DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--I went to Kōbe by rail, and thence
by jinrikisha across Japan over mountains and through valleys
of rice-fields--a journey of four days; but the most delightful
in some respects of all my travelling experiences. The scenery
had this peculiar effect, that it repeated for me many of my
tropical impressions--received in a country of similar volcanic
configuration,--besides reviving for me all sorts of early memories of
travel in Wales and England which I had forgotten. Nothing could be
more beautiful than this mingling of the sensations of the tropics with
those of Northern summers. And the people! My expectations were much
more than realized: it is among the country-people Japanese character
should be studied, and I could not give my opinion of them now without
using what you would call enthusiastic language. I felt quite sorry
to reach this larger city, where the people are so much less simple,
charming, and kindly,--although I have every reason to be pleased with
them. And in a mountain village I saw a dance unlike anything I ever saw
before--some dance immemorially old, and full of weird grace. I watched
it until midnight, and wish I could see it again. Nothing yet seen in
Japan delighted me so much as this Bon-odori--in no wise resembling the
same performance in the north. I found Buddhism gradually weaken toward
the interior, while Shintō emblems surrounded the fields, and things
suggesting the phallic worship of antiquity were being adored in remote
groves.