Drnia al 7 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IN MEMORY OF EDWIN CORLE PRESENTED BY JEAN CORLE TALES FROM TOKIO. TALES PRO/\ TOK10 BY CLARENCE LUDLOW BROWNELL 1900 QUAIL & WARNER NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY WARNER AND BROWNELL. Second Edition. TO JOHN GARDNER COOL1DGE TO YUSHOKWAN TO KOMORI SENSHO SAMA NOTE. These tales came over the Pacific from Tokio some years ago with the Talesman and landed in the beautiful city of Tacoma, which the townsfolk call the City of Destiny. Both Tales and Talesman liked the Town but their destiny lay not there; for the Town had small need of Tales such as the Tales- man told, being busy with Tall Trees, Rail- roads and Real Estate. Therefore the Tales- man detaching the moss from his MSS. journeyed eastward and found a kindly audi- ence in the Greater City of New York. He makes acknowledgement gratefully to the New York Press and to the Evening Post for courteous permission to reprint such of the Tales as have appeared therein. CONTENTS. Okusama n Mukashi lyemushi 19 Furo Oke 31 Kaso 43 Junsa S3 Cho Kimi Make, Han Boku Kachi 61 Oyasumi Nasai 77 Kane Nai Nareiba 93 Yaso No Senkiyoshi 103 Otokorashi Onna 113 Tokio No Hana 125 Shimbun 133 Ojigi to Niu Satsu 147 Butsuzo Koshite 153 Ganjitsu 161 Shibaya to Yakusha 171 Rio 183 Uta 191 Geisha 199 Turampu 211 Syonara 219 Nihon No Ichiban Shiwai Jimbutsu. . . 229 OKUSAMA. OKUSAMA. O Toyo San sits tapping the ashes from her silver pipe in one of the small thatched houses that stand just ouside the blackened walls of Tatsumi, waiting for her kurumaya, who has dropped the shafts of his jin-riki-sha and is taking a bowl of rice with some old friends at the gate where he has served so many years. O Toyo is on her way to Biwa, and farther south, and has stopped at the cot- tage on her way that she may see her children. There is a longing in her eyes as she sits half kneeling on the little square mat by the brazier, now arranging the bits of charcoal with her tongs and now taking a bit of tobacco for her pipe from the pouch beside her on the matting. Her face is gentle and sweet to look upon. When she smiles her eyes sparkle and her parting lips discover pearly teeth that have never needed a dentists care. But her smile is hardly more than courtesy despite its gentle look, for there is a yearning 13 TALES FROM TOKIO. in her heart that a woman of another race could not conceal. She is a mother but her children are growing up almost as strangers to her. It is not her fault at all. Her parents had arranged her marriage when she was hardly in her teens without asking her whether she would or not. Obedience was the only law she knew, and with filial piety (why is there not an Old English equivalent for this term ?) she had done her parent's bidding, not questioning their choice. Her lot had been that of many another native woman. It is typical. O Toyo San must wait outside to see the children born to her in Tatsumi, a girl and a boy. The boy, O Bo Chan, as the house folk call him, is heir to the ancient manor. The master of Tatsumi is lord of all the region round. He has owned Hombo, the village extending northward ever since men first abode there, and the checker-board of rice fields reaching far out toward the boundaries of Niu Gun, one of the richest counties in the famous province of Echizen. Those, however, who have long known Tatsumi and the lord thereof doubt if much OKUSAMA. but the name of these great possessions will be left by the time O Bo Chan has come to man's estate. Bo's grandfather has been in- kiyo many years. Before he retired from active life to devote himself to study and meditation he had lived like a prince, but well within his income. When he handed over his estates to his son, Hikusaburo, he had ac- companied the transfer with much good ad- vice which the heir had acknowledged duti- fully saying "kashi komari mashita" and "saio de gozaimasu" frequently. But Tatsumi's friends said "neko ni koban" (gold coins to a cat) when they spoke among themselves, though in public they held their peace. Since then their silent prophecy has been fulfilling rapidly, but the inkiyo has not paid heed. His cares for this life are over and his days are sweet and peaceful. O Kamu San, his honored wife saw plainly but she could not speak. Indeed, soon she was O Kamu San no longer, only O Ba San, grandmother. Her son had become the head of the house and her duty, as a woman's duty ever is in Japan, was to obey, not to criticise. So Hikusaburo had free way. Never did J TALES FROM TOKIO. any one say no to him. His father had given to him O Toyo San before he was done with school. She was the daughter of a rich rela- tion, a sake brewer. Like all other native marriages, it was purely a family agreement, without civil or religious ceremony, and of course both houses were happy over the event. When the bride arrived at the home of her new parents, dressed in silken robes and her face painted white as chalk, the place was thronged with guests. Tatsumi threw wide its gates, and there was feasting for a week. Clam broth and mushrooms were dispensed lavishly; there was joy throughout the whole of Echizen. Later, when a boy was born, the old walls once more overflowed with joyousness. Oji San smiled at his grandchild, and seeing that it was a healthy babe, put his affairs in order and became inkiyo. Hikusaburo aided him in this, for he was eager to take control. He accepted everything with due humility, even to the patriarchal blessing and advice. Then he began the life he had longed to lead. His home saw little of him, except when he came in with a band of geisha and made merry till 16 OKUSAMA. the sun rose. Wherever he went the samisen began to twang, and the moon-fiddle, the koto and the drum to fill the air. One day Hikusaburo, who now was the fa- ther of two children, fell in love. He had been in love before often enough for a day or two, or possibly a week; but this time the feeling clung to him and hurt. Of course she was a geisha, for that was the only sort of woman Hikusaburo had paid attention to since he be- came lord of Tatsumi. He bought her release from the master who had trained her, and took her home, along with a dozen other of her sisters in the art of spending money. He feared lest she might be lonely. Tatsumi saw wilder times than ever it had known before. Sake flowed like water. Hom- bo hardly recognized itself. O Kamu San, Hikusaburo's wife, only was unhappy. To see herself, the mother of two children, sup- planted by a doll not yet fourteen years old was too much even for her self-abnegation. The cheerfulness which the native code com- mands to women was not in evidence in her countenance. Hikusaburo spoke harshly.but she would not brighten up. Then he sent her home. TALES FROM TOKIO. She has not been within the walls of Tat- sumi since. She would not enter though not even a ghost were about the place. So she sits outside, waiting, while the melancholy music of the twanging samisen floats out from the zashiki, where once she was mistress and where now my lord makes merry with his doll. The kurumaya says that possibly when my lord is drunk she may see her children. MUKASHI IYEMUSHI. MUKASHI IYEMUSHI. Our landlord had a delightful home, a duti- ful son and a snap. The snap was we. We were in the capital city of Etchiu, on the west coast of Dai Nippon, looking out over the North Sea, as they call it there, toward the frozen Siberian coast. We were just from col- lege, and knew fully as much as the average college man about the world at large and about business in particular. Our landlord, Kintaro Okashi.was a samurai of the old school. He was brought up under the feudal system, and knew how to fight, as all gentlemen should in those days. If he knew anything else he concealed it during the year we lived with him. Of course, though, he knew how to make merry, and could handle artistically a brush dipped in red paint. He could make his evening environment look as though it had been lacquered with the hues of the setting sun; but such knowledge was not remarkable. Every one in Japan can do that. 21 TALES FROM TOKIO. He was quite regardless of expense in this employment, for he was of gentle birth, and, besides, he had no money. The Government had pensioned him when it abolished the feu- dal system and caste, and there were legally no more samurai; but that pension was mort- gaged. Kintaro Okashi had spent forty years of it in advance. Consequently, when we, Gardner and I, went to him with a proposal to be our landlord, he welcomed us and bowed so low that he broke the floor. He said he loved Americans, and confided in a friend, as we learned afterward, that he considered young ones were better than a pension. It is only fair to say that he was brave whenever there was occasion and exceedingly generous when- ever he had anything to give. Often he put himself to great personal inconvenience to do a friend a favor. In those days, thanks to what was known as "the most favored nation clause" in Japan's treaty with the chief coun- tries of the world and to general bungling in the Department of Foreign Relations, out- siders could not own nor rent property in their own names, except in restricted districts of some half-dozen cities, such as Tokio, Yoko- hama, Kobe, Osaka, Nagasaki, Niigata, and 22 MUKASHI IYEMUSHL Hakodate. As we wished to study Japanese life, we did not care to live in any of the for- eign concessions, where one never is quite in touch with real Japan. We went to the west coast, to a province where no foreigners had lived before; and, as we could not be our own landlord, we pro- ceeded to hire one. A friend recommended Okashi San, and we took him. According to our agreement, we hired him to hire us as in- structors in an English school that offered wonderful facilities for teaching the American language as spoken in New York. Okashi rented two buildings, one for the school and one for our living house. He lived with his family in the school, and for the first month his wife cooked for us, and both of them did our marketing. At the end of the month we called for the bills. Okashi San would not hear of it. "lye, iye ! " "No, no ! " he would repeat. "August pardon deign, but the school is a resplendent success, and I and my stupid wife are overwhelmed with honor. It is we who owe you." This went on for three days, until we began to believe Okashi meant it, and proceeded to put our money to other uses. When it had 23 TALES FROM TOKIO. thus been put he appeared before us one warm afternoon with a roll of thin brown pa- per exactly nineteen feet six inches in length. (We measured it along the edge of the tatami.) It was a bill. Okashi San made a bow for every foot in the strip and then began to read it to us. Many of the items were in fractions of a cent. One for pepper was $0.0 1 53, or as the Japanese read it, "kosho is sen go rin sammo." Gard- ner said the sammo was unnecessary extrava- gance, as we could have gotten quite enough for an even "is sen go rin. Three decimals was quite deep enough to go into kosho." Okashi bowed eight times and said, "Sayo de gozaimasu," "Honorable truth so august- ly deigns to be." Which we interpreted grate- fully to imply that next month there would be economy in condiments. When the reading was over we learned the total was $21, or a little over $i a foot. We had expected nothing less than $100, estim- ating by the length of time it took to read from the beginning to the end. As we did not have $2 1 , Gardner wired a friend in Tokio, and received $30 the next morning. Thirty dollars is the telegraph limit. We paid Okashi 24 MUKASHI IYEMUSHL San the $21, and he returned in half an hour with a red seal and a stamp at the end of his scroll, showing that the bill had been duly paid. We asked him if he was sure everything had been settled for, as we were not charmed with his having brought in a bill after so many protestations, and we wished to clean our slate entirely while we were about it. "Indeed that is all," said our landlord. "It is everything, even the rent." Upon this we devised how we should dis- burse the $9 remaining out of the $30. We decided to study the famous "No" dancing, and our money evaporated pleasantly. The next day, as we sat on the tatami, won- dering if we should ever learn what to do with our legs, the karakami slid apart and Okashi Okusama appeared, bowing multitu- dinously. She had a roll of thin brown paper in her hand, like unto the one her husband had brought in, and she pushed it gently to- ward us as she bowed. "We squared that all up yesterday," said Gardner. "lye, O chigai masu de gozaimasu," said Okusama. 25 TALES FROM TOKIO. " 'Honorably different august is," is it ?" asked Gardner. "I dont think so. Let's see it." And he unrolled it along the tatami edge. "By Jove! you've added two feet," he ex- claimed. "And where's the stamp and the seal ?" "Shirrimasen de gozaimasu," "Not know- ing augustly am," said Okusama. After a lengthy discussion we discovered that the twenty-one feet and six inches bill was a separate account, quite distinct from her husband's and as just. The pair had worked independently. Gardner had to wire Tokio for another $30. We got into such a mess trying to straighten out the double ac- count that we decided to hire a professional cook, and to let him pay cash for everything day by day as we went along. We paid him day by day, and so escaped monthly bills. This really lightened the work of our landlord and landlady greatly, but they disapproved the change, nevertheless; it had been such joy ordering things at the various shops about town. After this affairs went on smoothly for some time, until one morning Okashi San handed 26 MUKASHI IYEMUSHL Gardner a slip of paper on which appeared the following items: Raw fish, mushrooms, eggs, sake, Cherry Blossom, Peach Bud, Chrys- anthemum, Golden Plum and Thousand Joys a combination that suggested gayety. As both our houses had been quiet the night before, we did not understand. Okashi San explained, however. Some dear friends were leaving Etchiu for a long journey, and he had been "saying goodby." As he had no money, he brought the bill to us. He had had a jolly time, and was sorry we had not been with him. He would have asked us, but his friends, being strangers, might have been unamusing. Under the circumstances Gardner had noth- ing to do but go into his sleeve for the amount of the bill. In the evening, when he had re- covered somewhat, he made remarks about hugeous nerve. We had laid aside our yof uku in Etchiu and had put on the Japanese dress and adopted the native manner of living in everything else as well. We gave a large part of our foreign clothes to Okashi San and to his son Kojiki. They took the suits to the tailor's and had them cut down to fit. Kojiki San took advantage of his chance to give orders to a shitateya and had 27 TALES FROM TOKIO. made for himself a neat cutaway coat, with a waistcoat to match. We hardly knew him when he presented himself in his new attire and handed us the bill for all the tailoring. He said he would like some new patent leather boots, too, but the shitateya could not make them. We allowed him to wait for the boots. Gardner went to Niigata once to see some naval friends, and while he was there I ran out of funds and wired him for $60. He and a friend each sent $30. It so happened I was called over the mountains before the reply came and was gone three days on business connected with the Government schools. When I returned I heard singing from afar, and on going into the house I found Okashi on his back in some ashes near an American stove we had set up in one of the school rooms. His legs and arms were in the air and he was singing a Japanese song of Gardner's composition. "Doitashi mashiti abunaio is- sakijitsu go men na sai," etc. Noisy, but al- together meaningless. When he saw me he jumped up and did an old samurai war dance, explaining the while that the $60 had come all right and that he had taken my seal and got the money from the telegraph office. 28 MUKASHI IYEMUSHL He had not eaten anything, he said, for three days; but sake! ah! ha! And he show- ed a snow-white tongue. Then he untwisted his obe and handed me forty cents, all that remained of the money Gardner and his friend had wired. He said he had paid many bills and had enjoyed himself. We never learned exactly where the money went to, but we had suspicions. When Gardner decided to resign his pro- fessorship and to leave Japan there was great sorrow in Etchiu. The great folk of the pro- vince visited the house and brought him tes- timonials and gifts. Together these presents made a beautiful collection. About half an hour before Gardner's jinrikisha was to start Kintaro Okashi San came over with a glorious red bowl, which he gave with many protesta- tions of undying regard. Then he "borrow- ed" fifteen dollars. FURO OKE. FURO OKE. Gardner made a study of baths while he was in Japan. What he did not know about them when he left was exactly enough to make a native bathing suit. It is odd, too, that he should have- taken to the furo oke so enthusi- astically when one recalls his first experience in a Tokio bath tub. This is what he told some globe trotters at the Yokohama United Club one day. They were asking for points on "doing" Japan. "I had just run up to Tokio to see a man in the Imperial University," he explained. "He wasn't at home, but a young student who was taking care of his place greeted me most hos- pitably. He said: 'Oh, you have a letter to the Professor, and are just from America. I am a thousand times sorry that he is not at home. But come in, anyway. I shall do all I can to explain Japan to you.' "He made a noble beginning, I assure you. He taught me chopsticks so well that I was 33 TALES FROM TOKIO. expert in half an hour. Then he fed me with seaweed and raw fish. I'll tell you about that later. And finally he boiled me. "It is the custom here, you know, to bathe every afternoon. His bathtub was out on the lawn. It is an oval arrangement, about as high as it is long, and a foot longer than it is wide. In one end there is a stovepipe running down through the bottom and com- ing up just even with the rim of the tub. At the lower end of the pipe is a grate that holds a charcoal fire which heats the water. The idea is to get in the tub when the water is warmed and sit there while the temperature gradually rises. It's a great scheme, as I found out afterward. "The Japanese can stand it until the ther- mometer shows 125 to 128 degrees. So can I, now, after I've been at it a year, but it's something to be worked up to gradually. The first time you try a Japanese bath 95 degrees will do much better. "Well, as there was no one but this student in sight, I went out on the lawn and got in the tub. It was fine. The blue sky overhead and the wide, wide world around me. 'This is just my size,' I said. 'I shall apply for nat- 34 FURO OKE. uralization papers to-morrow and settle down for the rest of my life in Japan. It's good enough for me.' And so I sat there, thinking of what I would do and the fun I'd have. "But while I was musing the fire burned. I didn't notice it at first; not until I observed something else. That was that this young student's wife and her maid had come out while I was in my tub and were busy washing rice by the well, not far away. 'That's er something, I said.' 'Why didn't that blooming rat tell them that I was out here in the tub ? I'd wring his neck if I could get at him.' " 'They'll be gone soon, I suppose,' I said to myself. But I was hot. So was the water, and it got hotter. 'They're not in a hurry with that rice,' I said. 'Confound a country where it takes them all day to wash rice." I raved and swore inwardly, of course but it did no good. It didn't cool the water or me a bit. "That water behaved badly. It didn't warm up gradually to the boiling point, thereby al- lowing me to simmer into mock missionary broth. It 'het* itself up by jerks. It would simmer gently, then drop about two degrees, just enough to fool me into the idea that the fire was going out, and that I should be com- 35 TALES FROM TOK10. fortable. Then it would buck up six points, and I'd have a touch of Hades. "Still they washed that rice. If I could have yelled I'd have felt better, but I didn't dare. I was afraid they'd see me. I tried to sneak, but just as I'd be half way out one of them would look around or look as if she was go- ing to look around, and down I'd duck. Every time I dropped I felt my hide peel off, just as in the stories they used to tell of fellows being skinned alive out West by Injuns. "All the water was too hot, but at the sur- face it felt like a red-hot ring bound to my body. I tried to stir it up to equalize the heat, but motion was painful. I felt as if I couldn't move. I didn't have enough resolution. You see, I was nearly done. So I braced my feet against the little partition that serves as a fen- der to the iron pipe and tried to endure it. The water grew hotter.and I braced harder, until there was a crack and a splash. The fender gave way, and my foot went plumb against that sizzling pipe. "It was just then that I forgot all about the clothes I didn't have on. I also forgot about the rice washers, and that they could see me. I forgot everything, in fact, except that I was 36 FURO OKE. boiled almost to death. As I jumped I slip- ped backward on the edge of the tub, rolled around on the back of my neck exactly one minute by the clock, then rushed into the house just in time to meet two American missionary ladies who, like me, had called, not knowing that the professor was out of town. "They didn't seem to be shocked. I had sense enough left to notice that, but I was awfully embarrassed." "Now if you fellows want to get at the real Japan natural Japan, be sure and take plenty of baths while here," continued Gard- ner. The bath is the best point of view from which to study human nature that you can find. Don't listen to what any one tells you in the treaty ports; not, at least, until you have made a tour of the country and have taken at least i ,000 baths. Then, if you like, you may let the Kobeites and the Yokohamaites and the Nagasakites tell you all they know, and you will be able to separate the chaff from the grain. "Some of the foreign residents can give you many points, but the majority will fill you up with misinformation. Wait till you've had 37 TALES FROM TOKIO. your baths before you listen. Japan, as seen from the bathtub, is the real Japan, and Henry Norman will admit there's something in that. If you don't know enough to write a book when you come back it will be because you were struck blind early in the visit. You'll have chances for your camera, too, and you must work your sketch book for all it's worth. Take notes and come back ripe for fame! "It is remarkable that no one has yet 'writ- ten up' Japan from the bathtub side. Even Lafcadio Hearn, who is more sympathetic than any one else so far, among the men who write, pays small attention to the tub. Basil Hall Chamberlain, who is wonderfully well posted on the history of the country, says the Japanese possess only two things they haven't borrowed from other countries. The first is their poetry and the second is their hot baths. "It hardly would be worth your while to go in for the poetry to any extent. It would take you five years to learn to read it, and twice as long to learn to compose it yourself. But with hot baths it is different. You can learn to take them in a few weeks, if you will profit bymy experience anddo not begin too hard and are not shy. As I said before.your native friends 38 FURO OKE. are likely to be in water at 1 1 5 degrees to 1 20 degrees, that would take the hide right off a beginner. I got so tough after a few months' practice that I could sit still in water at 125 de- grees. I couldn't move round of course, and I had to be mighty slow getting in and out, but I could stand the heat even on my face. "If I were you I'd get a student from the university to act as guide. They are fairly trustworthy and good company. Don't have anything to do with the professional guides at the treaty ports. They'll pull your leg. When you've found a student that speaks English well, and most of them do, though in an amusingly formal way, start off for the West Coast. Travel the unfrequented routes as much as possible, that is, routes that for- eigners do not take. You can find hun- dreds of charming places that few foreigners have seen. And in many of these places there are hot springs and mineral baths. "Take 'em all and watch the people about you. You'll see every one in the neighbor- hood every day villagers and the visitors alike, men and women, young and old, large and small, every morning and evening. All come into the village square, disrobe and let 39 TALES FROM TOKIO. themselves down gently into the huge tank of running water. "Then the news of the day and the gossip of the neighborhood are discussed from every viewpoint. Listen hard and have your guide mix up in the talk as much as possible. Get him to repeat to you all that he remembers after the bath is over. Don't talk to him in the bath, or the neighbors will crowd around to hear the queer sounds you make. They will quit talking of their own doings, which are what you wish to become familiar with, and will talk about your skin and hair and eyes, how large you are and all that sort of thing. "So keep your mouth shut while you're in the bath and use your eyes and ears. When you go back to your hotel you can have a les- son in Japanese from your guide, and inci- dentally teach him a little English, which is what he's really after. "One reason why these baths are good places to study native life is that they are the only places where the sexes come together for general conversation. Men and women have bathed together naked in Japan from time immemorial. The Government says 40 FURO ORE. that the presence of women keeps the men from talking politics too much, and though missionaries say that the custom is shocking, the Government does not interfere. 'We have been bathing this way for 2,000 years without scandal, why should we change ?' the na- tives say; ' there is no evil in the custom to those whose minds are free from evil.' So they ignored the pleadings of the 'sky pilots,' and the children of Japan continue bathing in just the sort of suits they wore when they were born." KASO. KASO. 41 Speaking of feasts and funerals," said Gardner to some griffins he had up to tiffin one day, " I saw an old man roasting while his family sat around eating and drinking and making merry. It was over on the west coast, where Buddhism is strong." " It was a strange sight to me," he contin- ued, " for I had not been in the country long, and did not know anything about the native funeral customs. The old man who was burn- ing had been my neighbor. He was " inkio" that is, retired from active life. His eldest son was my landlord. The old man's friend- ship had won me the good will of his house- hold. That is how I happened to be at the funeral. " He was 88 years old. This is the lucky age in Japan, because of the way the number is written." Then Gardner made marks with his chopsticks dipped in shoyu on the top of his tray, two little dabs pointing at each other 45 TALES FROM TOKIO. for 8, then below a cross for 10, and below this two more little dabs. The column then read 8, 10, 8 or 88. Now if the four dabs were brought close up and down to the cross in the middle the 88 would change into the character rice. Rice is the Japanese synonym for plenty, so the man or woman reaching the age of 88 is held in particular esteem, and my friend's funeral was more elaborate than the usual affair because of his lucky age. "Crowds came to the house, for everybody that knew anybody knew Takaiyanagi Inkiyo. They came in and bowed before the house- hold shrine, where his name and the age of such good omen were inscribed. As they bowed they pressed their hands together as Christians do in prayer. They reverenced his spirit, and by their obeisance they implied that they held his memory in as high esteem as they had held him when he was a living man. "Then they laid their offerings on the floor below the little image in its gilded case. Ev- ery one brought something. The well-to-do gave money, others cakes, or wine, and others bamboo vases full of red or white flowers. 46 KASO. "Meanwhile, the good wife of the house was busy in the kitchen preparing food for the guests. In neighboring kitchens, too, the wom- en helped with this. In my house cooking be- gan early in the morning and the maids kept at it all day long. When the cooking was over there was more food than I ever saw before; raw fish, sugared fish, cuttle fish, seaweed soups and cold boiled rice rolled up in sea- weed with a dab of horseradish in the centre. The feasting lasted till noon next day, when it was time to go to the temple. The old man's body the priests saw put into a jar shaped like a huge flower-pot, with fra- grant leaves pressed in round about it. When all was ready for the procession the mourners put the jar in a box covered with a white cloth. White is the mourning color in Japan, and some white robed attendants from the temple carried it off on a stretcher on their shoulders. "Just ahead of the jar walked a company of singers with bells. They were in white also. In fact, we were all white, except the old man's son, my landlord. He had on a wonderful dress suit made after the foreign pattern j much too large for him and lined with pink 47 TALES FROM TOKICX silk. The trousers were rolled up about a foot on each leg and fitted as though they were on 'hind side first.' "His hat was odd, too. It was of the good old stovepipe design, running straight up at .the sides with a broad flat brim. It was fortunate for my friend that he had ears, or his hat would have reached down to his shoulders. He had a homeless appear- ance in this outfit, that was almost as distress- ing as it was amusing. "I was in the procession, of course. I wore a white duck suit and rode in a jinrikisha. At the temple the bearers put the jar on an altar, and a dozen priests chanted a service. As the chanting went on each guest stepped for- ward in turn, and after bowing to the priests knelt before the bier and salaaming, took a pinch of powdered incense from a bowl and dropped it into a charcoal brazier, in which a tiny fire burned. Then with another pro- longed salaam the mourning guest returned to his seat. This was a sort of 'goodby' to the body and a salutation to the spirit of the ancient gentleman. "When my turn came, I put my fingers ab- sent mindedly, into the brazier and burned 4? KASO. them, and then in confusion put too much incense on the fire, vvlxich made such a smoke that the priests and I had a coughing fit. Afterward I explained that we always did that way at home. We burned our fingers a little to purify them, and the last man always dump- ed on all the incense that was left so that the corpse wouldn't think that we weren't gener- ous. Since then I have been regarded in Etchiu as one learned in holy things. "After this ceremony and the sneezing was over we took the dead man to a crematory, the only kind of Japanese building that has a chimney. "Fire was under this oven and the younger priests were setting a banquet more elaborate if possible than what had been served in the house, with sake in shallow drinking cups of red laquer. We seated ourselves on small cushions laid on the mats. I sat like the others on my heels. My landlord protested. 'You are a foreigner,' said he, 'and are doing me such an overwhelming honor by coming here to-day that I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of your placing your august body in a position so uncomfortable. We are used to it. Augustly condescend to act in accordance 49 TALES FROM TOK1O. with the request which I have had the gross effrontery to make?' I persisted however in sitting native fashion and had cramps in each leg afterwards, much to the amusement of the other guests. "The priests took the body from the jar, and, having wrapped it carefully in white, they put it on an iron grating and slid it far back into the furnace, yet where all could get a good view of it. The flames curled round it fiercely at first and then almost tenderly, as though caressing it. Once in a while they would lash furiously and tie themselves in fantastic knots about the limbs which bent and unbent and quivered, as though life were not yet extinct and they could feel the terrible heat. "And while the venerable departed writhed and roasted in the flames we banquetted. It was grewsome. Now and then one of the old man's progeny would go to the oven and turn him over with an iron rod to 'do' him better on the other side, or would straighten him out so that the fire could get at him bet- ter. "I had always been in favor of crema- tion, but I'll be hanged if I liked sitting there KASO. watching a man kink up and splutter while his relatives turned him like a carcass on the spit. "I had recourse to the sake to steady my nerves. Sake is about the strength of sherry, so that if you drink enough of it, especially hot sake, you will produce an effect. I pro- duced one in the crematory. Every time any one offered me a cup I took it and poured the contents into me. It is the custom to ex- change cups, you know. You rinse your cup and offer it to whomever you wish. You must offer it once at least to every one pres- ent, and you always receive a cup in return. There were twenty-nine of us at the funeral, I had two drinks with each one of them! "I told my host that when my time came he must see that I was properly cremated. He replied that it would be too great an honor for him. 'You had much better come to cook me,' he said. Finally we decided that which- ever went over first the other should burn him and that the town should have sake enough to swim in. We agreed, however, not to die before we were 88. " -Just see how beautifully my father burns,' my landlord said, because of his lucky age.' TALES FROM TOKIO. " 'Wait till you see me sizzle,' I replied, You wil be amazed. I intend to go off like a keg of powder.'" JUNSA. JUNSA. THE Japanese "cop" is a gentleman by birth, a model of courteous dignity and a good fighter, in consideration of which the Government gives him six yen a month, or about three dollars. He comes from the highest of the social grades the samurai and until 1871 was a military retainer of a daimyo, as the feudal lords were called who ruled over the provinces of Japan. He was born to the use of the sword, and even now, except in treaty ports, it is his weapon of de- fense and badge of office, though it is rare that he is compelled to use it. Samurai, according to Basil H. Chamberlain, is best translated "military class," "warriors" or "gentry." Recently the Chinese word "shizoku," of precisely the same meaning, is in vogue. The samurai lived in the daimyo's castle, and received annually an allowance of so many koku of rice, according to his im- portance and the richness of the province. A 55 TALES FROM TOKIO. koku is a little over five bushels. Japanese still reckon incomes in koku. The samurai's business was to be a gentle- man. In old Japan all gentlemen must be soldiers and all soldiers gentlemen. To-day it would not be quite wrong to say policeman. The samurai attended his daimyo on all oc- casions and fought for him whenever there was trouble with another daimyo. He was the embodiment of loyalty, and would give his life deliberately to revenge an insult to his lord. Mitford's "Tale of the Forty-seven Ronins" shows how he could do this. The ronins were samurai without a master. In Mitford's story, which relates a fact of Japanese history, they carried out a scheme of vengeance re- quiring months of preparation, knowing all the while that, whether they failed or succeed- ed, the Shogun would sentence them to "hara- kiri." So to-day the samurai, with all the instincts of ancient chivalry and three dollars a month salary, promenades the highways and byways of Dai Nippon, armed with a sabre and a ball of twine and preserves order the like of which no other country in the world maintains. The 56 JUNSA. sabre is in lieu of a policeman's "billy," and the twine instead of handcuffs. It is interesting to watch the "cop" as he deftly weaves a net about his captive until he looks as though he were wrapped up in a hammock. This weaving has an esoteric significance, doubtless, as no need of doing it is manifest. Etiquette in Japan is against a captive's trying to escape after he has been informed courteously that he is under arrest, and must accompany his captor to the police station. The policeman always says, "Go men nasai" "August pardon deign" and the culprit, as he stands patiently to be woven in, replies, "Do itashi mashite" "Oh don't mention it." When the weaving is over the "cop" has the culprit on a string, and, holding one end thereof, escorts him to the station, where the captor salutes his chief in military style and the captive bows low and declares he is mor- tified to be the cause of so much trouble. Both ends of the string are heard from, and the chief then decides whether to fine or to dismiss or to hold the offender for further examination. The policeman wears a military uniform 57 TALES FROM TOKIO. white in summer and blue in winter. He al- ways salutes when a foreigner speaks to him, and will walk a half-mile with one to show him his way. He will not accept a tip. His instincts and the rules of the Police Depart- ment forbid; and then besides, there is the Government pay three dollars a month, on which he feeds and clothes his family. He will take charge of a foreigner in search of an hotel and escort him to the best lodg- ings to be had, and he will caution mine host against overcharging the guest. In the month- ly bazaars that are held in the streets leading to various temples in Tokio, the "cop" is ever watchful lest the dealers ask too much for their wares. So vigilant is he that the stranger often gets a better bargain than the native. One of them, through clever detective work, secured over one thousand yen that a native had stolen from an American and refused the gift of money that gratitude prompted. After much persuasion, however, he accepted a kimono, after the American had received special permission from the Police Depart- ment to make the present. In Yokohama and other treaty ports the policeman does not carry a sabre, but is armed 58 JUNSA. with a "billy," as are policemen in the United States. He is as dextrous in the use of this as he is with the sabre. Professor Norman, late of the Imperial Naval College of Japan, who has studied fencing of all sorts in Eng- land, France, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Per- sia, Siam, China and Ninpon says that the Japanese policeman is the most dextrous swordsman living. Even with his club he will enter a Yoko- hama drinking place where a half-dozen men- o'-war's men are having a rough-and-tumble fight and "pinch the bunch" with celerity and ease. Jack has a wholesome dread of the little man in blue, and trembles when he sees the "billy." It is an odd sight to see him stag- gering to the station house in charge of a man whom it would seem he could pack under his arm. It is like an ant taking home a beetle. The entire police force in Japan is under a single head, with the chief offices in Tokio and a sub-department in each province. The chief is a man of extraordinary powers. His officers command such respect as only military men enjoy in Europe, and the entire system is as efficient, probably, as can be found in the world to-day. 59 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. Japanese are loyal, brave, courteous and hospitable, but fair play as Americans and English understand it does not appeal to them. This lack of perception shows itself in many places in the law court, in commercial trans- actions, and even in athletic sports. As a class Japanese merchants have hardly more than a vestige of commercial integrity. The foreign merchants in Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki will allow them none whatever, and when he holds forth on native business ways his lan- guage is more vigorous than polite. He cites instances of bad faith on the part of Japanese he has had dealings with that jus- tify him in his opinion, and show that native tradesmen in the Mikado's Empire are as ir- responsible as children. This is not strange, however, when one looks into the social con- ditions that have maintained in Japan from time immemorial down to the edict of 1 87 1 , by which the government abolished castes. Until 63 TALES FROM TOKIO. this edict took effect merchants were at the foot of the ladder; above them were the farm- ers; above the farmers the craftsmen, the creators of the exquisite art of Japan; and then higher yet the Samurai, the military retainers of the daimiyos, or fudal lords who ruled the provinces until the Shogun resigned and the Mikado came out of his retirement in Kioto and established himself in Tokio. In the presence of a Samurai a merchant could not call his life his own. He had only his wit or cunning to depend upon. He had no redress whatever against anything the man of war might do. The Samurai might cut him in two; there would be one less merchant for the next census to report. The law would not call a member of the military class to account for merely trying his sword, and anyway, mer- chants should be patient and respectful. So it was that society had denied honor to trade folk for so long a time that the sense of fairness, if it ever existed in their minds, had atrophied. One might as well expect a youngster four years old to realize the moral obligation of a promise as to expect a native Japanese mer- chant to do as he has agreed to do merely for 64 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. the sake of keeping his word. His mind changes as the child's mind as blithely and as unreasonably. This is a Japanese trait, and discovers itself in all classes of society. For instance, the spokesman of a class in the Dai Gakko, the imperial university of Japan, which had entered upon the study of American his- tory with ardor, addressed the professor after the third lesson: "Please, Honorable Master, we wish not to peruse the grand American history further; we would rejoice, instead, to read how balloons are made." So the merchant who has ordered a thou- sand bolts of flannel at the agency of some foreign house is likely to appear a few days later, after a chance meeting with a friend and a little chat on "business," to say he does not care for flannel, but thinks he will have a dozen cows to start a health farm with. On the morrow he may have changed again and be eager for Waterbury watches or "mus- tache-producing elixir." Should the agent say it was too late to change, as he had or- dered the flannel, the gentle native would say, "O kino doku sama," August sorry, mister r, freely translated, "the joke is on you." The agent, if he is a griffin, may explain 65 TALES FROM TOKIO. that, having ordered the goods, it would be dishonorable to withdraw. "That, augustly is honorably existing truth," replies the de- ferential little Jap, "but I do not wish flannel. I would have cows and Waterbury watches and elixir." "But you should have warned me earlier," says the griffin. "The order has been cabled already. I cannot change it now. The goods are on the way." 'So augustly, probably, honorably it may be," observes the native, bowing low. "If you do not accept the goods I shall be embarrassed," continues the agent. "Saio de gozaimasho," observes the native, as before. 4 And I trust you will honor your order,' continues the griffin. "That is quite impossible, as I have chang- ed my mind," and with another profound salaam the little one smiles cheerfully and withdraws, leaving the agent wrapped in a realizing sense of that most frequent of all Japanese expressions, "Shikata ga nai," which means, literally, "doing-way is not;" or, as the Yankee hath it, "It is no use kicking." So, in the early days of Japan's trade with 66 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. foreign countries the agents in the treaty ports were badly used, and the "godowns" accumulated stuffs from all parts of the world that had been ordered from abroad in good faith, but which the native merchants would not accept on arrival, as their minds had changed. Even if the native signed a con- tract and affixed his signature, it made no dif- ference. He did not look upon himself as bound in any way to take what he did not care for. "How odd to insist when I no longer wish the stuff," he would say. "These barbarians are strange folk. They would really inconvenience me." Thus a contract came to mean in the for- eign eye nothing more than a memorandum to be ignored, unless a cash deposit went with it as a guarantee. This cash deposit is not an absolute safeguard against bad faith, how- ever, because of the competition among the foreign agencies. The Japanese merchants have been cunning enough to take advantage of this competition, and by going from one agent to another, are able sometimes to work the cash guarantee well down toward the vanishing point. They themselves are not so hampered, for 67 TALES FROM TOKIO. they belong to one and the same guild. Competition is nil, for they work in harmony. But the foreign merchants, representing many different nationalities, have so far been quite unable to unite or to agree on any method of concerted action for mutual protection. Time and again the Europeans have tried, but the North and South of Europe do not trust each other, and there has been bad faith after each attempt to organize. The Japan Daily Mail is strongly pro-Japan- ese, but often it has had occasion to scold the natives on their lack of honest business methods. One merchant, a gentleman of wide experience and culture, writing to the Mail, declared that in twenty-five years' deal- ing with the Japanese he had not found one native merchant trustworthy. Indeed, only one native in all Japan had foreign credit, and this distinguished exception owned a bank in Paris, which gave him financial standing in European markets. There are two large stock companies en- tirely in the hands of Japanese in Osaka whose purchasing agents are trusted to some extent, because foreigners believe these buy- ers are not personally interested in the orders 68 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. they give; but even these men will bear watch- ing. All the stock companies are formed under the direction of an advisory board, and would appear in many cases to be devised for the bleeding of the stockholders. The boards of directors have had complete control and have managed the business to their own advantage. One lager beer brewery company, for in- stance, which sells beer throughout the em- pire, doing an enormous business, has not paid dividends, because the profits were eaten up in buying bottles. Bottles are still beyond the making of the glassworks of Japan, so the directors bought supplies abroad and sold them to the company at the modest advance of six hundred per cent. Another lot of directors, who were the dummies of one of Tokio's millionaires, put up a factory under American supervision and fitted it with elaborate machinery for making hats. The machinery, bought in England, was charged to the company at 5 los. to each i spent. The Englishman and American engaged to oversee the work were to receive a certain percentage of the dividends in part payment of salary. 69 TALES FROM TOKIO. The hat business was dull on account of low duties on manufactured hats and a gen- eral disinclination on the part of natives to wear anything closer to the head than an umbrella. (Hats are not indigenous to Japan, the Japanese word for hat is "shappo," from the French "chapeau," and has the same pro- nunciation.) Prospects for dividends were not encouraging, but the directors were in- structed to make profits somehow. Only they themselves know what they did; but the fac- tory burned down one night, and the next day they gave a grand picnic to all employes. They distributed tons of rice and sake broadcast, and all that part of the imperial city celebrated in honor of "Tokio no hana.'' Then the directors ordered new machinery from London, charged it to the company at the rate of seven to one, and held it in Yoko- hama until the stockholders paid up even to the last mo. A mo=.oooi Mexican. After that they made money on the fur and wool they sold to the company, bothering themselves not at all about the stockholders, and the foreigners, seeing no dividends forth- coming, resigned and returned to their re- spective countries. 70 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHL Japanese courts recognize the lack of busi- ness sense and training on the part of those who appear before them and deal paternally with the contestants. The interested parties go over the contracts and agreements care- fully and fully explain everything to the best of their ability. Then the Court investigates the conditions under which the contract would be carried out if the contractor should go on with his work. If he finds no obstacles in the way of ful- filling the contract he decides against the contractor; but if he finds the contractor had miscalculated and would lose money were he to go on, the Court decides in his favor, as manifestly it would be a hardship to force a man to work without profit. The Court com- miserates with the man that let the contract and says, "Oki no doku sama," but it also adds, "Shikata ga ni." So the man must make a new contract and be more considerate of the contractor if he would have the work done. All this is in great contrast to the methods of the Chinese whom the Japanese despise. The traveler in Japan will notice many Chinese holding positions of trust in the for- eign business houses, but seldom will he find TALES FROM TOKIO. a native so employed. In the banks, for in- stance, the "shraff," the man who counts the money is almost invariably a Chinese. So are the "compadores," who have charge of the "godowns," or warehouses. The China- man stands high in the estimation of the for- eign merchant. His spoken word is taken without question even where tens of thou- sands of dollars are involved, when the most explicit contract in writing, signed and stamp- ed with the Japanese merchant's seal, would be valueless, except as a memorandum. This is because the Chinese has a concep- tion of fairness that the Japanese has not. The Chinese merchant realizes the value of credit. His credit is his "face," and he will sacrifice everything to "save his .face." He believes that a bargain is fair when it is fair to both parties, and he believes that promises must be kept. He does not "put up bad money against good." One of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank- ing Corporation's managers said: "From my personal experience I believe the Chinese bankers and merchants are the most trust- worthy folk in the world. Our bank in Shang- hai, for instance, has done a business with 72 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. the Chinese in the past twenty-five years amounting- probably to more than 400,000,000 taels [$320,000,000], and we have not met a Chinese defaulter yet." Agreements between Japanese do not hold unless part of the sum indicated in the papers has been paid. The contract of itself is nothing. When it comes to sports fair play is again conspicuous by its absence. On Sumida Gawa, which flows through Tokio, there is an an- nual regatta with the coming of the cherry blossoms. For miles the north bank of the river is nearly hidden under rich pink clouds of "sakura no hana." There is not in the world a more beautiful sight, but the wrath of the defeated crews does not mollify thereby. They accuse their successful rivals of all baseness, calling them swine and reptiles. The coaches of winning crews are seldom in evidence on such occasions at least, not in the vicinity of the crews they helped to de- feat. Mr. Salabelle of Yokohama, who had coached the crew of the Business College one year, was in danger of his life because his crew had learned something from him and had gone ahead of the other oarsmen. The Rev. Dr. Eby's experience at the Koto 73 TALES FROM TOKIO. Chu Gakko is another illustration of the Jap- anese attitude in sport. The learned doctor, who was then the head of a large mission school, had developed creditable baseball and cricket teams among his pupils. He went up from Tsukiji one afternoon to the college grounds to see and encourage his boys to go in and win. The Koto Chu Gakko students considered this highly improper, as it might lead to their defeat. Therefore, they laid for the reverend gentleman, and when he ap- peared on a path that led to a break in the low bamboo fence along the south side of the college grounds, they stabbed him. The college authorities did not move in the matter, nor did the doctor complain; but the foreigners, both in and out of missionary circles in Tokio and in Yokohama, raised such a protest that something had to be done. The students responsible for the act were ordered to apologize, and on their doing so Dr. Eby said he was quite satisfied. The college professor's comment was that as long as the doctor hnd got the worst of it he should rest content. The students said he had no grounds for complaint, as, instead of going around to the college gate (a distance 74 CHO KIMI MAKE, HAN BOKU KACHI. of half a mile), he had been guilty of such a breach of etiquette as to climb the fence. Inasmuch as the fence at that point was broken and a well-beaten path in daily use by the students ran through this break, the foreign population would not be persuaded that the breach of etiquette demanded blood. For years the president of one of the clubs in Tokio prohibited playing games for money in the clubrooms. He had enforced the rule with the utmost strictness and to the entire satisfaction of the foreign members. The purpose of the club was to bring the natives and foreigners into closer relations. Its presi- dent must be of the imperial family. All the nobles of the empire belong, all the di- plomatic corps and well-nigh all foreign resi- dents of any claim to social consideration. In the early days, before foreigners knew the gentle native nature, the great American game was tolerated in the clubrooms. Not for long, however, for it was discovered that while the Japanese enjoyed winning immense- ly they took it badly when they lost and were wonderfully slow on settling days. They were hard losers, though the cheerfullest sort of winners. A debt of "honor" had no signifi- 75 TALES FROM TOKIO. cance in their eyes. What had honor to do with cards? Honor is a "sword-word"; and anyway why should a man pay? It was much jollier to be paid; better to receive than to give as the Japanese scripture hath it. Soon no foreigner could be found who would have anything to do with a native in a game of chance, and presently a rule was voted unanimously at the club prohibiting play for money altogether, for the native members were up to their knees in I. O. U's. In the tours of the wrestlers, who give won- derful exhibitions of their art in the chief towns of the empire, the referee has to take thought in his decisions lest he offend the audience. If he happens to be in Fukui, for instance, and in his company there is a Fukui wrestler, he must give this man all the best of the decisions or the populace will mob him. The man may be pushed out of the ring and thrown among the spectators; he may be all out of form and not able to wrestle a little bit; but the referee, if he would leave Fukui alive, must have a care and call the other wrestler down on fouls, no matter how fair he has been. Fukui demands that Fukui have the decision, and that settles it. 76 OYASUMI NASAI. OYASUMI NASAL IN JAPAN you don't go to bed; the bed comes to you. It is much easier that way, and in Japan the easiest way is the only way. That is one reason why the country is so popular with globe trotters. Nor does it make much difference what part of your house you may be in, or of a friend's house for that matter, or a tea house or a hotel; if you are drowsy the bed will come in patty-pat, and be spread out before you at a moment's notice. If you are visiting, your host will detect your inclination, and beg you to honor his house by taking a nap therein. Clapping his hands, he calls out: "Futon moto koi" "Quilts bring here." His wife is prostrate just out- side the room, harkening to the august com- mand. In two minutes she will be toddling in with a bundle in her arms much larger than herself, a huge, thickly wadded quilt, called a futon, which she rolls out over the tatami, the soft mattresses covered with finely 79 TALES FROM TOKIO. woven bamboo that are upon all floors in Japanese rooms, excepting only the daidoku, or kitchen. That is the bed, and if you will condescend augustly to arrange your honor- able body on anything so unworthy, Okamusan (the sweet little wife) will be bewildered with the honor. She tells you so in a sweet voice as she kneels and presses her face down against the backs of her tiny hands on the tatami before you. You protest that the honor is with you; that it is indescribably rude in you to venture to think of polluting so magnificent a futon. Then with a low bow you stretch yourself out upon it. Okamusan covers you with another futon, and, doubling up again, lisps: "Oyasumi nasai" "Condescend to enjoy honorable tran- quillity." Mine host says the weather impresses him as being such as to encourage nap-taking also, and soon he is on another futon lying peacefully beside you, to be called when the bath is ready, for probably it is afternoon when all Japan has a siesta, followed by a dip in the furo oke, or wooden bathtub, and a rubdown by a maid. Supposing you to be a foreigner who has 80 OYASUMI NASAL just arrived, and therefore a "griffin," in Yokohama slang, your first night in Japan is likely to be a new experience, especially if you are just from the "States," and unfamiliar with the Far East. You should go to Tokio, the capital of the empire, only eighteen miles by rail from Yokohama, and put up at a na- tive inn, where the servants are not familiar with foreign ways, and will treat you quite like a Japanese. Do not take lodgings in Yokohama until you have been inland. It is a beautiful city on the Bay of Yedo with a charmingly hospitable community made up of folk from Europe and America but it is not real Japan. In Tokio the native inn will be a wonder and a delight. Of course you leave your shoes outside the door on entering, for the delicate texture of the bamboo matting, which is the upper sur- face of the tatami, would be torn by boot heels. If your feet are chilled you may wear heelless slippers, but the native way is the best. That is, to go barefoot a good pre- ventive against colds and rheumatism, or you may wear tabi. Tabi are the native socks. They come just to the ankle around which they fasten with hooks. They are 81 TALES FROM TOKIO. shaped like a mitten, having a separate pocket for the great toe just as mittens have for the thumb. Tabi are convenient, because when wearing them your feet fit into the zori (san- dals), and geta, or wooden clogs, which the Japanese wear out of doors instead of shoes, and you may amble round as you please. The slit in the tabi between the great toe and the other toes is to admit the thong by which the geta and zori are held to the foot. When your shoes are on one of the shelves that stand where you would look for a hat rack in Amer- ica, a maid will take you directly to your room, along with your luggage, for there is no office in which to stop to register. There you will find little in the way of or- nament, and no furniture at all. If you like you may have some brought in. There may be a kakemono hanging in the alcove, and a gaku over one of the cross beams, which hold the upper slide of the karakimi, or slid- ing paper doors. The gaku is by some fam- ous chirographer, and bears his seal. Likely enough it is a maxim of Confucius. As there are no chairs, you will be glad that the Japanese floors are not like ours, and that the tatami are really soft. You will have 82 OYASUMI NASAL zabuton, or small square futon, to sit on. They are agreeable, but you will soon wonder what to do with your legs and feet, which you will discover can be very troublesome appendages. If only you could hang them over somewhere, even down a hole. But there is no suitable hole. If you wish a table to use in writing down your "first impres- sions," after the manner of most griffins, the maid will bring you one a foot high, which you may grow used to writing upon if you persevere. If it is toward the end of the after- noon you should have a bath. You will find it amusing, refreshing and possibly embar- rassing. When the maid has scrubbed your back it will be time for ban meshi, or evening meal. You will find the chopsticks unexpect- edly easy to manage. Soon after this, as you are tired, you are ready for the bed to come to you. As you are not used to sleeping on the floor yet, even a soft one, you had better order "futon ni mai," or if you are tender, "sam mai." Ni means two and san or sam means three. Mai is an auxiliary numeral used when counting flat things. You clap your hands instead of pressing the 83 TALES FROM TOKIO. button of an electric bell, and from far back in the interior of the house comes a drawn- out "hai-i-i-i, tadaima." "Hai" is only a signal cry meaning that the maid hears you. It does not mean yes. "Tadaima," the dictionaries say, means now, just now, at present or pres- ently. In some tea houses, you will find it is the equivalent of the Spanish word manana. Tokio maids are quick, however, and in a moment the karakimi slide to one side and a little body is kneeling- without, awaiting orders. You wish to be polite and say, "Neimui desukara ne. Futon motikutechodai; ni mai dozo." (As I am sleepy bring me futon. Two pieces, please.) "Hai, kashiko man mashita" (august commands humbly are assented to), replies the bright-eyed maiden as she bends low. Then with a "go men nasai" (august pardon deign) she pushes the karakimi wide open, and calls out, "Ne san, chotto oide. Sensei ne masu desu yo." (Elder sister, come here a moment. Honorable master would sleep!) Elder sister, who, by the way, is as likely to be the younger of the two, comes along the veranda from the kitchen, her bare feet sounding patty-pat on the polished wood. She 84 OYASUMI NASAL goes to the wall and slides open the door of the fukuro dana, or cupboard, which you thought was the entrance to another room. There are the futon folded up on a horizontal shelf, which divides the cupboard so that it looks like the two berths of a stateroom on board ship. "Ni mai desu ne, dana san?" she says. (You want two pieces, don't you, master?) And then with the sweetest little smile and her head a trifle to one side like a bird's, she asks: "Makura futatsu, desuka?" Makura is pillow, and she asks if you wish two. The futon are spread out one upon the other, and a sheet, perhaps, is laid on top. Sheets, however, are new to Japan. Then comes the big ue futon, or top futon, which is longer than the others, and has sleeves like a huge kimono. It would just fit a man ten feet high. This is bunched up at the foot of the bed ready to be pulled over you when you have laid down. The small object at the head of your bed, which looks like a cigar box on edge sur- mounted by a roll of paper, is the makura. No one need envy your first night's experience with it. You will discover that your head is 85 TALES FROM TOKIO. as heavy as though it were solid lead, and, therefore which is all the comfort you'll have out of it, for the discovering process is painful that it cannot possibly be empty. You will likely dream of being beheaded or un- headed, and of falling over the brinks of precipice after precipice. In the morning your head will be stationary, for the hinges of your neck will be too rusty to turn even a little bit. It will take time to master the ma- kura, but you will like it when you are used to it. If you examine closely you will see that it is not a cigar box, but a truncated pyramid, five inches high, hollow, with a rectangular base and a groove on top, in which lies a slender cushion stuffed with bran. Upon this cushion " ne san" binds a few layers of paper, which are changed every morning. There is a drawer at one end of the ma- kura, in which you will find tobacco, extreme- ly fine cut and of attenuated flavor. You may take ippuku one puff as the Japanese say, without nervous prostration. There may be one or two kiseru, or pipes, in the drawer. If not, surely there are on the tray beside the tabako ban, the square little rosewood box 86 OYASUMI NASAL with the earthenware hebachi, or brazier, in it, and the haifuki, as the bamboo tube is called, which is a combination of ash receiver and cuspidor. Bits of burning charcoal are in the hebachi for lighting your pipe. The haifuki is for ashes, burnt matches and the other uses of a cuspidor. If it is not too late in the season you will need a kaya, or mos- quito net. Ne san will have it unfolded and hung up by cords at its four corners in al- most no time. It is always green, and usually has red bindings. When you are inside you will be well shut off from the evening breezes as well as from the mosquitoes, and will not feel the need of the ue futon. You have watched the proceedings with amusement, and now that everything seems ready you wonder why the "elder sisters" do not patter back to the kitchen. But all is not ready. They must take away the rosoku, or paper-wicked candles, or the ram- pu as the Japanese pronounce lamp and put the night lantern, the andon, in its place. This is a large, square, white paper affair, standing on a frame a couple of feet above the tatami, and lighted by a taper which juts out over the edge of a small saucer of oil of 87 TALES FROM TOKIO. sesame within. While you are waiting and wondering they are doing the same thing. They will bring the night lamp as soon as you are safely under the kaya. "Why doesn't the honorable master undress?" they are think- ing, and you, "Why the deuce don't those maids go?" A Japanese friend explains to you, perhaps, and you get him between you and them, and, partially disrobing, slip under the kaya. Then he explains your trepidation to the ne san, and all three have a great laugh at your expense. Should you wish to go out to look at the moon or to study the weather probabilities for the morrow, or the asago, which is Jap- anese for morning glory, before retiring, ne san accompanies you and stands patiently by humming an old love tune. She has a dipper at the chosubachi, and will pour water for you to wash your hands and will offer you a brand new tenui after your ablu- tions on which to dry yourself. Ne san is not an imaginative person. She guides you as a matter of course, and takes good care of you. She sees you safely in bed, and, doubling up into a little bunch, she says most hum- bly: "Oyasumi nasai." Then sh-sh-sh-click, 88 OYASUMI NASAL the karakimi are pushed together, and you are in bed in Japan. You'll rather like it after a month's experience. You will not find bedrooms in Japanese houses. But wherever you go you will find futon are plentiful, and wherever there is space for one there you may have a bed. The servants men, women, boys and girls sleep on the kitchen floor, or, more often, on the floor of the room opening into the kitchen, in a long row, depending on the size of the room and the number of servants. In a first-class tea house or hotel, if you look in early in the morning, you will find several rows of futon reaching quite across the main room, each with a head hanging out comfortably over the top of one of those hol- low wooden pillows. To the Japanese they are rather neck rests than head rests, but to the foreign mind the word rest is not applica- ble to makura. Except in the case of young children, no two people are on the same futon. Using futon and the floor instead of bed- steads is a great saving of house space, and convenient in many ways. The futon are easily aired, and may be carried about readily 89 TALES FROM TOKIO. when moving. In case of fire they are quickly packed up and put out of the way. They are cheap, except those used by the rich, which are filled with pure silk wadding and covered with heavy silk. Even then they cost less than hair mattresses in America. As much of the exterior as well as of the interior walls of Japanese houses are sliding doors, which grow loose and wabbly with the changing of the seasons, from wet to dry and then to wet again, and with the shaking of the 300 or 400 earthquakes that occur each year, there is no lack of chinks and crevices which, however admirable for ventilation, are rather too cooling in winter. It behooves you to have heat if you would be comfortable. The Japanese have neither furnaces nor stoves. They make no attempt to heat their houses, but they try to keep their toes and fingers warm by means of a kotatsu that is, a square hibachi sunk in the floor, with a wooden frame above for supporting the futon that are laid over it out of danger of their burning. In winter the beds are arranged round the kotatsu, and consequently for the first half the night your feet are in an oven, but as morning approaches and the charcoal 90 OYASUMI NASAL fire dwindles the oven changes and is more like an ice box. When you give a party to your friends, and, the wee sma' hours approaching, you would fain retire, do not hesitate to do so, but do not hint anything thereof to your guests. That would be a sad breach of etiquette. They own the house while they are there and all that is therein. Your course is quietly to dis- appear to the remotest apartment you have and call the bed to come to you. It is good form to do this, for it allows the merriment to continue unrestrained. Should any one ask for you the maids will say that you are just outside, and will be in tadaima. In the morn- ing if your sake was good you will find your friends sleeping sweetly on your spare futon, a bed having gone to each of them, by the courtesy of ne san. KANE NAI NAREIBA. KANE NAI NAREIBA. For a man with a thirst and no money Yo- kohama is a joyous place. The combination so trying in America is of no inconvenience whatever over there, rather the reverse, be- cause the petty annoyances incident to hav- ing money always in one's pockets are done away with. You are always "good for a drink" or any- thing else, and if you do not look too much like a sailor "a Damyoureyes San," as the natives say and are able to write your name, you are "good" for whatever you may wish. The secret of all this is chits. Chits, being interpreted, means "drinking made easy," drinking and other things. Chits in Yokohama constitute one of the pleasantest curses known to man. Great and wicked was the brain that invented them. The owner of this brain is already responsible for a thousand merry wrecks. Ten thousand men have drunk themselves to death on his in- 95 TALES FROM TOKIO. genious plan. He killed them all but he did it with a liberality of manner that robbed death of its sting. Public opinion in Yokohama is not pro- nounced enough to emphasize the line be- tween the use and the abuse of chits. And so it happens that men, particularly young men, do not feel the restraint they would were they at home. They are a jolly lot, fond of out-door life, well traveled generally, and well read, with charming manners, and hospitable with a frank generosity that wins at once. They have leisure beyond the dreams of toilers in America coming down to work at 10 a. m. and quitting usually at 3. Out of these five hours at least one and a half are spent at the United Club or in the Grand or the Club hotels, where chit signing is indulged in as a liberal art. They ride their own horses in the races twice a year. When the races are on all busi- ness, even banking, is at a standstill. Wine flows like water, but no money is in sight. If you are thirsty you sign a chit. The boys who serve the drinks are not to be trusted with money. They push the bottle toward you, and some one signs. 96 KANE NAI NAREIBA. If, a few months later, you wish to pay, you'll have some trouble in finding the slip to which you put your name. You'll go from one hotel to another, and at each the man will say: "I don't know. They may be here. If I find them I'll send them up to you." If you are sure that they should be with him you may give him money and he will credit you. Then you own the place. What- ever you buy thereafter he will not charge against you, but will say, "That goes to square us for what you paid against the chits I never found." It is only globe trotters that have cash in their pockets in Yokohama, and they soon give up carrying it just as they give up eating rice currie with a fork. Railway people and beggars are the only persons who don't take chits, but the railroad, though convenient, is not necessary, and if one believes in the doctrine similia similibus curantur nit he can pass beggars by also and never know the touch of filty lucre. If you offer the money to the barber he says, "Oh, wait till the end of the month. We can't bother making up cash now. Sign a chit." 97 TALES FROM TOKIO. At the tailor's you are asked, "Shall I send the goods to the club, or to your hotel? We'll send you a memorandum now, and then let you know how you stand with us. But that is not a bill, you know. Just let that run to your convenience, please. Send a chit when you like." The jinrikisha man takes a chit from the house to which he has delivered you. Every saloon in town passes out the little pad with the pencil hanging from one corner. Lodg- ings, meals, everything a hotel has to rent or sell to its guests, may be signed for on the chit. Nor is there anything that dives can furnish to promote delirium or to coax the coming of old age that a little chit won't settle for. He who has looked on the wine when it is red and has studied the mockery of strong drink need not moan in his first waking thoughts with despair brought on by the re- collection that his last penny went the night before unless, alas! he is too shaky to hold the little pencil. But even then a promise to sign later will bring him what he needs! There are settling days, of course, when the residents of Yokohama and of the other ports KANE NAI NAREIBA. like it in the Far East, arm themselves with courage and go forth bravely to pay their chits. Some men do this once every two years. Others, who consider themselves pat- terns of regularity, square up the first of each January. Then there are men who have the names of the places where their chits are held, arranged in groups and each group assigned to a particular month of the year. At the first of each month they settle a part of their debts. The system keeps chit holders guessing, though, for readjustments in the scheme of sorting will occur even with the best-intentioned men. So that a holder who thought his money would come in January may find himself mysteriously moved into the December class. Besides these annuals, bi-annuals and monthlies there is a class, made up, it is said, of those who do not pay until they die. These men have life insurance policies, or assurance policies, to speak with local accuracy, and being thus assured, they do not bother who holds tht ir chits, or whether the chits were signed ten days or ten years ago. There are few men, however, who have signed chits steadily for ten years. Three years is said to 99 TALES FROM TOKIO. be the average. A man can sign a barrelful in that time a barrelful that stands for many other barrels empty. When the assured man dies, his chits ap- pear and straightway are paid, the first money collected from the policy going for this. The number of chits not paid is large con- sidered by itself, though relatively small. It is this fact of which the penniless man takes advantage. He lives luxuriously on the fringe or ragged edge of the crazy quilt of chits until he loses his face or drinks himself into the hereafter. When his face is gone he may sign no longer. He drifts into the Consul's hands and is sent home steerage at Govern- ment expense. He may so dread the thought of home that he flees to the natives, with the most disreputable of whom he must have some acquaintance, and in return for a mod- icum of seaweed fish and rice beer, teaches Peter Parley's History of the World, or possi- bly the art of mixing American drinks. If he dies of delirium, the chances are that a sum will be raised by subscription. He will be buried decently and mourned for by other chit signers, who hope that soon some day others will do the same for them. 100 KANE NAI NAREIBA. As the transient population of Yokohama increases, chit signing may disappear, al- though the habit is second nature to those who live there now. Here and there a man rebels and swears that he'll never sign an- other chit, but a temptation that is ever-pres- ent can hardly be resisted long. With nothing more between a thirsty man and the drink he longs for, than the scrawling of his name on a slip of paper, the chances are that the thirst will win. Other things, too, he may crave as keenly, things that will do him less good than a drink; the fatal paper makes it all too easy, and reform difficult. "So they sent him to Yokohama to sober up, did they?" said a London newspaper man, in speaking to a friend of a youth whose par- ents thought Japan would do wonders for their bright but wayward child. "Might as well have sent him to Hades to cool off." YASO NO SENKIYOSHI. YASO NO SENKIYOSHI. In Japan the missionary's example is not exciting, but generally it is wholesome, and it is as an example he is most effective. He is taken seriously, excepting when the Mail, the Herald or the Gazette, being short on copy, gives him opportunity to point out in print the weak spots in the creeds, customs, rites or beliefs of his brother missionaries of other sects. The Japanese smile at him then, and the Buddhists say, "Honorable divergence of honorable opinion apparently augustly ex- isting is among the teachers of the religion from the West." Then they rub their polls and become abstracted in contemplation of absolute unconsciousness. The Government likes the missionary. The Mikado decorated one some time ago and later granted him and his family all the rights of citizenship. The Minister of State, in trans- mitting the papers, declared that the Empire was to be congratulated in having so worthy 105 TALES FROM TOKIO. a man within its borders. When this rever- end gentleman was presented to the court of the Heaven-Descended he gave His Imperial Majesty a Bible, the only one that ever found its way within the palace gates. As the missionary leaves home to live among the heathen a word, by the way, he carefully eschews so long as he resides among them the older women of his church tell him that his noble self-sacrifice awakens pity in their hearts. Pity there is certainly, and admiration, too. These are comforting to the missionary, for to him, as to most folk, it is grievous to give up home. But after he has lived a year in Japan it would be more grievous were he ordered to return. He has eaten of the lotus. When his seventh year arrives and he is to come back for a twelvemonth he does so with some little eagerness to see what home will look like after an absence of six years and with a joyous expectation of seeing relatives and old friends again; but after he has seen, his face turns toward the West with yearning, and he is not quite himself again until the land be- yond the setting sun or, as the ancient name describes it, The Land of the Rising Sun is 106 YASO NO SENKIYOSHI. beneath his feet once more. The Empire he sought to convert has converted him. He does not say so, perhaps he does not know, but it is a fact. Yet the missionary is an influential per- son in the East. He has established schools far and wide, several of them of exceptional excellence. He is the intellectual father of thousands of the young men of new Japan. These young men do not all profess the creed of their teacher, but it is safe to say that not one of them has failed altogether to profit by contact with the foreigner. The young man may still be unable to tell the truth, probably he is; but, at least, he has learned that there is such a thing as truth-telling strange and wonderful though it is to him and of doubt- ful utility, he suspects yet worthy of investi- gation. To accomplish even this is some- thing. Mission schools teach everything from chemistry to knitting socks. They represent almost every denomination of importance in the world, and they dispense knowledge al- most without cost. They are a boon to the country, but sometimes the earnest student takes advantage of them, and, if slang may 107 TALES FROM TOKIO. be allowed, "pulls the missionary's leg." Such earnest student soon discovers that he re- ceives more atfention from the missionary and from the wife if he shows signs of con- version. Consequently, at whatever school he enters his name he begins to be conver- ted right away. As he changes from school to school, change being a great delight to the Japanese, he is converted frequently. By the time his education is complete he is one of the most converted persons in the world. Indeed, it is not extraordinary to find a member of the Greek Church who is also a Congregationalist, a French Catholic, a Baptist, a Unitarian, a Methodist, a communicant of the Church of England and belonging, possibly, to half a dozen minor mission organizations. The general run of mission students are as religious as the average American youth. Apparently, they enjoy their lessons in piety thoroughly; the girls in particular; but they have such gentle natures it is hard to believe they need instruction in humility and meek- ness, for they are themselves living lessons in these virtues. The missionary-in-the-cannibal-stew idea is 1 08 YASO NO SENKIYOSH1. upset by a visit to the homes of the evangel- ists in Tsukiji, Tokio. One sees there that even from a worldly point of view it is not a sad thing to be a missionary. So long as he is faithful to his creed he need not worry over worldly matters. His salary will be paid reg- ularly so long as he lives. He will have a home to live in, the mission doctor and phar- macist will attend to him and to his family without charge and he will get his traveling expenses on his septennial vacations home. He goes to the mountains during the heat of summer, usually to Nikko, con- cerning which place the Japanese legend says: "Nikko wo minai uchi wa kekko to iuna," ("Until you have seen Nikko do not use the word beautiful"), and his children may be educated at the mission's expense. The salary for bachelor missionaries is about $700 gold a year, and for married men $1,500 gold. When one remembers that Mexican dollars are par in Japan and that a dollar gold equals two Mexican, that lodgings and medical attendance are found and that servant's wages are low cooks, $10 to $15, Mexican, a month; nurses and maids, $4 to $5, ditto; and a jinrikisha, with a man to pull 109 TALES FROM TOK10. it, who finds himself, $10 a month one no longer wonders that the missionary is so con- tented. Learning the language is the work the mis- sionary takes hold of first. He must master the colloquial in order to preach to the na- tives. Usually five years are allowed for this. He may take up the written language, too, if it seems advisable, but no one ever learned that well in five years. He must learn all over again how to think, for the mode of thought and the world of ideas into which he is entering are wholly different from those he was born into. The same circumstances to the Japanese mind and to the foreign mind suggest differ- ent ideas, and the ideas arrange themselves in different sequence. Japanese nouns have neither number or gender; adjectives, though not compared, have tense and mood inflections. There are no pronouns; verbs do not have person, but have a negative voice, and, as Professor Chamberlain says, forms to indicate causation and potentiality. So the spoken language will furnish ample occupation for even the most ardent during the first five years. 1 10 YASO NO SENKIYOSHL The written language is so different from the spoken that were the daily paper read aloud a master of the colloquial might not understand even the general import of the article. To read the newspapers comfortably one should know at least 6,000 Chinese characters. Some minds have given way in the attempt to learn them. To the missionary with a turn for original investigation there is an infinite held in Japan, and this has saved men who loved intellect- ual life and found little congenial companion- ship among the natives. Buddhism, land tenture, philology and the intricacies of the native family re- lationship are only a few of the subjects that as yet foreigners need light upon. But the missionary is investigating patiently. Already he has enough material for an Encyclopedia Japonica. The thing he has to fight against is the influence of his surroundings, which tend to allay the keenest desire for achieve- ment. The septennial home-coming is a wholesome tonic. OTOKORASHI ONNA. O1OKORASHI ONNA. " Our new woman would faint with envy if she could see the way some of her Japanese sisters run things in their homes," said Gardner to some globe trotters at the Club Hotel one day. " She would realize that with all her bloomers, cigarettes, 'canes and masculine shirt fronts, she is yet so far from her goal that she could hardly hope to reach it in this life. She'd either quit living or come to Japan. " Yes, I know it sounds a little strange. Ev- ery one says that the Japanese woman is the meekest person in the world, and that she is as sweet and charming as she is mild. Sir Edwin Arnold says: ' Her life is summed up in three obediences as a child she obeys her father, as a wife she obeys her husband, and as a mother she obeys her eldest son.' That's true of all the women except those on the west coast. Had Sir Edwin gone there he might have seen something to make a story out of. "5 TALES FROM TOKIO. " I first heard of the Japanese New Woman, who, by the way, isn't at all new, when I was over in Noto, that little peninsula on the west coast that juts up into the Japan Sea. " I had been knocking about there for a couple of months and lost my identity as a foreigner altogether. I learned something of the language and turned so brown that I was sure I'd never bleach out again. " J lived in a temple. Remember, if you roam off the beaten trades in Japan, that tem- ples are better than hotels. The priests I lived with were of the temple Hoganji, and had wives, and their wives could cook. Board and lodging cost me $2.80 a month. Wor- shipers from every part of Noto came to this temple, for it was older than any man could say, and famous. Through the good offices of these priests I made friends in many conditions of life. Those who attracted me most were some fisherwomen. They came from a cluster of tiny hamlets down the coast. In traveling by the hill roads one wouldn't see a sign of this hamlet, although one might be only a stone's throw away, because it was hidden under the cliff. 116 OTOKORASHI ONNA. "Well, I noticed these women at the tem- ple several times, but there were never any men with them. Women from other places came with their husbands. These women didn't, but they had children, who called them 'mama,' so I knew there must be husbands somewhere. They were handsome, with clear skin, bright eyes, and rounded limbs, which their peasant garb scarcely at all con- cealed, I couldn't understand why. Why were there no men with them to ring the bell above the alms box, to fondle Butsu's image and to gossip with the priests? "One evening, as my best friend among the priests sat with me enjoying a feast offer- ed up that day to the astral body of a dead headsman of the village, I learned the reason. My friend was born in one of those hamlets, and would have been there yet if his mother hadn't said that he should be a priest. His mother, mind you, not his father. That sounded strange, for I had been in the coun- try so long that I had forgotten that women had a word to say. " 'Yes,' my friend went on, as he rubbed his hand over his shaven pate, 'it was a good thing for me, for a man doesn't have a good 117 TALES FROM TOKIO. time down there. He has to stay in the house to keep things clean and do the cooking. That is because he can't swim. At least, he can't swim as well as a woman. Why, my mother can swim two days in the busy season and not be used up, but my father would be tired out if he stayed in the water six hours.' " 'That's the way .the women earn a living,' added the priest. 'If none of the people could swim they would have to go somewhere else, for there is no other work to do there. These shellfish that you like so well,' said he, pick- ing up a portion of the offering to the "hon- orable departed," 'come from there. They are difficult to get. The women go down 50 to 100 feet after them. While the woman is diving for shellfish, the man is at home car- ing for the house. That's the custom in ev- ery household. " 'Once I remember a man got drunk and did not have the dinner ready when his wife came up. She told her friends, and they pulled him into the sea. Then they sat on him and pushed him down till he was almost drowned. He was crying "Go men nasai," (honorable pardon deign) all the time. He cried and the women laughed all, except his 118 OTOKORASHI ONNA. wife. She struck his head with her hand and called him 'dara' (lacking). When they brought him to the beach again the drunk was all gone and he was humble. " 'People in Japan generally do not know about this place,' continued my friend; 'a for- eigner never saw it.' " 'One day when I was a small boy I went with my mother to sell shellfish on Kashima. When we were there a ship anchored off the shore. A boat full of men with green eyes and white clothes came to land. They took my mother's shellfish and all the pickles on the island. Then they went away. Some one said they were Rokoku no hito, (Russians). I don't know but they are the only foreigners most of us have ever seen. "Does your mother ever come here?" I asked. " ' Oh, yes. She is coming tomorrow, and I am going back with her. Wouldn't you like to go, too? If you would condescend to travel in such rude company and to enter our un- worthy hovel we shall be honored greatly.' 'I'm with you,' I said. "The next day his mother came. He said she was his mother, though she did not look 119 TALES FROM TOKIO. to be 30 years old. She was plump and grace- ful and merry. On her back was a boy, her grandson, as I learned afterward, just past his sixth birthday. She had carried him twenty- six miles that morning. When she had bowed to us a half dozen times, she took a dip in the sea, gliding through the water like a seal, and then entered the temple. "Then we all seated ourselves in the guest room of the temple, and she nursed the six- year-old at her breast. Grandmothers do that here in Japan. She wished to return that afternoon. 'It will be moonlight, and we can be there by 10 o'clock,' she said. 'I do not like to leave Danasan there all alone. Dana- san was her husband. I jollied her a little, and when dinner was served, offered her my sake cup so often with my profoundest bow that she said she would wait till morning. "She woke us about four o'clock, and by five we were on our way. She carried the child. "Early in the afternoon we were in her home. The tide was out, so we did not see the women, who were in the water, and were hidden from view beyond some rocks. The men were at home doing chores in a shy, 120 OTOKORASHI ONNA. submissive way. Some were preparing shell- fish and laying them on the sandy beach to dry; others were grinding buckwheat out of which they would make soba, the native sub- stitute for macaroni. Some were bringing in faggots, and were putting in order the square holes that in every peasant's hut serve as fireplace or were burnishing kettles, and do- ing other odd jobs. No wonder my friend was glad he was a priest. "With the rising of the tide the women came up. Even the oldest were good look- ing. They had pouches hung to belts about their loins, and in these they placed the shell- fish they found upon the bottom. All of the pouches had something in them, many of them were full. As each one came out she emptied her pouch into a common pile on the beach, and one of the older women called off the name from a book and made a mark opposite. The marks seemed all alike, so I suppose the women were communists. The priest told me that all the villagers were in one company, and that each member did the best she could for the good of all. If any one grew lazy there was a penalty, but it had not been used for so long he had forgotten it. 121 TALES FROM TOKIO. "As I stood watching the heap grow, the priest's father, bowing low, said: 'Go men kudasai, nan nimo nai desukaredeimo, dozo owagari,' which means honorable pardon deign to give. There is absolutely nothing either to eat or to drink, but please honorably condescend to partake. "I followed him into the house, and was just sitting down to a banquet of many shapes and sizes, the like of which I had never seen before, when there was a commotion outside. "'Nan deshoka!' exclaimed the priest. What's up? Ah, korario' (come here). I hur- ried after him. There was a luckless man in the midst of a mob of women. He was pro- testing, and they, talking all at once, were heading to the sea, just like the case of which my friend had told me. The man was ducked, and then laid out to dry. " 'Was he drunk?' I asked. 'Oh, no. That woman in the tub over there fell in love with him, and his wife found them talking together this morning. Now she is telling him that he must not have eyes and ears for other women. He will be careful after this, for he doesn't like the sea.' The woman in the tub was burnishing her 122 OTOKORASHI ONNA. arms with a small bag of rice powder, and paid little attention to what was going on. No one said anything to her, though she was the cause of the trouble. "I wonder what will happen when the shell- fish become extinct." TOKIO NO HANA. TOKIO NO HANA. Translated literally, "Tokio no hana" means "Tokio's flower"; translated freely, it means "fire." Fire is the flower of Tokio. Any Japanese carpenter will tell you that, and the bigger the hana is the better he likes it, for the more work there will be for him. The carpenter ranks high in the artisan class, and in the popular mind, daiku san, as he is called, is still next to samurai, above the farmer and the merchant. Daiku san is, therefore, an important man, and when he is happy it is well to rejoice with him. Do not be vexed, if you find him pur- ring at your front gate as you rush out to notify the nearest policeman that your house is on fire. Rather tell him where the sake is, and beg him to help himself and to take home what he does not drink for a present to his family. He will do his prettiest in building a new house for you a few days later, and describe 127 TALES FROM TOKIO. you to his co-laborers as a man of noble birth. Thus stimulated, the product of their labor will be excellent and you will stand well with the community. In Tokio it is expected that a house will burn down about once in seven years. There are plenty of exceptions, but rents are calcu- lated on this basis. The owner reckons to get his money back with interest in that time, and then is quite ready to build anew. A large fire in Tokio means good times and a picnic always. The first thing a man does when he is burned out is to banquet all his friends. His credit is good under the cir- cumstancs and a lack of ready cash is no hin- drance to festivity. The more houses he has lost the greater banquet he will serve, and daiku san will be much in evidence. He will assist in opening a koku of sake with generous dexterity and will stand by till the last drop of the forty gallons has been distributed. He will aid in the distribution of balls of rice, neatly rolled up in jackets of raw fish, assuring each guest, in turn, that there is nothing like the fires that bloom in the spring, and that in Tokio it is always spring. 128 TOKIO NO HANA. Figures do not lie, but in statements about fires in Japan they are misleading. A "griffin," reading in the Mail of a fire of one hundred houses, would think it a " conflagration"; but nothing less than one thousand is a conflagra- tion in the Mikado's Empire, and a thousand make only a small one. Bishop Williams of the American Episcopal Church looked out of his study window one pleasant evening watching a fire two miles away, and then retired to dream that the in- evitable festivities of the morrow were inter- fering with his mission services. Three hours later his boy aroused him with the words, "Conflagration's wrath encroaches precipitate- ly," and the good Bishop escaped in a robe not prescribed by canon. His dreams were all too true. Eighteen thousand houses dis- appeared in smoke, and Tokio was on a spree for two weeks. Houses in Japan, however, signify less than in America. They are really roofs on pegs. The walls are sliding doors "to" on the out- side, along the outer edge of " engawa" or verandas, " shoji" along the inner edge, which shut off the engawa from the liv- ing rooms, and "karakami" the separating 129 TALES FROM TOKIO. walls between adjacent rooms. All these can be lifted out of their grooves easily and car- ried off. Even the tatami, or straw mattresses, cov- ering the floor, are not fastened down, and they can be hurried away if there is a half- hour's warning. All but the poorest houses have "kura," alleged fire-proof buildings, near at hand, into which everything of value may be stowed away. These kura are of mud, plaster and tile, and look to be impervious to heat; but the radiance of "Tokio no hana" is often too much for them, and they crumble into dust. Fire engines are used to throw water on the firemen, not on the fire. That would be an utter waste. Few of the pumps, which generally are worked by man power, throw more of a stream than ordinary garden hose just about enough to keep the firemen soppy and steaming. With his heavily padded "kimono," short in the skirt and bound to his waist, like a Norfolk jacket, his combination of tights and leggins, his blue mits and pointed hood and his long barbed pole, the fireman prances about in the smoke and the glare of the 130 TOKIO NO HANA. flames, pulling down everything to clear a path to leeward, and so starve the fire. He looks like a devil, but he is only an acrobat. Whenever there is a lull he will do stunts on a bamboo ladder stand on his head on the top rung and similar feats. He will be in for the picnic, too, along with the carpenter. The combination of kerosene lamp and earthquake produces many "Tokio no hana" and similar blossoms in other parts of Japan. Instinctively every one runs to the lamps when the house begins to shake. Another cause of fire is the lucifer match, still in use among the poorer people. A record of Tokio fires in the last two hundred and sixty years shows where they are most prevalent. The district is called the fire district, and within its boundary shingle roofs are prohibited. Tin roofs are not yet introduced. There is, however, a greatly im- proved system of waterworks now approach- ing completion in Tokio, and, with hydrants and better engines, "Tokio no hana" may some day be a legend only. At present, however, it flourishes, and is taken as a guarantee of joyous times a truth- ful herald of prosperity. SHIMBUN. SHIMBUN. Wearing and vexatious enough in all coun- tries, in the Land of the Rising Sun the busi- ness of editing and publishing a daily paper has been so uncertain that it is a marvel it was carried on at all. To an American such uncertainty would be intolerable. The Japan- ese editor, like Brer Rabbit, "never knows what minnit's going to be the next." Since the promulgation of the constitution in 1889 papers have been suspended at the rate of one a week, and some of the writers have grown so familiar with the way to the "hon- orable jail" that it is said they could go there blindfolded. Since the war with China the Japanese have done a great deal of talking about their equality to Westerners, but in the matter of freedom of the press they cannot fail to see that they are centuries behind the times. This was demonstrated in the recent trials of the editors of several papers, among them the Tokio Shimbun, for criticising the 135 TALES FROM TOKIO. Minister of the Imperial Household. Public opinion was tremendously aroused, and Par- liament has passed laws modifying the rigor of press censorship to some extent. Excepting in those papers in the English language which are published in the treaty ports, and are owned and edited almost ex- clusively by Englishmen, who do not fear the red pencil of the censor, no one has dared to discuss questions of state. The list of "dont's," that is, the list of things a writer on a paper must not say, is long, and, worse than this, no one outside the Bureau of Press Censor- ship knows what it contains. It is only by guessing and by bitter experience that an editor knows what to avoid. If a paper pub- lishes an article that is not approved, the paper is suspended, and that is all there is about it. No reason is given. The disap- proved article is not even mentioned in the order of suspension. Small wonder then that there is discontent, and that the cry for re- form grows louder every day. Here is a translation by Basil Hall Chamberlain of what the editor of the Nichi-Nichi Shimbun says of the tribulations of journalism in Dai Nippon: Newspapers and magazines are confronted 136 SHIMBUN. by a special danger the danger, namely, of suspension when their words are held to be prejudicial to the public order, and a suspen- sion, too, against which there is no appeal. Article xix. of the newspaper regulations now ia force says: "When a newspaper has print- ed matter which is considered prejudicial to public order or subversive of public morality, the Minister of State for the Interior is em- powered to suspend its publication either to- tally or temporaily." Nor is there a word said in the regulations whereby the prejudicial or non-prejudicial character of a statement or argument is to be determined. It is sufficient that the official in question should decide in accordance with his own individual opinion that the statement or argument is thus pre- judicial to public order for a newspaper to incur at any moment the penalty of suspen- sion either total or temporary. It is indispu- table that the authorities are empowered by the law of the land to act thus. The consti- tution itself gives them this power. The re- sult is that we writers are constantly obliged in taking our pen in hand to keep to our- selves seven or eight of every ten opinions we would fain express. 137 TALES FROM TOKIO. When a paper ventures too far and the cen- sor is called upon to write the order of sus- pension, he is brief but polite wonderfully polite. He puts the honorifics "o" or "go" before each of the nouns and verbs. Pre- fixed to a noun "o" means honorable, to a verb it means honorably; similarly "go" means august, augustly. So the order when it ar- rives will read somewhat as follows: Deign honorably to cease honorably pub- lishing august paper. Honorable editor, hon- orable publisher, honorable chief printer, deign honorably to enter august jail. The honorable editor with his honorable coworkers bow low before the messenger of the censor, acknowledging the honor of the august notification, and then accompany him to the honorable jail, chatting the meanwhile of the weather, or of the flower shows, or of the effect of the floods on the rice crop. Cen- turies of breeding under Japanese etiquette have rendered it impossible for them to show annoyance. They do not know how. When a paper has been suspended the first intimation the public has of the fact is the quiet in the composing room. Few places in the world where regular business is carried 138 SHIMBUN. on are noisier than a Japanese composing room. The amount of noise therein is deter- mined only by the cubic capacity of the apart- ment. If it is a larger room there is more noise, if smaller there is less, but in working hours it is always chock full. The confusion at the tower of Babel is there vividly suggest- ed every day. For the ordinary Tokio paper there will be at least twenty men and boys marching to and fro, each yelling at the top of his voice. There seems neither head nor tail to this confusion, but, nevertheless, each of these screeching people has an object at which he looks intently while he parades about. This object is a "line" or stick of Jap- anese characters, for which he must find the appropriate types. It is something of a job to find all these, for to print even a four-page paper in Japan upwards of 5,000 different characters are used. These require many fonts, which are crowded into a small space, that there may be as little travelling as pos- sible. The "devil" goes about these fonts with a waltzing motion, there are so many corners to turn, and always with his eyes fixed on his stick, as though it were a sacred relic. In- 139 TALES FROM TOKIO. deed, to the stranger in the street below who looked up through the long windows, which reach from floor to ceiling, it might seem that a religious dance was going on, and that the devotees were wrought well up to the frenzy point. On going up inside one finds an old man sitting in a corner reading copy and cutting it into strips with what looks at first glance like a pair of sugar tongs, but what is really shears. As each slip falls, a "devil" grabs it and starts off on his pilgrimage, singing at the top of his voice the names of the char- acters he seeks. He has to pronounce the names of each character aloud in order to know what it is, for he understands by hear- ing rather than by seeing, and his own paper would be unintelligible to him unless he read it aloud. As all the other imps yell also, he has to be vociferous in order to hear himself. When he has collected the types for all the characters on his slip he gives them to the head compositor, a learned man with goggles, who puts in the particles and the connecting words and hands the completed form to a pair of proof readers, one of whom sings them to the other. As soon as the proof is 140 SHIMBUN. ready, the paper is made up, all hind side before it would seem to a foreigner. The reading lines are perpendicular and the col- umns run across the page from right to left, the first column beginning at the upper right- hand corner of what in an American paper would be the last page. The Japanese reporter makes about as much money as the Japanese policeman that is, $6 a month. In Tokio some of them make more, and in the smaller towns they make as little as $2 a month, but $6 is a fair average. They are not sent out on regular assignments as a rule, but are given a roving commission. The editor tells them to get news, real news if there is any, but to get news; and they never return empty-handed. A good news-gatherer is rare among them, but the "fakir" is plentiful enough and really clever. Interviewing hardly can be said to be pop- ular. The people do not understand it and do not like it. Japan is esoteric and doesn't tell what it knows if it can help itself. Still, there are interviews in Japanese papers. Poli- ticians have themselves interviewed occasion- ally, and "globe-trotters" usually submit 141 TALES FROM TOKIO. But the remarkable thing about these pa- pers, is not that they are so meagre in every department, but that they exist at alL The first Japanese newspaper was published in 1872, by John Black, an Englishman, who founded the Nisshin Shinji Shi. Before that there had been only occasional terror sheets, which the "yomi uri" the native chapmen hawked about after a particularly bloody murder, or catastrophe, such as a great fire, a flood or an earthquake. There are no headlines nor any display ad- vertisements. The paper consists generally of a leading article, a lot of news items, more or less untrustworthy, a jumble of ad- vertisements, sometimes printed on the mar- gin of the sheet, and a section of a continued story. There is almost no telegraphic news and little correspondence, either local or for- eign. Occasionally a student who is studying abroad will send a letter, but not one of the 640 papers and periodicals now published in the empire maintains a regular correspondent anywhere, not even in the large Japanese cities. The news department is as largely "fake" as it is in any of our issues of the "new journalism," but it is the leaders, after all, 142 SHIM BUN. that make one wonder why the paper is pub- lished. With the sharp red pencil of the cen- sor pointing at him, ready to be thrust into him behind his back at any moment, the edi- tor has evolved into a man skilled in the art of saying nothing, or, at least, what reads like nothing to the uninitiated. He is a marvel at double entendre. But with all his clever- ness he is caught so often that he has become inventive, and has devised artifices whereby he has hoped to escape. The most success- ful of these was the dummy, or "prison editor," as he was known in the Oriental sanc- tum. This functionary had an easy time. He had nothing to do on the paper, never wrote a line, but when those who did write said anything that the censor judged might mean something, and the paper was suspended, the prison editor stepped forward, bowed low, and said, "What augustly must be, probably augustly must be." Then he trotted off to prison. This scheme worked well for a long time, but after a while the censor demanded that the principal three men connected with the paper should go to the "honorable jail." Three dummies were more than any paper could afford to maintain, and so there are no 143 TALES FROM TOK10. proxies now. Black's paper was followed by others, among them the Kvvampo, or Official Gazette ;the Tokio Shimpo and the Kokai.semi- official; the Mai Nichi Shimbun, the Yomi Uri Shimbun, and the Ubin Hochi Shimbun, all liberal; the Jiu Shimbun and the Ninken Shimbun, radical; the Nihon and the Chusei Nippo, conservative and anti-foreign; the Fuzaku Gwaho, an interesting illustrated rec- ord of manners and customs; and the Maru Maru, a comic paper inspired originally by Punch. There are also prominent the Chu- guai Shiogio Shimpo, a commercial daily; the Jiji Shimpo, imperial; the Tokio Nichi Nichi Shimbun, and in Osaka the Asahi, (Morn- ing Sun) and the Mainichi, which are read widely in the south of Japan. All these papers use the written language, which differs from the spoken language both in its grammar and in its vocabulary. Mr. Chamberlain says that the Japanese are still in the condition of Europeans of the twelfth century: "They do not write as they speak. A man may know the spoken language thor- oughly, and yet not be able to understand the daily paper when it is read aloud, nor even the note he has just asked his native clerk in 144 SHIMBUN. his office to write and to send up to the house, announcing that he will bring up a friend to tiffin.' " Speeches are taken down in shorthand, but are almost always translated into the written language before they are printed. The one exception to the rule is in the Record of Par- liament speeches, wherein the words are published just as they were uttered. When this Record first appeared the rural members were filled with consternation, for there they saw held up to the public eye all their pecul- iarities of provincial dialect. Old men as some of them were, they got themselves teachers and set about learning to speak like towns- folk. This Record is the beginning of a tremen- dous reform which will lead to the disuse of the written language, first in newspapers, and finally, it is hoped, in books as well. For the spoken language is the living language, the language of the people. With the present Parliament a new order of things may be es- tablished in Japan, and freedom of the press guaranteed. Ministers of State incline to think that the time is almost come. But it is well to remember that while the present laws TALES FROM TOKIO. are cruelly severe as judged by Western na- tions, they are, as Prof. Chamberlain points out, not so severe historically speaking, be- cause it is hardly a quarter of a century since freedom of speech was denied to the Mikado's subjects, not theoretically, perhaps, but to all intents and purposes. It was a capital of- fence to memorialize the government. Those who did so, and history gives many instances, were wont to write what they had to say in the form of a letter to the Prime Minister, and then calmly kneeling at the gate of some public building, commit hara-kiri, or, to use the polite term, seppuku. The police, who may have stood respectfully at a distance while the act was committing, would find the letter on searching the body of the suicide, and report its contents to the Minister. OJIGI TO NIU SATSU. OJIGI TO NIU SATSU. Election inspectors in Japan have rubber backs. They need them, for on voting days they have, at the lowest calculation, 520,000 bows to make, and now the franchise has been extended they will soon have to ojigi five times as often. That is a great deal of hinge work, and demands elasticity and lub- rication, especially as ojigi does not mean a mere nod of the head. To be done properly, the body must double at the hips, folding after the manner of a two-foot rule. The tachiainin, therefore, as the inspectors are called, no matter how automatic their early training may have made them, have no snap not a particle when night comes, and the polls having closed, they climb into their jinrikisha and go home to be shampooed by some blind amma and restored to life. Five hundred and twenty thousand bows is a conservative estimate. It allows each voter only one jigi, which is ridiculous, for it is 149 TALES FROM TOKIO. hardly conceivable that a voter should approach the inspectors, seated behind the ballot boxes, with less than half a dozen fold- ings, and etiquette naturally demands that the inspectors should fold, too. It is safe to allow three jigi for each voter, and to declare boldly that every general election day here- tofore in Japan has witnessed inspectorial doubling to the extent of 1,500,000, or enough to supply the most energetic saint a lifetime. The new franchise, by similar reasoning, implies 7,500,000 bows. Allowing 100 foot- pounds to a bow, the energy folded off into space on voting days is found to be 75,000,000 foot-pounds; or 2,272 horse-power. It costs something to be polite and it takes time; but time is plentiful in the Land of the Rising Sun. A Japanese needs about a quarter of a minute to ojigi. At this rate one man would be occupied continuously for 345 years 6 months and 14 days if he were to do all the folding himself. Japan's population is somewhere near 42- 000,000, and in area the Empire is about the same as California. Only about twelve per 150 OJIGI TO NIU SATSU. cent, of this land is suitable for cultivation. The people, therefore, are crowded together, and large land holdings are not numerous. This accounts in some measure for the few voters in Japan at present, because the fran- chise was limited to men at least twenty-five year's old that paid direct taxes on land chiokusatsu or on incomes kokuzai of at least fifteen yen. As an instance of a result of the operation of this law, Tokio, the capital, with a pop- ulation of 2,000,000, has had only 7,000 voters, or one to every 285 of the inhabitants. Al- most all of the men entitled to vote have availed themselves of the privilege. The kikensha, or "stay-at-homes," have been rare when compared to America. Voting is a semi-private, semi-public act, performed with much solemnity and no dis- order. No one besides the voter and the in- spectors is allowed in the polling booth while the function is in progress. The inspectors are the Mayor, or the headman of the district, and two or four other men chosen by him They may be all of the same political faith, and, if inclined to do so, could manipulate the ballots to their own advantage materially. The TALES FROM TOKIO. law says nothing about bi-partisan inspection boards. Another opportunity these officials have to help along their friends is in advising the voters how to vote. They may even fill out the ballot for him if he does not wish to do it himself. His education may not extend to Chinese characters, and not caring to use the humble hiragana, he begs the inspectors, with many jigi, to do the names of the can- didates for him in Chinese. The ballot box is almost an idol in the eyes of the newly enfranchised Japanese. Indeed, they approach it with a reverence beyond that accorded the temple images of Buddha. They are used to Buddha's images, but the ballot box is still mysterious. It is still awful in the eyes of the older natives for a private citizen to take it upon himself to make suggestions to the Government. It is indeed a manifes- tation of effrontery, and in former days was punished by death, not only of the citizen, but often of his entire family. A ballot certainly is a suggestion, and so the old men stand in fearful awe of it. BUTSUZO KOSHITE. BUTSUZO KOSHITE. If you are ill in Japan, rub an idol. Doing so is a custom of the country, and is effica- cious, probably, as the pious have persisted in it for centuries and have worn out many of their sacred images making themselves well. Of course, there are a few side studies to attend to, also, such as jerking the gong, hanging like a huge flattened sleighbell over the steps at the entrance of the temple where Butsu, the idol, sits; and giving the shaven- pated caretaker of the image three or four copper coins with square holes in them. As it would take 2,000 of these coins, which are called rin, to equal an American gold dollar, the cost of bell-ringing and idol-rubbing is not excessive. If the rin, the ring and the rub do not ef- fect a cure, take a bath and try again. Facil- ities for ablution are always at hand in Japan. The cleansing places near the temples are 155 TALES FROM TOKIO. often extremely rich in decoration, even gor geous, but always in harmony with the na- tural groves surrounding them. After a wash, another jerk at the gong and a second contribution of rin one may rub with renewed faith and harder. The harder the better, for the exercise, at least, is health- ful. As the fruits of faith are not often pluck- ed the moment the seed is planted, it will do no harm to take another bath while waiting to be cured and to contribute a few more rin. This pleases Butsu, and the polished poll of his care-taker, doing obeisance before the image and picking up the rin, glistens in his smile. One gains some little knowledge of the physical ills of the Japanese by studying the idols. These are most worn in the sickest parts. To the south and east of the Empire, where the images are invariably eviscerated, stomachache undoubtedly prevails; to the west headaches abound, for the images have no foreheads; and to the north, where Butsu's thorax is worn away, haibiyo (lung sick) is prevalent. Butsu would never win the prize in a beauty contest outside of the Far East. Often enough 156 BUTSUZO KOSHITE. his image is anything but lovely to look upon. Sometimes he is stone, sometimes of bronze and often of wood. He wears better done in bronze. Then all the suffering parts shine brightly. In .stone these spots are black from handling and would not pass an inspection by an American Board of Health. In wood he is sad and horrible, having been lacquered bright red originally, with green eyes, round which were large black circles. In a few years the lacquer is rubbed off the districts of affliction and the wood rapidly succumbs. Knees, elbows, stomach, chest, nose, shoulders, eyes and forehead all give way, and, unless the patchman minds his mending, Butsu will become "all sick" and disappear entirely. Generally, though, the patchman is diligent and keeps Butsu pretty well up to weight with annual abdomens and such other restorations as are necessary. This idol-rubbing has attracted the atten- tion of the Japanese health authorities, who demand a strict regard for cleanliness on the part of the rubbers. A little more on the part of the rubbee would not be a futile precaution. The images have exceptional opportunities to spread disease, and were they of service in a TALES FROM TOKIO. country not inveterately clean they would be centres of permanent epidemic. As it is, they grow dirty enough, and a bath would do them good. Faith and ignorance in equal parts con- tinue the people in the custom. Sometimes the faith is vicarious. A mother whose child has opthalmia will hold his hand against the idol's orbs and then put the little palm against his own wee, blinking eyes, saying, "Nam, mada Butsu" words of which she does not know the meaning, but whose ac- cent declare her faith. Always the idol has the first rub, and then the afflicted part of the sufferer. When la grippe finally reached Tokio, after its long eastward journey from St. Petersburg, it found the people easy prey. Soon the whole Empire was sick. Schools, barracks, offices, factories and shops closed their doors, and the rubbing idols thought they saw their finish. Had the epidemic lasted four months, instead of two, their fears would have been realized, for never before in the history of Dai Nippon had they such a handling. The scenes in the temples harboring these idols were extraordinary, for the disease 158 BUTSUZO KOSHITE. seemed to pick out the peculiar weakness of each individual independently, and no two persons in the crowd appeared to be rubbing themselves quite alike. An expert contortion- ist could not have accomplished what some of these devotees attempted, but their exer- tions were beneficial, viewed as calisthenics. The groves of the temples wherein are the images of Butsu are the children's commons, where all the youngsters of the neighborhood gather when out of school. There the baiya, or nurses, go, with their tiny charges hang- ing to their backs, and there are the old men and the old women. The earlier and the later childhood meet there. Joy brings one and pain the other. Butsu is good to both. He smiles upon those that are merry, and they are merrier, and the peace of his smile soothes those that are in pain. He is, indeed, often grotesque and sometimes horrible as the natives have con- structed him, but many of his images are of noble dignity. Peaceful and restful, these features of the founder of the faith of millions of human beings compel attention. Contem- plation ends in inspiration. GANJITSU. GANJITSU. Japan is the jolliest country in the world at New Year's. It is three times jolly, in fact. Each January i, 43,000,000 subjects in the land of the Rising Sun begin to paint the Mikado's Empire the glorious roseate hue of the Imperial emblem. This deep red harmony, they say, is eminently fitting at the beginning of the year; and that the painting may be well done, they administer three distinct and sep- arate coats right lavishly. The bottom, or foundation coat is two full weeks in putting on. Joy flows in streams along the thoroughfares, swelled by rivulets from every house. All the city folk call on each other; all the country folk come in to help them do it, and everybody gives every- body presents. This may be called the offi- cial New Year's. It dates only from 1870, when the Japanese Government changed its calendar to conform with that of the rest of the world. February i there is a second coat- 163 TALES FROM TOKIO. ing the New Year's of Old Japan, still dear to the rural heart. All the country folk call one on another and the city folk go out to help them. There is less formality about this, and less eclat, but good-fellowship abounds, and joy is rampant for a week. The third coating is given in good old Chin- ese style. Its date depends on the moon, as does our Easter festival. Each household celebrates by itself in part, and in part with outside friends, but this feast is more domes- tic, though not less sacredly observed than the two preceding. The New Year season is the time to see Japan socially at its best. It is true there are no kiku, as they call chrysanthemums, nor cherry blossoms. The kiku is in the fall and the sakura in the spring, both seasons when all out doors is a garden party and exquisitely picturesque, but, with all its loveliness, it is only the outside one sees then. To see into the homes and the heart of Japan one must be there New Year's. Busi- ness generally is suspended, both private and public. All is wide open then, and hospitality, such as is unknown in Europe or America, is the rule without exception. 164 GANJITSU. The jin-riki-sha coolie is the only one that works, but his task hardly is irksome. Wait- ing, he feasts in the kitchen with the cook, while his fare makes a call. The geisha has her busiest season at New Year, but her work is all play, which she en- joys quite as much as those whom she enter- tains. Her plaintive love songs are never sung more sweetly than at the beginning of the year, when the heart of the nation warms anew. The geisha is very near that heart, and chirrups sympathetically. The Emperor and the Empress receive for three days. On the first day only those of royal blood, the highest officers of state and foreign diplomats make their bows. Then follow in turn personages of less degree, down to those who, having some title to recogni- tion, are honored with a gracious notification of the reception at the palace, but are expect- ed not to come. The Princes royal and their consorts, after paying their respects to the throne and each to the other, in due order, according to de- gree of kinship to the Mikado, receive in their turn in petty state the Ministers of State, di- plomats, members of Parliament, distinguish- 165 TALES FROM TOKIO. ed folk and any foreigners who may wish to pay their respects. These receptions are extremely formal and every one connected with them is glad they continue only three days. The grand folk on the fourth day join the crowd and, like them, go hither and thither to every accessible acquaintance, as ordinary people have been doing from the early morn- ing of Ganjitsu, New Year's day. Of course, no one can call on every individual of his acquaintance in the empire, so he resorts to postal cards, which he dispatches to all the friends he is unable to see personally. "Rejoicing in your honorable health despite the weather's inclemency," Japanese letters always begin, even though the writer has no knowledge either of the honorable health or of the weather in the place where his friend may be. This guess is followed by words to this effect: "August consideration honorably vouch- safed during past year, most humbly, most gratefully acknowledged jdeign to continue the same and to pardon me the selfish one, the unspeakable effrontery of venturing to ad- dress honorable you. Your little idot, " 1 66 GANJITSU. With each call the caller presents a gift, usually some sort of food; but anything will do, even money. Boxes of eggs are in de- mand; so is castera, or sponge cake. Castera is from the Portuguese or the Spanish, who first taught the Japanese the art of making that dainty. Wine, beer, all sorts of canned goods and articles of apparel are distributed, too. It is a great season for the brewer, the baker, the confectioner, the distiller and the hens. As presents come in such profusion, they would accumulate beyond control were it not for the custom of "passing along." It is not at all necessary that madam should eat all the eggs that are given to her. That would be difficult, and to keep them long about the house would not be pleasant; so, after reserv- ing whatever she chooses, she puts her card in each of the remaining boxes, and when her lord and master comes in for the fresh supply of gifts which he needs in order to continue his round of calls, she hands them to him. Thus replenished, my lord starts out again, while madam stays at home continuing collect- ing. This keeps up for two weeks, during 167 TALES FROM TOKIO. which the castera and the eggs do not grow fresher. The dealers who supply these com- modities, however, provide against damage to their reputations by pasting in the box of cake or of eggs: "This cake was baked at n p. m. December 31; these eggs were laid at 2 a. m. January i, kotoshi," (this year) or words to that effect. As these presents are passed along they often complete the circuit and arrive at the place whence they were first sent out, but it is only to begin the tour again. There is no rest for a Japanese New Year's gift until it is eaten or drunk or lost. All one's tradespeople will call, bearing samples of their wares commensurate with the amount of patronage each man has re- ceived. They present these samples with many profound bows and a request for a continu- ance of their patron's august condescension during the ensuing year. The shops are closed to business, but open for pleasure. There is a banquet in each home from early morning until early morn- ing every day of the two weeks, and all those who have honored the place with their pa- tronage are expected to call and bring friends. 1 68 GANJITSU. Foreigners seem to be particularly welcome at this time, especially Americans, for the common people love America. A man from the States might begin to feast early January I and continue feasting until January 15 if he could endure it, even among strangeis. They would show more genuine hospitality than his own cousins would at home. As there is plum pudding for Christmas in England and turkey forThanksgiving in Amer- ica, so there is mochi and shirozaki for New Year's in Japan. Mochi is good, and so is shirozaki. Mochi is made of rice boiled in fresh water and pounded in a mortar until it is dough, then rolled out like a yard of baker's bread, cut into slices and laid to dry till a slight crust forms, when it is ready to toast. Often boiled beans are worked into the dough till the casual globe trotter might mistake it for peanut candy. Shirozaki is white and thick, quite different from the thin, pale sherry color of atarimai- zake, or ordinary sake. It is sweet and whole- some, made of rice, with the body of the fer- mented grain left in. The country folk repeat this grand two weeks of celebration February i. They are 169 TALES FROM TOKIO. slow to adopt new customs, though they en- joy the official New Year in town hugely, if they can "get to go." City folk, especially those who long for the good old days, are with their cousins in the country for the sec- ond feasting, and stay the week with them. Then when the moon changes, comes the oldest feast of all, the Chinese New Year's, and the country rests for eleven months. The custom of New Year's calls, once so prevalent here, was introduced into Holland, it is said, by the Dutch merchantmen who traded with Japan early in the fifteenth cen- tury. Tradition holds them responsible for the bustle too, developed from the obe. Both of which importations are in small evidence in busy America these days. SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. One needs gymnastic eyes to be an actor in Japan and a laminated throat. The eyes count for more, however. A good eye wig- gler need not want for a position. An india- rubber face is useful also, for "making faces" is an art with the Japanese stage folk. The achievements of these artists are illustrated accurately by the contorted countenances shown on the cheap paper fans so plentiful in summer-time. These fan illustrations, be they never so grotesque and weird and fantastic, are exact representations of stage scenes. They are not exaggerations. The garments shown in the pictures, which conceal so ef- fectively all outline of the human form, are stage costumes such as Japanese actors wear to-day, and the faces, in spite of the distor- tion they display, are portraits of theatrical stars, that any one familiar with the native theatre would recognize immediately. There are no better equipped actors in the 173 TALES FROM TOKIO. world than those found on the Japanese boards. The theatres, too, such as Meijiza and Kabukiza, in Tokio, are excellent with their electric lights, their revolving stages and their simple yet beautiful scenery. Many of the plays would be intelligible to an audi- ence that did not know a word of Japanese. Danjuro and Kikiguro speak a world language and will make you laugh and cry at will. It is a pity they cannot be prevailed upon to make an American tour. Their versatility is marvelous. They play comedy, tragedy and farce, in either male or female parts.with equal facility and felicity. They were born to the stage, as were their parents and grandparents before them for a dozen generations. They have acted from the time theywere of sufficient size to be seen by the spectators. With such inheritance and such training it would be strange if they did not excel. In spite of all this excellence, however, it is only recently the theatre has been in good repute in the Mikado's Empire. Count In- ouye's famous garden party in the fall of 1887, at which his Imperial Majesty was present and saw Danjuro, Kikiguro and other great artists, has set the seal of supreme approval 174 SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. upon a professon that before that time had been tabooed. In the census of old Japan the actors were enumerated "ippiki, ni hikki, sambiki," etc. That seems harmless enough until it is ex- plained that, in counting in Japanese, ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, etc., certain auxiliaries to the numerals are used, according to the kind of things that are being counted. For in- stance, human beings are mei, and are count- ed ichi mei, ni mei, sam mei, etc. Flat things, such as sheets of paper, are mai: ichi mai, ni mai, etc.; houses are ken: ikken, ni ken, sam- ben, etc.; boats are so :isso, ni so, san zo, etc.; and living creatures, except human beings and birds, are hiki: ippiki, nihiki, sambiki, shi hiki etc. Actors, therefore, came under the general classification of beasts. The upper classes kept away from the theatres, but, in spite of all, strong plays were produced, and financially, at least, the "pro- fession" prospered. Today distinguished actors are received in the homes of persons of the highest rank. The Japanese theatre is the only place left in which one can study the ways of old Japan. Though it retains many of the ancient crudi- 175 TALES FROM TOKIO. ties, it is accurate in presenting historical cus- toms. Its language, even, is ancient, and the intonation of the actors marvelous and ter- rible. No such voices are heard off the stage. A half minute's attempt to imitate the sounds they produce will give one the quinsy. The throat is contracted until the veins stand out like whipcords and the blood seems ready to burst from every pore in the actors face. Then the eyes roll, individually and indepen- dently, up and down, or north and south, or east and west, at the same time. The iris disap- pears entirely. This is done especially when the eye wriggler wishes to demonstrate that he is bold and bad. The bearing of the actors cast for kings and queens brings to mind the old miracle plays. To walk like ordinary mortals would not do for royalty or for personages of any sort. They must strut like a German recruit breaking in. It is something to remember the entrance of a Chinese Emperor as he comes down the aisle through the audience. At each step his foot rises quite to the level of his chin while his revolving eyes ap- pear to be two inches in diameter. All this seems childish enough to ruin the effect of SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. the most excellent acting, but it does not. Japanese actors die hard on the stage. It is appalling to see how long they last. They stagger about, still slashing at each other, after they are shot as full of arrows as a por- cupine is full of quills. The first arrow would have done for them anywhere but in the theatre. Stage blood is over everything; but the audience delights in gory scenes, and the actors must stick it out. Arms and legs are lopped off. The wounded roll over and disap- pear while a "dummy" limb appears through the floor and twitches about the stage in a way not pleasant to weak nerves. The lime light has not come into general use as yet. Instead, a black-hooded mute, with a bamboo pole, at the end of which is a lighted candle, moves about with much agil- ity and illumines the chief actor's counten- ance by means of the sputtering dip. To the stranger this jet black elf is a whole show in himself and a serious distraction from the drama, but after a while he ceases to attract notice. He is forgotten and the actor holds the entire attention. Another distraction is the orchestra, and a dismal one it is to the uninitiated. To the 177 TALES FROM TOKIO. average American a dozen hungry and indig- nant cats would do as well. This orchestra usually is at one end of the stage, behind a screen, which conceals the appalling physiog- nomies of the members, but does not add harmony to the sounds. The "music" and "singing" continue without a pause all the time the curtain is up. The songs are inde- scribable. The tone is something between the squeal of a pig and the wail of a lost soul, but it has a fitness, one discovers after sev- eral hearings, especially during the blood-and- thunder acts. When a battle is on this discord is quite in harmony with the interminable slaughter. The general appearance of the Japanese stage is much the same as the stage in an American theatre. The stage itself revolves, but otherwise the scenery is managed about as it is in this country. The actors, when they die, are attended to by the hooded elfs, who see them safely away behind blankets. The audience does not applaud by hand- clapping; it shouts the actor's name. It is a comfortable audience, with any amount of time. Plays begin at eight o'clock in the morning and continue until seven in 178 SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. the evening. Different theatres give per- formances at different hours, however. In some places the doors open only in the even- ing. The floor of an empty theatre looks like a checker board. There are no chairs. The entire seating space is partitioned off into squares by means of railing about a foot above the soft-matted floor. A square holds a half- dozen spectators. Generally they have their tea and lunch with them, including plenty of sake, carried in gourds. Between the acts they visit about the house and exchange sake cups. Occasionally actors come down to see them, and always receive a present, just as geisha do. All sorts of hawkers of food and drink run about on the railings, offering their wares to the specta- tors. Smoking goes on all through the per- formance. Occasionally a spectator curls up for a nap to carry him through a portion of the play he does not care for. When an act is ending the curtain man announces it by a nerve-shattering racket, made with two hard pieces of wood which he beats together. As the curtain falls all the children in the place rush for the stage and have a merry game of tag. Often they crawl 179 TALES FROM TOKIO. behind to see what is going on. No one in- terferes with them nor shows the least an- noyance at their pranks. The stage is theirs until the clatter man sends the curtain up again. Japanese theatrical methods are far ahead of the methods that obtain in China. The Chinese theatre is familiar to some extent to Americans, for one may see it wherever there is a Chinese colony, notably in San Francisco, Portland, Or., and New York city; but the Japanese theatre has stayed at home. A good Japanese troupe, aided by a clear libretto and intelligible notes, would make a decided hit in this country if the manager knew his busi- ness. At present there is little differentiation in the American mind between things Japanese and Chinese. This annoys the subjects of the Mikado, for they are not related to the people they recently conquered. Neither in blood nor in language is there any connec- tion whatever, except that Japan has borrow- ed from the Chinese many words and written characters. Foreigners in Japan enjoy the theatre; but in China hardly. There is no way of stopping 1 80 SHIBAYA TO YAKUSHA. a Chinese play. Once it is fairly started it runs until the theatre is burned down or the actors die of old age. Many Japanese plays, however, are of the same structure and dur- ation as English plays. Where the theatre is open all day the play is broken in two, and between the two sections a sketch, something like a curtain raiser, fills in. On the Japanese stage dead men are taken off by attendants. They do not jump up and trot off in the merry Chinese fashion. The orchestra in Japan is not all tomtom, either; nor is it on the stage, mixed up with the actors. Indeed, some of the performances on the Samisen are full of life and exceeding- ly clever. Japanese scenery is well-nigh per- fect, and the revolving stage, of which the Chinese know nothing, saves much time. Recently, too, in Japan, mixed troupes are allowed. Men and women may appear on the stage together. This is not allowed in China. It is in no great favor as yet in Japan, because the old ideas are not gone yet, and Japanese plays are most realistic. Perhaps the appearance of women in companies with men will curtail this realism. Since the war the theatre has prospered 181 TALES FROM TOKIO. mightily and prices have gone up. Still, two dollars is not a great sum to pay for twelve hour's use of a good box and a chance to see much that is ludicrous, but also much that is admirable and instructive. \ RIO. RIO. The pace of the gilded youth in Japan is quite as rapid as it is in other countries. In fact, it is so fast that, as Walter Besant once said of a man who was running away from a bear, "it was manifest to the most casual ob- server that the primary effort was speed." The Prince of Sendai set such a pace in the days of the Shogunate that the Court re- monstrated, and told him, if he had money to burn, he had better burn it to some advan- tage to the state. Thereupon he ordered the Prince to dig a moat through Surugadai, the highest hill in Yeddo. This moat completed a sort of spiral canal around the Shogun's palace. It took 3,000 men two years to dig this ditch, and is known as "Sendai's Sorrow." Sendai's chief exploit, one that brought him national notoriety, was hiring the entire Yo- shiwara and closing the gates while he enter- ained his friends. The Yoshiwara is a com- munity by itself on the outskirts of the city, 185 TALES FROM TOKIO. and contains some 1,900 geisha and other persons whose lives, so long as they remain there, are dedicated to joy and sin. To hire the whole Waldorf-Astoria in order to take a nap would be on a par financially with this act of Sendai's. Sendai liked the " no" dance, which is, in- deed, perfect in its dainty grace; but, like classic music, one cannot learn to appreciate it in an afternoon. A long course of training is necessary. This training is expensive when one persists in it on the scale that Sendai fol- lowed. He delighted to look over his sake cup while 500 beautifully robed geisha pos- tured before him in rhythmic motion, like a field of flowers swaying in the wind. He gave great dances on all the festal days, sometimes on a flotilla in the river and some- times beneath the cherry blossoms along the banks of Sumida Gawa. He would hire a theatre, with a company of actors, and give a continuous performance for a week, with the little square pens in the pit filled with singing girls, all banqueting. The tea-houses that he patronized grew rich, for his custom was to order " the best in the world, and all there is of it." He would 1 86 RIO. have broken the Satsuma dishes off which he fed if he had not been too thoroughly an artist. He ate kami-boku, made of the little kernel of flesh taken from the head of tai, a kind of perch much esteemed by Japanese epicures. Court nobles would have relished the bodies, but Sendai threw these away. He ate moun- tain-sparrow soup, that even the Shogun had only once a year, when he offered food to the spirits of his ancestors. With all this he seems to have kept his health, owing, perhaps, to his practice of fencing with the long two-handed bamboo swords, that are popular to this day. The exercise is tougher than either broadsword or rapier, for which reason the fencers need well-padded armor. No European has a chance at sword-play against a Japanese ex- pert and this two-handed weapon. Of the Prince of Sendai it was said that he could draw his sword and take off an enemy's head in a single stroke. Of course, being a great swell, he had blades that were worth many times their weight in gold. One could not be a swell without owning good swords, for "the sword was the soul of the samurai," 187 TALES FROM TOK1O. Sendai, like others in his class, went in for archery, too, and could shoot while standing in his stirrups or from under his horse's neck. Archery is still a gentleman's pastime in Japan; likewise polo, with scoop-nets instead of mallets. It is rough work, but not as fierce as the game played at Newport, at Hempstead or at Prospect Park. Netting for ducks is more popular than gunning for them among the young bloods of Japan. A hill over which ducks fly at night and morning is pegged out till it looks as though covered with mining claims. Each post bears its owner's name and indicates his stand. The numbers are changed at inter- vals to give each net-man a fair chance. He uses a net about eight feet square, which hangs on a pole something as a banner, but which is rigged so as to keep it spread. When the ducks begin to come over the pole is tossed into the air, and, if well launched, will intercept a bird and bring it to the ground. Tea-drinking hardly would seem to come under the head of a sport or to appeal to a man that led a fast, fierce life. But Sendai spent enough at it to make a dozen experts in its ceremonies independent for life. 1 88 RIO. Chamberlain says the art of drinking tea has gone through three stages medico-relig- ious, luxurious and esthetic. In Japan the Zen sect of Buddhists used tea in certain of their ceremonies, because it kept them awake. A priest named Eisai, who wished to reform a youthful Shogun who drank too much sake and sham-shiu, got him interested in tea by elaborating a diverting set of rules for drink- ing it. When the ceremony was well estab- lished in the august favor the old priest gave the Shogun tracts on the beneficial effects of tea, how it regulated the whole system and drove out devils might, indeed, be preferred to the gold cure. Eisai worked in a good deal of religion along with his tea, but the ceremony of drink- ing grew more and more worldly, until it was all luxury and no religion. The swells drank tea daily in gorgeous apartments, hung with brocade and damask, where they burned precious perfumes and served rare fishes and strange birds with sweetmeats and wine, and in time lost their fortunes and themselves in an extravagance of etiquette. The rules ordained that all the things rich and rare that were exhibited were to be given 189 TALES FROM TOKIO. to the singing and dancing girls, troops of whom were present to aid the company in its carousal. Vast inheritances disappeared, but while the custom lasted it gave a great stim- ulus to art. UTA. UTA. Gaku is a Japanese word, which in the dic- tionaries is translated as music. If you ever hear any gaku you will wonder what is the matter with the dictionaries. You will sus- pect their trustworthiness ever after and con- sult them with hesitancy. Gaku should be translated, "a series of ir- regular and disconnected vocal squeaks ac- companied on strings out of tune and inter- spersed with wads of noise." That would be comprehensive and exact, except when the vocal squeaks are omitted. Without the squeaks gaku is the same in kind unqualified and wilful discord, but not so much of it. The dictionaries would have you believe also that the vocal squeaks are singing. They say that uta means song, that utau means to sing and that "o uta utau nasai" means hon- orable song to sing condescend i. e., please sing a song. That is pretty poor guessing, even for an English-Japanese dictionary. "O 193 TALES FROM TOKIO. uta utau nasai" should be translated, "bring me some cotton" (for my ears being, of course, understood.) With your ears well stuffed you may listen to gaku without going mad. Otherwise it is difficult There are many kinds of gaku in Japan, each of which is worse than any of the others, with one exception that may be made oc- casionally in favor of classical gaku. Classical gaku is esoteric, so very esoteric at some of the Shinto festivals that only the motions of producing discord are made and the soul- piercing uta is left out as well. These are the only times you will not desire cotton. When court musicians, the most classical of all gaku folk in Japan, do break out into sound the air is torn with distress. There is something in it to suggest the March of the Conquerors as they advance between the parallel lines of dead, and also a tidal wave full of cats, pawing helplessly in the foam, clamoring for succor. Yet all this pleases the Japanese ear so that the more discordant of the gakunin acquire fame and are talked about. But the gaku itself never attracts notice. No one discusses it; no one cares who composed it Classical 194 UTA. gaku is a thousand years old, likely two thou- sand, for it came over from China back some- where in the sixth century and has not grown better ever since. No one knows how long it afflicted China before leaving for the Land of the Rising Sun. It is no wonder that now and again a gaku- nin dies of heart failure or of congestion of the brain. He strains so in squeezing out the uta that his neck swells and the veins stand out as though it were bound with clothesline. His eyes are bloodshot and his face a dull brown purple, while he growls and gags and yawps until he reaches the convulsion point. Then he unlimbers his neck and thrusts it out like a chicken reaching for a bug, and the blood receding leaves his face the color of washed-out leather. It is estimated that with each word he expends enough energy to wind a Waterbury watch. When several gakunin unite in crime they pay no attention to key nor to harmony, for such things do not concern gaku. They do, however, keep in common time together, the only time the Japanese wot of. Each strains and exhausts himself independently of the others in any way he can produce discord. J95 TALES FROM TOKIO. As there is no notation for any but the clas- sical gaku, all must be handed down by word of mouth and learned from the living teacher. Wee girls sit for hours each day before the instructor usually a woman past the flower of her youth and no longer in demand in the tea-houses and practice at the "break," the point just between the lower and higher register, where all the possible raspiness of her little voice can be brought to complete development. All Japanese uta are rendered at the "break." This is a cruel surprise to the for- eigner when he first hears it, for nothing further from his expectations well could be when the dainty maid sits down before him, with a winsome smile, her samisen resting on her knee and her taper fingers playing up and down the strings. He is utterly unpre- pared for the series of weird, discordant notes, which sound more like an incantation to "blue devils" than what the interpreter assures you it is a love song. In the theatres the gaku and uta continue throughout the performance that is, in some of the best houses from early morn till dewy eve. The gakunin sit in boxes behind screens 196 UTA. at each end of the stage. They are marvel- ously old, with necks like camels and India rubber faces. Nothing like them exists anywhere else on earth. GEISHA. GEISHA. This was some little time ago. Gardner was in New York City and had been to see " The Geisha" at Daly's. He thought it a pretty affair, but had chuckled to himself sev- eral times at points the rest of the audience thought touchingly sentimental. There were half a dozen Japanese in the box next to him and they chuckled, too. After the play he had some friends to supper over at Del's and ex- patiated to them as follows: " If those Geisha up at Daly's were real geisha we might get them to take charge of the party for us. All we'd need to do would be to tell them what we wanted, and it would be done to the Queen's taste. We shouldn't need to raise a finger. " Yes," he continued, "this little party would be managed perfectly without a thought from us, if we had some of the sweet Japanese singers. No one would think of giving even a dinner without them in Japan, whether it 201 TALES FROM TOKIO. was to be in a public teahouse or in a private dwelling. They are indispensable. They make everything go successfully. The mission of the geisha is to make life merry. Her whole education is to that end. "She can dance and sing and play on all sorts of musical instruments; she knows the best stories and the latest jokes; she is quick at repartee; the games she doesn't know are those that have not yet been invented. She is as graceful and as frolicsome as a kitten, and as beautiful as well, as the Daly geisha; and her manners are simply exquisite. 'Only dead folk can withstand the geisha's charms, and it is doubtful about them. Her mirth is the best of tonics. It will mend one when anything is the matter with one's health. They say over there that she cures everything but diseases of the heart. These she is likely to aggravate, and she doesn't need more than half a chance, either! "In Japan every one is always entertaining some one. Few things happen that do not demand a feast. Consequently the geisha is seldom out of sight that is, literally speak- ing. She appears at the festal place soon after the earliest arrivals, or about two hours 202 GEISHA. before dinner is announced. It is the custom in her country for guests to come ahead of time instead of behind time. "You get your first sight of her as she bows low at the threshold, her hands palm down on the floor before her and her face pressed close against them. As she bows she says 'Omina sama gomen kudasai,' which means, 'Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Everybody, august pardon deign.' 'Ha irashai,' call out some of the guests as they look up from the chess boards or tiny packs of hana cards with which they have been playing. Irashai means wel- come, and the geisha enter to take possession of the teapots, serve the guests and 'jolly* ev- ery one. Their entrance is not the least bit wabbly, as one might think from the pretty performance at Mr. Daly's theatre. The robes are quite too long for any gait like that. Daly's winsome lasses must have gotten their ideas of the Japanese foot motions from a study of native women dressed in European style. Japanese women do walk queerly when their feet are incased in high-heeled boots. Their gracefulness is gone then, the glide that holds their sandals on becomes a shuffle, and the inward swing of the right foot caused by the 203 TALES FROM TOKIO. side pull of the kimono, which clings so close- ly to the figure, develops into pigeon toe. "When a geisha has served tea all round and had a dainty 'fling' at every one, she glides off to the kitchen to see that the sake, the sashime, the kwashi and other things are ready. She has an artist's eye, and can serve raw fish which sounds anything but appetiz- ing to Westerners so daintily on a lacquered tray that you've simply got to try a little. "As soon as the portions are arranged she glides back to the guest room with china bottles full of hot rice beer. She puts bowls of water full of tiny cups at intervals about the room before the guests, who are arranged along the border of the apartment To each one she offers a cup, and then pours out the sake, with a bow, saying: 'Please condescend to drink one full.' With the wine come kwashi, that is, different kind of cakes, which she serves on little oblong brazen dishes. "This seems like beginning with the des- sert, but it is quite the proper way in Japan. "While the guests are busy with this 'starter' of kwashi and sake, the geisha glides to the door and puts on her evening robes. She doesn't go out of the room to do this, for she 204 GEISHA. is a lightning-change artist, and as the day- time garments are sliding from one shoulder the clinging folds of the evening gown are upon the other, and with a bit of a shrug and a wriggle she changes from a thrush to a nightingale. 4< An assistant binds the robe with a broad sash, tied in a square knot behind (which, by the way, is the original bustle), and she comes purring among the guests once more. "She brings trays of lacquered bowls and china cups, with soups and fish of many kinds, until before each guest there is a fair founda- tion for an art museum. Then she brings out her samisen, a three-stringed square-head banjo, and plucking with her bachi tunes it to the weirdest key that sounds were ever known to give. The sad melody of waters beating on a foreign shore as the surf sprite sings of loneliness such is the geisha's music and her song. As she plays her younger sister dances. Not as we dance here, nor as any of Mr. Daly's geisha dance. There is nttle motion, but much harmony of line, as she turns about and postures and wields her fan so deftly that it seems to hover in the air as if it were a moth above a candle light. 205 TALES FROM TOKIO. "Her posing tells more clearly than any words might do the story of her elder sister's song. It is a love story always. It couldn't be anything else, when a geisha sings it. It is not 'Chon Kino,' however, unless she is a treaty-port geisha, and a cheap geisha at that; for 'Chon Kino' is sung in dives only, and except in treaty ports there are no dives in the whole country. 'Chon Kino' is sung for sailors, the natives call them 'Damyo'eyes San' by a class of girls unknown in Japan be- fore foreigners arrived, and its origin is not Japanese at all, but was taught by the early Dutch to their temporary Nagasaki wives. "It is really part of a game of forfeit, after the manner of 'Simon says thumbs up.' The usual forfeit after 'Yokohama Nagasaki, Ho- kodate, Hoi!' is to take off 'one piece of cloth.' This forfeiting continues until there isn't any- thing more to take off. Whoever has the most on at the end of the game wins. Hillary Bell is quite right in his opinion of the tea houses of the treaty ports and of the geisha who pose therein. He says that those geisha would make a good man blush. But don't think fox a minute that the genuine geisha those of inland Japan are not as 206 GEISHA. honest and pure-hearted as any woman in the world. It is a mighty serious mistake to sup- pose that "geisha" is synonymous for easy virtue. "Geisha dancing is often pantomime, and where a half dozen of them dance together, they are 'a whole show in themselves.' They would be delighted with their counterparts, as Mr. Daly presents them, but they would be amused, too, at the funny differences. Fluffy hair is not Japanese, petticoats are not worn under kimono; high heels would play sad havoc with the delicate tatarni that cover Japanese floors; waraji, or rough straw san- dals are not worn in the house except in the kitchen. Geisha either go barefoot or in socks reaching just above the ankle, fastened with broad flat hooks; these socks or tabi as they are called have a pocket for the big toe like the thumb pocket in a mitten. "Real geisha never hug each other nor even hold hands much less kiss. There is no such personal contact in Japan, except be- tween parents and young children. Geisha do not cross their hands over the breast. When they bow they bend over as though giving a back for a game of leapfrog. The 307 TALES FROM TOKIO. hands are pressed against the knees and the spine is horizontal. "And another thing, conspicuous by its ab- sence at Daly's, it would be a sad time for the dear little girls if they hadn't even one smoke in a whole evening! Geisha carry pipes of gold and silver bronze, with which they enjoy ippuka, one whiff, from time to time taking a pinch of mild tobacco from the leather pouch each one has slipped into her obi. And the idea of a public wedding would throw them into convulsions. Weddings, as we under- stand them, are unknown in Japan. Marriage is purely a family affair. There is no relig- ious and no civil ceremony. The bride goes to the bridegroom's home, goes through a formal pretense of drinking sansan kudo, nine cups of wine, with her future master, and there's the end of it! The census man will mark her change of residence, which is all the notice the civil authorities take. "It would surprise geisha, too, to know that they could be bought and sold so easily. A geisha is usually indentured to a teacher when she is young. Or, perhaps, the teacher pays the parents for a release and then adopts the child. But even then she is not owned. Her 208 GEISHA. contract, if she is indentured, stipulates a sum on payment of which she is to be released. If she is adopted and later runs away and marries, there is no chance to recover her." TURAMPU. TURAMPU. "Hitotsu, futatsu, mitsu, yotsu, itsutsu aka bakari," said Prince Sakusama as he counted a straight flush, beginning with the ace of hearts, and laid it on the low ebony table in one of the famous tea houses onSumida Gawa. "I win?" he asked as he paused a moment and looked around at his companions. "Ara- gato de gozalmasu" the chips and Peach Blossom, too. "Shall I put her in the kitty?" "If Your Highness did so," said a young baron who had just returned with an Embassy from London, "all of us would play to lose, for as Your Highness has deigned to declare the rules of the game give the kitty to the player that is hit hardest To play poker to lose would be to debauch its pristine purity." "We must never do that, Baron, surely. Let us play a round of jacks." He clapped his hands, and from the far in- terior of the tea house, beyond many parti- 213 TALES FROM TOKIO. tions of paper sliding doors, an answering "Hai tadaima," long drawn, soft and musical floated in, telling the prince that his sum- mons had been heard. A moment later and the paper doors at the end of the room slid noiselessly in their grooves and disclosed a bunch of daintiness on the tatami just out- side. It was Peach Blossom, kneeling low, with her face almost touching the soft bamboo matting, and her tiny hands pressed palms down together just before her. She besought His Highness to deign to pardon her audacious effrontery in respond- ing to the august summons and begged that if he would condescend to command so un- worthy a piece of stupid mud as she he would deign to consider her ready to receive the augustly honorable orders. "Sake," said the Prince, and as Momo-no- Hana closed the sliding door and pattered away for the hot rice beer, His Highness tore the cover from a fresh pack of cards and be- gan to shuffle them. The Baron cut and the game proceeded. Five better poker faces were never gather- ed about a table. There was not a sign of 214 TURAMPU. nerves in any one of them. Each player skinned his hand and decided whether to draw or to pass or to stand pat, but never a sign of his thoughts was given in his coun- tenance. Each had the expression of a door knob. Good hands and bad hands come to a door knob, but one can tell nothing of them by looking at it. These five men in the tea house on the bank of the Sumida Gawa, which flows through the heart of Tokio, bore some of the best known names in the Japanese Empire. Three of them had been daimiyo and had owned provinces as absolutely as anything may be owned in this world. Their revenues had been counted by the 100,000 koku. They had lived in royal state, each with his castles and his army and board of councilors. But Commodore Perry had changed all that, and now these men were living in the capital with one-tenth their former incomes, and no one to support or to worry about out- side their personal households. Of the other two His Highness, Prince Sak- usama, was of the Shogun's family, which had ruled the Empire until the restoration, in 1868, and the other was of the samurai class. 215 TALES FROM TOKIO. His fathers had been fighting men for full 2,000 years, and his family records showed. He had studied abroad, was a graduate of Harvard, an M. A. of Oxford and a Ph. D. of Heidelberg. It was said that he had carved his name on the face of a German student who had been so unlucky as to challenge him. He was a vice minister now, and had ' married the daughter of a merchant with money to burn. Before 1871 he would have been sentenced to harakiri for doing that. All five had learned to play abroad. They had been together in a Japanese club in London the presiding genius of which was the Con- sul General, who knew the great American game as well as a Kentucky colonel. Now that they were at home again, they were only too willing to meet wherever a chance afforded, and the tea house of the Rising Moon knew them well. Its mistress was glad to see them always, for the players and their friends were a hungry and thirsty lot, and did not spare the kitty, out of which the chief loser had to pay all expenses. The round of jacks was under way when Mono-no-Hana came with the sake. When sake is ordered in a tea house food is served 216 TURAMPU. with it, for the host knows well the evil ef- fects of drinking on an empty stomach. So Omomo San was followed by a procession of toylike darlings, each with a dainty morsel on china dishes and lacquered trays. All these bearers of nectar and ambrosia were geisha and indentured to masters of various geisha homes. Rumor had it that for certain sums of money, doubtless much exaggerated, the indenture papers of the more bewitching of these geisha had changed hands, so that the sweet singers were come under the guardian- ship of men of noble birth, who in the olden days would have cut in two the master of a geisha house and been accountable to no one. The last jackpot of the last round bore out this rumor, for when the last call was made and His Highness had reckoned up the con- tents he found Cherry Bud, Chrysanthemum and Plum Blossom were added to his list, besides Little Pony and One Thousand Joys. He had won the whole procession. Looking out over the slow Sumida and watching the house boats with their gay paper lanterns as they were poled along the shores in the light of the rising moon, he dipped his sake cup in the basin and handed it to him 217 TALES FROM TOKIO. who had lost just too little to be entitled to the kitty, saying: "Kono tsugi anata oumbai ii desho Dozo ippai onomu na sai." Which means, being literally interpreted: "Next time your honorable luck good prob- ably will be, Graciously condescend a cupful of sake to imbibe." SYONARA. SYONARA. Japanese callers come early and stay late particularly if you, the callee, are a foreigner. They like to look at you. They are easy enough to entertain, too, if you do not mind being stared at. But they never go. At least, no one but Dara Santara ever went, and he did so only once. He could not do so again, for he did not come back. This achievement (which was partly ours) emphasizes the rule. Here is the story. Dara Santara was in the habit of calling on us on Nichiyobi regularly. Nichiyobi is the seventh day of the Japanese week and cor- responds with our Sunday, though it has nothing to do with religion. It is rather jol- lier and happier than other days, that is all. Gardner and I had enjoyed it in peace and restfulness until Dara discovered us. It was our home day. We were satisfied to be by ourselves. It had been a comfort in anticipa- tion and a delight when it arrived. But Dara 221 TALES FROM TOKIO. changed all that. He was the nephew of our next-door neighbor, a retired naval captain, who, though a cripple, was courteous and kindly in the extreme. Moreover, he spoke a little English, which made him the more agreeable, whereas Dara did not know more than three words. We were still snoozing on our futon v/hen Dara made call number one, and he had bowed twelve times before we had gotten the makura kinks out of our necks sufficiently to bow back at him. Makura are excellent pil- lows, once one is used to them; but that takes years. Usotsuki, a young student who inter- preted for us, said Dara was extremely sorry to disturb us. Dara's sorrow was manifested by a smile that divided his countenance into hemiphizes. Our sorrow was as intense but different. We told Kintaro to make Dara comfortable and to excuse us for a moment. Then we rolled out of our nemaki and into our boiling bath. When we came out we were red, and breakfast was ready. Dara sat with us on his shinbones and heels, with his feet crossed under him, and nearly added another inch to his smile in an effort to eat an olive with his 222 SYONARA. knife. We did not care much for olives for breakfast, but Usotsuki had put them on the table and Dara seemed to like them. Generally, too, we discarded knives and forks and ate with hashi, like the natives, but this morning we brought out the American implements, thinking they might interest our guest. They did. He ate everything, even butter, which is not usual among the Japan- ese. Indeed, he managed to spear the balls floating in the bowl of iced water and swal- lowed them with an indrawn hiss, like the sound of a small skyrocket. Dara ate until there was nothing left but the utensils and a bottle of tabasco sauce. He wept over that. When Dara had done complimenting us he smiled and said, "O gotso sama." From Usot- suki's explanation earlier in the day we judged from Dara's smile that he had a stomach ache. We were not surprised; we were only mistaken. "He say very glad too much eatings," Kin- taro explained. "We did not know he was coming or we might have prepared," Gardner explained. This seemed to please Dara greatly when it 223 TALES FROM TOKIO. was translated to him, and he said he would come again next Nichiyobi. Gardner told him to come any day he liked, but he replied that official duties hindered him except on that one day. Then he sat and sat, we the meanwhile wondering what to do for him. We showed him all our American photographs. He was interested, and did us the honor to ask for the only pictures of our families that we pos- sessed. He smiled when we said, "No," but he had a puzzled look about the eyes. Then we showed him some books on Japan, over which he chuckled like an infant. After that we took some snapshots of him. The minute he faced the camera his smile turned to haughtiness and he looked like a brazen image, which is the proper Japanese pose; but when he saw the negative in our dark room a little later he was tickled. We prom- ised to send him proofs in a few days, and he bowed and smiled and stayed. Kintaro announced tiffin always an elab- orate meal with us on Nichiyobi. Dara stay- ed, and was as active as at breakfast. His compliments were loud and long. We were fond of his uncle, so we said nothing, but we 224 SYONARA. were eager for "our Sunday." We wanted to lounge and to stroll about the gardens of the old temple in which we lived and over into the older temple we were using as a school house. We wanted to chat together of things at home, to finish our letters and be at rest. But there were none of these things for us this day, nor the follow- ing Nichiyobi, either, for he remembered his promise, which we had forgotten altogether. That second day of visitation was not a keen delight. Then came a third and a fourth. What should we do? We could not be rude. Not for a year's rent would we have disturbed that kindly gentleman, the captain. We did not wish to flee. We wanted to have our home to ourselves this one day in the week. We must resort to strategy. And, in fact, to use an Americanism, we put up a job on Dara Santara. Though outwardly polite and friendly, we had concocted and concealed within our hearts a wicked scheme. It was done in this wise: As every one knows, sake is the national drink of Japan. It is a pale, sherry-colored liquor or beer, made of rice. It is joyous and harmless, though exhilarating to the Japan- 225 TALES FROM TOKIO. ese. Foreign liquors, like foreign tobacco, are too strong for them. Our friend did not know this, however. After tiffin No. 4 we tried some American cigarettes on Dara, which he smoked until he was a little dizzy. Tabaka yota tobacco drunk, the natives call the sensation. Then we gave him some of our "sake," highly sweetened. He had a curiosity to taste the foreign product, and, like all Japanese, he liked plenty of sweetness. We loaded his tumbler with, syrups, but also with liquors and, I fear, nearly three fingers of "fire water," for it was a tall English glass, holding almost a pint. Our glasses held a mixture of the same in color, but innocent of dynamite. Our deception was base but successful. Dara smacked his lips and smiled half way round his head over the first swallow. His face reddened as he continued to imbibe but he persisted with the courage of a sentenced feudal lord in the days of hara kiri. By the time he had drunk all his head stuck up through the top of his kimono like a poppy and his smile was saggy at the ends. He murmured, "Taihen uroshi, gotso sama, 226 SYONARA. gomen na sai, syonara," and then sailed sweetly, with many curves, out through our garden, his kimono following like a comet's tail and his geta playing leap frog and filling the air with their wooden clamor. Though we have felt guilty ourselves, we have never blamed Dara Santara that he did not return. NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. Kono Hito was the closest man in Japan. He lived near a temple less than one hun- dred ri from Kanazawa on the west coast. If he had been further from the temple he would have been just as close, but he might not have discovered the fact to the world, nor have wasted away on account of his unlovely trait. Kono Hito was a farmer. He raised rice. To do so he had to have water, and plenty of it, thousands of tsubo, as the Japanese say. A tsubo is the size of two mats, or thirty-six square feet. He owned over fifty fields, ly- ing side by side without fences separating them. Only a low ridge of earth marked the boundary of the field, and this, when the rice had grown a bit, was quite out of sight. At the time of planting these ridges are mushy, but at harvest time they are dry and 231 TALES FROM TOKIO. hard, so that one could walk on them easily if he has occasion. The way Kono did was to throw seed rice, that is, rice kernels in the shell, over the surface of the tiny ponds, where it sprouted and wove into a tangled mat of deep, rich green. When the rice blades were six inches long and had well- formed roots he would disentangle them, and, gathering them in clusters, would plant them in the mud, at two-foot intervals, along rows parallel and two feet apart. This made the rows regular, like the lines of a checker board, with a bunch of rice wherever two lines met. The board itself was all water at first, and had to remain water until nearly time for harvest, for Kono Hito grew swamp rice only. He said there was no money in upland rice. It was too hard and would not sell for the cost of growing it. A drought, therefore, was about as bad a thing as could happen to Kono Hito. He must have water or go to the money lenders, and once he went to them there would be no end of going until they had possession of his rice fields. That is the fate of those who borrow, as Kono Hito knew well. So he built dams above his fields, to make reser- 232 NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHI WAI JIMBUTSU. voirs; he dug ditches from one field to the other, and he observed the Buddhist fast days. In spite of all this, however, his crops turned yellow earlier than those of Sono Hito, the rice grower on the opposite side of the highway that ran between their paddy fields to the temple and beyond. " Komaru ne," said Kono Hito, as he came along the road in his jin-riki-sha one day. " Doshimashoka," But though he spoke to himself of trouble, and asked himself what he should do, he did not talk out loud. He kept more fast days, worked harder in his sloppy fields, built tiny shrines like dolls' houses at his reservoirs, and brought the household economy down to such a fine point that Okamusan, his wife, dared not lose so much as a grain of rice in a month. But with all his prayers and his skimping, he had not water enough. His fields were brown when Sono Hito's were yet green. " Hontoni komaru!" Trouble, indeed! Sono Hito, the meanwhile, was not worry- ing. He was a patriarch in the " Home of Happy Husbandmen" and never had bad years, ever though he kept few fasts and was not more than half careful of his reservoirs. 233 TALES FROM TOKIO. A lot of folk worked for him, however, and without knowing it, but they were glad to do so. They were good Buddhists of the Hoganji sect, passing daily to the grand old temple overlooking the sea. They offered alms to Buddha, and ere they offered they washed themselves, as good folk do before they wor- ship. Sono Hito, of course, knew this, for he went to the temple himself sometimes, and took the preparatory bath just as the others did. It was while he was taking one of these baths that the idea that resulted in Kono Hito's " komaru" occurred to Sono. This is the idea. Sono's rice fields reached quite up to the temple grove. He would build a shrine in honor of the temple's god a little this side the.gate of the temple and near the road, and he would sink a well there. It would needs be a deep well, it is true, but Sono's crops had been good and he would not begrudge the cost. Having dug the well he would place a tablet before the shrine bear- ing a declaration of the dedication of his of- fering to the temple's god on behalf of those who worshiped there. He would give each 234 NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. worshiper all the pure water he might desire for a bath, and would not charge him for it. All the worshiper need do would be to help himself. Sono had been a traveler. He knew " Yokohama, Nagasaki, Hakodate hoi" per- sonally, for he had been there. He had seen missionaries in Tokio and merchants in the treaty ports. One of the missionaries had shown him a praying water wheel from India. It was part of a collection the pious man had gathered at various stations he had occupied in the Far East. Sono delighted in these things, but the praying wheel pleased him most. If he had had a place to set one up on his west coast rice fields he would have begged the missionary to get him one from the ancient home of Buddhism. Some days after he had seen this supplica- tion-made-simple apparatus, so much simpler than the man-power prayer wheels of the Tokio temples, Sono received an invitation from the missionary's friend, who was a silk merchant in Yokohama. This man wished to make friends on the west coast, especially in Fukui and Kanagawa Kens, where the worms spin well. Sono, always ready " to see the 235 TALES FROM TOKIO. new thing," to learn something and have a good time, took the train at Shimbashi that afternoon, and within an hour was at the " Yama Namban," as jin-riki-sha coolies called the merchant's house. Sono Hito had a wonderful time at this foreigner's home. The yoshoku, the setsuin, the nedai and the danru, with its kemuri- dashi, were marvelous to him, but the thing that tickled him especially was what he called the midzu-age kikai, or water-raising ma- chine, not far from the kitchen ,door. He played with this a half hour steadily, until he was all of a sweat and had flooded his host's back yard and turned the tennis court into a soppy marsh. Nothing would do but he must have one to operate at his home over on the west coast, and as the kikai was not in stock at any of the Yokohama agencies, Sono Hito's host promised to get one for him from San Francisco. " I'll send it over to you as soon as it ar- rives," said Mo Hitosu Smith San (he was the second Smith to come to Yokohama after Perry's departure. The first Smith was simply "Smith San," but the second was Mohitotsu, 236 NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. i. e., more than one Smith, Mr.). He did bet- ter than that, however; he took the apparatus over himself three months later, and showed his Japanese friend how to set it up and how he could use it to fill a storage tank so as to have water for emergencies. So Sono had men dig the well wide and deep. There was not such another well in that part of the country. Kono Hito, across the road, had nothing in the least comparable. He would not have spent so much money on a well had he been ever so rich, and in these days he thought himself a very poor man indeed. It grieved him to think anything that cost money should be necessary in his household. The sight of his people eating made him ill, and the pros- perity across the road was like flre against his face. He could not endure to look at it. But as Kono Hito suffered Sono Hito worked at his well shrine. The building was as simple in design as a Shinto temple. In- side, over at one end, was a broad, shallow wooden tank for the bather to sit in, and be- fore the tank ample floor space where the worshiper would have room to use his tenui, or scrubbing towel, such as all Japanese carry 237 TALES FROM TOKIO. with them. At the end opposite the tank was the shrine, and beside the tank was a device strange to the natives on the west coast. Sono said it was a praying wheel. There was a gaku over it bearing the inscription, " Bon- no kuno," " all lust is grief," in Chinese char- acters. An American would not have thought the device was a prayer wheel. He would doubt if the Japanese used water prayer wheels, and would have said " chain pump," though one may assert with considerable confidence that he never before had seen a chain pump boxed in an image of Buddha, with a third arm, in the shape of a crank, reaching out from one side and projecting over a bathtub. Sono Hito knew all about the apparatus, both from the American and the west coast viewpoint. He was the only person that did; but, like Brer Rabbit, " he wasn't saying nuffin." In fact, the American who did see this de- vice guessed right the very first time. He saw right away it was not a praying wheel, but he kept his thoughts quiet. Sono Hito might call it a praying wheel, and each bather, as he sat in the tub, might turn Buddha's third 238 NIHON NO ICH1BAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. arm with vigor and pray fervently, chanting his petitions in unison with the rat-tat-rat-tat- tattle in Buddha's stomach; to the Yankee's mind the thing would be a chain pump still. Soon after this visit of Smith San's it was that the patriarch of the Home of Happy Husbandmen had evolved his scheme of joining piety and prosperity in happy com- bination by giving faithful Buddhists a cata- ract bath free and a chance at the praying wheel thrown in. The ancient peoples of China and India had used these wheels with august results.^Sono Hito told the worshipers, and then he showed them also how, after pious revolutions, the Divine Pleasure would give them water from above. Buddhists take cataract baths even in win- ter, though possibly they do not enjoy them then, at least not with obvious hilarity. In To- kio the traveler sees native men and women standing naked under a fall of water in some of the temple parks. In December and Jan- uary this water is well down to the freezing point. There is virtue in a cataract. Wherever one is that place is sacred. The natives take great pains in making artificial falls whenever 239 TALES FROM TOKIO. possible, especially in the neighborhood of temples. They are purifiers beyond all else, these "from heaven descending" streams. Therefore, when Sono made his offer of a free bath a cataract bath! something the region about the beloved temple had not known since the great jishin, the earthquake that hundreds of years before had broken up the country, let out the upper waters and ruined their plans of holy ablution he be- came the most popular man in his ken. He was deeply grateful to his American friend who had showed him how to rig the pump so as to deliver water overhead, where, in the roof of the shrine, Sono had built a sort of distributing reservoir. Part of the water that the worshipers pumped into this poured down in a stream onto the head of whoever might be working at the crank as he or she sat in the tub. The greater part, however, flowed away into the channels in the rice fields. As the pious came, there- fore, and worked the praying wheel, they ac- complished three things at once irrigation, purification and " to pump." These ex- plained how Sono Hito kept things green and why Kono Hito said " Komaru." 240 NJHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. Kono Hito worried greatly over the early yellowishness of his fields. He did not un- derstand how Sono Hito managed. He never had been to Yokohama, and he knew noth- ing of chain pumps. He believed that Sono Hito's piety had won favor in Buddha's eyes, and that the gods had blessed the fields as a mark of divine pleasure. If he could have a bath shrine he might win favor, too, but that would cost money, and then to give the baths free, not to charge even a ni rin piece for them the thought was too painful. Still, if Buddha would smile on him, "it might pay," thought Kono. It would pay but to spend the money. " Domu! Komaru ne." So he devised how he might be pious cheaply. " Namu Omahen de giisu,"said the wife of Kono Hito when a man called one morning to see her lord. She meant he was not at home. (In Tokio she might have said: " lye ori masen de gozaimasu." That would have conveyed a similar idea.) The man went away. Down the road a bit he heard a voice calling " Korario," which, to those who live in that region, means 41 come here." The man went in the direc- 241 TALES FROM TOKIO. tion of the call and found Kono Hito busy with a carpenter and a well digger, discuss- ing plans for an opposition bath shrine. Kono Hito was in agony over the cost, but the workmen had reached their limit, and, with many bows, were protesting that if they cut their price even a mo lower they would not have enough left to pay for the air they breathed while they worked. So Kono gave orders for them to begin at once. Within a week the plans had material- ized. There was a well with a pair of buck- ets, a tub and a shrine dedicated to the use of worshipers. It was not a cataract bath, nor was the well deep, but Kono Hito hoped Buddha would take his penury into account and smile as sweetly as though the water fell direct from a spring on the mountain side. But Buddha did not smile. No one went to Kono Hito's shrine bath unless too many had gathered at the place across the way. " Without worshipers Buddha will not smile," said the unhappy husbandman. " Komaru ne!" And later he said to himself, " Do shi mashoka," which brought him inspiration. He took a station at a point that com- manded a view of the road, and whenever 242 NIHON NO ICHIBAN SHIWAI JIMBUTSU. he saw those coming who might be wor- shipers he went into Hito's shrine, sat him- self in the tank, turned the crank and prayed vigorously. This was a deep scheme, for the pilgrims, after waiting long for Kono to finish, would conclude such fervent piety should not be disturbed. Leaving the zealot in Sono Hito's tub, they would cross over to do as best they might with two buckets. When they had done so they emptied these buckets on the roadside. Buddha did not purr. Kono Hito, however, as he ground and ground away, taking twenty or thirty baths a day, chilling himself in the cataract and pumping three times as much water over Sono Hito's fields as he brought down onto his poll, had much tenacity and a belief that if he could keep the pious to his side of the road long enough he would receive the blessings his soul yearned for. He pumped and prayed heroically, resting little and eating less, while Sono Hito took a peep at him occasionally and showed not the least vexation. Kono wondered at this, for he had been rather fearful of discovery, and when he 243 TALES FROM TOKIO. learned that the man he was so jealous of had seen him and had said nothing, he did not understand. Nor did he understand why Buddha would not smile upon his crops. As he pumped he puzzled upon these things and grew more and more attenuated. Overbathing, even with prayers, is not good. When Junsa, the policeman, called Isha, the physician, to Sono Hito's shrine one evening and let his lantern light fall on Kono Hito's face, the man of medicine said, " Water on the brain." Two days later they buried him, and Sono Hito gave money for a stone column to mark the resting place of his ashes. He really had helped Sono Hito a good deal. A 000034445 7 Univ Sc I