B 396091
JAPONICA
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD-
·
ARTES
18371
LIBRARYVERITAS
SCIENTIA
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E-PLURIBUS UNUM
TUEBOR
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
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JAPONICA

THE MUSMEE
HAYWOLF
'
JAPONICA
72055
| BY
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD M.A. K.C.I.E. C.S.I.
=
Author of "The Light of Asia"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT BLUM
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1891
Copyright, 1891, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
PREFACE
As I am quitting Japan a communication arrives from the
conductors of "Scribner's Magazine," intimating their desire to
reprint the articles entitled "Japonica" in book form, and in
viting me to prefix a few words by way of introduction.
The invitation is welcome on three grounds: first, because
it permits me to thank my friend Mr. Blum for his admirable
artistic co-operation; next, because it affords me opportunity to
make sincere apologies for the necessarily discursive and imper-
fect character of the subjoined pages; and lastly, because it en-
ables me to say, in bidding farewell—I hope only temporarily —
to fair and friendly Japan, how much I desire to emphasize all
the favorable things I have written about the land and people,
and how deeply grateful I feel to the innumerable Japanese friends,
of all sorts and conditions, who have conspired to render my
year's sojourn among them one of unbroken grace, profit, and
pleasure.
It is much if any man can register, amid the vicissitudes
of time, one whole annus delectabilis, with none but delightful
viii
Preface
experiences and agreeable memories. Yet this the writer owes to
the country he is leaving, where he has found a tranquillity of
life and of surroundings — due to gentle and gracious manners,
everywhere prevailing, and to a high, though unique and special-
ized, civilization—as conducive to pleasant study as it was re-
storative to a mind wearied with the haste and heat of our West-
ern daily existence. What can repay such a debt on the part
of the stranger except its warm acknowledgment and life-long
interest in the peace and prosperity of beautiful Japan?
I feel, just at present, that there is no word in any language
more pathetic and full of suppressed emotions, than "Sayonara,"
the Japanese "Good-by." This kindly people render parting more
sad than it would be by their habit of seeing the very last of
their friends and lovers. You cannot, as you would wish to do,
“Fold your tent, like the Arabs,
And silently steal away."
They will offer you farewell banquets, make you speeches of good-
speed, cover you with parting gifts and favors, and come in
crowds, with sympathizing hearts and moistened eyes, to see the
train roll away with you. It is especially the graceful custom to
address to a departing friend verses in the old classical Japanese
style, inscribed on colored or gilded paper. The family of my
landlord thus honored me with five splendid slips of highly-dec-
orated verse, one from each member of the amiable household.
!
Preface
ix
Here are reproductions of three out of the number, faithfully
transcribed and translated:
عسكرکن
$3
Varda
FROM O YOSHI
SAN TO SIR ED-
WIN ARNOld.
Honji text:
Kazu naranu
Mi wo itawaribe
Akekure ni
Ukeshi megumi
wa
Wasure zarama-
shi
Translation:
Great my unwor-
thiness,
Yet, by your fa-
vor, I
Evening and
morning
Such kindness had
الجهد
&
( ॰ས, ཏཏསཛྫི ཝི, ཏྟཱ༽॰)
FROM O FUKU SAN
TO SIR EDWIN
ARNOLD.
Honji text:
Wadazumi no
Namiji wo toku
Hedatsu tomo
Ikade wasuren
Kimi ga megumi
WO
FROM MR. Asso
TO SİR EDWIN
ARNOLD.
Honji text:
Ikanirishi
Enishi naruran
Harakarano
Tomotoshi omou
Kotokuni no
hito
Translation :
Of the spacious
sea
Many the billows
Widely
hs,
ar Friend
Translation:
What was your
secret
To grow so near,
So dear, and
brotherly.
dividing
df
As cannot be for-
gotten.
•
oll they between
our souls.
Cometrom "th
far-off Ba
2
"Sayonara!" then. Farewell to Japan, with all hopefulness
for the progress of this noble nation, and all gratitude for the
grace and friendliness of her refined and gifted people. Sayon-
ara! Mata o me ni Kakarimas made! Good-by, fill once again,
I hang in your honorable eyes!'
Kyoto, Christmas, 1890.
EDWIN ARNOLD.
CONTENTS
I. JAPAN-THE COUNTRY,
II. JAPANESE PEOPLE,
III. JAPANESE WAYS AND THOUGHTS,
PAGE
I
41
89
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Musmce,
A Japanese Gardener,.
Sir Edwin Arnold's House at Azabu, Tokio,
PAGE
Frontispiece
2
"The Little Girlish Steps of a Musmce Tripping down
the Street,"
In a Rice-field,
A Little Clay Backyard,
Head of the Street, Enoshima, Showing the Entrance to
the Temple Grounds,
Temple Grounds with Buddhist Shrine, Uyeno Park, Tokio,
Proper Combination of Specics,
Arrangements of Plant-Forms,
On the Hillside at Enoshima,
A Street Scene, Enoshima,.
Fuji San, from Gotemba,
Benten Cave, Enoshima,
3
5
9
I I
12
14
22
25
•
27
29
31
33
xiv
List of Illustrations
The Plank-way to Benten Cave, Enoshima, Japan,
Japanese Wrestling Match,.
Another View of Sir Edwin Arnold's House,
The Ameya,.
PAGE
35
38
40
42
A Japanese Dinner Service,
43
"Its Tiny Head Swinging Hither and Thither,"
44
"That is where all Babies live in Japan,”
45
"Where Saké is sold,"
"Teapots and Crockery,'
A Shop for Lamps,
48
49
50
"Where the Proprietor, Stark Naked, Pestles the Paddy,”. 51
"O Tatsu San," .
53
((
Every Good House Possesses its own Furo-Do,”
54
The Flower-pedlers,
55
•
(C
Casting off your Shoes,"
61
A Begging Priest,
Wandering Etas,'
64
65
'The Amma,'
"For it is Matsuri,"
67
68
"A Gateway, Sculptured and Embellished to an Extraor-
dinary Height of Semi-barbarous but Splendid
Beauty,"
71
List of Illustrations
XV
“Screened Walls and Portals, Presenting Wonderful Work
in Wood-carving,'
"The Tall Ladder of a Fire-station,"
"The whole Place is full of Symbolism," .
Coming to the Golden Koi-Waiting-girls Receiving
Guests,
A Japanese Dinner at the Golden Koi,
PAGE
73
74
75
80
83
"Be Pleased to Bring the Honorable Account,"
87
Japanese Girl bringing Futon and Tobacco,
88
Head of Japanese Woman,.
The Last Glimpse of Japan,
90
91
Some Types of Japanese Babies,.
93
Queen Oto Tachibani Himé Leaping into the Sea,
97
Endo Morito's Remorse,
99
Tsuru-Kame Dance,
. 107
A Japanese Dance,
The "No" Dance,
"Fuji Musmee,"
Danjuro, the First Actor in Japan,
Impression of the Palm of the Emperor Goshira-Kawa,
Sir Edwin Arnold's Seal,
. 115
. 118
I 20
122
126
. 128
I.
JAPAN-THE COUNTRY
شره
1
G
T
HERE are two Japans. One commenced its national life,
so says mythical history, six hundred and sixty years be-
fore our era, with the accession of the Emperor Jimmu
Tenno. The other, everybody knows, came into existence about
twenty-three years ago, in "the first of Meiji." Neither of them
can be ever at all completely understood even by the most intel-
ligent and indefatigable foreign observer. You ought certainly
to have been born under one of the great Shogunates, the last of
which fell amid battle and revolution in A.D. 1868, to comprehend
in any intimate way ancient Japan; and you should be native-
bred, a living part of the present brand-new order of things, to
have a reasonable chance of feeling as this people feels and
looks upon the outer and inner world with their eyes. Let no-
body, therefore-least of all a mere traveller-venture to theorize
too boldly about Japan and the Japanese. He is pretty sure to
go wrong somewhere if he does. The first impressions which a
fairly intelligent stranger may form of men and cities, manners
and customs, in this delightful but incomprehensible "Land of
the Rising Sun," have their value if carefully recorded; and his
4
Japonica.
conclusions may not prove wholly without interest about its past,
present, and future, when he has learned something of the lan-
guage, and discovered how much he can never learn upon a hun-
dred intensely attractive points. Even the artists have not
really found out Japan yet; nor realized what color, what nov-
elty, what refinement, what remarkable things in Nature and
Art and Humanity she keeps awaiting them in the silvery
light of her atmospheres, along with all sorts of absurdities and
grotesqueries. There are many and many landscapes, in the
hills and along the sea-shores of these fair islands which would
present a new world to real lovers of scenery; and in the little,
girlish steps of a musumë, crossing the mats of the tea-house, or
tripping down the street on her wooden clogs, there is ofttimes
a grace of special movement-a delicate, strange play of folds
and feet-which no Western painter has thus far caught, and
which is something midway between the pacing of fantail pigeons
and the musical gait of Greek maidens on the friezes of the Par-
thenon.
The two Japans are, of course, perpetually blended. The
younger nation, which has only just come of age, is all for rail-
ways, telegraphs, and European developments, including some of
the least desirable and profitable. Yet the older nation lives on,
within and around the Japan of new parliaments, colored wide-
awakes, and Parisian costumes, and from time to time fiercely
asserts itself. My lamented friend, the late Viscount Mori, Min-
ister for Japan to Washington, and afterward to London-and
one of the most enlightened of her modern statesmen-was assas-
sinated in Tokio on February 11, 1889, really as an enemy to the
independence of his country on account of his reforms, but osten-
sibly because he had lifted up the curtain of the shrine at Ise
with his walking-stick. Only a few weeks back, in a neighboring
district, the editor of a Japanese journal was sentenced to four
years' imprisonment for speaking disrespectfully in a leading
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THE LITTLE GIRLISH STEPS OF A MUSUMĒ TRIPPING DOWN THE STREET.
Japan-The Country.
7
article about that very ancient dignitary the Emperor Jimmu.
Considering that the potentate in question-albeit first of all
Mikados--was so vastly remote as to be declared grandson or
grandnephew of the Sun Goddess herself, and is said to have
conquered Japan with a sword as long as a fir-trunk and the aid
of a miraculous white crow's beak, one would think criticism was
free as to His Majesty "Kamu-Yamato-Iware-Biko." But the
Japanese administration generally, and the censorship of the
press in particular, will have no trifling with the established tra-
ditions of Dai-Nippon. Japan took from China, along with her
earliest imported religion (Shintoism), a measureless respect for
ancestors, however fabulous; and, strangely enough, while her
educated people disbelieve the legends of the gods, they seem to
accept, or, at any rate, demurely repeat, the historical stories
which relate how an empress stilled the waves of the sea by
sitting down upon them, and how emperors had fishes for their
ministers, and were transformed into white or yellow birds.
Afterward, from China, came Buddhism, and with it the all-
important tea-leaf and tea-cup; and Confucianism, if it had
features deplorably materialistic, yet inculcated that loyalty to
chiefs and that reverence and devotion to parents which have
formed the keystones of the Japanese social system.
Nihon or Nippon-like our own word Japan-are corruptions
of the Chinese Jip-pên, which means "The place the sun comes
from." Marco Polo's Zipangu is derived from the same word, for
it was by way of China that Japan was first heard about. In
classic Japanese the land is styled "O-Mi-Kuni," the "Great
August Country," and the learned Mr. Chamberlain gives, among
many appellatives, yet another name, which probably you would
not wish me to repeat very constantly-" Toyo-ashi-wara-no-chi-
aki-no-naga-i-ho-aki-no-mizu-ho-no-kuni "—which signifies "The
Luxuriant-Reed-Plains; The Land-of-Fresh-Rice-Ears; of a-
Thousand-Streams; of Song; of Five-Hundred-Autumns." It
Japonica.
should meanwhile interest all Americans to be reminded that
their great country was discovered, quite as an accident, by Chris-
topher Columbus on his first trip, while he was really looking
for Zipangu; which region he still endeavored perpetually to
reach, on all his subsequent voyages to America.
Japan is so broken up, so accidenté in surface and contour,
that not more than fifteen per cent. of her soil lies available for
cultivation, and only two-thirds of it has, as yet, been brought
under the suki and kuwa of the blue-frocked Japanese farmer.
That hard-working person has little or nothing to learn from
Western science, cultivating his land, as he does, with not less
skill than industry. Half his time is passed knee-deep in the
sticky swamps of the rice-grounds; but he seems to mind this no
more than the odors of the liquid manure which is so carefully
hoarded and distributed by ladlefuls with rash disregard of the
traveller's nose. The climate suits him a great deal better than
it does the mere resident or the tourist. Really it rains far too
frequently in this otherwise charming Japan, and one can indeed
scarcely expect any permanent dry weather except in autumn.
Every wind seems to bring rain-clouds up from the encircling
Pacific to break upon the evergreen peaks of Nippon; while in
winter, so great is the influence of the neighboring Arctic circle,
with its cold currents of air and water, that Christmas in Kiû-
Shiû-which lies in the same latitude with the mouths of the
Nile-sees the thermometer sometimes below zero. Except for
certain delicious periods of the year, one cannot honestly praise
the climate of Japan; but it has, all the while, divine caprices;
and when the sunshine does unexpectedly come, during the
chilly and moist months, the light is very splendid, and of a
peculiar silvery tone, while the summer days are golden. For
this the tea-plant, the young bamboo-shoots, and the other sub-
tropical vegetation, wait patiently underneath the snows; indeed,
all the sun-loving plants of the land have learned, like the inhab-
1
Japan-The Country.
9
itants, to "wait till the clouds roll by." Some of the most beau-
tiful know how to defy the worst weather with a curious hardi-
hood. You will see the camellias blossoming with the ice thick
about their roots, and the early
plumb-looms covered with a fall
of snow which is not more
white and delicate than the
petals with which it thus
mingles.
The landscape
in Japan takes a
double character,
from her subtrop-
ical latitude, and
her Siberian vi-
cinity. The zones
and kingdoms of
the North and
South meet as on a
border region, in the beau-
tiful islands. You might
think yourself in Mexico or
India on many a July or
August day, for the strong
sun and the palms and bam-
boos.
April and October,
with peach, azalea, and cher-
ابر
IN A RICE-FIELD.
ry flower at one time, and peonies and chrysanthemums at the
others, make one recall Italy and southern England; and then
again at December, the bare deciduous trees, with dark patches
of pine and laurel, bring to thought Kamchatka or Scandinavia.
On the whole, though a fairly healthy climate, and excellent, ap-
parently, for children, it must not be greatly praised. Autumn
10
Japonica.
and spring are the best seasons. The June rains are followed by
six sultry weeks called do-yo, which prove very "muggy" and
trying, and from November to March the cold is extremely
bitter, and the winds ofttimes savagely bleak. Tokio has 58.33
inches of yearly rainfall, as against 24.76 at Greenwich. Grass
lawns, for all that, do not turn green until May. By an un-
happy arrangement of Nature, north winds blow steadily in the
winter, and the southerly winds pretty constantly all the summer;
but one must remember, while thus generalizing, that Japan is a
large and long country, touching the Arctic circle at the Kuriles,
and the Tropic of Cancer at the Loo-Choo group, and exhibits,
accordingly, many climates.
Countries always seem to me to possess, as much as individu-
als, a countenance, features, lineaments; composed in some man-
ner, more easily felt than defined, of geological, floral, botanical,
zoölogical, and other local characteristics in looks and colors, so
that I think I should know India, Egypt, Norway, Palestine,
Italy, Greece, and America, in fact, whatever regions I may have
visited, in whatever nook or corner of them I chanced to be
dropped. So, after a while, one forms an ideal of the "face of
Japan”—and fair and noble, and very fitted to awaken patriotic
attachment is that face. The normal landscape in Japan is
not grotesque, nor in the least unnatural, as some have perhaps
imagined who judge it by the screens, the fans, and the lac-
quered boxes of its artists. This people loves to play with Nat-
ure, dwarfing her trees, twisting them into fantastic forms, fill-
ing a little clay backyard with bowlders of granite or limestone;
piling up miniature mountains in a bit of a garden, and creating
upon them minute forests, tiny lakes, and bridges for fairies to
cross. But Japan herself, and at large, is as sane and sweet of
aspect as Scotland or New England; with a general cachet about
her scenery, less of what is wild and grand than of what is re-
poseful, charming, and gracious. The typical Japanese land-

Japan-The Country.
11
scape along the southern shores, between Kioto and Tokio, is
distinctly special to the country; more so than the hill regions,
which remind you of many other wooded and mountainous dis-
A LITTLE CLAY BACKYARD.
tricts, until you note the vegetation closely. Wide flats of land,
either levelled by alluvial action or carefully laid out in terraces
along the whole course of a valley, are seen marked off in regular
squares and oblongs for rice and other moisture-loving crops.
These are kept almost perpetually under water, divided by nar-

12
Japonica.
HEAD OF THE STREET, ENO-
SHIMA. SHOWING THE EN-
TRANCE TO THE TEMPLE
GROUNDS.
row banks of earth, where
the cultivators can just pass
in single file; and in winter they
present a rather dreary vista of
gleaming swamps and black rice-
roots. At Nagoya, in the great military manoeuvres,
it was a curious spectacle to see a large body of in-
fantry suddenly thrown into one of these rice-valleys, to cross to
the opposite hills in order to deliver an attack upon the Emper-
Japan The Country.
13
or's central batteries. For soldiers, loaded with arms and ammu-
nition, the rice-fields themselves were impassable, and the four
or five thousand men engaged spread out in long strings upon
every slender bank, like a swarm of ants defiling along the lines
of a chess-board. Overhanging the rice-plots are generally hills
covered with groves of bamboo, fir, paulonia, and beach, with
long glens running into them, which are all terraced for rice and
wet crops. At the foot of the hills, or in single long streets on
either side of the main road, running beneath them, gather the
villages, all on the same model, except that the ridge of the
thatched roof, perhaps, will be differently fashioned in different
localities. Some may be newer and cleaner than others, some
large, and some very humble; but all contain the same kind of
apartments, raised about two feet from the ground, with the clean
mats which no boot or shoe ever profanes; the sliding-paper
shoji, and the amado, or rain-shutters; the fire-box, the hanging
picture on the wall, the pot of flowers or bunch of lilies in the
bamboo-stand, and a " Butsumono," or shrine of Buddha. Some-
where amid, or near, the houses rises the village temple, being in
architecture merely a rather superior sort of hut, but dignified,
especially if Shinto, by a torii, a "bird-perch" built across the
paved way, or steps leading to it. This is a gateway of stone
posts and a twofold lintel, the latter with up-curved ends, after
the Chinese fashion. If it be a Shinto fane, white paper--cut in
connected squares, and intended to signify and to replace offer-
ings of cloth-will dangle and flutter from the curved stone
beams. Round about the shrine which will have no image
if it be Miya, i.e., Shinto, but will disclose a gilded Buddha
or one of the Buddhisats, if it be a tera, a Buddhist holy
place is usually seen a dense and shadowy grove of trees-
bamboos, cryptomerias, black and red pines-sawara, hi, and
maki — with the awogiri, from which are manufactured the
wooden patterns of the Japanese. The old idea was thereby to
·

14
Japonica.
supply timber to repair or rebuild the temples; but as the trees
grow older they become sacred and are girdled with a band of
straw rope to denote this. Shinto, which is not Confucianism,
can hardly be called a
religion, since it has no
doctrines, no scriptures,
no moral code; origin-
TEMPLE GROUNDS WITH BUDDHIST
SHRINE, UYENO PARK, TOKIO.
ally it was a worship of the Powers of Nature, and of ancestors as
gods. Ama-Terasu, Goddess of the Sun, bequeathed to the first
and to all succeeding Mikados a mirror, a sword, and a jewel,
which used to be guarded by a virgin daughter of the ruling em-
peror in the great shrine at Ise. Buddhism, entering Japan
Japan-The Country.
15
six centuries after Christ, put Shinto aside, or greatly modified
it, down to A.D. 1700. The Buddhist priests assimilated the
Shinto gods; and their religion became, as it is, indeed, now,
that of the people at large during all this long period. Then
Iyeyasu, the great Shogun, first printed the Confucian classics,
and the principles of the arch Opportunist of China thus
mingled with the already much mixed Ryōbu-Shinto to con-
tribute the state of things, social and civil, which was subverted,
at least politically, in 1868. Then everything was commanded
to go back to "pure Shinto," and to the ancient system of the
Sun Goddess, but only the civil side of this revolution has
ever really triumphed. Buddhism, in a diluted degree, is more
than ever the religion of the nation; but it is difficult to describe
how lightly the Japanese take the spiritual side of life. They
are an extremely undevotional people, without being on that ac-
count irreligious. They blend every Ennichi or Matsuri, that is
to say, their "Saints' days," with a fair or festival; and "divine
service” consists with them of very little more than pulling the
rope of the gong at the temple entrance, clapping the palms, re-
peating a whispered prayer with bowed head, and then throwing
a copper coin on the matted floor or into the offering box. It is,
however, very proper to wash the hands before doing all this, in
a stone cistern near the gate, and serious people often purchase
from the priests slips of paper inscribed with the name of a god,
or with the formula Nama Amida Butsu, and hang these sacred
treasures up at the doors of their houses to keep away robbers
and fire; or else put them before the family shrine along with
the little brass lamp and the stick of senko.
The typical Shinto temple, with its emblems, is well described
by Mr. Satow. All that is visible to the eye of the worshipper is
a bundle of paper cuttings attached to an upright wand, or a mir-
ror in the centre or back of an open chamber. But behind the
grating in the rear is a sanctum, within which not even the chief
16
Japonica.
priest may intrude, except on rare occasions, where the emblem
of the god is kept enshrined, box within box, and enveloped in
innumerable wrappings of silk and brocade. Tradition alone in-
forms people in each case what this emblem, or mi-tama-shiro
(representation of the august spirit) is. Sometimes it will be a
mirror, or a sword, a curious stone, or even a shoe, the mirror
being characteristic of the female, the sword of male deities.
Along the southern shores orange and lemon trees will be seen
upon the sunny uplands, and everywhere, indeed, this blending
of subtropical with temperate, and frigid vegetation characterizes
the changeful and charmful face of Japan. Barley and rice, bam-
boo and pines, wild weeds of England with thickets of Corsica
or California are found growing side by side. Dr. Rein has spec-
ially named this Japanese region "the kingdom of magnolias,
camellias, and arabias,” but it is a real paradise of botanists for
variety. Japan counts, in forest trees alone, 165 species and
66 genera, against 85 species and 33 genera of the continent of
Europe; and it is a curious fact that eastern America and Japan
possess no less than 65 genera in common.
Well does Japan deserve these forest riches. She knows how
to value the beautiful variety in the grain of her timbers, and to
produce with them, in house-building, cabinet work and joinery,
all manner of delightful effects. Nowhere will you see in this
country the abomination of wood grained by the painter in imita-
tion of something which it is not. It is rare even to observe paint
anywhere placed upon wood at all; even the junks and sampans
are uncolored and unpitched. A Japanese carpenter and ship-
wright takes care to have his wood well seasoned, and then leaves
it naked and natural, to last as long as it may in its own fashion.
The bright and glossy pine-planks, of which the houses in every
town and village are constructed, soon change color, of course,
under the sun and rain, into the subdued gray of weather-worn fir
stuff; but the general hue is still sober and pleasing, with the con-
Japan-The Country.
17
trast of the black and white tiles, the white shoji, the dark polished
platforms, and spotless mats. In the interior of the house the
Japanese citizen revels in the variety and tints of the timbers
furnished by his forests. He will have a natural cherry-tree trunk
in the middle of his principal apartment; and pine-stems, merely
stripped of their bark, at the corners of each room; while the
ceiling will perhaps be composed of broad planks, selected for
their beauty, of cryptomeria. A curious taste, however, prevails
for beams and boards of worm-eaten wood. Your Japanese builder
or householder loves the strange pattern into which the Teredo
Navalis or the Dakboring insect will drill a pile or a trunk. He
saws and planes these just enough to show the fantastic filigree
of those strange creatures, and then proudly puts them up as
gate-posts or bressumers. He will cut a partly hollow tree into
many planks, and glory in the quaint patterns which he obtains
by laying these side by side together along the front of his abode.
He knows how to get from cross-sections and slices of bark and
root áll kinds of new lines and colors; and there are towns and
villages in and about the hills, like Yumoto and Miyanoshita,
where scores of shops sell nothing but slabs of carefully sawn
timber, and where hundreds of ingenious articles are turned or
fashioned from every tree and root and bark that can be found in
the forest.
Special in their love and use of wood the Japanese are also as
peculiar and as much apart from the West in their regard for, and
their dealings with, flowers. But by "flowers" they mean less
and more than we. They include all handsome and ornamental
leaves, stems, branches, and even stumps and roots. The blossom
is for them, though they love color, rather a detail than the cen-
tral point; and a great spray of pine, of cedar, or of maple ranks
above most of mere blooms. There is an aristocracy of flowers
with them, very severely defined. The seven princely or primary
flowers are the Kiku, or chrysanthemum; the narcissus, or Suisen ;
18
Japonica.
the maple, or Momiji; the cherry, or Sakura; the peony, or Bo-
tan; the wistaria, or Fuji, and the evergreen rhodea, or Omoto.
The iris is also of princely dignity, but must not be employed at
weddings because of its purple color.
Those who would understand to what a pitch Japanese fancy
has raised the art of flower arrangement should study a most
erudite article published in the "Transactions of the Asiatic So-
ciety of Japan" upon this fascinating subject. Without the aid
of such guidance, your Japanese gardener would, indeed, make
you understand in a very little time, by the daily floral adorn-
ments which he constructs, how little you, as an European or
American, know upon the topic, and what scientific ideas ought
to govern it. But we must go to Mr. Conder to get a just notion
of true principles in floral decoration. Those who well under-
stand them are declared to possess, by simple force of such
superior knowledge, the subjoined ten virtues :
Koishikko. The privilege of associating with superiors.
Sējijō jōkō. Ease and dignity before men of rank.
Muitannen. A serene disposition and forgetfulness of care.
Dokuraku ni Katarazu. Amusement in solitude.
Sōmoku meichi. Familiarity with the nature of plants and
trees.
Shujin aikiō. The respect of mankind.
Chobo furiu. Constant gentleness of character.
Seikon gōjō. Healthiness of mind and body.
Shimbutsu haizō. A religious spirit.
Showaku ribtesu. Self-abnegation and restraint.
What Japanese love and strive for in arranging flowers is
that which they value most in all their arts, namely, balance and
beauty of line. The charm of their dancing-of which I shall
hope to speak more at length later on-springs from the same
language of line," and he who does not know and feel the sub-
tle secrets of this will vainly seek to derive from Japanese art of
?
Japan-The Country.
19
any kind the exquisite pleasure it can impart to the eye and
mind. Your European florist-who masses together his roses,
and gardenias, his maiden-hair ferns and calla-lilies, surround-
ing them with a dish of green, and an outer overcoat of lace
paper-appears to the Japanese lover of flowers lower than a
barbarian. He has lost to the Japanese mind--the chief
charms of flowers and leaves, which consist in their form of
growth, their harmonious asymmetry, and their natural rela-
tions. Every school of flower arrangement in Japan would
scorn his rural bow-pot or guinea bouquet, and teach him far
nobler thoughts. Each school possesses its own secret tradi-
tions, called Hiden, only imparted to the very proficient. The
most popular of modern floral schools is the Enshin, founded
by Kobori Totomi no Kami, a servant of the great Shogun
Tyemasu. This cult observes three chief rules: The first,
called Kioku, is the art of giving feeling and expression to
compositions; the second, called Shitsu, is the art of conveying
the particular nature of the growth, and the third, called Ji,
refers to the principle of keeping in mind the particular season,
in the proper use of buds, open flowers, withered leaves, dew, etc.
What the floral artist in Japan most contemns and avoids is
tame duplicated symmetry. Nature will have none of it, nor he,
her scholar. If, as in her butterflies and double leaves, she
must be equilibriated, she redeems it with gorgeous color or by
a varied back or edge to the wing or leaf. But you may balance
asymmetry, which the Japanese flower-lover effects by a scientific
disposition of his stems and leave-masses. It is not possible to
give here the elaborate nomenclature of his shins and sôs. He
has names for all important parts in the display of his flower-
vase For a triple arrangement the terms of Chichi (Father),
Haha (Mother), Ten (Heaven) are used. For the quintuple
form, Chiuwō (Centre), Kita (North), Minami (South), Higashi
(East), Nishi (West), also Tsuchi (Earth), Hi (Fire), Mizu
20
Japonica.
(Water), Kane (Metal), Ki (Wood), also Ki-iro (Yellow), Aka
(Red), Kuro (Black), Shiro (White), Ao (Blue), are all employed.
There must by no means occur "nagashi," or long streaming
sprays, on both sides of the grouping. Certain defects in the
cross-cutting of branches or stalks must be heedfully guarded
against; "window-making," when these intersect so as to suggest
loop-holes; "lattice-making," when they cross to give the idea of
trellis-work. Parallelism is held detestable; it must be pre-
sented from no point of sight; and albeit the flower-structure is
intended to be studied and enjoyed where it stands upon the
toku-no-ma, or "place of honor," from a front view, still the
composition must endure to be regarded with artistic satisfaction
from right or left. The vessels or stands to receive the flowers
obey, in their shape and material, certain well-fixed rules. Many
are very splendid pieces of bronze, carved wood, or porcelain, but
that is not imperative. The illustrious Yoshimasa, an ancient
and accomplished patron of this refined art, preferred wicker-bas-
kets, after Hakoji, a Chinese weaver, had offered him one. The
lowly craftsman in forwarding his tribute made the humble re-
quest that so unworthy an object should be embellished by an or-
namental stand when placed before the Regent. Yoshimasa, it
is said, was so pleased with its simple elegance that he ordered
it to be placed immediately upon the polished dais without any
stand or tray. Hence the custom of dispensing with the stand
or tray used under similar flower vessels. Hakoji returned to his
mountain cottage and continued his occupation of basket-making
with the assistance of his daughter Reshojō, who herself origi-
nated a basket of somewhat different shape. Hence the two
kinds of flower Kago, the one called Hokoji gata, and the other
Reshojo gata. Quite as popularly-favored a receptacle as any is
the simple bamboo stick, cut into flower-holders; and not less
than forty-two methods are solemnly named for notching and
shaping the cane. They begin with the Shishi guchi gata, or
1
Japan-The Country.
21
66
Lion's-mouth shape," and, then, there is the "travelling-pil-
low," the "singing-mouth," the "shark's jaw," the "oar-blade,”
the "lantern," the "climbing monkey," the "five storeys," the
icicle,” the "bird-cage," the "flute," the "bridge," the "stork's
neck," the "bell," the "top," the "cap," the "conch shell,” the
bento, or "dinner-box," and, lastly, the taki-robori-ryo gata, or
"cascade-climbing-dragon's form." The astonishing fertility in
invention of the Japanese carpenter moulds the natural bamboo-
cane into all these shapes for flower and branch holders. It is
customary to suspend behind them a tablet of wood, lacquered
black, and inscribed with a poem in golden letters. Sometimes
the bamboo is cut into fantastic forms of boats and rafts and
junks. Flowers and branchlets are disposed in these for symboli-
cal meanings and in strict accordance with natural propriety.
Mr. Conder says: "In all compositions, single or combined, the
special nature and character of the different materials employed
are carefully kept in mind, and anything at all suggestive of the
inappropriate most scrupulously avoided. An important distinc-
tion is made between trees and plants, and another distinction is
made between land and water plants. The locality of produc-
tion, whether mountain, moor, or river, considerably influences
the arrangements in composition. Each flower has its proper
season or month, and many flowers, which continue throughout
several seasons, have special characteristics peculiar to the differ-
ent seasons. Such different characteristics are carefully observed
and followed in the artificial arrangements, subject, of course, to
the general rules of art." And again: "In combining several
species in one composition it is laid down as an important law
that the branches of a tree, technically called Ki, should never be
'supported' on both sides by a plant, technically called Kusa, nor
should Kusa be 'supported' on both sides by Ki. In case of a
treble arrangement two Ki may be combined with one Kusa, but
the Kusa must not be in the centre of the composition. As an
22
Japonica.
example of defective arrangement may be taken a composition
with an iris (Kusa) in the centre and branches of azaleas and
camellia (Ki), on either side. A correct composition would be
that of the pine (Ki), plum (Ki) and bamboo (Kusa), with the
pine in the centre and the plum and bamboo on either side. The
plum might equally well be placed in the centre, and the pine
and bamboo on either side." Thoroughly to comprehend this
intricate and dainty art
one must either observe
the daily practice of the
Japanese flower-composer,
who is a veritable poet of
the parterre, or study the
plates which enrich Mr.
Conder's most admirable
article. Here is one illus-
trating the last-mentioned
rule and giving an idea of
the Shin-Gio-So style.
Camellia
(AD)
Peach (Ki)
Narcissus (Kusa,
(Kusa)
Proper Combination of Species.
Maple (Ki)
Maple (A
For these consummate
flower - artists there are
sexes, as has been said, in
flowers and foliage, apart from botanical science. The front
of leaves is male, the back female; buds and overblown blos-
soms are feminine, full blooms are masculine. These must be
fitly wedded, having regard to the dignity of rank and color,
for the colors have also respective rank and sex. The idea of
respective rank is applied principally to colored flowers of the
same species. In most cases the white flower of every species
takes highest rank, but there are exceptions to this. Among
chrysanthemums the yellow kind ranks first; of peach blossoms,
the pale pink; of the Yamabuki (Kerria Japonica), yellow (al-
though a white species exists); of the iris, purple; of the camellia,
Japan-The Country.
23
red; of the wistaria, pale purple in preference to white; of the
tree peony, red; of the Kikiyo (Platycodon Grandiflora), light
purple; of the Shakuyaku (Peonia Albiflora), light red; of the
convolvulus, dark blue; and of the cherry blossom, pale pink,
take, respectively, first rank.
Among colors, red, purple, pink, and variegated colors are
male; and blue, yellow, and white are female. Colors which do
not harmonize are separated by green leaves or white flowers.
Among leaf colors a rich deep green ranks first. Common
flowers, Zokwa, must not be employed; nor cereals, Gokoku;
nor poisonous plants, nor those with a very strong odor, and
there is a long list of blossoms utterly prohibited for felicitous
occasions-a kind of gardener's "Index Expurgatorius "-upon
which figure many a favorite flower of the West, such as aster,
dianthus, azalea, daphne, poppy, magnolia, orchids, gentian,
rhododendron, ipomoea, smilax, thyma, and hydrangea. Herein,
it must be confessed, our Japanese masters seem rather arbi-
trary; but they adduce grave reasons for the ostracism of these
and forty or fifty other denizens of the garden. In the Konrei-no-
hana, or wedding decorations, red is regarded as male, and white
as female. Hence, in the case of a Muko (a son-in-law adopted
by marriage into the family of the bride), the bridegroom is
virtually regarded as the guest of the occasion, and therefore the
Shin or central line of the floral design must be of the male color
--red; while the Soye, or supporting line, is of the female color
-white. On the other hand, when a Yome, or bride, is adopted
into the family of her husband the female color-white, has the
central position in the arrangement. In both cases the stems of
the flowers used must be firmly connected at the base to signify
union, and bound with colored ribbon, called Mizuhiki. Purple
flowers are prohibited for weddings, as also willow branches and
other drooping plants. Hanging vases (Tsuru no mono) are also
to be avoided.
24
Japonica.
Each household in Japan has generally two shrines—one to
the Kami, or household gods of the old Shinto cult, and the
other to the Hotoke, or spirits of deceased relatives, which is
Buddhist. For arrangements of flowers before the Kami a full
and powerful composition is required. All ugly flowers, those of
strong odor, or those having thorns, are prohibited. A special
branch, called Kao muke no eda, or facing branch, must be used
behind the Shin or central line; and before a Buddhist shrine a
full and crowded composition must be employed and the Tamuke
no eda introduced.
It is part of this delicate art to prescribe the way in which the
lovely arrangements should be admired and praised. Seriously
impolite would it be to look at the flowers with a fan in the
hand, or to peer behind the branches of the composition; and
you must express delight softly, as befits the gentle company of
the blossoms, and with appropriate epithets. Be pleased to call
white flowers, Kiasha, "elegant; " blue flowers, migoto, "fine;
red are utsukushii; yellow, Kekko, i.e., “charming" and "splen-
did; " and purple blossoms may justly be styled Kusumu, “mod-
est." It is a great compliment when a guest, who is known to
be more or less an adept in the beautiful science, finds himself
invited by the host to make an extemporary arrangement of flow-
ers and sprays. The master of the house provides the vase,
the water, the tray of cut blooms and branchlets, the scissors,
knife, hempen cloth, and little saw; altogether called Hana Ku-
bari. Should the host produce a very rare and valuable vessel
for the flower arrangement, it is polite for the guest invited to
make the floral arrangement to show diffidence, declining to use
so precious an article on the plea of want of sufficient skill. If
pressed, however, he must attempt a simple and unassuming com-
position. When the arrangement is completed the host and
any other visitors present, who have meanwhile remained in the
adjoining room, approach in turn the Toko no ma, salute and in-
(
Japan-The Country.
25
spect in the manner previously described. The scissors are left
near to the flower arrangement as a silent and modest request to
correct faults. The designer turns to the host, apologizes for
the imperfections, and begs that the whole may be removed;
the host refuses, saying that the result is everything that could
be desired. At such flower-gatherings it is particularly recom-
mended that visitors should not attempt bold and ambitious de-
signs. Below is a result such as a modest connoisseur on such
an occasion would produce with pine, plum-sprays, and the bam-
Arrangement of Pine Branch (Matsu)
and Plum Branch (Ume), in Vase of
Natural Bamboo (Shō-chiku-bai).
Defective Arrangement of
Iris (Hana shōbu).
Altered and Correct Arrange-
ment of Iris (Hana shōbu).
boo-holder. Finally, I borrow from Mr. Conder's invaluable
pages the simplest example he gives of the right and wrong
way of arranging an iris-root. If I have allowed this fasci-
nating topic to lead me into a long digression, it is that the An-
glo-Saxon world may modestly learn its utter and hopeless
ignorance of the proper use and disposition of flowers for festal
and aesthetic occasions. We crowd our blooms and sprays to-
gether until they are like the faces of people in the pit of a thea-
tre; each lost in the press; a mass, a medley, a tumultuary
throng. The Japanese treats each gracious beauty or splendor
of the garden or of the pool as an individual to be honored, stud-
26
Japonica.
ied, and separately enjoyed. Each suggests, and shall provide
for his eyes a special luxury of line, sufficing even with one
branch, one color, one species, to glorify his apartment and make
the heart glad with the wisdom and the grace of nature. An
arrangement with one leaf is attributed to the famous artist and
philosopher, Rikiu, who on a certain occasion having observed a
fence covered with convolvuli, gathered one flower and one leaf,
honorably grouping them in a vase. On being asked why he
adopted so humble a design, he replied that as it was impossible
to rival nature in its magic of design, our artificial arrangements
should be as simple and modest as possible; even one leaf and
one flower were sufficient, he said, to call for admiration.
The forests and gardens of Japan have beguiled me into this
discursus about her flowers. But besides her green mountains,
her rice-flats, and her foot-hills, she displays every variety of
landscapes, many of them of marvellous beauty and picturesque-
ness, though not often grand and imposing. Among the scenes
which will linger in the memory of every wanderer in southern
Japan, must first, I think, be mentioned Nikko, with the great
"hills of the Sun" scattered round about in a country full of
lovely water-falls, running streams, and bright Asiatic moor-
lands. The dark groves of ilex and pine, shutting in there the
splendid temples, brilliant with scarlet and gold and black lac-
quer; and the proud tombs of ancient Shoguns, might furnish an
artist with subjects for many a noble canvas. The road thither
from Utsunomiya, which few will now traverse, because a rail-
way has been completed thence, has the most majestic avenue of
giant trees to be seen perhaps in all the world. They are cryp-
tomerias, and rise to an average height of one hundred feet, with
immense trunks, and dense, glossy foliage, furnishing for leagues
and leagues along the narrow, shaded road a stately gallery of
rugged stems and towering crests, along which the traveller pro-
ceeds in a dim green light, as delicious as it is solemn, reminding

Japan-The Country.
27
44
ON THE HILLSIDE
AT ENOSHIMA.
him of a
vast cathedral
lighted only
by windows of
one cool, quiet,
sombre color.
Then very
charming indeed
is Kamakura,
great bronze
with the
statue of the
butsu-rising
bamboos, oak - trees,
bushes of the sea-bay
Buddha - Dai
colossal over the
and magnolia
which rolls in
by Misaki point. The verdant hills here, full of caves and
cherry orchards and temples, and the fertile plains which were
28
Japonica.
once covered with cities and castles, and are now back again
in the charge of Nature, offer a lovely combination of Japanese
wood and wold, animated by the placid, picturesque country
life of the people. There are, also, mountain-hollows and long
hill-ranges near Nagoya, which, when I saw them, at the mili-
tary manoeuvres, covered with the lilac-blossoms and wild aza-
leas, seemed as fair and rich in colors as the world could
show; and again between Kodzu and Gotemba, on the Kiyoto-
Tokio line of railway, there lies a stretch of Tyrol-like high-
lands, with rushing streams and rocky precipices, the beauty of
which must linger in the mind of the most travelled. Yet there
are three scenes of all the many familiar in Japan which will
always come first, I think, to my memory. One is Enoshima;
the next my own delightful little garden at Azabu, in the heart
of the green and busy capital of Tokio; and the third the peer-
less mountain Fuji San, with all that district from which rises
her stately and sacred peak.
The island, or rather the peninsula, of beautiful Enoshima
somewhat resembles Mount St. Michael, on the Cornish coast.
It is the same abrupt and isolated crag, wooded and crowned
with buildings, and separated from the mainland in the same
manner by a causeway of sand, which is only at very high tides
covered by the sea. But Enoshima, besides being intensely
Japanese in character, vegetation, and surroundings, looks, on
both sides, upon a lovely shore, a veritable concha d'oro, stretch-
ing eastward along the coast of Kamakura and Misaki, and west-
ward round the splendid sweep of Izu. There, from the Iwam-
ori tea-house is a charming though distant view of the Lady of
Mountains-Fuji San-and many a delightful hour I have passed
sitting on the mats of the Fuji San "Inn of the Grove of the
Rock "-learning to talk Japanese, and to admire, as they de-
serve, the great peaks of Oyama and splendid shapely Fuji,
the queen of all eminences. The sandy neck, by which you cross
'

33
A STREET SCENE, ENOSHIMA.
["Strung across the street are little banners that different societies and clubs give to the inn-keepers on passing
through the town. Every matsuri brings them out by the hundreds. The two men coming down the street are
pilgrims belonging to some such society or club, tramping to certain places, visiting the temples, etc., and carrying
a square piece of matting slung loosely from their shoulders. They are dressed in rough white garments that some-
times are quite spotted with the red seal imprints from different temples."-ARTIST'S NOTE.J

Japan-The Country.
31
from the rice-fields to the island, is always lively with groups of
fishermen and market-people, with boats coming and going, and
seine nets being drawn, amid merry choruses, to the smooth
brown flats. Entering the rocky islet under a stone torii, you
walk up a steep, picturesque street-one of the oddest in the
FUJI SAN. FROM GOTEMBA.
world-lined on each side with shops where fresh fish is cooked,
and others where they sell all sorts of articles made of coral, sea-
shells, and various products of the ocean. Here you may buy,
very cheaply, the lovely and wonderful hyalo-nema, the rarest of
sponges, with huge crabs, measuring twelve feet between the
nippers; and you may dine, on the white mats, from such a col-
lection of fish as would stock a museum. The awabi, better
4
32
Japonica.
known as the haliotis, or "Venus-Ear" shell, is specially taken
here in great quantities. A strip of the membrane of this is put
into the folded, colored paper-noshi - which accompanies all
Japanese gifts, the mollusk in question being a symbol of long
life and prosperity, and also representing the fish which used to
accompany every formal present. When you have dined, you
will wander by many slopes and steps, to the temple of the god-
dess Benten for at the back of the island is a cave, formerly
inhabited by dragons, who devoured the little children of the
neighboring coast. But, if legends are true, there appeared in a
storm one night, two thousand years ago, a beautiful lady of
divine form, who brought the island along with her, and, setting
it up in its place, drove away the dragons and established her
own worship on the fair rock, as Goddess of Beauty and of
Mercy. If you should hesitate to believe the tradition, close at
hand, in the cemetery of Koshigoye village, stands the tomb of
the rich man who lost all his sixteen children by the dragons.
No less than three times Benten has been seen, riding on the
dreadful creatures which she subdued for the sake of her Jap-
anese people. On one occasion she was heard to say, "All the
world is mine, and shall belong to beauty and love! All its be-
ings are my offspring! Now it is an evil place, but I will make
all dwell securely and happily in it." It is related that one of
the ancestors of the Hōjō family, Tokimasa, came to Enoshima
to pray for his posterity. After three weeks of prayer the god-
dess Benten appeared to him, and told him that his merits were
remembered by her. Promising a blessing, she vanished into
the sea, riding upon a dragon. Tokimasa found on the ground
three scales of the dragon-goddess, and, picking them up, ar-
ranged them in the form of a crest, which trefoil of dragon-
scales became the badge of the Hōjō family. Benten is usually
pictured with a dragon near her. Her aspect is always mild and
motherly. She wears a tiara containing a torii. The spot where

Japan-The Country.
33
the dragons dwelt is at the back of Enoshima. Descending steep
steps you reach the lower shore, and walk forward and round by
the left to a cave. In the cave, which may be entered without
danger at low water, is a shrine with the usual images, lights,
white paper, etc. The true and original shrine of Benten was
BENTEN CAVE, ENOSHIMA.
formerly kept here, and on a certain day in the year priests and
worshippers, in a great procession, resort to the cave to remove
the deity, air it, and return it with ceremonies. The long pas-
sage in the rock is said to have been made in digging for gold.
According to tradition the cave was anciently the dwelling-place
of two white dragons. What were these fabled dragons? Not
large snakes, for the land never produced them; nor sharks, for
they do not haunt these waters. At any rate, well is the gra-
34
Japonica.
cious and kindly Benten throned and adored on shining Eno-
shima. If you had seen no more of Japan and her gentle peo-
ple than that one islet, you must like the land and think always
of it with attachment and gratitude.
If I name my garden at Azabu among the scenes ever to be
remembered in Japan, it is because it was typical of a city resi-
dence there, as well as being really a pretty spot, and full of
((
things Japanese." On pages 3 and 40 are pictures of the native
house which stood in the garden, and which we occupied for many
happy months. Provided with an outer as well as an inner range
of sliding shoji, we could make it warm in the winter as well as
cool in the summer, although the outer glass (amado) would cer-
tainly rattle a great deal in a stormy wind or an earthquake, this
latter phenomenon occurring pretty frequently. A Japanese house
is really healthy as well as comfortable. Being built not in the
soil, as with us, but above it, and freely ventilated by the airiness.
inseparable from its construction, and being entered only with
bare or stockinged feet, it is always sweet and clean. The tatami,
the mats, of such an abode remain so free from dust or dirt that
the delicate silks or muslins of their kimono are laid upon the
floor by Japanese ladies without the least fear of soiling them.
Cheap to build, beautiful in appearance, spotlessly pure, and, with
proper arrangements, eminently salubrious, the Japanese domicile
seems to me entirely admirable, and in almost all its good qualities
rich and poor share alike. The palace of the emperor and the hut
of the Kurumaman are practically on the same plan; and even in
the smallest tenements I have seen apartments so clean, so neat,
so bright, and so charming that they might have been boudoirs
for the empress instead of the back-room of a mat-maker's or a
carpenter's abode.
Japanese servants are excellent, if you choose them with dis-
cretion, and treat them with the established consideration of the
country. There is a universal social compact in Japan to make

网
​THE PLANK-WAY TO BENTEN CAVE-ENOSHIMA, JAPAN.
Japan-The Country.
37
life pleasant by politeness. Everybody is more or less well-bred,
and hates the man or woman who is yakamashu-noisy, uncivil, or
exigent. People who lose their temper, are always in a hurry,
bang doors, swear, and "swagger," find themselves out of place
in a land where the lowest coolie learns and practices an ancient
courtesy, from the time when he wobbles about as a baby upon
his mother's back.
Therefore, to be treated well in Japan, as perhaps indeed
elsewhere, you must treat everybody, including your domestics,
well; and then you will enjoy the most pleasant and willing ser-
vice. Your cook will doubtless cheat you a little; your jinrick-
ishaman will now and then take too much sakë, the musmees and
the boy's wife will gossip all over the place about everything
you do; and the gardener and the coachman will fight cocks in
the yard when your back is turned; but if conscious of your own,
you can forgive the little sins of others. You can hardly fail to
become closely attached to the quiet, soft-voiced, pleasant people,
who, as soon as they have learned your ways, will take real pleasure
in making life agreeable to you. A present, now and then, of a
kimono to the maids, of toys and sweetmeats to the children; a
day's holiday now and then granted to the theatre or the wrestling
match, are richly rewarded by such bright faces and unmistakable
warmth of welcome on arriving, and of good speed on going, as
repay you tenfold. Respectful as Japanese servants are-and
they never speak except on their knees and faces-they like to
be taken into the family conversation, and to sit sometimes in
friendly abandon with the master and mistress, admiring dresses,
pictures or Western novelties, and listening sometimes to the
samisen and koto, as children of the household.
Tokio is a vast city with a million and a quarter inhabitants,
the greater part of it built on a plain, but full of hills and hollows
covered with pine and bamboo. You may therefore live in the
city and yet have green gardens and verdant scenery all around

38
Japonica.
you, which was our happy case at Azabu. The house was planted
upon a little hill, looking over crowded bazaars of wooden huts
JAPANESE WRESTLING MATCH.
to many other like leafy hills;
and in the absence of smoke, due to
P
the cleanly charcoal hibachi, trees and flowers flourished, birds
built their nests, and Nature might be studied almost as well there
as in the woods and mountains. In the morning a colony of great
Japan-The Country.
39
black crows, and screaming kites, woke us from our slumber. All
day long the painted thrushes, the starlings, tits, chaffinches, and
wagtails, the latter a most important bird in Japanese mythology,
together with the ubiquitous sparrows, played on the lawn or in
the bamboos; at evening the storks and bitterns flew in long
clamorous lines from the seashore to the hills. The art of the
Japanese gardener had turned our little plot of a couple of acres
into the appearance of a large and various pleasaunce, with min-
iature hills from which you could see the towering snows of
Fuji San-fish-ponds, rock-works, trellised arbors, and clumps
of flowers and bushes, which gave us an unbroken succession of
floral wealth.
Scattered about the grounds were stone lamps called Ishi
dōrō, and grotesque demons, amidst quaint water - cisterns in
stone with Chinese inscriptions. Around these first came into
bloom, defying snow and frost, the beautiful red and white and
striped camellias. When those had fallen the white and pink and
rose-red plum flowers filled the eye with beauty. Afterward the
azaleas blazed, like burning bushes, all round the lotus pond; and
these were followed by a delicious outburst of pale, rose-tinted
cherry-blossoms, making an avenue of beauty and glory all the
way from the Shinto temple at our gate to the front door, where
were suspended the little, indispensable, but useless fire-engine,
and the bronze gong on which visitors beat with a little wooden
hammer to announce their arrival. The wistaria and a second
crop of camellias, and then some red and yellow roses took up the
running, until the maple bushes came out resplendent with blood-
red leaves; after which there were purple irises and callas flower-
ing by the fish-pond, with orange and red lilies brighter than the
gold-fish swimming in it, and the lawn became covered with a
pretty little flower called the Neji-bana, the pink buds of which,
growing diagonally and reaching round to get the sunlight, twist-
ed the stem into the shape of a corkscrew. Thus along with the
40
Japonica.
sprays of the firs and loquats and ornamental shrubs, our gar-
dener-whom we christened the "Ace of Spades," out of "Alice
through the Looking-glass," and who wore a blue coat with white
dragons upon it was never destitute of delightful material
wherewith to exercise the high art, previously described, of dec-
orating our rooms after the great æsthetic Enshin fashion.
June !! 7.
11.
JAPANESE PEOPLE
Ty
[THE AMEYA." Very interesting things they do certainly perform, and in a most
simple manner, using the candy like a glass-blower his lump of molten glass, and
producing results, if hardly as beautiful or durable, certainly as artistic and finished as
regards workmanship."—ARTIST'S NOTE.]

"Sukoshi O aruki irrashai!" "Condescend to take a little
honorable walk" in Tokio. We will pass together-unknown but
respected reader-from the house at Azabu, down its avenue of
cherry-trees, leading to the Shinto temple opposite our gate.
The sliding glass-doors of the porch are swiftly thrust back by
Mano, the "boy," and O Tori San, plumpest and best-tempered
of waiting-maids, both prostrating themselves on hands and
knees to utter the Sayonara as we depart. The temple at the
gate has pretty timbered grounds filled with children at play and
women gossiping in the sun, their babies tied on their backs in a
fold of the Haori. That is where all babies live in Japan. If
the mothers are busy in-doors, the infant is strapped on the back
of an older sister or brother; sometimes, indeed, very slightly
older. We shall see hundreds of children not more than five or
six years of age carrying, fast asleep, on their small shoulders
the baby of the household; its tiny, smooth, brown head swing-
ing hither and thither with every movement of its small nurse;
who walks, runs, sits, and jumps; flies kites, plays hop-scotch,
and fishes for frogs in the gutter, totally oblivious of that infan-
tile charge, whether sleeping or waking. If no young brother or
sister be available, the husband, the uncle, the father, or grand-
father hitch on their backs the baby, who is, happily, from his
44
Japonica.
birth, preternaturally good and contented. The doctrine of orig-
inal sin really seems absolutely confuted by the admirable behav-
how little a
acter of the life
There is prac-
in Tokio; a
are to be seen,
such main thor-
and the Nihom
"ITS TINY HEAD SWINGING
HITHER AND THITHER.”·
ior of Japanese chil-
dren; they never seem
to do any mischief;
possibly because there
is not much mischief
to do. In the houses
nothing of any value
exists for them to
break, there is noth-
ing they will perpet-
ually be told "not to
touch." The streets,
almost entirely, belong
to them; and
yet, although
they may do al-
most anything
there, they nev-
er seem to do anything
wrong. Observe upon
thing the whole char-
of a city may depend.
tically no horse traffic
very few pony drags
and tram-cars run in
oughfares as the Ginza
bashi, while now and
then you will meet a Japanese officer riding on horseback,
with a betto running at his saddle-flap, to or from the bar-
racks. But these are exceptions; and, consequently, the Kuru-
ma-men can trot in safety round every corner, and the children

"THAT IS WHERE ALL BABIES LIVE IN JAPAN."
Japanese People.
47
disport themselves in the middle of every street without causing
the slightest maternal anxiety. They are as charming to see,
these small Japanese, in their dignified wide sleeves and flowing
Kimono, as they are gentle and demure in manners; with beauti-
ful feet and hands, and bead-like black eyes, which stare at you
without fear or shyness. Everybody is friendly to them; every
fifth shop is full of toys and dolls, and sweet-stuff of strange
device, ingredients, and color, for their delectation. Their inno-
cent ways and merry chatter render every quarter pleasant. It
must be confessed, with regard to their flat little noses, that a
want of pocket-handkerchiefs is distinctly observable, and that
too many suffer from eczema and other of the simple skin dis-
eases. But the fact is, Japanese mothers look upon this cutaneous
eruption as rather a healthy sign for the future, and never attempt
to cure it. It stops when shaving ceases, for children are shaved
on the seventh day after birth, only a tuft being left on the nape
of the neck. When the child goes to school they suffer its hair
to grow. The infants are not weaned till they are two or three
years old; and you will often see the small Japanese citizens
leave their kites or jack-stones and run across the road to the
maternal bosom. The consequences are few children in the
family; and the swift ageing of the mother. The children have
their special festivals. The third of March is the yearly holiday
for all the little girls, when everybody buys for them O hina
Sama, miniature models of everything domestic, including the
entire furniture of the Japanese court; and the little maidens are
dressed in the best that the household can afford, fluttering
proudly about the town like butterflies or humming-birds. But,
as compared with boys, girls are here at a sad discount. The
great day of the boys, which falls on the fifth of May, is far more
important. Then, from the door of every abode which has had
boys born during the past seven years, rises a tall bamboo pole,
at the top of which float, distended by the wind, gigantic paper

48
Japonica.
fish of all colors, but principally dark purple and gold-one for
every son.
These represent the Koë, a kind of carp, which is
chosen for a symbol because that particular fish swims very
stoutly against streams, and even up rapids and cascades, to the
higher waters. In like manner it is implied the boys must be
diligent and indomitable, stemming with gallantry the stream of
life. A less pleasant explanation was given me by a Japanese
father. He said it was the custom formerly, at certain feasts, to
crimp the live Koë, and to place it, to be eaten raw, before the
guests, the fish never moving under this cruel treatment, and
only giving one last jump when the hot wasabi was squeezed
upon his eyes. In like manner, the Japanese boy, my informant
said, was expected to endure all things patiently, and to prefer
the most bitter death to loss of self-respect.
We turn the corner and traverse a bye-street full of humble
shops, the principal one being undoubtedly that where saké is sold.
Good saké is excellent to drink, and imbibed hot, in the delicate,
pretty porcelain cup that belongs to it, goes admirably well with
Japanese cookery. This
establishment is marked
by the usual sign, a branch
of cryptomeria fir, but may
be instantly known by the
wooden tubs of the liquor,
painted gorgeously with
characters and pictures, the
superior qualities bearing
the hanazakari, or "flower
in full bloom." Then there
is the "red carp"-the Chinese character dai, or the Muso-ichi,
which means "second to none," and a great peony, which brand
marks the San tokushu, or Saké of the three virtues. Next we
see the joiner's shop, where they sell those boxes and bureaus,
"WHERE SAKE IS SOLD."

Japanese People.
49
and hibachi, which are made so cunningly and so cheaply; also
the shop for wooden clogs and rope sandals; another for lamps;
another for teapots and crockery; another for rice and meal,
"TEAPOTS AND CROCKERY."
where the propri-
etor, stark naked, be-
hind a decorous screen
of string, pestles the
paddy with a prodigious
hammer, himself bathed
in sweat. Flower-shops,
tin-shops, bean-cake, and Buddha-shrine shops succeed, with,
near at hand, the fish store of the neighborhood-not too sweet-
ly savored in the hot weather--where you see gigantic cockles
and enormous blue and yellow shrimps, with octupuses fresh and
dried, slabs of tunny, looking like dried wood; split and smoked
salmon, sea-slugs, (iriko) calamaries, and sea-weed, along with all
sorts of fresh live fish, from the ever-spread nets in the Japanese
gulfs and rivers. With these are to be noticed little fish, like

50
Japonica.
sardines, threaded on bamboo splinters, enormous awabi, and
prodigious whelks, as well as tubs full of oysters taken from the
shell. Fish, next to rice, is the staple article of Japanese diet;
and, there is here indeed, an effect of Buddhism, which was al-
ways more indulgent to the fish-eater than to the flesh-eater.
Very little meat at all is eaten by the Japanese, and there is a
A SHOP FOR LAMPS.
silent, but strong public
prejudice against it.
You may see over an
eating - house the an-
nouncement of venison
for sale under the name
of "Mountain Whale "
(Yama Kujira). It is
felt to be more respecta-
ble to eat it under that
appellation.
Next comes the bath-house. If you do not recognize the furo-
do by the Chinese or hira-gana characters stamped on the blue
curtains fluttering outside its door, you shall know it by the boys
and men emerging from the "honorable hot water" with hands
and feet bright red, by reason of the parboiling which they have
just undergone; or by the women with wet hair brushed back
from their foreheads, and tied up at the end in a triangular piece
of paper. When these latter get home O Kami San, the coiffeuse,
will come and dress their moist black tresses for the next two or
three days, in one of the many modes prescribed by fashion.
There is the mage for married women where the hair is drawn
over a pad, in a solid shining, single boss; and there are other
elaborate styles for unmarried damsels, musumës, girls, and gei-
shas, not to be achieved without much appliance of camellia-oil,
gold and silver strings, and Kanzashi-the carved and tinselled
hair-pins. Inside the bath-house are to be seen tubs, tanks, and

Japanese People.
51
a sloping wooden floor, the spaces for males and females being
divided, if at all, by a mere lattice as often as by any solid par-
tition. The Japanese are not in the least ashamed of the body,
the "city of nine
gates," which the
soul temporarily
inhabits. In
summer-time
there is not
much of any-
body con-
cealed,
especial-
ly in
the
country
villages,
where the po-
lice are not par-
ticular, as some-
"WHERE THE PROPRIETOR, STARK NAKED, PESTLES THE PADDY."
times they show themselves in the towns. This frank expos-
ure goes with the most perfect modesty, and indeed leads to it.
He would be considered a very ill-bred person who gazed with
eyes of too much curiosity at what the bath-house, or the toilet
52
Japonica.
in the shop-front, or the maternal duties attended to upon the pave-
ment should casually reveal. Morality rather gains, and sentiment
decidedly loses by this candor of Japanese manners as regards
nudity; for no one looks at what all the world may see, and it is
the veil which makes the sanctum. Meanwhile, mark well how
the people frequent the furo-do; they are the greatest lovers of
"the tub" in the world, and indubitably the cleanliest of all known
people. A Japanese crowd has no odor whatever, and your jin-
rikisha-man perspires profusely without the smallest offence to
the nicest sense of his fare close behind. True, they wear no
underlinen, and put on the same kimono, fundoshi and juban after
the bath; but these articles of clothing are also constantly being
washed. Note, too, how well-kept are all their hands and feet;
how perfectly well formed they are, and how natural. The
wooden geta and waraji of rope make, indeed, the sides and palms
of their feet callous, and the string of velvet or grass which holds
those on forces the great toe to grow apart from the others. But
almost every foot, male and female, is comely to see; not like
the sadly distorted extremities so often witnessed in Western
men and women, the result of tight and pointed boots and shoes.
Especially are the hands of Japanese women almost always good,
and sometimes, absolutely charming. Theophile Gautier would
have rejoiced to study these soft, symmetrical, brown little palms,
and neat, close, roseate finger-tips, and delicate, supple wrists; he
who wrote: "Ce que j'adore le plus, entre toutes les choses du
monde, c'est une belle main ! Comme elle est d'une blancheur vi-
vace! Quelle mollesse de peau! Comme le bout des doigts est
admirablement effilé! Quel poli, et quel éclat! On dirait des
feuilles intérieures d'une rose ! Et puis, quelle grâce, quel art dans
les moindres mouvements! Comme le petit doigt se replie gra-
cieusement, et se tient un peu écarté de ses grandes sœurs! Je
ferme mes yeux pour ne plus la voir, mais du bout de ses doigts
délicats, elle me prend les cils, et m'ouvre les paupières, et fait pas-

Japanese People.
53
ser devant moi mille visions d'ivoire et de neige."* You would
not understand one word of this exquisite French, O Tatsu San!
or O Hana San! and your small hands are certainly not "vividly
white," nor could they exactly recall "snow and ivory;" but fair
and shapely, and full of
tender lines and loveli-
ness they are, for all that;
and the artist is yet to
come who shall do full
justice to the flat and
archless, but delight-
ful little foot, and the
brown and glove-
less, but exquisite
little hand, of
the average
Japanese wom-
an of the mid-
dle class as
she emerges,
dewy and
blooming, from
the bath-house.
There are
eight or nine
hundred public
baths in the
"O TATSU SAN."
city of Tokio, where three hundred thousand persons bathe daily
at a charge of one sen three rin (about a cent) per head, and three
rin (less than a farthing) for children. The poorest may therefore
bathe, and always do; so that, lately, in the time of dear rice,
when money was given to our poor, a tenth part was allotted
*From "Mlle. de Maupin."

54
Japonica.
to bathing-tickets. Besides the public bathing establishments
every good house also possesses its own furo-do; and the first
question of your servant on awakening you is, "O yu ni irra-
shaimas ka?" "Do
"Do you con-
"EVERY GOOD HOUSE POSSESSES ITS OWN
FURO-DO.'
descend into the honorable
hot water?" Truly Japan
does take her daily bath very
hot! The people think noth-
ing of 110° Fahr., though, it
must be understood, they do
not stay very long in this
heated water. Most of all,
they enjoy and largely pat-
ronize the innumerable hot
springs welling up all over this volcanic land. Everywhere these
are caught with pipes and pressed into service for pleasure or hy-
gienic use; and as, for instance, those at Kosatsu, are so highly
esteemed for all fleshly ills that the proverb runs: "Here every-
thing can be cured except love!" Walking from Hakone to
Miyanoshita on the mountains surrounding Fuji San, it was
amusing to observe, at the place called Ashi-no-yu, where sul-
phur springs are caught and let into many bath-houses, how
all of us together-coolies, pedestrians, chair-carriers, etc.-has-
tened to jump into the strong-smelling, but soft and refreshing,
waters, and emerged with the look and feeling of men who had
feasted satisfactorily, albeit with the odor of a box of bad lucifer
matches.
Nearly opposite the bath-house, behind the flower-shop full
of lotuses and lilies, and between a tea-garden and a bamboo
grove, you see the graveyard of our quarter. It is crowded with
four-sided, upright headstones, some bearing the figure of Jizo
Sama, with a glory round his head and a bell in his left hand.
He is the genius of travellers, including those who make the
یمی موده درست کرد
THE FLOWER-PEDLERS.
ا
Japanese People.
57
great journey. The graves are near together, because, for the
most part, only the ashes of deceased persons have been here in-
terred, and these naturally pack close. The inscriptions on the
stones will not give the dead man's or woman's name, but only
the Kaimiô, or posthumous title conferred by the priests after
demise. These are very often highly fanciful and poetical. But
it would be strange to Western ideas to come to look on the
tomb of one beloved, and to find engraved, instead of the old, fa-
miliar appellation, that of "here lies," "the purple-cloud-and-
heavenly-music-believing woman. A little cup is hollowed at
the foot of the stone to hold water, if the spirit should wish to
drink, and on each side stands a bamboo-joint with sprigs of the
Shikimi, the evergreen anise (illicum religiosum). Round a new
grave thin laths of wood, called Lotoba, are placed, bearing Chi-
nese and Sanskrit legends; one being planted every seventh day,
until there are eight standing round. The sacred verses onl
them, coupled with the name of the dead, are thought to help
him into heaven. Those who can afford it put also a memorial
tablet in their temple, and another on the Butsu-dan, the family
altar-shelf at home. When buried, and not burnt, the body is
placed cross-legged in a coffin, with sandals on its feet, and a
stick in the right hand, while in the left are laid six rin, where-
with to pay toll at the six cross-roads which you reach before
coming to the other world. The distance thither is 3,600,000,-
000 ri; nevertheless, the spirit comes back every year on the
night of July 15th, which is the Japanese jour des morts. On
that night fires are lighted before the doors of those who have
lost their friends, and lanterns are suspended in the shoji to
guide them home at this date. It is a pretty fancy that a but-
terfly entering the house is a soul come back upon a brief visit.
Sometimes, but most generally in the rural districts, you will
see the Nagare Kanjo in or near a graveyard--the “Debt of the
Running Water." An oblong cloth is attached by its four cor-
58
Japonica.
ners to four rods stuck in the ground, so as to hold it near a
little rivulet that runs from a bubbling spring on the hill-side.
By the spring there will lie a small dipper. Stay a little, how-
ever hurried, and pour one or two ladlefuls full of water into
that suspended cloth "of your charity;" for the Nagare Kanjo
marks a gentle Japanese mother's soul in purgatory. Behind it
rises a lath, notched several times near the top, and inscribed
with a brief legend. Upon the four corners in the upright bam-
boo may be set bouquets of flowers. The tall lath tablet is the
same as that placed behind graves. On the cloth is written a
name and a prayer. Waiting long enough, perchance but a few
minutes, there will be seen a passer-by, who pauses, and offering
a prayer with the aid of his rosary, reverently dips a ladleful of
water, pours it upon the cloth, and waits patiently until it has
strained through, before moving on. He has read the story of
sorrow at the brink of joy, of the mother dying that her babe
may live. He is touched, as you must be, by the appeal of the
Nagare Kanjo, made in the name of mother-love and mother-
woe; for the inscription implores every passer-by, for the love of
Heaven, to shorten the penalties of a soul in pain. "The Jap-
anese” (Buddhists), says the author of "The Mikado's Empire,”
“believe that all calamity is the result of sin, either in this or a
previous state of existence. The mother who dies in childbed
suffers, by such a death, for some awful transgression, it may be,
in a cycle of existence long since passed, for she must leave her
new-born infant and sink into the darkness of Hades. There
must she suffer and groan until the flowing invocation ceases,
by the wearing out of the symbolic cloth. When this is so
utterly worn that the water no longer drains, but falls through
at once, the freed spirit of the mother rises to a higher cycle of
existence. Devout men as they pass by reverently pour a ladle-
ful of water. Women, especially those who have felt mother-
pains, repeat the expiatory act with deeper feeling."
Japanese People.
59
The cotton cloth, inscribed with the prayer and the name of
the deceased, to be efficacious, can be purchased only at temples.
I have been told that rich people are able to secure one that,
when stretched but a few days, will rupture. The poor man
can only get the stoutest and most closely woven fabric. The
limit of purgatorial penance is thus fixed by warp and woof, and
warp and woof are gauged by money. The rich man's napkin is
scraped thin in the middle. But the poor mother secures a
richer tribute of sympathy from humble people.
From many a house as we pass, especially at evening, is heard
the tinkling samisen, or the thrum of the stronger-voiced koto.
Every house seems to contain a samisen, the three-stringed
guitar of Japan, having a long, black neck, unprovided with frets,
and a square sounding body covered by stretched cat - skin.
Every Japanese woman appears to know how to play it, with
more or less skill, and, indeed, to do this is part of every girl's
education; and the most important part, indeed, of those who
are to be geishas and such like. It must be a difficult instru-
ment to learn, as there is no printed notation for the music, but
all is taught by tradition and constant practice, until extraordi-
nary skill is arrived at; but there is no harmony in this sort of
Japanese music, and to the unaccustomed ear not much melody.
Certain little chansonettes upon the samisen, with their light-
wandering accompaniments, live a little in the memory; such an
old-fashioned verse as this, for instance, sung by a glossy-haired
musumë on a winter day over the fire-box:
"Haori Kakush 'te
Sodè hiki-tomètè
Dó demo Kiyo wa
Ii tsutsu tattè
Renji mado
Shoji wo hoso-mè ni hikè-aketè
Are miya san sè
Kono yuki ni!"
60
Japonica.
Which may be lightly interpreted :
She hid his coat,
She plucked his sleeve,
"To-day you cannot go !
To-day, at least, you will not leave,
The heart that loves you so!"
The mado she undid
And back the shoji slid :
And, clinging, cried, "Dear Lord, perceive
The whole white world is snow!"
-
Nor is it otherwise than very gentle and pleasant, particularly
cold nights, to sit round the hibachi in a Japanese household,
with the little brass or silver pipes all alight, and the cups of tea
or saké kept filled; listen to song after song in the strange,
dreamy, suggestive intermixture of the samisen's sharp string,
with the voices of the women, sometimes high-pitched, some-
times sinking to a musical sigh divided into endless notes. Cast-
ing off your shoes at the spotless threshold of the little house,
you enter to sit on the soft, white tatamis, amid a gentle shower
of musical salutations, "Ohayo" and " Yô o ide nasaimashta,” and
drinking the fragrant tea, and lighting the tiny kiseru, listen to
the songs of the "Dragon King's Daughter," and dream you are
Uroshima, who discovered the Fortunate Islands, and stayed
there happily for a thousand years. On the wall will hang some
picture of the life or teachings of the Buddha, whose compas-
sionate peace has passed into the spirit of the land. The clean
and shapely brown feet of laughing musumës patter on the floor
in willing service, like the coming and going of birds. We fry
mochi upon the brazier, and sip, in bright sobriety, the pale yel-
low tea. A spray of scarlet winter-berries, and the last of the
yellow chrysanthemums, suspended in a bamboo joint, give
points of lively color to the apartment, which is so commodious
because it has no doors, and so neat and spotless because we do

Japanese People.
61
not make streets of our houses. When the samisen is not tink-
ling, the sound of light laughter makes sufficient music, for we
are Kokoro yasui, "heart
easy," and life is never
very serious in Japan.
Listen a little to the gay,
fragmentary love song O
Tatsu San is murmuring
to the strings, which she
strikes with the ivory
bachi:
"Shote wa jôdan
Nakagora giri de
Ima ja tagai no
Jitsu to jitsu."
Doubtless something real
in her own little existence
"CASTING OFF YOUR SHOES."
renders her brown eyes so soft and expressive as she thus
sings:
"First 'twas all a jest,
Then 'twas daily duty;
Now 'tis at its best
True faith, tender beauty-
Both quite love possessed."
Matta utatte kudasai!" "One more little song, O Tatsu
San, and replenish the honorable tea!" We could not imagine
Japan without the samisen; yet, personally, I like better the
lively little gekkin from China, with three pairs of sister-wires,
something like the mandolin of southern Italy. The koto is a
horizontal harp with thirteen strings, and capable of very power-
ful and beautiful effects. The biwa is a lute with four chords.
At the kuruma-stand, where eight or ten of the little vehicles
stand in a row, and the brown-legged, blue-clad human steeds
62
Japonica.
are smoking tiny brass kiseru and chatting like jackdaws, a clam-
orous chorus of invitation arises: "Danna ! 'rikisha? Danna !
irrashaimas no des'ka? O ide nasai?” 'Will you ride, Master?
Will you make the honorable entrance, Master?" One cannot
now so much conceive Japan existing without her jinrikisha; and
yet the invention now to be seen on every road and in every
village of the country is not quite a quarter of a century old.
No one positively knows who introduced it; but it struck such
root that, in Tokio alone, there are at present between thirty and
forty thousand of these two-wheeled chairs; and they have
spread to China and Malay, employing numbers of the working
population, and adding an immense convenience to public life.
Jin-riki-sha signifies "man-power vehicle," and if you have two
men to pull you the phrase for that is ni-nim-biki, the letters
being a little altered by what Japanese grammar calls “Nigori.”
The Tokio citizens call their little cab kuruma, which means "a
wheel," and the coolie who pulls it is termed kurumaya. To fit
him out with dark blue cotton coat and drawers, vest of cotton,
reed hat, covered with white calico, and painted paper lantern,
as well as blue cloven socks for fine weather and string sandals
for the mud, costs about three American dollars. But he must,
moreover, bring to the business lungs of leather and sinews of
steel; nor does one ever cease to wonder at the daily endurance
of these men. In hot and cold weather alike, streaming with
perspiration or pelted with snow and sleet, they trundle you
along apparently incapable of fatigue; always cheerful, always,
in my experience, honest, and easily satisfied; sufficiently re-
warded for running a league with a sum equivalent to three of
your dimes. The natives, who make bargains with them before
starting, go immense distances for incredibly small fares, and
constantly ride two together in the same conveyance. I have
seen a kurumaya cheerfully wheeling along a father and mother,
with three children, to say nothing of the flower-pots, bird-cages,
Japanese People.
63
and bunches of daikon-the great and dreadful radish of the
country--carried in the family laps. When not engaged in run-
ning, they wrap round their shoulders the scarlet, blue, green, or
striped blanket-ketto-destined for the knees of a customer,
and look then rather like Red Indians. They are said to be a
prodigal tribe, quickly spending in saké and small pleasures the
money which they earn; but they need some solace for the
prodigiously exhaustive work they perform, and, so far as I have
seen, no more temperate class can exist. At the end of a long
run, a cup of pale tea, a whiff at the little brass pipe, and, per-
haps, a slice of bread dipped in treacle, start them off again,
fresh and lively, for another stiff stretch. The men who took
us to Nikko from Utsunomiya ran the entire twenty-five miles
in four hours with ease, though much of it was up-hill, and
would have returned, had we desired it, on the same day. A
jinrikisha-man in good case and fairly paid is not at all afraid
of forty or fifty miles day after day; nor is it true that their
work makes them specially short-lived, so far as my inquiries
have gone. I am persuaded that very advantageous use could be
made of this kind of transport in a campaign. A kuruma can
go wherever there is a path, and to draw munitions, provisions,
stores, or to convey the sick and wounded, a corps of jinrikisha
men would be invaluable to an army. I noticed at the Nagoya
manœuvres that such employment was actually made of them,
and very profitably.
We will not take kuruma to-day, but will walk, instead, down
the Kuboi-chô to Shimbashi, where the rice-boats and manure-flats
lie at the bridge, and to the long and fashionable Ginza. "Sore
Kara O mi ashi de ikimas !" "You proceed, then, by the honor-
able legs!" says the kurumaya, smiling, and bows as courteously
as if you had engaged him. How picturesque and special to Japan
is the vista of this Tokio street, with the low, open houses on each
side, all of the same sober, weather-tanned hue, of the same build,
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Japonica.
the same materials, the same frankly opened interior, the same
little front shop, except where a fire-proof "go-down," more solidly
A BEGGING PRIEST.
constructed, breaks
the uniformity with
its heavy, ugly walls
and windows of black
lacquer. In a great
conflagration these
will be the only build-
ings left standing;
and after any extensive
Kwaji you see them
surviving, isolated and
scorched, like rocks
upon a burnt moor-
land. The sombre
color of the houses,
and their black and
white heavy roofs and
ridges, would give a
too subdued and al-
most sombre look to
a Japanese street, if it
were not for the gay
contents of the shops,
and the bright, good-
tempered busy throngs
in the roadway. The
fruit-stores, the doll-
shops, the fan-shops,
the flower-shops, the
cake-shops, the small emporiums where they sell bed-quilts,
and Kimono, and hanging pictures (Kaki-mono), and shrines for
Japanese People.
65
Buddha, and tinselled hairpins, and gold and silver twist for
the hair, and umbrellas, amply fill the scene with color. Then
the people are so perpetually
interesting! Stand by the
apothecary's establishment,
which has for its sign a pair
of large gilded eyes and a cat-
alogue of charms against
all devils, while this
funeral procession
passes; a square,
white box, borne
shoulder high, by
four bearers, within
which, with head
resting upon his
knees, and the gold
50
ball above him to denote
"space"-whither he has gone.
-the dead takes his last ride
in Tokio. You need not be
too melancholy about it; no-
body greatly dreads or dislikes
dying in Japan, where religion
has been defined as "a little
fear and a great deal of fun."
The clog - maker, the girl
grinding ice in the Kori-mizu
shop, the hawker with fried
eels, the little naked boys and
girls at play; the priest, the policemen in white, and the pretty,
tripping musume, look at the cortége a little, but with their
laughter and chat only half suspended, as their fellow-citizen
“ WANDERING ETAS."
5
66
Japonica.
wends to take his turn at gazing into the Johari-no-Kagami—that
mirror in the other world where, at a glance, you see all the good
things and all the bad things which you ever did in this. The
street, which had stood aside a little for the procession, fills anew
with misoku, i.e., "coolies," or "leg-men," toiling at wheeling tim-
ber, assisted heartily by old ladies in light blue trousers; stu-
dents in flat caps and scarlet socks; wandering etas, the Japan-
ese pariahs; perambulating shopkeepers, such as the moji-yaki, or
"letter-burner," who bakes sweet paste into characters, animals,
or baskets; his fellow, the ame-ya, or jelly-man, who, from barley-
gluten, will blow you, by a reed, rats, rabbits, or monkeys; and the
two priests, with long, embroidered lapels, one telling such a good
story that the other, exploding with laughter, is heard to say, Do-
mo! Kimo tsubushita. "Really! you have burst my liver!" If it
be the season of kites, everybody will be flying them, in mid traf-
fic, even the shopkeeper has despatched one aloft, worked by a
string fastened to his hibachi, and the barber's family launches one
from the upper window of the house, marked by the conventional
pole of red, blue, and white. The chiffonier of Japan-the Kami-
Kudsuhiroi-is picking up rags and paper scraps with a forked
bamboo; the sparrow-catcher goes stealthily along carrying a tall
bamboo rod armed with bird-lime fatal to many a chirping bird;
the gravely dressed doctor passes with a boy to carry his pestle-
and-mortar box, and "the thousand-year-life-pills;" the fortune-
teller spreads on a cloth his fifty little sticks and six black and
red blocks of wood, which can tell you more than man should know;
the bean-cake-seller tinkles his bells and beats his gong to an-
nounce his sticky wares; the amma, the blind shampooer, feels
his way slowly through the crowd, piping three lugubrious notes
on his reed-flute, and ready to pound and knead anybody's mus-
cles into vigor for three-pence; while in a quiet corner, under the
temple-wall, the street-artist, surrounded by admirers, constructs
pictures and writes Chinese mottoes on the earth with handfuls
1

Japanese People.
67
"THE AMMA."
"The blind shampooer feels his way slowly through the crowd, piping three lugubrious notes
on his reed flute."
of tinted sand. Into the temple-court-for it is Matsuri, and a
great day-are pouring lines of people to say a brisk prayer at
the shrine, and to buy some toys for the children at the innumer-

68
Japonica.
able stalls round the court. Religion and pleasure go hand in
hand in Japan. Observe the old lady, with shaven eyebrows and
blackened teeth, belonging to by-gone Japan; her two daughters,
"FOR IT IS MATSURI."
who are of the newer style,
and proudly carry European
umbrellas, and even black silk
gloves. They wash their hands
from the temple well by means
of a small wooden ladle; ap-
proach the altar, pull the thick
cord which makes the gong
sound, and, the attention of
heaven having been engaged,
they pray their silent prayers
with bowed heads and clasped
palms; throw a sen into the
offering-box, and clapping their
hands to let Divinity know
their affair is finished, they
turn aside, merrily chatting, to
sip tea at the "Snow-white
Stork" and purchase hair-
pins and playthings for the Kodomo.
Alike in the street and the temple-court, the pretty, lively,
laughing Japanese girl lights up the crowd with her bright dress,
her happy, winsome face and shining tresses, splendidly elabo-
rated. I have described her faithfully in the subjoined verses:
THE MUSMEE.
The Musmee has brown-velvet eyes,
Curtained with satin, sleepily;
You wonder if those lids would rise
The newest, strangest sight to see!
Japanese People.
69
Yet, when she chatters, laughs, or plays
Koto, or lute, or samisen-
No jewel gleams with brighter rays
Than flash from those dark lashes then.
The Musmee has a small brown face-
Musk-melon seed its perfect shape—
Arched, jetty eyebrows; nose to grace
The rosy mouth beneath; a nape,
And neck, and chin; and smooth soft cheeks,
Carved out of sun-burned ivory;
With teeth which, when she smiles or speaks,
Pearl merchants might come leagues to see!
The Musmee's hair could teach the night
How to grow dark, the raven's wing
How to seem ebon; grand the sight
When in rich masses towering.
She builds each high black-marble coil,
And binds the gold and scarlet in,
And thrusts, triumphant, through the toil
The Kanzashi, her jewelled pin.
The Musmee has small, faultless feet,
With snow-white tabi trimly decked,
Which patter down the city street
In short steps, slow and circumspect;
A velvet string between her toes
Holds to its place the unwilling shoe,
Pretty and pigeon-like she goes,
And on her head a hood of blue.
The Musmee wears a wondrous dress-
Kimono, obi, imogi-
A rose-bush in spring-loveliness
Is not more color-glad to see!
Her girdle holds her silver pipe,
And heavy swing her long silk sleeves
With cakes, love-letters, mikans ripe,
Small change, musk-box, and writing leaves.
70
Japonica.
The Musmee's heart is slow to grief
And quick to pleasure, love, and song;
The Musmee's pocket-handkerchief,
A square of paper! All day long
Gentle, and sweet, and debonair
Is-rich or poor-this Asian lass,
Heaven have her in its tender care!
O medeto gozarimas ! *
Turning aside a little from the picturesque and bustling
"Cho," we easily come to Shiba, buried in groves of cryptomeria,
an island of solemn peace and grandeur in the bosom of the city.
Here, shut in by ponderous red gateways, built of mighty beams,
with giant doors which turn upon huge hinges of copper, are the
tombs and temples of six of the famous Tokugawa Shoguns, the
ancient rulers of this land under the Mikado. It is like passing
out of the rolling sea into a land-locked harbor, to step over the
threshold of the massive vermilion porch, and to find yourself in
the outer court of the Zojoji. Around are hundreds of stone
memorial ishidoro-as many as two hundred in one alone of
these pebbled enclosures, offerings to the princely deceased from
their vassals. Screened walls and portals, presenting wonderful
work in wood-carving, gilding, and lacquer, shut the outer courts
from the inner. Each panel is enriched with a different subject
-flowers, birds, and real, or fabulous animals, dexterously re-
lieved by gold-leaf and color. Passing again through these walls,
inner inclosures are reached where stand colossal bronze lan-
terns of high finish. Dancing-houses, treasure-houses, and libra-
ries for the sacred books, exquisitely decorated; a vast washing
cistern to be used before prayer, cut out of one block of stone,
and lotus pools, which, in August, are full of the white and blue
blossoms of the hallowed flower, attract the attention. By yet
another gateway, sculptured and embellished to an extraordinary
height, of semi-barbarous, but splendid beauty, the step is led to
* "May it be prosperous with you!"

Japanese People.
71
the central
shrine itself.
All around are
detached
buildings, so-
berly but
splendidly
adorned with
the very best
which Japan-
ese art could
lavish on
them, in per-
"A GATEWAY, SCULPTURED AND EMBELLISHED TO AN EXTRAORDINARY HEIGHT OF SEMI-
BARBAROUS BUT SPLENDID BEAUTY."
fect joinery, gilding, coloring, lacquer, metal-work, painting,
and carving. The whole place is full of symbolism. On the
outer screens, shutting off the first court, you may have no-
72
Japonica.
ticed waves of the sea, done in brass, furiously running on
the panels, with storm-birds hovering. It was an emblem of
the unrest of life for all of us, as well as for Shoguns. But
at the second wall the brazen waves were chiselled, rolling
more quietly, and here, on the screen by which we enter the
court of the chapel of Iyenobu and Iye-oshi, the waves are
moulded as falling asleep; doves brood, in silver and gold;
there is peace! Laying aside shoes, you may pass over the
black-lacquered steps and floors, through golden doors, into the
central shrine, spread with the whitest and finest of mats; and
the walls and ceilings are so daintily and patiently wrought with
wonderful workmanship that every square inch demands a special
study. The great HOUSE OF DEATH is finished off, in its minut-
est portion, like a flower-vase or a netsuke, and, perhaps, the very
utmost that Japanese craftsmanship could ever accomplish, in its
own special provinces, may here be seen and admired. Every
incense-pole and lamp-stand is a lovely object, alike for its labor
and design. The low stands on which the sacred books lie open
have priceless enrichments; and one is glad to see the silent
priests move about in gold and silver brocade, for ordinary dress
in such a magnificent scene would appear incongruous. At the
same time, the more you realize the artistic richness of this great
group of temples and tombs, the more you are struck with the
low-toned, sober, restrained ensemble of it all. The shrines them-
selves are but the Japanese hut idealized, the gold and the glit-
tering brass, and the sharp colors of the carvings sink back from
the sunlight under the massive eaves, and where a screen, or a
painted side-wall would glitter too much, the heavy foliage of the
cryptomerias casts a black curtain upon it. The character of the
place is deeply impressive, a proud melancholy, a princely mod-
esty, a sumptuousness royal to prodigality, not for ostentation,
but for love of pensive beauty, show themselves everywhere. The
Shoguns are certainly buried, as if they were emperors, in the

Japanese People.
73
heart of this concourse of black and gold and lacquered chapels
and cemeteries, shut from the busy city by the dark trees, the
high walls, and the blood-red gateways.
"SCREENED WALLS AND PORTALS, PRESENTING WONDERFUL WORK IN WOOD-CARVING."
Near Shimbashi we pass under the tall ladder of a fire-sta-
tion, on the summit of which stands a watchman, looking north,
south, east, and west, to spy the rolling smoke which by daytime

74
Japonica.
first denotes a conflagration. If he sees signs of a fire, kwaji, he
will beat upon the gong at his side as many blows as, by a
preconcerted code, denote the par-
ticular "cho" which is the scene
of the disaster. Persons passing
count the strokes and hurry home-
ward, if it be a case of
"tua res agitur quum
Proximus Ucalegon ardet;"
that is to say, if their own district
be concerned. Next we turn into
the "Ginza," the "Broadway" of
the metropolis of Japan-a really
fine thoroughfare, with paved side-
walks, tramways in the middle, and
shops of a superior description.
Here ebbs and
flows the full
business life of
the city, and
mingling with
it, as else-
where, the
clattering pat-
tens, the moth-
"THE TALL LADDER OF A FIRE-STATION."
ers and sisters with
the babies on their
backs; the children kite-
flying; the traders sitting
over their glowing charcoal braziers; the hawkers of fish,
dried radish, cakes, persimmons, toys, pipes, kites, and flags;
the coolies with their balanced loads; the blind old samisen-

"THE WHOLE PLACE IS FULL OF SYMBOLISM."
Japanese People.
77
players; the Buddhist priests; the pretty musmees, with their
hair like black marble and pigeon - feet; the imperturbable
slit-eyed babies; the acquaintances meeting in the street
and profusely bowing and saluting; the Japanese officers
riding along, each with his betto, or groom; the flower-pedlers;
the bullock-men; the bird-dealers; the tea - houses, the little
funny house - fronts and opened interiors; the bath - rooms, the
temples, the stone-yards, the basket-works, the gliding rice-boats
-tout le tremblement, in fact, of the wonderful and ever-interest-
ing capital city of Japan. Or we might have come into the Gin-
za across the Shiro, by any of its many entrances and exits, the
Tora Monor, "Tiger Gate;" the Sakurada-gomon, "Cherryfield
Gate;" or the Hanzo-go-mon, which leads to the emperor's
gardens and the imperial place. This Shiro is a great feature of
the city, in the midst of which it sits; a spacious and far-com-
manding fortified enceinte, everywhere surrounded by lofty em-
bankments, planted with ancient firs, and walls of giant masonry,
at the feet of which sleep broad moats, covered, in winter-time,
with wild-duck and geese, bitterns and herons. Nothing can be
finer in appearance, as embellishments of a capital, than these
massive ramparts and green slopes of grass, overshadowed by the
gnarled fir-trees. The masonry looks as solid as a sea-cliff, built
out at all its angles with huge blocks of stone like the ram of an
ironclad, in a curved projecting outline, so that the mighty
blocks sit back immovable in their places, and it seems that not
even an earthquake could have the smallest effect upon them.
In the emperor's palace we might have seen the most perfect ex-
ample of what Japanese carpenters and joiners can accomplish,
and yet, though every ceiling there is a work of high art, di-
vided by rich brown lacquer into panels exquisitely decorated,
and the costliest silks and most splendid carvings are lavished
all around; amid all that luxury of royal art you would observe
the great square supporting posts of white fir, left simply hand-
78
Japonica.
dressed in all their milky, pure, velvet-like beauty, delighting
the eye
with the natural grain and texture, as nothing manu-
factured by the wit of man ever could. And if we were attempt-
ing more than the merest stroll about the city, we ought to pass
Fugi-mi-cho, where, near the monument-a vast bronze bayonet,
erected to the soldiers slain in the civil war--the city spreads
out, of one interminable pattern and color as far as the eye can
see. We should have gone to Uyeno to visit the great exhibi-
tion, and see the lotuses in blossom, and to Asakusa to view the
imposing temple of Kwannon Sama, the Merciful Goddess; also
the temples of the Five Hundred Sages, and of the God of War,
Hachi-man, where we might have duly honored the shrine of
Kōbō-Daishi, the too ingenious inventor of the Japanese alpha-
bet. We might have stood on the famous Nihom-bashi, the cen-
tral spot of the city, from which all distances are measured
throughout the empire, and might have traversed, close by, Anjin
Chô, or "Pilot Street," so named after the English sailor, Will
Adams, who came here in the time of Shakespeare, married a
Japanese wife, and grew to be a favorite of the emperor, and a
great two-sworded Japanese nobleman. His letters from Japan,
published by the Hakluyt Society, furnish the most delightful
reading, being written in that large and quaint style which
seemed to come naturally in
"The spacious times of great Elizabeth."
That the old navigator had well feathered his nest in Japan
is clear, from an account given by another adventurer of his
place of residence at Hemi, near Yokosuka. He there describes
Will Adams's place thus: "This Hemi is a Lordshipp geuen to
Capt. Adams pr. the ould Emperour to hym and his for eaver, &
confermed to hys sonne, called Joseph. There is above 100
farms or howsholds, uppon it, besides others under them, all
which are his vassals, and he hath power of lyfe & death ouer
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79
them, they being his slaues; he hauing as absolute authoritie
over them as any tono (or king) in Japan hath over his vassals."
But I must imagine that my gentle reader is already a little
fatigued with the streets and chôs and temples which have been
inspected, and would be not unwilling to dine à la Japonaise at
some one of the many excellent restaurants which throng the
city. Let us then turn aside from the main thoroughfares to
choose a spot where will be fresh and good Japanese cookery,
with retirement. Such a retreat may be found as well, perhaps,
as anywhere, at the sign of the "Golden Koi" which sits upon
the sea near Shinagawa, on Tokio Bay. We will, therefore, call
kurumas and make our usual bargain to go and return. Like
the elder Mr. Weller, whose knowledge of London "was exten-
sive and peculiar," these wonderful little men seem to be ac-
quainted with every nook and corner of their vast labyrinth of
wood and paper which is called Tokio. As for the "Golden
Koi," it is too famous and respectable, of course, not to be fa-
miliar, and the small, brown, two-legged horses take a quick
'bee-line" for the Yadoya, where we are to seek refreshment.
We cross the railway line and are smartly wheeled into the gar-
den of the inn, adorned with the artificial crags, dwarfed trees,
and tiny lakes, with goldfish and fairy pagodas and bridges, in
which the Japanese take such pleasure. As we approach the
door all the waiting-maids of the establishment—the musmees·
in pretty striped and flowered kimonos and obis, with glossy black
hair "done to the nines," hasten to the threshold to receive us,
uttering a chorus of "Irrashai! Yoko irrashai mashta, o ide na-
sai!” which is to say, "Condescend entrance! You are very
welcome. Please make the honorable entrance!" You slip off
your shoes, nor will you have been long in Japan before you learn
to wear daily some foot-gear which comes off and on as easily
as the native geta, and you also learn to carry a shoe-horn as regu-
66

80
Japonica.
larly as your watch or cigar-case. Lifting their foreheads from
the matting, or polished plafond, the musmees receive hats and
umbrellas and take you by the hand to lead you nikai ni, up
the shining ladder-like staircase to the spotless apartment aloft,
COMING TO THE GOLDEN KOI-WAITING-GIRLS RECEIVING GUESTS.
where the open shoji give directly upon the sea. It is fair and
fresh here; wavelets are running in from the quiet gulf under
the balcony, and three large sampans, drawn ashore, are dis-
charging a good haul of fish, which their owners have made this
morning. One man, stark naked, brings two tubs upon his
shoulder to the side of the boat, and those within it ladle forth
the great tai, and all sorts of other fish, with hand-nets out of
the hold. Close by is a sea-pond where fresh catches are kept
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81
alive in floating boxes. After observing all this, and the bright
seascape, with junks and sampans and great foreign ships, you
sit down on the circular silk futons, brought by the musmee, who
has come in with the "honorable tea" a cup for each person—
and two or three tobacco-mono bearing lighted charcoal.
To be quite Japanese, we will begin by taking from our
girdle the little brass pipes and silken tobacco bags, filling the
kiseru, and inhaling one or two fragrant whiffs of the delicate
Japanese tobacco. In their use of the nicotian herb, as in very
many other things, the Japanese display a supreme refinement.
The rudest coolie, the coarsest farm-laborer, equally with the
lady of rank, the pretty geisha, and the minister of state, are con-
tent with this tiny pipe, which does not hold enough to make
even Queen Mab sneeze. They stuff a little rolled pill of the
fine-cut leaf into a bowl smaller than the smallest acorn-cup,
thrust it in the glowing charcoal, and inhale deep into the lungs
just one fragrant whiff of the blue smoke, which they expel by
mouth and nostrils. Then they shake out the little burning
plug into the bamboo receptacle and load up again for a second
ippuku; valuing only the first sweet purity of the lighted luxury,
and always wondering how we can smoke a great pipeful to the
"bitter end," or suck for half an hour at a huge Havana puro.
"Kiseru no shita ni doku arimas!" they say - "At the bottom
of a pipe there lives poison." Much fancy and fashion are dis-
played in the appurtenances of the pipe. Ladies carry them in
little long, embroidered silk cases, with silken pouches attached,
fastened by an ivory, bronze, silver, or jewelled clasp. Men
wear, stuck in their girdles, a pipe-sheath of carved ivory, bone,
or bamboo; and the pipe itself may be a small, commonplace ar-
ticle of reed and brass, or an exquisite object in bronze, silver,
or gold, worked up with lovely ornament in lacquer or enamel.
The kneeling musmee next presents a bill of fare, written in
yellow Chinese characters on a black lacquer board, to read
6
82
Japonica.
""
which, and understand the merits of the various dishes, we must
suppose ourselves honored by the society of native friends. In
any case, be sure to order some unagi-meshi, the very nicest thing
which they cook in Japan, consisting of small silver eels, from
which the bones have been removed, split, spitted upon bamboo
splinters, and roasted upon boiled rice, with a delicious sauce.
We decide upon the usual four courses, with saké of the first
quality; and whoever gives the order will now fold up in paper,
say twenty sen, for the musmee, and, if very liberal, thirty or
forty for the aruji, or mistress of the house. "Chisai mono!'
you mutter, pushing the folded papers to the girl, who goes
down upon her nose and murmurs in reply, "Domo arigato zonji-
mas,” “Really, most thankful," but does not touch them yet, as
it is etiquette never to seem in a hurry to appropriate a gift.
She disappears to convey the "honorable commands," and then
there ensues a longish wait, during which you will smoke and
chat again, and watch more fishermen arriving with their silvery
cargoes; the betto washing their horses in the sea; the brown,
bare Japanese boys and girls disporting in it; and the servants
of the hotel taking out from the fish-boxes the struggling materi-
als of your dinner. Presently the musmees return, bringing the
hot saké in a tall china bottle, placed within a wooden stand, and
a tiny, delicate saké-cup for each guest, lying in a porcelain,
bronze, or carved wooden bowl of water. They also bring a red
or black lacquered tray, placing it before each guest, bearing a
covered bowl full of chawan-a thin fish-soup boiled with mush-
rooms and sea-weed-and brand new chopsticks, not yet parted
one from the other. Taking a saké-cup in both hands, the
kneeling maid presents it to the chief guest, and afterward other
cups to the others, in like manner, filling each to the brim, but
careful not to spill a drop. You toss your first cup off, and, rins-
ing it in the water, offer it with both hands to each friend in
succession, saying, "Ippai kudasai." He or she takes your cup,

A JAPANESE DINNER AT THE GOLDEN KOI.
Japanese People.
85
lifts it to the forehead, holds it to be filled, drinks, rinses, and
returns it; after which you must also drink. As this goes on all
around, a good deal of the hot rice wine becomes absorbed before
the meal commences; but this is quite Japanese. The musmee,
kneeling before you, keeps her black eyes wide open to notice
and fill up all empty cups, or a friend will perform that office for
you-the strict rule being that you must never help yourself to
the "honorable saké.”
You now split apart your chopsticks, lift the lid of the chawan,
and fish out a first morsel. Chopsticks, far from being awkward,
are the most convenient as well as the cleanest table utensils, once
the secret of their use is learned. It cannot be taught in words.
There is an indescribable knack of fixing one stick firmly, and
hinging the other with the first and second finger, so as to play
exactly upon the fixed stick, which renders the little implements
perfect for everything except, of course, juice or gravy, and soup.
You can even cut with them by inserting the points close together,
and then forcibly separating them; and as for handiness and pre-
cision of grasp, in a little wager at this very restaurant, even I
myself picked up with the hashi twenty-two single grains of rice
in one minute from a lacquered tray, being beaten by a Japanese
lady, whose swift skill dexterously conveyed as many as forty-nine.
You drink the soup, and find also on your tray a saucer of kuchi-
tori, which is a sort of omelette, together with kinto, a sticky mass
of beans and sugar; and perhaps some kama boko, fish pounded
and rolled into little balls. Or there will be su-no-mono, sea-slugs,
(Holothuria) soused in vinegar. The kinto is prettily adorned
with flower-leaves and colored strings of sugar.
Hereupon the musmees appear again with more lacquered
trays, bearing more saucers and little dishes made of sticks
of glass. On these will be forthcoming another sort of soup,
shiru, of fish and sea-weed; or sui-mono, of bean curds; or
chawan-Mushi, a thick, yellow, and more substantial soup, to-
86
Japonica.
gether with hashi-yakana, large slices of broiled tai, and tsubo
or nori, sea-weed, in strings or flakes, of which the Japanese are
fonder than the foreigner is likely to prove. On another glass
plate raw fish will tempt you, cut into delicate slices, with, close
at hand, a small quantity of wasabi, the hot mountain horse-
radish. Do not reject the raw fish until you have stirred a
pinch of the wasabi into your porcelain soypan, dipped a flake
of the fish into that sauce, and eaten it, with a touch or two
of the kono-mono, the pickled egg-plant, cabbage-leaves, daikon,
and cucumber, arranged as neatly as a mosaic on a red tray.
The raw fish is called namasu, and is not only very nice but
very digestible. Around you by this time will swarm other
little dishes; sashimi, minced fish, boiled lotus and lily roots,
aemono salad, made with pounded sesamum-seed, and a peach,
or persimmon, or orange in crystallized sugar, with, possibly,
some salted plums. Do not be too much allured by these at-
tractions, because the unagi-meshi has yet to come, for which
you must keep a considerable corner. It is brought in boxes
of gilded lacquer, the rice accompanying in a handsome bowl;
and if you have not cared for the sea-ears and sea-slugs, nor
much enjoyed the raw fish and the daikon, you might dine
abundantly on this delicious dish alone. You are at last sur-
rounded by twenty or thirty dishes, like a ship in harbor by a
fleet of boats, and the best of a Japanese dinner is that, after
flitting like a butterfly from flower to flower of the culinary
parterre, you can not only come back to anything that has origi-
nally pleased, but leave off to smoke and chat, and then com-
mence again, if you like, at the very beginning. When every-
body has had enough, particularly of saké, the substantial part
of the repast has still to arrive, for the Japanese. The last saké
bottle is removed and gohan is brought, the honorable, great,
white tub with hot, boiled rice. Along with it reappears fresh
tea, and each native guest will consume two bowls of rice, and

Japanese People.
87
then another, amply saturated with tea. I forgot to mention
that with the first tea-service ornamental colored cakes are of-
fered, soba, shiruko, and later on sushi. Lastly come the pipes
again, and at the proper time some one says to the kneeling
musmee, "Kanjo
okure nasai," "Be
pleased to bring the
honorable account."
At this moment the
hostess will, no
doubt, appear with
"BE PLEASED TO BRING THE HONORABLE ACCOUNT."
lowly obeisances, and, thanking her guests, and deeply apologiz-
ing for "O Machido Sama," "the honorable Mr. waiting-time,"
though there will have been nothing to complain of as to the
delay. The light account is discharged, the attendant kurumaya
are summoned, and we depart in a sincere and gentle storm of
"Mata dozo O hayaku," and "Mata irrashai," "Come again soon!"
"Be pleased to come quickly again!"
1
III.
JAPANESE WAYS AND THOUGHTS

L
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, writing about the Japanese people in
the middle of the sixteenth century, said: "This nation is the
delight of my soul!" Will Adams, the English pilot-major,
sending home an account of the land where he was at that time a
prisoner, although soon to be released and raised to great favor,
delivered it gravely as his opinion that "the people of the Iland
of Iapan are good of nature, curteous aboue measure and valiant
in warre: their iustice is seuerely executed without any partiali-
tie vpon transgressors of the law. They are gouerned in great
ciuilitie. I meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by
ciuill policie. The people be verie superstitious in their religion,
and of diuers opinions: alsoe veri subiect to thear gouvernours
and superiores."
desirous of fame,
to hardships; .
..
Kaempfer, at the end of the seventeenth century, describes
the Japanese as "bold, . heroic, . . . revengeful,
very industrious and enured
great lovers of civility and good manners,
and very nice in keeping themselves, their cloaths and houses,
clean and neat.
As to all sorts of handicrafts, either
curious or useful, they are wanting neither proper materials, nor
industry and application, and so far is it that they should have
any occasion to send for masters from abroad, that they rather
exceed all other nations in ingenuity and neatness of workman-
ship, particularly in brass, gold, silver, and copper."
.
92
Japonica.
Modern authorities, endeavoring to summarize the character
of the inhabitants of "Dai Nippon," appear fairly unanimous
with regard to the fine manners, the high spirit, the docility, the
loyalty, industry, neatness, and artistic genius of this race; but
one complains of their secretiveness and disregard of truth ;
another of their lack of "chastity and sobriety;" and others,
like M. Pierre Loti, in his "Madame Chrysanthéme," seem to
take Japan as a bright and fascinating freak of geography and
ethnology: too petit, bizarre, grotesque, minuscule, manière to
love; too drôle, mignon, amusant, aimable to speak very ill of.
Merchants inveigh against the unbusiness-like qualities of the
Japanese, and compare them disadvantageously with the natives
of China; finding them petty, shilly-shallying, and untrustwor-
thy. Scientific and serious natures lament the lack of idealism
in the Japanese mind. Metaphysical, psychological, ethical
questions and problems-say these-have no interest for their
practical and superficial natures. Good-hearted they are, artis-
tic, delightfully polite, nice in persons and ways; yet-declare
other judges—“deceitful, insincere, vain, frivolous," and as re-
gards their women, tyrannical, one-sided, and semi-barbarous.
Medical works, portraying them physically, tell us that the Jap-
anese are Mongols, distinguished by a yellowish skin, straight
black hair, scanty beard, almost total absence of hair on the
arms, legs, and chest, broadish prominent cheek-bones, and more
or less obliquely set eyes.
Compared with people of European race the average Japanese
has a long body and short legs, a large skull, with a tendency to
prognathism, a flat nose, coarse hair, scanty eyelashes, prominent
eyelids, a sallow complexion, and a low stature. The average
height of Japanese men is about the same as that of European
women. The women are proportionately smaller and better-
looking than the men, with pretty manners and charming voices.
Japanese children they allow to be most taking, with their grave,
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
93
little, demure ways, their old-fashioned airs, their almost preter-
natural propriety of conduct. All seem to conclude that the
Japanese have less highly strung nerves than Europeans, bear-
ing pain with admirable calm, and meeting death with compara-
·
SOME TYPES OF JAPANESE BABIES.
tive indifference. Mr. Chamberlain justly attributes this, in a
large degree, to the silent and benign influence of Buddhism, as
being "a tolerant and hopeful creed, promising rest at last to
all." It is, however, a fact well known to doctors in Japan,
that a vast number of maladies there are hysterical; and it is
doubtful to my mind whether any nation possesses a more finely
94
Japonica.
developed nervous organization than its people. Their love of
light and delicate pleasures; their keen appreciation of the tea-
cup, of the spray of cherry-blossom, or of the maple-branch,
whose leaves are green stars, of the tiny pipe, of the deliciously
mingled landscapes of their country, go to show their extreme
impressionability. I should be the last to depreciate the indu-
bitable effect of the gentle and lofty teachings of Buddhism in
fortifying and elevating the national nature, but my own opinion
is, that the central characteristic of the Japanese is self-respect,
and that their patience, their fearlessness, their quietism, their
resignation, and a large proportion of their other virtues, have
root in this deep and universal quality.
As for the people, I am, and always shall be, of good St.
Francis Xavier's feeling: "This nation is the delight of my
soul!" Never have I passed days more happy, tranquil, or re-
storative than among Japanese of all classes, in the cities, towns,
and villages of Japan. Possibly that is because I have had no
business relations with my kind and pleasant Niponese friends,
and have never talked very much metaphysics; but it seems cer-
tainly an easy way to keep on the right side of folks, to let phi-
losophy and theology alone. Moreover, it is, no doubt, necessary
for such experiences to go a little behind that sort of Japan
which you find on the Hatobas of Yokohama or Kobe; in the
Yoshiwaras of those and the other open ports. At very little
distance from the surface, which we civilizing westerns have
done our best to spoil, will be still discovered the old, changeless,
high-tempered, generous, simple, and sweet-mannered Japan
which charmed so much and so naturally the Lusitanian saint
and the Dutch surgeon. I frankly confess it has entirely
charmed me too; and therefore what I say of this Japanese na-
tion, and their manners and customs, must be received with the
proper caution attaching to the language of a friend, and even a
lover. But where else in the world does there exist such a con-
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
95
spiracy to be agreeable; such a wide-spread compact to render
the difficult affairs of life as smooth and graceful as circumstances
admit; such fair decrees of fine behavior fixed and accepted for
all; such universal restraint of the coarser impulses of speech
and act; such pretty picturesqueness of daily existence; such
lively love of nature as the embellisher of that existence; such
sincere delight in beautiful artistic things; such frank enjoy-
ment of the enjoyable; such tenderness to little children; such
reverence for parents and old persons; such wide-spread refine-
ment of taste and habits; such courtesy to strangers; such will-
ingness to please and to be pleased?
The eye is not less delighted perpetually in Japan by grace-
ful and varied costumes, than the hearing is gratified by those
phrases of soft, old-world deference and consideration which fill
the air like plum and cherry blossoms falling. It stands an ab-
solute fact that there is no oath, or foul interjectionary word in
Japanese, and when common coolies quarrel, or when a stubborn
Chinese pony jibs, the worst you catch is sore! "that! that!"
--or koitsu ! “the fellow." On one day passed in England or the
United States you could inhale more mephitic atmosphere pub-
licly poisoned with vile, angry epithets, than in a month of the
lowest slums of Tokio, or Kyôto. They are as clean a people, as
to their tongues, as in their persons; and he who is kuchi-gitanai,
evil-mouthed,” becomes shunned by all alike, and utterly de-
spised. A good-tempered word will ofttimes put aside the most
threatening passion. A timber-barrow was being wheeled along
in a narrow road, and swept away the corner bamboo-pole of
a citizen's veranda, bringing down some tiles. Out he comes,
deeply agitated, to expostulate; and because the ninsoku stands
bowing with covered head, endeavoring to explain, the shopkeeper
tries to snatch off the coolie's reed hat, crying, "Do you dare to
say, go men nasai, to me, with your hat upon your head?" This
infuriates the coolie, who ceases struggling to get out the promise
96
Japonica.
that they will come back in an hour to repair damages, and to ex-
plain that it was all an accident due to a fault in the road. Sud-
denly the shopkeeper sees for himself that they too have broken
a wheel and a lantern, and realizes his over-impatience as to the
hat, which, being tied under the chin and ears, could not be
easily doffed. A sense of equity returns; he bows low and says:
"O tagai de gozarimas!" "It was the honorable mutuality!"
"Yes, Danna," responds the immediately mollified cartman,
"truly it was the honorable mutuality!" and with a profusion of
bows the quarrel is accommodated. "O tagai" has made them
reasonable again.
But, if a foreign sojourner must speak so favorably of the
men, how shall he avoid an apparent extravagance of praise in
qualifying these sweet, these patient, these graceful, these high-
bred, these soft-voiced, gentle, kind, quiet, unselfish women of
Japan? They seem, taken all together, so amazingly superior to
their men-folk, as almost to belong morally and socially to a
higher race. In a sense that is the case, for though, of course,
identical in blood and breeding, Japanese women have been
reared for centuries in a separate school from the men.
It was
the hard school of obedience, of submission, of resignation, with
no pretentions to justify the view. The Japanese male has con-
sidered himself, all through his history, the superior of the
graceful and gentle companion of his life, who is taught, from
the hour when she disappoints her mother by arriving in this
world, to humble herself, first to her parents, next to her hus-
band, and lastly to her children. But it is characteristic of
women, in all ages and countries, to make the best of bad
laws and customs, and even to turn them to the advantage of
themselves and of the men. Thus I know not by what soft
magic of content, by what subtle elasticity of nature the Jap-
anese woman—in theory a slave-in practice has gained very
much her own way everywhere; and obtains, without ex-
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
97
acting, far more consideration and deference than might be
expected.
It is an unsolved mystery in what proportion the Mongol, the
Malay, and the South Sea Islander, with perhaps Arabs and Sem-
itic peoples, have blended to constitute this unique, gifted, im-
pressionable race. Yet it is a still greater mystery to me how
the Japanese woman has developed her gracious sweetness and
bright serenity in the atmosphere of unchivalrous mal-estimation
surrounding her from early times. The story of those early times
หน
QUEEN OTO TACHIBANI HIMÉ LEAPING INto the sea.
proves abundantly that she was always what she is now-oto-
nashü shinsetsu na-tender, gentle, and devoted. It is full of
legends and records creditable to the sex, from the time of the
great queen who conquered Corea, and of the lovely Oto Tachi-
bani Himé, who died by leaping into the sea to appease the
tempest and save her husband, the Emperor, down to Gompachi
and Komurasaki, the Romeo and Juliet of Tokio, at whose grave
I, reverently, burned a bundle of incense sticks. The spot is a
quiet nook in a bamboo garden, near the temple of Fudô Sama
at Meguro, where a tiny pent-house has been raised over the
ancient stones marking the resting-place of the ill-starred Japan-
77
98
Japonica.
ese lovers. Their story is told in Mitford's "Tales of Old
Japan,” nor can you peruse it, or hear any native relate it, with-
out feeling how immeasurably superior Komurasaki-"Little
Purple "-
was to Gompachi. And another strange thing is, that
though the national morality, from our point of view, would be
called "low," and the position accorded to women has assuredly
not been such as to make them heroic, nowhere in the world
were wives more faithful; and nowhere have there been more
moving love-stories than in Japan. I recall a tale-whether
already published I know not—of a beautiful Japanese girl, be-
loved and sought in marriage by a handsome but worthless
young Samurai.
Samurai. For family reasons she was wedded to another
young nobleman who treated her very well, and to whom she be-
came fondly attached, although she had originally returned the
passion of her good-for-nothing lover. This latter held some
family secret, the disclosure of which would have been fatal to
the fortunes and reputation of her house. A year or two after
her marriage he met her walking abroad in Tokio, and felt so
violent a renewal of admiration for her beauty that he deter-
mined to stick at nothing to gain her. The guilty proposals
which he managed to convey to her being indignantly rejected,
he decided to bring to bear upon her mother the knowledge
which he possessed of the family secret. It happened that one
day, while visiting at her mother's house, she overheard her des-
perate suitor threatening the aged lady with death, and the pub-
lication of the household disgrace, if she did not obtain for him
possession of his beautiful lost mistress. Her mother's distress
and danger, and the sound of the worthless lover's sword-blade
ringing as it left the scabbard, caused her to form an instant res-
olution. Breaking into the room, she said, "I have heard you,
and know how cruel and dangerous you are; but for the sake of
our former attachment, and for my mother's peace, and the
family honor, I consent to what you demand, on condition that

Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
99
you first kill my husband. He lies at night surrounded by
trustworthy and fearless retainers. I will give them sleeping
ENDO MORITO'S REMORSE.
draughts, and you must come in the dark with your sword and
slay him. But in order that you may perceive which is my hus-
band's head, I will wet it with water after he has fallen asleep."
Vor M
100
Japonica.
The wicked lover eagerly agreed; the mother was too terrified
to intervene. At the appointed hour of the night, when all was
still, he made his way into the yashiki, and advanced unhindered,
amid the slumbering retainers, into the darkened chamber of the
betrayed lord. Kneeling down, he lightly felt head after head
among those of the sleepers, and came at last upon one saturated
with water. With a quick stroke of his razor-like blade he sev-
ered the head, and, rolling it in his cloth, hurried forth into the
street again, that he might thereafter show it and claim fulfilment
of her promise. Arrived at his own house, he proceeded to un-
fold his dreadful burden, and when the light of the andou fell
upon the features, it was no man's head at all, but the lovely face
of the woman whose peace he had ruined met his affrighted gaze.
To save her mother's life, the family name, and her husband's
honor, she had cut close her own long hair, soaked her head in
water and laid it upon the pillow, to await there, with splendid
fortitude and self-abnegation, the certain visit of the murderer.
Beside her pillow was found a letter explaining the motives and
circumstances of her deed, and the guilty lover himself became
so overwhelmed with shame and remorse that, though he es-
caped with life, he turned monk at a lonely temple in the moun-
tains, performing daily penances there until he died.
What has been said about the superior virtue and elevation of
character among Japanese women, as compared with Japanese
men, finds a simple but solid illustration in the subjoined para-
graph, taken from a local Tokio newspaper. The date is recent,
but any similar return, at any date in the year, and in almost
any part of Japan, would probably manifest the same extraordi-
nary preponderance of male offenders over female. These figures
speak for themselves. When we find only one woman under
arrest for illegal behavior to every thirty men, it may be judged
how law-abiding, self-controlled, and gentle in act and word and
thought are these patient and graceful “daughters of the Rising
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
101
Sun." Here is the paragraph from the Japan Mail of March 13,
1890:
"The number of prisoners in various Tokio prisons, on the
15th instant, were:
Under examination..
Under punishment...
In special rooms.
• ·
In corrective house..
Totals....
Males. Females.
696
19
2,966
111
242
8
38
3,942
138
96 arrests and 83 releases being made on the same day.”
Such as they are to-day, moreover, these Japanese women
have always been. I picked up in Yokohama an old Latin book
by one Bernhardus Varenius, dated 1673, and entitled "Descrip-
tio Regni Japonia et Siam," dedicated to "Her most Serene and
Puissant Princess Christina, by the grace of God Queen of the
Swedes, Goths, and Vandals." This quaint old volume was
printed at Cambridge, "in the shop of John Hayes,” and would
well repay translation, as it contains many interesting particulars
about old Japan, and innumerable anecdotes illustrating the
fidelity, the gentleness, and the virtue of the women of Japan.
The ancient author says that when Japanese have been asked
why they keep their women so subordinate, the answer was that
"in old times, when they had more liberty and authority, deplor-
able results ensued, recorded in history, and that the true place
of woman in this life is to serve the man, to amuse him when
tired with cares and labors, and to bear and bring up his chil-
dren." Buddhism-badly understood has added, it is to be
feared, to this spirit of disregard, teaching that a woman's soul
could with difficulty be saved. But such, of course, was never
the real Indian doctrine. It was and is characteristic of the in-
equitable views thus entertained, that infidelity in the wife was
made a capital offence, while it was regarded as hardly so much
102
Japonica.
as a fault in the husband. The Japanese women, being taught
obedience and silence from their birth, accepted the hard laws
made by the men, and have moulded their natures in accordance.
My Swedish doctor has an entire chapter headed "De fidelitate et
pudore fœminarum," in which he recites many noble instances of
their self-respect and high sense of honor. He tells the story of
a lady of rank with whom the Tycoon once fell in love, and, in
order that he might possess her, played the part of David with
Uriah, causing the husband to be killed in battle. Afterward he
commanded that she should come to the palace, whereupon her
answer, given in the Latin, was this: "Most potent Lord! if I
had not been a wife, and did not now very well know how I have
been made a widow, it would behoove me silently and with
reverence to rejoice that I had been held worthy to serve and
please your Majesty. But now, if you oblige me to comply, I
will bite out my own tongue and die. Yet, if your Majesty will
grant me this one request, namely, to pass thirty days in mourn-
ing while making a sepulchre for my lord and paying him due
honors, I shall obey your Majesty's will. I would further pray
that at the end of this period I may hold a feast of farewell with
my
friends and relations in the highest apartment of the tower of
the palace, where I will take my leave of them, and be finally
done with tears and sorrows." The Tycoon consented, the feast
was held, and at its close the lady rose, and pretending to go out
upon the roof to breathe the fresh air, threw herself down upon
the stones below, and was instantly killed. Again, my doctor
gives an ancient example of the family pride and the singular
absence of selfishness or greed which marks these Japanese
women still. A certain Daimio had in his palace a very beautiful
mistress, of whom he was needlessly jealous. Her mother, an
extremely poor widow, used to send her letters begging for
clothes and money, and whatever the daughter had she would
send, but was far too self-respectful to ask special assistance for
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
103
her mother, or to reveal her indigence. One day the Daimio
entering, found her reading a letter which she endeavored to con-
ceal from him. Furious with suspicion, he demanded to see it,
and she, overwhelmed with shame, thrust the thin paper into her
mouth and attempted to swallow the evidence of her mother's
poverty. But it stuck in her throat and suffocated her. The
savage husband, more than ever persuaded that she was con-
cealing some love-epistle, drew his sword, cut open her throat,
and took out the document, reading which he became full of
shame and remorse; and to the end of her days, the story says,
kept the widow in his palace in the greatest honor and comfort.
What renders the semi-angelic sweetness of Japanese wives,
and women generally, more remarkable, though practically per-
haps it really goes far to explain it, is the fact that marriage, as
we know it, can scarcely be said to exist for them. It is true
that ceremonies are observed at a nuptial union, especially
among the upper classes, which are elaborate, and very formally
prescribed in the Sho-rei-Hikke, or "Book of Proprieties."
There one may learn all about the presents of white silk and
wine and condiments; the sword of dignity for the father-in-
law; the silk robes stitched together for the marriage night; the
bucket containing clams to make the wedding-soup; the garden-
torches; the mixing of the rice-meal (curiously like the Roman
confarreatio); the two candles lighted and extinguished to-
gether; the table with two carved wag-tails; the dried fish,
seaweed, and chestnuts, and the two wine bottles, with the male
and female butterfly. But all these are for very great people.
For ordinary folk little more is observed than that the bride and
bridegroom should drink together nine tiny cups of saké, after
which the bride changes her white dress for a kimono, presented
by the bridegroom, and the union is registered at the office of
the Chô.
Nevertheless, as far as the man is concerned, it is a union
104
Japonica.
dependent only upon his good pleasure. He can and does
divorce his wife on any of seven grounds, among which are "dis-
obedience," "talking too much," and "jealousy." Practically he
can at any time send her away, and in proof of this the statistics
of 1888 show that one marriage out of every three in Japan
ended in divorce. A very amiable friend of mine, an officer of
the Imperial Household, told me, without much self-blame or
hesitation, that he had sent a wife away, to whom he was much
attached, and who was of faultless character, because she did not
get on well with her mother-in-law! In the upper classes it is
doubtless not good form to do this if you can easily help it, but
the discontented husband finds easy consolation from other arms
without much reproach from his discarded spouse, who early
learns that watchword of a Japanese woman's existence, "da-
matte." To be silent, under whatever neglect or unkindness, is
her chief resource, forced upon her not less by tradition than by
prudence. That deplorable old opportunist Konfutze, or Con-
fucius, wrote: "The man stands in importance above the
woman; he has the right of the strong over the weak. Heaven
ranks before earth, and a prince before his minister." Again he
says, "The hen that crows in the morning brings misfortune."
In the Japanese Jushô there is a passage which runs-" When
the goddesses saw the gods for the first time, they were the first
to cry out, 'Oh! what beautiful males!' But the gods were
greatly displeased, and said: 'We, who are so strong and pow-
erful, should by rights have been the first to speak; how is it
that, on the contrary, these females speak first? This is indeed
vulgar.'
The Japanese wife, therefore, in too many cases, has nothing
whatever intervening between her gentle head and this suspended
Damocles' sword of easy divorce, except the good will of her
lord, a certain social sentiment, and her daily power to please.
Where unions endure the husband was a good fellow, and as for
japanese Ways and Thoughts.
105
the wife, elle a su plaire! I am, by my inquiries, inclined to be-
lieve that it was really for this reason that blackening the teeth
and shaving the eyebrows-still a quite common custom in Japan
-was adopted, if not invented, by married women, in order defi-
nitely to declare themselves a class apart from concubines and
prostitutes, the iro-onna, the jorô, and the o-mekake. It is, of
course, the very death of beauty to put a black lacquer on the
teeth, which are generally so regular and so brilliant, and to
shave away the eyebrows, usually so arched and silken. But
from the time of Murasaki Shikibu, in A.D. 1008, wives have
actually made this sacrifice, to give themselves the unmistakable
cachet of married dignity, even at the cost of personal charms
and also of physical attractiveness. Of late the custom is largely
dying out, and naturally, for it is a great trouble, as well as a
hideous disfigurement, to paint the teeth every other day with a
sticky mixture of iron-oxide and gall-nuts, and to keep the eye-
brows closely shaved. Thousands of women may, however, still
be seen, with mouths which would have been pretty, darkened
into the appearance of toothless cavities; and, perhaps, latterly,
it was rather for fashion or tradition than for social reasons that
the habit was maintained. But I do not think it is an error to
say that the strange sacrifice originated, or was at any rate long
continued, from the desire of married Japanese women to estab-
lish, at any expense of personal vanity, a distinction which regis-
tration at the local office poorly confirmed, and which the hus-
band's affection and equity could not be trusted to sustain.
The preliminaries of a marriage—if such insecure unions can
so be designated-are as follows: When a boy or girl has reached
a marriageable age, the parents secure a suitable partner. Cus-
tom rules that the conduct of the affair must be entrusted to a
middleman (nakōdo)—some discreet married friend, who not
only negotiates the marriage, but remains through life a sort of
god-father to the young couple, a referee to whom disputes may
106
Japonica.
be submitted for arbitration. Having fixed on an eligible parti,
the middleman arranges for what is termed the mi-ai, the "mut-
ual viewing”—a meeting at which the pair are allowed to see,
sometimes even to speak to, each other. The interview should
take place either at the middleman's own residence, or at some
private house designated by the parents on both sides. But
among the middle and lower classes a picnic, a party to the the-
atre, or a visit to a temple, often serves the purpose. If the man
objects to the girl, or the girl to the man, after the "mutual in-
spection," there is an end of the matter, in theory at least. But
in practice the young people are in their parents' hands, to do as
their parents may ordain. The girl, in particular, is a nobody in
the matter. It is not for girls to have opinions. And W. Cham-
berlain, who is the high authority for the above particulars, ob-
serves, on the general subject, in his admirable little book
Things Japanese :
66
""
"When it is added that a Japanese bride has no bridesmaids,
that the young couple go off on no honeymoon, that a Japanese
wife is not only supposed to obey her husband, but actually does
so; that the husband, if well enough off, probably has a concu-
bine besides, and makes no secret of it, indeed often keeps her
in the same house with his wife, and that the mother-in-law,
with us a terror to the man, is not only a terror but a daily and
hourly cross to the girl-for in nine cases out of ten the girl has
to live with her husband's family and be at the beck and call of
his relations-when due consideration is given to all these cir-
cumstances, it will be seen that marriage in Japan is a vastly
different thing, socially as well as legally, from marriage in Eng-
land or the United States. In this part of the world it is, in
truth, a case, not of place aux dames, but place aux messieurs.'
""
The outcome of it all is a different standard of morality from
ours, which has, perhaps, its own excellences and advantages, but
admits ideas strange and unacceptable to Western propriety.

Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
107
Christianity and chivalry combining in the West and North have
made a sacrament of love. In Japan Buddhism has sternly dis-
paraged human affection, Confucianism has degraded it, and the
unimaginative nature of the Japanese male has made it a pastime
TSURU-KAME DANCE.
and amusement merely. Japanese women generally have ac-
cepted, in theory, this inadequate view of the sexual relations,
and for many ages have placed fidelity of mind higher than
chastity of body.
No doubt in the upper and richer classes the rule is that a girl
should be very carefully reared and guarded until she marries,
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Japonica.
and should then live a most exemplary and dutiful life, innocent
of even the desire to stray from virtue, till the day when the fire
is lighted to consume her faithful flesh. But that very lady
would talk about her less fortunate sisters, the musmees of the
Yoshiwara, the geishas, and the more or less permanent concu-
bines who everywhere abound, in a way which would quickly
show how different from English or American views is that of
Japanese society about the relations of the sexes. This is a
country where it is not only common for a girl to sell herself
to public use for the sake of her parents, but also where she
will be rather admired and praised than blamed for it, and
her parents pitied more than-as they should be-execrated.
This is a country where prostitutes are, by no chance, seen in
the streets, and where such evil displays as are exhibited in
London or San Francisco would shock the taste and shame the
modesty of everybody; yet where, every nightfall, thousands of
gayly-attired damsels sit in long rows behind the grille of the
houses in countless Yoshiwaras. Not once in a thousand in-
stances do even these poor jorô lose their self-respect, or that
sustained propriety and savoir-faire which makes one say that
all Japanese women alike are ladies born. In the same mood
and mode temporary alliances are formed (as everybody may
know who has read that brilliantly offensive book "Madame
Chrysanthème"), where the Japanese mistress generally shows
herself as gentle, as attached, as faithful as if she were mated for
life. Yet even by the light of M. Pierre Loti's glittering
egotism, the most casual reader may perceive how infinitely
superior, morally and socially, O Kiku San was to her French
satirist; and if only she could write a book in the same language
entitled, "M. Loti," by Madame Chrysanthème, it would be seen
what a poor creature the cultured French naval officer and
flâneur of the boulevards must appear beside the gentle-hearted
Asiatic girl, whose immoralities belonged to Confucianism, and
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
109
her virtues to herself. The subject, although perhaps the most
interesting which Japan presents, cannot, of course, be discussed
here. Suffice it to say that hasty judgments are almost sure to
entail injustice both to the nation and the individual.
The principal Japanese good qualities, according to a high
educational authority here, Mr. Nose Ei, are "loyalty, filial piety,
benevolence, personal cleanliness; and "-he very boldly adds-
(6
chastity." These, he mentions, are strictly indigenous, being
due neither to Buddhism nor Confucianism. The code of honor,
called Memboku, that governed the actions of all the well-born,
and constrained them to the highest punctilio and strictest
chivalry of speech and action, was purely Japanese in source and
inspiration. Mr. Nose Ei sees with me the fundamental charac-
teristic of Japanese life in an extreme aversion to disgrace, which
implies self-respect and the passion to be well thought of, lead-
ing to the constant desire to please, and this to perfect man-
ners.
“In other countries," says Mr. Nose Ei, “ethical diction is
derived from sacred writings. The terms in vogue in China
came from the classics; those of Europe from the Bible; those
of India and Turkey from the Koran or Buddhist scriptures;
but in Japan the words which are best known as expressive of
moral states, actions, and feelings are, with few exceptions,
purely native, and have no connection with any religious creed
whatever. Mr. Nose Ei gives the following specimens of such
words: "Ai-sumanu (inexcusable, improper, wrong); membo-
kunai (ashamed, crestfallen); futo-doki-sen-ban (audacious, inso-
lent); mottainai (wrong, improper); kinodoku, 'poison of the
spirit' (concern for others, regret); appare (splendid, admirable);
furachi (unprincipled, lawless, wicked); kawai (lovable, dear,
pretty); otonashi (quiet, obedient, meek); muri-no-nai (just, rea-
sonable, right); fugyōseki (wicked or immoral conduct); taisetsu
shigoku (of the greatest consequence, of the highest value); ikiji
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Japonica.
(obstinacy, an unyielding temper); ritsugisha (an upright,
straightforward person); buchōhō (ignorant, awkward, bungling);
and kuchioshii (a thing to be deplored or regretted).”
This is as true as it is striking, and goes far to prove that the
Japanese really did invent an elaborate morality for themselves;
and that when an ancient Samurai said "sumanu koto !" about
something wrong, and preferred to disembowel himself rather
than do it, he referred his conscience to "the eternal fitness of
things," and proved by example that "revelations" are not nec-
essary to teach men to love the right and hate the wrong. Nay,
the poets of Japan have, again and again, enforced the doctrine
that the clean spirit makes the clean body, and that good deeds
are better than long prayers. Sugawara Michizane wrote:
"Kokoro dani makoto no
Michi ni kanainaba
Inorazu totemo kami wa
Manoranu,"
which is, being freely interpreted:
"So long as a man's heart stray
No step from his road of right,
He may pray, or forbear to pray,
But is dear in the Kami's* sight."
The objection to second marriages, which was so strongly
felt by the Japanese women of former days; the Samurai's dis-
regard of death when clan obligations had to be fulfilled, which
was so conspicuous in the old days, these find no parallel in
Chinese morals. After the manner of most Japanese writers on
this subject, Mr. Nose Ei dwells on the loyalty to the throne
manifested in Japan as something entirely unique, and certainly
the Emperor's name and person are still "things to conjure
with" in the land. I stood lately all day near His Imperial
*1.e., God's.
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
111
Majesty, at the great military review of Nagoya, and studied with
natural and respectful interest the form and bearing of the man
most representative in all this world of the principle of hereditary
monarchy. The dark, middle-sized, silent, absorbed potentate
upon whom I gazed, wearing the golden-peaked kepi, buckskin
breeches, and dark-blue general's coat with the golden-flowered
chrysanthemum, was the lineal descendant, through an unbroken
line of Japanese emperors, from Jimmu Tenno, who reigned two
thousand five hundred years ago. Nay, more, of the divine gen-
erations ending with Tzanagi and Tzanami, who, being taught
the art of love by water-wagtails, married and gave birth to the
various islands of the Japanese Archipelago, as well as to innu-
merable gods and goddesses. During the utmost power of the
Shoguns, the Mikado always remained the divine head of the
state, the fountain of honor, although the Hojô dynasty, while
they ruled, and during whose sway, by the by, the invading fleet
of Kublai-Kan was repulsed, thought nothing of removing
Mikados to distant islands. The cannon-shots fired by the com-
bined fleets at Shimonoshiki brought about the end of the Shô-
gunate, and in 1867-68 the dreams of those who had studied and
loved ancient Japanese history were realized; things went back
to the primitive times so far as to make the Emperor actual sove-
reign again, as well as Mikado. This year is to witness the
opening of the first parliament, for which the elections have just
been completed, amid a quietude which may, and it is hoped
will, prove permanent. It would task volumes to describe the
immense changes which have taken place in Japan since what
is often called the O Jishin, the "great political earthquake." Of
all these changes the still youthful Emperor, standing in the ar-
tillery smoke upon the hill near Nagoya, amid the wild purple
azaleas, was at once the monument and the symbol.
No change was greater in its effect upon Japanese life than
the edict of January 1, 1877, which forever took his two swords
112
Japonica.
out of the girdle of the Samurai. These high-born gentlemen
had been accustomed to regard the sword as the life and soul of
their order, and yet in a single day they laid them finally and si-
lently aside. Thucydides justly says that "to carry iron (σɩdŋpo-
popeîv) is the mark of barbarism ;" and although the sword taught
noble manners it led to cruel deeds and bitter tyranny. There
were swashbucklers, who would try their new blades upon the
bodies of beggars, and even of women sleeping by the wells. An
absolute worship, social and artistic, arose for the sword. The
Daimio and Samurai made the manners and customs of the time
centre around it. It had its special etiquettes; it grew to be at
once the terror and the safeguard of society; and, no doubt,
modern Japanese politeness is largely traceable to those punctil-
ious days, when to turn the point of a sheathed katana toward
anybody was a challenge, and when the weapon could not be re-
placed in the sheath-if once drawn-without somebody's blood.
Craftsmanship and art naturally lavished their best skill upon
this national symbol of the Yamato-Damashii (the "spirit of
Japan"). Blades were brought to such perfection of temper that
almost miraculous feats are recorded of them, and the sword-
smith's profession was held chief of all. The forging of a great
blade was conducted with ceremonies as solemn as those attend-
ing the birth of a nobleman's child. Daimios often gave away
whole estates for a famous weapon, or for the pair of swords, the
long katana, and the shorter wakizashi, which they placed in the
obi of the eldest son, when he attained the age of fifteen years.
The metal-workers spent all the resources of their taste and skill
in ornamenting the guard, tsuba; the menuki, or hilt-studs; the
pommel of the handle, kashira; the blade-ring, fuchi; the cord-
cleat, kurikata, and the scabbard-tip, kojiri. Daintier or more
delightful things cannot be found in gold, silver, bronze, and in-
laid work than many of these exhibit, and beautiful and wonder-
ful toil was also given to the kodzuka, a short dagger kept on one
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
113
side of the large sword, and to the kozai, a sort of sharp skewer,
bearing the warrior's mon, which used to be left stuck in the
corpse of the slain enemy, as a species of card of ownership.
How much the pride felt in these exquisite instruments of rage
or revenge, and the fierce punctilio attaching to their carriage,
bred and fostered violence, was acknowledged by the old govern-
ments, which would frequently issue edicts forbidding such and
such a lord even to bear abroad a certain weapon, as being too
notoriously famous and deadly to be kept unused. The two-
sworded men were, besides, marked for an aristocracy by the
mere sight of the twofold lethal implements projecting from their
girdle. In one day, nevertheless, the ancient and bloody distinc-
tion disappeared! The swords vanished, and the old order passed
away with them. You may now buy in a curio-shop the gold-
hilted blade which kept a province in fear, and as likely as not
your boy, and your daughter's musmee, are children of a Samurai,
who has gone into business, and has quite forgotten even the
rules and regulations of the seppuku.
This seppuku-more vulgarly styled hara-kiri, or "belly-cut-
ting "—was the offspring and crown of the Japanese cult of the
sword, and a most solemn and dignified ceremony. If his crime
were not per se very heinous or disgraceful, the Samurai was al-
lowed to die voluntarily, by his beloved steel; but the mode of
death rendered it almost the highest distinction. The warrior
notified to die was placed in charge of a great nobleman. New
mats with white binding, covered with white silk, were stretched
for his seat; flags with quotations from the sacred books were
placed at the four corners; and the candles in bamboo-stands
were also wrapped in the same mourning badges. An excessive
illumination was, however, thought not decorous. Two screens
of white paper shut from sight the short, sharp dirk, laid rever-
ently upon a lacquered tray, the new white bucket to hold the
head, the incense-burner, the pail of water, and the copper basin.
8
114
Japonica.
The honored criminal dines, bathes, puts on his dress of cere-
mony,
and takes his seat on the mats at the "hour of the mon-
key," about four in the afternoon. Censors attend from the gov-
ernment to witness the proceedings, and the doomed but dignified
Samurai is accompanied by six gentlemen, of whom two are his
especial seconds, kaishi-ku, who may be his close friends, and
must be persons of rank, well acquainted with the use of the
sword. It was high etiquette to borrow from the criminal his
own weapon, which the chief kaishi-ku would hold behind him,
ready to employ at the proper moment. That moment arrived
when the tray, covered with white embroidered silk, bearing the
dirk, was most respectfully presented to the victim, who reaching
out to take it, and to raise it to his forehead, first hitched his
sleeves under his knees, in order that he might fall forward, and
not backward, for that would be dishonorable. Actual disem-
bowelling was seldom or never performed. The Samurai plunged
the dirk, more or less deeply, into the left side of his abdomen,
and at that instant, or sometimes even while he reached out for
the weapon, his chief second struck off his head. Afterward,
while he knelt and wiped the blade with white paper, the junior
kaishi-ku took up the head and presented it to the censors for
identification, carrying it by the top-knot upon thick paper laid
on the palm of his hand.
I must forbid myself altogether to dwell upon Japanese art,
although it forms so large a part of the life of the people, who
are, as the Greeks were, a nation of artists; greatest, no doubt,
in little things. What the Japanese painter and designer loves
most is line; and never have there been such masters in this re-
spect. The great exhibition of the present year in Tokio shows
the chief draughtsmen and painters passing into a new style,
where they will employ modern methods and try to adopt the
European technique. Nobody can yet tell what is to come of this ;
at present the results are not very promising. But they have
?

A JAPANESE DANCE.
Japanese Ways and Thoughts
117
nothing to learn as carvers of ivory and wood and metal, as work-
ers in bronze, and at the exquisite cloisonné enamel, the latest
specimens of which are the very finest. In porcelain again,
though Japan seems to have learned it from Corea, she has done,
as everybody knows, wonderful things since 1600 a.D. In the
art of lacquer the Japanese surpass the whole world, but it needs
an education to recognize and appreciate really first-class speci-
mens of this. As for Japanese music, there is not much to praise
in it. The samisen twangles everywhere; but its effects are ter-
ribly meagre, the airs played are sadly monotonous; the only
time is common time; there is no harmony, and though Japanese
women have delightful voices, rendering their language always
musical, the style of singing which they adopt is forced, nasal,
and unnatural. But of their dancing-which is Javanese rather
than Japanese in origin-I confess myself a confirmed votary and
admirer. It has not indeed the measured grace of the Indian
nautch-girl, and quite ignores, of course-being Japanese, and
therefore sober, restrained, and, in an Asiatic way, Greek-the
vigorous gymnastics of the European ballet, or the violent exer-
cises of a London ballroom. But if you love charm of changing
line, rhythmical movement so conceived and executed that pic-
ture passes into picture conveying unbroken and delicate ideas;
if
you know how to appreciate in the really accomplished geisha
that which she can show you, a nameless, fleeting, subtle delight
of fluttering robes and glancing feet, gliding and combining grace,
music, and motion as the figures of Chophori do on the friezes
of Phidias, then you will be pleased, as you sit among the lac-
quered dishes of your Japanese dinner, to watch the maiko dressed
like flowers and waving like flowers in the wind to the strings of
the koto, samisen, and the throbs of the drum. These dances are
all more or less dramatic, but there are others, including the re-
ligious, historical, and idyllic dances of the No, which are entirely
classical, traditional, and complicated by allusion, being conse-

118
Japonica.
quently very difficult to understand without a key. A most
beautiful performance witnessed in the grounds of the governor
THE "NO" DANCE.
of Tokio would have been in any case charming, but perfectly
unintelligible without the programmes distributed by his Excel-
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
119
lency among the guests. By the help of these we comprehended
that the skilful danseuse in gold and blue, gliding hither and
thither, was Fujimusmee, a "Wistaria Maiden," disappointed in
love. She laments over the fickleness of her lover. She sends him
many love-letters, but they are never answered. So she believes
that he must have fallen in love with some other maiden. She
dances eloquently to a song expressing her constant but despairing
affection for him. "Beauteous as are the many-colored clusters,
none is as fair as thou. For the butterfly that I have left behind,
it doubtless blooms and smiles forgetting me." We also learned
to follow with informed interest the twinkling steps and wander-
ing evolutions of O Kofuji, in the dance of a damsel styled "The
Pine Breeze on the Beach." Her light feet expounded how, in
very ancient days, a noble of high rank, by name Yukihira, dur-
ing his short sojourn at a seaside village named Sumanoura
(Beach of Suma), fell in love with a maiden of low birth named
Matsukaze (Pine-breeze). The maiden's love for him was ten
times as great. But on account of the difference of their ranks
they loved in vain and were soon parted. Long after the deaths
of these lovers there lived at Sumanoura a girl called Kofuji, a
salt-maker's daughter. The unsatisfied and longing spirit of
Matsukaze fills this girl. Kofuji thinks that everything she sees
is Yukihira, who was Matsukaze's love. She fixes on a pine-tree
which she believes to be her lover, and, believing that she is
called by him, runs up to it. Another character, Konobei, is
in love with Kofuji, and as she utters words of passion, he, imag-
ining that they are addressed to him, expresses his willingness to
return her love. It is simply a dance of a love-lorn girl in com-
pany with a rural swain, but full of such grace, such artistic
spirit, such measured marriage of foot and heart, that a Parisi-
an or Viennese pas-seul became a clumsy athleticism matched
with it.
Japanese names well deserve a paragraph to themselves. The

120
Japonica.
men, if of good descent, have the Kabane, a sort of clan or
house-name like "Akimoto," "Tachibane," "Fukuzawa." The
Myoji is the surname, very frequently derived from localities, the
birthplaces of the family, as Amenomori, "the grove where it
"FUJI MUSMEE."
rains;" Tanaka, "amid the rice-fields;" Yama-moto, "at the
mountain's foot." Then there is the personal appellation, like
Gentaro, Tsunejiro, often answering to our " Septimus," "Deci-
mus," and describing the order of a boy's birth in the family;
but the jitsamyo, or true name, is more frequently employed in
lieu of this, and corresponds to our Christian name, such as
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
121
Marashige, Yoshisada, Tamotsu, Takeji, Mano. Then there is
the Azana, a kind of title, much affected by Chinese scholars,
and the nom de plume or de pinceau taken by literary or artistic
Japanese—persons being not uncommonly called after the style
of their residences. Mr. Chamberlain adduces, as examples,
Bashô-an, "banana - hermitage - man," and Suzanoya-no - Aruji,
"the master of the abode with the bell." This is termed the
go. And there is also the Geimyo, another fashion of name
adopted by actors, singing-girls, dancers, and professional story-
tellers, who never go by their proper appellations, but bear one
to which they have succeeded at a tea-house, or theatre, or ya-
doya. Thus the most celebrated of living Japanese dramatic
performers, who can melt the hardest hearts in the "Forty-seven
Rônins" and fill a theatre with fluttering paper handkerchiefs,
drawn from the sleeve to wipe away the tears of sympathy or
blow the nose of admiration, is not really Tchikawa Danjûrô,
but Mr. Horikoshi Shu. Great people, when they die, receive a
brand new cognomen, as, for instance, do all the Mikados-this
is called the Okarina, or "going-away name." Indeed, every
Buddhist of Japan, at his or her demise, gets, in the same way,
the Kaimyo or posthumous appellation, ending with in, koji,
shinshi, shinjo, or doji, according to the age, sex, rank, and sect
of the departed. But by some happy chance the names of the
women are almost always pretty and poetical, being conferred
after some flower, tree, natural object, cardinal virtue, or word of
good luck.
Thus very usual appellatives are 0 Yuki San, O
Tatsu San, O Kiku San, O Kin San, O Haru San, O Shika San, O
Take San, and O Tori San, which may be translated "The Hon-
orable Ladies,” “Snow," "Dragon," "Chrysanthemum,' "Gold,”
"Spring," "Antelope," "Bamboo," and "Bird." Among the
names registered on the books of the Goshiwara, given in a
recent official guide, were: "Little Pine," "Little Butterfly,
"Brightness of the Flowers," "The Jewel River," "Gold Moun-
""

122
Japonica.
tain," "Pearl Harp," "The Stork that Lives a Thousand Years,"
CC
Village of Flowers," "Sea Beach," "The Little Dragon," "Lit-
tle Purple," "Silver," "Chrysanthemum," "Waterfall," "White
Brightness," and "Forest of Cherries."
DANJURO, THE FIRST ACTOR IN JAPAN.
In the "Forty-seven Rônins" and other characters.
Lightly as religion sits on the minds of these charming peo-
ple, they are still, like Westerns, for the matter of that, full of
superstitions. In point of fact all races are vastly alike in this
respect, illustrating the pernicious consequence of bad theolo-
gies; "Doko no kuni demo hito no kokoro wa chingawanai," says
the Japanese proverb, meaning, "The hearts of men are of the
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
123
same sort everywhere." Thus you find the Japanese immense
believers in dreams and divination. The night of January 2d is
the great time for noting visions. Everybody must then notice
and record what he or she dreams. There are thirty-eight
varieties of vision perfectly catalogued and provided for. The
first four are simply of splendid augury, namely, to see in slum-
ber Fuji-San, a falcon, egg-fruit, i.e., the dark purple apple of
the nasubi, or the upper sky. To dream of the dawn signifies
recovery from illness. To dream of the sun and moon falling
signifies the loss of one's parents, and of swallowing the sun and
moon, to have a distinguished child. To dream of being struck
by lightning means to be visited by a signal stroke of prosperity,
and of hearing thunder to obtain promotion. To dream of being
surrounded by clouds means to prosper in business, but a black
cloud whirling downward portends illness. To dream of frost is
a bad omen generally. To dream of being caught in rain pres-
ages a good and gratuitous feed of rice and saké. To dream of
wind blowing means to become sick. To dream of sunrise sig-
nifies marked promotion; of the stars coming out, of great for-
tune; of an earthquake, to obtain advancement. To dream of a
big stone signifies to acquire wealth; and of a big stone placed
in a garden, or of mounting on a rock, is also fortunate, though
in a more general way. To dream of having a drain dug is a
happy presage, but the vision of a land-slide is a bad business.
To dream of planting trees or smelling the perfume of flowers is
good, but to dream of entering a room is bad. To dream of
eating a pear presages divorce, and of eating a persimmon sick-
ness to one's self, while a vision of a mulberry-tree means sick-
ness for one's child. The hair plays an important part in
dreams. If one sees it whitening, or dreams of getting it
dressed or washed, the omen is excellent; whereas to dream of
its falling out signifies an evil fate for one's child. To lose one's
teeth in a dream presages separation from relatives. It is good
124
Japonica.
to dream of getting an eruption on one's face, but bad to dream
of perspiration. It is also an excellent thing to dream of gold
and silver coming out of one's mouth, or of drinking milk; but
if one dreams of getting promotion, misfortune is in the air. A
vision of being wounded by a burglar portends the receipt of a
favor from some unexpected quarter, and, strange to say, to
dream of wearing mourning points to speedy promotion, while
to see a funeral in sleep is a sign of coming joy. Then there is
a series of dreams to which the interpretation of general good
fortune attaches; they are to dream of being introduced to a
distinguished personage; of being in a lofty upper story; of a
light breaking from one's body; of moving into a new house ;
of putting on a winter garment; and of looking into a mirror.
On the other hand, it is extremely bad to dream of breaking a
mirror, while to dream of receiving a mirror or a wine-cup pres-
ages the birth of a fine child. Finally, to dream of breaking a
door means that one's servants will run away.
It will be noticed the Japanese seers, or vision-readers, fol-
low the Irish maxim of "dhrames going by conthrairies," and
interpret the most melancholy visions in the happiest spirit. I
myself happened to caution some Japanese ladies, at a railway
crossing, mentioning that I had dreamed recently we were all
cut to pieces by a passing train. "Oh! shi awase! naru-
hodo!" one exclaimed. "Really, how very fortunate! Nothing
could be of better omen," and she appeared truly radiant at
what had seemed to me a very ill-starred thing. Perhaps it is
part of the national habit of taking all untoward things lightly.
The universal silent social compact to make existence as agreea-
ble for everybody as possible, includes in Japan the custom of
never seeming to take personal woes to heart; above all, of never
saddening other people with them. You may generally tell if
some disaster has occurred to a friend or servant, by their ex-
treme cheerfulness of demeanor at the time. Yet they are really
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
125
very sensitive and impressionable, and like the Athenians, "in
all things decoidaiμovioi,” so that the priests make most of their
slender revenues out of copper coins given for charms; the wire
netting of the temple-gates are covered with paper prayers,
chewed into pellets, and spat at the guardian gods; and I have
seen an intelligent lady, who was sick, while the doctor was be-
ing sent for, swallow devoutly a little paper picture of Buddha,
and afterward ascribe her recovery more to that rude illustration
of "the unspeakable" than to the hypodermic injection of mor-
phia, which really gave the gentle patient sleep and restoration.
Plenty of the common folk still believe that there lives a hare in
the moon who pestles rice; and that the moon turns red in autumn
because a great maple-tree there changes the color of its foliage
at that season to scarlet; as also that two stars, Vega and the
brightest orb of Aquila, were formerly a herdsman and a weav-
ing girl, who now live on opposite sides of the "Milky River,”
and cross it to meet and make love once every seven years. At
the graves of Shirai Gompachi and Komurasaki, the typical
lovers of Tokio in old times, there is a waterfall by a temple,
which is led through the mouth of a brazen dragon and falls in
a thick stream with considerable force. It is considered that to
stand under this for three hours will wash away a whole twelve-
month's peccadilloes, and accordingly you may see, not only in
summer-time, when such a penance is rather agreeable, but in
the depth of winter, a credulous sinner meekly taking the full
stream of the taki upon his repentant head.
You will notice on every fan, picture, and document emanat-
ing from Japan a stamp affixed. It is the mon mis eban or
jitsuin, and all shops, banks, artists, establishments, individuals,
possess this special seal for the purposes of signature and re-
ceipts. In old times the sovereign used to sign treaties with his
palm dipped in blood or vermilion, and even to-day a prisoner
seals his statement before justice with the tip of his thumb.
126
Japonica.
Practically everybody uses an engraved stamp every day for all
sorts of purposes. The business of stamp-engraving is quite an
industry, there being an engraver's shop in
almost every street. When a student joins
a school he must have his stamp ; when
money is paid to any government office, the
payer has to hand in the sum with a paper
stamped with his jitsuin; when an heir suc-
ceeds to a family estate, it is the custom for
him to provide himself with a new stamp.
When a company is started, however small
may be its capital, and however slight its
credit, its stamp at least will be more or less
a work of art and a thing of beauty. You
choose a monogram, a Chinese character, a
word, or a motto for your seal, which may be registered. Mine
bears the Japanese proverb, Wataru sekai ni, oni wa nashi, “I
have wandered all over the world without meeting one devil!"
IMPRESSION OF THE PALM
OF THE EMPEROR GO-
SHIRA-KAWA, USED BY
HIM AS A SEAL.
(Reigned A.D. 1156-58.)
I hope I have not spoken unjustly about the Japanese man.
He is full of good qualities, and does well to be proud of him-
self and his country, a poet whereof has well written :
Shikishima no
Yamato-gokoro wo
Hito towaba
Asa-hi ni niou
Yama-zakura-bana !
Which may be translated :
"If it shall happen that one
Ask'd the Japanese heart,
'How may we know it apart?
Point where the cherry-blooms wave,
Lightsome and bright and brave,
In the gold of the morning sun,
There is the Japanese heart!"
Japanese Ways and Thoughts.
127
:
A great future awaits Japan and the Japanese man, I believe,
but he will have to be better aware of the goodness of his gods
in bestowing such women upon the country. In the ever-ex-
tending education of the gentler sex resides, I think, the chief
condition for the happy development of the land. At present
there exists too much of the spirit expressed in the native pro-
verb, Shichinin no ko wo nasu to mo, onna ni kokoro wo yurusu-na,
meaning, "Though a woman has borne you seven children, never
trust her!" It is still true, as Mr. Chamberlain writes:
(C
6
Japanese women are most womanly-kind, gentle, pretty.
But the way in which they are treated by the men has hitherto
been such as might cause a pang to any generous European
heart. No wonder that some of them are at last endeavoring to
emancipate themselves. A woman's lot is summed up in what
are termed, the three obediences'-obedience, while yet un-
married, to a father; obedience, when married, to a husband and
that husband's parents; obedience, when widowed, to a son. At
the present moment the greatest duchess or marchioness in the
land is still her husband's drudge. She fetches and carries for
him, bows down humbly in the hall when my lord sallies forth
on his walks abroad, waits upon him at meals, may be divorced
at his good pleasure. Two grotesquely different influences are
at work to undermine this state of slavery-one, European
theories concerning the relation of the sexes; the other, European
clothes! The same individual who struts into a room before his
wife when she is dressed à la Japonaise, lets her go in first when
she is dressed à la Européenne. It is to be feared, however, that
such acts of courtesy do not extend to the home where there is
no one by to see; for most Japanese men, even in this very year
of
grace 1890, make no secret of their disdain for the female sex.
Still, it is a first step that even on some occasions consideration.
for women should at least be simulated."
Perhaps the new civil code and the opening parliament will
128
Japonica.
introduce nobler laws and new recognition of the debt which
Japan owes to her gentle, patient, bright, and soft-souled woman-
kind. Perhaps, on the other hand, in meddling with her old-
world Asiatic grace and status, modern ideas will spoil this
sweetest Daughter of the Sun! At all events, in bidding fare-
well to Japan, every visitor's last and most grateful sayonaras
will be addressed in thought to her, more than to anybody or
anything else in the Kami-no-kuni, the "country of the gods;
and the sound lingering longest in his ears will assuredly be her
musical Mata, dozo, irrashai! “"Be pleased to come again!"
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD'S SEAL.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
FEB 19 1982
MAR 31 1982
OCT 1 2 1983
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 07709 2743
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