Professors there. Term has only theoretically begun. The day has been
gloriously brilliant, so that one could shout for joy, though after
sunset it was frightfully cold. At half-past five the stars came out,
brilliant points of diamond light through the trees.
=January 11.=--I spent all the morning testing copper disks and the
gas-engine, etc., though it was Saturday. Late in the afternoon I
called on a Mrs. _K----_ with a card of introduction. Unfortunately,
I have been far too busy to present half my introductions, but I
wanted to know some more Japanese ladies, so called on this one. What
a contrast she was to the others I have met! Running downstairs to
meet me and chattering all kinds of greetings, expostulating against
my removing my shoes (a thing, by the way, which is absolutely
essential in all true Japanese houses, because of their beautiful
floors), commenting on the weather, and thanking me for coming till
my breath was quite taken away. Soon I discovered the reason for all
these unusual things--she had been eleven years in America, and had
studied at one of the Universities. Her husband had been eight years in
America. She was exceedingly nice, but so unlike a Japanese! with her
thickly scattered adjectives of “dear,” “sweet,” and “lovely,” though
she was dressed in Japanese style.
We were comparing the marriage customs of the different nations. In
Japan a man asks, “Whom does my father and mother wish for me,” if he
does ask anything at all. In New York the man asks, “How much money has
she?”--in Boston, “In which College did she study?”--in Philadelphia,
“Who were her ancestors?”--and in England, “Does she love me?” Mrs.
_K----’s_ marriage seems to have been made in Boston: her subject was
zoology and her husband’s medicine--all very unusual in a Japanese.
She informed me that Japanese clothes are so much more difficult to
make than foreign, which astonished me, for there are only straight
lines in a Japanese dress. But it has to be evenly padded and lined,
which makes the trouble. She also informed me that all the English and
Americans married to Japanese are so “sweet and dear”--the different
customs making their characters patient and charming.
It is true that in their eyes the average Westerner is childishly
quick-tempered and troublesome.
=January 12.=--New Year calls on Professor and Mrs. _S----_, and
a dinner-party at Professor _F----’s_, where every one but I was
Japanese. Though the food was all European, we sat on the floor all
the time and ate off a table a foot high. After dinner numerous
reproductions of famous pictures were brought out, and I amused myself
(and them also, I expect) by making them give their real opinions on
the beauty or otherwise of the people in them. Most of our beautiful
women would be wasted in Japan. Blue eyes are hard and unloving!
Burne-Jones’ chins are laughable; Botticelli’s Madonna has no beauty
and the saints are ugly. But Burne-Jones’ women’s hands are lovely,
and the reflection in the water of one of his attendants of Venus very
lovely too. Turner’s pictures are too crowded with detail!! Kaulbach
was much admired.
=January 13–15.=--These three days have been very cold, and I have been
at the Institute practically all the time cutting fossils; the machine
going at normal speed, giving finally very good results. But who would
have imagined that on the amount of water dropping on the revolving
wheel depends the rate at which you cut through your stone--or that
carborundum put on at 1 inch or 2 inches from the cutting point makes
all the difference in the world? These and a thousand little details
like them have to be learnt by series of experiments. The weather has
been lovely, and even wonderful. One day there was snow, and it covers
these little Japanese houses so picturesquely, picking out the detail
and making them more like picture-book-land than ever. The sky is
brilliantly blue, and the hot sun melts the snow on the little pine
trees, so that they are like fountains of glittering drops, while from
the grassy banks beneath them soft wreathing clouds of white steam curl
up and are lost in the blue, and I long to be a poet. But the next day!
The roads were quite unspeakable, and for many days following.
=January 17.=--At the Institute all day again. At 2 o’clock Sir Claude
Macdonald (the Ambassador) and Mr. Clive (the Secretary) came to see
me and the stones. The former is huge, and with his glorious fur-lined
coat and pale-green suède-edged waistcoat, looked sadly out of place in
my work-room, which is nearly filled with packing-cases and lumps of
coal, but they stayed ever so long. The people are much honoured that
the representative of his Britannic Majesty should have visited their
Institute.
=January 18.=--I worked at fossils all day, and this evening,
commencing at 5, was the Biologists’ supper. Every biologist in Tokio
comes, from head professors to first-year students, about 130 in all,
and I was the only lady, of course. This time we ate from high tables,
sitting on European chairs, but we ate Japanese food with chop-sticks!
The most thrilling things were sagittaria and _ginkgo seeds!_ cooked
quite soft in a dish which is a kind of cross between a soup and
a custard (a gay thing to eat with chop-sticks any way!), and by
carefully biting the tiniest piece off the top of the seed one can see
the embryo and suspensors; the endosperm alone, of course, is the only
part eaten. Just as we have chocolates or almonds on the table through
the meal, they had tins of tiny dried fish, about half an inch or so
big and quite crisp, like roasted pea-nuts. It was a very frivolous
meeting; there was story-telling with much laughter, and comic pictures
of various professors and students under amusing circumstances; and a
drawing by lot for gifts of all sorts of things, from an old newspaper
or a turnip to books or ornaments.
=January 24.=--Canada Balsam is causing much trouble in the fossil
work-shop, and I spent most of the day over its little fads and
vagaries. The young man who is to learn how to cut the fossils (after
we have learnt ourselves and can teach him) is very quaint in his
personal appearance, and reminds me constantly of the Golliwog, his
hair grows so far down his neck and the back of his head is so flat. I
fear some day I shall give vent to the amusement he causes me. But he
is undoubtedly quick in some ways and very tidy in his methods.
=January 25.=--I had to mess round over the gas-engine all the
morning, and in the afternoon (Saturday) went to watch some of the
mad foreigners playing, or trying to play, I should say, Hockey. They
were only six a side, but I really wouldn’t join in spite of their
entreaties, for they were not playing on grass, but on _bare earth_!
The dust was awful, and I should think very unhealthy. It is simply
impossible to get any grass in Tokio, it is only to be seen in small
quantities in a few sacred places, and even then dies down all through
the winter, so that it is quite unusable. Moss and liverworts grow
here so well that it is very curious that grass is so impossible to
cultivate. Professor _M----_ is trying experiments with English grass
seed at the gardens, but it isn’t very successful, though better than
the native product.
=January 26.=--I called on Mrs. G---- at the Embassy. I heard a true
story of certain small children in Yokohama, a girl and a boy: the
former caused her mother much sorrow because of her habit of fibbing.
Her brother fell out of the window and was helpless in bed for some
time, and she was left to amuse him one Sunday afternoon. When the
mother returned she found pencil scribbling all over her white
dimities, and said, “Who did this?” (a form of question she usually
avoided, using subtler means). “Brother,” promptly answered the maiden.
When asked why she told that lie, said, “Because I forgot Brother
couldn’t get out of bed to do it!”
=January 27.=--A day spent on work of various sorts on the fossils. A
terrible wind suddenly arose in the afternoon, and going home along the
streets it blew first on one side and then on the other, and the dust
it raised hung like a fog all over the city, while the sun, usually
a fiery brilliance at which one dare not blink, hung like a disk of
pale gold in the fawn-coloured sky. Along the road, as one walked,
fancying peace, suddenly a snake-like form would rise, its cobra head
would expand till it formed a huge surging wave, that spit and stung
and blinded; or a little whirlpool would start at one’s feet, shake
itself and open in a second into a great torrent, that showered upwards
instead of downwards. I never saw such dust, but they say it will be
worse in February.
=January 30.=--A national holiday, so no work was allowed at the
Institute. I gave a tea-party, only to about twenty people, of whom the
merriest and jolliest was Baron _K----_! When I have seen him hitherto
it has been in solemn manners. The intense agitation this caused in
my house all day cannot be imagined by you English people who give
tea-parties every little while! The entire household for the entire day
was quivering with excitement; and I must add to their credit that they
produced several treasures of art, _kakemonos_ and gold screens, from
the _go-down_ (or safe), where they are kept.
=January 31.=--I was fossil-cutting all day, a nice new stem and leaf
turned up to cheer us on. The following cutting may be amusing; it was
in the Japan _Gazette_ a few days ago:--
An amusing incident occurred at an “At home” in Tokyo this week. A
matron, talking to a slender young woman in a pretty art gown of
blue velvet, said, “Oh, I hear Dr. Stopes is here. I want to meet
the delightful old party. I understand he is strong on fossils.”
Later on she said to her hostess, “Who is that girl I’ve been
talking to, in the blue dress? seems a nice girl.” “That is Dr.
Stopes, the learned geologist,” said the hostess, and the Yokohama
matron collapsed.
=February 1.=--I was fossil-cutting all morning. Aluminium, of all
metals, seems to be forging ahead as the prize saw-maker.
=February 2.=--A dull day, so I didn’t go out exploring as I had
intended, but snuggled into bed all the morning to counteract the
cutting-machine, which is really rather wearing.
=February 3.=--At work all day on the fossils. Dinner at the P----s,
after which I had to give the long-promised lecture on fossils to
the Literary Society of Tokio. Naturally, to an audience in which
missionaries played an important part, but little science was
desirable. However, they seemed pleased to hear about the various
adventures connected with fossil collecting.
=February 4.=--At work in the Institute over fossils all day. In the
course of my walk to the Institute, which takes about forty minutes, I
pass quiet streets which are little frequented by the foreigner. In all
these months I have never yet met a single foreigner between my house
and the Institute, though in other parts of the town they are common
enough.
Every day I see something or other I long to record, and forget when it
comes to writing this journal what it was.
The shops are now full of oranges. Small ones, like our “Tangerines,”
but native grown, and _seedless_. They are sent to the shops in little
boxes, universally the same size. How sensible the Japanese are about
such things--in spots! But oranges are a little tedious, and there
is really almost nothing else to be had but tasteless and expensive
apples. This country is still in that primitive state when we can only
get the fruits and flowers that are locally in season. Even well-off
people, who at home could command strawberries in March and roses in
December, must here eat the things at the time Nature intended. It has
a certain charm but--I am a Londoner.
Another striking thing about this country’s products is the
extraordinary richness and variety of the vegetation,--palms and pines,
bamboos and magnolias, chestnuts and orange trees, rice and roses; the
number of plant species in the little country of Japan alone exceeds
that in all Europe. Also the number of species of birds and insects is
extraordinarily great, and their brilliance and beauty quite unusual.
Yet it has been said by one who knows the country, “The flowers have no
scent, the fruit no flavour, and the birds no song!”
To this, I myself would add, “and the people no souls.” And in the
whole saying there is truth enough to justify its existence, probably
as much truth as there is in any saying, for in all our sheaves of
words there are but a few ears bearing the grains of truth. Now I
hasten to add that a spray of plum blossom in January scents a whole
room with its fragrance; that the native-grown figs are the most
luscious and sweet I ever tasted, and the nightingales’ thrilling
melody to be heard even in the cities; while I have met men and women
who are as the plum, the fig, and the nightingale. And yet on the
whole, that hard saying is true.
=February 5.=--At the fossil workshop all day. Nearly every day in
this clear weather I see the great Fujisan, its whiteness high up in
the clouds on the horizon. The pearl of mountains, that, alas, I have
not seen yet except from this great distance. From her superb height
she looks down on this grey-roofed city, and I wonder if she sees in
it all the things I see! The dirt, for instance, and the horrors of
disease. I have praised so much in Tokio that I think you can bear to
hear something of the other side, of the sights that sicken and appal.
Of these, the ones that struck me first were the numerous children
(only very young ones) with frightful eczema; the one that now haunts
me is the sight of lepers. They are not allowed to _live_ in the city,
when in an advanced state of disease, but they are allowed to come in
and beg. One may easily touch one by accident! To-day I was within a
foot of one before I noticed it. They hold out their hands, with the
fingers eaten away, gruesome sights, and mumble prayers for alms. Once
one died, or nearly died, on the road, a crowd formed round, with a
policeman on guard, but no one would touch it to give assistance.
On the whole, the Japanese do not fear leprosy nearly so much as we
do, they say we over-rate its contagion; but how can they pretend to
civilisation with such sights in their streets?
One hears on all sides, from themselves and from others, that the
Japanese are pre-eminently a _clean_ people. _In_ their houses that is
true, but just outside! Even to-day in all the smaller streets of Tokio
a little gutter or ditch runs along on either side and carries away, or
is blocked by, as the case may be, all the refuse and drainage of the
houses near by. No wonder that even Ambassadresses get typhoid. I am
thankful there are chickens kept by so many poor people, that roam the
streets and pick at the dainties, but I wonder if it is wise to take a
raw egg beaten into milk.
=February 6.=--There are more stars in Japan than in (or over, should I
say?) England. After the glowing sun sinks from the cloudless blue sky,
the stars spring out at once, and by 6 o’clock the heavens are crowded.
In the milky way one sees not a haze of white, but a glittering stream
of bright minute gems. Sometimes too the stars have haloes, quite big
ones, such as we only see round our moon, and when they shine out of
the clear sky they almost dazzle.
=February 7.=--I was at the fossil laboratory all day, cutting away at
my stones. Dinner with the P----s, and after that the Tokio Bachelors’
Ball--a truly delightful function. I left at 2 A.M. and
walked the 3 odd miles home with two nice men. It was really too cold
to ride in these open _kurumas_, even with two rugs and an eiderdown.
The walk through the quiet streets under these ever enchanting stars
was delightful. One of the men was a military attaché here, and has
been to camp with Japanese regiments. I find every one who knows only
military men thinks less highly of the Japanese character than do those
who mix with the University men. It is not unnatural that the army is
rather suffering from “swelled head”--and then, who would give a German
Professor for half a dozen or more of the German officers!
=February 8.=--Though Saturday, and though I did not get to bed till 4,
I went to the fossils from 10 till 4, and then to tea with Professor
_F----_, where we discussed dancing, which does not seem to find favour
in his eyes, or in those of most Japanese.
=February 9.=--A nice quiet morning in bed; after lunch I went with
Miss C---- and J---- to see the temple of Kwannon at Akasaka. People
who habitually drive in carriages see less of the truly Japanese
streets than do the _kuruma_ riders. Most of the old roads are so
narrow that a carriage cannot pass, and they must perforce go through
the newer or widened streets, where they encounter electric trams
and maybe glass-windowed stores for “Foreign Goods.” Not that these
latter do not afford amusement--one may see a Store that carries on the
“Import and Manufacture of Grocers”--another that sells “Unnecessary
Provisions.” Of which latter I may add there are many in Tokio, to
wit, the beaded mittens, crochet atrocities, Paisley shawls, etc., _ad
infinitum_, that are destroying the beauty and harmony of the national
costume, and are making the people ludicrous in their hybrid garb. An
irritating little habit the coachman and _Betto_[4] have, is to cry in
hoarse duet to every child or old woman (of which not less than several
thousand seem to be encountered in a drive) to warn them off the road.
It becomes inexpressibly irritating to the unfortunates in the carriage.
[4] _Betto_, name for native groom.
I think I have already spoken of the temple, the most popular one in
Japan, where incessant crowds are praying or clattering through, or
come with aches and pains to lay their hands on the wooden figure
that will heal. It is a case of physician heal thyself, for the
poor god has all its features rubbed flat by the hands of a sick
humanity. The temple is so popular and so certainly described in
every book of travel, that I shall not stop to do so. It is situated
in the Whitechapel of Tokio, and the stalls and entertainments in
the neighbouring grounds are reminiscent in some degree of a Bank
Holiday--though noisy behaviour is lacking.
=February 11.=--A national holiday, so that schools, etc. are closed.
To-day the Emperor ceremoniously worships his ancestors, attended by
practically all the Government head officials, including Professor
_M----_, who wears a uniform smothered with gold lace. I went to lunch
with Mr. _Mj----_ in his house in Azabu, which is surrounded by a
lovely garden, with pines and a pond and regular scenery. The party was
composed of foreigners, and we sat at a table 1 foot high, and had a
sumptuous Japanese luncheon. His two little girls--aged six and eight,
in brilliant true Japanese kimonos--were very gay in entertaining us,
pouring out the _saké_ and singing many little songs (“God save the
King” among them), and bringing their dolls to table. Not at all shy,
and not at all like Japanese children in this, and yet not forward,
they were pretty, bright little things.
=February 13.=--Fossil-cutting all morning. We are getting on finely
now; it is nice to see the actual structure at last, leaves, stems, and
roots are turning up with all their cells very well preserved in the
stone.
=February 15.=--Fossil-cutting all the day. The engine has a curious
way of giving little explosions when it is not quite clean at the
burner--they make the boy jump to such an extent that I fear he is a
coward. Also, when I put the molten pans of metal into water and they
fizzle, he won’t go on working near me till I have assured him that it
is perfectly safe. I sometimes wonder if the Japanese are really brave
except when worked up to it _en masse_. Several people who have been
here some time tell me they think they are not.
=February 16.=--I spent the day out of Tokio in a country place, about
an hour-and-a-half’s walk from Akabane. The country was slightly hilly,
the sunshine brilliantly hot, and the jagged snow-covered hills in the
distance very lovely. The fields were cultivated with wheat and green
stuff, and here and there patches filled with the round tea bushes.
The houses were all set amid trees, tall and red-brown trees, though
“evergreens.” The same leaves, now looking so dead, revive their
chlorophyll, and become green in the spring. The plum trees, pink and
white, were in bloom, but they were the only flowers we saw. In the
plain were rice fields, all dead and brown, but here and there along
the little irrigating canals green grass roots flourished. Japanese
grass all goes brown in the winter, but I am beginning to suspect
that it is the dryness that does it, for here and there in damper,
very shady places, I find brilliant green roots. By the broad river,
with only one house near it, and that set some way back in clumps
of bamboo, was a plain of tall coarse reed-like plants, partly cut
down for mat-making. Here we are promised masses of pink primroses in
the spring. Some young bamboos were green, and amid these we lay and
listened to the absolute silence, undisturbed all the day. There was
not even a bird’s song or an insect’s buzz, and one might have imagined
it the top of some snowy peak for the stillness of it all.
In the evening I went to dinner at the G----s, and enjoyed it very
much; there were some entertaining people there.
=February 17.=--On my way to the College I pass a small factory, whose
owner keeps his coal piled up in a great heap _on_ the road against
the wall. It doesn’t seriously interfere with the traffic, as the road
is quite wide enough for a good-sized cart to pass even with it there,
and I have never seen two trying to pass. The coal has been there many
weeks now, but no one seems even to think of stealing it, though
the houses around are extremely poor. I thought it wonderful honesty
till I remembered that the Japanese think coal horrid, smoky, dirty
stuff, quite unfit for use in rooms, but even so, in their bath-tubs
they burn wood, and it might well tempt them to go after dark and help
themselves. The streets, of course, are totally devoid of “street
lamps.”
=February 19.=--I often wonder why I have not mentioned before the most
extraordinary furs worn by the Japanese men. Though the fox is a kind
of evil witch, a devil in popular imagination, yet practically every
man wears a great fox skin round his neck. No pretence about making
up into “boas” or anything: it is simply the whole skin, unlined, and
doubled, fur outwards, along the middle of the back. The tail is then
put through a hole in the animal’s head or neck, and both hang down
in front of the wearer. A really rich man has so fine a skin that the
bushy, brilliant red-yellow tail hangs down to his waist, waving around
when he walks. Japanese ladies almost never wear furs, except when in
foreign costume.
=February 20.=--Quietly busy over the fossils. There is no need to
relate the innumerable details that require attention or exasperate
one--the sections are yielding good results, all things considered, and
I quite enjoy the cutting.
=February 21.=--Though the sun is so hot through the day that I sit
in it with almost nothing on but a thin slip, night and morning are
so cold that one shivers, and the ice is thick on the little pond
in my garden. Yet a stark-naked youth comes to the well in the next
garden, and a trim little maid works the rope and brings up buckets
of cold water, which he pours over himself, and then proceeds to dry
himself with a towel which he first carefully soaks in water (in the
true Japanese way). This corner of the garden is the meeting-place of
three gardens, and the well is common to the three households, so that
sometimes a second maid may assist in his morning amusement. Behind the
trees I can see the painted wood walls of the Mission church, where
people go in European clothes to sing hymns.
=February 22.=--I had been really bullied into playing Hockey to
represent the world against Japanese-born British. They were, of
course, far stronger than we, as nearly all live together in Yokohama
and practice twice a week, while none of us had played together before.
We got 2 goals to their 4, however, and patted ourselves on the back.