failing to get it, he rode as a stowaway on the ship across the
Pacific. He made the trip three times in that way, until finally he
wore the commander out, and got his job. He is a good sailor, a star
actor, and somewhat of a privileged character. I could see from the
way the commander told me the story of how he got his job that he
considered the umpire a good sort.
But the climax of surprises--of common sailors holding for over two
hours a most critical audience, and delighting them to the last drop
of the curtain--was "_Cushingura_," one of Japan's classical dramas.
It took a dozen or so actors to produce it. The crew, from money
raised by delighted auditors, had provided splendid and appropriate
costumes to dress the parts.
That play was presented magnificently.
It smacked nowhere of amateur theatricals. It moved off from the
opening to the closing act without a hitch. So vivid and admirable was
the acting, although spoken in Japanese, even those of us who could
not understand the words were charmed, delighted.
* * * * *
Last night a royal shogun, dressed in regal robes, treading the boards
with tremendously dramatic effect; today, washing down the decks or
polishing up the brass trimmings of the ship, that Japanese sailor man
is an object for contemplation.
But again: "Land ho." Japan is sighted, and all interest centers at
the ship's rail as we steam towards Yokohama.
VI
THE JAPS' FIVE-STORY SKYSCRAPER AND A BASEMENT
I believe I ended my last letter by ho-ing the land, and hanging a
shipload of passengers over the rail, sailing into Yokohama harbor.
When a shipload of passengers get off at Yokohama, there is joy among
the rikisha boys, and the passengers who are getting their first ride
in a rikisha have an experience they will never forget. The first ride
in a jinrikisha in Japan is an experience to lay away among one's
choice collection of experiences.
A first ride in a rikisha has been fully described by myself and
published, and to go into it in these letters would be to plagiarize
myself: so, on to Tokio, the capital and largest city in Japan--the
same old tremendous town, only more so--Greater Tokio has three
million souls today. Compared to one of our great cities Tokio has the
appearance of an overgrown village.
Many wide thoroughfares and narrow streets lined with low one- and
two-story buildings--a clean city, covering a tremendous area.
You occasionally see a three-story building and they have one
"skyscraper" that towers up into the air five stories--a landmark.
The _Mitsukoshi_, Japan's one great department store, is now housed in
a modest three-story building, but they are building a new store.
The general factotum of the store who can speak English showed me a
drawing of the new store. I exclaimed with admiration: "And she is
going to be five stories high, isn't she?" "Yes," he said, proudly,
"and a basement."
The government buildings are not so imposing as in many other of the
world's capitals, and there is no single business center. The business
of the city is widely scattered. Rapid transit in Tokio is in a state
of transition. The trolley has come, but not sufficiently strong to be
adequate for the traffic, but enough to discourage the rikisha
boys--the rikisha boy has run his legs off in Tokio. He is still here,
but in decreasing numbers, and what there is left of him is the
beginning of the end, so far as Tokio is concerned.
He is an expensive proposition. He wants ten cents to take one any
distance at all, and that is equivalent to a ten-cent car ride at
home; and to take one any considerable distance is twenty-five cents.
[Illustration: They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during
my three days' stay]
They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days'
stay. They have automobiles, but not to such an extent that one has to
do much dodging. In an hour's ride across the city I counted six--and
it was a fine day for automobile riding, too.
To get around in Tokio is a problem. Like Washington, it is a city of
magnificent distances. The street cars go where you want to go, but
they don't come where you are. The charge is only two and one-half
cents for a ride, but it costs ten cents for a rikisha boy to take you
to the car. The boy will land you where you want to go for twenty-five
cents, but there is a two and one-half cent street car fare against a
twenty-five cent rikisha ride; so you tell your boy to take you to the
car. Then it percolates into your mind that you have ten cents
invested in that ride. But there is still a fifteen cent salvage if
you take the car, less the two and one-half cents the car will
cost--twelve and one-half cents net. While you are working out the
problem your car passes, and you tell your boy to go on and take you
there--you'd only save twelve and one-half cents anyway.
But that's another ride--twenty-five cents--new deal--and you sigh for
the days of your old Tokio, before the street cars came to fuss you
up.
[Illustration: While you are working out the problem your car passes]
Also, they have raised the price of laundry in Tokio--yes, sir, the
price of laundry has gone up. They now have the effrontery to charge
you two and one-half cents to wash a handkerchief or a pair of socks.
Of course it's two and one-half cents for a shirt, a white coat, or a
pair of pants--flat rate, two and one-half cents, "Big or little
piecee all samee." But it used to be one and one-half cents.
Those were the days when you didn't have to hold a shirt in one hand
while you speculated with the other as to whether it would go one more
time--under that old scale you just put it in the wash.
VII
JAPANESE GIRLS IN AMERICAN COSTUMES--THEY MAR THE LANDSCAPE
I noticed the following account of the death of the Empress Dowager in
the _Japan_, a magazine printed in English in Tokio:
"Whilst as yet the earth mound set up over the august remains of the
late lamented Emperor Meiji at Momoyama, Fushimi, is fresh and damp,
the Japanese have been stricken with a renewed sorrow and bereavement,
none the less profound, at the demise of their cherished, beloved
Empress Dowager, the First Lady of the Land, who graciously shared the
glorious throne of Japan with her lord and sovereign, the late
illustrious Emperor Meiji, for forty-five long years of brilliant
progress, splendid achievement, and the 'Reign of Enlightened
Government.' As the beautiful, fragrant blooms of the cherry fall, ere
the dawn comes when the stern, pitiless tempest ravages the tree in
the evening, so the exalted person has sunk to rise no more at the
inevitable, nay, unexpected, touch of the death's cold fingers.
"Although her recovery from the illness had been ardently prayed and
hoped for by all her devout subjects, and although the medical
attentions, the best the modern sciences can procure, having been
concentrated upon the noble patient, the rays of hope for her recovery
seemed to beam, the fatal crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly.
"Her Majesty had been suffering from chronic bronchial catarrh and
nephritis, which became complicated by angina pectris on March 29,
followed by a urine poisoning toward the end of that month. She seemed
to be recovering from the urine-poisoning and the heart trouble due to
angina pectris, until April 9, when at about 1:30 A. M. the second
attack of angina pectris came, followed by the failure of the heart.
The latter proved fatal; and the exalted patient in this critical
condition returned to the capital from the imperial villa at Numazu,
where she had been laying ill. The sad event was officially announced
two hours after Her Majesty's arrival at the imperial detached palace
at Aoyama, Tokio, the demise having been recorded as taking place
April 11 at two A. M."
* * * * *
I was moved over that account more than I was over the fact that the
Empress Dowager had passed away. I was not acquainted with the
Empress Dowager, and therefore only felt that general interest one
naturally feels in an event of the kind; but over that account I had
emotions.
I had still more acute emotions when I saw a Japanese girl dressed in
American girls' clothes. The Japanese girl in her own clothes is an
old friend of mine.
I have known her for forty years--in her clothes--on lacquer boxes,
screens, and fans; and for fifteen of those forty years, on periodical
visits to Japan, she has danced and sung for me, and bowed and smiled
to me, most bewitchingly--"belitchingly" in her native garb. But to
see her tog herself out in high-heeled shoes, a basque, and a
polonaise, and a hat with heaven knows what and then some on it! The
editor of the _Japan_ in his account moved me some, but that girl gets
me going good.
I hope she will get well, and go back to her kimono, with her cute
little feet encased in white mittens, pigeon-toeing along on her
wooden sandals, held on with thongs between her toes, and her bustle
on outside of her dress. She is part of the landscape that way. She
fits in, and makes me glad.
[Illustration: She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in
and makes me glad]
There is only now and then one of her stricken, but if it spreads,
becomes universal in Japan, that editor will be called upon to tell
us: "The Japanese girl has had a fatal attack of heart failure--and
from this she did not recover."
VIII
CEREMONIOUS GRANDMOTHER--"MISSOURI" A HEAVENLY TWIN
Returning from a trip to Tokio on a Monday forenoon I found at my
hotel in Yokohama the following letter from my shipboard friend
"Missouri":
_Dear Mr. Allen_:
You'll be surprised to learn that I am in jail. I started out
this morning at 8 o'clock to go to church. At 8:30 I stopped at a
saloon and met a delightful bunch and didn't get away from that
saloon till 5 o'clock this evening. At 5:30 I was pinched and put
in jail on a charge of assault with attempt to kill.
If the victim dies, please find out for me whether they behead,
hang, or electrocute in Japan for capital punishment.
I've learned the Japanese language today, but don't want to talk
to the jailer, as it might prejudice my case. For heaven's sake
come and see me and I'll explain it all.
Hastily yours,
"MISSOURI."
On his own statement it looked bad for "Missouri." I had left him at
Yokohama, where he had some business to look up, while I went to
Tokio.
[Illustration: Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was
disappointed in "Missouri"]
I had expected to find "Missouri" on my return to Yokohama that Monday
forenoon, and instead of him I found his letter.
Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in
"Missouri." A countryman in trouble under circumstances like these,
however, called for prompt action, and I started off post-haste in a
rikisha to see what could be done about it.
I conjured up a picture of "Missouri," the erstwhile prepossessing
chap (even minus those side teeth "Missouri" was a fine-looking man),
now battered, bruised and blear-eyed, disheveled and disreputable;
probably he had been on a long toot--a relapse from rectitude, I
surmised.
He had been entirely abstemious on the voyage, but there may have been
chapters in his past life o'er which he'd drawn a veil in our
shipboard confidences--anyway, it looked bad for "Missouri." His
reference to starting out to church was probably only a vagary of a
befogged brain.
These thoughts were mine as I was being rikishaed along to
"Missouri's" rescue, when, whom should I see coming toward me in an
automobile but "Missouri," the same "Missouri," in company with
another just as smooth-looking individual, who was driving the
machine.
[Illustration: "Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you" he said, as
the machine stopped]
"Missouri's" mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a joyous greeting
as he caught sight of me. Those "gaps" showed tremendously--one
couldn't blame his wife for wanting them "filled in."
"Lord! Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the machine
stopped. "Meet my friend here, 'Pennsylvania.' 'Pennsylvania' and I
have had an experience. Too long a story to tell you here. Come on
back to the hotel and I'll tell you all about it."
"That's all right, 'Missouri'," I said, "but," waving his letter at
him, "what the devil do you mean by handing me such a story as this?"
"That letter is all right, Mr. Allen; come on back to the hotel and
I'll give you the details."
The man "Missouri" had introduced to me as "Pennsylvania," who was
apparently owner of the machine, advised me to let my rikisha boy go
and come back to the hotel in the car with them; and in a couple of
minutes we drew up to the hotel entrance and I invited them to my
room, where I asked "Missouri" to square himself.
"Missouri" did the talking while "Pennsylvania" nodded assent at
points where the story would seem to need a girder under it.
"This is how it happened, Mr. Allen," "Missouri" started in. "There's
a missionary over in Tokio in whom the folks back in my town are
interested, and they wanted me to look him up if I had time when I
got to Japan. I dropped him a line upon my arrival, and told him where
I was from, and that I was stopping in Yokohama at this hotel, and
that I proposed to call on him the following Sunday. You know we
landed on Monday. Wednesday of last week my missionary dropped over
from Tokio and called on me and told me he'd be glad to see me in
Tokio on the coming Sunday, to see the missionary work in that
particular corner of the Lord's vineyard. We parted, and I assured him
I would look him up in Tokio on Sunday--and that was yesterday.
"I met 'Pennsylvania' here the latter part of the week and we got
acquainted. 'Pennsylvania' doesn't look like a disreputable character,
and he isn't--ordinarily. Fact is, he's a most reputable manufacturer
from Pennsylvania, doing Japan with his touring car.
"Saturday evening I told him of my program for Sunday, and he
suggested we do the missionary field in Tokio the next day in his car.
"He told me Tokio was sprawled out over a good part of Japan, that
rapid transit was in a chaotic state over there, and his car would be
convenient. Furthermore, he said he had been chipping pennies, dimes
and dollars into Foreign Missions ever since he could remember, and
that he'd like to look into the missionary's game on his own account.
"I told him the plan looked seraphic to me; we'd be just like a pair
of 'Heavenly Twins' the next day. I knew that you were stopping at the
Imperial over there, and I suggested we look in at the hotel and take
you along if you were loose for the day and wanted to go.
"I told 'Pennsylvania' you were sort of a solemn cuss and that I
thought the day's program would appeal to you, and 'Pennsylvania'
said, 'Certainly, heavenly triplets.'
"We got started at eight yesterday morning. Figured on reaching Tokio
by nine, easy enough, but the machine went dead at eight-thirty, nine
miles out of Yokohama, square in front of a saki house--steering gear
busted.
"'Pennsylvania' investigated, and said, 'Bad break, got to get help
from Yokohama.'
"Now that Japanese saloon was the missing link--it was a good
place--for us. Not that either of us are patrons of saloons.
"Why, I learn that 'Pennsylvania' is one of the great exponents of
temperance in his State, the deadly foe of the American saloon--since
yesterday morning 'Pennsylvania' and I have formed a David and
Jonathan Club--we are like brothers--our souls are knit together
since what we have gone through in the past twenty four hours--and as
for me, you never saw me touch a drop.
"I tell you I'm a disciple of Sam Blythe's in beating the old game
with water. Sam says you couldn't get a drink into him without an
anæsthetic and a funnel, and I'm just as pronounced against the drink
habit as that. Furthermore," "Missouri" continued plaintively, "if you
want to get further lines on me, Mr. Allen, just write the Epworth
League or the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor or the
Y. M. C. A., Bradstreet or Dun's, or the Horse and Mule Traders' Union,
of my home town.
"I tell you, Mr. Allen, I'm counted quite a desirable citizen back
home in Missouri, where they know me, but we were 'two orphans' with a
stranded automobile in Japan, and we needed friends.
"All the Japanese we knew between us was '_dozo_,' '_aringetta_,'
'_soduska_,' and '_ohio_' and none of these words fitted the case.
"'Pennsylvania' went at his auto with all the tools he carried. We
were blocking trade for the saki house, but they didn't kick. While
'Pennsylvania' was monkeying with the machine, I took a
Japanese-English dictionary we had with us, and found out that they
had a telephone in the house, and they invited me in to use it.
Sounds easy, and as if we ought to have gotten a relief corps out from
Yokohama and be on our way in an hour.
"We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone,
that dictionary, and with the help of the proprietor's son, and it was
noon before we got a message through.
"In the meantime the saki house people were making us at home. We
pulled off our shoes and lived in the house while working their
'phone, and they treated us as honored guests. We thought a saki house
ought to be a legitimate place to get a meal of victuals, so, pending
the arrival of the mechanics from the Yokohama garage, who, after
getting our message might be along in an hour, or a day, being mighty
hungry about noon, we worked with our dictionary and the proprietor's
son (a young fellow twenty-six years old) to order a meal of victuals.
At the end of half an hour we got the request home, and understood,
and the answer back that that was a private home and that they didn't
sell food, only sold saki.
[Illustration: We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki
house telephone]
"But the son's wife, a most comely little woman, caught the drift of
our request, and by one o'clock had prepared us a dainty Japanese
lunch, and invited us to it. We both agreed that we'd never had a
better time in our lives, getting away with a meal and affording
amusement to our hosts as we labored, first with chop-sticks and
finally fell back to fingers. We knew we'd be in bad if we offered to
pay for that meal, and still we had ordered it. We'd be cheap skates
not to offer to pay for what we had ordered, and we'd be barbarians if
we offered to pay. We compromised by asking how much we owed, and got
the answer we expected, 'No charge.'
"By two o'clock an automobile from Yokohama garage hove in sight with
a load of mechanics, and by five o'clock our machine was in
commission.
"After we had finished that meal, about two o'clock, the proprietor of
the establishment showed up. He had been absent from home up to that
time. He was a high-class individual. He added his welcome to that of
the rest of the family's to the foreigners within his gates--he also
made us feel as if the home was ours. While the work of repair to the
damaged car was progressing we worked that dictionary to the limit. We
learned the Japanese language and got the household proficient in
English.
"During the afternoon the proprietor's mother came in for a call, and
it was worth a trip across the Pacific to watch the greeting between
the grandmother and her grandson, the twenty-six-year-old chap. The
old lady was beautifully dressed. She got down on her hands and knees,
her palms flat on the matted floor. Grandson did the same. For about a
minute they posed like two fighting cocks ready for a bout.
"Then grandma's forehead went down on the matting, so did grandson's.
"They stayed in that position so long I was afraid the old lady had
fainted and was for picking her up, but just then she raised her head,
peeked out of the tail of her eye at grandson, whose head raised a
little, then down to the matting went her head again, followed by
grandson. Up with their heads and down to the matting again, playing
peek-a-boo to catch each other at it; several times they went through
those motions, until justice, or something else, was satisfied; then
the old lady got up and shuffled away, and grandson got up and told us
that she was his grandmother, and eighty-two years old.
"That surely was some bow.
"The house was as clean as a hound's tooth, and they showed us through
kitchen, bedrooms, and living rooms, and the little garden in the
rear.
[Illustration: That surely was some bow]
"There were no screens up before the doors of that Japanese saloon.
The saloon, the front room of the house, was fifteen feet wide, so
was the door--that was an open-faced saloon, opening onto the street
the width of the room.
"And customers came and went, working in around the automobile. A
husband and wife came in and sat down on a matted platform. Hubby
ordered one big tumbler of saki--the kind they had the biggest run on
was as thick as buttermilk, looked just like buttermilk, and was
ladled out of a big crock by a little Japanese barmaid.
"She'd fill the glasses so full that they would heap up at the
brim--hubby carried the glass carefully to his mouth so's not to spill
any, drank off a swallow, and handed it to his wife, who hit it for
another swallow, and back and forth they passed that glass, taking a
swallow a trip until they had finished it, and they walked away, to
make an afternoon call, perhaps.
"Everyone paid for his own drink--there was no treating and no
drunkenness.
"Everything that went on in that saloon was as open to the public gaze
as the sun, and 'Pennsylvania' and I decided that the saloon business
in the United States was one thing, and the way we were seeing it
conducted in Japan an entirely different thing.
"At five o'clock our machine was ready for us and we left our saki
house friends.
"We invited them to come to America. There are two front yards in
America in which those folks are welcome to camp, if they ever come.
One in Missouri and one in Pennsylvania. We both told them so, and
that the freedom of two homes and the best those homes afforded would
be theirs."
"Missouri" paused in his story, and "Pennsylvania" nodded twice and
said, "You bet."
"Well," "Missouri" continued, "it was too late to take in Tokio, so we
headed back for Yokohama.
"At five-thirty we were bowling along at a pretty good clip--we didn't
kill that Jap, we only wrecked his cart and jounced him up a bit--we
were going less than forty miles an hour, but a scrappy little cuss in
brass buttons pinched us for exceeding the speed limit, and locked us
up on a charge of assault with attempt to kill, pending the outcome of
our victim's injuries.
"He came to, all right, this A. M. Ten yen and a new cart fixed the
Jap--he needed a new cart, all right--and you met us on our way from
jail. We may do the missionary stunt some other day," "Missouri" said,
but I didn't notice "Pennsylvania" nod.
IX
USHI, THE RIKISHA MAN
I started out of a Saturday evening in Kioto, which is one of the best
cities in Japan--_the_ best, I think--the old capital of the Empire,
to take a walk on Theater Street, which is the Great White Way of
Kioto, and one of the best spots in Japan to study Japanese life and
character.
I hadn't more than stepped outside the walled-in yard of my hotel,
having declined the offers of the favored rikisha men within the
enclosure to take me for a ride, than a rikisha man outside the gate
accosted me and pressed the card shown below into my hand.
[Illustration: AN HOUR 20 SEN
HALF A DAY 70 SEN
A DAY 1 YEN
POLICE-STATION NO 379
NAME USHI
I am a rIkIsHa man wHo
iS Living near a HoTeL]
At the same time he assured me that to ride was far better for a
foreign gentleman than to walk. As I perused the card by a street
light I probably detected more than you will, kind reader, for whom
these lines are written on the other side of the world, as you hastily
skim it and only catch its grotesque, misspelled and labored English.
Its humble effort at enterprise impressed me.
Ushi mistook my mental attitude for one of indecision, and
supplemented the appeal on the card with the added information that he
was considerable of a linguist--that he spoke English pretty well.
Also that he knew all the points of interest in Kioto, and that not to
engage him for the evening was to miss a great opportunity--but Ushi's
card had pulled a customer.
I stepped into his little carriage and said: "Ged app, Ushi, show me
Kioto. For the evening you may be my horse and guide."