PEEPS AT MANY LANDS

 JAPAN

 BY

 JOHN FINNEMORE

 WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

 BY

 ELLA DU CANE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

 II. BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN

 III. BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN (_continued_)

 IV. THE JAPANESE BOY

 V. THE JAPANESE GIRL

 VI. IN THE HOUSE

 VII. IN THE HOUSE (_continued_)

 VIII. A JAPANESE DAY

 IX. A JAPANESE DAY (_continued_)

 X. JAPANESE GAMES

 XI. THE FEAST OF DOLLS AND THE FEAST OF FLAGS

 XII. A FARTHING'S WORTH OF FUN

 XIII. KITE-FLYING

 XIV. FAIRY STORIES

 XV. TEA-HOUSES AND TEMPLES

 XVI. TEA-HOUSES AND TEMPLES (_continued_)

 XVII. THE RICKSHAW-MAN

XVIII. IN THE COUNTRY

 XIX. IN THE COUNTRY (_continued_)

 XX. THE POLICEMAN AND THE SOLDIER

 XXI. TWO GREAT FESTIVALS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BY ELLA DU CANE

OUTSIDE A TEA-HOUSE

_Sketch-Map of Japan_

THE LITTLE NURSE

THE WRITING LESSON

GOING TO THE TEMPLE

A JAPANESE HOUSE

OFFERING TEA TO A GUEST

FIGHTING TOPS

THE TOY SHOP

A BUDDHIST SHRINE

PEACH TREES IN BLOSSOM

THE FEAST OF FLAGS

THE TORII OF THE TEMPLE

CHAPTER I

THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

Far away from our land, on the other side of the world, lies a group ofislands which form the kingdom of Japan. The word "Japan" means the "Landof the Rising Sun, " and it is certainly a good name for a country of theFar East, the land of sunrise. 

The flag of Japan, too, is painted with a rising sun which sheds its beamson every hand, and this flag is now for ever famous, so great and wonderfulhave been the victories in which it has been borne triumphant over Russianarms. 

In some ways the Japanese are fond of comparing themselves with theirEnglish friends and allies. They point out that Japan is a cluster ofislands off the coast of Asia, as Britain is a cluster of islands off thecoast of Europe. They have proved themselves, like the English, brave andclever on the sea, while their troops have fought as nobly as Britishsoldiers on the land. They are fond of calling themselves the "English ofthe East, " and say that their land is the "Britain of the Pacific. "

The rise of Japan in becoming one of the Great Powers of the world has beenvery sudden and wonderful. Fifty years ago Japan lay hidden from the world;she forbade strangers to visit the country, and very little was known ofher people and her customs. 

Her navy then consisted of a few wooden junks; to-day she has a fleet ofsplendid ironclads, handled by men who know their duties as well as Englishseamen. Her army consisted of troops armed with two swords and carryingbows and arrows; to-day her troops are the admiration of the world, armedwith the most modern weapons, and, as foes, to be dreaded by the mostpowerful nations. 

Fifty years ago Japan was in the purely feudal stage. Her great nativePrinces were called Daimios. Each had a strong castle and a private armyof his own. There were ceaseless feuds between these Princes and constantfighting between their armies of samurai, as their followers were called. Japan was like England at the time of our War of the Roses: family quarrelswere fought out in pitched battle. All that has now gone. The Daimios havebecome private gentlemen; the armies of samurai have been disbanded, andJapan is ruled and managed just like a European country, with judges, andpolicemen, and law-courts, after the model of Western lands. 

When the Japanese decided to come out and take their place among the greatnations of the world, they did not adopt any half-measures; they simplycame out once and for all. They threw themselves into the stream of moderninventions and movements with a will. They have built railways and set uptelegraph and telephone lines. They have erected banks and warehouses, mills and factories. They have built bridges and improved roads. They havelaw-courts and a Parliament, to which the members are elected by thepeople, and newspapers flourish everywhere. 

Japan is a very beautiful country. It is full of fine mountains, withrivers leaping down the steep slopes and dashing over the rocks in snowywaterfalls. At the foot of the hills are rich plains and valleys, wellwatered by the streams which rush down from the hills. But the mountainsare so many and the plains are so few that only a small part of the landcan be used for growing crops, and this makes Japan poor. Its climate isnot unlike ours in Great Britain, but the summer is hotter, and the winteris in some parts very cold. Many of the mountains are volcanoes. Some ofthese are still active, and earthquakes often take place. Sometimes theseearthquakes do terrible harm. The great earthquake of 1871 killed 10, 000people, injured 20, 000, and destroyed 130, 000 houses. 

The highest mountain of Japan also is the most beautiful, and it is greatlybeloved by the Japanese, who regard it as a sacred height. Its name isFujisan, or Fusi-Yama, and it stands near the sea and the capital cityof Tokyo. It is of most beautiful shape, an almost perfect cone, and itsprings nearly 13, 000 feet into the air. From the sea it forms a mostsuperb and majestic sight. Long before a glimpse can be caught of the shoreand the city, the traveller sees the lofty peak, crowned with a glitteringcrest of snow, rising in lonely majesty, with no hint of the land on whichit rests. The Japanese have a great love of natural beauty, and they adoreFujisan. Their artists are never tired of painting it, and pictures of itare to be found in the most distant parts of the land. 

CHAPTER II

BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN

In no country in the world do children have a happier childhood than inJapan. Their parents are devoted to them, and the children are always good. This seems a great deal to say, but it is quite true. Japanese boys andgirls behave as quietly and with as much composure as grown-up men andwomen. From the first moment that it can understand anything, a Japanesebaby is taught to control its feelings. If it is in pain or sad, it is notto cry or to pull an ugly face; that would not be nice for other people tohear or see. If it is very merry or happy, it is not to laugh too loudly orto make too much noise; that would be vulgar. So the Japanese boy or girlgrows up very quiet, very gentle, and very polite, with a smile foreverything and everybody. 

While they are little they have plenty of play and fun when they are not inschool. In both towns and villages the streets are the playground, and herethey play ball, or battledore and shuttlecock, or fly kites. 

Almost every little girl has a baby brother or sister strapped on her back, for babies are never carried in the arms in Japan except by the nurses ofvery wealthy people. The baby is fastened on its mother's or its sister'sshoulders by a shawl, and that serves it for both cot and cradle. Thelittle girl does not lose a single scrap of her play because of the baby. She runs here and there, striking with her battledore, or racing after herfriends, and the baby swings to and fro on her shoulders, its little headwobbling from side to side as if it were going to tumble off. But it isperfectly content, and either watches the game with its sharp little blackeyes, or goes calmly off to sleep. 

In the form of their dress both boys and girls appear alike, and, more thanthat, they are dressed exactly like their parents. There is no child'sdress in Japan. The garments are smaller, to fit the small wearers--that isall. 

The main article of dress is a loose gown, called a kimono. Under the outerkimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are girt about the body with alarge sash, called an obi. The obi is the pride of a Japanese girl's heart. If her parents are rich, it will be of shining costly silk or rich brocadeor cloth of gold; if her parents are poor, they will make an effort to gether one as handsome as their means will allow. Next to her obi, she pridesherself on the ornaments which decorate her black hair--fine hairpins, with heads of tortoiseshell or coral or lacquer, and hair-combs, all mostbeautifully carved. 

A boy's obi is more for practical use, and is not of such splendour ashis sister's. When he is very small, his clothes are of yellow, while hissister's are of red. At the age of five he puts on the hakama, and then heis a very proud boy. The hakama is a kind of trousers made of silk, and isworn by men instead of an under-kimono. At five years old a boy is takento the temple to thank the gods who have protected him thus far; and as hestruts along, and hears with joy his hakama rustling its stiff new silkbeneath his kimono, he feels himself a man indeed, and that his babyhood ofyesterday is left far behind. 

Upon the feet are worn the tabi--thick white socks, which may be calledfoot-gloves, for there are separate divisions for the toes. 

These serve both as stockings outside the house and slippers inside, for noboots are worn in a Japanese house. When a Japanese walks out, he slips hisfeet into high wooden clogs, and when he comes home he kicks off the clogsat the door, and enters his home in tabi alone. The reason for this weshall hear later on. In Japanese clothes there are no pockets. Whateverthey need to carry with them is tucked into the sash or into the sleeves ofthe kimono. The latter are often very long, and afford ample room for theodds and ends one usually carries in the pocket. 

But fine kimonos and rich obis are for the wealthy Japanese; the poorcannot afford them, and dress very simply. The coolie--the Japanese workingman--goes almost naked in the warm weather, wearing only a pair of shortcotton trousers, until he catches sight of a policeman, when he slips onhis blue cotton coat, for the police have orders to see that he dresseshimself properly. His wife wears a cotton kimono, and the pair of them candress themselves handsomely--for coolies--from head to foot for a sum of 45sen, which, taking the sen at a halfpenny, amounts to 1 S. 10-1/2d. In ourmoney. 

CHAPTER III

BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN (_continued_)

When Japanese boys and girls go to school, they make very low bows to theirteacher and draw in the breath with a buzzing sound. This is a sign of deeprespect, and the teacher returns their politeness by making low bows tothem. Then the children sit down and begin to learn their lessons. 

Their books are very odd-looking affairs to us. Not only are they printedin very large characters, but they seem quite upside down. To find thefirst page you turn to the end of the book, and you read it backwardsto the front page. Again, you do not read from left to right, as in ourfashion, but from right to left. Nor is this all: for the lines do not runacross the page, but up and down. Altogether, a Japanese book is at firsta very puzzling affair. When the writing lesson comes, the children haveno pens; they use brushes instead. They dip their brushes in the ink, andpaint the words one under the other, beginning at the top right-hand cornerand finishing at the bottom left-hand corner. If they have an address towrite on an envelope, they turn that upside down and begin with the nameof the country and finish with the name of the person--England, London, Kensington Gardens, Brown John Mr. 

But Japanese children have quite as many things to learn at home as atschool. At school they learn arithmetic, geography, history, and so on, just as children do in England, but their manners and their conduct towardsother people are carefully drilled into them by their parents. The art ofbehaving yourself towards others is by no means an easy thing to learnin Japan. It is not merely a matter of good-feeling, gentleness, andpoliteness, as we understand it, but there is a whole complicated systemof behaviour: how many bows to make, and how they should be made. Thereare different forms of salutation to superiors, equals, and inferiors. Different ranks of life have their own ways of performing certain actions, and it is said that a girl's rank may easily be known merely by the wayin which she hands a cup of tea to a guest. From the earliest years thechildren are trained in these observances, and they never make a mistake. 

The Japanese baby is taught how to walk, how to bow, how to kneel andtouch the floor with its forehead in the presence of a superior, and howto get up again; and all is done in the most graceful manner and withoutdisturbing a single fold in its kimono. 

A child is taught very carefully how to wait on people, how to enter theroom, how to carry a tray or bowl at the right height, and, above all, howto offer a cup or plate in the most dainty and correct style. One writerspeaks of going into a Japanese shop to buy some articles he wanted. Themaster, the mistress, the children, all bent down before him. There wasa two-year-old baby boy asleep on his sister's back, and he, too, wasawakened and called upon to pay his respects to the foreign gentleman. Hewoke without a start or a cry, understood at once what was required of him, was set on his feet, and then proceeded to make his bows and to touch theground with his little forehead, just as exactly as his elder relatives. This done, he was restored once more to the shawl, and was asleep again ina moment. 

The art of arranging flowers and ornaments is another important branch of agirl's home education. Everything in a Japanese room is carefully arrangedso that it shall be in harmony with its surroundings. The arrangement ofa bunch of flowers in a fine porcelain jar is a matter of much thoughtand care. Children are trained how to arrange blossoms and boughs so thatthe most beautiful effect may be gained, and in many Japanese houses maybe found books which contain rules and diagrams intended to help them ingaining this power of skilful arrangement. This feeling for taste andbeauty is common to all Japanese, even the poorest. A well-known artistsays: "Perhaps, however, one of the most curious experiences I had of thenative artistic instinct of Japan occurred in this way: I had got a numberof fan-holders, and was busying myself one afternoon arranging them uponthe walls. My little Japanese servant-boy was in the room, and as I wenton with my work I caught an expression on his face from time to time whichshowed me that he was not overpleased with my performance. After a while, as this dissatisfied expression seemed to deepen, I asked him what thematter was. Then he frankly confessed that he did not like the way in whichI was arranging my fan-holders. 'Why did you not tell me so at once?' Iasked. 'You are an artist from England, ' he replied, 'and it was not forme to speak. ' However, I persuaded him to arrange the fan-holders himselfafter his own taste, and I must say that I received a remarkable lesson. The task took him about two hours--placing, arranging, adjusting; and whenhe had finished, the result was simply beautiful. That wall was a perfectpicture: every fan-holder seemed to be exactly in its right place, and itlooked as if the alteration of a single one would affect and disintegratethe whole scheme. I accepted the lesson with due humility, and remainedmore than ever convinced that the Japanese are what they have justlyclaimed to be--an essentially artistic people, instinct with living art. "

CHAPTER IV

THE JAPANESE BOY

A Japanese boy is the monarch of the household. Japan is thoroughly Easternin the position which it gives to women. The boy, and afterwards the man, holds absolute rule over sister or wife. It is true that the upper classesin Japan are beginning to take a wider view of such matters. Women ofwealthy families are well educated, wear Western dress, and copy Westernmanners. They sit at table with their husbands, enter a room or a carriagebefore them, and are treated as English women are treated by English men. But in the middle and lower classes the old state of affairs still remains:the woman is a servant pure and simple. It is said that even among thegreatest families the old customs are still observed in private. The greatlady who is treated in her Western dress just as her Western sister istreated takes pride in waiting on her husband when they return to kimonoand obi, just as her grandmother did. 

The importance of the male in Japan arises from the religious customs ofthe country. The chief of the latter is ancestor-worship. The ancestorsof a family form its household gods; but only the male ancestors areworshipped: no offerings are ever laid on the shelf of the household godsbefore an ancestress. Property, too, passes chiefly in the male line, andevery Japanese father is eager to have a son who shall continue the worshipof his ancestors, and to whom his property may descend. 

Thus, the birth of a son is received with great joy in a Japanesehousehold; though, on the other hand, we must not think that a girl isill-treated, or even destroyed, as sometimes happens in China. Not atall; she is loved and petted just as much as her brother, but she isnot regarded as so important to the family line. 

At the age of three the Japanese boy is taken to the temple to give thanksto the gods. Again, at the age of five, he goes to the temple, once more toreturn thanks. Now he is wearing the hakama, the manly garment, and beginsto feel himself quite a man. From this age onwards the Japanese boy amongthe wealthier classes is kept busily at work in school until he is ready togo to the University, but among the poorer classes he often begins to workfor his living. 

The clever work executed by most tiny children is a matter of wonder andsurprise to all European travellers. Little boys are found binding books, making paper lanterns and painting them, making porcelain cups, windinggrass ropes which are hung along the house-fronts for the first week of theyear to prevent evil spirits from entering, weaving mats to spread over thefloors, and at a hundred other occupations. It is very amusing to watchthe practice of the little boys who are going to be dentists. In Japan thedentist of the people fetches out an aching tooth with thumb and finger, and will pluck it out as surely as any tool can do the work, so his pupilslearn their trade by trying to pull nails out of a board. They begin withtin-tacks, and go on until they can, with thumb and finger, pluck out anail firmly driven into the wood. 

Luckily for them, they often get a holiday. The Japanese have manyfestivals, when parents and children drop their work to go to some famousgarden or temple for a day's pleasure. Then there is the great boys'festival, the Feast of Flags, held on the fifth day of the fifth month. Ofthis festival we shall speak again. 

Every Japanese boy is taught that he owes the strictest duty to his parentsand to his Emperor. These duties come before all others in Japanese eyes. Whatever else he may neglect, he never forgets these obligations. Frominfancy he is familiar with stories in which children are represented asdoing the most extraordinary things and undergoing the greatest hardshipsin order to serve their parents. There is one famous old book called"Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Virtue. " It gives instances of the doingsof good sons, and is very popular in every Japanese household. 

Professor Chamberlain, the great authority on Japan, quotes some of theseinstances, and they seem to us rather absurd. He says: "One of the paragonshad a cruel stepmother who was very fond of fish. Never grumbling at herharsh treatment of him, he lay down naked on the frozen surface of thelake. The warmth of his body melted a hole in the ice, at which two carpcame up to breathe. These he caught and set before his stepmother. Anotherparagon, though of tender years and having a delicate skin, insisted onsleeping uncovered at night, in order that the mosquitoes should fasten onhim alone, and allow his parents to slumber undisturbed. 

"A third, who was very poor, determined to bury his own child alive inorder to have more food wherewith to support his aged mother, but wasrewarded by Heaven with the discovery of a vessel filled with gold, offwhich the whole family lived happily ever after. But the drollest of allis the story of Roraishi. This paragon, though seventy years old, used todress in baby's clothes and sprawl about upon the floor. His object was todelude his parents, who were really over ninety years of age, into the ideathat they could not be so very old, after all, seeing that they still hadsuch a childlike son. "

His duty to his Emperor the Japanese takes very seriously, for it includeshis duty to his country. He considers that his life belongs to his country, and he is not only willing, but proud, to give it in her defence. This wasseen to the full in the late war with Russia. Time and again a Japaneseregiment was ordered to go to certain death. Not a man questioned theorder, not a man dreamed for an instant of disobedience. Forward went theline, until every man had been smitten down, and the last brave throat hadshouted its last shrill "Banzai!" This was the result of teaching every boyin Japan that the most glorious thing that can happen to him is to die forhis Emperor and his native land. 

CHAPTER V

THE JAPANESE GIRL

The word "obedience" has a large part in the life of a Japanese boy; itis the whole life of a Japanese girl. From her babyhood she is taught theduty of obeying some one or other among her relations. There is an old bookstudied in every Japanese household and learned by heart by every Japanesegirl, called "Onra-Dai-Gaku"--that is, the "Greater Learning for Women. " Itis a code of morals for girls and women, and it starts by saying that everywoman owes three obediences: first, while unmarried, to her father; second, when married, to her husband and the elders of his family; third, when awidow, to her son. 

Up to the age of three the Japanese girl baby has her head shaved invarious fancy patterns, but after three years old the hair is allowed togrow to its natural length. Up to the age of seven she wears a narrow obiof soft silk, the sash of infancy; but at seven years old she puts on thestiff wide obi, tied with a huge bow, and her dress from that moment iswomanly in every detail. She is now a musume, or moosme, the Japanese girl, one of the merriest, brightest little creatures in the world. She is neverbig, for when at her full height she will be about four feet eight inchestall, and a Japanese woman of five feet high is a giantess. 

This is her time to wear gay, bright colours, for as a married woman shemust dress very soberly. A party of moosmes tripping along to a feast or afair looks like a bed of brilliant flowers set in motion. They wear kimonosof rich silks and bright shades, kimonos of vermilion and gold, of pink, of blue, of white, decorated with lovely designs of apple-blossom, of silkcrape in luminous greens and golden browns, every shade of the rainbowbeing employed, but all in harmony and perfect taste. If a shower comes onand they tuck up their gaily-coloured and embroidered kimonos, they looklike a bed of poppies, for each shows a glowing scarlet under-kimono, orpetticoat. 

Not only is this the time for the Japanese girl to be gaily dressed, but itis her time to visit fairs and temples, and to enjoy the gaieties which mayfall in her way: for when she marries, the gates which lead to the ways ofpleasure are closed against her for a long time. The duties of a Japanesewife keep her strictly at home, until the golden day dawns when her sonmarries and she has a daughter-in-law upon whom she may thrust all thecares of the household. Then once more she can go to temples and theatres, fairs and festivals, while another drudges in her stead. 

Marriage is early in Japan. A girl marries at sixteen or seventeen, and tobe unmarried at twenty is accounted a great misfortune. At marriage shecompletely severs herself from her own relations, and joins her husband'shousehold. This is shown in a very striking fashion by the bride wearinga white kimono, the colour of mourning; and more, when she has left herfather's house, fires of purification are lighted, just as if a dead bodyhad been borne to the grave. This is to signify that henceforward the brideis dead to her old home, and her whole life must now be spent in theservice of her husband and his relations. 

The wedding rites are very simple. There is no public function, as inEngland, and no religious ceremony; the chief feature is that the brideand bridegroom drink three times in turn from three cups, each cup havingtwo spouts. These cups are filled with saké, the national strong drink ofJapan, a kind of beer made from rice. This drinking is supposed to typifythat henceforth they will share each other's joys and sorrows, and thissipping of saké constitutes the marriage ceremony. 

The young wife now must bid farewell to her fine clothes and hermerry-making. She wears garments of a soft dove colour, or greys or fawns, quiet shades, but often of great charm. She has now to rise first in themorning, to open the shutters which have closed the house for the night, for this is a duty she may not leave to the servants. If her husband'sfather and mother dwell in the same house, she must consider it an honourto supply all their wants, and she is expected to become a perfect slaveto her mother-in-law. It is not uncommon for a meek little wife, who hasobeyed every one, to become a perfect tyrant as a mother-in-law, orderingher son's wife right and left, and making the younger woman's life a sheermisery. The mother-in-law has escaped from the land of bondage. It is nolonger her duty to rise at dawn and open the house; she can lie in bed, andbe waited upon by the young wife; she is free to go here and there, and shedoes not let her chances slip; she begins once more to thoroughly enjoylife. 

It may be doubted, however, whether these conditions will hold their ownagainst the flood of Western customs and Western views which has begun toflow into Japan. At present the deeply-seated ideas which rule home-lifeare but little shaken in the main, but it is very likely that the modernJapanese girl will revolt against this spending of the best years of herlife as an upper and unpaid servant to her husband's friends and relations. But at the present moment, for great sections of Japanese society, the oldways still stand, and stand firmly. 

It was formerly the custom for a woman to make herself as ugly as possiblewhen she was married. This was to show that she wished to draw no attentionfrom anyone outside her own home. As a rule she blackened her teeth, whichgave her a hideous appearance when she smiled. This custom is now dyingout, though plenty of women with blackened teeth are still to be seen. 

Should a Japanese wife become a widow, she is expected to show her griefby her desolate appearance. She shaves her head, and wears garments of themost mournful look. It has been said that a Japanese girl has the look of abird of Paradise, the Japanese wife of a dove, and the Japanese widow of acrow. 

CHAPTER VI

IN THE HOUSE

A Japanese house is one of the simplest buildings in the world. Its mainfeatures are the roof of tiles or thatch, and the posts which support thelatter. By day the walls are of oiled paper; by night they are formed ofwooden shutters, neither very thick nor very strong. As a rule, the houseis of but one story, and its flimsiness comes from two reasons, both verygood ones. 

The first is that Japan is a home of earthquakes, and when an earthquakestarts to rock the land and topple the houses about the peoples' ears, thena tall, strong house of stone or brick would be both dangerous in its falland very expensive to put up again. The second is that Japan is a land offires. The people are very careless. They use cheap lamps and still cheaperpetroleum. A lamp explodes or gets knocked over; the oiled paper wallsburst into a blaze; the blaze spreads right and left, and sweeps away afew streets, or a suburb of a city, or a whole village. The Jap takes thisvery calmly. He gets a few posts, puts the same tiles up again for a roof, or makes a new thatch, and, with a few paper screens and shutters, therestands his house again. 

A house among the poorer sort of Japanese consists of one large room in thedaytime. At night it is formed into as many bedrooms as its owner requires. Along the floor, which is raised about a foot from the ground, and alongthe roof run a number of grooves, lengthways and crossways. Frames coveredwith paper, called shoji, slide along these grooves and form the wallbetween chamber and chamber. The front of the house is, as a rule, open tothe street, but if the owners wish for privacy they slide a paper screeninto position. At night wooden shutters, called amado, cover the screens. Each shutter is held in place by the next, and the last shutter is fastenedby a wooden bolt. 

The Japanese are very fond of fresh air and sunshine. Unless the day is toowet or stormy, the front of the house always stands open. If the sun istoo strong a curtain is hung across for shade, and very often this curtainbears a huge white symbol representing his name, just as an Englishman putshis name on a brass plate on his front-door. The furniture in these housesis very simple. The floor is covered with thick mats, which serve forchairs and bed, as people both sit and sleep on them. For table a low stoolsuffices, and for a young couple to set up housekeeping in Japan is a verysimple matter. As Mrs. Bishop, the well-known writer, remarks:

"Among the strong reasons for deprecating the adoption of foreign houses, furniture, and modes of living by the Japanese, is that the expenseof living would be so largely, increased as to render early marriagesimpossible. At present the requirements of a young couple in the poorerclasses are: a bare matted room (capable or not of division), two woodenpillows, a few cotton futons (quilts), and a sliding panel, behind whichto conceal them in the daytime, a wooden rice bucket and ladle, a woodenwash-bowl, an iron kettle, a hibachi (warming and cooking stove), a trayor two, a teapot or two, two lacquer rice-bowls, a dinner box, a few chinacups, a few towels, a bamboo switch for sweeping, a tabako-bon (apparatusfor tobacco-smoking), an iron pot, and a few shelves let into a recess, allof which can be purchased for something under Ł2. "

These young people would, however, have everything quite comfortable aboutthem, and housekeeping can be set up at a still lower figure, if necessary. Excellent authorities say, and give particulars to prove, that a cooliehousehold may be established in full running order for 5-1/2 yen--that is, somewhere about a sovereign. 

In better-class houses the same simplicity prevails, though the buildingmay be of costly materials, with posts and ceilings of ebony inlaid withgold, and floors of rare polished woods. The screens (shoji) still separatethe rooms; the shutters (amado) enclose it at night. There are neitherdoors nor passages. When you wish to pass from one room to the next youslide back one of the shoji, and shut it after you. So you go from roomto room until you reach the one of which you are in search. The shoji areoften beautifully painted, and in each room is hung a kakemono (a wallpicture, a painting finely executed on a strip of silk). A favouritesubject is a branch of blossoming cherry, and this, painted upon whitesilk, gives an effect of wonderful freshness and beauty. 

There is no chimney, for a Japanese house knows nothing of a fireplace. Thesimple cooking is done over a stove burning charcoal, the fumes of whichwander through the house and disperse through the hundred openings affordedby the loosely-fitting paper walls. To keep warm in cold weather theJapanese hug to themselves and hang over smaller stoves, called hibachi, metal vessels containing a handful of smouldering charcoal. 

In the rooms there are neither tables nor chairs. The floor is coveredwith most beautiful mats, as white as snow and as soft as a cushion, forthey are often a couple of inches thick. They are woven of fine straw, and on these the Japanese sit, with their feet tucked away under them. At dinner-time small, low tables are brought in, and when the meal isfinished, the tables are taken away again. Chairs are never used, and theJapanese who wishes to follow Western ways has to practise carefully how tosit on a chair, just as we should have to practise how to sit on our feetas he does at home. 

When bedtime comes, there is no change of room. The sitting-room by daybecomes the bedroom by night. A couple of wooden pillows and some quiltsare fetched from a cupboard; the quilts are spread on the floor, thepillows are placed in position, and the bed is ready. The pillows wouldstrike us as most uncomfortable affairs. They are mere wooden neckrests, and European travellers who have tried them declare that it is like tryingto go to sleep with your head hanging over a wooden door-scraper. 

As they both sit and sleep on their matting-covered floors, we now see whythe Japanese never wear any boots or clogs in the house. To do so wouldmake their beautiful and spotless mats dirty; so all shoes are left atthe door, and they walk about the house in the tabi, the thick glove-likesocks. 

CHAPTER VII

IN THE HOUSE (_continued_)

Even supposing that a well-to-do Japanese has a good deal of nativefurniture--such as beautifully painted screens, handsome vases, tables ofebony inlaid with gold or with fancy woods, and so forth--yet he does notkeep them in the house. He stores them away in a special building, anda servant runs and fetches whatever may be wanted. When the article hasserved its purpose, it is taken back again. 

This building is called a godown. It is built of cement, is painted black, and bears the owner's monogram in a huge white design. It is consideredto be fireproof, though it is not always so, and is meant to preserve thefamily treasures in case of one of the frequent fires. It may be storedwith a great variety of furniture and ornaments, but very few see the lightat one time. 

The Japanese does not fill his house with all the decorations he may own, and live with them constantly. If he has a number of beautiful porcelainjars and vases, he has one out at one time, another at another. A certainvase goes with a certain screen, and every time a change is made, thedaughters of the house receive new lessons in the art of placing thearticles and decking them with flowers and boughs of blossom in order togain the most beautiful effect. If a visitor be present in the house, theguest-chamber will be decorated afresh every day, each design showing somenew and unexpected beauty in screen, or flower-decked vase, or paintedkakemono. There is one vase which is always carefully supplied withfreshly-cut boughs or flowers. This is the vase which stands before thetokonoma. The tokonoma is a very quaint feature of a Japanese house. Itmeans a place in which to lay a bed, and, in theory, is a guest-chamber inwhich to lodge the Mikado, the Japanese Emperor. So loyal are the Japanesethat every house is supposed to contain a room ready for the Emperor incase he should stay at the door and need a night's lodging. The Emperor, of course, never comes, and so the tokonoma is no more than a name. 

Usually it is a recess a few feet long and a few inches wide, and over ithangs the finest kakemono that the house can afford, and in front of it isa vase whose flowers are arranged in a traditional form which has a certainallegorical meaning. 

At night a Japanese room is lighted by a candle fixed in a large squarepaper lantern, the latter placed on a lacquer stand. The light is verydim, and many are now replacing it with ordinary European lamps. Unluckilythey buy the very commonest and cheapest of these, and so in consequenceaccidents and fires are numerous. 

Among the coolies of Japan, the people who fill the back streets of thelarge towns with long rows of tiny houses, the process of "moving house"is absolutely literal. They do not merely carry off their furniture--thatwould be simple enough--but they swing up the house too, carry it off, settheir furniture in it again, and resume their contented family life. It isnot at all an uncommon thing to meet a pair thus engaged in shifting theirabode. The man is marching along with a building of lath and paper, notmuch bigger than a bathing-machine, swung on his shoulders, while his wifetrudges behind him with two or three big bundles tied up in blue cloth. Hecarries the house, and she the furniture. Within a few hours they will becomfortably settled in the new street to which their needs or their fanciescall them. 

CHAPTER VIII

A JAPANESE DAY

The first person astir in a Japanese household is the mistress of thehouse. She rises from the quilts on the floor which form her bed and putsout the lamp, which has been burning all night. No Japanese sleeps withoutan andon, a tall paper lamp, in which a dim light burns. Next she unlocksthe amado, the wooden shutters, and calls the servants. 

Now the breakfast-table must be set out. In one way this is very simple, for there is no cloth to spread, for tablecloths are unknown, and whenenough rice has been boiled and enough tea has been made, the breakfastis ready. But there is one point upon which she must be very careful. Thelacquer rice-bowls and the chopsticks must be set in their proper order, according to the importance of each person in the family. The slightestmistake in arranging the position at a meal of any member of the familyor of a guest under the roof would be a matter of the deepest disgrace. Etiquette is the tyrant of Japan. A slip in the manner of serving the foodis a thousand times more important in Japanese eyes than the quality of thefood itself. A hostess might serve burned rice and the most shocking tea, but if it were handed round in correct form, there would be nothing more tobe said; but to serve a twice-honourable guest before a thrice-honourableguest--ah! that would be truly dreadful, a blot never to be wiped off thefamily escutcheon. 

After breakfast the master of the house will go about his business. If theday is fine the wife has his straw sandals ready for him; if it is wetshe gets his high wooden clogs and his umbrella of oiled paper. Then sheand the servants escort him to the door and speed his departure with manylow bows, rubbing their knees together--the latter is a sign of deeprespect--and calling good wishes after him. 

It may seem odd to us that the servants should accompany their mistress onsuch an errand, but the servants in Japan are not like other servants: theyare as much a part of the family as the children of the house. Domesticservice in Japan is a most honourable calling, and ranks far higher thantrade. A domestic servant who married a tradesman would be considered asgoing down a step in the social scale. In Japan trade has been left untillately to the lower classes of the population, and tradespeople have rankedwith coolies and labourers. 

This importance of domestic servants arises from two reasons: First, theold custom which compels the mistress of the house, even if she be ofthe highest rank, to serve her husband and children herself, and also towait on her parents-in-law, has the effect of raising domestic service to ahigh and honourable level. Second, many Japanese servants are of good birthand excellent family. Only a generation ago their fathers were samurai, followers of some great Prince, a Daimio, and members of his clan. In thefeudal days of Japan, so recently past, the position of the samurai wasexactly the same as the clansmen of a Highland chief, say at the time ofthe "Forty-Five. "

The Daimio, the Japanese chief, had a great estate and vast revenues, counted in measures of rice; one Daimio had as much as 1, 000, 000 kokuof rice, the koku being a weight of about 132 pounds. But out of theserevenues he had to maintain his clan, his samurai, the members of hisprivate army. The samurai clansmen were the exact counterparts ofHighlanders. The poorest considered himself a gentleman and a member ofhis chief's family; he held trade and handicrafts in the utmost disdain:he lived only for war and the defence of his lord. But he regarded servicein his lord's household as a high honour, and thus all service was madehonourable. When the feudal system came to an end, when the Daimios retiredinto private life, and the samurai were disbanded, then the latter andtheir families found that they must work for their own support, and greatnumbers entered domestic service. 

Boys and girls who are meant for servants have to go through a course oftraining in etiquette, quite apart from the training they receive in theirduties. This training is intended to maintain the proper distance betweenemployer and servant, while, in a sense, allowing them to be perfectlyfamiliar. The Japanese servant bows low and kneels to her mistress, and addresses her always in the tone of voice used by an inferior to asuperior, yet she will join in a conversation between her mistress anda caller, and laugh with the rest at any joke which is made. 

It sounds difficult to believe that servants do not become too forwardunder such conditions, but they never do. Their perfect taste and goodbreeding forbid that they should pass over a certain line where familiaritywould go too far. The position of a servant in Japan is shown by the factthat, though her master or mistress will speak to her as a servant, yet acaller or guest must always use the tone of equality and address her as san(miss). In the absence of the mistress, servants are expected to entertainany callers, and they do this with the perfection of gentle manners andexquisite politeness. A lady writer says:

"I remember once being very much at sea when I was taken to pay a call ona Japanese lady of the well-to-do class. Not being able to speak a wordof the language, I was unable to follow the conversation which took placebetween the charming little lady who greeted us at the inner shutters andmy friend. She was dressed in the soft grey kimono and obi of a middle-agedwoman, and her exquisite manner and gentleness made me feel as heavy as myboots, which I had not been allowed to take off, sounded on the delicatefloor-matting compared to her soft white foot-gloves. 

"My friend addressed her as san, and seemed to speak to her just as aguest would to her hostess. We had tea on the floor, and my friend chattedpleasantly for some time with the little grey figure, when suddenly thesound of wheels on the gravel outside caught my ears, and the next instantthere was the scuffling of many feet along the polished wooden passagewhich led to the front door, and the eager cry of 'O kaeri! O kaeri!'(honourable return). Our hostess for the time rose from her knees, smiled, and begged us to excuse her honourable rudeness. When she had hurried offto join in the cry of welcome, my friend said, 'Oh, I am glad she hascome!'

"'Who has come ?' I asked. 

"'The lady we came to see, ' she said. 

"'Then, who was the charming little lady who poured out tea for us?' Iasked. My friend smiled. 

"'Oh, that was only the housemaid. '"

A man dealing with the same point remarks: "It is very important that aJapanese upper servant should have good manners, for he is expected to havesufficient knowledge of etiquette to entertain his master's guests if hismaster is out. After rubbing his knees together and hissing and kowtowing(bowing low), he will invite you to take a seat on the floor, or, morecorrectly speaking, on your heels, with a flat cushion between your kneesand the floor to make the ordeal a little less painful. He will then offeryou five cups of tea (it is the number of cups that signifies, not thenumber of callers), and dropping on his own heels with ease and grace, enter into an affable conversation, humble to a degree, but perfectlyfamiliar, until his master arrives to relieve him. Even after his masterhas arrived he may stay in the room, and is quite likely to cut into theconversation, and dead certain to laugh at the smallest apology for ajoke!"

CHAPTER IX

A JAPANESE DAY (_continued_)

But we must return to our Japanese housewife, who has at present only shownher husband out politely to his business. Now she sees that all the paperscreens are removed, so that the whole house becomes, as it were, one greatroom, and thus is thoroughly aired. The beds are rolled up and put awayin cupboards, and the woodwork is carefully rubbed down and polished. Perhaps the flowers in the vases are faded, and it is a long and elaborateperformance to rearrange the beautiful sprays and the blossoms brought infrom the garden. 

Cooking is not by any means so important a matter in her household lifeas it is in that of her Western sister. If her rice-box is well filled, her tea-caddy well stored, her pickle-jar and store of vegetables in goodorder, she has little more to think about. "Rice is the staple food ofJapan, and is eaten at every meal by rich or poor, taking the place of ourbread. It is of particularly fine quality, and at meals is brought in smallbright-looking tubs kept for this exclusive purpose and scrupulously clean;it is then helped to each individual in small quantities, and steaming hot. The humblest meal is served with nicety, and with the rice various tastycondiments, such as pickles, salted fish, and numerous other dainty littleappetizers, are eaten. To moisten the meal, tea without sugar is taken. Ahibachi, or charcoal basin, generally occupies the central position, roundwhich the meal is enjoyed, and on the fire of which the teapot is alwayskept easily boiling. "

When the Japanese housekeeper goes to market, she turns her attention, after the rice merchant's, to the fish and vegetable stalls. At thefish-stall nothing that comes out of the sea is overlooked. She buys notonly fish, but seaweed, which is a common article of diet. It is eatenraw; it is also boiled, pickled, or fried; it is often made into soup. Sea-slugs, cuttle-fish, and other creatures which we consider the mereoffal of the sea, are eagerly devoured by the Japanese. 

At the vegetable-stall there will be a great variety of things forsale--beans, peas, potatoes, maize, buckwheat, carrots, lettuce, turnips, squash, musk- and water-melons, cucumbers, spinach, garlic, onions, leeks, chillies, capucams (the produce of the egg-plant), and a score of otherthings, including yellow chrysanthemum blossoms and the roots and seeds ofthe lotus. The Japanese eat almost everything that grows, for they delightin dock and ferns, in wild ginger and bamboo shoots, and consider the lasta great tit-bit. 

But to Europeans the Japanese vegetables seem very tasteless, and the chiefof them all is very much disliked by Westerners. This is the famous daikon, the mighty Japanese radish, beloved among the poorer classes in its nativeland and abhorred by foreigners. It grows to an immense size, being oftenseen a yard long and as thick as a man's arm. When fresh it is harmlessenough, but the Japanese love to pickle it, and Mrs. Bishop remarks:

"It is slightly dried and then pickled in brine, with rice bran. It is veryporous, and absorbs a good deal of the pickle in the three months in whichit lies in it, and then has a smell so awful that it is difficult to remainin a house in which it is being eaten. It is the worst smell I know ofexcept that of a skunk!"

The pickle-seller's stall must not be forgotten, for the Japanese flavourtheir rather tasteless food with a wonderful variety of pickles and sauces. The great sauce is soy, made from fermented wheat and beans with salt andvinegar, and at times saké is added to it to heighten its flavour. Thissauce is served with many articles of food, and fish are often cooked init. 

When the Japanese housekeeper reaches home again she finds that herservants have finished their simple duties. Englishwomen always wonder whatthere is in a Japanese house for servants to do. There are no fires to lay, no furniture to polish and clean, no carpets to sweep, and no linen to washand mend; so Japanese servants spend much time chatting to each other, orsewing new kimonos together, or playing chess. As a rule, there are manymore servants than are necessary to do the work. This is because servantsare very cheap. There are always plenty of girls who are ready to fill thelower places if they can obtain food and clothes for their services, andthe upper servants only receive small sums, sometimes as low as six oreight shillings a month. 

If a servant wishes to leave her employment, she never gives direct noticeto her mistress. That would be the height of rudeness. Instead she begspermission to visit her home, or a sick relation, or some one who needsher assistance. Upon the day that she should return a long and elaborateapology for her non-arrival is sent, saying that, most unhappily, shecannot be spared from her home or her post of duty. It is then understoodthat she has left. 

In a similar fashion, no mistress tells a servant that she will not suit. Apolite explanation that it will be inconvenient to accept her services atthe moment is sent through a third party. 

In the evening the whole family, servants included, gather in the main roomof the house. The master and mistress sit near the hibachi (the stove)and the andon (the big paper lantern); the maids glide in and sit at arespectful distance with their sewing, if they have any. There may beconversation, or the master may read aloud from a book of historicalromances or fairy stories; but the servants may laugh and chat as freelyover joke or story as anyone. 

When bed-time arrives the quilts come out of the cupboards, and are spreadwith due care that no one sleeps with the head to the north, for that isthe position in which the dead are laid out, and so is a very unluckyone for the living. Then the little wooden neck-rests, which they use aspillows, are set in their places, and every one goes to bed. The Japaneseday is over. 

CHAPTER X

JAPANESE GAMES

The children of Japan have many games, and some of these games are sharedwith them by their fathers and mothers--yes, and by their grandfathers andgrandmothers too, for an old man will fly a kite as eagerly as his tinygrandson. The girls play battledore and shuttlecock and bounce balls, andthe boys spin tops and make them fight. A top-fight is arranged thus: Oneboy takes his top, made of hard wood with an iron ring round it, winds itup with string, and throws it on the ground; while it is spinning merrily, another boy throws his top in such a way that it spins against the firsttop and knocks it over. So cleverly are the attacking tops thrown that thefirst top is often knocked to a distance of several feet. Other games areplaying at war with toy weapons, hunting grasshoppers, which are kept intiny cages of bamboo, and hunting fireflies. The last pastime is followedby Japanese of all ages, and the glittering flies are pursued by night, andstruck down by a light fan. 

Wherever there is a stream of water, the boys set up toy water-wheels, andthese water-wheels drive little mills and machines, which the boys havemade for themselves in the cleverest fashion. 

Here is a group whose heads are very close together. Let us peep over theirshoulders, and see what it is they watch so quietly and earnestly. Ah! thisis a favourite trick. A small boy is setting a team of half a dozen beetlesto draw a load of rice up a smooth, sloping board. He has made a tiny cartof paper, and filled it with rice. The traces of the cart are made of finethreads of silk, and he fastens the threads of silk to the backs of thebeetles with gum. 

Now he has his strange team in motion, and the beetles are marching up theboard, dragging their load. The tiny faces in the ring of watchers arefilled with deep but motionless interest. Not one dreams of stretchingout a finger. There is no need to say, "Don't touch!" No one would dreamof touching--that would be very rude. Japanese children manage their owngames, without any appeal to their elders. It is not often that a disputearises, but, should that happen, the question is settled at once by theword of an elder child. The decision is obeyed without a murmur, and thegame goes on. 

Another game of which children are fond is that of painting sand-pictureson the roadside. A group of children will compete in drawing a sand-picturein the shortest time. Each has four bags of coloured sand--black, red, yellow, and blue--and a bag of white. The white sand is first thrown downin the form of a square; then a handful of black sand is taken, and allowedto run through the fingers to form a quaint outline of a man, or bird, oranimal, upon the white ground. Next, the design is finished with the othercolours, and very often a most striking effect is obtained by these childartists. "But the most extraordinary and most fascinating thing of all isto watch the performance of a master in sand-pictures. So dexterous andmasterly is he that he will dip his hand first into a bag of blue sandand then into one of yellow, allowing the separate streams to trickle outunmixed, and then, with a slight tremble of the hand, these streams willbe quickly converted into one thin stream of bright green, relapsing againinto the streams of blue and yellow at a moment's notice. "

There are many indoor games, and a very great favourite is the game ofalphabet cards. This is played with a number of cards, some of whichcontain a proverb and some a picture illustrating each proverb. Thechildren sit in a ring, and the cards are dealt to them. One of thechildren is the reader, and when he calls out a proverb the one who has thepicture corresponding to the proverb answers at once and gives up the card. The first one to be rid of his cards is the winner, and the one who holdsthe last card is the loser. If a boy is the loser, he has a dab of ink orof paint smudged on his face; if it is a girl, she has a wisp of strawput in her hair. The game is so called because each proverb begins with aletter of the Japanese alphabet. 

Japanese children have many holidays and festivals, and they enjoythemselves very much on these joyous occasions. With their beautifuldresses of silk shining in the sun, a crowd of them looks like a greatbed of flowers. Mr. Menpes speaks of a merry-making which he saw: "Itwas a festival for girls under ten, and there were hundreds of children, all with their kimonos tucked up, showing their scarlet petticoats, andlooking for all the world like a mass of poppies. . . . Two rows or armies ofthese girls were placed several yards distant from each other in this longemerald-green field, and in the space between them stood two servants, eachholding a long bamboo pole, and suspending from its top a flat, shallowdrum, covered with tissue-paper. 

"Presently two young men teachers appeared on the scene, carrying twobaskets of small many-coloured balls, which they threw down on the grassbetween the children and the drums. Then a signal was given, and all thegirls started running down the field at full tilt towards one another, pouncing on the balls as they ran, and throwing them with all their forceup at the paper drums. 

"After a time, when a perfect shower of balls had passed through the tissuedrums, quite demolishing them, a shower of coloured papers, miniaturelanterns, paper umbrellas, and flags came slowly fluttering down amongthe children on to their jet-black bobbing heads and into their eageroutstretched hands. Never have I seen anything more beautiful than thesegay, brightly-clad little people, packed closely together like a clusterof flowers in the brilliant sparkling sunshine, with their pretty upturnedfaces watching the softly falling rain of coloured toys. "

CHAPTER XI

THE FEAST OF DOLLS AND THE FEAST OF FLAGS

On the third day of the third month there is great excitement in everyJapanese household which numbers a girl among its domestic treasures: forthe Feast of Dolls has come, the great festival for dolls. On this day themost beautiful dolls and dolls' houses are fetched from the godown, wherethe family furniture is kept, and are on exhibition for a short time, setout on shelves covered with scarlet cloth. 

These dolls are the O-Hina, the honourable dolls. They are kept with thegreatest care, and in some families there are dolls which are centuriesold. As each doll is dressed exactly in the costume of its age, and isfurnished with belongings which represent in miniature the furniture ofthat age, such a collection has great historic value, and is used to teachthe children how their ancestors looked and lived. 

There are common dolls for the little girls to play with every day, butthese elaborate ones, the honourable dolls, are stored with the greatestcare. Many of them are very costly. The doll is not only beautifully madeand dressed, but its house is furnished with the most exact imitations ofevery article of furniture and of every utensil. In wealthy families thistoy furniture is made of the rarest gold lacquer, or of solid silver, or of beautiful porcelain. Not a single article, either of state or ofusefulness, is missing, and it is the delight of a Japanese girl at theFeast of Dolls to use the tiny utensils of her toy kitchen to prepare anelaborate feast of real food which is set before her honourable dolls. 

The beginning of a collection of such dolls is made as soon as a girl isborn. Every girl-child is presented with a pair of these dolls, and as timegoes on she gathers all the articles which go with them. These dolls arealways her own. When she marries she takes them to her new home. 

When the O-Hina Matsuri, the Feast of Dolls, draws near, the Japanese shopsbegin to be full of the little images used at that time. The poorer are ofpainted earthenware; the finer are of wood, with clothes of the richestmaterials. These images, together with tiny bowls, and pots, and stoves, and trays, are used to set off and decorate the surroundings of the Feastof Dolls. They vary very greatly in price. The coolie household may havea set-out which cost a few pence. The O-Hina of a great noble's housewill often be worth a fortune, having hundreds of beautifully carved anddressed images to represent the Emperor and Empress and every official ofthe Japanese Court, with every article used for State functions, and everypiece of furniture needed to deck a royal palace. Other sets of O-Hinarepresent great personages in Japanese history, perhaps a great Daimio andhis followers, each figure dressed with strict historical accuracy, andprovided with every feature proper to its rank and period. 

The great festival for boys comes at the Feast of Flags. This is held onthe fifth day of the fifth month. Every one knows when the Feast of Flagsis near, for before every house where there are boys a tall post of bamboois set up. Swinging from the top of each post is the figure of a huge carp, made of brightly coloured paper. If a boy has been born in the house duringthe year the carp is made bigger still. The body of the fish is hollow, andwhen the wind blows into it, it wriggles its fins and tail just like a fishswimming strongly. The Japanese choose the carp because they say it has thepower of ascending streams swiftly against the current and of leaping overwaterfalls. It is thus supposed to typify a young man breasting the streamof life, and thrusting his way through difficulties to success. 

As the boys' day draws near, the shops become full of toys for them. Thereare images bought for boys as well as for their sisters; but boys' imagesare those of soldiers, heroes, generals, famous old warriors, wrestlers, and so forth. The old Japanese were a war-like nation, and the toysprovided for their sons at the Feast of Flags were helmets, flags, swords, bows and arrows, coats of mail, spears, and the like. The Feast of Flagsitself is held on the day sacred to Hachima, the Japanese God of War, andthe favourite game on that day is a mimic battle. 

The boys divide themselves into two parties, called Heike and Genji. Thesenames represent two great old rival clans of the feudal days. Every Heikecarries a red flag on his back, every Genji a white one. Each combatantalso wears a helmet, consisting of a kind of earthenware pot. The combatis joined, and the small warriors hack at each other with bamboo swords. Awell-directed blow will dash to pieces the earthenware pot, and the weareris then compelled to own defeat. That side wins which breaks most pots onits opponents' heads, or captures most flags. 

This display of weapons, with blowing of horns and trumpets, serves anotherpurpose also; for on the fifth day of the fifth month the Japanese believethat Oni, an evil-disposed god, comes down from the heavens to devourboys, or to bring great harm to them. But he fears sharp swords, so thelong swordshaped blades of the sweet flag are gathered from the edges ofrivers and the sides of swampy rice-fields, and used as decorations. Asa Japanese writer says: "Oni fears the sword-blade of the sweet flag, sothat its leaves are everywhere. They are upon the festal table; they hangin festoons about the house, and all along the eaves. Boys wear them tiedaround their heads, with the white scraped fragrant roots projecting liketwo horns from their foreheads. So, and with the noise of bamboo horns, they frighten away the ogre god. For he fears horned men, and he dares notenter a house where so many swords hang from the eaves. "

CHAPTER XII

A FARTHING'S WORTH OF FUN

How would you like to go to a fair with a farthing, a whole farthing, tospend as you pleased? I think I can see some of you turning your noses up, and looking very scornful. "A farthing, indeed!" you say. "Pray, of whatuse is a farthing? I wouldn't mind going to a fair with a shilling, or evensixpence, but what could anyone do with a farthing?" Well, in Japan youcould do a great deal. We must remember that Japan is a country of tinywages; many of its workers do not receive more than sixpence a day, and aman who gets a shilling is well off. Tiny earnings mean tiny spendings, andthings are arranged on a scale to meet very slender purses. 

We will now see what sort of time O Hara San, Miss Blossom, and herbrother, Taro San, Master Eldest Son, had at the fair one fine day inNagasaki. In the morning they sprang up from their quilts full of excitedpleasure, for they had been looking forward to this fair for some time. Butthey did not romp and chatter and show their excitement as English childrenwould do. Their black eyes shone a little more brightly than usual, andthat was all. 

When they had whipped their rice into their mouths with their littlechopsticks, they started for the fair, which was to be held in the groundsof a great temple. Of course, they were dressed in their best clothes. Bothhad new kimonos, and O Hara San had a very fine obi, which her parents hadbought for her by denying themselves many little luxuries. Their father andgrandmother went with them, but their mother stayed at home with the baby. Their father wore a newly-washed kimono, but his chief glory was an oldbowler hat which a European gentleman had given to him. It had been muchtoo large for him, but he had neatly taken it in, and now wore it withgreat pride. When they reached the fair they gave themselves up to itsdelights with all their hearts. There was so much to do and so much to see. Almost at once O Hara San and Taro were beguiled by a sweetmeat stall. 

Each had five rin, and five rin make one farthing, or rather less, but wewill call it a farthing for the sake of round figures. One rin apiece wasspent here. The stall was in two divisions: one stocked with deliciouslittle bottles of sugar-water, the other with pieces of candy, tintedbright blue and red and green. Miss Blossom went in for a bottle ofsugar-water, and her brother for candies. But first he demanded of thecandy-seller that he should be allowed to try his luck at the disc. Thiswas a disc having an arrow which could be whirled round, and if the arrowpaused opposite a lucky spot an extra piece of candy was added to thepurchase. To Taro's great joy, he made a lucky hit, and won the extra pieceof candy; he felt that the fair had begun very well for him. 

While they drank sugar-water and munched candy, they wandered along lookingat the booths, where all sorts of wonders were to be seen--booths full ofconjurers, acrobats, dancers, of women who could stretch their necks tothe length of their arms, or thrust their lips up to cover their eyebrows, and a hundred other curious tricks. The price of admission was one rineach to children, and finally they chose the conjurer's booth, and saw himspout fire from his mouth, swallow a long sword, and finally exhibit asea-serpent, which appeared to be made of seal-skins tacked together. 

When they left the show they came all at once on one of the great delightsof a Japanese fair. It was the man with the cooking-stove, round whomchildren always throng as flies gather about honey. For the fifth part ofa farthing you may have the use of his cooking-stove, you may have a pieceof dough, or you may have batter with a cup, a spoon, and a dash of soysauce. You may then abandon yourself to the delights of making a cake foryourself, baking it for yourself, and then eating it yourself, and if youspend a couple of hours over the operation the man will not grumble. Asthis arrangement combines both the pleasure of making a cake and playingwith fire, it is very popular, and we cannot wonder that Taro took a turn, though Miss Blossom did not. She felt herself rather too big to join theswarm of happy urchins round the stove. 

While Taro was baking his cake she spent her third rin on a peep-show, where a juggler made little figures of paper and pasteboard dance andperform all kinds of antics. Then they went on again. Each bought one rin'sworth of sugared beans, a very favourite sweet-meat; and these they atewhile they waited for their father and grandmother to join them at thedoor of a certain theatre where they had agreed to meet. Into this theatrewas pouring a stream of people, old and young, men, women, children, andbabies, for a great historical play was to be performed, and it wouldshortly begin. Soon their elders turned up, and their father took theirlast rin to make up the payment which would admit them. 

In they went, and took possession of their place. The floor of the theatrewas divided by little partitions, about a foot or so high, into a vastnumber of tiny squares, like open egg-boxes. In one of these little boxesour friends squatted down on the floor, and the grandmother began to unpackthe bundle which she had been carrying. This bundle contained a number ofcooking-vessels and an ample supply of rice, for here they meant to stayfor some hours to see the play, to eat and drink, and enjoy themselvesgenerally. 

The father filled his pipe, lighted it at the hibachi, and began to smoke, as hundreds more were doing all round them. Each box contained a family, and each family had brought its cooking-pots, its food, and its drink; andhawkers of food, of pipes, of tobacco, of saké, and of a score of otherthings, rambled up and down selling their wares. 

When the play began every one paid close attention, for it was a greathistorical play, and the Japanese go to the theatre and take their childrenthere in order to learn history. There are represented the old wars, theold feuds, the struggle of Daimio against Daimio--in short, the history ofold Japan. When an actor gave pleasure, the audience flung their hats onthe stage. These were collected by an attendant, and kept until the ownersredeemed them by giving a present. For six hours O Hara San and Taro satin their little box, laughing, shouting, eating, and drinking, while theplay went on. Then it was over, for it was only a short play, at a cheaptheatre. "Ah!" said their father, "when I was a boy we had real plays. Weused to rise early and be in the theatre by six o'clock in the morning. There we would stay enjoying ourselves until eleven at night. But now thedecree of the Government is that no play shall last more than nine hours. It is too little!"

The children quite agreed with him as they helped their grandmother togather the pots and pans and dishes which were scattered about their box. Then each took the wooden ticket which would secure the shoes which theyhad left outside with the attendants, and went slowly from the theatre. When they had obtained their shoes and put them on, Miss Blossom and MasterEldest Son strolled slowly homewards through the fair. They had not anotherrin to spend--their farthing's worth of fun was over. 

CHAPTER XIII

KITE-FLYING

About a fortnight after the fair, on a fine windy afternoon, there was aholiday, and Taro, with his father and his younger brother Ito, turnedout to fly kites. Some of their neighbours were already at work flyingkites from the roofs of the houses or from windows, but our friends wantedmore room than that, and went up to a piece of higher ground behind theirstreet. Here they joined a crowd of kite-flyers. Every one was out to-daywith his kite, old and young, men of sixty, with yellow, wrinkled faces, down to toddlers of three, who clutched their strings and flew their littlekites with as much gravity and staidness as their grandfathers. Before longO Hara San came up with the baby on her back, and he had a bit of stringin his tiny fist and a scrap of a kite not much bigger than a man's handfloating a few yards above his head. 

But Taro was a proud boy this afternoon. He was about to fly his first bigfighting kite. It was made of tough, strong paper, stretched on a bambooframe five feet square, a kite taller than his own father. The day beforeTaro had pounded a piece of glass up fine and mixed it with glue. Themixture had been rubbed on the string of his kite for about thirty feetnear the kite-end and left to dry. Now, if he could only get this stringto cut sharply across the string of another kite, the latter cord would besevered, and he could proudly claim the vanquished kite as his own. 

Kites of every colour and shape hovered in the air above the wide openspace. There were square kites of red, yellow, green, blue, every colourof the rainbow; many were decorated with gaily-painted figures of gods, heroes, warriors, and dragons. There were kites in the shape of fish, hawks, eagles, and butterflies. Some had hummers, made of whalebone, whichhummed musically in the wind as they rose; and as for fighting kites, theywere abroad in squads and battalions. In one place the fight was betweensingle kites; in another a score of men with blue kites met a score withred kites and the kites fluttered, darted, swooped, dived this way, thatway, and every way, as they were skilfully moved by the strings pulled frombelow. Now and again one of them was seen to fall helplessly away and driftdown the wind; its string had been cut by some victorious rival, and it hadbeen put out of the battle. 

Taro had his kite high up in the air very soon; it flew splendidly, and forsome time he was very busy in trying it and learning its ways, for everykite has its own tricks of moving in the air. Then suddenly he saw a greatbrown eagle sailing towards it. He looked up and saw that a boy namedKanaya was directing the eagle kite towards his own, and that it was achallenge to a fight. Taro accepted at once, and the combat was joined. 

Kanaya brought his eagle swiftly over Taro's big square kite, brightlypainted in bars of many colours, but Taro let out string and escaped. Thenhe swung his kite up into the wind and made it swoop on the eagle. ButKanaya was already winding his string swiftly in and had raised his kiteout of reach of the swoop. And so they went on for more than an hour, pursuing, escaping, feinting, dodging, until at last the eagle caughta favourable slant of wind and darted down so swiftly that Taro couldnot escape. The strings crossed, and the upper began to chafe the lowersavagely. 

Taro tried to work his kite away, but in vain. The eagle string was strongand sharp. At the next moment Taro felt a horrid slackness of his string;no more could he feel the strong, splendid pull of his big kite. There itwas, going, falling headlong to the ground. Kanaya had won. Nothing nowremained to Taro but to take his beating like a Japanese and a gentleman. With a cheerful smile he made three low bows to his conqueror. Kanaya, withthe utmost gravity, returned the bows before he ran away to secure the kitehe had won. 

Now, there had been a very interested and attentive observer of this battlein Ito, Taro's younger brother. Ito never said a word or moved a muscleof his little brown face when he saw his brother defeated and the big kiteseized in triumph by Kanaya. But his black eyes gleamed a little morebrightly in their narrow slits as he let out more string and waited forKanaya to begin to fly again. 

Ito had succeeded to the possession of Taro's old kite. It was less thantwo feet square, but it flew well, and Ito had also anointed his stringwith the mixture of pounded glass and glue, and was ready for combat Withinten minutes Kanaya was flying once more, and now he had Taro's kite high inthe air. He had put away his own big brown eagle, and was flying the kitehe had just won. He had scarcely got it well up when a smaller square kitecame darting down upon it from a great height. Ito had entered the lists, and a fresh battle began. 

It was even longer and stubborner than the first, for Ito's kite, beingmuch smaller, had much less power in the air; but Ito made up for this byshowing the greatest skill in the handling of his kite, and quite a crowdgathered to see the struggle, watching every movement in perfect silenceand with the deepest gravity. Suddenly Ito pounced. He caught a favourablegust of wind, and swung his line across Kanaya's with the greatestdexterity. Saw-saw went the line, and at the next moment the great kitewent tumbling down the wind, and Kanaya and Ito exchanged the regulationbows. Then the latter looked at his brother without a word, and Taro ranto seize his beloved kite again. 

"It is yours now, Ito, " said the elder brother, when he came back. 

"Oh no, " said Ito; "we will each keep our own. I am glad I got it back fromKanaya. "

CHAPTER XIV

FAIRY STORIES

When Taro and Ito went home that night with their kites, they were glad tosit down and rest, for they had been running about until they were quitetired. When they had eaten their suppers of rice from their little brownbowls of lacquer, they begged their grandmother to tell them a story, andshe told them the famous old story of Momotaro, beloved of every child inJapan. And this is what she told them: Once upon a time an old man and anold woman lived near a river at the foot of a mountain. Every day the oldman went to the mountain to cut wood and carry it home, while the old womanwent to the river to wash clothes. Now, the old woman was very unhappybecause she had no children; it seemed to her that if she only had a sonor a daughter she would be the most fortunate old woman in the world. 

Well, one day she was washing the clothes in the river, when she sawsomething floating down the stream towards her. It proved to be a greatpear, and she seized it and carried it home. As she carried it she heard asound like the cry of a child. She looked right and left, up and down, butno child was to be seen. She heard the cry again, and now she fancied thatit came from the big pear. So she cut the pear open at once, and, to hergreat surprise and delight, she found that there was a fine baby sitting inthe middle of it. She took the child and brought it up, and because he wasborn in a pear she called him Momotaro. 

Momotaro grew up a strong, fine boy, and when he was seventeen years oldhe started out to seek his fortune. He had made up his mind to attack anisland where lived a very dreadful ogre. The old woman gave him plenty offood to eat on the way--corn and rice wrapped in a bamboo-leaf, and manyother things--and away he went. He had not gone far when he met a wasp. 

"Give me a share of your food, Momotaro, " said the wasp, "and I will gowith you and help you to overcome the ogre. "

"With all my heart, " said Momotaro, and he shared his food at once with thewasp. 

Soon he met a crab, and the same agreement was made with the crab, and thenwith a chestnut, and last of all with a millstone. 

So now the five companions journeyed on together towards the island of theogre. When the island was reached they crept up to the house of the ogre, and found that he was not in his room. So they soon made a plan to takeadvantage of his absence. The chestnut laid itself down in the ash of acharcoal fire which had been burning on the hearth, the crab hid himself ina washing-pan nearly full of water, the wasp settled in a dusky corner, themillstone climbed on to the roof, and Momotaro hid himself outside. 

Before long the ogre came back, and he went to the fire to warm his hands. The chestnut at once cracked in the hot ashes, and threw burning cindersover the ogre's hands. The ogre at once ran to the washing-pan, and thrusthis hands into it to cool them. The crab caught his fingers and pinchedthem till the ogre roared with pain. Snatching his hands out of the pan, the ogre leapt into the dusky corner as a safe place; but the wasp met himand stung him dreadfully. In great fright and misery the ogre tried to runout of the room, but down came the millstone with a crash on his head andkilled him at once. So, without any trouble to himself, and by the help ofthe faithful friends which his kindness had made for him, Momotaro gainedpossession of the ogre's wealth, and his fortune was made. 

Then the grandmother told them of Jizo, the patron saint of travellers andchildren, the helper of all who are in trouble. 

Everywhere by the roadside in Japan is found the figure of Jizo. Sometimesa figure of noble height, carved in stone or in the living rock, sometimesno more than a rough carving in wood, he is represented as a priest withkindly face, holding a traveller's staff in his right hand and a globe inhis left. He stands upon a lotus-flower, and about his feet there lies apile of pebbles, to which pile each wayfarer adds a fresh pebble. 

And the old grandmother bade the children never pass a figure of Jizowithout paying it the tribute of a pebble, for this reason: Every littlechild who dies, she said, has to pass over So-dzu-kawa, the river of theunderworld. Now, on the banks of this river there lives a wicked old hagwho catches little children as they try to cross, steals their clothes fromthem, and sets them to work to help her in her endless task of piling upthe stones on the shore of the stream. Jizo helps these poor children, andevery one who throws a pebble at the foot of this shrine also takes a sharein lightening the labour of some little one down below. 

Another favourite story is that of Urashima, the fisher-boy. Urashima was ahandsome fisher-boy, who lived near the Sea of Japan, and every day he wentout in his boat to catch fish in order to help his parents. But one dayUrashima did not return. His mother watched long, but there was no sign ofher son's boat coming back to the shore. Day after day passed, and Urashimawas mourned as dead. But he was not dead. Out on the sea he had met theSea-God's daughter, and she had carried him off to a green, sunny landwhere it was always summer. There they lived for some time in great loveand happiness. When it appeared to Urashima that several weeks had passedin this pleasant land, he begged permission of the Princess to return homeand see his parents. 

"They will be sorrowing for me, " he said. "They will fear that I am lost, and drowned at sea. " At last she allowed him to go, and she gave him acasket, but told him to keep it closed. 

"As long as you keep it closed, " she said, "I shall always be with you, butif you open it you will lose both me and this sunny summer land for ever. "

Urashima took the casket, promised to keep it closed, and returned home. But his native village had vanished. There was no sign of any dwellingupon the shore, and not far away there was a town which he had never seenbefore. In truth, every week that he had spent with the Princess had beena hundred years on earth, and his home and native village had passed awaycenturies ago, and the place where they had stood had been forgotten. Inhis despair, he forgot the words of the Princess, and opened the forbiddenbox. A faint blue mist floated out and spread over the sea, and a wonderfulchange took place at once in Urashima. From a handsome youth he turned to afeeble and decrepit old man, and then he fell upon the shore and lay theredead. In the box the Princess had shut up all the hours of their happylife, and when they had once escaped he became as other mortals, and oldage and death came upon him at a bound. 

CHAPTER XV

TEA-HOUSES AND TEMPLES

Tea-houses and temples run together very easily in the Japanese mind, forwherever you find a temple there you also find a tea-house. But tea-housesare not confined to the neighbourhood of temples: they are everywhere. Thetea-house is the house of public entertainment in Japan, and varies fromthe tiny cabin with straw roof, a building which is filled by half a dozencoolies drinking their tea, to large and beautiful structures, with floorsand ceilings of polished woods, splendid mats, and tables of ebony andgold. 

The tea-house does not sell tea alone. It will lodge you and find youdinners and suppers, and is in country places the Japanese hotel. Iftea-houses sold tea and nothing else it is certain that European travellerswould be in a very bad way, for there is one point they are all agreedupon, and that is that the tea, as a rule, is quite unpalatable to aWestern taste. However, it does not matter in the least whether youdrink it or not as long as you pay your money, and the last is no greattax--about three halfpence. 

When a traveller steps into a tea-house the girl attendants, the moosmes, gay in their scarlet petticoats, kneel before him, and, if it is anout-of-the-way place, where the old fashions are kept up, place theirforeheads on the matting. Then away they run to fetch the tea. Japaneseservants always run when they wish to show respect; to walk would lookcareless and disrespectful in their eyes. The tea arrives in a small poton a lacquer tray, with five tiny teacups without handles round the pot. There is no milk or sugar, and the tea is usually a straw-coloured, bitterliquid, very unpleasant to a European taste. But if a cup be raised to thelips and set down, and three sen--a sen is about a halfpenny--laid on thetray, all goes well, and every one is satisfied. 

This bringing of tea to a visitor is universal in Japan. It is not onlydone in a tea-house, where one would expect it, but on every occasion. Afriendly call at a private house produces the teacups like magic, and whena customer enters a good shop, business matters are undreamed of until manylittle cups of tea have been produced; and if the customer has many thingsto buy and stays a long time, tea is steadily brought forward in relays. If you don't care for your tea plain, you may have it flavoured withsalted cherry blossoms, but that is not considered an improvement by theWesterner, who longs for sugar and milk. If you wish to stay for the nightat a tea-house, a room is made for you by sliding some paper screens intothe wall and ceiling grooves, and a couple of quilts are laid on the floorto form a bed. That is the whole provision made in the way of furniture ifyou are off the beaten track of tourists: the rest you must provide foryourself. 

In the cities the tea-houses of the grander sort are the scenes of splendidentertainments. When a Japanese wishes to give a dinner to his friendshe does not ask them to his house; he invites them to a banquet at somefamous tea-house. There he provides not only the delicacies which make upa Japanese dinner, but hires dancing girls, called geisha, to amuse thecompany by their dancing and singing. 

A foreigner who is asked to one of these Japanese dinners finds everythingvery strange and not a little difficult. At the doors of the tea-house hisboots are taken off, and he marches across the matting, to do his best tosit on his heels for a few hours. This gives him the cramp, and soon he isreduced to sitting with his back against the wall and his legs stretchedout before him. He can manage in this way pretty fairly. 

There may be a table before him, or there may not. If there is a table, itwill be a tiny affair about a foot high. There will be no tablecloth, noglasses, no knives and forks, no spoons, and no napkin. He will be expectedto deal with his food with a pair of chopsticks. When these are setbefore him, he will see that the two round slips of wood are still joinedtogether. This is to show that they have never been used before. He breaksthem apart, and wonders how he is going to get his food into his mouth withtwo pencils of wood. 

The feast begins with tea served by moosmes, who kneel before eachguest. Each wears her most beautiful dress, and is girded with a hugeand brilliant sash. After the tea they bring in pretty little white cakesmade of bean flour and sugar, and flavoured with honey. The next course iscontained in a batch of little dishes, two or three of which are placedbefore each guest. These contain minced dried fish, sea slugs floating inan evil-smelling sauce, and boiled lotus-seeds. To wash down these daintiesa porcelain bottle of saké, rice-beer, is provided. 

The unhappy foreigner tastes one dish after the other, finds each one worsethan the last, and concludes to wait till the next course. This is composedof a very great dainty, raw, live fish, which one dips in sauce beforedevouring. Then comes rice, and the chopsticks of the Japanese feasters goto work in marvellous fashion. With their strips of wood or ivory they whipthe rice grain into their mouths with wonderful speed and dexterity, butour unlucky foreigner gets one grain into his mouth in five minutes, and isreduced to beg for a spoon. 

The next course is of fish soup and boiled fish, and potatoes appear withthe fish; but, alas! the fish is most oddly flavoured and the potatoes aresweet; they have been beaten up with sugar into a sort of stiff syrup. Nextcomes seaweed soup and the coarse evil-smelling daikon radish, served withvarious pickles and sauces. 

Among the other oddments is a dish of nice-looking plums. Our foreignerseizes one and pops it in his mouth. He would be only too glad to pop itout again if he could, for the plum has been soaked in brine, and tasteslike a very salty form of pickle. As he experiments here and there amongthe wilderness of little lacquer bowls which come forth relay upon relay, he feels inclined to paraphrase the cry of the Ancient Mariner, and murmur:"Victuals, victuals everywhere, and not a scrap to eat!"

When at length the dinner has run its course the geisha, in their beautifulrobes of silk and brocade and their splendid sashes, come in to sing anddance. Europeans are soon tired of both performances. The geisha, withher face whitened with powder, and her lips painted a bright red, and herelaborately-dressed hair full of ornaments, sits down to a sort of guitarcalled a samisen and sings, but her song has no music in it. It is a kindof long-drawn wail, very monotonous and tuneless to European ears. Thedancing is a kind of acting in dumb show, and consists of a number ofpostures, while the movements of the fan take a large share in conveyingthe dancer's meaning. 

When our foreigner starts home from this long and rather fatiguingentertainment, he finds that he has by no means finished with his dinner. On his way to his carriage he will be waylaid by the little moosmes whohave waited upon him, and their arms will be filled with flat white woodenboxes. These contain the food that was offered to him and left uneaten, andJapanese etiquette demands that he shall take home with him his share ofthe scraps of the banquet. 

CHAPTER XVI

TEA-HOUSES AND TEMPLES (_continued_)

The Japanese are very fond of their temples, and visit them constantly. They do this not only to pray to their gods, but to enjoy themselves aswell, for the temple grounds are the scene of great fairs and festivals. If you visit a temple on the day of some great function, you will find itssteps outside packed with rows upon rows of clogs and umbrellas, placedthere by the worshippers inside. You enter, and find the latter seatedon the floor, and if the service is not going on at the moment they aresmoking and chatting together, and the children are crawling about in thecrowd. 

When the service is over the worshippers disperse to find a cool spotin the temple grounds to eat their simple meal. In front of the templestands a wooden arch, called a torii. Sometimes the temple is approachedthrough a whole avenue of them of various sizes. The building is of wood, sometimes small, sometimes very large, and is usually surrounded by boothsand tea-houses. At many of the booths may be purchased the figures of themore popular gods. Everywhere may be seen the fat figures of the SevenGods of Wealth, the deities most beloved in every Japanese household. Thenthere are the God and Goddess of Rice, who protect the crops, and who areattended by the figures of foxes quaintly carved in wood or moulded inwhite plaster. The Goddess of Mercy, with her many hands to help and save, is also a favourite idol. 

At another spot you find peep-shows, stalls at which hairpins, paints, andpowder-boxes, and a thousand other trifles, are sold; archery galleries, where you may fire twenty arrows at a target for a halfpenny; booths, whereacrobats, conjurers, and jugglers are performing, and tea-houses withoutnumber, where the faithful are sipping their tea or saké and puffing attheir tiny pipes. 

The young girls are fond of purchasing sacred beans and peas and rice at astall set up under the eaves of the temple. With these they feed the templepigeons, who come swooping down from the great wooden roof, or the sacredwhite pony with the blue eyes which belongs to the holy place. On the stepssit rows of licensed beggars, who will pray for those who will present themwith the tenth part of a farthing. But prayers may also be bought from thepriests, prayers written upon a scrap of paper, which scrap is afterwardsfastened to the bars of the grating in front of the figure of a god. Afavourite god will have many thousand scraps of paper fluttering before itat one time. 

Many of the temple gardens are of very great beauty and interest. Therecan be seen many of the marvels of Japanese gardening--tiny dwarf trees, hundreds of years old, and yet only a few inches high, or tall shrubberiescut and trained to represent a great junk in full sail, or the figure of agod or hero. 

At certain times of the year when the temple orchards are in blossom, greatthrongs visit them simply to enjoy the delicate beauty of the scene. Theplum-blossom appears in February, and the cherry-blossom in April or May. Later in the year the purple iris is followed by the golden chrysanthemum. High and low, all crowd to see the beauty of a vast sweep of lovelyblossom. A poor Japanese thinks nothing of walking a hundred miles or moreto see some famous orchard or garden in its full flowering splendour. 

From his earliest years this love of natural beauty has been a part of hiseducation. As a child he has taken many a trip with his father and motherto admire the acres of plum or cherry blossom in a park or temple-garden;as a man he lays his work aside and goes to see the same spectacle withredoubled delight. 

CHAPTER XVII

THE RICKSHAW-MAN

 "For his heart is in Japan, with its junks and Fujisan, And its tea-houses and temples, and the smiling rickshaw-man. "

We have heard of Fujisan, the famous mountain; we have talked of tea-housesand temples; and now we must say something about the rickshaw-man or boy, a very important person indeed in Japan. He is not important because ofriches or rank, for, as a rule, he is very poor and of the coolie order; heis important because he is so useful. He is at one and the same time thecabman and the cab-horse of Japan. He waits in the street with his littlecarriage, and when you jump in he takes hold of the shafts himself andtrots away with you at a good speed. 

The jin-ri-ki-sha, to give it its full name, means man-power carriage, andis like a big mail-cart or perambulator. There is a hood of oiled paper topull up for wet weather, a cushion to sit on, a box for parcels under theseat, two tall slight wheels, and a pair of shafts. If the rickshaw-boy iswell-to-do in his business, his carriage is gaily lacquered and paintedwith bright designs, and however poor he may be, there will be some attemptat decoration. 

At night every rickshaw is furnished with a pretty paper lantern, circularin form, about eighteen inches long, and painted in gay designs. These lookquite charming as they bob here and there through the dusk, their ownersracing along with a fare. The rickshaw is as modern as the bicycle. Thefirst one was made less than forty years ago, but they sprang into favourat once, and their popularity grew by leaps and bounds. The fact is thatthe rickshaw fits Japan as a round peg fits a round hole. In the firstplace, it opened a new and money-making industry to many thousands of menwho had little to do. There were vast numbers of strong, active youngfellows who leapt forward at once to use their strength and endurance inthis novel and profitable fashion. Then, the vehicle was suited to Japaneseconditions, both in town and country. 

In town the streets are so narrow and busy that horse traffic would bedangerous. In fact, in many places a horse is so rare a sight that when onetrots along a street a man runs ahead, blowing a horn to warn people toclear out of the way. But the rickshaw-boy dodges through the traffic withhis little light carriage, and runs over no one. 

Then, in the country the roads are often very narrow, and sometimes verybad--mere tracks between fields of rice. Here the rickshaw is of greatservice, owing to its light weight and the little room it requires. 

As a rule, the rickshaw is drawn by one man and holds one passenger; butit has often to contain two Japanese, for the pair of them will fit snuglyinto the space required for one Englishman. If the traveller wishes to gofast, he has two human horses harnessed to his light chariot. Both run infront till a hill is reached, when one drops back to push behind. 

Wherever you arrive in Japan, whether by steamer or by train, you will findlong rows of rickshaw-boys waiting to be hired. They are all called boys, whatever their age may be. Until a possible passenger comes in sight, thequeer little men, many of them under five feet in height, stand besidetheir rickshaws, smoking their tiny little brass pipes with bowls abouthalf as big as a thimble. Their clothes are very simple. They wear a verytight pair of short blue drawers and a blue tunic, upon the back of whicha huge white crest is painted, the distinguishing mark of each boy. Anenormous white hat the size and shape of a huge basin is worn on the head;but if the day becomes very hot the hat is taken off, and a wisp of clothbound round the forehead to prevent sweat from running into the eyes. Asfor sunstroke, the rickshaw-boy has no fear of that. 

When you step into sight, a score dart forward, dragging their rickshawsafter them with one hand and holding the other up to draw your attention, and shouting, "Riksha! Riksha! Riksha!" You choose one, and step in. The human steed springs between the shafts, raises them and tilts youbackwards, and then darts off, as if eager to show you his strength andspeed, and prove to you what a good choice you have made. 

Away bounds the little man, and soon you are bowling along a narrow streetwhere a passage seems impossible, so full is it of boys and girls, menand women, shops and stalls. There may be a side-walk, but then, theshopkeepers have taken that to spread out their wares, or the stallkeepershave set up their little booths there. So the people who want to go alongthe street, and the boys and girls who want to play in it, are all drivento the middle of the way. 

Here and there your rickshaw dodges, working its way through the crowd. Now the man pauses a second lest he should run full-tilt over a groupof gaily-dressed little girls, each with a baby on her back, playingat ball in the road. Half a dozen others are busy with battledores andshuttlecocks, and the gaily-painted toys drop into your carriage, andyou are expected to toss them out again to the mites, who will bow verydeeply and with the profoundest gravity in return for your politeness; thensomething flutters over your head, and you see that two boys and an old manare sitting on the roof of a house about as high as a tool-shed, trying toget their kites up. And you say to yourself that it is lucky that thereare no horses, for the quietest beast that ever lifted a hoof would bolthere and charge through the whirl and uproar and the rain of droppingshuttlecocks and bouncing balls. 

Another fine thing about rickshaw-riding is that no one can call itexpensive. While the boy goes, you pay him about sevenpence an hour; whilehe waits you pay him rather less than twopence-halfpenny an hour, and youcan have his services for a whole day for about half a crown. But some ofthem will try to cheat you in places where foreigners are often met with, and will put a whole twopence an hour on the regular price. 

This is very sad, and causes the rickshaw-boy to be looked upon as atradesman; he is not allowed the honour of being regarded as a servant andthe member of an honourable profession--one who puts his master's interestsbefore his own. But, as a rule, the foreigner who employs the samerickshaw-boy comes to look upon him as a guide, philosopher, and friend. Hewill tell you where to go and what to do; he knows all the sights, and cantell you all about them. If you go shopping, he will come in and see thatyou don't get cheated any more than you are bound to be. If you go on anexpedition, he will find out the best tea-house to stay at, he will cookfor you, wait on you, brush your clothes, put up the paper screens to formyour bedroom, take them down again, see that the bill is reasonable, payit, and fee the servants--in short, he will manage everything, and you haveonly to admire what you have gone to see. 

Wherever you stop on a jaunt, whether it is some famous temple or somelovely park, there is sure to be a coolie's tea-house handy, and he takesthe opportunity of refreshing himself. He dives into the well under theseat and fetches out his lacquer box full of rice. He whips the rice intohis mouth with chopsticks, and washes it down with the yellow, bitterJapanese tea. Then he sits and smokes his tiny pipe until you are ready togo on. 

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE COUNTRY

The Japanese farmer is one of the steadiest workers in the world; he tillshis patch of land, day in, day out, with untiring industry. He works sevendays a week, for he knows nothing of the Sabbath, and only takes a dayoff for a fair or a festival when his land is in perfect order and he iswaiting for the crop. 

Almost the whole of the land is turned over with the spade, and weeds arekept down until the whole country looks like a neatly-kept garden. Manycrops are grown, but the chief of them all is rice, and when the rice cropfails, then vast numbers of people in Japan feel the pinch of famine. 

In order to grow rice much water is needed, so the fields are flooded froma river or canal near at hand, and the plants are set in the soft mud. Thiswork is carried out by men or women who wade in slush above their knees, and it is a very dirty and toilsome task. The women tuck their kimonos up, and the men cast theirs aside altogether. After planting, this work in deepslush and clinging mud must be repeated three times in order to clear awaythe water-weeds which grow thickly around the young rice-plants. 

When the rice is nearly ripe the water is drawn off and the fields aredried. The fields are of all sizes and shapes, from a patch of a few squareyards up to an acre, and the latter would be considered large. Thereare no hedges or fences to divide off field from field, for the land istoo valuable to permit of such being grown; but the boundaries are wellunderstood, and each farmer knows his own patch. 

Another important crop is the plants which are grown for making paper. Paper has a great place in the industries of Japan. It is used everywhereand for almost everything. A Japanese lives in a house largely built ofpaper, drinks from a paper cup, reads by a paper lantern, writes, ofcourse, on paper, and wraps up his parcels in it, ties up the parcels withpaper string, uses a paper pocket-handkerchief, wears a paper cloak andpaper shoes and paper hat, holds up a paper umbrella against the sun andthe rain, and employs it for a great number of other purposes. He makesmore than sixty kinds of paper, and each kind has its own specified use. Hecan make it so tough that it is almost impossible to tear it, and he canmake it waterproof, so that the fiercest rain cannot pass through it. 

If your path leads you along the bank of a river you will often see afisherman at work. He has many ways of catching his prey. He uses a lineand hook and the net. In a large stream or pool he may be seen at work withthe throwing-net, a clever device. 

This net is made in the form of a circle twelve or fourteen feet across, and round the edge of the net heavy sinkers of lead are fastened. Thefisherman folds this net over his arm, and then tosses into the water aball of boiled rice and barley. The fish gather to eat this bait, and thenhe throws the net in such a way that it falls quite flat upon the water. The leads sink at once to the bottom, and the net covers the feeding fishin the shape of a dome. A strong cord is fastened to the top of the net, and he begins to haul it up. The leads are drawn together by their ownweight, and close the bottom of the net, and the fish are imprisoned. 

Sometimes he uses bow and arrows. This he does after putting into the watercertain fruit and herbs which are very bitter. The juice of these herbsaffects the water and drives the fish to the surface, where they leap aboutin pain. The fisherman shoots them with an arrow to which a cord isattached, and draws them ashore. 

As night falls after a hot day, the people and children of the villagenear at hand will come down to the water-side on a fire-fly hunt. The tinygleaming creatures now flash along the surface of river and lake, like amyriad of fairy lanterns flitting through the dusk. They are caught andimprisoned in little silken cages. At the bottom of the cage there is avery small mound of earth in which a millet seed has been planted and hassprung up to the height of an inch or more, and beside the little plantthere is a tiny bowl of water. Here the firefly will live for several days, to the delight of the children. 

Not far from the river is the village, with a brook running down the middleof its street. This brook serves many purposes. The women kneel beside itwith sleeves and kimonos tucked up, washing clothes and vegetables, ordipping buckets in it to get water for baths. There is a loud rattle ofwooden hammers at various points, for the stream turns a number of smallwater-wheels, and these work big wooden hammers which pound up the riceplaced in a big stump of a tree hollowed out for a mortar. As you strollalong the village street you see what every one is doing, for the frontsof the houses are all open, and you can see into every corner of eachdwelling. 

Behind the houses tall bamboos shoot up, and the bamboo is welcome, for itis a tree of many uses. Its wood serves for the framework of houses, andits leaves are often used as thatch. It will make a dish, a box, a plate, abowl, an oar, a channel for conveying water and a vessel for carrying it, afishing-rod, a flower-vase, a pipe-stem, a barrel-hoop, a fan, an umbrella, and fifty other things, while young bamboo shoots are eaten and considereda great delicacy. 

On fine summer evenings, when the work of the day is over, the villagersgather in the court of the village temple for the odori, the open-airdance. The court is decked with big beautiful paper lanterns, but there isa special one called toro (a light in a basket). The toro is often two feetsquare by five feet high. On one side of it is the name of the god in whosetemple court the dance is being held, while the other is reserved for someshort poem, written by one of the youths of the village. There is keencompetition among them for the honour of writing the poem chosen to beinscribed on the toro, and two of these tiny poems run thus:

 "I looked upon the cherry that blooms by the fence, down by the woodman's cottage, And wondered if an untimely snow had fallen upon it. "

 "Into the evening dew that rolls upon the green blade of the tall-grown grass in Mushashi Meadow The summer moon comes stealthily and takes up her dwelling. "

The young men and maidens dance in a ring, circling round one who stands inthe midst, from whom they take both the time and music of the many dancesperformed at the odori. The dancers are always young and unmarried. Theolder people sit on the steps of the temple and watch the merry frolic witha smile. 

CHAPTER XIX

IN THE COUNTRY (_continued_)

On a wet day in the country the people thatch themselves to keep off therain. The favourite waterproof of the coolie is a huge cloak made of ricestraw, the long ends sticking out. With this and his great umbrella hat hekeeps comfortably dry. Those who do not wear a big hat carry a large oiledpaper umbrella, which shelters them well. 

There is plenty of wet weather in Japan, particularly in the summer, andthen travelling is not very pleasant. The good roads become muddy and soft, and the bad roads become sheer quagmires, in which the coolie pulling therickshaw is continually losing his straw sandals. These sandals, calledwaraji, mark out the tracks in every direction, for they soon wear out, andare cast off to litter the wayside in their hundreds. They are quickly andcheaply replaced, however, for almost every roadside house sells them, anda pair may be bought for a sen--something less than a halfpenny. 

Not only do the men wear straw shoes, but horses are shod in them also, and a very poor and clumsy arrangement it is. The shoes are thick, and aretied on the horse's feet with straw cords. They wear out so fast that abunch has to be kept hanging to the saddle for use on the way, and in everyvillage a fresh stock has to be secured, at the cost of a penny per set offour. 

The foreign visitor who travels through country places in Japan has tosubmit to being stared at, but nothing more. The people are so interestedin a person who looks so different from themselves that they are nevertired of watching him and his ways. But otherwise their unfailingpoliteness remains. They do not crowd upon him, or, if they should come alittle too near, they are soon warned off. An English artist, Mr. AlfredParsons, was once sketching in Japan, and the crowd, anxious to see hiswork, came a little too near his elbow. He says: "The keeper of a littletea-shop hard by, where I took my lunch, noticed that I was worried by thepeople standing so close to me, and when I arrived next morning I foundthat he had put up a fence round the place where I worked. It was only afew slender bamboo sticks, with a thin string twisted from one to another, but not a soul attempted to come inside it. They are such an obedient anddocile race that a little string stretched across a road is quite enough toclose the thoroughfare. "

A familiar figure along the Japanese highways and byways is that of thepilgrim going to see some famous shrine, or, most often of all, marchingtowards Fujisan, the sacred mountain. The Fuji pilgrim may be known by hisgarb. He is dressed in white, with white kimono, white socks and gaiters, and straw sandals. He wears a great basin-shaped white hat, and has a rushmat over his shoulders to temper the heat of the sun or shed the rain. Round his neck hangs a string of beads and a bell, which tinkles withoutceasing as he goes. He carries a little bundle of spare sandals and a staffwith an ornament of paper about its end. 

His pilgrimage costs him very little. His food is of the simplest, and hegets a bed at a tea-house for a halfpenny, or he lodges with a villagerwho offers him hospitality. To entertain his guest the villager will fetchhis best furniture from the village godown, for in the country one ofthese storehouses suffices for a whole hamlet. They are made very large andstrong, with many thick coats of mud and plaster on a wooden frame, andwith a door of iron or of bronze; then, when the fire, which is sure tocome at some time or other, sweeps over the hamlet and leaves it a layer ofsmoking ashes around the big godown, there are the village treasures stillunharmed, and ready to adorn the houses which will spring up again as if bymagic. 

When bedtime comes, the amado, the wooden shutters, are drawn around thehouse and securely fastened; for a Japanese dwelling, so open by day, isshut up as tightly as a sealed box by night. Now all is quiet save forthe village watchman, whose duty it is to guard against fire and thieves. He marches up and down, beating two pieces of wood together--clop-clop, clop-clop--as he walks. This is to give assurance that he is not asleephimself, but watching over the slumbers of his neighbours, and to let thethieves know that he is looking out for them. 

CHAPTER XX

THE POLICEMAN AND THE SOLDIER

The Japanese policeman is, first and foremost, a gentleman. He is asamurai, a man of good family, and therefore deeply respected by the massof the people. He is often a small man for a Japanese, but though hisheight may run from four feet ten to five feet nothing, he is a man of muchauthority. When the samurai were disbanded, there were very few occupationsto which they could turn. They disdained agriculture and trade, but numbersof them became servants, printers, and policemen. This seems an odd mixtureof tasks, but there are sound reasons for it. 

Many samurai became servants because service is an honourable profession inJapan; many became printers because the samurai were an educated class, andthe only people fitted to deal with the very complicated Japanese alphabet;and many became policemen because it was a post for which their fightinginstinct and their habit of authority well fitted them. Their authorityover the people is absolute and unquestioning; and, again, there are soundreasons for this. 

Forty years ago the Japanese people could have been divided very sharplyinto two classes, the ruling and the ruled. The ruling class was formedof the great Princes and the samurai, their followers, about 2, 000, 000people in all. The remaining 38, 000, 000 of the population were the commonpeople, the ruled. Now, in the old days when a Daimio left his castle fora journey, he was borne in a kago, a closed carriage, and was attendedby a guard of his samurai. If a common person met the procession, he wasexpected either to retire quickly from the path or fling himself humbly onhis face until the carriage had gone by; if he did not, the samurai whippedout their long swords and slew him in short order, and not a single wordwas said about it. This way of dealing with those who did not belong to thetwo-sworded class made the people very respectful to the samurai, and thatrespect is now transferred to the police. 

The Japanese policeman is also to be respected for his skill in wrestling, and, small as he is, the tallest and most powerful foreigner is quitehelpless in his hands. He is thoroughly trained in the art of Japanesewrestling--the jiu-jitsu of which we hear so much nowadays. In this systema trained wrestler can seize his opponent in such a manner that the otherman is quite at his mercy, or with a slight impetus he can fling the otherabout as he pleases. One writer speaks of seeing a very small Japanesepoliceman arrest a huge, riotous Russian sailor, a man much more than sixfeet high. It seemed a contest between a giant and a child. The sailor maderush after rush at his tiny opponent, but the policeman stepped nimblyaside, waiting for the right moment to grip his man. At last it came. The sailor made a furious lunge, and the policeman seized him by thewrist. To the astonishment of the onlooker, the sailor flew right over thepoliceman's head, and fell all in a heap more than a dozen feet away. Whenhe picked himself up, confused and half stunned, the policeman tied a bitof string to his belt and led him away in triumph to the station. 

The policeman never has any trouble with his own people; they obey at onceand without question. If a crowd gathers and becomes a nuisance to anyone, it melts as soon as one of the little men in uniform comes along and givesthe order to disperse. He may sometimes be seen lecturing a coolie orrickshaw-boy for some misdeed or other. The culprit, his big hat heldbetween his hands, ducks respectfully at every second word, and looks allhumility and obedience. 

Being an educated man, he has much sympathy with art and artists, and isdelighted to help a foreigner who is painting scenes in Japan. Mr. MortimerMenpes says: "Altogether I found the policeman the most delightful personin the world. When I was painting a shop, if a passer-by chanced to look inat a window, he would see at a glance exactly what I wanted; and I wouldfind that that figure would remain there, looking in at the shop, as stillas a statue, until I had finished my painting; the policeman meanwhilestrutting up and down the street, delighted to be of help to an artist, looking everywhere but at my work, and directing the entire traffic downanother street. "

Of the Japanese soldier there is no need for us to say much here, sincethe world has so lately been ringing with his praises. The endurance, theobedience, the courage of the Japanese soldier and sailor have been shownin marvellous fashion during the great war with Russia, and Japan has fullyproved herself to be one of the greatest of the naval and military Powersof the world. 

The Japanese soldier is the result of the family life in Japan. From hisinfancy he is taught that he has two supreme duties: one of obedienceto his parents, the other of service to his country. This unhesitating, unquestioning habit of obedience, a habit which becomes second nature tohim, is of immense value to him as a soldier. He is a disciplined manbefore he enters the ranks, and he transfers at once to his officers theobedience which he has hitherto shown towards the elders of his family. 

His second great duty of service to his country also leads him onwardtowards becoming the perfect soldier. He not only looks upon his life as athing to be readily risked or given for his Emperor and for Japan, but hestrives to make himself a thoroughly capable servant of his land. No detailof his duty is too small for him to overlook, for he fears lest the lackof that detail should prevent him from putting forth his full strength onthe day of trial. He cleans a button as carefully as he lays a big gun, and this readiness for any duty, great or small, was a large factor in thewonderful victory of Japan over Russia. 

In battle he questions no order. During the late war many Japaneseregiments knew that they were being sent to certain death, in order thatthey might open a way for their comrades. They never flinched. Shoutingtheir "Banzai!"--their Japanese hurrah--the dogged little men rushedforward upon batteries spouting flame and shell, or upon ramparts linedwith rifles, and gave their lives freely for Dai Nippon, Great Japan, thecountry of their birth. 

CHAPTER XXI

TWO GREAT FESTIVALS

There are two great Japanese festivals of which we have not yet spoken, butwhich are of the first importance. One is the New Year Festival, the otheris the Bon Matsuri, the Feast of the Dead, in the summer. The New YearFestival is the great Japanese holiday of the year. No one does any workfor several days, and all devote themselves to making merry. Although thisfestival comes in the middle of winter, every street looks like an arbour, decorated as it is with arches of greenery before each house. On eitherside of each door is a pine-tree and bamboo stems. These signify a hardyold age, and they are joined by a grass rope which runs from house tohouse along the street. This rope is supposed to prevent evil spirits fromentering the houses, and so it ensures the occupants a lucky year. Japaneseflags are entwined amid the decorations, and green feathery branches andferns are set about, until the street looks like a forest. 

Japanese people are so polite to each other that even the beggars in thestreets bow to each other in the most ceremonious fashion, but at thisfestival the bowing is redoubled. There is a special form of greeting forthis occasion, and not a bow is to be missed when two acquaintances meet. 

There is much feasting and a great exchange of presents. The Japanese arealways making presents to each other, and there is a prescribed way forevery rank of life to make presents to every other rank, and for the mannerin which the presents are to be received. A present may always be known bythe little gold or red or white paper kite fastened to the paper stringwhich ties up the parcel. 

Every one enters into the fun of the time, from the highest to the lowest. They call upon each other; they march in great processions; they visitthe gayest and liveliest of fairs; they feast; they drink tea and sakéalmost without ceasing. The fairs look most striking and picturesque afterdarkness has fallen. Then the streets and the long rows of white boothsmade of newly-sawn wood and gaily decorated, are lighted up by innumerablelanterns of every colour that paper can be painted, and of every size, fromsix inches high to six feet. The crowd wear their gayest kimonos, and themoosmes are brilliant in flowered or striped silks and splendid sashes, andthe air is full of the rattle of the shuffling clogs and the tinklingsamisen played in almost every booth. 

At times the crowd opens to let some procession pass through. Now it is thedragon-dancers, the dragon's head being a huge and terrifying affair madeof coloured pasteboard, and carried on a pole draped with a long garmentwhich hides the dancer. In front march two men with drum and fife to heraldthe dragon's approach. Next comes a batch of coolies dragging a car uponwhich a swarm of masqueraders present some traditional pageant, and next anumber of boys perform an old dance with much spirit and shouting. On NewYear's Eve a very curious market is held. It is a custom in Japan for everyone to pay all that he owes to his Japanese creditors before the New Yeardawns. If he does not do so, he loses his credit. So on the last day ofthe Old Year the Japanese who is behind in his payments looks among hisbelongings for something to sell, and carries it to the market in orderthat he may gain a few sen to settle with his creditor. 

In the great city of Tokyo this fair is visited by every traveller. Fora space of two miles the stalls stretch along in double rows, lighted bylanterns of oil flares, and here may be seen every imaginable thing whichis to be found in poorer Japanese households. As each Japanese arrives withhis worldly possessions in a couple of square boxes swinging one at eachend of a bamboo pole slung across his shoulder, he takes possession of alittle stall or a patch of pavement and sets out his poor wares. 

He has brought mats, or cushions, or shabby kimonos, or clogs, or socks, orlittle ornaments and vessels in porcelain or silver or bronze. Sometimes hebrings really beautiful things, the last precious possessions of a familywhich has come down in the world--a fine piece of embroidery, a pricelessbit of lacquer, bronze and silver charms, little boxes of ivory, templesand pagodas and bell-towers in miniature, tiny but perfect in every detailand of the most exquisite workmanship. Everything comes to market on thisnight of the year. 

The Feast of the Dead takes place in the hot summer weather, and iscelebrated in different ways in various parts of Japan. Everywherethe children, in their finest clothes, march through the streets inprocessions, carrying fans and banners and lanterns, and chanting asthey march; but most great cities have their own form of celebration. 

At Nagasaki the tombs of all those who have died during the past yearare illuminated with large bright lanterns on the first night of thecelebrations. On the second and third nights all tombs are illuminated, and the burial-grounds are one glorious blaze of many-coloured lights. Theavenues leading to the burial-grounds are turned into fair-grounds, withdecorations and booths, stalls and tea-houses, each illuminated by manybrilliant lanterns. Fires are lighted on the hills, rockets shoot up onevery hand, and vast crowds of people gather in the cemeteries to feast andmake merry and drink saké in honour of their ancestors, whose spirits theysuppose to surround them and be present at the festival. At the end of thefeast a very striking scene takes place: the preparations for the departureof the dead. 

"But on the third vigil, suddenly, at about two o'clock in the morning, long processions of bright lanterns are seen to descend from the heightsand group themselves on the shores of the bay, while the mountainsgradually return to obscurity and silence. It is fated that the deadshould embark and disappear before twilight. The living have plaited themthousands of little ships of straw, each provisioned with some fruit and afew pieces of money. The frail vessels are charged with all the colouredlanterns which were used for the illumination of the cemeteries; the smallsails of matting are spread to the wind, and the morning breeze scattersthem round the bay, where they are not long in taking fire. It is thus thatthe entire flotilla is consumed, tracing in all directions large trails offire. The dead depart rapidly. Soon the last ship has foundered, the lastlight is extinguished, and the last soul has taken its departure again fromearth. "