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JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
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I III'. KWANNON \l ASAKl’SA 
 
JAPAN 
 & THE JAPANESE 
 
 WALTER TYNDALE 
 
 WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1910 
 
 u i 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ~|~ FEEL that I need some justifieation for 
 adding to the number of books written on 
 Japan, a country which has been described by 
 writers of great literary ability whose long 
 residence in the country has familiarized them 
 with its people, their institutions, and their 
 everyday life. 
 
 The outward appearance of things is what, 
 of necessity, concerns the painter most ; but 
 whilst in search of artistic material amongst 
 the gardens and habitations of so interesting a 
 people, the painter, too, could not fail to get an 
 insight into much that the outward appearance 
 suggests. 
 
 It was my pri\dlege to make the acquaintance 
 
vi JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 and even to win the friendship of many Japanese, 
 who not only with gi-eat kindness made me 
 welcome to their homes, hut also gave me 
 information on many subjects which may prove 
 of interest to readers, both to those who have 
 themselves paid a flying visit to Japan, and 
 also to those, less fortunate in this respect, who 
 have watched with interest the development 
 of that country and its increasingly friendly 
 relations with our own. 
 
 I take this opportunity of thanking the owners 
 of beautiful gardens which I was allow'ed to 
 paint as illustrations to a second book. To see 
 and paint these was, indeed, a main object of my 
 voyage to the Far East. This book is now 
 being written by Mr. Basil Taylor, and will be 
 published next year. 
 
 I also thank the European residents for 
 the hospitality and the valuable information they 
 gave me. Lastly, I wish to express my thanks 
 — and how can I do so sufficiently? — to those 
 whose works were my constant companions 
 
PREFACE 
 
 vii 
 
 while cut off from current literature — to the late 
 Lafcadio Hearn, to A. B. Mitford (now Lord 
 Redesdale), and to Professor Basil Hall Chamber- 
 lain, who first awoke my interest in “ Things 
 Japanese.” 
 
 W. T. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP-l'ER PAGE 
 
 I. ARRIVAL AT MOJI AND THE INLAND SEA - 1 
 
 II. KOBE - - - - - 15 
 
 III. KOBE (continued) - - - - - 32 
 
 IV. KYOTO - - - - - - 45 
 
 V. KYOTO (continued) - - - - 58 
 
 VI. KYOTO (continued) - - - - 73 
 
 VII. THE OLEANDER - - - - - 83 
 
 VIII. THE JUDAS-TREE AND POMEGRANATE - - 92 
 
 IX. THE LOTUS - - - - - 108 
 
 X. JOURNEY TO SHOJI - - - 126 
 
 XL SHOJI 142 
 
 XII. JOURNEY TO KOFU - - - - 157 
 
 XIII. KOFU - - - - - 166 
 
 XIV. JOURNEY TO HAKONE - - - - 185 
 
 XV. HAKONE - - - - - - 192 
 
 XVI. HAKONE (continued) .... 204 
 
 XVII. NIKKO 223 
 
 XVIII. NIKKO (continued) - - - - 241 
 
 XIX. TOKYO 259 
 
 XX. TOKYO (continued) - - - - 274 
 
 XXL ATAMI AND CONCLUSION - - - 293 
 
 INDEX 313 
 
 IX 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. THE KWANNON AT ASAKUSA 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 2. THE BIRTHDAY OF THE BOYS 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 8 
 
 3. THE APPROACH TO IKUTA TEMPLE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 18 
 
 4. CHERRY-TREES AT ARIMA - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 26 
 
 5. AN AZALEA GARDEN 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 36 
 
 6. THE SHRINE OF INARI AT KOBE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 42 
 
 7. APPROACH TO A RUSTIC SHRINE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 54 
 
 8, THE IRISES AT KITANO 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 72 
 
 9. THE OLEANDER 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 82 
 
 10. THE JUDAS-TREE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 92 
 
 11. THE POMEGRANATE - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 102 
 
 12. LOTUSES 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 110 
 
 13. GEISHAS 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 120 
 
 14. FUJIYAMA FROM SHOJI 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 128 
 
 15. A HOMESTEAD NEAR SHOJI - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 136 
 
 16. THE COMMUNAL SHRINE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 146 
 
 17. FUJIYAMA - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 156 
 
 18. A RAINY DAY AT MOTOSU - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 164 
 
 19. MOTO-H^\KONE 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 174 
 
 20. THE BOZEN KAKU GARDEN - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 182 
 
 21. A MOUNTAIN HAMLET 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 190 
 
 22. ROKUDO-NO-JIZO 
 
 
 - 
 
 . 
 
 198 
 
 XI 
 
xii JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 23. HAKONE LAKE . . . - - 208 
 
 24. THE BRONZE JIZO AT HAKONE - - - 218 
 
 25. THE SHRINE OF lEMlTSU - - - - 226 
 
 26. A SHRINE AT NIKKO .... 236 
 
 27. FUDO ------ 246 
 
 28. AUTUMN FOLIAGE ----- 256 
 
 29. CHRYSANTHEMUMS ----- 264 
 
 30. MAPLES - - - . - - 274 
 
 31. A COTTAGE AT ATAMI - - - - 284 
 
 32. A PLUM ORCHARD ----- 294 
 
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 ARRIVAL AT MO.TI AND THE INLAND SEA 
 
 HE rising sun threw a disc of golden light 
 
 on the panelling facing the porthole of my 
 cabin. The throb of the propeller had ceased, 
 making other noises more audible. These 
 awakened me from my sleep, and also to the 
 joyful fact that at last we had reached Moji, our 
 first port of call in the land of the Rising Sun. 
 
 Though I had come to this country to spend 
 the best part of a twelvemonth, I could not defer 
 getting my first peep of it a minute longer. It 
 was only half-past four in the morning, yet all 
 was in motion on deck. Lighters, laden with a 
 greasy-looking coal, were being made fast to 
 each side of the ship, and the queerest-looking 
 little people were busy erecting bamboo scaffold- 
 ing from these lighters up to the main-deck. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
2 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 How they were going to get the coal on board 
 puzzled me at the time. Instead of a sloping 
 gangway, they were constructing a series of little 
 platforms, five or six feet one above the other, 
 and fastened to the ship in the most ingenious 
 manner. In a very short while an agile little 
 fellow stood on each platform, and, one after the 
 other, thousands of little baskets full of coal were 
 passed up from hand to hand and emptied into 
 the bunkers. A woman stood at the head of 
 each of these erections to throw the empty 
 baskets back into the lighters. Six hundred 
 tons were to be taken in before we could proceed, 
 and since the baskets were scarcely larger than a 
 bowler hat, I feared that we should be stuck at 
 Moji for some days. 
 
 A notice was posted up that no photographs 
 were to be taken, as we were near some fortifica- 
 tions. I had not the consolation that I should 
 be able to fill up the time by making a sketch or 
 two. Captain Peters, who commanded the good 
 ship Somali, was ever ready to accommodate his 
 passengers in any way consistent wdth his duty, 
 and when he forbade sketching-things or cameras 
 to leave the ship, we felt sure that he had good 
 reasons for doing so. He consoled us, however. 
 
ARRIVAL AT MOJI 
 
 3 
 
 with the assurance that before dusk we should 
 be ready to proceed to Kobe. 
 
 Foggy weather had followed us all the way 
 from Shanghai, and after four weeks in the tropics 
 we had felt the cold bitterly. To see the sun again 
 and feel its warmth as the morning advanced put 
 the few remaining passengers in the best of 
 spirits, and we were all agog to get ashore. 
 When the launch was ready to start, Moji still 
 lay in the shadow of the hills that back it, and 
 the sun struck fully on Shimonoseki, a mile 
 away on the northern side of the strait. We 
 decided on Moji first, lea\ing Shimonoseki till 
 after tiffin. Now, as the former is little more 
 than a coaling-station, I expected to find it very 
 much Europeanized, and was well prepared 
 against being disappointed. On leaving the 
 quay, which certainly savoured of the Occident, 
 we turned up the main street, which was as 
 .Japanese as anjdhing we could wish to see. 
 
 The little town was en fete : it was the fifth of 
 May, on which the birthdays of aU the little 
 boys are kept. Huge paper or cotton carps 
 hung from long bamboo poles. The wind, 
 entering at the open mouths of these fish, inflates 
 them, and they sway about somewhat in the way 
 
4 
 
 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 they would in their natural element. The idea 
 is that, as the carp overcomes all obstacles in 
 going upstream, so the boy will have to fight 
 his way in the world to rise to fame and fortune. 
 No school that day for the lads ; they were at 
 liberty to follow us about and stare at the 
 foreigners. One of our party was a man of 
 many inches. He would strike anyone in 
 London as being exceptionally taU, but here it 
 was as if a giant had turned up for the children’s 
 amusement. They were well-behaved, barring 
 the staring; but this, I have since discovered, 
 is not considered rude — which is unfortunate 
 for anyone who proposes sketching in the 
 streets. 
 
 Most of the shops looked as if they dealt in 
 Japanese curios, and it was hard to realize that 
 these articles were not displayed to seU to 
 tourists. They were, in truth, but the many 
 quaint little things which are in daily use here. 
 The foodstuffs were mostly fish — queer-looking 
 creatures some of them — and would have looked 
 more in place in spirits on a museum shelf; 
 others resembled to a remarkable degree their 
 counterfeit presentments which were floating 
 from the bamboo poles. 
 
ARRIVAL AT MO.TI 
 
 5 
 
 I was delighted not to see a vestige of European 
 clothing, either for sale or on any of the people, 
 except on a five-foot-nothing policeman. 
 
 But for the substantial roofs the dwellings 
 suggested dolls’-houses, and the infants looked 
 for all the world like dolls I had seen at Liberty’s 
 come to life. Half the population had babies 
 slung on their backs — hardly a girl or woman 
 without one — and some of the little girls, who 
 were scarcely more than babies themselves, were 
 getting into training with a doll tied on in the 
 same manner. Baby-carrying is not confined to 
 the gentler sex either, for I saw many a boy with 
 a baby peeping over his shoulder, and he would 
 play at tipcat or hopscotch quite regardless of 
 his human burden. 
 
 The women did not look to me as if they had 
 stepped out of a screen, as Pierre Loti describes 
 them, for they suggested hard work more than 
 ornament. The type which he describes does 
 exist, but is not often met with amongst the 
 workaday folk. 
 
 tVhat adds not a little to the picturesqueness 
 of a Japanese street are the Chinese characters 
 in which all is written. A soap or pill advertise- 
 ment, boldly painted in this lettering, decorates 
 
6 
 
 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 rather than vulgarises the space which it occupies. 
 Not being able to read it may have something 
 to do ^\dth this. 
 
 There are no “ sights ” to be done at Moji, so we 
 could spend all our time looking into the shops ; 
 could see the women preparing their dinners, 
 having their hair dressed — a serious busmess this 
 — the men plying their various trades, and the 
 hundred little things which go to make up the 
 life in a small town. On a fine day the paper 
 slides are all thrown open, and everything is done 
 in view of the public. As it is not considered 
 rude to watch anyone at his work, there was 
 constant entertainment. This is often inter- 
 esting nearer home, but here in this land of topsy- 
 turveydom it is especially so. 
 
 The carpenter surprised me by drawing his 
 saw towards him instead of thrustmg it through 
 the wood. He also drew his plane instead of 
 pushing it forward. Some builders at work 
 were constructing the roof before the founda- 
 tions of the house were laid. Some country- 
 women wore trousers, while some of the men 
 wore skirts. Nearly every house which w’e saw 
 here and at Shimonoseki was a shop of sorts, 
 yet most of the articles with which we are 
 
ARRIVAL AT MOJI 
 
 7 
 
 familiar were not to be seen. No butcher, no 
 baker, and a paper-lantern shop took the place 
 of the candlestick maker. The greengrocer had 
 hardly a familiar vegetable on his stall — seaweed 
 took the place of cabbages ; bamboo shoots were 
 in lieu of carrots ; a white root two and more feet 
 long, I was informed, was a radish. The toy- 
 shops were perhaps the most entertaining, and 
 being the birthday of the boys, trade was brisker 
 than usual. 
 
 I said above that hairdressing was a serious 
 business. We passed the coiffeur again an 
 hour or more later, and the same lady was still 
 sitting there, with a little hand-mirror, suggesting 
 various amendments, which were being discussed 
 both by the operator and by the onlookers. This 
 is so lengthy a process that the humbler classes 
 can only afford to undergo it once a week. The 
 women therefore sleep without a pillow, substi- 
 tuting for it a wooden head-rest, which fits under 
 the neck and does not disarrange the hair. The 
 age, state, and station in life can be told by the 
 way it is dressed. Hat or bonnet does not exist, 
 so what the women spend at the hairdresser’s is 
 more than compensated for in lessening the 
 milliner’s account. Jet-black is the only colour. 
 
8 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 and with the help of oil the hair shines like a 
 newly-blacked boot. 
 
 Beyond the shop may be seen the living-room 
 of the proprietor, unless the shoji, or paper 
 slides, be closed. All is raised some two feet 
 from the ground, and while making a purchase 
 the buyer can sit on the edge of this platform ; 
 should he wish to go further in, he must take off 
 his boots. The cleanliness and good-humour of 
 the Japanese is perhaps what strikes the foreigner 
 more than anything else. 
 
 We were fortunate in landing on a fine day, 
 for first impressions are more precious than many 
 which a longer stay can produce. 
 
 We devoted the afternoon to Shimonoseki, 
 which is considerably larger than Moji ; but the 
 size of a town in Japan seems to bear no relation 
 to the size and importance of its streets and 
 buildings. The houses were as small and the 
 shops as modest as those of her neighbours 
 across the strait. The only sign of the Euro- 
 peanization which has been going on now for 
 forty years past was the station and a hotel for 
 foreigners. These were built in solid materials, 
 whereas all the other houses were wooden- 
 framed. 
 
THE mRTHOAY OE THE BOVS 
 

ARRIVAL AT MOJI 
 
 9 
 
 I am forgetting the telegraph-poles ; these are 
 in every to^vn and village. At home we seldom 
 see one in a street, but here they are as plentiful 
 as lamp-posts, and more obtrusive than in Europe 
 from being so much taller than the houses. 
 Except for the small boys, who were celebrating 
 their birthdays with trumpet and drum, the 
 streets were quiet. No horses were to be seen, 
 and the only conveyances were jinrickshas. A 
 bicycle ridden by a youth in kimono and 
 wooden clogs, with a Chinese lantern nearly as 
 big as himself, looked somewhat incongruous. 
 
 Shimonoseki is an old town, but in its 
 outward appearance there is nothing to suggest 
 this. The life of a Japanese dwelling is seldom 
 more than a generation ; even the temples have 
 to be renewed so often that there is seldom 
 anything of the original left if they date back 
 more than a couple of centuries. In doing the 
 sights of a European city, it is usual to seek the 
 oldest parts, and the buildings lose in interest as 
 they get nearer to our own times. This is not 
 so in .lapan ; age adds little beauty to a Japanese 
 house, and the temples lose more than they gain 
 in appearance by the lapse of time. With the 
 setting of the latter it is, of course, different, for 
 
10 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 age is necessary to produce the magnificent ever- 
 greens, and to clothe the stone balustrades and 
 lanterns with moss and lichen. 
 
 How much the town was knocked about 
 during the bombardment in 1864 it is hard to 
 say, for there is probably not a house dating 
 previously to that. 
 
 Let us hope that the combined fleets of Great 
 Britain, France, the United States, and Holland, 
 expended their ammunition only on the forts 
 which were there. A few rockets and some 
 stones might have sufficed to destroy the town. 
 This use of a steam-hammer to crack an egg, 
 known as the “ Shimonoseki affair,” had a far- 
 reaching effect on the history of this country. 
 It destroyed the power of the Shoganate. Four 
 years later the constitution of the country was 
 reorganized, and the Mikado ceased to be a mere 
 puppet in the hands of the Shogun, as his for- 
 bears had been for seven centuries past. Modern 
 Japan dates from this the year of Meiji; 1862 is 
 the first year of the new era. 
 
 Paper lanterns were lit and paper slides were 
 closed when we got on the launch to return to 
 the Somali. What struck us in the full light of 
 day as pretty, quaint, and ingenious became 
 
ARRIVAL AT MOJI 
 
 11 
 
 grand as seen from some distance and in the 
 light of a glorious sunset. 
 
 The pulsation of the ship’s propeller soon 
 made us aware that we were on our way to 
 Kobe. It was consoling that the first sixty 
 miles of the inland sea is the least interesting, so 
 that we would not lose much during the night. 
 Rising early next morning, we found ourselves 
 well among the numerous islands (several 
 thousand according to the Japanese) which give 
 to this sea its unique character. Some are 
 large and mountainous, with fishing villages 
 studding the shores, whilst others are little more 
 than projecting rocks, with a few fantastically- 
 shaped pines outlined against the sky. We never 
 lost sight of them during the day ; sometimes, 
 both on the port and starboard sides, could we 
 see the inhabitants, and in one instance the 
 channel narrowed down to within a ship’s length. 
 
 Volcanic islands have a distinctive character, 
 and resemble each other to a great extent, yet 
 tliere is a something in these which suggests 
 .lapan and no other country. Is it that the 
 twisted pines and curiously-shaped rocks have 
 figured so often in Japanese prints, or is it 
 merely that they form the background to the 
 
12 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 numerous trading-junks and fishing-craft which 
 have so strong an impress of this country ? 
 
 The colour seemed more intense than that of 
 the Mediterranean Isles as I remember them ; 
 the day may have been especially favourable in 
 that respect. There was so much to see from 
 both sides of the ship that we felt the want of an 
 interval. When the bell rang for tiffin we were 
 satiated with islands, and allowed them to slip 
 by without taking a glance through the port- 
 holes. 
 
 A slight mist changed the whole aspect during 
 the afternoon. The rocks were not now cut up 
 into patches of light and shade, but loomed up in 
 bold silhouettes against the grey, often taking 
 the most grotesque shapes. One would suggest 
 the form of a dragon, another some character in 
 “ Les Contes Drollatiques,” or some of those 
 huge heads without which no pantomime seems 
 complete. The profile of a well-known states- 
 man of a passing generation figured prominently, 
 and I saw once more in fancy an old lady of 
 whom 1 stood in awe as a small boy, a pine 
 doing duty for the frilling of her cap. As the 
 sun sank behind a bank of fog that lay nearer 
 the horizon the channel widened, the islands 
 
ARRIV^AL AT MOJI 
 
 13 
 
 gi’adually disappeared till only a few mountain- 
 tops, which caught the light from the setting sun, 
 were visible. 
 
 Before turning in, our course lay close to the 
 shore of Shikoku, the large island that shuts off 
 the inland sea from the Pacific Ocean. The 
 coast-line here tvists about in such an extra- 
 ordinary manner that none save the pilot could 
 tell what was mainland and what were islands. 
 The latter increased in number as we advanced, 
 and occasionally the Somali seemed to be steam- 
 ing straight into the rocks ; she would, however, 
 get within a few hundred yards of the lighthouse, 
 then, rapidly changing her course, enter a channel 
 which had been invisible to us till then. 
 
 The mist diffused the light of the moon ; the 
 high land around us showed clearly against the 
 sky ; where land and water met could only be 
 told by the lights on iimumerable fishing-craft 
 which lay fast to their nets. The buoys attached 
 to these nets also carried a light. Some reached 
 to within a few yards of our ship ; but the course 
 of the steamers is well known by the fisher-folk, 
 and I was told that it rarely happened that any 
 nets got fouled. 
 
 I'he day had been full of interest. What we 
 
14 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 had witnessed by the light of the sun was as 
 nothing compared to the beauty now seen by the 
 light of a hazy moon. Rocks glided past us, 
 sharp-cut against the sky, and lost in the mist 
 below, now hiding, now revealing dimmer and 
 more graceful outlines of mountains beyond. 
 
 The fishermen’s lights in the distance, Ijfing 
 still like glow-worms, swayed gently about as 
 they neared our ship, dimly lighting the craft to 
 which they were fixed, or masked by the dark 
 form of the man on watch. 
 
 These things combined to make a picture 
 never, I fear, to be adequately painted or 
 described by the writer who gazed on it from the 
 silent deck. 
 
 I was loath to leave so enchanting a scene, 
 but the lateness of the hour and the increasing 
 cold compelled me to turn in. 
 
CHAPTER 11 
 
 KOBE 
 
 OBE faced us as we got on deck the next 
 morning. VVe lay opposite the foreign 
 settlement. The poetic vdsion of the previous 
 night was replaced by a prosaic European town. 
 
 I was glad to reach the end of my voyage ; 
 but each look at this prosperous and common- 
 place-looking town made my heart sink farther 
 within me. The idea that I had travelled ten 
 thousand miles and more to paint this added a 
 grim humour to my depression. 
 
 The worries of packing, the question of tips, 
 the landing and Custom-house formalities, had 
 their use in diverting my thoughts. 
 
 Some letters of introduction obliged me to 
 halt at Kobe, and 1 soon found myself installed 
 in a large European hotel, “ replete with every 
 comfort,” but with nothing in it to remind me of 
 Japan, except some waiters whose features ill- 
 
 15 
 
16 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 harmonized with the Western clothes which they 
 wore. 
 
 The fear that I had got to Japan too late for 
 the cherry-blossom took away my appetite for an 
 excellently prepared lunch, and the dining-room, 
 which the manager informed me was the largest 
 east of Suez, but which only contained one guest 
 besides myself, added to my depression. I asked 
 about the cherry-blossom, only to hear that there 
 had been very little this year, and that the stormy 
 weather had dispersed it all. “Is the wistaria 
 over ?” I asked, in the voice one asks a dentist 
 whether the tooth should come out or not. 
 “ No.” He thought he had seen some some- 
 where, but could not exactly recall the place. 
 Seeing my distress, he went to make some 
 inquiries, and found out that the cherry was 
 still in blossom at Arima, a hill-station some 
 twenty miles north of Kobe. I decided to go 
 there the very next morning, devoting my after- 
 noon to calling on the people to whom I had 
 letters, and hunting for wistaria at the same 
 time. 
 
 The kind reception given me by the Consul 
 and his charming wife revived my spirits, and 
 a pretty subject in a non-Europeanized part of 
 
KOBE 
 
 17 
 
 the town made me feel again that life was worth 
 living. It was a temple approach, with a purple 
 patch of wistaria just in the right place. The 
 wistaria looked not yet fully out, so I felt that 
 this could wait a day or two, but that Arima 
 must be reached as soon as possible. I ran across 
 my late cabin companion, the man of many 
 inches, whom I have mentioned before. Since 
 he and a young naval officer, also a fellow-pas- 
 senger, expressed a wish to see Arima, arrange- 
 ments were soon made, and at an early hour the 
 next morning we found ourselves in the train, 
 which circles round the base of the range of hills 
 which backs Kobe. 
 
 We had the promise of a lovely day, and it 
 was cold enough to enjoy the warmth of the sun 
 slanting in at the carriage windows. There must 
 have been some fair on in a neighbouring town, 
 for when we stopped at the first station after 
 leaving the European settlement the train 
 crowded up with people of both sexes and all 
 ages. Wffien the third-class compartments were 
 packed till there w'as hardly standing room, they 
 filled up the seconds, and those least in a hurry 
 were finally accommodated in the first-class 
 carriages. A certain feeling of awe seemed to 
 
18 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 overcome the holiday-makers as they gazed at 
 the unwonted luxury around them, and when 
 this wore off we came in for a good deal of their 
 attention. When the man of many inches hap- 
 pened to rise, all eyes went to the ceiling to see 
 if he would bump his head. 
 
 Sitting %vith their feet hanging down seemed 
 to give them the fidgets, and presently the 
 boldest one would drop his getas (the wooden 
 clogs they wear), and tuck his feet under him 
 on the cushion. The others soon followed suit, 
 and a row of clogs lined the floor. 
 
 The get a is so characteristic a form of footgear 
 that it deserves some elucidation. It varies con- 
 siderably — so much so that, without being a 
 Sherlock Holmes, it was easy to gauge the status 
 of the wearer after a little examination. A stout 
 piece of wood, the size and shape more or less of 
 the sole of a boot, is raised from the ground by 
 two pieces jointed in underneath and crosswise 
 to the grain of the wood. Should the wearer be 
 a lady below the height considered the proper 
 one for her sex, she can add two or three inches 
 to her stature by means of these slips. Where 
 the latter are barely sufficient to protect her 
 white tabi from the mud, you may feel sure that 
 
AI’I'KOACII TO IKUTA TIAIIM.K 
 

 i * 
 
 7 ^ 
 
 »■ . 
 
 n 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I ' ■■■ 
 
KOBE 
 
 19 
 
 the owner is tall enough not to require this 
 assistance. Two straps are so fixed that they 
 give the foot a good grip, very much as in the 
 classic sandal. 
 
 The tahi is a canvas sock, digitated like a one- 
 fingered glove, and allows the strap to pass 
 between the big and second toes. Some getas 
 have a leather covering for the toes, and are ordy 
 worn in wet weather. The well-to-do have soles 
 of prettily-plaited straw, and have red silk cover- 
 ings to the straps, while the soles of the poorer 
 folk have nothing between the hard clog and 
 their socks. The construction is also modified 
 to suit a short or long journey. Where a long 
 distance has to be walked, the slips of wood 
 which raise the clog are replaced by short thick 
 clumps. 
 
 I discovered later that fashion plays its part 
 here as well as in other articles of apparel. The 
 Kyoto geisha would not be seen cluttering about 
 the streets in similar ones to those her sisters 
 wear in Tokyo, and vice versa. 
 
 \^dlile contemplating this footgear, my mind 
 reverted to a similar scene outside a shrine in 
 Upper Egypt, where such shoes of the faithful 
 as were not worth stealing were left. What a 
 
20 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 different people, and what different eonditions 
 of living they suggested ! Outside that shrine 
 the dusty slippers were only those of men ; here, 
 on the floor of the railway- earriage, the elogs of 
 men, women, and children lay as labels to a 
 strangely different-looking people, squatting in- 
 discriminately on the bench above. The un- 
 familiar language, instead of the Ai-abic which I 
 had been so long accustomed to hear ; the pleasant 
 warmth of the sun as it shone through the open 
 window, instead of bemg carefully shut out with 
 double blinds ; the absence of dust, and even 
 the mud on some of the clogs, all made me 
 realize how far the Somali, which we could still 
 see in Kobe Harbour, had brought us. If the 
 contrast inside the railway-carriage was striking, 
 how much greater was it in looking out ! Had 
 I come straight from England the green hill- 
 sides would have appeared natural enough, but 
 for a long time past I had been accustomed to 
 see no verdure except where the fertilizing waters 
 of the Nile reached during its flood. 
 
 We drew up at a station, the name of which 
 was given in English as well as in the quaint 
 Chinese characters. The traveller was informed 
 by a painted notice underneath that he was a 
 
KOBE 
 
 21 
 
 mile and a quarter from a plum garden ; other 
 places of interest were also given, such as the 
 tomb of some poet or the sacred shrine of a god. 
 Now what other people in the world would be 
 sufficiently interested in the beauty of the 
 blossoming plum-tree to make such a notice 
 opportune ? At other stations I saw directions 
 as to the distance of a cherry orchard, of a peony 
 garden, or of the tomb of a couple of young lovers 
 who had ended a hopeless attachment by dying 
 together. There were probably also advertise- 
 ments of soaps and pills, but they happily were 
 not translated into English, so might, as far as I 
 knew, have been Buddhist texts or quotations 
 from the poets anent the beauty of the sur- 
 rounding landscape. 
 
 As the line circled round the base of the hills, 
 the sea and the low-lying rice-fields got cut off' 
 from our view ; we were also rising considerably, 
 and on reaching Namaze, our last station, we 
 found ourselves in a beautiful valley. Rokkdzan 
 dominated the mountains lying between us and 
 Kobe. 
 
 Here we engaged rickshaws, under the fond 
 delusion that we should get over the six or seven 
 miles still to be traversed rather faster ; but as 
 
22 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 there was barely a level stretch of road the whole 
 way, we might have dispensed with these 
 carriages. There was a good deal of talk on the 
 part of the rickshaw-men before we started, and 
 from various signs I gathered that the one of our 
 friend of many inches wanted a second man to 
 help him up the steeper gradients. This was 
 agreed to, but as the sun got hotter and the 
 road steeper, the perspiring little kurumaya had 
 no heavier loads to draw up than our coats and 
 my few sketching materials. 
 
 It was a perfect day. A deep blue sky was 
 overhead, with sufficient clouds to cast line 
 shadows on the hills. A mist hung about the 
 lower part of the valley, gi^dng the hills an 
 appearance of height which in reality they do 
 not reach. Rokkozan had not yet lost its winter 
 covering of snow, and looked quite a respectable 
 mountain. The general aspect of the scenery 
 reminded me of some parts of the Pyrenees ; it 
 was in the detail where the difference lay : the 
 stone Buddha instead of the crucifix on the road- 
 side, thatched cottages instead of the gi’ey slates, 
 toy-like water-mills with overshot wheel fed 
 through a long bamboo, the scarlet torii at the 
 foot of a flight of stone steps leading to a Shinto 
 
KOBE 
 
 23 
 
 shrine hid in the clump of trees above, besides 
 plants, butterflies, and beetles such as I had 
 never seen in Europe. 
 
 These and many other things brought it home 
 to me how far I was from the South of France, 
 and yet farther from a little spot in Surrey of 
 which 1 hardly dared to think. That lump in 
 the throat which only the homesick know had 
 to be swallowed, for the best part of a year in 
 Japan still lay before me. On such a day as this 
 dismal thoughts are soon dispelled ; the more 
 rarefied air as we approached Arima, and the 
 delights of a country walk after the long con- 
 finement on ship-board, filled us with what the 
 French express so well, la joie de vivre. 
 
 The little town was much more picturesque 
 than I expected. Having heard it described as a 
 summer resort of the Kobe European residents, 
 I anticipated villas and hotels in keeping with 
 the plate-glass shop-fronts and counting-houses 
 of the settlement. There were villas and also 
 hotels, but they were all Japanese in outward 
 appearance. 
 
 A little country house built in the native style 
 can be run up at a quarter or less of the cost of 
 a European one of the same dimensions. This 
 
24 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 has saved many a pretty place from being spoilt, 
 for a Brixton villa here would look as much out 
 of place as a Japanese uchi would look in 
 Brixton. The name of the inn to which we had 
 been recommended had slipped our memories, 
 and each rickshaw- man had a different one 
 which he declared was the best ; this, we 
 knew, meant where he would get the best com- 
 mission. 
 
 A quaint little landlady, with three giggling 
 daughters, welcomed us to her hostelry. “ Euro- 
 pean food, no take off boots, speak Eengris.” I 
 fancy that the young naval officer wished to hear 
 how much “ Eengris ” the prettiest of the three 
 daughters could speak ; we therefore decided to 
 lunch here. The landlady had about exhausted 
 her stock of English in her opening speech, and 
 the daughters we found, on further acquaintance, 
 could only giggle in that language. We followed 
 one of these “ three little maids fmm school ” up 
 a steep flight of stairs. The giggling developed 
 into a peal of laughter when the man of many 
 inches bumped his head against the ceiling. I 
 had hardly finished laughing myself when my 
 cranium came in contact with something hard 
 overhead, and I did not think it at all funny ; 
 
KOBE 
 
 25 
 
 our tall friend did, however. So much depends 
 on the point of view. 
 
 The room into which we were shown was that 
 of any .Japanese yadoya, with matted floor, 
 paper slides, and shallow recess with the hanging 
 kakemono. A table and some chairs were the 
 only evidence of its being a foreign hotel. It 
 looked foreign enough to us, but not foreign in 
 the way our landlady intended it to look. As if 
 to prove what a European establishment it really 
 was, one of the little maids from school slid back 
 what we took for a wall, to allow us to admire 
 the bedroom beyond. An iron bedstead, about 
 half the length of our tall friend, stood here alone 
 on a large space of matting, vdth not a stick of 
 any other furniture to be seen. There was 
 something almost pathetic about this solitary 
 bedstead, and 1 was about to propose raising a 
 fund to allow us to add some article or other 
 just to keep it company, when a cackling and 
 fluttering of fowls diverted our attention. 
 
 Our lunch was apparently only being caught. 
 We none of us knew exactly how long it takes 
 to cook a fowl, but we agreed that it took an 
 appallingly long time. They hadn’t even suc- 
 ceeded in catching the lunch, and it was only 
 
26 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 when the three little maids joined forces that 
 they were able to drive one of the hens into an 
 outhouse, and the “ cawk, cawk, cawk ” which 
 followed revived our hopes. 
 
 To our surprise, lunch appeared within five 
 minutes, and though we had several dishes, there 
 was no fowl. Poached eggs formed a part of 
 the menu, and what connection there was 
 between these eggs and the disturbance in the 
 fowl-roost I was only to learn on another 
 occasion, when a hen-wife, being short of an egg, 
 assisted a dilatory hen in her “ accouchement ” 
 by a kind of massage. 
 
 This little imi seemed strange to me then, 
 but, compared with a genuine .Japanese yadoya 
 where no foreigners are expected, it was ordinary 
 enough. 
 
 Now for the cherry-blossom, the chief object 
 of this long excursion. 
 
 AVith a good deal of difficulty we got the 
 landlady to understand for what 1 was searching, 
 and one of her three daughters was sent with us 
 as a guide. At every turning I hoped to see 
 “ the dazzling mist of snowy blossoms clinging 
 like summer cloud-fleece about every branch and 
 twig,” as Lafcadio Hearn so prettily expresses it. 
 
CHKKKV TRIiKS AT AKIM A 
 
KOBE 
 
 27 
 
 The first cherry-trees which we found were 
 already getting into leaf, and a sickening feeling 
 that I had reached Japan too late got hold 
 of me. 
 
 The little maid beckoned to us to come on, 
 and after walking round to the north side of a 
 little knoll, we saw, to our delight, two graceful 
 little trees still in full bloom. They stood near 
 the foot of a flight of stone steps leading to a 
 Shinto shrine partly hid in a grove of evergreens. 
 The pinky-white blossom differs from that of 
 the edible cheiTy at home, being double and very 
 much thicker, and forms a more solid mass of 
 colour and light against the darker background. 
 
 I soon got to work, for there were but two or 
 three more hours of daylight left. I bid farewell 
 to my two companions, who were anxious to get 
 back to Kobe before sundown. 
 
 I sketched away like one all possessed. It 
 was a delight to dip my brush into colour again. 
 'I'he sight of the pigments put me in spirits. It 
 was like meeting old friends in a strange land. 
 The last time we had worked together they were 
 reproducing, as well as I could persuade them, 
 the barren cliffs which encircle Hatshepsu’s 
 shrine at 'fhebes. With what a different task 
 
28 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 they were to help me now ! Everything I saw 
 was waking up from its winter’s sleep — moss and 
 lichen vied with each other in covering the stone 
 balustrade and steps, which were the only things 
 which might have reminded me of the valley in 
 Upper Egypt I had so lately left. 
 
 The falling temperature as the afternoon 
 advanced accentuated the contrast, and obliged 
 me to content myself with a hasty record of 
 what is one of Japan’s chief attractions. I had 
 intended working on till dark, and spending the 
 night on the iron bedstead in the little inn ; but it 
 got so cold that I decided to get back to Kobe by a 
 short-cut, and I engaged a rickshaw to take me 
 the whole way. I settled my little account with 
 the landlady. It was perhaps excessive for what 
 the guidebook terms a semi-foreign hotel, but, 
 considering the trouble they must have had to get 
 European food at this time of the year, I thought 
 they had earned their money. A little deference 
 is always agreeable, but when the hostess and her 
 three daughters knelt, and brought their heads 
 down to the matting, I felt it verged on the 
 idolatrous. How was I to return such a saluta- 
 tion ? Should I meet them half-way, and go do^vn 
 on one knee ? I almost knew that excellent book 
 
KOBE 
 
 29 
 
 of Professor Chamberlain’s, “ Things Japanese,” 
 by heart, but could not recall what the correct 
 thing would now be to do ; yet, whatever it was 
 I did, it seemed to satisfy them, for smiles lit up 
 their faces when they bid me Sayonara. It is 
 a pretty-sounding farewell, and most Japanese 
 women have pretty voices. The hostess spoilt 
 the effect by firing off her remaining English 
 sentence — “ Come back, come back !” — which 
 reminded me of the noise a guinea-fowl makes. 
 
 The rickshaw-man evidently wanted to get 
 over the worst part of the run before darkness 
 set in. How he went down those steep hills and 
 turned sharp corners without the loss of a wheel 
 was a marvel. The most precipitous parts hap- 
 pened to be just at these turnings. 1 would grip 
 hold of the seat, determined that, if I were shot 
 over the edge of the road into the ravine below', 
 I would have the rickshaw with me so as to break 
 the fall. I was anxious at the start to get back 
 to the Kobe Hotel while there was still a chance 
 of getting some dinner ; now I was pretending 
 that there was not the least hurry ; but the more 
 1 pretended, the faster the little beggar ran. 1 
 was alternately hot and cold at the dangerous 
 parts, and when these were past I felt nothing 
 
30 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 but the increasing cold. I was thankful when a 
 slight uphill stretch of road gave me an excuse to 
 walk, and not being then in danger of life and 
 limb, I could admire the beautiful scenery. 
 
 Rokkozan still caught the light of the setting 
 sun, and the valley lay in a darkening shadow, 
 lightened here and there by the mist which hung 
 about the foot of the hills. Everything seemed 
 soaked in beautiful colour. Men and women 
 carrying huge bundles of brushwood and fodder 
 took fantastic shapes as they and their burdens 
 were outlined against the haze. 
 
 ^¥e passed through a long straggling village, 
 the houses thickly thatched, like those of some 
 hamlet in Dorsetshire ; below the eaves the simi- 
 larity ceased, for when the paper slides are closed, 
 and when they are lighted from within, they 
 resemble some queer-shaped Chinese lantern. 
 Shadows of people having their evening meal 
 fell black on the slides, and curious are the effects 
 one sees at lighting-up time in a Japanese village. 
 A figure seated at a certain angle from the lamp 
 may appear to have a nose a foot long, and to be 
 eating something twice as long as himself. A 
 seated black giant appears to be talking to a 
 woman not as big as his head, should she be 
 
KOBE 
 
 31 
 
 sitting nearer the light. In warmer weather the 
 sho;i are only closed when the bedding is spread 
 on the matting. The bath, the e\'ening meal, and 
 family gathering — all these take place in view of 
 the passer-by. 
 
 The remaining part of the ride was done in the 
 dark. A large paper lantern was hung from one 
 of the shafts of the rickshaw, and with this dim 
 light the little man ran me into Kobe. We had 
 come about fifteen miles in little over a couple 
 of hours. I gave him a trifle over the proper fare, 
 and expected to hear, as in Egypt, a clamouring 
 for more, but was agreeably disappointed — a low 
 bow, a wave from his mushroom'shaped hat, and 
 I saw him no more. 
 
CHAPTER 111 
 
 KOBE {continued) 
 
 HE comforts of a luxuriously fitted up 
 
 European hotel were very appreciable after 
 a tiring day and my cold ride. A hot bath, an 
 excellent dinner, and a roaring fire in an open 
 grate were certainly not things to grumble at ; 
 but 1 had hardly digested my dinner and got 
 thoroughly thawed when the feeling got hold 
 of me that it was not for this that 1 had come 
 so far. These were not the surroundings in 
 ivhich 1 felt 1 could paint and write about Japan. 
 The people here were either tourists, who stayed 
 a couple of days at the most, and knew as little 
 about Japan as 1 did, or they were business men 
 from the settlement who took their meals here. 
 To get the latter to talk about things Japanese, 
 except to abuse them, seemed impossible. The 
 subject which 1 had seen the day before was the 
 only inducement to make me stay, and 1 decided 
 to move on to Kyoto as soon as 1 had finished a 
 
 32 
 
KOBE 
 
 33 
 
 drawing of the patch of wistaria which came so 
 well with the stone torii of Ikuta temple. 
 
 1 had heard of the inquisitiveness of the 
 Japanese, and had a good sample of it as soon as 
 I set up my easel. I chose an inconspicuous 
 place, and got my man to place the rickshaw so 
 as to hide me a little — a vain precaution. 
 
 Someone sees you, must have a look at what 
 you are doing, can’t make head nor tail of it, 
 beckons to a friend to enlighten him ; friend, not 
 quite sure, calls another friend, who thinks you 
 must be trying to draw so-and-so. As neither 
 of the three are quite sure, they decide to remain 
 till they have found out. Others come to see 
 what they are looking at. You are then fairly 
 well hidden, but not the onlookers, who serve as 
 call-birds. Your subject is soon completely 
 blocked out. You then place your started 
 sketch with its face to the wall, and possibly a 
 few take the hint and go. Others seem fascinated 
 with the back of the drawing, and can’t take their 
 eyes off' it. Not being able to work, you light a 
 cigarette ; the scratch of the match breaks the 
 fascination of the back of the drawing, and all 
 eyes are on your cigarette. The rickshaw-man, 
 whom you have engaged for the whole morning 
 3 
 
34 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 in the hopes that he would keep off the people, 
 seems to be the only person who is not inquisitive, 
 for he is basking in the sun on the other side 
 of the square. Fortunately you are taller than 
 your crowd, so there is hope that your signals of 
 distress may be seen by the rickshaw-man. Crowd 
 is then intently interested in the signals, has 
 evidently never seen that class of signal before. 
 When you succeed in catching your man’s eye, 
 he will run across, make his bow, and want to 
 know what his honourable fare may deign to 
 order him. Y ou gradually make him understand 
 that you want to see the object you are painting, 
 and that you can’t see through people four rows 
 deep. He will then bow to these gaping loafers, 
 and with a smile that he can wear for half an 
 hour at a time he will ask them to condescend 
 to stand aside. Those who feel that they have 
 stared as long as they wish move off, while the 
 others, who want to see me at work, take up 
 positions on each side. 
 
 The sun, which gave the chief charm to the 
 subject, now feels it is his turn to annoy, though 
 you may have started work under a cloudless 
 sky — he has called up a great cumulus to block 
 out his rays for the rest of the morning. 
 
KOBE 
 
 35 
 
 When your effect is what you want, and you 
 have decided how you will treat it, your work 
 soon absorbs all your attention, and as long as 
 no one stands in your light you may be un- 
 conscious of the starers on each side of you ; but, 
 should your effect change, and you are con- 
 sequently in doubt how to proceed, all the 
 philosophy you may bring to bear will not allay 
 the sense of irritation these onlookers cause. 
 
 I have done street-painting in many different 
 countries, and some of these annoyances are 
 common to all. The Japanese are not intention- 
 ally rude, for when they are asked to stand 
 aside they always do so. Inquisitiveness pushed 
 to this extreme is not, I believe, considered bad 
 manners. Professor Chamberlain calls it “ a 
 kindly interest.” The horse-play of the yahoos, 
 who usually hang about any centre, is absent 
 here, except on some special holiday, when sake 
 has been freely indulged in. The silence of my 
 spectators also struck me. People here, if they 
 are not acquainted, do not get into conversation 
 with each other as readily as in Continental 
 Europe. A student who can speak a few words 
 I of English may air it with a foreigner, and ply 
 him with a hundred questions, but he will sit 
 
36 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 silent next to one of his compatriots during a 
 whole journey, unless there be some very valid 
 reason for speaking. The stupid inquisitiveness 
 of the lower orders becomes a thirst for know- 
 ledge amongst the student class, and questioning 
 may take the place of staring. 
 
 The impressionistic sketch I had intended 
 making did not come off. The subject lost so 
 much without the sunlight that I had done little 
 more than draw it in, hoping for better luck the 
 next morning. 
 
 At lunch (which, by the way, we Avill call 
 “ tiffin ” in future, for I have heard it called by 
 no other name this side of Ceylon) I heard that 
 a private garden was thrown open to the public, 
 to allow it to inspect the peonies. Now I was 
 nearly as anxious to get a drawing of peonies as 
 I was of the cherry-blossom, so I was again soon 
 seated behind my rickshaw-man, “No 5.” 
 
 The garden lay on the further side of Hyogo, 
 the older town which joins Kobe. After crossing 
 the foreign settlement we got into the native 
 part of Kobe, which is much larger than I had 
 anticipated. The change is sudden and striking. 
 In less than a couple of hundred yards we 
 have been carried from the West to the Far 
 
AN AZAI,EA GARDEN 
 
 
1ft 
 
 St 
 
 ,e,- 
 
 
KOBE 
 
 37 
 
 East, Some European goods may be displayed 
 in a shop, but do not appear more ineongruous 
 than do Japaneseries seen in a shop-window in 
 England. The shop itself is not European, and 
 the sewing-machines or phonographs seem to 
 lose their Western obtrusiveness in their Oriental 
 setting. Telegraph-poles are in such quantities 
 that it seems as if they must have originated in 
 this country, with climate and soil favourable to 
 their growth. 
 
 We cross the Ai-oi Bridge, have a glance 
 1 down the canal, packed with uripainted junks, 
 and are in Hyogo. INIy rickshaw-man trots on, 
 giving his face and neck an occasional mop with 
 i a little blue towel. He pulls off* his coat and 
 I throws it over one of the shafts without stopping, 
 i calls out Hi !” when he is uncomfortably near 
 bowling over an old woman or crushing an 
 infant. No one seems to mind his speed, and 
 when he nearly collides with another rickshaw at 
 a crossing, he will draw up sharp, smile at the 
 other man, and trot on. Though we are in the 
 main street of Hyogo, I hardly see a house of 
 j more than one story above the ground floor, and 
 I not even many as high as that. Fish-shops 
 I abound, as everywhere in .Japan. The board with 
 
38 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 the name of the proprietor and his calling seems 
 out of all proportion to the importance of his 
 establishment, like the large flowing signatures 
 seen on the cheap water-colour drawings in 
 Venice. The picturesque Chinese characters, 
 swept on with a full brush, are such a feature 
 that one readily pardons this little bit of vanity. 
 On leaving the town there is no need to ask where 
 the garden of Sugimoto is, for other rickshaw^s 
 and groups of pedestrians are w'^ending their w^ay 
 to a villa crowning a low-lying hill a little way 
 off*. On reaching the entrance, I see so many 
 people that I feel that my chances of being able 
 to work there are small. I leave my traps in 
 the rickshaw and enter. 
 
 A winding path through evergreens leads to 
 higher and more level ground. Notices are 
 posted up at most of the turnings, but, as I 
 cannot read them, I follow a group of holiday- 
 makers. I see them stop at the top of the path, 
 and an “ Ooh !” from the men and “ Kirei, kirei !” 
 from the women make me hurry to catch them up. 
 
 It was a wonderful sight I saw’^ — wdiite, yellow, 
 terra-cotta, and pink-coloured azaleas in wild 
 luxuriance fringed a small serpentine lake. Stone 
 lanterns, miniature bridges, and a pagoda are all 
 
KOBE 
 
 39 
 
 carefully placed where they best suit the 
 composition, and wandering about in paths, 
 partly hid by the flowering shrubs, are women 
 and children in various coloured kimonos, and 
 carrying their quaint little umbrellas. One or 
 two stood on a bridge and were throwing crumbs 
 to the goldfish, and a spray of golden azaleas 
 stood out against the purple reflection of the 
 women’s garments. Large mossy stones made 
 little islands and resting-places for the water-fowl. 
 
 Had the Princess now taken her seat on the 
 bridge, and the Prince disclosed himself from 
 amongst the azalea-bushes, and had the fairy, 
 with an electric light for a star, risen from the 
 water to bless the young couple before the 
 curtain was rung down, I should have felt no 
 surprise. For the time being 1 forgot of what 
 1 was in search, and seemed to be taking part 
 in a pantomime with a willow-pattern kind of 
 traiisfonnation-scene. I wish I had forgotten 
 the peonies altogether that afternoon, and had 
 been able to give myself up entirely to the 
 enjoyment of this novel garden-party. 
 
 People came flocking in, and as the paths were 
 narrow, I had to follow the crowd. T o sit down 
 and paint was out of the question. 1 wandered 
 
40 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 along winding paths, crossed and recrossed little 
 bridges, got into a maze of azalea-bushes, and 
 then became aware that I was alone. A notiee 
 I had seen must have been to say that the publie 
 were not admitted here, but as all notices looked 
 to me like labels on packets of China tea, I had 
 disregarded it. A gardener appeared, presumably 
 to turn me out, and I wondered how .Japanese 
 gardeners usually treat trespassers. With a 
 smile he beckoned me to follow him, and he 
 took me up to the house. Three figures seated 
 in a room opening on to the garden soon 
 riveted my attention. They were clad in 
 armour, and their faces were hid by grinnmg 
 iron masks. Was I to be tried by these queer- 
 looking eustomers ? Is boiling oil meted out 
 to a trespasser, or is he allowed to perform 
 harakiri ? I contemplated a bolt, getting through 
 the maze by clearing the azalea -bushes, and 
 making a bee-line for where I thought my 
 rickshaw was. I had one more look before 
 taking so extreme a measure, and I then 
 perceived that my three inquisitors were no 
 more alarming than three dummies at Madame 
 Tussaud’s. 
 
 The gardener said something with Sugamoto 
 
KOBE 
 
 41 
 
 in it, fi’om which I gathered that it was the 
 armour worn by the Samurai forbears of that 
 gentleman. 
 
 We skirted round the house, and got into 
 the grounds of a little Buddhist temple. My 
 conductor made a bow to a priest who was 
 there, and pointed to me. Taking this for a 
 kind of an introduction, I saluted the priest, 
 and said that I was sorry I could not speak 
 his language. I found, to my surprise, that he 
 ' could speak a little of mine. He gave me some 
 information about the temple, and showed me 
 some parts of the grounds 1 had not seen ; told 
 ' me that I was welcome to paint there as much 
 as I liked, but that I could not paint peonies, 
 as there were none. I bid farewell to the kindly 
 priest, was taken a short-cut towards the entrance 
 where “ No. 5 ” awaited me, and I offered the 
 gardener a gratuity which he would not take, 
 
 I though acknowledging my good intentions and 
 ! thanking me profusely. 
 
 After being so long in the land of “ baksheesh,” 
 1 was a good deal surprised at this latter incident, 
 and mentioned it to the manager of the hotel. 
 
 I I had offered this man what would be at least 
 a day’s wage, but I was told that in a case like 
 
42 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 that it would have reflected on his master’s 
 hospitality had any of his dependents taken 
 money from any of the visitors. 
 
 I was more fortunate the following day with 
 my work. “ No. 5 ” was properly instructed what 
 to do, and he somehow managed to keep the 
 crowd from blocking out my view. Encouraged 
 by this, I started a second drawing, in the after- 
 noon, of a Shinto shrine, which was decked out 
 with lanterns and flags for its annual festival. 
 
 It was a modest little temple, but, backed up 
 and partly hid by the trees, it made a charming 
 setting for its temporary adornments and for the 
 people who came to visit it. The subject was so 
 full of colour, and it looked so typically Japanese, 
 that I could not resist it, even though it delayed 
 my getting to Kyoto. I felt a little uncertain 
 as to whether I should be allowed to set up 
 my easel in the sacred precincts, remembering 
 the difficulties I had gone through in Moham- 
 medan countries. No one, however, seemed to 
 object, and I was evidently looked on as a kind 
 of side-show to the main performance. 
 
 “No. 5 ” had his work cut out this time, till a 
 sudden inspiration made his job a sinecure and 
 my work a possibility. 
 
I 
 
 l llK SHRINE Ol' INARI AT KOBE 
 
KOBE 
 
 43 
 
 He procured a few yards of string, and tied 
 one end to a balustrade near me, and the other 
 end to a tree, and, though a child could have 
 snapped this string, it was enough to keep the 
 people at a respectful distance. Seats were 
 reserved on the balustrade by small boys, and 
 every point of vantage had its spectator, but no 
 one ventured within the little space that “ No. 5 ” 
 had roped off. The goddess Inari, in whose 
 honour the shrine was erected, may have felt 
 jealous, but I can assure her that I did not wish 
 to share the attention of her devotees. She is 
 the goddess of rice, and a very popular goddess 
 she is. One meets her shrine everywhere, and 
 it is always recognizable by the images of foxes, 
 who serve as her messengers. 
 
 The Shinto priest and those that serve him 
 alone enter the shrine ; the worshippers stand 
 outside, and, in the case of most, the devotions 
 consist of little more than rattling a rope against 
 a brass gong which hangs from the lintel over 
 the entrance, the clapping of hands four times, 
 and the throwing of a copper coin into a huge 
 open coffer for its reception. Occasionally I saw 
 someone kneeling or standing in a devotional 
 attitude, but only for a minute or two, and then 
 
44 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 he or she would proceed to inspect the little 
 stalls of sweets and toys that generally line each 
 side of the temple-approach when a festival is 
 on. These little shops, rigged up with bamboo 
 poles and matting, backed up with great stone 
 lanterns and the pines, the quaint-looking wares 
 and the groups of women and children in their 
 holiday kimonos, make a pretty picture. But I 
 felt sure that this and much more were to be 
 found at Kyoto. Hearing at the hotel that 
 there was to be the annual historical procession 
 to Shimogamo at Kyoto the next morning, I 
 packed up my traps at once, caught an early 
 train the following day, and by 10 a. m. I found 
 myself in Japan’s ancient capital. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 KYOTO 
 
 OJME forty minutes in a rickshaw took me 
 
 from the station up to the Yaami Hotel. 
 We passed through an interminable number of 
 streets, all similar in character to those I had 
 seen at Hyogo and Shimonoseki — rows of low, 
 chimneyless houses, wooden-framed, with grey- 
 tiled roofs — shops of sorts, all of them — and the 
 monotony broken here and there by the approach 
 of a temple or shrine. It was only when we 
 crossed the Kamogawa, the river which divides 
 Kyoto into two unequal parts, that I was able 
 to realize that I was in a great city. A long 
 stretch of water, spanned hy a number of wooden 
 bridges, leads the eye through a maze of wooden 
 structures far away to the densely-wooded hills 
 which form an amphitheatre around three parts 
 of the town. Seen in great masses, this un- 
 painted woodwork has a ramshackly appearance, 
 picturesque in its way, but with none of that 
 
 45 
 
46 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 look of solid durability we associate with an old 
 and stately capital. Its chief beauties are not to 
 be found in the habitations of men, but in those of 
 the gods they worship, and in the sacred groves 
 which surround them. 
 
 Crossing the bridge, we dived into another 
 series of narrow, unostentatious streets, till we 
 reached the precincts of Gion Temple. Between 
 the giant stems of the cryptomerias and ever- 
 green oaks, I caught glimpses of scarlet pillars, 
 queer-looking gods, and huge stone lanterns. 
 The stone steps prevented the rickshaw from 
 taking the avenue which leads through this 
 enclosure, and we had to tramp up the steepish 
 road which skirts round a part of it. These 
 glimpses of things beautiful and quaint excited 
 my curiosity enormously. I felt as one en- 
 hungered and fed with an occasional lollipop. 
 Plenty of time lay before me, and 1 consoled 
 myself that I should be able to satisfy my 
 appetite to the full. The great procession and 
 religious dance, which I had for the moment 
 forgotten — was I not to see that, as soon as the 
 commonplace business of engaging a room at the 
 hotel was over ? 
 
 At the top of Maruyama Park, in which we 
 
KYOTO 
 
 47 
 
 now were, stood the Yaami. I engaged a room, 
 and told someone who could speak a little 
 English to direct the rickshaw-man to the 
 Shimogamo Temple. Sho was the name of the 
 little creature, with the form of a man and the 
 I attributes of a pony, who so far had not spoken 
 ! a word except the “ Hi !” to help to stave off a 
 I collision. “ Shimogamo tempre one hour,” he 
 ' now said, mopping his forehead in anticipation of 
 a run in the sun. “ I see you speak English,” I 
 I said, feeling a certain protection which the sense 
 of being able to make your wants known gives. 
 “ I shpeak rittre Eengris,” was the proud answer, 
 accompanied by the jerky bow, and a smile which 
 I should have got to miss by now had he 
 forgotten it. 
 
 There was no time for further conversation. 
 The man in Sho was now lost in the pony. The 
 ' strides he took going downhill seemed quite out 
 ' of proportion to the length of his legs. W e spun 
 down the road which skirts the Gion Temple 
 enclosure ; the glimpses of the carven images and 
 stone lanterns shot past us, and I saw them as a 
 demon motorist sees the charms of an English 
 I country village. Sho partly disrobed, and Sho 
 mopped his brow, but Sho never relaxed his speed. 
 
48 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 We dived into more narrow streets, recrossed the 
 river, and sped along the quay for a mile or more. j 
 
 It was at first exhilarating, and I felt like the j 
 live portion of a fire-brigade, and that I should j 
 have been yelling to clear the traffic, but after a i 
 while some of that feeling got hold of me of 
 being thought an “ ’Arry” by the pedestrians, and 
 awakened painful memories of sitting behind an 
 enthusiastic motorist, and watching the trail of 
 dust behind me greying trim lawns and entering 
 the open casements of neat little roadside \’illas. 
 
 We were evidently nearing the festivities, for 
 the groups of people walking our way thickened. 
 
 I called out to Sho to go slower, when he stopped 
 short, and I was nearly shot out over his head. 
 
 Sho could “ shpeak a rittre Eengris,” but it was a 
 very little he could understand. That anyone 
 should wish to go slowly when he could go j 
 quickly for the same money was more than his 
 pony-like brain could take in. He left me in his 
 rickshaw in the middle of the quay, and looked 
 into one or two of the shops which faced the 
 river. Was he seeking an interpreter? No, for 
 he asked no questions. I had not asked for 
 clogs, so why did he pry about that geta shop ? 
 
 I had not mentioned seaweed, dried octopus, or 
 
KYOTO 
 
 49 
 
 any of the delicacies in the next shop which fixed 
 his attention, Japanese umbrellas, paper lanterns, 
 birdcages, and fans were displayed in the adjoin- 
 ing establishment. That’s it ; he must have 
 noticed that I hadn’t a fan ! I looked around 
 me, and saw that all had fans except myself and 
 some of the women, I don’t like to be thought 
 effeminate, so I decided to have one. He has 
 made up his mind now which colour will suit my 
 complexion best. He slips into the passage, 
 catches hold of a long ladle hanging on the side 
 of a tub, dips it in, and takes a drink. He 
 leaves the shop without as much as making an 
 offer for a fan, starts his smile, makes his bow, 
 and gets between the shafts. 
 
 It was about time, for I was baking in the sun, 
 while Sho was merely taking a rest and quench- 
 ing his thirst. He must have understood me, 
 after all, for his speed now was about as ex- 
 hilarating as that of a funeral procession, Tlie 
 one hour he had said at the start was now up, 
 and a distant bridge that a dense crowd was 
 crossing showed that we were still a good way 
 off what 1 had come to see, I pointed this out 
 to Sho, and he started at a trot again till the 
 thickening crowd of pedestrians made anything 
 4 
 
50 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 but a walking pace impossible. Shimogamo is 
 approached in the shade of a grand avenue of 
 trees. Stalls, with sweets, toys, fans, and 
 mementoes of the festival, had been rigged up at 
 intervals. As we got nearer the temple we 
 found the two sides of the road roped off, and a 
 dense crowd were awaiting the procession. A 
 fee of ten sen had kept most of the people out of 
 the precincts. At the entrance to the latter I left 
 Sho, took a tieket, and went in. The chief hotels 
 had got platforms with seats, and I had hardly 
 squeezed myself into one of these when the 
 performance began. 
 
 I gathered that it was the kagura dance, 
 though it was hard to imagine anything less like 
 what the word dance eonveys to our mind. It 
 was more a religious drama aeted in dumb-show. 
 What it all meant is only known to the mitiated. 
 The music which occasionally accompanied the 
 acting was as strange and weird as the spectacle. 
 But for the Europeans and Americans who were 
 sitting near me, I might have imagined myself 
 assisting at some great function in the planet 
 Mars. 
 
 As a mass of colour the sight was dazzling. 
 The temple buildings, which surround three sides 
 
KYOTO 
 
 51 
 
 of a vast enclosure, had been lately restored, and 
 time had done nothing to dim the brilliance of 
 the scarlet and gold which covers the mass of 
 woodwork. On our left dark gi*een cryptomerias, 
 ilexes and deciduous trees, then in their spring 
 foliage, rose up above the roofs, and cast deep 
 purple shadows on the lead-coloured tiles. On 
 turning our backs to the sun, all save the warm 
 shadows in the colonnades was light against the 
 deep blue sky. 
 
 Such a gorgeous setting might easily have 
 dimmed the bright attire of the performers, but 
 the various textures of the material, the beautiful 
 designs, and here and there a judicious use of 
 black, would have made them hold their own had 
 they been simply posing as a tableau, vivant. An 
 occasional strain of music from queer-shaped 
 wind instruments made the silence of the 
 performance all the more impressive. 
 
 From various parts of the enclosure the actors 
 moved slowly towards the bag^u'a stage, which is 
 1 a feature in most Shinto temples. The musicians 
 and the men in armour formed groups around 
 this, while about eight of the company ascended 
 the steps to the platform. They were all men, 
 i and as far as I can remember, no women took 
 
52 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 part in the spectacle. Their silk robes trailed 
 several feet behind them. Special care had been 
 taken that the costumes should make a rich and 
 harmonious mass of colour. As they moved 
 from one posture to another, crossed and re- 
 crossed, every conceivable combination of colour 
 presented itself, and the quantities of each hue 
 were so adjusted that a discordant note was 
 never struck. 
 
 The semi-religious, semi-historical significance 
 of the various actions of the performers was lost 
 on the foreign spectators who sat around me, as 
 well as on myself ; one by one they quietly 
 slipped off, and when, finally, the actors descended 
 from the stage, I found myself alone in my little 
 auditorium. My watch told me that it was long 
 past the luncheon hour, and I had seen so much 
 to interest and to excite that it now seemed a 
 week since the hasty breakfast I had made at 
 six o’clock at the Kobe Hotel. I soon found 
 Sho, made no attempt this time to relax his 
 speed, and reached the Yaami Hotel while there 
 was yet time to get something to eat. 
 
 I could not get to work that day, so decided to 
 see all I could before getting into harness again. 
 
 A deep, sonorous “ boom,” that seemed to 
 
KYOTO 
 
 53 
 
 come from the bowels of the earth, now startled 
 any decision I had come to out of me. The 
 slow vibrations shook the hotel, and had scarcely 
 died away when the sound repeated itself. I 
 had read of the great bell at Chion-in, and was 
 1 aware that the temple is not far from the Y aami ; 
 but the bell I heard must surely be kept in the 
 hotel cellar. I strolled round the veranda, and 
 
 I 
 
 saw, some two or three hundred yards before 
 me, the huge roof of this Buddhist shrine, backed 
 up and partly liid by a fine mass of foliage, 
 j Gion must wait ; Chion-in was my nearest 
 neighbour, and should have the first visit. Sho 
 hung about the hotel entrance ; he ran for his 
 conveyance, and I waved him off — rickshaws were 
 no use to mount a great flight of stone steps. 
 However, if he chose to follow me, that was his 
 lookout. 
 
 After ascending the stone steps we reached a 
 grove of evergreens, and advancing through this, 
 we soon arrived at a clearance, where an open 
 wooden structure stood with a tiled roof. From 
 the central beam hung the great bell that had 
 startled me some ten minutes previously. A 
 I beam hanging horizontally from the roof is used 
 as a battering-ram ; two men swing this back- 
 
54 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 wards and forwards till it has gained sufficient 
 impetus, and then they let it crash against the 
 mass of metal. Where the ram’s head is usually 
 depicted I noticed a bronze chrysanthemum. 
 Referring to Murray, you will find that it is one 
 of the four largest bells in Japan, weighs nearly 
 74 tons, is 10 feet 8 inches in height, and 9 feet 
 in diameter. 
 
 As the crow flies, the bell hangs little more 
 than 100 yards from my bedroom, and, impressive 
 as its voice is, I hoped that it took a thorough 
 rest during the hours of the night. 
 
 From the bell-tower a long flight of steps leads 
 down to the temple enclosure. We look domi on 
 the honden or main shrine, also on the massive 
 gateway, and to our right we see a part of the 
 library and the palace. The spaces between these 
 structures are decorated with stone and bronze 
 lanterns and lotus-shaped water - basins. An 
 avenue of cherry-trees connects the gateway with 
 the different buildings. 
 
 The huge honden was closed for repairs, 
 but the Shuei-d5 was open to visitors. Here 
 we take off our boots, and are led by a priest 
 through a matted comdor into a superbly 
 beautiful chapel. 
 
APPROACH TO A RUSTIC SHRINE 
 
KYOTO 
 
 55 
 
 Two altars stand here, with images of Amida 
 and Kwannon ; one the work of the famous 
 sculptor Eshin, who dates from the tenth century. 
 It was not these which so much impressed me as 
 the effect of colour of the whole interior. The 
 warm light as it passes through the shoji is 
 reflected on black and gold lacquer. The 
 ornamentation is simple, so as not to detract 
 from the gilt and bronze images, which are the 
 chief feature, yet it is sufficiently rich to make a 
 proper setting for these works of art. The detail 
 has escaped me. The subdued harmony will 
 long outlive in my memory the blaze of colour 
 1 had witnessed in the morning. 
 
 My cabin companion, the man of many inches, 
 walked in while I was there. We greeted 
 each other in whispers. He seemed equally 
 impressed with the awe and beauty of the place. 
 ^ Ye silently followed the benevolent-looking priest 
 through some passages which led into the palace. 
 
 The apartments were built by lemitsu early in 
 the seventeenth century, and are chiefly inter- 
 esting for the number of paintings of the Kano 
 school. The easel picture, as we understand it, 
 does not exist here. The artist was evidently 
 responsible for the whole decoration of the room, 
 
56 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 though his chief work is on the sliding-screens 
 which separate one apartment from another. 
 
 Cranes and pine-trees form the motive of two 
 rooms, the bamboo and plum-tree that of another. 
 The outlines, which are realistic, are boldly swept 
 in, but the tones are kept flat and decoratively con- 
 ventional. Some are still in good preserv ation, 
 but the celebrated sparrows by Nobumassa are 
 almost gone. The guide will tell you that they 
 were so lifehke that they flew away. The same 
 artist’s chrysanthemums, which form the decora- 
 tion of another room, have fortunately not faded, 
 nor have they been picked. 
 
 A\^hile passing from room to room we caught 
 glimpses of a lovely garden surrounding two 
 sides of the palace. It composed so well from 
 one point of view that I forgot my fatigue and 
 wanted to paint it at once. The priest kindly 
 said I might do so, and as there were stiU a 
 couple hours of daylight, I sent Sho back to the 
 liotel to get my materials. 
 
 Here was an ideal Japanese garden, and no 
 crowd to bother me while at work. The early 
 azaleas w'^ere nearly over, but there were still 
 enough to show what they had been. This 
 immediate hurry to get at them may surprise 
 
KYOTO 
 
 57 
 
 the reader. But I had come to Japan to illustrate 
 a book on Japanese gardens as well as this one. 
 The azalea, peony, and wistaria follow so quickly 
 on the cherry that there is hardly breathing- 
 space between them. Except when the azaleas 
 are in bloom, the Japanese garden proper is a 
 flowerless one. JMixed flower - borders and 
 bedding-out plants are rarely seen. The chry- 
 santhemums and peonies are grown in places set 
 apart for them, and the trailing wistaria is mostly 
 found in tea-gardens or occasionally in a public 
 park. Much as the Japanese delight in flowers, 
 they do not have a profusion around their homes 
 as we do in Europe, but they will make excursions 
 to see their favourites in some place set aside and 
 noted for them. Now, in this particular instance, 
 when the azaleas are over, the bushes will be 
 trimmed into shapes, and a varied mass of greenery 
 will be the outlook from the palace rooms for 
 the rest of the year. A few branches of maple 
 may, in autumn, give a touch of crimson, but 
 care would be taken not to have enough 
 deciduous trees to interfere with the growth of 
 tlie evergreens. As this subject will be fully 
 treated in another book, I must not encroacli 
 further on it here. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 KYOTO ( continued ) 
 
 HE modest hotel where I had now taken up 
 
 my quarters suited me exactly. It stood on 
 high ground, and commanded a fine view of the 
 city to the west, while to the north and south, 
 on the slopes of the range of hills behind it, were 
 a series of temples with beautifully laid out 
 grounds and magnificent trees. The food and 
 furniture were European, but the house and 
 surroundings were Japanese. Knowing nothing 
 of the language, I did not yet venture on 
 a purely Japanese inn, while here sufficient 
 English was spoken to enable me to make my 
 wants known. 
 
 During the two and a half months I stayed 
 here I was mostly at work on gardens and 
 flowering shrubs generally. I soon made the 
 acquaintance of one or two Japanese, and got 
 introductions to the owners of the best gardens. 
 I was received everywhere with the greatest 
 
 58 
 
KYOTO 
 
 59 
 
 courtesy. In one instance, where I had to go 
 a long distance, I used to take my lunch with 
 me, but each time at midday fruit and eggs and 
 tea were brought out to the little summer-house 
 near which I was at work. 
 
 Sho had a gi’eat time — could sleep nearly all 
 the day, and could gobble up all my superfluous 
 lunch during his waking hours. 
 
 The rainy season, which begins early in .Tune 
 and lasts about six weeks, did not interfere with 
 my work as much as I feared it would. The 
 gardens are so arranged that the best ^dews are 
 generally obtained from the house or from some 
 structure where I could sit in shelter. 
 
 I made the acquaintance of a .Japanese artist 
 here of considerable repute — Mr. Kanocogni. 
 He had studied three years in Paris, and spoke 
 French very well. I saw a good deal of him, 
 and he put me in the way of seeing things which 
 a European visitor would rarely have a chance 
 of seeing. 
 
 The painters in .Japan are divided into two 
 classes — those practising the modern art of 
 Europe, and those who still cling to the tradi- 
 tions of the .Japanese schools. The work of 
 the latter naturally interested me the most, for. 
 
60 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 though some of the work of the former is very 
 good, still, I have seen better at home. 
 
 Mr. Kanocogni is the painting professor at the 
 Kyoto University, and he asked if he could bring 
 some of his pupils to see my water-colours. 
 They were as interested in seeing how I treated 
 the subjects familiar to them as we should be 
 to see how a Japanese artist would treat English 
 ones. The show pupil, Shiba by name, had been 
 asked to bring a portfolio of his studies with him. 
 Though the youth’s ambition was to go to Europe 
 and study there, I was glad to see that he was 
 learning to draw as only Japanese can. The 
 rapid sketches of people in action, of birds, trees, 
 and bits of landscape, were done in a suggestive 
 outline with the long brush and Indian ink which 
 takes the place of the pen in this country. They 
 were very good, and showed how the essentials 
 only had caught his attention. 
 
 I did not like to advise him to go to Paris. 
 He had the beginnings of an art which is de- 
 lightful, and suitable to adorn the dwelling- 
 places here, whereas to paint second-rate Salon 
 pictures, looking quite out of place in a Japanese 
 room, seemed a very doubtful acquirement. 
 
 One can understand that, in a country which 
 
KYOTO 
 
 61 
 
 is waking up to Western civilization, the artists 
 will not rest content to follow on in the old 
 traditions. They are justly proud of their native 
 art, but they feel that is less complete than that 
 of Europe, with its fuller knowledge of light and 
 shade and perspective. They are, however, such 
 an artistic people that it would not be surprising 
 if they get beyond the second-rate, and produce 
 modern pictures which could hold their own 
 either in Paris or anywhere else. Unless they 
 have some private means, I don’t see how they 
 are to live in the meantime. The art patron 
 here would never hang an oil-painting with its 
 heavy framing on one of his wooden partitions, 
 and the way the last big earthquake tuml)led 
 about the solidly-built houses does not encourage 
 him to adopt W esterii domestic arcliitecture. 
 Some artists are compromising, but so far it is 
 not entirely satisfactory. 
 
 Mr. Kanocogni, who dined with me that even- 
 ing, asked me if I would care to dine a la 
 Japanaise with him a day or two later. I was 
 delighted, not only to have his company, but 
 to see how native fare agreed with me, as I hoped 
 to be able to stay in purely Japanese inns after 
 leaving my present one. He was not very 
 
62 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 encouraging as to this, for he told me that he 
 had lately dined a Portuguese acquaintance of 
 his, and that his guest was ill the next day. 
 When he got over his indisposition, he in his 
 turn dined his host and his wife at the European 
 hotel, and the lady was equally upset by the 
 Western food. 
 
 The European had had his revenge, and 
 Kanocogni, who had suffered vicariously, thought 
 it rather funny. 
 
 At the appointed time my friend called for 
 me, and, to my disappointment, took me to a 
 restaurant. I had hoped that I was going to 
 dine en famiUe and in company with his pretty 
 wife. It appears that this is not usually the 
 custom, and that dinners are nearly always given 
 in a public dining -place. Often geishas are 
 called in to sing and dance to the guests, and 
 it has this inconvenience — that, unless your host 
 happens to be a rich man, you are putting him 
 to considerable expense. It was understood this 
 time that there were to be no geishas. 
 
 The restaurant was close by, at the top of 
 Maruyama Park. As we were expected, the 
 landlady and waitresses were at the door to 
 receive us, and made their profound bows while 
 
KYOTO 
 
 63 
 
 we took off our boots. ^Ve were led into a large 
 room overlooking the park and city beyond, and 
 when we had decided where to squat, screens 
 were slid in the grooves, so as to enclose us in 
 a compartment of about eight mats. Each set 
 of diners likes to have a compartment to itself. 
 A low table, not a foot high, and a couple of 
 cushions was all the furniture, except a vase with 
 a spray of blossom in the takemona, or slightly- 
 raised recess, without which no Japanese room is 
 complete. The guest is always seated nearest to 
 this recess, which is considered the place of honour. 
 
 \V^hile waiting for the first course, I noticed 
 yet another piece of furniture, and that was a 
 large text painted in bold Cliinese characters and 
 hung above the sliding-screens opposite to me. 
 Asking what it meant, I was told that each room 
 had a name, and the title of this one read, “ The 
 room where the cool breezes blow.” 
 
 There is many a true word spoken in jest, for 
 I found it decidedly draughty, and proposed our 
 closing the paper slides. We shut out a beautiful 
 view lit by the last rays of the setting sun, but it 
 was preferable to a possible stiff neck. 
 
 A pretty young girl now entered ; she was 
 the nesan, or waitress. She is a more important 
 
64 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 personage at a Japanese dinner than the servant 
 in Europe who merely hands you the dishes, and 
 has often other tables to wait on as well as your 
 own. The rman squats at your table during the 
 whole of the dinner ; she joins in the eonversa- 
 tion, pours out the sake, fans the guests in hot 
 weather, or attends to the hibachi or chareoal 
 brazier during the eold. In this particular case 
 1 found her a useful instructress in the difficulties 
 of handling the chopsticks. 
 
 I pointed out to my host that we had been 
 favoured with the prettiest nesan of those we 
 saw on our entry to the hotel. “ She is the 
 daughter of the landlord,” my friend answered, 
 “ and I always ask for her when I dine here.” 
 I asked how his wife approved of this, and of his 
 dining out so often. The idea of ^\'ives dis- 
 approving, or anyhow giving expression to their 
 disapprobation, had evidently not entered his 
 mind. 
 
 By way of opening the conversation, you ask 
 the young lady her name. “You of name as 
 for, what that say ?” would be the literal 
 translation of your question. This one answers, 
 “ Take,” with an apologetic smile for having 
 so ordinary a one. Take means bamboo, and 
 
KYOTO 
 
 65 
 
 Miss Bamboo, or Take San, now fills two little 
 cups with green tea, and places some sweets on 
 an eight-inch table for her honourable guests. 
 “ What is your age, Takd San ?” — quite the 
 correct thing to ask a lady in Japan. And Take 
 [ asks you to guess, and, having guessed seventeen. 
 Take smiles and bows, and says, “ Arigato.” 
 You wonder why she says “Thank you.” She 
 answers that she is already nineteen, and the 
 thanks are for the compliment of having given 
 her the benefit of two years. 
 
 Having sipped a thimbleful of the tea, and 
 leaving the sweets, this hors-d'oeuvre is removed, 
 and Miss Bamboo runs to the paper slides and 
 calls out for the next course. A second waitress 
 now brings in a number of steaming red lacquer 
 bowls on a lacquer tray, and Take places the 
 bowls on the eight- inch table and hands us both 
 a pair of chopsticks. The latter are cut out of 
 : a single piece of wood, and are still sticking 
 ' together at one end. My friend splits his apart, 
 
 I and, while I do the same, he explains that the 
 ' two pieces not having been separated insures 
 their never having been used before. 
 
 A sensation of pins and needles in my legs 
 compels me to change my position. (3ne of 
 5 
 
66 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 them has got so stiff that I can hardly unbend it. 
 I can sit on my heels no longer, and Take 
 considers how she can make my position more 
 comfortable. She fetches a hijitsuki, a kind of 
 rest to put under an elbow, and she places two 
 more cushions on the one I had been using. 
 I can now recline like a Roman Emperor at a 
 feast, and am sitting nearly on a level with the 
 eight-inch table. 
 
 The covers are now taken off the lacquer 
 bowls, and Take fills two little cups with warm 
 sak^ — a mild spirit, tasting somewhat like sherry 
 and water. When anything is drunk at a meal, 
 it is always at the beginning, and not at the end. 
 We empty the little cups, and my fiiend plunges 
 his into a bowl of water and then hands it to 
 Take. She receives it as a special mark of 
 consideration, and holds it out while my friend 
 pours in a few drops. Having drank this, and 
 made an appropriate little speech, she dips the 
 cup in the water and returns it. 
 
 I wish to know on what dish I am to begin, 
 as I see that my host does not eat until I do. 
 He recommended me to taste them all, and 
 leave what I did not like. 
 
 I begin on one which corresponds most to a 
 
KYOTO 
 
 67 
 
 soup, and is called owan ; it is a broth, with fish 
 and mushrooms. I try to catch hold of a piece 
 of fish with my chopsticks. I raise it up a 
 certain height, and one of the sticks slips, and 
 “ splosh ” goes the fish into its element. 
 
 Miss Bamboo is immensely tickled, and takes 
 a paper napkin from a fold in her obi and gives 
 the table a wipe. She holds a pair of chopsticks 
 in her fingers, to show me how it is done. To 
 encourage her in the lesson I am to have, I 
 plunge my sak^ cup into the bowl of water and 
 hand it to her ; I pour in a few drops of sake, 
 which she makes a pretence of drinking, and 
 with a little speech she returns me the cup after 
 rinsing it in the water. 
 
 As a mother teaches her child to hold a 
 pen-holder, so Take San places the sticks between 
 my fingers ; she instructs me how to keep one 
 rigid while the other does most of the work. 
 I have another try — raise the bit of fish higher 
 this time, and drop it in my lap. Take is aware 
 that she may laugh to her heart’s content without 
 giving offence, and gives full play to her hilarity. 
 
 Tears flow fi-om her eyes, which are now two 
 obhque slits. She unsplits a subsidiary pair of 
 chopsticks, and makes a dart at the fish in my 
 
68 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 lap, and feeds me as a blackbird does its young 
 with a worm. 
 
 The liquid broth is easily managed, as the 
 bowl can be raised and drunk like a cup of tea, 
 and the mushrooms are floated in with it. 
 
 The next bowl contained tamago yaki, which 
 is a mixture of egg and curded beans. It is 
 very good and easy to take, as it will float into 
 the mouth with a very little coaxing with the 
 chopsticks. 
 
 Now why has Take started laughing again ? 
 and even my host cannot repress his merriment. 
 My moustache was likened to the pine-tree, with 
 its winter covering of snow. 
 
 I felt for my napkin, forgetting that we had 
 none, and was just getting out my handkerchief, 
 when Take produced a paper one from under 
 her obi. 
 
 I succeeded a little better with a third bowl, 
 and managed to secure a small octopus and some 
 bamboo-shoots, which I ate regardless of night- 
 mares and other forms of indigestion. I felt I 
 was getting on, and the nesan gave an encourag- 
 ing smile. She then trotted up to the slides and 
 called out for the next course. 
 
 The first was several courses rolled into one. 
 
KYOTO 
 
 69 
 
 but as the bowls are small and the contents very 
 liquid, I felt 1 could do with another. This was 
 a more soHd one, a goodly-sized goldfish — a 
 severe exercise for a beginner in chopsticks. 
 
 I watched my friend dig pieces out of his and 
 convey them to his mouth, and I waited to see 
 if he would choke ; but never a fish-bone left 
 his dish. I dug the hachi into mine, and the 
 movable stick, which I looked on as the treble, 
 slipped, leaving the bass one sticking in the side 
 of the fish fike a large harpoon in a very small 
 whale. 
 
 A\''hen I recovered the chopsticks, I couldn’t 
 get pieces out of the fish without its slipping 
 about and nearly leaving the little dish it was in. 
 Miss Bamboo came to the rescue, and pinned 
 the goldfish firmly do\vn with her auxiliary pair, 
 while 1 grubbed some pieces out of its side. It 
 was in a cat-like fashion that I finished that fish. 
 Were not fingers made before chopsticks ? 
 
 Take San now calls for gohan. I wonder 
 what gohan may be, and if it is very difficult 
 to eat. 
 
 A maid brings up a little wooden bucket and 
 places it on the matting near our table. Take 
 takes off the cover, and 1 see a steaming mass of 
 
70 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 boiled rice with a wooden spud sticking in it. 
 She flops a spudful of rice into two china bowls 
 this time, and passes them to us. So far the 
 dishes, with the exception of the goldfish, had 
 been Lilliputian, but the helping of rice was fit 
 for a Gulliver. 
 
 I was wmndering how much of it I could leave 
 for manners, and the thought had hardly entered 
 my mind when my friend passed up his bowd to 
 be refilled. Take flops in another lot as skilfully 
 as a mason will flop a trowelful of mortar on to 
 a brick, and with equal skill my friend conveys 
 the contents to his mouth. 
 
 Such dexterity in the use of chopsticks fills me 
 with envy. AVith the rice ends the meal. A 
 little tea is often taken in the last bowlful, and 
 more cups of tea are taken while the little pipe is 
 being smoked. 
 
 I was quite satisfied that I should be able to 
 live on Japanese fare. The dishes were very 
 good, and I felt no premonitions that I should 
 be ill the next day as the Portuguese artist had 
 been ; nor did I despair of overcoming the chop- 
 stick difficulties. 
 
 I have dwelt rather a long while on this meal, 
 as nothing, so far, seemed to have taken me 
 
KYOTO 
 
 71 
 
 further from accustomed surroundings nearer 
 home. Sight-seeing is so much a part of travel 
 that most people, if they have not actually seen 
 the different things which each country has of 
 interest, they have at least heard of them or 
 seen them reproduced in some form of illustra- 
 tion. Let us take Venice as an example. 
 Overawed with the beauty of St. Mark’s, and 
 fascinated with the charm of gliding along the 
 canals in a gondola, you see now face to face 
 what you feel you have seen before dimly, as in 
 a looking-glass ; but put up at an Italian tratoria, 
 instead of at the cosmopolitan hotel the tourist 
 usually frequents, and then see how you are 
 mentally transplanted into a different world. 
 
 The most interesting thing in each country is, 
 after all, its people, and to get some insiglit into 
 their characteristics it is necessary to live 
 amongst them, and, if time permits, to learn their 
 language. 
 
 I had too much work to do during my stay 
 here to devote much time to the study of 
 .Japanese. I decided, therefore, that the next 
 best thing would be to look about for an 
 intelligent guide, and, if found, to get clear away 
 from everything savouring of the West. 
 
72 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The professional guide is easily obtained, but 
 as they are, presumably, here, as elsewhere, what 
 is vulgarly termed “on the make,” I felt that 
 I should as soon tire of him as he would of me. 
 
 I asked ]Mr. Kanocogni if he did not possibly 
 know of some young artist who spoke English 
 or French, and would act as guide, philosopher 
 and friend, and he promised to see if he could 
 find what I wanted. The man he eventually 
 got, and how we fared together, will be described 
 later on. 
 
I RISKS A I' KITANO 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 KYOTO {continued) 
 
 X HAD some time yet before me in Kyoto. The 
 Japanese iris was still in bud, and the lotus- 
 leaves still lay flat on the surface of the water ; 
 the peonies were over, and only a few belated 
 azaleas still drew the bees within their petals. 
 
 I painted one or two of the flow'erless gardens, 
 where the various shades of green are only 
 relieved by the gi’eys of the stone-work and the 
 russet bark of the pines. 
 
 Sho had to skirmish for irises, and when at last 
 he had found what I wanted, irises filled all my 
 thoughts. 
 
 I now appreciated how an esthetic people gets 
 its full measure of enjoyment out of its flowers. 
 The mauves and purples of the iris are not seen 
 here inharmoniously clashing with a patch of 
 yellow escoltchias, and the scarlet geranium is 
 not allowed to shout down the modest hue of the 
 heliotrope. 
 
 73 
 
74 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 When the folks here put on their best kimonos 
 to enjoy irises, they see irises and nothing else. 
 To see an acre or more of Japanese irises is a 
 thing never to be forgotten. The beauty of 
 form and colour of the nearer ones is clearly 
 defined against the green flags ; the mauves, 
 purples, and pale pinks are dotted about the 
 green farther on, and the blending together of 
 these hues as they form into masses in the 
 distance is such a feast of beautiful colour that 
 one may well rest among the greenery of the 
 purely Japanese gardens till the lotus appears. 
 When the latter die down there is a pause in the 
 cultivated flowers — broken now and again with 
 the morning glory — till the chrysanthemum 
 shows make the year’s final tableau. 
 
 I made the aquaintance of an Englishman, 
 Mr. Blow, who has lived here a good many 
 years ; he has a pretty Japanese house and 
 garden on the slopes of the hills overlooking the 
 city. I found some large patches of irises here, 
 of a kind I was unacquainted with. It was a 
 pretty subject : — This flowery foreground, with 
 the grey city in the distance and the blue 
 mountains beyond. 
 
 Mrs. Blow, a charming .Japanese lady, asked 
 
KYOTO 
 
 75 
 
 me to lunch, with a promise that I should see her 
 husband’s collection of prints. 
 
 It was my first entree into a Japanese private 
 house. I took off my boots, as one to the 
 manner born, when, to my horror, I saw part of a 
 white toe sticking out of one of the black socks. 
 Now it is astonishing how a detail of this kind 
 can handicap anyone trying to make a good first 
 impression. 
 
 At whatever angle I looked 1 saw this toe. 1 
 avoided looking down only to catch sight of it in 
 a mirror. Mrs. Blow did as if she had not seen 
 it, although it was like a white bull’s-eye on a 
 black target — one more proof of the courtly 
 manners of this people. 
 
 The prints, however, soon banished the peccant 
 sock from my thoughts, and I could revel to my 
 heart’s content in the drawing of Hokusai and 
 Hirochige ; the delightful colour arrangements 
 of Yeisen, of Yesan, of Utamaro, and of a host of 
 others who, so far, were unknown to me. 
 
 Mr. Blow filled me with covetousness when 
 he produced a large sketch-book full of the 
 original drawings of Hiroshige— rapid sketches 
 of figures in motion, groups of people, and sundry 
 details which form some of the incidents in his 
 
76 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 famous “ Fifty-five Stages of the Tokaido 
 Road.” He also possesses a wonderful kake- 
 mono of Hokusai, and quite different work from 
 anything I had ever seen of that great artist. It 
 is a very highly-finished picture of a geisha, with 
 a marvellous pattern on her dress — a subject 
 treated ad nauseam by the artists of the middle 
 of last century. The design showed that, besides 
 his great draughtsmanship, he had an imagination 
 surpassing that of most of his contemporaries 
 and all his followers. 
 
 Not twenty years ago good colour prints could 
 be picked up for a few pence, but a large number 
 of collectors have since learnt to appreciate them, 
 with the usual result, and the rarer specimens 
 are now fetching a good many pounds. 
 
 On returning to my hotel, I inquired of an old 
 resident who happened to be staying there 
 where European socks were to be obtained. He 
 told me where I could find what I wanted, and 
 also told me of an amusing incident concerning 
 his country’s representative here. 
 
 His Excellency had asked my new acquaint- 
 ance to accompany him to some great function 
 and act as his interpreter. On arriving at the 
 house where the reception was held, boots had. 
 
KYOTO 
 
 77 
 
 of course, to be taken off before stepping on to the 
 matting. T o his dismay, the diplomat noticed that 
 a toe showed veiy plainly through a hole in one of 
 his black socks. He decided to return to his hotel, 
 and asked my friend to make some excuses for 
 his non-appearance. The latter was, however, a 
 man of great resource ; he tipped one of the 
 servants, and asked to be shown into some office 
 and supplied with brush and Indian ink, and here, 
 with a few well-adjusted touches, he gave His 
 Excellency a toe that any negro might have 
 been proud of. When thoroughly dry — for it 
 would not do to risk blackening the trains of 
 some of the ladies’ dresses — they were able to 
 attend the function, and no one was any the wiser. 
 
 I went to a theatre with one or two others 
 staying in the same hotel as myself. We were 
 shown up some rickety stairs, and taken to what 
 approximates to our dress circle. The seats here 
 being fifty sen each (equal to one shilling), we 
 had the whole circle to ourselves, while the rest 
 of the building was crowded. They brought us 
 a bench to sit on, as some of our party could not 
 face squatting on the floor for the rest of the 
 evenmg. 
 
 'riie performance had probably been going on 
 
78 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 since midday, but as it had still two or three 
 hours to run, we had still time enough to see all 
 we wanted. The audience was perhaps more 
 entertaining than the play, for, needless to say, 
 most of the jokes were lost on us, and when 
 the house was moved to tears it left us with dry 
 eyes ; the difficulty was not to laugh at the 
 wrong moment. 
 
 The theatre was a low building, mth a gallery 
 some eight feet above the pit, where the latter 
 was farthest from the stage. Nearly the whole 
 auditorium was pit, and the gallery looked like 
 an after-thought. The floor was di\dded into a 
 number of low pens, the size of a mat each. 
 Papa and mamma and two or three hopefuls 
 would about All a pen, and where the family was 
 large the adjoining pen would hold the rest of 
 the children, and possibly the maid-servant. The 
 partitions being only a foot high, there was easy 
 access from one compartment to another. Each 
 contained a hibachi to fight the little pipes and 
 receive the ashes when the two whiffs had 
 exhausted the fill of tobacco. The people 
 brought their food with them, and little earthen- 
 ware pots of tea were to be obtained in the 
 house. It looked like an indoor picnic. 
 
KYOTO 
 
 79 
 
 A peculiar feature of Japanese theatres is a 
 low bridge, flush with the stage, and which crosses 
 the pit at right angles to the footlights. The 
 characters who enter the scene after the curtain 
 is up usually come in by it ; the funny man will 
 crack his little jokes with the members of the 
 audience as he crosses above their heads. A 
 small boy will sometimes climb up and do a 
 little jesting on his own account, and when the 
 curtain is down a lot of the children will scramble 
 up on to the stage and stick their heads under 
 the curtain to see what is going on. They may 
 apparently, here as elsewhere, do just as they 
 please. 
 
 The play, or rather series of plays, treated of 
 feudal times, which it is hard to realize only dates 
 back fifty years. The two-sworded Samurai was 
 very much to the fore. He played a kind of 
 knight-errant part, but the maiden in distress 
 seemed more frightened of him than of anyone 
 else. 
 
 When the first scene was over, there was no 
 curtain — the stage revolved like a penny-go- 
 round till the next scene faced the audience, the 
 actors remaining on it all the while. 
 
 The women’s parts were all played by men. 
 
80 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The shortest are naturally chosen for the parts, 
 and their voices are trained accordingly. 
 
 The dialogue was sometimes carried on by the 
 performers, and at other times they acted in dumb- 
 show, while the words were repeated in a sing- 
 song voice by a man sitting in a raised box, 
 something like that of a Punch and Judy show. 
 He emphasized the stops by striking a stick on 
 the rail of his rostrum. 
 
 Two boys, who were supposed to be invisible, 
 because they were dressed entirely in black and 
 wore black masks, were dodging in and out 
 among the performers, adjusting a bow here or 
 spreading out the train of a garment elsewhere. 
 They were certainly “seen but not looked at,” 
 as is said of the ladies who take their baths in the 
 presence of the opposite sex. 
 
 The scenery was extremely simple, although in 
 very good taste, and, as I anticipated, the acting 
 was very clever. 
 
 During an interlude a dancing-girl began her 
 turn at the far end of the bridge, doing her steps 
 and taking the postures of a first-rate geisha. 
 On reaching the stage itself she went through 
 the most graceful evolutions, the fan and butterfly 
 being the motive. The butterfly, being impaled 
 
KYOTO 
 
 81 
 
 on the end of a wire, whieh one of the boys in 
 black directed, took away some of the charm — •! 
 was not yet sufficiently trained in treating him as 
 non-existent. 
 
 Our rickshaw-men had chmbed up the rickety 
 stairs, dress-circle folk being so scarce that there 
 was no gate-keeper to stop them, and they calmly 
 squatted near us. I distinguished Sho’s ugly 
 face in the semi-darkness, and remarked to him 
 how clever the girl was. Sho exploded : “She 
 no girl ; she man !” He and his mates seemed 
 to think this the best joke of the evening. 
 
 The dancer went on for some time, doing more 
 and more wonderful things with his fan and with 
 trailing ribbons ; but I lost all interest in him after 
 being aware of his sex, and was glad when the 
 curtain went down, or, I should say, was pulled 
 across the stage. 
 
 During the next piece I became conscious of 
 a sickly smell of drains, which had also crept 
 up the rickety stairs, and it gradually hung like 
 an invisible cloud over the gallery. One of our 
 party was snoring rather loudly, while my other 
 male companion had been trying to keep awake, 
 so as to get his full shilling’s worth. While one 
 eye was open, I suggested to him that it was 
 6 
 
82 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 time we left. “ It’s not over yet,” he said, waking 
 up sharp. “ I’ve been to Japanese plays before, 
 and they never end without cutting olf heads.” 
 The lady of our party, a Eurasian, looked as if 
 she could stand a bit more drain, and so we 
 stayed on. Her husband snored louder than 
 ever, the Scotchman dropped his head forward 
 and brought it up with a jerk, and I anxiously 
 awaited the head-cutting, so as to get away from 
 the drain. 
 
 Heads did not exactly fly off at the finale, 
 although a couple of Samurai were doing their 
 best, and when the curtain went down, all the 
 actors had been laid out flat, save one who was 
 wiping his sword. 
 

 THK OLEANDER 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE OLEANDER 
 
 O painter should be able to resist a graee- 
 
 fully-grown oleander in bloom. The one 
 I fell a victim to was in a graveyard which sur- 
 rounded a small Buddhist temple. It was raining 
 slightly when I began my drawing, but the spread- 
 ing eaves of the shrine gave me a sufficient shelter. 
 The grey light suited my subject. When the 
 sun .showed itself at intervals, awkward shadows 
 and the shine on the wet stones destroyed its 
 charm. 
 
 While painting specimen irises in the garden 
 of a Buddhist priest, who dwelt not far from here, 
 I made the acquaintance of an intelligent young 
 Japanese, Kiyoshi IMasuda by name. He spoke 
 English fairly well, and 1 owe to him much of 
 the information 1 got about Japanese manners 
 and customs, as well as of that difficult subject 
 — the fusion of two religions fundamentally so 
 different as are Shintoism and Buddhism. He 
 
 83 
 
84 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 was also well informed about the arts and crafts 
 of his country, being an able assistant at the 
 stores of Messrs. Nomura, where a large collec- 
 tion of objects of art and vertu are displayed. It 
 being the slack season of the year, he was able to 
 give me a good deal of his company while painting 
 this graveyard, and also during the remainder of 
 my stay in Kyoto. 
 
 Shintoists lay side by side with Buddhists 
 under the wet, grey stones. Dedicated to a 
 Shinto god at its birth, the child is brought up 
 in the family cult, and to pay due respect to the 
 tablets of the ancestors, which are on a shelf in 
 every Japanese household. The child may be 
 taken to attend the services at Buddhist temples 
 of the sect to which its parents incline, but 
 whether he attends these or merely does his 
 duty as a follower of the earlier religion, he will 
 most probably at his death rest in a graveyard 
 attached to some Buddhist shrine. 
 
 The absence of religious or moral teaching 
 in Shintoism draws many who feel this want 
 to the Buddhist shrines, where an occasional 
 sermon is preached, and where a gorgeous ritual 
 appeals to their senses. They are allowed to 
 retain their own gods, whom Buddhism has 
 
THE OLEANDER 
 
 85 
 
 embraced in its pantheon, and considers in most 
 cases avatars of one of its own deities. Nature- 
 worship and ancestor-worship, the tv^o main 
 features of the indigenous religion, have also 
 been tolerated by the Buddhist priesthood ever 
 since they first set foot in .Japan. 
 
 My friend’s Enghsh did not go quite far 
 enough to give me a lucid explanation of this, 
 but it gave me a start, and, with the help of 
 what Professor Chamberlain and Lafcadio Hearn 
 have written on the subject, I am beginning to 
 get some insight into the mental attitude of the 
 .Japanese towards their creeds. 
 
 Accustomed as we are in other parts of the 
 world to find people quarrelling over slight 
 differences of dogma, the toleration of the 
 .Japanese is striking. There is also no anti- 
 Christian feeling as far as I could gather. 
 1 watched the people when a Salvationist 
 band went by, and could see no signs of 
 antagonism ; whereas I can well remember the 
 hostility of the onlookers when first the followers 
 of General Booth paraded the streets in IjOiidon. 
 If the missionary abstains from interfering with 
 the customs of the people, he may cany on his 
 work without let or hindrance. 
 
86 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Had Christian countries shown a better 
 example by carrying out the principles of their 
 creed, there is little doubt but what Christianity 
 would have been made the State religion of 
 Japan. 
 
 The Government, when reconstructing society 
 after the revolution, actually appointed a Com- 
 mission to examine and report on how far 
 Christianity was instrumental in ehecking crime 
 and vice. The report was far from encouraging, 
 and Shintoism was made the official religion. 
 
 Buddhist priests, who had invaded most of the 
 Shinto temples, had to leave, and many a shrine 
 was denuded of its best works of art where 
 these were part and parcel of the Buddhist creed. 
 A difficulty sometimes arose as to the owner- 
 ship of some of the rehcs. The bones of a saint 
 would be claimed by both parties where the 
 saint was known to have observed the ordinances 
 of both religions. Who was to keep a valuable 
 statue of a god which each party worshipped 
 when the creed and even name of the donor had 
 long since been forgotten ? 
 
 Shinto shrines are now kept in repair by the 
 State, and the Buddhist temples are often sadly 
 dilapidated where the worshippers are too poor 
 
THE OLEANDER 
 
 87 
 
 to pay for keeping them in repair. When the 
 shrine is one of especial importance, an appeal is 
 made to the country at large, and the where- 
 withal to defray the cost of repairing is generally 
 collected. A striking example was seen when 
 the celebrated Higashi Hongwanji was burnt 
 down early in the nineties. 
 
 Nearly a hundred thousand pounds sterling 
 was collected in the neighbouring provinces of 
 Kyoto, besides which much of the material and 
 labour was the gift of the people. Thousands of 
 women, having nothing more substantial to con- 
 tribute, cut off their hair to make hawsers to 
 draw the timbers which form the huge pillars. 
 These hawsers, twenty-nine in all, are still shown 
 with pride by the bonze who conducts you 
 round the temple, as an ocular proof that 
 Buddhism was not extinguished when dis- 
 established by the State. 
 
 The slight rain we had when I began my 
 drawing gradually increased in quantity ; the 
 gravestones blackened and shone as the water 
 trickled down their sides ; the face of the Buddha 
 darkened, and his habitual placid gaze seemed to 
 cliange as I gradually saw it reflected in a grow- 
 ing pool at his base. 
 
88 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The eaves of the temple, though sheltering us 
 from the downward pour, were no protection 
 from the splashing when the water overflowed 
 from the choked guttering. We crawled round 
 the edge of the building, and found shelter 
 under the porch, where we could continue our 
 talk. 
 
 A woman was inside the little temple, and was 
 repeating a thousand times the formula “ Namu 
 amida Butso.” If repeated that often, gi-eat 
 blessings are attached to this prayer. Time 
 is saved by only saying the word “ Butso ” at 
 intervals, and the u of the first word is eliminated. 
 
 The prayer of the supplicant made a plaintive 
 accompaniment to our conversation. When she 
 tired she would whisper, “ Nam amida, nam 
 amida,” then gradually increase the sound till it 
 reached to a loud and prolonged wail ; she 
 would then prostrate herself again on the 
 matting, and with sighings and sobbings con- 
 tinue the formula in a hushed voice. 
 
 My friend was not a Buddhist, being a 
 follower of the earlier religion ; he showed, 
 however, no pitying contempt for the vain 
 repetitions of this woman : “ By concentrating 
 her mind on these words she is able to banish all 
 
THE OLEANDER 
 
 89 
 
 worldly thoughts, and draw near to the abstract 
 idea which ‘ amida ’ represents.” 
 
 The rain now abated, and, as we wandered 
 away, the woman’s “ Nam amida, nam amida ” 
 followed us till the sound was lost in the noises 
 of the street. 
 
 I returned to the oleander the next day to 
 complete my drawing. The rains had washed 
 off some of the petals of the flowers, but this 
 had been more than compensated for by the 
 attentions of the grave-keeper’s wife, who had 
 decorated the tombs with a profusion of white 
 lilies. Nothing could have suited the compo- 
 sition better, and the idea the flowers conveyed 
 was as pretty as their form. 
 
 When the rain held oft’, my friend M. Masuda 
 rejoined me, and while I painted the lilies he 
 descanted on the significance of various unfamiliar 
 objects I saw in this graveyard. The sotoha 
 here seen is a long narrow slab of wood, notched 
 at the top, with characters painted on one of 
 the surfaces. Bundles of them are sometimes 
 fastened to the tombstones ; some decaying, 
 others witli the lettering barely visible, and often 
 one which looked as having come freshly from 
 the carpenter’s shop. They are placed here at 
 
90 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 intervals by the relatives of the deceased. But 
 as the texts on them are wTitten in Sanskrit, my 
 friend could not help me as to their meaning. 
 The sotoba is also used as a gravestone, and 
 then its form is more clearly defined. It is a 
 combination of ball, crescent, pyramid, sphere, 
 and cube, which symbolize respectively ether, 
 air, fire, water, and earth. Another favourite 
 device is the lotus-seed, which in size and shape 
 is somewhat like a Grenadier’s bearskin. 
 
 A Buddha seated on a lotus-flower is seldom 
 absent. But the most common form of tomb- 
 stone is a shaft rounded at the top and resting 
 on a triple plinth, with the name and status of 
 the deceased inscribed on the former. 
 
 A large flat, upright stone attracted the atten- 
 tion of the few visitors who came. It was erected 
 to a young sergeant who fell in the last war, and 
 whose bravery was such that the Empress headed 
 the list of subscriptions to defray the cost of the 
 monument. I carefuUy copied his name, and 
 those of my readers who can read Japanese will 
 be able to decipher it on the left-hand side of 
 my drawing. 
 
 Since then the oleander has lost its bloom, 
 and reverent hands will have placed lotus-flowers 
 
THE OLEANDER 
 
 91 
 
 where the lilies bedecked this grave ; these will 
 have given place to the chrysanthemum, and 
 while the snow lies thick on the neighbouring 
 hills, sprays of plum-blossom will be keeping 
 fresh the memory of the young hero. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE JUDAS-TREE AND POMEGRANATE 
 
 Ij'lROM the middle of June till the end of the 
 following month there is no display of 
 cultivated flowers till the lotus-ponds attract the 
 holiday-makers. The morning glory is more of 
 a household pet than a garden decoration, and by 
 the time that the rains have abated specimens 
 of this convolvulus may be seen in pots in almost 
 every shop. The plants are dwarfed, and rarely 
 more than one or two blooms are seen at a time ; 
 by careful selection the flowers have attained a 
 size seldom seen elsewhere. In colour they 
 range from white, through pink and blue, down 
 to the darkest violet. 
 
 The shopman, squatting amongst his wares, 
 takes his fill of their beauty in the intervals 
 between attending to his customers. He has no 
 time to lose, for the day is not far spent when 
 his prized blooms close up and drop their petals 
 before he lights his store in the evening. He 
 
 92 
 
THE Jl'DAS TREE 
 
JUDAS-TREE- -POMEGRANATE 93 
 
 consoles himself for the loss by contemplating a 
 bud, scarcely notieeable in the morning, which 
 now promises to rival, on the following day, the 
 short-lived glory of the vanished blooms. 
 
 Kiyomizu Tera, the most enchanting of 
 Kyoto’s shrines, was not far from the hotel, and 
 when in doubt for a subject, I was always sure 
 to find one there or in its beautiful surroundings. 
 The question at this time of the year was to find 
 one where I could work under shelter, for the 
 weather was only fine then at lucid intervals. 
 
 The steep street leading up to this unique 
 temple is lined with china shops, where cheap 
 and brightly-coloured earthenware do\h, Kiyomizu 
 yaki, are sold to the pilgrims who visit this 
 popular shrine. An imposing flight of steps 
 leads to a two-storied gateway, and beyond this 
 two pagodas and numerous other minor buildings 
 are passed before reaching the hondo or main 
 temple. At the entrance a magnificent bronze 
 dragon vomits a jet of water into a stone basin ; 
 wooden ladles float on the surface, and it is a 
 pretty sight to see little ehildren filling them at 
 the mouth of this terrible creature, either to 
 drink the water or wash the faces of the babies 
 slung to their backs. 
 
94 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The huge, roughly-hewn columns and the 
 worn and matless floor suggest a fortress rather 
 than a place of worship. But what impresses 
 the visitor most is the bold way in which the 
 temple is adapted to its site. A balustrade runs 
 round the south side, and leaning over it — after 
 being satisfied that it will not give way — he 
 looks across a deep and thickly-wooded valley 
 to the city lying below and the blue mountains 
 in the far distance. The platform he stands on 
 projects well over the steep hill-side to which 
 Kiyomizu clings, and is .supported by a row of 
 massive piles whose bases are lost in the greenery 
 beneath. 
 
 Winding paths descend through the woods, 
 and wherever there is a good point of vantage, a 
 little tea-house or shed is erected, these often 
 being held up on piles as if in imitation of the 
 great building above them. To the left, the 
 valley is shut in by an almost precipitous hill 
 clothed with pines, camphor-trees, and evergreen 
 oaks. A flight of stone steps is visible here and 
 there, which lead to a shrine just showing among 
 the foliage. 
 
 Amidst the mass of green which I overlooked 
 stood a Judas-tree in full bloom ; it was a 
 
JUDAS-TREE -POMEGRANATE 95 
 
 different species to what I had seen in the South 
 of France and Italy, but I felt satisfied that the 
 pale mauve blossom would harmonize better 
 with its surroundings than the crimson usually 
 associated with that tree. A tea-shed some way 
 down the valley promised both shelter and a 
 good view from it there ; with a slight shifting 
 of the tree, I was able to get it in combination 
 with the part of the temple 1 had just left. 
 
 The changes in the effect were interesting to 
 watch, but most exasperating to paint ; at times 
 the mist entirely blotted out the background. 
 The rain, so far, had only come in samples, but 
 having satisfied us all that it vv'as of the proper 
 wet sort, it now came down in bulk. The shed 
 1 was under was only built to cope with the 
 samples, and my sketching umbrella had to be 
 put up to ward off the pit, pit, pit which irritated 
 my neck, and also a jet of water doing its best 
 to alter my last effect in the drawing. There 
 was nothing to do now but to try and get some 
 drawing into the tree and temple, and wait for a 
 propitious moment to fly back to the hotel. 
 
 I returned to the Judas-tree on the following 
 day and painted it in a drizzling rain. The 
 effect w'as not so exciting as some I had seen it 
 
96 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 under, but there was no time to lose. The 
 heavy rain had washed off a good deal of the 
 blossom, and what remained had lost most of its 
 colour ; another reason made it a case of now or 
 never — the Judas-tree was no more the sole 
 mistress of my affections. 
 
 I had wandered that morning thi’ough the 
 graveyards on the slopes above Chion-in, and 
 ascended a flight of stone steps through the 
 woods, to see what there might be beneath the 
 dark mass of cryptomerias which shut out the 
 sky above. A few moss-covered stone lanterns, 
 and a Buddha who had lost his nose at some 
 remote period of his contemplations, suggested 
 the approach to a shrine. Both to the right and 
 left of me, in little clearings in the woods, were 
 two more graveyards, which had probably held 
 their complement of ancestors for more than a 
 century. The fantastic shapes of the stones were 
 barely discernible through the gro^vth of moss 
 and lichen which covered them. In a few cases 
 the little stone basins had still been cleared and 
 fresh water supplied by a living descendant of 
 the deceased, and a few wooden sotoba were still 
 sufficiently sound to show that the family cult 
 had been kept up till a recent period. The 
 
JUDAS-TREE— POMEGRANATE 97 
 
 water stagnating in the other basins was but the 
 drip from the overhanging boughs which shaded 
 the little cemetery. 
 
 After a hundred years it is presumed that the 
 deceased has become a Buddha, and that his 
 spirit needs no more food or water from his 
 descendants. Till that lapse of time any neglect 
 on the part of his living representatives may 
 result in dire consequences to their household. 
 
 I decided to make a study of this almost- 
 forgotten graveyard, but had first to satisfy my 
 curiosity as to what I might find at the top of 
 the steps. They led, very much as I expected, 
 to a small Buddhist temple, and going 
 round this rather dilapidated building, I came on 
 a neat little habitation of, presumably, the priest 
 — a simple little structure, but glorified by a 
 beautifully-shaped pomegranate- tree just bursting 
 into bloom. 
 
 The graveyard could wait, but not this nor 
 any other blossoming shrub. I found the priest 
 at home. I made him understand what I wanted, 
 and was soon trying to do justice to the delightful 
 subject which a lucky chance had thrown in 
 my way. 
 
 It is pleasant to leave off' with an assurance that 
 
98 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 for some days at least the subject would improve 
 in beauty. The blossoms were not fully out, and 
 the innumerable buds promised a grand display 
 ere long. The beauty of the .Judas-tree was on 
 the wane, and I even doubted whether I should 
 find any blossom left on my return that after- 
 noon. 
 
 To admire a tree or garden of a Japanese is as 
 sure a way to his heart as to admire a child is to 
 that of its mother. When I returned here the 
 next day the good priest placed a hibachi near me, 
 in case I wished to smoke, and brought the usual 
 cup of green tea. It was a delightful spot to 
 work in ; as it was on the way to nowhere else, I 
 had hardly any inquisitive people to watch my 
 proceedings. I told Masuda where I was work- 
 ing, and he joined me here the following morning. 
 
 While practising his English he was able to 
 enlighten me on many things which I was keenly 
 interested to know. He also carried his good- 
 nature so far as to pose for me, in the doorway, 
 in the attitude of one receiving a guest. I had 
 sketched in the figure of the lady makmg her 
 obeisance, and wanted the man to complete the 
 subject. When he took his pose I remarked that 
 he did not curtsey as lowly as the lady, and was 
 
JUDAS-TREE— POMEGRANATE 99 
 
 told that this was not the etiquette ; but had a 
 woman been recei\dng a male \dsitor, she would 
 have been down on her knees, with her head to 
 the floor. 
 
 Though so much has been reorganized in 
 Japan during the last fifty years, matters of 
 etiquette, and the relations of the sexes generally, 
 are the outcome of so long a period of training 
 that it may take centuries to alter them. A 
 Westerner may regret that these charming 
 women are always obliged to take a back seat 
 when brought in contact ^\^th the opposite sex, 
 although their happy-looking faces and delightful 
 manners soon console him that, however unjust 
 the training may have been, the results give us a 
 type of womanhood which has possibly never 
 been excelled. 
 
 Any signs of grief or vexation having been 
 considered bad manners in every class of society 
 for numberless past generations, a cheerful view 
 of things has become a part of their natures. The 
 smile required originaDy by good manners is now 
 much more often the natural expression of a 
 happy disposition. 
 
 Don’t imagine for one moment that she is an 
 insipid or mcapable creature. As mistress she 
 
100 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 can make herself obeyed by her servants without 
 ever having to lower her dignity by becoming a 
 scold ; the devotion and amount of work she gets 
 out of her dependents would astonish a European 
 housekeeper. This devotion is not got by the 
 mere fact of feeding and paying the wages of the 
 maids in her employ, for she understands that 
 her duties towards her serv^ants are quite as great 
 as those of her servants are towards herself. 
 
 Parents, unless they belong to the most 
 degraded classes, carefully choose the household 
 to which they send their daughters, domestic 
 service being considered a preparation for 
 marriage. The wages, often consisting of little 
 more than a suit of clothes twice a year, are of 
 secondary consideration, and are arranged, not 
 between the individuals chiefly concerned, but by 
 the two households to which servant and mistress 
 belong. Here, as elsewhere, the small farmer class 
 supply the best servants, and the parents of the 
 latter hold themselves responsible for the good 
 behaviour of their daughters. The engagement 
 may be for four or six years, according to the age 
 of the maid, but it usually lasts till the parents 
 have arranged their daughter’s marriage. 
 
 In this important matter the gn-1 herself has no 
 
JUDAS-TREE— POMEGRANATE 101 
 
 more say than she has in the choice of the house- 
 hold into which she enters. She is taught to 
 look on her mistress as on a foster-mother, and she 
 seldom sees her parents except when, at certain 
 intervals, they bring presents to her employers. 
 When her turn of domestic service is over, and 
 she is about to enter the marriage state, her 
 mistress will often supply her with her trousseau. 
 
 Up to the present the servant difficulty does 
 not appear to exist ; a respectable household need 
 have no fear of not getting well-behaved domestics 
 to wait on it. Servant - talk, that bugbear in 
 England and America, is seldom heard. 
 
 WJiile I endeavoured to get the characteristics 
 and beauty of the pomegranate, my young friend 
 Mr. Masuda chatted about these and other 
 matters. 
 
 We got on to the subject of marriage — more 
 suggestive, perhaps, of a blossoming orange than 
 of the scarlet flowers I was painting. 
 
 He had not entered the holy state himself ; 
 very early marriages are not encouraged now, as 
 formerly, and obligatory military service and the 
 prolonged course of study required before enter- 
 ing a profession have also tended to increase the 
 age of matrimony. He told me that he was 
 
102 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 almost sure to have to serve in the army, as he 
 had no physical defects, and, being an orphan, no 
 parent depended on what he earned ; neither had 
 he the exemption which professional studies some- 
 times allowed. It was therefore best not to 
 think of matrimony tiU this was over. 
 
 The idea of remaining a bachelor, unless 
 intended for the priesthood of one of the Buddhist 
 sects where celibacy is compulsory, would nev^er 
 enter the mind of any young man belonging to a 
 nation whose social organization has been founded 
 and kept together by ancestor-worship. 
 
 Marriage was compulsory till within quite 
 recent times, and though not legally enforced 
 now, custom demands that every man should 
 carry on the family cult. Where only daughters 
 are born of the marriage, a son-in-law is found 
 who will become also a son by adoption, and 
 carry on the cult of the ancestors of the family 
 of his bride. Poor men only will put themselves 
 in this false position. The son-in-law, who thus 
 becomes a son by adoption, changes his name for 
 that of the family into which he marries, and their 
 gods become his gods, and their people his people. 
 The family cult cannot be carried on through the 
 female line, though the duties attending on this 
 
THE POMEGRANATE 
 

JUDAS-TREE -POMEGRANATE 103 
 
 cult are usually deputed to the women of the 
 household. 
 
 Now marriage is a very different thing in the 
 Far East to what it is in European countries. 
 It is not a religious ceremony, nor is it as binding 
 a contract as in Christian countries, and, except 
 m very rare instances, neither of the two parties 
 chiefly concerned have any say in the matter. 
 Parents consider it as much their duty to provide 
 wives for their sons and husbands for their 
 daughters when they liave reached the marriage- 
 able age as it is their duty to provide them with 
 food and education. 
 
 It does not follow that the young couple be 
 even acquainted with the families with whom they 
 are to be connected, for the arrangements are left 
 to the nakodo, a match-maker. He is usually a 
 married man, not a woman, as the term “ match- 
 maker ” suggests to Anglo-Saxon ears. He is 
 a mutual fi iend of the two families, and becomes, 
 as it were, a godfather to the young couple when 
 his arrangements have been completed. 
 
 IVe often pity ourselves in England when the 
 duties of a trustee to a marriage settlement are 
 thrust on us ; but our responsibilities are light 
 indeed compared to those of the nakodo. Should 
 
104 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 the marriage turn out a failure, the couple look 
 to him to untie the knot which has bound them 
 together ; but if he be a tactful man, he will often 
 bring the husband to a proper sense of duty, and 
 be able to avoid so extreme a measure. Obedience 
 to the will of her husband and to that of her 
 parents-in-law has become so much a part of a 
 Japanese woman’s nature that it is seldom her 
 fault when family disputes arise. Should she not 
 bear him children, custom allows the husband to 
 have a concubine, and the children he may get 
 by this left-handed union become his legitimate 
 heirs. Divorce is much more common among 
 the poorer classes than among the well-to-do, for 
 when the couple do not agree the poor man has 
 not the means to console himself with a concubine. 
 Where law and custom favour one sex so very 
 much to the disadvantage of the other, the 
 cheerful countenance of the Japanese woman is 
 indeed surprising. 
 
 Now to return to the duties of the nakodo. 
 
 Having satisfied the parents of the young 
 couple that the match is a suitable one, he 
 arranges a meeting between the young man and 
 his destined bride. His own house or that of a 
 mutual friend is usually chosen, but among the 
 
JUDAS-TREE— POMEGRANATE 105 
 
 humbler classes this may take place at a theatre, 
 at a temple, or wherever it may suit their con- 
 venience. Obedience to the w'ill of their parents 
 is so ingrained in the youth of this country that, 
 whether the two most chiefly concerned be 
 mutually attracted to each other or not, they, as a 
 rule, accept their fate, as their fathers and mothers 
 had done before them. 
 
 Shortly after this, the match-maker conveys 
 to the young woman a present from her intended, 
 and if her parents accept this, the betrothal 
 becomes a binding contract. The sumptuary 
 laws of the country used to regulate the value 
 of this present, in order that the poorer classes 
 should not be led into extravagance by trying to 
 imitate those more favoured by Fortune. To 
 choose an auspicious day for the wedding is 
 considered of the utmost importance, and when 
 that comes, the poor little woman is dressed in 
 white — the colour of mourning — and towards 
 evening she is carried in a litter to the house 
 of her bridegroom, or more generally to that of 
 his parents. 
 
 The idea of the mourning is that she has died 
 to her own family, and on her leaving the 
 parental home, it is swept out and purified in 
 
106 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 the same way as when a corpse has been carried 
 out for burial. 
 
 The pledging of each other in little cups of 
 sake constitutes the actual wedding, and the 
 bride then changes her funereal garment and 
 appears in one befitting a festive occasion — an 
 emblem of a new birth into the family of her 
 husband. The bridegi’oom changes his garments 
 at the same time, while the wedding guests sit 
 down to the feast. This often lasts till the time 
 arrives when the nakodo and his wife conduct 
 the newly-married pair to the bridal chamber. 
 Here there is more pledging of each other in 
 little cups of sake, and the ceremonies are then 
 completed. 
 
 Cases do, however, occur nowadays where the 
 young woman is the choice of her intended 
 husband, and I am told that marriages through 
 mutual attraction are on the increase. 
 
 A Japanese friend introduced me to his wife, 
 who is a very pretty woman. 1 asked him 
 afterwards if he had not had more say in the 
 matter than the nakodo, and he told me that 
 they had managed to arrange it themselves 
 without that gentleman’s help. He had spent 
 some years in Europe, and decided to be married. 
 
JUDAS-TREE— POMEGRANATE 107 
 
 or at all events to choose his wife, a V Europeennc. 
 His father was not living to prevent such a 
 departure from custom, and how far his other 
 relations may have disapproved he did not tell me. 
 
 Readers wishing to learn more about this 
 subject will find a detailed account in a conclud- 
 ing chapter in A. B. Mitford’s “ Tales of Old 
 Japan.” Professor Chamberlain also gives us a 
 long article on marriage in “ Things Japanese.” 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LOTUS 
 
 N excessively hot summer followed on the 
 
 rains, and, had it not been for the lotus, I 
 should have left Kyoto early in July for some 
 summer resort in the hills near Fujiyama. 
 
 I was more anxious to see and paint the lotus 
 than perhaps any of the other flowers which 
 mark the different periods of the Japanese year. 
 It is of less value pictorially than the cherry or 
 wistaria, and than many others which I could 
 name, since it does not form into great masses of 
 colour, and at the most can only tell as dots of 
 white or pink in its setting of greyish-green leaves. 
 
 I had seen its form conventionally treated on 
 the walls of ever}'^ ruined temple in Egypt, and 
 here in Japan no Buddhist shrine seemed com- 
 plete without it. 
 
 For some days I had seen its stately leaves 
 rising up from the surface of a pond fringed with 
 hydrangeas while painting these flowers for my 
 
 108 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 109 
 
 book on gardens, but it was not till the end of 
 July that I set eyes on the actual flower whose 
 presentment had become so familiar to me in the 
 Near as well as in the Far East. 
 
 The hydrangeas had withered when the first 
 buds of lotus were ready to open. The proprietor 
 of the pond and adjoining tea-house began to rig 
 up sheds to accommodate the visitors which any 
 display of flowers is sure to attract in this 
 country. One of these not only gave me shelter 
 ft’om the sun, but it enabled me to sit sufficiently 
 high to see well above the leaves in the fore- 
 ground, which now rose three or four feet above 
 the level of the water. 
 
 It was necessary to get here early in the 
 morning, for when the sun is near reaching its 
 zenith the flowers close up. A contrary process 
 goes on with the leaves, which are often curled 
 up early in the day and open as the morning 
 advances. 
 
 Mr. Alfred Parsons, in a charming little book 
 on the flowers of Japan, mentions this difficulty 
 in painting lotuses, and he might have added 
 another, and that is, when a puff of wind catches 
 the leaves, it may upset a whole foreground 
 which the artist is struggling to draw. The 
 
110 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 drawing of the leaves as well as of the flowers is 
 full of beauty, and most difficult to approximate ; 
 the relations of the bluish sky reflections on their 
 outward surfaces of the leaves to the juicy greens 
 where the light passes through them is as hard 
 to get as their complex drawing. 
 
 Crowds of holiday-makers do not flock here, as 
 in the case of the cherry-blossom, or even the 
 irises, for the lotus is always associated in the 
 minds of the Japanese with funerals. A certain 
 number came, however, and at times each shed 
 held its complement of men and women, who 
 sipped their tea, smoked their little pipes, and 
 gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of 
 flower-gazing. 
 
 At this time of the year pleasure resorts, as 
 well as the business parts of Kyoto, are abandoned 
 from noon till four or five o’clock. It is so hot 
 that even the rickshaw-men seem little anxious 
 to pick up a fare should a stray pedestrian venture 
 out in the heat. 
 
 Kyoto wisely goes to sleep, and Kyoto wakes 
 up when the sun has sunk sufficiently to cast 
 shadows across her streets. Maruyama Park 
 then fills up. Every bench round the small lake 
 is soon occupied by women and children, who 
 
l.Ol'USES 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 111 
 
 throw crumbs to the wild-fowl and goldfish ; the 
 geishas take air and exercise before entertaining 
 the guests at the dinner-parties ; the tea-houses 
 and booths which line the approach to Gion do a 
 brisk trade ; and within the precincts of this temple 
 men and women clap tlieir hands before the 
 many shrines, and rattle the rope against the 
 gongs hanging from the lintels. 
 
 The Japanese are accused of not taking their 
 religion seriously, which is, I hold, a wrong im- 
 pression : they take it cheerily, and draw no hard- 
 and-fast line between their innocent pleasures and 
 their devotions. At the great annual festival, and 
 also once a month, when people flock in greater 
 numbers to the Gion temple, the booths and toy- 
 shops are rigged up in the precincts themselves. 
 The sounds of w’^orship mingle strangely with the 
 showman’s exhortations to come and see a pig with 
 two heads, or with the prattle of the cheap-jack. 
 
 From July 17 to 24 the Gion JMatsuri takes 
 place. The image of the Sliinto god Susa-no-o is 
 carried, on the evening of the first date, to his 
 O Tabisho — that is, his sojourn in the country 
 with his goddess. 
 
 The temple buildings are lighted with hundreds 
 of paper lanterns, and a dense crowd fills the 
 
112 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 precincts to see the god off on his happy journey. 
 Everyone is well-behaved, and the police, who 
 appear to carry nothing more formidable than a 
 paper lantern, have no difficulty in clearing a 
 space to allow the huge litter to approach the 
 main building. 
 
 No sooner had the god been placed on his port- 
 able throne than the wildest excitement got hold 
 of the crowd of young men who had volunteered 
 to be the bearers. They wore no clothes save a 
 loin-cloth, and when a dozen or more shouldered 
 the four shafts of the litter, they looked like 
 demons trjdng to seize the sacred image. Others 
 lighted the ends of long bundles of bamboo, 
 brandished them about, and very effectually 
 cleared the space deemed necessary for the god 
 to pass through. 
 
 There was, to all appearance, a fight going on 
 as to the road the god should take : his litter was 
 first rushed one way, then another, shot backwards 
 and then forwards, the men shouting all the while. 
 This was all the more surprising coming, as it did, 
 from a people who are usually so quiet. 
 
 My friend Masuda, who accompanied me, 
 explained that this was generally the case. “ The 
 god did not at once make up his mind as to the 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 113 
 
 itinerary, and till all the bearers pulled the same 
 way it was not known by which route he wished 
 to go to his O Tabisho.” A rush one way which 
 seemed more determined than the previous ones 
 finally decided the question, and the god, with his 
 noisy escort of torch-bearers, was carried into the 
 darkness beyond the great stone torii facing the 
 dancing- stage. 
 
 I We now hurried out of the precincts and 
 I worked our way through Gion Machi, the main 
 street which leads from the temple down to Shijo 
 Bridge. W e knew the god would have eventually 
 to pass that way before reaching his goddess in the 
 country on the western extremity of the city. 
 
 A .Japanese imitation of a European cafe, or, 
 rather, German beer-hall, overlooks the farther 
 end of the bridge, and to this my friend and I 
 hurried, so as to be in time to get seats com- 
 manding a good view. The beer is an excellent 
 imitation of the German product, and whatever 
 I the creeds of the thirsty ones might have been, 
 
 I all drank to the health of Susa-no-o and to his 
 ; expectant goddess. 
 
 ^ The river, which was very much swollen a 
 week previous to this, now showed more than 
 two-thirds of its pebbly bed, and it was possible 
 8 
 
114 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 for people to walk about between the western 
 bank and the main stream. The gullies which 
 intersected the stony bottom were bridged over, 
 and tea-houses and booths of various sorts were 
 erected on piles, both in the stream itself as well 
 as in the pools and the lesser water-courses. This 
 nightly fair reached from the Shijo Bridge to the 
 one higher up, a distance of about a third of a 
 mile. The whole was lighted with innumerable 
 paper lanterns, and presented a most fairy-like 
 scene. 
 
 People assemble here every evening during the 
 latter part of July and August to cool themselves 
 in the draught caused by the river. Some will sit 
 on the mats sipping their tea, their feet dangling 
 in the rumiing water. Supper-parties are held, and 
 geisha girls entertain the guests ^\Tith the samisen; 
 little gullies are dammed up so as to form tempo- 
 rary fish-ponds, round which sit numbers of 
 children angling for miniature goldfish ; merry- 
 go-rounds, shooting-galleries, and quaint Japanese 
 Aunt Sallies are rigged up in every available 
 space. In the pebbly alley -ways between the 
 shows an orderly crowd wanders about, laughing 
 and chatting, while awaiting the arrival of the god 
 at the bridge. 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 115 
 
 I We presently hear the shouts of the bearers, 
 
 I and see the light of the torches reflected on the 
 j houses of Gion Machi. The crowd is ordered 
 1 off the bridge by the little policemen with paper 
 lanterns. 
 
 With a wild rush and loud shouts Susa-no-o 
 and his escort of torch-bearers take possession of 
 Shijo. No sooner was the bridge crossed than 
 the frantic efforts of the god to reach his goddess 
 ceased ; he gibbed, if one may say so of a god, 
 backed, and then made a dash for the balustrades 
 j to the right and left of him. His bearers were 
 : now in a frenzy of excitement, some pulling him 
 
 j one way, some another, and then, as if agreed 
 that the goddess could wait a few minutes longer, 
 they ran their sacred load back to the east end of 
 ' the bridge. They crossed and recrossed it several 
 times before they continued their way to the 
 western part of the city. 
 
 During the six following nights the empty 
 shrine of Susa-no-o was the chief attraction of 
 Kyoto. Thousands of pilgrims, who had come 
 in from the surrounding provinces, would attend 
 the fair, and end the evening in the tea-houses 
 in the bed of the Kamogawa. 
 
 Everyone declared that this was the hottest 
 
116 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 July on record ; the early morning and an hour 
 or two before sunset were the only times when 
 work seemed possible. 
 
 The heat forced up the lotuses, and I was 
 thankful to be able to get into the hills by the 
 beginning of August. 
 
 I dined with Mr. Kanocogni down at Shijo a 
 day or two before leaving, and he was able to 
 inform me that he had found the very man I 
 needed as guide, philosopher, and friend for the 
 next few months. 
 
 Our dinner was at a restaurant, built out over 
 the stream and within sight of the Shijo-gawara 
 no suzumi, or the alfresco fete which nightly 
 takes place in the bed of the river. The chief 
 dish was a particular fish which is eaten raw, and 
 was yet unconsciously swimming about in a tub 
 lashed to the piles supportuig the dining-stage. 
 I had practised the use of chopsticks since my 
 first Japanese meal, but the idea of eating 
 uncooked fish made me go hot and cold. I had 
 eaten smoked fish in Germany, and also raw fish 
 pickled in various ways, but to see it taken out 
 of its element, and its still quivering flesh placed 
 before me the next minute, nearly made me sick. 
 
 I was recommended to dip the pieces into a 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 117 
 
 little bowl of shoyu, a favourite sauce in Japan, 
 and concentrating my thoughts on the sauce, I 
 ate some, and almost succeeded in persuading 
 myself that it was rather nice. Anxious, how- 
 ever, not to appear greedy, I may have left more 
 than manners actually required, and swallowed 
 several little cups of sake with the haste wdth 
 which a child swallows orange vdne after a dose 
 of cod-liver oil. A slight suspicion of that useful 
 medicine had not been drowned in the sake, for 
 it lingered on through a part of the next course. 
 
 There were three pretty little geisha girls 
 dining under the third paper lantern from ours. 
 One was extremely pretty, and pointing this out 
 to my host, I was told that she was “No. 3.” 
 I naturally wished to know what “ No. 3 ” meant. 
 “ For wit and beauty she is given that place 
 amongst the geisha of Kyoto.” I wondered 
 what “No. 1 ” might be like. “ Not necessarily 
 more beautiful,” was my answer ; “ for wit ranks 
 equally high, and, as a matter of fact, “ No. 3 ” is 
 perhaps the prettiest, though not as clever as the 
 two first ones.” It was rather a shock when I 
 saw pretty Miss “ No. 3 ” poke a piece of raw fish 
 between her rosy lips. 1 reflected that a .Japanese 
 would probably be as shocked to see a pretty 
 
118 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 English girl eating underdone beef at home, and 
 I knocked one of my few remaining prejudices 
 on the head. 
 
 To my surprise, “No. 3 ’’and hertwo companions 
 trotted up to where we were squatting when our 
 respective meals were over. They went down 
 on their knees, and bowed till their heads touched 
 the matting. My friend received this homage 
 with a slight bow and a smile, and introduced 
 them to me. Belonging to the superior sex, it 
 w'ould not have been polite to have introduced 
 me to them — this is in Japan, I hasten to add. 
 Renewed prostrations for my benefit now 
 followed, and I did my best to receive these as 
 due to the superiority of the male sex. They could 
 not stop to sip tea ^nth us, since they were due 
 at a performance, where they were going to 
 dance ; they bid us good-bye now with bows more 
 familiar than reverential, and \\*ith that low laugh 
 which is as natural to them as breathing they 
 tripped out of the room, and I saw them no more. 
 
 I remarked to my friend how thankful I was 
 that the craze which obtained some years ago for 
 adopting European dress had died out. He, as 
 an artist, would be sure to appreciate tliis. 
 “ Indeed 1 do,” he answered ; “ not only the 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 119 
 
 artists, but all the men, thought the Western 
 dress unbecoming to our women, and they were 
 not long in returning to their national costume. 
 It is also less extravagant, on account of there 
 being no sudden changes in fashion, and it is more 
 cleanly from its being much simpler to wash.” 
 
 I also remarked that the Japanese were too 
 short-legged to wear becomingly Western dress. 
 “ W e are altering that,” he said, and as I naturally 
 looked sceptical, he hastened to assure me that it 
 was a fact. Medical men had come to the con- 
 j elusion that the kneeling posture of the children 
 I impeded the circulation, and prevented the full de- 
 I velopment of the lower limbs, in consequence of 
 which all school-children are now obliged to sit 
 on stools during lesson-hours. Careful measure- 
 ments are periodically made, and it is proved 
 beyond doubt that the children on leaving school 
 have now longer legs than those of their parents. 
 They are indeed a wonderful people ! 
 
 The geisha is an institution so essentially 
 Japanese that a few words on the subject may 
 not be out of place here. 
 
 Anyone professing or calling himself a Christian 
 can hardly fail to condemn it, and in truth Occi- 
 dentals generally, whether they hold the faith of 
 
120 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 their forefathers or not, still hold, unconsciously 
 perhaps, sufficient to condemn an institution 
 which they feel is lowering to the sex of wife, 
 mother, or sister. A Japanese would answer 
 that it might be immoral for a European society 
 to recognize such an institution ; but as he is 
 not a Christian, and does not admit that woman 
 is on an equality wdth man, the suppression of the 
 geisha would not morally improve his country. 
 One may point out that it is not fair to sacrifice 
 these girls for the pleasure men may derive 
 thereby, whether the country they are born in 
 be heathen or Christian. The probable answer 
 would be, that she gets more enjoyment out of 
 her butterfly existence than she would hav’^e 
 done had her parents not sold her as a child to 
 the keeper of the geisha house, but had made 
 her work knee-deep in the paddy-fields to get 
 barely food enough to keep her. 
 
 “ What becomes of her when, at the age of 
 twenty-seven, her term with the geisha-keeper 
 comes to an end ?” “ A few marry, more 
 
 become concubines, and the remainder, if they 
 have been able to save a little money, keep 
 geisha houses themselves in their turn.” 
 
 Now, having prefaced my description of the 
 
GEI.SHAs 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 121 
 
 geisha with an imaginary argument, let us see 
 how this w^onderful work of art is produced. 
 
 Bought wLile a little child, of the neediest 
 parents, if her looks and health promise a good 
 investment, she becomes the property of her 
 mistress till she reaches an age wdien her attrac- 
 tions are on the decline. Her discipline is a 
 severe one, and none but an experienced hand 
 could turn this peasant-child into the accom- 
 plished little w'oman she is destined to become. 
 In Kyoto she is daily sent to the school for 
 nieiko (the name she goes by till she reaches the 
 age of fifteen) ; she is taught to read and wTite, 
 and all the ordinary things learnt in an elementary 
 girls’ scliool. Besides this, she has to spend hours 
 learning the different postures of the Japanese 
 dance ; slie is taught to play the drum, the 
 samisen, and possibly the cotto — musical instru- 
 ments requiring much more skill than one would 
 suppose. The elaborate etiquette observed at 
 weddings and other social gatherings must be 
 acquired ; drawing-room games, polite speech, 
 and, above all, to look her best on all occasions. 
 She may have to accompany geisha to dinner- 
 parties when only eight or ten years of age, 
 w'here she will beat her drum in accompaniment 
 
122 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 to the other musical instruments, and mark time 
 to tlie dance of her elder sisters. She must fill 
 tlie little wine-cups to the brim without spilling 
 a drop, and be careful that every movement is 
 graceful. By the time she is twelve or thirteen 
 she will be sent out to banquets, to dance ^\ith 
 meiko of her own age, and at fifteen or sixteen 
 she may make her debut as a geisha. 
 
 I was taken round the school of the meiko, 
 and watched them being taught all these accom- 
 plishments. There might have been a hundred 
 or more little girls, and though I was conscious 
 that they were all the slaves of geisha- keepers, 
 they looked so healthy and happy that I failed 
 to feel sufficiently sorry for their lot. 
 
 The Japanese are naturally kind to children, 
 and it is in the interest of their owners to keep 
 them in good health and in happiness, for a 
 doleful-faced geisha is wanted nowhere. 
 
 While I was watching the teacher of the 
 samisen instructing a slopy-eyed little pupil 
 how to handle the plectrum, a party of Anglo- 
 Saxons came in — two large, stout women and 
 a rather pretty girl of about eighteen. The 
 contrast in their appearance to that of the 
 teachers in this school was startling. Tliey 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 123 
 
 would have been considered tall anywhere, but 
 here they looked giantesses. The two older 
 women had ponderous shoulders and busts, and 
 I their pinched-in waists accentuated the bulk of 
 their hips. They looked as if they felt that they 
 I were too big, and were doing their best to cut 
 ' themselves in two. They unsealed the building 
 ; we were in ; the passages now looked too narrow, 
 the ceilings too low. They were unbecomingly 
 hot, and their voices sounded too loud. The 
 , young girl’s face was pretty, but her figure and 
 ' movements were that of a boy. She suggested 
 hockey more than any graceful accomphshments. 
 Their dresses made me thankful that the women 
 of Japan had retained their national costume. 
 
 I The fat women were upholstered rather than 
 clothed, and the girl’s dress did not become her 
 j for the lack of feminine grace to carry it off. 
 
 In outward appearance the difference between 
 these women of the two races was great, but 
 worlds separated them sociologically. 
 
 The careworn expression of the teachers told 
 i of long hours of drudgery patiently borne and 
 poorly remunerated. And for what purpose ? 
 
 I To turn these bought children into elegant toys 
 for the pecuniary benefit of their keepers ! 
 
124 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The prosperous look of the tourists was almost 
 aggressive. They might come and go whither 
 they willed, and could indulge their desires with 
 the wealth which others had toiled for. They 
 would be treated with deference by their men- 
 folk instead of being their servants. The young 
 lady could hope to marry the man of her fancy, 
 and could not, like the young pupils in this 
 school, be bought and sold to a life of degrada- 
 tion. To be sure, the social position of these 
 Occidentals was different to that of their Oriental 
 sisters they had come to see, and had they been 
 visiting a school for young ladies of the well-to-do 
 classes in Japan, their conditions would have con- 
 trasted less, but the race differences would have 
 been just as striking. 
 
 I had been told that wit told as much as beauty 
 towards the success of the meiko when she made 
 her debut as a geisba. Now, young women with 
 more than a slight sense of humour are rare in 
 most countries. That this automatic training 
 should ever develop real wit seems hard to 
 believe. That it does exist will, I think, be 
 proved by the following specimen. 
 
 A Mr. Sizer, a young Englishman in one of 
 the foreign settlements, met some geishas at 
 
THE LOTUS 
 
 125 
 
 an entertainment. The letter “ i ” in his name 
 being pronounced here the same as in Latin 
 countries, he was called what to our ears would 
 , sound like Ceesar San. 
 
 ! A slight breach of etiquette on his part made 
 I one of these girls pretend that she was offended, 
 I and she left the room for a short while. On her 
 I return the Enghshman asked her if she had for- 
 I given him, when she drew herself up, and, in a 
 voice of mock tragedy, quoted in good English 
 the opening lines of Mark Antony’s speech : 
 
 I “ I come to bury Ca?sar, not to praise him.” 
 
 Now this would have been a clever retort from 
 a well-educated English or American woman, 
 t but coming, as it did, from a Japanese dancing- 
 girl, it sounds incredible. I can, however, vouch 
 for the truth of the storj\ It is just possible 
 that she belonged to a different class to that 
 ' from which the majority of the geishas come, 
 
 I and was turning her talents and looks to account 
 j in order to assist parents that had got into 
 straitened circumstances. In some cases a 
 I good marriage ends their butterfly career, but 
 too often the end of these charming little 
 creatures is too unpleasant to dwell on. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 H aving completed tant hien que mol my 
 studies of the lotus pond, 1 decided to 
 get away from the heat of Kyoto at once, and go 
 to Shdji. There was so much in the old capital 
 which I had proposed painting, and so many 
 sights I had deferred seeing to leisure days which 
 never came, that I left this beautiful city with 
 the firm intention of returning to it as soon as 
 cooler weather would make work a possibility 
 and sight-seeing a pleasure. 
 
 The guide, philosopher, and friend that Mr. 
 Kanocogni had kindly procured me arrived in 
 time for us to catch the night train to Tokyo. 
 
 Hirosue Tsuda is his name. We will mtroduce 
 him to the reader as the G.P.F., trusting that I 
 this may not be mistaken for some Government i 
 department. 
 
 We reached Gotemba about eleven on the 
 following morning, and had barely time to get 
 
 126 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 127 
 
 our baggage into the primitive little tramway 
 which skirts a part of the base of Fujiyama and 
 ends at Kami-Yoshida. As the crow flies the 
 distance is only fifteen miles, but we soon found 
 that the straight course which that bird supposedly 
 ^ takes is very different to the one of this tramway. 
 
 I W e also had not realized that we had to rise some 
 i two thousand feet, and we had made no allowance 
 for the time spent in coaxing the car on to the 
 rails after the numerous times it got off them. 
 
 For eight hours we had to sit on a hard and 
 I narrow bench in the little car, tightly packed with 
 all sorts and conditions of country-folk. The 
 I derailments allowed us to stretch our legs a little, 
 and after getting used to them they came almost 
 as a relief. We were too tightly packed to be 
 j shaken very much after we had picked up the 
 I car’s full complement of passengers, and a fat 
 woman next to me made a very good buffer. 
 
 Our fellow-passengers, being mostly of the 
 humbler classes, were much more communicative 
 than the ones we had as companions in the night 
 ! express, also much more amusing. As none 
 were likely to understand English, the G.P.F. 
 was able to discuss them with me, and interpret 
 any of the talk which caused most entertain- 
 
128 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 merit. A Buddhist priest of the Zen sect and a 
 jolly old farmer were the wags of the party ; the 
 accidents on the line were looked on as huge 
 jokes, and the directions they volunteered to the 
 hands occupied in righting the car on to the rails 
 gave them ample scope for their witticisms. A 
 small tradesman and his concubine sat between 
 them, and more or less led the laughter, as the 
 claque in a French theatre leads the applause. 
 There were one or two students on their way 
 to climb Fuji, who were getting into training 
 by leaving the car at intervals to climb a hill, 
 joining us again when we had circled round a 
 part of its base. 
 
 An elderly woman, who fortunately sat in the 
 farther corner to the one I was in, was suffering 
 from a severe catarrh ; she used pieces of a 
 newspaper as a handkerchief, and threw them out 
 of the window, showing her contempt for modern 
 journalism at the same time. She and another 
 woman were the more serious part of the 
 company. The latter had . two babies with 
 insatiable appetites ; the poor creature would 
 hardly finish nursing one when the second would 
 cry for its dinner. She looked the picture of 
 exhausted maternity ; she would probably have 
 
FUJIVAMA KKOM SIlOJl 
 
V 
 
 
 r.‘4. 
 
 
 4 < 
 
 4 
 
 #• 
 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 129 
 
 laughed with the rest of them had she a laugh 
 left in her. My fat neighbour and excellent 
 buffer was a woman of many negative qualities ; 
 ready to laugh or look serious, and to agree with 
 everything and everybody. My luggage filled 
 up the little platform for the driver, who sat on 
 the upturned end of my trunk and let his legs 
 dangle over the splash - board. Like most 
 .lapanese drivers, he had no whip, but was able 
 to make the pair of ponies do their utmost by 
 means of those peculiar sounds which the Jehu 
 of every country is an adept at making. He was 
 very popular with the ladies, had a little chaff 
 with every peasant-gh’l we met or overtook on 
 the road, and one who was canying an extra 
 large bundle was allowed to climb up on his 
 platform, provided that she jumped oft’ before 
 reaching the station where he was likely to meet 
 the inspector. “ Always ready to give a good- 
 looking girl a ride for nothing,” he informed the 
 company, while the young woman settled down 
 on the top of my suit-case, and deposited her 
 bundle on my hold-all. 
 
 I was fortunate enough to be able to catch up 
 some raw eggs, a doughy kind of bun, and some 
 apples, in a little village we passed, or I should 
 9 
 
130 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 have had nothing from six o’clock that morning 
 till we reached Yoshida. 
 
 It was a beautiful day ; ever- varying cloud - 
 shapes hung about the summit of Fuji, some- 
 times hiding and sometimes setting off its grace- 
 ful outlines. As we circled round the lower hills 
 we lost sight of it for a while, and it would re- 
 appear in the least expected places. 
 
 When we reached Lake Yamanaka, we had a 
 less impeded view of the great extinct volcano ; 
 the clouds had dispersed, and the darkening 
 summit stood out sharply against the sky. The 
 snow had mostly disappeared, except in the 
 crevasses, and it told as a pale violet on the dark 
 mass of purple on which it lay. 
 
 For another couple of hours we ascended 
 slowly, through a wild, uncultivated country, with 
 scarcely a trace of human habitation. No cattle 
 or sheep browsed on the hill- slopes, though these 
 were rich in vegetation ; we saw a few birds, 
 some strange butterflies and beetles, and now 
 and again a snake would wriggle across our 
 track. 
 
 The benches in our rickety tramcar seemed to 
 get harder as each hour elapsed, and nothing 
 short of a derailment could stir up the least 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 131 
 
 excitement in our company during the last few 
 miles before we reached Yoshida. 
 
 This village, just bordering on the dimensions 
 of a small country town, was en fete: lanterns 
 and banners hung from every house, and strings 
 of small flags stretched across the street. On 
 inquiry, I learnt that a large number of pilgrims 
 was expected, Fuji now being sufficiently free 
 from snow to allow climbers to reach its 
 summit. 
 
 Nature- worship being an important feature of 
 Shintoism, it was to be supposed that Fuji, 
 Japan’s greatest mountain, would be considered 
 a holy place ; and where an agreeable mountain 
 ascent is the pilgiimage, there is never a lack of 
 people to take part in it. 
 
 Yoshida is a favourite starting-point, and 
 during the two or three months that Fuji is open 
 its numerous inns do a very good trade. 
 
 We decided not to spend the night here, but 
 to push on to Funatso, the next stage in our 
 journey. The G.P.F. secured a man and hand- 
 cart to take our luggage, and a delightful walk of 
 two or three miles brought us there shortly after 
 the sun had set. 
 
 We got a room at a primitive little inn over- 
 
132 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 looking Lake Kawaguchi. We were supplied 
 with sandals and kimonos, and the landlady 
 offered to undress us while her husband heated 
 up the bath. I explained that as I was a child 
 no longer, I could undress myself, but being 
 famished, we should be glad of some dinner as 
 soon as the bath was over. This was received 
 with smiles and bows and assurances that she 
 would do her best : “ It is a humble inn 
 which my honoured guests have condescended to 
 patronize, and I fear that my utmost efforts must 
 of a necessity be unworthy.” The G.P.F. had 
 nearly undressed during this speech, and I had 
 got off as much clothing as decency allowed 
 when the lady trotted off in search of what food- 
 stuffs the \dllage could supply. 
 
 The novelty of being considered a tall man had 
 worn off* a little, but when I got into a kimono 
 made for a Japanese I felt a giant. This garment 
 only reached a few inches below my knees. I 
 climbed down the steep flight of stairs which led 
 into the living-room below, and was the cause of 
 some merriment to the second-class guests who 
 were assembled there. A sandal I had not gripped 
 firmly enough between the large and second toe 
 slipped off and clattered down the steps, while the 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 133 
 
 other one, which I had gripped too tightly, slid 
 round and stuck out at right angles to my foot. 
 As this did not stop the laughter, I took off 
 sandal No. 2, and had a shot at its fellow with 
 it, and nearly toppled down myself in doing so. 
 There were no banisters to these steps, so I 
 thought it safest to turn round and descend as 
 one does on a ladder. I was received with 
 applause like one who had successfully pulled off 
 a comic interlude at a serious gathering. 
 
 A lien-house had been converted into a bath- 
 room ; but as there was a clean towel, a bucket 
 of cold water, and a steaming hot bath, I had 
 nothing to complain of. 
 
 Forgetful of all I had read about the Japanese 
 bath, I put my foot into the tub, but very quickly 
 pulled it out again, and have felt sorry for the fate 
 of the lobster ever since. I called out to the land- 
 lord, who was still stoking in a little shed attached 
 to the ex-hen-house, and he lowered the tempera- 
 ture of the bath to within slow boiling-point, and 
 then another bucketful of cold water made it just 
 possible to get in. No soap is allowed in tlie hot 
 bath, as it would soil the water for the other 
 guests. The correct thing is to have a pre- 
 liminary wash before you get in, to have a long 
 
134 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 soak in the heated water, then to be scrubbed by 
 the bath-man, and end with a cold douche. 
 
 There being no bath-man in this primitive inn, 
 the maid-of-all-work might have to scrub the 
 guests, had she not been fortunately otherwise 
 engaged, and I was left to complete my ablutions 
 by myself, 
 
 Bathing is so universal in Japan, and the bath- 
 room so important a feature in a Japanese inn, 
 that we may refer to it again later on. 
 
 The guest-rooms in the Naka-ya were built out 
 from the original cottage, and supported on piles 
 which were sunk in the bed of the lake itself. 
 The fine view had evidently been an important 
 consideration to the speculative proprietor when 
 he ventured on this inn, which serves as a resting- 
 place for foreigners on their way to Shoji Hotel. 
 The length of Lake Kawaguchi had to be 
 traversed ; carriers had to be provided to take 
 the luggage on to the next lake, and when that 
 was crossed, four miles of porterage was necessary 
 before reaching Lake Shoji, on which the foreign 
 hotel stood. 
 
 The proprietor was able to supply these wants 
 and also kago, a species of litter, for any who 
 might not be up to the walk. His ideas of 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 135 
 
 European food were limited. He had taught 
 someone to bake bread, and professed to being 
 able to get cow’s milk. Some turned meats stood 
 on a shelf in the living-room, but as they might 
 have been there for some years, I was loath to 
 disturb them. My guide had told him that I 
 liked Japanese food, and I proved this to his 
 satisfaction when at last the dinner was served. 
 A delicious fish-broth wdth mushrooms, called 
 oic(ui, a little bowl of tamago yaki, a compound 
 of egg and curded beans, and a dish of fresh trout, 
 were none of them things to be despised after a 
 long fast and a tiring day’s journey, and the plain 
 boiled rice with which every Japanese meal ends 
 seems somehow or another just the thing required. 
 
 The prejudice foreigners have against the native 
 food is surprising. Ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 would have come here pro\dded ^v^th tins, and 
 eaten this messy and often stale food in preference 
 to the clean and wholesome fare the landlord 
 could give them. 
 
 ^^Jlen the empty little lacquer bowls were 
 cleared away we were ready for bed. The nesan, 
 a thick-set country wench, started vigorously to 
 sweep the matting, we ha\'ing to skip about to 
 keep clear of her broom. She then brought in 
 
136 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 the quilts, spread them on the floor, and placed a 
 sheet over them ; from the recesses of her hang- 
 ing sleeve she fetched out a tin of insect-powder 
 (a Japanese imitation of Keating’s), and peppered 
 a brown line of fortification round the edge of the 
 sheet. I watched this operation with mixed feel- 
 ings ; was surprised that in so clean a looking 
 room it should have been necessary. I was 
 anxious to learn what species of foe she was 
 protecting us against. “ It was to keep off the 
 she said ; and 1 wasn’t much the wdser. I 
 imitated a crawling motion with my fingers, and 
 she shook her head. I then gave some hops with 
 my finger over the matting, and found that I had 
 made a correct guess. 
 
 The foe was less alarmmg than the one 1 at 
 first feared, but should the Japanese nomi be as 
 nimble as the European one, he would not think 
 it much of a hop to clear so narrow a fortification. 
 1 borrowed the nhans pepper-pot, dusted the 
 whole sheet, and gave her to understand that 
 they might put another halfpenny on to the bill. 
 Encouraged by sueh generosity, she ran out to 
 fetch an enormous green muslin mosquito-curtain, 
 which she suspended from four hooks hi the ceil- 
 ing. It had a band of black tape at each angle. 
 
IIOMESTKAI) NEAR SHOJI 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 137 
 
 and also at the top and bottom, and when fixed 
 in position it looked like a huge meat-safe. She 
 then hitched up a corner to allow me to creep 
 into the bed, and drew the edges of the curtain 
 up to the powdery line of fortification. 
 
 Satisfied that I was properly protected from 
 the ka as well as the nomi, she went down on her 
 knees, brought her forehead to the matting, and 
 bid me “ O yasumi nasai,” which, being interpreted 
 literally, is, “ Honourably resting deign.” I gave 
 her the correct answer, “ O yasumi,” heard her 
 draw back the slides, and I tried to compose my- 
 self for a night’s rest. The pillow was shaped like 
 a thick rolling-pin, and nearly as hard. It rolled 
 back over the quilt when I put my head on it ; 
 placing it further from the edge of the bedding, I 
 found my feet sticking out at the other end and 
 well over the Keating border. The quilt was 
 fortunately a wide one, and by stretching from 
 corner to corner I was able to get my feet covered. 
 I also learnt how the pillow should be treated to 
 keep it stationary, and that is to get it fixed in 
 the nape of the neck. 
 
 The old lady with the catarrh was squatting 
 in the further corner of the green meat-safe, and 
 had changed roles with the priest of the Zen 
 

 138 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 sect, for she was snuffling out jokes while he was 
 using a newspaper as a pocket-handkerchief. 
 The G.P.F. was nursing the hungry babes, and 
 exhausted motherhood was roaring \\dth laughter 
 at his attempts. The bucksome wench was 
 slowly disappearing through the cover of my suit- 
 case, when a rattle and a bang awoke me. 
 
 I thought that the meat-safe had gone off the 
 rails : fortunately it was nothing more alarming 
 than the noise of the wooden shutters, which the 
 ncsan and landlady were pushing along the 
 grooves outside the shoji (the paper slides), 
 and that banged together as they met in the 
 middle. 
 
 I had purposely left the shoji wide open, so as 
 to wake up at daybreak, and also to enjoy the 
 cool breeze which blew across the lake. But I 
 remembered now that police regulations oblige 
 everyone to lock up their houses at night. I felt 
 oppressed with a sense of stuffiness, and would 
 have pulled down the muslin curtain had not a 
 gentle “ mi-i-i ” made me aware that mosquitoes 
 were outside it. One or tAvo norni must have 
 crossed the Keating, and Avhile trying to drive 
 one off my ankle, the rolling-pin slipped from 
 under my head. I began to feel more lenient to 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 139 
 
 the foreigner who avoids the native inns ; perhaps 
 he was not such a silly idiot after all. 
 
 A long day spent in the bracing air did more 
 , than counteract the nibbling of the nomi and the 
 ' hardness of my pillow, for I became unconscious 
 I of everything till the light streamed in through 
 ; the cracks in the shutters. 
 
 Mr. Tsuda had made all the necessary arrange- 
 ments with the landlord for the remainder of 
 our journey, and we were rowed across the lake 
 before the sun had risen above the surrounding 
 liills. 
 
 Kawaguchi is the most picturesque of the five 
 lakes which circle round the northern slopes of 
 Fuji. Funatso is prettily situated, at the east 
 and lower end, on a slight promontory capped 
 by a heavily thatched Shinto temple. The low- 
 lying hills and partly fishing, partly agricultural 
 villages on the southern edge often make a fine 
 foreground to the gi’eat mountain which rises 
 I above them. 
 
 Tlie cottages are all thatched, and the ridges 
 I are thickly covered with house - leeks and a 
 variety of stonecrop ; on some we saw a fine 
 display of tiger-lilies. VN’^hether the bulbs of the 
 latter are planted here, or whether the seed is 
 
140 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 dropped by birds or blown up from the little 
 gardens below, I have never been able to 
 ascertain. A wooden object, shaped like a 
 scythe and about a yard high, is generally stuck 
 at both ends of the ridge. I am told this is to 
 keep off evil spirits. 
 
 We reached the head of the lake in a little 
 over an hour, when our luggage, and that of a 
 German merchant fr’om Yokohama who accom- 
 panied us, was strapped on to the backs of four 
 coohes whom we had taken with us. We 
 climbed over a little pass in the hills and 
 descended to the shore of Nishinoumi. Here a 
 fresh boat was engaged, and we were taken 
 across this lake to a httle riparian village called 
 Nemba. 
 
 The sun was now getting uncomfortably hot, 
 and we were thankful that the four or five miles 
 we had to tramp to reach Lake Shoji was mostly 
 through a thickly-wooded country. 
 
 It is astonishing how these little coolies can 
 tramp up the hills, heavily laden as they often 
 are, and on a diet on which an Englishman 
 would starve. 
 
 When we reached the last bit of water which 
 we had to cross, the men halloaed to the hotel 
 
JOURNEY TO SHOJI 
 
 141 
 
 on the opposite shore to bring the boat, and 
 when they had succeeded in making themselves 
 heard, we were able to dismiss them. 
 
 An hour later Mrs. Higuchi welcomed us at 
 the landing-stage of the hotel which bears her 
 name. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SHOJI 
 
 S HOJI is an ideal spot for the foreign 
 residents at Kobe or Yokohama to pass 
 their holidays. The air is bracing, the scenery 
 is beautiful ; delightful excursions are to be 
 made from here, and bathing, boating, and 
 fishing of sorts is to be had on the lake which 
 the hotel overlooks. It is too ungetatable 
 for a week-end outing, though well worth the 
 trouble of getting there for those who can 
 afford the time it takes. The inconveniences 
 of the tramway journey can be minimized by a 
 party hiring a car for themselves, and good 
 pedestrians can make the return journey by 
 walking to Kofu and taking the train to Yoko- 
 hama, or by descending the Fujikawa rapids and 
 joining the Tokaido Railway at Iwabuchi. 
 
 If the latter route be taken, the excursionist 
 will have gone round the whole of the base of 
 Fujiyama, amidst the most varied and beautiful 
 
 142 
 
SHOJI 
 
 143 
 
 scenery. The river trip can be spread over three 
 days by sleeping a night at INIinobu — the INIecca 
 of the Buddhists of the Nicheren sect — and 
 rejoining the boat at Hakii the next morning. 
 \^isitors to Japan on pleasure bent, and not sulfer- 
 ing from nerves, should make a point of taking 
 this trip. Full directions are given in Murray, 
 and also an excellent description of Minobu. 
 
 Should they fail to do this, they may live in 
 danger of meeting a six weeks’ excursionist, who 
 will exclaim : “ Do you mean to say that you 
 were all that time in Japan and never went down 
 the Fujikawa !” The writer liv^es in that danger 
 now, and, alas ! has yet another hanging over him : 
 for two months he could gaze with respect on the 
 crown of Fujiyama when she lifted her cloudy 
 veil, but no attempt did he make to reach that 
 crown and look dowm on her loveliness. Attempts 
 to portray some of her beauty and to depict 
 many of the delightful subjects which lay in her 
 shadow required all the time at his disposal. 
 
 Shoji is an ideal spot, as we said before, both 
 for the idler, the overworked man needing a rest, 
 or the tourist who is satiated with the sights 
 which he has been rushed round to see. But 
 unfortunately it did not altogether suit the 
 
144 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 requirements of my particular case. From the 
 hotel an uninterrupted view of the whole of Fuji 
 is obtained, but a poor foreground to help the 
 composition. She looked much more imposing 
 from many places we had passed on the way 
 here, where her outlines were partly hid and her 
 height enhanced by the lesser hills lying at her 
 base. I could make studies of the cloud-forms 
 which often hung about her summit ; but a good 
 picture of the mountain is not to be got here. 
 
 The village of Shoji, which Murray con- 
 temptuously dismisses as a squalid hamlet, has 
 distinct pictorial possibilities, and I spent most 
 of my time in painting there; it takes half an 
 hour’s row across the lake to reach it, and I was 
 not always fortunate enough to find the boat 
 disengaged. 
 
 The village starts in a fold in the hills, and 
 spreads out as it reaches down to the edge of 
 the lake. The dwellers at the top are mainly 
 agricultural, if such a term can be apphed to the 
 poor folk who scratch little terraces out of the 
 mountain-side to grow a patch of maize or millet. 
 Wood-ehopping is the chief occupation of the 
 bulk of the population ; the women bring the 
 wood down from the heights, while the men cut 
 
SHOJI 
 
 145 
 
 it into lengths and sizes to be turned into broom- 
 handles and many other commodities. Thousands 
 of chop-sticks are also made here, and with a 
 surprising rapidity. Down on the strand live 
 the fisher-folk and the boatmen who bring the 
 timber from across the lake. 
 
 An unsophisticated people dwell in this remote 
 village, and live now much in the same way as 
 their forbears lived a thousand and more years 
 before them. A chain of mountains cuts them 
 oft’ from the nearest township, eighteen miles 
 away, and no squire or parson lives within that 
 distance to use any civilizing influence. The 
 Shinto priest is in as humble a position as the 
 rest, and probably chops wood when not attend- 
 ing to the ceremonies of the communal cult at 
 the village temple. 
 
 Since the new order of things, the little ones 
 have to attend school, and a policeman has a look 
 round about once a fortnight. 
 
 The hotel across the lake had only been built 
 a few years ago, and the guests seldom paid the 
 village a visit. I was stared at as though I 
 were some strange being dropped out of another 
 planet, and curiosity was highly awakened when 
 I sat down to paint their houses. 
 
 10 
 
146 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 ^Vhel■e there is apparently so little control, a 
 stranger would expect the people to be living 
 in a state of savagery, instead of being industrious 
 and well-behaved. Let him look a little deeper 
 into the matter, and he will find that there 
 is less individual freedom here than in any 
 European community, be it ever so well policed. 
 
 Eacli member of a household is responsible for 
 its good behaviour to the head of the family. 
 The sisters must obey the brothers ; the younger 
 sons are ruled by the elder ; and all are subject to 
 the will of the father or grandfather, as the case 
 may be. The head of each household is respon- 
 sible to the elders of the village, and they, in 
 their turn, are subject to the rulers of the 
 district. Everyone is in a sense his brother’s 
 keeper, for the sin of the one is visited on the 
 many. 
 
 Though cruel punishments cannot, as formerly, 
 be inflicted on the erring ones, social custom is 
 so deeply engrained that none dare openly to 
 fight against it. 
 
 They are not alone ruled by the living ; they 
 must be careful also not to offend the spirits of 
 the dead ; neglect of the family cult may bring 
 disaster on that family, and neglect of the 
 
THK COMMUiVAI. SHRINI', 
 
SHOJI 
 
 147 
 
 communal cult may cause suffering to the 
 whole community. The Shinto priest, who may 
 be chopping wood to eke out his little salary, is 
 the representative of a more powerful system of 
 government than the framers of any constitution 
 could ever hope to attain. It has ruled these 
 people for probably more than three millen- 
 niums, and has become a part and parcel of their 
 natures. 
 
 The police may have to enforce new regula- 
 tions, and men may be fined or imprisoned for 
 the breach of a law recently enacted. The rule 
 of the dead will remain a power for good as long 
 ' as Japan holds a prominent position amongst the 
 nations. 
 
 ' A sanitary regulation was being carried out 
 during one of tl\e days that I worked there, and 
 I a policeman had come over from Motosu for the 
 ji purpose. Four times a year the mats have to be 
 taken out of the houses to be beaten and aired in 
 I the sun — a bad lookout for the nomi. I found it 
 
 I . 
 
 just as well to do my sketching on the windward 
 side of these operations. In the better class of 
 houses the mats are taken off the frames to 
 which tliey are fixed and turned after the first 
 six months, and they are discarded after a year. 
 
148 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 The paper is also stripped off the shoji^ and 
 renewed every six months. 
 
 To satisfy the sensibilities of the foreigners, 
 who go to Japan in ever-increasing numbers, a 
 police regulation obliges everyone to take his 
 daily bath indoors ; and in the towns, where 
 there are plenty of police to enforce it, these 
 ablutions on the pavement during the hot 
 weather are not seen at present. They were 
 not so particular here in Shoji, for I constantly 
 saw men and women tubbing themselves in the 
 little courts in front of their cottages, and 
 sometimes in the street itself. 
 
 To heat up the bath inside the small houses 
 would make them unbearably hot, so the large 
 tub and heating furnace are placed outside till 
 the weather cools down. “ Nudity in Japan is 
 seen but not looked at,” as someone pithily put it. 
 As the Japanese are a very law-abiding people, 
 it is probable that in a few years this alfresco 
 bathing will cease to exist, although it is always 
 hard to put laws into force which are foreign to 
 the customs of a people. 
 
 1 had my first experience of an earthquake 
 while staying at Shoji. I was working in my 
 room when it occurred. 
 
SHOJl 
 
 149 
 
 I felt the hotel shake several times before 
 I was aware of the cause. I went on with my 
 painting, wishing that ]\lrs. Higuchi had chosen 
 some other time for mo\dng her furniture. A 
 more violent shake than the first ones made me 
 blot my drawing, and I reflected that, if the 
 w'orkmen did not move the furniture more 
 carefully, they w^ould bring the ceiling dowm 
 on me. I looked up to see if there w^ere any 
 dangerous cracks in the plaster, when it dawmed 
 on me that there was no floor above. 
 
 A low rumble followed, increasing in strength, 
 till the window^s rattled to such an extent that I 
 moved rapidly aw^ay from the glass. 1 heard 
 hurried footsteps in the passage, and as my door 
 had flown open, I saw one of the German guests 
 running past to get outside. He must have 
 seen me as he flew past, for he called out : 
 “ Ach ! do you not veal die eardfpiake ?” 
 
 Now, don’t think that I was particularly brave, 
 or that my Gennan acquaintance w^as excep- 
 tionally timid. He had lived some years in 
 Japan, and w^as instantly aw'are of the cause 
 of the shaking, and fully alive to the awful 
 possibilities ; whereas, in my case, it was mostly 
 over before I clearly realized what was happen- 
 
150 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 ing. I remembered some of the remarks 
 Professor Chamberlain makes on the subject 
 in “ Things Japanese ” — how the novdce always 
 wonders why people should make such a fuss 
 about it ; how he changes his mind after a few 
 more experiences ; and how his terror of earth- 
 quakes grows with length of residence in this 
 earthquake-shaken land. I wondered if, after 
 my fifth or sixth experience, I would be in such 
 a mortal funk as my friend appeared to be in. 
 
 I went on with my work and forgot all about 
 the earthquake till the next day, when a news- 
 paper arrived with a description of the damages 
 which it had caused. 
 
 Two days later 1 was spending the evening 
 in the sitting-room with the other guests, when 
 we experienced a shock far severer than the last 
 ones. It came without the slightest warning, 
 and only lasted a few seconds. The noise it 
 made was probably far greater than it would 
 have made in a solidly-constructed house ; but 
 the danger was far less, for wooden buildings 
 wiU yield to vibrations which might easily bring 
 down brick or stone walls. 
 
 I felt less comfortable after this, my second 
 experience. For one thing, it made more noise 
 
SHOJI 
 
 151 
 
 in this room, which had windows extending 
 round two sides of it. During a minute or 
 two after the shake everyone seemed on the 
 (]id vive, and the most interesting story would 
 not have had a listener. 
 
 A lady declared that she knew one was coming, 
 as she felt sick just before it. “ Was it really 
 before, and not at tlie time, or so soon after that 
 she would not notice the difference ?” These 
 were questions thought or only hinted at. But 
 we were assured, with the assurance whieh only 
 the doubted word brings forth, that such had 
 been her experience each time. Others have 
 also told me that a feeling of nausea always 
 preceded, in their cases, an earthquake shock. 
 
 The safest place in a room is just under the 
 doorway, for should part of the roof or a chimney- 
 stack come crashing through the ceiling, you get 
 some protection from the lintel and the wall 
 above it. I should feel more convinced of the 
 prophetic sickness mentioned above had I ever 
 seen or even heard of anyone so warned making 
 for this place of comparative safety before and 
 not after the shock. 
 
 A .fapanese superstition, still existing amongst 
 the least educated, is that earthquakes are caused 
 
7 
 
 152 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 by a huge subterranean fish, which, on waking 
 up, wriggles about and causes the vibrations. A 
 book could be written on the superstitions, the 
 anecdotes, and the native illustrations bearing on 
 this subject. 
 
 Since the waking up of Japan to modern 
 science, seismological research has been actively 
 carried on. The seismometer is nearly as 
 familiar to an educated Japanese as the barometer 
 is to the European. Japan has had the benefit 
 of Professor Milne’s scientific knowledge, and 
 a volume of the “ Seismological Transactions ” 
 treats entirely on the volcanoes in the Japanese 
 Empire. When we look for the weather fore- 
 casts in our papers, the Japanese look for a report 
 of any earthquake shocks recorded during the 
 last twenty-four hours. 
 
 It is not supposed that science will ever be 
 able to prevent these disturbances, but science 
 has been able to point out some means of 
 minimizing their disastrous results. It has been 
 proved that the vibrations are much gi’eater at 
 the surface of the soil than in the lower layers. 
 To illustrate this, it is only necessary to place 
 several billiard-balls in a row and touching each 
 otlier on a table, and by striking the first ball 
 
SHOJl 
 
 153 
 
 it will be seen that the farthest one w'ill move 
 the fastest, the intermediate ones remaining 
 comparatively stationary. 
 
 Little damage may result to a building if its 
 foundations be isolated from the soil’s surface. 
 Before science had proved this fact, the law of 
 the sur\'ival of the fittest had taught the .Japanese 
 builders to adopt this plan. The framing of their 
 structures being entirely of wood, it was advisable 
 to disconnect the perpendicular supports from the 
 soil so as to prevent the rot. The timbers were, 
 therefore, not sunk into the ground, but rested 
 on stone plinths, which served as the true founda- 
 tions. The wooden pillars of important buildings 
 have a bronze casing at the base, and probably a 
 metal pin is dowelled into the stone beneath. 
 
 It is generally supposed that wood was chosen 
 in preference to stone or brick for building 
 material on account of its being less liable to 
 damage from earthquakes. It may be one of the 
 reasons ; the greater cost of brick or stone is 
 probably the chief cause. Nine-tenths of .Japan 
 is only suitable for the growdh of timber, and 
 with this material close at hand wooden structures 
 were the most likely ones to be erected. Had 
 timber been scarce, it is possible that more durable 
 
154 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 buildings would have been evolved to resist, in a 
 measure, the earth’s vibrations. Such buildings 
 are now being constructed in the European 
 settlements in Tokyo and in other cities. 
 
 The one-storied house, so universal elsewhere, 
 is doubtless due to the fear of the earthquake, 
 for it is hardly to be supposed that in towns 
 where the ground is valuable such low houses 
 would exist but for this cause. 
 
 Japan suffers from a scourge even greater than 
 earthquakes, and that is fire. A serious visitation 
 of the former is usually followed by the latter. 
 Houses built of wood, the partitions generally 
 of paper, the floors covered with straw-matting, 
 and the rooms often only lighted with paper 
 lanterns — with such an abundance of inflam- 
 mable material, can one wonder that fires are 
 so prevalent ? 
 
 It is said that good taste prevents the owner 
 of valuable works of art from making a display 
 of his treasures in his rooms ; and in truth, if you 
 call on a Japanese who is known as an art- 
 collector, you will be disappointed at the small 
 number of beautiful things seen in his sitting- 
 rooms. A kakemono of some painter of the Kano 
 school and a beautiful vase or statuette may be 
 
SHOJI 
 
 155 
 
 seen in the takernona, but beyond that all is 
 simplicity itself. Should he know that you are 
 interested in Japanese art, he will send a servant 
 to fetch some more things from the godown. I 
 may mention here that a godown is a fireproof 
 room attached to most buildings where there is 
 anything especially valuable to protect. 
 
 The two objects in liis room which are there 
 solely for decorative purposes have their beauty 
 and importance very much enhanced in such a 
 simple and also tasteful setting. The ornamenta- 
 tion of the sliding-screens and other necessary 
 objects is in good taste, though not costly. 
 
 The effect is pleasing, but the cause of this 
 scarcity of precious things is not far to seek. 
 The owner knows full well the risks from fire 
 which he would run should he leave his valuables 
 in such inflammable surroundings. Good taste 
 is here the handmaiden of expediency. 
 
 ^^’'ere a man sufficiently wealtliy not to mind 
 ri.sking the loss of his works of art, he would be 
 justly deemed a vulgarian. 
 
 In spite of precautions, it is sad to think of 
 the havoc fire has caused to countless art 
 treasures. 
 
 During the last two days I spent in Kyoto, a 
 
T 
 
 156 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 fire raged at Osaka, which is the second largest 
 city in Japan. It is estimated that more than a 
 quarter of the buildings were destroyed before 
 the fire could be mastered. 
 
 I was astonished at the little excitement that 
 so great a calamity caused in Kyoto, which is 
 only about thirty miles distant from Osaka. 
 The Japanese are not fatalists, like the Moham- 
 medans, who are past-masters in bearing the 
 trials of others ; but this seeming indifference 
 must be due to the frequent occurrence of this 
 dreadful scourge. 
 
 Many a prayer falls on the deaf ears of Fudo’s 
 image, to ask his protection from the fires he 
 controls. May they be heard where the prayer 
 of the faithful is acceptable, though offered up to 
 wood and stone ! 
 
FUJIYAMA 
 

CHAPTER XII 
 
 JOURNEY TO KOFU 
 
 I WAS fortunate enough to make the ac- 
 quaintance of a German officer and his wife, 
 who had come to the hotel by the Kofu route. 
 They told me of a wonderful display of lotuses 
 they had seen in the moat round the ruined Kofu 
 Castle. 
 
 This was not to be lost, and, finding that 
 Mr. Tsuda was equal to a long day’s tramp, I 
 decided to leave the next day and return to 
 Shoji when I had got what I wanted. 
 
 ^^'^e secured an agile young man to carry our 
 traps, and started at six in the morning, hoping 
 to get over the pass in the mountain range we 
 had to cross before the full heat of the day. 
 
 A tramp in bracing air and amidst beautiful 
 scenery is a delightful thing in itself, but add to 
 this a distinct object, and let it be in a country 
 where a surprise may be awaiting you round 
 
 157 
 
158 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 every turning of the road : your day’s tramp 
 thus becomes such an asset in the joys of 
 existence as to wipe out a host of vexations and 
 discomforts which may have accumulated on the 
 wrong side of the account. 
 
 Such a one it was which took us from Shoji to 
 the lotus-flowers at Kofu. 
 
 We crossed the water, ascended the \-illage, 
 and took a path leading through the pine-woods 
 to the top of the ridge of hills which semicircle 
 round the lake. Looking back, we got a fine 
 \dew of f’uji’s cone rising from a magnificent 
 vTeath of clouds which hung round its base. 
 The reflections in the lake were unruffled as they 
 seldom are at a later hour in the day ; the \’illage 
 lay at our feet, its mouse-coloured thatch 
 etherealized by the transparent columns of smoke 
 which rose straight up till a higher current of air 
 cut them off. 
 
 AVe had one last look at Fuji, and descended 
 into the next valley. Our path led alongside a 
 stream which splashed and eddied aroimd the 
 stones and fallen timber in its course. AA’^ild 
 hydrangeas grew in profusion, and often lined 
 each side of the pathway ; gentian, monk’s-hood, 
 and Lilium auratum throve in the moistened air 
 
JOURNEY TO KOFU 
 
 159 
 
 and shelter of the heavier timbered trees we then 
 were under. 
 
 The stream increased considerably in volume 
 as we got farther down its course, and when we 
 emerofed out of the wood we looked down on a 
 series of water-mills with curious little overshot 
 wheels, fed through conduits made of thick 
 bamboo stems. A few cottages were scattered 
 about near the mills, and, where the lie of the 
 land allowed of it, there were rice-fields. 
 
 The valley was long and narrow, and shut in 
 with high hills on each side. The sun was high 
 enough now to beat down on it, and we were 
 thankful to find a little tea-house to rest in 
 before ascending to the pass over the mountains. 
 
 The landlady, after she had got over the 
 surprise of seeing such unusual visitors, placed 
 the baby she was nursing under a small green 
 mosquito-curtain — more like a meat-safe than 
 the one I slept under at Funatsu. She next 
 attended to the fire, which is usually in an iron 
 well sunk in the matted floor ; she blew up the 
 charcoal embers through an iron pipe, and hung 
 the kettle on a hook suspended over the fire 
 from the ceiling. She placed two cushions on 
 the edge of the raised floor for us to sit on, 
 
160 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 allowing our feet to rest on the pavement out- 
 side. A cricket was chirping in a cage little 
 larger than a sardine-tin hung over the entrance, 
 just above our heads. 
 
 A young woman was attending to the washing 
 in the garden. I watched her fish a kimono out 
 of a tub and spread it out on some flat boards ; 
 then she flattened out all the pleats with her 
 hands, and left the sun to do the rest. 
 
 Little lacquer bowls of biscuits and sweetmeats 
 were placed before us, and when the water was 
 boiled we were served with little cups of green 
 tea. This is always taken without milk or sugar, 
 and is not allowed to draw more than a few 
 seconds. You do not ask the price of these 
 refreshments on leaving, but you place on the 
 tray a small sum which the okosan acknowledges 
 with a deep reverence and an apology for the 
 lowly fare she has served you. She does not 
 even look at the remuneration till you are off 
 the premises. 
 
 We left the valley shortly after our rest, and 
 took a ^vinding path in a fold in the hills to our 
 right. Ubaguchitoge did not appear much of 
 a climb after all ; so thought the G.P.F. and I, 
 but a slight smile on the face of our carrier 
 
JOURNEY TO KOFU 
 
 161 
 
 made me feel less confident. We were on the 
 wrong side of the hill, both for shade and the breeze, 
 and some nice fat clouds had an aggravating 
 way of just missing the sun as they lazily floated 
 across the blue. We got to the top of the first 
 summit, only to find that another and a rather 
 liigher one stared us in the face. The young 
 mountaineer who acted as carrier and guide 
 tried to console us by saying that if we stepped 
 out we could get to the top in an hour. 
 
 The hour dragged on to one and a half ; it 
 seemed an eternity under the scorching sun, and 
 above a bad blister on my heel. The half- 
 hour’s halt at the top of the pass, when we finally 
 reached it, made ample amends for our toil. We 
 found a shady place under a rock, an icy cold 
 spring, and we overlooked the grandest panorama 
 which I have seen in Japan. A fertile plain, 
 criss-crossed by the streams which feed the 
 Fujikawa, stretched away to the right and left 
 of us. Kofu lay on the opposite side, and range 
 upon range of mountains, partly liid by huge 
 cumulus clouds or intensified in colour by the 
 shadows they cast, formed a magnificent back- 
 gi’ound. Kofu is the centre of the silk trade, 
 and the numerous villages dotted about the 
 11 
 
162 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 extensive patches of mulberry-bushes bore witness 
 to the importance of the industry. 
 
 Our descent into the plain was a steep and a 
 long one. It lies from two to three thousand feet 
 lower than the valley we had left behind us. 
 We were now on the shadier side of the range, 
 and got the benefit of the breeze that blew from 
 the north. We halted at Ubaguchi, the first 
 village we reached on entering the plain ; there 
 was no inn, but we were told that we could get 
 some rice at a little general store. 
 
 We had exhausted the packet of sandwiches, 
 and were quite ready for the dried fish and boiled 
 rice the store-keeper was able to prepare for us. 
 He also — blessed man ! — fished some bottles of 
 Kirin beer out of a well, and handed us two 
 glasses. I pointed out to him that there were 
 three of us, and he explained that he possessed a 
 third glass, but that it was so precious to him 
 that he never produced it unless obliged to do so. 
 He fetched it, however, and I asked the G.P.F. 
 to try and find out why this particular glass 
 should be so much prized, for it was but a 
 common little tumbler. 
 
 After clearing a space on the matting of the 
 clogs, straw sandals, and what not else that 
 
JOURNEY TO KOFU 
 
 163 
 
 littered it, he squatted down, fanned the flies off* 
 our dried fish, and told us the following story : 
 
 “ While serving in Manchuria during the late 
 war I had brought a wounded Russian into our 
 camp, and I was told off to look after him. I 
 became very fond of my prisoner, who was a 
 peasant, like myself, and I did what I could to 
 relieve him in his sufferings. The poor fellow 
 was too badly hurt to recover, but before he 
 died he asked me to search in his greatcoat for 
 a vodka-glass he had, and, when I found it, he 
 said : ‘ Take this. It is a poor offering to make in 
 return for what you have done, but it is the only 
 thing in this world that I possess.’ You can’t 
 wonder, then, gentlemen, that I value this little 
 tumbler.” 
 
 A little girl now came in to buy a farthing’s- 
 worth of oil. With many apologies, the shopman 
 asked if I would condescend to move, and he 
 lifted a little trap-door in the floor where I had 
 been squatting, let down a miniature bucket on 
 a string and brought it up full of oil, that was in 
 an open vat below. He gave the child her 
 measure and took the farthing (one sen). The 
 little girl evidently knew her man, for she looked 
 sideways into her jug, then at the bucket, and 
 
164 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 smiled in such an enticing manner that our shop- 
 man could not resist pouring in another measure. 
 
 He was a jolly-looking fellow, not handsome 
 from our European point of \dew, but his figure, 
 only hid by a loin-cloth, was one an athlete 
 might be proud of. 
 
 I left his little store feeling better pleased with 
 human nature generally. I even thought I felt 
 my blister less, but possibly the Kirin beer may 
 have had something to do with it. 
 
 Ubaguchi is a long, straggling village ; in 
 nearly every house we saw women weaving silk 
 or winding it from cocoons, which bobbed about 
 in tubs of water. We tramped on for another 
 four or five miles, passing through one or two 
 hamlets, and everythmg we saw was in some way 
 or another connected with the production of 
 silk. 
 
 It began to ram as we reached a village along- 
 side the river we had to cross, and we took shelter 
 in another general store, which was hostel, tea- 
 house, and cake-factory at the same time. We 
 were just in time, for we had hardly sat down to 
 our little cups of tea when the rain came down 
 in torrents. People came running in with 
 dripping straw rain-coats or with large oiled- 
 
RAINV DAY A I' MOTO.SU 
 
JOURNEY TO KOFU 
 
 165 
 
 paper capes. Those who had not the wide- 
 brimmed circular hats carried paper umbrellas. 
 AVe were soon sitting in a hot, steamy mass of 
 humanity, who seemed to treat the storm as a 
 huge joke. 
 
 Our carrier and guide was able to hire a 
 covered cart to take us on to Kofu ; it was to 
 meet us on the farther side of the river, as the 
 wooden bridge was not considered safe, except 
 for foot-passengers. 
 
 ^Ye were lent paper umbrellas which we could 
 leave on the roadside before getting into the 
 cart. An extra wrap of oiled paper was tied 
 round our traps, and we crossed the rickety and 
 slippery bridge. We were soon jolted along the 
 two or three miles of road which separated us 
 from Kofu. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 KOFU 
 
 HE Sadoko is a busy commercial hotel in 
 
 the centre of the long main street of Kofu. 
 The telephone, the tape with latest quotations, 
 and latest editions of evening papers, were all 
 there, and yet, in outward appearance, the place 
 was as unlike anything European as it is possible 
 to conceive. 
 
 Before we took off our boots, the manager 
 slid along the raised and matted floor, and, with 
 two or three jerky bows, informed us that there 
 were two rooms still vacant on the top floor. 
 
 A maid placed two cushions on the edge of 
 the platform for us to sit on, while a manservant 
 in the lobby undid our boots and placed them in 
 pigeon-holes made for the purpose. A maid 
 brought sandals for us to put our honourable 
 feet hi, but was mildly reproved by the manager 
 for not bringing slippers, as neither of the honour- 
 able guests wore lain (digitated socks), for with- 
 
 166 
 
KOFU 
 
 167 
 
 out the latter it is impossible to get a grip on the 
 sandals. With humble apologies, she brought 
 slippers, and, taking me by the hand, she led me 
 up two steep flights of stairs to my room. This 
 was the first purely .Japanese house I had seen, 
 which had two stories above the ground floor, 
 and as the stairs are steep and have no banisters, 
 the ascent has to be made with caution. Having 
 reached the top, the ndsan, as the waitresses are 
 called, closed up some sliding-screens, and two 
 rooms were ready to receive us. Mine was at 
 the corner of a wing of the building commanding 
 a view up and down the street. The passage 
 formed a kind of balcony round two of its sides. 
 
 Slippers have to be left in the passage, as even 
 they might soil the matting on the floor. 
 Kimonos were then presented to both of us, the 
 Jidmii remarking that she had found an extra 
 long one for me. 
 
 It was as hot here in Kofu as it had been at 
 Kyoto, so I was glad to get out of my clothes 
 and wear the cool cotton dress. While I stood 
 there, not quite knowing what to do, the nesan 
 tried to reach my collar, but told Mr. Tsuda that, 
 as she had not a ladder, she could not reach to 
 unbutton it. When she was assured that 1 
 
168 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 usually undressed myself, she bowed lowly and 
 took her departure, promising to return as soon 
 as 1 was ready, so that she could conduct me to 
 the bath. 
 
 She seemed very much amused, when she 
 returned, at the way I had put on the kimono. 
 The left side was crossed over the right, as a coat 
 in England would be, and, whether she felt 
 ashamed to be seen with such a queer-looking 
 lodger, or whether it ran counter to her super- 
 stitions, I don’t know. But she soon had my 
 obi off, recrossed the kimono as it should be, and 
 tied me up again , then, taking my towel and 
 soap-box, she led me by the skirt of my garment 
 down the steep stairs and into the bathroom, 
 quite regardless of the two or three men that 
 were drying themselves in a state of nature. I 
 gave her to understand that I could now get on 
 without her assistance, and she went away. 
 
 Now, glass is a rarity in a Japanese house ; it 
 was therefore passing strange that the door of 
 the bathroom should have been chiefly of that 
 material, especially as it faced the open kitchen, 
 where nearly all the maids congregate. I had 
 read and heard about the mdignation there was 
 in Tokyo when a Paris-trained Japanese artist 
 
KOFU 
 
 169 
 
 exhibited at the annual picture-show a painting 
 of the nude, which would have been thought 
 modest enough in our Royal Academy ; I had 
 also heard how shocked Japanese ladies were 
 when they went to a foreign reception and saw 
 European ladies in low dresses, and in no theatre 
 or professional dancing entertainment is the least 
 immodesty in dress allowed. Remembering all 
 these things, you may imagine my surprise when 
 what I shall now relate occurred. 
 
 The men who were drying themselves soon 
 left, and only one remained in the hot bath. I 
 went through the preliminary wash before getting 
 in the hot water, which gave the man time to 
 get out ; I crept slowly into his vacant place, for 
 I had not got accustomed to the intense heat of 
 the water, such as the Japanese like. While 
 I was having this soak, and while the other man 
 was being shampooed by the bathman, three 
 young ladies w'alked in, one of them carrying a 
 baby. They chatted for a while with the man 
 undergoing the scrubbing, and then dropped off 
 their kimonos and other garments and were all 
 three in a state of nature. 
 
 They each took a little wooden pail, and, with 
 a word of apology, filled it with the hot water 
 
170 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 in which I was sitting ; then, seating themselves 
 on low wooden stools, they set to work to soap 
 and scrub themselves as a preliminary to getting 
 into the bath itself. 
 
 Now, this was all very well and pretty, but 
 what was to happen next ? 1 must either get 
 
 out of the bath and make a bolt across the room 
 before 1 could find shelter behind my towel, 
 or else I should have the three young women 
 and the baby in the bath with me. There 
 was certainly not room for four people and a 
 fraction. 
 
 The young mother, having cleared herself and 
 child of soapsuds, now carried her offspring to 
 the hot bath and danced it in the water. 1 was 
 persuaded that she wanted to get in, but did not 
 like doing so till I got out ; there was nothing, 
 therefore, left for me but to make a dash for my 
 towel at the farther end of the room. 
 
 I tried to show as little concern as Adam 
 before the Fall might have shown, and I climbed 
 out of the bath. Hurrying my movements, after 
 stepping down to the floor, I unfortunately trod 
 on a piece of soap, and down I came. \Vhether 
 there was anything in common between my 
 physical fall and the moral one of our remote 
 
KOFU 
 
 171 
 
 ancestor, I cannot say, but I am sure that Adam 
 did not huiTy after fig-leaves any faster than I 
 did after my towel. 
 
 I had evidently kept the three ladies long 
 enough out in the cold, for they were all in the 
 hot water I had vacated before I had reached 
 the end of the room. Three heads with those 
 wondrous erections in hair only seen in Japan 
 now appeared to float on the surface of the 
 steamy water. The baby was seated on the floor, 
 placidly playing with its toes, while mamma and 
 its two aunts were enjoying themselves in the 
 batli. 
 
 It struck me that mamma and her sisters were 
 almost in pain from suppressed laughter, and 
 that it might have had some connection with 
 Adam’s fall. I lingered for a moment outside 
 the door of the bathroom, and the peals of 
 laughter I heard confirmed me in my supposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Ladies in England or America who may read 
 this will probably dismiss these three bathers as 
 bold-faced hussies, and it may be difficult to 
 convince them that their hastily-formed judgment 
 is a wrong one. Far from being bold-faced, the 
 Japanese lady is extremely retiring and very 
 
172 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 modest in her behaviour towards those of the 
 other sex. She would feel outraged were it pro- 
 posed that she should go to a public entertain- 
 ment in the scant garments which a Western 
 lady will assume ; neither would she remain in a 
 theatre where the short skirts and pink tights of 
 the European ballet were tolerated. She would 
 argue that such costumes are immodest because 
 they are worn to attract attention, whereas the 
 bath is a necessity, and indecency only begins 
 when the intention to be indecent is there. 
 
 A placid understanding exists in Japan that 
 when people unclothe entirely for the ablutions, 
 or even do so in part on account of the heat, 
 they be considered invisible, and during all the 
 time that I frequented .Japanese inns I cannot 
 recall one instance where a word or look showed 
 that this understanding did not hold good. 
 
 In more important hotels in the larger centres 
 there are now two separate bathrooms, partly 
 due to pressure from the foreigners, who view 
 the matter from a totally different standpoint, 
 and partly for the convenience of the lady-guests 
 themselves. The latter, where there is but one 
 room, generally take their bath when the men 
 have finished theirs, unless there is some urgent 
 
KOFU 
 
 173 
 
 reason for them to take it earlier. This is because 
 they are accustomed to take a second place in 
 most things. 
 
 The extreme heat of the bath has a most 
 exhilarating effect. It is often considered relax- 
 ing in England, but that is because it is seldom 
 taken hot enough. Englishmen, who cling to 
 their prejudices perhaps longer than any other 
 people, usually adopt this form of bath after 
 having dwelt some time in Japan. 
 
 Dinner is served to each guest in his own room. 
 As 1 did not care to dine alone in the square 
 bandbox which was allotted to me, I asked the 
 G.P.F. to dine with me. My powers of con- 
 versation were also much too limited to be able 
 to answer the questions which the nesan would 
 be sure to ask me, and to have her silently watch- 
 ing me working my chopsticks would be liable 
 to get on my nerves. When Mr. Tsuda joined 
 me, the nesan attending to his room followed, so 
 that, with three people speaking the language and 
 a fourth who could join in with an interpreter, 
 the meal was much more lively. 
 
 After we had finished the curded-bean soup, 
 fish - broth, lotus - roots, bamboo - shoots, and 
 octopus, and laid them to rest under a heavy 
 
174 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 covering of boiled rice, we had to settle the 
 question of the chadai. 
 
 As our stay in Kofu depended on what I 
 might find to paint, it was difficult to decide 
 what amount this chadai should be. Chadai is 
 the present the guest makes to the landlord when 
 he has settled down in the hotel of the latter. 
 The scale of charges is little more than covers 
 the expenses, and should a guest not make this 
 money present, his host would be keeping liim 
 at very little profit to himself. There is no bar 
 and standing drinks, also no billiard-room, sources 
 from which the British landlord hopes to derive a 
 considerable profit, and as tea is served at all 
 hours, the chadai, or tea-money, is expected, 
 though never asked for. 
 
 Having decided on the proper amount, con- 
 sistent with economy and a dislike to being 
 thought mean, I gave it to the nemn to take 
 to the landlord. The dinner-things were cleared 
 away, the G.P.F. went to his room, and I laid 
 down on the soft matting to read what Murray 
 had to say about Kofu, soon forgetting all about 
 the chadai. 
 
 Presently a lady, whom I had not seen before, 
 appeared at the entrance of my room. She 
 
MOTOI1AK.ONK 
 
kofu 
 
 175 
 
 dropped her sandals in the passage, got down on 
 her knees, and after several deep obeisances, slid 
 along the floor, and placed a neatly-done-up 
 parcel before me, A sheet of paper with Chinese 
 characters ^vritten on it, which she also presented, 
 did not enlighten me as to the object of her visit. 
 “ ^Vakarimasen,* wakarimasen,” was all the 
 .Japanese I could think of to say, and I ran to 
 the G.P.F.’s room to get his assistance. 
 
 The sheet of paper with the picturesque ideo- 
 graphs was merely a receipt for the chadai, and 
 the neatly-done-up parcel contained a couple of 
 towels and two fans, which were, as she explained, 
 the humble offerings she hoped her honourable 
 guests would condescend to accept as a slight 
 return for the munificent chadai. I asked my 
 interpreter to give a suitable answer to this 
 speech, and the landlady crawled backwards on 
 her knees till she reached the passage ; then one 
 more duck which brought her forehead to the 
 matting, and she disappeared. 
 
 Bed was now clearly indicated. The G.P.F. 
 clapped his hands and called out “ Toko” to the 
 nesan when she arrived ; she in her turn called 
 out “ 'Foko ” to a young man corresponding to the 
 
 * “ I don’t understand.” 
 
176 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 boots at an inn at home. A quaint-looking ‘ ‘ boots ” 
 he was. He had nothing on him but a scant loin- 
 cloth, and when he appeared Avith the bedding 
 rolled up in a huge bundle on his head, he re- 
 minded me of a statuette of Atlas carrying the 
 world. He shot his load on to the middle of the 
 floor, unrolled it, and in a few seconds the bed 
 was made. Having fixed up a huge green 
 mosquito curtain, toko was ready for the honour- 
 able guest to condescend to sleep in. The young 
 Atlas made a jerky bow (it was only the women 
 who prostrated themselves, I noticed), then, with 
 that quick indrawing of the breath — a polite way 
 of showing your concern for the welfare of the 
 one you address — he bid me “ Oyasumi nasai.” 
 Before I turned out the light a man appeared at 
 the entrance and repeated some formula. Ha^dng 
 noticed from his movements that he was blind, 
 and not knowing what to answer him, I stood 
 quite still. He held his head forward as if listen- 
 ing, and coming to the conclusion that the room 
 was empty, he moved away. I heard him repeat 
 the same words at the next room, where he got 
 an answer. He then crossed over to the vdng of 
 the hotel facing the one I was lodged in, repeat- 
 ing this dreary monologue at each entrance he 
 
KOFU 
 
 177 
 
 passed. On reaching the room exactly opposite to 
 mine, I saw him talking to a young couple who 
 occupied it. 
 
 The mystery now increased. The woman sat 
 on her heels and the blind man squatted behind 
 her. He passed his hands over her forehead and 
 drew them back towards himself, repeating this 
 motion a number of times ; he then wiped his 
 fingers down each side of her nose, smeared them 
 over her eyelids, played imaginary tunes on her 
 cheeks, thumbed her lips, and polished up her 
 chin. The husband did not seem to mind, for 
 he sat unconcernedly reading a newspaper and 
 smoking his little pipe. I turned out the light, 
 crept under my green curtain, fixed the bolster in 
 the nape of my neck, and tried to go to sleep. 
 
 My room now being in darkness made the one 
 opposite appear lighter than ever, and from the 
 way my bed was placed the light was right in 
 my eyes. The performance going on across the 
 narrow yard looked now like an animated picture 
 with the proper stage lighting. Perhaps this was 
 an instance when Japanese women “ are seen but 
 not looked at.” I tried not to look, and tried to 
 sleep, but while this light shone in my eyes sleep 
 was impossible. 
 
 12 
 
178 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 A rattling noise, and a shutter slid half-way 
 across the open end of my room, showed that we 
 were to be boxed in for the night. The young 
 Atlas nipped round the passage, drew some more 
 shutters out of a box fixed to the end of the 
 veranda, and completely shut out the animated 
 picture just as the blind man was performing on 
 the lady’s two ears. It dawned on me before 1 
 fell asleep that this mysterious proceeding was 
 nothing more than the blind shampooer’s daily 
 occupation. 
 
 Curious street-cries and the light coming in 
 through the cracks in the shutters awoke me 
 early the next morning. The boots appeared 
 soon after, and with a rattle and a bang sent 
 shutters sliding along the grooves and into the 
 boxes where they remained during the day. 
 
 I found my way to Tsuda’s room, so as to find 
 out where I could attend to my toilet. There 
 was nothing in my room (when once the bedding 
 was cleared) except a little table eight inches 
 high, and a vase of flowers in the recess. The 
 G.P.F. clapped his hands for the nesan, and 
 asked her to take me to the lavatory. She 
 trotted back to my room, collected the various 
 articles I wanted, and, catching hold of the hem of 
 
KOFU 
 
 179 
 
 my garment, led me through passages, down stairs, 
 and through yet more passages, till we reached 
 a long, wide dresser fixed against the wall. “ Do 
 you want mizu or oiju ?” she asked, pointing to the 
 brass taps. “ Oyu kudusai,” I answered, and she 
 filled a brass bowl with hot water. 
 
 Her curiosity got the better of her when I got 
 out a safety razor ; and when I started lathering 
 my face, she seemed immensely amused, and 
 beckoned to some other waitresses to come and 
 see the operation. ^Vhen I scraped my cheeks 
 with the razor their hilarity knew no bounds, 
 and it was only by repeated dabs at them with 
 my shaving-brush that I could keep them at a 
 respectful distance. 
 
 Other guests then appeared, and took up places 
 on each side of me. Each one fetched a brass 
 bowl from under the dresser, and a second and 
 smaller one from a shelf above. They washed 
 their faces, and dried them with wet towels which 
 they had put in the hot water and rung out. 
 They gargled and washed out their mouths, took 
 a curiously-formed wooden toothbrush out of a 
 basket, and began polishing their teeth. The 
 latter operation is a very long one, and, to make 
 room for others, some would slowly climb up the 
 
180 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 stairs and find their way back to their rooms, 
 never ceasing to polish their teeth. I saw some 
 of them again hanging over the rail of the veranda, 
 watching the people in the street below, and 
 continuing to work this wooden toothbrush back- 
 wards and forwards in their mouths. Like the 
 chopsticks, the toothbrushes are only used once 
 and then thrown away. 
 
 Breakfast is taken in the same way as the 
 dinner. The dishes are much the same, only 
 fewer in number, and it ends, as do the other 
 two daily meals, with rice. 
 
 “ Rice ” is the name given to all three, and they 
 are distinguished as morning rice, midday rice, 
 and evening rice. Until now I had never taken 
 much interest in plain boiled rice as a form of 
 food ; it would have appeared to me as wasting 
 an appetite had I ever tried it. I soon began to 
 like it, and daily increased the quantity. I found 
 it very satisfying at the time, but I got very 
 hungry within an hour or two after taking it. 
 These meals without meat, butter, or oil are 
 digestible if daikon, the pickled large radish, has 
 been eaten of sparingly, but they very soon make 
 you long for the next one, tiU you acquire the 
 habit of consuming a large quantity each time. 
 
KOFU 
 
 181 
 
 The lotuses were all and more than I expected. 
 The wide and extensive moat round the walls 
 of the old castle was completely covered with 
 the stately leaves of this plant. We arrived 
 early enough to see the flowers fully open, and 
 I remained to paint them till they closed up 
 beneath the rays of the noonday sun. It was 
 the white variety which filled three-quarters of 
 the moat, while the pink-flowering one was 
 confined to the other quarter. 
 
 A grand sight was this grey-green sea of lotus- 
 leaves dotted about with thousands of its classic- 
 shaped flowers. It had not that human interest 
 which gave the pond at Kyoto some of its charm. 
 No little sheds had been erected on the banks in 
 which the holiday-makers could sip their tea and 
 enjoy the flowers ; but this vast mass of tropical 
 leafage had a grandeur lacking in the former 
 and more intimate subject, ^^^hether it was 
 intentional or not I cannot say, but the white 
 variety being confined to the longest stretches 
 of the moat helped the suggestion of a green 
 sea in a manner which the pink variety would 
 not have done. The slightest stir in the air 
 would cause an undulation in the leaves, and 
 where it lost itself in the distance the massing 
 
182 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 of the white flowers suggested the crests of waves 
 breaking near the shore. 
 
 When the leaves had uncurled and the flowers 
 began to close up their petals, the sun had risen 
 sufficiently high to find out the patch of shade 
 where alone it was possible to work. 
 
 W e had heard of an hotel, at the farther end 
 of the town, which had a garden and lotus-pond, 
 and where a European meal could be obtained if 
 ordered in time. It is situated near the public 
 garden, which I was also anxious to see. 
 
 The Bosen-kaku, as it is called, bears about 
 the same relation to the Sadoko (where we had 
 put up) as a quiet family hotel in a suburb bears 
 to a commercial iim in any busy centre. 
 
 Two sides of the building formed an angle 
 overlooking a characteristic Japanese garden, 
 backed up by the larger trees in the public park 
 beyond. 
 
 It was a comfort to get out of my tight-fitting 
 European clothes and put on the light cotton 
 kimono with which I was provided. We were 
 promised Western food, as they call it, if we 
 would condescend to wait a half-hour in their 
 humble sitting-room. 
 
 The illustration given is the view of the 
 
THK liO^EN KAKU C.ARUKN.S 
 

KOFU 
 
 183 
 
 garden as seen from this room, which was a 
 large and spacious one, and capable of being 
 closed up in many little compartments by sliding- 
 screens. We were served an excellently-prepared 
 lunch, and were told that the bath would be 
 heated up early in the afternoon. 
 
 We could not have found a more delightful 
 place in which to spend the heat of the day, and 
 we had the beautiful public gardens in which to 
 stroll about and paint towards evening. W e came 
 here during most of the days we spent in Kofu. 
 
 The landlord was about to pick the lotus- 
 Howers in his pond, for we were on the eve of a 
 Buddhist festival, when bunches of these l)looms 
 are placed before the ancestral tablets and on the 
 altars in the temples. He desisted from gather- 
 ing any which came into my subject to oblige 
 me, and 1 think he was pleased that his garden 
 should figure later on in a book on Japan. 
 
 The public park, where I found another 
 subject for the book on Japanese gardens, was 
 formerly the gi’ounds of the large temple which 
 overlooks it. It is beautifully laid out, and from 
 many points of view it arranges itself into a 
 well-composed picture. It is much frequented 
 by the townspeople during the cool hours of the 
 
184 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 day. Stone bridges, bronze and stone lanterns, 
 and pretty little shrines, seem everywhere placed 
 to enhance the pictorial effort. Small thatched 
 tea-houses project over the margin of the lake, 
 and are partly hidden by dense evergreen oaks. A 
 geisha girl will here play the samisen to a group 
 of listeners, while others will amuse themselves 
 feeding the wild-fowl and the golden carp. 
 
 I should have liked to have tarried on m Kofu 
 during the remainder of the summer. The 
 public garden alone would have supplied me 
 with sufficient subjects. But Hakone and 
 Nikko called me, as it was necessary to do 
 my painting in these high-lying districts before 
 the cold weather set in. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JOURNEY TO HAKONE 
 
 E returned to Shoji by way of Uziki, a 
 
 station on the railway to Tokyo. Here 
 a better-served tram-line took us to within easy 
 reach of the lakes, and we were then able to get 
 back to the Higuchi Hotel in the same manner 
 in which we had gone there originally. It was a 
 roundabout way, and necessitated our spending 
 a night at a little upland inn, but the weather 
 did not promise an agreeable tramp back across 
 the mountains. 
 
 We left iMrs. Higuchi’s comfortable hotel a 
 few days later for Hakone. Our landlady was 
 the widow of an Enghshman who had built this 
 hotel, a few years previously, as a resort for 
 foreigners livmg at Tokyo, and in the settle- 
 ments at Yokohama and Kobe. To enable him 
 to own land in Japan, he had taken out papers 
 of naturalization, and adopted the name of his 
 wife. Left a widow with six little children, this 
 
 185 
 
186 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 poor woman had nothing to depend on but a 
 heavily-mortgaged hotel, eighteen miles from 
 the nearest town where pro\dsions could be 
 obtained, or any of the other necessaries required 
 by Europeans. By attending to every detail 
 herself, she had not only been able to keep her 
 establishment together, but she is gradually 
 clearing off the heavy mortgage on the place. 
 
 From point to point Shoji is not more than 
 thirty miles from Hakone Lake, but go by 
 whatever route you may choose, it cannot be 
 done in less than two long days. 
 
 W e decided to avoid the lakes and tramp to 
 Yoshida, where we could take the primitive 
 tramway down to Gotemba. We engaged a 
 horse to carry our luggage, and its owner to 
 show us the way. 
 
 For the first five or six miles we followed a 
 track through the forest which clothes the 
 northern base of Fujiyama ; the landscape then 
 opened up a little, and we occasionally got a 
 good view of the great mountain. At Namsawa, 
 a village about half-way to Yoshida, we took 
 our rest. 
 
 The little High Street was similar in character 
 to that of most other villages in this part of 
 
JOURNEY TO HAKONE 
 
 187 
 
 Japan, but the detached houses were singular 
 in that each one was surrounded with clipped 
 yew hedges, which often were as high as the 
 ridge of the thatched roof. This is done to 
 shelter the houses fi’om the cold north-west 
 winds to which this situation is exposed. 
 
 We saw more signs of cultivation during the 
 remainder of our walk, and occasionally we 
 passed a flight of steps which led up to a rustic 
 shrine. 
 
 We reached Yoshida in time to catch the 
 tram, and we ran down to Gotemba in less than 
 half the time the uphill journey had taken us. 
 For five miles or more our car ran down the hill 
 of its own accord, the horses galloping behind to 
 be used when we reached more level ground. 
 We left the rails less often than on our upward 
 ride, which was fortunate, for at the speed at 
 which we sometimes went a derailment might 
 have been a very serious afliiir. 
 
 We reached Gotemba soon after dark, and 
 put up at a ramshackle inn where pilgrims spend 
 the night before starting the ascent of Fuji. It 
 was very crowded, but as all the guests would 
 be rising at daybreak the next day, it was not 
 late when all sounds died down. 
 
188 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Many thousands of pilgrims ascend Fuji 
 annually, both from Yoshida and fi*om Gotemba. 
 It was well worth while to rise at daybreak to 
 see them start. They were all dressed in white 
 cotton kimonos, and wore large straw hats with 
 sloping brims. Some had straw rain-coats rolled 
 and slung on their backs, and others had oiled - 
 paper capes. A staff, a gourd to carry the 
 water, and an extra pair of straw sandals, 
 appeared to be the only other necessaries for 
 the climb of nearly twelve thousand feet. 
 
 I saw no provision against the cold, and it has 
 often struck me how well the Japanese can stand 
 the cold weather, and how much they seem to 
 feel the heat in summer. 
 
 Our inn, as well as the others, was profusely 
 decorated with flags and wooden boards inscribed 
 with the names of the various pilgrim associations 
 who had used it. 
 
 The brass band and the stimulating drinks 
 which seem a necessity in any outing in Europe 
 are absent here, not on account of the devotional 
 object in view, but because the Japanese do not 
 feel the want of such aids to cheer them up. 
 Should the weather be propitious, this so-called 
 pilgrimage would probably be the most enjoyable 
 
JOURNEY TO HAKONE 
 
 18 ^ 
 
 holiday which any of these men could look back 
 on. 1 saw no women in this party, though 1 
 have seen plenty of both women and children at 
 other places which could be reached with less 
 physical exertion. 
 
 We took an early train at Gotemba to Kosu, 
 both of which stations are on the Tokaid5 
 Railway. This line takes its name from the 
 celebrated road which connects Kyoto with 
 Tokyo, the older capital with the new. 
 
 It was along this road that the Daimyos and 
 their retinues of Samurai used to travel when 
 they went from the Emperor’s Court at Kyoto to 
 that of the Shogun at Yedo, as the present 
 capital was then called. It was a serious 
 business, lasting twelve days or more. Hiro- 
 chige has familiarized us with many of the 
 picturesque incidents of these journeys in his 
 beautiful series of colour-prints, known as the 
 Fifty-five Stages of the Tokaido. 
 
 An hour’s run took us to Kozu, a town 
 prettily situated on the shore of Odawara Bay. 
 An electric tramway, as up-to-date as any near 
 London, runs from here along the shore to 
 Odawara, and then for four or five miles it rises 
 inland till it reaches Y^umoto. 
 
190 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 We had to engage porters at the latter place 
 to carry our luggage over the Hata Pass to the 
 village of Moto Hakone, which was our destina- 
 tion. It is a beautiful walk of seven or eight 
 miles with a rise of two thousand feet. We rested 
 at Hata, the village which gives its name to the 
 pass. 
 
 I should have been content to have spent the 
 remainder of the summer in this picturesque 
 place had it not been necessary for me to do the 
 well-known locahties in Japan. The little inn 
 where we halted looked on to a little garden at 
 the back, which was not much larger than a 
 billiard-table ; it was so ingeniously planned that 
 it would have been possible to paint a large 
 landscape from it. A cascade splashed amongst 
 moss-covered rocks ; miniature trees grew in the 
 twisted and distorted way often seen in the 
 wildest mountain passes, and the stones had the 
 water-worn surfaces of the boulders they repre- 
 sented. No flowers were placed where in a 
 natural scene they could not have grown, and 
 which would probably have made a jarring note 
 of colour. The greys and greens were all 
 sufficient to make the garden a cool spot to look 
 on in the summer, and when the chill autumn 
 
A MOUNTAIN HAMLET 
 
>’1 
 
JOURNEY TO HAKONE 
 
 191 
 
 would follow a few maples would give the picture 
 some warm dashes of colour. 
 
 No professional landscape gardener had designed 
 it. The natural taste of the peasant proprietor 
 of the little inn had sufficed to evolve it during 
 the years he had been there. 
 
 It is a steep climb from Hata to the top of the 
 pass, and over a rough, stony path. It is in the 
 shade, and commands now and again a beautiful 
 view across the bed of the stream which flows 
 from Hakone Lake down to the sea. 
 
 We reached our inn at Moto Hakone just as 
 the sun was setting behind Fuji, whose summit is 
 visible at the farther end of the lake. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 HAKONE 
 
 HE whole of the district in which we had 
 
 been all day is Hakone, properly speaking. 
 The name is generally used by foreigners to 
 denote the two villages which lie a mile apart at 
 the south-east end of Hakone Lake, 'fhe one 
 we decided to stay in is kno^vn as Moto Hakone, 
 to distinguish it from its larger neighbour. 
 
 The Matsuzaka Hotel, situated on the edge of 
 the water, is the only one commanding a view of 
 Fujiyama. Half of it is .Japanese, and half is 
 built and arranged to accommodate foreigners. I 
 got a room overlooking the lake, with a good 
 light for painting, in case inclement weather made 
 outdoor work impossible. 
 
 Frequent wet weather is the disadvantage of 
 staying in this beautiful district. It rained about 
 four days out of five ; not the prolonged drizzle 
 so frequent in Scotland, but heavy do%vnpours 
 
 192 
 
HAKONE 
 
 193 
 
 with sunny intervals and often grand eloud- 
 efFects. 
 
 A more popular resort than Moto Hakone is 
 Miyanoshita, seven miles distant, and a thousand 
 feet lower down. It is also easier to reach from 
 Y okohama. 
 
 Miyanoshita is, of all places in Japan, the one 
 which the tourist recalls with most pleasure. 
 The scenery is no better, if as good, as that of 
 hundreds of places one could name, nor has it an 
 exceptional number of objects of interest in its 
 immediate neighbourhood. It has, however, a 
 well-managed European hotel, and it must be 
 that the good food and other creature-comforts 
 found there outweigh the greater interest and 
 more artistic surroundings of many other localities. 
 The rainfall is also less than nearer the lake ; but, 
 in spite of these advantages, I would advise any 
 artist who wishes to make the most of his time 
 to give the preference to Hakone. 
 
 I confess to a certain disappointment in the 
 view of Fuji obtained from the Matsuzaka Hotel. 
 It is pretty, when not blotted out by the mist, 
 but it is not grand. Its cone-shaped summit is 
 dwarfed by the hiUs much nearer, and they are 
 poor in outline and seldom fine in colour. 
 
 13 
 
194 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Setting the view of Fuji aside, an artist would 
 be hard to please if he did not find ample work 
 for his brush here. 
 
 To the pure landscape-painter the varying 
 effects seen during showery weather are compensa- 
 tion for the inconvenience the rain may put him 
 to. The numerous tea-sheds, which are run up 
 wherever a beautiful view may be an inducement 
 to the pedestrian to rest, furnish good shelters 
 from which sketches can be made. 
 
 The abundance of wild-flowers in the lanes and 
 on the hill-sides would be absent after a long spell 
 of dry weather, and, further, when the sun shone 
 down on all alike from a cloudless sky, the 
 scenery had a tameness compared to what it is 
 during more variable weather. 
 
 There are evidences that JMoto Hakone and its 
 neighbour, Hakone proper, had seen better days. 
 The massive stone lanterns and fine toi'ii, the 
 broken balustrades and flights of stone steps, now 
 leading to nowhere, or maybe to a dilapidated 
 shrine, tell of the times when a powerful Shogun 
 held his summer Court here. 
 
 The historic Tokaido road passes through the 
 two villages, and the giant cryptomerias which 
 shadow it have witnessed many a picturesque 
 
HAKONE 
 
 195 
 
 scene, when the Daimyds from the western 
 provinces and their splendid retinues passed here 
 to do homage to their chief at Yedo. 
 
 We first liear of Hakone in the history of this 
 country when Yoritomo, the founder of the Sho- 
 gunate, built a summer residence near the lake. 
 This was during the latter half of the twelfth 
 century. The exact spot I could never ascertain, 
 and the only monuments now standing which tell 
 of those bristling times are the tombs of the Soga 
 Brethren and that of Tora Gozen, the mistress of 
 one of them. 
 
 The story of their undoing is still told by the 
 professional raconteur ; it is often represented on 
 the stage ; and I have seen gruesome presentments 
 in wax of their tragic fate. They rank as heroes 
 in the popular imagination, only second to the 
 forty-seven llonins, of whom we may speak later 
 on. It is strange how these stories of blood-thirsty 
 vendetta fascinate so gentle a people. 
 
 A certain Kudo Suketsune, a courtier of the 
 Shogun, had killed the father of Juro and Goro 
 Soga, for what reason we are not told. To have 
 lived while their father’s death was unavenged 
 would have been a disgrace to the sons. They 
 tracked the murderer to the Shogun’s hunting- 
 
196 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 camp, and attempted to cut him down in the 
 presence of the Generalisshno himself. .Juro was 
 killed by one of Suketsune’s retainers, and Goro 
 was overpowered before he could wreak his 
 vengeance. Yoritomo, incensed at the attempt 
 on the life of one of his favourites, ordered Goro’s 
 head to be hacked off with a blunt sword. 
 
 Some say that the fair Tora Gozen killed her- 
 self at the grave of her lover, and others say that 
 she became a nun, and was buried at her death 
 next to the tombs of the brothers. 
 
 Travellers on the road from Miyanoshita to 
 Hakone to this day place a stone on these monu- 
 ments as a mark of respect to the heroes who 
 sacrificed their lives to avenge their father, and 
 some of the gentler sex will lay one on Tora’s 
 resting-place, remembering of this courtesan only 
 her constancy to the one she loved. 
 
 The images of a popular god and the tombs of 
 heroes are often almost obliterated by the piles of 
 stones which the country-folk place on them. I 
 have never heard any satisfactory explanation of 
 how the custom originated. Might it be a sur- 
 vival of the cairn which primitive people raised to 
 honour their dead ? 
 
 In towns, w^here loose stones are less easily 
 
HAKONE 
 
 197 
 
 picked up, visiting-cards are often left on the 
 tombs, a practice I would recommend to those 
 lunaties who only see in a monument a suitable 
 place on which to scratch their names. 
 
 A short distance from the Soga tombs are 
 the Ni-ju-go Bosatsu — that is, the Twenty-five 
 Bosatsu — carved in high relief on a projecting 
 piece of andesyte rock. They are attributed to 
 Kobo Daishi, who lived in the latter part of the 
 eighth and the beginning of the ninth centuries. 
 
 A Bosatsu is one of a large class of saints who 
 has not yet attained to Buddhahood, and the 
 “ Twenty-five ” so often represented in art are 
 those especially sent by Buddha to watch over his 
 followers. 
 
 Kobo Daishi was not only the foremost of 
 .Japanese Buddhist saints, but is famous also as 
 a sculptor, a writer, and a traveller. Professor 
 Chamberlain remarks that “ had his life lasted six 
 hundred years instead of sixty, he eould hardly 
 have graven all the images, scaled all the mountain- 
 peaks, eonfounded all the sceptics, wrought all the 
 miracles, and performed all the other feats with 
 which he is popularly credited.” But as the 
 legend tells us that he gi’aved these twenty-five 
 images in one night, his output could easily have 
 
198 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 been a large one. Three of the figures are un- 
 finished, and the country-folk have it that day- 
 break arrived before they were completed. Why 
 this artist should have elected to work only in 
 the dark is not explained. 
 
 Not many yards from here is one of Japan’s 
 greatest works in sculptural art. It is a colossal 
 figure of Rokudo no Jiso. 
 
 The god is hewn out of the solid andesyte rock. 
 He is represented as a shaven priest, sitting cross- 
 legged on a lotus-flower and holding a jewel in 
 his left hand. The staff with metal rings, which 
 he should be holding in his right hand, is gone, 
 but with this exception the figure is nearly as 
 perfect as when it was first wrought. Almost 
 needless to say that it is attributed to Kobo 
 Daishi, and it is also said that it was cut in one 
 single night. Whoever the author may have 
 been, he was an artist endued with a fine sense 
 of proportion and with an appreciation of quiet 
 dignity, without which no great work of plastic 
 art has ever been achieved. 
 
 The shrubs concealing the image from the high 
 road made it a peaceable place in which to do my 
 work. I could hear tourists to or from the 
 Miyanoshita Hotel pass along the high road with- 
 
KOKrDO-NO-JIZO 
 
HAKONE 
 
 199 
 
 out stopping to see the Jiso. I heard a guide 
 trying to persuade one party to stop. This 
 answer, in transatlantic English — “ I guess we’ve 
 seen idols enough to laahst us a lifetime ” — settled 
 the matter. 
 
 I have asked Buddhists as well as Shin- 
 toists whether Jiso is a deity of the former or 
 latter religion, and each seemed to claim him — to 
 such an extent have the two creeds been fused 
 together. 
 
 Professor Chamberlain describes him as “ the 
 compassionate Buddhist helper of those who are 
 in trouble.” He is the patron of travellers, of 
 pregnant women, and of children. We may 
 take it, then, that Buddhism introduced him into 
 .lapan. To call him a god is misleading, for 
 Buddha himself was an agnostic, and to term 
 him an abstract idea of mercy and kindliness 
 deified seems hardly comprehensible to a Western 
 mind. It is a curious coincidence that the name 
 of this compassionate deity should be so similar 
 to that of our Lord. 
 
 IVild hydrangeas grew in profusion near the 
 image, the white and pale-blue flowers contrasting 
 beautifully with the dark-blue spikes of monk’s- 
 liood, just discernible in the shade of the bushes. 
 
200 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Country-folk came now and again to pay their 
 respects to the Jiso, and would often place a stone 
 in his lap or on the pedestal. He would probably 
 have been partly hidden by these humble tokens 
 of regard were it not for the photographic artist 
 who tumbled them off again before taking his 
 snapshot. This was fortunate for me, since it 
 would not have been worth while tramping up 
 this hill to paint a heap of stones, charming as 
 the sentiment might be. 
 
 A couple of miles from here, on the road to 
 JMiyanoshita, lies the village of Ashinoyu, which 
 is famous for its sulphur-springs. Many Japanese 
 suffering from rheumatism and skin diseases come 
 here for a cure. 
 
 I had been told of a pretty garden in the village, 
 so had occasion to go there several times. The 
 principal hotel is o’wned by the proprietor of the 
 Hakone one, and he kindly allowed us to take our 
 midday meal there. 
 
 I was fortunate in making the acquaintance of 
 two American lady artists at Hakone, one of 
 whom is an authority on Japanese gardens and 
 on the flora of the Far East. Her husband. 
 Captain Basil Taylor, R.N., is the harbour-master 
 at Hong-Kong, and they and their three charm- 
 
HAKONE 
 
 201 
 
 ing little children often spend a part of the 
 summer in Japan. Our meeting was singularly 
 fortunate, for Mrs. Basil Taylor is to write the 
 book on Japanese gardens which my drawings 
 are to illustrate. 
 
 When writer and illustrator are not the same 
 person, it is well that they should have gone over 
 the same ground together, and be able to avoid 
 some of the misfits which occasionally arise 
 between the coloured illustration and the text. 
 
 The second lady was Miss Cranford, an artist 
 of considerable talent, who had been painting- 
 in Japan for some time. 
 
 W e spent several very pleasant days at Ashi- 
 noyu, making studies of the typical Japanese 
 garden there. 
 
 As I should be poaching on Mrs. Basil Taylor’s 
 ground, I shall not attempt to describe its beauty ; 
 its ugly side, which I may perhaps mention, was 
 the smell of sulphur which hangs over the whole 
 village. 
 
 The Matsuzaka Hotel would be a pleasant one 
 barring the smell of the sulphur. It has some 
 Europeanized rooms, and Western cooking is 
 provided for the foreigners who wish to put up 
 there. 
 
202 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Miss Cranford and I were glad to get back to 
 Japanese food when we took our luncheon. It 
 is wonderful how the Japanese cooks have learnt 
 to prepare food to suit the taste of the foreigners, 
 but they naturally know how to prepare their 
 native dishes very much better. In a land where 
 mutton does not exist, and where most people 
 fight shy of pork, there must of a necessity be a 
 sameness in the Western menu, and a native 
 meal now and again makes a very welcome 
 change. 
 
 The hot sulphur baths are, of course, the raison 
 d'etre of this and the other hotels at Ashinoyu, 
 for the place itself has neither the attractions of 
 Miyanoshita nor of Hakone. The .Tapanese 
 bather wants few inducements to go out. He 
 will spend most of the day in the hot water, and 
 I have heard of cases where an entire month has 
 been spent in the bath, the patient being so 
 arranged that he can sleep in it without danger 
 of drowning. 
 
 Hot springs abound in these volcanic islands, 
 and the country people living near use them con- 
 tinually in cold weather to keep themselves 
 warm. The notion held in Europe that chills 
 would result from the violent change of tempera- 
 
HAKONE 
 
 •203 
 
 ture is not borne out in fact. I have myself 
 often, during the winter months, come hi numbed 
 with cold, and found that after a long soak in a 
 hot bath I have kept warm the whole evening, 
 though there were no other means of heating the 
 room than the small charcoal braziers. The 
 Japanese usually take a bath before the evening 
 meal, and they hold that it gives them an appetite. 
 
HAKONE {continued) 
 
 "\TT HEREVER I have met people residing in 
 
 vv 
 
 a country foreign to their own, 1 have 
 
 noticed that a favourite topic of conversation is 
 finding fault with the people amongst whom they 
 are living. Japan is no exception to this rule. 
 
 A lady resident, who would certainly not be 
 considered a silly woman, was abusing the country 
 people to me one day, and ended her tirade by 
 saying they were dirty. I answered that I 
 wished they were all as clean in my own country, 
 and I suggested that perhaps in hers the daily bath 
 was not universal. Her answer was even more 
 surprising than her original statement. “ It is 
 not because they want to be clean that they 
 bathe so often ; it is because they like the sensation 
 of the hot water.” She might as well have said 
 that a man was not fed because he enjoyed the 
 sensation of eating. Had she witnessed the 
 soaping and scrubbing that takes place after the 
 
HAKONE 
 
 205 
 
 soak in the hot water, it might have dawned on 
 the good lady that they also liked to be clean. 
 
 That the resident has some grievances is certain, 
 and that a prejudice against the people who cause 
 the grievance should follow is perhaps natural. 
 But it does not justify the wholesale abuse often 
 heard in the European settlements. 
 
 Having heard, in one of the foreign hotels 
 where I stayed, that I was about to write on 
 Japan, several of the guests thought it only right 
 that I should hear the “ true ” state of the case. 
 I heard remarks about people who stayed a fort- 
 night in the country and wi’ote about it as if they 
 knew all about the Japanese. Also, that tourists 
 only saw the pleasant side of their character, but, 
 had they resided amongst them and done business 
 with them, they would tell a very different tale 
 when they wrote their impressions. A gi’eat deal 
 was said about dishonest trading, infringement 
 of patents, and breaches of contract. 
 
 I asked if such things were unknown in the 
 various countries from which these guests hailed. 
 “ Certainly,” they said ; “ but there is this 
 
 difference — that in our country the law does not 
 uphold the wrongdoer.” I asked an American if 
 he would consider it an infringement of patent if 
 
206 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 a book, written and published by an Englishman, 
 were copied word by word and sold in America 
 without making any compensation to the author. 
 “ ^yhy, certainly,” he said. I informed him, to 
 his surprise, that this was done, and that (unless 
 the law had been recently altered) there was no 
 legal redress to be obtained. I quoted Ruskin’s 
 works, which were published at a high price in 
 England, and could be bought for a dollar or less 
 in the States ; I also told some Teutons that the 
 works of Ebers were pirated in Holland, where 
 they were obtainable for a fraction of the pubKshed 
 price in Germany. “ If the books can’t be 
 patented in those two countries, it can’t be called 
 an infringement of patent.” “That is true 
 enough,” I had to admit, “ but more shame to 
 those countries which withhold the copyright.” 
 “ Here they would pirate books if they thought 
 they could make anything by it,” was said, “ and 
 they pirate everythuig else where there is a chance 
 of making a few yen.” “ Have you heard of the 
 Black and White whisky case ?” I admitted 
 that I had not, and that I w^as glad to hear a 
 definite case stated. 
 
 Now tliis is the account they gave me, and as 
 they were all merchants who have been trading 
 
HAKONE 
 
 207 
 
 in Japan for some years, 1 had every reason to 
 believe that their account of this well-known 
 case would be a true one 
 
 The firm of James Buchanan had patented in 
 Tokyo their brand of whisky, and when it was 
 seen that it was obtaining a considerable sale, a 
 Japanese set up a still and turned out a spirit 
 which his countryman might mistake for the 
 genuine article. He labelled his bottles “ Black 
 and White — House of Commons,” in exactly the 
 same lettering as in the original, and signed his 
 name in European cursive handwriting, in such a 
 way that by a native it might be mistaken for the 
 name of the Scottish firm. 
 
 Not havmg a heavy duty to pay on his home- 
 made article, the distiUer was able to sell it at a 
 much lower price, and, unfortunately, it sold 
 rapidly. Messrs. James Buchanan took proceed- 
 ings to prohibit the sale, and lost their case hi 
 every law-court into which it was brought, and 
 my informants added that the Judges in every 
 way favoured their compatriot. 
 
 Getting no redress in the courts, it was made 
 a matter of diplomatic intervention, and only 
 then was the culprit prohibited from selling his 
 spurious goods. 
 
208 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 It so happened that a bottle of Reading sauce 
 was on the table, and on the label I noticed that 
 the names were given of several persons who had 
 been penahzed for having infringed the patent. 
 I pointed this out to my friends ; they admitted 
 that these acts were committed in every country ; 
 but this very label showed that redress had been 
 obtained, whereas here the offender had been 
 encouraged rather than restramed by the Judges 
 before whom his case was tried. 
 
 This was a very serious charge to make, and at 
 the time I had no grounds for not accepting it. 
 
 Some months later I was fortunate enough to 
 become aequainted with an Englishman who of 
 all others was most likely to know the exact 
 truth of the case. 
 
 I told him the account I had heard, as I was 
 anxious to know if he could bear it out. I may 
 mention that this gentleman is a patent agent, 
 and that his firm was interested in this as well 
 as in any other foreign patents taken out in 
 •Japan. 
 
 Now for his version: “The imitation of the 
 label was as clever a fraud as it was possible to 
 make. It was true, also, that Messrs. Buchanan 
 lost their case in the law-courts ; but it was not 
 
HAKONE LAKE 
 
HAKONE 
 
 209 
 
 true that the Judges were unfair, for the law as it 
 stands would not allow of any other verdict. 
 
 “ What we know as common law does not 
 obtain in Japan, and according to the statute 
 law they could not prevent the use of the fraudu- 
 lent label, as it was not an exact copy. The 
 signature, though intending to deceive, was not 
 that of James Buchanan. To get over this 
 rigid adherence to the letter of the law, the 
 State has empowered the Patent Office to try 
 these cases by a board which it may nominate, 
 and therefore it was not necessary to try the case 
 in tlie law-courts. It was this board which finally 
 settled the matter, and gave Buchanan’s the 
 redress they sought. Diplomatic intervention 
 had nothing to do with it.” 
 
 Now see how these two versions differ. Had 
 one been given me by a Japanese and the other 
 by an alien I should have been prepared for a 
 slight difference, but both parties being aliens, 
 and both being keenly interested in the case, it 
 is surprising how dissimilar the two versions are. 
 
 My new acquaintance assured me that a patent 
 taken out in Japan was as good a protection as in 
 any other country. 
 
 1 mentioned a case which affected me in a 
 14 
 
210 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 small way, and was amused to hear his account 
 of it. 
 
 I had run out of some colours, and was obliged 
 to get what I could in Tokyo. I had been 
 warned that, if I bought Winsor and Newdon’s 
 colours in the tubes marked exactly the same as 
 I knew them to be in England, I should be 
 getting a spurious article, and that I should 
 insist on getting tubes stamped in a slightly 
 different way. In short, I was to ask for the 
 very thing that I should naturally avoid had 1 
 not been warned. 
 
 1 got what I wanted, but was not able to 
 follow the involved story which I was told by 
 the shopman, and never felt quite sure that the 
 colours I had to use were those of the makers 
 whose names were stamped on the tubes. 
 
 My mind was, however, set at ease by the 
 gentleman connected with the patents. 
 
 Messrs. Winsor and Ne^vton had done as many 
 other firms do, and that is, to see first how then- 
 goods sell in Japan before incurring the slight 
 expense of getting them patented — a matter of 
 £6 or £7. 
 
 The colours had a very good sale, and a 
 Japanese set to work to imitate them. He went 
 
HAKONE 
 
 211 
 
 to the Patent Office to see if the English firm had 
 protected itself, and found, to his delight, that they 
 had not done so. He thereupon got an exact 
 copy made of the tubes, and sold his colours 
 enclosed in them. He made a lot of money, as 
 there is a great demand for English water-colours, 
 and it was some time before the fraud leaked out. 
 
 Winsor and Newton then instructed their 
 agents to get their colours patented, and were 
 much surprised that they could not do so, as 
 the Japanese colourman had forestalled them. 
 The firm is now obliged to sell its colours in a 
 differently stamped tube, made especially for 
 Japan, and now patented in that country. 
 
 Now is this not a case of “ penny wise and pound 
 foolish”? The expense of sending an agent to 
 Japan to push their goods must be considerable, 
 and to risk injuring their trade by saving a matter 
 of a few pounds to protect these goods seems 
 incredible. 
 
 Was this not inviting dishonesty? And in 
 what country would this not be done if the 
 trader took so little precaution to protect himself ? 
 
 The argument is often heard that the Japanese 
 merchant is lacking in integrity, because, until 
 quite recently, all trade was looked down on ; 
 
I 
 
 212 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 that the trading class was placed lower in the 
 social scale than that of the peasant ; and that 
 trade on a large scale has so recently developed 
 that there has not been time to acquire the 
 moral integrity found in old-established firms in 
 Europe. 
 
 Now, if this be true, should it not naturally 
 follow that the class from which these traders 
 sprang would be a dishonest class ? One camiot 
 spend the best part of a year in any country 
 without having some dealings with the people, 
 and in my case the little business transactions I , 
 had were chiefly with this class. My experience ^ 
 was that they dealt with me quite as honestly as ' 
 m any country in Europe. In their dealings 
 amongst themselves the Japanese set most 
 Europeans a good example. * 
 
 The implicit trust they have in each other in 
 far-away country districts is illustrated by the 
 following story : 
 
 An acquaintance was making a long walking 
 tour through a little-frequented part of the 
 country, and wore, as all Japanese do when on 
 the tramp, straw sandals. These wear out in 
 a day or so, and a new pair is obtainable in 
 every hamlet for about a peimy. The villages 
 
HAKONE 
 
 213 
 
 were few and far between where this traveller 
 was wending his way, and it became more than 
 likely that his xvaraji would give out before he 
 could buy a new pair. 
 
 An enterprising native had foreseen this likeli- 
 hood, and he fixed a bamboo pole in the ground 
 on the side of a lane frequented by pilgrims at a 
 certain time of the year. To the pole he attached 
 a large bundle of straw sandals, and a notice to 
 travellers that, should they wish to buy a pair, 
 they were requested to take one and place four 
 sen in the slit in the bamboo which served as 
 a money-box. 
 
 Anyone could have walked off with both waraji 
 and money-box, but the little trader knew his 
 people well enough to be able to take the risk. 
 
 Most of the foreign business men I met ad- 
 mitted that the country-folk were not so bad, 
 but that they could not trust most of those who 
 had large dealings with Occidentals. 
 
 Some time before I left home for Japan, I read 
 an article in a leading London paper in which 
 the writer stated that the commercial classes in 
 Japan could trust each other so little that every 
 bank in the country employed a Chinaman as 
 a cashier. I remembered the gist of that article 
 
214 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 so well that I felt a prejudice against the Japanese 
 of which I could not free myself for some time. 
 
 I had occasion to go to several different banks, 
 and I looked out each time for a pig-tailed cashier. 
 Failing ever to see one, 1 made inquiries as to 
 how long the Chinamen had been replaced by 
 Japanese, and I discovered that these Celestials 
 had never existed except in the imagination of 
 the writer of the newspaper article. 
 
 The only possible foundation for so gross a 
 libel on a people whom we have made our allies 
 is that in some of the foreign banks in the settle- 
 ments a Chinese comprador is engaged to attend 
 to the Chinese correspondence. 
 
 I had heard the Japanese trader ill spoken of in 
 Hong-Kong, in Shanghai, and at Kobe, where I 
 first landed, and in every case by men engaged in 
 business themselves, whom 1 considered qualified 
 to give an opinion. I was much relieved after- 
 wards to hear from others, who resided in the 
 country for purposes other than trade, that these 
 reports were very much exaggerated. A British 
 Consul, who knew the countiy well, said that, 
 considering the short while commerce on a large 
 scale had been carried on, it was wonderful how 
 well business was conducted. 
 
HAKONE 
 
 215 
 
 I made the friendship of M. Odin, a cultured 
 Frenchman, long residentin Kyoto, and, as he 
 was in no manner connected with trade, I was 
 anxious to hear his \dews. 
 
 “ Is it not natural,” he said, “ that the 
 foreigner, who hitherto has had all the export 
 and import trade in his own hands, should feel 
 sore when he sees it gradually slipping away 
 from him, owing to the competition of the 
 native trader ? Is it to be supposed that a 
 nation which has risen to a first-rate Power should 
 not strive to do its own exporting and import- 
 ing ? The Japanese are becoming formidable 
 competitors in both trades, and it is hardly from 
 their rivals that you should expect an unbiassed 
 opinion.” 
 
 The foreign houses are not making the money 
 that they formerly made, and many little vexa- 
 tions which exist in the foreign settlements cause 
 more irritation now than when the trade of these 
 houses was more prosperous. 
 
 There is little doubt that the foreigner in 
 Yokohama pays a higher price for the necessaries 
 of life than does the native resident, and the 
 globe-trotter is charged more for the curios he 
 buys than the foreign resident would be, who has 
 
216 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 been long enough in the country to have acquired 
 some of the language. In most countries com- 
 petition would equalize the prices to a certain 
 extent. But competition between two of a trade 
 hardly exists in Japan. Most of the articles 
 consumed by the foreigners are not wanted by 
 the Japanese. The butcher, the baker, and the 
 dairyman only existed for the use of the 
 foreigner until quite recently, and even now 
 their goods are little in request with their 
 compatriots. 
 
 The tradesmen are loyal to each other, and if 
 they decide that the alien should pay a certain 
 price, it is useless for that alien to try and play 
 off one against the other. In towns where few 
 foreigners reside this kind of boycott does not 
 obtain, except at a few of the places of amuse- 
 ment patronized by the tourists. The excuse is 
 that the tourist gives more trouble, that he will 
 not content himself by squatting on the floor, and 
 will not take off his boots, and has to be supplied 
 with coverings for his feet in order not to dirty 
 the mats. Those who give extra trouble should 
 be prepared to pay something extra. 
 
 This reasoning does not always hold good, as 
 the following will show : 
 
HAKONE 
 
 217 
 
 A Frenchman at Kyoto asked me to dine 
 with him at his hotel to meet a well-known 
 Japanese architect. After a pleasant dinner oiir 
 Japanese friend proposed that we should go to 
 the play, and nothing loath, we all three went to 
 the principal theatre. We took off our boots 
 and squatted on the matting just the same as did 
 any of the other spectators. 
 
 An official came and demanded double the 
 price of admission for the Frenchman and 
 myself, though we had in every way conformed 
 to the usages of the country. The architect 
 refused to pay this ; we were his guests, and 
 it was he who had taken the three tickets, 
 and, being a Japanese, he was not going 
 to pay more than the Japanese price. The 
 theatre official argued that the nationality of 
 the purchaser had nothing to do with it, and 
 that it was the nationality of the user which 
 made the difference. Our friend answered that 
 the advertised price was all he would get, and 
 that if he made any more fuss about it a 
 policeman would be sent for. This settled the 
 matter. 
 
 The argument was carried on in such a quiet 
 manner that, for all 1 knew at the time, they 
 
218 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 might have been inquiring about the health of 
 each other’s relations. 
 
 At theatres and shows, which are not the 
 usual “ sights ” tourists are recommended to do, 
 such extortion does not take place. 
 
 A small matter like this does a good deal of 
 harm to the reputation of the Japanese, and I 
 feel sure that if it were represented to the proper 
 authorities it would be stopped. 
 
 1 have dealt rather lengthily on the aspersions 
 often cast on the commercial morality of the 
 .Japanese, firstly because it is a subject one hears 
 about ad nauseam in the Far East, and secondly 
 because the exaggerated charges often made are 
 liable to give a very wrong impression of the 
 character of this very lovable people. 
 
 Where they are least attractive is where they 
 have come most under European influence. 
 
 liCt us now' return to the gods so many of 
 the commercial Japanese are said to have for- 
 saken. 
 
 At the south of the long, straggling street, 
 which follows the sw’^eep of the lower end of the 
 lake, and which is knowm as Moto Hakone, you 
 will find an avenue leading to some stone steps, 
 suggesting a shrine beyond. A Buddhist temple 
 

 
 L f e* 1 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 
HAKONE 
 
 219 
 
 of some importance stood formerly where the 
 modest dwelling of a priest now stands. 
 
 It is at the entrance to this avenue where our 
 interest now lies. A beautiful bronze figure of 
 .lisd is to the right of it, and a strange row of 
 small stone Buddhas is on the left-hand side. 
 
 The image of the merciful god and the friend 
 of little children is the pride of the villagers, and 
 they regard it much the same as the Brittany 
 peasants regard their parish Calvaire. 
 
 It is a fine work of art. I’his is said in fear and 
 trembling, lest the mania for housing in museums 
 works which were intended to be seen out of 
 doors may spread in Japan as in other countries ; 
 and were this image removed from its present 
 suiToundings, it would lose most of its charm. 
 J’he oxidation has given the metal a beautiful 
 colour, which relieves it from the sombre green of 
 the cryptomerias, making a perfect harmony. A 
 bunch of flowers, a lantern, or some other thank- 
 offering is oftimes placed at the base ; and 
 should this positive note of colour be absent, we 
 find it in the garments of the little children who 
 play near the .Jiso, as if instinctively they felt his 
 protecting care. 
 
 May this image always remain where it now 
 
220 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 is ! It faces the Tokaid5 Road, Japan’s most 
 historic highway ; and the innate sense of the 
 beautiful, with which all Japanese are endowed, 
 will be as gi’eat a protection as the walls of a 
 museum. 
 
 It presumably belongs to the sect of Buddhists 
 who ministered in the temple which stood near 
 here. I¥hether (now that Buddhism is dis- 
 established) this sect has not the means to affect 
 the necessary repairs I cannot say, but the 
 beauty of the image is very much spoilt through 
 one of the legs and a part of the drapery ha\dng 
 been broken off. Partially to support the statue, 
 and also to secure the detached piece of bronze 
 from being carried off, the latter has been wedged 
 under the sitting figure in such a manner that 
 the foot sticks up in the air, and has a very 
 undignified appearance. 
 
 The young priest who lives in the little house 
 which partly appears in the illustration took 
 an interest in my drawing, and this emboldened 
 me to ask him if I might be allowed to place 
 the leg temporarily in position, so as to enable 
 me to draw the image as it should be. He 
 consented, and Mr. Tsuda and I tried to lift 
 the image sufficiently to disengage the leg. It 
 
HAKONE 
 
 221 
 
 was much too heavy, but as it was then about 
 midday, some of the villagers were returning 
 from their work, and I got the assistance of half 
 a dozen willing hands. 
 
 It was a more serious business than I antici- 
 pated, for we had to lift the image bodily up 
 before we could disengage the broken member ; 
 props were necessary to prevent the Jiso from 
 falling forward when the bronze fragment was 
 removed from under him ; and when, finally, the 
 leg was placed in its natural position, half the 
 village had turned out to see what was the 
 matter. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, it now began to 
 rain ; not sufficiently to drive away the crowd, 
 but enough to make my work very difficult. A 
 paper umbrella was borrowed from the nearest 
 cottage, and under this I painted the leg. My 
 spectators were all agreed that their Jiso should 
 be seen to the best advantage in his picture, 
 which would be shown in foreign parts. 
 
 It rained all the afternoon, and a stormy 
 evening followed. A hon-ible fear got hold of 
 me that some of the supports would give way, 
 and that the image would fall over. We had 
 had severe earthquake shocks two or three weeks 
 
222 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 previously, and, should we have another, the Jiso 
 would surely be shaken off its pedestal and get 
 hopelessly broken. I ran round early the next 
 morning to see that nothing untoward had hap- 
 pened, and I found that the same fears had been 
 entertained by others as well as myself ; for 
 someone had had it safely replaced, as it was 
 when first I saw it. 
 
 I made some further studies of gardens, and 
 tried to get a satisfactory drawing of Fuji from 
 the lake. I saw many other subjects that I 
 wished to paint, but could defer my visit to 
 Nikko no longer. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NIKKO 
 
 E had to descend to Kosu by the same 
 
 route we took when we left the Tokaido 
 Railway on our way to Hakone. I decided to 
 spend a couple of days at Tokyo, which we had 
 to take on our way to Nikko. 
 
 My first impressions of the new capital were 
 not as agreeable as those I had on my first 
 arrival in the old. There is a restfulness about 
 Kyoto which Tokyo lacks. The former is 
 suggestive of Japan under the old regime, while 
 the latter savours of a new Japan still in the 
 making. It has an unfinished look, and the new 
 and the old do not yet hit it off. During a 
 prolonged stay, after my visit to Xikko, I found 
 so much of interest in and about Tokyo that my 
 liking for the place increased considerably. 
 
 Let us proceed to Nikk5 now, and we can 
 refer again to Tokyo in another chapter. 
 
 The journey is a simple one, an up-to-date 
 
 223 
 
224 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 train taking its passengers from theUeno Station 
 to Nikko itself in four or five hours. 
 
 Travellers in Japan owe a great deal of their 
 pleasure to the exeellent guide Murray has 
 published. 
 
 This country has had a number of singularly 
 gifted English and American writers to describe 
 its beauties, to translate its folklore, and also to 
 write its history. The Japanese Government 
 has secured the assistance of many eminent 
 scientists, whose works have been published in 
 our language. French and German men of 
 letters have also added a great deal to the litera- 
 ture of Japan in the languages of their respective 
 countries. 
 
 From this galaxy of literati, Messrs. John 
 Murray got Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain to 
 do the descriptive writing in the “ Handbook on 
 Japan,” and they also secured the services of 
 Mr. W. B. Mason, who knows more of the 
 geography of the country than anyone else. 
 
 The Nikko express is up-to-date in everythmg 
 except speed ; it gives the traveller plenty of time 
 to consult his Murray, and the beautiful things 
 Murray tells him to expect make him impatient 
 to get to his destination. 
 
NIKKO 
 
 225 
 
 Turning to Route 16, he will find a Japanese 
 prov^erb says, “ Do not use the w^ord ‘ magnificent ’ 
 till you have seen Nikk5 
 
 Nikko wo rainai uchi wa, 
 
 ‘ Kekko ’ to iu na ! 
 
 “ Nikko’s is a double glory — a glory of nature 
 and a glory of art. Mountains, cascades, monu- 
 mental forest-trees, had always stood there. To 
 these, in the seventeenth century, were added 
 the mausolea of the illustrious Shogun leyasu, 
 founder of the Tokugawa Dynasty, and of his 
 scarcely less famous grandson, lemitsu. Japanese 
 w'ood-carving and painting on wood being then 
 at their zenith, the result was the most perfect 
 assemblage of shrines in the whole land. But 
 though there is gorgeousness, there is no gaudi- 
 ness. That sobriety which is the key-note of 
 .lapanese taste gives to all the elaborate designs 
 and bright colours its own chaste character.” 
 
 In addition to this promise of beautiful art and 
 glorious Nature, I had met no one, during the five 
 months 1 had already spent in Japan, who did 
 not ask me what 1 thought of Nikko or who would 
 not exclaim, “ Is not Nikko a marvel ?” or some- 
 thing similar. 
 
 I had more than once taken two days to get 
 15 
 
226 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 over a distance of fifty miles, and now I felt 
 irritated that the train should take five hours to 
 do a ninety-mile journey, which would prevent 
 our seeing the temples that day. We English 
 have the reputation of being a phlegmatic 
 nation, and we rather pride ourselves in being 
 able to suppress our feelings ; we are, however, 
 children in this respect compared to the Japanese. 
 My interpreter, IMr. Tsuda, had never seen 
 Nikko, and Nikko is the IMecca of .Japan. A 
 long stop at a small station where no one got 
 out or got in would never evoke a sign of 
 impatience from him or from any of his fellow- 
 countrymen. Had some accident delayed us a 
 whole day, a few quiet questions might have 
 been asked ; no other signs of irritation would 
 have been apparent. I am used myself to take 
 things much as I find them, and, had I been in 
 some ramshackle diligence, and been obliged to 
 pass the night wherever the crazy old thing 
 happened to break down, I should have felt less 
 impatient than in this up-to-date train. It 
 looked so European that I felt its being called 
 an express was an untimely bit of sarcasm. 
 
 The cries of “ Bento ! Bento !” are as familiar at 
 .Japanese railway-stations as “ Morning paper !” 
 
THE SHRINE OE lEMITSU 
 
Si » 
 
 
 J 
 
NIKKO 
 
 227 
 
 is to us at home. Bento is not a thing to read 
 on a journey, but one to inwardly digest, if pickled 
 radish and bamboo -shoots are eaten in modera- 
 tion. Mr. Tsuda procured two lots, a bottle of 
 warm sake, two pots of tea, and two little cups. 
 The bento, or luncheon, is supplied in two 
 separate boxes, neatly fastened with some 
 coloured ribbon. One contains nothing but 
 warm, plain-boiled rice, while the other has an 
 assortment of vegetable matter and some fish, 
 the latter separated from the former by a thin 
 wooden partition. It reminded me of the boxes 
 of German toys, the joy of cliildren in the sixties ; 
 sometliing I ate dimly recalled the taste of the 
 red paint on a cow I had put in my mouth, and 
 an artificial leaf, placed here to give the bento 
 the touch of colour the combination required, 
 
 I brought back those green scratchy trees under 
 which small wooden cows loved to graze. A 
 new pair of chopsticks and a toothpick neatly 
 wrapped in tissue-paper accompanies the lunch. 
 
 We are told that prices have doubled since 
 j the late war, and are three times higher than in 
 ; the nineties ; I hardly expected, therefore, to 
 I get change out of a fifty-sen bit — i.e., one shilling 
 ' — for all this food, with tlie crockery thrown in. 
 
228 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 A double row of passengers now sit on their 
 heels on the two long benches to right and left 
 of the carriage. When the meal is over, the 
 empty boxes are thrown on the floor ; the chop- 
 sticks follow ; orange- and apple-peel, paper 
 napkins, and emptied teapots all add to the 
 litter. When the men unsheath the small- 
 bowled pipes which hang from their girdles, and 
 the women produce theirs from a pocket in their 
 long hanging sleeves or from the recesses of the 
 obi, the attendant comes and sweeps up all the 
 debris, and shoots it on to the permanent way. 
 
 We get glimpses now and again of the avenue 
 of ancient cryptomerias which formerly led from 
 Tokyo to the mausolea of the great Shoguns. 
 Many of the trees have unhappily been felled, 
 but on nearing Nikko the avenue, for a distance 
 of twenty miles, is lined with these giants. 
 
 We reached Nikko Station at dusk, and were 
 installed in the Konishi-ya Hotel soon after. It 
 is well not to arrive late in the day at any 
 Japanese yadoya ; the early guest gets into the 
 hot bath first. It is not the custom to take it in 
 the morning, except at thermal stations where it 
 is going all day. We secured an eight-mat 
 room overlooking the High Street, and were told 
 
NIKKO 
 
 229 
 
 that in a day or two a number of pilgrims would 
 be leaving, and we might be able to choose a 
 room more to our liking. 
 
 The life here was much the same as at the 
 Kofu Hotel, except that the pilgrims who flock 
 to Nikko are rather more noisy than the business 
 men who patronize the former. 
 
 We were up early the next morning, as I was 
 itching to see tlie sights and make the most of 
 the flne weather. The hotel is close to the 
 rapidly-flowdng Daiya-gawa, which has to be 
 crossed before reaching the mausolea. It is 
 spanned by a wide bridge, which we and other 
 ordinary mortals have to take ; forty yards up- 
 stream is a second, and this one none save the 
 Mikado is allowed to cross. This is the Mihashi, 
 or Sacred Bridge. The whole structure is red- 
 lacquered, and, partly owing to its unusual colour, 
 as well as its exclusiveness, it has become one of 
 tlie noted sights of Japan. It has been quite 
 recently reconstructed, as the original one, which 
 dated from nearly three centuries ago, was 
 washed away in 1902. 
 
 A legend tells us that one of the earliest 
 Buddhist saints, Shodo Slionin, went in search 
 of a holy spot, which had been indicated to him 
 
230 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 from afar by four differently coloured clouds 
 ascending from it. His journey was stopped by 
 the river, which was a rushing torrent at the 
 time. He prayed for Divine help to enable him 
 to cross, and in answer to his prayer, a gigantic 
 being, in coloured robes and a necklace of skulls, 
 appeared on the opposite bank. The mysterious 
 creature threw a blue and a green snake across 
 the stream, not loosing the tips of their tails, 
 which formed a rainbow-like bridge, and our 
 saint was able to cross. 
 
 The Sacred Red Bridge now spans the river at 
 this particular spot. The legends of Shodo 
 Shonin, and of the still more famous Kobo 
 Daishi, who appeared here a century later, lend 
 an interest to the place. But for my immediate 
 purpose the bridge was no use, for I decided not 
 to paint it the moment I saw it. 
 
 Crossing the river, we ascend an avenue just 
 opposite the Sacred Bridge. The dark green 
 cryptomerias hardly allow a ray of sunhght to 
 penetrate, and the darkness of the approach 
 emphasizes the dazzle of colour of the temple 
 buildings when the first glimpse of them is 
 caught. At the top of the avenue, we come to 
 a large walled enclosure, the Mangwanji, in which 
 
NIKKO 
 
 231 
 
 a monastery, founded by Shodo Shonin, formerly 
 stood. 
 
 The road skirts two sides of the enclosure, and 
 on reaching the angle we enter the main avenue, 
 which takes us through torii and elaborate gate- 
 ways to the mausoleum of leyasu. Touches of 
 scarlet and gold glitter in the morning sun at the 
 far end of the perspective, closed in by the 
 cryptomerias which intervene. 
 
 We ascend some broad steps farther on, pass 
 under a great granite torii, and are then in full 
 view of the Ni-o-mon. the Gate of the Two 
 Kings. It stands on a raised terrace, which is 
 approached by a broad stairway. The retaining 
 wall of the terrace, with its stone balustrade and 
 the imposing flight of steps, are well proportioned 
 to the gateway, but all is dwarfed by the immense 
 size of the crj^ptomerias which overshadow it. 
 The main colouring of the woodwork is scarlet 
 and gold, and, seen from a little distance, it is 
 impressive as a gem in an expansive dark green 
 setting. When the trees were only ornamental 
 shrubs, the gateway and the buildings beyond 
 would have been imposing from their size as well 
 as from the elaborate carving and brilliant colour- 
 ing ; but they look small now until a figure 
 
232 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 stands near them to give the scale. What 
 they may have lost one way is, however, amply 
 compensated. The gem-like effect of the Nikko 
 temples, overshadowed and backed up by the 
 great cryptomerias, is perhaps their chief charm. 
 
 A bright red wall encloses the courtyard 
 beyond the gateway. The three gorgeous build- 
 ings which stand here are merely storehouses ; 
 what the chief shrine must be hke passes all 
 imagination. My little knowledge of architecture 
 and decoration is all at sea. After this scarlet 
 wall nothing need surprise. The shadow from 
 its wide coping and the high key of colour all 
 around, however, puts it right, and no other 
 colour would probably have done as well. 
 
 The next court, which is approached by another 
 flight of steps, is more wonderful stdl. The 
 quaint-shapen drum-tower on the left, the hand- 
 some bell-tower on the right, the two huge bronze 
 candelabra, and the higlily-%vrought lantern from 
 Korea, fill the spectator as much with wonder as 
 ^\dth admu'ation. 
 
 A building with a comparatively modest 
 exterior stands on the extreme left of this plat- 
 form. It was erected in memory of Yakushi, 
 the Buddhist patron saint of leyasu. On enter- 
 
NIKKO 
 
 233 
 
 ing, we find that the interior eclipses anything 
 which we have so far seen. All that the art of 
 the period was able to produce is seen here to 
 perfection. 
 
 The mausoleum of the great Shogun being 
 now the property of the State, the temple furni- 
 ture which pertains to the Buddhist cult has in 
 many places been removed ; but in this shrine, 
 specially dedicated to Yakushi, the wishes of its 
 founder have been respected. The statues of the 
 four Heavenly Kings stand in pairs on each side 
 of the altar — terrific beings brandishing weapons 
 and stamping demons underfoot. The twelve 
 followers of Yakushi are to the right and left of 
 the Shi-Tenno, as the four Kings are called. 
 A Vhere there is so much gold and brilliant colour- 
 ing in the decoration of the wall spaces, it is sur- 
 prising to find a subdued colour in the ceiling ; 
 a dragon painted in sepia wTiggles and twists over 
 the whole of it. It is the work of one of the 
 Kano, and the wonderful draughtsmanship com- 
 pensates for the lack of colour. 
 
 On leaving this temple, it is a relief to rest 
 one’s eyes on the sober grandeur of the crj’pto- 
 merias which overtop all the buildings. 
 
 The north wall of the court is decorated with 
 
234 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 large panels of marvellous high-relief wood-carv- 
 ing. Birds fluttering amongst foliage or sprays 
 of blossom, feeding their young, or spreading out 
 their plumage, are the chief subjects. The 
 Japanese pheasant is most in evidence, doubtless 
 on account of its beautiful colour, for all this 
 elaborate carving is painted in the hues proper to 
 the subject it represents. Red-lacquered beams, 
 which form the framework of the fence, serve 
 also as a setting to each panel. 
 
 Ascending a third set of steps, we reach the 
 terrace on which the Y dmei-mon stands. This gate 
 is the most noted of all the structures in the Nikko 
 mausolea. Whether it was that I had had too 
 rich a diet of Oriental splendour to appreciate fully 
 this building I cannot say, but I certainly longed 
 for some plain surface in this higlily orna- 
 mented and wondrously coloured gate. Every 
 available material is used in its construction, 
 every surface is covered with some geometrical 
 pattern or high-rehef carving. Rampant monsters 
 look as if they might fall off the lintels, and a 
 strange beast sprmgs out where the lintel rests on 
 its supporting pillar. The colour scheme differs 
 from the temple buildings we have so far seen : 
 the columns are painted white instead of the red 
 
NIKKO 
 
 235 
 
 lacquer so much in use ; blue and green is also 
 more freely used on the carving. It has a look 
 of lightness which is pleasing, but the large 
 shadow spaces in the recesses and under the porch 
 are too much cut up in strongly contrasting tones ; 
 the value of the broad shadow is partly lost 
 thereby, and it gives the structure an appearance 
 of unsubstantiality. 
 
 That the Yomei-mon was a supreme effort on 
 the part of both architect and patron is evidenced 
 by a detail which the guide points out. The 
 pattern on one of the pillars has been purposely 
 inverted, and it is known as the Evil-Averting 
 Pillar — j\la- Yoke no Hashira. The superstition 
 was that a building without a flaw might excite 
 the jealousy of the gods, and bring misfortune on 
 the founder’s family. The gods must be easily 
 taken in, for the effect is in nowise hurt by 
 it. Space does not allow of a detailed descrip- 
 tion of this as well as of the other numerous 
 buildings. 
 
 The Kara-mon, or Chinese Gate, faees the 
 Yomei-mon on the farther side of the square. 
 The detail is Chinese in character, tliough the 
 main outlines are .Japanese ; it is as elaborate in 
 ornamentation as the one we have left, but it is 
 
236 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 smaller, so as not to dwarf the shrine to which it 
 gives access. 
 
 The Honden, or oratory, has a profusely 
 decorated exterior, but so much ornamentation 
 has been lavished on the buildings leading to it 
 that there was nothing left to make it stand out 
 as of greater importance than the others. 
 
 The interior is very beautiful ; it looks empty 
 in contrast to the richly-furnished shrine of 
 Yakushi, which we have seen. This comes 
 almost as a rehef ; had the gorgeous emblems of 
 the Buddhist cult not been removed, one’s 
 capacity for admiration would have been as ex- 
 hausted as the adjectives possible to describe it. 
 The Holy of Holies is beyond ; to gain access to 
 it special arrangements have to be made, as well 
 as the payment of ten yen — equal to about a 
 guinea. 
 
 We had visited numerous other buildings 
 attached to the great mausoleum ; we had in- 
 spected so many objects and details not mentioned 
 here, though full of interest, that it was with no 
 feelings of sour grapes that we turned away to 
 seek the tomb of leyasu. 
 
 The G.P.F., who has absorbed some of the 
 Voltairian spirit prevalent among the educated 
 
A SHRIN'K A'l NMKKO 
 
NIKKO 
 
 237 
 
 classes in Japan, seemed to think that the special 
 arrangements might be easily made, were the ten 
 yen forthcoming. His comment that temples and 
 most religious buildings were means of extracting 
 money was rather severe. Hitherto live farthings 
 was all that we had had to pay to be shown 
 round the inner compartments of any temple. 
 Nikko stands alone in this respect. A vast sum 
 of money is needed to keep the buildings in 
 repair, and it is fair that those who enjoy seeing 
 them should help most towards defraying the 
 expenses. This is nevertheless overdone. The 
 visitor has to pay three shillings, both for himself 
 and for his guide ; and to demand of him another 
 two guineas, should he take his guide with him, 
 is excessive. 
 
 A\'hat I personally resented still more was 
 that each time 1 wished to paint in any of the 
 enclosures, the same charges as for a first visit 
 were necessary. I had been informed that a five- 
 yen ticket was obtainable, which would permit 
 of my working here every day for a month ; 
 nothing, however, seemed known of this when 
 we inquired at the office. The official was very 
 civil, and he told us that a great many artists 
 painted at Nikko, but found their best subjects 
 
238 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE ; 
 
 just outside the enclosed parts. A slight twinkle 
 in his eye seemed to suggest that the state of the 
 artists’ purses may have some influence on the 
 choice of their subjects. As the official was in 
 no way responsible for the regulations, it was 
 useless to argue with him. 
 
 It is a short-sighted policy, for pictorial repre- 
 sentations do much to bring visitors to any place. 
 
 The tomb of leyasu is on the hill above the 
 shrine. We pass through the Chinese Gate and 
 
 on our left — an altar and ! 
 the kagicra-do, or dancing-stage — and we then f 
 come to a door in the gallery which fences off* V 
 this side of the enclosure. The Neinuri no Neko, | 
 or “ Sleeping Cat,” of the famous sculptor Jingord, \ 
 is pointed out to us. It has been so often re- 
 produced and so much talked about that it may 
 disappoint a good many, especially as it is no 
 better than so much we have already seen. Pass- 
 ing through the door, we ascend a zigzag flight 
 of stone steps till we reach a torii and yet another 
 shrine, and behind this, in a clearing in the wood, 
 stands the tomb. 
 
 It is an impressive monument, and simplicity 
 itself compared to the highly-decorated buildings 
 we have seen. The design is somewhat like a 
 
 between two buildings 
 
NIKKO 
 
 239 
 
 one-storied pagoda. As a bit of bronze casting, 
 it proves that Japan had nothing to learn from 
 Europe in that difficult art, for the whole is done 
 in one casting. We are told that the light colour 
 of the metal is owing to a good admixture of gold 
 in its composition. It rests on a simple granite 
 plinth, in front of which stands a huge bronze 
 incense-burner. A stork standing on a tortoise 
 and a large flower-vase, all of the same metal, 
 are to right and left of the burner. A touch of 
 another colour is given by the brass candlestick 
 held in the stork’s beak and the brass lotus-flowers 
 and leaves which rise out of the vase. A plain 
 stone balustrade encloses the monument, to 
 which access is given through a handsome bronze 
 doorway. 
 
 The tomb is a costly one, and it is in good 
 taste. Its contrasting simplicity to the gorgeous- 
 ness of all the other structures in the mausoleum 
 suggests, nevertheless, a mock humility on the 
 part of the Shogun. “Is not everything else in 
 honour of the gods and of his patron saint ?” has 
 been said ; “ whereas this is only to commemo- 
 rate the resting-place of his mortal remains.” A 
 plausible argument, though far fi-om expressing 
 the whole truth. The lavish expense in artistic 
 
240 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 production and in material, as well as in the con- 
 struction of the road from here to the capital, was 
 all for the glorification of leyasu and the Toku- 
 gawa Dynasty, of which he was the founder. 
 The Mikados, though of heavenly descent and 
 the nominal rulers of the empire, were laid to 
 rest in humble surroundings compared to the 
 mausolea of the powerful Shoguns of this dynasty. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIl 
 
 NiKKo {continued) 
 
 E hear little of leyasu’s son who succeeded 
 
 him in the Shogunate. Were it not for 
 his splendid tomb at Tokyo, most people would 
 not even know his name. 
 
 leyasu made Yedo his capital. It was then 
 only a humble fishing village, but it soon grew in 
 importance, and its population eclipsed that of 
 Kyoto at the time of the revolution, from which 
 date its name has been changed to Tokyo. Hide- 
 tada, the next in succession, was buried at Shiba 
 in the new capital. His famous son lemitsu was 
 deemed worthy at his death to lie near his grand- 
 father, and in 1650, when he died, his remains 
 were brought to Nikko. 
 
 The wide avenue which forms the approach to 
 his tomb is the subject of the illustration. 
 
 The red-lacquered shrine on the left is one of 
 the Fiitatso-do, or the two temples which are con- 
 nected with a gallery. It is said that the bones 
 16 241 
 
242 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 of Yoritomo are preserved here. As the same 
 thing is said of a temple at Kamakura, our 
 doubts may be pardoned. 
 
 The gate at the top of the stone steps is the 
 entrance to lemitsu’s mausoleum. It is similar 
 in design to the first gate of leyasu’s memorial, 
 but less ornate. It is dwarfed by the size of the 
 cryptomerias which intervene, though it is by no 
 means small in itself. The pilgrims and sight- 
 seers who constantly pass up and down the steps 
 serve to scale it, and they and their picturesque 
 attire add greatly to the subjects. 
 
 Were all that is connected with lemitsu the 
 only architectural attractions here, Nikko would 
 still well repay a visit. As it is, it is over- 
 shadowed by the splendours of leyasu’s mauso- 
 leum. Most of the features of the latter are here, 
 but on a lesser scale. 
 
 It was cold work painting this gate, screened 
 as I was from the sun, but not from the chilly 
 winds which blew. 
 
 We were not half-way through October. The 
 two thousand feet we were above the level of the 
 sea, and the close proximity to the snow covering 
 the mountain-tops, made me doubtful as to whether 
 I could work a month here as weU as a few days 
 
NIKKO 
 
 243 
 
 at Chuzenji, which lies two thousand five hundred 
 feet higher. 
 
 Miss Crauford, whom I had met at Hakone, 
 was here also. She painted the same subject 
 from the opposite side of the road, where she 
 got the benefit of the sun and a certain shelter 
 from the wind. I thought I liked my view the 
 best ; I nevertheless envied her her point of 
 vantage. On a bright day the contrast between 
 the sun and shade was striking. 
 
 I procured some little stoves which the Japanese 
 women put in their sleeves and obi. They are 
 small enough to push up the sleeve of a coat, and 
 the slow-burning fuse which they hold will keep 
 alight for four or five hours. This species of 
 muff-warmer must be in great demand during 
 the cold weather, for it is procurable in most 
 villages, and costs about a penny, the fuel being 
 proportionately cheap. 
 
 Before I could finish my drawing, 1 had found 
 a place for a stove under my waistcoat, I had 
 stuffed one in each sock, and had a stove under 
 each foot. At Chuzenji, later on, I was like a 
 mo\’ing ironmonger’s shop. 
 
 My preparations against the cold seemed to 
 cause no inconsiderable amusement to the maids 
 
244 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 at the hotel, who take that “ kindly interest ” of 
 which we have heard in all the doings of the 
 guests. 
 
 Amongst the many minor objects of interest, 
 I saw many subjects which lent themselves more 
 to pictorial treatment than do the noted sights of 
 Nikko. I realized after a while that it was not 
 only the fees which induced the artists to choose 
 their subjects outside the mausolea enclosures. 
 
 A path through the woods on the north side 
 of the temples leads to one of the many water- 
 falls abounding in this neighbourhood. There 
 are subjects enough in this walk of half an hour 
 to furnish an artist with material for a long 
 summer’s sojourn. We pass several modest 
 shrines, which are more sketchable than the well- 
 kept and elaborate temples in the enclosures. 
 Moss-covered stone lanterns stand between the 
 cryptomerias, which partly line each side of the 
 path, and suggest that the latter was once a 
 stately avenue. 
 
 A long and winding flight of stone steps 
 ascends a hill, and leads to a disused and partly 
 ruined temple. From the left-hand side of the 
 steps the waterfall is seen through the branches 
 of the trees, and when the plateau on which the 
 
NIKKO 
 
 245 
 
 temple stands is reached, we find ourselves 
 on the level fi’om which the roaring cascade 
 falls. 
 
 The priest’s dwellings are in little better repair 
 than the temple. An aged wood-cutter lived a 
 hermit life in one of the buildings. He seemed 
 pleased to see us, and gave us some tea. He 
 showed us his stock of abnormal growths which 
 he had fashioned into flower- vases, tobacco- pots, 
 walking-sticks, and what not. He was able to 
 tell us of the days before Buddhism was dis- 
 established, when services were still held in 
 the temple. W e had several occasions to call on 
 the old man, and his hot tea was more than 
 welcome after a long sit near the chilly waterfall. 
 The climb up to his house was as warming as 
 his tea. 
 
 The whine and grumble so often heard among 
 the aged poor nearer home is rarely met with in 
 Japan, and this old man would never be likely to 
 throw out a hint that he was in want. We 
 could make some return for the trouble he might 
 have been put to by buying an example of his 
 quaint collection, but he did not bring them 
 forward with this object in view, for it was we 
 who asked to see them. 
 
246 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 
 The behaviour of the humbler classes has 
 doubtless changed for the worse in the towns 
 adjoining the foreign settlements. The foreigner f 
 naturally comes most in contact with those who ’ 
 live nearest to him and whom he employs, and 
 he has them in his mind when he sneers about 
 “ Oriental politeness.” The nicest Japanese 
 whom I have met were those who had not had 
 their courtly manners spoilt by contact with the 
 nations of the West. 
 
 Let us return to the waterfall, warmed by our 
 tea and our talk 'wdth the cheery old hermit, who 
 has passed his life within the sound of the rushing 
 waters. 
 
 On a ledge of rock projecting from the lower 
 part of the waterfall, a quaint image of a god is 
 seated. He holds an iron sword in his right 
 hand ; the weapon is nearly rusted through, and t 
 the top part sways to and fro from the draught 
 caused by the fall of water. The outlines of I 
 flames are just discernible on the stone backing | 
 of the image. His original ferocious expression 
 has been a good deal modified by the mosses 
 which have taken root in his open mouth and 
 have choked up his distended nostrils. 
 
 The G.P.F. thinks that it is Fudo, but as my 
 
KUDO 
 
NIKKO 
 
 247 
 
 friend is rather uncertain about his gods, he 
 consults our old friend the hermit. “ Yes, it is 
 Fudo, the God of Fire,” he afterwards assures 
 me ; but why and by whom he was placed in 
 I such a damp situation is more than we can find 
 out. That it might have been deemed a safe place 
 in which to put this fiery old gentleman suggested 
 I itself to me ; yet it seems hardly conceivable that 
 such disrespect to a god would be tolerated. 
 
 According to Monier Williams, Fudo means 
 “ The Immovable,” and it is one of the names of 
 the Brahminical God Siva ; while Satow identifies 
 him with Dainichi, the God of Wisdom, which 
 (juality is symbolized by the flames which sur- 
 round him. 
 
 Water is no respecter of persons or of stone 
 gods. It squirts and splashes over and around 
 the image, trickles down the flames, and hangs in 
 drops from the nose. A water-wagtail tries the 
 head as a resting-place, till a puff* of wind sends 
 the spray that way, and he flies off. 
 
 The neighbourhood of Nikko abounds in 
 waterfalls, and many are very much more 
 imposing. But the image gives this one a kind 
 of human interest, and tempts me to try my 
 hand at a waterfall for the first time. 
 
248 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 On our return to the village we saw some men 
 putting up a triumphal arch at the bottom of 
 the drive of the principal European hotel. 
 Others were fixing flag-posts, and from the 
 general interest the villagers were taking in the 
 proceedings, it was evident that something 
 unusual was going to happen. 
 
 The autumn manoeuvres were taking place 
 some twenty miles from Nikko, and I had heard 
 that the Emperor was attending them. Could it 
 be he that was coming ? I asked Mr. Tsuda to 
 find out, and imagine my surprise when I was 
 told that Lord Kitchener was expected to arrive 
 on the following day ! 
 
 It was long since I had seen a newspaper, and 
 1 had an idea that his lordship was in Australia. 
 Great preparations were also going on at our 
 hotel ; in two or three places a half-dozen rooms 
 were turned into one. The six- and eight-mat 
 compartments soon became a forty-mat dormitory 
 by shifting the screens out of the grooves. A 
 guard of honour of a hundred men were mostly 
 to be quartered at the Konishi-ya, besides several 
 officers. I expected to be kept awake half the 
 night by the noise, for the soldiers were to arrive 
 that same evening. 
 
NIKKO 
 
 249 
 
 My fears, however, were groundless, for I have 
 never come across better-behaved men in my life. 
 When they had been assigned their quarters, 
 they were told off in batches of fifteen to the 
 bathroom. As only four can squeeze into the 
 hot bath at the same time, I do not know how 
 they managed it. The bath- man informed us 
 the next day that, although tliere w’^ere sixty 
 men, it was so arranged that everyone had his 
 proper share. I felt sony for the last batch, 
 'rhe men may be fairly clean before the hot 
 soak, but sixty men is a lot ! They supped and 
 slept in a wing of the inn other than the one 
 we were in, and the officers occupied the adjoin- 
 ing rooms to mine. By ten o’clock there was 
 not a sound to be heard, except the sugges- 
 tion of a snore from the otlier side of the 
 partition. 
 
 Lord Kitchener was to spend the best part 
 of the w'eek at the Kanaya Hotel, and take the 
 train daily down to Utsonomiya, near which 
 station the manoeuvres w'ere being held. The 
 guard of honour remained at Xikko to escort 
 him to and from the station. 
 
 Mr. Tsuda was asked by one of the officers 
 if a call on me would be welcome, and accordingly 
 
250 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 I had a very pleasant evening visit from Lieu- 
 tenant Katayama. He had served in the late 
 war, as well as in the one with China. He 
 seemed inclined to tell me of some of his ex- 
 periences, but unfortunately the amount of 
 French he spoke was not sufficient to make 
 him quite intelligible. He would take nothing 
 to drink but tea, and as far as I could gather 
 none of the men under his command took any- 
 thing stronger. 
 
 Imagine the landlord of any licensed estabhsh- 
 ment in Europe having sixty soldiers quartered 
 on him and doing no business at his bar ! 
 
 Lord Kitchener arrived at noon on the follow- 
 ing day. We saw some hundreds of school- 
 children — each one carrying a little flag — march 
 down to the station to sing a welcoming ode. 
 A servant closed the slwji while we were at 
 lunch, and hearing the tramp of many people 
 passing in the street below, I slid the paper- 
 slides back to see the cortege. I noticed that 
 every window which faced the road was closed, 
 and that not a balcony had a spectator in it. It 
 had the depressing effect of the drawn blinds 
 when a funeral is in progress. I mentioned this 
 to the G.P.F., and was told that when a very 
 
NIKKO 
 
 251 
 
 high personage passed officially along the streets 
 it was not etiquette to look down on him. I 
 hastily closed the shoji, and returned to my 
 lunch. 
 
 I knew that this custom obtained when a 
 member of the Imperial Family passed along 
 the streets, and I felt flattered that such an 
 honour should be shown to a distinguished 
 compatriot of mine. 
 
 Some days later I heard that if I wished to 
 paint the maples at Chuzenji in the full gloiy 
 of their autumnal foliage, there was no time to 
 lose. 
 
 We engaged a man to carry our necessary 
 traps, and made an early start for the lake. It 
 is seven miles from Nikkd, with a steep ascent 
 during the latter half of tlie walk. 
 
 We follow the course of the Daiya-gawa till 
 we reach Uma-gaeshi, the village at which most 
 people rest before starting on the steep ascent. 
 The name Uma-gaeshi means literally “horse 
 send back,” and dates from the time when there 
 was no practicable road, and when visitors were 
 forced to do the remaining journey on foot. 
 
 As we ascend, the scenery becomes wilder and 
 more picturesque. We use the old footpath, 
 
252 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 which is much shorter than the new road. The 
 two join occasionally, and half-circle round the 
 side of a cliff overlooking the gorge through 
 which the Daiya-gawa rushes. 
 
 The foliage of the deciduous trees was in every 
 shade of warm colouring, from pale gold down 
 to a deep crimson. The pines and yews which 
 relieved it looked more sombre than ever in 
 their dark evergi’een. We made a slight detour 
 to see the Hannya and Hodo cascades. 
 
 A tea-liouse is perched on the edge of a ravine 
 which commands the best view. A number of 
 Japanese tourists were here, who, like ourselves, 
 were on their way to see the maples at Chuzenji. 
 Many of them had cameras, and were photo- 
 graphing the cascades. 
 
 The Hannya falls gracefully from a ledge of 
 rock, which is lost on both sides and overhead in 
 dense masses of maples. The stream at its base 
 is lost and found among the boulders, and comes 
 swirling and splashing in a serpentine line to 
 beneath the stage from which we see it. 
 
 Nature seemed bent on showing that she had 
 a reserve of colour which could, when she was in 
 the mood, put to shame the hues of the Nikko 
 shrines we had left. 
 
NIKKO 
 
 253 
 
 We continued our journey till we reached 
 another tea-house, placed at the edge of a cliff 
 overlooking the Daiya-gawa. The air was too 
 , chilly for us to enjoy the wild scenery for long. 
 
 I The great sight on the w^ay to the lake was still 
 
 I before us. 
 
 I After ascending to the level of Chuzenji, and 
 I a little before reaching it, we saw a finger-post 
 directing us to the Kegon-no-taki waterfall. A 
 steep path winds down among the cliffs till it 
 nearly reaches the bed of the torrent. A wooden 
 bridge here crosses the base of another waterfall, 
 called Shirakuino, meaning the “ white cloud.” 
 It is a long bridge and a slippery one, but we 
 must hasten to cross it, or we shall be drenched 
 by the spray from the fiilling water. We skirt 
 round the edge of another cliff, and descend to a 
 little tea-house placed in full view of Kegon, the 
 grandest fall of water in this part of Japan. 
 
 It is the chief outlet of Chuzenji Lake, and the 
 main source of the river near whose course we 
 had been ascending since we left Nikko. From a 
 narrow cleft in the overhanging rocks it bursts forth 
 in an unbroken cascade till it dashes into the bed 
 of the torrent, two hundred and fifty feet below. 
 
 We can hardly hear ourselves speak for the 
 
254 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 roar, and it is as well, for comments are super- 
 fluous, if not jarring, when face to face with 
 Nature in her most awe-striking aspects. 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine a more de- 
 lightful place in which to spend the hot summer 
 months than on the shores of Lake Chuzenji. 
 
 The brilliancy of the colouring we now saw 
 would, of course, be absent, but for a prolonged 
 stay the quieter hues of summer would be more 
 restful. The gorgeous display of late October is 
 as short a period in the course of the year as that 
 of the sunset to the day which it closes. No one 
 would wish to live where the sun was always 
 setting, and he would cease to enjoy the beauty 
 of the fall were it of a longer duration. 
 
 We had not arrived a day too soon. On the 
 more exposed mountain-sides the fi’osts had 
 already shrivelled up the leav’^es of the maples 
 and turned their crimson to a rusty browm. On 
 the southern slopes of Nantai-zan, which rises 
 four thousand feet above the lake, the trees which 
 clothe them were still in their full splendour. 
 
 It was bitterly cold, yet I could not let this 
 opportunity slip without attempting some record 
 of what I saw. 
 
 ]\Iy subject was in the lane leading to Yumoto, 
 
NIKKO 
 
 255 
 
 a village situated on the shore of a smaller lake 
 some five miles north of Chuzenji. 
 
 But for the provision of muff-warmers which 
 I had brought from Nikko, work would have 
 been impossible. 
 
 The maples were not plentiful just here ; a 
 gi’oup of trees which I can only remember as 
 having silvery trunks and limbs, seen here and 
 there amongst a mass of golden foliage, was the 
 chief thing of beauty which I attempted to por- 
 tray in the illustration which accompanies this. 
 
 The inn where we stayed was on the edge of 
 the lake ; we liad come with a letter of introduc- 
 tion from the landlord of our Nikko hotel, a 
 custom which prevails in Japan. 
 
 Foreigners travelling without a guide, and 
 frequenting native inns, are much helped by this 
 custom when their knowledge of the language is 
 very limited. It not only assures them of a good 
 welcome, but also states their requirements. 
 
 The rain held off during our three days’ stay 
 at Chuzenji, and I was able to get another study 
 near the Kegon Falls, where the crimson maples 
 were the chief object. 
 
 Our return journey to Nikko was as delightful 
 as our ascent to Chuzenji had been. While rest- 
 
256 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 ing at a tea-house in one of the villages on our 
 way, two Americans passed who were distribut- 
 ing tracts to the villagers. A child who had 
 picked up a couple gave one to Mr. Tsuda, and 
 I asked him to translate some of the contents 
 to me. 
 
 It was a translation into Japanese of the 
 ordinary evangelical tract met with at home. It 
 would appear as strange and incomprehensible to 
 the Japanese peasant as an Enghsh translation 
 of a Buddhist sutra would appear to a peasant 
 at home. 
 
 Fortunately, the advice sent from home and 
 posted up in flaming advertisements to drink So- 
 and-so’s whisky and no other is as little heeded 
 by the country-folk as are the tracts which well- 
 meaning people distribute. 
 
 Japan has learnt much from Europe, but 
 should her people learn to poison themselves 
 with the spirits Europe tries to foist on her, 
 Japan will be wise enough to clap such a duty on 
 alcohol as to make its sale an impossibihty. 
 
 We spent some delightful days in the garden 
 of a priest after our return to Nikko. It was 
 one of those small rock-gardens which none but 
 the Japanese know how to make beautiful at a 
 
AUTUMN FOUAGK 
 
NIKKO 
 
 257 
 
 slight cost — some careful planning at first so as 
 to obtain a well-composed view from the veranda 
 of the dwelling-house, and then Nature is left to 
 do the rest. Such gardens could only have 
 evolved in a mountainous country with an abun- 
 dance of streams and a warm, moist summer to 
 further the growth of the shrubs, added to the 
 keen iesthetic sense of its people. 
 
 I was protected from the rain by the veranda, 
 and to a certain extent from the cold by the 
 kind attentions of the priest’s old housekeeper, 
 who placed a charcoal brazier next to me, and 
 had some hot tea always going. 
 
 The perpetual tea-drinking in Japan does not 
 have the deleterious effects one might expect. 
 The hot water is never allowed to stand long on 
 the leaves, and the tea is taken sufficiently weak 
 barely to colour the water. It is also taken with- 
 out milk or sugar, and quenches the thirst more 
 readily than would sweet drinks. The tea is 
 j green, and differs in flavour from that of China or 
 India. Europeans do not at first like it, but if 
 , they once acquire the taste, they take to it very 
 readily. 
 
 'i I left Nikko with great regret. Its name is 
 not harmonious, but it recalls all that is most 
 17 
 
258 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 beautiful and harmonious in the Far East. Of 
 things seen, the gem-like temple buildings, over- 
 shadowed by the giant cryptomerias, hold the 
 first place in my memory ; the kindly welcome 
 of the priest and his elderly housekeeper to their 
 modest dwelling, the simple hospitality of the 
 old hermit near the waterfall, as well as the 
 attention to our needs cheerily given by those at 
 our inn, will all retain a warm place in my heart 
 when the memory of thmgs seen may become 
 dimmed by lapse of time. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TOKYO 
 
 HE chrysanthemum more than the cold 
 
 weather induced me to descend to the plains 
 and take up my abode at Tokyo. 
 
 My friend Mr. Kanocogni had recommended 
 me to a Japanese hotel not far from the centre of 
 the town, yet well cut off from the noise and 
 bustle of a busy capital. The Take-shiba over- 
 looks Tokyo Bay ; it has a large garden of its 
 own, and the trees of its neighbours giv^e it a 
 seclusion rarely found in a large eity. 
 
 The garden also had the ehrysanthemums of 
 which I was in need. 
 
 Such inns as these do not advertise, as in 
 Europe, but depend on eustom through the re- 
 eommendation of previous guests. It is not only 
 recommended to the would-be guest, but he is 
 also recommended to the landlord. In the case of 
 foreigners this is very important, for their usual 
 inability to adapt themselves to the Japanese 
 
 259 
 
260 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 mode of living is liable to give the landlord a 
 good deal of trouble, and may induce him to say 
 that he has no vacant rooms. 
 
 Our room led out into the garden and over- 
 looked the bay beyond ; it got all the sun, and 
 was sheltered from the cold winds by a projecting 
 wing of the house. 
 
 November in Japan is usually the sunniest 
 month of the year. As if to make up for an 
 excessively wet summer, we had sunshine during 
 nearly the whole of this and the following 
 month. 
 
 I had seen Tokyo in dirty weather during the 
 two or three days spent there on my way to 
 Nikko, and, owing to its low situation and 
 heavy soil, the mud in the streets was inde- 
 scribable. 
 
 Tokyo had now dried up, and it was possible 
 to walk about the streets with pleasure without 
 the highly-raised clogs the natives wear. A 
 system of tramways takes away from the old- 
 world look which is the charm of Kyoto, but as 
 the distances are very great, the rapid locomotion 
 is a convenience of which I availed myself con- 
 siderably. 
 
 I’he city is roughly a hundred square miles in 
 
TOKYO 
 
 261 
 
 extent ; and Asakusa and Mukojima, where 1 
 found my chief subjects, are about seven and 
 eight miles from our hotel. 
 
 I started on the chrysanthemums in the hotel 
 garden at once, and Mr. Tsuda explored the 
 neighbourhood for places where these flowers 
 could be seen in masses and painted with con- 
 venience. 
 
 Chrysanthemum shows were advertised, and it 
 was a great pleasure to attend them. The crowds 
 of people made it impossible to work there, and 
 arranged, as the plants were, in rows and under 
 temporary sheds, they were not as pictorial as 
 when growing in the gardens. 
 
 I got what I wanted as an illustration for this 
 book without leaving my hotel, and the G.P.F. 
 discovered a delightful tea-garden in the suburb 
 of Mukojima which will serve as an illustration 
 to “ .Japanese Gardens.” 
 
 Cut flowers were in evidence everywhere, and 
 for a trifling sum it was possible to have a grand 
 display in the takemona. Chrysanthemums were 
 to be seen in vases in most of the shops, and in 
 pots in the porches or under the verandas of 
 most of the private houses. It was at JVIukojima 
 that we found the florist’s gardens and tea-houses 
 
262 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 where I could paint these charming flowers in 
 comfort and amidst suitable surroundings. 
 
 A tramway runs the whole distance from the 
 Shiba district to Asakusa, and from thence we 
 take a ferry which crosses the Sumida-gawa, and 
 lands us a mile or more up the stream. On the 
 south or ]\Iukojima side there is an avenue of 
 cherry-trees two miles long on the river embank- 
 ment. When they are in blossom, thousands of 
 people come to enjoy the beautiful sight. 
 
 The chrysanthemum gardens do not attract 
 such numbers, for the great shows are then going 
 on more in the centre of the city. 
 
 The Shakwa Garden attracted me the most. 
 It is a combination of tea-garden and that of a 
 nurseryman and florist. The deciduous trees had 
 mostly shed their leaves, but there were sufficient 
 fine old evergreens to prevent the dreariness of 
 many gardens in the late autumn. The masses 
 of chrysanthemums in beds, in pots, and the more 
 delicate kinds sheltered under thatch -covered 
 roofs, were, of course, the chief attraction. 
 
 The marvellous developments of that flower 
 were not to be seen here, as they are in the 
 shows at Dango-zaka and at Asakusa, but there 
 were quite enough for my purpose. 
 
TOKYO 
 
 263 
 
 I 
 
 i; 
 
 The proprietor was as obliging as I usually 
 found most of the owners of gardens. He would 
 have a table placed wherever I wished to paint, 
 and I could keep my feet from the damp by sitting 
 on it. A charcoal brazier was also a w'elcome 
 companion. He showed me with great pride the 
 signature of Mr. Taft, now President of the 
 United States, and also some lines dedicated to 
 the kiku (chrysanthemum) which that statesman 
 had written. He had cut this out of his visitors’ 
 book and framed it. Mr. Tsuda must, I fear, 
 have greatly exaggerated my reputation as an 
 artist, for I was also asked for my signature and 
 a laudatory word or two about his garden. 
 
 Mukojima is as unlike an ordinary suburb of a 
 great city as it is possible to conceive. It lies 
 very low, and is not considered sanitary, for the 
 rents of the small houses are as low as the situa- 
 tion. It reminded me of the outskirts of some 
 Dutch towns, from the number of ditches on the 
 sides of the roads and the little bridges and gates 
 that give access to the garden patches in front of 
 the houses. The hedges are trimmed and ever- 
 greens are cut into shapes, as is also seen in 
 Holland. The houses themselves are, of course, 
 quite different, being entirely constructed of 
 
264 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 wood, save the dark-grey tiled roofs. I was 
 told that the rents of a great number were a 
 shilling and less per week. 
 
 There are some quaint little restaurants in this 
 suburb, some of which are noted for a particular 
 dish. The well-to-do of Tokyo often partake of 
 them when a floral attraction brings them this way. 
 
 We tried most of the eating-houses, as it was 
 too far to return to our hotel. Some are built on 
 piles driven into a pond they overlook. Goldfish 
 will collect near the staging, when guests appear, 
 for the crumbs which may drop from their six- 
 inch tables. A crane will stand at the edge of the 
 water casting an envious eye on the perforated 
 eel-tub lashed to one of the piles. Distorted pine- 
 trees and azalea-bushes,growingamongst the rock- 
 work, fringe the sides opposite the building. 
 
 Where circumstances allow, stone lanterns or 
 a bronze water-basin add to the decoration. 
 
 Sakana-no-tempura and unagi-meshi are dishes 
 which can usually be obtained, and they are both 
 dishes to be remembered. The first is a kind of 
 fish-fritter — often crayfish and praams similarly 
 treated — and the second is stewed eels in layers 
 of rice and flavoured with soyu, the favourite 
 Japanese sauce. The latter dish is often served 
 
('IIRYSANTIIKMUMij 
 
TOKYO 
 
 265 
 
 in a lacquer box, delicately fashioned and in shape 
 I like a lady’s glove-box. 
 
 There was one restaurant where food was 
 i especially prepared for the followers of a certain 
 Buddhist sect, and where not even fish was allowed 
 in their diet. We did not patronize it, as w^e 
 w'anted something more sustaining than lotus- 
 ^ roots and bamboo-shoots. I seemed to get on 
 very well without meat ; but w'here eggs are 
 little used, and milk and butter never, fish as a 
 substitute for flesh seems indicated. 
 
 Beef is now^ to be had in purely Japanese eat- 
 ing-houses in most centres. It had not yet 
 reached Mukojima. 
 
 We went often to Asakusa, one of the oldest 
 and most picturesque districts of Tokyo, for 
 before we had seen the last of the chrysanthe- 
 mums a subject there had ripened, and at all 
 costs I had to make an effort to paint it. 
 
 J’he great ?V//o-trees surrounding the temple of 
 Kwannon had turned to the golden splendour 
 which adds another attraction to this spot during 
 the waning of the year. 
 
 Kw'annon’s shrine is the largest religious edifice 
 in the capital ; it is not gorgeously decorated, as 
 are the temples of Nikko, nor as some others in 
 
266 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Tokyo itself. It has all the appearance of being 
 there for the use of the people, and not of being 
 kept up as a show place. 
 
 The 17 th and 18 th of each month are days 
 sacred to the goddess Kwannon, and on those 
 days a fair is held on the large space between the 
 Nid-mon and the temple itself. It is picturesque 
 beyond measure. Stalls, holding everything 
 which may appeal to the tastes and purses of the 
 poorer classes, are rigged up between the trees 
 and the enormous stone and bronze lanterns ; 
 conjurers and fortune - tellers collect groups 
 around them ; sellers of charms and the icliiko, 
 who professes to give tidings fi-om the dead, are 
 seldom absent. 
 
 The fair not only invades the precincts, but 
 encroaches beneath the colonnade that surrounds 
 the sanctuary in the temple itself. The doves, 
 which flutter fearlessly amongst the crowds 
 outside, seem quite at home in Kwannon’s 
 shrine. 
 
 Where to find a spot from which to paint this 
 exciting subject was a matter of a good deal of 
 consideration. 
 
 The Nio-mon, as the gate which gives access 
 to the precincts is called, furnished me with a 
 
TOKYO 
 
 267 
 
 perch from which I could see over the heads of 
 the people. 
 
 The terror-striking beings who occupy niches 
 on each side of the entrance have fortunately 
 here a short flight of wooden steps leading up to 
 their enclosures. From this point of vantage 
 I was enabled to make the drawing which 
 serves as an illustration to this book. 
 
 I had to choose a day when the fair was not 
 on, for the booths then blocked out too much 
 of my subject. Ordinary days are, however, 
 sufficiently animated for what I wanted. 
 
 Asakusa is little affected by the modern 
 innovations which obtrude in other parts of 
 Tokyo. It is easy to picture the scenes which 
 Mitford laid here in his “ Story of the Otokodate 
 of Yedo.” Wandering about the extensive 
 grounds of the temple, we were attracted into 
 some of the shows, which are permanent fixtures. 
 
 We recognized scenes in some of the other 
 “Tales of Old .Japan” which Mitford has so 
 vividly portrayed. AVe witnessed “ The Yampire 
 Cat of Nabc^shima,” performed by marionettes ; 
 and though this tale is as well known in .Japan 
 as “ Cinderella ” is with us, it was interesting to 
 see how the crow'd of onlookers w'ere moved by it. 
 
268 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 We were here amongst the humbler classes, 
 who, as everywhere else, give more expression to 
 their emotions. The official Japanese, as well as 
 all the more educated, have learnt to disguise 
 their innermost feelings to the extent that 
 inscrutability is one of their chief characteristics. 
 
 AVithin a short distance of the Kwannon a 
 great show of chrysanthemums was now being 
 held. There was a great display of flowers, and 
 it was a very pretty sight, but I saw no varieties 
 which I had not seen in England. Adjoining 
 the open space where the long sheds of flowers 
 are, stands a great dome-shaped building, and, 
 follovdng the crowd into it, we beheld a most 
 extraordinary series of flower-tableaux. Life- 
 sized figures and animals representing scenes 
 from well-known legends were entirely made 
 up of chrysanthemums, except the masks of 
 the faces, which were of wax or some other 
 material. 
 
 Milhons of buds had been wired together to 
 imitate the colour and pattern of the robes of the 
 personages ; not only these, but the trees and 
 rocks and all the practicable furniture of the 
 stage was made up of the same flowers. 
 
 It was very quaint and interesting, but hardly 
 
TOKYO 269 
 
 repaid the infinite labour involved in its pro- 
 duction. 
 
 I did not go to the Imperial garden-party 
 which takes place while the chrysanthemum is in 
 season. 
 
 A frock-coat and tall hat are dc rigueur, and 
 to travel about in Japan with such useless encum- 
 brances is not to be thought of. It is the only 
 occasion, happily, when Japanese ladies wear 
 European dresses. They look charming in their 
 own national dress, and I did not wish to see 
 them in ill-fitting Paris creations. Time, also, 
 was too pressing, for there was a rush of beautiful 
 things in November which I w^ished to paint 
 while they lasted. 
 
 The maple was turning to crimson, the golden 
 leaves of the icho-txee had not yet fallen, and I 
 had three chrysanthemum pictures on hand. 
 
 The former is quite a fortnight later than on 
 the heights at Chuzenji. 
 
 People were beginning to flock to Oji to 
 wander about the maple groves that clothe the 
 banks of the Takino-gawa. The purity of this 
 stream is unfortunately somewhat spoilt by some 
 unlovely factories which have of late sprung up. 
 Oji is also a great resort in the spring, when the 
 
270 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 cherry is in bloom, but the smoke from the 
 neighbouring mills robs it of much of its charm. 
 
 Omori is at the opposite end of the city, and 
 is within easy reach of the inn where w^e lodged. 
 I went there once or twice to make a study for 
 the book on gardens. 
 
 It is an unfailing pleasure in Japan to find how 
 the people appreciate beautiful nature. They 
 wandered about under these maples, taking in a 
 full measure of the gorgeous colour around them. 
 Strangers from a distance who visited the park 
 took the opportunity to pay their respects to the 
 tombs of the “ Forty-seven Ronins,” which are 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 The story of these forty-seven heroes has been 
 so admirably told by Lord Redesdale, who wTote 
 under the name of A. B. Mitford, that 1 caimot 
 do better than refer my readers to his “Tales 
 of Old Japan.” 
 
 How they plotted during tw'o years to avenge 
 an insult to their late master, knowdng full well 
 that, whether they succeeded or not, death was 
 in store for them ; how they fulfilled their vow ; 
 and how, having slain their enemy and placed his 
 head on the tomb of their lord, they committed 
 hara-kiri, in the hope of bemg able to serve their 
 
TOKYO 
 
 271 
 
 master in the spirit- world — this, and every 
 mcident of the story, appeals to the imagination 
 of the people. 
 
 Western folk may admire the heroic devotion 
 of Takumi no Kami’s retainers, but some of the 
 means they used to attain their ends, as well as 
 their self-inflicted death, might not meet with 
 approval. 
 
 They hold a place in the imagination of the 
 .Japanese such as William Tell holds in that of 
 the Swiss. 
 
 They lie buried close to the tomb of their 
 master in a little fenced-in graveyard attached to 
 the Buddhist temple of Sengakuji. d'here is one 
 more stone in the enclosure than those to the 
 memory of Takumi no Kami and his forty-seven 
 followers, and the story of him who lies beneath 
 shows the veneration in which these Ronins were 
 held. One, known as “ the Satsuma Man,” had 
 seen Oishi Kuranosuke, the leader of the band, 
 lying drunk in the streets of Kyoto. “ Faithless 
 beast !” he said, “ is this the behaviour of a 
 Samurai, to lead a life of debauchery while the 
 insult and death of his master is still unavenged ?” 
 His indignation was so great that he spat in the 
 face of the fallen man. 
 
272 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Two years later, when the fame of the Forty- 
 seven was noised abroad, the man from Satsuma 
 learnt that the life of debauchery which 
 Kuranosuke had led was done as a blind to put 
 his enemy off the scent and make him relax the 
 precautions he was taking against a reprisal. 
 
 Filled with remorse for the insult he had given 
 to so noble a man, he journeyed from Satsuma 
 to T5kyo to make an atonement at Oishi 
 Kuranosuke’s grave. 
 
 Prostrating himself before the tomb, he 
 humbly begged forgiveness for the insult he had 
 given under a misconception, and, drawing his 
 dirk, he plunged it into his belly and died. 
 
 The Abbot of Sengakuji buried the Satsuma 
 man in a grave adjoining that of the man in 
 whose honour he had laid down his life. 
 
 In countries where hallowed ground is refused 
 to the suicide, such veneration for men who take 
 their own life is hard to understand. The fears 
 of an awful hereafter which medieval Christianity 
 has left in the minds of most Western people do 
 not exist here. Self-destruction of those who 
 have fallen into disgrace is considered an atone- 
 ment, and in some cases it is lauded as the most 
 praiseworthy act the person could commit. 
 
TOKYO 
 
 273 
 
 I can refer those who wish for more informa- 
 tion on the gruesome subject of hara-kiri, to the 
 concluding chapter of Mitford’s “ Tales of Old 
 Japan.” A Daymio who had given orders to 
 fire on the European settlement at Kobe was 
 condemned to commit hara-kiri, and Lord 
 Redesdale, in his then official capacity, had to 
 witness the carrying out of the sentence. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 TOKYO {continued) 
 
 rMHE landlady of the Tak^-Shiba interested 
 herself in a performance about to be given 
 at one of the leading theatres for some charitable 
 object, and asked me if I would patronize it. I 
 took tickets for myself and Mr. Tsuda, and 
 regretted that time would not allow me to 
 attend the play until it would be nearly over — 
 namely, about half-past seven. “ The greater 
 part would certainly be over,” she said ; “ but we 
 could still see something, as it went on till ten.” 
 The performance began at two o’clock, and as 
 the piece was to be the “ Story of the Forty- 
 Seven Ronins,” I was really sorry not to be able 
 to see the whole of it. 
 
 The landlady herself had taken tickets for 
 most of the personnel of the hotel, and as there 
 were to be a series of these performances, the 
 servants had their treats on different days. 
 
 The book-keeper, the two maids who attended 
 
TOKYO 
 
 •275 
 
 to our room, and an elderly duenna, started 
 immediately after the midday rice, and took 
 provisions with them to help them to last out 
 the long entertainment. 
 
 When we arrived at the theatre after our 
 dinner, we found the book-keeper at the entrance 
 to receive us and show us our places. After 
 taking off our boots, we were led into the 
 auditorium, and I was amused to find that our 
 seats were on the same mat and in the same pen 
 as those of the book-keeper, the elderly duenna, 
 and that of Kimi San and Utah San, our 
 respective maids. 
 
 All were in their smartest kimonos, had the 
 daintiest of fans, and an extra shine on their jet- 
 black hair. A tear which a touching part of 
 the piece had brought to their eyes was imme- 
 diately wiped away, and three smiling faces were 
 brought down to the matting to welcome the 
 arrival of the two guests. Though Ronins were 
 just about to be ordered to commit hara-kiri, tea 
 must be prepared at once. I tried to assure 
 them that we could easily wait for our tea till 
 after the thrilling episodes on the stage were 
 over. I made a motion of committing hara-kiri 
 with the end of my pipe-stem to emphasize what 
 
276 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 I meant, but this started them laughing, as if 
 disembowelling were the greatest joke imagin- 
 able. Our neighbours in the adjoining pens 
 seemed to think it equally funny. 
 
 1 was about the only person in European dress 
 in the theatre, and got, in consequence, more 
 notice than I deserved. 
 
 The Ronins did not hara-kiri themselves on the 
 stage after all. Only half the play was given 
 when the curtain was dra^vn ; the second half 
 was, presumably, to come off on the following 
 day. A comic piece, only lasting an hour, was 
 to end the entertainment. 
 
 The carpenter of Fushimi (if I remember his 
 village rightly) was now to keep the audience in 
 fits of laughter. As in Kyoto, small boys 
 scrambled up the staging to stick their heads 
 under the curtain, so as to lose nothing during 
 the interval, while tea and cakes were being 
 consumed by their elders in the little pens which 
 extended all over the auditorium. The tap, tap 
 of the little pipes as they were emptied into the 
 bamboo ash-tray mingled with the noise of the 
 scene-shifting. 
 
 All eyes were suddenly directed to the part of 
 the house opposite the stage. The carpenter 
 
TOKYO 
 
 277 
 
 of Fushimi was entering by the bridge which 
 crosses the pit, to join the scene which was at the 
 same time being disclosed. 
 
 On the stage his wife and his next-door 
 neighbour are having a dispute about the over- 
 due rent of his cottage. Seeing this from across 
 the theatre, our carpenter loses his temper, and 
 struts across the bridge to come to his wife’s 
 assistance. He and the landlady get to words, 
 and he pushes her out of his yard. She trips up 
 and rolls along the stage. The audience by this 
 time are weeping from laughter. 
 
 In the next scene a myrmidon of the law 
 appears and tells the carpenter that he will have 
 to appear before the Daymio to answer for his 
 assault on his neighbour and for his overdue rent. 
 
 He and his wife and a young sister of his are 
 left in a terrible state of anxiety, till a friend 
 enters from across the pit and tells them to 
 cheer up. He has news to tell which will not 
 only get him out of his difficulties, hut will 
 further his prospects. The Daymio had noticed 
 the young sister several times, and had decided on 
 making her his concubine. 
 
 The prospects of such a rise in the fortune of 
 the carpenter makes him as extravagantly 
 
278 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 boisterous as he had been depressed before. The 
 young sister looks coy, and certainly not dis- 
 pleased. Sake is handed round, and the carpenter 
 becomes pot-valiant, and threatens to go to his 
 landlady’s house and give her a bit of his mind. 
 AVhile he is being restrained an envoy from the 
 Daymio arrives, and the joyful news is confirmed. 
 
 A period of a year now elapses. Small boys 
 scramble up the stage, and again poke their heads 
 under the curtain to watch the shifting of the 
 scenes. One climbs up on to the bridge and 
 tries to mimic the tipsy carpenter. Tea is made 
 and sipped in every pen, and again the tap, tap 
 of the little pipes striking the edge of the bamboo 
 ash-tray is heard. 
 
 The next scene is the open front of the 
 Daymio’s palace. The audience are told by the 
 man in the rostrum, to the left of the stage, that 
 Kiku San, the honourable concubine of their 
 gi’eat lord, had obtained leave to receive her 
 brother, the carpenter, and show him her baby. 
 
 The Daymio is squatting on a raised seat with 
 attendant Samurai on each side of him. Kiku 
 San, now in gorgeous kimono, with whitened 
 face and scarlet lips, sits on her heels to the right 
 of the stage. 
 
TOKYO 
 
 279 
 
 The carpenter enters. His borrowed smart 
 clothes sit badly on him ; his awkward manners 
 in the presence of the Daymio keep the audience 
 in fits of laughter ; and his amazement when he 
 sees his sister in her present get-up brings the 
 merriment to a climax. “ Her face might be 
 made of plaster !” he exclaims, and crawls up to 
 her as if she were a sacred image. 
 
 The Daymio seems amused at the behaviour 
 of his left-handed brother-in-law, and orders some 
 sake to be brought. 'Hie carpenter takes to it 
 kindly, and wishes to stand drinks to the Samurai 
 attendants. A nurse next brings the baby, and 
 places it in its mother’s lap. 
 
 The hero is beginning to show the effects of 
 the sake, and wishes to embrace his infant nephew. 
 Kiku lets him take up the child, whom he handles 
 as if it were a breakable object and covered with 
 wet paint. 
 
 When he holds the baby with its feet in the 
 air and head downwards, Kiku rushes forward 
 and rescues her child. 
 
 This ends the piece, the plot seemingly no 
 nearer a conclusion than at the beginning of the 
 last act. 
 
 I’lie acting throughout was excellent, and the 
 
280 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 mise en scene up to the requirements, but that so 
 poor a play should be as popular as it is is hard 
 to understand. 
 
 Being a fine frosty night, we walked part of 
 the way back to the hotel, the ladies keeping at 
 respectful distance behind. I suggested to Mr. 
 Tsuda that I should like to make a little return 
 for the tea and cakes which had been served to 
 us during the entertainment. He thought flowers 
 or cakes would be the most suitable. The flower- 
 stalls being closed, we slipped into a pastry-cook’s 
 and procured the sweetstufFs we wanted. 
 
 On our arrival at the hotel, the landlady had 
 oysters and rice-cakes sent to our room ; it was 
 a good opportunity for presenting to Kimi San 
 and Utah San the load of pastry we had collected. 
 They opened the parcels and placed the contents 
 on the low table where we were squatting, and 
 disappeared. I felt that my present had fallen 
 rather flat, and looked at the G.P.F. for an ex- 
 planation. He said that we must eat some before 
 they did so, and that they had probably gone to 
 fetch the other n^sans, amongst whom they would 
 divide the sweets. 
 
 True enough — we had hardly eaten our oysters 
 and rice-cakes when a dozen or more laughing 
 
TOKYO 
 
 281 
 
 little women tripped up to our room, slid back 
 the shoji, and one by one brought their heads 
 down to the matting. Having answered their 
 “Arigatd, arigatd ” with the correct “ Do ita- 
 shimashite,” which corresponds to our “ Don’t 
 mention it,” we asked them to sit down. 
 
 I was looking forward to an impromptu supper- 
 party, and put the kettle on the hibacM to boil, 
 but instead of eating the sweets, they kept press- 
 ing Mr. Tsuda and myself to have some. We 
 assured them that, having condescended to eat 
 the honourable oysters, we had had quite 
 sufficient. 
 
 It was evidently not etiquette for them to eat 
 here, and as they did not take the things away, 
 the usual kind of conversation followed ; “ What 
 is your name?” “Mura” — from a pretty little 
 slopy-eyed creature. Mura means village. “ Are 
 they all as nice-looking in your village ?” Mura’s 
 eyes become two oblique slits, and the expected 
 answer comes : “ Most of the musume in my 
 village are much prettier ; I am the least worth 
 looking at.” You ask Mura her age — quite the 
 polite thing to do — and she asks you to guess. 
 You guess sixteen. She thanks you for the com- 
 pliment, and says she is already nineteen. 
 
282 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Meno San, or Miss Plum, is asked, after her 
 age is under-guessed, whether she is already 
 betrothed. JMeno says, “ No, no, no,” and several 
 others join in that the nakodo is now arranging 
 a marriage. You tell Miss Plum that you hope 
 the match-maker may find a rich man, and one to 
 her liking. Plum answers that she does not care 
 whether he be rich or poor, as long as he is kind. 
 “ I can work,” says Miss Plum, showing a pair of 
 well-rounded arms. “ If only he be kind to me 
 I shall make him happy, however humble an uchi 
 we may have to live in.” 
 
 I have heard this kind of remark several times. 
 The marriage tie being much looser here than in 
 Europe, the fear that the husband may tire of his 
 wife seems to haunt these sensitive little women. 
 
 After hearing the names and guessing the ages 
 of the Misses Village, Plum, Bamboo, Pine, Peony, 
 I..ily, Clean, Song, and sev^eral others, and after 
 attempting little comments on their names, 1 was 
 rather hoping that the meeting would break up. 
 
 Miss Clean asked if she might see the photo- 
 graphs of my wife and sons. “ How old were 
 the sons ? how old was the Oko San ?” I told 
 them my sons’ ages, and must have under-guessed 
 that of my wife, for a little calculation would 
 
TOKYO 
 
 283 
 
 have made her a mother at about nine years of 
 age. They did not calculate so deeply, and it 
 passed. “ Had I no daughters ?” “No.” “Oh, 
 
 ' then, I will be a daughter-in-law,” came from 
 Miss Peony, a jolly little woman of seventeen. 
 “ Write and tell your son to come to Japan, and 
 I shall marry him instantly.” (I’he son is perhaps 
 as well where he is.) “ Isn’t he a beauty !” And 
 then a lop-sided compliment came my way : 
 “He must have been good-looking when he was 
 young.” This after a careful comparison of the 
 photograph with myself. 
 
 It was getting very late, and I gave the G.P.F. 
 a hint to break up the party. The hint he gave 
 was, I thought, abrupt : “ Get the room ready for 
 the night.” 
 
 The cakes were marched off, and the whole 
 string of girls brought their heads to the floor : 
 
 ' “ O yasumi nasai.” 
 
 ^ Amidst the chatter and giggling we heard a 
 dozen or more dainty little feet tripping along 
 the passage. 
 
 Play was now over for Kimi and Utah. 
 Everything had to be dusted and put in its place, 
 the matting vigorously swept, clothes folded, 
 and the quilts spread out on the floor. The 
 
284 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 heavy hibachi, which in winter serves to warm 
 the room as well as to light the pipes and keep 
 the kettle on the boil, is taken out, for no one 
 sleeps with the live charcoal in the room. “ O 
 yasumi nasai ” from Kimi and Utah, and we are 
 left to dream of the tipsy carpenter and the 
 plaster face of Kiku San. 
 
 In taking leave of Tokyo, I feel how much of 
 what is beautiful there has not been mentioned 
 in these pages. Shiba and Ueno, the two great 
 gardens where, amidst magnificent trees, gor- 
 geously decorated shrines mark the resting-place 
 of former Shoguns ; the art treasures in the 
 museum and temples, have not even been 
 alluded to. 
 
 Tokyo is the heart of the Japanese Risorgi- 
 mcnto. The fight at Ueno in 1868, when the 
 Imperial troops routed the followers of the 
 Shogun, was one of the last blows to the old 
 order, and modern Japan dates from thence. 
 
 These and other matters have been fully and 
 ably dealt with, and do not come within the 
 purpose of this book. 
 
 I have endeavoured so far to treat of the 
 pictorial aspects of Japan, and of the life of the 
 people vdth whom I was thrown. 
 
COTTAGI-: AT ATA.MI 
 

 i 
 
 > • 
 
 ..t * 
 
 ' ifc 
 
 \V’ 
 
 .. 1 
 
TOKYO 
 
 285 
 
 I did not visit the hospitals and prisons, but 
 contented myself with hearing from others that 
 these institutions were regulated according to the 
 most up-to-date systems obtaining in Europe. 
 
 The seamy side of Japanese life is little in 
 evidence unless the traveller goes out of his way 
 to seek it. He can wander about the streets at 
 night, and will rarely, if ever, see anyone the 
 worse for drink, and he will never hear the foul- 
 mouthed abuse often heard in Western cities. 
 Brazen-faced solicitation to vice is entirely absent. 
 It is true that libertinism is permitted and State- 
 regulated, but it is strictly confined to one quarter. 
 
 The Yoshiwara is the name given to that quarter 
 in Tokyo. The courtesans and those who hve on 
 their trade alone inhabit it. It is a sad sight to 
 see some two thousand of these unfortunate 
 women, decked in gorgeous apparel, seated 
 behind the gilded bars of what would correspond 
 to a shop-front at home. The solicitation is done 
 by the brothel-keeper, who sits at the entrance 
 i and extols his wares to the visitors. 
 
 The quiet behaviour of the young women adds 
 to the pathos of the scene. Not one is probably 
 1 here from any desire to lead what is termed “the 
 gay life.” 
 
286 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 They are recruited from the poorest country 
 districts, where, after a bad harvest or other mis- 
 fortune, a peasant may be found to sacrifice a 
 daughter to keep the family roof over his head. 
 
 She earns nothing herself during the term of 
 her degradation ; her wages are paid to her 
 parents, and she must hand over to her keeper 
 any presents she may receive. 
 
 Till the year 1900 these unfortunate girls had 
 no hope of fi-eeing themselves, unless the moneys 
 disbursed to their parents could be restored to 
 their keepers, and unless the debts incurred for 
 their clothes could be wiped off. An agitation 
 against the system was begun by the Japan 
 branch of the Salvation Army. The Press took 
 it up, and a law was passed which renders it 
 easier for the inmates to free themselves. 
 
 Members of the Salvation Army stormed the 
 Y oshiwara, and from the streets explained to the 
 women the new state of the law. They also told 
 them that work would be provided which would 
 keep them, and enable them to pay off their debts 
 in time. 
 
 There was a great disturbance, many of the 
 women rushing out to join the Salvationists. 
 The brothel-keepers overawed the more timid 
 
TOKYO 
 
 287 
 
 ones, and stoned and hustled the propagandists. 
 Most of the local papers approved the action 
 of the Salvation Army, and many of the houses 
 had to close their doors. 
 
 The number of the inmates has decreased con- 
 siderably since then. She who enters there does 
 not, as formerly, abandon hope. 
 
 The tourist who makes a short stay in .Japan 
 is usually taken to the Yoshiwara as one of the 
 sights of Tokyo. He is also taken to the tea- 
 houses to be entertained by the geisha, and he 
 leaves the country with the impression that 
 I Japanese womanhood is of easy virtue. That 
 he is wTong I am convinced. The legitimate 
 aspiration to marry and become the mother of 
 children is stronger in .Japan than in most 
 countries. To carry on the family cult is as 
 much the desire of every peasant-girl as is the 
 ' desire in England in the more favoured classes 
 ii to have an heir to inherit an estate. She may 
 I' marry when she has served her term, but she 
 j, returns to her village as a damaged article, and 
 jl marriage may not improve her lot. 
 
 I The attitude of the respectable women towards 
 |1 the licensed hetaira? is different from what we find 
 ! it at home. They are spoken of freely, not 
 
 I 
 
288 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 necessarily in condemnation, but as unfortunates 
 whom stress of circumstances has forced to 
 lead this life. In hotels, where temptations to 
 vice may be greater than in the villages, the 
 Yoshiwara is held out to the maids as a place 
 of punishment where they might be sent should 
 they misbehave. 
 
 ^Mlile wandering about Asakusa during one 
 of its fairs, I was attracted into a show where 
 a series of tableaux were on view. They repre- 
 sented episodes in the history of the popular 
 heroes and heroines of Japanese romance. 
 Amongst them was a variant of the story of 
 Claudio and Isabella in “ Measure for Measure.” 
 The hero is a young nobleman who is left no 
 choice than to commit hara-kiri unless he can 
 pay off some debt of honour, and the heroine 
 is his sister. He does not plead, as did the 
 miserable Claudio : 
 
 “ Sweet sister, let me live : What sin you do to save a 
 brother’s life. Nature dispenses with the deed so far 
 That it becomes a virtue.” 
 
 And she does not answer him : 
 
 “ O dishonest wretch ! Wilt thou be made a man out of 
 my vice ? Is’t not a kind of incest to take life from 
 thine own sister’s shame ?” 
 
TOKYO 
 
 289 
 
 A third personage in the tableau is that of a 
 woman seated in her litter, which two carriers 
 are resting on the ground. She holds out the 
 purse of gold which will pay off the young man’s 
 debt and save his life. The sister pleads with 
 her brother to take the money, though it is the 
 price of her honour which the emissary from the 
 Yoshiwara is offering. 
 
 The sympathies of the crowd who looked on 
 were all with the young noblewoman, and had 
 the brother yielded, her shame would have been 
 counted to her as a noble sacrifice. 
 
 Asakusa is the district of Tokyo which 
 seems the least affected by European influence. 
 Whether it be much visited by the inhabitants 
 of the centre or west end of the city I could not 
 say, but I rarely saw a man there in the Western 
 clothes which the business and official classes 
 are adopting. Advertisements in European 
 characters are, happily, also rare. Even the 
 lettering round the familiar poster of the terrier 
 listening to the gramophone was in Chinese 
 characters. Queer sounds proceed from the 
 gramophone when heard in Asakusa. The 
 terrier would listen in vain for “his master’s 
 voice.” Western music would be as little under- 
 19 
 
290 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 stood here as the song of the geisha would be 
 at home. 
 
 I had seen that poster begun, continued, and 
 ended in the studio of my friend Francis Barraud, 
 and little expected to find it in the by-ways in 
 Japan. 
 
 The cinematograph has caught on as much 
 as the gramophone has. I attended a performance 
 where there was an even mixture of Parisian and 
 Japanese scenes. The intrigues of Alphonse and 
 madame’s lady’s-maid were entirely lost on the 
 audience, and would not have been edifying had 
 they been understood, whereas “ The Loves of 
 Gompachi and Komurasaki ” moved the audience 
 to tears. 
 
 I saw one of the “ Tales of Old .Japan ” in the 
 making while at Nikko. The actors were going 
 through their parts on the bridge which crosses 
 the Daiya-gawa. The cinematographer was 
 winding his machine, while a young woman was 
 attempting to throw herself from the parapet, 
 to escape from the attentions of a young Samurai. 
 It was during the busiest part of the day, and 
 the click, click, click of the eamera was often 
 interrupted to allow the ordinary traffic to pass. 
 
 Tlie Red Sacred Bridge formed the background 
 
TOKYO 
 
 291 
 
 to the drama which was being recorded. It is a 
 far ciy from Shodo Shonin’s rainbow-like arch to 
 the faking of the cinematographic performance I 
 witnessed. 
 
 Whether there be a fair going on or not, the 
 narrow streets and open spaces of Asakusa are 
 always full of people. It is a populous district, 
 and it also attracts the country-folk, who make 
 their purchases here, and can always find some 
 entertainment. 
 
 I saw no drunkenness and 1 heard no quarrel- 
 ling. Once I was prepared to witness a row, for 
 I could not conceive a similar accident happening 
 anywhere without one. A tramcar we had taken 
 to come here fouled the end of a long ladder 
 which was on a two-wheeled cart. The ladder 
 and cart spun round, and the farther end was 
 ! dashed into a shop-window, upsetting and smash- 
 I ing most of the hardware displayed. The shop- 
 I man, the tram-conductor, and the man with the 
 i, ladder were the three whom a Westerner would 
 expect to hear blaspheme, even if the other 
 witnesses held their peace. No such thing took 
 I' place here. The three mostly concerned addressed 
 each other politely, took out their notebooks and 
 wrote down the circumstances, leaving the amount 
 
292 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 of damages to be settled later on. After a quiet 
 talk they bowed to each other, the conductor 
 returned to his car, and we continued our journey. 
 
 When men of this class are brutally addressed 
 by Westerners at Kobe or Yokohama, what must 
 they think of the higher civilization which the 
 Westerner proudly assumes to represent? 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AT AMI AND CONCLUSION 
 
 HE increasing cold weather when November 
 
 ended made it impossible to work out of 
 doors unless I could happily find a place in the 
 sun and sheltered from the wind. Our room in 
 the hotel was bearable while the sun shone on it, 
 but the hibachi was not enough to keep it warm 
 at other times. 
 
 I made inquiries as to where in .Japan it might 
 be possible to find a sheltered place which would 
 permit of my working out of doors. I was told 
 that I could find no warmer spot than Atami. 
 I looked up what Murray had to say about it, 
 and the first paragraph 1 read decided me to go 
 there : “ Atami has become a favourite winter 
 resort of the Japanese, as it possesses hot springs, 
 and is protected by a high range of hills from the 
 north-westerly winds which prevail at this season. 
 The whole stretch of coast from Kozu, on the 
 Tokaido Railway, to Atami partakes more or 
 
 293 
 
294 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 less of the same advantage, and the soft air, the 
 orange-groves, and the deep blue of Odawara 
 Bay, combine to make of this district the Riviera 
 of Japan.” 
 
 The phrase “ favourite winter resort ” did not 
 frighten me as it does nearer home. Such places 
 are not made hideous in Japan \vith rows of 
 jerry-built villas, an uninteresting esplanade, 
 and an iron pier. A further inducement was 
 that within a mile from Atami was the Bai-en, 
 or plum -garden, blossoming from the new year 
 to early February. 
 
 Leaving the Tokaido Railway at Kozu, we 
 took an electric tramway to Odawara, which has 
 been mentioned before. We then took the little 
 steam tramway which winds along the coast, 
 and reached our destination in another three 
 hours. 
 
 The Higuchi Hotel, where we put up, is the one 
 amongst the many which is in part Europeanized, 
 and where a fire-place in the rooms, as well as 
 large glazed windows, promised to make my 
 work a possibility, should the fine weather break. 
 I decided to stay there at least a month, and, 
 anyhow, not leave it till I had made some studies 
 of the plum-blossom. 
 
A I’l.UM.OKC'HARl) 
 

ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 295 
 
 When a place has been much praised, it is 
 seldom that a slight disappointment does not 
 await the visitor. This was not the case at 
 Atami. For one thing, the fine weather usually 
 expected in November lasted on, with but few 
 breaks, till after the new year. We could enjoy 
 the sunshine under the shelter from the piercing 
 cold winds. Though only sixty miles or so from 
 Tokyo, the difference was nearly as marked as 
 between the temperature of the North and South 
 of France, 
 
 I was at first the only guest in the European 
 part of the hotel, while in the purely .Japanese 
 portion, where Mr. Tsuda lodged, there were a 
 fair number who were taking the baths. Foreign 
 visitors had engaged all the rooms in my part 
 for the Christmas holidays. 
 
 The blue sea and the lie of the land reminded 
 me of Alassio and other places on the Italian 
 Riviera. 1 found temples here under the shade 
 of huge camphor-trees and evergreen oaks, also 
 beautiful orange-groves with thousands of golden 
 spheres ready to be culled. The streets were as 
 picturesque as those of any primitive .Tapanese 
 country town which is not “a resort,” and the 
 many things which are sketchable in most fishing 
 
29G JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 villages were in plenty where the town reaches 
 the shore of Odawara Bay. 
 
 I started to work at once in an orange-grove, 
 as the fruit was already being picked in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The first promise of spring showed itself at 
 Bai-en before December was half through. The 
 buds of plum-blossom wanted but a few days 
 more of sunshine to open their petals. A large 
 rose-bush was in full bloom at the entrance to a 
 rustic tea-house where we rested. We were 
 promised here that in another fortnight Bai-en 
 would be in its full beauty. 
 
 I painted the rose-bush and tea-house, as well 
 as the keeper’s little daughter with the last-born 
 slung on her back. 
 
 Bai-en is more of an orchard than a garden. 
 It stretches for nearly a mile up a fold in the 
 hills, and is divided in two by a running stream. 
 We saw it at its best only just in time, for the 
 long spell of fine weather broke soon after its 
 myriads of snowy petals had attracted people 
 from far and near to gaze on its beauty. 
 
 Great preparations were going on at the hotel 
 for the foreign visitors from Yokohama and 
 Tokyo, who were to arrive on Christmas Day. 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 297 
 
 Two or three spring-cleanings rolled into one 
 would hardly equal the scrubbing and dusting 
 that went on. 
 
 The cook and the landlady made the decora- 
 tion of the dining-room their special care. 
 Garlands and coloured-glass globes were hung 
 on the walls and criss-crossed the ceiling. A 
 large sideboard was laden with fruits and sweet- 
 stuffs, and a huge Christmas cake \\ith wondrous 
 sugary floral adornments formed the centre-piece. 
 
 Much time was spent on the arrangement of 
 the flowers placed on each table. The landlady 
 had evidently attended in her time classes where 
 the making of posies is solely taught. Her 
 floral compositions had all the necessary require- 
 ments : the longest spray in the middle, a 
 shorter one branching away from it, and a third 
 half the length of the latter bending over to the 
 opposite side. The angle at which the centre 
 stem leans over is a matter of great importance, 
 and the stem is often steamed and tied till a 
 graceful curve is obtained. 
 
 A consultation \^dth the cook took place as to 
 whether one of the compositions could not be 
 amended so as to make a good silhouette from 
 the four ends of the table. Some slight re- 
 
298 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 adjustments followed, and they were satisfied 
 that the aisthetic tastes of their guests would not 
 be shocked. 
 
 We were to have the orthodox Christmas dinner, 
 and I thought it might be a novel experience to 
 Mr. Tsuda to attend it. He accepted my invita- 
 tion, and seemed pleased to do so. A few hours 
 before the feast he came to my room and asked 
 to be let off. He gave some lame excuse about 
 .Japanese cooking suiting him better, but as we 
 had often had European meals together, and he 
 never seemed the worse for them, I felt convinced 
 that there was some other reason. 
 
 The guests had arrived early in the afternoon, 
 and something in their manner of treating him 
 was probably the cause. 
 
 Wheii the dinner was announced, I sat in my 
 usual corner at a little table by myself. I was 
 curious to see if the pains the landlady had 
 taken with the decorations would be appreciated. 
 
 Four young men, connected with business in 
 the foreign settlements, took their seats at the 
 table on which the chief floral composition was 
 placed. A handsome Englishman, with the build 
 of a young Hercules, sat nearest to the carefully 
 bent end of the twig. In stooping forward this 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 299 
 
 tickled his forehead ; he tried to push it aside, but 
 once or twice more it touched his head. Irritated at 
 this, he called out to the landlady, who stood near : 
 “ Here, old lady, take this damn thing away !” 
 
 As she removed the floral composition, the 
 poor woman looked my way. “ Is it for this that 
 I took such pains ?” That look expressed this 
 question as clearly as the spoken word. Some 
 .lapanese equivalent to “ casting pearls ” probably 
 passed through her mind. 
 
 At the farther end of the room there sat round 
 a large table the landlady’s old father, her 
 husband and several children, as well as some 
 other relatives. They seemed to be enjoying 
 this unusual meal, though some were as little 
 used to a knife and fork as I was to chopsticks 
 when I first dined in a Japanese inn. 
 
 I heard one or two remarks near me about 
 the cheek of their coming here, and why couldn’t 
 they feed in the native part of the hotel ? I 
 remarked to one who appealed to me that I had 
 often fed in purely Japanese restaurants, and I 
 hoped that the native guests had not resented 
 my doing so. “ Look how that one uses his 
 fork !” I answered that it was not half as funny 
 as my first attempts with chopsticks. 
 
300 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 My suspicions why Tsuda had backed out of 
 dining here this evening were now confirmed. 
 
 At the end of the dinner one of my four 
 neighbours at the next table made some amends 
 for the slight to the floral composition by taking 
 a bundle of crackers to the family group and 
 pulling them with the different members. This 
 seemed much appreciated, and after some con- 
 sultation, the landlord’s little daughter of about 
 eight was sent to our end of the room to hand to 
 us some Japanese sweets. 
 
 I have often been told by the old resident who 
 prides himself on knowing the Japanese that I 
 must not flatter myself that they like us, in spite 
 of their courteous manners. Probably they 
 do not, when they take foreigners collectively ; 
 but most probably they take the individual as 
 they find him. 
 
 The trifling incidents which I have mentioned 
 may show how easily the susceptibilities of a 
 people may be offended, and yet how easy it is 
 to ingratiate oneself if a little pains are taken, as 
 in the case of the gentleman with the crackers. 
 
 The four men, seeing that I was alone, kindly 
 invited me to join their party, and some cham- 
 pagne made the conversation flow. They had 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 301 
 
 all been in Japan longer than I had, and spoke 
 more of the language. More things were told 
 me to the prejudice of the Japanese. “ Wait 
 till you have lived here as long as we have, and 
 you will change your mind,” was heard once 
 more. It recalled a remark I once heard from 
 the late Sir Wilham Harcourt, and that was : 
 “ When a man tells me that he has lived twenty 
 years in a country and speaks the language, I 
 generally don’t believe a word of what he says.” 
 
 This remark struck me at the time as rather 
 absurd, but I have since come to the conclusion 
 that there is a certain amount of truth in it. 
 
 A strong prejudice may easily outlive twenty 
 years in any country. A young clerk joining a 
 house of business which is losing its trade through 
 native competition is not likely to hear unpreju- 
 diced opinions of the natives who have become 
 serious rivals. We often hear the honesty of 
 the Chuiese traders quoted to the prejudice of 
 the .lapanese men of business. 
 
 Wait till John Chhiaman becomes a serious 
 rival in the trading now in the hands of the 
 foreigner ; we shall not hear so much then about 
 this honesty. As I mentioned before, the foreign 
 residents whom I had the pleasure of meeting, 
 
802 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 and who were not connected with trade, all 
 spoke well of the Japanese. Our statesmen were 
 the first to make treaties whereby foreigners 
 were made subject to Japanese law, and they 
 were the first to deem Japan worthy of an alliance. 
 
 Some of the English newspapers in Japan 
 would do well to remember this before publishing 
 the disparaging articles often seen in them ; and 
 good taste should prevent the wholesale abuse 
 wliich some of the residents level at the people 
 in whose country they are making their living. 
 
 An artistic nation, and one whom the whole 
 world admires for the unparalleled sacrifices it 
 has made to preserve its independence, must of 
 necessity be a sensitive nation. The Japanese 
 seldom resort to vituperation in answer to the 
 sneers of the Westerners ; they may resent them 
 in silence, but the resentment is there nevertheless. 
 
 A case of one being answered in kind was told 
 me by a Japanese friend, and is worth repeating. 
 It was during the time when feelmg ran high con- 
 cerning the treatment of Japanese children in the 
 schools in California. An American addressed a 
 Japanese he met in the States as follows : “ Well, 
 what kind of a ‘ nese ’ are you, a Chinese or a 
 Japanese ?” He was answered by another question : 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 303 
 
 “ What kind of a ‘ kee ’ are you, a donkee or a 
 Y ankee ?” They resent being taken for China- 
 men, and they resent being termed Japs. I have 
 argued with them that the latter term, though 
 often used, is not necessarily meant as a slight, 
 and that in the slipshod English of ordinary con- 
 versation names are constantly clipped of some of 
 their syllables. Laplanders are called Laps, and 
 the Papuans are probably called Paps ; but I did 
 not make use of this analogy. 
 
 Since 1873 Japan has adopted the Gregorian 
 Calendar ; thus, her New Year falls on the same 
 day as ours. It is the chief holiday of the year. 
 Officially it lasts three days, but it is generally a 
 week or more before people resume their ordinary 
 work. Both the European and Japanese sides 
 of the Higuchi were crowded with Usitors. The 
 \Vesterners spent their holiday in climbing the 
 mountains, taking excursions along the beautiful 
 sea-coast, or visiting one of the islands in the 
 bay. A few went to Bai-en on my recommenda- 
 tion, but they soon tired of looking at plum- 
 trees. It was good enough for Japanese and 
 feeble kind of people, such as artists and writers ! 
 
 When we consider how seldom we hear at 
 home of excursions being made to view the 
 
304 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 beauty of the apple-orchards in Kent, when the 
 trees are laden with pink and white blossoms, 
 or we consider the surprise of a Normandy 
 farmer should a party of Parisians ask to wander 
 amongst his apple-trees, is it to be wondered at 
 that Westerners residing in Japan should feel 
 equally indifferent to these plum-trees ? — The 
 £Esthetic sense, which is developed in a few in the 
 West, seems universal here in the Far East. 
 
 Trade competition, piece-work, and so on, may 
 blunt the sense in Japan, as it has done elsewhere. 
 Prophecies concerning the destinies of this country 
 have so often proved wrong ; let us hope that 
 this one may be equally fallacious. 
 
 Crowds flocked to Bai-en to stroll about in 
 the chequered sunlight and gaze at the snowy 
 blossoms above them. Groups of people sat 
 about in their holiday kimonos ; young poets 
 wrote verses to the Ume to be hung from the 
 boughs of the trees they extolled. The tea- 
 houses did a good trade, and the diviner and 
 fortune-teller was seldom without a client. 
 
 There was a tea-garden near the shore which 
 the plum-blossom now also beautified. I found 
 subjects there for the book on Japanese Gardens. 
 
 Fishing competitions took place from the edge 
 
 L 
 
ATAMl AND CONCLUSION 
 
 305 
 
 of a tortuous and well-bridged pond. The gold- 
 fish had little to mind from being caught, for, 
 when released from a barbless hook, they swam 
 about in a tub of water, and were returned to 
 the pond when the entertainment was over. 
 There was much more colour in the dresses of 
 the people than at ordinary times. The children 
 especially had gorgeous cloaks, with fiowers and 
 butterflies embroidered on them. 
 
 The fislier-folk living near the shore had 
 fiowers and fishes on the blue cotton kimonos, 
 which they only wear during the New Year 
 ' festival. Garlands hung from the balconies, and 
 a lobster, framed in a double loop of twisted 
 I rope, was fastened over many doorways. TJie 
 I crooked back of the lobster symbolizes old age, 
 
 I and expresses the wisli of long life to the 
 I members of the household. 
 
 : I sliould have found it hard to tear myself away 
 
 from Atami at anytime. Protected as it is from 
 the piercing winds, it was still harder to return to 
 the wintry cold beyond the sheltering mountains. 
 
 ; I was obliged to return to England in the spring, 
 
 ! and wished to revisit Kyoto before I left Japan. 
 
 “ If it must be so,’' say the .Japanese, in their 
 jj graceful parting address — “ Sayonara.” 
 
 20 
 
306 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 After several attempts to see the geyser 
 (Atami’s show-sight) break out, I succeeded in 
 seeing it belch up its heated water amidst a 
 dense cloud of steam. I felt I could now depart 
 in peace, and the G.P.F. and I started on our 
 return journey to Kyoto. 
 
 We visited Kamakura, the ancient capital of 
 the first Shoguns, climbed up the interior of the 
 bronze Daibutsu or the colossal Buddha, saw the 
 thousand-handed Kwannon, and wandered about 
 the precincts of Hachiman’s shrine. 
 
 We broke our journey to Kyoto by spending 
 a night at Nagoya. I had obtained a permit 
 from the British Embassy to view the great 
 castle. I wipe Nagoya out of my reminiscences ; 
 it rained steadily, and we could not visit the castle 
 because the Crown Prince was in residence at 
 the time. 
 
 At Kyoto Station I parted company with Mr. 
 Tsuda. He had been my guide, philosopher, 
 and friend for five months past ; we had had 
 many a day’s tramp together ; he had shared my 
 room in humble country inns, and he had been 
 able to pilot me around some quarters in the 
 cities which are hardly knowTi to its well-to-do 
 inhabitants. Having obtained a permanent situa- 
 
ATAMl AND CONCLUSION 307 
 
 tion with a large firm at Osaka, he was anxious 
 to catch the next train to that city. 
 
 The manager of the Yaami was there to meet 
 me, and I felt somewhat like returning home 
 when I got back to my old quarters in his hotel. 
 
 I looked up the friends I made in Kyoto. JVlr. 
 Blow had not returned from England ; I was 
 fortunate in being able to renew my acquaintance 
 with Mr. Gordon-Smith before he left, and enjoyed 
 seeing the additions he had made to his unique 
 collection of Chinese snuff-bottles. Monsieur 
 Odin showed me a good deal of hospitality, and 
 was able to give itie much information about 
 early Japanese art. 
 
 I revisited the apartments of Chion-in Temple 
 with my friend Kanocogni, and we spent some 
 happy hours together during the long evenings. 
 I had never been over the Nishi Hongwanji 
 temple, as there is sometimes a difficulty in getting 
 admitted ; and had I no other reasons for return- 
 ing to Kyoto, only to see this shrine would have 
 been reason enough. 
 
 I’he apartments are the residence of the Prince- 
 Abbot, and are adorned with the best paintings of 
 the masters of the Kano School. They are as im- 
 portant in their relation to the art of Japan as 
 
308 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 the Loggia at the Vatican or the Doge’s Palace 
 at Venice are to the art of Italy. There is not 
 one inharmonious note in one of these spacious 
 rooms. 
 
 Space does not allow of a detailed account of 
 the beautiful things to be seen there. Those 
 who make a short visit to Kyoto make a point of 
 seeing the Imperial Palace, and have often no 
 time left to visit the Nishi-Hongwanji. There is 
 little of exceptional interest in the former, while 
 in the latter they can see the best art that Japan 
 has produced. 
 
 I also made a point this time of seeing the 
 popular Shinto temple of Inari. I went with 
 my young friend Masuda. It was either the 
 Day of the Horse or the Day of the Serpent, 
 according to the old reckoning, for crowds of 
 country-folk come here on those two days and 
 bring offerings to the shrine of the popular 
 goddess. They also place food near the foxes’ 
 holes in the grounds, but whether these attendants 
 on Inari actually eat the food, or whether they 
 even exist here, I could not ascertain. Their 
 images are seen in plenty, and they are the pro- 
 totype of the numerous stone and plaster foxes 
 met with all over .lapan. 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 309 
 
 The image of the Rice Gk)ddess is seldom 
 visible, but I have hardly been in a hotel or tea- 
 garden without seeing a little shrine flanked with 
 her pair of attendant foxes. 
 
 The most singular sight is, however, the 
 hundreds of red torii, standing so close together as 
 to form a continuous colonnade in places, and 
 they are also met with in all the walks in the 
 extensive grounds attached to the temple. 
 
 Should a visitor to Kyoto have but a week at 
 his disposal, I would recommend him to visit 
 Inari’s shrine, in spite of the distance, providing 
 he can get there on one of the popular days. 
 
 If he must see an Imperial residence, and has 
 obtained the permits, let him go to Nijo Castle 
 rather than to the Palace. Should he have time 
 for neither of them, he may console himself that 
 Nishi-Hong^vanji is more or less of an Imperial 
 residence, and is much more beautiful than the 
 two former. 
 
 There are hundreds of shrines, each with some 
 especial objects of interest, but when time is 
 limited it is well to devote it to those offering 
 the greatest attractions. The apartments of Nishi- 
 HongAvanji contain the finest art production not 
 only of Kyoto, but of all .lapan. Kyomizu-dera 
 
310 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 should be visited for the beauty of its situation 
 and surroundings. Lovers of gardens should try 
 and see Ginkakuji, and they will see glimpses of 
 another temple garden while they view the apart- 
 ments at Chion-in. Kurudani more than repays 
 a visit, and the temple of Sanjusangeiido is full 
 of interest. 
 
 While the cherry blossoms, or when the maple 
 turns to crimson, the descent of the Katsura-gawa 
 rapids will make a delightful day’s excursion. 
 Should the visitor miss either of those seasons, 
 he may be fortunate enough, as 1 was, to see the 
 river-banks clothed in a crimson mass of vdld 
 azaleas. 
 
 During the hot weather, a day on Lake Biwa 
 is refreshing ; he can visit the Maidera Temple, 
 the famous tree of Karasaki, the long bridge of 
 Seta, and rest in tbe beautiful gardens of Hikone. 
 
 Nara can be seen in a day’s excursion from 
 Kyoto. The park, with its majestic avenues of 
 cryptomerias and hundreds of moss-covered 
 stone lanterns, as well as the deer, who, fearing 
 no evil, gather round the \dsitor to be fed, com- 
 bine to make Nara a place which will long be 
 remembered from amongst the many beautiful 
 places seen in .Japan. 
 
ATAMI AND CONCLUSION 311 
 
 Better to have but a week in Kyoto than not 
 to have seen it ; but those fortunate enough to 
 be able to spend a month there may daily find 
 something to admire, something to interest, and 
 a fund of entertainment in seeing its people at 
 their daily work and joining them in their innocent 
 recreations. 
 
 The cold weather — for February is the coldest 
 month in Japan — lessened my regret at having 
 to leave this enchanting city. Had I stayed 
 another month, to witness the witchery of spring’s 
 awakening in the beauteous temple gi’ounds, it 
 would have added tenfold to my sorrow in leave- 
 taking. 
 
 The more genial climate of Hong-Kong, and 
 the warm welcome I would receive from the 
 friends I had made there, hastened my departure. 
 
 I bid farewell to the numerous .Japanese with 
 whom I had come in friendly contact in their 
 own beautiful expression, “ Sayonara.” And 
 farewell to the patient reader who has followed 
 me so far in these reminiscences of “ Japan and 
 the Japanese. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Actors, 51, 79, 273 
 Advertisements, 5, 21, 38, 256, 
 289 
 
 Americans, 199, 302 
 Architecture, 61 
 Arima, 23-29 
 Art, 59, 60, 61 
 
 Artist’s troubles, 33, 34, 35, 36 
 Asakusa, 265, 266, 267, 288 
 Ashinoyu, 200, 201, 202 
 Atami, 293-305 
 Azaleas, see Flowers 
 
 Babies, 5 
 
 Bai-en, plum orchard, 296, 303, 
 304 
 
 Bamboo, 22 
 
 shoots for food, 68, 173 
 Bamboo, Miss, or Take San, 
 64-70 
 
 Bath, 133, 148, 168-173, 204 
 Baths, sulphur, 202, 203 
 Beddinp;, 135-138, 175, 176 
 Beer, 113, 162 
 Bells, 52-54 
 Bento, 126, 127 
 
 Birthday of the boys, festival of, 
 3,4 
 
 Biwa, Lake, 310 
 Blow, Mr. and Mrs., 75 
 Building to resist earthquakes, 
 153 
 
 Carp, 2 
 
 imitated in cotton, 3, 4 
 Chadai, 174, 175 
 
 Chamberlain, Professor Basil 
 Hall, preface, 29, 35, 85, 107, 
 150, 224 
 
 Charcoal brazier, see Hibachi 
 Cherry-blossom, see Flowers 
 Children, 4, 79, 121 
 Chinamen employed in banks, 
 213, 214 
 
 Chinese eharacters, 5 
 
 integrity eompared to 
 Japanese, 310 
 Chion-in, see Temples 
 Chopsticks, 65-69, 145 
 Christianity, 85, 86 
 Christmas at Atami, 296-300 
 Chrysanthemums, see Flowers 
 Chuzenji, 251-255 
 Cinematograph, 290 
 Clothes, 5, 118, 123, 289 
 Concubines, 104, 120 
 Cottages, 30, 139 
 Cotto, 121 
 I Courtesy of the people, 28, 41, 
 I 59, 245, 246, 291 
 1 Cranes, 56, 264 
 Crauford, Miss, 201, 243 
 Crickets, 160 
 
 Cryptomerias, 231, 233, 242, 244, 
 258 
 
 avenues of, 228, 230, 310 
 Cult, see Religion 
 Curios, 4, 215 
 
 Daibutsu at Kamakura, 306 
 I Daikon, 180 
 Daiya-gawa, 229, 251, 252 
 Dances, religious, 50, 51, 52 
 313 
 
314 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Dancing-girls, see Geisha 
 Dishes, 66, 67, 68, 116, 135, 264, 
 265 
 
 Divorce, 104, 282 
 
 Earthquakes, 61, 148-154 
 Eating-houses, 66, 116, 264 
 Etiquette, 66, 75, 118 
 Evil-averting pillar, 235 
 
 Fans, 49, 80, 175 
 Festivals, 3, 42, 44, 50, 111-115, 
 266, 308 
 
 Fires, 154, 155, 156 
 Fish, 4, 69, 135, 265 
 eaten raw, 116, 117 
 Fish-shops, 37 
 Flower-arrajiging, 297-299 
 Flowers : 
 
 azaleas, 38, 56 
 cherry-blossom, 26, 27, 262 
 chrysanthemums, 261-268 
 convolvulus, or morning 
 glory, 92, 93 
 hydrangeas, 109 
 irises, 73, 74 
 lilies, 89, 139 
 lotus, 74, 108, 109 
 oleander, 83 
 peonies, 59 
 
 pomegranate - blossom, 97, 
 98 
 
 wistaria, 17, 33, 57 
 Flowers, wild, 194 
 azaleas, 310 
 gentian, 158 
 hydrangeas, 158, 199 
 Lilimn auratum, 158 
 monk’s-hood, 158, 199 
 Food, 180, 202, 264, 280; see 
 also Dishes 
 
 Western, 26, 62, 182, 202 
 Foot-gear, 18-20 
 Forty-seven Ronins, 270-273 
 Fudo, see Gods 
 Fujikawa rapids, 142, 143 
 Fujiyama, 130, 131, 143, 144, 
 158, 193 
 
 Funatso, 131, 139 
 
 Gardens, 38, 56, 181, 190, 256, 
 262, 304 
 Geishas, 62, 117 
 Geta, see Foot-gear 
 Geyser at Atami, 306 
 Gion, see Temples 
 Gion Matsuri, 111 
 Gods and goddesses, 84 
 Amida, 88 
 Buddha, 90, 97 
 Daibutsu, 306 
 Dainichi, 247 
 Fudo, 247 
 Inari, 43 
 Jiso, 198, 219 
 Kwannon, 265 
 Ni-6, 266 
 Susa-no-o, 111 
 Goldfish, 69, 111, 114 
 Gongs, 43 
 
 Gordon- Smith, Mr., 307 
 Gotemba, 126 
 Guides, 71, 126 
 
 Hair-dressing, 7 
 
 Hair hawsers, 87 
 
 Hakone, 192 
 
 Hannya cascade, 252 
 
 Hara-kiri, 273 
 
 Hata Pass, 190 
 
 Hedges, trimmed, 187 
 
 Hermit, the, 245, 258 
 
 Higashi Hongwanji, see Temples 
 
 Higashi Otani, see Temples 
 
 Higuchi, see Hotels 
 
 Hikone, gardens at, 310 
 
 Hirochige, 75 
 
 Hodo cascade, 252 
 
 Hokusai, 75 
 
 Honesty of the country folk, 
 212 
 
 Hotels, foreign : 
 
 Higuchi Hotel, Shoji, 185 
 Tor Hotel, Kobe, 15, 32 
 Yaami, Kyoto, 45, 58 
 Hotels, Japanese (Yadoya), 131, 
 166, 182, 192, 202, 228, 255, 
 259 
 
 Hydrangeas, see Flowers 
 
INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Ichiko, the, 266 
 
 Icho, see Trees 
 
 lemitsu, 241 
 
 leyasu, 225 
 
 Imperial palaces, 308 
 
 Inari, see Gods and goddesses 
 
 Inland sea, 11 
 
 Inquisitiveness, 33 
 
 Irises, see Flowers 
 
 “ Jap ” term resented, 303 
 Japanese characteristics, 33, 35, 
 122, 135, 188,204, 218, 245,291 
 Jiso, Eokudono, see Gods 
 Judas-tree, 94 
 
 Kago, 134 
 
 Kagura dance, 50, 115 
 Kamakura, 306 • 
 
 Kamogawa, 45, 115 
 Kanocogni, Mr., 59, 259, 307 
 Kano school, 55, 233, 307 
 Katsura-gawa, 310 
 Kawaguchi, Lake, 134 
 Kegon Falls, 253 
 Kimonos, see Clothes 
 Kitchener, visit of Lord, 249 
 Kiyomizu, see Temples 
 Kiyomizu Yaki, 93 
 Kobe, 15 
 Kobo-Daishi, 197 
 Kofu, 166 
 Kosu, 189 
 
 Kurumaya, see Rickshaw-men 
 Kwannon.see Gods and goddesses 
 Kyoto, 45, 306 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn, Professor, pre- 
 face, 26, 85 
 Language, 71 
 
 Lanterns, paper, 9, 42, 49, 111, 
 114 
 
 stone and bronze, 38, 54, 
 194, 232, 244, 266 
 Legs of children to be lengthened, 
 119 
 
 Lihes, see Flowers 
 Lotus, see Flowers 
 roots as food, 173 
 
 Mang^anji, 230 
 Manners, see Courtesy 
 Maples, 57, 251, 269 
 Marriage, 101, 282 
 Maryama Park, 46, 110 
 Mason, Mr. W. B., 224 
 Masuda, Mr., 83, 98, 112, 308 
 Matsuzaka, see Hotels 
 Matting, 63, 147, 167 
 Meiji, 10 
 Meikos, 121 
 Mikados, 10, 241 
 Milne, Professor, 152 
 Mitford, A. B., preface, 270, 
 273 
 
 Miyanoshita, 200 
 Mo]i, 1 
 
 Monier -Williams, 247 
 Mosquitoes, 136, 159, 176 
 Mourning, white the colour of, 
 105 
 
 Mukojima, 261 
 Mulberry-trees, 162 
 Murray’s guide to J apan, 224 
 
 Nagoya, 306 
 Nakodo, 103, 282 
 Nara, 310 
 
 Nature-worship, 131 
 Nemuri-no Neko, or “ Sleeping 
 Cat,” 238 
 
 Nescm, 63, 135, 167, 280 
 New-Year festivities, 303 
 Ni-ju-go Bosatsu, 197 
 Nikko, 223 
 Ni-o-Mon, 231 
 Nishinouami, 140 
 Nobumassa, 56 
 Nomi, 136, 147 
 Nomiura, Messrs., 84 
 Nudity, 148, 169 
 
 Obi, or sash, 68, 168 
 Octopus, 68 
 
 Odawara Bay, 189, 294 
 Odin, M., 215, 307 
 Oleander, 83 
 0 Tabisho, 111 
 
316 JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 Painters, Japanese, 55, 59, 76 
 Paintings, 55, 76, 233 
 Paper, oiled, 165 
 slides, see Shoji 
 umbrellas, 39, 165 
 Parks, 46, 110, 183, 284 
 Parsons, Mr. Alfred, 109 
 Patents, 205 
 Pierre Loti, 5 
 Pilgrims, 188 
 Pipes, 78 
 Police, 112, 145 
 regulations, 147 
 
 Prints, 76 | 
 
 Kain-coats, 164, 188 j 
 
 Rainy season, 93 : 
 
 Redesdale, Lord, see A. B. Mit- ! 
 
 ford { 
 
 Relics, 86 i 
 
 Religion, 111 ; see Buddhism ; 
 
 and Shintoism > 
 
 Rice, 70, 180 | 
 
 Rickshaws, 9, 21, 45 ! 
 
 Rickshaw-men, 22, 29, 33, 36, 
 47, 81 
 
 Rokkosan, 22, 30 j 
 
 Sacred Bridge, 229 ! 
 
 Sake, 66 i 
 
 Salvation Army, 85, 286 
 Samisen, 114, 121 
 Samurai, 41, 189 
 Sandals, see Foot-gear 
 Satow, Sir Ernest, 247 | 
 
 Schools, 121, 145 ! 
 
 Sculptors, 55 
 Servants, 100, 274 
 Shakwa garden, 262 
 Shampooer, the blind, 176 
 Shijo Bridge, 113 
 Shimogamo, 44, 50 
 Shimonoseki, 9 
 Shintoism, 84, 145 
 Shinto priests, 43, 147 
 Shodo Shonin, 230 i 
 
 Shoji, 142 j 
 
 Shoji, or paper slides, 30, 138, | 
 250 1 
 
 Shows, 111, 114, 288 
 Shrines, 42, 145 ; see also 
 Temples 
 Sight-seeing, 71 
 Silk trade, 161 
 Sketching, 27, 33, 42, 95 
 Sobriety of the people, 188, 250 
 256, 291 
 Socks, 75 
 
 Soga Brethren, 195 
 Sotoba, 89 
 Stage, see Theatres 
 Stoves used as muff-warmers, 
 243 
 
 Susa-no-o,see Gods and goddesses 
 
 Tahi, digitated sock, 19, 166 
 Taft, President, 263 
 Take, see Nesan 
 Take-shiba, see Hotels 
 Tahemona, 63, 155 
 “ Tales of Old Japan,” see 
 A. B. Mitford 
 Taylor, Mrs. Basil, 200 
 Temples : 
 
 Chion-in, 53 
 Ginkakuji, 310 
 Gion, 53, 111 
 Higashi Hongwanji, 87 
 Ikuta, 33 
 Inari, 43, 308 
 Kiyomizu-dera, 93, 309 
 Kurudani, 310 
 Nishi Hongwanji, 307 
 Sanjusangendo, 310 
 Senkakuji, 272 
 Shimogamo, 44 
 
 Tea-drinking, 70, 160, 228, 250, 
 257 
 
 Tea-houses, 160, 194, 252 
 Telegraph-poles, 9 
 Tents, 63 
 Theatres, 77, 274 
 Toilet, 170 
 
 Tokaido, Hirochige’s Fifty-five 
 Stages of the, 75, 189 
 Tokaido road, 189, 194 
 Toko, see Bedding 
 Tokugawa dynasty, 225, 240 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Tokyo, 223, 259 
 Tombs, 90, 195, 238, 270 
 Topsyturvydom, 6 
 Tora Gozen, see Soga Brethren 
 Torii, 33 
 Tourists, 122, 198 
 Tracts, distribution of, 256 
 Trade competition, 215 
 morality, 204 
 Trains, 229 
 
 Tramways, 129, 189, 260 
 Tsuda, Mr., 126, 226, 298, 306 
 
 Ubaguchi, 162 
 Ubaguchitogi, 160 
 Ueno, 284 
 U/.iki, 184 
 
 Vendetta, 195 
 
 Waiters, 15 
 Waitresses, see Nesan 
 
 j Waraji, or straw sandals, 188, 
 I 213 
 
 Water-colours, 210 
 i Waterfalls, 244, 252, 253 
 Whisky, 256 
 Winsor and Newton, 210 
 Wistaria, see Flowers 
 Wit of geisha, 124 
 Women, position of, 64, 99, 173, 
 282 
 
 Wood-carving at Nikko, 234 
 
 Yaami Hotel, Ky5to, 45, 58 
 Yadoya, see Japanese hotels 
 Yakushi, 233 
 Yamanaka, Lake, 130 
 Yedo, former name of Tokyo, 
 see Tokyo 
 
 Yoritomo, founder of the Sho- 
 gunate, 195 
 Yoshida, 127, 131 
 Yoshiwara, the, 285 
 
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