planks. They are narrow enough to test the skill of an equilibrist, and
it may be they are put down to drill the courtiers in that useful art.
On this occasion these planks are covered with narrow bright red
carpet--a poor specimen of the thing usually found in "furnished
apartments," not at all conducive to comfort, and apparently only a
harbour for the dust. The yard is deserted. Here and there, out of
peep-holes and half-open doors, a few red-calicoed servants are gazing
with inquisitive eyes, but not one of them is in attendance.
From the central building a wide, unpainted door leads into the yard.
The door is open and we see a kind of hall, with its walls covered with
a large-patterned blue-and-white paper, which probably lay for years
neglected and unadmired in some mean shop. There is a table in the
centre and a high screen behind. Squeezed in between the two stands the
Emperor. I can hardly realize that I am in the presence of the
all-powerful potentate--an Emperor who is more than ruler, and more even
than despot, in fact, an idol in the eyes of his people. His person is
sacred, his power is boundless, his word is law, and he owns everything,
land and people, without restriction, his simple wish is a command.
If human hand touches him it is sacrilege, and the punishment for
sacrilege is death. Even the dead body of an emperor must be lifted into
the coffin by a special device. If the Emperor touches a subject, the
body so touched becomes blessed. The Emperor's name must not be
mentioned except in whispers. His portrait is never painted except after
death, when it becomes an object of worship in the ancestral halls.
Once a foreign envoy sought to present the Emperor with the portrait of
his sovereign, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs regarded the offer
as an outrage and the portrait was never accepted. How very strange all
these customs seem to be! But it is scarcely thirty years since Korea
was still, if not the "Land of the Morning Calm," at least the "Hermit
Kingdom," secluded and unknown.
[Illustration: _Copyright, Nops Ltd._ THE EMPEROR OF KOREA To face page
270]
My impression of the Emperor is favourable. His features are heavy, but
the face is kind and his expression is benevolent. Physically he is
delicate. I cannot imagine him to be a man of strong likes or dislikes,
and his shyness approaches timidity. He wore ancient Korean state robes
of rich yellow hue, embroidered with numberless cabalistic signs. Around
his waist was clasped a stiff ceremonial girdle, inlaid with jade. It
looked much like an iron hoop round a shrunken barrel and seemed
peculiar to Western eyes, accustomed to belts that, on the contrary,
grip the body only too closely.
The representative of my country, who has lived for many years in Korea,
and is an excellent scholar, had scarcely time to make the necessary
introductions before the Emperor opened the conversation. He was most
interested in the way I had come, and hearing that I had used the
overland route, his questions were inexhaustible. "When did you leave
home?"
"How long have you been travelling?" "What interested you most?" "What
is the country like?" "What do the people do?" "What are their
ambitions?" and so on. He seemed to be interested in my own country, and
especially in all the different manners and customs of the West.
"Is your country a very hilly one?" "Are the people agricultural, as
here?" "Is your capital a very fine one, and what is the Emperor's
palace like? I hear there are magnificent Court functions, and pageants
with a great many carriages. My envoys, coming home from the European
tour, gave me very interesting details of your magnificent cities and
great wealth, and brought home many valuable souvenirs and pictures. I
am sorry to be too old, otherwise I myself would start to see all I have
heard about."
The state coaches seemed to appeal most to his imagination, which, after
all, is but natural, considering that such a thing as a carriage has
never been known to the Koreans. His Majesty even expressed a wish to
order one in Europe.
Question after question came, giving me scarcely time to give answers.
I, of course, could not ask questions except in an indirect way, for in
this respect Korea sticks firmly to the etiquette of all Courts, which
provides that the monarch alone is allowed to start a new topic of
conversation.
"You must have been very glad on your arrival at Seoul to find that the
finest building is your cathedral? What it must have been to have built
up such a high tower! and I am told its interior is beautiful. Who was
your architect? How much did it cost?" I explained that it was built by
one of the fathers who studied with great care the architectural books
of Viollet Le Duc, and that the expense had been very limited, on
account of nearly everything being made on the spot.
But he was even more interested to hear about our orphan schools close
by, where nearly two hundred children are saved from misery and death.
He was pleased to hear a little more of what happens outside the palace
gates, to know something more about the charitable work carried out in
his own country.
It was astonishing to see with what keen interest he followed my
explanations.
He wanted to know my ideas concerning Koreans, and especially Korean
children and the rising generation trained in our schools. I was glad to
have an opportunity of expressing my satisfaction, and I told him how
very much surprised I was at seeing the Korean children at work, and
hearing their answers.
I could scarcely believe that boys out here could be such good Latin
scholars, some of them far in advance of boys of the same age in
European schools. I was even more astonished to see the real pleasure
it gave them to study and to improve. To me it shed quite a new light on
the Korean character and mind. What is more satisfactory still is, that
when these children go back to their forlorn homes, as they do for
several months each year, they seldom fail to return, and never forget
what they have been taught.
Next the Emperor sat the Crown Prince, a man slightly over thirty years
of age, overgrown and heavy, apathetic, and lethargic in all his
movements. He shows little interest in anything outside his own sphere,
and scarcely any capacity for the reception of new ideas. He is married,
but has no family.
But there is a younger brother who is in every respect the reverse. He
is bright, clever, active, and instead of the heavy atmosphere of the
palace seeks the fresh air of far-away countries; At present he is in
the United States, working hard, studying and gathering knowledge,
experience, and statesmanship, which may, as he hopes it will, be of use
to himself and to his country.
Behind the Emperor and Crown Prince stands a huge dark figure, casting a
heavy black shadow on them. His expression is stolid, and he is mute,
but he watches and follows everything that goes on around us. He is the
chief eunuch of the palace, a man of great importance and influence.
The chamberlains and princes accompany me to my sedan-chair when I go.
Before I leave them they make an appointment for next day to show me the
ancestral hall and some of the public buildings.
I must say they are all very courteous, and want to show me much that
they think would prove useful to me. At last we start, sedan-chairs
begin to swing, hanging from eight bearers' shoulders. A horseman rides
ahead, while the legation servants and the Kisos form a guard. As we
come to the large place before the palace there is a dense crowd, a
faction of the revolutionists as I am told. The city is in great
excitement. As we pass along we meet crowds everywhere.
Seoul is divided into two parties. One is bitter against Russia and
claims the delivery and punishment of Y.-Yung-Yk, on whom all the
Imperial confidence and favours are bestowed at this moment. Another
party is in favour of him and Russia. The former is for Japan--but there
is no party to support their own country, to work for its independence,
and to secure its freedom. There seem to be very few Koreans for Korea.
XI
TOKIO
As the train stops at the terminus of Shimbashi, I can scarcely realize
that I have reached the capital of beautiful Japan. The huge station is
one of the most commonplace erections I have ever come across in my long
journeys. Platforms, booking offices, waiting rooms, are perfect copies
of all that the Western mind has produced to be useful, but from an
artistic point of view featureless and colourless. And even the crowd,
which bustles along and overflows the whole place, is as drab as it
could be in any commercial centre on our side of the globe. Even those
who still cling to the national _kimono_, instead of keeping to the old
bright colours, have it made of dark cloth or modern cotton material. As
I step out into the street my disappointment is even greater. I see a
few buildings constructed of wood, without any ornamentation, the
unpainted timber grey and weather-beaten.
I must say the day is very much against the creation of a favourable
impression. It is a cold January morning, gloomy and dark, sleet
falling from leaden clouds, and the streets are thickly covered with
black mud. I can almost imagine myself in the suburbs of Pittsburg, for
there is a great deal of smoke, the only apparent difference being that
steel is replaced mostly by timber. As my jinrickshaw rolls along
through the maze of wide streets and narrow lanes, I do not feel elated.
My extraordinary vehicle, which is drawn by two men harnessed tandem
fashion and pushed by another, has, however, an Eastern flavour, though
the 'rickshaw was actually invented by an Anglo-Saxon genius.
During the first weeks of my stay I visited all the ancient monuments,
temples, and pagodas, and all the usual haunts of the traveller. There
are some fine specimens of Japanese art, though they cannot be compared
to the buildings of the smaller cities. I come from Nara and Kyoto, and
this may be one of the reasons that everything is so far below my
expectations. Some of the temples are certainly large, and one or two
pagodas quaintly designed, many of the carvings being elaborate. But
even the best specimens can only be classed as decorative art. Among
them all, the most noteworthy examples of Japanese architecture are the
temples dedicated to the memory of the Sh[=o]guns. The decoration of the
inner halls is sometimes exquisite, the beams and friezes being
beautifully worked. Bronzes, finely cast, magnificently finished, make
the interiors delightful. I specially admired the specimens of
lacquer-work I saw in the course of my rambles. Nearly all the temples
had panels, doors, chests, boxes, utensils, and odds and ends of
exceptional beauty. It takes a long time for a Western eye to appreciate
fully the real qualities of good lacquer; but when once it has been
trained it will always put their lacquer-work foremost among the
artistic productions of this people next to bronzes, if not before them.
The industry still survives in full vigour, and I saw several specimens
which came very near those in the carefully guarded collection of Nikko.
I also saw many fine bronzes, though their beauty is often depreciated
by the too-great elaborateness of the design. Old national armour is to
be found in many of the temples and collections of the capital, but,
though most beautiful, it is not yet in much demand in the bric-a-brac
market.
But I have come to the conclusion that the real charm of ancient Yeddo
must have lain more in nature than in art, in its bright suburbs,
evergreen groves, wistaria-covered arbours, and chrysanthemum gardens;
nature in her exuberance, in her spring bloom, or the varied tints of
autumn intermingled with arched bridges, carved balustrades, and flights
of steps, relieved by art. Monuments in Japan seem to serve above all as
a foreground to a fine view: the most conspicuous towers, ex-voto
lanterns, or finest "tories," acquire an artistic value more from their
surroundings than from their intrinsic worth. The way in which the
monuments are placed, the effect they give to the landscape, and
especially the view to be seen from them, are the main points of
interest. I am sorry that books written on Japanese art generally fail
to perceive its real value, and point out merits it does not possess. It
is particularly the imagination that ought to be dwelt on; not merely
the handiwork, but the conception of the brain. Shrines, kiosks,
pagodas, may sometimes be very primitive, but in the imagination of the
artist they represented fairy buildings. It is the same with their tiny
little gardens, or dwarf woods. Though they are in reality minute, they
grow in the owners' minds to veritable parks or virgin forests. Some of
the so-called Imperial palaces around Nikko are most humble abodes,
surrounded by a little strip of land. Katsura-no-Rikyu Palace, for
instance, consists simply of a few planks nailed together, forming a
kind of log house of one storey, a few feet square, and divided in the
interior by partitions or the so-called sliding screens. Certainly it is
no palace; it can scarcely be called a house. It is literally a shed
roofed with bamboo and thatch,--nothing more. And yet the followers of
the imaginative school of aesthetics saw it with different eyes. To them
it represented what their fancy imagined, not what they saw in reality,
and the little open space before the building, which, with the best will
in the world, can only be called a gravel yard, dotted with unhewn
stones, was to them the illimitable surface of the ocean, the scattered
blocks so many islands and continents. In the corner stands a little
estrade of bamboo, where the Mikado and his chosen friends used to sit
in deep contemplation before the elaborate world of their fancy, and
enjoy the passive happiness of the Zen doctrine.
It would interest me to treat this subject most explicitly, and to deal
with Japanese art from a psychological point of view; to consider not
merely the objects it has created, but rather the mind and genius which
have been manifested in its different creations; to deal more at length
with the founders and pupils of the famous masters' schools of Nara and
Kyoto, and to explain where their real value lies. To discuss the
paintings, statuary, and architecture, the refinement of their
watercolours, which can only be called sketches, small bronzes and jade
or stone figures, the netsukes on masks, makimonos, "tories" and
pagodas, would afford to our matter-of-fact appreciation an opportunity
of realizing more fully the strength of their imagination. The average
European generally admires in Japanese work the finish of detail,
elaborateness of execution, and the patience of labour, applied to its
object. He pays high prices for the workman's skill and manual
dexterity, but seems to be quite indifferent to the artist's idea as
such, and the originality of the conception escapes him entirely.
Yet in the most famous creations of the celebrated aesthetes we are more
struck by the force of their imagination than by the actual work itself.
The _cha-no-yu_ style consisted, as mentioned above with reference to
the Katsura-no-Rikyu Palace, of a few planks, bamboo beams, and thatched
roof, and Kobori Enshu, Nippon's Le Notre, designed his gardens to offer
a panoramic effect more than a place of recreation. It was not the house
nor the grounds in their real grandeur which effected the impression
desired; in fact, it was not reality at all that was before them in its
crude and sometimes primitive material; but the suggestiveness of log
house and gravel yard, which developed in their vivid fantasy into
enchanted palace and fairy land. Men retiring from active life; generals
crowned with many victories; distinguished, even abdicating Mikados,
secluded themselves in different rural retreats to enjoy, after the
struggles of life, perfect peace. They led a life of their own, an
existence not so much of active reality as of passive contemplation, in
which they discussed different ideas and strove for new ideals. They
invented an artificial life of artistic refinement, admiring for days
together a single work of art or a flower in full bloom, inhaling choice
aromas and smelling exquisite perfumes. And stately processions were
organized to go and partake of afternoon tea in a summer-house, where
every movement was prescribed by strict etiquette, and where the handing
and receiving of the cup were attended by fastidious courtesies, and the
making of the beverage of a special green leaf, pounded to powder, and
poured out of a black earthen pot, was an occupation requiring several
hours. The tea ceremonies have often been described; there is a whole
literature at our disposal, in which the regulations respecting these
proceedings are put down with the authority of a code. But what is far
more interesting than the description of the elaborate ceremonies is the
problem of how the mind of the people could have manifested itself in
such a complex and, to us, incomprehensible way. We shall never fully
realize how these men could have sat on the _Tsuki-mi-dai_, the bamboo
dais, for hours, watching the moon rising behind the meadows, gazing at
the scene before them, lost in the intricacy of their contemplation. And
we shall never understand their thoughts as we shall never realize the
world as seen from a Tsuki-mi-dai.
Is it astonishing if, in their imagination, reality and fiction became
"confusion worse confounded," huts grew to palaces, the single stones to
islands, and, finally, they built up a world of their own? As children
gazing at clouds give full play to their fancy, so did they see in the
external world what really existed only in their inner consciousness.
The explanation of many of those vagaries lies in the strength of their
fantasy, the vividness of their illusions; but we might go even further
and justly say that one of the strongest qualities of the nation is the
strength of their imagination. With them fiction almost becomes reality,
fancies acquire positive values, and subjective sensations are allowed
to act upon the objective world. Any one who is interested in
metaphysical questions will be struck by this trait, not only in their
art, but in every incident of their existence. Whether in the past or
present, it will strike us as one of the main characteristics of the
Japanese, and, turning over the pages of their long history, it is one
of the prevailing features. It was a potent factor, which gave strength
to their convictions and endurance to their arms. In fact, their whole
ancient moral code and their laws of chivalry were based on the same
principle. The two qualities which inspire sincere admiration all over
the world--their great loyalty to the sovereign and boundless
patriotism--are emanations of the same disposition. In fact their
greatest achievements were carried out under the influence of some
abstract conception and brought to success by a national or ethical
ideal.
II
If the artistic colouring of Tokio has faded away for ever, its present
aspect is marked by the evidences of practical life, and if one's first
impression is one of general disappointment, the second is one of deep
interest. We soon realize that the capital of Japan has ceased to be a
mere bazaar, full of glitter, where all the toys and fancies of the East
have been stored to make a pleasant resort for the Western traveller. It
is a place of hard work, for the accomplishment of serious aims.
Though my expectations in visiting the old monuments were not fulfilled,
and, as I said before, from an antiquarian and artistic standpoint the
town failed to satisfy me, I became daily more deeply interested in the
busy life and commercial enterprise of modern Nippon. Workshops,
manufactories, banks, insurance offices, are increasing rapidly in
number. The electric and steam companies, railways and shipping,
telegraph and telephone companies, have developed in a most astounding
manner. If we consider that the railway was only introduced into the
country in 1872, for the short distance from Tokio to Yokohama, which
was followed by another short line in 1876 from Kobe to Kyoto, and the
first long line connecting the two capitals was opened in 1890, it is
even more astonishing to see what has been done in the succeeding ten
years. To-day railways have been laid all over the country, and all the
main cities are connected by direct lines. To give an idea of this rapid
development, I may refer to the fact that in 1887 there were 580 miles
open for traffic, and in 1899 there were 3421 miles. Besides the
Government railways a great many private companies have been formed.
About thirty years after the commencement of Japan's new era, the
Government lines extended to 833 miles, including 60 miles in Formosa,
and the routes still under construction 1250. There were forty-four
private companies as well, with a capital of 228 million yen. The
rolling stock of the Government railways amounted to about 1500
locomotives, 5000 cars, and 18,000 goods wagons. Among private lines the
Nippon Tetsudo is the most important; it is about 1000 miles long. The
next in importance are the Kiushiu and Sanyo railways. To-day it is
possible to go from the north end of the country to the south, a
distance of 1400 miles. The only interruption on the whole track is the
Straits of Moji, where there is still a ferry, but this, it is said,
will probably be replaced by a steel bridge, such as that over the
Forth. The greater part of the rolling stock is manufactured at home,
only wheels and axles being imported to any great extent from abroad.
The first telegraph line was installed in 1869 by English engineers. In
1877 all the foreign employes had been replaced by natives, and ten
years later Japan joined the International Telegraph Union. In 1891 the
Government purchased from the Great Northern Telegraph Company, with
great strategical foresight, and took into its own hands, all the cables
forming a direct connexion with Korea. The telegraph offices are not far
off 2000 in number, and the length of the wires is close on 30,000
kilometres. The number of internal messages amounts to 16 millions, and
of international messages to about 300,000. The longest main line is
from Tokio to Nagasaki--877 kilometres. There are several thousands of
employes, and in many places bicycles are used for delivering the
telegrams.
The telephone in Japan is more common than in any other country in the
world, except perhaps Norway. Besides the Government and public
telephone offices, nearly every large commercial house, and most private
homes, have telephones.
The establishment of the electric system of illumination has become most
popular in the smallest villages, and forlorn hamlets are lighted by
electricity.
Steam navigation companies are numerous. Besides local companies running
small steamers in the larger bays and inland seas, there are several
companies for international commerce. Among all these companies the most
important is the Nippon Yusen Kaisha. It is the pride of modern Japan,
and I quite agree that there are very few enterprises in the shipping
line which could surpass it in size and excellence of organization. To
quote from their annual report, which will be of interest as giving an
idea of the success they have achieved: "With a capital of 22 million
yen, establishing regular steamship services all over the world, and
with a fleet of 70 steamers aggregating 200,000 tons gross, the majority
of them new and provided with every resource for contributing to the
comfort of passengers and every modern facility for the carrying trade,
the Nippon Yusen Kaisha now ranks among the greatest enterprises of the
kind in the world. The regular services maintained by it, independently
of its lines between all the principal ports in Japan, are with China,
Asiatic Russia, the Straits Settlements, India, the Red and
Mediterranean Seas, Europe, Canada, America, and Australia. The Japanese
Diet in 1899 resolved to grant subsidies to the company's European and
American Lines, and thus all foreign and home lines, with but a few
exceptions, have been ordered to run under the mail contract of the
Imperial Japanese Government. The Head Office is in Tokio, and Branch
Offices and Agencies to the number of over seventy, particulars of which
are given elsewhere, are situated at all the ports of call and other
important points. The total number of the Company's employes is about
1200, in addition to about 3500 of crews, firemen, etc."