CHAPTER VII.A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO “KODAK” THE MIKADO—LANDED AMONG THE “HEATHEN CHINEE.”The sun was setting when we left Yoshida, and with our path principally composed of the narrow dikes separating the rice fields, progress was painfully slow. Miyhoji, seven miles away, was our destination for the night. We had an idea that Miyhoji was a village, and so clicked off eight miles before we discovered that we had either passed the town or were on the wrong track. About one mile back we had seen a light and there we returned. We were at Miyhoji, one of the historic old temples of Japan, and there we slept. The priest lived here with his wife and two acolytes, and a cordial welcome it was they gave us. At 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Nov. 20, we entered a forest at the end of Lake Mishi-No-Umi. We had six miles yet to go ere we sighted Shoji Lake and the hotel at that point kept by Y. Hoshino, a naturalized Japanese gentleman, who was born in Scotland, and having lived eighteen years on the islands of Japan, finally became an adopted citizen. Traveling the forests at night in Japan over lava beds with path illumed only by a cycle lamp is not the most pleasant of journeys. The narrow way is uncertain, deep chasms appear upon either side and I had several rocky falls. I was bruised and battered when we came to Hoshino’s residence and lost no time in taking to my bed. At daybreak our host called us to view the silent volcano rising in grandeur to the extreme height 12,365 feet. There is not a peak in all the grand elevation of the Rockies that can compare with Fuji. Pike’s Peak, taken from its setting of lesser lights, which but serve to destroy its beauty, and placed upon the plains of Illinois, would not even prove a petty rival to the one before us. As we looked upon Fuji that morning a spotless mantle of snow cowled her crest, the scintillations of which formed a halo of prismatic light about her, and it did not seem strange to realize that the natives worshiped this wondrous monument of eruptive power and beauty.It was our good fortune to be present at the greatest of all “war holidays” held at Shokausha Park in Kudan, on Dec. 15, 16, 17 and 18. After leaving Hoshino’s we returned to Tokio, and spent the time in touring the vicinity until these great fetes at which the emperor and empress are always present, were held. Dec. 17, the day upon which His Imperial Majesty Metsu Hito, Emperor of Japan, was to appear at Shokousha Park, dawned dull and threatening, and awakened within us the dread idea that the mightiest of all Japanese would not be on view. At the park the attendance was something incalculable.Tokio seemed to have had its million souls augmented by the thousands of Yokohama, Nikko and other surrounding cities. Our experiences in the vast crowd were paralleled only by those in the dense throng at the World’s Fair on Chicago Day. Shortly before 11 o’clock, a tremor ran through the crowd, then a hoarse murmur, and amid a cavalcade of gay lancers, the carriage of the emperor swept through the lane of blue-coated soldiers, and halted directly in front of where we were standing. As the emperor turned and looked about him, I saw a Japanese of low stature, dressed in the uniform of the commander of the army and navy; his dark-complexioned face partly shaded by a peculiar hat, heavily jeweled. The photographs of the Mikado represent him to be a slender man, with a long face, but they are not true likenesses. The Mikado has a round, full face, high intellectual temple, a black mustache which droops over the gentle, pleasing mouth, and with soft eyes, inexpressibly sad, his face appeals to one as that of a man suffering under the royal chains which confine him to the narrow limits of the palace grounds.He stood but a moment in the roadway and surrounded by nobles of various high degrees with bowed form, he moved up the graveled path, ascended the steps of the temple and disappeared within. While he was at worship my American instinct to obtain a souvenir of the occasion got the better of my respect for royalty, and I unswung my camera and prepared to make a picture of the scene. Almost directly two pairs of brown hands seized the camera, turned it sharply upward, and held it until the imperial carriage received the person of the emperor and departed. The Mikado was not to be shot at even by a camera. It was a keen disappointment to me, but I learned later that it was better I did not succeed. Had I snapped the picture I should have lost my camera and probably been roughly handled myself. I was told that I had been followed all morning by the police, who knew what I would attempt with the instrument, and who were detailed especially to frustrate my plans. My camera was not only excluded here, but in all buildings that held treasures or relics of the government and public departments.We had spent two months on the volcanic island, our last few days being fraught with interesting episodes and instructive visits. We had received so many courtesies at the hands of the Japanese, both from individuals and government, that we were loathe to leave for the mainland of China. The final courtesy extended me by the Japanese Government was the privilege of visiting the new prison just completed, and as I was the first European granted such permission, I felt bound to accept the unusual invitation. The precautions taken against disease by germ in the penitentiary at Tokio are equalto those practiced in the most famous hospitals and clinics in the United States and Europe. The wards were models of cleanliness, well lighted, well ventilated, warm and comfortable. The industrial features of the institution, I am safe in saying, are superior to those of the vast state prisons in my own country. There were seven workshops devoted respectively to the manufacture of fire engines, to the weaving and spinning of cotton and silk; the manufacture of silk umbrellas; production of steel hairpins; bricks for the city; the weaving of cloth and the manufacture of stockings, and one devoted to all branches of carpentry and wood-carving. The governor of the prison presented us with many valuable mementoes of our visit. But for that matter, every Japanese gentleman of rank whom we visited sent us a little souvenir of our meeting. We were compelled to purchase additional trunks in which to store our “curios,” and when we left on Jan. 12, 1896, on the City of Pekin, for China, we were forced to have our “excess baggage” shipped to our home in America.When the Inter Ocean cyclists reached Shanghai, one of the first sights we wished to see was the people among whom we were to travel for the next 2,000 miles of our trip, and we wished to see them at home. To view them in all their glory as an uncivilized, barbaric race, a trip to the old city was necessary, and on this errand Mrs. McIlrath and I started Jan. 25. We had intended to ride our wheels, but were dissuaded from doing so on account of the hindrance they would prove in sight-seeing. Our friends strongly urged that we take a guide, claiming it unsafe for foreigners to walk about the city alone, but as we were perforce to travel in Chinese territory far less accustomed to “foreign devils” than the inhabitants of Shanghai, we resolved to make our initial bow among thevegetariansunprotected, save by our nerve and a stout cane. Crowds gathered around us wherever we stopped. When I pulled out my notebook and fountain pen, the masses literally fought for places near in order to see me write, and when I had finished and upheld the scrawled page for them to look at, a roar of laughter went up, and several pointed to Chinese characters upon the dead walls of a temple, and in pantomime asked if the ink tracings on the page represented writing. The task of getting away from the crowd was much more difficult than forming it, and we were escorted the remainder of the afternoon by a monster band of chattering idlers.In many of the shops passed we noticed little girls, mere babies they were, standing on stools or leaning over railings, their heads on their arms. The poor tots moaned constantly, their little tear-stained faces depicting anguish seldom seen on the bright faces of children. Nothing seemed to attract their attention, nothing pleased them, and little wonder. Their tiny feet had been bound in unyielding rolls ofcloth since the day they were born, and already the bones and sinews were crushing each other into a mass of unrecognizable pulp, held together only by the skin and bandages. This practice is common among the Chinese of all classes and produces the fashionable small foot of the women. The bandages once placed on are never removed, except to be replaced by others, and in result, hundreds of lives are sacrificed annually, the children’s feet mortifying and sloughing away. It is erroneous to believe that only women of high caste have small feet. I saw women whose feet were only two and a half and three inches long, dragging drays.For four hours we wandered through the dark alleyways and streets, passing through tunnels and archways that were filled with noxious vapors and used by the public for all manner of nuisances. We experienced no interference with our progression, the only hostile feeling being shown was by a few street arabs who pelted us with stones and fruit skins. This treatment would be accorded a Chinese by our own precious youth in the States and does little harm if no attention is paid to the offenders. Dogs made several attacks upon us, but the little ammonia gun I always carry effectually checked all onslaughts and filled the observing Chinese with wonder. The “gun” was one of my own manufacture, simply a rubber bulb with a short glass nozzle. The bulb I kept filled with ammonia, and when dogs annoyed me, either on my wheel or afoot, the bulb, concealed in the hand, with the nozzle projecting between the fingers, made a most effective weapon. Directing the nozzle in the dog’s direction, a slight pressure sent a tiny stream into the yelping cur’s mouth and eyes. The dog’s violent breathing invariably caused him to take a full inhalation before he was aware of the evil designs upon him, and the effect was instantaneous. He would close his mouth with a snap and then perform a wild side somersault on his back. Several times I used the gun upon dogs in Shanghai and did it in such a manner as to conceal the act. The masters of the animals, who stood grinning while the brutes yelped and snapped at us, were unable to comprehend the reason for Fido’s acrobatic feats, and in each instance after looking the dog over to find some injury, laughed heartily, and addressed to us words in reference to the dog which were no credit to man’s most faithful friend.
CHAPTER VII.A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO “KODAK” THE MIKADO—LANDED AMONG THE “HEATHEN CHINEE.”The sun was setting when we left Yoshida, and with our path principally composed of the narrow dikes separating the rice fields, progress was painfully slow. Miyhoji, seven miles away, was our destination for the night. We had an idea that Miyhoji was a village, and so clicked off eight miles before we discovered that we had either passed the town or were on the wrong track. About one mile back we had seen a light and there we returned. We were at Miyhoji, one of the historic old temples of Japan, and there we slept. The priest lived here with his wife and two acolytes, and a cordial welcome it was they gave us. At 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Nov. 20, we entered a forest at the end of Lake Mishi-No-Umi. We had six miles yet to go ere we sighted Shoji Lake and the hotel at that point kept by Y. Hoshino, a naturalized Japanese gentleman, who was born in Scotland, and having lived eighteen years on the islands of Japan, finally became an adopted citizen. Traveling the forests at night in Japan over lava beds with path illumed only by a cycle lamp is not the most pleasant of journeys. The narrow way is uncertain, deep chasms appear upon either side and I had several rocky falls. I was bruised and battered when we came to Hoshino’s residence and lost no time in taking to my bed. At daybreak our host called us to view the silent volcano rising in grandeur to the extreme height 12,365 feet. There is not a peak in all the grand elevation of the Rockies that can compare with Fuji. Pike’s Peak, taken from its setting of lesser lights, which but serve to destroy its beauty, and placed upon the plains of Illinois, would not even prove a petty rival to the one before us. As we looked upon Fuji that morning a spotless mantle of snow cowled her crest, the scintillations of which formed a halo of prismatic light about her, and it did not seem strange to realize that the natives worshiped this wondrous monument of eruptive power and beauty.It was our good fortune to be present at the greatest of all “war holidays” held at Shokausha Park in Kudan, on Dec. 15, 16, 17 and 18. After leaving Hoshino’s we returned to Tokio, and spent the time in touring the vicinity until these great fetes at which the emperor and empress are always present, were held. Dec. 17, the day upon which His Imperial Majesty Metsu Hito, Emperor of Japan, was to appear at Shokousha Park, dawned dull and threatening, and awakened within us the dread idea that the mightiest of all Japanese would not be on view. At the park the attendance was something incalculable.Tokio seemed to have had its million souls augmented by the thousands of Yokohama, Nikko and other surrounding cities. Our experiences in the vast crowd were paralleled only by those in the dense throng at the World’s Fair on Chicago Day. Shortly before 11 o’clock, a tremor ran through the crowd, then a hoarse murmur, and amid a cavalcade of gay lancers, the carriage of the emperor swept through the lane of blue-coated soldiers, and halted directly in front of where we were standing. As the emperor turned and looked about him, I saw a Japanese of low stature, dressed in the uniform of the commander of the army and navy; his dark-complexioned face partly shaded by a peculiar hat, heavily jeweled. The photographs of the Mikado represent him to be a slender man, with a long face, but they are not true likenesses. The Mikado has a round, full face, high intellectual temple, a black mustache which droops over the gentle, pleasing mouth, and with soft eyes, inexpressibly sad, his face appeals to one as that of a man suffering under the royal chains which confine him to the narrow limits of the palace grounds.He stood but a moment in the roadway and surrounded by nobles of various high degrees with bowed form, he moved up the graveled path, ascended the steps of the temple and disappeared within. While he was at worship my American instinct to obtain a souvenir of the occasion got the better of my respect for royalty, and I unswung my camera and prepared to make a picture of the scene. Almost directly two pairs of brown hands seized the camera, turned it sharply upward, and held it until the imperial carriage received the person of the emperor and departed. The Mikado was not to be shot at even by a camera. It was a keen disappointment to me, but I learned later that it was better I did not succeed. Had I snapped the picture I should have lost my camera and probably been roughly handled myself. I was told that I had been followed all morning by the police, who knew what I would attempt with the instrument, and who were detailed especially to frustrate my plans. My camera was not only excluded here, but in all buildings that held treasures or relics of the government and public departments.We had spent two months on the volcanic island, our last few days being fraught with interesting episodes and instructive visits. We had received so many courtesies at the hands of the Japanese, both from individuals and government, that we were loathe to leave for the mainland of China. The final courtesy extended me by the Japanese Government was the privilege of visiting the new prison just completed, and as I was the first European granted such permission, I felt bound to accept the unusual invitation. The precautions taken against disease by germ in the penitentiary at Tokio are equalto those practiced in the most famous hospitals and clinics in the United States and Europe. The wards were models of cleanliness, well lighted, well ventilated, warm and comfortable. The industrial features of the institution, I am safe in saying, are superior to those of the vast state prisons in my own country. There were seven workshops devoted respectively to the manufacture of fire engines, to the weaving and spinning of cotton and silk; the manufacture of silk umbrellas; production of steel hairpins; bricks for the city; the weaving of cloth and the manufacture of stockings, and one devoted to all branches of carpentry and wood-carving. The governor of the prison presented us with many valuable mementoes of our visit. But for that matter, every Japanese gentleman of rank whom we visited sent us a little souvenir of our meeting. We were compelled to purchase additional trunks in which to store our “curios,” and when we left on Jan. 12, 1896, on the City of Pekin, for China, we were forced to have our “excess baggage” shipped to our home in America.When the Inter Ocean cyclists reached Shanghai, one of the first sights we wished to see was the people among whom we were to travel for the next 2,000 miles of our trip, and we wished to see them at home. To view them in all their glory as an uncivilized, barbaric race, a trip to the old city was necessary, and on this errand Mrs. McIlrath and I started Jan. 25. We had intended to ride our wheels, but were dissuaded from doing so on account of the hindrance they would prove in sight-seeing. Our friends strongly urged that we take a guide, claiming it unsafe for foreigners to walk about the city alone, but as we were perforce to travel in Chinese territory far less accustomed to “foreign devils” than the inhabitants of Shanghai, we resolved to make our initial bow among thevegetariansunprotected, save by our nerve and a stout cane. Crowds gathered around us wherever we stopped. When I pulled out my notebook and fountain pen, the masses literally fought for places near in order to see me write, and when I had finished and upheld the scrawled page for them to look at, a roar of laughter went up, and several pointed to Chinese characters upon the dead walls of a temple, and in pantomime asked if the ink tracings on the page represented writing. The task of getting away from the crowd was much more difficult than forming it, and we were escorted the remainder of the afternoon by a monster band of chattering idlers.In many of the shops passed we noticed little girls, mere babies they were, standing on stools or leaning over railings, their heads on their arms. The poor tots moaned constantly, their little tear-stained faces depicting anguish seldom seen on the bright faces of children. Nothing seemed to attract their attention, nothing pleased them, and little wonder. Their tiny feet had been bound in unyielding rolls ofcloth since the day they were born, and already the bones and sinews were crushing each other into a mass of unrecognizable pulp, held together only by the skin and bandages. This practice is common among the Chinese of all classes and produces the fashionable small foot of the women. The bandages once placed on are never removed, except to be replaced by others, and in result, hundreds of lives are sacrificed annually, the children’s feet mortifying and sloughing away. It is erroneous to believe that only women of high caste have small feet. I saw women whose feet were only two and a half and three inches long, dragging drays.For four hours we wandered through the dark alleyways and streets, passing through tunnels and archways that were filled with noxious vapors and used by the public for all manner of nuisances. We experienced no interference with our progression, the only hostile feeling being shown was by a few street arabs who pelted us with stones and fruit skins. This treatment would be accorded a Chinese by our own precious youth in the States and does little harm if no attention is paid to the offenders. Dogs made several attacks upon us, but the little ammonia gun I always carry effectually checked all onslaughts and filled the observing Chinese with wonder. The “gun” was one of my own manufacture, simply a rubber bulb with a short glass nozzle. The bulb I kept filled with ammonia, and when dogs annoyed me, either on my wheel or afoot, the bulb, concealed in the hand, with the nozzle projecting between the fingers, made a most effective weapon. Directing the nozzle in the dog’s direction, a slight pressure sent a tiny stream into the yelping cur’s mouth and eyes. The dog’s violent breathing invariably caused him to take a full inhalation before he was aware of the evil designs upon him, and the effect was instantaneous. He would close his mouth with a snap and then perform a wild side somersault on his back. Several times I used the gun upon dogs in Shanghai and did it in such a manner as to conceal the act. The masters of the animals, who stood grinning while the brutes yelped and snapped at us, were unable to comprehend the reason for Fido’s acrobatic feats, and in each instance after looking the dog over to find some injury, laughed heartily, and addressed to us words in reference to the dog which were no credit to man’s most faithful friend.
CHAPTER VII.A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO “KODAK” THE MIKADO—LANDED AMONG THE “HEATHEN CHINEE.”
A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO “KODAK” THE MIKADO—LANDED AMONG THE “HEATHEN CHINEE.”
A NIGHT IN A JAPANESE TEMPLE—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO “KODAK” THE MIKADO—LANDED AMONG THE “HEATHEN CHINEE.”
The sun was setting when we left Yoshida, and with our path principally composed of the narrow dikes separating the rice fields, progress was painfully slow. Miyhoji, seven miles away, was our destination for the night. We had an idea that Miyhoji was a village, and so clicked off eight miles before we discovered that we had either passed the town or were on the wrong track. About one mile back we had seen a light and there we returned. We were at Miyhoji, one of the historic old temples of Japan, and there we slept. The priest lived here with his wife and two acolytes, and a cordial welcome it was they gave us. At 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Nov. 20, we entered a forest at the end of Lake Mishi-No-Umi. We had six miles yet to go ere we sighted Shoji Lake and the hotel at that point kept by Y. Hoshino, a naturalized Japanese gentleman, who was born in Scotland, and having lived eighteen years on the islands of Japan, finally became an adopted citizen. Traveling the forests at night in Japan over lava beds with path illumed only by a cycle lamp is not the most pleasant of journeys. The narrow way is uncertain, deep chasms appear upon either side and I had several rocky falls. I was bruised and battered when we came to Hoshino’s residence and lost no time in taking to my bed. At daybreak our host called us to view the silent volcano rising in grandeur to the extreme height 12,365 feet. There is not a peak in all the grand elevation of the Rockies that can compare with Fuji. Pike’s Peak, taken from its setting of lesser lights, which but serve to destroy its beauty, and placed upon the plains of Illinois, would not even prove a petty rival to the one before us. As we looked upon Fuji that morning a spotless mantle of snow cowled her crest, the scintillations of which formed a halo of prismatic light about her, and it did not seem strange to realize that the natives worshiped this wondrous monument of eruptive power and beauty.It was our good fortune to be present at the greatest of all “war holidays” held at Shokausha Park in Kudan, on Dec. 15, 16, 17 and 18. After leaving Hoshino’s we returned to Tokio, and spent the time in touring the vicinity until these great fetes at which the emperor and empress are always present, were held. Dec. 17, the day upon which His Imperial Majesty Metsu Hito, Emperor of Japan, was to appear at Shokousha Park, dawned dull and threatening, and awakened within us the dread idea that the mightiest of all Japanese would not be on view. At the park the attendance was something incalculable.Tokio seemed to have had its million souls augmented by the thousands of Yokohama, Nikko and other surrounding cities. Our experiences in the vast crowd were paralleled only by those in the dense throng at the World’s Fair on Chicago Day. Shortly before 11 o’clock, a tremor ran through the crowd, then a hoarse murmur, and amid a cavalcade of gay lancers, the carriage of the emperor swept through the lane of blue-coated soldiers, and halted directly in front of where we were standing. As the emperor turned and looked about him, I saw a Japanese of low stature, dressed in the uniform of the commander of the army and navy; his dark-complexioned face partly shaded by a peculiar hat, heavily jeweled. The photographs of the Mikado represent him to be a slender man, with a long face, but they are not true likenesses. The Mikado has a round, full face, high intellectual temple, a black mustache which droops over the gentle, pleasing mouth, and with soft eyes, inexpressibly sad, his face appeals to one as that of a man suffering under the royal chains which confine him to the narrow limits of the palace grounds.He stood but a moment in the roadway and surrounded by nobles of various high degrees with bowed form, he moved up the graveled path, ascended the steps of the temple and disappeared within. While he was at worship my American instinct to obtain a souvenir of the occasion got the better of my respect for royalty, and I unswung my camera and prepared to make a picture of the scene. Almost directly two pairs of brown hands seized the camera, turned it sharply upward, and held it until the imperial carriage received the person of the emperor and departed. The Mikado was not to be shot at even by a camera. It was a keen disappointment to me, but I learned later that it was better I did not succeed. Had I snapped the picture I should have lost my camera and probably been roughly handled myself. I was told that I had been followed all morning by the police, who knew what I would attempt with the instrument, and who were detailed especially to frustrate my plans. My camera was not only excluded here, but in all buildings that held treasures or relics of the government and public departments.We had spent two months on the volcanic island, our last few days being fraught with interesting episodes and instructive visits. We had received so many courtesies at the hands of the Japanese, both from individuals and government, that we were loathe to leave for the mainland of China. The final courtesy extended me by the Japanese Government was the privilege of visiting the new prison just completed, and as I was the first European granted such permission, I felt bound to accept the unusual invitation. The precautions taken against disease by germ in the penitentiary at Tokio are equalto those practiced in the most famous hospitals and clinics in the United States and Europe. The wards were models of cleanliness, well lighted, well ventilated, warm and comfortable. The industrial features of the institution, I am safe in saying, are superior to those of the vast state prisons in my own country. There were seven workshops devoted respectively to the manufacture of fire engines, to the weaving and spinning of cotton and silk; the manufacture of silk umbrellas; production of steel hairpins; bricks for the city; the weaving of cloth and the manufacture of stockings, and one devoted to all branches of carpentry and wood-carving. The governor of the prison presented us with many valuable mementoes of our visit. But for that matter, every Japanese gentleman of rank whom we visited sent us a little souvenir of our meeting. We were compelled to purchase additional trunks in which to store our “curios,” and when we left on Jan. 12, 1896, on the City of Pekin, for China, we were forced to have our “excess baggage” shipped to our home in America.When the Inter Ocean cyclists reached Shanghai, one of the first sights we wished to see was the people among whom we were to travel for the next 2,000 miles of our trip, and we wished to see them at home. To view them in all their glory as an uncivilized, barbaric race, a trip to the old city was necessary, and on this errand Mrs. McIlrath and I started Jan. 25. We had intended to ride our wheels, but were dissuaded from doing so on account of the hindrance they would prove in sight-seeing. Our friends strongly urged that we take a guide, claiming it unsafe for foreigners to walk about the city alone, but as we were perforce to travel in Chinese territory far less accustomed to “foreign devils” than the inhabitants of Shanghai, we resolved to make our initial bow among thevegetariansunprotected, save by our nerve and a stout cane. Crowds gathered around us wherever we stopped. When I pulled out my notebook and fountain pen, the masses literally fought for places near in order to see me write, and when I had finished and upheld the scrawled page for them to look at, a roar of laughter went up, and several pointed to Chinese characters upon the dead walls of a temple, and in pantomime asked if the ink tracings on the page represented writing. The task of getting away from the crowd was much more difficult than forming it, and we were escorted the remainder of the afternoon by a monster band of chattering idlers.In many of the shops passed we noticed little girls, mere babies they were, standing on stools or leaning over railings, their heads on their arms. The poor tots moaned constantly, their little tear-stained faces depicting anguish seldom seen on the bright faces of children. Nothing seemed to attract their attention, nothing pleased them, and little wonder. Their tiny feet had been bound in unyielding rolls ofcloth since the day they were born, and already the bones and sinews were crushing each other into a mass of unrecognizable pulp, held together only by the skin and bandages. This practice is common among the Chinese of all classes and produces the fashionable small foot of the women. The bandages once placed on are never removed, except to be replaced by others, and in result, hundreds of lives are sacrificed annually, the children’s feet mortifying and sloughing away. It is erroneous to believe that only women of high caste have small feet. I saw women whose feet were only two and a half and three inches long, dragging drays.For four hours we wandered through the dark alleyways and streets, passing through tunnels and archways that were filled with noxious vapors and used by the public for all manner of nuisances. We experienced no interference with our progression, the only hostile feeling being shown was by a few street arabs who pelted us with stones and fruit skins. This treatment would be accorded a Chinese by our own precious youth in the States and does little harm if no attention is paid to the offenders. Dogs made several attacks upon us, but the little ammonia gun I always carry effectually checked all onslaughts and filled the observing Chinese with wonder. The “gun” was one of my own manufacture, simply a rubber bulb with a short glass nozzle. The bulb I kept filled with ammonia, and when dogs annoyed me, either on my wheel or afoot, the bulb, concealed in the hand, with the nozzle projecting between the fingers, made a most effective weapon. Directing the nozzle in the dog’s direction, a slight pressure sent a tiny stream into the yelping cur’s mouth and eyes. The dog’s violent breathing invariably caused him to take a full inhalation before he was aware of the evil designs upon him, and the effect was instantaneous. He would close his mouth with a snap and then perform a wild side somersault on his back. Several times I used the gun upon dogs in Shanghai and did it in such a manner as to conceal the act. The masters of the animals, who stood grinning while the brutes yelped and snapped at us, were unable to comprehend the reason for Fido’s acrobatic feats, and in each instance after looking the dog over to find some injury, laughed heartily, and addressed to us words in reference to the dog which were no credit to man’s most faithful friend.
The sun was setting when we left Yoshida, and with our path principally composed of the narrow dikes separating the rice fields, progress was painfully slow. Miyhoji, seven miles away, was our destination for the night. We had an idea that Miyhoji was a village, and so clicked off eight miles before we discovered that we had either passed the town or were on the wrong track. About one mile back we had seen a light and there we returned. We were at Miyhoji, one of the historic old temples of Japan, and there we slept. The priest lived here with his wife and two acolytes, and a cordial welcome it was they gave us. At 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Nov. 20, we entered a forest at the end of Lake Mishi-No-Umi. We had six miles yet to go ere we sighted Shoji Lake and the hotel at that point kept by Y. Hoshino, a naturalized Japanese gentleman, who was born in Scotland, and having lived eighteen years on the islands of Japan, finally became an adopted citizen. Traveling the forests at night in Japan over lava beds with path illumed only by a cycle lamp is not the most pleasant of journeys. The narrow way is uncertain, deep chasms appear upon either side and I had several rocky falls. I was bruised and battered when we came to Hoshino’s residence and lost no time in taking to my bed. At daybreak our host called us to view the silent volcano rising in grandeur to the extreme height 12,365 feet. There is not a peak in all the grand elevation of the Rockies that can compare with Fuji. Pike’s Peak, taken from its setting of lesser lights, which but serve to destroy its beauty, and placed upon the plains of Illinois, would not even prove a petty rival to the one before us. As we looked upon Fuji that morning a spotless mantle of snow cowled her crest, the scintillations of which formed a halo of prismatic light about her, and it did not seem strange to realize that the natives worshiped this wondrous monument of eruptive power and beauty.
It was our good fortune to be present at the greatest of all “war holidays” held at Shokausha Park in Kudan, on Dec. 15, 16, 17 and 18. After leaving Hoshino’s we returned to Tokio, and spent the time in touring the vicinity until these great fetes at which the emperor and empress are always present, were held. Dec. 17, the day upon which His Imperial Majesty Metsu Hito, Emperor of Japan, was to appear at Shokousha Park, dawned dull and threatening, and awakened within us the dread idea that the mightiest of all Japanese would not be on view. At the park the attendance was something incalculable.Tokio seemed to have had its million souls augmented by the thousands of Yokohama, Nikko and other surrounding cities. Our experiences in the vast crowd were paralleled only by those in the dense throng at the World’s Fair on Chicago Day. Shortly before 11 o’clock, a tremor ran through the crowd, then a hoarse murmur, and amid a cavalcade of gay lancers, the carriage of the emperor swept through the lane of blue-coated soldiers, and halted directly in front of where we were standing. As the emperor turned and looked about him, I saw a Japanese of low stature, dressed in the uniform of the commander of the army and navy; his dark-complexioned face partly shaded by a peculiar hat, heavily jeweled. The photographs of the Mikado represent him to be a slender man, with a long face, but they are not true likenesses. The Mikado has a round, full face, high intellectual temple, a black mustache which droops over the gentle, pleasing mouth, and with soft eyes, inexpressibly sad, his face appeals to one as that of a man suffering under the royal chains which confine him to the narrow limits of the palace grounds.
He stood but a moment in the roadway and surrounded by nobles of various high degrees with bowed form, he moved up the graveled path, ascended the steps of the temple and disappeared within. While he was at worship my American instinct to obtain a souvenir of the occasion got the better of my respect for royalty, and I unswung my camera and prepared to make a picture of the scene. Almost directly two pairs of brown hands seized the camera, turned it sharply upward, and held it until the imperial carriage received the person of the emperor and departed. The Mikado was not to be shot at even by a camera. It was a keen disappointment to me, but I learned later that it was better I did not succeed. Had I snapped the picture I should have lost my camera and probably been roughly handled myself. I was told that I had been followed all morning by the police, who knew what I would attempt with the instrument, and who were detailed especially to frustrate my plans. My camera was not only excluded here, but in all buildings that held treasures or relics of the government and public departments.
We had spent two months on the volcanic island, our last few days being fraught with interesting episodes and instructive visits. We had received so many courtesies at the hands of the Japanese, both from individuals and government, that we were loathe to leave for the mainland of China. The final courtesy extended me by the Japanese Government was the privilege of visiting the new prison just completed, and as I was the first European granted such permission, I felt bound to accept the unusual invitation. The precautions taken against disease by germ in the penitentiary at Tokio are equalto those practiced in the most famous hospitals and clinics in the United States and Europe. The wards were models of cleanliness, well lighted, well ventilated, warm and comfortable. The industrial features of the institution, I am safe in saying, are superior to those of the vast state prisons in my own country. There were seven workshops devoted respectively to the manufacture of fire engines, to the weaving and spinning of cotton and silk; the manufacture of silk umbrellas; production of steel hairpins; bricks for the city; the weaving of cloth and the manufacture of stockings, and one devoted to all branches of carpentry and wood-carving. The governor of the prison presented us with many valuable mementoes of our visit. But for that matter, every Japanese gentleman of rank whom we visited sent us a little souvenir of our meeting. We were compelled to purchase additional trunks in which to store our “curios,” and when we left on Jan. 12, 1896, on the City of Pekin, for China, we were forced to have our “excess baggage” shipped to our home in America.
When the Inter Ocean cyclists reached Shanghai, one of the first sights we wished to see was the people among whom we were to travel for the next 2,000 miles of our trip, and we wished to see them at home. To view them in all their glory as an uncivilized, barbaric race, a trip to the old city was necessary, and on this errand Mrs. McIlrath and I started Jan. 25. We had intended to ride our wheels, but were dissuaded from doing so on account of the hindrance they would prove in sight-seeing. Our friends strongly urged that we take a guide, claiming it unsafe for foreigners to walk about the city alone, but as we were perforce to travel in Chinese territory far less accustomed to “foreign devils” than the inhabitants of Shanghai, we resolved to make our initial bow among thevegetariansunprotected, save by our nerve and a stout cane. Crowds gathered around us wherever we stopped. When I pulled out my notebook and fountain pen, the masses literally fought for places near in order to see me write, and when I had finished and upheld the scrawled page for them to look at, a roar of laughter went up, and several pointed to Chinese characters upon the dead walls of a temple, and in pantomime asked if the ink tracings on the page represented writing. The task of getting away from the crowd was much more difficult than forming it, and we were escorted the remainder of the afternoon by a monster band of chattering idlers.
In many of the shops passed we noticed little girls, mere babies they were, standing on stools or leaning over railings, their heads on their arms. The poor tots moaned constantly, their little tear-stained faces depicting anguish seldom seen on the bright faces of children. Nothing seemed to attract their attention, nothing pleased them, and little wonder. Their tiny feet had been bound in unyielding rolls ofcloth since the day they were born, and already the bones and sinews were crushing each other into a mass of unrecognizable pulp, held together only by the skin and bandages. This practice is common among the Chinese of all classes and produces the fashionable small foot of the women. The bandages once placed on are never removed, except to be replaced by others, and in result, hundreds of lives are sacrificed annually, the children’s feet mortifying and sloughing away. It is erroneous to believe that only women of high caste have small feet. I saw women whose feet were only two and a half and three inches long, dragging drays.
For four hours we wandered through the dark alleyways and streets, passing through tunnels and archways that were filled with noxious vapors and used by the public for all manner of nuisances. We experienced no interference with our progression, the only hostile feeling being shown was by a few street arabs who pelted us with stones and fruit skins. This treatment would be accorded a Chinese by our own precious youth in the States and does little harm if no attention is paid to the offenders. Dogs made several attacks upon us, but the little ammonia gun I always carry effectually checked all onslaughts and filled the observing Chinese with wonder. The “gun” was one of my own manufacture, simply a rubber bulb with a short glass nozzle. The bulb I kept filled with ammonia, and when dogs annoyed me, either on my wheel or afoot, the bulb, concealed in the hand, with the nozzle projecting between the fingers, made a most effective weapon. Directing the nozzle in the dog’s direction, a slight pressure sent a tiny stream into the yelping cur’s mouth and eyes. The dog’s violent breathing invariably caused him to take a full inhalation before he was aware of the evil designs upon him, and the effect was instantaneous. He would close his mouth with a snap and then perform a wild side somersault on his back. Several times I used the gun upon dogs in Shanghai and did it in such a manner as to conceal the act. The masters of the animals, who stood grinning while the brutes yelped and snapped at us, were unable to comprehend the reason for Fido’s acrobatic feats, and in each instance after looking the dog over to find some injury, laughed heartily, and addressed to us words in reference to the dog which were no credit to man’s most faithful friend.