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OVER JAPAN WAY
Washday.
OVER JAPAN WAY
BY
ALFRED M. HITCHCOCK
I shan't be gone long; you come too.
ROBERT FROST
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1917
Copyright, 1917,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1917
HUB
urn:
PREFACE
WHILE poking about a bookstore, not long ago, I
chanced upon a Bibliography of Japan, a dust-
covered book containing five hundred pages or more.
So perhaps the volume you are now hesitating about
reading is not the right one. Still, you might glance
it through.
A. M. H.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Pacific 3
II. Breaking In 12
III. European Hotels and Japanese Inns 19
IV. Tokyo 32
V. Riding on the Train 47
VI. Nikko 59
VII. Chopsticks 75
VIII. After Apples 88
IX. A Made-in- America Town 96
X. The Gentle Ainu 104
XI. Bearding a Volcano 115
XII. From Kindergarten to University 127
XIII. Play-going 147
XIV. Sunday Morning in Asakusa Park 166
XV. Hakone Notes 182
XVI. From Kobe to Miyajima 196
XVII. The Sacred Island 209
XVIII. Dogo and Beppu 215
XIX. Kyoto and Osaka 226
XX. Shopping 241
XXI. Appraisals First and Second Hand 257
vii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Washday Frontispiece
PAGE
A junk is more picturesque than a steamship 4
When on shipboard, one longs for mountains. There are
plenty in Japan, but not all are so attractive as these
of the Hakone region 5
Half a century ago the feudal system prevailed in Japan.
The castle at Nagoya is perhaps the finest of the few
still standing 8
Harvest festival ceremony before a Shinto shrine 9
Of the three vehicles here represented, the rikisha alone
is common. A rikisha without a top is approximately
innocent 12
The commonest view in Japan is the rice field. In plant-
ing tune and harvest, everybody works, including
father 13
The Japanese believe in the open shop 18
Street peddlers are common, but few carry such an as-
sortment as this 18
A typical room, completely furnished. Be seated, please 19
The most attractive thing about many an inn is its gar-
den. This one is found at Nikko 26
An inn garden at Yamagata. Trees, rocks, pools, and
bridges play an important part in Japanese gardening.
Flowers are not conspicuous 26
Good-night 27
Along the river front in Tokyo 36
The castle moat in the heart of the city 36
be
x ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Praying at one of Tokyo's many shrines. Note the size
of the contribution box 37
Entrance to a shrine in one of the poorer quarters 37
A Tokyo watch tower 44
A typical crowd of tourists before a temple in Shiba Park 45
A temple roof with graceful lines 45
There are rice fields everywhere 54
The irrigation wheel. Note the towel. With few ex-
ceptions the peasants are amazingly neat 55
Home of a peasant of the poorer class 58
Winnowing grain 58
The Sacred Bridge 59
A cryptomeria avenue at Nikko 59
A temple gate at Nikko 72
Lake Chuzenji 73
Tea pickers. They have been told to "look pleasant"
and find it easy to do so 78
Sorting cocoons t 79
Before entering the house, slip off your clogs, please. ... 88
Peasant woman of Northern Japan 89
The waterwheel is a familiar sight 94
The railway near Aomori 94
A tidal wave is nothing to a bronze Buddha. He sits
serene, though his temple home is swept away 95
Government buildings at Sapporo 100
The College campus 100
A fisherman's home of the poorer type 101
Ainu children? No. The idea! 114
Hotel at Noboribetsu Onsen 115
The moribund volcano. Steam and sulphur fumes make
photography difficult 115
Eruption of Mt. Aso 126
Going to school 127
ILLUSTRATIONS xi
PAGE
Field day at an elementary school . 134
A jiu-jitsu school. Of course the men are posing. The
school in Kyoto is as fine as a temple spacious, clean 135
Country school children 135
Theatre Street in Osaka 158
The Kabukiza 159
Stage of the Imperial Theatre 159
Approach to Temple of Kwannon 168
The Big Gate, from the Temple porch 168
Feeding the doves 169
The Temple porch 169
The God of Sickness 174
Altar of a Buddhist shrine 175
Fujiya hotel 184
Hakone hillsides '. . . . 185
Lake Hakone 190
Hakone village, with royal villa in the distance 190
The old Tokaido, near Hakone. Military roads are
fast supplanting such old thoroughfares 191
Fuji, the sublime 198
The Inland Sea 199
An Inland Sea junk 210
The familiar torii at Miyajima 211
One sees pilgrims everywhere in Japan 214
A holiday clammer 215
Not Italy, but southern Japan 226
Looking across the bay 226
Kyoto at twenty-five minutes to two 227
A bit of Silver Pavilion garden 232
Arashiyama 232
Osaka 233
The ubiquitous shoe store 244
The potter 245
xii ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Some of the finest embroidery is done by men 245
Opening day at a modern silk store 256
The Mitsukoshi department store 256
The plowman homeward wends and takes his plow with
him 257
The " dogs " in front of Shinto shrines drive away demons 262
A Buddhist priest 263
A village street 268
This old pine with fantastically twisted trunk and bright
new foliage symbolizes Japan 269
This is all one tree, or as much of it as the lens could cover.
To Japanese eyes props are not unsightly. See what
you should, not all that you can 269
OVER JAPAN WAY
CHAPTER I
THE PACIFIC
IT is a cold thing and unruly. Early September
congeals into late November as the ship glides
through the Golden Gate; and before the coast
mountains are lost sight of, the waves have grown
much larger than seems at all reasonable. By night
time, the vessel is rolling uncomfortably, especially
for the inlander consigned to a narrow sofa-berth,
up and down which he makes frequent excursions,
round trips with no stopover privileges. As he slides
back and forth, and listens to the rising wind, he
thinks of "stout Cortez" no, it was Balboa who
discovered the Pacific and debates whether it
would not have been better after all had the ad-
venturer remained "speechless on a peak in Darien,"
or at least had gone quietly home and said never a
word about his awful discovery.
But first impressions are of no permanent worth.
Really the Pacific is not cold at all. That sudden
chill was merely the fog which sweeps the coast.
Forty-eight hours out from San Francisco, the shady
side of the deck becomes popular. September
4 OVER JAPAN WAY
degenerates into July. After its first rough greeting,
the Ocean is absurdly gentle. Waves for a time
continue to raid the deck cargo. A pile of planks
break their lashings and shoot madly about. Car-
boys of ammonia ranged in rows and tied neck to
neck are routed and get beautifully smashed. The
crew, coming to the rescue, are swept off their feet
in water thigh deep. But there is no real storm.
The captain says so. He is quite sure, and you note
with pleasure that his teeth are not chattering,
though possibly they are not the chatter kind, for
his uppers overhang, walrus style. It is just a little
blow, barely enough to drive passengers to state-
rooms and give the sailors opportunity to tidy up
decks that have lost their sweetness while hi port.
The boisterous Pacific we shall know no more, but
a lazy, sultry Ocean, much too large, acres upon
acres of blue, a great undulating disc circular to a
fault, the steamship its too exact center. There are
no strange craft to wonder about, no fish save a few
silvery fliers, not even seaweed enough to garnish a
dish. The last gull disappears the third day out.
There is merely the trail of black smoke to watch,
and the petty rage of waves thrust out by the pon-
derous hull. That is all, with one grand exception:
the sunset clouds they and the big September
moon. Even the salesman who electrifies the dinner
table by confiding that his house "turns out more
overalls than any other concern in the world" tarries
H hen on shipboard, one longs for mountains. Inhere are plenty
in Japan, but not all are so attractive as these of the
Hakone region.
THE PACIFIC 5
a moment on his way to the smoking-room and
admits that the moon is "darn pretty."
The overalls king is not the only commercial
spirit aboard; there are many sample-trunks below
deck. Russia is out of everything. With half the
world at war, now is the time to grab the market in
China. Japan is near neighbor, but providentially
she lacks raw materials. It's a national disgrace that
we have no more ships on the Pacific. After you've
sold your goods, you can't deliver 'em! There is
much of this talk nightly in the smoking-room. The
buyers, after teas, silks, furs, brushes, are a quieter
set, and so too are the big boned men returning to
business interests in the Philippines.
In contrast to the commercial group, though a wit
might discover unsuspected parallels, are the mis-
sionaries, scores of them. The Pacific has long been
preeminently ecclesiastic, though munition cargoes
bound for Vladivostok threaten her good name, of
late. A surprising number are young recruits, college
bred men, lively, athletic. Their obviously recent
brides are an attractive lot with stores of pretty
gowns exquisitely out of harmony with missionary
traditions. One young lady has brought along not a
portable church organ but a mandolin, croons
Southern melodies, and what! dances divinely.
Episcopalian, of course, and from Baltimore. Be-
tween the missionaries and the commercial ele-
ment may be found a thin, miscellaneous filling of
6 OVER JAPAN WAY
tourists and unclassified remnants moving picture
argonauts, a millionaire aviator, an Australian or
two, and the few who never unfold their wings.
They are very few, however, for getting acquainted
on board a small Pacific liner is almost inevitable.
The voyage by the southern route lasts sixteen or
seventeen days, which is at least thirteen more than
a normal being can hold his tongue. There are no
hermit retreats; to be alone, one must crawl into his
trunk.
The journey of 5545 miles has but one break.
After six days of monotonous blue, there appears on
the horizon a black line hardly distinguishable from
low-lying clouds. Slowly it grows into a moun-
tainous tract climbing up to mist hidden heights.
It is the first of the "loveliest fleet of islands that
lies anchored in any ocean." A new thrill is expe-
rienced when a fellow traveler points to the island
on which is the leper settlement known to all the
world through Stevenson's wrathful defence of
Father Damien. Meanwhile Oahu has been picked
up. It is late afternoon as we approach Diamond
Head, and the bold cliffs, half seen through the
gathering haze, are romantically beautiful. It is
but a brief vision of mountains rising abruptly out
of the sea, with here and there the suggestion of
gorge or ravine, or narrow fringe of sandy beach,
soon shut out. When at length the ship drops
anchor in Honolulu harbor, nothing is visible but
THE PACIFIC 7
thousands of lights, most of them near the water's
level, though a few sparks appear high up on the
mountain slopes which guard the city.
It is remarkable how much may be crowded into
twenty hours of shore-leave. When all come flocking
aboard, the following afternoon, each with at least a
pineapple, a wreath of flowers, and a supply of picture
postals by way of hastily snatched booty, and the
ship creeps away from the crowded dock where the
dusky Salvation Army band is playing, and a score
of boys, half fish, swim about, their cheeks bulging
with coins that have been thrown from the deck,
there is general agreement that it has been a Mara-
thon. Marvelous tales are told of Chinatown and
the Japanese quarters; of the most wonderful aqua-
rium in all the world; of drives through streets
beautiful with flowering trees, or up the winding
pass to the historic Pali with its fine view of cliffs
and ragged ridges at the foot of which lie terraced
farms, with the beautiful sea beyond; of dinner at
the big hotel from whose windows one watches
hundreds of natives skimming about in strange
shaped canoes or speeding shoreward on surf-boards.
Honors for doing the unusual are divided between
the party of young men who started at midnight on a
forty mile motor trip in inky darkness, going they
cared not where, and the stout gentleman who went
to a hotel and slept for twelve hours in a real bed that
did not rock.
8 OVER JAPAN WAY
For a time the ship follows the mountainous coast;
then night shuts in, and there will be no more land
till Japan, 3,445 miles to the northwest, lifts above
the horizon. The narrow round of deck activities
begins again, but with waning interest, the swimming
tank alone retaining popularity. It is very sultry.
Whatever of novelty the sea voyage once possessed
has worn away. As a last resort books are brought
forth from trunk bottoms, especially books about
Japan.
First we look at the map. A mere wisp of a realm,
Japan appears to be, festooned like so much seaweed
along the coast of Asia. Translated into statistics,
however, it makes a creditable showing. For exam-
ple, the festoons cover a range of about two thousand
miles, and include between three and four thousand
islands, beginning with the most northern of the
Kuriles a little south of Kamchatka and ending at
the southernmost tip of Formosa. Swing them over
to the eastern coast of America without change of
latitude and they would extend from Newfoundland
to the West Indies. May such a swing never be
made. Some of the islands, it is true, are mainly
seacoast; but between the Kurile group mere
dots on the map and the Loochoo group more
dots are four large islands constituting Japan
proper, and beyond the Loochoo archipelago lies
Formosa (14,000 sq. m.), besides which there is the
southern half of Saghalien (20,000 sq. m.) lying
THE PACIFIC 9
near the Siberian coast. Finally there is Korea
(85,000 sq. m.), and the territory acquired in the
present war, making in all about 250,000 square
miles, a total, by the way, seventy-five per cent,
greater than it was before the conflicts with China
and Russia. It is, then, a sizable realm, though none
too large for an estimated population of between
seventy and eighty millions, since it is about eighty-
five per cent, mountains. There are mountains
everywhere. Thirty or more peaks are over 8,000
feet high, thirteen over 10,000. Fuji is 12,387, and
Mt. Morrison in Formosa 13,020.
Thus far the statistics are in no way disquieting,
though they put an end to fond dreams of seeing all
Japan in three or four months. But as we read on,
Pandora's box comes to mind. Item: two hundred
volcanoes, fifty of which are more or less active, and
the rest, we fear, not to be trusted. It is slim con-
solation to learn that when one of the three volcanic
ranges is active, the others are likely to be quiet,
and that volcanoes are but safety valves anyway,
charms against earthquakes. Of earthquakes, 30,680
were recorded during the twenty-one years ending
1905, "not counting those minor vibrations which are
felt only by delicate instruments." Ninety is the
yearly average for Tokyo!
As if its purpose were to frighten away the boldest,
the Year Book proceeds to tell of disastrous tidal
waves, typhoons, and floods caused by swollen
io OVER JAPAN WAY
mountain streams; then soothes the reader with an
account of one thousand mineral springs, after
which comes "Flora and Fauna." A realm ex-
tending through so many degrees of latitude has
perforce, it is explained, a liberal assortment of
climates, almost Arctic at one extreme and tropical
at the other. Even Japan proper, which lies approx-
imately between the latitude of the mouth of the
Columbia river and that of the northernmost shore
of the Gulf of California, presents a wide range,
materially influenced by what corresponds to our
Gulf Stream, the Black Current which sweeps the
eastern coast, and by high mountain ranges. Hence
the wide variety in plant and animal life. There are
about four thousand species of plants (including
several thousand varieties of chrysanthemums), and
eighty species of mammals, thirty peculiar to Japan.
Among the latter is the Japanese horse. That it is
peculiar can be believed easily, we shall find later,
after once looking at it. Birds (400 species), reptiles,
amphibians, fish (1230 species), insects (20,003!)
dragon flies, ants, butterflies all have been care-
fully counted. To the lazy reader in a steamer
chair the figures seem reasonable enough, though
after living a few weeks in Japanese inns he will be
inclined to think that the varieties of fish have been
carelessly underestimated.
But at this point the sultry air and the cradle-like
motion of the ship prove too much for the lone
THE PACIFIC ii
tourist. The book slips from his hand and he dreams
that he is strolling about on the topmost roof of a
pagoda which wobbles with incipient earthquake,
feeding chrysanthemums and dragon-flies to 1230 fish
that swim gracefully about in the surrounding at-
mosphere. After all, what does it matter? To one
who travels solely for pleasure, a careful preliminary
study of guidebooks is not unlike slyly peeping at
packages a day or two before Christmas.
The passengers agree, as the voyage nears its end,
that the Pacific is not so bad after all. It was a good
day's work Balboa did down in Darien. Yet few will
deny that the ocean is much too wide and far from
entertaining. There might be, to good advantage,
several more Hawaiian groups scattered about, and
the intervening depths planted to whale and other ma-
rine novelties. Perhaps the man of overalls is right;
there should be many more ships plying between our
country and Asiatic ports. But the Pacific moon is
all right, and so are the sunset clouds: plumes fluffy
white; prehistoric monsters that lazily change into
still other monsters; sweet fern pastures, woodland
glades through which run molten streams; slopes of
heather beyond aery Loch Lomonds; broad bands
blood red, rare shades of yellow and green, with al-
ways at last the duller tints, smoke-gray fading into
black, and then the stars.
CHAPTER II
BREAKING IN
IT is raining. Into the rain are vanishing all ship-
board friends. I shall soon be alone on the crowded
wharf, nothing familiar to look at but my baggage.
The customs officials have glanced at it already and
decided it would be a waste of time to inspect before
giving each piece a chalk hieroglyphic. I am per-
fectly free to act at once on oft repeated advice not
to waste a minute in Yokohama but put for Tokyo.
I look about for a cab. But evidently Yokohama
is cabless; there is nothing hi sight save rain and
rikishas, plenty of each, the latter whirling away into
the former. A crowd of rikisha men surround me,
whereupon for the first time I begin to realize that
after being a native for many years, I am now a mere
foreigner, an ignorant immigrant. I really need a
destination placard. What the men are saying
sounds interesting but is unintelligible. My sole
vocabulary of Japanese is one word, ohaio or is it
dakota? At any rate, it means good morning or
possibly it is thank you; the word was under com-
plete control yesterday, but now that it is tune to
12
BREAKING IN 13
recite, memory becomes panicky. Neither good
morning nor thank you seems applicable in the
present crisis. I wish to say, " Gentlemen, I want to
go at once to the Tokyo tram, taking with me these
four pieces of luggage. How much will it cost?
Kindly state terms in United States currency. And
do not try to overcharge, sirs; the guidebooks say
that such is your wicked practice." To save time,
however, I compromise with "Tokyo tram," and
they seem to understand perfectly, each seizing a
piece of luggage and placing it in his vehicle. "No,
no, no," I protest, "not five rikishas, please; two will
suffice, one for baggage, one for me. This is not to be
a street parade but simply a transfer."
Getting into a rikisha for the first time, especially
if the top be up, is embarrassing. Should one back
in between the shafts as if slowly retreating before
some wild animal, and cautiously insert portions of
himself one at a time, or charge face forward and
head down, at the pyschological moment thinking
spiral staircases, and trust to instinct? A flank
attack seems unreasonable, and approach from the
rear would necessitate a stepladder. Once in, by
whatever method employed, you find yourself in a
precarious half-reclining posture, likely to lose all
that has been so heroically achieved, until the coolie
lifts the shafts and off the two-wheeled baby car-
riage moves, seemingly at the speed of a hook and
ladder brigade.
i 4 OVER JAPAN WAY
Through the little window in the front curtain
come visions of sudden death in rapid succession.
Pedestrians, rikishas, drays the street is alive with
traffic, and the bare-legged runner in dark blue
blouse and mushroom hat seems to go faster and
faster as the tangle becomes snarlier. You feel that
the end is near, you see it. The starboard wheel will
lock with yon dray's and at the same moment the
port wheel will knock down that youngster with the
close-cropped head. The runner will pitch head
forward; you will be catapulted beyond, suffer con-
cussion of the brain, and "come to" in a police
station where tearful parents are waiting to demand
thousands of yen for the loss of their only child, not
a mere girl, but a son, recently adopted. By the
time imagination has carried you thus far, dray,
child, and disaster are far astern, and you begin all
over again as a fresh catastrophe becomes immi-
nent. It is strange that the Japan Year Book,
which frankly records volcanoes, earthquakes, floods,
and typhoons, says not a word about transporta-
tion.
At the tram station at last, safe, but hair grown
grayer about the temples. I suspect that the rikisha
men have charged double the legal rate but am
spared the ignominy of knowing that this double
has been quadrupled through my inability to dis-
tinguish between five sen pieces and twenty. They
seem well satisfied and hasten away. A porter in
BREAKING IN 15
red cap and blue uniform, who understands a little
English though he will not speak it, appropriates the
luggage and assists in purchasing a ticket. Trunk
and suitcase are carefully weighed, and I am given
in exchange a slip of white tissue on which has been
inscribed in a dashing hand a laundry bill legend.
Stopping to secrete this, I look up just in time to see
the rest of my belongings disappear on the back of
the porter through a wicket gate. I hurry after, and,
scouting through the crowd, overtake it in the last
of four well-filled coaches. The porter waits cap in
hand. I assume that ten sen will be sufficient.
Apparently it is, for he bows and retires. The train
starts; I am off for Tokyo.
It is but an eighteen mile run, taking less than an
hour, through level seacoast country, much of it
given up to rice fields and market gardens, with
now and then a town of low-roofed houses. The
gathering darkness soon shuts out the view. Of the
little that has been seen, two things only will remain
indelibly impressed, the first a brown-skinned
laborer, naked save for loin cloth, wielding a heavy,
adz-shaped hoe. Apparently he is impervious to
weather and interested not a whit in the passing
train. The second is a fine big manufacturing plant
with black smoke rolling from its tall brick chimney.
The man with the hoe, I assume, typifies old Japan,
the factory typifies the new. Within the coach,
also, the new and the old are in strange contrast;
16 OVER JAPAN WAY
but before the confused passenger has collected his
wits sufficiently to make a sane inventory, the train
has entered the suburbs of the capital city.
At the central terminal the coaches empty quickly.
Following the example of others, I lift my bags
through an open window into the hands of an ex-
pectant porter and say, reluctantly, "Rikisha." He
understands, and by the time I have overtaken him
at the mam exit the dread thing is waiting. There
has been an embarrassing delay at the wicket; though
I think I remember perfectly the whereabouts of that
diminutive wad of tissue within a pocket or two,
that is I cannot immediately run down the railroad
ticket, which must be surrendered at the gate or one
remains on the platform for life. The tendency of
tickets to secrete themselves at critical moments is a
matter to which scientists have not given the atten-
tion it deserves.
"Hotel Central," I say in an easy, off hand man-
ner on entering the rikisha, and am about to add
"Tsukiji," the name of the district districts are of
more importance than streets, in Tokyo when I am
overtaken by a violent sneeze. Perhaps this was
opportune. Tsukiji is as deceptive in its pronuncia-
tion as Tchoupitoulas; but a vocal sneeze, too sudden
for suppression, is more than an approximation.
The runner nods and away we go. It is better fun,
this time, except at corners, where the shrill "AH
AH" comes just hi time to prevent a crash. How
BREAKING IN 17
easily the little man runs, ever at a uniform pace,
slackening speed not even when wiping brow and
neck with the cotton towel carried beneath his right
hand on the shaft, near where the lantern is hooked.
There is no breathing audible; the pneumatic tires
are noiseless. It is ghostly.
But where is he taking me? Wide streets, narrow
streets, narrower streets, alleys barely wide enough
for a wheelbarrow, dark places and still darker it
suggests treachery, ambush. How easily it might be
accomplished. A single upward toss of the shafts
bowls me over. Confederates rush forth from their
lurking place. In a jiffy I am robbed and left to
grope my way to the American Embassy, there to
start life anew with no wealth save that represented
by a thin tissue slip, fortunately overlooked by the
wicked highwaymen. But nothing of the kind shall
occur without a desperate struggle. At the moment
of attack I must act rapidly, fiercely as fast as I
can run, the direction to be determined by circum-
stances. They shall see. My camera and suitcase
shall be abandoned. A camera is a nuisance any-
way, and the suitcase can be replaced.
At this point, however, the rikisha turns into a
wide thoroughfare, and in less than two minutes I
step out at the door of an unmistakably clapboarded
box of a hotel and am received by a most hospitable
English landlord. It is done! I have broken into
Japan at last, and after a substantial dinner and a
1 8 OVER JAPAN WAY
long sleep in a bed which seems ridiculously wide to
one who for over two weeks has slept on a shelf the
width of a parlor mantel, shall be ready to go forth
and be conquered.
The Japanese believe in the open shop.
Street peddlers are common, but feu 1 carry such an
assortment as this.
CHAPTER III
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS
HOTEL CENTRAL is an unpretentious, inexpensive
affair, more like a boarding-house than an inn, where
one meets minor legation attaches, commercial men
in transit, a few missionaries, and fewer tourists.
Its name implies that it is in the heart of Tokyo, but
the heart is not centrally located; as a matter of
fact, the Hotel is down by the river in the "Foreign
Concession," agreeably quiet and sufficiently re-
spectable. Much finer, larger, and correspondingly
more expensive are the Seiyoken and the Imperial,
the latter near Hibiya Park and other points of
interest. At the Imperial one dresses for seven
o'clock dinner, eats rhythmically to the strains of
music, and has coffee near a big open fireplace if he
so elects. It has many rooms, much larger than in
most American hotels, and is very comfortable in a
semi-oriental way, which includes much attention
on the part of a small army of "boys," occasional
visits from the Chinese tailor, and possibly an inter-
view by a young reporter from the leading daily
who writes you up or down; it is all in Japanese and
20 OVER JAPAN WAY
you can't read even the headlines. In fact one re-
ceives a flattering amount of attention, soon feels
quite at home, and takes considerable pleasure in
mingling with people from all quarters of the globe,
especially Russia, China, and Australia, even though
he does not meet them all personally and could not
converse with many of them anyhow. English is
spoken at the office by extremely polite clerks, and
the "boys" speak it also with a difference. A
million dollar structure is to take the place of the
Imperial, it is said, as soon as plans are fully ma-
tured.
There are good European hotels in nearly all the
large towns visited by tourists, in Yokohama, Osaka,
Kobe, Nara, Nikko, Shimonoseki, etc., some of them
nearly palatial. Several are under the same manage-
ment as the Imperial Government Railways. Trav-
elers generally seem to place at the top of the list the
Grand in Yokohama; I vote for the Fujiya in Miyan-
oshita, but will frankly admit that the Kyoto Hotel
has the largest rooms. The one first assigned me was
so spacious that a rikisha would have been a con-
venience in going from the corridor door to the fire-
place; and the bed was wide enough for an entire
family. Later I was assigned a room larger still.
A pleasing custom at the Kyoto, doubtless followed
elsewhere too, is the decorating of one's table on the
day of departure with an elaborate display of flowers,
leaving barely room enough for viands, quite like a
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 21
funeral, in addition to which there is an abnormally
large bouquet designed for the buttonhole. This
flowery offering, where dainty maids are in attend-
ance, is sometimes taken by the uninitiated as a token
of deep affection. I once knew a young man but
that is a separate story.
The tourist who leaves the beaten track soon
learns that the small European hotel is likely to
prove a place of torture. When a Japanese cook
attempts to make Japanese food taste European, the
Eurasian result is melodramatic, the supreme pang
coming with the cup of coffee, which tastes the way a
self-confessed self-made man sometimes looks. It
may be gazed at, thought about, stirred, talked to,
but never should be taken internally. No, the native
inn is far preferable. And yet one hesitates, mainly,
no doubt, because the guidebooks warn so minutely
of every possible inconvenience, and the humorist,
with a fondness for exaggeration, has cartooned
libelously what, after all, is a very simple, harmless
institution. You put it off and put it off, till at last a
town is reached where there is no European hotel;
then it happens somewhat as follows :
You leave the train just as darkness is setting hi
darkness and rain. According to official records,
one is entitled to three pleasant days out of every
five, but my impression is that there are at least
five rainy days out of every three, a mathematical
22 OVER JAPAN WAY
impossibility anywhere beyond the barriers of the
Mikado's wonderful realm. Into a rikisha you are
packed and barricaded with luggage; into a second
rikisha the guide is packed and likewise barricaded.
The rain curtains are adjusted, the Japanese lan-
terns are hooked to the right shaft, lighted, and off
the procession goes through streets that shine with
reflected light, the American leading the way. In
Japan, the guest goes first. Ten minutes of this,
then a pause. It is an inn, the best in a town of
100,000 inhabitants. You prepare to dismount when
word comes that the inn is full. Off the procession
moves. Ten minutes more of pat-pat-pat through
slithery thoroughfares, then the parade enters a
narrow driveway or miniature court, and this time
accommodations are assured.
The hotel office is very simple, merely a room
raised a foot or so above the paved court. There is
no door; the front is all door. There is no counter,
no cigar case, no rack of time-tables, no leather up-
holstered chairs, no news-stand. The walls are not
decorated with heavily framed pictures of hotels in
Quebec and transatlantic steamships. There is prac-
tically nothing but the floor, a firepot, a smoke-box,
a ledger or two, and the proprietor calmly seated like
a Turk, who bows till his head nearly touches his
knees.
The office is to the right of what might be called the
main entrance, a sort of shallow platform with highly
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 23
polished surface, at the foot of which is a row of
wooden shoes, neatly arranged. Here the servants,
kneeling and bowing as before a pagan god, receive
the guests, taking coats and luggage and almost
insisting upon unlacing shoes and encasing the
guestly feet in house slippers. Encasing is hardly the
right word; the toes only are roofed over. For the
Japanese guest, who wears a blue ankle-sock, hook-
and-eyed at the side, with a private apartment for the
big toe, the house sandal has no upper whatever and
is kept on by a sort of wishbone-shaped cord which
begins in front, slips between the big toe apartment
and the four-toed tenement, and rejoins the sides of
the sole beneath the instep.
A maid at last conducts you to your room, up one
or two staircases, very steep, shiny, and without a
banister, and along corridors equally shiny and with
several turns in them. Japanese inns are mainly
corridors, amazingly undifferentiated, where one
easily loses his way. When hopelessly lost, it is expe-
dient to keep traveling till a staircase appears, then
descend and repeat the operation as often as may be
necessary until there is no more descending possi-
ble there are no cellars when usually you land in
the kitchen or the office; then at least you know
where you are, even though you are not where you
wish to be. Another method is to stand still and
clap your hands, whereupon a maid comes shuffling
up; you look confused and foolish, which she under-
24 OVER JAPAN WAY
stands, and leads you back to your room. But I
anticipate.
You are in your room at last. It is spacious, a ten
tatami affair. A tatami is a mat, about an inch thick
and always three feet by six, bound at the edges with
wide braid. The apartment opens upon a balcony
which is enclosed by night, looking down into a
narrow strip of garden. The front wall is made up of
four panels, each the size of a tatami, with little six
by eight panes of oiled paper. There is no lock.
One side wall is also of sliding panels. No lock.
The opposite side, bordering a passageway, is partly
ground glass, partly rough plaster. At the rear are
double alcoves or recesses, perhaps two feet deep.
One raised two or three inches from the floor, the
tokomona, contains a vase of flowers, the wall being
decorated with a kakemono or hanging screen. The
second alcove contains a little cupboard with sliding
doors (Japan is largely a hingeless realm), with a
woven kimono-basket and a writing-box. There is
no other furniture save two cushions, no ornamenta-
tion save a Chinese legend, framed, over the front
panels, which may mean "Buddha bless our home,"
but probably doesn't. Certainly there is very little
to bless. But everything is spotlessly clean.
Enters, a maid, without knocking. No one knocks
in Japan; the maid kneels and slides the panel noise-
lessly. She brings the firepot, a good-sized caldron
two-thirds full of fire ashes combed up to a miniature
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 25
Fuji of glowing charcoal. This is placed in front of
the cushions where you are trying to sit like a Jap-
anese and yet look pleasant. It is difficult to do both
at once. Exit maid, whereupon you get up and
stretch your legs. Reenters maid. She is slowly
furnishing the room. This time she brings a lac-
quered tray containing a tea-caddy, a tiny teapot,
saucers, and a little jar for waste. An iron kettle is
placed on a grid above Fuji and is soon steaming.
The maid makes tea. On a second tray, comes a dish
of sweet cakes, bean-hearted. Exit maid. You rise
and stretch your legs. Then you experiment with
the tea and cakes. They are good, especially the
tea, which has no perceptible taste. Reenters maid
bringing a kimono and waits. It is your move.
Foreigners sometimes speak slightingly of the
hotel kimono. Not of its material, evidently silk of
fine grade, nor of its lack of warmth, for it is padded
substantially. It is sure to fit reasonably well, for
it is adjustable equatorially like a bath-robe; and
should the garment trail a bit, the slack can be taken
up by adopting a blouse effect above the sash. It is
easy to walk in, and if one must sit on the floor with
feet folded under, it certainly is more comfortable
than any European garment. The real objection lies
in the thought that many other prodigals have worn
it before you prodigals or saints and that perhaps
you are unworthy of donning what has been donned
so often. You wonder whether it is compulsory, like
26 OVER JAPAN WAY
frock coat and top hat at the Mikado's garden
parties, or merely elective. Then you notice that the
cotton lining, a separate garment to be put on first, is
undeniably sweet, fresh from the laundry, and that
the maid waits. As she folds your clothes and packs
them neatly into the kimono basket, you observe
that she examines the suspenders with an eye full of
pity. Exit maid.
Solitude at last. You are at liberty to stand, sit,
roll, or canter, all of which you try, and then curl
round the caldron like a dragon guarding treas-
ures a dragon with sleeves two feet in circumfer-
ence and are just slipping off into a nap, when
enters a boy. Boy is, in Japan, a generic term, appli-
cable, apparently, to all servants who are not maids.
For aught I know, a boy may have grandchildren.
In the present case, boy is perhaps thirty, jolly-
faced, and equipped with a reasonably large vocab-
ulary of Japanese and one English monosyllable,
bath. He monosyllables and waits. Whereupon
you say with remarkable presence of mind, "Ah!
sodeska." Since landing in Yokahama, your vocab-
ularly has actually doubled; you can now say both
ohaio and sodeska fluently.
Of these two words the latter is by far the more
valuable. Ohaio, meaning good morning, is hardly
serviceable after ten A. M.; sodeska is negotiable
twelve months in the year, night and day. It means
indeed. But one may say sodeska in twenty different
The most attractive thing about many an inn is its garden.
This one is found at Nikko.
An inn garden at Yarnagata. Trees, rocks, pools, and bridges
play an important part in Japanese gardening.
Floii'ers are not conspicuous.
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 27
ways conveying as many shades of meaning joy,
sorrow, surprise, doubt, positive conviction, etc.
It is obviously the strategic, pivotal word of the
entire Japanese language. It is but the boy waits.
You know it is useless to temporize. You arise,
remove the outermost layer of the kimono so re-
cently adopted, hunt up a crash towel the inn
furnishes kimonos and sandals but no towels and
follow your captor, pausing now and then to re-
adjust a sandal which you have outdistanced.
No traveler who has written anything whatever
concerning the Mikado's realm has failed to speak of
the bath. It is a national institution, probably
antedating the earliest temples. To the Japanese it
is as the old oaken bucket to the New Englander.
The home is built round it as our ancestors built
round the open fireplace. Simple or elaborate, large
or small, private or public, it is found everywhere.
In the present case it is found near the front en-
trance, a little room with cement floor, in one corner
of which is a sunken tub, rectangular, so deep that
the water comes nearly up to the neck, and long
enough, with three or four inches to spare, for a
sitting posture. The water is not actually boiling,
though it feels that way. An objectionable feature
is that the water is seldom changed oftener than
once a day, the hotel guests bathing in the order of
their arrival, a distinctly fair arrangement. The
objection is weakened somewhat by the fact that,
28 OVER JAPAN WAY
before descending into the depths, the guest is
thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed, a painful process
when the "boy" (elective rather than obligatory,
which you fail to discover till afterwards; the guide
should have told you) is muscular and adept at
jiu-jitsu. You feel strangely light and giddy when
at last you escape from this personally conducted
bath, climb again the steep, highly polished stairs,
and regain your room, quoting Macbeth drowsily:
"To bed, to bed, to bed."
Upon a wish the bed appears. A raven-locked
"boy" brings it, the maid makes it, while you act as
silent, consenting witness. Where it comes from
you do not know nor care. There is no bedstead,
no mattress; there are no springs just the bed, in
layers, like a cake. Three thickly padded quilts are
placed one on top of the other. This is the founda-
tion. Over these is spread a sheet which looks like a
counterpane. Then comes the top part, two more
heavy quilts, the under one lined with a clean sheet.
For pillow there is a roll about ten inches in diameter,
apparently stuffed with rice chaff. There is nothing
to tuck in except the tenant, who is inserted between
layers three and four. Exit boy and maid, after
prostrations which bring the head to the matting.
You hear them skeeing down the corridor.
You are very sleepy. The rain, falling gently,
invites slumber. Still you hesitate. No locks. It
worries you a bit. Back home, the kitchen door,
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 29
cellar door, and front door are always safely barred
by night, every window fastener carefully adjusted.
Hark! Who lies beyond the sliding panels! You
listen, an innocent eavesdropper, to low, musical
voices SL man's, a woman's, a little child's. Evi-
dently a family group. You understand not a word
save an occasional sodeska. It all sounds innocent;
there is no hint of fear that you will creep in on them
and carry away the family purse. Such confidence
deserves reciprocation. You turn off the light and
crawl in.
It isn't so bad, except at the extremes. The
Japanese are a short people; the quilts were made for
Japanese. It is necessary to become a hypotenuse.
And the pillow is uncompromising. A brief trial
prompts you to discard it as hopeless and substitute
a pair of shoes rolled up in a raincoat. Delicious in
comparison. Mt. Fuji makes a faint glow. The rain
continues to fall. The voices in the adjoining room
grow intermittent. Memory carries you back many
years to a Thanksgiving eve when you and Tom
slept on the floor at Uncle John's, there being too few
beds for all the guests. Those were grand days, ah,
sodeska, sodes . You are asleep. The guidebooks
speak of fleas. I have no personal knowledge of but
one in all Japan. I think it was the same one, with
a fondness for travel. As for thievery, a careful in-
ventory at the close of journeyings of over two thou-
sand miles revealed that nothing was missing save a
30 OVER JAPAN WAY
tube of cold cream. A man should never carry cold
cream anyway. The maid who took it probably
thought it was tooth paste. She is welcome.
Morning. Still raining. You have been invited
out to breakfast and so escape, at least for a few
hours, Japanese cooking. Unfortunately the invita-
tion does not include the requisites for the morning
toilet. There is no water in the room, save perhaps a
gill hi the teakettle, which seems inadequate. No
mirror. Toilet case in hand you sally forth, thinking
evil of your guide, who should have left you explicit
directions. After one or two exasperating errors,
you find the common sink and the common basin
and the common mirror. No one disputes posses-
sion, though servants glide by decorously. They
see but do not observe. Still you feel like a public
character. What slaves we all are to convention!
It is while returning from the sink room that you
get lost. Back in your room at last, you find that
the bed has vanished. Mt. Fuji is again glowing, tea
is ready.
Two hours later you are back from breakfast and
ready to depart. Maids carry the luggage down
the shining stairways. Sandals are exchanged for
shoes. The proprietor presents you with a little
box which later you find contains five lignite sau-
cers, a local product. Bath boy and maids are as-
sembled to see you off. They bow with heads to
the floor as the rikishas turn.
EUROPEAN HOTELS AND JAPANESE INNS 31
"SayQ-nara, sayO-nara!"
"Good-bye, good-bye."
You are off. The bill? Guide has attended to
it perhaps three dollars for the two, one-third of it a
gift to the servants. Reasonably cheap. Ah,
sodeska.
P. S. I have just looked up in my little pocket
dictionary the word indeed and am amazed to find
that the Japanese equivalents are maru-hodo and
ika-samat It is a wonderful language.
CHAPTER IV
TOKYO
FIRST, a marshy tract about the mouth of a river,
swamps where wild fowl breed, rimmed with low
hills. In time a fisherman's hut appeared on the shore
of the shallow bay, two huts, half a dozen, a hamlet
of amphibian folk, and the future city of Tokyo was
founded without even a Romulus and Remus to give
it an appropriate legendary start. Years slipped
by, till along came a warrior, henchman of a feudal
lord, viewed swamp, marsh, lagoon, and hill, saw
possibilities, and built a stronghold on commanding
ground. In due time the warrior died a good death in
battle and another petty chieftain looked out from
the stronghold over swamp and marsh to the bay be-
yond. And he fought and died, and tune went on,
and with each death the castle passed into new
hands. Finally a general was sent by his over-lord
to take the place and hold it. So great was the
military genius of this man and so shrewd his political
sagacity that in a few years he became by right of
might ruler of all Japan, while the Mikado remained
a shadow; and Yedo, "estuary mouth," which in the
32
TOKYO 33
time of Columbus was still but a fishing hamlet near
the walls of a crude castle, became the political and
military center of the realm. The name of the
general was leyasu, the same whose sacred ashes
rest in that simple yet costly golden-bronze tomb
behind and above the holy of holies at Nikko.
The Shogun wrought mighty changes, material and
political. His palace grew to be a grand affair
guarded by triple moats for which water from a great
distance was brought by aqueduct, moats with
strong walls of massive granite blocks quarried
hundreds of miles away and cunningly fitted without
the aid of mortar. There were watchtowers and
drawbridges; the fortifications were made strong and
beautiful. Mansions followed, a few within the
walled enclosure, the rest near by, homes of the
feudal lords; for cunning leyasu decreed that during
half the year they should live in the capital, and that
when they departed for their country estates, wives
and children should be left behind. Streets were
laid out, canals dug, marshes drained or filled in.
With magical swiftness a city grew. It must have
been a gay, bustling place haughty barons issuing
from crested gateways attended by armed retainers,
streets thronged with soldiers none too polite to
humble tradesfolk, everywhere the craftsman, the
artisan, the common laborer, erecting temples and
dwellings, building roads and bridges, laying out
gardens, planting trees. The new capital became a
34 OVER JAPAN WAY
great market place for produce of all kinds; the
highways leading thither were far busier than today,
and the throng of wayfarers vastly more picturesque.
For over two hundred sixty years Tokugawa
shoguns ruled from the moated castle, and ever the
city grew, at times so rapidly that the influx had to be
checked by stern decree. More than once great
fires all but wiped it out; earthquakes shook down
structures which rose from the ashes, and started
fires anew. That was a ghastly pit dug in 1657 to
serve as a common grave for the tens of thousands
who perished in a fearful conflagration. A hundred
thousand, it is claimed, perished in the earthquake
and fire of 1855. Floods periodically drowned the
lower quarters, pestilence thinned out rich and poor.
Still the city grew, ever a finer place, till it sheltered
a million.
Finally occurred the greatest change of all. Na-
tions that long had sought admittance rudely forced
open the tightly sealed doors of the Hermit King-
dom, and the feudal system crumbled. The army of
the Mikado marched into the city established by
leyasu, and Yedo, "estuary mouth," became Tokyo,
"eastern capital." The day of shoguns and terri-
torial lords at an end, a great exodus naturally fol-
lowed, and much of feudal magnificence was pruned
away. Western civilization is drab rather than
picturesque.
The Restoration which brought a Mikado to the
A Tokyo watch toiver.
- -5
" iL*r^ - rtJ* ."*:' j
typical croii'fl of tourists before a temple in Shiba Park.
A temple roof with graceful lines.
TOKYO 35
triple moated castle occurred in 1868, fifty years ago.
What is Tokyo like today? The task of picturing it is
much too great, yet I will try, supplementing mem-
ories and hastily jotted notes with data gleaned from
many sources. At the very outset a serious difficulty
arises from inability to handle statistics often ap-
parently contradictory. The area of Tokyo, states
the official handbook, is one hundred square miles.
This sounds reasonable, though a fraction of a mile
more or less would lend an air of plausibility. But
the latest municipal report, which ought to be
reliable, for it contains nearly a thousand pages of
closely packed statistics between its honest blue
covers and weighs several pounds, gives the area as a
little less than thirty, with an extreme east and west
reach of five and one-half miles, and a north and
south reach of between seven and eight. I dispute
neither assertion, both may be right; yet without
violating the spirit of peaceful neutrality one may
venture to state that he seems to recall on several
occasions going at least eight miles in as straight a
line as streets would permit without arriving any-
where else. Probably the confusion is due to the
fact that there are many suburban towns so closely
adjoining that they are as much a part of Tokyo as
ancient Westminster is today a part of London. It is
approximately correct to say that some of the
suburbs are centrally located, and that unless new
municipality lines are established, the time will soon
3 6 OVER JAPAN WAY
come when more of Tokyo will be outside of Tokyo
than is now within.
At any rate, it is undeniably a big city, bordering
the northwest shore of Tokyo bay, with a river
dividing it unequally, a very big city, and as flat,
almost, as Chicago or New Orleans, though there
are "hill" districts, more or less aristocratic, which
reach an extreme altitude of one hundred thirty feet.
Statistics in regard to altitude harmonize perfectly
with recorded impressions, but difficulty arises again
in estimating population, figures varying to such a
degree as to warrant the assumption that the Japan-
ese are exceptionally hard to count. The latest
statement * I have seen gives the amazing number of
2,278,000, with a floating population of 235,000, and
844,000 suburbans. New York, London, Tokyo:
that is the new sequence, apparently, and a newer
rating may be looked for within a decade or two.
During the twenty- three years prior to 1914 the
increase was a little less than seventy-five per cent.,
and it is claimed that there are 80,000 more people
in the city today than there were a year ago.
It is a monotonously gray city, closely packed for
the most part, practically cellarless, and hugging the
earth length and breadth in abundance, but lacking
a noticeable third dimension. Acre after acre is
covered with one and two-storied buildings. There
are a few tallish structures government offices and
* J. Merle Davis in The Japan Evangelist, January, 1917.
Along the river front in Tokyo.
The castle moat in the heart of the city.
Praying at one of Tokyo's many shrines. Note the size of the
contribution box.
Entrance to a shrine in one of the poorer quarters.
TOKYO 37
business houses. Brick, stone, and plate glass have
crept in beneath the cloak of commerce and are now
openly competing with wood, plaster, and paper.
There are even a few earthquake defying steel and
concrete monsters, and probably a score are today in
course of construction; but no sky-scrapers, no
church spires, no streets that look like canons, and
except hi suburban manufacturing districts, prac-
tically no chimneys. Looking down from the roof-
garden of Japan's biggest department store, one
realizes that this is not a city of cellar furnaces and
kitchen ranges; the occasional protruding smoke-
pipe looks slenderly frail and accidental. In Tokyo,
heat wanders from room to room in charcoal firepots.
Bed, bath, and exercise are, to the poor at least, the
closest equivalents of our radiator, register, and fire-
place.
But how the ugly telephone and electric light poles
stick up above the gray tiling, piloting the eye along
channels of traffic. Tokyo's streets, a confusing net-
work of over six hundred miles, present an odd mix-
ture of old and new. There are a few noble avenues,
found principally near the Imperial Palace, and a
few business streets wide as Broadway. Whenever
fire clears a section, lines are moved back as a matter
of course, and congestion sometimes becomes so
intolerable that fires are not waited for. Millions of
yen are annually expended in pushing back building
lines and improving roadways. But much of the
38 OVER JAPAN WAY
old remains; most of the streets are Orientally
narrow, many too strait for automobiles, and there
are in the poorer quarters streetlets, alleys, mere
cracks, where a Falstaff might find progress per-
plexing. Sidewalks, it should be remembered, are a
Western extravagance; save in newer quarters, the
roadway reaches from house to house. All is side-
walk, all is road, all is playground, front yard,
nursery, promenade, market place. Tokyo lives out
of doors, mainly hi the streets, which are kept per-
petually damp. Frequent rains render them slippery.
The two-wheeled wateringcart, man propelled, is a
familiar sight, and its casual showers are supple-
mented by prudent shopkeepers, presumably to
protect their openly exposed wares from dust. These
supplementary sprinklings are not always sweet;
underground sewers are just "coming in."
The blue-covered statistical manual contains much
that will help in picturing Tokyo's street life. For
example, in 1914 the total number of horses in the
city was but 1,121. In the neighborhood of freight-
yards, one misses the cheery "Who-up! Go on there,
Dick." Most of the miserable beasts in service are
halter led, not driven by rein. They are the pariahs
of transportation, absolutely without social standing,
negligible. To match this paltry 1,121, there were
67,025 wagons. The real beast of burden is not the
horse nor the ox but man and woman. Bags, bales,
bundles, farm produce, heavy timber, stone, every-
TOKYO 39
tiling is hauled by two-footed animals. A common
sight is a heavily laden two-wheeled dray with a man
between the shafts, his son tugging at a lateral trace,
and a rugged mother pushing behind. Sometimes
the baby is strapped to the mother's back, sometimes
it sleeps on top of the load, and sometimes there is
no baby which is a pity, for it must be pleasanter
pulling when the entire family is along.
More picturesque are the natty rikisha men,
slender racers, who, it is said, are far less numerous
than ten years ago. At present there are but 17,616
of them! Then there are the bicycles, driven at
breakneck speed by 2,268 (this must be an error;
surely there are millions) artful dodgers, expert
juggling porters who will carry on head, back,
shoulders, or handle-bars anything short of a grand
square piano. To bicycles proper, add in motor-
cycles and 340 motor cars. And of course there are
trolley cars, precisely 893 of them at the latest
counting recorded, which must be pictured crowded,
packed, jammed, at most hours; and steam railways
enter the city from many directions, they, with the
help of electrics, bringing about forty-five thousand
passengers per day.
Now wind it all up and set it in motion. What
a medley it makes, and how much the stranger
sees that is unique; yet alas how soon the novelty
wears off, how quickly memory fades. Babies every-
where, strapped to the back of mother or sister or
40 OVER JAPAN WAY
brother, or carried in father's arms; gay files of
gorgeously attired geishas in swiftly moving rikishas;
the slow funeral procession, priest attended, the
upright coffin borne upon poles resting on the shoul-
ders of porters; school children (boys in military
caps, maids in blue or garnet skirts), a merry throng;
personally conducted excursion parties, obviously
from the rural districts, and frankly interested in
everything; the itinerant vendor of foodstuffs, his
neat wooden boxes suspended from the ends of a
slender pole which teeters as he hastens along at a
haK-running gait except as he pauses to blow his
horn or flute, or beat his tom-tom, or utter his
mournful cry; the Prince Imperial in closed carriage,
drawn by two of the best of the 1,121, imported
thoroughbreds that know their paces; the mayor's
limousine, with footman sometimes running ahead
to clear the way; shoppers, throngs on their way to
temples or parks, laborers in frocks bearing on their
backs the trade sign of their employers, priests,
beggars (though not many), peasants, grandees oh,
it all makes a fine spectacle, no matter where one
threads his way, an endless panorama which, in the
language of the showman, must be seen to be appre-
ciated.
Lower Tokyo is a Venice. Between the Bay and
what is left of the Castle moats, for there has been
much filling in to provide a place for boulevard and
government buildings, there is a network of navigable
TOKYO 41
canals, gracefully bridged at perhaps five hundred
points, leading to the wider river where shallow
draft steamers and schooners lie anchored and passen-
ger boats, ferries, and tugs hurry up stream and
down. Junks with quilted sails, high at bow and
stern, are moored along the bank; barges and sam-
pans, propelled by long, gracefully bending bamboo
poles or heavy sweeps jointed like the claw of a crab,
bring their cargoes to the very heart of the city. As
in land transportation, the water craft are often
worked by man and wife; and many evidently serve
as homes. Cargo discharged and the craft tethered
to poles thrust down into the mud, smoke from a
domestic fire arises, and the smell of cooking mingles
with less agreeable odors, for canals serve as drains,
though all night soil is frugally saved for rice field
and truck garden. It is pleasant to loll over bridge
parapets, watching the clumsily beautiful craft
crawl by, with difficulty curbing the impulse to
swing down and join some family crew and while
away a day or so in commercial gondola life, form a
part of the slow-moving procession contrasting so
strongly with the bustling street traffic.
Closely packed as much of the great city is, there
are nineteen parks, each beautiful in its way, and
spacious temple grounds, palace grounds, wonderful
private gardens, and trees wherever there is room for
them. The love of the Japanese for all growing
things, flower, shrub, tree, is more unreasonable
42 OVER JAPAN WAY
than that of any other people, at times approaching
mild insanity as inexplicable as it is enviable. The
most beautiful tract in Tokyo is that which contains
the Imperial Palace buildings, some of them resting
on foundations parts of which must be five hundred
years old. They are hidden from the common
gaze; no one passes through the well-guarded inner
gateway save at the Mikado's will. Yet much that
was once carefully guarded ground is now a public
esplanade. A ten minute walk from the Imperial
Hotel brings one to a point near the intersection
of busy streets where one gets a fine view of the
moat, with its sloping inner wall rising well above
the light green waters. Century old pines rooted in
the embankment above have been trained to send
their gnarled limbs far down over the wonderfully
preserved masonry, gray or mossy green. At angles
of the wall are unforgetable watchtowers, snowy
white save for the gracefully curved roofs. All seems
remotely mediaeval; yet on the near side of the moat
runs a wide boulevard flanked with large, modern
structures, and in the distance there looms through
the haze a mammoth insurance building nearing
completion, and still farther beyond, memory calls
to mind a busy section where, it is estimated, be-
tween two hundred fifty and three hundred thousand
souls pass daily. It is Japan's choicest possession,
this picturesque antiquity in the heart of the swarm-
ing city, anachronistically fascinating, magical in
TOKYO 43
its power to summon up palanquin days that will
never return. I wonder if it may not be true that
the wild fowl one sees swimming the moat or wad-
dling down the steep green embankment on the
upper side of the Imperial grounds are lineal de-
scendants of birds that nested in the reedy swamps
long before there was any Tokyo or even a Yedo.
Unbroken successions are common in Japan; the
Mikado himself is a direct descendant of a goddess
who lived when the islands of Japan were a-making.
But back to the modern city. Let us dip again
into the thousand page statistical yearbook dip at
random and see what figures can reveal. Here is a
small matter of 237 Shinto shrines and 191 Shinto
churches (one wishes he knew the difference), 1,207
Buddhist temples, no Christian churches and
preaching stations, and 586 schools, including a
number of colleges and universities religion and
culture in abundance, Oriental, Occidental. There
are nineteen theatres (2,022,758 spectators annually
"for whole acts"); 146 music halls with nearly three
million visitors during the year; 291 resorts classified
under the headings large-bow, small-bow, Yokin-
bow, billiards, indoor shooting, airgun, blowgun,
angling, go-game (military checkers), ska ting-halls;
15,936 "shows," 18 street showmen.
Evidently a pleasure-loving people, martial in
temperament. There seems to be plenty of time and
pocket money. Yet they are a busy people; to men-
44 OVER JAPAN WAY
tion a single line of activity, there are 2,174 factories,
and few are the streets which are not lined with
store-fronted or workshop-fronted homes. But
wages are so low as to suggest that not all who live
in Tokyo are habitual pleasure seekers. The latest
figures obtainable, three or four years old and prob-
ably considerably lower than those of today, give
the average wage of factory men as fifty-nine sen
(a sen is half a cent), and of women as twenty-nine
sen. The average carpenter receives one yen twenty
(sixty cents), the stone cutter one yen fifty, the
cabinet maker ninety sen, the clogmaker sixty-five
sen. Is it poverty or improvidence which enables
1,277 pawnbrokers to make 8,986,815 loans in a single
year?
But to continue. The city is well protected I
think the figures are for 1914, but it does not matter,
since general impressions only are sought by 3,865
white-gloved policemen assisted by 202 clerks, who
make, during the year, 20,625 arrests, 6,054 for
gambling and lottery, 5,504 for theft. Unbelievable!
There are 462 hotels, 1,259 boarding-houses, 380
lodging houses for laborers, 998 bath houses (a
remarkably clean people) 3,520 barbers (the hair is
worn short), and 6,748 hairdressers for the ladies
(out of all reasonable proportion, but the wonderful
coiffures explain and perhaps justify it).
Next comes a group of items over part of which
perhaps a veil should be drawn. Under police
TOKYO 45
protection are 317 licensed prostitute houses (4,373
inmates), 83 teahouses connected with the above,
1,193 "waiting houses" (see The Nightside of Japan),
540 higher restaurants, 718 public bars (Western
civilization), 46 teahouses, 5,875 "icewater shops"
(innocent), 9,495 lower restaurants, 19 theatre tea-
houses, 1,803 geisha houses with 4,775 geisha girls.
Even the dogs ye may know, 11,959, of which num-
ber 1,643 are "bad." And during the year nineteen
thirteen precisely 1,165,820 rats were caught, a sad
falling off of forty-five per day since the previous
year. Perhaps it is unnecessary to tell how many
were caught alive and how many dead, though it is
all figured out by districts and the average number
per household neatly figured. Rats carry the plague;
hence their title to statistical consideration.
Another dip, the last. Marriages, 12,257; divorces,
1,999; deaths, 38,902 (tuberculosis and pneumonia
are prominent in the long list of maladies); births,
52,116, and of the babies, 65 are foundlings and
7,441 illegitimate. (East is East and West is West.)
Let the survey of things statistical close with 4,806
physicians, 1,160 druggists, 9,193 retailers of patent
medicine and 3,003 peddlers of the same more
evidence of the rapid inroads of Western civilization.
To tourist eyes, Tokyo is as orderly as it is neatly
kept. There are no street brawls, seldom a reeling
tippler. The polite policemen, standing by their
cute little sentry boxes, seem to be ornaments only.
46 OVER JAPAN WAY
Whatever mischief goes on is under cover. And how
quiet at all hours. There is the indescribable click-
dick, scuff -scujf of clog and sandal, the pat-pat-pat
of runners' feet, the bicycler's alarm, the jingle of
sleighbells fastened to the paper boy's sash, making a
merry din as he runs from house to house, the occa-
sional honk of the chauffeur. There are the electrics,
to be sure, and the incoming trams. But street cries,
clicks, scuffs, and all do not produce anything re-
motely approximating the bass roar of bedlam New
York. And with the coming of electric lights and
paper lantern glows there is a hush suggesting that
most of Tokyo retires early. Few street cries are
heard save the mournful flute notes of blind masseur
or masseuse wandering from street to street till
midnight or later; then absolute quiet except for the
clack! clack-clack! of the watchman, who claps to-
gether two pieces of wood as he goes his rounds to
let honest people know that all is well, and give
enterprising thieves an accurate idea of his latitude
and longitude.
CHAPTER V
RIDING ON THE TRAIN
RAILWAY travel in Japan is comparatively inexpen-
sive. At least that is my impression; possibly those
who have no inherited weakness in things mathe-
matical may hold the opposite opinion after studying
the following figures.
To travel third class costs 1.65 sen per mile, a sen
being the equivalent of half a cent more or less, ac-
cording to shifts in exchange. If, however, the third
class passenger is going a journey of over fifty miles,
the rate shrinks to 1.40 sen; if over one hundred
miles, to 1. 10 sen; over two hundred miles, to .90 sen;
over three hundred miles, to .80 sen, or approx-
imately two-fifths of a cent in American gold. The
longer the journey, the less it costs. Thus far the
calculation is agreeably simple for one who carries
slate, pencil, and sponge. But there are complica-
tions. To travel second class costs fifty per cent,
extra, and first class fare is one hundred fifty per
cent, extra. Since first class compartments and
second class are practically identical in equipment,
the only advantages attached to the former are,
47
48 OVER JAPAN WAY
apparently, psychological and atmospheric. Then
there is a "transit duty" to pay, varying according
to class and distance, besides which one must pur-
chase "express extra tickets" for trips on fast trains,
the amount of "extra" neatly graduated according
to class, distance traveled, and the speed of the
locomotive. It may amount to more than the
regular fare. Berths vary from an unbelievably
small sum to four yen (two dollars). Of course,
there are commutation tickets and excursion rates.
Finally the usual invidious distinction is made in
regard to age: children under four are transported
free, their financial inability being thus frankly
recognized. Perhaps it should be added that there
is an ingeniously contrived scale of charges for excess
baggage, easily comprehensible to those who have
mastered bank discount and partial payments.
Practically all roads are owned by the government.
Collectively they are known as The Imperial Gov-
ernment Railways. They cover the main islands
fairly well, with a total length of over 5,400 miles.
As in our own country, speed varies. There are
trains which traverse the eighteen miles between
Tokyo and Yokohama in twenty-eight minutes,
plenty fast enough for sixty pound rails three and
one-half feet apart, for the Imperial Government
Railways are narrow gauge. The daily de luxe be-
tween Tokyo and Shimonoseki covers the 704 miles
in a little over twenty-five hours. From these
RIDING ON THE TRAIN 49
maxima the rate dwindles, the other extreme being
reached in sparsely settled regions where certain
trains, part freight, jog along absent-mindedly at
the rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour when the wind
is fair. For the most part it is a single track system.
The equipment is not easily described, for it lacks
uniformity. On some roads, the English compart-
ments are found; more common are the trains in
which seats run lengthwise. Although the coaches
are shorter than ours, many are divided into sections,
one first class, seating ten or twelve, the other second
class, with accommodations for perhaps three times
as many; or the smaller section may be a sleeper,
the larger for day passengers. Only on the Tokyo-
Shimonoseki run will one find a small observation
chair compartment. Third class coaches, with un-
upholstered seats back to back on either side of a
narrow central aisle, the floor of plain boards, and
with no toilet facilities, are usually crowded with
people of the lower ranks, whereas the small first
class compartments are frequently empty. In 1914
only three out of every thousand passengers traveled
first class, forty-three traveled second class, and
nine hundred fifty-four third class. One reason for
diversity in equipment is found in the rapid expan-
sion the system has undergone since the first rails
were laid in 1872, and a second may be due to the
fact that much of the rolling stock has come from
foreign countries, Great Britain, America, Germany,
So OVER JAPAN WAY
and even Switzerland, though of late years a rapidly
increasing number of locomotives and cars have
been made in Japan. The smartest equipment is
found, naturally, near the great centers of popula-
tion, for example Osaka, which receives, according
to the Year Book for 1917, over 270 trains daily.
The Bureau in charge of the Imperial Government
Railways has done everything conceivable to aid the
bewildered foreign traveler. There are time-tables
in English, with rates minutely figured for those not
familiar with logarithms. A most attractive booklet
of sixty pages, illustrated and furnished with a good
map, not only gives useful information about train
service but suggests tours short and long. For those
who are willing to pay a few shillings, there is an
admirable series of guidebooks, fuller even than the
loquacious and somewhat unreliable Terry, though
less discriminating than Murray. Finally there is
the Japan Tourist Bureau, maintained in part by the
Railways, with offices at Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe,
Nagasaki, and Shimonoseki, where one may go for
aid of all kinds.
In scores of little ways the comfort of the tourist
is looked after. Every car has a wide stripe of red,
blue, or white running beneath the windows, red for
third class, blue for second, white for third, with
Roman numerals I, II, III, for the color blind, in
addition to which there are destination placards.
No intelligence is taken for granted except that
RIDING ON THE TRAIN 51
it is assumed the traveler knows that trains, like
street vehicles, pass to the left. What station is this
we have just drawn into? Signboards tell in Japanese
and English, sizable boards and several of them.
What station did we pass last and what comes next?
The signboards tell and add the distance in miles.
Probably there are more signs and placards to the
inch in Japan than in any other country on earth.
Occasionally one finds in a railway station a good
map of the region and a list of the places of interest.
If, through the car window, you chance to see, be-
yond the rice fields, a particularly attractive moun-
tain and wish to know its name, the guard will tell
you with a courtesy implying that you have conferred
a deep favor by asking. He wears white gloves
even the engineer wears them and a neat blue
uniform. All train officials wear uniforms; and the
station-master, even in the smaller towns, comes
forth as the train draws in, like a Beau Brummel.
He wears a sword. The politest person I have ever
met was a train boy hi Northern Japan.
Riding on the cars in the Mikado's realm is great
fun. Next to tramping, for which one does not
always have time, it provides an excellent way of
seeing the country, and it furnishes admirable
opportunities for studying Japanese character with-
out being too obtrusive. Let me try to draw a pic-
ture of a second class carload on the line running
north from Tokyo or rather a series of pictures, per-
52 OVER JAPAN WAY
haps a bit kaleidoscopic, for the mind of one taking
his first car trip in Japan is apt to register impres-
sions in a confused state.
By reputation, the Japanese are the politest people
on earth, but their traveling manners are not above
reproach. New passengers crowd up the narrow
steps before the coach has emptied just as people
do in America. It sometimes becomes almost a
scrimmage, but is always good natured. The new
load, however, is not received wholly by way of the
platform. Windows are lowered and through them
are received vast quantities of luggage suitcases,
valises, carpetbags, bundles, baskets of fruit, what
not. "What not" includes, among other contrap-
tions, a cloth receptacle with a stiff bottom, a meal
sack sort of thing made of cotton, a kind of duffle
bag, very convenient and capacious. It also includes
impedimenta neatly done up in what we might call
bandannas, great squares of cotton or silk, the four
corners brought together and tied in a knot. My
lady's parcel-bandanna is very bright and pretty.
Once in, and the luggage stored in overhead racks,
the traveler, especially if going on a long journey,
proceeds to requisition as much space as he can; for
he knows very well that before long the inevitable
must occur he will fall asleep; in fact that is one
of the delights of travel. He has brought along a
blanket and a rubber pillow quickly inflated. It is
hugely pleasant to his beauty-loving nature to snore
RIDING ON THE TRAIN 53
away mile after mile, comfortably stretched out on
the seat, while the train glides through the prettiest
country on earth. Of course he slips out of his
wooden shoes first. Some trains furnish light san-
dals bed slippers heelless affairs that flop as you
walk; but even these are removed before slumber.
This rolling up in a blanket does not always come
on immediately. There are newspapers and mag-
azines to read, the eye running up and down the
page, not crosswise, for the lines of shrimps and
fishhooks stand on end. Then there is tobacco,
usually in cigarette form. The Japanese cigarette
is one-third hollow cardboard tube. The tube part
is unobjectionable. Almost as common as the
cigarette is the pipe, a foot, more or less, of bamboo
stem, lead-pencil size, with metal bowl and mouth-
piece. It is carried in a little case attached by a
cord to a tobacco pouch usually shaped like a pocket-
book. The case is worn tucked under the girdle like a
dagger, the pouch dangling outside. The bowl is
about one-third the size of a thimble; it contains
three or four puffs of finely shredded stuff. The
wisdom of the homeopathic dose is comprehensible
to the foreigner after a single application. There is a
duty of three hundred fifty per cent, on tobacco;
that which is furnished by the government monopoly
is to real tobacco as commercial substitutes are to
coffee.
The ladies smoke too, though I am told that among
54 OVER JAPAN WAY
the educated classes the practice is dying out, at a
time when in Europe, if not in America, the cigarette
is regarded as a symbol of culture and personal
liberty. The women passengers are in the minority.
They occupy what space is left after the men are
comfortably arranged they, their bundles, and their
children. Some of the men are in European clothes;
the women, very sensibly, retain native dress, rather
sober-hued kimonos with just a bit of color at the
neck and a bit more by way of sleeve lining, and
another bit at the hem of the skirt. (A man should
never attempt to describe such things; he always
makes a mess of it. Of course, a kimono has no
skirt or is it all skirt? At any rate, none of it is
shirtwaist.) And they wear no hats, a commendable
practice, though they atone for this economy by
arranging their glossy black hair (it is too straight
to be called locks) in a bewildering fashion, and
wear at the back a very beautiful obi, the same sug-
gesting an unstuffed sofa pillow, gay as an emperor
moth, tied on with a girdle sash several miles in
length. The general effect is very pleasing indeed
and her
Attitude's queer and quaint.
You're wrong if you think it ain't.
She is never flustered, her expression is always
sweet, and she acts with an ease of manner suggesting
that she was born and bred in a train. For a few
minutes she sits quietly in orthodox fashion, a polite
There (ire rice fields everywhere.
The irrigation wheel. Note the towel. With few exceptions
the peasants are amazingly neat.
RIDING ON THE TRAIN 55
concession to Europeans who have a mistaken idea
in regard to how coaches are designed to be used
like a courteous hostess who, noticing that her guest
employs his knife as a vehicle for transportation,
occasionally does likewise. But she knows better.
Very soon, without a trace of proud superiority
betrayed in her serene countenance, she slips off her
sandals, daintily steps up, tucks her feet under for
warmth and protection, and composes herself on the
cushion in a little bundle suggesting pussy in an
armchair before an open grate. Usually she faces
the window, which makes it nervous for the Amer-
ican sitting across the narrow aisle, who at first is
mortally afraid that she will soon topple over back-
wards, and then feels wickedly afraid that she won't.
Finally she, too, bows to the inevitable, nods and
nods, and at last rests her forehead upon the window-
sill while she dreams peacefully of fans, parasols, and
cherry-blossoms. As I write, there comes to mind a
picture of three maidens in their teens, two of them
thus attached to adjacent window-sills, the third,
occupying an end seat, with her head wedged into
the corner as if she had been a naughty girl. Each,
before retiring, had openly used her beauty-box a
little touch here and there with a comb and a frank
application of powder to the neck. But all this was
far north of Tokyo.
Next to sleeping, the greatest delight of railway
travel is eating. Even the babies seem to require,
56 OVER JAPAN WAY
and get, an astounding amount of sustenance. Most
through express trains carry a diner with seats for
twelve or more, where European food is served,
table d'hote or a la carte, fairly good and very reason-
able, the former costing from twenty-five to sixty
cents approximately, to which must be added a tip.
The diner is well patronized, but much food is con-
sumed in the regular coaches which brings to mind
the railway station.
Practically all railway stations are well planned,
well cared for. The larger ones are busy places. As
the train comes to a standstill, there arises a medley
of voices. Uniformed officials go up and down the
platform crying out "Sendai, Sendai," or whatever
the name of the place may be. Vying with them are
the newsboys with papers and magazines, and the
boy who sells hot milk, and the boy with bottles of
soft and hard, and the tea boy, and the fruit vender,
and the lunch man. Every coach is canvassed again
and again, and through the windows come food-
stuffs and drinks galore, in addition to which,
prudent mothers have brought along rice cakes and
bean cakes and oranges and bananas and persim-
mons. Nearly everything is amazingly cheap. As
soon as my working days are over, I plan to return to
Japan with a blanket and rubber pillow, and pass
declining years in a perpetual feast broken only by
slumber induced by car-wheel lullaby.
Tea in a little pot, convoyed by a tiny cup, very
RIDING ON THE TRAIN 57
dainty and yours to take home if you wish, though
nobody does, costs five sen (2^ cents) and never
keeps anyone awake. I have purchased oranges
enough for a large family, neatly stowed in a reed
network, for five or six cents. But the real miracle,
costing ten or fifteen cents, is the bento-bako. The
bento-bako (I hope I have the name correct) is a
course dinner put up in twin boxes of thin white wood
about six inches square and an inch deep, neatly
tied, with chopsticks and toothpick (sealed in tissue
paper) tucked under the string, and sometimes a
paper napkin. No matter where purchased, the
lower tenement box is filled with rice, each kernel
retaining its individuality, unvitiated by salt or
sugar. It is delicious, to those who like it, and obeys
the chopsticks better than most edibles. What the
upper tenement contains varies with the season and
the locality. It is divided into compartments, the
contents of each a surprise, agreeable or the con-
trary, to the European palate. (In Japan, all for-
eigners are Europeans.) Omelette (sweetened), fish
(sometimes Lilliputian eels), mushrooms, pickled
lotus root, bamboo shoots, beans (disguised or ob-
vious), radish in thin white slices, shrubbery in
various forms the variety is apparently endless,
and it all tastes as it should, I suppose, and fre-
quently is not injurious. After a few trials one can
stand nearly everything, if he is hungry enough, ex-
cept octopus, a rubbery fish which one eats the first
$8 OVER JAPAN WAY
time experimentally and thinks about for a long
time afterward. Perhaps the most substantial
treasures are little morsels of beef or chicken, a sort
of connecting link between Oriental and Occidental
cooking.
A day coach cannot serve as sleeper and diner too
without consequences. The floor soon suggests a
neglected alley in an ancient town. Lunch boxes,
teapots, orange peel, ashes, and other refuse make a
muss. The train boy appears periodically, cleans
everything out, and arranges sandals in military
rows. He even mops till the linoleum looks sickly.
But it is an expedient, not a permanent cure. Even
above decks, the general effect is not wholly pleasing
to the eye that craves symmetry: sleepers prone,
sleepers upright, sleepers slanted, braced, or totter-
ing; passengers sitting hi the orthodox fashion,
passengers with feet tucked under; passengers facing
north, south, east, and west; travelers who live to
read and others who live to eat; Japanese hi European
clothes and Japanese in Japanese, and one American
with a notebook; above, beetling crags of miscel-
laneous luggage threatening at any moment to fall
through the smoky atmosphere with fatal results.
The color scheme is sombre, save for brilliant patches
here and there, the same being children in many-
hued kimonos; and all is grave as a funeral. The
Japanese are not loquacious when journeying by rail.
Home of a peasant of the poorer class.
Win n diving grain.
The Sacred Bridge.
A cryptomeria avenue at Nikko,
CHAPTER VI
NIKKO
IT is a place of enchantment, a rare bit of dream-
land sent to this world by mistake and likely to
vanish without a moment's notice as soon as the
error has been discovered mountains, vales, ravines,
lakes, waterfalls, cascades, and madly rushing
streams; regal trees in solemn procession shading
ancient roadways, steep slopes superabundantly
green with smaller growth, rocks and walls velveted
with moss or hoary with lichens. It is a place
glorified, if not sanctified, by the richest, proudest
group of temples in the Mikado's realm. Nor is this
all. That stately avenue of lofty cedars which once
formed a royal approach, no longer intact throughout
its length of twenty miles or more yet grandly beauti-
ful still in some of its reaches, leads not only to the
Sacred Mountain on whose wooded slopes the temples
stand, but far back through feudal days of splendor-
back even to the times when in another island realm
a proud queen sat on the throne and a Raleigh
languished in the Tower, and prentice lads stole
away to the Globe to see plays by the Stratford up-
59
60 OVER JAPAN WAY
start. Mighty leyasu, first and greatest of the
Tokugawa Shoguns, whose deified ashes draw thou-
sands of pilgrims annually to the Sacred Mountain,
quitted this world with Shakespeare, three centuries
ago. Doubtless they have met ere now in some
celestial teahouse or tavern.
Unless this place of enchantment has already dis-
appeared, you will find it ninety-one miles north of
Tokyo and two thousand feet higher up. Get a
ticket for Nikko at Ueno station and four hours later
leave the train at Hachi-ishi. Hachi-ishi is not,
properly speaking, a part of the dreamland but a
worldly little town that has squeezed itself in be-
tween an overshadowing mountain ridge and an
angry river, and climbed up a mile or two to the
Sacred Bridge, beyond which its closely packed rows
of restaurants, teahouses, hotels, provision stores, and
curio shops dare not venture. The main thorough-
fare, however, passes on, crosses an iron bridge which
is also of this world, circles the base of the Mountain,
visits the sister town of Iri-machi and other hamlets
beyond, and, far up among lofty peaks, becomes
translated into trails. Easily might one go from
Hachi-ishi to Iri-machi without once suspecting the
presence of sacred things. Not even the spiral tip
of a five storied pagoda reveals the secret; all is hid-
den in cryptomeria groves. It is the Japanese way.
A trolley line climbs the main street. Rikishas are
in waiting at the railroad station. The pilgrims,
NIKKO 61
however, which pour out of the trains in companies
of twenty, fifty, one hundred, swarm up the narrow
thoroughfare on foot, many with staff in hand and a
bundle of "needments" slung over the shoulder.
Through the crowd whirl automobiles from the
European hotels at a frightful rate, the constantly
tooted horn scattering humble folk to right and
left. Even in courteous Japan, the motor car is a
brutal aristocrat.
Sanctified Nikko begins at the Sacred Bridge,
which at first glance does not look so very sacred ex-
cept when contrasted with the ugly iron structure a
few yards lower down, built for profane daily traffic.
It is extremely simple, a single balustraded arch of
less than one hundred feet, supported at either end
by a slender granite torii. But wait till its red lacquer
is bright with rain, and the valley beyond full of
mist, and the stream below a brawl of white and
steel-blue. Stand where you may see, just beyond
the red arch, the sacred stairway mounting steeply
through dark cryptomerias, and the gently rising
pilgrim-path, wide, roughly paved with well-worn
stones, which winds gracefully a bit farther to the
left, its gloom relieved by groups of the devout
returning from worship. Between the Bridge and
this wide pathway runs the well-buttressed cause-
way, with its interesting panorama of mundane
traffic a bevy of schoolgirls, timid little creatures
who laugh merrily and run away when you make
62 OVER JAPAN WAY
friendly advances; a peasant leading three miserable
horses in tandem, each so ladened with coarse moun-
tain hay as to be scarcely visible; a rikisha, one coolie
between the shafts, a second pushing behind; a
party of young men in student caps returning from
the day's tramp to Lake Chuzenji. As darkness
gathers, the bridge no longer gleams; its rich red
lacquer is barely distinguishable from the black
metal caps of the baluster posts. It begins to look
mystical, worthy of the legends which connect it
with far away days when holy men and miracles
were more common. Perhaps, after all, it is sacred.
The gates which bar it are justifiable; its smooth
planks are rightly preserved for the sandals of church
and state dignitaries. Twice a year is often enough
to throw it open to pilgrim throngs. Darkness at
last. Lights begin to twinkle. Down the road comes
a lantern bearer. Mountain peaks have vanished
long since. I wonder if it is true, as the guidebook
avers, that sometimes under cover of darkness ven-
turesome youth climb the gates and scamper back
and forth over the arch. Impious rascals! And yet
the sensations must be delicious; I'd like to try it.
That roughly paved pilgrim-way which winds
steeply up from the Bridge is but one of several ap-
proaches to the temple compound. All sooner or
later open into a noble avenue at least sixty feet
wide, gently rising for an eighth of a mile between
stone-faced embankments crowned with lofty trees,
NIKKO 63
to a mammoth granite torii nearly three centuries
old, the dignified portal to the Mausoleum of leyasu.
A little to the left a five-storied pagoda stands guard,
earthquake proof because of its huge pendulum
beam, but not secure from decay. One misses the
tinkle of the bronze wind-bells which usually hang
from each comer of the gracefully upcurved eaves;
instead comes the sound of mallet and plane. Scaf-
folding obscures its beauty. All that lies beyond the
gray old torii casts such a spell of enchantment that
no one has ever been able to describe its bewildering
beauty. Evidently Mr. Terry has inspected it
minutely, equipped with foot rule and magnifying
glass and a dictionary of adjectives. The steps of
each worn stairway have been counted, retaining
walls carefully measured. No dragon nor elephant
nor unicorn in all the wondrous carvings and paint-
ings has escaped his notice, no glint of gold upon the
copper tiled roofs. Yet when the last sentence of the
thirty or more closely packed pages devoted to
Nikko was written, no doubt the guardian spirits of
the Sacred Mountain smiled. Enchanted things are
not for guidebook makers, nor for the careless pen of a
rambling tourist.
Before me lies a penny pictorial map such as
is sold to pilgrims, a gay combination of honest
green, blue, red, and yellow, more satisfying than
Mr. Terry's labored description. Perspective is
lacking, but that is atoned for by a fine priestly
64. OVER JAPAN WAY
procession which forms a wide, gratuitous border
along the bottom. The yellow is employed mainly
for little labels tucked in here and there to tell the
pilgrim what building he is looking at. They do no
harm, though one cannot read their legends. There
is a lot of green, as there should be. Green is for
trees, very tall, with straight trunks which do not
bear branches save up aloft, sacred cryptomerias
completely masking the mountain slope, crowding
in upon carefully terraced temple grounds, court
rising above court. A few of the bolder ones have
even left the groves and apparently stand where
they will near holy buildings. The retaining walls
which keep the terraces from washing away the
whole mountain is adrip with rivulets and cas-
cades are pictured in blue, as is a certain picketed
parapet of stone, and the wide paved walks and
stairways leading from terrace to terrace, the torii,
and the extravagantly numerous lanterns of stone or
metal. Blue is employed merely for convenient
definition; no deception is intended. Nikko stone is
gray, till weather-stained and mossed and lichened,
as most of it is. Red are all the many buildings, the
elaborate gateways, and the cloister walls, which is
essentially correct; but the gracefully curved roofs
are blue again, an excusable misrepresentation since
beautiful copper tiling, sometimes flecked with gold
(phrase borrowed from the guidebook), can hardly
be reproduced in a penny print. The artist has
NIKKO 65
wisely refrained from picturing interiors, though a
sleeping cat does appear somewhat impossibly among
the treetops, and there is a mere glimpse of the Holy
of Holies which stands in the upper terrace.
Simple as is this polychrome chart, the fading
memories of a morning or two spent in overtaking a
priest who hurried from building to building can
supplement it but feebly. It is easy to recall the
three gateways, each as costly and gorgeous as the
Oriental imagination of the seventeenth century
could make it, each protected by two horrid warrior
gods and two ferocious guardian dogs imperfectly
shielded from the weather by heavy bronze-tiled
roofs. Less distinct are a number of minor build-
ings, the library, the treasure houses and store-
rooms, the bell tower, the stable, each worthy of a
morning's study. Unforgettable is one temple in
particular, with a beautiful dragon sprawling over
nearly its entire ceiling; and so too is the marvelously
decorated corridor, over seven hundred feet long and
eleven feet wide, which encloses the third terrace. I
recall that everywhere there was an extravagant
abundance of ornamentation concealing structural
lines, intricate cornices, brackets, sculptures, carv-
ings, paintings, arabesques flowers, birds, beasts,
fish, creatures real, creatures mythical, especially
dragons ascending, descending, crouching, crawling,
rearing, blue ones, green ones, gold ones, all beautiful,
but unpleasant to dream about. I remember that the
66 OVER JAPAN WAY
floors, whether lacquered or matted, were as cold as
they were sacred, to stocking feet; that it was easy to
kneel when others knelt, especially in that largest and
most wonderful structure of all, containing the Holy
of Holies; but that when, before a beautiful altar, a
strangely attired priestly dignitary prayed for me,
even mentioning name and nationality, the re-
sultant emotions were less holy than they would
have been had the sinner's feet been warmer. In
imagination there still arises the smell of incense, and
I taste again the warm sake, possibly fifty drops
poured into a tiny white bowl by a solemn attendant,
and the little rice wafers accompanying it. It was
unfortunate that at the very moment when the
impressive ceremony was beginning to drive away
worldly thought, a telephone rang not ten feet away,
followed by animated and prolonged conservation.
Finally, returning to precincts less holy, the
guide led our little party out of the main com-
pound, through a door above which reposed the
far-famed cat, to a stairway of two hundred steps
between mossy retaining walls, leading up to a little
area surrounded by a plain stone balustrade back
of the Holy of Holies and well above it. There, in a
relatively simple yet costly tomb of "pale gold
bronze," a domed cylinder rising from a base of five
bronze steps and capped with a pagoda-like roof
terminating in a "forked flame," are the ashes of the
man to perpetuate whose memory all the beauty
NIKKO 67
Which lies lower down was planned and executed.
There they have reposed since April twentieth, 1617,
when with unprecedented pomp and ceremony they
were consigned to their final restingplace.
Wonderful are the changes that have come since
that day. leyasu was a great man who dreamed, a
brave warrior, a statesman. He rose almost from
obscurity at a time of national confusion, seized upon
opportunity and won his place in the temple of fame.
It was he who organized and perfected Japan's
elaborate feudal system and perpetuated that strange
dual arrangement which kept the emperor a spiritual
lord with shadowy sceptre practically a prisoner in
Kyoto while a shogun backed by military power
actually ruled in Tokyo. So cleverly did he manage
that for two hundred sixty-five years the de facto
sway of government remained in his family. It was
during the rule of his grandson, whose mausoleum, in
some respects even more beautiful, practically ad-
joins that of leyasu, that early Christianity was
blotted out by persecutions the most cruel the world
has ever known, and Japan was sealed up, made a
hermit kingdom for over two centuries. The de-
scendants wrought, yet we suspect that all was in-
cluded in the dream which found lodgement in the
brain of the first Tokugawa Shogun.
But today the Mikado, actual lord spiritual and
temporal, rules from his palace in Tokyo. The
feudal system has been swept away completely.
68 OVER JAPAN WAY
Ships from all nations enter the ports of the once
hermit kingdom, and Christian priests are free to
come and go. The costly mausoleum of mighty
leyasu remains. Much of its glory, however, has
departed. A number of buildings, including the
abbot's palace, have been destroyed by fire. The
immense revenues of earlier days ceased with the
Restoration, so that now priestly attendants are
pitifully few, and necessary repairs are made at
government expense. Petty tolls and fees, the sale
of illustrated booklets, and similar expedients for
adding small sums to the treasury taint the at-
mosphere of sanctity. Yet doubtless what remains
will be preserved long after the ideas for which
leyasu stood have been fully supplanted. That
such a time is far distant, witness the throngs of
pilgrims. They do not journey hundreds of miles
merely to view beautiful temple buildings, but
to render homage to a great national hero.
To me these pilgrim visitors were more fascinating
than all the bewildering richness of gold and red and
green and blue. I never tired of watching them.
Many, evidently, were plain country folk, simply
dressed men and women who followed the conducting
guide about with open-mouthed credulity and be-
coming reverence. They were poor people, ap-
parently, field-workers, yet laying out a few pennies
here and there for charms for the shrine at home and
trinkets to take back to the children. There were
NIKKO 69
many such companies, presumably from all parts of
Japan; and more numerous still were bands of school
children and students, accompanied by their instruct-
ors. Wonderfully decorous were these young people,
quiet and orderly to a degree that would astound
American youth. I am told that excursions to places
of national interest are a regular part of the educa-
tional scheme, a very practical, wholesome way of
teaching history, patriotism, and reverence for an-
cestors. No matter where one goes, he will find
these tourist bands. The railroads transport them
at very low rates and hotels make liberal con-
cessions. It is a wise custom which might well be
adopted even in our own big country.
In an album of colored views purchased in one of
the temples occurs this significant statement in
quaint English, evidently from a priestly pen: "The
grand architectural wonder, as is seen today, owed
to the zeal and policy of the all-powerful third
Shogun, who demanded the alloted contributions to
his three hundred Lords. The expenses used here
were large enough to exhaust all the war funds the
Lords put aside." Allotted contributions designed
to exhaust the war funds of mighty Lords, and merely
incidentally to give grandfather a respectable burial!
So that explains why Lord Masatsuma planted
cryptomerias for twenty years, and Lord Nagamasa
erected the huge stone torii, and Lord Tadakatsu
contributed a trifle in the shape of a five-storied
70 OVER JAPAN WAY
pagoda, and Lord Katsushige a 120,000 yen sacred
lavatory? The King of Korea was let off with a
bell, and what the King of the Loo-choo Islands
gave, I have forgotten, but it cost him a pretty
penny, no doubt. It all somehow reminds one of
that cat, carved above the doorway through which
one passes to reach the Shogun's tomb a cat sham-
ming sleep.
The two Shoguns are not the only dignitaries
buried at Nikko, nor are their mausolea the only
shrines. But there is a limit to the enjoyment one
can get out of proud memorials to sacred ashes. It is
a positive relief to slip away and go whistling down
the busy village street. Live people, after all, are
mighty interesting, especially children. I am not
quite sure now that I fully understand the game of
jacks as it is played in Nikko, though three little
girls tried hard to teach me, a shopkeeper's trio
sitting in what might have been the show window if
there had been any glass front. Certain it is that
you must laugh a great deal and not hope to make
all the beans stay on the back of a hand that is much
too old for jacks. Then there are the photographers'
shops and the curio shops, and the really wonderful
stores where one may spend a fortune in no time.
"Two bits! two bits, Mary; remember that is the
limit," I overhear a little Calif ornian say to his tall
wife, who is looking at silver chains. Ten minutes
later it was "Two yen, Mary; nothing over two."
NIKKO 71
Two bits is but fifty cents, two yen is a dollar. And I
know full well that within an hour or so Mary will be
saying, "No, John, fifty dollars is too much. Re-
member that we haven't done Hongkong yet, nor
Manila." A month hence he will be cabling home
for money.
The most fascinating wares, it seemed to me, were
the product of woodcarvers, quite possibly the
lineal descendants of workmen who made beautiful
the Shoguns' mausolea. Such tempting things in
lacquer tables, boxes, trays, picture frames! And a
very nice feature is that the visitor may, without
offense, step in and see carvers at work. At one
place a workman with three or four little chisels was
carving wooden plates at a rate uncanny. Ten
minutes sufficed for a good representation of the
Sacred Bridge, the pilgrim path beyond, the foaming
torrent, a tree or two, and all the mountains de-
sirable, without a single pause to estimate distance.
Plate, carving, and the fun of watching, all for ten
cents; smaller ones for six!
I had quite forgotten till reminded by my note-
book that the first elaborate gateway just beyond the
granite torii had a gilded ridgepole and red pillars,
and that the brace of ugly gods guarding it, forming
a horrid Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, were also
red. In time, I fear, all details will slip from memory
and but the haziest of general impressions remain.
Will it be the same, I wonder, with that rarest of
72 OVER JAPAN WAY
dreamland wonders, Lake Chuzenji, which lies in the
shadow of lofty Nantai-zan (8,460 feet), eight miles
above Hachi-ishi.
An electric tram runs half-way, and the remaining
distance is covered easily in a little over two hours.
The road, built by the government at great expense,
follows the river, at first in a long, straight stretch
of comfortable pitch, occasionally crossing the stream
or clinging to the face of a bold crag, but soon be-
comes a succession of hairpin turns, climbing so
abruptly that often the traveler may look down and
see several nearly parallel stretches of the Jacob's
ladder. Wherever there is a particularly fine view
of ravine or waterfall or crag, a teahouse has been
perched where light refreshments are served, with
the usual temptations in the line of walking sticks,
post cards, fruits, and candies. These are well
patronized, apparently, by the hundreds of tourists
whom we meet students hi smart military cos-
tume, bands of country people suggesting Canter-
bury folk, and the solitary white-clad pilgrim with
bell, scrip, and staff. A few of the well-to-do are in
rikishas. An occasional packtrain, heavily burdened,
ambles past.
Up and up the densely wooded slope the road
zig-zags till at length it reaches a spongy plateau
with a slight downward dip, where a few dwell-
ings announce the outskirts of a village. Soon
a diverging path leads to the neatest of resthouses
Lake Chuzenji.
NIKKO 73
near the edge of a verdant cliff. Approaching the
rail on the very brink, where a score of beauty-loving
Japanese are making no effort to restrain emotional
ecstasy, we look upon one of the rarest sights in the
kingdom, a stream that plunges with a roar two
hundred fifty feet and fills the deep ravine with
clouds of mist. Why attempt to describe it?
A twenty minute walk up the stream which makes
this bold leap brings us to the lake, more beautiful
still in a quieter way, walled in by steep slopes with
cloudhidden crests, slopes everywhere green save
that torrents have scoured out an occasional deep
cut. One wide scar marks the landslip which, fifteen
years ago, swept away a fine temple pushed it,
crushed, into the lake. Of course there is a village,
a long, shabby street; for sacred Nantai-san is
climbed each summer by thousands of the devout,
all of whom must be lodged and fed. Standing
aloof is a large hotel where the rich may go, and a
few villas belonging to Europeans.
But the lake's the thing, clear, deep, silent. As
we glide along in a primitive barge, the big square
sail aft of the matting on which we are kneeling
Orientally, now passing a little island shrine, now
in the shadow a great wall of browns and greens
with here and there a faint touch of early autumn
brightness, now skirting a pebbly shore leading up to
the daintiest of woodland temples, I try in vain to
think of a more beautiful sheet of water. An eagle
74 OVER JAPAN WAY
wheels lazily about, far up in the clouds. Then comes
a cold blast, swift gathering mists, and a dash of rain,
no doubt a rude warning from tutelary spirits that
beauty such as Chuzenji's should be glimpsed only.
A few miles beyond is a second lake, and beyond that
a third, merely a tarn in a mountain cup over a mile
above the Pacific; but the weather is too threatening,
the day too short. We hasten back down the zig-
zag road, through clouds that conceal crag, cascade,
and ravine as effectually as if all had been whisked
away save the narrow road.
On my way to station the following morning, I
turned for a last look at the Sacred Mountain. There
it was, a wall of exquisite green. Yet even as I
looked, it vanished in blue haze. Wonderful Nikko,
truly a place of enchantment, a bit of dreamland sent
to this world by mistake and sure, sooner or later, to
vanish altogether.
CHAPTER VII
CHOPSTICKS
"THE last faint cloud in the world of physical
phenomena has been blown away, the remotest
cranny of the human mind inquisitively probed.
Everything that never was on sea or land has been
sung by numberless poets. Japanese food alone re-
mains essentially terra incognita, the one mystery
left in a universe grown shockingly familiar. Brave
explorers have cautiously skirted here and there a
bay; the few who boldly penetrate the interior never
return. The one great book awaiting the pen of
genius finer than the world has yet produced will
bear the title Cosmogony of Japanese Cooking. When
completed, it should be immediately suppressed."
This burst of mock eloquence came from the lips
of the Californian's wife as we were lunching in a
summerhouse on the shore of Lake Chuzenji. It was
punctuated with appreciative bites out of dainty
chicken sandwiches put up at the Nikko Hotel in neat
wooden boxes, one box for each picnicker. Besides
sandwiches, there were two eggs apiece, a rosy apple,
a slice of chocolate roll, and little round boxes con-
75
76 OVER JAPAN WAY
taining a community supply of butter and mustard.
Nothing could have been neater. The guide smiled
as he looked at his own box, supplied by a Japanese
inn. It was nearly full of rice, with a few vegetables
occupying a corner lot, and a superimposed layer of
eels, kindergarten length. By way of comment, I
reached over and appropriated the nearest eel with
thumb and finger, declining the quickly proffered
chopsticks. It was delicious, sweet and tender as a
Chuzenji trout, worthy of an epic such as Barlow
wrote in praise of hasty pudding, though to speak
of such ambrosia and coarse Indian meal in the same
breath were sacrilege. I did begin a modest tribute
which might have blossomed into a graceful sonnet
containing, of course, a punning allusion to Charles
Lamb, had not the inspiration of the moment been
snapped short by horrified feminine invective. That
eel was my unpremeditated introduction to Japanese
cooking.
The Japanese inn has no dining-room, or perhaps
it would be better to say that it is all dining-room, for
the guest dines in his sleeping-room and sleeps in his
dining-room, each being the other when it is not
itself, or vice versa, and both serving as parlor when
each is neither. I hope this is clear, and that the
beautiful economy of the scheme is apparent. No
midday meal is served except as a concession; that
is, it appears prominently on the bill as an extra
item. You are supposed to dine out, which is no
CHOPSTICKS 77
hardship to the tourist; loyalty to native land
prompts him to seek at least one "European" meal
a day. There are other motives which need not be
mentioned.
No bell announces that supper is ready; instead,
you ring a bell when your appetite is ready. The
bell is really a push-button, failing to find which, you
clap your hands as if in joyful anticipation. Sound
carries where there are none but paper barriers.
From far below comes a cheerful "Aiee!" and soon
the maid arrives, her head appearing first, as the door
slides gently back, a little below where the knob
would be if there were one. Through the guide you
inform her that you require food, discreetly refraining
from specifying varieties but hoping for the best.
Perhaps the guide informs her that it is your first
meal in a Japanese inn and makes a few suggestions.
One drawback in traveling with a native conservator
is that you never know what he is saying to other
natives and not always what he is trying to say to
you. A look of pity sweeps the face of the girl as she
merely glances at the honorable guide's honorable
guest, rises from her kneeling position, and goes
noiselessly forth. You hear her bare feet slip into the
sandals as she slides shut the door, wondering the
while whether the pity is for what you are soon to
experience, or stirred by the thought of all the years
you have lived in ignorance of true viandic bliss.
The interval between the ordering and the actual
78 OVER JAPAN WAY
delivery is fraught with horrible imaginings; but
when you finally perceive that before you on the
matting is a large tray filled with bowls, all laden,
save one, and with strange cargo, conflicting emo-
tions come thick and fast. You temporize. What a
beautifully lacquered tray! What heavenly dishes!
(You have no eye whatever for china, a plate is a
plate; but you resolve to live up to your assumed
ecstasy by beginning a soulful study of ceramics at
the earliest opportunity.) A pause, and an involun-
tary sigh. The dishes form a complete octave; now
which is do? Truthfully, politely, or ignorantly,
the guide avers that it does not matter, there is no
hard and fast sequence; but that, until used to them,
it may be well to omit re and sol. The suggestion
seems illogical, but kindly and timely. What is sol?
It is raw fish in thin pink slices, delicious when dipped
in soy, but foreigners do not care for it at first.
"With my compliments," you say graciously, hand-
ing over to him the pink slices. And re? He does not
know the English name; it is a blend of condiments.
Re follows sol. Two courses disposed of; you are
progressing famously. Is he sure that the rest is
harmless? He is reasonably sure.
Looking around for knife, fork, and spoon, you
suddenly remember. In Japanese, I am told, the
same word means both bridge and chopsticks. It is
as easy, at first, to eat with one as with the other, the
odds possibly favoring the bridge. Taking a stick
Tea Pickers.
They have been told to "look pleasant" ami find it easy to do so.
Sorting cocoons.
CHOPSTICKS 79
in each hand, drummer fashion, is strictly against the
rules; they should be wielded simultaneously by the
right hand. No, not that way, please, but like this,
sir, one held firmly between the second and third
fingers, the other loosely, like a pen, between thumb
and the tips of fingers one and two. Thus they be-
come elongated digits, serving as tongs, scissors,
spade, spear, and ladle. It looks simple. You try,
and fail. The guide may be wrong; he admits that
his mother still scolds him because he does not chop-
stick like other people. You guessed it, and straight-
way appeal to the maid, who is mightily pleased and
proceeds to give a private lesson, all but putting a
piece of seaweed into your mouth. But seaweed,
even when thus administered, does not appeal to
you strongly at that particular moment; so you draw
back just hi time.
Again you try and fail. Finally, selecting a
moment when the guide and maid are engaged in
animated conservation she is a merry creature and
very sociable you quickly raise a bowl of soup and
drain it, poling back more questionable solid portions
with the sticks. A moment later you are amazed to
see the guide doing the very same thing, though more
deliberately and thoroughly; a final dexterous shove
with the crochet needles, and all the solid parts are
swept in with the liquid stream. Emboldened by
this brilliant success, you tackle what proves to be a
primary grade lobster and succeed in bridging it in.
8o OVER JAPAN WAY
Really chopsticks are not half bad, provided full
advantage be taken of every accident. Boldness,
strategy, accident that is the whole secret, plus
an occasional surreptitious use of the ringers.
I have never been able to eat in comfort with a
waiter standing hi back, serving as nurse, prompter,
inspector, critic, phrenologist, mind reader. The
skull is thinnest at the back, where the stomach
nerves, presumably, have their home base; at any
rate, the waiter is uncannily skillful as a nerve-
tapper, anticipating the simplest wish replenishing
the butter, recruiting clean forks and mustering out
soiled ones, rilling the glass before it is empty, picking
up the napkin that has slipped from trembling knees,
et cetera, et cetera. Each table should be supplied
with a mirror. It could be tilted against the merry-
go-round castor, brought back from long and ill-
merited banishment for this particular purpose.
Or perhaps a lap periscope could be arranged or
the waiter banished altogether. The cafeteria is the
ideal plan.
At the Japanese hotel the waitress does not stand
in back; she sits in the open, not in ambush, di-
rectly in front of the tray, flanked by a bucket of
rice and conveniently near the teapot. Without
seeming to do the unusual, she observes every move
you make, partly through idle curiosity, but mainly
with the affectionate interest of a young mother
watching her first child just learning to use a gold
CHOPSTICKS 81
bowled spoon with a monogram on the handle. And
she is incontinently sociable, oftentimes, which is
embarrassing, especially when the guide is not pres-
ent to bear the brunt of the attack. Courtesy de-
mands that you talk too; so both go at it, each in a
tongue unknown to the other. There is a certain
pleasure in saying to a lady's face precisely what
you please without fear of detection. It makes for
honesty. And yet where neither understands the
other, conversation is something like playing tennis
without any balls. Repartee becomes a new art,
and sallies of wit are futile.
Anywhere in Japan, clapping the hands will bring
to your aid a god or a waitress, according as you may
be at a Shinto shrine or a Japanese inn. There is no
signal meaning dismissal, no polite term the equiva-
lent of our shoo! But there are subterfuges. For
example, you can tilt an imaginary bottle and make
a thirsty gurgle, whereupon the maid will go after
drink, and during her absence you can lay aside
chopsticks and eat a nicely browned fish in an easy,
natural manner. If she returns bringing Sapporo
beer, you then shake your head politely, whereupon
she removes the beer and goes after tan-san, which
enables you to get up and limp about the room on
legs that have long since lost all normal sensation.
Legs are entirely superfluous at a Japanese dinner;
the hip joints are hinged the wrong way. It is
distinctly impolite to sit with the table in your lap.
82 OVER JAPAN WAY
Holes in the floor for the shins to slip through would
be a great relief, and would furnish the room below
with interesting stalactite ornamentation. In some
matters the Japanese are singularly uninventive.
Another method of diverting attention from your
first attempts in chopstick jiujitsu is to retaliate by
giving the maid her first lesson in English. Chrysan-
themum is a good word to begin with; it lasts through
several meals. But the supremely successful arti-
fice strange that the guidebooks do not mention
it is to place before the dusky Atalanta a pack of
beautifully tinted postcards illustrating the latest
creations in the line of costumes worn by Japanese
women. Equipped with such an easily procurable
charm, one may eat unobserved, as comfortably as
if he were in solitary confinement.
But to return. That lobster, clipped in soy (soy is
a sort of sweetened Worcestershire sauce with the
Worcester carefully eliminated) was almost as
palatable as its remote cousin, the eel. The seaweed
relish was unobjectionable, and the other things
interesting in various ways, entertaining, or at least
engaging the attention of, several prominent senses.
Nothing is more potent to make one realize how
provincial the senses are than foreign cooking.
It is perhaps unnecessary to go further into de-
tails; certainly I shall attempt no complete catalogue
of the amphibian miscellany found in Japan's menu
card. There is no bread, of course, no pie, no recog-
CHOPSTICKS 83
nizable cake, no beef except in tiny bits, no mutton
save as an interloper. Potatoes of three kinds are
served, sweets, "village," and orthodox. A field of
village potatoes looks like a lot of rhubarb plants
aspiring to be callas. Potatoes, like nearly everything
else, are disguised in soy. Soy is the mighty shogun
among flavors, its dominance never disputed save by
rice, which is bulky, glutinous, tasteless. There are
many vegetables, beans and radishes in particular.
The radishes are sometimes two feet long and weigh
several pounds. They are used as digestives. Eggs,
fowls wild and domestic, fish of all kinds from snails
to whales oh the variety is quite sufficient, more
than sufficient; practically everything that sprouts,
runs, swims, or flies is considered edible. I do not
condemn; I simply marvel. That I have aesthetic
scruples against pickled chrysanthemums is purely a
personal matter; it should not deter others. Each is
entitled to his own palate. I once saw a peasant
and his son busily engaged in catching grasshoppers,
or perhaps they were crickets. "Bamboo," I en-
quired of my rikisha man, "what are they gathering
crickets for?" "Dinner," he replied with a hungry
grin.
Eating at a hotel is very simple; it is done to ap-
pease hunger and is soon over. It is not really an
event but an attending circumstance. The great
unquestioned tradition-honored function of the aver-
age hotel is to furnish bath and bed. For real
84 OVER JAPAN WAY
feasting, unconfined by the narrow boundaries of
mere hunger, the restaurant's the thing a bedless
place consecrated to Epicurus and the muses, where
one orders what he wishes and waits an hour or more
while it is being prepared, meanwhile chatting, smok-
ing, drinking, enjoying the beauties of a wonderful
little garden if it is afternoon forgetting time.
You may order geisha girls to play, sing, dance,
laugh, flatter, fascinate. When things are ready, the
food is served in courses, each an elaborate feast. It
is very jolly and sometimes noisy. As for the bill, it
will be amazingly large, but forget it. Let joy be
unconfined. More sake, pretty one! Of course I
write from hearsay.
But come with me to a modern Japanese res-
taurant of a different type, designed for business
men and women, and for families who go shopping
in the evening and have not much money to spend.
At one side of the entrance is a counter with a butcher
in attendance where uncooked meat in thin slices is
displayed. The tiny vestibule has a beautifully pol-
ished floor, and beautifully polished is the steep stair-
case up which we mount in our stocking feet and
enter one of several neatly matted rooms. There are
no chairs, no tables, but comfortable cushions and
wonderful tablettes, two feet by four or so and per-
haps fifteen inches high. One-third of this miniature
is taken up with a sunken firepot and a little sunken
reservoir containing water. Be seated, please, on
CHOPSTICKS 85
this side and I will take that. In comes the maid
with glowing coals and soon we have a nice warm
fire, grateful in December weather, and on top of the
fire a spider. Maid No. 2 brings a tureen of soy, a
platter of thin steaks it must be steak or chicken;
if some other specialty is desired, we must go else-
where bowls of vegetables, a little dish of relishes, a
pot of tea and two cups, a generous box of rice with
bowls to go with it, and chopsticks twain for each.
Since I am host, permit me. Into the spider goes
the soy, then the meat and the vegetables, till the
spider is full, and soon the whole is bubbling merrily.
It is all very simple; an occasional poke is sufficient to
see that each choice bit gets its full share of the heat.
Quite like a chafing-dish dinner, isn't it? In ten
minutes, everything is beautifully done. The maid
forgot the plates? Bless you, no. Dip right in; the
spider is the spider, but also platter, and also plate,
yours, mine. Isn't it good? Here, you pagan, chop-
sticky on your own side; that nicely browned morsel
is mine. More rice, please; you are nearest the box.
What! not satisfied? Well, there is plenty more
except soy. Clap your hands, please; I'm busy. The
maid brings more soy, the spider is refilled with
meat and vegetables, and the feast goes merrily on.
It has been a fine meal, you admit, as, at the end of
an hour, we descend the banisterless stairway and
slip on our shoes.
Professor H - of Waseda College introduced me
86 OVER JAPAN WAY
to the restaurant just described, on a memorable
day spent in rambling the narrower streets of Tokyo.
It ended with a long evening at his home near the
Women's College where his wife once taught. I
have seldom enjoyed more gracious hospitality
hospitality with a glint of sadness; for the mother of
the pretty little fairy in bright kimono who ran
gaily in and out of the room where we dined, oc-
casionally stopping and "opening wide" for a choice
bit from her papa's chopsticks, had succumbed to
the white scourge that sweeps Japan even more
relentlessly than it does our own poor land. It
would round out this sketch were I to describe the
truly sumptuous meal, in preparing which no effort
had been spared. But home hospitality is sacred,
doubly so when touched with grief. Were mine a
finer pen, I should like to describe the face, beautiful,
keenly intellectual, yet softened with womanly ten-
derness, which looked down from the wall of the little
study where these two gifted souls once worked
together so happily for the uplift of their native
land.
Looking back over the trail of meals Japanese,
begun with that tiny Chuzenji eel and ended in the
home of my friend, one feature stands out more clearly
than any other. It is not the novelty and mystery
of strange foods apparently including portions of
everything except minerals and a few of the hard-
CHOPSTICKS 87
wood trees; nor the commonly futile, at times almost
tragical, efforts to persuade chopsticks to do the
work of knife, fork, and spoon; nor the joint-pangs
inevitably associated with feeding off the floor
none of these, but the dull, dull, day after day
loneliness of dining without the attendant prattle
of children who call you father, and the presence of a
presiding genius in becoming gown to pour the
coffee coffee the aroma of which does not remind
you of plates left too long in the warming oven, nor
of the atmosphere which comes home from the clean-
er's with the old blue suit that you have decided to
wear out again, now that the price of potatoes has
soared to two seventy-five a bushel.
CHAPTER VIII
AFTER APPLES
THE Japanese pear looks like a large russet apple
and tastes like raw potato. Probably it is doing
the best it can and should be encouraged to go on.
In time it will discover that it has been ill-advised
as to flavor; a millenium or two may soften its dis-
position to the point of easy dental penetration. It
may even grow a neck, and change its hue to one of
bartlett yellow. Already notable progress has been
made; its stem is perfect. But evolution is a long
process. This young Alexander of a pear is to be
congratulated on the vast stages of progress which
lie before it.
Nothing short of a truly red letter day was it which
brought the discovery that there were apples in
Japan. It was like meeting an old friend from back
home, or better, a distant relative of an old friend,
not over prosperous but still bearing an unmistakable
family resemblance. My first bite was an emotional
event. Though the flavor suggested that in Japan,
where so many things are topsy-turvy, apple trees
must bear fruit underground rather than up aloft,
88
Before enteritis the house, slip off your clogs, please.
Peasant icornan of northern
AFTER APPLES 89
it was sufficiently satisfying to start a train of
reminiscence concerning the fruit which ripens on
New England hillsides, and the amber nectar of a
certain cidermill in the Farmington valley. Uncon-
sciously I took unto myself the marvellous flavors of
baldwin, greening, pippin, and spy, transmuting each
into a personal virtue. In short, I was guilty of
bragging. My guide, a perfect gentleman, quietly
remarks that better apples are to be found farther
north. Immediately he is requested to look up tune-
tables.
We arise before light to catch the five o'clock ex-
press out of Sendai. The day coach is crowded with
sleeping passengers. There are berth compartments
on the train, but perhaps this is an overflow meeting;
or are the seats in the day coach preferable to the
congested sleeper where even the double berths are
singularly narrow, the bedding mediaeval German,
and the atmosphere sometimes ancient Tuscan.
One by one the travelers rouse themselves, crawl
out of their blankets, pull on their stiff ankle-socks,
and proceed to brush their teeth, using powder
liberally but apparently in some cases no water.
The brush, a long-handled affair, has a pliable
razor-like section back of the bristles, designed to
be used as a tongue-scraper. It is very dear to the
Japanese. When he is packed away in sitting pos-
ture for his last long journey, the mourning relatives
thoughtfully place near at hand a few things to
90 OVER JAPAN WAY
add to his comfort: grains of rice, a photograph of
his wife, his toothbrush. At least, the guide says so.
Teeth attended to, and each passenger having taken
his turn at the diminutive washroom, blankets are
rolled up and pillows disinflated. There is frank
recognition on the part of all that day has come, and
with it a desire to eat. Our breakfast in the diner
begins with apples, the best yet. In Mikado Land,
latitude may be calculated with reasonable accuracy
by carefully noting the size, color, flavor, and abun-
dance of the apple.
We are booked for Aomori, the nothernmost port
of the mam island. The time-table shows that it is a
journey of about two hundred forty miles and will
take nine and one-half hours. The guidebook ex-
plains that the train will run north through the val-
ley of the Kita-kami-gawa, a river about one hun-
dred seventy-five miles long, flowing south into the
bay of Sendai, a a ready means of transport for the
produce of the large area drained by it"; that at
Nakayama (140 miles) an altitude of fifteen hundred
feet will be reached, whence there is a rapid descent
through another valley into the northern lowlands.
Much of the time the road will foUow the Oshu
Kaido, an ancient highway. In my notebook I find
the following car-window record, so detailed that it
reads like a penitential atonement for days of neglect.
In Japan, as elsewhere, keeping a diary is only less
irksome than keeping an expense account. It is
AFTER APPLES 91
given practically verbatim, except that, wherever it
is undecipherable, emendations have been ventured
upon.
5 130 Rice fields, sometimes in great tracts faintly
suggesting our Middle West; in the hillier country,
where terraces are necessary, smaller ones. After
harvest, when water stands in the fields, the earthen
ridges separating plot from plot form a curious
pattern suggesting a large honeycomb worked by
bees not over-good in mathematics. The little
watery planes, no two shaped quite alike, are dotted
with stubble. The newly harvested rice lies in bun-
dles on higher ground, straddles the partitioning
ridges, or hangs from bamboo fences from four to
twenty feet high. We pass an occasional village of
thatched roofs closely huddled, with patches of beans
in neighborly proximity and an occasional orchard,
the branches tied to trestles, arbor fashion pears,
perhaps. No apple trees recognizable as yet. Prac-
tically no fences, no stone walls whatever, no barns
to speak of, no hayfields, no pasture land; and what
could a poet possibly do with a land where there are
no chimneys with smoke from the pastoral hearth
curling forth. A narrow stream with banks of
smooth-worn volcanic stone; cryptomeria groves; an
occasional patch of small maples, their leaves just
beginning to turn. Rain. Neatly kept railway
stations, some of them apparently on the outskirts of
villages. Low-lying hills beyond the level valleys.
92 OVER JAPAN WAY
Occasional glimpses of a country road of the pike
variety. A few groves of young bamboo, hand
planted. The sun is trying half-heartedly to break
through the leaden clouds.
6 :oo The valley opens into a second ditto with a
sizeable river flowing through it, which means wide
rice fields, miles and miles of ground apparently per-
fectly level. Grain here is stacked about poles, like
salt marsh hay, though the stacks are slenderer. As
we get farther north, isolated farmhouses become
more common. When half concealed by a protecting
screen of pines, they look most inviting. A flooded
brook on the left feeds a narrow irrigation canal.
Country is getting a bit rugged, the hills bolder.
Occasional patches of mulberry.
6:30 Soil becoming noticeably poorer; pasture
lands here and there, but no stock in evidence.
Country roads muddy. Lowlands again, with rice
fields; then more hilly country. Now a narrow val-
ley, now a wide one with a diked river running
through. I see practically no fowls, no pigs, no live-
stock of any kind. Apples. [Whether seen, eaten, or
thought of, is not stated; perhaps all three.]
8:00 Country a bit wilder; we are among hills
fairly high. Occasional orchards, cherry and orange.
The cherry trees may be plum or peach. The guide
is strangely ignorant concerning fruit, but strong on
cereals. All strange growths near cottages he calls
beans or potatoes rndiscriminately; it is an obvious
AFTER APPLES 93
subterfuge. River with wide pebbly shores. Now
passing through fairly pleasant country with broad
fields; here and there a farmhouse.
9:40 Morioka, an important town of 36,500 in-
habitants, prettily situated in a plain guarded by
Gunja-san, which is, from its regular logarithmic
curves, a beautiful object. The structure of the
mountain may be compared to three joints of a
telescope, there being a lower thick cone, then a rim
or crater, then a second cone followed by a second
rim or crater, and finally a third cone. The top is
really the knife-like edge of another crater, one-half
mile in diameter, in whose crater rises a small cone
breached on one side. The foothills are green, the
slopes higher up green or pink, the top hidden in
clouds. [Suspecting that so much of Gunja-san could
not possibly have come through a car window, I have
investigated and found that part of the description
is pilfered from Murray. I apologize but retain
the description.] Between us and the mountain is a
grassy moor dotted with small pines. Near Morioka
station are fields of grass, not often seen in Japan,
divided by walls of respectable height, apparently
built of sods. Apples. [Probably these came
through the car window and not from Murray. It is
a famous fruit region, though the orchards are not in
evidence from the train.]
10:30 Praises be! I see clumps of graceful white
birches. There's a big irrigation waterwheel in
94 OVER JAPAN WAY
yonder field, undershot. Houses hereabout are of
white or brown cement, quite English in effect.
Little fields of millet cling to the steeper slopes. We
are among the Scottish moors. No, it is the Boston
and Albany road between Springfield and Pittsfield.
There's Becket!
10:45 Very steep grade through moorlands; small
trees and bushes only. Nakayama, summit of the
pass, 1 500 feet above sea level. Now down we rush
through a narrow valley, its sides occasionally well
wooded, passing a very poor house now and then,
with fields to match. Mists are closing in after a few
hours of weak sunshine. Forlorn hamlet. Tunnels.
More prosperous hamlet. Mountain brook dashes
along, now to the left, now to the right. Better
farming region now, with rice again. Wonderful
how some of the cultivated patches are made to
stick to the steep slopes. The valley is open-
ing up.
11:15 Ichi-no-he. What a name! Grain stacks
hereabouts suggest large forces in light khaki,
manoeuvring hi open formation. The brook is
widening to a river, but the valley is closing in once
more. Some of the steep slopes are bare, scoured by
torrents. Fruit country, quince and apple. Archi-
tecturally the apple trees are disappointingly scrimy.
The train is leaping the river at frequent intervals.
Lumber mill ahoy! More apple orchards, very
diminutive.
The U'ater-ii'heel is a familiar sight.
The railu-ay near Aomori.
A titlid jcare is nothing to a bronze Buddha. lie sits serene,
though his temple home is sivept aii'ay.
AFTER APPLES 95
12:00 Flat country again, one huge plain of
yellow, rain-beaten rice.
12:30 More New England country, rolling hills,
and flat lowlands. A few horses in a distant pasture,
but no sheep nor cattle. Hello, here's a lake of re-
spectable size. On ahead I see a rugged mountain
range with several fine peaks. Snowsheds; it must be
cold up this way in winter time. Stones on the roofs
of dwellings in the hamlet just passed suggest that
the wind blows, too. It is surprising how few people
we have seen since starting.
1:30 Aomori Bay at last beautiful, beautiful,,
beautiful! And now for apples.
We found them without looking. Women and
girls were selling them at street corners, half a peck
or so tied up in loosely braided reeds. There were
stores where apples could be had by the box, dozen,
or bin. It was fine fruit, sound, red hued, well-
flavored. "Guide," I said at last, "these apples are
of Puritan ancestry. Their forefathers must have
journeyed hither in a missionary barrel. It was a
wise providence; few things are better for the inner
man."
"The best apples," remarked the guide irrel-
evantly, "are grown in Hokkaido."
"Let us go to Hokkaido."
CHAPTER IX
A MADE-IN-AMERICA TOWN
No one with even half an eye for the beautiful thinks
of questioning the myths which affirm that the gods
made Japan. Of course they did. But the gods
were ever an impractical lot, given to frittering away
time hi shaping mountains and rivers and cherry
blossoms when they might better have been attend-
ing agricultural colleges and schools for cooking.
Their motives were doubtless irreproachable, but
they lacked sagacious foresight. Man cannot live
on beauty alone. It takes a heap of rice to satisfy
seventy millions.
Everywhere are mountains, mountains, mountains.
They lord it over the landscape. From sky-line to
lowest foothill their soft green slopes are beautiful
to gaze at, but it is a clear case of monopoly. And
down through ravine and narrow valley lunge tor-
rents which broaden into rivers extravagantly wide
that dawdle through the lowlands where every
precious inch is under cultivation. In some regions
it is almost pathetic to see how the women, who live
closer to the gods than do the men, and therefore
9 6
A MADE-IN-AMERICA TOWN 97
must have beauty, grow flowers along the ridgepoles
of their thatched roof homes, while their husbands
outdo ingenuity in making little patches of grain
cling to hillsides well-nigh vertical. The sea, though
occasionally its bottom heaves and sends a mammoth
wave shoreward that wrecks villages and leaves a
bronze Buddha basking in the sun where once stood a
proud temple, is, on the whole, a practical, benef-
icent sea, abounding in fish and great floating ribbons
of delectable vegetation. But man cannot live on
fish and seaweed alone. No, the gods made a mess
of it, though admittedly a pretty mess. The beauti-
ful mountains are too broad, the plains too narrow.
With population increasing at the rate of over half a
million a year, the food problem is one of permanent
importance.
But the gods are often better than they are painted.
In the present case an advocate might consider the
charge of divine negligence well refuted in the one
word Hokkaido. Hokkaido is the northernmost of
the larger islands making up Japan, easily reached
in five hours by steamer from Aomori. It is a fine
large island, its thousand mile coastline circum-
scribing territory about equal to that of Maine, with
Rhode Island thrown in for honest measure. From
its eastern extremity the thirty or more Kuriles form
giant stepping-stones to Kamchatka; a narrow strait
separates it on the north from Sagahlien, the southern
half of which is also Japanese territory. There are
98 OVER JAPAN WAY
mountains, of course, volcanic of course, one chain
entering by way of the Kuriles, the other by way of
Sagahlien; and there are enormous beds of coal, a
wealth of precious metals not yet estimated, and vast
tracts of primeval forest. Finally there are seven
fertile plains watered by some of the longest rivers
in the Mikado's realm. The gods made Hokkaido
as well as the rest of Japan, completed it last of all,
geologists affirm, and by way of finishing grace
bestowed a New England climate. Yet there are
men now living who recall a time when this wonderful
island was considered practically a waste, valueless
tract, the home of the semi-barbarous Ainu and the
wild animals they hunted. Aside from two or three
seaports there were no towns of any importance.
That was fifty years ago. The story of the develop-
ment of Hokkaido is of peculiar interest to all
Americans. It runs briefly as follows:
In 1870, two years after the American fleet so
rudely forced open the ports of Japan, the Mikado
appointed General Kuroda Vice-Governor of Hok-
kaido. The Vice-Governor lost no time in exploring
the practically unknown country entrusted to him
and soon reached two conclusions, first that the
island was worth colonizing, second that he was too
inexperienced to attempt an undertaking so novel.
Accordingly he persuaded the Government to send a
number of promising young men abroad to prepare
for this important work. He even went himself to
A MADE-IN-AMERICA TOWN 99
America to study our methods of developing the
West. Soon after his return General Capron, U. S.
Commissioner of Agriculture, was engaged to visit
Hokkaido, study the problem at close range, and
act as adviser to the Colonial office. It was he who
introduced American stock, American crops (includ-
ing apples), American farm tools, and started the
great movement toward "scientific, systematic, and
practical agriculture," a movement involving the
establishment of an agricultural college, model
farms, and experimental stations. Forty American
experts were employed by the government.
Sapporo, the center of the colonizing scheme, is a
made-to-order town. It did not grow from hamlet to
village, from village to city; it sprang up in obedience
to official fiat. American engineers planned it; with
reason may it be called a made-in-America town.
The site chosen was a fertile inland plain with a river
to afford drainage, and the usual setting of beau-
tiful hills. Before a house was erected, streets and
avenues intersecting at right angles were laid out,
sidewalks, shade trees, and all, with generous pro-
vision for parks. The avenues were 160 ft. wide.
Then followed buildings, not a few of them brick
or granite. No pains were spared to make this
capital city a model. Roads were built, and Ameri-
can engineers began the construction of a railway
system since extended to include a thousand miles
of track.
ioo OVER JAPAN WAY
Of particular interest is the early development of
the educational plant. It too was made in America.
In 1876 Amherst Agricultural College was persuaded
to lend its president for one year, and within a few
months Dr. Clark opened the doors of a new Am-
herst, "Sapporo Agricultural College," to twenty-
four picked young men. The faculty numbered six,
Dr. Clark and two American associates making up
the teaching force. At the end of the busy year, one
of the associates succeeded Dr. Clark as president,
and soon other Americans went out to join in the
pioneer work.
The College is now fifty years old and no longer
serves merely as the nucleus of a colonizing scheme.
Its official title is the College of Agriculture, Tohoku
Imperial University, the University proper being in
Sendai. Over nine hundred students, chosen in sharp
competitive examination, are in attendance. The
faculty numbers one hundred forty. I find the names
of but two foreign instructors, and they are connected
with the preparatory school. Sixty-seven are grad- 1
uates of the college, fourteen are graduates of Amer-
ican universities, and many have studied or traveled
abroad. The President, Shosuke Sato (Ph. D. Johns
Hopkins), was one of the twenty-four who entered
the little school fifty years ago. He, it will be remem-
bered, was Japan's second Exchange Professor to
America. Dr. Nitobe, first Exchange Professor,
graduated from Sapporo a year later than President
Government buildings at Sapporo.
The college campus.
A MADE-IN-AMERICA TOWN 101
Sato. Of the 2,527 graduates not a few are now men
of great prominence.
The College catalogue lies before me. It is well
illustrated. Agriculture, Economics, Biology, Chem-
istry, Forestry, Zootechny, Fishery, Civil Engineer-
ing, each has its building. There is a library building,
a museum of natural history, etc., etc. Interesting
glimpses are given of botanical gardens, of model
farms, and lands devoted to practical forestry. Most
attractive of all is the college yard, with fine large
elms adding grace and dignity. The "landed prop-
erty" in 1914 totaled 312,753 acres, including eight
"farms" leased to over a thousand tenants, six
forests, including one in Korea and one in Sagahlien,
and a site for a marine experimental station.
Sapporo of today is an attractive town of 71,000
inhabitants attractive, but somewhat fallen from
grace. The great central park might be better
kept. The main street has its tawdry section of
little stores. There are poor homes in Sapporo as
elsewhere. There are sections which do not look
"thrifty"; there is no air of easy prosperity.
Has the government's ambitious colonizing scheme
proved successful? The population of Hokkaido is,
according to the last census, about 600,000. There
are more than twice as many crowded into the
bustling city of Osaka. Hakodate (91,000), Otaru
(80,000), and Muroran (21,000) are apparently
thriving seaports; but inland towns do not prosper.
102 OVER JAPAN WAY
The seven great plains have hardly been scratched.
Such farms as one sees from the car window do not
suggest wide-spread prosperity. There are those
who claim that the bottom has fallen out of the
colonizing scheme; I am inclined to think that this
may be true, but that the next fifty years will witness
a marked change for the better. Japan needs wealth,
and the natural resources of Hikkaido are extremely
rich.
What is the explanation of the apparent failure?
I can but repeat what wiser heads have advanced.
Hokkaido is a cold country; the Japanese, accus-
tomed to paper walled houses and little firepots, do
not take kindly to snow and piercing winds. The
soil of Hokkaido is fertile, though perhaps not so
fertile as was once thought; but it will not grow rice
successfully nor other food products dear to the
Japanese. The ground, to be profitably worked, calls
for modern machinery, which the peasant does not
like, nor has he, in many cases, the money necessary
to secure an outfit. It is probably true, moreover,
that the Japanese peasants do not possess the in-
ventive pluck, the independent spirit so necessary
for pioneering. They love old ways, they love the
homeland, they love to huddle among then- kind.
But Sapporo Agricultural College is an unques-
tioned success. Colonizing is bound to come, has
come, in Formosa, Korea, and elsewhere. Leaders
are necessary who understand practical agriculture.
A MADE-IN-AMERICA TOWN 103
A people living under a government the most pater-
nal in all the world lack the individual initiative so
common in our country; they must be directed along
new ways when old ways no longer lead to com-
fortable, profitable living. It is to be hoped, however,
that even under new leadership the people will re-
tain their love for beautiful things, even the moun-
tains which lift their heads where it would be more
convenient to have fields of rice, and the rivers that
take such an extravagantly wide course in their
journey to the sea.
CHAPTER X
THE GENTLE AINU
TRAINS in Hokkaido run cautiously, as if fearing to
offend the smaller towns by inadvertently rushing
by without giving the conductor opportunity to
pass the time of day with the neatly uniformed
station-master. It takes ten hours to go from
Hakodate, the principal seaport, to Sapporo, the
inland capital, a distance of 179 miles.
But it is not a tedious trip. The view is ever
changing. There are regions that need but a second
Sir Walter to make them as famous as the Trossachs.
For many miles the road skirts Volcano Bay with
its terrible necklace of suspicious-looking -cones.
Here, as elsewhere in Japan, the fishing hamlets
along the sandy shore are miserable affairs, pic-
turesque however, as poverty is likely to be when
not viewed from too short a range. Finally there
are great stretches of prairie country, fields under
cultivation, though lacking the trim neatness of
Hondo rice farms.
When darkness closes in, there are still fellow pas-
sengers to study, each a mystery furnishing play
104
THE GENTLE AINU 105
for the imagination. Note, for example, the charm-
ing little family group across the aisle, father in
European dress, sweet-faced mother in dainty native
costume, and son of six, also in European clothes.
Evidently they are educated people of means. How
courteous the man is to his wife. The boy, sturdy
rascal, is afflicted with perpetual hunger; he'll
surely pop unless his indulgent parents reduce his
rations.
Less attractive is their neighbor, a well-seasoned
old fisherman with head close cropped and beard-
less face. Evidently he too is prosperous, tem-
porarily at least, and is celebrating in a semi-private
way. How comfortable he looks, folded into sitting
position on the car seat, face to the pane like little
Mabel in the poem. A smile plays about his fea-
tures, as if he were journeying to meet friends to
whom he is carrying a gift. With regret we note
that the windowsill soon becomes a private bar.
From a quart container brought forth from his ca-
pacious carry-all he pours a small libation into a
diminutive bowl, sips it down, providently refills
the bowl, places it on the sill and covers it with a
slip of paper, then returns the bottle to the carry-
all, with fortitude stowing it far down beneath mis-
cellaneous wearing apparel. No harm, surely, in
sampling the neck of a bottle designed for friends.
Three minutes later the retainer reappears; the
little bowl is emptied, refilled, neatly covered; then
io6 OVER JAPAN WAY
back to the depths of the carry-all goes the dwindling
supply. Oh Rip, Rip, Rip! At the end of two
happy hours the flask is under the seat, empty, and
the tippler is neatly employed with paper towel
cleaning the front of his kimono. There has been
a slight accident due to an unexpected jolt. He
pauses to say to my guide, "I am sorry to make
such an exhibition before the American gentleman.
It is a very bad habit, this sake drinking." Having
thus squared accounts with an apology unquestion-
ably handsome, he brings forth a second flask, evi-
dently whiskey, and proceeds with continued clock-
like regularity to add a superstructure of Occidental
spirituous culture to the well-laid foundation of
Oriental sake.
At Otaru, a seaport 159 miles up the line, a group
of young Englishmen board the train, their guns
and duffle announcing a week-end among the
marshes. They are fine healthy fellows, overgrown
boys at thirty, mingling talk about ducks with
brave boasting about petty victories won by their
countrymen in French fields. How different their
manner from that of the broken-voiced German
with whom, weeks later, I was to spend a lonely
afternoon at Lake Hakone.
For a few miles beyond Sapporo there are more
or less carefully cultivated fields. One recalls a
lumber town or two, an occasional river, and hills
sometimes close at hand, sometimes forming a dis-
THE GENTLE AINU 107
tant horizon. Swamizawa, where the main line north
is left for the branch that circles back to Muroran
at the mouth of Volcano Bay, is a grimy center for
neighboring coal mines. Then come, a little farther
on, fascinating views of distant mountains, and
finally the surf-rolling Pacific.
From Sapporo to Muroran is a run of 112 miles.
Following tourist custom, we break the journey by
stopping over one train at Shiraoi, a coast village
of no importance except that on its outskirts is one
of the larger Ainu settlements. The Ainu are the
near-but-not-quite aborigines of Japan, the Pit
Dwellers alone disputing the title of greatest antiq-
uity. The dispute is not one of extreme violence,
for the last Pit Dweller disappeared from earth
ages ago. The Ainu were once a powerful race in-
habiting the main island, but in the early years of
Japanese history they were driven farther and still
farther north by physically inferior but numerically
stronger foes, just as Pict and Scot retreated before
Saxon, and the Red Man before New World settlers.
Only a few thousand remain, pathetic dregs, their
shabby villages being found here and there in Hok-
kaido, the Kuriles, and Sagahlien. They are a
gentle people, the guidebook affirms, "submissive,
courteous, and harmless," and adds that it is well
to take along the station boy as interpreter and a
bag of candy for the children.
The station boy declines, but passes us on to a
io8 OVER JAPAN WAY
little provision store a few rods away. The pro-
prietor accepts. There are no candies to be had,
but he thinks little cakes will do. Possibly this
was our first slip. I should never venture again
without candy for the children, wrist-watches for
the women, sake for the men, and a police squad
for myself. I should walk behind the squad in
going and return in front of it.
Ten minutes down the main street brings us to
open fields bordering the sandy beach where, scat-
tered about in accidental array, are perhaps fifty
huts big and little, primitive structures with dis-
couraged garden plots adjacent. The roofs are of
thatch, the layers arranged shingle fashion; the
sides too are of similar construction. The normal
equipment seems to be one small window and one
or two low, narrow doorways. The first native that
we see is a shabbily dressed woman of middle age
digging potatoes. She looks "gentle, submissive,
courteous, and harmless," to which array of adjec-
tives might be added odd; for, as is common among
Ainu women, a mustache of generous Teutonic pro-
portions, tattooed in light blue, adorns her upper
lip, and a somewhat similar decoration is seen below
the mouth. The scheme is not wholly unbecoming,
certainly far more so than the blackened teeth of
the Japanese married women. We enquire politely
after the crops, though it is quite evident that they
could not be poorer. She answers sadly without
THE GENTLE AINU 109
looking up; potatoes are of more importance than
strangers.
Behind another hut are two bear cubs in crude
cages. Later in the year they will be released, up on
the mountain side. The Ainu worship the bear,
our conductor explains, and they hunt bear too, and
eat bear. Strangely inconsistent; perhaps I mis-
understood. When one Japanese explains to another
Japanese, and he passes things along hi imperfect
English, the answer may be wrong. But the cubs
at least are authentic, and there near at hand are
the mountains. The rest does not matter much,
except possibly to the cubs. Of greater interest to
me is a very old man with extremely long hair and
full beard (the Ainu are a hairy people) seated in
the midst of a miserable little cornpatch, with slow
hand arranging in front of him a number of sake
bowls. "What is he doing?" I enquire. "He is
about to pray. Some of his folks must be sick. The
Ainu do not believe in doctors; they prefer prayer
to medicine." We pass on in silence.
Soon groups of children appear, swarms of them
in fact, ragged, dirty youngsters, pathetically af-
flicted with scalp eruptions and many with sore
eyes. Scabby heads are all too common throughout
Japan, but the little Ainu are, without exception, in
a bad state of neglect. Still they are bright looking,
happy looking, and clamber in and out of their
fathers' great viking fishing boats or scamper along
no OVER JAPAN WAY
the beach quite unaware that they are unfortunate.
But oh Kipling! how sadly they need tubbing,
scrubbing, and simple medical treatment.
Several people on whom our conductor wishes us
to call are not at home off hunting perhaps, or
out at sea with then* nets. We are on the point of
turning back when a young Ainu, perhaps thirty,
and Japonicized as to hair and dress, suddenly pops
up from nowhere and becomes a self-appointed
guide. He speaks Japanese fluently and a lot of
it, to which I listen attentively without growing the
wiser except as the choicer bits are interpreted.
He takes us at once to a newly built school build-
ing, leading the way with long strides as if pursuing
bear. He is a big fellow. The school, he explains
with pride, was built entirely by Ainu, the material
paid for by contributions from visitors. This point
is emphasized somewhat unduly. It is pleasant to
note that one of the two rooms is designed for a
public bath. The bathroom is not yet completed,
the schoolroom unfurnished. There are beer bottles,
empty, near the front door, hinting that there has
recently been an important meeting of some social
welfare or neighborhood improvement society.
From the school building we are escorted to the
conductor's home, which is so much finer than most
of the others (it must be 20 by 30 at least) that I
suspect it is the abode of a chief a sort of royal
palace. His Highness is out of town; the voluble
THE GENTLE AINU in
son heir apparent, crown prince, chairman of the
school board, or whatever he may be must play
the host. I feel elated and slip on my gloves as we
enter through the narrow, lowly door.
Memory does not serve me well "enough to warrant
a detailed description, from floor (part of it a plat-
form of planks, part of it dirt) to smoky rafters.
In the middle of the platform, I recall, was a rec-
tangular sunken fireplace where a brisk wood fire
was burning, the smoke mounting thatchward in an
unconventional way. Around the hearth two or
three men robed in bearskins were squatted, and as
many women, one of them not wholly unattractive.
Add babies to suit, without using a measuring cup,
and throw in a few older children. All were dirty.
The floor was dirty. A heap of bedding in one
corner looked supremely dirty. The side walls were
smoke-cured. The men were eating chestnuts, the
women nursing babies impartially.
The prince imperial spreads a mat for us, explain-
ing that it has been handed down through many
generations and is used only for distinguished guests.
I bow, but with a feeling of utter unworthiness
decline the honor and sit gingerly on the edge of the
platform. Then the prince if prince he be, his
voice gaining momentarily in carrying power, it
seems, brings forth tribal heirlooms: savage looking
bows and arrows, sake bowls, ornamental paper-
cutter looking things used to lift the imperial mous-
ii2 OVER JAPAN WAY
tache when drinking, swords rusted into scabbards,
knives with rusty blades, bits of armor, etc., etc.
This lot of dirty relics of questionable antiquity does
not interest me very much. The exhibitor has an
unpleasant way of illustrating how each weapon is
used. In a very few minutes I have been speedily
dispatched by arrow, sword, hunting knife, and spear,
and each time have died a miserable death. I am
not used to being executed so often, even in panto-
mime. I edge a little nearer to the door and whisper
to the guide that a motion to adjourn holds preced-
ence over all other executive business. Would of-
fense be given if a small sum were presented the wild-
eyed host? The guide thinks it would be a reasonably
safe venture, so a few coins are politely offered.
Instantly a marvellous change. Silence, a look of
wounded dignity, then a torrent of words. "What is
the trouble?" I enquire, getting a little nearer the
door. "He says we have insulted him; the offering
should be at least twice as large." I quickly decide
that he is quite right. The ancestral mat, such a
rich collection of heirlooms, with sacred shavings
among them even, the undoubtedly fine dissertation
on ancient manners and customs I feel ashamed;
but when my hand slips into my pocket for more
coin, the guide says "No-no-no ! " More angry words
come from the midst of the rusty arsenal. War is im-
minent. I resolve to die with boots on, but realizing
that my boots are back in America, I slip out through
THE GENTLE AINU 113
the door, followed by my two companions and the
aggrieved heir apparent and his retainers, including
women and children.
I can think of no impelling reason why I should
remain longer in the vicinity. With steps not
exactly slow, yet carefully measured to suggest an
air of security and unconcern, I leave the scene.
Only once do I turn my head, and then merely to
correct a calculation concerning the flight of a purely
imaginary arrow. My two companions, motioning
me to go on, turn down a side street on the edge of
the settlement and disappear. Not a little mystified,
I walk slowly on to the railroad station, for it is
nearly train time. It is a great relief, though I try
not to show it, when, fifteen minutes later, the guide
rejoins me, and explains that, at the merchant-
conductor's suggestion, he has reported the affair
to the police and has left at the station house our
inadequate offering, to be presented on a later day
when the princely scion is more nearly sober. The
incident is closed.
Not quite, however. Soon the police force of
the village appears, neatly uniformed, shoes pol-
ished, hands gloved in white. Heels together, the
force bows. He has come to apologize. He is deeply
grieved that the honorable stranger has suffered
annoyance. The Ainu, spoiled by over-liberal tour-
ists, have grown cunning. Usually a peaceful
people, they are very bad when saturated with sake.
ii4 OVER JAPAN WAY
At present they are saturated. I assure the force
that there has been no annoyance whatever, that
my brief stay in his well-ordered precinct has been
most happy. At which point visiting cards are ex-
changed, and a few bows, interrupted by the arrival
of our train. Thus pleasantly ended our mild ad-
venture with this "gentle, submissive, courteous"
people.
But they will not out of mind. The last, oblivion-
haunting remnants of a once powerful people; a
"drunken, dirty, spiritless folk," suffering the
"doom of unfitness." How pathetic. Once the
conquerors of a large part of what is now Japan,
the exterminators of an inferior race, they in turn
have been pushed aside and all but exterminated.
They have contributed practically nothing to hand-
icraft. They have produced no literature. Their
origin is a mystery; it is simply surmised that in
early times they entered Hokkaido by way of Kam-
chatka and the Kuriles. But before that? Mystery.
Are they Mongolian? Some of them have faces of
almost Saxon fairness, strong, Caucasian bodies.
How long their wandering, and by what peril-beset
route they reached Kamchatka, in all probability
the world will never know. Their epitaph is already
written; in a few generations the scant hundreds
remaining will have been absorbed by other peoples.
The last chapter of their pathetic history is all but
finished.
Ainu children? No. The idea!
Hotel at Noboribetsu Onsen.
The moribund volcano. Steam and sulphur fumes make
photography difficult.
CHAPTER XI
BEARDING A VOLCANO
WITH a twenty mile zone of safety interposed be-
tween us and the gentle Ainu, we leave the train
at Noboribetsu purposing to push on and up
four or five additional miles to Noboribetsu Onsen
and conceal ourselves for the night by the rim of a
crater. The crater is an active one, yet seems, by
comparison, a reasonably safe retreat. Besides,
there is a good hotel at Noboribetsu Onsen, and we
are tired, cold, hungry. It is past suppertime and
growing dark.
Noboribetsu is not a taxicab town, nor are there
rikishas in waiting. Diligent inquiry, however,
finally reveals that a car line runs to the hamlet near
the crater. Good. But it runs at infrequent inter-
vals; there will be a wait of an hour or more. Ex-
asperating. An hour is sometimes a century. Can-
not the wait be abridged in some way? It can, the
resourceful guide discovers; a special car may be
chartered. This proposition is one I do not care to
entertain. I have moral and financial scruples.
None save millionaires ever charter anything, and
s
u6 OVER JAPAN WAY
they but rarely, partly to display ill-gotten wealth,
partly to furnish exercise for philanthropic mathe-
maticians who enjoy calculating how many children,
orphans preferred, might be fed three meals a day for
a month etc., etc. Mere idle curiosity prompts me
to enquire how much this proposed crime against
underfed children would cost. " Seventy-five cents."
"What! for everything?" It includes everything,
car, rails, motive power, and crew. "Order a couple
at once," cries a voice which must be mine, though it
does not sound familiar. Money should never be
hoarded; only as it is kept in circulation can it do any
good whatever. One car, however, is all that is
available; the remaining two- thirds of the com-
pany's rolling stock is up the line.
It was a ride to be remembered. The chartered
vehicle, a tiny little prehistoric caboose which one
stooped reverently perforce to enter, ran upon rails
each length of which had a distinct personality
of its own. There may have been springs, but
they were not working. The four small windows
were audibly low with malaria. A feeble little
lamp, easily discoverable by striking a match, pre-
tended to cast rays from a glass front cage in one
corner near the roof. The motor, literally one-horse,
strolled along between the rails, occasionally stubbing
a hoof over a tie, encouraged by the conductor-
engineer-trainboy. I could imagine how a cave
dweller feels during an epidemic of earthquakes. As
BEARDING A VOLCANO 117
soon as we were well above the lights of the village
and fairly started on the nine hundred foot ascent,
the crew lashed the helm, left the bridge, and be-
came a fellow passenger, the legality of which pro-
cedure seemed questionable. I had supposed that I
had chartered the entire car. No protest was made
however; it might be that this unexpected move was
not an encroachment but an added courtesy, a deli-
cate admission on the part of the crew that he con-
sidered himself in no way our superior but was willing
to associate on equal terms. The motor acted as if
nothing unusual had occurred. It takes time, doubt-
less, to become familiar with all the nice points of
chartered car etiquette. I resolved, however, to
make a firm stand if the motor should also take it
into his head to step over the dash and enter too.
And thus we crept up and up for perhaps two hours,
evidently following the course of a mountain stream,
till the lights of Noboribetsu Onsen appeared. Two
porters were on hand to take our luggage and lead us
through a street flanked by closely packed shops to a
very comfortable Japanese inn, where a hot bath,
an elaborate dinner, and a comfortable bed brought
the eventful day to a close.
There is a distinct advantage in reaching a strange
place after dark and going straightway to bed. It
affords opportunity for the mind to develop, in the
dark cells of the brain, all the mental film exposed
during the preceding twelve hours and get it com-
ii8 OVER JAPAN WAY
pletely out of the way, then prepare fresh films for
the morrow. Moreover there is the rarely sung
pleasure of awaking in a place unfamiliar, the senses,
which seldom keep together during the dark hours,
straggling back one at a tune, sight last of all, for
the eyes are late sleepers.
Crows, hundreds of them, speaking a language
known the world over, but with none of the usual
notes of alarm or protest; indeed the tones are quite
domestic, confidential, patronizing, though occasion-
ally a chorus obviously self-laudatory drowns ah*.
Their voices come from high up on the mountain
side, more faintly from far down the valley, conversa-
tionally from the tiled roof above where several are
walking about and discussing the weather, from
neighboring roofs and gardens. It is a crow town.
Hokkaido is a crow island. All Japan is a crow's
paradise. The crow owns the land; he outnumbers
humans. You may see thousands at a glance en-
circling the twilight island pinnacles near Aomori.
You may see a score winging their way over the
carefully guarded palace of the Mikado in Tokyo.
They are the true nobility, splendidly robed in
glossy black, each a proud grandee.
A second sense comes straggling back. I am
conscious of the cool fresh tang of an October
morning. The Japanese have the right idea: no
walls of brick, no barriers of clapboard and lath
and plaster, but thin, sliding panels, not too closely
BEARDING A VOLCANO 119
fitted, admitting at least a modicum of air. There
is the smell of fresh matting, faintly bringing to
mind the sweet grass baskets made by Oldtown
Indians "down East; and something more, a dim
suggestion of freshly lighted sulphur matches, not
wholly pleasant, yet easily forgetable since it is not
dominant. The haymow odor of the mats easily
prevails.
The nest of silken quilts is very warm and com-
fortable; without definitely committing myself to
leaving it, I open eyes experimentally and take a
lazy inventory. It runs as follows: ten mats, I
judge, neatly fitted each to each, a cushion or two,
and an impossible arm-rest; the usual fire-box in the
form of a bronze caldron, an iron teakettle above
its cold ashes, and a slender sentinel poker; a table
supported by Lilliputian legs, with tea things on it;
gray paper panels, unadorned, shutting off adjoining
rooms to right and left, with bamboo fret above
them for ventilation; on the veranda side, four more
panels, sashed like windows, in each a middle pane
of ground glass, the remaining panes of translucent
paper. There are the usual twin alcoves, one with
its cabinet, kimono tray, and writing-box; the other
with slightly raised platform on which rests a globe
of crystal beneath a kakemono. I note a narrow
mirror and a towel rack, the latter presumably a
concession to the foreigner. The ceiling is of foot-
wide boards supported by frail looking stringers.
izo OVER JAPAN WAY
There is no paint, no varnish; all is in natural grain,
though the post supporting the alcove partition, its
surface unmarred by saw or plane, is highly polished.
How simple, how beautiful. One thing alone is dis-
cordant; it is the electric light bulb and shade, dang-
ling from a green cord like a spider, directly over
my head. Perhaps it is but the dash of cold water
necessary to settle the grounds, as a coffee pot given
to metaphor might express it.
Slipping on kimono and sandals, I push aside a
panel and step out onto a balcony looking straight
down the gently sloping village street. It is a very
foggy morning. No, it is not fog at all but steam
volcano breath reaching high up, especially over the
mountain stream which tumbles along to the right.
How spectral the huddled roofs of the village look.
How quiet it is, no subterranean rumbles, no hum
of busy industry, nothing but the caw of crows,
the joyful sound of falling water, and the click-
scrape of clogs. How soft the wooded slopes, almost
precipice steep, which wall in the narrow valley,
misty green, with patches of maple glory here and
there. The sun is trying to break through; it will
be a fine day. Returning to the room I find a youth-
ful Aurora kneeling at the caldron kindling a char-
coal Fuji. There is no returning to silken quilts,
for the silken quilts have vanished.
An hour or two later, with the politest of land-
lords serving as guide, we sally forth to beard our
BEARDING A VOLCANO 121
first volcano. A ten minute walk following the
stream back of the hotel brings us to the crater,
which we enter on the ground floor, so to speak.
It is a gruesome region of complete desolation, this
Hell's Kitchen, a chasm, gorge, pit, a huge, un-
shapely cavity blown out of the heart of the moun-
tain as if by a million ton charge of dynamite and
every fragment of rock burned by terrific heat to
ash-colored granules forming promiscuous mounds,
hillocks, crag-like eminences, that the rains of cen-
turies have reduced to relatively smooth but treach-
erous slopes. Precipitous walls of similar crumbling
tufa, hundreds of feet high, furrowed by the drain-
age from the forest-clad slopes which tower above,
wall in this roughly undulated bottom crust. Clouds
of steam from a score of pits obscure the vision,
now mounting high above the rusty red and clay-
blue walls of the vast quarry hole, now dying down
deceptively only to shoot higher a moment later.
Everywhere evidence that the crust is thin; there
is no temptation whatever to wander away from the
guide, who follows a winding trail. Spiteful jets of
steam hiss forth in scores of places from tiny orifices.
In some spots the ground is honeycombed with
such vents. We ascend a slight elevation and look
down into a fifty foot caldron of bubbling blue-
black mud, "slab and good," rising from what sub-
terranean lake of molten matter no one knows.
Near by is a higher elevation from which a general
122 OVER JAPAN WAY
view may be had, a Beelzebub eminence whence
imagination readily pictures things Miltonic.
The entire crater is roughly elliptical, its greater
diameter perhaps a mile long. A wooded ridge di-
vides it. Climbing the steep side of this ridge and
passing through the rank undergrowth which covers
the top, we come out upon a platform whence we
look down into the second cavity, similar in size to
the first, a tarn of steaming mud from which ob-
noxious fumes arise a swimming pool for giant
demons, a place of torture for the damned. Yet
above the scorified cliffs are green forests, and the
bluest of skies arches the lofty ridges.
It is not a region where any but saints would
care to linger. We are willing to accept without
investigating the statement that there are areas
where the crust is so thin that a child might break
through, other places where a cane thrust down a
few inches comes forth charred; that yonder brook-
let is scalding hot, and that one draft from almost
any innocent looking pool is a quite sufficient pass-
port to another world. It is but mildly consoling
to learn that the old volcano is harmlessly moribund.
Old age is sometimes treacherous. Did not Ban-
daisan after a century-long sleep burst into a
paroxysm of rage and send forth floods of destruction?
That was not so very long ago. Shikotsu is almost
a neighboring peak, and you have just read that,
seven years since, there oozed forth from its summit
BEARDING A VOLCANO 123
"a mass of viscous lava two hundred feet high." A
year later Usudake, still nearer, "threw out four
large cinder-cones." The only comfortable way for
a sinner to contemplate even a dying volcano is
from a safe distance say five thousand miles. It
is a relief to get back to the hotel. As I sit on the
silken cushion before the dinner tray, however, each
delectable dish suggests a crater; but when I pass
up a bowl to Aurora for a first helping of rice, and
she fills it, using a wooden paddle, from the capacious
wooden measure, I soon forget all about viscous
lava and cinder-cones. Aurora is a beauty of the
rural type. Besides, one cannot use chopsticks and
think volcanoes at the same time. One or the other
must be given right of way. In this case, thanks
to hunger, the viscous rice wins.
A dying volcano is a pathetic thing. From far
and near the curious come to witness its throes.
Hotels spring up about its crater, a hamlet, a village,
as if in mockery of waning destructive might. Poor
old Noboribetsu is being commercialized. The
upper tarn is worked for sulphur. How humiliating!
Pipes from the lower crater convey hot water to
the village. Forced beneficence! A stone's throw
from our hotel is a fine new public bath, two great
pools in separate apartments, with a spacious ante-
chamber which serves as office and dressing-room
combined. At all hours you may see men, women,
and children enter through the wide door. To the
I2 4 OVER JAPAN WAY
left is a platform for men ; to the right, one for women.
Neither is enclosed. Here kimonos are slipped off
and the bathers pass through to the pools. Over
the entrance to one pool is the word Men; over the
other, Women. But the Japanese do not understand
English, nor do they understand the English code
of reticence. It is a public bath in more ways than
one, yet I hesitate to call it immoral. Behind the
bathhouse, in full view of all who pass, are perhaps
a dozen pipes from which pour streams that drop
twenty feet, or possibly thirty. Under these steam-
ing streams stand the afflicted, each so posed that
back, neck, ankle, or other offending part of the
body receives a waterfall massage, possibly remedial.
The women, without exception, I think, wear thin
cotton robes, the men sometimes. The hotel too
has its baths, a small private one, and a larger pool,
more exposed, in which I once saw two family groups,
perhaps eight in all, apparently spending the morn-
ing in happy converse.
A perfectly dead volcano may be a very beautiful
thing. After lunch we are off again, the landlord
still serving as guide. This time we follow a path
up the mountain to the left of the village street.
It is like zig-zaging up the roof of a cathedral
of Brobdignagian dimensions; the ascent is unre-
lieved by downward dips. The thin, crumbling soil
supports a rank growth of smaller vegetation and
a few large trees. Whenever forced to stop for
BEARDING A VOLCANO 125
breath, we are rewarded by fine views of the deep
valley and the mountain range beyond, smooth
slopes of soft green with patches of deep, October
reds, rising sharp ridges and peaks, some of them
towering almost sublimely. The path, after a climb
of perhaps three-quarters of an hour, dwindles to a
trail which follows a razor-edged ridge for a time
(mountains in Japan are Gothic rather than Byzan-
tine), then climbs to a windy crest from which we
gain a view not soon to be forgotten. Off in the
distance, its hazy blue just discernible, the Pacific;
in every other direction, ridges and peaks, peaks
and ridges, a prodigal display. And we are stand-
ing on the rim of a crater with steep sides so regular
as to suggest skilful engineering, landscape garden-
ing too, for the slopes are green with abundant small
growth, with here and there a flaming young maple.
It is a huge amphitheatre holding a crystal lake
of deepest blue, "round as an eagle's eye." At one
side the crater wall has broken down, and from this
point the land slopes gracefully away to the ocean.
Two hundred fifty feet below us, the white walls of
a solitary tent may be seen near the water's edge.
Peace, solitude, a lavish display of natural beauty,
and presumably good fishing: I envy the camper.
And on the other side of the ridge, down how many
thousand feet I do not know, lies that gruesome pit
of desolation with its caldrons of boiling mud and
clouds of angry steam.
126 OVER JAPAN WAY
Not long ago I happened to mention Noboribetsu
to a gentleman who has lived in Japan for a number
of years and knows it fairly well. "Noboribetsu?
I think I have heard of it. In Hokkaido, isn't it?
Probably a worn-out mud volcano, a docile old
fellow. You should climb Asama-yama if you want
the real thing over 8,000 feet high, and beyond
doubt the most disreputable, unreliable, diabolical
volcano in all Japan. Thirty years ago or so it went
on a rampage that lasted over eighty days and killed
thousands of people. Even now it makes nothing
of picking off a few venturesome fire-worshipers.
Start from Karuizawa in the afternoon; that's the
best time, for then you reach the summit about three
in the morning when things show up to advantage.
The crater, about three-quarters of a mile in cir-
cumference, must be six or seven hundred feet deep,
with perpendicular walls; and down there in the
great well a growling, glowing mass boils up and
rolls over on itself in truly satanic fashion. It's the
biggest sight in all Japan."
I blush for poor old Noboribetsu. Why, it's
hardly worth going to see. Still, I would not have
missed it, especially that ride up the ravine in the
dark. The only truly aristocratic way of approach-
ing any volcano is by private car.
Eruption of Mt. Aso.
Going to school.
CHAPTER XII
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY
THERE is substantial confirmatory evidence that
the children of Hamelin followed an underground
passage terminating in Japan, and that the Pied
Piper, mightily pleased with this first expedition,
has never Ceased luring the young not only from
Hamelin but from many another rich city the world
over, always leading them along the same dark
path. What simpler way of accounting for the
amazing number of children in the Mikado's empire
and the lamentable shortage elsewhere. Look at
the eyes of the little ones, half-shut as if not yet
accustomed to broad daylight; and observe their
clothes, pied in the extreme, each kimono a medley
of the brightest colors.
Whatever their origin, most of them are, and all
might easily be made, irresistibly adorable. Mr.
Kipling was quite right in affirming that the only
thing preventing little Japanese children from grow-
ing wings and flying away is their noses. It is in-
conceivable, however, that they should ever wish
to fly away, for in Japan everybody loves children.
127
128 OVER JAPAN WAY
They are welcome everywhere, seen everywhere,
even at the theatre, and evidently have a perfectly
splendid time. Still they must attend school, like
children in other lands, and for six long years,
whether prince or peasant. It is the Mikado's will.
My first glimpse at Japan's educational system,
barring an hour in a missionary kindergarten where
the exercises began with a little ceremony that Mr.
Kipling would commend, was through the back
door, so to speak. I was sulking in Matsushima, a
town on the eastern coast, a long way north of Tokyo.
Although normally a village of but 700 inhabitants,
its five hotels entertain annually 100,000 guests,
who come to view Matsushima Bay, most beautiful
of the three most beautiful " sights" in all Japan.
I was sulking because it rained, not intermittently,
nor gently, but with wasteful vigor. "The morn-
ing" this from the guidebook "the twilight, and,
above all, the moonlit views of the graceful islets,
which rise like beautiful green cameos from an
opalescent sea," etc., etc. "When white-sailed
junks drift lazily over the translucent water and
blend their ghostly shadows in the depths with those
of the billowy galleons that ride majestically across
the airy sea above," etc., etc. "Now gray and
tender and wistful, now blue and winsome and
radiant," etc., etc., etc. To have green cameos and
billowy galleons for years I had sighed for galleons
without knowing what they were and large quanti-
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 129
ties of opalescent translucence so near and yet in-
visible! How long the sulks would have lasted is
problematic had there not trooped by in front of the
hotel a straggling procession of little children be-
neath umbrellas comically big. Through the blur
of rain they looked like mushrooms newly sprouted,
endowed with magic powers of locomotion. Evi-
dently they were bound for the village school. They
drew me like magnets; as soon as arrangements
could be made, I too sallied forth, a mushroom
of larger growth, and followed their soggy trail up
the street. An English-speaking guide accompanied
me.
Picture, please, a long, narrow, one-storied struc-
ture, unpainted, with a three foot piazza, beneath the
main roof and running the entire length, facing a
fine big playground with not a blade of grass to keep
off from, though there are flowerbeds at one side
which the children have made. Flanking this build-
ing, place a shabby little cottage, the master's home.
It is recess tune, and the narrow piazza is crowded
with little rascals having a delightfully noisy time,
like swarming bees in front of a hive. On our ap-
proach, down they go by the dozen, bowing their
black heads to the floor, consciously polite, but some
of them getting heaps of fun out of it, their plump,
brown faces beaming, their eyes mere slits.
We are ushered into the office, an unpretentious
room at one end of the building. Two little girls
i 3 o OVER JAPAN WAY
with braids down their backs, presumably the fire
brigade for the week, bring in coals for the fire-box
and also tea things. Soon the master appears, a
man of fifty in European dress all men teachers in
Japan discard the native costume, I think with
kindly, intelligent face and courteous manners.
Tea is served while the guide explains our errand;
visiting cards are exchanged. It is the custom, like
removing one's shoes upon entering. Slippers are
usually furnished, but mere stockings are sufficiently
modish though a trifle cool. Polite compliments go
back and forth via the interpreting guide, until a
bell rings, the bees swarm back into the hive, and we
enter the first of two schoolrooms, where the boys
and girls, paired off matrimonially, are seated in
little chairs behind little tables. There are no vacant
seats.
The subdued buzz of voices is hushed instantly.
At a signal given evidently by the head pupil, all
bow prettily to master and guests. Then work
begins. There is no doubt of it, for everybody
studies out loud, which has its advantages. You
know by ear whether each boy is hard at it or merely
up to something. Besides, it invites concentration.
Apparently each of the three double rows represents
a separate class or grade. The master handles them
one at a time, employing necessarily a firm, loud
voice. Having administered, or extracted, a lesson
orally in row No. i, he assigns bookwork or writing
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 131
and opens fire on row No. 2, proceeding thence to
row No. 3 where the littlest tots are. It is lively
work, suggesting the juggler at the fair who keeps a
table fork, a croquet ball, and a piano stool flying
upward in rapid succession. Meanwhile a lady
assistant walks about, serving not so much as a
police officer as a personal friend to the backward.
What it is all about, I have no means of telling, but
I assume that it has to do with the first two R's.
There is much oral reading, the book at times held
unusually high as the bottom of each vertical line
is reached, the reader intoning like a shrill-voiced
priest.
In the adjoining room, where the older pupils sit,
not matrimonially but sternly separated, the boys
forming the left wing, the girls the right, we find in
charge not another man but an honor pupil perhaps
thirteen years old. Barefooted, like all the other one
hundred eighty chicks in school, clad in a kimono
much too thin, it seems, for chilly October, this
midget looks the master. His troops are under per-
fect control. "I find," the principal explains later,
"that while the littler ones need the trained teacher,
older boys and girls do best when instructed by one
of their own number, though some supervision is of
course necessary." Interesting pedagogic theory,
by no means merely a clever expedient on the part
of an over-burdened master. I have thought of it
many times since, and have had brought to mind the
i 3 2 OVER JAPAN WAY
rapid progress made by the youngest in a large
family where the bringing up is entrusted perforce
in some measure to older brothers and sisters. But
how un-American, how typically Japanese. In
Japan, traditions centuries old frown upon insubor-
dination. Submission to authority, no matter in
whom vested, has become instinctive.
All bow as we leave for the office, where there is
more tea-drinking and compliments honestly be-
stowed. The assistant principal wishes to help me
on with my shoes! As we mushroom our way down
through the yard, the voices of children studying
aloud sound fainter and fainter; at last I miss even
the shrill intoning of some third reader Tom or Peter;
but I can still see in imagination that masterly boy
teacher in absolute control of sixty or seventy of his
lively mates, teaching them to read and write Chinese
characters. I wonder if it is true, as I have been
told, that a certain Chinese character means woman;
when doubled, talk; when tripled, much noise. I wish
I had thought to ask him. He would have known.
A few days later we are in Otaru, a busy seaport in
Hokkaido, hill encircled, sloping to a bay where
a score of merchantmen lie at anchor within the
breakwater. Again it is raining, more accurately
speaking it is still raining; so again we go to school.
It is a girls' high school, beautifully placed on a little
plateau near the hills, one of several buildings making
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 133
up a sizable plant; for normally, in Japan, boys and
girls are housed separately. The equipment here is
in marked contrast to the Spartan simplicity of
Matsushima; the buildings are two-storied and have
glass windows. They are unpainted, however, which
seems to be the rule in Japan, where beauty is so
often placed before utility. No paint ever invented
could improve on the soft grays and browns of long-
weathered timbers.
After the usual office civilities tea, of course the
principal, a well-dressed, energetic young man, takes
us about, visiting classrooms not so very different
in size and equipment from those found in an Amer-
ican school. I recall somewhat vividly a senior class
in grammar, a group of thirty or forty fine looking
girls, uniformly dressed as to their skirts, which I
think were garnet hued a man does not remember
such things their glossy black hair neatly "done,"
no doubt in conformity to the latest style. Seldom
have I seen a more wide-awake recitation; hands were
up most of the time. As for the instructor, she had
the intellectual face and refined manners of a Welles-
ley graduate plus a charm distinctively Oriental.
Japan's future, I commented inwardly as we left
the room, is assured not through a mighty army and
navy, nor through commercial supremacy in the
Pacific; her high school girls will attend to it, they
and their well-bred instructors. Thus easily may
even a middle-aged man be swayed when viewing a
134 OVER JAPAN WAY
roomful of attractive young women, raven-haired, in
garnet skirts though the more I think of it, perhaps
the skirts were blue. At any rate all were of the same
color.
The class in music was wrestling with a new song
in honor of the Crown Prince, quite European in its
swing. In an adjoining room the subject for the
day was the care of babies how to exercise a year-
ling, how many hours should be devoted to sleep, what
should be the hours for feeding, etc. It was ex-
asperating not to be able to look over a shoulder and
see what was being jotted down in the large note-
books, though preferable would have been magic
ability to read what was passing through the fem-
inine mind. I wondered, too, if Kipling had been
translated into Japanese; and wanted very much
to express views on the common practice of shaving
heads. To see a grandmother sliding a cold razor-
blade over the skull of a baby three weeks old, the
mother consenting, nay holding the innocent victim,
is The sentence snaps suddenly. Before me are
some of the finest heads of hair I have ever seen, and
I recall that there are twenty bald heads in America
to practically none in Japan.
In a fourth room, girls are making kimonos, very
pretty, and prettier still when turned inside out.
Through physics and chemistry laboratories we
pass they are empty at the time to a matted room
typical of those found in Japanese homes, where a
A jiu-jitsu school. Of course the men are posing. The school in
Kyoto is as fine as a temple spacious, clean.
Country school children.
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 135
lesson in etiquette is about to begin. Perhaps it
would not be polite to linger and pry into the secrets
of the captivating ways of the cherry-blossom lady;
better to regard it all as heaven-sent intuition. Be-
sides, it is nearly train time. On our way back to the
office, however, we peep into the gymnasium, where
a score of the older girls are playing a sort of drop-
the-handkerchief ring game, and having a very
merry time in a decorous manner. When Japanese
girls laugh, it is music.
"Do many leave before graduating?" I ask,
through the interpreter.
"Quite a few," the principal replies sadly.
"For what reason?"
"Chiefly matrimony. The educated woman is in
great demand."
"No wonder. How do you manage to keep your
teachers?"
He smiles, but does not reply. Beyond a certain
point the Japanese are not frankly communicative.
Confucius looked upon woman as distinctly inferior
to man, and so for centuries have his followers re-
garded her. One still sees, in going about Japan,
hundreds of women who, upon marrying, have dyed
their teeth a permanent hideous black; but the bride
of today guards her beauty as it is guarded in other
lands. Difficult as such matters are to investigate,
there is abundant evidence that the wife is in many
respects little more than a servant to her lord, in no
136 OVER JAPAN WAY
true sense his companion. But the old order chang-
eth. In 1914, when the last report was printed, there
were hi Japan 330 high schools for girls, 117 of them
classed as "domestic," and a college for women with
over 500 students. The men at last are beginning to
demand wives sufficiently welt educated to make
agreeable co-partners. Centuries upon centuries of
training in service, deference, self-effacement have
ingrained traits of character that make the Japanese
woman in many respects a miracle of gracious un-
selfishness; add education and the product will be,
inevitably, a conundrum.
A month later, in Kyoto. We are on our way to a
royal garden when, in passing down a side street, I
am attracted by a medley of children's voices. The
garden can wait. I obey the impulse and enter a
gateway leading to a commodious quadrangle
formed by the two-storied buildings of an elementary
school. Evidently it is a gala occasion, for flags are
flying, and children, perhaps six hundred in all,
evidently a little more carefully dressed than usual,
wear holiday faces. The panels enclosing school-
rooms on the quadrangle side have been removed,
converting the buildings into a series of balconies
where parents, aunts, uncles, and committeemen in
frock coats are assembled. It is the annual athletic
meet.
We are soon discovered, which means office
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 137
civilities, tea, and visiting cards, then an invitation,
innocently accepted, to enter the arena. A shrill
whistle from an assistant teacher in shirt sleeves,
and chaos becomes military order. The principal
mounts a box and begins an address. Seldom have I
listened to such eloquence. It is like Spartacus
in the old Sixth Reader. The children are reasonably
attentive. "What is he talking about?" I enquire
of the guide. "America," is the reply. "Good. It's
a fine subject." Two minutes later. "What country
is he talking about now?" "No country, sir; he's
talking about you." "The dickens! Another great
subject. I wish I could understand. What is he
saying about me? " "That you will now address the
school." There is wild clapping of hands. I rapidly
rehearse all my Japanese ohaio, sodeska, sayo-nara,
ichi, and three other words since forgotten. It is
manifestly inadequate. I am so unnerved that my
entire frame stutters. "See here, guide," I manage
to say at last, "get me out of this, some way. Tell
the principal something anything; it is what I pay
you for." The guide passes on a few words to the
orator, who bows, mounts the box, and so far as I can
judge, delivers an oration identical with that which
has just come to a close. I am mystified. "What is
he saying?" I ask at length. "What I told him
that you told me to tell him to say to them" or
words to that effect. " Good. He is a great man and
should be in parliament. I have never had my views
138 OVER JAPAN WAY
more accurately and eloquently voiced." Mentally
I admit that the guide too has elements of greatness,
but I refrain from telling him so. He has a semi-
detached laugh that I do not like. Besides, his answers
to my questions often seem strangely out of focus.
I do not feel really safe until out of the arena again
and seated in the front row of spectators. An at-
tendant brings a little fire-box, evidently taking it
for granted that we wish to smoke. The principal,
now seated at a table in one corner of the yard, where
tally will be kept and prizes awarded, has his fire-box
too, and is enjoying a cigarette. Again a signal from
the coatless, vestless Roderick Dhu, and the military
array vanishes, the boys and girls scrambling for the
sidelines where thin matting has been spread on the
damp ground. The weather is pretending to be
good, but it is a ruse; there will be rain again before
night. Here the boys peel off kimonos and stand re-
vealed in white suits and gay red and blue jockey
caps. Cheering brigades begin to tune up in Amer-
ican fashion. It is all vastly more interesting than
speechmaking.
The program was very long; it was to last an entire
day. We stayed but an hour or two, during which
time we saw many events common to all athletic
meets and a few that were novel. It is worth while
to cross the Pacific just to see Japanese girls do the
goose step and run through military calisthenics with
absolute precision, not an eyelash out of place, not a
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 139
slip in any movement, each face as serious as if a
battle were imminent. Those girls could fight; at
least they know how to obey orders. Nothing could
be much droller than the Atalanta race in which the
contestants, little maids of seven or eight, stopped
when halfway round the course marked out by flags,
to pick up large, bright-colored balls, then sped on in
their mad career, pigtails flying straight behind. The
mite who lost her sandals, and her sister who dropped
a ball, then lost a second in regaining the first,
evidently felt that they had brought disgrace upon
their families yet bravely refrained from weeping.
Equally picturesque was a race in which the runners
stopped at a given point to light lanterns. Event
followed event with phenomenal swiftness. Almost
before the winners of one race had presented them-
selves at the judge's table and had their honors re-
corded, the next contestants were on the line waiting
for the crack of the pistol. It all seemed very won-
derful, indicative of successful training under vigor-
ous leadership. The death rate in Japan, it is said,
exceeds that of any other country where vital statis-
tics are recorded. This may not be true a generation
hence. Three hours a week of physical training for
every school boy and school girl is the normal amount
called for by government regulation. There are
today in the schools and colleges of Japan over eight
million loyal subjects. Should war be declared,
Complete the sentence as you wish.
i 4 o OVER JAPAN WAY
The habit grew. A month later came uncondi-
tional surrender to the authorities in Tokyo. For
two days it is superfluous to add that both were
rainy the Mayor's limousine whirled from school to
school, from college to college, from Imperial Uni-
versity to the office of the Minister of Education.
Two secretaries formed an efficient body-guard and a
footman assisted my honorable augustness in ascend-
ing and descending. It was a great experience, espe-
cially the attentions of the footman, who graciously
overlooked my lack of frock coat and silk hat, the
usual symbols of dignity. I wanted to invite him to
dine with me at the Imperial. In America, where
commanding genius is so often overlooked, no foot-
man has ever paid me the slightest attention. The
Japanese are a discerning people.
Of the impressions received on those two memora-
ble days, few remain vivid, in part no doubt due to
the fact that the receiver was kept saturated with
tea (the entire educational system is built round a
teapot), a trifle dizzy with bowing, and partially
congealed with cold, for few rooms were heated.
It was, perhaps, a form of jiu-jitsu disarming the
critical faculties. I seem to recall, however, that
though in general the material equipment was sternly
plain compared with the palaces in which the youth
of America are educated, the instructors, almost
without exception, were clean-cut and scholarly, and
the pupils an earnest lot, hard at it. Out of the haze
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 141
comes one picture, which brings to mind that boy-
teacher in Matsushima. It is of a large room in the
Imperial University, filled with tier upon tier of
students, men grown, listening attentively to an
immaculately dressed lecturer who stood, one hand
in his pocket, quite after the manner of a Harvard
professor. A second picture brings to mind Otaru.
It is a scene in a girls' high school. The pupils are
seated at desks, down one side of which dangle a
number of ink bottles secured neck to neck by a
cord; on the other side, a bag containing cooking
utensils. The signal for dismissal is given. Perhaps
half the young ladies hurry away, each carrying her
books neatly tied up in a bright-hued silk bandanna;
the rest remain, tuck up their kimonos, tie towels
about their heads, and with broom, brush, mop, and
pail, proceed to clean the building domestic science
practically applied.
It is easy to assume that when Commodore Perry
forced open the ports of Japan the light of culture
streamed in for the first time upon a distinctly in-
ferior people. For two hundred years the realm had
been a hermit kingdom; but the Japanese are an
old, old people. A thousand years before the bars
went up, they had been exposed to Chinese and
Hindu civilization. We may treat as apocryphal
the proud claim that universities and schools were
founded a century before there was a university in
Europe, yet concede that in an Asiatic way the
I 4 2 OVER JAPAN WAY
people, particularly the higher classes, were far from
uncultured. With the Restoration there did come a
new civilization, the learning and the culture of
Europe and America. It was accepted, a school
system was established, and Japan, unable to let
go the old which had become ingrained, yet grasping
eagerly after the new, occasionally shows signs of
cultural suffocation. No other nation has ever been
put to such a frightful test. Her present system of
education, borrowed a bit here and a bit there, from
France, from Germany, from America, from Eng-
land, reminds one at times of a fast-growing lad much
too warmly clothed in garments designed for other
boys of various builds.
There are many kinds of schools in Japan: Ele-
mentary, Higher Elementary, Middle, High, Higher,
Normal, Higher Normal, Technical, Special (a
general term embracing various types), Universities
Imperial and private, etc. The nomenclature, the
lines of demarcation, and the courses of study have
changed repeatedly during the past twenty years, not
always in the direction of simplification. Possibly
the Japanese have more genius for elaborating plans
on paper than they have genius for executing that
which has been elaborated. They do not always
count the cost in yen and sen.
The government scheme schools as well as rail-
ways are government affairs calls for six years of
compulsory education and recognizes that what is
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 143
compulsory should be free. Free it is in most schools,
but not in all. Beyond the compulsory years a tui-
tion is charged. This is not, perhaps, a wholly bad
plan; in America, education is so cheap that it is not
prized, and by many it is treated with scant respect.
But Japan is too poor, apparently, to furnish schools
even for those willing to pay. It is not an easy matter
to gain admittance to higher institutions. On paper,
examinations have been abolished; in reality, nearly
fifty per cent, of the applicants more in some
schools are weeded out by stiff entrance examina-
tions. If you have the brains and the determination,
the Government seems to say, come, we'll educate
you; if you are dull or lazy or both, you are not worth
it. Education is not for all who apply. Possibly this
Spartan sternness is needed in our own land.
The course of study, even for the earlier years,
presents difficulties unknown to American boys and
girls, who learn to read while yet the tongue lisps.
The Japanese characters, one for each possible
syllable, are readily learned. There are but few of
them, accidental, squirmy-looking things, a sort of
running script. But the Chinese characters must be
blindly memorized too, and a Chinese character
there are as many as there are words is no trifling
matter. One written language is sufficient; the Japa-
nese have two. Later, before reaching the univer-
sity, the student is expected to master English and
one other modern language. English is worse than
144 OVER JAPAN WAY
Chinese and Japanese combined; it was never made
for export. We are used to it, do not mind its
eccentricities; besides, when it gets in our way we
scrap it. To the Japanese it is a nightmare. For-
tunately, Latin and Greek play no part in the
educational scheme, unless it be in the universities.
Co-education does not extend, legally, beyond the
second or third year. It is not possible in Japan, as
it is in America, for a boy to go from kindergarten
to college without ever reciting to a man. The men
teachers must outnumber the women at least three
to one. But conditions will surely change; the abler
men, it is said, are slipping away into other lines of
activity just as in America. The reason is obvious.
According to the latest printed report, over fifty
thousand elementary school teachers were receiving
less than twenty yen (ten dollars) a month, and
relatively few were getting more than twenty-five.
I should not care to teach in Japan. It would be
much pleasanter to serve as policeman. (The same
holds true in America.) The policeman gets thirty
yen a month, in return for which he wears a nice
uniform and white gloves, and is greatly admired.
He has no beat, but stands near a little sentry house
provided with telephone and fire-box. Apparently
he is for ornament chiefly and acts the part nobly.
I have never seen one make an arrest; the long list
of crimes tabulated in annual reports is obviously a
polite fiction to satisfy the taxpayer.
FROM KINDERGARTEN TO UNIVERSITY 145
It gives one, indeed, a distinct shock to read that
in 1914 there were in the normal schools of Japan
18,223 men and 8,502 women, and that this repre-
sented but a little over thirty per cent, of those who
applied for admittance. Amazing! Is it the pension
system that attracts? I quote from an official re-
port: "An elementary school teacher is entitled to a
retiring pension and a family pension. The pension
on retirement is a life pension granted to such regular
teachers of an elementary school after over fifteen
years' service, to retire on account of old age, illness,
abolition of the school, etc. ; or to those who, though
with less than fifteen years' service, have retired on
account of physical disability owing to wounds in-
flicted or some disease contracted in the discharge of
their duties, assistant teachers having the same
privilege in this latter case. Even those who are
not entitled to a retiring pension, but who retire
after over one year's service are granted a lump sum
of money according to the number of years of service.
A family pension is granted to the surviving member
of the family in the case of the death of regular
teachers of an elementary school of public establish-
ment, who were in receipt of, or were entitled to, a
retiring pension, or who, though not having com-
pleted fifteen years of service, have died in the dis-
charge of their duties."
Physical disability, owing to wounds inflicted! Now
what can that mean? A possible explanation is
146 OVER JAPAN WAY
found in a paragraph appearing in the Japanese Year
Book. "The introduction of the Occidental system of
learning and the displacing of venerable teachers of
old system with younger teachers devoid of expe-
rience and virtue have undermined the laudable
custom that formerly existed between masters and
pupils. Education is too often regarded now-
adays as a thing of fees and salaries and is sadly
lacking in moral element. This accounts for lax
discipline and refractory propensities of students,
especially those of Middle schools in which very
often boys break out into a strike on the alleged
ground of incompetence of their masters or teachers.
It is consoling to see that the outbreaks, so wide-
spread till about ten years ago or so, are gradually
lessening and that with the acquirement of greater
experience and prestige on the part of teachers and
also of gradual settling down of new orders of affairs
in social and political world, school troubles are
becoming heard less and less frequently."
On the whole, digesting school reports is less
agreeable than visiting schools especially in Mat-
sushima.
CHAPTER XIII
PLAY-GOING
IT may or may not be true that in Mikado land
George Washington is less esteemed than Charlie
Chaplin and the Perils of Pauline more familiar than
the career of Joan of Arc. In many a Theatre Street
the signboards which patch the fronts of amusement
houses and line alluring portals furnish pleasurable
shivers to sensitive spines. Behold our old yet
youthful friend, the heroine with flying locks, escap-
ing obviously wicked pursuers by crossing a mile
deep chasm on a human chain of bridge-forming
lovers. Lo her raven-haired sister, breaking the
ropes which bind her to the rails and dropping from
the trestle into the automobile of her lover, oppor-
tunely passing along the roadway beneath, just in
time to escape the midnight express at the left edge
of the lithograph. And see yon ronin, creeping
Indian fashion, save that he has no bright gleaming
dagger between his teeth, upon the proud daimyo
who has despitefully treated said ronin's overlord.
Success to you, bold curdler of juvenile blood! In
short the cinematograph has not only invaded the
147
148 OVER JAPAN WAY
land; one actually hears the death rattle of the
ancient and honorable marionettes, and native drama
in other forms is not quite what it was in the good old
days. Still the theatre remains surprisingly popular,
especially with the middle class.
Japanese inns are not always easily recognizable.
If they do not actually conceal themselves by refus-
ing to take on a distinguishable characteristic ap-
pearance, it is at least true that they seldom put
themselves forward solicitously. The theatre, on
the contrary, is readily found. In front, on either
side of the street, run rows of electric lights sup-
plementing the fascinating glow of gay paper lanterns
big and small. There may be also a display of staffs
with bright colored spiral bands, suggesting slender
barber poles newly recruited and carefully mar-
shalled. Add banners, flags, manekis, whatever will
contribute color and an air of festivity, and the
theatre stands frankly confessed. (Quite inciden-
tally, the word maneki was slipped into the preceding
sentence with no ordinary feeling of pride, yet pride
tinged with an element of uncertainty. Scholars
whose linguistic research has led them beyond ohaio
and sodeska alone know whether it is the proper term
to apply to a long-staffed flag when the cloth part is
abnormally narrow and extends down the stick an
unconscionable distance. The word has a good
Oriental ring, anyway.)
Easily found is the theatre, but getting in when not
PLAY-GOING 149
acquainted with all the channels is a matter calling
for nice navigation. Everyone appears glad to see
me, at the first entrance attempted, but the atmos-
phere and activity of the place suggest a busy restau-
rant or kitchen rather than a playhouse; so it seems
best to back out with an air calculated to suggest
casual reconnoitre rather than predetermined inva-
sion. An attendant, probably a waiter, follows
and politely points down the street. Sure enough,
a few steps away is the ticket window, with a young
lady sitting behind, to whom, at a venture, a yen is
handed. Straightway she begins to talk, whereupon
arises uncertainty as to whether it will be better to
reply "Yes, quite rainy," or "I'm not at all par-
ticular; any seat will do." Both are tried, but neither
seems right. Perhaps the yen is insufficient. A
second one is therefore offered. It would have been
shrewder to begin with a five yen bill; a fiver would
certainly more than cover the charge. Some people
are singularly clever in such matters. But the lady
continues to talk. " I want to go in," I say, speaking
very distinctly, "the theatre Shakespeare and
that sort of thing. One ticket, please." Further
talk on the part of the young lady, but nothing deci-
sive.
She is charmingly conversational, fluent, appar-
ently never grounded for matter, sympathetic, but
it is foreign to my purpose to spend the evening talk-
ing through a wall to Thisbe. I am late anyhow a
ISO OVER JAPAN WAY
small matter of four hours, it afterward proved; the
performance begins at four and lasts till eleven.
It is therefore a distinct relief when a second at-
tendant comes to the rescue and leads me through the
wide, main entrance, to a fairly commodious lobby,
where an usher takes me in charge. This being
passed on from one to another, as if feeble-minded,
is extremely trying to the newly arrived immigrant,
and remains so long after the aroma of bilge has
faded from his steamer trunk. In the lobby my shoes
are requisitioned, courteously, and soon command
a phalanx of clogs near the door. I am kindly per-
mitted to retain my socks. This is not a concession;
socks are legal throughout the realm. Then the
usher mounts a steep staircase to the left and I am
soon in sole possession of a balcony box. So far as
memory serves, it is the first time I have ever entered
a theatre stocking-footed.
Occupying a box at the truly Japanese playhouse is
in many ways less vainglorious than it sounds, not at
all like inhabiting a pleasantly conspicuous paradise
brass railed, curtained, and canopied, sharing with
the stage the envious gaze of the common herd; for
in the Japanese theatre everyone sits in a box. The
only alternative would be to stand up in one or lie
down, for all is boxes. Yet this is not quite the cor-
rect term; a box should have enclosing sides, if not a
lid or cover; whereas the theatre box is merely a
space perhaps four feet square and designed for four
PLAY-GOING 151
people, defined by a plain wood railing from five to
fifteen or twenty inches above the matting. It is a
pen, or yard, without a gate. Further observations,
things quickly perceived and registered in hit-or-miss
order: The room is rectangular, seating perhaps
fifteen hundred, the stage running the long way and
occupying nearly the entire front. The two mam
aisles are level with the stage, the guests stepping
down from these pikes into their waffle-iron com-
partments, some of which, I now see, are half-size,
designed for two. Boxes remote from the highway
may be approached by rail, or by stepping from pit
to pit, etiquette apparently requiring no particular
method of ingress or egress. The rear balcony, deeper
than those on the sides, is a series of graduated
plateaux, evidently the poorest quarter of the house.
From the paneled roof of gold and black lacquer
hang electric lights, and many others at the side are
concealed in red paper lanterns. A few flags and
festoons of silk or paper, plus a wide balcony parapet
of what to the masculine eye looks like red flannel,
complete the simple and effective decorations.
At home, the play's the thing, but not so in the
Orient; the audience alone is worth triple the
price of admission. What a fascinating spectacle,
compared with which an American audience is a
particularly slow funeral. A performance beginning
at four or four-thirty and lasting till bedtime five
or six plays with long intervals between does not
152 OVER JAPAN WAY
invite formality. One comes prepared to spend the
hours comfortably. It is a sort of indoor picnic where
enacted comedy and tragedy, if not incidental, are
certainly not monopolistic. It is a church sociable
with the church element agreeably absent, designed
for all ages from wrinkled grandpa down to the babe
that finds its mother's breast unabashed and after-
wards sleeps peacefully through farce and melo-
drama. And pray do not think you must sit hour
after hour on a cushion in a space two feet by two;
get up and wander about if you feel like it, especially
when the curtain is down. ("Down" is incorrect;
the thing is flimsy and pulls to from right to left.)
What are those smooth board aisles for if not for little
children to run on? The narrow space between foot-
lights and curtains is a convenient short cut to be
employed in social migrations. No row will be raised
if youthful eyes peep behind the curtain, though
perhaps it is a bit mischievous, which heightens the
charm. The audience chamber is flanked with
bazaars where small wares are alluringly displayed,
and restaurants and refreshment booths are so
numerous that one is uncertain whether they or the
theatre should be called parasitic.
Certainly the restaurant plays an important part,
for the pleasure of seeing a favorite actor is far from
complete in itself; there should be the attendant
joys of eating, drinking, and smoking. Mind is
inseparable from body; both should be entertained
PLAY-GOING 153
simultaneously. The tandem arrangement is a
mistaken Occidental notion. And when the stage is
being arranged for some new delight, let the drum be
thumped a bit behind the scene; a little noise we
will not call it music is mildly pleasurable. I am
not quite sure whether the tiny fire-box is brought by
a house "boy," or a waiter. A play would not be a
play without smoking; and matches, though cheap,
are less satisfactory than a live coal. They are
slender things with weak constitutions. If you must
employ one, learn to strike it the right way, holding it
nearly parallel with the box and pointing the head
from you; otherwise, a dozen trials may prove in-
effectual. See how easily the ladies do it. The
night is warm, and the "boys" know no prudish con-
vention forbidding the display of a bronze shoulder
or chest. The modestly attired women attendants
are plainly from restaurant quarters. They bring
not only tea, cakes, fruit, but quite elaborate meals
ordered in advance. The two-by-four or four-by-
four compartment, though it contain its full quota of
tenants, is, miraculously, quite large enough for
fire-box, teapot and cups, and the well-loaded trays
too, though heads are so closely grouped that a man
might be pardoned if his chopsticks should stray into
the wrong mouth occasionally. The pleasant-faced
waiters are remarkably spry without seeming to
hurry; the three-inch partition rails are sufficiently
wide for their bare feet.
154 OVER JAPAN WAY
As to the plays of the evening, I write with a
degree of reserve unseemly in dramatic criticism.
Attempts to follow spirited dialogue carried on in a
language unknown bring a mental exhilaration such
as Sherlock Holmes must have experienced, but no
dependable notion of what it is all about. At tunes,
by paying closest attention to tone of voice, to ges-
ture, and facial expression, I seem to catch the drift
of things remarkably well. All one needs, apparently,
is a normally active imagination and a little common
sense ingenuity. Yes, it is comedy, getting funnier
every minute. Really, I must laugh, and am about to
indulge in at least an appreciative chuckle when, pru-
dently glancing about the house, I am amazed to find
the women in tears. It seems wise to postpone the
chuckle and study this strange phenomenon. Sub-
sequent observation confirms the initial impression
that Japanese women are poor emotional creatures,
like their sisters in other lands, and perhaps a trifle
more than like them. The Japanese playhouse weep
has a slight nasal accompaniment which may not be
unique but is not always so frankly unchecked. A
little later, having caught the trail of the story again,
and perhaps sympathetically influenced by the
recent survey, I feel sure that all is black tragedy, can
readily see the rapidly approaching catastrophe, and
am working up to a delightful pitch of tense emotion
when lo, a ripple of laughter almost universal and so
extremely pleasant that it becomes on the whole the
PLAY-GOING 155
most cherished memory of the evening. I have sel-
dom heard anything more musically fascinating. In
short, during the two hours or so spent hi trying to
follow acts that sway the emotions of the large
audience, I construct numberless dramatic situations
and fancy dialogues grave and witty, the imagination
working ever at highest tension, without once really
penetrating the particular make-believe world mir-
rored on the stage.
There are, however, certain unique features in
Japanese play-acting and general stage arrange-
ment which can be written about with a normal
degree of intelligence. For example, the parts of
women are taken by men, wonderfully successful
in make-up and manners, but with voices carefully
trained till they are neither masculine nor feminine
as in college dramatics. Save for a long-ago period
of near anarchy, rebellion soon suppressed because
of the abuses it led to, men for centuries have ruled
the stage, though of recent years women have again
invaded the green room and are meeting with marked
success. Entrances are made not only from side
and rear, but down the aisle; in fact the runway is
equipped with concealed footlights, and part of the
action takes place on this narrow supplementary
stage in the midst of the audience. It is a fine ar-
rangement in that it gives a near-at-hand view of
facial expression, which plays an unusually promi-
nent part in Oriental acting. In an Osaka theatre,
156 OVER JAPAN WAY
a few weeks later, I witnessed a striking admission
of this truth. Two attendants in black black, in
stageland, is supposed to be invisible each pro-
vided with a big candle balanced on the tip of an
eight-foot fishpole held nearly horizontal, followed
the leading actor about, the flames burning brightly
a foot or two from his nose, and bringing into promi-
nence every line of his eloquent countenance. Speech
is of secondary importance. Attendants in black
are amusingly common, yet it is surprising how soon
one becomes accustomed to seeing them bring on
or carry off properties, or assist in changing cos-
tumes; for to leave the stage merely to alter dress
is a needless concession to realism. I am not quite
sure, yet it seemed at times evident, that an actor
may disappear, merely by turning his back to the
audience, without actual removal of his physical
body. It is a convenient convention. Finally, the
stage of this fifty year old theatre is of the turnstile
type. One act completed, the setting, actors and
all, circles slowly from view and in three or four
twinkles a new setting appears and the play goes on
without appreciable interruption.
One final matter is approached with a degree of
diffidence, namely, the musical accompaniment,
instrumental and vocal, in the present case, if mem-
ory serves, off-stage, the musicians invisible. The
dulcet strains are interpretative of mood, and some-
tunes openly explanatory of the action, like the
PLAY-GOING 157
Greek chorus. They are unquestionably a distinct
aid to the listener in following the play, besides con-
tributing pleasure to the ear trained to appreciate
harmony. It is a sort of opera, intermittent, usually
subdued, yet mourning its captivity, and occa-
sionally bursting into triumphal notes as if deter-
mined to break its bonds and come boldly forth.
No words can adequately describe the drum, flute,
and guitar-like instrumental refrain with its ap-
parently ad libitum punctuation of vocal squeaks and
gurgles. The occasional solo, too, is beyond descrip-
tion. A guide once explained to me that the tones
of a good singer "come from the stomach." Pos-
sibly! I certainly thought, on this first memorable
night, that the soloist had become suddenly ill,
through some strange accident a croquet ball having
become lodged in his thorax. He seemed very
unhappy.
In Japan there is little to lure the tourist from the
comfortable hotel after nightfall unless his moral
code does not ban the primrose way leading to tea-
house Bohemia and beyond. This explains in part
why one easily becomes a patron of the reasonably
respectable, if not aristocratic, playhouse, though
long after the mere novelty loses its charm one may
continue legitimately enthralled by what is even-
tually recognized as really fine acting. On many
occasions my pleasure was more than doubled by
having as companion a young student of the drama
158 OVER JAPAN WAY
whose quiet enthusiasm was contagious and his
explanations, though at times in imperfect English,
turned many a seeming absurdity into a thing to
be admired. It was with this intelligent critic that
I went on several occasions to the Kabukiza, Tokyo's
most popular theatre.
The Kabukiza is a somewhat finer affair than
the Shintomiza into which I first strayed by mere
chance. The men attendants were in uniform, blue
kimonos and brown trousers, black ankle socks and
white sandals. The lady attendants likewise wore
dark blue kimonos. The patrons, though of the
middle class, were apparently prosperous people
for the most part, well dressed, though there was a
pleasurable lack of finery. The little children, it is
true, were dazzling multichromes, the young misses
of marriageable age resplendent from hair ribbons
to sandals, and the obi and sash of matrons were
invariably bright; but the sober gray, brown, steel
blue, and black kimonos worn by the adults, plus
heads of hair uniformly black, suggested a trim
Japanese landscape garden rather than a bower
of roses. There was no annoying wait at the
ticket window; all had been arranged in advance,
the common way, through the teahouse. An at-
tendant took coats, hats, and shoes at the teahouse
entrance, led the way to our box, brought program,
a printed synopsis of the plays, and the customary
refreshments. We were his guests, with no hint
The Kabukiza.
Stage of the Imperial Theatre.
PLAY-GOING 159
of the commercial till just before the last act when
hats and coats were brought and the bill for every-
thing presented, a reasonable total to which was
added the expected gratuity for service. Play-going
is not necessarily extravagance, though if all pos-
sible comforts are required, it may become so. I
was guilty of noting that the gentleman entertain-
ing friends in an adjoining box paid nearly twenty-
five yen.
The plays, too, were of a higher order. The com-
pany at the Shintomiza were giving modern produc-
tions mainly, so very modern that in one instance
the honk of an automobile was heard off stage, and
a European magnate in evening dress, tipsy and
dissolute, appeared in a questionable teahouse
scene. It was a comedy of manners, with many
realistic touches and familiar stage "business" ob-
viously imported. At the Kabukiza classical pieces
were given, impressive tragedy and truly laughable
farce. I shall not soon forget one piece, a tale of the
Japanese War of the Roses, in which a mother even-
tually parts with both her sons even though their
death may mean the downfall of the house through
the extinction of the line of succession. When, in
the last act, the two boys rode proudly away down
the aisle on prancing steeds richly caparisoned (the
steeds had knee-joints rather too human yet were
sufficiently equine for realism) practically the entire
audience gave way to tears.
160 OVER JAPAN WAY
It was while witnessing this piece that I first began
to realize how impossible it is for the outlander to
enter fully into the spirit of the older plays. The
themes are historical, national, and therefore appeal
strongly to a race the most patriotic in the world.
The plays picture a feudal past irrevocable yet far
more romantic than the commercial present. In
spite of their rush to adopt Western ideas, their
determination to win a high place among the great
nations, and their pitiful willingness to cast aside
whatever bears the marks of earlier, primitive cus-
toms, many at heart mourn for the grand days of
shogun and daimyo, days of oppression for the poor,
it is true, yet grand nevertheless. The leading figures
in classical drama are taken from the nobility,
nobility is always attractive in the eyes of the sub-
servient class; and though politically all caste lines
have been destroyed, the playhouse patrons remain
in Japan what they were in England of Shakespeare's
day, non-aristocratic.
But this is not all. To the difficulty of entering
into the spirit of the play, and the difficulty arising
from ignorance of Japanese history, Oriental man-
ners, customs, ideals, there is a stage language and
a significance of actions and dress, traditional
matters requiring almost as much study as the
Japanese tongue. The wonderfully rich costumes
may be more than faithful reproductions of long
ago fashions. Tone of voice, gesture, the mere
PLAY-GOING 161
flutter of a fan, may have a hidden eloquence. How
stiffly some of the actors walk the stage, how straight
their backs when in sitting posture. How unnatural
that though the boards may be well peopled, the
dialogue is from the mouths of but two or three.
Very unreal, we comment; yet our critic explains
that, for the times pictured, all is true, though he
adds that, since the actors' profession remains in
certain families, the calling passed on from genera-
tion to generation, mannerisms of long ago stage
days are carefully, reverently, preserved. We see
enacted not only events which really took place
in daimyo days but a dramatic representation al-
most identical with that which was given a century
ago.
It seems a pity that the native drama in any of its
various forms should ever disappear, yet such a fate
is imminent. There is in Tokyo an Imperial Theatre
perfect in its European appointments even to or-
chestra and presumably asbestos "drop," where the
better classes, many of the men in English costumes,
endure the discomfort of stiff-backed seats and wit-
ness adaptations of Shakespeare's plays and others
more modern. I recall a particularly amusing per-
formance of Anna Karenina in which the leading
lady in truth an actress, no masculine sham wore
"a pink silk evening dress en train, tan colored
walking boots, and a purple hat on the side of her
head adorned by a weather-beaten ostrich plume."
162 OVER JAPAN WAY
Prominent on the program was an advertisement
setting forth the healthful qualities of spearmint
chewing gum. By way of parenthesis, gum has cer-
tainly "arrived," made its spectacular entry, though
ultimate conquest is problematic. The youngsters
like its sweetness, but it may take a long educational
campaign, perhaps with show window demonstra-
tions, to teach the rising generation that gum is
primarily for facial exercise, not to be swallowed like
a bean-cake delicacy.
The marionettes, one of the earliest forms of
drama, have already lost caste; another decade may
witness their extinction. The playhouse in Osaka
where the one surviving company formerly prospered
is now, probably, a moving picture palace. I found
them out of the theatre district, in a shabby house
fronting a plebeian alley, and sat through an hour
or two in the company of poor people of the open-
mouthed uneducated class, mostly women and
children. The performance was sufficiently unique
to warrant a brief description.
There was little to suggest the Punch and Judy
ventriloquist show of our boyhood days. The pup-
pets, about half life-size, were manipulated by at-
tendants in black who made no effort to conceal
themselves. They were assisted at times by servants
in black who moved about freely as occasion re-
quired, though all stood or kneeled, I was unable to
determine which, in a sort of tank; or in other words
PLAY-GOING 163
the stage floor was considerably below the footlight
level. The marionettes, three or four sometimes
appearing at once, were cleverly made up, and so
skilfully handled that their movements were reason-
ably lifelike. There was the usual orchestral ac-
companiment of three or four instruments, and the
dramatic reader, reciter, soloist, or whatever he
should be called, who gave the story. It was as if
Lady of the Lake, reduced mainly to dialogue, were
being sung or chanted by a relay of strong-voiced
soloists, each doing his canto with fine interpretative
skill, while the action was carried on by a pantomimic
company. It will readily be seen that success de-
pends in a large measure on the musical skill and
dramatic powers of the minstrel. I could almost
believe the somewhat fabulous tales of the guide
concerning the pay received by a popular singer, and
did not question at all his assertion that the stilted
movements of actors in regular drama were in part
due to studied imitations of the once popular marion-
ettes on the part of famous players of long ago times.
The entire subject of Japanese drama is most in-
teresting, with a history strikingly similar in many
ways to the development of the English and the
Greek stage. In Chamberlain's Things Japanese the
matter is treated in popular vein, and a more schol-
arly account will be found in Aston 's Japanese Litera-
ture. Both writers trace the origin to religious
dances, later combined with popular tales, and have
164 OVER JAPAN WAY
much to say about the primitive No. "It had been
the custom," writes Chamberlain, "during the earlier
Middle Ages, for a certain class of minstrels to recite
the tales in question [popular legends and historical
tales] to the accompaniment of the lute. Thus, on a
double basis, helped on too perhaps by some echo
from the Chinese stage, yet independently devel-
oped, the Japanese lyrical drama came into being.
Edifices half dancing-stage, half theatre were built
for the special purpose of representing these No,
as the performances were called; and though the
chorus, which was at the same time an orchestra,
remained, new interest was added in the shape of two
individual personages, who moved about and recited
portions of the poem in a more dramatic manner.
The result was something strikingly similar to the
old Greek drama there was the same chorus, the
same stately demeanor of the actors, who were often
masked; there was the same sitting in the open air,
there was the same quasi-religious strain pervading
the whole."
The No are still presented. Like the Masque of
Milton's day, they are not for common folk but for
gentlemen and ladies of high degree. I would gladly
describe a performance it lasts nearly all day, hour
long, serious pieces with farcical comedies inter-
spersed but it was not my lot to witness this care-
fully cherished relic of antiquity. Nor did I visit the
"movies." That is not strictly true, however. One
PLAY-GOING 165
day when strolling about Asakusa Park, I did pay
five sen at a little window and was ushered up a
narrow staircase into a somewhat modern chamber,
the seats arranged in tiers, more densely packed with
humanity than any room it had ever been my lot to
enter. I remained perhaps thirty seconds, long
enough to note that on the platform was a gentleman
in frock coat explaining to a spellbound audience the
thriller that was being pictured on the screen, then
edged my way out and carefully brushed my
clothes. The audience was reasonably sweet, but
those were cholera days and I was unduly nervous.
From stately No to five sen movies is a far cry; they
represent the extremes. Somewhere between the
two, let us hope, there will eventually arise a new
type of drama, not wholly Oriental nor Occidental,
but a combination, perhaps, of the two; yet what a
pity it will be if any of the older forms entirely dis-
appear.
CHAPTER XIV
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK
THE average tourist is so incurably provincial that
many an hour of his stay in Japan is sure to witness
a complete upsetting of preconceived notions. His
sense of cultural superiority loses weight day by day;
the climate does not wholly agree with his normally
vigorous mental swagger. I recall, for example, an
almost humorous shrinkage in self-esteem and an
entirely new appraisement of things Oriental which
came one morning while strolling about the spacious
grounds of the Imperial University. There are no
imposing buildings such as one finds in Cambridge
or New Haven, no Stadium, Bowl, nor outdoor
theatre, a lamentable lack of green sward and
academic elms, yet all the essentials of a quiet,
dignified retreat of learning, and not a little of
natural beauty trees, shrubbery, a gem of a lakelet,
avenues, and winding paths. It is a reasonably am-
ple equipment for the five thousand or more young
men pursuing the various lines of advance work which
find a place in the curricula of our best universities.
I wish I knew the name of the student who, chanc-
166
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 167
ing to meet me, courteously volunteered as if it were
a matter of course to guide me about, and patiently
bore the mild torture of conversing in a tongue im-
perfectly mastered. Before long a second student
joined us, the son of a baron of great political prom-
inence, yet absolutely without superior airs, and
together we three wandered from building to build-
ing, down by the tennis courts and up to the long-
bow archery range, wherever it was thought the
stranger might care to go. They were fine fellows
and I formed a most favorable impression of the
entire student body as group after group issued from
laboratory or lecture room, mature men with good
faces, dignified in bearing, preternaturally free from
roughness and cigarettes. In all probability some
things are better taught in the University than any-
where else in the world. Important fields are covered
which the average American college graduate knows
nothing about. That 10,000 volume Chinese Ency-
clopedia in the University library But enough of
this. My theme is not the 35,000 students of univer-
sity grade and the more than 35,000 students of sec-
ondary grade who, according to J. Merle Davis,
make Tokyo probably the greatest educational center
in the world. The University popped into mind
unexpectedly, along with a certain colony of book-
shops chanced upon one day, at least a hundred, I
think, huddled together within a radius of what
would be in Chicago a few blocks. A vast deal of
168 OVER JAPAN WAY
reading is being done in present day Tokyo. It is a
city of newspapers and magazines, a distributing
point for the world's literature. Ignorance and
superstition must find insecure rooting in a metrop-
olis evidently so enlightened. Thus it would seem;
but Japan is a land of wonderful contradictions.
It is Sunday, according to the calendar, yet there
is no sabbath calm. Smoke issues from factory
chimneys as usual; there is no appreciable lull in
industry. A few stores may be closed, schools are
not in session, and bank clerks are, I think, free for
the day; yet the great city seems as lively as ever.
There are the usual street cries, no sound of bells
summoning to worship. Let us play pagan for once
and go not to church but to temple. We will pay
homage to Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy, whose
sanctuary is in Asakusa Park, not many miles from
the University down by the river.
What will Asakusa Temple be like? Well, a tem-
ple is of course a church, we reason, as the rikishas
whirl us through the narrow, crowded streets near
the river. A church may be of brick or stone, but
wood is certainly more orthodox, white clapboards
preferred, with a slender spire. Worship is con-
ceivable in a spireless church, though it is open to
suspicion; and there should be a bell up aloft and
perchance a clock, unreliable in winter time, and
preferably a gilded weathervane. Within, pulpit,
pews, stained glass windows. Those who are not
Approach to Te?nple of Kwannon.
The Big Gate, from the Temple porch.
Feeding the doves.
The Temple porch.
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 169
New England Congregationalists may wish to modify
these time-honored essentials, adding an altar more
or less resplendent, candles, incense, and images.
Organ, choir, and minister almost overlooked in
the rapid inventory are taken for granted.
It is with some such deeply rooted conception that
we dismiss the rikishas at a crowded point in one of
Tokyo's busiest sections, where once stood the tem-
ple's outer gate, a fine structure swept away by fire,
with how much more I know not, over half a century
ago, and enter a paved street within the temple com-
pound. It is closely lined with rows of low, two-
storied shops of red brick, tiny open-front affairs
not over twenty feet deep, where small merchandise
is offered for sale in wonderful variety toys, trink-
ets, candies and cakes, dry goods, kitchen utensils,
story-books, picture postals, everything conceivable
to coax pennies, especially from women and children,
a perennial bazaar, busy from early morning till
midnight, a mildly paradisical lane leading to holier
things beyond. In many ways worship and trade, in
Japan, are closely allied; certainly they are not
antagonistic. We join the throng, adding a slight
contribution to the strangely high-pitched refrain
made by hundreds upon hundreds of clogs, stopping
frequently, however, now to watch the children
grouped about the shop where dolls are the only
articles of sale, now to marvel at the artistic merit of
common household utensils in a neighboring booth,
170 OVER JAPAN WAY
or to study a party of country people returning from
worship. It is one of the most interesting street
shows in all Japan.
At the far end looms the Inner Gate, a huge two-
storied, double-bonneted red structure with massive
doors wide open, guarded by Nio, horrible "kings"
whose mission it is to frighten away demons. Strange
that these repulsive red gods, monster policemen, do
not terrify little children. Throw a moistened pellet
at one of these gods and if it sticks, the fondest wish
of your heart may come true. It is a common prac-
tice so old that there must be virtue in it. And if
you wish to become a good walker, add a pair of
sandals to the immense ones already tied to the wire
grating in front of the images. The bigger the votive
sandal, the stronger your stride will become per-
haps. Give the praying-wheel, near by, a turn for
good luck; then pass through the gate and enter
the temple yard, first pausing, however, to note the
canopied temple bell, a deep toned, sonorous fellow
without a clapper. In earthquake lands bells are not
suspended above roofs; the belfry stands a little to
one side of the temple, by itself, and is sounded by
means of an appropriately large swinging battering-
ram.
The yard, graveled to right and left of the wide
medial pavement, and fairly well shaded, is a busy
place. Notice the tables here and there where, for a
small coin, the children may buy little saucers of
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 171
grain for the pigeons. Vegetarian Buddha taught
kindness to all animals; shall we please him by pur-
chasing a bird of the old woman yonder and freeing it
from its prison cage? Before entering the temple we
may, if we wish to follow custom, purify ourselves.
To the right, beneath its heavy roof, is a big granite
font, a so-called "sacred lavatory." First, put a coin
in the long-handled wooden dipper extended by the
priestly attendant who sits behind the reservoir and
he will pour water over your hands. The smaller
dipper is for rinsing the mouth. It is quite inexpen-
sive, possibly free, save for the diminutive towel, for
those too poor to pay.
The temple, a hall one hundred feet square, with
lofty tiled roof steeply inclined to meet more gently
sloping eaves shading a wide balcony which runs
entirely round the building (a splendid place for
children to play, and how they do enjoy it!) is ap-
proached by a wide flight of metal-edged steps lead-
ing up to the porch with its four massive pillars, red,
like the rest of the temple exterior. It is unnecessary
to remove shoes, no matter how muddy, for the half
or thereabouts of the hall open to ordinary wor-
shipers is boarded with wide, roughly planed planks,
quite like a barn or warehouse.
What a strange interior, and what a din! No
sacred music, unless it be that some priest is beating
an accompaniment to his intoned chant on a hollow
fish-shaped wooden drum; no sermon except that the
172 OVER JAPAN WAY
entire show drives home the truth of many a text;
no dim religious light, but oppressive gloom, and
steam from the great incense burner at the middle
entrance, a two-handed celestial teakettle without a
spout, proudly bronze yet incongruously domestic
in its suggestion; no meditation-inviting silence, but
the scraping of clogs, the clapping of hands by those
offering their brief prayers before the resplendent
central altar, the constant clang of gong struck by the
swaying rope which hangs near each minor shrine,
and the jingle of corns tossed into the big slatted
contribution boxes here and there.
It is a dingy, dirty place. The red pillars sup-
porting the tremendous transversal beams on which
the roof rests are well limed by the doves that fly
in and out. Inquisitive eyed hens wander about the
floor. It is a place of lanterns. There are four big,
cylindrical ones, perhaps twenty feet by six, swinging
from aloft, five or more spherical ones, and each of
the minor cupboard-like shrines is lanterned too.
Walls and ceilings are tawdry to the Western eye
with paintings and what not, gifts, like the lanterns,
which add to the bizarre effect.
The main altar does not monopolize the attention
of worshipers; there are a number of minor shrines to
right and left and nearer the porch. Most popular is
that of Bingura, god of sickness, wearing a very dirty
bib. Watch! A mother with her little girl ap-
proaches, rubs the god's brow, then the brow of the
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 173
child. Perhaps that cures headache. In an hour's
time we shall see fifty of the credulous doing the
same, rubbing the part of the god corresponding to
the part of the patient afflicted. The poor deity's
nose is all but obliterated, with no perceptible im-
provement in the snuffles of youthful Tokyo. Even-
tually this microbe distributer, doctors' friend, will
be quite rubbed out, which might be well, were not
wood, paint, and sculptor's skill so abundant that
any week might create a new one. Even more
pathetic is the gold or bronze headed god bearing a
child in his arms. To the wire netting in front are
attached caps, capes, and other garments belonging
to dead children. One wrinkled grandam in partic-
ular attracts our attention. For what dear one she is
praying, hoping thereby to alleviate purgatorial
suffering, we know not, but may her prayers it is
pathetic to see how she lingers bring solace to her
heart. And here comes a mother bearing in her arms
a child clad in scarlet. Hers an older grief, it may be.
The child rings the gong, snapping the tasseled cord
against it; the mother whispers a brief prayer, spits,
and passes on. Before a third shrine, where beauty is
prayed for, hang several switches of black hah*. They
and a vase of faded flowers, are they bribes or gifts of
gratitude? we wonder.
Trade is brisk within the temple. You may buy
incense sticks and cast them into the big burner,
sprigs of pine such as are seen attached to the netting
174 OVER JAPAN WAY
protecting minor shrines, a bag of sacred dirt (swept
up nightly from the floor), little pictures of Kwannon
that are charms against sickness and lighten the
pains of child-birth. To the left of the great altar
sit priests, each with smokebox conveniently near,
selling fortune-telling slips. If the legend the slip
contains does not satisfy, it helps, apparently, to
tie the wisp to some wire netting. There stands a
swaying worshiper one sees but few thus "over-
taken" in Tokyo who is untwisting with drunken
fingers a tissue wisp that someone has left borrow-
ing his luck. Perhaps that last drink of sake took
the coin which should have gone to the fortune-
telling priest, and perhaps it does not matter. He
seems happy, as do most of the hundreds who throng
the temple, men, women, and children, and very
pretty is the sight of a mere babe imitating its
mother, putting palms together and bowing with
closed eyes. The older children carry toys purchased
at the neighboring bazaar. In Japan it is quite good
form to blow a brand-new whistle, price one sen, in
church. And necessity may receive attention. Wit-
ness the mother nursing her babe on the temple steps.
The little one is not in her arms but strapped to the
back of sister, who is perhaps twelve years old. The
arrangement seems perfectly satisfactory to all con-
cerned.
Before leaving the temple, take a long look at what
lies beyond the protecting wire net separating the
The God of Sickness.
Altar of a Buddhist shrine.
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 175
holier regions from the portion reserved for common
worshipers. What the eye sees almost at a glance
will fade from memory long before one forgets the
credulous worshipers. In the center is the dazzling
high altar, ultra-Catholic in its golden richness of
lamps and sacred vessels and images, in the heart of
which is the shrine containing a tiny statue of the
Goddess of Mercy, never exposed to public gaze.
It is guarded against demons by monster gods almost
as ugly as the two Kings at the inner gate. Note the
thirty or more images, two or three feet high, rep-
resenting earthly manifestations of Kwannon. To
left and right of the high altar are minor ones dedi-
cated to the God of Wisdom and the God of Love, the
latter three-eyed and six-handed; and, adding to the
general tawdry effect, is a generous supply of votive
attractions, noticeable among which is a toy pagoda,
a wall-case containing one thousand statuettes of the
Goddess, and a plate glass mirror obviously Euro-
pean. It will hardly be necessary to penetrate be-
yond this main display, though a priest is ready, for a
small fee, to lead the stocking-footed tourist about
sacred matted areas and explain, in Japanese which
one does not understand, the mural paintings and all
the rest so deeply interesting to antiquary and
student of art. Such things do not appeal strongly to
us; it is pleasanter to follow the crowd.
Near the great temple are minor buildings which,
were we not becoming a bit wearied, might command
176 OVER JAPAN WAY
attention: a pagoda, a revolving-library building, a
sacred dance pavilion, a Shinto shrine erected in
honor of the three fishermen who, so the legend runs,
one day found in their net the little golden image now
worshiped in the big fane, and, most pathetic of all,
the building containing a multitude of stone images of
Jizo, patron god of children, where bereaved parents
bring the playthings once dear to their lost ones.
Scattered about are fine lanterns of bronze and stone,
such as form a feature of every temple compound.
Asakusa is a park, with trees, shrubbery, pond,
graceful stone bridges, and other attractions which
render it dear to nature-loving Japanese. It is also
what Mr. Terry calls a Coney Island without a
beach, of course. Following the crowds who take the
paths to the left, paths lined with hucksters' stands
and refreshment booths, we enter one of the liveliest
amusement centers in the world, no shoot-the-
chutes nor scenic railway, but aquarium, menagerie,
shows of all kinds. One narrow street, so densely
packed that we must edge our way through the
orderly crush, is hemmed in with moving picture
houses a street gay with countless banners, flags,
and lurid show bills, yet strangely quiet, though at
many an entrance stands the "barker" announcing
the greatest show on earth and inviting the crowd
to step up to the little window where a pretty miss
takes in coins. There are halls where the Oriental
story-teller half sings, half narrates tales ancient and
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 177
modern, fortune-tellers' booths, shooting alleys, res-
taurants, all forming a perfect paradise for simple
folk with slender purses. In the center rises a
twelve-storied building, a tower over two hundred
feet high. Climbing its narrow stairway, for the
rickety elevator, packed to suffocation, presents
a needless risk, we may look down upon the temple
grounds, the amusement quarters so closely adjacent,
the geisha settlement near by, and narrow streets
where callings more questionable are followed. A
short mile away, undistinguishable in the gray sea of
tiled roofs, lies the Yoshiwara, the most famous
prostitute quarter in all the world, where thousands
of women live their short lives in almost palatial
houses under police protection and government sanc-
tion.
The dull faced attendants who shamble about
the temple of Kwannon or calmly smoke their pipes
while sitting back of their fire-boxes are followers of
Buddha. The scriptures in the temple library record
the teachings of Buddha and his early disciples. As
the rikishas hurry us back to the hotel for a late din-
ner the morning has slipped away with wonderful
swiftness it is inevitable that our thoughts should
be of the great and good man who, twenty-five cen-
turies ago, rejected the religion of his people anc|,
through years of self-imposed denial and patient
meditation, evolved a new ideal of human thought^
and conduct almost Christlike, in which low passions
1 78 OVER JAPAN WAY
and base appetites were to be mastered and the
mind to rise supreme from the thraldom of worldly
sorrow and worldly ambition plain living and high
thinking, and love for all created things. His religion
was of this world, he said nothing of a celestial here-
after; yet if there be a heaven, perhaps it is not
sacrilege to think that Buddha is there. Few mortals
have done more for the uplift of mankind. If he
looks down upon his native India, upon China,
Japan, wherever the name of Buddha is reverenced,
what must be his emotions, if spiritual beings are
swayed by feelings akin to those of mortals? To us
the temple of Kwannon typifies a once noble religion
in the last stages of decay, worship commercialized,
degraded to suit the fancied requirements of the
unthinking lower strata of humanity, blindly cred-
ulous. It may be, however, that beneath the outer
garment which to earthly eyes seems so strangely
pagan, the spirit of Buddha sees much that is pure
and sweet and potent of good. Still one may hazard
the guess that if the great founder of a religion which
still sways its millions were to return to this world
he would feel more at home in the Imperial Univer-
sity than hi the temple of Kwannon. Whatever else
he may have been, he was a brainy man.
It would be wrong to leave the impression that
what one sees in the temple of Kwannon is strictly
typical, the only form which worship takes in Japan.
Not many miles from Asakusa park, in a section far
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 179
more aristocratic, stands the Shinto shrine Yasukuni
Jinja, sacred to the memory of the soldiers who have
died for their country since the Restoration. No lane
of petty shops leads to it; there are no elaborate
temple gates. A huge torii of sombre iron marks the
outer approach, between which and a smaller, less
imposing torii of wood, we follow a wide, granite
pavement through a graveled park to the temple
yard. The buildings are beautiful in their sim-
plicity an oratory and the temple proper, con-
nected by corridors enclosing a small rectangular
court, with a few minor buildings, presumably
priestly quarters, to left and right. The oratory is
simply a neatly matted hall, practically unfurnished
save for a few silk hangings. Worshipers do not
enter, but stand at the foot of stone steps in the
shade of the porch, look through the oratory and
across the court to the holier temple, where little
may be seen except a large, centrally located mirror.
I stood, one morning, for an hour or more, watch-
ing the worshipers, men mostly, not a few accom-
panied by children, enter the yard through the simple
torii, cleanse hands and mouth, throw their coins
into the contribution box, clap the hands, bow the
head, whisper a brief prayer, linger a few minutes,
then go away not in haste, nor with the air of one
who has performed an unpleasant duty through mo-
tives of prudence, but thoughtfully, as if filled with
a spirit of gratitude. There was no suggestion of
i8o OVER JAPAN WAY
paganism; it was as if a company of loyal Americans
had paused for a few minutes before the tomb of
Grant or Lincoln, baring the head in reverential
respect. While I tarried, priests in canonical hats
and white or colored robes entered the oratory from
the right, and, after silent prayer, crossed the court
to the holy of holies, there receiving and presenting,
ceremoniously, the morning offerings of food. It
was all very impressive. Nothing grated against
one's puritan sensibilities. Patriotism and gratitude,
whether expressed in a temple or in a New England
cemetery on Decoration Day, are close akin to wor-
ship.
Appraising a nation's religion is not a task for little
minds, much less for the superficial tourist. What
Japan's religion has been, we know fairly well,
though through lack of perfect sympathy the eyes
of even the most careful investigator may be blind
to admirable features. What her religion now is,
probably even the wisest could not define. There
are temples everywhere, many but poorly supported
and dropping to decay, yet few wholly deserted, and
a large majority are thronged on festival days.
There are shrines everywhere, and these too are still
popular. Few homes are without their altars. So
far as outward appearances go, Japan is still pagan,
her worship idolatrous. But religiously as well as
intellectually she is in a transitional state. The
range of intelligence between the day laborer who is
SUNDAY MORNING IN ASAKUSA PARK 181
little more than a beast of burden and the scholarly
statesman who ranks easily with the statesmen in
our own land is so wide that there can be no uniform
advance toward newer and better moral ideals.
Shintoism, a combination of nature and ancestor
worship, is still powerful as a religion though to
many it is now but a cult. Buddhism is still power-
ful; yet while millions pray to idols it is not to be sup-
posed that professors from the Imperial University
approve of all that is done in the temple of Kwannon,
though they may accept the teachings of Buddha.
What the outcome will be, few are bold enough to
prophesy, though it is safe to say that a century
hence the religion of Japan will still differ from that
to be found in Western lands, in spirit if not in out-
ward form. National traits are permanent.
CHAPTER XV
HAKONE NOTES
HAKONE lies just this side of dreamland. Many a
night I loiter there. It is found on the map south-
east of Fuji, near the sea, somewhat apart from the
highways of commerce, yet reasonably accessible.
Leaving the main line at Kodzu, after an hour in
the crowded electric tram, the traveler reaches
Yumoto, and from there it is a pleasant four mile
walk by government road up the narrow valley of
the Hayakawa to Miyanoshita, a quaint little side-
hill town that loves the highway which brings
tourists from all quarters of the globe; for Miyan-
oshita has become, through the impelling beauty of
its surroundings, a place of hotels and villas. It is
the social capital of the region, though Lake Hakone,
seven or eight miles beyond, is the heart. I will not
attempt a connected account of the days spent in
this mountain paradise but simply cull passages from
my notebook.
The thatched roof summerhouse where I am sitting
is near a cement tennis court and a few rods from the
finest outdoor swimming pool I have ever seen. The
182
HAKONE NOTES 183
big tank is fed by a tepid brook that tumbles down
the wooded slope with a pretty roar, furnishes a
whole family of waterfalls in the garden and rockery
directly behind the hotel, enlivens a pool or two where
golden and blue-back carp lead a life of agreeable
captivity, then plunges on to join the river below.
I look down on the tiled roofs of the hotel, a central
building to which are linked a number of smaller
ones forming a crescent. The village, so steep are
the sides of the valley, is entirely hidden. Clouds
hang about the mountain which rises so abruptly
beyond the river, green slopes, with depressions filled
with grape-blue haze. I can just make out a saw-
tooth trail climbing up through the coarse grass to
the skyline. Between me and the hotel are well-kept
grounds gardens, stone stairways, gravel paths, pine
trees, maples in autumnal foliage, shrubbery. Rocks
are scattered about as only the Japanese gardener
knows how to place them, and there is a gray stone
lantern, pagoda shaped, where an American might
have been guilty of placing a statue. To my right
and higher up is a grove of cryptomerias, the Orient's
most stately tree. The path running through it
climbs to a teahouse, whence a fine view of Fuji.
Mountains, everywhere mountains, not craggy giants
lording it over the lowlands, but smooth appearing
slopes well covered with vegetation; beauty every-
where, peace, quiet, save for the roar of the brook
and an occasional bird note. It is a trifle chilly.
i8 4 OVER JAPAN WAY
How different from sultry Kamakura of yesterday.
Miyanoshita is 1377 feet above sea level.
The hotel is most attractive. I like the idea of
one central building flanked by smaller ones, the
whole suggesting not a crescent but a lagoon. (No,
lagoon is not the word. What is the name applied
to a coral reef island encircling a body of calm water
to which there is but a narrow inlet?) If one is a
Russian embassador with a retinue, he may have a
villa all to himself. There are attractive suites for
rich Americans, and tiny rooms approached by cool,
stone-paved passageways, monastic in suggestion,
for the hermit-minded. The baths are delicious.
No furnace heats the water, yet there are the three
brass faucets labeled hot, cold, tepid. Hot springs are
a great luxury, though the poetic-minded may work
up a pretty pathos at the thought of rills lured from
their mountain fastnesses and imprisoned, even
though but for a few hours, in blind, utilitarian pipes.
The streams which provide the gardens with such a
wonderful variety of miniature cascades are ap-
parently happy, though. They come tumbling down
pathways nice enough for any stream, linger cu-
riously about hi quiet pools, then rush with loud
laughter into the ravine.
The service is admirable. Especially attractive
are the fresh country girls, not too carefully trained,
who serve in the big diningroom. I wonder which of
Ilakone hillsides.
HAKONE NOTES 185
them arranged the vase of chrysanthemums at each
table not large bouquets, but three or four tall-
stemmed beauties carefully wired. Perhaps all are
equally expert. Everything, within and without, is
kept sweet and neat. Even the fishpools are scrubbed
twice a month and trees are carefully manicured.
The dark needles of the pines are picked off before
they are browned. Labor is cheap in Japan.
I am sitting in a comfortable chair just outside the
sun parlor watching an elderly couple promenading
up and down the gravel walk, now stopping to pet a
shaggy poodle who really does not appreciate their
attentions, now to admire a row of dwarf trees, per-
haps brought out from the hotel for an airing. A
few of the trees are in pots but many of them simply
cling to mossy stones, just as their loftier brothers
cling to the hillside. Not a one is over two feet
high, yet all may be twenty, fifty, a hundred years
old odd little wizened pigmies grotesquely gnarled
and twisted. I wonder if it was by design that they
were so lined up as to silhouette against the mountain
wall miles away. First, in a rectangular basin, a
centenarian (I suspect) with wide-spreading branches
horizontal or downward dipping, extreme height not
over fifteen inches, with a huge crag at the base of its
trunk that would easily slip into a two quart measure.
Next a grove of five, no two stems in line, one tower-
ing a whole inch above its neighbors, and one leaning,
1 86 OVER JAPAN WAY
all clinging to a mountain crag twelve inches by
twenty. Then a wilderness, thirty slender-stemmed
evergreens growing miraculously out of a mossy
stone. Behold the solitary maple, a trunk not four
inches high, from which issues horizontally a single
graceful branch. One more of the long line of
Lilliputians will suffice, three evergreens rooted to a
rocky promontory finely lichened.
What a land of topsy-turvy contrast: lofty cryp-
tomerias, trees the height of a blade of grass; majestic
Mt. Fuji, tiny soup plate gardens with microscopic
pools, bridges, and shrines; great bronze Buddhas,
images of gods carved from single grains of rice;
fleet men-o'-war, lazy junks with quilted sails;
bushido, chivalry, yet so much that is sadly un-
chivalric.
I begin to suspect my guide, not because though
an ex-minister, Church of England, he worships de-
voutly at each temple and shrine, for that may be
broad-minded tolerance, or possibly a prudent move
to neutralize my corrupting influence. It is rather
that he leads me to hotels so attractive in their
immediate surroundings that he is reasonably sure
I will dismiss him morning after morning as a par-
ticularly superfluous incumbrance. While he fattens
in the Japanese wing of the hotel, possibly receiving
not only my two dollars a day but a little extra from
the proprietor so long as his charge remains en-
HAKONE NOTES 187
thralled, I go dreaming about alone, now chancing
upon a delicious little teahouse with diminutive rock-
embowered garden and pool of hungry goldfish, now
following a brook up its shady ravine to a convention
of tiny waterfalls tumbling down a mossy ledge, now
fearfully ascending or descending ancient stone
stairways which always lead to private preserves so
fascinating as to make one unmindful of the fact that
he is a trespasser, and all the time rejoicing that the
guide is not along trying to improve his English by
keeping up a stream of conversation. But my com-
mercial spirit is getting uneasy; the fellow must be
made to earn his salt. We'll pack up and move on.
Not today, however, no, not today.
Still idling in Miyanoshita. I ought to be leaving,
but my films will not be ready till tomorrow. Per-
haps the guide is in league with the photographer.
Photography! "Come and see me," Japan says;
"I am very beautiful." But her beauty cannot be
caught. Point the lens and presto ! mists, if not rain.
I've wasted a roll of film on that little goldfish tea-
house alone, and nothing remotely suggesting a tithe
of its fascinating greenery. Under the best of condi-
tions a camera is a poor thing; it takes no account
of color, fibs repeatedly in regard to distance, and
does not pretend to register fragrance or the voices
of little children. Rain or shine, tomorrow we go.
If . the prints are not ready, they can be mailed
1 88 OVER JAPAN WAY
"collect." But how I should like to stay on for a
week or two.
Started this morning for Hakone, eight miles from
Miyanoshita, taking the military road up over the
mountains back of the hotel. Two porters carried
our heavy luggage. The road is steep and winding,
in general following the course of brooks, with fine
views at every turn. Halfway up the pass we rested
at a comfortable teahouse, where a party of Japanese
women and children, traveling in a commodious car-
riage, were having lunch. The children were greatly
amused by a playful monkey who jumped down
from his perch to my shoulder and picked my pocket
of a handkerchief, afterwards using it in a manner
quite proper. Monkeys are native to Japan, but I
have never seen one out of captivity. Continuing,
we took many short cuts, very steep and often moist,
till the summit was reached, a plateau infested with
sulphur springs that made their presence known.
Here we passed through a dreary settlement, a minor
bathing resort, then slipped down into Hakone, two
little down-at-the-heels villages on the shore of a
beautiful lake set among smoothly rounded hills
and mountains, with Fuji in the distance, the sum-
mit veiled as usual, though streaks of snow were
visible lower down, through the clouds.
After tiffin at the Hakone Hotel, a half-and-half
sort of country inn with a French bill of fare, Japa-
HAKONE NOTES 189
nese baths, and a few pieces of American furniture,
we strolled about rather aimlessly, and by chance lit
upon a tiny shop where inlaid cabinet work is done.
The region, it seems, is famed for craft of this kind.
It was a one room affair. A man sat on the floor
benches are rare in Japan waxing a bit of inlaid
work and polishing it vigorously, using one bare
foot to steady the piece. Many of the Japanese
artisans are practically four-handed. Facing him
sat his wife, not working, but bringing him cheer.
Between the two, a fire-box, for comfort presumably,
though perhaps of service in melting wax. A kitten
dozed on the workman's knee. By his side was a
young son or apprentice, also polishing. The workers
did not pause to welcome us but kept steadily at it.
There were piles of little cabinets, half-completed,
in one corner, things far too artistic to suggest foreign
trade. The inquisitive tourist was informed that
the workman received about fifty cents apiece for
them. In our country they would retail for ten dol-
lars perhaps. But all were engaged, part of a large
order placed by a city merchant. Fifty cents! And
yet the workers seemed happy, contented. I liked
that kitten particularly well, and the wife, and the
swift industry, and the artistry.
Later, we visited, on the outskirts of the village,
a once famous temple, six hundred years old, the
guide affrmed, so beautiful in its seclusion that I
must devote half a day to it tomorrow. To me, not
190 OVER JAPAN WAY
the undeniably beautiful lake, nor the imperial villa
which crowns a promontory, nor the picturesquely
shabby village street is the main attraction, but that
lonely temple, from which two aged pilgrims, gowned
in white, with scrip, staff, and wide brimmed hat,
were departing as we climbed the mossy steps.
Marooned. The rain began gently while we were
at the temple, began all over again at seven, and
again at nine, since when it has kept steadily at it.
I somehow feel that this wet spell has been brought
on by the guide out of revenge for yesterday's long
walk. He seems very happy. And ye,t there is
evidence in the "Visiters' Book" that rain is not
unknown in this region. I quote:
There was a young man named Malone,
And he came five times to Hakone.
The first four were wet,
And he was upset,
But the fifth time was fine for Malone.
A lovable, truthful fellow, human as to temper, yet
free from resentment, no doubt. Notice how much
sweeter his disposition than that of the following
bard:
I came over here to Hakone,
On a horse very wilful and bony,
To see Fuji-san;
But I'm switched if I can,
And I claim the return of my money.
Lake Hakone.
If a to tic village, u'lth royal villa in the distance.
ir<* i
".. .^*-
, *>. ?> ,?*
< - ; S s
r ?_. ..,,?-
5#?> "
^*-. .
"4!" , ,
4 ' f *
The old Tokaido, near Ilakone. Military roads are fast
supplanting such old thoroughfares.
HAKONE NOTES 191
Plainly a coarse-grained man who classes sublime
Fuji with a league ball game. I have softened not a
little the fourth line. No page of this entertaining
book is quite free from uncomplimentary references
to the weather, though perhaps the more than occa-
sional note in European or Asiatic characters is in
cheerful vein. I am ashamed to confess that the
American "visiters" appear to be a conspicuously
discourteous lot. Probably it is true that we are
known the world over for our crude impoliteness.
Of peculiar interest are a number of passages like
the following: "I visit Hakone for good learn. For
here is many seane and encient various place. So
that seen it and think the old period." To the
nature loving Japanese student, rain is but a part
of his dear homeland, lovable like everything else
connected with it. The village street is a section of
the old Tokaido, and not far from the hotel is the
"encient place" where, centuries before the inven-
tion of rikishas, all who journeyed between Kyoto
and Tokyo must present passports and undergo
examination. Hakone was a livelier town in earlier
days, a favorite place for breaking the long journey.
The "Visiters' Book" read through, I sit by the
hour looking out across the storm-swept lake to misty
hills, beyond which lies Fuji-san, invisible. The
little yard between the hotel and the lake is a fas-
cinating bit, with its red paling agleam in the rain.
At one side of the dividing path is a wistaria arbor,
192 OVER JAPAN WAY
the massive parent stem rooted some distance away
from the supporting trellises. In one corner, near
the water, is a pine tree, beneath which stands a little
red shrine on a rockery, with a mossy lantern-stone
near by. Two summerhouses look down on the boat
landing. There are a number of ornamental trees,
each neatly trimmed, but the few scraggly pines are
more attractive.
My thought wanders back time and again to the
temple. It is but a small one, not in fresh repair, yet
ideal in its setting. It rests on a little plateau or
shelf on a densely wooded hillside; indeed it is quite
surrounded by trees, many of them now in gay
foliage, though the approach from the lake is up a
long, narrow stairway lined by the finest, tallest
cryptomerias I have yet seen. The torii at the head
of the staircase is hoary gray; the stone parapet
guarding the temple grounds is gray with moss;
gray and green with lichen and moss are the lions
guarding the entrance. It is a place to linger in,
a quiet retreat for saint, scholar, poet, philosopher.
There's no telling what a day may bring forth.
I had expected to remain imprisoned all the after-
noon, but at lunch the one lone boarder at the hotel, a
representative of a German export house, enduring
his internment philosophically, invited me to his
villa, a few rods away, which meant a comfortable
armchair in a warm room and two hours of de-
HAKONE NOTES 193
lightful talk on many topics the war, education,
business, the wonderful natural beauty of Hakone,
and, most interesting to me, Japanese character.
The Japanese, he thought, were unquestionably
aesthetic, industrious, extremely ambitious, extremely
vain and easily flattered. They lacked the philo-
sophical mind (this I questioned), and were weak
in organization power, lacked the pioneer spirit.
They seldom invent, dare not go ahead where risk
is involved. They appear at their best to the trav-
eler from a foreign land, at their worst to the busi-
ness man. The coolie, though he enjoys a ten sen
"squeeze," is dependable; the peasant is frugal, hard-
working beyond belief, happy, courteous; the edu-
cated class are less lovable. Up to a certain point
they are good students, but study is to them merely
a means to an end a position; that secured, they
lose interest. Those who study hard, or live profes-
sional lives, die young, and infant mortality the
country over is appalling. As to Japan's military
future, he was uncertain, yet he expressed the fear
that her flattering success in the wars with China
and Russia might lead her into rash action.
Yesterday at eight left Hakone for the nearest
railway station, nine miles off. To turn Japanese
miles into English, multiply by six, add four, divide
by one-half, subtract nothing and then be as hope-
ful as you can. Double everything in case it rains,
194 OVER JAPAN WAY
and I am two-thirds convinced that it always rains
in Hakone. I never saw rain more industrious, a
steady downpour for forty-eight hours. Two coolies
carried the luggage, well protected with large sheets
of oiled paper, obtainable anywhere and very serv-
iceable. We travelers wore these sheets as water-
proof capes, carried oiled paper umbrellas (they
look light but are much heavier than ours), and
protected our shoes with straw-woven sandals (five
cents a pair, good for but one day of hard usage).
The way led steeply up a hill or series of hills, then
down, down, down, the twelve foot roadway very
slippery and too roughly paved for rikisha, if not for
wagon. Here and there were stretches bordered with
ancient pines; occasionally we caught glimpses of
rolling farm country, but for the most part the jour-
ney meant walking among clouds, through rain or
mists, getting wetter and wetter. I enjoyed it
hugely on the guide's account, and kept his tongue
busy, asking him questions about everything Japa-
nese from funerals to soy, without listening except to
note when he had exhausted a topic. The two ham-
lets passed through were not attractive; in many
cases the homes were far from neat yet stopping a
little short of squalor. It was pleasant, however, to
look in here and there on working groups sandal
makers, rice winnowers, mat weavers, pipe makers,
etc. Nine miles of this slump, slump, slump, picking
stones with care, blinded with mist, and clothes be-
HAKONE NOTES 195
coming heavier at every step; then a town is reached
where we take an electric car, small, old, rattly,
crowded to suffocation, which brings us to the rail-
way. The second-class coach was so dirty that I
took refuge in a first-class compartment and rode in
solitary state for hours till the train reached Nagoya.
For once, the guide has earned his wage. I actually
feel sorry for him. After all, he is a good man, with
a school teacher wife and a family of children down
Kobe way. I wonder if he would resent it if I were to
offer him a new supply of collars. He would look
much better, though, without any. European dress
is not becoming to him.
CHAPTER XVI
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA
IT began innocently with an unpremeditated smile,
promptly returned with compound interest. There
it might have ended had she not made challenging
advances, to wit, walking by me on her way to the
water spigot. Goddess never wore anything more
fascinating than her dainty kimono, obviously de-
signed for speedy execution. Besides, she smiled
again, going and coming, which made three times.
Later, with no ulterior motive, I passed up her way,
en route for the diner. She was asleep. Or perhaps
it was a ruse. To be caught asleep is a severe test
for all save the most perfect types of beauty. The
mouth is apt to drop open, or something like that.
She bore the test remarkably well. Rather than
disturb her, I left my oranges with her brother.
After tiffin, more smiles, and finally another stroll
up the aisle toward the water spigot, with an apol-
ogetic salt-herring-for-breakfast look on her face,
obviously feigned. I swooped and caught her. So
plainly counterfeit was her surprise one could see
that she meant all along to be caught. She was a
196
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 197
model prisoner. Photographs of the youngsters
back home seemed to interest her hugely, especially
the little one. That all might be in strict accord with
nice decorum, she took back to her young mother my
visiting card. This, after a quick inventory that
noted my gray temples, was acknowledged with a nod
of approval. After a polite interval the midget made
what might be termed a party call, convoyed by
brother in spotless pinafore apron, bringing a return
gift of two large apples. Brother wishes to see the
photographs too and pays for the privilege liberally
with choicely assorted grins. He is most interested
in the picture of the little boy. Later, the trio
passed into the diner, and during their absence I
left the train. This innocent affair is by far the
pleasantest thing that happened between Kobe
and Onomichi, a 138 mile journey, though the car
window furnished attractive glimpses of farming
villages tucked away among the hills. The level
lowlands with rice fields marked off in odd patterns,
the thriftily terraced slopes beyond, and the cottages,
thatched or tiled, formed pictures that were poems.
The occasional city with its > unpoetical chimneys
testified that southern Japan is more prosperous
than northern, owing to the phenomenal growth of
manufacture.
Kobe, a city of about 450,000 inhabitants, is on
Osaka Bay, near the northeastern entrance to the
Inland Sea. Exclusive of harbor life, for Kobe is the
198 OVER JAPAN WAY
busiest port in Japan, the place is uninteresting, even
more modern than Yokohama. One resents the wide
streets, the substantial business houses, the manu-
facturing plants too large to be picturesque, and the
comfortable homes. Even the two big hotels, one
near the water front, the other a veritable castle
clinging to the side of the bold ridge that girts the
harbor, are complete in luxurious appointments and
too modern in tariff. Then there is the foreign
population the British element prominent mate-
rially augmented since the war began. Finally, it is a
port of call for large steamers plying between Asia
and America; hence one meets tourists daily who
speak English and do an immense amount of hurried
shopping, principally on one long street, where it is
unsafe for a gentleman to take wife and daughters,
unless his pockets are well lined with express checks.
Nowhere in all Japan is travel more expensive than
between Tor Hotel and the Bund where one is ferried
out to the steamships through the tangle of small
freighters and baggage boats.
It is with hesitancy that these wives and daughters
are mentioned. In a way they are a welcome sight
after a month or two spent in districts where days and
days pass without glimpse of any save natives. They
bring a feeling of homesickness, and yet well, let
me blurt it forth. How monstrously tall, lank, they
are compared with petite Japanese ladies, and what
giant strides! And the hats oh the hats, entirely
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 199
superfluous and rhyming with nothing! It is im-
possible to realize what a frightfully incongruous
thing is a shirtwaist and skirt combination until it
appears in unhappy proximity to the Greek-like
kimono. Short skirts and shoes black or tan, throw-
ing into prominence thick ankles, and b-r-r-r! As
for the dinner gowns at the hotel, they seem to have a
carefully studied purpose that would shock the
native peasant woman who goes innocently about
her home clad merely in a garment almost too brief
to be called petticoat, serving a husband wear-
ing still less. But enough. The tyranny of fashion
renders it difficult to appraise either morals or taste.
After such a diatribe it is but fair to confess that
while in Kobe I had brought home to me in humil-
iating fashion the unsuspected crudeness of my own
sense of propriety. It happened as follows: I had
asked at the hotel office for a rikisha to take me to
the Tourist Bureau. "Can't get through," the clerk
volunteered, glancing at the clock. "The Emperor's
train arrives in just five minutes. The way will be
blocked at the foot of the hill for perhaps an hour.
Better wait." The Emperor! I rushed for a rikisha,
and the runner, inspired by promise of double pay,
raced down the street at a terrfying rate. Sure
enough, where the railroad crosses, the way was
blocked by a dense crowd. Fine ! From my elevated
seat I shall be able to see over all the black heads. I
will wave my hat and hurrah with all the rest. Long
200 OVER JAPAN WAY
live the Mikado! He has sent me an invitation to his
chrysanthemum party and I'll stand by him. The
United States is the grandest nation on earth, but
every American should show good will toward all
powers and principalities when in the realms of said
and such. The rikisha boy interrupts most cour-
teously, though there are lines faintly suggesting
irritation in his honest face. The Japanese are great
mind readers. Would I kindly dismount? he asks
in faulty English. It is the Mikado who comes. It
is the custom. Thoroughly shamed, I remove my
plebeian self to the ground and become one with a
most silent, decorous crowd, every face turned up
the track and reverently waiting. It is all so impres-
sive that I scarcely look when the train speeds by,
five or six coaches drawn by an engine "togged out"
with ribbons. Somewhere in that train there is a
deity, direct descendant of the Sun Goddess.
This vision withdrawn, the multitude hastens, yet
in perfect order, toward a prominent business street,
through which the Emperor and his escort must pass
before embarking for the naval review. I follow,
rather thoughtful, and stand for perhaps half an hour
in the midst of a crowd made up of thousands. Few
of the multitude can see the line of march yet all are
perfectly good natured nevertheless. But what is
this? One of the officers in charge is looking my way
and saying something. His are not the only eyes that
are making a target of me. Very embarrassing,
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 201
really. Plainly something is wrong. Should I re-
move shoes? Several of my neighbors make it clear
that I have guessed at the wrong end. My hat it is
still on, and the Mikado approaching! What if he
should see it ! My knees tremble. What indeed if he
should! My hat comes off. I straighten my tie;
then, recalling that I have been told how impolite it
is to sit with overcoat on even in a business office, no
matter if teeth are chattering with cold, it seems
prudent to remove my raincoat. Across the way I
can see that neatly dressed school girls, drawn up
with military precision, line the sidewalk and keep
back the less worthy crowd. Happening to glance
up, I am surprised to find every window tightly
shuttered. When the ruler of the realm passes,
there is but one place for subjects, and that is on
the ground. But attention all! The procession is
drawing near, first a few men on horseback, then
carriages, in one of which it is green, and there
are bunches of chrysanthemums at the side rides
his Majesty, then more carriages containing digni-
taries, and a trail of rikishas. Not a cheer from
the crowd, no martial music, but respectful, reveren-
tial silence. Whether they be intuitive or imposed
I know not, but the manners of the common people
in Japan are much finer, I fear, than well, mine.
All this by way of lengthy digression. I left the
train at Onomichi. Needless to remark, it was
raining. Yokohama was entered in rain, and Tokyo,
202 OVER JAPAN WAY
likewise Nikko, Sendai, Muroran, Akita, Osaka,
Kobe, and as many more places. I am slowly devel-
oping fins and flapping gills. It is merely a matter
of time and kind probably carp. The rain, how-
ever, is immaterial; another matter is pressing to the
fore. Onomichi is not only a getting-off place but a
jumping-off as well. The guide has been dismissed.
Coral ring and rattle have been cast aside, as it
were; at last I am free, emancipated, alone. From
the railway station the town looks like a particularly
uninteresting, bedraggled huddle of sponge-like
shops and dwellings strung along muddy streets. I
have not the slightest idea where to go.
In this moment of acute perplexity a life buoy bobs
up, the ubiquitous red capped porter. "Onomichi
Hotel," I say with an air which has little courage be-
hind it. There ought to be a hotel of that name, I rea-
son, even if there isn't, getting ready to feel aggrieved.
In a twinkle the porter has seized my bags and is
off on a run, soon darting round a corner and disap-
pearing altogether. Robbed, and in broad daylight !
Robbed and lost in a strange, water-soaked town,
with no recourse but a little dictionary that has al-
ready led me into several scrapes. Hello, here he
comes back again, smiling, and bearing a huge um-
brella. Fine fellow, you shall have double wage. Ten
minutes later I am in a comfortable six mat room,
looking out over the harbor, a narrow strait between
the mainland and an island. The fire-bowl furnishes
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 203
sufficient heat, and the proprietress, who possesses
good interpretative powers in addition to perhaps
fifty words of English, has brought bless her, but
curse it a cup of coffee which courtesy (remember
Kobe !) forbids my declining, and I dare not throw it
out the window for fear of getting caught in the act.
Possibly it could be secreted temporarily in a rubber
and disposed of after dark. But no, the bestower of
this choice nectar remains to see me enjoy it.
The inn is but a rod or two from the water. Little
steamers, bound no doubt for some of the thousands
of islands dotting the Inland Sea, go chugging by.
Countless sampans, each with its low roof of matting,
work their way inch by inch up to the wharfs or
glide swiftly out with the running tide, and there are
junks a plenty. A fine big fellow, two masted, un-
painted, is moored right in front of the window.
Better than play-going is it just to sit by the hour
and watch that clumsy craft, its squared nose near
enough to suggest inquisitiveness, and the smaller
craft in midstream, and the hills across the strait,
with more distant crests appearing and disappearing
through the misty rain.
Onomichi's streets present little of novelty. The
open front stores are but moderately interesting; yet
one is apt to linger longer than he realizes to watch
the basket weaver, the cooper, and the makers of
wooden dippers, or to witness scenes more domestic,
like the soapless shaving of an infant's head, the
204 OVER JAPAN WAY
babe held in the arms of a still weak young mother.
Such things are far more interesting than the cen-
turies old temples high up on the steep hillsides that
crowd the town into the harbor, though the granite
steps leading to them and an occasional big tree
shading a sacred court exert a charm. But decaying
antiquity for the poet; for me, the life of today.
That thinly clad, sunken eyed, barefooted monk
plodding through the main business street, oblivious
of cold and rain, seeing nothing of the active life
about him, and apparently so commonplace a figure
that he attracts no curious eye save mine what
prayer is he muttering, I wonder, and by what
strange fate did he become holy man rather than
peasant or cunning merchant or toiling craftsman?
How alone he seems.
The bed is very comfortable. Falling asleep is so
agreeable that I keep waking up for the mere joy of
dropping off again. Then dreams, through which I
sail in a two masted junk, unpainted, square nosed, a
thinly clad monk as helmsman, our cargo tanks of
coffee. Finally can it be morning so soon? Scores
of women's voices beneath the window, evidently a
passing throng, with fitful glares of light. No, my
watch says it is but three o'clock. Now the voices
come from a distance, suggesting a flight of wild
fowl. At four I push aside the panels and look out
upon beautiful starlight. Small boats are plying
back and forth. Half a mile down the strait I see a
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 205
cluster of torches; half a mile up the strait, another
group. The sound of many voices comes over the
water. Is it all a merry starlight festival to some
lovable sister of pale Hecate? In the morning
the hostess will try to explain, but I shall not fully
understand. Probably it is but a few hundred
fisherwomen with clam hooks busily and happily
engaged on sandbars bared by an early morning ebb.
It does not matter; mystery is sometimes preferable
to enlightenment. The day will be fine.
The morning boat, a coasting steamer on which I
am to spend the day en route for Miyajima, is late
by an hour. It is late by two hours on leaving, for
in cholera time and war time amusingly important
officials must inspect each passenger with care. But
at last we are off. A long cherished wish is being
gratified; I am sailing the Inland Sea, looking at
shores of ever changing interest and beauty.
"I speak plain English," volunteers the young
man standing next to me, "but I do not understand."
Abrupt introductions of this nature are so common
that I immediately take out fountain pen, anticipat-
ing the usual request for name and address in his
notebook. We talk for a few minutes, long enough
to substantiate the latter half of his original declara-
tion and make questionable the first half. Then he
withdraws for half an hour to recruit, and returns
with a sentence written out on a scrap of paper. He
would like to have me take him to America, I gather.
206 OVER JAPAN WAY
The difficulty of so doing is explained to him, though
of course he does not understand, and withdraws
again. Several times he reappears, face beaming,
with a new sentence, curiously spelled; but his
masterpiece comes late in the afternoon. It is
delivered orally, prefaced by a formal salute. "I
hope you are quite well. I shall arrange to see you
again. Good bye." Probably it was not what he
wished to say, but the last scraps remembered from
his phrase book. If he should ever walk in upon me,
it will be a pleasure to greet him.
The purser too speaks "plain English." About
seven .o'clock in the evening he insists upon taking
me to the officers' dining room and serving hot milk,
observing that he is sure I must be "many hungry."
Reluctantly I confess to three or four, but deny the
many. Emboldened by this admission he urges
soup, which would have been more agreeable had I
not seen the ship's galley, and finally a bowl of rice.
He is a splendid fellow, rough voiced, but the soul
of hospitality. An hour slips by very pleasantly in
such company. He too wishes to go to America.
He would make a good citizen.
And what of the Inland Sea? It is a realm, per-
haps overrated by guidebooks, where every prospect
pleases, though coasting boats be vile, with a climate
delightful yet conducive to fidgety, incoherent note-
taking. Behold the following scraps: Green waters.
Junks, junks, junks, high stem and stern, the labor
FROM KOBE TO MIYAJIMA 207
of the Hugh square sails lightened by long "sweeps."
Green islands, from button size upwards, moun-
tainous, wooded, or terraced for cultivation almost
to their summits; here and there a slope stripped of
all vegetation, bare volcanic stone. Big white clouds
above saw-tooth skylines. Some hills look like per-
fect cones; some are a mangy yellow. Frequent
signs of reforestation. Stiff breeze blowing, which
makes the landing of passenger and freight an inter-
esting process. When the whistle blows, sampans
come hustling out from little towns which seem to
have dripped down from the steep hillsides. Ahoy,
there, Standard Oil tank ! What right have you to be
desecrating a beautiful shore? And here comes a
fine white schooner yacht. Junks are more pic-
turesque. You're all right, little lighthouse, perched
on yonder headland. Mountains on all sides, rising
ridge behind ridge, the last fading into haze. Here
comes a three masted schooner, black hull and
latteen sails. More schooners, Yankee in trim,
freighters presumably. Fleets of small fishing boats
at anchor near shoals or narrow passages. Good
luck, friends! What cute little bays, ideal for pirate
craft. They bring to mind Fenimore Cooper. We
are now passing an island where there are smelting
works. Many of the slopes hereabouts show a red
soil. Now we are threading a narrow strait where
the tide races. And here we are in the immediate
vicinity of an important naval base, a deep bay where
208 OVER JAPAN WAY
seven gray men-o'-war drowse at anchor. On shore,
are extensive works of some kind, possibly shipyards.
I must put up notebook, for note taking and pho-
tography are forbidden. I suspect I have already
transgressed, and know that I have been watched
constantly since coming aboard.
It is uncannylike that, no matter where one goes,
in Japan, he gets there after dark. The only excep-
tions are when one arrives by day and it is raining.
It must be ten o'clock. The boat is four hours late.
It is uncompromisingly dark. Miyajima is the next
stop. I wonder what it will be like. My hotel, the
purser says, is a mile from the landing, and there are
no rikishas. Never mind.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SACRED ISLAND
AND Susa-no-o had three daughters, Itsukushima-
hime, Tagori-hime, and Togitsu-hime. Now these
daughters But the rest of the story is unknown to
me, though it may be safely assumed that the three
live happy ever after; for Itsukushima-hime, Tagori-
hime, and Togitsu-hime are goddesses, prominent
among the eight hundred myriads entitled to a place
in the family book of Japanese deities. The Sun
Goddess is their aunt; hence they are distant cousins
of the reigning Mikado.
Miyajima is a sacred island. Its temples are
sacred to Susa-no-o's daughters. The island looks
sacred. It is not too large, merely five miles long and
half as wide, densely wooded, and mountainous, its
highest granite peak rising 1356, 1671, or 1800 feet,
according to the guidebook consulted. (This lack
of nice agreement on the part of those who write
with authority is a constant comfort; where testi-
mony never conflicts, there is the suggestion of
collusion.) Pains are taken to keep the island sacred
according to Oriental standards. There are no dogs,
209
210 OVER JAPAN WAY
no horses, I think, save one, a gray beauty with
pink nose, who resides in a sacred stable and accepts
offerings of grain a penny a saucer, for sale near by.
Formerly no one was permitted to die on Miyajima
or to be born there; but this cruel restriction has been
removed. The four or five thousand inhabitants who
occupy the compact little town with narrow streets
which finds its place in the sun and rain between
hills and the shore owe their livelihood to the presence
of temples sometimes visited by thousands of tourist
pilgrims in a single day. They provide hotels,
restaurants, and hundreds of shops where souvenirs
are sold in sharp competition. Some are fishermen,
some priests or shrine attendants, and a surprising
number are makers of images and wooden trinkets.
On a bright day when the steamers bring crowds of
tourists, it is a lively place, but at nightfall all quiets
down. Geisha girls are prohibited; there is but one
dilapidated theatre.
The morning following my arrival I climbed the
"mountain" back of the town, much of the way by a
rough granite staircase, steep and winding. At a
few vantage points there are tea sheds, and many
little shrines are scattered along the well shaded
path. The view from the top, where there is a small
pavilion or teahouse, justifies the opinion that this
is one of the three most beautiful places in all Japan.
I wanted to use the camera and also fill a page or
two of my notebook with what entranced the eye;
An Inland Sea junk.
THE SACRED ISLAND 211
but camera and notebook are prohibited in this war
zone. Yet I have a haunting memory of the Sea
shut in by mountains with irregular crests, of distant
junks that scarcely moved, so light was the breeze,
and scores of little sails. A freighter crawled by on
its way to some Asiatic port, then a gray battleship.
Every island in sight is fortified, though no ramparts
are visible.
Near the summit is a big bell, cracked he who will
may prove it and a little lower down a temple
where a priest was beating a drum as he prayed.
But the real treat of the forenoon, quite foreign to
dreamy enjoyment of natural beauty, was a tune
race up that long stairway I incline to the belief
that the elevation is at least eighteen hundred feet-
engaged in by five hundred naval cadets, sturdy
fellows in their twenties, from a neighboring acad-
emy. Stationed at intervals were Red Cross men
with stretchers, and at a halfway landing a group of
officers who scanned each face to see how the runner
was standing the strain. The breathing was often
ominously labored, it seemed as if some of the run-
ners would surely fall; but the usual injunction,
apparently, was to speed up. Later I witnessed the
finish. It was as pitiful as the close of one of our
Marathon runs. Each man as he staggered in
through the temple gateway gave his number slip
to an official, then fell into the arms of comrades.
One poor lad, quite out of his head, crying I know not
212 OVER JAPAN WAY
what, was carried into the temple where, at the end
of an hour, the doctors were still trying to quiet him.
In his delirium he was struggling to break away that
he might continue his race up imaginary steps of
cruel granite. Later, on the way down, the young
men passed me again, apparently fresh, and looking
remarkably trim in their blue uniforms and white
collars. As they descended with swinging stride,
they sang lustily a spirited marching song, one com-
pany taking up the refrain as another left off. I shall
not soon forget the sound of their voices, coming
back fainter and fainter through the trees as they
passed out of sight. Later I met them strolling
about the town in little groups, prior to embarking
for home, quiet, orderly, earnest-looking cadets,
soldierly in bearing, a company that any country
might feel proud of.
The principal temple buildings at Miyajima form a
unique group in that they are, for the most part,
built out over the water and connected by corridors,
over eight hundred feet in all, if memory serves,
giving the whole somewhat the appearance of a well-
kept amusement pier. The torii, an immense red
affair, stands several hundred feet in front of the
buildings, very picturesque even at low tide when its
barnacled shins are bare to the sandy base where
the tame deer and sacred cranes like to wander. The
temple proper has a very simple interior, as is the
way with Shinto shrines. On a neighboring elevation
THE SACRED ISLAND 213
is the so-called Hall of the Thousand Mats. A care-
ful count reveals that there are no mats whatever in
this ancient barn-like structure, but thousands upon
thousands of rice paddles, many of them left for
good luck by troops quartered here during the war
with China, and many more by pilgrims. Not far
from the grotesquely decorated hall is a pagoda.
Other sacred buildings have been burned or torn
down. Temple-wise, Miyajima is not remarkable;
tourists go there not to see fine buildings, but to
feast on natural beauty. The value of this latter is
evidently in the hotel keeper's mind when he pre-
sents his bill. Mine should have been itemized
somewhat as follows:
One bedroom with two beds
One private dining room
Meals, of course
One stove, red hot at times, smelling like a temple
Four maples in full glow
Mountain stream that almost flows through the
room
Glimpses of the sea
Pleasure of being an only guest
Pleasure of being called at 4:30 to catch the 5:30
boat
Getting up so early is a pleasure only in retrospect.
The stars were still shining and the moon bright.
From the steamer's deck Miyajima looked like a
black dragon, many spined, fast asleep, the neighbor-
2i 4 OVER JAPAN WAY
ing islands like so many more dragons, a school that
had drifted hi from mistland on the tide marine
dragons, not the common land variety. Good bye,
Itsukushima-hime. Good bye, Togitsu-hime and
Tagori-hime. We are off for Dogo, "the most an-
cient bathing resort in the empire," whose sooth-
ing waters, hi days when gods were less sechisive,
were dear to Onamuji and Sukuna-bikona, and
since that time have comforted the limbs of five
Mikados.
One sees pilgrims ereryii'here in Japan.
A holiday clammer.
CHAPTER XVIII
DOGO AND BEPPU
DOGO is an out-of-the-way place over on the island
of Shikoku, which separates the Inland Sea from the
Pacific on the southwest. Shikoku is interesting
because distant from the great centres where Western
ideas are driving out the quaint and picturesque; but
it has so few miles of railroad that journeying is less
convenient than in other parts of the empire, and
perhaps tourists are right in thinking that it offers
little which cannot be duplicated without leaving the
beaten path. Certainly Dogo is not a wildly exciting
place, no dream of beauty, just the ordinary closely-
packed town with hills for an immediate background,
on the edge of wide, fertile fields of grain out of which
rise minor eminences, one of them crowned with a
fine castle which escaped demolition when feudal
times came to an end. It is a town of narrow streets
with the usual multitude of shops where souvenirs are
sold, a beautiful park, and a mammoth bath-house
centrally located and surrounded by hotels, none, I
think, European. Terry, quoting from some guide-
book written in Japonicized English, characterizes it
215
216 OVER JAPAN WAY
as a "notorious place," and dismisses it with three
or four lines of fine print; Mr. Seikosha claims that
it is visited annually by a million people. Evidently
late November is out-of-season; the hotel to which
the rikisha takes me has practically no guests.
That hotel, so quiet, so spotlessly clean, with its
attractive court and fascinating garden, I remember
with peculiar interest. It was strictly native. No
one spoke a word of English and I no word of Japa-
nese that I dared to use. Now the first thing the
guest must do, after settling himself comfortably
and having his tea and cakes, is to fill out a printed
form telling all sorts of things. The form is in Japa-
nese. When the maid presented this slip, I did my
best, but probably placed on record that my age was
American, profession Miyajima, nationality forty-
eight plus or minus. Very likely I wrote with the
slip upside down. At any rate, the maid was mysti-
fied, and questioned me for a quarter of an hour, I
doing the same by her, without either of us growing
the wiser. Just as we seemed to be getting nicely
acquainted, she fled, but reappeared soon, bringing
the proprietor, who examined the penmanship crit-
ically through steel-rimmed spectacles. In a friendly
spirit I assured him that all was strictly correct: my
age was American, profession Miyajima, nationality
forty-eight, but that if he preferred, I would change
things, make my age Miyajima, nationality forty-
eight, etc. It was a matter of little consequence;
DOGO AND BEPPU 217
my one wish was to have everything satisfactory
to him. He questioned me for a quarter of an hour.
Then it occurred to me that possibly the document
was but a laundry slip; so I informed him, speaking
slowly and distinctly, that there would not be tune for
a washing, since I must leave for Beppu the following
day. Evidently this satisfied him, for he departed,
with many bows. The matter was settled.
But no. Half an hour later the panel slides gently
back. Evidently it is my afternoon at home and
callers will be many. So much attention is flattering.
Enters the maid. Enters also a policeman, the chief
of police, I suspect. Of course I rise and bow politely,
but he outdoes me in courtesy. He is faultlessly
attired. Tea, cakes, and cigarette are accepted. He
settles on a cushion near the fire-box. It is nice of
him to call, and I tell him so, yet I feel a trifle uneasy.
I have not strictly observed the regulations concern-
ing note-taking and photography in war zones. Pos-
sibly he has handcuffs secreted in a hip pocket. I
never feel quite at ease in the presence of policemen.
At length, "You come America?" "Yes." Long
pause. More tea is offered and accepted. Perhaps
he is translating my answer. Eventually, "Where
you go?" "Beppu." Long pause. More tea. He
can't be translating, this time; Beppu is Beppu,
English or Japanese. And so the interrogation pro-
ceeds, at a pace which leads me to think that he is
struggling to recall half-forgotten phrases learned
218 OVER JAPAN WAY
long ago. The last question is put and answered;
still he lingers. Evidently he is suspicious. Why
should one with no knowledge of Japanese be so far
away from tourist lanes?
A happy thought occurs to me. I bring forth
photographs. This is my home. (He is immensely
interested in the back yard clothes-reel.) This is my
wife, and this is the baby. "Name?" "Margaret."
He is greatly interested in Margaret, but probably
wonders why her head is unshaven. All the photo-
graphs interest him. A spy would not carry about
with him the family gallery. The official fades away,
the human interest in things domestic asserts itself.
He has children of his own. Ten minutes later, he is
playing host, taking me about the town. I hesitate
to mention that early in our ramble he, an officer of
the law, pointed out a street set aside for immoral
purposes, but volunteered the suggestion that it
would be unnecessary to go so far, for I cannot tell
it. My inn looks perfectly respectable, and probably
is, to native eyes. Our main objective, however, is
the great central bath-house. I have no intention of
testing the healing powers of the waters, yet curiosity
to learn how the establishment is managed lures me
into the dingy office, and before I realize what is
happening the policeman friend has made all ar-
rangements. Possibly it was his purpose to keep me
engaged for an hour while he hurried back to inspect
my baggage, yet I think not. It was merely kind-
DOGO AND BEPPU 219
ness. Why should anyone come to Dogo if not to
bathe?
In his essay entitled Manners, Emerson writes
that the perfect gentleman never loses composure.
Nothing surprises him; he cannot be startled. He
associates with all classes without embarrassing or
suffering embarrassment. Everywhere he is at home.
I thought of this when the maid, an attractive lass
in the later teens, conducted me decorously to one of
the many apartments on the upper floor (combina-
tion dressing room, tea room, rest room), bearing on
her arm towels and the bath kimono. I thanked her
and waited for her to withdraw. She did not under-
stand nor did I. I pointed to the stairway. She
went and looked at it, then returned with a counte-
nance which said, " It is still there, master." I bowed
a bow of dismissal, which she counterfeited. In
short it became perfectly evident first, that the maid
was well bred and performing her duty in the accus-
tomed way; second, that not without rudeness ap-
proaching actual insult could she be ejected. There-
fore, with as little assistance as courtesy permitted,
the bath kimono was substituted for street clothes,
and I followed my youthful conductor down another
flight to the region of baths. All was as punctilious as
if we were in my lady's drawing-room.
The baths, five or six in number, differentiated as
to temperature (110 and downward) and medical
properties, some for women and some for men, were
220 OVER JAPAN WAY
spacious, large enough for swimming a stroke or two,
and agreeably clean with running water. The bath
assigned to me was already well populated with
perhaps ten healthy looking men, silently parboiling.
All looked as if they had been simmering since early
morn and were nearly done very red and minutely
wrinkled. And here, as elsewhere in Japan, no one
stared at the stranger; psychologically, he was the
sole occupant, the attendant alone recognizing his
presence. All was as solemn as a Quaker meeting.
Of course it is mere prejudice that makes Occidentals
prefer land to water; those Japanese who enter the
baths in the fall and emerge in the spring have argu-
ment in their favor. They forget business cares, do
not worry about tailors' bills nor coal bills. An
occasional bowl of rice satisfies hunger. The dross of
wordly activities soaks out of their beings and they
slip by degrees into a sublime state where it is natural
to think poetry and be consistently philosophical.
This, and much more, I discovered in less than
twenty minutes. The maid brought tea while I was
dressing, and I issued from the establishment feeling
strangely light and cured of foolish ambition. The
absurdity of climbing the steep hill behind the town,
or even visiting the big temple lower down yet ap-
proached by the customary staircase, was obvious.
One goes to Dogo not to weary himself by seeking
elevations, nor to pray, but to bathe, simmer, boil,
loaf divinely.
DOGO AND BEPPU 221
Beppu is a long way from Dogo, down on the island
of Kyushu, the upper part of which bounds the In-
land Sea on the south and west. It may be reached
by rail or by boat. I reached it by boat, and wish in
this public way to apologize for making my entry at
three in the morning. Never mind whether I mistook
A. M. in the timetable for P. M., or was merely
delayed four or five hours by the lateness of the
steamer taken at a port near Dogo. Possibly it was
both; I do not care to remember. When one is doing
foolish things daily, it is unnecessary to remember
everything. Perhaps it is not strange that seldom a
day passed during my journeyings through the In-
land Sea country which did not bring one or more
interviews with policemen or secret service officials
in civilian dress. All were soon satisfied, apparently,
that I was too feeble-minded to make a successful
conspirator. To climb down the steamer's side into a
skittish sampan, an easterly gale blowing the while,
and enter the breakwater harborette of a sleeping
town of 100,000 inhabitants, without a guide, with
no idea of where in the big city your hotel lies, nor
whether the hotel will have a room for you or not
(at Tukushima my notebook reminds me that six
inns were found "full up," one memorable night), is
not the normal act of an intelligent being, especially
if the adventurer speaks no Japanese. But fortune
favors the brave and the foolish. A fellow passenger,
possibly acting under instructions from my friend the
222 OVER JAPAN WAY
Dogo policeman, volunteers to serve as guide. A
red-capped porter springs up from nowhere and takes
the baggage, and through silent streets the procession
moves, the American carrying the guide's little girl,
for her father has many bundles to manage and the
lady is still so full of sleep that her legs fairly wab-
bled. It was all quite regular; we had become inti-
mately acquainted while waiting for the boat in the
afternoon. The hotel was tightly sealed, but a few
shouts brought an attendant, the attendant wakened
a maid, and in hah* an hour I was sound asleep.
Beppu, seen for the first time by daylight from
the hotel balcony, looks commonplace, merely tiled
roof houses packed together on a plain between a
mountain range and the blue sea like many another
city in Japan. But the three extinct volcanoes of
the mountain range grow in beauty as you look at
them, and so does the sea. Beauty aside, moreover,
there are many things which help to make Beppu
unforgetable. The place is almost unique. Without
leaving the hotel, the customary rambling structure
with confusing passageways on different levels, one
gets an inkling of what has put the city on the map,
namely a fine assortment of mineral baths most
stimulating even to a perfectly healthy body. Pre-
sumably each of the many hotels in Beppu is similarly
equipped. No wizard with hazel wand is required to
locate a hot spring, apparently; though the vol-
canoes back of the town went out of business years
DOGO AND BEPPU 223
ago, there is plenty of heat beneath the thin crust on
which the city stands, and subterranean streams
need but an invitation to come forth. Aside from
the hotels, I do not know how many bathing estab-
lishments there are; Beppu is a city of baths, Dogo
multiplied many times. I recall looking in at one
place where the patrons were bathing not in water but
in sand, each man lying covered, save for head and
arms, with steaming earth. They looked like a
freshly sprouted crop of some Burbank wonder, a
new kind of cabbage, with lateral sprouts. There
were several gardeners in attendance. In summer
time it is quite unnecessary to patronize such hot-
houses; for there is a place down on the beach where
the multitudes plant themselves in the moist, hot
sand, and steam by the hour like so many clams at a
Rhode Island bake.
Steam and hot water, in fact, are almost as free as
air. In a neighboring hamlet among the foothills
one sees near the door of many a cottage a cement
standard of convenient height from which steam is
issuing. It is the stove, the fireless cooker. How
convenient to bore for steam at one's door instead
of ordering coal for the kitchen range. Of course
there are teahouses, inns, and baths in these foothill
villages. As at Noboribetsu, there are tepid streams,
and spouts under which the bather stands. One
arrangement, new to me, was a cave-like hut that
serves as a steaming-box, a dark, Calcutta hole sort
224 OVER JAPAN WAY
of place, with a matting hung over the narrow en-
trance through which the patients crawl to almost
suffocate in murky Turkish fashion. A withered,
emaciated grandam, perhaps in search of perpetual
youth, was crawling in as we happened by. There
are, too, many pools which steam, bubble, boil, some
impregnated with iron, some a pale blue, basins
several rods in diameter, where pole, line, and
basket alone are needed for boiling eggs in short
order. One of the largest of these vents, a vat with a
wicked look, is less than a year old. Such informa-
tion is not altogether comforting. And yet, looking
down from this all but infernal region, there is every
indication of peaceful security. How beautiful the
grain fields on the terraced slopes, how idyllic the
family groups of harvesters here and there. The
big black wheels, turned by mountain streams which
keep the pestles going that polish the rice look cen-
turies old, with centuries yet before them. Children
play happily in the narrow, steeply inclined streets
of the little villages; and the pathetic cemetery
yonder where one sees so many newly made graves,
it seems improbable that they who sleep there will
ever have their bones rudely disturbed by mountain
quake or buried more deeply by the angry out-
pouring of lava that will sweep relentlessly down to
the sea. And yet, but a few miles away, Aso is still
active, and the entire region will bear watching.
At Beppu, be it confessed, I fell from grace to the
DOGO AND BEPPU 225
extent of once more employing a guide. The maid at
the hotel, when asked if she could get me one who
spoke English, replied with becoming modesty, "I
have all the English in this place. It is little." The
opportunity to corner the market was irresistible.
Would not she accept the position? The proposition
pleased her; she would ask "master." Master con-
sented, and seldom have I passed a day in more
agreeable company. Her English, truly, was "lit-
tle," but she was intelligent and had the courtly ways
of a perfect lady. We were together from morning till
night, in rikishas, on foot, threading narrow streets,
climbing hillsides. Her intuitive good manners and
her quaint English were pleasanter to study than
volcanic phenomena. At the railway station she
had insisted on coming along to purchase a ticket and
see that the baggage was properly checked I said
good bye with an unfeigned feeling of gratitude.
What a blessing it would be had we more of her kind
among our servants in America. Her sister, a
strapping country lass with plump, rosy cheeks, said
to me I know not how many times, " Master san, me
America." It is a common petition, accompanied by
appealing looks, but to grant it might be an act of
cruelty. Few Japanese can learn to like any but
Japanese food; the kimono is a hundred times more
comfortable, and several hundred times more beau-
tiful than the average costume seen on Fifth Avenue.
And then there are the baths.
CHAPTER XIX
KYOTO AND OSAKA
"AND you have never returned to America?"
"Yes," she replied, with a weary sigh, "once. Re-
morse, or something akin to it, dragged me back
home after an absence of two years. But Chicago
was so unbearably ugly, the whirl of things so so
empty and meaningless, that I simply could not
endure it, and here I am in dear old Kyoto again.
Don't you find it charming?" Poor lady! Quaint,
long-ago book illustrations and the fading miracles
of color and form on temple screens have been her
undoing. To her eyes Italian masterpieces are but
painty daubs. Nor is her case unique. After less
than a fortnight in the old capital my friend the
Hollander, familiar with most that is choicest in
Europe, talked so incoherently about the culture,
grace, and intuitive kindliness of the Japanese that
it was a relief to learn he was safely on board a ship
bound for America, though it is more than probable
he turned back at Honolulu. Tourists in general
will confirm the statement that the only safe way to
"do" Kyoto shops is to go blindfolded and penniless.
226
Not Italy, but southern Japan.
Looking across the bay.
KYOTO AND OSAKA 227
There are Kyoto gardens so beautiful that it seems a
sacrilege to enter them, and temples which make
one regret he was not born a pagan.
Yet at first sight old Kyoto appears in no wise
enchanting, merely a commonplace city in a moun-
tain guarded plain, through which runs a river with
wide, gravelly bed; a clean, orderly, quiet town of
half a million, with market garden suburbs and a
few attractive acres of centrally located park in
which, shielded from profane gaze by tiled roof walls,
stand the Imperial Palace buildings. There is a
deplorable paucity of crooked lanes; practically all
streets, many of them Occidentally wide, intersect at
right angles as old as the city itself. A peculiar haze
suspiciously like dissipated smoke from factory
chimneys is mildly disquieting; but European store
fronts are pleasingly rare, and electric trams do not
venture far away from a few main thoroughfares.
Modern business enterprise, apparently, is well kept
under; yet there is comparatively little to suggest,
in a first, superficial survey, that Kyoto is an ultra-
conservative center of art and culture, a thousand
years old capital guarding with dignity a fast fading
glory. Call it cunning or good taste, it is the Japa-
nese way thus to cloak what is precious and beautiful
beneath a gray, almost forbidding exterior.
The charm of Kyoto is due in part to the fact that
it is a cathedral town, a Mecca. Within the city
limits are nearly a thousand temples and shrines.
228 OVER JAPAN WAY
Many are small, hidden away, but there are places of
worship everywhere in the heart of the business
section, even in Theatre Street. Temple roofs lift
above enclosing walls in most unlikely places. A
grove of trees conceals one; another is approached
through a noble avenue of arching branches; many
cling to hillsides. Some are very old and gray, their
courts almost deserted; others have throngs of wor-
shipers. One of the largest and finest is almost new,
rebuilt by popular subscriptions in small amounts
totaling half a million dollars. Its heavy beams were
lifted into place by hawsers of hair contributed by
devout women. A wire cable would have served as
well, perhaps, but wire is a soulless thing. Not all the
fanes are of equal merit architecturally, and forms of
worship differ through a wide range. Before some
altars may be witnessed devotion blindly idolatrous,
grossly pagan; on the other hand one hesitates to
condemn the dignified, reverent adoration at certain
Shinto shrines and a few of the Buddhist temples.
There are many places where it is strangely easy to
worship no matter what one's creed may be.
Kyoto is also a city of ancient palaces and princely
retreats. Architecturally these low-lying structures
of perishable wood and paper are disappointing;
their often tiny rooms convey no sense of grandeur;
the absence of furniture imparts a barren, cheerless
aspect. It may happen, however, that while follow-
ing the caretaker from apartment to apartment one
KYOTO AND OSAKA 229
will chance upon a centuries-old panel whose beauty,
seen in the dim light, for the first time makes him
wonder if the lady who rejects all European master-
pieces as "painty" may not be right. At least he
will recall that the young Hollander maintains there
has not been a Western painter of note for twenty
years whose work has not been influenced for the
better by Japanese art. Palaces, temples too, are
often rich in ancient treasures which the mere tourist
is too untrained in matters of art to appreciate. He
loses, moreover, the thrill these retreats of culture
excite in one familiar with history and tradition.
Palace gardens, though they too speak a language
unintelligible save to such as have devoted years to
study of Oriental landscape art, seldom fail to charm
the visitor from other lands. The connoisseur warns
against waxing enthusiastic over Katsura Palace
Garden, why, I have forgotten, and do not care.
Surely it is an ideal place in which to spend a dreamy
hour on a gray November morning. Three centuries
old! Therefore aged trees among the younger
growth; and because Japanese, a somewhat conven-
tional arrangement, an air of artificiality, yet digni-
fied dignified but with an agreeable childlike
simplicity. Because Japanese, it is practically
flowerless, a park rather than a garden, with a pond,
sluggish streams, gracefully arched bridgelets, mossy
slopes, large, irregular stepping-stones, winding
walks, teahouses, a woodland shrine, a few lantern
230 OVER JAPAN WAY
stones, and the noisy chatter of strange birds. This
much is easily remembered, but few things in detail ;
notebooks and cameras are unlawful in such places, a
wise regulation. One recalls, too, how easy it was for
imagination to people this quiet sylvan retreat with
long ago folk the grandee, the scholar recluse, dames
sandal footed, and little children; and that one hoped
the place had been hallowed by romance, never
sullied by intrigue.
Katsura lies in level ground, with market gardens
between it and the city. Perhaps in earlier days the
environment was less rural, for Kyoto, it is estimated,
once had a population of a million, and covered more
of the plain. There is another, fairer Imperial
Garden on the slopes behind the city, through which
the guide hurries one at a distressing pace, a sylvan
retreat with a paradisical lakelet fed by a mountain
stream that forms many a pretty waterfall, tea-
houses from which one looks out over the city and
plain below, bridges of course, a wonderful hedge
which must be twenty feet wide, and a natural back-
ground of well-wooded hillside with maple reds
among the many shades of green. There are famous
temple gardens almost as old as the city itself; and
behind many a dwelling, whose plain front gives
no suggestion of wealth, lies hidden a dainty miracle
of nature transformed. Those who scorn such minia-
tures, train, tram, or rikisha will quickly transport
to suburban resorts where nature has outdone the
KYOTO AND OSAKA 231
landscape gardener. Arashiyama, especially on a
holiday, is most attractive; and Biwa, Japan's largest
lake, calls forth all the poetry there is in one's soul.
It was on the shores of Biwa that I spent a memorable
day with Bamboo along to carry the lunch basket.
Mr. Bamboo is a merry rogue, a rikisha man, whose
petty "squeezes" are so cleverly managed as to
delight his victim. He has large stores of misinforma-
tion and a limited vocabulary of well-exercised Eng-
lish nouns and verbs. When between the shafts, he
possesses a wonderful knack of appearing, from the
waist upward, to be going like the wind, while his
legs are merely sauntering. Should attention be
called to this difference hi tempo, he laughs merrily,
speeds up the lower parts, then gives an amazing
exhibition of almost imperceptible retardendo. He
is growing old. There is a Mrs. Bamboo, he tells
me, and numerous shoots. It may be that I should
have been inspired to write an immortal poem on
Biwa's loveliness had I not found Bamboo's cunning
more fascinating. It does not matter; for centuries
the Lake has been a favorite theme with native poets.
To such as find, poor souls, little to attract in
temples, palaces, gardens, Bamboos, there still re-
main shops and little factories wjww-factories a
multitude. The Japanese hand is the quickest,
cleverest, in all the world, and perhaps nowhere
in the Empire has handicraft reached nearer to
perfection. Porcelain and pottery, embroidery old
232 OVER JAPAN WAY
and new, velvets that none but princes should own,
bronze, damascene, cloisonne, lacquer ware, bamboo
work, fans, dolls, toys, curios thus runs the incom-
plete inventory. The feminine tourist shocked by the
idolatry witnessed at Buddhist temples becomes an
extravagant pagan when confronted with em-
broidered kimonos and rich brocades, and bows down
before creations of clay in world-famed potteries.
It is well to engage, and pay for, passage home before
entering Kyoto at all. One is sure to leave with
trunks so full that another trifle, if no more than a
picture postal reproduction of some old artist's
masterpiece, would burst the hinges.
In brief, Kyoto, home of so many Mikados, spir-
itual lords rather than actual , rulers, patrons of
learning, of art, is the choicest city in all Japan. It is
rich in history and legend. It lives in the past,
quietly, yet gaily too; for its calendar is well sprinkled
with holidays, and few weeks hi the year pass with-
out some festival. Nowhere will one find more
attractive people than throng her parks and bril-
liantly beflagged, belanterned streets on the Em-
peror's birthday or crowd the trams leading to
favorite suburban resorts, a clean, well-bred, nature-
loving, art-loving people with musical voices the
ear never tires of listening to. Thus, at least, does
the city appear to the tourist whose stay is limited
to a week or a month. Tarrying longer might bring
disillusion; if so, I do not care to know it.
A bit of Silver Pavilion garden.
Arashiyama.
KYOTO AND OSAKA 233
Somewhere in Murray's Handbook there is given
an entertaining fable about two frogs. One from
Kyoto started out to visit Osaka, and one from
Osaka to visit Kyoto. They met face to face, very
tired, on the summit of a hill from which both cities
are visible, and decided that it would be a waste of
time to journey further. "For," said the Osaka
toad, " Kyoto looks precisely like my own city," and
the Kyoto frog made the same remark about Osaka
strange observations, both, till it is explained that
the frog's eyes are in the back of his head. Each, in
truth, was looking towards home, not abroad. The
moral I have forgotten; but I will venture to assert
that, even had the eyes been differently located, the
two frogs might have concluded that it would have
been a waste of time to advance another hop. At
least this might be the logical end of the story were
the frogs present day creatures; for the 'two cities,
though but less than thirty miles apart, are strangely
antipodal in spirit. They are as different as night and
day. One cannot love both if he is frog-minded.
Osaka is the greatest purely industrial town in
Japan, second in size to Tokyo. It is not a city that
tourists rave about. Her temples are ordinary com-
pared with those of neighboring Nara and Kyoto.
What is left of her castle lacks the charm of Nagoya's.
She is old enough, her legendary history reaching
back twenty-five centuries, but she does not look
venerable prefers not to look old; rather does she
234 OVER JAPAN WAY
boast of her up-to-the-minute modernity, her won-
derful growth, her enterprise. Forty years ago, the
population was under half a million; today it is
probably three times as large, and increasing at an
estimated annual rate of fifty thousand. She is
outgrowing old boundaries rapidly, absorbing out-
lying villages, reclaiming land from the sea. She is
getting rid of picturesque antiquity as rapidly as
possible. As often as a conflagration clears away a
section, wide thoroughfares take the place of narrow
streets and narrower alleys. Modern, substantial
buildings supplant flimsy structures.
Osaka is undeniably flat, a delta city, with naviga-
ble rivers meandering through it, a commercial
Venice of canals, some of them a thousand years old.
One readily believes the statement that, not counting
smaller ones, there are five hundred bridges six
miles of them, and that the waterways, where thou-
sands of boats impart an air of ceaseless activity,
exceed the area of streets. Originally handicapped
by a shallow approach from the Inland Sea, in a very
few years she will be able to receive all but the
largest ships. Already there is a fine pier over a
quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide, and
extensive breakwaters that are a credit to engineering
skill. When completed, the harbor improvements
begun twenty years ago will have cost twenty-five
million dollars, a sum which looms large when we
remember how little labor costs. Way back in 1910,
KYOTO AND OSAKA 235
over thirty thousand steamers and sailing vessels
entered the port, and forty-five thousand junks. In
1915 the exports and imports amounted to over
seventy million dollars.
Osaka is a manufacturing center of first impor-
tance. Half a century ago there was not a piece of
modern machinery in the city; today it is almost as
murky as Pittsburg. Looking off from high ground
near the Castle, one sees at a glance hundreds of
factory chimneys, and accepts, without counting,
the assertion that, if suburban areas are included,
there are over five thousand. Several years ago her
manufacturers were claiming half as many spindles
as Manchester. Nor are textiles the only products;
the list runs a wide gamut from matches to ships.
"The latest official returns, those issued for 1908,
showed that there were 6415 registered factories in
Osaka, engaged in the manufacture of cotton, wool,
metals, oils, ships, matches, machinery, soap, to-
bacco, medicines, brushes, rolling stock, clothing,
umbrellas, toilet goods, paint, furniture, paper,
candles, canned goods, lacquer, carpets, bags, safes,
casks, fans, flowers, music and sporting goods, ice,
clocks, and many other things." Among the "many
other things" referred to in this catalogue taken
from the official Guide to Osaka is soy. The city
has a stock exchange and a board of trade. It has a
fine water system, sewers, a good electric tram
service, and thanks to the energetic campaign of
236 OVER JAPAN WAY
Mr. Gleason of the Y. M. C. A., four acres of public
playground centrally located. Of course there are
Boy Scouts.
In the fall of 1916 Osaka was not a place to explore
in thorough fashion. Everywhere the stranger was
met with courtesy, but many doors remained closed.
It was war time, and Osaka is a garrison town. I
should like very much to visit the castle; but at the
gate stand guards who explain that, since cholera is
prevalent, all visitors are excluded. The explanation
must be accepted as valid even though a hundred
schoolboy excursionists are being conducted about.
I have heard much of the great Osaka prison, and
would Like to see it study methods, scan faces.
Possibly permission to enter might be granted in
Tokyo, but probably not. The mayor's secretary is
very sorry. Would I like to visit, instead, a reform
school, or an asylum? May I photograph the city?
Photography is forbidden. Well, at least I may visit
the large cotton mills. Unfortunately the mills are
busy with war orders. The large belting concern?
It too is filling war orders; no admittance. Would
not soap do as well? I decline the soap factory; it is
five miles out, and I must wait a day to get necessary
credentials even for soap. I also decline the Mint.
The sight of loads of wealth so near and yet so far
always depresses me.
I visit the reform school, I attend a native Chris-
tian church and am deeply impressed with the
KYOTO AND OSAKA 237
intelligent reverence of the congregation that com-
pletely fills the auditorium. I visit a match factory
(tea is served in the office), and a bobbin factory
(more tea). The warehouses along the river and the
shipyards prove wonderfully interesting. I go to the
theatres; at the theatres one is always welcome.
Finally there are the streets which one may wander
through at will, sure of meeting novelty at every
turn, whether one explores the narrow alleys where
dwell the poor, or join the throngs that crowd street
bazaars called into gay existence by some temple
festival. There are military manceuvers to watch.
Oh, there is plenty of entertainment, but much is
denied that one would gladly investigate; for few
cities suggest more forcibly some of the serious
problems which confront this young-old nation.
First in importance, perhaps, is the city trend of
population. The physical virility of Japan is in her
peasant class. But year after year, as factories
spring up like mushrooms, the villages and hamlets
of rural Japan are being combed by agents who are
all too successful in luring girls and young women to
the cities where long hours of confining toil, and
boarding-house life under conditions often far from
healthful, are causing a death rate that is appalling.
A strong nation must, it goes without saying, have
strong mothers to breed workmen, soldiers, and more
strong mothers. The Japanese are an outdoor peo-
ple; factory walls soon sap their strength. Salutary
23 8 OVER JAPAN WAY
labor laws have been passed, many reforms are under
way, but even under the best of conditions the city
trend, the factory trend, is unfortunate. It is un-
fortunate from the moral standpoint as well as the
physical. In Mr. Gulick's Working Women of Japan
(1915) appears the following paragraph containing
facts and figures culled from a book published in 1914
by Mr. R. Uno, for fifteen years "a devoted student
of Japan's industrial problems:" "In the cotton
thread and spinning factories of Japan there are
8 1 girls to 19 men. Out of 1,000 girls, 386 are over
20 years of age, 317 are from 17 to 20, 191 are from
15 to 16, 73 are from 12 to 14, while 7 girls out of a
thousand are under 12 years of age. The vast ma-
jority of factory girls live in the factory dormitories,
which are of enormous size. In the region of Osaka
there are more than 30,000 girls working in 30 fac-
tories; in these same factories there are less than
7,000 men. Three of these factories employ over
3,000 girls each, while three more employ 2,000 and
upward. These girls are herded together in enormous
dormitories, disastrous both to health and morals.
Statistics covering a number of years show that out
of every 1,000 girls, 270 work less than six months at
the same place; 200 less than one year; 179 less than
two years; 121 less than three years; 141 less than
five years, and only 89 pass the five-year period.
The usual reason for this extraordinary fluctuation of
workers is that the girls break down in health. Gov-
KYOTO AND OSAKA 239
eminent statistics show that out of every 100 girls
to enter upon factory work 23 die within one year of
their return to their homes, and of these 50 per cent,
die of tuberculosis. But it is also asserted that 60 per
cent, of the girls who leave home for factory work
never return. Of the criminal girls arrested in Osaka
for a certain period, 49 per cent, had been factory
hands."
There is another respect in which Osaka's smoking
chimneys are ominous. Since early tunes Japan has
been a land of arts and crafts. The artist and the
artisan have worked not alone for hire but for the
work's sake. Father has handed down to son not
visible wealth, but the secrets of his craft, his most
precious possession. In a sense thousands of petty
workshops have been but so many temples. Work
has been to potter and swordmaker, to woodcarver
and weaver, almost a religion. Much that is finest in
Japanese character, it seems to me, may be traced
to the spirit of her handicraft to the fact that so
many workmen have had opportunity to express
themselves in their toil, making an art of a homely
trade. To all this the factory with its machines for
turning out standardized products is fatal. The
little shop with its independent workmen is, ap-
parently, doomed. It cannot compete in a market
where the cry is not how well but how cheap.
Finally there is the new distribution of wealth.
Factories make millionaires. The old feudal aris-
2 4 o OVER JAPAN WAY
tocracy crumbled almost at a breath before the
advance of Western civilization. The aristocracy of
culture, learning, religious or philosophical medita-
tion, of the arts and higher crafts, which came in with
Buddhism, is changing if not fading away. The
aristocracy of wealth wealth quickly accumulated,
often by men who do not represent the highest type
of manhood is beginning to assert itself. These
are days of momentous changes in the social make-up
of Japan. Kyoto, Osaka, the old and the new: would
that the minds which guide the Empire had the
wisdom to see that neither typifies the ideal. Per-
haps they do see; time alone will tell.
CHAPTER XX
SHOPPING
THIS is not a topic for the masculine pen; shopping is
exclusively a woman's art. In Yokohama I met a
pale-faced, nervous young American who confided
with a shudder that he had shipped home a ton of
"stuff." "Setting up shop?" I enquired, though
he did not have the merchant cut. "No, house-
keeping. Just married. Wedding tour through the
Orient. Six months. China, India, and now Japan.
Porcelains mostly, and ivories, and gods five gods
and a temple drum. No home complete without a
temple drum." "House picked out?" "Not yet.
We decided to furnish one first and pick it out after-
wards." "Your bride is still living? " I started to
say, for he looked depressed and I did not wish to
seem indifferent; but the query was changed to one
in regard to her health. "Oh, she's all right; out
after silks, this morning, and pearls. She shops, I
ship. Distribution of labor, you know; mutually
agreeable. Quite. An unusual woman. I want you
to meet her." She was unusual. A ton is extreme,
even for a wedding tour financed by a millionaire
241
242 OVER JAPAN WAY
aunt, the aunt in the present case being purely
conjectural, though the ton was probably authentic
and the bride visibly extant the following morning at
breakfast, a blue-eyed doll with rings on both hands.
She looked good for another ton.
All travelers, men as well as women, shop more or
less. Not to do so would brand one as eccentric if not
penurious. What are tourists for? The merchant
meets you halfway. In many of the larger hotels
are wall cases displaying the wares of local firms
embroidered kimonos, scarfs, ivories, pearls, copies
of rare prints, lacquer ware. At Nikko, Kyoto,
Miyanoshita, and other places, there are show rooms
with English speaking clerks in attendance where one
may spend a fortune on his way from the dining-room
to the office. A prominent corner of the finest Japa-
nese hotel at Matsushima Bay is a fully equipped
store, hard to resist. Particularly attractive are the
whalebone novelties in dainty weaves of black,
brown, and gray, forming scores of patterns purses,
cigarette cases, pocketbooks, sandals, canes, even
baskets, jars, dust-pans, and rugs, all possibly from
the Tokyo house over whose door is a sign reading
WHALE AND ALL RELATING IT SOLD. There are shell
goods in the form of necklaces, pins, brooches,
baskets, dishes, and clever mosaics representing
landscapes. The lacquered bowls and trays in
black and red, and the lignite ware from Sendai are
far more artistic; and of course one finds post cards,
SHOPPING 243
perfumery, toothbrushes, chopsticks. The assort-
ment is instructive, since presumably the stock has
been chosen with native tourist trade in mind, com-
paratively few from other lands going to Matsushima.
Nor is one entirely safe even when quartered in the
small inn remote from well-traveled ways. At a
moment when you least expect intrusion, a panel
may slide noiselessly back and a crone creep toward
you with a basket filled with wooden boxes and
jewel cabinets, let us say, brightly waxed inlaid ware,
which she silently spreads before you on the mat-
ting things you do not want, yet you buy a trifle or
two, partly that you may have time to study her
wrinkled face and hands, and listen to her feeble
voice and wonder what she was like in her girlhood
days.
But purchasing goods at hotels is not, strictly
speaking, shopping. Perhaps the same may be said
of wandering through city streets with no intention
of buying, yet lingering wherever a window attracts.
It is very pleasant, however. Take Theatre Street
in Kyoto, for example, a narrow, unpaved, side-
walkless thoroughfare, where rikishas are not al-
lowed, the home of a dozen cheap theatres, scores of
restaurants, and shops, shops, shops, packed closely
together, with stalls where candy is made and sold,
bananas hawked, and fried sweet potatoes served
hot from the griddle. Apparently most of the stores
cater to women, with their stocks of dress goods,
244 OVER JAPAN WAY
combs, hair ribbons, sashes, and whatever else is
needed for personal adornment. But children are
not forgotten. There are perhaps a score of toy
shops, with dolls, mechanical ingenuities, and other
playthings in great variety. There are jewelers'
shops, book shops, music shops, shops for pipes, for
umbrellas and canes, for caps, and shops upon shops
upon shops for sandals and clogs. The banana man
with his banter of customers and glowing eulogy of
his fruit, which he tosses, a "hand" at a time, to his
assistant, is a clever salesman. The candy-maker
throws the ever stiffening strands of elastic sweetness
over the peg with much adroitness. At the book-
store window a strong-throated salesman holds his
crowd well as he turns the pages of a pictorial of the
late war with Russia, we suspect, explaining each
illustration. Best of all is it to stop before a res-
taurant window and inventory the viands that find a
ready sale, each a symphony of color. The Japanese
cannot help it; everything must be artistic. What
goes on at the little shop where eels form the standard
dish will not be described save by special request.
Such rapid metempsychosis! from tank to grill in
the time it takes to open a single refractory oyster.
And quite as interesting as the shops are the throngs
moving slowly up and down this brilliantly lighted
way, men, women, children. When do the babies
sleep? At eleven at night they seem wide awake.
It is a quiet crowd, and very noticeable is the fact
The ubiquitous siioe store.
The potter.
Some of the finest embroidery is done by men.
SHOPPING 245
that the two sexes are seldom found in company,
though occasionally a family group may be detected.
Evidently in this nightly concourse the middle and
poorer classes are represented chiefly, perhaps be-
cause working people are busy during the day.
Theatre Street is a permanent shopping place,
active day and night throughout the year. The
street bazaar is sporadic, though presumably it is
obedient to some calendar unknown to the tourist.
By day, a street may seem normally unattractive, as
you pass through on your way to some distant point
of interest. Returning after dark, you find a mar-
velous transformation. In front of the shops, where
sidewalk curbs would be were there any sidewalks,
stretch long lines of booths, counters, tables, stands,
each with its burden of small wares. A complete
inventory of all the articles revealed by light from
lamps, lanterns, and torches, would reach from one
end of the alphabet to the other and halfway back.
Second-hand clothing, furniture, books, and tools
may find a place among newer goods. All is cheap;
it is poor man's market, likewise a children's delight,
a promenade lane for maid and matron. In Japan,
pleasure and shopping, pleasure and temple worship,
as well as temple worship and shopping, all combine
naturally. The joy of seeing things in the flare of
torchlight, the joy of mingling with the multitude, is
unusually strong, or so it seems to the stranger. It is
a cheap, innocent form of entertainment.
246 OVER JAPAN WAY
The American does not buy much at street bazaars,
though he may pick up here and there a trinket,
which sometimes does not remain long in his posses-
sion ; for the children in mothers' arms or strapped to
caretakers' backs are mightily pleased with the
merest trifle. A doll costs but a dime or two, and
flags and trumpets are cheaper still. Candies and
cakes, after one has reached a certain age, are best
eaten by proxy. For serious shopping one goes to
well-established business houses, which are com-
monly hidden away in unlikely places and have
unpromising fronts. They are often factory and
showroom combined, and most instructive is it to
watch at close range the various stages of manufac-
ture. I recall an hour spent in a Nagoya factory-shop
for cloisonne and enamel ware, approached through a
narrow passageway, though the trademark of the
firm is known throughout Europe. The factory
stands back of a little garden, the workshops on the
ground floor, the showroom, a small affair, above.
Here were displayed wares that might charm the
eyes of a princess. After viewing marvels of form
and color, some of which were valued at five hundred
or one thousand dollars each, though many were
relatively inexpensive, I ventured to ask the pro-
prietor if he would not point out to me his finest
piece. He hesitated, while my eye ran hastily
through the brilliantly colored and elaborately
patterned array, in an attempt to anticipate his
SHOPPING 247
choice. At length, as if with a degree of reluctance, a
fear that American gold might rob him of his best, he
unlocked a cupboard and brought forth a carefully
wrapped little box, a jewel case, very simple in design
but perfect in workmanship. A careless eye might
have valued it at a dollar; it was worth, this seeming
trifle, two hundred. "It is your choicest?" "No,"
he admitted, "not the choicest," and this time he
showed a little plate, undecorated. At a street
bazaar it might have attracted no notice whatever
among cheapest crockery; it looked, in the presence
of the strikingly brilliant wares ranged about in wall
cabinets, a beggar among kings and queens. "And
what is its value? " It was not for sale. The artist
who created it was dead, the secret of its glaze gone
with him. A duplicate was impossible.
This reverence for skilled workmanship, on the
part of one whose refinement made him loathe the
more brilliant pieces designed to comply with the
taste of tourists who too often estimate values by the
pound, cubic foot, or brilliancy of color, one meets
with over and over again. We Americans are not an
art-loving people, and our corrupting influence is
unmistakable. In a certain world-famed pottery,
centuries old, there are three showrooms, in one,
choice things, not necessarily expensive, for home
trade; in a second, expensive wares not quite tawdry
but in marked contrast to all found in the first room
these for the rich from abroad; in a third room,
248 OVER JAPAN WAY
monstrosities, all for export, such as are given away
with house lots at land auctions or come to our rural
towns with packages of soap and perfumery. Else-
where mention is made of the probable fate of handi-
craft in view of the rapid multiplication of factories
where little intelligence is required to tend soulless
machines. If, lured by prospects of immeasurably
larger returns, the artist employs his time in turning
out rapidly, for foreign markets, what he knows to be
rubbish, not only will his finer tools lose their edge,
his hand and eye their cunning, but there will be a
weakening of moral fiber. A skilled craftsman may
not be a good man; one who deliberately turns out
work that is below his best, is not a good man, and
no longer is he a free man. Slavery takes many
forms. But enough of preaching.
Although the older establishments, for example
the famous silk houses in Kyoto, may have their
offices on the street level and their salesrooms on the
second floor, no attempt being made by means of
show windows to attract passers-by, modern stores
are growing yearly more numerous in many of the
trade centers. There are many in Tokyo that are
strikingly modern. While passing down the main
business street, one day, my attention was caught by
a brilliantly red balloon high up above the roofs,
from which streamed a pennant inscribed with
characters I could not read. Curiosity provoked
investigation leading to the discovery that its slender
SHOPPING 249
tether was attached to the roof of a silk store gay
with flags, a bran-new three-storied structure of steel
and concrete with plate glass fronts back of which
were silks, brocades, and models of Japanese belles
that suggested Fifth Avenue allurements. It was
opening day. The sidewalk was crowded with hun-
dreds waiting for the doors to be thrown back. In
the afternoon I passed that way again, and entered,
not to buy, but to observe.
There must have been thousands packed into the
establishment and hundreds viewing the windows
from the sidewalk. Sandals were left at the entrance;
the women wore but white pattees. For my Amer-
ican shoes, brown canvas slipovers were provided by
the attendants after considerable search for a pair
large enough. Most of the goods were piled on tables
where all might feel. It is a mistake, my friend B.
insists, to say that the only brain is above the shoul-
ders; there are millions of little brains scattered
through the body. The feminine shopper thinks
most acutely through her finger tips. It goes without
saying that there were remnant counters, well
patronized. East is West and West is East, when
it comes to bargain sales; human nature has nothing
to do with political boundaries. There were de-
partments where none but the rich should go.
Preconceived notions that the simple Japanese
costume was an inexpensive matter had already been
dispelled at a Kyoto silk house, where the clerk, on
OVER JAPAN WAY
being asked how much it would cost to take back to
America a really nice outfit, complete in every detail,
good enough for any lady, set three hundred fifty
yen as a reasonable minimum. Still it was a surprise
to learn that a certain obi, ablaze with gold thread,
would be delivered at my hotel only on payment of
one hundred dollars. No, the sash was a separate
item and an obi won't stay on unless lashed into
place with yards of silk. The sash settled it ; I did not
buy, and never once thought of asking for a sample.
Although many of the obis were extremely rich, and
the counters where dress goods for the young formed
a dazzling exception, the composite color scheme of
the merchandise as a whole, as bird's-eyed from a
staircase eminence, seemed rather somber; there
was a strange paucity of bright, ribbony miscellania
such as one sees at home when sent to the store for a
spool of silk, three yards of braid, and two of some-
thing else that must match precisely a sample you
cannot find though you are sure it must be in one of
your pockets. It is characteristic that linings are
gayer than dress patterns. Characteristic too are
the manners of the shoppers. For example, look.
Two ladies, one with a babe strapped to her back
the Japanese go shopping almost as soon as born
are ecstatically engaged in tumbling about a pile of
something or other that sells by the piece, when they
suddenly discover that they are acquaintances.
Immediately the something or other is forgotten in
SHOPPING 251
bows most elaborate, one, two, three, accurately
timed so as to dovetail perfectly. The character
of Japanese women is most difficult to appraise,
it is said, for my lady is natural only when in her
home, and to the home the stranger is seldom in-
vited. Undoubtedly; yet go to a silk store on an
opening day and watch. Some things cannot be
wholly concealed.
Although the small shop predominates everywhere
in Japan as it did in our own country a century ago,
the department store has made its appearance and
now is found in most of the larger cities. It was in-
evitable, like chewing gum, the movies, and the five
and ten cent emporiums. Before me as I write is
an album of views picturing the Mitsukoshi store in
Tokyo, the finest of them all. It shows a five-storied
stone structure with well-lighted floors where the
general arrangement differs little from what one finds
in New York. There are near-onyx pillars, a rotunda
with imposing stairways, parlors, a restaurant, an
art gallery, a roof garden and observatory, elevators
and an escalator, the usual overhead trolley system,
and a telephone exchange. Except for the mats on
the floor and the character of goods displayed in some
departments, all is quite American. The orchestra
of course there is one looks as though it were equal
to ragtime upon request.
Many of the clerks speak English, but not all.
In the fur department, for example, no one under-
252 OVER JAPAN WAY
stood my attempts to make known a fancied need
until an elderly gentleman with English as faultless
as his European clothes was sent for. Having
politely explained that it would be quite impossible
to make an overcoat in four days, and that Nikko or
Yokohama would be a much better place for furs
anyway, he volunteers to pilot me about the estab-
lishment, not, I am sure, with a thought of lightening
my purse but in a spirit of hospitality tinged with
pride in his house. The clerk is in the background,
the gentleman to the fore; I am his honored guest.
He has been in America, it seems, knows New Eng-
land cities and New York very well, is acquainted
with American publishers, for whom he has done
several books, and puts me to shame by his intimate
knowledge of art museums near my own home. Art
is his specialty. At a word of praise concerning the
exquisite taste of the Japanese in the matter of color
combination, his eye brightens, and we wander about
admiring this and that bit of feminine finery, even
the costumes of some of the shoppers that girl with
brown and black scarf next a cheek the more beau-
tiful, and her mother, with steel gray edging to her
dark kimono. Happening to mention my misfortune
in missing two important exhibitions, I am con-
ducted to an upper floor where works by prominent
living artists are on view, kakemonos showing much
of the delicacy and swift suggestiveness of the older
native art, and paintings after the present day Euro-
SHOPPING 253
pean schools, some of them weakly imitative, even
clumsy in drawing, yet all interesting in color. The
kakemonos were hung in model Japanese rooms,
fully furnished, to show harmony of shades.
Finally we entered the restaurant, where tea and
pudding were served, while the host talked with be-
coming pride of the great establishment and its long
history. Way back to 1673 rnust we go for its humble
beginning. Ever since that year there has been a store
on that identical spot, always managed and owned by
the same family. Ten years ago a stock company
was formed, but such shares as were not retained by
members of the family were sold to old employees.
The album of views previously mentioned, no cheap
affair, was presented at the door upon leaving, and
my courteous friend promised to send, as soon as it
came from the press, a historical sketch of the estab-
lishment that he had recently prepared. My pur-
chases were neatly done up not in brown paper tied
with string but in a handsome furoshiki or square of
cotton. In Japan, one should not carry paper-
wrapped parcels in the street. No gentleman nor
lady does.
But shopping, let it be repeated, is not a masculine
theme; I write in perfunctory manner. No man
could do justice to many a shop in Tokyo and else-
where, to the wares of Nikko and Dogo, to that
wonderful pottery lane that climbs a temple hill in
Kyoto, to the nursery at Yokohama, to the print
254 OVER JAPAN WAY
shops that put to shame our best efforts at color
reproduction. The young husband was right, women
should shop and men should ship. It is the only
satisfactory arrangement. There is, however, a
pertinent matter which mere man may touch upon.
The clerk from whom I purchased a culture-pearl
brooch handed me two receipted bills of sale. They
were not identical. The one showing the smaller
amount was for the customs inspector. It was done
as if a matter of course. Who is to blame for this
shady practice? A bit of choice old lacquer, mo-
mentarily coveted in Nikko, was valued at forty
yen on Tuesday. Wednesday morning it had
dropped to thirty-five, and by noon to thirty. In
the evening a clerk appeared at the hotel. The
season had been a poor one; twenty-five yen would
be accepted. Possibly an offer of twenty would
have fetched it, but suspicion that the trifle could
not be a genuine antique would not down. In many
places one suspects that prices depend somewhat
on the customer's nationality.
But not everywhere. One price for all is be-
coming the rule with the better houses. Even as
I write, I receive a striking proof that business
integrity may be becoming the rule. A vase pur-
chased in Kyoto at the Kinkozan pottery was
lost by the express company through which it was
shipped to my hotel in Yokohama and was not
found till after the steamer sailed for Vancouver.
SHOPPING 255
The pottery, communicated with by telephone,
immediately agreed to forward the vase free of
charge as soon as it was found. In time it came.
But the duty charges were considerable; had I
brought the vase with me, there would have been
none. I could not resist the temptation to write
the firm about it, though with little hope of reim-
bursement. But a money order covering duty
charges has just arrived, accompanied by a polite
letter. What more could the most honorable of
American firms have done? At the Kinkozan pot-
tery, it should be added, but one bill of sale is given
the purchaser.
Shoppers laying in a stock of little gifts for the
many friends back home should exercise care in
regard to how articles are encased. There comes to
mind a pair of chopsticks and a pipe reposing in boxes
identical in appearance. The chopsticks were for a
lady and the pipe for a gentleman. The lady, it
seems, got the pipe, though I am positive . But
this is a personal matter in which, presumably, the
reading public would take no interest. Possibly, by
way of postscript, a warning note should be sounded
in regard to being swept off one's feet by enthusiasm
for the superior artistic qualities of all Japanese
articles exposed for sale. One may rave a week and a
day over a pair of felt slippers daintily encased in a
box such as none but an Oriental could invent, then
receive a sudden jolt upon discovering the hidden
256 OVER JAPAN WAY
trade mark of a firm in California. Embroideries
which make the tourists in Yokohama shops sigh, and
lament that grossly commercial America is so hope-
lessly boorish in all matters pertaining to art, are
sometimes designed hi New York City.
Opening day at a modern silk store.
The Mitsukoshi department store
CHAPTER XXI
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND
ALL Japanese are Japanese; there are no hyphens.
But all Japanese are not alike. The unifying forces
of ages have not been sufficiently strong to conceal
the fact that the early waves of invasion and con-
quest brought to the islands tribes differing in physi-
cal and mental characteristics. The long continued
feudal system, favoring the elect at the expense of
the masses, has had a tendency to widen the range
between the highest and lowest. Between the crowd
that gathers so quickly in a Tokyo slum and the
young men of the Imperial University is a chasm
wider and deeper than any known in our democratic
land of equal opportunity. The fisherman's hut and
the Kamakura villa are centuries apart.
In a sense all Japanese are un- Japanese. Their
religions, arts, crafts, political institutions are largely
second-hand, imported from other nations. For
two centuries and more, it is true, the gates were
locked to the rest of the world. While other countries
forged ahead, Japan nationalized, assimilating what
Asia had so abundantly given. But when in 1868
257
258 OVER JAPAN WAY
the gates were forced, Western ideas rushed in
bringing a new civilization antagonistic to much of
the old and the conflict is not yet ended. Ideas
quickly adopted by the more intelligent are filtering
through very slowly to the lower strata. Hence
Japan today is, according to where the probe is
inserted, a very old nation or a very young nation
with the attractive qualities of youth and some of
the less agreeable. She is a baffling compound of
East and West. Primitive plows turn up the fields
on the outskirts of cities whose factories are equipped
with the best of modern machinery. Bedragoned
lanterns hang in her temples, electricity lights her
streets. A parliament administers the nation's
affairs, yet her party government is more than
tinged by feudalism. Leaving a banquet hall where
you have dined in European manner, mingled with
cultured, English speaking Japanese men and women,
and listened to a literary program truly Bostonian,
on the way back to your hotel the rikisha passes
more than one native teahouse through whose
glowing panels come the plaintive thrummings of
tamiesens, the laughter of geisha girls, and the
maudlin voices of men who should be at home with
their wives.
How can anyone appraise an "old and haughty na-
tion proud in arms" imperfectly rejuvenated by a
magic kiss rudely bestowed, a sprightly youth with
ugly wrinkles, impulsive yet conservative, likable,
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 259
repellent. The tourist of a few months is blinded by
prejudice or by the glamor of things quaint; the old
resident too often falls under the spell of Oriental
enchantment, his "native home forgot" though he
may not "wallow in a sensual sty." Not with a
view to reaching conclusions of value but mainly as a
study in optics, I will set down at random opinions
by a baker's dozen, as I find them recorded in my
notebook. The quotation marks are honest but do
not indicate verbatim reports.
The business man, thick skinned but shrewd:
"Greatly overestimated, sir, by themselves and the
rest of the world. Educate a Jap and you spoil
him make him a trickster. They're cutting in some,
commercially; with an out-and-out laboring class,
mighty good workers and content with the lowest
wages, they can outbid us in some things, but it
won't last long. A nation to be feared? Bosh!
They know how to fight, but it would take billions
of capital to do anything big; they're too poor. I
don't like 'em never did."
The art student: "From the peasant up, they are
the finest people I have ever met. Why can't the
missionaries let them alone! I hate missionaries
and American tourists." (The interview was brief
and closed abruptly.)
The young Englishman, representative of a British
concern; ten years out: "Japanese women are close to
perfect. The men are less attractive, and you must
260 OVER JAPAN WAY
be jolly careful in all business transactions. They
lack business sagacity; they can't see ahead. The
war brought the chance of a century, but the manu-
facturer is likely to spoil it all. He wants big profits,
a fortune in a year, even if he ruin his reputation.
First consignments are always well up to the sam-
ples, the second will be off-grade, the third shipment
worse still. But the longer I stay the better I like
the country and the people. Homesick? I'm over
that. We all think, when we first come out, that it's
just a lark three years or five at most. But if we
return home, we find friends scattered and the girls
married; it is not a simple matter to start over. So
back we drift and make the best of it. Oh, the
Japanese are not so bad, especially the women most
unselfish creatures in the world." (A fine fellow
who, doubtless, once dreamed of his "sweet Alice,"
but now, possibly, has made what is politely termed
"social connections." They come out so young,
these lads from English homes.)
The evangelist of the better type, an old resident:
"The Japanese are a likable people and improve on
acquaintance. Their virtues are courtesy, honesty as
opposed to light-fingered thievery, indifference as to
wealth (though this may be changing), respect for
learning, filial respect, and ability to bear affliction
with a smile. They are not always truthful, are loose
in business affairs (probably due to inexperience;
the merchant class formerly had no social standing
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 261
whatever), they are improvident, and they easily
become inflated. They seem to lack the independ-
ence and staying qualities necessary for big under-
takings. Capitalists will not venture unless backed
by government support. Why do the Japanese
dislike Americans? At heart they admire their
quick minds and their enterprise. Sharp business
practice and the manners of tourists irritate them.
The extravagance of American women, and the at-
tention they receive in public from the men, is most
distasteful to a people who place women on a lower
level. Of course California's legislation is a blow
that they can hardly endure. They are a proud race
and do not relish being classed as inferiors."
The elderly American, not a missionary: "It is hard
to get beneath the surface, but probably the Japa-
nese average up about like the rest of us. Some are
quick and shrewd, but some of them are mentally
slow; the range in intelligence is remarkably wide.
First impressions are apt to be too favorable. The
Japanese are skillful in the art of steering the tourist
along pleasant ways. They are anxious that you
think well of their country."
The exporter, a life-long resident: " Merchants are so
anxious for business that they accept more orders
than they can fill and do not think delay important.
Goods promised six months ago are still undelivered.
If cost of labor or raw materials rises, contracts are
not kept; to the Japanese mind it seems unreasonable
262 OVER JAPAN WAY
that they should be. Another distressing feature is
due to the fact that piece-work is done not in one big
factory but in many homes, with the result that uni-
formity in workmanship is impossible. I suppose
it is true, as is sometimes stated, that hi the manufac-
ture of war materials great difficulty is experienced
in getting good help. The Japanese are very clever
at doing what they are accustomed to do; but com-
plicated machinery is new to them, and often it is
next to impossible to get men intelligent enough to
do things well. There is much petty grafting on the
part of servants, middlemen, and guides, secret
commissions which in Oriental eyes are perfectly
honorable. Social immorality, partly because le-
galized and under government control, partly be-
cause the Oriental code of morals differs in such
matters from ours, is much more respectable than in
America; it is less coarse and degrading. The women
who cater to Europeans in port towns, however,
sometimes reach the lowest depths of depravity."
The young university graduate, a bookish fellow:
"Russian, Italian, and Scandinavian books are read
in translation, English and German more and more
in the original. Browning is too difficult for college
men; they prefer Scott. Byron has been immensely
popular. Yes, Conrad, Masefield, and other con-
temporaries are read too. The New York Times,
which reaches us earlier than the English journals, I
admire greatly, but the American press generally is
The "dogs" in front of Shinto shrines drive away demons.
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 263
too sensational and provincial. Japanese students
work hard, often breaking down when they elect
German in addition to English."
The ideal missionary, a perfect gentleman without
any manners, respected by the Government: "The
development of the Government educational system
has made it necessary for mission schools to improve
in order to compete. Government schools are, many
of them, better equipped, and in some cases have
more skillful teachers. There is a great need for
young men and women who are not only gifted
teachers but willing to sacrifice their lives to their
work. We still have an advantage over the larger
public schools through our opportunity to exert our
influence socially. Girls here are similar to girls at
home, though perhaps more clannish, given to jeal-
ousy, probably due to the surviving influence of the
old feudal system with its undercurrent of intrigue.
It is unfortunate that at a critical period in the
nation's development there should come so strong a
temptation to push ahead along military and com-
mercial lines instead of centering energy on internal
improvements. She can hardly be blamed for follow-
ing the lead of other nations. But there is little
danger of war; there are too many thinkers, espe-
cially among business men who wish no change that
would interfere with present abnormally large
profits. The Japanese suffer from too lavish praise.
The better heads realize this."
264 OVER JAPAN WAY
The statesman: "Yes, my country is beautiful; I
am glad that you like it. But all is on a small scale,
so different from your great country. We are a
peace-loving people. The peasant class, in which
you seem especially interested, is notably peace-
loving, very frugal, and happy. Education may
bring a measure of discontent, but discontent is a
wholesome sign of progress. We are a peace-loving
people." (Other topics were touched upon, but the
peace-loving refrain continued dominant.)
The native professor in a technical college: "I ques-
tion the wisdom of higher education for women.
They are progressing too rapidly and are losing
their unselfish ways and gentle manners. For some
years our native literature, following European
models, has been too sexy; but at present there is
reaction, a turning back to our older masterpieces."
The hard-working missionary, with something of the
statesman in his make-up: "From year to year I note a
steady advance and am far from disheartened. Mis-
sionaries can accomplish little except through native
workers. An independent native church is surely
being established. Education rather than evan-
gelistic preaching is still our strongest force. Our
graduates serve as examples, and there are many
earnest Christians among them. Japan's greatest
needs today are economic. She is too poor to carry
out plans for much needed improvements. Taxes
are very heavy. The social evil is still a great one.
265
While it is encouraging to note that in our city the
men no longer go openly to the restricted quarters
but in closed rikishas, the younger generation is
causing much anxiety. The evil is by no means
confined to licensed quarters; teahouses and restau-
rants are sometimes quite as bad. It is one of our
greatest problems."
The Massachusetts lady: "I give it up. When X
(a Japanese student) first came to live with us, he
was frank, courteous, pleasant to chat with. Six
months later, though he was still a model of courtesy,
a certain reserve was noticeable; we seemed to be
getting unacquainted. Today he is an enigma. I
never know what is passing through his mind. We
are practically strangers. Uncanny!"
What the Catholic priest said, and the guides, and
the hotel keeper, and the "lady from Philadelphia,"
and a score of others need not be recorded; it is al-
ready obvious that, however many witnesses might
be called, the only verdict renderable would remain
simply this : No two pairs of eyes see alike. If I add a
bit of personal testimony, passing in review what
has been asserted hundreds of times, let it be with
the frank admission that I have many prejudices
so old that I am very fond of them, and that, like
other tourists, I was caught by the glamour of
things meant to be caught. Close analysis is
distasteful to me; disillusion is too often painful.
The Japanese are an industrious, frugal people.
266 OVER JAPAN WAY
What has been asserted so often must be true.
I think it is, but with reservations. The lower
classes day laborers, factory hands, peasants, ar-
tisans generally seem more than merely industrious.
With noticeably swift hands they toil from daybreak
till dark, and some of them late into the night. Even
the young are surprisingly industrious and capable.
For example, in a country workshop near Lake Biwa,
where mantles are embroidered for a Yokohama silk
house, I found among the older workmen lads from
twelve to sixteen making their needles fairly fly,
doing chrysanthemums and golden dragony things
with skill almost miraculous, it seemed to one who,
when in camp, considers the mere sewing on of a
button a full morning's task. It was typical of what
is found throughout Japan. Yet extreme industry is
not universal. The leisure class may be small, but
it exists. In the streets of the larger cities there are
side currents which move slowly. Women eddy
about doorways or drift along. Parks are well
patronized, the temple grounds thronged on festival
days, the theatres are full. Clerks generally move
slowly. It took four of them half an hour to settle a
little matter connected with a batch of films left at a
leading photography shop. Government officials do
not seem nervously unstrung with overwork. The
rapidly increasing army of educated young men
contains at least a few who are averse to menial toil.
The well-to-do and the moderately-well-to-do are not
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 267
wearing themselves out in a mad rush for wealth;
they live as they go along. Teahouses are pros-
perous and geisha girls by the thousands are found
in every large city. The nobility, presumably, are
like the nobility in other lands. It would seem
fairer, then, to say that, largely through necessity, the
lower classes are too industrious, but on the higher
levels the conditions are similar to what is found in
other lands. Leisure is especially sweet to the Ori-
ental; he is fond of pleasure and takes all he can get.
As to frugality, the food, clothing, and houses of
the common people are simple, their pleasures for the
most part inexpensive. Virtue is sometimes a neces-
sity. A lavish display of wealth finds little favor with
any class. But still there is need of slight reserva-
tion. The merchant's home has a plain exterior, but
it may have a paradisical garden in back. He sits on
a plain cushion, price one yen, and gazes at a vase
or a kakemono that may have cost a thousand. If he
can afford it, his wife and daughters have ceremonial
gowns. He entertains friends at the teahouse and
goes to the theatre. As prosperity comes to Japan,
and money becomes freer, extravagance creeps in,
and the example set by the rich is followed by the
poor. Frugality may be the rule today, but not
providence. They plunge at times, seize the joy of
the moment reckless of cost, and when ecstatic
delirium passes, they do not repent but bear conse-
quent discomfort philosophically. The year is
268 OVER JAPAN WAY
packed with holidays and festivals; long excursions
are popular. They are frugal and also prodigal, or so
it seems.
The Japanese are courteous. Intercourse with
nations less polite has had its corrupting influence,
still their good manners are justly proverbial. The
stranger is everywhere a guest of honor. Repeatedly
I have been surprised by acts of kindness prompted
by no possible hope of reward. The peasant is polite,
the hotel maid, the government official, the clerk, the
marquis. Everywhere there is respect for superiors,
and I have marveled more than once at the courtesy
shown by guides to the lowest menial. It is the
foreigner who stares and not the native. Men bow
and bow, then do it over again, when they meet.
But let us carp a bit. I once asked a guide what
would have happened had the Titanic been a Japa-
nese ship. " Men first," was his prompt reply. There
are unmistakable signs of masculine selfishness. In
public places the women do not receive the con-
sideration which is a matter of course in other lands.
Womanhood is not respected. I have never chanced
to see rowdyism in the streets, but what is the mean-
ing of this strange sentence in a letter from Tokyo,
just handed me by the postman? " Cherry time will
soon be here, and were it not for the terrible drunken
crowds it would be a wonderful chance to have
beauty," etc., etc. Drunken crowds! It brings to
mind distressing accounts of worse than bacchanalian
This old pine with fantastically twisted trunk and bright new
foliage symbolizes Japan.
This is all one tree, or as much of it as the lens could cover.
To Japanese eyes props are not unsightly. See what
you should, not all that you can.
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 269
revels in connection with temple festivals, and of the
Emperor's chrysanthemum parties where cham-
pagne or its Eastern equivalent flows too freely.
"We Japanese," a young fellow once told me, "lose
our good manners when we get together in crowds."
Finally, the courtesy of the Oriental is in part mere
ceremony, a cumbersome outer garment the cut of
which is centuries old, a cloak, sometimes, for that
which may not be genuine. The blunt American,
probably the least polite person on earth, though we
hope he is a good fellow at heart, scorns the artificial.
Etiquette distresses him. Still it is probably true
that he would profit by a lesson from his Eastern
neighbor when this neighbor is at his best.
They are an art-loving, nature-loving people. Few
things are more obvious. They are an out-of-door
race with a passion for roaming afield, nature wor-
shipers. The chirp of a cricket brings them more
acute pleasure than most of us receive from listening
to Paderewsky. They are forever building shrines on
mountain sides and in forest glades. Their gardens
are faithful miniatures of favorite landscapes. And
they are artistic. Flower arrangement has its laws,
tea-drinking is made ceremonial. Their taste in
matters of dress is refined. How many scores of
books have been written in praise of the Japanese
artistic temperament, and nearly every word prob-
ably true. But let us be reasonable. The picture
postals found in Japan are among the trashiest ever
270 OVER JAPAN WAY
produced, and they sell by the millions. The sou-
venirs displayed near famous temples are not artistic
trifles. There is an element of playfulness, perhaps
childishness, in much that one sees. The Japanese
are fond of the grotesque, making baskets out of
gnarled roots, twisting the trunks of trees into un-
usual shapes, carving mythical animals on canes,
fashioning saints out of grains of rice. The dogs
guarding Shinto shrines are impossible things, most
of the gods are repellent. On old temple screens one
frequently notes a delicacy, a restraint, a quick
suggestiveness, or unexpected realism that holds one
spellbound; but there are the other extremes. Even
the peasant women are attractively clothed; but the
obi when covered by a cloak suggests deformity. Al-
though there is fascination in the scuffing, mincing
gait made necessary by street clogs, the swift,
rhythmical swing of the Jamaican peasant as she
takes the road for market with a fifty pound burden
on her head "has it beat a mile" or more. In
short, we may admire much, realize that much is too
fine for coarse, untrained eyes to appreciate. Un-
doubtedly the Japanese taste is conspicuously supe-
rior to American; yet let us decline to "rave."
Cleverness, ingenuity, often wonderful technique,
delicacy up the ladder of praise we may mount, but
the topmost round stops short of greatness. Some-
thing of divine fire is willingly conceded, but it is
unnecessary to overlook fantastic fireworks.
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 271
They are intensely patriotic. Undoubtedly. They
love every inch of their native soil. They worship
their ancestors, build monuments and temples to
honor their national heroes. They are inordinately
proud of all that their little country has accom-
plished. The army and the navy are almost wor-
shiped. Dying in battle comes easy to them, though
life is sweet. The Mikado is respected, reverenced by
the lower classes, though the more intelligent realize
perfectly that he is not his father's equal. But even
here where so much may be honestly lauded, there is a
less attractive reverse side. Owing to factions, petty
jealousy, intrigue, party government is not a success.
The power is in the hands of a few; the common
people have little voice, indeed relatively few have
the franchise, and the great masses do not bother
their heads about politics. Those who shape state
policy are not above patronage favoring the rich or
those who are near akin, at the expense of the poor.
They are ambitious for their little country, mean to
control the Pacific commercially, be a second Eng-
land; but to accomplish this end factory wages are
kept too near the starvation line, the scale of living
too low for safety. They mean to have more terri-
tory. It is needed; population is too dense. In due
time the territory will be taken; but in preparation
for that time the army and the navy are being built
up to an ever finer point of efficiency through divert-
ing funds which should be expended for education and
272 OVER JAPAN WAY
internal improvements. The scheme for national
aggrandisement may be justifiable, but in carrying it
forward there is little doubt but that the common
people, too weak, too ignorant, too blind for protest,
are being exploited.
They are a crafty, treacherous race. How often this
accusation is heard. The Oriental mind is hard to
read. We do not understand its workings. Japanese
logic, Japanese ideas of honesty and justice, differ
from ours. It is one thing to abolish feudalism by
royal decree; it is another thing to eradicate traits
fostered by feudal institutions. Revenge, carefully
prepared for during years of patient suffering, is still a
favorite theme in popular drama. Deception in a
worthy cause is considered honorable, if we may
judge by the tenor of many an ancient tale. Un-
doubtedly they are a people trained to bide their
time in silence, then strike. But I have, somehow,
the idea that if no bolt descends from the blue to
interrupt the development of the race, the next
generation will see a change for the better. Business,
with all its possible degrading influences, makes for
honesty. Without a reputation for sterling integrity,
commerce languishes. This is a truth that the
Japanese are learning. International relationships,
too, are wholesome, and Japan, now a world power,
must see that straight-forward dealings are good
diplomacy. Her statesmen are shrewd and well
educated, too wise to break faith. Probably the
APPRAISALS FIRST AND SECOND HAND 273
greatest desire of Japan today is to stand well in the
eyes of other nations. And in this connection it is
easy to account for a certain coolness or reserve, at
times amounting almost to sullenness, so often noted
by travelers. The Japanese are extremely sensitive.
They look down upon China, their old teacher, and
do not like to hear her praised. They enjoy speaking
of "England, our ally." For all America has done
since 1868, there is gratitude; but a point has been
reached where advice is no longer relished. The
more intelligent realize that the religion of their
fathers is in many ways worn out, ready to take its
place hi the ranks of mythology, but missionary
aggressiveness is sometimes galling. The superior
airs of tourists irritate; they do not like our habit of
bragging. They are sensitive about their color,
though it is in no way objectionable. When relations
with Germany were broken off, they were cut to
the quick by the headlines of the Berlin press
"What, those slit-eyes!" They are sensitive in
regard to stature, though the rest of the world deeply
admires their bravery and endurance on the battle-
field. A little too prone to forget how much she has
appropriated from others, she feels that she is al-
ready one of the great nations, not to be lectured nor
patronized.
Entertaining, sometimes amusing, and always
more or less nettling are appraisals of America by
wits from abroad who tarry with us a few months,
274 OVER JAPAN WAY
then rush home, their manuscripts ready for the
printer before land has been sighted. Understand us
perfectly after a nodding acquaintance? Nonsense!
We don't understand ourselves. Nobody does, nor
can. National traits? We haven't any; we're just a
little of everything from Pole to Politician. Char-
acter is the one thing we haven't time for. No, you
can't tell from the smell of the steam that rattles the
lid what will be our flavor and nourishing qualities
when the ragout is done. But no hard feelings, sir,
none whatever. Come over again. Kindest regards,
please, to his Majesty. How's business?
Thus we pass it off. In this respect the Japanese
are unlike us. Still, I hope I have not given serious
offense.
