sers at their work, but only the short petticoats in their bouses, and I saw several respectable mothers of fami- lies cross the road and pay visits in this garment only, without any sense of impropriety. The younger chil- dren Avear nothing but a string and an amulet. The persons, clothing, and houses are alive with vermin, and if the word squalor can be applied to independent and industrious people, they Avere squalid. Beetles, spiders, and wood-lice held a carnival in my room after dark, and the presence of horses in the same house brought a number of horse-flies. I sprinkled my stretcher with insect powder, but my blanket had been on the floor for one minute, and fleas rendered sleep impossible. The night was very long. The andon went out, leaving a strong smell of rancid oil. The primitive Japanese dog, a cream-coloured Avolfish-looking animal, the size of a collie, very noisy and aggressive, but as cowardly as bullies usually are, was in great force in Fujihara, and the barking, growling, and quarrelling of these useless curs continued at interA^als until daylight ; and when they were not quarrelling they were howling. Torrents of rain fell, obliging me to move my bed from place to place to get out of the drip. At 5 Ito came and entreated me to leave, whimpering, “ I’ve had no sleep, there are thousands and thousands of fleas ! ” He has travelled by another route to the Tsugaru Strait through the interior, and says that he would not have believed that there Avas such a place in Japan, and that people in Yokohama will not believe it Avhen he tells them of it and of the costume of the women. He is “ ashamed for a foreigner to see such a place,” he says. His cleA'erness in travelling and his singular intelligence surprise me daily. He is very anxious to speak good IGO UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. English, as distinguished from “common ” English, and to get new words Avith their correct pronunciation and spelling. Each day he puts down in his note-book all the words that I use that he does not quite understand, and in the evening brings them to me and puts down their meaning and spelling with theii’ Japanese equiva- lents. He speaks English already far better than many professional interpreters, but would be more pleasing if he had not picked up some American vulgarisms and free-and-easy Avays. It is so important to me to have a good interpreter, or I should not have engaged so yoimg and inexperienced a servant ; but he is so clever that he is now able to be cook, laundryman, and general attendant as well as courier and interpreter, and I think it is far easier for me than if he Avere an older man. I am trying to manage him, because I saw that he meant to manage me, specially in the matter of “ squeezes.” He is intensely Japanese, his patriotism has all the weakness and strength of personal vanity, and he thinks everything inferior that is foreign. Our manners, eyes, and modes of eating, appear simply odious to him. He delights in retailing stories of the bad manners of Englishmen, describes them as “roaring out ohio to every one on the road,” frightening the tea-house nymphs, kicking or slapping their coolies, stamping over white mats in muddy boots, acting generally like ill-bred Satyi’s, exciting an ill-concealed hatred in sim- ple country districts, and bringing themseh'^es and their country into contempt and ridicule.^ He is A^ery anx- ious about my good behaAuour, and as I am equally anxious to be courteous everywhere in Japanese fashion, and not to violate the general rules of Japanese eti- quette, I take his siiggestions as to what I ought to do 1 This can only be true of the behaviour of the lowest excursionists from the Treaty Ports. CBOSSING THE MOUNTAINS. 161 and avoid in very good part, and my bows are growing more profound every day ! The people are so kind and courteous, that it is truly brutal in foreigners not to be kind and courteous to them. You will observe that I am entirely dependent on Ito, not only for travelling arrangements, but for making inquiries, gaining infor- jnation, and even for companionsliip, such as it is ; and our being mutually embarked on a hard and adventur- ous journey will, I hope, make us mutually kind and considerate. Nominally, he is a Shintoist, which means nothing. At Nikk6 I read to hun the earlier chapters of St. Luke, and when I came to the story of the Prodigal Son I was interrupted by a somewhat scornful laugh and the remark, “ Why, all this is our Buddha over again ! ” To-day’s journey, though very rough, has been rather pleasant. The rain moderated at noon, and I left Fuji- hara on foot, wearing my American “mountain dress’ and Wellington boots, — the only costume in which ladies can enjoy pedestrian or pack-horse travelling in this country, — with a light straw mat — the waterproof of the region — hanging over my shoulders, and so we plodded on with two baggage horses through the ankle- deep mud, till the rain cleared off, the mountains looked through the mist, the augmented Kinugawa thundered below, and enjoyment became possible, even in my half- fed condition. Eventually I mounted a pack-saddle, and we crossed a spur of Takadayama at a height oi 2100 feet on a well-devised series of zigzags, eight of which in one place could be seen one below another. The forest there is not so dense as usual, and the lower mountain slopes are sprinkled with noble Spanish chest- nuts. The descent was steep and slippery, the horse had tender feet, and after stumbling badly, eventually came down, and I went over his head to the great dis- 162 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tress 0 *^ the kiudly female mago. The straw shoes tied with wisps round the pasterns are a great nuisance. The “ shoe-strings ” are always coming untied, and the shoes only wear about two ri on soft ground, and less than one on hard. They keep the feet so soft and spongy that the horses can’t walk without them at all, and as soon as they get thin, your horse begins to stum ble, the mago gets uneasy, and presently you stop ; four shoes, which are hanging from the saddle, aic soaked in water and are tied on with much coaxing, raising the animal fully an inch above the ground. Anythmg more temporary and clumsy could not be devised. The bridle paths are strewn with them, and the children collect them in heaps to decay for manure. They cost 3 or 4 sen the set, and in every village men spend their leisure time in making them. Along this route an automatic rice-cleaner appears frequently, and is mysteriously fascinating. You see a wooden shed completely closed, with sometliing of the look of a mmiature water-mdl about it, and always pret- tily situated on the verge of a mountain stream. A dull thump at regular intervals proceeds from the inte- rior ; no one is ever to be seen near it, but at one end you are attracted by a stream led into the hollowed end of a log, or into a scoop attached to a beam. As the scoop fills it sinks, and raises a lever with a heavy wooden hammer at its other end, and when full it tilts, the water runs out, and the iiammer falls into a mortar dUed with rice, and is lifted again ad infinitum^ as the scoop is refilled, the rate of the thumps depending upon the amount of water in the stream. At the next stage, called Takahara, we got one horse for the baggage, crossed the river and the ravine, and by a steep climb reached a solitary yadoya with the usual open front and irori., round which a number of A I)Iii:A3f OF BEAUTY 1G3 people, old and young, were sitting. When I arrived, a whole bevy of nice-looking girls took to flight, but were soon recalled by a word from Ito to theii’ elders. Lady Parkes, on a side-saddle and in a riding-habit, ha? been taken for a man till the people saw her hair, and a young friend of mine who is very pretty and has a beautiful complexion, when travelling lately with her husband, was supposed to be a man who had shaven ofl his beard. I wear a hat, which is a tiling only worn by women in the flelds as a protection from sun and rain, my eyebrows are unshaven, and my teeth are unblack- ened, so these girls supposed me to be a foreign man. Ito in explanation said, “ They haven’t seen any, but everybody brings them tales how rude foreigners are to girls, and they are awful scared.” There was nothing eatable but rice and eggs, and I ate them under the con- centrated stare of eighteen pairs of dark eyes. The hot springs, to which many people afflicted with sores resort, are by the river, at the bottom of a rude flight of steps, in an open shed, but I could not ascertain their temper- ature, as a number of men and women were sitting in the water. They bathe four times a day, and remain for an hour at a time. We left for the five mile’s walk to Ikari in a torrent of rain by a newly made path completely shut in with the cascading Kinugawa, and carried along sometimes low, sometimes high, on props projecting over it from the face of the rock. I do not expect to see anything lovelier in Japan. The river, always crystal-blue or crystal-green, largely increased in volume by the rains, forces itself through gates of brightly-coloured rock, by which its progress is repeatedly arrested, and rarely lingers for rest in all its sparkling, rushing course. It is walled in by high moun tains gloriously wooded and cleft by dark ravines down 164 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. whioh torrents were tumbling in great drifts of foam crashing and booming, boom and crash luulliplied by many an eclio, and every ravine afforded glimpses far back of more mountains, clefts, and waterfalls, and such over-abundant vegetation that I welcomed the sight of a grey cliff or bare face of rock. Along the path there were fascinating details composed of the manifold green- ery which revels in damp heat, ferns, mosses, confervce., fungi, trailers, shading tiny rills which dropped down into grottoes feathery with the exquisite Trichomanes radicans, or drooped over the rustic path and hung into the river, and overhead the finely incised and almost feathery foliage of several varieties of maple admitted the light only as a green mist. The spring tints have not yet darkened into the monotone of summer, rose azaleas still light the hillsides, and masses of cryptomeria give depth and shadow. Still, beautiful as it all is, one sighs for something which shall satisfy one’s craving fc r startling individuahty and grace of form, as in the coco- palm and banana of the tropics. The featheriness of the maple, and the arrowy straightness and pyu'amidal form of the cryptomeria, please me better than all else ; but why criticise? Ten minutes of sunshine would transform the whole into fairyland. There were no houses and no people. Leaving this beautiful river we crossed a spur of a hill, where all the trees were matted together by a very fragrant white honeysuckle, and came down upon an open valley where a quiet stream joins the loud-tongued Kinugawa, and another mile brought us to this beautifully-situated hamlet of twenty-five houses, surrounded by mountains, and close to a mountain stream called the Okawa. The names of Japanese rivers gives one ver}^ Httle geograph- ical information from their want of continuity. A river changes il s name several times in a course of thirty oi IKABI. 165 forty miles, according to the districts through \^hich it passes. This is my old friend the Kinugawa, up which I have been travelling for two days. Want of space is a great aid to the picturesque. Ikari is crowded to- gether on a hill slope, and its short, primitive-looking street, with its warm browns and greys, is quite attrac- tive in “ the clear shining after rain.” My halting- place is at the express office at the top of the hill, a place like a big barn, with horses at one end and a liv- ing-room at the other, and in the centre much produce awaiting transport, and a group of peoj)le stripping mulberry branches. The nearest daimiyo used to halt here on his way to TokiyS, so there are two rooms for travellers, called daimiyds' rooms, fifteen feet high, hand- somely ceiled in dark wood, the sMji of such fine work as to merit the name of fret-work, the fusuma artisti- cally decorated, the mats clean and fine, and in the alcove a sword-rack of old gold lacquer. Mine is the inner room, and Ito and four travellers occupy the outer one. Though very dark it is luxury after last night. The rest of the house is given up to the rearing of silk- worms. The house-masters here and at Fujihara are not used to passports, and Ito, who is posing as a town- bred youth, has explained and copied mine, all the vil- lage men assembling to hear it read aloud. He does not know the word used for “ scientific investigation,” but in the idea of increasing his own importance by exaggerating mine, I hear him telling the people that I am gakusha^ i.e. learned ! There is no police station here, but every mouth policemen pay domiciliary visits to these outlying gadogas and examine the register of visitors. This is a much neater place than the last, but the people look stupid and apathetic, and I wonder what they think of the men who have abolished the daimigd 166 UNBEATEN TBACKR IN JAPAN. and the fe-udal regime., have raised the eta to citizensliip, and are hurrying the empire forward on the tracks ol western civilisation ! Since shingle has given place to thatch there is much to admire in the villages, with their steep roofs, deep eaves and balconies, the warm russet of roofs and walls, the quaint confusion of the farm-houses, the hedges of camellia and pomegranate, the bamboo clumps and per- simmon orchards, and (in spite of dirt and bad smells) the generally satisfied look of the peasant proprietors. No food can be got here except rice and eggs, and I am haunted b}^ memories of the fowls and fish of Nik- ko, to say nothing of the “ flesh pots ” of the Legation, and “ A sorrow’s crown of sorrow Is remembering happier things ! ” The mercury falls to 70° at night, and I generally awake from cold at 3 a.m., for my blankets are ouly summer ones, and I dare not supplement them with a quilt, either for sleeping on or under, because of the fleas which it contains. I usually retire about 7.30, for there is almost no twilight, and very Little inducement for sitting up by the dimness of candle or andon, and I have found these days of riding on slow, rolling, stum- bling horses very severe, and if 1 were an^-thing of a Vfalker, should certainly prefer pedestrianism. I. L. B. THE '^QUIVER” OF POVERTY. 167 DIRT AND DISEASE. k. Fantastic Jumble — The “Quiver” of Poverty — The Watershed — From Bad to Worse — Tlie Rice Planter’s Holiday — A Diseased Crowd — Amateur Doctoring — The Hot Bath — Want of Cleanli- ness — Insanitary Houses — Rapid Eating — Premature Old Age. KuRUMATOGh, June 30. After the hard travelling of six days the rest of Sunday in a quiet place at a high elevation is truly delightful! Mountains and passes, valleys and rice- swamps, forests and rice-swamps, villages and rice- swamps ; poverty, industry, dirt, ruinous temples, pros- trate Buddhas, strings of straw-shod pack-horses ; long, grey, featureless streets, and quiet, staring crowds, are all jumbled up fantastically in my memory. Fine weather accompanied me through beautiful scenery from Ikari to Yokokawa, where I ate my lunch in the street to avoid the innumerable fleas of the tea-house, with a circle round me of nearly all the inhabitants. At first the children, both old and young, were so fright- ened that they ran away, but by degrees they timidly came back, clinging to the skirts of their parents (skirts in this case being a metaphorical expression), running away again as often as I looked at them. The crowd was filthy and squalid beyond description. Why should the “ quiver ” of poverty be so very full ? one asks as one looks at the swarms of gentle, naked, old-fashioned children, born to a heritage of hard toil, to be, like their parents, devoured by vermin, and pressed hard for 168 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. taxes. A horse kicked off my saddle before it was girthed, the crowd scattered right and left, and work, which had been suspended for two hours to stare at the foreigner, began again. A long ascent took us to the top of a pass 2500 feet in heiglit, a projecting spur not 80 feet wide, with a grand view of mountains and ravines, and a maze of involved streams, which unite in a vigorous torrent, whose course we followed for some hours, till it ex- panded into a qniet river, lonnging lazily through a rice- swamp of considerable extent. The majj is blank in this region, but I judged, as I afterwards found rightly, that at that pass we had crossed the watershed, and that the streams thenceforward no longer fall into the Pacific, bnt into the Sea of Japan. At Itosawa the horses produced stumbled so intolerably that I walked the last stage, and reached Kayasliima, a miserable village of fifty-seven houses, so exhausted, that f could not go farther, and was obliged to put up wdth worse accommodation even than at Fujihara, with less strength for its hardships. The yadoya was simply awful. The daidoJcoro had a large wood fire burning in a trench, filling the whole place with stinging smoke, from which my room, wliich was merely screened off by some dilapidated lihoji., was not exempt. The rafters were black and shiny with soot and moisture. The house-master, who knelt per- sistently on the floor of my room till he was dislodged by Ito, apologised for the dirt of his house, as well he might. Stifling, dark, and smoky, as my room was, I had to close the j)aper Avindows, owing to the crowd which assembled in the street. There was neither rice nor soy, and Ito, who valnes his own comfort, began to speak to the house-master and servants loudly and roughly, and to throw my things about, a stjde of act A RUEFUL CROWD. 169 ing whicli I promptly terminated, for nothing could be more hurtful to a foreigner, or more unkind to the peo- ple, than for a servant to be rude and bullying ; and the man was most polite, and never approached me but on bended knees. When I gave him my passport, as the custom is, he touched his forehead with it, and then touched the earth with his forehead. I found nothing that I could eat except black beans and boiled cucumbers. The room was dark, dirty, vile, noisy, and poisoned by sewage odours, as rooms unfor- tunately ai^ very apt to be. At the end of the rice- planting there is a holiday for two days, when many offerings are made to Inari, the god of rice-farmers ; and the holiday-makers kept up their revel all night, and drums, stationary and peripatetic, were constantl}. beaten in such a way as to prevent sleep. A little boy, the house-master’s son, was suffering from a very bad cough, and a few drops of chlorodyne, which I gave him, allayed it so completely, that the cure was noised abroad in the earliest hours of the next morning, and by five o’clock nearly the whole population was assembled outside my room, with much whispering and shuffling of shoeless feet, and applications of eyes to the many holes in the paper windows. When I drew aside the shoji, I was disconcerted by the painful sight wliich presented itself, for the people were pressing one upon another, fathers and mothers holding naked chil- dren covered with skin-disease or with scald-head, or ringworm, daughters leading mothers nearly blind, men exhibiting painful sores, children blinking with eyes infested by flies, and nearly closed with ophthalmia, and all, sick and well, in truly “vile raiment,” lamentably dirty and swarming with vermin, the sick asking for medicine, and the well either bringing the sick or grati- fying an apathetic cariosity. Sadly I told them that I 170 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. did not understand their manifold “diseases and tor ments,” and that if I did, I had no stock of medicines, and that in my own country the constant washing of clothes, and the constant application of water to the skin, accompanied by friction with clean cloths, would be much relied upon by doctors for the cure and pre- vention of similar cutaneous diseases. To pacify them, 1 made some ointment of animal fat and flowers of sulphur, extracted with difficulty from some man’s hoard, and told them how to apply it to some of the worst cases. The horse, being unused to a girth, became fidgety as it was' being saddled, creating a stampede among the crowd, and the mago would not touch it again. They are as much afraid of their gentle mares as if they were panthers. All the children followed me for a considerable distance, and a good many of the adults made an excuse for going in the same direction. I was entirely unprepared for tlie apparent poverty and real dirt and discomfort that I have seen since leaving Nikko. With us poverty of the squalid kind is usually associated with laziness and drunkenness, but here the first is unknown, and the last is rare among the peasant proprietors. Their industry is ceaseless, they have no Sabbaths, and only take a holiday when they have nothing to do. Their spade husbandry turns the country into one beautifully kept garden, in which one might look vainly for a weed. They are economical and thrifty, and turn everything to useful account. They manure the ground heavily, understand the rota- tion of crops, and have little if anything to learn in the way of improved agricultural processes. I am too new a comer to venture an opinion on the subject. The appearance of poverty may be produced by apathy regarding comforts to which they have not been accus- tomed. The dirt is preventible, and the causes of the IN 8 AN IT AR Y PR A C TICES. 171 prevalence of cutaneous diseases among cliildren are not far to seek. There can be no doubt of the want of cleanliness in nearly the whole district that I have passed through, and this surprises me. The people tell me that they take a bath once a week. This sounds well, but when looked into, its merit dimin- ishes. This bath in private houses consists of a tub four feet high, and sufficiently large to allow of an average-sized human being crouching in it in the ordi- nary squatting position. It is heated by charcoal in such a way that the fumes have occasionally proved fatal. The temperature ranges from 110° to 125°, and fatal syncope among old people is known to occur during immersion. The water in private bath tubs is used without any change by all the inmates of a house, and in the public baths by a large number of customers. The bathing is not for purification, but for the enjoy- ment of a sensuous luxury. Soap is not used, and friction is apologised for by a general dabbing with a soft and dirty towel. The intermediate washing consists in putting the feet into hot water when they are covered with mud, washing the hands and face, or giving them a slap Avith a damp towel. These people wear no linen, and their clothes, which are seldom washed, are constantly worn, night and day, as long as they will hold together. They seal up their houses as hermetically as they can at night, and herd together in numbers in one sleeping-room, with its atmosphere vitiated to begin with by charcoal and to- bacco fumes, huddled up in their dirty garments in wadded quilts, which are kept during the day in close cupboards, and are seldom washed from one year’s end to another. The tatami, beneath a tolerably fair ex- terior, swarm with insect life, and are receptacles of dust, organic matters, etc. The hair, which is loaded 172 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. with oil and bandoline, is dressed once a week, or less often in these districts, and it is unnecessary to entei into any details regarding the distressing results, and much besides may be left to the imagination. The persons of the people, especially of the children, are infested with vermin, and one fruitful source of skin sores is the irritation arising from this cause. The floors of houses, being concealed by mats, are laid down carelessly with gaps between the boards, and as the damp earth is only eighteen inches or two feet below, emanations of all kinds enter the mats and pass into the rooms. Where the drinking water is taken from wells situated in the midst of crowded houses, contamination may be regarded as certain, either from the direct effect of insanitary arrangements within the houses, or from percolations into the soil from gutters- outside, choked with decomposing organic matter. In the farming villages, as a general ride, the sewage is kept in large tubs sunk into the earth at the house door, from whence it is removed in open buckets to the fields. The houses in this region (and I believe evervwhere) are hermetically sealed at night, both in summer and winter, the amado, which are made without ventilators literally boxing them in, so that unless they are falling to pieces, which is rarely the case, none of the air "vuti- ated by the breathing of many persons, by the emana- tions from their bodies and clothing, by the miasmata produced by defective domestic arrangements, and by the fumes fi-om charcoal Tiibachi, can ever be renewed. Exercise is seldom taken from choice, and uidess the women wmrk in the fields, they hang over charcoal fumes the whole day for five months of the year, en- gaged in interminable processes of cooking, or in the attempt to get warm. Much of the food of the peas- antry is raw or half-raw salt fish, and vegetables rendered AN APOLOGY. m indigestible by being coarsely pickled, all bolted -wnth the most marvellous rapidity, as if the one object of life were to rush through a meal in the shortest possible time. The married women look as if tliey had never known youth, and their skin is apt to be like tanned leather. At Kayashima I asked the house-master’s wife, who looked about fifty, how old she was (a polite question in Japan), and she replied twenty-two — one of many similar surprises. Her boy was five years old, and was still unweaned. This digression disposes of one aspect of the popula- tion.i 1 Many unpleasant details have necessarily been omitted. If the reader requires any apology for those which are given here and else- where, it must he found in my desire to give such a faithful picture of peasant life, as I saw it in Northern Japan, as may be a contribution to the general sum of knowledge of the country, and, at the same time, serve to illustrate some of the difficulties which the Governmert has to encounter in its endeavour to raise masses of people as deficient as 1 hose are in some of the first requirements of civilisation. I L. B 174 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. HIGH FARMING. A Japanese Ferry — The Wistaria Chinensis — (/rops — A Chi- nese Drug — Etiquette in Cultivation — A Corrugated Hoad — The Pass of Sanno — Various Vegetation — An Ungainly Under- growth — Preponderance of Men — The Shrines of Nature-wor- ship — Apparent Decay of Religion. We changed horses at Tajima, formerly a daimiyd's residence, and, for a Japanese town, rather picturesque. It makes and exports clogs, coarse pottery, coarse lacquer, and coarse baskets. After travelling through rice-fields varymg from thirty yards square to a quarter of an acre, with the tops of the dykes utilised by planting dwarf beans along them, we came to a large river, the Arakai, along whose affluents we had been tramping for two daj'S, and, after passing through several filthy ^'il- lages, tlironged with filthy and industrious inhabit- ants, crossed it in a scow. High forks planted se- curely in the bank on either side sustained a rope formed of several strands of the wistaria knotted to- gether. One man hauled on this hand over hand, another poled at the stern, and the rapid cimrent did the rest. In this fashion we have crossed many rivers subsequently. Tariffs of charges are posted at all fer- ries, as well as at all bridges where charges are made, and a man sits in an office to receive the money. The wistaria, which is largely used where a strength and durability exceeding that of ordinary cables is A VALUABLE DRUG. 175 required, aeems universal. As a dwarf it covers the hills and road-sides, and as an aggressive liana it climbs the tallest trees and occasionally kills them, cramping and compressing them mercilessly, and finally riots in its magnificent luxuriance over their dead branches. Several times I have thought that I had come upon a new species of tree of great beauty, and have found it to be an elm or cryptomeria killed and metamorphosed by this rampageous creeper. Some of its twisted stems are as thick as a man’s body. In pleasure-grounds it is trellised and trained so as to form bowers of large size, a single tree often allowing 100 people to rest comfortably imder its shadow. Villages with their ceaseless industries succeeded each other rapidly, and the crops were more varied than ever ; wheat, barley, millet, rice, hemp, beans (which in their many varieties rank next to rice as the staple food), pease, water melons, cucumbers trained on sticks like peas, sweet potato, egg plants, tiger lilies, a purple colea the leaves of which are eaten like spinach, lettuces, and indigo. Patches of a small yellow chrys- anthemum occurred frequently. The petals are par- tially boiled, and are eaten with vinegar as a dainty. The most valuable crop of this region is ninjin, the Chinese ginseng, the botanical Panax repens. In the Chinese pharmacopeia it occupies a leading place (even apart from superstitions which are connected with it), and is used for fevers as we use quinine. It has at times been sold in the east for its weight in gold, and, though the price has fallen to 40s. per lb., the profit on its cultivation is considerable. The ginseng exported annually from Japan is worth, on arrival in China, .£200,000, and in another two years more than double the present crop will be placed in the market. The exquisite neatness of Japanese cultivation culminates in ninrin. 176 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. It is sown on beds 27 feet long, 2i broad, 1 high, and 2 apart. In each bed there are 438 seed-holes, and in each hole three seeds. I mention this as an instance of the minute etiquette which regulates all processes in this curiously formal country. As a protection from the sun, neatly-made straw roofs cover the beds both in winter and summer. Only the strong plants are allowed to survdve the first year. In the fifth year the roots are taken up, scalded, and roasted in trays at a gentle heat from four- to eight days, according to their size. The stalks and leaves are boiled down to make a black, coarse jelly, much like liquorice, but very bitter, which is used in cases of debility. Sesamum Orientale, from which an oil is made, which is used both for the hair and for frying fish, began to be cultivated. The use of this in frying is answerable for one of the most horrific smells in Japan. It is almost worse than daikon. The country was really very beautiful. The views were wider and finer than on the previous days, taking in great sweeps of peaked mountains, wooded to their summits, and from the top of the Pass of Sanno the clustered peaks were glorified into unearthly beauty in a golden mist of evening sunshine. I slept at a house combining silk farm, post office, express office, and daimiyo’s rooms, at the hamlet of Ouchi, prettily situ- ated in a valley with mountainous surroundings, and leaving early on the following morning, had a very grand ride, passing in a crateriform caffity the pretty little lake of Oyake, and then ascending the magnifi- cent pass of Ichikawa. We turned off what, by ironi- cal courtesy, is called the main road, upon a villanous track, consisting of a series of lateral corrugations, about a foot broad, with depressions between them more than a foot deep, formed by the invariable tread AN UNGAINLY GALLOP. 177 ing of the pack-horses in each other’s footsteps. Each hole was a quagmire of tenacious mud, the ascent of ■2400 feet was very steep, and the mago adjured the animals the whole time with Hai ! Hai ! Hai ! which is supposed to suggest to them that extreme caution is requisite. Their shoes were always coming untied, and they wore out two sets in four miles. The top of the pass, like that of a great many others, is a narrow ridge, on the farther side of which the track dips abruptly into a tremendous ravine, along whose side we descended for a mile or so in company vith a river whose reverberating thunder drowned all attempts at speech. A glorious view it was, looking down between the wooded precipices to a rolling wooded plain, lying in depths of indigo shadow, bounded by ranges of wooded mountains, and overtopped by heights heavily splotched with snow ! The vegetation was significant of a milder climate. The magnolia and bamboo re- appeared, and tropical ferns mingled with the beauti- ful blue hydrangea, the yellow Japan lily, and the great blue campanula. There was an ocean of trees entangled with a beautiful trailer (^Actinidia polygama) with a profusion of white leaves, which, at a distance, look like great clusters of white blossoms. But the rank undergrowth of the forests of this region is not attractive. Many of its component parts deserve the name of weeds, being gawky, ragged umbels, coarse docks, rank nettles, and many other things which I don’t know, and never wish to see again. Near the end of this descent my mare took the bit between her teeth and carried me at an ungainly gallop into the beautifully situated, precipitous village of Ichikawa, which is absolutely saturated with moisture by the spray of a fine waterfall which tumbles through the middle of it, and its trees and roadside are green with 178 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. the Protococcus viridis. The Transport Agent there was a woman. Women keep yadoyas and shops, and cultivate farms as freely as men. Boards giving the number of inhabitants, male and female, and the num- ber of horses and bullocks, are put up in each village, and I noticed in Ichikawa, as everywhere hitherto, that men preponderate.^ Everywhere there are conical hiUs densely wooded with cryptomeria, and scarcely one is without a steep flight of handsome stone stairs with a stone or wooden torii at its base. From below, the top is involved in mystery, but, on ascending into what is truly a “ solemn shade,” one usually finds a small, wooden shrine, and some tokens of worship, such as a few flowers, a little rice, or a sprig of evergreen. These “ groves ” and “ high places ” are the shrines of the old nature and hero worship which has its symbols “ on every high hill, and under every green tree.” In some places there is merely a red torii with some wisps of straw dangling from it at the entrance of a grove ; in others, a single venerable tree or group of trees is surrounded with a straw rope with straw tassels dangling from it — the sign of sacredness ; in others, again, a paved path under a row of decaying grey torii leads to nothing. The grand flights of stone stairs up to the shrines in the groves are the great religious feature of this part of the country, and seem to point to a much more pious age than the present. The Buddhist temples have lately been few, and though they are much more pre- tentious than the ShintG shrines, and usually have stone lanterns and monuments of various kinds in their grounds, they are shabby and decaying, the paint is wearing off the wood, and they have an unmistakable ' The excess of males over females in the capital is 36,000, and in the whole Empire nearly half a million. EqUINE CEMETERIES. 179 look of “ disestablishment,” not supplemented by a vig- orous “voluntaryism.” One of the most marked fea- tures of this part of the country is the decayed look of the religious edifices and symbols. Buddhas erect but without noses, moss and lichen covered, here and there, with strips of pink cloth tied round their necks, and Buddhas prostrate among grass and weeds, are every where. One passes hundreds of them in a single day’s journey. In contrast to the neglect of religious symbols is the fact that the burial-grounds, even the lonely ones on tne wild hill-sides, are always well kept, the head-stones are always erect, and on most graves there are offerings of fresh flowers. Near several of the villages there are cemeteries less carefully kept, with monuments of quite a different shape, where the pack-horses of the region are interred. This evening is so very fine that I will break off mj' letter here. It is more than long enough already. 1. L. B. 180 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. A MALARIOUS DISTRICT. The Plain of Wakamatsu — A Noble Tree — Light Costume — Ths Takata Crowd — Japanese Paper — A Congress of Schoolmasters — Timidity of a Crowd — Bad Eoads — Vicious Horses — Mountaiu Scenery — A Picturesque Inn — Swallowing a Fish-bone — Poverty and Suicide — An Inn-kitchen — England Unknown I — My Break- fast Disappears. Kubujiatoge, June 20 . A SHORT ride took us from Ichikawa to a plain about eleven miles broad by eighteen long. The large town of Wakamatsu stands near its southern end, and it is sprinkled with towns and villages. The great lake of Iniwashiro is not far off. The plain is rich and fertile. In the distance the steep roofs of its villages with their groves look very picturesque. As usual not a fence or gate is to be seen, or any other hedge than the tall one used as a screen for the dwellings of the richer farmers. I must confess that it is a lovely plain, well wooded and watered, its thriving villages half hidden by per- simmon and walnut-trees, and its fertile acres so mag- nificently tilled that even at this prolific season not a weed is to be seen. The lacquer-tree (^Rhus vernieifera) abounds, and one of the finest of the native trees, keaki, the Japanese elm {Zelkoioa keaki), grows to an immense size. I measured the girth of one of these which was surrounded by the ShintS straw rope, and found it ^8 feet 10 inches, at four feet from the ground, and the spread of its thick drooping foliage was noble in propor- tion. Tea grows in every garden, and mulberry-treei A TROUBLESOME CROWD. 181 everywhere show that sericulture is one of the leading industries of the district, and the paper mulberry (^Broussonettia papyriferd) is also abundant. Bad roads and bad horses detracted from my enjoy ment. One hour of a good horse would have carried me across the plain ; as it was, seven weary hours were expended upon it. The day degenerated, and closed in still, hot rain, the air was stifling and electric, the saddle slipped constantly from being too big, the shoes were more than usually troublesome, the horseflies tormented, and the men and horses crawled. The rice-fields were undergoing a second process of pud- dling, and many of the men engaged in it wore only a hat, and a fan attached to the girdle. An avenue of cryptomeria and two handsome and somewhat gilded Buddhist temples denoted the ap- proach to a place of some importance, and such Takata is, as being a large town with a considerable trade in silk, rope, and ninjin, and the residence of one of the higher officials of the ken or prefecture. The street is a mile long, and every house is a shop. The general aspect is mean and forlorn. In these little-travelled districts, as soon as one reaches the margin of a town, the first man one meets turns and flies down the street, calling out the Japanese equivalent of “Here’s a for- eigner ! ” and soon blind and seeing, old and young, clothed and naked, gather together. At the yadoya the crowd assembled in such force that the house-master removed me to some pretty rooms in a garden ; but then the adults climbed on the house-roofs which over- looked it, and the children on a palisade at the end, which broke down under their weight, and admitted the whole inundation ; so that I had to close the shoji, with the fatiguing consciousness during the whole time of nominal rest of a multitude surging outside. Then 182 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. five policemen in black alpaca frock-coats and white trousers invaded my precarious privacy, desiring to see my passport — a demand never made before except where I halted for the night. In their European clothes they cannot bow with Japanese punctiliousness but they were very polite, and expressed great annoy- ance at the crowd, and dispersed it ; but they had hard- ly disappeared when it gathered again. When I went out I found fully 1000 people helping me to realize how the crowded cities of Judea sent forth people clothed much as these are when the Miracle-Worker from Gali- lee arrived, but not what the fatigue of the crowding and buzzing must have been to One who had been preaching and working during the long day\ These Japanese crowds, however, are quiet and gentle, and never press rudely upon one. I could not find it in my heart to complain of them except to ymu. Four of the policemen returned, and escorted me to the out- skirts of the town. The noise made by^ 1000 people shuflfiing along in clogs is like the clatter of a hail- storm. Paper plays such an important part in Japan that I was very glad to learn a little about it at a farm near Takata, to which I took an introduction, and found the farmer very polite. The Broussonettia pap>/rifcra is the plant from wliich the Polynesians make their tajja or paper cloth. In Japan its cultm-e is a most impor- tant industry. Plants of ^he Buddlea and Hibiscus species are also used, but only in small quantities, for mixing vdth the bark of the paper mulberry. Over sixty kinds of paper are manufactui’ed, and etiquette prescribes the use which is made of each. To say noth- ing of walls, windows, cups, pocket-handkerchiefs, lan- terns, string, Avrappers, cloaks, hats, baggage-covers, it is used domestically^ and professionally for all purposes JAPANESE PAPER. 183 for which we use lint, bandages, and cloths, and the consumption of it is enormous. It is so tenacious as to be nearly untearable, and even the finest kind, an ex- quisite and almost diaphanous fabric, soft like the most delicate silk crepe, in which fine gold lacquer is usually wrapped, can only be torn with difficulty. At this farm paper was being made in a small quantity for home use. The farmer, Tanaka, said that the paper mulberry shoots, after being allowed to grow to a length of five feet, are cut annually, and soaked in water for several days, after which the bark is taken off and boiled in ley ; the inner and whiter bark which is used for making the better qualities of paper, being separated from the outer. He was only using the coarsest. The bark is beaten, as in Hawaii, into a pulp, and a small quantity is taken up on a frame and allowed to dry in the sun. Tanaka was making a coarse grey kind, used for covering the pads which soften the wooden pillows of the poorest classes. The sheets, 14 inches by 10 inches, are sold at three for a farthing. After this there was a dismal tramp of five hours through rice-fields. The moist climate and the fatigue of this manner of travelling are deteriorating my health, and the pain in my spine, which has been daily in- creasing, was so severe that I could neither ride nor walk for more than twenty minutes at a time ; and the pace was so slow that it was six when we reached Bang4, a commercial town of 5000 people, literally in the rice-swamp, mean, filthy, damp, and decaying, and full of an overpowering stench from black, slimy ditches. The mercury was 84°, and hot rain fell fast through the motionless air. We dismounted in a shed full of bales of dried fish, which gave off an overpowering odoiir, and wet and dii’ty people crowded in to stare at the foreigner till the air seemed unbreathable. 184 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. But there were signs of progress. A three days congress of schoolmasters was being held ; candidates for vacant situations were being examined ; there were lengthy educational discussions going on, specially on the subject of the value of the Chinese classics as a part of education ; and every inn was crowded. Bangd was malarious : there was so much malarious fever that the Government had sent additional medical assistance ; the hills were only a ri off, and it seemed essential to go on. But not a horse could be got till 10 r M ; the road was worse than the one I had travelled ; the pain became more acute, and I more exhausted, and I was obliged to remain. Then followed a weary hour, in which the Express Agent’s five emissaries were searching for a room, and considerably after dark I found myself in a rambling old overcrowded yadoya, where my room was mainly built on piles above stagnant water, and the mosquitoes were in such swarms as to make the air dense, and after a feverish and miserable night I was glad to get up early and depart. Fully 2000 people had assembled. After I was mounted I was on the point of removing my Dollond from the case, which hung on the saddle horn, when a regular stampede occurred, old and jmung running as fast as they possibly could, children being knocked down in the haste of their elders. Ito said that they thought I was taking out a pistol to frighten them, and I made him explain what the object really was, for they are a gentle, harmless people, whom one would not annoy without sincere regret. In many European countries, and certainly in some parts of our own, a solitary lady-traveller in a foreign dress woidd be ex- posed to rudeness, insult, and extortion, if not to actual danger ; but I have not met with a single instance of incivility or real overcharge, and there is no rudeness BAB BOABS. 185 even a, bout the crowding. The mago are anxious that I should not get wet or be frightened, and veiy scru- pulous in seeing that all straps and loose things are safe at the end of the journey, and instead of hanging about asking for gratuities, or stopping to drink and gossip, they quickly unload the horses, get a paper from the Transport Agent, and go home. Only yesterday a strap was missing, and though it was after dark, the man went back a ri for it, and refused to take some sen which I wished to give him, saying he was responsible for delivering everything right at the journey’s end. They are so kind and courteous to each otlier, which is very pleasing. Ito is not pleasing or polite in his man- ner to me, but when he speaks to his own people he cannot free himself from the shackles of etiquette, and bows as profoundly and uses as many polite phrases as anybody else. In an hour the malarious plain was crossed, and we have been among piles of mountains ever since. The infamous road was so slippery that my horse fell several times, and the baggage horse, with Ito upon him, rolled head over heels, sending his miscellaneous pack in all directions. Good roads are reallj^ the most pressing need of Japan. It would be far better if the Govern- ment were to enrich the country by such a remunera- tive outlay as making passable roads for the transport of goods through the interior, than to impoverish it by buying iron-clads in England, and indulging in expen- sive western vanities. That so horrible a road should have so good a bridge as that by wliich we crossed the broad river Agano is surprising. It consists of twelve large scows, each one secured to a strong cable of plaited wistaria, which crosses the river at a great height, so as to allow of the scows and the plank bridge which they carry rising and falling with the twelve feet variation of the water. 186 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Ilo’s disaster kept him back for an hour, and I sai meanwhile on a rice-sack in the hamlet of Katakado, a collecjtion of steep-roofed houses huddled together on a height above the Agano. It was one mob of pack- horses, over 200 of them, biting, squealing, and kicking. Before I coidd dismount, one vicious creature struck at me violently, but only hit the great wooden stirrup. 1 could hardly find any place out of the range of hoofs or teeth. My baggage horse showed great fury after he was unloaded. He attacked people right and left with his teeth, struck out savagely with his fore feet, lashed out with his hind ones, and tried to pin his master up against a wall. Leaving this fractious scene, we struck again through the mountains. Their ranges were interminable, and every view from every fresh ridge grander than the last, for we were now near the lofty range of the Aidzu Mountains, and the double-peaked Bandaisan, the abrupt precipices of Itoyasan, and the grand mass of Miyojintakd in the south-west, with their vast snow- fields and snow-filled ravines, were all visible at once. These summits of naked rock or dazzling snow, rising above the smothering greenery of the lower ranges into a heaven of delicious blue, gave exactly that individu- ality and emphasis which to my thinking Japanese scenery usually lacks. Riding on first, I arrived alone at the little town of Nozawa to encounter the curiosity of a crowd, and, after a rest, we had a very pleasant walk of three miles along the side of a ridge above a rapid river with fine gray cliffs on its farther side, with a grand view of the Aidzu giants violet coloured in a golden sunset. The sound of the bronze bells of temples floated with a sweet mournfulness on the still air, making one forget that tbe lo^ving of kine and bleating of sheep, whieb A PICTURESQUE INN. 187 would have been more appropriate to su3h a pastoral- looking region, were absent. At dusk we came upon the picturesque village of Nojiri, on the margin of a rice-valley, but I shrank from spending Sunday in a bole, and having spied a solitary house on the very brow of a hill 1500 feet higher, I dragged out the information that it was a tea-house, and came up to it. It took three quarters of an hour to climb the series of precipitous zigzags by which this remarkable pass is surmounted ; darkness came on, accompanied by thunder and lightning, and just as we arrived a tremendous zigzag of blue flame lit up the house and its interior, showing a large group sitting round a wood fire, and then all was tliick darkness again. It was a most startling effect. This house is magnificently situated, almost hanging over the edge of the knife-like ridge of the pass of Kuruma, on which it is situated. It is the only yadoya I have been at from which there has been any view. The villages are nearly always in the valleys, and the best rooms are at the back, and have their prospects limited by the paling of the conventional garden. If it were not for the fleas, which are here in legions, I should stay longer, for the view of the Aidzu snow is delicious, and, as there are only two other houses, one can ramble without being mobbed. In one, a child two and a half years old swallowed a fish-bone last night, and has been suffering and crying all da}^ and the grief of the mother so won Ito’s sym- pathy that he took me to see her. She had walked up and down with it for eighteen hours, but never thought of looking into its throat, and was very unwilling that I should do so. The bone was visible, and easily re- moved with a crochet needle. An hour later the mother sent a tray with a quantity of cakes and coarse 188 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. confectionery upon it as a present, with the piece of dried seaweed which always accompanies a gift. Before night seven people with sore legs applied for “ advice.” The sores were all superficial and all alike, and theii owners said that they had been produced by the inces- sant rubbing of the bites of ants. On this summer day the country looks as prosperous as it is beautiful, and one would not tliink that acute poverty could exist in the steep-roofed village of Xojiri which nestles at the foot of the hill ; but two hempen ropes dangling from a cryptomeria just below tell the sad tale of an elderly man who hanged himself two days ago, because he was too poor to provide for a large family ; and the house-mistress and Ito tell me that when a man who has a young family gets too old or feeble for work, he often destroys himself. Suicide appears ver}'’ common. When a young man and woman wish to marry, and the consent of the par- ents is refused, they often bind themselves together and drown themselves. [This is such a frequent offence that the new Code imposes penal servitude for ten years on people arrested in the commission of it.] Women never hang themselves, but, as may be expected, suicide is more common among them than among men, and an acute sense of shame, lovers’ quarrels, cruelties prac- tised upon geishas and others by those who are their taskmasters for a term of years, the loss of personal charms through age or dlness, and even the dread of such loss, are the most usual causes. In these cases they usually go out at night, and after filling their ca- pacious hanging sleeves with stones, jump into a river or well. I have passed two wells wJiich are at present disused in consequence of recent suicides. My hostess is a widow with a family, a good-natured, bustling woman, witli a great love of talk. All day liei ENGLAND IS UNKNOWN. 189 house is open all round, having literally no walls. The roof and solitary upper room are supported on posts, and my ladder almost touches the Idtchen fire. During the da}'-time the large matted area under the roof has no divisions, and gronps of travellers and magos lie about ; for every one who has toiled up either side of Kurumatogd takes a cup of “ tea with eating,” and the house-mistress is busy the whole day. A big well is near the fire. Of course there is no furniture ; but a shelf runs under the roof on which there is a Buddhist god-house, with two black idols in it, one of them being that much-worshipped divinity, Daikoku, the god of wealth. Besides a rack for kitchen utensils, there is only a stand on which are six large brown dishes with food for sale — salt shell-fish, in a black liquid, dried trout impaled on sticks, sea slugs in soy, a paste made of pounded roots, and green cakes made of the slimy river eonfervoe., pressed and dried — all ill-favoured and unsavoury viands. This afternoon a man without clothes was treading flour paste on a mat, a traveller in a blue silk robe was lying on the floor smoking, and five women in loose attire, with elaborate chignons and blackened teeth, were squatting round the fire. At the house-mistress’s request I wrote a eulogistic description of the view from her house, and read it in English, Ito translating it, to the very great satisfaction of the as- semblage. Then I was asked to write on four fans. The woman has never heard of England. It is not “ a name to conjure with ” in these wilds. Neither has she heard of America. She knows of Russia as a great power, and of course of China, but there her knowl- edge ends, though she has been at T8kiy6 and Kiyoto. July 1. — I was just fallmg asleep last night, in spite of mosquitoes and fleas, when I was roused by much talking and loud outcries of poultry ; and Ito carrying 190 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. a screaming, refractory hen, and a man and woman whom he had with difiBculty bribed to part with it, appeared by my bed. I feebly said I would have it boiled for breakfast, but when Ito called me this morn- ing he told me with a most rueful face that just as he was going to kill it it had escaped to the woods ! In order to understand my feelings you must have experi- enced what it is not to have tasted fish, flesh, or fowl, for ten days I The alternative was eggs and some of the paste which the man was treading yesterday on the mat cut into strips and boiled ! It was coarse flour and buckwheat, so you see I have learned not to be particular ! L L. B. AN INFAMOUS HOAD. 191 EXTREME FILTHINESS, Aji Infamous Koad — Monotonous Greenery — Abysmal Dirt — Lou Lives — Tlie Lacquer Tree — Lacquer Poisoning — The Wax Tree and Wax Candles — The Tsugawa Yadoya — Politeness — A Ship- ping Port — A “Foreign Devil.” Tsugawa, July 2. Yesterday’s journey was one of the most severe 1 have yet had, for in ten hours of hard travelling I only accomplished fifteen miles. The road from Kuruma- tog^ westwards is so infamous that the stages are some- times little more than a mile. Yet it is by it, so far at least as the Tsugawa river, that the produce and manu- factures of the rich plain of Aidzu with its numerous towns, and of a very large interior district, must find an outlet at Niigata. In defiance of all modern ideas it goes straight up and straight down hill, at a gradient that I should be afraid to hazard a guess at, and at present it is a perfect quagmire, into which great stones have been thrown, some of wliich have subsided edge- wise, and others have disappeared altogether. It is the very worst road I ever rode over, and that is saying a good deal ! Kurumatoge was the last of seventeen mountain passes, over 2000 feet high, which I have crossed since leaving NikkO. Between it and Tsugawa the scenery, though on a smaller scale, is of much the same character as hitherto — hiUs wooded to their tops, cleft by ravines which open out occasionally to divulge more distant ranges, all smothered in greenery, which, when I am ill-pleased, I am inclined to call “ rank vege- 192 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tation.” Oh that an abrupt scaur, or a strip of flaming desert, or something salient and brilliant, would break in, however discordantly, upon this monotony of green I Th? villages of that district must, I tliink, have reacxied the lowest abyss of filthiness in Hozawa and Saikaiyama. Fowls, dogs, horses, and people herded together in sheds black with wood smoke, and manure heaps drained into the wells. No young boy wore any clothing. Few of the men wore anything but the maru, the women were unclothed to their waists, and such clothing as they had was very dirty, and held together by mere force of habit. The adults were covered with inflamed bites of insects, and the children mth skin-dis- ease. Their houses were dirt}-, and as they squatted on their heels, or lay face downwards, they looked little better than savages. Their appearance and the want of delicacy of their habits are simply abominable, and in the latter respect they contrast to great disadvantage with several savage peoples that I have been among. If T had kept to NikkO, Hakone, Miyanoshita, and simi- lar places visited by foreigners with less time, I should have formed a very different impression. Is them spir- itual condition, I often wonder, much higher than their physical one ? They are couideous, kindly, industrious, and free from gross crimes ; but, from the conversations that I have had with Japanese, and from much that I see, I judge that their standard of foundational morality is very low, and that life is neither truthful nor pure. All that remains to them of religion is a few super- stitions, and futurity, whether as regards hope or lear, is a blank about which they hardly trouble themselves. Truly they are in sore need of ameliorating hifluences, and of being lifted up to that type of highest manli- ness and womanliness which constitutes the Chi’istian ideal. If they were less courteous and kindly one LACQUER POISONING. 193 w^ould be less painfully exercised about their condition, which, however, under its best aspects, is devoid of the highest elements of noble living. The day’s tramp through mire ended in a broad valley surrounded by abrupt conical hills, and varied by conical knolls covered with the dark cryptomeria. The lacquer tree (^Rhus V.') grows abundantly throughout the region. It does not attain a larger size than our ordinary ash, which it much resembles in general aspect. It is grown for the sake of that celebrated varnish which gives its name to the most beautiful of Japanese manufactures. The trees are all scarred with numerous longitudinal incisions from which the substance exudes in the early spring. As taken from the tree it is of the colour and consistence of thick cream, but becomes dark on expos- ure to the air. Lacquer is used for all kinds of pur- poses, from the golden shrines of Shiba and NikkS, down to the rice bowl in which the humblest coolie takes his meal. I can no more fancy Japan without lacquer than without paper, and combinations of the two are universal. The finely lacquered articles which are sold in the shops are enriched with five coats of the varnish, and good old lacquer bears the contact of live embers without blistering. The seed of the lacquer tree produces a good deal of oil. The smell or touch, or both combined, of new lacquer produces in a great many people, both natives and foreigners, a very un- comfortable malady known as “lacquer poisoning,” which in mild cases affects the skin only, but in severe ones the system generally. Ito will on no account touch a lacquer tree, or take shelter under one from the rain. Its kinsman, the Rhus succedanea, from which vege- table wax is made, is grown to a small extent in this district. I associate it with many a dismal evening in 194 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. which I have attempted to write to you by the curiouslj litful light of a greenish candle with a thick paper wick which burns smokily, giving off a tallowy smell. The wax as exported to England for use in the manufac- f ure of wax-candles is carefully bleached, but for homo use the bean-shaped, dark yellow kernel, after being deprived of its husk by a process analogous to rice- husking, is only steamed to soften it, then pressed, and the oil which is the result is received into earthen ves- sels, in which it hardens into a bluish green mass, ready to be made into candles. I put up here at a crowded yadoya., where they have given me two cheerful rooms in the garden away from the crowd. Ito’s great desire on arriving at any place is to shut me up in my room, and keep me a close pris- oner till the start the next morning ; but here I emanci- pated myself, and enjoyed myself very much sitting in the daidokoro. The house-master is of the samurai or two-sworded class, now, as such, extinct. His face is longer, his lips thinner, and his nose straighter and more prominent than those of the lower class, and there is a difference in his manner and bearing. I have had a great deal of interesting conversation with him. In the same open spaee his clerk was writing at a lacquer desk of the stereotyped form, a low bench with the ends rolled over, a woman was tailoring, coolies were washing their feet on the itama., and several more were squatting round the irori smoking and drinking tea. A coolie servant washed some rice for my dinner, but be- fore doing so took off his clothes, and the woman who cooked it let her kimono fall to her waist before she be- gan to work, as is customary among respectable women. The house-master’s wife and Ito talked about me un- guardedly I asked what they were saying. “She says,” said he, “that you are very polite — for a for- A "FOREIGN devil:’ IGf) eigiier,” he added. I asked what she meant, and found that it was because I took off my boots before I stepped on the matting, and bowed when they handed me the tabako-bon. We walked through the town to find something eat- able for to-morrow’s river journey, but only succeeded in getting wafers made of white of egg and sugar, balls made of sugar and barley flour, and beans coated with sugar. Thatch, with its picturesqueness, has disafh peared, and the Tsugawa roofs are of strips of bark weighted with large stones ; but as the houses turn their gable ends to the street, and there is a promenade the whole way under the eaves, and the street turns twice at right angles and terminates in temple grounds on a bank above the river, it is less monotonous than most Japanese towns. It is a place of 3000 people, and a good deal of produce is shipped from hence to Niigata by the river. To-day it is thronged with pack-horses. I was much mobbed, and one child formed the solitary exception to the general rule of politeness by calling me a name equivalent to the Chinese Fan Kwai, “For- eign Devil ; ” but he was severely chidden, and a police- man has just called with an apology. A slice of fresh salmon has been produced, and I tliink I never tasted anything so delicious. I have finished the first part of my land journey, and leave for Niigata by boat to- morrow morning. I. L. B. 196 UNBEATEN TBjlCKS IN JAB AN. A RIVER JOURNEY. A. Hurry — The Tsugawa Packet-boat — Running the Rapids — Fan tastic Scenery — The River-life — Vineyards — Diying Barley — Summer Silence — The Outskirts of Niigata — The Church Mis- sion House. Nugata, July 4. The boat for Niigata was to leave at 8, but at 5 Ito roused me by saying they were going at once, as it was full, and we left in haste, the house-master running to the river with one of my large baskets on his back to “ speed the parting guest.” Two rivers unite to form a stream over whose beauty I would gladl}^ have lin- gered, and the morning, singularly rich and tender in its coloui'ing, ripened into a glorious day of light without glare, and heat without oppressiveness. The “ packet ” was a stoutly built boat, 45 feet long by 6 broad, pro- pelled by one man sculling at the stern, and another pulling a short broad-bladed oar, which worked in a wistaria loop at the bow. It had a croquet mallet nan- dle about 18 inches long, to which the man gave a wriggling turn at each stroke. Both rower and sculler stood the whole time, clad in umbrella hats. The fore part and centre carried bags of rice and crates of poU tery, and the hinder part had a thatched roof, which, when we started, sheltered twenty-five Japanese, but we dropped tliem at hamlets on the river, and reached Niigata with only three. I had my chair on the top of the cargo, and found the voj^age a delightful change from the fatiguing crawl through quagmii-es at the rate FANTASTIC SCENES T. 197 of from 15 to 18 miles a day. This trip is called “ run- ning the rapids of the Tsugawa,” because for about twelve miles the river, hemmed in by lofty cliffs, studded with visible and sunken rocks, making several abrupt turns and shallowing in many places, hurries a boat swiftly downwards ; and it is said that it requires long practice, skill, and coolness on the part of the boatmen to prevent grave and frequent accidents. But if they are rapids, they are on a small scale, and look anytliing but formidable.- With the river at its present height the boats run down forty-five miles in eight hours, charging only 30 sen or Is. 3d., but it takes from five to seven days to get up, and much hard work in poling and towing. The boat had a thoroughly “ native ” look, with its bronzed crew, thatched roof, and the umbrella hats of all its passengers hanging on the mast. I enjoyed every hour of the day. It was luxury to drop quietly down the stream, the air was delicious, and having heard noth- ing of it, the beauty of the Tsugawa came upon me as a pleasant surprise, besides that every mile brought me nearer the hoped-for home letters. Almost as soon as we left Tsugawa the downward passage was apparently barred by fantastic mountains, which just opened their rocky gates wide enough to let us through, and then closed again. Pmnacles and needles of bare, flushed rock rose out of luxuriant vegetation — Quiraing with- out its bareness, the Rhine without its ruins, and more beautiful than both. There were mountains connected by ridges no broader than a horse’s back, others with great grey buttresses, deep chasms cleft by streams, temples with pagoda roofs on heights, sunny villages with deep thatched roofs hidden away among blos- soming trees, and through rifts in the nearer ranges glimpses of snowy mountains. 198 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. After a rapid run of twelve miles through this en- chanting scenery, the remaining course of the Tsugawa is that of a broad, full stream winding marvellously through a wooded and tolerably level country, partially surrounded by snowy mountains. The river life was very pretty. Canoes abounded, some loaded ^vith vege- tables, some with wheat, others with boys and girls returning from school. Sampans with their wliite puck- ered sails in flotillas of a dozen at a time crawled up the deep water, or were towed tlirough the shallows by crews frolicking and shouting. Then the scene changed to a broad and deep river with a peculiar alluvial smell from the quantity of vegetable matter held in suspen- sion, flowing calmly between densely wooded, bamboo fringed banks, just high enough to conceal the surround- ing country. No houses, or nearly none, are to be seen, but signs of a continuity of population abound. Every hundred yards almost there is a narrow path to the river tlirough the jungle, with a canoe moored at its foot. Erections like gallows, with a swinging bam- boo, with a bucket at one end and a stone at the other, occurring continually, show the vicinity of households dependent upon the river for their water suppl}". Wher- ever the banks admitted of it horses were being washed by having water poured over their backs with a dipper, naked children were rolling in the mud, and cackling of poultry, human voices, and sounds of industry were ever floating towards us from the dense greenery of the shores, making one feel without seeing that the margin was very populous. Except the boatmen and myself, no one was awake during the hot, silent afternoon — it was dreamy and delicious. Occasionally, as we floated down, vineyards were visible with the vines trained on horizontal trellises, or bamboo rails often forty feet long, nailed horizontally on cryptomeria to a height of twenty THE CHUBCH MISSION HOUSE. 199 feet, on which small sheaves of barley weie placed astiide to dry till the frame was full. More forest, more dreams, then the forest and the abundant vegetation altogether disappeared, the river opened out among low lands and banks of shingle and sand, and by 8 we were on the outskirts of Niigata, whose low houses, with rows of stones upon their roofs, spread over a stretch of sand, beyond which is a sandy roll with some clumps of firs. Tea-houses with many balconies studded the river-side, and pleasure parties were enjoying themselves with geishas and salcS., but on the whole, the water-side streets are shabby and tumble down, and the landward side of the great city of west- ern Japan is certainly disappointing ; and it was diffi- cult to believe it a Treaty Port, for the sea was not in sight, and there were no consular flags flying. We poled along one of the numerous canals, which are the carriage ways for produce and goods, among hundreds of loaded boats, landed in the heart of the city, and, as the result of repeated inquiries, eventually reached the Church Mission House, an unshaded wooden building without verandahs, close to the Government Buildings, where I was most kindly welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Fyson. The house is plain, simple, and inconveniently small, but doors and walls are great luxuries, and you cannot imagine how pleasing the ways of a refined European household are after the eternal babblement and Indeco- ram of the Japanese. I. L. B. 200 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ITINERARY OF ROUTE FROM NIKE 6 TO NIIGATA (KmuGAWA Route.) Pniia Tokiyo to No. of boUBOB. m. C\6. Nikko . 36 Kohiaku . . . 6 2 18 Kisagoi . . . 19 1 18 Fujihara . . 46 2 19 Takahara . . 15 2 10 Ikari . . . . 25 2 Nakamiyo . . 10 1 24 Yokokawa . . 20 2 21 Itosawa . . . 38 2 34 Kayashima . . 57 1 4 Tajima . . . 250 1 21 Toyonari . . 120 2 12 Atomi . . . 34 1 Ouchi . . . 27 2 12 Ichikawa . . 7 2 22 Takata . . . 420 2 11 Range . . . 910 3 4 Katakado . . 50 1 20 Nosawa . . . 306 3 24 Nojiri . . . 110 1 27 Kurumatogd . 3 9 Hozawa . . . 20 1 14 Torige . . . 21 1 Sakaiyama . • 28 24 Tsugawa . . 615 2 18 Niigata . . . 18 Ri. 101 6 &boat 247 miles CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 201 MISSIONS. Christian Missions — Niigata as a Mission Station — The Two Mis- sionaries — The Eesult of three Years of Work — Daily Preaching — The Medical Mission — The Hospital — Difliculties of Mission- aries in Japan. OuB Lord’s command, “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” was never better defined than by the Duke of Wellington in the famous phrase in which he called it “ The marching orders ” of the Church. Widely as we may differ in theory regarding the ultimate destiny of the heathen, “ all who profess and call themselves Christians ” agree that it is the Church’s duty to fulfil Christ’s injunction with unquestioning obedience, leaving the issue to Him. It is one thing, however, to take a conventional in- terest in Foreign Missions at home, and another to con- sider them in presence of 34,000,000 of heathen. In the latter case, one is haunted by a perpetual sense of shame, first, for one’s own selfishness and apathjq and then for the selfishness and apathy thousands of times multiplied, which are content to enjoy the temporal blessings by which Christianity has been aceompanied, and the hope of “ life and immortality,” unembittered by the thought of the hundreds of millions who are living and dying without these blessings and this hope. In travelling among the Japanese, I have often felt the shadowiness and conventionality of much of what 202 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. is called belief, for if righteous and humane men and women were truly convinced that these people, without Christianity, are doomed to perish everlastingly, it would he more than a few prayers, pounds, and shil- lings, which would be spent upon their conversion ; and numbers would come forward at their own cost ‘‘o save their brethren and sisters from a doom, which, in an individual instance, no one can contemplate without unspeakable horror. Niigata is an important city of 50,000 people, the capital of the large and populous province of Echigo. It is the only Treaty Port on the west side of Japan, and as such, is the only town between Hakodate and Nagasaki (a distance of 1100 miles, with a population of many millions, mostly un contaminated hy intercourse with foreigners), in which a missionary is allowed to live, and Protestant Christianity has taken possession of this outpost, with a force of two mejt — Mr. Fyson and Dr. Palm — who have no necessary connection with each other, and who, if they were not the good and sensible men that they are, might consequently present the unseemly spectacle of disunion, and rival, or even antagonistic effort. Dr. Palm, as a medical man sent out hy the Edin- burgh Medical Missionary Society, is naturally without a colleague, and is assisted by the cordial co-operation of the Japanese doctors ; but it is an obscure policy in the Church Missionary Society to leave a solitarj mis- sionary in this isolated region for three 3"ears, to battle unaided with the difficulties of the language and the infinite discouragement arising from the mdifference and fickleness of the Japanese. I have the highest respect for both the Niigata mis< sionaries. They are true, honest, conscientious men, not sanguine or enthusiastic, but given up to the work THE TWO MISSIONARIES. 203 of making Christianity known in the way which seems best to each of them, because they believe it to be the work indicated by the Master. They are alike incapa- ble of dressing up “ cases for reports,” of magnifying trifling encouragements, of suppressing serious discoiir- agements, or of responding in any unrighteous way to the pressure brought to bear upon missionaries by per- sons at home, who are naturally anxious for results. Dr. Palm, for some time a childless widower, has had it in his power to itinerate regularly and extensively among the populous towns and villages contained with- in the treaty limits of twenty-five miles. Mr. and Mrs. Fyson offer what is very important in this land of loose morals, the example of a virtuous Christian home, in which servants are treated with consideration and jus- tice, and in which a singularly sensitive conscientious- ness penetrates even the smallest details. The mis- sionaries are accused of speaking atrocious Japanese, and of treating the most sacred themes in the lowest coolie vernacular ; but Mr. Fyson aims at scholarship, and Ito, who is well educated, but abhors missionaries, says, that though he is not fluent, “ the Japanese that he has is really good.” Mrs. Fyson speaks colloquial Japanese readily, and besides having a Bible class, is on very friendly terms with many of her female neigh- bours, who talk to her confidentially, and in whom she feels a great interest. Her real regard for the Japan- ese women, and the sympathetic, womanly way in which she enters not only into their difficulties, but into their different notions of morals, please me much. Mr. Fyson itinerates at certain seasons of the year. He finds strong prejudices against Christianity in the country, and extreme indifference in the city. On his first tours great crowds came to hear of the new “ way,” but that kind of interest has diminished. Among the 204 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. lower classes it is belie vred that the missiouaries are in the pay of the English Government with a view to ulterior political designs ; that the eyes of converts are taken out immediately after death, if not before, to be used in the preparation of an ointment ; that the mis- sionaiies have the power to spirit away money which has been carefully concealed, and the like ! The local authorities of Echigo make no actual oppo- sition to the promulgation of Christianity, and until lately the rural priests were indifferent to it. On one occasion a Shinto priest gave Mr. Fyson leave to preach in a place belonging to him, with the remark that the country was “ sunk in Buddhism,” and on another a Buddhist priest allowed him to preach from the steps of a temple. In Niigata the Buddhist priests think it desirable to assail the new “ way,” and the local news- paper has opened its columns for their attacks, and. for replies by Christian converts. There are many persons who have learned enough about Christianity to admit its reasonableness and its superiorit}^ to other religions in point of morality, but who are so indifferent to aU religion that they go no farther. Of those who come to the open preaching every Sunday afternoon in a build- ing attached to the mission-house, some go so far as to make inquiries concerning Christianity ; but it often turns out that they have been actuated by some mer- cenary motive. As “ the outward and visible sign ” of throe years of earnest work Mr. Fyson has baptized seven persons, with five of whom I received, the com- munion according to the English form. He has a very energetic and intelligent native catechist who itinerates and collects considerable audiences. Difficulties are often raised regarding the hire of rooms for Christian preaching. It is not “ correct ” for a missionary to preach in the open air. It places him on a level MEDICAL MISSION WOBR. 205 with “ monkey-players,” jugglers, and other vagabond characters ! Of late the Buddhists have established daily preach- ings in one or two of the Niigata temples, and the preachers, who are chosen for their oratorical gifts, attract large audiences, composed chiefly of women, and exclusively of persons of the lower classes. Prac- tically the difficulty in the way of Christianity is the general indifference to all religion. The “religious faculty ” appears to be lost out of the Japanese nature. It is a complete mistake to suppose that because the old faiths are decaying Japan is ripe for the introduction of a new one. The Empire has embarked on a career of material progress. Everything which tends in that direction is eagerly appropriated and assimilated, that which does not is rejected as of no account. I asked a highly-educated and thoughtful young Japanese, who had just returned from a course of some years of scien- tific study in America, if he had ever studied religion, and his answer embodies at least the view of the edu- cated classes, “ iVb, I had no time for anything that had no practical hearing.'" The main object of my journey to Niigata was to learn something of the Medical Mission work done by Dr. Palm. This work seeks the worker, throngs him, crowds upon him. It goes through endless useful rami- fications, spreads scientific truth in the treatment of dis- eases, removes prejudice against the practice of surgery and foreign drugs, dethrones superstitious quackery, introduces common sense and an improved hygiene, in- vites intelligent co-operation in its temporal part, and last, but not least, smooths the way for the gospel of the Good Physician by which it is always accompanied. These are the unanswerable pleas for Medical Missions in Japan. 206 UNBA'ATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. In Dr. Palm Medical Missions have a very valuable agent. He is a well-equipped medical man, a lover and student of his profession, as well as a missionary. He is judicious, solid, and conscientious in all his work ; there is no “ scamping ” in his dispensary or hospital, and when he has trained his assistants to do anything as well as he can do it himself, he trusts it to them under his supervision. He has gained the cordial good will of a large body of Japanese doctors, who co-oper- ate with him in the towns and villages, and are intro- ducing the most approved methods of European treat- ment under his auspices. He is an earnest and patient student of the language, both in its colloquial and literary forms. He has studied the Japanese character closely. He is not enthusiastic, and gives at least their full weight to the diflSculties which lie in the way of Christianity, avoiding all hopeful forecasts of its future, content to do the work which demands his whole time and ability. He is an upright, honourable man, and as such, has gained general respect. He has baptized thirty-one converts after periods of severe probation, and the general conduct of the members of this infant church is without reproach. Mr. Oshikawa, his mis- sionary assistant, is a man of much talent and energy, and a very able preacher. His whole heart is in Chris- tian work, and he itinerates very extensively. The dispensary assistant is well trained and careful. Recently the doctor of Suibara, one of the earliest village stations, has been baptized. He is a man of scholarship, a competent medical practitioner, and for a year and a half has co-operated with Dr. Palm at Sui- bara, undertaking all the expenses of the preaching place, and heartily furthering both the medical and evangelistic work. Still more recently another doctor from the island of Sado was baptized. There cannot MEDICAL MISSION WORK. 207 be better evidence of the esteem in which Dr. PUm is held, than the circumstance that this man was in Niigata by an arrangement lately made with Dr. Palm by the Government, for teaching the treatment of eye diseases to . the native practitioners in different parts of the province. He was previously disposed towards Chris* tianity by some remarks in a medical book in Chinese, written by Dr. Dudgeon, and the daily addresses at the dispensary made liim decide to embrace Christianity. The native doctors have such a high value for “ The English Doctor ” that if it were not for passport restric* tions, he would constantly be called into consultation by them beyond treaty limits. Amusing things fre- quently occur in the work. Lately, at the earnest request of the relatives of a patient, who were fully aware of the risk. Dr. Palm performed a very serious operation, under very unfavourable and difficult circum- stances, and the patient died. The Japanese doctor, who was of the old Chinese School of Medicine (a school of consummate quackery and superstition), was so impressed with the wonders of English surgery that, though the operation was unsuccessful, he abandoned his system and sent away his three medical pupils, telling them that he had decided to learn European medicine, and that they must do the same ! In many cases the requests for Dr. Palm’s regular services come from Japanese doctors, who, under these circumstances, arrange to secure a preaching place. At the town of Nakajo six young doctors have established a dispensary, which, at their request, is visited by Dr. Palm once a month. At the large town of Nagaoka, beyond treaty limits, there is a Government hospital, with three native doctors and a number of pupils, and so anxious were these for English skill that they pro- cured a passport and gave Dr. Palm flO for his expenses 208 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. on each visit. There, and in every place, preacliing accompanies healing. In Buc'dhist places dislike of the foreigner, his reli- gion, and his medicine, are often equally strong ; while in Shinto places the two first are matters of indiffer- ence, and the last is eagerly sought. Just at the time of my visit the local Government feebly attempted to put a stop to evangelism hi country places, and the police gave notice that in future no rooms were to be let for the purposes of preaching, stating that a similar notice had been served on Dr. Palm. This was never done, however, and the matter dropped. The police also interfered with Mr. Fyson’s native evangelist by asking him to produce his license to preach, but there is no ordinance on this subject, and as he, like Dr. Palm, showed the inclination to maintain his right, the thing was thereafter let alone. Dr. Palm lives in a small Japanese house in the centre of the city, near the dispensary and the recently opened hospital, both of which I visited. At the dis- pensary between sixty and seventy patients are treated daily. They were clean and very well dressed. On the day of my visit fully half of them were suffering from diseases of the eyes. On arriving at the rooms before 9 a.m., each receives a ticket giving the order in which his case is to be attended to. An address on Christianity is always given, but some who have re- ceived tickets go away, only returning when they think that their turn has arrived, and Dr. Palm does not think it wise to bring undue pressure to bear upon them with regard to hearing the gospel. The people seem very independent, and insist on paying for theu medicines, except in the case of a few who are quite destitute. The medicines are made up by Japanese assistants. THE HOSPITAL. 209 Six weeks before my visit Dr. Palm rented a house for a hospital for surgical cases. There was one severe case of cancer, and the rest were cases of spinal ab- scesses and hip-joint diseases. He has provided beds for the patients, to render nursing and dressing easier, but there is at first a great objection to using them. The people are frightened, and think that they shall fall off on the floor. The nursing, as is to be expected in Japan, is the weak point. It is undertaken by a re spectable man and his wife, but a lady surgical nurse would be invaluable. The rooms are tolerably venti- lated, and as the antiseptic treatment is used. Dr. Palm does not dread gangrene, but they are dark and unsuit- able for operations — so dark, indeed, that Dr. Palm was obliged to bring one severe case of cancer to a room opening from his own sitting-room. The hospital patients pay 10 sen a day, i.e. nearly 3s. per week. The dispensary patients pay so liberally that, including native contributions, the hospital and dispensary are nearly self-supporting. The hospital accommodates twelve patients, and its expenses during last year were £319, and the receipts from patients £316 ! The rapid increase of Medical Missionary work is most surprising. The work began four years ago, and had to contend not only with prejudices against the Christianity with which it is nobly associated, but against “ foreign drugs,” and specially against surgical operations. In the first year the number of patients was under 500. Last year it exceeded 5000, and 1500 of these were treated in thirteen country stations, iu co-operation with native doctors, who supply the medi- cines under Dr. Palm’s instructions, and obtain clinical leaching from him. Last year the confidence of the people had been so far won, that 174 submitted to sur- gical operations, and some of these of a serious kind 210 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. were undertaken in the country, and left in charge of Japanese doctors, who treated them antiseptically. Dr. Palm regards the younger doctors as intelligent and fairly educated, and anxious to improve in their profession. Last year a number of them formed a Society for Mutual Improvement and the discussion of medical topics, and mvited Dr. Palm to become its president and give them a lecture once a month. He is now doing so, and as some of them are acquainted with English, he furnishes them with the British Medical Journal., from which suitable translations are made. In connection with the work of healing, invaluable per se, the gospel has permeated the very populous dis- trict within treaty limits. Indifference, contempt, and hatred prevail, yet we may hope that for seed so widely sown the two missionaries at Niigata may yet bring home the sheaves with rejoicing from these unpromis- ing harvest fields. Much of the sympathy given to missionaries at home is altogether misplaced. In Japan they are provided with comfortable houses and sufficient mcomes, and even the isolation of Niigata, as Mr. and Mrs. Fyson would testify, is not felt by people who have work to do. The plirase “ taking theu’ lives in their hands ” has no significance, and they incur no perils either from people or climate. On other grounds, missionaries placed in this and similar isolated positions deserve s sympathy which they rarely receive. A medical mis- sionary has at least the exercise of his profession, which if he be a man of the right sort is an absorbing inter- est, and liis work seeks him out sometimes even before he is ready for it. A simply evangelistic missionary, on the contrary, has to seek and make Ms work, and to deal with an indifferent and inert mass. Both have to acquire by severe study something of a MISSIONARY TRIALS. 2ia most difficult and uncertain language before entering upon teaching, and even when they have made some progress they must long remain in doubt as to whether the words they use convey their meaning. For the solitary evangelistic missionary fresh difficulties arise when inquirers and candidates for baptism begin to gather around him. On his unaided responsibility he has to try to discern character, motives, and general fitness for admission into a church whose purity it is essential to conserve. He must find out a man’s per- sonal circumstances, his history, past and present, and do this discreetly and often by wading through the mire of prevarication and misrepresentation. Ques- tions arise whether a man is to be admitted who is unable to relinquish his work on the Lord’s Day, or who gets Iris living by means which we deem ques- tionable, and perhaps, when everything appears satis- factory, it leaks out that he has more wives than one, or something equally unsuitable. Each case stands by itself and is involved in various complications, and must be judged on its merits and without assistance in a country in which the attainment of truth on any sub- ject is a matter of special difficulty. I. L. B. Note. — Since the above notes were written the cholera has visited Niigata, and Mission work for the time has suffered considerably, as the ignorant people were readily made to believe that the Christians had poisoned the wells. Peasants armed with spears were on the watch for Christian missionaries, and Dr. Palm’s preaching-place in Nakajo was demolished in a riot. A very strong spirit of dislike, both to foreigners and their religion, manifested itself throughout the Province of Echigo but things are gradually resuming their wonted course. 1. li. B. 212 UNBEATEN TBACKH IN JAPAN. BUDDHISM. Temple Street — Interior of a Temple — Eesemblances between Buddhist and Roman Ritual — A Popular Preacher — Nirvana — Gentleness of Buddhism — Japanese distaste to “Eternal Life” — A new Obstacle in the way of Christianity. NnoATA, July 6. There is a street here called Teramachi, or Temple Street. On one side, for nearly its whole length, there are Buddhist temples, temple grounds, and priests’ houses, the other side is mainly composed of joroyas. These temples are mostly handsome and spacious. The panelled ceilings and the rows of pillars which support them are of the finely grained and richly coloured wood of the Retinospora obtusa. In all nearly one half of the area is railed off from the “ laity.” In each the high altar is magnificent, and altogether free from frippery and meretricious ornament. The altar-pieces proper consist of an incense burner with a perforated cover in the centre, flower vases on either side, and candelabra placed to the right and left of the flower vases, all of bronze, and often designed after ancient Chinese patterns, the originals of Avhich are said to have travelled from India with the early Buddhist propagandists. On the whole, the Niigata temples are ecclesiastical and devotional-looking, and if a few of the Buddhist insignia were removed, they might be used for Christian worship without alteration. Their brass vessels are very beautiful, and their chalices, ECCLESIASTICAL ORNAMENTS. 213 flagons, lamps, and candlesticks are classical in form and severely simple. On the altars are draped, standing figures of Buddhi with glories round their heads, in gorgeous shrines, looking like Madonnas, and below them the altar- pieces previously mentioned, fresh flowers in the vases, BUDDHIST PRIESTS. and the curling smoke of incense diffusing a dreamy fra- gp’ance. Antique lamps, burning low and never extin- guished, hang in front of the shrine. The fumes of incense, the tinkling of small bells, lighted candles on the high altar, the shaven crowns and flowing vestments of the priests, the prostrations and processions, the 214 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. chanting of litanies in an unknown tongue, the “ chan cel rail,” the dim light, and many other resemblances, both slight and important, recall the gorgeousuess of the Roman ritual. From whence came the patterns of all these shrines, lamps, candlesticks, and brazen vessels, which Buddhist, Ritualist, Greek, and Romanist alike use, the tongues of flame in the temples, the holy water, the garments of the officiating priests, the can- dles and flowers on the altar, the white robes of the pilgrims, and all the other coincident affinities which daily startle one ? Even the shops of the shrine-makers look like “ ecclesiastical decoration ” shops in Oxford Street. Nor was the likeness lessened by the vast throng of worshippers telling their beads on their brown rosaries as they murmured their prayers, squatting on the mat- ted floor of the great temple into wliich we went to hear the afternoon preaching. It was a very striking sight. The priestly orator sat on a square erection covered with violet silk, just within the rail. He wore a cassock of brocaded amber satin, a violet stole and hood, and a chasuble of white silk gauze, and held a rosary in his hand. A portion of the Buddliist Scrip- tures lay on his lap, and from a text in this he preached with indescribable vehemence and much gesticulation, in a most singular, high-pitched key, painfid to listen to. His subject was future punishment, i.e. the tortures of the Buddhist hells. When he came to the conclu- sion of the first part, in winch he worked liimself into the semblance of a maniac, he paused abruptly and re- peated the words, “ Namu amida Butsu,” and all the congregation, slightly raising the hands on which the rosaries were wound, answ'ered with the roar of a mighty response, “ Eternal Buddha, save.” Then he retired behind the altar, and the adult worshippers, GENTLENESS OF BUDDHISM. 216 relaxing their fixed attitudes, lighted their pipes and talked, and the children crawled about in the crowd. Then the priest, bowing as he passed the altar, took his place again on the rostrum, but before he began part two of his discourse, the prayer “Eternal Buddha, save ” murmured low through the temple like the sound of many waters, and so for two hours the service was continued. Outside, under a canopy, the holy water stands, and on the steps leading to the entrance are ranged in rows the clogs and umbrellas of the wor- shippers. In the temple, the minister of a faith which is losing its hold upon the people, as at home was ex- horting a congregation to follow the moral precepts of its founder, and emphasising his exhortations by por- traying the punishments which await the guilty, — tor- tures and horrors which the pen cannot describe, — and the transmigration of the impure soul through the bodies of hateful beasts. Is there a household or a heart purer or better to-night, I wonder, for the tre- mendously energetic sermon of the popular preacher ? In the grounds of that temple there is a very fine bronze figure of Buddha seated in the usual attitude upon a lotus blossom. The Buddhist who, by purity and righteousness, escapes the tortures of hell, reaches the state of Nirvana in which he is represented. He is not sleeping, he is not waking, he is not acting, he is not thinking, his consciousness is doubtful — he exists — that is all — his work is done — a hazy beatitude, a ne- gation remain. This is the best future to which the devout Buddhist can aspire. The greatest evil is life. The greatest good is Nirvana, or death in life. I never visit a Buddhist temple without giving Buddhism full credit for having taught the lessons of mercy, gentleness, and reverence for life, to an Asiatic people. No victims have ever smoked upon its altars, 216 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. its shady groves have never been scenes of cruelty and horror, and it has no Moloch to which children have ever passed through the fire. Such has been the rev- erence for life in all its forms which Buddhism has in culcated, that the theological, and even the Scriptural phraseology used concerning the atonement of Christ, are undoubtedly in the first instance abhorrent to the Japanese mind, and the whole Levitical system of sac- rifice, and such statements as “Without shedding oi blood there is no remission,” are doubtless calculated to repel inquirers into the Christian faith. The Japan- ese have no notion of sin, and much time must elapse before Christian teaching can revolutionise their ideas on that and other subjects. Again, the notion of “ eternal life,” which thrilled the Hawaiians with a new joy, is more likely to suggest a curse than a “gift of God.” ShintQism has no teach- ings concerning a future. Buddhism promises to the pure total nonentity, or the annihilation of conscious- ness, or a measure of conscious personality in absorption into the holy Sakya. Distaste for prolonged existence is essentially Oriental ; weariness of hfe, even in the midst of its enjoyments, oppresses the Asiatic, and to the ignorant peasantry of Japan eternal life presents itself under the popular form of the Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis, as almost endless birth and death, with new sufferings under each new form, sinking into lower and lower hells, or painfully rising to higher and higher heavens, to the blessed doom of impersonality. “Eternal life” then represents an almost endless chain whose links are successive existences. The common Japanese proverb, “If you hate a man let him live,” epitomises the Japanese idea of the unsatisfactorinesa of life. Another obstacle in the way of Christianity (and al! OBSTACLE TO CHRISTIANITY. 217 these are apart from the deeply rooted and genuine dis- like to the purity of its morality) is that the Japanese Students who are educated by their Government in England or America return and tell their countrymen that no one of any intelligence or position now believes in Christianity, and that it is an exploded system, only propped up by the clergy and the uneducated masses. Yet, for all this and much more, and in spite of the very slow progress which Christianity has made, any one who attempts to forecast the future of Japan without any reference to it, is making a very serious mistake. I. L. B. 218 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. NIIGATA. A.NominabIe Weather — Insect Pests — Absence of Foreign Trade — A refractory Eiver — Progress — The Japanese City — Watei Highways — Niigata Gardens — Ruth Fyson — The Winter Climate — A Population in Wadding. Niigata, July 9 I HAVE spent over a week Ln Niigata, and leave it regretfully to-morrow, rather for the sake of the friends I liave made than for its own interests. I never expe- rienced a week of more abominable weather. The sun has been seen just once, the mountains, which are thir- ty miles off, not at all. The clouds are a brownish grey, the air moist and motionless, and the mercury has varied from 82° in the day to 80° at night. Tlie house- hold is afflicted with lassitude and loss of appetite. Evening does not bring coolness, but myriads of flying, creeping, jmnping, running creatures, all with powei to hurt, which replace the day mosquitoes, villains with spotted legs, which bite and poison one without the warning hum. The night mosquitoes are legion. There are no walks except in the streets and the public gardens, for Niigata is built on a sand spit, hot and bare. Neither can you get a view of it without climb- ing to the top of a wooden look-out. Niigata is a Treat}-^ Port without foreign trade, and almost without foreign residents. Not a foreign ship visited the port either last year or this. There are only two foreign firms, and these are German, and only eighteen foreigners, of which number except the mis- A REFRACTORY RIVER. 219 sionaries, nearly all are in Government employment. Its river, the Shinano, is the largest in Japan, and it and its affluents bring down a prodigious volume ol water. But Japanese rivers are much choked with sand and shingle washed down from the mountains. In all that I have seen, except those which are physically limited by walls of hard rock, a river bed is a waste of sand, boulders, and shingle, through the middle of winch, among sand-banks and shallows, the river prop- er takes its devious course. In the freshets which occiir to a greater or less extent every year, enormous vol- umes of water pour over these wastes, carrying sand and detritus down to the mouths, which are all ob- structed by bars. Of these rivers the Shinano, being the biggest, is the most refractory, and has piled up a bar at its entrance through which there is only a pas- sage seven feet deep, which is perpetually shallowing. The minds of engineers are much exercised upon the Shinano, and the Government is most anxious to deep- en the channel and give Western Japan what it has not — a harbour ; but the expense of the necessary opera- tion is enormous, and in the meantime a limited ocean traffic is carried on by junks and by a few small Japan- ese steamers which call outside.^ There is a British Vice Consulate, but except as a step few would accept such a dreary post or outpost. But Niigata is a handsome, prosperous city of 50,000 inhabitants, the capital of the wealthy province of Echigo, with a population of one and a half millions, 1 By one of these, not fitted up for passengers, I have sent one of my baskets to Hakodate, and by doing so have come upon one of the vexa- tious restrictions by which foreigners are harassed. It would seem nat- ural to allow a foreigner to send his personal luggage from one Treaty Port to another without going through a number of formalities which render it nearly impossible, but it was only managed by Tto sending mine in his own name to a Japanese at Hakodate', with whom he it slightly acquainted. 220 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and is the seat of the Kenrei., or provincial governor, of the chief law courts, of fine schools, a hospital, and barracks. It is curious to find in such an excluded town a school deserving the designation of a college, as it includes intermediate, primary, and normal schools, an English school with 150 pupils, organised by Eng- lisli and American teachers, an engineering school, a geological museum, splendidly equipped laboratories, and the newest and most approved scientific and educa- tional apparatus. The Government Buildings, which are grouped near ]\Ir. Fyson’s, are of painted white wood, and are imposing from their size and their innu- merable glass windows. There is a large hospital ’ arranged by a European doctor, with a medical school attached, and it, the Kencho., the Saibancho, or Court House, the schools, the barracks, and a large bank, which is rivalling them all, have a go-ahead, European- ised look, bold, staring, and tasteless. There are large public gardens, very well laid out, and with finely grav- elled walks. There are 300 street lamps which burn the mineral oil of the district. Yet, because the riotous Shinano persisteutl}" bars it out from the sea, its natui’al highwa 3 s the capital of one of the richest provinces of Japan is “left out in the cold,” and the province itself, which 3 'ields not only rice, silk, tea, hemp, ninjin, and indigo, in large quanti- ties, but gold, copper, coal, and petroleum, has to send most of its produce to Yedo across ranges of mountains, on the backs of pack-horses, by roads scarcely less in- famous than the one by which I came. 1 This hospital is large and well ventilated, hut has not as yet suc- ceeded in attracting many in-patients ; out-patients, specially sufferers from ophthalmia, are very numerous. The Japanese chief physician regards the great prevalence of the malady in this neighbourhood as the result of damp, the reflection of the sun’s rays from sand and snow, in- adequate ventilation, and charcoal fumes. WATER HIGHWAYS. 221 The K’iigata of the Government, with its signs ol progress in a western direction, is quite unattractive- looking as compared with the genuine Japanese Niigata, which is the neatest, cleanest, and most comfortable- looking town I have yet seen, and altogether free from the jostlement of a foreign settlement. It is renowned for the beautiful tea-houses which attract visitors from distant places, and for the excellence of the theatres, and is the centre of the recreation and pleasure of a large district. It is so beautifully clean that, as at Nikk6, I should feel reluctant to Avalk upon its well- swept streets in muddy boots. It would afford a good lesson to the Edinburgh authorities, for every vagrant bit of straw, stick, or paper, is at once pounced upon and removed, and no rubbish may stand for an instant in its streets except in a covered box or bucket. It is correctly laid out in square divisions, formed by five streets over a mile long, crossed by very numerous short ones, and is intersected by canals, which are its real roadways. I have not seen a pack-horse in the streets ; everything comes in by boat, and there are few houses in the city which cannot have their goods deliv- ered by canal very near to their doors. These water- ways are busy all day, but in the early morning, when the boats come in loaded with the vegetables without which the people could not exist for a day, the bustle is indescribable. The cucumber boats just now are the great sight. The canals are usually in the middle of the streets, and have fairly broad roadways on both sides. They are much below the street level, and their nearly perpendicular banks are neatly faced with wood, broken at intervals by flights of stairs. They are bor- dered by trees, among which are many weeping wil- lows ; and as the river water runs through them, keep- ing them quite sweet, and they are crossed at short 222 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. intervals by light bridges, they form a very attractive feature of Niigata. The houses have very steep roofs of shingle, weighted with stones, and as they are of very irregular heights, and all turn the steep gables of the upper stories street wards, the town has a pieturesqueness very unusual in Japan. The deep verandahs are connected all along STREET AND CANAL. the streets, so as to form a sheltered promenade when the snow lies deep in winter. With its canals with their avenues of trees, its fine public gardens and clean, picturesqire streets, it is a really attractive town ; but its inrprovements are recent, and were onlj^ lately com- pleted by Mr. IMasakata Kusumoto, now Governor of Tokiyd. There is no appearance of poverty in any part of the town, but if there be wealth, it is carefully concealed. One marked feature of the city is the num- NIIGATA GARDENS. 223 ber of streets of dwelling-houses with projecting win- dows of wooden slats, through which the people can see without being seen, though at night, when the andons are lit, we saw, as v/e walked from Dr. Palm’s, that in most cases families were sitting round the hiba- chi in a dishabille of the scantiest kind. The fronts are very narrow, and the houses extend backwards to an amazing length, with gardens in which flowers, shrubs, and mosquitoes are grown, and bridges are several times repeated, so as to give the effect of fairyland as you look through from the street. The principal apartments in all Japanese houses are at the back, looking out on these miniature landscapes, for a landscape is skilfully dwarfed into a space often not more than 30 feet square. A lake, a rockwork, a bridge, a stone lantern, and a deformed pine, are indispensable, but whenever circumstances and means admit of it, quaintnesses of all kinds are introduced. Small pavil- ions, retreats for tea-making, reading, sleeping in quiet and coolness, fishing under cover, and drinking saki ; bronze pagodas, cascades falling from the mouths of bronze dragons ; rock caves, with gold and silver fish darting in and out ; lakes with rocky islands, streams crossed by green bridges, just high enough to allow a rat or frog to pass under ; lawns, and slabs of stone for crossing them in wet weather, grottoes, hills, valleys, groves of miniature palms, cycas, and bamboo ; and dwarfed trees of many kinds, of purplish and dull green hues, are cut into startling likenesses of beasts and creep- ing things, or stretch distorted arms over tiny lakes. I have walked about a great deal in Niigata, and when with Mrs. Fyson, who is the only European lady here at present, and her little Ruth, a pretty Saxon child of three years old, we have been followed by an im- mense crowd, as the sight of this fair creature, with 2ti4 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. golden curls falling over her shoulders, is most fascina^ ing. Both men and women have gentle, winning ways with infants, and Ruth, instead of being afraid of the crowds, smiles upon them, bows in Japanese fashion, speaks to them in Japanese, and seems a little disposed to leave her own people altogether. It is most difficult to make her keep with us, and two or three times, on missing her, and looking back, we have seen her seated, native fashion, in a ring in a crowd of several hundred people, receiving a homage and admiration from which she was most unwillingly torn. The Japanese have a perfect passion for children, but it is not good for Euro- pean children to be much with them, as they corrupt their morals, and teach them to tell lies. The climate of Niigata and of most of this great province contrasts unpleasantly with the region on the other side of the mountains, warmed by the gulf-stream of the North Pacific, in which the autumn and winter, with their still atmosphere, bracing temperature, and blue and sunny skies, are the most delightful seasons of the year. Thirty-two days of snow-fall occur on an average. The canals and rivers freeze, and even the rapid Shinano sometimes bears a horse. In January and February the snow lies three or four feet deep, a veil of clouds obscures the sky, people inhabit their upper rooms to get any daylight, pack-horse traffic is suspended, pedestrians go about with difficulty in rough snow-shoes, and for nearl}^ six m( mths the coast is un- suitable for navigation, owmg to the prevalence of strong, cold, north-west winds. In this city people in wadded clothes, with only their eyes exposed, creep about under the verandahs. The population huddles round hibachis and shivers, for the mercury which rises to 92° in summer, falls to 15° in winter. And all this is in Latitude 37° 55' — three degrees south of Naples ! I. L. B. ISiEJLJl^En TUBS. 225 THE SHOPS. Mean Streets — Curio Shops — Idealised Tubs — Hair-Pins — Coarse Lacquer — Graven Images — Ecclesiastical Paraphernalia — Shod- dy — Booksellers’ Shops — Literature for Women — Careful Do- mestic Training — Literary Copyright — Book-Binding — Paper Lanterns — Blue China — Quack Medicines — Criticisms. Niigata, July 9. The “ gorgeous east ” is not a phrase which applies to anything in Japan except to a few of the temples. The cities, with their low, grey, wooden houses, are sin- gularly mean, and the shops, as far as outward appear- ance goes, are as mean as all else ; for the best textile goods cannot be exposed for fear of injury from damp, dust, and rain, and though there are a number of “ curio,” or, as we should call them, second-hand shops, they only expose common things in the street. The china, confectionery, toy, and shrine shops, make the best show. If one has time and patience, by diving into a small back shop, or climbing by a steep ladder into a loft, one may chance to see priceless things in old lacquer ; but each article is hidden away in its own well-made deal box and its many wrappings of soft silk, or cripe-\\kQ paper. The coopers’ and basket-makers’ shops contain articles of exquisite neatness of work- manship and singular adaptability. I never pass a cooper’s without longing to become a purchaser. A common tub, by careful choice of woods and attention to taste and neatness of detail, is turned into an ohjet 226 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. d'art. The basket-work, coarse and fine, is simply won- derful, from the great bamboo cages which are used to hold stones in their place for breakwaters, down to the grasshoppers, spiders, and beetles of such deceptively imitative art that you feel inclined to brush them off the line plaited fans to which they are artificially attached. Shops of the same kind herd together ; thus, in one long street, one sees little except toy-shops with stuffed and china animals on wheels, windmills and water wheels, toy idols and idol cars, battledores and shutth; cocks, sugar toys of all kinds, and dolls of all sizes. A short street contains few but barbers’ shops, another is devoted to the sale of wigs, clngnons, toupees, and the switches of coarse black hair which the women inter- weave dexterously with their own. An adjacent street Is full of shops where all sorts of pins for the hair are sold, from the plain brass or silver pin costing a trifle, to the elaborate tortoise-shell pin with a group of birds or bamboos finely carved, costing 8 or 12 yen at least. I counted 117 dilfferent kinds of ornamental hair-pins ! In the same street are sold the stiff pads over which the universal chignon is rolled. Not far off there is a street chiefly taken up Avith clogs, of which thousands of pairs are annually made in Niigata ; then another with paper umbrellas, sun and rain hats, paper waterproof cloaks and baggage-wrappers, straw shoes for men and horses, straw rain-cloaks, and straw rain-mats ; then rows of shops for pack-saddles, with gay fronts of red lacquer. In the principal streets, though it is quite usual to see eight or ten shops of one kind together, there is a tol- erable mixture. Niigata is famous for coarse lacquer such as is sold in London shops and at bazaars, trays with a black or red ground, with birds, bamboos, or peonies sprawling across it in gold paint. Similar trays with legs, zen, or tables, are sold in sets of ten for fam- ECCLESIASTICAL PABAPHERNALIA. 227 ily use, as well as rice-bowls, rice pails and ladles, pil- lows, and numberless other articles of household utility. A sort of seaweed lacquer is also manufactured. In the same street with these lacquer shops are the ecclesiastical furniture shops. At the back of these one can see the whole process, as described by Isaiah, of graving a god, from the rude block to the last delicate touches. There are all the household gods, among which Daikoku, the grinning god of wealth, never fails to attract one’s attention, and gods of all sizes, from those eight feet high down to those an inch long in gold-embroidered bags, worn as charms by children, and others of delicate workmanship, which are earried in the sleeves of adults. I have one of the latter, rep- resenting the goddess of mercy. The case is a lotus bud, well executed in dark wood, which, on being removed, leaves a pedestal on which a draped female figure stands, with a glory touched with gold round her head, a golden sceptre by her side, and one pair of arms quietly folded across her breast, while about ten more come out from behind her, but are so dexterously man- aged as not to suggest any idea of monstrosity. The expression of both face and figure is one of majestic serenity. The whole is about four inches high, and is the most exquisite piece of wood-carving that I have ever seen. There are gorgeous shrines for temples, in which Buddha stands in endless calm, and shrines for his disciples, and family shrines of all sizes and prices, from bronze and gold at 200 yen down to unpainted wood at a dollar, tablets for the haimiyd or dead name, in black or gold, candlesticks and incense-burners in bronze and brass, brass lotuses six feet high, altar-cloths richl}" worked in gold, dimms, gongs, bells, and the numerous musical instruments used in temple worship, and hundreds of difi'erent articles more or less elabo :28 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. rate used in the perplexing symbolism of the worship of some of the Buddhist sects. Shops for incense, which is consumed in enormous quantities, are separate. Many shops sell only ready-made or second-hand men’s clothes. Those for women are always made either to order or by themselves. Some sell blankets and British woollen goods of the most shameless “ shod- dy,” others nothing but a thin, striped silk made in the neighbourhood, and largely used for haori. There are separate shops for fans, from three sen up to four or five yen.) for kakemonos., or wall-pictures, and makemonos or rolled pictures, and floral albums, for folding screens, for the silk braid fastenings of haori, for crepe, and for blue and white towels. The number of shops which sell nothing but smoking apparatus surprises me, though it ought not, for all men above fifteen smoke, and most women, and all men carry a pipe and pouch at their girdles. Then there are shops for pens only, for ink and inkstones, and others which sell nothing but writ- ing-boxes. There are large book shops wliich supply the country towns and the hawkers who carry books into the villages. “ Pure Literature Societies ” are much needed in Japan. The books for which there is the greatest demand are those which pack the greatest amount of crime into the smallest space, and corrupt the morals of all classes. A bookseller tells me that eight-tenths of his very large stock consists of novels, many of them coarsely illustrated, and the remaining two-tenths of “standard works.” You will be interested to know the names of some of those which few but the most illiterate families are without, and which take the place occupied with us by the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress. There are certain books for women, called collective- ly the Bunko, and respectively Womans G-reat Learn- LITERATUBE FOB WOMEN. 229 ing, the moral duties of women based upon the Chinese Classics ; Woman'’ s Small Learning., introductory to the above ; Woman’s Household Instruction, the d uties relat- ing to dress, furniture, reception of guests, and the minutiae of daily and ceremonial life ; The Lady's Let- ter-Writer ; and Twenty-four Children, stories of twenty- four model Chinese children. These books, which, i£ printed in small Roman type, would not be larger al- together than the Cornhill Magazine, contain, says an informant, the maxims and rules, many of them a thou- sand years old, on which the morals and manners of “ all our women ” are founded, so that theii- extreme similarity is easily accounted for. These books are studied and taught from early infancy. In many re- spects this careful training for the domestic duties of married life, and for all possible circumstances, so that a girl is never in any difficulty as to how she shall act, is far wiser then the haphazard way in which many of our girls are allowed to tumble into positions for which they have had no previous training, and to learn life’s lessons by the sharp teachings of experience. There is another book which is read, and re-read, and committed to memory in every Japanese household by the women, the contents of which are, a collection of a hundred poems by a hundred poets, lives of model women, rules to secure perfect agreement between man and wife, and examples of such agreement, and other useful and ornamental knowledge, suitable for maiden, wife, and mother. Books are remarkably cheap. Copyright is obtained by a Japanese author by the payment to Govern ment of a sum equivalent to the selling-price of six copies of his work. They are printed from wooden blocks, on fine silky paper, doubled so that only the outsides receive the impression, but I have not seen 230 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. anything in the way of binding better than stiffened paper of a heavier quality than the pages, except in the case of hand-painted picture-books, which are often bound in brocade and gold and silver stuffs. Tins bookseller, who was remarkably communicative, and seems very intelligent, tells me that there is not the same demand now as formerly for native works on the history, geography, and botany of Japan. He showed me a folio work on botany, in four thick vol- umes, which gives root, stalk, leaf, flower, and seed of every plant delmeated (and there are 400), drawn with the most painstaking botanical accuracy, and admirable fidelity to colour. Tins is a book of very great value and interest. He has translations of some of the works of Huxley, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer, which, he says, are bought by the young men attend- ing the higher school. The Origin of Species has the largest sale. This man asked me many questions about the publishing and bookselling trade in England, and Ito acquitted himself admirably as an interpreter. He had not a single book on any subject connected with rebgion. The number of shops for the sale of paper is enor- mous. Then there are shops where nothing is to be seen but hihachi., some of them of fine bronze work and very beautiful, all in sufficiently good taste to pass off as works of art ; shops for brass tongs, and others where chopsticks alone are sold, from those of fine Wasaka, and inlaid lacquer, to the common wooden ones which are used once and are then thrown away. The paper lantern shops are among the most conspic- uous and interesting. You can form no conception of the extent to which lanterns are used. They are one of the idiosyncrasies of Japan. No festival, secular or religious, is complete without hundreds or thousands of BLUE CHINA. 231 them. A paper lantern burns outside most houses and shops at night, the yadoyas, tea-houses, and theatres keep up a perpetual illumination, and every foot- passenger and Icuruma runner carries one with the Chinese characters forming his name upon it, in black or red, upon a white ground. They are of all sizes, from those hanging in the temples, 10 and 12 feet long, by 3 or 4 in diameter, to the small expanding ones, a foot long, by 4 or 5 inches wide, carried in the streets. Ingenuity, fancy, and taste, do their utmost to ornament them, and many of them, especially the kinds in ordinary use, are very beautiful. The usual shape is circular, but for festal occasions they are made in huge oblongs and squares — movable transparencies rather than lanterns — and in the likeness of fans and fishes. Some of the prettiest are those with merely the family crest in red on a white ground, or the name in the Chinese seal character. On inquiring the prices at one shop I found that they ranged from 8 sen up to 8 yen. I long to buy any number of them, but cannot. Shops for andoiis, iron kettles, work-boxes (an essen tial part of every Japanese woman’s outfit), kitchen utensils, tea-shops, salcS shops, are all interesting, but yield in attractiveness to the pottery shops, which fill a whole street. Admirers of blue china would be nearly distracted with the variety, and even with the beauty of some of it, and especially with the bold handling of the designs on some of the large fish dishes. Every- where in the interior one sees horses loaded with it, and there is hardly a wayside tea-house at which I have not seen morsels, some of them very old, which I longed to buy. The salce cups, with the seven gods of luck within them, are very tempting, but nothing is more so than the teapots of all sizes and patterns, in every kind of ware for which Japan is famous. Every true 232 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Japanese teapot has a hollow handle placed at right angles with a short, straight spout. At some shops they sell nothing else. Rope and hemp shops are very numerous. One quarter, which is given up to food shops, is always thronged, but there is none of the noisy chaffer- ing which distinguishes such quarters in our large towns. Confectioners, humble vendors of rice dump lings and barley cakes ; fishmongers with stands cov- ered with bonito slices, conger eels, soles, lobsters, star- fish, and cuttle-fish; dealers in dried fish, rice, and grain ; in sauces, condiments, and soy ; in wine, and leaf tea, are all crowded together. Fruiterers’ shops look tempting, even so early, with loquats {Eriohotrya Japonica) and plums (both as sour as they can be), young turnips, carrots, cucumbers, and pease and beans ; and florists make a tasteful show witli cut flowers, min- iature shrubs, and wonderful dwarfed trees in vases. The consumption of cucumbers is something wonderful. Every man, woman, and child eats them — you can get a good-sized basket of them for four sen — three or four a day is not an unreasonable allowance ; you would be astonished to see the number which the Fysons and 1 consume at every meal ! Then come sellers of dried and candied fruits, egg merchants, tailors sitting in their shop fronts working sewing machines of Japanese make, cotton cleaners, rice buskers, weavers, specta^ le makers, needle makers, brass founders, herb sellers, money changers, tobacco leaf cutters, picture shops in which grotesque art predominates, druggists with their stock in handsome jars of blue and white china in- scribed with red Chinese characters, and dealers in “ quack medicines,” with conspicuous signboards three or four feet long, with Chinese characters in gold or red on a black ground. The Japanese Government in many wa^'s shows a QVACK MEDICINES. 233 paternal regard for the well-being of its subjects, and keeps a special watch upon “quack medicines.” Ir order to obtain leave to make and sell them, a minute description of the nature and effect of each must be sent to that all-embracing bureau, the Ministry of the Interior. Heavy penalties are attached to their un- authorised sale and manufacture, and the license to make each costs 8s. per annum. Druggists and itiner- ant vendors pay nominal fees for licenses to sell them. The peasants place greater faith in such compounds, and in the charms against disease sold in the temples, than in the medicines prescribed by the regular medi- cal profession. The neat finish of many articles is remarkable, and the beauty of some of the things turned out from dimly lighted rooms with apparently scanty appliances. Some of the finest things in iron and bronze are made by smiths squatting by a fire on the fioor, one blowing the embers with a small pair of bellows, while the other hammers the iron on an anvil a foot high. But I can- not enter into the indiscriminate laudation indulged in by some travellers. Many articles, especially in lac- quer, are tawdry and tasteless ; some of the cottons show the vicious infiuence of the staring patterns of Manchester ; a good deal of the china is positively ugly, the grotesque is often exaggerated, representations of the human form are nearly always out of drawing ; some objects in nature are over-conventionalised, and some of the decorative articles, such as ornamental hair- pins, are tawdry and vulgar. I hope you are not tired of the shops. I have had to spend much time in searching for necessaries among them, and they certainly indicate the tastes, habits, and requirements of the people. If, as I suppose, the Nii- gata shops are typical, they e\ddence either the absence of expensive tastes, or of the means to gratify them. 234 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. ADULTERATIONS. The Al surd in Shopping — Sadness and Jubilation — Condensed Milk — ^Leinon Sugar — Essence of Coffee — Shameless Impositions — Eose Dentifrice — Ito — Provender for the Journey. Japanese shopping is an art to be acquired, appar- ently, and I have not patience for it. As a general rule I would rather give something approaching the price first asked by the vendor, than spend my time in haggling over it ; but foreigners, who are expert, never do anything so extravagant, and, in the estimation of the shopkeeper, so absurd. If you like and wish to buy an article you don’t ask its price, but that of several other tilings, worldng indifferently round to it. Per- haps the vendor says ten yen; you laugh as if you were very much amused, and say two yen. He laughs derisively, but quite good-naturedly, and you put it down, on which he says eight yen; you laugh again and walk about, on which he looks amnsed, and saj s seven yen ; you say carelessly three yeii, he looks sad and appears to calculate on his soroban ; you move as if to go out, when most Likely he claps his hands, looks jubilant, and says yuroshi, which means that you are to have it for three yen, which possibly is far more than it is worth to him. If the sellers were sour and glum, this process would be unbearable, but if you are cour- teous and smiling, they are as pleasant as people can be. There are several shops which profess to sell tinned SHAMELESS IMPOSITIONS. 235 meats, condensed milk, and such like travelling requi- sites, and upon these have I spent much time with little success. I bought condensed milk with the “ Eagle ” brand. On opening it I found a substance like pale treacle, with a dash of valerian. I bought “ lemon sugar,” the one cooling drink worth drinking. It turned out to be merely moistened sugar, with a phial in the middle, containing not essence of lemon, but an oily fluid with a smell of coal-tar. I saw cognac in French bottles, with French labels, selling at forty sen a quart, about a ninth of its cost price. I bought Smith’s essence of coffee for a high price, alas ! and on opening it found a sticky and bitter paste, which Ito declares is a decoction of the leaves of ninjin. Lastly, I bought some semi-transparent soap on trial, and the use of it produced in half an hour a rash like scarla- tina ! If truth must be told, greed leads the Japanese into the most shameless impositions. Half the goods sold as foreign eatables and drinkables are compounded of vile and unwholesome trash, manufactured in TSkiyS and elsewhere, put up in bottles and jars with the names and labels of such highly respectable makers as Bass, Martell, Guiness, and Crosse and Blackwell, upon them. The last Arm regularly appends to its advertise- ment in the Yokohama papers a request that its bottles and jars may be destroyed when empty, to prevent dis- gusting or poisonous frauds. But to secure themselves in their trade of forgery, these unconscionable villains have establishments at T8kiy8, not only for the manu- facture of the compounds, but of the labels which give them currency, and some of these are such adroit for- geries as to be completely successful, while others would effectually deceive a purchaser were it not for certain inscrutable vagaries in spelling, of which I wUl give 236 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. you only one instance, though I have suffered grioV' ously myself in the matter of “ lemon sugar.” Thus, a tooth powder in an English box with “Rose Denti- frice ” at the top, takes in the buyer, but on examining the label which surrounds it, he finds “ Rose Denti- fruge, a 'preparation unequalled for leaving the toothache ” (cleansing the teeth). This is harmless, as the forgery is probably quite as efficacious as the original. My plans for the rest of the summer have been de- cided by finding that there is no steamer for Yezo foi nearly a month. The land journey is about 450 miles, and I can learn nothing about the route I wish to take, but though Ito brings from his hotel rumours of im- passable roads, cbfficulties of transit, and bad accommo- dation, I have no doubt that if my strength does not break down I shall get through all right, and I cannot think of any more healthful way of spending the sum- mer than journeying through the northern mountains. Ito is invaluable both as courier and interpreter, and as I have profited by my experience, and reduced my bag- gage to 65 lbs., and have got a thoroughly good mos- quito net, you may feel easy about me. I am taldng some sago and two tins of genuine con- densed milk, this being all the portable food which my hunt through the shops has produced ; but Mrs. Fyson has added a tin of biscuits, and Dr. Palm some choco- late and quinine. To-morrow I intend to plunge into the interior, and if aU goes well, you will hear from me from Yezo in a few weeks. I. L. B. FISH AND SOT. 237 FOOD. Fish and Soj — The Use of Game and Poultry — Varieties of Vege- tables — The Raphanus sativus — Tastelessness of Fruits — Cakes and Sweetmeats — Cleaniiness and Economy in Cooking — Cook- ing Utensils — Vivisection — Soups — Formal Entertainments — Beverages — The Diet of the Poor. I HAVE said SO much and yet so little about Japanese food, that I feel bound to supplement the notes on the subject which occur in my letters by a few which are rather more connected. The range of Japanese eatables is almost unlimited, though rice, millet, salt fish, and Raphanus sativus., con- stitute the staple food of the poorest class. Over ninety kinds of sea and river fish are eaten, boiled, broiled, and raw, from steaks of bonito and whale down to a minute species which make less than a mouthful each, which one usually sees in numbers in an inn kitchen, impaled on bamboo skewers. Bonito, whale, highly salted and dried salmon, sea slug, cuttle-fish, and some others, are eaten raw. Some fish are fried in the oil of the Sesa- mum Orientate, which produces an odour which makes one fly from its proximity. Eels and other dainties are served with soy (s/m-yw), the great Japanese sauce, of a dark brown colour, made from fermented wheat and beans with salt and vinegar, and with a dash of sake occasionally added to give it a higher flavour. The cuttle-fish always looks disgusting, and so do many of the others. Thirteen or fourteen kinds of sheJl-fish are eaten, including clams, cockles, and oysters. 238 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. Cranes and storks are luxuries of the rich, but wild duck and goose, pheasant, snipe, heron, woodcock, sky- lark, quails, and pigeons, are eaten by the middle classes, and where Shintoism prevails, or Buddhist teachings on the sacredness of life have been effaced by contact with foreigners or their indirect influence, fowls and farmyard ducks are eaten also. All these, except quails, woodcock, and pheasant, are cooked by boiling. The variety of vegetables is inflnite, but with one important exception they are remarkably tasteless. Fourteen varieties of beans are grown for food, besides pease, buckwheat, maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes (only eaten by the lowest classes), turnips, carrots, lettuce, endive, cucumbers, squash, musk, and water melons, spinach, leeks, onions, garlic, chilies, capsicums, eggs (vielongena), yams, sweet basil seeds, a species of equisetum, yellow chrysanthemum blossoms, the roots and seeds of the lotus Nelumbo nucifera., the Sagittaria., sagittata, the Arum eseulentum the taro of Hawaii, and some others. Besides cultivated vegetables they eat dock (Laffa major^, ferns, wild ginger, water pepper, bamboo shoots (a great delicacy), and various other roots and stems. The egg-plant is enormously culti- vated. The bulbs of the tiger and white lily are also cultivated and eaten. Vegetables are usually boiled. I have left to the last the vegetable par excellence, the celebrated daikon (^Raphanus sativus), from which every traveller and resident suffers. It is a plant of renowm — it deserves the honorific ! It has made many a brave man flee ! It is grown and used everywhere by the lower classes to give sipidity to their otherwise tasteless food. Its leaves, something like those of a turnip, are a beautiful green, and enliven the fields in the early winter. Its root is pure white, tolerably even, and looks like an immensel}’ magnified radish, as thick TASTELESSNESS OF FRUITS. 239 an average arm, and from one to over two feet long. In this state it is comparatively innocuous. It is slightly dried and then pickled in brine, with rice bran. It is very porous, and absorbs a good deal of the pickle in the three months in which it lies in it, and then has a smell so awful that it is difficult to remain in a house in which it is being eaten. It is the worst smell that I know of except that of a skunk ! Mushrooms, dried, boiled, and served with sauce, are to be seen at every road-side tea-house. Fruits, with one exception, are eaten raw, and with- out sugar or condiment. The finest fruit of Japan is the kaki or persimmon {^Diospyros kaki), a large golden fruit on a beautiful tree. There are many varieties, but perhaps the best is a hard kind, which, after being peeled, is dried in the sun, and then tastes like a fig. The loquat is good, stewed with sugar, especially its large seeds, which taste like peach kernels. Grapes are tolerable only, and so are oranges ; yellow and red rasp- berries grow wild, but they have less taste than an English blackberry. Among other fruits are apples, pears, quinces, plums, chestnuts, peaches, apricots, and musk and water melons, but they are sour and flavour- less. Seaweed is a common article of diet, and is dried and carried everywhere into the interior. I have scarcely seen a coolie make a meal of which it was not a part, either boiled, fried, pickled, raw, or in soup. Pickles and relishes are enormously consumed. Cu- cumbers, and the hrinjal., or egg-plant, with one or two other things pickled in brine or lees of sakS, with or without rice-bran, are popular, and are relied on for imparting appetite ; other vegetables are pickled with salt and ginger leaves, and are taken with tea the first thing in the morning, to counteract, as is supposed, the effect of the damp. 240 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. The Japanese have no puddings, tarts, creams, oi custards, or anything in which milk and butter are essential ; and in actual cookery sweets do not play an important part, but I have never seen elsewhere such numbers of shops for the sale of sweetmeats and con- fectionery, and on arriving at yadoyas of the better class, a tray of sweetmeats is always produced along with the tea with which a guest is welcomed, and they are offered also to “ morning visitors.” The finer kinds are brought from T6kiy6, and are beautiful, flowers and leaves being simulated with botanical accuracy and truthfulness of colouring. I am ready to suspect the brilliant greens and yellows, but I believe they are quite harmless. Nearly every hamlet has its coarse confectionery, made chiefly for children, in which men, women, children, temples, drums, dogs, and many other things, are burlesqued in coarse sugar. The best are singularly insipid, and either the sugar or the rice flour mingled with it have an “old” taste. The common kinds are home-made, as may be seen in every \ullage. Ito invested in sweetmeats everywhere. They seemed as essential to him as tobacco, and he said that aU who abstain from sake crave for sugar. I often eked out my scanty fare with comfits made of sugar-coated beans, or with bricks of fine rice flour kneaded with sugar, aod with yokan., which is sold in oblongs put up in dried leaves, and is made of beans and sugar rendered firm by a gelatinous substance obtained from seaweed. There is a cake called kasuteira, resembling sponge- cake, which is in much favour, and is quite tolerable, unless, as is frequently the case, the eggs are musty. It is said to have been introduced by the Spaniards, and that its name is a corruption of Castella. Mochi, a small round cake of unbaked rice dough, though in sipid. is not unpalatable, and is in much favour also. COOKING UTENSILS. 241 The marvel is that such a small quantity of fuel, and such a limited cooking apparatus can produce such a variety of results. Take a yadoya., for instance, with forty guests, from the high Government official down to kuruma runners and baggage coolies. It might not be diffieult to provide a dinner for forty, but then it must be forty dinners, i.e. each person must have his separate lacquered table and from four to twelve dishes or bowls containing eatables. I abhor the viands, but I never see even a coolie taking his midday meal with- out fresh admiration of the neat and cleanly mode of serving, and the adaptability and elegance of the solitaire dinner service, with nothing “ hugger-mugger,” forlorn, or incomplete about it. It is very interesting to watch the cleanliness, eeonomy, and certainty of the cooking operations, and the way in which, by frequent and dexterous manipulations of a dainty pair of brass tongs, which are worked like chopsticks with the fin- gers, a few ounces of charcoal can be made to cook a family meal. However dirty the clothing and even houses of the poorer classes are, I have never seen any- thing but extreme cleanliness in the cooking and serv- ing of meals, and I have often preferred to spend an hour by the kitchen fire to a dignified solitude in my own room. Eaeh cooking utensil has its special beauty and fit- ness, and the people take a pride both in their cleanli- ness and antiquity. Many an inn kitchen contains articles in bronze and iron which are worth all the gaudy and tasteless rubbish of many a Yokohama curio shop, specially iron and bronze kettles of antique and elaborate workmanship, in design at least equal to those in the Imperial Treasury at Nara, and even ex- ceeding in grace of form and delicaey of execution the cooking utensils in the Pompeiian room of the Naples 242 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Museum. I have before me now two kettles of gi ace- ful shape in antique bronze, decorated with four or five small medallions in niello work, each consisting of a circle of gold, with an iris, a clirysanthemum, or a cherry blossom iulaid in gold within it. Of course the char- coal fires are smokeless, and the kettle rests on a three- legged circle of iron above the embers, so that it is not exposed to any coarse or sooty contacts. In the large kitchens, cooking is done at a row ol small fireplaces at a convenient height, which, however, are on the same economical principle as the irori. Fish are boiled in water and soy, and a sort of sweet sake called mirinshu, to which a little sugar is added. They are served with various relishes according to rules pre- scribed by inflexible custom. . In broiling, the most common way is to sprinkle salt from above during the process, but a more piquant mode is to dash a little so}' and mirinshu on the fish from time to time. All birds, with the exception of quail, woodcock, and pheasant, which are broiled on spits, are first cut into small pieces, and then boiled in water with a little salt. The com- mon people are also fond of “ a pot-boil of bfrds ” in which a little soy and mirinshu are added to the water. There are two ways of serving raw fish. In the first method the flesh is cut up into small, oblong strips, in the latter into very thin threads. The carp is frequent- ly cut up while j^et alive, and survives a partial dis- memberment for some time. While one side of it is being eaten raw by the guests, the other, attached to the back bone, and the head, which is not touched, con- tinue to move about, and the movements are often quickened by sprinkling water on the poor creature. This dish, which is a delio-acy, is called “ A live prepara tion of Ko-i.” The chief kinds of soup used by the middle classes SOUPS. 243 are bean Goup, egg soup, and clear soup. The latter is of two kinds, one water and salt, the other water and soy. Among the lower classes there are many kinds, most of which taste like dirty water with a pinch of salt, and contain cubes of bean curd, strips of diied fish, raw cuttle-fish, etc. One soup is a black liquid con- taining dried snails of the consistency of leather, and most are best described by the Biblical phrase, “broth of abominable things.” Egg soup is usually found somewhat palatable by foreigners. In “ upper circles,” fish and vegetables, which have been separately boiled, are added to soups. Carp is used with bean soup only, while serranus marginalis is reserved for that especially ascetic soup the basis of which is salt and water. The usual everyday meal of “ well-to-do ” people con- sists of rice, soups, boiled and broiled fish, and relishes, which occupy a far more important place than with us. Formal entertainments are divided into three classes, the san no zen, in which three small lacquer tables of eatables are provided for each guest ; the ni no zen., with two, and the honzen with one. The following are ordi- nary menus in each style. San no zen. 1st Table. Rice, bean soup with carp, raw fish cut into thin threads with adjuncts, boiled fish, and relishes. 2d Table. Clear soup, broiled fish, boiled vegetables. 3d Table. Clear or bean soup, boiled fish, boiled vegetables, a jar of slightly modified clear soup, and other vegetables. Ni no zen. 1st Table. Rice, soup, boiled fish, a jar of a differen* soup, and relishes. 2d Table. Broiled fish, vegetables. 244 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAK. Honzen. Rice, soup, broiled fish, raw fish, vegetables. These bills of fare seem meagre, but such a numbei of dainties are comprised under the head relishes, that each table probably contains from eight to twelve bowl? or dishes. At all entertainments sake, or rice-beer, a straw-col- oured fluid of a faintish taste and smell, most varieties of which contain from 11 to 17.5 per cent of alcohol, plays an important part. It is frequently heated, and is taken before what the Japanese consider as the real repast. Before an entertainment, fish, either on a fine lacquer or porcelain dish, or on separate tables, is served with sake to each guest, and is known by the name of sake no sakana or “ accompaniment to sakS." This is inde- pendent of the one, two, or three tables of the feast. The preparation of raw fish cut into oblong strips called sashimi is used exclusively for this purpose, but occa- sionally the “ sake accompaniment ” consists of a large dish containing a preparation of fish, boiled quails, and other delicacies, cut up and piled one on the top of another. Before this preliminary, tea and sweetmeats are handed round, but are hardly touched. A few of the combinations used in the best class of Japanese cookery are wild duck, dock root, equisetum, sea perch, lettuce, turnips ; ferns, sea perch, Aralia cor- data; crane, Aralia cordata, mushrooms; salt pheasant, dock root, Aralia cordata ; cod, white fish, greens boiled in sakS. Any three of these, in the order in which they are given, are found floating together in the soup. With the namasu, or thin threads of raw fish, the adjuncts are sole, shrimps, chestnuts, ginger, daikon; orange, sea slug, jelly-fish, small lobsters, carrots, om’ons, BEVEBAGES. 245 parsley, and scraped daikon^ four of which are usually served on the same plate. With the sashimi, or oblong strips of raw fish, the combinations frequently are salmon, mushrooms, lemon juice, carp, cut up alive, large clams, strong sakS in a jar, boiled pheasant, garlic sauce. With Ayemono, a vegetable “ olla,” Alaria pinnatijida, carrots, mushrooms, leche de mer, minced beans, muslirooms, and a kind of horsetail. These and other combinations in cookery, as with us, are partly determined by custom.^ The only drinks in common use are tea, hot water, sake, and strockiu, less palatable even than sake, a form of alcohol, which is taken cold at odd hours during the hot season. Tea, prepared with water not quite boiling and merely poured through the leaves, is the beverage '.sually taken with meals. Tea (chci) and sake both . ake the honorific before their names. Usw-cha, which is made of powdered tea and has the appearance and consistency of pea-soup, is in high esteem among people rich enough to afford it. It is served both before and after meals, and in that case hot water, which is the ancient national beverage, as it is to this day among the Ainos, accompanies the actual food. It will be seen from this far from exhaustive account, that the cuisine of the “ well-to-do ” Japanese is far from despicable, yet there is something about their dishes so unpalatable to foreigners, that it is only after long ex- perience that any Englishman, otherwise than ruefully, swallows Japanese food. The diet of the poorer classes is meagre and innutritions, revolting in appearance and taste, and the quantities of sauces and pickles with - For tlic menus, combinations in cookery, and for much else, I am Indebted to the kindness of Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, of the Impe- rial Naval College, Tokiyo, who, although an accomplished scholar, does not think anything beneath him which is in any way illustrative ot Japanese life and customs. 246 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. which they render it palatable are very injurious to the digestive organs. Everything which can be used for food is utilised by them. They even make a kind of curd or jelly from the water in which rice is boiled. In the cities the essential elements of the diet of an ordi- nary Japanese are rice, fish, and pickled daikon; in the interior rice, or in its place millet, beans, or pease and daikon. A coolie’s average consumption of rice daily is two lbs. Of the luxuries of which I have written I never saw any on my northern tour — game never, and poultry and fresh fish very rarely ; but any traveller wishing to acquaint himself with the delicacies of the Japanese cuisine, can do so at any of the better class oi yadoyas in Yedo, IviySto, Osaka, Otsu, or even in Yo- kohama itself. TEDIOUS TRAVELLING. 247 DISCOMFORTS. The Canal-side at Niigata — Awful Loneliness — Courtesy — Dr. Palm’s Tandem — A Noisy Matsuri — A Jolting Journey — The Moimtain Villages — Winter Dismalness — An Out-of-the-world Hamlet — Crowded Dwellings — Riding a Cow — “ Drunk and Dis- orderly” — An Enforced Rest — Local Discouragements — Heavy Loads — Absence of Beggary — Slow Travelling. ICHiNONO, July 12. Two foreign ladies, two fair-haired foreign infants, a long-haired foreign dog, and a foreign gentleman, who, without these accompaniments, might have escaped notice, attracted a large but kindly crowd to the canal side when I left Niigata. The natives bore away the children on their shoulders, the Fysons walked to the extremity of the canal to bid me good-bye, the sampan shot out upon the broad, swirling flood of the Shinano, and an awful sense of loneliness fell upon me. We crossed the Shinano, poled up the narrow, enbanked Shinkawa, had a desperate struggle with the flooded Aganokawa, were much impeded by strings of nauseous manure-boats on the narrow, discoloured Kajikawa, wondered at the interminable melon and cucumber fields, and at the odd river life, and after hard poling for six hours, reached Kisaki, having accomplished exactly ten miles. Then three kurumas with trotting runners took us twenty miles at the low rate of 4i sen per ri. In one place a board closed the road, but, on representing to the chief man of the village that the traveller was a foreigner, he courteously allowed me to 248 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. pass, the Express Agent having accompanied me thus far to see that I “got through all right.” The road was tolerably populous throughout the day’s journey, and the farming villages which extended much of the way — Tsuiji, Kasayanage, Mono, and Mari — were neat, and many of the farms had bamboo fences to screen them from the road. It was on the whole a pleasant country, and the people, though little clothed, did not look either poor or very dirty. The soil was very light and sandy. There were in fact “ pine barrens,” sandy ridges with nothing on them but spindly Scotch firs and fir scrub, but the sandy levels between them, being heavily manured and cultivated like gardens, bore splendid crops of cucumbers trained like peas, melons, vegetable marrow. Arum esculentum, sweet potatoes, maize, tea, tiger-lilies, beans, and onions ; and extensive orchards with apples and pears trained laterally on trellis-work eight feet high, were a novelty in the land- scape. Though we were all day drawing nearer to mountains wooded to their summits on the east, the amount of vege- tation was not burdensome, the rice swamps were few, and the air felt drier and less relaxing. As my runners were trotting merrily over one of the pine barrens, I met Dr. Palm returning from one of his medico-reH- gious expeditions, with a tandem of two naked coolies who were going over the ground at a great pace, and I wished that some of the most staid directors of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society could have the shock of seeing him ! I shall not see a European again for some weeks. From Tsuiji, a very neat tillage, where we changed kurumas, we were jolted along over a shingly road to Nakajo, a considerable town just within treaty limits. Tlie Japanese doctors there, as in some other places, are Dr. Palm’s cordial helpers, and five or six of '‘SUNK IN BUDDHISM." 249 them, whom he regards as possessing the rare virtues of candour, earnestness, and single-miudedness, and who have studied English medical works, have clubbed to gether to establish a dispensary, and under Dr. Palm’s instructions are even carrying out the antiseptic treat- ment successfully, after some ludicrous failures ! Though Nakajo is a Shinto place, I noticed through- out the day indications of the region being “ suuk in Buddhism ” — sweeping roofs of temples in the green- ery, wayside shrines with many ex votos, figures of Buddha by the road, and in some instances prayers were actually being said before the shrines by men. There were other novelties, — large tanks for the preservation of manure, sunk in the earth and covered by neatly thatched roofs, and carts with heavy, wooden wheels without tires, drawn by men and women. We dashed through Nakajo as kuruma runners always dash through towns and villages, got out of it in a drizzle upon an avenue of firs, three or four deep, which extends from Nakajo to Kurokawa, and for some miles beyond, were jolted over a damp valley on which tea and rice alternated, crossed two branches of the shin- gly Kurokawa on precarious bridges, rattled into the town of Kurokawa, much decorated with flags and lan- terns, where the people were all congregated at a shrine where there was much drumming, and a few girls, much painted and bedizened, were daneing or posturing on a raised and covered platform, in honour of the god of the place, whose matsuri or festival it was ; and out again, to be mercilessly jolted under the flrs in the twilight to a solitary house where the owner made some difficulty about receiving us, as his license did not be- gin till the next day, but eventually succumbed, and gave me his one up stairs room, exactly five feet high, which hardly allowed of my standing upright with mji 250 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. hat on. He then rendered it suffocating by closing the amado., for the reason often given, that if he left them open and the house was robbed, the police would not only blame him severely, but would not take any trou- ble to recover his property. He had no rice, so I in- dulged in a feast of delicious cucumbers. I never saw so man}’ eaten as in that district. Children gnaw them all day long, and even babies on their mothers’ backs suck them with avidity. Just now they are sold for a un a dozen. It is a mistake to arrive at a yadoya after dark. Even if the best rooms are not full it takes fully an hour to get my food and the room ready, and meanwhile I can- not employ my time usefully because of the mosquitoes. There was heavy rain all night, accompanied by the first wind that I have heard since landing, and the fitful creaking of the pines and the drumming from the shrine made me glad to get up at sunrise, or rather at daylight, for there has not been a sunrise since I came, or a sunset either. That day we travelled by Sekki to Kawaguchi in kurumas, i.e. we were sometimes bumped over stones, sometimes deposited on the edge of a quag- mire, and asked to get out ; and sometimes compelled to walk for two or three miles at a time along the in- famous bridle-track above the river Arai, up which two men could hardly push and haul an empty vehicle ; and as they often had to lift them bodily and carry them for some distance, I was really glad when we reached the village of Kawaguchi to find that they could go no farther, though, as Ave could only get one horse, 1 had to walk the last stage in a torrent of rain, poorly pro- tected by my paper waterproof cloak. We are now in the midst of the great central chain of the Japanese mountains, which extends almost wdth- out a break for 900 miles, and is from 40 to 100 miles WINTER EVENINGS. 251 in Width, broken up into interminable ranges traversa- ble only by steep passes from 1000 to 5000 feet in height, with innumerable rivers, ravines, and valleys, the heights and ravines heavily timbered, the rivers impetuous and liable to freshets, and the valleys invari- ably terraced for rice. It is in the valleys that the vil- lages are found, and regions more isolated I have never seen, shut out by bad roads from the rest of Japan. The houses are very poor, the summer costume of the men consists of the maro only, and that of the women of trousers with an open shirt, and when we reached Kurosawa last night it had dwindled to trousers only. There is little traflSc, and very few horses are kept, one, two, or three constituting the live stock of a large vil- lage. The shops, such as they are, contain the barest necessaries of life. Millet and buckwheat rather than rice, with the universal daikon., are the staples of diet. The climate is wet in summer and bitterly cold in winter. Even now it is comfortless enough for the people to come in wet, just to warm the tips of their fingers at the irori, stifled the while with the stinging smoke, while the damp wind flaps the torn paper of the windows about, and damp draughts sweep the ashes over the tatami until the house is hermetically sealed at night. These people never know anything of what we regard as comfort, and in the long winter, when the wretched bridle-tracks are blocked by snow and the freezing wind blows strong, and the families huddle round the smoky fire by the doleful glimmer of the andon., without work, books, or play, to shiver through the long evenings in chilly dreariness, and herd together for warmth at night like animals, then- condition must be as miserable as anything short of grinding poverty can make it. The faces in this region impress me sadly as dull and apathetic. The vacant stare of the women 252 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. has grown more vacant. There are no schools in these mountain villages, and medical advice, except of the old Chinese school, is hard to get. The necessaries of life are growing dearer, the Government machine at TdkiyS wants much costly greasing, the tax-gatherer follows the harvest, and the people know the cost of progress with few of its blessings. There is another side to the picture happily. The old oppression is at an end. The Government is doing its best to mitigate the burden of taxation, and equalise its pressure, the heads of families are peasant proprietors, there are no caste distinctions, the rights of property are secure, and no “ contiguous palace ” mocks by its pomp and luxury the mean houses and fare of the peasantry. I saw things at their worst that night as I tramped into the hamlet of Numa, down whose sloping street a swollen stream was runnmg, ■which the jDeople were banking out of their houses. I was wet and tired, and the woman at the one wretched yadoya met me, saying, “ I’m sorry it’s very dirty and quite unfit for so honour- able a guest ; ” and she was right, for the one room was up a ladder, the windows were in tatters, there was no charcoal for a hihacld, no eggs, and the rice Avas so dirty and so full of a small black seed as to be mifit to eat. Worse than all, there was no Transport Office, the hamlet did not possess a horse, and it was only by send- ing to a farmer five miles off, and by much bargaining, that I got on the next morning. In estimating the number of people in a given number of houses in Japan, it is usual to multiply the houses by five, bxit I had the curiosity to Avalk through Numa and get Ito to trans- late the tallies which hang outside all Japanese houses with the names, number, and sexes of their inmates, and in tAventy-four houses there were 307 people ! In some there were four families, the grand-parents, the RIDING A COW. 253 parents, the eldest son with his wife and family, and a daughter or two with their husbands and children. The eldest son, who inherits the house and land, almost invariably brings his wife to his father’s house, where she often becomes little better than a slave to her mother-in-law. By rigid custom she literally forsakes her own kindred, and her “ filial duty ” is transferred to her husband’s mother, who often takes a dislike to her, and instigates her son to divorce her if she has no chil- dren. My hostess had induced her son to divorce his wife, and she could give no better reason for it than that she was lazy. The Numa people, she said, had never seen a for- eigner, so, though the rain still fell heavily, they were astir in the early morning. They wanted to hear me speak, so I gave my orders to Ito in public. Yesterday was a most toilsome day, mainly spent in stumbling up and sliding down the great passes of Futai, Takanasu, and Yenoiki, all among forest-covered mountains, deeply cleft by forest-choked ravines, with now and then one of the snowy peaks of Aidzu breaking the monoton}' of the ocean of green. The horses’ shoes were tied and untied every few minutes, and we made just a mile an hour ! At last we were deposited in a most unpromis- ing place in the hamlet of Tamagawa, and were told that a rice merchant, after v/aiting for three days, had got every horse in the country. At the end of two hours’ chaffering one baggage coolie was produced, some of the things were put on the rice horses, and a steed with a pack-saddle was produced for me in the shape of a plump and pretty little cow, which carried me safel} over the magnificent pass of Ori and down to the town of Okimi, among rice-fields, where, in a drowning rain, I was glad to get shelter with a number of coolies by a wood-fire till another pack-cow was produced, and we 264 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. walked on through the rice-fields and up into the hillf! again to Kurosawa, where I had intended to remain, hut there was no inn, and the farm-house where thej take in travellers, besides being on the edge of a mala- rious pond, and being dark and full of stinging smoke, was so awfully dirty and full of living creatures, that, exhausted as I was, I was obliged to go on. But it was growing dark, there was no Transport Office, and for the first time the people were very slightly extortionate, and drove Ito nearly to his wits’ end. The peasants do not like to be out after dark, for they are afraid of ghosts and all sorts of devilments, and it was cbfficult to induce them to start so late in the evening. There was not a house clean enough to rest in, so I sat on a stone, and thought about the people for over an hour. Children with scald-head, scabies., and sore eyes swarmed. Every woman carried a baby on her back, and every child who could stagger under one carried one too. Not one woman wore anything but cotton trousers. One woman reeled about “ drunk and disorderly.” Ito sat on a stone hiding his face in his hands, and when I asked him if he were ill, he replied in a most lamentable voice, “ I don’t know what I am to do, I’m so ashamed for you to see such things ! ” The boy is only eighteen, and I pitied him. I asked him if women were often drunk, and he said they were in Yokohama, but they usually kept in their houses. He says that when their husbands give them money to pay bills at the end of a month, they often spend it in ialcS, and that they sometimes get sake in shops and liavc 't put down as rice or tea. “ The old old story ! ” I looked at the dirt and barbarism, and asked if this were the Japan of which I had read. Yet a woman in this unseemly costume firmly refused to take the 2 or 3 sen which it is usual to leave at a place where you rest, LOCAL DISCOURAGEMENTS. 255 because she said that I had had water and not tea, and after I had forced it on her, she returned it to Ito, and this redeeming incident sent me awa}" much comforted. From Numa the distance here is only li ri, but it is over the steep pass of Honoki, which is ascended and descended by himdreds of rude stone steps, not pleas- ant in the dark. On this pass I saw birches for the first time ; at its foot we entered Yamagata ken by a good bridge, and shortly reached this village, in which an un- promising-looking farm-house is the only accommoda- tion ; but though all the rooms but two are taken up with silk-worms, those two are very good and look upon a miniature lake and rockery. The one objection to my room is that to get either in or out of it I must pass through the other, which is occupied by five tobacco merchants who are waiting for transport, and who while away the time by strumming on that instrument of dis- may, the samisen. No horses or cows can be got for .me, so I am spending the day quietly here, rather glad to rest, for I am much exhausted. When I am suffer ing much from my spine Ito always gets into a fright and thinks I am going to die, as he tells me when I am better, but shows his anxiety by a short, surly manner, which is most disagreeable. He thinks we shall never get through the interior ! Mr. Brunton’s excellent map fails in this region, so it is only by fixing on the well- known city of Yamagata and devising routes to it that we get on. Half the evening is spent in consulting Japanese maps, if we can get them, and in questioning the house-master and Transport Agent, and any chance travellers ; but the people know nothing beyond the distance of a few ri, and the agents seldom tell one anything beyond the next stage. When I inquire about the “ unbeaten tracks ” that I wish to take, the answers are “ It’s an awful road through mountains,’ 256 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. or “ There are many bad rivers to cross,” or “ There are none but farmers’ houses to stop at.” No encourage- ment is ever given, but we get on, and shall get on, I doubt not, though the hardships are not what I would desire in my present state of health. Very few horses are kept here. Cows and coolies carry much of the merchandise, and women as well as men carry heavy loads. A baggage coolie carries about 50 lbs., but here merchants carrying their own goods from Yamagata actually carry from 90 to 140 lbs., and even more. It is sickening to meet these poor fellows struggling over the mountain passes in evident distress. Last night five of them were resting on the summit ridge of a pass gasping violently. Their eyes were starting out ; all their muscles, rendered painfully visible by their leanness, were quivering ; rills of blood from the bite of insects which they cannot drive away were literally running all over their nakec bodies, waslied away here and there by copious perspi- ration. Truly “ in the sweat of their brows ” they were eating bread and earning an honest living for their families! Sufferuig and hard-worked as they were, they were quite independent. I have not seen a beggar or beggary in this strange coimtry. The women were carrying 70 lbs. These burden-bearers have their backs covered by a thick pad of plaited straw. On this rests a ladder, curved up at the lower end like the runners of a sleigh. On this the load is carefully packed till it extends from below the man’s waist to a considerable height above his head. It is covered with waterproof paper, securely roped, and thatched with straw, and is supported by a broad padded band just below the collar bones. Of course, as the man walks nearly bent double, and the position is a very painful one, he requires to stop and straighten hirasel/ SLOW TRAVELLING. 257 f^ef^uently, and unless he meets with a bank of conven- ient height, he rests the bottom of his burden on a short, stout pole with an L-shaped top, carried for this purpose. The carrying of enormous loads is quite a feature of this region, and so, I am sorry to say, are red stinging ants, and the small gad-flies which molest the coolies. Yesterday’s journey was 18 miles in twelve hours ! Icliinono is a nice industrious hamlet, given up, like all others, to rearing silkworms, and the pure white and sulphur yellow cocoons are drying on mats in the sun everywhere. I. L. B. 258 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. A PROSPEROUS DISTRICT. Comely Kine — Japanese Criticism on a Foreign Usage — A Pleas- ant Halt — Kenewed Courtesies — The Plain of Tonezawa — A Curious Mistake — The Mother’s ^ftfemorial — The Judgments ol Hades — Arrival at Komatsu — Stately Accommodation — Lati- tude in Speech — Silk and Silk Culture — A Vicious Horse — An Asiatic Arcadia — A Fashionable Watering-place — A Belle — “Godowns” — The God of Wealth. Kamix otama. A SEVEKFi day of mountain travelling brought us into another region. We left Ichinono early on a fine morning, with three pack-cows, one of whicli I rode [and their calves], very comely kine, Avith small noses, short horns, straight spines, and deep bodies. I thought that I might get some fresh milk, but the idea of any- thing but a calf milking a cow was so new to the peo- ple that there was a universal laugh, and Ito told me that they thought it “ most disgusting,” and that the Japanese tlnnk it “most disgusting” in foreigners to put anything “ with such a strong smell and taste ” into their tea ! All the cows had cotton cloths, printed with blue dragons, suspended under their bodies tc Jceep them from mud and insects, and they wear straw shoes, and cords through the cartilages of their noses. The day being fine, a great deal of rice and sakS was on the move, and we met hundreds of pack-cows, all of the same comely breed, in strings of four. We crossed the Sakiiratogd, fi-om which the %dew is beautiful, got horses at the mountain village of Shi A I>ZEASAJVT HALT. 259 rakasawa, crossed, more passes, and in the afternoon reached the village of Tenoko. There, as usual, I sat under the verandah of the Transport Office, and waited for the one horse which was available. It was a large shop, but contained not a single article of European make. In the one room a group of women and chd- di’en sat round the fire, and the agent sat as usual with a number of ledgers at a table a foot high, on which his grandchild was lying on a cushion. Here Ito dmed on seven dishes of horrors, and they brought me sa/ce, tea, rice, and black beans. The last are very good. We had some talk about the country, and the man asked me to write his name in English characters, and to write my own in a book. Meanwhile a crowd assem- bled, and the front row sat on the ground that the others might see over their heads. They were dirty and pressed very close, and when the women of the house saw that I felt the heat they gracefully produced fans and fanned me for a whole hour. On asking the charge, they refused to make any, and would not re- ceive anything. They had not seen a foreigner before, they said, they would despise themselves for taking anjdhing, they had my “ honourable name ” in their book. Not only that, but they put up a parcel of sweetmeats, and the man wrote his name on a fan and insisted on my accepting it. I was grieved to have nothing to give them but some English pins, but they had never seen such before, and soon circulated them among the crowd. I told them truly that I should remember them as long as I remember Japan, and went on-, much touched by their kindness. The lofty pass of Utsu, which is ascended and de- scended by a number of stone slabs, is the last of the passes of these choked-up ranges. From its summit in the welcome sunlight I joyfully looked down upon the 260 UNBEATEN TEACKS IN JAPAN. noble plain of Yonezawa, about 30 miles long and from 10 to 18 broad, one of the gardens of Japan, wooded and watered, covered with prosperous towns and vil- lages, surrounded by magnificent mountains not alto- gether timbered, and bounded at its southern extremity by ranges white with snow even in the middle cf July. In the long street of the farming village of Matsuhara a man amazed me by running in front of me and speak ing to me, and !on Ito coming up, he assailed him vociferously, and it turned out that he took me for an Aino, one of the subjugated aborigines of Yezo. I have before now been taken for a Chinese ! Throughout the province of Echigo I have occasion- ally seen a piece of cotton cloth suspended by its four corners from four bamboo poles just above a quiet stream. Behind it there is usually a long narrow tablet, notched at the top, similar to those seen in cemeteries, with characters upon it. Sometimes bouquets of flowers are placed in the hollow top of each bamboo, and usually there are characters on the cloth itself. With- in it always lies a wooden dipper. In coming down from Tenoko I passed one of these close to the road, and a Buddhist priest was at the time pouring a dippei full of water into it, which strained slowly through. As he was going our way we joined him, and he explained its meaning. According to him the tablet bears on it the Tcaimiyd, or posthumous name of a woman. The flowers have the same significance as those which lo\dng hands place on the graves of kindred. If there are characters on the cloth, they represent the well-knovni invocation of the Nichiren sect, Namu mid hd ren ge hid. The pour- ing of the water into the cloth, often accompanied by telling the beads on a rosary, is a prayer. The whole Is called “ The Flowing Invocation.” I have seldom THE MOTHER’S MEMORIAL. 26J seen anything more plaintively affecting, for it denotes that a mother in the first joy of maternity has passed away to suffer (according to popular belief) in the Lake of Blood, one of the Buddhist hells, for a sin committed in a former state of being, and it appeals to every passer-by to shorten the penalties of a woman in anguish, for in that lake she must remain until tlie cloth is so utterly worn out that the water falls through it at once. I have rarely passed the “ Flowing Invocation ” with- out seeing some wayfarer fill and empty the dipper, and even Ito, sceptic as he is, never neglects to do the same. In order to produce the liberation of a soul in tciment, 262 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. it is essential that the cloth be bought at a temple. There the priest’s information ceased, but Ito tells me that rich people can buy a cloth dexterously scraped thin in the middle, which lets the water through in a few days, while the poor man has to content himself with a closely woven cotton, which wears out with painful slowness. There are plenty of similar instances of the sordidness of priestcraft, so many that there is a common saymg among the Japanese, “The judgments of Hades depend on money.” Other resemblances to the Romish system of paying for masses occur in several forms in Buddhism, as for instance in the first and seventh months numbers of people visit temples in which there are idols of Yemma, the Lord of Hell, for the purpose of relieving the souls of friends who are suffering the pains of purgatory, and Yemma is ex- pected to cancel the misdeeds which are recorded in his book in exact proportion to the sums paid to the priests. Where the mountains come down upon the plain of Yonezawa, there are several raised banks, and you can take one step from the hill-side to a dead level. The soil is dry and gravelly at the junction, ridges of pines ap- peared, and the look of the houses suggested increased cleanlmess and comfort. A walk of six miles took us from Tenoko to Komatsu, a beautifully situated town of 3000 people, with a large trade in cotton goods, silk, and sake. As I entered Komatsu, the first man who I met turned back hastily, called into the first house tlie words which mean “ Quick, here’s a foreigner ; ” the three carpenters who were at work there flung down their tools, and, without waiting to put on their kimonos, sped down the street calling out the news, so that by the time I reached the yadoya a large crowd was press- S TA TEL Y A CCOMM OB A TION. 2G3 Lng upon me. The front was mean and unpromising- looking, but on reaching the back by a stone bridge over a stream which ran througli the house, I found a room 40 feet long by 15 high, entirely open along one side to a garden with a large fishpond with goldfish, a pagoda, dwarf trees, and all the usual miniature adorn ments. Fusuma of wrinkled blue paper splashed with gold turned this “ gallery ” into two rooms ; but there was no privacy, for the crowds climbed upon the roofs at the back, and sat there patiently until night. These were daimiyu' s rooms. The posts and ceilings were ebony and gold, the mats very fine, the polished alcoves decorated with inlaid writing-tables and sword racks ; spears nine feet long, with handles of lacquer inlaid with Venus’s ear, hung in the verandah, the wash- ing bowl was fine inlaid black lacquer, and the rice- bowls and their covers were gold lacquer. In this as in many other yadoyas there were kakemonos with large Chinese characters representing the names of tlie Prime Minister, Provincial Govei'nor, or distin- guished General, who had honoured it by halting there, and lines of poetry were hung up, as is usual, in the same fashion. I have several times been asked to write something to be thus displayed. I spent Sunday at Komatsu, but not restfuUy, owing to the nocturnal croaking of the frogs in the pond. In it, as in most towns, there were shops which sell nothing but white, frothy-looking cakes, which are used for the goldfish which are so much prized, and three times daily the women and children of the household came into the garden to feed them. The questions which the women everywhere put to me through Ito about things at home are most surpris- ing, and show a latitude of speech very offensive to English ideas of delicacy, yet it would be quite unfair 261 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. to judge of their morals either by such speech, or by many things in their habits which are at variance with our own. My impression is that the married women are virtuous and faithful, that the men are just the reverse, and that the children, who hear from their infancy the loose conversation of their parents, grow up without that purity and innocence which are among the greatest charms of children at home. Silk is everywhere ; silk occupies the best rooms of all the houses ; silk is the topic of everybody’s talk ; the region seems to live by silk. One has to walk warily in many villages lest one should crush the cocoons which are exposed upon mats, and look so temptingly like almond comfits. The house-master took me to a silk- farm, where the farmer both raises the eggs [which are exported from Japan annually to the amount of three million dollars] and fine silk. For the eggs the cocoons are ranged in shallow basket trays for twelve or four- teen days, at the end of which tune the chrysalis changes into a small white moth of mean appearance. From 100 to 130 moths are then placed on a card, which in twelve hours is covered with eggs, and is hung up by a string till the autumn. The cards are then packed in boxes, and the eggs are hatched the followdiig spring. The best cards from tliis district bring 3^ yen each. The silk season here begins in early April by the cards being hung up. In about twenty-two days the worms appear. The women watch them most carefully, pla- cing the cards on paper in basket trays, and brushing them each morning with a feather for three days, till all the worms are hatched. The mulberr)^ leaves with which they are fed are minced very fine and sifted, so as to get rid of leaf fibre, and are then mixed with millet bran. The worms on being removed from the paper are placed on clean basket trays over a layer of SILK AND SILK CULTURE. 265 matting. They pass through four sleeps, the first oc> during ten days after hatching. The interval between the three remaining sleeps is from six to seven days. For these sleeps the most careful preparations are made by the attendants. Food is usually given five times a da}'', but in hot weather as many as eight times, and as the worms grow bigger their food grows coarser, till after the fourth sleep the leaves are given whole. The quan- tity is measimed with great nicety, as the worms must neither be starved nor gorged. Great cleanliness is necessary, and an equable temperature, or disease arises ; and the watching by day and night is so incessant, that, during the season, the women can do little else. After the fourth sleep the worms soon cease to feed, and when they are observed to be looking for a place to spin in, the best are picked out and placed on a straw contriv- ance, on which they spin their cocoons in three days. When the cocoons are intended for silk they are laid out in the sun on trays for three days, and this kills the chrysalis. In almost every house front that I pass women are engaged in reeling silk. In this process the cocoons are kept in hot water in a copper basin, to the edge of which a ring of horsehair or a hook of very fine wire is attached. For the finest silk, the threads of five or six cocoons are lifted up and passed through the ring to the reel with the first and second fingers of the left hand, the right hand meanwhile trmning the handle of the reel. Much expertness is required. The water used must be very pure, and is always filtered before it is used, or the silk loses its natural gloss. When I left Kumatsu there were fully sixty people inside the house and 1500 outside, walls, verandahs, and even roofs being packed. From NikkO to Kumatsu mares had been exclusively used, but there I encountered 266 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. for the first time the terrible Japanese pack-horse. Two horridly fierce-looking creatures were at the door, with their heads tied down till then- necks were completely arched. When I mounted, the crowd followed, gather- ing as it went, frightening the horse with the clatter of clogs and the sound of a multitude, till he broke his head rope, and the frightened ma()o letting him go, he proceeded down the street mainly on his liuid feet, squealing, and striking savagely with his fore feet, the crowd scattering to the right and left, till, as it surged past the police station, four policemen came out and ar- rested it, only to gather again, however, for there was a longer street down which my horse proceeded in the same fashion, and looking round, I saw Ito’s horse on his hind legs and Ito on the ground. My beast jumped over all ditches, attacked all foot-passengers with his teeth, and behaved so like a wild animal that not all my pre^d- ous acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of horses en- abled me to cope with him. On reaching Akayu we found a horse fair, and as all the horses had their heads tightly tied down to posts, they could only squeal and lash out with their hind feet, which so provoked our ani- mals that the baggage horse, by a series of jerks and rear- ings, divested himself of Ito and most of the baggage, and as I dismounted from mine, he stood upright, and my foot catching, I fell on the ground, when he made several vicious dashes at me "with his teeth and fore feel, which were happily frustrated b}^ the dexterity of some mago. These beasts forcibly remind me of the words, “ Whose mouth must be held with bit and bridle, lest they turn and fall upon thee.” It was a lovely summer day, though very hot, and the snowy peaks of Aidzu scarcely looked cool as they glit- tered in the sunlight. The plain of Yonezawa, with the prosperous town of Yonezawa in the south, and the fre AN ASIATIC ARCADIA. 267 quented watering-place of Akayu in the north, is a per> feet garden of Eden, “ tilled with a pencil instead of a plough,” growing in rich profusion, rice, cotton, maize, tobacco, hemp, indigo, beans, egg plants, walnuts, mel- ons, cucumbers, persimmons, apricots, pomegranates ; a smiling and plenteous land, an Asiatic Arcadia, prosper- ous and independent, all its bounteous acres belonging to those who cultivate them, who live under their vines, figs, and pomegranates, free from oppression — a remark- able spectacle under an Asiatic despotism. Yet still Daikoku is the chief deity, and material good is the one object of desire. It is an enchanting region of beauty, industry, and comfort, mountain girdled, and watered by the bright Matsuka. Everywhere there are prosperous and beau- tiful farming villages, Avith large houses with carved beams and ponderous tiled roofs, each standing in its own grounds, buried among persimmons and pomegran- ates, with flower-gardens under trellised vines, and privacy secured by high, closely-clipped screens of pome- granate and cr}q)tomeria. Besides the villages of Yo- shida, Semoshima, KurokaAva, Takayama, and Takataki, through or near Avhich we passed, I counted over fifty on the plain with their broAvn, sweeping barn roofs look- ing out from the woodland. In every one there are two poles over 30 feet high for white bannerets, Avhich are inscribed with the name of the Aullage god, and are put up on his matsuri or festival day, and from the number of these visible among the trees, it seemed as if half the villages were keeping holiday. The monotonous sound of drumming filled the air, the girl children were all much painted, and large lanterns, with the characters representing the god, Avere hanging under all eaves, in preparation for the evening illuminations. The village of Yoshida, in which I saw the process of silk raising, 268 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. is the most beautiful and prosperous of all ; but even there there was not a man or woman who did not work with his or her own hands, and semi-nudity among the adults was as common as in the mountain 'dllages, though the cMldren, especially the girls, were elaborate- ly dressed in silk fabrics, and wore a good deal of scarlet. I cannot see any differences in the style of cultivation. Yoshida is rich and prosperous-looking, Numa poor and wretched-looking, but the scanty acres of Numa, rescued from the mountain-sides, are as exquisitely trim and neat, as perfectly cultivated, and yield as abundantly of the crops which suit the climate, as the broad acres of the sunny plain of Yonezawa, and this is the case every- where. “ The field of the sluggard ” has no existence in Japan. We rode for four hours through these beautiful vil- lages on a road four feet wide, and then, to my surprise, after ferrying a river, emerged at Tsukuno upon what appears on the map as a secondary road, but which is in reality a main road 25 feet wide, well kept, trenched on both sides, and with a line of telegraph poles along it. It was a new world at once. The road for many miles was tlironged with well-dressed foot-passengers, Jcurumas, pack-horses, and waggons either with solid wheels, or wheels with spokes but no tires. It is a cap- ital carriage-road, but without carriages. In such civ- ilised circumstances it was curious to see two or four brown skinned men pulling the carts, and quite often a man and his wife — the man unclothed, and the woman unclothed to her waist — doing the same. Also it struck me as incongruous to see telegraph wires above, and be- low, men whose only clothing consisted of a sun-hat and fan ; while cliildren with books and slates were return- ing from school, conning their lessons. At Akayu, a town of hot sulphur springs, I hoped to A FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACE. 269 sleep, but it was one of the noisiest places I have .seen. In the most crowded part, whefe four streets meet, there are bathing sheds, which were full of people of both sexes, splashing loudly, and the yadoya close to it had about forty rooms, in nearly all of which several rheu- matic people were lying on the mats, samisens were twanging, and kotos screeching, and the hubbub was so unbearable that I came on here, ten miles farther, by a fine new road, up an uninteresting strath of rice-fields and low hills, which opens out upon a small plain sur- rounded by elevated gravelly hills, on the slope of one of which Kaminoyama, a watering-place of over 3000 people, is pleasantly situated. It is keeping festival ; there are lanterns and flags on every house, and crowds are thronging the temple grounds, of which there are several on the hills above. It is a clean, dry place, with beautiful yadoyas on the heights, and pleasant houses with gardens, and plenty of walks over the hills. The people say that it is one of the driest places in Japan. If it were within reach of foreigners, they would find it a wholesome health resort, with pictur- esque excursions in many directions. This is one of the great routes of Japanese travel, and it is interesting to see watering-places with their habits, amusements, and civilisation quite complete, but bor- rowing nothing from Europe. The hot springs here contain iron, and are strongly impregnated with sul- phuretted hydrogen. I tried the temperature of three, and found them 100°, 105°, and 107°. ' They are sup- posed to be very valuable in rheumatism, and they at- tract visitors from great distances. The police, who are my frequent informants, tell me that there are nearly 600 people now staying here for the benefit of the baths, of which six daily are usually taken. I think that in rheumatism, as in some other maladies, the old-fashioned 270 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Japanese doctors pay little attention to diet and habits, and much to drugs and external applications. The ben- efit of these and other medicinal waters would be much increased if vigorous friction replaced the dabbing with soft towels. THE BELLE OP KAMINOTAMA. This is a large yadoya, very full of strangers, and the house-mistress, a buxom and most prepossessing widow, has a truly exquisite hotel for bathers higher up the hill. She has eleven children, two or three of whom are tall, handsome, and graceful girls. One blushed “ OODOWNS.’> 271 deeply at my evident admiration, but was not displeased, and took me up the hill to see the temples, baths, and yadoyas of this very attractive place. I am much de- lighted with her grace and savoir faire. I asked the widow how long she had kept the inn, and she proudly answered, “ Three hundred years,” not an uncommon instance of the heredity of occupations. My accommodation is unique, a kura^ or godowii. in a large conventional garden, in which is a bath-house which receives a hot spring at a temperature of 105°, in which I luxuriate. Last night the mosquitoes were awful. If the widow and her handsome girls had not fanned me perseveringly for an hour, I should not have been able to write a line. My new mosquito net suc- ceeds admh’ably, and when I am once within it I rather enjoy the disappointment of the hundreds of drumming bloodthirsty wi-etches outside. The widow tells me that house-masters pay 2 yen once for all for the sign, and an annual tax of 2 yen on a first-class yadoya^ 1 yen for a second, and 50 cents for a third, with 5 yen for the license to sell sake. These “godowns” (from the hlalay word gadong'), or fireproof storehouses, are one of the most marked features of Japanese towns, both because they are white where all else is grey, and because they are solid where all else is perishable. Hotels, shops, and middle class (if there be a middle class) houses have their own kuras., but for the poorer classes and in villages there are kuras in which people can hu'e the security needed. Nobody keeps anything of value in his own inflamma- ble dwelling. Several times I have seen a whole dis- trict burned to the ground, leaving only a few ashes, and the kuras standing unharmed, except by the smoke. They are all on one model, and have a handsome appearance as contrasted with the houses. The founda 272 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tions are of stone, on which a tolerably solid wooden frame-work is constructed, which is covered with from twenty-five to fifty coats of mud plaster. A plaster roof of considerable thickness is placed upon these walls, and above that, leaving a space of a foot, a hand- some tiled one. The doors and window shuttere are DAIKOETJ. iron or bronze, solid and handsome, much like the doors of Chubb’s fireproof safes, except in a few cases, in which they are made of wood thickly coated with plas- ter. The outside of the building is coated with chunam^ a pure white cement. I am lodged in the lower part, but the iron doors are open, and in their place at night is a paper screen. A THE GOD OF WEALTH. 273 few things are kept in my room. Two handsome shrines from which the unemotional faces of two Buddhas looked out all night, a fine figure of the god- dess Kwan-non, and a venerable one of the god of lon- gevity suggested curious dreams. You will remember that I mentioned two gigantic figures, the Ni-S, as guard- ing the gateways of the temples. I have noticed small prints of these over the doors of almost all the houses, and over the kura doors also. It seems that these prints are put up as a protection against burglars. Near the yadoya entrance there is the largest figure of Daikoku, the god of wealth, that I have yet seen, though I cannot recall a house in which he does not appear in larger or smaller form. He is jolly and roguish-looking usually, as indeed the god may be who leads all men, and fools most. He is short and stout, wears a cap like the cap of liberty, is seated on rice bags, holds a mallet in his right hand, and with the left grasps tightly a large sack which he carries over his shoulders. The moral taught by this figure has long smce been forgotten. It teaches humility by its low stature. Its bag represents wealth, requiring to be firmly held when attained. The cap partly shades the eyes, to keep them bent down on the realities of life. The mallet represents manual labour, and the rice-bags the riches to be acquired by following the rules which raise the lowly ! Traders, farmers, and all who have their living to make, incessantly propitiate Daikoku, and he is never without offerings and incense . I. L. B 274 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. A JAPANESE DOCTOR. Prosper! ty — Convict Labour — A New Bridge — Y amagata — Intoxi eating Forgeries — The Government Buildings — Bad Manners A Filature — Snow Mountains — A Wretched Town. Kan A YAM A, July 16. Three days of travelling on the same excellent road have brought me nearly 60 miles. Yamagata ken im- presses me as being singularly prosperous, progressive, and go-ahead ; the plain of Yamagata, which I entered soon after leaving Kaminoyama, is populous and highly cultivated, and the broad road, with its enormous traffic, looks wealthy and civilised. It is being improved by convicts in dull red kimonos printed with Chinese char- acters, who correspond with our ticket-of-leave men, as they are working for wages in the employment of con- tractors and farmers, and are under no other restriction than that of always wearing the prison dress. At the Sakamold river I was delighted to come upon the only thorougldy solid piece of modern Japanese work that I have met with, a remarkably handsome stone bridge nearly finished — the first I have seen. I introduced myself to the enguieer Okuno Chiuzo, a \ erj gentlemanly, agreeable Japanese, who showed mo the plans, took a great deal of trouble to explain them, and courteously gave me tea and sweetmeats. This remarkable bridge on a remarkable road is 192 feet long by 30 broad, with five arches of a span of 30 feet each. It has a massive stone balustrade, with A A'E]V BRIDGE. 27{) pillars at the ends and centre, surmounted by bronze finials 3 feet high. The stones are quarried 12 miles off, and each is brought down to the river-side by eight coolies and dressed on the spot. The regular size of the stones is 3 feet by 2, and, like all Japanese masonry, they are fitted together without mortar, and with such absolute nicety that the joinings are hardly visible. The estimated cost is 16,000 yen, or something over .£3000. Tins bridge is most interesting, as the design and work are Japanese, and it has been erected success- fully Avithout foreign aid. I paid the engineer many compliments on his work, and doubtless they lost noth- ing by transmission through Ito, who has adopted a most amusing swagger of walk and speech ever since we entered this thriving ken. The washing away of bridges during the frequent freshets is a source of great loss and inconvenience. The rivers are innumerable, and in a poor country it cannot be expected that such structures as this should become common, even on the main roads, but iron cylinders filled with concrete would, in many places, be cheaper in the long run than wooden piers without foundations. The obvious pros- perity of this region must arise partly, I think, from the fine main road which gives the cultivator a choice of markets, instead of compelling him to sell in the nearest, because of the difficulty of transit. The road is very cheerful, owing not only to the pedestrians and pack-horses, but to the immense number of man-carts and kurumas. Yamagata, a thriving town of 21,000 people and the capital of the ken, is Avell situated on a slight eminence, and this and the dominant position of the kencho at the top of the main street give it an emphasis nnusual in Japanese towns. The outskirts of all the cities are very mean, and the appearance of the lofty white build- 276 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ings of the new Government Offices above the low grey houses was much of a surprise. The streets of Yamagata are broad and clean, and it has good shops, among which are long rows selling nothing but orna- mental iron kettles and ornamental brasswork. So far in the interior I was annoyed to find several shops almost exclusively for the sale of villainous forgeries of Euro pean eatables and drinkables, specially the latter. The Japanese, fi'om the Mikado downwards, have acquired a love of foreign intoxicants, which would be hurtful enough to them if the intoxicants were genuine, but is far worse when they are compounds of vitriol, fusel oU, bad vinegar, and I know not what. I saw two shops in Yamagata winch sold champagne of the best brands, Martell’s cognac, Bass’s ale, Medoc, St. Julian, and Scotch whisky, at about one-fifth of their cost price — all poisonous compounds, the sale of which ought to be interdicted. The Government Buildings, though in the usual con- fectionery style, are improved by the addition of veran- dahs, and the Kenchd., Saibancho., or Court House, the Normal School with advanced schools attached, and the police buildings, are all in keeping Avith the good road and obvious prosperity. A large two-storied hospital, with a cupola, which will accommodate 150 patients, and is to be a Medical School, is nearly finished. It is very well arranged and ventilated. I cannot say as much for the present hospital, which I went over. At the Court House I saw twenty officials doing nothing, and as many policemen, all in European dress, to wliich they had added an imitation of European manners, the total result being unmitigated vulgarity. They de- manded my passport before they would tell me the population of the hen., and city. Once or twice I have found fault with Ito's manners, and he has asked me A FILATURE. 277 twice since if I think them like the manners of the policemen at Yamagata ! I visited a filature where the managers and engine- tenders all wore European clothes, but they were singu- larly courteous and communicative. It is a light, lofty, well-ventilated building, running 50 spuidles (shortly to be increased to 100), worked by as many clean, well- dressed girls. Those who are learning get little besides their food, the skilled hands earn 5s. a week and food. The machinery is run by a steam-engine of twenty horse-power, made and worked by Japanese. In front of the spindles is a row of tables at which the girls are seated, on high, cushioned stools, each one with a brass pan full of water kept at a given temperature, which contains the cocoons. They lift the ends of the sUk with small brushes made of twigs, and pass them through glass rings to the spindles. The working day is eleven hours. The spun silk is all sent to England. The white bears the highest price, but the yellow is the strongest. In whatever form silk is sold, it must be put up in given quantities, in Avr-appers, bearing im- pressed stamps of different values. The manager com- plained very much of the adulterations of silk in Europe, and specially of that mixture of silk and cotton known as Japanese silk. In the rear of the filature is a large fireproof building, with racks up to the roof, in which the cocoons are stored after they have been exposed to a high temperature m a stove- heated chamber. The manager entertained us with tea, the first of this season’s crop, and remarkably deli- cious. The Yamagata crowd was a suffocating and perse- vering one. It followed me to the filature, and after being dispersed by the police, re-accumulated, waited outside during the hour I spent there, and followed me 278 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. to the tea-house, where my spoon and fork detained il for another hour. North of Yamagata the plain widens, and fine longi- tudinal ranges capped with snow mountains on the one side, ajid broken ranges with lateral spurs on the other, enchase as cheerful and pleasant a region as one wouhJ wish to see, with many pleasant villages on the lowe r slopes of the hills. The mercury was only 70°, and the wind north, so it was an especially pleasant journey, though I had to go three and a half ri beyond Tendo, a town of 5000 people, where I had intended to halt, be- cause the only inns at Tendo which were not kashit- suke^a, were so occupied with silkworms that they could not receive me. The next day’s journey was still along the same fine road, through a succession of farming villages, and to’nms of 1500 and 2000 people, such as Tochiida and Obanasawa, were frequent. From both these there was a glorious view of Chokaisan, a grand, snow-covered dome, said to be 8000 feet high, which rises in an alto- gether unexpected manner from comparatively level country, and as the great snow-fields of Udonosan are in sight at the same time, vdth most pictirresque curtain ranges below, it may be considered one of the grandest views of Japan. After leaving Obanasawa the road passes along a valley watered by one of the affluents of the Mogami, and after crossing it by a fine wooden bridge, ascends a pass from which the view is mosl mag’nificent. After a long ascent through a region ol light, peaty soil, wooded with pine, cryptomeria, and scrub oak, a long descent and a fine avenue terminate in Shinjo, a wretched town of over 5000 people, situated in a plain of rice-fields. The day’s journey, of over twenty-three miles, was through villages of farms without yadoyas, and in many A WRETCHED TOWN. 270 eases without even tea-houses. The style of building has quite changed. Wood has disappeared, and all the houses are now built with heavy beams and walls of laths and brown mud mixed with chopped straw, and very neat. Nearly all are great oblong barns, turned endwise to the road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long, with the end nearest the road the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have no paper windows, only amado, with a few panes of paper at the top. These are drawn back in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses, blinds, formed of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening. There are no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in the rafters, who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon a mosquito net. Again I write that Shinj8 is a wTetched place. It is a daimiyd's town, and every daimiyo's town that I have seen has an air of decay, partly owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled down, or has been allowed to fall into decay. ShinjS has a large trade in rice, silk, and hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it looks. The mosquitoes were in thousands, and I had to go to bed, so as to be out of their reach, before I had finished my wretched meal of sago and condensed milk. There was a hot rain all night, my wretched room Avas dirty and stifling, and rats gnawed my boots and ran away with my cucumbers. To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky. The good road has come to an end, and the old hard- ihips have begun again. After leaving Shinjo this moming Ave crossed over a steep ridge into a singular basin of great beauty, Avith a semicircle of pyramidal hills, rendered more striking by being covered to their summits with pyramidal cryptomeria, and apparently blocking all northward progress. At their feet lies 280 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Kaiiayama in a romantic situation, and though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying for a day or two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and pleasant, the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me, and Ito has secured a chicken for the first time since leaving Nikko I I find it impossible in this damp climate, and in my present poor health, to travel with any comfort for more than two or three days at a time, and it is difficult to find pretty, quiet, and wholesome places for a halt of two nights. Freedom from fleas and mosquitoes one can never hope for, though the last vary in number, and I have found a way'' of “ dodging ” the first, by laydng down a piece of oiled paper six feet square upon the mat, dusting along its edges a band of Persian insect powder, and setting my chair in the middle. I am then insulated, and though myriads of fleas jump on the paper, the powder stupefies them, and they are easily^ killed. I have been obliged to rest here at any rate, because I have been stung on my left hand both by a hornet and a gadfly, and it is badly^ inflamed. In some places the hornets are in hundreds, and make the horses wild. I am also suffering from inflammation produced by the bites of “ horse ants,” which attack one in walk- ing. The Japanese suffer very much from these, and a neglected bite often produces an intractable ulcer. Besides these, there is a fly as harmless in appearance as our house-fly', which bites as badly' as a mosquito. These are some of the drawbacks of Japanese travel- ling in summer, but worse than these is the lack of such food as one can eat when one finishes a hard day'^s journey without appetite, in an exhausting atmosphere. July 18. — I have had so much pain and fever from stings and bites that last night I was glad to considt a Japanese doctor from ShinjQ. Ito, who looks twice as PAIN AND FEVER. 281 big as usual when he has to do any “ grand ” interpret- ing, and always puts on silk hakama in honour of it, came in with a middle-aged man dressed entirely in sUk, who prostrated himself three times on the ground, and then sat down on his heels. Ito in many words ex- plained my calamities, and Dr. Nosoki then asked to see my “ honourable hand ” which he examined carefully, and then my “honourable foot.” He felt my pulse and looked at my eyes with a magnifying glass, and with much sucking in of his breath — a sign of good breed- ing and politeness — informed me that I had muct fever, which I knew before ; then that I must rest, which I also knew ; then he lighted his pipe and con templated me. Then he felt my pulse and looked at my eyes again, then felt the swelling from the hornet bite, and said it was much inflamed, of which I was painfully aware, and then clapped his hands three times. At this signal a coolie appeared, carrying a handsome black lacquer chest with the same crest in gold upon it as Dr. Nosoki wore in white on his liaori. This con- tained a medicine chest of fine gold lacquer, fitted up with shelves, drawers, bottles, etc. He compounded a lotion first, with which he bandaged my band and arm rather skilfully, telling me to pour the lotion over the bandage at intervals till the pain abated. The whole vas covered with oiled paper, which answers the pur- pose of oiled silk. He then compounded a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable, 1 have not hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and to avoid Saks for a day or two ! I asked him what his fee was, and after many bows and much spluttering and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should think half a ym too much, and when I presented him with a yen., and told him with a good deal of profound bowing on my part that I was exceed •282 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. iiigly glad to obtain his services, his gratitude quite abashed me by its immensity. Doctors are being turned out in numbers from the Medical College in T6kiy6, with diplomas which entitle them to practice throughout the Empire, and the medi- cal schools connected with the provincial hospitals taught by men educated in European Medical Science give diplomas entitling their receivers to practise within the limits of the ken in which they are issued ; but Dr. Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners, whose medical knowledge has been handed down from father to son, and who holds out, as probably most of his pa- tients do, against European methods and drugs. A strong prejudice against surgical operations, specially amputations, exists throughout Japan. With regard to the latter, people think that as they came into the world complete, so they are bound to go out of it, and in many places a surgeon would hardly be able to buy at any price the privilege of cutting off an arm. Except from books these older men know notliing of the mechanism of the human body, as dissection is unknown to native science. Dr. Nosoki told me thax, he relies mainly on the application of the moxa and on acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in chronic maladies on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and vegetable medicines, and certain kinds of food. The use of leeches and blisters is unknown to him, and he regards mineral di'ugs with ob^'ious suspi- cion. He has heard of chloroform, but has never seen it used, and considers that in maternity it must neces- sarily be fatal either to mother or child. He asked me (and 1 have t\vice before been asked the same question) whether it is not by its use that we endeavom- to keep down our redundant population I He has great faith in ginseng and in rhinoceros horn, and in the powdered AN OLD- FASUIONED PBACTITIONEB. 283 liver of some animal, which, from the description, 1 understood to be a tiger — all specifics of the Chinese school of medicinesd Dr. Nosoki showed me a small box of “ unicorn’s ” horn, which he said was worth more than its weight in gold ! As my arm improved coinci- dently with the application of his lotion, I am bound to give him the credit of the cure. I in\ited him to dinner, and two tables were pro- duced covered with different dishes, of which he ate heartily, showing most singular dexterity with his chop- sticks in removing the flesh of small, bony fish. It is proper to show appreciation of a repast by noisy gulp- ings, and much gurgling and drawing in of the breath. Etiquette rigidly prescribes these performances, which are most distressing to a European, and my guest near- ly upset my gravity by them. The host and the IfSchS, or chief man of the village, paid me a formal visit in the evening, and Ito, e7i grande tenue, exerted himself immensely on the occasion. They were much surprised at my not smoking, and supposed me to be under a vow ! They asked me manj^ questions about our customs and Government, 1 Afterwards in China, at a native hospital, I heard much more of the miraculous virtues of these drugs, and in Salangor, in the Malay Peninsula, I saw a most amusing scene after the death of a tiger. A number of the neighbouring Chinese flew upon the body, cut out the liver, eyes, and spleen, and carefully drained every drop of the blood,, fighting with each other for the possession of things so precious, while those who were not so fortunate as to secure any of these cut out the cartilage from the joints. The centre of a tiger’s eyeball is supposed to possess nearly miraculous virtues; the blood, dried at a temperature of 110°, is the strongest of all tonics, and gives strength and courage ; and the powdered liver and spleen are good for many diseases. Sultan Ab- dul Samat claimed the liver, hut the other parts were all sold at high prices to the Chinese doctors. A little later, at Qualla Kangsa in Perak, I saw rhinoceros horns sold at a high price for the Chinese drug market, and Rajah Muda, who was anxious to claim the horns of the district, asserted that a single horn, with a particular mark on it, was worth fifty dollars for sale to the Chinese doctors. 284 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. but frequently reverted to tobacco. The use of it is absolutely universal. According to J\Ir. Satow it was not cultivated in Japan till 1605, and in 1612 and 1615 the Shogun prolribited both the cultivation and use of it, but the craving for the “ smoke-weed ” was too strong for the edict, and in 1651 it was modified into a notification, forbidding people to smoke outside theii houses. It was a long time before respectable women became smokers. Now the shops in the cities for the sale, of pipes, pouches, and tobacco, are innumerable ; any village which has shops at all is sure to have one for smoking apparatus ; along the road-side there are stands for the same, and the tahako-hon., with its fire-pot and ash-pot, is a part of the furniture of even the poor- est liouse. In some of the literature devoted to the subject it is called both “ the poverty weed ” and the “ fool's herb,” but these names are the invention of non- smokers. The pipe of a Japanese is often his sole com- panion. These men told me that all men “long for tobacco day and night without ceasing.” A decoction of its leaves is used, as with us, for destroying insects on plants, bundles of the leaves are placed under the 5aves to keep away vermin, dried leaves are laid in :)Ooks to prevent the attacks of worms, and dried to- oacco oil is a remedy in some forms of eye disease.^ 1 Mr. Satow has translated the following amusing notes on the mer- its and demerits of the weed, from a treatise upon it caUed the Ensanki. 1. It dispels the vapours and increases the energies. 2. It is good to produce at the beginning of a feast. 3. It is a companion in solitude. 4. It affords an excuse for resting now and then from work, as if in order to take breath. 5. It is a storehouse of reflection, and gives time for the fumes ol wrath to disperse. But on the other hand — 1. There is a natural ten- dency to hit people over the head with one’s pipe in a fit of anger. 2. The pipe comes sometimes to be used for arranging the burning charcoal in the hibachi. 3. An inveterate smoker has been known to walk alxuit among the dishes at a feast with his pipe in his mouth. 4. People kiiO'3li THE ‘'POVERTY WEED.” 28/i There have been frequent and lively discussions in Japan on the use of tobacco, but the doctors have been on the whole in favour of smoking in moderation. Ad eminent writer, Kaibara, comparing it with tea and sake., condemns it altogether, saying, “ Tobacco alone produces no benefit, but does more harm than anything else. It is not worth while to chide the common peo- ple for sucking it in, but for gentlemen and ‘ superior ’ men to follow after a custom imported from a barbarous country, and. to take pleasure in and praise that which harms the body, are woful errors.” ^ In every agricultural place where I have had the opportunity of talking with intelligent people, I have the ashes out of their pipes while still alight, and forget to extinguish the fire; hence clothing and mats are frequently scorched by burning tobacco ash. 6. Smokers spit indiscriminately in the hibachi, foot warm- ers, or kitchen fire, and also in the crevices between the tatami which cover the floor. 7. They rap the pipe violently on the edge of the fire- pot. 8. They forget to have the ash-pot emptied till it is full to over- flowing. 1 When I was in Tokiyo 1 saw an amusing paper on Women’s Rights translated from a native newspaper called the Meiroku Zasshi. The writer dreaded the increase of the power of women as one result of the introduction of European customs, and instanced the fact (less univer- sal than formerly, alasi) that among Europeans men “are not permit- ted to smoke without the ladies’ permission being first obtained.’’ After giving an instance in jjoint, in which he was the sufferer, he says, “The reason that men are thus prohibited from smoking is that the ladies do not like it. But if I smoke, I do so in virtue of my rights as a man, and if the ladies do not like it, they should leave the room. The dislike of (European) women to smoking subtracts from the pleasures of men, and there can surely be no reason in this, as it involves a limi- tation of the freedom of power. I find no reason for making distinc- tions between men and women in such a matter, and for smoking before the one and not smoking before the other. When it is not a thing pro- hibited by law or morals, and a distinction is made between smoking before men and women, I fail to see the reason of it. At present there is much discussion in this country as to the relations which should exist between men and women. It is well, therefore, that our learned men should take this into consideration, otherwise the power of the other sex will grow gradually, and eventually become so overwliehnmg that It will be 'mpossible to control it.” 286 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tried to gain some knowledge of rural administration, and of the peasant view of the existing order of things ; but no one who has not made the attempt can realise how difficult it is to get any information that will hang together, and it is impossible to get an expression of opinion which is worth anything, either from a natural incapacity for truth-telling, or from a Imgering dread of espionage. These men were an exception to the general rule, and we managed to conduct a conversa- tion which lasted till midnight with frequent relays of tea and sweetmeats. The Kocho, or responsible head-man of the village, is elected by a majority of the male inhabitants of a given district, but his appointment must be ratified by the Governor of the hen. The presents formerly made to him have been abolished, and he receives a fixed salary of 5 or 6 yen a month — little enough for the multifari- ous and ever-increasing duties which he has to perform. He has to put his seal to all the announcements, inqui- ries, and petitions which are sent to the Kenrei or Governor by the people of his village ; to see that every one pays his Imperial taxes after the harvest; to keep the civil register of births, deaths, and marriages : to collect the provincial rates, to watch over the condi- tion of roads, embankments, and bridges ; and to give notice if the two last and ferries are in a dangerous condition. Above him is the GuneJio., who is at the head of a circuit of from four to ten villages, called the Kori: he receives 12 yen monthly, and has a handsome office, and assistants, and scribes. He superintends the Kocho of his district, and settles the special expenses of each ^■il- lage for schools, repairs of roads, salaries, etc., and arranges monthly vuth the Kocho the contribution o/ the district to the expenditure of the ken. RURAL ADMINISTRATION. •287 At tlie head of local officialdom stands the Kenrei., who is directly responsible to the Ministry of the Inte- rior. In a large ken^ such as Niigata, he has deputies who reside in the important towns, and he has a chief secretary, several advisers, and a large staff. His first duty is to maintain order by means of the police, but they are not under him but under the Police Depart- ment at Yedo. The Kenrei adjusts to some extent the imperial taxes, and assesses the provincial taxes, super- intends roads, rivers, embankments, schools ; meets, if possible, the increasing requirements of trade and com- merce, by improving roads and assisting trading com- panies ; and is magistrate in all matters relating to inheritance and adoption. The present change in taxation from payments in rice to those in money, requires most skilful management. Land is the only subject on which the peasants are sen- sitive, and a very little irritation concerning it, or things naturally connected with it, is sufficient to make these usually harmless cultivators turn their “ pruning hooks ’’ into spears, and deal in vague threats of insurrection. Risings of this sort are quite common, and are as com- monly put down by a few judicious words from the Kenrei or his deputy. If, as is sometimes the case, the second son is to be made heir to the house and lands instead of the eldest son, or if the widow is to be made guardian of the chil- dren, or if the head of a family desires to adopt a child, the confirmation of the Kenrei is required. He seems to fill much the same position as the Prefect of a French Department. 1 failed to extract much from the Kochd as to the ■actual condition of the peasantry. He seemed to think that it was better formerly, but I cannot agree with him. Many hardships may and must be involved in the tran 288 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. sitiou, and the peasant, accustomed to the tutelage, and, in some cases, almost the parental care of the old regime., is sure at first to feel keenly the di-awbacks of an inde- pendent jiosition, in which, in case of a bad harvest or other calamities, he has no feudal lord to fall back upon , but he is now, if he only knew it, in the most enviable of all positions, that of a peasant proprietor. He has the right to dispose of his land by will, to seU it, and to cultivate whatever crops he pleases, and is no longer bound to the soU as a serf, as he practically was under the old regime ; and the innumerable prerogatives of the upper class, and the limitations of the liberty of his own, are done away with. At the present time each holdmg is being assessed, and title-deeds are being is- sued, vesting the right to the soil in the actual cultiva- tor, but reserving all mmeral rights to the Mikado, who is thus Lord of the IManor of all Japan. The chief weight of taxation does, however, fall on the peasant I roprietors, even though last year the land tax was re- duced to per cent on the value of the land, and the tax for local Government purposes, also chargeable on the land, was limited at its maximum to one-fifth of the land tax. It remains to be seen whether these people are capa- ble of retaining the singular advantages conferred upon them. Probably a more ignorant and superstitious peasantry does not exist on earth. The facilities for mortgaging land are many, and it may be that in this way small holdings will pass out of the hands of the present free-holders, and so a class of large landed pro- prietors, with a dependent population of labourers, may grow up, the security against this change Ijdng in the intensely tenacious attachment to land which is a fea- ture of the Japanese character. I. L. B. 8L0W TBAVELLING. 289 A FEARFUL DISEASE. The Effect of a Chicken — Poor Fare — Slow Travellii g — Stone Ropes — Objects of Interest — Kale’ Ice — The Fatal Close — Pre- disposing Causes — A Great Fire — Security of the Kuras. Shingoji, July 21. Very early in the morning, after my long talk with the KdcTio of Kanayama, Ito wakened me by saying, “ You’ll be able for a long day’s journey to-day, as you had a chicken yesterday,” and under this chicken’s marvellous influence we got away at 6.45, only to verify the proverb “the more haste the worse speed.” Unso- licited by me the K6ehd sent round the village to for- bid the people from assembling, so I got away in peace with a pack-horse and one runner. It was a terrible road, with two severe mountain-passes to cross, and I not only had to walk nearly the whole way, but to help the man with the kuruma up some of the steepest places. Halting at the exquisitely situated village of Nosoki, we got one horse, and walked by a mountain road along the head-waters of the Omono to Innai. I wish I could convey to you any idea of the beauty and wildness of that mountain route, of the surprises on the way, of views, of the violent deluges of rain which turned rivu- lets into torrents, and of the hardships and difficulties of the day ; the scanty fare of sun-dried rice dough and sour yellow rasps, and the depth of the mii-e tlu'ough wliich we waded! We crossed the Shione and Sakatsu passes, and in twelve hours accomplished fifteen miles ! 290 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Everywhere we were told that we should never get through the country by the way we are going. The women still wear trousers, but with a long gar- ment tucked into them instead of a short one, and the men wear a cotton combination of breastplate and apron, either without anything else, or over their kimo- nos. The descent to Innai under an avenue of crypto- meria, and the village itself, shut in with the rushing Omono, are very beautiful. Shrines and figures of Buddha and his disciples are very numerous in thit re- gion, and in many places there are immense upright stones without characters, with rude carvings of the sun and moon upon them. Among other ingenious devices there are an unusual number of the ropes or bol- sters of stones, which have been used as embankments all the way from NikkS. These consist of cylinders of variable length, and from 2 to 4 feet in diameter, made of split bamhoo, woven in meshes small enough to pre- vent the escape of a 6 lb. stone. They are filled with waterworn boulders, and serviceable dams and embank- ments are formed by laying the cylinders one above another. Bad as the ravages of floods are, they are much mitigated by this simple arrangement. The yadoya at Innai was a remarkably cheerful one, but my room was entu-ely /wsuma and shoji., and peo- ple were peeping in the whole time. It is not only a foreigner and his strange ways which attract attention ill these remote districts, but in my case, my india-rub- ber bath, air-pdlow, and above all, my white mosi^uito net. Their nets are all of a heavy green canvas, and they admire mine so much, that I can give no more acceptable present on leaving than a piece of it to twist in with the hair. There were six engineers in the next room who are survejdng the passes which I had crossed, in order to see if they could be tunnelled, in KAK’KE. 291 which case kurumas might go all the way from TokiS to Kubota on the Sea of Japan, and, with a small addi- tional outlay, carts also. In the two villages of Upper and Lower Innai there has been an outbreak of a malady much dreaded by the Japanese, called kak'ke, which, in the last seven months, has carried off 100 persons out of a population of about 1500, and the local doctors have been aided by two sent from the Medical School at Kubota. I don’t know a European name for it ; the Japanese name signifies an affection of the legs. Its first symptoms are a loss of strength in the legs, “looseness in the knees,” cramps in the calves, swelling, and numbness. This, Dr. Anderson, who has studied kak'ke in more than 1100 cases in TOkiyO, calls the sub-acute form. The chronic is a slow, numbing, and wasting malady, which, if unchecked, results in death from paralysis and exhaustion, in from six months to three years. The third, or acute form. Dr. Anderson describes thus. After remarking that the grave symptoms set in quite unexpectedly, and go on rapidly increasing, he says : — “ The patient now can lie down no longer, he sits up in bed and tosses restlessly from one position to another, and, with wrinkled brow, staring and anxious eyes, dusky skin, blue, parted lips, dilated nostrils, throbbing neck, and labouring chest, presents a picture of the most terrible distress that the worst of diseases can inflict. There is no intermission even for a moment, and the physician, here almost powerless, can do little more than note the failing pulse and falling temperature, and wait for the moment when the brain, paralysed by the car- bonised blood, shall become insensible, and allow the dying man to pass his last moments in merciful uncon sciousness.^ 1 Kak’ke, by 'William Anderson, T.R.C.S. Transactions of English Asiatic Society of .Japan, Jannary 1878. 292 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Having this paper on kak'ke with me, I was much interested in the account given me of the malady by one of the doctors from Kubota, with whom I rode for one stage. He said, that in the opinion of the native doctors (as well as in Dr. Anderson’s), bad drainage, dampness, overcrowding, and want of ventilation, are the predisposing causes, and he added that he tiiought that its extreme frequency among soldiers and policemen arises from the wearing of foreign shoes, which are oftener wet than dry. Ito is so convinced of this that he never will put on his foreign boots when the roads are wet. It excites a most singular dread. It is con- sidered to be the same disease as that which, under the name Beri-heri., makes such havoc at times in crowded jails and barracks in Ceylon and India. It has been unusually bad of late in Tokiyo, and two hospitals have been opened, in one of which native treatment is to be tried, and in the other, foreign. The next morning, after riding nine miles tlirough a quagmire, under grand avenues of cryptomeria, and noticing with regret that the telegraph poles ceased, we reached Yusowa, a town of 7000 people, in which, had it not been for provoking delays, I should have slept instead of at Innai, and found that a fire a few hours previously had destroyed seventy houses, including the yadoya at which I should have lodged. We had to wait two hours for horses, as all were engaged in moving property and people. The ground where the houses had stood was absolutely bare of everything but fine black ash, among which the kuras stood blackened, and, in some instances, slightly cracked, but in all unharmed. Already skeletons of new houses w^ere rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy man, but I should probably have lost everything but my money. POLICE ENQUIRIES. 292 FUNERAL CEREMONIES. Lunch in Public — A Grotesque Accident — Police Enquiries — Man or Woman? — A Melancholy Stare — A Vicious Horse — An Ill- favoured Town — A Disappointment — A Torn. Yusowa is a specially objectionable-looking place. I took my lunch, a wretched meal of a tasteless white curd made from beans, with some condensed milk added to it, in a yard, and the people crowded in hundreds to the gate, and those behind being uuable to see me, got ladders and climbed on the adjacent roofs, where they remained till one of the roofs gave way with a loud crash, and precipitated about fifty men, women, and children into the room below, which fortunately was vacant. Nobody screamed — a noteworthy fact — and the casualties were only a few bruises. Four police- men then appeared and demanded my passport, as if 1 were responsible for the accident, and failing, like all others, to read a particular word upon it, they asked me what I was travelling for, and on being told “to learn about the country ” thej^ asked if I was making a map ? Having satisfied their curiosity they disappeared, and the crowd surged up again in fuller force. The Transport Agent begged them to go away, but they said they might never see such a sight again ! One old peasant said he would go away if be were told whether “ the sight ” were a man or a woman, and on the agent asking if that were any business of his, he said he should like to tell at home what he had seen, which awoke my 294 UNBEATEN TBACK8 IN JAPAN. sympathy at once, and I told Ito to tell them that a Japanese horse galloping night and day without ceas- ing, would take weeks to reach my cormtry — a statement which he is using lavishly as I go along. These are such queer crowds, so silent and gaping, and they remain motionless for hours, the wideawake babies on the mothers’ backs and in the fathers’ arms never crying. I should be glad to hear a hearty aggregate laugh, even if I were its object. The great melancholy stare is depressing. The road for ten miles was tlironged with country people going in to see the fire. It was a good road and very pleasant country, with numerous roadside shrines and figures of the goddess of mercy. I had a wicked horse, thoroughly vicious. His head was doubly chained to the saddle girth, but he never met man, woman, or child, without laying back his ears and running at them to bite them. I was so tired and in so much spinal pain that I got off and walked several times, and it was most difficult to get on again, for as soon as I put my hand on the saddle he swung his hind legs round to kick me, and it required some agility to avoid being hurt. Nor was this all. The evil beast made dashes with his teth- ered head at flies, threatening to twist or demolish my foot at each, flung Iris hind legs upwards, attempted to dislodge flies on his nose with his liind hoof, executed capers wliich involved a total disappearance of every- thing in front of the saddle, squealed, stumbled, kicked his old shoes off, and resented the feeble attempt? wliich the mago made to replace them, and finally walked in to Yokote and downi its long and dismal street main- ly on Ms hind legs, shaking the rope out of his timid leader’s hand, and shaking me into a sort of aching jelly ! 1 used to tMnk that horses were made vicious either by being teased or by violence in breakbig ; but A TOEII. 295 this does not account for the malignity of the Japanese horses, f(;r the people are so much afraid of them that they treat them with great respect ; they are not beaten or kicked, are spoken to in soothing tones, and on the whole live better than their masters. Perhaps this is the secret of their villany — “ Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.” Yokote, a town of 10,000 people, in which the best yadoyas are all non-respectable, is an ill-favoui’ed, ill- smelling, forlorn, dirty, damp, miserable place, with a large trade in cottons. As I rode through on my tem- porary biped, the people rushed out from the baths to see me, men and women alike without a particle of clothing. The house-master was very polite, but I had a dark and dirty room, up a bamboo ladder, and it swarmed with fleas and mosquitoes to an exasperating extent. On the way I heard that a bullock was killed every Thursday in Yokote, and had decided on having a broiled steak for supper and taking another with me, but when I arrived it was all sold, there were no eggs, and I made a miserable meal of rice and bean curd, feel- ing somewhat starved, as the condensed milk I bought at Yamagata had to be thrown away. I was somewhat wretched from fatigue and inflamed ant bites, but in the early morning, hot and misty as all the mornings have been, I went to see a Shint6 temple or miya^ and though I went alone escaped a throng. The entrance into the temple court was as usual by a torii, which consisted of two large posts 20 feet high, surmounted with cross beams, the upper one of which projects beyond the posts, and frequently curves up- wards at both ends. The whole, as is often the case, was painted a dull red. This torii or “ birds’ rest ” is said to be so called because the fowls, which were for- merly offered but not sacrificed, were accustomed to 296 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. perch upon it. A straw rope with straw tassels and strips of paper hanging from it, the special emblem of Shinto, hung across the gateway. In the paved court there were several handsome granite lanterns on fine granite pedestals, such as are the nearly universal ac- companiments of both Shinto and Buddldst temples. In this part of Japan the lantern is usually pierced on one side with a crescent for the moon, and on the other with a disc for the sun, emblems which are said to refer TORII. to the Chinese notion of the male and female principles in nature. The temple itself was of the usual form, with a pack-saddle roof of bark thatch, and a flight of stone stairs leading to the entrance, but, unlike the Buddhist temples, tliere was a bar across, and the tem- ple was as empty as the creed, for it contained nothing but a polished steel mirror, and even this, IMr. Satow says in one of his learned papers on Shint6, is kept in a box except where the temple has been at some time con- DEATH AND BURIAL. 297 taminated by Buddhism. Behind this there was a con- cealed shrine with a table in front of it, with two little bowls, one containing rice and the other sakS., and a sprig of evergreen upon it. A pure ShintS temple is always built outside and inside of planed wood, and is roofed with thatch after the model of the shrines of Ts^, the cradle of the creed. As I stood at the entrance several people came up and pulled a much-frayed bell-rope which was hanging in the doorway, and clattered a most inharmonious bell. Then they clapped their hands and muttered a few words, made three genuflections, clapped their hands again, and departed, the whole performance taking about li minute. The ringing the bell and clapping the hands are to attract the attention of the god. Regular attend- ance on services is not enjoined, the intervention of a priest is seldom necessary, and priestcraft has hardly a place in Shintfl. which, unlike Buddhism, concerns itself little with a future state of being. A number of red torii about a foot high, ex votos, were Ijdng against the temple court wall. The village shrines and those in the groves are about five feet high and usually contain nothing. After leaving Yakote we passed through very prett) country with mountain views and occasional glimpses of the sno^wy dome of Chokaizan, crossed the Omono (which has burst its banks and destroyed its bridges) by two troublesome ferries, and arrived at Rokugo, a town of 5000 people with fine temples, exceptionally mean houses, and the most aggressive crowd by whicli I have yet been asphyxiated. There, through the good offices of the police, I was enabled to attend a Buddhist funeral of a merchant of some wealth. It interested me very much from its solemnity nnd decorum, and It:)’s explanations of what 298 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. went before were remarkably distinctly given. 1 went in a Japanese woman’s dress, borrowed at the tea-bouse, with a blue hood over my head, and thus escaped all notice, but I found the restraint of the scanty “tied forward ” kimono very tiresome. Ito gave me many injunctions as to what I was to do and avoid, which I carried out faithfully, being nervously anxious to avoid jarring on the sensibilities of those who had kindly per- mitted a foreigner to be present. The illness was a short one, and there had been no time either for prayers or pilgrimages on the sick man’s behalf. When death occurs the body is laid with its head to the north (a position that the living Japanese scrupulously avoid), near a folding screen, between which and it a new zen is placed, on which are a saucer of oil with a lighted rush, cakes of uncooked rice dough, and a saucer of incense sticks. The priests directly after death choose the kaimiyo or posthumous name, write it on a tablet of white wood, and seat themselves by the corpse ; his zen, bowls, cups, etc., are filled with vegetable food, and are placed by his side, the chopsticks being put on the wrong, i.e. the left side of the zen. At the end of forty-eight hours the corpse is arranged for the coflBn by being wmshed with warm water, and the priest, while saying certain prayers, shaves the head. In all cases, rich or poor, the dress is of the usual make, but of pure white linen or cotton. At Omagori, a town near Rokugo, large earthenware jars are manufactured, which are much used for inter- ment by the wealthy, but in this case there were two square boxes, the outer one being of finely planed wood of the Retinoapora ohtusa. The poor use what is called the “ quick-tub,” a covered tub of pine hooped with bamboo. Women are dressed for burial in the DEATH AND BURIAL. 299 silk robe worn on the marriage day, tahi are placed beside them or on their feet, and their hair usiially flows loosely behind them. The wealthiest people fill the cofiBn with vermilion, and the poorest use chaff, but in this case I heard that only the mouth, nose, and ears were filled with vermilion, and that the coffin was lilled up with coarse incense. The body is placed within the tub or box in the usual squatting position, ft is impossible to understand how a human body, many hours after death, can be pressed into the lim- ited space afforded by even the outermost of the boxes. It has been said that the rigidity of a corpse is over- come by the use of a powder called dosia, which is sold by the priests, but this idea has been exploded, and the process remains incomprehensible. Bannerets of small size and ornamental staves were outside the house door. Two men in blue dresses, with pale blue over-garments resembling wings, re- ceived each person, two more presented a lacquered bowl of water and a white silk crepe towel, and then we passed into a large room round which were ar- ranged a number of very handsome folding screens, on which lotuses, storks, and peonies were realistically painted, on a dead gold ground. Near the end of the room the coffin, under a canopy of white silk, upon which there was a very beautiful arrangement of artifi- cial white lotuses ^ rested upon trestles, the face of the ^ The only reason I can ascertain for the constant recurrence of the lotus in Buddhist art and ceremonial is the idea of its being the symbol of purity. Its scent and aspect are alike delightful, and though rooted In mud and slime it abhors all defilement. If, therefore, men would but take it as their model, they would escape all the contamination of this corrupt world Every mau, it is said, has a lotus in his bosom, which will blossom forth if he call in the assistance of Buddha. It is on account of the generally high esteem in which the lotus is held that it is carried before the corpse at funerals, symbolising as it does the desire of the survivors for the i ew birth of their departed friend into Paradise and the “ Lotus-Seat ” 300 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JARAJS. corpse being turned towards the north. Six priest8^ very magnificently dressed, sat on each side of the coffin, and two more knelt in front of a small tempo- rary altar. The widow, an extremely pretty woman, squatted near the deceased, below the father and mother ; and after her came the children, relatives, and friends, who sat in rows, dressed in winged garments of blue and white. The widow was painted white ; her lips were reddened with vermilion ; her hair was elaborately dressed and ornamented with carved shell pins; she wore a beautiful dress of sky blue silk, with a haori of fine white crepe and a scarlet crepe girdle embroidered In gold, and looked like a bride on her marriage day, rather than a widow. Indeed, owing to the beauty of the dresses, and the amount of blue and white silk, the room had a festal rather than a funereal look. When all the giiests had arrived, tea and sweetmeats were passed round ; incense was burned profusely ; litanies were mumbled, and the bustle of moving to the grave began, during which I secured a place near the gate of the temple grounds. The procession did not contain the father or mother of the deceased, but I understood that the mourners who composed it were all relatives. The oblong tablet with the “ dead name ” of the deceased was carried first by a priest, then the lotus blossom by another priest, then ten priests followed two and two, chanting litanies from books, then came the coffin on a platform borne by four men, and covered with white drapery, then the widow, and then the other relatives. The coffin was carried into the temple and laid upon ties- tles, while incense was burned and prayei-s were said, and was then carried to a shallow grave lined with cement, and praj^ers were said by the priests until the BURIAL ETIQUETTE. 301 earth was raised to the proper level, when all dispersed and the Avidow, in her gay attire, walked home unat- tended. There were no hired mourners or any signs of grief, but nothing could be more solemn, reverent, and decorous, than the whole serAuce. [I have since seen many funerals, chiefly of the poor, and though shorn of much of the ceremony, and with only one officiating priest, the decorum was always most remark- able.] The fees tu the priests are from 2 iip to 40 or 50 ^en. The graveyard which surrounds the temple was extremely beautiful, and the cryptomeria specially fine. It was very full of stone gravestones, and like all Japanese cemeteries, exquisitely kept. As soon as the grave Avas filled in, a life-size pink lotus plant was placed upon it, and a lacquer tray, on which were lacquer boAvls containing tea or sakS, beans, and sweet- meats. The periods of mourning are very rigidly observed. Mr. Mitford, in a note to The Tales of Old Japan., trans- lates some funeral directions given in a book called the Shorei Hikki, in v/hich it is said, “ The burial of his parents is the most important ceremony which a man has to go through in his whole life,” ^ consequently after it has been performed with befitting ceremony, deep mourning for either father or mother lasts fifty days, during which time the cliildren must abstain from sake, and visit the graA^e and the temple of the burial-service daily, but no other tera or mi)/a. For husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and first-born chil- 1 The same book gives the following cautions to mournei s, ihe two last of which are not altogether inapplicable at home. “ When invited to a friend’s or neighbour’s funeral a man should avoid putting on smart clothes or dresses of ceremony, and when he follows the coffin he should not speak in a loud voice to the person next him, for that would be very rude, and even should he have occasion to do so, he should avoid entering wine-shcus and tea-houses on his return froir the funeral.” 302 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. dren, the deep mourning only lasts twenty days, another instance of the preponderating importance given to the filial relation. For parents the second period of mourning lasts a year, and for the relatives before mentioned ninety days, and non-observance o/ the period of mourning for parents or husband 's vis- ited by penal servitude for one year. Friends must visit the grave on the seventh day, and every seventh day thereafter until the fiftieth day, when the priests recite prayers, and the mourners inter- change presents. A ceremonial visit is paid to the tomb on the hundredth day, when the tombstone is erected. It is next visited on the anniversary of the death, and afterwards on the third, seventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, fiftieth, and hundredth anniversaries. A tablet with the posthumous name takes its place on the god-shelf of a house after a death, and a similar one is placed on a shelf in the temple, and offerings of food are placed before it according to the liberality of the survivors to the priests. Laths, or long tablets, inscribed with characters in Chinese or Sanskrit, are placed upon the graves by re- lations at their periodical visits. Each family has its separate enclosure in the graveyard. I have never visited a cemetery without finding fresh flowers in bam- boo flower-holders on many of the graves, and women burning incense before the tombstones. All this rever- ence for the dead is, however, quite distmct from the ancestral worship of the Chinese. The etiquette of burial and mourning is regulated by very strict rules. Tbe funeral ceremonies vary according to the usage of the many Buddhist sects, but are always in the hands of Buddhist priests, by a prescriptive right from which even Christian obsequies are only exempted, as they have been in some recent instances, by the courtesy of the priests. TEMPLE AT KOKUGO. 60S The temple at Rokugo "was very beautiful, and, ex- cept that its ornaments were superior in solidity and good taste, differed little from a Romish church. The low altar, on which were lilies and lighted candles, was draped in blue and silver, and on the liigh altar, draped in ciimson and cloth of gold, there was nothing but o losed shrine, an incense burner, and a vase of lotuses. 304 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. POLICEMEN. A Ciisual Indlatioii — A Ludicrous Incident — Politeness of a Polic©' man — A Comfortless Simday — An Outrageous Irruption — A Privileged Stare. At a wayside tea-house, soou after leaving Rokugo in kurumas, I met the same courteous and agreeable young doctor, who was stationed at Innai during the prevalence of kak'ke, and he invited me to visit the hospital at Kubota, of which he is junior physician, and told Ito of a restaurant at which “foreign food” can be obtained — a pleasant prospect, of which he is always remmdmg me. Travelling along a very narrow road, I as usual lirst, we met a man leading a prisoner by a rope, followed by a policeman. As soon as my runner saw the latter, he fell down on his face so suddenly in the shafts, as uearh' to tlirow me out, at the same time, trying to wriggle into a garment which he had carried on the crossbar, while the young men who were drawing the two kuru- mas beliind, crouching belihid my vehicle, tried to scut- tle into their clothes. I never saw such a picture of abjectness as my man presented. He trembled from head to foot, and illustrated that queer phrase ofteti heard in Scotch Presbjderian prayers, “ lay our hands on our mouths and our mouths in the dust.” He liter- ally grovelled in the dust, and with every sentence that the policeman spoke, raised his head a little, to bow it yet more deeply than before. It was all because he CHEATING A POLICEMAN. 805 had no clothes on. I interceded for him as the day was very hot, and the policeman said he would not arrest him, as he should otherwise have done, because of the inconvenience that it would cause to a foreigner. He was quite an elderly man, and never recovered his spirils, but as socn as a turn of the road took us out of the policeman’s sight, the two younger men threw their clothes into the air, and gambolled in the shafts, shriek- ing with laughter ! On reaching Shingoji, being too tired to go farther, I was dismayed to find nothing but a low, dark, foul- smelling room, enclosed only by dirty s/io/f, in which to spend Sunday. One side looked into a little mildewed court, with a slimy growth of Protococcm viridis, and into which the people of another house constantly came to stare. The other side opened on the earthen pas- sage into the street, where travellers wash their feet, the tliird into the kitchen, and the fourth into the front room. Even before dark it was alive with mosquitoes, and the fleas hopped on the mats like sand-flies. There were no eggs, nothing but rice and cucumbers. At five on Sunday morning I saw three faces pressed against the outer lattice, and before evening, the shoji were riddled with finger-holes, at each of which a dark eye appeared. There was a still, fine rain all day, with the mercury at 82°, and the heat, darkness, and smells, were difficult to endure. In the afternoon a small procession passed the house, consisting of a decorated palanquin, carried and followed by priests, with capes and stoles over crimson chasubles and white cassocks. This ark, they said, contained papers inscribed with the names of people and the evils they feared, and the priests were carrying the papers to throw them into the river. I went to bed early as a refuge from mosquitoes, with 306 CTNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tlie andon., as usual, dimly lighting the room, and shut my eyes. About nine I heard a good deal of whisper- ing and shuffling, which continued for some time, and on looking up, saw opposite to me, about 40 men, women, and children (Ito says 100 ), all staring at me, with the light upon their faces. They had silently removed three of the sTidji next the passage ! I called Ito loudly, and clapped my hands, but they did not stir till he came, and then they fled like a flock of sheep. I have patiently, and even smilingly, borne aU out-of-doors crowding and curiosity, but this kind of intrusion is unbearable ; and I sent Ito to the police station, much against his will, to beg the police to keep the people out of the house, as the house-master Avas unable to do so. Tins morning, as I was finishing dressing, a policeman appeared in my room, ostensibly to apologise for the behaviour of the people, but in real- ity to have a privileged stare at me, and above all, at my stretcher and mosquito net, from wliich he hardly took his eyes. Ito says he could make a yen a day by sliowing them ! The policeman said that the people had never seen a foreigner. I. L. B. PERPLEXING MISREPRESENTATIONS. 307 A HOSPITAL VISIT. The Necessity of Firmness — Perplexing Misrepresentations — Glid- ing with the Stream — Suburban Kesidences — The Kubota Hos- pital — A Formal Keception — Bad Nursing — The Antiseptic Treatment — A Well-arranged Dispensary — The Normal School — Contrasts and Incongruities. Kubota, July 23. I ARRIVED here on Monday afternoon by the river Omono, what would have been two long days’ journey by land having been easily accomplished in nine hours by water. This was an instance of forming a plan wisely, and adhering to it resolutely ! Firmness in travelling is nowhere more necessary than in Japan. I decided some time ago, from Mr. Brunton’s map, that the Omono must be navigable from Shingoji, and a week ago told Ito to inquire about it, but at each place difficulties have been started. There was too much water, there was too little ; there were bad rapids, there were shallows ; it was too late in the year ; all the boats which had started lately were lying aground ; but at one of the ferries I saw in the distance a merchandise boat going down, and told Ito I should go that way and nc other. On arriving at Shingoji they said it was not on the Omono at all, but on a stream with some very bad rapids, in which boats are broken to pieces. Lastly, they said there was no boat, but on my saying that I would send ten miles for one, a small, flat-bottomed scow was produced by the Transport Agent, into which Ito, the luggage, and myself accurately fitted. Ito sen- ”08 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. tentiously observed, “Not one thing has been lold ua on our journey which has turned out true ! ” This is not an exaggeration. The usual crowd did not assem- ble round the door, but preceded me to the river, where it covered the banks and clustered in the trees. Four policemen escorted me down. The voyage of forty-two miles was delightful. The rapids were a mere ripple, the current was strong, one boatman almost slept upon his paddle, the other only woke to bale the boat when it was half-full of water, the shores were silent and pretty, and almost without population, till we reached the large town of Araya, which straggles along a high bank for a considerable distance, and after nine peace- ful hours we turned off from the main stream of the Omono just at the outskirts of Kubota, and poled up a narrow, green river, fringed by dilapidated backs of houses, boat-building yards, and rafts of timber on one side, and dwelling-houses, gardens, and damp greenery on the other. This stream is crossed by very nmnerous bridges. I got a cheerful upstairs room at a most friendly yadoya., aud my three days here have been fully occu- pied and very pleasant. “ Foreign food ” — a good beef- steak, an excellent curry, cucumbers, and foreign salt and mustard were at once obtained, and I felt my “ eyes lightened ” after partakmg of them. Kubota is a very attractive and purely Japanese town of 36,000 people, the capital of Akita hen. A fine mountain, called Taiheisan, rises above its fertile valley, and the Omono falls into the Sea of Japan close to it. It has a number of kurumas, but o'U’ing to heavy sand and the badness of the roads they can only go three miles in any direction. It is a town of activity and brisk trade, and manufactures a silk fabric in stripes of blue and black, and yellow and black, much used foi A FORMAL RECEPTION. 309 making hakama and kimonos., a species of wliite silk crepe with a raised woof, which brings a high price in TOkiyS shops, /ttSMwa, and clogs. Though it is a castle town, it is free from the usual “deadly lively” look, and has an air of prosperity and comfort. Though it has few streets of shops, it covers a great extent of ground with streets and lanes of pretty, isolated dwell- ing-houses, surrounded by trees, gardens, and well- trimmed hedges, each garden entered by a substantial gateway. The existence of something like a middle class with home privacy and home life is suggested by these miles of comfortable “ suburban residences.” Foreign influence is hardly at all felt, there is not a single foreigner in Government or any other employ- ment, and even the hospital was organised from the beginning by Japanese doctors. This fact made me greatly desire to see it, but on going there at the proper hour for visitors, I was met by the Director with courteous but vexatious denial. No foreigner could see it, he said, without sending his passport to the Governor and getting a written order, so I complied with these preliminaries, and 8 A.M. of the next day was flxed for my visit. Ito, who is lazy about interpreting for the lower orders, but exerts him- self to the utmost on such an occasion as this, went with me, handsomely clothed in silk, as befitted an “ Interpreter,” and surpassed all his former efforts. The Director and the staff of six physicians, all hand- somely dressed in silk, met me at the top of the stairs, and condueted me to the management room, where six clerks were writing. Here there was a table solemnly covered with a white cloth, and four chairs, on wliich the Director, the Cliief Physician, Ito, and I sat, and pipes, tea, and sweetmeats were produced. After this, accompanied by fifty medical students, whose intelligent 310 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAP Ay. looks promise well for their success, we weut round the hospital, wliich is a large two-storied building in semi- European style, but with deep verandahs all round. The upper floor is used for class-rooms, and the lower accommodates 100 patients, besides a number of resi- dent students. Ten is the largest number treated in any one room, and severe cases are treated in separat« rooms. Gangrene has prevailed, and the Chief Physi- cian, who is at tliis time remodelling the hospital, has closed some of the wards in consequence. There is a Lock Hospital under the same roof. About fifty im- portant operations are annually performed under chloro- form, but the people of Akita ken are very conservative, and object to part with them limbs and to foreign dings. This conservatism diminishes the number of patients. Dr. Kayobashi, the new Chief Physician, is fresh from the Medical College at TSkiyo, and has introduced the antiseptic treatment with great success. Beds are not used. He approves of them, but finds it necessary at present to yield to the strong prejudice against them. The nursing here, as everywhere, is a weak point, to say the least of it. There are a few male and female nurses, but the patients usually bring friends vuth them, who take charge of them, and do not carry out medical instructions hi doing so. The kitchen was not us nice as it should be, and smelt of the daikon and fried fish which the cooks were eating, and the irori looked very small for much cooking ; but this is accounted for by Ihe fact that the friends cook on the hibacJii m the wards. The diet is liberal, but on the whole strictly Japanese. Meat is given m a few cases, and brandy, port wine, and claret in many, but the wine and brandy are always beaten up with eggs. Ad\ice and medicine are supplied daily to about eighty out-patients. I was interested here, as elsewhere, to find that the A MODEL DISPENSARY. 311 Government, in establishiing hospitals on the foreign plan, is conserving the independence of the people, so that they can hardly be called charitable institutions. The out-patients pay for medicines, and the in-patients pay so mueh per day, and only absolutely destitute persons are received gratuitously on getting an order from the Governor. I was better pleased with the dispensary than with the in-patient department. Its arrangements are ad- mirable, and the lofty, light, and airy rooms leave nothing to be desired. There were sixty patients in the waiting-room, a fine room, thirty-five feet square, furnished with benches. Their names are called in alphabetical order, and on the decision of one of the junior physicians each proceeds into one of three light and conveniently fitted-up consulting rooms, devoted respectively to medical, surgical, and eye cases. Each receives a prescription which is entered in a book, and numbered with a number which corresponds with a similar one on the patient’s bottle. After being pre- scribed for the patients pass into a large waiting-room with a counter at an opening into the dispensing room, where in due time they receive their medicines. The dispensing room is a fine room, very carefully fitted up in the most approved style, the drugs being arranged on shelves and neatly labelled with the Latin and Japanese names. A senior dispenser and four student assistants were at work there. The odour of carbolic acid pervaded the whole hos- pital, and there were spray producers enough to satisfy Mr. Lister ! At the request of Dr. K. I saw the dress- ing of some very severe wounds carefully performed with carbolised gauze, under spray of carbolic acid, the fingers of the surgeon and the instruments used being all carefully bathed in the disinfectant. Dr, K. said it 312 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. was difficult to teach the students the extreme careful ness with regard to minor details which is required in the antiseptic treatment, which he regards as one of the greatest discoveries of this century. I was ver}" much impressed with the fortitude shown by the surgical patients, who went through very severe pain without a wince or a moan. Eye cases are unfortunately very numerous. Dr. K. attributes their extreme prevalence to overcrowding, defective ventilation, poor living, and bad light. The hospital is also a medical school with 100 stu- dents, and its diploma entitles the receiver to practise medicine in Akita ken. The large class-rooms are well fitted up with German and English diagrams, but the museum is scantily supplied with anatomical prepara- tions, and the skeleton is of a low-t3'pe savage from Micronesia. It has been impossible to get a Japanese skeleton, and the onlj" cases in which subjects for dis section can be procured are those in which the friends of patients are exceptionally grateful, and the cause of death has not been discovered during life. After our round we returned to the management room to find a meal laid out in English style, coffee in cups vdth handles and saucers, and plates with spoons. After this pipes were again produced, and the Director and medical staff escorted me to the entrance, where we all bowed profoundly. I was delighted to see that Dr. Kajmbashi, a man under thirty, and fresh from Tokiyo, and all the staff and students were in the national di ess, with the liakama of rich silk. It is a beautiful dress, and assists dignity as much as the ill-fitting European costume detracts from it. This was a very interesting visit, in spite of the difficult}' of communi- cation through an interpreter. The public buildings, with their fine gardens, and the A ]V0B3fAL SCHOOL. 313 broad road uear which they stand, with its stone-faced embankments, are very striking in such a far-off hen, Among the finest of the buildings is the Normal School, where I shortly afterwards presented myself, but I was not admitted till I had shown my passport and ex- plained my objects in travelling. These preliminaries being settled, IVIr. Tomatsu Aoki, the Chief Director, and Mr. Shude Kane Nigishi, the principal teacher, both looking more like monkeys than men in their European clothes, lionised me. The first was most trying, for he persisted in attempt- ing to speak English, of which he knows about as much as I know of Japanese, but the last, after some grotesque attempts, accepted Ito’s services. The school is a com- modious Europeanised building, three storeys high, and from its upper balcony the view of the city, with its grey roofs and abundant greenery, and surrounding mountains and valleys, is very fine. The equipments of the different class-rooms surprised me, especially the laboratory of the chemical class-room, and the truly magnificent illustrative apparatus in the natural science class-room. Ganot’s “ Physics ” is the text book of that department. There are 25 teachers, and 700 pupils between the ages of 6 and 20. They teach reading, writing, arith- metic, geography, history, political economy after John Stuart Mill, chemistry, botany, a course of natural sci- ence, geometry, and mensuration. From 6 to 14 the fees are 15 sen per month, after that 25, and the extra expense is defrayed by an education rate. The pupils sit on forms with backs at separate desks, the school furniture being on the American model. The two ex- amination-rooms are fifty feet square. The whole is in admirable order. The Director said that the ambitious boys all intend to be doctors, advocates, or engineers, 314 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and that the education given in this school is an admir- able preparation for the special schools connected with these professions. I have written that foreign influence is hardly felt in Kubota, I mean the influence of direct contact with foreigners ; hut both the school and hospital are per- vaded by foreign science and system. Before leaving, knowing what the reply would be, I asked the teacher if they taught religion, and both the gentlemen laughed with undisguised contempt. “We have no religion,” the teacher said, “ and all your learned men know that religion is false.” An Imperial throne founded on an exploded religious fiction, a State religion receiving an outward homage from those who ridicule it, scepticism rampant among the educated classes, and an ignorant priesthood lording it over the lower classes ; an Empire with a splendid despotism for its apex, and naked coolies for its base, a bald materialism its highest creed and material good its goal, reforming, destroying, constructing, appropriating the fruits of Christian civilisation, but rejecting the tree from which they spring — such are among the con trasts and incongruities everywhere ! 1. L. B. A POLICE ESCORT. 316 THE POLICE FORCE. A, Silk Factory — Employment for Women — A Police Escort — The Japanese Police Force — A Euined Castle — Tlie increasing Study of Law. Kubota, July 23 . My next visit was to a factory of haudloom silk- weavers, where 180 hands, half of them women, are employed. These new industrial openings for respect- able employment for women and girls are very impor- tant, and tend in the direction of a much-needed social reform. The striped silk fabrics produced are entirely for home consumption. Afterwards I went into the principal street, and after a long search through the shops, bought some condensed milk with the “ Eagle ” brand and the label all right, but on opening it found it to contain small pellets of a brownish, dried curd, with an unpleasant taste ! As I was sitting in the shop half stifled by the crowd, the people suddenly fell back to a respectful distance, leav- ing me breathing space, and a message came from the chief of police to say that he was very sorry for the crowding, and had ordered two policemen to attend upon me for the remainder of my visit. The black and yellow uniforms were most truly welcome, and since then I have escaped all annoyance. On my return I found the card of the chief of police, who had left a message with the house-master apologising for the crowd by saj’ing that foreigners very rarely visited Kubota, 316 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and he thought that the people had never seen a foreigc woman. I went afterwards to the central police station tc inquire about an inland route to Aomori, and received much courtesy, but no information. The police every- where are very gentle to the people, — a few quiet words OJ a wave of the hand are sufficient, when they do not resist them. They belong to the samurai class, and doubtless their naturally superior position weighs with the heimin. Their faces and a certain hauteur of man- ner show the indelible class distinction. The entire police force of Japan numbers 23,300 educated men in the prime of life, and if 30 per cent of them do wear spectacles, it does not detract fi-om their useful- ness. 5600 of them are stationed at Yedo, as from thence they can be easily sent wherever they are wanted, 1004 at KiyOto, and 815 at Osaka, and the remaining 10,000 are spread over the country. The police force costs something over £400,000 annually, and certainly is very efficient in preserving good order. The pay of ordinary constables ranges from 6 to 10 yen a month. An enormous quantity of superfluous writing is done by ill officialdom in Japan, and one usually sees policemen writing. What comes of it I don’t know. They are mostly intelligent and gentlemanly-looking young men, and foreigners in the interior are really much indebted to them. If I am at any time in difficulties I apply to them, and though they are disposed to be somewhat de haul en has they are sure to help one, except about rentes, of which they alwa3’s profess ignorance. Kubota has a grand enclosure for the daimiyo's castle, three embankments, and three moats on elevated ground, and some clumps of fine timber ; but all the castle that has not been removed is ruinous — ruiu vdthout jiic- tuiesqueness, that ramshackle sort of ruin hito which A CROP OF ADVOCATES. 317 neglected wooden buildings fall. The remains are a gateway mth an overhanging tiled roof, and a dilapi- dated group of lath and plaster houses within, only a storey liigh. At Kubota, as in the other capitals of kens, there is a provincial court which has full jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, but its capital sentences must be con- firmed by a higher court. Judge Deputies, with full jurisdiction in civil, and partial jurisdiction in crhninal cases, sit in the chief towns of districts remote from the provincial courts, and there are minor courts for petty matters in all the larger towns. With the changes in the judicial system of Japan, a crop of advocates is springing up ; now that I have learned their sign, I am astonished at their numbers, and there are so many in Kubota that one would suppose it a most litigious place. Law is becoming a favourite occupation with the samu- rai, who are usually skilful in the use of the pen, and as advocates’ licenses cost <£2 yearly, I think the occupa- tion must be a lucrative one. On the whole, I like Kubota better than any other Japanese town, perhaps because it is so completely Japanese and has no air of having seen better days. I no longer care to meet Europeans, indeed I should go far out of my way to avoid them. I have become quite used to Japanese life, and think that I learn more about it in travelling in this solitary way than I should otherwise. I. L. JL 318 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ITO’S VIRTUES AND FAULTS. “ A Plague of Immoderate Kain” — A Confidential Servant — Itj’a Diary — Ito’s Excellences — Ito’s Faults — A Prophecy of the Fu- ture of Japan — Curious Queries — Superfine English — Econom- ical Travelling — The Japanese Pack-horse again. Kubota, July 24. I AJ\i here still, not altogether because the town is fas- cinating, but because the rain is so ceaseless as to be truly “ a plague of immoderate rain and waters.” Trav- ellers keep coming in with stories of the impassability of the roads and the carrying away of bridges. Ito amuses me very much by his remarks. He thinks that my visit to the school and hospital must have raised Japan in my estimation, and he is talking rather big. He asked me if I noticed rhat all the students kept their mouths shut like educated men and residents of Tokiyo, and that all country people keep theirs open. I have said little about him for some time, but I dailj* feel more dependent on him, not only for all information, but actually for getting on. At night he has my watch, passport, and half my money, and I often wonder what would become of me if he absconded before morning. He is not a good boy. He has no moral sense, accord- ing to oiu* notions ; he dislikes foreigners ; his manner is often very disagreeable ; and yet I doubt whether I could have obtained a more valuable servant and interpreter. When we left TokiyS, he spoke fairly good English, but by practice and industrious study, he now speaks bettei A MODEL SERVANT. 319 than any official interpreter that I have seen, and his vocabulary is daily increasing. He never uses a word inaccurately when he has once got hold of its meaning, and his memory never fails. He keeps a diary both in English and Japanese, and it shows much painstaking observation. He reads it to me sometimes, and it is in- teresting to hear what a young man who has travelled as much as he has regards as novel in this northern region. He has made a hotel book and a transport book, in which all the bills and receipts are written, and he daily transliterates the names of all places into English let ters, and puts down the distances and the sums paid for transport and hotels on each bill. He inquires the number of houses in each place from the police or Transport Agent, and the special trade of each town, and notes them down for me. He takes great pains to be accurate, and occasionally remarks about some piece of information that he is not quite certain about, “ If it’s not true, it’s not worth hav- ing.” He is never late, never dawdles, never goes out in the evening except on errands for me, never touches sake, is never disobedient, never requires to be told the same thing twice, is always within hearing, has a good deal of tact as to what he repeats, and all with an undis- guised view to his own interest. He sends most of his wages to his mother, who is a widow — “ It’s the custom of the country” — and seems to spend the remainder on sweetmeats, tobacco, and the luxury of frequent shampooing. That he would tell a lie if it served his purpose, and would “ squeeze ” up to the limits of extortion, if he could do it unobserved, I have not the slightest doubt. He seems to have but little heart, or any idea of any but vicious pleasures. He has no religion of any kind ; he has been too much with foreigners for that. His 320 UNBEATEN TliACKS IN JAPAN. frajikuess is something startling. He has no idea of reticence on any subject ; but probably T learn more about things as they really are, from this very defect. In virtue in man or woman, except in that of his former master, he has little, if any belief. He thinks that Japan is right in availing herself of the discoveries made by foreigners, that they have as much to learr from her, and that she will outstrip them in the race, because she takes all that is worth ha^dng, and rejects the incubus of Chi’istianity. Patriotism is, I think, his strongest feeling, and I never met with such a boastful display of it, except in a Scotcliman or an American. He despises the uneducated, as he can read and write both the syllabaries. For foreign rank or posi- tion he has not an atom of reverence or value, but a great deal of both for Japanese officialdom. He despises the intellects of women, but flirts in a town-bred fash- ion with the simple tea-house girls. He is anxious to speak the very best English, and to say that a word is slangy or common, interdicts its use. Sometimes, when the weather is fine, and things go smoothly, he is in an excellent and communicative humour, and talks a good deal as we travel. A few days ago, I remarked, “ What a beautiful day this is ! ” and soon after, notebook in hand, he said, “You say ‘a beautiful day.’ Is that better English than ‘ a devilish fine day,’ which most foreigners say ? ” I replied that it was “ common,” and “ beautiful ” has been brought out frequently since. Again, “ When you ask a ques- tion, you never say, ‘ What the d — 1 is it ? ’ as other for- eigners do. Is it proper for men lo say it and not for women?” I told Irirn it was proper for neither, it was a very “ common ” word, and I saw that he erased it from his notebook. At first lie always used fellows for men, as, “ Will you have one or two fellows for youi AN APT PUPIL. 321 kuruma?’’'' '■‘■fellows and women.” At last he called the Chief Physician of the hospital here a fellow, on which I told him that it was slightly slangy, and at least “ colloquial,” and for two days he has scrupu- lously spoken of man and men. To-day he brought a boy with very sore eyes to see me, on which I exclaimed, “Poor little fellow!” and this evening he said, “You called that boy a fellow, I thought it was a bad word I ” The habits of many of the Yokohama foreigners have helped to obliterate any distinctions between right and wrong, if he ever made any. If he wishes to tell me that he has seen a very tipsy man, he always says he has seen “a fellow as drunk as an Englishman.” At NikkS I asked him how many legal wives a man could have in Japan, and he replied, “ Only one lawful one, but as many others (mekake') as he can support, just as Englishmen have.” He never forgets a correction. Till I told him it was slangy, he always spoke of inebri- ated people as “ tight,” and when I gave him the words “tipsy,” “drunk,” “intoxicated,” he asked me which one would use in writing good English, and since then he has always spoken of people as “ intoxicated.” He naturally likes large towns, and tries to deter me from taking the “ unbeaten tracks ” which I prefer ; but when he finds me immovable, always concludes his arguments with the same formula, “Well, of course you can do as you like, it’s all the same to me.” I do not think he cheats me to any extent. Board, lodging, and travelling expenses for us both are about 6s. 6d. a day, and about 2s. 6d. when we are stationary, and this in- cludes all gratuities and extras. True, the board and lodging consist of tea, rice, and eggs, a copper basin of water, an andon and an empty room, for though there are plenty of chickens in all the villages, the people won’t be bribed to sell them for killing, though thej UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAR AN. would gladly part with them if they were to be kept to lay eggs. Ito amuses me nearly every night with stories of his unsuccessful attempts to provide me with animal food. The travelling is the nearest approach to “ a ride on a rad. ” that I have ever made. I have now ridden or rather sat upon seventy-six horses, all horrible. They all stumble. The loins of some are higher than their shoulders, so that one slips forwards, and the back bones of all are ridgy. Their hind feet grow into points which turn up, and their hind legs all turn outwards, like those of a cat, from carrying heavy burdens at an early age. The same thing gives them a roll in their gait, which is increased by their awkward shoes. In summer they feed chiefly on leaves, supplemented with mashes of bruised beans, and instead of straAv they sleep on beds of leaves. In their stalls their heads are tied “ where their tails should be,” and their fodder is placed not in a manger, but in a swinging bucket. Those used in this part of Japan are worth from 15 to 30 ye7i. I have not seen any overloading or ill-treat- ment ; they are neither kicked, nor beaten, nor threat- ened in rough tones, and when they die they are de- cently buried, and have stones placed over their graves. It might be well if the end of a worn-out horse were somewhat accelerated, but this is mainly a Buddhist region, and the aversion to taking animal life is very strong. I. L. B. AFTERNOON VISITORS. 323 A WEDDING CEREMONY. The Symbolism of Seaweed — Afternoon Visitors — An Infant Prod- igy — A Feat in Calligraphy — Child Worship — The Japanese Seal — A Borrowed Dress — Marriage Arrangements — A Trousseau — House Furniture — The Marriage Ceremony — A Wife’s Posi- tion — Code of Morals for Women. Kubota, July 25. The weather at last gives a hope of improvement, and I think I shall leave to-morrow. I had written this sentence when Ito came in to say that the man in the next house would like to see my stretcher and mosquito net, and had sent me a bag of cakes with the usual bit of seaweed attached, to show that it was a present. The Japanese believe themselves to be descended from a race of fishermen ; they are proud of it, and Yebis, the god of fishermen, is one of the most popular of the household divinities. The piece of seaweed sent with a present to any ordinary person, and the piece of dried fish-skin which accompanies a present to the Mikado, record the origin of the race, and at the same time typify the dignity of simple industry. Of course I consented to receive the visitor, and with the mercury at 84°, five men, two boys, and five women entered my small, low room, and after bowing to the eaith three times, sat down on the floor. They had evidently come to spend the afternoon. Trays of tea and sweetmeats were handed round, and a tahako~bon was brought in, and they all smoked, as I had told Ito that all usual courtesies were to be punctiliously performed. 324 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. They expressed their gratification at seeing so “hon- ourable ” a traveller. I expressed mine at seeing so much of their “ honourable ” country. Then we all bowed profoundly. Then I laid Brunton’s map on the floor and showed them my route, showed them the Asiatic Society’s Transactions, and how we read from left to right, instead of from to^j to bottom, showed thjm my knitting, which amazed them, and mj" Berlin work, and then had notliing left. Then they began to entertain me, and I found that the real object of their visit was to exhibit an “infant prodig}%” a boy of four, with a head shaven all but a tuft on the top, a face of preternatural thoughtfulness and gi-avity, and the self-possessed and dignified demeanour of an elderly man. He was dressed in scarlet silk hakama., and a dark, striped, blue silk kimono., and fanned himself gracefull}^ looking at everjdhiiig as intelligently and courteously as the others. To talk child’s talk to him, or show him toys, or try to amuse him, would have been an insult. The monster has taught himself to read and write, and has composed poetry. His father says that he never plays, and understands ever^dhing just like a grown person. The intention was that I should ask him to write, and I did so. It was a solemn performance. A red blanket was laid in the middle of the floor, with a lacquer writing- box upon it. The creature rubbed the iuk with water on the inkstone, unrolled four rolls of paper, five feet long, and inscribed them with Chinese characters, uine indies long, of the most complicated kind, \vith firm and graceful curves of his brush, and with the ease and certainty of Giotto in tui’ning his o. He sealed them with his seal in vermilion, bowed three times, and the performance was ended. People get him to wuite kakemonos and signboards for them, and he had earned A “ JFi:i>I)IJVG GUEST.” 325 ten yen, or about £2, that day. His father is going to travel to KiySto with him, to see if any one under fourteen can write as well. T never saw such an ex- aggerated instance of child worship. Father, mother, friends, and servants, treated him as if he were a prince. There are two alphabets, or rather syllabaries, in Japan — the Hir alcana, which is a syllabary of fortj’- seven syllables, each being represented by several char- acters, which consist of abbreviated cursive forms of the more common Chinese characters, and containing some hundred signs, and the Katagana, which also con- sists of a syllabary of forty-seven syllables, but with only one sign for each. Women almost invariably use the first, but this child wrote both. In Japanese draw- ings you must have noticed a red seal on one side. Every one has such a seal, and the writing-boxes con- tain the vermilion with which the impression is made. Even young children become possessed of them. No receipt or form is valid without them. The seal is composed of the character or characters forming a per- son’s name, engraved usually in the Chinese seal char- acter. My visitors smoked pipes all round, and then bowed themselves out. The cliild was a most impres- sive spectacle, but not loveable. I think that sitting on seats raised above the floor, and a desire for domestic seclusion, are two initial steps of western civilisation. The house-master, who is a most polite man, procured me an invitation to the marriage of his niece, and 1 have just returned from it. He has three “ wives ” himself. One keeps a yadoya in KiySto, another in Morioka, and the third and youngest is with liim here. From her limitless stores of apparel she chose what she considered a suitable dress for me — an under-dress of sage green silk crepe a kimono of soft, green, striped 326 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. silk of a darker shade, with a fold of white crep^ spangled with gold at the neck, and a girdle of sage green corded silk, with the family badge here and there upon it in gold. I went with the house-master, Ito, to his disgust, not being invited, and his absence was like the loss of one of my senses, as I could not get any ex- planations till afterwards. The ceremony did not correspond with the rules laid down for marriages in the books of etiquette that I have seen, but this is accounted for by the fact that they were for persons of the samurai class, while this bride and bridegroom, though the children of well-to-do merchants, belong to the Tieimin. Marriages are arranged by the friends of both parties, and much worldly wisdom is constantly shown in the transaction. Still, youthful affections do not always run in the prescribed channels, and an attractive girl, in spite of her seclusion in her father’s house, is sure to have several lovers ; and the frequent suicides of lovers prove that in Japan, as elsewhere, the course of true love is not always smooth. Ito says that a lover who has formed a very decided preference fixes a sprig of the Celastrus alatus to the house of the lady’s parents, and tliat if it be neglected, so is he, but if the maiden blackens her teeth he is accepted, subject to the appro- val of the parents. The house-master sa5's that this is sometimes resorted to in the Kubota neighbourhood, but that marriages are usually made after the prescribed fashion. Marriages are usually arranged when the bridegroom has passed his twentieth and the bride her sixteenth year. Marriage is the manifest destinj" of Japanese fe- male children, who are trained to its duties from their earliest infancy. Tbe bride does not receive a dowry, but is provided with a trousseau according to her condi A JAPANESE TROUSSEAU. 327 tion. Money considerations do not appear to weigli much in the arrangements, but it is essential for the lady to be discreet, amiable, and accomplished, and to be a mistress of etiquette and domestic management. If a father having no son gives his eldest daughter in marriage, her husband becomes his adopted son, and takes his name. Betrothal precedes marriage, and mar- riage presents are often so lavishly given as to cripple for a time the resources of the givers. In addition to the trousseau the bride’s parents bestow upon her a spinning-wheel and kitchen utensils, besides other fur- niture, which is not abundant, as the tatami answer the purpose of beds, sofas, tables, and chairs.^ In tills case the trousseau and furniture were con- veyed to the bridegroom’s house in the early morning, and I was allowed to go to see them. There were sev- eral girdles of silk embroidered with gold, several pieces of brocaded silk for kimonos., several pieces of silk crepe, a large number of made-up garments, a piece of white silk, six barrels of wine or sake, and seven sorts of condiments. Jewellery is not worn by women in Japan. The furniture consisted of two wooden pillows, finely lacquered, one of them containing a drawer for orna- mental hair-pins, some coiton futons, two very handsome silk ones, a few silk cushions, a lacquer workbox, a 1 Among the strong reasons for deprecating the adoption of foreign houses, furniture, and modes of living by the Japanese, is that the ex- pense of living would be so largely increased as to render early mar- riages impossible. At present the requirements of a young couple in the poorer classes are, a bare matted room, capable or not of division, two wooden pillows, a few cotton futons, and a sliding panel, behind which to conceal them in the day-time, a wooden rice bucket and ladle, a wooden wash-bowl, an iron kettle, a hibaclii, a tray or two, a teapot or two, two lacquer rice bowls, a benid-bako or dinner box, a few china cups, a tew towels, a bamboo switch for sweeping, a tabako-bon, an iron pot, and a few shelves let into a recess, all of which can be purchased tor something under £2. 328 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. spirming-wheel, a lacquer rice bucket and ladle, two ornamental ii’on kettles, various kitchen utensils, three bronze hibaclii., two tabako-bons., some lacquer trays, and 2e«.s, china kettles, teapots, and cups, some lacquer rice bowls, two copper basins, a few towels, some bamboo switches, and an inlaid lacquer etagere. As the things are all very handsome the parents must be w^ell off. The Saks is sent in accordance with rigid etiquette. It has often been written that marriage must be solemnised by a priest, but this is a mistake. Japanese marriage is a purely civil contract. No religious cere- mony is necessary. A marriage is legalised by its regis- tration in the office of the Kocho. These people were Buddhists, but there was not even a priest present on the occasion. The bridegroom is twenty-two, the bride seventeen, and very comely, so far as I could see through the paint with which she was profusely disfigured. Towards evening she was carried in a norimon, accompanied by her parents and friends to the bridegroom’s house, each member of the procession carrying a Chinese lantern. When the house-master and I arrived the wedding party was assembled in a large room, the parents and friends of the bridegroom being seated on one side, and those of the bride on the other. Two young girls, very beautifully dressed, brought in the bride, a very pleas- ing-looking creature, dressed entii’ely in white silk, with a veil of white silk covering her from head to foot. The bridegroom who was already seated in the middle of the room near its upper part, did not rise tr receive her, and kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and she sal opposite to him, but never looked up. A low table was placed in front, on which there was a two-spouted kettle full of sake., some sakS bottles, and some cups, and on A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 329 another there were some small figures representing a fii tree, a plum tree in blossom, and a stork standing on a tortoise, the last representing length of days, and the former, the beauty of women and the strength of men. Shortly a zen, loaded with eatables was placed before each person, and the feast began, accompanied by the noises which signify gastronomic gratification. After this, which was only a preliminary, the two girls who brought in the bride handed round a tray with three cups containing which each person was expected to drain till he came to the god of luck at the bottom. The bride and bridegroom then retired, but shortly re-appeared in other dresses of ceremony, but the bride still wore her white silk veil, which one day will be her shroud. An old gold lacquer tray was produced, with three sake cups, which were filled by the two brides- maids, and placed before the parents-in-law and the bride. The father-in-law drank three cups, and handed the cup to the bride, who, after drinking two cups, re- ceived from her father-in-law a present in a box, drank the third cup, and then returned the cup to the father- in-law, who again drank three cups. Rice and fish were next brought in, after which the bridegroom’s mother took the second cup, and filled and emptied it three times, after which she passed it to the bride, who drank two cups, received a present from her mother-in-law in a lacquer box, drank a third cup, and gave the cup to the elder lady, who again drank three cups. Soup was then served, and then the bride drank once from the third cup, and handed it to her husband’s father, who drank three more cups, the bride took it again, and drank two, and lastly the mother-in-law draiik three more cups. Now, if you possess the clear-sightedness which I laboured to preserve, you will perceive that each 330 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. of the tlxree had inbibed nine cups of some genei’ous liquor ! ^ After this the two bridesmaids raised the two-spouted kettle, and presented it to tlie lips of the married pair, who drank from it alternately, till they had exliausted its contents. This concludhig ceremony is said to be emblematic of the tasting together of the joys and sor- rows of life. And so they became man and wife till death or divorce parted them. This drinking of sake or wine, according to prescribed usage, appeared to constitute the “ marriage service,’’ to which none but relations were bidden. Immediately afterwards the wedding guests arrived, and the evenmg was spent in feasting and sake drinking, but the fare is simple, and intoxication is happily out of place at a marriage feast. Every detail is a matter of etiquette, and has been handed down for centuries. Except for the interest of the ceremony in that light it was a very dull and tedious affair, conducted in melancholy silence, and the young bride, with her wliitened face and painted lips, looked and moved like an automaton. From all that I can learn I think that Japanese wives are virtuous and faithful under circumstances which we should think most trying, as even apparent fidelity on the part of the husband is not regarded either as a virtue or a conventional requirement. On this point I think there can be no reasonable doubt. It is obvious that the parental relation is regarded as far higher than the matrimonial, and that the tendency is to sink the wife in the mother. If the father is the servant of the child, the mother is his slave, and her lot is apt to be very hard, as her first duty is to bimg chil- 1 T failed to learn what the liquor was which was drunk so freely, but a.s no unseemly effects followed its use, I think it must either har« ooen light Osaka wine, or light sake. A MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 331 dren into the world, and then to nurse and wait upon them, while marriage places her in the position of a slave to her mother-in-law. The following translation of the Japanese “ Code of Morals for Women ” is deeply inter- esting, and throws more light upon some social customs, and upon the estimation in which women are held, than many pages of description. 1. L. B. 832 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. JAPANESE CODE OF MORALS FOR WOMEN. i “ Is^ Lesson. Every girl, when of age, must marry a man of a different family, therefore her parents must be more careful of hei education than that of a son, as she must be subject to her father and mother-in-law, and serve them. If she has been spoiled, she will quarrel with her husband’s relatives. 1(1. It is better for women to have a good mind than a beauti- ful appearance. Women who have a bad mind, their passions are turbulent, their eyes seem dreadful, their voices loud and chatter- ing, and when angry, will tell their family secrets, and besides, laugh at and mock other people, and envy and be spiteful towards them. These things are all improper for women to do, as they ought to be chaste, amiable, and gentle. 3f/. Parents must teach their daughters to keep separate from the other sex. They must not see or hear any iniquitous thing. The old custom is, man and woman shall not sit on the same mat, nor put their clothing in the same place, shall have different bath- rooms, shall not give or take anything directly from hand to hand. During the evening, when women walk out, they shall carry a lantern, and on walking out, even families, men must keep sepa- rate from their female relatives. People who neglect these rules are not polite, and bring a reproach on their families. No girl shall marry without the permission of her parents, and the man- agement of a medium, and though she meets with such a sad fate as to be killed, she must keep as solid a mind as metal and stone, and do no unchaste thing. 4 the}' had no windows, and the walls and rafters were black and shiny. Fowls and horses live on one side of the dark interior, and the people on the other. The houses were alive with unclothed children, and as I repassctl in the evening unclothed men and women, nude to their waists, were sitting outside their dwellings with the .AKITA FARM-HOUSE. small fry, clothed only in amulets, about them, several big yellow dogs forming part of each family group, and the faces of dogs, children, and people were all placidly contented ! These farmers owned many good horses, and their crops were splendid. Probably on matsuri days all appear in fine clothes taken from ample hoards. They cannot be so poor, as far as the necessaries of life are concerned, they are only very “far back.” The} 398 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAE. know nothing better, and are contented ; but tiieit houses are as bad as any that I have ever seen, and the simplicity of Eden is combined with an amount of dirt which makes me sceptical as to the performance of even weekly ablutions. Upper Nakano is very beautiful, and in the autiunn, when its myriads of star-leaved maples are scarlet and ciimson, against a dark background of cryptomeria, among which a great wliite waterfall gleams like a snow-drift before it leaps into the black pool below, it must be well worth a long journe3^ J have not seen anything which has pleased me more. There is a fine flight of moss-grown stone steps down to the water, a pretty bridge, two superb stone torii^ some handsome stone lanterns, and then a grand flight of steep stone steps up a hill-side dark with cryptomeria, leads to a small Shinto shrine. Not far 'off there is a sacred tree, with the token of love and revenge upon it, which I mentioned in the notes on superstitions in my last letter. The whole place is entrancing. Lower Nakano, which I could only reach on foot, is only interesting as possessing some very hot springs, which are valuable in cases of rheumatism and sore eyes. It consists mainly of tea-houses and yadoyas^ and seemed rather gay. It is built round the edge of an oblong depression, at the bottom of which the bath-houses stand, of which there are four, only nominalh* sepa- rated, and with but two entrances, which open directly upon the bathers. In the two end houses women anJ children were bathing in large tanks, and in the centre one; women and men were bathing together, but at opposite sides, with wooden ledges to sit upon all round. I followed the Tcuruma runner blindly to the baths, and when once in, I had to go out at the other side, being pressed upon by people from behind; but the bathers THE PUBLIC BATH-HOUSE. 399 were too polite to take any notice of my most unwilling intrusion, and the Tcuruma runner took me in without the slightest sense of impropriety in so doing. T noticed that formal politeness prevailed in the bath-house as elsewhere, and that dippers and towels were handed from one to another with profound bows. The pub- lic bath-house is said to be the place in which public opinion is formed, as it is with us in clubs and public- houses, and that the presence of women prevents any dangerous or seditious consequences ; but the Govern- ment is doing its best to prevent promiscuous bathing ; and though the reform may travel slowly into these remote regions, it will doubtless arrive sooner or later. The public bath-house is one of the features of Japan. Many solemn queries arise in this heathen land, which either do not occur, or occur with far less force, at home ; and in my solitary ride they come up continually. Did the “one Father” make the salvation of millions of His heathen offspring depend upon the tardiness of a niggard and selfish Church, selfish and niggard both as to men and money ? Did our Lord and Saviour Christ mean eternal perdition — a horror past human concep- tion — by the mild term, “few stripes”? Was His death on Calvary an atonement or reconciliation for an elect few, or “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world ” ? Is He the High Priest of a limited few, or is He at “ the right hand of God,” to make an endless intercession for the “ whole world,” for which He died, “ that in the fulness of time He may gather together all things in one,” so that “ as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ” ? Are not “the heathen His inheritance,” and His redeemed “ a multitude which no man can number, of all nations ” ? Such and many similar questions must suggest them- 400 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. selves to any one living among these people, leammg their simple virtues and simple vices, and how kind the heart is which beats under the straw cloak of the culti- vator, realising all the time how few out of these thirty- four millions have heard of Christ, and that of those few the most have seen His precepts systematically violated ia the lives of His followers. Shall not the J udge of all the earth do right ? ” Can we not trust our brethren, who “ are also His offspring,” to the in- finite compassion of Him “ who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,” and cling tremblingly, as befits our ignorance, to the hope that when the work of the “ few stripes ” is done, these shall be redeemed from evil, and shall be gathered together, with all the wandering children, into our “Father’s house of many mansions ” ? These remarks may seem a digression ; but such questions are forced upon me ever}’ hour of every day.^ I. L. B. ‘ I leave these sentences as they stood in my letter ; but, lest they should he supposed to be written in disparagement of mission work, or doubt of its necessity, I reiterate the belief expressed in the chapter on Kiigata Missions, that our Lord’s parting command concerning the pro- mulgation of His gospel is binding on all His followers until the world’s end, and that hopes and speculations as to the ultimate destiny of the heathen have no bearing at all upon the positive duty oi the Church, ot indeed any practical bearing of any kind. AN OVERTURN. 401 END OF THE JOURNEY. A. hard Day' s Journey — An Overturn — Nearing the Ocean — Joytul Excitement — Universal Greyness — Inopportune Policemen — A Stormy Voyage — A wild Welcome — A Windy Landing — The Journey’s End. Hakodate!, Tbzo, August 12, 1878. The journey from Kuroishi to Aomori, though only 22i miles, was a tremendous one, owing to the state of the roads ; for more rain had fallen, and the passage of hundreds of pack-horses heavily loaded with salt-fish had turned the tracks into quagmires. At the end of the first stage the Transport Office declined to furnish a kuruma., owing to the state of the roads ; but as I was not well enough to ride farther, I bribed two men for a very moderate sum to take me to the coast ; and by ac- commodating each other, we got on tolerably, though I had to walk up all the hills and down many, to get out at every place where a little bridge had been carried away, that the kurama might he lifted over the gap, and often to walk for 200 yards at a time, because it sank up to its axles in the quagmire. In spite of all precautions, I was upset into a muddy ditch, with the kuruma on the top of me ; hut as my air-pillow fortunately fell between the wheel and me, I escaped with nothing worse than having my clothes soaked with water and mud, which, as I had to keep them on all night, might have given me cold, but did not. We met strings of pack-horses the whole way, carrying salt-fish, which is taken throughout the interior. 402 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. The mountaiu-ridge, which runs throughout the Main Island, becomes depressed in the province of Nambu, but rises again into grand, abrupt hills at Aomori Bay. Between Kuroishi and Aomori, however, it is broken up into low ranges, scantily wooded, mainly with pine, scrub oak, and the dwarf bamboo. The Sesamum ignosoo., of which the incense sticks are made, covers some hills to the exclusion of all else. Rice grows in the valleys, but there is not much cultivation, and the country looks rough, cold, and hyperborean. The farming hamlets grew worse and worse, with houses made roughly of mud, with holes scratched in the side for light to get in, or for smoke to get out, and the walls of some were only great pieces of bark and bundles of straw tied to the posts Avith straw ropes. The roofs were untidy, but this was often concealed by the profuse growth of the water-melons Avhich trailed over them. The people were very dirty, but there was no appearance of special poverty, and a good deal of money must be made on the horses and mago required for the transit of fish from Yezo, and for rice to it. At Namioka occurred the last of the very numerous ridges we have crossed since leaving Rikkd at a point called Tsugarusaka, and from it looked over a rugged country, upon a dark-grey sea, nearly landlocked by pine-clothed hills, of a rich purple indigo colour. The clouds were drifting, the colour was intensifying, the air was fresh and cold, the surrounding soil was peaty, the odours of pines were balsamic, it looked, felt, and smelt like home ; the gi’ey sea was Aomori Bay, beyond was the Tsugaru Strait, — my long land-journey was done. A traveller said a steamer was sailing for Yezo at night, so, in a state of jojilul excitement, I engaged four men, and by di’agging, pushing, and lifting, they got me intc Aomori, a town of grey houses, grey roofs, and grej INOPPORTUNE POLICEMEN. 403 stones on roofs, built on a beach of grey sand, round a grey bay — a miserable-looking place, though the capi- tal of the \en. It has a great export trade in cattle and rice to Yezo, besides being the outlet of an immense annual emigra- tion from Northern Japan to the Yezo fishery, and im- ports from Hakodat(^ large quantities of fish, skins, and foreign merchandise. It has some trade in a pretty but not valuable “ seaweed ” or variegated lacquer, called Aomori lacquer, but not actually made there, its own specialty being a sweetmeat made of beans and sugar. It has a deep and well-protected harbour, but no piers or conveniences for trade. It has barracks and the usual Government buildings, but there was no time to learn anything about it, — only a short half-hour for getting my ticket at the Mitsu Bishi office, where they demanded and copied my passport ; for snatching a morsel of fish at a restaurant where “ foreign food ” was represented by a very dirty table-cloth ; and for running down to the grey beach, where I was carried into a large sampan., crowded with Japanese steerage passen- gers. The wind was rising, a considerable surf was running, the spray was flying over the boat, the steamer had her steam up, and was ringing and whistling impatiently, there was a scud of rain, and I was standing, trying to keep my paper waterproof from being blown off, when three inopportune policemen jumped into the boat and demanded my passport. For a moment I wished them and the passport under the waves ! The steamer is a little old paddle-boat of about 70 tons, with no accom- modation but a single cabin on deck. She was as clean and trim as a yacht, and, like a yacht, totally unfit for bad weather. Her captain, engineers, and crew were all Japanese, and not a word of English was spoken 404 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAB AN. My clothes were very wet, and the night was colder than the day had been, but the captain kindly covered me np with several blankets on the floor, so I did not suffer. We sailed early in the evening, with a brisk northerly breeze, which chopped round to the south-east, and by eleven blew a gale ; the sea ran high, the steamer laboured and shipped several heavy seas, much water entered the cabin, the captain came below every half- hour, tapped the barometer, sipped some tea, offered me a lump of sugar, and made a face and gesture indicative of bad weather, and we were buffeted about mercilessly till 4 A.M., when heavy rain came on, and the gale fell temporarily with it. The boat is not fit for a night pas- sage, and always lies in port when bad weather is ex- pected, and as this was said to be the severest gale which has swept the Tsugaru Strait since January, the captain was uneasy about her, but being so, showed as much calmness as if he had been a Briton ! The gale rose again after sunrise, and when, after doing sixty miles in fourteen hours, we reached , the heads of Hakodate Harbour, it was blowing and pour- ing like a bad day in Argyllshire, the spin-drift was driving over the bay, the Yezo mountains loomed darkly and loftily through rain and mist, and wind and thunder, and “ noises of the northern sea,” gave me a wild welcome to these northern shores. A rocky head like Gibraltar, a cold-blooded-looking grey town, strag gling up a steep hill-side, a few conifer ce, a great many grey junks, a few steamers and vessels of foreign rig at anchor, a number of sampans riding the rough water easily, seen in flashes between gusts of rain and spin- drift, were all I saw, but somehow it all pleased me from its breezy, northern look. The steamer was not expected in the gale, so no one met me, and I went ashore with fifty Japanese clustered TEE JOURNEY'S END. 405 Oil the top of a decked sampan, in such a storm of wind and rain that it took us 1 J hour to go half a mile ; then I waited shelterless on the windy beach till the Cus* toms’ Officers were roused from their late slumbers, and then battled with the storm for a mile up a steep hill. I was expected at the hospital Consulate, but did not know it, and came here to the Church Mission House, to which Mr. and Mrs. Dening kindly invited me when I met them in TokiyO. I was unfit to enter a civilised dwelling; my clothes, besides being soaked, were coated and splashed with mud up to the top of my hat ; my gloves and boots were finished, my mud- splashed baggage was soaked with salt water; but I feel a somewhat legitimate triumph at having con- quered all obstacles, and having accomplished more than I intended to accomplish when I left Yedo. How musical the clamour of the northern ocean is i How inspiriting the shrieking and howling of the bois- terous wind ! Even the fierce pelting of the rain is home-like, and the cold in which one shivers is stimu- lating ! You cannot imagine the delight of being in a room with a door that will lock, to be in a bed instead of on a stretcher, of finding twenty-three letters con- taining good news, and of being able to read them in warmth and quietness under the roof of an English homel 1. L. B. 406 TmBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ITINERARY OF ROUTE FROM NHGATA TO AOMORI Ko. of Houses. m. CK6. Kisaki . . . 56 4 Tsuiji . . . 209 6 Kiirokawa . . 215 2 12 Hanadati . . 20 2 Kawaguchi . . 27 3 Numa . . . 24 1 18 Tamagawa . . 40 3 Okuni . . . 210 2 11 Kurosawa . . 17 1 18 Ichinono . . . 20 1 18 Shirokasawa 42 1 21 Tenoko . . . 120 3 11 Komatsu . . . 513 2 13 Akayu . . . 350 4 Kaminoyama . 5 Yamagata . 3 19 Tendo . . . . . . . 1,040 3 8 Tateoka . . . 307 3 21 Tochiida . . . 217 1 33 Obanasawa . . 506 1 21 Ashizawa 70 1 21 Shinjo . . . . . . . 1,060 4 6 Kanayama . . 165 3 27 Nosoki . . . 37 3 9 Innai .... 257 3 12 Yusawa . . . .... 1,506 3 35 Yokote . . . .... 2,070 4 27 Rckugo . . . .... 1,062 6 Carry forward 88 1 ITINERABY. 407 No. of Houses. Brought forward m. 88 Ch6. 1 Shingoji . . . 209 1 28 Kubota . . . 36,587 souls 16 Minato . . . 2,108 1 28 Abukawa . . . 163 3 33 Ichi Nichi Ichi . . 306 1 34 Kado .... . 151 2 9 Hinikoyama . 396 2 9 Tsugurata . . . 186 1 14 Tubiud . . . . 153 1 18 Kiriishi . . . . 31 1 14 Kotsunagi . . . 47 1 16 Tsuguriko . . . 136 3 5 Odate .... 1,673 4 23 Shirasawa . . 71 2 19 Ikarigaseki . . . 175 4 18 Kuroishi . . . 1,176 6 19 Daishaka . . . 43 4 Shin jo . . . . 51 2 21 Aomori . . . 1 24 Ri 147 31 About 368 miles. This is considerably under the actual distance, as on several ol the mountain routes the ri is 56 cho, but in the lack of accurate information the ri has been taken at its ordinary standard of 3fl eho throughout. BND OF TOL. 1. ! k AINOS OF VEZO. Frontispikce, Vot.. II. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN AN ACCOUNT OF TRAVELS ON HORSEBACK IN THE INTERIOR INCLUDING V'ISITS TO THE ABORIGINES OF YEZO AND THE SHRINES OF NIKKO AND ISE By ISABELLA L. BIRD ADTHOK OP ‘ A LADY’S LIFE IN THE RCJCKY MOUNTAINS ’ ‘ SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS ’ ETC. ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. — VOL. II. WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 27 AND 29 West 23D Street CONTENTS OF VOL. II. YEZO. Physical Characteristics — The Colonisation Department — The New Capital — The Fisheries — Hakodate — A Vigi- lant Police — The “ Hairy Ainos ’ ’ — Tezo Fascinations . THE MISSION WORK. Form and Colour — A Windy Capital — Eccentricities in House Roofs — Social Dulness — Mission Agencies — A Disorderly Service — Daily Preaching — A Buddhist Tem- ple — A Buddhist Sermon HAKODATE. Ito’s Delinquency — “Missionary Manners” — A Predicted Failure — A Japanese Doctor — The Hakodate Hospital — The Prison — Prison Amenities — Chrysanthemum Cul- ture — The Bon Festival — A Holiday-making Crowd A CHANGE OF SCENERY. k Lovely Sunset — An Official Letter — A “Front Horse” — Japanese Courtesy — Sedentary Amusements — The Steam Ferry — Coolies Abscond — A Team of Savages — A Drive of Horses — Floral Beauties — An Unbeaten Track — A Ghostly Dwelling — Solitude and Eeriness V PiM 1-10 11-19 20-26 27-45 VI CONTENTS. A MEETING. The Hannon ics of Nature — A Good Horse — A Single Dis- cord — A Forest — Aino Ferrymen — “ies Puces I Les Puces I ^ — Baffled Explorers — Ito’s Contempt for Ainos — An Aino Introduction LIVING WITH THE AINOS. Savage Life — A Forest Track — Cleanly Villages — A Hos- pitable Reception — The Chief’s Mother — The Evening Meal — A Savage Seance — Libations to the Gods — Noc- turnal Silence — Aino Courtesy — The Chiefs Wife . AINO HOSPITALITY. A Supposed Act of Worship — Parental Tenderness — Morn- ing Visits — Wretched Cultivation — Honesty and Gener- osity — A “ Dug-out ” — Female Occupations — The Ancient Fate — A New Arrival — A Perilous Prescrip- tion — The Shrine of Toshitsund — The Chiefs Return . SAVAGE LIFE. Bjurenness of Savage Life — Irreclaimable Savages — The Aino Physique — Female Comeliness — Torture and Or- nament — Child Life — Docility and Obedience COSTUME AND CUSTOMS. Aino Clothing — Holiday Dress — Domestic Architecture — Household Gods — Japanese Curios — The Necessaries of Life — Clay Soup — Arrow Poison — Arrow Traps — Fe- male Occupations — Bark Cloth — The Art of Weaving . RELIGION OF AINOS. A Simple Nature Worship — Aino Gods — A Festival Song — Religious Intoxication — Bear Worship — The Annual Saturnalia — The Future State — Marriage and Divorce — Musical Instruments — Etiquette — The Chieftainship — Death and Burial — Old Age — Moral Qualities 46^0 6(M)] 62-73 74-82 83-95 96-110 CONTIJNTS. A TIPSY SCENE. A Parting Gift — A Delicacy — Generosity — A Seaside Vil- lage — Pipichari’s Advice — A Drunken Eevel — Ito’s Prophecies — The Kocho’s Illness — Patent Medicines VISIT TO A VOLCANO. A Welcome Gift — Recent Changes — Volcanic Phenomena — Interesting Tufa Cones — An Aggressive Trailer — Semi-strangulation — A Fall into a Bear-trap — The Shiradi Ainos — Horsebreaking and Cruelty A WET TRIP. The Universal Language — The Yezo Corrals — A “Ty- phoon Rain” — Difficult Tracks — An Unenviable Ride — Drying Clothes — A Woman’s Remorse . A SURPRISE. “More than Peace” — Geographical Difficulties — Usu-taki — A Garden Region — Svrimming the Osharu — A Dream of Beauty — A Sunset Effect — A Nocturnal Alarm — The Coast Ainos SOLITUDE. The Sea-shore — A “Hairy Aino” — A Horse Fight — The Horses of Yezo — “Bad Mountains” — A Slight Accident — Magnificent Scenery — A Bleached Halting-Place — A Musty Room — Aino “ Good-breeding ” . . . . THE MISSING LINK. A Group of Fathers — The Lebungd Ainos — The Salisburia adiantifolia — A Family Group — The Missing Link — Oshamambd — A Horse Fight — The River Yurapu — The Seaside — Sagacity of Crows — Outwitting a Dog — Aino Canoes — The Volcano of Komono-taki — The last Morn- lug — Dodging Europeans Ill- 114 116-1*^4 125-128 129-137 138-144 145-15fi IriNEBABT OF TOUE IN YkZO 167 nu CONTENTS. JAPANESE PROGRESS. A Dubious Climate — Missionary Ardour — A Political Move — An Opinion on the Government — “Squeezes” — Lack of Perseverance — A J apanese Ironclad — Realities of Progress COMPLIMENTS. Pleasant Last Impressions — The Japanese Junk — Ito Dis- appears — My Letter of Thanks — Official Letters — A Servant’s Epistle — Japanese Epistolary Style . A CYCLONE. Pleasant Prospects — A Miserable Disappointment — Caught in a Typhoon — A Dense Fog — Alarmist Rumours — A Welcome at Tokiyo — The Last of the Mutineers NOTES ON t6kIY6. A Metamorphosis — “Magnificent Distances” — Climate — The Castle — The Official Quarter — The “Feudal Man- sions of Yedo” — Commercial Activity — The Canals — Streets and Shop Signs — Street Names .... MODERN INSTITUTIONS. The Cemeteries — Cremation — Sharp Criticism — Stereo- typed Ideas — Modern Constructive Art — The College of Engineering — Principal Dyer — The Telegraph Depart- ment — The Foreign Residents — Forms of Flattery — The Flower Festa — A Memory of Fuji — Costly Entertain- ments — The Brain of New Japan A JAPANESE CONCERT. A “Dirty Sky” — “Rags” — Mr. Mori — A Ministerial Entertainment — The “ Shiba Pavilion” — An Amateur Orchestra — The Japanese W.ogner — An Aristocratic Belle — A Juvenile Danseuse — An Agonising Mystery — The “ Dead March ” in Saul — Japanese Music — Musical Instruments — Lady Parkes 16S-163 164^168 169-170 171-187 188-208 206-218 CONTENTS. A MISSIONARY CENTRE. The Hiroshima Maru — A Picturesque Fishing Fleet— A Kind Reception — A Mission Centre — A Model Settle- ment — The Native Town — Foreign Trade — The Girls’ Home — Bible Classes — The First Christian Newspaper — Defects in Mission Schools — Manners and Etiquette — “ Missionary Manners ” — The Truth Foreshadowed — Separation in Foreign Society — A Vow . . . . THE KIYOTO COLLEGE. Mountain-girdled Kiyoto — Third-class Travelling — The Home of Art — The Kiyoto College — Captain Jayne — Mr. Davis — The Curriculum — Philosophical Ardour — Discussions and Difficulties — Total Abstinence — The First Christian Pastor — Japanese Impressions of Scotland — Increased Demand for the Christian Scriptures THE MONTO SECT. The Protestants of Buddhism — The “English-Speaking” Priest — The Nishi-Honguwanji Temple — A Monto Al- tar — Nirvana — Hiddyoshi’s Summer Palace — Metemp- sychosis — Buddha as a Democrat — The Prospects of Christianity — The Priest’s Estimate of Belief in England — The Conflict of Opinion in Japan — A Question . ARTISTIC TASTES. Kiyoto Shopping — Artistic Patterns — Solitude in Decora- tion — A Japanese Etagere — Honest Work — Vitiation of Japanese Art — Kiyoto Brocades — The Board of In- dustries — The New Hospital UJI. Hugging a Eibachi — A Japanese “Institution” — Indus- trious Poverty — Uji Tea-houses — Tea-maldng — Our First Evening — Nara — A Treasury of Antiquities — A Row of Petitioners — Inappropriate Travelling Gear — A Shrine of Pilgrimage — An Ancient Monastery — A Trudge through Mud — Higenashi — Mushroom Culture — Roughing it — The High Road — A Rubbing Stone 217-228 229-241 242-253 254-269 260-277 CONTENTS. X THK TSE SHRINES. '* The Divine Palaces of the most holy gods of Is6 ” — Sane* tity of the Is4 Shrines — The Kami-dana — The Is^ Charms — The Geku Camphor Groves — The Temple Grounds — The Sacred Enclosure — The Shrines — The “Holy of Holies” — The Japanese Regalia — The Shintd Mirror ANOTHER PILGRIMAGE. A Dreary Shrine — The Legend of Futami-sama — A Double Temple — A Street of Shops — The Naiku Shrine — Even- ing Shadows — The Melancholy of Shinto — Unsanctified Pilgrim Resorts LAKE BIWA. My Karuma-runner — Stupid Curiosity — The City of Tsu — A Buddhist Temple — Road Mending — The Pass of Tsuzaka — The Tokaido — Lake Biwa — The “Temper- ance Pledge ” — A Matsuri Itineeahy of Route fbom KiYfixo to Yamaha (Shbutes OF Ise), and by Tsu to Kiyoto .... PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. Water-Ways in Osaka — Glimpses of Domestic Life — La- dies’ Pets — The Position of Women — Imperial Example — The Medical Mission — A Japanese Benevolent Insti- tution — A Comfortless Arrival — A Christian Gathering — The Prison at Otsu — Prospects of Christianity — Blankness of Heathenism CREMATION. Fine Weather — Cremation in Japan — The Governor of Tdkiyo — An Awkward Question — An Insignificant Building — Economy in Funeral Expenses — Simplicity of the Cremation Process — The Last of Japan . 278-286 286-289 290-300 SOI 302-314 315-319 CONTENTS. XI JAPANESE PUBLIC AFFAIRS. The Old Regime — The End of Feudalism — The Oath of Progress — The New Government — The Army, Navy, and Police — The Post-Office — Railroads and Telegraphs — The Mercantile Marine — The Mint — The Currency — The Newspaper Press — The Penal Code — The Educa- tional System — Finance and Taxation — The National Debt — Foreign Trade — Conclusion 320-36'J APPENDIX. A. — Aino Words taken down at Bibatobi ajtd Usu, Yezo 359-362 B. — Notes on Shinto 363-372 C. — Tables of the Estimated Revenue and Exp end r. tube fob the Financial Tear 1879-80 . . 373-379 D. — Fobbisn Trade 380-383 In»x , 386-3^ LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS A.1N0S OF Tezo Frontispiece FASB Axn'o Store-House at Hoeobets 37 Aiko Lodges. From a Japanese Sketch .... 3S Amo Houses 60 Amos at Home. From a Japanese Sketch . ... 61 Amo Millet-Mill and Pestle 66 Shinondi and Shinkichi 68 Aino Store-House 66 An Aino Patriarch 77 Tattooed Female Hand 79 Aino Gods 87 Pla-n of an Aino House 90 Weaver’s Shuttle 93 Entrance to Shrine of Seventh Shogun, Shir a, Tokito 183 A Hiogo Buddha 221 The Rokkukado 231 My Kuruma-Eunner 266 Temple Gateway at Isshinden 293 A Lake Biwa Tea-House 295 Tomoye 297 Fujisan, from a Village on the TokaldO . . . 318 zili YEZO. Physical Characteristics — The Colonisation Department — The New Capital — The Fisheries — Hakodate — A Vigilant Police — The “Hairy Ainos ” — Yezo Fascinations. Separated from the main island of Japan by the Tsngaru Strait, and from Saghalien by the narrow strait of La Perouse, in shape an irregular triangle, extending from long. 139° 50' E. to long. 146° E., and from lat. 41° 30' N. to lat. 45° 30' N., its most northern point con- siderably south of the Land’s End, Yezo has a climate of singular severity, a heavy snowfall, and, in its north- ern parts, a Siberian winter. Its area is 35,739 square miles, or considerably larger than that of Ireland, while its estimated population is only 123,000. The island is a mountain mass, with plains well grassed and watered. Impenetrable jungles and impassable swamps cover much of its area. It has several active volcanoes, and the quietude of some of its apparently extinct ones is not to be relied upon. Its forests and swamps are drained by innumerable short, rapid rivers, which are subject to violent freshets. In riding round the coast they are encountered every two or three miles, and often detain the traveller for days on their margins. The largest is the Ishkari, famous for salmon. The coast has few safe harbours, and though exempt from typhoons, is swept by heavy gales and a continuous surf. The cultivated land is mainly in the neighbour- o UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. hood of the sea, with the exception of the extensive plain around Satsuporo. The interior is forest-covered, and the supplies of valuable lumber are nearly inex- haustible, and include thirty-six kinds of useful timbei trees. Openings in the forest are heavily grassed with the Eulalia Japonica, a grass higher than the head of a man on horseback ; and the forest itself is rendered impassable, not only by a dense growth of the tough and rigid dwarf bamboo, which attains a height of eight feet, but by ropes and nooses of various vines, lianas in truth, wliich grow profusely everywhere. The soil is usually rich, and the summer being warm is favourable to the growth of most cereals and root crops. The climate is not well suited to rice, but wheat ripens everywhere. Most of the crops which grow in the northern part of the main island flourish in Yezo, and English fruit-trees succeed better than in any part of Japan. I never saw flner crops anywhere than in Mombets on Volcano Bay. Cleared land, from the richness of the soil formed by vegetable decomposition, is fitted to produce crops as in America, for twenty years without manuring, and a regular and sufficient rainfall, as in England, obviates the necessity for irriga- tion. The chief mineral wealth of Yezo is in its coalfields, but the Government is jealous of the introduction of foreign capital, and till the embargo is removed, it is unlikel}^ that this source of wealth will be utilised on a large scale, and much of the money appropriated for the developement of mines is frittered away by official “squeezes” en route. But this coal may eventually turn out of great importance to the world. Mr. L^nnan. the able head of the Geologic.al Survey, estimates the quantity of coal in the Yezo coalfields at one hundred and fifty thousand million tons; in other words, that THE “DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT:’ 3 Yezo could yield the present annual product of Great Britain for a thousand years to come ! ! ! The official name of Yezo is the Hokl-aido or North- ern Sea Circuit, and owing to various circumstances, actual and imaginary, it is under a separate department of the Government called the Colonisation Department, known as the Kaitakushi, or, as we should say, the “ De- velopment Department.” This deirartment has spent enormous sums upon Yezo, some of which have been sunk in unprofitable and costly experiments, while others bear fruit in productive improvements. The ap- propriation of this year is over £302,000. The island differs so much in its general featiires and natural prod- ucts from the rest of Japan, that it is exempt from the ordinary taxes, and is subject to special imposts on produce, which bring in a revenue of about £72,000 annually, a large sum to be paid by a small population. Satsnporo, on the Ishkari River, is the creation of this Department. The chief and most hopeful of its operations there is an Agricultural College on the model of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, under native direction, but with a staff of four able American professors. Its graduation course is four years, and the number of students is limited to sixt}". It gives a sound English education, with special attention to surveying and civil engineering, as required for the construction of ordinary roads, railroads, drainage and irrigation works, and such thorough instruction in agriculture and horticulture as is required by the necessities of farming in Yezo. There are model farms both at Satsuporo and Nanai, near Hakodate, and nursery gardens for exotic trees, vegetables, and flowers. The department is in- troducing sheep and pigs, and by importing blood stock is endeavouring to improve the breed of horses and cattle. At Satsuporo it has extensive sawmills, a silk i UNBEATEN TJIACKS IN JAPAN. factory, a tannery, and a brewery, and large flour mills both there and at Nanai. It would be uninteresting to gi-ve a list of all which the KaitaJcusM has attempted for the development of Yezo. Many of its schemes have proved utterly abor- tive, and some which still exist are not carried out with the completeness and perseverance necessary for success. Its funds are undoubtedly eaten up by su- perfluous officials, who draw salaries and perpetrate “squeezes,” and do little besides smoke and talk. Roads are much needed. The broad road from Hako- date to Satsuporo, on which much money is always being expended, is in a permanently wretched state, and is mainly available for long strings of pack-horses, whose deep cross ruts had not disappeared even in Sep- tember ; and the steam-ferry of twenty-five miles on this main road is carried on by a steamer whose extreme speed is five miles an hour, and whose boilers, to use the expresv>ive native phrase, are constantly “ sick.” The theories of “ development ” are very good ; mis- takes have been and are being made ; some valuable practical measures are neglected in favour of Utopian experiments, and some good results are being attained. The Government is supposed to have two objects iu view in developing Yezo. One is to provide a field for emigration for the inhabitants of those parts of Japan which are supposed to be over-populated, and the other, by building up a popidation in Yezo, to erect a sort of bulwark against aggressive designs which are supposed to be entertained by Russia, a power which is as much distrusted in Japan as in England. Colonies have been settled in several favourable regions ; grants of land have been made to a great many samurai., and at Satsu- poro nearly 1000 soldiers are settled with their families in detached houses, each with several acres of land SALMON FISHERIES. 5 seeds and fruit-trees are sold to settlers at a very low price, and many agricultural advantages are provided which do not exist on the main island ; but still, either from a natural disinclination to emigrate, or from a dread of the taxes imposed on produce, the Sokkaida fails to attract a population, and a region which could support six millions has a scattered sprinkling, and tlrat mainly round the coasts, of only 123,000 souls. The fisheries of Yezo are magnificent, and rival those of the opposite coast of Oregon ; but they are overtaxed, the tax levied being from 10 to 25 per cent on the yield. Salmon is the specialty, but cuttle-fish, seaweed, and heche. de mer are also important articles of export. There are many fishing stations on the southern coast, but the most important are at Ishkari in the north, near Satsu- poro, the new capital. The salmon-fishing there is one of the sights of Japan. Some of the seines are 4000 feet in length, and require seventy men to work them. A pair of such, making three hauls a day, sometimes catch 20,000 salmon, averaging, when cured, 10 lbs. each. The revenue from the fisheries of the Ishkari river alone is $50,000 annually. Yezo fish is not only sent through- out the interior of Japan, but is shipped to China. The Ainos, the aborigines of the island, are largely employed in the fishing, and an immense number of emigrants from the provinces of Nambu and Ugo resort to Yezo for the fishing season. Hakodat(i, the northern Treaty Port, a flourishing city of 37,000 people, is naturally the capital, with its deep and magnificent harbour well sheltered in all winds. Situated on a gravelly hill-slope, with a sunny exposure and splendid natural drainage, it is fitted to recruit en- ergies which have been exhausted by the damp heat of Yokohama and TokiyO. Though it has occasionally nine inches of snow on tlie ground in November, the snow 6 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. fall is not excessive, as it is in the north of the island , it does not lie permanently on the ground, and there are many sunny winter days, so many, indeed, that the slush is worse than the snow. It has a mean annual temperature of about 10° below that of Yedo, but the range in the direction of cold is much greater. The minimum is 2°, and the maximum 88°. The nights, even in hot weather, are nearly always cool. In a period of nine years the annual rainfall has averaged 51.9 inches, and the average number of rain days is about 98. Hakodate is annually falling away as a foreign port. In fact, its foreign trade is reduced to nothing. It has only two foreign firms, and its foreign residents, exclu- sive of Chinese, only number 37. If it were not for the number of ships of war which visit it every sum- mer, and for the arrival of a few visitors in impaired health, it would be nearly as dull as Niigata. But as a Japanese port it is an increasingly thriving place. It is unprofitable for foreign vessels to come so far to this one point, now that Japanese steamers, which can trade at all ports, are so numerous. Foreign merchandise is now imported by Japanese merchants in Japanese ships, and the chief articles of export — dried fish, seaweed, and skins — are sent dii’ect to China and the main island in native vessels. Fine passenger steamers of the Mitsu Bishi Company run between Hakodate and Yoko- hama every ten days, and to Niigata once a month, besides cargo boats, and junks and native vessels of foreign rig arrive and depart in numbers with every fair wind. Tlie Government buildings are extensive, and the hospital and prisons are under admirable native manage- ment. Remote as Hakodate is, it does not seem to me to be behind any city of its size in enterprise, general comfort, cleanliness, and good order. The Kaitakushi A VIGILANT POLICE. 7 has seventeen schools in the city, in which the pupih are taiight reading, writing, and arithmetic up to trac- tions, along with universal history and geography ; be- sides which there are numbers of private schools, which only teach reading and writing. Some of the shop- keepers, in a most enlightened sph'it, have established an evening school for apprentices and assistants between twelve and eighteen, who are engaged during the day, and the fees for all these schools are moderate. The Post Office and Custom House are efficiently managed by Japanese officials, in conformity with for- eign usages ; and though the Judicial Department gives little satisfaction, the police are so efficient that H.B.M.’s Consul officially reports that “no thief or criminal can escape the vigilance of tlie authorities!” Japanese ship-carpenters are designing and turning out small schooners of foreign rig, and Japanese merchants import foreign goods, such as clothing, provisions, hard- ware, crockery, glass, fancy goods, and alcoholic liquors, to such an extent that the absence of a foreign store is scarcely felt. Such are some of the signs of progress in a city which, when Mr. Alcock visited it in 1859 to instal the British Consul, had a population of only 6000 people, and was only resorted to by a few whalers ! It is the centre of missionary operations for the island ; and at present the Greeks, Romanists, Church Mission- ary Society, and American Methodist Episcopal Church, have agents there, limited, of course, to the treaty dis- tance of twenty-five miles, unless they obtain travelling passports under the ordinary regulations. Besides Hakodate, there are only two towns of any importance — Matsumae, a decayed place of about 16,000 people, formerly the residence of a very power- ful daimiyd; and Satsuporo, the capital, a town of 3000 8 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. people, laid out on the plan of an American city, with wide, rectangular streets, lined by low Japanese houses and shops, and tasteless, detached, frame houses. The American idea is further suggested by the Kaitakushi offices with a capitol copied from the capitol at Wash- ington. Besides the Government Buildings and those which have been previously mentioned, there is a hos- pital under the charge of an American doctor. Near Satsuporo are several agricultural settlements, and the experiments there and elsewhere on the island prove that though the winter is long and severe, the climate and soil are specially favourable for winter wheat, maize, millet, buckwheat, potatoes, pease, beans, and other vegetables and cereals, as well as for Japanese hemp, which commands a high price, owing to the length, fineness, and silkiness of its fibre. Thousands of acres of well-watered grass-land lie utterly useless in the neighbourhood of Satsuporo on the Ishkari river. Wild animals and game in large numbers have their home in the impenetrable forests of the interior. In the Hakodat likes the freedom of the Hokkaido. He is much more polite and agreeable also, and very proud of the Governor’s shomon, with which he swag- 32 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. gers into liotels and Transport Offices. I never get on so well as when he arranges for me. Saturday was grey and lifeless, and the ride of seven miles here along a sandy road through monotonous forest and swamp, with the volcano on one side and low wooded hills on the other, was wearisome and fatiguing. I saw five large snakes all in a heap, and a number more twisting through the grass. There are no villages, but several very poor tea-houses, and on the other side of the road long sheds with troughs hollowed like canoes out of the trunks of trees, containing horse food. Here nobody walks, and the men ride at a quick run, sitting on the tops of their pack-saddles with their legs crossed above their horses’ necks, and wearing large hats like coal- scuttle bonnets. The horses are infested with ticks, hundreds upon one animal sometimes, and occasionally they become so mad from the irritation that they throw themselves suddenly on the ground, and roll over load and rider. I saw this done twice. The ticks often transfer themselves to the riders. Mori is a large, ramshackle village, near the southern point of Volcano Bay, a wild, di’eary-looking place on a sandy shore, with a number of joroyas and disreputable characters. Several of the yadoyas are not respectable, but I rather hke this one, and it has a very fine view of the volcano, which forms one point of the bay. Mori has no anchorage, though it has an unfinished pier 345 feet long. The steam ferry across the mouth of the bay is here, and there is a very difficult bridle-track running for nearly 100 miles round the bay besides, and a road into the interior. But it is a forlorn, decayed place. Last night the inn was very noisy, as some travellers in the next room to mine hired geishas., who played, sang, and danced till two in the morning, and the whole party imbibed saki freely. In this compara THE STEAM FERRY. 33 ti\'ely nortliern latitude the summer is already waning. The seeds of the blossoms which were in their glory when r arrived are ripe, and here and there a tinge of yellow on a hill-side, or a scarlet spray of maple, heralds the glories and the coolness of autumn. The travellers in the next room played all day at a game which I have seen literally everywhere in Japan, wherevei men have time to kill. This great resource is called go, and is played with 180 white discs cut from a species of cockle shell, and 181 black ones, made from a black pebble. The board is divided into 361 squares, and the game consists in enclosing a certain space, and preventing the opponent from doing the same. The table on which the board is set, called the gd-han, has a square hollow beneath it, to which a terrible legend attaches, namely, that according to the ancient laws of the game, if a third person interfered or offered his ad- vice to either player his head might be chopped off and placed in the hollow, which would collect the blood which dripped from it ! Hence its ghastly name, which means “ the blood-collector ! ” These men played at g$ from seven in the morning till eleven at night. I have seen shogi or Japanese chess played, but not so universally as g6. Yubets, Yezo. A loud yell of “ steamer,” coupled with the informa- tion that “she could not wait one minute,” broke in upon go and everything else, and in a broiling sun we huiTied down to the pier, and with a heap of Japanese, who filled two scows, were put on board a steamer not bigger than a large, decked steam launch, where the natives were all packed into a covered hole, and I was conducted with much ceremony to the forecastle, a place at the bow 5 feet square, full of coils of rope. 34 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. shut in. and left to solitude and dignity, and the stare of eight eyes, which perseveringly glowered through the windows ! The steamer had been kept waiting for me on the other side for two days, to the infinite dis- gust of two foreigners, who wished to return to IIak(»- dat(^, and to mine. Tt was a splendid day, with foam crests on the won- derfully blue water, and the red ashes of the volcano, which forms tlie south point of the bay, glowed in the sunlight. This wretched steamer, whose boilers are so often “ sick ” that she can never be relied upon, is the only means of reaching the new capital without taking a most difficult and circuitous route. To continue the pier and put a capable, good steamer on the ferry would be a useful expenditui-e of money. The breeze was strong and in our favour, but even with this it took us six weary hours to steam twenty-five miles, and it was eight at night before we reached the beautiful and almost land-locked ba}' of Mororan, with steep, wooded sides, and deep water close to the shore, deep enough for the foreign ships of war which occasionally anchor there, much to the detriment of the town. We got ofi in over-crowded sampans, and several people fell into the water, much to their own amusement. The ser- vants from the different yadoyas go down to the jetty to “ tout ” for guests with large paper lanterns, and the effect of these, one above another, waving and undu- lating, with their soft coloured light, was as bewitching as the reflection of the stars in the motionless water. Mororan is a small town very picturesquely situated on the steep shore of a most lovely bay, with another height, richly wooded, above it, with slirines approached by flights of stone stairs, and behind tins liill there is the first Aino village along this coast. The long, irregular street is slightly picturesque, but COOLIES ABSCOND. 35 I was impressed both with the unusual sight of loafers, and with the dissolute look of the place, arising from the number oijoroyas, and from the number rf yadoya& that are also haunts of the vicious. I could only get a very small room in a very poor and dirty inn, but there were no mosquitoes, and I got a good meal of fish. On sending to order horses I found that everything was arranged for my journey. The Governor sent his card early, to know if there were anything I should like to see or do, but as the morning was grey and threatening, I wished to push on, and at 9.30 I was in the kuruma at the inn door. I call it the kuruma because it is the only one, and is kept by the Government for the conveyance of hospital patients. I sat there uncomfortably and patiently for half an hour, my only amusement being the flirtations of Ito with a very pretty girl. Loiterers assembled, but no one came to draw the vehicle, and by degrees the dismal truth leaked out, that the three coolies who had been impressed for the occasion had all absconded, and that four policemen were in search of them. I walked on in a dawdling way up the steep hill which leads from the town, met Mr. Akboshi, a pleasant J^oung Japanese surveyor, who spoke English, and stigmatised Mororan as “ the worst place in Yezo ; ” and after fuming for two hours at the waste of time, was overtaken by Ito with the horses, in a boiling rage. “ They’re the worst and wickedest coolies in all Japan,” he stammered ; “ two more ran away, and now three are coming, and have got paid for four, and the first three who ran away got paid, and the Express man’s so ashamed for a foreigner, and the Governor’s in a furi- ous rage.” Except for the loss of time, it made no difference to me, but when the kuruma did come up the runners were three such ruffianly-looking men, and weie dressed so 36 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. wildly in bark cloth, that, in sending Ito on twelve miles to secure relays, I sent my money along with him. These men, though there were three instead of two never went out of a walk, and, as if on purpose, took the vehicle over every stone, and into every rut, and kept up a savage chorus of “ haes-ha, haes-hora,'^ the whole time, as if they were pulling stone-carts. There are really no runners out of Hakodate, and the men don’t know how to pull, and hate doing it. Mororan Bay is truly beautiful from the top of the ascent. The coast scenery of Japan generally is the loveliest I have ever seen, except that of a portion of windward Hawaii, and this yields in beauty to none. The irregular grey town, with a grey temple on the height above, straggles round the little bay on a steep, wooded terrace ; hills, densely wooded, and with a per- fect entanglement of large-leaved trailers, descend abruptly to the water’s edge ; the festoons of the vines are mirrored in the still waters ; and above the dark forest, and beyond the gleaming sea, rises the red, peaked top of the volcano. Then the road dips abruptly to sandy swellings, rising into bold headlands here and there ; and for the first time I saw the surge of 5000 miles of unbroken ocean break upon the shore. Glimpses of the Pacific, an uncultivated, swampy level quite uninhabited, and distant hills mainly covered with forest, made up the landscape till I reached Horobets, a mixed Japanese and Aino village built upon the sand near the sea. In these mixed villages the Ainos are compelled to live at a respectful distance from the Japanese, and fre- quently outnumber them, as at Horobets, where there are forty-seven Aino and only eighteen Japanese houses. The Aino village looks larger than it really is, because nearly every house has a kura, raised six feet from tho AINO HOUSES. 37 ground by wooden stilts. When I am better acquainted with tlie houses I shall describe them ; at present I will only say that they do not resemble the Japanese houses so much as the Polynesian, as they are made of reeds very neatly tied upon a wooden framework. They have small windows, and roofs of a very great height, and steep pitch, with the thatch in a series of very neat frills, and the ridge poles covered with reeds, and orna- mented. The coast Ainos are nearly all engaged in fishing, but at this season the men hunt deer in the for- ests. On this coast there are several names com AINO 6TORS-HOUSB AT HOBOBBTB. pounded with hets or pets, the Aino for a river, such as Ilorobets, Yubets, Mombets, etc. J found that Ito had been engaged for a whole hour in a violent altercation, which was caused by the Transport Agent refusing to supply runners for the iuruma, saying that no one in Horobets would draw one, but on my producing the shomon I was at once started on my journey of sixteen miles with three Jap- anese lads, Ito riding on to Shiradi to get my room ready. 1 think that the Transport OfiSces in Yezo are in Government hands. In a few minutes three Ainos 38 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ran out of a house, took the Icuruma., and went the whole stage without stopping. They took a hoy and three saddled horses along with them to bring them back, and rode and hauled alternately, two youths always attached to the shafts, and a man pushing behind. They were very kind, and so courteous, after a new fashion, that I quite forgot that I was alone among savages. The lads were young and beardless, AINO LODGES {From a Japanese Sketch). their lips were thick, and their mouths very wide, and I thought that they approached more nearly to the Eskimo type than to any other. They had masses of soft black hair falling on each side of their faces. The adult man was not a pure Aino. His dark hair was not very thick, and both it and his beard had an occa- sional auburn gleam. I think I never saw a face more completely beautiful in features and expression, witlj A BEAUTIFUL AINO. 3‘J a lofty, sad, far-off, gentle, intellectual look, ratliei that of Sir Noel Paton’s “ Christ ” than of a savage His manner was most graceful, and he spoke both Aino and Japanese in the low musical tone which I find is a characteristic of Aino speech. These Ainos never took off their clothes, but merely let them fall from one or both shoulders when it was very warm. The road from Horobets to Shira6i is very solitary, with not more than four or five houses the whole way. It is broad and straiglit, except wlien it ascends hills, or turns inland to cross rivers, and is carried across a broad swampy level, covered with tall wild flowers, which extends from the high beach thrown up by the sea for two miles inland, where there is a lofty wall of wooded rock, and beyond this the forest-covered moun- tains of the interior. On the top of the raised beach there were Aino hamlets, and occasionally a nearly overpowering stench came across the level from the sheds and apparatus used for extracting fish-oil. I enjoyed the afternoon thoroughly. It is so good to have got beyond the confines of stereotyped civilisa- tion, and the trammels of Japanese travelling, to the solitude of nature, and an atmosphere of freedom. It was grey, with a hard, dark line of ocean horizon, and over the weedy level the grey road, with grey tele- graph poles along it, stretched wearisomely like a grey thread. The breeze came up from the sea, rustled the reeds, and waved the tall plumes of the Eulalia Japan- ica^ and the thunder of the Pacific surges boomed through the air with its grand, deep bass. Poetry and music pervaded the solitude, and my spirit was rested. Going up and then down a steep, wooded hill, the road appeared to return to its original state of brush- wood, and the men stopped at the broken edge of a declivity which led down to a shingle bank and a foam- 40 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. crested river of clear, blue-green water, strong]}’’ im pregnated with sulphur from some medicinal spring? above, with a steep baidc of tangle on the opposite side. This beautiful stream was crossed by two round poles, a foot apart, on which I attempted to walk, with the help of an Aino hand; but the poles were very unsteady, and I doubt whether any one, even with a strong head, could walk on them in boots. Then the beautiful Aino signed to me to come back and mount on his shoulders ; but when he had got a few feet out the poles swayed and trembled so much, tliat he was obliged to retrace liis way cautiously, during which process I endured miseries from dizziness and fear ; after which he carried me through the rushing water, which was up to his shoulders, and through a bit of swampy jungle, and up a steep bank, to the great fatigue both of body and mind, hardly mitigated by the enjoyment of the ludicrous in riding a savage through these Yezo waters. They dexterously carried the kuruma through, on the shoulders of four, and showed extreme anxiety that neither it nor I should get wet. After this we crossed two deep, still rivers, in scows, and far above the grey level and the grey sea, the sun was setting in gold and vermilion-streaked green behind a glorified mountain of great height, at whose feet the forest-covered hills lay in purple gloom. At dark we reached Shiraoi, a village of eleven Jap- anese houses, with a village of fifty-one Aino houses, near the sea. There is a large yadoya of the old style there ; but I found that Ito had chosen a very pretty new one, with four stalls open to the road, in the centre one of winch I foimd him, with the welcome news that a steak of fresh salmon was broiling on the coals ; and as the room was clean and sweet, and I was very hun- gry, I enjoyed my meal by the light of a rush in a saucer of fish-oil as much as any part of the day. FLORAL BEAUTIES. 41 Sakdfuio. The night was too cold for sleep, and at da3^break hearing a great din, I looked out, and saw a drove o full^" a hundred horses all galloping down the road, with two Ainos on horseback, and a number of big dogs after them. Hundreds of horses run nearly wild on the hills, and the Ainos, getting a large drove to- gether, skilfully head them for the entrance into the corral, in which a selection of them is made for the day’s needs, and the remainder — that is, those with the deepest sores on their backs — are turned loose. This dull rattle of shoeless feet is the first sound in the morning in these Yezo villages. I sent Ito on early, and followed at nine with three Ainos. The road is perfectly level for thirteen miles, through gravel flats and swamps, very monotonous, but with a wild charm of its own. There were swampy lakes, with wild ducks and small white water-lilies, and the surrounding levels were covered with reedy grass, flowers, and weeds. The earl}'- autumn has withered a great many of the flowers ; but enough remains to show how beautiful the now russet plains must have been in the early summer. A dwarf rose, of a deep crimson colour, with orange, medlar-shaped hips, as large as crabs, and corollas three inches across, is one of the features of Yezo ; and besides, there is a large rose-red convolvulus, a blue campanula, with tiers of bells, a blue monkshood the Aconitum Japonicum, the flaunting Calystegia soldanella, purple asters, grass of Parnassus, yellow lilies, and a remarkable trailer, whose delicate leafage looked quite out of place among its coarse surroundings, with a purplish-brown campanu- late blossom, only remarkable for a peculiar arrange- ment of the pistil, green stamens, and a most offensive carrion-like odour, which is probably to attract to it a 42 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. very objectionable-looking fly, for purposes of fertilisa tion. We overtook four Aino women, yoimg and comely, with bare feet, striding flrmly along ; and after a good deal of laughing with the men, they took hold of the kuruma, and the whole seven raced with it at full speed for half a mile, shrieking with laughter. Soon after we came upon a little tea-house, and the Ainos showed me a straw package, and pointed to their open mouths, by which I understood that they wished to stop and eat. Later we overtook four Japanese on horseback, and the Ainos raced with them for a considerable dis- tance — the result of these spurts being that I reached Tomakomai at noon, a wide, dreary place, with houses roofed with sod, bearing luxuriant crops of weeds. Near this place is the volcano of Tarumai, a calm- looking grey cone, whose skirts are draped by tens of thousands of dead trees. So calm and grey had it looked for many a year, that people supposed it had passed into endless rest, when quite lately, on a sultry day, it blew off its cap, and covered the whole countiy for many a mile with cinders and ashes, burning up the forest on its sides, adding a new covering to the Tom- akomai roofs, and depositing fine ash as far as Cape Erimo, fifty miles off. At this place the road and telegraph wires turn inland to Satsuporo, and a track for horses only turns to the north-east, and straggles round the island for about seven hundred miles. From jMororan to Sarufuto there are everywhere traces of new and old volcanic action, pumice, tiffas, conglomerates, and occasional beds of hard basalt, all covered with recent pumice, which, from Shiradi eastward, conceals everything. At Toma- komai we took horses, and, as T brought my own sad- dle, I have had the nearest approach to real riding that AN UNBEATEN TRACK. 4 ? [ have enjoyed in Japan. The wife of a Satsuporo doc- tor was there, wlio was travelling for two hundred miles astride on a pack-saddle, with rope-looi^s for stirrups. She rode well, and vaulted into my saddle with circus- like dexterity, and performed many equestrian feats upon it, telling me that she should be quite happy if she were possessed of it. I was happy when I left the “beaten track” to Satsuporo, and saw before me, stretching for I know not how far, rolling, sandy machirs like those of the Outer Hebrides, desert-like and lonely, covered almost altogether with dwarf roses and campanulas, a prairie land on which you can make any tracks you please. Sending the others on, I followed them at the Yezo scramble., and soon ventured on a long gallop, and rev- elled in the music of the thud of shoeless feet over the elastic soil, but I had not realised the peculiarities of Yezo steeds, and had forgotten to ask whether mine was a “front horse,” and just as we were going at full speed we came nearly up with the others, and my horse coming abruptly to a full stop, I went six feet over his head among the rose-bushes. Ito looking back saw me tightening the saddle-girths, and I never divulged this escapade. After riding eight miles along this breezy belt, with the sea on one side and forests on the other, we came upon Yubets, a place which has fascinated me so much that I intend to return to it, but T must confess that its fascinations depend rather upon what it has not than upon what it has, and Ito says that it would kill him to spend even two days there. It looks like the end of all things, as if loneliness and desolation could go no farther. A sandy stretch on three sides, a river arrested in its progress to the sea, and compelled to wander tt di- ously in search of an outlet by the height and mass of 44 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. the beach thrown up bj the Pacific, a distant forest* belt rising into featureless, wooded ranges in shades of indigo and grey, and a never-absent consciousness of a vast ocean just out of sight, are the environments of two high look-outs, some sheds for fish-oil purposes, four or five Japanese houses, four Aino huts on the top of the beach across the river, and a grey barrack, con sisting of a polished passage eighty feet long, with small rooms on either side, at one end a gravelled yard, with two quiet rooms opening upon it, and at the other an immense daidokoro., with dark recesses and blackened rafters, a haunted-looking abode. One would suppose that there had been a special object in setting the houses down at weary distances from each other. Few as they are, they are not all inhabited at this season, and all that can be seen is grey sand, sparse grass, and a few savages creeping about. Nothing that T have seen has made such an impres- sion upon me as that ghostly, ghastly fishing-station. In the long grey wall oi the long grey barrack there were many dismal windows, and when we hooted for admission a stupid face appeared at one of them and disappeared. Then a grey gateway opened, and we rode into a yard of grej^ gravel, with some silent rooms opening upon it. The solitude of the thirty or forty rooms which lie between it and the kitchen, and which are now filled with nets and fishing-tackle, was some- thing awful, and as the wind swept along the polished passage, rattling the fusuma., and lifting the shingles on the roof, and the rats careered from end to end, I went to the great black daidokoro in search of social life, and found a few embers and an andon, and nothing else but the stupid-faced man deploring his fate, and two orphar boys whose lot he makes more wretched than his own. In the fishing season this barrack accommodates fi'oa' 200 to 300 men. SOLITUDE AND EERINESS. 45 I started to the sea-shore, crossing the dreary river, and found open sheds much blackened, deserted huts of reeds, long sheds with a nearly insufferable odour from caldrons in which oil had been extracted from last year’s fish, two or three Aino huts, and two or three grand-looking Ainos, clothed in skins, striding like ghosts over the sandbanks, a number of wolfish dogs, some log canoes or “ dug-outs,” the bones of a wrecked junk, a quantity of bleached drift-wood, a beach of dark-grey sand, and a tossing expanse of dark-grey ocean under a dull and windy sky. On this part of the coast the Pacific spends its fury, and has raised up at a short distance above high-water mark a sandy sweep of such a height that when you descend its sea- ward slope you see nothing but the sea and the sky, and a grey, curving shore, covered tliick for many a lonely mile with fantastic forms of whitened drift-wood, the shattered wrecks of forest-trees, which are carried down by the innumerable rivers, till, after tossing foi weeks and months along with “ wrecks of ships, and drifting spars uplifting On the desolate, rainy seas : Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, On the shifting Currents of the restless main ; ” the “toiling surges ” cast them on Yubets beach, and “ All have found repose again.” A grim repose ! The deep boom of the surf was music, and the strange cries of sea-birds, and the hoarse notes of the audacious black crows, were all harmonious, for nature, when left to herself, never produces discords either in sound oi colour. 16 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. A MEETING. The Harmonies of Xature — A Good Horse — A Single Discord — A Forest — Aino Ferrymen — “ Les Puces I Les Puces 1 '' — Baffled Explorers — Ito’s Contempt for Ainos — An Aino Introduction. Sabututo. No ! Nature has no discords. This morning, to the far horizon, diamond-flashing blue water shimmered in perfect peace, outlined by a line of surf which broke lazily on a beach scarcely less snowy than itseK. The deep, perfect blue of the sky was only broken by a few radiant white clouds, whose shadows trailed slowly over the plain on whose broad bosom a thousand corollas, in the glory of their brief but passionate life, were drink- ing in the sunshine, wavy ranges slept in depths of indigo, and higher hills beyond were painted in faint blue on the dreamy sky. Even the few grey houses of Yubets were spiritualised into harmony by a faint blue veil which was not a mist, and the loud croak of the loquacious and impertinent crows had a cheeriness about it, a hearty mockery, which I liked. Above all, I had a horse so good that he was always trying to run away, and galloped so lightly over the flowery grass that I rode the seventeen miles here with great enjoyment. Truly a good horse, good ground to gallop on, and sunshine, make up the sum of enjoyable travelling. The discord in the general harmony was produced by the sight of the Ainos, a harmless people without the instinct of progress, descending to that \ ast A FOREST. 47 tomb of conquered and unknown races which has opened to receive so many before them. A mounted policeman started with us from Yubets, and rode the whole way here, keeping exactly to my pace, but never speaking a word. We forded one broad, deep river, and crossed another, partly by fording and partly in a scow, after which the track left the level, and after passmg through reedy grass as high as the horse’s ears, went for some miles up and down hill, through woods composed entirely of the Ailatithus glandulosus, with leaves much riddled by the mountain silk-worm, and a ferny undergrowth of the familiar Pteris aquilina. The deep shade and glancing lights of this open copsewood were very pleasant ; and as the horse tripped gaily up and down the little hills, and the sea murmur mingled with the rustle of the breeze, and a glint of white surf sometimes flashed through the greenery, and dragon-flies and butterflies in suits of crimson and black velvet crossed the path continually like “ living flashes ” of light, I was reminded somewhat, though faintly, of windward Hawaii. We emerged upon an Aino hut and a beautiful placid river, and two Ainos ferried the four people and horses across in a scow, the third wad- ing to guide the boat. They wore no clothing, but only one was hairy. They were superb-looking men, gentle, and extremely courteous, handing me in and out of the boat, and holding the stirrup while I mounted, with much natural grace. On leaving they extended their arms and waved their hands inwards twice, stroking their grand beards afterwards, which is their usual salu- tation. A short distance over shingle brought us to this Japanese village of sixty-three houses, a colonisation settlement, mainly of samurai from the province of Sendai, who are raising A'ory fine crops on the sandy soil. The mountains, twelve miles in the interior, have 48 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. a large Aino population, ^ and a few Ainos live near this village and are held in great contempt by its inhabitants My room is on the village street, and as it is too warm to (ilose the slioji., the aborigines stand looking in at the lattice hour after hour. A short time ago Mr. Von Siebold and Count Dies- bach galloped up on their return from Biratori, the Aino village to wliich I am going ; and Count D., throwing himself from his horse, rushed up to me with the ex- clamation, Les Puces! Les Puces! They have brought down with them the cliief, Benri, a superb but dissi- pated-looking savage. IMr Von Siebold called on me this evening, and I envied him his fresh, clean clothing as much as he envied me my stretcher and mosquito- net. They have suffered terribly from fleas, mosquitoes, and general discomfort, and are much exhausted ; but Mr. Von S. thinks that in spite of all, a visit to the mountain Ainos is worth a long jonrney. As I ex- pected, they have completelj^ failed in their explorations, and have been deserted by Lieutenant Kreitner. I asked Mr. Von S. to speak to Ito in Japanese about the importance of being kind and courteous to the Ainos whose hospitality I shall receive ; and Ito is very in- dignant at this. “ Treat Ainos politely ! ’’ he says ; “ They’re just dogs, not men ; ” and since he has regaled 1 It is impossible to state with any exactness the Aino population of Yezo. Mr. Enslie, who was H.B.M.’s acting consul at ITakodate from 18G1 to 18G.S, gives it as 200,000 ! Foreigners in Tezo during my A-isit estimated it at 25,000. The Statistical Department of the Japanese Government gave it to me as 12,000, but with a qualification, as stated in the “ Notes on Yezo.” I am much inclined to think that this may be under the mark by some thousands, as smallpox, which caused a con- siderable decline in their numbers, has ceased. They are a healthy people, the children are not carried off by infantile diseases ; and though there are rarely more than five in a family, they usually live ■'•o grow up. I hazard this conjecture as to their larger numbers from the population which I ascertained to exist in eight of their villages. AN JINO INTBODUCTION. 49 me with all the scandal concerning them which he has been able to rake together in the village. We have to take not only food for both Ito and my- self, but cooking utensils. I have been introduced to Benri, the chief; and though he does not return fora day or two, he will send a message along with us which wiU ensure me hospitality. I. L. B. 50 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. LIVING WITH THE AINOS. Savage Life — A Forest Track — Cleanly Villages — A Hospitable Eeception — The Chief’s Mother — The Evening Meal — A Sav- age Seance — Libations to the Gods — Nocturnal Silence — Aino Courtesy — The Cliief’s Wife. Aino Hot, Biratori, August 23. I AM in the lonely Aino land, and I think that the most interesting of my travelling experiences has been the living for three days and two nights in an Aino hut. AINO HOUSES. and seeing and sharing the daily life of complete sav- ages, who go on with their ordiiiaiy occupations just as if I were not among them. I found yesterday a most bAVAGE LIFE. 51 fatiguing and over-exciting day, as everything was new and interesting, even the extracting from men who have few if any ideas in common with me, all I could extract concerning their religion and customs, and that through an interpreter. I got up at six tliis morning to write out my notes, and have been writing for five A1N08 AT HOME {From a Japaneae SkHih). hours, and there is shortly the prospect of another sa'v ■ age seance. The distractions, as you can imagine, are many. At this moment a savage is taking a cup of sake by the fire in the centre of the floor. He salutes me by extending his hands and waving them towards his face, and then dips a rod in the sake, and makes six libations to the god — an upright piece of wood with a 52 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. fringe of shavings planted in the floor of the room. Then he waves the cup several times towards himself, makes other libations to the Are, and drinks. Ten other men and women are sitting along each side of the flre-hole, the chief’s wife is cooking, the men are apa- ihetically contemplating the preparation of theii’ food . and the other women, who are never idle, are splitting vhe bark of wliich they make theii’ clothes. I occupy the fuest seat — a raised platform at one end of the fire, vith the skin of a black bear thrown over it. I have reserved all I have to say about the Ainos till [ had been actually among them, and I hope you will have patience to read to the end. Ito is very greedy and self-indulgent, and whimpered very much about coming to Biratori at all, — one would have thought he was going to the stake. He actually borrowed for him- self a sleeping-mat and futons., and has brought a chicken, onions, potatoes, French beans, Japanese sauce, tea, rice, a kettle, a stew-pan, and a rice-pan, while I contented myself with a cold fowl and potatoes. We took three horses and a mounted Aino guide, and found a beaten track the whole way. It turns into the forest at once on leaving Sarufuto, and goes through forest the entire distance, with an abundance of reedy grass higher than my hat on horseback along it, and as it is only twelve inches broad and much overgrown, the horses were constantly pushing through leafage soaking from a night’s ram, and I was soon wet up to my shoul- ders. The forest trees are almost solely the Ailanthus glandulosus and the Zclkoiva keahi, often matted together with a white-flowered trailer of the Hydrangea genus. The imdergrowth is siinpl}' hideous, consisting mainly of coarse reedy grass, monstrous docks, the large- leaved Polygonum cuspidatum, several umbelliferous plants, and a “ragweed,” which, like most of its gawkv A FOREST TRACK. 53 fellows, grows from five to six feet high. The forest is dark and very silent, threaded b / this narrow path, and by others as narrow, made by the hunters in search of game. The “ main road ” sometimes plunges into deep bogs, at others is roughly corduroyed by the roots of trees, and frequently hangs over the edge of abrupt and much-worn declivities, in going up one of which the baggage-horse rolled down a bank fully thirty feet high, and nearly all the tea was lost. At another the guide’s pack-saddle lost its balance, and man, horse, and saddle went over the slope, pots, pans, and pack- ages flying after them. At another time my horse sank up to his chest in a very bad bog, and as he was totally unable to extricate himself, I was obliged to scramble upon his neck and jump to terra firma over his ears. There is something very gloomy in the solitude of this silent land, with its beast-haunted forests, its great patches of pasture, the resort of wild animals which haunt the lower regions in search of food when the snow drives them down from the mountains, and its narrow track, indicating the single file in which the savages of the interior walk with their bare, noiseless feet. Reaching the Sarufutogawa, a river with a treacherous bottom, in which Mr. Von Siebold and his horse came to grief, I hailed an Aino boy, who took me up the stream in a “dug-out,” and after that we passed through Biroka, Saruba, and Mina, all purely Aino vil- lages, situated among small patches of millet, tobacco, and pumpkins, so choked with weeds that it was doubt- ful whether they were crops. I was much surprised with the extreme neatness and cleanliness outside the houses ; “ model villages ” they are in these respects, with no litter lying in sight anywhere, nothing indeed but dog troughs, hollowed out of logs, like “dug-outs,” for the numerous yellow dogs, which are a featiire of 54 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Aino life. There are neither puddles nor heaps, but the houses, all trim and in good repair, rise clean out of the sandy soil. Biratori, the largest of the Aino settlements in this region, is very prettily situated among forests and mountains, on rising ground, with a very sinuous river winding at its feet and a wooded height above. A lonelier place could scarcely be found. As we passed among the houses the yellow dogs barked, the women looked shy and smiled, and the men made their grace- ful salutation. We stopped at the chief’s house, where, of course, we were unexpected guests ; but Shinondi, his nephew, and two other men came out, saluted us, and with most hospitable intent helped Ito to unload the horses. Indeed their eager hospitality created quite a commotion, one running hither and the other thither in their anxiety to welcome a stranger. It is a large house, the room being 35 by 25, and the roof 20 feet high ; but you enter by an ante-chamber, in which are kept the millet-mill and other articles. There is a door- way in this, but the inside is pretty dark, and Shinondi, taking my hand, raised the reed curtain bound with hide, which concealed the entrance into the actual house, and leading me into it, retired a footstep, ex- tended his arms, waved his hands inwmrds tliree times, and then stroked his beard several times, after wldch he indicated b}" a sweep of his hand and a beautiful smile that the house and all it contained were mine. An aged woman, the chiefs mother, who was splitting bark by the fire, waved her hands also. She is the queen-regnant of the house. Again taking m^^ hand, Shinondi led me to the place of honour at the head of the fire, a rude, movable plat- form six feet long, by four broad, and a foot liigh, on which he laid an ornamental mat, apologising for not A HOSPITABLE BECEPTION. 55 having at that moment a bearskin wherewith to cover it. The baggage was speedil}^ brought in by several willing pairs of hands ; some reed mats fifteen feet long were laid down upon the very coarse ones which covered the whole floor, and when they saw Ito putting up my stretcher they hung a fine mat along the rough wall to conceal it, and suspended another on the beams of the roof for a canopy. The alacrity and instinctive hospitality with winch these men rushed about to make AINO MILLET-MILL AND PESTLE. ihings comfortable were very fascinating, though com- fort is a word misapplied in an Aino hut. The women only did what the men told them. They offered food at once, but I told them that I had brought my own, and would only ask leave to cook it on their fire. I need not have brought any cups, for they have many lacquer bowls, and Shinondi brought me on a lacquer tray a bowl full of water from one of their four wells. They said that Benri, the chief, would wish me to make his house my own for as long as 1 56 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. cared to stay, and I must excuse them in all things in which their ways were different from my own. Shi- nondi and four others in the village speak tolerable Japanese, and this of course is the medium of commu- nication. Ito has exerted himself nobly as an interpre- ter, and has entered into my wishes with a cordialitj and intelligence which have been perfectly invaluable ; and though he did growl at Mr. Von Siebold’s injunc- tions regarding politeness, he has carried them out to my satisfaction, and even admits that the mountain Ainos are better than he expected ; “ but,” he added, “ they have learned their politeness from the Japanese ! ” They have never seen a foreign woman, and only three foreign men, but there is neither crowding nor staring as among the Japanese, possibly in part from apathy and want of intelligence. For three days they have kept up their graeeful and kindly hospitality, going on with their ordinary life and occupations, and though I have lived among them in tliis room by day and night, there has been nothing which in any way could offend the most fastidious sense of delicacy. They said they would leave me to eat and rest, and all retired but the chief’s mother, a weird, witch-like woman of eighty, with shocks of yellow-white hair, and a stern suspiciousness in her wrinkled face. I have come to feel as if she had the e'sdl eye, as she sits there watching, watching always, and for ever knotting the bark tliread like one of the Fates, keeping a jealous watch on her son’s two wives, and on other young women who come in to weave - -neither the dulness nor the repose of old age about her; and her eyes gleam with a greedy light when she sees sahe, of which she drains a bowl without taking breath. She alone is sus- picious of strangers, and she thinks that my Ausit bodes no good to her tribe. I see her eyes fixed i pon me now, and they make me shudder. THE EVENING MEAL. 57 I had a good meal seated in my chair on the top of the guest-seat to avoid the fleas, which are truly legion. At dusk Shinondi returned, and soon people began to drop in, till eighteen were assembled, including the sub- chief, and several very grand-looking old men, ■with full- grey, wavy beards. Age is held in much reverence, and it is etiquette for these old men to do honour to a guest in the chiefs absence. As each entered he saluted me several times, and after sitting down turned towards me and saluted again, going through the same ceremonj' with every other person. They said they had come “ to bid me welcome.” They took their places in rigid order at each side of the fireplace, which is six feet long, Benri’s mother in the place of honour at the right, then Shinondi, then the sub-chief, and on the other side the old men. Besides these, seven women sat in a row in the background splitting bark. A large iron pan hung over the fire from a blackened arrangement above, and Benri’s principal wife cut ■wild roots, green beans, and seaweed, and shred dried fish and venison among them, adding millet, water, and some strong-smelling fish-oil, and set the whole on to stew for three hours, stirring the “ mess ” now and then with a wooden spoon. Several of the older people smoke, and I handed round some mild tobacco, which they received with waving hands. I told them that I came from a land in the sea, very far away, where they saw the sun go down, so very far away that a horse would have to gallop day and night for five weeks to reach it, and that I had come a long journey to see them, and that I wanted to ask them many questions, so that when I went home I might tell my own people something about them. Shinondi and another man, who understood Japanese, bowed, and (as on every occasion) translated what I said into Aino for the venerable group opposite. 58 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Shinondi then said “ that he and Shinrichi, the other Japanese speaker, would tell me all they knew, but they were but young men, and only knew what was told to them. They would speak what they believed to be true, but the chief knew more than they, and when he came back he might tell me differently, and then I should think that they had spoken lies.” I said that no one who looked into their faces could think that they ever told lies. They were very much pleased, and SHINONDI AND SHINRICHI. waved their hands and stroked their beards repeatedly. Before they told me anything, they begged and prayed that I would not inform the Japanese Government that they had told me of their customs, or harm might come to them ! For the next two hours, and for two more after sup- {)er, I asked them questions concerning their religion and customs, and again yesterday for a considerable time, and this morning, after Benri’s return, I went over the same subjects with him, and have also employed a LIBATIONS TO THE GODS. 59 considerable time in getting about 300 words from them, which I have spelt phonetically of course, and intend to go over again when I visit the coast Ainosd The process was slow, as both question and answer had to pass through three languages. There was a very manifest desire to tell the truth, and I think that their statements concerning their few and simple customs may be relied upon. I shall give what they told me separately when I have time to write out my notes in an orderly manner. I can only say that I have seldom spent a more interesting evening. About nine the stew was ready, and the women ladled it into lacquer bowls with wooden spoons. The men were served first, but all ate together. Afterwards sake, their curse, was poured into lacquer bowls, and across each bowl a finely-carved “ sake-stick ” was laid. These sticks are very highly prized. The bowls were waved several times with an inward motion, then each man took his stick and, dipping it into the sake, made six libations to the fire, and several to the “god,” a wooden post, with a quantity of spiral white shavings falling from near the top. The Ainos are not afi’ected by sake nearly so easily as the Japanese. They took it cold, it is true, but each drank about three times as much as would have made a Japanese foolish, and it had no effect upon them. After two hours more talk one after another got up and went out, making profuse 1 These words are given in the Appendix. I went over them with the Ainos of a remote village on Volcano Bay, and found the differ- ences in pronunciation very slight, except that the definiteness of the Bound which I have represented by Tsch was more strongly marked. I afterwards went over them with Mr. Dening, and with Mr. Von Sie- bold at Tokiyo, who have made a larger collection of words than I have, and it is satisfactory to find that we have represented the words in the main by the same letters, with the single exception that usually the sound represented by them by the letters c/t, I have given as Tsch, and I venture to think that this is the most correct rendering 60 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. salutations to me and to the others. My candles had been forgotten, and our seance was held by the fitful light of the big logs on the fire, aided by a succession of chips of birch bark, with which a woman replenished a cleft stick that was stuck into the fire-hole. I never saw such a strangely picturesque sight as that group of magnificent savages with the fitful firelight on theii' faces, and for adjuncts the flare of the torch, the strong lights, the blackness of the recesses of the room and of the roof, at one end of which the stars looked in, and the row of savage women in the backgrormd — eastern savagery and western civilisation met in this hut, sav- agery giving, and civilisation receiving, the yellow- skinned Ito the connecting-link between the two, and the representative of a civilisation to which our own is but an “ infant of days.” I found it very exciting, and when all had left crept out into the starlight. The lodges were all dark and silent, and the dogs, mild like their masters, took no notice of me. The only sound was the rustle of a light breeze through the surrounding forest. The verse came into my mind, “ It is not the will of your Father which is in Heaven that one of these little ones should per- ish.” Surely these simple savages are children, as chil- dren to be judged ; may we not hope as children to be saved through Him who came “ not to judge the world, but to save the world ” ? I crept back again and into my mosquito net, and suffered not from fleas or mosquitoes, but from severe cold. Shinondi conversed with Ito for some time in a low musical voice, having pre\dously asked if it would keep me from sleeping. No Japanese ever intermitted his ceaseless chatter at any hour of the night for a simi- lar reason. Later, the cliiefs principal wife, Noma, stuck a triply-cleft stick in the fire-hole, put a potsherd THE CHIEF'S WIFE. 01 with a wick and some fish-oil upon it, and by the dim light of this rude lamp sewed until midnight at a gar ment of bark cloth which she was ornamenting for her loid with strips of blue cloth, and when I opened my eyes the next morning she was at the window sewing by the earliest daylight. She is the most intelligent- looking of all the women, but looks sad and almost stern, and speaks seldom. Although she is the princi- pal wife of the chief, she is not happy, for she is child- less, and I thought that her sad look darkened into something evil as the other wife caressed a fine baby boy. Benri seems to me something of a brute, and the mother-in-law obviously holds the reins of government pretty tight. After sewing till midnight she swept the mats with a bunch of twigs, and then crept into her bed behind a hanging mat. For a moment in the still- ness I felt a feeling of panic, as if I Avere incurring a risk by being alone among savages, but I conquered it, and after watching the fire till it went out, fell asleep till I was awoke by the severe cold of the next day’s dawn. 62 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. AINO HOSPITALITY. A Supposed Act of Worship — Pareutal Tenderness — Morning Visits — Wretched Cultivation — Ilonesty and Generosity — A “ Dug-out ” — Female Occupations — The Ancient Fate — A Xew Arrival — A Perilous I’rescription — The Shrine of Yoshitsune — The Chief’s lieturn. When I crept from under my net, much benumbed witli cold, tliere were about eleven people In the room, who all made tlieir graceful salutation. It did not seem as if they had ever heard of wasliing, for when water v/as asked for, Shinondi brought a little in a lacquer bowl, and held it Avhile I batlied my face and hands, supposing the performance to be an act of worsliip ! I was about to throw some cold tea out of the window by my bed, Avhen he arrested me with an anxious face, and I saw Avhat I had not obserA*ed before, that there was a god at that window, a stick with festoons of shavings hanging from it, and beside it a dead bird. The Ainos have two meals a day, and their breakfast was a repetition of the previous night’s supper. We all ate together, and I gaA^e the children the remains of my rice, and it was most amusing to see little creatures of three, four, and five years old, with no other clothing than a piece of pewter hanging round their necks, first formally asking leave of the parents before taking the rice, and then waving their hands. The obedience of the children is instantaneous. Their parents are more demonstrative in their affection than the Japanese are, MORNING VISITS. 63 caressing them a good deal, and two of the men are devoted to children who are not their own. These little ones are as grave and dignified as Japanese children, and are very gentle. I went out soon after five, when the dew was glitter- ing in the sunshine, and the mountain hollow in which Biratori stands was looking its very best, and the iileuce of the place, even though the people were all astir, was as impressive as that of the night before. What a strange life ! knowing nothing, hoping nothing, fearing a little, the need for clothes and food the one motive principle, sake in abundance the one good ! How very few points of contact it is possible to have ! T was just thinking so, when Shinondi met me, and took me to his house to see if I could do anything for a child sorely afflicted with skin disease, and his ex- treme tenderness for this very loathsome object made me feel that human affections were the same among them as with us. He had carried it on his back from a village, five miles distant, that morning, in the hope that it might be cured. As soon as I entered, he laid a fine mat on the floor, and covered the guest-seat with a bearskin. After breakfast he took me to the lodge of the sub-chief, the largest in the village, 45 feet square, and into about twenty others all constructed in the same way, but some of them were not more than 20 feet square. In all, I was received with the same courtesy, but a few of the people asked Shinondi not to take me into their houses, as they did not want me to see how poor they are. In every house there was the low shelf with more or fewer curios upon it, but besides these, none but the barest necessaries of life, though the skins which they sell or barter every year would enable them to surround themselves with comforts, were it not that their gains represent to them sake and 64 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. nothing else. They are not nomads. On the contrary* they cling tenaciously to the sites on which theii fathers have lived and died. But any tiring more de- plorable than the attempts at cultivation which sur- round their lodges could not be seen. The soil is little better than white sand, on which without manure they attempt to grow millet, which is to them in the place of rice, pumpkins, onions, and tobacco, but the look of their plots is as if they had been cultivated ten years ago, and some chance-sown grain and vegetables had come up among the weeds. When nothing more will grow, they partially clear another bit of forest, and ex- haust that in its turn. In every house the same honour was paid to a guest. This seems a savage virtue which is not strong enough to survive much contact with civilisation. Before I entered one lodge, the woman brought several of the finer mats, and arranged them as a pathway for me to walk to the fire upon. They will not accept anything for lodging, or for anything that they give, so I was anxious to help them by buying some of their handi- work, but found even tliis a difficult matter. They were very anxious to give, but when I desired to buy they said they did not wish to part with their things. I wanted what they had in actual use, such as a tobacco- box and pipe-sheath, and knives with carved handles and scabbards, and for three of these I offered 2i dol- lars. They said they did not care to sell them, but in the evening they came saying they were not worth more than 1 dollar 10 cents, and they would sell them for that ; and I could not get them to take more. They said it was “not their custom.” I bought a bow and three poisoned arrows, two reed-mats, "with a diamond pattern on them in reeds stained red, some knives with sheaths, and a bark cloth dress. I tried to buy the A '' bug-out:' 65 e-a/c^-sticks with which they make libations to their gods, but they said it was “ not their custom ” to part with the sa/;^-stick of any living man — however, this morn- ing Shinondi has brought me, as a very valuable present, the stick of a dead man ! This morning the man who sold the arrows brought two new ones, to replace two which were imperfect. I found them, as Mr. Von Sie- bold had done, punctiliously honest in all their transac- tions. They wear very large earrings with hoops an inch and a half in diameter, a pair eonstituting the dowry of an Aino bride, but they would not part with these. A house was burned down two nights ago, and “custom” in such a case requires that all the men should work at rebuilding it, so in their absence I got two boys to take me in a “ dug-out ” as far as we could go up the Sarufutogawa, a lovely river, wliich winds tortuously through the forests and mountains in un- speakable loveliness. I had much of the feeling of the ancient mariner — “We were the first Who ever burst Into that silent sea.” For certainly no European had ever previously floated on the dark and forest-shrouded waters. I enjoyed those hours thoroughly, for the silence was profound, and the faint blue of the autumn sky, and the soft blue veil which “ spiritualised ” the distances, were so exquis- itely like the Indian summer. The evening was spent like the previous one, but the hearts of the savages were sad, for there was no more sake in Biratori, so they could not “ drink to the god,” and the fire and the post with the shavings had to go without libations. There was no more oil, so after the strangers retired the hut was in complete darkjiess. 66 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. Yesterday morning we all breakfasted soon after day- light, and the able-bodied men went away to hunt, Hunting and fishing are their occupations, and foi “ indoor recreation ” they carve tobacco-boxes, knife- sheaths, sa^e-sticks, and shuttles. It is quite unneces- AINO STORE-HOUSE. sary for them to do anything ; they^ are quite contented to sit by the fii’e, and smoke occasionally, and eat and sleep, this apathy being varied by* spasms of activity when there is no more dried flesh in the kuras, and when skins must be taken to Sarufuto to pay for sake. The women seem never to have an idle moment. They THE ANCIENT FATE. 67 rise early to sew, weave, and split bark, for they not only clothe themselves and their husbands in this nearly indestructible cloth, but weave it for barter, and the lower class of Japanese are constantly to be seen wearing the product of Airio industry. They do all the hard work, such as drawing water, chopping wood, grinding millet, and cultivating the soil, after their fashion ; but to do the men justice, I often see them trudging along, carrying one and even two chil- dren. The women take the exclusive charge of the kuras, which are never entered by men. I was left for some hours alone with the women, of whom there were seven in the hut, with a few children. On the one side of the fire the chiefs mother sat like a Fate, for ever splitting and knotting bark, and petrify- ing me by her cold, fateful eyes. Her thick, grey hair hangs in shocks, the tattooing round her mouth has nearly faded, and no longer disguises her really hand- some features. She is dressed in a much ornamented bark-cloth dress, and wears two silver beads tied round her neck by a piece of blue cotton, in addition to very large earrings. She has much sway in the house, sit- ting on the men’s side of the fire, drinking plenty of sake, and occasionally chiding her grandson Shinondi for tellmg me too much, saying that it will bring harm to her people. Though her expression is so severe and forbidding, she is certainly very handsome, and it is a European, not an Asiatic, beauty. The younger women were all at work ; two were seated on the floor weaving without a loom, and the others were making and mending the bark coats which are worn by both sexes. Noma, the chief’s principal wife, sat apart, seldom speaking. Two of the youngest women are very pretty — as fair as ourselves, and their comeliness is of the rosy, peasant kind. It turns oif G8 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. that two of them, though they would not divulge it before men, speak Japanese, and they prattled to Ito with great vivacity and merriment; the ancient Fate scowling at them the while from under her shaggy eye- brows. I got a number of words from them, and they laughed heartily at my erroneous pronunciation. They even asked me a number of questions regarding then 0 svn sex among ourselves, but few of these would bear re])etition, and they answered a number of mine. As the merriment increased the old woman looked increas- ingly angry and restless, and at last rated them sharply, as I have heard since, tellmg them that, if they spoke another word, she should tell their husbands tliat they had been talking to strangers. After this not another word was spoken, and Noma, who is an industrious housewife, boiled some millet into a mash for a mid-day lunch. During the afternoon a very handsome young Aino, with a washed, richly-coloured skin and fine clear eyes, came up from the coast, where he had been work- ing at the fishing. He saluted the old woman and Benri’s wife on entering, and presented the former with a gourd of sake., bringing a greedy light into her eyes as she took a long draught, after which, saluting me, he threw himself down in the place of honour by the fire, with the easy grace of a staghound, a savage all over. His name is Pipichari, and he is the chiefs adopted son. He had cut his foot badly with a root, and asked me to cure it, and I stipulated that it should be bathed for some time in warm water before an3dhing more was done, after which I bandaged it with lint. He said “ he did not like me to touch his foot, it was not clean enough, my hands were too white,” etc. ; but when I had dressed it, and the pain was much relieved, he bowed very low and then kissed my hand ! He was the only one among them all who showed the slightest curiosity regarding A NEW ARRIVAL. 69 my things. He looked at my scissors, touched my boots, and watched me, as I wrote, with the simple curiosity of a child. He could speak a little Japanese, but he said he was “ too young to tell me anything, the older men would know.” He is a “ total abstainer ” from Bake, and he says that there are four such besides liim- self among the large number of Ainos who are just now at the fishing at Mombets, and that the others keep separate from them, because they think that the gods will be angry with them for not drinking. Several “patients,” mostly children, were brought in during the afternoon. Ito was much disgusted by my interest in these people, who, he repeated, “are just dogs ; ” referring to their legendary origin, of which they are not ashamed. His assertion that they have learned politeness from the Japanese, is simply base- less. Their politeness, though of quite another and more manly stamp, is savage, not civilised. The men came back at dark, the meal was prepared, and we sat round the fire as before ; but there was no sake, except in the possession of the old woman ; and again the hearts of the savages were sad. I could multiply instances of their politeness. As we were talking, Pipichari, who is a very “ untutored ” savage, dropped his coat from one shoulder, and at once Shinondi signed to him to put it on again. Again, a woman was sent to a distant village for some oil, as soon as they heard that I usually burned a light all night. Little acts of courtesy were constantly being performed ; but I really appreciated nothing more than the quiet way in which they went on with the routine of their ordinary lives. During the evening a man came to ask if I would go and see a woman who could hardly breathe ; and I found her v ery ill of bronchitis, accompanied with much fever. She was lying in a coat of skins, tossing on 70 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. the hard boards of her bed, with a matting-co'S’ered roll under lier head, and her husband was trying to make her swallow some salt fish. I took her dry, hot hand, such a small hand, tattooed all over the back ; and it gave me a strange thrill. The room was full of people, and they all seemed very sorry. A medical missionary would be of little use here ; but a medically-trained nurse, who would give medicines and proper food, with proper nursing, would save many lives and much suffering. It is of no use to tell these people to do anything which requires to be done more than once : they are just like children. I gave her some chloro- dyne, which she swallowed with difirculty, and left another dose ready mixed, to give her in a few hours ; but about midnight they came to tell me that she was worse ; and on going I found her very cold and weak, and breathing very hard, moving her head wearily from side to side. I thought she could not live for many hours, and was much afraid that they would think that 1 had killed her. I told them that I thought she would die ; but they lu-ged me to do something more for her ; and as a last hope I gave her some brandy, with twenty-five drops of chlorod 5 ’ne, and a few spoonfuls of very strong beef-tea. She was unable, or more probably unwilling, to make the effort to swallow it, and I ponred it down her throat by the wild glare of strips of birch bark. An hour later they came back to tell me that she felt as if she was very drunk; but going back to her house, I found that ste was sleeping quietly, and breathing more easily ; and creeping back just at dawn, I found her still sleeping, and with her pulse stronger and calmer. She is now decidedl}^ better, and quite sensible, and her husband, the sub-chief, is much delighted. It seems so sad that they have nothing fit for a sick person's food ; and FEAR OF THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT. 71 though I have made a bowl of beef-tea with tha remains of my stock, it can only last one day. I was so tired with these nocturnal expeditions and anxieties, that on lying down I fell asleep, and on wak- ing found more than the usual assemblage in the room, and the men were obviously agog about sometlring. They have a singular, and I hope an unreasonable, fear of the Japanese Government. Mr. Von Siebold thinks that the officials threaten and knock them about ; and this is possible ; but I really think that the Kaitailcuslii Department means well by them, and, besides removing the oppressive restrictions by which, as a conquered race, they were fettered, treats them far more humanely and equitably than the U. S. Gov- ernment, for instance, treats the North American Indians. However, they are ignorant ; and one of the men who had been most grateful because I said I would get Dr. Hepburn to send some medicine for his child, came this morning and begged me not to do so, as, he said, “the Japanese Government would be angry.” After this they again prayed me not to tell the Japanese Government that they had told me their customs ; and then they began to talk earnestly to- gether. The sub-chief then spoke, and said that I had been kind to their sick people, and they would like to show me their temple, which had never been seen by any foreigner ; but they were very much afraid of doing so, and they asked me many times “not to tell tlie Japan- ese Government that they showed it to me, lest some great liarm should happen to them.” The sub-chief put on a sleeveless Japanese war-cloak to go up, and he, Shinondi, Pipichari, and two others accompanied me. It was a beautiful but very steep walk, oi' rather climb, to the top of an abrupt acclivity beyond ihe 72 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAFAN. village, on which the temple or shrine stands. It would be impossible to get up, were it not for the remains of a wooden staircase, not of Aino construc- tion. Forest and mountain surround Biratori, and the only breaks in the dense greenery are glints of the shining waters of the Sarufutogawa, and the tawny ro<.'fs of the Aino lodges. It is a lonely and a silent land, fitter for the hiding place than the dwelling place of men. When the splendid young savage, Pipichari, saw that I found it difficult to get up, he took my hand and helped me up, as gently as an English gentleman would have done ; and when he saw that I had greater difficulty in getting doAvn, he all but insisted on my riding down on his back, and certainly would have carried me, had not Benri, the chief, who arrived while we were at the slirine, made an end of it by taking my hand and helping me down himself. Their instinct of helpfulness to a foreign woman strikes me as so odd, because they never show any courtesy to their owm women, whom they treat (though to a less extent than is usual among savages) as inferior beings. On the very edge of the cliff, at the top of the zigzag, stands a wooden temple or shrine, such as one sees in any grove, or on any high place on the main island, obviously of Japanese construction, but concerning which Aino tradition is silent. No European had ever stood where I stood, and there was a solemnity in the knowledge. The sub-chief drew back the sliding doors, and all bowed with much reverence. It was a simple shrine of unlacquered wood, 'with a broad shelf at the back, on -ndiich there w^as a small slmine containing a figure of the historical hero Yoshitsuiffi, in a suit of in- laid bi’ass armour, some metal gohei, a pair of tarnished brass candlesticks, and a coloured Chinese picture repre- senting a junk. Here, then, I was introduced to Ihe THE CHIEF’S BETURN. 73 gieat god of the mountain Ainos. There is something very pathetic in these people keeping alive the memory of Yoshitsund, not on account of liis martial exploits, but simply because their tradition tells them that he was kind to them. They pulled the bell three times to attract his attention, bowed three times, and made six libations of sa/ce, without which ceremon}^ he can- not be approached. They asked me to worship their god, but when T declined on the ground that I could only worship my omi God, the Lord of Earth and Heaven, of the dead and of the living, they were too courteous to press their request. As to Ito, it did not signify to him whether or not he added another god to his already crowded Pantheon, and he “ worshipped,” t.e. bowed down, most willingly before the great hero of his own, the conquering race. While we were crowded there on the narrow ledge of the cliff, Benri, the chief, arrived, a square-built, broad- shouldered, elderly man, strong as an ox, and very handsome, but his expression is not pleasing, and his eyes are bloodshot with drinking. The others saluted him very respectfully, but I noticed then and since that his manner is very arbitrary, and that a blow not infrequently follows a word. He had sent a message to his people by Ito that they were not to answer any questions till he returned, but Ito very tactfully neither gave it nor told me of it, and he was displeased with the young men for having talked to me so much. His mother had evidently “ peached.” I like him less than any of his tribe. He has some fine qualities, truthful- ness among others, but he has been contaminated by the four or five foreigners that he has seen, and is a brute and a sot. The hearts of his people are no longei sad, for there is sake in every house to-night. I. L. B. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN r4 SAVAGE LIFE. Barrenness of Savage Life — Irreclaimable Savages — The Aino Phy- sique — Female Comeliness — Torture and Ornament — Child Life — Docility and Obedience. Blratoei, Yezo, August 24. I EXPECTED to have written out my notes on the Ainos in the comparative quiet and comfort of Sarufuto, but the delay in Benri’s return, and the non-arrival of the horses, have compelled me to accept Aino hospital- ity for another night, which involves living on tea and potatoes, for my stock of food is exhausted. In some respects 1 am glad to remain longer, as it enables me to go over my stock of words, as well as my notes, with the chief, who is intelligent, and it is a pleasure to find that his statements confirm those wliich have been made by the young men. The glamour which at first dis- guises the inherent barrenness of savage life has had time to pass away, and I see it in all its nakedness as a life not much raised above the necessities of animal existence, timid, monotonous, barren of good, dark, dull, “ without hope, and without God m the world ; though at its lowest and worst considerably higher and better than that of many other aboriginal races, and, must I say it? considerably higher and better than that of thousands of the lapsed masses of our own great cities, who are baptized into Clu’ist's name, and aie laid at last in holy ground, inasmuch as the Ainos are truth- ful, and, on the whole, chaste, hospitable, honest, rever- IRRECLAIMABLE SAVAGES. 75 ent, and kind to the aged. Drinking, their great vice, is not, as among us, in antagonism to their religion, but is actually a part of it, and as such would be exception- ally difficult to eradicate. The early darkness has once again come on, and once again the elders have assembled round the fire in two long lines, with the younger men at the ends, Pipichari, who yesterday sat in the place of honour, and was helped to food first as the newest arrival, taking his place as the youngest at the end of the right-hand row. The birch- bark chips beam with fitful glare, the evening sake bowls are filled, the fire-god and the garlanded god receive then- libations, the ancient woman, still sitting like a Fate, splits bark, and the younger women knot it, and the log-fire lights up as magnificent a set of venerable heads as painter or sculptor would desire to see, — heads, full of, — what? They have no history, their traditions are scarcely worthy the name, they claim descent from a dog, their houses and persons swarm with vermin, they are sunk in the grossest ignorance, they have no letters, or any niimbers above a thousand, they are clothed in the bark of trees and the untanned skins of beasts, they worship the bear, the sun, moon, fire, water, and I know not what, they are uncivilisable and altogether irreclaimable savages, yet they are at- tractive, and in some ways fascinating, and I hope I shall never forget the music of their low, sweet voices, the soft light of their mild, brown eyes, and the won- derful sweetness of their smile. After the yellow skins, the stiff horse hair, the feeble eyelids, the elongated eyes, the sloping eyebrows, the fiat noses, the sunken chests, the Mongolian features, the puny physique, the shaky walk of the men, the re- si ricted totter of the women, and the general impres- sion of degeneracy conveyed by the appearance of the 76 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Japanese, the Ainos make a very singular impression All but two or three that I have seen are the most ferocions-looldng of savages, with a vigorous enough for carrying out the most ferocious intentions, but as soon as they speak the countenance brightens into a smile as gentle as that of a woman, something which can never be forgotten. The men are about the middle height, broad-che.stcd, broad-shouldered, “ thick set,” very strongly built, tlie arms and legs sliort, thick, and muscular, the hands and feet large. The bodies, and speciall}^ the limbs, of many are covered with short bristly hair. I have seen two boys whose backs are covered with fur as fine and soft as that of a cat. The heads and faces are very strik- ing. The foreheads are very high, broad, and prominent, and at first sight give one the impression of an unusual capacity for intellectual development ; the ears are small and set low ; the noses are straight but short, and broad at the nostrils ; the mouths are wide but well formed; and the lips rarely show a tendency to fulness. The neck is short, the cranium roimded, the cheek-bones low, and the lower part of the face is small as compared with the upper, the peculiarity called a “jowl” being unknown. The eyebrows are full, and form a straight line nearly across the face. The eyes are large, tolera- bly deeply set, and very beautiful, the colour a rich liquid brown, the expression singularl}' soft, and the eyelashes long, silky, and abundant. The skin has the Italian olive tint, but in most cases is thin, and light enough to show the changes of colour in the cheek. The teeth are small, regular, and ver}' white ; the inci- sors and “ eye teeth ” are not disproportionately large, as is usually the case among the Japanese ; there is no tendency towards prognathism ; and the fold of integn- raent which conceals the upper eyelids of the Japanese THE AINO PHYSIQUE. 77 is never to be met with. The features, expression, and aspect, are European rather than Asiatic. The “ ferocious savagery ” of the appearance of the men is produced by a profusion of thick, soft, black AN AINO PATRIARCH. hair, divided in the middle, and falling in heavy masses nearly to the shoulders. Out of doors it is kept from falling over the face by a fillet round the brow. The beards are equally profuse, quite magnificent, and gen- erally wavy, and in the case of the old men they give a truly patiiarchal and venerable aspect, in spite of the 78 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. yellow tinge produced by smoke and want of cleaiiii- neiis. The savage look produced by the masses of hair and beard, and the thick eyebrows, is mitigated by the softness in the dreamy brown eyes, and is altogether obliterated by the exceeding sweetness of the smile which belongs in greater or less degree to all the rougher sex. I have measured the height of thirty of the adult men of this village, and it ranges from 5 feet 4 inches to five feet inches. The circumference of the heads averages 22.1 inches, and the arc, from ear to ear, 13 inches. According to Mr. Davies, the average weight of the Aino adult masculine brain, ascertained by meas- urement of Aino skulls, is 45.90 ounces avoirdupois, a brain weight said to exceed that of all the races, Hin- doo and Mussulman, on the Indian plains, and that of the aboriginal races of India and Ceylon, and is only paralleled by that of the races of the Himalayas, the Siamese, and the Chinese Burmese. Mr. Da^des says, further, that it exceeds the mean brain weight of Asi- atic races in general. Yet with all this the Ainos are a stupid people. Passing travellers who have seen a few of the Aino women on the road to Satsuporo speak of them as very ugly, but as making amends for their ugliness by their industry and conjugal fidelity. Of the latter there is no doubt, but I am not disposed to admit the former. The ugliness is certainly due to art and dirt. The Aino women seldom exceed five feet and half an inch in height, but they are beautifully formed, straight, lithe, and well-developed, with small feet and hands, well- arched insteps, rounded limbs, well-developed busts, and a firm, elastic gait. Their heads and faces are small ; but the hau-, which falls in masses on each side of the face like that of the men, is equally redurdant TORTURE ANB ORNAMENT. 79 They have superb teeth, and display them liberally in smiling. Their mouths are somewhat wide, but well formed, and they have a ruddy comeliness about them which is pleasing, in spite of the disfigurement of the band which is tattooed both above and below the mouth, and which, by being united larges its apparent size and width. A girl at Shiroai, who, for some reason, has not been subjected to this process, is the most beautiful creature in features, colouring, and natural grace of form, that I have seen for a long time. Their com- plexions are lighter than those of the men. There are not many here even as dark as our European bru- nettes. A few unite the eyebrows by a streak of tattooing, so as to produce a straight line. Like the men, they cut their hair short for two or three inches above the nape of the neck, but instead of using a fillet they take two locks from the front and tie them at the back. They are universally tattooed, not only with the broad band above and below the mouth, but with a band across the knuckles, succeeded by tattooed pemal* hato. an elaborate pattern on the back of the hand, and a series of bracelets extending to the elbow. The process of disfigurement begins at the age of five, when some of the sufferers are yet unweaned. I saw the operation performed on a ,lear little bright girl this morning. A woman took a large knife with a sharp edge, and rapidly cut several horizontal lines on the up- at the corners, en- 80 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. f er lip, following closely the curve of the very pretty mouth, and before the slight bleeding had ceased care- fully rubbed in some of the shiny soot Avhich collects on the mat above the fire. In two or three days the scarred lip will be washed with the decoction of the bark of a tree to fix the pattern, and give it that blue look which makes man}" people mistake it for a daub of paint. A child who had this second process performed yesterday has her lip fearfully swollen and inflamed. The latest victim held her hands clasped tightly together wTile the cuts were inflicted, but never cried. The pattern on the lips is deepened and widened every year up to the time of marriage, and the circles on the arm are ex- tended in a similar way. The men cannot give any reason for the universality of this custom. It is an old custom, they say, and part of their religion, and no woman could marry without it. Benri fancies that the Japanese custom of blackening the teeth is equivalent to it ; but he is mistaken, as that ceremony usually suc- ceeds marriage. They begin to tattoo the arms when a girl is five or six, and w’ork from the elbow" downwards. They expressed themselves as very much grieved and tormented by the recent prohibition of tattooing. They say the gods will be angry, and that the women can't marry unless they are tattooed ; and they implored both Mr. Von Siebold and me to intercede with the Japanese Government on their behalf in this respect. They are less apathetic on this than on any subject, and repeal fi'equently, “ It’s a part of our religion.’’ The children are very pretty and attractive, and theii faces give promise of an intelligence which is lacking in those of the adults. They are much loved, and are caressing as well as caressed. The infants of the mountain Ainos have seeds of millet put into their mouths as soon as they are born, and those of the coast DOCILITY AND OBEDIENCE. 81 Ainos a morsel of salt fish ; and whatever be the houi of birth, “ custom ” requires that they shall not be fed until a night has passed. They are not weaned until they are at least three years old. Boys are preferred to girls, but both are highly valued, and a childless wife may be divorced. Children do not receive names till they are four or five years old, and then the father chooses a name by which his child is afterwards known. Touug children when they travel are either carried on their mothers’ backs in a net, or in the back of the loose garment ; but in both cases the weight is mainly supported by a broad band which passes round the woman’s forehead. When men carry them they hold them in their arms. The hair of very young children is shaven, and from about five to fifteen the boys wear either a large tonsure or tufts above the ears, while the girls are allowed to grow hair all over their heads. Implicit and prompt obedience is required from in- fancy ; and from a very early age the children are util- ised by being made to fetch and carry and go on mes- sages. I have seen children apparently not more than two years old sent for wood ; and even at this age they are so thoroughly trained in the observances of eti- quette, that babies just able to walk never toddle into or out of this house without formal salutations to each person within it, the mother alone excepted. Thej’ don’t wear any clothing till they are seven or eight years old, and are then dressed like their elders. Their manners to their parents are very affectionate. Even to-day, in the chiefs awe-inspiring presence, one dear little nude creature, who had been sitting quietly for two hours staring into the fire with her big brown eyes, rushed to meet her mother when she entered, and threw her arms round her, to which the woman responded by a look of true maternal tenderness and a kiss. These 82 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. little creatures, in the absolute unconsciousness of inno- cence, with their beautiful faces, olive-tinted bodies, — all the darker, sad to say, from dirt — their perfect docUity, and absence of prying curiosity, are very be- witching. They all wear silver or pewter ornaments tied round their necks by a wisp of blue cotton. Apparently the ordinary infantile maladies, such as whooping-cough and measles, do not afflict the Ainos fatally ; but the children suffer from a cutaneous affec- tion, which wears off as they reach the age of ten or eleven years, as weU as from severe toothache with their first teeth. AINO CLOTHING. 83 COSTUME AND CUSTOMS. AJno Clothing — Holiday Dress — Domestic Architecture — House- hold Gods — Japanese Curios — The Necessaries of Life — Clay Soup — Arrow Poison — Arrow Traps — Female Occupations — Bark Cloth — The Art of Weaving. Aino clothing, for savages, is exceptionally good. In the winter it consists of one, two, or more coats of skins, with hoods of the same, to which the men add rude moccasins when they go out hunting. In summer they wear kimonos., or loose coats, made of cloth woven from the split bark of a forest tree. This is a durable and beautiful fabric in various shades of natural buff, and somewhat resembles what is known to fancy work- ers as “ Panama canvas.” Under this a skin or bark- cloth vest may or may not be worn. The men wear these coats reaching a little below the knees, folded over from right to left, and confined at the waist by a narrow girdle of the same cloth, to which is attached a rude, dagger-shaped knife, with a carved and engraved wooden handle and sheath. Smoking is by no means a general practice, consequently the pipe and tobacco-box are not, as with the Japanese, a part of ordinary male attire. Tightly-fitting leggings, either of bark-cloth or skin, are worn by both sexes, but neither shoes nor san- dals. The coat worn by the women reaches half-way between the knees and ankles, and is quite loose and without a girdle. It is fastened the whole way up to the collar-l)one ; arid not only is the Aino woman com- 84 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. pletely covered, but she will not change one garment for another except alone or in the dark. Lately a Japanese woman at Sarufuto took an Aino woman into her house, and insisted on her taking a bath, which she absolutely refused to do till the bath-house had been made quite private by means of screens. On the Japanese woman going back a little later to see what had become of her, she found her sitting in the water in her clothes . and on being remonstrated with, she said that the gods would be angry if they saw her with- out clothes ! Many of the garments for holiday occasions are ex- ceedingly handsome, being decorated with “geometri- cal ” patterns, in which the “ Greek fret ” takes part, in coarse blue cotton, braided most dexterously mth scarlet and white tliread. Some of the handsomest take half a year to make. The masculine dress is completed by an apron of oblong shape decorated in the same elaborate manner. These handsoiue savages, with their powerful pliijsique, look remarkablj^ well in their best clothes. I have not seen a boy or girl above nine who is not thoroughly clothed. The “jewels” of the women are large, hoop earrings of silver or pewter, with attach- ments of a classical pattern, and silver neck ornaments, and a few have brass bracelets soldered upon their arms. The women have a perfect passion for every hue of red, and I have made friends with them by di’shdiiig among them a large turkey-red silk handkerchief, sti’ips of which are already being utilised for the ornamenting v*f coats. The houses in the five villages up here are very good. So they are at Horobets, but at Shiraoi, where the abo- rigines suffer n-orn the close proximity of several grog shops, they are inferior. They differ in many ways from auT that I have before seen, approaching most nearly to DOMESTIC ARCHITECTUBE. 85 the grass houses of the natives of Hawaii. Custom does not appear to permit either of variety or innovations ; in all the style is the same, and the difference consists in the size and plenishings. The dwellings seemed ill fitted for a rigorous climate, but the same thing may be said of those of the Japanese. In them houses, as in (heir faces, _the Ainos are more Eui-opean than their conquerors, as they possess doorways, windows, central fireplaces, like those of the Highlanders of Scotland, and raised sleeping-places. The usual appearance is that of a small house built on at the end of a larger one. The small house is the vestibule or ante-room, and is entered by a low doorway screened by a heavy mat of reeds. It contains the large wooden mortar and pestle with two ends, used for pound- ing millet, a wooden receptacle for millet, nets or hunt- ing gear, and some bundles of reeds for repairing roof or walls. This room never contains a window. From it the large room is entered by a doorway, over which a heavy reed-mat, bound with hide, invariably hangs. This room in Benri’s case is 35 feet long by 25 feet broad, another is 45 feet square, the smallest measures 20 feet by 15. On entering, one is much impressed by the great height and steepness of the roof, altogether out of proportion to the height of the walls. The frame of the house is of posts, 4 feet 10 inches high, placed 4 feet apart, and sloping slightly inwards. The height of the walls is apparently regulated by that of the reeds, of which only one length is used, and which never exceed 4 feet 10 inches. The posts are scooped at the top, and heavy poles, resting on the scoops, are laid along them to form the top of the wall. The posts are again connected twice by slighter poles tied on hori- zontally. The wall is double ; the outer part being formed of reeds tied very neatly to the framework ic B6 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. small, regular bundles, the inner layer or wall being made of reeds attached singly. From the top of the pole, which is secm-ed to the top of the posts, the fi-ame- work of the roof rises to a height of twenty -two feet, made, like the rest, of poles tied to a heavy and roughly- hewn ridge-beam. At one end under the ridge-beam there is a large triangular aperture for the exit of smoke. Two ver}'^ stout, roughly-hewn beams eross the width of the house, resting on the posts of the wall, and on props let into the floor, and a number of poles are laid at the same height, by means of which a secondary roof formed of mats can be at once extemporised, but this is oidy used for guests. These poles answer the same purpose as shelves. Very great care is bestowed upon the out- side of the roof, which is a marvml of neatness and pretti- ness, and has the appearance of a series of frills, being thatched in ridges. The ridge-pole is very thickly cov- ered, and the thatch both there and at the coiners is elaborately laced with a pattern in strong peeled twigs. The poles, which, for much of the room, run from wall to wall, compel one to stoop, to avoid fracturing one's skull, and bringing down spears, bows and arrows, arrow-traps, and other primitive property. The roof and rafters are black and shiny from wood smoke. Immediately under them, at one end and one side, are small, square windows, which are closed at night by wooden shutters, which during the day-time hang by topes. Nothing is a greater insult to an Aino than to look in at his window. On the left of the doorway is invariably a fixed ivooden platform, eighteen inches high, and covered with a single mat, which is the sleeping-place. The pil- lows are small stiff bolsters, covered with ornamental matting. If the family be large there are several of these sleepuig platforms. A pole runs horizontally at HOUSEHOLD GODS. 87 a fitting distance above the outside edge of each, over which mats are thrown to conceal the sleepers from the rest of the room. The inside half of these mats is plain, but the outside, which is seen from the room, has a dia- mond pattern woven into it in dull reds and browns. The whole floor is covered with a very coarse reed-mat, with interstices half an inch wide. The fireplace, which is six feet long, is oblong. Above it, on a very black AINO GODS. and elaborate framework, hangs a very black and shiny mat, whose superfluous soot forms the basis of the stain used in tattooing, and whose apparent purpose is to pre- vent the smoke ascending, and to diffuse it equally throughout the room. From this framework depends the great cooking-pot, which plays a most important part in Aino economy. Household gods form an essential part of the furnish- 88 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ing of every house. In this one, at the left of th*-: entrance, there are ten white wands, with shavings de pending from the upper end, stuck in the wall; anothei projects from the window which faces the sunrise, and the great god, a white post, two feet high, with spirals of shavings depending from the top, is always planted in the floor, near the wall, on the left side, opposite the fire, between the platform bed of the householder and the low, broad shelf placed invariably on the same side, and which is a singular feature of all Aino houses, coast and mountain, down to the poorest, containing, as it does, Japanese curios, many of them very valuable ob- jects of antique art, though much destroyed by damp and dust. They are true curiosities in the dwellings of these northern aborigines, and look almost solemn ranged against the wall. In this house there are twenty-four lacquered urns, or tea-chests, or seats, each standing two feet high on four small legs, shod with engraved or filigree brass. Behind these are eight lacq- uered tubs, and a number of bowls and lacquer trays, and above are spears with inlaid handles, and fine Kaga and Awata bowls. The lacquer is good, and several of the urns have daimiyo's crests in gold upon them. One urn and a large covered bowl are beautifully inlaid with Venus’ ear. The great urns are to be seen in every house, and in addition there are suits of inlaid armour, and swords with inlaid hilts, engraved blades, and rSpoussi scabbards, for wliich a collector would give almost anything. No offers, however liberal, can tempt them to sell any of these antique possessions. “They p('inted by the Mikado in 1192. Sei-i Tai Shogun (barbEiriaTi-subjugafc ELEMENTARY RELIGION. 97 their religion, corresponding most likely with the Shinto gohei., are wands and posts of peeled wood, whittled nearly to the top, from which the pendent shavings fall down in white curls. These are not only set up in their houses, sometimes to the number of twenty, but on precipices, banks of rivers and streams, and moun- tain passes, and such wands are thrown into the rivers as the boatmen descend rapids and dangerous places. Since my baggage horse fell over an acclivity on the trail from Sarufuto, four such wands have been placed there. It is nonsense to write of the religious ideas of a people who have none, and of beliefs among people who are merely adult children. The traveller who formulates an Aino creed 'must “evolve it from his inner con- sciousness.” I have taken infinite trouble to learn from themselves what their religious notions are, and Shi- nondi tells me that they have told me all they know, and the whole sum is a few vague fears and hopes, and a suspicion that there are things outside themselves ing great general) for his victories, and was the first of that series of great Shoguns whom our European notions distorted into “ Temporal Emiierors ” of Japan. Yoshitsune, to whom the real honour of these victories belonged, became the object of the jealousy and hatred of his brother, and was hunted from province to province, till, according to popular belief, he committed hara-kiri, after killing his wife and children, and his head, preserved in sak^, was sent to his brother at Kamakura. Scholars, however, are not agreed as to the manner, period, or scene of his death. Many believe that he escaped to Yezo and lived among the vUnos for many years, dying among them at the close of the twelfth century. None believe this, more firmly than the Ainos themselves, who assert that he taught their fathers the arts of civilisation, with letters and numbers, and gave them righteous laws, itud he is worshipped by many of them under a name which signifies Master of the Law. I have been told by old men in Biratori, Usu, and Lehunge, that a later Japanese conqueror carried away the books in which the arts were written, and that since his time the arts themselves have been lost, and the Ainos have fallen into their present condition! On asking why the Ainos do not make vessels of iron and clay as well as knives and spears, the invariable answer is, “ The Japanese took away the books.” 98 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. more powerful than themselves, whose good influences may be obtained, or whose evil influences may be averted, by libations of sake. The word worship is in itself misleading. When 1 use it of these savages it simply means libations of sak^. waving bowls and wavhig hands, without any spiritual act of deprecation or supplication. In such a sense and such alone they worship the sun and moon (but not the stars), the forest, and the sea. The wolf, the blact snake, the owl, and several other beasts and birds have the word kamoi., god, attached to them, as the wolf is the “howling god,” the owl “the bird of the gods,” a black snake the “ raven god,” but none of these things are now “ worshipped,” wolf-worship having quite lately died out. Thunder, “ the voice of the gods,” inspires some fear. The sun, they say, is their best god, and the fire theii’ next best, obviously the divinities from whom their greatest benefits are received. Some idea of gratitude pervades their rude notions, as in the case of the “worship ” paid to Yoshitsune, and it appears in one of the rude recitations chanted at the Saturnalia which in several places conclude the hunting and fish- ing seasons : — “ To the sea which nourishes us, to the forest which protects us, we present our grateful thanks. You are two mothers that nourish the same child ; do not be angry if we leave one to go to the other. “ The Ainos will always be the pride of the forest and of the sea.” The solitary act of sacrifice which they perform is the placing of a worthless, dead bird, something like a sparrow, near one of their peeled wands, where it is left till it reaches an advanced stage of putrefaction. “ To drink for the god ” is the chief act of “ worship,” and thus drunkenness and religion are inseparably con BEAR WORSHIP. 99 nected, as the more saki the Ainos drink the more devout they are, and the better pleased are the gods. It does not appear that anything but sake is of suffi- cient value to please the gods. The libations to the fire and the peeled post are never omitted, and are always accompanied by the inward waving of the sak4 bowls. The peculiarity which distinguishes this rude mythol- ogy is the “worship ” of the bear, the Yezo bear being one of the finest of his species, but it is impossible to understand the feelings by which it is prompted, for they worship it after their fashion, and set up its head in their villages, yet they trap it, kill it, eat it, and sell its skin. There is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more of the feeling which prompts worship than the in- animate forces of nature, and the Ainos may be distin- guished as bear-worshippers, and their greatest religious festival or Saturnalia as the Festival of the Bear. Gen- tle and peaceable as they are, they have a great admira- tion for fierceness and courage ; and the bear, which is the strongest, fiercest, and most courageous animal known to them, has probably in all ages inspired them with veneration. Some of their rude chants are in praise of the bear, and their highest eulogy on a man is to compare him to a bear. Thus Shinondi said of Benri the chief, “ He is as strong as a bear,” and the old Fate praising Pipichari called him “ The young bear.” In all Aino villages, specially near the chief’s house, there are several tall poles with the fleshless skull of a bear on the top of each, and in most there is also a large cage, made gridiron fashion, of stout timbers, and raised two or three feet from the ground. At the present time such cages contain young but well-grown bears, cap- tured when quite small in the early spring. After the capture the bear cub is introduced into a d welling-house, 100 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. generally that of the chief, or sub-chief, where it is suckled by a woman, and played with by the children, till it grows too big and rough for domestic ways, and is placed in a strong cage, m which it is fed and cared for, as I understand, till the autumn of the following )"ear, when, being strong and well-grown, the Festival of tas Bear is celebrated. The customs of this festival vary considerably, and the manner of the bear’s death differs among the mountain and coast Ainos, but every- where there is a general gathering of the people, and it is the occasion of a great feast, accompanied with much sake and a curious dance, in which men alone take part. Yells and shouts are used to excite the bear, ana when he becomes much agitated a chief shoots him with an arrow, inflicting a slight wound which maddens him, on which the bars of the cage are raised, and he springs forth, very furious. At this stage the Ainos run upon him with various weapons, each one striving to inflict a wound, as it brings good luck to draw his blood. As soon as he falls down exhausted, his head is cut off, and the weapons with which he has been wounded are offered to it, and he is asked to avenge himself upon them. Afterwards the carcass, amidst a frenzied up- roar, is distributed among the people, and amidst feast- ing and riot the head, placed upon a pole, is worshipped, i.e. it receives libations of sake., and the festival closes with general intoxication. In some villages it is customary for the foster-mother of the bear to utter [)iercing wails while he is delivered to his murderers, and alter he is slain to beat each one of them with a branch of a tree. [Afterwards at Usu, on Volcano Bay, the old men told me that at their festival the} despatch the bear after a different manner. On letting it loose from the cage two men seize it by the ears, and A BLANK FUTURE. 101 others simultaneously place a long, stout pole across the nape of its neck, upon which a number of Ainos mount, and after a prolonged struggle the neck is broken. As the bear is seen to approach his end, they shout in chorus, “ We kill you, O bear! come back soon into an Aino.’' ] When a bear is trapped or wounded by an arrow, the hunters go through an apologetic or propitia- tory ceremony. They appear to have certain rude ideas of metempsychosis, as is evidenced by the Usu prayer to the bear and certain rude traditions, but whether these are indigenous, or have arisen by contact with Buddhism at a later period, it is impossible to say. They have no definite ideas concerning a future state , and the subject is evidently not a pleasing one to them. Such notions as they have are few and confused. Some think that the spirits of their friends go into wolves and snakes ; others, that they wander about the forests : and they are much afraid of ghosts. A few think that they go to “ a good or bad place,” according to their deeds ; but Shinondi said, and there was an infinite pathos in his words, “How can we know? No one ever came back to tell us I ” On asking him what were bad deeds, he said, “ Being bad to parents, stealing, and telling lies.” The future, however, does not occupy any place in their thoughts, and they can hardly be said to believe in the immortality of the soul, though their fear of ghosts shows that they recognise a distinction between body and spirit. Their social customs are very simple. Girls never marry before the age of seventeen, or men before twenty-one. When a man wishes to marry, he thinks of some particular girl, and asks the chief if he may ask for her. If leave is given, either through a “go- between ” or personally, he asks her father for her, and if he consents, the bridegroom gives him a present, 102 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. usually a Japanese “ curio.” Tins constitutes betrothal and the marriage, which immediately follows, is cele- brated by carousals and the drinking of much sake. The bride receives as her dowry her earrings and a highly-ornamented kimono. It is an essential that the Imsband provides a house to which to take his wife Each couple lives separately, and even the eldest soa does not take his bride to his father’s house. Polygamy is only allowed in two cases. The chief may have three wives ; but each must have her separate house. Benri has two wives ; but it appears that he took the second because the first was childless. [The Usu Aiuos told me that among the tribes of Volcano Bay polygamy is not practised, even by the chiefs.] It is also permitted in the case of a childless wife ; but there is no instance of it in Biratori, and the men say that they prefer to have one wife, as two quarrel. Widows are allowed to marry again with the chiefs consent; but among these mountain Ainos a woman must remain absolutely secluded witliin the house of her late husband for a period varying from six to twelve months, only going to the door at intervals, to throw sake to the right and left. A man secludes himself similarly for thirty days. [So greatly do the customs vary, that round Volcano Bay I found that the period of seclusion for a widow is onlj^ thii-ty days, and for a man twenty-five ; but that after a father’s death the house in which he has lived is burned down after the thirty days of seclusion, and the widow and her children go to a friend’s house for three years, after which the house is rebuilt on its former site.] If a man does not like his wife, by obtaining the chief’s consent he can divorce her ; but he must send her back to her parents with plenty of good clothes but divorce is impracticable where there are children MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 103 dmi is rarely if ever practised. Conjugal fidelity is a virtue among Aino women • but “ custom ” provides that, in case of unfaithfulness, the injured husband may bestow his wife upon her paramour, if he be an un- married man ; in which case the chief fixes the amount of damages which the paramour must pay ; and these are usually valuable Japanese curios. The old and blind people are entirely supported by their children, and receive until their dying day filial reverence and obedience. If one man steals from another, he must return what he has taken, and give the injured man a present be- sides, the value of which is fixed by the chief. Their mode of living you already know, as I have shared it, and am still receiving their hospitality. “ Custom ” enjoins the exercise of hospitality on every Aii.o. They reeeive all strangers as they received me, giving them of their best, placing them in the most honourable place, bestowing gifts upon them, and, when they depart, furnishing them with cakes of boiled millet. They have few amusements, except certain feasts. Their dance, which they have just given in iiry honour, is slow and mournful, and their songs are chants or recitative. They have a musical instrument, some- thing like a guitar, with three, five, or six strings, which are made from sinews of whales cast up on the shore. They have another, which is believed to be peculiar to themselves, consisting of a thin piece of wood, about five inches long and two and a half inches broad, with a pointed wooden tongue, about two lines in breadth and sixteen in length, fixed in the middle, and grooved on three sides. The wood is held before the mouth, and the tongue is set in motion by the vibration of the breath in singing. Its sound, though 104 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. less penetrating, is as discordant as that of a Jew's harp, which it somewhat resembles. One of the men used it as an accompaniment of a song ; but they are unwilling to part with them, as they say that it is very seldom that they can find a piece of wood wliich will bear the fine splitting necessary for the tongue. Tliey are a most courteous people among each other. The salutations are frequent — on entering a house, on leaving it, on meeting on the road, on receiving any- thing from the hand of another, and on receiving a kind or complimentary speech. They do not make any acknowledgments of this kind to the women, how- ever. The common salutation consists in extending the hands and waving them inwards, once or oftener, and stroking the beard ; the formal one in raising the hands with an inward curve to the level of the head two or three times, lowering them, and rubbing them together ; the ceremony concluding with stroking the beard several times. The latter and more formal mode of salutation is offered to the chief, and by the young to the old men. The women have no “manners ! ” They have no “medicine men,” and though they are aware of the existence of healing herbs, they do not know their special virtues or the manner of using them. Dried and pounded bear’s liver is their specific, and they place much reliance on it in colic and other pains. They are a healthy race. In this village of 300 souls, there are no chronically ailing people ; notli- iug but one case of bronchitis, and some cutaneous maladies iimong children. Neither is there any case of deformit}^ in this and five other large villages which I have visited, except that of a girl, who has one leg slightly shorter than the other. They ferment a kind of intoxicating liquor from the root of a tree, and also from their own millet and Jap UNCLEANLY HABITS. 105 anese rice, but Japanese sake is the one thing that thej care about. They spend, all their gains upon it, and drink it in enormous quantities. It represents to them all the good of which they know, or can conceive. Beastly intoxication is the highest happiness to which these poor savages aspire, and the condition is sancti- fied to them under the fiction of “ drinking to the gods.” Men and women alike indulge in tliis vice. A few, however, like Pipichari, abstain from it totally, taking the bowl in their hands, making the libations to the gods, and then passing it on. I asked Pipichari why he did not take sake., and he replied with a truth- ful terseness, “ Because it makes men like dogs.” Except the chief, who has two horses, they have no domestic animals except very large, yellow dogs, which are used in hunting, but are never admitted within the houses. The habits of the people, though by no means desti- tute of decency and propriety, are not cleanly. The women bathe their hands once a day, but any other washing is unknown. They never wash their clothes, and wear the same by day and night. I am afraid to speculate on the condition of their wealth of coal-black hair. They may be said to be very dirty, as dirty fully as masses of our people at home. Their houses swarm with fleas, but they are not worse in this respect than the Japanese yadoyas. The mountain villages have, however, the appearance of extreme cleanliness, being devoid of litter, heaps, puddles, and untidiness of .11 kinds, and there are no unpleasant odours inside or outside the houses, as they are well ventilated and smoked, and the salt fish and meat are kept in the godowns. The hair and beards of the old men, instead of being snowy as they ought to be, are yellow from emoke and dirt. 106 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. They have no mode of computing time, and do not know their own ages. To them the past is dead, yet like other conquered and despised races they cling to the idea that in some far-off age they were a great nation. They have no traditions of internecine strife, and the art of war seems to have been lost long ago. T asked Benri about this matter, and he says that formerly Ain os fought with spears and knives as well as with bows and arrows, but that Yoshitsund, their hero god, forbade war for ever, and since then the two-edged spear, with a shaft nine feet long, has only been used in hunting bears. The Japanese Government of course exercises the same authority over the Ainos as over its other sub- jects, but probably it does not care to interfere in domestic or tribal matters, and within tliis outside limit despotic authority is vested in the chiefs. The Ainos live in village communities, and each community has its own chief, who is its lord paramount. It ap- pears to me that this chieftainship is but an expansion of the paternal relation, and that all the village fami- lies are ruled as a unit. Benri, in whose house I am, is the chief of Biratori, and is treated by all with very great deference of manner. The office is nominally for life ; but if a chief becomes blind, or too infirm to go about, he appoints a successor. If he has a “ smart ” son, who he thinks will command the respect of the people, he appoints him ; but if not he chooses the most suitable man in the village. The people are called upon to approve the choice, but their ratifica- tion is never refused. The office is not hereditary anywhere. Benri appears to exercise the authority of a very strict father. His manner to all the men is like that of a master to slaves, and they bow when they speak DEATH AND BURIAL. 107 to him. No one can marry without his approval. If any one builds a house he chooses the site. He has absolute jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, unless (wliich is very rare) the latter should be of sufficient magnitude to be reported to the Imperial officials. He compels restitution of stolen property, and in all cases fixes the fines which are to be paid by delinquents. He also fixes the hunting arrangements and the festi- vals. The younger men were obviously much, afraid of incurring his anger in his absence. An eldest son does not appear to be, as among the Japanese, a privileged person. He does not necessa- rily inherit the house and curios. The latter are not divided, but go with the house to the son whom the father regards as being the “smartest.” Formal adop- tion is practised. Pipichari is an adopted son, and is likely to succeed to Benri’s property to the exclusion of his own children. I cannot get at the word which is translated “ smartness,” but I understand it as mean- ing general capacity. The chief, as I have mentioned before, is allowed three wives among the mountain Ainos, otherwise authority seems to be his only priv- ilege. The Ainos have a singular dread of snakes. Even their bravest fly from them. One man says that it is because they know of no cure for their bite, but there is something more than this, for they flee from snakes which they know to be harmless. They have an equal dread of their dead. Death seems to them very specially “the shadow fear’d of man.” When it comes, which it usually does from bronchitis in old age, the corpse is dressed in its best clothing, and laid upon a shelf for from one to three days. In the case of a woman her ornaments are buried with her, and in that of a man his knife and 108 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. sa/c^-stick, and, if he were a smoker, his smoking appa^ ratus. The corpse is sewn up with these things in a mat, and, being slung on poles, is carried to a solitary grave, where it is laid in a recumbent position. Noth- ing will induce an Aino to go near a grave. Even if a valuable bird or animal falls near one, he will not go to pick it up. A vague dread is for ever associated with the departed, and no dream of Paradise ever lights for the Aino the “ Stygian shades.” Beuri is, for an Aino, intelligent. Two years ago Mr. Dening of Hakodate came up here and told him that there was but one God who made us all, to which the shrewd old man replied, If the God who made you made us, how is it that you are so different, you so rich, we so poor ? ” On asking him about the magnifi- cent pieces of lacquer and inlaying which adorn his curio shelf, he said that they were his father’s, grand- father’s, and great-grandfather’s at least, and he thinks they were gifts from the daimiyo of Matsumae soon after the conquest of Yezo. He is a grand-looking man, in spite of the havoc wrought by his intemperate habits. There is plenty of room in the house, and this morning, when I asked him to show me the use of the spear, he looked a truly magnificent savage, stepping well back with the spear in rest, and then springing forward for the attack, his arms and legs turning into iron, the big muscles standing out in knots, his frame quivering •ndth excitement, the thick hair falling back in masses from his brow, and the fire of the chase in his eye. I trembled for my boy, who was the object of the imaginary onslaught, the passion of sport was so admir- ably acted. As I write, seven of the older men are sitting by the fire. Theii’ grey beards fail to tlieir waists in rippled masses, and the slight baldness of age not only gives OLD AGE. 109 tlieu) a singularly venerable appearance, but enhances the beauty of their lofty brows. I took a rough sketch of one of the handsomest, and showing it to him, asked if he would have it, but instead, of being amused or pleased he showed symptoms of fear, and asked me to burn it, saying it would bring liim bad luck, and he should die. However, Ito pacified him, and he accepted it, after a Chinese character, which is understood to mean good luck, bad been written upon it, but all the others begged me not to “make pictures” of them, ex- cept Pipichari, who lies at my feet like a staghound. The profusion of black hair, and a curious intensity about their eyes, coupled with the hairy limbs and sin gularly vigorous physique., give them a formidably sav age appearance, but the smile, full of “ sweetness and light,” in wliicli both eyes and mouth bear part, and the low, musical voice, softer and sweeter than anything I have previously heard, make me at times forget that they are savages at all. The venerable look of these old men harmonises with the singular dignity and cour- tesy of their manners, but as I look at the grand heads, and reflect that the Ainos have never shown any capa- city, and are merely adult children, they seem to suggest water on the brain rather than intellect. I am more and more convinced that the expression of their faces is European. It is truthful, straightforward, manly, but both it and the tone of voice are strongly tinged with pathos. Before these elders Benri asked me, in a severe tone, if I had been annoyed in any way during his absence. He feared, he said, that the young men and the women would crowd about me rudely. I made a compliment- ary speech in return, and all the ancient hands were waved, and the venerable beards were stroked in ac- knowledgment. 110 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Tliese Ainos, doubtless, stand high among uncivilised peoples. They are, however, as completely irreclaim- able as thi wildest of nomad tribes, and contact with civilisation, where it exists, only debases them. Several young Ahios were sent to TbkiyO, and educated and trained in various ways, but as soon as they returned to Yezo they relapsed into savagery, retaining nothing but a knowledge of Japanese. They are chaiming in many ways, but make one sad, too, by their stupidity, apathy, and hopelessness, and all the sadder that their numbers appear to be again increasing, and as their physique is very fine, there does not appear to be a pros pect of the race dymg out at present. They are certainly superior to many aborigines, as they have an approach to domestic life. They have one word for house., and another for home, and one word for husband approaches very nearly to house band. Truth is of value in their eyes, and this in itself raises them above some peoples. Infanticide is unknown, and aged parents receive filial reverence, kindness, and support, while in their social and domestic relations there is much that is praiseworthy. I must conclude this letter abruptly, as the horses are waiting, and I must cross the rivers, if possible, before the bursting of an impending storm. 1. L. B. A DELICACY. Ill A TIPSY SCENE. A Pirting Gift — A Delicacy — Generosity — A Seaside Village — Pipichari’s Advice — A Drunken Revel — Ito’s Prophecies — The Kocho’s Illness — Patent Medicines. Sarufuto, Ybzo, August 27. I LEFT the Ainos yesterday with real regret, though I must confess that sleeping in one’s clothes, and the lack of ablutions, are very fatiguing. Benri’s two wives spent the early morning in the laborious opera- tion of grinding millet into coarse flour, and before I departed, as their custom is, they made a paste of it, rolled it with their unclean fingers into well-shaped cakes, boiled them in the unwashed pot in which they make their stew of “■ abominable things,” and presented them to me on a lacquer tray. They were distressed that I did not eat them food, and a woman went to a village at some distance and brought me some venison fat as a delicacy. All those of whom I had seen much came to wish me good-bye, and they brought so many presents (including a fine bearskin) that I shoifid have needed an additional horse to carry them had I ac- cepted but one half. I rode twelve miles through the forest to Mombets, where I intended to spend Sunday, but I had the worst horse I ever rode, and we took five hours. The day was dull and sad, threatening a storm, and when we got out of the forest, upon a sand-hill covered with oak scrub, we encountered a most furious wind. Among the many 112 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. views which I have seen, that is one to be remembered Below lay a bleached and bare sand-hill, with a few grej houses huddled in its miserable shelter, and a heaped-up shore of grey sand, on which a brown-grey sea was bi caking with clash and boom in long, white, ragged lines, with all beyond a confusion of surf, surge, and mist, with driving brown clouds mingling sea and sky, and all between showing only in glimpses amidst scuds of sand. At a house in the scrub a number of men were drink- ing sake with much uproar, and a superb-looking Aino came out, staggered a few yards, and then fell back- wards among the weeds, a picture of debasement. I forgot to tell you that before I left Biratori, I inveighed to the assembled Ainos against the practice and con- sequences of sa/ce-drinking, and was met Avith the reply, “We must drink to the gods, or we shall die,” but Pipichari said, “You say that which is good; let us give Saks to the gods, but not drink it,” for which bold speech he was severely rebuked by Benri. Mombets is a stormily-situated and most wretched cluster of twent3"-seven decayed houses, some of them Aino, and some Japanese. The fish-oil and seaweed fishing trades are in brisk operation there now for a short time, and a number of Aino and Japanese stran- gers are em])loyed. The boats coidd not get out be- cause of the surf, and there was a drunken debauch. The whole place smelt of sake. Tipsy men were stag- gering about and falling flat on their backs, to lie there like dogs till the^^ were sober, — Aino women were vainly endeavouring to drag their drunken lords home, and men of both races were reduced to a beastW equal- ity. I went to the yadoya where I intended to spend Sunday, but besides being very dirty and forlorn, it was t he very centre of the sake traffic, and in its open space A CHANGE OE PLAN. 113 there were men in all stages of riotous and stupid in- toxication. It was a sad scene, yet one to be matched in a hundred places m Scotland every Saturday after- noon. I am told by the KdcTid here that an Aino can drink four or five times as much as a Japanese without being tipsy, so for each tipsy Aino there had been an outlay of 6s. or 7s., for sahe is 8d. a cup here! I had some tea and eggs in the daidohoro^ and altered my plans altogether, on finding that if I proceeded far- ther round the east coast as I intended, I should run the risk of several days’ detention on the banks of num- erous “ bad rivers,” if rain came on, by which I should run the risk of breaking my promise to deliver Ito to Mr. Maries by a given day. I do not surrender this project, however, without an equivalent, for I intend to add 100 miles to my journey, by taking an almost dis- used track round Volcano Bay, and visiting the coast Ainos of a very primitive region. Ito is very much opposed to this, thinking that he has made a sufficient sacrifice of personal comfort at Biratori, and plies me with stories, such as that there are “ many bad rivers to cross,” that the track is so worn as to be impassable, that there are no yadoyas, and that at the Government offices we shall neither get rice nor eggs I An old man who has turned back unable to get horses is made re- sponsible for these stories. The machinations are very amusing. Ito was much smitten with the daughter of the house-master at Mororan, and left some things in her keeping, and the desire to see her again is at the bottom of his opposition to the other route. Monday. — The horse could not or would not carry me farther than Mombets, so, sending the baggage on, I walked through the oak wood, and enjoyed its silent solitude, in spite of the sad reflections upon the enslave- ment of the Ainos to sake. I spent yesterday quietly 114 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ID iny old quarters, with a fearful storm of wind ai.a rain outside. Pipichari appeared at noon, nominally to bring news of the sick woman, who is recovering, and to have his nearly healed foot bandaged again, but really to bring me a knife sheath which he has carved lor me. He lay on the mat in the corner of my room most of the afternoon, and I got a great many more words from him. The house-master, who is the Koeho of Sarufuto, paid me a courteous visit, and in the even- ing sent to say that he wordd be very glad of some medicine, for he was “ very ill and going to have fever.” He had caught a bad cold and sore throat, had bad pains in his limbs, and was bemoaning himself ruefullj'. To pacify his wife, who was very sony for hmi, I gave him some “ Cockle’s Pills,” and the trapper’s remedy of “ a pint of hot water with a pinch of cayenne pepper,” and left him moaning, and bundled up under a pile of futons., in a nearly hermetically sealed room, with a hibachi of charcoal vitiating the air. This morning, when I went and inquired after him in a properly con- cerned tone, his wife told me very gleefully that he was quite well and had gone out, and had left 25 sen for some more of the medicines that I had given him, so with great gravity I put up some of Duncan and Flock- hart’s most pungent cayenne pepper, and showed her how much to use. She was not content, however, with- out some of the “ Cockles,” a single box of which has performed six of those “ miraculous cures ” which re joice the hearts and fill the pockets of patent medicine makers' I. L. B A WELCOME GIFT. 115 VISIT TO A VOLCANO. A Welcome Gift — Eecent Changes — Volcanic Phenomena — Inter- esting Tufa Cones — An Aggressive Trailer — Semi-strangulation — A Fall into a Bear-trap — The Shiraoi Ainos — Horsebreaking and Cruelty. Old Moeokan, Volcano Bat, Yezo, September 2. After the storm of Sunday, Monday was a grey, still, tender day, and the ranges of wooded hills were bathed in the richest indigo colouring. A canter of seventeen miles among the damask roses on a very rough horse only took me to Yubets, whose indescribable loneliness fascinated me into spending a night there again, and encountering a wild clatter of wind and rain ; and another canter of seven miles the next morning took me to Tomakomai, where I rejoined my kuruma, and after a long delay, three trotting Ainos took me to Shiraoi, where the “ clear shining after rain,” and the mountains against a lemon-coloured sky, were extreme- ly beautiful ; but the Pacific was as unrestful as a guilty thing, and its crash and clamour and the severe cold fatigued me so much that I did not pursue my journey the next day, and had the pleasure of a flying visit from Mr. Von Siebold and Count Diesbach, who bestowed a chicken upon me. I like Shirafii very much, and if I were strongei would certainly make it a basis for exploring a part of the interior, in which there is much to reward the ex- plorer. Obviously the changes in this part of Yezc have been comparatively recent, and tlie energy of the 116 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. force which has produced them is not yet extinct. The land has gained from the sea along the whole of this part of the coast to the extent of two or three miles, the old beach with its bays and headlands being a marked feature of the landscape. This new formation appears to be a vast bed of pumice, covered by a thin layer of vegetable mould, which cannot be more than fifty years old. This pumice fell durhig the eruption of the volcano of Tarumai, which is very near Shiraoi, and is also brought down in large quantities from the inte- rior hills and valleys by the numerous rivers, besides being washed up by the sea. At the last eruption pumice fell over this region of Yezo to a medium depth of 3 feet 6 inches. In nearly all the rivers good sections of the formation may be seen in their deeply- cleft banks, broad, light-coloured bands of pumice, with a few inches of rich, black, vegetable soil above, and several feet of black sea-sand below. During a freshet which occurred the first night I was at Shiraoi, a single stream covered a piece of land with pumice to the depth of nine inches, being the wash from the hills of the interior, in a course of less than fifteen miles. Looking inland, the volcano of Tarumai, with a bare grey top and a blasted forest on its sides, occupies the right of the picture. To the left and inland are mountains witliin mountains, tumbled together in most picturesque confusion, densely covered with forest and cleft by magnificent ravines, here and there opening out into narrow valleys. The whole of the interior is jungle, penetrable for a few miles by shallow and rapid rivers, and by nearly smothered trails made by the Ainos in search of game. The general lie of the country made me very anxious to find out whether a much-broken ridge lying among the mountains is or is not a series of tufa cones of ancient date ; and apply- VOLCANIC PHENOMENA. 117 ing for a good horse and Aino guide on horseback, 1 left Ito to amuse himself, and spent much of a most splendid day in investigations and in attempting to get round the back of the volcano and up its inland side. There is a great deal to see and learn there. Oh that 1 had strength ! After hours of most tedious and ex- hausting work I reached a point where there were sev- eral great fissures emitting smoke and steam, with occasiona. subterranean detonations. These were on the side of a small, flank crack which was smoking heavily. There was light pumice everywhere, but nothing like recent lava or scoriae. One fissure was completely lined with exquisite, acicular crystals of sulphur, which perished with a touch. Lower down there were two hot springs with a deposit of sulphur round their margins, and bubbles of gas, which, from its strong, garlicky smell, I suppose to be srdphuretted hydrogen. Farther progress in that direction was im- possible without a force of pioneers. I put my arm down several deep crevices which were at an altitude of only about 500 feet, and had to withdraw it at once, owing to the great heat, in which some beautiful speci- mens of tropical ferns were growing. At the same height I came to a hot spring — hot enough to burst one of my thermometers, which was graduated above the boiling point of Fahrenheit ; and tying up an egg in a pocket-handkerchief and holding it by a stick in the water, it was hard boiled in 8^ minutes. The water evaporated without leaving a trace of deposit on the handkerchief, and there was no crust round its margin. It boiled and bubbled with great force. Three hours more of exhausting toil, which almost knocked up the horses, brought us to the apparent ridge, and I was delighted to find that it consisted of a lateral range of tufa cones, which 1 estimate as being il8 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. from 200 to 350, or even 400 feet high. They are densely covered vrith. trees of considerable age, ani a rich deposit of mould; but their conical form is still admirably defined. An hour of very severe work, and energetic use of the knife on the part of the Aino, took me to the top of one of these thi'ough a mass of entan- gled and gigantic vegetation, and I was amply repaid by finding a deep, well-defined crateriform ca^fity of great depth, with its sides richly clothed with vegeta- tion, closely resembling some of the old cones in the island of Kauai. This cone is partial!}" girdled by a stream, which in one place has cut through a bank of both red and black volcanic ash. All the usual phe- nomena of volcanic regions are probably to be met with north of ShiraQi, and I hope they will at some future time be made the object of careful investigation. In spite of the desperate and almost overwhelming fatigue, I have enjoyed few things more than that “ ex- ploring expedition.” If the Japanese have no one to talk to they croon hideous discords to themselves, and it was a relief to leave Ito behind and get away with an Aino, who was at once silent, trustworthy, and faithful. Two bright rivers bubbling over beds of red pebbles run down to Shhaoi out of the back country, and my directions, which were translated to the Aino, were to follow up one of these and go into the moun- tains in the direction of one I pointed out tUl I said “ ShiraSi.” It was one of those exquisite mornings which are seen sometimes in the Scotch Highlands before rain, with intense clearness and visibility, a blue atmosphere, a cloudless sky, blue summits, heavy dew, and glorious sunshine, and under these chcum stances scenery beau- tiful in itself became entrancing. The forest is a true forest, extending northwards for ever 100 miles, with unknown eastern and western AGGRESSIVE LIANAS. 119 limits. The principal trees are two species of oak, three varieties of maple, beeches of enormous size, ash and elm, all entangled by a wild vine with enormous cordate leaves and a redundant vigour which is almost irritating. A most aggressive trailer it is. It goes up to the tops of the tallest trees, and, not content with oveiTUiming them, leaps from one tree top to another, clothes dead trees with more than their living beauty, twists, loops, and knots itself as if it did not know what to do with its strength, crushes feeble trees in its embrace, hangs loops and nooses down everywhere, makes arbours, disports itself, runs altogether riot, and is at once the pride and the peril of the forest. Some of its stems are as thick as a man’s leg, and will bear a heavier strain, they say, than a frigate’s best hawser. Then there is a trailer of the hydrangea genus, with clusters of white blossoms, which is not riotous, and contents itself with climbing to the top of the tallest trees, and clinging to them with the tenacity of ivy, besides the wild hop, and the mistletoe growing on oaks, and many others less striking. The undergrowth is composed mainly of ugly weeds six feet high, and in some places solely of the dwarf, dark-leaved bamboo. In the openings the ground is covered densely with a plumed, reed-like grass, the Eulalia Japonica., which in that rich soil attains a height of eight feet : and bamboo and grass would be equally impossible to penetrate without the use of the bill-hook, were it not for the remains of the trails made by Aino hunters. The trailers are so formidable that we had to stoop over our horses’ necks at all times, and with pushing back branches and guarding my face from slaps and scratches, my thick dogskin gloves were literally frayed off, and some of the skin of my hands and face in addi- tion, so that I returned with both bleeding and swelled. 120 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. It was Oil the return ride fortunately that, in stooping to escape one great liana the loop of another grazed mj nose, and, being unable to check my unbroken horse in- stantaneously, the loop caught me by the throat, nearly strangled me, and in less time than it takes to tell it 1 was drawn over the back of the saddle, and found my- self lying on the ground, jammed between a tree and the hind leg of the horse, which was quietlj' feeding. The Aino, whose face was very badly scratched, missing me, came back, said never a word, helped me up, brought me some water in a leaf, brought my hat, and we rode on again. I was little the worse for the fall, but on borrowing a looking-glass I see not only scratches and abrasions all over my face, but a livid mark round my throat as if I had been hung ! The Aino left portions of his bushy locks on many of the branches. You would have been amused to see me in this forest, pre- ceded by this hairy and formidable-looking savage, who was dressed in a coat of skins with the fur outside, seated on the top of a pack-saddle covered with a deer hide, and with his hairy legs crossed over the horse's neck, a fashion in which the Ainos ride any horses over any ground with the utmost serenity. It was a wonderful region for beauty. I have not seen so beautiful a view in Japan as from the river-bed from which I had the first near view of the grand as- semblage of tufa cones, covered with an ancient vegeta- tion, backed b}^ high moimtains of volcanic origin, on whose ragged crests the red ash was blazing vermilion against the blue sky, with a foreground of bright waters flashing through a primeval forest. The banks of these streams were deeply excavated by the heavy rains, and sometimes we had to jump three and even four feet out of the forest into the river, and as much up again, fording the Shiraoi river only more than twenty times, and often AN OLD BEAR-TRAP. 121 making a pathway of its treacherous bed and rushing waters, because the forest was impassable from the great size of the prostrate trees. The horses look at these jumps, hold back, try to turn, and then, making up their minds, suddenly plunge down or up. When the last vestige of a trail disappeared, I signed to the Aino to go on, and our subsequent “ exploration ” was all done at the rate of about a mile an hour. On the openings the grass grows stiff and strong to the height of eight feet, with its soft reddish plumes waving in the breeze. The Aino first forced his horse through it, but of course it closed again, so that constantly when he was close in front I was only aware of his proximity by the tinkling of his horse’s bells, for I saw nothing of him or of my own horse except the horn of my saddle. We tumbled into holes often, and as easily tumbled out of them ; but once we both went down in the most un- expected manner into what must have been an old bear- trap, both going over our horses’ heads, the horses and ourselves struggling together in a narrow space in a mist of grassy plumes, and being unable to communi- cate with my guide, the sense of the ridiculous situa- tion was so overpowering that, even in the midst of the mishap, I was exhausted with laughter, though not a little bruised. It was very hard to get out of that pit- fall, and I hope I shall never get into one again. It is not the first occasion on which I have been glad that the Yezo horses are shoeless. It was throngh this long grass that we fought our way to the tufa cones, with the red, ragged crests against the bine sky. The scenery was magnificent, and after getting so far, I longed to explore the sources of the rivers, but be- sides the many difficulties the day was far spent. I was also too weak for any energetic undertaking, yet I felt an intuitive perception of the passion and fascination 122 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. of exploring, and understood liow people could give up their lives to it. I turned away from the tufa cones and the glory of the ragged crests very sadly, to ride a tired horse through great difficulties; and the animal was so thorouglily done up that I had to walk or rather wade for the last hour, and it was nightfall when I re- turned, to find that Ito had packed up all my things, had been waiting ever since noon to start for Horobets, was very grumpy at having to unpack, and thorougldy disgusted when I told him that I was so tued and bruised that I should have to remain the next da}" to rest. He said indignantly, “ I never thought that when you’d got the Kaitakushi kuruma you'd go off the road into those woods ! ” We had seen some deer and many pheasants, and a successful hunter brought in a fine stag, so that I had venison steak for supper, and was much comforted, though Ito seasoned the meal with well-got-up stories of the impracticability of the Vol- cano Bay route. Shiraoi consists of a large old Honjin, or yadoya, where the daimiyd and his train used to lodge in the old days, and about eleven Japanese houses, most of which are sake shops, a fact which supplies an explana- tion of the squalor of the Aino village of fifty-two houses, which is on the shore at a respectful distance. There is no cultivation, in which it is like all tlie fish- ing villages on this part of the coast, but fish-oil and fish-manure are made in immense quantities, and though it is not the season here, the place is pervaded by “ an ancient and fish-like smell.” The Aino houses are much smaller, poorer, and dirtier than those of Biratori. I went into a number of them, and conversed with the people, many of whom under- stand Japanese. Some of the houses looked like dens, and, as it was raining, husband, wife, and five or six JAPANESE HOBSEBREAKING. 123 aaked children, all as dirty as they could be, with un- tempt, elf-like locks, were huddled round the fires. Still, bad as it looked and smelt, the fire was the hearth, and the hearth was inviolate, and each smoked and dirt- stained group was a family, and it was an advance upon the social life of, for instance. Salt Lake City. I’he roofs are much flatter than those of the mountain Ainos, and as there are few store-houses, quantities of fish, “green ” skins, and venison, hang from the rafters, and the smell of these and the stinging of the smoke were most trying. Few of the houses had any guest- seats, but in the very poorest, when I asked shelter from the rain, they put their best mat upon the ground, and insisted, much to my distress, on my walking ove it in muddy boots, saying, “It is Aino custom.” Even in those squalid homes the broad shelf, with its rows of Japanese curios, always has a place. I mentioned that it is customary for a chief to appoint a successor when he becomes infirm, and I came upon a case in point, through a mistaken direction, which took us to the house of the former chief, with a great empty bear cage at its door. On addressing him as the chief, he said, “ I am old and blind, I cannot go out, I am of no more good,” and directed us to the hoiise of his suc- cessor. Altogether it is obvious, from many evidences in this village, that Japanese contiguity is hurtful, and that the Ainos have reaped abundantly of the disad- vantages without the advantages of contact with Jap- anese civilisation. That night I saw a specimen of Japanese horse-break- ing as practised in Yezo. A Japanese brought into the village street a handsome, spirited young horse, equipped with a Japanese demi-pique saddle, and a most cruel gag bit. The man wore very cruel spurs, and was armed with a bit of stout board two feet long 124 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. by six inches broad. The horse had not been mounted before, and was frightened, but not the least vicious. He was spurred into a gallop, and ridden at full speed up and down the street, turned by main force, thrown on his haunches, goaded wth the spurs, and cowed by being mercilessly thrashed over the ears and eyes with the piece of board, till he was blinded with blood. Whenever he tried to stop from exhaustion, he was spurred, jerked, and flogged, till at last, covered with sweat, foam, and blood, and with blood running from his mouth and splashing the road, he reeled, staggered, and fell, the rider dexterously disengaging himself. As soon as he was able to stand, he was allowed to crawl into a shed, where he was kept without food till morn- ing, when a cliild could do anything with him. He was “ broken,” effectually spirit-broken, useless for the rest of his life. It was a brutal and brutalising exhibition, as triumphs of brute force always are. THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 125 A WET TRIP. The Universal Language — The Tezo Corrals — A “ Typt oon Rain ” — DifiScult Tracks — An Unenviable Ride — Drying Clothes — A Woman’s Remorse. This morning I left early in the Tcuruma mth two kind and delightful savages. The road being much broken by the rains, I had to get out frequently, and every time I got in again they put my air-pillow behind me, and covered me up in a blanket ; and when we got to a rough river, one made a step of his back by which I mounted their horse, and gave me nooses of rope to hold on by, and the other held my arm to keep me steady, and they would not let me walk up or down any of the hills. What a blessing it is that, amidst the con- fusion of tongues, the language of kindness and cour- tesy is universally understood, and that a kindly smile on a savage face is as intelligible as on that of one’s own countryman ! They had never drawn a huruma., and were as pleased as children when I showed them how to balance the shafts. They were not without the capacity to originate ideas, for when they were tired of the frolic of pulling, they attached the kuruma by ropes to the horse, which one of them rode at a “ scramble,” while the other merely ran in the shafts to keep them level. This is an excellent plan. Horobets is a fishing station of antique and decayed aspect, with eighteen Japanese and forty-seven Aino houses. The latter are much larger than at ShiraSi, 126 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and their very steep roofs are beautifully constructed. It was a miserable day, with fog concealing the moun- tains and lying heavily on the sea, but as no one ex- pected rain, I sent the Tcuruma back to Mororan and secured horses. On principle I always go to the corral myself to choose animals, if possible, without sore backs, but the choice is often between one with a mere raw., and others which have holes in their backs intc which I could put my hand, or altogether uncovered spines. The practice does no immediate good, but by showing the Japanese that foreign opinion condemns these cruelties an amendment may eventually be brought about. At Horobets, among twenty^ horses, there was not one that I wordd take, — I should like to have had them all shot. They are cheap and abundant, and are of no accoimt. They drove a number more down from the hills, and I chose the largest and finest horse I have seen in Japan, with some spirit and action, but I soon found that he had tender feet. We shortly left the liigh-road, and in torrents of rain tiuned off on “ unbeaten tracks,” which led us through a very bad swamp and some much swollen and very rough rivers into the mountains, where we followed a worn-out track for eight miles. It was literally ‘•‘■foul weather,” dark and still, with a brown mist, and rain falling in sheets. I threw my paper waterproof away as useless, my clothes were of course soaked, and it was with much difficulty' that I kept my shomo7i and paper money from being reduced to pulp. Typhoons are not knovm so far north as Yezo, but it was what the}' call a “typhoon rain ” without the typhoon, and in no time it turned the streams into torrents barely fordable, and tore up such of a road as there is, wliich at its best is a mere wa- ter-channel. Torrents, bringing tolerable-sized stones, tore down the track, and when the horses had beer AN UNENVIABLE RIDE. 127 struck two or tlii’ee times by these, it was with difficult;^ that they could be induced to face the rushing water. Constantly in a pass, the water had gradually cut a track several feet deep between steep banks, and the only possible walking place was a stony gash not wide enough for the two feet of a horse alongside of each other, down which water and stones were rushing from behind, with all manner of trailers matted overhead, and between avoiding being strangled and attempting to keep a tender-footed horse on his legs, the ride was a very severe one. The poor animal fell five times from stepping on stones, and in one of his falls twisted my left wrist badly. I thought of the many people who envied me my tour in Japan, and wondered whether they would env}^ me that ride ! After this had gone on for four hours, the track, with a sudden dip over a hill-side, came down on Old Moro- ran, a village of thirty Aiuo and nine Japanese houses, very unpromising-looking, although exquisitely situated on the rim of a lovely cove. The Aino huts were small and poor, mth an unusual number of bear skulls on poles, and the village consisted mainly of two long dilapidated buildings, in which a number of men were mending nets. It looked a decaying place, of low, mean lives. But at a “ merchant’s ” there was one delightful room with two translucent sides — one opening on the village, the other looking to the sea down a short, steep slope, on which is a quaint little garden, with dwarfed fir-trees in pots, a few balsams, and a red cabbage grown with much pride as a “ foliage plant.” It is nearly midnight, but my bed and bedding are so wet that I am still sitting up and drying them, patch by patch, with tedious slowness, on a wooden frame placed over a charcoal brazier, wliich has given my room the drj ness and warmth which are needed when a jierson 128 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. has been for many hours in soaked clothing, and has nothing really dry to put on. Ito bought a chicken for my supper, but when he was going to kill it an hour later, its owner in much grief returned the money, say- ing she had brought it up, and could not bear to see it killed. This is a wild, outlandish place, but an intuition tells me that it is beautiful. The ocean at present is thundering up the beach with the sullen force of a heavy ground swell, and the rain is stdl falling in torrents. I.L.B, A PERFECT DAT. 129 A SURPRISE. ‘More than Peace ” — Geographical Difficulties — TJsu-taki — A Gar- den Eegion — Swimming the Osharu — A Dream of Beauty — A Sunset Effect — A Nocturnal Alarm — The Coast Ainos. Lebunge, Volcano Bat, Ybzo, September 6. “ Weary wave and dying blast Sob and moan along the shore, All is peace at last.” And more than peace. It was a heavenly morning. The deep blue sky was perfectly unclouded, a blue sea with diamond flash and a “ many-twinkling smile ” rip- pled gently on the golden sands of the lovely little bay, and opposite, forty miles away, the pink summit of the volcano of Komono-taki, forming the south-western point of Volcano Bay, rose into a softening veil of tender blue haze. There was a balmy breeziness in the air, and tawny tints upon the hill, patches of gold in the woods, and a scarlet spray here and there heralded the glories of the advancing autumn. As the day began, so it closed. I should like to have detained each hour as it passed. It was thorough enjoyment. I visited a good many of the Mororan Ainos, saw their well-grown bear in its cage, and tearing myself away with difficulty at noon, crossed a steep hill and a wood of scrub oak, and then followed a trail which runs on the amber sands close to the sea, crosses several small streams, and passes the lonely Aino village of Maripu, the ocean always on the left and wooded ranges on the right, and in front an 130 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. apparent bar to farther progress in the volcano of Usu- taki, an imposing mountain, rising abruptly to a height of nearly 3000 feet, I should think. In Y ezo, as on the main island, one can learn very little about any prospective route. Usually when one makes an inquiry, a Japanese puts on a stupid look, giggles, tucks his thumbs into his girdle, hitches up his garments, and either professes perfect ignorance, or gives one some vague second-hand information, though it is quite possible that he may have been over every foot of the ground himself more than once. Whether suspi- cion of your motives in asking, or a fear of compromising himself by answering, is at the bottom of this, I don’t know, but it is most exasperating to a traveller. In Hakodatd I failed to see Captain Blakiston, who has walked round the whole Yezo sea-board, and all I was able to learn regarding this route w'as that the coast was thinly-peopled by Ainos, that there were Govern- ment horses which could be got, and that one could sleep where one got them ; that rice and salt fish were the only food ; that there were many “ bad rivers,” and that the road went over “ bad mountains ; ” that the only people who went that way were Government ofiBcials twice a year, that one could not get on more than four miles a day, that the roads over the passes were “ all big stones,” etc. etc. So this Usu-taki took me altogether by surprise, and for a time confounded all my carefully-constructed notions of locality. I had been told that the one volcano in the bay was Komono-taki, near Mori, and this I believed to be eighty miles off, and there, confronting me, within a distance of two miles, was this grand, splintered, vermilion-crested thing, with a far nobler aspect than that of “ the ” volcano, with a curtain range in front, deeply scored, and slashed vuth ravines and abysses whose purple gloom was uulighted GARDEN CULTIVATION. 133 even by the noonday sun. One of the peaks was emit- ting black smoke from a deep crater, another, steam and white smoke from various rents and fissures in its side, vermilion peaks, smoke, and steam, all rising into a sky of brilliant blue, and the atmosphere was so clear that I saw everything that was going on there quite distinctly, especially when I attained an altitude exceeding that of the curtain range. Tt was not for two days that I got a correct idea of its geographical situation, but [ was not long in finding out that it was not Komono- taki ! There is much volcanic activity about it. I saw a glare from it last night thirty miles away. The Ainos said that it was “ a god,” but did not know its name, nor did the Japanese who were living under its shadow. At some distance from it in the interior rises a great dome-like mountain, Shiribetsan, and the whole view is grand. After passing through miles of scrub and sand we came quite suddenly upon the agricultural settlement of Mombets, where the Government has placed a colo- ny of 600 Japanese, and the verses apply, “ The valleys are so thick with corn that they laugh and sing — the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” For two miles, careful manuring and assiduous hand labour have turned a sandy waste into a garden, a sea of crops without a weed, hundreds of acres of maize, wheat, millet, beans, tobacco, hemp, egg plants, peaches, apricots, pumpkins, and all the good things of North- ern Japan, beautiful and luxuriant, with a good bridle road, fenced from the crops by a closely-cropped willow hedge, and numbers of small, neat Japanese houses, with gardens bright with portulaccas, red balsams, and small yellow chrysanthemums, all glowing in the sun- shine, a perfect oasis, showing the resources which 132 UNBEATEN TBAGKS IN JAPAN. Yezo possesses for the sustenance of a large popula tion. I have not seen above three or four Japanese togethei since I left Hakodate, and I was much impressed with their ugliness, the lack of force in their faces, and the feeble physique of both men and women, as compared with that of the aborigines. The Yezo Japanese don’t look altogether like the Japanese of the main island. They are as the colonists of Canada or Australia as compared with the small farmers of England, rougher, freer, more careless in their dress and deportment, and they are certainly affected, as people always are, by the cheapness and abundance of horses, which they ride cross-legged, in imitation of the Ainos. Till I reached Mombets, all the Japanese I have seen have led a life of irregular and precarious industry, very different from that of the peasant proprietors of the main island; and in the dull time they loaf and hang about “grog shops” not a little, and are by no means improved by the habit of lording it over an inferior race. A little beyond Mombets flows the river Osharu one of the largest of the Yezo streams. It was mucL swollen by the previous day’s rain ; and as the ferry- boat was carried away, we had to swim it, and the swim seemed very long. Of course, we and the bag- gage got very wet. The coolness with which the Aino guide took to the water without gAdng us any notice that its broad, eddjdng flood was a swim, and not a ford, was very amusing. From the top of a steepish ascent beyond the Osha- rugawa, there is a view into what looks like a very lovely lake, with wooded promontories, and little bays, and rocky capes in miniature, and little heights, on which Aino liouses, with tawny roofs, are clustered, and then the track dips suddenly, and deposits one, not JAPANESE EXILES. 133 by a lake at all, but on Usu Bay, an inlet of the Pacific, much broken up into coves, and with a very narrow entrance, only obvious from a few points. Just as the track touches the bay, there is a road-post, with a prayer-wheel in it, and by the shore an upright stone of very large size, inscribed with Sanskrit characters, near to a stone staircase and a gateway in a massive stone-faced embankment, which looked much out of keeping with the general AvUdness of the place. On a rocky promontory in a wooded cove, there is a large, rambling house, greatly out of repair, inhabited by a Japanese man and his son, who are placed there to look after Government interests, exiles among 500 Ainos. From among the number of rat-haunted, rambling rooms which had once been handsome, I chose one opening on a yard or garden with some distorted yews in it, but found that the great gateway and the amado had no bolts, and that anything might be appropriated by any one with dishonest intentions ; but the house- master and his son, who have lived for ten years among the Ainos, and speak their language, say that nothing is ever taken, and that the Ainos are thoroughly honest and harmless. Without this assurance I should have been distrustful of the number of wide-mouthed youths who hung about, in the listlessness and vacuity of sav- agery, if not of the bearded men who sat or stood about the gateway with children in their arms. Usu is a dream of beauty and peace. There is not much difference between the height of high and low water on this coast, and the lake-like illusion would have been perfect had it not been that the rocks were tinged with gold for a foot or so above the sea by a delicate species of fucus. In the exquisite inlet where I spent the night, trees and trailers drooped into the water and were mirrored in it, their green, heavy shad 134 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ows lying sharp against the sunset gold and pink of the rest of the bay ; log canoes, with planks laced upon their gunwales to heighten them, were drawn upon a tiny beach of golden sand, and in the shadiest cove, moored to a tree, an antique and much-carved junk was “floating double.” Wooded, rocky knolls, with Aino huts, the vermilion peaks of the volcano of Usu-taki redder than ever in the sinking sun, a few Ainos mend- ing their nets, a few more spreading edible seaweed out to dry, a single canoe breaking the golden mirror of the cove by its noiseless motion, a few Aino loungers, with their “ mild-eyed, melancholy ” faces and quiet ways suiting the quiet evenmg scene, the unearthly sweet- ness of a temple hell — this was all, and yet it was the loveliest picture I have seen in Japan. In spite of Tto’s remonstrances and his protestations that an exceptionally good supper would be spoiled, 1 left my rat-haunted room, with its tarnished gilding and precarious fusvma, to get the last of the pink and lemon-coloured glory, going up the staircase in the stone-faced embankment, and up a broad, well-paved avenue, to a large temple, within whose open door I sat for some time absolutely alone, and in a wonderful still- ness ; for the sweet-toned bell which vainl}' chimes for v^espers amidst this bear-worshipping population had ceased. This temple was the first symptom of Japan- ese religion that I remember to have seen since leaving Hakodate, and worshippers have long since ebbed away from its shady and moss-grown courts. Yet it stands there to protest for the teaching of the great Hindu; and generations of Aino heathen pass awa}" one after another; and still its bronze bell tolls, and its altar lamps are lit, and incense burns for ever before Buddha. Tlie characters on the great bell of this temple are said to be the same lines which are often graven on temple SAKYA-MUNI. 135 bells, and to possess the dignity of twenty-four cen- turies; ‘ All things are transient ; They being born must die, And being born are dead ; And being dead are glad To be at rest.” The temple is very handsome, the baldachino is superb, and the bronzes and brasses on the altar are specially fine. A broad ray of sunlight streamed in, crossed the matted floor, and fell full upon the figure of Sakya- muni in his golden shrine ; and just at that moment a shaven priest, in silk-brocaded vestments of faded green, silently passed down the stream of light, and lit the candles on the altar, and fresh incense filled the temple with a drowsy fragrance. It was a most impressive picture. His curiosity evidently shortened his devo- tions, and he came and asked me where I had been and where I was going, to which, of course, I replied in excellent Japanese, and then stuck fast. Along the paved avenue, besides the usual stone trough for holy water, there are on one side the thou- sand-armed Kwan-non, a very fine relief, and on the other a Buddha, throned on the eternal lotus blossom, with an iron staff, much resembling a crozier, in his hand, and that eternal apathy on his face which is the liighest hope of those who .hope at all. I went through a wood, where there are some mournful groups L. B. 242 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN THE MONTO SECT. ITie Protestants of Buddhism — The “English-Speaking” Priest — The Nishi-Hongiiwanji Temple — A Monto Altar — Nirvana — Hid^yoshi’s Summer Palace — Metempsychosis — Buddha as a Democrat — The Prospects of Christianity — The Priest’s Estimate of Belief in England — The Conflict of Opinion in Japan — A Question. KiJOSAJf TASHiKi, KiTOTO, November 1. Of the many sects and sub-sects into which Buddlhsm is divided, none interests me so much as the Shinshiu, sometimes called the Monto Sect, founded b}- Shinran in 1262. Protesting against celibacy, penance, fasting, pilgrhnages, nunneries, monasteries, cloistered and her- mit isolation from society, charms, amulets, and the reading of the Scriptures in an unkno't\Ti tongue, claim- ing freedom of thought and action, and emancipation from ShintS, traditional, and State influence, and hold- ing that the family is the source and example of purity, Shinran married a noble lady of Kiyoto, and founded a married priesthood. If the Monto is not the largest sect, it stands first in intelligence, influence, and wealth, it is putting forth immense energies, and has organised theological schools on a foreign system; in which its acol}^des are being trained in Buddhist and Western learning for the purpose of enabling them not only to resist or assail both Shinto and Christianity, but the corruptions of the Buddhist faith. At this hour new college buildings are arismg in Kiy8to to be splendidly equipped for teacl-.ing purposes, a.nd the THE “ENGLISH-SPEAKING'’ PRIEST. 243 plan is to send certain of the young priests to England to learn Sanskrit, and to fortify themselves with ar- guments against Christianity ; and it is not in KiySto alone that this vigorous sect is training a priesthood to meet the needs of the day. Foremost in this movement, which has for its object a new reformation, and the re-establishment of Buddh- ism as a moral power in Japan, is Akamatz, a priest of great intellect, high culture, indomitable energy, wide popularity, and far-reaching ambitions for the future of his faith. He spent some years in England, studying Sanskrit and Christianity, and is known to the Japan- ese in Kiy6to as “the English-speaking priest.” Mr. de Saumarez gave me a letter to him, and he wrote me a note in English, asking me to go and see him at the Nishi-Honguwanji temple. The Monto sect builds large temples in the centres of great cities, and often in pairs, connected by a covered corridor. These are the temples whose huge sweeping roofs and vast enclosures near the railway station impressed me on the day of my arrival, and not less impressive were they to-day as I approached them in my favourite kuruma through streets of shrine and idol makers, in whose shops the gorgeous paraphernalia of a gorgeous worship make a resplendent display. The comely walls with heavily tiled roofs, the broad, granite-lined water-channels outside, along which the water ripples brightly, the massive gateways which give access to the temple-courts, the gardens with their bridges, artificial lakes and islands, the luxurious pleas- ure-grounds of the summer palace of an ancient SliQgun, and the imposing group formed by the twin temples, with their background of enormous trees, are among the vastest sights of Kiyoto. The sky was murky and threatening, a drift of brown 244 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. cloud lay across Hiyeizan, occasional gusts of wind lifted the sand in the temple-courts, and the gloom seemed to suit these grand structures of an ancient faith. In the stately courts there were neither priests nor worshippers, and I shivered as I crossed them, guided by my /rar?ma-runner, to whom the utterance of the simple word Akamatz conveyed my wishes. He deposited me at the side of the great temple, where a flight of steps led up to a small room where two priests were writing, and there, taking off my boots, I waited for the “ English-speaking priest.” I was disappointed with his appearance. He is barely five feet high, and decidedly ill-favoured, with hair about an inch long, very bristly, a bristly black mustache, and bristly scanty beard. His brow, however, is fine, and his 65*68 are bright and keen. He wore a cassock of figured blue brocade, a deep chasuble of figured brown silk grenadine, and a stole of crimson cloth of gold, and carried a brown rosary in his left hand. In describing Buddhist vestments, it is impossible to avoid drifting into the use of terms by which the vestments in the Roman Church are knovn. Akamatz is very gentle- manly and courteous, speaks English remarkably well, with great vigour of expression, and talked, as it seemed to me, with surprising frankness. He took me over the temples, and showed me all that was to be seen. My %dsit lasted for three hours, and I would gladly have made it longer, I was so deeply interested with his mind and conversation. This great temple of Nishi-Honguwanji may be re- garded as the cathedral of the IMonto sect,^ and the 1 The statements concerning the Monto sect and its tenets, which are given in this Letter, rest on the authority of Mr. Akamatz. I have not met a European whose information on tbe subject is sufficient to enable me to judge of their accuracy ; Imt tlie cliaracter of this priest stands very high, and there is no reason to suppose that he misinformed me A MONTO ALTAR. 245 Abbot or High Priest and its other dignitaries repre- sent Bishop, Dean, and Chapter. They are at the head of 10,000 Monto temples, whose financial and ecclesiastical concerns they manage, and whose patron- age they dispense. There are 100 priests here, besides acolytes, but much of their business is secular. They look very unlike ordinary “ bonzes,"' because of their hair and beards, and there is little of the stupid oi sanctimonious expression which is usual on the faces of Buddhist priests. Their creed does not require any- thing like asceticism or separation from the duties and delights of other men, and in so much is healthier and more human. We walked round the outside of the public rooms, which are numerous, large, and lofty, by a deep corridor, from which we saw the interior, through the open skoji, and the dull gleam of rich dead gold hinted of the artistic treasures within. For in these dimly -lighted rooms, most of which have been set apart for guests for centuries, there are paintings nearly 300 years old, and the walls are either panelled in gold, or are formed of fusuma, heavily overlaid with gold-leaf, on wlrich, in the highest style of Japanese art, are depicted various sacred emblems — the lotus, the stork, the peony, and the Cleyera Japonica — executed very richly and beauti- fully with slightly conventionalised fidelity to nature. From thence we passed into the great temple, the sim- ple splendour of which exceeds an3rthing I have yet seen. The vast oblong space has a flat roof, supported on many circular pillars of finely-planed wood ; a third part is railed off for the sanctuary ; the panels of the folding-doors and the panels at the back are painted with flowers on a gold ground; behind a Uack lacquer altar stands a shrine of extreme splendour, gleaming in the coloured twilight; but on the high altar itself there 246 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. were oaly two candlesticks, two vases of pure white chiysanthemiims, and a glorious bronze incense burner. An incense burner was the only object on the low altar. Besides these there were six black lacquer desks, on each desk a roll of litanies, and above the altar six liimps burned low. It was imposingly magnificent. As handsome as a Monto altar,” is a proverbial say- ing. This sect rejects images and aU sensuous para- phernalia addressed to the popular taste, and, according to Mr. Akamatz, teaches “ the higher Life ” by the rnle of the Scriptures, which, written in characters of the unlearned, and in the tongue of the common people, “are able to make them wise ” unto a salvation which can only be obtained by purity and righteousness. Furthermore, it teaches that the maxims and doctrines promulgated by the other sects are corruptions of the truth ; that celibate vows, fasting, and abstinence from the moderate use of the good things of life, are inven- tions of the vanity or superstition of men ; that a mar- ried priesthood is the best conservator of the pnrity of society ; and that priestcraft, in the ordinary sense, is a delusion and a snare. Their sons, if not by birth, at all events by adoption from the family of another priest, succeed them, and formerly, in time of war, they have laid aside their robes, put on armour, and formed them- selves into battalions. We passed by a covered bridge into the other temple, in which the principal object is a gorgeous sluine, in which Sakya-muni stands with his hands folded, looking :almiy down upon flowers, candles, and an incense burner, as calmly as he looks upon thousands of wor- shippers on festal days, the spiritual children of those who, for 2000 years, have called him blessed. In front of the altar there was a stand vfith four i\IS. rolls upon it, “ the original words of Buddha.” Besides this there NIBVANA. 247 was nothing, and in the vast, dim temple, only a man and woman knelt at the sanctuary rails, telling their beads with a look of extreme devotion, and the low murmur, Namu amida Butsu," thrilled plaintively through the stillness ; and it was as thrilling to hear the priest, in presence of the symbols of his faith, dis» coursing on its mysteries. He either could not or did not care to answer many of my questions regarding the symbolisms of ritual. He said he was not acquainted with the details of the other sects. I asked the meaning of the universal re- currence of the lotus. “ The lotus,” he said, “ is purity ; with its fair blossom it grows out of slime and mud, so righteousness grows out of the filth of the human heart.” As to the differences among the Buddhist sects, he said, “ Their doctrines differ as widely from each other as do those of Christians ; but as you all believe in one God and Christ, so all Buddhists agree in reverence for Amida, and in belief in immortality and in the transmigration of souls.” He said, “You aie limited by your ‘ Creator ; ’ we do not believe in any creator, but that spirit (eternal) produced atoms, which, by what in English you w'ould call ‘ fortuitous combina- tion,’ produce all we see. Buddha is not, as your God, supreme, but above all. When you die you do not be- come gods, but we become Buddhas.” I said that I saw bronze and stone Buddhas everywhere, wfith faces on which stagnation is depicted, and from wliich all human emotion is banished ; Buddha is not sleeping or waking or thinking, he exists only. “ Even so,” he answered ; “ the end of righteousness is rest. Nirvana cannot be easily explained. You ask. Is it absorption ? I answer Yes and No. It may be termed absorption, yet not altogether so ; individuality may cease, but individual consciousness may remain latent — the eter* 248 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAB AN. ual ages are long. You have not in your language the words by which I could speak more clearly of Nirvana. iMisery is the very essence of all life. To attain Nirva- na is to be delivered from the merciless necessity ol being born again, to reach a state ‘in which there are neither ideas, nor a consciousness of the absence of ideas.’ This is life in death, or death in life ; English has no words for it.” I asked him what the objects of the Buddhist faith are, and he answered unhesitatingly, “ To make men pure, and to keep alive belief in the immortality of the soul, which is the basis of all right- eousness. Buddha is incarnate in all good deeds. If I am indolent and stay in my room, I am myself ; if I rise and preach righteousness, I am Buddha.” Speaking on such themes in the temples and galler- ies, I hardly noticed where we were tending, till, cross- ing a bridge and passing through some buildings, I found that we were in the most exquisite garden that I have seen in Japan, a fairy-like creation, small, but seeming large, and well worthy to be the retreat of one of the greatest of the ShSguns. There were fountains and a small lake, over whose clear waters, tlirough which large gold-fish were glancing, hung the fantastic balconies of Hiddyoshi’s summer palace, an irregular three-storeyed building of most picturesque appearance. Small stone bridges cross the water,- winding paths in deep shade lead to unexpected summer-houses, enor- mous trees give stateliness, the huge roofs of the tem- ples rise above the shady foreground, scarlet maples are reflected scarlet in the motionless water, the quaint trunks and dark green fronds of the cycas rise out of rocky islets ; and the whole was solemnised by a dark November sky. We passed the end of the lake on a stone terrace and entered the Sh6gun’s retreat, which is fantastically arranged with steep, narrow staii’cases, HIDETOSni’S SUMMEJi PALACE. 24 tJ nefarious-looking roomlets, irregular balconies, large rooms with deep recesses, and a small, singular-looking chamber, used for the mysterious rites of cha-no-yu, or tea-meetings. Two attendants, silent like all else, were waiting to draw aside the shoji, that I might see the different beautiful views on the different storeys, the most beautiful, to my thinking, being the enchanted- looking garden, with the grand curved roofs of the tem- ples above the stately trees, and the blotches of scar let in the lake below. Tea and bonbons were served on a gold lacquer tray in antique Kaga cups, by these noiseless attendants, in the large room of the summer palace, with its dark posts and ceiling and dull gleams of dead gold, the little light there was falling on the figure of the priest in his vestments, as he still discoursed on his faith. The solemnity was nearly oppressive, and the deserted palace, the representative of a dead faith (for dead it surely is), the deepening gloom, the sighing of a doleful wind among the upper branches, the rattling of the shoji, the low boom of the temple drum in the distance, and the occasional sound of litanies wafted on the wail- ing breeze, wrought on me so like a spell, that I felt as if I were far from the haunts of living men. It was not this alone, but I was entangled in a web of meta- physics, or lost in chaos where nothing had form, and birth and death succeeded each other through endless eternities, life with misery for its essence, death onlj* the portal to re-birth into new misery, and so on in interminable cycles of unsatisfying change, till at last righteousness triumphs, and the soul being born into misery no more, reaches its final goal in oractical anni- hilation. Mr. Akamatz said a great deal about transmigration, in which he avowed his implicit belief as an essentia] 250 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. article of faith. I asked him if the pure, on d} 'mg pass into Nirvana, which appears to me but a synonym for negation., a conception impossible to the western mind. “Where are the pure?” he replied. Then I asked him if those who die unrighteous pass into the divers torments figured on the kakemonos of the Chi- onin temple for a period of purification? “No,” he said, “their spirits undergo metempsychosis, they are re-born into the bodies of animals.” I suggested that this shut out all hope of purification, as they were then out of reach of all teaching and good influences. “ Not so, for Buddha becomes incarnate in other animals, and conveys to them such teaching as they can receive. If the torments of the Chionin hells are the end of all to some, who knows? the eternal ages are long.” You cannot imagme the profound melancholy of this refrain, which occurred at least six times in the priest's conver- sation, “ long ” in the dreary past, and “ long ” in the dreary future, man walking “ in a vain show ” through cycles of misery to a goal of annihilation. So have Sakya-muni and his followers taught for more than 2000 years, and so teaches this most enlightened priest of this most enlightened sect, who having studied Chris- tianity and the philosophies of East and West, has no better hope than “ not to be.” I asked him his opinion of the present religious state of Japan, and after very much interesting conversation, he summed up thus : — “ ShintOism is truly the rudest form of nature worship, slightly embellished by Confu- cian and Buddhist contact. As a rehgion it is dead, as a political engine it is failing, it never had life. Buddh- ism was once strong, it is now weak, it may or may not revive. Its ’^dtal truths — purity, metempsychosis, and immortality, cannot die.” I told him that, in spite of certain superstitious observances, I could not but re- THE PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 251 gard the Japanese as a most irreligious people. “ It is so now,” he said. “ The Coufucian philosophy spread rapidly long ago among the higher classes, and edu- cated and thinking men denied immortality, and be- came what you would call materialists. Gradually their unbelief sank downwards through the heimin., and there is little real belief in Japan, though m;ich super- stition still exists.” 1 asked him if his sect addressed itself specially to the upper classes. “ Pure Buddhism knows no classes,” he said ; “ Buddha was what you call a democrat. All souls are equal, all men by right- eousness can become Buddhas. Your Christ was a democrat, and desired to make of men a brotherhood, but you ha\m one doctrine for rich and one for poor, and one church for rich, into which poor cannot enter, and one for poor, where you teach men to obey the rich; this is not our way.” I asked him what he thought of the prospects of Cdiristianity in Japan, and among much else he said, “ There have been missiona- ries called Protestants in Japan for fifteen 3mars, there are now over 100, and thej" count IGOO baptized per- sons. The college here is sending out young saynurai to preach, very ardent, and well equipped for teaching ; Christianity may make great progress in some of the country parts of Japan, for many are weary., weary., iveary, and it is easy, and they will be disposed to receive it' but not in the large towns.” This corresponds closely with Mr. Neesima’s opinion on the same subject. I asked him what he considered the most prevalent “ unrighteousnesses ” among his countrymen, and he gave the repl}' which I have mentioned as having been given me three times before, “ truthlessness and licen- tiousness.” After speaking a great deal of the demerits of Chris- tianity, he said that he consideri'd that a far more pow- 252 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. erful mflueuce than it is now working in Japan in “ the English philosophy,” as taught by Mill, Herbert Spen- cer, and others, while the scientific writings of Huxley, and Darwin’s Origin of Species., are stimulating inqui- ries “ which Christianity cannot answer.” These books are translated, and the higher education, rapidly extend- ing, is enabling the young men to acquaint themselves witlj a wide range of similar works in English. Besides this, he said, there are English, Scotch, and German teachers who assail Christianity openly in their lec- tures, and teach an undisguised materialism. “ The Confucian philosophy is being rapidly replaced here by your English philosophy,” he said. “ This philosophy is threatening your beliefs at home, your priests are adapt- ing their teaching, perhaps their creeds, to it. Crod and immortality are quickly disappearing in England., so men grow more wicked, and despise your doctrines of purity, which are not consistent. Jesus Christ is first aban- doned, yet men say they believe in God, yet not as Creator but Father, then they no longer believe in God, It may be well just now, but it will not be well soon, for without immortality there will be no righteousness. In Japan tliis philosophy threatens both Buddhism and Christianity ; it is your own philosophy wdiich Christi- anity will have to fight here among the educated, and not ShintS or Buddhism. Buddhism may yet re^five ; it teaches men purity, it shows that the end of right- eousness is rest ; purity is the plain road to rest ; tlie moral teachings of Buddha are higher than those of Chnst. Christ’s precepts are powerless. Do men keep them in England?” Mr. Akamatz said a great deal that was very mteresting regarding the tendencies of religious thought in England. He has deeply studied one or two braTiches of our literature, and is evidently a deep, though a metaplwsical, thinker, as well as a stu- A QUESTION. 253 dent of Christianity. Can this priest, who is regarded as the ablest and most enlightened man in the Buddhist hierarchy, truly believe in his own metaphysics and in the doctrine of prolonged metempsychosis? It was twilight when we left the palace of Hid^yoshi and returned to the vast, dim temple, where four lamps, burning low, feebly lit the gorgeousness of the sanctu- ary and the figure of Buddha, serene for ever within his golden shrine. Is it the Hindu teacher in his pas- sionless repose, who, from the dimness of the dead ages, offers men an immortality of unconsciousness, or is it the eternal Son of God, the living Brother of our hu- manity, who in the living present offers to “ the weary ” rest and service in an endless life, and fellowship in His final triumph over evil, who shall mould the religious future of Japan? I. L. B. 254 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ARTISTIC TASTES. Kiy6to Shopping — Artistic Patterns — Solitude in Decoration — A Japanese Etag'ere — Honest Work — Vitiation of Japanese Art — Kiyoto Brocades — The Board of Industries — The New Hospital Nijosan Yashiki, Kiyoto. The “ elegant repose ” of Kiyoto degenerates into wearisome dawdling in the shops. They are slower than anywhere else. One can hardly buy the merest trifle in less than an horn-. Three or four men and sharp, business-like boys squat on the floor round a hibachi, with two or three wooden basins for money, se reral ledgers and ink boxes, and a soroban or two among them. They offer you the tabako-bon and pro- duce tea after every little purchase ; and if I go with a Japanese, they waste more time in asking my age, in- come, where my husband is, if I am “learned,” and where I have been. But the beauty of the things in many of the small, dingy shops is wonderful. Kiyoto is truly the home of art. There are wide mousseline de laines, with patterns on them of the most wild!}" irregular kind, but so artis- tic in grace of form and harmony of colour that I should like to hang them aU up merely to please my eyes. From the blaze of gold and silver stuffs, stiff with bul- lion, used chiefly for ecclesiastical purposes, which one sees in some shops, one turns for rest to silk brocades in the most artistic shades of brown, green, and grey, with here and there a spray or figure only just suggested SOLITUDE IN DECORATION. 255 in colour or silver, and to silk cripes so exquisitely fine that four widths at a time can be drawn through a fin- ger ring, and with soft sprays of flowers or bamboo thrown on their soft, tinted grounds with an apparent carelessness which produces ravishing effects. If I have not written much about Japanese art, it is not that I do not enjoy it, but because the subject is almost stale. I see numbers of objects everywhere, and especially here, which give me great pleasure, and often more than pleasure. It is not alone the costly things which connoisseurs buy, but household furnishings made for peasant use, which are often faultless in form, colour, and general effect. As on the altars and on the walls of Japanese houses you see a single lotus, iris, peony, or spray of wistaria ; so on cups, vases, or lacquer made for Japanese use the effect of solitary decoration is understood, and repetition is avoided. Thus, a spray of bamboo, a single stork among reeds, a faint and almost shadowy suggestion of a bamboo in faint green on grey or cream, or a butterfly or grasshopper on a spray of cherry blossom, is constantly the sole decora- tion of a tray, vase, or teapot, tin-own on with apparent carelessness in some unexpectedly graceful position. Instead of the big birds and trees and great blotchy clouds in gold paint, which disfigure lacquer made for the English market, true Kiyoto lacquer, made for those who love it, is adorned mainly with suggested sprays of the most feathery species of bamboo, or an indicatu n of the foliage of a pine, or a moon and light clouds, all on a ground of golden mist. There are few shops which have not on their floors just now some thorougiily enjoyed spray of bamboo, or reddening maple, or two or three chiysanthemums in some exquisite creation of bronze or china. The highest art and some unspeakably low things go 256 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. together, but every Japanese seems born with a singular perception of, and love of beauty or prettiness. The hundreds of shops in Kiyoto, in which numbers of beautiful objects are carefully arranged, are bewildering. I long to buy things for all my friends at home, but either they would despise them, or huddle them together with other things in or on some vile piece of upholstery ! You should see a real Japanese Stag ere of plain black lacquer of flawless polish, with irregular shelves curi- ously arranged, and a very few real treasures displayed upon it, in order to learn Japanese tastefulness. Inlaid bronze, or bronze with flowers in silver or gold relief, is one of the most beautiful manufactures of KiyCto. I saw a pair of vases a foot high to-day at one of the workshops fostered by the Government, which were simply perfect, copied from one in the imperial treasury at Nara. An English workman who “ scamps ” his work, and turns out a piece of original vulgarity, or a badly executed imitation of a real work of art, should see what honest, careful, loving labour does here in per- fection of finish for one shilling a day. It is true that work at which a Japanese would hardly look passes muster with foreigners. 1 went with Mr. Noguchi to- day to the Awata pottery, where 200 men are employed in making a cream-coloured, crackled waae for exporta- tion, and there wasted two and a half hours in buying a tea-service, not only because tea and the tahako-bon were introduced so often, but because, being made for the English market, nearly all the cups were crowded with gaudy butterflies, and there was scarcely a cup rr saucer that was perfectly circular. I cannot join in the uncritical admiration of modern Japanese art which is fashionable in some quarters. The human figure is always badly drawn, and the represen- tations of it are grotesque and exaggerated. Japanese THE BOARD OF INDUSTRIES. 257 sculpture is nearly always caricature, and even as such is deficient in accuracy and delicacy of finish. Gener- ally, in their best modern productions, they do but imi- tate themselves, and an attempt to please the western buyer results in lacquer overburdened with expensive ornament, gorgeous screens heavy with coarse gilding, Rnd glaringly m congruous painting, or costly embroider- ies in silks of harsh, crude colours, cliina overloaded with colour, pattern, and gilding, and bronzes crowded with incongruous collections of men and beasts, all the work of the craftsman, and not of the artist. In order to correct the tendencies to imperfect copy- ing, and degradation of true Japanese art, the Govern- ment of Kiybto has established a “ Board for the Pro- motion of Industries,” which is doing most praiseworthy work in raising the standard of excellence in silk weav- ing, and in the making of bronze, porcelain, and embroi- dery. It has also established schools in which appren tices are taught different trades under teachers paid by Government, and in every way is trjdng to elevate the productions of the native manufacturers. I spent a very interesting day with Mr. Noguchi among the Nishigin silk weavers, and the bronze and porcelain makers. There are silks and brocades just now on the looms in Nishigin which would make a Frenchman die of despair, and these exquisite productions are made in imperfectly lighted and verj^ small rooms, where four or five weavers at most are throwing heart and soul into their work. There was one brocade for a girdle thirty- two inches wide, of rich silk of a soft grey tint. On it ivere thrown with artistic grace very slight sprays of bamboo in silver, with their shadows in a darker shade of grey than the ground. It was a picture in itself, and only one of several almost equally beautiful. The bronze workshops, which turn out such beautiful and UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. 2r.8 finished works of art as were sent to the Paris Exhibi- tion, are no better than ordinary blacksmith’s shops, and the appliances are of the rudest description. This same “ Board of Industries ” has established female industrial schools, to one of which I went with Mr. Noguchi, and saw some very beautiful Japanese rugs being made to order. These schools are of two grades, one under Imperial patronage for the daughters of the nobility and gentry, the other, which has 500 pupils, mostly day boarders, for joro-gixh,, geishas, and tea-house servants, the attendance of the two former classes being compulsory during certain hours, the fees for instruction being deducted from their wages. The teaching includes music, dancing, needlework of all kinds, reading, writing, and the use of the soroban, to- gether with silk-reeling, the weaving of Japanese rugs, and the preparation of wadding as the linin g for clothes. In the school for the higher classes the great- est attention is paid to deportment and to all the punc- tilious observances of Japanese etiquette for ladies, and the result is a grace and winning courtesy on the part of the pupils, which are most truly fascinating. Many of the white, semi-foreign buildings which jar upon the intense nationality of Kiyfito, are elementary schools, of which there are 445 in the Fu, Every city district is obliged to establish and maintain one of these, except in the case of very poor districts, where two are allowed to unite. In these the pupils are taught foreign history, “philosophy,” geography, and mathematics, besides passing through the Chinese clas- sics, and the usual course of Japanese study. One of the finest novelties here is the scarcely-fin- ished hospital, which has a very fine situation, and large grounds surrounded by a wall, outside of which is a stream of swiftly-running clear water. The hosp’tal is THE NEW HOSPITAL. 25H composed of several tv^o-storeyed buildings, w\tl.\ deep verandahs round each, and has the most approved arrangements for ventilation and general wholesome- ness. It has cost a great deal, but the money is most worthily spent, as the buildmg will not only receive 600 patients, but will be equipped as efficiently as possible as a medical school. With its schools, hospitals, lunatic asylum, prisons, dispensaries, alms-houses, fountains, public parks and gardens, exquisitely beautiful cemeteries, and streets of almost painful cleanliness, Kiy6to is the best-arranged and best-managed city in Japan. I. L. B. UNBEATEN T RAVES IN JAPAN. 2ti0 UJI. Hugging a Hibachi — A Japanese “ Institution” — Industrious Pov- erty — Uji Tea-houses — Tea-making — Our First Evening — Nara — A Treasury of Antiquities — A Eow of Petitioners — Inappro- priate Travelling Gear — A Shrine of Pilgrimage — An Ancient Monastery — A Trudge through Mud — Higenashi — Mushroom Culture — Roughing it — The High Road — A Rubbing Stone. Yamaua, PnoviNCE OF Isi, November 10. A JOURNEY of five days has brought us here to the celebrated Is^ shrines. The weather began by being bad, but has improved, and though the impassable state of the roads prevented us from visiting the monastery of Koyeisan and the castle of Takatori, we have passed through lovely scenery, much of wliich is altogether Arcadian, and Mrs. Gulick is an excellent travelling companion, uniformly cheerful, unselfish, kind, and in- terested, and we have been fortunate in kiiruma-iun- ners, accommodation, and, indeed, in everytliing but the weather of the three first days. As compared with the rough, unkempt regions of Northern Japan, tliis is a highly luxuiious country, and as fleas and mosquitoes are either dead or in winter quarters, there is really little to complain of. The splendour of the colouring is very great at this season, and as the aforesaid pests are absent, this would really be the best tune for trav- elling in Japan if it were not for the intolerable cold. Time which shoidd be usefully occupied, is completely taken up in hugging a hibachi, by which means tie A JAPANESE INSTITUTION.” 261 hands and chest are kept tolerably warm, Avliile the rest of the body is shivering, or in tenderly piling one live ember upon another with toy tongs, the size of large scissors. The last resource is the Icotatsu, and, casting dignity aside, I often avail myself of it. This, which is a Japanese “ institution,” consists of a square, wood- en frame, standing over a basin of lighted charcoal, and supporting a large wadded quilt or futon, under which you creep, and, drawing it up to your chin, and holding it there, you spend a warm, lazy, and undignified even- ing. Five or six, or even more, people can creep under one, and I doubt not that at this very hour half the families of Japan are huddled under kotatsu. I must reiterate the difference between a house, as we understand it, and a house in Japan. All buildings consist of a raised flooring, vertical beams, and a wood- en roof, but their outer walls are mainly light wooden frames, with paper panes, sliding in grooves, enclosed at night by wooden shutters, the whole being merely a porous screen from the inclemency of the weather. Under these circumstances the invitation to creep under the kotatsu is as welcome as the “ sit in ” of the Scotch Highlands or the “ put your feet in the stove ” of Col- orado. Mr. and Mrs. Gulick and I left Kiy6to at eight on the 5th in a grey-brown drizzle, and reached Nara the same night, following the well-beaten track of nearly all foreigners who visit the old capital, halting at the celebrated Inari Temple of Fushimi, formerly a distinct town, and the residence of Xavier, and celebrated also for the final defeat of the ShSgun’s army in 1869. We travelled tlirough seven miles of continuous streets before we got into the country, much of the distance being among the dwellings of the poorest classes ; but it is industrious poverty, without vice or squalor, and 262 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. nearly every mean, contracted, dingy abode is displa}- ing at least one great, bulging chi-ysantbemum, such as would drive the Temple gardener wild with envy. We C]'ossed the broad Ujikawa, which runs out of Lake Biwa, by a long and handsome bridge, and went as far as the pretty little town of Uji, which has some of the loveliest tea-houses in Japan, hanging over the broad swift river, with gardens and balconies, fountains, stone lanterns, and all the quaint conv'entionalities wliich are so harmonious here. These tea-houses are ceaselessly represented by Japanese art, and if you see a, photograph of an ideal tea-house, you may be sure it is at Uji. We got an exquisite upper room in one of them for lunch, looking up the romantic gorge through which the river cuts its way from Lake Biwa, and over a miniature garden lighted by flaming maples. It was altogether ideal, and I felt that we were coarsely real and out of place ! I had not before seen a European man in one of these fairy-like rooms, and Mr. Gulick being exceptionally tall, seemed to fill the whole room, and to have any number of arms and legs ! I knew that the tea-house people looked at us with disgust. The tea-plant, which is a camellia, and is now covered with cream-white blossoms crowded with stamens and faintly fragrant, is very pretty, for it is allowed to grow into broad bushes fr'om three to four feet high, and its rich dark-green masses in rows contrast well with the reddish soil. Uji is one of the most famous of the Japan tea-districts, and its people told us that two crops a year have been taken from the same shrubs for 300 years. The Japanese say that tea was drunk in the Empire in the ninth century, when a Buddhist priest brought the tea-seed from China ; but it seems that its cidture died out, and that it was naturahsed a second time in the twelfth century, when a Buddhist OUB FIRST EVENING. 263 priest again brought seed from China, shortly aftei which tea was planted at Uji. It now grows all over Japan, except in Yezo, and, besides being the great beverage of all classes, is exported annually to Amer- ica to the amount of about 16,000,000 pounds from Yokohama only. I have never seen any tea worth less than sixteenpence a pound, and that is only drunk by the poorer classes. The Japanese are great tea epi- cures, and the best tea drunk by those who can afford it costs thirteen shillings per pound ! The water used for tea-making must not boil, and it must rest barely a minute on the leaves, or the result will be bitter and as- tringent. The infusion is a pale straw colour, delicate and delicious. No Japanese would touch the dark, rank infusion made from black tea which we like so well. To drink it thus, in big cups, and above all with milk, they regard as among our many coarse habits ! The drizzle turned into heavy rain, and after two hours of thorough soaking we were hurried into Nara in the darkness, and shot out of our kurumas at the first yadoya we came to, the men evidently not being minded to run farther. It was a bad inn, with old mats, low ceilings, a throng of travellers, and no end of bad smells. There I missed Ito, for every bit of bag- gage came wet into my room with muddy wrappers and straps. Then we had to cook our “foreign food” — simple stirabout — over a miserable hibacM., and we ate like pigs with all our wet and muddy things lying about us, the open shoji letting in the view of aU our coolies bathing, the servant crouching on the floor, and our light, a candle stuck into a bottle. Since that night we have been in comfortable yadoyas, and our ^MrMwia-runners have attended to our baggage, but I always miss Ito when we are cooking the stirabout over the hibachi. Moreover, that evening I forgot how to 264 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. make it, and put the flour into boiling milk, and the result was tough lumps. We could not sleep for the closeness of the air and the general restlessness of oui fellow-travellers ; but it was almost worth lying awake to realize the fact that fleas and mosquitoes are at an end for the season. The next day was a murky drizzle, with a tempera- Ume at 70°, but in spite of that I enjoyed the sights ol the old imperial city, in which seven Mikados reigned in the eighth century. People differ about Kara. Some of m}'- friends rave about it, others run it down. I thought it lovely even in the mist, with great natural beauty heightened by religious art, and a grey melan- choly of arrested decay, winch is very solemn. Among the many interesting things are a number of sacred deer, wliich wander about the majestic groves and ave- nues, and foUow one about greedily, begging for cakes, which their pertinacity compels one to buy. The town, which contains over 21,000 people, runs along the slope of a range of picturesque hUls, and from the forest, which in part resembles a collection of our finest Eng- lish parks, there are magnificent views over the ancient province of Yamato. Every one bu3"s images of the sa- ci'ed deer, hair-pins made from their horns, charms and combs, and the pilgrims, who come in great numbers to the famous ShintO temple of Kasuga, sling these upon their girdles. We went out earl}^ and spent much of the day, I cannot say in sight-seeing, but in enjo3'ing tlie sights, nearl3^ all of which lie in the magnificent park or forest on the hiU, and are mostl3^ connected with religion. Among the most curious is a monstrous wooden mag- azine, made of heavy timbers, laid horizontal! 3', sup- ported on pillars consisting of solid trunks of trees eight feet high, the most drearil3' uncouth building that A TREASURY OF ANTIQUITIES. 205 can be imagined. It has a most singular interest, for it was built for the safe deposit of the Mikado’s furniture and property, just before the Court quitted Nara for KiySto at the end of the eighth century, and is said to have been examined every sixty-first year since, and repaired when necessary. More curious still is the fact that, not only has a wooden building escaped the destructive agencies of a thousand years, but that the actual articles mentioned in the inventory of the eighth century are there, and can easil}^ be distinguished from later accumulations. There was an exhibition at Nara not long ago, and a few wonderful things from the Imperial Treasury are still to be seen at the rear of the great temple, but among the objects replaced in the monster “ godown ” were screens, pictures, masks, books, sculptures, soap in round cakes the size of quoits, copper bowls and dishes, beads and ornaments, tortoise-shell “ back-scratchers,” pottery and glass, dresses, bells, hats, weapons, and utensils of various kinds, bronzes, writing paper, cla}^ statuettes, wooden statues, etc. etc. What would we not give for such a collection made by Charlemagne or Alfred ? Mr. Gulick bargained with some ^^mma-runners to take us to Miwa, and on leaving him to return to Kobe I was amused to find that I have gained more confi- dence in Japanese travelling in six months than Mrs. Gulick has in several years, and she felt a good deal of trepidation in starting upon the “unbeaten track;” but everything has gone very smoothly, and she is enjoying the tour as much as I am. We reached Miwa, a town of about 1200 people, after dark, and got de- lightful accommodation with very kindly people in the npper room of a kura, with a fine view of an avenue of pine trees, whicfi. leads to a famous shrine of ShintS pilgrimage. The entertainment of pilgrims seems in- 266 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. deed the great business of Miwa. As Mrs. Guliek speaks Japanese, we are always on very sociable terms with our hosts, and our room was soon filled with the hostess and her daughters and servants, besides infants of various ages. These women were astonished that we wore our dresses up to our throats, and when Mrs. Gulick remarked that, according to our ideas, it did not look womanly or “ correct ” to wear them as they do, open to their girdles, they were yet more surprised, MT KUBtTMA-RUNNEB. and as each new-comer entered, the hostess repeated to her this singular foreign notion. Then our three ^wrM??ia-runners glided in, and after prostrating themselves, knelt in a row on the floor. The eldest,^ a tall and very ugly man, having nothing but a maro and a short, loose jacket, had wrapped a red blanket round his lower limbs; the second, a youth. 1 This is a sketch from a crayon portrait in the Engineering College ftt Tokiyo, representing a low class coolie, but minus his pleasant smile and look cf goodness, it is a Caithful likeness of my invaluable rrnner A BOJV OF PETITIONEES. 267 disdained tliis concession to our prejudices ; and the third, a man of feeble physique., who had delayed us on the way, considered his panoply of tattooing snfficieut clothing. Bowing over and over again, the older man preferred a petition that we would engage the tlnee for the ten days’ journey round to KiySto ; they would be our servants, he said, and do whatever we desired. Mrs. Gulick represented to them that they had no recommendations, that they might desert us on the way, that they might become useless from drinking too much sakS, etc. etc. To this they replied, that they would be faithful unto death, that they would not touch saki., that they would serve us well, etc., and pleaded most earnestly, but we were obdurate, till the elder man said, “We too wish to worship at Isd ! ” This was quite irresistible, so we told them that we would engage the two strong ones at six sew a ri for as long as they pleased us, but could not take the weakly one over the mountains. Then they pleaded for him, saying that he had a large family, and was very poor, and they would help him, and having obtained “leave to toil,” they got up quite happy, whipped off the covers of our baggage, put up my stretcher in no time, and arranged the room quite neatly. These faithful fellows are the comfort of our tour with their unweariable good nature, strict honesty, and kindly, pleasant ways. They are never tired, never ask for help on the steepest and miriest ways, seek our comfort before their own, attend on us like servants, help us to pack, take us to respectable, clean yadoyas., and are faultless. At night, after they have had their bath, they come to our room to wish us good night and arrange the next day’s journey, and every morning at daylight the fusuma glide apart, and the shining skulls are to be seen bobbing their good morning on the mats, to show that they are “ on hand,” 268 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. the elder one always in the “ full dress ” of his red blanket. While we get our breakfast they do our pack- ing with a quietness and celerity which leave nothiiig to be desired, and the goodness of the expression of the elder man and his thoughtful kindness, preach many a sennon and suggest many a thought and query. He is a peasant proprietor, but when times are not busy, leaves his land in liis wife’s care, and draws a huruma. He buys toys for his children everj'where, so that the well in the kuruma is full of them ; and having “ worshipped at Is4,” and purchased many charms for friends and neigh- bours, he will go home with a glad heart. These run- ners tell us that their expenses are 20 sen a day, and they earn from 40 to 60, according to the distance we travel. The morning at Miwa opened with heavy rain, which never ceased during the whole day. In the deep mud our weakly coolie broke down, and we had to dismiss him with a present. The mountain roads were deep in mire and water, the kurumas often sank up to their axles, and though we walked nearly all day, i.e. floundered through the mud, the men had great difficulty in getting along, and sometimes the services of three or four peasants were required to get the baggage kuruma up the steep, slippery hills. I got on comparatively easily in my mountain dress and high boots, though both were soaked witliin half an hour of starting ; but Mrs. Gulick, who wore long skirts and a long waterproof cloak over them, between the weight of the skirts and of the water with which they were saturated, foot gear which alwaj’s seemed sticking in the mud, and the attempt to hold up an umbrella, had a hard time ; but her cheerfulness never failed, and the worse it was and the more unlikely it seemed that we shoidd reach a yadoya for the night, the more heartily we and the runners laughed. It was A REVELATION OF BEAUTY. 269 ill truth, excellent fun, very unlike the disnuiluess of some equally rainy days in Northern Japan. After leaving Miwa, and passing for a mile or two through farming villages, a great torii spanned the road, the mists rolled aside, the valley contracted, a wall of finely outlined hills blocked it up, and we suddenly found ourselves in a most picturesque mountain town of about 2000 people, with a torrent rushing down a stone channel in the middle, waterfalls reverberating all around, warm-tinted, deep-eaved, steep-roofed houses forming streets whose charming qiiaintness delights the eye, or perched on rocks or terraces on the steep hill- sides — Swiss all over, even to the sale of rosaries, pictures, and wood-carvings in the dainty shops. But not Swiss are the grey temples on the heights, the priests’ houses on grand, stone-faced embankments hanging over dizzy ledges, and the red torii at the feet of superb flights of stairs which lead up mountain sides to ancient shrines of nature worship, hidden among groves of gigantic cryptomeria, rising from among maples flaunting in scarlet and gold. It was all so unexpected, so off the beaten track of foreign travel, and we had tumbled unawares into one of the most famous places in Japan, celebrated in poetry and paint- ing, and one of the most popular of the many places of pilgrimage. Beautiful Hasd-dera ! I shall never forget its exquisite loveliness in the November rain. We splashed through mire and water, climbed heights, saw temples, forgot hunger and soaked clothes, and lingered long, for Nature, in this glorious valley, has done her best to simulate the beauties of a far-off island ; and as we looked down into the cleft through which the loud- booming Yamagawa was flinging itself hi broad drifts of foam, and at the steep mountain on the other side aflame with maples, we exclaimed simultaneously, “A Hawaiian gulch ! ” 2rO UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. It is hard to write plain prose about Has^-dera. Its steep-roofed houses are piled in a cul-de-sac, deeply cleft by the Yamagawa ; it is blocked in by a densely-wooded mountain side, dark with cryptomeria and evergreen oaks lighted up by maples ; tbickly-wooded heights rise on every side, rocky precipices descend to the river ; and heights aud precipices are covered with temples, monas- teries, and priests’ houses — the great temple to Kwau non being built half upon the rock and half upon a plat- form built out of the rock. This is reached by a grand flagged ascent in three zigzags, imder a corridor, with beds of tree peonies on stone-faced embankments, step above step on each side, bringing crowds of strangers to the “ peony viewing ” in the flowery month of April. Flights of stone stairs, grand stone embankments, reli- gious buildings, abbots’ and monks’ houses Avith grey walls and sweeping roofs, terraces, shrines, stone and bronze lanterns, chapels, libraries, gateways, idols, one above another, and jutting out on every piece of van- tage ground which hangs over the cleft of the Yama- gawa, attest the former grandem- of this “ IMonastery of the Long Valley,” which, founded in the seventh or eighth century, was destroyed by fire at least twelve times before the fifteenth ! The great temple of the Goddess of Mercy, like sev- eral other popular temples, is dark and flingy ; and a hall outside, sixty feet long, devoted to the display of tawdry ex voto pictures, is as mangy and worm-eaten as a celebrated image of Binzuru, the great medicine god, who occupies a chair at one end of it, and is being rubbed out of all semblance of humanity. The outer wall of the back of the chapel is hung with tresses of the hair both of women and men, ofi’ered along with vows. The view from the temple platform, of height above height crowned with monastic buildings, of the A TRUDGE THROUGH MUD. 271 steefi-roofed houses of Hasd below, piled irregidarlj’ above the rushing Yama, and of mountain, forest, ami hill-sides aflame with maples, was one which we were loth to leave ; and when, after climbing a steep zigzag which leads up the face of a singular ridge, called, Ata- gosan, we looked our last upon the “ Monastery of the long valley,” it was with a regret that I have hardly felt elsewhere in Japan. This knife-like ridge, the summit rock of which is gashed to allow the track to pass thi-ough, has a red ShintS shrine at its extremity, a glorious view of Hasd on the one side, and on the other a steep valley terraced for rice. The rain, which had moderated a little, took a mean advantage of us there, and lasted all day, turn- ing every rivulet into a torrent, and every gash on the hill-sides into a waterfall. The scenery, however, looked lovely, for the flaming colours on the liill-sides simulated the effect of sunshine, and the tawny rice harvest against the dark evergreens gave warmth and contrast. All day we trudged through mire up and down steep hills, passing beautiful brown-roofed villages on heights, spurs, and slopes, temples on stone-faced embankments, groves of superb cryptomeria, hills with coloured woods, ravines terraced for rice with stone embankments like steep stairs only six feet wide — a lovely region of beauty, industry, and peace. We met never a horse or foot passenger the whole day, and sometimes made less than a mile an hour, owing to the steepness and deep mud of tlie road. When evening came on, we lost each other, and I reached the village of Sambon-matsu, rr Higenashi, alone, to find total darkness, not a chink in the amado of any house giving evidence of light within. By dint of much shouting we succeeded in getting the door of a yadoya opened, and there I sat for some time in the doma., looking into what appeared like immensity 272 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. — a lofty blackened space dimly visible by the light of an andon, in which some misty, magnified figures were gliding about in the smoke. After a time I succeeded in conveying my apprehensions about Mis. Gulick to the house-master, and six of us turned out into the rain with paper umbrellas and lanterns to search for her, and soon met her stumbling bravely along in the pitch darkness, dragging her soaked clothes with difficulty, and laughing at my fears. In spite of the dampness and cold we were soon asleep, to be awoke at daylight by a sound as if of piti- less rain ; but on opening the amado there was a delight ful surprise, for the clouds were roUing up in rosy masses, the sky was intensely blue, the sun, which we had not seen for a week, was rising above the mountains, and colour was every moment deepening in his light. The Nushitoyama inn is on an abrupt height above the beautiful Kitsugawa, and its balcony looks down upon a shai’p curve of the river, which was flashing iu the sunlight below lofty grey cliffs, over which scarlet trail- ers hung. A little mill with an overshot wheel, hiU above hill glowing with autumn colouring, in Light and shadow, a great camellia tree loaded with pink blossoms, palms (^Chcemerops exeeha')., oranges, bamboo gro res, steep-roofed houses rising one above the other, and everything flashing with sunlit rain-drops, made a pic- ture of autumn beauty. But odes of a thousand years ago represent the dread with which the Japanese peas ant contemplates the coming winter,^ and oui hostess 1 Such as the following, among many others, translated by Mr. F . V Dickins : — “The hamlet bosomed mid the hills. Aye lonely is. In ■winter time. The solitude with misery fills My mind. For now the rigorous clime, Hath banished every herb and tree. And every human face from me.” MUSHROOM CULTURE. 273 sliivered when we admired, and said that another six weeks would shut out her beautiful village from the world. We had a delightful day’s journey through lovely scenery in brilliant sunshine, but the people were so busy with their harvest work that we could not get a third kuruma., and had to do a good deal of walking. The road follows the course of the Kitsugawa, which it crosses at the considerable town of Nobara, on a bridge of planks, supported, as many others are in that region, on bamboo creels eight feet in diameter, filled with stones. On the way, in damp woods, there were rocks with rows of pieces of decaying wood placed aslant against them, and on inquiry I learned that these repre- sent the mushroom culture for which the provinces of Yamato and Isd are famous. Mushrooms are an article of diet everywhere. They are amoug the brown hor- rors in a brown liquid, which are among the “ tempta- tions ” of every tea-house ; and there is an immense demand for them, specially for a kind tasteless when fresh, but highly flavoured when dry. Much skill is brought to bear on their production, but being quite ignorant of the mode of culture elsewhere, I cannot make any comparisons. These ingenious people select logs of two kinds of oak, make longitudinal incisions in them, and expose them in groves to damp and heat till they are partly rotten, when, the worst parts being re- moved, they are placed aslant against rocks as I saw them, and mushrooms appear upon them in abundance the next spring. After the first crop has been gathered they are placed in water in the morning, and in the afternoon are taken out and beaten with a mallet, which beating is so successful, that after being placed aslant again for two or three days fresh mushrooms appear. The people say that if the logs are beaten heavily the 274 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. mushrooms are very large, but if lightly a good numbei of small ones spring up in succession. The ingenuity of the Japanese in providing themselves with food is q dte marvellous. There was the usual beautiful terrace cultivation villages jutted out from hill-sides on stone-faced em- bankments, or nestled among flaming woods, and tern pies and torii everywhere testified to the devotion of a past age. At Nobara, where the mud in the streets w^as ten inches deep, the police bothered us for twenty min- utes, fancying that there was an informality in our passports ; but the sun w^as still liigh when we climbed a sandy ridge of great height, with an extensive ^'iew of hundreds of hills, mostly sandy, covered with pine and azalea, their waving ranges glorified in the sun- shine. Reaching Aido in the late afternoon, a disa- greeable innkeeper wanted us to remain, saying the yadoya at Tsiji was “ piggj" ; ” but we went on, and after much delay, owing to lack of transport, luckily met an unloaded horse, put our baggage on him, and pushed up into the mountains at sunset, along a track shut up with a torrent in a ravine whose sides were scarlet and crimson, with summits rising sharply into a lemon-coloured sk3^ It was too cold for anything but walking, and though the road was all up-hdl, we had not walked ourselves warm when we reached the wild lit, tie mountain hamlet of Awoyama by moonlight, only to find that neither horses nor coolies could be got for the next day. It was a pretty rough place, with oxen under the same roof, but we got a good room, and our faithful runners made it as comfortable as they could. The first chill of the winter was severe. The room was very damp, and the amado were partially nailed up, so it had not a chance of sunshine. We gropingly cooked our stirabout by the dim light of an andon , THE HIGH ROAD. 275 could not see to write ; kept our candles for Yamada ; shivered, hugged Mhachis and kettles; got heaps of futons and slept under them, regardless of their weight ; woke in the night from the cold, buried our heads and faces in shawls, and got up before daylight, still shiver* Ing, to find a bleak, windy, and dubious morning, on which rice and eggs were comfortless and unsustah:*jig food. We were much detained again by difficulties of trans-^ port, but the day turned out very fine, and Mrs. Gulick did not think walking any hardship in the lovely coun- try, so that by the afternoon we had got through the mountains, passed Kaido, Onoki, and Kaminoro, and no end of villages and temples, and reached Rokkeu, on the broad “ carriage-road ” which connects the great highway of the Tfikaido with the Ise shrines. Here there were waggons in numbers carrying passengers, and hundreds of kurumas, and pack-cows with velvet frontlets embroidered in gold, and men making the old- fashioned waggon-wheels which have no tires, and all the industries of a large and prosperous population. In order to spend Sunday here we engaged additional runners, and came from Rokken, twelve and a half miles, at a great pace, our men swinging paper-lanterns and hooting merrily as they ran. Tlie whole distance nearly is lined with villages, towns, and good houses, with tiled walls, enclosing large areas, a populous and prosperous region, much advanced in all material things Passing through Ichida and the large town of Matsu saka, which abounds with curio shops, under a clear sky, and with a sharp north wind benumbing our limbs, we reached Kushida, where we ferried the Kushida- gawa in a scow — a handsome new bridge on twelve piers not being quite finished — and then under a glori- ous moon reached a broad, shallow river called the <270 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Miydga^va, where we were detained, not rductantl/, for a length of time waiting ferriage. It was a very picturesque scene with the dark, wooded hanks, the numerous fishing-punts with lights, and the number of patient fishers standing up to their waists in the cold water with lanterns hanging from their necks. Buddh- ist and SliintO temples, torii, and images succeeded each other along the road ; there were huge trees and sacred groves girdled by the straw rope with its de- pendent tassels; nearly every house had ShintS em- blems over the door, and rattling over the remaining ri we reached Yamada, the cradle of the ancient faith. It looked solid and handsome in the moonlight, and looks more solid and handsome still in the daylight, for its houses are two storeyed, and mostly in the solid kura style, and turn their gable-ends to the street. The roofs are heavily tiled, the stone embankments are in fine order, and altogether, apart from the grandeur of the camphor and cryptomeria groves, and the stately entrances and stone-bordered avenues of the Geku shrine, Yamada is the handsomest town I have seen in Japan. Vice and religion are apt to be in seeming alliance in this country ; the great shrines of pilgrimage are nearly always surrounded by the resorts of the dissol ate, and nowhere are these so painfidly numerous as on the stately road which connects the Geku with the Naiku shrine, three miles off. It was some time before our runners succeeded in lodging us in a yadoya which was not kashitsukeya., but we are in good quarters at the an- cient house kept by INIatsushima Zenzaburo, from among whose thirty rooms we chose one upstairs, Avhich is full of sunshme and pleasantness. But, oh, for a good five ' It is very cold at night and after sunset. Nov. 10. — Sunday was a day of sunshine and glitter A BUBBING-STONE. 277 quite perfect. We read the English service in the morning, and in the afternoon, with our faithful run- ners, visited the Geku shrines in their glorious groves. There our men “ worshipped,” that is, they threw some rin on the white cloth in front of the gateway of the shrines, prostrated themselves, rubbed their hands, and went away rejoicing. My runner has rheumatism in liis neck, and not having been cured by his application to the medicine god of Hasd-dera, he rubbed a celebrated rubbing-stone at the corner of the sacred enclosure with great vigour, and then rubbed himself, and to-day he is free from pain ! The camphor groves alone are well worth a visit, for they are gloriously beautiful, but no beauty of nature or sunshine ean light the awful melan- choly of the unutterable emptiness of the holiest places of ShintQ. In the evening our host came up for a friendly talk, and made many inquiries concerning Christianity, and Mrs. Gulick made a praiseworthy attempt to explain its essentials to our runners, with how much success may be judged from the question which the}^ asked to-day, “If we were to worship your God, should we have to go to your country ? ” being quite willing, apparently, to add another deity to their already crowded Pantheon. I. L. B. 278 UNliJSATKN TUACKH IN JAi'AN. THE ISE SHRINES.i ' ‘ The Divine Palaces of the most holy gods of Isd ” — Sanctity of the Isd Shrines — The Kami-dana — The Ise Charms — The Geku Camphor Groves — The Temple Grounds — The Sacred Enclosure — The Shrines — The “Holy of Holies” — The Japanese Regalia — The Shinto Mirror. These temples of Is^, the Geku and the Naiku, called by the Japanese by a name which literally means “ The two great divine palaces,” rank first among ShintS shrines in point of sanctity, and are to ShintSists, even in the irreligious present, something of what Mecca is to Mussulmans, and the Holy Places of Jerusalem to Greeks and Latins. Tens of thousands of pilgrims still resort to them annually, and though the pilgrimage sea- son is chiefly in the spring mouths, tliere is no tune of the year in which there is an absolute cessation of vis- itors. The artisans of Tokiyo now think it possible to gain a livelihood without beseeching the protection of the Is4 divinities, and the shop-boys of the trading cities no longer beg their way to and from Yamada in search of the Ise charms ; but it will be long before the Japanese householder, specially the credulous peas- ant, learns to feel safe without the paper ticket inscribed with the name TenshOkQ-daijin, the principal deity of Isd, which is only to be obtained at the Ise shi'ines. 1 The account of the Ise shrines in my letter is so incomplete and fragmentary, that T prefer to give these Notes takei on the spot, and '.orrected subsequently by the help of a paper by Mr. Satow. HANCTITY OF THE IS^ SHRINES. 2? 9 In the foregoing Letters I have alluded to the fact that in every Japanese house there is a kami-dana, or “sheK for gods,” on which is a wooden miniature of a ShintS shrine containing paper tickets, on which the names of various gods are written, one of which is al ways the deity aforesaid. This ticket is believed to contain between two thin slips some shavings of the wands used by the priests of Isd at the two annual festivals, which are supposed to effect the purification of the nation from the “ sin ” of the preceding six months, and is supposed to protect its possessor from misfortune for half a year, at the end of which time the o-harai, as it is called, ought to be changed for a new one ; but from what I learned at the Geku, it appears that modern negligence is content to renew the charm once in one, two, and three years, or even longer. It is to be supposed that these o-harai bear as much relation to the wands of purification as the relics profusely scat tered throughout the world bear to the Holy Cross, of which they are said to be fragments. The old o-harai ought to be burned or cast into a river or the sea, but are usually employed to heat the bath used by the virgin priestesses after their posturings at the annual festival of the patron-god of any locality. They were hawked about Japan up to 1868, but this practice was prohibited by Government a few years ago, and they can only be obtained at the Is6 temples themselves, or at certain accredited agencies. This fact of the universal distri- bution of the o-harai connects every family in Japan with the Is6 slnines and ShintS superstition, and gives the shrines a central position as regards the national faith. The two groups of shrines are distant about three and a half miles from each other. The majority of the pil- grims lodge in Furuichi, a town which occupies the crest 280 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. of tlie ridge between the two temples, and is almost made up of yadoyas., tea-houses, and joroyas, mostly of large size, with solid gables turned towards the street. Ya- mada, which is conterminous with Furuichi, is also full of houses of entertainment. These towns contain about 40,000 people, and for Japan are marvels of solid and picturesque building. A Japanese pilgrimage is not a solemn or holy thing, and the great shrines of Shinto pilgrimage possess more than the usual number of vicious attractions. It is sufficient to describe the Geku shrine, which is exactly copied from the Naiku. Both stand in the midst of ancient cryptomeria, each stately tree m Slrinto fancy worthy to be a god, but it is the camphor groves, the finest in Japan, covering the extensive and broken grounds with their dark magnificence, which so impress a stranger with their unique grandeur as to make him forget the bareness and meanness of the shrines which they overshadow. The grand entrance is reached from Yamada by cross- ing a handsome bridge, which leads to a wide space en- closed by banks faced with stone. On the right is a building occupied by the temple-attendauts, where frag- ments of the wood used in building the slu'iues, packets of the rice offered to the gods, and sundry other charms, are offered for sale. Close to tliis there is a massive foru, the entrance to the temple-grounds, which are of great extent, and contain hills, ravines, groves, and streams. Very broad and finely-gravelled roads, with granite margins and standard lamps at intervals, inter- sect them, and their torii., stone bridges, stone staircases, and stone-faced embankments, are all on a grand scale and in perfect repair. On the left hand, within the en- trance, there are some plain buildings, one of which is occupied by several temple-attendants in white silk vest THE SACRED ENCLOSURE. 281 ments, whose business it is to sell the o-harai to all com- ers. Heavy curtains, with the Mikado’s crest upon them, are draped over the entrances to this and the building at the gate, and may be taken as indicating that ShintS is under “ State ” patronage. Passing through stately groves by a stately road, and under a second massive tom, the visitor reaches the famous Geku shrine, and, even in spite of Mr. Satow’s realistic description, is stricken with a feeling of disap- pointment, for he is suddenly brought up by a great oblong enclosure of neatly planed wood, the upright posts, which are just over nine feet high, being planted at distances of six feet, the intervals being completely filled up with closely-fitting and very heavy planking laid horizontall3^ The only ornaments are bamboo re- ceptacles on each post, containing sprigs of Cleyera Japonica., changed occasionally. This monotonous look- ing enclosure rests on a raised platform of broken stone, supported on a rough stone-faced embankment about three feet high. One corner of this is formed by a large, irregularly shaped, dark stone, worn perfectly smooth from being constantly rubbed by the hands of persons who believe that by rubbing the stone first, and then any painful part of the body, the pain will be cured. The front of this extraordinary enclosure is 247 feet long, the rear 235 feet, one side 339 feet, and the other 335 feet. It has five entrances, the principal one, 18 feet wide, facing the road, being formed by a tom. At a distance of 24 feet from three of these en- trances are high wooden screens, and a similar screen, at a distance of 76 feet, hides the main entrance, much in the same way that the great brick screens in Canton conceal the gateways of the private dwellings of the mandarins. Witliin the entrance torii there is a wooden gateway with a thatched roof, but a curtain with the 282 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN Mikado’s crest conceals all view of the interior court, In front of this gateway the pilgrims make their obei- sances and throw down their rin upon a white cloth. The other entrances are closed with solid gates. There is no admission except for the specially privileged, but a good view into the enclosure is gained by climbing a bank upon its west side. Within the thatched gateway there is a pebbled court, on the right of which is a long narrow shed, one of three buildings set ap;irt for the entertainment of the envoys sent by the Mikado after the annual harv'^est fes- tival. In a straight line from the second gateway a flagged pavement, passmg under a torii at a distance of 99 feet, reaches another thatched gateway, through which there is a thh’d court, formed by palisades the height of a man, placed close together. Another thatched gateway gives entrance to the last enclosure, an area nearly square, being 134 feet by 131, surromided by a very stout palisade. Within this stands the slioden 01 - shrine of the gods, and on the right and left two treasuries. The impression produced by the whole re- sembles that made upon the minds of those who liave made the deepest researches into ShintS — there is nothing, and all things, even the stately avenues of the Geku, lead to nothing. Japanese antiquaries say that the architecture of Shinto temples resembles that of the primeval Japanese hut, and these, which have been rebuilt since 1868, represent this architecture in its pur ost form. The shoden is 34 feet long by 18 wide, and stands on a platform raised on posts 6 feet high, which is approached by nine steps 15 feet wude, wuth a balus- trade on each side. A balcony 3 feet wide, with a low' rail, runs all round the building, and is covered by the eaves of the roof, which is finely thatched with bark to the depth of a foot. The ridge pole and a number of THE HOLY OF HOLIESF 28 a cigar-shaped beams and rafters at each end, crossing each other above the roof, are supposed to be merely the development of the roof of the primeval hut. The building has sides of closely-fitting planks, and the whole, like all else, is of planed wood, destitute of any other ornament than occasional plates of pierced and engraved brass. The treasuries are mere “go-downs,” without balconies. They contain silken stuffs, silk fibre, and saddlery for the sacred horses. In the north-west corner of the area is a plain build- ing, containing the gohei^ wands with dependent pieces of paper, frequently mentioned before, usually wor- shipped as gods, but at Is(^ only believed to have the power of attracting the spirits of the gods to the spot, which was their original meaning. In the noi th-east corner, within a special enclosure, there is another plain building, in which the water and food oifered to the gods of the Geku are set out. The dail}^ offerings to the principal deity consist of sixteen saucers of rice, four saucers of salt, four cups of water, and such fish, birds, and vegetables as may be contributed by the sur- rounding villages, and the three secondary deities re- ceive one-half each. The chief deity of the Geku is “The Goddess of Food,” and of the Naiku, the great “Sun Goddess.” Having followed Shintfi to its centre at Isd, the bare wooden budding, which is the kernel of the Geku en- closure, and the Shinto “ Holy of Holies,” assumes a very special interest, but here, again, there is nothing 1 jt disappointment, for the slidden only contains four boxes of unpainted wood, furnished with light handles, resting on low stands, and covered with what is said to be white silk. In each box is a mirror wrapped in a brocade bag, which is never renewed, only re-covered. Over one mirror is placed a cage of unpainted wood, 284 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. which is covered with a curtain of coarse silk, which conceals both cage and box. The three other boxes stand outside this cage, but are also covered, and the coverings are all that can be seen when the shrines are opened on festival days. It is in these mirrors that the spirits of the gods are supposed to dwell. Much ingen- ious rubbish has been devised to account for the pres- ence of a looking-glass in every Shint6 temple ; but the fact is, tliat tlj-) original Isd mirror, of which all the rest are copies, merely represents the great Sun God- dess, the supposed ancestress of the Mikado, and, to- gethei- with the sword, which constitute the Japanese regalia, found a resting-place at Is^, after many wan- derings, in the year 4 B.c. The polished surface is neither a mirror of truth nor of the human soul, but is simply a very intelligible symbol of a rude compound of nature and myth worship, nature as the Sun, deified as the myth Amaterasu or the “ Sim Goddess.” The Geku was founded in the year 478 a.d., and it has been customary from time immemorial to rebuild a temple alternately on either site once in twenty years. The Naiku has the same fourfold enclosure as the Geku. There are several smaller shrines within the groves, but they are unimportant. The river Izuzu flows through the camphor woods, and in it the pil- grims wash their hands before worshipping at the temple. The Is^ shrines were unknown to Europeans till 1872, when the Government very liberally gave Mr. Satow and a small party of foreigners the opportunity of idsitiug them. They are now open to passport hold- ers under certain restrictions, and are singularly inter- esting to those who have made either an original or second-hand study of ShintS, for relics of Is4 are in every house, the deities of Is^ are at the head of the THE SniNTd MIRROB. 285 national Pantheon, a pilgrimage to Is^ forms an episode in the life of everj”^ ShintOist, and throughout Japan thousands of heads are daily bowed in the direction of “ the Divine Palaces of the most holy gods of Isd.” 286 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN ,fAPAN. ANOTHER PILGRIMAGE. A Dieary Shrine — The Legend of Futami-saina — A Double TempH — A Street of Shops — The Xaiku Shrine — Evening Shadows — The Melancholy of Shinto — Unsanctified Pilgrim Kesorts. Yamada, Ise, November 11, 1878. In order to complete the round of ShintS pilgrim- age, we left Yamada early this morning, ferried the Shiwoaigawa, rested at Futamiya, a neat village en- tirely composed of tasteful tea-houses, went on to Futami-sama in our kuruvias, and then walked over the sand and rocks of a very pretty coast to a resort of pilgrims, wliich, even at this dead season, attracts large numbers, many of whom were bands of young girls. ^ Shells, coralline, and curiosities, were offered for sale at booths under the grey cliffs, together with rude, coloured woodcuts of Fuji by sunrise, as seen from the shore ; but it was all dull and grey, and Fuji had to be taken altogether for granted. Farther on there were booths where melancholy-looking women sold small torii^ earthenware frogs, straw circles, and other ex votos, and then we came rather suddenly on the queerest and dreariest shrine of pilgrimage that 1 have ever seen. A small promontory of grey sea gravel, with a low wall built round it, extended into the still, grey sea, > I have not been able to meet with any European who has visit efi this remarkable spot; it has hitherto escaped even Mr. Satow’s diligent researches among the holy places of Shinto. THE LEGEND OF FUTAMI-SAMA. 287 terminating in a large torii of unpainted wood, and a wooden altar table, on which were laid four big, green stones, a piece of worm-eaten wood, two zen or small tables with offerings of rice, a number of bits of green pottery an inch long, with a distant resemblance to frogs [said to be the servants of the gods], three wands with gohei, and a number of rin. On and about it were heaps of circles of twisted straw, with gohei attached, some new and fresh, others old and musty ; a more grotesque collection of rubbish I have never seen, and it was being added to constantly by relays of pilgrims. This promontory points to three isolated rocks, one beliind the other, on which the dull waves broke in drifts of foam. The centre rock is of impos- ing size. It has a small torii on its summit, and a heavy straw cable, wound round it, connects it with the rock between it and the shore, heavy straw tassels dangling between the two.^ We then travelled for some miles among lovely, wooded hUls, with hamlets and rice valleys, to the village of Assama, left our Tcurumas^ ascended the noble hill Assamayama, where flaming maples lighted up forests of pine and cryptomeria, rejoiced in the abundance of its Microlepia tenuifoUa^. and Gleichenia, spent an hour at a very large tea-house with a mag- nificent view near the summit, and enjoyed what we saw, or thought we saw, of a grand panorama of wooded hills, deep valle3^s, indented coasts, and beauti- 1 Mr. Satow has since told me that, in a Japanese guide to Ise, the following legend is given of the origin of the sacredness of this queer place: — When the younger brother of the Sun goddess was on his way to the lower world, he was overtaken by night at this spot, and sought shelter with an old couple. To protect them from a pestilence, which he foresaw would attack the village, he fastened a straw rope round their house, and the plague, when it came, left it untouched. This is the origin of the straw bands offered at this shrine. 288 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. ful islands, revelled in splotches of scarlet and ciimson here and there among the dark coniferae, marvelled ai a rude double temple, one half Shinto, with the chief object of adoration a rude block of rock shaped lilie a junk, the other half filled with idols of Kwan-non, shiv- ered for half an hour over hibacld., hurried down the mountain, regained our kurumas, and, after a short, picturesque jolt, rattled down a steep wooded hill to the entrance to the Naiku shrine. Near it is a most peculiar street, composed entirely of most peculiar shops, which consist solely of covered doma or “ earth- spaces,” with hundreds of whistles, wooden flutes, rice ladles, and small, rude images of Dalkoku, ranged on racks up the walls. The entrance to the shrines is very grand ; a straight avenue for a short distance, from which one road turns to the right under a torii, and then goes forward to a solid stone bridge, while the main road, winch is very broad and handsome, turns up-hill towards the temples. On the left, there is a building for the sale of o-harai (see p. 279), a house for oflScials, a covered platform for sacred dances, and a treasury on stilts ; above these, a terrace of large stones with an extensive pebbled area, enclosed by a straw rope, and a flight of steps leading to the shrines, the arrangement of which is exactly that of the Geku, except that the principal entrance is closed by doors instead of a curtain. There our runners “ worshipped,” and threw down their rin on a white cloth. Do they think, I wonder, that we have added the gods of Ise to our objects of worslnp? The sombre evening fell fast, and in its shadows the darkness of the superb groves of camphor and crypto- meria, some of winch are of colossal size, became abso- lutely funereal. We were the only visitors ; a dismal wind sighed through the trees, dim lamps, one by one, UNSANCTIFIEB PILGRIM RESORTS. 289 began to glimmer through the gloom, our footsteps sounded harshly on the gravel, and in the profound melancholy which surrounds the shrines of a faith which was always dead, and has never lifted men towards a higher life,^ I involuntarily quickened mj pace, for I felt as if the ghosts of the dead ages were after me ! It was good to see houses and living men again, and to be able to hire lanterns for our kurumas. A fine road runs from the Geku to the Naiku shrines, a distance of about 3 2 miles, terminating at the Naiku in a fine stone bridge, with uprights with bronze finials, and a lofty torii. The towns Uji, Ushidani, and Furui- chi, occupy much of the distance. They flourish by the entertainment of pilgrims, and the sale of trumpery relics, and in the dim light looked solid and handsome with their long lines of yadoyas, tea-houses, and various places of entertainment, suggestive of everything but sanctity. Along the road, at suitable distances on both sides, are grand stone lanterns, roofed with bronze, standing on stone pedestals of five steps each, and their dim, melancholy light, altogether unworthy of their superb appearance, made the descent into the absolute darkness of Yainada almost appalling. Our host has come in to ask us to write lines ol poetry to hang upon his walls, so I must conclude. 1. L. B. r See Appendix B. •?90 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. LAKE BIWA. My Kuruma-rwmer — Stupid Curiosity — The Cityof Tsu— ABuidh- ist Temple — Road Mending — The Pass of Tsuzaka — The T6 kaidd — Lake Biwa — The “Temperance Pledge” — A Matsuri. Otsu, Lake Biwa, November 15. Three more days of travelling have brought us here, and in three hours we shall be in Kiyoto. I wish we were beginning our tour instead of ending it, or rathei that we were starting on another. Everjdhing has been so smooth and pleasant, and so unexpectedly interesting, and the people have been so kind and courteous, as thej always are, away from the beaten track. Mrs. Gulick’s cheerfulness and kindness have nevor varied, and, if I had ever felt inclined to grumble, the unwearied good nature, brightness, and kindness of my runner would have rebuked me. I cannot tell you how sorry I am to part with this faithful creature, or how I shall miss his willing services, hideous face, and blanket-swathed form. But no, he is not hideous ! No face, beaming with hon- esty and kindness, can ever be so, and I like to look at his, and to hope that one day it may be said of him, as of a child, “ of such is the kingdom of heaven.” We left Yamada early on the 12th, retraced our route as far as Rokken, and reached the important town of Tsu, late in the afternoon, by a fine road leading through a very prosperous and populous countr}' of rice-swamps of large size, between wooded hills and the sea. The evening was cold and clear, and the town looked its best 4 TRADING CITY. 291 The crowded yadoya was very unpromising-looking, but we got a quiet back room, and, by dint of hugging hibachi, and loading ourselves with futons^ managed to keep ourselves from freezing, and not to be more than a little stiff with cold when we got up the next morning to find a brilliant frosty day with a keen north wind. The servants watched our ways with stupid curiosity, asked us if we slept in our shoes, and remarked that it was very long since we had blacked our teeth ! Police- men with courteous manners paid us a visit ; in the evening Mrs. Gidick went to a lonely qiiarter of the town to call upon the parents of a girl who had been in the American School in Kiy6to, and the next morning, the father returned the visit, dressed very richly in silk, and bringing a present of fine sweetmeats, with a sym- bolical piece of seaweed attached. Few people in England have heard of Tsu, and when I proposed to visit it, I found few among the foreigners at K8be who knew of it, and it lies so off the track of foreign travel, that Europeans are a rare spectacle, and, consequently, we trailed a prodigious crowd after us, with policemen hovering upon its skirts to keep us from undue pressure. This obscure Tsu is a city of 83,000 people, divided into three parts by rivers which are crossed by fine bridges, with long, parallel streets crossed by shorter ones at right angles, fine public buildings, a normal school, a new hospital on a height, two streets of temples, an open room inscribed in English with “News for every man’s reading,” and chairs and tables covered with newspapers inside, a great trade in coarse blue pot- tery, silks, and green mosquito gauze, curio shops in numbers, with the finest antique bronzes I have seen, and small pieces of old gold lacquer on which connois- seurs might spend a fortune, pottery and sweetmeat shops, the remains of a daimiyd'^ castle, with a fine moat, 292 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. stone-faced embankments, with towers at their corners, a large telegraph office, and, in the outskirts, rows ol wheelwrights’ sheds, where men were making cart- wheels without tires. The main street terminates in a fine double-roofed gateway and a pavement lined with booths, leading into temple grounds, as at Asakusa. There is a popular temple, crowded and shabby, but the lanterns in its portico, the candles and lamps by the shrine, the cat-like tread of priests, the bell-accompanied litanies, and the mumbled petitions of worshippers, hea- then though they are, were, in some sense, refreshing after the intolerable emptiness of Shintfi. Tsu, though so near the shi-ines of Is^, is a Buddhist city, and its two streets of temples, with their grand gateways, paved coirrts, and priests’ houses, are quite imposing. Some of these gateways are pierced by “ Saxon ” arches, the only architectural arches I have seen in Japan. Somehow I left Tsu with regret ; it looked a very prosperous and thoroughly Japanese city, and the people Avere remarkably kind also. We left at eleven, when the sun was high and bright, lighting up the shining evergreens and glowing autumnal tints of a pretty, hilly region, where Aullages Avith their deep brown roofs peeped from among pines and maples. Soon after leaAung Tsu we diverged to the village of Isshiuden, visited two of the grandest temples in Japan, which ap pear to be unknown to foreigners, had a delightful day’s journey through very pretty country, and, in the after- noon, passing imder a fine torii., struck the beaten track at Seki on the TSkaidfi, the historic highway of Japan, the great road from Tokiyfi to Kiyfito. From S^ki to Otsu it is a narroAV carriage-road, in some places full of ruts and holes, the latter having been “ mended ” for the recent journey of the Mikado, by being filled up Avitb tAAUgs covered with mats. After leaving S^ki it plunges A PASS ON THE t6kAID6. 293 at once into lovely country, pursues the course of a mountain stream, with which it is shut in by steep, picturesque hills, and then further progress is apparently barred by a ridge with a beautiful village with houses on stone terraces clustering on its wooded acclivity. This mountain wall, the pass of Tsuzuka, is crossed by six- teen or seventeen zigzags, from 50 to 100 feet in length, TEMPLE GATEWAY AT ISSHINDEN. built out from the hill-side on fine terraces, very steep, with sharp turns, and stout railings to prevent the un- wary from tumbling over. We climbed it in the lemon- coloured twilight, revelling in the beautiful view, and enjoying the balsamic odours of pines which came up on the frosty air, got lanterns on the summit, and, after a ratitling run of an hour in the darkness, reached the 294 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. town of Tsuchiyama, whose pine-covered, hills stood out boldly against a starlit sky ; slept in a large yadoya^^ where the servants showed unusual agility ; hugged hibachi., were half-frozen during the night in a detached suite of rooms in a garden ; yesterday crossed the Matsu- no-gawa, and followed its course for some time, and then, after some miles of wrinkled white sandhills, ar rived at Lake Biwa, crossed the Setagawa, paid a second visit lo the beauties of Ishiyama, and reached the inter- minable street of Otsu after dark. TLi Tokaidd is the most beaten track of travel in Japan, but in this cold weather travellers are scarce, and we and our runners were the only guests in the great rambling tea-house last night. From Seki here there are long towns and long villages nearly the whole way, with numbers of great tea-houses and yadoyas with from twenty to forty rooms, together and in detached suites, with running streams, stone bridges, and all the quaintnesses possible to the conceit of the owners. The house masters and mistresses are active and polite, the servants agde and well dressed, the accommodation admirable, the equipments beautiful — in short, the Tdkaidd is the Japan of tourists, and needs no descrip- tion of mine. The industries of its villages are mani- fold, some produce and sell nothing but salc6 gourds of all sizes (a salcS gourd being an essential part of the equipment of most Japanese travellers), others make shrines, and ornamental baskets and basket hats are the specialties of Mina-Kochi, a large town with fine stone- faced embankments, the remains of a daimiyo's castle. Lake Biwa is a noble sheet of water forty-five miles long,^ its west shore and head dark with masses of ’ I have omitted my letters from Lake Biva and its neighbourhood, as well as most of those from KiyOto, because these regions are on the “beaten track;” but no popular resorts in Japan are lovelier than THE “ TEMPEBANCE PLEDGE.” 295 piled- up, forest-covered mountains, and its east a smil- ing region of garden cultivation. It is said that besides Otsu, Hikone, and some other towns, 1800 thriving vil- lages fringe its coasts, its waters are whitened with sails, and a brisk traffic is ah o carried on by small steamers. It is a great resort of pleasure-seekers, and its tea-houses are famous. Near Kusatsu I noticed some men’s top-knots hung up on a shrine, and found, on inquiry, that it is not un- common for people who have suffered very deeply from the evils of intemperance, to take a vow of “ total absti- nence ” and offer it to the god Kompira, who is sup- Hiyeizan, the “priests’ mountain,” Sakamoto the “priests’ village,” and the hill groves and temples of Miidera and of Ishiyama-no-dera — scenes which Japanese art and literature are perpetually reproducing in painting and poetry. 296 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. posed to take special cognisance of vows, and to punish those who break them with great severity. Such per- sons cut off their top-knots and hang them up on the shrines of this idol in token of their resolves. Japan is not a quarter as intemperate as Britain, but still drunkenness is one of its great evils, and I have seen some scenes of dissolute dissipation, specially in the gardens of Shinkakuji, near KiySto, which I shall not soon forget. On arriving here we found the town illuminated with paper lanterns, and that, by exceptional good fortune, we had lighted upon the grandest matmri of the year, that of the god Shhmomiya. Thousands of strangers had already arrived, and thousands more are pouring in from Kiydto and the countless villages of Lake Biwa ; but full as Otsu is, our worthy host only asks 8d. each for our room — a very good one — a hibachi, andon, and unlimited rice and tea for two meals. We hurried through a supper of bonito steak with a carrion-like flavour, and spent the evening among the crowds out- side, seeing a veritable transformation scene, for the long, mean streets were glorified by light and colour, the shop fronts were gone, and arches and festoons of coloured lanterns turned the whole into fairyland. To begin with, every house had a lantern three feet long hanging outside it, with the characters forming the god’s name on one side and a black or red tomoyi on the other. The removal of fusuma had transformed shops into large spaces, with backs and sides of splendid folding screens with peonies, lotuses, and irises painted on a dead gold ground. The mats were covered with Kiyoto rugs ; a hibachi, and two or tlrree fanciful lamps were in the centre of each ; a man crouched over every hibachi, and in most cases two or three friends were smoking or TABLEAUX VIVANTS. 297 flipping tea with him. Apparently the people vied with each other in the beauty of the decorations which they displayed to the streets. Some of the houses really looked like fairy scenes, especially two, in which the trappings of the idol cars were displayed, mythological scenes in very ancient needlework, so exquisitely fine, that for some time I supposed them to be paintings, lacquer and gold filagree stands supporting valuable rock crystal balls, and black and gold lacquer railings — all the bequest of centuries of heathenism. On every floor there was a vase of magnificent chrysanthe- mums, and an orderly crowd of many thousands quietly promenaded the narrow streets, admir- ing and comparing, the tableaux vivants in the house fronts nowise moved by all. At the intersections of all the streets there were strings of lanterns one above another in harmoniously blended colours to a height of twenty- five feet, and matsuri cars for to-day’s procession twenty feet high, with canopied platforms on their tops, reached by gangways from the house roofs, with festoons of lanterns, and on each car ten boys beating drums and gongs, and two men playing flutes, kept up a din truly diabolical. We dived down a dark, lonely street, and passing through a slit in the wall of the court of the great ShintQ temple, came upon a blaze of light, and a din of TOMOTB.* 1 The tomoyi is found throughout Japan. All terminal tiles of roofs or walls which do not bear the badge of the owner’s family, are im- pressed with it. It is seen on one side of all lanterns used in matsuri illuminations, on all drums at the tanabata festival, among the wood- carving and arabesques of temjdes, and is the most common ornament in the Empire, besides being the second badge of the once powerful house of Arima. It is supposed (in Buddhism) to be a sign of the heap- ing up of myriads of good influences, good luck, long life, etc.; but it seems impossible to explain its origin. 298 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. revelry partly inspired by sake. Along tne pavements there were brilliantly-lighted booths for the sale of oranges and persimmons, and heathenish toys of all kinds, among which toy torii, mikoshi or arks containing “ divine ” property or emblems, shrines, and festival cars were selling in hundreds, to decorated doll chil- dren. The temple platforms were illuminated, and mikoshi of black lacquer, gorgeous with gold, were dis- played under their canopies; priestesses in white ki- mono and crimson silk hakama, with attendants beating small drums, and vases of chrysanthemum and Cleyera Jayonica around them, sat on other platforms, painted and motionless ; a temple attendant thumped a big drum, and piles of plain deal se?;, with offerings of Clcy- era Japonica., rice, and sake., were heaped up before the principal idol’s shrine. The shrine of the fox god was also a great centre of attraction, and round shrines and platforms in the soft, coloured light surged a crowd of men, women, and cliildren, dressed in their best, buy- ing, selling, laughing, singing, clattermg bells, and blowing flutes — light, mirth, and music being at their height about ten, when a few small drops of rain fell, the crowd melted away, and in a few minutes the streets were dark and silent. But this mornmg is fine, and Otsu is gay and crowded. At an earl}^ hour, with much discord sup- posed to be music, the mikoshi were brought in state from the sacred platforms, and were placed on the cars, wliich are beings draqored through the streets at the rate of a mile in an hour and a half, the priestesses per- formed a sacred dance, the offerings were multiplied, and the festival is at its height. Otsu is famous for the number and magnificence of its matsuri cars, of which there are thirteen, but we only saw three. The Shintfi “ godowns ” must be treasures of priceless antique art bare as the temples are. MATSURI CARS. 299 Each car consists of a massive, oblong, black lacquer body on a lacquer platform, on two solid, tireless wheels of brown lacquer, with a smaller wheel in front. On the top there is a platform with a heavy railing of black and gold lacquer, a solid back, and a lofty canopy of black lacquer lined with red lacquer, heavily gilded, and with a big gilded eagle at its siunmit. In front there were male and female figures, one standing, the other seated, in cloth of gold dresses of great beauty. Behind these, ten boys, as last night, were ceaselessly beating drums and gongs, and two men were playing flutes, all at the level of the house roofs. Below the platform there were valances of very rich needlework, and at the back a kakemono of glorious needlework, almost or quite priceless, the ground being worked in a fine gold thread no longer made. An antiquity of eight centuries is claimed for these decorations. The cars were dragged along by a curious team, marshalled by two men in glazed peaked hats and winged garments of calico, carrying ancient staffs with rings at the top of much-corroded iron, such as are often placed in the hands of statues of Buddhas, the team consisting of thirty men in blue and white striped trousers and dark- blue liaori with the characters representing the god upon them. These tugged the unwieldy erections by stout ropes, and as many more, similarly attired, as- sisted the ponderous wheels with levers. The master of the ceremonies was a manikin in a European dress suit of black broadcloth, with a broad expanse of shirt front, and a white necktie with long ends ! ! ! Kiydto., November 16. — We arrived here yesterday morning, and it is a tribute to the security which for- eigners enjoy in this orderly and peaceable hand, that cwo foreign ladies, without even a servant, have trav- elled for nearly 200 miles, and mainly through a region 300 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. in which Europeans are rarely seen, not only without a soli dary instance of extortion, incivility, or annoyance, but receiving courtesy and kindness everywhere. I. L. B. niNERAUY. 301 ITINERARY OF ROUTE FROM Kn'dxO TO YAMADA (Shrinks of Ise), AND BY TSU TO KIY6tO. Ri. CM Kiyoto to Nara . ... 11 20 Nara to Tambaichi 2 18 Miwa 2 5 Has^-dera or IlatsoB^ 1 23 Haibara 1 8 Higenashi 2 23 Nobari-shita . . 2 12 Awoyama 4 3 Rokken 4 13 Matsuzaka 1 18 Rushida 1 26 Yamada 1 Rokken .......... 5 8 Tsu 3 Kubota 1 Kusuhara 3 Sdki 1 By TOkaido to KiyOto 24 78 28 About 185^ miles. 302 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. Water-Wa7S in Osaka — Glimpses of Domestic Life — Ladies’ Peti — The Position of Women — Imperial Example — The Medical Mission — A Japanese Benevolent Institution — A Comfortless Arrival — A Christian Gathering — The Prison at Otsu — Pros- pects of Christianity — Blankness of Heathenism. Kobe, December 3 , 1878 . On my way from KiyOto I spent three days at 6saka with Miss M , who, having the charge of two Japan- ese children, and bemg in Japanese emplo 3 Tnent, is allowed to live in a little house in the most densely peopled part of the great commercial capital with its 600,000 souls. Aided by her kindness and her small amount of Japanese, I saw many of the Osaka sights and most of the huge, busy city, but was impressed by nothing so much as by the numerous waterways and their innumerable bridges, a few of which are stone or iron ; the canals quayed with stone ; the massive flights of stone stairs down to the water ; the houses vith overhanging balconies draped with trailers ; the broad, quayed roadways along the rivers, with weeping wil- lows on one side and ancient yashikis and rice godowns on the other ; the hundreds of junks and small boats moving up or down wdth every tide ; the signs of an enormo is commerce eveiy where, the floating tea-houses, and house-boats wdth matted roofs, and the islands with tea-houses and pleasure-grounds. But the sights of Osaka, like those of KiyOto, are on the best beaten GLIMPSES OF DOMESTIC LIFE. 303 tourist track, and you can read more or less about them in every book on Japan. I made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Warren of the C. M. S., and of Dr. Taylor and others connected with the American mission. Mr. Warren has great facility in colloquial Japanese, and a hearty, hopeful spirit, preaches and itinerates exteiisively, has a daily evening service attended by from forty to fifty people, and has large expectations of success. The American ladies conduct girls’ schools, but very specially en- deavour to make acquaintance with Japanese women in their own homes with the assistance of a Japanese Bible-woman, and I had some curious glimpses into the domestic life of the richer people, one being a visit to a lady whose husband holds high official rank, and whose house is purely Japanese. Miss had become ac- quainted with her through her desire to know the way in which European mothers care for their own and their children’s health, Avhich led the way to intelligent in- quiries into Christianity. On our visit we were con- ducted through various large rooms into a low one about ten feet square, with lattice fret-work, only ad- mitting a dim light. The lady, who is haggard and by no means pretty, but who, fortunately for herself, is a mother, received us with much dignitjq aud immediately opened the conversation by inquiries about the position of European women. She looked intelligent, restless, and unhappy, and, I thought, chafed under the re- stiaints of custom, as she said that no Japanese woman could start for foreign countries alone, and she envied foreigners their greater liberty. She produced a map and traced my route upon it, but seemed more inter- ested in other countries than in her own. A very pretty girl, with singular grace and charm of manner, came in and sat down beside her, equally well dressed 304 UNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. in silk, but not a legal wife. The senior wife obtaina great credit for her kind and sisterly treatment of her, which, according to Japanese notions, is the path of true wisdom. There was an attendant in the shape of a detestable “Chin,” something like a King Cliarles’s spaniel with a broken nose : an artificially dwarfed creature, with glassy, prominent eyes, very cross and delicate, and dressed in a warm coat. These objection able lap-dogs are “ ladies’ pets ” all over Japan. My impression is, that, according to our notions, the Japanese wife is happier in the poorer than in the richer classes. She works hard, but it is rather as the partner than the drudge of her husband. Nor, in the same class, are the unmarried girls secluded, but, within certain limits, they possess complete freedom. Women undoubtedly enjoy a more favourable position than in most other heathen countries, and wives are presuma- bly vii’tuous. Infanticide is very rare. The birth of a daughter is far from being an occasion of mourning, and gills receive the same affection and attention as boys, and for their sphere are equally carefully edu- cated. The women of the upper classes are much secluded, and always go out with attendants. In the middle ranks it is not proper for a wife to be seen abroad in her husband’s absence, and, to be above suspicion, many, under these circumstances, take an old woman to keep them company. There are many painful and evil customs to which I cannot refer, and which are not likely to be overthrown except by the reception of a true Christianity, some of them arising out of morbidly exaggerated notions of filial piety; but even in past times women have not been “ downtrodden,” but have occupied a high place in history. To say nothing of the fact that the greatest of the national divinities is a THE MEDICAL MISSION. 305 goddesi!, nine empresses have ruled Japan by “ divine right,” and in literature, especiallj in poetry, women divide the foremost places with men. At present the reform in the marriage-laws which legalises the marriage of members of different classes, the establishment of high-class schools for young women, the training in the mission-schools, the widening of the area of female industrial occupation, the slow but sure influence of European female example, the weakening of the influence of Buddhism, which, in its rigid dogma, exalts the conventual above the domestic life, and above all, the slow permeation of at least a portion of the community with Christian ideas on the true dignity and position of maid, matron, and mother, and the example of the gentle Empress Haruku, who timidly takes the lead in all that specially concerns the elevation of her sex, are all tending to bring about a better future for Japanese women, who, even at the worst, enjoy an amount of liberty, considerate care, and respect, which I am altogether surprised to find m a heathen country. It is even to be hoped that things may not go too far, and that the fear of the Meiroku Zasshi^ that “ the pow- er of women will grow gradually, and eventually become so overwhelming that it will be impossible to control it,” may not be realised ! ^ The Medical Mission, both at Hiogo and Osaka, is under the charge of Dr. Taylor, a blunt and unaffected, as well as zealous and honest, missionary, by no means enthusiastic, or inclined to magnify what is emphatically “ a day of small things.” I visited both liis dispensaries, 1 "Within the last few months, since the establishment of representa- tive Local Assemblies with control over local taxation, women have been awaking t ) an idea of their “ rights,” and in some cases liave actu- ally written to the papers, stating that, where they jiay taxes and bear part of the national burdens, it is only just that they should exercise the elective franchise 1 306 JNBEATEN TRACES IN JAPAN. or rather consulting-rooms, and it is interesting to ob serve that both he and Dr. Berr}" (who has been very successful, and has won the goodwill of the Govern- ment by his courtesy and suavity) employ a different Planner of working from that pursued by Dr. Palm at Niigata, being less independent, and less apparently mis- sionary. Dr. Taylor works almost exclusively thi'ough the native doctors, and receives no money either for advice or medicine. He acts much as a consulting-physi- cian. The doctors bring the patients to him, he writes prescriptions, which are made up at any drug store, and afterwards lectures on the more important cases. There are 500 Japanese doctors in Osaka, and a number of these have organised a private hospital, of which they have asked Dr. T. to be consulting-physician. The six whom I saw were remarkably shrewd, superior-looking men. Dr. Taylor has many requests to go to outlying towns at stated intervals, and in these cases the doctors pay his expenses. The dispensary in Hiogo is strictly a Japanese Benev- olent Institution, to which eight Japanese doctors give monthly subscriptions, besides gratuitous advice to the very poor. Dr. Taylor goes there, and sees about forty patients every Monday, his travelling expenses being paid. Where people cannot pay for medicines, etc., a group of benevolent persons subscribes to procure them, and the Kobe native Christians provide medicines and other requisites for all indigent persons belonging to theh body. In surgical cases from a distance a room is taken at a neighbouring yadoya, and the patient pays a nurse ; but in the case of the destitute, all the ex penses are borne by the subscriptions to the dispensary. Dr. Taylor prays when the patients have assembled, but does not give an address. At Tkinagi, forty miles from Kobe, the Japanese doc- A COMFORTLESS ARRIVAL. 307 tors condact a similar dispensary, organised by Dr. Berry, and dispensaries now exist in many other places, as the indirect result of medical missionary work, and the now “ flourishing ” mission-stations of Sanda, Hi- kone, and Akashi, were all opened by direct medical missionary effort. On November 26, Mrs. Gulick and T went a day’s journey into the mountains, through exquisite scenery, glorious with autumnal colouring, to Arima, a pictur- esque village, much resorted to by foreigners during the heat of summer, and famous for bamboo-baskets and straw-boxes, which can now be bought in any quan- tity in London ; and from thence rattled down, through a woodland region, to Sanda, a town of 2000 people (formerly a daimi^d’s town), in a rice valley. We reached it in the dusk of a chilly November afternoon, but I will not dwell upon the cold and discomfort, or tell how we got the key of an unoccupied house, all damp and decayed-looking, Avith the floor littered with the rubbish left by the last occupant ; how a man came in and sawed up some damp wood ; how we made a fire in a stove, Avhich, having been heavily oiled, gave off a black, abominable smoke, which compelled us to dis- pense with it ; how we found some food among the re- mains of some old stores, and spent nearly four hours in preparing it for supper and breakfast; how hope- lessly cold the night was, and how dark and drizzling the morning, for our discomfort arose out of what con- stituted the interest of our visit — that we were un- expected. The upper part of Sanda is on a steepish hill, and is almost entirely composed of large old houses, with grounds enclosed by high walls, the dwellings of samur rai, who clustered round the castle, which is the nucleus of the whole. It is among this class that the Christian 308 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. converts are found, and they have built a neat llttJe church, which is self-supporting. We went forth with a lantern to pay some visits amoug these people, but were left in the dark to stumble up the hill, and to feel our way to the first house, a large rambling mansion, with an old lady at its head, who was sitting under the kotatsu (p. 261) with her two sons and their wives, and invited us to “ creep in,” which we did for a time, and then one of her daughters-in-law guided us to several other large houses, where our reception w^as courteous, and, lastly, to a handsome dwelling occupied by the leading physician in Sanda. We were taken into a well-lighted room, with fine kakemono on the walls, an antique bronze in a recess, a grand hihachi in the centre, and a fine lamp hanging over a group of an elderly lady in the place of honour, the physician, his wife, twin daughters, and seven visitors, mcluding a fine bright-looking young man, second master in the Gov- ernment school. Each person was sitting on his heels on a wadded silk cushion, and each saluted us "with three profound bows. Tea, cakes, and sugared slices of sweet potato were passed round, of which we par- took, and were much laughed at for our awkwardness with the chopsticks. There were light, warmth, com- fort, and friendliness, giving me a new idea of what home life may be among the middle classes, and a fi-ank geniality of manner, slightly European, in pleasant com- bination with Oriental courtesy. Of this group all are Christians except the head of the house, and he is an intelligent inquirer, and the object of the gathering was to read and discuss the Chiistian Scriptures foi mutual instruction, the Government teacher presidhig. This reunion takes place once a week. It was really very intei'esting to drop in upon it, and to know that tins and similar gatherings and groups of Chi'istians ii A CHRISTIAN GATHERING. SOS this and other places liave come about as results of medical missionary work, and that in Sanda and else- where the “ new wfiy ” is aided by the influence of its reception by people of education and position. In Sanda, as in many other places, a number of persons have become Christians, and use their influence and money in favour of Christianity, who, for various rea- sons, have not sought baptism, and are not numbered among the converts. I do not share the sanguine expectations of those about me as to a rapid spread of Christianity, but that it is destined to be a power in moulding the future of Japan, I do not doubt. Among favourable signs are that it is received as a life rather than as a doctrine, and that various forms of immorality are recognised as incompatible with it. It is tending to bind men to- gether, irrespectively of class, in a true democracy, in a very surprising way. The small Christian congrega- tions are pecuniarily independent, and are vigorous in their efforts. The K6be congregation, numbering 350 members, besides contributing nearly 1000 dollars to erect a church, sustaining its own poor, providing med- icine and advice for its indigent sick, and paying its own pastor, engages in various forms of benevolent effort, and compensates Christians who are too poor to abstain from work on Sunday for the loss of the day’s wages. At Osaka the native Christians have estab- lished a Christian school for their girls. The Cliristian students in Kiyflto are intensely zealous, preach through the country in their vacations, and aim at nothing less than the Christianising of Japan. Christian women go among the villages as voluntary missionaries to their own sex. Missionaries and students who itinerate in the interior find, as a result of medical or other mission- ary effort, that companies of persons meet to read such 310 UNBEATEN TRACKS JN JAPAN. of the Scriptures as are translated, and every true con vert appears anxious to bring others within the pale of the Christian society. Doubtless there is an mdirect influence against Chris- tianity, but overtl 3 % quiet toleration is the maxim of the Government, and the profession of Christianity does not involve the loss of official position. Thus, the Director of the junior department of the Naval College is an energetic Christian, the second teacher in the Sanda School is the same, and I have heard of others whose renunciation of the national faith has not in- volved temporal loss. The Government requested Dr Berry to take charge of the hospital here, and also to inspect and report upon prisons, at the very time that he was engaged in earnest medical missionary work — a fact which must have had some significance among its own subjects. In this region the Buddhist priests have ceased to claim tlie right to interfere with the wishes of a Christian or his relatives regarding his interment, or to perform heathen rites over his grave. The edicts against Christianity have been removed from public places, and quite lately the Department of Religion, formerly the first in the State, was abolished, and its business transferred to a bureau of the Home Depart- ment. This, however, is only an indication of progress in a western dfr-ection, and of increasing indifference to religion. Even in prisons the laissez faire principle is adopted. Several copies of such of the New' Testament books as have been translated, and some other Chris- tian books were given some time ago by Mr. Neesima to the officer of the prison at Ots\i, w'ho, not caring to keep them, gave them to a man imprisoned for man- slaughter, but a scholar. A few months ago a fire broke out, and 100 incarcerated persons, instead of try- ing to escape, helped to put out the flames, and to a PBOSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 311 man remained to undergo the rest of their sentences. This curious circumstance led to an inquiry as to its cause, and it turned out that the scholar had been so impressed with the truth of Christianity that he had taught it to his fellow-captives, and Christian piinciple, combined with his personal influence, restrained them from defrauding justice. The scholar was afterwards pardoned, but remained in Otsu to teach more of the “ new way ” to the prisoners. There cannot, however, be a greater mistake than that Japan is “ripe for the reception of Christianity.” Though the labours of many men and women in many years have resulted in making 1617 converts to the Protestant faith,^ while the Romanists claim 20,000, the Greeks 3000, and a knowledge of the essentials of Christianity is widely diffused through many districts, the fact remains that SJffiOOfiOO of Japanese are sceptics or materialists., or are absolutely sunk in childish and de- grading superstitions., out of which the religious signifi- cance, such as it was, has been lost. The chief obstacles in the way of Christianity are, if I judge correctly, the general deadness of the religious instinct and of religious cravings, the connection of the national faiths with the Japanese reverence for an- cestors, a blank atheism among the most influential classes, a universal immorality which shrinks from a gospel of self-denial, and the spread of an agnostic philosophy imported from England, while the acts of “ Christian ” nations and the lives of “ Christian ” men are regarded as a more faithful commentary on the Law of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount than that which is put upon them by the missionaries.^ 1 A number which the ten months which have elapsed since this letter was written have increased by fifteen hundred. ® The ruling spirit of Japan is represented in the following extracts from a paper called, “ Of what good is Christianity to Japan ? ” which 312 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. The days when a missionary was “dished up for din ner ” ^ at foreign tables are perhaps past, but the anti- appeared. in one of the most influential of the Japanese papers on Octo her 19, 1878: — “ The Christian religion seems to be extending by degrees throughout our country. . . . We have no wish to obey it, nor have we any fear ol being troubled by it. As we can enjoy sufiicient happiness without any religion whatever, the question as to the merits or demerits of the differ- ent forms never enters our head. Indeed, we are of those who, not know ing the existence of religions in the universe, are enjoying perfect happiness. We have no intention of either supporting or attacking the Christian religion. In fact, religion is nothing to us. . . . We do not consider believers in Christianity to be odd or foolish persons, but we take them to be those who are guided in their morals by their reli- gion, and therefore we may say that believers in the Christian religion are those who, spending time and labour, import their morals from a foreign country.” The writer, after asking the question, “ In associat- ing with foreigners, in what way can we benefit our country ? ” urges that though the morality of Japan is not blameless, it is rather superior than inferior to that of some western people, while in “ intellect,” i. e. the arts and sciences, Japan is immeasurably behind them. He argues that “ Christian believers,” therefore, are “ wasting their time ” upon morals, and concludes thus: — ” How careless the Christian believers are in judg- ing the importance of matters I If the time and trouble wasted on im- proving our morahty, which is not deficient in us, were directed towards gaining intellectual knowledge, which is deficient in us, the benefit accruing to our country would be not a little. The present Japan is an active country, busy in gaining intellectual acquirements, and therefore no time ought to be allowed to be wasted on any useless affairs.” — Ilochi Shimbun. 1 In his Voyages of a Naturalist, Mr. Darwin, in his severely truthful style, defends missionaries from malignant and vulgar attacks. His manly pages on the subject are well worth reading, but I only quote two or three sentences. “ There are many who attack, even more acrimoniously than Kotzebue, the missionaries, their system, and the effects produced by it. Such reasoners never compare the present state with only twenty years ago, nor even with that of Europe at this day, but they compare it with the high standard of gospel perfection. They expect the missionaries to do that which the Apostles themselves failed to do. Inasmuch as the condition of the people falls short of this high standard, blame is attached to the missionary, instead of credit for that which he has effected.” Mr. Darwin, after mentioning many sinful habits of the past, says, “ They forget, or will not remem- ber, that all these have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemper- ance, and licentiousness, have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. But it is useless to argue against such reasoners. I believe that, disappointed in not finding the field for licentiousness PBOSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 313 missionary spirit is strong, and the missionaries give a great deal of positive and negative offence, some oi which might, perhaps, be avoided. They would doubt, less readily confess faults, defects, and mistakes, but with all these, I believe them to be a thorouglily sin- cere, conscientious, upright, and zealous body of men and women, all working, as they best know how, for the spread of Christianity, and far more anxious to build up a pure Church than to multiply nominal con- verts. The agents of the different sects abstain from even the appearance of rivalry, and meet for friendly counsel, and instead of perpetuating such separating names as Episcopalians, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., “the disciples are called CHRISTIANS FIRST.” Without indulging in any unreasonable expectations, it cannot be doubted that the teaching of this large oody of persons, and the example of the unquestionable purity of their lives, is paving the way for the recep- tion of the Christianity preached by Japanese evangel- ists with the eloquence of conviction, and that every true convert is not only a convert but a propagandist, and a centre of the higher morality in which lies the great hope for the future of Japan. I ardently long to see this people Christianised, not with the nominal Christianity of Christendom, but with the pure, manly, self-sacrificing Christianity of Christ and His apostles. Japanese religious art has done much to please the eye, yet the impression, on the whole, is one of profoimd melancholy. The religious zeal which covered the land with temples and monas- teries, terraced mountain sides in stone, and ascended them by colossal flights of stone stairs, has perished. quite so open as formerly, they will not give credit to a morality which they do not wish to practise, or to a religion which they undervalue, iJ lot despise- ” — P. 414. 314 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. Myth and Nature worship are reduced to rubbing and clapping the hands, and throwing rin upon temple floors. Buddhism, degenerate and idolatrous, is losing its hold over men’s fears, and prostrate Buddhas and decaying shrines are seen all over the land. The chill of an atheistic materialism rests upon the upper classes ; an advancing education bids religion and raoralitj itand aside, the clang of the new material progress drowns the still, small voice of Christ, the old faiths are d3nng, the religious instincts are failing, and reli- gious cravings scarcely exist. Even at its best and highest there is an intense mournfulness about Japanese Buddhism, pointing, as it does, to an unattainable per fection, and holding up the terrors of hell to those whc fall short of it, but recognising no availing “sacrifice for sin,” no “merciful and faithftil High Priest,” no Father in heaven yearning over mankind with an infi nito love, no higher destiny than practical annihilation being “without hope, and without God in the woild.” I. L. B FINE yVEATUER. ufi CREMATION. Fine Weather — Cremation in Japan — The Governor of T6kiy6— ■ An Awkward Question — An Insignificant Building — Economy in Funeral Expenses — Simplicity of the Cremation Process — The Last of Japan. H.B.M.’s Legation, Yedo, December 18. I HAVE spent the last ten days here, in settled fine weather, such as should have begun two mouths ago, if the climate had behaved as it ought. A cloudless sky, a brilliant sun, and a temperature rarely falling to the freezing-point, are very delightful. I miss Lady Parkes and the children sorely, and she is mourned by every one, not onl}- because she took, as no one else can, the social lead in the English-speaking community, but because of her thoughtful kindness and genuine sympathy with sorrow, no less than for her high sense of truth and justice, and for her judicious reticence of speech, nowhere more important than in such a mixed society as this. The time has flown by, however, in excursions, shopping, select little dinner parties, fare- well calls, and visits made with Mr. Chamberlain to the famous groves and temples of Ikegami, where the Buddhist bishop and priests entertained us in one of the guest-rooms, and to Enoshima and Kamakura, “vulgar” resorts which nothing can vulgarise so long as Fujisan towers above them, I will mention but one “ sight ” which is so far out of the beaten track that it was only after prolonged 516 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. inquiry that its whereabouts was ascertained. Among Buddhists, specially of the Monto sect, cremation was largely practised till it was forbidden five years ago, as some suppose in deference to European prejudices. Three years ago, howe^'er, the prohibition was with- diawn, and in this short space of time the number of bodies burned lias reached nearly nine thousand annu- PCJI8AN, FROM A VILLAGE ON THE t6kaId6. ally. Sir H. Parkes applied for permission for me to visit the Kirigaya ground, one of five, and after a few delays it was granted b}' the Governor of TokiyS at Mr. IMori’s request, so yesterday, attended by the Lega- tion linguist, I presented myself at the fine yasliiki of the Tokiyo Fu, and quite uiiexpectedh' was admitted to an audience of the Governor. Mr. Kusamoto is a AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 317 well-bred gentleman, and his face expresses the energy and ability which he has given proof of possessing. He wears his European clothes becomingly, and in attitude, as well as manner, is easy and dignified. After asking me a great deal about my northern tour and the Ainos, he expressed a wish for candid criticism, but as this m the East must not be taken literally, I merely ventured to say that the roads lag behind the progress made in other directions, upon which he en- tered upon explanations which doubtless apply to the past road-history of the country. He spoke of crema- tion and its “necessity ” in large cities, and terminated the interview by requesting me to dismiss ni}^ interpre- ter and km-uma., as he was going to send me to Meguro in his own carriage with one of the Government inter- preters, adding very courteously that it gave him pleas- ure to show this attention to a guest of the British Minister, “ for whose character and important services to Japan he has a high value.” An hour’s drive, with an extra amount of yelling from the bettos., took us to a suburb of little hills and valleys, where red camellias and feathery bamboo against back-grounds of cryptomeria contrast with the grey monotone of British winters, and, alighting at a farm road too rough for a carriage, we passed through fields and hedgerows to an erection which looks too insignificant for such solemn use. Don’t expect any ghastly details. A longish building of “wattle and dab,’* much like the northern farmhoxises, a high roof, and chimneys resembling those of the “oast houses” in Kent, combine with the rural surroundings to sug gest “ farm buildings ” rather than the “ funeral pyre,” and all that is horrible is left to the imagination. The end nearest the road is a little temple, much crowded with images, and ,«inall, red, earthenware urns 318 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and tongs for sale to the relatives of deceased persons, and beyond this are four rooms with earthen floors and mud walls ; nothing noticeable about them except the height of the peaked roof and the dark colour of the plaster. In the middle of the largest are several pairs of granite supports at equal distances from each other, and in the smallest there is a solitary pair. This was literally all that was to be seen. In the large room several bodies are burned at one time, and the charge is only one yen, about 3s. 8d., solitary cremation costing five yen. Faggots are used, and Is. worth ordi- narily suffices to reduce a human form to ashes. After the funeral service in the house, the bodj' is brought to the cremation ground, and is left in charge of the at- tendant, a melancholy, smoked-looking man, as well he may be. The richer people sometimes pay priests to be present during the burning, but tliis is not usual. There were five “ quick-tubs ” of pine hooped with bamboo in the larger room, containing the remains of coolies, and a few oblong pine chests in the small rooms containing those of middle-class people. At 8 P.M., each “ coffin ” is placed on the stone trestles, the fag- gots are lighted underneath, the fires are replenished tluring the night, and by 6 a.m. that which was a human being is a small heap of ashes, which is placed in an urn by the relatives and is honourably interred. In some cases the priests accompany the relations on this last mournful errand. Thirteen bodies were burned the idght before my visit, but there was not the slight- est odour in or about the building, and the interpreter told me that, owing to the height of the clnmneys, the people of the neighbourhood never experience the least annoyance, even while the process is going on. The simplicity of the arrangement is verj- remarkable, and there can be no reasonable doubt that it serves the THE LAST OF JAPAN. 319 purpose of the innocuous and complete destruction of the corpse as well as any complicated apparatus (if not better), while its cheapness places it within the reach of the class which is most heavily burdened by ordi- nary funeral expenses.^ This morning the Governor sc it his secretary to present me with a translation of an interesting account of the practice of cremation and its introduction into Japan. jS.jS. “ Volga, Christmas Eve, 1878. — The snowy dome of Fujisan reddening in the sunrise rose above the violet woodlands of Mississippi Bay as we steamed out of Yokahama Harbour on the 19th, and three days later I saw the last of Japan — a rugged coast, lashed by a wintry sea. 1. L. B. * The following very inaccurate but entertaining account of this ex- pedition was given by the Yomi-uri-Shinibun, a daily newspaper with the largest, though not the most aristocratic circulation in Tokiyo, being taken in by the servants and tradespeople. It is a literal translation made by Mr. Chamberlain. “ The person mentioned in our yesterday’s issue as ‘ an English subject of the name of Bird ’ is a lady from Scot- land, a part of England. This lady spends her time in travelling, leav- ing this year the two American continents for a passing visit to the Sandwich Islands, and landing in Japan early in the month of May. She has toured all over the country, and even made a five months’ stay in the Hokkaido, investigating the local customs and productions. Her inspection yesterday of the cremation ground at Kirigaya is believed to have been prompted by a knowledge of the advantages of this method of disposing of the dead, and a desire to introduce the same into England (!) On account of this lady’s being so learned as to have published a quantity of books. His Excellency the Governor was pleased to see her yesterday, and to show her great ci\ality, sending her to Kirigaya in his own carriage, a mark of attention which is said to have pleased the lady much (I) ” 320 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. JAPANESE PUBLIC AFFAIRSJ The new era dates from 1868. Up to the twelfth cen- tury Japan was ruled by the Mikado, who was believed to be directly descended from the gods who created the country. This ruler by “ divine right,” exercised his absolute power tlirough the Kuge or court nobles, mostly connectious of his own, who mouopolised the chief offices, constituted the membership of the two great councils which arranged religious and secular affairs, and filled the principal posts in the eight execu five departments of the empire. After the twelfth century, when the feudal system rose, the governing power gradually passed out of the hands of the IMikado and his nobles into those of the great feudal families, and in 1603 became concentrated in lyeyasu, the head of the Tokugawa dynasty, succes- sive members of which exercised it for two centuries and a half. All this time a shadowy JMik.ado nominally reigned in the old palace in KiyOto, but power and splendour had passed to his chief vassal, who, under the title of ShOgim, actually ruled from the Castle of Yedo, i The authorities for the statements in this sketch are — Mr. Moun- 80J s Satsnma Rebellion; figures and facts supplied hy the coiuiiesy of the Statistical Department of the Japanese Government ; tvo lectures on “The Kational Debt of Japan,” by Mr. Mayet, Counsellor to the Japanese Finance Dejartment ; the Finance Estimates for the year ending June 30, ISSO , and the Re]torts presented by the heads of the Mint, Post Office, Telegraph, and Education Departments, to Sanjo Saneyoshi, the Prime Minister. FEUDAL PRINCES. 321 and was usually strong enough to impose his will on his sovereign. It was this system of dual government which gave rise to the fiction of “ spiritual ” and “ tern poral ” emperors. The daimiyo were feudal princes, who, having origi- nally conquered their domains by the sword, exercised independent jurisdiction within their limits, but were hound to render certain acts of homage to the ShSgun, whose government was composed of those among them on whose loyalty he could rely. The samurai., their “ two-sworded ” retainers, who had won their provinces for them, and had been rewarded by grants of land, were not onl}^ the fighting men of the Empire, but its most public-spirited and best-educated class. Of these political orders the huge., who were poor, but stni retained their old prestige., nximbered about 150 families ; the daimiyd, with their quasi-independent position, 268; and the samurai, the “backbone of the nation,” about 400,000 households. Below these there was the heimin, a vast, unrecognised mass of men with- out position, farmers, artisans, merchants, and peasants, separated by laws forbidding intermarriage from the pariah castes of the eta, who handled raw hides and other contaminating things ; and the liinin, “ not hu- mans,” paupers, allowed to squat on waste lands, who lived by beggary, carried bodies from the execution grounds, and performed other degraded offices, this mass, without political privileges, numbering 32,000,- 000. The ShOgun was the actual depository of power, but, above all was the secluded Mikado, theoretically the source of all authority, and “a name to conjure with.” The reasons for the Revolution must be sought for elsewhere, but it must not be overlooked that contact with western power and civilisation, and the diffusion 322 UNBEAIEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. of western ideas through the medium of translated lit- erature, were among its predisposing causes ; that it was a few leading men in a few of the clans, together with a very few daimiyo who iiad not succumbed to the luxury and effeminacy of their class, who organised and successfully carried out the dethronement of the Sho- gun., and the restoration of the Mikado ; and that it is the leading men of the clans, and not men of the old aristocracy, who have held the reins of power ever since. In 1868 Keiki, the last Shogun, retired into private life, and in 1869 nearly the whole of the daimiyo peti- tioned to be allowed to yield up their fiefs and quasi- sovereign rights to the Mikado, prajdng him to take absolute power, and to establish the internal relations of the country upon such a footing “ that the Emphe will be able to take its place side by side "with the other countries of the world.” This proposal was accepted, a tenth of their former revenues was allotted to them ; a provision was made for their retainers, and bj' 1871 when the clans were finally abolished, the feudal system of Japan, with its splendour and oppressiveness, had ceased to exist. There has been no very important movement against the new Government except the Sat- suma Rebellion in 1877, which cost Japan 13,000 killed, and 21,000 wounded men, and £8,400,000 in money, besides enormous losses arising from the destruction cl property and the depression of trade. Since 1868 Japan, casting awaj' her traditions of se- clusion, and detaching herself from the fellowship of Oriental nations, has astonished the world by the rapid- ity of her progress, the skQl with wliich she has selected and appropriated many of the most valuable results of western civilisation, the energy with which she has re- constructed herself, and the governing capacity whicb OBSTACLES TO ADVANCEMENT. 323 has been shown by men untrained in statecraft. In. the glitter and ^clat of this unique movement we must not forget that the Japanese throne is still founded on a religious fiction, that the Government is still “des- potij and idolatrous,” that the peasantry are ignorant and enslaved by superstition ; that taxation presses heavily on the cultivator ; that money raised with diffi- culty is spent ofttimes on objects non-essential to the progress, and alien to the genius, of the nation ; that the official class still suffers from the taint which per- vades Asiatic officialdom ; that the educational system is not only incomplete, but suffers from radical defects ; that the reform of the legal system is only in its in- fancy ; that the means of internal communication are infamous ; that the tone of morality is universally low ; that the nation is a heathen nation, steeped in heathen ideas and practices; and that the work of making Japan a really great empire is only in its beginning. For what she has already done she claims from western nations hearty sympathy and cordial co-operation, free- dom to consolidate and originate internal reforms unem- barrassed by pressure applied by stronger powers for selfish purposes, and to be aided by friendly criticism rather than retarded by indiscriminate praise. The pages which follow bring together very briefly some of the most outstanding facts connected with the present position of Japan, and refer the thoughtful reader to the carefully prepared pages from which they are taken. In 1869 the present Mikado, in the presence of the grandees of the Empire, swore solemnly “ that a delib- erative assembly should be formed; that all measures should be decided by public opinion ; that the uncivil- ised customs of former times should be broken through ; that the impartiality and justice displaj'ed in the work 824 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. mgs of nature should be adopted as the basis of aclion, and that intellect and learning should be sought for throughout the world in order to establish the founda- tions of the Empire.” Though this oath of progress was but the word of a boy brought up in the seclusion of Kiyoto, it represented the conviction and settled pur- pose of the men who led the Revolution, and have piloted the Empire through the perils of the last eleven years. It is now 1880, and the first instalment of rep- resentative institutions, though in their most elementary form, was granted last year. The composition of the Government is subject to change, but in its main features is as follows: — The Mikado is an absolute sovereign. He administers affairs through a Supreme Council, which consists of the Prime Minister, the Vice-Prune Minister, and the heads of the great Departments of State, and meets on fixed days in the Mikado’s presence. This is the actual Government. Below tills is a Legislative Council, composed of emi- nent men, and presided over by an Imperial prince. It elaborates such new laws, and reforms in old ones, as are determined on by the Supreme Council, but cannot initiate any legislative measures without its consent. There is also an “ assembly of local officials,” consisting of one superior officer from each of the three Fu (the cities of T8kiy6, Kij^oto, and Osaka) and the thirty- five Ken (administrative departments) ; but it meets but rarely, and is a strictly consultative body, its func- tions being to advise on matters concerning taxation. The chief Departments of State are Foreign Affairs. Finance (which embraces the Mint, Tax, Paper Money, Statistical, Audit, Loan, Record, and Paymaster’s De- partments, and the State Printing-office), War, IMarine, Education, Public Works, Justice, Colonisation, the Imperial household, and the Interior, the most impor ELECTIONS. 325 tant of all (into which the Department of Religion was merged not long ago), which embraces everything not covered by the other Departments, and which has a capacity for centralisation which could scarcely be exceeded. A Government so constituted is strictly a despotism [ulhig through a bureaucracy, but a step towards consti- tutionalism has been taken lately by the calling together of provincial parliaments. All males above 20, who pay land-tax amounting to XI annually, are entitled to vote, persons who have been sentenced to penal servi- tude for one year for offences not commutable by fine, and bankrupts who have not paid their liabilities in full, alone excepted. Voting is by ballot. The property qualification for members consists in the annual pay- ment of X2 of land-tax; but persons holding Govern- ment or religious appointments are ineligible. The functions of these “ primary assemblies ” are at present limited to the discussion and arrangement of the expenditure to be met out of the local taxes, apd the method of levying such taxes ; but a possible enlarge- ment is provided for in the edict by which they were instituted. These novel elections passed off quietly, and the newly constituted bodies, which met in March 1879, confined themselves to the business before them, and to settling their forms of procedure. The impor- tance of this initial step in a constitutional direction on the part of an Asiatic despotism has not been sufli- ciently recognised by foreigners. For administrative purposes Japan is divided into chree Fu and thirty-five Ken., each with a Governor or Prefect, and a staff of officials responsible to the Minis- try' of the Interior, the Island of Yezo, for some occult reason, being under the Colonisation Department. Official salaries, judged by western notions, are not 326 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. liigh. The “Premier,” Sanjo, receives only £1920 annuaily, and the chief and vice-ministers of the differ- ent departments <£1440 and £960 respectively. Protected by her insular position, Japan ought not to have any enemies, and a large armed force, besides being an expense and a source of internal danger, is a standing temptation to her to make aggressions upon her weaker neighbors. On the abolition of the samurai or military class, she created a standing army, raised by conscription, and equipped, drilled, and disciplined on European models, by a commission of French officers. It consists of 35,560 men in time of peace, and 50,230 when on a war footing, besides a reserve of 20,000, not yet completely organised. The war estimates for 1880 are £1,438,020. The navy consists of thirteen ships on active ser\dce, ironclad, ironbelted, composite, and wooden, all steam- ers, carrying 2250 men and 87 guns, besides 10 train- ing-ships and *4 yachts, which, with the addition of 897 unattached men and officers, brings up its total strength to 27 vessels, 4242 men, and 149 guns. The naval drill and discipline are English. The principal ua\y yard is at Yokosuka, near Yokohama. The naval estimates for 1880 are £527,994. The police force, a very important body, with very multifarious and responsible duties, is composed of 23,334 men, 5672 of whom are quartered in Tokiyo. The pay of the chief commissioner is £60 per month, inspectors receive from £12 to £3, and constables from £2 ; 10s. to 16s. according to their grade. The police estimates for 1880 are £497,000. Taken altogether, this force, which is composed mainly of men of the samurai class, is well-educated and efficient, performs its duties with far less of harassment to the people than might be expected from Asiatic officials, and may turn out to be more reliable than the armv. POSTAL SERVICE. 327 One of the earliest undertakings of the new Govern- ment was the establishment of a mail route between Tokiyb and Osaka in 1871, the signal for the disappear- ance of the unclothed runner with the letters in the cleft of a stick, who figures so frequently in accounts of Japan. So rapid was postal progress that by the date of the last report 34,545 miles of mail routes had been opened, the mileage is annually increasing, and the ser- vice both by sea and land is so admirably conducted as to rival in some degree our own, on which it is modelled. The foreign mail service is carefully managed, and the Japanese post office, after a thorough trial, has proved itself so efficient that the foreign postal agencies are being abolished one after the other, the last remaining being the French, which will shortly close. With stamps of all denominations, post-cards, stamped envelopes and newspaper wrappers, facilities for regis- tering letters, money order offices, post-office savings banks, a G. P. O. and branches, receiving agencies, street and wayside letter-boxes, postal deliveries, and a ‘ dead letter ” office, the foreigner need be at no loss with regard to his correspondence, and if he can read the Chinese character, he may instruct himself by maps of mail routes, a postal guide giving details of post-office business, a postal history of Japan, and a general post- office directory of the Empire, not yet completed ! The last Report given to the public by Mr Maye- shima, the Postmaster-General, is an ably prepared and comprehensive document, and gives a most satisfactory account of increasing business and diminishing ex- penses, and in the estimates for 1880 it is assumed (and not unreasonably) that the revenue will cover the expen- diture. In the year ending with June 1878, the number of letters, newspapers, etc., sent tluough the post was 47,192,286, aji increase over the preceding year of 23 62S UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. per ceut, and over 1876 of 56 per cent, and of this large number only 62 were stolen, and only 91 were “ miss- ing ” ! Of the aggregate number nearly 25 millions were letters, 763,000 were registered letters, 10 millions were post-cards, and millions were newspapers. The number of money orders issued was 204,367, represent- ing £558,072, a decrease of 21 per cent on the previous year, but the post-office savings banks, which num- ber 292, show an increase of 131, an increase in the number of deposits of 83 per cent, in the amount de- posited of 270 per cent, and in depositors of 5000, the average amount deposited by each depositor being about £3 : 10s. The Post-Office employs 7000 persons, of which number thirteen are foreigners. The telegraphic system of Japan merits high en- comiums for its trustworthiness and general efficiency. The first short line was erected in 1869 : telegraph prog- ress has been going on since at the rate of about 600 miles a year ; a thousand miles were in course of con- struction when the new buildings in TokiyO were opened in 1878, and eight thousand miles are now in operation. Bell’s Telephones have been imported, and are used successfully in connection with the Public Works’ Department. The number of persons employed in the Telegraph service is 1410. The tariff for European messages is considerably higher than for Japanese. Dur- ing the year ending with June 1878, 1,045,442 messages were transmitted, only 23,000 of which were foreign an increase of 364,503 messages in one year. The native newspapers are growing into the habit of presenting their readers with telegraphic news items, and the Jap- anese have taken as readily to the telegraph as to other innovations. Railroad development has been very slow. Only 76i miles are open, and though 500 are projected, it is not THE MERCANTILE MARINE. 32fl likel}' that much progress will be made for some years to come. The cost of construction cannot be ascer- tained, as Japanese officials arrange all contracts and payments without furnishing information to the foreign engineers. The lines are substantially built, with earth- works for a double way, and neat stations on tlie Eng- lish model. One source of difficulty and expense, which helps to retard railroad progress, is that the beds of the rivers, by repeated embankments, have mostly been raised higher than the land through or over which they pass, and whether bridging or tunnelling be the least costly process, is a problem. I have already pointed out very frequently that Japan is miserably furnished with the means of internal communication, and that good roads are among her most urgent needs. The Japanese mercantile marine is constantly increas- ing in importance, and the 3Iitsu Bishi steamers, as to management, cuisine, and general comfort, bear compari- son with some of our own leading lines. This company has now nearly all the steam coasting traffic of Japan in its hands, and an efficient mail service to Shanghai and Hong Kong. The total Japanese steam tonnage is 36,543 tons, but, in addition, there are a number of lake and river steamers, of which no statistics exist. The number of steamers above 100 tons is 57. The number of vessels of foreign rig and build is in- creasing. There are now 76 of the latter class above 100 tons, and the total tonnage is 27,319 tons. The pujturesque but comparati ely unseaworthy junk is likely to be slowly displaced by the handier schooner of foreign construction. In 1872 the number of junks above 6 tons was 17,258, but, though junk statistics have not been taken since, the number is now estimated at 15,000 only. Some of these are as much as 190 tons, but, taking the average at 31, the total junk navy is 830 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. 468,750 tons. The fishing fieet is enormous, and a large portion of the very large coast population is engaged in tliis industry. The boats under 0 ton and over 18 feet long nmnber 33,047, and the boats under 18 feet 399,399. The mercantile marine regulations are tolerably strin- gent. Marine Schools have been formed for giving theo- retical and practical instruction in navigation and engi- neering, and all masters, officers, and engineers of native owned vessels, must pass examinations and possess cer- tificates, in order to obtain or retain nautical positions. That the exammations are not a matter of form may be inferred from the fact that at the last, out of 219 candi- dates, 69, including 9 foreigners, failed to “ pass ! ” The coasts are now fairly well lighted, and most of the channels, shoals, and sunken rocks, have been surveyed and buoyed. Japan has two Mints, a paper money mint at Tckiyo, and a metallic mint at Osaka ; the latter, one of the largest and most complete in the world. It, like the other public works of the new era, was organised by foreigners, but, of the foreign staff, only two remain, the chemist and assayer, and the engineer, with a Japanese staff of 602 persons, including a doctor. The total value of the coinage struck fi-om 1870 to the date of the last report exceeds .£17,000,000. The gold coinage is mainly confined to 5 yen pieces, which are nearly equal to a sovereign. The silver coins are the yen, the trade dollar, and 50, 20, 10, and 5 sen pieces. In the year ending 30th June 1879, 92,073 gold coins were struck; of silver yen, 1,879,354; of the trade dollar, 32,717; of 10 sen, 201,509; and of the 5 sen, 2,894,201. The copper coins are 2 sen, 1 seyi, \ ten, and 1 rin, and of these 83 millions were struck. There was, however, a deficiency in “ small change,” be- THE “ PBESS.’ 331 cause of the quantities of small silver coin sent by Government to China and the Straits Settlements, where it was sold at a considerable discount. The value of the coinage for the year was £686,911, and the total value struck at the Osaka mint since its commencement exceeds <£17,000,000 sterling. The Government paper money in circulation, which consists of notes from 10 sen upwards, amounts to .£22,675,598; but in addition, £7,000,000 of notes have been issued by the Japanese banks, not on the security of a certain quantity of coin, but on that of Government paper. The depreciation of this Government paper is a very disquieting symptom — the discount occasionally reaching 52 per cent. People naturally infer that Government credit is bad, the papei' issues being based on insufficient metallic reserves. During my journeys in Japan 1 never saw a gold coin in circulation ; small silver coins were difficult to obtain even in Yokohama, and from NikkO northwards, except at Niigata, I never saw any silver, or a single copper coin of the new coinage, the circulating media being paper, nnder a yen in value ; the large, oval tempo^ and the old rin with a hole in the middle, my own specimens of the nev/ silver and copper coinage being regarded as curiosities, marked preference being shown, as in Scot land, for “notes,” no matter how old or soiled. The newspaper press, which consists mainly of “ dailies ” and “ weeklies ” is one of the singular features of the new era. The first newspaper was started in 1871, they numbered 211 in the middle of 1879, their number is always on the increase, and they have an aggregate circulation of nearly 29 million copies. Eleveii millions and a quarter passed through the Post Office in the year ending 30th June 1879, an increase of over 100 per cent on the number carried in 1876. They circulate among all classes, and I have reason to think that 332 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. a desire to read them is a strong stimulant to the de- sire for education in the country districts. The staple of many of them is sensational news items, current rumours, and novelettes, wMch are said to minister to depraved tastes, and to corrupt the morals of the young. The better class discuss finance, commerce, morals, Christianity, the position of women, the W estern move meut, innovations, education, law reform, and all subjects which affect Japan, but politics are handled with ex- treme caution, for the press is shackled by rigid press laws, enforced by heavy penalties, and these were ren- dered more stringent in 1878. Theii’ tone can be judged of by their leading articles, of which translations appear weekly in the Japan Mail. Ignorance of the first prin- ciples of political economy, as we imderstand them, is usually shown, but many subjects are treated with breadth and ability, and the articles are pervaded by remarkable earnestness and an intense though narrow patriotism. The administration of law is undergoing extensive reform and alteration, and as its present condition can only be regarded as tentative, the remarks which follow are confined to the criminal code. Under the old regime Japanese law was based upon the Chinese codes known as those of the Ming and Tsing dynasties, and the criminal code promulgated in 1871 and altered and supplemented in 1873, was mainly an adaptation of these to the needs of modern Japan. These codes, with some additions notified in 1877, at present constitute the whole penal law of the country, only press offences and some minor infringements of administrative and police regulations being excluded from its operation, but military and naval offenders are not amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. The excessive penalties of the Clunese codes have been THE PENAL CODE. 333 modified in deference to modern humanitarian teach- ings, and Japanese law in practice rarely errs on the side of undue severity. Tliere are twenty degrees of punishment, ten oi which involve from ten to one hundred days’ imprison- ment, and the other ten, penal servitude from one year up to captivity for life. In some cases imprisonment, where it is unaccompanied with “ hard labour,” may be undergone in the offender’s own house, his relations being responsible for his safe custody, and punishment undergoes a few other modifications varying with the rank of the criminal. Persons who, before discovery, make a full confession of other crimes than those against the person are exempted from penalties. The system of criminal procedure consists of a series of private examinations of the accused person and wit- nesses. The accused is not assisted by experts or friends, he cannot interrogate the witnesses, nor can he compel those to appear who could give evidence in his favour. The prosecutor, who is always an official, sits on the bench with the judges, and trial is merely an in- vestigation. Torture, though not formally abolished, is, it is believed, rarely practised, and the use of an “ In- vestigation Whip ” is left to the discretion of the judges, who, if they resort to it at all, do so only when they are satisfied of the guilt of an accused person who pro- tests his innocence. The law, severe to female criminals in some respects^ is tender in others, and allows them to expiate grave offences, except that of “violation of filial duty,” by fines, and shows a peculiar lenity to the very young and very old, persons between the ages of 10 and 15, and between 70 and 80, being allowed to commute any pun- ishment, except that of death, by the payment of a fine, while those between 7 and 10 and between 80 and 334 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. 90 can only be punished for theft and wounding, and those under 7 and over 90 are ineligible for puidsh- ment at all ! Wilful murder, under which head infanticide is classed, is punished with death, and assaults are severe- ly dealt with, a mere blow with the hand being visited with 20 days’ penal servitude. Assaults on Govern- ment officials are punished according to the rank of the official assaulted, and the penalties are exceptionally severe, extending even unto death. Offences against property are treated severely, robbery by armed men, if it succeeds, being punishable by beheading, and if it fails, by hanging. Common robbery is visited with penal servitude for life, and accidental homicide, during the commission of a robbery, by hanging. The domestic laws, as we may term them, are strong- ly in favour of husbands and parents. Thus, a hus- band may assault Iris vdfe as much as he pleases if he avoids making a cutting wound, and ev^en then the pub- lic prosecutor cannot take cognisance of the offence except at the wife’s request, but if a A^'ife commits a common assault on her husband, she is liable to 100 days’ penal ser^^,tude, and for a husband to slay an offending wife and her paramour is no crime at all, unless a certain time has elapsed since ihe discovery of the offence. A parent who beats a child to death only incurs 2i years of penal servitude, and a parent bring- ing a false and malicious accusation against a child is not punished at all ; but a child who disobej's the law- ful commands of his parent is liable to penal servitude for 100 days. Nou-observance of the prescribed period of mourning for parents is visited with penal servitude for one j^ear. A senior relative is not punished for an assault on a junior, imless an incised wound be inflicted, and even then the penalty is mitigated according to the OFFENCES AND PUNISHMENTS. 336 aearness of the relationship. A recent statute prohib- its parents and husbands from selling their wives or daughters to the jdroyas without their consent, under severe penalties. Discarding the son of a wife in favour of that of a concubine is visited with 90 days’ penal servitude, and a father who turns his son-in-law out of doors, and gives his wife to a second husband, incurs the same penalty. Breaches of the seventh comiuandment are punished by penal servitude for one year, without distinction of sex. Lovers arrested in the act of committing suicide, are punished by ten years of penal servitude. Trafficking in opium is forbidden under pain of beheading, and in- citing to the use of it, under pain of hanging. Gam- bling is punished by penal servitude for 80 days, unless the stakes have been limited to something which can be eaten or drunk. Misconduct not specially provided against in the codes is termed “ impropriety,” and may be visited with from 30 to 100 days of penal servitude. Among “ improprieties ” are breaking idols, disseminat- ing false, malicious, or alarming reports, and publish- ing written matter which may cause difficulties in the administration of the Government, the latter being a heading under which all free expression of opinion is Hable to be classed. ^ The Government is thoroughly in earnest in the re- form of its judicial system, and has been engaged for some time past in the compilation of a new penal code, which, it is understood, will be modelled on the French eriminal law. Whether the French or any other Euro- pean system is suited to the present condition of the Japanese people is a question of great importance and difficulty, and the Government will probably not be in a hurry to decide it. A new code on a European model will compel the careful training of the Judges who are 336 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. to apply it, the reorganisation of the Courts, and the establishment of a system of procedure which will ad- mit of evidence being taken according to fixed rules. It will also demand that accused persons in criminal cases shall be openly tried and defended, and that there shall be a free examination of witnesses, both by the prosecution and defence. A system of procedure so jiovel and alien to custom and precedent, could only be carried out effectively by judges of independent posi- tion, aided by an educated bar, but the officials who at present occupy the bench are removable at the will of the Minister of Justice, and barristers are not yet rec- ognised in Japanese courts.^ Legal reform is one of the most important questions which the Government has to face, and the promidgation of a code, however admirable, is only the initial step. It not only involves the reconstruction of the Courts, the abolition of the present system of procedure, and the creation of a new judicature, but a revolution in Japanese traditional notions of justice, and in the customs which are inter- woven with centuries of national life. In the present preliminary stage of reform, the administration of jus tice fails to command the confidence of foreigners, and foreign governments are naturally unwilling to surren der the extra-territorial rights acquired by treaty, which place their subjects in Japan, as in other Oriental coun- tries, under the jurisdiction of their own laws. Nothing is more surprising than the efforts wliich the Government is making to educate the people, and it is addressmg itself to this task annually with increasing thoroughness. The new educational system was jdanned on a noble scale m 1873, by an ordinance which diadded the Empire into seven school districts, and gave one 1 The “ advocates ” mentioned on p. 317, vol. i., are what in England would be called “ attorneys,” TUE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 337 school to every 600 inhabitants. It is based upon elementary schools, and ascends through Middle and Normal Schools to Foreign Language Schools, and Col- leges for Special Sciences. The Education Report for 1877, published in 1879, gives the number of elementarj’ schools at 25,459, with a total of 59,825 teachers, 58,- 267 of whom were males and 1558 females. The total number of scholars was 2,162,962, or 1,594,792 boys and 568,220 girls, school age being from six to fourteen. The increase on the previous year was 12.27 per cent, but the percentage of daily attendance, which was 70.77, was a decrease of 4.13 per cent. In these schools the older pupils learn both the kata~ kana and the Chinese characters ; they read geography and history, are exercised in arithmetic with western numerals and signs, and are trained to give “object lessons ” to the younger scholars, a form of instruction which finds increasing favour. Something is done for health by means of light and heavy gymnastics, and among recent innovations is the orderly marching to and from seats. In some schools the boys are trained to give precedence to girls. Examinations take place at the re-opening after the holidays, and officers ap- pointed by the Edueation Department inspect the schools and report upon their efficiency. Different text books to the number of 174 are used, mostly of foreign origin, and often misleading from the imperfec- tions of the translation. The course of study and the regulations for the primary schools were modelled on those of the Govern- ment Normal Schools, uniformity being the object aimed at ; but it has been found that the neglect of local custom, aptitude, and requirements, and the ignoring of the differences between a rural and urban population produced very unsatisfactory results, and the system is 838 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. undergoing modifications which will increase its eflB ciency. Simpler text-books are being prepared, as, foi instance, me on geography, in which the physical con- ditions, productions, etc., of the special locality for whicli it is required are treated of. The standard of instruction has been raised too high for a peasant popu- lation, and has mcreased the difficulty of obtaining competent teachers ; and hard and fast rules as to school terms, in regions where children pursue indus- trial occupations, have prevented many from attending schools at all. It was intended that the elementary school system should be administered by the people, but it has been found that it has largely fallen into the hands of local Government officials. In the report issued in 1877 Mr. Tanaka, then acting Minister of Education, remarks that altliough at first “educational matters required dii'ect interference on the part of public officers, it would be a misfortune for the interests schools to be left continually so,” and fears “lest, owing to a want of interest on the part of the people, a retrograde move ment may set m.” He foreshadows Japanese schorl- boards by saying that “ school matters should be com- mitted as far as possible to the self-management of the people, by making them understand that it is their duty to assume the matters of schools to themselves,” and advises the local governments to give them all the encouragement and help which can assist them in tlie performance of this duty. It must not be overlooked that the initial difficult}' in Japanese education arises from the complexity of the language and of the ideographic symbols, and that the teaching of 3000 of the latter is undertaken in the pi imary schools ! The supply of properly qualified teachers for the lower grades of scliools, though increas THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 339 iiig, is still deficient, and imperfect training is still an- swerable for defects, many men taking their places as pedagogues after only 100 days in the normal schools. The total revenue for the year was i£l, 340,000, ol which sum £537,000 was made up by local votes, £161,000 by voluntarj^ contributions, £78,000 by fees, and £109,000 by Government aid, the expenditure being £1,072,000, and the total value of school property £2,593,000 ; teachers’ salaries averaged something under £9 a year, and school fees about 8d. for each child. It is to be noted that besides £161,000 in money volun- tarily contributed for the primary schools, they received large donations of land, 310 buildings, 16,576 sets of school apparatus, 26,507 complete sets of books, and miscellaneous contributions to the amount of £1200. Within the last five yeai-s the voluntary contributions in money only have exceeded one million seven hundred thousand pounds ! The middle schools have increased rapidly in numbers during the last four years, in consequence mainly of an increased desire for the acquisition of the higher com- mon branches of learning. The course of instruction extends over 2J, 3, 4, or 5 years, and the studies, slightly modified by local considerations are as follows: — writ- ing, grammar, composition, drawing, language, foreign languages (English being taught in 15 schools), geogra- phy, history, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, natural history, physi- ologjq agriculture, mechanics, commerce, book-keeping, statistics, mental and moral philosophy, political econ- omy, law, and gymnastics. This is a very ambitious course, for which the instruction in the primary schools can scarcely be regarded as preparatory. There were 389 middle schools, with 910 teachers, only 23 of whom were females. In these schools there is the first ap 340 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. pearance of the foreign element in education, 15 foreign men and 1 foreign woman being employed. The number of students was 20,522, an increase of nearly 9000 over the previous year, but the female students only number 1112. The educational system includes schools for special sciences, of which there were 52 in different localities, with 161 teachers and 3361 students. These colleges teach law, medicine, agriculture, commerce, navigation, chemistry, mathematics, etc. Mathematics was the specialty of the larger number of them, and medical and commercial schools come next in order, the medical being by far the most important. The edifice is crowned by the University of T6kiyo, which includes departments of law, literature, and science, the TSkiyo Medical College, a preparatory de- partment formerly known as an English language school, and a botanic garden. The number of students in the three first departments was 710, and the instruc- tors numbered 56, 32 being Japanese, and 24 foreign. The preparatory course includes English, mathematics, geography, physics, chemistrjy history, political econo- my, philosophy, natural historj-, drawing, etc., and covers three years. The special course of Law em- braces International and the various branches of Eng- lish Law ; Science includes Chemistrj", Ph3^sics, and Engineering ; and Literature., which is a new depai N ment, includes the different branches usually taught under that head. The complete graduation coui-se is five years. During 1875-1876 nineteen students of special ability were sent to foreign countries, of which number more than half have completed their education, and have obtained the master's or bachelor's degree of the universities or colleges to which the}" were sent. They receive loans of X200 a year, a heavy debt with wliich to start upon poorly-salaried life at home. THE UNIVERSITY OF t6KIT6. 341 The Medical Department, which is mainly undei German influence, divides its students into two classes, medical and pharmaceutical, and provides two courses, preparatory and special. The supply of instructed practitioners is so limited that a short and simple course of medicine for day students was organised in 1876, and in 1877, 293 students availed themselves of it. The preparatory course includes geology, botany, nat- ural history, mineralogy, geography, physics, mathe- matics, chemistry, German, Latin, etc. ; and the special course comprises medicine, surgery, obstetrics, zoology, botany, materia medica, anatomy, histology, physics, physiology, and chemistry. A hospital, library, ana- tomical rooms, botanical and zoological collections, and an extensive supply of surgical and medical apparatus, are attached to the department, and in 1877, 117 corpses were subjected to dissection. The hospital treated 836 in-patients and 4290 out-patients in the same period. At least seven-tenths of the medical practitioners of the Empire still pursue the method of the Chinese sehools, and the Medical College promises a most im- portant advance in curative and surgical science. The total number of day and resident medical students, in- cluding those in the preparatory department, was 1040, with 24 Japanese and 11 foreign instructors. The annual cost of the four departments of the University of TOkiyo is estimated at £55,000. There were two Normal Colleges (i.e. Normal schools for training teachers for the middle schools), with 25 instructors and 177 students; and 96 Normal schools (for training teachers for the elementary schools), 5 of which were for females. The latter contained 7222 males and 727 females, and were instructed by 766 male and 24 female teachers. The scarcity of competent teachers for the elementary schools is still severely felt, 342 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. and the Government is most anxious to extend the supply and increase the acquirements of teachers by rendering the course of study and training in these schools more complete and eflScient. The Normal School course covers two years, and usually compre- hends history, geography, mathematics, physics, chem- istry, natural history, moral philosophy, political econo- my, physiology, book-keeping, composition, pedagogics, practice of teaching, hygiene, singing, and gymnastics, to which logic and the elements of English are occa- sionally added. The foreign language schools were at one time re- garded as of great importance, and certain progressive persons, notably Mr. Mori, the present Minister to Eng- land, cherished hopes of the introduction of English under certain modifications into Japan as the written and eventually as the spoken language, and many peo- ple here seem to suppose that this project has made much headway. It is a remarkable fact that in the single year dealt with by the last report (that for 1877) the number of foreign language schools decreased from 92 to 28, and tliat the chief reason assigned for the de- crease is that “ the people have learned that foreign languages are not ver}' useful or serviceable outside of the large cities opened for commerce, and that the}”^ cannot be profitably studied by the mass of the popula- tion.” In the same year the number of native teachers decreased by 298, and that of foreign teachers by 85 : that of male studei ts by 4223, and that of females bj’ 347. In the schools which remain English is taught in 25, German in 1, Chinese in 1, and French, German, Russian, and Chinese in 1, the total number being 28, with 109 teachers, 27 of whom are foreign, and 1522 students, 120 of whom were females. The total number of foreign teachers in Government FEMALE EDUCATION. 343 employment was 97, 65 of whom were English and American. Increased attention is being paid to female education, the various mission schools are producing considerable rivalry, and the Empress Haruku has come prominently forward as a patroness of “the higher education of women.” In the elementary schools, the number of female teachers was 1558, an increase of over 100 per cent on the number in 1875, and with the advantages offered by 5 Normal schools, the number of women who are qualifying themselves for the profession of teaching is increasing considerably. The number being trained in the Normal schools was 727, an increase of 264 on the previous year ; but in the middle schools there was a decrease in the already small number of female stu- dents. In the primary schools the number of girls had increased 8.34 per cent, while the number of boys had only increased 3.93, but still of the total number of children in these schools, the girls are only one-third. The pupils in the schools for female handicraft number nearly 3000. Mr. Tanaka is strongly in favour of the multiplication of female teachers. He writes, “ The education of children should be so conducted as to develop grace and gentleness of manners and deport- ment. If they are brought up under the influence of the gentler qualities of female teachers, a much better result may be expected to be attained than where they are trained entirely by men.” Instruction is everywhere conveyed on Western prin- ciples, and the pupils in the upper schools are required to sit on benches and work at desks. In the Govern- ment colleges, innovation is carried so far that the stu- dents eat food prepared in European fashion, and use knives and forks. Intellectual ardour, eager receptiveness, admirable 344 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. behaviour, earnest self-control, docility, and an appetite for hard and continuous work, characterise Japanese students; and their average intellectual power and general ability are regarded by their foreign teachers as ecpial to those of Western students. Further compari- sons must be left to the future. The earnest work done by both teachers and students has ali-eady resulted in the turning out of a number of young men, well equipped both in the intellectual and technical training needed for practical work ; and it is not too much to expect that in a few years the empire will be able to dispense with the services of foreigners in most of the Government departments, and that the resources of Japan will be developed by the Japanese. It remains to be pointed out that In the absence of a compulsory law, only 39.9 per cent of the population of school age is at school, i.e. that 3,158,000 children are not receiving any instruction, that a large propor- tion of the peasantry is in the lowest stage of mental development, that thi’oughout extensive districts the children are surrounded by influences tending towards intellectual and moral debasement, and that a vast and not altogether inert mass of ignorance and superstition still exists to impede progress, embarrass the Govern- ment, and break out in trivial local disturbances. The primary school system, besides its need (as pointed out in Mr. Tanaka’s able reports) of being placed on a sound and efficient basis, is marked, I think, by two radical defects, — the general omission of moral training (the moral teaching of the Chinese clas- sics being suffered to fall into disuse under the new sys- tem, tlie classics being used chiefly as a vmhicle for teaching the Chinese character), and the revolutionary attempt to force European methods, cultirre, and modes of thought upon an unprepared people. Till the ele PRIM ART SCHOOL SYSTEM. 345 me^tary education is rendered more thorough and effi- cient, various perils attend upon the higher education, and in the present lack of careers for men of culture solely, there is some risk that one or two of the higher colleges which aim at imparting cirlture, but do not pro- fess to give a thorough training in those branches of knowledge which are of practical utility in work-a-day life may increase the number of glib and superficial smatterers who despise manual labour, affect expensive foreign habits, and render the task of government in- creasingly difficult by rushing into the newspapers with wild philosophical speculations, Utopian social schemes, and crude political theories. These remarks are not made in any spirit of invidi ous criticism. Japan deserves the very highest credit for spending twice as much upon her elementary schools as upon her Navy, for her desire to construct her educa- tional system upon the best models, for her readiness to correct defects and learn by failures, and for her no- ble efforts to bring education within the reach of all classes ; but we must bear in mind that the primary school system is still in its infancy, that three mi l lions of children are without education, that very much has yet to be done, and that the future of the empire is un- doubtedly imperilled by a vast ruass of ignorance and superstition on the one hand, and by a superficial exotic culture on the other. The problem of “how to make ends meet” has vexed the brains and tested the resomces of Japanese statesmen ever since 1871, when the Mikado assumed the responsibility of the debts which the daimiyd had contracted to Japanese subjects before the Itestoration, and of the paper money of all sorts and values which they had issued, substituting for it a uniform paper cur- rency. The reduction to order of the chaotic confu 346 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. sion of the financial system under the feudal regimt was carried out with so much vigour and abilit}', that by 1873 the Government was able to publish estimates of the national revenue for that 3"ear, which, as might be expected, were faulty -in form, and not altogetlier ac- curate in detail. Each subsequent year has brought an improvement, and the estimates for the twelve months ending with June 1880 are as correct in form, and on the whole as explicit in detail, as those of some Euro- pean states, and are accompanied by a Finance Report which reflects great credit upon Mr. Okuma, the Fi- nance Minister. It must be borne in mind, however, that official ac- counts of expenditure have only been issued down to 1875, that there is no public body which has power to look into and audit accounts, and that confidence in Japanese financial statements must rest partly on the character of the Finance Minister, and partly on the fact that the Government has been able to pa}' its way without having recourse to oppressive or risky expedi- ents. This confidence is increased by the manly tone of Mr. Okuma’s last report, in wliich, after regretting that the financial system still falls short of complete- ness, he “ begs respectfully to observe that the essence of finance is to be as exact and minute as possible, and that records are only of utility when they are complete and methodical ; ” and expresses his earnest desii-e that from this year onwards, “ additional accuracy may be attained, and both estimates and accounts of the na- tional finances become more and more methodical. ” This is much to be desu’ed in the interests of Japan, but that which has already been accomplished in the short period of nine years reflects great credit upon a country which had special difficulties to encounter in the unification of its financial system. THE NATIONAL DEBT. 347 Japan has not been behind other civilised nations in the rapid contraction of a National Debt, which at the present time amounts to <£72,000,000, but a compara- tively small portion of this has been incurred volunta- rily, or has been spent upon the material progress which has astonished the world. The legacy of debt inherited from the old regime amounted to <£14,215,000, and to this sum we must add .£40,312,000, which was required to redeem the hereditary pensions of the higher nobles and the military caste, as well as those granted to Shinto priests. In other words, it cost Japan £54.527,- 000 in round numbers to close accounts with her his- toric past. The Government was also forced to resort to loans to meet war expenses, mainly incurred through risings against its authority ; the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 added ,£8,400,000 to its indebtedness, and the Formosa Expedition demanded loans amounting nearly to £2,000,000 more. What may be termed the volun- tary debt of the new regime may be estimated at £9,855,000, and £3,600,000 may be termed Industrial Loans, including the London Railway Loan. Only one-thirtieth of the whole National Debt is due to for- eigners, and the average rate of interest on both for- eign and domestic debt is 4^ per cent, the rate of interest on private debts being 12.20 per cent. The interest on the debt demands £3,183,000 annually, out of a revenue of £11,130,000. Paper money issued by the Government to the amount of £24,000,000, but dimin- ished by the withdrawal of £1,477,000, constitutes 32.2 per cent of the debt, and has been spent, as it appears, mainly on the politically necessary, but unproductive expenses of the redemption of the paper money, and the assumption of the debts of the daimiyd, in order to make the unification of the empire possible, on extraor- dinary war expenses, mainly in order to preserve its in 348 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. legrity, and the formation of a Reserve Fund, consisting partly of ready money, for the purpose of meeting un- foreseen contingencies and perils. It does not appeal that the Government issue of paper has largely increased the circulating medium, because it has been required to replace former paper issued by the daimiyd, and eoiii which lias left the country in consequence of the im- ports being largely in excess of the exports. The Na tional Debt stands at the present time thus — Doraestic debt bearing interest . £45,726,226 0 0 Domestic debt bearing no interest, including Government paper money 24,735,544 0 0 Total of domestic debt £70,461,770 0 0 Foreign debt .... 2,365,824 0 0 Total of domestic and foreign debt in round numbers (about) £72,827,590 0 0 The chief source of revenue is the Imperial Land Tax, which has been reduced to per cent on the sell- ing value of the land, and it is estimated that this tax will produce £8,200,000 during the current year. Then follow the tax on alcoholic liquors, which it is estimated will yield <£901,000; the export and import duties, <£428,000 ; the profits on Government industrial under- takings, <£238,000; postage stamps, £210,000; the tax on legal documents, £107,000; the tax on companies, £100,000; the tax on tobacco, £69,000; the tax on the piuduce of the HokkaidO (Yezo), £72,000 ; and the tax on vehicles, £54,000. For the jmar ending June 30, 1880, the revenue is estimated at £11,130,000, being an increase of £475,000 over the preceding year, this increase being accomited for mainly by increased receipts from import and ex- port duties, from land, mining, liquor, ship, boat, and THE NATIONAL DEBT. 349 vehicle taxes ; from increased post-ofiQce receipts and copyright fees, and from the increasing number of per- sons taking out attorney’s horse, cattle-dealers’, and druggists’ licenses. The expenditure, for the reason that all surplus is to be applied to the reduction of debt, is estimated at ex- actly the same sum as the revenue. Among its chief items are the interest on the National Debt, ^£3,130,000 ; the army, which costs 1,438,000; the administration of fu and 7cm, £757,000; the navy, £527,000; tht police, £497,000; and colonisation, £302,000. This year’s appropriation for embankments is £289,000; for education, £227,000 ; for industrial undertakings, £201,000; and for the Civil List and appanages of Imperial Princes, £175,000. It is noteworthy that the charge for the Ministry of Public Worship appears for the last time in 1876-1877, and that the appropriation for the “ Temples of the Gods,” which was £44,000 in 1875-1876 and 1877, has decreased to £27,000 for 1879-1880.1 The magnitude of the national debt is the outstand- ing feature of Japanese finance, but it may be a sm-prise to some readers to learn that the cost of the projects entered upon by the new regime and of the reconstruc- tion of the Empire is under £10,000,000 ; that 53.7 per cent of the whole debt is regarded by Mr. Maydt, the Councillor to the Finance Department, as “ directly profitable ; ” that a reserve fund of £5,000,000 has been created out of surplus revenue ; and that the following extraordinary expenses have been met out of ordinary revenue : — The creation and equipment of an armjy with large military workshops, barracks, etc. ; the pur- chase and construction of a navy of 27 ships of all 1 For general tables of revenue and expenditure for 1879-1880 th« reader is referred to Mr. Okuuia’s estimates given in Appendix C- 350 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. classes, including ii'onclads, and the establishment ol arsenals, building-yards, and docks; the equipment of the coast with an efficient system of lighthouses; the construction of 8000 miles of telegraph, with telegraph offices ; the establishing an efficient post-office system, with Postal Savings Banks ; reform in the civil admin- istration, and ill the civil and penal codes ; the re-ar- rangement of the Land Tax, and the establishment of a uniform system of taxation for the whole Empire ; the establishment of custom-houses, tlie mint, and a Gov- ei’mnent printing-office ; the issue of new paper money, and a new coinage ; the establishment of a University, Medical College, and Technical University (College of Engineering) ; the establislunent of and provision for primary, middle, and liigher schools up to 1876; the colonisation and sm-vey of Yezo ; the introduction of the breeding of sheep, and improvements in the breeds of horses and cattle, and the establishment of model farms, tree-nurseries, acclimatisation gardens, agricul- tural colleges, industrial colleges, and museiuns ; extra- ordinary embassies to Europe and America ; participation in the Exhibitions of Vienna, Philadelphia, and Paris , and the education of several hundred youths in Europe and America, etc. etc. The Finance Minister, far from accepting the dictum of Lorenzo von Stein (^Lelirhuch der Finanz-wissenHchaft^.. (pioted by the able Councillor to the Finance Depart- ment, has recently devised and made public an elab- orate scheme for the liquidation of the wffiole debt of Japan by 1905, without either increasing taxation or trenchinsT on the reserve fund. The success of the ar- rangemeut involves a complete absence of financially or politically distirrbmg events; but though Japanese paper is subject to very severe depreciation as com- pared with gold, and the rise in the price of the neces- FOREIGN TRADE. 351 saries of life is a disquieting symptom, I think that we are not in a position to say that Mr. Okuma’s projeet is an altogether chimerical one, although it is impossible to agree with the strongly optimist view of it taken by Mr. Maydt, or with von Stein’s view that “ a state with out a national debt is either not doing enough for the future, or is demanding too much from the present.” The foreign commerce ^ of Japan is a subject of great practical interest, to foreigners because it forms nearly their sole objeet for intercourse, and to the Japanese, because they depend upon it for the development of their material resources. It dates from the abolition of the exclusive system, which was pursued down to 1858. Before that year the Japanese, having no foreign market, in which to dispose of their surplus productions, were without one of the principal incentives to indus- try. They grew food, or manufactured commodities in quantities sufficient to meet them own wants ; the har- vest of the year constituted the material wealth of the country, and the store of national capital admitted of little or no augmentation. But when foreigners came to their doors and offered them money or foreign wares in exchange for then- productions, a potent stimulus to increased exertion was afforded them, and its effect testifies to their intelligence and industry. The products which Japan furnishes to other coun- tries consist of raw silk, silkworms’ eggs, tea, rice, cop- per, t 'jbacco, camphor, vegetable wax, dried and salted fish, and various art manufactures in silk, metals, and chinaware. The first four items constitute the staple 1 In Appendix D will be found three returns compiled at the British Legation, Tokiyo, winch furnish in a condensed form particulars of the Import and export trade of Japan for a period of thirteen years; also a return showing the large amount of foreign tonnage which that trade employs, and a table of foreign residents, the majority of whom are engaged in mercantile occupations. 352 UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN. articles of export. The highest value which these items reached in any one year was, in the case of law silk, nearly fifteen millions of dollars [£3,000,000 ster- ling], in that of silkworms’ eggs more than four millions, in that of tea nearly eight millions, and in that of rice upwards of four and a half millions ; while the collec- tive value of the other exports in a single year has amounted to seven millions. The extent of the trans- actions in these commodities varies considerably in dif- ferent years, but the average value of the total export trade of Japan for the three years 1876-1878 was twenty- five millions and a half of dollars [£5,100,000]. Japan has rendered a most material service to the silk-growers of France and Italy by providing them with fresh silk ova, when their own supplies were nearly destroyed by the disease which attained its height in 1864. A more striking instance of international com- mercial benefit has rarely been witnessed, for it is doubt- ful whether a sufficient supply of the requisite kind of silkworms’ eggs could have been procured from any other quarter, and the emergency arose very shortly after the opening of the country. In return for her products Japan takes from Europe and America, cotton yarn, cotton and woollen manu- factures of all kinds, iron, machinery, kerosene oil, and many minor articles, such as cutlery, leather, and orna- mental wares ; wliile from China she receives sugar, and occasional supplies of raw coitton, which is an micertain crop in Japan. The average value of the imported goods for the three years, 1876-1878, was twenty-eight millions of dollars [£5,600,000]. Of these goods, cot- ton and woollen manufactures form the principal items ; cottons were imported in 1878 to the amount of nearly thirteen millions of dollars, hut woollens have fallen off since 1872, when the highest importation of seven FOREIGN TRADE. 353 C iilious and a half of dollars was reached. The de- mand for cotton manufactures appears to be nearly sta- tionary, while that for cotton yarn [as distinguished from cotton cloth] is steadily increasing. The latter circumstance may be regarded as a solid and favourable feature of the trade. Every cottage pos- sesses its own loom, which is worked by the women of the family, who can produce fabrics which, besides being genuine, are stronger and better suited to their wants and tastes than those of Manchester make, and by using a large proportion of foreign yarn, which can be sup- plied to them cheaper than they can spin it themselves, the people are furnished with abundant materials for the extension of their own manufactures, and are guarded against the bad consequences of a failure of their home cotton crop. Thus the native industry, in- stead of being supplanted by that of the foreigner, works in unison with it, and the result is a large in- crease in the national production. Of the general effect of the opening of Japan to foreign trade it is difficult to judge, as we must weigh against an apparent improvement in the dwellings, cloth- ing, and feeding of the people in the neighbourhood of its principal centres, the enhanced price of the necessa- ries of life throughout the country. It has created a new order of native traders and merchants, whose activity may be noticed in many of the large towns; while the foreign demand for Japanese metal-work and ceramic wares, fans, fine bamboo work, enamels, and the numerous articles kno'wn by the name of “curios,” has largely benefited the skilled artisans of the country, and has opened to them new and extensive fields of employment. Thus foreign traffic is bringing forward a middle class, which may be looked to as a means of promoting not only the commercial prosperity of the country, but also its political wellbeing. 354 UNBEATEN TBACK8 IN JAPAN. IV', futui-e of the foreign commerce of Japan depends upon the increase of production. Silk growing, next to ordinary agriculture, forms her principal industry, and the Government has wisely paid great attention to the improvement of the quality of the silk which is pro duced. It has also shown a laudable desire to fostet other industries, without always perceiving, however, that it is only those which are to some extent natural to the country which can profit by such encouragement ; and. like other young and paternal governments, it has not yet realised that free competition is essential to the growth of healthy enterprise, and that privileges and monopolies only serve to impede the expansion of trade. The population of Japan is essentially an agricultural one, and it is certainly a mistake to attempt prema- turely to convert an agricultural people into a man\afac- turing one. Undoubtedly, it is to the development of her very large mineral and agricultural resources that Japan must look for her advancement in wealth. But though capital is the one thing needed for the working of her mineral treasures, and the nation has very little of its own, the Government has rigidly excluded the introduc- tion of foreign capital, and the result of this and other restrictive measures is shown in the limited increase in the exports, in the costl}^ character of internal trans- port, owing to the primitive condition of the roads, and the high freights of the Japanese Steam-ship Company, vshich monopolises the coast carrying trade, and in the slow development of the enormous coal-fields, the mines, and other productive enterprises, \A hich cannot be under- taken without considerable outlaj'. “Dense population” and “garden cultivation” are phrases which travellers constantly apply to Japan, but the highest estimate only gives 230 inhabitants to the THE RESOURCES OF JAPAN. 855 square mile, and though the tillage of the area ac tually occupied deserves the highest praise, it is esti- mated by the Japanese Government that only tivo-tenths of the soil is actually under cultivation, and that the forests alone greatly exceed the area under culture of all kinds. A new trade in wheat is springing up, and there is little doubt that many of the vast upland tracts which are now lying waste, as being unsuited for the growth of rice, might be profitably utilised for wheat and other cereals. The island of Yezo, with a rich soil, and an area larger than Ireland, has hardly yet been touched by the plough, and between her adaptability to che growth of wheat, and her immense coal-fields, is a mine of future wealth. On the whole, there is no doubt that it is mainly to her undeveloped agricultural re- sources that Japan must look for increased exports and greater commercial prosperity, but there is nothing to lead us to suppose that she will soon become a wealthy nation. This brief review of some of the most important elements of the progress of the Japanese Empire neces- sarily omits much which, as stated in the reports of the heads of departments of the Japanese Government, is fitted to excite both surprise and admiration. T have endeavoured to avoid indiscriminate laudation on the one side, and unreasonable blame on the other. Japan has done much; but though she has done many things well and wisely, much is still undone. Some reforms of importance have been left untouched, and others have been undertaken so superficially, that, whUe cer- tain places present a fair outside, little improvement, on the whole, in those special directions, has been effected. Reform, not only in the laws, but in the administration of them, is urgently required. The army needs better discipline and better officers, if it is to be a source of 356 UNBEATEN TBACKS IN JAPAN. strength, and not of weakness, to the State. The Press laws need a thorough reform, and the obnoxious restric- tions on political meetings and societies which came into force on April 6, 1880, need to be rescinded as arbitrary and unworthy of the age. According to the Japanese newspapers, “ the whole population of the country is actuated by one burning desire for representative insti- tutions, and the longing, for constitutional liberty has pervaded all classes,” and this demand must be wisely met in fulfilment of the pledges given by the Govern- ment of the Restoration ; while, at the same time, the heimin, or commonalty, numbering thirty millions, must be trained to the exercise of political responsibilities. An improved system of roads needs to be created if the resources of the country are to be developed into becW’ing the strain of taxation without undue pressure on the cultivator. Three millions of children of school age require to be brought under instruction, and the standard of teaching to be raised throughout all the ele- mentary schools. Thoroughness has to be studied in all departments, and perseverance to be steadily requirea from all subordinate officials. The carrying out of the reforms which have been already begun, the placing them upon a solid basis, the judicious inauguration of new ones, the wise selection of such fiirther fruits of western civiKsation as may bear transplantation to Japanese soil, the courageous aban- donment of experiments which have failed from their inherent unsuitability to Japan, the resolute pui’suit of a pacific foreign policy, the exercise of a wise discrim- ination between true and false progress, and the perse- vering conservation of all that the Empire has actually gained during the last ten years, are sufficient to tax the energy and sagacity of the best and ablest men in Japan for many years to come. The extraordinary CONCLUSION. 357 progress which the Empire has made justly claims oui admiration, and, judging from the character of the meu who take the lead in public affairs, and from the wis- dom and sobriety which they have gained by ten years of experience, we may reasonably hope for the consoli- dation of reforms already inaugurated, and that those which are to come will be faithfully carried out with due regard for the interests of all classes, and with the honesty and solidity which alone can ensure permanent success. Of the shadows which hang upon the horizon of Japan, the darkest, to my thinking, arises from the fact that she is making the attempt, for the first time in history, to secure the fruits of Christianity without transplanting the tree from which they spring. The nation is sunk in immorality, the millstone of Oriental- ism hangs round her neck in the race on which she has started, and her progress is political and intellectual rather than moral ; in other words, as regards the high- est destiny of man, individually or collectively, it is at present a failure. The great hope for her is that she may grasp the truth and purity of primitive Christian- ity, as taught by the lips and life of otor Lord Jesus Clirist, as resolutely as she has grasped our arts and sciences ; and that, in the reception of Christianity, with its true principles of manliness and national great- ness, she may become, in the highest sense, “ The Land af the Rising Sun ” and the light of Eastern Asia. APPENDIX A. ATXO WORDS TAKEN DOWN AT BIBATORT AND U8U, YEZO. Above, kaschke, rekita. Afternoon, to-keiski, takes. Again, ishu kanna. All, obitta. Already, tone. And, ka. Angry, yarushUca. Arm, amonine. Arrow, eye. Bad, ipocasch. Bark, yara. Bear, hokuyak, peri. Beard, ticksa, reki. Before, noschki. Below, ranta. Beyond, aya. Bird, tskap. Blue, matek. Boat, chip. Bone, pone. Bow, ku. Boy [small], cuspo. Bright, hekeri. Brother[elder],l,'iani-y«rt<.fcMfni&o. “ [younger], kiaki-ni-guru. Brown, una. Broad, bira. Business, ukosarange. Child [male], sikatch. “ [female], makatch. Child [my], kttboho. “ [your], iboho. Cloud, nitchkuru, nischi, kuroro. Coat, amip. Cold, mi-une. “ [it is], meiragi. “ [very], meiupki. Coming down, shan. Corpse, rai guru. Crippled, takushuto. Dance, ontori. Day, W. “ [after to-morrow], oya-tschiun. “ [before yesterday], kosckenu- mani. “ [this], tanto. Dawn, ankes. Dead, rai. Deep, oho. Dew, kuruppi, kuru-^ppi. Dishonourable, nanu^ ischamu (lit. without sight ). Dog, set-ta. Ear, kisara. Earth, ischiri, tui. Eclipse, tschiipp-rai(the sun dies) Elbow, hiloki. End, itoki. Evening, schiri-kunne (the earth is black). 369 360 APPENDIX. Every, keshi. Eye, shki. Eyebrow, ranuma. Face, namihu. Far off, torima. Father, atspo. hambi. milch. Female, matni. Fierce, ninren. Finger, askibits. embi. Fire, abe. Fish, isep. chi-ep. “ [smoked], fumhi. Flea, taiki. Flower, ebni. Formerly, fusiko. Fox, turepp. From, kara. Ghost, kamoi-yashi. God, kamoi. Go-down, ptt. Good, pirika. Good-bye, saramba. Grandfather, ikasi. Grass, kina. Green, shin-nin. Guest, marubtUn. Hair, noma. alOpp. Hairy, noma-tis. Hand, teke, take. Hateful, kopande. Haughty, uku-aino-buri-kum (to take the form of an Aino.) Hat, tshesek. sesik. Head, saba. chapu. Heart, tschambi. Heavy, pashi. High, kuweri. Hill, ken. House, Ischesai. rikop. “ [my], ku-tschesai. Husband, Aote. tsckesaikoru. kuru “ [your], ihoku. “ [°iy]' kuhoku. “ [without], hoku-tsckoKu I, tshoki. Ice, konru. Infant, hO. Insect, kikiri. Kind, yie-yi^kiri. Lake, tan. Large, poro. Lie, shunge. Little, obari. Living, shitnu. Long, tanne. Male, binne. Man, okkai. lioku. guru. amo. “ [old], onne. “ [that], tanguru. “ [this], W-anguru. “ [single], okkai-po. Master [of a hut], kayatono. Mat, tsarubi. Men, okkai-po-po. Midday, tb-gap. td-noschke. Middle, noschke. Midnight, an-noschke. Millet, ie-sa-mam. Moon, antsikara. tschUpp-kunnt (night sun). Mother, liabo. Mountain, nobori. “ [top], tschiri-kilai. Mouth, parof. APPENDIX. 361 Oar, kadji. Old, \ekaL Owl, kamoi-tsikapp (bird of the gods). People, kuru. Poison, tschuruku. Promontory, itu. Rain, apto. toeni. Red, kure. River, bets. Road, ru. Robber, roku-guru (a robbing man). Roof, cada. tschisai-katai. Root, shinrichi. Salt, ischipo. Sea, atui, adOi. Shoulder, tapsau. Short, latne. Singing praises or chants, yairapp. Sister [elder], k’sabo. “ [younger], matake, ma-chi- ribi, turesch. Skin of beast, no-ma. Sky, cando. Small, pone. Smell, ybra. Smoke, shupuya. Snake, tnkoni. “ [black], paskuro-kamoi. (raven god). Snow, ubashi. Spring, paikaru. paika. Song, ma. “ [for several voices], o-ma. Stars, notchiu. Storm, poro-reira {lit. a great wind). Straw, wattesu. Suddenly, niscJiopp. Summer, tsckaku. “ [end of], tschaku-kes Sun, tscliCLpp. Sunset, hiri-kunne. Sustenance, aino-ikiri. Sweet, pan. Teeth, memoki. Temple, kamoi-tsckisai. That, tan. This, Iambi, lanni. Thing, ambi. “ [living], skitnu-and)i. “ [dead], rai-no-ambi. “ [spread on floor], ishokO' rambi. Throat, letchi. Thunder, kamoi-fumi. Time [a long], okono. “ [short] , porano. To-day, tando. Together, tora. To-morrow, ururu. nischatta. Tongue, parumbe. Tom, perike. Uglt, kai-guru-korats (like b corpse). Under, shiragata. Valley, nai. metu. Very, sliiri. Village, kotan. Wall, tomamu. War, sara-kathai. Water, waka. “ [hot], oshai. usai. “ [salt], ruru-waka. 362 APPENDIX. Weather, shukus. Which, niwa. WTiite, ritara. tsaru. Wife, matchi. Wind, tera. Window, puyara. Winter, mala. With difficulty, rai-korats (like dying). Within, oshipL Without, tschamu. \7olf, holaiku. ushi-kamoi (the howling god). To ascend, rikin. “ bathe, shushi. “ be angry, rusckke. “ be in pain, yunin. “ blow, rui. “ bury, iwakte. “ catch, koyeki. “ die, ri-orkai. “ drink, iku. “ eat, ehe. “ fight, uraiki. “ forget, oira. “ get angry, ainoseaek (glow like an Aino). “ get cold, meandi. “ get better, toQsa. “ get up, a.schkai. “ give, kore. “ go up a river, petorasch. “ go up a mountain, Mnnaisho. Woman, menoko. “ [old], pakko. Wood, nitchkuni. Wrist, dekutasch. Yeae, ba. “ [next], oya ba. “ [this], tan ba. Yesterday, numani. numatieU You, yarn. Young, pe are. hekatsu. To hear, nu. “ kill, raigi. “ like, yeramasch. “ live, kitoku. “ make, karv. “ pound, uta. “ return, oshipi. “ root up, rishipi. “ rub, nMrishiru. “ run, hoyupp. “ run away, kira. “ scratch, hiki. “ see, nukara. “ seize, kora. “ sing, sakehan. “ sing praises, i-uko-yain^if “ speak, iiaku. “ spring, lerikL “ tell lies, iko-shiunnke. “ touch, moi-moi. NtTMERALS. 1. schnape. 2. tupaisch. i. lepaisch. 4. mepe. 5. aschkei. 6. u-an. APPENDIX. 363 7 . aruan. 8. topaishi. 9. schnapaishi. 10. wambi. 11. schnape icashima wambi. 12. tupaisch icashima wambi. And so on up to twenty. 20. hols. 21. schnape icashima hots. And so on up to thirty. 30. ito hots. 31. schnape icashima ito hots, etc. 40. tu hots. 41. schnape icashima tu hots, etc. 50. ele hots, etc. 60. le hots, etc. 70. wambi icashima ine hots, etc. 80. ine hots, etc. 90. wambi aschkine hots, etc. 100. aschkine hots or sneyik. In pronouncing The sound rep- The foregoing words are spelt phonetically, them the vowels must be sounded as in English, resented by the letters tsch is a very peculiar click. APPENDIX B. NOTES ON SHINT6. Scholars hesitate to decide whether Shinto is or is not “a genuine product of Japanese soil.” The Japanese call their ancient religion kami no michi (the way of the gods) ; foreigners adopt the Chinese form of the same, and call it Shinto. By Shinto is meant the primitive religion which was found spread over Japan when the Buddhist propagandists arrived in the sixth century, and which, at the restoration of the Mikado to full tempo- ral power, in 1868, became once more the “ State religion.” By “Pure Shinto” is meant the ancient faith as distinguished from that mixture of it with Buddhism and Confucianism which is known as Riyobu Shinto, and it is of pure Shinto that I present iny readers with a few notes, in order, if possible, to make the religious allusions in the foregoing letters interesting and intelli gible.^ Japanese cosmogony and mythology are one, and in both Japan is the Universe. There are three confused mythical periods, dur- ’ For a sketch of the History of Shintd and its Revival, the reader is referred to several papers of profound research in the Transactions of the Englisli Asiatic Society of Japan for 1874, called “ The Revival of Pure Shinto,” by Mr. Ernest Satow, Japan- ese Secretary to H. B. M.’s Legation at Tedo ; to an article on “ The Mythology and Religious Worship of the Ancient Japanese,” by the same learned writer, in the Wentminsler Review for ,Tune 1878; and to a paper cailed “ Shintoism,” by Mr. Kem permau, in the Transactions of the German .Isiatic Society of Japan for 1878. 364 APPENDIX. ing which the islands of Japan and many gods were called into being. The third of these begins with the supremacy of Ainate- rasu, the Sun-Goddess, the great divinity of the Shinto religion. This “heaven-lighting” divinity, finding that Japan was disturbed by the unending feuds of the earthly gods, among whom Okuni- Qushi, their ruler, could not keep order, despatched Xinigi-no- Mikoto, a heavenly god, to Higa in Kiushiu, and compelled Okun- inushi to resign his disorderly rule into his hands. Since then Okuninushi has ruled over the invisible, and Ninigi and his sue- eessors, the Mikados, 'over the visible. The gods and their off- spring did not, however, always submit quietly to the new author- ity, and there were evident struggles for supremacy between the earthly and heavenly powers, which were finally brought to an end in 660 B.c. by Jimmu Tenno, the fifth in descent from the Sun- Goddess, who overthrew the Kiushiu rebels, and passing over into the main island, subjugated a large portion of it, and settled there with his warriors. AVhatever the actual facts may be, this event is the dawn of Japanese history, and the starting-point of Japanese chronology. The 7th of April is fixed as the anniversary of Jimmu Tenno's ascension to the throne ; he is deified and worshipped in a thou- sand shrines, and from him the present Mikado claims direct descent. The dogma of “the divine right of kings” in his case means nothing less than that he is descended from the great Sun- Goddess through seven generations of celestial, five of terrestrial gods, and 122 divine Mikados, who have preceded him ; and the three divine insignia of power — the mirror, the sword, and the stone — have descended to him directly from his ancestress, whose gifts they were. According to Hirata, a Shinto revivalist who wrote early in this century, and from whose writings Mr. Satow has made many translations, “ to compel obedience from human beings, and to love them, was all the sovereign had to do, and there was no necessity for teaching them vain doctrines, such as are preached in other countries. Hence the art of government is called Matsurigolo, which literally means ‘ worshipping.’ Accordingly, the early sovereigns woi'shipped the gods in person, and prayed that their people might enjoy a sufficiency of food, clothing, and shelter from the elements, and twice a year, in the sixth and twelfth months, they celebrated the festival of the ‘ General Purification ’ ” [oh- gerved to the present day] “by which the whole nation was purged APPENDIX. o65 of calamities, offences, and pollutions.” Ii. «fie beginning' of the thirteenth century the reigning Mikado interpreted the directions of his divine ancestors by ordering that “even in the slightest matters ” [certain most holy things] “ are not to be placed after the Emperor.” “ As it is the duty of subjects to imitate the prac- tice of the incarnate god who is their sovereign, the necessity of worshipping his ancestors and the gods from whom they spring is to be enjoined upon every man.” As to these gods, it was declared, on their own authority, that “ The gods who do harm are to be appeased, so that they may not punish those who have offended them; and all the gods are to be worshipped, so that they may be induced to increase their favours.” Thus the Shinto religion is closely interwoven ■with the theory of government. The Mikado’s throne is founded on a religious fiction. He is the lineal descendant of the gods, nay, he is him- self a god, and in virtue of his godhead, his palace is a temple His heavenly origin has been, through all historic days, the foun dation of Japanese government, and it and the duty of obeying his commands without questioning, whether they are right or wrong, are the highest of Shinto dogmas. From the death of Jimmu Tenno, the first Mikado, to the intro- duction of Buddhism, is a period (according to the unreliable Japanese chronology) of 1236 years. Between 97 and 30 n.c., Sujiu, the reigning Mikado, and of course a demi-god, appeared as a reformer, called on the people to turn their minds to the wor- ship of the gods, performed a symbolic purification, built special shrines for the worship of several of the kami or gods, removed the mirror, sword, and stone from the palace where they had hitherto been kept to a shrine built for their custody, and appointed his daughter their priestess. This mirror rested, at least till 1871, in the shrines of Ise, of which a description is given near the end of this volume. In the middle of the sixth century, as is supposed, Buddliist missionaries arrived from Korea, and proselytised so successfully in high quarters that a decree was issued about the middle of the eighth century, ordering the erection of two Buddhist temples and a seven-storied pagoda in every province. The long and complete supremacy of Buddhism is due, however, to a master-stroke of religious j^olicy achieved by a priest, best known under his posthu- mous name of Kobo-daishi, in the ninth (century, who, in order to gain and retain a hold for his creed over the mass of the people, 366 APPENDIX. taught that the Shinto gods were but Japanese naanifestations ol Buddha, a dogma which reconciled the foreign with the native religion, and gave Buddhism several centuries of ascendency over both Shinto and Confucianism, till it was supplanted, about two hundred years ago, in the intellects of the educated, by the Chinese philosophical system of Choo He, which in its turn is being dis* placed by what is known in Japan as the “ English Philosophy,” represented by Mill, Herbert Spencer, and others. At the Restora- tion of the Mikado to temporal power, in 1868, Shinto was rein- stated as the State religion, owing to its value as a political engine, but it was impossible to re-introduce its long abandoned usages alongside of Western civilisation, and the number of those who honour the old faith in its purity is believed to be very small. The Buddhaising the old gods, and incorporating the ancient traditions of the divine ancestors and early heroes of the Japan- ese with the ethical code and doctrinal dogmas of Buddhism, pro- duced a harmony or jumble upon which the reigning ilikado, pleased with the fusion, bestowed the name of Riyobu Shinto, or “twofold religious doctrine.” From that time Shinto and Buddh- ist priests frequently celebrated their ceremonies in the same temples, the distinctive feature of Shinto, the absence of idols, effigies, and other visible objects of worship, disappeared, and the temples were crowded with wooden images of the old Shinto divinities, alongside of those of Buddha and his disciples, only a very few temples in a very few districts retaining the simplicity of the ancient faith. Since 1868 the images, and all the gaudy and sensuous paraphernalia of Buddhism, have been swept out of a large number of the temples, but the splendour of the buildings still remains, as at Shiba in Yedo, and the plain wooden structure, with the thatched tenkroof and the perfectly bare interior, is only seen in its primitive simplicity in the “ Shrines of Ise ” and a few other places. In the eighteenth century an attempt was made by certain scholarly and able men to revive “pure Shinto,” and adapt it to those cravings of humanity which Buddhism had partially met ; but the attempt failed, and has resulted mainly in affording materials for the researches of Mr. Satow and other foreign scholars. The characteristics of “Pure Shinto” are the absence of an ethical and doctrinal code, of idol-worship, of priestcraft, and of Miy teachings concerning a future state, and the deification of heroes, emperors, and great men, together with the worship of cer APPENDIX. 367 tain forces and objects in nature. It is said that the kami or gods number 14,000, of whom 3700 are known to have shrines ; but, practically, the number is infinite, or “eight millions.” Each hamlet has its special god, as well as each miya or shrine ; and each child is taken to the shrine of the district in which it is born, a month after birth, and the god of that shrine becomes his patron. Each god has his annual festival, while many have particular days in each month on which people visit their shrines. The temples are of unpainted wood, and the tent-like roofs are thickly thatched. They are destitute of idols, effigies, images, ornaments, and ecclesiastical paraphernalia of any kind. In the bare shrines of this truly barren creed the only objects are a circu- lar steel miiTor, the gohei, small ofPerings of sake, rice, and other vegetable food, on unlacquered wooden trays, and some sprigs of the evergreen Cleyera japonica. The mirror is a copy of the one given by the Sun-Goddess, as an emblem of herself, to Ninigi, when she sent him down to govern the world; but even this is only exposed to view in temples in which Shinto has been at some time jumbled up with Buddhism. A plain gohei is a slim wand of un painted wood, with two long pieces of paper, notched alternately on opposite sides, hanging from it. In some shrines which were long in Buddhist hands, such as that of lyeyasu at Nikko, gilded metal takes the place of paper. The gohei represent offerings of rough and white cloth, which were supposed to have the effect of attracting the god to the spot where they were offered, but gradually came to be considered as the gods them- selves. In idea they resemble the white wands, with dependent shavings, which are worshipped by the Ainos of Yezo. In the pure Shinto temples, which do not even display the mirror, there is a kind of receptacle concealed behind the closed doors of the actual shrine, which contains a case only exposed to view on the day of the annual festival, and which is said to contain the spirit of the deity to whom the temple is dedicated, the “ august spirit substitute,” or “ God’s seed.” The prominent Shinto emblem of purely Japanese origin, the torii, stands at the entrance of temple grounds, in front of shrines and sacred trees, and in every place specially associated with the native kavn. In some places, as at the great Inari or Fox temple at Fushima, near Kiyoto, there are avenues composed of several hundred of these, and, whether large or small, the torii is a favour- ite subject for an ex voto. In the latter case it is frequently ol 368 APPENDIX. stone. The torii proper consists of two tree-trunks, planted in th« ground, on the top of which rests another tree with projecting ends, and a horizontal beam below. The name means “bird’s rest,” for on it the fouls offered but not sacrificed to the gods were accustomed to perch. It is of unpainted wood, properly, but large numbers are painted bright red. The Buddhists have cuiwed the u])per timber and have added other oinaments. In the persecution waged against the Romish Christians of Nagasaki a few years ago, the token of recantation required was that they should pass under this Shinto emblem. The remaining Shinto emblem is a rope of rice straw, varying in thickness from the'heavy cable which often hangs across a torii or temple entrance, to the rope no thicker than a finger which hangs across house doors, or surrounds sacred trees, and which has straw tassels or strips of white paper dangling from it. There are about 98,000 Shinto temples in Japan, but this num- ber includes all the wayside shrines and the shrines in the groves, which are about five feet high. There are about 20,000 Shinto officials, including the whole of the kannushi or “shrine keepers,” and these may all be described as officials of the Government. Their duties are few. They are allowed to marry, and do not shave their heads. There is an appropriation of about £44,000 annually for Shinto shrines, and of £14,000 for Public Worshir In the old order the Department which dealt with the affairs of the earthly and heavenly gods held the highest place in the order of official precedence ; but so out of harmony was it with the new regime, that within four years of its re-establishment it descended from a dignity superior to that of the Council of State into a de- partment subordinate thereto. "Within a year the department for administering the affairs of the celestial and terrestrial gods sank into being a Board of Religious Instruction, and early in 1877 underwent the further humiliation of being quietly transferred to a sub-department of the Ministry of the Interior. Thus, in less than ten years, the oldest and most solemn institution in the State has passed out of existence, and it is difficult to understand now the dogma of the divine origin and relationships of the Mikado, and the identification of politics with religion, survive the change. The claims of Shinto to be regarded as a religion are very few. It has no worship, properly so called, and no sacrifices, no hell oi purgatory for bad men, and the immortality of the soul is only as- sumed from the immortality of the gods. It inculcates reverencs APPENDIX. 369 for ancestors, and imitation of their worthy deeds ; but its chiel feature is its recognition of certain ceremonial defilements and forms of purification. On certain occasions the priests assemble in the larger temples and chant certain words to an excruciating musical accompani- ment ; but this is in no sense what we understand by public wor- ship, and the worshippers are seldom admitted within Sliintd temples. The gods are supposed to be present in the temples dedi- cated to them, and a worshipper attracts their attention by pulling the cord of a metal globe, half bell, half rattle, which hangs at the open entrance. There are specified forms of prayer, but wor- ship usually consists merely in clapping the hands twice, and mak- ing one or more genuflexions ; and persons undertake pilgrimages of several hundred miles to do no more than this, with the addition of casting a few copper coins on the temple floor, and buying a charm or relic. The festival days of the gods of the larger temples are cele- brated by music, dancing, and processions, in which highly deco- rated cars take part, on and in which are borne certain sacred emblems, usually kept in the storehouses of the temples. On these occasions ancient classical dances or posturings are given on covered platforms within the temple grounds, and in these a maiden appears, dressed in white and bearing a gohei in her hand, who is popularly called a priestess. The history and meaning of nearly all the ceremonies are unknown to the modern Japanese. Certain ceremonies are usually attended to even by the most careless. In nearly all Japanese houses there is a kami-dana or god-shelf, on which is a miniature temple in wood, which contains tablets covered with paper, on which are written the names of the gods in which the household place their trust, and monumental tablets with the posthumous names of the ancestors and deceased members of the family. Fresh flowers, and specially the leafy twigs of the Cleyera Japonica, are offered there, together with sake, water, and the first portion of the rice boiled for the food of the household. At night a lamp is lit in front of the shrine, as on the god-shelf of the Buddhists, and the glow-worm glimmer of these lamps is one of the evening features of the cities of Japan. Shinto is the easiest and least exacting of religions. The in- tervention of a priest is not ordinarily needed, for there are no angry deities to propitiate, or any terrors of hell to avert, and both sexes are capable of offering prayers. Of such there are many, 370 APPENDIX. and so lately as 1873 a new edition of certain form? was pub- lished ; but among the peasantry it seems sufficient to frame a wish without uttering it, and most Shintoists, in Northern Japan, at least, content themselves with turning to the sun in the early morning, rubbing the hands slowly together, and bowing. Thera are gods of all things; of wisdom, happiness, protection of human abodes, of harvest, of learning, of the gate and front court, of the well, the kitchen fireplace, and everything else to which supersti- tions of unknown origin are attached by the ignorant. The direc- tions for prayer are, “ Rising early in the morning, wash your face and hands, rinse out the mouth, and cleanse the body. Then turn to the province of Yamato, strike the palms of the hands to- gether, and worship,” i.e. bow to the ground. The following is a specimen of one of the most enlightened of the old Shinto prayers, translated by Mr. Satow, from a book called Kimpi Mislw, put for- ward by the Mikado Juntoku in the first half of the thirteenth century ; — “ From a distance I reverently worship with awe before Ame no Mi-hashira, and Kuni no Mi-hashira (the god and goddess of wind), to whom is consecrated the palace built with stout pillars at Tatsuta no Tachinu, in the department of Heguri, in the prov- ince of Yamato. I say with awe. Deign to bless me by correcting the unwitting faults which, seen and heard by you, I have com- mitted, by blowing off and clearing away the calamities w hich evil gods might inflict, by causing me to live long like the hard and lasting rock, and by repeating to the gods of heavenly origin, and the gods of earthly origin, the petitions which I present every day along with your breath, that they may hear with the sharp- earedness of the forth-galloping colt.” .iVnother addressed to the kami-dana is as follows, “ Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces of Ise in tko first place, the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods, aU the fifteen hundred myriads ” (these numbers are figurative ex- pressions) “ of gods to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands, and all places of the great Land of Eight Islands, the fifteen hundreds of myriads of gods which they cause to serve them, and the gods of branch palaces and branch temples, and Sohodo no Kami ” [the scare-crow], “ whom I have invited to the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer praises day by day — I pray with awe that tiiey will deign to correct the unwitting faults which, heard and APPENDIX. 371 seen by them, I have committed, and blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, will cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the Way.” As a religion Shinto is nearly extinct, and, as an engine of government, its power is undoubtedly on the wane. Western science is upsetting its cosmogony. Western philosophy its mythol ogy, and its lack of an ethical code makes it powerless even among a people of such easy morals as the Japanese. Motoori, its modern exponent and revivalist, emphatically states that the Chinese invented morals because they were an immoral people, but that in Japan there was no such necessity. “ To have ac- quired the knowledge that there is no michi [ethics] to be prac- tised and learned is really to have learned to practice the way of the gods.” Mr. Mori, the present minister to England, gives it as his opinion that “ the leading idea of ShintS is a reverential feel- ing towards the dead. As to the political use of it, the State is quite right in turning it to account in support of the absolute Gov- ernment which exists in Japan.” Sir H. S. Parkes says of it, “Japanese, in general, are at a loss to describe what Shinto is. . . . Infallibility on the part of the head of the State, which was naturally attributed to rulers claiming divine descent, was a convenient doctrine for political purposes in China and Japan.” Mr. Von Brandt, a student of Japanese archaeology, lately German Minister to Japan, writes of it, “ Little is known of Shinto that might give it the character of a religion as understood by western nations.” Kaempfer, one of the most painstaking and accurate observers, writes thus : — “ The whole Shinto 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 either in their sacred books, or by tradition, wherewithal to satisfy the inquiries of curious persons about the nature and essences of their gods, about their power and government, about the future state of the soul, and such other essential points whereof other heathen systems are not altogether silent.” Its lack of a moral code, of general deft- niteness, and of teachings concerning a future state, sufficiently explain the easy conquest which Buddhism made of nearly the whole nation, and the ascendency which it still retains over the uneducated. ShintS, with its absence of a ritual, of doctrinal teaching, of sensuousness, of definite objects of worship, is rather 372 APPENDIX a system than a religion. It is hollow and empty; it has literallj nothing in it which can influence men’s lives ; it appeals to no in- stincts of good or evil, and promises no definite destiny; and all attempts to resuscitate it, either as a bulwark against Christianity, or as a substitute for Buddhism (which contaius many of the elements of a religion, and much to gratify, if not to satisfy, many of the cravings of human nature), must necessarily fail. These notes are the merest outline of Shinto, but the most elaborate treatise can do no more than successfully demonstrate its utter emptiness of all that to our ideas constitutes religion, and excite surprise that it should still retain any place among a peo- ple so intelligent as- the Japanese. The explanation probably lies in the fact that it is interwoven with that reverence for ancestors which is so marked a feature of Chinese and Japanese character, and in that general indifference to any religion which pervades Japan, making its people content with this most shadowy and barren of creeds, which neither enjoins duties nor demands sacri- fices, nor holds out terrors of “judgment to come.” APPENDIX. 37b APPENDIX 0. TABLES OP THE ESTIMATED REVENUE AND EXPENDI TURE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 1879-80. [NOTE - 6 YEN ARE ABOUT EQUAL TO £1 STERLING.] REVENUE. I. — First Species of Tax ; — Yen. Customs — Export Duties . . 895,113.000 “ Import “ . . 1,247,215.000 " Miscellaneous Receipts, 38,982.000 Total Yen. 2,181,310.000 n. — Second Species of Tax : — Land Tax .... Mining Tax .... Tax on Salaries Tax on Produce of the Hokkaido Total Yen. 41,000,950.000 11.537.000 81.992.000 363,971.000 Yen. 41,458,450.000 in. — Third Species of Tax : — Yen. Tax on Alcoholic Liquors 4,507,272.000 Tax on Tobacco .... 348,674.000 Stamps on Legal Documents . 539,168.000 Postage Stamps .... 1,050,000.000 Tax on Ruled Paper for Petitions . 82,485.000 Licenses to Attorneys . 9,500.000 Ship and Boat Tax 138,357.000 Vehicle Tax ..... 270,348.000 Tax on Companies 500,000.000 Shooting Licenses .... 45,652.000 Horse and Cattle Dealers’ Licenses 63,578.000 Carry forward . 7,555,034.000 374 APPENDIX. Revenue — continued. Brought forward . . 7,555,034.000 Tax on Weights and Measures . 2,925.000 Copyright Fees .... 3,409 000 Passport and other License Fees . 2, .570.000 Druggists’ Licenses . . . 79,131.000 Total rV. — Profits of Industrial Works : — Sado and Four other Mines under the control of the Ministry of Public Works .... Railways under the control of the Ministry of Public Works . Akabane and Three other Work- shops under the control of the Ministry of Public Works . Shimmachi Cotton Mill and Two other Places under the control of the Ministry of the Interior . Mint under the control of Minis- try of Finance .... Printing Office under the control of the Ministry of Finance Yokosuka Shipbuilding Yard and Two others under the control of the Ministry of Marine Yen. 218,960.000 391,100.271 32,265.603 12,585.000 506,000.000 30,000.000 4,028.840 Total V. — Receipts from Government Property and other Miscellane- ous Receipts : — Yen. Sale of Government Property . 497,586.970 Rent of Government Property . 142,156.051 Rent of Goveniment Land at Open Cities and Ports .... 72,817.150 Miscellaneous Receipts . . . 1,647,745.709 Total Yen. 7,643, 069.00< Yen. 1,194,939.711 Yen. 2,360.305.880 APPENDIX. 375 Revenue — continued. VI. — Refunds : — Yen. Refund of Advances . . . 532,360.577 Refund of Loans made by Impe- rial Princes and the former Han 200,350.285 Refund of Estate-rated Loan . 80,593.578 Yen. Total 813,304.440 Grand Total of Bevenue , . 55,651,379.034 £11,130,000 EXPENDITURE. i, — Redemption of National Debt: — Yen. Domestic Debt — Principal . . 2,764,111.368 Interest . . 14,753,058.200 Redemption of Pa- per Money . . 2,000,000.000 Yen. Total . 19,518, 169.M8 foreign Debt — Principal . Interest Commission Total 816,424.000 857,318.400 8,368.712 Yen. . 1,682,111.112 Fen. Total of both Items . . 21,200,280.680 n. — Civil List and Appanages of the Imperial Princes ....... 877,000.000 376 APPENDIX. Expenditure — continued. fn. — Peusions for Meritorious Ser- vices, to Shinto and Buddhist Priests, etc. — Retiring Pensions to Soldiers of the Old Imperial Guards and Line . Pensions of Shinto and Buddhist Priests Annuities attached to the order of Merit Gratuities to the Military and Cost of Treatment of the Wounded . Grant to those who took part in the Campaign in Kiushiu Total. Yen 15,640.977 125.281.000 152.280.000 266.202.000 500,000.000 Yen. 1,059,403 973 IV. — Council of State, Ministries, Senate, Colonisation, Com- mission, and Special Bu- reaus ; — Yen. Council of State . . 300,860.000 Ministry for Foreign Affairs . . 170,960.000 “ of the Interior . 1,275,500.000 “ of Finance . 1,505,300.000 “ of War . . 7,190,100.000 “ of Marine . 2,636,300.000 “ of Public Instruction . 1,139,970.000 “ of Public Works . 591,300.000 “ of Justice . 1,314,800.000 " of the Imperial House- hold . . 308,700.000 Senate . 142,480.000 Colonisation Commission . 1,513,174.178 Land-tax Reform Bureau 97,000.000 General Post Office. . 1,050,000.000 Total Yen. 19,236,4'44.178 APPENDIX. 377 Expenditure — continued. V. — Cost of Establishing Indostrial Undertakings : — Mines at Sado and Five other places under control of the Min- istry of Public Works Kiyoto and Kobe Railway, do. Telegraph, do Workshops at Akabane and Four other places, do . Shimosa Sheep Farm and Three other places under control of the JMinistry of the Interior Mint under the control of the Min- istry of Finance .... Yokosuka Shipbuilding Yard under control of the Ministry of Ma- rine Yen. 232 . 798.000 33 , 300.000 140 , 000.000 165 . 502.000 72 , 793.000 50 , 000.000 70 , 200.000 Total \ri. — Supplementary Grants of Cap- ital for carrying on Under- takings : — Kamaishi Mine under the control of the Ministry of Public Worki; Telegraphs under do. Shinagawa and Fukagawa Work- shops under do. Shimosa Sheep Farm and One other place under control of the Minis- tiy of the Interior Yen. 29 , 355.792 101 , 335.000 28 , 842.000 80 , 958.000 Total . Yll. — Administrations of Cities and Prefectures Yen. 764 . 593.000 Yen. 240 , 490.792 3 . 786 , 700.000 378 APPENDIX. Expenditure — cmiinwd . Vm— Police: — Yen. Central Police Bureau (Tokiyo) 1,316,820.400 Police in 2 Cities and 35 Prefec- tures . ... 1,169,632.000 Yen. Total . . . . . , 2,486,452.400 Xi. — Temples of the Gods 135,000.000 X — Building, Repairs, and Embank- ments in Cities and Prefec- tures : — Yen. Building and Repairs 540,700.000 Embankments .... 1,446,500.000 Yen. Total . . . . 1,987,200 000 XI. — Diplomatic and Consular Ser- vices . . , . . . 500,000.000 XJI. — Miscellaneous Expenditure Fund for Relief of Agri- cultural Distress and En- Yen. couragement of Saving 1,200,000.000 Erection of Museum in the Public Garden at Uyeno, under control of the Ministry of the Interior . 29,585.000 Charges for repairs of the Prisons and Lockups under control of the Central Police Bureau 90,.^ol.901 Appropriation for the Sydney Exhi- bition 29,817.300 Erection of Barracks at Kanazawa 36,253.960 Erection of the Imperial Palace 270,000.000 Relief to the (Hokkaido) Militia . 26,407.146 Domestic Industrial Exhibition 43.890.000 Miscellaneous .... 151,298.700 Yen. Total . 1,877,814.007 XJJI. — Contingent Fimd 1,500,000.000 Grand Total of Expenditure Yen. 55,651,379.0 34 “ £11,130,000 Revenue and Expenditure are equally balanced. APPENDIX. 379 NATIONAL DEBT. Domestic Debt — Interest Bearing Debt — Yen. New Debt, 4 per cent interest Bonds in exchange for kinsatsu, 6 per cent interest .... Voluntarily Capitalised Pension Bonds, 8 per cent Capitalised Pension Bonds — Yen. At 5 per cent do. At 6 per cent do. At 7 per cent do. At 10 per cent do. Total 31,412.555 25,001.590 107,997.015 8,876.370 11,327.675 1,923.700 14,168.900 173,287.530 Bonds for Pensions distributed to ex- Shinto Priests, at 8 per cent . . 423.325 Public Works Loan at 6 per cent . 12,500.000 Loan for Suppression of Rebellion at 5 per cent 15,000.000 Total . . . . Debt bearing no Interest . . . . Amount of Paper Money in circulation Total . . . Yen. 228,631.130 9,439.732 113,427.992 351,498.854 880 APPENDIX. APPENDIX D. — FOREIGN TRADE. (I.) — Synoptic Table of the Import Trade of Jap.4m description of goods. ' 1865. 1867. 1868. 1869. 1870. Yam . ... $875,307 $1,350,688 $1,763,191 $2,612,240 $3,700377 Shirtings 2.028.361 2,684.078 1,724,854 1.760,440 1,730332 Otlier cotton manufactures . Mousseline de laine (includ- ed in other woollens up to 2,280,100 1,713,539 1,234,538 878,343 1343.644 the year 1874) Other woollen and woollen • • - - - and cotton goods 6,701,067 3,184,471 2,610,838 2,010.553 1395364 Metals 526,864 209.171 693,780 632,255 330,681 Arms and ammunition . 1,066,822 1.618,840 2,730,651 1357,625 206,908 Raw cotton .... 1,159 757,104 783.084 858,940 771,144 Sugar 208,174 1,660.654 345,267 1397.944 2,482,293 Rice • 787.602 1.315,705 2,769,182 12,755331 Kerosene Government goods. (No re- * • “ • turas until the year 1873.) . Other miscellaneous. — For- ■ " “ • elgn Other mlscellaneons. — East- 347,.%3 1,619,169 1,491,043 1,776,690 3331,007 41,121 367,172 307,420 602,419 2,083,460 Total .... $14,076,938 $15,952,388 $15,000,371 $17,356,631 $31.120341 Total, Incomplete Returns — • Note. — The absence of Returns for 1866 is due to the destniction of the Mousseline de laine. — Returns are based upon the custom-house statistics; Metals. — The quantities of iSletals imported in 1873 and following years on account Giroemment Goods. — T\ie&Q figures are exclusive of foreign merchantpvessela (IT.) — Synoptic Table of the Export Trade of Japan DESCRIPTION OF GOODS. • 1865. 1867. 1868. 1869. 1870. Silk, all kinds, and cocoons . Silkworms’ eggs . Tea Copper Tobacco Wax (vegetable) . Camphor Coal Drial fish Rice . . . . Miscellaneous. $14,842,879 727,445 1,934,971 12,334 60,865 32,706 12,983 95,485 781,762 $5,598,510 2.302.572 2,006,023 61310 33,140 123,443 97,293 262,629 300,:n5 1,338,179 $10,761,081 4.199,138 3,084,580 18,475 254.224 114,489 73,584 193,689 1,735,873 $5,042,795 2.723.500 2.019,130 124,735 21.906 9i>.420 168,202 101, biO 183>41 986.336 $5,309,583 3.473,1.50 3348,231 461 093 d4,112 64,190 22' .869 159,117 328.391 1,176,490 Total $18,491,430 $12,123,674 $20,435,133 $11,475,645 $15,143,246 Total • Note* — The absence of Returns for 1866 U due to the deetructicKi APPENDIX. 381 APPENDIX D. — FOREIGN TRADE. KOR Thirteen Years, ending December 31, 1878. 1811. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. $3,609,444 3,439,450 912,584 $5,933,342 2,2.56,926 1,874,887 $3,357,046 3,365,898 3,070,544 $3,57.5„5.54 3,706,628 1.826,568 $4,0,57,850 2,616.723 2,276,311 $4,1,51,514 2,997,59.5 1,893,053 $4,088,890 2,312,929 1,951,856 $7,560,983 2,548.621 2,629,635 - - - 1,074,931 2.3f)3.I57 233.273 2.373,621 2,779,983 2,0.56,789 536,291 293,120 60,340 3,308,549 768,190 7,572,180 416,642 83,617 67,376 2,266,880 89,694 7,304,307 451,202 577,645 146,569 2,108,855 34,192 323,374 2,244,490 1,131.185 20.885 1,1.52,066 2,.579,406 14,873 292,646 2.383,610 1,043.3«2 44.576 363,66}f 3.482,588 5,579 590,032 2,011,843 898,531 51 .954 724,011 2,743,820 455,702 3.004,457 1,592,052 461 .720 424.430 2,872,148 602,725 3,013.675 1,888.006 296,878 289,207 3,073,282 1,856,881 - - 797,395 1,809,115 3,475,277 806,801 670,537 494,110 2,398,433 4,600,233 5,332,115 3,642,626 4,441,537 4,021,959 4,698,436 6,144,012 312,415 1,026,664 574,226 1,155,656 999,903 947,953 846,722 759,049 $17,745,605 $26,188,441 $27,443,368 $24,226,629 $28,174,194 $23,969,004 $25,900,541 $33,334,392 300,489,143 doUare. custom-houpe records at Kanagawa by fire In that year. the actual importation in the year 1874 and succeeding years was mnch larger. of the Japanese Government, have been Included under the head of “ Government Goods.*' purchased by the Japanese Government FOR Thirteen Years, ending December 31, 1878. 1871. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. $8,457,839 2,184,688 4,651,292 416,630 269,359 161,834 138,.575 483,130 410,034 2,011 ,424 $8,189,143 1,963,159 5,445,438 1,353,545 669,340 347,542 1.52,879 573,527 324,000 3,122,931 2,153,026 $7,7.50,015 3,032,460 4.398,711 765.815 274,529 377,670 71,026 489,278 716,399 521,709 2,263,382 $5,894,567 731,27'i 7,792,244 659,397 259,687 215,642 119,812 651,360 901,583 839,619 2,299,399 $5,992,913 474.921 6.915,692 425,160 201,148 186,244 136.073 8.58,883 663.639 17,091 2,046,081 $14,306,4.50 1,902.271 5,427,218 289,708 83,496 177,398 182.477 766,726 922,580 810,760 2,710,767 $10,320,308 346,998 4,409,320 828,111 229,288 164,977 240,065 717,819 835,660 2,260, ‘'36 2,513,226 $9,223,875 682,606 4,412,457 866,384 107.547 106,367 309,972 857.322 1,031,355 4,641,653 4,019,881 |$19,154,805 $24,294,532 $20,660,994 $20,164,585 $17,917,845 $27,578,851 $22,866,708 $26,259419 ^, 695,667 of tbe ctutom-boase records at Kanagawa by Are in tbat year. 382 APPENDIX. (III.) — Summary of Imports and Exports for Thirtee!* Years ending December 31, 1878. TsaK. Imports. Exports. Total. 186.5 $14,076,938 $18,490,230 $32567,168 1867* 15,952,388 12.123.674 28.076.062 1868 15,000,371 20,435,133 35.435504 1869 17.356.631 11,475,645 28.832.276 1870 31.120.641 1»,143.246 46,263587 1871 17,745,605 19,184,805 36.930.410 1872 26,188.441 24,2J»4,532 50.482,973 1873 27,443,368 20,660,994 48,104562 1874 24.226.629 20,164,585 44,391,214 1875 28,174,194 17,917,845 46.092,039 1876 23.9a9,004 27,578,851 51 ,.547.855 1877 25.900 ..541 22,866,708 48,767549 1878 33,3.34,392 26,259,419 595.93,811 Total . . . . . $300,489,143 $256,595,667 $557,084,810 Average aanoal trade $83,117,549 $19,738,128 $42552,677 • No Betoras fw 1866, owing to destruction of Kanagawa records. (IV.) — Return of British and Foreign Shipping entered at all Ports of Japan for Nineteen Years. TsaiL BBITI0H. OTHER FOREIGN COUNTRIES. TOTAIs. Ships. Tons. Ships. Tons. Ships. Tons. 1860 122 45,279 119 43,103 241 88,382 1861 126 52,347 128 47,776 254 100.123 1862 181 57,362 230 71,678 411 129.040 1863 262 87.000 215 71.356 477 1583156 1864 313 118,907 130 44,235 443 163.142 1865 261 in).649 151 67,223 415 166372 1866 254 100.195 188 81.943 442 182,138 1867 348 2.51 159,154 599 298.160 1868 496 192,185 461 389 A81 957 581,766 1869 410.105 713 659,293 1.610 1,069,398 1870 661 319,471 902 841.704 1,563 1,161.175 1 1871 349 166.929 560 734,241 909 901,170 1872 382 204.077 520 756.427 902 960.434 1873 405 234,4.59 599 804.948 1,004 1,039,407 1874 367 237.432 532 732,510 899 969,942 1875 350 252,146 481 699,377 831 951323 1876 356 302.039 345 378,518 701 680,557 1877 403 315,518 343 808,459 746 623377 1878 487 417,691 351 331,181 838 749,529 APPENDIX. 383 — Return of Foreign Residents and F irjis at the Open Ports of Japan, for Five Years, from 1874 - 78 . Taut. BRITISH. OTHER FORBIOH GOCNTRIEB. CHINESE. TOTAL. Residents. Finns. Residents. Finns. 3 a ai 2 1 Firms. Residents. Finns. 1874 .. . 1,170 l.M 1,238 215 2,725 95 5.131 465 187S . . . 1,282 109 1,301 148 - • • . 187* . . . 1.242 80 1,472 U1 . • . . isn . . . 1,186 83 1,336 149 2.107 53 4A99 285 vsn . . . 1.067 »2 1.410 151 3,028 40 5^ 2.J mDEX. ABCKAWA. A Ajsukawa, i. 340; village forge, 341. Abuta, Aino village, ii. 138. Acupuncture, i. 145. Adzuma bridge, i. 66. Agano river, i. 185. Aganokawa river, i. 247. Aido, ii. 274. Aidzu mountains, i. 186; plain, 191. Aino storehouses, ii. 37, 66; houses, 36, 54 ; plan of, 90. Aino words, list of, ii. 359. Ainos, the hairy, ii. 9-10, .38 ; neat- ness of their villages, 53 ; hospi- tality, 54 ; reverence for age, 57 ; truthfulness, 58 ; children, 62, 80 ; honesty and generosity, 64 ; po- liteness, 69 ; no history, 75 ; phy- sique, 75 ; a patriarch, 77 ; height, 78 ; women, 78, 93 ; tattooing, 79 ; obedience, 81 ; clothing, 83 ; jew- ellery, 84 ; houses, 84-86 ; house- hold gods, 87 ; Japanese curios, 88 ; mats, 89 ; food, 90 ; hows and arrows, 91 ; weaving, 93 ; re- ligion, 96 ; libations, 98 ; solitary act of sacrifice, 98 ; bear-worship, 99 ; Festival of the Bear, 100 ; ideas of a future state, 101 ; social customs, 101 ; marriage and di- vorce, 102 ; amusements, 103 ; musical instruments, 103 ; man- ners, 104 ; intoxication, 104 ; dirt, 105 ; office of chief, 106 ; dread of snakes, 107 ; of death, 107 ; do- mestic life, 110. Ainos, coast, ii. 136, 1.37. Ainos, Lebunge, ii. 146. Akamatz, the “ English-speaking priest,” ii. 243 ; his appearance. BATH 244 ; on Nirvana, 247 ; the objects of the Buddhist faith, 248 ; trans- migration, 249 ; the English philo- sophy, 252. Akayu, i. 266 ; horse-fair, 266 ; hot sulphur springs, 268. Akita farm-house, i. 397. Alphabets, or syllabaries, i. 325. Amainu, or heavenly dogs, i. 72. Andon, the, or native lamp, i. 141. Aomori Bay, i. 402 ; town, 402 ; lacquer, 403. Aral river, i. 250. Arakai river, i. 174. Araya, i. 308. Archery galleries at Asakusa, i. 75. Architecture, temple, uniformity of, i. 64. Area of Japan, i. 4. Arima village, ii. 307. Army, ii. 326. Arrow-traps, ii. 92. Art, Japanese, modern, ii. 264-258. Asakusa, temple of Kwan-non at, i. 64. Assama, village and hill, ii. 287. Assemblies, provincial, ii. 159. Automatic rice-cleaner, i. 162. Awoyama hamlet, ii. 274. Azaleas, rose, i. 127. B Bandaisan, the double-peaked, i. 186. Bange, congress of schoolmasters i. 184. Barbarism and ignorance, i. IM. Barbers’ shops, i. 147. Bargaining, i. 146, 234. Bath, the hot, i. 171. 385 386 INDEX. BEAK. Bear, Festival ot the, ii. 99, 100. Beggary, absence of, i. 256. Benri, chief of the Ainos.ii. 48, 74, 106-109. Binzuru, the medicine god, i. 72. Biiatori, ii. 54 ; wooden temple, or shrine of Yoshitsune, 72. Biwa, lake, ii. 262, 294 ; tea-house on, 295. Blind men in Japan, i. 346. Board of Industries at Kiyoto, ii. 258. Boats, i. 349. Bon festival at Hakodate, ii. 24, 25. Books, i. 228-230. Bronze and pottery, ii. 256. Buddhism, the Protestants of, ii. 242. Buddhist service at Hakodate, ii. 16 ; sermon, 17-19. Burial, Buddhist, peculiarities of, i. 157. Burial-grounds, i. 157. C Calligraphy, i. 136, 137. Camphor-groves at GekO, ii. 289. Canoes, ii. 153. Cemeteries for pack-horses, i. 179. Charms, i. 388, 389. Chayas, or tea-houses, i. 87, 90. Cheating a policeman, i. 304, 305. Children, Japanese, i. 39. Children’s parties, i. 134 ; a juvenile belle, 134 ; games, 135. China, blue, i. 226. Chinamen in Yokohama, i. 47 ; the Compradore, 48. Chiuzenjii lake and village, i. 125. Chokaisan snow mountain, i. 278, 297. Cholera at Niigata, i. 211. Christian converts, i. 386. Christianity, progress of, ii. 309-313. Churches, missionary, at Yedo, i. ^34. Civilisation, AVestern, i. 9. Cleanliness, want of, i. 167-172. Climate, varieties of, i. 3, 33. Climate of Niigata, i. 224. Clogs, i. 29, 39. Coal-fields in Yezo, ii. 2. Coinage, ii. 330. Code, penal, ii. 332. Compradore, the, or Chinese facto- tum, i. 48. Coolies, baggage, i. 256, 257. Corrals, Yezo, ii. 1'26. Costumes, i. 37 ; the kimono, 38 ; FOOD. obi, or girdle, 38 ; haori, or short upper garment, 38 ; hakama, or trousers, 39 ; foot-clogs, 39 ; win- ter and summer, 153. Cow, riding a, i. 253. Cremation, ii. 316 ; building for the purpose, 317 ; mode of burning, 318. Criminal Code, ii. 332, 333. Crows, ii. 151, 152. Cucumbers, consumption of, i. 232, 250. D Daikokct, the god of wealth, i. 273. Daikon (Raphanus sativus), univer- sal use of, i. 237. Daimiyd, the, ii. 321. Daiya river, i. 105, 124, 130. Dening, Mr., his missionary zeal, ii. 158. Dirt and disease, i. 169-172. Doctors, Japanese, i. 248. Dogs, Japanese, i 159; yellow, U. 53. Dreams, i. 394. E Earthquake, shocks of, i. 119. Ecclesiastical furniture shops at Niigata, i. 227. Eclipse, superstitions about, i. 394. Education, ii. 336-340 ; when there are no schools, i. 351 ; female, at Kobe, ii. 224-226. Educational system, ii. 336. El€yanle, a Japanese, i. 81. Elm, the, its ^rth, i. 180. Emigration, ii. 4. Expenditure and revenue, ii. 348, 373-379. F Farm-houses, i. 396, 397. Fauna of Japan, i. 6. Ferry, a Japanese, i. 174. Festival, the Tanabata, at Kuroi shi, i. 381 ; of the Bear, ii. 99-101 Feudalism, end of, ii. 322. Filature, visit to a, i. 277. Floods, and force of water, i. 367, 370. Flora of Japan, i. 5. Floriculture, Japanese, i. 77. Flowers of Yezo, ii. 41. “ Flowing Invocation,” the, i. 260- 262. Food and Cookery, Japanese, L INDEX. 887 FOOD. 237; fish, 237 ; game, 238; vege- tables, 238; the daikon, 238; fruit, 239 ; sea-weod, 239 ; cakes and confectionery, 240 ; cleanliness, 241; raw fish, soups, 242; menus, 243; drinks, 244. Food question, the, i. 63. Food shops, i. 232. Foreign trade, ii. 351-357. Foreigners in Japan, i. 8; in Gov- ernment service, 10. Forgeries of European eatables and drinkables, i. 276. “ Front horse,” a, ii. 29, 43. Fujihara, i. 158; dirt and squalor, 169. Fujisan, fir.st view of, i. 13; in the evening light, ii. 203; from a vil- lage on the Tokaido, 316. Fukiage, or Imperial Gardens, i. 36. Funeral, Buddhist, at Eokugo, i. 297; the coffin, or box, 298; pro- cession, 300. Fusumu, or sliding paper panels, i. 91-101. Futami-sama, ii. 286 ; dreary shrine of pilgrimage, 286; legend of, 287, {note). Fyson, Mr., Church missionary, i. 202, 203; result of three years’ work, 204. G Games, amusements, i. 135, 138; for children, 375. Gardens, Japanese, i. 223. eishas, or dancing girls, i. 100. ekfi shrine, the, ii. 280 (see Ise). Ghosts, i. 390-392. Ginsainoma, Yezo, ii. 27. Ginseng, the Chinese, i. 175 (see Ninjin.) Go-ban, a Japanese game, ii. 33. Gods, Aino household, ii. 87. Gohei, a religious symbol, i. 112. Gongen of Nikko, shrine of the, i. 125. Government, the, of Japan, ii. 324. Groves and high places, i. 178. Gmde-books, Japanese, i. 139. Gunchd, the, a local official, i. 286. H BIachiishi, its doll street, i. 105; shopping in, 105. Hair-dressing, i. 144. Hair-pins, ornamental, i. 226. Hakodate, ii. 5; trade, 6; exter- IltrMICHI. nal aspect, 12; peculiar roofs, 12; Buddhist daily service, 16; hos- pital, 21; prison, 22-24; Bon Fes- tival, 24; English church at, 158; Junks, 164. Hakodate harbour, i. 404. Haruku, Empress, patroness of higher education of women, ii. 343. Hase-dera, ii. 209; temple of Kwan- non, 270. Hepburn, Dr., i. 46. Hibachi, the, ii. 260. Hid^yoshi’s summer palace, ii. 248 Higenasha, ii. 271. Hinokiyama village, i. 347. Hioga Buddha, a, ii. 221. Hiogo, medical dispensary at, ii. 306. Hirakawa river, i. 369; destruction of bridge, 370. Hiroshima Maru, maii steamer, ii. 217. Home-life in Japan, i. 138. Homogeneity of the country, i. 360; home occupations, 360. Honoki, pass of, i. 255. Hornets, i. 280. Horobets, ii. 36-126. Horse-ants, i. 280. Horse-breaking, Japanese, ii. 123, 140. Horses, treatment of, i. 322; in Yezo, ii. 29; drove of, 41. Hospital at Nakajo, i. 207. House-masters, harassed interests, i. 358. Hozawa village, i. 192. I Ichikawa pass, i. 176; villages, 177; waterfall, 177. Ichinono hamlet, i. 257. Idols, i. 388. Ikari, i. 165. Ikarigaseki, detention at, i. 369-379; occupation, 372; kite-flying, 374; games, 375. Ikinagi, medical dispensary at, ii 306. Imaichi, i. 104. Inari, or fox temple at Asakusa, i. 74; of Fushima, ii. 261. Infant prodigy, an, i. 324. Iniwashiro lake, i. 180. Innai, i. 289; upper and lower, 291. Insect pests at Niigata, i. 218. Irimichi, i. 132; village school, 132. 133. 388 INDEX. IP.ONCLAD. Ironolad, Japanese, ii. 162. ISE, shrines of. ii. 278; the o-hnrai, or ticket, 279; the Gekh shrine, 280; camphor groves, 280; enclo- sures, 281, 282; Holy of holies, 283; origin of the mirror, 283. Isshinden, ii. 292; temple gateway at, 293. I'fo, first impressions, i. 51, 52; tak- ing a “squeeze,” 129; cleverness and intelligence, 159; particular- ly described, 318; excellent mem.- ory, 319; an apt pupil, 320, .321; delinquency, ii. 20; parting, 165. Itosawa, i. 168. Itoyasan precipices, i. 186. Iwakisan plain, i. .387. ly^mitsu, temple of, at Nikko, i. 117. lyeyasu’s tomb at Nikko, i. 116. J JiN-Bi-Ki-SHAS, i. 18 (see Kuruma). K Kaitakushi, or Development De- partment, ii. 3 (see Yezo). Kajikawa river, i. 247. Kak’ke, a Japanese disease, i. 291. Kakemonos, wall-pictures, i. 101, 108. Kamidana, the, or god-shelf, i. 140. Kaminoyama, i. 269; hot springs, 269; the Belle of, 270; kura or godown, 271, 272. Kanaya’s house, i. 107 ; floral deco- ration, 108; table equipments, 109. Kanayama, i. 280. Kasukabe, i. 92; the yadoya, 92; lack of privacy, 94; a night alarm, 95. Katakado hamlet, i. 186. Kawaguchi village, i. 250; old vil- lage, 353. Kayashima, i. 168; dirt and dis- comfort, 168; a diseased crowd, 169. Kegon-no-taki fall, the, i. 130. Keiki, the last Shogun, ii. 322. Kenrei, or provincial governor, i. 220, 287. Kimono, the, or gown for both sex- es, i. 37-39. Kinugawa river, i. 156, 159, 163. Kiriishi hamlet, i. 348. Kisagoi hamlet, i. 154. Kisaki, i. 247. KWAN-NOH. Kite-competition, i. 374. Kitsugawa river, ii. 273. Kiyoto, ii. 229; American Mission School for girls, 231; the College, 232-236; Mr. Davis, 233; converts, 236; shopping, 254; art-objects, 255; Nishigin silk-weavers, 257; Board of Industries, 258; female industrial schools, 258; hospital, 258. Kobe, ii. 217; a mission centre, 219; model settlement, 220; Girls’ Home, 222, 223; female educa- tion, 222-226; Oriental courtesies, 226. Koch 6, the, or chief man of the vil- lage, i. 283, 286, 289. Kohiaku, mountain farm, i. 152. Komatsu, i. 262; good accommoda- tion, 2()3; silk and silk-culture, 264, 265. Komono-taki volcano, ii. 27, 154. Kompira, the god, to whom men’s top-knots are offered as vows of temperance, ii. 295. Kotatsu, the, ii. 261. Kotsunagi, i. 350. Kubota, i. 307; brisk trade, 308; hospital, 309-312; Normal School, 313; silk-factory, 315; police es- cort, 315; ruined castle, 316; in- creasing study of law, 317; af- ternoon visitors, 323 ; an infant prodigy, 324; Japanese wedding, 325-331. Knyi, the, ii. 321. Kuroishi, i. 380; festival at, 381; position, 387. Kurokawa, matsuri at, i. 249. Kurosawa, poverty and dulness, 251 ; dirt and barbarism, 252. Knmma, the, or jin-ri-ki-sha, i. 18, 19. Kumma-runners, costume of, i. 85; sketch of, ii. 266. Kurumatoge, i. 167 ; inn on the liill, 187 ; hostess, 188. Kurumatoge pass, i. 191. Kushidagawa, ii. 275. Kwan-non, temple of, at Asaknsa, i. 64; legend of her origin, 64 (note); perpetual fair, 67 ; the Ni-6, 68; votive offerings, 69; the higi altar, 70; prayers and pellets, 71 Binzuru, the medicine god, 72, Amainv, or heavenly dogs, 72; stone lanterns, 73; Inari or fox temple, 74 ; the yohei and the torii, 74; revohdng shrine, 74; temple grounds, archery galleries, 76 INDEX. 389 KWAN-NON. Kwan-non, temple of, at Hase-dera, ii. 270. L Lacquek, coarse, at Niigata, i. 226.. Lacquer tree, the(7fA‘us vernicifera), i. 180, 193. r^nd Transport Company, or Riku- unkaisha, i. 149. Lanterns, paper, i. 230, 231; stone, i. 73. Laws, domestic, ii. 334. Lebunge, ii. 144; its isolation, 144; Ainos, 144. Lebungetoge passes, ii. 141 . Legation, the British, at Yedo, i. 29. Letters, Japanese, samples of, ii. 165. Literature for women, i. 228. Lotus flower, symbol of purity, i. 299; ii. 247. M Magaeshi hamlet, i. 124. Mago, the, or leader of a pack- horse, i. 122, 155. Man-carts, two-wheeled, i. 23, 24, Marine, mercantile, ii. 330. Maro, or loin-cloth, i. 89. Marriage, a Japanese, i. 325; trous- seau and furniture, 327 ; wedding ceremony, 328-331 ; code of morals for women, 333-335. Matsuhara village, i. 260. Matsumse, Yezo, ii. 7. Matsu-no-gawa river, ii. 294. Matsuri at Minato, i. 336; cars, 338; antique dances, 339. Matsusaka, ii. 275. Medical missionary work, i. 209; college, ii. 340. Mikado, the, his “Oath of Prog- ress,” ii. 324. Mikoshi, or sacred car, i. 68. Millet-mill and pestle, ii. 65. Minato, the junk port of Kubota, i. ■336; matsuri at, 336-340. Mints, public, in Japan, ii. 330. Mirror, lady’s, i. 385. Mirror, the Shinto, ii. 283. “Missing Link,” the, ii. 148. Missionaries at Niigata, i. 202-204; Medical Mission, 205-211. Miwa, ii. 265. Miyegawa, ii. 276. Miyojiutake mountain, i. 186. Mogami river, i. 278. NISHI-HON GGWANJl. Mombets, ii. 112; agricultural set tlement of, 131. Money, i. 20; current, 150. Monto sect, the, ii. 242 (see Shin- shin). Morals, code of, for women, Japan- ese, i. 332-335. Mori, village, ii. 32. Mori, Mr. Arenori, ii. 207; his Jap- anese reception, 208-213. Morioka village, i. 341. Mororan, ii. 34; bay, 36. Mororan, Old, ii. 127. Mourning, period of, i. 301. Mo.xa, the, i. 145. Mud-flats of Yedo, i. 87, 88. Mushroom culture, ii. 273. Music, Japanese, ii. 212, 213. Musical instruments, ii. 214, 216. N Nagaoka Government hosnital, i. 207. Naiku shrine, the, ii. 288. Nakajo, Japanese doctors, i. 248; Buddhism, 249. Nakano, Lower, i. 398; public bath- houses, 399. Nakano, Upper, i. 398. Names, female, i. 135. Namioka, i. 402. Nanai, Yezo, ii. 30. Nantaizan mountains, i. 104; Shin- to shrine on summit, 125. Nara, ii. 263; treasury of antiqui- ties, 265. National Debt of Japan, ii. 347. Navy, ii. 326. Needle-work, i. 136. Neesima, Mr., the first Christian pastor in Japan, ii. 238; his trav- els, 239. Newspaper press, ii, 331. Nichiren sect of Buddhists, the-r form of invocation, i. 362. Nikko, its beauties, i. Ill; shrines of the Shoguns, 112; the Red Bridge, 113; the Yomei Gate, 114; great staircase, 116; lye'yasu’s tomb, 116; temples of lyemitsu, 117; theAi-o, 117; wood-carving, 120 . Nikkosan mountains, the, i. 151. Nini/iii, cultivation of, i. 176, 176. Ni-d, the, at Asakusa, i. 68. Nirvana, ii. 247. Nisiu-Honguwanji temple, the, ii 244; the high altar, MB; Sakya muni, 246. 890 INDEX. NISHIGIN. Nishigin, silk-weavers, ii. 257. Nobara, ii. 273; mud, 274. Nojiri, village, i. 187. Nopkobets river, ii. 138. Nosoki, Dr., i. 281; lotion and feb- lifuge, 281; old-fashioned practi- tioner, 282; at dinner, 283. Nosoki village, i. 289. Nozawa town, i. 186. Niigata, a Treaty Port, i. 202; mis- sionaries, 202; Temple Street, 212; interior of a temple, 212; Buddhist priests, 213; absence of foreign trade, 218; insect pests, 218; population, 219; hospital, schools, 220; cleanliness, 221; water-ways, 221; houses, 222; gardens, 223; climate, 224; shops, 225-233; books, 228-230; paper, 230; lanterns, 230; food-shops, 232; quack medicines, 232; bar- gaining, 234; impositions, 235. Numa hamlet, i. 252; crowded dwellings, 25^ O Obanasawa, i. 278. Odate, i. 353; nocturnal disturb- ances, 354; trade, 355. Okawa, stream, i. 164. Okimi, i. 253. Omagori, manufacture of large earthenware jars for interment, i. 298. Omono river, i. 289, 297, 307. Ono, ii. 14; disorderly audience, 14. ri pass, i. 253. saka, water-ways and bridges, ii. 302; domestic life, 303; ladies’ pets, 304; position of women, 304 ; Medical Mission, 305. Oshamambe', ii. 149. Osharu river, ii. 132. Otsu, ii. 292; matsuH of the god Shinomiya, 296. Ouchi hamlet, i. 176. Oyake lake, i. 176. P Pack-cows, i. 253, 258. Pack-horse and saddle, i. 122, 123; a vicious, 266, 294. Packet-boat, “ running the rapids ” of Tsugavva, i. 196-198. Palm, Dr., medical missionary, i. 202, 206; Government hospital at BAMUBAJ. Nakajo, 207 ; the Niigata dispen sary, 208; increase of medicaj missionary work, 209; his tan- dem, 248. Paper, manufactured from the Broussonettia paptyrifera, i. 182, 183; various uses, 182. Parental love, i. 143. Passports, i. 8, 84. Peasant costume, i. 98. Pellets and prayers, i. 71. Pipichari, the Aino, ii. 68. Police force, the Japanese, ii. 326. Population of Japan, i. 7. Postal progress, ii. 327. Proverbs, popular, i. 376, 377. Punishments, ii. 333-335. Q Quack medicines, i. 233, R Railboad development, ii. 328. Rain-cloak, straw, i. 346. Reiheishi-kaido road, an “ In me- moriam ” avenue, i. 103. Religion in Japan, i. 8, 192. Religious edifices and symbols, neglect of, i. 179. Restaurant, portable, i. 17. Revenue of Japan, ii. 339, 373-379. Rhus succedanea, the vegetable wax- tree, i. 193. Rhus vemicifera, the lacquer-tree, i. 193. Rice culture, i. 87-89. Rokken, ii. 275. Rukugo, i. 297; Buddhist funeral, 297-302; temple, 303. S Saikaitama, i. 192. Sakamoki river, i. 274; bridge, 274, 275. Sakatsu pass, i. 289. Sake, the national drink, i. 139, 341; brewing, 342, 343; libationi of, ii. 98. Sakuratoge river, i. 258. Salisburia adiantifolia, ii. 142, 147. Salmon fishery of Yezo, ii. 5. Sainisen, the national female instro ment, i. 137. Sampans, or native boats, i. 16. Samurai, the, ii. 321. INDEX. 391 SAin>A. Sanda, ii. 307 ; evening gathering at, 308; Christian converts, 308. Sanno pass, i. 176. Sarafuto, ii. 46. Sarufutogawa river, ii. 63, 65. Satow, Mr. Ernest, Japanese Secre- tary of Legation, i. 31 ; his en- tertainment, ii. 209 ; amateur or- chestra, 209; juvenile performer, 211; music, 212-214; musical in- struments, 214. Satsuporo Agricultural College, ii. 3; town, 7. Savage life at Biratori, ii. 50, 74. School, a village, i. 132 ; punish- ments, 133; amusements, 134. Schools, male and female, ii. 337 ; middle, 339; normal, 341. Scramble, a Yezo, ii. 43. Servant, engaging a, i. 49-62. Shampooing, i. 346. Shiha, the shrines of, i. 46. Shinagawa, or Shinhashi, i. 28. Shinano river, i. 219, 247. Shingoji, i. 305; rude intrusion, 306; voyage down the river, 307. Shinjo, i. 278; trade, 279; discom- forts, 280. Shinbawa river, i. 247. Shinnomiya, the god, matsuri of, at Otsu, ii. 296 ; decorations, 297 ; shrine of the fox-god, 298; cars, 298, 299. Shinshiu, the, or Monto sect, ii. 242 ; Akamatz, the priest, ; temples, 244-246. Shione pass, i. 289. Shinto, notes on, ii. 363. Shirakasawa, mountain village, i. 258 ; kindly courtesies, 259. Shiraoi, ii. 40, 115; volcanic phe- nomena, 117; forest, 118; lianas, 120; bear-trap, 121; houses, 122. Shirasawa, i. 356 ; eclipse at, 364. Shiribetsan mountain, ii. 131. Shoji, or sliding windows, i. 94. Shopping in Kiyoto, ii. 254. Shops, native, i. 142. Silk, and silk-culture, i. 264, 265. Skin-diseases, i. 144. Solitary ride, a, ii. 27-30. Spiritualism, i. 390. “ Squeeze,” a, i. 53, 129. Straw shoes for horses, i. 162. Suicide more frequent in women than in men, i. 188. Sulphur baths at Tamoto, i. 127-129. Sumida river, i. 34, 66. Superstitions, i. 38^95. tOkitO. T Taiheisan mountain, i. 308. Tajima, i. 174. Takadayama mountain, i. 161. Takahara, i. 162; hot-springs, 163. Takata, i. 181; paper manufacture, 183. Tamagawa, i. 253. Tarumai volcano, ii. 42; ascent to, 116-118. Tatami, or house-mats, i. 93. Taxation, i. 287, 288. Tea-plant, ii. 262; tea-making, 263. Telegraph department, ii. 328. Temple, interior of Buddhist, i. 212; resemblance between Buddh- ist and Roman ritual, 214; a pop- ular preacher, 216; bronze figure of Buddha, 215; Nirvana, the greatest good, 215 ; eternal life, 216. Tendo, i. 278. Theatres, i. 55; the ancient drama, 56; modern, 66; Japanese play, 68 ; the Shintomi, 69 ; Morita’s opening address, 61 ; moral re- forms, 62; a comic pastoral, 63. Threshing, varieties in, i. 98. Tobacco, use of, at first forbidden, i. 284; discussions on, 285. Toohigo, i. 99; the yadoya, 100. Tochiida, i. 278. Togenoshita, ii. 152, 153. Toilet, a lady’s, i. 383; hair-dress- ing, 383 ; paint and cosmetics, 384 ; mirror, 384. Tokaido, the, ii. 294. Tokiyo, i. 26; first impressions, 28; the British Legation, 29; street sights, 33 ; Foreign Concession, or Tsukiji, 33; missionary churches, 34; architectural vul- garities, 34 ; Fukiage, or Imperial Gardens, 36 ; costumes, 37-40; courtesies, behaviour, 40; col- leges and their instructors, 42; ■ afternoon tea, 43; shrines of Shi- ba, 44; English Church, 44; thea- tre, 55; a Japanese play, 58; the Shintomi theatre, 59; Kwan-non temple of Asakusa, 64; a per- petual fair, 67; Fox-temple, 74; archery galleries, 75; floriculture, 77; womankind, 79; western in- novations, 80; tiotes on, ii. 171 ; its monotonous meanness, 172; situ- ation, 173; climate, 173, 174; popu- lation, 174; castle, 175; ramparts and gates, 175; official quarter, 392 INDEX. TOMAKOMAI. 17C; tbe Tashikis or Feudal man- sions, 177-179 ; suburbs, 180 ; the Nipponbashi, or bridge of Japan, 180; commercial activity, 181; canals, 181; temples and shrines, 181; streets, 182; signs, 184; thea- tres, 185; names of streets, 185- 187; cemeteries, 188; cremation, 189; European buildings, 189; An- glo-American architecture, 191; Imperial College of Engineering, 192-195; museums, 195; telegraph building, 196; foreign residents, 197 ; laljel-forgeries, 199 ; flower festas, 200, 201; floral curiosities, 202; costly entertainments, 203, 207; university, 340. Tomakomai, ii. 42. Tone river, i. 97. Toyoka village, i. 344. Trade, foreign, ii. 380-383. Transmigration, belief in, ii. 349. Travelling equipments, i. 82; pass- ports, 84. Tsu, ii. 291; two streets of temples, 292. Tsucliiyama, ii. 294. Tsugawa, i. 191; yadoi/a, 19i; town, 1!)5; packet-boat, 196. Tsuguriko', i. 353. Tsuiji village, i. 248. Tsukiji, the, or Foreign Concession, i. 33. Tsukuno, i. 268. Tsuzuka pass, ii. 293. Tubine, i. 348. Tufa-cones, ii. 117. U Udonosan snow-fields, i. 278. Dji, ii. 262; tea-houses, 262. Ujikawa river, ii. 262. University of Tokiyo, ii. 340. Csu, ii. 1.33; temple, 1.34, 135; bay, 136. Usu-taki volcano, ii. 130. Utsu pass, i. 259. V Vegetation, tropical, i. 157. Village life, i. 102. Vine, wild, ii. 119. Vineyards on the Tsugawa, i. 198. Volcano Bay, ii. 32. Volcanoes, i. 4. TUBSOWA. W Wakamatsu, i. 180. Waterproof cloak, a paper, 1. 1 44 Wax, vegetable, i. 194. Wistaria chinensis, i. 174, 175. Womankind, Japanese, i. 79. Women, code of morals for, i. 332^ 335. Wood-carving at Nikko, i. 120. X Xaviek, residence of, ii. 261. Y Yadate pass, i. 366; the force ol water, 367. Yadoya, or hotel, i. 90. Yamada, ii. 276; GekO and Naiku shrines, 278, 288. Y amagata ken, i. 255. Yamagata plain, i. 274, 278. Yamagata town, i. 275; forgeries ol European eatables and drinka- bles, 276; public buildings, 276; a filature, 277. Yainagawa river, ii. 270. Yamataishinoi, ii. 150. Yedo city, i. 26 {see Tokiyo). Yedo, gulf of, i. 12, 28. Yedo plain, i. 28. Yezo, ii. 1; climate, harbours, 1; forests, mineral wealth, 2; Colo- nisation Department, 3; fisher- ies, 5; Hakodate?, 5; police, 7: hairy Ainos, 8, 9; weak points ol Japanese Government, 161. Yoshitsune, shrine of, ii. 72. Yokohama harbour, i. 14; town, 15; sampans, 16; travelling res- taurant, 17; kunimas or jui-ri-ki- shas, 18; man-carts, 53; railway and station, 26; tbe Bluff, 47; Chinamen, 47. Yokokawa, i. 167. Yokote, i. 295; Shinto temple, 295; Torii, 295; worshippers, 296. Yonetsurugawa river, i. 348; peril- ous transit, 350, 353. Yonezawa plain, i. 260, 262. Yoshida, i. 267. Yubets, ii. 43; a ghostly dwelling, 44. Yumoto lake, i. 126; village, 127- bathing, 129. Yrt-no-taki Falls, the, i. 129. Yurapu, ii. 150; river, 150. Yussowa, i. 292; lunch in public 293. 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