Round the World Part 3

One thing must be said, however, about art throughout the East, in China and in India as well as in j.a.pan: up to this time it has been content to remain solely decorative. The higher creative and imaginative power has yet to be reached. Why this should be so is an interesting question, and I resolve to read up the authorities when opportunity offers and see how they account for it. May not the poverty of the East have much to do with it? So very few are rich; indeed, scarcely any are opulent in our sense, six thousand dollars (1,200) a year being considered a fortune in j.a.pan, I am told, and very few, even of the higher cla.s.ses, possess as much.

In China and India it is much the same, a few rajahs in the latter country excepted.

The start which religion gave to art in Europe is wanting in the East, for the temples are mean and dest.i.tute of costly works. Rich commercial and manufacturing cla.s.ses do not exist in the East--as wealth does not run into "pockets" as it does in Europe--especially in England--and in America. I fear, therefore, that art in the East will not advance much beyond the decorative stage for centuries to come.

SAt.u.r.dAY, November 23.

Vandy and I walked to-day through the princ.i.p.al street of Tokio from end to end, a distance of three miles. It is a fine, broad avenue, crowded with people and vehicles drawn or pushed by men.

There is also a line of small one-horse wagons running as omnibuses on the street--novel feature, unknown anywhere else in the Empire. Our appearance attracted such crowds whenever we stopped at a shop, that the police had to drive the gazers away.

The city is built upon a plain, and supplied with water by wells only. Fires are of frequent occurrence. j.a.panese cities are such piles of combustible material that I wonder they exist at all. But fires are little used--only a brazier of charcoal now and then for cooking purposes; and as most of the people eat at cook-shops, there is never any fire at all in many of the houses. Long ladders are erected as fire-towers, and upon these watchmen sit through the night to give the alarm. It is only by tearing down or blowing up surrounding houses that the progress of a fire can generally be stayed. There is no such thing as insurance in j.a.pan, the risks being much too great.

The j.a.panese go to the theatre early in the morning and remain until five o'clock in the evening. Doors open at five A.M., but the rich cla.s.ses do not appear before six or seven o'clock, at which hour the performance begins. Breakfast is served in the theatre about noon. The audience smoke, eat, sip tea, and enjoy themselves as they choose. No seats are provided, but a small mat is put down for each person as he enters, and beside it a box filled with sand, in the middle of which are two pieces of glowing charcoal, at which pipes are lighted. Ladies, as well as gentlemen, be it remembered, invariably smoke in j.a.pan. Every one carries a small pipe with a long stem, and a tobacco-pouch attached to it. At short intervals a little tobacco is put into the pipe--just enough to give two whirls of smoke--after which the tobacco is knocked out and the pipe again replenished. In no case have I ever seen more than two very small whiffs taken at one time. Even young ladies smoke in this manner, and to one who detests tobacco, as I instinctively do, it may be imagined this habit did not add to their attractiveness. A sweetheart who defiled her lips with tobacco! "Phew!" Neither is it considered disrespectful in any degree to begin smoking in the presence of others. Deferential as the singing girls were, when at leisure they lighted their pipes as a matter of course, wholly unconscious that they were taking a liberty.

The marriage ceremony differs greatly from ours. The priests have nothing to do with it, nor is there any religious ceremony. The parents of a young man select a proper wife for him when he is about twenty years of age, and manage the whole affair. They consult the young lady's parents, and if the match is a satisfactory one to them, writings are exchanged between the parents of the young couple, the day is appointed, and the bride and groom drink saki from the same cup; feasting and rejoicings follow, sometimes continued for several days if the parents are wealthy, and the marriage is consummated. In all cases the bride goes to reside with the husband's parents, to whom, much more than to the husband, it is necessary she should continue to be satisfactory. Very often three generations live together, and an amount of deference is paid to the oldest such as we have no conception of.

The custom of blacking the teeth by married women, is the most revolting practice I have yet seen. I have been in the houses of fine people of j.a.pan, and seen women, otherwise good-looking, who had only to open their lips to convert themselves into objects of disgust. I rejoice, therefore, to hear that fashion is setting in against this abomination, and that some of the more recent brides have refused to conform to the custom.

One readily gets used to anything, earthquakes included, and j.a.pan has many of these unruly visitors. One night we had three shocks at Tokio, one sufficiently strong to wake me from sleep. My bed shook violently, and the house threatened to fall upon us. The same night we had a large fire in the city, and a hundred shrill, tinkling bells, like so many cows in the woods, were rung to give the alarm. The clapping of the night watchmen about our street a.s.sured me, however, that it was all right with us, and I lay still. The night watchmen here use two small square pieces of hard wood which they strike frequently against each other as they go the rounds as their "All's well" signal; but I think strangers, as a rule, fail to appreciate the point in being awakened every now and then simply to be a.s.sured that there is not the slightest occasion for their being awake at all.

MONDAY, November 25.

To-day we took a small steamer and visited the a.r.s.enal upon the invitation of our friend Captain Totaki, Mlle. Rio being of the party. It is finely situated on the bay about fifteen miles below Yokohama, and is quite extensive, having good shops filled with modern tools. Several ships have already been built here, and two men-of-war are now upon the stocks--another evidence of so-called civilization. j.a.pan, you see, is ambitious. All the officials, foremen, and mechanics, are natives, and these have proved their ability in every department. The wages paid surprise us. All branches are about upon an equality. Painters, moulders, blacksmiths, carpenters, machinists, all get the same compensation--from 25 to 40 cents per day, according to their respective value as workmen; common labor, outside, 18 cents; shop labor, inside, 25 cents; foreman of department, $80 per month. Work, nine hours per day, every tenth day being a day of rest corresponding to our Sunday. In addition to the two men-of-war under construction, the machinery for which is all designed and manufactured here, the Emperor is having built for his private use a large side-wheel yacht, which promises to be magnificent. However poor a nation may be, or however depreciated its currency, if it set up an emperor, king, or queen, improper personal expenditure inevitably follows. Even as good a woman as Queen Victoria, probably the most respectable woman who ever occupied a throne--such a character as one would not hesitate to introduce to his family circle, which is saying much for a monarch--will squander thirty thousand pounds per annum of the people's money on a private yacht which she has used but a few times, and which is one of three she insists upon keeping at the State's expense. It is the old story: make any human being believe he is _born_ to position and he becomes arbitrary and inconsiderate of those who have exalted him. Serves the foolish ones right, I suppose is the proper verdict. But one is not indignant at the worship of their emperor by the j.a.panese: he is a real ruler, has power, and stands firmly upon divine right. The j.a.panese are yet children politically; but the English should be out of their swaddling-clothes, surely.

The captain being high in command, and this being his first visit to the a.r.s.enal since his return from a tour round the world, he was received by the officials with manifestations of delight. We had another opportunity of seeing the bowing practice in its fullest development. The various foremen as they approached bowed three times almost to the ground, and in some cases they went first upon their knees and struck the floor three times with their foreheads. We were afterward informed that only a few years ago these would have added to the obeisance by extending the arms to their full length and placing the palms of the hands flat upon the ground; now this is omitted, and I have no doubt, as intelligence spreads, less and less of this deference will be exacted. But up to this date it may safely be said j.a.pan is in the condition of Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, who, it will be remembered, admitted that his success came from "booing." He "never could stand strecht in the presence of a great man;" no more can a j.a.panese.

My writing has just been interrupted by another earthquake shock.

My chair began to tremble, then the house; I could not write, and looking up I saw Vandy standing in amazement. For a few moments it seemed as if we were rocking to pieces, and that the end of all things had come. I shall never forget the sensation. The motion of a ship rolling at sea transferred to land, where you have the solid earth and heavy stone walls surrounding and threatening to fall upon you, is far from agreeable; but it pa.s.sed away, and old Mother Earth became steady once more.

The way to buy in j.a.pan is not by visiting the shops, for there nothing is displayed, and a stranger has infinite difficulty in learning where certain articles are to be found; but just intimate to your "boy" what you wish, and at your door in a few minutes stand not one or two merchants, but five or six, all bowing as you pa.s.s in or out, and awaiting master's pleasure to examine their wares. They leave any articles you may wish to decide upon, and the result is that one's rooms become perfect bazaars. The most unpleasant feature connected with purchasing is that everything is a matter of bargain. A price is named, and you are expected to make an offer. Vandy is a great success at this game, and seems to enjoy it. I am strictly prohibited from interfering, and so escape all trouble. It is always comforting to know that one's interests are in much abler hands than his own, and I always have this pleasure when Vandy is about.

Wherever we go, Fusiyama looks down upon us. What a beautiful cone it is, and how grandly it pierces the heavens, its summit clad with perpetual snow! No wonder that the j.a.panese represent it on so many of their articles. Thousands of pilgrims flock to it annually from all parts of the Empire, for it is their sacred mount and the G.o.ds reward such as worship at this shrine. It was once an active volcano; but there has been no eruption since about 1700, when ashes were thrown from it into Yeddo, sixty miles away.

The crater is nearly five hundred feet deep. Fusiyama stands alone among mountains, a vast pyramid rising as Cheops does from the plain, no "rascally comparative" near to dispute its sway.

WEDNESDAY, November 27.

We sail to-day for Shanghai, leaving Yokohama with sincere regret; nor shall we soon forget the good, kind faces of those who have done so much to make our visit to j.a.pan an agreeable one. Had it been possible to remain until Sat.u.r.day I should have been greatly tempted to do so to accept an invitation received to respond to a toast at St. Andrew's banquet. It would surely have stirred me to hold forth on Scotland's glory to my fellow-countrymen in j.a.pan; but this had to be foregone. At Kiobe the steamer lay for twenty-four hours, and this enabled us to run up by rail to Kioto, the former residence of the Mikado, reputed to be the Paris of j.a.pan. The city itself deserves this reputation about as well as Cincinnati does that of our American Paris, which I see some one has called it. Kioto is only a ma.s.s of poor one-story buildings, but its situation is beautiful, and cannot probably be equalled elsewhere in the Empire, and this one can justly say of Cincinnati as well, while the beauty of Paris is of the city and not at all rural. There are more pretty toy villas embowered in trees upon the little hills about Kioto than we saw in all other parts of j.a.pan. The temples at Kioto are much inferior to those at Shibba. Our journey enabled us to see about seventy miles of the interior, and we were again impressed by the evidences on every hand of a teeming population. Gangs of men and women were everywhere at work upon small patches of ground, six or seven persons being busily engaged sometimes on less than one acre.

It is not farming; there is in j.a.pan scarcely such a thing as farming in our sense; it is a system of gardening such as we see in the neighborhood of large cities. Compared with that prevalent throughout the whole country, I have seen nothing equal to it in thoroughness, not even in Belgium.

We are upon the old steamer Costa Rica, now belonging to the j.a.panese Company, which recently purchased this and other boats from the Pacific Mail Company. Among our cargo is a large lot of live turkeys which some pushing j.a.p is taking over to Shanghai for Christmas; and listen, you favored souls who revel in the famous bird at a dollar a head, your fellow countrymen in China have to pay ten dollars for their Christmas turkey. It is said the Chinese climate is too damp for the n.o.ble bird; but it flourishes in j.a.pan.

I wish the exporter who thus develops the resources of his country much profit on his venture. But it strikes me that, instead of the eagle, the more useful gobbler has superior claims to be voted the national bird of America. "A turkey for a dollar!" repeated the shipper as I told him our price; "a turkey for a dollar--what a country!" The climate of Northern China is not favorable for Europeans, and many take a run over to j.a.pan to recuperate, a fact which argues much for the future of j.a.pan. Although our ship belongs to the j.a.panese, the servants are generally Chinamen, and the agent explains this by informing us that while the former do very well until they arrive at the age of manhood, they then begin to develop more ambitious ideas and cannot be managed, while with the Chinese a "boy" (a servant throughout the East is called "boy") is always a boy, and is constantly on the watch to serve his master. Again, the j.a.ps are pugnacious, a race of little game-c.o.c.ks, always in for a fight, especially with a Chinaman. The captain told us the other day a great big Chinaman had complained to him that one of the j.a.ps had abused him. Upon calling up the belligerent, he proved to be such a small specimen that the captain asked the sufferer why he hadn't picked him up and thrown him overboard. The complaint was dismissed: served the big fellow right. But some missionary should expound the civilized doctrine to him, per revised edition, which reads: "When smitten on the one cheek, turn to the smiter the other also, but if he smites you on that, _go for him_." To-morrow is to be one of the great days of our trip, for we shall enter the famous inland sea of j.a.pan at daybreak. Will it be fine to-morrow? is the question with all on board. The signs are earnestly discussed. The sun sets favorably, and I quote Shakespeare to them, which settles the question:

"The weary sun hath made a golden set, And by the bright track of his fiery car Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow."

Let to-morrow be fair, whatever we may miss hereafter. This is the universal sentiment.

SAt.u.r.dAY, November 30.

What a day this has been! Many a rich experience which seemed grand enough never to fade from the memory may pa.s.s into oblivion, but no mortal can ever sail through the inland sea of j.a.pan on a fine day and cease to remember it till the day he dies. It deserves its reputation as the most beautiful voyage in the world; at least I cannot conceive how, taking the elements of earth, water and sky, anything more exquisitely beautiful could be produced from them. Entering the narrow sea at sunrise, we sail for three hundred and fifty miles through three thousand pretty islands,

"Which seem to stand To sentinel enchanted land."

These divide the water, making, not one but a dozen pretty lakes in view at once. It is the Lakes of Killarney, or the English or Scotch lakes, multiplied a hundred-fold; but instead of the islands and mountains being in pasture, they are cultivated to their very tops, terraced in every form, in order to utilize every rod of ground. On the sh.o.r.es cl.u.s.ter villages, nestling in sheltered nooks, while the water swarms with the sails of tiny fishing boats, giving a sense of warm, happy life throughout. These sail-boats add greatly to the beauty of the scene. I counted at one time from the bow of our steamer, without looking back, ninety-seven sails glistening in the sun, while on the hills were seen everywhere gangs of people at work upon their little farm-gardens. It is a panorama of busy, crowded life, but life under most beautiful surroundings, from beginning to end, and we all vote that never before have we, in a like s.p.a.ce of time, seen so much of fairy-land as upon this ever-memorable day. We begin to understand how the thirty odd millions of the j.a.panese exist upon so small an area. The rivers and seas abound in fish; the hills and valleys under irrigation and constant labor grow their rice, millet, and vegetables. A few dollars per year supply all the clothing needed, and a few dollars build their light wooden houses.

Thus they have everything they need, or consider necessary, and are happy as the day is long, certain of one established fact in nature, to wit, that there is no place like j.a.pan; and no doubt they daily and hourly thank their stars that their lines have fallen in pleasant places, and pity us--slaves to imaginary wants--who deny ourselves the present happiness they consider it wisdom to enjoy, in vain hopes of banquetting to surfeit at some future time, which always comes too late.

On emerging from this fairy scene, we encountered a gale upon the China Sea, which lasted for the few hours we were upon it before reaching Nagasaki, the last port of j.a.pan. Here, two hundred years ago, the Dutch secured a small island, from which they traded with j.a.pan long before any other nation was permitted to do so. The Catholics also had their headquarters here. They were so successful in converting the natives that the government became alarmed, and several thousand Christians were driven to the island and all ma.s.sacred. This was in the sixteenth century; but it is only a few years ago that seven thousand native Catholics were banished from this region. To-day all is changed. These fugitives have been permitted to return, and there is entire freedom of religious worship. Last month a return was made of professing Christians (Catholics) in this district, and thirty-five thousand were reported. Protestants are very few indeed.

As far as I saw in the East, here is the only real and considerable advance made toward christianizing a people. At other stations throughout my journey I saw only a few ignorant natives who professed Christianity--sometimes a dozen or two, rarely more. European residents invariably told me that these were the dependants or servants of foreigners who held their places mainly because of their conversion to the new faith. If dismissed, they relapsed. One can readily see that the lowest and most unscrupulous would be the first to fall before the almost irresistible temptation, for a means of comfortable livelihood seems the one serious concern of life in all the East to a degree difficult for us in America, at least, to imagine.

I remember the dear, kind Catholic Bishop of Canton telling me with such delicious simplicity that every workman engaged in building the Cathedral--a work of many years and yet unfinished--had by the grace of G.o.d been converted to Holy Mother Church. The hotel-keeper told me afterward this so-called conversion was a source of much amus.e.m.e.nt among the natives. Well, be it so. I believe, myself, that the holy father is the victim of misplaced confidence. But here in Nagasaki nothing like this can be said. Thirty-five thousand professing Christians in a district where there are not a hundred foreign Christian families, if half so many, and where to be a Christian is to declare one's self of the minority and so out of fashion, surely this does prove that the Church has succeeded, and justifies it in hoping that ere long this part of j.a.pan at least will one day enter the fold.

One great reason for this undoubted success is probably that neither the Government nor the people have the slightest objection to missionaries, for their own religion sets but lightly on the j.a.panese. With the Chinaman it is totally different. His own religion is sacred to him, a vital force, and his G.o.ds must not be defamed. He stands by his faith like a Covenanter. It touches the most sacred feelings of his nature, and is everything to him. Mrs.

D. O. Hill's celebrated statue of Livingstone in Prince's Gardens, Edinburgh, therefore, represents too truly the att.i.tude of our missionaries in the flowery land as well as in other so-called heathen lands: the Bible in one hand and the pistol in the other.

In j.a.pan the pistol is wholly unnecessary. The man of j.a.pan regards missionaries as harmless curiosities, and if not disposed to trouble himself about their new ideas, he has not the least objection to their being expounded.

There is now no established religion in j.a.pan, Buddhism having been abolished in 1874. The temples and priesthood are maintained by voluntary contributions. The poor laws are simple: government gives nine bushels of rice to every person over seventy or under fifteen years of age, who cannot work, and the same to foundlings under thirteen. Out of the total population of thirty-six millions, there are only ten thousand and fifty paupers, and of these more than a thousand are at Tokio in the workhouse.

HARBOR OF NAGASAKI, MONDAY, December 2.

Vandy and I were off early this morning for the sh.o.r.e, and did not return to the ship until late in the afternoon, having walked over the high hills and down into the valleys beyond. We had a real tramp in the country. It is here just as elsewhere, terrace upon terrace, every foot of ground under cultivation; water carried by men in pails, or on the backs of oxen, to the highest peaks, which it is impossible to irrigate, and every single plant, be it rice, millet, turnip, cabbage, or carrot, watered daily. What good Mother Earth can be induced to yield under such attention is a marvel. The bountiful earth has another meaning when you see what she can be made to bring forth. Although we are in December, the sun shines bright, and it is quite warm. I sat down several times under the hedge-rows, and heard the constant hum of insect life around me. b.u.t.terflies flitted about, the bees gathered honey, and all looked and felt like a day in June. The houses of the people which we saw were poor, and the total absence of gla.s.s causes them to look like deserted hovels; but closer inspection showed fine mats on the floors, and everything scrupulously clean. I counted upon one hillside forty-seven terraces from the bottom to the top.

These are divided vertically, so that I think twenty-five feet square would be about the average size of each patch; and as the division of terraces is made to suit the ground, and hence very irregularly, the appearance of a hillside in j.a.pan is something like that of a bed-quilt of irregular pieces. The terrace-walls are overgrown with vines, ferns, etc., so that they appear like low green hedges: and this adds much to the beauty of the landscape. No wonder the cultivators of these lovely spots never dream of leaving them. Animal food is not half as important to the j.a.panese as the supply of fish--indeed the former is said to be comparatively little used, while fish of some kind or in some form is ever present at meals. The favorite fish is the _tai_, which is red when taken from streams with sandy bottoms, but black when caught at the mouths of the same streams, where the dark soil of the sea begins. A curious parallel case is seen in the black and red pines of this country: in sandy soils they grow red, while in the softer black soil they are dark. Transplant the two varieties and they change color. The same law, you see, with fish and plant. We are all creatures of our environment. Therefore let us choose our companions and surroundings well. To know the best that has been said and done in the world is no doubt much; to be planted and to grow among those who have done the greatest work and who live up to the best standard in our day and generation is surely equally important.

We had an alarm of fire oft the Belgic in mid-ocean, but this morning we had the real article. I had just parted from the captain at the stern of the ship, intending to go ash.o.r.e, when, walking forward, I saw dense volumes of smoke issuing from the walking-beam pit, and in a few moments I heard the cry of fire from below. All was in a bustle at once, but the crew got finely to work. Fortunately, although there was no steam in the main boilers, the small donkey boiler was full, and the pumps were put to work. Meanwhile boats from the various men-of-war in the harbor with hand fire-engines came to our a.s.sistance. The steamer is an old wooden craft, and I knew her cargo was combustible. Were the smoke ever to give place to flame, panic was sure to ensue, and not one of the small native boats that had until now been cl.u.s.tering around us could then be induced to approach; indeed, they had already all rowed off. There was one lady on board, Mrs.

McK., a veritable Princess of Thule from the Island of Lewes, and I decided that she had better be taken off with her sick child at once; so, bribing a greedy native by the immense reward of a whole dollar (a large fee here, small as it seems at home) to come alongside, I grasped the baby and followed the mother down the gangway, and remained at a safe distance until the danger was over. A few minutes more, and the Costa Rica would have followed her sister ship, the America, which some years ago took fire under similar circ.u.mstances in the harbor of Yokohama, and was completely destroyed. Fortunately we are about done with wooden steamships; otherwise they should not be permitted to run as pa.s.senger vessels.

The post-office department of j.a.pan is of recent origin, having been established in 1871; yet in 1881, after only ten years'

growth, it carried ninety-five millions of letters, newspapers, books, etc. Thirty millions of these were post-cards. Three millions of telegrams were also transmitted in that year. Perhaps no statement will give one a clearer idea than this of the rapid progress of this strange country in the ways of the West.

j.a.pan has only two short lines of railway for thirty-six millions of people--a population nearly equal to that of Great Britain: one eighteen miles from Yokohama to Tokio, the other seventy miles from Hiogo to Kioto. This seems a scanty allowance; nevertheless it is not probable that more than a few hundred miles of rail will be built for centuries. The habits and poverty of the people, and in many districts the topography of the country, are such as to render railways unsuitable. The main highways are, however, kept in admirable order. I was amused with the cla.s.sification of these.

Those of the first cla.s.s are such as lead from the capital to the treaty ports; of the second cla.s.s those lines leading to the national shrines. Commerce has thus usurped the first place. Both the first and the second cla.s.s roads are maintained by the General Government as being national affairs. Various grades of roads follow, some being maintained by large districts; others, of local importance, by taxes upon a smaller area; but all under the strict supervision of central officials at Tokio.

Not the least surprising feature in the revolution going forward so peacefully in j.a.pan is the prompt adoption of the newspaper as one of the essentials of life. A few years ago the official Gazette, read only by officials and containing nothing of general interest, was the only publication in the Empire; to-day several hundred newspapers are published, many of them daily. A censorship of the press still exists, however, and leads to the usual mode of evasion. Pungent political articles are conveyed under cover of criticisms ostensibly upon the blunders of lands not so enlightened as j.a.pan. Here is a specimen: "In America during the Civil War paper currency was issued and made legal tender. At every successive issue the premium rose higher and higher till the currency was not worth more than a third of its face. The Southern States followed in the same path, but they kept on till their issues were found to be good for about one purpose only--to line trunks withal--such fools these Americans be. Happy j.a.pan! blessed with rulers of preeminent ability, who keep the finances of our land in such creditable form."

The fact was that j.a.panese currency was then at 22 per cent, discount and rapidly declining in value under successive issues, just as it had done in America. Such articles are no doubt far more effective than open, undisguised a.s.saults could possibly be, for the cleverness of the evasion gives additional zest to the attack. The Press is a hard dog to muzzle, and, like dogs in general, only vicious when muzzled. The j.a.panese will soon find it safer to "let Truth and Error grapple" in the full face of day, for they are not slow to learn.

TUESDAY, December 3.

The turbulent China Sea has pa.s.sed into a proverb. The Channel pa.s.sage in a gale, I suppose, comes nearest to it. We started to cross this sea at daylight, and surely we have reason to be grateful. It is as smooth as a mirror, the winds are hushed, and as I write the sh.o.r.es of j.a.pan fade peacefully from view. I cannot help thinking how improbable that I shall ever see them again; but, however that may be, farewell for the present to j.a.pan. Take a stranger's best wishes for your future.