CHAPTER VI.NEW NIPPON.

"A LITTLE MOTHER."

And what a medley of scenes there are, and what a flow of life confined in these narrow streetswith their one-storeyed houses. Coolies harnessed by ropes to drays full of rice, answering one another with their musical patient cry of Huydah-Houdah; itinerant vendors with bamboo poles slung across the shoulder, and suspended trays filled with every imaginable variety of article; Buddhist priests with their shaven heads, and white dresses with flowing sleeves, covered with black crêpe.

Mingling with the crowd of dear little men and women in their graceful flapping kimonos, are the little girl "mothers," who at the age of ten bend their backs and have a baby brother or sister tied on. Happy babies they are, brown and contented, as are their scantily-clothed kindred, who obey an instinct of nature in making mud pies and dust castles by the roadside. Here is a closed van on wheels, painted black, being drawn by policemen. It is a "Maria" with a prisoner peering out between the bars.

Every now and again we meet a funeral. The coffin is a square deal box, slung on bamboo poles, for the deceased has been placed in it in a sitting posture with the knees up to the chin. It is only another form of the economy of material, that forms such an especial feature in all things Japanese. However, this people understood long before we did, the use of lovely wreaths of coloured flowers, to mitigate the gloom of mourning, and thecoffin is hung with them. Ancestor-worship takes a prominent part in Japanese religion, and now we understand at last the use of those elaborate gold and lacquer cabinets, with outer and inner folding doors, that you so often see in England. These cabinets are intended as the shrines where the little golden memorial tablets, in the form of small gravestones, and engraved with the name of the deceased, are kept at home. The deceased is always given a posthumous name, as, not believing in the immortality of the soul, but rather in its transmigration into an animal, they say that he has ceased to exist altogether, and has changed his state and lives under a new name. These memorial cabinets are found in all the houses of the upper classes.

The pictures that we know of these little Japanese ladies are the most faithful reproductions. Wrapped tightly round in their kimonos, with the bunch of the obi formed by its folding over at the back, their figures take the graceful bend and curve we see pourtrayed. The loose flowing sleeves, and the soft folds around the neck, and open at the throat, are so pretty. Their underclothing consists of several loose garments of crêpe, which is the material exclusively used by the upper classes, and their hips are so tightly bound that no European woman could stand it. They treat their hips as we do our waists, their objectbeing to be perfectly straight. When this was explained to me, I understood how it was that an extra breadth is put into the kimonos bought by Europeans. It is curious that, though the Japanese bathe so frequently, they are not particular as to changing their underclothing. The women wear white stockings with a pocket for the great toe, and "getas" formed of a sole of wood, perched on two high clogs of the same, and kept on by a leash. Thus, when they enter a house, they leave their clogs at the door, and go about on the spotless matting in their stockings. As they sit and eat off the floors, they cannot allow the dirt of outside boots to be brought in, and all Japanese houses are scrupulously clean.

The kimonos of ladies are made in delicate quiet-toned stuffs of pale grey or fawn colour; but simple as some of them appear, the stuffs of which they are made are so costly that, even unembroidered, they will cost as much as 300 dollars. And then their obis, those broad sashes of the richest brocades and satins—on them they lavish all their pride and money, and they often descend as heirlooms in a family. The dressing of their hair is one long-continued source of admiration; it is such black glossy hair, and the coils are so immaculately smooth. There are but two styles of headdress for the whole country—one for themarried ladies, and one for the single; and so you can always distinguish their state in life at a glance. The married women have it dressed in a single extended roll, with inlaid combs and coral-headed pins placed round; whilst the unmarried ladies wear their hair divided by a silk or gauze ribbon into two flat coils placed on either side of the head, and have still more decoration in the way of glass bead pins. And as to the little girls, they are the counterpart of their mothers, and from the earliest ages wear theirs in a similar manner. It used to be the custom for married women to have their teeth blackened, to prevent their receiving admiration from men other than their husbands; but this is dying out, and you now only see old married women in country districts following this obsolete fashion. No Japanese woman ever walks. She shuffles, she scuffles, she tippets along, balancing on her high-heeled getas; but step out the necessary stride for a walk, no, they cannot do that, for their kimonos are so narrow that they cannot move otherwise than with their knees knocking together. They are not pretty, these meek, gentle-looking, brown-skinned creatures, yet their sweet deprecating manners are very attractive. They are excellent mothers; more excellent wives, in their complete subjection and utter want of initiative. The sum total of their education is implicit reverence and obedience, firstto parents, subsequently to husbands; and at the Peeress' school at Tokio, we are told that they are so afraid that the modern education given there to the daughters of the nobles will militate against this ideal, that particular lectures are given on the subject.

The men, so long as they wear the native dress, are dark, pleasant-looking little men; but when you see them, as you frequently do now, with a kimono surmounted by a brown or black pot-hat, a solar topee, or even a tweed stalking-cap, they are positively evil and unpleasant to look at.

Viscount Okabé, so long Minister in London, took us for a drive in the afternoon, and then we had time, before a pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Fraser at the British Legation, to go to the Theatre.

The corridor is covered with piles of sandles and umbrellas, whilst from the adjoining kitchens come savoury and nauseous smells. The floor of the Theatre slopes upwards from the stage, and is divided into square compartments, neatly matted, and intended for family boxes. The galleries are divided in the same way. And here groups of ladies and gentlemen are encamped for the whole day, for a Japanese theatre begins at 9 a.m. and lasts for ten hours; nor is this all, for the same piece may be continued from day to day, and last forsix weeks. It is now five in the afternoon, and yet the audience maintain a deep interest and breathless gaze on the stage.

This is the outline of the story. The lank, die-away lady we see trailing across the stage has retired to a wood, with a rill of crystal water, to live in a temple, there, to mourn the death of her father in a war. The young man who was (unknown to her) his murderer, passes casually along and she falls in love with him. This love-making, in the drawling nasal accents, and its tediously slow movements, is most unreal, and as they drink the loving cup of saké together, the father's disapproving spirit, in a rushing flame of fire, blazes up from the temple. Darkness drowns the applause, and warriors rush on the scene and begin to fight the maiden, who mesmerizes them, until one by one they fall at her feet.

The orchestra is represented by five musicians, perched up on a rock. I may say at once that, artistic as is the nature of the Japanese, their idea of music is absolutelynil. It consists of a series of grunts and groans, or of nasal notes in a bass key, or of falsetto in a high one.

But the interest lies to us in the audience, who, in the interval of twenty minutes, eat their evening meal. Some have brought their food with them, and nearly all their own china tea-pots, for a constant supply of tea. Others buy theirs, and areprovided with a succession of little wooden bowls piled on each other, and for which they have to pay the usual theatre price of ten cents, or double the ordinary one. In each box there is a hibachi, or china bowl full of hot ashes, where they light their pipes, for men and women are continually smoking, and their pipes have the smallest bowl, the size of a thimble—two whiffs and it is empty again; but it is sufficient for their modest wants.

September 26th.—I am writing in the most delightful real Japanese house, far away in the midst of these beautiful mountains of Nikko.

The thin wooden frame of the house is covered with luminous parchment paper, and these are the walls that divide us from the outside world. They are not permanent ones, for they slide back one behind the other, a succession of paper screens, until the house is open to the street and there is only the shell of a habitation left in the roof, and one paper wall behind. The second-floor storey (if there is one) is marked by a long balcony running completely round, and here in cupboards at either end are kept the wooden shutters that slide into grooves and close in the balconies, in winter and at night, and give to all the houses the dull appearance of a blank wooden wall at sundown. Inside, the roof and floors are of white wood, and the latter is covered with spotless matting; but I am glad to say that there areEuropean concessions here, in the shape of a table, chair, and washstand and bed, on which is laid a clean starched kimono to go to the bath in. In a Japanese house we should find no furniture at all. Their rooms are absolutely bare; they eat, sit and sleep on the floor, and from out of a cupboard in a recess will come the "futons," or thick wadded quilts, and the square piece of wood with a hollow for the neck, where a soft wad of paper is inserted, and which is used for a pillow by the ladies to save their elaborate headdress from getting deranged. As they cannot dress their hair themselves, it is only done occasionally, and must thus be considered even when sleeping.

The construction of these houses is so delightfully simple, for, excepting the polished ladder which leads upstairs, there is no plan of the rooms. They are made larger or smaller, more or less, according to the want of the hour, by means of those successions of sliding screens, and a little pushing and sliding will make the large room you are using, into five or six smaller ones in a second. These tea-houses are charming in their compact simplicity, their faultless cleanliness, and particular neatness.

It was at four o'clock this afternoon that we arrived at Nikko, and drove from the station through the end of the great cryptomeria avenue,past the village, until the jinrikisha was suddenly shot round a corner, down a narrow passage, and stopped at the courtyard step of the Suzuki Hotel. Here quite a little crowd of bowing attendants received us with many deep salaams, and sucking-in of breath; one relieved me of an umbrella, another of a cloak, and another of a book, and went before us, encouraging us with graceful gesticulations and faces wreathed in smiles to enter the house, impressing us in an indescribably charming manner that we were showing them but too much honour in doing so. Of course we drank tea—it is the first ceremony on entering any Japanese house; and then came the second one—the solemn ceremony of the bath.

Bathing is the passion and pastime of the Japanese, and they bathe as often as two or three times a day. In all towns there are public baths, where, in the evening, the population meet to gossip and take a bath for the modest price of two cents. Not long ago men and women in a state of nature bathed together, but Government has forbidden this now. However, we visited one where a wall separated the bath, but still left the entrance to both open to the public view. In villages there will be a tub or barrel outside every door, and one evening we saw a man preparing his bath, with a fire kindling under the zinc bottom of his tub. They take their baths as hot as 110°Fahrenheit, and for some unexplained reason foreigners find that cold or lukewarm baths are unsuited to the climate, and adopt the native temperature. The rule at hotels is that the first arrival is entitled to the first use of the bath.

To take up the thread of the story, we left Tokio at eleven this morning, the Foreign Office sending a carriage to take us to Ueno station.

Through groves of cryptomeria, maple, fir, willow, wild cherry and Spanish chestnuts we travel. Past great clumps of bamboo, which to see only is to be able to picture the mighty growth of their graceful, feathery foliage; by picturesque villages, with their angular brown thatched roofs crowding low down over their mud-wattled walls, nestling amongst banyon groves interspersed with persimmon trees, bare of leaves but laden with bunches of golden fruit. Then we emerge on to the open country, where the cultivation is so exquisitely neat that it resembles a succession of kitchen gardens. There are no hedges, and no grass, but the whole land is taken up by small patches of onions, turnips, maize, millet, sweet potatoes, and the broad caladium-like leaf of another species of potatoes, whose English equivalent to the Japanese name I failed to discover. These alternate with rice fields, where the bright yellow tells of the ripening and bursting of the grain. The soil is rich and black, and labour is done byhand-spade, but the absence of pasture strikes us. However, there are few cows or oxen, and no sheep, numberless experiments failing to rear them; and the ponies live on chopped straw, beans and the refuse of grain.

THE RED LACQUER BRIDGE, NIKKO.

An hour before reaching Nikko we pass into the mountains. It is such a picturesque, well-wooded range, this Nikko chain of mountains, and they all bear that peculiar Japanese characteristic of rising straight out of the plain, ending with sharp three-sided cones, and like all else in this country, though lofty, they are on a small scale, toy mountains that seem to fit in with the miniature picture.

We had time after our arrival at Nikko, and before dusk, to pass through the village, across the wonderful red lacquer bridge, and following a grass path to come to a Waterfall. On the rock opposite is inscribed the word Hammôn, and the legend goes, that as no one could, as we see, possibly cross the fall to write it, an artist threw his pen at the rock and it inscribed this Sanskrit word. And now in the growing twilight we pass along under the shadow of a row of mutilated grey idols, each squatted on his pedestal with crossed hands, looking over the stream. I counted 120 figures, but no two people have ever been known to make the same number. At the head of this solemn avenue of gods there is alarger one facing the others. They are supposed to be the Judges before whom the spirits of the departed pass, and are judged whether they shall go to heaven or hell; and hence they are covered with many paper labels, the prayers of relatives for the deceased, that grace may be granted them by the gods. It is a solemn tribunal, with its presiding judge, and each face is different in expression, and yet they are such mobile, expressionless faces, as if to represent a dispassionate and unbiassed judgment.

After dinner we adjourned into an empty room, when a man appeared with a card, and before we could look round the whole room was full of merchants producing out of their cotton bundles, beautiful carved ivories, bronzes, silver, china, lacquer, and furs, for Nikko produces excellent ones. They are so persuasive, and ingratiate their wares all round into your hands, that it is with difficulty we escape; and making our airy chambers a little less so by having the shutters run out of their cupboard, we are soothed to sleep by the wailing sounds of the samisen, that comes from the brightly-lighted little tea-house on the opposite hill.

It is amusing the next morning to dress with the wall of the room thrown back, and to hear the constant shuffle of sandals, or the clatter of the clogs as these little men and women in their flappingdraperies cross the yard; and this courtyard is so characteristic. It is but a few square feet in dimensions, yet there is a dragon-shaped fir-tree in the centre, whose outstretched arms are supported by bamboo poles, which form a little arbour with a seat in it; then there is a stone lantern and a bronze stork, a lamp-post and a wandering paved pathway, that gives a great idea of distance.

We go directly after breakfast to the Temples to see the tombs of the Shoguns. They are three hundred years old, and as beautiful as carving, colour and design can make them. We ascend up a winding flight of stone steps through the gloom of a magnificent avenue of cryptomerias. They are tremendously tall, impressive trees, with their moss-grown trunks and stems, and these steps wind through their midst, a fit leading up to the great mausoleums. Passing the courts of a monastery, we are first shown a Buddhist temple where, hidden behind the silk-bound bamboo blinds, there are three colossal gold Buddhas seated cross-legged on lotus leaves. In the mysterious gloom, they look solemnly and indifferently into space. On the platform by this temple there is suspended a big bronze bell, which is sounded by a pole propelled against the side. As we stand there it gives forth its sonorous musical toll, and at every hour of the day its sweet and solemn noteechoes over the valley. Then, seated in a semicircle, the priests of Buddha begin to chant the morning orisons, droning in a nasal tone, and with the accompanying tom-tom of a drum. We leave them to pass on to the tomb of the great warrior Shogun, Yeyásu.

The wide road, bordered by those walls of mortarless blocks of stone, leads up to the flight of steps and an elaborate Sammon or gateway, the entrance to the first temple. There are a number of wooden tablets outside, on which are inscribed the names of the subscribers to the fabric of the temple. The inner court is full of interest, for you must imagine that all the buildings it contains are covered with decorations and paintings. One of the storehouses where pictures, furniture, and other articles belonging to Yeyásu are kept, has carvings in relief of elephants, in which the joints of the hind legs are turned in the wrong direction. There is the tree which the Shogun carried about in his palanquin with him when it was still small enough to travel in a flowerpot, and the stable for the sacred white pony, kept for the use of the god; over which is a very clever group of three monkeys, representing the three countries of India, China, and Japan. One monkey shows he is blind by covering his eyes with his hand, another deaf by stopping his ears, and a third dumb by closing his mouth. The one signifiesthat you must see no evil; the other that you must hear no evil; the last that you must speak no evil.

PAGODA OF THE TEMPLE AT NIKKO.

The water cistern, hung round as is usual in these temples with coloured rags, is formed of a single block of granite, so evenly cut that the water flowing over it is a glassy, imperceptible surface. Next to it is a library, where through the grating we see a revolving book-case made of lacquer with gilt columns, containing a complete collection of the Buddhist scriptures.

And now we come to the exquisitely beautiful gate of the Yomeimon, with its graceful arabesques founded upon the peony pattern, its niches and columns, its golden clawed dragons and groups of Chinese sages, which leads into the inner court of the temple. Surrounded by open trellis-work screens, we pass up several flights of steps, and take off our boots by the huge bronze money-box waiting for offerings. The interior is filled with a dim light, but you are in the midst of a place so rich in subdued soft colour, so embroidered in elaborate designs and harmonizing tones, that it is some minutes before you can at all appreciate the full beauty. The ceiling is formed of squares divided by ribs of black lacquer and enamelled in peacock blue and green; there are gilt carved screens, where perch birds of paradise, doves, parrots, ducks, peacocks; others where the asarum or peony, the royal flower, the lily, and the lotus, arecarved in high relief. And the ante-chambers on either side are equally perfect; in one there is a carved and painted ceiling with an angel surrounded by a chrysanthemum, and some boldly executed eagles; in another, pictures of unicorns on a gold ground, and some phœnixes.

Mausoleum of Yeyásu.

In an adjoining temple a woman in scarlet and white draperies performed a sacred dance. It is a slow and graceful movement; the bells in her hand keep rhythmical time, while she amuses and charms away the evil spirit from the dead Shogun. We have now a long pilgrimage to perform, up tothe platform on high, where rests the body of Yeyásu. The ancient stone stairs, the balustrade and columns, are clothed in the most vivid green moss, whilst the cryptomerias form a dark archway above. There is complete silence around. The place is damp and deserted. We might, from their moss-grown appearance, be the first to tread these steps for a thousand years, and slowly mounting them, we feel we are breaking the spell that has hung over them, as we find ourselves on the stone terrace at the top. Here there is a praying temple, and we pass round to the tomb at the back. It is a simple bronze urn, shaped like a small pagoda, with a stone table in front, on which is placed a bronze stork with a candle in its mouth, an incense burner, and a vase of artificial lotus flowers. Such is the end of all greatness.

Returning home, we took jinrikishas for the mountain expedition to Lake Chữzenji. For some miles we travel by the side of the river's bed and between the mountains, meeting many pack-ponies laden with merchandise, shod like the men with straw sandals. It looks rainy, and the men have donned their waterproof coats, and these consist of a straw mantle formed like a thatch; when you see a fisherman standing in the water with his legs immersed, and only this thatch above, it produces the most comical effect of a floating haystack. As we begin climbing the mountain road, we seemany strange and beautiful new shrubs, flowers, and trailing creepers growing amongst the rocks. Soon a tea-house comes in sight, with the front entirely open, and pretty sliding screens of blue paper. Cushions are placed on the floor and tea brought by a welcome-smiling damsel. It is pale, straw-coloured tea made from the young undried shoot of the tea-plant, and it is not allowed to infuse, but is poured straight into the tiny handleless cups, with two or three leaves at the bottom, and served on a lacquer tray with pink and white sweetmeats. But how artistic is the design on the common bronze kettle hanging over the open fire in the centre of the room, and kept always boiling for tea to be quickly made; how delicate the pale blue colour of the thin eggshell cups, with the spray of cherry blossom. It is one of the many charms of Japan, that art is brought to use in all the appurtenances of daily life.

The ascent to Chữzenji, right into the heart of the mountains, is perfectly lovely. I have never seen grander or more charming scenery. When we rest for a minute at one of the many tea-houses, there is such a splendid view of two cascades flowing down a rocky precipice. It is the meeting-place of several valleys, and the joining of several mountain spurs, and there is an open park-like space, which looks so green and smiling amid these rugged fastnesses. There is a movement in thosebushes in the valley! It is a troop of monkeys jumping from branch to branch; for Japan is a strange mixture of tropical and hardy growths. You find the flowers and plants of north latitudes growing beside the palms and fruits of the tropics. The ascent becomes more and more trying, though this good, new road was hurried over, to be finished for the visit of the Czarewitch last year, which never took place, owing to his attempted assassination by a fanatic near Kyoto.

Clouds came down as we reached the pretty fall at the summit, so we only heard its roar, dulled by the thick mist; but they cleared away again, as we came to the shores of the lake, 4375 feet above the sea. The deserted houses in the village are used by the pilgrims who come here in August. We rested on the balcony of a tea-house overhanging the lake, and then the descent was accomplished in one unbroken run, one coolie acting as a drag behind, whilst the other in the shafts steadied the jinrikisha round the sharp curves.

September 28th.—We spent a long morning amongst the Tombs again, and we shall carry away with us such a vision of picturesquely pointed black roofs, outlined in gold and red, and graceful bamboo groves, of moss-grown flights of steps under the shadow of stately avenues of cryptomerias, of ancient stone walls with a vista leading to massive torii. We shall dream of the many solemn rowsof stone lanterns, of gateways bright with rainbow hues and guarded by dragon monsters, of the bronze urns hidden away up on those quiet nooks in the mountains, and above all of the enchanted atmosphere, the deep stillness, the solemn peace that rests over these shrines of the dead.

We waited on the steps of the temple to hear the big bronze bell slowly send out its voice once more at midday across the valley, and then came home.

On our return journey to Tokio in the afternoon we took jinrikishas to Imaicho, the station beyond Nikko, so as to drive five miles through the magnificent cryptomeria grove that runs parallel with the railway. The avenue extends for fifty miles, and was used by the envoy of the Mikado when he sent to offer presents at the tomb of Yeyásu. These cryptomerias are grand trees, with their stately trunks shooting up in regular lines, whilst their long branches only grow from their summits, and intertwining make a dim twilight below.

On arriving at Tokio, we had a drive through the fairyland of its glimmering streets.

We were up early to get a glimpse of the Mikado as he passes to open some new barracks. His route is lined with policemen, pigmy but efficient guardians of the peace, with their white duck uniforms and large swords. The morning mists are floating off the grey green moats, as we pass into quite a new quarter of Tokio, where the noblemen have their palaces, amid gardens green with willows and acacias. We drive past the red brick buildings of the Peeress' School, the New Police Buildings, and the Dowager Empress' Palace, guarded by sentries, until we come out on the exercising ground before the barracks.

Scattered about this plain are companies of infantry and cavalry, mounted on small black ponies, whilst a band is being marched inside the barrack square, where are anxious-looking groups of officers in gala dress, ablaze with decorations of the Order of the Chrysanthemum and Rising Sun, awaiting their sovereign's arrival. It is anapathetic crowd, which shows no excitement as the advance guard with an outrider in green and gold livery appears, quickly followed by two closed barouches, the first of which is surrounded by a company of Lancers with flying pennons. We just catch a passing glimpse of a dark man with a beard, rather stout, and looking more than his age of forty. The band plays the National Anthem and the gates close on the procession.

And this is the 121st Sovereign of Japan, the first commencing his reign in 660b.c., as the preamble to the Constitution runs: "Having by virtue of the glories of our ancestor ascended the throne of a lineal succession unbroken for ages eternal." In connection with the ancestor-worship, which is the only form of worship performed by the upper classes, the Emperor's oath on his accession is interesting. "We, the successor to the prosperous throne of our Predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear to the Imperial Founder of our House, and to our other Imperial Ancestors, that in pursuance of a great policy, co-extensive with the Heaven and with the Earth, we shall maintain, and secure from decline, the ancient form of government.

"That we have been so fortunate in our reign in keeping with the tendency of the times as to accomplish this work, we owe to the glorious spirits of the Imperial Founder of our House andour other Imperial Founders. We now reverently make prayer to them and to our Illustrious Father and implore help of their sacred spirits, and make to them solemn oath, never at this time, nor in the future, to fail to be an example to our subjects in the observance of the Law."

At eleven o'clock, Mr. Nagasaki, Master of the Ceremonies in the Imperial Household, calls for us in a royal carriage to show us the country Palace of Sheba, whose gardens lie by the sea-shore. Side by side in the grounds, which are approached by a very unpretentious drive and entrance, stand the European Palace, furnished, and the Japanese one of paper screens and matting covered floor, though we are shown here into a carpeted room, with heliotrope satin covered chairs and sofa. It is the custom now in Japanese houses of the upper ten, to have one European furnished room, which is only used for the reception of foreigners. As we take tea out of the little eggshell cups, we do not think the garden looks large, but by the time we have followed the blue uniformed janitor, with the eternal chrysanthemum on his cap, in his up and down wanderings, we feel as if we had walked miles.

The Japanese ideal of landscape gardening is to have a different view from every point, and to this end they make a miniature park. These knolls, mounted by wooden steps on one sideand descended on the other, represent hills; the pond crossed by a stone bridge made out of two stones, is a lake; the island in its midst is formed of a rock and one tree; the timber is represented by some dwarfed and distorted fir trees, for the smaller and more spreading, the more valuable they become. The Japanese take great pains with these deformed trees, pruning them back, and picking out the fir needles one by one. They give large sums of money for an old tree, and we were shown a tiny fir in a pot over eighty years old. And yet these Japanese gardens, twisted and deformed as they are, with no open green lawns or bright flower-beds, are very quaint and attractive in their own way. Then we drove on to the Euryo-kwan, another Imperial Palace, where the Emperor and Empress hold their annual cherry blossom party in April, and when the arched avenue we are standing under, is a mass of pink and white bloom. The chrysanthemum garden party at the Palace is in November, and very beautiful, from all accounts it must be, the plants trained into every shape and device, of ships, pagodas, and umbrellas.

AN IMPERIAL GARDEN, TOKIO.

Mr. Nagasaki told us a great deal of the bitterness of the struggle of old Japan against the sudden inroad of European custom, a struggle that is apparent everywhere, but more especially in the capital at Tokio. The next generationwill be altogether European. The Court is modelled on the etiquette of our English Court, and the Emperor has the same court officials as the Queen, whilst the Empress holds Drawing Rooms, and has her ladies in waiting, everyone wearing European and low evening dresses. We found that all gentlemen wear European clothes, whilst their wives yet cling to the far more comfortable and graceful kimono. English is taught in all the upper-class, schools, and spoken very generally in shops, where the names are also written up in English, though there are only 3000 Europeans altogether resident in Japan. The Mikado has a son of twelve, and two little girls, and the former is soon to have an English tutor.

We drove to Ueno Park, to a luncheon given in our honour by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Viscount Enomotto. This restaurant is the "Berkeley" of Tokio, and it was a most elaborate repast, though we could have wished that it had been in a Japanese house. However, Viscount Enomotto, Viscount Okabé, Mr. Nagasaki, and M. Haryashi Tadasu, had brought their wives, Viscountess Okabé being a charming bride who spoke English. These ladies wore kimonos in pale blue, fawn and grey, and their costly embroidered obis were clasped round with a single jewel. They had diamond rings and brooches,and their glossy hair arranged in wonderfully glossy coques with tortoiseshell combs; and such sweet gracious ladies as they were, shyly putting out their hands, and bowing so low and gracefully, and speaking in such soft, caressing tones. Even here, though, European influences were at work, for I saw a pair of high-heeled French shoes, and even a pair of carpet slippers peeping out from under the kimonos.

The room had such beautiful vases of flowers, arranged as only Japanese can, not put together, but as if growing in natural sprays. After much drinking of healths and ceremonious compliments, we adjourned to the neighbouring Technical School of Art, where we saw specimens of lacquer work, and some of the thirty-five processes through which it passes before completion. The natural taste for art in the nation comes out in the work of these 190 students, who pay ten yen a year for their instruction, for their wood carvings and drawings from life are of extraordinary excellence, and executed too with the roughest tools.

The same evening we visited the Maple Leaf Club, to see a performance of "geisha" or dancing girls.

This fashionable club was founded by the Nobles, for the preservation of Japanese customs, and as a protest against the general use of European ones. Thirty dancing girls are maintained, educated andkept in strict discipline from the age of fourteen, in the premises of the club. We are ushered through numerous dimly-lighted corridors, on our stockinged feet, into a large matted room, bare of furniture, where we squat on cushions on the floor. A Japanese dinner is served, course after course being brought in lacquer bowls. A row of maidens, with their almond eyes dancing with laughter, squat before us and smile gleefully as we vainly struggle with our chopsticks, and try with frantic efforts to swallow the recherché dinner, for as Murray truly says: "Europeans cannot eat Japanese food." And this was the ménu. Sweet cakes of rice and sugar, served on plates with the monogram of a maple leaf; soup, a brown liquid with floating lumps of fish; an omelette (of ancient eggs) with fish sauce; a hot trout with upturned tail, with grated cheese coloured pink, a stewed fig, and a finger-like radish that tasted like ginger; more fish with a nasty sauce and stewed seaweed. As will be seen, fish formed a large item of the dinner, for the Japanese eat all that comes out of the sea. Saké is served from the long-necked blue and white bottles into tiny cups. Despair was gaining upon us at the ceaseless arrival of more lacquer bowls, when the work of the evening commenced.

Three demure damsels, in quiet kimonos, with their samisens or guitars, enter, and begin to playand sing. From behind a screen, their faces hidden by their fans, steal in three geishas, dressed in the loveliest grey and pink kimonos, embroidered with the crimson leaf of the maple. Slowly they girate, their clinging garments trailing around their turned-in toes. Deliberate and graceful are their slow motions, and the three figures act as one piece, and not only do their arms move in unison, but their faces do so too, and they elevate the eyebrows and close the eyes with the rise and fall of the body. In pretty imagery they tell the pathetic little story of the maple leaf: its birth and growth, its mature glory, and its death, the dance ending by the fans being thrown upon the floor, even as it falls to the ground and dies. A second performance is a clever mimicry, by the aid of masks, of an old man, his wife and daughter; and the last dance, with the floating gauze streamers that wave rhythmically with the music, is most elegant. These geishas are the favourite form of amusement, and in all villages you pass houses with mysterious gratings, enclosing a floor, where nightly the gentle wail of the samisen is heard and the graceful performance of the geishas is seen.

October 1st.—We have had a terrible experience of a typhoon. It began with a thunder-storm last night, accompanied by violent showers of tropical rain, the drops being as large as smallmarbles, whilst the thunder claps crackled and boomed overhead, and the dazzling lightning was blinding. The air was full of electricity, and a feeling of restless foreboding took possession of all. This morning the air was so damp and close that you felt scarcely able to breathe. Violent gusts of wind, increasing in succession, alternate with strange pauses of breathless stillness. There is no twitter of bird or hum of beautiful dragon fly, for they are forewarned by these signals of danger, and have crept into safety. The force of the wind increases, and it is blowing a hurricane, as in our ignorance of these dreadful phenomena of typhoons (a word formed from the Japanese meaning "great wind,") we leave the Imperial Hotel at Tokio, on our return journey to Yokohama, just as it reaches its height.

Trying to walk to the station, I was blown away at the first corner, and then two men with a jinrikisha began a hand-to-hand struggle with the wind, making scarcely any progress, and across the open spaces being literally blown backwards, and only able to steady the jinrikisha from going bodily over. How we reached the Shimbashi station I never understood, but I know that we arrived breathless, blinded, and soaked through with the rain, with dishevelled hair and battered hats, thankful only for the shelter of the station; and just as we seated ourselves in the carriage, a ladywas brought in very much bruised and hurt by the overturning of her jinrikisha, which had been blown away over an embankment into the canal. You may read descriptions of typhoons, but until you have seen one, I defy anyone to have the smallest idea of its awful power.

The fury of the wind was terrible. The train stood quite still at times, unable to steam, however slowly, against the wind, whilst the carriages trembled and rocked on the narrow gauge with every blast of wind, and we thought more than once that it must be blown over. The sea was carried in long spindrifts or lashed into brown whirlpools; an awfully angry sea, boiling and hungry, lashing up in mist and spray against the breakwater we were on. And here are several heartrending sights, for one sampan has been washed up and completely broken on the breakwater, whilst others are being wrecked against its sides, and we can see the horror-stricken faces of the men clinging in agony to it; whilst other sampans are fast drifting on to it, and we watch with awful fear their frantic efforts to save themselves. Houses are unroofed or blown down, trees bent double or uprooted as we look, hedges collapse, crops are laid low, and we in this little carriage are out in its midst, with nothing to break the full fury of the elements. But even as we begin to wonder what to do on our arrival atYokohama, we see that the crisis is past and the gale subsiding. At Yokohama the streets are strewn with the débris of the typhoon, and all vessels in the harbour still have their steam up, should their anchors drag. In two hours the most extraordinary change had taken place. The waters of the harbour had become blue, and tranquilly lapped the shore, the sun shone out, the wind died to a breeze. It was a perfect summer's afternoon. The wind when we left Tokio was blowing at 76·8miles an hour; four hours afterwards it had fallen to 40, and soon after died away.

A Typhoon.

We spend a happy afternoon in the curio shops, at Messrs. Kühn and Messrs. Welsh, whom we consider have the best things, and then visit, with Mr. Hall, a nursery garden on the Bluff, for we think of having one of those prim little Japanese gardens at home.

The next morning we leave Yokohama, and make an expedition to Kamakura, a pretty seaside village, to see the great Diabutsu. The approach to the Buddha is through a gateway which bears the following beautiful inscription,—

Kotoku Monastery: "Stranger, whosoever thou art, and whatsoever be thy creed, when thou enterest this sanctuary, remember thou treadest upon ground hallowed by the worship of ages.

"This is the Temple of Buddha, and the gate of the Eternal, and should therefore be entered with reverence.—By order of the Prior."

And with this grand exhortation in our ears we pass into the quiet garden, with its avenue of cherry and plum trees, lying under the hills in the sunshine, a perfect stillness all around, and where we see the half-opened eyes of the colossal Buddha bent forward, as if in passive contemplation of this quiet scene. There under the stars, amid storm and wind, mist or tropical sun, he has sat for ages, apathetic, but not unconscious. The hands lie onhis crossed knees, the thumbs meeting at the finger-tips, and forming two complete circles.

The Diabutsu is cast in bronze. Time and weather, the stress of the elements, have mellowed the bronze to the most beautiful grey blue, streaked with pale green. To appreciate his solemn grandeur, you must visit him again and again, and each time he is more impressive than the last. It is quite impossible to grasp the colossal proportions, but these are the exact measurements:—Height, 49ft. 7in., length of face, 8ft. 5in., width from ear to ear, 17ft. 9in. The round boss on the forehead, which appears like a tiny white spot, is really 1ft. 3in. The length of eye and the elevated eyebrows about 4ft., of the lobe-distended ears 6ft. 6in., and of the nose, with its wide-opened nostrils, 3ft. 9in. The eyes are of pure gold, and the boss is of silver weighing 30lbs. Inside, in the hollow of the image, there is a shrine, and from the gloom of the neck of the Diabutsu stands out in relief a small golden image. The chanting of the priest below, whose rhythmic tones ascend muffled to us inside the image, mingling with the incense of the burning joss sticks, impresses us with a religious melancholy, when we reflect on the ideal religion set before them by this great teacher, and the utter indifference, even to outward forms of worship, manifested by this people.

The Diabutsu "gives such an impression ofmajesty, so truly symbolizes the central idea of Buddhism—the intellectual calm which comes of perfected knowledge, and the subjugation of all passion."

Then we took jinrikishas to drive to the pretty little Island of Enoshima—a wooded hill rising out of the ocean and connected with the mainland by a spit of sand. The road winds amongst the sand dunes, along the beach of the sea-shore, where the great waves of the Pacific, still agitated by yesterday's typhoon, are dashing on to the sands. Lovely pale green and cerulean tints streak the sea, whilst naked brown figures plunge and dive under the surf, bringing in great bunches of brown seaweed, which they cast in shining heaps on the sand. We pass by a fishing village, strewn with nets hung up to dry, and large bamboo crails for catching the fish, which we see laid out to cure in the sun. They are bringing in the harvest too, and women, scantily clothed, and naked children, whose fat brown bodies look so sleek and comfortable, are busy seated on the ground threshing out the grain, either by pounding it with a wooden mallet, or with a rough bamboo flail. The dull thud of these primitive threshing machines is in all the air, and the ground outside each hut is spread with mats, on which piles of the clean yellow grain are placed to dry.

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