places, some handsomely framed mottoes and proverbs, much as in many of
our own country houses we read upon the walls such a comforting assurance
as "The Lord will provide," or the melancholy conundrum "What is home
without a mother?" To Occidental eyes, Japanese ideographs do not appear
beautiful. They look like the meanderings of intoxicated flies that have
been immersed in ink. As for their meaning, one motto was translated to
us as signifying: "May Buddha bless this house!" Others were words of
praise which princely visitors had left; while not a few were epigrams or
proverbs, for which the Japanese are famous. Some of them ran as follows:
"The absent get farther away every day;" "Clever preacher, short sermon;"
"A woman's tongue three inches long can kill a man six feet high;" "Live
under your own hat;" "Don't make a long call when the husband is not at
home." And yet we send missionaries to Japan!
[Illustration: WRITING A LETTER.]
[Illustration: AT THE TEA-HOUSE DOOR.]
[Illustration: JAPANESE MOTTOES.]
With many bows and smiles the landlord of the tea-house led the way up
a flight of exquisitely polished stairs, and showed us our apartments.
We looked around us with astonishment, for no furniture was visible. The
floor, it is true, was covered with fine matting, but, with that one
exception, the rooms, which opened into each other, were as bare as an
unfurnished flat. Their number and extent depended largely on ourselves.
Did we desire an entire story? We had but to push back the paper screens,
and it was ours. Did we insist on having separate rooms? Close up the
little screens again, and each could sleep in his own paper box, exactly
twelve feet square. Unfortunately there are no locks upon these paper
screens; hence, just as one is getting out of bed in the morning, the
whole side of his room will sometimes disappear with the rapidity of a
liberated Holland shade! Moreover, Japanese servants, urged by curiosity,
will often poke a moistened finger through a square of paper, to study
foreign toilettes at their leisure. During the daytime, in the summer,
even the screens are removed, to give free access to the breeze, and the
house then becomes the empty skeleton of its former self.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A TEA-HOUSE.]
But what most puzzled us at first was where to hang our clothes. There
were no hooks upon the walls, there was not even a table for our toilet
articles. It seemed too bad to put our coats and hair-brushes on the
floor. But one must recollect that Japanese floors are not like ours,
since no boots ever touch them. For native guests a beautiful, square,
lacquered box is usually provided, in which they lay the carefully
folded robes which they remove before retiring. To us, however, no
limited receptacle like that was given. We had the unrestricted floor.
[Illustration: A JAPANESE BED.]
The beds in which we slept afforded us the most amusement. When bedtime
comes in Japanese homes, quilts are brought out from a closet and spread
upon the floor. Within five minutes all is ready for the night, and with
the morning light they disappear again. Occasionally, in the larger
tea-houses, we, as foreigners, had special luxuries,--such as cotton
sheets, a couch of seven comforters, instead of the usual two, and, for a
bolster, an extra quilt rolled up as with a shawl-strap. Thus altogether,
including what we used for coverings, our most luxurious couches in Japan
consisted of from ten to a dozen comforters.
[Illustration: THE COMMON WASHSTAND IN A TEA-HOUSE.]
We found some difficulty in getting sufficient sleep in Japanese tea-houses; not
from the composition and arrangement of our beds, but from the noise
about us, which seldom ceased before the hour of midnight, and always
woke us with the dawn. Even our "summer hotels," with their distressingly
thin partitions, are delightfully tranquil compared with the country inns
of Japan. For sliding screens of paper are practically no barrier at
all to sound, and, as if that were not sufficiently aggravating, these
paper walls rarely reach the top of the room, but leave a ventilating
space of a foot or two, through which the mingled snoring, prayers, and
conversation of the guests, and the matutinal clatter of the servants,
roll and reverberate like distant thunder.
[Illustration: JAPANESE TEA-HOUSE.]
[Illustration: CARRYING TEA FROM THE FIELD.]
The morning after my arrival, I pushed aside a screen with my forefinger,
and lo! half of my room stood open to the rising sun. Descending to the
courtyard, I beheld a Japanese servant hurrying toward me on her wooden
clogs, to give me tea.
[Illustration: BRINGING TEA.]
What shall be said of these attractive little waitresses, who make the
dullest tea-house gay with laughter, brighten the darkest day with
brilliant colors, and sweeten every tea-cup with a smile? They are not
usually beautiful, or even womanly, in the sense of being dignified. They
rather seem like well-developed school-girls, just sobered down enough
to wear long dresses, but perfectly unable to refrain at times from
screams of merriment. Yet search the world through, and where will you
find servants such as these? From the first moment when they fall upon
their knees and bow their foreheads to the floor, till the last instant,
when they troop around the door to call to you their musical word for
farewell,--"_Sayonara_,"--they seem to be the daintiest, happiest, and
most obliging specimens of humanity that walk the earth.
[Illustration: PLAYING GAMES.]
We were particularly pleased with one agreeable trait of all these
Japanese girls--their exquisitely clean and well-shaped hands. One
would, of course, expect them to be small, for delicate frames are a
characteristic of the race, but almost without exception the hands of all
the waitresses who served us in Japan looked as if they had just emerged
from a hot bath, and had been manicured besides. "A trifle," some would
say, but, after all, such trifles help to make perfection. When one has
traveled through a country for two months, and from one end of it to the
other has seen pretty, well-kept hands extended to him fifty times a day,
he feels respect and admiration for a race so neat and delicate to their
finger-tips. The Japanese, according to our Occidental standard, may not
have much godliness, but they possess what comes next to it--personal
cleanliness. And I am sure that, at any time, I would rather associate
with a nice, wholesome sinner than with an uncleanly saint!
[Illustration: TWO MODES OF TRAVEL IN JAPAN.]
[Illustration: DOMESTIC ETIQUETTE.]
It was while we were taking our breakfast here, that we beheld, in a
neighboring room, a lady being served with tea by her domestic, who
was approaching her mistress on her knees. Nothing amazed us more than
this, for in the United States these positions are usually reversed. In
free America it is the lady who, figuratively speaking, has to "go down
on her knees" before her cook. When we consider the serious drawbacks
to domestic happiness and comfort, occasioned by the insolence and
inefficiency of servants in America, who, as a rule, are better lodged,
clothed, and fed than any other class of laborers in the world, one
questions if in this, and many other respects, Japan will be improved by
contact with the Occident.
[Illustration: A STREET IN KIOTO.]
What Moscow is to the Russians, Kioto is to the Japanese, their present
capital, Tokio, corresponding rather to St. Petersburg. Kioto is the
ancient capital,--the sacred city of the empire,--hallowed by countless
shrines and endeared by centuries of classic memories. It was for
a thousand years the home of the Mikado, and is still the centre of
old Japanese art. Here also, till the revolution of 1869, lived many
nobles of the highest rank, together with distinguished poets, priests,
and artists. Its name, Kioto, denotes the City of Peace, and its best
citizens were thought to be the most refined and polished of a race whose
gentle manners are still unsurpassed.
[Illustration: IN KIOTO.]
Our hotel in Kioto was unlike the inns of other Japanese cities, being
neither a European structure, like the hotels at Tokio and Yokohama, nor
yet a tea-house, such as we had lately seen. It was a compromise between
the two, with comfortable rooms and foreign furnishings. Its situation is
far above the city, upon a wooded hill that has been sacred to Buddha for
a thousand years. Around it are old temples, monasteries, and pagodas,
among which one can walk in shaded paths the livelong day. Often, while
seated on the spacious hotel balcony which overlooks the town, we heard
a strangely fascinating sound rolling toward us through the sacred
groves in solemn, silvery vibrations. We discovered after a short walk
the cause of this. It was a huge bronze bell,--no less than seventy-four
tons in weight,--whose sweet-voiced call to prayer has echoed over this
hill for nearly three hundred years. There are few sounds more pleasing
to the ear than the vibrations of a distant, deep-toned bell. Except in
Russia I had never heard such notes as those that issue from the bells
of old Japan. Their solemn strokes swell through the forest like the
crescendo of an orchestra. These bells, however, are not rung, like
ours, by wrenching them from side to side, until a pendant tongue falls
sharply on their inner rim. Ah, no! the Japanese treat them far more
cleverly. Suspended from the belfry roof is a large, rounded shaft of
wood, attendant swings this to one side, and lets it fall, to strike the
inverted bowl of bronze one mighty blow. The difference in sound produced
by using wood instead of metal, is astonishing. There is no grating jar,
no sharpness in the tone, but one stupendous boom of sound, as though
a musical cannon were discharged. This instantly resolves itself into
slow-moving, ever widening circles of reverberation, which fall upon the
ear more and more faintly, till they die away like the last murmur of the
surf upon the sand.
[Illustration: YAAMI'S HOTEL, KIOTO.]
[Illustration: BRONZE HORSE.]
[Illustration: A MONSTER BELL, KIOTO.]
[Illustration: A TEMPLE IN KIOTO.]
Accepting the invitation which that bell conveyed to us, we strolled
toward one of Kioto's many temples. In the one we entered, five bells,
with long white cords attached, were hanging in the lacquered porch. The
worshiper pulls one of these, to call the attention of the god; then,
having said a prayer, he drops a coin into a grated box and goes his
way. On one occasion, we saw a pretty baby, three months old, brought
hither in its mother's arms, and made to pull the bell-rope with its tiny
hand. Then the great-grand-mother of the child, herself almost eighty-six
years old, advanced with trembling limbs and rang it for the second time.
It was a suggestive picture,--this vision of old age and infancy, like
opposite poles of an electric battery, completing here a circuit of four
generations; pathetic emblems of the past and future,--the smiling infant
looking forward to anticipated blessings, the feeble matron thankful for
the gifts received.
[Illustration: A JAPANESE BELFRY.]
The Japanese have really two religions, in some respects rivals of each
other. The elder, or original faith, is Shintoism; the younger, which has
struggled to supplant it for twelve hundred years, is Buddhism.
It is difficult to comprehend exactly what Shintoism is. The name means,
literally, "The way of the gods," but it is the vaguest known religion.
It has no bible, no dogmas, and not even a moral code. It dimly hints at
immortality, but has no definite heaven or hell. Its gods, are either
deified national heroes or else personifications of nature, such as the
glorious sun, the all-surrounding ocean, and the innumerable deities
of mountains, rivers, rocks, and trees. Its shrines for worship, with
their gray stone lanterns and majestic _torii_, are severely plain, its
services extremely simple, and all its priests appear like laymen in the
streets, donning their clerical robes only when they officiate in the
temples.
[Illustration: A SHINTO PRIEST.]
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A JAPANESE TEMPLE.]
[Illustration: BUDDHIST PRIESTS.]
[Illustration: BUDDHIST PRIESTS IN A CEMETERY.]
Not so the Buddhist priests. Their costume, like their ritual, is
imposing. While Shinto priests may marry, the Buddhists take the vow
of celibacy. In fact, though wholly different in its creed from the
great Roman Catholic communion, some of the ceremonials of Buddhism
remind us of it; such as their richly-mantled priests, their altars
bright with candles and adorned with flowers, their clouds of incense,
grand processionals, and statues of the gods and saints. What wonder,
then, since it has such attractions, that this religion, when it came
hither from India, about six centuries after Christ, achieved at once a
remarkable success? The colder Shinto faith lost ground, and even the
Mikados gave to Buddha's doctrines favor and support for centuries; but
Shintoism has now once more become the state religion.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A JAPANESE TEMPLE.]
The furnishings of the Buddhist temples in Japan are often marvels of
artistic beauty, comprising tables, columns, doors, and even floors,
composed of ruby red or jet-black lacquer, which is so thick and
smooth as to produce the effect of rosewood or solid ebony. Here,
too, are altars loaded down with ornaments of gold and bronze, silken
screens inscribed with sacred characters, exquisite bronze lanterns,
incense-burners, gilded gongs, tall lotus-flowers with leaves of gold,
and beautiful lacquered boxes placed on stands about the floor, within
which are the precious manuscripts of Buddhist scriptures. In a word,
recall the richest specimens of Japanese art that you have ever seen, and
know that with such adornment the finest temples in Japan are filled.
[Illustration: A BUDDHIST TEMPLE.]
In some of the less important Buddhist shrines, however, "all that
glitters is not gold." Some temples are repulsive from their shabby
ornaments, hideous idols, and gaudy paper lanterns. Some of their deities
are enthroned behind a wooden grating, and worshipers tie to the latter
a bit of cloth on which has been inscribed a petition. One such deity,
we were assured, has for his special function the assisting of women to
obtain good husbands. He is immensely popular. We saw, in half an hour,
at least a dozen women knock on the grating to rouse him and entreat his
services. One old woman, who evidently knew from experience how rare
good husbands are, led two of her daughters to the gate, and pounded on
it savagely three times. Yet even in that temple we found a proof of
how the western world has invaded the customs of Japan; for here, amid
the grotesque deities, was hung an eight-day clock, which proved on
examination to have come from Ansonia, Connecticut!
A singular feature of many of these Buddhist temples is a line of votive
tablets, erected by pious souls, who wished either to show by means of
pictures the dangers from which God had rescued them, or else to certify,
in written words, to miraculous answers to their prayers. The Buddhist
religion, however, despite its age and its indubitable hold upon the
people, is not to-day, as we have said, the official religion of Japan.
Since 1869 the Government has favored Shintoism, and many Buddhist
temples have been stripped of their magnificent decorations and dedicated
to the Shinto faith.
[Illustration: VOTIVE PICTURES.]
Accordingly, the contributions that once came freely from the people are
now falling off, and it is difficult to keep in good repair the costly
lacquer-work and gilding of the temples. Some shrines already look shabby
and neglected. However, an occasional exception to this rule shows how
dangerous it is to make unqualified statements about Japan.
In Kioto, for example, we found a most astonishing proof of the vitality
of Japanese Buddhism in the new and splendid temple of Higashi Hongwanji,
which at the time of our visit was in process of construction. We saw
it on the occasion of a special festival, when popular recognition and
acclaim were manifested in profuse and elaborate decorations. But, the
truth is, the temple is continually receiving the support of untold
thousands of the Japanese. All the surrounding provinces have given it,
not only money, but timber, metals, and stone, besides the transportation
of materials free of cost. It seems as if conservative and faithful
Buddhists, indignant at the prevalent idea that their religion is
declining, were making this stupendous effort to show the world their
strength and their devotion.
[Illustration: A PYRAMID WITH SILVER CREST.]
[Illustration: NEW BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN KIOTO.]
One object in this shrine especially impressed us. This was a pile of
rope,--each strand as long and large as a ship's cable,--made of women's
hair, twisted and spliced with hemp! These ropes are the offerings of
poor but devout women, thousands of whom, in nine Japanese provinces,
having nothing else to give, contributed their hair, to be woven into
cables for hoisting beams and tiles in the construction of the temple.
One rope, two hundred and fifty feet in length, was the gift of three
thousand five hundred women in one province alone. This seems at first,
perhaps, a trifling thing; but when one recollects the pride which
Japanese women take in their abundant hair, the care they show in its
arrangement, and the entire absence in Japan of hats or bonnets to
conceal the sacrifice, their action is remarkable. And when we perceived
among the usual black strands occasional streaks of white and gray,
proving that this enthusiasm extended from youth to age, it seemed to us
the most touching proof of popular devotion to a sacred cause that we had
ever seen.
[Illustration: ROPES OF WOMEN'S HAIR.]
We witnessed a number of _matsuris_, or religious festivals in Japan,
when all the principal streets were thronged with people, and even the
house-tops held their private box-parties. On every such occasion there
would appear, in the centre of the thoroughfare, an object that never
failed to fill us with amazement. Think of a hundred men pulling madly
on two ropes, and drawing thus a kind of car, mounted on two enormous
wooden wheels. Resting on this, and rising far above the neighboring
roofs, imagine a portable shrine, resembling a pagoda, with roof of
gold, and gorgeously decorated with silken tapestries, which are so
richly embroidered and heavily gilded as to be valued at many thousands
of dollars. This structure had two stories, on each of which were many
life-size figures,--some being actual men and women, while others were
mere painted statues, hideous and grotesque. Behind this came another
car, shaped like a huge bird with crested head. Upon this second vehicle
also stood an edifice, three stories high, resplendent 'with magnificent
tapestries and gilded ornaments, and bearing statues of old Japanese
deities, so laughably grotesque, that had not their surroundings been
so rich the whole procession would have seemed a farce. Some of these
statues, which were made to open their mouths and wag their heads like
puppets, were especially applauded. Men, women, and children rode upon
these cars, blowing horns and beating drums. If we had closed our eyes,
we might have thought that we were listening to a Fourth of July parade
of the "Antiques and Horribles." What most impressed us was the absence
of what we should consider religious feeling. It was a show, a brilliant
pageant--nothing more; though, as such, it was heartily enjoyed by
thousands.
[Illustration: A RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL.]
[Illustration: A MATSURI.]
The streets in Kioto, like those of most Japanese cities, are usually
much alike. No heavy teams disturb their rounded surfaces. Few vehicles,
save light jinrikishas, pass over them. Almost no animals are ever seen
in them. They are as clean as sidewalks are with us. In most of them
we can perceive some groups or individuals, arrayed in varied colors,
moving about like brilliant fragments in a long kaleidoscope. On either
side extends a line of little houses, which, in point of architectural
effect, appear monotonous, but since their lower stories are all open to
the street, and from the fact that most of them are shops with all their
goods on exhibition two feet from the thoroughfare, they really offer
infinite variety.
[Illustration: A CHARACTERISTIC STREET.]
Approaching one of these shops, one first encounters a wooden platform,
two feet from the ground. On this the Japanese purchaser usually seats
himself, as he prepares to bargain. Most foreigners, however, being
unable to fold comfortably their limbs beneath them for a cushion, assume
a different attitude, and allow their feet to hang over the side. If
they ascend the platform and really enter the shop, they are supposed
to leave their shoes below, and walk in stocking feet; for the shops of
the Japanese are, like their houses, paved with polished wood or covered
with spotless matting. The goods displayed by no means constitute the
merchant's entire stock. The choicest articles are often in a fire-proof
store-house, close at hand, and can be sent for at a moment's notice. As
for the contents of these street bazaars, they comprise every article of
clothing, ornament, and furniture conceivable by the Japanese mind.
[Illustration: STYLES OF JAPANESE SANDALS.]
The shoe shops in particular were, at first, a source of great surprise
to us. "These surely are not shoes," we said, as we beheld their great
variety of foot-coverings. And yet the Japanese are shod, though sandals
is a better name than shoe for what they wear. A Japanese gentleman,
who has not yet adopted European dress, wears in the house a cotton sock,
which has a separate compartment for the great toe, like the thumb of
a mitten. When he walks out, he plants his foot on a straw sandal, or,
if the streets be muddy, on a wooden clog that rises three inches from
the ground. In doing so, he thrusts the apex of a V-shaped cord between
his great toe and the smaller ones, and, holding on his sandals thus, he
marches off.
[Illustration: SHOPPING MADE EASY.]
[Illustration: A FLOWER MERCHANT.]
[Illustration: JAPANESE HANDIWORK.]
But not all the merchants of Kioto are content to stay in shops; and, in
this respect, human nature is much the same the world over. The gorgeous
vehicles of American country peddlers, which we admired in our childhood
days, are reproduced here on a smaller scale, though without wheels;
and as the Japanese are sure to be artistic in everything, we were not
surprised to find their brooms and dusters grouped in clusters like a
huge bouquet. The peddlers themselves are pictures of human placidity. It
is true, their eyes will open somewhat at the sight of foreigners, but
most of the beardless faces that one sees beneath their mushroom hats of
straw might easily serve an artist as models for a Japanese grandmother.
[Illustration: MAKING CLOGS.]
In strolling through the streets, we often paused to watch the natives
at their work. If, for example, it chanced to be a cobbler making wooden
clogs, we saw, to our astonishment, that his great toe could hold a block
of wood as firmly as a thumb, and we began to ask ourselves if western
workmen had gained much by covering up the feet and losing a third hand.
The methods of Japanese laborers seem to us, at first, a little clumsy,
because they are unlike our own. But one soon comes to marvel at their
skill. No nation is superior to them in dexterity, fineness of touch,
and delicacy of finish. In great things, as in small, one finds the
same perfection. Japanese carpenters, for example, will use few nails
in building a house, but they will make mortises so exact that water
cannot penetrate between the joints; and they will decorate a fan or
paint a photographic slide with touches so delicate that they will bear
inspection with a magnifying-glass. To watch them is like watching our
own motions in a mirror, for everything appears reversed. Our carpenters
push the plane from them; the Japanese pull it toward them. The threads
of our screws turn to the right; theirs turn to the left. Our keys turn
outward; theirs turn inward. Nor is this difference true of handicraft
alone. Their way of doing hundreds of familiar things is so directly
opposite to ours, that one is almost tempted to believe the cause to be
their relative position on the other side of the globe, and that they are
really living upside down. The only question is: "Which side is up, and
which is down?"
[Illustration: CHILD AND NURSE.]
[Illustration: JAPANESE CARPENTERS.]