TOKIO
The first view of Tokio, like the first view of Yokohama, disappoints
the traveller. The Ginza, or main business street, starting from the
bridge opposite the station, goes straight to Nihombashi, the northern
end of the Tokaido, and the recognized centre of the city, from which all
distances are measured. Most of the road-way is lined with conventional
houses of foreign pattern, with their curb-stones and shade-trees,
while the tooting tram-car and the rattling _basha_, or light omnibus,
emphasize the incongruities of the scene. This is not the Yeddo of one’s
dreams, nor yet is it an Occidental city. Its stucco walls, wooden
columns, glaring shop-windows, and general air of tawdry imitation fairly
depress one. In so large a city there are many corners, however, which
the march of improvement has not reached, odd, unexpected, and Japanese
enough to atone for the rest.
Through the heart of Tokio winds a broad spiral moat, encircling the
palace in its innermost ring, and reaching, by canal branches, to the
river on its outer lines. In feudal days the Shogun’s castle occupied the
inner ring, and within the outer rings were the _yashikis_, or spread-out
houses, of his daimios. Each gate-way and angle of the moat was defended
by towers, and the whole region was an impregnable camp. Every daimio in
the empire had his yashiki in Tokio, where he was obliged to spend six
months of each year, and in case of war to send his family as pledges of
his loyalty to the Shogun. The Tokaido and the other great highways of
the empire were always alive with the trains of these nobles, and from
this migratory habit was developed the passion for travel and excursion
that animates every class of the Japanese people. When the Emperor came
up from Kioto and made Tokio his capital, the Shogun’s palace became his
home, and all the Shogun’s property reverted to the crown, the yashikis
of the daimios being confiscated for government use. In the old days the
barrack buildings surrounding the great rectangle of the yashiki were the
outer walls, protected by a small moat, and furnished with ponderous,
gable-roofed gate-ways, drawbridges, sally-ports, and projecting windows
for outlooks. These barracks accommodated the samurai, or soldiers,
attached to each daimio, and within their lines were the parade ground
and archery range, the residence of the noble family, and the homes
of the artisans in his employ. With the new occupation many yashiki
buildings were razed to the ground, and imposing edifices in foreign
style erected for government offices. A few of the old yashiki remain as
barracks, and their white walls, resting on black foundations, suggest
the monotonous street views of feudal days. Other yashiki have fallen to
baser uses, and sign-boards swing from their walls.
Modern sanitary science has plucked up the miles of lotus beds that
hid the triple moats in midsummer. From the bridges the lounger used
to overlook acres of pink and white blossoms rising above the solid
floors of bluish-green leaves; but the Philistines could not uproot the
moats, which remain the one perfect feudal relic of Japanese Yeddo. The
many-angled gate-ways, the massive stone walls, and escarpments, all moss
and lichen-grown, and sloping from the water with an inward curve, are
noble monuments of the past. Every wall and embankment is crowned with
crooked, twisted, creeping, century-old pines, that fling their gaunt
arms wildly out, or seem to grope along the stones. Here and there on the
innermost rings of the moat still rise picturesque, many-gabled towers,
with white walls and black roofs, survivors from that earlier day when
they guarded the _shiro_, or citadel, and home of the Shogun.
The army is always in evidence in Tokio, and the little soldiers in
winter dress of dark-blue cloth, or summer suits of white duck, swarm in
the neighborhood of the moats. In their splendid uniforms, the dazzling
officers, rising well in the saddle, trot by on showy horses. On pleasant
mornings, shining companies of cavalry file down the line of the inner
moat and through the deep bays of the now dismantled Cherry-Tree gate
to the Hibiya parade-ground, where they charge and manœuvre. When it
rains, the files of mounted men look like so many cowled monks, with
the peaked hoods of their great coats drawn over their heads, and they
charge, gallop, and countermarch through mud and drizzle, as if in a
real campaign. Taking the best of the German, French, Italian, and
British military systems, with instructors of all these nationalities,
the Japanese army stands well among modern fighting forces. There is a
military genius in the people, and the spirit of the old samurai has
leavened the nation, making the natty soldiers of to-day worthy the
traditions of the past.
A large foreign colony is resident in Tokio, the diplomatic corps, the
great numbers of missionaries, and those employed by the Government in
the university, schools, and departments constituting a large community.
The missionary settlement now holds the Tsukiji district near the
railway station; that piece of made ground along the shore first ceded
for the exclusive occupation of foreigners. Besides being malarial,
Tsukiji was formerly the rag-pickers’ district, and its selection was
not complimentary to the great powers, all of whose legations have now
left it. To reside outside of Tsukiji was permitted to non-officials in
extra-territorial times only when in Japanese employ. Any who chose to
live in Tokio were claimed as teachers by some kindly Japanese friend,
who became responsible for the stranger’s conduct. Before the revision
of the treaties with foreign powers, which compacts became operative
July 17, 1899, a foreigner could not go twenty-five miles beyond a
treaty-port without a passport from the Japanese foreign office issued
after a personal application to his legation in Tokio. Each place which
he wished to visit had to be named, and immediately upon his arrival
at a tea-house, the district policeman called for the passport and
registered the stranger. Any one attempting to travel without a passport
was promptly escorted to the nearest treaty-port. European tourists had
a formidable list of rules of conduct which their ministers exhorted
them to observe—that they should not quarrel, deface monuments, destroy
trees or shrubs, break windows, or go to fires on horseback. The American
tourist was trusted to behave without such minute instructions, and at
Kobé could visit the Kencho and ask a permit to visit Kioto without the
intervention of his consul—a recognition of the freedom and independence
of the American citizen, and a tribute to the individual sovereignty of
his nation, concerning which a Japanese poet wrote:
“What are those strangely-clad beings
Who move quickly from one spot of interest to another
Like butterflies flitting from flower to flower?
These are Americans,
They are as restless as the ocean,
In one day they will learn more of a city
Than an inhabitant will in a year.
Are they not extraordinary persons?”
All the legations are now on the high ground in the western part of the
city near the castle moats. All legation buildings are owned and kept up
by their respective governments. The Japanese Government, having offered
to give the land if the United States would erect a permanent legation,
finally built and rented the present structure to the great republic
before it was purchased.
The English possess a whole colony of buildings in the midst of a large
walled park, affording offices and residences for all the staff. Germany,
Russia, France, and the Netherlands own handsome houses with grounds. The
Chinese legation occupied part of an old yashiki until a beautiful modern
structure replaced the “spread-out-house” of such picturesqueness, and
iron grilles succeeded the quaint, old pea-green and vermilion gate-way.
The show places of Tokio are the many government museums at Uyéno Park,
the many mortuary temples of the Tokugawa Shoguns at Shiba and Uyéno,
the popular temple of Asakusa, and the Shinto temple at the Kudan, with
its race-course and view of the city; but the Kanda, the Kameido, the
Hachiman temples, many by-streets and queer corners, the out-door fairs,
the peddlers, and shops give the explorer a better understanding of the
life of the people than do the great monuments. Here and there he comes
upon queer old nameless temples with ancient trees, stones, lanterns,
tanks, and urns that recall a forgotten day of religious influence, when
they possessed priests, revenues, and costly altars.
An army of jinrikisha coolies waits for passengers at the station, and
among them is that Japanese Mercury, the winged-heeled Sanjiro, he of
the shaven crown and gun-hammer topknot of samurai days. His biography
includes a tour of Europe as the servant of a Japanese official. On
returning to Tokio he took up the shafts of his _kuruma_ again, and
is the fountain-head of local news and gossip. He knows what stranger
arrived yesterday, who gave dinner parties, in which tea-house the
“man-of-war gentlemen” had a _geisha_ dinner, where your friends
paid visits, even what they bought, and for whom court or legation
carriages were sent. He tells you whose house you are passing, what
great man is in view, where the next matsuri will be, when the cherry
blossoms will unfold, and what plays are coming out at the Shintomiza.
Sanjiro is cyclopædic at the theatre, and as a temple guide he exhales
ecclesiastical lore. To take a passenger on a round of official calls, to
and from state balls or a palace garden party, he finds bliss unalloyed,
and his explanations pluck out the heart of the mystery of Tokio.
“Mikado’s mamma,” prattles Sanjiro in his baby-English, as he trots past
the green hedge and quiet gate of the Empress Dowager’s palace, and
“_Tenno San_,” he murmurs, in awed tones, as the lancers and outriders of
the Emperor appear.
First, he carries the tourist to Shiba, the old monastery grounds
that are now a public park. Under the shadow of century-old pines and
cryptomeria stand the mortuary temples of the later Shoguns, superb
edifices ablaze with red and gold lacquer, and set with panels of carved
wood, splendid in color and gilding, the gold trefoil of the Tokugawas
shining on every ridge-pole and gable. These temples and tombs are lesser
copies of the magnificent shrines at Nikko, and but for those originals
would be unique. On a rainy day, the green shadow and gloom, the cawing
of the ravens that live in the old pine-trees, and their slow flight,
are solemn as death itself; and the solitude of the dripping avenues
and court-yards, broken only by the droning priests at prayer, and the
musical vibrations of some bell or sweet-voiced gong, invite a gentle
melancholy. On such a day, the priests, interrupted in their statuesque
repose, or their pensive occupation of sipping tea and whiffing tiny
pipes in silent groups around a brazier, display to visitors the altars
and ceilings and jewelled walls with painstaking minuteness, glad of one
ripple of excitement and one legitimate fee. Led by a lean, one-toothed
priest, you follow, stocking-footed, over lacquer floors to behold gold
and bronze, lacquer and inlaying, carving and color, golden images
sitting in golden shadows, enshrined among golden lotus flowers, and
sacred emblems. In one temple the clear, soft tones of the bronze gong, a
bowl eighteen inches in diameter and a little less in depth, vibrate on
the air for three full minutes before they die away.
Up mossy stair-ways, between massive embankments, and through a shady
grove, the priest’s clogs scrape noisily to the hexagonal temple, where
the ashes of Hidetada, the Ni Dai Shogun, Iyeyasu’s son, lie in a great
gold lacquer cylinder, the finest existing specimen of the lacquer
of that great art age. The quiet of Shiba, the solemn background of
giant trees, the deep shadows and green twilight of the groves, the
hundreds of stone lanterns, the ponds of sacred lotus, the succession of
dragon-guarded gate-ways, and carved and gorgeously-colored walls, crowd
the memory with lovely pictures. Near a hill-top pagoda commanding views
of the Bay and of Fuji, stands the tateba of a cheerful family, who bring
the visitor a telescope and cups of cherry-blossom tea.
A colony of florists show gardens full of wonderful plants and
dwarf-trees, and then Sanjiro minces, “I think more better we go see
more temples;” and we go, spinning past the giant Shiba gate and up
the road to Atago Yama, a tiny temple on the edge of a precipitous
hill-top, approached by men’s stairs, an air-line flight of broad steps,
and women’s stairs, curving by broken flights of easier slope. A leper,
with scaly, white skin and hideous ulcers, extends his miserable hand
for alms, and picturesque, white-clad pilgrims, with staff and bell, go
up and down those breathless flights. The tateba, with their rows of
lanterns, where the nesans offer tea of salted cherry blossoms, that
unfold again into perfect flowers in the bottom of the cup, overhang the
precipice wall, and look down upon the Shiba quarter as upon a relief map.
A breathless rush of two miles or more straight across the city, past
flying shops, beside the tooting tram-way and over bridges, and Sanjiro
runs into Uyéno Park, with its wide avenues, enormous trees, and
half-hidden temple roofs. The ground slopes away steeply at the left,
and at the foot of the hill lies a lotus lake of many acres that is a
pool of blossoms in midsummer. A temple and a tiny tea-house are on an
island in the centre, and around the lake the race-course is overarched
with cherry-trees. Great torii mark the paths and stairs leading from the
shore to the temples above.
At Uyéno are more tombs and more sanctuaries, avenues of lanterns, bells,
and drinking-fountains, and a black, bullet-marked gate-way, where the
Yeddo troops made their last stand before the Restoration. Near this
gate-way is the sturdy young tree planted by General Grant. Far back
in the park stand the mortuary temples, splendid monuments of Tokugawa
riches and power, though the most splendid, here as at Shiba, have been
destroyed by fire.
When the Tokio Fine Arts Club holds one of its loan exhibitions in
its Uyéno Park house, Sanjiro is inexorable, deposits his fare at the
door-way, shows the way to the ticket-office, and insists upon his seeing
the best work of the great artists. The noble club-men contribute
specimens from their collections of lacquer, porcelain, ivories,
bronzes, and _kakemonos_. Behind glass doors hang kakemonos by the great
artists, and Japanese visitors gaze with reverence on the masterpieces
of the Kano and Tosa schools. The great art treasures of the empire are
sequestrated in private houses and godowns, and to acquire familiarity
with them, to undertake an art education in semiannual instalments by
grace of the Fine Arts Club, is a discouraging endeavor. It would be
more hopeful to seek the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the British Museum,
or Mr. Walters’s Baltimore galleries, which contain an epitome of all
Japanese art. At the Tokio Club, however, works of Sosen and Hokusai,
the two masters of the last century, are often exhibited. Sosen painted
inimitable monkeys, and connoisseurs of to-day award him the tardy fame
which his contemporaries failed to give. As a rule, foreigners prefer
Hokusai to all other masters, and they search old book-shops in the hope
of stumbling upon one of the innumerable books illustrated and sometimes
engraved by this prolific genius. His genius never lacked recognition,
and a century ago all feudal Yeddo went wild over his New-year’s cards,
each one a characteristic and unique bit of landscape, caricature, or
fantasy. His fourteen volumes of _Mangwa_, or rough sketches, and his One
Hundred Views of Fuji are most celebrated; but wonderfully clever are
his jokes, his giants, dwarfs, demons, goblins, and ghosts; and when he
died, at the age of ninety, he sighed that he could not live long enough
to paint something which he should himself esteem. After the visit to the
club Sanjiro takes his patron to the tomb of Hokusai, in a near-by temple
yard, and shows the brushes hung up by despairing and prayerful artists,
who would follow his immortal methods.
East of Uyéno stands the great Asakusa temple, shrine of one of the most
famous of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, the great place
of worship for the masses, and the centre of a Vanity Fair unequalled
elsewhere. Every street leading to the temple grounds is a bazaar and
merry fair, and theatres, side shows, booths, and tents, and all the
devices to entrap the idle and the pleasure-seeking, beset the pilgrim
on his way to the sanctuary. In florists’ gardens are shown marvels of
floriculture, in their ponds swim goldfish with wonderfully fluted tails,
and in tall bamboo cages perch Tosa chickens with tail feathers ten
and twelve feet long. Menageries draw the wondering rustics, and they
pay their coppers for the privilege of toiling up a wood, canvas, and
pasteboard Fujiyama to view the vast plain of the city lying all around
it, and on timbered slopes enjoy tobogganing in midsummer. Penetrating to
the real gate-way, it is found guarded by giant Nio, whose gratings are
spotted with the paper prayers that the worshipful have chewed into balls
and reverently thrown there. If the paper wad sticks to the grating, it
is a favorable omen, and the believer may then turn the venerable old
prayer-wheel, and farther on put his shoulder to the bar, and by one full
turn of the revolving library of Buddhist scriptures endow himself with
all its intellectual treasure.
The soaring roof of the great temple is fitly shadowed by camphor-trees
and cryptomeria that look their centuries of age, and up the broad
flagging there passes the ceaseless train of believers. One buys corn and
feeds the hundreds of pigeons, messengers of the gods, who live secure
and petted by all the crowds in the great enclosure, or pays his penny
to secure the release of a captive swallow, that flies back every night
to its owner. At the foot of the steps the pilgrim begins to pray, and,
ascending, mumbles his way to the altar. The colossal money-box, which
is said to gather in over a thousand dollars on great holidays, rings
and echoes well to the fall of the smallest coin. The sides of the temple
are open to the air, and the visitor may retain shoes and clogs, so that
the clatter of these wooden soles, the pilgrims’ clapping and mumbling,
mingle in one distracting roar.
Tame pigeons fly in and out through the open walls, and children chase
each other across the floor; but behind the grating candles burn, bells
tinkle, priests chant, and rows of absorbed worshippers clap, toss their
coppers, and pray, oblivious of all their surroundings.