only 4000 feet and a population of 2500! It also has a mine which is
entirely under the sea. If the little islands had not stuck up out of
the sea to show where the coal lay hid below it, Japan would have been
much the poorer. As well as working huge quantities, the quality of
this coal is the best they have. They must use salt water, of course,
so they combine their engine work with salt making, and thus make a lot
of money, as well as provide their thousands of people with distilled
water for domestic purposes. It was very funny to go only a couple of
yards from the black coal sacks to the great room filled with snowy
salt.
In the evening I went to dinner with the G----s, and then they took me
to a kind of semi-amateur theatrical performance at the theatre. About
3000 people were in the theatre, very crowded, and nearly all sitting
on the floor in the little divisions corresponding to boxes, but which
fill practically all the space of a Japanese theatre. The only amusing
thing--except the spectators themselves--was a huge dragon made to move
and wriggle by a dozen men, and which darted in and out after a golden
ball--it depends on some legend or other which I have not yet learned.
=October 21.=--Mrs. G---- saw me off at the station and brought butter
and fruit, and the largest pear I have ever seen in my life, which is
most delicious. A prospect of two nights and three days before reaching
Tokio.
=October 22.=--As this train only stops about every fifty miles or
so, and we have to pay extra for its being an express, there are
relatively few passengers, and none of them at all amusing except
one old man, whom I take to be a Chinaman. He is tall and dressed in
widest garments, the trousers being of such flowing description that he
hitches them up behind when he walks, as a lady does her skirts. He has
an amber-coloured silk jacket, slashed up the front, and into this and
the front of his lower garments he has stuffed so many things that he
looks very rotund, which he isn’t by nature. His long hair is done on
the top of his head inside a little fine gauze hat, with a band under
his chin, and he wears enormous brown horn spectacles attached to the
hat.
He smokes a pipe a yard long, and sits all day, with his swathed feet
crossed Buddha fashion, on a brilliant cerise-pink blanket. He cannot
speak a word of Japanese, but can of course write Chinese, so that when
any one wants his ticket or anything from him it must be written down,
or else his three attendants sent for. The attendants are travelling
third class, two in a costume like his, but simpler, the third in a
European knicker-suit combined with a similar gauze hat! Here we see
Chinese _writing_ acting as a medium of communication between these
people, who cannot understand a word of the other’s spoken language.
=October 23.=--I am surprised how well I sleep in these rackety
trains--but the East is very soporific. Much of the scenery is pretty,
particularly the hilly distances. Indeed, most of Japan seems to be
beautiful. I am spending the day reading through the dictionary, a
word here and there sticks and is useful sometimes. It is awful to be
so entirely without literature--nothing is obtainable but character
Japanese, of which, of course, I cannot read a word, and I have had
nothing to read for weeks on these tedious journeyings. This express
train is quite good, and there is an excellent luncheon car attached.
=October 24.=--A day spent at the Institute seeing after letters, etc.,
which of course have all been awaiting my return. I also received
congratulatory and other visits from several people. They seem to think
it some wonderful thing that I go _into_ the mines! At Nagasaki, the
trouble I had to escape interviewers! Two telephoned up for permission
to see me, two came to the hotel, and I refused to see them, and one
followed me to the station, and though I used some insulting Japanese
to him, he bought a ticket and followed me to the train. I wouldn’t
speak a word to him, so I guess very unfavourable comments appeared.
=October 25.=--A very full day, which I began by calling on the
Vice-Minister of Education, to whom an official call has long been
due. Once more I had to grieve over the poverty and bad taste of the
European furniture with which so many official Japanese are replacing
their own simple and dignified arrangements.
I then went to a Faculty lunch at the University--to-day being the day
when all the professors of the Science College meet and lunch together.
Through the week the other colleges and faculties have their day. I met
many friendly people, Professor _S----_ being particularly charming.
The dining-hall is in Japanese style, but tables and food European.
The floor mats being Japanese, we must take off our boots and patter
about in slippers, which are all made of one size and belong to the
University. I can’t keep them on, and people are always fetching me new
ones when I quietly discard an importunate pair.
The Minister of Education has this year started a sort of Academy
of Pictures, and gave me an invitation for the private view. There
were three sections, Japanese paintings proper, oils after the manner
of foreigners, and sculpture. The latter very bad; the two former
sections, though containing only about a couple of hundred exhibits,
yet had a larger number of beautiful things than our Academy ever
shows. The selection had been very careful, eight out of every ten
rejected, and each hung with at least 1 foot of wall space all round
it, and nothing skied!
=October 26.=--A party from the Botanical Institute went on a botanical
excursion to Nikko, a very renowned and lovely district about 2000
feet above the sea. The temples there are marvellous, and the whole
region one of the “three places” of Japan, and so well known and often
described that I shall not attempt to give any account of its technical
glories. A few things struck me specially, but the glorious carving and
gilding and rich beauty of the temples I am not qualified to describe.
In the temple I specially liked the Sacred Horse. Dear beast (he is
alive, of course), he had been at the war and come through safely, but
his rider, a prince of the Imperial house, who had been a High Priest
up to the dis-establishment of the priesthood, was killed. The horse
now lives in his beautiful dwelling in the temple, and is fed by the
faithful on beans, which are sold at a farthing a dish. It seems so
cruel to give him such small helpings at a time that I gave him half
a dozen simultaneously, and so the keeper-priest gave me a picture of
this animal in all his sacred trappings.
One of the principal glories of the temples is the magnificent avenue
of giant cryptomeria trees,--an avenue more than 20 miles long, all
planted 300 years ago by a single Daimio. Along the turbulent stony
river a quiet paved path runs beneath tall trees, and beside it are
many little shrines and temples. On the hill above, with a great flight
of stone steps leading to it, is the tomb of the first great Shogun,
a man in his time mightier than the Mikado. The stones used in the
building of the steps and foundations are enormous, and one wonders how
it was possible to engineer them 300 years ago. Now it would be almost
an impossibility to build in such a grand style. Close to the temples
is the small Alpine garden belonging to the University, and really a
branch of the Tokio Botanical Garden. It is small, but charming, with
many little streams and rocky pinnacles on which the alpine plants are
growing, and from it is a splendid view of the fine hills beyond. Every
tourist goes to Nikko, and every book on Japan describes it, so I need
say nothing.
=October 27.=--We continued on foot up the hills to Chuzenji, a large
lake about 4500 feet up--the steep valleys up which we went were quite
indescribably glorious, with the autumnal colourings of the maples and
other trees.
Crimson and scarlet, chrome, ochre, vermilion and orange, gold and
copper coloured trees, covering the grey rocks and massed against
a sapphire sky. Such magnificence of colouring was beyond all
imagination--and was indeed a “botanical lesson.” We passed several
notable waterfalls, one of which had a particularly interesting
geological structure.
=October 28.=--We returned down to Nikko and took the train to Tokio.
Though it is sad to leave their beauty we are glad to get back to
warmth, for the lovely heights were very cold.
=October 29.=--The day was spent at the Institute and paying official
calls. The fossil cutting-machine is going on splendidly. Professor
_F----_ is showing engineering genius in getting its house built.
=October 30.=--I was at work at the Institute all day, chiefly writing
letters to try to catch up the arrears. Late in the afternoon I called
at the Embassy, and found that the Ambassador is a very genial man, who
professes to be interested in fossils and asks permission to come and
see them. Will he, I wonder?
=November 1.=--A glorious sunny day, which lured me out from my room
in the Institute, and made me take my book to the little grove of pine
trees by the Laboratory, where I lay in the sun, as solitary as in the
middle of a forest--the blue sky above as brilliant as one can imagine
it.
=November 2.=--All to-day was spent in moving to my new rooms, which
are both upstairs, and open out of each other in the convenient
Japanese fashion, and as I am planning to sleep on the true Japanese
quilts (which are put away during the day), I shall have two reception
rooms, or one big drawing-room, at will. Along the rooms is a broad
verandah, so that, as the partitions can be moved between it and the
rooms, I have quite a lot of space if I like to give a party.
=November 3.=--I am increasingly charmed with my rooms. The hostess is
so friendly and nice, and the five dogs keep us so safe from robbers
that I can have all my walls and windows open at night if I like.
I looked out on to my little Japanese garden this morning and saw my
host with a watering-can, but the hasty conclusion which an Englishman
would come to, that he was watering the plants, was wide of the
mark--he was watering the stones, which are carefully chosen to lie in
an irregular fashion, and so simulate the rocky bed of a little stream.
There is also a pond in this garden, and a forest and a shrine, and the
whole thing is not more than 30 feet square.
Dr. _H----_ took me to a _Nō_ performance. These are extremely
interesting old plays, some of them written about 300 years ago, and
they are still acted in the same way as they were originally. The
intonation (which is most peculiar), dresses, steps, even the movements
of the hands, are all according to prescribed rules, and all so
highly specialised and conventionalised that it is hard even for most
Japanese to understand them. The arrangements of stage, actors, chairs,
musicians, etc. remind one partly of the old Greek plays and partly
of the original Shakespearean style of acting. There is no scenery,
but one pine tree and a few necessary implements; the music-makers and
chorus sit on the stage at the back and side, and chant in unison with
the “dancing” (which by the way is a series of slow and very stiff
poses, not dancing at all in our sense of the word). The stage is
square, and projects out so that the audience sit on three sides of it.
The performance began at 9 in the morning, but I was there soon after
half-past eight to see the audience come in. There was no artificial
light, and as it poured with rain it was at times rather dark, and
the rain came in in places. I left at 3.30 and it was still going
on--not being over till 4.30. This was not all one piece, but a series
of about six short plays, each representing only one incident or
situation, and quite disconnected. As the Japanese themselves do not
fully understand it without years of study, I could not expect to,
but was most interested nevertheless. Mr. Poel would have enjoyed it
vastly, for, as he considers should be the case with great literature,
nearly all scenery and such things are left to the imagination, and
the whole interest of the audience centres in the principal actor’s
words. It is impossible to describe this fully, the _Nō_ is totally
different from the Japanese theatre proper, and is only visited by
refined or highly-cultured people, who study it deeply. Dr. _Mk----_,
who was to interpret for me, went to sleep! Dr. _H----_ has studied the
pieces for years and knows them well, but can explain very little to me
about them. All the pieces are contained in half a dozen volumes, and
therefore the study is a possible one, just as the study of Shakespeare
is possible, but may take a lifetime. None of the pieces are less than
150 years old.
To-day was the Mikado’s birthday, and pouring wet!
=November 4–8.=--An uneventful week in Tokio, doing little, but
spending a lot of time and energy thereon. On the 8th (Friday) I
lunched once more with the Science Faculty at the Goten, and was
treated most kindly. There are, naturally, no other women there, but I
sit between the President and the Dean, and have quite a good time.
=November 9.=--The King’s Birthday and gloriously fine! I had luncheon
with the P----s, and went with them to the Ambassador’s garden party,
where we sat on the lawn and ate ices and strolled about. Numerous
ambassadors, princes, and ministers, and other big-wigs were on show,
some wearing massive decorations. The ball-room was open, and at about
4.30 we began to dance. Several Japanese in European costume danced,
but the prettiest Japanese ladies were those who wore their own lovely
ceremonial dress, which is far more dignified than ours.
I had dinner out, and then went to a dance in the evening, where the
belle of the ball was a girl whose father was English and mother was
Japanese. She had such lovely shoulders that I longed to be a man and
marry her.
=November 10.=--I stopped all night with the P----s. Poor Professor
P---- had to go off somewhere at 6 in the morning. As one can hear a
whisper from one room in the next, of course it woke me up, but I was
glad, because the sunrise was one of magically lovely clear tints, that
I have never seen out of Japan, and it shed a fairy radiance on glowing
crimson maple and golden _Ginkgo_ trees.
In the afternoon we had tea with Professor _M----_ and Professor
_F----_. The latter took me to the famous popular shows of
chrysanthemums, where the chief feature is the life-size models of
actors and theatre scenes, all made of millions of minute flowering
chrysanthemums still _growing_, the red skirt, white sleeves or golden
shield all being masses of self-coloured flowers. The effect is,
of course, simply curious, and an evidence of gardener’s skill--not
pretty. Some of the other exhibits were huge plants, with a “thousand”
blooms (really 300–400) all simultaneously open, and other plants with
every imaginable kind of chrysanthemum growing from one main stem, a
triumph of grafting, but not of beauty.
=November 15.=--A quiet day’s work, and in the late afternoon tea at
the British Embassy. In the evening an invitation “by order of the
Emperor” arrived for the Imperial garden party at Akasaka Palace.
It was amusing to see the awe with which my landlady viewed it--the
Imperial Crest being almost sacred in this country. She took it in her
hands as a good Catholic might a piece of the true cross, and raised
it three times to her forehead, and asked leave to take it to show her
husband. I shine from the reflected glory.
=November 16.=--The morning was spent at the Institute, and then the
afternoon at the lovely house and garden of Professor _S----_. It is a
very large and beautifully unspoiled Japanese garden of the old style.
The maple trees were red and the pines green--and here and there among
them were bushes bearing the loveliest fresh pink and crimson roses.
October and November are called by some “the little Spring,” and these
rose bushes might well be those of June with us. The scent of the
roses is not so sweet as with us, but the texture of the petals more
delicate, so that they have a wonderful semi-transparency, which ours
seldom attain.
=November 19.=--The Emperor’s garden party took place to-day, and was
attended by numerous Princes and Princesses, Ambassadors, Ministers
and the “élite of Tokio Society.” Americans flock by the hundred, as
their Ambassador asks invitations for them, and as they have no court
and “all men are equal,” some very queer ones come. The other nations
resent it, and the English Ambassador is particularly strict, so that
_very_ few English can come--unless they hold some official position
with the Japanese Government. My scientific mission secured me the
much-coveted invitation, and I am right glad I went, for the palace
gardens were extremely lovely. They are in the best style of landscape
gardening, and are most extensive. The glowing crimson of the Japanese
maple, and the golden of the _Ginkgo_ showed up brilliantly against the
many green pines; small waterfalls and lakes abound, and I think we
must have walked nearly half a mile before reaching the point where the
show of chrysanthemums and the meeting of the guests took place. The
chrysanthemums were very much like those at the popular shows, but of
course rather finer, and were spoiled by being tied to straight sticks
and arranged symmetrically. Some had enormous numbers of flowers, 800
or so from a single plant and all flowering simultaneously. The flowers
were arranged like the jets of a huge candelabra, and in one way were
most effective, but the people were by far the most interesting part
of the entertainment. The Empress was a little indisposed, so we had
to be content with the Crown Prince and Princess and a train of minor
Princes and Princesses. The Empress has, unfortunately, made European
dress compulsory at all Court functions, so that most Japanese ladies
do not come, and those who do are got up in garments which they do not
thoroughly understand and therefore cannot wear with grace. Also they
go hopelessly wrong in choosing the colours. And as to hats! But this
cannot be an article on millinery. The quaintest lady there was in
early Victorian costume--a hat like a Cambridge pork pie and a skirt of
rusty brown, that was hooped and looped up like those our mothers wore
when they were young.
Her husband was equally pathetic. She was a great contrast to the rest
of them, who were in ultra fashionable and befeathered robes, of a
style unknown to our “élite.”
The quaintest gentleman there was in a top hat of prehistoric date, a
frock-coat which showed every seam, and sand-shoes! And he was a high
official, who doubtless in his beautiful native dress looked dignified
and inspired respectful admiration.
When it came to feeding I was surprised to find that the Imperial
allowance was but one plate each, and on this the guests put ham,
tongue, and chicken, jelly, rolls, and ice-cream, sweets and cakes, and
ate them indiscriminately; even my English knights did not hesitate to
bring me jelly, ice-cream, sandwiches and cakes on one plate. There
was champagne galore, and beautiful cut-glass glasses, which one
appreciates in this land where glass is so expensive and bad, and
where most glass articles of everyday use at home are not obtainable.
(This reminds me that I have spent a fortnight hunting for a little
glass jug and cannot get one.) Admiral Togo was the most impressive
figure there, shorter than most of the Japanese, thick-set and upright,
and conversing with very few people. Baron Kikuchi remembered me,
which, as he saw me for only half an hour five months ago, speaks much
for his social gifts. As he came up smiling, and waited for me to
speak, I remembered him, for he is quite unlike any other Japanese I
have ever seen.
After the party the catching of one’s _kuruma_ was an exciting game;
there was no system of getting at them, and the several hundreds of
guests and several hundreds of coolies simply wandered about in the
maze of _kurumas_ shouting and looking for each other. When the police
were directly applied to they were helpful for a foreigner, as there
were few of us, and of course we are more easily spotted than the
natives.
I forgot to note that the only Princess with whom I chatted had a
strong American accent; it sounded very strange. She had found a lot
of fossils in her garden where they are sinking a well, and seemed a
little interested in them.
=November 22.=--Professor _S----_ took me to visit Count Okuma in the
morning; he is reported to be the second greatest statesman in Japan,
and has a lovely house and grounds, which he was gracious enough to
show me. Every ordinary day he has about thirty or forty visitors, and
is one of the busiest men in the country. He has an old face, with
almost no hair, and is tall for a Japanese, and dignified in his
silken robes, and distinctly pleasing. He could speak no English, so
that conversation was rather limited, as he spoke more than usually
indistinctly, but he was amused with Professor _S----’s_ account of
me, and very gracious. The rooms are nearly all provided with European
chairs and tables, rich and handsome, the drawing-room in which he
received me upholstered in gold brocaded silk, which harmonised well
with the handsome old gold and painted screens from ancient Japan which
stood round the room. I begged to see the Japanese wing of the house,
which he showed me. His Japanese guest chambers were, to my taste, far
more beautiful, though perforce less able to display his wealth. He is
the Chamberlain of Japan in one sense, and has the finest orchid houses
in the country. They were very beautiful, but not on the same scale as
with us. The Japanese landscape garden is the chief glory of his place.
He has also a fine collection of dwarf trees, and I watched one of his
gardeners pruning a mighty forest of pines three inches high, growing
on a headland jutting out to sea in a porcelain dish.
In the evening the Biologists gave a dinner in honour of Professor
_M----’s_ safe return from Java, and my advent. About forty or so
were there (all men, of course), and it was a very jolly dinner
indeed, commencing at 5.30, and as I was a foreigner and used to late
hours (!), continuing till 9. Nearly every one had been abroad, and
between them they knew almost all my European and American scientific
friends--so I did not feel at all as though I was in a strange land.
They all stood up to drink the health of the guests, so I had to make a
little after-dinner speech,--a thing I hate, and am not able to do very
well.
=November 23.=--This morning I got up while it was dark, and only
arrived here after dark--here being a district where beautiful fossil
Angiosperms are reported. There was a four-hours’ ride in a _kuruma_,
along one of the straightest roads I ever saw, for the first half of
the time. After that the mountains were lovely, clad with pine and
maple, a few of which were still crimson, with the clear water rushing
over the green rocks. Though they told me it would be frightfully
cold up in the mountains so late, I am very comfortable in this inn,
where the hot water for the baths runs perpetually from a boiling
natural spring. The baths are delightful, and if cyanophyceae make them
slippery, what matter?
=November 24.=--This morning early I started off on foot in glorious
hot sunshine to get the fossils, and succeeded in getting more than
my coolie could carry. I am almost the only visitor in the place, and
every one is very kind and very interested. My colloquial Japanese
comes a cropper now and then--but I get what I want, which is the main
thing. The rocky valleys and woods are very lovely, and I appreciate
the loneliness after these Tokio weeks. I should like always to live in
complete solitude two days in seven.
The rocks in the neighbourhood are volcanic and are of a lovely
green, so that the water rushing over them is particularly beautiful.
The woody valleys are quite deserted, but are still warm in the sun,
and gay with crimson leaves and berries, and some brilliant _purple_
berries of a colour I never saw in Nature before--it is just like one
of my detested aniline dyes, but looks quite beautiful when painting
the skin of a berry!
=November 25.=--Hours and hours of _kuruma_ riding, and then five hours
in the train, which in that time managed to do less than 100 miles,
though it was on the main line and there was no change anywhere.
During the _kuruma_ ride I saw the first flock of sheep I have seen in
Japan, about a dozen good-sized, clean, and healthy-looking animals.