ii^XETVERrt^J
YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

The Library of
PROFESSOR K. ASAKAWA
Presented by him to the
University 1942

THE HARVEST OF JAPAN

THE HARVEST
OF JAPAN

sA 'Book of Travel with some Account of the
Trees, Gardens, Agriculture, Peasantry, and
Rural Requirements of Japan

BY
C. BOGUE LUFFMANN
Author of " A Vagabond in Spain "
" Quiet Days in Spain," etc.

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.
35 & 36 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. ; AND EDINBURGH
1920

TO
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
A rare gardener, a lover of the wild, a faithful chronicler
of the lives of simple serving men and home-bred women.
In grateful recognition of his good friendship I offer
this sheaf of gleanings from Eastern Woods and Fields.
C. B. L.
Torquay.

PREFACE
To travel with ease and gain esteem interfere with no
man's private opinions or affairs ; offer no resistance to
any one till you are actually assailed ; be kind, simple,
smile where you can ; be interested, but not over curi
ous ; dignified, but by no means proud ; accept hospi
tality according to local custom ; and, without showing
signs of wealth, pay your way. Any one who will
observe these few rules may go where he likes, and
stay as long as he likes in any country.
The foregoing was written some years ago ; but in
Eastern Asia I found I might not be frank and open
and at the same time accepted at my own value. I
did not go to Japan with the object of writing a book
with any high purpose, but I had not been long in the
country before I saw that the truth was not liked any
more than it is liked in other countries ; also, I saw
that some truths did not appear to have been discerned
or examined at all, and as these involved subjects to
which I have some claim to speak with authority, I
vii

viii PREFACE
felt I should take upon myself the task of telling Japan,
her friends, and her rivals, a little of their own business.
The reader may discover that I have made an im
partial statement of the visible fortune, needs, and duties
of Japan ; also I have dealt with the Japanese as Nature
worshippers, gardeners, artists, and handicraftsmen, as
I see them superior and worthy to be studied and fol
lowed by Europeans. My humours — good^ bad, and
indifferent — find a place here, for I believe in nothing
so much as self-expression. In Japan I was alone, but
employed, and my labours and the opinions they im
posed form the substance of this volume.
Without any axe to grind, I maintain that this little
book holds some facts of interest and value for Japanese
statesmen, students, and publicists at home and abroad.
Incidentally it should have value for tree lovers, gar
deners, artists in landscape, students of design, and
naturalists in various fields, not so much for what it
describes as for what it suggests and offers to them ;
also it may inform and amuse the general reader ; but,
above all, it is a book for the Japanese, and for those
who are qualified and desirous of serving Japan.
The differences, barriers, prejudices of which the
Japanese make such loud complaint are natural, and
not to be removed by mere juggling with conceits.

PREFACE ix
Nor will treaties, school fellowships, and universal
hobnobbing change blood, dimensions, or ideals, and
make for the desired oneness of Asia and Europe.
Race improvement is a slow, natural process, and it were
well for the Japanese to recognize and act upon the
fact. The Japanese claim for equality is emphatically
a vanity based on his own misconceptions, the false
praise which has been bestowed upon him, and the
dishonourable treatment he has received from the
United States of America. The latter repudiated their
treaty giving Japanese equality of rights and interests
with Europeans. Further, the British oversea dominions
refuse the unrestricted immigration of the Japanese.
The purpose of this note is to express the conviction
that unless the subject is debated in the most vulnerable
and effective quarters, the Japanese will go to war over
racial equality alone. They do not want more territory
or more of anything half as much as they want to avenge
what they consider an insult, and to have the world
know and not forget that they are as good as other
people. For all good may mean to us and the Japanese,
I have the frankness to write that they are making an
egregious mistake.
One can appreciate the United States and some of
our self-governing dominions for indicating their feel-

x PREFACE
ings and intentions towards the Japanese ; but the
whole truth has not been said in any quarter, nor has
there been reasoned and unprejudiced effort put for
ward to examine the nature of the barriers and the
origin of the prejudices (if any) whictr provide the
mental and physical conflict between Asia and Europe —
or Europe and Asia, for the words need to be transposed
at times. In strictest truth it is not East and West that
Japan finds barriers and prejudices, it is East and South
— America and Australasia. The necessity exists for
those people who refuse citizenship to Japanese to
make a joint statement, and give their reasons for ex
clusion. The Americas, Australasia, the African Union,
these are the territories against which Japan is mentally,
and may soon be physically and materially, at war.
The Japanese is convinced that we dislike him for
his smallness of stature ; his Mongolian, Esquimaux,
or Malayan features ; his love of nakedness ; his license
in love and his bartering of women, where, as a matter
of fact, we do not as a race know of these things, or
where we do, are we concerned to fear these things.
We are experienced enough to know that in our social
and domestic life we include all the sins and short
comings of the race. So near as I can find words to
express my inmost feelings, the antipathy, prejudice —

PREFACE xi
call it what we will — is -bred in us out of the difference
between Wild and Tame. To the European the Japa
nese is a wild or primitive man.
It is a strange fact for Europeans to contemplate,
that whereas Old Japan was a matchless example of
patience, resignation, and self-containment, New Japan
is impatient, scornful of its old system and those aliens
who have effected the change. This nervous and profit
less haste is largely bred out of contact with America.
The Japanese publicist is as anxious to be public as his
father was to be private. Publicity is a mere craze, a
mania in New Japan. Of course there is a business
side to this clamour for equality, and the right to dwell
and trade everywhere ; but the underlying cause of the
resentment is due to what has been said by Europeans
of the Japanese as a race.
The energy and persistence of the Japanese is a
pronounced characteristic. It would take much search
ing to discover an equally industrious people ; and this
forces an inquiry which may with reason be applied to
many other peoples, white and coloured : What is to
be done with all this energy ? It is no more possible
to lock up and calm a vast mass of human energy than
it is to arrest a flood which has gained momentum on
a mountain side. Wars are the outcome of surplus

xii PREFACE
energy, and the modern lust for trade is as real as the
older form of lust for dominion.
Already Japan has imitated too much. She is not
like Europe or America in her resources and oppor
tunities, any more than she resembles them in her com
mercial and social employments. Old Japan was all
country ; New Japan is all town, and much the inferior.
I mean that all that is new in the way of effort is in
the towns. Impatience is a defect in Japan ; she is
inclined to oppose what she most desires. Here she
reveals her primitiveness, her link with the springs of
life. To Europeans Japan is a sort of theatre, a holiday
haunt, a field of enterprise, a place for speculation ;
and the place is the people. This is an important asser
tion, for all seem to stop at the people and fail to ex
amine their resources and their needs. Alien students
of Japan and Japanese students in alien countries have
added no substance to Japan. The growth must come
from a systematic attack on the high and broad surface
of the country, and the volume and value of that growth
will be in proportion to the length of time that Japan
persists in studying and applying a more European
mode of life to the whole of her people.
I am personally incapable of preferring town em-

PREFACE xiii
ployments and town life to those possible to a well-
ordered countryside, but in Japan I do not discern a
well-ordered countryside. Japanese rural life is a drab
drudgery, and little more. To improve the Japanese
people, the Japanese must of themselves improve their
employments. This has nothing to do with barriers or
outside prejudices, and if the Japanese are not in all
ways capable enough to imitate and carry through a
new system, they should be sensible and unselfish
enough to let others come amongst them to put them
on the right road.
In various parts of this volume I have set down in
plain, and what I trust may prove informing, words as
much as may suggest the nature of Japan as a com
mercial store, and how that store may be accurately
and easily estimated and put to use. Chapters XIII.,
XVIII., and XIX. bear directly on these subjects.
Chapters VII., X., XL, and XV. are of value to gar
deners. Those interested in mere descriptions and the
lighter incidents of travel and adventure may turn to
Chapters IV., V., VIII., XII., and XVI.
As I have written before, I had no high resolve to
write a book on Japan ; but as I found the country and
the people full of interest, and both deserving of all
the support the outside world may afford them, I have

xiv PREFACE
ventured to publish my experiences, discoveries, and
candid though well-meant opinions.
The reader will find causes and explanations of my
sometimes contradictory assertions, but he will not find
that I have tampered with facts, misjudged my prem
ises, or concealed myself. I do not remember pass-
\ ing an equal period of time with a strange people and
t j
coming by so little positive and contagious humour.
] Humour is not a strong point of the Japanese, and if
I one would assert one's own, it might prove offensive ;
so for these reasons my story is not so highly coloured,
gay, or whimsical as might be expected of an irre
sponsible mortal in Japan.

CONTENTS
I. Chiyo — Earth and Sea  17
II. A Journey to Sendai  32
III. The Islands, Flora, and Life of Matsushima . 44
IV. Out of the Infinite Past  56
V. Of Rice, a Rickshaw, and Riotous Living . . 71
VI. Japanese Instinct in Art  83
VII. The Gardens of Akita  91
VIII. Nikko: The Shrine of the Sacred Trees . . 99
IX. A Survey of Northern Japan  113
X. The Little Trees  125
XI. More about Little Trees  138
XII. At the Moon of Nara  149
XIII. The Life Japanese  164
XIV. Inns and Islands of the Inland Sea . . . 176
XV. The Garden of the Sentei  188
XVI. The Little Women  204
XVII. Scenes in Southern Japan  215
XVIII. Of Japanese Character and Capacity . . . 231
XIX. An Open Letter  247
XX. The Humours of Travel  260
Index ,  273
16

THE HARVEST OF JAPAN.
CHAPTER I.
CHI YO— EARTH AND SEA.
' T"*HE first pages of my manuscript book, soiled with
¦*- the flower stains of a tropic island, made it easy
to commence my story. For a week the Chiyo Maru
had steamed at full speed and revealed no land. Two
ships we saw ; but like our own, they had been lonely
so long as to be shy, waving no flag nor raising any
cheer as we sped by. Water, water, before and behind
us, about and beyond the circled horizon ; sunlight and
flakes of foam ; flying-fish and glorious blue creature
like waves ; mysterious nerve-shaking winds ; airs born
of some great, pulsating, threatening power ; languorous
heat ; dews that damped like rain ; hot fogs ; a gather
ing in of the garments of ocean ; a cloaking with white,
the whitest, idlest clouds ; morning, noon, evening, and
night the same, and for days the same : these were our
(2,120) 17 2

1 8 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
familiar things ; these enslaved, depressed, sustained us,
whilst crossing the most seductive of all oceans — the
Pacific. Chiyo means Earth and Sea. Devoid of earth, we
sailed by sky and sea ; not that the heavens were glori
ous, but they led us on. Never did I remember so
many morns devoid of soul sustenance, nor so many
successive evenings that gave no hint of prayerful thank
fulness, and it is thanks we would give everywhere.
When I look back over my days, when I think of the
broad earth and round, rolling ocean, gladness and the
spirit of praise precede each new rising joy. I can
remember the best only. I can say it is well, when I
remember that I have seen well. I wish I could find
readers for a book on my many good fortunes ; I wish
I could say, to be heard, that fortune is no myth nor
seeable nor holdable, but ever in some near-by fairy
land of our making ; I wish I could bring the world
to see that whatsoever enlargeth a man maketh him
wise to his everlasting delight ; I wish I might say
that the splendid part of life is a private, unseen, un-
nameable thing. Time, private time — that is all we
need. Although I live largely out of love of other men's
beliefs and labours, I dislike quoting from them, or

CHI YO— EARTH AND SEA 19
planning to live by them ; they help me to see, but not
what they see. But here I admit that Swinburne had
taught me to disregard all terrors of the sea. All my
life I had dreaded water ; its power alarmed and over
whelmed me. I could not think of the sea or a ship
without mental and bodily pains. My nerves could
never endure motion, my nostrils grew cold and my
tongue foul at the thought of a sea voyage. Now all
had changed. I neither feared nor sickened at the
sight, sound, or motion of waves, or the heave and
throb of a great ship. Swinburne's " Triumph of Time "
absolved me from fear and pain. His love of the sea
made me love it too. Far out on a wide ocean, where
a great spirit voice sigheth and moaneth always, I was
expectant of a rare land and a strange people, yet I did
not fear the two thousand miles or so of water dividing
me from Japan.
With land far off and more travelled men about
me, I felt I had seen little, travelled less ; yet, what
distances, what a life of voyaging, up and down, across,
askew, out and home, out and home, round and round,
oceans, continents, islands and larger islands, seas and
seas. Ships, trains, and caravans, each and all by turns
had borne me, a mere bit of baggage, pushed on and
pushed off, borne, on and borne over waters and land.

20 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Travel it is, or no travel at all, according as one sees,
thinks, feels, and estimates. The traveller's mission
changes from age to age ; his implementa and his gains
change too. Neither love of gold nor curiosity nor
vanity kept me moving on. Mine was the pilgrim quest
always — to see, to understand, to rejoice, to pay homage,
to return with a reinvigorated soul : these were my
hopes, and often I realized them. Until a few months
ago, I went on and on in fear and trembling. I could
not trust the sea. I could discern no spirit, no sense of
life, no cleansing and sustaining power in waters, warm
or cold, calm or raging, foam crowned, sun flamed,
sapphire, or emerald starred. But the ocean had become
a part of me — bed and pillow, cradle, couch and easy-
chair, rest of all resting-places. Distance and time,
horizon and horizon, all were one. Ocean is home ;
ocean is the bond linking all lands.
Ten days after leaving the tropic island, I awoke
before daylight (and went to see the time ; it was four-
twenty-five. Later came the dawn, and a true Japanese
sun rose above the sea — a globe of glowing red, rimmed
with shimmering gold. The water was quiet, the ship
noisy, as if feeling the sense of additional life as she
neared land. I marched the various decks alone.
North---no land ; west — no land. Only one small

CHI YO— EARTH AND SEA 21
sailing craft above the line of the sea. By-and-by came
up the sailormen, who said we might see land by seven
o'clock. I went and packed and ordered my kit. I
dressed with a new sense hanging outside me. I was
glad, grateful, humble, in a sense that was uplifting.
I will own that I thought that hailed ships do not always
come to land ; that anchors are dropped, handkerchiefs
waved, and dead men borne ashore. Still, I felt I must
see Japan. I had come to discern and worship, and I
could not recall a story or a time when the altar had
passed at the approach of the pilgrim. " Shrines and
pilgrims, shrines and pilgrims," I said aloud, and could
not help repeating.
I saw the Japanese women passengers looking out
anxiously, in spite of the assurance that neither they
nor the men nor the children must display joy or fear
at what may come or fail to come to them. All the
concerns of the ship were discarded, all the close friend
ships were broken. The packed trunks and the land
ahead made the world for most of us.
I wrote these lines in the saloon before eight o'clock,
then I paced the decks looking and waiting for the
promised land. The sun forced down the mist, the
air grew warm, the sea smooth of surface and softer of
tone. At a quarter to eight land was sighted — a long

22 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
jagged ridge, and this was all we saw for nearly two
hours ; then breaks in the coast-line occurred, and weird
fishing craft, one with a hundred men or more, who
seemed to be astride a tree and ladling of something —
edible weed. By ten o'clock we saw islands, and a well-
defined background of inland hills. Pines and the
richest of green herbage decked the cones, pinnacles,
and flat ledges ; these were in thousands. Never
before had I seen so many details of form within the
compass of a few miles.
As we entered the Bay of Yokohama, three islands
converted to forts lay across our path ; but we went
on at full speed, anxious to get out of a dangerous
current before it should cause our ship to become un
manageable. The economy of this harbour did not
concern me. It looked modern enough ; the forts hard
as adamant. Little boats crowded our course ; steamers
ran by on either side ; queer, slave-hunting looking
craft luffed and raced by turns. Villages lined all the
coast, and the sun and the soft air kept us more and
more capable of thought and feeling. At first all the
beauty was on the north side ; then it came from the
west, and remained till we were at the end of the voyage.
The first impressions were of the cause of the beau
tifully moulded coast-line. Of sedimentary origin, it

CHIYO— EARTH AND SEA 23
had been tossed and tumbled by volcanic action, and
modelled by the disturbing winds and seas. The plainer
parts of this coast-line correspond with the land lying
along the Sussex and Hampshire coast — perpendicular
walls of white and yellow sandstone, intersected by green
grassy slopes, clumps of pine, little fields and vales, and
water-slips choked up with almost black cottages, fisher
folk and their concerns.
By-and-by we were surrounded by great ships of
war, another reminder of the English Channel ; but
we were in a bay only three miles wide at its mouth,
though opening up till we could see no land to the
north or east. Instead, we saw what may have num
bered thousands of fishing-boats, each with a square-
topped, flounced sail. These sails alone were visible
above the water, and queer objects they appeared, like
black targets ranged over the green and silver bay. We
did not see what is known as the black current — at
least, the water was no blacker than before ; and once
in the Bay of Yokohama, the water was a dull green,
such as one sees most often on such a coast, or where
there is a sand bottom, no great depth of water, and
not much weed. Before noon we sighted Yohohama —
chimneys and smoke, ships and sails in the offing,
wooded hills, with European and native houses showing

24 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
here and there. More villages and ever more fishing
craft crowded by the shore.
Besides these, we had the interest of the Japanese
on board. From early morn they had trudged and
shuffled about in their best attire ; and what a lot of
rare garb they brought forth ! It seemed impossible
they could have lived in America or Hawaii for years,
and preserve so many curious, beautiful, and perfect
clothes to the smallest details. In fact, it was harder
to believe that they had been out of Japan for a single
day. How sure of themselves they were ! How com-
pletely they disregarded us Europeans ! I do not say
there was indifference amounting to rudeness, but we
were made to feel that they had the first right in all
things thereabouts.
I hastened round and paid my debts, and made myself
safe in the matter of time. I went among the women
and the babies, playing with the youngsters by turns.
I looked and looked to make sure I was in Japan or by
its shore. My shipmates were strangers almost ; each
was looking for his own, and I saw mine in the new,
the old, the favoured land — favoured of tree and flower,
of strange things to be sought — so my trust increased
as I came to breathe a softer and more sustaining air.
I went ashore as a husbandman looking for rare fields,

CHIYO— EARTH AND SEA . 25
in which I might toil and feel I owned them for a season.
I would, as a friend said, come to feel that I had been
steeped in the better things.
Soon after noon I got ashore with my companions —
five horned toads from Mexico and South California.
, These excited much more wonder than I. In fact, I
excited no wonder at all. That is well. To come
among people who make no sign of observing a stranger
is to know they have employment and life within them
selves. A rickshaw man took me to a house, and soon
I was out of it again, too anxious to see my new people
to endure a house on European lines, as the Japanese
host1 proclaimed his to be.
Yokohama is termed the front door of Japan, and
it is the business of all the country to keep the door
wide open. All the country means all the world — all
the foreign busy people, all the search-after-happiness
sort ; and perhaps I was one, and no steadier than the
rest, for it is hard to go slowly or to leave off talking
when in the presence of new things. So in the hotel
one could not be private, detached, alone, befriended
of new friends, the Little People of Japan. My room,
though large, was dark and depressing. The water
works were not working, and a notice ran : A supply
of water will be suspended to-morrow during repairs.

26 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
I could afford to laugh ; but I found myself so con
servative as to refuse to call a waiter Boy, and I lifted
my eyebrows when a girl, whose status I could not define,
said she was the Boy of the house.
Our ship's doctor was in love with a lady nurse on
a leper island, and before leaving the ship I wrote, at
his request, a sort of rhymed love-letter, and in return
he gave me a large packet of Epsom salt. Perhaps this
had prepared me for some of the whimsical and opposite '
things one encounters in Japan.
In a rickshaw I was hurried through the streets of
the native town, in no sense large — a square mile or
two — the houses not much more than huts and wigwams.
In truth, there was a great deal more in their character,
variety, restraint, and perfect workmanship ; but one
must be simple in one's tastes and desires to discern
their excellencies. To myself I said : A thousand
things in Japan may not have my concern ; I must
ignore everything foreign to the native people and the
native land ; I will be as prejudiced as you please, for
what I do not believe in I do not see or dwell upon.
So my tale must be of native life, native scenery, native
charm, and native love — for I can dwell on no land
where love is not the mainspring of life.
Very soon I made a start, or was started. Of course,

CHIYO— EARTH AND SEA 27
I could smile out of the joy of my first day in such a
land, and my happiness seemed to be contagious, for
not only women and girls, but boys and men smiled
and laughed at nothing as merrily as I. This was the
fair, the right beginning. Nothing cut and dried,
nothing according to plan, or planned to occur. I will
own that most of what I saw in the first day was not
new. One might not expect entirely foreign scenes in
a commercial city of Japan, nor hope for any charac
teristics other than those born of Buddhistic and Shinto
faiths. All shrines are made for one and the same
people — those who would live and bow in faith and
fear. At once I saw a people governed by natural and
superstitious instincts ; their failings not so important
as their virtues. I was not bent on looking through
the lattice wood doors, the transparent paper walls and
windows, the tea houses and gaming houses, for the
sake of describing flies in rancid ointment. It was no
business of mine to be Paul Pry or Master Scandal.
I have lived to see and know how the world lives, and
where I live on a low plane I can discern a good deal
worthy to be termed life.
Here I was soon convinced that I should come by
life — my sole concern. I would touch the pulse and
live out of the heart-beats of my fellows. During my

28 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
first day I rode and walked the streets, bowed at a
Shinto shrine, which, like all shrines, occupied a beau
tiful spot — the crown of a high, narrow cone, whence
one saw over miles of lovely artificial landscape, for
Japanese wealth is in beauty ; and where the tree and
the grass and the wild vine thrive, so will other things,
and these man must make the most of, as he lives out
of the sum of the earth. I stood and gazed until I
could endure the varied scene no longer ; then I turned,
and at my feet, a little paradise for believing and wearied
pilgrims. I believed, I had wearied, and now I was at
home. It was ever so with me ; I needed the hallowed
place, born of beauty, stilled with peace.
I confess but ten minutes before I had refreshed
me with a cup of tea at the house of Five Hundred
Steps, or some such name ; and there, though the tea
was fresh and the room a sort of sanctuary, I had been
regaled by three or four girls, two of whom took hold
of me literally, and endeavoured to keep me fast to
earth by sitting upon my knees. But not these or
experiences of their kind alter a man who is out con
vinced of what he wants. I know my road and the so-
called dangers thereof ; I can encounter no dangers so
long as there is no danger in me. With an open hand,
an eager eye, and no certain knowledge of the things

CHIYO— EARTH AND SEA 29
which charmed and made me glad, I went into no
details. I pried not, neither did I wonder ; and I will
say that as a man travels on, he loves and rejoices more
but wonders less, till he comes to wonder not at all.
He knows, and he knows that he knows, enough for
him and his purpose. When he has come to live out
of himself, he cares not at all what others see and feel,
or how or why they see and feel. His sensations splen
did, he has come by his own, and there is no more to
be desired or given away.
So I proclaim that my first day was a good one.
To my rickshaw man I said, " Keep to the old parts,
and do not tell me what the new and big buildings are,
or I'll pay you and leave you : I do not want a guide.
I wish you to go slowly, and enjoy your time with me
if you can. Don't think about me." I had three rick
shaw men on that day, and I trained each in such a
way as possibly to spread a new belief amongst their
numbers- — a belief that somewhere in the Far West
exists a race or a cult who do not believe in anything
better than going on quietly and dreaming idly, whilst
apparently wide awake when it comes to settling up at
the end of the journey.
That night I was carried to Theatre Street, where
a feast of trees and other living things is held on the

30 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
fifth and twentieth of each month. Besides dwarfed
trees and plants, trained into fanciful and artistic shapes,
there were many popular flowers ; common poppies in
tiny pots appeared uncommonly beautiful ; also colum
bines, marigolds, pansies, and azaleas. These pre
dominated, though there were many cacti, ferns, and
primulas in great variety. What impresses most is the
sense of the desire to be near to Nature, no matter how
dense the population or darksome and griming the
employment. In Japan, no one lives unconscious of
the country. That is a truth incalculable in its power
for good, in so far as a nation has ideals and determina
tion to live out of a sane understanding of natural
things. Statecraft is useless without handicraft ; and
no nation goes forward when it is bred in towns so
large, complex, terrifying, and overpowering that escape
to any unpeopled or natural spot proves it the least
natural, and makes of it the most forbidding and
fearful place.
In this street of stalls and jugglers, fakirs and mystery
makers, contrivers of toys and tawdry stuff, were thou
sands of living things worthy of one's time and atten
tion. The dwarfed trees were miracles of insight and
achievement ; but lest I run on these to surfeit, I will
put a thick black dot to the subject, and say it is dealt

CHIYO— EARTH AND SEA 31
with in chapters dealing with Japanese tree artists and
their work.
At a stall I bought a tiny shrine of old gold lacquer,
doors and Buddha complete, the figure and its pedestal
of solid metal, the whole about six inches high— an old
and genuine piece, cost about a shilling. Also I bought
a piece of chased ivory — a Nutsuki — fit for a girdle,
for about the same sum ; and three tiny brass tobacco
pipes cost a shilling the lot.
These were my substantial additions to life during
my first half day in Japan.

I

CHAPTER II.
A JOURNEY TO SENDAI.
N Japan I would examine her natural features, the
employment of the land, study Japanese gardening
and native methods of dwarfing and designing trees and
miniature landscapes. These led me to some outlandish
places, amongst others to the town of Sendai and the
Archipelago of Matsushima, or the region of the Pine
Islands. Matsu is a pine tree, and shima or jima
signifies an island. Matsushima is justly proclaimed
one of the three great natural beauty and wonder spots
of Japan ; the others are Miajima (Temple Island) in
the Inland Sea, and Ama-no-Hashidate (Heavenly Bridge)
near Miyazu.
The second-class carriage was perfectly clean and
the fare cheap, two hundred and forty miles or so for
about nine shillings. At the junction for Nikko, two
or three porters went up and down shouting, " Forty
winks here ; forty winks here ! " or something like ;

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 33
and as I had not to change trains, I took the hint and
browsed awhile. Every one was allowed to smoke every
where. In fact, every one was allowed to do much as
he liked everywhere. I noted rare trust. A young
man counted some paper money, put it in a canvas bag,
and laid it on the long side seat, which ran without a
break the full length of each carriage, and was exas
perating in that one had to sit atwist to catch a glimpse
of anything. The young man left the carriage two or
three times, and paid no attention to his money-bag
till it was time to leave ; neither did any one else. I
left my hold-all at Yokohama, and thought by the quiet
way things moved I might get my luggage within a
week, if at all, for it was without name or address ;
and though I had to sleep without pyjamas and go
with my hair uncombed the next morning, the luggage
came safely by the train following mine.
A soldier-like officer was in the train. He was
curious at my writing notes, and at the way I scanned
things. This made him anxious to exchange cards
with me. Mine is usually a luggage or plant label
or a seed envelope, for I carry these things everywhere,
and they serve a variety of uses. So I wrote my name
on a plant label and gave it to him. He was bamboozled,
and, I believe, a little less polite. He knew a dozen
(2,120) 3

34 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
words in English, so I asked him the height of some
mountains we were passing. " Nine ov clock," he
replied ; and again I asked, to get again, " Nine ov
clock " — the hour of arrival at Sendai. Then he in
quired, " Have you any provision ? " He meant pro
fession, as I knew ; but I said, " Yes, brown bread
and sardines." Whereupon he fell over his own in
dignation, gave himself a most painful though meta
phorical kick, and sat down sulky with himself for a
season. Over most of the way the land had a smooth, soft
face ; there were few rocks exposed, the most preci
pitous hills and mountains were covered with dense
and softening vegetation. As we went north I was
forced to say aloud, " Companionable and supporting
hills," for they spread a wondrous array. On some
snow lay in streaks and patches ; it crowned the high
peaks, it drifted into river-like streams against the rising
sun. Bare and clothed highlands caught the colours of
the afternoon clouds, and a perfect heaven towered and
invited, till I could not breathe freely, so impatient was
I to get nearer to the high and gorgeous spaces.
Here I saw azaleas growing wild for the first time,
forming the undergrowth of woods, grouping them
selves as vagrant weeds round cottages, and brighten-

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 35
ing all the low hills. The most common colours were
terra-cotta and rose ; but there were reds and whites,
creams, and a variety of pinks and deep copper tones
at intervals. Too late for spring flowers in Yokohama
(early May), it was now so cold that many deciduous
plants had not put forth their leaves, and the glories of
the spring were yet to be. It would be impossible to
number or describe the hills, cones, ridges, mounds,
vales, streams, and pools composing a single view of
this northern landscape. It reveals scenes resembling
the north and central part of Portugal, the north-west
and the central parts of Ireland, the north-west of Spain,
Southern Italy, La Landes of France, Ceylon hill coun-
»try, Java, the north of New Zealand ; and yet Northern
Japan remains distinct, unique in the form and influ
ence of its landscapes.
" Shellwearivus ett nefejftin — we shall arrive at nine-
fifteen," so said the ticket-puncher. That evoked the
thought that, as it takes time to say anything well, it
takes a Japanese no time to make sure he knows what
he thinks he ought to know. Two little boxes of stuff,
one hot boiled rice and the other cold, I bought on
the train, provided my first meal and some discomfort.
The box of cold stuff held eight forms of food, only
one of which I could identify — ginger-root, dyed with

36 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
cochineal or beetroot. The other stuff was a julep of
smooth, solid white paste, raw fish and rice I should
say ; two or three green roots, some piped, others solid ;
seeds like black beans or earth nuts ; some weed or
sedge root ; a nasty wrinkled and fretted material which
I took for a rotten sponge, fungi, or the gills of a big
fish. I nibbled and sucked and chewed a bit of each,
overwhelming every bad bite by stuffing my mouth
with rice. But at last the flavours impressed all my
tongue and tasting organs, so that I was glad to make
a vicious bite at the ginger and grind it fiercely, till it
brought raging hot tears to my eyes. This made me
desperate, and I determined to swallow every blessed
thing that had offended my palate. The white, slimy
paste I could not stomach, and I felt the little black
nuts or seeds would come again if I ate any more, so
these I gave a free passage through the carriage window,
and set to work upon the rest. To write truly, I woke
that night with a strong desire to vomit ; and though
I lay still, I know that had I got out of bed I should
have been in trouble with myself.
At Sendai, although lodged in what was termed a.
first-class hotel, I was served with all my fare on a tray.
There was neither fire nor fireplace, brazier nor hot
water. Swearing was useless, as no one understood,

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 37
and it would be vulgar and debasing to complain. I
was cold to the bone, and I feared an illness if I did
not get warmer. Fancy a town with over one hundred
thousand souls, and not a street lamp or chimney ! I
had met similar conditions elsewhere, but I could not
bring myself to think that Japan would soon improve
on these dark ways of living.
The children's garb here was wonderful in its com
mingling of rags and colours. A military town, Sendai
was in its new part all march, march, march, bugle
bray and retire, from morn till night. The air was
biting in full sunshine, so like a soldier I had to march
to get warm. I craved a fire, and as that was impossible,
my only chance was to walk the streets of little shops,
all the same in their medley and nondescript character.
There were many bookshops, and thousands of second
hand volumes of English. How did they get to such
a place, and for whom were they intended ? Rain fell
in torrents, and I was glad, for it brought out the folk
in their high pattens, straw coats, mache umbrellas,
sheets of oiled paper, and no end of temporary screens ;
though one should not write temporary, as the rain
threatened to remain everlasting. It snows here every
day from November .to March, and there is not a wood
fire in the town, though dense forests all around.

38 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
I called on a Japanese friend ; his house was the
first where I removed my boots. It is odd that with
the frequent removal of boots and outer clothing in
draughty places one does not catch cold, and one soon
loses the fear that one may take a cold. Japanese
courtesy is a strange thing to estimate. To its own
it is genuinely attentive, but it does not make any con
cession to the stranger. I got very good treatment from
a native at Sendai, but he insisted that I should remove
my boots before entering his house. He sent me round
the town, and the rickshaw man asked me if I was tired
of sight-seeing by affecting the attitude of sleep. His
bow was the best thing I saw in Sendai. It came from
my giving him a yen, double or treble what he might
have demanded. I am no autocrat, but I like respect,
and I like to earn it. My man had earned his money,
and I had earned the right to pay him. His anxiety to
be guide as well as horse was quite valiant, and he gave
me the history of Sendai ; but of course I was no wiser.
At a children's playground was a full-length tree,
sixty feet or so, swung on chains just above the ground,
that children might balance themselves and move the
log in all directions.
I stumbled on a festival at a Shinto shrine, a most
primitive exhibition, and though many details were in-

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 39
teresting, I could not pursue to explain the varied
performances. One was a very ancient dance, the
figure masked, with the face on what should have
been the crown of the head, and carrying a fan and
spirit-quelling ring. I watched the offerings to the
shrine — coppers thrown on a large padded platform —
the giver pulling a rope to sound a gong that some ear
might hear and answer, or remember to forgive. In
the porch of the temple a man was' auctioning poultry,
and another was making a stream of copper coins pass
from hand to hand, so it was exactly like Christ in the
Temple. At this festival women were selling tiny pancakes
— bits of blistered dough and dollups of sickly yellow
and purple slime — the Turkish Delight of Young Japan.
As there was a shortage of coppers, I offered some to
several children. Each took what I gave, looked aside
furtively, turned the hand, and dropped the coin on
the ground. That and no more. I stooped to pick
up one or two coins ; but the old stall women regarded
me with enmity, so I allowed them to gather up the
money. It is only fair to say that after this irregular
system of trade they became generous, and distributed
several tit-bits amongst the empty mouths ranged round.
The oldest streets and lanes of Sendai revealed

40 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
nothing worse than silent and of necessity industrious
folk. Town-bred Eats, they must needs be burrowing,
seeking protection, food, and a little light. The Japanese
do not seem to recognize what we term dullness. They
have an unusual capacity for sitting or kneeling quiet,
doing and thinking of nothing at all. When night comes
they do not light up, fire up, or wake up for any special
kind of work or merriment. Sometimes, when at lonely
and remote inns, I wanted the maid or the mistress to
talk, or work, or listen — tell me of her misfortunes,
anything human, domestic, linked with the eternal ebb
and flow of life — but no news or extra numbers came
to me. When night comes the streets grow to be of the
blackest ; also they are silent to beget awe. When I
ventured abroad in the dark and came within hearing
or discerning another soul, we usually stood still, each
on one leg, that we might all the better listen and sniff
out the character of the other monster in the dark.
Japanese clogs and pattens enable their wearers to make
queer shuffling sounds, with no hint of sex or size of
wearer. Always I felt I was imitating a cumbrous and
benighted black beetle, and I could do nothing safer
than imitate him. Sometimes we decided that we were
equally evil spirits, to be avoided rather than to be

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 41
embraced. He, if it was a he, would emit a far away
sound of great strength and great courage, to which
I'd respond with my countering challenge, which may
be summed up in understandable English as "I'm your
Moses." But I liked the feeling so well as never to feel afraid,
and that feeling arose from the rare distance in Time of
the sound or sounds. Alarm, surprise, a plea put forth
in the dark prompts the most primitive noises of which
humanity is capable. Laughter, as it escapes some
throats, carries us back a long way ; but laughter is a
comparatively modern accomplishment. I incline to
believe that man ejaculated, muttered, chanted, long
before he spoke or came to interpret himself in words,
and that he did not give way to laughter till civilization
had shown him enough of his own folly to tickle him
into a fit.
I was impressed by the fact that the town people
did not use the country. The hills round Sendai were
beautiful in form and well wooded ; also they were track
less, and, except by the peasant wood-cutter and charcoal-
burners, they remained untrodden. The people wished
to impress me with the fact that they had many modern
schools. I didn't want them, or to hear of them even.
Fool factories, that is what I call them.

42 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
One hundred and eighty schoolgirls from fourteen
to eighteen years of age came in pouring rain to pass
a day and night in our hotel. It had seemed that the
house was full already. What patience those girls dis
played as they stood in the storm-swept space before
the house waiting for arrangements to be made ! They
were frozen blue and red with cold, yet they looked
cheerful. Each carried a tiny bag or bundle in a hand
kerchief. Their dresses were all the same, plum colour ;
nothing conspicuous about them, nothing feminine ; to
my way of judging there was not a pretty one. There
were many good, honest faces, and such as one might
grow to like, but no real' freshness or beauty.
I wanted to move on, but the rain fell in sheets
and unceasingly, so I gave myself to writing and inspect
ing the house.
The schoolgirls and their rooms formed very pretty
pictures ; they filled the largest chambers, which were
elegant and stately as those in any palace. A wonderful
decorum was observed by the girls. I was afraid to go
to bed, as with so many wet garments hanging over the
braziers it seemed impossible that the house should
escape fire.
On leaving Sendai I disputed my bill, then paid it,
still disputing. The landlord's only excuse was, " Very

A JOURNEY TO SENDAI 43
cold here." I agreed, and I believe that the reminder
made me feel extra mean. I find it more difficult to
travel with than without money. This is a true state
ment. I cannot endure being looked after and looked
out for ; I will not allow any one to stand in the way
of my seeing and going, so money is a blinding and a
bothering factor. When begging my way I was com
pelled to move slowly, for I had to earn and deserve
support, so that I made friends and felt secure in almost
all places.

CHAPTER III.
THE ISLANDS, FLORA, AND LIFE OF MATSUSHIMA.
TDETWEEN Sendai the frozen and Shiogama the
-^enchanting I passed through the loveliest of hill
and valley, stream and village scenery. But may I get
writer's cramp and a stiff neck if I write any more
about Japanese scenery. And yet that is the chief
product and profit of the country. People — always my
concern — were not attractive nor interesting enough to
absorb me quite. I was in the process of adapting
myself to Japanese conditions, and not having succeeded
in making myself comfortable, I was in a state of in
cipient revolt. The Japanese have no god of soft seats,
nor any hero honoured so high as to sit in a chair. All
their Happy Gods lie about supported by their hips
and elbows, whilst the heroes and heroines kneel or
perch, or lie prone and prostrate, on their distinguished
and visible corporations. These are all homely atti
tudes, and they fit in with the rest of Japan, but they
are not convenient and comforting to Europeans.
44

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 45
A chair is more than a necessity to some of us. I
have a desire and a feeling for chairs which might lead
me to write an insinuating essay on seats — easy and
low, high and upright. A chair makes for security,
and of all the chambers made by man, there is not one
to invite and claim and bless till we have a chair there
in. But I will own that I had not been a week in Japan
before I found it comforting to kneel or to lie on my
side to write or take my meals. There were tables
quite nine inches high, and on the floor rare flat cushions
at least three inches thick ; and I was regularly invited
to compose my honourable body over the honourable
floor, which I managed to do without upsetting the
honourable household. But social and domestic life in
Japan keep one so near the foundation of things that
in this, as in so many other experiences, one feels that
one is sharing life older than all history, yet a sure,
and in some ways a rare and blessed, life.
To survey the Pine Islands and the great Archi
pelago of Matsushima I had to charter a native craft
at the dreamlike village or little town of Shiogama. It
lay crouched and perched and half hidden between and
about rocks and dells, tumbling streams, and a reach
of salt water. I was dumb and defenceless ; but every
one bowed, and by bowing the boat was chartered,

46 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and we sailed away. That voyage must remain a rare
memory. The boatman and I could not converse, but
we broke bread and chocolate together ; he pointed at
rare objects and I smiled ; we idled and laughed ; now
and then I pulled a rope, and though it might have
been the wrong one, he was equally well pleased. So
we sailed and sailed.
I like a boat big enough to carry another, as I am
no swimmer ; but this boat seemed as if built for emer
gencies, for she was slack and detachable everywhere.
above the water line, and I felt that without much
wrenching I could take my plank with me if a wave
or a squall sent me overboard. I made no effort to
count the islands in their manifold beauties — they are
over two hundred. The best things in Nature — their
influence upon us — never may be described. Most of
the islands are mere piles of coarse, conglomerate, and
smooth, creamy-white sandstone, a medium ensuring
fantastic and beautiful forms in variety when subjected
to the fretting and moulding influences of wind and
wave. Out among the islands one feels that one is
exploring a ruined and partly submerged city, for many
rocks represent arches, ships, causeways, towers, ruined
forts, and deserted gardens, smooth-faced windowless
houses and barns in great variety. Many of these

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 47
islands are roofed with a thatch of dark peat and living
pine trees, which in their struggles for existence assume
every angle of growth and degree of tenacity, so that
one fears and strives with them, so many are the signs
of danger and despair. This persistent appeal of the
pines naturally enough has been answered by naming
the archipelago Matsushima. I was charmed and sub
dued to silence. In spite of a sense of orientation, I
soon lost my bearings, so numerous and varied were
the isles and so tricky the wind, that it took us to all
points of the circle every few minutes. The sun shone
and disappeared at brief intervals, white clouds and
storm clouds came and went, and fleets of sampans and
timber-carrying barges lay in some of the little bays by
the mainland.
When the wind fell the sampan man would take the
oar, an immense blade with the stem in two parts lashed
to form a bow like a mammoth's rib, that it might roll
or wriggle more. Our craft was undoubtedly feminine
and in a bad humour, for every time she was rowed
into open water or a spot to catch the wind she'd rear
up in front, flirt at the stern, and steal into quiet water
and idleness again. Afraid of water, and a rank coward
when in a little boat, I quailed when a storm pounced
down upon us and beat our one big sail into a blob

48 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
before the sampan man could let the ties go and pull in.
Then he hid me under sail cloth and rush mats, put
extra protection over my baggage, and with mighty
jerks at the great oar, he pulled for the shelter of a
near-by isle. We gained it just in time to see ghost
like eddies and curls of foam where but a few minutes
before our boat had been. Without any word from
me, the boatman struck out for the most substantial
land, creeping from island to island, and at last gaining
the mainland, which we hugged for a couple of miles
or so, when Matsushima was sighted and soon reached.
The Japanese pay homage to hot water, and if we
have made none of them Knights of the Bath we should
correct the oversight at once. I had not bathed for a
week, nor had a decent wash for four days. I had not
seen a towel going a-begging since I came to the country.
These things mean something to some of us. The
landlord at Matsushima met me with the homage due
to hot water. The bath tub was a yard square, a deep
butt built to one side of a sort of washhouse ; the other
portion of the wall held another tub of cold water.
There was a seat in the tub, so that one might rest and
pour from a huge ladle piping hot water over oneself.
I don't know if the water was virgin pure ; it did not
look it, but it felt clean, and it was most refreshing.

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 49
I got so hot as to shed all moisture. This was neces
sary, as the towel was not as large as a pocket-hand
kerchief. Most of us think water the blessed element ; in
Japan it is the accursed element almost, for the people
will be wetting" things and never drying them. They
wash their hands, flip their fingers, and lo ! magic, their
hands are dry. They use no handkerchiefs, and they
need 'em badly. Still, too much water. I tried to buy
a towel, and they didn't sell them — said instead, " This
is good water."
My first experience of Japanese fare in a native inn
was not alarming. I had fish soup, fish boiled, fish fried,
and there was an odour of fish in the plate of rice which
forms the bread and mainstay of every meal. Object
ing to kneeling over a nine-inch high stool-table, and
incapable of tucking my legs under me in a praying
mantis attitude, I fell back on the good old Roman
custom of lying down to feed. Chopsticks I would
have none of, preferring to use my fingers. The deli
cate beauty and rare quality in everything in the chamber
helped me to feel that I was living in state, and the
food producing a feeling of cleanness and soundness
within, I took courage and ate freely. There is one
hard, yellow root they send to table, which they call
(2,120) 4

50 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Damme. I said so twice after taking it once, and then
I neither tasted it nor spoke less respectfully of it any
more. Some Japanese puzzles : — They keep fish fresh for
days and days without salt, or smoke, or sun, or drying
wind. They make no vinegar, but induce certain food
stuffs to go sour till they taste of vinegar. They decorate
their dishes with the ugly parts of animals and fish.
They eat of practically everything they can find in the
sea and on the land, some giving off repulsive odours,
and they remain an odourless people.
I shuddered at the thought of eating the sardines
spread over the sand to dry. They were by the acre,
drawn straight from the sea, and spread but a foot or
two above high tide. When dry enough, they were
raked into little ridges and covered with matting. There
they might lie for weeks getting mellow, and some
smelt as if they were already. There is no thought or
knowledge of fish poisoning in Japan.
The little town, the cave dwellings, the tombs and
engraved stones by the mile, my walks in the woods
and on the Holy Island, my home, my first night in
a Japanese bed, my stiff neck, my cold, my general
fatigue and weariness — these are diary notes, and afford
a clear insight of how I saw md felt at Matsushima.

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 51
I came here to study Nature, but Man had to be
reckoned with and recognized. Several of the islands
are regarded as holy, sacred, sepulchral spots, and they
are all these truly. For many centuries Japanese war
riors, princes, pilgrims, and holy men sought peace and
repose here ; and very informing and impressive are
the thousands of stones, tablets, monuments, rock-cut
tombs — memorials of Japanese faith and modes of
sepulture. Matsushima remains a place of pilgrimage,
a fishing village, a resort of merry-makers, and an ex
porter of timber and shells — of which all Japanese are
very fond.
Sunday is beginning to assert itself in Japan. Boat
loads of people came and went among the islands, a
weird pipe or two was heard, the shrines and temples
had more patrons, and less work went on among the
village and fisher folk. I climbed the highest hill by
a road running inland for three or four miles, on the way
naming the plants I knew. I talked in nods to peasant
folk, and after lunch I lay on my mat and wrote of
my experiences in recent days.
Plants wild and abundant round Matsushima : —

Azaleas.
Camelias.
Deutzias.

Wisteria.
Spirea — hard and soft -wooded.
Pyrus Malus.

52

THE HARVEST OF JAPAN

Cydonia. <
Bambusa — green and bi-colour
Ribes — of many forms.
Prunus — of many forms.
Lilies — of many forms.
Ferns — of rare beauty.
Ampelopsis.
Salix. Quercus. Ilex.Cryptomeria. Roses — upright and climbing.
Rhus. Rumex.
Buxus. Thuya. Citrus Trifoliata.
Violets — pink, blue, white, and
violet.
Fragaria. Columbine.Vines — grape ; several rare, and
attractive in leaf and flower.
Hazel.
Rhyncospermum.Clematis. Ivy.Juniper.Yew.Saxifrage — some rare creeping
forms.
Buttercups. The dandelion, dock, sorrel, polygonum, and colts
foot are largely represented : some attractive in size,
foliage, and flower. The two curses are the bamboo
and wisteria. These push through or scramble over

Daisies. Primula— in great variety.
Solomon's Seal — a rare type.
Maples. Pines. Cedars. Larch. Anemone. Geum.Taxus. Sumach. Aucuba.Celandine.Asters. Arborvitae.Euonymus. Lent Lily — one bank held foliage
of nine sorts of lily, but I
was unable to say what
they might be.
Chrysanthemums. Viburnums — several.
Orchis.
Arums. Cerasus.Hornbeam.Bilberry. St. John's Wort.
Geraniums — of many forms.
Dogwood.Morus alba.
Catalpus.

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 53
everything, everywhere. A big snake glided about me
as I stood in a sort of thicket enumerating these things.
I might have put the foregoing plants in order ; but I
think it best to list them as they came to me on a single
hillside in North-East Japan.
We make or preserve our soil too deep, and there
fore too cold, sour, and airless for many of the plants
listed here. I saw rare lilies growing in a two-inch
layer of peat over sandstone and conglomerate. The
air is moist always ; but to the Japanese eye starved
plants yield more beauty than those overfed. I saw
that shallow pans with peat and broken sandstone and
charcoal suit azaleas, camelias, and deutzias better than
the deep pots and soils we provide.
At Matsushima I saw a taxus tree transplanted. It
was fourteen feet high, forty broad, and one hundred
and fifty to two hundred years old, its roots confined
within a mound less than ten feet in diameter and four
feet high. Here also were old pines to twenty feet, with
earth balls not two feet in diameter, and not a root
showing more than half an inch thick. Mat roots
explain and secure this easy handling. In several yards
and cottage gardens were old trees in the earth in the
process of making. Also' potted trees were carried
permanently on barges and lake boats. In the woods

54 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
were small trees, twisted, broken, and deprived of soil,
preparatory to removal.
In Japan nothing can grow upright, if we except
the close-set trees of the forest. All the land is atilt,
and where the wind does not blow always, the sun and
the light dry and draw, or there is an excess of mois
ture weighing things down. One sees factors of form
everywhere, and these are embodied in the eyes and
aspirations of the people. I met three little boys in
a country lane, two of whom were carrying sprays of
azalea ; each held his bough aslant, and bent and tilted
it as he went, seeking effect. Our professed gardeners
have no power of seeing as much in any branch of a
wild or cultivated flower.
I passed through bowers of tree peonies up to eight
feet in height ; they seem to thrive best at sea level in
the North. The choicest plants and flowers are seen
in protected positions, where there is no strong side
light ; I noted no forms or colours superior to those
known in Europe. The Japanese grow aquilegias
(columbines) in pots and pans to produce beautiful
effects. I don't know how it may be with others, but
when I am far from home I am kept content by the
sight of and contact with familiar things, so here I made
most of what I had come to regard as my own.

THE ISLANDS OF MATSUSHIMA 55
My host proved kinder than he looked. He avoided
me as if he disliked my presence, yet he charged fifty
sen — a shilling per day — less than he named when I
came, and he was most careful in directing the rick
shaw men, and telling me of payment due to them.
They took me to Matsushima station, which was some
miles away, on a glorious morning, the sun breaking
through mists and the hills breaking through mists ;
the bays, the rivers, and the cottages peering through
mists. All timid they seemed, all glad and shy and
brave and hopeful ; for as the sun's eye grew larger
it angered less, and the world grew braver till it danced
in a riot of beauty.

M

CHAPTER IV.
OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST.
Y train ride from Matsushima to Asamushi took

eleven hours. The carriage, made to hold about
twenty, never held more than six of us, and had there
been another he would have made the Seven Sleepers
complete. We slept over most of the way — at least the
others did ; I had to keep awake that I might see the
country, and this was hard work. Seeing country is
hard work always, everywhere. People often tell me I
am lucky ; they imagine seeing easy to me and move
ment to be good for one. It is good for one, but not
good for all. To me movement makes a quaking ground
of this earth. Movement means saying good-bye not
only to people, but to things and to self. Movement
means losses everlastingly, wants everlastingly, discom
forts everlastingly. I mean this. I am a traveller, no
sightseer. I am out to make discoveries — to bind
sheaves, not to bear them away. I am to look and
often to long, and in longing I am to look again, and
66

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 57
know that I soon shall look no more. I am to see
differences ; to find my way and make my way ;
I am never and yet always to pay my way. I am to
bear a burden and never to lay my burden down ; I
am to lay myself down. I am not to count on myself,
but count all others for themselves. I am never the
paid servant, but the paying master. I am out with
strange gifts, offering surprises, accepting of missions.
It is nothing how I go. By boat, by train, or afoot,
first class or unclassed, I am still the traveller.
Most of all, I am the traveller, because I do not, I
will not, conform. I am to see, touch, and live by
people and their concerns. I am not to take concern ;
their business is none of mine. Never was I busy with
an end in view ; never did I set out to come to any one
prize. Each land, each place, full and round, I am to
estimate its contents and pass on, but it must not pass
from me. Years ago I wrote of a tramp's view of see
ing and estimating the worlds of other people. To
day I preserve the same view. I have gone on and
on, I have pushed on and on, I have been impelled
to go on and on, I have dreamed and gone on and on.
All sober self-examinations and calculations, all deduc
tions, all impulses, all fears, have as their sum made
me to go forth and wander : seek isolation, refuse com-

58 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
panionship, deny myself security. I have feared most
a growing sense of security ; I have made myself one
with my kind. I have proved, as I have said always,
there is but one man and but one world for man, so
I am never out of place.
My first real thrill in the North was at sight of
Ganjusan. This is a glorious snow-capped cone ; on
its south and east side perfect as Fujisan, and towering
to a great height, it showed above a world of woods
and vales and innumerable pools and streaks of water,
revealing a rare and comforting picture. Here I must
say that water and high hills or mountains are always
in sight ; it is impossible to look at anything or any
where and not have water in the scene. The Japanese
are amphibious as fish. They wouldn't make a road
— not a railroad even — out of sight of water. I had
been led to infer that the Far North was composed of
poor and uninteresting land. I did not find it so.
Instead, I found rich land everywhere. What is more,
I saw proof of it in a numerous and brave peasantry.
No big towns, that is true ; but I want no more of these.
I saw too much water on the land, and too much faith
in water. Nearly all this region is of very old decomposed
peat, and so destitute of body that it will not support

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 59
profitable crops except those of a sub-aquatic nature ;
but above the river and lake beds, the drain hollows,
and the silt and peat plains, there is good soil waiting
to give great store. The rains are so frequent and the
air so moist that all vegetation stays to make mould,
hence there is a nine to twenty-four inch cap of fibrous
peaty soil over the upper crust of mineral matter. In
this peat and sour earth no true grasses thrive — only
stunted oaks, pines, and a great variety of profitless
scrub and weeds. Large plantings of larch have been
made, and though this does well, there is room for
other trees, especially the maritime pine for resin and
turpentine. The most important work to be done in
a country of this nature consists in subsoiling and sur
face draining, to incorporate mineral matter with the
sour surface soil, and provide a safe medium for true
grasses. Lime and basic slag are necessary to vast areas.
The country showed nothing more impressive than
the low and lake-like plains of paddy fields, and their
tiny, doll-like women slaving in them. Little burying-
grounds, set close with upright stones, peeped between
a mulberry tree or two on mounds amid the mire.
Water, raised by hand and tread-wheels, lifts slush
from holes and pours it over the rice plats. All Asia
employs this method. The manure — half- rotted rice

6p THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
straw — was all carried in bundles on women's backs,
and scattered and spread by their hands ; they did
the same, too, with big clods of earth. The workers
are wonderfully deft in using hand implements of a
most primitive character.
I never before covered so much ground to note so
little change in the dress and general surroundings of
a peasant people. In fact, one notes no change at all,
excepting in the size and substance of the houses. As
one journeys north thatch becomes the prevailing roof
ing : this is so thick and dominating, one sees roofs only,
for the walls are low, dark, windowless, and there are
but tiny doors. Where villages or individual houses
are exposed, their roofs are covered with heavy stones,
indicating the frequency and violence of the winds.
Several miles of railway by the sea were walled and
covered with timber, as protection against snow-drift —
eloquent testimony of the winter climate. The azalea
and wild cherry glorified all the hills, and trees of great
beauty and variety were always in sight.
Neither land nor people showed clean. Mire, mire,
and the dependence on mire, left nothing free from it
or to be admired alone. Black Defiance one might term
this region, for blacker and more sodden soil is not to
be found. The same grim, gaunt ugliness is apparent

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 61
in our Black Country and in the busiest mining dis
tricts. All efforts appear temporary — another feature of
mining regions. No fine house in country, village, or
town ; no tower or monument, no hint of vanity — and it
takes a lot to make a splendid land or a land splendid.
Nothing but mire and toil, planting of seed, taking of
toll, planting of trees, felling of trees, bearing of trees,
and the little trains to come along and bear the trees
away. So it seemed. Everything got to the railway
stations and was carried off, leaving the peasant with
a wondering look, and looking into his open hands to
wonder a moment and then fall to work again.
Of course these conditions are not confined to
Northern Japan ; but here one noticed them to the
full, because there was no life to the full for one mo
ment. I believe in hand labour ; I believe in the man
on the land ; also I believe in his having a share of
what he earns, a better fare, a better time, a larger
sense of joy, and a bit of exhilarating leisure. I know
that in many cases the ignorant are best off ; they
escape so much. Many times I thought, how like our
own ; how unnecessary to travel so far to see people,
lands, employments, which might be matched in a
thousand parts of Europe. No, there is but one class
of peasant : he is the same in labour, mind, and heart

62 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
wherever he is to be found ; and it will soon be im
possible for any one to contend that I have not seen
enough or reasoned enough on the peasant to be familiar
with his lot. Favoured to the full, he can but dwell
where love is not a fearful thing, and passion breeds
no pain. The Japanese at home are hard to estimate, so full of
strange contrasts, so mystifying, where neither new nor
disturbing. In fact, they do not impress one as people,
though they are human and sound enough in many
ways. One is constantly impressed by the amount of
hand labour. Consider that the main islands of Japan
are over one thousand miles long by two hundred miles
wide, and that all the cultivated lands are worked by
hand tools, and human hands as tools. Something may
be said in support of a continuance of this system, a
good deal may be urged against it. A nation employed,
a nation sane, a nation safe — that is all we should con
sider. But what a lot of tiny, semi-dwarf people ! All
seemed to be begotten by mischance. Japan must have
a better fare. The race is degenerating, and cannot be
improved on such fare. Education will not help the
country people — only make them dissatisfied, less skilful,
and reduce their numbers. In Japan there will always

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 63
be poverty and wealth in different regions, and in the
North the lot of the people will not soon improve. A
lot of land might be canalized and graded, so that steam,
electric, and horse implements could be put to work ;
then agriculture would become a business of exploita
tion, enterprise would come in, and the peasant would
go out. Old Japan needs to beware of modern or
scientific agriculture.
With these peasants I might have sat down or bent
down, and laboured to live and end the same as they.
I liked this feeling ; I liked to feel that there was not
a field in all the land that was not mine. I did not
care if it were hedging or ditching, sowing of grain,
hoeing of grain, making the sheaf, or bearing it to the
mart or mill. Were they planting or trimming or fell
ing of trees, that were my task surely. In the woods I
feel more like a tree than a man, and in truth I would
rather be a tree. A forest tree confined to shade and
scents of the fallen leaves, soil about my feet, the sun
and the clear air round my head, then I must live and
grow uprightly. I mused on what I saw, and I have
written of what I saw and how I mused thereon.
Just before dusk the sea broke upon us ; there was
a strange sense of the Far North, of hairy and befurred
men, of oil and blubber, rude little craft and crafty

64 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
little huts, instinct with desire to hide themselves away
from roaring winds and clouds of snow. This was
Asamushi, on the Strait of Aomori, facing the shore
of the most northerly island of Yezo. This sea hath
no motion, nor any sound — a water that listens for
lovers, as Swinburne writes. Often there is more in
mute things than in those which speak ; the dead are
the inspiring ; things gone are nearest, of most account.
What we long for is truer far than any thing. or person
we may touch and know. All gladness is in silence
and in stillness born. What we did and dared to think
we would do — our dreams, and dreams of dreams : they
have provided the big sensations, the fortunate prizes
of our lives.
At Asamushi Time was mine. No sound or threat
of sound. I was beyond the reach of man and his
concerns. To be unwanted is to be at the maximum
of self for self. I felt like a bride who, content, nursed
desire for an appointed season, then threw restraint to
the winds. To give up is to take up the best of self.
For hours I climbed the wooded hills, browsed
among the wet weeds and the mud borders of the paddy
fields. Then I took to the silent, black village again,
and looked for life. That was my want — a sign of life.
I could not accept the dirt-begrimed little women,

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 65
pulling at timber and manure packs and charcoal and
fishing boats ; I could not accept the men either. They
were not men any more than the others were women.
I had a temporary feeling that I was wasting time,
that it would pay to move on ; but I soon corrected
myself. I had come to see the Far North : what its
people were and lived by ; not to wish for anything
different, or to run away from anything. That is where
the world in general loses so much. It runs away from
every suspicion of drabness or what it cannot enjoy
readily. That is why I am not a gay traveller ; that is
why travelling is hard and painful work to me. I stay to
see the glamour wear off ; I take no man's word ; I give
the word as I find the sum of the land and its people.
I did not observe a marked difference in the peasant
of the Far North from the peasant of the Central Prov
inces. In stature, in manner, and in employment he
seems, and she seems, to be much the same. The men
put on more clothing because of the intense cold, and
the women for the same reason : which is which and
who is who is discernible only after close inspection.
Quilted blue cotton stuff provides a long shirt or smock
tied in at the waist, and cotton trousers padded and
poulticed are worn equally long or short by both sexes.
Gaiters of brown rush and yellow straw, straw coats,
(2,120) 5

66 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and occasionally a green-hide, furred, or hairy animal
skin, forms a coat or protection for the back of the wearer ;
handkerchiefs and fur hats cover the heads. There is
no thought of appearance ; there is not a so-called
savage on the face of the earth wearing ruder garments
than some of the peasant people of Northern Japan. I
do not state this unkindly, but as a fact. Every country
in the world has its primitive section, its debasing em
ployments. I did not see enough native wealth in the
Far North of Japan to lead to any race improvements
within a measurable time. Military strategists won't
improve the peasants ; they are more likely to destroy
them or drive them out.
The sea came in and went out, it rose and it fell
silently, and the shore remained the same. I saw a wet
line, and no more. Little frivolous waves flirted with
the pebbles, and the pebbles jeered and lilted in reply.
There were contradictions here. A soft, broad-lapped
land, an idle sea, a silent folk, a convincing threat and
expression of poverty. I saw no happy child, nor any
clean one. I saw no soul capable of smiling, or that
understanding which we Europeans regard as the base
of our existence. So you may see I was not idle nor
wasting time. I was seeing ; and though I saw little,
and could feel little oat of what I saw, it was the all of

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 67
a community, though it were but a village. I was con
vinced that there were no ancient crones, no old men or
old maids in Northern Japan. I did not see an individual
old in appearance or infirm, and I looked industriously.
With so little to do in the house, most of the girls
are available for outdoor employment ; and beginning,
they find no chance or desire to leave off. They work
without making any sound or sign of labour. That is
one of their most attractive qualities ; they are so quiet.
Indeed, I would call them the Quiet People. Only
when they are angry and afraid of themselves do they
raise their voices, and then one hears them from a dis
tance, and keeps to it. I tried to distinguish between
what might be homage and what respect, but I failed to
inform myself. At Asamushi, the mistress and her three
maids did me reverence all, but in varying degree ; for
it seemed that the maids had no such privileges as their
mistress, and their bows and obeisance, their glances,
smiles, and shufflings, hither and away, were unlike as
might be.
For instance, on my arrival the hostess came into
my room, undressed me, slipped on a kimona, tied a
band round my waist, and seemed to hug me as she
tied and delayed the tying. Then she took me by the
hand, as if I were a feckless child or a strange sort of

68 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
prize, pushed back a portion of a wall, and revealed a
winding stair and cavernous depth, whence came a
strong earth odour. The place held thermal springs,
and this house was built over one of these. The hostess
descended the stairs before me, holding my ankle,
directing my foot, stroking my white skin, and cawing
her pleasure. Arrived at a landing, another wall sec
tion was thrown back, and I saw a sort of well, with
blue-gray walls, and in the centre of the floor a pool,
from which curled up a wraith of greenish-blue and
white steam. The effect was bewitching, a fine example
of the magic and artistry of the East. The little dame
pointed to my bath, bowed, and left me.
Later, she waited on me at each meal, usually crouch
ing and bowing, and never leaving the room till she
saw that something more to eat or drink was ready in
the kitchen. The maids would open the door and look
in, for no reason that I could discover ; but enter they
would not when their mistress was with me. They were
not shy nor forward, nor more than a little bit curious.
A few actions of mine must have appeared odd to them,
and of these they talked together. It was only when
they brought anything to my door and the hostess was
with me that they showed such extreme courtesy, bow
ing and bowing, and pushing my bowl or platter into

OUT OF THE INFINITE PAST 69
the room with their eyes averted, as if the sight of or
shrine of this god was a blinding spectacle. The big
manservant was as obeisant as the womenkind. He
touched the floor literally with the crown of his head
every time he came to my room.
This was so like a scene out of Vathek, Rasselas, or
some other Arabian romance, that I never felt I was
so far East as I knew I must be. Indeed, it was these
minor traits of human life, these manners and customs,
which made the tie and the interest. Japan was not
new ground. It was the oldest ground, the place where
old romance was a living thing. The armour and the
dungeon had gone, the captive prince and the white
maiden were nowhere to be seen. The steed was not
dappled nor dark ; there was no boundless plain over
which Mazeppa might fly. Yonder lay island and island,
snow peak and calm seas ; the sun shone and the winds
blew, violent and more violent were the threats of storm
by land and by water ; and the little brown men, and
the tinier blue rag dolls of women, bent and bowed to
their toil, that they might hear less or fear less from
the elements : but the Stranger cometh, and the door
of old romance and ancient life is flung wide. The
Little People do remember ; they received so slowly
and in such a time as to retain acts of obedience towards

70 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
man, such as were exacted when men — some men —
were worshipped as gods. So, for myself, I was glad
I saw and felt this homage. Here was no possibility
of two sets of manners ; all were to the manner born —
to that manner they must die.
*.v, jf. Ji «|fc Jfe <U>
W TP OT TP VF OT
The rascal who kept the house charged me four
shillings more than he had the right to, but may I
forget that and think of my gains at Asamushi. Whilst
I was there I liked it all, and when I had gone I liked
it, if anything, more. What a room it was ! And what
a bath that was ! What a hostess she was, and how
proudly she sat and sewed a hole in a coat for me !
The Japanese women won't wash clothes, they can't
cook ; but, lord love 'em ! they can use a needle. I
felt proud to wear the trousers one had darned at the
knee, and the coat seemed more comfortable from having
been sewn and handled by my tiny hostess. She had
a singing kettle holding two gallons or so of water, and
worth a ton or two of money, I should say, from all the
flowers and tracery and inviting little scenes that covered
its entire exterior. Also there were some rare bits of
native wood used in the house decorations, which pleased
me mightily ; but if one sits down to write of Japanese
houses and their gods, one will write of nothing else.

CHAPTER V.
OF RICE, A RICKSHAW, AND RIOTOUS LIVING.
T WENT off feeling I was leaving friends, and I
¦*¦ needed them, for soon it rained snow and sleet, and
the dirty tail of winter smirched me at every turn of
the road. Hundreds of peasants crowded at Aomori,
and I was kept warm moving amongst them and observ
ing their extraordinary variety of garb and their very
primitive faces. They wore undressed fur mats, hats,
and coats, with no attempt at finish or fit. All were
booked for the same region as I — to do the spring work
on the land. For once I did not want to be third class.
Japanese tobacco is mild, and does not pollute the
smoker ; but this crowd carried round some rare odours,
of which one whiff was enough ; but there were many,
chiefly from rancid fat and blood, and the wild stench
of the undressed skins which formed the warm gar
ments of the crowd. We soon got into very prosperous
country, the low levels soaked with water and snow on
the banks by the railway, and it seemed that whatever

71

72 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
happened in a day or a thousand years, there would
always be rain and more rain.
Rich, elevated plains and vales lay between the
mountains and hills, but only the flat and the low land
was put to use. The Japanese display no capacity for
handling agricultural areas apart from the paddy field,
which is given up to rice, barley, hemp, and a little
wheat. Paddy is an Indian word for rice in an un
dressed condition, but it is now applied to any area
served by water to support short-lived crops. The
Japanese paddy fields are formed of decomposed peat
and the drift accumulations from old river systems and
storm courses. Here and there shelving land may be
excavated, terraced, and smoothed out to receive the
necessary flooding.
Rice is an aquatic plant, and will not grow to yield
profitable grain apart from a deep, fertile slush, which
must be covered with water right up to the time of the
harvesting of the crop. In spring the bare land is
flooded, that it may be loosened and enriched with
manure. In Japan the bulk of the soil dressing con
sists of weeds and rubbish collected from uncultivated
areas. When the manure, or dressing, has been trodden
into the slush by the feet of men and women, or forced
under by means of a broad, comb-like implement pulled

OF RICE 73
by a single bullock or horse, the land is again flooded
to secure a perfectly smooth and evenly-saturated body
of material, and to free all the fertilizing elements.
If the land is free of bad weeds, the rice may be
sown broadcast, and induced to germinate under two
or three inches of water. But it is a more common and
better method to sow the rice in seed plots and trans
plant in rows, as this facilitates weeding and moulding
up of the crop — an advantage always, as the rice plant
does best when preserving a good number of aerial
roots. With slight variations, necessitated by soil and
other local conditions, the preparation of rice land and
the handling of the crop does not vary in Western
Europe — Portugal and Spain — from Central and Eastern
Asia. The rice terraces to be seen in parts of Ceylon
are, in my judgment, the most perfect examples of
industry adding to native beauty of anything to be seen
in the world.
The Japanese are truthful and humorous in their
terming their planting of rice " The Peasant's Dance."
It is that truly, but never a clean or cheerful performance.
In the North-west were wide, rich valleys, carrying
generous soil, and large, clean rivers. Peasant huts and
small villages were to be seen everywhere, and there
was enough native material in sight to develop and

74 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
supply a sound and comfortable population. Instead,
eve^ one and everything showed miserably lean and
mean. The land was not understood : that was the
cause of the poverty. Instead of one crop of rice an
nually, this land could yield an average of two or three,
costing less and yielding more than the best crop of rice.
In spite of all the labour, all the downright honesty of
aim, and the splendid content of the people, they were
not using half the flat land.
One might say their work represented hand-sewing
against using a machine ; in fact, it was using a small
pair of human hands against a team of horses or an
engine. But most of all was the system of culture at
fault. This land is not the sort for paddy fields ; in one
sense it is, in another it is not. There can be no new
Japan, no regeneration of the people, which shall mean
absolute physical betterment of the people, till the hand
labour and the paddy-field system are thrust aside or
limited to small and exceptional areas, which may not
be deemed worthy of the attention of the Government
and its teachers.
For hours on hours we passed through good country,
though it showed none but very poor people. Quite
the best-informed class of Japanese wished to convince
me that they needed to grow more, not less, rice. I

OF RICE 75
replied, " No — unless you are prepared to perpetuate
the degenerating customs of Old Japan. Don't think it
can be done by schools and pedagogues wearing double
glasses. Get agricultural engineers to put the land in
order ; establish demonstration grounds ; assist small
and large landholders to travel and study abroad, and
apply their knowledge to their own lands. Agriculture
can be learnt in the field, and there only. Agricultural
schools are job shops and little more. I've worked in
them. Don't think school-trained farmers will farm ;
they won't. They'll go into Parliament or County
Councils, if they can, and' talk about farming."
The Japanese peasant needs to have his land put in
order to accommodate more varied and better crops.
He may grow fodder for animals, then he can keep
animals to work and improve his land and his lot.
Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Britishers,
Danes — these are the people knowing most of the
things Japan requires to know and put into practice in
her agriculture. Except that there are no hedges, no
signs of trimness and solid wealth, one may travel for
days and days in Northern Japan and see country almost
exactly like that of the southern half of England, though
as a whole it bears a striking resemblance to Ireland,
only much more hilly. In fact, it is mountainous, and

76 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
it is impossible to get out of sight of mountains and
splendid hills. The heavy snowfall in the North will
enable water power to be used both directly and by
electricity for a variety of purposes.
One can do no less than admire the men and women
on the land. Praise makes but a poor epitaph ; but for
those who are to come after may a little more be done.
Where there is no Sunday, no market day, and burying
makes a dull funeral, I see no reason or delight in living.
I saw no peasant man or woman at play, and I believe
in play far more than I believe in work. I work only
to get health and the means to enjoy my play. I saw
no man sitting at his door enjoying his prospect, or
looking as if he had any prospect. If I saw anything
plainly, it was the purblindness of those who were slav
ing and trying to live by the land. The Japanese peasant
is the simplest child. He has a certain cunning and
astuteness, as have all primitive people ; but until
trained to think, and shown a better way, he will win
no splendid harvests from his land.
Japan must not be afraid. Neither Asia, Europe,
nor America wants to overrule her. Whatever comes
into Japan must soon be Japanese ; she cannot expect
more foreign capital without more foreign men. If I
were twenty years younger, and possessed of the sum of

OF RICE 77
agricultural knowledge which is mine to-day, I would
throw in my lot with Japan, and in twenty years see
her wring from twenty to thirty millions sterling annually
over and above what she wrings from the soil to-day.
This is no high-falutin'. The land is there, the water
is there, and an abundant population to the labour born.
The vast bulk of the country is in a state of Nature, so
are the people, and it is not attractive and complete
Nature either. Northern Japan is cold for its geo
graphical position, but it has a milder climate than
the south of England ; and the only excuse for its back
wardness is the old one of Don't Know.
Of course this is not condemnation. I have nothing
but praise and sympathy for the Little People. With
the means at their disposal within the last fifty years
they have worked wonders ; they can see and think
and work, take a kick and come again. If I see any
diversion of effort it is in the way of pursuing a foreign
rather than a domestic policy. I must not pretend to
know everything, or I shall be set down as knowing
nothing ; but it seems to me that Japan can do with
out the strain of a big army. If she can keep her
Navy strong enough to protect her shores, she will be
better off in employing her men in developing her land.
The extent, variety, and numberless uses to which this

78 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
may be put, make it the sole and abiding stock-in-trade
of the Japan of the future.
A little while ago I wrote that it was my habit to
stay in places till the glamour wore off, and I saw the
stern and irksome side of things ; but it is well with
me if I can count my pleasurable life down to so many
yesterdays, to remember so clearly that I may lift into
my presence all that was best in the past.
After night fell upon the road I was carried for
three or four hours through driving rain and pitch
darkness, then I arrived at Akita, a small town on the
north-west coast. A hotel had been named for me,
and, taking a rickshaw, I was whisked off, not knowing
if the lodging were across the road or a mile away. It
proved to be more than a mile, and if I could describe
what I felt and thought it would be a very comical mile.
Not that I was comfortable — and let me say I have
noticed that the discomforting, the fearful, and the
humorous often go together.
Outside my pockets, which were bulky and bulging
with odds and ends, I had three bags and a rug which
must be kept dry, a stick, and an umbrella — two good
loads, including myself, for two strong rickshaws and
men. But hurried by the rain, and worried for want
of pence, a rickshaw man bundled me in, tilted the

A RICKSHAW 79
shafts up, and told the porter to load my luggage on me.
He did ! Also a wet blanket and two wet tarpaulins.
Everything was muddy and mixed ; so were my feel
ings. I wanted to swear and to command, to laugh
and to get out and generally damn things and people
Japanese ; but thinking the discomfort might be momen
tary only, I said, " Away you go " — and away he went.
Lord ! how it rained, and a hole in the hood of the
rig shot the water first down my neck, then down my
chest. I said, " Hurry up ! " and the driver stopped
to argue. I said, " Hurry up ! " and something more,
but it did not and it does not matter.
Rain is water merely, and as it's that always in
Japan, there was nothing to heed or worry about. We
turned into a rather well-lit street, and took it for a
long way ; then we turned into a lane that was dark and
fearful, and into one, two, three others, if anything
darker and more fearful. I began to feel the least bit
nervous. Was I taken for a pay officer of the army,
come in the night with sacks of paper money, and was
I sniffed and scented and on the way to some robbers'
lair ?
I wanted to say, " How much farther is it ? " but I
couldn't say it. I couldn't say a word ; I couldn't spit
even, for the hood of the rig was in my way. The

80 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
rickshaw man padded on ; he had his spit and gurgle
and chest grunt now and then, as the road or his strength
varied ; but I had no employment but to hang on to all
my belongings, keep the water to itself, and wait for
light. It came at last — as nice a light as one could
wish for ; we rolled into a yard, and I rolled out. Some
how the materials got divided, and this animate part
stood up and then bowed down before a comely and
clean-looking young man, who had beside him a row
of five equally comely and clean-looking young maids.
I had arrived at the Ishibashi Hotel, and a mighty
good one it proved. This was my first experience of a
large Japanese Yadoya-inn ; kwan is an inferior title
corresponding with tavern. In the night it was all
passages and luminous paper walls, rooms and signs of
rooms beyond counting ; also there were beautiful fur
nishings, rare prints on the walls, and a clean odour
about ; in fact, there was something far better — there was
no odour at all. I was taken to what seemed to be the
remotest back premises, yet found myself in a wonderful
room. It was wonderful in what it held and what it
lacked. First of all, it held something invisible yet surely
there, which made me at home, secure, in a moment.
I have said I do not like security ; but when night
comes, when I am wet and cold, then I want to feel safe.

RIOTOUS LIVING 81
I was preceded by two or three of the maids, and
I picked one to serve me the moment I saw her amongst
the others — they all bowing and tittering and trying to
help me, who wanted no help at all. The elegancies of
the room I may never define or describe : I think it may
be that one is impressed by the sense of perfect form,
exquisite design, restraint of colour, and the finished
workmanship of everything. There are no bare spaces,
nor any that are bizarre. I remember that there was
a delicate little tea-set and appurtenances ; a large
chibashi (brazier) with enough glowing coals to make
the room warm ; a most familiar little iron kettle with a
dull brass lid sat singing, as if thankful that I had come
at last ; a lacquer bowl held three quaint but fasci
nating forms of sweets — cubes of rice jelly of different
flavours and colours ; and there was a complete set of
smoking requisites.
A maid gave me tea, the others bowing their hopes
that it would be an honourable effort to honourably
dispose of the honourable portion. I took it all, I took
everything in sight ; then the maids took themselves off.
Later I was honourably invited to honourably dispose
of the honourable dirt of the honourable journey. I
did, and up came the Far Eastern question of towel
or no towel. I was urged to wash, but I said in un-
(2,120) 6

82 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
mistakable Japanese, " Let me see the towel first."
" Ah ! the towel," said the sharpest of the three maids
in equally good and equally understandable Japanese,
" the towel — the Stranger uses a towel ! "
So a fat old man was called ; he lay buried in a
box beside the lavatory. When he got out of his box
he went to another, and drew forth a small, dirty, wet
rag. Very kindly, very gently, very firmly I said,
" No. A towel, just a towel." And to prove one slight
difference, I produced my handkerchief and put a bit
of the wet rag and a bit of the dry handkerchief against
the face of my favourite little maid. She liked the atten
tion and the humour ; she appeared to bully the silly
old man, and signing me to wait, she went for a towel.
In the course of time it came, dry, clean, diaphanous,
small. It might dry my face and neck, but not my
hair ; so I made a wash with limitations, but it con
firmed me that I was indeed at home. The maids
arranged the bed, saw me into it, screened me off, and
said, " Sayonara," which means, " Good-night — Good
bye — Sweet dreams," and I was soon asleep.

CHAPTER VI.
JAPANESE INSTINCT IN ART.
A RT is not all. If it were, I could not say enough
¦*¦ *-of Japan. The Japanese is in some ways the oldest
human form remaining for our study. He is the most
discerning and the most primitively cautious man in
the world ; he is more informing than lower physical
types, because he is more accessible. We cannot get
much from an Australian aborigine, because he never
was much, nor had he any native power of communi
cating the little he knew. He neither felt, reasoned,
nor desired to reason. We can go to nothing more
remote than the oldest orders of civilized man, and of
these the Japanese is most informing. He is the only
man preserving animal instincts who can communicate
with man.
As I estimate the Japanese as a race, they are more
primitive and more advanced than we. They can see,
think, and feel in all ways — backwards, forwards, here
abouts, out of the depths, into the depths. They know

84 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
of things outside themselves, within themselves, which
we do not ; they are still impelled by true instinct
rather than by communal reason ; they are linked and
in league with all we know or desire of the earth earthy,
and they remain the best study for us on the earth
to-day. And why ? Because their Art, their Employ
ments, their Life do not mean for them what we think
they do.
Our views of Art are not as their views, any more
than our ways are as their ways. We cannot think back
to obtain any addition to life unless we can feel back.
Sometimes in rare, sub-conscious moments I am at
the beginning of animate things ; not a Mortal but an
Atom, that feels and is conscious of feeling — no more.
The Japanese do not speak of or think of their work
as great Art, but perfect Nature. This is no more
than Shakespeare's the Art itself is Nature, but in
the Japanese scheme of life Art is for enlightenment
rather than for enjoyment.
The strongest feature, the distinctiveness of Japanese
life, may be 'voiced in the word intimacy, but this does
not explain all ; it goes beyond intimacy with each
other and the things they touch and look upon. They
discern so far, they seem to have no voids in their world
— no mysteries, nor any unsatisfied desires ; they dis-

JAPANESE INSTINCT IN ART 85
play only such fears as are common to all animals.
There must be some rare, good, yet unexplained reason
for this, and if it is true, Japan's contribution to the sum
of human life and human story must be of rare value to
us. One may contend that intuition yields more than
investigation. The native Japanese needs no micro
scope, test-tube, nor any crucible ; his mind and his
mind's eye penetrates measures and appraises all things ;
it is a great good gift of insight that he has, and we may
well consider its source. I believe he owes much to
the fact that he has been long at ease. His isolation
has saved him to himself.
The missionaries of Art, Trade, and Religion have
never overrun Japan so far and so long as to alter its
store and the native man's way of estimating that store.
One may say that in Japan all things become Japanese ;
things native breed true, and things acquired are soon
overwhelmed by dominating native forces. A powerful
will is visible in all that belongs to Japan. Every human
being, every animal — and there are not many of these
— is wilful in a way peculiar to the land. It is a swift,
strong, and sure will, but quiet and gifted with the
advantage of the sense of ample time. Now Art and
all good things have sprung out of leisure, and it has
been the leisure of the mind rather than of the body.

86 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
A capacity for far-seeing and an idler's love of
pleasant places have led a few men in some lands, and
most men in a few lands, to the conviction that they
could do nothing better than enjoy the most beautiful
and most companionable things. A Japanese is wedded
by faith to the most perfect things ; his eye is true,
his land is sure, he has time and ample means. At
one time I complained that the Japanese had done
nothing great, now I see more in their national habit
of proving themselves artists all ; and theirs is the
highest and the only sane and worthy Art — the Art of
using Time well, and thereby living well.
We Europeans may never descend to the Japanese
state of mind and feeling ; I confess it might be a
descent, but not a disaster. A sane man does not mind
what he knows, once sure that he knows. A Japanese
once he learns of us is dissatisfied with himself, and
more or less ashamed of his own country ; but it were
better for the world of humanity if it tended towards
the Eastern rather than the Western conception of life.
The broad distinction is — Content versus Discontent.
The European wants to own things, the Japanese wants
to understand things. It is true and interesting that the
Japanese will does not preserve its force and character
once it comes under European influences. In fact, the

JAPANESE INSTINCT IN ART 87
whole man changes ; he becomes fluid, vacant, and
ready to absorb influences of every colour and degree
of value. Japanese Art, the Japanese system of life, is most
elusive. The mental craft and handicraft, so pronounced
throughout Japan, fades out once a man leaves his native
land. This is a reassertion of the primitive elements
and the capacity for adaptation. The more one knows
of the instincts of wild animals the better one is equipped
to estimate the Japanese. When a wild animal is driven
to the necessity of securing a new lair it displays fears
and emotions unlike those employed amid familiar sur
roundings. The Japanese shows wild, and is concerned
in the same degree. Under dual influences no animal
can remain wholly tame or wholly wild. I say this
only to make clear that to know a wild animal one must
study it in its state of wildness, and to know the Japanese
one must see them uncontaminated by the peoples,
prejudices, and material things of other nations. Also,
this means that many things good to perfection in Japan
mean little and serve less once they are detached from
their source.
This profound sense of intimacy is not the equal
endowment of all the stay-at-home Japanese ; but it is
frequent, and in the aggregate abundant enough to shed

88 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
a rare light upon the most primal instincts and employ
ments of civilized man. One may contend that the
Japanese are the least sophisticated of the civilized orders
of men. They have fallen back upon themselves where
others have fallen back upon others, and repeated the
process to no end. Nothing has left Japan to make her
less than she was, nor anything come in to make her
more than she was. She is the Shrine of Conservatism
— the Enemy of Change. She has killed faiths by dis
regarding them ; she has preserved her early emotions
by failing to perceive the need of any other or higher
emotions. That is the general attitude, and, as I have
said, it is still common enough for us to see, and with
some trust desire.
And what is this elusive Something that is so eloquent
and convincing in Japan, and yet not namable, estimable,
available, acceptable for us ? I attribute all difference
in values to varying powers of perception and reception.
Europeans, as individuals, have fooled themselves into
a state of complete ignorance by engaging in the study
and pursuit of more than they might possibly under
stand or put to use. The Japanese has desired little,
and only desired what he might understand to his own
security. There was a time when our ancestors lived
by the same studies and performances as the Japanese

JAPANESE INSTINCT IN ART 89
peasants of to-day. Also, there was a time when our
workmen were thorough, and knew a great deal of the
nature and story of the materials they employed ; but I
cannot be persuaded that any of them knew, as the
Japanese know, of the material earth and its store.
The Japanese makes all things live, and he does this
by proving that he is part of all things. To him noth
ing is so dead and disorganized that it may be ignored,
nor is anything beyond his reach. He puts all things to
use, yet leaves them as Nature formed them. This, if
strange, is true. So, one is led on by him, and led to
no end by him, for he is the end. That is well. One
sees him occupied, winning in silence, winning always,
the prizes of Time, and they are ever so simple, so
natural, yet so rare. He makes you see their value —
the value of all visible and definable things.
This, it seems to me, is the rare elusive Something
the Japanese has to give us — the offering of a new way
of seeking and searching, a new way of accepting of the
things on which we may depend, a new method of
appraisement, and a new zeal for labour. He works ;
he works ; he works always. And when we consider
that he has worked in millions on the same small areas
and things for somewhere nigh two thousand years, then
we do not doubt that the intimacy that he claims with

90 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Nature, and his power of revealing instincts no longer
serving European needs, are due to his intensive system
of life, reliance on self, a power of seeing in and in,
till home and heart are centred there.
He is the peasant proud — proud out of all he feels ;
he is the offspring of love-labour, his reward the
supporting sense of outward and near-by things ; he is
the world's most natural man, very old but audible,
and, as I see him, one whose way of life we should be
at pains to understand.

CHAPTER VII.
THE GARDENS OF AKITA.
/'""XN my deciding to visit Akita a native said, " Don't."
^-^He didn't know the town or the neighbourhood;
but he wished me to believe that he knew both, and
above all he was convinced that I should not get to
Akita without stealing some secret or substance of price
less value to Japan.
Akita has a regular cult of tree men and gardeners,
and I wished to see and learn of both. The men and
the owners of four gardens with their staffs proved so
engrossing that I could make but few notes of their
wonderful work. I own that I was haunted with the
fear that we Europeans might never discern the forms
and expressions of Nature so clearly as to place our
gardening among the Fine Arts. All the time I was
taking this garden work to pieces. To me it was like
a house furnished : it had its architect, its builder, its
furnisher, its caretaker ; it called for skilled handi
craftsmen to supply the furnishings — most of all, rare
91

92 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
eyes and hands to select and order them. Looked at
in this way, one may deal with Japanese gardens. What
stands out and places the Japanese head and shoulders
above Europeans is not their power of reproducing
natural landscapes on a reduced scale, but their subtle
knowledge of all the elements and phenomena of scenes
and of tree growth.
My first garden at Akita was vast and boundless.
In truth it was about ninety by ninety feet, confined
by house and other garden walls and thickets of living
green. Very old in material and expression, this garden
was but eight years formed and planted. Some of its '
large trees were over two hundred years old ; several
were pines over forty feet high, others were old stumps
and pollarded trees. All had been brought in with
never a thought that they might die, though they were
needed to reveal the struggle that is in all life, and
to yield a rare sense of age and character. Look where
one would, Nature offered a positive support, and the
feeling of privacy was beyond calculation.
The thickest trunks of the pollarded trees were over
twenty inches in diameter ; these were plum and wild
apricot, and there were fantastic and storied stumps of
elder, oak, and cherry. These trees had been prepared
—some in open country, others in gardens — in root

THE GARDENS OF AKITA 93
and trunk and branch over a great many years. As
stated earlier, they had been made prematurely old,
rugged, shaggy, dwarf, fantastic, by much the same
means as the quaint tree and bush forms of constantly
cropped thickets and hedgerows.
A large lake dominated the foreground of this garden.
Here the sunlight fell, and there was the sense of space
and gaiety almost, aided by immense dark and golden
carp in the water, and by stones, far extending shores,
and outlets to inviting coasts or fields. Away from the
water and the effects it produced, the trees were sombre,
and the shadows within the trees so pronounced, that
there was no hint of sun or sky overhead. The highest
mounds were about fifteen feet above the mean level,
and the water about three feet below, or, say, twenty
feet in all. This was a strong, sober, invigorating piece
of work. In the same neighbourhood another garden, little
larger than the first, was composed of an immense
stretch of dry and wind-swept waste or weald. All it
held was born of light — strong, dry, desiccating sunlight
was the source of this picture. The actual skyline
was overhead almost, for a series of houses, walls, and
trees confined the space ; yet a strong, hot light poured
in from the far horizon of a boundless desert. Little

94 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
hummocks, drifts, and depressions provided all the
charm of far-awayness to the most open space. In
naturally correct positions, there were several woods and
clumps of pine copses and banks of hawthorn trees,
shrubs, and azaleas ; damp depressions with appropriate
plants, and a large proportion of shaly and chalky floor
space, with winding, irregular courses of stepping-
stones. No weeds grew on the chalk or marl ; all the
clothed portions of the stonework rose above this dry,
churlish, uncongenial floor.
The space was in the form of a Y, the foot piece
and the right fork shorter than the left. This garden
was ten years old ; it would have been difficult to dis
prove it were not five hundred. Old stone, old timber,
old trees, the old of everything had been introduced to
provide true and storied effect.
This example of semi-desert gardening was dry and
hot in expression ; in fact I walked about with my hat
off, though the moment I turned to the other fork of
the garden, I discovered it was cold. Here was water,
heavier darker planting, some grass on the floor, shadows,
mystery, confinement, and many forces not to be seen,
but felt and looked for only. In its widest dimensions
this garden was not one hundred and forty feet. It
was vast, it was varied, and though one may not say

THE GARDENS OF AKITA 95
how, it was splendid — I return to the word — life-giving.
It was no place for the mere plant grower or the novelty
monger. It was a feast of Nature, sweet, complete.
What is so easily seen, and is almost impossible of
explanation, is the value of bare space in evolving effect
in this style of garden. I am convinced that this is
good gardening : that it is not trivial, finicking, childish,
or unsuitable to the European house or climate or human
want. Not how it is done, but why it is done, that we
should know. We can have it ; the question arises,
Do we need it ? Is it as good as, better than our own ?
Often it is better ; it is worse never ; it is fit for rich,
poor, and medium spenders ; it is fit for towns and all
confined spaces ; and it takes one a long way further on
the road to happiness, bred of insight, than do most
European gardens.
In their gardening the Japanese leave nothing, yet
everything, to the imagination. It is not like a bit of
wild or sylvan coast : it is a stretch of wild or sylvan
coast. Our choice of positions for, and our approaches
to, water are our weakest points. I am anxious to make
plain that the Japanese designs a setting, moulds a floor
or foundation, which rises into, pervades, justifies, and
finishes all his good landscape work. In a sense the
Japanese garden lacks that dignity demanded by our

96 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
great houses and large domains. Japan never came to
what we know as spacious days and stateliness. I saw
the old-time gardens of several daimios, or feudal lords.
These were all strongholds, the material chopped out
and piled up with no more thought of creating beauty
than a railway contractor has in making cuttings and
forming embankments, or the men who made the earth
works about moats.
What the Japanese, and some Europeans, call the
great gardens or parks of Japan have no special merit
in ground plan or in choice and style of planting. As
a general statement, one may say that the best Japanese
garden instinct is town bred ; the towns are not, and
never were, large. Also there is a great deal of garden
work, so-called, in Japan, which has no character or
quality whatsoever. In my estimation, the best work
is the modern. The insight, the art, and the skill have
grown ; the extreme privacy and narrowness of Japanese
life in olden times made it difficult to combine so many
good things as are available to-day. At the same time,
Japanese gardening is intensely conservative ; in no
good example is there much variety in plants, and there
is always a notable absence of flowers.
I may never describe the extraordinary charm and
the compelling effects of another of the gardens at Akita.

THE GARDENS OF AKITA 97
The space was about seventy by one hundred and fifty
feet ; the house stood to one corner of the length, and
the principal view was from the house across the garden
space diagonally. The larger part of the area was per
fectly level, and covered with purple, brown, and bronze-
gold moss or sedge, varying from one to four inches
high ; an irregular belt of trees and shrubs formed an
extensive woodland around this old lake or river-bed,
or once-flooded hollow, for everything pointed to such
cause and effect ; very dark, almost black, water- worn
stones lay about, appearing to sulk at the absence of
water and the way they had been left high and dry. A
few tiny plants ventured to grow near, and made a
kindly effort to console the scowling and lonely monsters
of the river or lake, long dried and gone.
Five of us sat staring, wondering, debating which
and what things yielded such overwhelming and charm
ing effects. I plumped for the bare floor space ; but
was it bare ? Was ever a weed less of a weed, or little
bare patches more full of beauty ? I remember one
thing — we were all lost. We were far, far away. The
feeling was like that we have when out on the rocks
or a salt marsh : we fear the waves will cut us off and
overtake us before we may regain the higher land. I
saw this floor to fear it, to love it, to be envious of it.
(2,120) 7

98 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
I wanted it. I looked for salt and sourness ; I knew
sourness must be there by the nature of the mosses and
lichens and algae making this wonderful floor. Here it
was burned a rich purple, there it was more vigorous,
had grown over more time, and was a hot seal-browre,
then gold, changing by the most gradual shades, and
no spot furnished or bare but was exactly as Nature
disposes of such a piece of land. Here was seen the
art of letting things alone : the perfection of restraint.
The trees around played their part, though one
could saot individualize them. The floor of dark purple
and gold moss, sedges, and sour grass, the trees all
dark, the stones all dark, a few light and purple splashes
of maple, and the eye of the sky — these simple things
made the rare scene. A copper-coloured azalea and one
of white afforded all the colour visible among the belt
of shrubs, the woodland clumps of pine. Each item
was in its place to the last inch ; there was not a loose
leaf about, nor the trace of a spade, rake, or broom. The
landscape was the greatest I had ever seen in so small
a compass, and on leaving I was told that its maker
was a peasant under forty, who had never worn a boot or
received a moment's instruction in gardening in his life.
I carry with me a picture — a landscape, man-made,
yet passing the wit of a European man.

CHAPTER VIII.
NIKKO : THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES.
AT Akita a rare sense of remoteness kept one glad.
¦^ *-The toiling, straining, fearing multitude of Europe
were replaced by men who, silent and without sign,
had come to see and share the sum of sums. But for
my pocket diary and the face of the world, I had no
knowledge of time or season. It was May, and the
earth showed it to be spring. The cherries, azaleas,
and slender-stemmed wild apples were in full bloom.
One morning Nyo San roused me at five, made tea,
and served my breakfast. In other ways she was very
kind and circumspect. At six-thirty I was off; the
morning an ancient gray, nothing young nor fresh nor
quickening in sight ; the valleys and their crowds of
peasants putting in the spring crops kept me to reason
able employment, and I wrote with a desire to improve
their lot. Although Nikko proved a rare place, I arrived
to experience a disturbing sense of loss. For days I
had been alone with my peasants and gardens — alone

ioo THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
with myself. Nature and primitive human nature had
been ample for my desires, as I enjoyed the rare bless
ings of privacy ; but I had to go on, and the next halt
was at Nikko.
What a place for pilgrims ! or it used to be. True,
they came in my day ; but how different, how worse
than different, how empty, heartless, tired, and soul
less they all seemed. Nikko is lovely, but I could not
bow to its temples and shrines.
They were neither. I saw rare beauty in the situa
tion, and rare use made of the red lacquer and the stone
lantern ; but the human scheme was so old, so tricky,
so destitute of soul for soul, that I had not a suspicion
of reverence or any thought that it was a duty to kneel
and be glad. Always ready to kneel, to weep even,
I could regard this as no more than a circus arena —
a natural theatre, a place of merry-making, under the
protection of the Happy Gods of the mountains.
As I don't like the ugly, I will not dwell on things
I thought ugly at Nikko. Instead, I will write only of
its charms, its grandeur, its inspiring airs ; and, please
the gods ! these lines may show how far I was inspired
there. What queer folk have money ! Often I have
laughed at the earning faculty, the saving faculty, and
the class who come in for windfalls. Oh that the winds

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES 101
from heaven had blown instead ; oh that brains were
as common as cash ! The hotel was crowded with
travellers, and I heard talk of everything except the
good things of this world. A good time was secured
or missed ; they made a good bargain or a doubtful
one ; they were bargain hunters to the last of them,
and blushed not as they described the diddling they
had done all along the road.
I wrote the foregoing testy words as I moved about
with a landscape gardener. He wanted to bleed me,
and I to bleed him. The only difference, I had no
secrets or desire to hide my light where he was astute
and thick-skinned as an armadillo.
As soon as he discovered I wanted information, he
had none to give. I liked better " the richest man in
Nikko." How many millions of any country's cash that
might represent I had no idea ; but he must have been
" pretty safe," as people say, for Nikko numbers several
thousand inhabitants, has a royal residence, some large
hotel proprietors, big shops, and a good many folk
who live privately. I had some proof that the richest
man in Nikko had free capital, as he was employing
some thirty men and women in entirely unproductive
work — if making a garden may be counted unproductive.
I met the rich man after driving a desperately hard

102 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
bargain with his brother and niece, proprietors of a
curiosity shop.
When I can't deviate from the straight course of
travel over land or over paper, I will go no more a-roving
and I will write no more of roving, so here I digress
and describe how I came to meet the richest man in
Nikko. At the curiosity shop I picked out what I
wanted, put my own value on the articles, and asked,
" How much ? " " Twenty-seven yen." " Too much ;
I'll give you fifteen yen, and not a sen more." *The
very sweet-faced little woman suffered a temporary loss
of beauty and of balance. Never mind. I stood upright
enough, and she could take fifteen yen or nothing.
After a lot of sighs and most fascinating blandishments
— to which I nearly fell a victim — she agreed to take the
fifteen yen, when in came her father, and she promptly
withdrew her consent. Very well, let's talk about
Nikko. Oh no, there was no money in talking about
Nikko. The father was a keen lover of the books he sold,
and honestly, I believe, he placed a far higher and better
value upon rare old things than the money profit they
brought him.
Very carefully, lovingly, he turned over the pages.
They were books illustrated by Toyokuni and Katsu-

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES 103
shi-ka, and prints by Otamaru and Hiroshige. Every
now and then he looked at me from above his spec
tacles. He could speak English enough to make his
way with me ; but with his daughter on the one side
and me on the other, he was eloquent in both tongues,
and for once I gained the meaning of every word. He
ejaculated, he smiled, as he renewed his acquaintance
with the pages. Book-lovers can estimate the worth of
a smile born of the rare feelings which come on making
the acquaintance of some page or picture long since
lost sight of or forgotten. So the elderly and grave
man was glad and made easy. I had helped him back
a stage or two. Like myself, he would rather be dally
ing than going forward. I made no effort to grow into
his heart, but I saw that he regarded me not unkindly.
When he had thumbed and folded, lifted, caressed, and
respread the things, and his daughter had bewailed her
indiscretion and the hardness of the stranger, the father
turned to us, as if about to bless us both ; and this
is what he said : " My daughter, this is the sort of man
for you to meet ; he loves good things, and he is no fool
in business." At this the daughter's face came to itself again.
There is colour in the cheeks of all mountain-bred girls,
and the girls of Nikko have the pinkest cheeks in all

104 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Japan. Nikko San smiled herself into a beauty again,
and the father said, with some forced courage, as I
thought, " Gentleman, I make you a present of these
things." I might have been humiliated, but was not.
Now and then one must make a bargain, and as, I'll
own, I'd been rigged and diddled more than once in a
week, I was resolved to pay my price once in a way.
Nikko San inquired my business. I said I had none,
beyond making it my business to remain alive. Then
would I, since her father had lost money, would I recom
mend my friends to the house of Sasamoto ? Of course.
So here is a long and strange and far-sent advertisement.
No one may send to Nikko ; but he or she who goes
there may find proofs of more than one sort at the house
of Sasamoto, and if the traveller is masculine, he will
make no doubt that there is a fine eye, pink cheeks, and
a soft pleasing voice in Nikko San.
As my love of prints and gardens was discussed,
I was promised a visit to the garden of the brother of
Sasamoto : this was the richest man in Nikko. One
would not have guessed as much. He was of middle
age, small, lithe, very tough-looking, and dressed in the
garb of a peasant, with no addition or exception. He
was clean, but soil grimed. He bore every indication
of having devoted the whole of his life to hard outdoor

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES 105
employment. I talked with him, through a boy inter
preter, for a few minutes before discovering that he
was the rich man of Nikko. The boy said : " He is
so rich, he must work hard to spend some of the money.
He own a lot of these hills and farms over the moun
tains. He like work always, and now he work like all
these people. Always he work." I inquired, " Was he
married ? " and my question translated, the rich man
and a knot of his workmen and workwomen saw some
subtle humour in my inquiry, and they all laughed quite
gaily. In fact, it was the only boisterous laugh I had
seen escape the Japanese men. Yes, he was married.
Do you ask why the difference of making a garden be
cause he is or is not married ? Oh no ; only I wished
to know if a house were to be built in the garden.
Ah, that was a very pleasant question, said the boy,
and the rich man of Nikko said so too. He, too, would
know my business.
Curiosity is a strong point with the Japanese. I had
no card, but I satisfied him with my name written on a
plant label.
He affected to hang it from his chest, with the other
hand pointing to a tree ; we understood and laughed
together. The rich man sent for a kimono, and there
from he produced his card. It held a good deal of print,

io6 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
which the boy started to transcribe into English. Three
or four times he wrote and rubbed out the words, and
at last, desperate, he inquired of me, " What is the no
drink wine ? " I did not know, and I said so ; but this
was no answer. The boy began again, " What are the
no-drink wine, the water drink, the very bad wine
people, the good no-drink wine ? " It dawned on me
that the rich man of Nikko might be a brewer of ginger
beer, and I worked on this idea without result. At
last the boy found another word or two, and I was
made aware that the rich man of Nikko was a member
of some total abstinence society. This was the big
excuse for his card.
Of his gardening efforts I did not think so much.
The site was poor ; all around Nature was a glorious
and unapproachable rival. I saw trees, azaleas, and
other shrubs two hundred years old, dug up without
previous preparation, and brought into this garden.
They looked vigorous enough, but vigour is not desired :
only as much as will keep part of the tree or plant alive.
We remain unconscious that the living roots of the oldest
trees are young, and that old trees may be prepared for
transplanting as readily as young ones.
The boy displayed remarkable knowledge of trees,
especially of their ages and modes of manipulating them.

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES 107
He was an assistant at the curiosity shop, and might
have been excused if he had not known a deal plank
from a living oak ; but, as I have said elsewhere, a know
ledge of vegetable life seems to be in the blood of the
Japanese. I do not think they are what we term students ;
at least, they don't study in our way. They don't for
gather and contend and stew and keep their coats on
and their hands clean. Their hands are never clean,
and I do them no injustice in saying as much. Like
the rich man of Nikko, they are fond of work.
Now to me this means a great deal. It means all
that is possible as reward from any labour, a knowledge
of the subjects involved in that labour. I can regret
the absence from rural Japan of some things, but I
can approve the rare knowledge, the sane content, of
her people. It is better not to send our thoughts or
our dreams far over earth ; when we would escape from
what is about us, better that we look inwards rather
than over the hills. There is no peace that way ; there
is no imposing upon others, or learning of the lot ot
others to improve our own.
If the seven Happy Gods of Japan do not include
the god of True Insight, he is there to bless them,
though unknown, unnamed. Then they have the god
of Good Hands ; this god drives out the ghosts of

108 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Fearful Days. The god of Good Hands seeth that no
toilers fear dark spirits or bad dreams. As it is igno
rance that maketh man afraid, so it is insight of earth
and her offspring that maketh the great companions,
the fond eyes of the flowers, the safe arms of the trees.
In the East no man is afraid of life or ashamed to live
as a child, and the more he has learned by thought and
labour, the simpler are his employments.
Far among the least trodden hills of Nikko I came
upon a small temple or shrine. It stood in a little yard,
bounded by rough wood and paper cottages, which were
occupied by three equally old, equally parchment-like,
and equally silent priests. They loved companionship
so far as to sit in a row in front of one of the little cots,
and perform what at first I concluded were acts of
necromancy, for each was juggling with egg-shells which
fitted over the soil in a broad low flowerpot. As a
matter of fact, the old priests or hermits were covering
maple seedlings with the egg-shells ; and according to
the length of time and the pressure exerted, the little
seedlings would squirm and struggle more or less, and
controlled by the mind of the tyrant masters, come to
assume shapes characteristic of fortitude, strength, fear,
or beauty. As I stood in the pouring rain, and the three old men

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES 109
sat in the pouring rain, I looking down upon them, and
they never once deigning to look up or recognize my
presence, I had some good heartening thoughts ; but
they did not run to words, nor leave me any power of
saying what I had seen and felt to be made so glad ; but
on turning away, I felt that I had been in the very
Sanctuary of Mystery and Romance. I was among the
magicians and the men who control the destinies of
men; but I am no illusionist, and will write no more
than that the few egg-shells and forms they laboured
so idly and all silently to fashion seemed ample and
honourable employment.
Nikko is truly a wonder spot, a glorious blend of
mountains, forests, hills, and streams. Nowhere may
one hope to see grander cryptomerias or of a more
sacred and enchanting shade. There are many old
roads and lanes leading off and up to mysterious shrines
and gardens of the Eastern gods. Nowhere may one
wish for more lofty and extended chambers between
the trees and embowered ravines. It is the place of
echoes, the floods of rain and cataract making all the
sounds. The town part of Nikko resembles Cintra ; but
its avenues of trees, its natural woods, its cataract rivers,
and its peculiarly soft air make it a place distinct from
anything to be found in Europe. The temple roads and

no THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
paths, the walls and other things in stone are designedly
made to appear ancient. Ancient stone pavements are
tossed and tumbled, as if wracked and wrecked by a
sinking and ever sinking and shrinking floor. One sees
this where one knows there could have been no natural
subsidence or convulsion.
The Japanese love of imitation leads them to queer
lengths, and often one is convinced that they have far
more sense of natural truth than of natural beauty. In
early June Nikko is as crowded as Hampstead Heath
on an August holiday, for then the religious procession
takes place, and all the queer paraphernalia of the shrines
is put on parade.
The official programme ran : —
Here comes the Tengu (long-nosed and red-faced), with spear.
Here comes Shishi (the lioness), carried by three men.
Here come four Shinto Priests, with big fans.
Here come ten Monkey attendants, with Monkey.
Here come six Shinto Priests of Lower Order.
Here come fifty Shinto Priests of Lowest Order.
Nikko is a centre of gardening and dwarf-tree mak
ing, and some details of its art and craft will be found
under that heading. A sample of scenic ornament and
tree dwarfing may be imagined from the following:
six taxus plants to one foot, two azaleas to nine inches,
six rhododendrons, two maples, several ferns and pieces

THE SHRINE OF THE SACRED TREES in
of moss. All the above grew out of a piece of stonework
of about thirteen by eleven inches ; the weight in actual
soil did not exceed two pounds ; the space for holding
water over the entire surface did not equal one half-
pint. Everything was thriving, the size and the effect
enormous, the scale of everything perfect. The study
a joy for ever.
One does not soon forget Nikko, and as the sequel
to my visit will show, I remain amongst the least likely
to forget. Wanting more books on Japanese gardening,
I sent a letter to Nikko San, and this is what she sent
to me in reply : —
" Nikko, 2nd. Feb. 1914.
" To Mr. C. B. Luffmann,
" Dear Sir, — Receiving your kind favour, from London dated
on 2nd. Jann. I am very glad to hear that you had returned from
your happy and interesting journey. I suppose you have benifited
your study about garden while you stay in Japan. My uncles
garden aproaches to the perfect one gradually ; he planted many
kinds of tree since you inspect his garden last summer.
" It is much difficult that will get old books of Japanese garden
and the art of growing tree. But I will search its books with my
best. " New book about tree can easily find. But it will be quite
useless to you. My uncle studied it by new manner.
" At any rate I will search those book to you, and if I find I
will send to you instantly.
" Now, Dear Luffmann, I am very sorry to inform you that my
father who acquainted with you, died out last 21st. Dec. with only
one weeks illness, — pnemonia. I must succeed fathers business
with the body of Woman with Manly encourage and resolution.
So I want your kind sympathy, if you please recommend to your

112 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
friends that I have elegant exhibition of Japanese fine art curios
in Nikko. Specially I have procelain, lacquer, prints, brockades,
metal works, Ivory works, inro, Netsuke. Here I enclosed my
business cards. " hoping your kind help and advice
" Yours truly
" Miss. I. Sasamoto."
The correspondence proceeds !

CHAPTER IX.
A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN.
" I "HE Japanese are apt advertisers, but liable to injure
¦*- their cause from overstatement or repression. The
country north of Tokyo holds much natural beauty and
unfailing value, also many drab pictures and examples
of shortsighted neglect, which it were better not to
idealize or attempt to excuse. I rambled over and round
about two thousand miles of Northern Japan, and above
what I have said already, I came by the experiences and
impressions forming the substance of this chapter.
The larger bamboos do not grow in the North, and
one sees little of those materials which compose the
pictures sent out from Japan. My rambles did not
reveal a single bamboo bridge, castle, crane, except in
a cage, nor anything made by man of any size, except
the fine Buddhist temples at Matsushima and Nikko.
The oldest things were the stone monuments and the
cave dwellings. I did not discover the ideal and pic
tured Japan, except in the trees and the peasants ; and
(2,120) 118 8

114 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
the latter want rare distance to idealize them, for the
poor things were always of necessity very dirty.
Enoshima was a perfect thing of its kind — a little
wooded island just off-shore, a bar of sand and shaky
prop bridge connecting with the mainland. The quaint
boats, neither painted, tarred, nor oiled, looked very
unfinished, though in such numbers and enjoying such
idleness as they lay in all positions, one felt there could
be nothing more virtuous or sensible than idling, and,
in truth, it was an idle time.
Here the net-rope is pulled in by the means employed
by the fishermen of Spain — a short rope and piece of
cork is thrown over the net-line to make fast and release
automatically. With all the rare beauty of the hills and
vales, the coast scenery of Japan is the most distinctive
and beautiful. The river scenery is truly grand, due
to the volcanic and sedimentary formations and the
water- worn face of the country. Often among moun
tains or high hills one comes upon considerable strands
of shingle and sand, reaches of silent or only faintly
audible waters — -a sense of primal peace and abiding
security pervading all.
The mountainous region of Innai, south of Yokote,
in the North-west, is a rare scheme of natural scenery ;
whilst a little farther south, Jimba, a jumble and tangle

A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN 115
of high and serried hills, is amongst the glories of Wild
Japan. One evening I sat to watch the night fall upon
these hills. For days and days the world had reeked of
rain and flood, but, fine and the air warm, there was a
general advance of mists and clouds towards the elevated
land. All the highest peaks suddenly took fire as the
last rays of the sun fell about them ; then wraiths,
remnants, and streams of mist went up to put out what
had seemed like saint-enkindled, sacrificial fires ; the
winds blew a little less gently, as the cloudlets rose,
and there was a hurrying and gathering together of many
of the little white forms. With no time to be lost, large,
old, dark, but friendly clouds moved out from the hol
lows among the hills, and enfolded nearly all the fearful
children. Then the crowns of the hills showed through
steam or smoke-like mists, a moment later to be ban
ished by a wind which hurled the light and the dark
together, put out the fires and the violet heaven, and
left only blackness. At least there were none but black
objects against the hills — giant cryptomerias, solid and
hard as the pines in a Japanese print ; yet this was Nature.
With all the glory gone from above, I looked to the
feet of the hills and the knolls which sprang out of the
vales and interrupted and angered the river, as it strove
for a straighter and easier course. All the banks were

116 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
carpeted with golden moss, prying little shrubs, and
spring flowers. I enjoyed these friendly things in lowly
places, yet I felt that our richest feelings may be at such
moments when we take our flight with the clouds and
colour masses among the mountains.
Conical stones divide the open plots of land. At
rare intervals are rude hedges composed of mulberry
and white plum. Also there are mud banks, formed
by ditching to yield screens on some of the hills where
cattle are raised. Pack horses and oxen are fairly
numerous in some quarters ; but I saw not a sheep, nor
a pig, nor any poultry, and there is great need of these,
and much available food and water for them. In whole
districts there is no sign of a garden or attempt at beauti
fying house surroundings. True, the native vegetation
is so varied and irrepressible, and the peasant so poor
or so busy, that it would appear absurd to cultivate
more of anything. It is notable that there are no
exotics. If a shrub or a flower blooms by a door, it has
sprung up of itself or been planted there from a neigh
bouring bank or wood. The pictures produced by the
azaleas are often sublime. At a railway station a little
tree of a glowing terra-cotta grew higher than the rail
way carriage, and formed an arch over our heads as we
sat waiting.

A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN 117
One sees cryptomeria forests where thousands of
trees, felled and stripped of their bark, give a striking
feature to many a hillside. The bark is taken off, and
rolled neatly and put to various uses. The Japanese fell
their trees by hewing out the bole, and when this is
stripped like the trunk, it presents the appearance of a
Corinthian column, and it is easy to imagine that some
splendid palace is about to be reared, or that a mighty
one has been scattered over a hillside. Apart from the
timber getting, I was everywhere indignant at the
neglect of the hills. The Japanese never crowned any
Shepherd King. They have never touched their largest
source of profit as agriculturists. They are mud-
mongers, floundering and flopping about in their anasmia-
breeding vales.
The tops of the Japanese villages beat ours, but we
beat them in the bottoms. Their village streets are not
picturesque, and they do not look clean : all are so black.
Japanese walls and ground spaces are not as well kept
as ours. Thatch is the most common roofing material
of the peasant houses, and at a distance a Japanese vil
lage has a beauty and a charm unrivalled, especially if
one is able to look down upon its roofs. The green
crown of iris, which surmounts the thatch, surpasses
our patch of house-leek or valerian or London pride.

118 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
To make mud stick to walls, they drive in nails or pegs
and tie flax or grass thereto ; this is equal to putting
hair or long chaff in mortar.
Charcoal is used everywhere, but more generously than
is the case in Europe. The chibashi, or large bowl-
shaped brazier, may hold a considerable body of glowing
coals, and give off quite as much heat as a room requires.
In a few districts the people make wood fires, and the end
gables of the houses are made of open lattice-work to let
out the smoke. It is surprising how quickly one becomes
inured to cold. The going without boots, the thin walls,
the draughty or open air chambers must kill or cure,
and they do the latter in most cases and in quick time. ,
The handicrafts are the most primitive, and often
fascinating. I watched men making steel saws by hand,
to the shaving down and cutting out of the blade by
hand tools only. Others were making straw coats,
gouging out utensils in wood, and making brushes, brooms,
and hairpins. Every one showed a fondness for shells,
and a great many ornaments and utensils — as cups, bowls,
trays, vases, and boxes — are made of them. The device
by which the big kettle hangs suspended from the ceiling
is very ingenious, and sometimes very ornate. Such a
series of pulleys, cogs, and chains — I might not hope to
describe it.

A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN 119
The beauty of wood is recognized everywhere. Not
only in good houses, but in the poorest and meanest of
villages, fine shapes are used in decorative work. In
the second-hand shops one sees wood of all sizes — tree
trunks to many feet in height, all knotted and scrolled
and scarred by insects and natural forces. Big prices
are obtained for these storied specimens, which are used
to form and decorate rooms. To this end every gnarled
and knotted surface is left, and only so much planed as
will fit the adjoining wood or wall. In Japan they pull
the plane, saw, and all other tools.
A valuable fossil wood is found in the marshes round
Sendai, and near the railway station was a large sign,
" Fossil Manufacturing " — the chief industry of this
town. Every one must think that, even if there were
no sign, for away from the military quarters the place
is silent, black, and fossil-like.
The living reminded me of the dead ; they all looked
like queer survivals out of a dimly- lighted past. Nearly
all the shopkeepers seemed to be bent on hiding them
selves between the walls during the short hours of day
light, and coming forth with a caw and a crow, which
is the Japanese yawn and stretch, to work through all
the night.
Immense plants of wigelia — bocconia, rosa rugosa,

120 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
kerria, and prunus pisardi — form complete thickets, and
run rampant over the northern hills. In the Far North
I found a beautiful berberis, with long spines and willowy
rods of clean, green foliage, fringed with brown spots —
height about two feet ; also a red foliage maple with
conspicuous red flowers larger than a sixpence ; a decidu
ous magnolia ; many hazels with variegated foliage, and
some dwarf oaks of great beauty and variety. Seeing
this glorious shrubbery and woodland made me conscious
of the need of greater courage for cutting. Here not a
bit of bare ground was to be seen ; there was no end
to the variety and no bounds to the freshness, beauty,
and glory of it all, due in great part to the frequent
cutting by the woodman.
On the extreme north coast, exposed and intensely
cold, I saw over forty shrubs and woodland plants of
size and distinct beauty and value to us. A dwarf,
dense-growing aucuba would be a splendid cover for
big shrubberies, shady banks, and our woodlands. There
are many low, bushy varieties of alder with dark and
bi-colour foliage. In the North-east I saw apple trees
shaped and formed more intelligently than anywhere
else in the world. All the branches were spaced and
spread according to their vigour and angle from the
trunk, every branch tapering to admit light and air;

A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN 121
result — flower and foliage of equal vigour and value to
every part of the tree. This was not an isolated ex
ample, but miles on miles of trees all showed the same
intimate knowledge and skill in handling.
I saw some remarkable evidence of Japanese know
ledge of trees in the application of mat and straw cylin
ders, fully one foot in diameter, about the trunks of
young two and three year old apple trees, and these
cylinders filled with soil. In further proof of their skill,
I never observed a tree in Japan planted too deeply,
and I may say that in no other country have I seen
a tree that was not. The Japanese grow fruit trees
successfully on flat, wet plains or paddy fields by plan
ning for a small tree, a mat-root system, perfect drain
age, and crops between. The tree mounds run to two
feet in height and never more than eight in diameter;
the sides of the mounds are almost perpendicular.
Apples are extensively grown, also some pears ; though
the best sites for these fruits, the low foot hills, are
neglected. The mulberry trees and bushes are of all
sizes and shapes ; where the soil is warm, it is usual
to grow the mulberry as a small bush, and the general
appearance is that of plains or plots covered with currant
bushes, with domestic vegetable and farm crops between
the rows, which are usually about four feet apart.

122 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Japan is singularly immune from frosts and drying
winds, and their absence accounts for such generous and
such heat-loving vegetation. At Nikko, two thousand
feet elevation, I was told there were no spring frosts,
slight freezes in autumn cutting short the growth, but
never any ground frozen hard. Round Tokyo, barley
was ready for cutting on the twenty-eighth of May.
At Kamakura, on the thirtieth of May, I saw ripe barley,
though the ground had not been dry for a single hour
of the spring — in fact, it remained so wet that another
crop was assured without further preparation of the soil,
as the barley stood on ridges and the furrows were ready
for the new seed or plants. In many quarters oats would
pay better than rice. The oat would not hold the ground
so long, call for so much labour or water — in fact, irriga
tion could be dispensed with, and better results would
come from a dry and wet crop alternating.
The strength and industry of the Northern peasants
is courageous. When driving pack animals or a cart
the driver has a fagot or bale of something on his back ;
no one can go unburdened or empty-handed. I never
saw a man, woman, or child riding in a cart. I saw no
two-wheeled cart — a small four-wheeled trolley is the
medium of transporting heavy material, though almost
all is carried on human backs. No light cart, no wheeled

A SURVEY OF NORTHERN JAPAN 123
conveyance of any kind for humans except the rick
shaw, and that must be a rare luxury for the peasant.
All the working class sweat violently every day, so that
quarts of water escape them, yet they take only tiny
sips of unsweetened tea from tiny cups. In all the
North I saw but one tramp, and he made no appeal ; so
I felt I had been a member of a rather disgraceful fra
ternity. I saw several blind people, and many with
weak eyes and dirty skin diseases. Not once was I
molested, or subjected to the slightest rudeness. Per
sonal pride of a calm and controlling kind possesses
every one alike.
From an out-of-the way station I journeyed to Tokyo
on a first-class ticket, though a third would have done,
for the carriages were little more than trucks. Tokyo
spreads over a mud flat, eight by six miles ; in all
the advertising notices it was given as one hundred
square miles. That is the plan of what may be. I
hope not. Too much tawdriness and worse appears
in the new part already. The surrounding wall
and moat of the Imperial Palace alone had interest
for me, for the parks are not as good as they are
painted. Seiichi Kawamura, botanist of the Imperial Uni
versity, proved very useful to me, and I promised to

124 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
send him a book on Japan, if I commit the indiscretion.
On leaving Tokyo I crossed it in a rickshaw, the man
never ceasing to run the five or six miles. I paid him
fifty sen, or is. id., for his labour.

CHAPTER X.
THE LITTLE TREES.
T^HE Japanese made no special effort to inform me of
¦*¦ their tree craft. It now possesses a decidedly com
mercial value, and for this reason every one who has
knowledge prefers to be silent and secret. No free
mason, I do not believe in secrecy at all ; but I was in
terested in observing how news of my existence and my
mission got ahead of me. I made a point of examining
all the most beautiful and characteristic scenery of
Japan, also the centres of treecraft ; but with rare
intervals and exceptions I was little better off studying
tree-making in Japan than I would have been in Ken
sington Gardens. In the midst of plenty, often I
received no hint from man regarding his trees, and
making allowance for his natural and newly acquired
caution, I cannot think that the Japanese has the capacity
to explain how he arrives at seeing and reproducing
such scenes and subjects as form his ideal and consola-
125

126 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
tion, and which do little more than arouse our curiosity
or fill us with childish delight.
The term Dwarf Trees is not correct, as we should
say that the Japanese examples of miniature trees are
dwarfed, and not naturally small. If they were natural
dwarfs, there would be little art and less reason in making
a study and employment of them. In the matter of
selection, the Japanese is not interested or controlled by
size. He may not make a natural dwarf into a forest
giant, but he may control a possible giant till it assume
its characteristic form and splendour, though only a foot
or two in height or diameter. Nor is he satisfied with
a small tree : there is nothing wonderful or clever or
beautiful in that.
The Japanese tree-man desires to reproduce the
largest trees and scenes in Nature on a small scale for
convenience and economy. Also he wishes to make
something so convincingly true and beautiful as to
engage himself more and more to the object of his own
artistic conception. Herein is a remarkable fact. The
Japanese study of, and employment in, trees is an in
creasing study, an unending employment. It may not
be possible within the whole round of human activity
of mind or body to discover any other task which
may be undertaken so early in life, serve well all the

THE LITTLE TREES 127
way through, and give no hint of futility or failure at
the end.
A thousand and one things are known to, and held
as articles of faith by, the Japanese tree-man, most or
all of which might be thought superfluous to Europeans ;
but as there should be seekers after this rare hobby and
unfailing fortune, as much must be said in this volume
as may enable those interested to discern the causes and
the purposes of the dwarfed trees of Japan. One may
not begin with or think first of the tree as a tree. That
is the artistic part, and before this may be conceived
and developed, one must learn something of soil, scenery,
and the play of the elements — all the material and con
ditions affecting plant life. Hence there must be a busi
ness sort of account of the things and methods employed
by the Japanese before they come to the actual work of
planting and controlling their trees.
Of soils, choice of pots, and watering. — The soils
employed are as varied as the country provides, and one
discovers no exceptional medium, no potting soils of
Japan contrasting so much as the mixtures used in
European pot-plant culture. It is practically impos
sible to find in Japan what we term virgin soil. Cer
tainly there is no such thing near to towns and the
densely-populated parts of the country. The intense-

128 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
culture system has turned and turned the soil times
unnumbered. No soil is transported from one district
to another. In fact, the class of soil does not matter
much ; but of course it pays to select good material, and
to compound and water it properly. To obtain the
weakest and slowest of root growth coarse, threadlike
new peat is necessary. Peat may vary from coarse,
husky, and dry as cocoanut fibre, to a close-packed cake,
sticky as soap, like black mud in appearance. This is
taken from paddy fields or depressions of wooded vales,
and is not different from that which may be found in
any part of the British Isles.
I cannot pretend to describe what I know quite well,
and which others who may or may not have been in
Japan know very well — how it is possible to give much
air to soil and retain moisture without frequent watering
or shading. In a general way one sees in Japan no
dwarfed plants on a dry or dense floor, nor on one
which may attract and retain excessive heat. Almost
always the pots, pans, tubs, jars, or whatever holds the
trees, stand on thick soft planks, or on a hard floor cov
ered with mats strewn with moss or something vegetable
and feeding in its nature. This keeps the roots hori
zontal, or makes them squirm and assume fantastic
forms.

THE LITTLE TREES 129
At the most famous nursery in Japan the open-air
stages are made of old flat-bottomed boats, turned up
side down, and laid on posts. Most of the trees stand
on these old boats and thick plank stages, ranging from
two to five feet above the ground ; the higher or more
exposed, the dryer the situation — hence less growth and
more expression of the influences affecting form and
character. The object of the damp-retaining platform
or plank staging is to minimize the quantity of water
to the trees by direct application, as the less water the
better from the artist's point of view, if not from that
of the tree.
It may be observed that I am leading up to the soil
conditions favourable to dwarfing, and incidentally to
the most common cause of failure of Japanese trees in
Europe : excessive soil moisture, and excessively dry
and hot air in rooms — for the Japanese do not heat
their rooms or confine plants as we do.
In Japan trees occupy rooms, but these are usually
ais open and well ventilated as verandahs. With gritty,
silicious sand, peat, sandstone, firm but mellow clays,
highland meadow turf, chips of volcanic rock, pumice
stone, old mould from country ditches, one describes
practically all that enters into the composition (variously
compounded) of the potting soils of Japanese trees. Of
(2,120) 9

130 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
course there are some species which are given a decided
type of soil — for instance, the best specimens of thuya,
taxus, and juniper are found to be in firm loam, mulched
with sphagnum-moss, or the pots wrapped with matting
or other material during extra dry, windy, or cold seasons.
There is no difference in the potting mediums em
ployed for home or exportable trees — in fact, there can
be no thought of the ultimate home and end of a tree,
since the time involved is too great. Moreover, as
dwarf tree-making is one of the highest of the domestic
arts of Japan, the work is carried on by tens of
thousands of people ; and as the trees are never shaken
out and repotted, each tree grower does his best with
his local materials, studies his own landscape and cli
matic effects thereon, and produces trees according to
his own ideal and executive ability. Hence, a Japanese
agent or nurseryman may obtain a hundred or more
trees of one variety from as many sources.
This account should make it plain that there is no
such thing as a particular kind or blend of soil, nor
any special or secret method of sterilizing soil ingredi
ents, or adding others to aid or retard the growth of
trees. The country people stick pins and nails into the
stems of cycas, as they say the plants need iron and
won't grow without it. Certainly the pin-sticking

THE LITTLE TREES 131
diverts the sap flow, and causes more fantastic if not
more vigorous growth; but tree-dwarfing is the result
of the masterful knowledge of the plant as an organism,
and of the manner in which it may be trained, treated,
and kept alive over a practically unlimited number of
years. Against all our conceptions, our teaching, and our
practice the Japanese prove that perfect health, sound
ness, and longevity are procurable by the use of solid
and glazed pots and other root receptacles. It is most
noteworthy that they use shallow pots and pans. One
sees trees of great age, size, and vitality in pans not more
than three inches deep ; also scores of little seedlings
thriving in a pan and forming a wood or copse-like
effect. Three to four years are enough to work out
such a scene, and if no longer desired, each tree is
dwarfed and ready for a pot or pan of its own.
The Japanese use absorbent and non-absorbent pots,
pans, or jars with equal indifference. Pots and pans are
holding and controlling mediums, nothing more ; or if
more, they hold just as much soil as will enable a tree
to preserve its existence.* And in this I say emphatic-

* The Japanese do not like pigs or anything fat. They regard
all fat, bulky, and overgrown things as vulgar. Seven Happy
Gods reveal all the fatness to be seen in Japan.

132 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
ally they are right. It would be nothing short of pre
sumption to as much as think that they might not be
right. They are always right where they deal with
plants. Consider what it means to disregard the pot,
pan, or tub, to see the roots feeding or growing, or try
ing to feed or grow. Knowing where the roots are, one
knows their relative condition, and what they may or
may not do for themselves and the trunk and the branches
above. In our pots, and in our disregard of the study
of roots, our pot plants usually make roots at the top,
bottom, and side of the soil. The Japanese desire the
roots to taper and decline in volume as they run out
from the stem of the tree. They need the bulk of the
roots above the surface of the soil that they may control
and produce visible struggles and effects in root growth.
Hence it should be clear that it is the form, volume,
and condition of the soil, each important in the order
in which the words are placed, which determine the root
systems and head systems of artificially dwarfed and
shaped trees. Here one must insist that the Japanese
soil-maker and tree-man is an imitator, not an inventor.
He is not taught his trade in glass houses or within
walled gardens ; he idealizes the things he loves and
lives by. This means that he is, first, a student of the
ways of Nature ; secondly, an artist employing his spare

THE LITTLE TREES 133
time in reproducing his ideal conception of form and
beauty ; and thirdly, an amateur engaged in love labour.
Working on the land to know of the land, he sees what
grows in different soils and places, also how and why
it grows in such soils and places, and exactly what it
does look like in such soils and places. He does really
know and think, and think always, on these things;
hence he comes to be a master in the art of grouping
and placing them in effective positions.
Summarized, the art involves : —
1. A subtle knowledge of the possible movements and sustaining
powers of sap.
2. A knowledge of the influences of light.
3. A masterful conception of forms resulting from climate, soil,
exposure, wind pressure, or its absence ; sun effects on root, leaf
and branch arrangement and condition.
4. The long-continued study and practice of the art of tree-
making., 5. The gift or philosophy of patience, which makes possible
the art and practice of tree designing and training.
This tree craft leads to more or less specialization.
Some Japanese devote their attention to root systems,
some to trunk or branch systems, others to the whole
tree ; and, as a rule, the last class are the most numerous
and the least worthy of the name of master craftsmen.
I believe it will be readily conceded by any one who
has lived to enjoy the study and handling of trees, that

134 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
the most subtle study of all is that of roots. To manipu
late them and secure response to every desired form and
combination of forms is difficult indeed. To plan for
rare and beautiful, and at the same time secure surpris
ingly natural and informing effect, is an almost magical
achievement, and the author a true artist and rare crafts
man. He is found in Japan and in Japan alone, for
though the Chinese and other peoples of Eastern Asia
build and contrive with living things, they do not con
ceive or evolve anything natural in design and truly
splendid. Ingenious toys are all they produce.
So the Japanese artist in root design takes first place
among tree-men. It is true we may see so many splen
did combinations of root, stem, and branch growth in
one and the same tree as to be convinced that many
men exerted consummate and all-round skill ; but we
must not forget that no one man has produced a great
tree. That is important. One may see no rare com
bination of root, stem, and branch forming a tree less
than twenty years old. Many interesting specimens
formed of free-growing and comparatively short-lived
trees range in age from thirty to fifty years. The best
specimens are not necessarily the oldest, as more art
may be spent by three or four generations of men in
one hundred years than ten or twelve generations of

THE LITTLE TREES 135
men may bestow on another tree during three or four
hundred years. One other point may be mentioned :
a man who starts a tree determines its general shape,
size, and length of life. Further, his root idea or design
must be communicable to future generations of workers,
or that tree will prove no rare example.
So many details crowd into a small compass — we
Europeans are so accustomed to stand bewildered, or
in a sense beaten, by the artistry and cunning of the
little, old, and weather-beaten tree of nkie by twelve
inches — that we have not the patience nor the power to
take it to pieces, so to speak, to look at it bit by bit,
season by season, year by year ; and so it is for these
reasons that we fail to perceive the high sense of art,
the profound insight, the keen and persistent observa
tion of Nature, and the inexhaustible patience of the
one or many men who devoted their spare time to pro
ducing this finished work. One must repeat spare
time : Japanese trees cannot be made in haste, nor do
they call for frequent or regular attention. Love and
knowledge control the labour spent upon them. The
need of bread may keep a man from his tree, and a
natural effort or decline yield more than studied labour.
The following is a list of the more important opera
tions in the art and practice of dwarfing trees : —

136

THE HARVEST OF JAPAN

Disbudding.
Pinching of leaves and shoots.
Tying down or warping.
Bark-binding— for restricting.
Tearing out of branches — to re
veal age and character.
Damping and rotting wounds —
for effect.
Plunging in earth.
Half-lifting, or raising roots
above the surface.
Rock crannies for roots.
Root obstacles.
Planting — depths, angles, fac
tors, mediums.
Adding branches by buds and
grafts. *4b m,
OT OT

Defoliating — to secure new light
wood.
Thinning of leaves and shoots.
Lacerating of bark and foli
age.
Bark -bandaging — to aid sap
flow.
Forming trunk and branch
hollows.
Introducing fungi and vegetable
parasites.
Bending and tying to stakes
and rods.
Washing out of soil to starve
roots.
Root-training. Root design.

* # * #
So far as I have learned, there have been no stereo
typed classifications of this art. Books on design of
trees and parts of trees exist, also books on garden
design ; but I am not aware of any books attempting
the explanation of the nature and art of tree-making.
No European gardener has any native conception of
or ready capacity for this work. It holds not a thought
of trade or vanity, nor a suspicion of need or haste.
A Japanese man-made tree is a labour of love, a revela
tion to its author rather than a personal triumph ; an
example of Nature at her best — alive, audible, calling,
singing, shivering, daring, resting, waking, trembling,
struggling, complaining, telling her story, revealing het

THE LITTLE TREES 137
glory, her everlasting effort, her purpose and her powers.
The Japanese tree-man lives by what he understands,
as we all should. So he works to discern and reveal
the ways of Nature, his sense of line and balance en
abling him to make wondrous beauty out of simple
things.

CHAPTER XL
MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES
TN going about the country, one sees the widest
¦*¦ variety in subject and treatment. Where, in a wild
state, a tree is well designed or responds readily to
human hands, and may be got ready for market within
a few years, it is worked on by many, chiefly the farm
ing and peasant class, though one sees many trees in
the process of making in both small and large towns.
Tiny yard, verandah, portico, and flat-roof spaces are
often crowded with trees, which, it is hoped, will some
day be good enough to market. One thing is apparent
always : the trees reflect their places of origin or some
region which the Japanese perceive to be singularly
beautiful or characteristic of life as they see or feel it.
Those who visit Japan with no' set purpose maintain
that the land is all alike ; it is no such thing. It takes
time to see differences, and it takes a long time to note
great differences. When we come to a new land, we
are in varying measure impressed by its difference from
188

MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES 139
that which we have left but recently. Nothing is familiar,
distinctive. Especially we say that of human faces. It
is the commonest remark everywhere that the faces are
all alike ; this is want of regulated eyesight merely.
The traveller, wise or foolish, hath a tired eye ; he
would see and yet rest, rest and yet see. To see truly,
we must be familiar ; and before we come to be familiar,
we must have rested and lived near to love-inspired
things. All worthy labour is love labour. If we cannot
see eye to eye with a people, we cannot discern any
expression in their faces or arrive at a true appreciation
of their forms of art.
The Japanese is part of all he discerns, and he
idealizes some of his detached parts : and as these
parts vary ; as he is of the snow-burdened or wind
swept mountain, of the dark ravine or bouldered vale ;
as he is with other lives tucked on some ledge by the
wild coast or half afloat among the mud and sand and
mire of a shallow bog ; as he dwells amid the paddy
fields or among rice terraces — those wonder-spots of
many lands ; as he looks most on mountains, hills, or
forests, green glades and streams, boulder stones and
marshes, these single, grouped, and varied infinitely, he
has come to see with eyes and heart aglow, familiar,
always familiar things. He believes in what he has

140 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
known over many hundreds of years ; and with rever
ence as his best inheritance, he fashions in little what
he has come to know as the greatest of good things,
the earth and the trees thereof, whereof he is a part
and for ever enshrined.
One may not overpraise this rare discernment of the
Japanese. Of all men he alone reveals the processes and dis
position of Nature. All shape, all beauty, as the aver
age mortal sees and estimates it, is on the outside of
things, whereas all the working, all the instinct of life,
chemistry, story, and things of highest value are within
and unseen. The Japanese reveals and explains these
things. Not to see a tree, but its story and its architec
tural beauty, that should be our aim. A gardener or
orchardist observes it is a bad or a good tree — strong,
weak, shapely, or otherwise — and knows no more, cares
no more. Our glib descriptions, born of surface seeing,
get in our way. Outside Japan I have met no soul who
could read the detailed story of trees.
In a general way the Japanese never lose sight of the
opportunity to accentuate any native grotesqueness or
rare form in trees. One thing many must have noticed :
their tendency to throw the tree far out of the per
pendicular, whilst preserving its balance or equation.

MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES 141
There is a striking resemblance to the human pose in
dancing, where the lower limbs thrown in one direction,
the arms reach out in another to secure equilibrium.
The examples of trees occupying escarpments and other
insecure or wind-swept positions always suggest Bunyan's
fine line, " Flying from the wrath to come."
The site determines size, shape, vitality, and dura
tion. The mound and rugged escarpment compel the
tree to assume a fantastic form and to proclaim its
history. One must note the difference between dwarf
ing and training of trees, and also between those regularly
cut to form by eliminating branches, and such as are
assisted or repressed in any direction. Hence there is
cutting to form, growing and training to form, starving
to form ; all distinct operations with one aim — the per
fecting of ideal conceptions of natural form. Always it
must be noticed that a tree shows its natural place and
position. It is from this or that class of country ; it is
correct here and not there. Always it must be natural.
There is no art till natural laws are known and respected.
It is not how trees look, but how they grow. All seem
bent on sleep or repose, or protecting themselves against
some threat of storm, rather than revelling and rioting.
The Japanese starve plants into perpetual existence,
where we foreshorten their lives by overfeeding. True,

142 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
their trees do not suffer from drought ; the rain is fre
quent and the air moist always.
The Japanese make tree designs of stout wire, that
the conception may be perfected and preserved. All
design is governed by an intimate knowledge of what
is (a) natural, and (b) distinctively beautiful. In prac
tice no more is designed than the lines to be followed
by the trunk and main branches, for it is the heavy and
most permanent parts of a tree which decide its character
and degree of beauty.
Much mutilating and rude injury is inflicted at times ;
the tearing, twisting, and binding of boughs begins at
periods varying with the kind of tree and the size and
form desired. The binding of branches with stout wire
wrapped in string is the ordinary medium of getting
branches into position. Excepting pine branches, which
are usually cut off close to the trunk, branches are left
ragged, an inch or two projecting, to appear later as a
sign of a natural fall or loss of branch. Tree parasites,
both insect and fungoid, are foisted on the poor little
trees ; also gall mites and such rare bits of wood as may
be grafted on to reveal the strife and strain of existence.
The pine needles are shorn in August after rain.
Pinus densifolia is the largest trained tree used in decora
tive gardening ; its branches bound with wire and rods

MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES 143
of bamboo to secure fantastic shapes. In Japan there
is no limit to the size of artificially formed trees. One
may see pinus densifolia up to eighty and one hundred
feet in height and twenty feet in diameter, which have
received skilful manipulation over most of, if not over
all, their lives.
Of roots. — We have little working knowledge of the
varying depths to which trees preserve their roots as
vitalizing factors. The Japanese seek to express char
acter in a tree as we do in a building or a statue, hence
tfiey keep the root as much above the soil as possible.
It is easy to see how, by frequent reduction or checking
of the head system, an exaggerated root system may be
produced, and this may be made short, hard, and knotty,
or long, soft, and flexible, at the will of the tree-man.
A strong root bent will produce an excrescence or
sucker growth on its top side and light prop roots below.
The Japanese know this and so much besides as to act
upon every possibility and contingency. The final
arrangement of the main root system, usually exposed
much for effect, cannot be done till a tree has been
manipulated several times. In practice the trees are
by turns planted high and low in the soil to encourage
roots at various points, then dealt with to secure the
desired form.

144 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
In a dingy street I saw a man giving his ideas on
tree training to a group of urchins, who were keenly
interested. He wanted a branch here, another there,
and he showed how he would get it and what he would
do with it. At a shop in Kyoto were three or four trees
to three feet high ; they were narrow, upright thuyas,
and had been dug up with about eight-inch diameter
packs of peat and their own mat roots. I asked a man,
" Where did those trees come from ? " and he replied
at once, " The mountains." " But they have been cut
several times in the heads ; I can see the work." " Yes,
the man who wants them, he go and cut 'em, make 'em
all same you see there ; now he dig 'em up and sell
'em." " How old are those trees ? " The man looked
closely. " They're eight to ten years, I think ; one
big one he more." I agreed they were eight to ten
years from the seed. I could tell where they had been
grown, and to what treatment they had been subjected.
Koi, south-west of Hiroshima, is a nest of tree
growers and designers. Scores of gardens were full of
trees in the soil, and in pots and other contrivances on
stages. Here I examined trees in every stage ; also a
great many laid trees, that they might break in the head
and root to one side before potting or planting out.
Laying the pots on their sides for a season and covering

MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES 145
with moss causes one-sided growth and twists in the
branches such as are formed by wind pressure.
We Europeans have displayed a mild curiosity as
to the origin and mode of forming the trees and scenes
in miniature, and as for business reasons the Japanese
have desired to mystify and baffle us, we have made
no serious attempt to investigate and follow this art.
Within the limits of these pages I have been more con
cerned to show or suggest the value of an informing
and fascinating hobby than to attempt a full and com
plete description of the craft. More often than any
other the question is put : How and where are the trees
started ? To this I may answer briefly that seedlings are
raised in pots and pans, also in the open ground. Hard
floors are chosen to receive strips or ridges of mould ;
in these ridges seeds of various sorts of pine and maple
are sown, the character or form of the soil determining
the form and substance of the first roots, thereby re
stricting the sap and affecting the super- growth.
Many trees are trained from natural seedlings found
in the woods or in open country. In high tablelands
throughout the world, as also where old hedgerows
abound, especially on the banks of English lanes, are
countless numbers of naturally dwarfed trees of many
species, their smallness due to climatic influences, over-
(2,120) 10

146 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
crowding, or the persistent use of the hedge-trimmer's
hook. Some years ago Mr. Rudolph Barf and I found
perfect specimens of dwarfed maple and quercus ilex
on the battlefield of Vittoria in Spain, and I remember
also that we agreed to a friendly difference of opinion
concerning the places of origin and the natural and
domestic history of some Japanese trees. Here I am
able to state that some Japanese trees are entirely man-
made, others are in gr,eat part nature made ; some are
the result of layering branches, and inarching and
tongue grafting is practised on such boughs as are seen
to represent tree forms.
If the Japanese have deceived us in either making
an inexact statement, or by making no statement at all,
neither their art nor their skilful handicraft is affected.
It remains an informing, distinct, and matchless study
and employment, as fit to engross Europeans as it does
those whom one may with complete respect term the
Ingenious Gentlemen of Japan.
To appreciate the detailed structure, the life struggles,
and the transcendent beauty of trees, we must look up
and through them, not down upon them or at their dense
impenetrable exteriors. Then one comes by great in
crease of knowledge and pleasure where trees are seen
with sky for background, especially if under the shadow

MORE ABOUT LITTLE TREES 147
of night. For just a few minutes in the evening — the
quality of the effect varying much at different seasons
of the year and states of the atmosphere — at daybreak,
and in thick winter weather, trees stand out naked and
readable, yet clothed in their full majesty. But we
should not seek for majesty in size or form or tone.
We never admire so well, or come by such rare sense
of life, as when we fully understand the source and
substance of natural forms.
First, we should be able to read the natural history,
no matter how old the subject or how many successive
crops of branches may have sprung from the same trunk.
We want to see the cause or causes of all that remains as
size, as form, as beauty. We need to be charmed by
the life-story of the tree. It is the life-struggle, the
everyday effort, the signs of loss, the expression of fear
and triumph, a conflict of these in every part of every
aged specimen that can arrest, inform, and satisfy any
who are concerned for life. It is true that one must
not only be observant, but pass a great deal of time in
looking into trees, before proving competent to handle
and train them. The European custom is to praise and
see beauty in a tree extra large, or extra valuable, or
rare as a species or variety ; the details of design, their
story, their value, are not considered.

148 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
So if one would deal with trees as do the Japanese,
it is necessary to study them as they are in a state of
Nature ; then, as the insight and the knowledge grow, to
discriminate between the rare and conventional forms,
the influence of position, climate, soil, form of the land,
degree of exposure, and all that may be summed up as
the phenomena of Nature. So, step by step, one will
be led to select and come by conviction which types
are most picturesque, most storied, most inspiring.
Some bits of country will voice their claims, others not ;
and it is where one sees the tree a distinct output of the
land and the influences bearing thereon, that one will
have a sense quickened to reveal materials and forms
that blend to yield a living, storied picture, be it small
or wide.

CHAPTER XII.
AT THE MOON OF NARA.
AT Nara I found an excellent inn, to the Japanese
•*¦ ^-known as the Tsukinoya Yadoya, and to me by
interpretation as the Moon Tavern. At once I was
told that guests were expected to bathe at four o'clock,
towel or no towel. That there might be no mistake,
or chance of escaping the ceremony of removing the
honourable dirt of the honourable journey, at half-past
three a little maid of seventeen came and ordered me
to the bath. As I had arrived tired, I pleaded for tea first,
and she yielded reluctantly. It is a custom at inns to
supply kimonos as dressing-gowns, also slippers, but in
no case a towel or soap. At Nara I had two kimonos,
one of cotton slipped inside one of soft silk.
After the bath Nara San, like a fond mother and
stern priestess in one, sat down to the entertainment and
ceremony of making me feel at home. To her it was a
sort of lesson in the geography and the beauty of her
neighbourhood. From a niche or concealed cupboard
149

150 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
in the wall she had withdrawn a piece of black, white,
and gray conglomerate which had been carved and
chased to represent a score or two of miles of typically
Japanese scenery. I scanned it eagerly and fondly, and
with unmistakable signs of appreciation ; but a Euro
pean, I wanted more, and I looked round or signed my
wants to Nara San. Child as she was, her indignation
was complete. Only a glutton or purblind savage could
want more in a day than she had placed before me.
This subject has been pursued by other writers on
Japan, so I will say only that one does not know which
to admire most — the skill of the artist in stone, wood,
or ivory, or the loving care and intelligent pride of those
who afford instruction and delight to the traveller.
They will sell a whole range of mountains with all their
valleys, wet and dry and wealth o'erladen, for a few
pence. In the shops, as in my rooms, I was often
charmed, bewildered, and royally entertained in exam
ining models of the country I had explored or looked
on as I moved about.
As it rained hard, just as is shown in Japanese prints
— great, black, and almost solid streams of rain — I lay in
my room and made notes. I could not write — nothing
had been big enough, purposeful enough, sane enough
to invigorate and spur me. Instead, I was flat and

AT THE MOON OF NARA 151
incapable. Too much change of diet or water, or not
enough of either, had made me weak in body and desti
tute of mind. I looked ahead, which I contend is a
bad thing to do, as life should be in the present every
where. I watched the three maids repair and make
clean beds. In sewing, they do not use a thimble with
a cap, but instead a broad loop of steel with hollows
in it like a shoeing smith's file ; this encircles the middle
of the big finger. I went for a walk, and bought some
combs and prints ; returning, my lizards held court, to
which came the local Editor. He sighed wearily on
bowing, hitting the floor with his head ; then he looked
at me, and sighed again. The lizards charmed him.
He asked for my card, and getting it, he read it earnestly
upside down. I did as much with Japanese, so why
laugh at him ?
Mine is a queer world, due, I suppose, to my lookL
ing for things odd, or making no effort to travel in
even places. In the morning I did not know what
passed during the night. I had experiences and I had
dreams, and in all honesty to myself I could make no
distinct and sure division. Not that it mattered. All
of us dream more truth than we experience. Our
thoughts are fictions, yet our whole life is made of
them. Late at night the tiny maid stayed and tried

152 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
to talk with me after she had made my bed and seen
me into it. She said " Good-bye," because she could
not say " Good-night." Two or three times she said
it, went and came, went and came, as if loath to leave
me, till at last she was gone, and I went to sleep.
After a time I heard a heavy man walking with
measured step along the hanging balcony by my room.
As he stepped, he click-clacked with two little cylinders
of bamboo, or perhaps one cylinder beaten with a stick.
I was not alarmed. Instead, I was interested, and sat up
to wait for more of this faint music of the darkness and
the midnight. The man passed my room, slid back a
movable wall, and entered another chamber, still stump
ing and still click-clacking. On1 he went from room to
room, making a suspicion of a halt at each. Evidently
he knew the house well, and by the noise he made I
became aware of the plan of the third and top story
on which I was lying. It occurred to me that the visitor
was a sort of fireman, or perhaps the host making an
inspection before going to bed. Sure that he meant
no harm to any one, I went to sleep. Before doing so
a clock in my room struck two, and one in a room
adjoining hammered out four.
Then followed a heavy and adventurous dream. I
was helping a man to pull a load of timber across the

AT THE MOON OF NARA 153
shingle bed of a shallow river. As we were in a chronic
state of stuck, I cursed the river and the forest, most
of all I cursed Japan for preferring trees to grasses and
human asses to pull their loads. I was in a regular
boiling sweat, and giving an extra tug or push at
the load, I threw off the great quilt which otherwise
would have smothered me, and lo ! again came the
night walker. I was awake now, I was sure of it. My
paper walls were partly withdrawn, and I could both
hear and feel the effect of a straight-down rain.
The night watchman went his round as before.
The same pace, the same sounds from his feet, the
same little halts, and the same click-clack from the
bamboos, or whatever he carried, to reassure listeners
more nervous than I. But it was weird indeed. There
is a wide difference in the sensation from rousing to
hear the night watchman in the street, and from wak
ing to feel he is stalking from chamber to chamber at
midnight and later, in those thin, cold, loneliest of hours :
that time of night when we are least alive. On hundreds
of occasions I have been awake alone at such hours,
not amidst friends and security, but stark, far, and alone
in the world. This feeling of isolation and uneasy dread
must have come to all who have had such night experi
ences as to make them wish for day.

154 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
In this instance I did not fear at all. It was an eerie
but a fascinating hour. I felt as I do at writing, the
strangeness, and I wondered if custom could ever make
the night visitor welcome and companionable even. All
I heard was one deep-voiced growl from a man to him
self, or perhaps to his bed-mate. The complaint came
from a distant room, so its author must have had con
victions, or he could not have spread them so far. I
looked at my watch. It was just two o'clock. Dear
me, I thought, this is regular if the clocks are not. Will
he come again at four ? It would be light before five —
no need to expect him more than once. He had fired
me till I was independent of bed and sleep. I pushed
down the great, stifling wad of quilted silk, and without
effort passed into living through the ages of Nara.
I do most of my travel by night. Silence and
nothing to see gives me room to think about pilgrim
age. My eyes can never be idle if there is a thing in
sight, so I have been glad always for strength to lie
awake and make voyages. I need no seas nor ships,
no money nor patronage. With Time I have enough.
That night at Nara took me back to times of which
I had read, and to times of which I had no notion.
Yet I will own I came by nothing splendid. To me
Japan had never known greatness. I would not accept

AT THE MOON OF NARA 155
for a high place any people who had never learned to
build in stone. History is in The Stone. We have
nothing but the builder to keep us informed of human
aim and human art. I will not accept woodcraft as
final. It was long since superseded, surpassed, and,
whatever Japan may think, other people have thought
better and builded better than they.
The roofs of houses at Nara are many of them con
vex, evidently borrowed from the design of some of
the old Temples. One of the hills above Nara is free
of trees, clean and well grassed for the tame or sacred
deer of which the place swarms. Here is proof of
what may and what should be done over most of Japan.
The shrines of Japan are fashioned of water, fish, and
trees. Seriously, I wonder do the Japanese persist in
building of wood because they worship it so ? Every
thing points to the dependence on wood — fire, habita
tion, implement, arm, boat, beauty of landscape, image,
seed, fertility.
Japan is Shrineland. For years I had been a seeker
of shrines, and had not thought it necessary to turn to
Japan. Quite other interests took me there, yet Japan
of all lands is most bestrewn with shrines. The temples
of Nara are delightful, so is a bazaar ; but neither was
ever great. We may extract a Wondrous and subtle

156 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
power from those three simple words — Rock of Ages.
Where men do not forgather in solid Christian churches
and mosques there can never be that security, that stfnse
of Divine Presence, that atmosphere of heaven, by
which we are awed and brought to fullest life. Buddhist
shrines and temples are places of money-making. They
yield no balm for the reasoning soul. But the pilgrim
hath no reason. All gods and their thrones are the
fortune of those who have no higher sense of fortune.
There can be no difference in shrines — the motive is
the same, to gull and to extort money. No shrine is
found in a plain place. Nature fashioned and compels
respect for every one of them.
One side of me admits the value of these places ;
they are as good to be worshipped as any other. Japan
has the theatre, the tea house, and the Yoshiwara ; her
Happy Gods and her wrestling men, past and present.
She lives on very little, and she hopes for very little.
Just now what she hopes for I do not know ; but in one
way she lives, as do other nations, by perpetuating a
faith in impossible things.
I was glad that I visited Nara. It was easy to agree
with the writer of the Ideals of the East, that Nara repre
sents the best Art in Japan. At one time she had a
mind, but evidently it did not grow and sway many

AT THE MOON OF NARA 157
generations. The size, proportions, and soirie of the
workmanship of the wooden temple of Daibutsu are
truly imposing, and the manner of construction very
ingenious, daring, and secure. Two modern stone
shafts rest on pediments of lotus buds inverted. The
cloister and court are practically identical with the
Christian work of the eighth century in Europe. The
priest and his penitents, the pence and the pardons, are
all on a par with those of Western lands. One is asked
to save this building from ruin, and not to risk ruining
one's chance of paradise by parsimony.
Pilgrims never vary ; wanting the same, possessing
the same, bringing the same, they all deport themselves
as pilgrims must everywhere. In Japan the handker
chief and little home-made bag carry the few things
necessary before going to the shrine. The vast majority
are peasant folk, and it seemed that they made the visit
when they were best able to do it in comfort — after a
good harvest, or good sale of something, rather than as
tatterdemalions with hard peas in their boots. In fact,
they had no boots, but trudged and limped and lilted
in sandals and pattens, high and low ; they carried long
staves of new, cleanly-peeled wood, making one think
of palm or willow branches. As it rained always, they
kept off some of the water by sheets of oiled paper —

158 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
yellow, gold, and brown ; and very picturesque and
warlike the crowd looked at times, marching up and
down in their bright cloaks amid the drenching rain.
One found it easy to like it all. There was no one
to pity, no one to blame. No one seemed to need any
more. They were at the place of their heart's desire ;
and though all looked tired, and doubtless most of them
would be glad when they got safe home again, still it
was a big change from the paddy fields and the plains.
The voice of the great bell was more companionable
and never as forbidding as the marsh crane or the sea.
Fisher folk and valley folk, town and country folk, com
mingled, looked, and said nothing, marched and said
nothing, ate and drank and said nothing, and this was a
Japanese holiday. If any spoke, it was at the shops
where memorials and charms were sold.
These shrine shops were in scores — I think I might
write hundreds — and their contents would surely run
to millions of articles : images of deer in wood, clay,
and metal, fish and flags, combs and hair ornaments
for women and girls, knives and pipes for men and boys.
Horn lanterns and stick handles were a feature, and a
countless variety of figures in carved wood, horn, and
plastic material. At a glance all were childish gewgaws,
but they meant just as much as better things to those

AT THE MOON OF NARA 159
who profess to live by better things. A memorial is a
memorial, let it cost a penny or a pound. I spent my
spare coppers on a few old prints — seven I got for about
ten shillings, and mighty pleased I was with my bar
gains. But as it rained persistently, I could not exhibit
my prizes up and down the streets and among the
shrines, and thank God or Buddha with as much calm
conviction as did the other pilgrims.
One paid from a penny to threepence to enter the
various shrines, and there the pilgrims knelt after throw
ing coins on to platforms or into huge boxes. Clapping
their hands that Buddha might hear, they would kneel
and mutter their appeals, get up, shake their skirts and
seek another shrine, till their pence and strength were
exhausted. A Japanese book, a sort of guide, had this of Yamada :
" The chief industry of these people is to feed peace
fully upon pilgrims who come to be taken in." Now
that unintentional bit of fun applies to Nara also. Twelve
hundred years ago Nara was the capital of Japan, and
ever since it has been making capital out of those who
come to see what a capital place was the old capital for
losing capital. But, as the chronicler saith of the people
of Yamada, so of Nara, " They fed peacefully." No
one tried to feed upon me ; in fact, when I paid for

160 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
anything it was at my own price, andl believe one old
gentleman cherishes the belief that I fed on him. I
must call him a gentleman, for he had such a benign
and Buddhistic expression, and a way of nursing one
hand in the other as if assuring the nursling, that sooner
or later one would come and put a copper in its itching
palm. The old gentleman was a master of the art of
conquering by yielding, for he let me have a print for
a shilling, for which he asked ten ; then he asked twenty
shillings for a print which should never have been
printed. I declined to take advantage of him further, and he
smiled an assurance that I was welcome to come and
take advantage of him again. I did not. In plain
truth, I was afraid I ought not to take the risk. The
worst bargains I have made were with old men and
young girls. The old men can speak with such authority,
and near the grave there is a limit to their powers of
lying — so one thinks, and so one is deceived. As for the
girls, they stick at nothing. I don't know how it may
be with other men, but I have never be*en able to believe
in the existence of an ignorant girl. To me she must
know or appear to know, and one equals the other.
Then I am a victim to every pretty appeal, and might
haggle for an hour with a little minx and have no thought

AT THE MOON OF NARA 161
of cheating her. The essential joy of a bargain is in
finding something you like from your soul, and getting
it at your own valuation.
It is no riddle of words to say that a thing is as good
as one's price. If ever I ventured into business, I would
keep a curiosity shop, and the curiosity about it would
be myself. Trade and barter would never keep me above
the daisies, for if I bought only such things as I loved,
I should want them round me ; they would be more
comforting than any number of bank receipts and paper
promises to pay on demand.
#######
At Nara I saw a wisteria with a trunk more than
four feet in diameter, four feet from the ground. At
a height of about fifteen feet it forked, and each limb
was then about twenty inches in diameter. This plant,
or tree as it was, spread over eight or nine large trees,
and covered about a quarter of an acre. There were
hundreds of plants but little smaller. Maples of the
most feathery types grew to seventy or eighty feet.
Trains came to Nara every hour or less, and not
one without a crowd of pilgrims. This was no special
season, unless it were specially wet ; but that made no
difference. Two or three crowds of schoolgirls came,
and the backs of these made the streets gay, as each girl
(2,120) 11

1 62 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
wore a bright red under-kimono which the rain forced
her to show, for she held her plum-coloured skirt
to the waist and other garments above her knees, so
that there was a queer exhibition of clothes and limbs ,'
and with all my love of both, in this instance neither was
beautiful. The fine night caused the shopkeepers to
light up and stay up to catch the pennies of the many
pilgrims who swarmed the town. Thousands went by
the trains, and it seemed as many more stayed.
Our house was crowded, but quiet as ever. The
click-clack man came each night at twelve and two ;
I thought he moved more carelessly, not minding who
woke or who slept in his presence. The last evening
at Nara a swagger party of pilgrims went by, evidently
a Shogun and his son, a little smaller gun. The big
gun wore a well-cut, extra long frockcoat, with silk
lapels and a silk hat. Also he did his best to walk like
a European, whilst his wife slip-slopped beside him, in
native dress and carrying a baby on her back. At
Kobe I saw an equal case, only my lord was in a brave
summer suit, flannels, silk shirt, silk socks, white shoes.
At five in the morning my ever giggling little maid
appeared with tea and a giggling command to get up.
She put in a full two hours, brushing my garb, packing
my kit, and making it something of a trial to say Good-

AT THE MOON OF NARA 163
bye. Almost my last feeling at Nara was one of thank
fulness that I lived next door to the railway station,
otherwise I might never have got away ; the sheets
and walls of rain would have forbidden. The town
stands high up on the slopes of noble hills and glades ;
streams, pools, and little lakes are everywhere in sight,
but they were dry affairs compared to the whole expanse
of heaven-weeping rain. I saw no tear, heard no cry
in Nara ; but lord, if I lived there, I should cry aloud,
if only for fine weather.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE LIFE JAPANESE.
BOOKS of travel are said to need an atmosphere.
That is not easily thrown around and about every
page of a book on Japan. At first I imagined odours
and atmospheres which did not exist outside my brain.
If I got a few whiffs objectionable, they were that only
— not bad, dangerously bad, odours. There are odd
things in Japan : the country is not private, for the
people go everywhere and enter everywhere without
knocking, and the town is not public or composed of
people and habitations only. Looking out over dingy
black roofs, one sees the spaces between filled with the
softest, greenest, and cleanest of vegetation, and never
an open space but has a plant or two, which, small, are
big features in the scene. One cannot think of Japanese
town plants as imprisoned, starved, and wretched bits
of Nature out of place.
This pronounced love of flowers, green plants, and
trees is bred more of the Japanese eye or inward sense
164

THE LIFE JAPANESE 165
than of the nose. They care little for perfume of any
sort ; colour and form appeal, but always form comes
first, as it should ; and so engrossed are they by the
shape and tone and significance of life outside their
own that they disregard the mere detail of perfume.
This is no defect. The strong winds bring nothing, the
soft moist airs breed nothing, in the way of perfume or
atmosphere. Come hot rain or cold rain, the earth gives
off no reminder of its store. There are few perfumed
plants in Japan, and these do not affect the sense much.
With a silence in Nature and in man which I had
not noticed elsewhere, with little appeal by sweetness
in the plant or the flower, the winds or storm-drifts
from seas without saltness, winds borne up the wet
valleys, winds borne down the green mountains, winds
winding snake-like, visible almost, around and down
among the paradise of hills — with all this expression
of movement, spirit, and sanctity, there is little if any
fragrance or refreshing balm. One found no pungency
in the moss, no smack of storm and adventure in the
wrack by the shore. With ample leisure, all my days
were for looking and lingering over things, and often
I had cause to linger over things absent. I did not
grieve the loss, or think the Japanese unfortunate or
destitute of many things worth having, for the worst

1 66 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
of things worth having is that they cannot be lost or
laid aside without making misery for us. So I came
to believe that Japan has little or no natural atmosphere,
and that equally little is bred or desired by the Japanese
amongst themselves.
Seldom do we stop to examine our oft-repeated
remark, " pictures of misery." Beyond question, some
forms of misery provide pictures, and they need no
idealizing or painter's eliminating brush to round them
off for our gratification. But in Japan no one will see
misery. I may have used the word in preceding pages
for want of a better, but I repeat that in Japan one
will see no misery. This is the age of many faiths,
and there is room for more. There is room to believe
that in this life and this world there is no room for com
plaining of the pains of to-day and laying odds against
the pleasures of to-morrow. That is Europe. What
they do with quailers and croakers, if they breed any
in Japan, I do not know, but I could not see or hear
of any. Make no mistake : I leave no class out of
my observations. I employed my time in looking into
the Japanese way of living, and although it is neither
here nor there to say that it wouldn't prove enough for
Europeans always, it is bred out of a faith and modera^-
tion which I for one can believe in and commend.

THE LIFE JAPANESE 167
As I have written elsewhere, the Japanese cultivate
the art of not seeing. We may add to this the arts of
not hearing, not knowing, not fearing, not minding,
not needing. Now, exclaims my reader, but this is
rank Fatalism, and breathes European wrath into every
letter of the word. Well, and what if it is Fatalism ?
It does not mean that one is spiritless, effortless, pur
poseless : the Japanese are none of these. There must
be a little difference in believing and living in such a
way as will make one happy or make one miserable.
I do not say that Europeans know nothing of happi
ness, but I do say that it is easy to prove that the Japanese
know less of misery in mind and body.
Again, I may be met by the remark, " Oh, but if
we suffer, the suffering is of the Splendid kind, the
result of our high development." It is no such thing ; it
is of Tom Fool and his wife's kind. There is a misery-
making conspiracy between them whatever they have
got ; they must be after more, and whatever they are,
they must fight and scream and vow and pray they'll
be different. As the philosopher hath said always, " It
is ignorance that maketh man afraid." The Japanese
have made themselves familiar with all near-by things ;
they have put Nature to such full use as to know that,
as the seasons run, the horn of plenty never can run

1 68 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
low. They have the Holy Gourd. They have no
more thought of changing water for wine than has
the red deer on their hills, or the fish of their rivers
and seas.
What is the good of our wise man saying, " Nature
never did betray the heart that loved her," if we stand
off and admire or make patronizing remarks on the
splendid things of earth ? We have lost by striving
to separate ourselves from Nature. It is here that the
Japanese are so much saner, so much more secure than
we. It is not liking or praising but understanding
things which yields most, and they understand. They
live by what they feel and know. If their content is
not bred out of knowledge lofty and sublime, it is better
than ours ; they live with better grace. Discontent is
a bad sign. I am so convinced of this that I avoid all
discontented folk. I have heard of Divine discontent ;
also, I have heard of and met many who were discon
tented out of their unreasonable desire for unprofitable
things. I like a country where the art of life is put into
practice, and kept out of books and the schools. For
a time I may idealize a place, a people, and their em
ployments, but always I strive to discern the realities.
Japan did not escape me. I saw what her people were

THE LIFE JAPANESE 169
living by. To write truly of a people, we must dis
credit our experience of individuals. We must look to
causes for effects. We are all given to lay stress on
the word " temperament " — to say that as there are many
races of men, many natural resources and employments
of men, so must there be native differences in thought
and ways of looking on life. All human institutions
are the outcome of these differences in fortune. To
me the Japanese are true to their land. They are out
of it, part of it, and though they may be proclaimed a
race of warriors and colonists, as are the British, yet
they reflect truly all that may be caught and held from
the surface of Japan.
To me their choice of food means a good deal, as it
affects them, as does the lightness of their garments and
the everlasting presence of fresh air. I say fresh, for it
is never murky or polluted — at least I nowhere found it
so. Japanese food and raiment support the body, where
they do not stir the mind. If the people hurry through
the street, it is to be rid of the burden and to find repose
at home. The lack of enduring habitations must pre
vent the growth of a strong faith in man-made things.
The earthquake, the fire, and the flood are with them
always. They do not build out of vanity, nor for
security. They confirm the splendid truth, seldom

170 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
understood to be believed and relied on, that the King
dom of Heaven is within themselves.
In Japan, if a man's house is not his castle, his back
yard is his paradise, which is far better. The subtle
desire for privacy, distaste for conversation, and intense
capacity for looking at living things — these are the con
spicuous features of the Japanese life. It is incredible
how long they stare; or, more correctly, how silent,
wrapped, bowed with hands clasped and half-closed
eyes, they will contemplate anything that is new to
them, or seems good.
The Editor at Nara, when he saw my Gekkos, knelt
over them as if in prayer. He craned his neck to count
them, make out their form and size ; then he settled down
to study them. One side of me wanted to make fun of
him ; he looked like a general of war, who, sighting
the enemy, was saying to himself, " At this minute
they are too far away ; meanwhile I study them, that
I may have them in ambush before breakfast to-morrow
morning." The other side of me was as spellbound
as the Editor. As he studied the animals, I studied
him; but he gathered most, I know, and I will own
that he did. When he left me after his half-hour's
visit, he knew more about the speckled, checkered, and
striped skins of Gekkos than I, who for months and

THE LIFE JAPANESE 171
months had carried round half a dozen of them in a box
under my arm, or everlastingly at my elbow.
So I am at my favourite study again — the Japanese
Eye. To be frank, it is not a nice eye, and let me give
the owners a friendly hint : they will have to learn how
to use it, or how not to use it, before most Europeans
will believe in them for good and all, and like them
better. It is a suspicious and cunning eye ; most of
all, it is mistrustful. A dog and a monkey are both
capable of giving the same look. It may be a physical
defect with many, whose eyelids cannot be opened, to
show the pupil or the apple even ; but where the eye
is open enough it wants sympathy, frankness, and
definite expression. They try to hide their thoughts.
It is still a wild eye, and with all their power of seeing,
their motives are inscrutable and not agreeable to us.
I could not gratify my desire for market folk, for
they hold no markets in Japan. Hawkers are numerous,
and they are the only class creating vocal noise. Some
call, some chant, some seem to be saying prayers —
backwards, I suggest, for there's an awful lot said for
every customer who appears. The more enterprising
pedlars save their voices by blowing horns and whistles,
and the chap who sells rice fritters from a volcano on
a barrow uses the surplus steam to blow a piping, peet-

172 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
ling whistle, < which goes on till the very last coal is a
cinder and the very last fritter is fried.
One reads of many gods in Japan. They choose one
of food. An ingenious people, they invent for all occa
sions and situations ; but I did not discover that they
had a god of work, though it is evident that they regard
work as a virtue more than as a necessity. This saves
the face of the crowd in Japanese towns. They are
all busy, or, if they should be waiting, it is with more
anxiety than Micawber, for they do not smile whilst
unemployed. In Okayama they make a special business of manu
facturing Happy Gods in clay and imitation metal.
Some shops are devoted to the sale of Happy Gods.
These chaps are all of Falstaffian mould, with ears
swollen at the lobes, which hang over their shoulders
like apple dumplings ; also they have milky breasts and
aldermanic tummies ; their faces are not so round,
though they look overblown and watery. I don't know
how the Happy Gods acquired their rollicking magnifi
cence, but it always seemed to me that they had been
poaching in the waters of the Holy Carp, and flying
their kites at the expense of the industrious and sober
citizens of Japan.
Of Japanese mirth and festival I saw little ; nor

THE LIFE JAPANESE 173
did I see as many lanterns in Japan or iris flowers,
lilies,' or chrysanthemums as the corresponding time
would have revealed in rambling round England. The
Holy Carp gives exhibitions of aerial swimming wher
ever there is any air stirring, for through May, June,
and July he hangs from thousands of poles outside
houses and cots of all descriptions everywhere. Oddest
of all, the girls do not carry fans, nor do the men, except
the rare few. The fan plays its part in the dance and
some domestic ceremonies, but it is not in evidence
everywhere and always. One sees the girl and woman
in full fig and never a fan.
An energetic friend * vows he will " chuck " me
unless I tell the truth about Japan. Without a blush
I say to tell the truth is not so easy. " No man can tell
another's story without some involuntary misrepresen
tation of facts and characters. . . . Only he who is
himself dishonest will doubt my honesty." — Samuel
Butler in Ereiohon. In writing I have had no greater
desire than to tell the truth, and where I wrote most
truly the testimony appeared most unlikely. The truth
is too strong fare for most of us. Japan gives ample
room for false descriptions, exaggerations, and mis
statements. What my friend fears I may not state is
* He is sleeping in Flanders.

174 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
that Japan- and her people are not so gay, so soft, so
bright in colour, so fairy-like and dream-like as most
Europeans proclaim and the Forward Party of Japan
would have us believe. Except the Theatre Street,
which is a blaze of colour — and there is one in every
town — and the children under six or seven years of
age, there is no colour, brightness, or picturesqueness
in the Japanese crowd.
The daintiest, most bewitching, idyllic thing in all.
Japan is the head of the country girl, when it is tricked
out with the little moth's-wing blue and white handker
chief, which is tied and flaunted in such a way as to
make her a picture and a flirt entire for all the world.
The villages often appear as patches and heaps of
black or brown mud, ever in low-lying positions. No
Easterner loves the hills, and that may be one reason
why one thinks so often of the East as soulless. There
is too seldom any sign or concern of any mystical better
things, no belief in improvement or the grand con
cerns of making change. I admire this, and I object to
this. There is something better than rude and contin
uous primitivism — something finer than stealthy opposi
tion to Western civilization and the best it yields. Poverty
means dirt on the body and cobwebs in the brain. But
can a brain grow of itself ? And who is able to affect

THE LIFE JAPANESE 175
and change the elements of the East ? Has it not been
termed the Unchanging ? It is all as ever it was. The
Japanese who has gone East to return, and West to
return, brought in the train and all that follows in its
train, except the desires of the West, the soul of the
West, the purposes of the West, and the dreams and
realization of dreams in the splendid order and love
and charity of the West. Considered in this light, I
vow that there is no knowledge of or striving for these
things in the East.
An old writer reminds us that when we would make
comparison of a rather dull body, we should think of
medullin, the pith of the sunflower, which he avers hath
neither taste nor smell. This leads me to say that
Japanese life is wanting in freshness, breadth, and thrill
ing delights.

CHAPTER XIV.
INNS AND ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA.
' IT* HE traveller who is sustained by constant thoughts
-*- as lover, relation, or friend, who preserves a feeling
that he is hunting for treasure which he will bring home
and offer with gladness, is on many occasions convinced
that those at home are better off, and glad that he bears
discomforts, mysterious fears, and the pains of isola
tion alone. All the blank spaces, the dull, unprofitable
days, are to be endured in silence. But when his drag
ging feet bring him to some delight out of heaven ;
whenever he shall come to a place deserving to be
known of all mortals ; whenever he shall have his soul
awakened with generous desire to transmit his joy to
all men — it is then he is a happy and a large man, then
that he knows nothing of weariness or distance from
the goal ; and it is out of such rare and far-divided joys
he comes to live, as do others, between gaps of monoto
nous and fear-encumbered Time.
I wrote the foregoing paragraph to myself on the
vn

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 177
morning after my arrival at Miajima (Temple Island),
the jewel and poem of the Inland Sea. For many weeks
I had held this island in prospect ; but I had work to
do, and everywhere there was much to see. The Inland
Sea revealed its beauties to me on a lovely, soft, sun
shiny morning at Kobe, when the great bay or road
stead lay smooth and silent, and far and wide were
spread thousands of little boats with their silver and
yellow and light-brown sails. Sampans and barges,
boats queer and queerer still, big sailing-ships from
Europe, and steamers from all directions — there they
lay, idling the lot of them, or so they appeared as our
road wound round a splendid range of wooded hills
and mountains, whence spurted and tumbled cataracts
and streams, making industries of many kinds an ever
lasting possibility.
At times I felt I should have saved all my praise for
the seductive beauties of the Inland Sea, the waters are
by turns so green, so gray, so silvery, and so blue ;
then they yield such black shadows to put you off and
lure you on, all in the same moment. In a diary
note I had written : "A journey from Hiroshima to
Miajima afforded my richest day in Japan, in that it
yielded the most varied and ravishing natural scenery
and the most exhilarating quality of human joy. Had
(2,120) 12

178 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
the whole world of land and sea been in the clouds,
it could not have appeared softer, lighter, or more
at ease. " Summer-time ; the sea and the atmosphere was of a
piece with the sky. The islands looked unreal, and the
far inland hills were robbed of their claims by the restful
worlds so near at hand. The sea seemed big to infinite
proportions — never bare water, nor any prospect of
bare and uninviting shores. The towns and villages
stood out like holiday haunts for Arcadians, and there
was no sign of human labour that looked anything less
than refreshing exercise. I know that this was not alto
gether true ; but such is the effect of rare natural beauty,
we need no more than the soul awake to come by such
sense of fortune as to make us indifferent to all efforts
and pains mundane."
The general features and delights of the Inland Sea
were so pronounced that I improved in body and mind.
Miajima was and is a sacred island. At one time no
one might be born there, nor were any allowed to die
there ; but a declining faith and an increasing trade have
abrogated these decrees or left them in abeyance. Nowa
days one may go to Miajima to be born again, or, to be
more explicit, to have some of one's senses changed or
views altered. Just as fortune or misfortune gives our

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 179
thoughts a new direction, so may a visit to a compelling
sanctuary or shrine.
Miajima is a beautifully wooded island, only a mile
or so off the mainland. It has temples and torii — the
peculiar Japanese arches which indicate the presence of
sacred ground — pagoda-like houses and house-like pago
das to the tune of some scores ; also the most bewitch
ing little streets and bungalows perched high and low.
I was pulled to the island in the twilight of a warm,
heavy evening, so that I was thrilled and glowed and made
faint by the sweet uncertainty of it all. After dinner,
tired as I was, I went by boat out into the moonlit
bay, and in a rude sort of gondola stole through the pine
shadows by the shore and under the great torii, the water
way of the principal temple.
When I had searched the island for its native plants,
I decided to go round it by water. I took a sampan
with two rowers, elderly men, half nude and brown and
tough as copper wire they were, and they rowed and
rowed till I grew tired of the sho — lat — so, sho — lat — so,
and stet — ter, stet — ter, for so they sighed, and hic
coughed, and sung by turns. A squall or two sprung
up, and I was made restless and giddy ; but calm re
turned. About noon we pulled to an island shore, and there

180 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
ate lunch on a tiny floor of sand. Then up sail, and in
two hours we were at home. It took seven hours to
go round the island, and cost as many shillings.
My room at Temple Island reeked of moisture, and
the bed gave off the odour of mouldy straw. This was
not pleasant ; instead, it was a little disturbing. I had
slept on so many hard floors, thin beds, not quite clean
beds, mouldy beds, indefinite sorts of beds, and some
times where were no beds at all, but not before in Japan
on a wet bed or in a wet quarter. That is one advan
tage of the wood and paper houses of Japan — they are
dry and airy, and do not hold enough in their walls or
furnishings to attract and retain moisture. But this
house was of plaster so mud-like, and placed over a
stream, and under a bower of perpetually moist ever
green trees, that it had no chance to get dry. I know
from experience that a dry bed gets warmer and warmer
under the heat of the body, when a wet bed gets colder
and colder. Such was this case. In the morning the
bed was raw, clammy, cold; so was I, except warm in
such places where extra warmth should not be. But
I was well, and bathing and rubbing with pure spirits
of wine, which is an excellent thing to carry, as it serves
for fuel, light, and embrocation, I was sound and secure
for another day.

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 181
I dropped something on the gray-brown carpeting,
and, stooping, I picked up a dainty, dull-gold hairpin.
Ah ! change in the world's light. Who and where was
she ? How I wondered and wandered ! A new task
was set me. I had come to rest, but could I rest here ?
The thing might never be missed, and it had but small
value, but I would not give it up to the hotel people.
My conscience did not nurse such a thought. Where
was she, and what her mould ? Dainty, I vowed, the
bauble was so neat ; we may judge women by such a
thing. I tried to think whom I had passed with fair
or dull-gold hair ; I could imagine no brown or black-
haired beauty using such a pin. But why beauty at all ?
Of course she was beautiful. Whoever imagined or
dreamed of a woman who was not beautiful ? Set
yourself to describe any one whom you view in a favour
able light, and she is bound to become beautiful. So
my lady of the gold hairpin.
Japan has but one high road. You begin in the
middle and go south-west, or come in at the south
west and go towards the middle — always and of necessity
by the same road. No, there is the rail and the water
way, but this dainty lady would go by land ; the sea
would not be so alluring — not the Inland Sea even. So
away I went seeking. There was East and West. I

1 82 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
was going West ; was she ? And should I overtake
her ? I had nothing better, nothing more restful to
do than to imagine future stopping-places, and the
form and complexion of ladies to be met with on the
road. Should all my search prove vain, and this con
fession get into print, let this advertisement acquit me
of any desire to retain possession of so useful and fa
voured a thing as a gold hairpin.
My life in the native inns was full of interest. In
the first place, I was almost destitute of words, nor
were many of my hosts and supporters better off. It
means much that I fared so well. Never was there an
intentional sign of indifference or impatience ; instead,
the obvious desire to serve and befriend. To succeed
in depicting the life of the inn would be enough to
show the state and the quality of Japanese domestic
life. Unfailing attention is given to one, whether of
few needs or many.
The host or hostess is always in the vestibule, and
on seeing a patron calls the maid to render complete
service. Of this she never tires or will have done. In
the morning one wakes to find her kneeling and bending
over the chibashi, preparing it for making tea. This
she dispenses with genuine smiles and salutations, and,
plain or pretty, one does not wish her gone. She can

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 183
never leave without giving signs that she will be near,
that you must ring or call or expect her for any want.
If she says the breakfast will be at a particular hour,
she appears with it to the minute, and she has never
forgotten anything. The strangest feature of a Japanese
inn is its privacy. In Europe the inn is of all houses
the most public — in fact, we call it The Public ; in
Japan it is The Private.
Whatever one's status or demands, one is given a
room alone ; for, single or double, large or small, it is
sacred to one, and to be used for all purposes. There
is no dining-room, smoking-room, reading or writing
room — not a chair or a square yard of space excepting
the room one engages. At night the bed is brought in
and rolled out, at morn it is rolled up and taken out,
both performances having something of the charm of
magic. A hundred people may be in the house, and
one has no more sense of nearness to them than to
those who pass up and down the street. Another
feature — there is always perfect quiet. I stayed in many
inns, to hear conversation once or twice only, and that
very low and limited. It seemed to be the habit to
sky any one who was thought to be a big gun. This
is no misfortune, for at most the ascent is but two short
flights of stairs, and these ensure more light, air, a

1 84 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
wider prospect, and some immunity from the stable
like odour which hangs about the lower chambers
almost everywhere.
There is the greatest economy in building. As far
as possible a hole or a sash lights, and in various ways
aids, two rooms. The ceilings and beams across pas
sages are often so low one has to stoop when moving
about ; strips of white paper or tassels hang from pas
sage beams and some doorways to remind one of the
necessity. At inns no liquor is sold, and they are the
most silent of all houses. Two brass hand basins at
Nara were of the richest gold colour, and the hand
somest things of their kind ; they shone like mirrors ;
but for their weight and size, I certainly would have
taken one in the hope of looking into it to life's end.
One morning at the general wash-tub were a man,
his wife, and grown-up daughter. The man washed
his teeth, mouth, and eyes only ; the wife bared her
body to the waist, and gave herself a thorough soaping
and rinsing ; the daughter bared to the shoulders only,
and did not go within an inch of wetting her hair
— though I do not suggest that she was not of cleanly
habits. The house was crowded with pilgrims — all very
healthy, clean, strong men and women, a couple of

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 185
sizes larger than those to the north of Tokyo. It is
noticeable that the people rise and fall in stature as they
occupy elevated or low country. At an inn in Kobe
we stood naked together, half a dozen men and women
in the bathroom, others round about waiting. No one
took the slightest notice of the other. Each man or
woman watched for the chance to grab the bath and get
a wash. It seems that they persist in the policy of not
seeing ; then it is no rudeness to take what they want.
I heard of a Japanese bath-house keeper who was charged
that he took no steps to prevent mixed bathing. He
pleaded he had — by putting a bamboo stick across the
bath. At Nara my first meal was of five kinds of fish in
five styles. A fillet of lobster, fried, the only thing I
ate. Slices of pink and blue jelly-like, raw fish which
made me shudder, and I had to cover it whilst I ate the
lobster. Next a bright-eyed monster of the size of a
herring. He, too, was raw, except for one awful burn
just behind his ear. He was supposed to have been
cooked, and it was evident that his indignation had
caused all the blood in his body to run into his only
visible eye. I said more or less audibly, " My little
friend, don't turn up your tail and your sanguinary eye
at me ; this is not my doing ; I would have saved you

186 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
from that ugly blister ; I did not want you to suffer
so little or so much in my behalf. Go, seek some
braver soul who will consume thee below stairs." Four
was a good-looking fish, soused, but it was too fresh
and too soft for sousing. Moreover, it languished in
green gravy, like rancid cabbage water and as repellent
of odour. Five was fish soup. This I could never endure,
except it be dried cod with pimento, garlic, oil, and
saffron. So all the dishes were banned except the fried
lobster. Now I had to see more than simple justice — a full
measure of kindness — in what followed. The inn
keeper kept a buffet at the railway station, and regularly,
on finding I could not face the native fare, he sent a
maid to bring three, four, and up to six plates of Euro
pean food, or at least such things as he believed formed
the staple of European fare. I was paying three yen
(6s. 3d.) per day for a bed and three meals. I knew
that he could afford to treat me well at this figure, but
it is no business of innkeepers anywhere to lose money
by their patrons.
Much as I love to trust Nature and feel at home in
the open air, I share an equal delight in coming to a
new and attractive inn. In fact, I am most human
when a long journey has ended at some station or port,

ISLANDS OF THE INLAND SEA 187
and there is the task of finding a home. I make no plans,
though sometimes I allow the most irresponsible people
to choose an inn for me. I allowed the Japanese to
send me hither and thither, and I had no cause to com
plain. They sent me to better and to worse than their
own houses, but never to a bad one. To me a bad
one would be a dirty one, or where nothing was clean
enough to be endured. Back streets, and back rooms
without back or any other windows, I did not fear,
nor shades, nor shadows. If the passages were narrow,
long, and mysterious, the rooms past finding out, and
their occupants not known to be in, I did not mind.
Things strange, things beyond my ken, I wished for
in a land like Japan.
But there is one thing plain — Japan has no dark
and awful parts to its individual houses or its cities
— at least I found none. Tokyo, with two million odd
inhabitants ; Osaka, an exaggerated type of Black
friars and Blackwall, with over one million people ;
Yokohama, Kyoto, and Kobe — all the big towns I went
through, and lived in their poorest parts, to find noth
ing repellent. There were crowded populations work
ing hard for life. Where there is not much wealth, there
cannot be many rogues and vagabonds ; the public is
too wise to tolerate them, and there is little worth stealing.

CHAPTER XV.
THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI.
T MADE a visit to Okayama to see what is claimed
¦¦¦to be one of the three finest gardens in Japan, Kora-
kooyen. The guidebooks and many advertisements
proclaim this a triumph of the gardener's art ; as a
matter of fact it reveals no art at all. In Kobe was a
sign which satisfied me on this point. It ran (the name
of the man in Japanese) : " Florist and gardener." In
Europe we call men gardeners who are plant growers ;
as well call a brickmaker a builder or architect, or say
a silkworm is a rare dressmaker, as call every man who
handles a plant or a spade a gardener.
The garden of Okayama is not worth a mile walk in
the best of weather unless one needs exercise. It is
said to have been made towards the close of the eight
eenth century, but part of it is of recent formation
and it is poor. It is not an ordered or an artistic scheme ;
it has no background or foreground, no middle distance,
no motif or sense of proportion anywhere ; it was never
188

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 189
visualized and designed as a whole. A pond was made
and a mound or two formed out of the excavated material,
but nothing was seen in advance or placed true. There
are a few rare trees trained, and some maples and
azaleas, also iris, but these have nothing to do with the
garden, for it is claimed to be rare landscape work. In
fact, Okayama is hard up for sights, though it has a
fine river and splendid prospects in the distant hills.
It seems to be a legalized game in Japan to have
something everywhere, if it is only a coal-mine, to
show and applaud ; always it is the famous, the cele
brated, the magnificent, and not infrequently the
notorious. A tea-plant garden, a finely- placed castle, and some
heavily-thatched and quaint houses come into view from
all parts of this Korakooyen, and it is these things which
arrest the eye and prevent the weak and ineffective
efforts at gardening from fatiguing the visitor. The
only things here worth notice are the islands and banks
of pure sand and gravel, forming natural supports to
the lake.
In dealing with Japanese gardens I am more con
cerned to explain them than to praise them, but one
must begin by praising the garden of the Sentei. It is
a lovely and an enchanting piece of work ; the propor-

1 90 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
tion, the perspective, the tone, the restraint in planting,
the wild freedom, all combine to yield perfection. This
garden receives no help from surroundings ; it is self-
contained, self-framed, complete. A stone bridge of
hard, sharp lines is an intrusion, and works ruin wher
ever 'it comes into view. Excepting a few iris and plants
of similar effect, this garden is composed of trees and
shrubs, stones and water. All the effect and all the
compelling charm are due to form and tone. But for
the bridge, there are no mechanical lines nor any colour
apart from such as belong naturally to the place and
the season.
The ground plan of this garden is not good, since
the large proportion of water surface cuts the land into
strips of nearly equal size on its two main sides ; but
the treatment of the land is in the best Japanese manner.
The soil and rock masses have been carved out rather
than dug out and heaped up ; one detects the work of
genius in this land moulding and modelling, and at
the same time discerns the perfection of Nature, com
posed, at ease.
To traverse the garden, one makes an up-and-down
climb round the lake, which is in reality about five
hundred feet long, and resembles a reach of still water
within a more or less rock-bound gorge, at one end

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 191
suggesting dark, dank woodlands, at the other open,
high country and its weather-beaten vegetation.
The actual area of this garden is less than twelve
acres, but from many view-points one may stand con
vinced that the eye is filled and fascinated with objects
ranging over several miles. But this garden has some
thing much better than mere illusion. The treatment
of its woodland areas and their paths is a thing worth
noticing. The Japanese have a supreme sense of natural fitness
and effect of things. They do not attempt to make
grass grow in impossible places ; in fact, they do not
like or employ grass except in rare positions of decidedly
limited areas. Everywhere they love the earth, and aim
to reveal expression in the almost bare face of the earth.
Hence they do not stuff up and hedge off the spaces
under trees, but keep them open, visible, and bare. No,
not bare ; they are no more bare than the face of the
rarest statue or cathedral is bare. The story of the
local earth and the story of all the local trees are plain
for all to see as they wander within the shades of the
garden of the Sentei. The wonderfully moulded floor
is kept free of leaves and weedy growth, and covered
with an enchanted carpet of rare mosses and lichens.
Here is a hint to Europeans who would make full use

192 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
of shady spaces ; but it must not be forgotten that fine
effects are not possible the year round if heavy-foliaged,
deciduous trees or large shrubs predominate.
The other rare feature in this wood garden is the
treatment of such tree roots as grow about paths. It
is evident that some trees were planted with the express
object of their yielding study and effect as they grew of
themselves or were trained in various directions. This
tree-root study is one which Europe needs to take up
with some quiet enthusiasm, and until it does it will
know little of the story and beauty of trees, or how to
deal with them. In the Sentei garden the soil had been
excavated from some tree roots ; others had been
buckled, crossed, and interlaced, and there was not a
step of the many shady or dimly-lighted ways which did
not reveal Man and Nature striving together and yield
ing splendid and storied scenes.
The Sentei garden is at Hiroshima, in Southern
Japan ; it is said to have been formed upwards of two
hundred years ago, and the condition of the trees sup
ports this. The design and planting is attributed to a
Japanese noble of the name of Sentei ; be this as it
may, the garden is of rare and absorbing interest. It is
not showy enough, nor busy enough, to appeal to the
conventional European gardener ; but the student who

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 193
searches Japan in the interests of the gardener's art will
find no surer or more informing piece of work than that
at Hiroshima. Something may be learned from Japan and put to
use in such old courts, recesses, and parts of our house
surroundings as for various reasons may not be
covered with soil or carry heavy vegetation. The
Japanese method is particularly suitable to any damp,
dark, or confined spaces where it is undesirable to in
crease the moisture and the gloom. The first garden
of this type to impress me was in the north-east of
Japan ; although in latitude 37, the winters are severe,
bitter weather prevailing till the middle of May.
I mention this incidence of climate, because it is
clear that we may in any part of the British Isles pro
duce court and yard gardens with as much ease and
certainty of effect as is done in Northern Japan. Neither
shade, dankness, nor city grime prevents the formation
and preservation of true and refreshing scenes within
confined domestic spaces. The materials are assured
to us, only the art needs to be acquired, and I do not
think this difficult ; in fact, I venture the opinion, that
given the idea and something like a rough plan, the
British gardener can produce effects of considerable
charm and lasting value. Architecture is involved, and
(2,120) 13

194 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
anything like Japanese treatment of spaces abutting on
to fine buildings of the classical or pure Gothic orders
would not be right. There remain an incalculable num
ber of houses of a nondescript character, and spaces
innumerable about quite small houses in town, suburb,
and country, where such work might be carried out.
The Japanese do not object to a dry, arid, or starved
effect in their garden scenes ; in fact, they create such
effects of set purpose. It shows a peculiar twist in
their natures, that with all their love of and persistent
use of water in their farming and kitchen gardening,
they make their gardens hard, dry, and hot in expres
sion and in fact ; and, allowing for the climate and the
general conditions of life, this semi-desert system of
gardening is a gain to them : though, as I have explained
before, it is chiefly due to the admiration of Nature at
strife and afraid, and the desire to perpetuate large
scenes and objects on a small scale.
In Japan the aim is ever to impart a dry, warm
effect to enclosed courts or shady spaces. To this end
they provide a hard floor of tamped earth, or such a
mixture of soil and stones as will absorb little mois
ture. Whatever the floor material, it is moulded or
modelled to look natural, attractive, and much larger
than if left flat and formless. The rough surface of a

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 195
Japanese court garden may be gauged by saying that
the rock masses around the ponds of our Zoos and the
little hills and sandy plains provided for our alpine
animals when kept in captivity are good models for
study when it is desired to emulate the Japanese. Further,
one should observe geological formations, and distribute,
or mass rocks, as they stand in a state of nature.
In courts or small enclosures where the floor space
must be frequently used, the Japanese arrange flat
pebbles on their edges ; but more often they arrange
a floor of stepping-stones, shingle, and sand, or cover
the spaces between the flat stones with mosses and
other low but perpetual and attractive vegetation. What
ever the design and the foundation materials, they are
always compacted so hard as positively to prevent any
thing like vigorous growth of the plants chosen. One
may say that a Japanese garden of this class is grown
to full size on the day it is made ; it is no more expected
to increase its bulk or alter its form than is a piece of
statuary, a house, or a painting. It is made to express
some scene or scenes which are good of themselves and
good to look upon, and the amount of soil provided
decides the degree of vigour and extent of growth in
root and blade or branch.
As the Japanese employ rocks with such striking

196 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
effect, I must return to another word or two on them.
The Japanese do not build such things as we term
rockeries or grottoes ; they do not think of sites for
plants, but of sites for rocks or portions of cliff scenery.
The best rock work of the Japanese appears to rise
above sea, or other agitated water. Even where they
rise out of the earth and appear to defy removal, they
usually suggest water as the surrounding and formative
agent. Every rock appears to be broad-based and
linked with an incalculable solid mass. This is in fine
contrast with our perched-up, threatening, and totter
ing affairs, which could neither have been pushed up
nor fallen down to such positions where we are asked
to admire them. The smallest stone in Japanese garden
work, virtually all above the surface, appears as an out
crop of a mighty giant spreading under a broad but
thin mantle of earth. The scheme always represents
much agitated and struggling vegetation, making the
most of a few pockets and strips of soil scattered over
a mass of picturesquely moulded or wild and rugged
rocks. Of course this class of work demands the highest
sense of seeing and handling the raw material of Nature.
Moreover, it demands a knowledge of perspective, a
capacity for foreshortening and scaling objects, which

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 197
is rare to any people except the Japanese. In the most
ordinary Japanese court garden work, one seems to be
able to estimate the natural causes of everything in
sight, or suggested beneath the surface. Of course
there are no natural causes, the whole scheme and sub
stance is artificially formed, but the maker has always
hidden himself under the lively mask of Nature, and
the scene or series of scenes stands true and satisfying.
So one may say, that when Japanese work is good, it
is Art and Nature too, and more restful and supporting
than anything we do with similar space and material.
In the small yard and court spaces, trees, various
shrubs, sedges, rushes, reeds, and grasses are employed,
also the iris and many other small plants, and all are
forced to struggle for existence. The Japanese will
have no prodigal nature or rampant growth in their
small gardens ; they tear out the strong spring shoots
of shrubs to make desperate wounds and signs of pain ;
they pull up or bare some of the roots ; they bruise
and peel bark, and bend and distort over-ambitious
boughs ; they replace deep soil with gravel or sand ;
everything must show fight and a will to triumph against
natural forces, as wind or cold blasts, a desert portion
of soil and moisture, or the mean remains of some
landslide or robbing flood.

198 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
We cannot garden in the Japanese manner until
convinced of the value of restraint. We crowd the
surface with incongruous things ; we leave no space,
since we seem incapable of discerning the necessity of
practically bare space ; nor do we typify place or coun
try. We plant everything upright, and if it would lean
we stake and tie it and prop and prune it upright, and
we say we make landscapes ! As a matter of fact, our
most worthy landscape effects are a long way from
Nature, and not infrequently as far removed from good
Art. But I write this only to emphasize my desire to
see European gardeners, or would-be gardeners, take
to the study of Japanese garden work, as it is distinctive
and valuable beyond their ordinary conception.
Japan is my greatest discovery. If Europe is the
home of my heart and reveals the art of life as lived out
of religious faith and historic tradition, then is Japan
the other, the earlier, deeper, more natural part of me.
The Japanese garden is not a diversion, an abortion,
or anything uncertain ; instead, the Japanese, of all men,
see and deal with the most informing, companionable,
and supporting things ; their world is all alive ; it is
the life of the mind too, though not the ordinary civi
lized mind. Man has come to be the disposing factor
in Nature. The chief value of Japanese garden work

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 199
is that it voices and reveals so much of Nature. The
Japanese are the interpreters of Nature's ways.
All Japanese garden plants tell their story, and it is
ever a good one. No European garden plant tells any
story — it never was or can be true to Nature ; but look
on a Japanese plant or landscape of any sort anywhere,
and what a world ! How their hand-made landscapes
swing and sway ; how their trees put out hands and feet
to catch for life, and retain their hold against the land
slip and the storm ; how they squirm, and thread, and
seek amid clefts and crannies, or fight the blasts of
hail and snow, as it strives to enfold them with its robes
of white. We have not observed to follow and win
support from Nature ; we have not brought Nature
into our gardens, but done our best to keep her out.
Not device, not pattern, but Design we want ; not how
much we can invent, but how much we may show by
a few lines. Nature's lines are few. The land pictures
are models of restraint : a fold and twist and curve in
the native land, no more. A garden is not to be a
fancy, but a fact ; not one man's art, but every man's
home. A good thing does not tire or disturb, but puts
and keeps one to rest. Ambitious gardening must
prove a vanity and a source of misery.
Wre should perceive so surely as to build gardens

200 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
to round off natural scenery. Watching a lake recede,
and reveal expressive beauties in the disposal of more
or less submerged material of many kinds, made me
conscious that we study and achieve nothing at all of
strands and forelands, of lakes, pools, the water and
land masses forming our landscapes. The Japanese
alone have insight for and achieve wonders in this field.
They watch and wait to discern the significance and the
purpose of the seasons. They live by revealing Nature's
Despair. To fear the raw elements and compete with
them is to be fascinated and gladdened to no noisy or
complaining end. The forelands and islands and shores
of a miniature lake ; the lilt and swell of the old trees ;
the upstart saplings, advancing their adventurous heads
above the hills and by the water side ; the tired and
slumbering land — these things satisfy.
Japan is a weight almost. It betters Greece in the
demands it makes on one's understanding. From morn
ing till night one is filled with lines, lines, lines. The
eye sees them, the ear hears them, as if they meant
varying rates of speed, and in their haste or repose give
off shrill or languorous music.
In moulding surfaces the Japanese alone have done
perfect work ; in Europe one may see no perfect garden
which man has made ; he has neither designed nor

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 201
copied Nature to perfection. What do I want or see
possible over and above what has been done ? Greater
perfection in form. There is insufficient form in a
series of lines and curves which show flat, and chiefly
are flat. In Nature nothing is flat, and there is small
Art and less Nature in any garden which is or appears
flat. Natural scenes and their sections are round ;
beauty is round. Nature seldom repeats, atid repetition
is the rawkish feature in gardens. If a thing is good,
it is enough.
To the cultivated sense a European garden imposes
a sort of fatigue drill. Only in Japan may one see the
tired land put to rest. Make no mistake : the earth is
tired, and by man made tiresome. Our gardens appear
awake and alarming, where they are intended to yield
repose and peace. We have not come to think, much
less talk of active and passive scenes ; we have not
studied and summed up the material for a scene and
season ; our grouping is no art, nor does it at all re
semble Nature. This mere pattern prevents our seeing
the shapes in the land, the story of the land, the mystery
of the land which counts and accounts for all.
I have given hours to seeing and forming the sur
face of a small piece of land ; a little more or less, here
or there ; more roundness to every part, more dis-

202 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
tinctiveness, twist, roll, wind and rest in each part.
Nature stamps her foot at times. The land does not
heave and subside, nor the cataract fall without, a com
plaining or a roar. Not " taste " but vigour, not death
but sleep, that is what we want to see over the face
of the land. The geologist should be a good gardener,
since he may know the forms which Nature assumes
under different influences, force or forces making all
these things possible in combination ; also the means
to see them when clothed with vegetation, and over all
the lengthy future which man conceits himself must
surely be.
To prove the art and to crown it, if there is any
need for crown after knowing what is right and done
aright, the handiwork must not be seen. Any hint of
invention, any display, any mechanics known as " taste,"
want annihilating. The best in Nature is equal to any
man's needs, and if he cannot see shapes and forms, if
he cannot lift a scene wholly or in good part and place it
by his own hands within his garden space, then he is
no gardener, and there is no need to trouble at all about
him. The world over, people wonder how and what
it is others see ; certain it is that we see differently, and
we have different powers of shaping and grouping things.
I cannot draw, but I can design ; I cannot paint or

THE GARDEN OF THE SENTEI 203
arrange flowers, but I can mark out the colour scheme
for a picture ; I cannot plant my land with the same
sureness as I can mould it ; I am a land-builder, sculptor,
carver, moulder — that is all.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE LITTLE WOMEN.
r I ''HE tubbing and scrubbing of which one hears so
-¦¦ much affords nothing different to our way of taking
a bath, excepting that often it is a tub instead of an iron
or stone bath, square instead of long, deep instead of
shallow. Some bathrooms in quite small houses are
most elegant, and rare comfort shops too. The maids
do bath or wish to bath one. They help to undress one,
and always they would hold the clothes and towel, but
they are all as little mothers, and one forgets to be shy
or to regard them as women. They are and they are
not ; for one sees so much of them as to lose sight of
them as women. There is not a stocking in Japanf
and inferentially there is not a leg one may not see.
As I heard say, clothes are responsible for much of the
immorality of this world. It is certain that the Japanese
garments do not help to make the wearers seductive;
there is no charm in the Japanese figure. In fact, she
has no figure — a figure of fun, if you like, but no other
204

THE LITTLE WOMEN 205
The Japanese shuffle is imposed by the wooden
patten. This is not as long as the foot of the wearer,
and to keep the thing on and the white sock out of the
dirt, the nation must shuffle and trudge on tiptoe. It
is noticeable that those who wear sandals or straps about
their feet affect a walk, and there is no difference in the
gait of men and women. The Japanese leg is interest
ing — a leg peculiar and the property of both sexes.
Japan has the leg- worshipping cult, but I doubt if they
have made it the leg it is. Perhaps it developed from
going on tiptoe. Anyway, there it is, the strongest,
most muscular leg one may see, though not attractive,
for it is always a beefy red and has neither ankle nor
spring to it.
I saw hundreds of young girls assembled, visitors
to shrines and other places of interest, and never a truly
graceful and well-formed body : and the dress allows an
inspection. The legs are too thick, the hips narrow,
and the shoulders much cramped and rounded. On
the whole, the men have far better figures and finer
features than the women. The wearing of the tabi
(linen sock) divides the big toe from the others, and
the toes turn inwards, as do the knees, induced from
desire to keep the kimono folded across the legs whilst
moving along. There are few beautiful hands ; the nails

206 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
are narrow, ribbed, and claw-like. But the great want is
the eye and the mouth. Now and then the eye is open,
clear, and engaging, but I do not recall a mouth I wanted
to kiss. In the North all the peasant wives blacken
their teeth, and in other regions the teeth are most
defective or unattractive ; on the other hand, some
Japanese have lovely teeth.
The female voices are most agreeable, so soft and
musical, and very kind. I encountered peasant slave
women who might have been excused if they had howled
like wolves or brayed like she-asses, but they did neither ;
instead, they spoke only of necessity and with dignified
calm. As I have used the word " dignified," I will again
say that Japanese speech is the most dignified of their
possessions. I saw reserve, restraint, respect, in all times
and places, but nothing of the character of true dignity
excepting in the choice of tones and manner of speech.
The sweetest voices I heard were from four or five girls
who sat in a group at the Yoshiwara in Yokohama.
It is not easy to come by the sense of humour of a
remote people. I thought the Japanese very quick in
some things, very dull in others. Their ear is decidedly
dull, and I doubt if they can visualize from descriptions
as readily as the ordinary European. They have seen
so little, read so little, exercised their minds upon so

THE LITTLE WOMEN 207
little. Every nation in Europe is informed of, and more
or less impressed by, the rest of Europe. One cannot
say that Japan is a blend of the leading human elements
of Asia. But I was about to write that to get the best of a
Japanese girl, one must see and hear her laugh. She
can do so with smaller excuse or show of reason than
any mortal I have ever met or am likely to meet. When
she likes anything, she laughs ; when she doesn't under
stand any thing or body, she laughs — and there is some
wisdom in that ; when anything tickles her fancy, she
laughs, and runs round and kneels down and sways,
and lifts her queer little head, and giggles and laughs
again ; when she has rendered gracious service, she
laughs ; and when she is praised or favoured, she
laughs and laughs and laughs. There is very little
noise. She puffs out the most infectious of giggles
and hiccups, as if she blew her pleasure through a sheet
of tissue paper in the sides of her mouth. One of my
little slaves was such an artist in laughing that I took
special means of bribing her to stay and entertain me.
At Nara the weather was awful. Rain fell in tor
rents day after day, and I passed most of my time watch
ing the womenkind at their domestic employments, which
are less varied than those of their European sisters. They

208 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
do not iron clothes, but pull them and stroke them,
chuckle over them, perhaps swear at them ; anyhow,
they always damp them and take no thought of drying
them, and that was liable to make me swear. When a
piece of stuff is to be extra free from creases, stiff and
gingham like, they spread it sopping wet over a board
and lean it against the house or street wall to dry, and
look like, what it is not, new stuff. With so much
resource in some things, one sees them thriftless in
others. Why they should go to all the labour of sew
ing the sheets to the quilts I could not make out. Chinese
buttons or tapes would answer just as well, look better,
not take one- hundredth part of the time, nor as much
material. Their neatness and artistic sense of grouping ordinary
things, such as table ornaments and kitchen ware, passes
all European conception. Their courage is of the wild,
ungovernable order, and where their arrangements are
disturbed, they behave as little furies. At Kyoto I felt
compelled to be careless : it was such a rare pleasure to
see my Kio San defy and reprove me. Neat trays or
low baskets are provided for one's few garments, and
it is only a savage who does not fold his clothes, place
them on the tray, and breathe a prayer of thankfulness
that he has got rid of the hideous things, and then either

THE LITTLE WOMEN 209
push them off the premises, which means the open-air
verandah, or leave them to be removed by Something
San. But this was too ordinary a process ; I threw my
garments on the floor, because it evoked amusement to
do so. Kio San waited for nothing but the chance of
catching me in the act, and she did almost every day.
And this is how she dealt with me.
First she let me know that she thought me very dirty
and very stupid ; it was abominable to place polluted
garments on the honourable floor of the honourable house
of the honourable street of the most honourable town.
Then I was stupid not to remember and do as I had
been shown. Kio would fly at me and push me in the
chest — quite hard and viciously she pushed ; then she
flew for the clothes tray and one by one my garments ;
piling them, she knelt over them, then clapped her
hands, and said with all her heart, " JA-A-PAN— this
is the way." Then she'd fold a garment, bang it hard
with both hands, appear to abuse it for a silly sort of
garment, and rustling her breath, she'd clap it in the
tray and bang it again, and again ejaculate, " JA-A-PAN."
She would have me know the custom and decency of
her country. When all the things were folded, she'd
console herself for restoring order, look at me, plead
with me, snarl at me, and threaten me; then she'd
(2,120) 14

210 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
bound up and bolt through any side of the room that
chanced to be open.
It is hard to make anything of this small adventure,
but it was delightful to experience. On leaving, I
offered Kio San a yen. Wildly she embraced it and
me, and the opportunity to come along ! At her own
expense she took a rickshaw to the station, where she
watched and guarded me like a mother till I was safe
in the train. Her devotion was complete. The last,
I saw of her, she was perched in her pattens above '
the mud of the station yard, and making desperate signs
of affection and farewell.
Westerners complain that the Japanese woman is
downtrodden ; rather I would say she is in great part
neglected. It is true she may be sold to prostitution
or service of any form ; but as a daughter, wife, or
free domestic she does not lag far behind the boys and
men. Men nurse babies equally with women ; also
there is not a domestic duty men will not perform.
The women wear more expensive clothing than the
men. Footgear is alike for both, and as neither sex
affects jewellery, vanity is divided between the two.
The schools and the subjects are much the same for
both. One may notice that men are indifferent to
the presence of or comfort of women ; but if this

THE LITTLE WOMEN 211
were not apparent in Eastern Asia, where might it be
expected ?
All the house and other' litter is tied in mats or straw
crates, and carried away to the land on women's backs.
In the North a U-shaped pad is worn on the back. The
Little Women have this as a part of their dress, and they
are always ready for labour. One does not see any
men to match these women : they live and move as
an unsexed and distinct class ; married or single, whom
they keep, or who keeps and employs them, I did not
discover. It is significant that one can buy no pictures
of Japanese peasants or native life of a rude kind. The
Japanese issue postcards and prints of every detail in
the life of their subject people, the Koreans, and they
lay stress on the rudeness of such employments and
features as are equally common in Japan.
Round Kamakura were some exceedingly pretty vil
lages, thatched roofs, topiary hedges, and the quaintest of
trees and gardens. In a paddy field a man and a woman
were working together. He was hoeing down ridges of
rice stubble which showed above the water, and she
with an enormous basket of green grass — it must have
weighed a hundredweight or more — walked or waded up
and down, treading the soil into pulp to prepare it for
rice ; the burden was to help her to sink in to the thigh.

212 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Japan must think more of her women. There is
the field and the factory, and the advantage is here one
and there the other. We all think we know what is
best for ourselves, yet a little more light and we come
by a deal more life. Until the women are relieved of
their slavery of the fields, are recognized of finer clay,
and allowed to become true mothers and inspirers of
the race, Japan cannot improve in ways worthy the
name of advancement. Put the Little Women in white
linen, keep them to employments where they can wear
a stocking and cultivate some pride in an ankle. A
land without many bright, happy women is Tom Fool's
land ; and in spite of all the prattle about the Geisha
and the Mousme, there is no rare female loveliness,
as the maid goes, in Japan.
It is interesting to watch them dispose their belong
ings and themselves when they travel by train : how
they spread the rug, always sitting on it, and never
covering themselves with it. In fact, it is a general
habit to take off garments, not to put on more, nor
wrap up as we do. When they can neither sit, nor
crouch, nor perch any longer, they kneel as if in prayer
against the side of the carriage or over a basket or bag,
and there they sleep silently, motionless for hours, like
little faultlessly-dressed idols, and just as expressionless

THE LITTLE WOMEN 213
and still. They never hesitate to perform their toilet
to the extent of touching up their face and hair. The
comb that sits astride the centre ridge or roll is no
ornament merely. Twenty times a day it is lifted out
of its seat, made to catch back any wandering wave or
wayward single hair, and then reseated on its proud
throne. I left Kobe on a soft, murky morning. Mena San
and I had been smiling familiarly at each other over
the last couple of days, and the hour before leaving,
as I gave her a yen, she tucked it away between the
folds of her obi, and, putting her hands in a beseech
ing pose on her knees, said, " Take me to Okayama —
Mijiama — and on — and on ! " Now, all I heard of this
was the place names ; the " take me " and the " on
and on " were understood by signs and smiles and
raising of hands, as we do when we picture places over
sea or beyond the mountains. To convince her speedily,
I pressed my hands together as if describing something
very small between them, and said, " Ginko " (Bank).
She understood, and smiled wearily.
It must not be accounted strange that all my wander
ing affections are spent on serving-maids. They are
the only mortals whom I meet at close quarters, and
in Japan one depends on them for everything. They

214 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
do in the most complete manner take charge of one.
It is their business and their pleasure to do so, and it
makes a big difference in one's estimate of them that
they do count it a pleasure, and make no sign of its
being a labour or duty.
At times, through the eye of memory, I see heavenly
blessings in the faces of women and girls who have
watched my departure from inns and farms and cottage
doors. Ay, and from slum passages and reeking, dark
some alleys too. The human soul is ubiquitous, and
were it not so, few could travel far. In truth, there is
no travel worth the adventure if it does not improve
the quality of our human sympathies.

CHAPTER XVII.
SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN.
TN soft, warm air, with surging mists and no direct
-¦¦.view of the sun, I left Yokohama for Kyoto. My
toads were a source of wonder and expense, for they
were refused admission to the train until I had paid
forty sen (is. 8d.) ; then they were given two enormous
labels, broader than their box, and a compartment to
themselves. To travel with a baby or any other living
thing is to have company and trouble in plenty.
I have heard that a prize is on offer to any one who
can write of Japan and not mention Fuji. No wonder !
When one has seen Fuji one has such wealth of pleasure
as to be independent, so I will write a sentence or two
of the peerless mountain. First of all, it is the largest
perfect thing one may see ; it is wonderfully symmetrical,
but not stiff or hard ; nor is it cold or awe-inspiring
— rather a glowing, a deified, and truly uplifting thing.
One thrills, puts out hands, and exclaims aloud of the
beauty, power, and glory of it all. I have seen Fuji

2i 6 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
named Great White Spirit ; it is that indeed. Fuji
cannot be painted or described ; it cannot be over
drawn, because it cannot be reached by human eyes
or pen or tongue. Here one sees in the Japanese way
one thing only — and enough.
Standing at sea level, Fuji, fifty-five miles away, rises
to afford a sort of throne and crown of the world. It
is over twelve thousand feet high, and it may be seen to
its full height in its entirety from many view-points.
The mass is so great, so accessible to the eye, and the
lines so soft, that the beholder is charmed, and made
to desire the support of this great, pure mountain. Had
Fuji been in Europe, it would have inspired an exalted
and enduring form of faith, for it is of holy and
benign aspect, and an unfailing source of gladness and
hope to all mortals.
To the Japanese, Fuji is both Goddess and Sacred
Mountain ; but it has not enlivened or inspired Japan
as it would have inspired Europe or Western Asia, and
one searches one's European mind for a fitting inter
pretation of the purpose and facial expression of Fuji.
The isolated aloofness of the mountain, its unsullied
form, its proud disdain of all the world around, show
it as fresh as if it had just risen out of the purest sea,
or descended as a cloud out of holiest light. Fuji is

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 217
to be seen and felt at a distance. It is not so much
material, snow-capped, and solitary : it is a living spirit
and it expresses the sense of form that fills the eye,
and the quality which makes all the soul discernible in
the Japanese.
Fuji rises out of a comparatively low tableland, and
one may ramble round its base to see a world of loveli
ness, several large lakes, streams hastening and linger
ing, villages, tea plantations, paddy fields and their
peasants, idle children, and many glimpses of shining
bays and broad plains of the sea.
Moving south, summer came with a bound. There
were thousands and thousands of little plots ready for
the sickle ; many crops of barley were laid, and some
were bound. The country came to resemble parts of
England, the paddy fields and the scanty garbs of the
peasants alone making marked difference. It would be
impossible to find cleaner cultivation — no sign of a weed
or a wilding among the crops. As in the North, these
are all set in open rows, with spaces between prepared
to receive other crops when the grain shall be cut and
taken home. The growth and ripening is very rapid,
and summer's gold succeeds to the deep, luscious green
of spring all in a day or so.
Some peasants take the wheat and barley with a

218 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
sort of comb, a bar of wood fretted, which they whip
under the ears and pull them off into a bag carried at
the side. The sickle of Japan is of the smallest and
rudest kind — a piece of hoop iron, cut to the shape of a
short flaying knife, with a heft lashed on to a piece of
wood about eighteen inches long.
Men and women bear the harvest loads on poles
and bars in the same way, right across two continents,
from Japan to Portugal. In some parts of Southern
Japan the sheaves were hung on clothes-lines to dry —
only the lines happen to be rods of bamboo placed on
upright poles ; also corn and straw are put to dry on
roofs, verandahs, smooth rocks — anything above the wet
earth — and there it dries in the first wind or hour of
sunshine. No hay or other fodder is grown, as there are not
enough animals to consume it, though everywhere green
stuff is cut and carried on to the land as manure. June
is the harvest month. Grain, if dry, is beaten out
directly after harvesting. Some beat the small sheaves
(mere handfuls) over a bar or on a table, others use
mallets to the loose ears and grain in the straw laid on
a raised earth floor, as in the Mediterranean region. The
flail is used in a variety of forms, also grain is fretted out
by pulling it across a sort of comb fixed on a frame.

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 219
Holding the grain and chaff against the wind to
winnow is the most picturesque feature of harvest time,
as the winnower stands on a tub or stone and holds
the sieve far out to provide a truly classic pose. The
harvesters can never be clean or look it, for the grain
is cut when the furrows between are a slush.
The three hundred and twenty-six miles between
Yokohama and Kyoto revealed rich and beautiful coun
try over all the way — all the low and flat country popu
lated, so that there was never a vacant or unpeopled
scene. The picture was that of a continuous village,
the biggest towns appearing no more important than
the smallest. Tokyo, with over two millions, has been
described as a big village ; it is that truly. No town of
Japan has the features of a European city ; an agglom
eration of tiny matchwood houses does not make a city.
Japan never came to know aught of stateliness. The
villages never get above the plains and mud flats ; that
is the worst feature of all. A prettier, grander, easier
land does not exist in similar latitude, yet all the best
goes unused, untenanted. The rare and unimportant
exceptions are where a few thermal establishments,
shrines, or pleasure resorts occupy sites among the hills.
Thatch and black tiles make all the roofings, and from
end to end there is no appreciable difference in archi-

220 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
tecture and general plan of houses, villages, temples,
shrines, and towns.
There is room for every kind of fruit grown in
Europe. Grapes as food, if not for wine, should be
given a large place in Japanese rural economy. Con
sider — and it is a hard fact to consider and grasp all
it means — that tens of thousands of square miles, the
whole empire of Japan, all the cultivated land by which
it lives, is turned over two, three, or four times annually
by direct hand labour. I examined the land and the
industries of the land over one region of three hundred
and fifty miles, and though the land was cultivated, it
did not show twenty horses or other animals. Once I
journeyed over two hundred miles to discover but one
animal — a horse.
Try a smaller task. Try to estimate the hand
labour involved in working one hundred square miles.
Now in many parts of Japan one may sit or stand and
overlook a piece of land twenty miles long by five miles
wide — that is, one hundred square miles — and on this
area there may be from five thousand to twenty thousand
people working year in and year out, always toiling,
thinking of toil, and toiling anew — never any escape
from, or belief in any need or gain in escape from,
this toil of hand.

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 221
The human horses of Kyoto are impressive ; they
are so strong, and their strength so unnecessary, one
can find no reasonable excuse for them. Japan stands
still till she employs Power, and makes power out of
animal life other than human. The men pull loads up
to twelve hundredweight ; one man will pull this load
on a long, two-wheeled cart or truck, the framework
of which resembles a ladder, the load ranged in single
file between the rungs. It is usual for the load to be
at the ends, more behind than in front of the axle line.
One is tempted to gauge the state of life at Kyoto by
these loads and the men who draw them. They show
what Japan has to emerge from before she can be any
thing like Europe.
The bulls and horses which draw carts in Kyoto pull
their loads by a single trace or centre rope running
along their back, and they are driven from a single rein
fastened to a ring in the nose ; this rein is flicked from
one side of the head to the other, and pulled to control
the direction. Many of the draught animals of the field
have neither collar, neck-yoke, nor chest-band, but pull
from a girth strap, the pressure coming about equally
all round their bodies.
The Japanese arrange their scarecrows sitting down.
Made of straw and stones and clods, a hat and straw

222 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
coat, they look lifelike and quite inscrutable leaning
against the heap of weeds or stones on a bank of the
field, like a man taking a rest or a meal.
Throughout the low country of the South the vege
tation changes little in kind or size : a few things fall
out, and a few things come in ; the most notable and
abundant are climbing roses and a shrub with white
flowers like deutzia, but of coarser foliage, that was new
to me. I had to wander over more than two thousand
miles to see my first piece of hill-farming, Italian in
character, about twenty miles south-west of Okayama.
At Nara I saw some hillmen who came from the moun
tains of Sando ; they were the largest and most robust
men I saw in all Japan.
Many Japanese rivers run at higher levels than the
surrounding country, due to artificial banking, and
enormous lengths of massive levees have been made to
prevent flooding of the cultivated land. The Japanese
plait long cylinders of bamboo, and fill them with big
stones, and thus make excellent binders for banks and
barriers across or beside rapid streams. One sees im
mense levees formed in this way.
To the west of Kobe were fine plains and vales filled
with wheat, barley, and other crops, and a cow or two.
A very rich and extensive plain lies south-west of Oka-

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 223
yama, thirty miles by five or six, given to wheat mostly.
Bullocks were fattening, and some were used for plough
ing. Ripe peaches grown in the open were on sale on
the thirteenth of June. Every bit of tree fruit was
tied in paper bags or sown up in muslin. One finds
no bad or neutral country at low levels ; most of it
has a natural richness and is well cultivated, except
that it might be put to better uses.
The interminable array of silent, slumbering hills
offers a sort of consolation to all the toilers in the
vales. Nature and Man — Nature and Man — get
into one's ear and into one's eye, until one comes to
feel and see some of the sources of Japanese life and
ideals. It may not be possible to describe the effect
of the thousands of little fields and strips and plots and
dots of grain and green, as they spread and perch and
wrestle for their places among the recesses of the lower
hills ; and the sizes and forms and expressions of these
hills are as varied as they are numberless ; yet one
feature links and relates them all — they have black caps
of vegetation, and they suggest conical or dome-shaped
mushrooms. The dry, ribbed hills of the Japanese painters, with
their black blobs and tackabout lines of shade, as if
pricked in with the end of a stub brush, are the rare

224 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and idealized features of Japan. They are due to the
presence of sandstone and volcanic formations followed
by landslides, rapid erosion, and the steady action of
water. These materials and forces are by no means
limited to Japan ; but the Japanese alone have searched
to discover their true artistic value. In Northern
Japan the best example of pine and storm and trem
bling land is in that dreamlike region of Shiogama and
Matsushima. Less effective examples are found at
Enoshima, and at intervals down the coast till the
Inland Sea is reached.
Many islands of this sea hold all the best features
in miniature, except that the struggle is less keen, and
vegetation does not strive and complain, nor achieve
so much in the form and expression of splendid courage.
Round Hiroshima one may view the scenes which are
the sources of some of the best of Japanese landscape
painting ; but the rarest and the grandest natural features
of this class lie a little inland between Miajima and
Shimonoseki. One spot, Heta, is that which painters
use for their steep black hills, with here and there a
landslide or a gorge and fall. Deep, dark, chilly vales,
with a threat of storm and utter loneliness, it looks
like what timid folk call a Judgment-day place. On
the day I was there the storm came in real earnest,

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 225
and provided a succession of imposing and thrilling
scenes. The land between Nara and Osaka was truly lovely
in every feature, purest white lilies decking the ground
under pine woods which spread for miles and miles.
The general appearance is similar to the country be
tween Spezia and Genoa, excepting stately buildings ;
for there is nothing strong, old, or anything to convince
that life had been a splendid thing in what we term
the Night of Time. But Japan keeps us near to Europe,
for its landscape is often like the European. At Kasaoka
I saw a lovely picture. A Misty Morn were all the
words I heard as I looked on a lakelike inroad of the
sea, with high black peaks and rounded promontories
towering out of silver bars of mist. A white heat was
over all, and there was no sun visible. Direct sunlight
is infrequent in Japan ; in summer so much moisture
provides a bar between earth and sky ; the light is soft,
and the space tones gray and sombre. One reads the
legend of a region, turns to history, interrogates the
people, consults oneself, and discovers Nature — Nature !
that vague, elusive, silent, unsatisfying, and final term.
" Lake Hirosawa is the place for viewing the moon
beams on autumn nights." So said the native guide
book, but I did not go. Those moonbeams and those
(3,120) 15

226 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
autumn nights ! It was not autumn, but bursting June ;
if any more, it rained and rained and rained; and I
never saw a country look wetter than Japan when it is
not raining ; and when it does, why, there's nothing left
but water and to swim like a duck.
Unable to converse, I came by no great body of
Japanese humour, though there was usually something
to divert and employ one. At an outlandish place, when
I asked if many Europeans came, the hostess replied,
" Half-past ten " — meanin about five gin five years. A
Japanese boy, pointing to a slaughter-house, said it was
"A cow-cut house." A shop sign read: "Fresh milk.
pulled from the cow by Hygienics." Another sign in
Kobe was more explicit ; it ran : " Please enter and
inspect us all over." In the same town, near a wharf,
was a walled enclosure and a board holding this notice :
" The Notice is strictly forbidden to get over this stone
wall." Without any effort of my own, news of my prospec
tive arrival in Kobe had been sent in advance to a native
innkeeper. When I stepped from the train a swarthy
little man sprang at me and held me with both hands,
and cawed and sputtered his hopes and fears concerning
the capture. He was quite tiny, but remarkably strong,
as all his race are, and he appeared to hiss and hurl

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 227
curses at the hotel touts, lest they should wheedle or
pull me from him.
At the foot of a beautifully-moulded and richly-
wooded hill I stumbled on this notice : "A clean and
pleasant Tea-shed at the rear of Venus Hill." This was
tempting, so I climbed flight after flight of rough and
tiring steps till I reached the Tea-shed. Without doubt
it was clean and pleasant, only Venus was out.
In Japan it is almost impossible to escape seeing
gravestones ; they bestrew and affect all the country
land put to use, and many promontories, islands, and
the sides of ravines are overlaid with stones or carvings
or roughly-hewn tombs. In some quarters there are
more signs of death and past generations than of the
living and their activities. The peasantry are always
working in sight of the graves and memorials of their
dead. A rocky outcrop, a few trees, or the need of a
screen or rubbish heap cause a mound to stand up here
and there among the paddy fields, and this mound is
sure to be used as a burying-ground. Often they pro
vide delicate and distinctive charm to the cultivated
vales, for a tree or two, a stone lantern, and few or many
small conical stones, placed on broader flat stones so
that they resemble beehives, make storied and com
panionable spots above the mire. On these mounds

228 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
the peasants retire for their meals, and at one and^the
same time support themselves by contemplating the
condition of their ancestors.
During an afternoon walk outside Kobe I found my
way into a cemetery so small, old, tree-shaded, and
quiet that it might more truly be described as a church
yard. At the gate were several sheds and vendors of
green stuff, tied in bundles, flowers, and things asso
ciated with the dead. Two women preceded me by
a little, and I thought they were smoking ; but on
their halting by a pile of stones I found that each carried
a bundle of sandalwood, which they had bought and
lighted at the entrance.
I sat down and watched their work ; it occupied
about five minutes. They had bought two bundles of
green stuff — myrtle and flag iris — in a wooden bucket
of water. One' woman cleaned out two clay cylinders
like drain pipes, which were stuck into the ground to
hold branches and flowers, whilst the other woman
ladled out water and poured it carefully over all the
stones, paying particular attention to the top of the
headstone. Was this a survival of tree worship, cool
ing the spirit, comforting it, or what ? I saw an old, old
story in this offering of water to the dead, though I
could not unravel it all. One of the bundles of sandal-

SCENES IN SOUTHERN JAPAN 229
wood was lighted, then stuck in the ground, the other
carried off by the women, when they had chatted cheer
fully with an old crone who carried on some business
about the place.
Quiet as I found the town of Kobe, this spot was
more so : it was hushed and inviting. Mosquitoes were
there by the bushel, and I had no disturbing thought,
except that they might drive me out. Throughout
Japan it is difficult to find a spot whereon to sit down,
or anything to sit upon ; the paddy fields and banks
are wet always, and whatever the people do or wher
ever they go, they will have water and a wet world.
This sounds odd, but it is true. I had grown tired of
railway carriages and rickshaws — tired of lying, and
kneeling, and crouching, and sprawling on cushions and
matted floors — tired of beds even ; but here was a
chance to sit in the quiet shade of the dead, to do noth
ing and to do it decently, as I felt; for there can be
nothing sacrilegious in having a fondness for tombs,
even if they be counted sacred to others.
I wrote the above as I tried to dodge the mosquitoes
by passing into the sunlight, which here and there fell
between the trees ; but I was not allowed to sit down :
blood showed over my hands, and my handkerchief was
red-spotted from mopping my face, and had I not

230 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
moved on I should soon have been as dead as those
who lay under the stones.
There is nothing strangely different in a Japanese
and an English gravestone — a greater refinement in the
latter, that is all. A little bordering of dressed stone
set in the earth, a pediment or foot-piece fixed within,
and one or two or three pieces raised above in tapering
order — that is the usual form. Their favourite grave
plant is cotoneaster, though they employ many others,
none of which are inappropriate to this employment.
As smoke scares mosquitoes, I filched a stick of
burning incense from a grave and sought a sunny spot.
There I rested, enjoying the rest more, as a man but
a few yards away was working hard at stone for a new
grave. He was axing and chiselling the stone on the
spot it was to occupy, rather disturbing to the poor
wretch who lay beneath. We read of condemned
prisoners being kept awake by the building of the
scaffold. This seemed an extension of refinement ; but
did it matter at all ?

CHAPTER XVIII.
OF JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY.
\T O Japanese may escape the sight or influences of
-*- ™ Nature, and of all more or less civilized men he
is the nearest to Nature. One cannot separate him
from earth. He reeks of it ; he desires of it ; he feels
that he is a part of it, inalienably bound by his un
changing claims upon the land. The very sounds he
emits — his Ay and Nay, his audible passions and his
transports — are as near to the creaking of a limb or the
sound of wind among leafy boughs as they are to sounds
human. Japan is devoid of plains, provocative of
shadows ; she imposes calm ; she has few hillmen ;
of all lands she is the most silent. For days I was in
the woods without hearing or seeing a bird ; when I
heard one it had a soft, sweet song.' Domestic animals
are scarce, and domestic life involves no stir.
To me the ordinary native mind of Japan is very
different from our own ; it is not a difference of years,
of advancement ; it seems to have been derived from
231

232 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
other elemental forces ; it has been aided here, retarded
there, by different factors ; it has looked in and upon
itself, where we have looked out and about, till we
have lost consciousness of what we are or whence we
came. Where we have experienced a hundred shocks,
changes, gains, and revivals, Japan has known scarce
one. She has gone on by herself, where we have gone
on by others. She has been searching herself, where
we have been searching all the world. These may be
causes of difference, arbiters of change. I will not
admit that Japanese life is a finished thing, that it were
well for the world to imitate it or to let it alone, or
that it were well for the wisest of her own people to
let others alone.
Japanese life does not complete a sort of journey or
pursuit where all end in a finished achievement. Here
is a life complete to its people, in few or no ways com
plete for Europeans. It aims at so little, it accepts so
little, it dreams so little. It is so silent, so still, so
uncommunicative, so altogether small. It is nowhere
grand, lofty, large, in scheme or theme. Neither back
ward nor forward, nor out and away, nor deep within
is there a sign or sound of large inspiration or full
living. The Japanese are the French of the Orient. They

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 233
are more capable than they seem, but there is a differ
ence between capability and wisdom. If there is any
thing wrong in this statement, it is that the Japanese
are not Orientals. Whatever stock they came from,
they are now native of the soil they claim. Japan is
herself, distinct, alone. The Japanese claim they are
derived from the Ainu, the aborigines of all Japan
overwhelmed by incursions of races from the North
and from the Philippines.
Apart from their purely domestic life and their
employments, they are a rough people. They have
no delicacy in their touch. A girl or woman handles
a baby with no more care than if it were of wood. My
horned toads came in for rough treatment wherever
they were caressed, and I was often compelled to pro
tect them from rough handling. It is for me to forget
what I did not enjoy or approve ; but as Japan looks to
outsiders, one may state one's convictions. I met all
sorts, but the common class chiefly. The better class
of Japanese convey the impression that they are sus
picious, abnormally sensitive to our opinions of them,
and in a certain way aggressive. This aggressiveness I
can explain only as a studied intention to assert them
selves. In their Press and Parliament they persistently
proclaim that they are as good as any other people or

234 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
race, but I have not learned how they define the word
" good." Since they have discovered that there are forms of
civilization outside their own, they seem rather angry
that they did not make the discovery earlier. Then the
selected, educated, travelled Japanese — the man who has
filled a position. abroad and filled it very well — develops
the conceit that his people are on a par with himself,
which they are not. We may find civilized and savage
in every country. Moreover, we may find a great
many who are neither civilized nor savage. Japan has
a preponderating number of this last class.
The Japanese are a gregarious people. They have
learned to live at peace at close quarters ; they have
been long guided and governed by narrow faiths and
superstitions, which have trained them to regular habits
of thought and rules of conduct ; they have laboured
and slaved always ; they have believed in a great enemy,
and made sickles into sword blades, rather than the
reverse ; they have laboured their soil to come by a
rare sense and intimacy with living, storied, and com
panionable things ; they have never conceived of the
greatness or made use of their natural store. As ex
plained elsewhere, their faith in water, the absence of
animals and good implements, their refusal of foreign

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 235
trade and intercourse, and a hundred minor factors, have
prevented their attacking and developing their land.
They have belittled the seekers after strange gods
and strange empires, but they have not evolved a com
plete civilization. At least, they are not civilized accord
ing to the European ideal, and their indignation at the
discovery that they are not will not help them at all.
They are not a white race. Japan wants to be strong
in numbers ; she had better be strong of soul. She
cannot win from the West by challenging the West.
This is not the time for Japan to claim racial equality.
It is not a virtue to be white ; but it happens that the
civilizations of greatest splendour and renown have
been evolved by whites, and there is no past account,
nor any prospect of any coloured or Asiatic people
advancing, except on the white man's model. How
can the Japanese, by copying, rivalling, and changing,
equal the European ? If by our civilization we are
distraught and flabby, Japan is raw and, in her native
self, more or less repellent to the Western stock.
As I see the Japanese, it is still their necessity to
develop themselves. No great Power will recognize
Japan for more than political reasons. Japan has more
than the colour barrier. It is no good trying to gloss
over a fact of Nature. All the admiration in the world

236 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
for Japanese art, industry, courage, and success in war
does not alter the fact that the Japanese are mentally
and physically inferior to the Chinese, though far more
likely to hasten reforms in their industrial and social
life. Many Japanese have physical blemishes. They
are not to be blamed for this ; the fact stands. On
economic and humanitarian grounds, I would like to
see the Japanese free to enter into competition with the
workers of all lands. On physiological grounds I would
not admit them to citizenship with any white race.
It is often said that the Japanese are immoral. I
do not think so. I came to believe that in human inter
course they were frank and open ; they would talk of
anything and do anything openly, where we would say
or do worse, or no better, in private. Lest it be thought
I am prejudiced against the Japanese, I venture to assert
that there is not a sane European in the world, living
among coloured people or Asiatics, who has not some
subtle form of antipathy to a people of distinctly dis
similar instincts. Now, it is the instincts of the Japanese
which Europeans are ever likely to oppose. They are
wild, primal instincts. The mind has not emancipated
itself from the body. It is the life of the senses, though
well under subjection.
The native strength and persistence of the Japanese

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 237
secure them. Often one hears that they have not the
commercial honesty of the Chinese nor the delicacy.
But of this I am sure, that the Japanese as a nation are
far too sensible to lose caste or reputation by lack of
probity. They admit our code by adopting it, and they
do not imitate our weak but our strong qualities. By
nature or training they are a mistrustful people ; they
are not so gentle as they pretend. Of course the country
makes room for some fine souls. Considering his geo
graphical position, his origin, his history, the Japanese
is remarkable for many achievements, many virtues,
many qualities of heart ; but he is not attractive — he
is unfriendly. It is not shyness or ordinary indiffer
ence ; it is a primitive, suspicious reserve, coldness. He
does not see with another or for another.
I have observed myself watched very intently,
watched as a cat or a monkey would watch a thing
being hidden, when there was no earthly reason for any
prying or spying at all. This stealth, or furtiveness, has
a long history. One sees the primitive man in every
action ; one does not see the slightest sign or desire
on the part of the people in city, town, or country to
break down the racial prejudices or racial differences
between East and West. This is a mere gag, a bit of
business advertised as " honorary " by a few vain pub-

238 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
Heists. Prejudice of this sort is necessity. What is the
use of calling it by any other name ? The Forward
Party wants the traveller with money, and wants his
applause. Its vanity is distressing. It says to its
people, " Be civil. Bow and scrape and change your
facial apparel every day. We are pushing you, so be
careful." In the remote country places, the people do not
want us. They are politely tolerant, but prefer their
own room to our money. I proved that. I smiled out
of gladness, out of a desire to be taken for a fair-deal
ing mortal. But often my smile got no response from
the men. Women are from curiosity always more
trustful and friendly up to a certain point ; but seldom
did I find a man whom I might consider intelligent
who did not reveal a discomforting amount of bump
tiousness, cunning, or caution. I will not pay for every
virtue. I will not believe it necessary to serve people
before feeling one may obtain some service from them.
Kind people are kind people, honest people are honest
people, and it does not take time or experience to prove
them. Honesty, kindness — these are not virtues ; they
are the outcome and obvious issues of common sense.
The stay-at-home native of Japan is silent and
natural, never self-conscious, while those who have

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 239
travelled or affect European dress are conspicuous by
their mannerisms and desire to attract attention. I am
prepared to judge the Japanese more from what I feel
instinctively than from what I actually encountered.
Once I wrote of them, " No one is or can be rude."
That is not correct. They can be both rude and
cruel, t suggest that rudeness grows out of cruelty,
and cruelty out of ignorance. There is a sign of
reserve that may be construed as hard, cold, callous
selfishness. No one offers anything to mother or
father, and it is everywhere a case of the devil take
the hindmost.
I do not see the Japanese possessed of much origi
nality or initiative. He can see a thing when it is done,
and he can imitate to perfection. He is very ingenious
and resourceful in small things. If he were large in
himself, his country would show more of his handi
work. He never did a big, a grand, or a lovely thing
in all his national life. The biggest things he ever
made Were missionaries, though I am not sure that
they did not come to him to be discovered. All the
history of Japan, all her waves of change, stir, and
recoil, show the work of the missionary pilgrim. . Left
to herself, she falls back and back into more and more
primitive and obscure ways of living, till stress at home

240 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and pressure from without force an opening, and a new
era of war or art or commerce is ushered in.
And why has it been this way ? Because Japan has
not changed her blood. Consider the mixing and mix
ing that has gone to make any nation in Europe. Japan
has neither absorbed nor been absorbed by any other
stimulating power for more than two thousand years.
Insufficient has come of the Esquimau and Tartar blood
from the North and blood from the East and Central
Asia. Acting alone, she has been breeding in and in,
and though I do not write as an authority on race-
breeding, I see plainly enough that in-breeding has not
been good for Japan. She cannot improve appreciably
of herself and by herself. Whatever she does for her
self, she will breed no nearer to the European type.
At home the Japanese beget Japanese; and go where
they will to win money by hand labour, trade, or the
spoils of war, they cannot change themselves nor those
who stay at home.
It is my honest opinion that they are in the sulks,
because they discover their unlikeness and the impos
sibility of their coming nearer to being, like white men.
Another thing, the nation is not awake to desire change ;
only a very small part is awake. The vast bulk of the
people are still in the country, busy, isolated, and un-

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 241
conscious of the aims and hopes of political leaders and
traders. Of the entire population of sixty millions, less
than ten millions compose all her cities and large towns,
and, with two or three exceptions, none are large. In
the greatest of them, it is the concession to convenience,
the desire for equality in trade and social status in the
street which causes many to adopt European clothes
and deportment.
In his home the Japanese remains himself, un
changed. If Japan were strong enough to turn out all
foreigners, she would do so fast enough, and revel
silently in her return to her old-time life of strange
contrasts. The country people display no jealousy or
concern ; they have their land and their employments
to themselves, but the traders of the big towns and
the politicians nurse a grudge and the ill-concealed
notion that the best of their trade is filched from them
by the white men in their midst.
Put the position this way. Europe and America
could do without Japan. We should suffer no more
than a momentary shock if she disappeared from our
world. But what of Japan if there were no Europe,
no America ? It is no exaggeration to say that she
has developed into a World Power solely out of her
trade relations with Europe and America. New Japan
(2.120) 16

242 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
falls between the simple and the grand. She is neither
one nor the other. She is open to act anyhow for the
foreigner's money. , She is not interested in the interest
the foreigner may take in the best side of Japan. She
is genuinely afraid of being imitated, for she knows
how much she has gained by imitating others.
The Japanese who argue in Europe have been made
in Europe, and they cannot speak with equal force for
those Japanese made in Japan. Japan has hot opened
her eyes and her heart to the broad facts of human
life, nor come to see that no nation can affect isola
tion or independence and remain self-contained and in
the best sense progressive. There is ample room, as
there are just grounds, for all human differences. I
would not write another word if I thought Japan could
lose as much as a grain of rice by me ; but it does
seem that whoever elects to exclude the Japanese, Japan
should make no effort to exclude the white man. She
may not be doing so by Act of Parliament, but in her
private heart and effort she is doing so all the time.
If Japan sincerely desires to advance according to
European ideals, she must be largely aided by Europeans
for a long time to come. As I have said, the Japanese
cannot change himself, and, left to himself, he has
neither capacity nor desire to change his Institutions

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 243
Rather, it is the lack of Institutions we have to deplore.
Those existing in Japan are exotic. In a State which
is neither civilized nor savage, Institutions may be few ;
but where it is contended that Old Japan must go, or
asserted that Old Japan is no more and that New Japan
is a fact, or is to be the Europeanized portion of the
East, I fail to see any truth or possibility of truth in
the assertion. She can have Institutions only from
greatly-increased self-development.
Japan's future is to be determined by the nature
and extent of her foreign trade, and this must come
of her internal development — her land. Commerce is
king, and neither signing of treaties nor tearing up of
treaties will add one bushel of rice to the country, nor
alter the native demands and conditions of the people.
Too clever by half, is my estimate of the present genera
tion of Japanese pedagogue and publicist. It is natural
enough that he should think well and speak well of his
own ; but when he goes abroad to return and preach
equality, or anything like equal rights in international
affairs, he misses his opportunity to help his kindred
and break down racial prejudices — a term he employs
too often, and misinterprets, too.
If Japan is to make the conquest of all conquests,
let her make war against her hand tools, her paddy

244 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
fields, her thousand, thousand idle hills, and fight and
subdue them. She likes to believe that she is the
greatest modern discovery of the world, and not to be
done without. Her opinion of herself has been bred
out of America, and this may prove a great misfortune
for Japan ; the contrast is all too sharp and ill-timed.
The thought and tendency of Europe and America are
by no means one. Japan was all art where America was
all trade, and the interchanges between the two countries
have not been even a temporary advantage to Japan.
Japan cannot model herself on America and make a better
world for herself.
Japan has a habit of cutting the painter. The love
of privacy in the national as in tne domestic life is a
trait unalterable. When she can, she flouts the outside
world, puts up a notice, " Not at home," and goes back
to her paddy fields and semi-nakedness again. Oh, say
my brave modern Japanese, " We have decided for the
European way now ! " They have ; and if they go for
ward in European enterprises it will be in company with
an ever-increasing army of Europeans amongst them,
whose labours and support will make them as jealous
and .irritable as ever. Left to themselves, they will
emulate nothing European till they have made it their
own ; then it will be a different thing. Only the leaders

JAPANESE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY 245
will stick up for the European way, because no spoils
nor splendours can fall to the Paddy-field Party.
Since the leading men in Japan have been warped
by their own ambitions, they profess to believe in change,
growth, and betterment. At the back of their heads
they believe in no such things, and hope for no such
things. Only when the populace is asleep is there a
chance for the politician. The more I saw of the people,
the more unfortunate I thought them. I did not like
them less, but I recognized they were less developed
in mind, body, and estate than there was any need for
them to be or to remain. Seeing their country is see
ing them. Its condition proves their condition, native
capacity, and disposition. One cannot say they are five
hundred or a thousand years behind us ; that in the
Middle Ages England or Europe had no better human
type. It had. It had the white man, whatever that
means ; and it means infinitely more than the Japanese
appears ready to comprehend, and is proved by what
the white man has done for himself in the past five
hundred or thousand years.
It may be no business of ours to estimate and pre
scribe for other people, yet it would pay Japan hand
somely to declare openly (not know it and deny it) that
Europe does not recognize Asiatics as of the same quality

246 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
as themselves. Sure of her status, Japan might put her
pedagogues and paid emissaries to do all they may
to develop her people, and then in, say, five thousand
years, or when they shall have grown strong enough to
overrun Europe half a dozen times, and carried off a few
millions of its fair women and idolized them, whilst mak
ing them the strong mothers of strong sons, there is just
the possibility that they may become white as some Moors
and Kurds and Asiatic Jews are white ; so that, between
their skin and their capacity for art and industry, they
may be accounted different — in fact so like Europeans
that they will evermore pass freely amongst them, and
hear nothing of racial difference or the barriers against
which they now bleat and complain.
How contradictory and unreasonable I may seem !
but I have tried to explain both sides of Japan and
her people. I have praised the simple, sure, and old ;
here and there I have commended the new. I have
found excuse for things I could not like ; I have striven
to be just at the expense of a private opinion. I have
seen Japan in being ; there was nothing else for me to
do. Whoever sees a thing, sees it for himself ; for be
sure that if two look on an object, it is two objects,
and unlike.

CHAPTER XIX.
AN OPEN LETTER.
" J^HE most astonishing feature of Japan is that the
¦*• vast bulk of the country is in a state of nature.
Hundreds of thousands of square miles of accessible
and well-favoured hill country lie unpeopled and un
productive. Only where a region is convenient as a
shrine or place of pilgrimage do the Japanese make any
effort to occupy the hills. Nikko and Nara are ex
amples ; also they prove that the earth is good, and
the situation capable of producing a sturdier and higher
type of humanity than is possible to the low country.
To call this neglect of the land a mistake is too mild
a term ; it shows the Japanese destitute of the first
principles and aims of agriculture, or overborne by
customs and fetishes of various kinds, it matters not
which ; while the fact stands that they remain in a
general way destitute amidst enormous and inexhaustible
potential wealth.
The Japanese publicist complains that his country
247

248 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
is overcrowded, and that room must be found abroad.
If it is true that Japan has sixty millions of people (which
respectfully I incline to doubt), there is room for them
multiplied by three or four, and no crowding. Japan
has only to figure out the areas, occupied and unoccupied,
to discern if she is more dense in body than in mind.
From a European standpoint, Japan is a fairly large
country, and there is no single area in Europe of' equal
size favoured severally and jointly with a better geo
logical or soil base, rainfall, and climatic advantages for
farming and the general industries of the land.
Japan squares at about twelve hundred by two
hundred miles, or two-thirds of the size of France, or
one and two- thirds the size of Great Britain. Assum
ing that all the land may be put to a profitable use up
to at least three thousand feet elevation — and a great
portion of Southern Japan may be utilized up to four
or five thousand feet elevation — the native field open for
settlement and development is vast beyond the concep
tion of the Japanese.
The most childish and shifty excuses are made for
the general neglect of the hill country. The Chief
Forester, with conviction, told me that the hills might
not be cleaned ; that they would not carry sheep ; that
pigs gave off a bad odour ; that the Japanese did not

AN OPEN LETTER 249
need meat ; and as they had plenty of hands to do the
field work, there was no need to employ horses or bul
locks. Machinery was not liked ; it was new, and they
were not ready to put it to use. The best of this state
ment lay in its evident honesty from a Japanese stand
point ; but it was not honest, for in no single particular
was it true, excepting, perhaps, that the tidiest and
most profitable pig, if neglected, will create a bad odour.
But Man may never escape the old maxim — " Muck is
the mother of money." Farming is incomplete with
out animals, and it is impossible to preserve a sound
countryside in a climate like that of Japan unless animals
are regarded as the principal soil restorers and standard
sources of wealth.
A low, free-rooting, and persistent bamboo occupies
a great area of Japan, and the natives of all ranks and
persuasions maintain that this bamboo, which in point
of size and vitality is no more than coarse grass, is im
possible of eradication, and it is for this reason the
whole nation contends that the hills may not be won
and held. This contention is absurd, and is the out
come of Don't Know, or Don't want to Know. The
pioneer work of land reclamation during the past fifty
years shows plainly enough that, where skill and syste
matic industry are brought to bear, there are no areas

250 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
which are irreclaimable, nor any individual or collective
vegetation which may not be eradicated ; and, of course,
land may be cleaned the more readily and economically
where there exists a large and inexpensive labour supply.
To write of no more than lies within my own expe
rience in New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, North
America, and Ceylon, I have engaged in the cleaning
and stocking of land beset by vastly more persistent
and heavier obstacles than those forming the native
vegetation of Japan. The dense and almost perpetually
wet native forests of New Zealand, and Gippsland in the
State of Victoria, offered more natural obstacles to the
square mile than is presented by the worst score of
square miles of Japan. But the New Zealand bush and
the Gippsland bush have given place to scenes as fair
and prosperous as the eyes and heart of a farming man
may know, and all within the space of thirty years.
Do the Japanese want proof a little nearer home, let
them look to Western America ; to the tens of thousands
of square miles which they assisted to win for Americans,
Canadians, and, in not a few instances, for themselves.
There remain to be studied the reasons or lack of
reasons for the extraordinary aversion which the travelled
Japanese shows for his country as a country. Persistently
I maintain that he is hypnotized by a most debasing form

AN OPEN LETTER 251
of vanity, which keeps him thinking that he has only to
look all the time to things American or European, and
he will become an American or European, or something
most unlike and superior to his native self.
This is a hard subject to pursue, because it is so
intangible, so elusive and impossible of complete ana
lysis ; but it is a fact, and a big factor in the fortune
and fate of Japan. The best imitators in the world,
the Japanese have so far proved themselves the least
capable of imitating and pursuing the agricultural sys
tem of the white race. Many countries have offered
bonuses for the destruction of noxious vegetation and
the reclamation of wind-swept or saturated and sour land,
and if the Government of Japan desires an easy and
sure system of procedure, if has only to offer a bonus
for cleaning and setting in order its now profitless lands.
This can involve no loss, as the demonstrators would
bear their own expenses, and, succeeding, the reclaimed
land would be worth far more than the bonus it would
be necessary to offer. The country marked off into
zones — climatic, geological, botanical, and economic — it
would be easy to list the conditions and demands of
each region, and evolve a safe system of procedure.
Japan is inclined to behave like a jealous and cock
sure child, who grasps the hand that strives to assist,

252 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and stops the tongue that would explain. But she does
not know of agriculture, and she cannot teach agriculture
to herself ; she needs to be taught, and she will succeed
for herself just so far as she is well taught by others.
When Japan is discerning enough to invite some of
the best field experts and agriculturists from America
and the various southern divisions of the British Empire,
especially from Australia and New Zealand, she may
hope for a prompt and enormous accession to her wealth
and an inestimable gain to her people for all time.
Land development is by far the most important sub
ject confronting Japan : for whatever the value and pros
pects of trade ; whatever the value of timber used at
home, exported, or regarded as a decorative feature and
asset of the landscape ; whatever the value of water
yielding power, domestic and irrigation supplies, their
combined value is as nothing compared to the enormous
wealth returnable from depasturing flocks and herds,
and establishing communities of active workers at higher
altitudes — an essential factor to the improvement of the
race. As the Japanese maintain that they conquer by
yielding, no matter who excludes them, let them include
as many of the white race as they can possibly attract
to their own country ; the whites won't rob them or

AN OPEN LETTER 253
swamp them, or leave them in any way poorer or weaker.
Whatever improvement Japan has effected during the
last fifty years has been wholly and solely through the
white man, and to-day the Japanese is no better fitted
to direct his own agriculture than am I to steer a rudder
less ship across the Atlantic.
The countries round the Pacific should see the
mutual advantage of affording Japan the fullest oppor
tunity to acquire a working experience of agriculture,
that she may be able to develop and live by her own
store. To this end, if sane, Japan will encourage Agri
cultural Companies to take up tracts of hill country and
demonstrate its usefulness. Granted security of tenure
over two or three lives as a minimum, capital and skill
to employ it would be forthcoming, and no risk or
possibility of loss attach either to the Government or
the people of Japan.
Japan may learn all she needs to know of trade and
commerce from Europe and America ; but she needs
also to study the science of land development as it is
carried on by those of European descent. Japan has
neglected her land. She has idealized the sea and the
tree, deified the Holy Carp — making fish, wood, and
water her three divinities. This may be a discovery,
a shock, a rebuke, or a falsehood even to the Japanese

254 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
and to some Europeans, but I make these categorical
statements in the interests of Japan. She claims the
right and the need to progress ; whatever that may mean
and embody, it should mean the improvement of the ,
general condition of her people. A right to enter and
contend and take from every land will not improve the
Japanese. There is no proof anywhere of y nation
made out of returned colonists. All true improvement
is effected within a nation's boundaries, and until Japan
sums herself, her sum must be small.
At times it is my employment to estimate the quality
and the value of the raw material of various countries.
I have examined Japan to appraise it at a high agricul
tural value. The dormant wealth in the unpeopled parts
is far greater than that which existed naturally in any
corresponding area of Australia, New Zealand, or West
ern America. Whatever the present-day value of Japan's
land products, I see her capable of producing twenty
times as much with the same number of hands and no
greater outlay. I see a first extra cost, of course ; I
see the expense of clearing and preparing the land, and
a certain outlay in providing for new industries. By
reserving the best natural forest areas of each region,
the timber and fuel industries would be assured ; the
balance should be devoted to agricultural and pastoral

AN OPEN LETTER 255
industries. Wood worship and the woodcraft engen
dered of the shrines should not monopolize and make
sacred all the hills.
It must not be forgotten that man has control of
vegetation ; if he destroy a forest, he can provide an
other. Timber is not the precious and indispensable
thing some people would have us believe. We may
worship trees, but live without them : they are not as
necessary as they were. Small and quick-growing plants
are destined soon to supply the great world needs — sugar,
spirit, and fibre. With fibre come paper, rope, and
building material (compressed). Iron, cement, and arti
ficial stone are supplanting timber in all substantial build
ing ; wood grows to be an ornament, and has smaller
place in proportion to the increase of human numbers
and trade. Sugar, spirit, and vegetable oil at the will
of man produce fuel, light, heat, and minor products
in variety. Further, a country situated as Japan can
never run short of timber.
What are the land laws ? Who owns and with
holds those vast stores of wealth from the hands and
stomachs of the people ? Has the Government a land
policy, and something more than a policy ? Has it
such sense, such heart, such knowledge as will soon
cause it to put its soil tQ use ? Japan will lose by look-

256 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
ing abroad ; her business is at home. There is plenty
of land for those Japanese who would emulate foreign
ways of dealing with soil and crops and, kine. No
land can advance without producing animals on a large
scale. Meat, butter, milk, cheese, bacon, lard, wool,
leather, manure — can these be done without ? And
what is Japan without them ? She has no efficient
substitutes for them.
It may be easier to estimate a people than an indi
vidual. The mass can never hide itself. Moreover, it
makes no effort to do so, whilst this is the sole care of
most individuals. I write this, lest it be thought that
my brief season in Japan could give me small excuse
for making any estimate and suggestions for the better
ment of her people ; but my life has been given to the
study of peasant people and their employments. If we
are fitted to a task we are not long in coming to its heart,
and it was easy to discern the native store and crying
needs of Japan. It is no business of mine to pick holes,
make mean comparisons, and discover shortcomings.
My concern is to help where I can ; but I cannot for
get Stevenson's short proverb : " There was a wise man
who journeyed forth at morning ; he told the people what
he thought of them, and they buried him at the set
of sun."

AN OPEN LETTER 257
One cannot deal with Japan in an uncritical spirit
and do her any sort of service. Old and New Japan
are in such sharp conflict as to reveal a positive dis
loyalty on the part of the Moderns. Within half a
century she has passed from one of the least to one of
the most mercenary of nations. Japan is industrious :
that is well ; but one-tenth of the energy would secure
more if given a new and more rational direction. She
is wasting her substance abroad, instead of estimating
herself and formulating a sound domestic policy. To
this hour nothing has been done to alter her land in
terests or improve the lot of her fifty million peasants.
Fear or no fear of outside enemies, Japan's real and
lasting business lies at home. Talk about an outlet for
her surplus population is a blend of conceit, greed, and
paltry ambition. Every country has its share of adven
turers who find no profit in legitimate activities. The
slavish mimicry in government is none but the worst
sign ; or if there is a worse, it is the secret rebellion
against the men and things it slaves to imitate. Japanese
testiness needs to be overcome ; but one may not
readily discern its possible destroyer.
Religions are still playing their part in Japan. But
whether she respect the animal or not, she must have
more meat, and she must provide animals for meat and
(2.120) 17

258 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
believe in meat, or she won't reduce by the breadth of
a hair the natural barrier and difference between East
and West. There is no virtue in abstinence, my dear
little men. There are more differences made by diet
than you are inclined to discern, so pray begin to dis
cern and adopt one more science from the West — the
science of feeding. Whatever you may have had to go
without in the form of fires and fleshpots,-it may be
different in the near future. Oil, spirit, and your native
waterfalls are giving you heat, light, and power ; put
these to further use and cook your food. Bring in some
decent things ; throw out some indecent things. If you
must have law-makers, let them do one diabolical thing
— legislate against the people's existing forms of food.
Don't think because you have fought some good
fights fairly and squarely that you are anything like as
capable as you think you are. You did not invent
those ships and arms. I do not like your New Japan ;
but that is not your fault. If it is a fault at all, it rests
on those who came amongst you and persuaded you
that Vanity was the fine flower of the West, and that it
paid to fly it mast high. Young Japan, you are already
the victim of a commercial conspiracy. In thinking of
nothing higher than taking from others, you will lose
yourselves. Does it matter ? In some ways — yes ; in

AN OPEN LETTER 259
others — not at all. He will be a clever man, or a clever
fool, who succeeds in improving your land products and
its peasantry, for wherever and whenever any change
and so-called betterment is made, the population may
cry out, " We were better off before."
These few words on Japan are no dogmatic effusion.
Honestly, carefully, I have tried to set down what I
came to believe ; where it seemed to me rich, full of
meaning, or meaningless. By nature Japan is intended
for agricultural pursuits ; to have by far the larger part
of her population bred out of and kept up among her
hills. She is to be new-made out of eating meat and
clothed with garments of sheep's wool ; she is made
to share wood fires and cooked food, and, now and then,
the merriment and abandon bred of a little wine. So,
as 1 have said elsewhere, Japan is not yet come to full
stature. Japan may manufacture and the world may
buy, and Japan sell herself to the devil thereby. If
she would be strong within herself in the eyes of the
world, she must possess and dwell among the hills.

CHAPTER XX.
THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL.
AT Akita the innkeeper gave me a compass that I
•*¦ *-might find my way home to him. The town was
less than a mile square, the site flat as a board, and
held only thirty-four thousand people. I never could
steer by a compass, and I never knew any one travel
with fewer guides and accessories. I have trained my
faculties till they lead me without a thought or an effort
of thought. I was assured that without a guide Japan
was impossible. Well, I went up and down and round
about. What I did not hear or see, I did not want to
hear or see. What came my way was in my way and
enough. The railway stations are all named in roman letters,
and there are brief directions about crossing platforms,
changing trains, etc. The carriages of the different
classes are marked by wide bands of colour— the first
white, the second blue, the third red. All are smoking
carriages, and there are no reserves for ladies, so one
860

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 261
can't go wrong. The carriages are dusted and the floors
washed every fifty miles or so, and all classes are orderly
and quiet. The gauge is very narrow, the carriages
quite tiny from without, though roomy and comfortable
within. The pace averages about twenty miles an hour,
a sort of farmer's jog-trot, in keeping with the silent
movements of the country.
I count it no crime to set down that I found myself
more dependent on other mortals than in any land I
had known. I knew no Japanese or any tongue which
could help me with the people ; but I believed in the
universal brotherhood of man, so far as to feel convinced
that, where others could live, I should not die of want.
I trusted to the equivalent of a silver shilling to secure
for me anything I might need — as it always did.
Like the Japanese, I was in no sense shy ; and if I
attracted a crowd or made it laugh at me, what matter ?
Looking back, I see none but friendly faces. I did not
pass out of any door without receiving unmistakably
kindly words of farewell. At times I must have given
far more trouble than I was worth, but there was never
a murmur or a reduction of service,; and when I had
gone, no words of good riddance followed me — of that
I am sure.
Many things I have learned in the course of a life

262 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
passed among simple people, and one of the most im
portant is — to be simple with them. I carried no gew
gaws. My watch — a huge, cheap, metal affair — made
them laugh and admire my strength in carrying it round ;
it could not make them feel that I was their superior
in wealth or anxious to appear above them. My clothes
were odd affairs. They could not see as much quality
in my wool as I could in their silk or fine cotton crepe.
If I had good boots, their lofty indifference to footgear
kept them from seeing as far as the ground. In a worldly
sense, there is no microscopic curiosity. The only people
who examined me and the contents of my bags closely
were the housemaids, and they used every article by
turns openly and frankly, just to see how the comb
would comb, the brush brush, and the powder clean
teeth. I used to laugh, and thereby lose more material
and gain more confidence.
This confidence is worth a word or two. I did not
meet a shy, timid, or a reserved girl ; I did not meet
a shy, timid, reserved, or rude person of any sort. But
allowing that I gave no cause, I might have met a timid
girl, or one taking time to show any confidence in me ;
but I did not. Over and over again young girls took
charge of me as if they had known me all their days ;
they did not seem to know the meaning of stranger or

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 263
fear of any sort. And here let me say in parenthesis
that the only things in the country discovering me for
a stranger were the dogs. From the first they scented
me out ; I repeat, they scented me out, for I believe the
discovery came to them through their noses and not
their eyes. In fact, I know they scented me from afar,
as they would bark and growl in the back premises
before they rushed out. They barked singly, then to
gether ; they followed till they grew into little packs,
and though they were never formidable in size or deter
mined in manner, I disliked their noisy demonstrations
against me ; but these ceased when I had reformed my
constitution by Japanese fare, and become as odourless
as the natives.
It seemed to me that human life was held so cheap,
it could leave no room for fear on the part of girls or
any one else. I did not get a hint or sign that I might
consider myself safe, or my belongings safe ; there
seemed to be no possibility of either being unsafe. As,
to getting lost, I could welcome such a possibility, or,
rather, I could not believe in such a possibility. Lost
in this world ! Think of it, picture it, hedged-about
man ! Who would not be lost awhile ? As I have
written, every place is mine for a season at least. As
one does not drop out of space into a country, but

264 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
comes by a road of which one has noticed the details
by the way, one arrives at new premises more or less
informed. What is more, we have convictions born of
experiences, and mine were such as to convince me I
could go up and down and round about Japan with no
other aids than a few shillings a day, and a kindly eye
where I needed a simple attention.
How I went was this way. I marked off a few places
to be reached by rail, and a friend gave me the approxi
mate times of arrival and departure. This served for
the first fortnight, and at the end of that time I was
prepared to act as guide to any one wishing to see that
part of Japan. The first native inn was the worst,
perhaps because I was new to it ; and it was not true
to its name, for it called itself The Grand, to which I
added grandmother. But when I left, the boots- or the
landlord — and all through Japan I never could divine
one from the other — gave me a letter to an innkeeper
at Shiogama, a village where I did not wish to stay,
though I had to go there to embark on my voyage to
Matsushima. Three young men and two maids were at the station,
and they took the letter and me by force to the inn.
Of course it rained, making it easy to accept shelter,
though I was determined that I would not stay the night.

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 265
I ordered a boat for Matsushima once, twice, perhaps
ten times I ordered it, and perhaps countermanded it.
Anyhow, they understood and decided it would be safer
for themselves if I went on. No, they did not. As
quietly as I had ordered, they ordered a boat, took me
and my belongings on board, accepted my little offering,
and just as in the play, out came the letter, and just a
word or two, Yadoya (hotel), Matsushima.
In time I found the hotel, and its occupants found me
and took me in, produced a little red book, which had
these words only in explanation — Conversation for Be
ginners — and held a number of trials and troubles such
as befell the gardener's daughter in her efforts to make
exchanges of pens and compliments with the carpenter's
son in the French manner. I was glad to find that the
Japanese had no more patience with this sort of litera
ture than have I ; and after we had decided that oysters
were not in season (it is a great place for them), that
I could not eat fish raw or made into slimy soup, that
I took a bath sometimes, and that I would pay yen
3.50 a day and sooner or later move on, we closed the
book and re-entered upon the silent life.
The hostess, with rare discernment, foresaw my few
wants, or, let me say in fairness to the Japanese, it would
be rare in most countries. On my leaving she made

266 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
out the bill for three yen per day, or fifty sen less than
the bargain ; showed me how much to pay the rickshaw
men for taking me and my baggage to the station ; and
then, of course — the letter ! It happened to name the
same house— in fact, the only one at Asamushi — which
was on my list, and there, as the reader knows, I had a
rare welcome and kind treatment. Out and about, or
fast at home, I had no difficulties.
For the first week or so, I was sustained by curiosity.
I tasted things, tried to make them out, and wondered
what they would make out of me. I know I had some
pronounced objections ; but, excepting the something or
other met and masticated on the train, and which would
not lie down and be quiet, on the first night I lay at Sen
dai, all the little things tucked themselves into my inmost
being and acted as silent supports. If I suffered at all
during the first week, it was from trying to combine the
fares of East and West. I took of whisky and brandy,
of brown bread, chocolate, and cheese, and not one of
these agreed with the juleps and juices of Japan. As
I realized this, I plumped for Japanese fare, and soon
came by a rare calm within and clearness of head.
Movement upsets me ; but with Japanese fare I
moved and moved, and found less than usual discomfort
from change of waters, beds, and boards. Ah, those

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 267
beds ! They were never uncomfortable, nor superficially
odd ; but the manner of making them and their dis
appearance, and the waiting for them to come as kinds
of living companions — those were sensations I cannot
forget. I did not suppose the Japanese had traversed ways
more Arcadian and serene than had fallen to my feet in
Europe, the much-trodden. I came believing in the
existence of a people finished as the Greeks ; but should
I doubt the Greeks had their back premises and their
pig wallows ? Japan has not these. To me, Japan is
not yet born. I have looked on her ruins and her well-
preserved work, both good of their kind, but I have
known better kinds ; most countries show better kinds.
The familiar and enchanting landscapes of Japan reduce
the European into overpraise of everything. The best
things in Japan are not the work of the Japanese. Nature
has a sly way in the East, and Eastern art is sly.
I cannot idealize my Japan and speak truly. I might
be the lover anywhere, but I cannot love all things in
Japan. I will not accept its discomforts and absurdities
as necessities of the situation. Over most of my life
I have been seeing differences in the domestic and social
life of peoples. As a nation, Japan must be written
down as more primitive in herself, and backward in her

268 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
employments, than those whom she challenges and would
regard as equals. There is no need to go barefooted
nor to wear clogs ; there is no need to sit over braziers
and suffer a mild martyrdom ; there is no need to crowd
and squat and curl on floors ; there is no need to imitate
ants, monkeys, and praying grasshoppers ; there is no
need to do without, and do without, till there's nothing
left but to do without ; there is no need to live on mere
frogs and fishes fare in the everlasting slush plots of the
vales. Good fare, good fare, and again good fare, if
you would be fairer and finer, my good little men. I
don't worship beef or brawn ; but I believe in some things
not employed in Japan, and there is great need that they
should be employed — that is, if Japan would emulate
Europeans. A fork or a spoon is as clean as a chopstick, and a
chair more supporting than a cushion, so I'm for the
West and some of its charms. I can find more dangerous
filth in any European town of a million inhabitants than
I may find in all Japan, but I may not discover as much
tomfoolery. It is often said, we are all of us just begin
ning to be clean. The Japanese are clean in preparing
their food, and immaculately clean in their homes and
persons. They bring nothing dirty into the house,
neither cat nor dog, and fowls are trained to pass their

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 269
days and nights on perches, knowing that should they
dare to move they'd be put in the pot.
Here are stone and clay to make good bricks ; here are
lime, gravel, and sand ; here is timber and more timber,
so why will ye not build and make yourselves homes ?
Will ye not rear strong and splendid edifices unto your
gods ? No. Your brain never conceived in the great
way. Your big Daibutsu and your big stones of Nara
bespeak no national soul ; a record of a pilgrimage, no
more. No widespread and glowing sense of things
great or good, as the soul feeds on the symbol of
Goodness. I could not feel that Japan had ever been, nor could
I come to believe that it would be the source of a great
soul. That was my concern, to come by the causes or
possible causes of soul increase. I did not feel large,
strong, full to the lips, when in Japan. It seemed to
me like faring on hors-d'oeuvres and dessert, and leaving
out the solid things which make the meal. I had time
and an eye ; I could look and wait, listen and watch.
If the day and the mood were not favourable, I could
come again, as I did often, but seldom with an enlivened
sense. In truth, the great is not there. The tales of
the feudal barons are barren, the fights of the Saumari
are all my eye The best employment for a European

270 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
visitor in the Japanese towns is curiosity hunting ; but
as the old guidebooks have it, " Take care and keep your
temper." Japan does not play. I will not accept ceremonial
tea, the Geishas' charms, the Yoshiwara, or the theatre
for play. I want a sense of life ; the will to 'skip and
gambol, and hang the headache of to-morrow. I stayed
with boys and youths of all types, and I saw too much
sobriety. Should the world ever become sober it will
become mad ; drink saves us to reason. There are ills
and pains and thirsts for gains which strong drink
alone will cure. I would rather live among men mad
from too much bibbing than live in a temperance settle
ment always. It is a question of latitude, and a question
of sense, and often the one determines the other. Some
splendid joys are born of sobriety, but life is a continuous
affair; and all its poor and incomplete periods — they
form the bigger half of life — come from a lack of anima
tion. I could not idle in a complete sense, for Japan
was always wet or clammy or moss-grown, and one must
lie down to idle in body and mind.
My prospective stay in Shimonoseki was cut short,
because I could not connect up a long land journey unless
I started at once. I had thought I would camp down,
review, weigh, and appraise it all : be fair to Japan, to

THE HUMOURS OF TRAVEL 271
prospective readers, and to myself. But the experience
ended in the abrupt way, as it does often. When I
get near frontiers or ports of embarkation, I say, " I'll
finish such paragraphs and round off such and such
chapters," and not one of them has ever come to print.
The nearest I ever got to a prompt finish was in a book
on Spain, when I summed up the provinces as I trav
ersed them, all except the last !
If in some of these pages there is more of the writer
than of Japan, may I not ask, " Is not the traveller the
thing ? " Places and their concerns are not worth seek
ing if they bring no increase of concern, insight, and
security to those who make trial of strange regions. In
Japan I was the labourer : I worked to understand. For
this world's good or ill, I have my little day and my say,
and never more than now have I wished to see clearly
and to write justly. I have given little to the world,
but it was a gift always. I sold nothing ; I took nothing.
I call myself an idler, because it is a restful fancy. To
call work a pleasure is to live gladly by labour.
Should these notes ever come to print, and the critics
sit down to play the devil with them and me, perhaps
here and there one will discern and protest that the man
who goes abroad to find corn and wine for his stay-at-
home relations gets enough chaff and cold water as he

272 THE HARVEST OF JAPAN
wanders on ; and if through the clouds he see the sun
at times, and find no fault with his bed among the pines,
it is more their duty to be thankful that they eat and
drink from his store and suffer none of the discomforts
of his pilgrimage.

INDEX

Agriculture, primitive methods of,
in Japan, 59-60, 62, 72, 74,
117, 211, 218, 221 ; what is
required, 75 ; Japanese really
ignorant of, 247, 252 - 253 ;
prejudice against machinery,
249.
Ainu, aboriginal race, 233.
Akita, 78, 91 ; gardens of, 92-95.
Ama - no - Hashidate (Heavenly
Bridge), 32.
America and Japan, g, 76, 241,
244.
Art, Japanese ideas of, 84, 87.
Asia and Europe, conflict between,

Bamboos, plague of, 52, 249 ;
how they could be eradicated,
249-250.
Bathing, 204 ; mixed, 185.
Boats, old, curious use of in tree
culture, 129.
Buildings, sameness of Japanese,
219-220.
Ceylon, rice terraces in, 73 .
Change, Japan the enemy of, 88,
249.
Charcoal, extensive use of, 118.
Charms and memorials for shrines,
nature of, 158.
Christian churches and Japanese
shrines, contrast between, 156.
(2,120)

Climatic advantages in Japan,
122, 248.
Coast scenery, charms of, 114.
Conservatism in Japan, 88, 249.
Cryptomeria forests, 117.
Daibutsu, wooden temple at, 157.
Dead, memorials of the, 227 ;
offering of water to the, 228.
Design in gardens, 199.
Dormant wealth in Japan, great,
254-
Draught animals, lack of, 220 ;
primitive ways of using, 22 1 .
Dwarf trees, 126-148.
East and West, differences be
tween, 237.
Education, helplessness of, 62.
England and Northern Japan
compared, 75.
Enoshima, beauties of island of,
114 ; fishing methods at, 114.
Europe and Japan, 10, 221, 241.
European aid required by Japan,
242.
Europeans and Asiatics, 245.
Fans, seldom used, 173.
Farm animals, few in Japan, 218,
220 ; great need of, for food,
256, 257.
Fatalism, 167.
Fishing methods at Enoshima, 114.
273 18

274

INDEX

Flowers, Japanese love of, 164.
Food, Japanese, 35-36, 49, 50,
169, 185, 256-259, 266 ; bet
ter food required, 62, 257,
268.
" Fossil manufacturing," 119.
Fruit-growing, 121, 223 ; oppor
tunity for, 220.
Fuji, a peerless mountain, 215 ;
what it is to the Japanese,
216.
Ganjusan, impressions of, 58.
Gardening, characteristics of Jap
anese, 53, 54, 96.
Gardens, Nature and design in,
199.
Grain, early ripening of, 122.
Hampstead Heath, no.
Hand labour in agriculture, 220.
Happy gods, manufacture of,
172.
Harvest month (June), 218.
Hawkers and their ways,' 171.
Hillmen from San do, largest men
in Japan, 222.
Horses lacking in Japan, 220 ;
human horses of Kyoto, 221.
House decoration, tree-trunks used
for, 119.
Imitators, Japanese the best in
the world, 251.
Impassivity, Japanese cultivation
of, 167.
Imperial Palace, Tokyo, 123.
Inland Sea, 177 et seq.
Institutions, lack of, 243.
Japan : Old and New, n-12, 243 ;
poverty of, 74, 247 ; causes of
poverty, 74, 221 ; the enemy
of change, 88, 249 ; requires
European aid, 242 ; how

much uncultivated, 247 ; size
of compared with France and
Great Britain, 248 ; fleshpots
required for, 257-259 ; re
generation of, how to be
effected, 259 ; very primitive,
267.
Japanese, the : prejudices against,
10 ; European impressions of,
n ; characteristics of, n,
122-123, 164 et seq. ; amphi
bious as fish, 58 ; a degenera
ting race, and why, 62 ; the
" Quiet People," 67 ; esti
mate of, as a race, 83, 231 et
seq. ; his place among tree-
men, 134 ; physically strong,
226 ; the French of the
Orient, 232 ; not Orientals,
233 ; their origin, 233 ; not
really civilized, 235 ; faults
of, 236 et seq. ; inferior to
Chinese, 236 ; not immoral,
236 ; lack originality or ini
tiative, 239 ; a self-centred
people, reason why, 240 ;
good imitators, 251.
Japanese : courtesy, strangeness of,
38 ; knowledge of trees, 92,
121 ; villages compared with
Western, 117; tree-man a
student of Nature, 132, 137 ;
bathing, 48, 184-185 ; walk,
or shuffle, 205 ; towns, fea
tures of, 219 ; painters, meth
ods of, 223-224 ; humour,
examples of, 226 ; character
istics, 233 et seq. ; habits, 268-.
June the harvest month, 218.
Koi, gardens in, 144.
Korakooyen, famous garden, 188
et seq.
Kyoto, waste of human labour in,
221.

INDEX

275

Land, neglect of, 253 ; examples
of land reclamation, 250 ;
how to succeed in, 251.
Landscape, Japanese, likeness to
European, 225.
Levee (river embankment), how
formed, 222.
Little women, the, 211.
Machinery, dislike of, 249.
Man and Nature, 223.
Matsushima, 32, 48, 50 ; archi
pelago of, 45, 46, 47 ; holy
places in, 51.
Miajima (Temple Island), 32, 177 ;
a sacred island, 178.
Mystery and romance, a sanc
tuary of, 109.
Nara, " Moon Tavern " at, 149 ;
temples of, 155 ; art in, 156 ;
former capital of Japan, 159.
Native inns, description of, 80,
149, 182 et seq., 264.
Nature, Japanese love of, 30, 132,
137, 140 ; garden work as a
revealer of, 198-200 ; and
man, 223.
Nikko, charms of, 100, 109 ;
curiosity shop in, 102-103 :
shrine amid the hills of, 108 ;
religious procession at, no;
a centre of gardening, no ;
httle frost at, 122.
Okayama, manufacture of gods in,
172 ; famous garden in, 188.
Old and New Japan, 11-12, 243 ;
conflict between, 257.
Orient, the French of the, 232.
Paddy (undressed rice), 72.
Peasant, Japanese, the world's
most natural man, 90 ; no
native pictures of, 211.

Peasantry, Japanese, dress of, 65 ;
simplicity of, 76 ; do not
play, 76; strength of, 122,
221.
" Peasant's Dance," the, 73.
Pilgrims, characteristics of, 157.
Poverty in Japan, 66, 74, 247 ;
causes of, 74, 221.
" Quiet People," the, 67.
Race, Japanese, a degenerating,
62 ; how to remedy this, 62,
268.
Railway travelling, 260.
Rice growing, 72, 73.
Rock gardens, 196.
Sendai, fossil wood found near,
119.
Sentei, garden of the, 188 et seq.
Shiogama, town of, 45.
Shrines, 51, 155 ; shops for selling
charms and memorials for,
158.
Sickle, Japanese, 218.
Slums, absence of, 187.
Smoke, primitive way of dealing
with, 118.
Sunset, a beautiful, 115.
Timber not indispensable, 255.
Tokyo, 123 ; Imperial Palace at,
123 ; early harvesting near,
122 ; a big village, 219.
Trade, foreign, its requirements,
243-
Tree craft, Japanese, 125 et seq.,
138 et seq. ; reticence regard
ing, 125-126, 145 ; an unceas
ing study, 126.
Trees, Japanese methods of felling,
117; culture of, 145; in
terest of to Europeans, 146 ;
how to appreciate, 146-148.

276

INDEX

Wealth, great dormant, 254.
Wisteria, a curse, 52 ; huge speci
mens, 161.
Women, Japanese, 204 et seq. ;
not downtrodden, but neg
lected, 210 ; what is wanted

to raise them, 212 ; rough
ness of, 233.
Yamada, guide-book description
of, 159-
Yokohama, "the front door of
Japan," 25 ; bay of, 22-23.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
T. NELSON AND SONS, LIMITED.