•"/^aaAiNfl-av^ > so -< ^TiUONYSOl^ %a3AlNfl ^^HIBRARYQc. .^WE•lINIVER5'/A 'if'^njiiVD-JO^ ^^WDNVSOl^ ^lOSAKCtlfX- % — ;# a,^UIBI{ARYQa^ ^^uibrai %JllV3'dO'^ %OJIW] AWEUNIVER5'/a o ^lOSANCElfx^ %a3AINMW'^ ^.OF^AllFOff^ ^OFCAtll ''^ ><^tLI6RARY(?/^ 5MrUNIVE% 'YDJO"^ o- '^Aa3AINf AllFOftj^ .^WEUNIVER% %a3AlN( •'•^^•ANCEier^ ^KIBRARro^ ^^^t•llBRA ^ojiivj-jo"^ ^&Aavaan-i'^ \HIBRARYQir^ ^Oinw^"^ ^OFCAllfO«j^ ^OFCAIIFOS'^ %a3AiNii-3WV^ '^&AavaanT^ ^xsh." e „ „ ^^ men." ai ,,the ^^y" of"?nY." i „ „ '■^police." ei „ the " ay " of " ma,Y ■" O „ „ "/or." an „ the " 0711 " of ^^ cow." Distinguish long voivels from short, as in Latin ; thus tovi, '■'bird" hut tori, " street;" zutsu, " {one, etc.'] at a time," but zutsu, " headache." Sound the consonants as in English, noting only that g never has the "/ " sound. At t/ie beginning of a word it is pronounced as in " give;" in the middle it has the sound of English ng'. N'ote, too, that z before " u " is pronounced as dz, thus Kozu (ko-dzoo). There is little if any tonic accent, all syllables, except such as have long qttantity, being pronounced evenly and lightly, as in French. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. To have lived through the transition stage of modern Japan makes a man feel preternaturally old ; for here he is ni modern times, with the air full of talk about bicycles and bacilli and " spheres of influence," and yet he can himself distincUy remember the Middle Ages, The dear old Samurai who first initiated the present writer into die mysteries of the Japanese language, wore a queue and two swords. This relic of feudalism now sleeps in Nirvana. His modern successor, fairl\- fluent in English, and dressed in a serviceable suit of dittos, might almost be a European, save for a certain obliqueness of the eyes and scantiness of beard. Old things pass away between a night and a morning. The Japanese boast that they have done in thirty years what it took Europe half as many centuries to accomplish. Some even go further, ami twit us Westerns with filling behind in the race. Not long ago, a Japanese pamphleteer refused to argue out a point of philsoophy with a learned German resident of Tokyo, on the score that Europeans, owing to their antiquated Christian prejudices, were not capable of discussing such matters impartially. 2 INTRODUCTORY CHAinER. Thus does it come about that, liaving arrived in Japan in 1873, ^ve ourselves feel well-nigh four hundred years old, and assume without more ado the two well-known privileges of old age, — garrulity and an authoritative air. We are perpetually being asked questions about Japan. Here then are the answers, put into the shape of a dictionary, not of words but of things, — or shall we rather say a guide-book, less to places than to subjects .■" — not an encyclopaedia, mind you, not the vain attempt by one man to treat exhaustively of all things, but only sketches of many things. The old and the new will be found cheek by jowl. What will not be found is padding; for padding is unpardonable in any book on Japan, where the material is so plentiful that the chief difficulty is to know what to omit. In order to enable the reader to supply deficiencies and to form his own opinions, if haply he should be of so unusual a turn of mind as to desire so to do, we have, at the end of almost every article, indicated the names of trustworthy works bearing on the subject treated in that article. For the rest, this book explains itself Any reader who detects errors or omissions in it will render the author an invaluable service by writing to him to point them out. As a little encouragement in this direction, we will ourselves lead the way by presuming to give each reader, especially each globe-trotting reader, a small piece of advice. We take it for granted, of course, that there are no Japanese listening, and the advice is this : — Whatever you do, don't expatiate, in the presence of Japanese of the new school, on those old, quaint, and beautiful things Japanese which rouse your most genuine admiration. Antiquated persons do doubtless exist here and there to whom Buddhist piety IXTRODUCTORY CHAPTER, is precious ; others may still secretly cherish the swords bequeathed to them by their knightly forefathers ; quite a little coterie has taken up with art ; and there are those who practise the tea ceremonies, arrange flowers according to the traditional esthetic rules, and even perform the mediaeval lyric dramas. But all this is merely a backwater. Speaking generally, the educated Japanese have done with their past. They want to be somebody else and something else than what they have been and still partly are. When Sir Edwin Arnold came to Tokyo, he was entertained at a banquet by a distinguished company including officials, journalists, and professors, in fact, representative modern Japanese of the best class. In returning thanks for this hospitality, Sir Edwin made a speech in which he lauded Japan to the skies — and lauded it justly — as the nearest earthly approach to Paradise or to Lotus-land, — so fairy-like, said he, is its scenery, so exquisite its art, so much more lovely still that almost divine sweetness of disposition, that charm of demeanour, that politeness humble without servility and elaborate without affectation, which place Japan high above all other countries in nearly all those things that make life worth living. (We do not give his exact words, but we give the general drift.) — Now, do you think that the Japanese were satisfied with this meed of praise ? Not a bit of it. Out comes an article next morning in the chief paper which had been represented at the banquet, — an article acknowledging, indeed, the truth of Sir Edwin's description, but pointing out that it conveyed, not praise, but pitiless condemnation. Art forsooth, scenery, sweetness of disposition ! cries this editor. Why did not Sir Edwin praise us for huge industrial enterprises, for commercial talent, for wealth,' political sagacity, powerful armaments ? Of course it is because 4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. he couUl not h »nestl\" cU> so. He has gauged us at our true value, and tells us in effect that we arc only pretty weaklings. Since Sir Edwin Arnold's time, doubtless, the China war has been fought and won, and has proved to an astonished world and to the Japanese themselves that they are no weaklings, but extremely plucky, practical men. Since his time, too, Japan's sunny towns and even her green valleys have been darkened by the smoke of factory chimneys, and the flag of her merchant marine has been seen in every sea. Nevertheless, the feeling above alluded to persists, and to us it appears perfectly natural under the circumstances. For, after all, Japan must continue ever more and more to modernise herself if the basis of her new departure is to remain solid, if her swiftly growing ambition is to be gratified, and if her minister of finance is to be able to make both ends meet. Besides which, our European world of thought, of enterprise, of colossal scientific achievement, has been as much a wonder-world to the Japanese as Old Japan could ever be to us. There is this difference, however. Old Japan was to us a delicate little wonder-world of sylphs and fairies. Europe and America, with their railways, their telegraphs, their gigantic commerce, their gigantic armies and navies, their endless applied arts founded on chemistry and mathematics, were to the Japanese a wonder-world of irresistible genii and magicians. The Japanese have, it is true, evinced less appreciation of our literature. They esteem us whimsical for attaching so much importance as we do to poetry, to music, to religion, to speculative disqui-sitions. Our material greatness has completely dazzled them, as well it might. They know also well enough — for every Eastern nation knows it — that our Christian and humanitarian professions are really nothing INTRODUCTORY CHAFIKK. 5' but bunkum.* The history of India, of Egypt, of Turkey, is no secret to them. More famihar still, because fought r)ut at their very gates, is the great and instructive case of the West versus China, — six or seven young tigers against one old cow. The Japanese Avould be blind indeed, tlid they not see that their best security for safety and success lies in the endeavour to be strong, and in the endeavour not to be too different from the rest of mankind ; for the mob of Western nations will tolerate eccentricity of appearance no more than will a mob of roughs. Indeed, scarcely any even among those who implore the Japanese to remain as they are, refrain, as a matter of fact, from urging them to make all sorts of changes. " Japanese dress for ladies is simply perfection," we hear one of these persons cry ; " only don't you think that gloves might be added with advantage ? And then, too, ought not something to be done with the skirt to prevent it from opening in front, just for the sake of decency, you know ? " — Says another, whose special vanity is Japanese music (there is considerable distinction about this taste, for it is a rare one) — says he — " Now please keep your music from perishing. Keep it just as it is, so curious to the archaeologist, so beautiful, for all that the jeerers may say. * It has pained the writer to find this sentjnce misinterpreted by some otherwise friendly critics of an earlier edition (the Spectator, for instance) into so shallow and arrogant an assertion as that " Christianity and humanitarianism are nothing but bun- kum." (!) What is meant is simply what is said in the tsxt, namely, that OTan^ by Rev. J. Batchelor, gives the most trustworthy general account in a popular form. See also Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. — Students are referred to the First Memoir of the Literature College of the Imperial University of Japan, by Chamberlain and Batchelor, for full details concerning Aino mythology, grammar, place-names, etc. ; to the former writer's Aino Folk-lore, in Vol. VI. Part I. of the FolU-lore Journal, and to numerous papers by Batchelor scattered through the Asiatic Transactions, etc. The same author has published an Ainu-English dictionary, and has in the press a new work on The Ainu and their Folk-lore. The Memoir above quoted gives a fairly complete bibliography of Yezo and the Ainos.— The best Japanese work on the subject is the Ezo Fuzoku Isa>i, published by the Kaitakushi in i88z. It is in twenty volumes. Amusements. 2 5 Amiuseinents. The favourite amusements of the Japanese are the ordinary theatre {shibai) ; the No theatre, (but this is attended chiefly by the aristocracy) ; wrestUng matches, — witnessing, not taking part in them ; dinners enhvened by the performances of singing and dancing-girls ; visits to temples, as much for purposes of pleasure as of devotion ; picnics to places famous for their scenery, and especially to places noted for some particular blossom, such as the plum, cherry, or wistaria. The Japanese also divert themselves by composing verses in their own language and in Chinese, and by playing chess, checkers, and various games of the " Mother Goose " description, of which sugoroku is the chief. Ever since the early days of foreign intercourse they have likewise had certain kinds of cards, of which the hana-garida, or " flower- cards," are the most popular kind, — so popular, indeed, and seductive that there is an official veto on playing the game for money. The cards are forty-eight in number, four for each month of the year, the months being distinguished by the flowers proper to them, and an extra value being attached to one out of each set of four, which is further distinguished by a bird or butterfly, and to a second which is inscribed with a line of poetry. Three people take part in the game, and there is a pool. The system of counting is rather complicated, but the ideas involved are grace- ful. There is another game of cards, in which stanzas from what are known as the " Hundred Poets " take the place of flowers. At this game no gambling is ever indulged in. It is rather an amusement for family parties, who at New Year time often sit up over it all night. Some of the above diversions are shared in by the ladies ; but take it altogether, their mode of life is much duller than that of their European sisters. Confucian ideas concerning the subjection of women still obtain to a great extent. Women are not, it is true, actually shut up, as in India ; but it is considered that their true vocation is to sit at home. Hence visiting is much less practised in Japan than with us. It is further to be observed, to the credit of the Japanese, that amusement, though permitted, is 26 Archaeology. never exalted by them to the rank of the great and serious business of life. In England — at least among the upper classes — a man's shooting, fishing, and golf, a girl's dances, garden-parties, and country-house visitings appear to be the centre round which all the family plans revolve. In Japan, on the contrary, amusements are merely picked up by the way, and are all the more appreciated.* Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, it looked as if the state of things here sketched were about to undergo considerable modifi- cation. Poker, horse-racing, even shooting and lawn-tennis, had begun to find devotees among Japanese men, while the fair sex, abandoning their own charming costume for the corsets and fur- belows of Europe, were seen boldly to join in the ball-room fray. True, as Netto wittily remarks in his Papier schmetierlmge aus yapcm, " most of them showed by the expression of their faces that they were making a sacrifice on the altar of civilisation." Happily a reaction has since supervened, elder customs and costumes have been resumed, and on the now very rare occasions when Japanese ladies enter a ball-room, it is as spectators only, and in their infinitely more attractive native garb. The sports of Japanese children include kite-flying, top-spinning, battledoor and shuttlecock, making snow men, playing with dolls, etc., etc., — in fact, most of our old nursery friends, but modified by the genius loci. The large, grotesquely coloured papier-mache dogs given to babies, often by the kennel-full, owe their origin to some idea of the dog as a faithful protector, more especially against onslaughts by evil spirits. (See also Article on Polo.) Books recommended. Ckild-Lifcin Japan, by Mrs. Chaplin-Ayrton.— C/z/Wri-wV Camcs and Sports, in Griffis' "Mikado's Empire." — ffana-awase (Japanese Cards), by the h-ite M.-ijor-General Palmer, R. E.. in Vol. XIX. Part III. of the "Asiatic Trans- actions." Archaeology. The remains of Japanese antiquity fall natural- ly into two classes, \\hich it is in most cases easy to distinguish * A critic of the first edition humorously suggested that, had the author been a merchant, he would have reversed this dictum, and have said that that which the Japanese merely picked up by the way was business ! Archaeology. 2 7 from each other. The first consists of objects connected with that earl}- race of which only a small remnant now lingers in the Ainos of Yezo, but which at one time probably occupied all the Japanese islands. The second comprises the relics of the immigrants from the neighbouring continent of Asia, whose descendants constitute the bulk of the present Japanese nation. To the former class belong various objects familiar to us in Europe, such as stone implements and weapons. Some of these are peculiar to Japan, though on the whole the resemblance to those found in more Western lands is very striking. Flint celts are perhaps the most common type ; and it is curious to note that in Japan, as in the British Isles, the popular imagination has given them the name of " thunder-bolts." Stone clubs, plain or adorned with carvings, have been found in considerable numbers. One of these, described by the late Baron Kanda, measures five feet in length and nearly five inches in diameter, and must have been a truly formidable weapon when wielded by adequate hands. There are also stone swords, pestles, daggers, and a variety of miscellane- ous objects, some of unknown use. The material of all these is polished stone. Chipped flints are not unknown, but occur chiefly in the form of arrow or spear-heads for which a high degree of workmanship was less necessary. An interesting discovery was made in 1878 by Professor IMorse near the Omori station of the Tokyo- Yokohama railway. He found that the railway cutting at this place passed through mounds identical in character with the " kitchen-middens " of Denmark, which have attracted so much attention in Europe. They con- tained shells in large quantities, fragments of broken bones, implements of stone and horn, and pottery of a special type, which differed from the ancient Japanese earthenware in being hand-made instead of turned on a wheel, and also in shape and ornamentation. Human bones were among those found, and Professor IMorse considers the way in which they had been broken to be indicative of cannibalism.* * These mounds were unfortunately cleared away several years ago. e8 Archaeology. We know from history that the ancient Japanese were to some extent pit-dwellers; but no remains of such dwellings are now known to exist. In Yezo, however, and the adjacent islands, large numbers of pits which have been used as human habitations are still to be seen. They are rectangular in shape, measuring about twenty feet by fifteen feet, and having a depth of three or four feet. In these were planted posts, over which a roofing of thatch was placed. They were probably occupied chiefly as winter habi- tations. Professor Milne thinks that they were made by a race who inhabited Yezo and the northern parts of Japan before the Ainos, and who were driven northwards by the encroachments of the latter. The present inhabitants of the Kurile Islands he believes to be their modern representatives. Both they and the ancestors of the Ainos must have had a low type of civilisation. They had no iron or even copper or bronze implements, and were probably entirely unacquainted with the art of agriculture. The early history of the continental race which has peopled Japan is wrapped in obscurity. Whence and when they came, and what was the character of their civilisation at the period of their arrival, are questions to which only the vaguest answers can be given. The earliest notices of them, in Chinese literature, date from the first and second centuries of the Christian era. It would appear that the Japanese were then a much more advanced race than the Ainos ever became. They were agriculturists, not merely hunters and fishers, and were acquainted with the arts of weaving, brewing, and the building of junks. They had a sovereign who lived in a fortified palace of some architectural pretensions, and their laws and customs are described as strict. The earlier notices speak of their having arrow-heads of bone, but two centuries later iron arrow-heads are mentioned. It is uncertain whether the Japanese brought with them from their continental home the art of working in iron and other metals. It is possible that all the metallurgical knowledge of which we find them possessed at a later period was really derived from China, and in that case there must have been an interval during which they used stone imple- Arehseology. 2^ ments; but of this we have no certain knowledge. There is Httle or no evidence of a bronze age in Japan, The archaeological remains of the ancient Japanese may be taken to date from a few centuries before the Christian era. The most remarkable of these are sepulchral monuments of their sovereigns and grandees, great numbers of which still exist every- where except in the more northern part of the Main Island. They are most numerous in the Gokinai, i.e., the five provinces near the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyoto. The plain of Kawachi, in particular, is one vast cemetery dotted over with huge tumuli. These mounds vary in shape and character. The largest are those known as misasagi, the Japanese word for the tombs of emperors, empresses, and princes of the blood. In the most ancient times, say the Japanese antiquarians, the tombs of the Mikados were simple mounds. At some unknown period, how- ever — perhaps a few centuries before the Christian era — a highly specialised form of tumulus came into use for this purpose, and continued for several hundreds of years without much change. It consists of two mounds — one conical, and the other of a triangular shape — ^merging into each other in this form (S^, the whole being surrounded by a moat, and sometimes by two concentric moats with a narrow strip of land between. The interment took place in the conical part, the other probably serving as a platform on which were performed the rites in honour of the deceased. Seen from the side, the appearance is that of a saddle-hill, the conical part being slightly higher than the other. There are sometimes two smaller mounds at the base of the larger ones, filling up the angles where they meet. The slope of the tumulus is not regular, but is broken up by terraces, on which are placed in rows, at intervals of a few inches, curious cylinders coarsely made of baked clay shaped in a mould, and measuring from one to two feet in height and from six to fourteen inches in diameter. They are buried in the earth, their upper rims being just level with the surface. The number of these cylinders is enormous, amounting in the case of some of the larger misasagi to many thousands. Their object can 30 Archaeology. scarcely yet be said io ha\"c l)cen definitely ascertained. One purpose was no doubt to prevent the earth of the mounds from being washed away by rain ; but the Japanese tradition which connects them with an ancient custom of burying alive a number of the servants of a deceased monarch in a ring around his grave, is probably founded in fact. It is related that in the 28th year of the Emperor Suinin (B.C. 2 of the popular chronology), his brother died. All his attendants were buried alive round the tumulus in a standing position. For many da}s they died not, but day and night wept and cried. The Mikado, hearing the sound of their weeping, was sad and sorry in his heart, and commanded all his ministers to devise some plan by which this custom, ancient though it was, should be discontinued for the future. Accordingly, when the Mikado himself died in A.D. 3, workers in clay were sent for to the province of Izumo, and made images of men, horses, and various other things, which were set up around the grave instead of living beings. This precedent was followed in later times, and some of the figures still exist. The Ueno Museum in Tokyo contains several specimens, and one (of a man) has been secured for the Gowland collection now in the British Museum. The cylinders above described are similar to these images in material and workmanship, and it is probable that they served as pedestals on which the images were placed, though in view of their immense number, this can hardly have been their only use. . The misasagi \ary greatly in size. One in Kozuke, measured by Sir Ernest Satow, was 36 feet in height, 372 feet long, and 284 feet broad. But this is a comparatively small one. That of the Emperor Ojin near Nara measures 2,312 yards round the outer moat, and is some 60 feet in height. The Emperor Nintoku's tomb near Sakai is still larger, and there is a tumulus in Kawachi, known as the 0-isuka, or " Big Mound," on the flank of which a good-sized village has been built. The misasagi are at present generally clothed with trees, and form a favourite nesUng resort for the paddy-bird or white egret, Archaeology. 3 1 and other birds. Of late years these interesting rehcs have been well-cared for by the Government, at least those which are re- cognised as Imperial tombs. They have been fenced round, and provided with honorary gateways. Embassies are despatched once or twice a year to worship at them. In former times, however, they were much neglected, and there is reason to fear that few have escaped desecration. A road has been run through the 7nisasagi of the Emperor Yuryaku, and on other double mounds promising cabbage plantations have been seen growing. In some, perhaps in most, cases the Jiiisasagi contains a large vault built of great unhewn stones without mortar. The walls of the vault converge gradually towards the top, which is then roofed in by enormous slabs of stone weighing many tons each. The entrance was by means of a long, low gallery, roofed with similar stones, and so constructed that its right wall is in a line with the right wall of the vault. During the later period of mound- building, the entrance to this gallery always faced south, — a practice which had its origin in the Chinese notion that the north is the most honourable quarter, and that the deceased should therefore occupy that position in relation to the worshippers. Sarcophagi of stone and pottery have been found in some of the misasagi. 'j Nobles and high officials were buried in simple conical mountls ten or fifteen feet high, containing a vault similar to those above described, but of smaller dimensions. An average specimen of a group of thirty or forty situated near the western shore of Lake Biwa, a few miles north of the town of Otsu, measured as follows : — CHAMBER. Length — from 11 feet 8 inches below to 10 feet above. Breadth — from 6 feet 6 inches below to 4 feet at top. Height — 8 feet 9 inches. G.VLLERY. Breadth — 2 feet 9 inches. 32 Archaeology. Height — 4 feet. Length — lo feet. The roof of the chamber consisted in this instance of three large stones. These tombs sometimes stand singly, bat are more commonly found in groups of ten to forty or fifty. The lower slope of a hill, just where it touches the plain, is a favourite position for them. When the earth of these mounds has been washed away, so that the massive blocks of stone which form the roof protrude from the surface, they present a striking resemblance to the dolmens of Europe, and more especially to those megalithic monuments known in France as allks couvertes. The peasantry call them iwa-ya, or " rock-houses," and imagine that they were the dwellings of their remote ancestors, or that they were used as refuges from a fiery rain which fell in ancient times. They are little cared for by the Japanese, and in too many cases have been used as quarries for the building materials which they contain. Nearly all have been rifled at some period or other. During the eighth century of the Christian era, this style of sepulture fell gradually into disuse under the influence of Buddhist ideas. In the eyes of a Buddhist, vast costly structures were not only a burden to the people, but were objectionable as tending to foster false notions of the real value of these mortal frames of ours. Many of the Mikados were earnest devotees of Buddhism. Begin- ning with Gemmyo Tenn5 in A.D, 715, a long series of them abdicated the throne in order to spend the remainder of their lives in pious seclusion. In several cases, by their express desire, no misasagi were erected over their remains, and some even directed that their bodies should be cremated and the ashes scattered to the winds. It is remarkable that no inscriptions should be found in con- nection with the tombs of this period, although the Japanese became acquainted with Chinese writing early in the fifth century, if not sooner. The tombs have, however, yielded a large quantity of objects of antiquarian interest. Among these, pottery perhaps Archaeology. 33 stands first. The clay cylinders, the figures of men and horses, and earthenware sarcophagi have been already noticed ; but numer- ous vases, pots, dishes, and other utensils have also been found. They are usually turned on a wheel ; but there is no trace of glaze or colouring, and they are of rather rude workmanship. The ornamentation is simple, consisting of wavy lines round the vessel, — similar to those seen round Egyptian water-bottles at the present day, — of circular grooves, or of parallel scorings, all made with a wooden comb or pointed stick when the clay was in a wet state. Many have " mat-markings," and the interior of the larger articles is usually adorned with a pattern known as the " Korean w'heel."' This consists of discs containing a number of concentric circles overlapping one another. They were produced by a wooden stamp one or tw^o inches in diameter, and the object may have been to render the clay less liable to crack in baking. A stamp of this kind is actually used in Korea at the present time. Fragments of pottery with this mark may always be found in the \icinity of a Japanese dolmen. There are vases of a more pretentious character, having groups of rude figures round the upper part, and pedestals pierced with curious triangular openings. These were probably sacrificial vases. The Japanese potter}- of this period is identical in shape, pattern, and material with the more ancient earthenware of Korea, from which country there is no doubt that the ceramic art of Japan was derived. Representative examples of it may be seen in the Gowland collection in the British Museum ; the Ueno Museum in Tokyo is rich in fine specimens. Other antiquarian objects of this period are iron swords (straight and one-edged), iron spear-heads, articles of armour often adorned with gold and silver, mirrors of a mixed metal, horse-gear, — such as stirrups, bits, etc., — ornaments, among which are thick rings of gold, silver, or bronze, besides glass beads, etc. All these are of good workmanship, and it is probable that some of the articles are of Chinese origin. The maga-lama, or comma-shaped ornaments made of stone, probably belong to a very earlv period of Japanese history. They 34 Architecture. iormed pari, no doubt, of the necklaces of polished stone and clay beads which we know to have been worn by Japanese sovereigns and nobles in ancient times. Books recommended. Dolmens and Burial Mounds in Japan^ by Wm. Gowland, publisheil by the Society of Antiquaries (London). See also papers by Romyn Hitchcock, published by the Smithsonian Institution, and others by Prof. E. Morse (in the Memoirs of the Science Ve/>art>nent of t lie University of Takyi>) and by Sir Ernest Satow (in the " Asiatic Transactions "). Aston's annotated translation of the Nihongi, published by the Japan Society in 1896, is a mine of information on prehistoric and proto-historicjapan. The greatest native archa;ologist of the old school was Ninagawa, who died several years ago. Of living archaeologists who have formed themselves on European critical methods, the most eminent is Professor S. Tsuboi. Architecture. The Japanese genius touches perfection in small things. No other nation ever understood half so well how to make a cup, a tray, even a kettle a thing of beauty, how to trans- form a little knob of ivory into a microcosm of quaint humour, how tc) express a fugitive thought in half-a-dozen dashes of the pencil. The massive, the spacious, the grand, is less congenial to their mental attitude. Hence they achieve less success in architec- ture than in the other arts. The prospect of a Japanese city from a height is monotonous. Not a tower, not a dome, not a minaret, nothing aspiring heavenward, save in rare cases a painted pagoda half-hidden amidst the trees which it barely tops, — nothing but long, low lines of thatch and tiles, even the Buddhist temple roofs being but moderately raised above the rest, and even their curves being only quaint and graceful, nowise imposing. It was a true instinct that led Professor Morse to give to his charming mono- graph on Japanese architectute the title of Japanese Homes, the interest of Japanese buildings lying less in the buildings themselves than in the neat domestic ways of their denizens, and in the delightful little bits of ornamentation that meet one at every turn, — the elaborate m.etal fastenings, the carved friezes (ramma), the screens both sliding and folding, the curiously ornamental tiles, the dainty gardens with their dwarfed trees. What is true of the dwelling-houses is true of the temples also. Nikko and Shiba are glorious, not as architecture (in the sense in which we Europeans, the inheritors of the Parthenon, of the Doges' Palace, and of Architecture. 35 Salisbury Cathedral, understand the word architecture), but for the elaborate geometrical figures, the bright flowers and binls and fabulous beasts, with which the sculptor and painter of wood has so lavishly adorned them. The ordinary Japanese house is a light frame-work structure, whose thatched, shingled, or tiled roof, very heavy in proportion, is supported on stones with slighdy hollowed tops resting on the surface of the soil. There is no foundation, as that word is under- stood by our architects. The house stands on the ground, not partly z>/ it. Singularity number two : there are no walls — at least no continuous walls. The side of the house, composed at night ■of wooden sliding doors called amado, is stowed away in boxes during the day-time. In summer, everything is thus open to the outside air. In winter, semi-transparent paper slides, called shbji, replace the wooden sliding doors during the day-time. The rooms are divided from each other by opaque paper screens, called fusuma or karakami, which run in grooves at the top and bottom. By taking out these sliding screens, several rooms can be turned into one. The floor of all the living-rooms is covered with thick mats, made of rushes and perfectly fitted together, so as to leave no interstices. As these mats are always of the same size, — six feet by three, — it is usual to compute the area of a room by the number of its mats. Thus you speak of a six mat room, a ten mat room, etc. In the dwellings of the middle classes, rooms of eight, of six, and of four and a half mats are those oftenest met with. The kitchen and passages are not matted, but have a wooden floor, which is kept brightly polished. But the passages are few in a Japanese house, each room opening as a rule into the others on either side. When a house has a second storey, this generally covers but a portion of the ground floor. The steps leading up to it resemble a ladder rather than a staircase. The best rooms in a Japanese house are almost invariably at the back, where also is the garden ; and they face south, so as to escape the northern blast in winter and to get the benefit of the breeze in summer, which then always 36 Architecture. blows from the scnilli. 'i'hcv gcnerall}' have a recess or alcove, ornamented with a painted or written scroll {kakefiiono) and a vase of flowers. Furniture is conspicuous by its absence. There are no tables, no chairs, no wash-hand-stands, no pianoforte, — -none of all those thousand and one things which we cannot do without. The necessity for bedsteads is obviated by quilts, which are brought in at night and laid down wherever may happen to be most convenient. No mahogany dining-table is requireil in a family where each member is served separately on a little lacquer tray. Cupboards are, for the most part, openings in the wall, screened in by small paper slides, — not separate, movable entities. Whatever treasures the family may possess are mostly stowed in an adjacent building, known in the local English dialect as a "godown," that is, a fire-proof storehouse with walls of mutl or clay.* These details will probably suggest a very uncomfortable sum total ; and Japanese houses are supremely uncomfortable to ninety- nine Europeans out of a hundred. Nothing to sit on, nothing but a brazier to warm oneself by and yet abundant danger of fire, no solidity, no privacy, the deafening clatter twice daily of the opening and shutting of the outer wooden slides, draughts insidiously pouring in through innumerable chinks and crannies, darkness whenever heavy rain makes it necessary to shut up one or more sides of the house, — to these and various other enormities Japanese houses must plead guilty. Two things, chiefly, may be said on the other side. First, these houses are cheap,- — an essential point in a poor country. Secondly, the people who live in them do not share our European ideas with regard to comfort and discomfort. They do not miss fire-places or stoves, never having realised the possibility of such elaborate arrangements for heating. They do not mind draughts, having been inured to them from infancy. In fact an elderly diplomat, who, during his sojourn in a Japanese * "Godown" {■pronoimced go-down, not ^,7rf-oz£/«) seems to be a 'IVlugii or 'Jamil word, which passed first into Malay, and was adopted thence into Asiatic English. See that most deh'ght'ul of dictionaries. Yule's Holson-Jobson. Architecture. 37 hotel, spent well-nigh his whole time in the vain endeavour to keep doors shut and chinks patched up, used to exclaim to us, ^^ Mais les yaponais adorent /e's courants d ' air I " Furthermore, the physicians who have studied Japanese dwelling-houses from the point of view of hygiene, give them a clean bill of health. Leaving this portion of the subject, which is a matter of taste, not of argument, let us enquire into the origin of Japanese architec- ture, which is a matter of research. Its origin is twofold. The Japanese Buddhist temple comes from India, being a modification, of the Indian original. The other Japanese styles are of native growth. Shinto temples, Imperial palaces, and commoners' dwell- ing-houses are alike developments of the simple hut of prehistoric times. Persons interested in archaeological research may like to hear what Sir Ernest Satow has to say on the little-known subject of primeval Japanese architecture. He writes as follows* : — "Japanese antiquarians tell us that in early times, before carpenter's tools had been invented, the dwellings of the people who inhabited these islands were constructed of young trees with the bark on, fastened together with ropes made of the rush suge {Scirpus 7)iarilimus), or perhaps with the tough shoots of wistaria (fiiji), and thatched with the grass called haya. In modern buildings the uprights of a house stand upon large stones laid on the surface of the earth ; but this precaution against decay had not occurred to the ancients, who planted the uprights in holes dug in the ground, " The ground plan of the hut was oblong, with four corner up- rights, and one in the middle of each of the four sides, those in the sides which formed the ends being long enough to support the ridge-pole. Other trees were fastened horizontally from corner to corner, one set near the ground, one near the top, and one set on the top, the latter of which formed what we call the wall-plates. Two large rafters, whose upper ends crossed each other, were laid * We quote from a paper entitled The Shinto Temples of he, printed in Vol. II. of the " Asiatic Transactions." 33 Architecture. from the wall-plalcs lo the heads of the taller uprights. The ridge- pole rested in the fork formed by the upper ends of the rafters crossing each other. Horizontal poles were then laid along each slope of the roof, one pair being fastened close up to the exterior angles of the fork. The rafters were slender poles or bamboos passed over the ridge-pole and fastened down on each end to the wall-plates. Next followed the process of putting on .the thatch. In order to keep this in its place two trees were laid along the top, resting in the forks, and across these two trees were placed short logs at equal distances, which, being fastened to the poles in the exterior angle of the forks by ropes passed through the thatch, bound the ridge of the roof firmly together. " The walls and doors were constructed of rough matting. It is evident that some tool must have been used to cut the trees to the required length, antl for this purpose a sharpened stone was probably employed. Such stone implements have been found imbedded in the earth in various parts of Japan in company with stone arrow-heads and clubs. Specimens of the ancient style of building may even yet be seen in remote parts of the country, not perhaps so much in the habitations of the peasantry, as in sheds erected to serve a temporary purpose. " The architecture of the Shinto temples is derived from the primeval hut, with more or less modification in proportion to the influence of Buddhism in each particular case. Those of the purest style retain the thatched roof, others are covered with the thick shingling called hiivada-buki, while others have tiled and even coppered roofs. The projecting ends of the rafters (called chigi) have been somewhat lengthened, and carved more or less elab- orately. At the new temple at Kudanzaka,* in Yedo, they are shown in the proper position, projecting from the inside of the shingling; but in the majority of cases they merely consist of two pieces of wood in the form of the letter X, which rest on the ridge * Commonly known as the Shokonsha. See Murray's Handbook /or Japan, 6th edition, p. 123. Architecture. 39 of the roof like a pack-saddle on a horse's back, — to make use of a Japanese writer's comparison. The logs which kept the two trees laid on the ridge in their place have taken the form of short cylindrical pieces of timber tapering towards each extremity, which have been compared by foreigners to cigars. In Japanese they are called kalsuo-gi, from their resemblance to the pieces of dried bonito sold under the name of kaisiio-bushi. The two trees laid along the roof over the thatch are represented by a single beam, called miina-osae, or ' roof-presser.' Planking has taken the place of the mats with which the sides of the building were originally closed, and the entrance is closed by a pair of folding doors turning, not on hinges, but on what are, I believe, technically called 'journals.' The primeval hut had no flooring; but we find that the shrine has a wooden floor raised some feet above the ground, which arrangement necessitates a sort of balcony all round, and a flight of steps up to the entrance. The transfor- mation is completed in some cases by the addition of a quantity of ornamental metal-work in brass." The same authority's account of the palaces of early days is as follows :* " The palace of the Japanese sovereign was a wooden hut, with its pillars planted in the ground, instead of being erected upon broad flat stones as in modern buildings. The whole frame- work, consisting of posts, beams, rafters, door-posts, and window- frames, was tied together with cords made by twisting the long fibrous stems of climbing plants, such as Pneraria ihunhcrgiana (kiizii) antl Wistaria sinensis < fuji). The floor must have been low down, so that the occupants of the building, as they squatted or lay on their mats, were exposed to the stealthy attacks of venomous snakes, which were probably fir more numerous in the earliest ages, when the country was for the most part uncultivated, than at the present day There seems some reason to think that the yiika, here translated floor, was originally nothing but a * See an elaborate paper on Ancient yapancsc Rituals, in Vol. XT. P.Trt II. of the ' Asiatic Transactions." 40 Architecture. couch which ran round the sides of the hut, the rest of the space being simply a mud-floor, and that the size of the couch was gradually increased until it occupied the whole interior. The rafters projected upward beyond the ridge-pole, crossing each other, as is seen in the roofs of modern Shinto temples, whether their architecture be in conformity with early traditions (in which case all the rafters are so crossed) or modified in accordance with more advanced principles of construction, and the crossed rafters retained only as ornaments at the two ends of the ridge. The roof was thatched, and perhaps had a gable at each end, with a hole to allow the smoke of the wood-fire to escape, so that it was possible for birds flying in and perching on the beams overhead, to defile the food, or the fire with which it was cooked." To this description of Sir Ernest Satow's, it should be added that fences were in use, and that the wooden doors, sometimes fastened by means of hooks, resembled those with which we are familiar in Europe rather than the sliding, screen-like doors of modern Japan. The windows seem to have been mere holes. Rush-matting and rugs consisting of skins were occasionally brought in to sit upon, and we even hear once or twice of "silk rugs '■■ being used for the same purpose by the noble and wealthy. Since 1870, the Japanese have begun to exchange their own methods of building for what is locally termed "foreign style," doubtless, as a former resident* has wittily observed, because foreign to all known styles of architecture. This " foreign style " is indeed not one, but multiform. There is the rabbit-warren style, exemplified in the streets at the back of the Ginza in Tokyo. There is the wooden shanty or bathing-machine style, of which the capital offers a wealth of examples. There is the cruet-stand style, so strikingly exemplified in the new Tokyo Prefecture. The Brobdingnaggian pigeon-house style is represented here and there both in wood and stone. Its chief feature is having no window^s, — at least, none to speak of After all, these things are * Mr. K. (j. Holtham, in his I'Jght Years in Japan. Armour, 4 1 Japan's misfortune, nut her fault. She discovered Europe, archi- tecturally speaking, at the wrong moment. We cannot with any grace blame a nation whom we have ourselves misled. If Japan's contemporary efforts in architecture are worse even than ours, it is chiefly because her people have less money to dispose of Books recommended. Japanese Homes ^ by Prof. E. S, Morse. — Dotnestic Architec- ture in Japan 1 and Further Notes on Japanese Architecture, by Josiah Conder, F.R.I.B.A., printed in the " Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects," 1886-7. Both the above authors have illustrated their works profusely, Prof. Morse giving representations, not only of architectural details proper, but of all the fittings and domestic articles of a middle-class Japanese household. Mr. Conder gives drawings of temples and palaces. — Tlie Feudal Mansions of Yedo, by T. R. H. McClatchie, in Vol. VII. Part III. of the "Asiatic Transactions." This is a full description of the ancient yashiki, or Daimyos' residences. — For what the doctors have to say about Japanese houses from a sanitary point of view, see Drs. Seymour and Baelz, in Vol. XVII. Part II., pp. 17-21, of the "Asiatic Transactions." — There are other papers by Messrs McClatchie, Brunton, and Cawley, more or less concerned with Japanese architecture, scattered through the publications of the same Society. Armour. Japanese armour might serve as a text for those authors who love to discourse on the unchanging character of the East. Our own Middle Ages witnessed revolutions in the style of armour as complete as any that have taken place in the Paris fashions during the last three hundred years. In Japan, on the contrary, from the beginning of true feudalism in the twelfth century down to its extinction in 1871, there was scarcely any change. The older specimens are rather the better, rather the more complete ; the newer are often rather heavier, owing to the use of a greater number of plates and scales ; that is all. It is true that in quite old times Japanese armour was still imperfect. Cloth and the hides of animals seem to have been the materials then employed. But metal armour had already established itself in general use by the eighth century of our era. The weapons, too, then known were the same as a millennium later, with the exception of fire-arms, which began to creep in during the sixteenth century in the wake of intercourse with the early Portuguese adventurers. Those who are interested in the subject, either theoretically or as purchasers of suits of armour brought to them by curio-vendors, will find a full description in the second 41 Army. part of Conder's Hisloiy of Japanese Coslume, printed in Vol. IX. Part III. of the " Asiatic Transactions." They can there read to their hearts' content about corselets, taces, greaves, mamelieres, brassarts, and many other deep matters not known to the vulgar. Army. For many centuries — say from A.D. 1200 to 1867 — " soldier " and " gentleman " (Samurai) were convertible terms. The IVIikado and his Court, in their sacred retreat at Kyoto, were, it is true, removed by custom from all participation in martial deeds. At the other end of the scale, the peasantry were likewise excluded. But for the intermediate class, — ^the gentry, — to fight was not only a duty but a pleasure, in a state of society w^here the security of feudal possessions depended on the strong arm of the baron himself and of his trusty lieges. This was the order of things down to A.D. 1600. Thenceforward, though peace reigned for two and a half centuries under the vigorous administration of the Tokugawa Shoguns, all the military forms of an elder day were kept up. They were suddenly shivered into atoms at the beginning of the present Emperor's reign (A.D. 1868), when military advisers were called in from France, the continental system of universal conscription was introduced, and uniforms of modern cut replaced the picturesque but cumbersome trappings of the old Japanese knight. The Japanese soldier's baptism of fire was in the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion in 1S77. He won his spurs brilliantly in the China war of 1894-5, compelling the astonished admiration of all foreign experts. Specially thorough and satisfactory was the organisation of the commissariat department, which, in so rigorous a climate and so poor a country, bore the brunt of the under- taking. As the ill-led, unfed, and constitutionally unwarlike Chinamen mostly ran away, Japanese pluck scarcely met with full opportunity for showing itself. Nevertheless, the battle of Pingyang on the 15th September, 1894, the subsequent march through Manchuria, and the taking of Port Arthur in November of the same year, are exploits that will not soon be forgotten. Army. 43^ More recently, in 1900, the Japanese contingent, by common consent, bore away the palm from the allied forces which relieved Peking : — they marched fastest, they fought best, they were most amenable to discipline, they behaved most humanely towards the conquered. It were probably no exaggeration to assert that Japan now disposes of the best army in the world, for its size. I'his fact— assuming it to be a fact — is the more remarkable, because the Japanese army is (if we may use the phrase) anonymous. No world-famed specialist — no Frederick, no Napoleon — con- structed the splendid machine. It has been built up by men little heard of beyond a narrow circle, — a few French employes afterwards supplemented by a few Germans and one or two Itahans, and by natives possessed, so far as we know, of neither genius nor wide experience. Nevertheless, some good fairy has presided over all their acts. Of course it must be allowed that the material they have had to work upon is good, — ^a good average physically, and far above the average for morale, and this at the very moment when a concatenation of historical and social causes had lifted patriotism and loyalty into the position of the dominant national virtue, in fact the sole national ideal. The published statistics of the forces — even the very latest — are useless, partly because the authorities keep precise details of the fighting strength and more particularly of the possibilities of mobilisation secret, partly because the army is undergoing a process of expansion which will not be completed until the year 1902. In fact, it will not be completed till 191 1, if we take into account the necessarily slow accumulation of the Reserves. We have, however, reason to believe that when the contemplated changes shall have been effected, the following figures will not be far from the mark, in any case not above the mark : — Men with the colours (ist to 3rd year) .... 150,000 First Reserve (4th to 7th year) 1 50,000 Second Reserve (Sth to 12th year) 150,000 Total -....., 450,000 44 Army. of whom between 8,000 and 9,000 officers. These are admitted partly by competition, partly after graduation at any of the middle schools. Exclusive of the Imperial Guard, there will be twelve divisions with headquarters at Tokyo, Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Sapporo (this division will absorb the present Tondai Hei, or " military colonists " of Yezo), Hirosaki, Kanazawa, Fukuchiyama, Marugame, and Kokura. Three brigades — say 7,500 men — are detached for service in Formosa. The cavalry has always been the weakest branch of the Japanese army, owing to the absence of good horses. As at present fixed, there is one regiment (three squadrons) of cavalry per division, — eventual total, 39 squadrons, — besides two indepen- dent brigades (probably 12 additional squadrons) in process of formation, with headquarters at Tokyo. The artillery (field) consists of six batteries per division and two independent artillery brigades (probably 12 additional batteries) in process of formation, with headquarters at Tokyo. Both artillery and infantry are being armed with new weapons, — the former with the " Arisaka " gun, of which large numbers have been made in France .and Germany and some in Japan, the latter with what is called the " 30th year " rifle.* This weapon is a modification of the " Murata " rifle. Its chief distinctive feature is that five cartridges are loaded simultaneously in a clip. The programme here briefly summarised includes the expendi- ture of vast sums on the construction of forts, barracks, and arsenals. Quantities of fire-arms, ordnance, and ammunition are manufactured at TokyS and Osaka. Japanese uniforms follow European models in all essentials, except for the use of straw sandals on active service instead of boots which the men dislike. In accordance with European precedents, the Emperor has assumed the supreme command. During the first China war, two of the Princes, his kinsmen, were in actual command in the field, * So call'jd from the 30th year of the period Meiji, that is, 1897 (see Article on Time). Arisaka and Murata are the names of Japanese officers, who invented the weapons called after them. The Murata rifle, now superseded, dates from 1883. Army. 45 — a duty which would now probably devolve on Marquis Oyama, the present chief of the staff. This steeping of the reigning family in militarism appeared quite revolutionary at the period when it was first decided on. As late as 1887, when Herr von Mohl, a high Prussian official, came over to help in the reorganisation of the Court on German lines, even a step apparently so natural as the appointment of aides-de-camp to His Imperial Majesty met with stout opposition. For the old Court life of Japan, its personnel, its ceremonial, and all its habits, were based on those of China, where, as is well-known, the soldiery have ever been regarded as a sort of pariah class, — desperadoes, ne'er- do-weels, ranking nowhere because leading a life deemed barba- rous and degrading, fellows in fact whom it would be desecration to place near the person of the heaven-descended monarch. True, the Daimyos and Samurai, with the Shogun at their head, were, or had been, fighting men : — that was an element of contradiction in the structure of Japanese society, which did not exist in China. But though the Daimyos and Samurai stood high in their own estimation and practically lorded it over the land, they never rose to social equality with the meanest hanger- on of the Mikado's Court ; and if any of them obtained ofiice there, it was in a civil capacity. How times have changed, and how swiftly ! To return from this digression, the men of the Japanese army, as already incidentally remarked, are raised by conscription. When the system was first introduced, numerous exceptions were allowed ; but now the application of the law is stringent, no excuse other than physical unfitness being entertained. The limit of height is 5 Japanese ft., that is, about 4ft. n^in. English; the age for entering is twenty. Every male between the ages of seventeen and forty belongs ipso faclo to the " national army "' (Jandsiurni), and is liable to be called out in case of emergenc}'. This " national army " therefore includes, in addition to the untrained mass, that large body of men who have passed out of the Second Reserve fullv trained. 46 Art. The new-comer may smile to sec two or three Japanese soldiers strolling along hand in hand, as if they were Dresden shepherdesses. What would he have said if present at last year's China campaign, when private soldiers on the march, or even during a pause in an actual battle, would take fans out of their gaiters and begin to fan themselves ? But after all, why not .•* There is no effeminacy here, only common sense, — and coolness in both meanings of the term. It is extraordinary into what minutiae the Government has gone in its determination to foster the military spirit and raise the army to the highest point of perfection.- Even books of war-songs have been officially composed and included in the course of instrucdon. The result, it must be confessed, has not been the production of poems of any very high order of merit. What cannot fail to elicit our admiration is the manner in which the company drill imposed on all government schools and adopted in most private schools as well, has been responded to by the scholars. Even litde mites of boys bear the flag stoutly, march miles in the blazing sun, and altogether carry themselves so as to show that an enemy attempting to land on these shores must count, not only with every able-botlied man, but with every child throughout the empire. Art. The beginnings of Japanese art, as of almost all things Japanese excepting cleanliness, can be traced to China through Korea. Even after Japanese art had started on its independent career, it refreshed its inspiration from time to time by a careful study an-d imitation of Chinese models ; and Chinese ittasterpieces still occupy in the estimate of Japanese connoisseurs a place only hesitatingly allowed to the best native works. Even Chinese subjects preponderate in the classical schools of Japan. Speaking of the productions of the classical Japanese painters. Dr. Anderson says : " It may safely be asserted that not one in twenty of the productions of these painters, who to the present day are con- sidered to represent the true genius of Japanese art, was inspired Art. 47 by the works of nature as seen in their cjwn beautiful country." Whatever Indian, Persian, or Greek strain may be detected in Japan came through Korea and China in the wake of Buddhism, and is accordingly far less marked — if marked at all — in genuinely native Japanese paintings and carvings than in those archaic remains which, though often inaccurately spoken of as Japanese, were really the handiwork of Korean or Chinese artists or of their immediate pupils. The most ancient painting now existing in Japan is a Buddhist mural decoration in the temple of Horyuji near Nara, believed to date from A.D. 607 and to be the work of a Korean priest. For more than two centuries longer, art remained chietly in Korean and Chinese priestly hands. The first native painter of eminence was Kose-no-Kanaoka, a Court noble who flourished from about A.D. 850 to 8S0, but scarcely any of whose works remain. That the art of painting, especially on screens, was assiduously cultivated at the Japanese Court during the ninth and tenth centuries, is proved by numerous references in literature. But it was not till about the year 1000 that the Yamaio Ryu (lit. " Japanese School " ), the first concerning which we have much positive knowledge, was established by an artist named IMotomitsu. This school contained within itself the seed of most of the pecu- liarities that have characterised Japanese art ever since, with its neglect of perspective, its impossible mountains, its t}uaint dissection of roofless interiors, its spirited burlesques of solemn processions, wherein frogs, insects, or hobgoblins take the place of men. In the thirteenth century this school assumed the name of the Ti)sa Ryu, and confined itself thenceforward more and more to classical subjects. Its former humorous strain had been caught as early as the twelfth century by Toba Sojo, a rollicking priest, who, about A.D. 1 160, distinguished himself by drawings coarse in both senses of the word, but full of verve and drollery. These are the so-called Toba-e. Toba Sojo founded a school. To found a school was dc n'gueur in Old Japan, where originality was so little understood that it was supposed that any eminent man's 48 Art. descendants or pupils, to the twentieth generation, ought to be able to do the same sort of work as their ancestor had done. But none of the jovial abbot's followers are worthy of mention alongside of him. The fifteenth centur}' witnessed a powerful renaissance of Chinese influence, and was the most glorious period of Japanese painting. It is a strange coincidence that Italian painting should then also have been at its zenith. But it is apparently a coinci- dence only, there being no fact to warrant us in assuming any influence of the one on the other. The most famous names are those of the Buddhist priests Ch5 Densu and Josetsu. Cho Densu, the Fra Angelico of Japan, restricted himself to religious subjects, while Josetsu painted landscapes, figures, flowers, and birds. Both these great artists died early in the century. They were succeeded by Mitsunobu, the best painter of the Tosa School, and by Sesshu, Shubun, and Kano Masanobu, all of whom were founders of independent schools. The first Kano's son, Kano Motonobu, was more eminent than his father. He handed down the tradition to his own sons and grandsons, and the Kano school continues to be, even at the present day, the chief stronghold of classicism in Japan. By " classicism " we mean partly a peculiar technique, partly an adherence to Chinese methods, models, and subjects, such as portraits of Chinese sages and delineations of Chinese landscapes, which are represented of course not from nature but at second-hand. The synthetic power, the quiet harmonious colouring, and the free vigorous touch of these Japanese " old masters " have jusdy excited the admiration of succeeding generations of their country- men. But the circle of ideas within which the Sesshus, the Shubuns, the Kanos, and the other classical Japanese painters move, is too narrow and peculiar for their productions to be ever likely to gain much hold on the esteem of Europe. European collectors — such men as Gonse, for instance — have been looked down on by certain enthusiasts in Japan for the preference which they evince for Hokusai and the modern Popular School Art. 49 {Ukiyo-e Ryu) generally. It is very bold of us to venture to express an opinion on such a matter ; but we think that the instinct which led Gonsc and others to Hokusai led them aright,— that Japanese art was itself led to Hokusai by a legitimate and most fortunate process of development, that it was led out of the close atmosphere of academical conventionality into the fresh air of heaven. To say this is not necessarily to deny to the old masters superiority of another order. Cho Densu manifests a spirituality, Sesshu a genius for idealising Chinese scenes, Kano lan-yu a power to evoke beauty out of a few chaotic blotches, all these and scores of their followers a certain aristocratic distinction, to which the members of the Popular School can lay no claim. Grant the ideals of old Japan, grant Buddhism and Chinese conventions, and you must grant the claims of the worshippers of the old masters. But the world does not grant these things. Chinese history and conventions, even Buddhism itself, lie outside the main current of the world's development, whereas the motives and manner of the Popular School appeal to all times and places. Hence, the world being large and Japan being small, and influence on civilisation in general being more important than an isolated perfection incapable of transformation or assimilation, there can be little doubt that the Popular School will retain its exceptional place. in European favour. The beginning of the movement may be traced as far back as the end of the sixteenth century in the person of Iwasa Matahei, originally a pupil of the Tosa school and originator of the droll sketches known as Otsu-e. But a whole centurv elapsed before Hishigawa Moronobu began to devote himself to the illustration of books in colours and in popular realistic style. Then, towards the close of the eighteenth century, came Okyo, the founder of the style known as the Shijb Ryu, from the street in Kyoto where the master resided. Okyo made a genuine effort to copy nature, instead of only talking about doing so, as had been the habit of the older schools. His astonishingly correct representations of fowls 50 Art. and fishes, his pupil Sosen's portraitures of monkeys, and other striking triumphs of detail were the result. But none of the mem- bers of Okyo's school succeeded in disembarrassing themselves altogether from the immemorial conventionalities of their nation, when combining various details into a larger composition. Their naturalism, however, gave an immense impulse to the popularisa- tion of art. A whole cloud of artisan-artists arose, — no longer the representatives of privileged ancient families, but commoners who drew pictures of the life around theni to suit the genuine taste of the public of their own time and class. Art was released from its medieval Chinese swaddling-clothes, and allowed to mix in the society of living men and women. And what a quaint, picturesque, society it was, — -that of the time, say, between 1750 and 1850,: — the " Old Japan " which all now know and appreciate, because the works of the Artisan School have carried its fame round the world ! The king of the artisan workers was he whom we call Hokusai, though his real original name was Nakajima Tetsujiro, and his pseudonyms were legion. During the course of an unusually long life (i 760-1 849), this man, whose only possessions were his brush and his palette, poured forth a continuous stream of novel and vigorous creations in the form of illustrations to boolcs and of separate coloured sheets, — illustrations and sheets which included, as Anderson justly says, "the whole range of Japanese art-motives, scenes of history, drama, and novel, incidents in the daily life of his own class, realisations of familiar objects of animal and vegetable life, wonderful suggestions of the scenery of his beloved Yedo and its surroundings, and a hundred other inspirations that would require a volume to describe." Contemporary workers in the art of colour-printing were Toyokuni, Kunisada, Shigenobu, Hiroshige, and others in plenty. Then, in 1853, four years after Hokusai's death, came Commodore Perry, the mere threat of whose cannon shivered the old civilisation of Japan into fragments. Japanese art perished. Kyosai, who survived till 1889, was its last genuine representative in an uncongenial age. His favourite subjects had a certain grim appropriateness : — they were ghosts and Art. 51 skeletons. Charity compels us to draw a veil over the productions of many so-called painters, which, during the last fifteen years or so, have encumbered the shop-windows of Tokyo and disfigured the walls of exhibitions got up in imitation of European usage. They seem to be manufactured by the gross. If not worth much, there are at least plenty of them. Japanese art is distinguished by directness, facility, and strength of line, a sort of bold dash due probably to the habit of writing and drawing from the elbow, not from the wrist. This, so to say, calligraphic quality is what gives a charm to the merest rough Japanese sketch. It has been well remarked that if a Japanese artist's work be carried no further even than the outlines, you will still have something worthy of being hung on your wall or inserted in your album. Japanese art disregards the laws of perspective and of light and shadow. Though sometimes faultlessly accurate in natural details, it scorns to be tied down to such accuracy as to an ever-binding rule. Even in the same picture — say, one of a bird perched on a tree — you may have the bird exact in every detail, the tree a sort of conventional shorthand symbol. Or you may have a bamboo which is perfection, but part of it blurred by an artificial atmosphere which no meteorological eccentricity could place where the painter has placed it ; or else two sea-coasts one above another,- — each beautiful and poetical, only how in the world could they have got into such a relative position .^ The Japanese artist does not trouble his head about such matters. He is, in his limited way, a poet, not a photographer. Our painters of the impressionist school undertake less to paint actual scenes than to render their own feelings in presence of such scenes. The Japanese artist goes a step further : he paints the feelings evoked by the memory of the scenes, the feelings when one is between waking and dreaming. He is altogether an idealist, and this at both ends of the scale, the beautiful and the grotesque. Were h3 able to work on a large canvas, a very great ideal art might have been the result. But in art, as in literature, his nation seems lacking in the genius, the brea Ith of view, necessary for making 52 Art. grand combinations. It stops at the small, the pretty, the isolated,. the vignette. Hence the admirable adaptability of Japanese art to decorative purposes. In decoration, too, some of its more obvious defects retire into the background. Who would look on the side of a teapot for a rigid observance of perspective ? Still less in miniature ivory carvings such as the ?telsiikcs, in the ornaments of sword-guards, the bas-reliefs on bronze vases, and the patterns in pieces (and many of them are masterpieces) of embroidery. As decoration for small surfaces, Japanese art has already begun to conquer the world. In the days before Japanese ideas became known to Europe, people there used to consider it essential to have the patterns on plates, cushions, and what not, arranged with geometrical accuracy. If on the right hand there was a cupid looking to the left, then on the left hand there must be a cupid of exactly the same size looking to the right, and the chief feature of the design was invariably in the exact centre. The Japanese artisan-artists have shown us that this mechanical symmetry does not make for beaut}'. They have taught us the charm of irregular- ity ; and if the world owe them but this one lesson, Japan may yet be proud of what she has accomplished. There exists, it is true, nowadays a small band of foreign enthusiasts, who deny that the art of Japan is thus limited in its scope, and decorative rather than representative. Having studied it with greater zeal and profit than they have studied European art, the}' go so far as to put Japanese art on a level with that of Greece and Italy. These enthusiasts have performed and are still per- forming a useful function. They are disseminating a knowledge of Japanese art abroad, disseminating it, too, in Japan itself, where it had been suffered to fall into neglect. But their cult of Japanese art partakes of the nature of a religious faith, and like other religionists, they are apt to be deficient in the sense of humour. They are much too much in earnest ever to smile about such serious matters. For instance, one ardent admirer of japonism in art informs the public that the late painter Kyosai " was perhaps the greatest limner of crows that Japan, nay the whole world, has pro- Art. 53 duced." Does this not remind you of the artist in whose epitaph it was recorded that he was " the Raphael of cats ? " The Japanese are undoubtedly Raphaels of fishes, and insects, and flowers, and bamboo-stems swaying in the breeze ; and they have given us charming fragments of idealised scenery. But they have never succeeded in adequately transferring to canvas " the human form divine;" they have never made grand historical scenes live again before the eyes of posterity ; they have never, like the early Italian masters, drawn away men's hearts from earth to heaven in an ecstasy of adoration. In a word, Japanese art, as INIr. Alfred East tersely said, when lecturing on the subject in Tokyo, is " great in small things, but small in great things." Some of the anecdotes about Japanese artistic notabilities ring curiously familiar to Western ears. Thus, there is the story of the painter Kanaoka, whose horses were so life-like that at night, quitting the screen which they adorned, they trotted off into a neighbouring garden and munched the shrubs, till some ingenious person hit on the plan of adding a rope to the picture in order to tether these lively steeds. The cats of another artist actually caught live rats, much to the relief of the priests inhabiting a temple infested by those vermin. In a third tale it was painted rats that started into life, and scampered off when the rector of the temple came to see what was the matter. We seem to hear an echo of the stories told of Zeuxis and Parrhasios.* It is, by the way, somewhat odd that horses and cats should have been selected by the anecdote-mongers ; for it is precisely in the portraiture of quadrupeds that Japanese art fails most conspicuously to express anatomical truth. Did they tell us of painted carp or gold-fish swimming away, or of painted mantises biting, we should perhaps lend a more willing ear. Japanese art-motives form a fascinating study, which the visitor to Japan and the stay-at-home collector may alike master little by little on every scroll, coloured print, picture-book, ncisiike, sword- hilt that he bargains for, even on penny fans and twopenny * See Article on Carving for similar anecdotes. 54 Art. towels ; for in the Japanese view of life the tritest articles of daily use should, if possible, rejoice the eye and feed the mind. Odds and ends are not combined merely because they will look pretty, as in the handiwork of our own modern decorators. The art- motives all have a rationale, either in actual reason, — as when the pine-tree and bamboo, as evergreens, appropriately syrritolise long life, to which is added the plum-blossom for beauty, making a lucky triad ; — or in idea, such as that which constantly associates the lion and peony, because the former is the king of beasts, the latter the king of flowers; — or else in history or legend, or in unalterable convention. Thus, the sparrow and the bamboo go together ; the plum-blossom and the nightingale ; the bamboo thicket and the tiger ; the snow, moon, and blossoms (highly conventionalised) ; puppies rolling in the snow, the flute-playing lad on his bull, Benkei and his great bronze bell, the Gods of Luck each with his tame animal or other appropriate symbol, etc., etc.,— all with a reason. To mix these subjects, as is done by foreign imitators, shocks the trained eye in exactly the same manner as a solecism in grammar shocks the ear. The plain black crow does not perch facing the sun merely for the sake of contrast, though, to be sure, the contrast cannot fail to strike : — he does so for the mythological reasons glanced at in our article on the Japanese Flag. Similarly in a thousand other instances. European deco- rators pursued a like course in the Middle Ages, when, from the shape of the cathedral down to the smallest group of stone figures in a niche, everything possessed a symbolical signification, so that (as Ruskin has set forth at length) Amiens Cathedral is nothing less than the whole Bible in stone. The Japanese are still in that enviable stage, when decoration is organic. They have few, if any, mere " patterns." Unfortunately, any treatment of so vast a subject, to be satisfactory, would involve a histor}' of the Japanese — and even of the Chinese — mind, its religious beliefs, the fairy- tales on which its youth has been fed, the places known to fame, the celebrated personages and picturesque events that have adorned the national annals. Asiatic Society of Japan. 55 (See also Articles on Architecture, Carving, Cloisonne, Metal-work, Music, Porcelain, and Wood Engraving.) N. B. — A curious fact, lo which we have never seen attention drawn, is that the Japanese language has no genuinely native word for "art." To translate the European term ''fine art;" there has been invented the compound bi-Jiitsit, by putting together the two Chinese characters J|^ bi, "beautiful," and ^ jutsu, "craft," "device," "legerdemain;'' and there are two or three other such compounds which make an approach to the meaning, but none that satisfactorily cover it. The Japanese language is similarly devoid of any satisfactory word for "nature." The nearest equivalents are seishitsu, "charac- teristic qualities;" bambutsu, "all things;" tennen, "spontaneously." This curious philological fact makes it difficult, with the best will and skill in the world, to reproduce most of our discussions on art and nature in a manner that shall be intelligible to those Japanese who know no European language. The lack of a proper word for "art" is unquestionably a weakness in Japanese. Perhaps the lack of a word for " nature " is a strength. For does not the word " nature " in our Western tongues serve to conceal, and therefore encourage, confusion of ideas? When we talk, for instance, of being "inspired by nature," what precise sense can be attached to the phrase? Sometimes "nature" — especially with a big N — is a kind of deistic synonym or euphemism for the Creator, who becomes "she" for the nonce. At other times it denotes His creatures. Sometimes it is the universe minus man ; some- times it is man's impulses as opposed to his conscious acts. Sometimes it sums up all that is reasonable and proper; sometimes, as in theological parlance, the exact reverse. The word "nature" is a Proteus. It stands for everything in general and nothing in particular, — impossible to define, and serving only as a will-o'-the-wisp to mislead nietapyhysically minded persons. Books recomiuended. The foregoing article is founded chiefly on the late Dr. Wm. Anderson's great work, The Pictorial Aris of Japan, which, \frlth its companion work, the Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in t/ie British Museum, is the best authority on the subject. Failing these, see the same author's earlier History of Japanese Art. in Vol. Vll. Part IV. of the '' Asiatic Transactions." The other chief book bearing on the subject is /,' Art Japonais, by A. Gonse. Very important, too, is Pro- fessor FenoUosa's Review pf the Chapter on Painting in Gonse^ printed in the "Japan Weekly jNIail " of the 12th July, 1884. No one genuinely interested in Japanese art should fail to get hold of this elaborate critique, wherein is pleaded, with full know- ledge of the subject, the cause of the Japanese old masters as against Hokusai and the modern Popular School whom Gonse had championed. A Japanese Collection., by the well-known collector, Mr. M. Tomkinson, is, we believe, a beautiful, though expensive, work including articles by eminent specialists and a dictionary of Japanese myth and legend. Japanischer Hmnor, by C. Netto and G. Wagener, gives the explanation of great numbers of art-motives, chiefly comic, with delightful illustrations. It is not easy to recommend any of the briefer and cheaper books on the subject. Perhaps Huish's handy little volume^ entitled Japan and its Art, may be mentioned. See also Artistic Japan, a now extinct illustrated journal, edited by S. Byng and to be obtained in volume form. Asiatic Society of Japan. This society was founded in 1872 for " the collection of information and the investigation of 56 Bamboos. subjects relating to )apan or other Asiatic countries." The two seats of the Society are Tokyo and Yokohama. The entrance fee is S^'^//, and the yearly fee likewise S y^^ to residents, but 3 yen to non-residents. It is also optional to residents to become life- members by paying the entrance fee and a lump sum of 50 yen ; similarly, to non-residents for the entrance fee and 30 yen. Candi- dates are elected by the Council of the Society. Persons desirous of membership should, therefore, apply to the Secretary or to some other member of the Council. Members receive the Transaclions of the Asiatic Society of Japan free, from the date of their election, and have the privilege of purchasing back numbers at half-price. These are the Asiatic Transactions, so often referred to in the course of the present work. Scarcely a subject connected with Japan but may be found learnedly discussed in the pages of the Asiatic Tiansactio?is. The General Index appended to Vol. XXIII. is invaluable for reference. Besides the Asiatic Society, there is in Tokyo a German Society, entitled Deutsche Gesellscha/l fiir Natur- und Vdlkerkimde Ostasiens, the scope of whose labours is closely similar, and whose valuable Mitiheilungcn, or German Asiatic Transactions, as w'e have ventured ■to call them when quoting them, are strongly recommended to readers familiar with the German language. This Society was founded in 1873. The Japan Society, founded in London in 1892, has published many good papers, especially on subjects connected with art. Bamboos. So extensive is the part played by the bamboo in Japanese domestic economy that the question is rather, what does it not do ? The larger species serve as poles for carrying heavy weights, drying clothes, punting boats, etc., as flag-staffs, as w^ater- pipes, recommended hereto by their valuable property of neither rusting like iron, nor yet rotting as wood is apt to do if the water be from a hot mineral spring. As carrying poles and when employed for the framework of houses, their combination of light- ness with strength makes them peculiarly valuable, it being well- Bamboos. 57 kiKnvn to mechanicians that the hollow tube is of all forms that which best unites those two qualities. A small species of bamboo serves to make tobacco pipe-stems ; one of intermediate size makes ornamental doors and palings, in which the varying height of the joints gives a natural pattern. Others, cut into thin strips, which are sometimes bound with silk, form window-blinds, and the tender sprouts of more than one species are even boiled and eaten as a vegetable. Penholders, broom-handles, walking-sticks, umbrella-handles and also the ribs of umbrellas, angling-rods, whips, ladders, yard-measures, bows and arrows, coolies' hats, submarine hedges for the collecting of oysters and of edible sea- weed, hedges also round houses, embankments for rivers (large stones being placed for this purpose in bamboo crates), clapboard- ing, ornamental floors for verandahs and tea-rooms, travelling trunks, torches, chopsticks, spits, bird-cages, fish-traps, flutes, trumpets, picture-frames, .cask hoops, even nails (for being non- conductors of heat and non-corrosible, bamboo nails do better for certain purposes than metal ones), ladles, tea-scoops, sieves, shutters, fans, even flower-vases, special apparatus of various sorts for use in the; arts, toys and ornaments of innumerable kinds, are all manufactured out of bamboo. Nothing makes a better tube for keeping unmounted photographs from the damp than does a section of bamboo. The dried sheath of the culm of the young bamboo serves for wrapping up such things as rice sandwiches, meat, and cakes, which are apt to stain their receptacles ; also for the manufacture of sandals and the soles of wooden clogs. The leaves of the bamboo grass (which is a sort of bamboo) provide a clean, cool surface on which to lay fish in a basket, the basket itself being often of bamboo split and twisted. Such twisted split bamboos also serve to make strong hawsers, which are employed to swing ferry-boats, and even for the construction of bridges in certain rural districts, as no other material is so cheap and so easy to handle. One kind at least can, by a process of boiling, be flattened out into trays which are much prized. Another species, which is non-hollow, is cut into seals. The above list could 58 Bamboos. easily be extended. Ikil it may suffice to show that Japanese hfe without the bamboo is almost as hard to picture to oneself as pKistry without butter, landscape without light, or a Britisher with- out a grievance. The numerous plants which common parlance lumps together under the general name of " bamboos " really form three distinct genera, known to botanists as Bambusa, Arundinaria, and Phyllos- tachys, and each including many species. The number of species of bamboo found growing in Japan at the present day is stated by Prof. Matsumura, of the Tokyo University and Botanical Gardens, at fifty, not including of course numerous varieties and sports. Thirty-nine are indigenous ; the others have been introduced at various times from Korea, China, or the Luchu Islands, either for industrial use or as exotics for the adornment of rich men's gardens.* Such are the hochiku, or scjuare bamboo, and the siavo-chiku whose stem, when young, is of a bright red hue. To our own thinking, some of the commonest species are also the most graceful, — the mbsb-dake or " feathery bamboo," for instance, with its golden stem and overhanging plume-like fronds, clumps of which — though it, too, was introduced from China no earlier than A. D. 1738 — are now among the most typical features of the Japanese landscape, and the sasa, or bamboo-grass, that grows on hills and in country lanes, and whose leaves, bright green in spring, become edged with white as the year wanes, so that each comes to look like a little " cloud with a silver lining." Most Europeans persist in regarding the bamboo as a delicate tropical plant, which would not stand our northern climate. We should like to show such persons the tall Japanese bamboos fjatiently bending under the weight of the February snow, in parts of the country where the snowfall is measured, not in inches, but in feet. As a matter of fact, the bamboo in snow-time is a favourite Japanese art-motive. * In the opinion of Sir Ernest Satow, the number of indigenous species is much smaller than that stated by Prof. Matsumura. The question is a difficult one. Bathing. 59 By the Japanese themselves the bamboo is not regarded as a tree. In their eyes it forms a category apart, so that they speak of " trees and bamboos." Properly it belongs to the grasses : — it is just a giant grass, and nothing more. Its rate of growth is as- tonishing compared with that of most other members of the vege- table kingdom, sometimes several feet in the course of four-and- twenty hours. Indeed, from every point of view the bamboo presents interesting subject-matter for observation, while practically it is one of nature's choicest gifts to man. Boo]£S recommeuded. Tke Culture of Bamboos in Japan, by Sir Ernest Salow, forming Part III. of Vol. XXVII. of the "Asiatic Transactions," is an elaborate scientific treatise founded on the work of a Japanese botanist named Katayama, and abundantly illustrated. Mirford's Bamboo Garden is a more popular book, in which the subject is viewed chiefly from the standpoint of the acclimatisation of the bamboo in England. We ourselves have to thank Prof. INIatsumura for information concerning the number of Japanese species of bamboo known up to date. Bathing'. Cleanliness is one of the few original items of Japa- nese civilisation. Almost all other Japanese institutions have their root in China, but not tubs. We read in tlie Japanese mythology that the god Izanagi, on returning from a visit to his dead wife in Hades, purified himself in the waters of a stream. Ceremonial purifications continue to form part of the Shinto ritual. But viewed generally, the cleanliness in which the Japanese excel the rest of mankind has nothing to do with godliness. They are clean for the personal satisfaction of being clean. Their hot baths — for they almost all bathe in very hot water of about 110° Fahrenheit — also help to keep them warm in winter. For though moderately hot water gives a chilly reaction, this is not the case when the water is extremely hot, neither is there then any fear of catching cold. There are over eight hundred public baths in the city of T(5kyo, in w^hich it is calculated that four hundred thousand persons bathe daily, the usual charge being 2^ sen (under three farthings of English money) for adults, 2 sen for children, and i-J- sen for infants in arms. In addition to this, every respectable private house has its own bath-room. Other cities and even villages aie similarly provided. Generall}', but not always, a barrier separates 6o Bathing. the sexes from each other. Where there arc neither bathing estabHshments nor private bath-rooms, the people take their tubs out-of-doors, unless indeed a policeman, charged with carrying out the modern regulations, happen to be prowling about the neigh- bourhood ; for cleanliness is more esteemed by the Japanese than our artificial Western prudery. As the editor of the Japan Mail has well said, the nude is seen in Japan, but is not looked at. Some Europeans have tried to pick holes in the Japanese system, saying that the bathers put on their dirty clothes when they have dried themselves. True, the Japanese of the old school have nothing so perfect as our system of daily renovated linen. But as the bodies even of the men of the lowest class are constantly washed and scrubbed, it is hardly to be supposed that their garments, though perhaps dusty outside, can be very dirty within. A Japanese crowd is the sweetest in the world. The charm of the Japanese system of hot bathing is proved by the fact that almost all the foreigners resident in the country adopt it. There seems, too, to be something in the climxate which renders hot baths healthier than cold. By persisting in the use of cold water one man gets rheumatism, a second gets fever, a third a never-ending continuance of colds and coughs. So nearly all end by coming round to the Japanese plan, the chief foreign contribution to its improvement being the use of a separate bath by each person. In a Japanese family the same bath does for all the members ; and as man is the nobler sex, the gentlemen usually take it first, in the order of their age or dignity, the ladies afterwards, and then the younger children, the servants enjoying it last at a late hour of the evening, if they be not sent to a public bath-house instead. It must be understood that each bather first cleans himself outside the bath by ladling water over his body. Nowadays soap, too, is much used. The original national cleanser was the bran bag {nuka-bukuro), made by sewing a handful of bran into a small piece of linen, which furnishes a deliciously soft washing material. Thus each one enters the bath already clean, to enjoy the luxury of a good boiling. Bibliography. 6 1 The national passion for bathing leads all classes to make extensive us6 of the hot mineral springs in which their volcano- studded land abounds. Sometimes they carry their enjoyment of this simple luxury to an almost incredible extreme. At Kawara- yu, a tiny spa not far from Ikao in the province of j5shu — one of those places, of which there are many in Japan, which look as if they were at the very end of the w^orld, so steep are the mountains shutting them in on every side — the bathers stay in the water for a month on end, with a stone on their lap to prevent them from floating in their sleep. The care-taker of the establish- ment, a hale old man of eighty, stays in the bath during the entire winter. To be sure, the water is, in this particular case, one or two degrees below blood-heat. Thus alone is so strange a life rendered possible. In another case, some of the inhabitants of a certain village famed for its hot springs excused themselves to the present writer for their dirtiness during the busy summer months : " For," said they, " we have only time to bathe twice a day." " How often, then, do you bathe in winter.?" " Oh ! about four or five times dail}'. The children get into the bath whenever they feel cold." Sea-bathing was not formerly much practised ; but since 1885 the upper classes have taken greatly to it, in imitation of European usage, and the coast is now dotted with bathing establishments under medical supervision. Oiso, Ushibuse, Kamakura, and Dzushi, are the favourite sea-side places of the gentry of Tokyo. Bibliography. By far the best, for European books on Japan, is Fr. von Wenckstern's Bibliography of the Japanese Empire, published by Triibner in 1895, and including a facsimile reprint of Leon Pages' Bibliographie Japonaise, which had appeared a generation earlier. Though not a regular bibliography, Sir Ernest Satow"s admirable article on Japanese Lilcralure in the " American Cyclopaedia " gives the titles of a considerable number of native Japanese books. The Gunsho Ichiran, published in 1 801, is the standard Japanese authority on the subject; but it is 62 Blackening the Teeth. very imperfect, the severely classical tastes of the compiler not having permitted him to take any notice of novels and other popular modern works. Birthdays are not much observed in Japan, except that rice mixed with red beans is eaten on the auspicious day. All the little girls celebrate their yearly holiday on the 3rd March, and the little boys on the 5th May, as explainetl in the Article on Children. From another point of view, the ist January may be considered the universal birthday ; for the Japanese do not wait till the actual anniversary of birth has come round to call a person a year older, but date the addition to his age from the New Year, as already explained on page 12. The sixty-first birthday is the only one about which much fuss is made. This is because the old man or woman, having lived through one revolution of the sexagenary cycle, then begins a second round, which is in itself an extraordinary event ; for the Japanese reckon youth to last from birth to the age of twenty, middle age from twenty to forty, and old age from forty to sixty. This last term corresponds to the Psalmist's " three score and ten," as the natural limit of human existence. Blackening the Teeth. This peculiar custom is at least as old as A.D. 920 ; but the reason for it is unknown. It was finally prohibited in the case of men in the year 1870. Even women have mostly abandoned it in Tokyo, Kyoto, and the circumjacent provinces ; and to see it surviving as a general feminine means of adornment ( ? ), one must repair to certain remote rural districts, — the north-west coast, for instance, or the extreme north-east, where distance and poverty have acted as conservative forces. Every married woman in the land had her teeth blackened, until the present Empress set the example of discontinuing the practice. Fortunately, the efficacy of the preparation used wears out after a few days, so that the ladies of Japan experienced no difficulty in getdng their mouths white again. Mr. A. B. Mitf:)rd, in his Books on Japan. 63 amusing Tales of Old Japan, gives the following recipe for tooth- blacking, as having been supplied to him by a fashionable Yedo druggist : — " Take three pints of water, and, having warmed it, add half a teacupful of wine.* Put into this mixture a quantity of red-hot iron ; allow it to stand for five or six days, when there will be a scum on the top of the mixture, which should then be poured into a small teacup and placed near a fire. When it is warm, powdered gall-nuts and iron filings should be added to it, and the whole should be warmed again. The liquid is then painted on to the teeth by means of a soft feather brush, with more powdered gall-nuts and iron, and, after several applications, the desired colour will be obtained." Books on Japan. Von Wenckstern's Bibliography of the Japanese Empire contains a great many thousands of entries, from which it may be inferred that not to have written a book about Japan is fast becoming a tide to distinction. The art of Japan, the history of Japan, the language, folk-lore, botany, even the earthquakes and the diseases of Japan — each of these, with many other subjects, has a little library to itself. Then there are the works of an encyclopedic character, and there are the books of travel. Some of the latter possess great value, as photographing Japanese manners for us at certain periods. Others are at the ordinary low level of globe-trotting literature, — twaddle enlivened by statistics at second-hand. We give references at the end of most of the articles of this work to the chief authorities on each special subject At the risk of offending innumerable writers, we now venture to pick out tlie following dozen w^orks as probably the most generally useful that are accessible to English readers. Of course it is more than pos- sible that some of the really best have escaped our notice or our memory. Anyhow', an imperfect list will perhaps be deemed better than none at all : — * By " wine," must of course be meant Japanese irtXv. 64 Books on Japan. 1. Dr. Rein's " Japan,"', with its sequel, " The Industriks of Japan." * Though not perfect, — no encyclopedic work can altogether escape errors in each specialist's domain, — these admir- able volumes should be in the hands of every person who desires to study Japan seriously. Of the two, that on the Industries is the better : — agriculture, cattle-raising, forestry, mines, lacc^uer- work, metal-work, commerce, everything, in fact, has been studied with a truly German patience, and is set forth with a truly German thoroughness. The other volume is occupied with the physio- graphy of the country, that is, its geography, fauna, flora, etc., with an account of the people both historical and ethnographical, and with the topography of the various provinces. 2. " The Mikado's Empire," by the Rev. W. E. Griffis. This is the book best-calculated to give the general reader just what he requires, and to give it to him in a manner less technical than Rein's. The first part is devoted to history, the second to the author's personal experiences and to Japanese life in modern days. The ninth edition brings the story down to 1898. More than one reader of cultivated taste has, indeed, complained of the author's tendency to "gush," and of the occasional tawdriness of his style.f But these faults are on the surface, and do not touch the genuine value of the book. 3. " A History of Japanese Literature," by W. G. Aston. All that the outside world can ever hope to understand, or is ever likely to wish to learn, about Japanese poetry and prose is here compressed by the most accurate, and yet least pedantic, of scholars into the limits of a single octavo volume. This history of the Japanese mind during twelve centuries — for such in effect * Though Dr. Rein is a German and his work was first published in the German language, the English edition is to be preferred. For, writes the author in his preface, " the English translation is based on a careful revision of the original, and may be con- sidered a new and improved edition of it." We learn, however, that a revised German edition is in course of preparation. t Thus the nose is spoken of as the "nasal ornament;" a volcano in a state of eruption is said to "ulcer its crater jaws ;" laughing is called an " e.\plosion of risibil- ities," etc., etc. Books on Japan. 65 it is — shows how ilkisory are the common European notions of " the michanging East ; "' for all, from 700 to 1900, were centuries of change, most were centuries of progress. 4. Lafcadio Hearn's * " Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," together with the succeeding volumes entitled " Our of the East" and " Kokoro." f Never perhaps was scientific accuracy of detail married to such tender and exquisite brilliancy of style. In reading these profoundl}- original essays, we feel the truth of Richard Wagner's saying, that " Al/es Versid?idniss komvit iins nur durch die Li'ebe." Lafcadio Hearn understands contemporar\- Japan better, and makes tis untlerstand it better, than any other writer, because he loves it lietter. Japanese life, manners, thoughts, aspirations, the student class, the singing-girls, the politicians, the delightful country-folk of secluded hamlets who still bow down before ancestral gods, Japan's attitude during the China war, Buddhist funeral services chanted by priestl}- choirs in vestments gold-embroidered, not men only but ghosts and folk-lore fancies, the scenery of remote islands which Hearn alone among Euro- peans has ever trod, — not a single thing Japanese, in short, except perhaps the humorous side of native life, but these wonderful books shed on it the blended light of poetry and truth. Our only quarrel is with some of Lafcadio Hearn's judgments : — in righting the Japanese, he seems to us continually to wrong his own race. The objectionable character in his stories is too apt to be a European. However, Europe is well-able to take care of herself; and if this be the price demanded for so great a gift to literature and ethnologic science, we at least will pay it uncomplainingl}-. 5. "Japanese Girls and Women," by INIiss A. M. Bacon. This modest volume and its sequel, A Japanese Interior, give in * Mr. Hearn's nationality having been sometimes questioned, we may mention that in 1896 he became a Japanese, assuming the new name of Koizumi Vakumo. Up till that time he had been a British subject, having been born in Corfu. Before settling in Japan in 1890, he had resided for many years in the United States, where his works have always been published. t There are three or four later volumes still from the same gifted hand, displaying much of the same charm of style, but incn asingly subjective in treatment. 66 Books on Japan. a short ce^mpai-s the best account that has yet been pubhshed of Japanese family hfe, — a sanctum into which all travellers would fain peep, but of which even most old residents know surprisingly little. The sobriety of Miss Bacon's judgments and the simplicity of her style contrast almost pi([uandy with Lafcadio Hearn's tropical luxuriance. 6. " The Son. of the Far-East,"' by Percival Lowell. With a dazzling array of metaphysical epigrams, this ■ distinguished Bostonian attacks the inner nature of the Japanese soul, whose hall-mark he discovers in " impersonality." Nothing on earth — or elsewhere — being too profound for an intellect so truly meteor-like in its brilliancy, Lowell, in his later work, Occult Japan, discovers to us Japanese possession, exorcism, and miracle-working, whose very existence had scarcely been suspected. 7. The " Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan." Almost every subject interesting to the student of Japanese matters is treated of in the pages of these Transactions, which have, for over a quarter of a century past, been the favourite vehicle of publica- tion for the researches of Satow, Aston, Blakiston, Fryer, Geerts, Batchelor, Troup, Wigmore, Knox, Florenz, Greene, Lloyd, and other eminent scholars and specialists. Of course the " Asiatic Transactions " are not light reading. They appeal rather to the serious student, who will have nearly all that he requires if he joins to a perusal of them that of Rein's work ; for the " Asiatic Transactions " are strongest exactly where Rein is weakest, namely, in questions of literature and history. Thus the two supplement each other. 8. " Young Japan," by J. R. Black. Mr. Black was one of the earliest foreign residents of Yokohama, and editor of various news- papers both in English and in Japanese. His book is, so to say, the diary of the foreign setdement at Yokohama from 1858 to 1879, that is, during the two most eventful decades of modern Japanese history. It records events and impressions, not indeed with any great literary skill, but with that particular vividness ■which contemporary memoirs, jotted down from day to day, as Books on Japan. 67 the events they describe are unfolding themselves, can alone possess. A perusal of" Young Japan " will help fair-minded persons to rate at their true value many of the generalisations of authors of a later time or who have written at a distance. 9. "The Capital of the Tycoon," by Sir Rutherford Alcock. Though published nearly forty years ago, and though, as a narra- tive, it covers only the brief space of three years (i 859-1 862), this book is still delightful and profitable reading. In its pages we live with the fathers of the men who rule Japan to-day. True, these men may reject the application to their case of the proverb which says " like father, like son." But we foreign lookers-on, who perhaps after all see something of the game, must be permitted to hold a different opinion, and to believe that even in cases so exceptional as Japan's, the political and social questions of a country can only then be fairly comprehended when its past is constantly borne in mind. Sir Rutherford's book combines the hght touch of the skilled diplomat and man of the world with the careful research of the genuine student. 10. " Tales of Old Japan," by A. B. Mitford, an old book, but always fresh. Love, revenge, the " happy despatch," adven- ture by land and sea, quaint fairy-tales, Buddhist sermons quainter still, — in a word, the whole picturesque life of Old Japan, — these are the things which IMr. INIitford gives us ; and he gives them in a style that renders them doubly attractive. 11. "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," by Miss Bird (Mrs. Bishop). Though now two decades old, this remains, to our thinking, the best English book of Japanese travel. The account of the Ainos in the second volume is specially valuable. Japan, however, has not yet found its Abbe Hue. The book of Japanese travel, the companion wijrk to Hue's ever-delightful Empire Chiiiois, yet remains to be written, — the book that shall tell us all about the beaten, because most interesting, tracks, and tell it not only with the discrimination of a born observer, but with the authority of an old resident, such as the good Abbe was. 68 Books on Japan. 12. " DESCRIFnVK .\ND HISTORICAL CATALOGUE OF JAPANESE AND Chinese Paintings in the British Museum," by Wm. Anderson. Such a title does injustice to what is really an original and valuable book. Who would think of spending over £ i ster- ling on a catalogue ? But this so-called catalogue is really a mine of information on numberless Japanese matters. To begin with, it gives a complete history of Japanese pictorial art. Then the author's painstaking research, with the assistance of Sir Ernest Satow, into the " motives " of this art — drawn, as they are, from the history of the country, from its religions, its superstitions, its literature, its famous sites — ^has shed a flood of light on these and many kindred subjects. Not that the book is easy reading, or meant to be read at all continuously. Still, the store of anecdotes which it contains will interest every person, who, when confronted by a Japanese picture or other work of. art, jirefers knowing what it is about to gaping at it ignorantly. Where one has hundreds of books to choose from, such a list as the above might of course be indefinitely extended. Pearson's Flighls Inside and Outside Paradise starts to our recollection at once as the book of all others to help to while away a rainy day at a tea-house. Miss Scidmore's yinrikisha Days in yapan will be found a genial companion, as also will Notes in yapan b}' the charming artist, Alfred Parsons. Dening's Life of HideyosJii and yapan in Days of Yore give us refreshing peeps into a state of society less prosaic than our own. Knapp's Feudal and jModern yapan is bright and sympathetic. Inouye's Sketches of Tokyo Life brim over with interest, while the various illustrated booklets printed on crape paper at Hasegawa's press form pretty souvenirs. Then, too, come the books in foreign languages, — such, for instance, as Aime Humbert's Lc yapon ct les yaponais, and Bousquet's excellent Le yapon dc 7ios yours. Father Papinot's Dictionnaire de V Hisloirc et de la Geographie da yapon is a use- ful little compilation, to which unfortunately no analogue exists in P^nglish. For Pierre Loti's books the resident communit}' has less respect than the public at home : — his inaccuracy and superficiality Books on Japan. 69 go against the grain. Nevertheless, the illustrations to his JMadamc Chrysanthhnc are very pretty, and the letter-press is worth skim- ming through, though the volume can in nowise be recommended either to misses or to missionaries. What has struck us as the liveliest and best of all popular books on Japan is in German. We mean Netto's PapicrschmclterUuge aiis Japan, with its delightful illustrations and its epigrammatic text. With more serious works, too, the Germans are naturally to the front. The Mitlhcilungen of the German Asiatic Society {Deulschc Gcsellschaft filr Natur- und Volkcrkiuide Ostasiens) are a mine of information on matters scientific, legal, etc., etc. Not content with the reality of japan as it is or as it was, some imaginative writers have founded novels on Japanese subjects. We thus have books such as Ariinas, which is whimsical and clever, and a dozen others that somehow we have never been able to make up our mind to dip into. As for books of travel, there is literally no end to the making of them. Almost every possible space of time, from Seven Weeks in Japan to Eight I'ears in Japan and Nine Vears in Nipon, has furnished the title for a volume. So have almost all the more piquant adjectives with the word " Japan " attached, as The Real Japan, Heroic Japan, Ceremonial Japan, Agitated Japan, Le Japan Pittoresque, Le Japan Pratique, etc., etc. There are Expeditions ta Japan, Sketches of Japan, Runs in Japan, Gleanings frojn Japan, Life in Japan, Short Leave to Japan, Japan as zve Saw it, Lotos-time in Japan, Journeys, Travels, Trips, Excursions, Impressions, Letters, etc., etc., almost ad ?'//- /?;«/"«;;/,•" and apt alliteration's artful aid" has been borrowed for such titles as The Gist of Japan, Japanese Jingles, and several others. A Diplo7natisf s Wife in Japan, by Mrs. Hugh Eraser, and other works from the same hand give a readable account of life in Tokyo and at the usual summer holiday resorts, while Weston, in his Japanese Alps, leads us touring among the little-known peaks of the provinces of Etchu, Hida, and Shinano. Many excellent things, on the other hand, may be unearthed from the files of old newspapers. See, for instance, Rudyard Kipling's Letters to the 70 Books on Japan. ''Times'' i8g2, which are the most graphic ever penned by a globe-trotter, — but then what a globe-trotter ! They have been re- published, we believe, in From Sea to Sea. Many general books of travel have chapters devoted to Japan. The liveliest is Miss Duncan's Social Departure. For though the author revels in Japan as " a many-tinted fairy-tale," the sense of humour which never deserts her prevents her enthusiasm from degenerating into mawkishness. Perhaps the most entertaining specimen of globe- trotting literature of another calibre is that much older book, Miss Margaretha Weppner's North Star and Southern Cross. We do not wish to make any statement which cannot be verified, and therefore we will not say that the author is as mad as a March hare. Her idee fixe seems to have been that every foreign man in Yokohama and " Jeddo " meditated an assault on her. As for the Japanese, she dismisses them as " disgusting creatures."* More edifying, if less amusing, than such works are the numerous monographs on special subjects, particularly those on art. Such are Gonse's L! Art Japonais, Audsley and Bowes' various publica- * Here is a portion of this authoress's description of Yokohama and its foreit;n residents : — " It will be well understood that the life of the European in Japan is, after all, a ^vTetched one. The senses and the animal appetite are abundantly provided for ; but the mind, the heart, and the soul are left totally destitute. There are clubs, it is true, but at the time of my stay in Yokohama, they were mere gastronomical resorts. The pure-minded men of the island live at home, where they can enjoy jnst as much comfort as in the clubs, and are rarely seen in them, except when dramatic companies, comedi- ans, whistlers, or such peanese Buddhism., by Rev. A. Lloyd in the "Asiatic Transactions," Vol. XXII. Part III. — Buddhism, by Rhys Davids, though published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, is quite free from Christian prejudice. — A brief outline of Japanese Buddhism is given in recent editions of Murray's Handbook for "Japan, together vi'ith a descriptive list of the most popular gods and goddesses. Students should consult Eitel's invaluable Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary, also entitled Handbook for Students of Chinese Buddhism. — The tenets and the devotional literature of the Shin sect have been treated of by James Troup in Vols. XIV. and XVII. of the " Asiatic Transactions" (the paper in the latter being entitled The Gobunsho). This sect curiously illustrates the fact that a religion may, with the lapse of time and by passing from nation to nation, end by becoming almost the exact contrary of what it was at starting. At first sight, one would imagine the Shin sect to be a travesty of Christianity rather than a development of Buddhism. — See also an Article by Dr. L. Busse in Part 50 of the "German Asiatic Transactions." Capital Cities. 79 Camphor. Japan's new colony of Formosa is ihe greatest camphor-producing district in the world, and Japan proper comes next, though the ruthless deforestation that has disgraced the present reign bids fair to ruin this source of national income before the lapse of many more years. Unfortunately camphor cannot, like lacquer or maple-sugar, be extracted by tapping. The tree must be felled and cut into chips, Avhich are steamed in a vat, the vapour being made to carry off the fumes into a cooling apparatus, where condensation takes place and the camphor and camphor-oil are afterwards skimmed off. Cabinets made of camphor-wood are much esteemed, not only for the fine grain and silky sheen of the wood, but for its efficacy against the attacks of insects. The camphor-laurel ranks among the stateliest of trees, frequently attaining to an enormous height and girth, — ^thirty, forty, and even fifty feet in circumference. Grand specimens may be seen at Atami, at Atsuta, and at Dazaifu, — all places on or near the ordinary lines of travel. Such giant trees are often worshipped by the simple country folk, who hang ropes of straw or paper round them in token of reverence. Books recommended. Rein's Industries of Japan, lip. 143-150. — Dcr Kavi/fcr- bmtiit, by Dr. E. Grasmann, in Part 56 of the "German Asiatic Transactions." Capital Cities. If the Japanese annals may be trusted, Japan has had no less than sixty capitals. This is to be traced to the fact that in ancient days there was a superstitious dread of any place in which a person had died. The sons of a dead man built themselves a new house. Hence, too, the successor of a dead Mikado estab- lished a new capital. The provinces of Yamato, Yamashiro, Kawachi, and Settsu, which were the home and centre of the early Japanese monarchy, are dotted with places, now mere villages, sometimes indeed empty names, but once holding the proud posi- tion of capitals of the Empire. In process of time, such perpetual changes proving incompatible with the needs of the more advanced civilisation introduced from China and Korea, a tendency to keep the Court settled in one place began to make itself felt. Nara in Yamato remained the capital for 8o Capital Cities. seven rei^ms, between A.l). 709 and 784. After farther wanderings, the Court fixed itself at Kyoto in 794 ; and this city continued, with few interruptions, to be the residence of successive generations of INIikados till the year 1868, when it Avas abandoned in favour of Yedo (Tokyo), which had been the capital of the Shoguns ever since the year 1590. KySto, however, still nominally retains the rank of a metropolis, as is indicated by its new name of ^ "^ Saikyi), or "western capital," in contradistinction to #_ "^ Tokyo, the " eastern capital." The new name, though little known to foreigners, is in fairly common use among the Japanese themselves. The chief sights in and near Kyoto are the Mikado's palaces, the temples named Nishi Hongwanji, Chion-in, Kiyomizu-dera, Gion, Ginkakuji, Kinkakuji, Higashi Hongwanji, San-ju-san-gen-do, and Inari-no-Jinja, Mount Hiei-zan, Lake Biwa, Arashi-yama famous for its cherry-blossoms and maple-leaves, and the rapids of the Katsura-gawa. Brocades and embroidery generally are the pro- ducts for which Kyoto is chiefly noted. In the second rank come pottery, porcelain, cloisonne, and bronze. Nara, whose charms have been sung by many a Japanese poet from the eighth century onwards, is distinguished by the almost English appearance of the park which surrounds the ancient Shinto temple of Kasuga, where tame deer crowd around the visitor to feed out of his hand. In Nara, likewise, stands the great Buddhist temple of Todaiji, \\\\\\ the colossal bronze image known as the Daihutsu, or " Great Buddha," dating from A.D. 749. Another of the old capitals, Kamakura, is distant only a few miles from Yokohama. It was never inhabited by the Mikados. It was the seat of the Shoguns from 11 89 onwards, and of the so- called Regents of the Hojo family during the troublous Middle Ages. Kamakura, taken by storm and burnt to the ground in 1455 and again in 1526, gradually lost its importance. Woods and rice- fields now stretch over the area that once afforded a home to more than a million inhabitants, and little remains to tell of its ancient splendour, save the great temple of Hachiman and the magnificent Capital Cities. 8i bronze image of Buddha, i)erhap.s the grandest of all Japanese works of art. The principal sights of Tok}o are the vShiba temples, with the tombs of the Shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty, near which is one of the best Kzvankoba or Bazaars ; the view over the city from the tower on Atago-yama ; the Shinto temple named Shukonsha, erected to the memory of the loyal troops slain in battle ; the adjacent museum of military objects, called the Yushii-kwan; Ueno Park, with tombs and temples similar to those of Shiba, and also an interesting museum ; the popular Buddhist temple of Asakusa, to say nothing of such modern Europeanised buiUlings as the government offices, banks, hospitals, prisons, etc., which will have an interest for some persons. In addition to these, according to the time of year, there are the cherry-blossoms of INIukojima, Ueno, and Shiba, the wista- rias of Kameido, the irises of Horikiri, and the chrysanthemums of Dango-zaka. It is also worth while paying a visit to one of the theatres, of which the Kahuki-za and Meiji-za are the best, and to the wrestling-matches held at the temple of Eko-in and elsewhere. But after all, the chief sight of Tokyo to one fresh from home is Tokyo itself, — the quaint little wooden houses, which brick structures in foreign style have only partially replaced, the open-air life of the people, the clatter of the clogs, the jinrikishas, the dainty children powdered and rouged for a holiday outing, the graceful native dress which Western fashions and fabrics have not succeeded in driving out, the indescribably grotesque combinations of this dress with billycock hats, Inverness capes, and crochet tippets. There are also the attractions of the shops, which make ]\Ir. Percival Lowell truly observe that " To stroll down the Broadzvoy of Tokyo of an evening is a liberal education in e\ery day art," for — as he adds — " whatever these people fashion, from the to\' of an hour to the triumphs of all time, is touched b}- a taste unknown elsewhere." IMr. Lowell, as an artist in words, does not add what we, simple recorders of facts, are bound to do, that with so much to •appeal to the eye, Tokyo also has not a little that appeals to the nose. 82 Carving. Books recommended. I'or faclK, IMunay's Heimiboak fjr Japan; The Castle of VeJo, by T. R. H. McCIatchiu, in Vol. VI. Part I., and The Feudal Mansions ofYedo, by the same author, in Vol. VII. Part III. of the "Asiatic Transactions." For pictu- resque descriptions and for " talky-talky," the pages of globe-trotters and book-makers innumorablo. Carving. The earliest .specimens of Japanese carving— if we may so call objects more probably moulded by the hand — are the rude clay figures of men and horses occasionally found in the tumuli of Central and Eastern Japan (see Article on Arch^.ology). liul the art made no progress till the advent of Buddhism in the sixth century. A stone image of the god Miroku wks among the earliest gifts of the Court of Korea to that of Japan. Wooden images came also. The Japanese themselves soon learnt to carve in both materials. The colossal figure of Jizo, hewn in relief on a block of andesite on the way between Ashinoyu and Hakone, is a grand example. Like so many other celebrated Japanese works of unknown antiquity, it is referred by popular tradition to the Bud- dhist .saint, Kob5 Daishi (ninth century), who is fabled to have finished it in a single night. The art of wood-carving has always been chiefly in Buddhist hands. Among the finest specimens may be mentioned two sets of " temple guardians" {Ni-o) at Nara, — one by a Korean artist of the beginning of the seventh century, the other by Kwaikei, a native sculptor who flourished about A.D. 1095, —and the charming painted carvings of flowers and birds in the Nikko temples and in those at Shiba and Ueno in Toky5, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The old Japanese sculptors rarely attempted portraiture. A good example is offered by the seated figure of leyasu in the temple of Toshogu at Shiba. But in sculpture, even more than in pictorial art, the strength of the Japanese talent lies rather in decoration and in small things than in representation and in great things. The neisukes — a kind of ornament for the tobacco-pouch, carved out of wood or ivory — are often marvels of minuteness, and alive with a keen sense of humour and the grotesque. The Japanese weakness in sculpture is no mere accident. It results from a whole mental attitude, from the habit of looking at nature rather than at man, — Carving. 83 a habit itself rooted in that impersonality on which Mr. Percival Lowell has laid so much stress as a Far-Eastern characteristic. Japan's most famous sculptor was Hidari Jingoro, born in A.D- 1594. The two elephants and the sleeping cat in the mortuary shrine of leyasu at Nikko are among the best-known productions of his chisel. He died in 1634, leaving a flourishing school and a reputation around which legend soon began to busy itself A horse which he had carved as an ex-voto used, it is averred, to leave its wooden tablet at night, and go down to the meadow to graze. On one occasion the artist, having seen a frail beauty in the street, became so enamoured that on getting home he set about carving her statue ; and between the folds of the statue's robe he placed a mirror, which the girl had let drop and which he had picked up. Thereupon the statue, Galatea-like, came to life, and the two lovers were made supremely happy. Now for the charac- teristically Japanese turn given to the tale. The times were stormy, and it fell out that the life of the daughter of the artist's lord had to be sacrificed. The artist instantly cut off this living statue's head and sent it to the cnem}-, who were taken in by the ruse which his loyalty had prompted. But a servant of his lord's, also deceived, and believing that Hidari Jingoro had really killed their lord's daughter, took his sword and cut off the sculp- tor's right hand. Hence the name of Hidari Jingoro, that is, •' left-handed Jingoro." Probably Jingoro's left-handedness, which undoubtedly gave him his nickname of Hidari, also suggested the legend. Since 1892, when the first bronze statue was set up in Tokyo in front of the Shokonsha temple, that ancient European method of commemorating departed and even living worth has gradually come into vogue. Not only so, but the friezes of public buildings now begin to be adorned with Cupids of a Japanese cast of countenance. Goddesses" of Poetry and Agriculture, etc., etc. It is all very strange and— very ugly. Pity that the successful adop- ters of an alien civilisation should not have had the sense to stop short at such incongruous superficialities ! 84 Cats. Books recommended. Huish's Japan and its Art, Cliap. XIII. — The Art Carv- ings of Japan, by ('•. A. Audslej' and M. Tomkinson. Cats. As one of the first tjuestions asked b)' every observant traveller landing at Yokohama refers to the tailless, or more proper- ly short-tailed, Japanese cats, let it be known that the peculiarity is a natural one. The bones are all there, but not normally developed ; hence the atrophied appearance of the tail. It is true, however, that the habit of seeing only tailless cats has engendered such a prejudice in their favour that, should a litter chance to be born with one long-tailed kitten, somebody will generally take upon himself to chop the tail off to a respectable shortness. The popular objection to long-tailed cats has doubtless been augmented by the snaky aspect of a normal cat's tail when waved from side to side, and by the superstition that there exist cats furnished with one or several long tails, and possessing the power of bewitch- ing human beings after the manner of foxes and badgers (see Article on Demoniacal Possession). Note, however, that the objection to long-tailed cats does not prevail throughout the country. It is confined to certain provinces. Another supersri- tion calling for notice is the lucky character attributed by seafaring men to tortoise-shell tom-cats. The master of a junk will pay almost any price to obtain one, and thus secure immunity from shipwreck. In this case, it is probably the rarity of the animal that has given it its fictitious value ; for though tortoise-shell cats exist in considerable numbers, they are — for some unexplained reason — almost all tabbies. Among Europeans an irreverent person may sometimes be heartl to describe an ugly, cross old woman as a cat. In Japan, the land of topsy-turvydom, that nickname is colloquially applied to the youngest and most attractive, — the singing-girls. The reason is that singing-girls bewitch men with their artful, sham coy ways, like the magic cats alluded to above. For a similar reason, fair women one degree lower still in the scale are called foxes, while the male buffoons or jesters, whose talents help to make the fun fast and finic.^us at a spree, are termed badgers. Charms and Sacred Pictures. 85 Cha-no-yu. See Tea Ceremonies. Characteristics. See Japanese People. Charms and Sacred Pictures arc sold for a few farthings at hundreds of temples throughout the lantl. The custom seems to have originated with the Buddhists, who already on the continent of Asia and before the introduction of Shaka Muni's religion into Japan, had developed all the adjuncts of popular piety and supersti- tion. But the Shinto priests have taken the custom up, not disdain- ing in these hard times to turn an honest penny wherever possible. The commonest Japanese charms are scraps of paper with an inscription for the reversal of bad luck, the attainment of good luck, protection from the perils of the sea, from fire, from sickness, and in child-bearing. Others are long strips inscribed with the name of some god, or a brief invocation, to w-hich is occasionally added the picture of the supernatural being invoked, — the fox- god, for instance, or the holy crows of Kumano,* or the sacred dog of Mitsumine who is esteemed a powerful protector against robbers. This kind is to be seen pasted verdcally on the outside of the houses of the poor in almost every province of the empire, while well-to-do families keep them inside the house, as part of the furniture of the domestic altar. To procure such charms is always one object of the pilgrimages to sacred mountains and iamous shrines, still so popular with those classes of society which are not yet fully imbued with European twentieth century notions. Coloured prints of the shrine visited are generally purchased at the same time, and treasured as mementoes of the pilgrimage. There is another very popular kind, which can be made at home, consisting of the imprint of a hand, — generally a child's hand. It is obtained by first wetting the hand with ink, and then applying it to a sheet of paper, and is believed to avert malign influences. Besides these paper charms, there exist several other sorts. At Ise, for example, sacred medals are for sale ; but we suspect that these owe their origin to European influence. * See Murray's Handbjok for Ja/ittny 6ih edition, page 387. 86 Chauvinism. Another Lsc clianii, which is genuinely native, consists of fragments of the teini)les themselves ; for when these temples are hewn down every twcnt}' years in accordance with immemorial usage, prepar- atory to the erection of new ones, the wood is all chopped up into tiny splinters which are carrietl away by innumerable devotees. The food offered to the gods is also sold to pilgrims as a charm, both at Ise and elsewhere. Then, too, there arc miniature editions of varit)us sutras, microscopic images of the Gods of Luck carved out of rice-grains, facsimiles of Buddha's footprint on certain sacred stones, and in fine such a multifarious assortment of " objects of bigotry an tl virtue" that memory and space alike fiil us in the attempt to enumerate them. One charm — generally a thin oblong slab of wood inscribed with the name of the great shrine of Narita — is constantly worn by members of the middle and k)wer classes at Tokyo, being hung round the neck by a string next to the skin. It is supposed to protect the wearer against accidents. Women often wear it over their sash. Children habitually have a bright-coloured "charm-bag" hung at their side, as described in the Article on Dress. Chauvinism. Japan has not escaped, in these latter days, the wave of "jingo " * feeling that has swept round the world, making the smaller nationalities self-assertive and threatening the greater with disruption. For a few years, no doubt, " foreign " and " good " were synonymous terms ; the Japanese sat at the feet of the Western Gamaliel, and treasured his slightest utterances as j)earls of great price. This state of things passed away suddenly in 1887. The feeling now is, " Japan for the Japanese, and let it be a Japanese Japan." I'^oreign employes have been dismissed, and replaced by natixes. In the Diet — it was in the Upper House, too- — the metrical system of weights and measures has been opposed on the ground that the introduction of a foreign standard would be * Says a JNlonsieur Felix Martin, author of " Z^ Japan I'rai''' ( !) : Ce mot me semble avoir ete eraprunte par les Yankees au vocabulaire du Nippon ; il ne serait autre que le nom de I'imperatrice Jingo, femme vaillante et patriote, qui fit, au troisieme siecle avant notre ere, la conquetc de la Corce." i'!!!) For the bold female in question, see Article on History. Chauvinism. 87 a blot on the national escutcheon. (Jnl\- two or three }'ears ago, the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce resolvetl that the Roman nomen- clature hitherto usual on the silver and copper pieces should be dropped from the new coinage. Not onl}' has the national costume come back again to a considerable extent, and interest in the native sports and the national antiquities been revived : — the peculiar feature of the present situation is that the Japanese are determined to beat us on our own ground, as they have already beaten China in the field. Japan is to engross the trade of the Pacific, to be the leader of Asia in modern warfare and diplomacy, to found colonies, to annex any stra}' islands i)r provinces that may be going. According to some, she will remodel philosoph}- ; f )r Europe is incurably superstitious, Japan essentially reasonable. ^Ir. Inagaki, a well-known publicist who has lived abroad and even published a book in English, has Avritten essays to demonstrate Japan's special fitness for originating new and important views on international law. Meanwhile, the foreign missionaries are being abandoned as old-fashioned by their quondam converts. The Rev. ]Mr. Kozaki believes that Japan is the place where "the world-problem of Christianity is being gradually solved; " and numbers of leading Japanese Christians hold with Mr. Yokoi, formerly a clergy- man, now a high official, that Japanese Christianity must develop a superior theology of its own, and that European Christianit}' will in the future have to look Japan-wards for support. Politicians take the same line, midaiis mutandis. I'hey point to the weary secular struggles, the bloody rebellions, through which the West has slowly won its way to constitutional government, whereas in Japan what has there been .^ A grateful and intelligent people accepting the free gift of self-government from a wise and benevolent Sovereign. Furthermore it has been discovered that courage, patriotism, and loyalty are specifically Japanese virtues, or that — at the least — Japanese courage, Japanese loyalty, and Japanese patriotism glow with an incomparably brighter radiance than the qualities calletl by those same names in inferior countries, — England. f>r instance,. France, Germany, or America. 88 Chess. Dai Xi/ion Banzai ! " Long live Great Japan ! " Japan is a young nation — at least a rejuvenated nation — and youth will be self-confident. The greybeards must not wish it otherwise. Cherry-Blossom. The Japanese cherry-tree (Primus pscudo- cerasus, Lindlcy) is cultivated, not for its fruit, but for its blossom, which has long been to Japan \\liat the rose is to Western nations. Poets have sung it for over a millennium past, and crowds still pour forth every year, as spring comes round, to the chief places where .avenues of it seem to fill the air with clouds of the most delicate pink. Even patriotism has adopted it, in contradistinction to the plum-blossom, which is believed to be of Chinese origin — not, like the cherry-tree, a true native of Japan. The poet Motoori •exclaims : Shikisliiiua no Yaviato-gokoro ivo Hito ioivaba, Asa-hi ni niou Yama-zakiira-bana ! -which, being interpreted, signifies " If one should enquire of you concerning the spirit of a true Japanese, point to the wild cherry- blossom shining in the sun." — Again a Japanese proverb says : " The cherry is first among flowers, as the warrior is first among men." The single blossom variety is generally at its best about the 7th April, coming out before the leaves ; the clustering double variety follows a little later. The places best worth visiting in Tokyo are Ueno Park, Shiba Park, the long avenue ot Mukojima, and, in the neighbouring country, Asuka-yama and Koganei. But the most famous spots for cherry-blossom in all Japan are Yoshino amid the mountains of Yamato, and Arashi-yama near Kyoto. The Japanese are fond of preserving cherry-blossoms in salt, and making a kind of tea out of them. The fragrance of this infusion is delicious, but its taste a bitter deception. Chess. Japanese chess (shogi) \\as introduced from China -Centuries ago ; and though it has diverged to some extent from its Chess. 89 prototype, the two games still have a feature in common distinguishing them from all other varieties. It is this. The rank on which the pawns are usually posted is occupied by only two pieces, called p ao by the Chinese, and hisha and kaku by the Japanese. Also, on either side of the king are two pieces, called ssu in the Chinese, and kin in the Japanese game. These perform the duty imposed on the fcrz or visir of the Persian Shatranj, which was the equivalent of the modern queen. Therefore, no queen or piece of similar attributes appears in either Chinese or Japanese chess. There are eighty-one squares on the Japanese board, and the game is played with twenty pieces on each side, distinguished, not by shape or colour, but by the ideographs upon them. Though the movements of the pieces resemble in most res- pects those followed in the Western game, there are ramifications unknown to the latter, introducing elements that would puzzle even a native Morphy to trace the move which cost him a defeat. The most important of these are the employment of the pieces captured from the adversary to strengthen one's own game, and the comparative facility with which the minor pieces can attain to higher rank. Chess is understood by all classes in Japan. The very coolies at the corners of the streets improvise out of almost anything around them materials with which to play, and thus while away the tedium of Avaiting for employment. But it is comparatively little patronised by the educated classes, who hold its rival Go in much higher esteem. O is the king, keima the knight, hisha the rook, and kaku the bishop, — or pieces having movements like them. Fu is the pawn. The movements of the yari also resemble those of the rook, but are confined to the single rank on which it stands. Gin (silver) and kin (gold) are not found in Western chess. Gin moves one square diagonally at a time, also one square forward. If removed from its original position, it can retreat one square diagonally only. The kin, besides having similar movements, has also the power of moving one square on each side of itself, but it cannot 9° Chess. return tliagonall) . The /u advances one square forward, and captures as it moves, ^\'hen an\' piece moves into the adversary's third row, it may become a kin, in the same way as queening is effected in our game. This is indicated by turning the piece over. Every piece so promoted loses its original character, except the hisha and kaku to which tlie movements of the kin are added. As already indicated, a captured piece may be employed at any time for either attack or defence. To checkmate with the fu is a thing vetoed — or at least considered " bad form " — in this non- ilemocratic game, neither is stale-mate permissible in Japanese chess. You wait until the adversary makes a move which admits of free action on your })art. The object of the game is, as with us, to checkmate the king. The followino;- is a diasTam of the board : — P ^ 3 "7^ p c c' [in t4 O c' fa 5' c i5 Ci fa o 5 3" fa S g c fa o 7*\ p p c D fa D rt < p C D fa Books recoinjueuded. Das Japanischc Scliadispicl, by V. Holtz, and A Manual cf Chinese Chess, by W. H. Wilkinson. Children. 91 Children. Japan has been called "a paradise of babies.'' The babies are indeed general!}' so good as to help to make it a paradise for adults. They are well-mannered from the cradle, and the boys in particular are perfectly free from that gawky shyness which makes many English boys, when in company, such afflictions both to others and to themselves. Pity only that a little later they are apt to deteriorate, the Japanese young man being less attractive than his eight or ten-year-old brother, — becoming self- conscious, self-important, sometimes intrusive. The late Mrs. Chaplin-Ayrton tried to explain the goodness of Japanese children by a reference to the furnitureless condition of Japanese houses. There is nothing, she said, for them to wish to break, nothing for them to be told not to touch. This is ingenious. But ma}' we not more simply attribute the pleasing fact pardy to the less robust health of the Japanese, which results in a scantier supply of animal spirits ? In any case, children's pretty ways and children's games add much to the picturesque- ness of Japanese life. Nothing perhaps gi\'es the streets a more peculiar aspect than the quaint custom which obtains among the lower classes of strapping the babies on to the backs of their slightly older brothers and sisters, so that the juvenile population seems to consist of a new species of Siamese twins. On the 3rd March every doll-shop in Tok}'6, Kyoto, and the other large cities is gaily decked with what are called O Hina Sama, — -tiny models both of people and of things, the whole Japanese Court in miniature. This is the great yearly holida}' of all the litde girls. The boys' holiday takes place on the 5th May, when the towns and villages are adorned with gigantic paper or cotton carps, floating in the air from poles, after the manner of flags. The idea is that as the carp swims up the river against the current, so will the sturdv boy, overcoming all obstacles, make his way in the world and rise to fame and fortune. The unpleasant appearance of many Japanese children's heads is simply due to a form of eczema. The form is one by no means unknown in Europe, and is easily curable in a week. But 92 Clans. iis pojjular superstition invests these scabby heads with a health- giving influence in later life, no attempt is made to cure them. Probably shaving with dirty razors has something to do with the disease; for it generally ceases when shaving stops, and has noticeably diminished since the foreign custom of allowing children's hair to grow has begun to gain ground. The Japanese custom is to shave an infant's head on the seventh day after birth, only a tiny tuft on the nape of the neck being left. During the next five or six years, the mother may give rein to her fancy in the matter of shaving her little one's head. Hence the various styles which we see around us. Shaving is left off when a child goes to school, instead of, as among Europeans, generally commencing when he quits it. The Japanese lad's chin does not begin to sport a few hairs for several years later. Japanese infants are not weaned till they are two or three, sometimes not till they are five years old. This is doubtless one cause of the rapid ageing of the mothers. European parents may feel quite at ease about their little ones' chance of health in this country. IVIedical authorities declare the mortality among children of European race in Japan to be exceptionally low. Book recommended. JaJ>anese Girls ami H'oinen, by Miss A. M. Bacon, especially Chap. I. Christianity in Japan. See Missions. Clans. This is the usual English translation of the Japanese word hail (-^) which may better be rendered " Daimiate," that is, the territory and personal followers of a Daimyo, or territorial noble in feudal Japan. The soldier-gentry of a Japanese Daimiate differed from the Highland clans in the fact that all the members did not claim a common origin or use the same surname ; but they were equally bound to their lord by ties of love and implicit obedience, and to each other by a feeling of brotherhood. This feeling has survived the abolition of feudalism in 1871. Ever since that time, the members of the four great Daimiates of Classes of Society. 93 Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen have practically "run" the government of Japan. Her greatest modern statesman, Ito, her best-known minister of foreign affairs, Inoue, and Vamagata, and Yamada, and Aoki are all Choshu men, while such salient names as the two Saigo's, Oyama, Kuroda, Matsukata, Kabayama, and more or less the whole navy, belong to Satsuma. The student of Japanese politics who bears this fact in mind, will find many things become clear to him which before seemed complicated and illogical. Political questions are not necessarily questions of principle. They may simply be questions of personal or local interest. The present paramount influence of the four Daimiates of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen is pardy an inheri- tance from olden times, partly the result of the share which they took in restoring the Mikado to his position as autocrat of the Empire in the revolution of 1868. The two strongest of the four are Satsuma and Choshu, whence the term Sal-Cho, used to denote their combination ; for in Japanese there is no vulgarit}' in cutting off the tails of words. On the contrary, to do so is considered an elegant imitation of the Chinese style, which is nothing if not terse. The Satsuma men are credited with courage, the Choshu men with sagacity. The former are soldiers and sailors, men of dash and daring; the latter are diplomats and able administrators. Classes of Society. Japanese mankind was formerly tlivided into four classes, — the Samurai, or warrior-gentry (of whom the Daimyos were the leaders), the peasantry, the artisans, and the tradespeople. Notice the place in which commerce stood, at the very bottom of the scale, below the very tillage of the soil. Traces of this contumely have survived modern changes; for men naturally become what the world holds them to be : — the hucksters or traders (we will not dignify them with the name of merchants) were a degraded class in Old Japan, and degraded their business morals remain, which is the principal cause of the ditTiciiUies experienced by European merchants in dealing with them. After the revolution a change was made in the classification of 94 Climate. society, and three orders are now established by law, — the nobility (kivaznhi ), gentry (shizokuj, and common people (heimiii). The two former combined constitute five per cent., the common people ninety-five per cent., of the entire population. Some have used the word " caste " to denote these divisions ; but the term is inappropriate, as there exists no impassable barrier between the different classes, nor yet anything approaching to Indian caste prejudice. The feeling only resembles that to which we are accustomed in England, if indeed it is as strong. Japanese official regulations tolerate no subterfuges in matters of personal identity. Each citizen is required to nail up over his door a wooden ticket inscribed with his name and quality. Thus : " District of Azabu, Upper Timber Street, No. 8, a Commoner of the Prefecture of Shizuoka, So-and -So" (the surname followed by the personal name). See also Article on Eta. Climate. The exaggerated estimation in which the climate of Japan is held by many of those who have had no experience of it often prepares a bitter disappointment for visitors, who find a climate far wetter than that of England and subject to greater extremes of temperature. It should be added, on the other hand, that it also has more fine days,* and that the fine days it has are incomparably finer and more inspiriting than the feeble, misty incertitudes that pass for fine weather among the natives of Great Britain. The best season is the autumn. Erom the latter part of October to the end of the year, the sky is generally clear and the atmosphere still, while during a portion of that time (November), the forests display glorious tints of red and gold, surpassed only in Canada and the United States. During January, February, and March, snow occasionally falls, but it rarely lies longer than a day or two. The spring is trying, on account of the wet spells and the * Tokyo has 57.90 inches of yearly rainfall, as against 24.76 at Greenwich, but only 141. 6 rainy days as against 166.1. Climate. 95 "■ "■■' =~"~" " .... 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'^ I ^ ^" p p c/i* V t3 g s tj « ,S o S £ c:' 5 ? 5 ^ D 2 ^ u c o J £ 5 'J3 cd 5 1 'i< 1 £ z o en If 1 i ,5 u o E^ s S "3 3 •"^ 3 c s :; o "o c 1 tfl c rt rr! rt m rt >» rt rt t> 1) OJ J^ ^ 1 O ri OJ <5 2% s < < s ^._ Q s « S ;^ u — * ?». •• a n) vA w -•-' r- 1 1 u o ^ (LI •^ o ;:; o "** hr ^ ^ CLI ^ £ ^ •^ rt o Ci r^ ■i. rt t) U u o 1/ rt o 1 n O no O O _J_J C 6 rt ^ >-> CJ .'^ o o r -^ (« o 1 ~ - n - u tr. -S >> rt rt TS i^'CJ O |J-i ° 5- >- :» 2 o ^ C — o ^ — o 96 Climate. frequent high winds, which often seriously interfere with the enjoyment of the cherry, wistaria, peony, and other flowers, in which the Japanese take such pride. True, the rain is always pronounced exceptional. Never, it is alleged, was so wet a season known before, properly conducted years admitting of no rain but in June and the first week or two of July — the " rainy season " (nyiibai) duly provided for by the old Japanese calendar, in which not natives only, but the foreign residents, exhibit a confidence which would be touching were it not tiresome. Statistics * show, however, that from April on to July inclusive nearly every other day is rainy, while in the months flanking them on either side — ■ March and August — an average of more than one day in three is rainy. In September and October the average number of rainy days rises again to about one out ot every two. The superstition concerning a special " rainy season " may be due to the trying combination of dark skies with the first heat of the year, making exercise wearisome when not impossible. So penetrating is then the damp that no care can succeed in keeping things from mildew. Boots, books, cigarettes, if put away for a day, appear next morning covered with an incipient forest of whitish, greenish matter. No match-box can be got to strike ; envelopes stick together without being wetted ; gloves must be kept hermetically sealed in bottles, or they will come out a mass of spots. The second half of July and all August are hotter, but less damp, the rain then falling rather in occasional heavy storms which last from one to three days, and are follow^ed by splendid weather. The heat generally vanishes suddenly about the second week in September, when the rain sets in with renewed energy and continues about a month. Such is the common order of things. But scientific observations stretching over a quarter of a century past prove that seasons differ very widely from each other. One striking peculiarity of the Japanese climate is the constant prevalence of northerly winds in winter and ot southerly winds in * Sec page 95, Climate. 97 summer. Rooms facing south are therefore the best all the year round, escaping, as they do, the chill blasts of January and February, and profiting by ever}' summer breeze. Another peculiarity is the lateness of all the seasons, as compared with Europe. The grass, for instance, which dies down during the cold, dry winter months, does not become really fit for tennis- playing before the middle of ]\Ia}'. On the other hand, winter is robbed of the gloom of short afternoons by the transparent clearness of the sky down to the end of the year, and even throughout January whenever it is not actually raining or snowing. Travellers are recommended to choose the late au- tumn, especially if they purpose to content themselves with the beaten tracks of Kyoto, Tokyo, Miyanoshita, Nikko, etc., where the Europeanisation of hotels has brought sto^■es in its train ; for stoveless Japanese tea-houses are wofully chilly places. April and May, notwithstanding a greater chance of wet weather, will be better for the wilds. There is then, too, neither cold nor heat to fear. Japanese heat, after all, is not tropical, and many will enjoy travelling throughout the summer months. Mountain climbing must in any case be reserved for that time of year, as the mountains are not "open" at other seasons, — that is to say, the huts on them are deserted, antl the native guides mostly refuse to undertake any ascent. The foregoing description of the Japanese climate applies to the Pacific seaboard of Central Japan, of which Tokyo is fairly representative. But need we remind the reader that Japan is a large country ? The northernmost Kuriles, now Japanese territory, touch Kamchatka. The most southern of the Luchu Isles is scarcely a degree from the tropic of Cancer, to say nothing of newly acquired Formosa. The climate at the extreme points of the empire therefore differs widely from that of temperate Central Japan. Speaking generally, the south-eastern slope of the great central range of the Main Island — the slope facing the Pacific Ocean and washed by the Kuro-shio, or Gulf-Stream of Eastern Asia — has a much more moderate climate than the north-western ^8 Climate. slope, which faces the Sea of Japan, with Sil^cria I)e}(>iKl. In Tokyo, on the Pacific side, what little snow falls melts almost immediately. In the towns near the Sea of Japan it lies three or four feet deep for weeks, and drifts to a depth of fifteen to eighteen feet in the valleys. But the summer in these same towns is, like the Tdkyo summer, oppressively hot. That the Tokyo rainfall more than doubles that of London has already been stated. But Tokyo is by no means one of the wettest parts of the country ; on the contrary, with the exception of the northern shore of the Inland Sea and the plains of Musashi and Shinshu, it is among the driest. Many districts show double its rainfall, the Hida-Etchu mountains and the south-east coast of Kishu show treble. Thunder-storms and sudden showers are rare in Japan, excepting in the mountain districts. Fogs, too, are rare south of Kinkwa-zan, about 38° 20' North. From Kinkwa-zan right up the eastern coast of the Main Island, all along Eastern Yezo, the Kuriles, and up as far as Behrihg's Strait, thick fogs prevail during the calm summer months, — fogs which are relieved only by furious storms in autumn, and a wintry sea packed with ice. The average number of typhoons passing over Japan yearly is from four to five, of which Tokyo receives one or two. The months liable to typhoons are (in a decreasing order of severity) September, August, October, and July. Typhoons have, it is true, been experienced as early as the end of March ; but this is quite exceptional. The climate of Japan is stated on the highest medical authority to be excellent for children, less so for adults, the enormous amount of moisture rendering it depressing, especially to persons of a nervous temperament and to consumptive patients. Various causes, physical and social, contribute to make Japan a less healthy country for female residents of European race than for the men. The table on page 95 gives the average of twenty-five years' observations [1876-1900J, made at the Central Meteorological ■Observatory, Tokyo. Cloisonne. 99 Japan has been divided, tor meteorological purposes, into seven districts, namely, I. the southern half of Kyushii and Shikoku ; II. the Inland Sea; III. N. W. Kyushu and the west coast of the Main Island up to the latitude of Kyoto; IV. the Pacific coast from Ise and Nagoya to Tokyo and Mito ; V. the N. W. coast from Tsuruga to Noshiro ; VI. the Pacific coast from Mito to Sendai and Miyako ; VII. the Province of Rikuoku and the Island of Yezo. Books recommended. The Monthly and Annual Reports of the Central Meteoro- logical Observatory — The Climate rf yapan, issued by the same in 1893. — The Chi/ta Sea Directory, Vol. IV. Cloisonne. The art of cloisonne enamelling first became known in Japan some three hundred years ago ; but it has only been brought to perfection within the last quarter of a century. The few examples in the Nijo Palace at Kyoto are small and extremely rough. Mr. Namikawa, the great cloisonne-maker of Kyoto, will show visitors specimens that look antedilu- vian in roughness and simplicity, but date back no further than 1873- Need it be explained that cloisonne is a species of mosaic, whose characteristic feature is a thin network of copper or brass soldered on to a foundation of solid metal, the interstices or cells of the network — the cloiso/is, as they are technically called — being then filled in with enamel paste of various colours, and the process completed by several bakings, rubbings, and polishings, until the surface becomes as smooth as it is hard } Enamelling has also sometimes been applied in the same way to a porcelain basis ; but the best connoisseurs condemn this innovation as illegitimate, because unsuited to the nature of the material employed. Kyoto, Tokyo, and Nagoya are the three great centres o[' the enameller's art, and each has developed a special stvle. The difference between the Tokyo and Kyoto styles consists in this, that whereas Namikawa at Kyoto makes no attempt to hide the metallic contours of his lovely floral and arabescjue decorations, his name- sake at Tokyo prides himself on rendering the cloisoiis invisible, loo Confucianism. thus producing cither pictures that might be ini.stal<.cn for paintings on porcelain, or else monochromatic effects also similar to those observed in certain kinds of old Chinese porcelain. The Tokyo school performs the greater lour dc force. But persons of true artistic temperament, who recognise that each material has its natural limitations, to move gracefully within which beseems genius better than overstepping them, will surely prefer the j)roductions of the Ky5to makers, whose cloisonn6 is honcstl}' cloisonne, but cloisonn6 with a wealth of .ornament, an accuracy of design, a harmony of colour, simply miraculous when one considers the character of the material employed and the risks to which it is subjected in the process of manufacture. These risks greatly enhance the price of cloisonne ware, especially of the larger monochromatic pieces. The purchaser of a vase or plaque must pay not only for it, but for all the others that have been inevitably spoilt in the endeavour to produce one flawless piece. The Nagoya cloisonne differs from both the above. The great local artist, Kumeno, takes silver as the basis of his vases, and this is beaten up into the desired design, with specially fine effect in water and wave pieces. Wires are also used. The enamel put on is for the most part transparent, so that very delicate results are obtained by the silver shining through the glaze. Books recommended. Japanese Enamels, by J. L. Bovvos. — Tlie Industries of Ja/. 488 ct seq. Confucianism. To describe in detail this Chinese system of philosophy, would be alien to the })lan of the present work. Suffice it to say that Confucius (called by the Japanese Koshi) abstained from all metaphysical flights and devotional ecstasies. He confined himself to practical details of morals and government, and took submission to jjarents and political rulers as the corner- stone of his system. The result is a set of moral truths — some would say truisms — of a very narrow scope, and of dry ceremonial observances, political rather than personal. This Confucian code of ethics has for ages satisfied the Far-Easterns of China, Korea, Confucianism. loi and Japan, but would not have been endured for a moment by the more eager, more speculative, more tender European mind. The Confucian Classics consist of what are called, in the Japanese pronunciation, the Shi-sho Go-kyu, that is " the Four Books and the Five Canons." The Four Books are " The Great Learning," " The Doctrine of the Mean," " The Confucian Analects," and " The Sayings of Mencius." Mencius, let it be noted, is by far the most attractive of the Chinese sages. He had an epigrammatic way about him and a certain sense of humour, which give to many of his utterances a strangely Western and modern ring. He was also the first democrat of the ancient East, — a democrat so outspoken as to have at one time suf- fered exclusion from the libraries of absolutistic Japan. The Five Canons consist of " The Book of Changes," " The Book of Poetry," "The Book of History," "The Canon of Rites," and "Spring and Autumn" (annals of the state of Lu by Confucius). Originally introduced into Japan early in the Christian era, along with other products of Chinese civilisation, the Confucian philosophy lay dormant during the Middle Ages, the period of the supremacy of Buddhism. It awoke with a start in the early part of the seventeenth century, when leyasu, the great warrior, ruler, and patron of learning, caused the Confucian Classics to be printed in Japan for the first time. During the two hundred and fifty years that followed, the whole intellect of the country was moulded by Confucian ideas. Confucius himself had, it is true, laboured for the establishment of a centralised monarchy. But his main doctrine of unquestioning submission to rulers and parents fitted in perfectly with the feudal ideas of Old Japan ; and the conviction of the paramount importance of such subordination lingers on as an element of stability, in spite of the recent social cataclysm which has involved Japanese Confucianism, properly so- called, in the ruin of all other Japanese institutions. The most eminent Japanese names among the Confucianists are Ito Jinsai and his son, ltd Togai, at Kyoto ; Arai Hakuseki, and Ogyu Sorai at Yedo. All four flourished about the end of the I02 Conventions. seventeenth and the beginning of the eigliteenth century. They were merely expositors. No Japanese hatl the originaHt}- — it would have been hooted down as impious autlacity — to develop the Confucian system further, to alter or amend it. There are not even an}' Japanese translations or commentaries worth reading. The Japanese ha\e, for the most part, rested content with reprint- ing the text of the Classics themselves, and also the text of the principal Chinese commentators (especially that of Shushi, :^-J*), pointed with diacritical marks to facilitate their perusal by Japanese students. The Chinese Classics thus edited formed the chief vehicle of every boy's education from the seventeenth century until the remodelling of the system of public instruction on European lines after the revolution of 1868. At present they have fallen into almost total neglect, though phrases and allusions borrowed from them still pass current in literature, and even to some extent in the language of every-day life. Seido, the great temple of Confucius in Tokyo, is now utilised as an Educational INIuseum. N. B. — A friendly German critic of the first edition of this work thought Confucius unfairly judged in the opening paragraph of the foregoing article. " Confucianism anticipated modern agnosticism, on the one hand," said he; "on the other — and this consideration deserves special weight — it has formed the basis of a social fabric far more lasting than any other that the world has seen. The endurance of the Papacy is often quoted in evidence of the truth of Roman Catholicism. What then, of Confuci- anism with its still higher antiqiiitj' ? " There is much force In this objection ; and those who know China most intimately seem to agree in attributing her marvellous vitality and her power of assimilating barbarous tribes — both those she conquers and those that conquer her — to the fact that this great ethical system has infused its strength into the national life, and practically rules the country, We incline to agree with our critic as much as with ourselves. The best plan may perhaps be to present both sides of a question which is too complicated for any sweeping assertion about it to be wholly true. Books recommended. Dr. Legge's elaborate edition of The Chinese Classics in si.v large voIumc>;, and \i)l. XVI. of the Sacred Books of the East, containing the same writer's translation of the Book of Changes [Vi King). — Cotifitcianisjn, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, is a much briefer manual of the subject, in popular form. — The Japanese Confucianists have been made the subject of a careful study by Rev. Dr. G. W. Knox, in Vol. XX. Part I. of the ''Asiatic Trans- actions." See also Aston's History of yajtancse Literature. Conventions. Whether we or the Japanese be the more conventional, might furnish a nice point for argument; but in any Cormorant-Fishing. 103. case it is their conventions that strike //\. They admire certain flowers, — the plum and cherry-blossom, the wistaria, the chrysan- themum, the insignificant " seven herbs of autumn," and have written poems about these and a few others for centuries ; but new flowers, however beautiful, they will not admit at any rate into literature. They rave about the mt)on ; the glories and pathos of sunset touch no chord within them. Their art bristles with conventions. So do their social habits, as when, in greeting a friend, they crave pardon for rudeness of which they were never guilty. The oddest conventional item of daily life, or rather death, is their habit of inventing a fictitious date for decease. Thus, all the world knows that such and such an admiral or general died on Monday morning. Nevertheless, he receives visits on the Tues- day, is promoted on the Wednesday, perhaps makes a railway journey on the Thursday, and at last, maybe, receives official permission to die on the Friday at precisely 7.45 p.m. This make-believe is inspired by the most practical motives. In former days, when a Daimyo died away from home, he was considered a deserter, and his estates were forfeited to the Crown. So, in the event of his being assassinated out-of-doors, the fact was hushed up ; he was put into his palanquin, carried home, and proclaimed to have died a natural death there, -thus preserving the estate to his heirs. At the present day, higher official rank brings with it a larger pension to the family. It is, therefore, a gracious act on the part of Government to permit the postponement of the date of death till after certain honours shall have been conferred. Cormorant- Fishing. This strange method of fishing is mentioned in a poem found in the Kojiki, a work compiled in A.D. 712, while the poem itself probably dates from a far earlier age. The custom is kept up at the present day in various dis- tricts of Japan, notably on the River Nagara, near Gifu, in the province of Owari. First catch your cormorant. " 'i'his,'" we are told by Mr. G. E. I04 Cormorant-Fishing. Gregory, in Vol. X. Part I. of the "Asiatic Transactions," — "this the people do by placing wooden images of the birds in spots frequented by them, and covering the surrounding branches and twigs with bird-lime, on settling upon which they stick fast. After having in this manner caught one cormorant, they place it among the bushes, instead of the image, and thus catch more." Mr. Gregory further says that the fishermen take such care of the birds that they provide them with mosquito-nets during the sum- mer, in order to minister to their comfort ! We cannot personally vouch for such an extreme of solicitude, having seen (and. alas ! smelt) the birds only during the cool off-season, which they idle away in baskets in the fishermen's houses. Cormorant-fishing always takes place at night and by torch-light. The method pursued is thus described by the late Major-General Palmer, R. E., in a letter to the Times, dated 17th July, 1889 : — " There are, to begin with, four men in each of the seven boats, one of whom, at the stern, has no duty but that of managing his craft. In the bow stands the master, distinguished by the peculiar hat of his rank, and handling no fewer than twelve trained birds with the surpassing skill and coolness that have earned for the sportsmen of Gifu their unrivalled pre-eminence. Amidships is another fisher, of the second grade, who handles four birds only. Between them is the fourth man, called kako, from the bamboo striking instrument of that name, with which he makes the clatter necessary for keeping the birds up to their work ; he also encourages them by shouts and cries, looks after spare apparatus, etc., and is ready to give aid if required. Each cormorant wears at the base of its neck a metal ring,* drawn tight enough to prevent marketable fish from passing below it, but at the same time loose enough — for it is never removed — to admit the smaller prey, which serves as food. Round the body is a cord, having attached to it at the middle of the back a short strip of stifiish whalebone, by which the great awkward bird may be conveniently lowered into the water or lifted out when • * We believe that these rings are generally not of metal, but of bone or whalebone. Cormorant-Fishing. i o 5 at work ; and to this whalebone is looped a thin rein of spruce fibre, twelve feet long, and so flir wanting in pliancy as to minimize the chance of entanglement. When the fishing ground is reached, the master lowers his twelve birds one by one into the stream and gathers their reins into his left hand, manipulating the latter thereafter with his right as occasion requires. No. 2 does the same with his four birds ; the kako starts in with his volleys of noise ; and forthwith the cormorants set to at their work in the heartiest and jolliest way, diving and ducking with wonderful swiftness as the astonished fish come flocking towards the blaze of lig-ht. The master is now the busiest of men. He must handle his twelve strings so deftly that, let the birds dash hither and thither as they will, there shall be no impediment or fouling. He must have his eyes everywhere and his hands following his eyes. Specially must he watch for the moment when any of his flock is gorged, — a fact generally made known by the bird itself, which then swims about in a. foolish, helpless way, with its head and swollen neck erect. Thereupon the master, shortening in on that bird, lifts it aboard, forces its bill open with his left hand, which still holds the rest of the lines, squeezes out the fish with his right, and starts the creature off on a fresh foray, — all this with such admirable dexterity and quickness that the eleven birds still bustling about have scarce time to get things into a tangle, and in another moment the whole team is again perfectly in hand. " As for the cormorants, they are trained when quite young, being caught in winter with bird-lime on the coasts of the neigh- bouring Owari Gulf, at their first emigration southward from the summer haunts of the species on the northern seaboard of Japan. Once trained, they work well up to fifteen, often up to nineteen or twenty, years of age; and, though their keep in winter bears hardly on the masters, they are very precious and profitable hunters during the five month's season, and well deserve the great care that is lavished upon them. From four to eight good-sized fish, for example, is the fair result of a single excursion for one bird, which corresponds io6 Cormorant-Fishing. with an average e)!" aboul one hundred and fifty lisli per cormorant per hour, or four hundred and fifty for the three hours occupied in drifting down the whole course. Every bird in a flock has and knows its number ; and one of the funniest things about them is the quick-witted jealousy with which they invariably insist, by all that cormorant language and pantomimic protest can do, on due observance of the recognized rights belonging to their individual numbers. No. i. or ' Ichi,' is the r/'^ycv; of the corps, the senior in years as well as rank. His colleagues, according to their age, come after him in numerical order. Ichi is the last to be put into the water and the first to be taken out, the first to be fed, and the last to enter the baskets in which, when work is over, the birds are carried from the boats to their domicile. Ichi, when aboard, has the post of honour at the eyes of the boat. He is a solemn, grizzled old fellow, with a pompous, Jioli mc iangere air that is almost worthy of a Lord Mayor. The rest have places after him, in succession t)f rank, alternately on either side of the gunwale. If hapl}', the lawful order of precedence be at any time violated — if, for instance, No. 5 be put into the water before No. 6, or No. 4 be placed above No. 2 — the rumpus that forthwith arises in that famil}' is a sight to see and a sound to hear. " But all this while we have been drifting down, with the boats about us, to the lower end of the course, and are again abreast of Gifu, where the whole squadron is beached. As each cormorant is now taken out of the water, the master can tell by its weight whether it has secured enough supper while engaged in the hunt ; failing which, he makes the deficiency good by feeding it with the inferior fish of the catch. At length all are ranged in their due order, facing outwards, on the gunwale of each boat. And the sight of that array of great ungainly sea-birds — shaking themselves, Happing their wings, gawing, making their toilets, clearing their throats, looking about them with a stare of stupid solemnity, and now and then indulging in old-maidish tiffs with their neighbours — is quite the strangest of its little class I have ever Cremation. 107 seen, except perliaps the wonderful penguinr}' of the Falkland Islands, whereat a certain French philosopher is said to have even wept. Finally, the cormorants are sent off to bed, and we ourselves follow suit." Cremation. Cremation followed Buddhism into Japan about A. D. 700, but never entirely superseded the older Shinto custom of disposing of the dead by interment. Ludicrous as it may appear, cremation was first discontinued in the case of the INIikados on the representations of a fishmonger named Hachibei, who clamoured for the interment of the Emperor Go-Komei in 1644. On the i8th July, 1873, cremation was totally prohibited by the Government, whose members seem to have had some confused notion as to the practice being un-European and therefore barbarous. Having discovered that far from being un-European, cremation was the goal of European reformers in such matters, they rescinded their prohibition only twenty-two months later (23rd May, 1S75). There are now tivc cremation grounds in Tokyo, namely, Kirigaya, Nippori, Kameido, Ogi-Shinden, and Kami- Ochiai. The charges for cremation are: ist class, 'j yen (5 yen for children under six years of age) ; 2nd class, 2^ yen (2 yen for children); 3rd class, i|- yen (i yen 20 sen for children). The good priest of whom we caused enquiry to be made on this point, said that poor folks often came begging to be let oll[" more cheaply, but that in these hard times it was impossible to do so. The system is quite simple, wood being the only fuel used. The corpse, enclosed in its wooden coffin, is thoroughly consumed in about three hours. Nothing remains but a few minute splinters of bone and the teeth, which latter are preserved and often sent to the great temple at Koya-san, The ashes are placed in an urn and buried. We should add that on the 19th June, 1874, a law was passed against intramural interment, except in certain special cases. It is still prohibited, unless when the body has been cremated before burial. io8 Currency. Currency. A gold slamlard was adoi)tecl in 1897, and the coinage coinsists of gold, silver, nickel, and copper. The chief circulating medium, however, has generally been paper. The system is decimal, and the nomenclature as follows : — • I jVv/, copper pieces for lesser values, and paper for various values great and small, from i yen upward. The paper notes now in use are redeemable in gold, and therefore stand at par. The large oblong brass pieces with a hole in the middle, ena- bling them to be strung on a string, are called tempo, because coined- during the period styled Tempo (A. D. 1830 — -1844). They are worth eight rin, but are now almost obsolete. The smaller round coins, also having a hole in the middle, and commonly known to foreigners as "cash," are worth, some 10 mo, some 15, some 20. No coins of this kind are now issued. The style has been condemned by the modern Japanese, because not sanctioned by European precedent. But what is there to consult in such matters save convenience .-' And let him who has handled a thousanil coppers thus strung, and attempted to handle a thousand loose ones, speak to the relative convenience of the two methods. The Imperial mint is situated at Osaka. It was started under British auspices, but the last of the British employes left in 1889. The manufactory of paper money is at Tokyo, being carried on at an institution called the Insaisic Kyokii, which well deserves Cycle. 109 a visit. Both the coins and the paper notes possess considerable artistic merit. In Japan, as elsewhere, iinanciers have been engrossed b}" the monometalHc and bimetaUic controversy, the currency problem being not the least of those which Government has had to solve. Forty years ago, when the country was still practically closed, litUe specie was in actual use, but there existed a banking system which sustained mercantile credit for the limited amount of internal business then transacted. Later, paper money was extensively employed, and at one time suffered great depre- ciation, but was brought again to a par with silver by the issue of convertible silver notes, and so remained for over a decade. The industrial boom which followed the war with China, created a necessity for securing foreign capital to finance multitudinous undertakings which Japan herself hatl not the means to carry on unaided. Thereupon the Government, recognising the impossibility of borrowing in the Western money markets so long as Japan remained on a silver basis, passed a bill making the currenc}' a gold one in the ratio of 32I to i, or sa}" 2/0^^ sterling per yen. The extreme difficulty of the situation could scarcely have been more strikingly exemplified than by the circumstance that, in the brief interval between Japan's decision to adopt a gold standard and the putting of that decision into effect, the relative value of the two metals had already again varied as much as five-eighths of a penny by the continued appreciation of gold. Far be it, however, from ignoramuses like ourselves to venture into the controversial quagmire. Book recojumended. Abridged History of the Cojipcr Coins of Japan, by Leon Van dor Polder, printed in Vol. XIX. Part II. of the ''Asiatic Transactions." Cycle. " Better fifty years of pAU-ope than a cycle of Cathay." But it has been pointed out that there is, afier all, little difference between the two terms of the comparison. The Chinese cycle, which the Japanese employ for historical purposes, has but sixty years (see Article on Time). no Dances. Daimyo. The Daimyos were the territorial lords or barons of feudal Japan. The word means literally "great name." Accord- ingly, during the Middle Ages, warrior chiefs of less degree, corresponding, as one might say, to our knights or baronets, were known by the correlative title Shbmyb, that is, "small name." But this latter fell into disuse. Perhaps it did not sound grand enough to hz welcome to those who l)ore it. Under the Tokugawa dynasty, which ruled Japan from A.D. 1603 to 1867, the lowest Daimyos owned land assessed at ten thousand bales of rice per annum, while the richest fief of all — that of Kaga — was worth over a million bales. The total number of the Daimyos in modern times was about three hundred. It should be borne in mind that the Daimyos were not the only aristocracy in the land, though they were incomparably the richest and the most important. In the shadow of the Mikado's palace at Kyoto, poor but very proud of their descent from gods and emperors, and looking down on the feudal Daimyo aristocracy as on a mere set of military adventurers and parvenus, lived, or rather vegetated through centuries, the Kuge, the legitimist aristocracy of Japan. The revolution of 1868, in bringing about the fall of the Daimyos, at last gave the Kuge their opportunity. With the restoration of the IVIikado to absolute power, they too emerged from obscurity ; and on the creation of a new system of ranks and titles in 1884, they were not forgotten. The old Kuge took rank as new princes, marquises, and counts, and what is more, they were granted pensions. Sooks recominended. The Feudal System in Jajian ztnder the Tokugawa S/iH^-tais, by J. H. Gubbins, printed in Vol. XV. Part II. of the " Asiatic Transactions." Reference to Mr. Gubbins's learned essay will show that the subject of Daimyos is not so simple as might appear at first sight. — T. R. H. McClatchie's Feudal JMansions' of Yedo, in Vol. VII. Part ni. of the same, gives interesting details of the "palaces" in which the Daimyos resided while attending on the Shogun at Yedo. Dances. Our single word "dance" is represented by two in Japanese, — niai and odori, the former being a general name for the more ancient and, so to say, classical dances, the latter for such as are newer and more popular, l^ut the line between the two Dances. 1 1 1 classes is hard to draw, ami both agree in consisting mainly «jf posturing. Europeans dance with their feet, — not to say their legs, — Japanese mainly with their arms. The dress, or rather undress, of a European corps de haJlcl would take away the breath of the least prudish Oriental. One of the oldest Japanese dances is the Kagura, which may still often be seen in the grounds of certain temples. The performers wear masks and quaint gowns of real or imitation damask. The original of the Kagura is said to have been the dance by means of which, soon after the beginning of the world, the Sun-Goddess was lured from a cavern into which she had retired, thus plunging all creation in darkness. The sacred dances at Nara and Ise belong to this category ; but the Ise Ondo^ sometimes mentioned by travellers, is a later profane invention, — apparently an adapta- tion of the Gcnroku Odori, a dance that may still occasionally be witnessed on the stage. The Bon Odori, a popular dance which takes place on certain days in summer all over provincial Japan, is believed to have a Buddhist origin, though its meaning is far from clear. The details vary from village to village ; but the general feature of this dance is a large circle or wheel of posturing peasants, who revolve to the notes of the song sung and the flute antl tlrum played by a few of their number in the middle. Kyoto and TokyS, being too civilised for such rustic exercises in which all share, do their dancing by proxy. There, and in the other large towns, the dancing-girls {geisha) form a class apart. While one or mor-c of the girls dance, others play the s/iamisen and sing the story ; for Japanese dances almost always represent some story, they are not mere arabesques. Herein the intimate connection that has always subsisted between dancing and the drama finds its explanation, as will be better understood by reference to the Article on the Theatre. The Kappore and the Shishi-mai, or Lion Dance, are among those most often executed in the streets by strolling performers. The very newest of all forms of dancing in Japan is of course 1 1 2 Decorations. that borrowed from Europe a few years ago. Its want of digni- ty, together with certain disagreeable . rumours to ^\'hicll the unwonted meedng of the two sexes has given rise from time to time, have caused the innovation to be looked at askance by many who are otherwise favourable to European manners and customs. A plain-spoken writer in an excellent illustrated periodi- cal entitled Fuzoku Gwaho, says that, whereas his imagination had painted a civilised ball-room as a vision of fairy-land, its reality reminded him of nothing so much as lampreys wriggling up to the surface of the water, and (passcz liii Ic /no/ ) lleas hopping out of a bed. Decorations. The heraldry of feudal Jajian did not include orders of knighthood, or decorations for military and other service. Modern Japan imitated these things from Europe in the year 1875. There are now six orders of knighthood, namely, the Order of the Chrysanthemum, the Order of the Paulownia, the Order of the Rising Sun, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, the Order of the Crown, and the Order of the Golden Kite. The Order of the Crown is for ladies onl}'. All the orders are divided into various classes. The Graml Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum is the highest honour which the Japanese Court can bestow. It is, therefore, rarely bestowed on any but royal personages. The Order of the Sacred Treasure is the distinction now most frequently conferred on foreign employes of the Government for long and meritorious service, the class given being usually the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth, according to circumstances — rarely the second. The holder of such a decoration, down to the third class inclusive, is, even though he be a civilian, granted a military funeral. We next come to the War Medal, of which there is but one class, made of bronze obtained from captured guns. Conformably with the usage of European countries, it is given only for foreign service, not for service in civil war. Those who took part in the Formosan expedition of 1874 and in the China war gained it, not those who helped to put down the Satsuma rebellion. After it rank the Demoniacal Possession. iij Civil Medals, distinguished by a red, a blue, and a green ribbon respectively. Then there is the Yellow Uibbon Medal, c.jnferred on those who made proof of patriotism by subscribing to the Coast Defence Fund in 1887. It is divided into two classes, called respectively Gold and Silver. More recent still are the Commemorative Medal of 1889 distributed to those who were present at the proclamation of the Constitution on the nth February of that year, and the medal struck in 1894 for those who assisted at the celebration of the Silver Wedding of Their Imperial Majesties. Of both these medals there are two classes, • — gold for princes, silver for lesser folk. The Order of the Kite, conferred for military merit only, is the newest of all the Japanese decorations. It was established on the nth February, 1890, in commemoration of Jimmu Tenno, the Romulus of Japan. Demoniacal Possession. Chinese notions concerning the superhuman powers of the fo.x, and in a lesser degree of the badger and the dog, entei"ed Japan during the early Middle Ages. One or two mentions of magic foxes occur in the Uji jfui, a story- book of the eleventh century ; and since that time the belief has spread and grown, till there is not an old w-oman in the land — or, for the matter of that, scarcel)' a man either — who has not some circumstantial fox story to relate as having happened to some 6ne who is at least the acquaintance of an acquaintance. In 1889, a tale was widely circulated and believed of a fox having taken the shape of a railway train on the Tokyo- Yokohama line. The phantom train seemed to be coming towards a real train which happened to be running in the opposite direction, but yet never got any nearer to it. The engine-driver of the real train, seeing all his signals to be useless, put on a tremendous speed. The result was that the phantom was at last caught up, when, lo and behold ! nothing but a crushed ^o-s. was found beneath the engine- wheels. Nor has the dawning twentieth century witnessed any abatement in the popular belief A fox story occupies a prominent 114 Demoniacal Possession. place in the newspaper this very morning in March, 1901, when we set ourselves to revise the present article. In fact, the name of such tales is legion. More curious and interesting is the power with which these demon foxes are credited of taking up their . abode in human beings in a manner similar tO' the phenomena of possession by evil spirits, so often referred to in the New Testa- ment. Dr. Baelz, of the Imperial University of Japan, who has had special opportunities for studying such cases in the hospital under his charge, has kindly communicated to us some remarks, of which the following is a resume: — " Possession by foxes (kilsiine-isuki) is a form of nervous disorder or delusion, not uncommonly observed in Japan. Having entered a human being, sometimes through the breast, more often through the space between the finger-nails and the flesh, the fox lives a life of his own, apart from the proper self of the person who is harbouring him. There thus results a sort of double entity or double consciousness. The person possessed hears and understands everything that the fox inside says or thinks; and the two often engage in a loud and violent dispute, the fox speaking in a voice altogether different from that which is natural to the individual. The only difference between the cases of possession mentioned in the Bible and those observed in Japan is that here it is almost exclusively women that are attacked — mostly women of the lower classes. Among the predis- posing conditions may be mendoned a weak intellect, a superstitious turn of mind, and such debilitating diseases as, for instance, typhoid fever. Possession never occurs except in such subjects as have heard of it already, and believe in the reality of its existence. " The explanation of the disorder is not so far to seek as might be supposed. Possession is evidently related to hysteria and to the hypnotic phenomena which physiologists have recently studied Avith so much care, the cause of all alike being the fact that, whereas in healthy persons one half of the brain alone is actively engaged — in right-handed persons the left half of the brain, and in left- handed persons the right — leaving the other half to contribute only Demoniacal Possession. 1 1 5 in a general manner to the function of thought, nervous excitement arouses this other half, and the two — one the organ of the usual self, the other the organ of the new pathologically affected self — are set over against each other. The rationale of possession is an auto-suggestion, an idea arising either with apparent spontaneity or else from the subject-matter of it being talked about by others in the patient's presence, and then overmastering her weak mind exactly as happens in hypnosis. In the same manner, the idea of the possibility of cure will often actually effect the cure. The cure-worker must be a person of strong mind and power of will, and must enjoy the patient's full confidence. For this reason the priests of the Nichiren sect, which is the most superstitious and bigoted of Japanese Buddhist sects, are the most successful expellers of foxes. Occasionally fits and screams accompany the exit of the fox. In all cases — even when the fox leaves quietly — great prostration remains for a day or two, and sometimes the patient is unconscious of what has happened. " To mention but one among several cases, I was once called in to a girl with typhoid fever. She recovered ; but during her convalescence, she heard the women around her talk of another woman who had a fox, and who would doubtless do her best to pass it on to some one else, in order to be rid of it. At that moment the girl experienced an extraordinary sensation. The fox had taken possession of her. All her efforts to get rid of him were vain. " He is coming ! he is coming ! " she would cry, as a fit of the fox drew near. " Oh ! what shall I do .' Here he is ! " And then, in a strange, dry, cracked voice, the fox would speak, and mock his unfortunate hostess. Thus matters continued for three weeks, till a priest of the Nichiren sect was sent for. The priest upbraided the fox sternly. The fox (always, of course, speaking through the girl's mouth) argued on the other side. At last he said : "I am tired of her. I ask no better than to leave her. What will you give me for doing so.'" The priest asked what he would take. The fox replied, naming certain cakes and other ii6 Demoniacal Possession. things, ^vhich, said he, must be placed before the aUar of such and such a temple, at 4 v.u., on such a day. The girl was conscious of the words her lips were made to frame, but was powerless to say anything in her own person. When the day and hour arrived, the offerings bargained for were taken by her relations to the place indicated, and the fox quitted the girl at that very hour. " A curious scene of a somewhat similar nature may occasion- ally be witnessed at Minobu, the romantically situated chief temple of the Nichiren sect, some two days' journey from Tokyo into the interior. There the people sit praying for hours before the gigantic statues of the ferocious-looking gods called Ni-o, which are fabled to ha\'e been carried thither from Kamakura in a single night on the back of the hero Asaina some six hundred years ago. The devotees sway their bodies backwards and forwards, and ceaselessly repeat the same invocation, " Namu inyuho rcngc kyb ! Xamu myohb renge kyo ! " At last, to some of the more nervous among them, wearied and excited as they are, the statues' eyes seem suddenly to start into life, and they themselves rise wildly, feeling a snake, or maybe a tiger, inside their body, this unclean animal being regarded as the physical incarnation of their sins. Then, with a cry, the snake or serpent goes out of them, and they themselves are left fainting on the ground.'" — So far Dr. Baelz. His account may be supplemented by the remark that not only are there persons believed to be possessed by foxes {kilsime-isuki), but others believed to possess foxes (kilsimc-viochi), in other words, to be wizards or witches com- manding unseen powers of evil which they can turn loose at will upon their enemies. The following extract from a Japanese newspaper (the JSichi-Nichi Shimbun of the 14th August, 1891) may serve to illustrate this point : — " In the province of Izumo, more especially in the western por- tion, there exists a peculiar custom called fox-owning, which plays an important part in marriages and transfers of landed property. Demoniacal Possession. 117 When a marriage is being arranged between persons residing several leagues apart and unaccjuainted with each other, enquiries into such points of family history as a possible taint of leprosy or phthisis are subordinated to the first grand question : is or is not the other party a fox-owner ? To explain this term, we may say that fox-owning families are believed to have living with them a tribe of small, weazle-like foxes to the number of seventy-five, called human foxes, by whom they are escorted and protected wherever they go, and who watch over their fields and prevent outsiders from doing them any damage. Should, however, any damage be done either through malice or ignorance, the offender is at once possessed by the fox, who makes him blurt out his ■crime and sometimes even procures his death. So great is the popular fear of the fox-owners that any one marrying into a fox- owning family, or buying land from them, or failing to repay money borrowed from them, is considered to be a fox-owner too. The fox-owners are avoided as if they were snakes or lizards. Nevertheless, no one ever asks another point blank whether or not his family be a fox-owning family ; for to do so might offend him, and the result to the enquirer might be a visitation in the form of possession by a fox. The subject is therefore never alluded to in the presence of a suspected party. All that is done is politely to avoid him. " It should be noticed, moreover, that there are permanent fox-owners and temporary fox-owners. The permanent fox-owners silently search for families of a similar nature to marry into, and can never on any account intermarry with outsiders, whatever may be the inducement in the shape of wealth or beauty. Their situation closely resembles that of the pariahs and outcasts of former times. But even the strictest rules will sometimes be broken through by love which is a thing apart, and liaisons will be formed between fox-owners and outsiders. When such an irremediable misfortune takes place, parents will renounce even their Avell-beloved only son, and forbid him to cross their threshold for the rest of his life. Temporary fox-owners are those who have ii8 Demoniacal Possession. been expelled from the family for buying land from a permanent fox-owner. These circumstances conspire to give security to the fox-owners (whether such in truth or imagination, we are not in a position to say) ; for no one will harm them by so much as a hair's breadth. Therefore they are all well-to-do ; some are even said to count among the most affluent families in the province. The very poorest people that have borrowed money from them will strain every nerve to raise money to repay the loan, because failure to do so would make others regard them as fox-owners and shun them. The result of all this is that a nervous m.alady resembling possession is much commoner in this province than elsewhere, and that Dr. Shimamura, assistant-professor at the Imperial University,* during his tour of inspection there this summer, has come across no less than thirty-one cases of it." To this may be added that in the Oki Islands, off the coast of Izumo, the superstition is modified in such wise that dogs, not foxes, are the magic creatures. The human beings in league with them are termed imi-gami-viochi, that is, " dog-god owners." When the spirit of such a magic dog goes forth on an errand of mischief, its body remains behind, growing gradually weaker, and sometimes dying and falling to decay. When this happens, the spirit, on its return, takes up its abode in the body of the wizard, who thereupon becomes more powerful than ever. Our informant was a peasant from the Oki Islands, — the best authority on such a point, because himself a believer and with no thesis to prove. Oddly enough, we ourselves once had to submit to exorcism at the hands of Shinto priests. It was in the summer of 1879, the great cholera year, and we were accused by the authorities of a certain village at which we desired to halt, of having brought the demon of cholera with us. For, true to human nature, each town, each village, at that sad season, always * Assistant, that is, to Dr. Baelz. Divination. ii^ proclaimed itself spotless, while loudly accusing all its neighbours of harbouring the contagion. Accordingly, after much parley, which took place in the drenching rain, with night approaching and with the impossibility of finding another shelter for many miles, some Shinto priests were sent for. They arrived in their white vestments and curiously curved hats, and bearing branches of trees in their hands. They formed in two lines on either side of the way, and between them our little party of two Europeans and one Japanese servant had to walk. As we passed, the priests waved the dripping branches over our heads, and struck us on the back with naked swords. After that, we were sullenly accord- ed a lodging for the night. To the honour of the Japanese government, let it be added that when we returned to Tokyo and reported the affair, the village authorities were at once deposed and another mayor and corporation set to reign in their stead. Perhaps we ought to apologise for thus obtruding our own personal adventures on the reader. We have only hesitatingly done so, because it seems to us that the exorcism of two Englishmen near the end of the nineteenth century is a litde incident sufficiently strange to merit being put on record. As for badgers, they are players of practical jokes rather than seriously wicked deceivers. One of their pranks is to assume the shape of the moon ; but this they can only do when the real moon is also in the sky. Another common trick of theirs is to beat the tattoo on their stomach (lanuki no hara-isuziimi). In art they are generally represented thus diverting themselves, with an enormousl}" protuberant abdomen for all the world like a drum. Divination. Astrology, horoscopy, palmistry, physiognomy, foretelling the future by dreams, — all these forms of superstition are current in Japan ; but the greatest favourite is divination by means of the Eight Diagrams of classical China. No careful observer can walk through the streets of any large city without noticing here and there a little stall where a fortune-teller sits with his divin- ing rods in front of him, and small blocks inscribed with sets of 1 20 Divination. horizontal lines, some whole, some cut in two. The manipula- tion of these paraphernalia embodies a highly complicated system of divination called Eki, literally " Changes," which is of immemorial antiquity. Confucius himself professed his inability to understand the matter thoroughly, and would fain have had fifty years added to his life for the purpose of plunging more deeply into its mysteries. The common fortune-tellers of to-day have no such qualms. Shuffhng the divining rods, they glibly instruct their clients in all such thorny matters as the finding of lost articles, the propriety of removing to another (Quarter of the town, the advisability of adopting a child, lucky days for marriage or for undertaking a journey, occasionally — if those in power be not much maligned — even affairs of state. Mr. Takashima, one of the leading citizens of Yokohama, traces his wealth to his imprison- ment when a lad ; for in gaol a dog-eared copy of Confucius' venerable treatise on the Diagrams was his sole companion. He has not only realised a fortune by obedience to its precepts, but has published a voluminous commentary on the subject. Few resident foreigners have any notion of the extent to which the Japanese with whom they come in contact are still under the influence of this order of ideas. We will give but one among several instances of which we have had personal cognizance. A favourite dog of the present writer's was lost in November, 1892, and all search, advertisement, and application to the police proved unavailing. Meanw'hile, the servants and their friends privately had recourse to no less than three diviners, two of whom were priests. One of these foretold the dog's return in April, and another directed that an ancient ode containing the words, " If I hear that thou awaitcst me, 1 will forthwith return, " should be written on slips of paper and pasted upside down on the pillars of the house. It was the sight of these slips that drew our attention to the matter. The best of it is that the dog was found, and that, too, in a month of April, namely, April, 1896, after having been missing for three years and five months. Dress. 1 2 1 How then attempt, with any good grace, to discredit the fortune- teller in the eyes of these simple folk ? Books recomiuended. The Yt King, by Rev. Dr. Lcgge, published as Vol. XVI. of the "Sacred Books of the East." — Sugiura's translation of Takashima's book entitled Eki-dan . Dress. It would take a folio volume elaborately illustrated to do justice to all the peculiarities of all the varieties of Japanese costume. Speaking generally, it may be said that the men are dressed as follows. First comes a loin-cloth {shiia-obi) of bleached muslin. Next to this a shirt {juhan) of silk or cotton, to which is added in winter an under-jacket {ddgi) of like material. Outside comes the gown {kimono), or in winter two wadded gowns {shilagi and mvagi), kept in place by a narrow sash {obi). On occasions of ceremony, there is worn furthermore a sort of broad pair of trousers, or perhaps we should rather say a divided skirt, called hakama, and a stiff coat called Iiaori. The hakama and haori are invariably of silk, and the haori is adorned w'ith the wearer's crest in three places, sometimes in five. The head is mostly bare, but is sometimes covered by a very large straw hat, while on the feet is a kind of sock, named iabi, reaching only to the ankle, and having a separate compartment for the big toe. Of straw sandals there are two kinds, the movable zori used for light work, and the waraji which are bound tightly round the feet with straw string and used for hard walking only. People of means wear only the iabi indoors, and a pair of wooden clogs, called geia, out-of-doors. The native costume of a Japanese gentleman is completed by a fan, a parasol, and in his belt a pipe and tobacco-pouch. Merchants also wear at their belt what is called a yaiate — a kind of portable ink-stand with a pen inside. A cheap variety of the kimono, or gown, is the ytikata, —a cotton dressing-gown, originally meant for going to the bath in, but now often worn indoors of an evening as a sort of deshabille. Take it altogether, the Japanese gentleman's attire, and that 122 Dress. of the ladies as well, is a highly elegant and sanitary one. The only disadvantage is that the flopping of the kimono hinders a free gait. Formerly the Japanese gentleman wore two swords, and his back hair was drawn forward in a queue over the carefully shaven middle of the skull ; but both these fashions are obsolete. The wearing of swords in public was interdicted by law in 1876, and the whole gentry submitted without a blow. Besides the loin-cloth, which is universal, the men of the lower classes, such as coolies and navvies, wear a sort of daidc- coloured pinafore {Jiara-gake) over the bust, crossed with bands behind the back. They cover their legs with tight-fitting drawers {inomo-hiki) and a sort of gaiters {kyahan). Their coat, called shiriishi-hanlcn, is marked on the back with a Chinese character or other sign to show by whom they are employed. But jinrikisha-men wear the happi, which is not thus marked,— that is, w^hen they wear anything; for in the country districts and in the hot weather, the loin-cloth is often the sole garment of the common people, while the children disport themselves in a state of nature. It is not unusual to see a kerchief {hachi-maki) tied over the brow, to prevent the perspiration from running into the eyes. Travellers of the middle and lower classes are often to be distinguished by their kimono being lifted up and shoved into the sash behind, by a kind of silk drawers called patchi, by a sort of mitten or hand-protector called tekko, and by a loose overcoat (kappa). The peasants wear a straw overcoat {mino) in rainy or snowy weather. The Japanese costume for women is less different from that of the men than is the case with us. In many districts the peasant women wear trousers and rain-coats, like their husbands. This, coupled with the absence of beard in the men, often makes it difficult for a new-comer to distinguish the sexes. In the towns, the various elements of female dress are as follows. Beneath all, come two little aprons round the loins {koshi-maki and suso-yoke), then the shirt, and then the kimono or ki?nonos kept in place by a thin belt {shiia-jimc). Over this is bound Dress. 123 the large sash iphi), which is the chief article of feminine adornment. In order to hold it up, a sort of panier or " improver " {phi-age) is placed underneath, while a handsome string (obi-dome) keeps it in position above. Japanese women bestow lavish care on the dressing of their hair. Their combs and hair-pins of tortoise-shell, coral, and other costly materials often represent many months of their husbands' salaries. Fortunately all these things, and even dresses themselves, can be handed down from mother to daughter, as jewels and lace may be in European lands, Japanese ladies' fashions not changing quickly. A Japanese lady's dress will often represent a value of 200 yen, without counting the ornaments for her hair, worth perhaps as much again. A woman of the smaller shop-keeping class may have on her, when she • goes out holiday-making, some 40 or 50 yen's worth. A gentleman w'ill rarely spend on his clothes as much as he lets his wife spend on hers. Perhaps he may not have on more than 60 yens worth. Thence, through a gradual decline in price, we come to the coolie's poor trappings, which may represent as little as 5 yen, or even 2 yen, as he stands. Children's dress is more or less a repetition in miniature of that of their elders. Long swaddling-clothes are not in use. Young children have, however, a bib. They wear a little cap on their heads, and at their side hangs a charm-bag (kinchaku), made out of a bit of some bright-coloured damask, containing a charm. ( mamori-fuda ) which is supposed to protect them from being run over, washed away, etc. There is also generally fastened somewhere about their little person a metal ticket (maigo-fuda), having on one side a picture of the sign of the zodiac proper to the year of their birth, and on the other their name and address, as a precaution against their getting lost. Japanese girls do not, like ours, remain in a sort of chrysalis state till seventeen or eighteen years of age, and then " come out " in gorgeous attire. The tiniest tots are the most brilliantly dressed. Thenceforward there is a gradual decline the whole way down to old age, which final stage is 124 Dress. marked by the severest simplicity. Many old ladies even cut their hair short. In any case, they never exhibit the slightest coquetlcrie do vieillesse. Those having any ac(iuaintance with Japan, either personal or by hearsay, will understand that when we say that the Japanese cvear such and such things (in the present tense), we speak of the native costume, which is still in fairly common use, though unfortunately no longer in universal use. The undignified billy- cocks and pantaloons of the West are slowly but surely supplanting the picturesque, aristocratic-looking native garb, — a change for which the Government is mainly responsible, as it obliges almost all officials to wear European dress when on duty, and of course the inferior classes ape their betters. Nor have the women, though naturally more conservative, been altogether able to resist the radicalism of their time and country. In the year 1886, some evil counsellor induced the Court to order gowns from Paris — we beg pardon, from Berlin — likewise corsets, and those European shoes in which a Japanese lady finds it so hard to walk without looking as if she had taken just a little drop too much. Need it be said that the Court speedily found imitators } Indeed, as a spur to the recalcitrant, a sort of notification was issued, " recom- mending " the adoption of European costume by the ladies of Japan. In vain the local European press cried out against the barbarismi, in vain every foreigner of taste endeavoured privately to persuade his Japanese friends not to let their wives make guys of themselves, in vain Mrs. Cleveland and the ladies of America wrote publicly to point out the dangers with which tight lacing, and European fashions generally, threaten the health of those who adopt them. The die was cast when, on the ist November, 1886, the Empress and her ladies appeared in their new German dresses at a public entertainment. The Empress herself would doubtless look charming in any garb. Would one could say as much for all those with her and for those that followed after ! The very highest society of Tokyo contained, it is true, from the begin- ning, a few — a very few — women of whose dress Pierre Loti Earthquakes and Volcanoes. 125 could say without llattery, " ioilctlc en sommc qui serail de inisc a Paris el qui est vraiment hieii poiiee." But the majorit}' ! Xo caricature could do justice to the bad figures, the ill-fitting garments, the screeching colours, that ran riot between 1886 and 1889. Since then there has been a wave of reaction, in conse- quence of which most ladies have happily returned to the national costume. How charming it is to see a bevy of them thus dressed, — dressed, mind you, not merely having clothes on,^ — such a symphony of greys and browns and other delicate hues of silk and brocade, the faultless costume being matched by the coy and at the same time perfectl}- natural and simple manners and musical voices of the wearers ! Duck-hunting with the help of decoys and a sort of large hand net, in grounds laid out for the purpose with ponds and canals and high embankments and concealed alleys, is a sport which was invented in Tokyo some thirty years ago for the amusement of members of the Imperial family. Being thus modern in origin, and requiring an extensive park with large and quiet sheets of water for its pursuit, this sport has scarcely been taken up beyond the Imperial circle, except by one or two millionaire families who occasionally invite their friends to a battue. Catching ducks as one would catch butterflies must be good fun, and is said to require not a little skill. Hawking, which was a favourite pursuit of the Japanese nobility in the middle ages, is still sometimes practised on the same occasions. In fact, the new sport of duck-hunting would seem to have developed out of the old one of hawking, while it was partly suggested by the fact that large numbers of ducks and other migratory water-fowl habitually come down from the north to spend the winter on the lagoons around Tokyo and in the castle moats. Earthquakes and Volcanoes. " Oh ! how I wish I could feel an earthquake ! " is generally among the first exclamations of 126 Earthquakes and Volcanoes. the newly-landed European. " What a paltry sort of thing it is, considering the fuss people make about it !" is generally his remark on his second earthquake (for the first one he invariably sleeps through). But after the fifth or sixth he never wants to feel another ; and his terror of earthquakes grows with length of residence in an earthquake-shaken land, such as Japan has been from time immemorial. Indeed, geologists tell us that much of Japan would never have existed but for the seismic and volcanic agency which has elevated whole districts above the ocean by means of repeated eruptions. The cause of earthquakes remains obscure. The learned incline at present to the opinion that the causes may be many and various; but the general connection between earthquakes and volcanoes is not contested. The " faulting " which results from elevations and depressions of the earth's crust, the infiltration of water to great depths and the consequent generation of steam, the caving in of subterranean hollows — hollows themselves pro- duced in all probability by chemical degradation — these and other causes have been appealed to as the most probable. One highly remarkable fact is that volcanic and earthquake-shaken regions are almost always adjacent to areas of depression. The greatest area of depression in the world is the Pacific basin ; and accord- ingly round its borders, from Kamchatka through the Kuriles to Japan, thence through a line of small islands to the Philippines and to Java, then eastward to New Zealand, and right up the western coast of South America, is grouped the mightiest array of volcanoes that the world contains. Another fact of interest is the gi'eater occurrence of earthquakes during the winter months. This has been explained by Dr. Knott as the result of " the annual periodicity of two well-known meteorological phenomena — name- ly, snow accumulations over continental areas, and barometric crradients."* * See his learned papar on the subject in Vol. IX. Part I. of the Transactions of t lie Siismological Society of Japan- Earthquakes and Volcanoes. 127 The Japanese, like most other nations, had perforce submitted to the ravages of earthquakes, without attempting to investigate the causes of earthquakes scientifically. All they had done was to record anecdotes and superstitions connected with the subject, one of the most popular of which latter (popular indeed in many parts of the Avorld besides Japan) is that earthquakes are due to a large subterranean fish, which wriggles about whenever it wakes up. As for Japanese history, it is a concatenation of earthquake disasters, exceeded only by those which have desolated South America. With the advent of the theoretically minded European, a new era was inaugurated. A society named the Seismological Society of Japan was started in the spring of 18S0, chiefly through the efforts of Professor John Milne, F.R.S., who has ever since devoted all his energies to wrestling with the problems which earthquakes, earth oscillations, earth currents, and seismic and volcanic phe- nomena generally, supply in such perplexing quantity. The Japanese government, too, has lent a helping hand by the establishment of a chair of seismology in the Imperial Universi- ty, and of several hundreds of observing stations all over the empire, — an empire, remember, dotted with no less than fifty-one active volcanoes, and experiencing about five hundred shocks yearly. Can earthquakes be prevented ? If they cannot be prevented, can they at least be foretold .'' Both these questions must un- fortunately be answered in the negative. Still, certain practical results have been arrived at by Mr. INIilne and his fellow-workers which are by no means to be despised. It is now possible to make what is called a "seismic survey" of any given plot of ground, and to indicate which localities will be least liable to shocks. It has also been shown that the complete isolation of the founda- tions of a building from the surface of the soil obtains for the building comparative immunity from damage. The reason is that the surface shakes more than the adjacent lower layers of the soil, just as, if several billiard-balls be placed in a row, an impulse given to the first one will make only the last one fly off", while those in the middle remain nearly motionless. For the same reason, it 128 Earthquakes and Volcanoes. is dangerous to build near the edge of a cliff. To architects, again, various hints have been given, both from experience accumulated on the spot, and also from that of Manila and other earthquake-shaken localities. The passage from natural to artificial vibrations being obvious. Professor Milne has been led on to the invention of a machine which records, after the manner of a seismograph, the vibrations of railway trains. This machine keeps an automatic record of all the motions of a train, and serves to detect irregularities occurring at crossings and points, as also those due to want of ballast, defects in bridges, and so on. Thus, imperfect as it still is, imperfect as the nature of the case may perhaps condemn it always to remain, the science of seismo- logy has already borne practical fruit in effecting a saving of tens of thousands of dollars. To those who are interested in seismometers and seismographs, in earthquake maps and earth- quake catalogues, in seismic surveys, in microseisms, earth tremors, earth pulsations, and generally in earth physics, we recommend a perusal of the Transactions of Ihe Seismological Society of Japan, complete in sixteen volumes, of its continuation, the Seismological yournal of Japan, and of the volume entitled Earth- (jiiakes, by Professor Milne in the " International Scientific Series." Volume IX. Part II. of the Seismological Transactions is specially devoted to the volcanoes of Japan, and contains a mass of statis- tics, anecdotes, historical details, and illustrations, — each indivi- dual volcano, from the northernmost of the Kuriles down to Asosan in Kyushu, which has the largest crater in the world, being treated of in detail. The Ansei Kemhiin Roku and the Ajisei Kemhun Shi are capitally illustrated Japanese accounts of the great earthquake which wrecked Yedo in 1855. Lovers of the ghastly will search long before they find anything more to their taste than the delineations there given of men and women precipitated out of windows, cut in two by falling beams, bruised, smashed, imprisoned in cellars, overtaken by tidal waves, or worse still, burnt alive in one of the great fires caused by the Education. 129 sudden overturning of thousands of candles and braziers all over the city. Truly these are gruesome books. Education. During the Middle Ages, education was in the hands of the Buddhist priesthood. The temples were the schools, the subject most insisted on was the Buddhist sutras. The accession of the Tokugawa dynasty t > the Shugunatc (A.I). 1603- 1867) brought with it a change. The educated classes turned Confucianist. Accordingly the Confucian Classics — the "Four Books" and the "Five Canons" — were installed in the place of honour, learnt by heart, expounded as carefully as in China itself Besides the Chinese Classics, instruction was given in the native history and literature. Some fe\^■ ardent students picked their way through Dutch books that had been begged, borrowed, or stolen from the Hollanders at Nagasaki, or bought, for their weight in gold, for the sake of the priceless treasures of medical and other scientific knowledge known to be concealed in them. But such devotees of European learning were forced to maintain the greatest secrecy, and were hampered by almost incredible difficulties ; for the government of the day frowned on all things foreign, and more than one zealous student expiated b}' his death the crime of striving to increase knowledge. With the revolution of 1868, the old system of education crumbled away. Indeed, even before 1868 the. learning of foreign languages, especially English, had been tacitly connived at. A complete reform was initiated — a reform on Western lines — and it was carried out at first chiefly under American advice. The present Imperial University of Tokyo is the representative and heir of several colleges established some thirty years ago, — a Language College, a Medical College, a College of Engineering. At the same time, primary instruction was being placed on a new basis, and specially promising lads were sent across the sea to imbibe Western learning at its source. When not allowed to go abroad, even well-born young men were happy to black the shoes of a foreign family, in the hope of being able to pick up 130 Education. foreign languages and foreign manners. Some of the more enterprising took I'^rench leave, and smuggled themselves on board homeward-bound ships. This was how — to mention but two well-known instances — -the adventurous }\)uths, Ito ami Inoue, entered on the career which has led them at last to preside over the destinies of thjir c nintry. The Tokyo University includes six faculties, namely, Law, Medicine, Engineering, Literature, Science, and Agriculture. The College of Medicine is under exclusively German influence, though there are also Japanese professors. The other colleges have professors of various nationalities, chiefly Japanese, German, and English. The students number close on 2,700. A second University was inaugurated at Kyoto in 1897, with the three faculties of Law, ^Medicine, and Science (including Engineering). Its courses are attended by over 360 students. Other important educational establishments started and maintained by the govern- ment are the two Higher Normal Schools for young men and women respectively, the Higher Commercial School, the Foreign Language School, the Technical School, the Nobles' School, the various Naval and Military Academies, the School of Navigation, the Fine Arts School, the Tokyo Musical Academy, the Blind and Dumb School, the Agricultural College at Sapporo, and five Higher vSchools, of which one is in Tokyo and four arc in the provinces. Another Higher School in Choshu and an important ?kliddle School in Satsuma derive their income from funtls granted by the ex-Daimyos of those provinces. To enter into further details would be beyond our scope. Something may be gleaned from the bare statement that the Japanese Government supports over 26,000 primary schools, which have a staff of 88,660 teachers and are attended by 4,302,600 scholars, and igo middle schools, with 2,419 teachers and nearly 69,000 scholars, besides a large number of kindergartens. There are also numerous private colleges, great and small, of which the best- known is the Keio Gijiku at Tokyo, founded in 1868 by the celebrated free-thinker and writer Fukuzawa, and the Waseda Education. 1 3 1 College, also at Tokyo, founded and slill mainlaine i by Count Okuma, an eminent politician, leader of the Progressist party. Only a small percentage of Japanese students board at their respective schools. In Tokyo alone there are (May, 1901) no less than 1 79 1 lodging-houses which make their living by putting students up and feeding them cheaply. The system is not without its drawbacks, especially on the side of morals. For several years the scholastic establishments of the Protestant missionaries filled a considerable place in the public eye. But they have fallen on evil days. P'ver since the later eighties, when a flood of jingo patriotism began to submerge the country, the intractableness of the native fellow-workers began to make itself felt. Then, too, government has raised difficulties. The conscrip- tion law, in particular, has proved a serious stumbling-block. Exemption from its stricter provisions, which is naturally the constant aim of educators and which forms an immense attraction to earnest students, cannot be secured except by conforming to certain standards officially determined. On the other hand, con- formity to these standards, by levelling the Christian schools with the secular ones, robs them of their raisnn d' e/rc, and interferes most seriously, if not with their success as registered in statistical tables, at least with their influence on the rising generation. Several schools have conformed to these standards in whole or in part, for which reason the funds subscribed abroad for their support have been diminished or withdrawn. The girls' schools are perhaps, at the present day, the most satisfactory of the missionary educational establishments. Female education is officially provided for by the Higher Nonnal School for Girls already referred to, by thirty High Schools, the Peeresses' School, etc., etc. Of the ma-nv jirivate institutions, ■the Industrial School for Girls is the largest. The very latest is a University for women established at Tokyo in 1901, with 100 students, and over 400 in the preparatory department. Nor, in even so slight a sketch as this, is it possible to omit reference to the numerous educational societies which, for a series of years past, 132 Education. have (lone gooel work tliroiigliDiit the coimtrv. The mililaiy chilly too, which figures \u the carricuhmi of all government schools, deserves notice. It was made obligatory in 1886, and has produc- ed excellent results both on the physique and the sjiiril of the scholars. Various European sports, though not insisted on, are encouraged. Baseball sjcms to be that to which the young fellows take most kindl\'. hlven the girls are now matle to pass through a course of gymnastics. The leading idea of the Japanese (Government, in all its educa- tional improvements, is the desire to assimilate the national ways of thinking to those of European countries. How great a measure of success has already been attained, can be best gauged b\' comparing one of the surviving old-fashioned literati of the Tempo period (A.D. 1830 — 1844) with an intelligent young man of the new- school, brought up at the Tokyo University or at IVIr. Fukuzawa's. The two seem to belong to different worlds. At the same time it is clear that no efforts, however arduous, can make the liluropeanisation complete. In effect, what is the situation ? All the nations of the West have, broadly speaking, a common past, a common fund of ideas, from which everything that they have and everything that the}' are, springs naturally as part of a correlated whole, — one Roman Empire in the background, one Christian religion at the centre, one gradual emancipation, first from feudalism' and next from absolutism, worked out or now in process of being worked put together, one art, one music, one kind of idiom, even though the words expressing it vary from land to land. Japan stands beyond this pale, because her past has been lived through under conditions altogether different. China is her Greece and Rome. Her language is not Aryan, as even Russia's is. Allusions familiar from one end of Christendom to the other require a whole chapter of commentary to make them at all intelligible t<:) a Japanese student, who often has not, even then, an\' words corresponding to those which it is sought to translate. So well is this fact under- stood by Japanese educators, that it has been customary for many }'ears past to impart most of the higher branches of knowletlge Education. 133 through the mccUum of the EngUsh tongue. This, however, is an enormous additional weight hung round the student's neck. For a Japanese to be taught through the medium of Enghsh, is infinitely harder than it would be for English lads to be taught through the medium of Latin, as Latin does not, after all, differ so very widely in spirit from English. It is, so to say, English in other words. 13ut between English and Japanese the gulf fixed is so wide and gaping that the student's mind must be for ever on the stretch. The simpler and more idiomatic the English,- the more does it tax his powers of comprehension. It is difficult to sec any way out of this dilemma. All the heartier, therefore, is the praise due to a body of educators who fight on so bravely, and on the whole so successfully. As for the typical Japanese student, he belongs to that class of youths who are the schoolmaster's delight, — quiet, intelligent, deferential, studious almost to excess. His only marked fault is a tendency common to all subordinates in Japan, — ^a tendenc}' to wish to steer the ship himself. " Please, Sir, we don't want to read American history any more. We want to read how balloons are made." Such is a specimen of the requests which every teacher in Japan must have had to Itsten to over and over again. Actual insubordination — unknown under the old regime — has now become very frequent, scarcely a trimester passing without the boys of some important school or other striking work on the plea of disapproval of their teacher's methods or management. Herein lies a grave danger for the future. Indeed, the danger is already at the gates. Since 1888, there has sprung up a class of rowdy youths, called sos/ii in Japanese, — juvenile agitators who have taken all politics to be their province, who obtrude their views and their presence on ministers of state, and waylay — bludgeon antl knife in hand — those whose opinions on matters of public interest happen to differ from their own. They are, in a strangely modern disguise, the representatives of the wandering swashbucklers* of * In Japanese, Rom'n. 134 Embroidery. the oUl regime. Let u.s hope that anarchy may never again visit Japan. If it does, it will find in this class of young men an instrument ready fitted to its hand. Books recommended. The annual Report of the Minister of State for liducatioiir and thu CnLinfars of the University and of the various Other educational institutions. — See also Miss Bacon's fapatiesc Girls and Women. EE — EE. These letters which, to the perplexity of Eurc)i)ean travellers, adorn the signboard of many forwarding agencies in modern Japan, stand for the English word " express." Embroidery. Tlie reader may tire of being told of each art in succession that it was imported into Japan from China via Korea by Buddhist missionaries. But when such is the fact, what can be done but state it .^ The greatest early Japanese artist in embroidery of whom memory has been preserved was Chujo Hime, a Buddhist nun of noble birth, who, according to the legend, was an incarnation of Kwannon, the Goddess of INIerc}'. After enduring relentless persecution at the hands of a cruel stepmother, she retiretl to the temple of Taema-dera in Yamato, where her grand embroidered picture, or numdara as it is called, of the Buddhist heaven with its many mansions, is still shown. The gods themselves are said to have aided her in this work. The embroidery and brocade and painted silks of more modern days possess exquisite beauty. A comparatively recent invention is the hirodo-yiizen, in which ribbed velvet is used as the ground for pic- tures which are real works of art, the velvet being parti}' cut, partly dyed, partly painted. Pity only, as we could not help noticing on a recent visit to Kyoto, that the embroiderers tend more and more to drop the patterns of dragons and phcenixes and flower-cars, etc., etc., which made their fame, and actually elect to work from photographs instead, thus degrading free art to the level of slavish imitation. They informed us that the globe-trotters prefer these less esthetic pieces with a real jinrikisha or a real street lamp-post to the formal, but oh ! how beautiful, fancies of an earlier date. Doubtless new-comers have to be educated up to these things. However, being but a man, while some of our readers are sure to English as she is Japped. 135 be latlies whose sharp eyes would soon detect mistakes, we must abstain from entering into an}- farther details or disquisitions. We would only recommend all who can to visit the Ky5to embroidery and velvet-shops, and to take plenty of money in their purse. There may be two opinions about Japanese painting; there can be only one about Japanese embroider}'. Note in passing, as an instance of topsy-turvydom, that com- paratively few Japanese embroiderers are women. All the best j;ieces are the work of men and boys. Empress. The Salic law was only introduced into Japan with the brand-new Constitution of 1 889. Before then, several Empresses had sat on the throne, and one of them, the Empress Jingo — ex- cuse the name, O English reader ! it signifies " divine prowess," — ranks among the greatest heroic figures of early Japanese legend ^sce Article on History and Mythology). The present Empress is of course Empress Consort. Her name is Haru-ko, correctly translated by Pierre Loti, in his Japoneries d' Atitomne, as " 1 Imperatrice Printemps.' Wisely abstaining from even the shadow of interference in politics, this illustrious lady, daughter of a high noble of the Court of KySto, devotes her life to learning and to good works, hospitals in particular engrossing her attention. The Red Cross Hospital at wShibuya in Tokyo, one of the most spacious — one might well say luxurious — hospitals in the East, was her creation, and the Charity Hospital at Shiba in Tokyo, also enjoys her munific:;nt patronage. English as she is Japped. English as she is spoke and wrote in Japan forms quite an enticing study. It meets one on landing, in such signboard inscriptions as TAILOR NATiVE COUNTRY. DRAPER, MILLINER AND LADIES OUTFATTER. The Ribbons, the laces, the veils, the feelings.'^ CHAIR. COCHON. & IMATTLES. fOver afiirniiurc-shop.) MANUFACTVRED. BY CAKE & A. PIECE. OF. BREAD.t * Can the shopkeeper mean '• frill iiis^ ? ■' t On a baker's cart. 136 English as she is Japped. EXTRACT OF FOWL nnrr an egg-shop. J PFSr MILK. I 'hotographer Executed. HEAD CUTTER. (Over a barbers shop.) The European monkey jacket make for the jfapanese. WRITING FOR ANOTHER.* I5EST PERFUMING WATER ANTI-FLEA. DEALER OF. f and a hundred more. The thirsty soul, in particular, can make himself merry, while he drinks, with such droll legends on b:)ttles as FOGREN COUNTY WINES LITTLE SEAL. St. JUILEN Bottled by BORDEAUX. Good wine, they say, needs no bush. Apparently, it is equally indepipndent of such aid as orthography can lend. /v The efficacy of this Beer is toj^ ,\7- FULISH. RUTTR CRIAM. MILK* Many strange notices are stuck up, and advertisements circu- lated. The following is the manner in which " Fragrant Kozan Wine " is recommended to public attention : — If health be not steady, heart is not active. Were heart active, the deeds may be done. Among the means to preserve health, the best way is to take in Kozan wine which is sold by us, because it is to assist digestion and increase blood. Those who want the steady health should drink Kozan wine. This wine is agreeable even to the females and children who can not drink any spirit because it is sweet. On other words, this pleases mouth and therefore, it is very convenient medicine for nourishing. Japan insted of Coffee. f More men is not got dropsg of the legs who us this coffee, which is contain nourish. The following is the label usually to be found pasted on the handles of cheap Japanese fire-shovels : — TRADE [^ MARK Sho7ii'els Scoops and ^Spades 7vhi- ch are e.xhibiied of the above tr- ade mark is very cheap in the pi- ce and it is honueniemt hor Use. llicre is no neccity exklain ally ack- norulebqe by thebll customers. The following notice was stuck up a few years ago in one of the hotels at Kyoto : Notice to the Dealers. On the dinning-time nobody shall be enter to the dinning-room, ;ind drowing-room without the guests' allow. Any dealer shall be honestly his trade, of course the sold one shall be prepare to make up the safe package. * I.e. Fresh butter, cream, etc. t I.e., "a Japanese substitute for coffee." 138 English as she is Japped. The reader may l^e curious to know who "the soUl onj " here referred \o is. Might it not i)erha[)s h^ the purchaser? No; at least that is not what th^ hotel-keeper wished to suggest. By translating back literally into Japanese idiom, we reach his meaning, which is that the merchant who sells the things must undertake furthcrmijrc to pack them securely. NOTIES. Our tooth is a. very impoiiant orrjan for human life and conntcnancc as you know ; therefore when it is attack l)y disease or injury, artificial tooth is also very useful. I am engage to the Dentistry am! I will make for your jiurpose. A native " Guide for Visitors to Atami " informs us that the geyser there was discovered by a priest named jSIan-givaii ivho made many im/>/-ovc/nen/s on iJie spiings. Before that day, the springs boiled out in the sea, and was a suffering to aquatic families . . . . If a people can not come to Atami is fjetter to bathe in that water once or ttvice a day, and take good exercise in clean airs. By " aquatic families," let it be noted, the writer means, not — as might perhaps be supposed — the fishermen, but the fishes. This Atami Guide-book is. however, quite eclipsed by " A Guide on Hakone,'' — a perfect jewel, which sells on the spot for " 30 zonts." Here is part of its description of the locality in question : — Whenever we visit the place, the first pleasure to be longed, is the viezv of Fuji JMountain and its summit is covered tvith perma?ient imdissolving snore, a /ul its regular configuration hanging dinrn the sky like an opened wJiite fan, may be looked long at equal shape from several /-egions suri-ituiuli)ig it. Every oiw ivho saw it roer has nothing but applause. It casts the shadoiv in a contrary direction OJi still glassy face of lake as I have Just described. Build- ings of Imperial Solitary Palace, scenery o/Gongen, all are spontaneous pictures. Wind proper in quantity, suits to our boat to slip by sail, and moon-light shining on the sky shivers quartzy lustre over ripples 0/ the lake. The cuckoo singing near by our hotel, plays on a harp, and the gulls flying about to and fro seek their food in the ivaves. All these panorama may be gathered only in this place. — Nor are English as she is Japped. 139 mere creature comforts less well-provided for in this paradise than esthetic pleasures. Furty-fivc houses, we read, among ivholc machi arc the hotels /or cessation of travellers. Each )be-trotterese," and the perhaps still funnier, because more pretentious, efforts of those of us who think ourselves rather adepts in Japanese as spoken in the upper circles. For our own part, we can feel our heavy British accent dragging down to earth every light-winged syllable of Japanese as we pronounce it. W'e laugh at ourselves for this. Why should \ve not laugh at you when occasion offers .•' There is only one style of English as she is Japped which calls, not for laughter, but for the severest blame, — the style exemplified in so-call- ed educational works, such as Convcrsd/ioiis in English and yapanese for Jlerchant zvho the English Eanguage, — English Lcilcr Writer, /or the Gentlemen zvho regard on the Commercial and an Official, — Englishand. yapanies. Xames on Letteps, and other protluctions whereby shameless scribblers make money out of unsophisticated students. And yet these curiosities of literature are too grotesque for at least the European reader to be long angry with them. One of the funniest is entitled The Practical use of Conversation for Police Authorities. After giving " Cordinal number," " Official Tittle," "Parts of the Body" such as " a gung,*" "a jow," "the mustacheo," diseases such as "a caucer," "blind, " "a ginddness." " the megrim," " a throat wen," and other words useful to police- men, the compiler arrives at " jNIisseranious subjects," which take the form of conversations, some of them real masterpieces. Here is one between a representative of "the force" and an Juiglish blue-jacket : — What countryman are you? I am a sailor belonged to tlie Golden-Eagle, the English nim-of-war. Why do you strike this Jinrikisha-mnn ? He told me impolitely. What does he told you impolitely ? * Tlie Japanese translation shows that "sum"' is the word intended. 1.44 .English as she is Japped. He insulted me sung loudly "the Sailor the Sailor" when I am passing here. Do you strikinj^ this man for that? Yes. But do not strike him for it is forbided ' .1 strike him no more. Have you any proof for the robber should be entirely inside origin, but not outside ? Yes : I have. Please explain it. There left the hands and the foot-jirints on the rail of the fence elected l^etween tlie next door and No . The suspicious one is the cook in the next door. The author teaches his pohceiiien, not only to converse, but to morahse. Thus : Japanese rdice Force consists of nice young men. But I regret that their attires are not perfectly neat. When a constable come in conduct with a people he shall be polite and tender in his manner of sjieaking and movement. If he will terrify or scold the people with enormous voice, he will become himself an object of fear for the people. Civilized people is meek, but barbarous peoples is vain and haugty. A cloud-like writing of Chinese character, and performance of the Chinese poem, or cross hung on the breast, would no more worthy, to pretend others to avail himself to be a great man. Those Japanese who aquired a little of foreign language, think that they have the knowledge of foreign countries, as Chinese, English or French, there is nothing hard to success what they attempt. They would imitate themselves to Caesar, the ablest hero of Rome, who has been raised the army against his own country, crossing the river Rabicon. A gleam of clinidencc seems to cross the police mind when one policeman says to the other " You speak the English very well," and the other replies " You jest." Book recommended. Miss Diincan's cldi-Iitful book, A Social Departure, Chap. VII, gives a side-splitting specimen of tin: dialect imder consideration, in the shape of an interview conducted in English Ijy a young Japanese journalist. Esotericism. 145 Esoterieism. When an Englishman hears the word "eso- teric,"' the first thing, probably, that comes into his head is Buddhism, the second the name of Mr. Sinnett or the late Madame Blavatsky. Matters stand somewhat differently in Japan. Not religion only, but every art here is or has been esoteric, — poetry, music, porcelain-making, fencing, even bone-setting, and cookery itself Esotericism is not a unique mystery shrouding a special class of subjects. It is a general atdtude of the mind at a certain stage, and a very natural attitude too, if one takes the trouble to look into it. Sensible men do not wear their hearts on their sleeves for daws to peck at. \\'hy should an artist do so with his art .' Why should he desecrate his art by initiating unworthy persons into its principles ? Nor is it merely a question of advisability, or of delicacy and good taste. It is a question of possibility and impossibility. Only sympathetic pupils are fitted by nature to understand certain things; and certain things can only be taught by word of mouth, and when the spirit moves one. Moreover, there comes in the question of money. Esoteric teaching of the lower arts may be said to have per- formed, in old days, the function of our modern system of patents. The institution of guilds belonged to the same order of ideas. Such are, it would seem, the chief headings of the subject, considered in the abstract. Fill them out, if you please, by further reflection and further research ; and if you wish to talk to your Japanese friends about esotericism, remember the fascinating words /it'den, "secret tradition; " hijutsu, " secret art;" and okugi, "inner mysteries," which play a notable part in Japanese histor}- and literature. Many are the stories told of the faithful constanc}- with which initiation into hidden mysteries has been sought. Early in the tenth century there lived a great musician, a nobleman named Hakuga-no-Sammi. But one Semi-Maru was a greater musician still. He dwelt in retirement, with no other companion but his lute, and there was a melody of which he alone had the secret. Hakuga — as he may be styled for shortness' sake — went every 146 Esotericism. evening for three years to listen at Semi's gate, but in vain. At last, one autumn night, when the wind was soughing through the sedges, and the moon was half-hidden by a cloud, Hakuga heard the magic strains begin, and, when they ceased, he heard the player exclaim, " Alas ! that there should be none to whom I might hand on this precious possession ! " Thereupon Hakuga took courage. He entered the hermitage, prostrated himself, declared his name and rank, and humbly implored to be received by Semi as his disciple. This Semi consented to, and gradually revealed to him all the innermost recesses of his art. — According to Mr. E. H. Parker, this story, like many another Japanese story, is but the echo of a far older Chinese tradition. But whether true or false, whether native or foreign, it is a favourite motive with Japanese painters. Undoubtedly authentic, and very different in its tenor, is the tale of Kato Tamikichi, a manufacturer of porcelain at the begin- ning of the eighteenth century. His master, Tsugane Bunzaemon, ■who owned a kiln in the province of Owari, envied the skill of the Karatsu porcelain-makers in the use of blue and white, and was determined to penetrate their secret. Accordingly he succeeded in arranging a marriage between one of his pupils, Kato Tamikichi, and the daughter of the chief of the Karatsu people. Kato, thus taken into the family in so distant a province, was regarded as one of themselves and admitted into their fullest confidence. Things went on quietly for years, during which he became the father of several children. At last, one day, Kato expressed an earnest desire to revisit the scenes of his childhood and to enquire after his old master. Nothing doubting, the Karatsu people let him go. But when he reached Owari, he disclosed to his former master all that he had learnt at Karatsu, the consequence of which was that Owari porcelain was greatly improved, and obtained an immense sale in the neighbouring market of Osaka, the richest in the empire. When this came to the ears of the Karatsu people, they were so much enraged that they caused Kato's wife and chidren to be crucified. He himself died a raving lunatic. Eta. 147 Since the latter part of the IMiddle Ages, the general prevalence among the upper classes of luxury, idleness, and a superstitious veneration for the past, even in trivial matters, together with a love of mystery, produced the most puerile whims. For instance, a certain noble family at Kyoto kept to itself, with all the appara:tus of esotericism, the interpretation of the names of three birds and of three trees mentioned in an ancient book of poetry called the Kokinshu. No sacrament could have been more jealously guarded from impious hands, or rather lips. But when the great scholar, Motoori, disdaining all mumbo-jumbo, brought the light of true philological criticism to bear on the texts in question, lo and behold ! one of the mysterious birds proved to be none other than the familiar wagtail, the second remained difficult to fix accurately, and the third name was not that of any particular species, but merely a general expression signifying the myriad little birds that twitter in spring. The three mysterious trees were equally commonplace. Foolish as the three bird secret was (and it was but one among a hundred such), it had the power to save the life of a brave general, Hosokawa Yusai, who, being besieged in A.D. 1600 by a son of the famous ruler Hideyoshi, was on the point of seeing his garrison starved into a surrender. This came to the ears of the Mikado ; and His Majesty, knowing that Hosokawa was not only a warrior, but a learned man, well-versed in the mysteries of the Kokinshu — ■ three birds and all — and fearing that this inestimable store of erudi- tion might perish with him and be lost to the world for ever, exerted his personal influence to such good effect that an edict was issued commanding the attacking army to retire. Viewed from a critical standpoint, Chinese and Japanese esoterics well deserve thorough investigation by some competent hand. We ourselves do not think that much would be added thereby to the world's store of wisdom. But we do think that a flood of light would be shed upon some of the most curious nooks and crannies of the human mind. Eta. The origin of the Eia, or Japanese pariahs, is altogether 148 Eta. obscure. Some see in tliem the desxendants of Korean captives, brought to Japan during the wars of the latter part of the sixteenth century. By others they are considered to be the illegitimate descendants of the celebrated generalissimo Yoritomo, who lived . as far back as the twelfth century. Even the etymology of the name is a subject of dispute among the learned, some of whom believe it to be from the Chinese characters ^^ ^ e-ta, " defilement abundant, " while others derive it from c-iori '^ ^., "food-catchers," in allusion to the slaughtering of cattle and other animals, which, together with skinning such animals, digging criminals' graves, and similar degrading occupations, constituted their means of livelihood. We ourselves incline to date back the first gradual organisation of the Eia as a separate class to a very early period — say the seventh or eighth century — when the introduction of Buddhism had caused all those who were connected in any way with the taking of life to be looked on with horror and disdain. They lived apart, generally on the outskirts of towns or villages, and were governed by their own headmen ; for the spirit of elaborate organisation pervading old Japanese society penetrated even to the dregs. There were three chiefs of the Eta, who resided at Yedo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Danzaemon, the Yedo chief, was privileged to wear two swords. Besides the Ela proper, there were the Baniarb or watchmen, and the Kaivara-inono or vagrants, who travelled about as strolling players. Some trace to these the origin of the modern theatre. The legal distinction between the Eia and other persons of the lower orders was abolished on the 12th October, 1871, at which time the official census gave 287,111 as the number of Eia properly so-called, and 982,800 as the total number of outcasts of all descriptions. Scorn of the Eia has naturally survived the abolition of their legal disabilities. It is a favourite theme of contemporary novelists, one of whom, Encho, has excellently adapted the plot of Wilkie Collins's Nciv Magdalen to the Japanese Europeanisation. 149 life of our day, by substituting for the courtesan of the English original a girl who had degraded herself by marrying an Ela. Books Becommended. Land Tenure and Local histitiiiions in Old Japan^ by Simmons and Wigmore, in Vol. XIX. Part I. of the "Asiatic Transactions." The Eta Maiden and the Hatainoto, in Vol. I. of Mitford's Tales of Old "Japan . Eurasians. Half-castes are often called Eurasians, from their being half-.£'«/'opeans and half-Asiatics or Asians. Eurasians usually resemble the Japanese mother rather than the European father, in accordance with the general physiological law whereby the fair parent gives way to the dark. The time that has elapsed since Japanese Eurasians began to be numerous is not long enough to inform us whether this mixed race will endure, or whether, as so often happens in such cases, it will die out in the third or fourth generation. Europeanisation. The Europeanisation of Japan is univer- sally spoken of as a sudden and recent metamorphosis, dating from the opening of the country during the life-time of men not yet old. But this implies a faulty and superficial reading of history. Europeanisation commenced over three hundred and fifty years ago, namely, in A.D. 1542, when the Portuguese adventurer Mendez Pinto (nicknamed " the prince of liars ") discovered the Japanese island of Tane-ga-shima, and, proceeding thence to the port of Oita in Kyushu, astonished the local Daimyo with the sight and sound of his arquebuses. The Europeanisation of Japan has been a drama in three acts. First, the Hispano-Portuguese act, beginning in 1542 and ending with the religious persecution — the extermination rather — of 1617-38. This act offers a succession of stirring scenes. Scarcely even in our own day have changes more sudden been effected. To begin with, the art of war was revolutionised, as well for defence as attack. Japanese feudal barons had had their castles before then, no doubt. Exactly how those early castles, stockades, or by whatever other name we might most fittingly denote them, were constructed, is a curious question 1 50 Europeanisation. which must be left to Japanese antif^uarians to decide. The first castle built in the style which now survives in some few perfect and numerous ruined examples, was that erected at Azuchi in the province of Omi by Ota Nobunaga, who li\ed from 1334 to 1582. His active career thus coincided with the first wave of European influence, Mendez Pinto having arrived when he was a child of eight years old, the earliest Catholic missionaries (1549) when he was a lad of fifteen. Nobunaga became the leading spirit among the warriors of his age ; in fact, he may be said to have dictated laws to the empire, and moreover he was a declared patron of the Christians, though scarcely one of whom they could be proud, as his hands were stained with many crimes. It is related that when he had reared his famous castle, " he placed the Christian God \a crucifix? ] on the top of the keep."* Significantly enough, the Japanese name for a " castle keep," ieiishu, is identical in sound with the translation of the name of " God " adopted by Japanese Catholics. But whereas the latter is written with Chinese characters having a perfectly clear and appropriate meaning, namely ^^ J. literally " Lord of Heaven," a " castle keep " is written -^ "3? " heavenly protection," a transcription not particularly appropriate, which suggests the thought that it may have been hit on merely as an expedient to distinguish the later from the earlier acceptation of the term.f Once introduced, the new-fashioned castle architecture spread rapidly throughout the empire ; for those were days of storm and stress. Christianity * According to another account, the first castle in the new style was that built by Matsunaga Hisahide, which Nobunaga improved upon. As Hisahide was a contemporary of Nobunaga's and likewise a Catholic, the result is much the same. In any case we may infer that then, as now, the imported European ideas were translated into practice with feverish haste. t The etymology here given is that current among military men, and sanctioned by the authority of the principal native Japanese dictionaries. Some recent Japanese investigators have disputed its accuracy. They allege that, at that early stage of Japanese Christianitj', the translation of "God" by the characters ^ _^ [tenshu) had not yet been made, and they prefer to seek a Buddhist origin for the word ^ !^ Europeanisation. 1 5 1 spread too, some of the southern Daimyos going so far in their zeal as to prohibit the exercise of any other rehgion, — an act of intolerance which was afterwards dearly expiated. At any rate, the seed of religion then sown was never thoroughly eradicated. Christianity remained as a subterranean force, which rose to the surface again two or three centuries later, when some entire districts were found to be Christian (see Article on Missions). Spain and Portugal's minor contributions to the Europeanisation of Japan are no longer easy to trace, partly because persecution destroyed records, partly because the subject has never yet been thoroughly investigated. A knowledge of bread, with its name pan, certainly came theijce. Capes (Jap. kappa from Spanish "capa") and playing-cards (Jap. karuia from Spanish "carta") may be mentioned among the loans whose names bewray them. Sponge-cake, whose Japanese name kasiiicira remains " Castille " scarcely disguised, is another humble but agreeable contribution from the same quarter ; mosquito-nets are another still more valuable. Before their introduction the fire of green wood, which is still used in some remote rural districts, was the only known method — a most disagreeable method as we can testify from personal experience — of driving away those insect pests. Doubt- less a thorough sifdng of Japanese customs, beliefs, and products would bring to light a number of interesting details. In the second act of the drama of the Europeanisation of Japan, the scene is the islet of Deshima in Nagasaki harbour, the actors are Dutchmen. No religious zeal this time, nothing military, nothing heroic of any sort. At least one scene of [tens/tu], "castle keep," suggesting that it may come by aphseresis from ^C ^ i [Bontenshu], " Brahma's protection." To our minds, the coincidence of the two words at such a date is a circumstance to shake which would require weightier evidence than any yet adduced. In any case, the fact of Spanish influence on Japanese castle architecture is disputed by none, though some attribute less importance to it than others. Details of plans, measurements, etc., were always kept secret as far as possible, making the subject peculiarly difficult of investigation at this distance of time, more especially in view of the strenuous endeavours of the government at Yedo to suppress all traditions of former foreign intercourse, and of the strong nationalist feeling which ran in the same direction for over two centuries. 152 Europeanisation. screaming farce is brought before our eyes, \vhen a deputation of the Datch traders who had been convoyed to Yedo to offer their congratulations on the accession of the ShSgun, were set to amuse His Highness by singing songs, dancing, and pretending to be drunk. But after all, such buffoonery was an exceptional occurrence. Some of the members of the Dutch factory were distinguished men. More than once, too, German scientific investigators anxious for information concerning the secluded empire of Japan enrolled themselves in the service of the factory, as a stepping-stone to the acquisition of such knowledge. Those Japanese who, despite official interdict, retained a thirst or foreign learning, naturally sought the company of such kindred spirits, and the results to Japan, though at first meagre, were valuable and permanent. The elements of mathematics, geo- graphy, botany, and other sciences and of the all-important art ■of medicine were obtained from this source. So were various European products, — glass, velvet, woollen fabrics, clocks, telescopes, etc., — and it is to be presumed, European business methods, at least in outline. Even scraps of literature filtered through, for instance Esop's " Fables," which were translated as early as (about) 1670. Precise details are difficult to obtain, because of the censorship which rigorously, though not quite successfully, repressed Dutch studies except in one closely watched bureau of the administration at Yedo. But we know- enough to be able to say positively that during the two centuries from 1650 to 1850, the litde Dutch settlement at Nagasaki was •constantly looked to by eager minds as a fountain of intel- lectual light. At last, but not quite suddenly even then, — for Commodore Perry's famous expedition was preceded by others on a smaller scale both Russian and English, — a fresh impetus was given to the Europeanisation of the country by its partial opening to foreign trade and residence in 1859, ^""^ ^^^ complete opening in 1899. This last, or Anglo-Saxon act of the drama; — for in it Anglo-Saxon influence has predominated — is still being played Fairy-Tales. 1 5 3 out before our eyes. Once more the great art of war has suffered a sea-change, and in every branch of intellectual and social activity the pulse of a • reinvigorated life runs quick. Foreigners have often stood in amaze at Japan's ability to swallow so many new ideas and institutions whole. They have dubbed her superficial, and questioned the permanence of her conversion to European methods. This is because they fail to realise two things, — the innate strength of the Japanese character, and the continuous process of schooling which has enabled this particular Oriental race to face the new light without being blinded. Another is thus added to the long list of instances proving that great historical changes never take place per sallum, and that those nations alone may be expected to put forth flowers and fruits in the future whose roots are twined solidly around the past. From the dawn of history to the present day, Japan in her attitude towards foreign ideas^ — be they Chinese, mediaeval Spanish, old-fashioned Dutch, nineteenth century European — has shown herself consistently teachable. Periods marked chiefly by large importations from abroad have, it is true, alternated with periods chiefly devoted to the working up of that material into forms suitable to native needs. But neither process has ever been wholly discontinued, and the result — ■ spread over fourteen centuries — has been a steady growth alike social, intellectual, and territorial, with but rare intervals of even apparent relapse. The superficiality attributed to her assimilation of imported civilisations exists only in the superficial knowledge of the would-be critics. Fairy-Tales. The Japanese have plenty of fairy-tales ; but the greater number can be traced to a Chinese, and several of these again to a Buddhist, that is to an Indian, source. Among the most popular are Urashima, Momotaro, The Battle of the Monkey and the Crab, The Tongue-Cut Sparroiv, The Mouse's Wedding, The Old Man who Made the Trees to Blossom, The Crackling Mountain, and The Lucky Tea-Kettle. 154 Fans. Though it is convenient to speak of these stories as " fairy- tales," fairies properly so-called do not appear in them. Instead of fairies, there are goblins and devils, together with foxes, cats, and badgers possessed of superhuman powers for working evil. We feel that we are in a fairy-land altogether foreign to that which gave Europe " Cinderella " and " Puss in Boots," — no less foreign to that which produced the gorgeously complicated marvels c>f the " Arabian Nights." Books recommended. TIw Japanese Fairy- Tales Series, published by Hasegawa, Tokyo. — Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, latter part of Vol. I. — Fairy Tales from Far Japan, by Miss S. Ballard. Fans. Incidental mention of fans occurs in the oldest official annals of the country. Thus, under date 763 A.D., we read of imperial permission being granted to a courtier to bring his staff and fan into the palace precincts, on the score of age and infirmity. Apparently fans were then tabooed by strict etiquette, which is remarkable, as they afterwards became an indispensable adjunct of Court dress for both sexes. Fans are of two kinds, — two chief kinds, that is, for there is an immense number of minor varieties, — the round fan not capable of being shut (uchhva), and the folding fan (bgi or scnsu). The fans of early days would seem to have been all of the non-folding type, — no wonder, seeing that the first natural fan was a palm- leaf. The Japanese pride themselves on being the inventors of the folding fan, which they assert to have been borrowed from them by the Chinese as late as the time of the INIing dynasty (1368-1644). A noble lady, widow of the youthful hero Atsumori,* is credited with the idea. At the temple of JMieido in Kyoto, whither she had retired to hide her grief under the garb of a nun, she cured the abbot of a fever by fanning himx with a folding fan made of paper, over which she muttered incantations ; and to the present day the priests of this temple are considered special adepts in the manufacture of fans, whence the name of Mieido adopted by many fan-shops all over the country. * For an outline of Atsumori's touching story, see Murray's Handbook to Japan, 6th edit., p. 78, under the heading Kumagae Naozane. Fashionable Crazes. OD Of the less common varieties of the fan, perhaps the strangest are the giant kinds carried at the festival of the Sun-Goddess in Ise and by the firemen of Kyoto, and especially the war-fans formerly used by military commanders to direct with and give force to their orders. Iron was the material usually employed, and the ornamentation consisted on one side of a red sun on a gold ground, on the other of a silver moon and stars on a black or dark blue ground. Ordinary fans are made of paper over split bamboo. Japanese fans excel in cheapness as in elegance, ten se?i (2 W.) being the usual price for a plain folding fan, three or four soi for one of the non-folding kind. Fans are used as bellows ; they are even used as trays to hand things on. A man of the lower class will often hold a partially opened fan in front of his mouth when addressing a superior, so as to obviate the possibility of his breath or spittle defiling the superior's face ; but to fan oneself vigorously in the presence of a superior is not good manners. To attempt a description of the quaint and poetical conceits with which Japanese fan-makers adorn their wares, would be to embark on a list of almost all the art-motives of the country ; for nearly all are made to contribute. The little picture is often accompanied by a verse of poetry in black or gold letters, or else there is only the poetry and no picture. Fans have been extensively used as vehicles for advertisements ; but the Japanese advertiser of the older school generally disarmed criticism by the, so to say, apologetic moderation with which he practised that most detestable of all arts or rather artifices. In these latter days, however, when Europeanisation has coiTupted every- thing, one has much to suffer from while fanning oneself on a hot day. Art has surely sounded its lowest depths when it comes to pourtraying a lager-beer bottle on one side of a fan, and to providing a railway time-table on the other. Book recommended. Fa/is of Japan, by Mrs. Salwey ; also a paper by the same in Vol. II. of the Transactions of the Japan Sjciety. Fashionable Crazes. Japan stood still so long that she has now to move quickly and often, to make up for lost time. 156 Fashionable Crazes. Every few years there is a new craze, over which the nation, or at least that part of the nation which resides in Tokyo, goes wild for a season. 1873 was the rabbit year. There had been none of these Httle rodents in Japan. Hence, when imported as curiosities, they fetched incredible prices, as much as $1,000 being sometimes paid for a single specimen. Speculations in $400 and I500 rabbits were of daily occurrence. In the following year, 1874, the government put a capitation tax on rabbits, the price fell in consequence from dollars to cents, and the luckless rabbit-gamblers were ruined in a moment. 1874-5 were the cock-fighting years. In 1882-3, priiiting dictionaries and other works by subscription was the order of the day. Many of these literary enterprises turned out to be fraudulent, and had to be dealt with by the courts. About 1883 was also the great time for founding societies, learned and otherwise. Next came athletics in 1884-5. -^ ^^S^ for waltz- ing and for gigantic funerals marked 1886-7. During these years there was also, in official circles, an epidemic of what was locally known as " the German measles," — a mania for imitating all things German, doubdess because " safer," more genuinely monarchical, than free Anglo-Saxondom. The following year took quite a new departure, setting mesmerism, table-turning, and planchette in fashion; and 1888 lifted wrestling from a vulgar pasdme to a fashionable craze, in which the then prime minister, Count Kuroda, led the way. 1889 saw the sudden rise of joint-stock companies, together with a general revival of all native Japanese amusements, Japanese costume, anti-foreign agitation, etc. This was the great year of reaction. 1890 and following years, — railway speculation. 1893, the whole nation went mad over Colonel Fukushima's successful ride across Siberia. A perusal of the newspapers of the time can alone give any idea of the popular frenzy. 1896, stamp- collecdng. 1 898-1 900, garden-parties. One of them lasted five days ; others were held even in the snow, with bonfires lit in the vain hope of warming the shivering guests. Certain merchants of Yokohama, failing a real garden, went so far as to hold their garden-party (so-called) on board some lighters moored together Festivals. 157 and covered with an awning ! Another craze of the closing years of the century was for busts and statues, — even silver statues of oneself. This last form of this particular craze reminds one of ealy mediaeval times, when prominent princes and Buddhist saints (despite their assent to the doctrine that all phenomena are a mirage, and personality itself a delusion and a snare) seem to have devoted no inconsiderable portion of their leisure to painting and carving their own image. Sometimes, it is averred, the painting was the handiwork of a disciple, but the saint himself would then dot in the eyes. 1901, monster outings for children and work- men. One of the leading newspapers organised an excursion to Tokyo for 120,000 operatives. But when this vast multitude neared the spot, only 5,000 were allowed by the police to proceed, and rioting ensued. A picnic of more manageable proportions was attended by 380 blind shampooers, who went out to see (.'') the plum-blossoms at Sugita, and were made safe by means of a long rope, after the fashion of Alpine climbers. Festivals. The holidays observed officially are : — Jan. 1,3, 5. — New Year. Jan. 30. — Death of Komei Tenno, the late INIikado, A. D.' 1867. Feb. II. — Accession of Jimmu Tenno, the first Mikado, B.C. 660.* PromulgaUon of the Constitution, A.D. 1889. March 21. — Spring festival of the Imperial ancestors, — an adaptation of the Buddhist Higan, or Equinoctial festival of the dead, who are supposed to cross the ocean of existence and reach the other (hi) shore (gan), that is. Nirvana. April 3. — Death of Jimmu Tenno. Sept. 23. — Autumn festival of the Imperial ancestors. Oct. 1 7. — Offering of first-fruits to the ShintS gods. Nov. 3. — Birthday of the reigning Emperor. Nov. 23. — The Emperor tastes the first-fruits offereil to his ancestors. * This date is not to be accepted seriously. See Article on History. 158 Festivals. The observance of most of these hoHdays is as modem as the flags that are flown and the salutes that are fired in their honour. The occasions of them may serve as a measure of the all-engi-oss- ing importance of the Imperial House since the revolution. There is another set of holidays of more ancient institution, which, though perhaps less observed year by year, still live on in the thoughts and usages of the people, and especially in their dinners, as the defeat of the Spanish Armada does in our English Michaelmas goose. The chief dates are as follows, and it is most convenient to begin the enumeration, ?nore yaponico, at the end : — Dec 13. — This day is called Koto-hajime, that is, "the be- ginning of things," because such preparations for New Year as house-cleaning, decorating, and the pounding of rice for cakes (mochi), arc then taken in hand. People eat koto-jiru on this day, — a kind of stew whose ingredients are generally red beans, potatoes, mushrooms, sliced fish, and a root called konnyaku. Presents of money are made to servants by their masters at this time of year. Both the season in question and the presents then given are termed seibo. Dec 22. — The winter solstice ( loji ). Doctors then worship the Chinese Esculapius. Jan. 1-3. — Termed the ^S'ri:;/-_§-(/-;//f/^/, or "three days" of New Year, when the people eat a stew called zoni. In Tokyo this stew consists of rice-cakes, and greens boiled in fish gravy. More fuss is made about the New Year in China and Japan than in any Western country. On the last night of the old year no one goes to bed, and bells are rung, and on New Year's morning the usual sweeping and dusting of rooms is pretermitted, doubtless in order to avoid sweeping away good luck. Gateways are decorated at New Year time with pine-branches, straw ropes, oranges, and a lobster (the latter symbolising old age because of its crooked back), and presents are given called loshi-dama. Jan. 7. — This day is termed Nana-kusa, or the Seven Herbs, because in early times the Court and people used then to go out to pluck parsley and six other edible herbs, — a custom to Festivals. 159 which the poets make frequent allusion. Rice-grucl, or congee flavoured with greens, is the appropriate dish. (About the yth January, the people resume their ordinary work.) Jan. 15-16. — -The end of the New Year holidays. Thj i6th is the (Hokonin 710 Yahu-iri), or Prentices' Holiday Home. Rice- gruel mixed with red beans is eaten. Jan. 20. — Kura-biraki, that is, the day on which godowns are first opened. This is, however, more a name than a fact. Zdni is the dish of the day. Setsubun is the name of a movable feast occurring sometimes late in January, sometimes early in February, on the eve of the first day of spring, Old Calendar. Beans are scattered about the house on the evening of this day in order to scare away demons, and of these beans each person present eats one more than the number of the years of his age. N. B. Azitki-meshi , that is, rice mixed wiih rod beans, is eaten on the ist, 15th, and 28th of each month, these being the so-called iaw;;/'//^-^, or "three days." On the 3cth, people eat buckwheat vermicelli (inzsaka-soba). The First Day of the Horse (Hatsu-uma) in February, con- sequently a movable feast. This day is sacred to the Fox-Goddess Inari. For the little that is known of this deity, see Murray's Handbook to Japan, 6th edit., pp. 49 and 336. March 3. — The Girls' Festival (Jdmi no Sckkii), when every town is decked out with dolls. It is also called Hina Malsuri, that is, the Feast of Dolls. A sweet drink called shiro-zakc is partaken of on this day. March 17. — -This and the next six (.lays are the already mentioned great Buddhist equinoctial festival of Higan. On the actual day of the equinox, the sun is believed to whirl round and round at sunset. April 8. — Buddha's Birthday. Images of the infant Bu.Ulha (Tanjo-Shaka) are set up in the temples for worshippers to pour liquorice tea (ama-cha) over with a ladle. This tea is then bought, and either partaken of at home in order to kill the worms that cause various internal diseases, or placed near the pillars of the house to prevent ants and other insects from entering. i6o Festivals. May 5. — The Boys' Festival {Ta/igo no Sekkii), when such warlike toys as bows and arrows are sold, and gigantic paper fishes are flown from the houses, as explained on p. 91. Except New Year, this is of all Japanese festivals the one whose out- ward signs are most effective. June 22. — Geshi, or the summer solstice. July 7. — Tanabala'. The idea of this festival is most poetical. See last paragraph of the Article on Sun, Moon, and Stars. July 13-16. — This is the great Buddhist festival of Bon, which is often termed by foreigners the Feast of Lanterns, but might better be rendered as All Souls' Day. The spirits of dead ancestors then visit the altar sacred to them in each household, and special offerings of food are made to them. The living restrict themselves to inaigre dishes as far as possible. The ceremony of " opening the river" {kawa-h Iraki), as it is called, generally takes place in Tokyo about this time. The spectacle is a delightful one. Half the town goes out on the River Sumida in boats gaily decked with lanterns, while fireworks and music add to the gaiety of the evening. The rural population of most parts of the empire celebrate the festival by a dance known as Bon-odori (see p. iii). It is usual for masters to fee their servants at the Boii season. This should be done not later than the 13th. July 16. — A second Prentices' Holiday. The Doyo no Jri, or " First of the Dog-days," and the Doya Saburu, or " Third Dog-day," are kept by the eating of peculiar cakes. The Third Dog-day is considered by the peasantry a turning-point in the life of the crops. Eels are eaten on any day of the Bull {Doyb no Ushi) that may occur during this period of greatest heat. Sept. 9. — The Chbyb no Sekkii, a holiday whose appropriate dish is rice mixed with chestnuts. Sept. 20th. — The autumn equinox. Oct. 20th. — The festival of Ebisu-kd, so called after one of the Gods of Luck, the only one of all the eight million deities Festivals. i6i l<> remain at large during October, which is called the "godless month" ( Kami-na-zitki ), because all the other gods then desert their proper shrines, and go off to the great temple of Izumo. The reason for Ebisu's not accompanying them is that, being deaf, he does not hear their summons. On this day tradesmen sell off their surplus stock, and give entertainments to their customers, correspondents, etc., as an amends — so it is half- jocularly said — fen- cheating them during the rest of the twelve- month. At present, when all such antique customs are falling into desuetude, the 20th October has come to be regarded lather as a day for what are called kons/iijikicai — social gatherings, that is, of the members of a guild, political coterie, learned society, and so forth. November has several Shinto festivals. The most notable of these, held in honour of the Goddess of the Kitchen-range {Hetisui no Kami), and termed Fiiigo i\Ialsiin', or the Feast of Bellows, takes place on the 8th. Fires are then also lighted in honour of Inari and other deities in the courts of Shinto temples, — the reason, so far as Inari is concerned, being the assistance rendered by that deit\' to the famous swordsmith Kokaji, for whom she blew the bellows while he was forging a sword for an ancient Mikado. Nov. 15. — This is the day on which children who have reached the age of three are supposed to leave off having their heads shaved. It is accordingly called Kami-oki, that is, " hair- leaving," but corresponds to no actual reality, at least in modern times. The Kazuki-zome, or, " first veiling " of girls aged five, and the Hakama-gi, or "first trowsering " of boys aged five, formerly took place on the same day ; but these also are now- empty names. Dec 8. — The Hari no Kuyo, a festival at which women rest from the constant use of the needle by entertaining the other members of the household, — they, and not the men, directing matters for the nonce. Thus ends the year. The adoption of the European calendar 1 62 Festivals. in 1S73 tended to disorganise the old Japanese round of festivals ; for with New Year coming five or six weeks earlier than formerly, the association of each holiday with a special season was destroyed. How go out and search for spring herbs on the 7th January, when winter weather is just beginning, instead of showing signs of drawing to an end ? Confronted with this difficulty, usage has vacillated. For the most part the old date has been retained, notwithstanding the change thus caused in the actual day. To take the instance JHSt alluded to, the 7th of the ist moon, which would formerly have fallen somewhere about the middle or end of February, is retained as the 7th January. In other cases the actual day is retained, irrespective of the date to which it may correspond in the new calendar ; but this entails a fresh calculation every year, the old calendar having been lunar and irregular in several respects, not simply a fixed number of days behind ours, as, for instance, the Russian calendar is. A third plan has been to strike an average, making the date of each festival exactly one month later than formerly, though the actual day becomes about a fortnight earlier. Thus the festival of the 7th day of the 7th moon, Old Style, is in some places celebrated on the present 7th August, though really falling somewhere about the 20th August, if the calculation be properly worked out. Energetic holiday- makers will eveii celebrate the same festival twice,— first according to the new calendar and then according to the old, so as to be sure of keeping on good terms with the invisible powers that be. Altogether, there is great confusion and discrepancy of usage, each locality being a law unto itself The list given above does not of course pretend to be exhaus- tive. There are local as well as general festivals, and these local festivals have great importance in their special localities. Such are the Gioji festival at Kyoto, and the Sannb and Kaiida festivals at Tokyo. Gion and Sannd take placi in the middle of July, Kanda in mid-September. All three are distinguished by processions, of which the chief feature is a train of triumphal or rather mythological cars, called dashi by the Tokyo people, yama Filial Piety. 163 or Iiuko by the people of Kyoto. These cars have recently bean reduced in height, because they were fouiid to interfere with the telegraph, telephone, and electric light wires that now spread their web over the great cities. Book recommended. Asfrologia Giapponnese, by Antelmo Severini, gives details that may interest the student of folk-lore and superstitions, if he can read Italian. We know of nothing on the subject in English. Filial Piety.* Filial piety is the virtue par excellence of China and Japan. From it springs loyaltyf which is but the childlike obedience of a subject to the Emperor, who is regarded, in Chinese phrase, as " the father and mother of his people." On these two fundamental virtues the whole fabric of society is reared. Accordingly, one of the gravest dangers to Japan at the present time arises from the sudden importation of our less patriarchal Western ideas on these points. The traditional basis of morality is sapped. There are no greater favourites with the people of Japan than the " Four-and-Twenty Paragons of Filial Piety " fNi-Ju-s/ii KdJ, whose quaint acts of virtue Chinese legend records. For instance, one of the Paragons had a cruel stepmother who was very fond of fish. Never repining at her harsh treatment of him, he lay down naked on the frozen surface of a lake. The warmth of his body melted a hole in the ice, at which two carp came up to breathe. These he caught and set before his stepmother. Another Paragon, though of tender years and having a delicate skin, insisted on sleeping uncovered at night, in order that the mosquitoes should fasten on him alone, and allow his parents to slumber undisturbed. A third, who was very poor, determined to bury his own child alive, in order to have more food wherewith to support his aged mother, but was rewarded by Heaven with the discovery of a vessel filled with gold, on which the whole' family lived happily ever after. A fourth, who was of the female sex, enabled her father to escape, while she clung to the jaws of the tiger which was about to devour him. But the drollest of all is the story of Roraishi. This * In Japanese ko, or more poputarly, oya /co/cj. In Japanese chii or chushr'n. 1 64 Fires. Paragon, though ^evenly years old, used to dress in baby's clothes and sprawl about upon the floor. His object was piously to delude his parents, who were really over ninety years of age, into the idea that the}' coukl not be so ver}- old after all, seeing that they had such a puerile son. Those readers who wish to learn all about the remaining nineteen Paragons, should consult Anderson's Cahilogiic of yapaiicsc and Chi- nese Paintings, page 171, where also an illustration of each is given. The Japanese have established a set of " Four-and-Twenty Native Paragons" ( Honcho Ni-Ju-shi KoJ of their own ; but these are less popular. The first question a European will probably ask on being told C)f the lengths to which filial piety is carried in the Far-East, is: how can the parents be so ston}- -hearted as to think of allowing their children thus to sacrifice themselves .-" But such a considera- tion never occurs to a Chinese or Japanese mind. That children should sacrifice themselves to their parents is, in the Far-Eastern view of things, a principle as indisputable as the duty of men to cede the best of everything to women is with us. Far-Eastern parents accept their children's sacrifices much as our women accept the front seat, — with thanks perhaps, but as a matter of course. No text in the Bible raises so much prejudice here against Christianity as that which commands a man to leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife. " There ! you see it," exclaims the anti- Christian Japanese, pointing to the passage, " I always said it was an immoral religion." Fires were formerly so common in Japan's wood and paper cities that the nickname of "Yedo Blossoms" was applied to the flames which in winter almost nightly lit up the metropolis with lurid lustre. So completely did this destructive agency establish itself as a national institution that a whole vocabulary grew up to express every shade of meaning in matters fiery. The Japanese language has special terms for an incendiar}- fire, an accidental fire, fire starting from one's own house, a fire caught Fires. 165 from next door, a fire which one shares with others, a fire which is burning to an end, the flame of a fire, anything — ^for instance, a brazier — from which a fire may arise, the side from which to attack a fire in order to extinguish it, a visit of condolence after a fire, and so on. We have not given half* Were all records except the linguistic record destroyed, one would still be able to divine how terrible an enemy fire had been to Japanese antiquities. Fire insurance, be it observed, was not among the words connected with fire in Old Japan. It dates only from the new regime, being Europe's contribution to the vocabulary. At first the practice of insurance gained ground but slowly. It may well be matter for wonder that capitalists should have found it worth their while to assume risks so heavy. Under the circumstances, very high pre- miums are still charged ; but despite this drawback, the people seem now thoroughly to appreciate the advantage of purchasing peace of mind even at a heavy price, and for several years past companies have been in operation all over the country to insure against fire and other calamities. In 1900 and 1901, however. Government found it necessary to suppress several of them as bogus concerns. To Ooka, the Japanese Solomon, who was mayor and judge of Yedo early in the eighteenth century, belongs the credit of having organised the fire-brigades which formed so useful and picturesque a feature of Yedo life. Since his day, fire engines of European make have been brought into use. Moreover, the number of conflagra- tions has been much diminished of late years by the gradual introduction of stone and brick buildings and of wider streets, and by stricter police control. Even, therefore, granting the possible truth of the popular assertion that in some parts of Tokyo houses were only expected to survive three years, that state of things happily belongs to the past. Still, fire is an ever-dreaded foe. It is a foe at whose entry into the city the carpenters, unless they arc * Here are the Japanese originals of the above terms, for the benefit of the curious tsuke-bi. sosj-bi^ jikwa., i/iorai-bi, ruislio, shita-bi, hinote, hinomoio, kes'ii-kuc'tf, k7uaji mimai. Fire insurance, mentioned just below, is kwasai-Jioken. 1 66 Fire-walking. greatly maligned, have frequently connived, because it brings them work ; and the peculiar dress and antics of the firemen are things which no visitor to Japan should miss a chance of seeing. Every year, on the 4th January, the firemen parade the streets with their tall, light ladders, and give a gymnastic performance gratis. The most famous of all the many great Yedo fires was that of 1657, when nearly half the city was destroyed and over 107,000 persons are said to have perished in the flames. The government undertook the necessary gigantic interment, for which the grounds of what is now known as the temple of Eko-in were selected, and priests from all the Buddhist sects were called together to hold a seven days' service for the benefit of the souls of the departed. Wrestling-matches are now held in the same place, — a survival apparently of festivals formerly religious, which consisted in bring- ing holy images from the provinces to be worshipped awhile by the Yedo folk and thus collect money for the temple, which could not rely on the usual means of support, namely, gifts from the relations of the dead, the fire of 1657 having been so destructive as to sweep away whole families. The occurrence of every great fire in Toky5 is now wisely availed of in connection with a fixed plan of city improvement, involving new thoroughfares and the widening of old ones. Fire-walking. Besides the superstitious notions already mentioned in the Articles on Demoniacal Possession and Divina- tion, there are yet others which lead to acts of a most surprising character, — to nothing less indeed than treading barefoot over live coals, dashing boiling water about the person, and climbing ladders of naked swords set edge upwards. All these ancient rites (for they descend from a remote antiquity) may still be witnessed in the heart of modern Tokyo, at least twice every year. The fire-walking usually takes place in the courtyard of the little temple ofOntake at the foot of the Kudan hill in April and September, and the manner of its performance is as follows. * * This acccunt is condensed by permission from Mr. Percival Lowell's curious book, Occult yapan. Fire--w^alking. 167 Straw mats are placed upon the ground, and on them a layer of sand. On the top of this the fuel is laiil, originally pine-wood, but now charcoal. The bed is about r foot deep, from 12 to 18 ft. long, and from 3 to 6 ft. wide. It should be square to the points of the compass. Eight bamboos, with the fronds still on them, are stuck into the ground on the four sides of the charcoal bed, connected by a hempen rope, which is hung from frond to frond, about 5 ft. from the ground. From this hang forty-four of the sacred emblems called gohei, — strips of white paper cut into little angular bunches. Some of the attendants busily fan the flames with open fans strapped to the ends of long poles, while others pound the coals flat with staves. Then incantations are made, — incantations to the God of Water, who dwells in the moon, to descend and drive out the God of Fire. Prayers are offered up, and first one priest, then another begins slowly and solemnly to march round the charcoal bed, cabalistically twisting and flinging out his fingers the while. Soon all are engaged in this act of exorcism. On and on, round and round, do they march, 'each seemingly oblivious of the others, each gradually working himself up into a state akin to ecstasy. When this apparently interminable ceremony comes to an end, each priest takes a handful of salt from a large bowl, and strews it upon the living coal. Furthermore, a mat at either end of the bed of coals is spread with salt for those to rub their feet on who are about to cross the fire. The high priest salts his feet first, then steps boldly on to the surface of the burning flioor, over which he strides with dignified gait. The attendant priests clad in white follow his example, and when all have gone over, all go over again. The second part of the function, though less impressive, is more amusing ; for now from among the crowd of bystanders all such as, to quote Mr. Lowell's phrase, have a mind to try their foot at it, imitate the priests and cross the hot crust. INIen, women, and chil- dren, old and young, a whole family perhaps in due order of pre- cedence, venture successfully along the line, though not a few show- by their rapid skips towards the end that the trial is no mockery. 1 68 Fire--walkin5. It should be addetl, for the sake of complc'ic triithfuhiess, that the ordeal, when seen, is somehow less impressive than would probably be imagined from a written description. The space is narrow, the crowd motley and irreverent, and mostly of the lower class, — loungers, dirty children with others on their backs. The preliminary beating and pounding of the fire-bed seems endless ; the fanning of it tlrives smoke into one's eyes and flakes •on to one's clothes. The heat, too, is of course unpleasant, and. the actual fire-walking, when at length it does begin, occupies but a few brief moments. Be it understood that our object is nowise to deter any one from witnessing what, after all, is a curious spectacle, but simply to warn him that, like other genuine curios, it must be paid for. A similar remark applies even more strongly to the " Ordeal by Boiling Water." Far better read Mr. Lowell's account, which is very graphic and entertaining, than devote hours to seeing the rite itself, which is deadly dull, consisting, as it does, in the dipping of bamboo fronds into boiling water, brandishing them in the air, and letting the spray fall in a shower over the performer's body, while prayers,* incantations, and gyrations are kept up ad infinilum. The preceding article had just been written when, in September, 1900, it being reported that no less than seven foreigners had taken part in the "miracle," we wrote to one of them. Prof Percy Hill- house, of the Imperial University, Tokyo, to request an account of the proceedings. That gentleman's reply was as follows : — "I went to the Imagawa Koji temple on the 17th September, with a secret desire to cross the glowing coals myself; but though I saw all sorts and conditions of Japanese crossing, I was unable to screw up my courage quite to the sticking point until a number of Harvard graduates, who had carefully examined the soles of those who had crossed, themselves walked over. I at once took off my socks, and pushed my way through the crowd to the •end of the bed of charcoal. There was a flattened heap of salt at Fishing'. 169 the beginning of the path; and after rubbing both feet well into this, I stepped across at a sharp walking pace and got to the other end safely. Before I started, a priest dusted me all over with a large mop of gohei ; and after I had crossed, the priest at the other end made me stop and rub my feet in the pad of salt at the end of the fiery path. No sooner was I safely over than I crossed again with no evil result. As each foot touched the charcoal, it only felt a comfortable warmth : — there was no /w/ sensation at all. I am certain that anybody could go over without any unpleasant effects, if he stepped quickly enough and did not scrape his feet in any way. One must step cleanly, so to speak. • " H , of the British Consulate in Yokohama, followed me the first time, and later on a young lady from Yokohama picked up her skirts and skipped over amid cheers from the crowd. H said that he felt his feet a little sore after he had come off. The first time I went, I did not feel the least bad effect. The second time, some one in front having delayed me a moment by stopping on the salt patch at the end, I felt one foot slightly hot, and for about an hour afterwards a small patch of skin at one side felt very slightly sore ; but when I examined my feet at night, I could see nothing, and the feeling of soreness was gone. " I am not physiologist enough to give any explanation as to why we were not burnt. When a boy, I placed an iron kettle of boiling water, just off the fire, on the palm of my hand, and held it there for fifteen seconds or so, and it only felt slightly warm. I think the explanation of that was that the soot on the bottom was a good non-conductor, and that the moisture of the hand, quickly evaporating, formed a layer of steam which prevent- ed actual contact of the metal and skin. The Kudan ' miracle ' may have a similar explanation. The surface of the charcoal-bed was at least half-black, not red-hot, and the damp salt may have provided the necessary moisture." Fishing. Various queer methods of fishing are still employed 1 70 Flag. in the rural districts of Japan. In some of the central provinces, baslvets may be seen hung over a waterfall to catch such fish as attempt to leap it. In certain other places — for instance, at Numata on the Tonegawa — this arrangement is modified by the construction of an inclined bamboo platform, which produces an upward flow towards the centre of the stream. Thither the fish are carried by the force of the artificial current, as described in Murray's Ha?idbook. Then there is the well-known cormorant- fishing, of which details are given on pp. 103-7 of the present work. The arrow-shaped fish-traps lining the shores of Lake Biwa are a curiosity calculated to strike any observant eye. So are the " fish outlooks " that dot the coast of Izu. Each of these stands on some lofty cliff overlooking the sea, where an experienced man keeps watch, and blows a horn to the fishermen below to draw in the large village net, whenever a school of albacore has entered it. A sight fascinating on account of the great dexterity involved, is that of the trout-fishers in some clear, placid streams, who simply land their prey with hand-nets. This may be witnessed on the waters of the Kitayama-gawa, just below that loveliest of spots, Doro-Hatcho. To such methods must be added the fish-spearing practised on many points of the coast, and the whaling off Kishu and Shikoku, the whales being sometimes actually caught in nets. The flies used by Japanese anglers should also interest the sportsman, being quite difi'erent from those employed by European fishermen. To an English eye the native method of fly-fishing will seem rude ; but it is certainly justified by its results. Books recommended. Japanese Fisheries, by G. E. Gregory, in Vol. V. I'art I of the '"Asiatic Transactions.'' For fishing, — not as a curiosity, but as a practical sport, — readers are referred to the Introduction to Murray's Japan Handbook. Flag. The Japanese national flag {Hi-no- Mane) is a good instance of Amiel's axiom that " nothing real is simple." The sun upon a background, — why should not the idea have been hit upon at once by the inhabitants of this " Land of the Rising Sun .?" And yet, when we come to look into the matter, we Flag. 1 7 1 find this apparently obvions result to have ]:)een evolved from a strangely complicated set of ideas, slowly changing through the centuries. It seems that, from time immemorial, the Chinese Court and army had made use of banners adorned with figures founded on astrological fancies, — the Sun with the Three-legged Crow that inhabits it, the INIoon with its Hare and Cassia-tree, the Red Bird representing the seven constellations of the southern quarter of the zodiac, the Da'rk Warrior (a Tortoise) embracing the seven northern constellations, the Azure Dragon embracing the seven eastern, the White Tiger embracing the seven western, and a seventh banner representing the Northern Bushel (Great Bear). The banners of the Sun and Moon assumed special importancd, because the Sun was the Emperor's elder brother and the Moon his sister, for which reason he himself was and still is styled the Son of Heaven, — no mere metaphors these to the early Chinese mind, which implicitly believed that the Emperor's conduct could influence the course of the seasons. The Japanese took over these thmgs wholesale, — imperial title, banners, mythological ideas, and all, — probably in the seventh century, for the official annals incidentally record their use in A.D. 700. In process of time most of the elements of this system were dropped, only the Sun and Moon Banners being retained as im})erial insignia, but without their fabulous inmates, though the Sun Crow and the Moon Hare still linger on in art. For such heathen fancies mediceval piety substituted effigies of the gods or an invocation to Buddha ; but these, too, were dropped when Buddhist influence declined. Thus the sun (not originally a rising sun) alone remained; and when, in 1859, a national flag corresponding to those of Europe became necessary, the Sun I^anner naturally stepped into the vacant place. A more elaborate design — the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum, which is apparently only in another shape the sun with its rays — became fixed as the imperial standard ; for conformity to European usage prescribed such a distinction. The military flag 172 Flowers. with its sixteen rays is a modification of the same idea, the number sixteen itself being traceable to Chinese geomantic notions. Book reconiiueilded. The above article is condensed from a beautifully illustrated paper by Mr. W. G. Aston, in Vol. XXII. of the Asiatic Transactions Flowers. An enemy has said that Japanese flowers have no scent. The assertion is incorrect ; witness the plum-blossom, the wild rose, and the many sweet-smelling lilies and orchids. But granting even — for the sake of argument, if for nothing more — that the fragrance of flowers greets one Tess often in Japan than at home, it must be allowed on the other side that the Japanese show a more genuine appreciation of flowers than we do. The whole population turns out several times in the year for no other purpose than to visit places which are noted for certa,in kinds of blossom. It is round the.se that the national holiday-makings of the most holiday-loving of nations revolve, and no visitor to Japan should fail to see one or other — all, if possible — of these charming flower festivals. The principal flowers cultivated in Tokyo are : — the plum-blossom, which comes into flower about the end of January, and lasts on into March ; the cherry-blos.som, first half of April ; the tree-peony, end of April or beginning of May ; the azalea, early in May ; the wistaria, ditto ; the iris, early in June ; the convolvulus, end of July and beginning of August ; the lotus, early in August ; the chrysanthemum, first three weeks of November; the maple (for such bright leaves are included under the general designation of flowers), all November. The Japanese care but little for some flowers which to Europeans commend themselves as the fairest, and they make much of others which we should scarcely notice. All sorts of considerations come into play besides mere " look-see " (if w^e may for once be allowed the use of a convenient Pidjin-English term). The insignificant blossom of the straggling lespedeza shrub is a favourite, on account of ancient poetic fables touching the amours of the lespedeza, as a fair maiden, and of the stag her lover. The camellia is neglected, because it is considered unlucky. It Flo-wers. 173 is considered unlucky, because its reti blossjms RiU ulf whole in a way which reminds people — at least it reminds Japanese people ■ — of decapitated heads. And so on in other cases. (')r wild- flowers generally the Japanese take little account, which is strange ; for the hills and valleys of their beautiful country bear them in profusion. A very curious sight is to be seen at Dango-zaka in 'J'okyo at the proper season. It consists of chrysanthemums worked into all sorts of shapes, — men and gods, boats, bridges, castles, etc., etc. Generally some historical or mythological scene is pourtrayed, or else some tableau from a popular drama. There, too, may be seen very tine natural chrysanthemums, though not quite so fine as the elite of 7\")ky6 society is admitted to gaze on once a year in the beautiful grounds of the old palace at Akasaka. The mere variety is amazing. There is not only every colour, but every shape. Some of the blossoms are imimense, — ^larger across than a man's hand can stretch. Some are like large snow- balls, — the petals all smooth, and curved in one on the top of the other. Others resemble the tousled head of a Scotch terrier. Some have long filaments stretched out like star-fish, and some, as if to counterbalance the giants, have their petals atrophied into mere drooping hairs. But the strangest thing of all is to see five or six kinds, of various colours and sizes, growing together on the same plant, — a nosegay with only one stem, — the result of judicious grafting. Of the same kind of blossoms, as many as a thousand and fifty-eight have been known to be produced on one plant ! In other cases the triumph is just the opposite way : — the whole energies of a plant are made to concentrate on the production of a single blossom, a tawny, dishevelled monster, perhaps, called " Sleepy Head " (for each variety has some quaint name), or else the "Golden Dew," or the "White Dragon,'" or the "Fisher's Lantern " — a dark russet this — or the " Robe of Feathers," a richly clustering pink and white, or, loveliest cf all, the " Starlit Night," a delicately fretted creature, looking like Iceland moss covered with hoar-frost. These results are obtained onlv bv the 1 74 Flo-wers. accumulatcxl toil of years, and especially by care, repeated many times daily, during the seven months that precede the period of blossoming. Such care is arai)ly rewarded ; for the chrysanthemum is a flower wliich will last several weeks if duly sheltered from the early frosts. jNIuch of the above, doubtless, will be no news to the profes- sional European chrysanthemum-grower, who is accustomed now- adays to handle numerous splendid varieties of this beautiful flower. Let him remember, however, that the impulse towards chrysanthemum-gardening, and even most of the actual varieties now shown, came from Japan less than twenty years ago. Bouquet-making is not left in the Far-East, as it is in Europe, to individual caprice. Europeans are, in this respect, wild children of nature. The Chinese and Japanese have made an art of it, not to say a science demanding long and arduous study. Indeed, they invoke the aid of Confucianism itself, and arrange flowers philosophically, with due regard to the active and passive principles of nature, and in obedience to certain traditional rules which have been jealously handed down in the various flower-schools. So far as Japan is concerned, the art was set on its present basis in the sixteenth century of our era by the famous esthete Sen-no- Rikyu. It is well-worth the while of any intelligent inquirer to peruse Mr. Conder's beautifully illustrated work on this subject, though, to be sure, the whole gist of the matter may be given in half-a-dozen words: — a "floral composition" must consist of three sprays, the longest in the middle generally bent bow-like, a second half its length branching out on one side, and a third, a quarter of its length, on the other. To obtain proper curvature, the stems are heated over a brazier, or else kept in position by means of wires and other artifices. Whatever may be thought of the ■ so-called flower philosophy, the reader will at least have gained acquaintance with a graceful and intricate art, and with a curious chapter in the history of the human mind. Linear effect, and a certain balance or proportion achieved by means of studied irregularity, are the key-note and the dominant of Food. 175 Japanese floral compositions. The t,aiiding principle is not harmony of colour. An enthusiastic local critic, who is up to the ears in love with all things Japanese, opines that the Japanese linear arrangement of stems and leaves stands "at an unmeasurable height above the barbaric massing of colours that constitutes the whole of the corresponding art in the West." Such a verdicf will scarcely find acceptance with those who esteem colour to be nature's most glorious gift to man, and the grouping of colours (unless we set above it the grouping of sounds in music) to be the most divine of human arts. Still, Japanese floral design offers a subject as charming as it is original. If not, as its more zealous and intolerant sectaries claim, the way of treating flowers, at least it is a way, a totally new way ; and we are greatly mistaken if it and Japanese gardening do not soon make many European converts. The very flower-pots are delightful, with their velvety blue and white designs. Books recommended. The Flo-uers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement, by Josiah Conder. Sue also a preliminary article bj' the same author in Vol. XVII. Part II. of the "Asiatic Transactions." — T.'te Garden of Japan, by F. T. Piggott. Food. Like most other nations, the Japanese take three meals a day,^ — one on rising in the morning, one at noon, and one at about sunset. Much the same sort of food is partaken of at all these meals, but breakifast is lighter than the other two. The staple is rice — which is replaced by barley, millet, or some other cheap grain in the poorer country districts, — rice with fish antl eggs, and minute portions of vegetables either fresh or pickled. Beans are in particular requisition. Buddhism has left its impress here, as on everything in Japan. To Buddhism was due the abandonment of a meat diet, now over a thousand years ago. The permission to eat fish, though that too entailed the taking of life, which is contrary to strict Buddhist tenets, seems to have been a concession to human frailty. Pious frauds, moreover, came to the rescue. One may even now see the term " mountain whale '' {yama-kujira) written 176 Food. up over certain eating-houses, which means that \enison is there for sale. The logical process is this : — A whale is a fish. Fish may be eaten. Therefore, if you call venison " mountain whale," you may eat venison. Of course no actual prohibition against eating flesh, such as existed under the old regime, obtains now. But the custom of abstaining from it remains pretty general; and though beef and pork were introduced at the time of the late revolution, the fondness for them soon wanetl, as did that for bread which was the rage among the lowest class in 1890. The piles of loaves then displayed at ever\- little cook-stall in Tokyo, for the delectation of jinrikisha-men and other coolies, have vanished and been replaced by victuals of the orthodox Japanese type. Probabl}' the i)oor quality of the bread, and the nasty way in which the meat was cooked, had much to do with this return to the ancestral diet. Of beverages the chief are tea, which is taken without sugar or milk, and sake, an alcoholic liquor prepared from rice, whose taste has been not inaptly compared to that of weak sherry which has been kept in a beer-bottle. It is generally taken hot, and at the beginning of dinner. Only when the drinking-bout is over, is the rice brought in : — at a long dinner, one is apt never to reach it. When dining ([uietly in the home circle, the Japanese habitually drink tea only. Besides that drunk out of a cup, it is rather usual to have a little poured over the last bowlful of one's rice. The following is a specimen of the bill of fare at a Japanese banquet. The reader must understand that everything is served in small portions, as each guest has a little table to himself, in front of which he squats on the floor : — Preliminary Course, served with sake : — suiniono, that is, a kind of bean-curd soup ; kiichi-lori, a relish, such as an omelette, or chestnuts boiled soft and sweet, or kamaboko, which is fish pounded and then rolled into little balls and baked ; sashinii, minced raw fish ; hachi-zakana, a fine large fish, either broiled with salt or boiled with so^• : iima-ni, bits of fish or sometimes Fcod. 177 fowl, boiled with lotus-roots or potatoes in soy and in a sort of liqueur called mirin ; su-no-moni), sea-ears or sea-slugs served with vinegar; chawan, a thin fish soup with mushrooms, or else chiiivan-miishi, a thick custardy soup. First Course {Zembii): — s/iini, soup, which may be made of bean-curd, of fish, of sea-weed, or of some other material ; o-hira, boiled fish, either alone or floating in soup ; tsuho, sea-weed or some other appetiser, boiled in a small deep bowl or cuj) ; mwiasii^ raw fish cut in slices, and served with vinegar and cold stewed vegetables ; aemono, a sort of salad made with bean sauce or l>ounded sesamum seeds ; yakiiiioiio, raw fish (although the name means " broiled ") served in a bamboo basket, but generally on!}' looked at and not eaten ; ko-no-iuono, pickled vegetables, such as egg-plant, cabbage-leaves, or the strong-smelling radish [daikoii), which is as great a terror to the noses of most foreigners as European cheese is to the noses of most Japanese. Second Course {Xi }to zeii) : — soup, raw fish (but only if none has been served in the first course), and rice. Such banquets as the above are of course not given e\ery da\'. At smaller dinners not more than half such a menu would be represented. Quiet, well-to-do people, living at home, m.ay have a couple of dishes at each meal — a broiled fish perhaps, and some soup, or else an omelette, besitles pickles to help the rice down with. The Oriental abstemiousness which figures so largely in travellers' tales, is no part of Japanese manners at all events. To make up for the comparative lightness and monotonv of their food, the Japanese take plent\" of it. It is the custom, too, to set food before a guest, at whatever time of da\' he calls. On such occasions soba is in retjuest — a sort of buckwheat vermicelli, served with soy and the sweet liqueur called miri?i ; or else shiruko, that is, rice-cakes with a sauce made of red b3ans and sugar ; or sushi, rice-cakes plastered over with fish or with seaweed on which vinegar has been sprinkled. Even when these things are not given — and among the Europeanised upper classes they are now mostly abandoned— 1 3a and. cakes are always set befo:e 178 Food. ■every ;guest. Many of the Japanese cakes and sugar-plums are pleasant eating. They atone to some extent for the absence of puddings and for the poorness of Japanese fruit.* lapanese dishes fi^il to satisfy Kuropean cravings. Iniagine a diet without meat, without milk, without bread, without butter, without jam, without coffee, without salad or any sufficient quantity of nicely cooked vegetables, without puddings of any sort, without stewed fruit and with comparatively little fresh fruit, — the European vegetarian will find almost as much difficulty in making anything out of it as the ordinary meat-eater. If Dr. Johnson had ever partaken of such a dinner, he would surely have described the result as a feeling of satiety without satisfaction, and of repletion without sustenance. The food is clean, admirably free from grease, often pretty to look at. But try to live on it— no! The Japanese, doubtless, being to the manner born, prefer their own rice and other dishes for a continuance. At the same time, they by no means object to an occasional dinner in European style, and * Since about 1893 or 1894, small quantities of excellent peaches and pears — presu- mably from American stock — have been raised at Kawasaki, near Yokohama, to supoly foreigners' tables. None such are to be obtained in the country at large. The native jiashz, though generally translated "pear," is quite a different fruit — round, wooden, and flavourless ; the native peach is first-cousin to a brickbat. Of the apple, which only became common towards the close of the century, a wooden variety is grown. There are few cherries (despite the wealth of cherry-blossom), no raspberries, no currants, scarcely any gooseberries, no mulberries (although the land is dotted with mulberry-bushes to feed the silkworms}, no tropical fruit of any sort. Figs are scarce and poor, grapes not abundant except in the single province of Koshu, strawberries neither good nor abundant, plums and apricols mediocre, the Japanese medlars [biwa) not to be compared with those of Southern Europe. The best fruits here are the orange, one or two kinds of melon, and — for those who like it — the persimmon, though it, too, shares in the woodenness and coarse flavour characteristic of Japanese fruits. Probably two causes have led to the result here noticed. The first is founded on the climate, the best-flavoured fruits being produced in dry climates, whereas in Japan the heat and wet come together, and make the fruit rot instead of mellowing. Thus European stock, which has improvi^d in America and Australia, rapidly deteriorates in Japan. The second cause — itself partly dependent on the first — is that the national taste for fruit is unformed, fruit never having been here regarded as a regular article of diet, and circumstances having accustomed the Japanese to prefer that such fruit as they do take should be hard. Food. 1 79 their appclite on such occasions is astonisliing. Experts say that Japanese food, thougli poor in nitrogen and especially in fat, is rich in carbon, and amply sulficient to support life, provided the muscles be kept in action, but that it is indigestible and even deleterious to those who spend their time squatting on the mats at home. This would account for the healthy looks of the coolies, and for the too often dyspeptic and feeble bodily habit of the upper classes, who take little or no exercise. A foreigner forced by circumstances to rely on a Japanese diet should, say the doctors, devote his attention to beans, especially to the bean-soup called niisi). Fortunately of this dish — and of this only — custom permits one to ask for a second helping {o kawari). There is a circumstance connected with Japanese dinners that must strike every one who has seen a refectory where numbers of students, monks, soldiers, or other persons under discipline are fed, — ^the absence of clatter arising from the absence of knives, forks, and spoons. A hundred boys may be feeding themselves with the help of chopsticks, and yet you might almost hear a pin drop in the room. Another detail which will impress the spectator ]ess favourably is the speed at which food is absorbed. In fact, some classes — the artisans in particular — seem to make a point of honour of devoting as little time as possible to their meals. To this unwholesome habit, and to the inordinate use •of pickles and of green tea, may doubtless be attributed the fact" that ham ga iiai (" I have a stomach-ache "') is one of their commonest phrases. Most Japanese towns of any size now boast what is called a sciyb-ryuri, which, being interpreted, means a foreign restaurant. Unfortunately, third-rate Anglo-Saxon influence has had the upper hand here, with the result that the central idea of the Japano- European cuisine takes consistency in slabs of tough beefsteak anointed with mustard and spurious Worcestershire sauce. This culminating j)oint is reachetl after several courses, — one of watery soup, another of fish fried in rancid butter, a third of chickens' •drumsticks stewed also in rancid butter; and the feast not i8o Foreign Employes in Japan. infrcciucntly tenninalcs by wliat a k)cal cookery book, unhappil}' disfigured by numerous misprints, terms a " sweat omelette." Foreign Employes in Japan. Though European influence, as we have elsewhere set forth, dates back as far as A.D. 1542, it became an overwhelming force only when the country had been opened in 1854, indeed, properly speaking, only in the sixties. From that time dates the appearance in this country of a new figure, — the foreign emplo}'e; and the foreign employ^ is the creator of New Japan. To the Japanese Government belongs the credit of conceiving the idea and admitting the necessity of the great change, furnishing the wherewithal, engaging the men, and profit- ing by their labours, resembling in this a wise* patient who calls in the best available physician, and assists him by every means in his power. The foreign employes have been the physician, to whom belongs the credit of working the marvellous cure M'hich we all see. One set of Englishmen — at first a single Englishman, the late Lieut. A. G. S. Hawes — took the navy in hand, and transform- ed junk manners and methods into those of a modern man-of-war. Another undertook the mint, with the result that Oriental confusion made way for a uniform coinage e([ual to any in the world. No less a feat than the reform of the entire educational system was chiefly the work of a handful of Americans. The resolute stand taken by a Frenchman led to the abolition of torture.* The same French- * This forward step was entirely due to the personal initiative of Monsieur Boissonade de Fcntarabie. One day — it was on the 15th April, 1875 — when busy with the prelimi- naries for the work of codification, he heard groans in an adjoining apartment, and asked what they meant. An evasive answer was returned ; but he persisted, and finally burst into the room whence the groans issued, to find a man stretched on the torture-boards with layers of heavy stones piled on his legs. Returning to his Japanese colleagues, he plainly told them that such horrors and civilised law could not coexist, that torture must cease, or that he would resign. On the very next day he sent in a memorandum to the Minister ot Justice, containing his resignation in the event of compliance being withheld. Seme months elapsed, the translation of his memorandum was delayed, and many specious reasons were alleged by Japanese officialdom for the maintenance of a usage so ancient, which had moreover quite recently (25th August^ 1874J been re-affirmed both in principle and in practice, provision having actually then been made afresh for monthly statistics on the subject ! Nevertheless, Mr. Boissonade's unremitting efforts succeeded in interesting certain high officials in the cause, and torture was rendered illegal by a notification dated itth June 1876. Foreign Employes in Japan. 18 1 man began the codification of Japanese law, wliicii Germans continued and completed. Germans ha\"e for years directed the whole higher medical instruction of the country, and the larger steamers of the principal steamship company are still com- manded by foreign captains of \arious nationalities. Again, consider the army which so recently astonished the world by the perfection of its organisation : — that organisation was Franco- German, and was drilled into the Japanese first by French, and then by German officers engaged for the purpose, and retained during a long series of years. The posts, the telegraphs, the railways, the trigonometrical survey, improved mining methods, prison reform, sanitary reform, cotton and paper mills, chemical laboratories, Avater-works, and harbour works, — all are the creation of the foreign employes of the Japanese Government. By foreign- ers the first men-of-war were built, the first large public edifices erected, the first lessons given in rational finance. Nor must it be supposed that they have been mere supervisors. It has been a case of off coats, of actual manual work, of example as well as precept. Technical men have shown their Japanese employers how to do technical things, the name of chef dc bureau, captain, foreman, or what not, being no doubt generally painted on a Japanese figure-head, but the real power behind each little throne being the foreign adviser or specialist. It is hard to see how matters could have been otherwise, for it takes longer to get a Japanese educated abroad than to engage a foreigner ready made. Moreover, even when technically educated, the Japanese will, for linguistic and other reasons, have more difficulty in keeping up with the progress of rapidly developing arts and sciences, such as most European arts and sciences are. Similar causes have produced similar results in other parts ot the world, though on a smaller scale — in Spanish America, for example. The only curious point is that while Japanese progress has been so often and so rapturously expatiated upon, the agents of that progress have been almost uniformly overlooked. To mention but one example among many, the ingenious " Travel- 1 83 Foreign Employes in Japan. ling Commissioner " of the Pall Mall (lazcllc, INIr. Henry Norman,, in his lively letters on Japan published a dozen years ago,* tells the story of Japanese education under th^ fetching title of " A Nation at School " ; but the impression left is that they have been their own schoolmasters. In another letter on " Japan in Arms," he discourses concerning " the Japanese military re- organisers," the Yokosuka dockyard, and other matters, but omits to mention that the re-organisers were Frenchmen, and that the Yokosuka dockyard also was a French creation. Similarly, when treating of the development of the Japanese newspaper press, he ignores the fact that it owed its origin to an Englishman, which surely, to one whose object was reality, should have seemed an item worth recording. These letters, so full and apparently so frank, really so deceptive, are, as we have said, but one instance among many of the way in which popular writers on Japan travesty history by ignoring the part which foreigners have played. The reasons of this are not far to seek. A wonderful tale will please folks at a distance all the better if made more wonderful still. Japanese progress traced to its causes and explained by reference to the means employed, is not nearly such fascinating reading as when repre- sented in the guise of a fair}' creation sprung from nothing, like Aladdin's palace. Many good people enjo}' nothing so much as unlimited sugar and superlatives ; and the Japanese have really done so much that it seems scarcely stretching the truth to make out that they have done the im.possible. Then, too, they are such pleasant hosts, whereas the foreign employes are not always inclined to be hosts at all to the literary and journalistic globe- trotter, who thirsts for facts and statistics, subject always to the condition that he shall be free to bend the statistics and facts to his own theories, and demonstrate to old residents that their opinions are simply a mass of prejudice. There is nothing picturesque in the foreign employe. \\'ith his club, and his- * They were republ'shcd in book form as T/u' I\cal Japan in 1S92. Formosa. i8j tennis-ground, and his brick house, and his wife's piano, and the rest of the European entourage which he strives to create around him in order sometimes to forget his exile, he strikes a false note. The esthetic and literary globe-trotter would fain revel in a tea-tray existence for the nonce, because the very moment he tires of it, he can pack and be off. The foreign employe cannot treat life so jauntily, for he has to make his living ; and when a man is forced to live in Lotus-land, it is Lotus-land no longer. Hence an irreconcilable feud between the foreign employes in Japan and those literary gentlemen who paint Japan in the brilliant hues of their own imagination. For our part, we see no excuse — even from a literary point of view — for inaccuracy in this matter. Japan is surely fair enough, her people are attractive enough, her progress has been remarkable enough, for plenty of praise to remain, even when all just deductions are made and credit awarded to those who have helped her to her present position. Why exaggerate .-' Japan can afford to borrow CromwcU's- word, and say, " Paint me as I am ! Forfeits. The Japanese play various games of forfeits, which they call ken, sitting in a litde circle and flinging out their fingers, after the manner of the Italian mora. The most popular kind of ken is the kitsune ken, or " fox forfeit," in which various positions of the fingers represent a fox, a man, and a gun. The man can use the gun, the gun can kill the fox, the fox can deceive the man ; but the man cannot kill the fox without the gun, nor the fox use the gun against the man. This leads to a number of combinations. Another ' variety of the game of forfeits is the iomo-se, or "follow me," in which the beaten player has to walk round the room after the conqueror, with something on his back, as if he were the conqueror's baggage coolie. The dance called by foreigners "John Kino" is a less reputable member of the same family of games.* Formosa. The hazv geography of early times distinguished * ''John Kino" seems to be a corruption of ch^n ki-ita or c'loi hi-na, "just come- hore!" 1&4 Formosa. so impcifcctly between Formosa and Luchu that it is often difficult to know which of the two is intended. Equally obscure is the early history of the island. The Chinese would seem to have discovered it at the beginning of the seventh century, but the curtain falls again for over six hundred years. From the beginning of trustworthy records, the spectacle presented to us is that of a mountainous, forest-clad interior inhabited by head- hunting savages of Malay race, and a flat western seaboard overrun by buccaneers from various lands. A peculiar tribe of Chinamen, called Hakka, permanently settled this western coast during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; but the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Spaniards, all of whom, about A.D. 1600, were striving together for colonial supremacy, endeavoured with partial temporary success to gain a foothokl. The Japanese did likewise, both as peaceable traders and as pirates. Takasago, one of their names for Formosa, dates from that time, having been first applied to a sandy stretch which was thought to resemble the celebrated pine-clad beach of that name near the present town of Kobe. The other Japanese, or rather Chinese, appellation — Tai7van ("terraced bay") — -was at first confined to one of the trading stations on the coast, — to which, is not quite certain. Our European name comes from the Portuguese navigators, who, with somewhat exaggerated enthusiasm, called what they saw of the place YIha Formosa, that is, the " Beautiful Island."' Dutch rule asserted itself as paramount over a large portion of Formosa from 1624 to 1661, and to Dutch missionaries we owe the first serious attempts at a study of the aborigines and their multifarious dialects. Se\'eral young Formosans were even sent to Holland to study theology, a circumstance which gave rise to one of the most audacious literary frauds ever perpetratetl. A Frenchman, pretending to be a native convert, published, under the pseudonym of George Psalmanaazaar, " An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa/' — every line of which, including an elaborate grammar, an alphabet, and a whole religious system, was pure invention, but which deceived the learned world Formosa. 185 almost down to our own day. The Dutch were ousted from Formosa by Koxinga, the son of a Chinese pirate by a Japanese mother. But his rule was short-lived, and the island passed in 1683 under the control of the Chinese Government, which retained it until its cession to Japan, in 1895, as one of the conditions of peace after the war between the two nations. The aborigines had already incidentally felt the force of Japanese arms in 1874, when an expedition was sent under General Saigo to chastise them for the murder of some shipwrecked fishermen. Formosa, as sufficiently indicated above, falls naturally into two unequal parts. To the west a narrow alluvial plain, richly cultivated by industrious Chinese living in towns and villages, slopes gently to the sea. Eastwards the country rises into mountain ranges covered with virgin forests of camphor laurel and other huge trees, beneath whose shade wild beasts and wild men fight for a subsistence. Mount Morrison, which stands almost exactly under the Tropic of Cancer, forms the culminating point of the island, and the highest peak of the whole Japanese empire, as it has an altitude of 14,350 ft., or 2,000 ft. more than Fuji. For this reason the Japanese have re-christened it Xii-laka- yama, that is, the " New Lofty Mountain." The cliffs of the east coast of Formosa are the highest and most precipitous in the world, towering in places sheer six thousand feet from the water's edge. It is not for nothing that so many nations have striven for the overlordship of Formosa. Tea, camphor, sugar, fruits and vegetables of every kind, are produced in immense quantities, while coal and gold are know^n to abound, though the store of metals has as yet scarcely been touched. But there are several indispensable preliminaries to the exploitation of these riches by their present enlightened owners. The aborigines must be subjugated, and not only they, but armed bands of Chinese rendered desperate by real and fancied grievances. Hitherto things have gone wrong with the Japanese attempts to colonise their new dependency. Month after month a clamour rises from 1 86 Formosa. the press of every shade of opinion and from pubUc men anent the waste, the corruption, the misgovernment, and mali^ractices of every kind that are there rampant. Foreigners tell exactly the same tale, adding details about the shameless lives led by officials and the insolence of the soldiery and imported coolies, who, peasants for the most part at home, there get brevet rank as representatives of the conquering race. On all sides the cry is that a false start has been made, that what is needed is an entirely new departure, if this island — ■" Beautiful," but unhappy, — is ever to have rest. That reform is earnestly laboured for at Tokyo, we make no doubt, and from our hearts we wish it success. With road-building and the construction of railways and lighthouses, a beginning has already been made; the Japanese school system and the conscription law have been introduced. Evidently the official intention is that the incorporation of Formosa with the Japanese empire shall be no mere form of words, but, so far as may be, an actual assimilation of the conquered to the conquerors. It would not be possible at the present day, in however brief a sketch of Formosa, to omit all reference to the Rev. Dr. ]\Iackay, the pioneer missionary and author of the best general account of the land and its people, whose death at the comparatively early age of fifty-nine is chronicled as these pages pass through the press. Never, in the wildest flight of imagination, could we have guessed the nature of the evangelising method on which this excellent man chiefly relied, — tooth-drawing ! ! ! " Toothache," writes he, " resulting from severe malaria and " from beetle-nut chewing, cigar-smoking, and other filthy habits, " is the abiding torment of tens of thousands of both Chinese " and aborigines .... Our usual custom in touring through " the country is to take our stand in an open space, often on " the stone steps of a temple, and, after singing a hymn or two, " proceed to extract teeth, and then preach the message of the Forty-seven Renins. 187 "gospel. .... I have myself, since 1873, extracted over "twenty-one thousand, and the students and preachers have " extracted nearly half that number The priests and " other enemies of the mission may persuade people that fever " and other diseases have been cured, not by our medicines, but " by the intervention of the gods ; but the relief from toothache is " too unmistakable, and because of this, tooth-extracting has been "more than anything else effective in breaking down prejudice and " opposition." Books recommended. From Far Fornusa, by Rev. Dr. Mackay. — For elaborate historical details, Dr. L. Riess's Ceschichtc dcr Insel Formosa, published as Part 59 of the "German Asiatic Transactions." Forty-seven Ronins. Asano, Lord of Ako, while at Vedo in attendance on the Shogun, was entrusted with the carrj'ing out of one of the greatest state ceremonies of those times, — nothing less than the reception and entertainment of an envoy from the Mikado. Now Asano was not so well-versed in such matters as in the duties of a warrior. Accordingly he took counsel with another nobleman, named Kira, whose vast knowledge of ceremonies and court etiquette was equalled only by the mean- ness of his disposition. Resenting honest Asano's neglect to fee him for the information which he had grudgingly imparted, he twitted and jeered at him for a country lout unworth}- the name of DaimyS. At last, he actually went so far as to order Asano to bend down and fasten up his foot-gear for him. Asano, long-suffering though he was, could not brook such an insult. Drawing his sword, he slashed the insolent wretch in the face, and would have made an end of him, had he not sought safety in flight. The palace — for this scene took place within the precincts of the palace — was of course soon in an uproar. Thus to degrade its majesty by a private brawl, was a crime punishable with death and confiscation. Asano was condemned to perform harakiri that very evening, his castle was forfeited, his family declared extinct, and all the members of his clan disbanded : — in Japanese parlance they became Ronins, literally " wave-men," 1 88 Forty-seven Ronins. that is, wanderers, fellows without a lord and without a home. This was in the month of April, 1701. So far the first act. Act two is the vengeance. Oishi Kurano- suke, the senior retainer of the dead Daimyo, determines to revenge him, and consults with forty-six others of his most trusty fellow-lieges as to the ways and means. All are willing to lay down their lives in the attempt. The difficulty is to elude the vigilance of the government. For mark one carious point : — the vendetta, though imperatively prescribed by custom, was forbidden by law, somewhat as duelling now is in certain Western countries. Not to take vengeance on an enemy involved social ostracism. On the other hand, to take it involved capital punishment. But not to take it was an idea which never entered the head of any chivalrous Japanese. After many secret consultations, it was determined among the Ronins that they should separate and dissemble. Several of them took to plying trades. They became carpenters, smiths, and merchants in various cities, by which means some of their number gained access to Kira's mansion, and learnt many of the intricacies of its corridors and gardens. Oishi himself, the head of the faithful band, went to Kyoto, where he plunged into a course of drunkenness and debauchery. He even discarded his wife and children, and took a harlot to live with him. Thus was their enemy, to whom full reports of all these doings were brought by spies, lulled at last into complete security. Then suddenly, on the night of the 30th January, 1703, during a violent snow- storm, the attack was made. The Forty-seven Ronins forced the gate of Kira's mansion, slew his retainers, and dragged forth the high-born, but chicken-hearted, wretch from an outhouse in which he had sought to hide himself behind a lot of firewood and charcoal. Respectfully, as befits a mere gentleman when addressing a great noble, the leader of the band requested Kira to perform harakiri, thus giving him the chance of dying by his own hand and so saving his honour. But Kira was afraid, and there was nothinjr for it but to kill him like the scoundrel that he was. Fuji. 189 That done, the Httle band formed in order, and marched (day having now dawned) to the temple of Sengakuji at the other end of the city. On their way thither, the people all flocked out to praise their doughty deed, a great Dairnyo whose palace they passed sent out refreshments to them with messages of sympathy, and at the temple they were received by the abbot in person. There they laid on their lord's grave, which stood in the temple- grounds, the head of the enemy by whom he had been so grievous- ly wronged. Then, came the official sentence, condemning them all to commit harakiri. This they did separately, in the mansions of the various Daimyos to whose care they had been entrusted for the last few days of their lives, and they also were buried in the same temple grounds, where their tombs can be seen to this day. The enthusiastic admiration of a whole people during two centuries has been the reward of their obedience to the ethical code of their time and country. Books recommended. The Forfy-sezwn Rdnins, the first story in Mitford's Tales of Old Japan. Mitford gives, in his charming style, various picturesque details which want of space forces us to omit. — Dickins's Chiushingiira or the Loyal League is a translation of the popular play founded on the story of the Ronins. — There is a whole literature on the subject, both native and European. Of native books, the I-ro-ha Bunko is the one best worth reading. It is easy, graphic, and obtainable everywhere. In it and its sequel, the Yuki no Akebjno, the adventures of each of the Forty-seven Ronins are traced out separately, the result being a complete picture ot Japanese life two centuries ago. It should, however, be remembered that these worl;s belong rather to the catalogue of historical novels than to that of history proper. Fuji. A fat and infuriated tourist has branded Fuji in print as " that disgusting mass of humbug and ashes." The Japanese poet Kada-no-Azuma-Maro was more diplomatic when he simply said (we render his elegant verse into flat English prose) : " The mountain which I found higher to climb than I had heard, than I had thought, than I had seen, — was Fuji's peak."** * Kikishi yori ino Oinoi'rhi yori mo Mislii yori vto Noborite takaki 1 'ama iva Fuji no ne. 190 Fuji. But sucli adverse, or at best cold, criticism is rare. Natives and foreigners, artists and holiday-makers, alike fall down in adoration before the wondrous mountain which stands utterly alone in its union of grace with majesty. Daring the Middle Ages, when Fuji's volcanic fires were more active than at present, a commonplace of the poets was to liken the ardour of their love to that which lit up the mountain-toj) with flame. Another poet earlier still — he lived before the time of King Alfred — sings as follows : There 011 the border, where the land of Kai * Doth touch the frontier of Suruga's land, A beauteous province stretched on either hand, See Fusiyama rear his head on high ! The clouds of heaven in reverent wonder pause, Xor may the birds those giddy heights assay Where melt thy snows amid thy fires away, Or thy fierce fires lie quenched beneath thy snows. What name might fitly tell, what accents sing, Thine awful, godlike grandeur? 'Tis thy breast That holdeth Narusawa's flood at rest. Thy side whence Fujikawa's waters spring. Cireat Fusiyama, towering to the sky ! A treasure art thou giv'n to mortal man, A God Protector watching o'er Japan : — On thee forever let me feast mine eye. But enough of poetry. The surveyors tell us that Fuji is 12,365 feet high — an altitude easy to remember, if we take for jnemoria iechftica the twelve months and the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.f The geologists inform us that Fuji is a young volcano, to which fact may be ascribed the as yet almost unbroken regularity of its shape. The beginning of degradation is the hump on the south side, called Hoei-/:an from ■the name of the period when it was formed by the most recent * Pronounced so as to rhyme with "high." + Other measurements give- ahout 100 feet more or less. Fuji. 191 eruption of which history tells. This eruption lasted with intervals from the i6th December, 1707, to the 22n(:l January, 1708. The geologists further assure us that Fuji had several predecessors in the same vicinity, — Mounts Futago, Koma-ga-take, and others in the Hakone district being volcanoes long since extinct. Futago, indeed, still has a crater which deserves a visit, so perfect is its shape and so thickly carpeted is it with moss and shrubs. Philology is the science that can tell us least ; for no consensus of opinion has yet been reached as to the origin of the name of Ftiji — anciently Fuzi or Fnzhi. Fuji-san, the current popular name, simply means " Mount Fuji," san being Chinese for "mountain." Fuji-no-yama, the form preferred in poetry, means " the mountain of Fuji " in pure Japanese ; and the Europeanised form Fiisiyama is a corruption of this latter. But what is the etymology of Fuji itself.^ The Chinese characters give us no clue. Sometimes the name is written '^^^^ "not two," that is, "unrivalled," "peerless"; sometimes ^^^^ "not dying," " deathless ; " — and with this latter transcription is connected a pretty legend about the elixir of life having been taken to the summit of the mountain in days of yore. Others write it ^ -j^ that is, " rich scholar," a more prosaic rendering, but no whit more trustworthy. Probably Fi/Ji is not Japanese at all. It might be a corruption of Huchi, or Fuc/ii, the Aino name of the Goddess of Fire ; for down to times almost historical the country round Fuji formed part of Aino-land, and all Eastern Japan is strewn with names of Aino origin. We, however, prefer the suggestion of Mr. Nagata Hosei, the most learned of living Japanese authorities on Aino, who would derive Fuji from the Aino verb pus/i, " to burst forth," — an appellation which might have been appropriately given either to the mountain itself as a volcano, or more probably still to the chief river flowing down from it, the dangerous Fujikawa ; for the general Aino practice is to leave even conspicuous mountains unnamed, but carefully to name all the rivers. The letter-changes from Aino pus/i to 192 Fuji. classical Fuzi are according to Japanese rule, whereas the change from Huchi to Fuzi would bs abnormal. The very circumstance, too, of the former etymology appealing less to the imagination is really in its favour. A Japanese tradition (of which, however, there is no written notice earlier than A.D. 1652) affirms that Fuji arose from the earth in a single night some time about 300 B.C., while Lake Biwa near Kyoto sank simultaneously. May we not here have an echo of some early eruption, which resulted in the formation, not indeed of Lake Biwa distant a hundred and forty miles, but of one of the numerous small lakes at the foot of the mountain .-* The following miscellaneous items will perhaps interest some readers : — The Japanese are fond of comparing Fuji to an inverted fan. — ^Fuji is inhabited by a lovely goddess named Ko-uo-hana- sakii-ya-hime , which, being interpreted, means " the Princess who Makes the Blossoms of the Trees to Flower." She is also called Sengen or Asama, and numerous shrines are dedicated to her in many provinces. — The peasants of the neighbouring country-side often speak of Fuji simply as O Yama, " the Honourable Mountain," or " the Mountain, " instead of mentioning its proper name. — One of Hokusai's best picture-books is his Fuji Hyakkei, or " Hundred Views of Fuji," executed when he had reached the age of seven- ty-six. In it, the grand mountain stands depicted from every point of view and under every possible circumstance and a few impossible ones ; for instance, the artist gives us Fuji in process of being ascended by a dragon. Copies of this book are common, but good ones are rather scarce. — According to a popular supersti- tion, the ashes brought down during the day by the tread of pilgrims' feet re-ascends spontaneously at night. — The mountain is divided into ten stations, and formerly no woman was allowed to climb higher than the eighth. Lady Parkes was the first woman to tread the summit. This was in October, 1867. — Steam sufficiently hot to cook an Qgg still issues from several spots on the crater lip. — The Japanese have enriched their language by coining words for special aspects of their favourite mountain. Fun. 195 Thus kagami-Fuji, literally " minxjr Fuji," means the rcllection of Fuji in Lake Hakone. Kage-Fuji, or "shadow Fuji," denotes a beautiful phenomenon, — the gigantic shadow cast by the cone at sunrise on the sea of clouds and mist below. Hidari-Fuji, "left- handed Fuji,'' is the name given to the mountain at the village of NangS, for the reason that that is the only place on the Tokaida where, owing to a sharp twist in the road, Fuji appears on the left hand of the traveller bound from Tokyo to Kyoto, instead of on his right. — From 12,000 to 18,000 persons ascend Fuji yearly, the majority being pilgrims. The foregoing items are merely jotted down haphazard, as- specimens of the lore connected with Japan's most famous- volcano. To do justice to it geologically, botanically, histori- cally, archcEologically, would require a monograph at least as long as this volume. Books recommended. Murray's I landbook for Japan, 6th edit., p. 167 et scq. — For beautiful collotypes of Fuji, see The J'olcanocs xf Japan, Part /. Fttjtsan, by O^awa, Milne, and Burton. Fun. Serious ideas do for export. A nation's fun is for home consumption only : — it would evaporate before it could be convey- ed across the border. For this reason, we must abandon the endeavour to give the foreign reader any full and particular account of the Japanese mind on its comic side. Perhaps the best plan would be to say what Japanese fun isn't. It certainly does not in the very faintest degree resemble French esprit, that child born of pure intellect and social refinement, and reared in the salon where conversation rises to the level of a fine art, where every word is a rapier, every touch light as air. Shall we compare it with the grim mixture which we northerners call humour, — the grotesque suffused with the pathetic ^ It may seem a little nearer akin to that. But no, — it lacks alike the hidden tear and the self-criticism of humour: — it has no irony, no side-lights. It is more like what we ma}' picture to ourselves in the noisy revelling of the old Roman saturnalia, — the broad jest, the outrageous pun, the practical joke, the loud guflfaw. 194 Fun. " Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," snatches of half-meaningless song, buffoonery, tomfoolery, high jinks of every sort, a very carnival of uproarious merriment. It is artless, it is thoroughly popular, in fact plebeian. Circumstances forced it to be so. The old Japanese nobility were nowise given to laughter. "Life is real, life is earnest," was their motto; and what a deadly dull life it must have been ! To begin with, it was a society minus the fair sex. To admire the Court ladies' toilettes, to hang on their smiles, perhaps whisper some witty gallantry in a noble dame's ear, formed no part of a young Daimyo's order of the day at the vShogun's Court. You can see him still on the T(3kyo stage ; for the tradition remains, though the personage himself has vanished utterly. There he sits,- — his straight back a perfect lesson of deportment, his counte- nance impassable, his few gestures stiff as the starch of his marvellous robes, his whole being hedged round with the prescriptions of an elaborate and rigid etiquette. Remember, too, that the government was a despotism which refused to be tempered even with epigram : — a single inappropriate jest might send you to languish in exile on one of the Seven Isles of Izu for the rest of your natural life. Spies swarmed everywhere ; the walls — in these paper houses — almost' literally had ears. The pleasures (so-called) of high life were ceremonies well-nigh as solemn as the actual ceremonial of government, — the stately No, or lyric drama, with its statuesque players also in starched robes and chanting in a dialect dead some centuries before, if indeed it ever had been living ; or else the tea ceremonies, or the arrangement of flowers in obedience to the principles of philosophy, or the com- position of verses after the model of the antique, or the viewing of scrolls painted according to ancient Chinese canons. The w'hole life in fact was sw-athed in formalism, like a mummy in its grave-clothes. The mere thought of it is enough to stifle mirth.* * I'hough the Japanese are respecters of dignities, we have ourselves heard some who had had personal experience of life in a Daimyo's palace under the old regime, apply to it the popular verse, A'/V/c gjk!ira'c2t mite jigokic, that is "Heav'n to hear tell about, but Hell to see." Fun. 195 Weighed down by this incul)u.s at the top, the national spirits sought a vent in the lower strata of society. In the inimitable sketch-books of Hokusai, the bourgeois artist who threw all classical rules to the winds, we see the sort of people who really "had a good time" while their betters bored themselves to extinction, namely, the Japanese shopkeepers and artisans. We see their homely jokes, their drunken sprees, their occasional sly hits at superiors, as when, for example, a group of street Arabs is depicted making fun of some Confucian sage behind his back, or as when the stately Daimyo's procession becomes a procession of grass- hoppers bearing a mantis in a basket. The theatre, which no gentleman ever entered, was their happy hunting-ground, the pieces being written expressly to suit them, so that what flourished on the boards was, as may be supposed, not precisely a classic taste. The same in literature : — we must turn our backs on the books written for the upper class, and betake ourselves to vulgar company, if we want to be amused. Often, no doubt, the expres- sions are coarse. Nevertheless, let us give honour where honour is due. Though spades are called spades, we rarely, if ever, encounter any attractive refinement of wickedness. It will have been gathered that most of the Buropean forms of fun have Japanese parallels. Japanese puns, for instance, are not so very unlike our own, excepting one class which rests on the shapes of the Chinese w'ritten characters. Their comedies are of two kinds. The more modern ones are genuine comedies ot manners ; those handed down from the Middle Ages, and ranking as semi-classical because acted as interludes to the Xo, or lyric dramas, are of the nature of broad farce, — mere outline sketches of some litde drollery, in which a leading part is generally played by the man-servant Tarokwaja, a sort of Japanese Leporello, and which always ends in a cut and run. Japanese comic poetry is mostly untranslatable. Fortunately their comic art speaks a dialect which all can more or less understand, though doubtless acquaintance with Japanese manners and customs, traditions, and superstitions will add much to an appreciation of the artists' verve. 196 Fun. And here we must leave — very inadequate!}' treated — -a subject of peculiar interest. To undertake the explanation of any Japanese puns or other jokes, would be a laborious business and cruel to the reader, — still more cruel to the jokes. We have thought, however, that some amusement might be derived from a perusal of the following specimen of the mediaeval farces. The translation is literal.* RIBS AND SKIN. (HONE KA WA.) Dramalis Pcrsoncr. The Rector of a Buddhist Temple. His Curate. Three of the Parishioners. Scene. — -The Temple. Rcclur. — I am rector of this temple. I have to call my curate, to make a communication to him. Curate ! are you there } are you there 1 Halloo ! Ciiralc. — Here am I ! What is your reason for being pleased to call me .-' Rector. — My rt;ason for calling you is just simply this: — I, unworthy priest, am already stricken in years, and the duties of the temple service weigh heavily upon me. So do you please to understand that, from to-da}', I resign this benefice in your favour. Curate. — I feel deeply indebted to Your Reverence. But as I am still deficient in learning, and as, moreover, no time, however late, would seem too late to me, I beg of you to be so kind as to delay this change. Rector. — Nothing could please me more than your most charming answer. But you must know that, though retiring from the rectorship, I do not intend to leave the temple. I * It was first published by us over twenty years ago, in the "Asiatic Transactions," and afterwards in a work entitled The Classical Poetry o^ the Japanese, which has long been out oT print. • Fun. 197 shall simply take up my abode in the back apartment ; so, it there should be any business of any kind, please to let me know. Curate. — Well, if it must be so, I will act in accordance with your august desire. Rector. — And mind (though it can scarcely be necessary for me to say so) that you do everything in such a manner as to please the parishioners, and make the temple prosperous. Curate. — Pray feel no uneasiness on that head ! I will manage things in such a way as to please the parishioners right well. Rector. — Well, then, I retire without further delay. So, if there should be anything you want to ask, come and call me. Curate. — Your commands are laid to heart. Rector. — And if any parishioner should call, please to let me know. Curate. — Your injunctions shall be kept in mind. — Ha ! ha ! this is delightful ! To think of the joy of his ceding the benefice to me to-day, just as I was saying to myself, " When will the rector resign in my favour } when ivill he resign in my favour ?" The parishioners, when they hear of it, are sure to be charmed ; so I mean to manage in such a way as to give them all satisfaction. Fhsi Parishioner. — I am a resident in this neighbourhood. I am on my way to a certain place on business ; but as it has suddenly begun to threaten rain, I think I will look in at the parish temple, and borrow an umbrella. Ah ! here I am. Hoy ! admittance. Curate. — Oh ! there is some one hallooing at the gate ! Who is that asking for admittance .•^ Who is that hallooing } First Par. — It is I. Curate. — Oh ! you are indeed welcome ! First Par. — It is long since I last had the honour of coming to enquire after you; but I trust that the worthy rector and yourself are still in the enjoyment of good health. 1 98 Fun. Ctuaie. — Oh yes ! we both continue well. Hut I must tell you that, moved by some impulse or other, my master has deigned to resign the benefice in my favour. So I pray that you will continue as heretofore to honour our temple with your visits. First Par. — That is an auspicious event ; and if I have not been already to offer iriy congratulations, it is because I was not apprised of it. Well ! my present reason for calling is just simply this : — I am off to-day to a certain place ; but as it has suddenly begun to threaten rain, I should feel much obliged if you would kindly condescend to lend me an umbrella. Curale. — Certainly ! Nothing easier ! I will have the honour to lend it to you. Please wait here an instant. First Par. — Oh ! very many thanks. Curate. — Here, then ! I will have the honour to lend you this one. First Par. — Oh ! I owe you very man\- thanks. Curate. — Please always tell me if there is anything of any kind that I can do for you. First Par. — Certainly ! 1 will call in your assistance. But now I will be off. Curate. — Are you going ^ First Par. — Yes. Good-bye ! Curate. — Good-bye ! Fi?-st Par. — I am much indebted to you. Curate. — Thanks for your visit. First Par. — Ah ! well ! that is all ric-ht. I will hasten c^n. Curate. — As he said I was to let him know if any of the parishioners came, I will go and tell him what has passed. Pray ! are }-ou in ^ Rector. — Oh ! that is )'ou ! Curate. — How dull Your Reverence must be feeling ! Rector. — No, I am not dull. Curate. — Somebody has just been here. Fun. 19^ Recior. — Did he come to worship, or was it that he had business Avith us ? Curate. — He came to borrow an umbrella; su I lent him one. Rector. — Quite right of }ou to lend it. But tell me, which umbrella did you lend .'' Curate. — I lent the one that came home new the other day. Rector. — -What a thoughtless fellow you are ! Would anybod)' ever dream of lending an umbrella like that one, which had not even been once used yet .^ The case will present itself again. When you do not want to lend it, you can make an excuse. Curate. — What would you say .•* Rector. — You should sa}' : " The request with which you honour me is a slight one. But a day or two ago my master went out with it, and encountering a gust of wind at a place where four roads meet, the ribs flew off on one side, and the skin* on another. So we have tied both skin and ribs by the middle, and hung them up to the ceiling. This being so, it would hardly be fit to answer your purpose." Something like that, something with an air of truth about it, is what you should sa}". C/^;-a/t'.— Your injunctions shall be kept in mind, and I will make that answer another time. — Now I \\\\\ be going. Rector. — Are }'ou off .' Curate. — Yes. „ * [■ Good-bve ! good-bve ! Lurate. ) Curate. — \^'hat can this mean 1 f.et \wy master sa\' what he likes, it does seem strange to refuse to lend a thing when }'ou have it bv vou. Scco7id Par. — I am a resident in this neighbourhood. As I * The "cover" of an umbrella is called bj' the Japanese its skin. Similarly they speak of the skin of a tree, the skin of an apple, the skin of bread (its crust], etc. In fact, the outside of most things is termed their "skin." 200 Fun. am going on a long journey to-da}', I mean to look in at the parish temple and borrow a horse. — I will go quickly. Ah ! here I am ! Hoy ! admittance ! Curate. — There is some one hallooing at the gate again ! Who is that asking for admittance .' Who is that hallooing ? Second Par. — It is I. Curate. — Oh ! you are indeed most welcome ! Second Par. — My present reason for calling is just simply this : — I am off to-day on a long journey, and (though it is a bold request to make) I should feel much obliged if you would condescend to lend me a horse. Curate. — Nothing could be slighter than the request with which you honour me. But a day or two ago my master went out with it, and encountering a gust of wind at a place where four Toads meet, the ribs flew off on one side, and the skin on another. .So we have tied both skin and ribs by the middle, and hung them up to the ceiling. This being so, it would hardly be fit to answer your purpose. Second Par. — Why ! it is a horse that I am asking for ! Curate. — -Yes, ceftainly ! a horse. Second Par. — Oh well ! then there is no help for it. I will be off. Curate. — Are you going .^ Second Par. — Yes. Good-bye ! Curate. — Good-bye ! Thanks for your visit. iSf. '^- ^ ^ ^~ ^ >!^ ^ ^ Second Par. — Well ! I never ! He says things that I cannot in the least make out. Curate. — I spoke as my master had instructed me ; so doubtless he will be pleased. Pray ! Are you in .? Rector. — Oh ! that is you ! Is it on business that you come .? Curate. — Somebody has just been here to borrow our horse. Fun. 20I Rector. — And you lent him, as he fortunately happened to be disengaged? Curate. — Oh no ! I did not lend it, but replied in the manner you had instructed me. Rector. — What ! I do not remember saying anything about the horse. What was it you answered ? Curate. — I said that you had been out with it a day or two ago, and that, encountering a gust of wind at a place where four roads meet, the ribs had flown off on one side, and the skin on the other, which being the case, it would hardly be fit to answer his purpose. Rector. — -What do you mean? It was if they came to ask for an umbrella that I told you to reply like that ! But would anybody ever dream of saying such a thing to a person who should come to borrow a horse ? Another time, when you do not want to lend it, you can make a fitting excuse. Curate. — -What would you say ? Rector. — -You should say : " We lately turned him out to grass ; and becoming frolicsome, he dislocated his thigh, and is lying down covered with straw in a corner of the stable. This being so, he will hardly be fit to answer your purpose.'' Something like that, something with an air of truth about it, is what you should say. Curate. — Your injunctions shall be kept in mind, and I will profit by them next time. Rector. — Be sure you do not say something stupid ! Curate. — What can this mean ? To say a thing because he tells me to say it, and then, forsooth, to get a scolding for it ! For all I am now my ow'n master, I see no way out of these perplexities. Third Parishioner. — I am a resident in this nei