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P R O P E R T Y O F
1 8 7
T E S








A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
JAPANESE GIRLS AND WOMEN. Crown 8vo.,
pp. 346, cloth, gilt top, 5s.
J)aily Telegraph :-“The chapters she has penned are delightful
Her book ought to be popular and well read for a
long time to come.”
Queen :-‘‘There are pages, nay, whole chapters, of the book
that simply charm. . . I hope to find space for a fuller
account of a book which I have read with quite unusual
interest and pleasure.”
J/orning Post:—“The book not only treats of much that has not
before been generally known but is written in a pleasing
style.”
LONDON : GAY AND BIRD, 5, CHANDOS ST., STRAND.
A JAPANESE INTERIOR
BY
ALICE MABEL BACON
AUTHOR OF “JAPANFSE GIRLS AND women’
L O N D ON
GA Y AND BIRD
KING WILLIAM ST., WEST STRAND
1893
[All rights reserved]
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
: º3.
*:::s
–83 -S
837)4==
TO
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS
For whom THESE LETTERs were or IGINALLY written,
THIS PRINTED VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
§
PREFACE.
THE letters presented to the public in
this book were written during an experi-
ence of life in Japan somewhat different
from that of the average foreign resident
in the East. The author’s call to the
Orient came to her from one of the most
conservative and anti-foreign of the Tökyö
schools, — a school for noble girls, under
the management of the Imperial House-
hold Department. The invitation was sent
to her through a Japanese friend, who had
been the teacher of English in the school
since its foundation, for no foreigner’s
recommendation would have had much
weight with the conservative and cultivated
Japanese in charge of the institution.
Work in such a school naturally brings a
teacher into close contact with the most
V1 PREFA CE.
refined and cultivated of Japanese women,
and cannot fail to give to those who per-
form it a new sympathy with a class usu-
ally but little understood.
Upon my arrival in Tökyô in June, 1888,
I found myself greeted by Japanese friends,
known long and intimately in America, but
from whom I had been separated for years.
Their friendship had, however, stood well
the strain of the long separation both by
time and space. In all that great city I
had no acquaintance of my own race and
language, but my Japanese friends so cared
for me and surrounded me by their kind-
ness, that instead of missing the Society of
my own people, I found its absence a posi-
tive advantage, in that it threw me entirely
upon congenial and interesting Japanese
friends for that social intercourse necessary
for all civilized beings.
Journeys over the beaten tracks of tour-
ist travel during the summer of 1888
brought me in contact with many charm-
ing and interesting American and English
PR EFACE. vii
people, acquaintances kept up during my
stay in Japan; but my home and life
while in Tökyô was among the Japanese,
the excursions made into the foreign world
forming merely agreeable and unusual in-
cidents.
My home in Tökyö was a house — half
Japanese and half foreign — on a little
hill in the Köjimachi district, the central
district of the city. Above our house on
the hill ran a great business street, where
the influence of foreign ideas was as yet
but little felt, and along which many of
our most interesting walks were taken. A
short walk in another direction led past
the old-fashioned palace of Prince Fushimi,
over a great moat, and up to the gates of
the Akasaka Palace, the residence of the
Emperor until the year 1889. Out from
this palace gate the Empress, attended by
her ladies, used to walk to visit her pet in-
stitution, the Peeresses’ School, so near did
it stand to the palace inclosure. At about
the same distance on the other side of us
viii PREF,4 CE.
stood the fine modern residence of Prince
Kitashirakawa, and a little further pro-
longation of the walk carried one into the
region occupied by the foreign legations
and the official residences of the Cabinet
Ministers, and up to the moat that encir-
cles the heart of the city, - the ancient
castle of the Shogun, within whose mighty
ramparts stands the new Imperial Palace.
Within our house, my part, built as the
Japanese are pleased to call it in “foreign
style,” — that is, with two stories, glass
windows, swing doors, and a hole in the
wall for the stovepipe to go through, –
contained two rooms and a front entry, and
was furnished after the manner common
to American houses. This was connected
with the purely Japanese part of the man-
sion by the engawa, a polished-wood-floored
piazza, roofed by the overhanging eaves,
and shut in at night by the solid sliding
shutters or amado, so as to form a corridor
along the garden side of the house.
The front was provided with two en-
PR EFA CE. ix
trances, – one into the foreign rooms,
within which shoes might come, and one
into the Japanese rooms by means of a lit-
tle vestibule with low, latticed gate, where
clogs must be laid aside before stepping
upon the soft, white mats which form, not
floor-covering only, but chairs, tables, and
spring mattresses as well in a Japanese
home. My paper-walled dining-room, my
only Japanese room, projected from the
front of the house between these two en-
trances, and from it, as I took my solitary
meals in “foreign style,” accompanied by
all the formalities of table, chairs, and
knives and forks, I could hear the cheerful
bustle that seemed always to hover about
the Japanese entrance. Here was the
place for the putting on of shoes, as in
cumbersome foreign dress our family took
their early start for school. At this place
bows and saio maras were exchanged on the
part of all in the house whenever one mem-
ber of the family went away on so much
as a shopping expedition ; here, too, sounded
X PR EFACE.
'.
l
i
i
the cheerful “Okaeri,” that announced the
return of one of the Occupants of the
house, the breathless “O kyaku ’’ shouted
by the kurumaya of the coming guest so
Soon as he was within the gate, or the
deprecating “Go men nasai,” with which
an applicant for admission made known
his presence.
One kitchen sufficed for our family, but
two cooks and two stoves were necessary
for our double household. My own cook,
upon a stove of foreign manufacture, pre-
pared my food after the foreign manner,
while the little gozen taki with her Jap-
anese stove, aided by numerous shichi rin,
did the cooking for the rest of the family.
Outside of the kitchen were the servants’
Quarters, and near the back gate stood a
small stable with a three-mat room, for
the accommodation of the groom and his
family.
Toward the garden, the house formed
two sides of a square, along which ran the
engawa connecting foreign and Japanese
PH' EFACE. XI
buildings. A step out of my long window
and down this shining piazza brought me
into the very heart of a Japanese home.
Here the family gathered about the hibachi
of a cold day or in the winter evenings.
Here they sat on the floor and sewed,
constructing kimono, obi, haori, and other
graceful and dainty garments with paper
thimble, a long needle upon which the
cloth is run, and an endless thread, cut off
from the reel only when the seam is fin-
ished. Here they told stories, exchanged
ideas, studied lessons, and accorded warm-
est welcome at all times to the foreigner
attracted thither by the life and interest
that seemed always about the rooms.
On summy days, the little garden, with
its pine-tree, its cherry and plum trees, its
camelia hedge, its stone lantern, and its
perennial succession of flowers, was our
common playground. Here we all laughed
together over my first attempts with Jap-
anese clogs and the Japanese language;
here my American collie chased their tail-
xii PR EFA CE,
less Japanese cat, to the never - failing
amusement of all parties concerned ; here
was the centre, perhaps, of our home life
in all but the worst weather. Was I
lonely P Into the garden I went, and
straightway from some room of the Jap-
anese house a bright-eyed little friend
would make her way out to join me, and
soon another, and then another would step
down from the engawa into her waiting
clogs, and then a game, or a run, or a new
flower, or something of absorbing interest
would engross us all.
Our household was composed entirely of
women, - three of us teachers in the Peer-
esses’ School, three pupils in the same
institution, and two young girls living
in the family for the sake of the culture,
especially in English, to be derived from
such society. These, with the servants
needed for the establishment, my dog, and
the two cats, made up a congenial company.
Such were the surroundings amid which
most of these letters were written. What-
PR EFACE. XI.1.1
ever views they may give of Japanese life
were obtained from the Japanese side, and
from the side of the Japanese woman, al-
though undoubtedly much affected by pass-
ing through the medium of an American
mind. The letters do not lay claim to
deep research or wide knowledge of all
subjects touched upon by them. They are
simply a daily chronicle of events, sights,
and impressions. They have the character
of the product of a photographic camera
rather than of an artist's brush. What-
ever theories are advanced are put forward
as the material from which thought may
be made, and not as the result of matric
deliberation. The book is more a pic-
ture of the life of one foreigner among the
Japanese, and a record of her thoughts
about their civilization and her own, than
it is an authority on Japan in general, or
on any particular phase of life there.
To all my Japanese friends my thanks
are due for whatever I have seen or known
or enjoyed in their country, and if through
xiv. PREFA CE.
lack of tact or wisdom or literary skill
anything has found a place in this volume
that their clearer judgment would have
left unpublished, pardon is asked now for
all offenses. My thought throughout the
work of editing these letters has been to
preserve, so far as possible, without violat-
ing confidence, or that sweet seclusion that
is so characteristic a feature of Japanese
home life, the little touches of nature that
make the whole world kin, and bring into
one human brotherhood all races under
heaven.
CONTENTS.
I.
TöKyö, SEPTEMBER 5 To 26.
Going to Housekeeping. — An Evening Walk. -
Fireworks and Rochester Lamps. – A Foreign Res-
taurant. —Shopping at the Kwan-ko-ba. – Settling
Accounts.—Introduction to the Peeresses.—School
Routine. — Story of Boy and Crab. – Jinrikisha
Riding. — The Climate . . . . . . . .
II.
OCTOBER 1 to 15.
A Sunday Visit. — “Böt' Chan.” — Preparations for
a Horse. — The Peeresses' English Society. — Tö-
kyô from a Horse's Back. — English as a Dead
Language. —Dawn. — A Sunday-School Class. –
Mr. Kozaki. — Difficulties with the Kana. — Bruce
and the Bettö. — Lecture on Bandai San. — Prince
Haru. — Difficulties in Church-Going. — A Japan-
ese Meal . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III.
OCTOBER 21 TO NOVEMBER 4.
Mr. Kozaki's Church. – Introduction to Bible Class.
— Reception Days. – A Hibachi. — Two Old
19
xvi CONTENTS.
Ladies. – My Paper Dining-Room. — Funeral
Fashions. – An Official Funeral. — Simplicity of
Japanese Living. – Posthumous Titles. – The
Emperor's Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . 33
IV.
Novemſ BER 12 To 14.
A Nö Performance. — Death of Prince Aki. —
Dango Zaka . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
V.
November 25 To DECEMBER 18.
A Ball at the Rokumei-kwan. — A Tökyô Story. —
Böt' Chan's Studies in Physiognomy. — Thanks-
giving and Turkey. — Christmas Carols. – Fuji-
Yama. — The New Palace. — Tökyö Moats. –
Bowing to Prince Haru . . . . . . . . . 77
VI.
DECEMBER 27 To JANUARY 6.
Christmas Preparations. – Hanging Stockings. –
English Service. — A Church Festival. — New
Year's Decorations. – New Year's Eve on Ginza.
— A Street Fight. — New Year's Day. — Street
Performers. — An Earthquake. — Kurumayas in
Cold Weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
VII.
JANUARY 13 To 30.
Discharging a Groom. – The New Kurumaya. — The
Emperor's Moving-Day. — A New Year's Lunch.
CONTENTS. xvii
— Buying a Kuruma. — A New Horse. — The
Japanese Language. — The Promulgation of the
Constitution. — Tombs of the Loyal Rönin . . . 110
VIII.
FEBRUARY 12 TO 20.
The Promulgation Festival. — Morning Scenes on
Kojimachi. —Exercises at the School. – Imperial
Progress through Tökyô Streets. – Evening Rides
and Street Sights. – Rice and Eels, — Mingling
with the Holiday Crowd. — Murder of Viscount
Mori. — Wiscount Mori's Funeral. — Religious
Liberty under the Constitution. — Another Earth-
quake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
IX.
MARCH 1 TO 9.
The Wily Bettö. – Yasaku's Domestic Affairs. —
Marriage and Divorce. — Developments in Regard
to the Mori Murder. — Letters from Nishino to his
Family. — A Spring Jaunt. — Toy Collecting . . 147
X.
MARCH 21 TO 31.
A Sad Holiday. — Japanese Mourning Customs. –
A Shintô Funeral. — An Earthquake. – Yasaku's
Wedding. — Questions on John's Gospel . . . . 161
XI.
APRIL 6 To 14.
A Country Walk. — Feast of Dolls at a Daimió's
Yashiki. — Picnic at Mito Yashiki. — A Day at
the Theatre. — Japanese Acting . . . . . . . 174
XVIIl CONTENTS.
XII.
APRIL 19 To MAY 2.
The Empress’ Visit. — Presentation to the Empress.
— A Buddhist Funeral. — A Garden Party. —
Questions on John's Gospel & e º e
XIII.
MAY 8 To JUNE 22.
Summer Weather. — A Matsuri. — Early School. —
Perry Expedition Reports. – Bible Class of
School-Girls. – Fighting Fleas. – Japanese Ser-
vants. –The New School-Building. — The Peer-
esses' Literary Society. — A Speech by Mr. Knapp.
— Scandal . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XIV.
JUNE 29 TO JULY 24.
School-Building Trouble settled. — A Japanese
Baby. — Shopping. — Japanese Taste. — Facts
and Theories. – Calls from Drs. Brooks and Mc-
Vickar. — Packing in Wet Weather. — Farewell
Presents. – Graduating Exercises. – Near View
of the Empress. – Correcting Proof under Diffi-
culties
XV.
Hiyê1 ZAN, JULY 31, To NUMADZU, AUGUST 28.
View from Hiyéi Zan. — The Mission Camp. —
Last Days in Tökyö. – Voyage to Kobé. — From
. 189
. 204
CONTENTS. xix
Kobé to Hiyéi. — Historical Interest of Hiyéi. —
Pleasant Weather and Walks. – A Young Bud-
dhist. — Some Effects of the Summer Camp. —
Benkei's Relics. – The “Hiyéi Zan Hornet.” —
Shopping in Kiótó. — The River at Night. — Illu-
mination of the Mountains. – A Snake Story.
— Traveling in Japanese Style. — Start in a Ty-
phoon. – Nagoya. — A Wayside Inn. — Okazaki.
– Weak Kurumayas. – An Unpleasant Hotel.
Okitsu. – End of the Journey. — Numadzu. —
Children's Visits. – Slow Freight. — Plans for
Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23:
A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
CHAPTER I.
SEPTEMBER 5 TO 26.
Going to Housekeeping. — An Evening Walk. — Fire-
works and Rochester Lamps. – A Foreign Restaurant.
—Shopping at the Kwan-ko-ba. — Settling Accounts.
— Introduction to the Peeresses. – School Routine. —
Story of Boy and Crab. — Jinrikisha Riding. — The
Climate.
KIOI CHO, Tôkyô,
Wednesday, September 5, 1888.
I CAME down from Nikkö on Monday,
alone. My new cook met me, and brought
me and the few worldly goods I had with
me safely up to my new house. He seems
anxious to do what I want and willing to
turn his hand to anything, but as he does
not know any English and I know very lit-
tle Japanese, it is sometimes hard for him
to grasp my idea. Miné has to do a good
deal of work at present as an interpreter,
but I hope soon to be able to give orders
2 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
myself to my servants in their own lan-
guage.
I find that the business of getting set-
tled in Japan involves a good deal of sitting
still and waiting for people to do things.
Just now, I am having an enforced rest,
for my cook has gone off, leaving word that
he is sick. Miné is away, so that I can-
not do some shopping that I wish to ; all
my trunks are unpacked and my clothes
put away, and there is absolutely nothing
that I can do, in spite of the fact that there
is a great deal to be accomplished.
Last evening, Miné and her train of
girls who live in the house took me out
to walk and do some errands. We walked
along a broad street with lighted shops on
both sides, along which a great concourse
of people were moving up and down, with
no end in view, I imagine, except to enjoy
the coolness of the evening after an exces-
sively hot day. Here and there on mats
laid on the ground, or in little booths, were
spread out the wares of some enterpris-
ing peddler, — sometimes a stock of fruit,
sometimes a great display of wooden ware,
sometimes a traveling restaurant, with
curious concoctions of rice, fish, Seaweed,
AN EVENING, WALK. 3
etc., to tempt the appetite of the hungry
pedestrian. One booth was filled with
minute cages, from which proceeded a tre-
mendous chirping, produced by various
kinds of singing insects, – crickets, katy-
dids, grasshoppers, etc. All up and down
the street there was a glare of small kero-
sene torches, like those used in torchlight
processions at home, only smaller. These
served to light each dealer's display pretty
well. At one place where we stopped to
inquire the price of melons, Bruce caught
sight of a cat prowling about, and made
a rush at it with such good effect that the
cat sprang into the middle of our fruit
vender’s stock-in-trade, hitting one of his
torches and throwing it over. Luckily,
watermelons are not inflammable, so no
harm was done, though the torch lay on its
side for some time, burning merrily, be-
fore it was picked up. After this adven-
ture, Bruce walked along ignominiously at
the end of a strap during the remainder of
our expedition. Whenever we stopped to
make a purchase, a crowd gathered and
watched our doings most intently. Appar-
ently, a foreign lady with a dog shopping
at that time of night is not a common
4 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
sight in this part of the city, and we began
to feel very much like a traveling show as
audience after audience gathered around
us, to disperse again when we moved on.
When we returned from our walk, I went
into Miné’s part of the house, and we had
a queer little feast. First Miné handed
around some beans, roasted in a corn-
popper as we do chestnuts. They were
very nice, except that after a while they
seemed rather choky. Then I offered the
company some candy that I had bought
at one of the booths, a kind of jelly, as
clear as glass, coated with sugar. Then
we topped off with a glass of raspberry
vinegar all around. This proved to be an
entire novelty to Miné's Japanese friends,
and they were delighted with it. To end
our exciting evening, the girls set off some
fireworks. First they tried some of the
little Japanese parlor fireworks that we
see in America, and these were very pretty
and went off successfully. Then one of
the girls lighted something of the rocket
or Roman candle species, that fired balls
from a stick set in the ground. But this
was rather a failure, for Bruce decided that
it was a dangerous weapon, and as soon as
A FOREIGN RESTA URA.N.T. 5
it began to go he made a rush at it and
bit the lighted end off, setting the hair on
his chim and around his neck in a blaze,
but entirely discouraging the rocket. He
then came back, singed but happy, and
quite sure that he had rescued us from a
great danger. After this excitement, the
whole family came with me to my parlor,
to see the mew Rochester lamp which I
had just had hung. They were much im-
pressed by the magnificent light that it
gave, and Miné’s cousin, a dear little
sweet-faced widow, the chaperon of our
establishment, poetically remarked that
my lamp was like the sun, and theirs was
like a little star.
September 7.
You would be amused to see the manner
in which I am greeted at the little restau-
rant where Bruce and I are now taking
our dimmers. My affairs are so far settled
that my cook is able to achieve a simple
breakfast in the house, but we have not at-
tempted dinner, so I take it every evening
at the little foreign restaurant around the
corner. I tie Bruce in the yard before I
go in, and this stop gives time for the
whole force of the house to assemble in the
6 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
entry, where they draw up in line, and sa-
lute me as I pass with the lowest and most
graceful of bows. The tail end of the line
consists of two small boys, just the same
size and dressed exactly alike, who look as if
they could not be more than ten years old,
they are so small and have such baby faces,
but they make as elaborate and beautiful
bows as if they were dancing-masters.
September 8.
Yesterday I made a visit to the Kwan-
ko-ba at Shiba to buy the china necessary
for my housekeeping. This big bazaar is
a very interesting place, because there you
can find under one roof an epitome of
everything that Japan makes or wants, to
wear or to use about the house. The
Shiba Kwan-ko-ba is the largest in Tökyö,
and has a great many different stalls kept
by independent tradesmen. The advan-
tage of the place to inexperienced persons
like myself is that everything has its price
fixed and plainly marked upon it accord-
ing to its quality, so that there is no dan-
ger of being overcharged or cheated. Here
I bought, for the moderate sum of ten
yen, all the china that I can use at my
SETTLING ACCOUNTS. 7
small table, and all pretty and dainty in
design and finish, so that I am now ready
to begin my housekeeping, if I can make
my cook understand that I wish him to or-
der the necessary supplies from the grocer.
September 10.
To-night I had my first settling of ac-
counts with my cook, a function that had
to be conducted largely with the aid of a
dictionary. My man squatted on the floor
in front of me, and took out from the folds
of his gown a queer little account-book, in
which he had written some hieroglyphics
that he found a good deal of difficulty in
deciphering. With many suckings in of
the breath, he would enunciate as clearly
and loudly as possible the Japanese word
for the thing purchased, and if I did not
know what it was, I had to look it up in
the dictionary before we could go farther.
Then came the price in Japanese, which
after my summer of shopping and traveling
presented no difficulties to me, and then
both purchase and price must be trans-
ferred to my account-book. We spent a
long time over one word, which he pro-
nounced as if it were spelled “tabu,” so I
8 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
looked it up in my dictionary, and was in
despair when I could find no such word,
until suddenly it came over me that he
was trying to say “tub.” What with his
Japonicized English and my Anglicized
Japanese we find it hard to understand each
other, but I hope that soon the spur of
necessity will so far improve my Japan-
ese as to remove these little difficulties.
September 17.
To-day I have been over to the school
for the first time in my official capacity,
and have seen and been introduced to my
classes and my superiors, and to-morrow
I begin work. Miné introduced me to
Mrs. Shimoda, the lady principal, who does
not speak any English, so we were obliged
to exchange polite speeches through the
medium of Miné’s interpretation. Then
I was taken to a little room, where I
was shown a desk in which I can keep
whatever books, stationery, etc., I may
wish to have at the school, and at which
I can sit between classes. Every teacher
has such a desk, and it seems a very con-
venient arrangement. Here I was left to
meditate until called for, but the time did
INTRODUCTION TO THE PEERESSES. 9
not seem long, for I was busy watching the
other teachers in the room and conversing
with Miss H., the only foreigner beside my-
self in the employ of the school. When
Miné came back, she offered to take me
about and introduce me to my classes. So
we went from room to room, and as Miné
announced my name to the group of or-
derly little peeresses seated in each room,
the children bowed most reverentially and
gracefully. Then I bowed, as well as I
know how, though I think that bowing is a
lost art in America. This ceremony ended,
Miné would speak a few words in Japanese
to the class, and so give me time to look
over my future pupils. I was introduced
to five classes after this manner, and then
my work for the morning was over, so I
went back to my desk, while Miné went on
to salute her own classes.
After a while it was announced that all
the teachers and pupils were to assemble
in the gymnasium, there to be addressed
by the principal, an elderly and scholarly
gentleman of the old school, but one who
speaks not a word of English. We went
down to the gymnasium, which is con-
nected with the main school building by
10 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
a covered walk, and met all the girls on
their way thither, each class under the
leadership of a teacher. I saw one rogu-
ish little face laughing at me from among
the crowd, and recognized one of Yuki's
little daughters, who has to-day taken her
first plunge into school life. She seemed
to be enjoying her morning’s experience,
and fairly danced herself out of line when
she found that I had recognized her. When
we finally reached the gymnasium, we
found it filled with girls arranged in line
according to size, with all the smallest
ones in front. When I saw them, my
thoughts could not but fly back to Hamp-
ton, and contrast our poor little picka-
ninnies there with these little peeresses.
But they are alike in one way, and that
is that their lives are more or less stunted
and cramped by the circumstances of their
birth, the pickaninnies by poverty and the
disabilities of their low social position, the
peeresses by the rigid restraints and formal-
ities that accompany their rank.
Very pretty children these little peer-
esses are, in spite of the ugly foreign dress
into which the school requirements force
them. Their mothers have undoubtedly
FOREIGN CLOTHIES. 11
tried hard to have them well dressed for
the first day of school, but most of the
dresses have evidently been chosen and
made by people not in the least familiar
with any style of European garment, and
are now worn in such a way as to make the
children look, so far as clothes go, like the
veriest clodhoppers, instead of the descend-
ants of perhaps the oldest aristocracy in
the world. The shoes and stockings es-
pecially show the parent’s ignorance of the
niceties of foreign dress, for the stockings
are of the coarsest wool in the gaudiest of
colored stripes, making the slender well-
shaped legs look heavy and shapeless, and
the shoes are the roughest calfskin, in
many cases much too large for the small
feet. But there the children stand in
their queer clothes, all silent and orderly,
though no one is keeping order, and the
teachers are bustling about, talking among
themselves. Any company of American
children would be uncontrollable if kept
standing so long with nothing to do, but
these children are too well mannered to be
noisy in the presence of their elders, and so
they stand like statues and wait. After
a while the principal comes forward and
12 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
bows, and all the children bend themselves
nearly double in return ; then he makes
a very short speech and bows again, and
once more the whole three hundred and
fifty bow simultaneously. Then Mrs. Shi-
moda comes to the front and bows, and
again the little audience bows in response.
It is a very pretty custom, and I do not see
why, when a speaker bows to his audience,
the audience should not return the compli-
ment. It seems quite the natural and po-
lite thing to do, but is a little surprising at
first sight. Mrs. Shimoda makes a short
speech, and then one of the directors speaks,
and after that the children are marshaled
out again by their teachers. That is the
end of the morning’s exercises, and Miné
and I only wait to draw our text-books from
the school library, before going home.
I have been looking over my text-books
since I came back, among others an Amer-
ican “Universal History,” in which I find
the following statement: “The only his-
toric race is the Caucasian, the others
having done little worth recording.” It
seems to me that this will be a very inter-
esting piece of news to a class of Japanese
girls who are already quite familiar with
PEER ESSES AND PUPILS. 13
the wonderfully stirring and heroic his-
tory of their own country. I asked Miné
what she thought they would say to that,
and she replied that she should think they
would say that the book was written by a
Caucasian. I have decided to skip the in-
troduction which contains this statement,
so as to avoid showing to my pupils the
self-conceit of my own race.
September 20.
My work has now fairly begun, and while
impressions are fresh I will write them
down, so that you may know how the peer-
esses strike me on first acquaintance. The
first thing that one notices after American
schools is the absolute absence of discipline,
or of any necessity for it. The pupils are
all so perfectly lady-like that politeness re-
strains them from doing anything that is
not exactly what their teachers or supe-
riors would wish them to do. There is
no noise in the corridors, no whispering
in the classes, nothing but the most per-
fect attention to what the teacher says, and
the most earnest desire to be careful and
thoughtful always of the feelings of oth-
ers, especially of the teachers. Miné says
14 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
that in addition to this there is in the Peer-
esses’ School a most remarkably high sense
of honor, so that the teacher can be quite
sure that her pupils will never be guilty
of cheating, or shamming, or trying to im-
prove their standing by any false methods.
Though the old nobility may be run out phy-
sically and mentally, their sense of honor
is something wonderful, and the feeling of
moblesse oblige is so strong that they scorn all
petty meannesses as something not in keep-
ing with their rank. It is very interest-
ing to me, in reading over the names on
my class lists, to notice that some of them
were famous in Japanese history long be-
fore Columbus discovered America. Some-
how the centuries of honor in which the
families have been held have told upon the
daughters, and they are ladies in the finest
sense of that much-abused word, even when
dressed in such shapeless and dowdy clothes
that a beggar woman in America would
turn up her nose at them.
And now, perhaps, you would be inter-
ested to hear a little of the daily school
routine. When I go over in the morning,
my first duty is to register my name in the
record of attendance. This I do with a
SCHOOL ROUTINE. 15
little seal upon which my name is inscribed
in Japanese, for the seal in Japan is used
instead of the autograph signature in Amer-
ica. I have just learned to seal my
name right side up, and to recognize it
when it is written in Japanese, and I re-
gard this as a great advancement over my
former state of ignorance. Having thus
recorded myself as present, I go to my
desk, and there await the ringing of the
bell that calls the girls in from the play-
ground and the teachers to meet their
classes. When the bell rings, I go to my
recitation room, and there, ranged in line
outside of the door, is my class awaiting
me. I bow as low as I can, the pupils bow
still lower, and then go into the room.
They take their places quietly and stand; I
bow from my place at the teacher’s desk,
again the girls bow, and take their seats,
and for fifty minutes we labor with the in-
tricacies of the English language. The
signal for the close of the lesson is given
by a man who walks through the corridors
clapping a pair of wooden clappers. When
I hear that sound, I finish the lesson, and
bow to the class, who all bow, rise, and
marching quietly out of the door range
16 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
themselves in order and wait for me. I
walk out, bow to them once more, they
make a farewell obeisance, and quietly dis-
perse for the ten-minute recess that comes
at the end of each fifty-minute recitation.
The whole thing is very pretty, and I am
charmed with this manner of calling to
order and dismissing classes. It might
have a civilizing effect, if introduced into
American schools.
September 26.
I am going to copy into this letter a
funny little bit of translation that was
handed me as a school exercise a day or
two ago. The young lady who did it must
have translated it word for word from the
Japanese, using the first word that she
found in the dictionary, and the result is a
little obscure at times.
THE STORY OF BOY AND CRAB.
Some boy was playing at river bank and
saw a crab going away. Then the boy call
back the crab and said this track is straight
but why you go sideways? The crab angry
and said I am ashame, not straight hard,
not ashame, shape is transverse because
my natural constitution is transverse, so I
AN ExCITING RIDE. 17
go transverse, but your matural constitution
is length, so you must go at length. You
do not go transverse in a cross road. When
you forget your natural constitution and
do my imitation, I hand up my mail and
cut your body and go looking askent and
again going away.
Yesterday, Miné and I had a most ex-
citing jinrikisha ride. Our men were very
strong and fast, and seemed to be as fresh
as two colts just feeling their oats. They
raced with each other most of the time
while we were out, and it seemed to me a
good deal like riding a frisky horse with
no bridle. They ran so fast through the
business streets that my heart was in my
mouth most of the way for fear they
would run us into something, or upset us
in switching suddenly around a corner.
My man almost ran over a child, in fact,
the hub of the wheel struck the child on
the knee, and a minute or two afterward
he came within a hair's breadth of running
into the kuruma of an elderly Japanese
gentleman who was just ahead of us in
the road. The worst of this kind of thing
is that, while you have no control what-
18 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
ever over your man, you cannot help feel-
ing responsible for his carelessness.
The weather has only just become so
cool that I am not perfectly comfortable in
the thimnest kind of a white dress, but yes-
terday I was actually frozen out of it, and
I suppose I may put my thin dresses away
now until next summer. I should say,
from my brief experience of this climate,
that it is much more to be depended upon
than our own, and not subject to the sud-
den and violent changes that characterize
all the climates I have yet tried in Amer-
ica. After the warm weather has once
begun here, one could go away into the
country and stay for two months without
a particle of woolen clothing, and never be
chilly a moment. There is none of that
one day summer and the next day winter
that we have to provide for at home.
CHAPTER II.
OCTOBER 1 To 15.
A Sunday Visit. — “Böt' Chan.” — Preparations for a
Horse. — The Peeresses' English Society. — Tökyö
from a Horse's Back. – English as a Dead Language.
— Dawn. — A Sunday-School Class. – Mr. Kozaki.
— Difficulties with the Kana. — Bruce and the Bettö.
— Lecture on Bandai San. — Prince Haru. — Difficul-
ties in Church-Going. — A Japanese Meal.
Monday, October 1, 1888.
SUNDAY afternoon, I went out to a sub-
urb of Tökyö, where Yuki’s husband has
been putting up a fine new foreign house.
It was designed by a German architect
here, and is different from most of the for-
eign houses in the city in being comfortable
and well built, and looking quite like some
of our pleasant American homes. There is a
little farm about the house, with tea-plants,
strawberry-vines, sweet potatoes, and va-
rious other fruits and vegetables growing
finely. There are beautiful chestnut-trees,
too, on which large nuts, like the Spanish
chestnuts, are just ripening. When I
20 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
reached the house, which is as yet not quite
finished, I was much puzzled as to how I
was to get in, and was wandering about
searching for traces of the party that I
knew to be gathered there, when Yuki’s
eldest daughter came out of the last door
that I should ever have thought of entering,
and conducted me up flight after flight of
stairs to the very top of the house. Here a
room had been finished off, and furnished
with Japanese mats. Quite a company
was assembled there, many of them Eng-
lish-speaking Japanese and friends or
acquaintances of mine. All were seated
upon the floor in the comfortable Japanese
fashion, but a pile of cushions was made
for me out of respect for my stiff foreign
joints. A curious kind of lunch was spread
out on the floor, consisting of sweet po-
tatoes (always eaten here between meals,
never as a vegetable with meals), a kind of
root which has a leaf something like a calla,
and boiled, to be eaten with salt, and fruit
of various kinds. There were grapes, fresh
figs, pomegranates, persimmons, and the
queer, hard Japanese pears that look like
russet apples, and taste like some kind of
medicine when they have any flavor at all,
BÖT CHAN. 21
which is not often. There was of course
the inevitable tea, of which I have now
grown quite fond. When we had nibbled
in a desultory way at this repast, Yuki
took me out to show me the place. We
went first over the house, her husband
going with us, and beaming graciously at
my approval of the arrangements, for this
house is one of his hobbies, and he takes the
utmost delight in every window-fastening
and door-knob. Then we went out for a look
at the grounds; first to the tennis lawn,
where about a dozen children were having
a frolic. They formed a picturesque group
in their pretty Japanese clothes, and seemed
to be having a delightful and harmonious
time. When we had watched the children
for a while, we made a tour of the grounds,
“Böt’ chan º' going with us, and conduct-
ing himself in a most serious and dignified
manner, until finally, as the shortness of
his legs somewhat hindered our progress,
his mother confided him to the care of his
valet. He is a fine, sturdy boy, with curly
black hair cut very short, a stately way of
holding his head, and a somewhat serious
cast of countenance. His tastes are war-
like and equestrian, and he has a white
22 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
Arabian horse on which he rides with the
assistance of the groom, though he is not
yet three years old. He has also a beau-
tiful, small sword, of the finest Japanese
steel, but he despises this because it is not
large enough, and wants his father's.
By the time we had finished our tour, the
guests were preparing to depart, so I went
too, and trotted gayly home in my jinriki-
sha with my favorite fast man. Bruce
greatly delighted my kurumaya by defeat-
ing utterly a dog of about twice his size,
who came up and attacked him from be-
hind as he was following the jinrikisha.
The man turned around in the shafts and
delivered quite a harangue, in which I
could catch only the word “inu,” but con-
cluded that it was in commendation of
Bruce’s pluck, as he smiled most approv-
ingly upon him.
October 5.
To-day has been quite exciting to me
and my household, for a horse has come in
for trial, and I have been seeing to having
him installed in the stable, and paying the
bills for the various mysterious things that
a Japanese groom regards as indispensable.
I am to try the beast to-morrow, and hope
A NEW HORSE. 23
that he will be what I want, as it would be
very pleasant to be able to settle the horse
question without further trouble. Horses
here are put into their stalls wrong end
foremost, so that I never go into the stable
without thinking of the nursery rhyme, –
“See See What shall I see ?
A horse's head where its tail should be.”
The author of the couplet must have vis-
ited Japan.
Miné and I are to have our girls here
Saturday night for an English evening.
It is one of the few festivities that the
poor girls are allowed to go to, as their
rank is too high to permit them to enjoy
themselves like common folks. The girls
of the highest rank are not, as a rule, per-
mitted even to enter the houses of the samu-
rai class, but because we are their teachers
they can come to us, although they could
not go anywhere else. Teachers are held
in great esteem here, and the profession is
a most honorable one, so that even if you
are teaching the future Emperor, you are
for the time being his superior.
24 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
October 6.
I have had my first ride this afternoon,
and enjoyed it very much. It makes one
feel very grand indeed to have a man run
ahead all the way to clear the people out
of the road. It seems to be absolutely ne-
cessary in Tökyô to have such a forerunner,
for there are no sidewalks, and the streets
are full of people, and especially of very
small children, who are quite frequently
burdened with smaller ones tied to their
backs, so that they cannot get away with
very great speed, and if the man did not
run ahead to announce my coming, I could
never go faster than a walk. On horseback
the small size of everything in Japan is
more than usually noticeable. Although
the horse I rode to-day was a small one, I
found that my view was rather more of
the roofs than of the house fronts, and if
I had ridden up close to a shop to make
purchases, I think that my head would
have come a good way above the eaves.
I have succeeded in securing as my Jap-
anese teacher one of the officers of our
school, who agrees to teach me Japanese
in return for my teaching him English.
He cannot speak a word of English, al-
MR. KOZAKI. 25
though he can read it quite easily. It
seems that a good many Japanese learn
English as we learn Latin and Greek, sim-
ply to read and for the sake of its litera-
ture, and never learn anything about its
pronunciation, or to speak it or understand
it when spoken.
October 11.
My afternoons have been chiefly occu-
pied lately in getting a horse, as the first
one I tried seemed rather small, and I was
afraid he would break down under me. I
have now in the stable a strong but not
too beautiful black beast, who will, I hope,
answer my purpose. His name is Dawn,
though he is as black as night, and he has
been a racer, and is said to run very well
still, though the only time I have ridden
him, so far, he did not condescend to show
off his paces, but proceeded at the gravest
and soberest of trots.
I have decided to take a class in the Sun-
day-school of one of the Japanese Congre-
gational churches, if the pastor can get
together one that would like to be taught
in English. The pastor of this church, Mr.
Kozaki, is an interesting man, and a very
good specimen of the work turned out by
26 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
the Doshisha School in Kyötö. He is, I be-
lieve, the most influential Japanese Chris-
tian in Tökyö, and has a large church
which he has himself built up, and by which
he is reaching more and more of the influ-
ential and educated Japanese. He speaks
English easily and intelligibly, and seems
to keep abreast of the most advanced reli-
gious thought.
There has never been a Congregational
missionary stationed in Tökyö, but two
churches of that order have grown up here
of their own accord, and are to-day more
flourishing than many of those that have
been built up and superintended by foreign
missionaries resident in the city.
My Japanese is progressing, though not
with great rapidity. The alphabet is quite
discouraging. I find that the more letters
I study, the fewer I can remember; and
a curious psychological fact in regard to
this study is that I can always remember
the one next in order to the one I want.
Then when I have at last found the one I
am looking for and try to take the next one
in order, I find that it has stepped out of its
place in my head, leaving the next one to
answer for it. It is very bewildering, and
A PERPLE YED GROOM. 27
the only way I can catch the things is to
make believe that I want the next-door
neighbor, and then the one I am really
looking for will sometimes come to me.
I started out on my ride this afternoon,
taking Bruce for the first time. I had the
groom warned beforehand that he was not
to let the dog drink out of the ditches or
bite the horse’s legs. As a result of this
warning, the poor man was nearly distracted
with his complicated duties, for in his ef-
fort to run ahead and clear the way for me,
and to keep track of Bruce and whip all
the dogs that came running out to bark
at him, he nearly exhausted himself. He
was, however, very earnest and good natured
in the performance of his work, and was
much disgusted when Bruce succeeded in
getting into a particularly nasty ditch be-
fore he could prevent it.
My groom is quite a picturesque looking
fellow, with silky, slightly wavy hair, which
he wears rather long and shakes back as
he runs hatless through the streets, as if
he were a little proud of it. He has a
light, trim figure, which shows to advan-
tage in his long blue tights and wing-
sleeved blouse, belted around his slim
28 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
waist with a dark blue sash. On a warm
day, when he runs, he turns up his loose
sleeves, showing a pair of well-shaped arms
handsomely tattooed in blue and red. The
first time he went out with me, I thought
he had on a figured calico shirt, but a
closer inspection showed that the figures
were actually tattooed into his skin. To-
day, when we reached home after our ride,
I made the betto wash Bruce, or rather I
held the dog in the tub while the groom
did the scrubbing. Poor Bruce had never
taken a bath before such an audience in
his life, and seemed grieved that I should
make a fool of him in so public a way.
The cook brought a large tub and placed
it on the ground directly in front of my
front door, and had filled it with water be-
fore I came out, so that I could not have
it moved. Miné’s whole family took up
their station in my dining-room window,
and the cook and his wife felt bound to
stand around and see what was being
done, while the groom and I attended to
Bruce’s toilet. I am sure that if any of
my American friends could have come to
see me just them, they would have thought
the situation very funny.
RAND AI SAN. 29
Later in the afternoon, Miné and I
went to a lecture on the volcanic explosion
at Bandai Sam, given before the Seismo-
logical Society by one of the university pro-
fessors. Though the professor was Japan-
ese, the lecture was delivered in English,
and illustrated with magic-lantern slides
from photographs taken on the spot
immediately after the eruption. Professor
Sekiya estimated the area covered with
mud as about twenty-seven square miles,
and that covered with ashes as sixty-seven.
He showed by a diagram how the whole
top of the mountain was blown off and
scattered in a shower of scalding mud over
the surrounding country. He estimated
that a billion and a half cubic yards of
mud were poured out in this way. The
country was completely inundated by
streams of mud, carrying along on their
surface enormous boulders. The river was
dammed for a distance of ten miles, and
spread itself out into three large lakes at
places where its onward movement had
been stopped, so increasing the destruc-
tive work of the explosion far beyond the
mud-covered area. Seven villages were
entirely destroyed, and a great extent of
30 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
fertile land rendered for the present quite
useless. Many lives were lost, and much
suffering brought upon the survivors, who
lost everything that goes to make life en-
durable.
As I was coming back from my ride this
afternoon, I heard a shouting behind me,
and knew that the carriage of some great
person was approaching, so I drew up at
the side of the road to let it pass, and to
see if I could recognize any one in it. Two
grooms ran ahead, shouting with all their
might, a gorgeously liveried coachman sat
on the box, and a footman, similarly attired,
stood behind. There were three officers in
full uniform in the carriage and one small
boy, dressed in the uniform of the Peers’
School, and with a knapsack strapped on
his back. He stood up in the carriage to
look at Bruce and me as he went by, and
though he looked very much like any other
small Japanese boy, I had a suspicion, from
the pomp and circumstance with which he
rode, that he might be Prince Haru. When
he had passed, my groom turned to me
and said in the Yokohama Japanese which
grooms affect with their foreign employ-
ers, “Mikado no kodomo " (“the Mikado's
CHURCH-GOING!. 31
boy"). I expressed interest, and he pro-
ceeded to enlighten me further with, “Him
Nippon no ichi ban good boy,” which is,
being interpreted, “He is Japan's number
one good boy.”
Monday, October 15.
Yesterday morning, I tried to go to the
English church in Shiba with a new jinrik-
isha man, who did not know the way at all.
He dragged me pretty much all over Tôkyô,
and frequently stopped and inquired the
way, when I at once became the centre of
an admiring crowd. The directions that
he received always resulted in sending him
straight up some particularly steep hill.
After he had laboriously ascended, searched
carefully upon the top for a church and
found none, he would straightway bolt
down the hill at break-neck speed and
seek information elsewhere. In conse-
quence of our researches on the various
hilltops, I was ten minutes late at church,
and had to walk in among the respectable
and stiff English congregation when they
were well on in the service.
In the evening, I went with Miné to an
informal little service in the chapel of the
Ladies’ Institute, not far from our house.
32 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
I had been going on to take tea with a
friend who lives the other side of Tökyö,
and had told my servants that I should
not be back to dinner, but when the ser-
vice was over I found it too late to go on,
so went home, wondering whether I should
have to go supperless to bed. However,
Miné said that she had ordered for her
supper some chicken and onions fried
together in a peculiar Japanese way, and
flavored with sugar, shoyu, and sakê, and
offered to share it with me. I sent my
cook out to the nearest eel-house to order
eels and rice, a dish which the Japanese
cook to perfection, and we succeeded in
making a very good supper on Japanese
fare, pieced out with bread and knives and
forks. The chicken, by the way, though
it may not sound appetizing, was very
good.
CHAPTER III.
OCTOBER 21 To Nov EMBER 4.
Mr. Kozaki's Church. — Introduction to Bible Class. –
Reception Days.- A Hibachi. — Two Old Ladies. –
My Paper Dining-Room. — Funeral Fashions. – An
Official Funeral. — Simplicity of Japanese Living. —-
Posthumous Titles. – The Emperor's Birthday.
Sunday, October 21, 18SS.
THIS morning, in spite of a drenching
rain, I attended service at the Japanese
Congregational church near here, as steps
had been taken to organize a class for me,
and the pastor wanted me to come and
meet my pupils. Although I could not
understand a word of the service, I enjoyed
it more than many meetings where English
is spoken, for I sat where I could watch
the audience, and their intentness made
up somewhat for my lack of understand-
ing. It was an intelligent-looking congre-
gation, made up largely of men, most of
them young, though here and there a gray
head could be seen among the black ones.
The people seemed to be drawn from all
34 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
classes in Society, although in this church
there is a larger proportion of the official
classes than in any other church in the
city. It was most interesting to watch
the audience during the sermon. All lis-
tened intently, and with more the look of
students in a college lecture-room than
of a congregation listening to a sermon.
There was none of that air of polite bore-
dom that we see so much of in American
churches. Almost all the grown persons,
both men and women, had Bibles, in which
they verified carefully all references, and
many had pencils and paper, with which
they took notes. They were evidently
in search of instruction rather than fine
oratory or aesthetic gratification of any
kind. The church was large and light and
airy, with no attempt at ornament except
the beautifully arranged flowers near the
pulpit. The benches were exceedingly hard
and uncomfortable, like all seats of Japan-
ese manufacture. When the service was
over, the pastor asked my class to meet me
in a little room opening out of the main
audience-room. When I went in, under
his care, I was surprised to find some
ten or a dozen exceedingly bright-looking
CHR Y SANTHEMUMS. 35
young men awaiting me. They smiled and
bowed, and seemed pleased to meet me,
and after a little conversation we decided
to take up the study of the Gospel of John,
so next Sunday we begin with the first
chapter.
One of my little peeresses has just sent
me in a bunch of four magnificent chrys-
anthemums, the largest of them nearly the
size of a peony. The chrysanthemums are
just coming on now, but will be finer about
the 1st of November. On November 3d,
the Emperor’s birthday, our school always
goes over to the Emperor's garden to look
at the chrysanthemums, which are then in
their prime.
Monday, October 22.
To-day is our afternoon at home; for
Minó and I have decided to have a day at
home, for the sake of encouraging our
friends to call on us. The distances are so
great in Tökyô that it is rather discourag-
ing to any one to take a ride of an hour or
two in jinrikisha to see a friend, and then
find that friend out, so it has come to be
the custom among the foreigners here to
spend one afternoon in the week at home,
and to serve a cup of tea to each guest.
36 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
On Saturday, Miné and I went to a kwan
ko ba and bought a fine hibachi, or char-
coal brazier, and a pretty copper tea-kettle,
with a spray of cherry blossoms beaten out
on it, in repoussé work, and Chinese letters
in brass raised on the surface. Our hi-
bachi is made of a section of a tree trunk,
smoothed into a regular oval and hollowed
out in the middle. The wood is about
the color of old oak, and has a beautiful
grain. Into the hollowed centre is set
a copper pan. This is filled with light
straw ashes, a little earthenware inverted
tripod is pressed down into the ashes so
that only the three points stick up, and
then in the centre, between the three
points, a charcoal fire is made. This
smoulders away quietly under the tea-
kettle placed on the tripod, and gives out
neither smoke mor gas. The arrangement
is very far superior to an alcohol laump, as
well as much cheaper, and why we do not
use it in America. I cannot imagine, except
that we are not bright enough to think of
such a simple thing ; and, besides, we like
the more complicated and expensive ways
better. The curious thing about all these
Japanese contrivances is that they are so
TWO OLD LADIES. 37
simple that it seems as if any one might
have thought of them, and yet they answer
the purpose much better than many of our
modern conveniences and inventions.
Miné has two old aunts spending the
afternoon with her, and they have just been
in to see me. They are both widows, and
therefore wear their hair short. Neither
of them had ever before been in a house
furnished in foreign style, and they were
much interested in walking about the room
and examining everything minutely. At
length we prevailed upon them to take
chairs, upon the edges of which they sat
gingerly, still craning their necks around
in search of new wonders. I brought them
tea, served not in Japanese but in foreign
style, with saucers and spoons, and sugar
and milk, and they heroically drank it,
though I do not doubt they thought it
nasty stuff. The cracker, which each took
for the sake of politeness, was quite be-
yond them, so these were handed to Miné
for Bruce, who sat up and went through
his tricks in their honor, to their great
entertainment. Then they toddled out,
with many deep bows and arigato, appar-
ently much gratified by their visit. I sup-
38 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
pose it was as much of an event to them as
it would be to us in America if we could
suddenly step into a Japanese home, with
everything in pure Japanese style.
We have had a change in the weather,
and it has been quite cold to-day, as well
as very damp, after our long storm. I
have a fire in my parlor for the first time,
and find that my eccentric little foreign
stove (I think it must be German or
French) works very well. My little paper
dining-room is quite uncomfortably cold,
and has no heating arrangement except
hibachi. Two sides of the rooms are made
entirely of sliding paper screens opening
out of doors, so that it is very much ex-
posed to the weather. There are wooden
outside screens that can be closed, but
they shut out the light, so I can only keep
them closed when I wish to take my meals
by lamplight. I have ordered new screens
with glass set in them, and then I can let
in the light and keep out the air, and
hope to be able to make my dining-room
comfortable, with a hibachi, in all but the
worst weather.
FUNERAL CUSTOMS. 39
October 25.
One of the high officials has just died,
after a long illness, and he is to have a
magnificent funeral, costing more than
two thousand yen. He is to be buried at
eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and as
I do not have to be at school until 9.30, I
shall try to get a look at the procession,
which will be well worth seeing. It seems
that when any one dies in Japan, all his
friends send to his house gifts of money,
fish, vegetables, fruit, cake, or eggs, as
offerings to the spirit of the deceased, and
if a man is in a prominent position and has
many friends and retainers, the house is
fairly flooded with these presents. Then,
either thirty or fifty days after the death,
the family give some kind of a feast in
honor of the dead, and at that time they
make great quantities of a certain kind of
cake, which they send out to all the friends
who have sent offerings. A funeral thus
becomes a terrible expense both to the
family and to all the friends and acquaint-
ances of the deceased. Some of my Jap-
anese friends with whom I was talking
yesterday were inveighing against the cus-
tom as an utterly foolish one, particularly
40 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
in a case like the present, for the high
official whose death gave rise to this dis-
cussion of funeral customs leaves a large
family, mone too well off, and they are
likely to be still further impoverished by
the necessity of returning in some way the
kindness of the friends who are at present
sending in these extremely perishable offer-
ings to the spirit of the departed. Inas-
much as probably not one in a hundred of
the givers has the slightest belief that his
gifts will be a benefit to the dead viscount's
soul, but as they are all giving these things
because their forefathers believed them
necessary, it does seem absurd, not to say
wicked, to keep up so useless and expen-
sive a custom. As one of my friends said
during the discussion, “Better bury him in
a barrel,' than have his family impoverished
by these ridiculous funeral customs.” How-
ever, as it is likely to be a good deal of a
show, and as my presence will not do much
to encourage the nuisance, I think I shall
take an early ride to-morrow and see what
I can see.
* Among the poorest class of Japanese, the body, after
death, is folded into a sitting posture, with the head
bent forward, and placed in a wooden tub or cask for
burial.
A PORTER'S LOD G. E. 41
October 26.
I have been to the funeral, and though
I did not have time to see the whole pro-
cession, still, what I saw was worth seeing.
As Miné could not go with me, she sent
two of her girls, and though they spoke
very little English and could explain no-
thing, they were very polite and mice about
showing me around and finding a good
place for me to stay. It has been pouring
all day, but, in spite of the rain, when we
went out at eight o'clock this morning, the
streets along the line of march were lined
on both sides with people waiting patiently
for a sight of the procession. We went in
kurumas to a funny little house, in which
lives the gate-keeper of the compound,
or yashiki, where Miné used to live. The
house, so far as I could see, and I think
I saw the whole of it, consisted of three
rooms: a living-room, that commanded a
fine view of the street ; a store-room, in
which chests of clothes were stored, and
where the bedding is kept during the day :
and a kitchen, into which we could look,
and in which we could see the family dim-
ing-trays piled up and the little fireplace
set down into the floor. In the living-
42 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
room there was a god-shelf, containing the
family idols, with flowers set before them,
and a little chima cupboard, in which were
the cheap but prettily decorated pieces of
china that form the table service of any
ordinary workingman’s family. These
things, with the omnipresent hibachi and
tea-kettle, formed all the furniture of the
room, except a pretty bamboo vase of
autumn flowers that decorated the wall.
Certainly, the independence of furniture
displayed by the Japanese is most enviable,
and frees their lives of many cares. Babies
never fall out of bed, because there are
no beds; they never tip themselves over in
chairs, for a similar reason. There is no-
thing in the house to dust, nothing to move
when you sweep ; there is no dirt brought
into the house on muddy boots ; and it
makes no difference whether the meals are
served hot or cold, so long as there is hot
water enough to make tea. The chief
worries of a housekeeper’s life are abso-
lutely non-existent in Japan, except as
they have been imported from abroad
lately.
But this is a digression, and I must get
back to the funeral. When we entered the
WAITING FOR THE PROCESSION. 43
house, we were greeted most cordially by
a square, cheerful - looking little old wo-
man, who went down on all fours and put
her forehead to the ground as a token of
her respect for us. We were given a very
comfortable window, from which we could
see far down the street, and catch the first
glimpse of anything there was to be seen ;
so we sat there and waited, and watched
the funny crowd that was gathered together
under the windows. As soon as it became
noised abroad that there was a foreigner in
the house, the crowd became as much inter-
ested in the foreigner as they were in the
expected funeral. The street soon began
to present a lively appearance, as it filled
up with the carriages of officials driving
out to the cemetery, and with various lesser
persons in kurumas, and military men on
horseback. After a while groups of men,
clothed in dark blue cotton blouses with
curious white figures on them and gor-
geous scarlet stripes on their shoulders,
came sauntering by, some in kurumas,
some on foot. They had some connection
with the funeral, but what, I have not been
able to discover. Then there was another
Wait, and at last there appeared twelve
44 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
conical floral structures, each as large as a
good-sized Christmas-tree, and each carried
by two men. These passed, and were fol.
lowed by more of the blue and red gen-
tlemen before described. By this time I
began to be uneasy lest I should be late to
school, so at last, when the hands of my
watch pointed to 9.30 and no sign of a
procession was visible down the street, we
were obliged to leave, much disappointed
to have missed one of the greatest funeral
processions ever seen in Tökyö. But our
disappointment was not destined to last
very long, for just as we were turning
off from the line of march the procession
reached us, and we stopped to see it go by.
First came the police force. It could
hardly have been simply the Tökyô force,
for there were thousands of men. They
looked very sombre, marching along in
heavy ulsters, with pointed hoods drawn
up over their heads to keep off the rain,
— more like a company of cowled monks
than policemen. After they had passed,
there came a squad of soldiers, with white,
bristly plumes in their caps, and one or
two buglers, who played weird music of
an extremely melancholy character. The
POSTHUMO US TITLES. 45
instruments were European, but I think
the music must have been Japanese. After
the soldiers came a body of white-robed
men, dressed like Shinto priests, and in
their midst, carried by two bearers, a white,
wooden box decorated with white paper,
cut as one sees it in the Shinto temples.
This box, which was quite large and carried
like a kago, hung from a pole, supported
on the shoulders of the bearers, I supposed
at the time to be the coffin, but I learned
afterwards that it contained valuables be-
longing to the deceased, which were to be
buried with him. Behind the box came
men carrying red and white flags, in-
scribed with the names and titles of the
dead man, including his posthumous titles,
given him by the Emperor immediately
after death. I have seen by the papers
that from the beginning of the illness of
the dead viscount, the Emperor had been
heaping titles and promotions upon him.
The more hopeless his case became, the
more honors he received, until, after his
death, the highest title of all was bestowed.
Then followed an apparently endless pro-
cession of huge bouquets, like the first
that had appeared an hour or more before
46 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
the rest of the procession. These bouquets
are sent as gifts by the friends of the de-
ceased, and upon the standard of each is
inscribed the name of the sender in large
letters, that he who runs may read. In
Japan, whoever sends flowers to a funeral
hires also two white-robed men to carry
his offering in the procession. It is this
custom that forms a part of the great
expense of Japanese funerals as now con-
ducted, for the more flowers there are to
carry through the streets, the greater the
honor shown the dead.
That was all that I saw of the funeral,
for when I was obliged to hurry off at last
to my class, the street as far as I could
see in either direction was a tossing tide
of flowers, a beautiful sight in spite of the
gray sky and heavy rain.
November 4.
Yesterday was the Emperor's birthday,
one of the greatest holidays in the Japan-
ese calendar. At half past seven o’clock
Miné and I started out in our kurumas to
go first to Yuki's house and pick up the
children, and then out to the great parade
ground at Aoyama to see the Emperor re-
view the troops, on one of the few occasions
THE EMPEROR'S BIR THD.A. Y. 47
when he appears in public as the actual
commander of his own army. Even at
that early hour the streets were very gay.
The red and white Japanese flag adorned
every house ; the people were all out in
their holiday clothes. Horsemen in dress
uniforms, squads of soldiers furbished up
in every possible way, courtiers and nobles
in gold-laced court suits and cocked hats
trimmed with gold lace and ostrich feath-
ers, were hurrying in the direction of the
parade ground. In the midst of the crowd
we met our three little friends in their ku-
rumas. They had started out early to come
for us and save us the trouble of calling
for them, so we turned around and went on
with the stream of people, a crowd that grew
larger and more picturesque as we came
nearer to our destination. Thanks to the
influence of friends at court, we were not
halted on the edge of the ground like the
rest of the crowd, but on presenting a pass
were conducted by various deferential red-
pantalooned soldiers along two sides of the
great parade ground, and finally handed
over to the Minister of War himself.
He was gorgeously dressed in a mag-
nificent modern uniform heavily trimmed
48 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
with gold lace, which made a great show
on his ample chest, for he is a large man,
unlike the majority of his countrymen.
Wherever the gold lace did not cover his
coat, he was adorned with orders and
medals. He was delightfully polite to us,
shook hands with me warmly, and con-
ducted us into a tent next door to the
Emperor’s pavilion, where chairs were set,
and where we waited a little while almost
alone, for we were quite early, and hardly
any one else had come. At last the tent
began to fill up, and we found ourselves
surrounded by princes, counts, viscounts,
barons, foreign ministers, etc. I have not
lived long enough in Japan to be much
overpowered by titles, so I bore up bravely,
and congratulated myself upon having so
good a place from which to see what was
going on... The glare of gold lace was some-
thing astonishing, and seemed to please
the children very much. Perhaps the most
interesting person to me in the company was
a Chinese lady, the only real small-footed
specimen that I have ever seen. She
drove up to the tent in her carriage, from
which she toddled with some difficulty to
a seat, assisted on each side by a servant.
A NANKIN FOREIGNER. 49
She had a doll-like face, delicately painted
and shaped like the full moon, and was beau-
tifully dressed in rustling silks, though the
style of dress is to my mind not nearly so
graceful as that of Japan. She sat only a
little while in the tent, and long before the
Emperor appeared or the show began, she
toddled back to her carriage and drove
away. Among the guests in the tent there
were a few portly and impressive China-
men in magnificent silk robes, members of
the Chinese Legation, who strutted about
with an air of owning the earth. It is
that air that makes the Chinamen thor-
oughly hated by all outside nations with
whom they have to do. Böt’ chan ex-
pressed the feeling they engender when
he lifted his small finger wrathfully at one
of the big Celestials, and said quite loudly
in Japanese, “There 's a Nankin foreigner.
Kick him out !” -
There were a good many English people
there and a few Americans, so that much
of the conversation was carried on in Eng-
lish, and it was quite a pleasure to be able
to understand what people were saying.
However, the foreigners were so tall that
I had not the advantage of being able to
50 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
see over their heads that I have in a Jap-
anese crowd, and which I am beginning
to regard as my natural right.
At last there was a sound of horses'
hoofs and a blare of trumpets, and then
every one began to try to push ahead of
every one else, but, fortunately, we with the
children were well in front, where we could
See everything. A gorgeous state coach
drove up, with two red-liveried men in front
and two bellind, and a mounted guard, with
small red and White banners, galloping on
each side. The coach stopped almost in
front of us, and out of it came the Emperor
himself, the direct descendant of the gods
and the Son of Heaven, regarded still by
his people as an object of worship. He
did not look to me so very different from
other people. He is lighter than the aver-
age Japanese man, or rather, I should
say he looked to me lighter, because I
have heard other foreigners say that he is
really darker than most of his people.
His features are strongly marked and heavy
— something after the Inca type ; per-
haps because both the Mikados and the
Inca kings claim to be “Children of the
Sun.”
AN IMPERIAL HIO R.S.E.M. 1 N. 51
When the Emperor had gone into his
pavilion, the coach drove away, and the gen-
erals and staff officers came hurrying by to
mount their horses. Bot’ chan spied his
father among the others and made a wild
rush after him, but was caught and brought
back to his place by his valet, while the
whole company of hurrying officers shouted
over his escapade. Soon there was another
blare of trumpets, and a gorgeous company
rode by on horseback. First came the
standard-bearer with the imperial ensign,
a white chrysanthemum on a red silk
ground. Then on a graceful little brown
Arab with gold bridle and trappings rode
his Imperial Majesty. He is a skillful and
daring horseman, it is said, but he rides
in the old Japanese style, sitting all in a
heap like a bag of meal, his legs dangling
straight down on each side of the horse,
and his elbows twitching and jerking with
every motion of the animal. Even a de-
scendant of the gods and Son of Heaven
could not make this style of riding digni-
fied, according to our ideas. After the
Emperor came the generals, with the Min-
ister of War at the head, and the whole
party made the circuit of the field together,
52 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
coming back to take up their station close
by us, so near that if I had had anything
to say to the Emperor I could have said
it without raising my voice. There he
sat for an hour or more, while the troops
marched by him ; and as a very large pro-
portion of the entire Japanese army is
stationed in Tökyö, this really gave me time
to study the Emperor's appearance and
dress pretty carefully. He wore a very
fine uniform, not unlike that of his officers,
except that he had a wider gold belt than
the rest and a fluffier plume on his cap.
He could be distinguished anywhere in the
field from the others by a broad pink band,
which passed from his waist over his right
shoulder, and by the more gorgeous trap-
pings of his horse. It seems that on his
birthday the Emperor has an exhausting
time of it. He has to get up at two o'clock
in the morning, bathe himself in a careful
and ceremonial manner, and dress himself
in some peculiar and ancient costume.
Thus attired, and accompanied by the high
officers of his household, he repairs to a
shrine within the court inclosure, and there
performs a solemn service to the souls of
his ancestors. This must be done fasting.
THE BIR THID - Y PROGRAMMIE. 53
The Emperor enters the shrine alone, his
officers waiting without during the cere-
mony.
This done, Old Japan steps aside for a
while, and the Emperor of New Japan must
change his antique dress and don the mod-
ern uniform, and show himself before all
the people, as he sits for hours on his little
Arab, reviewing his thousands of well-dis-
ciplined troops with their modern arms,
uniforms, and accoutrements. When that
is over, he goes back to the palace, takes
breakfast with his ministers, and receives
all his officers, high and low. This pro-
gramme keeps him busy from early in the
morning until some time in the afternoon,
and makes as long and tiresome a day’s
work as any emperor would care to per-
form, I should think.
The review was over at last, and a most
uncommonly good show it was ; the Em-
peror dismounted and stepped into his
carriage, and the red and white banners,
the black horses, the red coachmen, and
the gorgeous coach vanished amid the
blowing of trumpets and the lifting of
hats. Then there was a scramble to see
who would get off the field first. We
54 A. J.A.P.1N ESE IN TERIOR.
sent for our kurumas to come to us, as
we did not like to take the little children
through the crowd, but aſter waiting for
nearly half an hour Miné hired another
kuruma and hurried off to school, while I,
with the two little ones and two mem-ser-
wants, plunged into the crowd, where we at
last found our kurumas and went home.
There was only time to change my dress,
eat my lunch, and hurry over to school for
the afternoon exercises. The pupils were
all there, and the guests had begun to ar-
rive, when I reached the schoolhouse, and
all looked very gay and festive in their best
dresses, though some of the efforts at for-
eign dress were rather pathetic than beau-
tiful. The whole school was obliged to
spend an unconscional)le time waiting in
the playground for the signal to be given
us to go into the assembly room. It was
cold, and we had neither wraps nor head
coverings, and it seemed to me a cruel
exposure of so many delicate girls. At
last, however, we were allowed to march
into the open and chilly gymnasium that
serves the school for an assembly room.
All the pupils sat together, and the teach-
ers together, and then facing them, in
THE SCHOOL CELEBRATION. 55
the place where the platform would have
been if there had been any, were chairs
for the visitors. These soon began to be
filled with gorgeous beings in court suits,
fathers of our girls, who had come over
to see us after paying their respects to
the Emperor. There were also a few
ladies, mothers of our children, handsomely
dressed in foreign costumes, many of them
probably imported from Paris. When all
were seated, a chord on the piano gave the
signal for the teachers and pupils to rise ;
at a second chord we bowed to our guests,
and at a third we sat down.
The first performance on the programme
was a song, the words of which were com-
posed by Baron Takasaki, the court poet,
and the music by one of the court musi-
cians. It was written expressly for the
day, and sung by all the schools throughout
the country. The music, though com-
posed by a Japanese, is in foreign style,
and the words are rhythmically arranged,
though I do not think they are made to
rhyme.
When Japanese attempt to sing foreign
music, they do not exactly sing, they buzz.
There is a peculiar quality in their voices
56 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
that reminds me of the description of the
song of the Bluebottle Flies in Edward
Lear’s delightful “ Nonsense Book.” Our
scholars sang this song with great mechan-
ical precision, but absolutely without ex-
pression or any apparent enjoyment. It
was as different as possible from the sing-
ing of our Hampton pickaninnies, with
their sweet, clear voices and pathetic quick-
mess of sympathy with the feeling of the
music.
During the singing the gold-laced audi-
ence looked a little bored, and were dis-
tinctly relieved when it was over. Then
three little girls came forward and seated
themselves at three kotos, that were ar-
ranged in front of the audience.
The koto is the Japanese piano, a long,
stringed instrument, lying horizontally,
and played with ivory tips fastened to the
fingers. It is to me much the most agree-
able of Japanese instruments, and has con-
siderable power to soothe even my savage
breast. It is very pretty to watch three
performers playing together as these chil-
dren did, for the motions are exceedingly
graceful, rather more like those of a harper
than a pianist. The little girls sang a
A BOX OF CANDY. 57
Japanese song, very high and nasal, but
with some pleasing strains.
Other musical performances followed, the
Japanese and foreign styles alternating on
the programme, and at last the school,
teachers, and guests rose, and all heads
were bowed while the school sang the little
song written expressly for them by the
Empress herself. Then the guests departed
and the girls marched out, and everything
was over. It took some time for all our
magnificent visitors to get into their car-
riages and off, and after they were gone
the Japanese teachers stayed and ate some
lunch that had been sent over from the
palace to the school, what was left from
the Emperor's breakfast. I did not stay,
as I had had my lunch before coming to
school, and the teachers warned me that
the imperial lunch was not likely to suit
the foreign palate. I took with me when
I went home a marvelous box of candy,
containing two perfectly imitated green
oranges, each with a little bunch of leaves,
a large white sugar chrysanthemum, and
a lump of green bean marmalade, frosted
with pink, sweet vermicelli. I presented
58 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
them this morning to my cook to give his
children, as, though they were beautiful to
look at, they were too sweet and tasteless
to suit the foreign palate.
CHAPTER IV.
NOVEMBER 12 To 14.
A Nö Performance. — Death of Prince Aki. — Dango
Zaka.
Tökyö, November 12, 1888.
LAST Wednesday I went to a Nö per-
formance, and enjoyed it immensely. The
Nö is a musical and theatrical performance,
somewhat religious in its character, I
believe; and very ancient in its origin. It
is the only theatrical performance that it
is proper for the Empress and the higher
mobility to attend. The Nö is held very
often in this city on Sunday, but so far I
had not attended it, as I still prefer to
take entertainments of a dramatic kind on
week-days, and to keep my Sundays for
other uses. Fortunately, however, for me
and my principles, Yuki discovered that
there was to be a special performance on
the occasion of the annual festival at a
shrine not far from where we live ; so,
though she could not go herself, she sent
60 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
one of her servants with me to take care
of me, and I had a very pleasant after-
Il OOll.
The approach to the place was about as
entertaining as the show itself, for all the
streets surrounding the temple inclosure
were crowded with people, and on each
side of the street were little booths, some
containing toys and other knickknacks
for sale, and others the headquarters of
small side-shows. The nature and attrac-
tions of these shows were set forth in pic-
tures hung without the booths, after the
manner of the “ pink-eyed lady, Proosian
dwarf, and livin’ skeleton ’’ of our own
circuses, except that the pictures were of
such a new and interesting character that
I should certainly have spent most of the
afternoon in looking at the side-shows, if
my guide had understood English, and I
could have made him know what I wanted.
As it was, I could not stop, but went on
through the funny crowd, and by the funny
pictures, into the great inclosure where
the main show was to be held. Here we
alighted from our kurumas and walked,
followed by the usual multitude, for my
personal appearance excites great interest
WITHIN THE TEMPLE GROUNDS. 61
among the plebeian Japanese. There was
an immense concourse in one part of the
temple grounds, and toward this nucleus
all new-comers seemed to be drifting. To
the edge of this we also drifted, and here
the man left me for a few minutes, while
he went off to secure me a seat. When he
came back, I was the centre of a group
of children, who had gathered about me
and were carefully studying every detail
of my costume. He drove the children
away, and carried me off and over to the
temple itself. Up and down the long,
steep flights of steps were streams of
people ascending and descending, like the
angels on Jacob's ladder. Here my escort
left me again, and at once all the angels
deserted the ladder and came crowding
about me, while I stood and tried to look
as if I were unconscious of everything for
about ten minutes. At the end of that time
my guide returned, and brought with him a
man carrying a ticket and a chair. Then we
moved on, but in a moment or two stopped
at a small house, from which the nuan
with the ticket procured a coolie to carry
the chair. Once more we moved on, the
chair-coolie in front, the ticket man next,
62 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
I meekly following him, and my original
escort guarding the rear of the procession.
Soon we were in the thick of the crowd
and squirming our way through it, the
coolie in advance, grunting fiercely, and
using the chair as an entering wedge.
We found ourselves after a while under
a kind of scaffolding loaded with people.
The coolie climbed up a short ladder and
through a very small hole, deposited the
chair, and came back. Then the ticket-
man indicated to me that I was to climb
the ladder, which I did. But when it
came to crawling through the small hole,
with my high hat and my bulky foreign
dress, I could not do it. First I stove in
the crown of my hat, then I stuck igno-
miniously, with my head and shoulders
through the hole, until a kindly soldier
above and my own retainers below suc-
ceeded in pulling and pushing me through.
Once through, I found myself in the best
seat in the place. You cannot call it a
house, because, though the scaffolding on
which I sat was roofed over, most of the
audience sat on the ground out of doors.
This scaffolding, through the floor of which
I had been so laboriously pushed and pulled,
THEATRE ST, 1 G. E. 63
was built in the form of a hollow square,
three sides of which, roofed over and di-
vided into boxes, formed the grand stand
for the élite of the audience. The fourth
side contained the stage, a roofed and
matted square, joined with the dressing-
room at the left by an open gallery, in
which much of the action of the play took
place. The dressing-room was separated
from this gallery by a curtain, which was
lifted for the performers to make their
entrances and exits, but kept closed the rest
of the time. The actor often began to
sing or speak while still in the dressing-
room, and in making his entrance could be
seen walking very slowly along the gallery
on his way to the stage, which occupied
the centre of its side of the square. A lit-
tle door at the right of the stage occasion-
ally afforded means of exit for the actors.
The space between this door and the cor-
ner was screened from the public gaze by
a high board fence. The whole space be-
tween the private boxes on the scaffolding
and the stage was unroofed and unfloored,
but filled with the common people, seated
on mats on the ground, eating, drinking
tea, smoking, and walking about in the
64 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
most delightfully sociable manner. It was
fun enough to watch this part of the audi-
ence when there was nothing especially
interesting being done on the stage.
At my left, a box draped with purple cur-
tains, upon which was stamped the white
chrysanthemum, was evidently reserved for
the imperial family. Prince Haru occupied
it for a little while, but during most of the
afternoon it was vacant.
Though I had no one to explain anything
to me, I found the performance most inter-
esting. It was something like the ancient
Greek drama in many ways, but in other
respects perhaps more like the early Eng-
lish plays. During most of the perform-
ances there was a chorus of some twenty
uniformed men, dressed in dark blue with
some lighter blue decorations. These men
sat motionless on the floor at the right of
the stage, in two lines, and never stirred
from the beginning to the end of the scene.
They sang occasionally, very sweetly, some-
times alone, sometimes as a sort of accom-
paniment to some of the actors. There
were three or four instrumental musicians,
too, who sat on stools at the back of the
stage. Their instruments were mostly
MUSICIANS AND CHOR U.S. 65
drums, shaped like hour-glasses, but there
was one man who played a pipe. The
drummers held their drums on their knees
and spanked them with the palms of their
hands, and at the same time gave vent to
yells or howls that sounded as cheerful and
musical as the wail of a homesick dog.
At the left, at the very back of the stage,
as close against the wall as they could sit,
were two or three men dressed exactly like
the musicians, whose raison d’étre I did not
at first discover. I found out, however,
as the performance went on, that these
men were dressers to the actors, who went
and stood in front of them, and with their
backs to the audience, when they were in
need of repairs or slight changes of cos-
tume of any kind. Beside this, the men
occasionally moved stealthily across the
stage to pick up and remove anything
dropped by the actors that would not be
needed again, thus keeping the stage tidy
all the time.
So much for the stage and its furnish-
ings: now for the performances. When
I reached the place, the programme was
already under way, and a weird figure in
a mask, with a profusion of long, black
66 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
hair, was holding a musical controversy
with two elderly gentlemen, assisted by
the chorus and the drummers. I could
not understand much about it, but the dis-
pute seemed to end in the complete rout
of the long-haired demon, who fled inglo-
riously off the stage, followed by his two
opponents and the chorus and orchestra.
The next scene was a sort of a farce, as
nearly as I could judge, and in this scene
there was no chorus. There was a fine
young lord with two retainers, to whom he
seemed to be giving orders. One of these
retainers was the funny man, and he cer-
tainly was very funny. After a good many
speeches, by which he put the audience
into roars of laughter, and during which
his tones, looks, and gestures were enough
to keep me thoroughly amused, he went to
the back of the stage, took a piece of white
cloth from one of the motionless property-
men, and brought it forward to his master.
Then they both sat down, and he went vig-
orously to work twisting the piece of white
cloth into a rope. But he was so very fond
of hearing his own voice that he kept for-
getting his work, and then coming back to
it with a great show of industry. After a
A FARCE. 67
while the master got up and stole quietly
out, but the servant kept on addressing the
audience in the most confidential manner,
twisting away on his work spasmodically.
While he was talking, the other servant
came quietly in and sat down behind the
talker, who was entirely unconscious of his
presence. The listener at last became much
excited over some revelations that the old
gabbler was making, and listened eagerly,
then lifted his hand to strike the man, but
refrained through his desire to hear more.
The old fellow talked on, utterly unconscious
of the pantomime that was being enacted
behind his back, until at last his fellow-ser-
want could restrain his rage no longer and
struck the old rogue. Then there was a
lively scene. The talker was a coward. He
begged pardon. He ran around the stage.
He did everything he could to show that he
was sorry. But his fellow-servant was obdu-
rate, and chased him off the stage amid the
delighted roars of the audience. The old
man’s acting was wonderfully good, as,
indeed, was all the acting that I saw.
The next scene was, I think, historical,
taking up some events in the early life of
Yoshitsuné, one of Japan’s greatest heroes.
68 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
The principal performer was a little boy,
who took the part of Yoshitsuné. He had
a sweet, high voice, which varied pleasantly
the monotony of the men’s deep chanting.
In this scene the chorus and orchestra
were once more in their places. The first
part of the act was stately and solemn, but
toward the end Yoshitsuné took up his
stand at the right of the stage, in the cor-
ner, just in front of the orchestra, and there
with drawn sword awaited whoever might
try to pass. It was supposed to be dark,
although the sun was actually shining di-
rectly on the stage. After Yoshitsuné had
stood in the corner a little while, three
strange figures issued from the dressing-
room and crept slowly along the gallery.
They were dressed in the most fantastic
manner, and I am not sure whether they
were intended for beggars or highwaymen.
When they came to the end of the gallery,
they halted, peered forward into the im-
aginary darkness of the stage, and at last
seemed to conclude that they needed lights.
So they turned their backs to the audience,
and the convenient property-men supplied
each of them with a stick, at the end of
which a tassel of red horsehair represented
YOSHITSUNE. 69
the flame of a torch. After some hesitation
and talk, one of the men groped his way
on to the stage, waving his horsehair torch
wildly before him. He gradually felt his
way across to the spot where Yoshitsuné
was standing, and thrust his horsehair
torch into the very face of the little hero,
who thereupon lifted his sword and knocked
the torch out of the man’s hand. The man
himself, scared out of his wits, rolled over
and over on the floor, and at last crawled,
yelling, back to his companions, and told
them of his terrifying adventure. The
others laughed at him and made great
game of him, and a second one essayed to
brave the terrors of the stage. He came
on a little more boldly than his predecessor,
but still with great circumspection. When
he came near Yoshitsuné's corner, the
boy lifted his foot and brought it down
with a sudden stamp, and the poor beggar
was so alarmed that he dropped his torch,
rolled over on his back, and there lay howl-
ing helplessly, until his companions came
and dragged him back to the gallery again.
Then the third man came on, and received
such a thrashing from the little boy that
he was carried off by his friends almost in-
70 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
sensible. Discouraged by this last repulse,
the three beggars went out of the little
door at the right, leaving Yoshitsuné once
more in solitary possession of the stage.
But very soon the dressing-room curtain
was raised, and an imposing procession of
warriors, armed with swords and spears,
came marching slowly along the gallery.
They were dressed in armor, and were
led by a ferocious-looking captain. They
stopped in the gallery just before reaching
the stage and held a council of war, as a
result of which a big fellow with a long
spear was sent ahead to reconnoitre. He
groped his way cautiously forward through
the darkness, but was met in the middle
of the stage by the small boy, who fell
upon him with his short sword, avoiding
the thrusts of the warrior's long spear by
nimbly hopping over it, as if it were a skip-
ping rope. It was a most comical fencing
match, varied by the big warrior’s turning
somersaults over his own spear, like a
clown at a circus. He was finally killed,
and another warrior came forward to take
his place, when the dead man picked him-
self up and ran off the stage, making his
exit by the little door on the right. Then
AN UN CANN Y GUEST. 71
the little boy fought single-handed all the
warriors in the gallery, sometimes van-
Quishing two at a time. All the fencing
matches were varied by most extraordi-
nary tumbling, which excited the greatest
enthusiasm on the part of the audience.
When the small boy had chased his last
enemy, the fierce - looking leader of the
band, along the gallery and into the dress-
ing-room, the fight was ended.
The next scene was to me the funniest
of all, perhaps because I could understand
it better than the rest. It was after this
manner. A samurai gentleman appears
on the scene and soliloquizes for a little
while. Then the dressing-room curtain
opens and a most attractive figure comes
gliding along the gallery. It is slender
and graceful, and elegantly arrayed in a
brocaded silk kimono, but its head is
covered by a beautiful white satin gown,
which falls over the face, and is evidently
held in place by the wearer’s hands. Sud-
denly the samurai catches sight of the
gliding figure, and is evidently smitten by
it. He apostrophizes it and tries to induce
it to come nearer, but it refuses, and at last
glides silently back to the dressing-room.
72 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
The samurai gentleman is much disap-
pointed, and confides his grief to the au-
dience in a long speech. As suddenly as
before, the figure appears again, this time
at the right-hand door, glides forward to
the centre of the stage, and stands close
to the man before he becomes aware of its
presence. When he sees that the mysteri-
ous being has returned, he utters a squeal
of joyful surprise, and addresses it. He is
evidently trying to make her show her face,
but she shakes her head and refuses. Then
he takes her by the shoulders and walks
her around the stage, talking to her coax-
ingly the while, but she is still obdurate.
At last they both sit down, he continuing
his efforts to make her show her face, but
without success. After a while he loses
patience, rushes at her, and fears the wrap-
ping from her head, then drops it and flees
precipitately across the stage, for the face
is a hideous, distorted, and discolored mask.
He has evidently been wasting his atten-
tions on a demon of the most unpleasant
type. The unveiled demon pursues him
and grasps him by the arm; he pushes it
away, but the demon, not in the least dis-
couraged, attacks him again, and, over-
PRINCE AIKI. 73
come with terror, the valiant samurai runs
off the stage, closely pursued by his un-
canny visitor.
There was one more scene, but it was
Quite dark on the stage by the time the
performance was over, so I did not get
much idea of it, except that there was a
great deal of fighting in it. I have writ-
ten out a somewhat detailed description
of the afternoon’s performances, but with
all I have said I am afraid I have given no
idea of the gorgeous costumes, the curious
music, and the graceful, measured move-
ments of the actors, which gave to the
entertainment the character of a dance as
well as of a play.
We were to have gone to the Emperor's
gardens to-day to see the chrysanthemums,
but the death of the Emperor's youngest
son, little Prince Aki, has put a stop to all
festivities for the present.
November 14.
Although the little prince died on Satur-
day, for some inscrutable reason the official
announcement of his death was not made
until Monday night, and then it stated
that he died at half past two on Monday,
74 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
in spite of the fact that every one knows
that he died on Saturday. When our
school assembled on Tuesday morning, the
announcement was made to the pupils, and
they were dismissed immediately.
Yesterday afternoon I went down to
Dango Zaka to see the chrysanthemum
show, which is one of the sights of Tökyö
at this season. It is an extraordinary
sight, and quite peculiar to Japan. Beside
the beautiful display of potted chrysanthe-
mums of wonderful colors and shapes, there
are numerous scenes, historical, mytholo-
gical, etc., in which the figures and land-
scapes are constructed entirely of chrysan-
themums. The heads, feet, and hands of
the human figures are of papier-maché, or
some similar composition, and very lifelike,
but the draperies, mountains, waterfalls,
and animals are constructed entirely of
these plants, their many-colored flowers
woven into solid masses. Among the
scenes represented there was a goddess
rising from the waves and showing herself
to an excited group of men in a balcony;
the gods dancing before the cave into
which the sun goddess had retired to sulk;
Taiko Sama with the infant Mikado in his
DANGO ZAKA. 75
arms receiving the unwilling homage of
the court ; a Buddhist monk seated under
an immense green and white waterfall and
watched over by guardian spirits in mid-air;
a white elephant with a gayly dressed lady
on his back; and even Bandai San in a
state of violent eruption. These are only
a few of the many scenes scattered through
various matted sheds, so many and so large
that it was an afternoon’s work to visit
them all. I had the good fortune to find
a man engaged in repairing one of the
figures, or rather its garment, composed
entirely of small, yellow flowers scattered
about on a background of green leaves.
I watched him long enough to see exactly
how the thing was put together. There
is a bamboo framework in the required
shape, with papier-maché head, hands, and
feet. Into this framework are put whole
plants in full flower, their roots packed
with damp earth and bound about with bits
of soft straw matting. The stems, with
the leaves and flowers, are then pulled
through to the outside of the frame, and
woven by dexterous fingers into the desired
pattern. The figures are kept in the shade
and watered as they need it, and the plant
76 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
goes on growing and blossoming as hap-
pily as if it were not forming part of a
drapery. These flower structures, as you
see, are quite different in principle from
those of our own floral designs, in which
the flowers are snipped off, run through
with wires, fastened to toothpicks, and
stuck into their places, to wither and die
prematurely, for the sake of a few hours’
decoration.
CHAPTER W.
º
NOVEMBER 25 TO DECEMBER 18.
A Ball at the Rokumei-kwan. — A Tökyô Story. —
Böt' chan's Studies in Physiognomy. — Thanksgiving
and Turkey. — Christmas Carols. – Fuji-Yama. — The
New Palace. — Tökyô Moats. – Bowing to Prince
Haru.
Tökyö, November 25, 1888.
THE past week has been quite a gay one
in my quiet life. I do not know whether
I told you that I had been invited to a
ball given by one of the cabinet minis-
ters. It was held at the Rokumei-kwan, or
Nobles’ Club. The building is in foreign
style, and handsomely fitted up with foreign
furniture. It was beautifully decorated for
the occasion with plants, flowers, and flags,
and the grounds were illuminated with
lanterns. The ball was given for the for-
eign naval officers, and was not a very
large one, – only four or five hundred in-
vitations issued, - so the rooms were not
at all crowded. At such an entertainment
78 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
as this there is one drawing-room and a
small dining-room set apart for the aristo-
cracy, — princes, princesses, counts, count-
esses, etc. From this retreat the nobility
come out and mingle with the crowd when
they like, but the crowd is not expected to
go in and mingle with the nobility to any
great extent. I went to the ball under the
escort of some American friends, and our
first duty was to hunt up our host and
hostess, who had already stopped receiving
when we arrived at half past nine, and
retired to the aristocratic penetralia before
mentioned. Led by my more daring escort,
I ventured in thither, and there saw the
princesses all sitting in a row, looking very
uncomfortable in their stiff, foreign dresses,
and quite bored beside. The princes were
mostly outside dancing with the multitude,
and when we returned to the ball-room
my friends pointed them out. They did
not seem to me very impressive in appear-
ance, but have an exceedingly aristocratic
way of holding up their heads that makes
up somewhat for their small stature.
The thing that struck me most on going
into the dancing-room was the amazing
number of men in gorgeous uniforms and
** WAITING FOR A PARTNER.” 79
the very small sprinkling of ladies, mainly
foreign, and all in foreign dress. There
was an open space in the centre of the
floor, in which the dancers enjoyed them-
selves, and around the edges was a solid
phalanx of men, looking on at the evolu-
tions of their brethren who had been for-
tunate enough to secure partners. Apropos
of the small number of women, I heard
rather a funny story from a lively little
Japanese lady to whom I was introduced.
She spoke English prettily, though with
a strong accent, and was being instructed
in the latest style in foreign clothes by an
American friend when I came up. When
I remarked to her on the small number of
ladies present, she laughed heartily as she
told me of a gentleman who had come to
her that evening and asked her to find him
a young lady as a partner. She said that
she did not know any young lady whose
card was not already full. “Well, them,”
was the reply, “find me an old lady, for I
must dance.” But no old lady could be
found, so the would-be dancer was obliged
to join the ranks of the male wall-flowers
who formed so noticeable a feature of the
affair.
80 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
As I do not dance, I should not care to
go to many balls, but once in a while it is
fun to stand by and watch the world enjoy
itself. We left at about one, and had a
beautiful moonlight ride home through
the quiet streets, in an air as warm and
soft as that of a summer might among the
New England hills.
I think I must be in high favor with the
missionaries of Tökyö, for this is the story
that is afloat in missionary circles about
me: Before I came to Japan I was engaged
in training theological students for the
ministry, and when I received my invita-
tion to teach in the Peeresses’ School, I at
once wrote back that I would not come
unless I was allowed to teach Christianity.
My answer was laid before the Empress,
who deliberated over it awhile, and at last
said, “Let her come ; ” so I came. I
shudder to think how I would fall in the
estimation of those who believe this story,
if they knew that the conditions I made
were not in regard to teaching Christianity,
but were in regard to dogs and horses. I
do not know whether the story was im-
ported from America, or whether it is a
native of Japanese soil, but it just shows
STUDIES IN PHYSIOGNOMY. 81
how little any story is to be trusted that is
told in this part of the world. It is the
merest matter of luck that the story is not
to my discredit. If it were, it would be
believed just as readily, and with just as
little pains taken to prove or disprove it.
Yuki's little boy regards me with great
favor, partly because I ride horseback, and
partly because I am so different from the
rest of his small world. Now, whenever I
go to see his mother, he meets me at the
door and escorts me upstairs. When I sit
down, he draws a chair up close to mine,
sits down in it, and takes my hand. This
he holds sentimentally for a while, sitting
with his eyes fixed on my face, scrutinizing
carefully the points of difference between
me and his other friends. Then he stands
up in his chair and leans over to me with
his mouth puckered up for a kiss. When
I have kissed him, he grows bolder, and
stretches out his chubby hand to pat and
smooth my cheeks. I think that the color
of my face was what led him to begin this
patting, — he wanted to see if it rubbed off;
but now, though he has satisfied himself on
that point, he seems to enjoy feeling of me.
Then he passes his little fingers all around
82 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
my eye-sockets, with a view to ascertaining
whether they really are as deep-set and
hollow as they look. When his investiga-
tions are ended, he cuddles up close to me,
and sits quite still for a long time, by way
of showing his satisfaction ; a great honor,
for he is a very lively little boy, and rarely
sits still for a minute. He calls me Bacon
Chan, a kind of diminutive of Bacon San,
or Miss Bacon.
December 2.
The weather is really growing quite
wintry, and to-day I noticed that the ba-
mana-trees in our garden, which have kept
green and bright until now, are withered
by the frost, and look forlorn enough.
My Thanksgiving dinner last week was
quite a success. My cook was not equal
to the real American dishes required for
the occasion, so I had to do a large part of
the preparation myself, but was rewarded
for my labors over chicken pie, boiled tur-
key with oyster sauce, celery salad, pump-
kin pie, etc., by the evident gusto with
which my Americo-Japanese friends par-
took of the feast, and by the remark of one
of them that it tasted like home, mean-
ing the old home in America in which
TEIANKSG IVING! D.A. Y. 83
much of her girlhood had been passed.
Thanksgiving Day was a busy one for me.
School in the morning, preparation of the
dinner until nearly four, dinner at home
at four, and a second dinner with foreign
friends at seven.
I had rather a funny time about my
turkey. I told my cook a week before-
hand that I must have one for Thanksgiv-
ing Day, but as turkeys are very expensive
out here, and Cook San is an economical
soul, I think he hoped I would forget my
contemplated extravagance. When I came
home from school on Wednesday, I made
inquiries about my pièce de resistance, and
found that it had not yet been procured,
so I sent Cook Sam out in haste to secure
it. I was sitting in my parlor not long
afterward, writing, when I heard a gen-
tle “quit” in the hall, and there was my
cook with a cheerful-looking turkey hen
under his arm. The bird was evidently
Quite used to being handled, and was look-
ing about with an air of mild surprise and
interest in its new surroundings that was
really pathetic. I requested the cook to
have the poor thing killed at once, but
shortly afterward, as I was at work mould-
84 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
ing piecrust in the dining-room, I spied my
turkey peacefully grazing in the door-yard.
I once more sent for the cook, pointed
severely at the turkey, and requested him
to kill it. This time he took my advice,
but I think he would have greatly preferred
to allow the bird to enjoy life until an hour
before dinner.
Miné and I, aided by the very eccentric
and tuneless piano that came with the
house, have undertaken to teach one or
two Christmas hymns in English to some
of the young people of the church, and
hereafter they are to come every Sunday
afternoon to practice. Neither Miné nor
I are very skillful musicians, but Miné can
play the tunes on the piano, and I can
keep both time and tune with my voice,
and both of these are quite rare accom-
plishments in this part of the world.
I do not think I have written you much
of anything about Fuji-Yama, but now that
the clear winter weather has set in, it has
become a conspicuous object in the land-
scape. During the summer, the mountain
is not often visible from Tökyö, as the air
is too hazy, but now, although eighty
miles away, it looms up on the horizon
FUJI-YAMA. 85
from every high point in the city. In the
morning one can see even the blue hollows
in the snow that covers its sides, and at
sunset it rises, a great purple cone, against
the golden southwestern sky. I do not
wonder that the Japanese love the moun-
tain and picture it so often, for it is so
majestic in its solitary height, so symmet-
rical in its outline, so continually changing
in its aspect, that it becomes a part of
one’s life here, and after a little one comes
to regard it as a personal presence, and not
simply as an object in the landscape. Yes-
terday, when I went to Yokohama, the
mountain was surrounded by clouds that
filled in the gap between it and the nearer
and lower Hakoné mountains. From this
garment of cloud, the hoary, sunlit head
towered far into the blue sky. To-night,
as I was riding homeward through the
crowded city streets, I turned a corner and
there in front of me was the Hakoné range,
blue and mysterious in the sunset light,
and Fuji’s whole perfect outline overlook-
ing and dwarfing them all, and the new
moon and the evening star shining above
him in the crimson sky. Then in a mo-
ment the street crooked again, and he was
gone.
86 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
December 18.
Last week Wednesday the school was in-
vited to visit the new palace, which is now
finished and furnished and ready for occu-
pancy, — only waiting until the court can
persuade His Majesty to move in, a step
which, at present, he utterly declines to
take. So, in the mean time, various for-
tunate sorts and conditions of men are
invited to come and take a look at the
grandeur that the Mikado will none of.
Our school was invited at twelve o’clock,
so as to see it all and get through before
the boys should arrive at two. School
closed at half past eleven, but there was
some difficulty in loading two hundred and
fifty children into two hundred and fifty
kurumas, each in her own private convey-
ance, and all in the order of their rank in
the school, and then in engineering this
line of two hundred and fifty kurumas
single file through the crowded streets to
the palace. It was a funny sight when at
last we were off, and our long, black line
squirmed around the curves of the moats,
looking like a procession of ants. I was
near the end of the procession, so I could
see it micely, and I never before felt quite
TôKYO MOATS. 87
as much as if I were part of a circus. Our
way lay through Köjimachi, one of the great
business streets, and all the tradespeople
turned out of their shops and stood in the
streets to see us go by. We left our kuru-
mas outside of the outer gate of the main
entrance to the palace grounds, crossed
two magnificent bridges that span the wide
moat, and then found ourselves within the
palace inclosure. -
The moats of Tökyô are, to my mind,
the most beautiful things in the city, with
their almost perpendicular green banks
dropping down to the fine, stone-faced
channels in which the water lies. The
banks are planted with magnificent pines,
and at this season the glassy water is
covered with wild fowl, swimming about as
securely in the heart of this city of a mil-
lion inhabitants as if they were in the
wildest of mountain tarns. The moats
are particularly beautiful where we crossed
them, and their picturesqueness is increased
by the high walls and antique Japanese
towers of the old Shügun's castle, for the
new palace is built on the site of the old
Tokugawa castle, and the Tokugawa forti-
fications still surround it, though the castle
itself was burned in 1868.
88 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
We had to walk quite a distance, and
over round pebbles, large enough to make
walking on them most uncomfortable, be-
fore we reached the palace, and then it took
Some time to get our long line in, as there
was a great polishing of shoes with hand-
kerchiefs, lest a particle of dust from
them should soil the sacred precincts. I
saw the palace last summer very thor-
oughly, before it was finished and fur-
mished, and admired then the exquisite
carved, lacquered, painted, and embroi-
dered work with which it is decorated; but
I doubted then whether the small, shabby
iron grates that have been put into some
of the finest rooms, and the gorgeous for-
eign upholstery which then stood unpacked,
ready to be put in place, would add greatly
to the beauty of the Emperor’s new abode.
Now that everything is in order, it looks
much better than I had expected it would.
The throne room is really magnificent.
The palace is built on a purely Japanese
plan, with long verandas or corridors open-
ing upon gardens or court-yards, although
glass doors stand in the place of the old-
fashioned paper shoji, and there is the
modern in provement of a basement con-
THE NIEW PALACE. 89
taining steam-heating apparatus, while the
dim illumination of the andon is replaced
by the glare of multitudinous electric lights
set in chandeliers ablaze with crystal bril-
liants.
The girls were much impressed and in-
terested, and we went so slowly that we
saw, as we looked back across gardens
to the corridors or verandas along which
we had come, that the boys of the Peers’
School were beginning to come in before
we were half through. They traveled from
room to room, and from corridor to corri-
dor, in a business-like and perfunctory way
that brought them constantly nearer to us.
Pretty soon a messenger brought us word
that Prince Haru was among the boys, and
that if they caught up with us we must all
stop and bow until he had passed by. We
hurried, after that, and tried to finish and
get out before the boys came along ; but as
girls take more interest in upholstery than
boys, the peers gained on the peeresses,
and we were just outside of the door and
preparing to march, when there was a cry
of “Miya Sama | * (“the Prince l’’) and
down we all went, bending ourselves dou-
ble, all for the sake of a very minute boy
90 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
in a little school uniform, with a little
school knapsack on his back, as much like
the other boys he was with as if they had
been manufactured by the dozen. I must
say, that rather went against the grain
with me. I don’t mind bowing to officials
and dignitaries, but when it comes to dou-
bling myself up in an abject manner before
a boy of seven, I don’t like it. However,
when one is with peeresses, one must do as
the peeresses do, so I put my pride in my
pocket, stood behind my pupils, and bowed
with the rest.
CHAPTER WI.
DECEMBER 27 TO JANUARY 6.
Christmas Preparations. – Hanging Stockings. – Eng-
lish Service. — A Church Festival. — New Year's Dec-
orations. – New Year's Eve on Ginza. — A Street
Fight, — New Year's Day. — Street Performers. — An
Earthquake. — IXurumayas in Cold Weather.
Tökyö, December 27, 188S.
CHRISTMAS is safely over, and our vaca-
tion is a pleasant relief after the steady
grind of school and the wear and tear of
Christmas preparation. It may seem to
you as if out here I might get away from
the annual madness of Christmas giving,
and it was quite a surprise to me to see
what a number of presents I wished to
make. My own household alone consists
of twelve persons, for my cook has three
children and my groom five, and these with
the four heads of the two families make
a round dozen. Then Miné’s household
adds five more under the same roof with
me, with whom I am thrown into most in-
timate relations. Added to these are many
92 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
outside friends who have shown me great
kindness since I came here, so that Christ-
mas seemed a good time to evince my ap-
preciation of their favors.
Shopping is not by any means as easy
here as at home, for I have either to go
to Yokohama for things, or else to get
them one at a time at the shops in Tökyö,
which are all very far apart, and all a half
day’s journey from my house. I went to
Yokohama twice, and did the rest of my
shopping in Tökyö, accomplishing very lit-
tle in an afternoon, both on account of the
magnificent distances and the slowness of
Japanese shopkeepers. However, by dint
of great exertions, I did succeed in secur-
ing a number of pretty things by Christ-
mas Eve, and Miné and I worked until
Quite late at night, tying up our presents
in proper shape with the red and white
paper strings, and the bit of dried fish done
up in bright paper that must always go
with a present in Japan.
Miné wished her household to have the
pleasure of hanging up stockings, so for
lack of a chimney we hung them on the
chairs in my parlor, and I contributed
stockings for the company, as the Japan-
A MERR Y CHRISTMAS. 93
ese tabi is hardly roomy enough to contain
much in the way of Christmas gifts. We
hung seven stockings (one for Bruce), and
labeled each in English and Japanese, so
that Santa Claus could make no mistake.
Then we went around the room and put
in our parcels, filling up the chinks with
oranges, peanuts, cakes, and candy, and pla-
cing the overflow on the chairs on which
the stockings were hung. We did not
finish our job until pretty late in the night,
so when I went to bed at last, I slept
peacefully until my cook aroused me in the
morning, as he came in to make the fire,
with a “Merry Christmas,” learned espe-
cially for the occasion, for he speaks no
English at all at other seasons of the year.
Then I found that all Miné’s family were
up and out, and having a grand race around
the garden to work off their excitement,
for we had agreed to wait until all were
ready before any of us went into the parlor.
I dressed in a hurry when I found that I
was the last, but before I was half ready
little Shige was on the stairs shouting
“Merry Christmas,” and twice before I
came down I heard her call up to me in
most pathetic tones, “ Mada desu ka?”
94 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
(“not yet 9 °) When at last I was ready,
we all went into the parlor together and
took down our stockings. My presents were
certainly most satisfactory, and as for Bruce,
I am sure he never had such a Christmas
in his life. Little Shige gave him a big
stick, elegantly attired in a pink paper
kimono with a crape sash. As soon as it
appeared from the depths of Bruce’s stock-
ing he gave a yelp of delight, made a dive
at it, and after a dance with it around the
room, proceeded to undress it, to Shige's
great amusement. Beside the stick, the
various members of the family had given
him a fine ball, a paper of cakes, some
candy, and a new collar, all of which he ap-
preciated highly. My presents were a heavy
silk obi, the one thing necessary to com-
plete my Japanese costume; a furushiki or
bundle handkerchief, of bright colored crape,
with my name and address on it in Japan-
ese; a dwarfed flowering plum-tree, all in
bud, that will be in bloom in a few days;
and a funny Japanese thing that is rather
hard to describe, but as it is very charac-
teristic of Japan at this season and seems
to form a part of the preparations for the
New Year, I must try to make you see it
N E W YEAR'S DECORATIONS. 95
with my eyes. It is a pliant, many-sprayed
branch of a tree, and every spray is covered
with round balls, pink and white and
green and yellow and every imaginable
color. Beside these balls, which alone
would give it a very gay appearance, there
are various objects hanging from the
branch. A great white die, made of the
same rice flour paste as the balls, swings
from a slender thread on one spray; a small,
fat, pink and white puppy of the same
material dangles from another; a tin Fuji-
Yama painted green, a tin coin painted
yellow, intended to represent the ancient
gold coin of Japan, and numerous other
objects, that I can neither describe nor un-
derstand, adorn this curious Christmas tree.
So far as I have been able to discover, these
branches are used simply for decoration,
although the adornments have each some
symbolical meaning — exactly what, I can-
not find out.
When we had finished examining and
exclaiming over our stockings, I sent for
my servants, and gave them their presents
in the shape of cloth for dresses for each.
These were received with many profound
bows and delighted smiles and a chatter of
96 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
grateful Japanese, of which I could under-
stand the drift if not all the words. Then
we all went off to breakfast, and after
breakfast we sent for the children of the
cook and the groom. There are eight of
them, and they came and stood in a row in
the sunny garden, doubling themselves up
in the funniest little bows, and with their
little black eyes shining and their dirty
round faces smiling in a way that was won-
derfully attractive. Miné gave them sweets,
and I gave each a toy, and they went off
radiant, their arms so full that they left a
trail of cakes and candies along their line
of march, to Bruce's great delight.
At eleven o’clock I went up to the Eng-
lish church at Shiba, the first time I have
been to a service in English for a good
many weeks. The church was prettily dec-
orated, and I found the service very pleas-
ant, in spite of the fact that I lost my
place in the prayer-book, and was compelled
to submit to the ignominy of having it
found for me again by an English lady,
who probably classified me as a heathem or
a dissenter, and I hardly know which is
the worse in English eyes.
After lunch, our entire household started
A SUNDAY-SCHOOL FESTIVAL. 97
off for the Christmas celebration at the na-
tive Japanese church that we attend. We
found the church quite full, though seats
had been kept for us near the front. The
decorations were pretty, and there were
three big Christmas trees on the platform
where the pulpit usually stands. The
shutters were closed and the trees bril-
liantly lighted. The exercises consisted of
speeches both by the Sunday-school chil-
dren and by the grown folks; songs and
recitations in Japanese and English ; a lit-
tle dialogue in Japanese between Santa
Claus and some of the children ; and the
distribution of prizes and presents. We
sang the carols that we had been prac-
ticing for some weeks, and as our au-
dience was not critical they were received
with enthusiasm. The whole affair was
very pleasant, not so much for what was
said, for of course I could understand very
little of that, but for the friendly, pleasant,
childlike spirit that showed itself every-
where. I do not think I was ever in a
church the members of which seemed to
be so active and so entirely friendly and
united, and it is one of the few places in
this country where I feel perfectly at home.
98 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
Everywhere else in Japan I feel that I am
a foreigner, for though as a rule the Japan-
ese are very kind and polite to foreigners,
they place them in the position of out-
siders. But in this church it is entirely
different; here, “we are no more strangers
and foreigners.” The spirit of the place
seems to be so thoroughly Christian that it
is of no age nor race, but of all ages and
for all races. It speaks well for Japanese
Christianity that this church has grown up
and is getting to be a power in Tökyô with
no bolstering or coddling by any mission-
ary board. Its pastor receives a salary of
$40 per month, and the whole monthly
expense of the church amounts to about
$40 more.
January 1, 1889.
To-day all Tökyô is out in gala costume
in honor of the New Year. For several
weeks there has been an air of preparation
about the city: the shops have been bright
with holiday goods and filled with pur-
chasers, and for the last few days the
householders have been decorating their
house fronts with green, and on almost
every street corner little booths have been
put up, where pine-trees, bamboo-trees, and
A LEARN ED COOK. 99
rice-straw decorations are sold. Some of
the arrangements of pine and bamboo are
very pretty, and the streets have a most
festive aspect. Miné and I decided to dec-
orate our gate-posts with an arrangement
of pine and bamboo that I had noticed and
especially fancied, so we sent out my cook,
who is also my steward and general pur-
chasing agent, to make inquiries about the
price. He came back with information
that it would cost $2.50 if we had a gar-
demer put it up, but that he could get the
materials and put it up himself for ninety-
five cents. We told him to go ahead and
do the thing himself, and the result seems,
to my unsophisticated eyes, to be all that
could be desired.
I believe I have spoken of my cook
before. I regard him as quite a wonderful
man. He is a remarkably handy person
about the house, a fairly good cook, en-
tirely honest, and a Christian. He be-
longs to the samurai class, is well educated,
and reads Chinese poetry for amusement.
Imagine a cook in America employing her
leisure time over Horace or Virgil
Last evening, I went down to Ginza, one
of the principal business streets of the city,
100 A. J. P.1. NESE IN TERIOR.
for I had been told that the sights would
be well worth the trip. Two of the young
girls in our house went with me as es-
cort. They rode together in a double ku-
ruma, while I followed them, drawn by my
pet strong man, a perfect Hercules of a
kurumaya, who runs as fast as a horse, and
drags me along as if I were a mere feather.
Our way lay for quite a distance through
very dark streets, lighted only by wander-
ing kuruma lanterns, and then suddenly
we passed through one of the great gloomy
gateways which shut off the different di-
visions of the city from each other, and
there was a street all ablaze with lan-
terms and torches, and alive with people and
booths. Flags were flying from every pos-
sible point, long fringes of rice straw were
streaming in the wind, and the whole street
was aglow with light and color. Through
all this brilliamey we traveled for a couple
of miles, and it was a sight well worth our
long ride in the dark. All through these
busy streets there was so great a crowd of
merrymakers that the kurumas could hardly
be pulled through it, and we had to go
very slowly and carefully, our men grunt-
ing out warnings as they pushed aside
A STREET FIGHT. 101
the solid mass ahead of us. But in spite
of all their care and their slow pace,
the wheel of the forward kuruma became
locked with the wheel of a little truck
dragged along carelessly by a little gaping
man in a long blue gown. For a moment
it looked as if there might be an accident,
but the wheels were soon disentangled and
the double kuruma went on, and I supposed
that that adventure was over. Not so
Yasaku, my kurumaya. He was resolved
to avenge the insult offered to our party
upon the head of the stupid little man with
the truck, for a kurumaya, never forgives an
insult to his passenger, and Yasaku is no-
thing if not brave and truculent. So still
holding the shafts with his hands, he gave
a little jump like a half-broken colt, and
kicked with both legs at the truck that
had dared to impede our progress. So well
aimed and so forcible was the kick, that the
little truck went flying sidewise through
the crowd and almost into a booth, and the
little man must needs go with it, nearly
losing his balance in his swift flight. But
even truckmen have feelings, and our lit-
tle man could not passively submit to be-
ing kicked through the crowd. However,
102 A JAPANESE IN TERIOR.
as Yasaku was big and he very small, as
Yasaku was looking very fierce, white with
rage, and chattering like a monkey, while
the little truckman himself had the heart
of a sick chicken, he followed the safest
line of attack, and rushed at my kuruma
from behind, giving it a push that almost
threw Yasaku down and me out, picked up
his truck before the astonished Yasaku
could find out what had happened, and
made the best of his way into the crowd.
At this, Yasaku dropped the shafts and
swooped down on his small adversary, look-
ing like a great bird, in his wing-sleeved
blouse and his close-fitting dark tights.
He seized the little man, and slapped him
on the back again and again with the flat of
his hand, with such force that the sound was
as of a drum. Then Yasaku came back to
me, picked up the shafts, and prepared to
trot soberly along once more. But the
little man had not had enough, it seemed,
and came back for more, attacking Yasaku
furiously as soon as he saw him occupied
once more with his kuruma. But by this
time the kurumaya who was drawing the
forward kuruma, and who had gone on
before the fight began, came back to see
YASAKU VICTORIOUS. 103
what had become of us, and decided that
he would take a hand in the row, so he
dropped his kuruma, Yasaku once more
dropped his, and they gave their small tor-
mentor such a slapping that he at last
allowed us to go on, following us with loud
but ineffectual vituperations as we pro-
ceeded upon our victorious way.
The whole affair was so intensely funny
from beginning to end that I could do
nothing but laugh, as I sat helpless in my
kuruma, now shoved from behind, now
dropped down in front, again left entirely
alone in the midst of the strange crowd,
while the fight raged at a distance. Even
had I had complete control of the Japan-
ese language, I could not have produced
any impression upon the combatants, for
they were too much absorbed in what they
were about to notice anything else. For-
tunately for our trip that evening, the
ever-present police of Tökyô seemed to be
celebrating the New Year in some other por-
tion of the city, for none of them appeared,
or our men might have been arrested, leav-
ing us to watch out the old year in Ginza,
or else pull our own jinrikishas back with
us. I noticed that when we were finally
104 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
started, our men darted as quickly as pos-
sible down the first side street they came
to, and made their way discreetly through
the darkest streets homeward.
As to-day is New Year's Day, every one
in Tökyô is out in new clothes. All of
our family — Miné, her cousin, her girls,
and our men-servants, our maid-servants,
and our servants’ children — are arrayed in
garments domned for the first time in honor
of the new year. This morning, while I
was at breakfast, the cook’s three little
ones stole on noiseless tabi-shod feet to the
door, one at a time, made their little bows,
and offered me the New Year's greeting.
Pretty little things they are, and very
proud of their new kimonos, which they
wear with a dignity befitting their newness.
Later on my groom came, all rigged out in
fine style, and prostrated himself before
me, groveling with his head on the floor
while he made a series of polite speeches
of congratulation. I have not yet become
used to this kind of politeness, and I can-
not say that I enjoy it very much, but it is
expected of servants in this country, and
it seems wiser to permit it than to allow
them to treat me with less outward respect
NEW YEAR'S DANCER.S. 105
than they would show to a Japanese em-
ployer. It is a curious thing, though, that
in spite of all this prostration and grovel-
ing before their masters, servants here are
on much more easy and friendly terms with
their employers than they are in America,
and their position is much more indepen-
dent and responsible. They take out their
servility in manners, and retain their real
independence in a way that is quite sur-
prising. So far as I am able to judge,
personal and domestic service here occupy
a much more desirable position among em-
ployments than with us.
January 3.
One of the noticeable features of the
New Year's season here is the number of
street performers who go from house to
house, giving a show or a song for a few
cents, and reaping a pretty fair harvest of
coppers, I should imagine, in a day's work.
Two such shows came to us on the after-
noon of New Year's Day, and I was glad to
have a chance to see what their perform-
ance was. The first troupe consisted of
two jolly-looking men, going about to exor-
cise the evil spirits from the houses of their
106 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
patrons. The exorcism, which is supposed
to remain effectual throughout the year,
was simply a queer, droming song, accom-
panied by posturings and grimaces, mostly
of a cheerful and mirth-inspiring character.
After they had finished their performance,
received their small gratuity, and departed,
leaving us good luck for the coming year,
quite a large company of street musicians
strolled into our yard, carrying musical
instruments and masks. They gave an
entertaining performance, posturing and
dancing, changing, by means of masks and
a few simple draperies, from demons to
women, from women to fearful, red-faced,
goggle-eyed beasts, and dancing different
dances to suit the various characters that
they assumed. Poor Bruce, with staring
eyes and bristling hair, bore with these
strange transformations as long as the men
remained outside of the house, but when
one performer, bolder than the rest, came
into the front hall personating a much
conventionalized lion, Bruce flew at him,
growling fiercely, so that he was forced to
retreat.
The New Year began with the sharpest
earthquake that I have yet experienced.
A N EARTHQUAKE. 107
I was visiting a sick friend in one of the
few large foreign - built houses in our
neighborhood. It was terrible to hear
the earthquake as it traveled diagonally
across the house from corner to corner,
shaking everything shakable, including
walls and floors, until it seemed as if the
house must come down about our ears.
We all started for the door, but by the
time we reached it the rumbling and shak-
ing stopped. It took my heart some time
to recover its normal regularity after the
fright, for, somehow, to have the house
pitching and rolling like a ship in a storm
does set one’s heart bobbing about in a
most singular manner. My curiosity in
regard to earthquakes is now fully satis-
fied. We have been having them nearly
every day lately, but all have been very
slight except this one. I have often been
awakened in the night by a trembling of
the house like the shaking of a steamship
from the motion of its screw, but with
nothing frightful about it. Bruce usually
gets up and looks out of the window when
this occurs, I think with a view to finding
out whether we are back on shipboard
again. But now I know what a good-sized
108 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
earthquake feels like, and I do not care for
any more, large or small.
My friend’s little boy, who was asleep in
her room when the earthquake occurred,
amused us very much, when it was over,
by demanding another one immediately.
When he found that earthquakes could
not be made to meet his order, he insisted
on making his New Year’s bow to me before
he could be induced to resign himself to
slumber, so I went over to his bed, and the
polite little flannel bundle made me a pro-
found bow, and gave me his New Year's
greeting. Then with an easy conscience
and his social duties fully performed, he
lay down once more, and was soon sound
asleep.
January 6.
We had our first snow on Thursday, but
it disappeared entirely before Friday night,
and now the streets are quite dry, even
dusty again. To-day is the coldest day
that we have had, with the ground frozen
everywhere out of the sun. This is the
beginning of the twenty days that the Jap-
anese regard as the coldest season of their
winter, and it has been a regular March
day, with a high wind blowing; very cold
R U R UMA YAS IN WIN TER. 109
in the wind, but quite warm and comfort-
able in sheltered spots. On Friday, when
the snow lay upon the ground, I sent for
kuruma, and the man made his appearance
with feet bare, except for a pair of straw
sandals, and his legs covered only by a pair
of short blue cotton trousers reaching half
way to the knee. He was fairly blue
with the cold when he started, but soon
warmed up with his work, and seemed
comfortable enough. The kurumayas trust
to their exercise to keep them warm in
winter, and wear the minimum of clothing
for the sake of convenience in running.
When they stop, they blanket themselves
with their lap-robes, which are often of
brilliant red. A row of kurumayas wait-
ing for fares, each with his blanket
wrapped about him, looks not unlike a
company of Indians fresh from the plains.
On cold nights, the kurumaya sometimes
secures artificial warmth by lighting his
lantern and putting it inside his blanket.
CHAPTER VII.
JANUARY 13 To 30.
Discharging a Groom. — The New Kurumaya. — The
Emperor's Moving-Day. — A New Year's Lunch. —
Buying a Kuruma, - A New Horse. — The Japanese
Language. — The Promulgation of the Constitution. —
Tombs of the Loyal Rönin.
TöRYö, January 13, 1889.
OUR great excitements last week were
in connection with the two extremes of
Japanese society. I discharged my groom
and succeeded after some difficulty in get-
ting him off the premises, and the Em-
peror moved from the old barrack of a
palace in which he has been living for the
last seventeen years, to the new palace
just completed, of which I have written
you once or twice in these letters.
Perhaps it may not seem to you that
discharging one’s groom is a very interest-
ing affair, but I can tell you that in this
case it became quite exciting before the
business was finally ended. The bettös, as
A BETTO. 111
they are called, are regarded as a very un-
principled lot of men, the lowest and most
unreliable of all servants. This fellow that
I had was sent to me by one of my Japan-
ese friends, who believed him to be more
honest than the average, and a skillful and
reliable groom. At first I disliked the
man, for he seemed inclined to get me to
make all sorts of unnecessary purchases for
the stable, at higher prices than my cook
thought right, but I hauled him up sharply
on that, and for a while he seemed to im-
prove. His manners were always attrac-
tive, as I think I have written, and he was
well built, wore his clothes jauntily, and ran
gracefully and well; so though I distrusted
him a good deal, and Bruce disliked him
heartily, I kept him even after I sold my
horse, thinking that it was better to keep
him for the new horse, when I should get
one, than to run the risk of finding a
worse successor. However, idleness was
not good for the man; he was off all the
time, gambling and drinking, and when he
came back a little excited with sakê, he
would brag to my cook of his iniquities.
My cook is, as I have said before, a Chris-
tian, and a most upright and moral man,
112 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
and it seemed to be my bettö’s delight to
scandalize him by stories of his own sins.
One thing the bettö bragged of was that he
had three wives living in different parts of
the city, but I should not have discharged
him for that, as it is quite too common a
failing in Japan to be much of an iniquity
in a groom. What finally decided me in
regard to the man was that one day he
confided to the cook how he had taken out
my horse and run him in some races that
were held near here in November, and had
won two blankets with him. He had asked
me if he might take the horse to those
races, and I had expressly forbidden him,
and the performance was not simply taking
undue liberties with my property, but was
direct disobedience as well. Those races
decided his fate, as I concluded that I did
not want to keep a servant of that char-
acter, and on Christmas Day I told him
that, as I had sold my horse, I did not need
him any longer, and he could go the first
of the year. He took his warning very
sweetly, smiled affably, bumped his fore-
head against the floor a great many times
as it was delivered to him, and expressed
his respect and regard for me in many
THE GROOM'S DEPARTURE. 113
words before he backed out of my presence;
but he made up for his politeness to me
by flying out at my unfortunate cook, whom
he scared nearly out of his wits by dire
and mysterious threats of vengeance. Cook
Sam seized the earliest opportunity to bring
into the house all of my stable property
that he could lay his hands on, but when
that graceless groom finally moved out on
the 10th, he carried with him blankets,
curry-combs, brushes, pails, and a variety
of small odds and ends, not to speak of the
new suit of clothes that I had had made
for him, with my monogram embroidered
in the middle of the back. He took the
opportunity when Miné and the cook were
out of the house to come in and bid me
an affecting farewell and then decamp,
explaining to the cook’s wife, when she
inquired about the blankets and other
things, that if I asked about them he would
come and explain why he had taken them.
With this mysterious message he departed.
When the situation was explained to me,
as it was at some length when Miné came
back, it struck me as absurd that I should
be made such a fool of by a rascally groom.
Miné and I pondered the matter until at
114 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
last, after various conferences with the
cook and my new kurumaya, we decided to
send a messenger to the address that the
groom had left us, with a note politely in-
forming him that he had made a mistake
and carried off some of my things. If he
did not give them up for the asking, we
would then send the police after him.
After both Cook Sam and Yasaku had given
excellent reasons why it would not be wise
or politic for either of them to go, we se-
cured as messenger a man from a neigh-
boring jinrikisha stand. He departed at
about eleven in the morning and returned
at four in the afternoon, bringing word that
he had scoured the entire district men-
tioned in the address, but no person of
that mame was known in the neighborhood.
So you see that I was completely fooled
by the man, and though the value of the
things that he stole from me was not great,
I did not enjoy the experience. However,
I decided to do nothing more about the
matter, as, if I put it into the hands of the
police and they did not succeed in catch-
ing the thief, he might take his revenge on
me by stealing or poisoning my dog. One
of the imiquities that the scamp had bragged
A USEFUL SERVANT. 115
of to Cook Sam was that he had killed one
of the horses at a stable from which he
had been dismissed, and he had expressed
a wish to be informed if I should ever get
another horse and another groom. I am
not at all afraid for my horse, for my big
kurumaya whom I have just engaged, and
who will sleep in the stable, is both hon-
est and valiant, and would, I am sure, be
more than a match for the bettö, should
he ever visit my stable with evil intent.
My new man is the same Yasaku of whom
I have spoken in a previous letter as so
very strong and fast. I have been hiring
him, when I could get him, from a neigh-
boring jinrikisha stand, but have now
taken him altogether into my service, to
do double duty as groom and kurumaya.
I am delighted to secure so good a servant,
for he does three times as much work about
the place as the groom ever did, and is
always on hand to run errands, carry my
books when I go to school, help my vis-
itors’ kurumayas up the steep hill that
leads to my house, and make himself use-
ful in thousands of ways that the bettö
never dreamed of.
Now, having written at some length
116 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
about the bettö and his successor, I must
tell you about the Mikado's moving-day.
Our school was to have begun on Friday,
the 11th, but as that was the day fixed upon
for the Emperor’s removal, the schools
were given a holiday in honor of the event.
For weeks past, the streets between the
old palace and the new have been filled with
jovial companies of coolies, carrying on
their shoulders in great litters the various
imperial household goods. There seems
to have been a great deal of rubbish trans-
ported in this way, for I have caught
glimpses of old furniture, etc., that would
hardly strike us as worth the trouble of
transporting ; but apparently everything
that the Emperor has ever used must
be moved, even if it be nothing but an
empty astral oil-can. Of course, many val-
uable things have been moved too, but the
curious crowd has seen only the rubbish,
for the valuables were all carefully boxed,
and the boxes covered with great blue or
purple cloths, stamped with the white im-
perial chrysanthemum.
On the night of the 10th, the moving
was ended by the removal of the impe-
rial insignia from the old palace to the
THE IMPERIAL INSIGNIA. 117
new, and from that event the Emperor’s
occupation of his new home will probably be
dated. These imperial insignia are to the
Emperors of Japan what the crown jewels
are to European monarchs; but besides,
there is attached to them the religious
significance that belongs to the relics of
a patron saint. They are the sword, the
mirror, and the jewel handed down by
Jimmu Temno, the first Emperor of Japan,
to his descendants, and which have passed
in turn to each emperor who has reigned
in the twenty-five hundred years or more
since the great ancestor of the imperial
house was called away from the earth. The
tradition is that Jimmu Tenno was a son of
the gods, and that these sacred objects were
given him by the gods themselves, with
the prophecy that so long as they should
remain in the possession of his descendants
the Empire of Japan should endure. Hence
the veneration with which they have always
been regarded, and the sacredness that
attaches to the Emperor and his court as
the guardians of these relics. During the
Middle Ages, when Japan was almost torn
asunder by the wars and rivalries of the
great families who aspired to the position
118 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
of chief adviser to the Emperor, going
often so far as to support different scions of
the imperial house as rightful heirs to the
throne, whichever of the contestants could
show that their Mikado was in possession
of these treasures established at once, on
that ground alone, his right to the titles
and the throne. In Japan, so far, it has
never occurred to even the most ambitious
mind that any one could be received as
emperor who was not a lineal descendant
of Jimmu Temno, and who did not have in
his possession the imperial insignia; and
hence, in the history of Japan, while we
find the names of many who have virtually
usurped the imperial power, no one has
ever made an attempt to usurp the imperial
throne ; and So, when the insignia were
removed on the 10th and placed in their
shrine in the penetralia of the new palace,
needs must that the Emperor should leave
his old abode and follow the sacred symbols
of his power to their new resting-place.
As I said, the school was given a holi-
day on that eventful Friday, but teachers
and pupils were told to be on hand at nine
o'clock, so as to be ready to stand in line
and bow when the Emperor should go by.
SCHOOL CHILDREN IN LINE. 119
Even before mine o'clock, when we went
up to school, the street, on both sides; from
the Emperor's gate on, was lined with the
district school children, each school under
command of its teachers, and each carrying
white banners. The children looked very
pretty, the boys in their Europeanized
uniform caps, the girls, almost without
exception, in the Japanese costume of
purple hakama, or kilt - plaited divided
skirt, which forms the uniform of the little
school-girls. It was a brisk, cool morning,
and, as we came by, one teacher was warm-
ing up his class of little ones by some calis-
themic exercises, into which they entered
with a will.
At about half past nine the bell rang,
and our school went out, and drew up in
line directly in front of our building. Our
children, in their dowdy foreign dresses,
were not as pretty in detail as the district
school children, but as they are very fond
of using a great many bright colors, our
line was the gayest of all. The school
children stretched in two continuous lines
for the mile and a half that lies between
the two palaces, making a bright little
fence along the road for the whole dis-
120 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
tance, and they alone were allowed an
uninterrupted view of the imperial prog-
ress, for all intruders were carefully kept
away by the police.
At last, as we stood there stamping our
feet to keep them warm, - for the ground
was cold and damp, though the sunshine
was bright and warm, - a mounted officer
came galloping along to make sure that
the way was clear. On his heels came the
imperial guard, their red and white pen-
nants fluttering gayly and their horses
dancing friskily. Then followed the Em-
peror's carriage, with its red hangings and
black, white, and gold liveried lackeys.
As the carriage came out of the court
gate, the children at the end of the line
began the Japanese national air, and the
wild, martial, and inspiring music was
carried along the line as fast as the coach
moved, so that all the way to the palace
the Emperor was accompanied by the chil-
dren’s voices. It was a pretty idea, I
thought, and the voices sounded sweetly in
the open air, their queer metallic tone suit-
ing the Japanese music much better than
it does the foreign. After the Emperor's
coach came another mounted body-guard,
A NEW YEAR'S LUNCH. 121
and then the Empress and her ladies, in
a coach exactly like the Emperor’s. Of
course we had to bow as the coaches went
by, and we did not see the Emperor and
Empress at all, but I did not care very
much, as I had seen the Emperor and ex-
amined him carefully, and I am likely to
have a good many opportunities to see the
Empress before the year is ended. A long
line of carriages, containing the rest of
the imperial household, followed, and then
the show was over, and we were allowed to
go home. I am sure the children must
have been glad to be marched off singing,
under their teachers’ lead, for many of
them had been standing in line for an hour
and a half.
Yesterday, school assembled, but there
were no lessons. We met in the gymna-
sium to hear speeches from the president,
the lady principal, and some of the direc-
tors of the school. After they were over,
the girls were dismissed, but the teachers
remained to a lunch, where the ceremonial
New Year’s dishes were served. It was
rather the least attractive lunch that I
have ever been called upon to eat, for the
dishes are historic, and belong to a former
122 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
period, and are not much relished even by
the Japanese of the present day. There
was saké, which I do not like any better
than any other kind of wine, and there-
fore do not drink; and soup, containing
large, rank-flavored mushrooms and greens
of some kind; and cuttlefish, both dried
and stewed. I tried some of the dried
cuttlefish, and found that in the mouth it is
difficult to distinguish from a leather shoe-
string, but I did not attempt the stewed
variety, as Miné assured me that she did not
like it. Beside these things, there were
various kinds of raw fish, cut into thin slices
and served with pickled chrysanthemums,
horse-radish, sea-weed, and shöyu. I man-
aged to eat quite a good deal of the raw
fish, which is really not bad after you have
pocketed your prejudices, and if you flavor
it up well with the condiments. I was
pleased to see that, though there were
three foreigners at the table beside myself,
and all have been in Japan much longer
than I have, I could eat the Japanese food
more easily, and manage the chopsticks
better, than any of them, thanks to the
cosy Japanese lunches that I have taken
with my friends in their own homes. I
A NEW R U R UMA. 123
have come to the conclusion that there are
very few foreigners in Japan who have my
opportunities, and I trust I am duly thank-
ful, and shall make good use of them. For-
eigners may live in Japan for years and
not see so much of real Japanese life as I
have been able to see in the few months
since I began housekeeping in Tökyö.
January 25.
I have just bought a kuruma, or, rather,
had one built, for the regular Japanese
size is a pretty tight fit for me. The whole
cost of it, finished, and with my monogram
painted on the lacquered panel at the back,
was nineteen yen. My kurumaya wears
the same monogram embroidered on his
coat, right between the shoulders, and the
paper lantern that he carries at night is
decorated in the same way, so that even
after dark the outfit can be picked out of a
crowd of others as belonging to me. I feel
very fine as I ride about the city in my new
equipage, and it is a great comfort to have
a pleasant, strong man always at hand to
take me anywhere at a moment’s notice.
I am at present trying horses again. I
have found two that I like, and am divided
124 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
in my mind between them. I have a
strong leaning toward a pretty and intelli-
gent little black beast, with a good deal of
spirit and delightfully easy gaits, but I am
afraid that he is too small and too young
for me. The one that I think I ought to
buy is a heavier and stronger gray, with
an obstinate carriage of the head, and a
dangerous pair of heels. Japanese ponies
are rarely good-natured, and are always
looking for a chance to kick, bite, or strike
out with their forefeet, and as the little
black seems to have a good temper, and
the gray is one of the kind that cannot be
trusted, I am tempted to buy the black for
his moral qualities.
January 30.
I bought a horse yesterday, and am
much pleased with my purchase. I finally
yielded to the charms of the little black.
My cook and kurumaya, who are to divide
the care of him, are also pleased with the
addition to the family. He certainly seems
more of a horse and less of a machine than
Dawn, in whom I could never get up the
slightest interest.
I really feel that I am getting to know
something about the language, under
THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE. 125
Miné’s efficient instruction. I find that
after every lesson the next one is learned
more easily, and, although I know very
little yet, I feel considerably encouraged. I
think it is broadening to the mind to study
a language that is so altogether different
from all past experiences in that line.
Imagine a language that contains only
three parts of speech, the noun, the verb,
and the adjective, and in which any one
word may be all three, so that if you hear
a word that you may happen to be familiar
with as a moun, you cannot tell whether it
is behaving like a moun on this partigu-
lar occasion, or whether it is not doing
the work of a verb or an adjective. I am
beginning to understand a great many of
the apparently stupid mistakes that my
pupils make in English, as I see what an
absolutely fluid thing their native tongue is.
As for grammar, there is none to speak
of, since there is really almost nothing to
classify, words slide around in such a way
from one kind of work to another. In the
written language I am not making much
progress. I am still laboring with the
kata kana, but I know that pretty well now,
and mean to take up the hira kana next
126 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
week. The letters are terribly slippery,
and one of the great difficulties in retain-
ing them in the mind lies in the fact that,
after they are pretty well learned, there
is almost no opportunity to practice read-
ing with them, for of course, with so many
letters and characters as are used here, you
may go for days without seeing anything
in which the particular ones that you have
just learned occur. Fortunately, I was
given a little magazine the other day, in
which there is a long article written en-
tirely in kata kama, and now I practice
reading aloud from it, a task that is much
more encouraging than hunting out what
I do know from a wilderness of hieroglyph-
ics that I do not know at all. Without
that little magazine, I am sure I should
have given up the letters in despair.
Japan is in quite a state of expectation
over the near approach of the day set for
the promulgation of the Constitution. The
day fixed for the ceremony is February 11,
the anniversary of the accession of Jimmu
Tenno to the throne, 660 B. C. All the
most learned men of Japan, together with
various foreign lawyers, imported by the
government at great expense, have been
TOMBS OF THE RONIN. S. 127
at work on the Constitution for years, and
now it is to be promulgated, so that the
people will have a year to study it before it
goes into force. There is to be some kind
of a grand ceremonial connected with the
event, but I shall not be able to see it, as
it is only for the high officials, who will be
gathered together in the palace on that
day from the whole empire.
I had a delightful ride the other day
with a Japanese friend. We went out to
the tombs of the forty-seven rônins, and I
found the place very impressive. In the
temple near which they are buried are
kept the relics of the faithful servants, –
swords, armor, etc.; but those are only
shown on certain days, and we were there
on the wrong day. The gravestones form
a hollow square, and are shut off from the
other graves in the cemetery by a fence.
The inclosure is hard by the great stone
block that marks the resting-place of the
lord, to avenge whose death the faithful
servants died. Before each gravestone in-
cense is always burning, and has been for
the two hundred years since the graves
were made, – supplied during all this time
by the offerings of visitors to the tomb, so
128 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
Sacred is loyalty in the minds of the Jap-
anese ! The place is densely shaded, and
the fragrant smoke hangs low under the
trees, making the air thick and heavy
throughout the inclosure. Forty-eight
men are buried there, and the story of
the forty-eighth is this : A Satsuma man
insulted the leader of the rônins for not
avenging the death of his lord, at a time
when, for the sake of disarming suspicion,
the whole band had scattered, and the
leader was living a most dissolute and
apparently purposeless life. This Satsuma
man, when he heard of the long waiting
and the bold stroke by which the death
was at last avenged, was overcome with
remorse as he thought of the undeserved
insult that he had inflicted, and to prove
the sincerity of his repentance, he com-
mitted hara-kiri upon the tomb of the
leader, and was buried with the faithful
forty-seven.
CHAPTER VIII.
FEBRUARY 12 To 20.
The Promulgation Festival. — Morning Scenes on Koji-
machi. — Exercises at the School. — Imperial Progress
through Tökyô Streets. – Evening Rides and Street
Sights. – Rice and Eels. – Mingling with the Holi-
day Crowd. — Murder of Viscount Mori. — Viscount
Mori's Funeral. — Religious Liberty under the Com-
stitution. — Another Earthquake.
TöRYö, February 12, 1889.
YESTERDAY morning, when I awoke, the
snow lay thickly over everything, and was
still falling, so that there seemed no pos-
sibility of the great public rejoicings that
had been planned to celebrate the promul-
gation of the Constitution. However, in
spite of the snow, we heard a tum-tum-
ming on the business street above us that
led us to believe that some one was doing
something in honor of the day, and after
much persuasion I succeeded in inducing
Miné to put on her worst clothes and arc-
tics, and we sallied out in the snow and
slush to see what might be going on.
130 A JAPANESE IN TERIOR.
When we reached Kojimachi, the business
street before referred to, the sight was
most melancholy. The night before, as
Yasaku brought me home through it, it
had been gay with flags and lanterns, but
now, all the decorations that could be taken
down had disappeared, and nothing re-
mained to do honor to the day except a
few moist, depressed, and wretched-looking
flags. Here and there people were wan-
dering disconsolately about, muddy nearly
up to their waists, and the scene was any-
thing but festive; still, in the distance we
heard the beating of drums, so we splashed
along the street to find out, if we could,
who it was that was cheerful under such
depressing circumstances. On our way
we passed a mournful spectacle. Some en-
terprising householders had put all their
small savings together, and had erected
two enormous flags on bamboo poles, the
poles crossing over the street and tied to-
gether with a huge bow-knot of purple
silk cord with tassels hanging from it.
The night before, the flags had formed
one of the most imposing decorations on
all the long, bright street. But unfortu-
mately they were not dyed to meet such
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132 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
As we were sitting in my parlor after
our return, we heard the salute which an-
nounced that the ceremony in the palace
was over, and that the Constitution had
been given by the Emperor to his minis-
ters. At that very moment the clouds
began to break, and soon the sun was shin-
ing, but still, when I started for school at
a little before twelve, I had no idea that
there would be any review, for the roads
were in a terrible condition with slush and
mud. But when I reached the top of the
hill I saw squads of soldiers marching out
to the parade ground, officers riding back
and forth, flags flying, lanterns being hung
up as fast as possible, and all the signs of
preparation for the great event. Miné had
gone to school a little before me, and when
I reached there I found that the teachers
were engaged in bowing to the Emperor's
picture, a ceremony which is fortunately
not required of foreigners. I am afraid
that I could not bring myself to do it,
for I think it is of the nature of an act of
worship ; at any rate, it is too much like
that for me to want to perform it. The
Emperor's picture is kept in a room that
is only opened for this ceremony, or for the
A NEW DEPARTURE. 133
Empress when she visits the school. The
teachers high enough in rank to be re-
ceived at court are not expected to bow
before the picture, but all of the others
must do so on special occasions, such as the
Emperor's birthday, New Year's Day, etc.
When the teachers had finished, the pupils
were brought up in classes and put through,
and then we went to our chilly assembly
room, and there was some koto and piano
music, and some fuzzy singing by the girls.
After these exercises were over, we put on
our wraps, and went out and stood in line
for an hour in front of the building, and
watched the funny Japanese crowd until
the procession came by. Upon this occa-
sion, for the first time, the Emperor and
Empress rode in the same coach, and it is
really a great step up, so far as the women
of the country are concerned. The theory
hitherto has been that the Emperor is too
far above his wife in dignity to appear in
public with her in the same carriage, but
yesterday, by riding with her, he recognized
the fact that his wife is raised by her
marriage to his own social level. It is a
formal adoption of the Western idea in
regard to the position of the wife.
134 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
The procession was the finest that I have
seen yet. First there were the mounted,
gold-laced soldiers, carrying red and white
pennons, who always march in front of the
Emperor's carriage. These were followed
by four or five state coaches, containing
the princes and cabinet ministers. Then
came another squad of horsemen, and
then the most gorgeous coach that I have
ever seen, drawn by six black horses, each
led by a magnificent black, white, and
gold liveried groom, while the coachman
on the box was so bedizened with gold that
he looked like a lay figure rather than
a real man. Just at this point we all
bowed, so that I saw nothing more but the
top of the Empress’ bonnet as she turned
to look at her little peeresses, who seem to
have a warm place in her heart. When
we liſted our heads, the splendid vision
was gone, and there was nothing more to
see except every-day black carriages, which
seemed very tame after the state coaches.
After the procession proper had passed,
there came an indiscriminate medley of
things that had been accumulating behind
the detachment of police who had kept the
road clear. The dam once removed, they
THE CRO WD. 135
swept down upon us like a flood : the
populace in all degrees of mud and jol-
lity; big-bugs with gold lace in kurumas;
bigger bugs with more gold lace in car-
riages; horsemen, foot-soldiers, artillery,
all in one grand mêlée. Why nobody
was walked on by the horses or run over
by the gun-carriages I do not at all un-
derstand, but nobody was, at least in our
neighborhood. We were very glad to get
out of the crowd and back into the school-
house, for beside the danger we were in
of being trampled on, our feet were numb
from standing so long on ground that had
been covered with snow only an hour or
two before. We remained at school long
enough to receive notice of a holiday the
next day, and then came home, but went
out again as soon as we had finished dim-
ner, to see what we could of the illumi-
nations. We did not try to go to the
places where the decorations were finest,
but made a complete circuit of the palace
grounds, and enjoyed very much the alter-
nations of moonlight, lantern light, elec-
tric light, and gaslight that our ride gave
us. When we came into the great open
space in front of the palace, a space which
136 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
was almost as light as day with the electric
lights, the invited guests were just going
in to the Emperor's reception, and every-
thing was very gay. Fireworks were being
set off somewhere on the palace grounds,
and fine ones they were, too, so that when
we reached home we thought that we had
had a very good time, though by avoiding
the crowd we had also avoided the best of
the show.
February 15.
My last letter took up simply the festiv-
ities of Monday, but all day Tuesday the
city kept holiday as well. The Emperor
made stately progress through another
part of the city, and those who had not
had a chance to see him the day before
might get front places this time. I re-
mained indoors, except for a short horse-
back ride, until evening, when I joined
Miné at the house of her married sister,
who lives close to the business part of the
town, to take supper there, and then go
out to mix with the crowd and see what
was going on. I reached there just after
dark, and my friends insisted that I should
go out at once in my kuruma and ride
along the principal thoroughfare to Nihom-
FESTIVAL DECORATIONS. 137
bashi, one of the great bridges of the
city. This street was the finest show that
I have seen yet. It was spanned by a
succession of magnificent green arches,
no two alike, set with electric lights, hung
with strings of red and white lanterns,
decorated with the imperial chrysanthe-
mum, or with great Chinese letters made
entirely of small oranges set into the green
of the arch. Under these arches surged
the crowd of holiday-makers in their best
clothes, – men, women, and children, with
open mouths and upturned faces, trying
to look all ways at once. The buildings
on both sides of the street were hung with
festoons of flags and lanterns from foun-
dation to roof, and their wide, open fronts
were brightly lighted, showing asthetic
backgrounds of screens, brought out from
storehouses for the occasion, and which
completely hid the ordinary stock-in-trade,
turning the shops, for the time being,
into dainty little parlors. Upon the floors,
which were, in many cases, covered with
scarlet blankets, sat the shop-keepers and
their families, often entertaining parties
of friends with tea and cake in pretty
dishes. These interiors, with their bright-
138 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
mess and their suggestions of pleasant
social life, added a final charm to a scene
that was more like dreamland than like
reality, and I had to keep punching myself
to make myself believe that I was really
awake and in my right mind. I went on
in my kuruma as far as I dared (there
were five miles of just this kind of thing),
but I had to come back before seeing it all,
for I was afraid that my friends would be
waiting supper for me. I found, however,
that, owing to the rush of business that
night, the eels and rice that had been
ordered from an eel-shop close by had not
yet arrived. At last, just as we had become
so hungry that we were trying to satisfy
our appetites on rice and sea-weed, the eels
made their appearance, delicately broiled,
and laid upon mounds of rice in square,
lacquered boxes, one box for each per-
son, and a pair of chopsticks with each
box. For a few moments the chopsticks
flew at a rapid rate, for we were all very
hungry, and all in a hurry to be out in the
street. Supper ended, we sallied forth,
this time on foot, a party of six, although
we soon lost half our number in the crowd,
and only found them again as we were
A TRAGEDY. 139
coming home. We wandered slowly down
the street, just in the opposite direction
from the way I had gone before supper,
stopping where the crowd was thickest to
see what they were looking at, and then
walking on again. If you people in Amer-
ica could have been transported to Tökyö
that night and have seen things as we saw
them, and nothing more of Japan, you
would never have believed that it was any-
thing but an agreeable freak of your imag-
inations, there was such an atmosphere of
unreality and staginess about the whole
thing. The city seemed to be wild with
rejoicing, and to be showing it in the
tasteful, dainty, quiet ways in which the
Japanese excel.
But during these two days of festival a
tragedy was also enacted, and on the day
on which Japan gained a Constitution she
lost one of her most enlightened and liberal-
minded statesmen. I am going to write
out all the details as I had them directly
from the lips of one of the cabinet ministers,
for I suppose many reports of the affair
will reach America, and it may be inter-
preted as a sign of a reactionary tendency
and an outbreak of mediaevalism, and I do
140 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
not think that it can really be attributed
to that. The facts, as they are at present
known to the authorities, are these, and I
give them as I heard them, on the morn-
ing of Wiscount Mori’s death.
On Monday, February 11, as Wiscount
Mori was dressing to go to the palace for
the promulgation ceremony, a man came
to the door of his official residence and
asked to see the viscount. The servant
replied that his master was engaged and
could see no one, but that if the man
would wait a moment he could see Wis-
count Mori’s private secretary and state
his business to him. When the private
secretary appeared, the man at first re-
fused to explain his business, but at last
said that he had just heard of a plot to
assassinate Mr. Mori, and had come to tell
him of it, but that he could disclose the
details to no one except the minister him-
self. More than this the secretary could
not get out of him, and just then Wiscount
Mori himself came down the long hall, on
his way to his carriage. As he passed, the
secretary said to him, “This is the man
who wanted to see you.” Mr. Mori stopped
for a moment, the man stepped forward,
TEIE MORI MURDER. 141
and before any of the bystanders could see
what he was about, he drew a long, sharp
knife from his clothing with his left hand,
while with his right he seized Mr. Mori,
and then, with a quick movement, plunged
the knife into the minister’s right side.
He had not had time to pull out the knife
and strike again when the servants pulled
him off, but he broke away from them, and
was at once cut down and killed by the
sword of a policeman who came in from
his station at the gate, as he heard the
noise of the struggle. The knife was a
common kitchen knife, such as is used by
the Japanese for cutting up fish, and it
was driven so deep into the minister's side
that the handle came off as the murderer
tried to pull it out.
Wiscount Mori was not rendered un-
conscious by his wound, and messengers
were at once dispatched for doctors, but
all the great physicians had gone to court,
and all the little ones were out enjoying
the holiday, and it was three hours before
medical aid could be obtained. During
that time the poor man had lost so much
blood that, although the wound was not of
Such a nature as to be necessarily fatal,
142 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
he died within twenty-four hours. It was
about eight, on the morning of the 11th,
when the assassin made his fatal call, and
Mr. Mori died at eight on the morning of
the 12th. His death was not announced
until 11.30 that evening, that the festivi-
ties of the day might not be interfered
with ; for here in Japan a man cannot
die legally, whatever his condition may be
actually, until the government gives him
permission. Accordingly, though Wiscount
Mori drew his last breath early in the
morning, the official announcement is that
he died at 11.30 at night.
And now as to the reasons for the mur-
der. A paper was found upon the body of
the assassin, saying that the viscount had
been killed because of sacrilege committed
by him the year before at the shrines of
Isé. It appears that the minister had
visited these, the most sacred of Shinto
shrines, and when there had failed to make
the customary offerings, had refused to take
off his boots before entering the Sanctuary,
and is said to have even pushed aside the
curtain that concealed the sacred treasures.
Many conservative Japanese of the lower
classes were much worried by this, and
TIHE ASSASSIN'S MOTIVE. 143
were afraid that the protection of the na-
tional gods might be withdrawn from a
government in which so godless a person
was prominent ; and the sacrilege so ran-
kled in the heart of this man, who was a
humble employee of the government, that
he resolved to rid the country of its perpe-
trator, that the protection of the guardian
spirits might not be withdrawn upon the
change to a new form of government. The
man appears to have been just as much
of a crank as Guiteau. He seems to have
been entirely alone, and without accom-
plices. He undoubtedly committed the act
from patriotic and religious motives, and
not from a mere grudge, but he does not,
so far as I can find out, represent any public
sentiment, nor is any portion of the popu-
lation pleased that his patriotism and reli-
gion should have taken such a form. It
is a misfortune that he should have been
killed on the spot instead of having to take
his trial, for such summary justice often
excites sympathy, when a legal trial and
condemnation does not, and in a trial much
could have been found out about the man
which now will never be known.
144 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
February 20.
Mr. Mori’s funeral took place on Satur-
day, but I could not go, as I had an en-
gagement to speak before a ladies’ society
that afternoon, and could not get it post-
poned. I did have time, however, to go to
a point not far from my house and watch
the funeral procession. It was very long
and imposing, — infantry, cavalry, and ar-
tillery, cabinet ministers in carriages, stu-
dents from the University and high schools
on foot, and a great number of lesser per-
sons in kurumas. Mr. Mori had a strong
objection to the extravagance connected
with Japanese funeral customs, and every
effort was made to have all things simple
and as he would have wished. The money
sent to his family by the Emperor and
Empress and the gifts of others as well
are to be used to endow a scholarship in
the University, instead of for the pur-
chase of flowers, cakes, etc. While I am
on this subject, it may interest you to hear
that a reaction in regard to this particu-
lar kind of extravagance has set in, and
that the Kumaisho (Imperial Household
Department) employees, from the great-
est to the least, have signed an agree-
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 145
ment that they will neither send to fu-
nerals of others any gifts, unless they be
of money, nor will they undertake to send
out from the afflicted house cakes and
rice on the fiftieth day after the death, as
has been the custom hitherto. This seems
to be a step in the right direction, and
beginning as it does at the upper end of
society, may be followed by others the
more easily.
I was visiting one of my Japanese friends
the other morning, when her husband, a
man of prominent position in the govern-
ment, came in, bringing the official English
translation of the Constitution. With the
greatest pride he pointed out to me the
twenty-eighth article, which guarantees
religious liberty to all Japanese subjects.
The article reads as follows: “Japanese
subjects shall within limits not prejudicial
to peace and order, and not antagonistic
to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom
of religious belief.”
We had quite an earthquake a few days
ago. I am told that it is the most severe
shake that Tökyū has experienced since
1854, although from my own judgment I
should not have thought it so severe as
146 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
the one of New Year's night, of which I
wrote you. This most recent one occurred
at six o'clock in the morning, when I was
still in bed. The house swayed and rocked
quite like a ship at sea for several minutes,
and I had some thought of trying to get
out of doors; but the recollection that my
double front doors were tightly bolted,
and that before I could get them open it
was probable either that the house would
fall, or that the shake would be over, served
to make me stay quietly where I was. My
own house is not nearly so frightful in an
earthquake as some of the larger and more
solidly built residences, nor so dangerous
either, for while my house is built with
walls and windows after the foreign style,
the posts that support the structure are
fitted after the Japanese manner upon
rounded stones, and the whole edifice will
stand a good deal of shaking without worse
damage than breakage of glass in the
windows. -
CHAPTER IX.
MARCH 1. To 9.
The Wily Bett5. – Yasaku's Domestic Affairs. — Mar-
riage and Divorce. — Developments in Regard to the
Mori Murder. — Letters from Nishino to his Family, -
A Spring Jaunt. — Toy Collecting.
TöKyö, March 1, 18S9.
SoME time ago I wrote you all about my
experience in connection with getting rid
of my bettö, and how he carried off most of
my stable furniture, leaving a false address.
I thought that the man would never have
the face to appear on my premises again,
but I little knew of what effrontery he
was capable. He went off, as I told you,
leaving word that he would like to know
if I ever bought another horse and em-
gaged another bettö, but of course I did
not take any pains to keep him informed
in regard to my establishment, so he set to
work to find out about things for himself.
Not very long ago I received a note from
an English lady with whom I am very
148 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
slightly acquainted, recommending some
bettö or other, and saying that although she
did not know that I was wanting a bettö, her
own groom told her that I did, so she sent
the recommendation. I simply sent back
word that I was not in need of a groom, and
thought no more about it, but I now think
that my former employee had resorted to
this device for gaining information about
Ill (2.
A few mights ago, Miné and I went out
to dinner, taking Yasaku with us. No
sooner were we all safely out of the house
than my old bettö walked into the kitchen
and made a long call upon my cook. His
object in calling seemed to be to establish
a claim against Yasaku (who now adds
the duties of bettö to those of kurumaya)
for six yen, apparently because Yasaku oc-
cupies the place from which the old bettö
was dismissed. Cook San seized the occa-
sion to make inquiries about the blankets,
brushes, etc., that the man had taken
away with him, and the groom explained
that he had taken them by mistake, and
would bring them back the next time he
called, - a story that made the cook’s eyes
twinkle considerably as he told it to us.
YASARTU'S DIVORCE. 149
It seems that the bettö is still negotiating
with Yasaku, through one of his friends, for
a money payment for the privilege of occu-
pying the place that the former groom was
put out of ; and what is to me most myste-
rious is that Yasaku seems to recognize
a claim of some kind, and instead of refus-
ing, is simply trying to see how much he
can beat the man down. Miné and I tell
him that it is foolish for him to take the
matter into consideration at all, but Miné
thinks that he will finally pay something.
Yasaku's domestic affairs amuse us very
much. When I engaged him, he said that
he had a wife at Utsu-no-miya, and that
he would send for her to come to Tökyö,
that she might guard the stable when he
was out with the kuruma. We have been
wondering why his wife did not come, but
the other day it came out that there had
been a division in the family. Yasaku had
written to his wife to come, but the woman
had sent back word that she had work now
at Utsu-no-miya, and did not want to come
at present. Thereupon Yasaku replied that
if she could not come now, she need not
come at all. This message did not move
her, so he divorced her, and is now on the
150 A. J.1 PAN ESE IN TERIOR.
lookout for another and a more dutiful
helpmeet. He thought of taking Miné's
cook, an exceedingly green and stupid
country girl, but concluded that it might
inconvenience Miné to have her cook taken
away, and for that reason gave her up.
Then he began negotiating for some one
else, but that fell through, and now he is
simply on the lookout in a general way,
with a view to making a satisfactory busi-
mess arrangement.
The whole matter of marriage out here
seems to be entirely cold-blooded and devoid
of sentiment, though in the higher classes
it is a trifle more complicated on account
of etiquette than in Yasaku's case. This is
simply an instance of what may happen at
any time in any family, and be thought
very little of. If there are children, they
belong to the father, and may be disposed
of as he likes, the poor mother having no
rights over her children, no matter what
the cause of divorce.
Almost every day something more ap-
pears in the papers in regard to the Mori
murder.
The following clipping from the “Japan
Mail’ of February 27, containing the last
LETTERS FROM NISHIN O. 151
letters written by the murderer, Nishino
Buntaro, to his parents and brother and
sister, gives an insight into the Japanese
mind that seems to me helpful in under-
standing the people : —
The vernacular press publishes the text of a
letter written by Nishino Buntaro, the assassin of
Viscount Mori, three days before the perpetration
of the deed and his own death. The letter is ad-
dressed to Nishino's father. It was intrusted to a
friend of the writer for direct delivery or dispatch,
— the distinction is not drawn by the Tökyö
journals, — and through this friend's agency it
ultimately came into the hands of the newspapers.
The letter, literally translated, runs thus : —
“I write to say that my act in killing a Min-
ister of State is not the outcome of a sudden
resolve. I planned it when I was at Tokushima
last year. For this reason the visit I paid to my
home at the fall of last year was solely for the
purpose of bidding you farewell. As, however,
it was impossible to be assured of facts without
examining into them at the place itself of their
occurrence, I went to the Shrine Daijin-gu on my
way to Tökyū, and having ascertained by inquiry
that things were undoubtedly as represented, I
made up my mind to what is now about to
happen. You have often told me that the duty
of a man is to die before his lord. Thus, though
152 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
the world, for aught I know, may say that the
manner of my death was that of a lunatic, my
own feeling is that it will be as that of one who
fell on the battlefield before his lord. I pray
you, therefore, not to grieve for me. It pains
me to think that after having been for more than
twenty years the object of your kindness, I should
die without testifying my gratitude. Were I
your only child, there would be no help. But
you have my brother, Nobusuke, and my sister,
Michi, and in them I hope you will find consola-
tion. I beg you to make arrangements so that
Nobusuke may succeed to the headship of the
family, and with a thousand prayers for your
happiness, I bid you farewell.”
To his mother Nishino wrote as follows : —
“When you hear of what is now about to
happen to me, you will doubtless be shocked.
But in truth my resolve is of old standing, and
the short visit I recently paid you was for the
purpose of bidding you farewell. It was for this
reason that I had such difficulty in leaving you,
and that I could scarcely restrain my tears. I
have observed that parents who lose their chil-
dren forget their own suffering and misfortune,
and have pity only for the dead child. And
certainly those who die of sickness, or owing to
some unexpected catastrophe, are to be pitied in
that their death is not of their own seeking. But
I die of deliberate choice. I meet my end with
AN ASSASSIN’S FARE WELL. 153
just such feelings of pleasure as a man experi-
ences when he goes to a feast. Do not grieve
for me, therefore, in the least. Had I been lost
at sea on my way to Tökyö the other day, or
had I died of kakke the year before last, there
would have been no help, would there 2 What
men will say of me I know not, but since I die
believing that it is for the sake of my Sovereign
and my country, if you suffer yourself to become
broken down with grief, you will only show
want of spirit. I pray you, when I am gone, to
bestow your care on Nobusuke and Michi in my
stead, and thus I bid you farewell.”
To his brother and sister, both younger than
himself, he also addressed the following letter :
“I am sure that you continue to be always du-
tiful to your parents and diligent at your studies.
I intrust our father and mother to your care
after I, your brother Buntaro, am dead. Never
forget, I pray you, that you are children of the
house of Nishino and people of the Empire of
Japan. If you remember unfailingly that you
are children of the house of Nishino, the instinct
of filial obedience will come to you of its own
accord; if you do not forget that you are of the
people of the Empire of Japan, loyalty and
patriotism will be with you of themselves.”
Nishino wrote also to the friend to whose
care he intrusted the above letters for delivery
to his family. The name of this friend is not
154 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
published, but the letter addressed to him was as
follows : —
“After my visit to Tokushima last summer, the
events of the time dwelt much in my thoughts,
and since my return to Tökyö, on the 8th of
January, I have seen nothing of you. I am now
about to kill Mori, Minister of State. If I suc-
ceed, I shall not regret to die. And even though
the misfortune of failing to achieve my purpose
overtake me, I believe that I shall not die a
dog's death; for some one will surely be inspired
to prosecute my aim. Succeed or fail, I shall at
least have done something towards correcting
the degenerate spirit of the people of the country
of the gods. It will be as though I fell on the
battlefield before my lord's charger. I pray
you to take heed for me, so that after I am dead
men may know that Buntaro was not mad.
“P. S. Let me entreat you to send the accom-
panying letters to my father, mother, brother,
and sister, after I am dead. I have intrusted
them to one or two other persons also, lest
through fear of suspicion they might not be for-
warded to my parents.”
There is now, it seems, a good deal of
approval expressed in private for the spirit
that prompted the murder, though few go
so far as to approve of the murder itself.
Old Mr. Nishino, the father of the assas-
SPRING! WEATHER. 155
sin, receives many letters of condolence,
in which his son is not in the least con-
demned.
It is now said that Mr. Mori did not
commit the sacrilege of which he was at
first accused, but simply pushed aside the
temple curtain with his cane, and when re-
proved by the priest, bowed and withdrew.
His sacrilege, according to the latest re-
ports, consisted in being a little angry at
the priest who reproved him, and in not
visiting the shrines again during his stay
in the neighborhood, mor making the cus-
tomary offerings for the support of the
temples.
March 9,
The last few days have been delightfully
warm and bright, so much so that one
really began to think of white dresses and
that sort of thing, but to-day is rainy, and,
though not exactly cold, is colder than it
has been. The only drawback to the pleas-
ant weather has been that the inhabitants
have regarded it as a sign of impending
earthquakes or volcanic disturbances, and
so I have gone to bed every night won-
dering whether my house would tumble
about my ears before morning, or whether
156 A JAPANIESE IN TERIOR.
I might mot be buried under a shower of
mud or lava from some hitherto unsus-
pected volcanic blow-hole. Since feeling
one or two lively earthquakes and hearing
all about Bandai Sam, I do not feel as if
this were a very certain kind of a country
to live in.
Last Wednesday, Miné and I went off
on a little expedition together. I think I
wrote some time ago that the plums were
in bloom in sheltered places. They began
early in February, and are now about
at their prettiest. Our garden has some
fine trees in it, and we enjoy them very
much, but there are public gardens in
Tökyô to which all the world goes to see
the plum blossoms at their finest, and we
decided to visit one of these for a sight not
only of the plums, but of the people. My
kurumaya was laid up with an attack of
indigestion, so we went in a double ku-
ruma with two men tandem. It is the first
time that I have ever ridden with any one
in a kuruma, and although it is rather
close quarters, particularly in thick winter
ulsters, it is great fun to have some one to
talk with and ask about all the funny street
sights, and I enjoyed the ride, which was a
FARMING PROCESSES. 157
very long one, immensely. Our kuruma at
last put us down in front of a temple, and
we got out to follow the crowd, who had
come for the same purpose as ourselves.
We did not go into the temple itself, but
walked about the grounds, which are nota-
ble chiefly for some queer sacred inlages of
animals, and a magnificent wistaria vine
which will be worth going to visit in a
month or two. Our guide, the crowd,
took us out through a gate at the side of
the temple inclosure, and we found our-
selves on a country road with ugly, black,
mud-covered fields on each side. In one
of these fields a man was standing up to
his waist in mire, turning over the soft,
slimy mud with a small, wooden tub.
Miné said he was searching for lotus roots,
which are quite prized as an article of food
here. Farming in Japan is extremely
dirty work. Much of it is done under
water, and done literally by hand, whole
fields being clawed and pawed over with
no other tools than the fingers.
But this is a digression. We had to
walk quite a distance over this country
road, but at last turned down a little lane,
and soon found ourselves in a garden
158 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
planted entirely with plum - trees. The
trees were so trained as to be all branches,
with no trunks at all, and were so very
old that their bark was quite covered with
mosses. The tender young blossoms are
regarded by the aesthetic Japanese as
much more beautiful when they grow
upon a Venerable, moss-covered tree. The
garden was crowded with visitors, from
the jinrikisha man in blue blouse and with
symmetrical, bare, brown legs, to the fine
lady in paint and powder, silk and crape,
pattering along on her high, lacquered
clogs. All were gazing at the flowers,
and seemed lost in admiration. In the
centre of the garden grew the finest of the
trees, and upon their branches were hung
bits of paper on which their admirers had
inscribed poems. One tree had ten poems
hanging from it, although it was not the
one I should have chosen as my favorite,
while the tree that I admired the most
had not a single poetical offering upon its
branches. The crowd eddied and whirled
about the decorated trees, stopping to read
the various poems, and making temporary
blockades. We sat down on a bench under
a tree, and an old man brought us tea, and
TOYS. 159
then, when we had watched a youth indit-
ing a poem hard by, we moved on to make
room for others. Farther on is another
plum garden which we visited, but it was
not as interesting as the first, as the trees
were not as old, and there were no poems
on their branches. On our walk back, we
stopped at a little wayside tea-house and
took tea and Sembei, a sort of toasted rice
cracker which is very good, only rather
choky. When we reached our kurumas
again, we thought we had time to go to
Asakusa on our way home. I had not
been there since I went last summer in
doing the sights of Tökyū. When we had
come as near to the temple as the kurumas
were allowed to approach, we got out to
walk the rest of the way ; but we had to
pass a line of small shops, in which every
conceivable variety of toy is kept, and so
attractive was the display that we suc-
cumbed to the temptation, spent all our
time at the toy-shops, and did not reach
the temple at all.
I have made up my mind that if I
undertake a collection of any kind while I
am out here, it will be of toys. I think
that in a complete collection of the toy
160 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
tools, implements, furnishings, etc., one
could bring home the largest possible
amount of the every-day life of Japan,
and with the least possible expenditure of
money. I have begun with a ceremonial
tea service, a box of carpenter’s tools, and
a small kitchen. This last is the most
perfect little thing that you can imagine, -
a Japanese kitchen, with all its fittings
and utensils, even to the knives and skim-
mers, the dust-pan, the matches, and the
god-shelf. It is now before my eyes as I
write, and you might suppose you were
looking into a kitchen through the wrong
end of an opera-glass, for there are no
shams about it; everything is made as
carefully as if for use.
CHAPTER X.
MARCH 21 TO 31.
A Sad Holiday. — Japanese Mourning Customs. – A
Shintô Funeral. — Au Earthquake. – Yasaku's Wed-
ding. — Questions on John's Gospel.
TöKyö, March 21, 18S9.
YESTERDAY was a holiday, but not a
very cheerful one, as it was given to us on
account of the funeral of one of our girls
who died on Monday. She was one of our
best scholars in English. Miné was par-
ticularly fond of her, and spent much of
her time at the house of mourning on
Monday, doing what she could to comfort
the parents, to whom the end had been a
complete surprise. The doctor had cheered
them with false hopes, although he had
known for some time that there was no
chance of recovery, and for several days
that the end was near. This Japanese
custom of always saying what you think
would be agreeable to people, instead of
speaking the truth, softens some things,
162 A. J.A.P.4 N ESE INTEIRIOR.
but simply aggravates others, and in this
case it could hardly be called a kindness.
I have been much interested in what I
have learned during the last few days of
Japanese mourning and funeral customs.
It seems that when there is a death in a
Japanese family where the old customs
still prevail, all the friends of the family
call at once, and they must be received by
the mourners themselves. In this case,
the parents of the dead girl, instead of
being allowed to sit quietly in some se-
cluded part of the house while an intimate
friend of the family received callers and
answered inquiries, were obliged to remain
all day long by the side of their dead
daughter, and there receive all the visits
of condolence, and answer all the questions
themselves, on pain of being considered
impolite if they delegated the task to some
one else. Then, after this wearisome day,
at nine o’clock in the evening, all the
family and the near friends of the deceased
were assembled in the room, while the
body was placed in the coffin. The coffin
is quite a large structure of white wood,
room being made in it for many things
beside the body itself. All the little things
MOURNING: CUSTOMS. 163
that the young girl had treasured in life
were laid with her in the coffin, and, in ad-
dition to these, many packages done up in
white paper, the contents of which I do not
know. Then the coffin was closed, not to
be opened again, amid the weeping of those
assembled for this last look at the face of
their loved one. I have asked about the
significance of this custom of burying
familiar objects with the body, and, appar-
ently, at present it is done with no refer-
ence to a future life of the spirit, but seems
to come from a feeling that the body itself
will sleep more peacefully with its treasures
about it. Perhaps it is something the
same feeling that we have when we do not
like to take a wedding-ring off from a dead
finger, and try to do with the deserted
body whatever the living friend would
have liked. It seems to me that it is
probably the survival of a custom beyond
the belief that prompted it, for so many
races bury things with their dead that it
is hoped will be of use in the future life,
and Shinto is so old and so vague, that this
custom may have originated in that way,
and then lost one meaning and gained
another in the course of ages.
164 A. J.1 PANIESE INTERIOR.
Wednesday, at one o’clock, the funeral
took place. I received a card announcing
the time, and etiquette required that I
should either attend the funeral myself,
send something to the house, or send some
one in my place. Miné and I each sent
flowers to the house, with men to carry
them in the procession to the grave.
Miné sent two huge bouquets of japonicas
and plum blossoms, each as large as a man
could carry, and I sent one. Each bouquet
was set in a stand of green bamboo, with
the name of the donor in large letters on
the stand, and carried by a white - robed
coolie with a queer, black cap on his head.
Mine went early, and attended the cere-
mony at the house, but advised me not to,
as they might not know what to do with a
foreigner, and I might find the ceremony
difficult to go through, as all who attend
are expected to do a certain amount of
bowing, both to the family and to the dead.
Accordingly, with some of the other mem-
bers of our household, I went to the house
and left my card, then we waited near by in
our kurumas until the procession started.
At its head rode one of the servants of the
family as marshal, then came a few police-
FUNERAL MUSIC. 165
men, next the flower-bearers marching two
by two, followed by the great white coffin
carried on poles on men's shoulders, then
the family and near friends in carriages,
and, last of all, a train of kurumas contain-
ing teachers, school-friends, and others.
The day was dismal and drizzling, the roads
were very muddy, and the ride to the cem-
etery was a long one. When we reached
it, we stopped in front of a chapel, before
which were drawn up two lines of Shintô
priests, dressed in stiff white silk robes and
wearing stiff black caps. They were pro-
ducing wild and dismal sounds from vari-
ous wind instruments and drums, – sounds
that, I should think, must have been ori-
ginally invented to take the place of the
wailing for the dead that we still find prac-
ticed among so many barbarous races.
We went first, not into the chapel, but
to a little house near by, where we sat
for a while, and tea was served before we
were summoned to the chapel. There are
several such houses about the chapel, and
this one had been set apart for the use of
the pupils and teachers of the Peeresses’
School. Here I had for the first time an
opportunity to notice that all of the girls
166 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
were in Japanese full dress, – a kimono
of Some plain colored crape, with the mon
or crest stamped on the back and sleeves
in white. With this costume two white
silk undergarments are worn, showing
along the edges of the dark kimono. It
seems that this dress is the correct thing
for funerals as well as for more cheerful
Social gatherings.
Soon we were summoned to the chapel,
where we found the family and near friends
already seated. The coffin occupied the
back of the room in the centre, and in front
of it a Shinto priest in white silk was read-
ing aloud from a scroll. He was kneeling,
and I supposed that it was a prayer, but
learned afterward that it was an account
of our little friend's short life. The school-
girls were much moved by it, and the scene
was most impressive. After the priest had
finished, the wild music began again, a
small stand was brought and placed in front
of the coffin, and another stand on which
were a quantity of green sprays, each tied
with a white paper streamer, was placed in
front of one of the priests. Then the girl's
elder brother, the one of the family nearest
to her in age, came forward, clothed in a
FUNERAL CER EMONIES. 167
white mourning garment and with straw
shoes on his feet. The priest handed him
a green spray, he placed it on the table in
front of the coffin, stepped back three paces,
and bowed low in a last farewell to his sis-
ter. After him came the other brothers
and sisters, dressed in white, the girls with
their hair flowing and tied just at the neck
with a white cord. After them the father
and mother, the near friends, and last of
all those less intimate, placed each a sin-
gle spray upon the coffin and bowed fare-
well. I went among the last, and bowed
my good-by to my little pupil just as I had
so often bowed to her in school. This was
the end of the ceremony, and we went back
to the house until the coffin had been car-
ried to the grave, and then came away.
The relatives and intimate friends followed
the coffin to the grave and saw it lowered.
The green sprays were placed upon it and a
tall wooden post set over it, to be replaced
at the end of a year by a stone. I was
curious to know why the elder brother was
the chief mourner when the child's par-
ents were living, and made inquiries on that
point. I was told that in Japan there is no
ceremonial mourning for those below one
168 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
sewele.
in rank, consequently parents never wear
mourning for a child, nor indeed is it com-
mon for the parents to even attend the
funeral, although in this instance they
broke through the custom and went. There
is no reason why the parents should not go
to a ball to-morrow, so far as the etiquette
of the country is concerned. Hence the
person in the family who is nearest of kin
and next below in rank to the deceased is
the chief mourner. He is the first to bow
before the coffin at the funeral, and walks
first in the funeral procession, and the pre-
scribed period of mourning is longer for
him than for any of the rest of the family.
I asked also about the significance of the
green sprays. They are for purification.
Death here, as among the Jews, carries
defilement, and the particular tree from
which the branches were taken is supposed
to be purifying in its touch. When the
funeral ceremony is over, as a last act all
who have attended it and so subjected
themselves to the defilement of death pu-
rify themselves before going back to the
world again; having done this, they bow
their farewell and leave the body, and the
branches are laid away with it in the grave.
YASAKU'S WEDDING. 169
March 29.
The excitements of the past week have
been an earthquake and a wedding. The
earthquake took place the night before last,
and is the third quite lively one that we
have had this winter. It is true that one
does become more afraid of earthquakes the
more one knows of them, and this last one
really frightened me a good deal, partly, I
think, because it occurred in the dead of
night, waking me out of a sound sleep, and
so taking me at a disadvantage. People
are beginning to feel as if these unusually
lively shakes might be premonitions of
something worse, although I should sup-
pose that Bandai San might be enough of
an explosion to let off steam for some time
to come.
I do not know exactly how far Yasaku's
matrimonial affairs had gone when I last
wrote about them, but I think he was just
looking about in a general way for a wife.
Since then his father and brother have been
down to spend the day with him twice, and
to them he confided the delicate task of
picking out for him a bride in Utsu-no-
miya, and bringing her down to Tökyö.
One day my maid-servant announced to
170 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
me that Yasaku's wife was coming to him
the next day, and we were all in quite a
flurry of excitement over the news. Ya-
saku himself had put down new mats in
his room, had purchased a complete set of
housekeeping things, and had even gone to
the length of pawning his summer clothes
for the sake of having some stylish cards
with his name on them in Japanese and
Roman letters, though of the latter alpha-
bet he is totally ignorant. The next day
was terribly rainy, but Yasaku was cheer-
ful and expectant. He expended about two
dollars in the purchase of a fine wedding
feast, and when evening came and no wife
had appeared, Yasaku began to feel rather
mad, especially as there would not be am-
other lucky day for the marriage within
ten days or a fortnight, and no Japanese
of his class would dare to be married on
any but a lucky day. When it finally be-
came evident that the bride was not Com-
ing, Yasaku wrote a letter to his relatives,
in which he said that if they really meant
to get him a wife, he wished they would
send her along without further delay, and
that if she failed to appear on the next
lucky day, he would not have her at all, but
A VISIT FROM THE BRIDE. 171
they could keep her in Utsu-no-miya, and
he would hunt up a wife for himself in
Tökyö. This scathing epistle apparently
had the desired effect, for last Monday, by
the first train, the bride and a number of
relatives came to town, and for two days I
saw nothing of Yasaku, as he was busy en-
tertaining the wedding party. Tuesday
morning, Miné and I each received a trib-
ute from the bride in the shape of a box
containing about fifteen nice fresh country
eggs, and Tuesday evening, O Kaio, my
maid, brought in the bride to pay her re-
spects to me. She was a fat, round-faced
country girl, and she came in looking very
much dazed and overawed. She had prob-
ably never been so near to a foreigner
before, and I am quite sure that my for-
eign parlor was as strange to her as it
would be to a South Sea Islander. She
plumped down on her knees before me, and
put her forehead on the carpet, and there
she remained until O Kaio got her up and
convoyed her out. She hardly dared look
at me at all, and was so visibly embarrassed
that I hardly dared look at her for fear she
would turn and flee. To-day, I went down
to the stable, ostensibly to see the horse,
172 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
but really to see the bride. On her own
ground her manners are pleasant and not
too awestricken, and the funny little three-
mat room with its miniature housekeeping
arrangements looked very clean and cheer-
ful. She will be in clover for a Japanese
wife among the lower classes, for she has
no mother-in-law to order her around, and
Yasaku is an extremely good-tempered fel-
low, not given to drink, and with a mag-
nificent income of ten yen a month. She
will have nothing to do except cook the
meals and take care of the clothes, so it is
a very good situation for her, though her
tenure of office cannot be considered cer-
tain.
Sunday, March 31.
I have been devoting most of my day to
answering in writing some puzzling ques-
tions on John’s Gospel, and cannot add
much more to this letter to-night. I have
asked the members of my Sunday-school
class to bring in questions in writing, as
they do not trust their English enough to
ask many in the class, and then I put the
answers in writing too, that they may study
them at their leisure. I enjoy it very much,
but it takes some time, and I have been
QUESTIONS ON JOHN. 173
three Sundays answering a list of twenty-
five questions that one boy brought in, for
many of them required quite long and full
answers. I think I shall be able to write
a commentary on John very soon, at this
rate; in fact, I feel as if I had written one
already.
Here are a few of the questions : —
“Why did Jesus call himself not the Son
of God, but the Son of Man 9 ''
“In John ii. 4, what is the general
meaning of Jesus' answer to his mother 9
This demeanor of our Lord is very dissim-
ilar to his usual meekness and patience.
Why he behaved thus in this case, and
once in verses 15, 16, St. Mark, chap. xi. ?”
“God is love, not anger. Nevertheless
it is recorded that ‘ the wrath of God abid-
eth on him.’ Is there no inconsistency 9 º'
These are only a few, but will give you
a fair idea of the thoughtful way in which
my boys are studying. It has increased my
own interest in the class very much to have
such questions handed im, but of course
the answering of them carefully and clearly
has required a great deal of thought and
time on my part, and my Sundays have been
pretty busy lately in consequence.
CHAPTER XI.
APRIL 6 to 14.
A Country Walk. — Feast of Dolls at a Daimiș's Ya-
shiki. — Picnic at Mito Yashiki. — A Day at the Thea-
tre. — Japanese Acting.
TöKyö, April 6, 1889.
OUR vacation began on Wednesday, and
in the morning Miné and I went out to
see Yuki at her country house, where she
was spending a day or two. She and her
husband with servants and children move
back and forth between city and country
houses in the most surprising and inde-
pendent manner. The house is entirely
finished now, though as yet only partly
furnished, and its master takes great de-
light in it, and spends all his holidays there
with his wife and children. He roams
about the place, overseeing the workmen
who are laying out the grounds, and Yuki
takes walks with the children, and enjoys
the freedom from the restraint that her
social position entails upon her in the city.
A COUNTRY }}''. LR. 175
When we reached the gate, we found her at
the head of a train of children and nurses,
just starting for a walk. A very pictur-
esque sight they were, Yuki so bright and
pretty in her soft - colored Japanese gar-
ments, and the five little ones, in their
many - hued, quaint, wide - sleeved robes,
dancing back and forth and around her
like so many butterflies. They were tum-
bling over each other and their mother
like five unruly puppies, and were enjoying
themselves in the most uproarious man-
ner. We found that they were on their
way down into the fields to gather a plant
that is used here to mix into a kind of
cake, so Miné and I joined the company
and wandered about, talking with Yuki
and watching the children, who were very
busy grubbing up all sorts of plants and
bringing them to their mother to pro-
nounce judgment upon. Böt’ chan had the
services of a policeman (his father’s body-
guard), who carried him over the ditches
and helped him to find the plants, while
the little girls were attended by their
nurses, so we had nothing to do but en-
joy ourselves, and a very pleasant time we
had.
176 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
Miné stayed to lunch, but as I was on
horseback, I was obliged to go home and
change my dress and come out again in
my kuruma, for we were going that after-
noon to see the feast of dolls at the house
of one of the Tokugawa daimiós. Miné
has an aunt who is one of the ladies-in-
waiting in the house, and through her
Miné secured permission to bring me to
see the ancestral dolls when the feast
came around to that house.
Most of Japan celebrated the feast a
month ago, but at this Tokugawa Yashiki
they are so conservative that they do not
keep the national feasts by the new calen-
dar, but begin their year just when the rest
of Japan would be beginning it now, if
Commodore Perry had never put them into
communication with the outside world ;
and their feasts come trailing along a month
or two after the same celebration in more
modernized houses. In this house, more
than in almost any other in Tökyū, one
finds the old-time etiquette kept up, and
so little have the recent changes affected
the lives of the dwellers within this quiet
place, that many of the ladies in the house
had probably never seen a foreigner in
A VISIT OF C E REMONY. 177
their lives until the day when I called
upon them. Miné gave me a little in-
struction in the art of getting down on
my knees and putting my forehead on the
floor, but the present style of American
dress makes it very hard to do the thing
gracefully, and my joints are a good deal
too stiff to allow me to be comfortable
during the process. However, I did it
after a fashion, and felt very much like
a fool in doing it, but it seemed necessary
for me to show my appreciation of the
kindness that had been shown me by be-
ing polite in some manner that my enter-
tainers could recognize. Our good man-
ners are so undemonstrative that only a
very much foreignized Japanese can dis-
cover that we have any at all, and the usual
result of an effort here in Japan to copy
foreign manners is a complete disregard
of all rules of politeness, whether Japan-
ese or foreign.
Well, to go back to our feast of dolls, —
after much groveling and doubling up to
the many waiting-women who came to the
door to receive us, we were ushered into
the room where the dolls were set out.
There were five or six red-covered shelves,
178 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
arranged like a flight of steps, running the
whole length of the long room, - about
twenty feet, I should think, - and these
were completely filled with the dolls and
their belongings, some of them hundreds
of years old. The dolls were, for the most
part, effigies of the Emperor and Em-
press, and the five court musicians, though
there were some of lower rank, but they
were not as interesting to me as the de-
lightful little dishes and utensils illustrat-
ing perfectly all the furnishings of Jap-
anese homes. Many of the things were
of solid silver, most delicately wrought ;
others were of beautiful lacquer, with the
Tokugawa crest upon them. There was a
lacquered morimono, such as great people
always used until the overthrow of the
shogunate and the introduction of the
foreign style of coach, and a lacquered
bullock-cart, the Emperor's private con-
veyance in early times. Such a collection
of toys would be a delightful thing to take
to America, for it is historical, and has
been making for hundreds of years, and
illustrates ancient as well as recent Jap-
anese life.
Before each Emperor and Empress was
THE FE, 1 ST OF DOLLS. 179
set a fine Japanese dinner on tiny lacquered
trays, with cups, bowls, chopsticks, and
plates, all complete, and each dish con-
taining its proper food. There was the
little sakê pot, filled with the sweet, white
sakó that is brewed especially for this
feast; there was the big rice bowl with
its spoon beside it, and everything ready
for their majesties to step down and eat.
The food is renewed three times a day for
three days, and then the feast of dolls is
over, and the dolls and their belongings
are carefully packed and put away in the
fireproof storehouses where all valuables
are kept.
When we had finished looking at the
dolls, and had partaken first of coffee and
them of tea, because we were afraid that it
would not be polite to refuse either bey-
erage, word was sent that the master and
mistress of the house would like to see us.
We were conducted to a waiting - room,
where fortunately there were chairs, so I
felt more at home than I had when sitting
on the floor, and there we waited for some
time. By Miné's advice I had brought
with me a present for the master of the
house, of American photographs, some of
180 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
them views of the city of Washington, and
others of Colorado scenery, and these we
had sent in upon our arrival. While we
were waiting for my lord and my lady to
appear, domestics served us with tea and
sushi or rice Sandwiches, and the year-old
baby was brought in and exhibited. At
last there was a rustle of silken garments
in the long corridor, and the daimió, a
young man of about twenty, in Japanese
costume, appeared, with his wife, an ex-
tremely pretty little girl, not quite sixteen
years old, who looked altogether too much
like a child to be the mother of the boun-
cing, red-cheeked baby that we had just
seen. She is, by the way, the younger
daughter of the last of the Shoguns. The
young man spoke a little English, and made
an effort at conversation. I do not try my
Japanese yet with great people, as I am
afraid that I shall not be polite enough,
though I can get along pretty well now
with servants and shop-keepers.
At last the daimio wished to know
whether I had brought my dog, and when
I said that he was without the honorable
gate, or rather when Miné had said it for
me, the party adjourned to the porch to
BRUCE AND THE PRINCESS. 181
watch him while I threw sticks for him
and made him beg for sponge cake. The
little wife was so pleased that she seized
the astonished Bruce about the neck and
embraced bim, entirely regardless of her
elegant crape dress, and then we went off,
Bruce trotting behind my kuruma, fairly
covered with glory. Miné's aunt had been
much pleased with Bruce when she saw
him go through his tricks in my parlor,
and I think I owe my invitation to visit at
that house to her glowing accounts of my
wonderful dog.
I was given, in return for my photo-
graphs, a baby doll creeping on all fours,
dressed in crape ; a black and white puppy
with raw-silk hair; a silk-covered box; and
a chopstick case of silk. The doll is an
uncommonly mice one, of Kyötö workman-
ship, and quite old. All the sushi that I
had been unable to eat were sent out to my
kuruma, neatly dome up in white paper.
April 14.
Yuki had been planning a picnic nearly
every day since our vacation began, but
whenever we had our arrangements all
made to go on a certain day it would rain,
182 A JAPANIESE IN TERIOR.
and force us to give it up. Monday was
my reception day, and I ought to have
stayed at home, but as it was pleasant at
last, we went on the long-postponed pic-
nic, and had a charming day in the gar-
dens of Mito Yashiki. These gardens are
the most beautiful in Tökyö, unless the
Emperor's own are better. They were
made in the feudal times by the Prince of
Mito, and the place is still called the Mito
Yashiki, though the old daimió mansion is
pulled down, and on its site stands a great
arsenal. The pile of brick buildings and
tall factory chimneys makes the street front
of this yashiki one of the most modernized
spots in all Tokyô, and though I have
passed the place a great many times, I
never suspected that behind all that brick
and mortar was hidden one of the loveliest
bits of Old Japan that remains in the city.
It requires a special permit from the Min-
ister of War to secure admission to the
garden, and only the favored few ever see
its beauties.
The garden is laid out in the Japanese
landscape style, which is so like mature that
it is difficult to believe that the wooded
hills, the lakes, and lawns, and running
MITO YASHIRI. 183
streams, have been put in place by human
hands. The garden is two hundred years
old, I am told, and the trees have grown
so large that the woods might be primeval
forest. Here and there, peeping out from
among the green shadows, are small tem-
ples, modeled after celebrated shrines in
China and Japan. By the little lake, and
almost overhanging it, there is a lovely
summer-house, built by the daimió for his
own use, but now modified for the plea-
sure parties that are invited here. There
is a dancing-room with a waxed hard-wood
floor, and a dining-room fitted up in for-
eign style with table and chairs, and with
glass instead of paper in the shöji or slid-
ing screens. We spent most of our time
on the veranda and on the smooth green
lawn in front of the summer-house, where
the children were playing and picking flow-
ers all day long. One beautiful flowering
cherry-tree trailed its drooping branches
almost to the grass, and the whole scene
— the children in their bright-colored flow-
ing robes, their hands full of flowers, the
men-servants and maid-servants following
them about, the green lawn, the blue wa-
ter, the background of hills and woods
184 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
with here and there a red-lacquered, heavy-
roofed temple peeping out — made a pic-
ture of all that is most attractive in this
Japanese life. It was perfect in its way.
We had a charming day, and were more
than ever glad that we went when we did,
as we awoke the next morning to find the
'ain coming down in torrents.
Wednesday we went to the theatre, a
party of five, – two foreign and three Jap-
anese ladies, – just the number to fill a
box. The play was a part of the story of
the forty-seven rönins, and was given at
the best theatre and by the best actors in
Tökyö. It is the most popular of all Jap-
anese plays, and we had a great deal of
trouble in securing a box, for there are
such crowds going every day that boxes
have to be engaged a long time beforehand.
I am told that whenever a theatrical man-
ager finds his audiences growing thin he
produces this play, and the people at once
flock to see it.
Instead of buying tickets at the theatre
itself, in this part of the world you have to
buy them at a tea-house; then when you
go, you visit the tea-house first, and there
leave your extra wraps and anything else
A DAY AT THE THEATRE. 185
that you do not care to take to the theatre.
Here, too, you partake of a cup of tea, and
are then escorted to the theatre and ush-
ered to your seat by one of the employees of
the tea-house. Then all day long the tea-
house men look after you, - bring you tea,
oranges, cake, and lunches of all descrip-
tions, escort you back to your room in the
tea-house between the acts, and care for
you in every possible or imaginable way.
We left home at about ten in the morning,
and reached home again at eight in the
evening ; so you see that theatre - going
here is quite an undertaking, and one not
to be entered upon lightly nor in term
time.
I shall not undertake to tell you much
about the play, for you can read the story
in Mitford’s “Tales of Old Japan,” or in
Greey’s “Loyal Römins.” I am not a dra-
matic critic, and my judgment of the act-
ing is not worth unuch, but I will try to
give you something of the impression that
the whole thing made upon me.
In the first place, the scenery and cos-
tumes were good, and carefully studied his-
torically, and carried the audience at once
out of the end of the nineteenth century
186 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
and back to the Japan of the Tokugawas.
The acting, so far as gestures and move-
ments of the face and body went, seemed to
me almost perfect. The voices were, to my
ear, strained and unnatural, but I cannot
judge very well about that, as I am not yet
sufficiently familiar with the Japanese voice
under stress of violent emotion, to know
how it ought to sound. The fact that all
the female parts are taken by men is a dis-
advantage so far as illusion is concerned,
for dress and act as they may, the hoarse
croak which is the conventional voice for
women on the Japanese stage is a draw-
back to one’s enjoyment of the feminine
acting.
At one side of the stage, hidden by a
screen, was a chorus with instruments of
music, who gave in a sort of chant the
thoughts of the principal performers at
times when our stage customs would intro-
duce a soliloquy, and the actor was thus left
with nothing to do but to look and act his
part. This chorus also introduced occa-
sional comments on the events of the play,
thus keeping the sympathies of the audi-
ence flowing in the right direction, and
making it quite plain who was to be pitied
and who blamed.
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[tº] totu quito quods oAbū You pluod I to
‘olus on ſub ut; I poo; St. A 5unou out, lullû,
'sanup Iſoul juout 1s.Ig put sluiduouſ)
Iſout) uſ souolo) stºw quil, Jooſqo out, lou?
-In) pluod Aoul Sulop Os Aq J “oo!A to out 1.10
Ato Ao 10 Auu on du So Mostuoul oxià put
“SøAſhula.I solatou u Ao Iſoul IIIM ‘suoyºtal
9I)souop Iſoul II* la AoS “Soſia Auſs Jo qs.IOAA
oul Opuſ so AIAA Toulº, Ilos pinous Aoû] put[]
qsn'ſ pub quji.I lounajohlt; ), opulu upolu A
pub ‘uoul u0Aos-Allo! asoul Jo aſ II uſ looſ
-qo ouo au) adua.Aol opbut quu) Anlu,\ol Jo
uoissed quuſ) alojaq pull I ubul Alluj olou
pub)s.topun on uujoq I ‘Āuld out) Jo Ssol
-50.1d oul polio]*AA I SW ‘ouop ovull pluoo
asſo Suſu, Kut, utúl pulu osautºduſ out, Jo
oAnoads.tod Lutout aul onuſ qujisuſ to]]oq
[bap hua.15 tº otu Ito A13 Stu alluou] out, ju
quads Kup quul ºutſ) [uſu! I ‘ološ aul Jo
ands up 5uſlsa.Ionuſ Klosuaultuſ ‘JavaMou
“Stºw Atºld ou.I. 'Iou utu or sII tºo.I put duo
paxillow KTInjo.Ito sou au, up ue A15 April
Ibug put “allyg.I-II]top ‘uor).Ioluoo luluosntu
‘pooq Jo Uthop Allsbuš Āto Ao (111A “astºs out
uodn poulojuad slopinul 99.lul pub sappoins
OAA] alo A olotl) St. ‘alsº quosold Imo Ins
04 K-103 004 alºng tº Suay JLos], Kuld au.L
18T '#9 NILOP (ISGINF cl P ſ”
188 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
foul with tobacco smoke and all manner of
evil smells, watching a play, the spirit of
which was so utterly foreign to my own
ideas of right and wrong, and been so
entirely carried away by the thing that I
forgot all the discomforts and was for
the time wholly in sympathy both with the
ends sought and the means used by the
conspirators. -
CHAPTER XII.
APRIL 19 TO MAY 2.
The Empress' Visit. — Presentation to the Empress. – A
Buddhist Funeral. — A Garden Party. — Questions on
John's Gospel.
TöKyö, April 19, 18S9.
I MUST write up the Empress’ visit
while it is fresh in my mind, so as to give
you as complete a picture as possible of
it, and then hereafter, when I write “the
Empress came to see us yesterday,” you
will know exactly what that means. Mrs.
Shimoda sent me word on Tuesday that
the Empress was coming on Thursday and
would visit my class, so I had time to find
out from Miné exactly what I was to do
and what I was not to do, and to work my-
self up into a fine state of excitement for
fear my bows would not be deep enough
or long enough to show proper honor to
an imperial visitor.
When we reached the selhool on Thurs-
day morning, we found that her Majesty's
190 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR,
baggage had already arrived, and as we
came up the staircase we caught glimpses
of beautiful lacquered things and gorgeous
silver smoking-sets, that were standing
at the head of the stairs waiting to be
carried into the Empress’ private apart-
ments. There was a look of preparation
about the place, and all the school at-
tendants were rushing around in great
excitement, apparently doing nothing but
talking, but perhaps really accomplishing
something. When we went to the teach-
ers’ room and looked out into the yard,
we found it full of blue-clad coolies, who
were resting in all stages of déshabille by
the litters and trucks on which they had
brought the “honorable baggage.” The
teachers were arrayed in their best clothes,
and while the ladies appeared quite calm,
the gentlemen were rushing about dis-
tractedly, with hair on end and collars and
neckties all awry.
Mrs. Shimoda was fairly in her element,
for she is thoroughly at home in court cer-
emonies of all kinds, and knows exactly
the right thing to do upon such occasions
as this. In the general excitement, the
bell-ringer forgot to ring the bell at the
PREP.A.R.4TION FOR THE EMPRESS. 191
right time, and school began nearly half
an hour late.
I learned after my arrival that I was
to have only one class during the morn-
ing, as the members of my two higher
classes had been set to work in the cook
ing department to show their skill by pre-
paring a dinner for the distinguished
guests. This change from our regular
programme left me with nothing to think
of but my lesson before the Empress; and
my dread of it, and especially of the ordeal
of greeting her properly, grew with the
thinking. I practiced up my bows with
Miné the last thing before she went to her
class, and then sat me down to wait with
my heart in my boots until the dreaded
moment should arrive. However, I was
not without distractions, for as I was sit-
ting by the window, I became suddenly
aware of four fine carriages occupying the
girls’ tennis ground, and began to think
that the Empress must have arrived with-
out my knowing it. I concluded, however,
at last that she would hardly have come in
a plain black carriage, as from my expe-
rience of their habits I had gained the
idea that the imperial family always went
192 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
about in red and gold coaches. That my
conclusions were correct was proved very
soon afterward by the arrival of a gorgeous
mounted official, who rode up to the front
door where a guard was stationed, said
something to him, and rode off again.
Soon the hall was lined with a double row
of ladies, for the first four carriages had
brought the Empress’ attendants, and they
were now in readiness to receive her.
The next arrival was a mounted soldier
carrying a small purple silk flag with a
gold chrysanthemum embroidered on it.
This was taken into the house. Then
came quite a cavalcade of soldiers carry-
ing red and white pennons, and last of all
the red and gold coach that I had been
expecting. A gentleman stepped forward
with a mat and laid it on the doorstep, the
ladies came out to the carriage, bowed very
low, and then formed a double line to the
door. Then the Empress alighted and
walked in between the ladies, followed by
her two companions who had come in the
carriage with her.
That was the last I saw of her for a while,
and I had to content myself with watching
the grooms, who were at work on the play-
AN EA CITING. MOMENT. 193
ground taking out the horses and washing
the red and gold coach. At last the clap-
per sounded, I seized my book, braced my-
self up, and went down to my class. The
girls were in a state of great excitement,
and at first I found it very hard to com-
mand their attention. There was a beau-
tiful lacquered chair standing close by my
desk, - black lacquer, with gold chrysan-
themums and a purple brocade seat. We
had just begun the lesson when there was
a rush along the hall and the recitation-
room door was flung wide open. The girls
rose in their places, and I turned toward
the door, expecting to see the Empress
standing there, but no one appeared but
a tousle-headed little secretary, who gazed
distractedly into the room, muttered in-
coherently, and then shut the door with a
bang. The girls dropped back into their
seats, my heart began to beat again, and
we went on with the lesson. All was going
well again when once more there was a
sound of hurrying feet, once more the
door was flung noisily open, and once more
the tousle-headed secretary looked wildly
in, talking vociferously the while to another
man whom he had in tow. Then he
194 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
slammed the door and rushed off again,
and my pupils and I had a good laugh to
work off our nervousness, for these pre-
liminary Scares had not done much toward
calming us.
At last there was a rustle of silken
skirts in the hall, and we knew that our
hour was come. The door opened, and
Mrs. Shimoda looked in. The girls rose,
and we all stood with down-dropped heads
until her Majesty appeared. Then we
bowed very low and very slowly, kept our
heads down until I thought I should suffo-
cate, and then lifted them slowly up again.
By this time the Empress was seated in
the lacquered chair, the girls could take
their seats again, and we could go on with
the lesson.
When I went into the class and saw the
excitement of the pupils, I thought that
if they were so nervous beforehand they
would make no kind of show when the
Empress should finally appear; but there is
where I did not fully understand my little
peeresses. From the moment there was
need for it they showed the most perfect
self-possession, and I have never had better
or less timid recitations in my life than
OUR IMPERIAL VISITOR. 195
those that they made in the Empress’
presence. Our visitor stayed for nearly
half an hour, listening most interestedly,
although she could not understand a word
that was said, and by the time she left the
room I had caught several good glimpses
of her, although, of course, I had no time
for staring, even if that had been the
proper thing for me to do. These glimpses
revealed a small, slender woman (though
that, of course, need hardly be said), rather
loaded down by her heavy dove-colored silk
dress and dove-colored Paris bonnet with
a white plume. Her face seemed to me
a sad one, with a patient look about it
that was pathetic. They say that she is a
very intellectual woman, and one of great
strength and beauty of character.
After every girl in the class had made a
recitation, Mrs. Shimoda went up to the
Empress and bowed, then our guest rose,
the class rose, and we all bowed, remaining
with our heads within about three feet of
the floor until her Majesty was well out
of the room. Then the ordeal was over,
or at least I thought it was, and I went
on with the recitation feeling quite light
hearted.
196 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
At last the clapper sounded, and I dis-
missed the class, and was very glad to go
upstairs to my desk and talk the whole
thing over with Miné, who, it seems, had
been sent for to explain in case the Em-
press should ask any questions, and had
been standing just outside of my door all
through the recitation hour. When I
looked out of the window, I found that the
grooms had finished washing the red and
gold carriage, and had covered it entirely
over with a green damask silk cover, deco-
rated with an enormous gold-embroidered
chrysanthemum. I had nothing at all to
do for the next hour but to read and con-
gratulate myself on being through with
the Empress for the day, but when that
period was over and Miné came back from
her class, the same breathless and wild-
haired little secretary who had bothered
me downstairs came in, and announced
that the Empress would receive the foreign
teachers as well as the head Japanese
teachers. Miné had barely time to tell us
what to do, as they were waiting for us
then, and we were obliged to hurry off very
little prepared for this new interview with
royalty. Miné told us to follow her to the
PRESENTATION TO THE EMPRESS, 197
door of the room so as to see exactly what
she did, though we must not go in until
our turn came, and then one at a time. As
I was following this suggestion and mov-
ing toward a position in front of the door,
I was seized and held by my old enemy,
the little secretary, who had evidently
taken the idea into his erratic little head
that unless physical force were applied to
restrain her, that outside barbarian would
rush right into the imperial presence; con-
sequently I did not reach the door at all
to see how Miné did the thing. She came
back, however, very soon, bearing a large
white paper bundle, and had just time to
tell me what to do when I should receive a
similar one before Mrs. Shimoda beckoned
to me, and it was my turn to go in. This
is the order of ceremonies through which
I had to go in paying my respects to the
Empress. Upon the threshold of the door
I bowed once, then walked straight ahead
until I was directly in front of the Empress,
who was sitting at the other end of the
room, at right angles to the door. Here
I turned to my right so as to face her,
stepped a step forward, and bowed. Then
a gentleman came up to me with a tray
198 A J.A.P.4 NESE INTERIOR.
on which was a large white paper bundle.
This I took, lifted up to my breast, put my
head down to it, bowed again, and backed
out, bowing once more at the door. In
handling the bundle, I had to take pains
to hold it high, as it is disrespectful to the
giver to hold a present any way but directly
in front of you and as high as possible.
The bundles contained pieces of beautiful
white silk, (twenty-five yards or thereabouts
in each piece), worth here about twenty
dollars or so, and at home possibly twice as
much, not reckoning any fancy value that
may attach to anything given by the Em-
press of Japan. In old times, such a gift
as that, carried into the country districts,
would have been worshiped as holy, and I
noticed that when I showed it to Yasaku
he took off his cap to it, and stood in a
most reverential attitude as he looked at
it. A few years ago, a garment made of
silk received from such a source would
have been thought to possess miraculous
Qualities.
The Empress spent the whole day at the
school, coming at nine and staying until
school was dismissed at three. At last,
when her Imperial Majesty had been es-
A BUDD HIST FUNERAL. 199
corted to her carriage and had driven
off with her horsemen and her footmen,
her banners, and her lords-in-waiting and
ladies-in-waiting, we picked up our books,
skipped into our kurumas, and rattled off
home, rather tired by such a long strain of
excitement and grandeur. I was very glad,
too, when I reached home, to order my
horse and have a good ride to limber me
up and make me feel myself once more a
free American woman after all my unaccus-
tomed bowing and cringing.
May 2.
I have just been to a Buddhist funeral,
that of the mother of one of my friends.
The ceremonies are much more compli-
cated than those of the Shintô, though
they were not, to my mind, so impressive:
I did not go to the house, as I had been
the day before and left my card, and I was
afraid that I might be in the way there,
but went straight to the cemetery, and
there with an American friend and a great
many Japanese awaited the arrival of the
funeral procession.
The day was terribly rainy, and the mud
was very deep, so that we had quite a dirty
200 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
walk from the house where we waited to
the little chapel where the funeral ceremo-
nies were conducted. The chapel is the
same one in which Shinto services were
held at the funeral that I have already
written you about. At this Buddhist
ceremony, the coffin was placed at the en-
trance instead of being at the back of the
room. The building was nearly filled with
people when we entered, but an usher,
when he learned our names, led us at once
to seats reserved for us.
The ceremony was a long one, performed
by a number of gorgeously attired priests.
There were candles burning before the cof.
fin, incense was burned, prayers were in-
toned, rosaries were rattled, and there was
a great deal of chanting by a chorus of
priests, as well as beating of drums and
blowing of wind instruments. A bell was
rung at intervals during the services, and
the effect of the whole ritual was Roman
Catholic. The priests themselves one could
have picked out as ecclesiastics anywhere,
by their faces. The ceremony ended as
the Shinto ceremony does, with an opportu-
mity for every one to go up and make a bow
before the coffin, only in this case each per-
COUNT ORIUMA'S PARTY. 201
son placed a grain of incense on the incense
burner before making the farewell bow,
instead of laying a green spray before the
coffin as in the Shinto ceremony. I hoped
that I might not have to do that, as I did
not know its significance, and was not sure
whether it was bowing down to strange
gods or not ; but when I found that I could
not get out of it without being rude and
possibly seeming to dishonor the dead, I
thought of what Elisha said to Naaman
about bowing down in the temple of Rim-
mon, and concluded that this was a similar
case; so when my turn came I went up,
offered my incense, and made my bow with
a clear conscience.
Saturday afternoon, there was a garden
party at Count Okuma's country place, to
which I went under the escort of American
friends. The garden is a lovely one. There
was a band hidden in one part of the
grounds, refreshment booths were every-
where, day fireworks constantly going up,
and a great many agreeable people wan-
dering about. We walked around in a
desultory fashion, stopping to talk when-
ever we met an acquaintance, and spent a
very pleasant afternoon.
202 A JAPANIESE INTERIOR.
My Sunday-school scholars continue to
send me in written questions, many of
them quite curious and rather puzzling. I
shall have written a complete compendium
of theology pretty soon, if they keep on.
Here are some recent ones: —
“I have learned only a little about the
devil, that is, the king of evils; it was an
angel, but by committing the sin of spirit
fell to the devil. A well-known Japanese
Buddhist says that he has investigated for
many years whence the devil came, but he
never found it. And this is the chief
point in which Japanese Buddhists argue
against Christianity and many of my best
friends offend. Teach me about the devil
as much as is in the Bible, and also the
references if you please.”
“M. Renan and the followers of critical
school says Jesus was born in Nazareth
not Bethlehem as the sacred writers af-
firms, but on the other hand the Evangel-
ists had ascribed his birthplace to the
small town of Bethlehem to make ancient
prophets may be fulfilled. In short, the
Evangelists deceive us in this matter, and
if we read John vii. verses 42, 52, we are
confirmed that the rulers of Jews and peo-
QUESTIONS ON JOHN. 203
ple was ignorant of Jesus birthplace which
is Bethlehem. They hold fast that Jesus
was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem.
Why? Are the people of Judea all igno-
rant of his exact birthplace P That is
rather improbable, at least it seems to me
so. If it was so, at least his parents know
it. Then why had not explained the fact
to the populace to clear the Christship of
Jesus 2 What was the case of the time P’’
CHAPTER, XIII.
MAY 8 TO JUNE 22.
Summer Weather. — A Matsuri. — Early School. —
Perry Expedition Reports. – Bible Class of School-
Girls. – Fighting Fleas. – Japanese Servants. – The
New School-Building. — The Peeresses' Literary So-
ciety. — A Speech by Mr. Knapp. — Scandal.
Tökyö, May 8, 1889.
THE summer is coming on, indeed is in
full blast so far as flowers are concerned,
but we still have many damp, cloudy days
and many cold, windy ones, and the air
does not feel very summery yet. It may
warm up to the white-dress season any
day, but to-day I am inclined to shiver, as
I sit writing in my winter clothes with no
fire. The azaleas are in full bloom now
and are lovely. The large ones of all col-
ors that we cultivate so carefully in hot-
houses at home are entirely hardy here,
and bloom in the greatest profusion. The
wistaria is in blossom too, and all Tökyô is
sweet with the fragrance of these two flow-
ers. The maple-trees have hung out their
A N E VENING: M.4 TSURI. 205
delicate red leaves, much redder than in
their autumn brilliance. They are of an
infinite variety of shapes and colors, some
delicate as fern leaves, others a perfect
star shape, and in every shade from pink,
through brilliant scarlet, to deepest copper
and maroon.
Last night a party of us went out for a
pleasure stroll, chaperoned by Mrs. Wata-
nabe, Miné’s sweet-faced little cousin, and
escorted by my faithful Cook San, bearing
a lantern. There was a great matsuri or
festival in progress not far from our house,
and we walked over there to mingle with
the holiday crowd and see the sights. Of
course we could not have dome such a thing
in any great American city on account of
the drunken men and the rowdies, but here
there are no disorderly persons upon such
occasions, so that a trip of this kind is per-
fectly safe, though not altogether conven-
tional. On both sides of the street that
runs by the temple where the festival is
held were little booths, their fronts lighted
by flaring kerosene torches. Some of the
booths contained trifles for sale, flowers,
candy, cakes, hairpins, wooden ware, gold-
fish, baskets, – anything and everything
206 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
that the festival-goers might like to take
home as gifts to their stay-at-home friends.
At one place two men were engaged in the
manufacture of candy, pulling it as we do
molasses candy, and working it into all
manner of shapes with great skill. We
stopped and watched them for a long time,
buying six cents’ worth of candy as a sort
of fee for the entertainment. Other booths
had curtains hung in front of them and
wonderful pictures of the shows to be seen
within. Outside of one or two stood a
mam, crying, or rather chanting, the various
excellences of his show, and whetting the
curiosity of the audience that he gathered
out of the crowd by lifting the curtain for
a second and then letting it fall again.
We went into two of the shows, paying
the admission fee of one sen for the sake
of seeing what lay behind the mystic cur-
tain. The first was a theatrical perform-
ance by monkeys, which to me seemed
really quite wonderful. The monkeys were
finely dressed in old - style Japanese cos-
tume, and they acted very well, - fight-
ing, weeping, rolling their eyes, trembling,
and displaying all sorts of human emotions
by gestures and facial expression. It is a
JUGGLERS’ SHOWS. 207
mystery to me how they can be taught to
do such things just at the proper moment
without any appreciation of the part they
are performing, but they did it in the most
surprisingly natural manner.
Our second entrance fee took us into a
juggler's booth, where an emaciated young
man in foreign dress was doing some exceed-
ingly transparent sleight - of-hand tricks,
and it was so stupid that we were afraid we
were not going to get our money’s worth
of amusement. However, when the young
man had finished, a girl came out in a long,
embroidered kimono, and in that cumber-
some but graceful dress performed very
cleverly upon the slack rope, so we felt that
our admission fee had not been wasted after
all. These were the only shows that we
entered, as the others seemed to be mon-
strosities or horrors of one sort or another
that we did not care to see. The signs
outside pictured men shaped like crabs,
women with necks so long that they could
sit still while their heads wandered all over
the house, ghosts, bogies, a series of pup-
pets representing the life and death of
Nishino, the murderer of Mr. Mori, and
various other penny-dreadful attractions.
208 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
On our way home we stopped at a flower
show, and bought a thriving rosebush in
full bloom for six sen, and two large, bloom-
ing pinks in pots for one sen each. While
we were making our purchases, the mother
of one of our little pupils met us, and in-
sisted that we must come into her house
near by and rest before going home. She
was so urgent that although it was after
nine o’clock, an unprecedentedly late hour
for visiting in Tökyö, we could not refuse,
but went in and stayed for about half an
hour, drinking tea, eating cake, and con-
versing in Japanese. The house was a
charming one, in the daintiest Japanese
style, and the host and hostess courteous
and delightful.
After this week our school is to begin at
half past seven, instead of at half past
eight as it has done all winter. I do not
enjoy rising at six as I must hereafter,
but it will nevertheless be a convenient
arrangement for me for one reason, – my
day’s work will be over by half past ten,
leaving me still a long day ahead for any-
thing I may wish to do with it.
PERRY'S REPORTS. 209
May 25.
I have been very much interested lately
in reading the official reports of the Perry
expedition to Japan. The books were given
me before I left America, but I did not find
them as interesting as I do now that I know
the country and the people from actual
study of them on their own ground. One
part of the interest to me lies in the fact
that many of the names mentioned in the
Perry reports as names of high officials
with whom the American ambassadors had
to do are the names of the fathers and
grandfathers of my pupils.
I am trying now to start a little Bible
class among our school-girls, which will
meet at my house on Sunday afternoons,
simply to read and talk over the Bible in
English. There seems at present a pretty
good opening for it, as my class at Mr. Ko-
zaki's meets in the morning, and I shall
have plenty of time for the other in the
afternoon. I invited two of the girls to
come last Sunday, and find that they cau
understand the simple lºnglish of Matthew
and Luke quite easily, although of course
there are a good many words that are
new to them. These girls of ours are very
210 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
sweet and pure and kind, but they seem
to me to have very little that is high or
ennobling to occupy their thoughts or to
strive after in their lives, and I am sure
that the opening of Christian truth to their
minds will be a great help to them, filling
a place that is now entirely empty, or per-
haps I might better say, expanding the
soul in a direction where it is now shut in
and cramped. I do hope that I can inter-
est them in the study of the Bible so that
they will go on and learn more, for there
are opportunities enough in Tökyô now for
the study, if I can only get them up to the
point where they care about it.
June 2.
Our warm weather has come at last. It
began with the month, and to-day I am
wearing my thinnest white dress, and feel-
ing hot in that. One of the evils of a Jap-
anese summer has already begun, in the
shape of an army of fleas, whose ancestors
have been living for generations in the
thick Japanese mats that cover my bed-
room floor. To-day I have concluded that
either I or the fleas must move, So my
three servants are at work in the room
JAPAN ESE SERVANTS. 211
overhead, as I write, trying to make things
disagreeable for the enemy. They have
carried all the mats out of doors, and are
now engaged in a vigorous sweeping of the
room with insect powder. Occasionally I
hear a shout from Yasaku as the enemy
make a particularly bold stand for their
homes, or a stampede on the part of O Kaio
as she retreats before the hopping legions.
As for myself, after showing my servants
how to use the powder, I fled for fear I
should be fatally wounded, but not without
carrying a number of the enemy away with
me. Bruce is also wrestling with several
that even a profuse powdering and brush-
ing could not dislodge from his long hair.
I made some visits yesterday in Tsukiji,
and among others called upon a recent ar-
rival in Japan, who is now going through
her first amusing and often trying experi-
ences with Japanese servants. She is, I
should intagine, a notable housewife, who
has been accustomed to making her China-
men in San Francisco carry out her orders
after the strictest fashion, but unless her
servants are very different from the ordi-
mary Japanese, she will be doomed to dis-
appointment if she tries to make them do
212 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
exactly what she tells them, in the way she
tells them. The Japanese servant gener-
ally does, not what you tell him to, but
what he thinks is for your highest good, a
characteristic that is quite exasperating at
first ; but when you have found out by re-
peated experiments that your servants are
usually right and you are usually wrong,
you come to submit most meekly to their
arrangements, though not without occa-
sional yearnings to be once more in a coun-
try where you are competent to conduct
your own affairs.
There is an element of uncertainty about
all things here below, but that uncertainty
seems greater in Japan than elsewhere. I
am more and more convinced of the advan-
tages of democracy, as I see the workings
of an aristocratic form of government. I
do not think I have written you that a
beautiful new brick building has been in
process of construction for some time past,
to be occupied, as soon as finished, by our
school. It is quite near here, and Miné
and I have watched its growth all winter
with great interest, as we thought how
pleasant and comfortable the new building
would seem after the ramshackle old one
MOVING THE SCHOOL. 213
that we now occupy. It is all finished now,
and workmen are engaged in laying out
the grounds, and in taking up the trees
and shrubs from our present school-yard
to plant them in the new place; for here in
Japan, when you move, you carry with you
not only your furniture, but your garden as
well, shade trees, turf, and all. For months
the school authorities have been busy choos-
ing carpets, curtains, and furniture, and the
plan was, after the examinations were over,
for us to move into the new building for
our graduating exercises. We were to have
a fine time, and the Empress was to make
us a speech in person. Such were our
hopes and expectations, but at present they
seem likely to suffer an untimely blight.
There is another school beside our own
under the management of the Imperial
Household. It is a school for boys, corre-
sponding in rank with that of our girls, and
is called the Peers’ School. Last fall it was
moved into the buildings of the old Engi-
neering College, and because they were so
fine and large a new building was planned
for us, that we might be equally well housed.
Now, just as our new school-house is fin-
isled, the authorities of the boys’ school
214 A. J.1 PAN ESE INTERIOR.
discover that their accommodations are too
large, and send in a petition to the Impe-
rial Household Department requesting to
be removed to our new building. Of course
when I heard of it I simply smiled at the
audacity of such a demand, and inquired
why they should trouble themselves to make
so useless and ridiculous a request, but I
am assured that this is no laughing matter,
and that there is quite a strong probability
that the request will be granted, especially
as it is a question of girls' rights against
boys' wishes. I am fairly boiling over with
wrath, but the worst of it is that there
is nothing to do but boil, for our school
authorities are as utterly powerless to do
anything in the matter as they would be
to avert a typhoon or an earthquake that
threatened to destroy the building. They
cannot even say anything, or write up their
wrongs for the newspapers and get public
sympathy on their side; they must just
smile and submit, and thank the Peers for
leaving them the old building instead of
trying to grab that too. I am quite curi-
ous to see how it will be decided, for I can-
not believe that the government will do
such a mean thing as take away the build-
ing from us.
A GIRLS" LITERARY SOCIETY. 215
June 13.
The excitement over the new building
increases daily. The teachers talk of re-
signing in a body, should the building be
handed over to the boys, and all who have
influence of any kind in any high quarter
are using it to turn the scale if possible in
our direction.
On Saturday afternoon, the girls had the
monthly meeting of their literary society,
and as it was their last meeting for the
year, and there were to be a number of
English recitations and readings, I was
urgently requested to be present. This
society is quite a different thing from the
English society that I have mentioned as
meeting at my house, and its monthly pro-
gramme includes literary exercises of all
kinds in Japanese, Chinese, and English.
I think that it counts in its membership
most of the girls in the school, except the
very smallest. The girls run it entirely by
themselves, and do very well, if I can judge
from my one experience of it. But it was
not the society in general, but one oc-
currence at this meeting, that I wanted to
tell you about. As the exercises went on,
I noticed that one of our higher-class girls,
216 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
an extremely interesting girl and a favorite
pupil of mine, was looking rather flushed
and excited. At last, when her turn came,
she rose and began to read something that I
supposed to be a poem, from its rhythmic
form. As she read, the faces of her lis-
teners grew more and more serious, the
reader’s voice began to break and quaver,
and one by one the heads of the audience
drooped, and handkerchiefs were applied to
the eyes. Two or three times the reader
had to stop altogether, but each time she
controlled herself and went on. When she
finished and took her seat, every girl and
every Japanese teacher in the room was
weeping, not quietly and decorously, but
passionately, as if under the first sting of
some great sorrow, while the reader her-
self was sobbing as if her heart would
break.
Of course, as I could not understand
the poem, I was very anxious to know what
this tragic thing was that had caused
such grief, but when Miné told me, I was
not altogether surprised.
It seems that early in the winter this
girl had lost a very dear grandmother, who
had been to her all her life not only grand-
A HARD CONFESSION. 217
mother, but mother and friend as well. I
imagine that in a somewhat unhappy home
she was the one person whom the poor girl
really loved and who really loved her. Since
her grandmother's death, the child had
been much worried by the thought that
she had often been cross and undutiful, and
had not repaid the care and love that her
grandmother had lavished upon her. This
thought had troubled her so that she re-
solved to do penance by confessing all
her shortcomings to her assembled school-
mates, and exhorting them to avoid her
errors, and to be always kind and gentle to
their dear ones, as the time might soon
come when they could never make amends
for a hasty word or an undutiful act.
This she did, first writing out her con-
fession in the classical Chinese style, and
having it corrected by the Chinese teacher,
and then reading it to the girls, with the
effect described. It seems to me a most
uncommon display of force and courage for
a girl of fifteen.
I inclose a clipping from a recent speech
of Mr. Knapp, the Unitarian missionary
out here, in which he states his mission to
Japan more clearly than I have ever known
218 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
him to state it before. So far as I can
make out from his speech, he is here to
help the Japanese make a new religion
rather than to preach anything as old-
fashioned as Christianity. You can, how-
ever, judge for yourselves. Here are his
Own words : —
Sent as I am to your country, not as a mis-
sionary but as an ambassador of religion, to see
whether the liberal religious sentiment of Amer-
ica can be of any help to you in solving the
religious problem of your future, I have no sym-
pathy with those who are seeking to engraft bod-
ily upon your national life a foreign religion.
There are, to be sure, many features in that reli-
gion which are true and good, and which may
be of great help to you. There are none of the
great religions of the world which do not contain
a great deal of truth; they could not have lived
so long and so vitally unless they had been founded
upon truth. Of course, then, with your well-
known and generous hospitality, you are ever
ready to receive from foreign sources whatever
commends itself to you as true and good in the
world of religious thought. But as Japanese you
also have a religious past, and it is upon that,
whatever help you may receive from foreign
sources, – it is upon that that you will build the
fabric of your future religion. And it is not a
THE UNIT, ARIAN MISSION. 219
religious past of which you need be ashamed, if
we are to judge of it by its fruits. You have in
it many elements of solidity upon which you may
build. In the refined sense of honor which char-
acterizes your samurai class, in the thoughtful-
ness and kindliness which you show to each other,
in your care for the rights of the poor, and above
all in your sentiment and practice of filial rever-
ence, all of which characteristics are rooted in
your past, you furnish a type of morality in many
respects far superior to that of the Western world,
and if you build your future religion upon that,
it will be a religion of which you need never be
ashamed. And if in building up such a religion,
the liberal religious sentiment of America can
aid you, you can rely upon its earnest and bro-
therly help. For this is the message which I am
commissioned to bring to you, - the message not
of conversion but of affiliation.
I wonder how much of a church the
apostles would have founded if, instead of
preaching against the prejudices and pref-
erences of their audiences, they had gone
about saying, “We don’t want you to
change your religion, to give up your old
customs, to follow Christ, but we would
like you to listen to what we have to say,
and then choose from your stock of ideas
those that are best suited to your national
220 A JAP, 1 NESE IN TERIOR.
prejudices. Anything you don’t like, you
can leave.” &
I am afraid the Greeks would have been
even less moved than they were, if Paul
had preached to them that way on Mars’
Hill; and even those who might have fol.
lowed him and added some ideas from his
stock to their already heterogeneous assort-
ment would have gained nothing but a
new philosophy, with high moral ideas,
doubtless, but with no inspiration or power
over the life. All Japan to-day is picking
and choosing, seeing and hearing, some new
thing; and a thing is interesting because
it is new ; and when it is a year or two old
is thrown aside for something newer, and
therefore more interesting. What is wanted
is not men’s assent to new ideas, – there
is plenty of that already, - but a working
of those ideas into the heart and life of
the people, and an upbuilding of character
thereby.
June 22.
You probably know that Tökyô is a ter-
rible place for malicious scandal. One of
the regular ways here of attacking any
person or any object that is disliked by any
one for any reason is by means of scan-
SCANDAL IN TOKYO. 221
dalous stories, made up on a foundation of
truth, or cunningly fitted in with some well-
known facts that will give it an air of truth
to people who accept and circulate evil re-
ports without investigation. An example
of this nasty practice has just come up in
the shape of an attack on one of the finest
girls’ schools in the city, -an attack that
has been so successful that they say that
there is not a single application for admis-
sion to the school this summer where there
were hundreds last year at this time. The
school is the Koto Jo Gakko, where the
Misses Prince teach, with whom I stayed
when I first came to Tökyö. The attack
began in a low paper that makes its living
by publishing lies of just the kind that
were told about the school and its teachers.
The stories once started, other low papers
took them up, and added to them until
they became big enough, and began to look
enough like truth, for the more respectable
papers to comment on them. Soon the
scandal was in the mouths of all Tôkyô.
When the school gates were opened in the
morning, scurrilous placards were found
posted upon them, and as the girls went to
school they were insulted by school-boys
222 A. J.1 PAN ESE IN TERIOR.
and students on the street, and all this be-
cause of stories which had no foundation,
except that one of the teachers had once
delivered before the girls a rather foolish
and ill – advised lecture on the choice of
husbands, in which he had viewed mar-
riage from the somewhat sentimental stand-
point of Europe and America, instead of
taking the purely business view of it com-
mon in Japan. The teacher has been
turned off, and possibly the president of the
school may be also, as a sacrifice to the
public feeling that has been aroused about
the matter, and to save the school itself
from complete collapse. That this was in-
tended for an attack not simply on the one
school, but on female education in general,
seems likely from the fact that these same
low papers are now busying themselves
with some of the more important of the
missionary schools for girls, though as yet
they have dome them no harm. Our turn
may come next, but our school is run on
such conservative principles that there is
less danger.
CHAPTER, XIV.
JUNE 29 TO JULY 24.
School-Building Trouble settled. — A Japanese Baby. —
Shopping. — Japanese Taste. — Facts and Theories. –
Calls from Drs. Brooks and McVickar. — Packing
in Wet Weather. — Farewell Presents. – Graduating
Exercises. – Near View of the Empress. – Correcting
Proof under Difficulties.
TöKYö, June 29, 1889.
THE trouble about the school-building is
at last ended, and our school is to have its
own building after all. So now the work
of moving is going on merrily, and we hope
to have a fine time on the 18th, when the
Empress will come and make us a speech,
a thing she has never done but once before
in the annals of the school.
I have been much interested in watching
the first few weeks of the life of a Japan-
ese baby, and think that in many respects
babies here have an easier time than our
American infants at that early age. In
the first place, the Japanese baby’s dress,
though not so pretty as ours, is much more
224 A JAP, IN ESE INTERIOR.
sensible in many ways. It consists, at this
season, of a thin, loose, cotton undergar-
ment, with no buttons or pins anywhere
about it, and a flannel over-garment made
exactly like a grown-up kimono, but tied
about the waist with a flannel belt; this
kimono is not only long enough to cover
the feet, but the sleeves completely cover
the hands as well, keeping them from
scratching the face, and also keeping them
out of the mouth. The poor little weak
thing does not have to go through the
complicated process of dressing which
causes our babies such trials and shrieks
every day, but the whole costume can be
put on in one minute, and the baby never
worry a bit over buttons, sleeves, pins, and
strings, as one loose string tied around the
waist is all the fastening required. I am
sure that if I had a weakly baby to care for,
I should put it into Japanese clothes for
the sake of saving the daily physical fatigue
and nervous strain of our manner of dress-
ing it. -
But the dress is not the only thing I ad-
mire in the manner of treating Japanese
babies. Here, nobody ever makes a noise
at a baby, or jiggles or shakes it, to stop
A JAPAN ESE BABY. 225
its crying. If it cries and cannot be
stopped by quiet and gentle means, it is
not yelled at or trotted, but just goes on
crying until it stops of its own accord,
which it pretty soon does. Though my
close observation extends to only one baby,
I believe from what I have seen outside
that this is true in regard to Japanese ba-
bies in general. When they grow a little
older, they are fully as bright and active
and wide-awake as our children, so I do not
think that the quiet in which they are kept
at first has any effect except to make them
less nervous and irritable than American
babies.
July S.
All good Americans celebrated the
Fourth by going to the American Minis-
ter's ball. I went with the others from a
sense of duty, but hardly find myself in my
element when I am in a ball-room.
Miné and I have spent a good deal of
our time lately in shopping, and find the
stores very attractive just now. This is
the time of year when presents are given
as at New Year's, and consequently the
stores are as gay with summer things as
they were in December with winter attrac-
226 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
tions. There is a great festival that be-
gins on the 10th of this month and lasts
for three days, when all the spirits of the
dead are supposed to come back and walk
the earth, and on those three days presents
are exchanged. The printed cottons in
the stores now are lovely, and I feel tempted
to spend all my money in their purchase,
for they would be extremely pretty for dec-
orative purposes at home, even where the
patterns are too large and queer for our
style of dress. I cannot see exactly why
the Japanese keep on making the cheap-
est things so pretty, for many of them are
never chosen at all for their beauty, but
simply considered for their quality. For
instance, there is a kind of blue and white
cotton toweling, very coarse, that comes at
from one to five cents a yard, that is used
by all the coolies and jinrikisha men, and
never regarded as pretty or decorative in
any way; but still it comes in the loveliest
designs, and when freed from its associa-
tions with coolies might be used for almost
any purpose of house decoration. Now
the question that occurs to my mind is
this: Why do the manufacturers keep on
making these towels in such a beautiful
THE INSTINCT OF B E A UTY. 227
variety of designs, when the purchasers
care not at all whether the towels are
pretty or not P I have puzzled over this a
good deal, and the only answer I can find is
this: The instinct of beauty is so strong
in the Japanese artisan that things come
from his hands beautiful, whether he makes
anything pecuniarily by it or not. He can-
not help decorating, even when no one no-
tices or cares for his work. It is the same
way with the earthenware; everything,
from the coarsest and cheapest up to the
finest and most delicate, is decorated in
some way, and the china stores which con-
tain nothing but the cheapest earthenware
used by the commonest of the people are one
blaze of beauty in color, form, and decora-
tion. I cannot get at the bottom of the
whole thing, or find out how much this in-
stinct of beauty is the cause, and how much
the effect, of the gentleness and attractive-
mess of the common people here, but certain
it is, that in this country there is no need
of the various missions (flower missions
and the like) which have been started in
England and America to cultivate the aes-
thetic sense of the poor in the great cities;
for here every poor man’s table service is
228 A J.1 PAN ESE INTERIOR.
dainty and delicate in the highest degree;
even the towel he wipes his face on is
pretty enough for an afternoon-tea cloth;
his clothes are graceful, artistic, and com-
fortable; though on a smaller scale, his
house is hardly more simple in furnish-
ings, woodwork, etc., than that of the dai-
mió himself, and as he sits at his work he
usually has somewhere about the room a
vase of beautifully arranged flowers. One
of our workmen would starve on what sup-
ports him and his family, and yet the Jap-
anese laborer has his a sthetic nature fully
developed, and its gratification within his
reach at all times. With him “the life is
more than meat,” it is beauty as well, and
this love of beauty has upon him such a
civilizing effect that some people are led
to think that the lower classes in Japan
do not need Christianity. But when one
comes to study them, they are not more
moral than our lower classes; they are not
as moral; they are only more gentle, more
contented, more civilized I should say, ex-
cept that the word “civilization * is so
difficult to define and to understand, that I
do not know what it means now as well as
I did when I left home.
FA CTS AND THEORIES. 229
But this rambling disquisition on the
lower classes of Japan grew out of my re-
searches among the blue towels, and may
not be as interesting to you to read as
it has been to me to write, for I have just
been clarifying my own thoughts by writ-
ing them down, and you will get, not the
finished thought, but simply the boiling
over of the kettle in the process of cook-
ing. I suppose that is really all that let-
ters can be, and I am painfully conscious
that my letters have had very much of that
character on account of my habit of gener-
alizing from a few facts. Please do not
believe all my theories, though I think you
can trust my facts, for I have never writ-
ten you anything of that kind that I did
not know either at first hand or on good
authority. My theories are, I believe, dis-
tinctly labeled as theories.
July 17.
My days this week have been enlivened
by calls from Dr. Phillips Brooks and Dr.
McVickar, who are over here for the
summer, and brought me a letter of in-
troduction. At their first call they stayed
only a few minutes, so few that I had not
230 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
time to collect my wits and think of any-
thing interesting to invite them to, for it
took me a good part of their call to get
over the fear lest they should bump their
heads against the ceiling. After living
for a year among Japanese, all foreign
men seem enormous to me, so you may
imagine the effect of those two particu-
larly large men in my little parlor with
its low doorway. After they were gone I
thought of Mito Yashiki, and obtained per-
mission from the War Department to in-
vite them to go there, sending a note to
their lodgings the next morning. Unfor-
tunately, they were out, and I received no
answer from them all day. At last, in the
evening, as Miné and I were sitting in my
parlor, both in Japanese dress, – for I
often wear it these warm evenings, it is so
comfortable and restful, - we were startled
by a cry of “O Kyaku Sama” (“Honora-
ble guests”) from O Kaio as she hurried to
open the front door, and there were the two
reverend gentlemen, come to bring their
answer in person. In this part of the
world an evening call is most unusual, so
that it was a pleasant and American ex-
citement to have them walk in on us just
ACQUAINTANCES IN TOKYO. 231
as if we were all in America. They could
not go with us to the Mito gardens, as they
had already filled their time in the city with
engagements, but their visit was delight-
ful, for they are the first foreigners I have
met since I came to Tökyô whom I associ-
ate in any way with my American life and
belongings. It is rather a curious expe-
rience for me out here, that in my associ-
ations with those about me I am “neither
fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.” I
am too Japanese for the foreigners, and too
foreign for the Japanese, too worldly for
the missionaries, and not worldly enough
for the rest of the foreign colony; and so,
with the exception of my intimate Japan-
ese friends, there is no one in Tökyū who
does not seem to regard me as rather out
of their line. In many ways I have found
Mr. Knapp among the most congenial of
my American acquaintances, although my
ideas differ widely from his on many sub-
jects.
July 21.
The weather here in Japan is an im-
portant factor in one’s packing, particularly
when the things are to be stored all sum-
mer in this damp climate. If the day is
232 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
rainy everything is damp, and if the things
are packed away damp they mould and
spot, so in packing one must have sunshiny
weather to do it successfully. As yester-
day was not bright enough for me to do
much, and to-day it is pouring, I am likely
to get into quite a hurry when it finally
clears, as I hope it will soon.
The children forming one of my classes
at School have just been in to bid me good-
by and bring me some farewell presents.
They are two dolls, representations of the
Emperor and Empress, such as are used at
the feast of dolls, and various doll furnish-
ings, musical instruments, ceremonial tea-
set, bureau, lunch-boxes, etc. A few days
ago, another class gave me a beautiful doll
dressed in the full costume of a little girl
of twelve. The girls had heard me say
that I was very much interested in Japan-
ese toys, and had tried to find me pretty
ones to take home with me.
Our graduating exercises took place on
Thursday, and my special part of the per-
formance, an English speech by one of the
graduating class, was regarded as quite
a credit to the English department. We
were summoned to school at eight o'clock,
PRESENTATION TO THE EMPRESS. 233
but as the Empress did not leave the pal-
ace until nine, we had some time to wait
before anything could begin. At last we
were all sent out into the front yard and
arranged in line, and we were hardly set-
tled in our places when the imperial car-
riage drove up, and over we all went in our
deepest bow until her Majesty was safely
in the house. Then we went in, and word
was sent that the Empress would receive
the teachers at once, so we hurried up-
stairs and stood in line outside the door in
the order of our rank, until our turns came
to go in, make our three bows, and back
out again. I had hoped to do better with
my bows than the first time I was pre-
sented, but as I did not know whereabouts
in the room the Empress was sitting, and
as it would not have been polite for me
to look for myself like a reasonable being,
I found myself bowing gravely to the wall,
and should have continued to waste my rev-
erence upon that unresponsive object, had
I not been rescued from my absurd position
by one of her Majesty's chamberlains, who
waved me about until I faced in the right
direction. When this ordeal was over, we
went into the assembly-room, and after the
234 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
audience was seated word was sent to the
Empress, and she came out from her private
room. As she reached the door, a chord
was struck on the piano, and we all rose; a
second chord, and we bowed and remained
with heads down until the Empress had
walked the whole length of the room,
mounted the platform, and spoken the few
words by which she formally opened the
new building. Then she took her seat in
the great black and gold lacquered chair
that stood on the dais, the piano sounded
again, and we raised our heads once more
and took our seats. After this the Pres-
ident of the school came forward, and with
many bows and much sucking in of the
breath made a speech, in which he thanked
the Empress in behalf of the school and
its officers. Another of the school’s officers
followed him with a longer speech, the drift
of which I have not yet discovered. Then
came the giving of the diplomas, which
were not at all like the sheepskins of
our native land, but dainty little Japanese
scrolls on rollers, with brown and gold
brocade mountings. Each girl of the grad-
uating class received hers in person from
the President, and had to rise in her place,
CLOSING! EXERCISES, 235
walk out directly in front of the Empress
and bow to her, go to the President and
bow to him, receive her roll and bow again,
then go sideways until she was in front of
the Empress again, bow once more, and
back down to her seat. All this bowing
had been carefully practiced beforehand,
so the girls did it very well and made
no mistakes. In the Japanese schools,
every pupil promoted into a higher class
receives a certificate to that effect, and
these are all given by the President at the
closing exercises. The classes did not go
up to receive these certificates, but the
head girl of each class took them from the
President for the whole class. As there
are twelve classes in the school, and each of
the twelve head girls was obliged to make
four bows, even this labor-saving arrange-
ment involved a good deal of bowing be-
fore all were through. After the diplomas
and certificates had all been given, the
members of the graduating class made
their little speeches, two in Japanese, one
in French, and one in English. From
my point of view the English was, of
course, the most intelligible, and therefore
the most interesting. Then there were
236 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
more speeches and a distribution of prizes,
which involved additional bowing, so that
by the time the exercises were over my
back fairly ached from sympathy. These
exercises were interspersed with music, -
singing by the school and piano-playing by
the girls. The Court band was stationed
out of doors under the window, and played
when the Empress came in and when she
went out, as well as while the diplomas
were being given. The first song sung
was the one written for the school by the
Empress herself. While this was being
sung, the audience stood with bowed heads
as if in prayer.
I had a better opportunity to see the
Empress than I have ever had before, as
she sat within a short distance of me for
two hours or more. She was dressed en-
tirely in white, and looked very well, her
white bonnet setting off to advantage her
jet black hair. Her face is long and thin,
her forehead high, and her head finely
formed. Her expression is sad, and she
looks as if these pomps and ceremonies
were rather a bore to her. She seemed to
take great interest in all the performances
of the pupils, whether musical or literary :
AN IMPERIAL LUNCH. 237
more, I thought, than in the speeches
of the heads of the school. Somehow I
always feel sorry for her, and I think she
would be sorry for herself, if she knew
how much more fun it is to be a Yankee
school-ma’am than an empress.
After the exercises were over, the Em-
press went out, accompanied by the obei-
sances of the audience, and we hurried
out to the front door, reaching there just
in time to bow to her as she got into her
carriage. Then there was a lull in the
progress of affairs while the guests looked
over the building. At last lunch was an-
nounced, and we went upstairs to one of
the large recitation-rooms, in which a fine
foreign lunch sent from the court was served
on the Imperial Household’s own private
dishes. It was a very good lunch, and the
dishes were so pretty that it was a pleasure
to eat from them. There was a certain
feeling of grandeur, too, in using knives
and plates decorated with the Emperor’s
own private crest, — not the chrysanthe-
mum which stands for the government, but
the blossoms and leaves of the kiri-tree,
(paullownia imperialis), which is the sign
of the imperial family, and is put on the
Emperor's private property.
238 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
An unpleasant sequel to our graduating
exercises was that this morning I was
aroused from a sound sleep at half past
five to correct the proof of the English
speech, which was to be printed with the
other speeches. I did as well as I could
with my eyes half open, and in the dazed
condition of one suddenly awakened, but
the proof came back again this moon, with
word that the printing-office did not un-
derstand my corrections. Upon investiga-
tion I found that no one in the office knew
a word of English, or the signs used in
proof-correcting. So Miné and I went
over the whole thing again, then Miné
explained the corrections in Japanese to
the messenger, who went on his way re-
joicing.
Wednesday, July 24.
I sail for Kiótö on Friday, and feel that
my Tökyô life is ended, for my house will
be closed, my things packed away, and I a
wanderer on the face of the country until
I sail for America in September.
CHAPTER XV.
HIYEI ZAN, JULY 31, To NUMADZU, AUGUST 28.
View from Hiyéi Zan. — The Mission Camp. — Last
Days in Tökyö. — Voyage to Kobé, - From Kobé
to Hiyéi. — Historical Interest of Hiyéi. — Pleasant
Weather and Walks. – A Young Buddhist. — Some
Effects of the Summer Camp. — Benkei's Relics. –
The “Hiyéi Zan Hornet.” — Shopping in Kiótó. — The
River at Night. — Illumination of the Mountains. –
A Snake Story. — Traveling in Japanese Style. —
Start in a Typhoon. – Nagoya. — A Wayside Inn.
— Okazaki. — Weak Kurumayas. – An Unpleasant
Hotel. — Okitsu. — End of the Journey. — Nu-
madzu. — Children's Visits. – Slow Freight. — Plans
for Home.
HIYáI ZAN, July 31, 1889.
HERE I am at last, up on the mountain,
in the missionary camp. As I sit in my
tent, I see below me a deep valley, or rather
ravime, and beyond it tier above tier of
mountains, their sides flecked here and
there with bits of floating mist. One mo–
ment the mist drives in and fills up the
valley, and we seem to have pitched our
tents on the edge of limitless space, then
240 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
suddenly the cloud rolls away, and we are
once more a part of a mountainous world.
I find that I enjoy very much being once
more with people of my own race and lan-
guage, having some one with whom I can
talk over the things in which I am inter-
ested, and living in an atmosphere so wholly
pure and Christian as that in which I now
find myself. These people with whom I am
are doing a remarkable work, with great
wisdom and a spirit of entire consecration
to the service on which they have entered.
I am sure that the weeks I spend here will
be some of the most interesting and in-
structive that I have spent in Japan, and I
shall always be glad that I have had this
opportunity to obtain an insight into the
lives and work of our missionaries to this
country. The annual mission meeting is
going on this week, and by special invita-
tion I am privileged to attend it. It does
one’s soul good to see the company of ear-
nest, cultivated men and women who meet
together every day to discuss the plan of
campaign for the coming year, and yet the
number seems absurdly small for the work
that they have done, and even more inade-
quate for the work that they are planning
AMONG THE MISSIONARIES. 241
to do and that is fairly crying out to be
done. The great problem is in regard to
workers, and much has to be left undone
because there are not missionaries enough
now to man the old fields, or to open up
1162W Ol] €S.
I shall probably write more of the mis-
sionaries and their work later, so now I will
go back to Tökyô, and tell you something
about my departure thence. The rain of
which I complained in my last letter kept
on, until at last I had to pack away all
my household goods with the dampness in
them, and I confidently expect to find every-
thing spoiled that can spoil, when I open
my boxes next autumn.
I left Tökyô last Friday, attended by my
maid, who has thus far proved herself a
very desirable traveling companion. The
steamer by which I went from Yokohama
to Kobé was one of the old ones, quite
different from the delightful Omi Maru,
by which I made the same trip last year,
though belonging to the same company.
The cabins were full of fleas, and the deck
was loaded with horses. I was the only
first cabin passenger, and took my meals
with the officers of the ship. The bul-
242 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
Warks were so high that one could see no-
thing while sitting on the deck, and an
awning which shut out the glare of sun-
shine also shut off whatever breeze the
bulwarks did not intercept. However, my
Voyage of twenty-eight hours was pleas-
anter than I at first expected it would be,
for the captain invited me to sit on the
bridge, and from there one was able to see
all there was to be seen, and catch all the
breeze that could be found.
I reached Kobé at about half past four
on Saturday afternoon, hoping to go on to
Kiótö and up the mountain that night, but
found that the trip was more of an under-
taking than I had anticipated, so decided
to spend Sunday in Kobé with friends.
My woman went on to Kiótó that night,
and met me on Monday at the station with
kurumas. The ride out to the mountain
from Kiótó was a very rough one, over a
road much washed by recent rains. Just
as I was reaching the end of that stage in
my journey, the wheel came off of my ku-
ruma, nearly pitching me out upon a pic-
turesque black buffalo loaded with fagots,
that was passing. Fortunately, this acci-
dent happened so near the end of the
A BUDD HIST STRONG. HOLD. 243
kuruma road that it did not delay us at all.
At Yase, where the road ends, we took kago
for the lift up the mountain, reaching the
camp a little after noon.
Since I have been here I have done no-
thing but attend meetings, and see my
friends, and enjoy to the utmost the beau-
tiful views that lie spread out before us all
the time. I mean pretty soon to take
Some walks and explore the mountain,
which is very interesting historically, as it
was formerly covered with flourishing Bud-
dhist monasteries. The monks, however,
were so warlike and truculent that Hidéyo-
shi was finally obliged to drive them out, to
establish his power in this part of the coun-
try. The monasteries were burned to the
ground in the sixteenth century, and the
mountain left a wilderness. There are now,
however, many monasteries and temples
upon it, built since the time of Hidéyoshi
upon the old sites, so that Christian mis-
sionary and Buddhist monk now dwell side
by side upon this ancient stronghold of the
Buddhist faith.
244 A. J.1 PAN ESE INTERIOR.
August 6.
The weather has been delightful ever
since I came, and on days when it is too
hot for comfort we have only to think of
how much hotter it is down below us, to be
perfectly satisfied with our situation. It
is always cool enough for a pleasant walk
after four o’clock in the afternoon, and the
walks here are charming, — shaded wood-
paths which formerly led to great temples
or monasteries, but which now, after wind-
ing about the mountain sides, bring us
sometimes to a ruined or decaying temple,
but more often to an empty terrace where
a temple has once been, of which no trace
now remains, except the terrace itself, the
stone walls that border the path, and per-
haps a few overturned stone Buddhas, lam-
terms, or moss-grown gravestones. Some
few of the temples are still kept up, but they
have a forlorn and deserted air, and the
priests look lonesome and despondent.
The other day, when we were at mission
meeting in the big assembly tent, I noticed
a young priest standing outside and look-
ing wistfully in. He made quite a picture
in his gauzy black robes against the back-
ground of green trees and distant blue
MISSION WORK. 245
mountains, and when he turned away and
went disconsolately down the mountain
side, I felt sorry for him and his decaying
places of worship. That evening I learned
that the young priest had come down to
see one of the missionaries, to tell him
that he had decided to leave the priesthood,
and wanted to learn about Christianity.
It seems to me that the summer life of
these missionaries all together on this
mountain side, where they can talk over
their work, compare notes, and exchange
experiences, and where they learn to know
and understand each other thoroughly, is
one source of the success that they meet.
Here they are like one great family, and
when they go back to their widely sepa-
rated posts, the warm feeling of brother-
hood that exists between them strengthens
them individually, and gives them collec-
tively a unity of purpose that adds im-
mensely to the force of the mission as a
whole.
This mountain, beside being noted as a
former Buddhist stronghold, is famed as a
favorite resort of the hero Benkei, the Jap-
anese Samson, and the scene of some of
his exploits. They show two little temples
246 A. J. L.P.1N ESE IN TERIOR.
not far from our camp, joined together by
a veranda, so as to suggest the Japanese
yoke, which it is said that Benkei saved in
time of danger by carrying off on his shoul-
ders and afterward bringing back to their
place. There is a well here named for the
hero, and to the top of this mountain he
dragged the great bell of Miidera that I
saw last summer. It was from this moun-
tain's top, too, that he sent the same bell
crashing down through the trees until it
rolled, cracked and scratched, into the
grounds of the monastery that lies at the
eastern base of the mountain. So you see
we have not only history, but legend con-
nected with this place, and the old stories,
joined with the new work that goes out
from here year after year into all southern
and eastern Japan, give the mountain an
extraordinary interest, to my mind.
RIóTö, August 18.
I am spending Sunday here with some
missionary friends, preparatory to my
plunge into pure Japan, with no foreign
food and no interpreter. I came down the
mountain early Friday morning, and felt
as if I were leaving a home when I came
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248 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
shopping excursion with more than enough
money to pay my jinrikisha man.
Last night, I went with one of my friends
for an evening kuruma ride down to the
river, which is one of the sights of Kiótö
at this season. The whole surface of the
stream was covered with floating tea-houses,
brilliantly lighted, and each tea-house was
filled with patrons, either eating and drink-
ing or playing some game, – a jolly com-
pany, wide-awake, and trying to cool off
after the drowsy heat of these August
afternoons. The space between the two
bridges in the centre of the city was entirely
filled with boats, and from either bridge
or bank the sight was very gay. Fireworks
set off at intervals from one of the larger
tea - houses on the shore gave an addi-
tional charm to the scene. From there
we went to the street on which are all the
theatres of the city. The whole street was
crowded with people, and looked like a big
matsuri; for beside the theatres with their
great painted play-bills, there were smaller
shows and booths and shops in numerable,
with all sorts of attractive wares most
temptingly displayed. I had taken the pre-
caution of leaving my money at home, or I
AN ILLUMINATION. 249
should certainly have spent all that I had
left from my morning’s shopping in buy-
ing some of the pretty things that met the
eye at every step.
I found that I had come down from
Hiyéi Zan at just the right time to see
the annual illumination of the mountains
that surround Tökyö. This can be seem
better from the part of the city where I am
staying than from any other point. The
custom was established many years ago by
the Emperor, partly for his own pleasure,
and partly, I am told, for the sake of
killing or driving off snakes and other nox-
ious vermin from the mountains.
The illuminations are produced by great
bonfires on the mountain sides, arranged
so as to form colossal Chinese characters,
and the effect is wonderful, when on every
mountain in the circle a letter of fire blazes
out clear and distinct through the dark-
mess, burns for am hour or more, and then
dies away. Though the Emperor has moved
away from Kiótó, and the bonfires are no
longer a salute to his Majesty, the snakes,
foxes, monkeys, etc., still live in the moun-
tains, and the custom of scaring them off
by these annual fires has not yet been aban-
doned.
250 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
Speaking of snakes reminds me of an
incident of our return from a picnic the
other day. When we go on picnics on the
mountain, we usually engage half as many
kagos as there are people in the party, so
that each person can ride half the way
and walk half, for the American anatomy
cannot endure for any great length of time
the Cramped position necessary in a kago.
It was my turn to walk, and I was walking
just behind a kago, when the man in front
of me cried out, “Mamushi l’’ and began
striking with his stick at something in
the little brook that ran beside the path.
It proved to be a snake, one of the few
poisonous reptiles of Japan. When he
had killed it, he poked it out of the water
with his stick, and after taking the pre-
caution to crush its head to a jelly against
a stone, he took it up in his fingers,
opened its mouth, and by a dexterous mo-
tion managed to pull off its skin and take
out its insides all at once, leaving nothing
at all of the snake but its white flesh, as
clean and nice looking as a fish ready to
be broiled. He then took the flesh, ran
a stick through it, and stuck it up on the
top of the kago. I was devoured with
A SNARE STORY. 251
curiosity to know what he was going to
do with the thing, and at last screwed up
the courage to ask him. He said that he
was going to use it for medicine, – that
it made very good medicine. When I
reached home I asked O Kaio about it,
and she said yes, that the mamushi was
good for colds. That it must be cut up
very fine and mixed with sugar, and that
it made a powerful medicine. She said that
once her father was sick and went to see a
doctor, who gave him a mamushi, and told
him that if he took that all in a week he
would get well. The patient thought that
if the mamushi taken in a week would
make him well, taken in two days it would
make him better, so he took it all in two
days. But the medicine was too powerful
and affected his hearing, so that he be-
came almost deaf. Then he was fright-
ened and sent for the doctor, and the doc-
tor told him that it was because he had
taken the medicine too fast. Apparently,
the mamushi is in its effects a good deal
like quinine.
OKITSU, August 22.
I have been on my travels ever since I
last wrote, and am still on my way to Nu-
j
252 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
madzu, but now expect to reach that place
to-morrow morning. I am having a de-
lightful time, and my supply of Japanese
has answered every requirement thus far.
Since Monday morning, — and it is now
Thursday evening, — I have not seen a liv-
ing being who understands English except
Bruce, and though I cannot say that I
speak like a native yet, I have gained con-
fidence and readiness in the use of the lan-
guage, so that I am quite convinced that
if I stayed here and did this sort of thing
a little more, I should learn the language
much faster than I have done. I have
found out one thing too, which I have for
some time suspected, but which I never
have put to the proof before, and that is
that I can live pretty well on Japanese
food, and that at first-class Japanese hotels,
with a good maid to look after me, I can
be much more comfortable than when trav-
eling, as I did last summer, with a man
cook, foreign supplies, and a whole cooking
outfit. O Kaio has proved berself perfect
as a traveling companion, and I am alto-
gether delighted with my expedition.
And now, to go from glittering gener-
alities to particulars, I must confess that it
A START IN A TYPHOON. 253
was with some dread that I bade farewell
to my friends at the Kiótö railway station
on Monday morning, for it was in the midst
of a typhoon that had blown our umbrellas
inside out, and drenched us to the skin.
I had almost made up my mind to buy
my ticket through to Numadzu, and give
up my projected kuruma ride along the
Tokaido. But my desire to see how Jap-
anese I could be was not quite drowned out
or blown away by the typhoon, and the
thought that I had written home what I
had intended to do, and that my friends
would consider me weak-minded if I gave
it up, helped me to cling to my first pur-
pose and buy my ticket only to Nagoya,
intending to leave there in the afternoon
for my long kuruma ride to Numadzu. But
on the way to Nagoya the typhoon became
so violent that it nearly blew the train
off the track, and when we reached the
hotel and found it quiet and comfortable, I
at once decided to spend the night there
and wait for better weather. At Nagoya
there is a fine old castle, with two enor-
mous gold carp on the top of it as orna-
ments, so I sent my maid to the city office
with my passport and a card, asking for
254 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
permission to visit the castle either that
afternoon or the next morning. They
sent me a permit for the next day, so I
spent the afternoon in reading and rest-
ing and making arrangements for kuru-
mas. Tuesday, however, proved no better
than Monday had been. The typhoon was
still raging, but I had no more time to
spend in waiting for pleasant weather, so
started out. First I visited the castle,
and was soaked to the skin in seeing it,
for though I had bought a long rubber
Coat in Nagoya, it leaked all over, the wind
turned my unmbrella inside out, and then
when I was trying to turn it back again,
broke the handle off short. Thus I was
left with nothing but the thimnest kind of
Summer clothing, and that wet enough to
wring, for a ride of thirty miles in an open
kuruma, in a wind so strong that the ku-
ruma hoods could not be kept up at all,
when we started. Fortunately, a wetting
does not chill one in this climate in sum-
mer. Even when, a little later, the wind
died down enough to permit the raising
of the kuruma top, the rain continued to
stream down our faces and penetrate to
every corner, in spite of all efforts to keep
A WAYSIDE INN. 255
it out, so that bathing-suits would have
been more appropriate for our journey than
any other costume.
I had made an effort to secure very
strong men for the trip, as it was a long
one, and must be taken either in very hot
or in very wet weather, for these are the
alternatives in Japan in August. The man
of whom I engaged the kurumayas assured
me that they were strong, and fully equal
to making the trip from Nagoya to Nu-
madzu in three days or three and a half. I
soon saw, however, that instead of having
the strong men I had bargained for, my
smooth - spoken friend had supplied me
with exceptionally weak ones. They ran in
an exhausted way, and stopped as often as
possible for food, water, or anything else
they could think of. At noon we stopped
at an ordinary little wayside inn, but
O Kaio found me a clean, comfortable room
upstairs, where I took off my wet things,
and she dried them, a small spot at a time,
over a hibachi. When I put them on again
they were quite comfortable, although they
had a rough-dried appearance that was far
from stylish. We ordered lunch, and I
trembled somewhat for the result, remem-
256 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
bering the tales of Miss Bird and others
about the horrors of food obtained at ordi-
mary Japanese inns. However, instead of
horrors, a delicious meal of egg and mush-
room soup, eels and rice, daintily served in
lacquered and porcelain bowls, made its ap-
pearance, and I ate with a vigorous relish,
for I had an early breakfast, and lunch was
served at about two o'clock. The bill for
room, fire, and food for two was eighteen
cents, and I am sure that nowhere in
America can the same amount of comfort
be obtained for less than a dollar. After
that meal I dismissed all idea of starvation
along my journey, for this was only a lit-
tle country inn, in an out-of-the-way place,
and we had letters from our Nagoya hotel-
keeper to all the first-class hotels along our
route.
That first night we brought up, all wet
and tired, at a large, clean, comfortable ho-
tel in the small city of Okazaki, and now I
will give you a somewhat detailed account
of our stop there, so that you may know
exactly how a first-class Japanese hotel
cares for its guests.
When our kurumas stop before the door,
we are greeted by the whole staff of the
A PLEASANT HOTEL. 257
house, some coming out to take our bag-
gage, and others on their knees, bowing
their foreheads to the floor, just inside the
entrance. This cordial welcome on the
part of so many bright-faced, well-dressed
persons makes the stop at its beginning
almost like a home-coming, and is very
comforting to the wet and weary traveler.
At the door we take off our shoes, and then
are led along spotless, polished corridors,
and up steep and shining stairs, to a large,
airy room, with fine white mats on the floor,
and a piazza running around two sides.
On our way to the stairs we pass through
the kitchen, which is always in the front of
the house, and we can stop if we choose
to see the process of getting supper, and
assure ourselves that the cooking, like all
other parts of the hotel service, is clean and
meat.
Our room is at the very back of the
house, and is the “best room * of the hotel.
In front of it is another room, equally good
to my uneducated taste, which we can use
if we like, and which I finally decide to
sleep in.
Our first business is to open our big
traveling baskets and take out our thinnest
258 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
kimonos, then to array ourselves in these
loose and comfortable garments, so that
our wet clothes may have a chance to dry
before the kitchen fire. Tea is brought
and cake, and these have a cheering effect.
Pretty soon a smiling maid appears, drops
on her knees, bows her head to the ground,
and presents us each with a bath-gown,
with the information that the honorable
bath is ready. My maid convoys me down
to the bath-room, which proves to be a
very open apartment, one side consisting
entirely of glass sliding-doors with no cur-
tains. But O Kaio is equal to the emer-
gency, pins up kimonos over the glass,
darkens the room by putting the lamp
under a bushel, or somewhere where it
will not give light unto all that are in the
house, and discreetly keeps guard over
the door while I enjoy the refreshment of
the hot water. Then I array myself in the
bath-robe, which serves the double purpose
of a garment and a towel, and go back to
my room, to sit around on the floor and
rest in my loose, cool garments until Sup-
per appears, – eels, fish, two kinds of Soup,
rice, tea, and pickles, all served in the dain-
tiest manner possible. When this is fin-
YASA IKU'S JP EDDING!. 259
ished, as we are tired and must start by
six the next morning, we order up the beds.
Silk futons or thick quilts are brought in,
as many as I want, and with these and my
own sheets and pillows O Kaio makes up
as comfortable a bed as any one need ask
for. Her own bed consists of one quilt be-
neath her, and another to draw over her in
case the weather turns cool (which it does
not), and a wooden pillow. A large mos-
quito net of green linen is hung from the
four corners of the room, and under this
the two beds and their occupants are safe
from the ravages of the peculiarly small
and active Japanese mosquito. There do
not seem to be any fleas in this hotel, so we
sleep peacefully until aroused at an early
hour the next morning by the opening of
the shutters, making a noise so like thun-
der as to set poor Bruce off into a paroxysm
of enraged barking. There is no water in
our room, but O Kaio takes me out to a
meat little washroom, not quite so open and
public as the bath-room of the night before,
where there is a plentiful supply of cold
water and shining brass hand-basins.
When we are ready for it, breakfast is
served, - two kinds of soup, rice, and fish,
260 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
and as I have brought coffee with me,
O Kaio makes me a cup, an addition to
my breakfast much more satisfying than
the weak tea of the country. Then we set
forth on our day’s journey, prepared to en-
joy whatever may turn up.
The weather has cleared in the might,
and it seems as if we ought to make good
progress, for the roads are neither dusty
nor muddy, and the air is fresh and pleas-
ant after the storm. But we soon find
that our “strong ‘’ men are much used up
by yesterday’s work, and at last one gives
out altogether, complaining of a pain in his
“honorable inside,” and we hire a puny-
looking man to take his place. This causes
more delay, the fact that our new man is
both small and weak delays us still further,
and at last, about noon, the new man gives
out and can travel no further. We stop
for lunch at a pleasant hotel, and there I
have the remaining Nagoya man informed
that unless he can find a good, strong man
who can get over the ground faster, I will
not pay the extra price promised for extra
strong men. As a result of this threat, he
engages a quick, muscular fellow, who trots
along in the shafts as easily as a pony ; but
A POOR HOTEL. 261
then it becomes evident that the Nagoya
man is about used up, and has to stop every
moment for repairs of one kind or another.
I advise him to let me hire new men for
the rest of the trip, but as he wants the
pay for the whole trip, he insists that he is
“ dai jobu,” and goes on, although he is
evidently quite tired out, and keeps calling
to the fresh man to go slower.
We travel on in this way, going more and
more slowly every mile, until at last, long
after dark, the kurumayas dump us at a
dirty little hotel in a little village by the
name of Maizaka. Here we find that the
good rooms are all taken, and at first
the people think they cannot even give us
a shelter ; but our men are too tired to go
any further, and at last O Kaio discovers
two rooms upstairs, looking out on the vil-
lage street, in which we take up our abode.
The rooms are hot, also moisy, also full of
fleas, but we resign ourselves to the inevi-
table, and send for our supper, which tastes
fairly well, though I do not feel sure of
its cleanliness, as the whole hotel seems
dirty. We have the beds made up early,
as we want a good might's sleep before
our early start. We go to bed early, but
262 A JAPANESE INTERIOR.
the village does not, and seems to be
having a particularly convivial time di-
rectly under our windows. There is much
conversation and laughter, together with
beating of drums and twanging of sami-
sens, which effectually prevents my getting
so much as a cat-nap until after twelve
o'clock. When the noises stop, I do man-
age to sleep, but am awakened at half past
four for the day. Our only satisfaction at
this place is in the bill, which proves to be
only sixty sen for the two of us, whereas
the morning before, at the pleasant hotel,
it had been one yen. However, I think I
would rather “ darn the expense,” and go
to one-yen places, than pass many such
mights as that at Maizaka.
NUMADZU, August 27.
I have been here now nearly four days,
but must go back and finish the journey
before I tell you about my present abode.
I left off at Maizaka, from which place we
started at early dawn on Thursday, hoping
to reach Numadzu that night. However,
when we came to Hamamatsu, the place
where we should have passed the night
had our kurumayas been Smart, we dis-
ORIT'S U. 263
covered that one of the bridges ahead of
us had been blown away by the typhoon, so
that seemed a good occasion for getting rid
of our inefficient man by taking the train
as far as Shizuoka. This arrangement
seemed agreeable to both our kurumayas,
and we parted on the best of terms. Then,
after an hour of rest in a delightful hotel,
where we ought to have spent the night,
we took our train for a two hours’ ride
to Shizuoka, reaching there about twelve.
The hotel was partly in foreign style, and
they gave me a foreign dinner, with a
table and knives and forks, the first I had
seen since leaving Nagoya.
At three o'clock we set off with fresh, fast
kurumayas, reaching Okitsu at six. Here
we found a comfortable hotel and spent the
night. Okitsu is quite a fashionable wa-
tering-place, with fine surf-bathing. Prince
Haru had been spending the summer at
this place, but had just left. Here I found
Japanese friends from Tökyö, who gave me
a cordial welcome. It was pleasant to hear
some English again after my days of con-
finement to Japanese, for though I know
enough to procure the necessaries of life,
there is very little else that I can do with
the language.
264 A JAPAN ESE INTERIOR.
Friday morning we started early, expect-
ing to reach Numadzu by moon, but the
typhoon had carried away another bridge,
and we had to go several miles out of our
way and then cross the river by boat, a
course which delayed us several hours.
We did reach Numadzu at last, however,
and now I am installed in a small room
close to the sea, or rather, close to the lit-
tle hill-surrounded bay on which the hotel
stands. It is a lovely place, with the bluest
of water, and the greenest of hills sloping
down to it. I am living out of doors,
for two sides of my room are taken out
entirely during the day, giving me not only
a fine view of the water, but of the bath-
house as well, into which the whole popu-
lation of the hotel enters at least twice a
day. The guests of the hotel spend most
of their time in the salt water, wearing
every description of garment, and fre-
quently no garment at all. As soon as
they come up from the beach they take a
plunge into the warm bath in the bath-
house close by my room, so that there is
a continual splashing there from half past
five in the morning until nine or ten at
night, and a constant procession by my
CEIILDREN'S VISIT.S. 265
window of men, women, and children. I
am now becoming so used to the noises
that I can sleep after they begin in the
morning, and can go to sleep in the midst
of them at night, but for a day or two I
found it rather disturbing.
August 28.
Since yesterday I have moved into pleas-
anter and more retired rooms upstairs, and
am now rejoicing in a chair and table for
my writing, instead of having to sit on the
floor and write on a tea-tray on my lap, as
I have done thus far. It is not so noisy
as it was below, and I have a corner where
I can dress secure from the public gaze; but
I rather miss the procession of bathers, and
especially the companies of children who
used to stop by my piazza and exchange ideas
with me through the medium of a little Jap-
anese and a great many smiles and bows
and pats of their dainty little hands. They
are so delighted to see me wearing Jap-
anese dress, and sitting on the floor and
eating with chopsticks, that they are very
friendly and curious. Yesterday, I had a
long call from about half a dozen of them.
They brought me a paper doll as an offer-
ing, and came in and sat down on the floor
266 A JAPAN ESE IN TERIOR.
in a semicircle around me. They discoy.
ered, by patting and poking and feeling of
me, that my hands and my face and my
hair were soft, and thereupon there arose a
polite contention among them as to who
should sit next me and hold my hands,
and who should pat my hair, and who
should put her face close to mine and rub
it gently back and forth. Then they tried,
by speaking very slowly and distinctly, to
make me understand their Japanese, and
were greatly delighted when I did. Jap-
anese children are very attractive and
pretty, and they are so gentle and polite
that one does not get tired of them as one
does of American children.
I am here now without any baggage
beyond what I could carry with me in a
kuruma, for though I sent my large basket
on from Kyötö by express, and expected to
find it waiting for me here, it has not yet
arrived, and I am growing daily more des-
titute in the matter of clothes. I wear
Japanese dress all the time in the house,
but find it very inconvenient for walking,
so have to go out of doors in a rather
mussed-looking white dress, not at all the
thing for the damp, rainy weather we are
GOOD-B Y. 267
having. There is no laundry nearer than
Yokohama, so I cannot have anything
done up except such articles of clothing as
need neither starch nor iron.
I think I must close now. This will be
my last letter. My plans for the rest of
my time are to leave here on Saturday or
Monday for Tökyö, and to stay there wher-
ever I can find an abiding place, doing up
the last things before I leave the country.
If all goes well, I hope to reach San Fran-
cisco by October 1, and so good-by until
some day I sail in at the Golden Gate and
bid you all good-morning.



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