Fearing the consequences of the illegal act into which he had been

driven, the shogun lost no time in sending messengers to Kioto to inform

the mikado of what had happened and seek his sanction to the policy

adopted. It was plead in excuse for the course of conduct, that affairs

had reached such a condition that the shogun was driven to sign the

treaty. The emperor in great agitation summoned a council. The decision

was unanimous against the shogun’s action, and the messengers were

informed that no sanction could be given to the treaty. The next

important step was not taken until July, 1858, when Lord Elgin arrived

with propositions on the part of Great Britain for a treaty of amity and

commerce. He was unaccompanied by any armed force, and brought a steam

yacht as a present from Queen Victoria to the tycoon of Japan.

A few months later treaties were entered into with all the leading

powers of Europe, but if there was a political lull between 1854 and

1858, the poor Japanese had distractions of a very different kind. From

a violent earthquake and consequent conflagration, one hundred and four

thousand of the inhabitants of Yeddo lost their lives. A terrific storm

swept away one hundred thousand more, and in a visitation of cholera

thirty thousand persons perished in Yeddo alone. Moreover, just when the

treaties were being signed, the shogun Iyesada died, “as if,” says Sir

R. Alcock, “a further victim was required for immolation on the altar of

the outraged gods of Japan.”

The political tempest that had been gathering now swept over the nation.

For the next ten years there was so much disorder, intrigue, and

bloodshed, that Japan became among the western nations a byword for

treachery and assassination. Defenseless foreigners were cut down in the

streets of Yeddo and Yokohama and even in the legations. Twice was the

British legation attacked, on one of the occasions being taken by storm

and held for a time by a band of free-lances. No foreigner’s life was

safe. Even when out on the most trivial errand, every foreign resident

was accompanied by an armed escort furnished by the shogun’s government.

It is needless to give an account of all the different assassinations,

successful or attempted, which darkened the period. The secretary to the

American legation was cut down near Shiba, Yeddo, when returning from

the Prussian legation with an armed escort; a Japanese interpreter

attached to the British legation was fatally stabbed in broad daylight

while standing at the legation flagstaff; one of the guard at the same

legation murdered two Englishmen in the garden and then committed

suicide; an Englishman was cut down on the highway between Yokohama and

Yeddo by certain retainers of the daimio of Satsuma, whose procession he

had unwittingly crossed on horseback; and these were not all.

It is not a satisfactory answer to say that hatred of foreigners was the

leading motive that inspired all these acts of violence. This was no

doubt more or less involved, but the true explanation is to be found in

the hostility of the mikado’s partisans to the shogun’s government. All

possible means were taken to thwart the shogun and bring him into

complications with the ambassadors at his court. Every attack on a

foreigner brought fresh trouble upon the Yeddo government and hastened

its collapse. Long before foreigners arrived, the seeds of revolution

had sprouted and their growth was showing above the soil. It is to the

state of political parties and of feudalism at this epoch in Japanese

history, and not to mere ill will against foreigners, that this policy

of intrigue and assassination must be ascribed.

It would take too long to discuss all the complications of this period

and to inquire, for instance, how far when the Japanese government

failed to arrest and execute the murderer of Mr. Richardson, the British

were justified in demanding an indemnity of $500,000 from the shogun and

$125,000 from the daimio of Satsuma, or in enforcing their demands with

a threatened bombardment of Yeddo and an actual bombardment of

Kagoshima. It is out of our scope here to inquire into the shelling of

the batteries of the daimio of Choshiu, at Shimonoseki, in turn by the

Americans, British, French and Dutch, the men of Choshiu having fired

upon some Dutch, American, and French vessels that had entered the

straits against the prohibition of the Japanese. An indemnity of

$3,000,000 was also exacted and distributed among these nations.

Such stern measures doubtless appeared to the foreign ambassadors

necessary to prevent the expulsion or even the utter extermination of

foreigners. Whether their policy was mistaken or not, certain it is that

they can have had no adequate conception of the difficulties with which

the shogun had to contend. The position of that ruler was one of such

distraction as might well evoke for him the pity of every disinterested

onlooker. Do as he would, he could not escape trouble; on the one side

were the mikado’s partisans ever growing in power and in determination

to crush him, and on the other were the equally irresistible foreigners

with their impatient demands and their alarming threats. He was as

helpless as a man between a wall of rock and an advancing tide.

The internal difficulties of the country were increased by dissensions

which broke out in the imperial court. The clans of Satsuma and Choshiu

had been summoned to Kioto to preserve order. For some reason the former

were relieved of this duty, or rather privilege, and it therefore

devolved exclusively upon the Choshiu men. Taking advantage of their

position, the Choshiu men persuaded the mikado to undertake a progress

to the province of Yamato, there to proclaim his intention of taking the

field against foreigners; but this proposal roused the jealousy of the

other clans at the imperial court, as they feared that the men of

Choshiu were planning to obtain possession of the mikado’s person and

thus acquire pre-eminence. The intended expedition was abandoned, and

the men of Choshiu, accompanied by Sanjo, afterward prime minister of

the reformed government, and six other nobles who had supported them,

were banished from Kioto.

The ill feeling thus occasioned between Choshiu and Satsuma, was

fomented by an unfortunate incident which occurred at Shimonoseki early

in 1864. The former clan recklessly fired upon a vessel, which being of

European build they mistook for a foreign one, but which really belonged

to Satsuma. Thus Choshiu was in disfavor both with the shogun and with

the mikado, and in this year we have the strange spectacle of these two

rulers leaguing their forces together for its punishment. August 20,

1864, the Choshiu men advanced upon Kioto, but were repulsed with much

slaughter, only however after the greater part of the city had been

destroyed by fire. The rebellion was not at once quelled; indeed the

Choshiu samurai were proving themselves more than a match for the troops

which the shogun had sent against them, when at length the imperial

court ordered the fighting to be abandoned. Simultaneously with the

Choshiu rebellion the shogun had to meet an insurrection by the daimio

of Mito, in the east. His troubles no doubt hastened his death, which

took place at Osaka in September, 1866, shortly before the war against

Choshiu terminated. Then there succeeded Keiki, the last of the shoguns.

It should be noted, however, that before this the mikado’s sanction had

been obtained to the foreign treaties. In November, 1865, British,

French, and Dutch squadrons came to anchor off Hiogo, of which the

foreign settlement of Kobe is now a suburb, and sent letters to Kioto

demanding the imperial consent. The nearness of such an armed force was

too great an argument to be withstood, and the demand was granted.

Little more than a year after his accession to the shogunate Keiki

resigned. In doing so he proved himself capable of duly appreciating the

national situation. Now that foreigners had been admitted, it was more

necessary than ever that the government should be strong, and this, it

was seen, was impossible without the abolition of the old dual system.

He had secured the mikado’s consent to the treaties, on the condition

that they should be revised, and that Hiogo should never be opened as a

port of foreign commerce.

But the end had not yet come. On the same day when the shogunate was

abolished, January 3, 1868, the forces friendly to the Tokagawas were

dismissed from Kioto, and the guardianship of the imperial palace was

committed to the clans of Satsuma, Tosa, and Geishiu. This measure gave

Keiki great offense, and availing himself of a former order of the court

which directed him to continue the conduct of affairs, he marched with

his retainers and friends to Ozaka and sent a request to the mikado that

all Satsuma men who had any share in the government should be dismissed.

To this the court would not consent, and Keiki marched against Kioto

with a force of thirty thousand men, his declared object being to remove

from the mikado his bad counselors. A desperate engagement took place at

Fushimi, in which the victory was with the loyalists. But this was only

the beginning of a short but sharp civil war, of which the principal

fighting was in the regions between Yeddo and Nikko.

The restoration was at last complete. Proclamation was made “to

sovereigns of all foreign nations and their subjects, that permission

had been granted to the shogun Yoshinobu, or Keiki, to return the

governing power in accordance with his own request;” and the manifesto

continued: “henceforward we shall exercise supreme authority both in the

internal and external affairs of the country. Consequently the title of

emperor should be substituted for that of tycoon which had been hitherto

employed in the treaties.” Appended were the seal of Dai Nippon, and the

signature of Mutsuhito, this being the first occasion in Japanese

history on which the name of an emperor had appeared during his

lifetime.

With the triumph of the imperial party one might have expected a return

to the old policy of isolation. There can be no doubt that when the

Satsuma, Choshiu, and other southern clans commenced their agitation for

the abolition of the shogunate, their ideas with regard to foreign

intercourse were decidedly retrogressive. But after all, the leading

motive which inspired them was dissatisfaction with the semi-imperial

position occupied by the upstart Tokugawas; to this their opposition to

foreigners was quite secondary. It so happened that the Tokugawa shoguns

got involved with foreigners, and it was so much the worse for the

foreigners. To go deeper, what was at the bottom of this desire was the

overthrow of the shogunate. Doubtless their patriotism, what they had at

heart, was the highest welfare of their country, and this they believed

impossible without its unification. Their primary motive then, being

patriotism, we need not be surprised that they were willing to entertain

the notion that perhaps after all the prosperity of their country might

best be insured by the adoption of a policy of free foreign intercourse.

This idea more and more commended itself, until it became a conviction;

and when they got into power they astonished the world by the

thoroughness with which they broke loose from the old traditions and

entered upon a policy of enlightened reformation. To the political and

social revolution which accompanied the restoration of the mikado in

1868, there has been no parallel in the history of mankind.

[Illustration: WOMAN OF COURT OF KIOTO.]

One of the first acts of the mikado after the restoration, was to

assemble the kuges and daimios and make oath before them “that a

deliberative assembly should be formed, and all measures be decided upon

by public opinion; that impartiality and justice should form the basis

of his action; and that intellect and learning should be sought for

throughout the world in order to establish the foundations of the

empire.” In the mid-summer of 1868, the mikado, recognizing Yeddo as

really the center of the nation’s life, made it the capital of the

empire and transferred his court thither; but the name Yeddo, being

distasteful on account of its associations with the shogunate, was

abolished, and the city renamed Tokio, or “Eastern Capital.” At the same

time the ancient capital Kioto, received the new name of Saikio or

“Western Capital.” For the creation of a central administration,

however, more was necessary than the abolition of the shogunate and the

establishment of the mikado’s authority. The great fabric of feudalism

still remained intact. Within his own territory each daimio was

practically an independent sovereign, taxing his subjects as he saw fit,

often issuing his own currency, and sometimes even granting passports so

as to control intercourse with neighboring provinces. Here was a

formidable barrier to the consolidation of the empire. But the reformers

had the courage and the tact necessary to remove it.

The first step towards the above revolution was taken in 1869, when the

daimios of Satsuma, Choshiu, Hizen, and Tosa addressed a memorial to the

mikado requesting his authorization for the resignation of their fiefs

into his hands. Other nobles followed their example, and the consequence

was the acceptance by the mikado of control over the land and revenues

of the different provinces, the names of the clans however being still

preserved, and the daimios allowed to remain over them as governors,

each with one-tenth of the former assessment of his territory as rental.

By this arrangement the evil of too suddenly terminating the relation

between the clans and their lords was sought to be avoided, but it was

only temporary; in 1871 the clan system was totally abolished, and the

country redivided for administrative purposes, with officers chosen

irrespectively of hereditary rank or clan connection.

But the payment of hereditary pensions and allowances of the ex-daimios

and ex-samurai proved such a drain upon the national resources that in

1876 the reformed government found it necessary to compulsorily convert

them into capital sums. The rate of commutation varied from five years’

purchase in the case of the largest pensions, to fourteen years’ in that

of the smallest. The number of the pensioners with whom they had thus to

deal was three hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred and

twenty-eight. The act of the daimios in thus suppressing themselves

looks at first sight like a grand act of self-sacrifice, as we are not

accustomed to see landed proprietors manifesting such disinterestedness

for the patriotic object of advancing their country’s good. But the vast

majority of daimios had come to be mere idlers, as the greater mikado

had been. Their territories were governed by the more able and energetic

of their retainers, and it was a number of these men that had most

influence in bringing about the restoration of the mikado’s authority.

Intense patriots, they saw that the advancement of their country could

not be realized without its unification, and at the same time they

cannot but have preferred a larger scope for their talents, which

service immediately under the mikado would give them. From being

ministers of their provincial governments, they aspired to be ministers

of the imperial government. They were successful; and their lords, who

had all along been accustomed to yield to their advice quite cheerfully,

acquiesced when asked for the good of the empire to give up their fiefs

to the mikado. One result of this is that while most of the ex-daimios

have retired into private life, the country is now governed almost

exclusively by ex-samurai. Such sweeping changes were not to be

accomplished without rousing opposition and even rebellion. The

government incurred much risk in interfering with the ancient privileges

of the samurai. It is not surprising that several rebellions had to be

put down during the years immediately succeeding 1868.

Dr. William Elliot Griffis, in his exhaustive and interesting work, “The

Mikado’s Empire,” discusses at length the change of Japan from feudalism

to its present condition, the abolition of the shogunate, and the

rebellions that followed that event. He declares that popular impression

to be wrong which suggests that the immediate cause of the fall of the

shogun’s government, the restoration of the mikado to supreme power, and

the abolition of the dual and feudal systems, was the presence of

foreigners on the soil of Japan. The foreigners and their ideas were the

occasion, not the cause, of the destruction of the dual system of

government. Their presence served merely to hasten what was already

inevitable.

The history of Japan from the abolition of feudalism in 1871 up to the

present time, is a record of advance in all the arts of western

civilization. The mikado, Mutsuhito, has shown himself to be much more

than a petty divinity, a real man. He has taken a firm stand in advocacy

of the introduction of western customs, wherever they were improvements.

The imperial navy, dockyards, and machine shops have been a pride to

him. He has withdrawn himself from mediæval seclusion and assumed

divinity, and has made himself accessible and visible to his subjects.

He has placed the empress in a position like to that occupied by the

consorts of European monarchs, and with her he has adopted European

attire. In the latter part of June, 1872, the mikado left Tokio in the

flagship of Admiral Akamatsu, and made a tour throughout the south and

west of his empire. For the first time in twelve centuries the emperor

of Japan moved freely and unveiled among his subjects.

[Illustration: CHINESE COOLIE.]

Again in the same year Japan challenged the admiration of Christendom.

The coolie trade, carried on by Portuguese at Macao, in China, between

the local kidnappers and Peru and Cuba, had long existed in defiance of

the Chinese government. Thousands of ignorant Chinese were yearly

decoyed from Macao and shipped in sweltering shipholds, under the name

of “passengers.” In Cuba and Peru their contracts were often broken,

they were cruelly treated, and only a small portion of them returned

alive to tell their wrongs. The Japanese government had with a fierce

jealousy watched the beginning of such a traffic on their own shores. In

the last days of the shogunate, coolie traders came to Japan to ship

irresponsible hordes of Japanese coolies and women to the United States.

To their everlasting shame, be it said some were Americans. Among the

first things done by the mikado’s government after the restoration, was

the sending of an official who effected the joyful delivery of these

people and their return to their homes.

So the Japanese set to work to destroy this nefarious traffic. The

Peruvian ship Maria Luz, loaded with Chinese, entered the port of

Yokohama. Two fugitive coolies in succession swam to the English war

ship Iron Duke. Hearing the piteous story of their wrongs, Mr. Watson,

the British chargé d’affaires, called the attention of the Japanese

authorities to these illegal acts in their waters. A protracted enquiry

was instituted and the coolies landed. The Japanese refused to force

them on board against their will, and later shipped them to China, a

favor which was gratefully acknowledged by the Chinese government. This

act of a pagan nation achieved a grand moral victory for the world and

humanity. Within four years the coolie traffic, which was but another

name for the slave trade, was abolished from the face of the earth, and

the coolie prisons of Macao were in ruins. Yet the act of freeing the

Chinese coolies in 1872 was done in the face of clamor and opposition,

and a rain of protests from the foreign consuls, ministers, and a part

of the press. Abuse and threats and diplomatic pressure were in vain.

The Japanese never wavered, but marched straight to the duty before

them, the liberation of the slaves. The British chargé and the American

consul, Colonel Charles O. Shepherd, alone gave hearty support and

unwavering sympathy to the right side.

[Illustration: JAPANESE GYMNASTS—KIOTO.]

During the same year, 1872, two legations and three consulates were

established abroad, and from that time forward the number has been

increasing until the representatives of Japan’s government are found all

over the world. Scores of daily newspapers and hundreds of weeklies have

been furnishing the country with information and awakening thought. The

editors are often men of culture or students returned from abroad.

The Corean war project had, in 1872, become popular in the cabinet and

was the absorbing theme of the army and navy. During the Tokugawa period

Corea had regularly sent embassies of homage and congratulation to

Japan; but not relishing the change of affairs in 1868, disgusted at the

foreignizing tendencies of the mikado’s government, incensed at Japan’s

departure from Turanian ideals, and emboldened by the failure of the

French and American expeditions, Corea sent insulting letters taunting

Japan with slavish truckling to the foreign barbarians, declared herself

an enemy, and challenged Japan to fight. About this time a Liu Kiu junk

was wrecked on eastern Formosa. The crew was killed by the savages, and,

it is said, eaten. The Liu Kiuans appealed to their tributary lords at

Satsuma, who referred the matter to Tokio. English, Dutch, American,

German, and Chinese ships have from time to time been wrecked on this

cannibal coast, the terror of the commerce of Christendom. Their war

ships vainly attempted to chastise the savages. Soyejima, with others,

conceived the idea of occupying the coast, to rule the wild tribes, and

of erecting light houses in the interests of commerce. China laid no

claim to eastern Formosa, all trace of which was omitted from the maps

of the “Middle Kingdom.” In the spring of 1873, Soyejima went to Peking

and there, among other things granted him, was an audience with the

Chinese emperor. He thus reaped the results of the diplomatic labors of

half a century. The Japanese ambassador stood upright before the “Dragon

Face” and the “Dragon Throne,” robed in the tight black dress-coat,

trousers, and linen of western civilization, bearing the congratulations

of the young mikado of the “Sunrise Kingdom” to the youthful emperor of

the “Middle Kingdom.” In the Tsung-li Yamen, Chinese responsibility over

eastern Formosa was disavowed, and the right of Japan to chastise the

savages granted. A Japanese junk was wrecked on Formosa, and its crew

stripped and plundered while Soyejima was absent in China. This event

piled fresh fuel on the flames of the war feeling now popular even among

the unarmed classes.

[Illustration: FORMOSAN TYPE.]

Japan at this time had to struggle with opposition within and without,

to every move in the direction of advancement in civilization. Says

Griffis, “At home were the stolidly conservative peasantry backed by

ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, and political hostility. On their

own soil they were fronted by aggressive foreigners who studied all

Japanese questions through the spectacles of dollars and cents and

trade, and whose diplomatists too often made the principles of Shylock

their system. Outside the Asiatic nations beheld with contempt, jealousy

and alarm the departure of one of their number from Turanian ideas,

principles, and civilization. China with ill-concealed anger, Corea with

open defiance taunted Japan with servile submission to the ‘foreign

devils.’

“For the first time the nation was represented to the world by an

embassy at once august and plenipotentiary. It was not a squad of petty

officials or local nobles going forth to kiss a toe, to play the part of

figure-heads, or stool-pigeons, to beg the aliens to get out of Japan,

to keep the scales on foreign eyes, to buy gun-boats, or to hire

employees. A noble of highest rank, and blood of immemorial antiquity,

with four cabinet ministers, set out to visit the courts of the fifteen

nations having treaties with Dai Nippon. They were accompanied by

commissioners representing every government department, sent to study

and report upon the methods and resources of foreign civilizations. They

arrived in Washington February 29, 1872, and for the first time in

history a letter signed by the mikado was seen outside of Asia. It was

presented by the ambassadors, robed in their ancient Yamato costume, to

the President of the United States on the 4th of March, Mr. Arinori Mori

acting as interpreter. The first president of the free republic, and the

men who had elevated the eta to citizenship stood face to face in

fraternal accord. The one hundred and twenty-third sovereign of an

empire in its twenty-sixth centennial saluted the citizen ruler of a

nation whose century aloe had not yet bloomed. On the 6th of March they

were welcomed on the floor of Congress. This day marked the formal

entrance of Japan upon the theater of universal history.”

In its subordinate objects the embassy was a signal success. Much was

learned of Christendom. The results at home were the splendid series of

reforms which mark the year 1872 as epochal. But in its prime object the

embassy was an entire failure. One constant and supreme object was ever

present, beyond amusement or thirst for knowledge. It was to ask that in

the revision of the treaties the extra-territoriality clause be stricken

out, that foreigners be made subject to the laws of Japan. The failure

of the mission was predicted by all who knew the facts. From Washington

to St. Petersburg point-blank refusal was made. No Christian governments

would for a moment trust their people to pagan edicts and prisons. While

Japan slandered Christianity by proclamations, imprisoned men for their

beliefs, knew nothing of trial by jury, of the habeas corpus writ, or of

modern jurisprudence; in short while Japan maintained the institutions

of barbarism, they refused to recognize her as a peer among nations.

At home the watchword was progress. Public persecution for conscience'

sake vanished. All the Christians torn from their homes and exiled and

imprisoned in 1868 were set free and restored to their native villages.

Education advanced rapidly, public decency was improved, and the

standards of Christendom attempted.

While in Europe Iwakura and his companions in the embassy kept cognizant

of home affairs. With eyes opened by all that they had seen abroad,

mighty results, but of slow growth, they saw their country going too

fast. Behind the war project lay an abyss of ruin. On their return the

war scheme brought up in a cabinet meeting was rejected. The

disappointment of the army was keen and that of expectant foreign

contractors pitiable. The advocates of war among the cabinet ministers

resigned and retired to private life. Assassins attacked Iwakura, but

his injuries did not result fatally. The spirit of feudalism was against

him.

On the 17th of January, the ministers who had resigned sent in a

memorial praying for the establishment of a representative assembly in

which the popular wish might be discussed. Their request was declined.

It was officially declared that Japan was not ready for such

institutions. Hizen, the home of one of the great clans of the coalition

of 1868, was the chief seat of disaffection. With perhaps no evil

intent, Eto, who had been the head of the department of justice, had

returned to his home there and was followed by many of his clansmen.

Scores of officials and men assembled with traitorous intent, and raised

the cry of “On to Corea.” The rebellion was annihilated in ten days. A

dozen ringleaders were sent to kneel before the blood pit. The national

government was vindicated and sectionalism crushed.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO NAGASAKI HARBOR.]

The Formosan affair was also brought to a conclusion. Thirteen hundred

Japanese soldiers occupied the island for six months, conquering the

savages wherever they met, building roads and fortifications. At last

the Chinese government in shame began to urge their claims on Formosa

and to declare the Japanese intruders. For a time war seemed inevitable.

The man for the crisis was Okubo, a leader in the cabinet, the master

spirit in crushing the rebellion, and now an ambassador at Peking. The

result was that the Chinese paid in solid silver an indemnity of

$700,000 and the Japanese disembarked. Japan single-handed, with no

foreign sympathy, but with positive opposition, had in the interests of

humanity rescued a coast from terror and placed it in a condition of

safety. In the face of threatened war a nation having but one-tenth the

population, area, or resources of China, had abated not a jot of its

just demands nor flinched from battle. The righteousness of her cause

was vindicated.

The Corean affair ended happily. In 1875 Kuroda Kiyotaka with men of war

entered Corean waters. Patience, skill, and tact were crowned with

success. On behalf of Japan a treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce

was made between the two countries February 27, 1876. Japan thus

peacefully opened this last of the hermit nations to the world.

The rebellions which we have mentioned were of a mild type compared with

that which in 1877 shook the government to its foundations. In the

limits of our space it is impossible to enter deeply into the causes of

the Satsuma rebellion. Its leader, Saigo Takamori, was one of the most

powerful members of the reformed government until 1873 when he resigned

as some of his predecessors had done, indignant at the peace policy

which was pursued. A veritable Cincinnatus, he seems to have won the

hearts of all classes around him by the Spartan simplicity of his life

and the affability of his manner, and there was none more able or more

willing to come to the front when duty to his country called him. It is

a thousand pities that such a genuine patriot should have sacrificed

himself through a mistaken notion of duty. Ambition to maintain and

extend the military fame of his country seems to have blinded him to all

other more practical considerations. The policy of Okubo and the rest of

the majority in the cabinet, with its regard for peace and material

prosperity, was in his eyes unworthy of the warlike traditions of old

Japan. But we cannot follow out the story of this famous rebellion—how

Saigo established a private school in his native city of Kagoshima for

the training of young Shizoku in military tactics, how the reports of

the policy of the government more and more dissatisfied him, until a

rumor that Okubo had sent policemen to Kagoshima to assassinate him

precipitated the storm that had been brewing. This report was not

supported by satisfactory evidence, although the Kagoshima authorities

extorted a so-called confession from a policeman. Okubo was too noble to

be guilty of such an act. It was only after eight months of hard

fighting, during which victory swayed from one side to another, and the

death of Saigo and his leading generals when surrounded at last like

rats in a trap, and the expenditure of over forty million yen, that the

much tried government could freely draw breath again. The people of

Satsuma believe that Saigo’s spirit has taken up its abode in the planet

Mars, and that his figure may be seen there when that star is in the

ascendant.

By this time railways, telegraphs, lighthouse service, and a navy were

well under construction in native works. Two national exhibitions were

held, one in 1877 and the second in 1881; the latter particularly was a

pretentious one and a great success. In 1879 Japan annexed the Liu Kiu

islands, bringing their king to Tokio, there to live as a vassal, and

reducing the islands to the position of a prefecture in spite of the

warlike threats of China. In the same year occurred the visit to Japan

of General Grant while he was on his tour around the world. The famous

American was entertained most enthusiastically by the citizens of Tokio

for some two weeks in July. The enthusiasm awakened by his visit among

the citizens was remarkable. Arches and illuminations were on every hand

for miles. The entertainment provided by the Japanese for their

distinguished guests at any time is so unique when seen by western eyes

that it is always impressive and delightful.

LIMITS AND POSSESSIONS OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE.

--------------

The Islands and their Situation—The Famous Mountain Fuji-yama—Rivers and

Canals—Ocean Currents and Their Effect on the Japanese Climate—Japan not

a Tropical Country—Flora and Fauna—The Important Cities—Strange History

of Yokohama—Commerce—Mining—Agricultural Products—Ceramic Art—Government

of the Realm.

The empire of Japan is a collection of islands of various dimensions,

numbering nearly four thousand, and situated to the east of the Asiatic

continent. Only four of these however, are of size sufficient to entitle

them to considerable fame, and around these a sort of belt of defense is

formed by the thousands of islets. Dai Nippon is the name given by the

natives to their beautiful land, and from this expression, which means

Great Japan, our own name for the empire has been taken. Foreign writers

have very often blundered in calling the largest island Nippon or

Niphon. This more properly applies to the entire empire, while the main

island is named in the military geography of Japan, Hondo. This word

itself means main land. The other three important islands are Kiushiu,

the most southeasterly of all; Shikoku, which lies between the latter

and Hondo; and Yesso, which is the most northerly of the chain.

Japan occupies an important position on the surface of the globe,

measured by political and commercial possibilities. Its position is such

that its people may not unreasonably hope to form a natural link between

the Occident and the Orient. Lying in the Pacific Ocean, in the

temperate zone and not in the torrid, as many have the thought, it bends

like a crescent off the continent of Asia. In the extreme north, near

the island of Saghalien, the distance from the main land of Asia is so

short that it is little more than a day’s sail in a junk. At the

southern extremity, where Kiushiu draws nearest to the Corean peninsula,

the distance to the main land is even less. Between this crescent of

islands and the Asiatic main land is enclosed the Sea of Japan. For more

than four thousand miles eastward stretches the Pacific Ocean, with no

stopping point for steamers voyaging to San Francisco unless they

diverge far from their course for a call at Honolulu.

The island connections of Japan are numerous. To the south are the Liu

Kiu islands, which have been annexed to Japan, and still farther the

great island of Formosa. To the north are the Kurile islands, which

extend far above Yesso and were ceded to Japan by Russia in return for

Saghalien, over which rule was formerly disputed. The chain is almost

continuous, although broken and irregular, to Kamtchatka, and thence

prolonged by the Aleutian islands in an enormous semicircle to Alaska

and our own continent.

The configuration of the land is that resulting from the combined

effects of volcanic action and wave erosion. The area of the Japanese

islands is about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, or nearly

as great as the New England and Middle States. But of this surface

nearly two-thirds consists of mountain land, much of it still lying

waste and uncultivated though apparently capable of tillage. On the main

island a solid backbone of mountainous elevations runs through a great

portion of its length, with subordinate chains extending at right angles

and rising again in the other islands. The mountains decrease in height

towards the south and there are few highlands along the sea coast. The

range is reached by a gradual rise from the sea, until the backbone of

the great island chain is reached. Japan rises abruptly from the sea,

and deep water begins very close to the shore, indicating that the

entire range of islands may be properly characterized as an immense

mountain chain thrown up from the bottom of the ocean. The highest peak

is Fuji-yama, which rises to a height of more than twelve thousand feet

above the sea. It is a wonderfully beautiful mountain, and is the first

glimpse that one has of land in approaching Yokohama from the Pacific

Ocean. Of the position which this mountain occupies in the affections

and traditions of the Japanese, mention will be made in a later chapter.

The islands forming the empire of Japan are comprehended in these

limits; between twenty-four degrees and fifty-one degrees north

latitude, and one hundred and twenty-four degrees and one hundred and

fifty-seven degrees east longitude. That is, speaking roughly, it lies

diagonally in and north of the subtropical belt, and has northern points

corresponding with Paris and Newfoundland, and southern ones

corresponding with Cairo and the Bermuda islands; or coming nearer home,

it corresponds pretty nearly in latitude with the eastern coast line of

the United States, added to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the

contrasts of climate in the latter island and in Florida are probably

not more remarkable than those which are observed in the extreme

northern and southern regions of Japan.

[Illustration: FUJI-YAMA.]

The most striking geographical feature of Japan is the Inland Sea, which

is one of the beauties of the world. It is a long, irregularly shaped

arm of the sea, with tides and rapid currents, of variable width and no

great depth, studded with innumerable thickly wooded islands. It is the

water area which separates Hondo from Shikoku and Kiushiu, and is often

spoken of as the Japanese Mediterranean.

One or two of the rivers of Japan, such as the Sumida, on the banks of

which Tokio, the capital, lies, and which is about as broad as the East

River between New York and Brooklyn, are worthy of note. Here at the

present time are situated several ship yards, and many modern craft

built in the American fashion may be seen along the shore. Here it may

be mentioned that any particular appellation given to a river in Japan

holds good only for a limited part of its course, so that it changes its

name perhaps four or five times in flowing a few hundred miles. Indeed

the river which passes through the city of Ozaka changes its name four

times within the city limits. Most of the larger rivers in the main land

run a course tending almost north and south. The general contour of the

land is such that they must be short, but this direction gives them the

greatest length possible. There are brief periods of excessively heavy

rain, and they are often then in fierce flood, carrying everything

before them and leaving great plains of water-worn stones and gravel

around their mouths. There are many picturesque waterfalls which attract

travelers and command the admiration of native artists and poets. The

rivers at a short distance from their outlets are rendered navigable

chiefly by the courage and expertness of the boatmen,—who are among the

most daring and skillful in the world.

Till recently little has been done to deepen river channels or protect

their banks, except in the interest of agriculture. In the lower

courses, where broad alluvial plains of great fertility have been

formed, they are frequently intersected by numerous shallow canals, for

the most part of comparatively recent excavation, but some of them are

many centuries old and these have been of immense service in keeping up

communication throughout the country. In spite of their shallowness and

rapid silting, some of the rivers of Japan are capable of being improved

so as to admit of the passage of steam vessels of the largest size, and

there are fine natural inlets and spacious bays which form harbors of

great excellence.

The Japanese coast is usually steep and even precipitous. Its chief

natural features, such as sunken rocks, capes, straits, entrances to

bays and harbors and the mouths of rivers are now well marked with

beacons or lighthouses of modern construction. The tides are not great,

and in Yeddo bay the rise is only about four feet on an average. In

spring tides it rarely exceeds six feet, and in general the height of

the flood tide is never very great. Navigation in summer is somewhat

dangerous and difficult, owing to the mists and fogs which are deemed by

its sailors to be the great scourge of Japan. Indeed these malarious

cloud banks are probably as dangerous to the health of the landsmen as

they are to the safety of the mariner. While a large area of land lying

under shallow water, during rice cultivation, may have some share in the

formation of these dangerous mists, there is the more general cause

which is readily to be found in the ocean currents.

Japan occupies a striking position in these currents which flow

northward from the Indian ocean and the Malay peninsula. That branch of

the great Pacific equatorial current called the Kuro Shiwo, or dark tide

or current, on account of its color, flows in a westerly direction past

Formosa and the Liu Kiu islands, striking the south point of Kiushiu and

sometimes in summer sending a branch up the Sea of Japan. With great

velocity it scours the east coast of Kiushiu and the south of Shikoku;

thence with diminished rapidity it envelopes the group of islands south

of the Bay of Yeddo; and at a point a little north of Tokio it leaves

the coast of Japan and flows northeast towards the shores of America,

ultimately giving to our own Pacific coast states a far milder climate

than the corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic coast.

The yearly evaporation at the tropics, of fully fourteen or fifteen feet

of ocean water, causes the great equatorial current of the Pacific to

begin its flow. When the warm water reaches the colder waters to the

northward, condensation of the water-laden air takes place, with the

resulting formation of great cloud banks. The water appears to be of a

deep, almost indigo-blue color, whence the name given to the current by

the Japanese. Fish occur in great numbers where the Arctic current of

fresher, lighter, and cooler water meets the warm salt stream from the

south, amidst great commotion. The analogy of this great current to the

Gulf stream of the Atlantic is apparent, and there can be no doubt as to

its great influence on the climate of Japan. A difference of from twelve

to sixteen degrees may be observed in passing from its waters to the

cold currents from the north, and the effect of this on the atmosphere

is very marked. The sudden and severe changes of temperature are often

noticed on the southern coast of Japan and even in Yeddo bay. They are

evidently due to eddies or branch currents from the great streams of

cold and warm water which interweave themselves in the neighborhood.

In the island of Yesso, the most northerly of the large ones, the

extremes of temperature are nearly as great as in New England. In the

vicinity of Tokio the winter is usually clear and mild, with occasional

sharp frosts and heavy falls of snow. In summer the heat is oppressive

for nearly three months. Even at night the heat remains so high that

sleep becomes almost impossible, the air being oppressive and no breeze

stirring. The greatest heat is usually from the middle of June to early

in September. The cold in winter is much more severe on the northwestern

coast, and the roads across the main island are often blocked with snow

for many months. In Yokohama the snow fall is light, not often exceeding

two or three inches. The ice seldom exceeds an inch in thickness.

Earthquake shocks are frequent, averaging more than one a month, but of

late years there have been none of great severity.

The winds of Japan are at all seasons exceedingly irregular, frequently

violent, and subject to sudden changes. The northeast and easterly winds

are generally accompanied by rain, and are not violent. The southwest

and westerly winds are generally high, often violent, and accompanied

with a low barometer. It is from the southwest that the cyclones or

typhoons almost invariably come. On clear and pleasant days, which in

the neighborhood of Yokohama prevail in excess of foggy ones, there is a

regular land and sea breeze at all seasons. The rainfall is above the

average of most countries, and about two-thirds of the rainfalls during

the six months from April to October.

[Illustration: JAPANESE IDOLS.]

The flora of Japan is exceedingly interesting, not only to botanists and

specialists, but to casual travelers and readers. The useful bamboo

flourishes in all parts of the land; sugar cane and the cotton plant

grow in the southern part; tea is grown almost everywhere. The tobacco

plant, hemp, corn, mulberry for silkworm food, rice, wheat, barley,

millet, buckwheat, potatoes, and yams are all cultivated. The beech, the

oak, maples, and pine trees in rich variety; azaleas, camelias, etc.,

grow in the forests. Some of the more characteristic plants are

wisteria, cryptomeria, calceolaria and chrysanthemums. Various varieties

of evergreens are grown, and the Japanese gardeners are peculiarly

expert in cultivating these trees in dwarf forms of great beauty. Many

familiar wild flowers can be gathered, such as violets, blue-bells,

forget-me-nots, thyme, dandelions, and others. The woods are rich in

ferns, among which the royal fern is conspicuous, and in orchids, ivies,

lichens, mosses and fungi. The beautiful locusts, though imported, may

now fairly be considered as naturalized. There are many water lilies,

reeds and rushes, some of which are of great beauty and others of

utility.

The mammalia of Japan are not numerous. In ancient times, before the

dawn of history, two species of dwarf elephants existed in the plains

around Tokio. There are many monkeys in some parts, even in the extreme

northern latitudes. Foxes abound and are regarded with reverence. Wolves

and bears are destructive in the north. There are wild antelopes, red

deer, wild boars, dogs, raccoons, badgers, otters, ferrets, bats, moles,

and rats; while the sea is specially rich in seals, sea-otters, and

whales. The country has been found quite unsuitable for sheep, but goats

thrive well, although they are not much favored by the people. Oxen are

used for draught purposes. Horses are small but are fair quality, and

the breed is being improved. The cats are nearly tailless. The dogs are

of a low, half-wolfish breed. There are some three hundred varieties of

birds known in Japan. Few of them are what we call song-birds, but the

lark is one brilliant exception. Game birds are plentiful, but are now

protected.

Insects are very numerous, as no traveler will dispute, and Japan is a

great field for investigation by entomologists. Locusts are often

destructive, and mosquitoes are a great pest. Bees, the silk worm and

the wax-insect are highly appreciated.

There are several kinds of lizards, a great variety of frogs, seven or

eight snakes, including one deadly species, and two or three kinds of

tortoise. The crustaceans are numerous and interesting, and of fish

there is extraordinary variety, especially those found in salt water.

Oysters and clams are excellent and plentiful.

Let us now turn to the temporal affairs of the people who dwell in this

island empire, their cities, their industries, and to their government.

Japan like its oriental companion, China, is a country of great cities,

although the smaller empire has not so many famous for their size as has

China. With scarcely an exception these greater cities are situated at

the heads of bays, most of them good harbors and accessible for

commerce. The largest of these cities, of course, is the capital Tokio,

which doubtless passes a million inhabitants, although it is impossible

that it should justify the American tradition of not many years ago,

that its numbers were twice a million. Tokio, or the old city of Yeddo,

is situated near the head of Yeddo Bay, but a few miles from Yokohama,

and but little farther from Uraga where the first reception to Commodore

Perry was given. Among the other more important cities on the sea coast

are Nagasaki, Yokohama, Hakodate, Hiogo, Ozaka, Hiroshima, and Kanagawa.

Nagasaki is situated on the southwest coast of the island of Kiushiu,

and is built in the form of an amphitheater. The European quarter in the

east, stands upon land reclaimed from the sea at considerable labor and

expense. Desima, the ancient Dutch factory, lies at the foot, and behind

it is the native part of the town. The whole is sheltered by high wooden

mountains. The city of Nagasaki was almost the first which attracted the

attention of foreigners, partly from its being already known by name

from the Dutch colony established there; partly because it was the

nearest point to China and a port of great beauty; and also because

before the political revolution which overthrew the power of the

shogunate, the daimios of the south were there enabled, owing to its

distance from Yeddo, to transact foreign affairs in their own way

unmolested. This comparative importance did not last long, for affairs

soon began to be concentrated in Yokohama, and the opening of the ports

of Hiogo and Ozaka further reduced it to a secondary rank among

commercial towns. It is still, however, a busy place and a great portion

of the navigation of the Japanese seas passes by its beautiful port. But

it is not a town of the future, and will be supplanted in prosperity to

considerable extent by the more northern cities.

Yokohama, situated on the Gulf of Yeddo, owes its rise and importance to

the merchants who came to seek their fortunes in the empire of the

rising sun immediately after the signature of the treaties which threw

open the coasts of Japan to adventurous foreigners. When Perry, with his

augmented fleet, returned to Japan in February, 1854, the Japanese found

him as inflexibly firm as ever. Instead of making the treaty at Uraga he

must take it nearer Yeddo. Yokohama was the chosen spot, and there on

the 8th of March, 1854, were exchanged the formal articles of convention

between the United States and Japan.

By the treaty of Yokohama, Shimoda was one of the ports opened to

Americans. Before it began to be of much service the place was visited

by an earthquake and tidal wave, which overwhelmed the town and ruined

the harbor. The ruin of Shimoda was the rise of Yokohama. By a new

treaty Kanagawa, three miles across the bay from Yokohama, was

substituted for Shimoda. The Japanese government decided to make

Yokohama the future port. Their reasons for this were many. Kanagawa was

on the line of the great highway of the empire, along which the proud

Daimios and their trains of retainers were continually passing. With the

antipathy to foreigners that existed, had Kanagawa been made a foreign

settlement, its history would doubtless have had many more pages of

assassination and incendiarism than did Yokohama. Foreseeing this, even

though considered by the foreign ministers a violation of treaty

agreements, the Japanese government immediately set to work to render

Yokohama as convenient as possible for trade, residence and espionage.

They built a causeway nearly two miles long across the lagoons and

marshes to make it of easy access. They built granite piers, custom

house and officers’ quarters, and dwellings and store houses for the

foreign merchants. After a long quarrel over which should be the city,

the straggling colony of diplomats, missionaries, and merchants of

Kanagawa finally pulled up their stakes and joined the settlement of

Yokohama. Yokohama was settled in a squatter-like and irregular manner,

and the ill effects of it are seen to this day. When compared with

Shanghai, the foreign metropolis of China, it is vastly inferior.

The town grew slowly at first. Murders and assassinations of foreigners

were frequent during the first few years. Diplomatic quarrels were

constant, and threats of bombardment from some foreign vessel in the

harbor of frequent occurrence. A fire which destroyed nearly the whole

foreign town seemed to purify the place municipally, commercially, and

morally. The settlement was rebuilt in a more substantial and regular

manner. As the foreign population grew, banks, newspaper offices,

hospitals, post-offices, and consulate buildings reappeared in a new

dignity. Fire and police protection were organized. Steamers began to

come from European ports and from San Francisco. Social life began as

ladies and children came, and houses became homes. Then came the rapid

growth of society and the finer things. Churches, theaters, clubs,

schools were organized in rapid succession. Telegraph connection with

Tokio, and thence around the globe, was accomplished, and the railway

system increased rapidly. Within the thirty-five years of the life of

Yokohama, it has grown from a fishing village of a few hundred to a city

of fifty thousand people. Its streets are lighted with gas and

electricity; its stores are piled full of rare silks, bronzes and

curios. At present the foreign population of Yokohama numbers about two

thousand residents. In addition to these the foreign transient

population, made up of tourists and officers and sailors of the navy,

and the merchant marine, numbers between three thousand and six

thousand. Several daily newspapers, beside weeklies and monthlies,

printed in English, furnish mediums of communication and news. Yokohama

has become and will remain the great mercantile center of American and

European trade in Japan.

Hiogo, or rather Kobe, as the foreign part has been called since the

concession, is near Ozaka, both towns being situated on the inland Sea

of Japan, near the south end of the Island of Niphon. Kobe is a

considerable foreign settlement, with many fine houses and spacious

warehouses. Ozaka, which contains more than half a million inhabitants,

is one of the chief trading cities of Japan, and an immense proportion

of the merchandise imported into the empire passes through it.

[Illustration: JAPANESE JUGGLERS.]

The commerce between Japan and western nations, European and American,

increases year by year. England enjoys the profits from more than half

of the total interchange, the United States is second, with a large

portion of the remainder, and the rest of the commerce is divided among

Germany, France, Holland, Norway, and Sweden. It is impossible to obtain

figures recent enough to be a satisfactory index of the total volume of

commerce annually, but it is now very many millions of dollars a year.

Japan exports tobacco, rice, wax, tea, silks, and manufactured goods,

such as curios, bronzes, lacquer ware, etc. The principal imports of

Japan are cotton goods, manufactures of iron, machinery of all sorts,

woolen fabrics, flour, etc.

Mining in Japan is seldom carried on by modern methods, and the mineral

wealth has not been developed as it will be within a few years. In

almost every portion of Japan are found ores of some kind and there is

scarcely a district in which there are not traces of mines having been

worked. No mines can be worked without special license of the

government, and foreigners are excluded from ownership in any mining

industry. Japan seems to be fairly well, though not richly, provided

with mineral wealth. The mines include those for gold, silver, copper,

lead, iron, tin, plumbago, antimony, arsenic, marble, sulphur, alum,

salt, coal, petroleum, and other minerals.

The annual export of tea amounts to nearly thirty million pounds, of

which considerably more than half is shipped from Yokohama. All Japanese

tea is green and the United States is the chief customer for it.

The exact area of Japan is not known, though it is computed at nearly

one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, with a population of more

than two hundred persons to a square mile. The number of acres under

cultivation is about nine million, or one-tenth of the entire area. Not

one-fourth of the fertile portion of Japan is yet under cultivation.

Immense portions of good land await the farmers’ plow and seed to return

rich harvests. For centuries the agricultural art has been at a

standstill. Population and acreage have increased, but the crop in bulk

and quantity remains the same. The true wealth of Japan consists in her

agricultural and not in her mineral and manufacturing resources. The

government and intelligent classes seem to be awakening to this fact.

The islands are capable of yielding good crops and adapted to support

the finest breeds of cattle. With these branches of industry increased

to the extent that they deserve, the prosperity of the empire will show

constant increase.

The ceramic art of Japan and the art of the lacquer worker are two that

have helped to make Japanese wares famous in the western world. The

various wares of porcelain and faience are made in Japan in quality and

art inferior to none in the world.

Since the restoration to power of the mikado in 1868, the government of

Japan has been growing nearer and nearer into the forms of western

monarchical governments. In a prior chapter the promise of the young

mikado to advance the freedom of his people, and ultimately to adopt

constitutional forms of rule, has been quoted. In the later years he has

been aiming for the fulfillment of this promise. Supporting him, the

party of progressionists, largely influenced by contact with European

and American civilization, urge on every reform. The present government

is simply the modernized form of the system established more than a

thousand years ago, when centralized monarchy succeeded simple

feudalism. After the emperor comes the Dai Jo Kuan, which is practically

a supreme cabinet, and following this, three other cabinets of varying

powers and duties. The council of ministers is made up of the heads of

departments, the foreign office, home office, treasury, army, navy,

education, religion, public works, judiciary, imperial household, and

colonization. The Dai Jo Kuan directs the three imperial cities and the

sixty-eight ken or prefectures. The provinces are now merely

geographical divisions.

In the course of the efforts to bring the Japanese forms of government

more into harmony with those of Europe and America, many important

changes have been made. A system of nobility was devised, and titles

were granted to those who were considered to be entitled to them,

whether by birth or achievement. The four or five ranks included in this

system closely follow the English models.

[Illustration: JAPANESE COURT DRESS, OLD STYLE.]

The judiciary, too, has been remodeled in many details to make it

approach the western system. The methods of procedure are gradually

conforming nearer and nearer to our own, as well as the names and

jurisdiction of the courts. The Japanese people have been exceedingly

anxious of late years to expunge the extraterritoriality clause which

appears in the treaties with all western nations. It provides, in

effect, that offenses by a foreigner against a Japanese shall be judged

in a consular court presided over by the consul of that country whence

the foreigner comes. In other words, Japanese courts have no

jurisdiction over the doings of foreigners having consuls in that

country. This provision has become very obnoxious to the Japanese

people, placing them on a level, as it does, with barbaric and

semi-barbaric countries, where like provisions hold. This has been one

of the potent factors in influencing Japan to adopt western legal

methods. Recent treaties which have been drawn with the United States

and with England provide that this clause shall be expunged, and if they

are finally agreed upon we may soon see Japan more absolutely

independent than she has yet been.

In 1890 a constitution was granted to Japan by the emperor, and a few

months later legislative bodies for the first time began deliberation in

Tokio. The powers of this parliament are constantly increasing. The war

between China and Japan has been a strong influence to weld the people

of opposing political faiths into harmony, and in parliament

conservatives and radicals alike have risen in patriotism, and have been

glad to cast votes for every measure that would hold up the hands of

those who were bearing the battles. With a government drawing for itself

lines parallel with those of enlightened western nations, increasing the

freedom of its people, the power of the people’s legislators, and the

honesty of the people’s courts, Japan has every right to name herself as

worthy of a place in full brotherhood with the family of civilized

nations.

[Illustration:

COUNCIL OF WAR ON A JAPANESE BATTLE SHIP.

(From a Drawing by a Japanese Artist.)]

]

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE.

--------------

Difference of Opinion as to the True Significance of Their Rapid

Adoption of Western Civilization—Physique of Man and Woman—Two Great

Classes of the Population—The Samurai—The Agricultural Laborer—Wedding

Ceremonies—Elopements—Japanese Babies—Sports of Childhood and of

Age—Dress of Man and Woman—Food—Homes of the People—Family Life—Art,

Science, Medicine, Music—Language and Literature—Religion.

In such a state of transition are the Japanese people themselves, as

truly as the government, that it is difficult to describe their personal

characteristics. Different observers reach different conclusions as to

their personality. One affirms that great quickness of imitation and

judgment in discovering what is worth imitating, seem to be the

prominent characteristics of the Japanese. They want originality and

independence of thought, and character which accompanies it. The

Japanese are not slow in adopting the inventions of modern civilization,

and even in modifying them to suit their own convenience, but, says

another observer, that they will ever add anything of importance to them

may be doubted. The same is true in a political point of view. The more

enlightened of the Japanese are already beginning to recognize the

superiority of the European forms of government. The upper classes are

all sedulously imitating Paris and London fashions of dress. In our own

country we have seen the prevalence of an offensive Anglomania among

certain classes of society in the larger cities, but in Japan a

corresponding mania for the forms of western civilization has become

almost universal, and is reaching the real bulk of the nation. Such

extraordinary capacity for change may mark a versatile but unreliable

race; for it seems hard to believe that a people who are parting with

their ancestral notions with such a total absence of any pangs of

sorrow, will be likely to adhere with much steadfastness to a new order

of things. On the other hand, other students of this movement take it to

be only a most gratifying indication that Japan was a nation which had

outgrown its narrow limits of thought and learning, ready to adopt

whatever was good, and yearning for it when the opportunity came, with a

strength that made rapid assimilation of ideas entirely proper, and no

sign of instability. It is to be hoped that the latter interpretation is

the right one.

In moral character the average Japanese is frank, honest, faithful,

kind, gentle, courteous, confiding, affectionate, filial, and loyal.

Love of truth for its own sake, chastity, and temperance are not

characteristic virtues. A high sense of honor is cultivated by the

Samurai. In spirit the average artisan and farmer is lamblike. In

intellectual capacity the actual merchant is mean, and his moral

character low. He is beneath the Chinaman in this respect. The male

Japanese is far less overbearing and more chivalrous to woman than any

other Asiatic. In political knowledge, or gregarious ability, the

countryman is a baby and the city artisan a boy. The peasant is a

pronounced pagan, with superstition ingrained into his inmost nature. In

reverence to elders and to antiquity, obedience to parents, gentle

manners, universal courtesy, and generous impulses the Japanese are the

peers of any and superior to many peoples of Christendom. The idea of

filial obedience has been developed into fanaticism and is the main blot

of paganism and superstition.

The Japanese in physique are much of the same type as the Spaniards, and

inhabitants of the south of France. They are of middle or low stature.

The men are about five feet six inches in height or a trifle less on an

average, while the women rarely exceed five feet. When dressed the

Japanese look strong, well proportioned men, but when in the exceedingly

slight costumes which they very often are pleased to adopt, it is then

apparent that though their bodies are robust their legs are short and

slight. Their heads are somewhat out of proportion to their bodies,

being generally large and sunk a little between the shoulders, but they

have small feet and delicate hands. The resemblance the Japanese bear to

the Chinese is not nearly as marked as popular opinion would have it.

The faces of the former are longer and more regular, their noses more

prominent, and their eyes less sloped. The men are naturally very

hirsute, but they never wear beards. Their hair is glossy, thick, and

always black. Their eyes are black, their teeth white and slightly

prominent. The shade of their skin is totally unlike the yellow

complexions of the Chinese; in some cases it is very swarthy or copper

colored, but the most usual tint is an olive brown. Children and young

people have usually quite pink complexions.

[Illustration: DRESSING THE HAIR.]

The women follow the Chinese type a little closer. The eyes are narrower

and sloped upward, and the head is small. Like the men their hair is

glossy and very black, but it never reaches the length of American

women’s hair. They have clear, sometimes even perfectly white skin,

especially among the aristocracy, oval faces, and slender, graceful

forms. Their manners are peculiarly artless and simple. But the harmony

of the whole is spoiled in many instances by an ugly depression of the

chest, which is sometimes observed in those who are otherwise handsomest

and best formed.

About the end of the eighth century a reform was instituted in the

military system of the empire, which had become unsatisfactory and

defective. The court decided that all those among the rich peasants who

had capacity and were skilled in archery and horsemanship, should

compose the military class, and that the remainder, the weak and feeble,

should continue to till the soil and apply themselves to agriculture.

This was one of the most significant of all the changes in the history

of Japan. Its fruits are seen to-day in the social constitution of the

Japanese people. Though there are many classes, there are but two great

divisions of the Japanese, the military and the agricultural.

This change wrought a complete severance of the soldier and the farmer.

It lifted up one part of the people to a plane of life on which travel,

adventure, the profession and pursuit of arms, letters, and the

cultivation of honor and chivalry were possible, and by which that

brightest type of Japanese men, the Samurai was produced. This is the

class which for centuries has monopolized arms, polite learning,

patriotism, and intellect of Japan. They are the men whose minds have

been open to learn, from whom sprung the ideas that once made and later

overthrew the feudal system, which wrought the mighty reforms that swept

away the shogunate in 1868, and restored the mikado to ancient power,

who introduced those ideas that now rule Japan, and sent their sons

abroad to study the civilization of the west. To the Samurai Japan looks

to-day for safety in war and progress in peace. The Samurai is the soul

of the nation. In other lands the priestly and the military castes were

formed, in Japan one and the same class held the sword and the pen; the

other class, the agricultural, remained unchanged.

Left to the soil to till it, to live and die upon it, the Japanese

farmer has remained the same to-day that he was then. Like the wheat,

that for successive ages is planted as wheat, sprouts, beards and fills

as wheat, the peasant with his horizon bounded by his rice fields and

water courses or the timbered hills, his intellect laid away for safe

keeping in the priest’s hands, is the son of the soil. He cares little

who rules him unless he is taxed beyond the power of flesh and blood to

bear, or an overmeddlesome official policy touches his land to transfer,

sell or divide it. Then he rises to rebel. In time of war he is a

disinterested and a passive spectator and he does not fight. He changes

masters with apparent unconcern. Amidst all the ferment of ideas induced

by the contact of western civilization with Asiatic within the last four

decades, the farmer stolidly remains conservative. He knows not nor

cares to hear of it and hates it because of the heavier taxes it imposes

upon him.

The domestic solemnities of the Japanese, marriage especially, are made

the subjects of deep and careful meditation. In the upper classes

marriage is arranged between two young people when the bridegroom has

reached his twentieth and the bride her sixteenth year. The will of the

parents is almost without exception the dominating power in the

matrimonial arrangements, which are carried out according to agreement

among the relatives, but love affairs of a spontaneous kind form a large

element in the romantic literature of Japan. The wedding is preceded by

a betrothal, which ceremony offers an occasion for the members of both

families to meet one another; and it not unfrequently happens that the

future couple then learn for the first time the wishes of their parents

respecting their union. If perchance the bridegroom elect is not

satisfied with the choice, the young woman returns home again. With the

introduction of other western ideas, this inconvenient custom is little

by little falling into disuse. Nowadays, if a young man wishes to marry

into a family of good position or one which it would be advantageous to

his prospects to enter, he endeavors first to see the young lady, and

then if she pleases him he sends a mediator, chosen usually from amongst

his married friends, and the betrothal is arranged without any further

obstacle. Even more American-like than this, however, there are many

instances, and the number is constantly increasing, in which the match

is the result of mutual affection, and sometimes elopements are known to

occur among the best families.

When things are carried through conventionally, the betrothal and

wedding are usually solemnized on the same day and without the

assistance of any minister of worship. The customary ceremonies are all

of a homely nature, but at the same time are extremely complicated and

numerous. Upon the day fixed, the trousseau of the young bride and all

the presents she has received, are brought to the home of the

bridegroom, where the ceremony is to be performed, and arranged in the

apartments set apart for the affair. The bride arrives soon afterward,

dressed in white and escorted by her parents. The groom, arrayed in gala

costume, receives her at the entrance of the house, and conducts her

into the hall where the betrothal takes place. Here grand preparations

have been made. The altar of the domestic gods has been decorated with

images of the patron saints of the family and with different plants,

each having its symbolical meaning.

When all have taken their places according to the recognized form of

precedence, the ceremony is begun by two young girls, who hand around

unlimited quantities of saki to the guests. These two damsels are

surnamed the male and female butterfly, the emblems of conjugal

felicity, because according to popular notion butterflies always fly

about in couples. The decisive ceremony is tinged with a symbolism which

has a considerable touch of poetry in it. The two butterflies, holding

between them a two-necked bottle, approach and offer it to the engaged

couple to drink together from the two mouths of the bottle till it is

emptied, which signifies that husband and wife must drain together the

cup of life whether it contain nectar or gall; they must share equally

the joys and sorrows of existence.

The Japanese is the husband of one wife only, but he is at liberty to

introduce several concubines under the family roof. This is done in all

classes of society, especially amongst the daimios. It is asserted that

in many of the noble families the legitimate wife not only evinces no

jealousy, but has even a certain pleasure in seeing the number of her

household thus augmented, as it supplies her with so many additional

servants. In the middle classes, however, the custom is often the cause

of bitter family dissentions.

The heavy expenses of the marriage ceremonies often occasion

considerable domestic strife and misery, at least if they are celebrated

according to all the established conventionalities. Debts are then

incurred which perhaps the young couple are unable to meet, so that when

other expenses grow, and trouble or misfortune overtake them, they are

speedily plunged into the deepest distress and indigence. The natural

consequence of these arbitrary customs is the increase of runaway

matches. The elopement, however, is usually wisely winked at by the

parents, who feign great lamentation and anger, then finally assemble

their neighbors, pardon their recreant children, and circulate the

inevitable saki, and the marriage is considered as satisfactory as if

performed with all the requisite formalities.

The birth of a child is another occasion for the meeting of the whole

circle of relations, and the consumption of a great many more bumpers of

saki. The baptism of the young Japanese citizen takes place thirty days

later, when the infant is taken to the temple of the family divinity to

receive its first name. The father has previously written three

different names upon three separate slips of paper, which are handed

over to the officiating bonze or priest. The latter throws them into the

air, and the piece of paper which in falling first touches the ground

contains the name which is to be given to the child. There are no

godparents, but several friends of the family declare themselves the

infant’s protectors and make it several presents, among which is a fan

if it be a boy, or a pot of rouge if a girl.

[Illustration: CHILD CARRYING BABY.]

The Japanese child is early taught to endure hardships, and is subjected

from its infancy to all the small miseries of life, so far as may be

thought wise for its training. The mother nurses it till it is two years

of age, and carries it continually about with her attached to her back

for convenience. The children are daintily pretty, chubby, rosy,

sparkling-eyed. The children’s heads are shaved in all curious fashions,

some with little topknots, and others with bald spots. The way the

babies are carried is an improvement upon the Indian fashion. He is

lugged on the back of his mother or his sister, maybe scarcely older

than himself, either strapped loosely but safely, with his head just

peering above the shoulder of the bearer, or else enclosed in a fold of

the garment she wears. It is a popular belief among travelers that

Japanese babies are the best in the world and never cry, but the

Japanese themselves claim no such distinction for the little ones, very

proud of them though they are, and affirm that they have their fits of

temper as well as American babies.

Education is not forced too early upon the children, but nature is

allowed its own way during the first years of childhood. Toys,

pleasures, fetes of all kinds, are liberally indulged in. One writer has

said that Japan is the paradise of babies; not only is this true but it

is also a very delightful abode for all who love play. The contrast

between the Japanese and Chinese character in this respect is radical.

The whole character, manners, and even the dress of the sedate and

dignified Chinaman, seems to be in keeping with that aversion to

rational amusement and athletic exercises which characterize that adult

population. In Japan, on the contrary, one sees that children of the

larger growth enjoy with equal zest, games which are the same or nearly

the same as those of the little ones. Certain it is that the adults do

all in their power to provide for the children their full quota of play

and harmless sports.

A very noticeable change has passed over the Japanese people since the

recent influx of foreigners, in respect of their love of amusements.

Their sports are by no means as numerous or elaborate as formerly, and

they do not enter into them with the enthusiasm that formerly

characterized them. The children’s festivals and sports are rapidly

losing their importance, and some are rarely seen. There is no country

in the world in which there are so many toy shops for the sale of the

things which delight children. Street theatrical shows are common. Sweet

meats of a dozen strange sorts are carried by men who do tricks in

gymnastics to please the little ones. In every Japanese city there are

scores if not hundreds of men and women who obtain a livelihood by

amusing the children. There are indoor games and outdoor games, games

for the day time and games for the evening. Japanese kite flying and top

spinning are famous the world over, and experts in these sports come to

exhibit their adeptness in our own country. In the northern provinces,

where the winters are severe, Japanese boys have the same sports with

snow and ice, coasting, sliding, fighting mimic battles with snowballs,

that are known to our own American boys. Dinners, tea parties, and

weddings, keeping store, and playing doctor, are imitated in Japanese

children’s games.

On the third day of the third month is held the wonderful “Feast of

Dolls” which is the day especially devoted to the girls, and to them it

is the greatest day in the year. The greatest day in the year for the

boys is on the fifth day of the fifth month, when they celebrate what is

known as the “Feast of Flags.”

[Illustration: THE CHINESE FLEET AT WEI-HAI-WEI.]

A Japanese attains his majority at fifteen years of age. As soon as this

time has arrived he takes a new name, and quietly discards the pleasures

of infancy for the duties of a practical life. His first care, if he

belong to the middle classes, is the choice of a trade or profession.

The opportunities for this choice are much greater than in China, just

as the scope of Japanese learning and life has increased in the last

quarter century. Practically all of the businesses and trades that we

know in our own country are to-day known in Japan, those which were not

there before, having crept in with the advent of the foreigners. The

Japanese young man, if he is to be a merchant or to learn a trade,

serves an apprenticeship for a period sufficient to fit him for the

mastery of his work, and then it is he provides himself with a wife.

The dress of the Japanese is changing in harmony with the introduction

of other foreign habits. Custom has always obliged married women to

shave their eyebrows and blacken their teeth, but of late years the

practice has been decreasing and now it does not prevail among the

better classes and in the larger cities. They have also made a most

immoderate use of paint, covering their brow, cheeks, and neck with

thick coats of rouge and white. Some have even gone so far as to gild

their lips, but the more modest have been content to color them with

carmine, and the excessive use of paints is diminishing.

The kirimon, a kind of long, open dressing gown, is worn by every one,

men and women alike. It is a little longer and of better quality for the

women, who cross it in front and confine it by a long wide piece of

silk, or other material tied in a quaint fashion at the back. The men

keep theirs in its place by tying a long straight scarf around them. The

Japanese use no linen, the women alone wearing a chemise of silk crepe,

but it must be remembered that they bathe daily or even oftener, and

that simplicity of dress is affected by all.

The middle classes wear in addition to the kirimon, a doublet and

pantaloons. These are also worn in winter by men of the lower orders,

the pantaloons fitting tightly, and made of checked cotton. The peasants

and porters usually wear a loose overall in summer, made of some light

paper material, and in winter not unfrequently consisting of coarse

straw. The women also envelop themselves in one or several thickly

wadded mantles. Linen gloves with one division for the thumb are very

generally worn. Sandals are made of plaited straw, and in bad weather

are discarded for wooden clogs, raised from the ground by means of two

bits of wood under the toe and heel. As might naturally be expected,

locomotion under such circumstances is performed with difficulty, and

the hobbling gate which these props necessitate has often been commented

on. This peculiarity is most noticeable among the women, whose naturally

easy gait is almost as much diverted from its normal movement by these

small stilts as that of their sisters in the west by their high heeled

shoes. The costume of the country is exactly alike for both the lower

and higher classes, with the difference that the latter always wear silk

material. The costumes worn by officials, and those of the nobility, are

distinguished by the amplitude of the folds and the richness of the

texture. Wide flowing pantaloons are often substituted for the kirimon,

which trail on the ground, completely concealing the feet, and give the

wearer the appearance of walking on his knees, which indeed is the

delusion it is intended to produce. A kind of overcoat with wide sleeves

reaching to the hips completes the costume.

[Illustration: JAPANESE BATH.]

The dwelling houses of the Japanese are well adapted to their manners of

life, except that they are not always sufficient protection against

severe cold. Rich and poor live side by side, although in Tokio there

are still traces of the castes of the feudal age, and there are also

growing tendencies in the rising mercantile and moneyed classes to

separate themselves from the common mass. There are now great portions

of the capital densely populated by the working classes only, and quite

destitute of any open spaces of practical value for health and

recreation.

The proverb “Every man’s house is his castle,” might very readily be

appropriated by the Japanese, whose home, however humble it may be in

all other respects, is always guarded by a moat. In a feudal mansion the

moat was usually deep enough to prove a genuine obstacle. While it is

still almost universally retained, the muddy water is hidden in summer

time by the leaves of the lotus, and the bridges are not drawn. The

smaller gentry imitate the grandeur of those above them, and when at

last we come down to the lowest level we still find a miniature moat

which is often dry, of a foot or so in breadth, and at most about two

inches deep.

In houses of some pretensions there is an enbankment behind the moat,

with a hedge growing above it. Behind this there is either a wall or

fence of bamboo, tiles, or plaster. As the name of the street is not to

be found at the street corner as with us, it is repeated on every

doorway. The towns are divided into wards and blocks, and the numbers of

the houses are often confused and misleading. A slip of white wood is

nailed on one of the posts of the gate, and is inscribed with the name

of the street or block, the number, name of house holder, numbers and

sexes of household. The gates of the larger houses are heavy, adorned

with copper or brass mountings, and often studded with large nails.

When one enters by the gate there is generally found a court, from the

sides of which the open verandas of the building may be reached. The

verandas are high and there is a special entrance by heavy wooden

stairs. The court is sometimes paved with large stones, and sometimes it

is left bare or covered with turf. The gardens even of somewhat humble

mansions are graced with carved stone lanterns. The well placed near the

kitchen often has a rim of stone around it, and the bucket is raised by

a beam or a long bamboo.

In front of the doorway there is a small space unfloored called the

doma, where one takes off his shoes after announcing himself by calling,

or by striking a gong suspended by the door post. There is often only

one story in Japanese houses, and very rarely more than two. Almost all

of them are built of wood; the ground floor is raised about four feet

above the ground, the walls are made of planks covered with coarse mats;

and the roof is supported by four pillars. In a two-storied house the

second story is generally built more solidly than the first; experience

having shown that the edifice can thus better resist the shock of an

earthquake. Sometimes the walls are plastered with a coating of soft

clay or varnish, and are decorated with gildings and paintings. The

stair to the second story is very steep. The ceilings are composed of

very thin, broad planks, and are lower than we are accustomed to, but it

must be remembered that the people do not sit on chairs and have no high

beds or tables. Doorways, or rather the grooved lintels in which the

screen doors slide, are very low and the Japanese, who are always

bowing, seem to enjoy having an unusual number of them to pass through

in extensive houses. No room is completely walled in, but each one opens

on one or more sides completely into the garden, the street, or the

adjoining room. Sliding shutters, with tissue paper windows, the

carpentry of which is careful and exact, move in wooden grooves almost

on a level with the floor, which is covered with padded woven mats of

rushes. As a protection against the severities of the weather rain

shutters are also used.

All Japanese dwellings have a cheerful, well-cared-for appearance, which

in a great measure is the result of two causes; first, that every one is

bound constantly to renew the paper coverings of the outside panels, and

next that the frequent fires which each time make immense ravages often

render it necessary to reconstruct an entire district. In the interior

the houses are generally divided into two suites of apartments, the one

side being apportioned to the women as private rooms, and the other side

being used for the reception rooms. These apartments are all separated

from one another by partitions made of slight wooden frames, upon which

small square bits of white paper are pasted, or else a kind of screen is

used which can be moved at pleasure and the room enlarged or contracted

according as the occasion requires. Towards nightfall these screens are

usually folded up so as to allow a free passage of air throughout the

house.

The mats of rushes or rice straw which carpet the floors are about three

inches thick, and are soft to the touch. They are of uniform size, about

six feet by three, and this fact dominates all architecture in Japan.

Estimates for building houses and the cutting of wood rest upon this

traditional custom. The inhabitants never soil them with their boots but

always walk barefooted about the house. The mat in Japan answers the

purpose of all ordinary furniture, and takes the place of our chairs,

tables, and beds. For writing purposes only do they use a low round

table about a foot high, which is kept in a cupboard and only brought

out when a letter has to be written. This they do kneeling before the

table, which they carefully put away again when the letter is finished.

The meals are laid upon square tables of very slender dimensions, around

which the whole family gather, sitting on their heels.

[Illustration: JAPANESE COUCH.]

In the walls are recesses with sliding doors into which the bedding is

thrust in the daytime. At bedtime out of these recesses are taken the

soft cotton stuffed mattresses and the thick coverlets of silk or cotton

which have been rolled up all day, and these are spread upon the mats.

The Japanese pillows are of wood, with the upper portions stuffed or

padded, and in form something like a large flat iron. Sometimes each one

contains a little drawer in which the ladies put their hairpins. When a

Japanese has taken off his day garments he rests his head on this wooden

pillow and composes himself to sleep. Everything is put away in the

morning, all the partitions are opened to give air, the mats are

carefully swept, and the now completely empty chamber is transformed

during the day into an office, sitting room, or dining room, to become

again the sleeping apartment the following night.

Clothes are kept in plaited bamboo boxes usually covered with black or

dark green waterproof paper. The furniture is very simple, and there are

often in the best houses no chairs, no tables, no bedsteads. There may

be some low, short-legged side tables of characteristic Japanese pattern

and one or two costly vases or other ornaments, a few pictures which are

changed in deference to guests and seasons, some flowers or dwarf trees

in vases and a lamp or two. There are, however, two pieces of furniture

which are to be found in the houses of every class. These are the

brazier and the pipe box, for the Japanese is a great tea drinker and a

constant smoker. Every hour in the day his hot water must be ready for

him, and the brazier kept burning both day and night both in summer and

winter.

The principal meal takes place about the middle of the day, and after it

the family indulge themselves with several hours’ sleep, so that at this

time the streets are almost deserted. In the evening they have another

meal, and then devote the rest of the time till bedtime to all kinds of

amusements. In the highest Japanese circles the dinner hour is sometimes

enlivened by music from an orchestra stationed in an adjoining room.

In summer a well-planned Japanese house is the very ideal of coolness,

grace and comfort. In winter it is the extreme of misery. There are no

fire-places and there is unmitigated ventilation. People keep themselves

warm by holding themselves close over some morsels of red hot charcoal

in a brazier, and frost bite is very common. At night, when cold winds

blow, a heating apparatus is put beneath the heavy cotton coverlets. It

often gets overturned; a watchman from his ladder-like tower sees afar

off a dull red glow, bells begin to clang, and soon the city is in an

uproar of excitement over another conflagration. In a few hours a great

fan-shaped gap has appeared in the city. One goes at day-break to find

the scene of destruction, but it has already almost disappeared. Crowds

of carpenters have rushed in, and have already done much to erect on the

hot and smoking ruins wooden houses nearly as good as those swept away

by the fire of the night before.

The yashikis or palaces in which the people of rank reside, are nothing

more than ordinary houses grouped together and surrounded by whitewashed

outhouses, with latticed windows of black wood. These outhouses serve a

two-fold purpose, as habitations for the domestics, and as a wall of the

enclosure. Always low, and usually rectangular, they look very much like

warehouses or barracks. The palace of the sovereign has, however, a

certain character of its own. It is a perfect labyrinth of courts and

streets formed by the many separate houses, pavilions, and corridors or

simple wooden partitions. The roofs are supported by horizontal beams

varnished white, or gilded at the extremities, and decorated with small

pieces of sculpture, many of which are very beautiful works of art. The

ancient palace of the Tycoons is remarkable for boldness and richness of

outline. Everything breathes a spirit of the times when the power and

prosperity of the shogunate was at its height. Upon the ceilings of

gold, sculptured beams cross each other in squares, the angles where

they meet being marked by a plate of gilt bronze of very elegant design.

The greatest novelties in the eyes of foreigners are the gardens

attached to every house. The smallest tradesman has his own little plot

of ground where he may enjoy the delights of solitude, take his siesta,

or devote himself to copious potations of tea and saki. These gardens

are often of exceedingly small size. They consist of a quaint collection

of dwarf shrubs, miniature lakes full of gold fish, lilliputian walks in

the middle of diminutive flower beds, tiny streams over which are little

green arches to imitate bridges, and finally arbors or bowers beneath

which a rabbit might scarcely find room to nestle.

The Japanese are as strict in the observance of etiquette at a funeral

as at their marriage ceremonies. The rites take place both at the time

of the actual interment, and afterwards at the festivals celebrated in

honor of the gods on these occasions. There are two kinds of funerals,

interment and cremation. Most of the Japanese make known during life

either to the heir or to some intimate friend their wishes respecting

the mode of the disposal of their remains. When the father or mother in

a family is seized with a mortal illness and all hope of recovery is

past and the end approaching, the soiled garments worn by the dying

person are removed and exchanged for perfectly clean ones. The last

wishes of the dying one are then recorded on paper. As soon as life has

departed all the relations give way to lamentations; the body is carried

into another room, covered with a curtain and surrounded by screens. In

the higher classes the body is watched for two days, but in the lower it

is buried a day after death.

Contrary to the customs at marriage ceremonies, the bonzes or priests

preside over all the funeral rites. It is they who watch beside the dead

until the time for interment. This is usually carried out by men who

make it their profession. The corpse is placed in a coffin, somewhat of

the shape of a round tub, in a squatting position, with the head bowed,

the legs bent under, and the arms crossed; the lid of the coffin is then

fastened down by wooden pegs. The funeral procession proceeds to the

temple, the bonzes marching first, some carrying flags, others different

symbols, such as little white boxes full of flowers, others wringing

small hand-bells. Then follows the corpse, preceded by a long tablet

upon which is inscribed the new name given to the deceased. The eldest

son follows, and then the family, intimate friends, and domestics. The

nearest relations are dressed in white which is the color worn for

mourning.

When the procession arrives at the temple the coffin is placed before

the image of the god and then various ceremonies commence, the length of

which is regulated by the rank of the deceased, as with us. After that

all the friends and acquaintances return home, whilst the relations turn

to the place where the body is to be laid. If the deceased has expressed

the desire that his body should be burned, the coffin is carried from

the temple to a small crematory a short distance away. It is there

placed upon a kind of stone scaffold, at the base of which a fire is

kept burning until the body is consumed. The men employed in this work

draw out the bones from the ashes by means of sticks, the remaining

ashes are placed in an urn, and carried to the tomb by the relations.

The burials of the poor outcasts from society are very simple. The body

is interred at once without entering in the temple, or else it is burnt

in some waste spot.

[Illustration]

SKETCHES IN JAPAN AND COREA.

1. JAPANESE PRIVATE ON GUARD OVER STORES.

2. COREAN FARMER AND COOLIE.

3. JAPANESE OFFICER.

4. LANDING PLACE AT CHEMULPO.

Japanese cemeteries are most carefully cherished spots, and are always

bright with verdure and flowers. Each family has its own little

enclosure, where several simple commemorative stones stand. Once a year

a festival for the dead is held. It is celebrated at night. The cemetery

is illuminated by thousands of colored fires, and the whole population

resort there, and eat, drink, and enjoy themselves in honor of their

dead ancestors.

Their incapacity for conceiving sorrow is one of the most characteristic

features of the Japanese. Perhaps this psychological phenomenon is due

to the influences amidst which this happy people have the privilege of

living. It is an indisputable fact that where nature is bright and

beautiful the inhabitants themselves of that particular spot, like the

scenery, seem to expand under its sweet influence and to become bright

and happy. Such is the case with the Japanese, who while yielding almost

unconsciously to these influences, deepen them by their eager pursuit of

all things gay and beautiful.

Japan is progressive enough that it has a compulsory system of

education, which is sure to be ultimately fatal to idolatrous religions.

There are more than three million children in the elementary schools,

not to mention those in the higher institutions. The ability to read and

write is almost universal among the people. Steady improvement is

observed from year to year, in the attendance and quality of the

government schools. The various schools in connection with the

protestant and Roman missions, which are numerous and influential are

also well attended and constantly growing. A large number also of the

wealthier classes have their children taught privately at home. The

average attendance of the Japanese children at the schools is nearly

one-half the total number of school age. Education is very highly

esteemed by every class, and all are willing to make genuine sacrifices

to obtain it for their children.

Penmanship is laid great stress upon, and there are many different

styles in use. The blackboard is used in all schools now, and the

artistic tendencies of the people are often well displayed on it. The

Arabic numerals are fast displacing the old Chinese system. A great many

of the methods of European and American teaching have been introduced

into Japan, and their use is constantly on the increase.

Universities and academies supported by the government have been chiefly

under the direction of American and European professors, and the western

languages are taught everywhere. In addition to this educational element

introduced into the country, there is that brought in by the large

number of Japanese young men who have been sent to the universities of

the United States, Germany, France, and England to complete their

education. In our own colleges these young men have ranked with the

highest as linguists, scientists, and orators. The influence that they

have exerted in Japan, where they have invariably taken a high position,

either officially or educationally, has been most beneficial to the

advance of learning in the island empire.

The excessive cleanliness of the Japanese, the simplicity of their

apparel, which allows their bodies to be so much exposed to the open

air, added to the salubrity of their country, might reasonably lead one

to imagine that they enjoy excellent health. Such however is not the

case. Diseases of the skin, and chronic and incurable complaints are

very prevalent. The hot baths are the great remedies for everything, but

in certain cases the aid of the physicians is enlisted. These form a

class of society which has existed from a very early date, and enjoy

certain privileges. They are divided into three classes, the court

physicians, who are not permitted to practice elsewhere, the army

physicians, and lastly the common physicians, not employed by the

government, who attend all classes of the community. As no formalities

used to be required for the practice of medicine, each member entered on

the career at his pleasure and practiced according to his own theories

on the subject. It is a profession often handed down from father to son,

but it is not a lucrative one, and is looked upon as an office of little

importance or consideration.

Medical men nevertheless abound in Japan, and in addition to recognized

practitioners, there is a class of quacks exactly answering to those of

our own country. Their science principally partakes of the nature of

sorcery. Where hot baths fail to produce the desired effect, they have

recourse to acupuncture and cauterisation. Acupuncture consists in

pricking with a needle the part affected, a mode of healing which has

been practiced from time immemorial in the east. After the skin has been

stretched sufficiently tight, the needle is thrust in perpendicularly

either by rolling between the fingers or by a direct gentle pressure, or

else by striking it lightly with a small hammer made for the purpose.

[Illustration: GÉISHA GIRLS PLAYING JAPANESE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.]

Cauterisation is performed with little cones called moxas, formed of

dried wormwood leaves, and prepared in such a manner as to consume

slowly. One or more of these is applied to the diseased part and set

alight. The mode of cauterising wounds has frequently the effect of

strongly exciting the nervous system, but does not seem to improve the

general health of the patient materially. The national university of

Tokio has a medical department in connection with it, which teaches

medical science according to our own western methods. Hospitals exist in

the large cities of Japan which are similarly equipped to those of our

own country, and are under the direction of physicians and surgeons,

most of whom are either Europeans and Americans, or Japanese who have

been educated in medical colleges abroad. Many young women of Japan have

come to America to take courses in nursing in our great hospitals and

training schools, and on their return to Japan are spreading the

knowledge they have thus gained.

[Illustration: JAPANESE ALPHABET, NEW.]

Music is one of the most cultivated of the fine arts of Japan, and

Japanese tradition accords it a divine origin. The Japanese have many

stringed, wind, and percussion instruments, but the general favorite is

the sam-sin or guitar with three strings. There are also the lutes,

several kinds of drums and tambourines, fifes, clarionets, and

flageolets. The Japanese have no idea of harmony. A number of them will

often perform together, but they are never in tune. They are not more

advanced in melody; their airs recall neither the savage strains of the

forest nor the scientific music of the west. In spite of this their

music has the power of charming them for hours together, and it is only

among the utterly uneducated classes that a young girl is to be found

unable to accompany herself in a song on the sam-sin.

In the department of jurisprudence great progress has been made.

Scarcely any nation on earth can show a more revolting list of horrible

methods of punishment and torture in the past, and none can show greater

improvement in so short a time. The cruel and blood-thirsty code was

mostly borrowed from China. Since the restoration, revised statutes and

regulations have greatly decreased the list of capital punishments,

reformed the condition of prisons, and made legal processes more in

harmony with mercy and justice. The use of torture to obtain testimony

is now entirely abolished. Law schools have also been established and

lawyers are allowed to plead, thus giving the accused the assistance of

counsel for his defense.

[Illustration: JAPANESE ALPHABET, OLD.]

The Japanese tongue has for a long time been regarded merely as an

offshoot of the Chinese language, or at any rate as being very nearly

connected with it. Study however, and the comparison of the two

languages has rectified this error. Japanese understand Chinese writing

because the Chinese characters form part of the numerous kinds in use in

Japan. This is easily understood when it is remembered that Chinese

characters represent neither letters nor meaningless sounds, which are

only the constituent parts of a word, but are words themselves, or

rather the ideas that these words express; consequently the same ideas

can be communicated although expressed by different words to any one who

is acquainted with the signification of the characters. The Japanese

language is very soft and agreeable to the ear, but travelers declare

that no one born out of the country could possibly pronounce some of the

words. They have a system of forty-eight syllabic signs, which can be

doubled by means of signs added to the consonants, which modify the

sound, and render it harder or softer. This system, it is said, dates

from the eighth century and can be written in four different series of

characters.

Japanese literature comprises books on science, biography, geography,

travels, philosophy, and natural history, as well as poetry, dramatic

works, romances, and encyclopedias. The latter seem to be little more

than picture books, with explanatory notes, arranged like other Japanese

dictionaries, sometimes alphabetically, but more often quite fancifully

and without any attempt at scientific classification. The poets of Japan

strive to express the most comprehensive ideas in the fewest possible

words, and to employ words with double meanings for the sake of typical

allusions. They also delight in descriptions or similes furnished by the

scenery, or the rich variety of natural productions with which they are

surrounded.

Of their older books on science none are of any value but those which

treat of astronomy. The proof of their progress in this science is

afforded by the fact that almanacs, which were at first brought from

China, have now become very general and are composed in Japan. The

Japanese, until western education began to have its influence over them,

had only a slight knowledge of mathematics, trigonometry, mechanics, or

engineering. History and geography are very fairly cultivated. Reading

is the favorite recreation of both sexes in Japan. The women confine

themselves to the perusal of romances, and those works on etiquette and

kindred subjects prepared for them. Every young girl who can afford it

has her subscription to a library, which for the sum of a few copper

coins per month furnishes her with as many books, ancient and modern, as

she can devour. Except for their titles, these productions seem all

formed on one pattern. In the choice of their characters and their

subjects the authors seem by no means desirous of breaking through the

narrow limits within which prejudice and custom have confined them.

[Illustration: SHINTO PRIEST.]

The ancient religion of the Japanese is called “Kami no michi,” way, or

doctrine of the gods. The Chinese form of the same is Shinto, and from

this foreigners have called it Shintoism. In its purity the chief

characteristic of this religion is the worship of ancestors and the

deification of emperors, heroes, and scholars. The adoration of the

personified forces of nature enters largely into it. It employs no

idols, images, or effigies in its worship, and teaches no doctrine of

the immortality of the soul. Shinto has no moral code, and no accurately

defined system of ethics or belief. The leading principle of its

adherents is imitation of the illustrious deeds of their ancestors, and

they are to prove themselves worthy of their descent by the purity of

their lives. The priests of Shinto are designated according to their

rank. Sometimes they receive titles from the emperor, and the higher

ranks of the priesthood are court nobles. Ordinarily they dress like

other people, but are robed in white when officiating, or in court dress

when in court. They marry, rear families, and do not shave their heads.

The office is usually hereditary.

After all the research of foreign scholars, many hesitate to decide

whether Shinto is a native Japanese product or whether it is not closely

allied with the ancient religion of China which existed before the

period of Confucius. The weight of opinion inclines to the latter

belief. The Kojiki is the Bible of Shintoism. It is full of narrations,

but it lays down no precepts, teaches no morals or doctrines, prescribes

no ritual. Shinto has very few of the characteristics of a religion as

understood by us. The most learned native commentators and exponents of

the faith expressly maintain the view that Shinto has no moral code.

Motoori, the great modern revivalist of Shinto, teaches with emphasis

that morals were invented by the Chinese because they were an immoral

people, but in Japan there was no necessity for any system of morals, as

every Japanese acted aright if he only consulted his own heart. The duty

of a good Japanese, he says, consists in obeying the commands of the

mikado without questioning whether these commands are right or wrong. It

was only immoral people like the Chinese who presumed to discuss the

character of their sovereign. The opinion of most scholars from America

and Europe, studying Shinto on its own soil, has been that the faith was

little more than an influence for reducing the people to a condition of

mental slavery. Its influence is weakening every year.

The outlines of Buddhism in its Chinese forms have been indicated in a

foregoing chapter. It is well, however, to take another glance at it

here in connection with its Japanese significance. This religion reached

the Japanese empire about the middle of the sixth century after Christ,

twelve centuries after its establishment. Buddhism originated as a pure

atheistic humanitarianism, with a lofty philosophy and a code of morals

higher perhaps than any heathen religion had reached before or has since

attained. First preached in India, a land accursed by secular and

spiritual oppression, it acknowledged no caste and declared all men

equally sinful and miserable, and all equally capable of being freed

from sin and misery through knowledge. It taught that the souls of all

men had lived in a previous state of existence and that all the sorrows

of this life are punishments for sins committed in a previous state.

After death the soul must migrate for ages through stages of life

inferior or superior, until perchance it arrived at last in Nirvana or

absorption in Buddha. The true estate of the human soul, according to

the Buddhist, was blissful annihilation.

[Illustration: JAPANESE TROOPS LANDING AT CHEMULPO. SEPTEMBER 9TH.]

The morals of Buddhism are superior to its metaphysics. Its commandments

are the dictates of the most refined morality. Such was Buddhism in its

early purity. Beside its moral code and philosophical doctrines it had

almost nothing. But in the twelve centuries which passed while it swept

through India, Birmah, Siam, China, Thibet, Manchooria, Corea, and

Siberia, it acquired the apparel with which Asiatic imagination and

priestly necessity had clothed and adorned the original doctrines of

Buddha. The ideas of Buddha had been expanded into a complete

theological system, with all the appurtenances of a stock religion.

Japan was ready for the introduction of any religion as attractive as

Buddhism, for prior to that time nothing existed except Shinto, of which

there was little but the dogma of the divinity of the mikado, the duty

of all Japanese to obey him implicitly, and some Confucian morals.

Buddhism came to touch the heart, to fire the imagination, to feed the

intellect, to offer a code of lofty morals, to point out a pure life

through self-denial, to awe the ignorant, and to terrify the doubting.

With this explanation of the field which Buddhism found and what it

offered, it is sufficient to say that the faith spread with marvelous

rapidity until the Japanese empire was a Buddhist land. This did not

necessarily exclude Shinto from the minds of the same people, and the

two faiths have existed side by side in harmony. Of late years, however,

the Japanese have not only been losing faith in their own religions but

in all others, and to-day they are said by many to form a nation of

atheists. This does not apply to the common people so truly as to the

educated ones, and of course is not nearly as general a truth as has

been often assumed. In no country of Asia has Christianity made such

rapid and permanent advance as in Japan. It is the only oriental country

having a government of its own in which there is absolute freedom in

religious belief and practice, and in which there is no state religion

and no state support.

[Illustration: STREET SCENES.—_From a Japanese Album._]

It has been for years the prophetic declaration of missionaries in the

east that the first nation to extend full liberty of conscience in

religion would be the dominant power of Asia. That Japan has fulfilled

this condition is not more remarkable than are her rapid strides to

political power since that country opened its doors to Christianity.

That Japan is sincere in its treatment of an alien religion is attested

by the fact that native Christian chaplains accompany her armies in

their marches against China, and these are representative men of the

Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches in Japan. There is

no doubt that the whole Christian element in Japan, foreign and native,

has been loyal to the country and in thorough sympathy with the

aggressive movement made by Japan. The sympathy between Corea and Japan

has been greatly strengthened by the active support rendered

Presbyterian missionaries in Corea by the whole Christian body in Japan.

The work of Mr. Johnson, a Presbyterian missionary in Corea, made him an

adviser of the king, and this assisted in leading the latter rather

towards Japan than towards China. The corner stone of Japan’s position

to-day is religious toleration. All that the Christian missionaries have

asked in Asia is equal privilege with other religions, and these they

have had in Japan. History is only repeating itself, and the results of

religious toleration in Europe centuries ago are being duplicated in

Asia in 1895.

The student of Asiatic life, on coming to Japan, is cheered and pleased

on contrasting the position of women in Japan with that in other

countries. He sees them treated with respect and consideration far above

that observed in other quarters of the Orient. They are allowed greater

freedom, and hence have more dignity and self-confidence. The daughters

are better educated and the national annals will show probably as large

a number of illustrious women as those of any other country in Asia. In

these last days of enlightenment public and private schools for girls

are being opened and attended. Furthermore, some of the leaders of new

Japan, braving public scandal, and learning to bestow that measure of

honor upon their wives which they see is enthusiastically awarded by

foreigners to theirs, and are not ashamed to be seen in public with

them. No women excel the Japanese in that innate love of beauty, order,

neatness, household adornment and management, and the amenities of dress

and etiquette as prescribed by their own standard. In maternal

affection, tenderness, anxiety, patience, and long suffering, the

Japanese mothers need fear no comparison with those in other climes. As

educators of their children, the Japanese women are peers to the mothers

of any civilization in the care and minuteness of their training, and

their affectionate tenderness and self-sacrificing devotion within the

limits of their knowledge. The Japanese maiden is bright, intelligent,

interesting, modest, ladylike, and self-reliant. What the American girl

is in Europe the Japanese maiden is among Asiatics.

So far our attention has been devoted exclusively to the Japanese

proper, that is, to those people inhabiting Hondo and the other islands

to the south of it. But a few words remain to be said about a people,

who, while forming part of the empire of Japan, yet differ essentially

from the great majority of the population. They are the Ainos, or the

original inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago, now only to be found

in the island of Yesso. These people are decreasing in numbers year by

year, and will soon be named with those extinct races of whom it is only

known that they have once existed. The Ainos, however, have had their

day of glory. In olden times, several centuries before our era, they

were masters of all the north part of the island of Hondo, and their

power equalled that of the Japanese; but little by little their

influence diminished, and they were driven before the Japanese, and

finally confined to the island of Yesso. There the Japanese pursued them

and a long war ensued, but finally reduced them to complete submission

about the fourteenth century. Since then the state of servitude in which

their conquerors have held them has been such as to stifle even the

instinct of progress within them, so that in the nineteenth century they

offer the image of a people hardly past its first infancy.

[Illustration: GROUP OF AINOS.]

The origin of the Ainos is unknown. They themselves are perfectly

ignorant of their own history, and they have no written documents

existing which could throw light upon their past. It is most probable

that they originally came from the far interior of the Asiatic

continent, for they bear not the slightest resemblance to any of their

neighbors in the tribes scattered along the eastern coasts of the north

of Asia. The Ainos are generally small, thick-set, and awkwardly formed;

they have wide foreheads and black eyes, not sloping; their skin is fair

but sunburnt. Their distinguishing feature is their hairiness, and they

never dress their heads or trim their beards. The little children have a

bright, intelligent look, which, however, gradually wears away as they

grow older. The dwellings are of the simplest construction, and only

contain a few implements for hunting and fishing, and some cooking

utensils. They are built in small groups or hamlets, never containing

more than a hundred individuals. They are a gentle, kindly, hospitable,

and even timid people. Fishing is their chief occupation, and hunting is

another profitable pursuit. There is no sign of agriculture, nor is any

breed of cattle to be found among these people. Dogs are utilized to

draw their sledges in winter. Their organization is quite patriarchal.

They have neither king, princes nor lords, but in every hamlet the

affairs of the community are vested in the hands of the oldest and most

influential member. Although the intelligence of the Ainos is very

little developed, they evince great aptitude for knowledge and eagerly

seize every opportunity for acquainting themselves with Japanese laws

and customs.

[Illustration: RATS AS RICE MERCHANTS.—_From a Japanese Album._]