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.
 
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