THE
HEART QF
JAPAN

C'L'BROWNELL

THE STANFORD JAPONICA
COLLECTION
Donated from the Library of the
Rev. Arthur Willis Stanford, 1859f9£l
Yale Divinity School, 1885 ; Japan Mission
of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, 1886-1921.

THE HEART OF JAPAN

THE GARDENS OF THE OLD TEMPLE

THE HEART OF JAPAN
GLIMPSES OF LIFE AND NATURE
FAR FROM THE TRAVELLERS' TRACK
IN THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

BY

CLARENCE LUDLOW BROWNELL
Fellow Royal Geographical Society
Fellow of the Society of Arts
Member of the Japan Society of London

ALDI

NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMIV

Copyright, 1903, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, September, 1903, N

Third Impression

TO
CURTIS BROWN

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
WE lived so far from the travellers' track in
Japan, — often where no foreigner had been
before, — and had seen and heard so much of
what seemed to us humorous, tragic, quaint, or thought-
worthy, that we dared to believe sometimes that we were
getting glimpses of the real inner spirit of the native
life — a spirit far different from that of the tourist-worn
borders of this ancient and fascinating Land of the
Rising Sun.
Whether or not we are flattering ourselves unduly,
the five years that one of us spent in the interior of
Japan, sometimes teaching English in the Government
schools, sometimes idling, always living as the natives
live, were crowded with joyous entertainment.
In striving to reproduce some faint tint of this charm,
it seemed wisest to present each episode or impression sep
arately — here a personal experience, there a story heard
in some peasant's hut or among the temples, or from
some old warrior of the feudal days, and again a ven
tured comment, picturing different phases of the life of
Japan, one after another, as on a screen — seemingly de
tached, perhaps, yet knit together by the underlying
desire to present the native point of view.
Japan Society,
20 Hanover Ssuare,
London, W.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PA0H
I. KONO HlTO AND THE PRAYER-PUMP, ... 3
II. O Toyo San  14
III. Our Landlokd,  19
IV. In the Kindergarten Days, .... 29
V. The Honorable Bath,  43
VI. The August Departure,  50
VII. The Guest Who Could Not Go, ... 56
VIII. The Obedient Bed  61
IX. One Who Won  71
X. Thinking in Japanese,  76
XI. Bo Chan  88
XII. O Jo Sama,  100
XIII. Happy New Year, ...... 113
XIV. Those Who Sign Chits,  120
XV. The Censor and the Crafty Editor, . . 126
XVI. Bobby,  137
XVII. Playhouses, Players, and Plays, . . .141
XVIII. "Music,"  151
XIX. Blossoms always in Bloom  157
XX. Signs of the Times,  163
XXI. Bows and Ballots,  171
XXII. The Flowers of Tokio,  175
XXIII. In Trade  180
XXIV. Diving Belles  193
XXV. Amongst the Gods, .'.... 200
XXVI. On the Earthquake Plan, . • . .212

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

XXVII.

Missionaries and Missionaries,

. 221

XXVIII.

XXIX.

And so He Became a Saint,

. 242

XXX.

Kade and the Repeaters,

. 250

XXXI.

Kade Would Adventure,

. 253

XXXII.

What Happened to Allen,

. 256

XXXIII.

The Sportsman in Japan,

. 266

XXXIV.

The Father of the Village, .

. 276

XXXV.

The Theft of the Golden Scale, .

. 283

XXXVI.

XXXVII.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Gardens of the Old Temple .

Frontispiece

Itsukushima (or Miyajima), Aki .
Nichiyobi was Our Home Day
Japanese Nurses Carry Babies on Their Backs
The Game of " Kitsune " Fox
" Kitsune Ken .
Japanese Girls at Home
A Samurai with Prisoner
Gakunin ......
In Japan Everyone is Always Entertaining
A Geisha ......
Signs of the Times ....
Tokio 

Someone

Pagoda at Temple Horuji, Nara .
Goku Temple .....
The Gateway of the Miya, Shinto Temple
The Tera or Buddhist Temple
The Famous Dragon Fountain
Amida, the Buddha
The Effects of an Earthquake
Here Hideyoshi, the Taiko, Drank His Tea
The Old Stone Bridge
Night-fishing in Japan
Temple of Kiyomidzu, Kiyoto

16
56
9296 98
110138
152158160166 176 192
200 202204 206208 218
240 254274 284

THE HEART OP JAPAN

CHAPTER ONE
KONO HITO AND THE PRAYER-PUMP
GARDNER and I met Kono Hito the first time
• we went up the west coast. He was the thriftiest
man in Japan. Even taken together we did not
compare with him in thrift.
He lived near a temple less than one hundred " ri " *
from Kanazawa. If he had been farther from the tem
ple he would have been just as close, but he might not
have discovered the fact to the world, nor have wasted
away on account of his unlovely trait.
Kono Hito was a farmer. Like most native farmers,
he raised rice. To do so he had to have water, and
plenty of it, enough to cover thousands of " tsubo," as
the Japanese say. (A " tsubo " is the size of two mats,
or thirty-six square feet.) He owned some fifty fields,
lying side by side. They were small and fenceless ;
only low ridges of earth marked the boundaries of the
fields, and these ridges, when the rice had grown, were
lost to view. At the time of planting they would be
mushy, but at harvest time they would become dry and,
hard, so that a man could walk along them easily if he
had occasion.
Kono's way of cultivating them was to throw seed
rice — that is rice kernels in the shell — over the surface
1 1 ri = about 2j^ miles.
[3]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
of his ponds, where it sprouted, and wove into a tan
gled mat of deep, rich green. When the rice blades
were six inches long, and had well-formed roots, he
would disentangle them, and, gathering them in clus
ters, would plant them in the mud at two-foot intervals,
along rows two feet apart and parallel. This made the
rows regular, like the lines of a checker board, with a
bunch of rice wherever two lines crossed. The board
itself was all water at first, and had to remain water until
nearly time for harvest, for Kono Hito grew swamp rice
only. He said there was no money in upland rice. It
was too hard, and would not sell for the cost of grow
ing it.
A drought, therefore, was about as bad a thing as
could happen to Kono Hito. He must have water or go
to the money lenders, and once he went to them there
would be no end of going until they had possession of
his rice-fields. Kono Hito knew the fate of borrowers
full well, and to save himself from such calamity he built
dams above his fields to make reservoirs, he dug ditches
from one field to the other, and he observed the Bud
dhist fast days. In spite of all this, however, his crops
turned yellow earlier than those of his neighbor Sono
Hito, the rice grower on the opposite side of the road
— a highway that passed between their paddy-fields and
led to the temple and beyond.
" Trouble indeed ! " said Kono Hito as he came along
this road in his jin-riki-sha one day. " What shall we
do? " But though he spoke to himself of trouble, and
asked himself how to avoid it, he did not talk out loud.
[4]

KONO HITO
He sought to succeed by keeping more fast days, work
ing harder in his fields, building tiny shrines, like dolls'
houses, at his reservoirs, and bringing the household
economy down to such a fine point that Okusama, his
wife, dared not lose so much as a grain of rice in a
month. But with all his prayers and his skimping, he
had not water enough. His fields were brown when Sono
Hito's were still green. Trouble indeed!
Sono Hito, the meanwhile, was not worrying. He was
a patriarch in the " Home of Happy Husbandmen," and
never had bad years, even though he kept few fasts and
was not more than half careful of his reservoirs.
A lot of folk worked for him, however, and with
out knowing it, though they were glad in their uncon
scious service. They were good Buddhists of the Hong-
wan ji sect, passing daily to the grand old temple over
looking the sea. They offered alms to Amida, the
Buddha, and ere they offered they washed themselves,
as good folk do before they worship. Sono Hito, of
course, knew this, for he went himself to the temple
sometimes and took the preliminary bath just as the
others did. It was while he was taking one of these
baths that the idea which resulted in Kono Hito's
" trouble " had occurred to Sono Hito. This is the idea.
Sono's rice-fields reached quite up to the temple grove.
He would build a shrine in honor of the temple's god
a little this side of the gate of the temple, and near the
road. He would sink a well there. It would needs be
a deep well, it is true, but Sono's crops had been good
and he would not begrudge the cost. Having dug the
[5]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
well he would place a tablet before the shrine, bearing a
declaration of the dedication of his offering to the tem
ple's god on behalf of those who worshiped there. He
would give each worshiper all the pure water he might
desire for a bath, and would not charge him for it. All
the worshiper need do would be to pump and help him
self ! It was a grand scheme, such as only a man who
had seen the world could have evolved. Sono had been
a traveler. He knew " Yokohama, Nagasaki, Hakodate, hai,"
personally, for he had been there. He had seen mis
sionaries in Tokio and merchants in the treaty ports.
To one of the missionaries he owed his inspiration. The
reverend gentleman had shown him a praying water-
wheel from India. It was part of a collection the
learned preacher had gathered at various stations he had
occupied in the Far East. Sono Hito delighted in the
collection, but the praying-wheel pleased him most. If
he had had a place on his west coast rice-fields to set one
up he would have begged the missionary to get him one
from the ancient home of Buddhism.
Some days after he had seen this supplication-made-
simple apparatus, so much simpler than the man-power
prayer-wheels of the Tokio temples, Sono received an
invitation from one of the missionary's friends, a silk
merchant in Yokohama. This man wished to make ac
quaintances on the west coast, especially in Fukui and
Kanagawa Kens, where the silkworms spin well. Sono,
always ready " to see the new thing," to learn some
thing and to have a good time, took the train at Shim-
[6]

KONO HITO
bashi station that afternoon, and within an hour was
at " Yama Namban," as the jin-riki-sha coolies called
the merchant's house.
Sono Hito had a wonderful time at this foreigner's
home. The foreign dainties, the bathroom with the
water-taps, the high bed, the cooking-stove with its
chimney, were marvelous to him, but the thing that
tickled him especially was what he called the " midzu-
age kikai," or water-raising machine, not far from the
kitchen door. He played with this a half -hour steadily,
until he was all of a sweat and had flooded his host's
back yard and turned the tennis-court into a soppy
marsh. Nothing would do but he must have one to operate
at his home over on the west coast, and as the kikai was
not in stock at any of the Yokohama agencies, Sono
Hito's host promised to get one for him from San Fran
cisco. " I'll send it over to you as soon as it arrives," said
Mo-Hitotsu-Smith San. (M. H. S. S. was the second
Smith to come to Yokohama after Perry's departure.
The first Smith was merely " Smith San," but the second
was Mo-Hitotsu-Smith San, i. e., more-one-Smith Mr.)
He did better than that, however, he took the apparatus
over himself three months later, and showed his Japanese
friend how to set it up and how he could use it to fill a
storage tank so as to have water for emergencies.
So Sono Hito had men dig the well wide and deep.
There was not such another well in that part of the coun
try. Kono Hito, across the road, had nothing in the
m

THE HEART OF JAPAN
least comparable. He would not have spent so much
money on a well had he been never so rich, and in these
days he thought himself a very poor man indeed. It
grieved him to think that anything that cost money
should be necessary in his household. The sight of his
people eating made him ill, and the prosperity across the
road was like fire against his face. He could not endure
to look at it. But as Kono Hito suffered, Sono Hito
worked at his well shrine. The building was beautiful
in design as anything pertaining to Hongwanji would
be. Inside, over at one end, was a broad, shallow,
wooden tank for the bather to sit in, and, before the
tank, ample floor space, where the worshiper would have
room to use his scrubbing towel, such as all Japanese
carry with them. At the end opposite the tank was the
shrine, and beside the tank was a device strange to the
natives of the west coast. Sono called it a prayer-
machine. Over it was a panel bearing the Chinese in
scription, "Bonno kuno" ("All lust is grief").
A Yankee would not have thought of prayer in con
nection with this device. He would doubt if the Jap
anese used water prayer- wheels, and would have said
simply " chain-pump." But one may assert with con
siderable confidence that Yankee or other foreigner
never before had seen a chain-pump boxed in an image
of Buddha, with a third arm, in the shape of a crank,
reaching out from one side and projecting over a bath
tub. Sono Plito, however, knew all about the apparatus,
both from the Yankee and the west-coast view-point*
[8]

KONO HITO
He was the only person who did ; but, like Brer Rabbit,
" he wasn't saying nuffin'."
In fact, the two foreigners who did see this device
guessed right the very first time, like the young man
in the song, but they kept their thoughts to themselves.
Sono Hito might call it a prayer-machine, and each
bather as he sat in the tub might turn Buddha's third
arm with vigor and pray fervently, chanting his peti
tions in unison with the rat-tat-rat-tat-tattle in Buddha's
stomach; to the Yankee's mind the thing would be a
chain-pump still.
It was soon after this visit of Mo-Hitotsu-Smith San
that the patriarch of the Home of Happy Husbandmen
had conceived his scheme of joining piety and prosperity
in happy combination by giving faithful Buddhists a
cataract bath free and a chance at the prayer-machine
thrown in. He had to explain his device, of course, for
it was such a noticeable innovation, so he told the village
folk that the ancient peoples of China and India had
used these machines with august results. He even
threw off his kimono, sat himself in the tub, and showed
them how, after pious revolutions, the Divine Pleasure
would give them water from above.
The idea pleased everyone, unless it were Kono Hito,
for Buddhists are partial to cataract baths. They take
them the year round, even in winter, though possibly
they do not enjoy them then, at least not with obvious
hilarity. In Tokio, the capital, in spite of its modern
ization, the traveler sees native men and women standing
naked under a fall of water in some of the temple parks.
[9]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
In December and January this water is well down to
freezing point. The Japanese do this because they
know there is virtue in a cataract. Wherever a cataract
is, that place is sacred. If there is none folk often take
great pains to make artificial falls, especially in the
neighborhood of temples.
They are purifiers beyond all else, these " from-
heaven-descending " streams. Therefore, when Sono
San made his offer of a free bath — a cataract bath!
something the region about the beloved temple had not
known since the "O joshin" (the great earthquake),
which, hundreds of years before, had broken up the
country, letting out the upper waters and ruining their
plans of hoty ablution — he became the most popular man
in the ken.
Sono Hito was deeply grateful to his foreign friend,
who had showed him how to rig the pump so as to deliver
the water into a tank in the roof of the shrine. This
tank was a distributing reservoir. Part of the water
that the worshipers pumped into it poured down in a
stream on to the head of whoever might be working at
the crank, as he or she sat in the tub. The greater
part, however, flowed away into channels through the
rice-fields. As the pious came, therefore, and worked
the prayer-machine, they accomplished three things at
once, which, in the order of Sono San's idea of their
importance, would read — pumping, irrigation, and puri
fication. This explains how Sono Hito kept things
green, and why Kono Hito said " Trouble indeed ! "
Poor Kono Hito worried greatly over the early yellow-
[10]

KONO HITO
ishness of his fields. He did not understand how Sono
Hito managed. He never had been to Yokohama, and
he knew nothing of chain-pumps. He believed that
Sono Hito's piety had won favor in Buddha's eyes, and
that the gods had blessed the fields as a mark of divine
pleasure. If he could have a bath shrine he might win
favor too, but that would cost money ; and then to give
the baths free, not to charge even a one-rin 1 piece for
them — the thought was too painful.
Still, if Buddha would smile on him, it might pay,
thought Kono. It would pay — but to spend the money !
" Trouble ! " Therefore he devised how he might be
pious cheaply.
" Namu omahen de gisu," said the wife in the dialect
of her district when a man called one morning to see
Kono Hito. She meant he was not at home (in Tokio
she might have said : " Tadaima rusu de gozaimasu."
That would have conveyed a similar idea). So the man
went away.
Down the road he heard a voice calling " Korario,"
which to those who live in that region means, " Come
here." The man went in the direction of the call, and
found Kono Hito busy with a carpenter and well-digger,
discussing plans for an opposition bath shrine. Kono
Hito was in agony over the cost, but the workmen had
reached their lowest limit, and, with many bows, were
protesting that if they cut their price down even a
M mo " * further they would not have enough left to pay
1 One rin equals one-twentieth of a cent.
2 One mo = ^V °f a rm> *• e- Tihs °f a cent.
[11]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
for the air they breathed while digging. So Kono had
to give in.
Within a week the plans had materialized. There
was a well with a pair of buckets, a tub, and a shrine
dedicated to the use of worshipers. It was not a
cataract bath, nor was the well deep, but Kono Hito
hoped Buddha would take his poverty into account and
smile as sweetly as though the water fell direct from a
spring on the mountain side.
But Buddha did not smile. No one went to Kono
Hito's shrine bath unless too many had gathered at the
place across the way. " Without worshipers Buddha
will not smile," said the unhappy husbandman.
" Trouble, trouble ! What shall I do ? " This brought
him inspiration.
He took a station at a point that commanded a view
of the road, and whenever he saw those coming who
might be worshipers he went into Sono Hito's shrine, sat
himself in the tank, turned the crank, and prayed vigor
ously. This was a cunning scheme, for the pilgrims, after
waiting long for Kono to finish, would decide that such
fervent piety should not be disturbed, and, leaving the
zealot in Sono Hito's tub, they would cross over to do
as best they might with the two buckets. When they
had washed they emptied these buckets on the roadside.
But still Buddha did not smile on the fields of Kono San.
Kono San, however, as he ground and ground away,
taking twenty or thirty baths a day, chilling himself
in the cataract, and pumping three times as much water
[12]

KONO HITO
over Sono Hito's fields as he brought down on to his
aching poll, had much tenacity, and a belief that if he
could keep the pious to his side of the road long enough
he would receive the blessings his soul yearned for.
He pumped and prayed heroically, resting little and
eating less, while Sono Hito took a peep at him occa
sionally, and showed not the least vexation.
Kono San wondered at this, for he had been rather
fearful of discovery, and when he learned that the man he
was so jealous of had seen him and had said nothing, he
did not understand ; nor could he understand why Buddha
did not show some sign of favor. As he pumped, he
puzzled upon these things, and grew more and more at
tenuated. Overbathing, even with prayers, is not good. When
Junsa, the policeman, called Isha, the physician, to
Sono Hito's shrine one evening, and let his lantern
light fall on Kono Hito's face, the man of medicine said,
" Water on the brain." Two days later his family
buried him, and Sono Hito gave money for a stone
column to mark the resting-place of the dead man's
ashes. Why not? Kono Hito really had helped Sono
Hito a good deal.

[13]

CHAPTER TWO
O TOYO SAN
KONO HITO took us over one day to visit his
friends at Tatsumi, an interesting old place, where
we had a practical demonstration of the irresisti
bility of Japanese hospitality. We had intended to
spend only an afternoon, but our intentions might as well
have been non-existent for all that they availed. A
wooden image would have succumbed, and neither of us
was an image, though, in the light of native charm of
manner, we appeared to ourselves wooden enough. So
it was that that afternoon visit, under Tatsumi manipu
lation, expanded into days, and the days into weeks.
We were the only foreigners the villagers had ever
seen, and though it was in the days of passports, the
police did not ask us to produce our papers. They had
never had occasion to look up the law about " bar
barians." Tatsumi gave us a chance indeed to see Japan at
home. There we were near enough to native life to hear
the heart beat. We did not see much of Tatsumi's
owner, Hikusaburo, as he was away much, but his father
and his mother we came to know well, and also his chil
dren, his doll wife, and last, but far from least, the
sweet lady who had preceded her. O Toyo was her
name. Once, in Hikusaburo's absence, we paid a three
[14]

O TOYO SAN
days' visit to her home, a charming place, and again we
saw her close to Tatsumi — but not inside.
I recall her now, as she sat tapping the ashes from
her silver pipe in one of the small thatched houses that
stand just outside the blackened walls of that old home
stead. She was waiting for her kurumaya, the coolie,
who had dropped the shafts of his jin-riki-sha and was
taking a bowl of rice with some old friends at the gate
where he had served for many years. O Toyo San was
on her way to Biwa, and farther south, and had stopped
at the cottage that she might see her children.
There was a longing in her eyes as she sat half kneel
ing on the little square mat by the brazier, now arrang
ing the bits of charcoal with her tongs, and now taking
a bit of tobacco from the pouch beside her on the
matting. Her face was gentle and sweet to look upon.
When she smiled her eyes sparkled, and her parting lips
discovered pearly teeth that had never needed a dentist's
care. But her smile was hardly more than courtesy,
despite its gentle look, for a yearning was in her heart
that a woman of another race would hardly have con
cealed. She was a mother, but her children were growing up
almost as strangers to her. It is not her fault at all.
Her parents had arranged her marriage when she was
hardly in her teens, without asking her whether she
would or not. Obedience was the only law she knew,
and with filial piety (why is there not a good old Eng
lish equivalent for this term?) she had done her parents'
bidding, not questioning their choice. Her lot had been
[ 15 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
that of many another native woman, and she must wait
outside to see the children born to her in Tatsumi, a girl
and a boy.
The boy, 0 Bo Chan, as the house-folk call him,
is heir to the ancient manor. The master of Tat
sumi is lord of all the region round. He has owned
Hombo, the village extending northward, ever since men
first abode there, and the checker board of rice-fields
reaching far out towards the boundaries of Niu Gun,
one of the richest counties in the famous province of
Echizen. Those, however, who have long known Tatsumi and
the lord thereof doubt if much but the name of these
great possessions will be left by the time 0 Bo Chan has
come to man's estate. Bo's grandfather has been
" inkiyo " (in retirement) many years. Before he retired
from active life to devote himself to study and medi
tation he had lived like a prince, but well within his
income. When he handed over his estates to his son,
Hikusaburo, he had accompanied the transfer with much
good advice, which the heir had acknowledged dutifully,
saying, " I listen with respectful assent " and " Honor
ably so augustly is " frequently.
But Tatsumi's friends said " Neko ni koban " (" Gold
coins to a cat") when they spoke among themselves,
though in public they held their peace.
Since then their prophecy has been fulfilling rapidly,
but the inkiyo has not paid heed. His cares for this
life are over, and his days are sweet and peaceful.
O Kamisan, his honored wife, has seen, but she cannot
[16]

O TOYO SAN
speak. Indeed she is O Kamisan no longer, only Obasan
(grandmother). Her son has become the head of the
house, and her duty, as a woman's duty ever is in Japan,
is to obey, not to criticise. So Hikusaburo has had free
way. Never does anyone say no to him.
His father had given to him O Toyo San before he
was done with school. She was the daughter of a rich
relation, a sake brewer. The marriage, as is usual in
Japan, was purely a family agreement, without civil
or religious ceremony, and of course both houses were
happy over the event.
When the bride arrived at the home of her new
parents, dressed in silken robes, and her face painted
white as chalk, the place was thronged with guests.
Tatsumi had thrown wide its gates, and there was feast
ing for a week. The head of the house had dispensed
clam broth and mushrooms lavishly, and there was joy
throughout the whole of Echizen.
Later, when a boy was born, the old walls once more
overflowed with joyousness. Grandfather smiled at his
grandchild, and seeing that it was a healthy babe, put
his affairs in order and became inkiyo. Hikusaburo
aided him in this, for he was eager to take control. He
accepted everything with due humility, even to the patri
archal blessing and advice. Then he began the life he
had longed to lead. His home saw little of him, except
when he came in with a band of geisha and made merry
till the sun rose. Wherever he went the samisen began
to twang, and the moon-fiddle, the koto, and the drum,
to fill the air with sounds.
[17]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
One day Hikusaburo, who was now the father of two
children, fell in love. He had been in love before often
enough for a day or two ; but this time the feeling clung
to him, and hurt. Of course she was a geisha, for that
was the only sort of woman Hikusaburo had paid atten
tion to since he became lord of Tatsumi. He bought
her release from the master who had trained her, and
took her home, along with a dozen other of her sisters
in the art of spending money. He feared lest she might
be lonely.
Tatsumi saw wilder times than ever it had known be
fore. Sake was as plentiful as the rain in June. Hombo
hardly recognized itself. O Toyo San, Hikusaburo's
wife, only was unhappy. To see herself, the mother of
two children, supplanted by a doll not yet fourteen years
old, was too much even for her self-abnegation. The
cheerfulness which the native code commands to woman
was not in evidence in her countenance. Hikusaburo
spoke harshly, but she would not brighten up. Then he
sent her home. She has not been within the walls of
Tatsumi since. She would not enter though not even a
ghost were about the place.
So it was when last I saw her that she sat outside
waiting while the melancholy music of the samisen
floated out from the zashiki, where once she was mistress,
and where now my lord made merry with his doll.
The kurumaya said that possibly when my lord was
drunk she might see her children.

[18]

CHAPTER THREE
OUR LANDLORD
IT was at Tatsumi that we met Okashi Kintaro, who
subsequently became our landlord. He was down
from the north on a visit to some friends with whom
he had served in his fighting days. We saw him several
times, and so enjoyed the enthusiasm he displayed at
various feastings, to which we had the good luck to
receive invitations, that we besought him to let us go
along with him a way on his return.
" Too happy," he assured us. Such an honor he
would not have dared to hope for. And so with mutual
satisfaction we started on the journey up the coast.
He was a triumph as a guide, for he knew all the
interesting folk along the route, and presented us to the
" choja," or headman, of each village we passed through.
Literally we had to eat our way. On the last day, which
was the hardest, we had nine banquets. We were in
Okashi's native country by this time, and, as we learned
later, he had advertised our coming with a showman's
zeal. Such schools as were in session closed, and the
villagers turned out en masse to see " the red whiskers "
and " the man with green eyes " (all eyes that are not
brown are " green " in Japanese, and beards that are
not black are "red"). We fancied ourselves Crown
[19]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Princes on a tour, but the truth was we were only
curiosities. I shall never forget the breakfast of that last day.
It was at the house of a well-to-do farmer, Hyakusho
Sama, a friend of Okashi's, where we had supped and
spent the night. While serving us our host had noticed
that we liked a certain walnut sweet particularly, and
so the good wife had sat up all the night making more
of it for our breakfast. I had never eaten walnut
sweet for breakfast before, and I think I never shall
again. To be sure, it was only a side dish, but host and
hostess urged us so often to eat some of it that we began
to believe that it was the only thing oh the floor that they
wished us to eat. This notion was quite wrong, however,
for there was the regular breakfast of custards, salted
plums, mushrooms, fish, and rice. These were served in
courses on tiny wooden trays of lacquered wood, and in
cups and bowls that would have made a collector trans
gress the tenth commandment.
I should say, too, as I recall the appearance of the floor
whereon we sat, that the hostess had brought in a regular
dinner complete, after each course of the breakfast, for
I counted over ninety dishes in front of Hyakusho,
Okashi, Gardner, and me, and many bottles besides. The
largest dishes held the walnut sweet, more than I should
have cared to carry in a handbag, to say nothing of my
interior, but Hyakusho's wife was keen, and laid our
disinclination to eat these walnut slabs to our modesty.
This modesty she endeavored to overcome, and was so
assiduous in her urging that we made great effort to
[20]

OUR LANDLORD
comply. We munched and munched and munched,
mechanically and unhappily, until at last our hostess
purred — but, oh, dear !
Though some years have passed since that morning
at Hyakusho Sama's house, the muscles of my jaws ache
now whenever I think of the work I did. Our efforts
to please the good wife put us in rather bad form for
the series of functions Okashi had devised for our
progress into his domain. Our faces pained us so we
could not even ruminate, nevertheless we had to take
part in eight more banquets, each of them much like
the first except, for the walnut sweet. Had that ap
peared again that day I should not have written of
our journey — there would have been no time. I should
have " passed on," and, being in a Buddhist country,
should have been duly reincarnated, doubtless as a
huge walnut tree for little boys to throw things at.
•The ninth banquet was at Okashi San's own home. I
do not remember anything about it. When we awoke
the next afternoon we went out to see something of
the capital of Etchiu, on the west coast of Dai Nip
pon. It looks out over the North Sea, as they call
it there, toward the frozen Siberian coast. Here
Okashi Kintaro had a charming home, a dutiful son,
and a good thing. We were the good thing. We
rather enjoyed being a good thing — that is, we did
after we had recovered; the experience was so interest
ing. Okashi was a samurai of the old school, brought
up under the feudal system. He knew how to fight, of
course, as all gentlemen should in those days. If he
[21 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
knew anything else, he concealed it during the year we
lived with him. I do not count his knowledge of how
to make merry — to " paint the town red," so that his
evening environment looked as if it had been lacquered
with the hues of the setting sun; for such knowledge
was not remarkable. Every samurai in Japan could do
that, not to mention humble folk. He was quite regard
less of expense in this employment, being of gentle
birth, and, besides, he had no money. It is true the
Government had pensioned him when it abolished the
feudal system and " caste," but that pension was mort
gaged. Okashi Kintaro had spent forty years of it in
advance. At this time, thanks to what was known as " the most
favored nation clause " in Japan's treaty with the chief
countries of the world and to general bungling in the
Department of Foreign Relations, outsiders could
neither own nor rent property in their own names, except
in restricted districts of some half-dozen cities, such as
Tokio, Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, Nagasaki, Niigata,
and Hackodate. As we wished to study Japanese life, we
did not care to live in any of the foreign concessions,
where one never is quite in touch with real Japan. So
we had come to the west coast, to a province where no
foreigners had lived before and few had ever visited.
As we could not be our own landlord, we proceeded to
hire one. Okashi San then seemed just the man, and
we thought ourselves in great luck to secure him.
When we asked him he hailed the idea with delight.
He said he liked foreigners, and confided in a friend,
[ 22 ]

OUR LANDLORD
as we discovered, that he considered young ones were
better than a pension. It is only fair to say that he
was brave whenever there was occasion, and exceedingly
generous when he had anything to give. Often he put
himself to great personal inconvenience to do one a
favor. According to our agreement we hired him to hire us
as instructors in a school that offered wonderful facilities
for teaching the English language. Okashi rented two
beautiful old temples that had flourished in the Shugun's
time under his bounty, but now were empty. One was
for the school and one for our living-house. He lived
with his family in the school, and for the first month
his wife cooked for us, and both of them did our market
ing. At the end of the month we called for the bills.
Okashi San would not hear of it. " lye, iye! " (" No,
no ! " ) he would repeat. " August pardon deign, but
the school is a resplendent success, and I and my stupid
wife are overwhelmed with honor. It is we who owe
you." This went on for three days, until we began to believe
Okashi meant it, so we proceeded to put our money to
other uses. When it had thus been put, he appeared
before us one warm afternoon with a roll of thin brown
paper exactly nineteen feet six inches in length. (We
measured it along the edge of the "tatami."1) It
was a bill. Oskashi San made a bow for every foot in
the strip, and then began to read it to us. It was an
object lesson in Japanese minuteness of detail.
1 The mats on a native floor. They measure 6x3 feet.
[23]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Many of the items were in fractions of a mill. One
for pepper was 0.0153, or, as the Japanese read it,
" kosho is sen, go rin, sam mo." Gardner said the sam
mo (53ff of a mill) was unnecessary extravagance, as
we could have had quite enough for an even " is sen, go
rin. Three decimals was deep enough to go into such
hot stuff as pepper."
Okashi bowed eight times and said, " Sayo de gozai-
masu," which we interpreted gratefully to imply that
next month there would be economy in condiments.
When the reading was over we learned that the foot
ing of the nineteen feet was twenty dollars, or a little
over eight cents an inch. This was a surprise, for we
had expected nothing less than one hundred dollars,
estimating by the length of time it took to read from
the beginning to the end. As we had not twenty dollars,
Gardner wired a friend in Tokio and received thirty
dollars the next morning. We paid Okashi San the
twenty dollars, and he returned in half an hour with a
red seal and a stamp at the end of his scroll, showing
that the bill had been duly paid. We asked him if he
was sure everything had been settled for, as his bring
ing in a bill after so many protestations had not pleased
us, and we wished to clean our slate entirely while we
were about it.
" Indeed that is all," said our landlord. " It is every
thing, even the rent."
Upon this we devised how we should disburse what was
remaining out of the thirty dollars. We decided to
study the famous " No " dancing, the most ancient of
[24]

OUR LANDLORD
all Japanese ceremonies, and our money disappeared
pleasantly. The next day as we sat on the tatami, wondering if we
should ever learn what to do with our legs — most incon
venient appendages in rooms that have no chairs — the
" karakami " * slid apart and Okashi Okusama ap
peared, bowing multitudinously. She had a roll of thin
brown paper in her hand, like the one her husband had
brought in, and she pushed it gently towards us as she
bowed. " We squared all that up yesterday," said Gardner.
" Honorably different," said Okusama.
" ' Honorably different,' is it? " asked Gardner. " I
don't think so. Let's see it." And he unrolled it along
the tatami edge.
" By Jove ! you've added two feet," he exclaimed.
" And where's the stamp and the seal? "
" Not knowing augustly am," said Okusama.
After a lengthy discussion we discovered that the
twenty-one feet and six inches bill was a separate account,
quite distinct from her husband's and as just. Gardner
had to wire to Tokio for another thirty dollars.
We got into such a mess trying to straighten out this
second account, which persisted in mixing itself up with
account number one, that we decided to hire a profes
sional cook, and to let him pay cash for everything as
we went along. We gave him his money day by day, and
so escaped monthly bills. This really lightened the
'Sliding doors of paper, which are the partition walls between
rooms.
[25]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
work of our landlord and landlady greatly, but they
disapproved the change, nevertheless ; it had been
such fun ordering things at the various shops about
town. After this affairs went on smoothly for some time,
until one morning Okashi San handed Gardner a slip of
paper on which appeared the following items: Raw
fish, mushrooms, eggs, sake, Mile. Cherry Blossom,
Peach Bud, Chrysanthemum, Golden Plum, and Thou
sand Joys — a combination that suggested gayety.
(Not long before the public had voted for Thousand
Joys in the newspapers, and had elected her Grand Mis
tress of the geisha by a large majority.) As our home
and the school had been quiet the night before, we did
not understand Okashi's paper. He explained, how
ever. Some dear friends were leaving Etchiu for a long
journey, and he had been saying " good-by." As he
had no money he brought the bill to us. He had had a
jolly time and was sorry we had not been with him; he
would have asked us, but his friends, being strangers,
might have been unamusing.
Under the circumstances, Gardner had nothing to do
but go into his sleeve for the amount of the bill. In the
evening when he had recovered somewhat, he made re
marks about Oriental " cheek."
We had another example of this cheek later, after
we had laid aside our foreign attire in Etchiu, had put
on the native Japanese dress, and adopted the native
manner of living in everything else as well. A large
part of our discarded clothes we gave to Okashi San,
[26]

OUR LANDLORD
and to his son Kitsune. They took the suits to the
tailor's and had them cut down to fit. Kitsune San took
advantage of this opportunity of giving orders, and
told Shitateya San, the tailor, to make a neat morning
coat with a waistcoat to match. We hardly knew him
when he presented himself in his new attire, and handed
us the bill for all the tailoring. He said he would like
some new patent leather boots, too, to wear with the
suit, but to his sorrow Shitateya San could not make
them. We allowed him to wait for the boots.
On another occasion Gardner went to Niigata to see
some naval friends, and while he was there I ran out of
funds and wired him for sixty dollars. He and a friend
each sent thirty dollars. It so happened I was called
over the mountains before the reply came, and was gone
three days on business connected with the Government
schools. When I returned I heard from afar the wail
of a Japanese song. The voice sounded familiar, and
on going into the house I found Okashi San on his back
in some ashes near an American stove we had set up in
one of the schoolrooms. His legs and arms were in the
a'ir, and he was singing a Japanese song of Gardner's
composition: " Doitashi mashite abunaio isakijitsu go
men na sai," etc. Noisy, but altogether meaningless.
When he saw me he jumped up and did an old samurai
war-dance, explaining the while that the sixty dollars
had come all right, and that he had taken my seal and
got the money from the telegraph office.
He had not eaten anything, he said, for three days;
but sake ! — ah ! ah ! and he showed a snow-white tongue.
[27]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Then he untwisted his obe1 and handed me thirty-seven
cents, all that remained of the money Gardner and his
friend had wired. He said he had paid many bills and
had enjoyed himself, but we never learned exactly where
the money went to, though we had suspicions.
When Gardner decided to resign his professorship
and to leave Japan, there was sorrow in Etchiu. The
great folk of the province visited the house and brought
him testimonials and gifts. Together these presents
made a beautiful collection. About half an hour before
Gardner's jin-riki-sha was to start, Okashi Kintaro
came over with the glorious red bowl, which he gave with
many protestations of undying regard. Then he " bor
rowed " fifteen dollars. Girdle.

[28]

CHAPTER FOUR
IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
OUR life on the west coast, especially when we
were among the hills with the Noto folk (most
of whom had never seen a foreigner), helped
us to understand what Japan had been and to appre
ciate the gigantic work she has accomplished in recent
years. The difference between the Japan of to-day and
that of two-score years ago amazes one. She has done
in forty years much that other nations have been four
hundred in accomplishing. Her system for this ac
complishment was marvelous. She had, for instance,
the greatest kindergarten that ever was, greater than
ever will be again probably. It was a kindergarten that
included a whole nation, both young folk and old, but
chiefly it was for those who had attained their growth.
This kindergarten for grown-ups was unique. What
other country in the world ever reorganized its " So
ciety " over night, and ordered " everybody as was
anybody " to begin living on an entirely new plan at
once? That is practically what Japan did. She was
just emerging from feudalism, the feudalism of the Far
East, which represented a social order developed dur
ing centuries in which the outside world was shut away
by laws of extraordinary stringency. When Commo
dore Perry appeared with his fleet and demanded treaty
[29]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
rights, Japan awoke. The civilization of the West
fascinated her as she opened her eyes after her long rest,
and she determined to win for herself a place in the first
rank of the nations of the world. She has been ac
complishing her purpose, to the wonder and admiration
of all.
To understand how much she has done, one must con
sider what she was some thirty-five years ago, and com
pare her condition then with her condition now. She
was as feudal in 1870 as Europe was in 1500. She could
not then find entrance to the comity of nations. Now
she is a world power. Thirty years ago Japan knew
practically nothing of Western customs, though she had
a most elaborate ceremonial, one that provides for all
possible emergencies of her own social conditions.
Many of these ceremonies were of great dignity, im-
pressiveness, and even beauty, but they were quite out of
harmony with European customs, and she decided to
throw all overboard and to start again, to forget in a
day all she knew of that formal picturesqueness which a
thousand years had been developing. The samurai, or
gentleman, laid aside his swords, +hose symbols of the
spirit of Old Japan, which he 1 1 dearer than any
price in gold could purchase ; he gave up his silken
robes; cut off his cue; let the hair grow on the crown
of his head, and put himself into pantaloons and a
frock-coat. Here appeared some of the amusing features of the
transformation. He bought a silk hat as an aid to the
new civilization, a tile that settled down and wabbled on
[30]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
his ears as though coaxing his head to grow. This hat
he delighted to brush the wrong way. And in those
days anything did for a shirt, for the laundryman
had not arrived. When he did come he had to explain
what his business was, and why folks should patronize
him. Sometimes the man of New Japan went the frock-
coat one better, and put on a dress-suit whenever he went
forth. He was determined to prepare himself for the
time when his country should rank as high as any
European power, — should be the England of the
East, — and if clothes would do it, it should not be his
fault were that ambition not accomplished.
To the foreigner it looked a bit odd to see a man of
forty and a youngster of four toddling down the Ginza
of a summer morning in swallow-tails and chimney-pots,
but their action was significant. It meant that Old
Japan was dead. Sometimes these dress-suits had pink
linings. One man, a copper miner, who had prospered
in his business, gave to each of his coolies that had
served faithfully in the mines one of these pink-lined
suits as a New Year's gift. The coolies were delighted
with the garments' and wore them proudly along with
their " kasa " or tibrella-like headgear.
The disappearance of the old customs went on rapidly
— and what a spectacle the disappearing process offered
onlookers. In the transformation from old to new there
was much that was sad, much that was joyous, and a
little, necessarily, that on the surface was ridiculous.
Government had established its gigantic kindergarten
(and in Japan, the land of topsy-turvy, a kindergarten
[31]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
for men and women is not a contradiction), it had
brought foreign instructors from the world over, in
each department, and had sent a steady stream of stu
dents abroad to study in America and Europe. As these
students returned, the Government dropped off the for
eigners, until few indeed are in Government employ to
day — though many are living comfortably at home on
pensions after twenty years of service in the Land of
the Rising Sun. Japan owes them much, but there is
gratitude on both sides.
The " Kobusho," or Board of Public Works, which
went out of existence in 1885, had charge of bringing
in whatever Japan wished from the world outside. Mar
quis Ito, often Prime Minister, had charge of the Ko
busho in early days, and Viscount Hayashi, now Min
ister Plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James, was Ito's
right-hand man. The work gave them grand opportu
nity for learning foreign business methods, but the clerks
did not carry out our instructions as to orders going
abroad quite as a clerk in an English office would. One
order to the Kobusho's London agent read as follows:
Urgent. Send to Tokio at once as follows: —
1 Professor of Electrical Science.
1 Do. Mining.
2 Blast Furnaces.
And in due course the London agent forwarded an in
voice declaring that he had sent out for Yokohama,
Japan, by steamer, four items as per order, to wit —
[82]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
1 Professor of Electrical Science.
1 Do. Mining.
2 Blast Furnaces.
Both of the learned companions of the blast furnaces
are in England now. They did well by Japan, far bet
ter than the furnaces, which became part of a steel
plant that cost the country 6,000,000 yen ($3,000,000)
and came to naught.
The Kobusho was a busy place. Its duty was to
furnish the stuff — mental, moral, and physical — for
equipping some 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 people with
a brand-new civilization. It went in strong for scien
tists. It imported all the kinds there were. Tokio was
as a white ant-hill. Engineers swarmed over the city
and the country round. Government contemplated a
minute survey of the Empire, and bought a full equip
ment for a splendid surveyor-general's office in the cap
ital, together with a great number of instruments for
the surveying parties. The temporary office was of
wood, and there a large corps of engineers worked for a
year or so. Government had engaged them for six
years, or until the job should be over. It found the
work difficult and expensive. One night the office
burned down and its contents went up in smoke. To get
out new materials and then begin all over again " would
be a great bother," said the Kobusho, so Government;
thanked the engineers kindly for their work, paid them
in full for six years, and they returned to their respec
tive countries.
[38]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
The Government scheme of Europeanization included
cooking in its kindergarten course. It encouraged beef
steak and rice curry and bottled beer. This gave rise to
a unique lot of foreign signs and labels, such as
" Bottled by Pale Ale & Co." on an imitation of a famous
English stamp. Over one shop was this : " Rendezvous
pour la Garde Imperiale, sale for a plat of food, sale
for a glass of wine." Not far from this was the com
bination : " Literary Coffee House cafe de Billiard."
(Billiards, called " Tamasuki," is a delight to the Jap
anese, who are expert players. ) Another sign was : " A
Sole Manufacturer of Confection " ; and another,
though not referring to food, was " Iron Foundry " —
it was over the gateway of an Eye Infirmary. Basil
Hall Chamberlain, in his delightful " Things Jap
anese," has given many more.
Some of the signs that one used to see in Nagasaki,
an English publisher would not venture to print for
sale. Nagasaki is a seaport, the only kind of place in
Japan that possesses " dives," and these dives stated
their business frankly in language the dive keepers had
learned from sailors. These keepers had visiting cards,
equally frank, which they distributed smilingly.
With such misunderstandings of what the envied
Europeans held to be proper, as well as what they held
to be improper, were other misapprehensions. A not
unnatural digression from de rigueur was to ladle out
soup into finger-bowls. Finger-bowls are much the
shape of the pretty lacquered cups in which Japanese
serve their soup. The soup at a European food-feast
[34]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
might come to the table in a tureen, or a wash-basin, or
in anything that would hold soup. Indeed, there were
strange vessels on the Tokio tables at times, and the con
fusion as to the purposes of European earthenware
utensils gave foreign guests various sensations of mirth,
astonishment, and even horror.
In the early days of the kindergarten, foreigners
traveling in Japan went to the hospitals and to the
chemists for their beefsteaks and their beer. This was
because Japan was Buddhist, and the inhabitants gen
erally would have nothing to do with either of these
things until medical men introduced them. These
physicians and surgeons, with their ideas acquired
abroad, were shocking infidels in the eyes of the popu
lace at first. But when the " infidels " pointed out that
the large and fair and strong barbarians, who " knew
everything," ate beef and drank beer — and did not have
the cholera — the natives gave heed. Now one finds beef
and beer the country over, especially beer.
The telegraph pole began to appeal to the Japanese
about this time. They looked upon it as a sacred Shinto
emblem — a thing of beauty, an evidence of civilization
that should adorn their highways. Therefore they
started to cut down the cryptomeria, the glorious giants
that lined both sides of the great roads of the Empire,
to replace them with the poles, " after the foreign way,"
but foreigners protested so vigorously that the re
formers desisted.
It was hard for the Japanese to drink milk, however,
harder than it is for Americans to eat high game. But
[35]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
here, too, the medical man prevailed. Foreigners drank
milk, therefore the natives would. Officials set the ex
ample nobly. Every morning at eleven o'clock the milk
man called at the various Government bureaus and made
his ostentatious rounds. Not an official escaped. Each
one received his proper portion of the potent potion,
and drank it — a liqueur glassful — drank it like a man.
At the " Kaitakushi Jo Gakko," or Girls' School, be
longing to the Colonization Bureau in Sappuro, on
the northern island of Yezo, the young women early
learned to wonder at the ways of foreigners. The mis
tress of the dormitories made each drink a mixture of
egg and claret, like our claret-flip, every night before
retiring. The girls did not like it, but " no flip, no
futon " was the order, and up so far north as Sappuro
futon (quilts) are desirable at night.
With the coming of the railways and the street cars
there were many things for the grown-up kindergart-
ner to learn. One was time. They had had the most
indefinite appreciation of that. It was odd to them that
trains would not wait, that 12.0 would not do well
enough for the 11.45, or that the engineer could be so
absurd as to start up at 3.29 exactly. To the native
mind, " exactly " did not mean " exactly exactly," it
meant approximately, that is to within thirty minutes
or an hour, or on the same morning or afternoon.
The trams, too, were disobliging. They kept to a
regular route, and would not diverge for those who
wished to do a little shopping a quarter of a mile or so
round this corner or round that. The guards had a
[86]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
hard time of it trying to explain clearly that a train
was different from a jin-riki-sha. Guards at the rail
way stations had their troubles also. The natives per
sisted in leaving their clogs outside when entering cars,
just as they were accustomed to do when entering a
house. It was a great bother for the guard to get all
the clogs into the coaches before the train started. He
could not pretend to sort them, and pairs that should
have gone half-way only often went to the end of the
line. As soon as the dress-suit and the frock-coat had
established themselves in favor along with the white
gloves, which for some time all officials wore at their re
spective bureaus in the morning, they became imperative.
A certain General of the United States Army, who
chanced to be in Tokio at the time of the Mikado's
Chrysanthemum Show, learned the value in which the
Japanese held the frock-coat. (The show, by the bye, is
far and away the most wonderful of its kind in the world.
one of the single plants there has over six hundred
blossoms growing on it.) The General loved flowers,
and admired the " kiku," as the Japanese call the chrys
anthemums. He had an invitation to go to the show,
but his frock-coat was in Yokohama, and there was no
time to get it. Without one, nobody not possessing
wings could get in, and even then he would not be al
lowed to alight. So the General, not a thin man, bor
rowed a coat from one of the Japanese officials at the
Foreign Office. Thus arrayed he was a picture to re
member. The only wonder greater than that the Gen-
[37]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
eral got into that coat is that he was able to get out.
But he saw the flowers. After that, so long as he stayed
in Japan, he would not go across the road unless he had
a frock-coat ready for emergencies.
The Empress set the new fashion for women, and ap
peared at Chirini's Circus in magnificent " yofuku," or
foreign dress, which she had ordered from Berlin. She
had also a German Master of Ceremonies to educate the
court in the art of how to behave though uncomfortable.
Corsets and all came with the new apparel, and it was
rather difficult at first to persuade the wearers to use
them right side up, the Japanese figure being somewhat
of an inversion.
With foreign dress came the idea that a woman was
an individual rather than merely a thing, and that she
should receive consideration. In her native kimono she
had always stepped aside that the men might go first.
Men had gone first always in all things. But with the
aid of the yofuku Japan was able to illustrate the idea
that women should take precedence. Chivalry depended
on the petticoat, and as chivalry was a fine thing in the
West, the Japanese must have it. So in skirts the Jap
anese lady led the way, and received attentions that be
wildered her, for never before had she spoken to a man
other than her husband, except at the distance of several
mats, and with the greatest possible formality.
She had dancing lessons, too, for the Government saw
that balls were an institution in all foreign capitals, and
naturally it wished Japan's representatives to be pre
pared to enjoy them in the proper spirit. All the
[38]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
Cabinet Ministers, the Governor of Tokio, and the great
swells generally, each gave a ball every winter, and the
officials went as part of their duty, but it was hard work.
The floors of the ballroom were so slippery. It was
much more fun to take a run and to slide across them
as boys go on the ice than to spin about top fashion,
holding a woman round the waist for the first time, and
dancing with her publicly. It must have been strange
for a gentleman of Japan who had never so much as
touched a woman's hand before in his life, and had never
paid even a formal call on women-folk. Except with
geisha at some dinner or other, he had never had con
versation with a woman other than members of his house
hold, yet here he was with his arm round a woman he
had seen for the first time that evening, who was fully as
embarrassed as he, for she knew how to talk to other
women only, and he must whirl round and round to
music that was altogether unintelligible to him, and must
try to be entertaining at the same time. Truly Euro
pean civilization was wonderful!
The members of the staff at the " Gwaimusho," the
Foreign Office, had to pay particular attention to all
things relating to European customs, for they were to
make up the various diplomatic corps abroad. So they
learned French, frock-coats, dress-suits, and dancing, as
hard as they could. English they knew, of course, for
all the schools taught that more than any other one sub
ject. French they needed for the Court, and for diplo
macy, and to read the names of the strange things
they had to eat. They mastered these details with re-
[39]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
markable thoroughness, and to-day the Japanese diplo
mat is at his ease the world over — an interesting fact
when one considers all his country has had to learn to
teach him, and the short time she had in which both to
learn to teach and to do the teaching. He should be as
proud as one can be, righteously. A glimpse at the past
must make him so.
Less than twoscore years ago the provinces of Japan
were under great barons, or daimiyos, who in turn were
under the Shogun, the political ruler of the country.
The Shogun indeed acknowledged the Mikado as the
supreme ruler of Dai Nippon, but nevertheless kept him
shut up in Kiyoto in absolute seclusion, as a deity whom
it would be blasphemous even so much as to look upon.
So the people knew little of the Mikado except as an in
visible god. They knew the Shogun was the real ruler,
though they never saw him either, for when he. traveled
along any street or any road the advance guard closed
all houses, ordered everyone to go within and bow to the
ground, and forbade so much as peeping. The retain
ers would have cut down anyone whom they had so much
as suspected of looking out.
Shoguns had ruled as Mayors of the Palace, and
Prime Ministers and Generalissimos, since the middle of
the twelfth century, but an historian discovered that
formerly the Mikado had ruled actually as well as theo
retically. This, with the rise of Shintoism, the ancient
mythological cult of Japan, and the growing jealousy
of the Tokugawa family, which held the Shogunate from
1603 to 1867, and the arrival of the foreigners who
[40 ]

IN THE KINDERGARTEN DAYS
came in after Commodore Perry had made a treaty with
the Shogun in 1854, brought about a revolution which
ended in the disappearance of the Shoguns for good and
all, and the reappearance of the Mikado after an in
visibility of seven centuries.
Since then Japan has taught the whole world decora
tion. Japanese art is in evidence everywhere. How
innumerable are the homes it has helped to beautify!
Professor Chamberlain says : " In the days before Jap
anese art became known to Europe, people then used to
consider it essential to have the patterns on plates,
cushions, and what not, arranged with geometrical ac
curacy. If on the right hand there was a Cupid looking
to the left, then on the left hand there must be a Cupid
of exactly the same size looking to the right, and the
chief feature of the design was invariably in the exact
centre. The Japanese artisan artists have shown us that
this mechanical symmetry does not make for beauty.
They have taught us the charm of irregularity, and if
the world owe them but this one lesson, Japan may yet
be proud of what she has accomplished."
The Japanese developed the jin-riki-sha, which has
now come to be the ordinary means of personal trans
portation in the chief cities of the Far East, in China,
Straits Settlements, India, and even in Africa. They
lead the world far and away in biology. They are in
the very first rank of chemists, and their schools have
some features that other seats of learning lack. There
is, for instance, in the " Dai Gakko," or Imperial Uni
versity, in Tokio, a Chair of Sanitary Engineering,
[41]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
(formerly held by Professor W. K. Burton), and a chair
of Seismology.
Then, too, the Japanese have the largest battleships
afloat, and an army that is ready the moment it is needed.
On the march to Peking this army led, showing the way
to the Europeans, even to the Russians, and its com
missariat and hospital departments are the best the World
has seen — -much the best. In diplomacy and statecraft
the Japanese have triumphed, as recent treaties with
Europeans show, and, to crown all, only last year Japan,
by special treaty between Viscount Hayashi and the
Marquis of Lansdowne, became England's ally in the
East, so that she ranks now on an equal footing with
the first of the first-class European powers.

[48 7

CHAPTER FIVE
THE HONORABLE BATH
GARDNER made a study of baths while he was
in Japan. What he did not know about them
when he left the country was exactly enough to
make him a native bathing-suit. It is odd, though,
that he should have taken to the " baths " so enthusi
astically when one recalls his first experience in a Tokio
bath-tub. This is what he told some globe-trotters at the Yoko
hama United Club one day. They were asking for
points on " doing " Japan.
" I had just run up to Tokio to see a man in the Im
perial University," he explained. " He wasn't at home,
but a young student who was taking care of his place
greeted me most hospitably. He said : ' Oh, you are just
from a long voyage and have a letter for the professor.
I am a thousand times sorry that he is not at home. He
has gone to Nikko for a period of two weeks. But come
in, nevertheless. I am a most stupid and contemptible
substitute, but I shall do my idiotic best to explain
Japan to you.'
" He made a noble beginning, I assure you. The first
lesson was chopsticks. He taught me so well that I was
expert in half an hour. Then he fed me with seaweed
and raw fish. I'll tell you about that later. And finally
[43]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
he boiled me. I am perfectly serious — he boiled me.
This is how it was.
" The custom here, you know, is to bathe every after
noon. My young friend's bath-tub was out on the lawn.
It was the regulation Japanese tub, an oval arrangement
about as high as it is long and a foot longer than it is
wide. In one end there is a stovepipe running down
through the bottom. The top of this pipe is just even
with the rim of the tub. At the bottom there is a grate
which holds the charcoal fire that heats the water. The
idea is to get into the tub when the water is warmed a
little and then sit there while the temperature rises
gradually. This rising process is most effective.
" The Japanese can stand it until the thermometer
shows 125 to 128 degrees. So can I, now, after I've
been at it a year, but it's something to be worked up to
gradually. The first time you try a Japanese bath, 95
degrees will do much better. I was a little shy at first
about going on the lawn, but, as there was no one except
the student in sight, I ran out and jumped into the tub.
It was fine! the blue sky overhead and the wide, wide
world around me. ' This is luxury,' I said ; ' I shall ap
ply for naturalization papers to-morrow and settle down
for the rest of my life in Japan. I would not leave this
for heaven ' (later on I thought of another place).
And so I sat there thinking of the things I should do in
this perfect land, and of the fun doing them would be.
" But while I was musing the fire burned. I didn't
notice it at first; not until I observed something else.
That was that this young student's wife and her maid
[44]

THE HONORABLE BATH
had come out while I was in my tub and were busy
washing rice by the well, not far away. ' That's ex
traordinary inadvertence,' I said to myself, or words to
that effect ; ' why didn't that bally rat tell them that I
was out here in the tub? I'd like to wring his neck!
They'll be gone soon, I hope ! ' But I was hot. So was
the water, and it grew hotter ! ' They're not in a hurry
with that rice,' I remarked. ' Confound a country
where it takes them all day to wash rice ! ' I'd forgot
about its being heaven, you see. Then I said harsh
things — inwardly, of course — but it did no good. It
didn't cool the water, nor me, a bit.
" The water behaved badly. It didn't warm up
gradually to the boiling point, thereby allowing me to
simmer into mock missionary broth. It ' het ' itself up
by jerks. It would simmer gently, then drop about two
degrees, just enough to fool me into the idea that the
fire was going out, and that I should be comfortable,
and then it would buck up six points, and I'd have a
touch of Hades.
" And still they washed that rice. If I could have
yelled I'd have felt better, but I was afraid. I thought
they would turn round and see me. Then I tried to
sneak to the house, but just as I'd be half-way out, one
of them would look round, or look as if she were going
to look round, and down I'd duck. Every time I
dropped I felt my hide peel off, just as in the stories they
used to tell of fellows being skinned alive in the West
ern Plains by Injuns.
" All the water was too hot, but at the surface it felt
[45]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
like a red-hot ring bound to my body. I tried to stir
it up to equalize the heat, but motion was painful. I
felt as if I couldn't move. I hadn't enough resolution.
You see, I was nearly done. So I braced my feet against
the little partition that serves as a fender to the iron
pipe, and tried to endure it. The water grew hotter,
and I braced harder, until there was a crack and a splash.
The fender gave way, and my foot went plumb against
the sizzling pipe.
" It was just then that I forgot all about the clothes
that I didn't have on. I also forgot about the rice wash
ers, and that they could see me. I forgot everything,
in fact, except that I was boiled almost to death. As I
jumped, I slipped backward on the edge of the tub,
rolled round on the back of my neck for a second or two,
though it seemed like as many hours, got my feet on the
ground at last, and then rushed into the house just in
time to meet two American missionary ladies, who had
called not knowing that the professor was out of town.
" They didn't seem to be shocked. I had sense enough
left to notice that. Afterwards I heard that one of
them had remarked how red I was. Well, I was embar
rassed." After a boy had seen to certain orders, Gardner con
tinued : " Now, if you fellows want to get at the real
Japan — Japan au naturel — be sure and take plenty of
baths while here. The bath is the best point of view
that you can find to study human nature from. In the
treaty ports you will hear some statements about the
Japanese that are not accurate, so hold your judgment
[46]

THE HONORABLE BATH
in suspension, at least till you have made a tour of the
country, and have taken, say, one thousand baths. Then
let the folk you meet in Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagasaki
tell you all they know, and you will understand them.
" Some of the foreign residents can give you many
points, but others will supply misinformation. When
you've had your baths you'll be an expert. Japan, as
seen from the bath-tub, is the real Japan. If you don't
know enough to write a book when you come back it will
be because you were struck blind early in the visit.
You'll have chances for your camera, too, and you must
work at your sketch-book perpetually. Take notes, and
come back ripe for fame.
" It is remarkable that no one has yet * written up '
Japan from the bath-tub side. Even Lafcadio Hearn,
who is more sympathetic than anyone else, so far, among
the men who write about the country, pays small atten
tion to the tub. Basil Hall Chamberlain, however, who is
a mine of learning, has something to say on the subject.
He tells of the bathers at Kawarayu, near Ikao, who stay
in the tub a month at a time, with stones in their laps
to keep their bodies from floating when they are asleep.
He says the tub is one of two things the Japanese
haven't borrowed from other countries. The other is
their poetry. It hardly would be worth your while to go
in for the poetry to any extent. It would take you five
years to learn to read it, and twice as long to learn to
compose it yourself. But with hot baths it is different.
You can learn to take them in a few weeks ; if you will
profit by my experience, do not begin too hard or be too
[47]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
shy. As I said before, your native friends are likely to
be in water at 115 degrees to 120 degrees, that would
take the hide right off a beginner. I got so tough after
a few months' practice that I could sit still in water at
125 degrees. I couldn't move round, of course, and I
had to be very slow getting in and out, but I could stand
the heat even on my face.
" If I were you I'd get a student from the university
to act as guide. He would be trustworthy, and would
be good company too. Don't have much to do with the
professional guides at the treaty ports. They may
take advantage of you. When you've found a student
that speaks English well — and most of them do, though
in an amusingly formal way — start off for the west
coast. Travel the unfrequented routes as much as pos
sible, by that I mean routes that foreigners do not take.
You can find hundreds of charming places that few for
eigners have seen. And in many of these places there are
hot springs and mineral baths. You must see some of
the more frequented baths, of course, such as Atami,
Hakone, Ojigoku, and Kusatsu, even if they are on
beaten paths.
" If any of you fellows have rheumatism or gout go
to Kusatsu, 4000 feet up and about thirty miles from
Ikao. Kusatsu will cure everything but love-sickness.
That is the burden of the song the maids who rub your
back and take charge of your clothes sing to you while
you bathe. Always watch the people about you.
You'll see everyone in the neighborhood every day —
villagers and the visitors alike, men and women, young
[48]

THE HONORABLE BATH
and old, large and small, every morning and evening.
All come into the village square, disrobe, and let them
selves down gently into the huge tank of running
water. " Then the news of the day and the gossip of the
neighborhood are discussed from every view point.
Listen hard, and have your guide mix up in the talk as
much as possible. Get him to repeat to you all that he
remembers after the bath is over. Don't talk to him in
the bath, or the neighbors will crowd round to hear the
queer sounds you make. They will stop talking of their
own doings, which are what you wish to become familiar
with, and will talk about your skin and hair and eyes,
how large you are, and all that sort of thing. When you
go back to your hotel you can have a lesson in Japanese
from your guide, and incidentally teach him a little
English, which is what he's really after.
" One reason why these baths are good for studying
native life is that they are the only places where the
sexes come together for general conversation. The
Government says that the presence of women keeps the
men from talking politics too much, and though mis
sionaries say that the custom is shocking, the Govern
ment does not interfere. ' We have been bathing this
way for two thousand years without scandal, why should
we change ? ' the natives say ; ' there is no evil in the
custom to those whose minds are free from evil.' So
they ignore the pleadings of the ' sky pilots,' and the
children of Japan continue bathing in just the sort of
suits they wore when they were born."
[49]

CHAPTER SIX
THE AUGUST DEPARTURE
SPEAKING of feasts and funerals," said Gard
ner to the men who had listened to his words
on " bath," and were sitting with him at
One Hundred Steps the following day, " I saw an old
man roasting while his family sat round eating and
drinking and making merry. It was over on the west
coast, where cremation is much in vogue.
" It was a strange sight to me, for I had not been
in the country long and did not know anything about
the native funeral customs. The old man who was
burning had been our neighbor. He was Okashi's
father. That is how I happened to be at the funeral.
" He was eighty-eight years old. This is the lucky
age in Japan, because of the way the number is written."
Then Gardner made marks on the top of his tray with
his chopsticks dipped in shoyu — two little dabs point-
+ - 10 I 88
.« - 8 J
'& — rice-bulled-
ing up at each other for eight ; then, below, a cross for
ten; and below this two more little dabs. The column
then read eight, ten, eight. " Now if the four dabs
[50]

THE AUGUST DEPARTURE
were brought close to the cross in the middle, the eighty-
eight would change into the character ' rice.' The
dabs representing hulled kernels, and the cross, a bit
of the sieve, the symbol for plenty, so the man or woman
reaching the age of eighty-eight is held in particular
esteem, and my friend's funeral was more elaborate than
the usual affair because of his lucky age.
" Crowds came to the house, for everybody that knew
anybody knew Takaiyanagi Inkiyo. They came in and
bowed before the household shrine, where his name and
the age of such good omen were inscribed. As they
bowed they pressed their hands together as Christians
do in prayer. They reverenced his spirit, and by their
obeisance they implied that they held his memory in as
high esteem as they had held him when he was a living
man, but they did not worship, as some folk would wish
to have you believe. Then they laid their offerings on
the floor below the little image in its gilded case. Every
one brought something. The well-to-do gave money,
others cakes or wine, and others bamboo vases full of
flowers. Some of these were red and some were white.
" Meanwhile the good wife of the house was busy in
the kitchen preparing food for the guests. In neigh
boring kitchens, too, the women helped with this. In
my house cooking began early in the morning, and the
maids kept at it all day long. When the cooking was
over there was more food than ever I saw before: raw
fish, sugared fish, cuttle-fish, seaweed soups, and cold
boiled rice rolled up in seaweed, with a dab of horse
radish in the center.
[51]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
" The feasting lasted till noon next day, when it was
time for the ceremony to begin. Priests came from an
Hongwanji temple near at hand, and saw the old man's
body put away properly into a jar shaped like a huge
flower-pot, with fragrant leaves pressed in round about
it. Then they stood the jar over in the corner for the
night, and covered it with a white cloth, so that it looked
quite like a bit of furniture sewed up for the summer.
" When all was ready for the procession the next day,
the mourners put the jar into a white box, and placed
the white cloth over it as before (white is the mourning
color in Japan), and some white-robed attendants from
the temple carried it off on a stretcher on their shoulders.
" Just ahead of the jar walked a company of singers
with bells. They were in white also, in fact we were all
in white except Okashi Kintaro. He had on a wonderful
dress-suit, made after the foreign pattern, much too
large for him, and lined with pink silk. The trousers,
which he had rolled up some eighteen inches on each leg,
fitted as though they were on ' hind-side first.' His hat
was odd, too. It was of the good old stovepipe design,
straight at the sides, with a broad and flat brim. It
was fortunate for Okashi that he had ears, otherwise his
hat would have dropped down on to his shoulders. Alto
gether there was a homelessness and lonesomeness in his
. appearance, as he ambled along in this outfit, that was as
distressing as it was amusing. I had the honor to be
in the procession too. I wore a white duck suit, white
canvas shoes, and a white helmet, and rode in a jin-
riki-sha.
[52]

THE AUGUST DEPARTURE
" At the temple the bearers put the jar on an altar,
and a dozen priests chanted a service. While the chant
ing went on, each guest stepped forward in turn, and,
after bowing to the priests, knelt before the bier, and,
salaaming quite to the floor, took a pinch of powdered
incense from a bowl and dropped it into a charcoal
brazier, in which a tiny fire burned. Then with another
prolonged salaam the mourning guest returned to his
seat. This was a sort of ' good-by ' to the body and a
salutation to the spirit of the ancient gentleman.
" When my turn came I was so awkward as to put
my fingers into the brazier, thereby burning them, and
then, in confusion, I put too much incense on the fire,
which made such a smoke that the priests and I had a
coughing fit.
" Afterwards I explained that we always did that way
at home. We burned our fingers a little to purify them,
and the last man always dumped on all the incense that
was left so that the corpse wouldn't think we were un
generous. Since then I have been regarded in Etchiu
as one learned in holy things.
" After this ceremony and the sneezing were over we
took the dead man to a crematory, the only kind of
building in Etchiu that has a chimney. Fire was
already burning under the oven, and the younger
priests were setting a banquet more elaborate, if pos
sible, than had been served at the house. At one side
stood several tall vases of pure white porcelain full of
sake, and, near these, stacks of shallow drinking cups
of red lacquer.
[53]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
" We seated ourselves on small cushions laid about on
the soft matted floor. I sat like the others, kneeling on
my heels. Okashi San protested much. ' You are a for
eigner,' said he, ' and are doing me such an over
whelming honor by coming here to-day that I cannot
reconcile myself to the idea of your placing your august
body in a position so uncomfortable. We Japanese are
used to it. Augustly condescend to act in accordance
with the request which I have had the gross effrontery
to make ! ' I persisted, however, in sitting native fash
ion, and had cramps in each leg afterwards, much to the
amusement of the ot.her guests.
" Just then the priests took the body from the jar,
and, having wrapped it carefully in white, they put it
on an iron grating and slid it far back into the furnace,
though where all could get a good view of it. The
flames curled round it fiercely at first and then almost
tenderly, as though caressing it. Now and then they
would lash furiously and tie themselves in fantastic knots
about the limbs, which bent and unbent and quivered
as though life were not yet extinct and they could feel
the terrible heat.
" So while the venerable departed writhed and roasted
in the flames, we banqueted. It was grewsome, I con
fess, especially when one of the old man's family would
go to the oven and turn him over with an iron rod to
' do ' him better on the other side, or would straighten
him out so that the fire could get at him better. I had
always been in favor of cremation, but I'll be hanged
if I liked sitting there watching a man kink up and sput-
[54]

THE AUGUST DEPARTURE
ter while his relatives turned him as a chef turns things
on a grill.
" I had recourse to sake to steady my nerves. Sake
is about the strength of sherry, so that if you drink
enough of it, especially hot sake, you will produce an
effect. I produced one in the crematory. Every time
any of the guests offered me a cup, I took it, and
poured the contents into me. It is the custom to ex
change cups, you know. You rinse your cup in a bowl
of water provided for that purpose and offer it to each
guest in turn. You must do this once at least to every
one present, and you always receive a cup in return.
There were twenty-nine of us at the funeral, and I had
two drinks with each of them !
" I told my host that, when my time came, he must
see that I was properly cremated. He replied that it
would be too great an honor for him. ' You had much
better come to cook me,' he said. Finally, we decided
that which ever ' augustly departed ' first, the other
should burn him, and that the town should have sake
enough to swim in. We agreed, however, not to die be
fore we were eighty-eight.
" ' Just see how beautifully my father burns,' Okashi
San said. ' That is because of his lucky age.'
' Wait till you see me sizzle,' I replied, ' you will be
amazed. I intend to go off like a keg of powder.'
" Had either of us caught fire that afternoon he would
have burned with a blue flame."

[55]

CHAPTER SEVEN
THE GUEST WHO COULD NOT GO
JAPANESE callers come early and stay late —
particularly if you, the callee, are a foreigner.
They like to look at you. They are easy enough to
entertain, too, if you do not mind being stared at. But
they never go. At least no one but Dara Santaro ever
went, and he did so only once. He could not do so
again, for he did not come back. This achievement of
his (which was partly ours) emphasizes the rule. Here
is the story.
Dara Santaro was in the habit of calling on us on
Nichiyobi regularly. Nichiyobi is the seventh day of
the Japanese week, and corresponds to our Sunday,
though it has nothing to do with religion. It is rather
jollier and happier than other days, that is all. Gard
ner and I had enjoyed it in peace and restfulness until
Dara discovered us.
Nichiyobi was our home day. We were satisfied to be
by ourselves. It was always a comfort in anticipation
and a delight when it arrived. But Dara changed all
that. He was the nephew of our next-door neighbor, a
retired naval captain, who, though a cripple, was
courteous and kindly in the extreme. Moreover, he spoke
a. little English, which made him the more agreeable,
whereas Dara did not know more than three words.
[56]

'

THE GUEST WHO COULD NOT GO
When Dara made his first call we were still snoozing
on our " futon," 1 and he had bowed twelve times before
we had got the kinks out of our necks sufficiently to
bow back to him. Japanese pillows are excellent, once
one is used to them ; but they are hard on the neck the
first few years. Usotsuki, a young student who inter
preted for us, said Dara was extremely sorry to disturb
us. Dara's sorrow was manifested by a smile that
divided his countenance into hemispheres. Our own sor
row was as intense, but different.
We told Kintaro to make Dara comfortable and to
excuse us for a moment. Then we rolled out of our
" nemaki " 2 and into our boiling bath. When we came
out we were red, and breakfast was ready. Dara sat
with us on his shinbones and heels, with his feet crossed
under him, and nearly added another inch to his smile
in an effort to eat an olive with his knife. We did not
care much for olives for breakfast, but Usotsuki had
put them on the table and Dara San seemed to like them.
Generally, too, we discarded knives and forks and ate
with hashi like the natives, but this morning we brought
out the English implements, thinking they might inter
est our guest. They did. He ate everything, even but
ter, which is not usual among the Japanese. Indeed, he
speared the balls floating in the bowl of iced water and
swallowed them with an indrawn hiss, like the sound of a
small sky-rocket. He continued to eat until there was
nothing left but the utensils and a bottle of tabasco
sauce. He wept over that.
* Heavy quilts. 2 Kimono for sleeping.
[57]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
When Dara had done complimenting us he smiled and
said, 'O gochiso sama." ("Honorable feast, sir.")
From Usotsuki's previous explanation, which seemed
founded on antithesis, we judged that Dara was once
more expressing sorrow. Perhaps he had a stomach
ache. We were not surprised that he should have
one. But no, we had misjudged his smile- a second
time. " He say very glad too much eatings," Usotsuki ex
plained. " We did not know he was coming or we might have
prepared," Gardner remarked. This seemed to please
Dara greatly when it was translated to him, and he said
he would come again next Nichiyobi. Gardner told
him to come any day he liked, but Dara replied that
official duties hindered him except on that one day.
Then he sat and sat, we the meanwhile wondering
what to do for him. We showed him all our foreign
photographs. These interested him, and he did us the
honor to ask for the only pictures of our parents that
we possessed. He smiled when we said they were alto
gether too unworthy for us to think of presenting them
to an august guest, but he had a puzzled look about the
eyes. Then we showed him some books on Japan, over
which he chuckled like an infant. After that we took
some snapshots of him. The minute he faced the camera
his smile turned to haughtiness, and he looked like a
brazen image, which is the proper Japanese pose; but
when he saw the negative in our dark room a little later
[58]

THE GUEST WHO COULD NOT GO
he was tickled. We promised to send him proofs in a
few days, and he bowed and smiled, and stayed.
Usotsuki announced tiffin — always an elaborate meal
with us on Nichiyobi. Dara San stayed^ and was as
active as at breakfast. His compliments were loud and
long. As we were fond of his uncle we said nothing,
but we were eager for " our Sunday." We wanted to
lounge and stroll about the gardens of the old temple
in which we lived, and over into the older temple which
we were using as a schoolhouse. We wanted to chat
together of things at home, to finish our letters and be
at rest. But there were none of these things for us this
day, nor the following Nichiyobi either, for he remem
bered the promise which we had quite forgotten.
That second day of visitation was not a keen delight.
Then came a third and a fourth. What should we do?
We could not be rude. Not for a year's rent would we
have disturbed that kindly gentleman the captain. We
did not wish to flee. We wanted to have our home to our
selves this one day in the week. We must resort to
strategy. And, in fact, to use a slang expression, we
must put up a job on Dara Santaro. Though out
wardly polite and friendly, we had concocted and con
cealed in our hearts a wicked scheme. It was done in this
wise: As everyone knows, sake is the national drink of
Japan. Foreign liquors, like foreign tobacco, are
usually too strong for them. Dara knew nothing of
this, however.
After tiffin No. 4, we tried some foreign cigarettes on
[59]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
him, which he smoked until he was a little dizzy. " Ta-
baka yota " (Tobacco drunk) the natives call the sensa
tion. Then we gave him some of our sake highly sweet
ened. He had a curiosity to taste the foreign product,
and, like all Japanese, he liked plenty of sweetness.
We loaded his tumbler with syrups, but also with
liquors, and, I fear, nearly three fingers of " fire water,"
for it was a tall English glass, holding almost a pint.
Our glasses held a mixture of the same in color, but in
nocent of dynamite.
Our deception was base but successful. Dara smacked
his lips and smiled halfway round his head over the
first swallow. His face reddened as he continued to im
bibe, but he persisted with the courage of a sentenced
feudal lord in the days of " hara-kiri." By the time he
had emptied the glass, his head stuck up through the
top of his kimono like a poppy and his smile drooped at
the ends.
He articulated, " Taihen uroshi, gochiso sama, gomen
na sai, syonara," 1 and then sailed sweetly, with many
curves, out through our garden, his kimono following
like a comet's tail, and his clogs playing leap-frog and
filling the air with their wooden clamor.
Though we have felt guilty ourselves, we have never
blamed Dara Santaro that he did not return.
1 Very good ! Great feast, sir ! August pardon deign ! Good
bye!

[60]

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE OBEDIENT BED
GARDNER and I took a vacation of some three
¦weeks, and leaving Okashi and the west coast
made a hurried trip to Tokio. When we reached
there the city seemed fearfully European — such was the
effect of a few months' experiences across the Empire.
Tokio was now as strange for its foreign features as it
had been formerly for its native characteristics. We
were being Japanned.
We ran into some friends who were staying at the
Imperial Hotel, and they led Gardner into a discourse
and glimpses of native life. He began with the bed,
which is the starting point of Japanese as well as for
eign life, and the finishing point too.
" In Japan," he said, " you don't go to bed ; the bed
comes to you. It is much easier that way, and in Japan
the easiest way is the only way. That is why the country
is so popular with globe-trotters. Nor does it make
much difference what part of your house you may be in,
or of a friend's house, for that matter, or a tea-house
or an hotel ; if you are drowsy the bed will come in patty-
pat, and will spread out before you at a moment's notice.
" If you are visiting, your host will detect your in
clinations and beg you to honor his house by taking a
nap therein. Clapping his hands,*he calls out : ' Futon
[61]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
motte koi ! ' (' Quilts bring here ! ') In a moment his wife
is prostrate just outside the room, hearkening to the
august command. In two minutes she will be toddling
in with a bundle in her arms much larger than herself —
a huge, thickly wadded quilt, the ' futon,' which she rolls
out over the ' tatami,' the straw mattresses covered with
finely woven bamboos that are upon all floors in Japanese
rooms (excepting only the ' daidoku,' or kitchen).
That is the bed, and if you will condescend augustly to
arrange your honorable body on anything so unworthy,
Okamisan (the sweet little wife) will be bewildered with
the honor.
" She tells you so in a sweet voice as she kneels and
presses her face down against the backs of her tiny
hands on the tatami before you. You protest that the
honor is with you ; that it is indescribably rude of you to
venture to think of polluting so magnificent a futon.
Then, with a low bow, you stretch yourself out upon it.
Okamisan covers you with another futon, and doubling
up again, lisps: ' Oyasumi nasi ' (' Condescend to enjoy
honorable tranquillity '). Mine host says the weather
impresses him as being such as to encourage nap-taking
also, and soon he is on another futon lying peacefully
beside you, to be called when the bath is ready, for if it
is afternoon all Japan takes a nap and afterwards a dip
in the ' furo,' or wooden bath-tub, and has a rub down
by a maid.
" Supposing you to be a foreigner who has just ar
rived, and therefore a ' griffin,' in Yokohama slang,
y our first night in Japan is likely to be a new experi-
[62]

THE OBEDIENT BED
ence, especially if you are unfamiliar with the Far East.
You may very well begin right here in Tokio, the
capital of the Empire.
" You leave your shoes outside the door on entering,
for the delicate texture of the bamboo matting, which
is the upper surface of the tatami, would be torn by
boot heels. If your feet are chilled, you may wear heel-
less slippers, but the native way is the best; that is, to
go barefoot — a good preventive against colds and rheu
matism. If you like, you may wear 'tabi.' Tabi are
the native socks. They come just to the ankle, around
which they fasten with hooks, and are like mittens in
shape, having separate pockets for the great toes, just
as mittens have for the thumbs. Tabi are convenient,
because when wearing them your feet fit into the * zori '
(sandals) and ' geta ' (wooden clogs), which the Jap
anese wear out of doors instead of shoes, and you may
amble round as you please without the bother of bend
ing over to lace or to button or to pull on a pair of
boots. The slit in the tabi between the pocket for the
great toe and the pocket for the other toes is to admit
the thong by which the geta and zori are held to the
foot. " When your shoes are on one of the shelves in the
stand, where you would look for a hat-rack at home, a
maid will take you directly to your room along with your
luggage, for there is no office in which to stop to register.
There you will find little in the way of ornament, and no
furniture at all. If you like you may have some brought
in. There may be a ' scroll ' hanging in the alcove, and
[63]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
an inscription on a tablet, or a motto over one of the
cross-beams that hold the upper groove for the sliding
paper doors. The tablet is by a famous chirographer,
and bears his seal. Likely enough the sentence is a
maxim of Confucius.
" As there are no chairs, you will be glad that the
Japanese floors are not like ours, and that the tatami
are really soft. You will have ' zabuton,' or small
square futon-like chair-cushions to sit on, and you will
wish you had the chair, too. You will soon wonder what
to do with your legs and feet, which you will discover can
be very troublesome appendages. If only you could
hang them over somewhere, or even down a hole. But
there is no suitable hole. If you wish a table to use in
writing down your ' first impressions,' after the manner
of most griffins, the maid will bring you one a foot high,
which you may grow used to if you persevere ; but then
you will not be a griffin — you will have been graduated.
" If it is toward the end of an afternoon, you should
have a bath. You will find it amusing, refreshing, and
possibly embarrassing. When the maid has scrubbed
your back, it will be time for ' ban meshi,' or evening
meal. You will find the chopsticks unexpectedly easy
to manage. Soon after this, as you are tired, you are
ready for the bed to come to you.
" As you are not used to sleeping on the floor yet,
even a soft one, you had better order ' futon ni mai,'
or, if you are tender, * sam mai.' (' Ni ' means ' two,'
and * san ' or ' sam ' means ' three.' ' Mai ' is an auxil
iary numeral used when counting flat things.) You
[64]

THE OBEDIENT BED
clap your hands instead of pressing the button of an
electric bell, and from far back in the interior of the
house comes a drawn out ' Hai-i-i-i, tadaima.' 'Hai'
is only a signal cry, meaning that the maid hears you.
It does not mean ' yes.' ' Tadaima,' the dictionaries
say, means ' now,' ' just now,' ' at present,' or ' pres
ently.' In some tea-houses you will find it is the equiva
lent of the Spanish word ' maiiana.' Tokio maids are
quick, however, and in a moment the karakimi slide to
one side, and a little body is kneeling just beyond await
ing orders.
" You say you are sleepy and would like a nap, and
you ask for an extra futon. ' Hai kashikomari mashita '
('I listen with respectful assent'), replies the bright-
eyed maiden as she bends low. Then with an ' august
pardon deign ' she pushes the karakimi wide open, and
calls out, ' Elder sister, come here a moment. The
Learned One would sleep ! '
" Elder sister, who, by the way, is as likely to be the
younger of the two, comes along the veranda from the
kitchen, her bare feet sounding patty-pat on the pol
ished wood. She goes to the wall and slides open the
door of the ' fukuro dana,' or cupboard, which you
thought was the entrance to another room. There are
the futon folded up on a horizontal shelf, which divides
the cupboard so that it looks like the two berths of a
stateroom on board ship.
" ' You want two pieces, don't you, master ? ' she says.
And then with the sweetest little smile, and with her head
a bit to one side like a bird, she asks : ' Makura futatsu,
[65]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
desuka ? ' ' Makura ' is pillow, and she asks if you wish
two. " The futon are spread out one upon the other, and a
sheet perhaps is laid on top. Sheets, however, are new
to Japan. Then comes the big ' yagu,' or top futon,
which is longer than the others, and has sleeves like a
huge kimono. This is bunched up at the foot of the
bed, ready to be pulled over you when you have lain
down. " The small object at the head of your bed, which
looks like a cigar box on edge surmounted by a roll of
paper, is the ' makura.' No one need envy your first
night's experience with it. You will discover that your
head is as heavy as though it were solid lead, and, there
fore — which is all the comfort you'll have out of the
sensation — that it cannot possibly be empty. You will
likely dream of being beheaded or unheaded, and of
falling over the brinks of precipice after preci
pice. " In the morning your head will be stationary, for the
hinges of your neck will be too rusty to turn even a little
bit. It will take time to master the makura, but you
will like it when you are used to it. If you will ex
amine closely you will see that it is not a cigar box, but
a truncated pyramid, four or five inches high, hollow,
with a rectangular base and a groove on top, in which
lies a slender cushion stuffed with bran. Upon this
cushion elder sister binds a few layers of paper, which
are changed every morning.
" There is a drawer at one end of the makura, in which
[66]

THE OBEDIENT BED
you will find tobacco, extremely fine cut and of attenu
ated flavor. You may take ' ippuku ' (one puff), as
the Japanese say, with small danger of nervous prostra
tion. There may be one or two ' kiseru,' or pipes, in the
drawer. If not, surely there are several on the tray
beside the ' tabako ban,' the square little rosewood box
with the earthenware ' hibachi,' or brazier, in it, and the
' haifuki,' as the bamboo tube is called, which is a com
bination of ash-receiver and cuspidor. Bits of burning
charcoal are in the hibachi for lighting your pipe. The
haifuki is for ashes, burnt matches, and the other uses of
a cuspidor. " If it is not too late in the season, you will need a
' kaya,' or mosquito net. Ne san will have it unfolded
and hung up by cords at its four corners in almost no
time. It is always green, and usually has red bindings.
When you are inside you will be well shut off from the
evening breezes as well as from the mosquitoes, and will
not feel the need of the ' yagu ' or upper futon.
" You have watched these proceedings with amuse
ment, and now that everything seems ready you wonder
why the ' elder sisters ' do not patter back to the kitchen.
But all is not ready. They must take away the ' rosoku,'
paper- wicked candles, or the ' rampu ' — as the Japanese
pronounce lamp — and put the night lantern, the ' an-
don,' in its place. This is a large square white paper
affair, standing on a frame a couple of feet above the
' tatami,' and lighted by a taper that juts out over the
edge of a small saucer of oil of sesame within.
" While you are waiting and wondering, they are
[67]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
doing the same thing. They will bring the night lamp
as soon as you are safely under the kaya.
" ' Why doesn't honorable master undress ? ' they are
thinking, and you, ' Why the deucer don't those maids
go ? ' A Japanese friend explains to you, perhaps, and
you get him between you and them, and, partially dis
robing, slip under the kaya. Then he explains your
trepidation to the elder sisters, and all three have a great
laugh at your shyness.
" Should you wish to go out to look at the moon or to
study the weather probabilities for the morrow, or the
' asago,' which is Japanese for morning glory, before
retiring, elder sister accompanies you and stands pa
tiently by, humming an old love tune. She has a dip
per at the ' chosubachi ' (washing basin), and will pour
water for you to wash your hands, and will offer you a
brand new ' tenui ' (towel) after your ablutions, on
which to dry yourself. Ne san is not an imaginative
person. She guides you as a matter of course, and takes
good care of you. She sees you safely in bed, and
doubling up into a little bunch, she says most humbly:
' Oyasumi nasai.' Then sh-sh-sh-click, the karakimi are
pushed together, and you are in bed in Japan. You'll
rather like it after a month's experience.
" You will not find bedrooms in Japanese houses. But
wherever you go you will find futon are plentiful, and
wherever there is space for one, there you may have a
bed. The servants — men, women, boys, and girls —
sleep on the kitchen floor, or, more often, on the floor
of the room opening into the kitchen, in a long row, de-
[68]

THE OBEDIENT BED
pending on the size of the room and the number of
servants. " In a first-class tea-house or hotel, if you look in
early of a morning, you will find several rows of futon
reaching quite across the main room, each with a head
hanging out comfortably over the top of one of those
hollow wooden pillows. To the Japanese they are rather
neck-rests than head-rests, but to the foreign mind the
word rest is not applicable to makura. Except in the
case of young children, no two people are on the same
futon. " Using futon and the floor instead of bedsteads is a_
great saving of house space, and is convenient in many
other ways. The futon are easily aired, and may be car
ried about readily when moving. In case of fire they are
quickly packed up and put out of danger. They are
cheap, too, except those used by the rich, which are
filled with pure silk wadding and covered with heavy
silk. Even then they cost less than hair mattresses at
home. " As much of the exterior as well as of the interior
walls of Japanese houses is sliding doors, which grow
loose and wabbly with the changing of the seasons, from
wet to dry and then to wet again; and with the shak
ing of the five hundred earthquakes that occur each year,
there is no lack of chinks and crevices which, however
admirable for ventilation, are rather too cooling in win
ter, it behooves you to have heat if you would be com
fortable. The Japanese have neither open fireplaces nor
stoves. They make no attempt to heat their houses, but
[69]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
they try to keep their toes and fingers warm by means of
a ' kotatsu ' — that is a square firebox, sunk in the floor
with a wooden frame above it. This supports the futon
that are laid over it and prevents their catching fire.
There is a grating, too, just over the fire, something
like a grill iron.
" In winter the beds are arranged round the kotatsu,
and consequently for the first half of the night your
feet are in an oven, but as morning approaches, and the
charcoal fire dwindles, the oven changes and is more like
an ice-box.
" When you give a party to your friends, and, the
wee sma' hours approaching, you would fain retire, do
not hesitate to do so, but do not hint anything thereof
to your guests. That would be a sad breach of etiquette.
They own the house while they are there and all that is
therein. Your course is quietly to disappear to the re
motest apartment you have and call the bed to come to
you. It is good form to do this, for it allows the merri
ment to continue unrestrained. Should anyone ask for
ycu, the maids will say that you are just outside, and will
be in ' tadaima ' — a safe term to use. In the morning,
if your sake was good, you will find your friends sleep
ing sweetly on your spare futon, a bed having gone to
each of them by the courtesy of elder sister."

[TO]

CHAPTER NINE
ONE WHO WON
WHILE in Tokio this trip, we were onlookers
at a poker game once, as guests of a man of
rank. Though we did not take a hand, we
had a worthy night of it. The game was of a magni
tude we had never seen before — and in such simple yet
exquisite surroundings : a glorious place for the purpose,
or for any other purpose! Our friends were of some
distinction, too, and most interesting in their native
manner. The first words we heard were:
" ' Hitotsu, futatsu, mitsu, yotsu, itsutsu — aka ba-
kari ' (' One, two, three, four, five — red only.') Prince
Sakusama was counting at the end of the first jack-pot,
as he laid a straight flush, beginning with the ace of
hearts, on the low ebony table in one of the famous tea
houses on Sumida Gawa.
" I win ? " he asked, as he paused a moment and
looked round at his companions. Then, with a gentle
inclination to those about the table, " The chips
and Peach Blossom, too. Shall I put her in the
kitty?" " If your Highness did so," said a young Baron who
had just returned with an Embassy from London, " all
of us would play to lose, for, as your Highness has
deigned to declare, the rules of the game give the kitty
[71]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
to the player who is hit the hardest. To play poker to
lose would be to debauch its pristine purity."
" We must never do that, Baron, surely. Let us play
a round of jacks," replied the Prince.
He clapped his hands, and from the far interior of the
tea-house, beyond many partitions of paper sliding
doors, an answering, " Hai tadaima," long drawn, soft,
and musical, floated in, telling the prince that his sum
mons had been heard. A moment later and the paper
doors at the end of the room slid noiselessly in their
grooves and disclosed a bundle of daintiness on the
tatami just outside.
It was Peach Blossom, kneeling low, with her face al
most touching the soft bamboo matting, and her tiny
hands pressed palm down together just before her.
She besought His Highness to deign to pardon her
audacious effrontery in responding to the august sum
mons, and begged that if he would condescend to com
mand so unworthy a piece of stupid mud as she, he
would deign to consider her ready to receive the au-
gustly honorable orders.
" Sake," said the Prince, and as Peach Blossom closed
the sliding door and pattered away for the hot rice-
beer, His Highness tore the cover from a fresh pack
of cards and began to shuffle them. The Baron cut and
the game proceeded.
Five better poker faces were never gathered about a
table. There was not a sign of nerves in any one of
them. Each player skinned his hand and decided
whether to draw or to pass or to stand pat, but never a
[72]

ONE WHO WON
sign of his thoughts was given in his countenance. One
and all had the expression of a door-knob. Good hands
and bad hands come to a door-knob, but one can tell
nothing of them by looking at it.
These five men in the tea-house on the bank of the
Sumida Gawa, which flows through the heart of Tokio,
bore some of the best-known names in the Japanese Em
pire. Three of them had been " Daimiyo " and had
owned provinces as absolutely as anything may be
owned in this world. Their revenues had been counted
by the 100,000 " koku." 1 They had lived in royal
state, each with his castles and his army and board of
councilors. But Commodore Perry had changed all that, and now
these men were living in the capital with one-tenth of
their former incomes, but with no one to support or
worry about, outside their personal households.
Of the other two, his Highness, Prince Sakusama,
was one of the Shogun's family, which had ruled the
empire until the restoration in 1868, and the other was
of the samurai class. His fathers had been fighting
men for full two thousand years, as his family records
showed. He had studied abroad, was a graduate of
Harvard, an M. A. of Oxford, and a Ph. D. of Heidel
berg. It was said that he had carved his name on the
face of a German student who had been so unlucky as
to challenge him. He was a vice-minister now, and had
married the daughter of a merchant with much money.
(Before 1871 he would have been sentenced to " hara-
1 A koku is about five bushels (of rice).
[78]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
kiri " for mesalliance. ) All five had learned to play
abroad. They had been together in a Japanese club in
London, the presiding genius of which was their Consul-
General, who knew the great American game as well as
did ever a Kentucky colonel.
Now that they were at home again, they were only too
willing to meet wherever a chance afforded, and the tea
house of the Rising Moon knew them well. Its mistress
was glad to see them, for the players and their friends
were a hungry and thirsty lot, and did not spare the
kitty, out of which the chief loser had to pay all ex
penses. The round of jacks was under way when Momo-mo-
Hana came in with the sake. When sake is ordered in
a tea-house food is served with it, for the host knows
well the evil effects of drinking on an empty stomach,
and besides there is profit in comestibles. So Peach
Blossom was followed by a procession of similar blossoms,
each with a dainty morsel on china dishes and lacquered
trays. All these bearers of nectar and ambrosia were
geisha, and indentured to masters of various geisha
houses. Rumor had it that for certain sums of money,
doubtless much exaggerated, the indenture papers of
the more bewitching of these geisha had changed hands,
so that the sweet singers were come under the guardian
ship of men of noble birth, who in the olden days could
have cut in two the master of a geisha house and would
have been accountable to no one. Food and drink dis
appeared rapidly, and then the game went on, while
music and singing kept accompaniment. Finally came
[74]

ONE WHO WON
the last jack-pot of the last round. It bore out the
rumor as to the transference of indenture papers, for
when the last call was made and his Highness had reck
oned up the contents, he found Cherry Bud, Chrysan
themum, and Plum Blossom were added to his list, besides
Little Posy and One Thousand Joys. He had won the
whole procession. Each player laughed as though he
might have been himself the principal winner, exchanged
sake cups with all the others, and planned to meet again.
Looking out over the slow Sumida, and watching the
house-boats with their gay paper lanterns as the boat
man poled them along the shores in the light of the ris
ing moon, Sakusama dipped his sake cup in the basin,
and handing it to him who had lost just too little to be
entitled to the kitty, said:
" Next time your honorable luck good probably will
be. Graciously condescend a cupful of sake to imbibe."

[75]

CHAPTER TEN
THINKING IN JAPANESE
WHAT wonders a little word will work ! It was
the mellifluous " tadaima," for instance, our
old friend of the inns and the tea-houses, that
set Gardner and me at the language. It had followed us
on our trip to Tokio, and at the same time that it " set "
us it had been floating in from Okashi's yashiki for
quite two hours.
Something had happened to the " fire-box " that our
cook had contrived for the viands we needed on our
feast days, so we were waiting for our dinner. We were
hungry, we were in a hurry, and the hour was late, yet
no matter how much we clapped our hands all we elic
ited was " tadaima " — tadaima instead of sustenance !
Every four minutes of the two hours either Gardner or
I had called until the fingers of our right hands had
raised welts on our left hands' palms, and further
" popping " was painful.
We were " na sae ticklit," as a Drumtochty man might
have said, over the monotony of the responses to our
summons, but it was Sunday and we did not speak out
what we thought. I had found out something about
" tadaima " the first night I was in Tokio, and I had
described my impressions to Gardner. We both knew
that in the dictionaries it was opposite the word " im«
[76]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
mediately." Whoever juxtaposed it there may have
fancied for the moment that he was at work on a list of
antonyms. One could not well imagine a word more op
posite to " immediately " than " tadaima." Its location
in the dictionary was a good one from the antonymic
point of view.
" I'll tell you what we'll have to do, Partner," said my
good friend, as he clapped his hands for the fifteenth
time, rather mildly, and listened to the thirtieth
" tadaima." " Is it far? " I asked. I thought he was about to sug
gest a tea-house.
" No, I don't mean to go anywhere," he replied. " I
was about to observe that we must study the language.
This eternal tadaima disturbs the equanimity I would
maintain. My soul protests. So does my appetite de
partment. If we had learned Japanese we should not
be sitting here like a couple of blind claqueurs, we
should have proceeded to the kitchen at the first indica
tion of delay and have remonstrated so accurately, so
precisely, and so emphatically, that by this time we
should have been within sound of the surf at Sakaiko."
Sakaiko is a grand place for surf some days, and Gard
ner and I went there often, but to-day we should be late.
Yes, Gardner was right. If we had taken up the
language we should have been more comfortable inter
nally. Tadaima would be a lesson to us.
" True," I replied. " We must learn the lingo " ; and
straightway we began. There was no " tadaima "
about Gardner once his mind had determined itself.
[77]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Kitsune San had various books which he said kind lady
missionaries had loaned to him once at a Christian school
in Kanazawa. While Gardner went over for them I
made some tea. Then we began. The book we first
read was by an Englishman who held a unique position,
considering his nationality. He was Professor of Jap
anese in the Imperial University of Japan, in Tokio.
We also had articles by Captain Brinkley, R. A.,
editor of the Japan Mail, whose particular information
about Japan, and general information about everything,
filled us with enthusiastic awe; by Percival Lowell, who
would have us believe the Japanese have no souls; by
Lafcadio Hearn, who knows that Japanese souls are as
plentiful as any people's, though not always encum
bered with material bodies, and has written about them
with such rare illumination that others may see as he
does. The more illusive the object towards which Mr.
Hearn's mind turns attention, the more brilliantly he
seizes it and presents it to his readers. His books, how
ever, were not among those the missionaries loaned to
Kitsune. Mr. Hearn does not approve the missionary,
and says so frankly.*
We had, besides, an Etymology by Imbrie, which
gave us opportunity for learning by practical examples
* We had our widely known friends, Messrs. Kelly and Walsh,
of Yokohama, to thank for Hearn. Hearn, by the way, is no longer
Hearn. He has become a Japanese citizen by the only possible pro
cess, that of marrying a Japanese and taking his wife's name. He is
now Koidzumi Yakumo, and appeared thus on the list of professors
of the Imperial University in Kaga Yashiki, Hongo, Tokio, where
[78]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
the uses of particular words; and dear old Hepburn's
Dictionary, in sombre black, the result of many years'
unselfish labor by a Christian missionary who was also
a scholar and a physician. But the books that helped
us most were by the Englishman at the University, Basil
Hall Chamberlain. His " Colloquial Japanese,"
" Things Japanese," and " Handbook of Japan " (in
which Mr. Mason collaborated) were a joy — and are so
even to this, day. May his shadow never grow less !
We should not forget that we also had the Kobe
Chronicle and the Japan Mail, two papers each of which
sometimes said things of the other, but which every visi
tor to the Mikado's realm should read.
We found out a lot of things about Japanese that
very afternoon, things that everyone else knew prob
ably, but which we had not happened to think about —
to wit, Japanese is not even second cousin to Chinese,
though in the matter of loans Chinese had been a good
uncle. Japanese is an only child, and its parentage,
though certainly respectable, is doubtful. It has a
cousin in the Luchu Islands, and remote kindred possibly
in Corea, where there is some anatomical resemblance.
Gardner's sympathetic heart was touched by this ap
parent isolation, and he declared he would look into the
matter to see if he could not find relatives among the
Manchus or the Mongols. He is looking now.
he lectured on literature. He saw little of foreigners, but I am
grateful to recall one delightful evening spent in his company not
long after his arrival in Dai Nihon. He is now once more in the
United States.
[TO]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
We had thought to learn to write Japanese, but, after
a cursory survey of the ground we must needs go over,
we decided to devote ourselves at first to speaking. The
written language would take time — ten years, perhaps,
if we kept steadily at it twenty-four hours a day as I
reckoned it, though Gardner was inclined to say twenty-
six hours, and we felt it would be hardly wise to write
much at first. We could not have begun at the begin
ning anyway — not the kind of beginning that other
languages begin at, for there is no alphabet in Japanese.
We should have had to learn sets of syllables instead of
letters. There are two of these, and six ways of writing
the one more generally in use. Then there would be
four thousand ideographs to commit to memory (a num
ber said to be sufficient for reading the daily paper com
fortably), which the Japanese write in two different
styles, cursive and standard, as the spirit moves them,
and in various other ways if they happen to be men of
learning. These ideographs, Professor Chamberlain as
sured us, had three or four different readings, according
to context. Then in the next paragraph, to give zest to
his description, he declared that a printed page was
likely enough to have all the different forms of the
characters scattered over it pell-mell. Perhaps Gardner
was correct in saying " twenty-six."
With the spoken language there was hope. In the
first place it was agglutinative. A language that glues
on its case endings, and builds up its grammatical forms
of speech with little pellets of cement, cannot but be
hedonic. Ever since we were children we had looked
[80]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
forward to having an agglutinative language right
down where we could study it without getting hurt.
Now we had one. Then, too, to go back to my early
days, I recalled the cloud grammar had cast over my
young life — how my soul had protested against it, and
how it had come round at ten o'clock each school day as
though my soul had never spoken, or as though I had
no soul (I knew grammar had none). It was with grati
tude to Professor Chamberlain, therefore, that I read
this paragraph of his:
" A word as to the parts of speech in Japanese.
Strictly speaking, there are but two, the verb and the
noun. [" The only parts I ever knew!" I purred.]
The particles or * post positions 7 and suffixes, which
take the place of our prepositions, conjunctions, and
conjunctional terminations, were themselves originally
fragments of nouns and verbs. The pronoun and nu
meral are simply nouns. The true adjective (including
the adverb) is a sort of neuter verb. But many words
answering to our adjectives and adverbs are nouns in
Japanese. There is no article. Altogether our gram
matical categories do not fit the Japanese language
well." Another interesting feature was the honorific. That
was a delight second only to the absence of parts of
speech. In Japanese it seems all one's own things are
mean and vile, while the other fellow's are honorable,
august, divine. Gardner and I practiced this, and soon
each had the other on a throne while he himself groveled
before him most abjectly. We learned to apologize for
[ 81 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
living, and to say, " Yesterday I had the honor of being
rude to you," or, " To-morrow will your augustness con
descend to remind decayed me to buy some honorable
tea? " etc.
If I wished to look at the laundry marks on Gardner's
collars, to see if the august washerwoman was not a
thief, I should say : " May I turn towards your honorable
collars my adoring glance? " but if I wished Gardner
to look at something of mine, I should say : " O Gardner,
Prince, august glance deign towards my meretricious
cake of Persian healing pine-tar soap," or whatever it
was. It so happened that our kimono were quite alike, it
having been necessary to buy three pieces of silk to make
two robes — one piece, according to the new police regu
lations, not being sufficient to clothe a foreigner. Often
we mixed these up, and in trying to explain in Japanese
(English being taboo out of school hours) we had some
difficulty in establishing which was whose, and our
honorifics got into a mess. For the life of me I could
not say whether the robe in my hand was Gardner's
august mantle or my unmentionable rags. Gardner
would be in equal mystery as to what he held. Then he
would deliver himself as to the august forgetfulness of
the honorable idiot that had disarranged the room that
morning under the pretense of sweeping up, and would
say: " Well, let's wear them as they are. Your heavenly
attire may now have become by my possession even as
that righteousness which has not faith. Who knows?
[82]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
Let us label them somewhere inside the sleeve where the
mark won't show."
Having settled this we started in on a few sentences,
our daily commitment. Below are some samples I give
on Professor Chamberlain's authority. In the first line
are the Japanese words, which flow easily as Italian, and
with as little emphasis on syllables as there is in French.
The consonants sound as in English generally, and the
vowels as in Italian. Then comes the interlinear trans
lation. In the third line is the free English translation,
which shows how the idea hidden in the Japanese sen
tence looks when it appears in English. Not only is the
second line literal, but it represents, as accurately as
English words can, the order and sequence of the ideas
as they exist in the Japanese mind. After this tran
script of a native thought, it is not impossible to believe
that globe-trotting book-writers sometimes fall short of
perfect comprehension when they describe the workings
of the Far Eastern mind. A globe-trotter once uttered
at his guide whom he wished to peel some oranges,
" Boy, mikan kimono syonara," i. e., " Boy, orange
clothes good-by."
That the Japanese think differently from the Euro
peans is evident enough. Their mental machinery is
of another kind — the product of a different factory —
and put together on different principles of construc
tion. An occurrence that suggests a certain train
of thought to the European suggests a totally dif
ferent train of thought to the Japanese. His whole
intellectual inheritance is different, as well as his per-
[83]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
sonal experience, his environment during childhood, and
the habits of the society of which he has been a member.
His ideals spring from a different source, and his point
of view is vastly different. As one instance of this, the
absence of the words " you " and " I " is illustrative.
He has no real pronouns in his language, but when he
would present the idea of " you " he says " honorable
side " — the idea being that the side of the room at which
you sit is the place of honor, while he is humbly at your
feet. If he would say " I " he uses the word " wata-
kushi " (pronounced wa-ta-k-shi), which means selfish
ness. A study of the interlinear translations is the only way
to get at the " Japanese mode." Here are some speci
mens: O ki no doku Sama.
Honorable poison-of-the-spirit Mr.
I am sorry for your sake.
Go burei moshi-agemashita
August rudeness (I) said-lifted
I was very rude to you.
Kiite itadakite gozaimasu
Hearing wishing-to-put-on-the-head am
I wish you would be so kind as to ask.
O shiete itadakitai
Teaching wish-to-put-on-the-head
I wish you would be so kind as to show me how.
[84]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
Futo omoi-dashimashita
Suddenly think-have-put-out
It has just occurred to me.
Tsukai ga iki-chigai
Messengers (nominative) go-differ
ni narimashita
to became
The two messengers crossed each other.
Ienai koto wa nai
Cannot-say fact as-for, is-not
It can be said.
Watakushi wa agaru koto
Me as-for, go-up fact
ga dekimasen kara
(nominative) forthcomes-not because,
anata ga o
you (nominative) honorable
ide kudasaru koto ga
exit condensed fact (nominative)
dekimasu nara o
forthcomes if honorable
me ni kakarimasho
eyes on will-probably-hang
[85]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
As I cannot go to you, I can only see if you will be
so kind as to come to me.
Go busata itashimashita
August remissness (I) have-done
I have been sadly remiss about calling upon you.
0 j ama itashimashita
Honorable obstacle (I) have-done
Excuse me for having interrupted you.
Yoppodo beppin de
very extra-quality being
wa nai ka
is-not? Isn't she very pretty?
America no o kata
America's honorable side
An American gentleman.
We said these over and over on all occasions, and even
invented occasions particularly for their use. We
became so polite that we found it difficult to speak
truthfully, and if we had not known each other so well
we should have become suspicious indeed.
One day as I returned from a conversation class of
young Buddhists not far away, I heard Gardner recite
the following. I have it exactly, for I copied it from
the text-book he was studying:
" No, indeed ! having risen hands wash act even forth-
[86]

THINKING IN JAPANESE
comes not was. Washing basin's water altogether
freeze-sticking having finished how doing even doing
way is not was." My heart beat with joy. At last he
had learned to think in Japanese. Should anyone be
skeptical as to Gardner's accuracy, let him look in Cham
berlain's " Colloquial Japanese," p. 263, the second ex
ample on the page. Here it is:
Iya, mo ! okite te wo arau
No indeed having-risen hands panicle)6 wash
koto mo dekimasen deshita.
act even forth comes not was
Chozu bachi no mizu ga
Washing basin %7^7 water Ca^T
maru de kori-tsuite shimatte
altogether freeze-sticking having-finished
do shite mo shiyo ga
how doing even doing-way '"JSI*8
arimasen deshita
is-not was
And this is the translation :
" No, indeed ! When I got up, I couldn't wash my
hands. The basin was entirely frozen over, and all my
efforts to break the ice were in vain."

[87]

CHAPTER ELEVEN
BO CHAN
WE had not been with Okashi long before we
had made friends with the babies of the im
mediate neighborhood — more than two dozen
of them all told. Like other bachelors, we were au
thorities on infants. Our knowledge helped us with the
west-coast youngsters.
I am sure that it is true to-day as it was forty years
ago, when Sir Rutherford Alcock wrote : " And this,
I should say, is the very paradise of babies." Sir
Rutherford saw innumerable infants in the three years
he was in Japan, and as he was a physician as well as
a diplomat, and a keen observer, as all physicians and
diplomats should be, we may take it that he spoke the
truth. Judging by his descriptions of the native young
sters it is small wonder that Her Majesty's Minister to
the Court of the " Great Prince," or Tycoon, as for
eigners called the Shogun in those days, had to write
about them. He could not help it. His book, by the
way, " The Capital of the Tycoon," is a vivid and de
lightful picture of the days when Old Japan was passing
away and New Japan was nearly ready to come out of its
chrysalis. Japanese babies of the twentieth century are as irre
sistible as they were when Sir Rutherford played with
[88]

BO CHAN
them. They are precocious, too, for they are a year
old the moment they are born, and two years old the
first New Year's Day. That is the way the Japanese
reckon age ; counting the year in which the baby is born
" one," the next year " two," and so on. If you had
been born in Japan just as the temple bell was about to
strike twelve the night of December 31, you would be,
according to the Japanese mind, two years old at the
first clang. So in Japan, which to Europeans and
Americans is a very strange country indeed, one of a
pair of twins might be a year older than the other.
Some travelers to this wonderful Empire have said
that Japanese babies never cry. That is not quite true.
They have all the apparatus necessary — midriff, lungs,
and vocal cords in excellent condition, and they know
how to use these with effect; but nevertheless one sees
fewer tears in the Land of the Rising Sun, and hears
less wailing, than in other countries. This surprises the
visitor, for he notes the throngs of children in the streets
— the playground for almost all the youngsters in
Japan; he sees them tumble about so on their rather
awkward wooden clogs, falling often with a good hard
" splap " upon the roadway, that he wonders at hearing
only shouts of glee and laughter. The children bounce
about as harmlessly as rubber balls. Often when a
youngster stumbles and goes down with force enough
almost to dent the pavement, the stranger looking on is
sure there will be weeping. But the child is up again
quickly ; there is the little pause which children at home
use in gathering all their energy for a great boo-hoo!
[89]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
(the stranger knows it is coming and wonders what it
will sound like in Japanese) ; then, having recalled what
it was thinking about at the instant it fell, the young
ster scampers on as merrily as before. The fall had in
terrupted its train of thought for the moment, that
was all.
Because the children play all over the streets, one
needs a " betto " when one goes out for a drive in Japan.
A betto is a footman — a most appropriate word — whose
business it is to run on ahead of the horse to clear the
way. He does not lack for exercise, for his arms and
legs are busy from the time the drive begins until it is
over. Japanese children are not too careful, and their
mothers do not use nearly as many safeguards as do the
women of Western countries, but there are fewer acci
dents. This is rather a mystery, for every Japanese
house had an " engawa," or porch, and these porches do
not have fences along the edge to keep the infants from
falling off, nor are there gates at the tops of stairways,
when the houses happen to have stairways, yet I never
saw a Japanese child fall downstairs nor off a porch,
nor ever heard of anyone else witnessing such a mishap.
Another thing about these youngsters is that they are
all little gentlemen and ladies — merry and happy as
possible, but not rough. Mrs. Chaplin- Ayrton says this
trait may be more apparent than real, for a grown per
son judges of the roughness of children's play by the
number of things they break, and in a Japanese house
there is no furniture or bric-a-brac to destroy — not even
chairs, for the natives sit on the floor. On the other
[90]

BO CHAN
hand, Professor Chamberlain lays this gentleness to less
robust health, which means less animal spirits than
foreign children have.
However this may be, the health officers say that the
death rate for children is lower in Japan than it is in
Europe and in America. This is as it should be, in a
country where the houses are off the ground a foot or
two and have no cellars, and the air inside is as fresh
as it is out, where, too, in such places at least as Tokio,
everyone bathes and has a good scrubbing every day.
From 800,000 to 1,000,000 persons go to the public
baths of the capital daily, and there are tens of thou
sands of private baths besides. That is a good show
ing for a city with a population of less than two
millions. When an infant is seven days old, its mother displays
her talent as a barber by shaving its head all but a little
bit at the back of the neck right at the base of the
skull, like a goatee that had strayed from its proper
place. Later on she experiments with various designs
to discover the most becoming. Sometimes she shaves
the top and the rim, and leaves a tonsure; sometimes
she leaves only the rim; sometimes a scalplock and two
lovelocks only, but always she is picturesque. This
decorative shaving process continues until the youngster
goes to school, say, when he or she is five or six. Then,
usually, the mother also weans him.
A disagreeable result often attends this shaving among
the children of the lower classes; not serious at all, but
offensive to the sight. It is eczema. Heads are sometimes
[91]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
white with it. The only thing necessary for its disap
pearance is soap and water, but in this one case Japanese
superstition says " no " to soap and water. Poverty
and superstition are often hand in hand, and the Japan
ese poor have many superstitions. They believe the
cause of the eczema is the ill health in their children
working through the scalp, an outward and visible sign
of an inward and physical wickedness. This physical
wickedness they wish their children to be rid of, so they
encourage eczema. They wash the youngsters' faces and
bodies daily, but omit the shampoo. Professor Cham
berlain calls attention to the fact, anent Japanese
" topsy-turvydom," that young subjects of the Mikado
stop shaving when they begin to go to school instead of
beginning to shave when they leave off going to school.
After what has been said about the Japanese way of
reckoning age it may seem strange they should have
birthday celebrations, or else one might think it would
be consistent with the native custom for everyone to
celebrate his or her birthday on January 1. There is a
grand national birthday then, that lasts two weeks;
but apart from this there are two more birthday celer
brations — one on the third day of the third month
(March 3) for all the girls in Japan, and the other on
the fifth day of the fifth month (May 5) for all the
boys. The girls celebrate with a festival of dolls. At that
time Japan, which in many ways suggests a land of
dolls to the European, is " dollier " than ever. The dolls
are of all kinds and sizes, and often wonderfully life-
[92]

JAPANESE NURSES CARRY BABIES ON THEIR BACK

BO CHAN
like, so that at first glance one is not sure whether a girl
is playing with a real baby or a make-believe. Japanese
girls carry their dolls about on their backs snugly tucked
away inside their jackets, just as Japanese nurses carry
babies. And, oddly enough, nurses in Japan are often
not much older than the babies they are caring for.
Sometimes one sees a little nurse playing hopscotch while
a baby is fast asleep on her back, its tinj' head rolling
about this way and that, and its face looking upright at
the sun, so that were it not for the protection of its
thick eyelids the glare would make it blind.
The boys have a grand time of it, too, when their
turn comes. Then the air is full of fishes, as two months
earlier the streets were full of dolls. The fishes are
" koi," as the Japanese call them ; scientific men say they
are Cyprinus hcematopterus, but they are much better
looking than that, though fully as long. What they
represent is large carp swimming bravely against the
stream, as the parents hope their sons will do on reaching
man's estate. The carp, which are attached to the tops
of tall poles, are hollow, with wide-open mouths and
paper bodies, through which the breezes blow, keeping
them distended, and swaying to and fro in a movement
similar to swimming. Every house where there are boys
has these fishes up aloft, and many other carp down
below, but of a kind that taste better than paper ones
full of wind.
Hopscotch is by no means the only game Japanese
boys and girls have in common with children in other
parts of the world. They have battledore and shuttle-
[93]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
cock, archery, bouncing-balls, tops, kites, prisoner's base,
snow-man, snow-forts, puss-in-the-corner, fencing, peas-
pudding hot, flower cards, and many forfeit games.
Their battledores are works of art. In shape they
are something like a short paddle, but with square
corners instead of round. The face is smooth polished
wood, and the back ornamented with striking designs
in relief, often portraits of famous actors or heroes of
ancient times. The shuttlecock is the same sort of
thing that children use in this country. Archery is
popular, and many Japanese have great skill at it.
Their bows are strong. When not strung, these appear
to be wrong side out, so queerly are they bent. The
archery rules are rather formal as to the position one
should stand in, and irksome to the beginner unless he
is an enthusiast. There is a sort of baby archery, too,
for indoors, which is amusing. The bows are a foot and
a half long, perhaps, and the arrows about twelve inches
from notch to point.
Japanese girls and boys are as clever as jugglers with
their bouncing balls. While keeping them going they
play at posture dancing also, spinning round, clapping
their hands, passing a fan over and under the ball, catch
ing it on the backs of their hands and guiding it round
the room or along the road at will. They would make
pretty pictures for the cinematograph. Tops and kites
are much the same as those commonly seen in this coun
try. The youngsters have kite battles. They gum pow
dered glass to the strings and each tries to cut the other's
kite free.
[94]

BO CHAN
The Japanese have some wonderful tricks with tops,
and the visitor should be sure to see the top- juggler,
who can send his top humming up one arm, across his
shoulders, and down the other arm, on to the palm of
his hand, or out on to the end of a fan, whence he will
make it jump to the edge of a sword, where it will spin
as comfortably as though it were on solid ground. Then
he can also throw it so that it will return to him, boom
erang fashion. He can also spin two tops together, one
inside the other.
" Prisoner's base " is the same in this country, except
that the officer is called " oni," which means demon, or
ghost, or evil spirit. " Puss-in-the-corner " is an oni
also. " Blind-man's buff " is quite the same, but if you
play it with Japanese I may warn you not to say " come
here," in English, to anyone you may be trying to catch.
It will be all right to say in Japanese, " chotto oide "
(" come here a moment "), or " oide nasai " (" conde
scend to come here " ) . The person spoken to will not
" oide," of course, if he or she can help himself or her
self, but if you called out in English, " Come here," as
I know a foreigner did once, you may interrupt the
game. Come here (in Japanese characters written " ka-
me " ) means foreign dog. " Inu " is the word for
native dog, but the first foreigners in Yokohama, Ameri
can and English folk, always said " come here " to their
dogs, and the expression has become the native word for
dogs not Japanese.
Stilts, as the children use them in Japan, would not
be comfortable for European children, unless they were
[95]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
accustomed to go barefoot, as nearly all native children
go in Japan. The long, upright pole comes up between
the big toe and the next toe to it, and the whole length
of the foot rests on the round cross piece, which sticks
out like one arm of a cross. The foot really grasps
the pole monkey fashion, for, being accustomed to clogs
and the thongs that hold the clogs on, the Japanese foot
is much more prehensile than the European foot.
Experts say that Japanese " Checkers," which the
natives call " Go," is more difficult than our chess. All
classes of society play it a great deal. Good players
receive diplomas. There are grand national tourna
ments, and the championship brings great honor to the
holder and to his house. It is said that one family has
won this continuously for over one hundred years.
" Shogi," or Japanese chess, is a difficult game, but so
popular that even the jin-riki-sha coolies play it well.
Fencing is something that both men and women used
to study in the days of the "samurai" (knights) and
their two swords. It sounds much rougher than it really
it, for the long, two-handed bamboo sticks make a loud
report whenever they strike.
The Japanese call our cards " Turampu " (trumps),
and play them as we do, but they have a tiny set of
their own which they call " Hana " (flowers) and deal
round to the right instead of to the left as we deal. A
good lot of the fun comes in with the scoring ; sometimes
the losers receive a black mark on the face with a brush
for each point they lose. The winners give them these
marks on the face with India ink. At the end of an
[96]

BO CHAN
evening's playing the players look not unlike tattooed
savages. The game of " Jackstones " or " Knuckle-bones " is
common all over the country, but the children use small
bags instead of knuckle-bones, for Japan is not a mutton
country. Sheep do not thrive, because they have a
habit of eating bamboo grass, which is said to spoil both
their wool and the meat.
The game of "Kitsune" (Fox), is famous for the
quickness it demands. To play it, make a slip-noose
in the middle of a length of rope. Two players take
hold of this rope, one at each end, and hold it as nearly
taut as they can without closing the noose. The noose
is the trap. A third player, the fox, sits halfway be
tween those holding the rope, facing the noose. Just
opposite to him, on the other side of the noose, is a cup
or a cake, which is the prize. The fox's object is to
reach through the noose, grab the prize, and pull it
back through the noose before the two players holding
the rope can catch him in the trap. If they catch him
he pays a forfeit, if they do not he takes the cake.
Another game, " Hana, hana " (Nose, nose), has
something of the same idea in it as " Simon says
' thumbs up.' " Sight, in some cases, controls action
more effectively than sound, and in " Hana, hana " the
leader takes advantage of this by ordering one thing
while doing another. The other players are apt to fol
low the motions rather than the commands. For in
stance, the girl (or boy) at the head tips his nose with
his first finger, saying " Nose, nose, nose, eye ! " at the
[97]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
same time putting his finger to his chin. The others,
who must be looking into the leader's face, will find their
fingers on their chins too, unless they are alert. They
should have touched their eyes in obedience to the com
mand " eyes," if they would not receive an ink spot or
pay some other forfeit.
Still another " Hana " game is with a lot of loops
of string, and is perhaps as amusing to children as any
game can be. The loops must be made to order, one
for each player, and must fit tightly round behind the
ear and over the tip of the nose. If it is well on, and
the player's nose is not too retrousse, the loop should not
fall off without considerable effort on the player's part,
especially as he or she may use the face muscles only.
Other things being equal, the best face-maker works his
loop off first and wins.
Something similar to bobbing for apples is a game
that even grandfathers play along with their grand
children in Japan. It is easy there, because Japanese
floors are covered with thick, soft mats. Hard floors
would not do, for a part of the game is that the players
must walk on their knees. They hold their feet up
behind them, one in each hand, and toddle forward to
the center of the room, where a fruit or a cake or a bis
cuit hangs from the ceiling by a string. The idea is
to bite out a piece, but biting and balancing are diffi
cult to do simultaneously. There is much tumbling
about and rolling over. Hence the fun.
" Kitsune ken " is a forfeit game for two or for anjr
number of players. The players use signs for " kit-
[98]

z w63
Z o

BO CHAN
sune" (fox), " teppo " (gun), and " otoko " (man).
The idea of the game is that the man is mightier than
the gun, the gun more deadly than the fox, and the fox
more cunning than the man. Hands on the thighs or
hips is the sign for " otoko " ; one hand at the side and
the other higher and in front of the body, as though
aiming a gun, is for " teppo " ; while both hands up, one
at each side of the head like a fox's ears, is " kitsune."
The players sit facing each other, clap hands, or chant
a line of a song; and at the end of this each makes a
sign. If both signs are alike there is no count, but if
one makes the fox sign and the other the man sign, the
man sign loses and has to submit to the forfeit. So the
" man " sign wins over the " gun " sign, and the " gun "
sign wins over the " fox " sign.
Exactly the same in principle is the forfeit game with
one hand, where a closed fist represents a stone, an open
palm a handkerchief, and the first and second fingers
extended apart with the other two fingers and thumb
closed, represent scissors. Stone beats scissors, handker
chief beats stone, and scissors beat handkerchief. The
players chant as in kitsune ken and pop out their hands
at the end of the last word.
Thumb wrestling is a common game, too. Players
grasp hands with the thumbs sticking up, holding each
other by the four fingers only. The wrestling is a battle
of thumbs, each thumb trying to bend the other down
forward and hold it there.
There are some hand-slapping tricks, too, but one
would need a cinematograph to explain them clearly.
[99]

CHAPTER TWELVE
O JO SAMA
ONE needs to see Japanese girls at home if one
would know them, needs to live in the same
household with them the year round, for there
is much in their gentle lives they do not discover readily.
We had a roomful in a class over in Okashi San's, and
we saw much of the daughters of the families near by,
but I suspect we never quite fathomed " O Jo Sama."
The glimpses travelers have in Tokio and in the seaport
cities, where one sees native girls in the shops and the
bazaars, in the restaurants, in the streets, round about
the temple grounds, and in hundreds of the public
schools, do not tell the story.
It is better to go into the country to those wonderfully
picturesque and dainty homes along some old Kaido that
the railways have not yet molested, where life to-day is
the same that it was a thousand years ago. There one
may see Japanese character as ages of feudalism
molded it and left it hardly a quarter of a century
since, and may study the chief glory of this character
— Japanese girls.
Japanese men do not know chivalry, as Westerners
understand the word, but the womenfolk in twoscore
generations of repression are marvels of gentleness, dis
cretion, and absolute unselfishness. A life that would
[100]

O JO SAMA
be intolerable to an American or to an English girl is
normal to the daughters of the Rising Sun, who meet
its restrictions and encumbrances with tact, patience, and
unending cheerfulness. How she can do so is difficult
to understand, nor does seeing this perennial sunshine
make the believing in it altogether easy. At first,
though one may wonder and admire, and even reverence,
the merry little body, one doubts there may be somewhat
in her heart her looks belie. But on knowing her, as
one sees her in the household daily through the year, one
comes to believe that in the long line of her ancestors a
process has been at work, with the result that those
organs whose function is the display of irritation have
become atrophied.
The opinion of Marion Crawford's sister, Mrs. Hugh
Fraser, is worthy of attention. She was in Japan for
years with her husband while he was Minister Plenipo
tentiary in Tokio. Mrs. Fraser says, " In real womanli
ness, which I take to mean a high combination of sense
and sweetness, valor and humility, the Japanese lady
ranks with any woman in the world, and passes before
most of them."
One of these object lessons in the gentler virtues was
Aya San, who lived not a great way from Tokio, the
busy heart of the Empire; she was as jolly a youngster
as one often sees even in Japan, and that is saying
much. Though she lived so near the capital, she knew
little of it. Household work and studies kept her too
busy for sight-seeing. Her parents had come from near
Kiyoto. They were of a southern class that had dis-
[101]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
persed after the revolution of 1868. The father, who
was a " samurai," that is, of the military class, had the
luck to receive a Government appointment in Tokio and
then the luck to die. This left Aya San with her mother,
her grandfather, and an infant brother, and a pension
of four yen — about two dollars — a month.
The income was not much for a family of gentlefolk
to live on, but in those days when the daimiyo were dis
charging their retainers and handing their provinces
over to the central Government, many a samurai house
hold had less than that assured. It was different indeed
compared to the days before the restoration, when the
Shogun ruled and the Mikado was a sacred prisoner.
Then the samurai had a large allowance from the rice-
fields of his native province. My lord, the daimiyo, had
seen to that. But now — six cents a day and four per
sons to live on it. However, they managed honorably
one way or another, and so Aya's story is different from
that of many a samurai's daughter.
Oka San, the mother, was of a sort one rarely sees in
Tokio to-day, excepting on the stage, though in the
country she is still in evidence. In a few years she will
have disappeared entirely, for she is of the old order.
Like the women of her time, Oka San shaved her eye
brows when she left her own home to become a member
of her husband's family, and had stained her teeth jet
black. When she became a widow she cut her hair.
Short hair, no eyebrows, and black teeth reads like a
combination fatal to all attractiveness, nor are they
agreeable to the unaccustomed eye. After a little, how-
[102 ]

O JO SAM A
ever, one ceases to remark them, and in the case of Oka
San they did not destroy her charm, for her gentle
kindliness of manner obliterated all thought of them.
Oji San, the grandfather, was an old man long in re
tirement — " inkiyo," as the Japanese say. His wants
were simple. He spent his time at chess, and writing
poetry, and reading the Chinese classics. Aya San and
Oka San had great reverence for him. They loved him
doubtless, too, though in their tongue the word to use
towards elders means to venerate. He it was who in
structed them in " Onna Daigaku " (" The Whole Duty
of Women," as Professor Chamberlain translates the
title of the ancient treatise).1 This was their gospel.
Women of the West would have small patience with it,
but Aya San and her mother believed it was very truth
indeed. A man wrote it, of course, one Kaibara by
name, who was a famous moralist.
Oji San used to read " The Whole Duty " to them,
sitting on his cushion by the fire-box and arranging the
charcoals now and then with the tiny fire-tongs, so that
they would burn well and keep the water in the small
iron kettle hot for his frequent cups of tea.
" Onna Daigaku " begins as follows, according to
Professor Chamberlain's translation. One would think
Kaibara was discoursing upon Hooligans rather than
upon angels:
" Seeing that it is the girl's destiny on reaching
womanhood to go to a new home, and live in submission
to her father-in-law, it is even more incumbent on her
i-Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, vol. x. p. iii.
[103]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
than it is on a boy to receive with all reverence her par
ents' instructions. Should her parents, through ex
cess of tenderness, allow her to grow up self-
willed, she will infallibly show herself capricious in
her husband's house, and thus alienate his affection,
while, if her father-in-law be a man of correct principles,
the girl will find the yoke of these principles intolerable ;
she will hate and decry her father-in-law, and the end of
these domestic dissensions will be her dismissal from her
husband's house, and the covering of herself with ig
nominy. Her parents, forgetting the faulty education
they gave her, may indeed lay all the blame on the
father-in-law; but they will be in error; for the whole
disaster should be rightly attributed to the faulty edu
cation the girl received from her parents.
" More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than
a face of beauty. The vicious woman's heart is ever ex
cited; she glares wildly around her, she vents her anger
on others, her words are harsh and her accents vulgar.
When she speaks it is to set herself above others, to up
braid others, to envy others, to be puffed up with in
dividual pride, to jeer at others, to outdo others, — all
things at variance with the ' way ' a woman should walk.
The only qualities that befit a woman are gentle obedi
ence, chastity, mercy, and quietness.
" From her earliest youth a girl should observe the
line of demarcation separating women from men, and
never, even for an instant, should she be allowed to see
or hear the least impropriety. The customs of antiquity
did not allow men and women to sit in the same apart-
[104 ]

O JO SAMA
ment, to keep their wearing apparel in the same place,
to bathe in the same place, or to transmit to each other
anything from hand to hand. A woman going abroad
at night must in all cases carry a lighted lamp, and
(not to speak of strangers) she must observe a certain
distance in her relations even with her husband and with
her brethren. In our days, the women of the lower
classes, ignoring all rules of this nature, behave them
selves disorderly; they contaminate their reputation,
bring down reproach on their parents and brethren, and
spend their whole lives in an unprofitable manner. Is
not this truly lamentable? It is written likewise in the
' Lesser Learning ' that a woman must form no friend
ship and no intimacy except when ordered to do so by her
parents or the ' middleman.' Even at the peril of her
life must she harden her heart like rock or metal, and
observe the rules of propriety."
So the " Onna Daigaku " goes on for many, many
pages, which Oji San expounded, while Aya San and
Oka San crouched before him on their shins, their tiny
feet crossed under them, and their hands straight in
front of them resting on their knees. They did not sit
close by each other as mother and daughter might in
this country. Personal contact is distasteful to Japa
nese, and in their language there is no word that is the
equivalent of the English word kiss, though Japanese
dictionaries have borrowed the Chinese word " seppun."
Aya San never kissed her mother, nor did Oka San ever
kiss her child unless when Aya was a tiny babe too young
to have a mind to remember with. Certainly the child
[ 105]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
never kissed her father, possibly she never touched him,
for nurses carried her about on their backs when she was
young and always had her well in charge, so that the
samurai never had occasion to be mindful of her. The
little she saw of him was " through the top of her head,"
for his appearance was the signal for profound obeis
ance. When he came to the room where her mother or
the nurses kept her she bent herself against the floor like
a letter Z that someone had pressed down almost flat,
and dropped her face into the backs of her wee dimpled
hands, so that should her august sire's honorable glance
deign to fall in her direction all it saw was a bundle of
delicate silks, a bare spot where the barber had shaved
the crown of her head, and the fine black fringe of the
tonsure round it. He loved her, Japanese-father-fash
ion, but it would have been undignified to display emo
tion toward her, or even to go to her funeral had she
died. Perhaps there was a yearning in Aya's heart that
only loving arms could satisfy, but if there was she did
not understand it. She could not miss what she had
never enjoyed. If conventions shut in her life as a cage
shuts in a canary's, she did not know that the condition
was not normal. Her life would be like her mother's
life. Why not? She had not thought about it, had not
expected anything different. The " three obediences "
would be all there could be in it ; first to her parents, then
to her husband and to his parents; and should she be
come a widow, she would obey her eldest son, or if she
were without a son, whoever might be the head of her
[106]

O JO SAM A
husband's family. "Why not?" again, for ever since
there have been Japanese women it has been their busi
ness to obey.
Oka San had lived up to this teaching faithfully, and
now that Dana San (Master), her husband, was dead,
and his relatives were far away, Oji San, though inkiyo,
ruled the household. His body, that of a warrior once,
had long ceased to be erect, but his mind was as bright as
ever, and as he read aloud the passages from the " Whole
Duty " his face behind his huge tortoiseshell-rimmed
glasses was as wise as an owl's. The contrast between his
words, squeezed out with an intonation quite in harmony
with the text, and the appearance of his listeners, was
both ludicrous and sad.
As to the mother-in-law, indeed she was an element
to consider in the matrimonial equation in the days when
Kaibara wrote- — a quantity partly known and partly un
known, but with undoubted abilities for making trouble.
Had there been newspapers, then the paragrapher would
have found her fully as useful as she is to-day, but it
would have been Mrs. Youngwife instead of Mr. Young-
husband — a heroine rather than a hero in the tragedy.
If Oji San's words are true, the women before him,
one so young and one past middle life, must be mis
tresses of the art of dissembling. To look less vicious
would be impossible. One refuses to believe that they
could " glare wildly round " even should they try. Oji
San is surely wasting words upon them. But he means
well, and they are so submissive.
" It shall be your duty when you go to your hus-
[107]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
band's house, Aya San," said the old man, " to rever
ence your father-in-law, and to obey him and your
mother-in-law in all things as you have obeyed your
own parents. Filial piety is the chief duty of a girl.
You must give yourself up to their direction. It is well
you have learned to boil rice properly, and to speak to
your superiors always with your face to the floor, and to
control that harshness natural to a woman's voice which,
alas, is the cause of so much domestic infelicity. Your
mother-in-law would send you back to us instantly if
you served saggy rice or rice hard from insufficient boil
ing. That is a most just cause for divorce. Be ever
mindful lest you bring infinite disgrace upon yourself
and upon this house by inatter.tiveness to rice. Dis
obedience also will cause you to come back to us cov
ered with ignominy ; and in speech be careful every in
stant of your existence, for here is the truth as I will
read it to you — the sixth reason for just divorce. ' A
woman shall be divorced,' says the sage Kaibara, ' who
by talking over much and prattling disrespectfully dis
turbs the harmony of kinsmen, and brings trouble on
her household.' Remember, too, that a woman once
married and then divorced has wandered from the ' way,'
and is covered with the greatest shame, even if she should
enter into a second union with a man of wealth and
position." Surely Japan is severe with the girl who is not " up "
on rice. Imagine American custom demanding that the
young wife who does not bake properly should go back
to her parents' house with a character as black as the
[108]

O JO SAMA
bottoms of her first loaves, and a heart as heavy as their
insides !
" But how about the husband? " someone may ask.
" Where does he come in ? What is there that he must
do or must not do? " That is hard to say. The answer
seemingly is, " Nothing." At least there is no " Otoko
Daigaku," or "Whole Duty of Man." It is a pity.
Japanese women should have an opportunity to write
one, but to let them would be indelicate, and if they had
opportunity they would not think of doing anything so
impolite. If men wrote one — but they have no chivalry.
Aya San bowed low as Oji San closed his book at the
end of each reading, and ejaculated: "Honorable
Grandfather, your august words are honorable truth."
Then she would pour hot water into the tiny teapot from
the kettle on the coals, and give Honorable Grandfather
a. tall blue cupful of a mild beverage very different from
the dark concoction one drinks in America or England.
After Honorable Grandfather, Bo Chan, the baby
brother, next needed her attention, and then there were
her studies, for Aya San was ambitious. The spirit of
New Japan was in the air, she breathed it in, and wished
to learn something in the new schools the Government
was establishing. This was hard to manage, for schools
take time and money ; not more than twenty-five cents a
month, perhaps, but one " quarter " out of every eight
when there are four mouths to feed! No, it would not
do. So she worked at her books at home. They were
old books which she had borrowed from those of her girl
friends who could go to school. Dog-eared and tattered
[109]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
they were, when Aya's friends had done with them and
gone on to more advanced ones, but they were treasures
to the little housekeeper ; she studied them at nights,
sometimes when she had only fireflies in a cage to see by.
One day a missionary from Tokio out " prospecting "
stopped at the low thatched cottage of three rooms in
which Aya lived, to ask some question as to the road he
was upon, and heard Oji San's sepulchral wheeze as he
read: " ' Let her never dream of jealousy. If her husband
be dissolute she must expostulate with him, but never
either nurse or vent her anger. If her jealousy be ex
treme it will render her countenance frightful, and her
accents repulsive, and can only result in alienating her
husband completely from her and making her intolerable
in his eyes. Should her husband act ill and unreason
ably, she must compose her countenance and soften her
voice to remonstrate with him, and if he be angry and
listen not to the remonstrance, she must wait over a
season and then expostulate with him again when his
heart is softened. Never set thyself up against thy
husband with harsh features and a boisterous voice ! ' "
" That is rather more of meekness, I fear, than we
Christians are wont to expect," said the missionary to
himself ; " but after ten years here I have come to be
lieve that our Japanese sisters, heathen though they may
be, have achieved it. I have learned something from
them." Oji San continued:
" ' A woman should be circumspect and sparing in her
use of words, and never, even for a passing moment,
[110]

JAPANESE GIRLS AT HOME

O JO SAMA
should she slander others or be guilty of untruthfulness.
Should she ever hear calumny she should keep it to her
self and repeat it to none, for it is the relating of cal
umny that disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and ruins
the peace of families.' "
" Next to the gospel that is the truth itself," agreed
the missionary ; " but why should it be ' for women
only ' ? " and raising his voice he cried :
" Gomen na sai ! " (" August pardon deign "). In a
moment the " shoji " (the sliding paper door), opened,
and Aya's pretty face appeared. The missionary made
excuses for disturbing the august household, and then
asked about the road. She replied sweetly and begged
him to take a cup of tea, " most good for honorable
weariness." Over the tea he asked more questions, and
talked so long that he had to hasten back to Tokio when
he left, lest he should miss his evening service.
A few days later he was out again, with an offer in
writing from his mission to take Aya San into the mis
sion school and give her an education free of all cost for
board and tuition. Household duties, however, said
" no " to this, though to the young girl the offer was as
an invitation to enter the gates of the Blessed Country.
The man of God was sorry, but a month afterwards
he established a station near Aya's home and saw her
frequently. He lent her books, and under his direction
her progress was extraordinary. The dog-eared volumes
she had begun with were years behind her now. Twelve
months later, after a public examination, she received a
teacher's certificate from the Government, and that
[111]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
household's puny income doubled. She had fallen in
love, too, and so had the missionary, but the romance
ended soon. Both were eager to marry, but the samurai,
Aya's father, had promised her to a friend's son. She
had been engaged since she was two years old to a person
she had never seen. The one who made the engagement
had long since passed beyond, yet the engagement held.
But for the dead man's hand Aya might be among
the new women of her land to-day. She did not stand
still, however, for she is now somewhere between the old
and the new ; she has not shaved her eyebrows nor stained
her teeth, though her husband is her law and her life.
If there are other men in the world she does not know it.
Of the girls who lent her those old books, some are
teachers in Normal schools and colleges, some have
charge of kindergartens, some are governesses, some are
nurses in hospitals, and a few are wives of officials, and
give balls and receptions after the European fashion,
and wear European clothes, arrange their hair without
the use of the perfumed cocoanut-oil paste of former
days. They have long lists of male acquaintances, not
one of whom is their husband, play the violin and piano,
ride bicycles, play tennis, win prizes in archery, talk over
telephones, and actually precede the men when entering
a room.

[112]

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HAPPY NEW YEAR
JAPAN is the j oiliest country in the world at the
New Year. Gardner and I found it three times
jolly, in fact. Each January 1, 43,000,000 sub
jects in the Land of the Rising Sun begin to paint not
a mere " town," as a band of cowboys might, but the
whole of the Mikado's Empire. The color is naturally
the glorious roseate hue of the Imperial emblem — The
Rising Sun. This deep red harmony, they say, is
eminently fitting at the beginning of the year ; and that
the painting may be well done, they administer three
distinct and separate coats right lavishly.
The bottom or foundation coat is two full weeks in
putting on. Joy flows in streams along the thorough
fares, swelled by rivulets from every house. All the
city folk call on each other ; all the country folk come in
to help them do it ; and everybody gives everybody pres
ents. This may be called the official New Year. It dates
only from 1870, when the Japanese Government changed
its calendar to conform to that of the rest of the world.
On the 1st of February there is a second coating — this
is the New Year of Old Japan, still dear to the rural
heart. All the country folk call on one another then,
and many of the city folk go out to help them. There
is less formality about this celebration, less eclat, but
[113]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
good-fellowships abounds, and joy is rampant for a
week.
The third coating is given in good old Chinese style.
Its date depends on the moon, as does our Easter festival.
Each household celebrates by itself in part, and in part
with outside friends ; but this feast is more domestic,
though not less sacredly observed than the two preced
ing. The New Year season is the time to see Japan socially
at its best. It is true there are no " kiku," as they call
crysanthemums, nor plum nor cherry blossoms. The
kiku comes in the autumn and the " sakura " (or
cherry), and the " ume " (the plum) in April, both
seasons when all outdoors is a garden-party, and ex
quisitely picturesque, but, with all its loveliness, it is only
the outside one sees then.
To look into the homes and the hearts of all Japan
one must be there New Year's Day. Business generally
is suspended, both private and public. Doors open wide
then, and hospitality, such as is unknown in Europe or
America, is the rule without exception.
The jin-riki-sha coolie is the only one that works, but
his task hardly is irksome. Waiting while his fare makes
a call, he feasts in the kitchen with the cook, so that
when night comes, though his load is rather heavy prob
ably, he does not complain.
The geisha has her busiest season at New Year, but
her work is always play, and she enjoys it quite as much
as those whom she entertains. Her plaintive love-songs
are never sung more sweetly than at the beginning of the
[114]

HAPPY NEW YEAR
year, when the heart of the nation warms anew. The
geisha is very near that heart, and chirrups sympa
thetically. At the first of the year the Emperor and the Em
press receive for three days. On the first day only those
of royal blood, the highest officers of State, and for
eign diplomats, make their bows. Then follow in turn
personages of lower degree, down to those who, having
some title to recognition, are honored with a gracious
notification of the reception at the palace, but are ex
pected not to come.
The Princes Royal and their consorts, after paying
their respects to the Throne and to each other, in due
order, according to degree of kinship to the Mikado,
receive in their turn in petty state. The Ministers of
State, diplomats, Members of Parliament, distinguished
folk, and any foreigners who may wish to do so, pay
their respects. These receptions are extremely formal,
and everyone connected with them is glad they continue
only three days.
The grand folk on the fourth day join the crowd, and,
like them, go hither and thither to every accessible ac
quaintance, as ordinary people have been doing from the
early morning of " Ganjitsu" (New Year's Day). Of
course, no one can call on every individual of his ac
quaintance in the Empire, so he resorts to postal cards,
which he despatches to all those friends whom he is un
able to see personally.
He begins each card as follows, despite the fact that
in many cases he knows nothing of the honorable health,
[115]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
or of the weather, or of other conditions at the homes of
those whom he is addressing :
" With the rigorous inclemency of the weather so in
creasing, I have the honor to rejoice at your august
robustness. What I have to say is, august consideration
honorably vouchsafed during past year, most humbly,
most gratefully acknowledged, deign to continue the
same and to pardon the contemptible selfishness of
selfish me, for the unspeakable effrontery of venturing
to address honorable you.
" Your Little Imbecile  ."
This writing entails no little labor, for there is no
typewriter for the Chinese characters which the Japanese
use in correspondence. The pen-, or rather the brush
strokes, are by hand, sometimes forty of them in a single
name. No wonder that in January some wrists are tired.
The calls, too, have their little peculiarities, for it is
the callee, not the caller, who is the principal recipient
of favors. With each call the caller presents a gift,
usually some sort of food; but anything will do, even
money. Boxes of eggs are in demand ; so is " kasutera,"
or sponge cake. Kasutera is from the Dutch word
" Casteel " (Castile), for Spanish bread. The Dutch
at Nagasaki in 1600 first taught the Japanese the art
of making that dainty. Wine, beer, all sorts of canned
goods, and articles of apparel are distributed too. It is
a great season for the brewer, the baker, the confec
tioner, the distiller, and the hens.
[116]

HAPPY NEW YEAR
As presents come in such profusion, they would ac
cumulate beyond control were it not for the custom of
" passing along." It is not at all necessary that madam
should eat all the eggs that are given her. That would
be difficult, and to keep them long about the house would
not be pleasant ; so after reserving whatever she chooses,
she puts her card in each of the remaining boxes, and
when her lord comes in for the fresh supply of gifts
which he needs in order to continue his round of calls,
she hands them to him.
Thus replenished, he starts out again, and madam at
home gathers in a further collection. This keeps up for
a fortnight, during which the kasutera and the eggs do
not grow fresher. The dealers who supply these com
modities, however, provide against damage to their
reputations by pasting in the box of cake or eggs some
thing to this effect: " This cake was baked at 11 p. m.,
December 31. These eggs were laid at 2 a. m., January
1, ' kotoshi ' (this year)."
As these presents are passing along they often com
plete the circuit and arrive at the place whence they
were first sent out, but it is only to begin the tour again.
There is no rest for a Japanese New Year's gift until
it is eaten or drunk or lost.
All one's tradespeople will call, too, bearing samples
of their wares, commensurate with the amount of patron
age each dealer has received. They present these
samples with many bows and a request for a continu
ance of their patron's august condescension during the
ensuing year.
[117]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
While the shops are closed to business they are open
for pleasure, and there is a banquet in each home from
early morning until early morning every day of the two
weeks. And the tradesman hopes that all those who have
honored the shop with their patronage will call and
bring their friends.
Foreigners seem to be particularly welcome at this
time, especially English and Americans, for the com
mon people like English-speaking folk. A man from
England or America might begin to feast early New
Year's Day, and continue feasting until January 15th, if
he could endure it, even among strangers. The shop
keepers would show him more genuine hospitality than
his own cousins would at home.
As there is plum-pudding at Christmas in England,
and turkey for Thanksgiving in America, so there is
" mochi " and " shirozaki " for the New Year in Japan.
Mochi is good, and so is shirozaki. Mochi is made of
rice boiled in fresh water and pounded in a mortar until
it is dough, then it is rolled out like a yard of baker's
bread, cut in slices and laid to dry till a slight crust
forms, when it is ready to toast. Often boiled beans are
worked into the dough, till the casual globe-trotter might
mistake it for peanut candy.
Shirozaki is white and thick, quite different from the
thin pale sherrj' color of ordinary sake. It is sweet and
wholesome, made of rice, with the body of the fermented
grain left in.
The country folk repeat these grand two weeks of
celebration a month later, for they are slow to adopt new
[118]

HAPPY NEW YEAR
customs, though they enjoy the official New Year in
town hugely, if they have opportunity to go. City folk,
especially those who long for the good old days, are
sure to be with their cousins in the country for the second
feasting, and to stay a week at least with them. Then,
when the moon changes, comes the oldest feast of all,
and the country quiets down until another year is born.
This Far East custom of New Year calls, once so
prevalent in England and in America, was brought to
Europe by the Dutch merchantmen, it is said, who
traded with Japan in the sixteenth century and after.
But the Western world has been growing busier year by
year, and finds hardly time nowadays for so much
merry-making.

[119]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THOSE WHO SIGN CHITS
CERTAIN moneys Gardner had expected to col
lect when he ran down to Yokohama were not
immediately in evidence, and we therefore had
recourse to " chits."
" Deuced convenient things, you know," a globe-trot
ter remarked to us of chits; and he was right. Too
convenient, if anything. Take, for instance, the man
with a thirst and no money. He will find the Japanese
seaport a joyous place. The combination so trying
abroad is of little inconvenience in those hospitable
abodes ; and, besides, those petty annoyances incident to
having money always in one's pocket are done away with.
There you are always " good for a drink," or any
thing else. If you do not look too much like a sailor —
a " Damyoureyes San," as the natives say — and are able
to write your name, you need not worry. The secret of
all this is chits. " Chits," being interpreted, means " joy
made easy," — joy and other things. They are one of
the pleasantest curses known to man. Great and wicked
was the brain that invented them. The owner of that
brain is already responsible for hundreds of merry-mak
ing wrecks, who with all too much facility have drunk
themselves to death on his ingenious plan. He has been
their evil genius, but what he did was consummated with
[120 ]

THOSE WHO SIGN CHITS
a liberality of manner that robbed death of half its sting.
Public opinion in the seaports is not pronounced
enough to emphasize the line between the use and the
abuse of chits. Among old residents there is opinion
against the abuse, of course, but there are so many
" transients " with homes that are far, far away. Among
these, in a large measure, restraint is ineffectual, and so
it happens that men, particularly young men, do feel
freer than is safe. They are a genial lot, fond of out
door life, well traveled generally, and well read, with
charming manners, and hospitable, with a frank gener
osity that wins at once. They have leisure beyond the
dreams of toilers in the West. They work harder now,
perhaps, than formerly, those of them with occupation,
but their custom was to come down to work at 10 a. m.,
and to quit usually by four. Out of these six hours one
and a half were spent at the clubs or in the great hotels,
where chit-signing is indulged in as a liberal art. In
the races twice a year they rode their own horses, and out
of respect to the turf, when the races were on, all busi
ness, even banking, was at a standstill. Wine flowed as
fast as the laws of gravity allowed, but there was little
cash in sight. The boys who served the drinks did not
handle money. They pushed the bottle and a scratch
pad towards you, and someone signed. The chit then
went to some hotel.
When a few months later you wished to pay, you
would have some trouble in finding the slip to which you
had put your name. Going from one place to another,
at each the manager would say:
[121]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
" I don't know. They may be here. If I find them
I'll send them up to you. Let's see; what is your ad
dress ? "
If you were sure he had them, you might pay and he
would credit you. Then you owned the place. What
ever you bought thereafter he might not charge against
you, but would say, " That goes to square us for what
you paid against the chits I never found."
It is only globe-trotters that carry much cash in their
pockets in Yokohama, and they soon give up carrying it,
just as they give up eating rice-curry with a fork. Rail
way people and beggars are the only people who don't
take chits, but the railroad, though convenient, is not
necessary, and if one believes in the doctrine similia
similibus curantwr, he can pass beggars by also, and
never know the touch of filthy lucre.
If you offer money to the barber, he may say, " Oh,
wait till the end of the month. We can't bother making
up cash now. Sign a chit."
At the tailor's you are asked, " Shall I send the goods
to the club or to your hotel? " If you ask about pay
ment, the reply is, " Oh, we'll send you a memorandum
now and then, to let you know how you stand with us.
But that is not a bill, you know. Just let that run to
your convenience, please. Send a chit when you like."
The jin-riki-sha man takes a chit from the hotel to
which he has delivered you, or the hotel pays and you
sign a chit. Every public-house in town passes out the
little pad with the pencil hanging from one corner.
Lodgings, meals, everything an hotel has to rent or to
[122]

THOSE WHO SIGN CHITS
sell to its guests, may be signed for on the chit. Nor
is there anything that Satan can furnish to promote
delirium or to coax the coming of old age that a little
chit will not arrange for.
He who has looked on the wine when it is red, and has
studied the mockery of strong drink, need not moan in
his first waking thoughts with despair, brought on by
the recollection that his last penny went the night before,
unless, alas! he is too shaky to hold the little pencil.
But even then a promise to sign later will bring him
what he needs !
There are settling days, of course, when the residents
arm themselves with courage and go forth to pay their
chits. Some men do this every two years. Others, who
consider themselves patterns of regularity, square up
bravely each 1st of January. Then there are men who
have the names of the places where their chits are held
arranged in groups, and each group assigned to a par
ticular month of the year. At the first of each month
they settle a part of their debts. This system sometimes
gives chit-holders opportunity for guessing, though;
for readjustments in the scheme of grouping one's chits
will occur with even the best-intentioned signers, so that
a holder who thought his money would come in January
may find himself mysteriously moved into the December
class, but that does not matter much.
Besides these annuals, bi-annuals, and monthlies, there
is a class made up, it is said, of those who do not pay
until they die. These men have life insurance policies,
or assurance policies, to speak with local accuracy, and,
[123]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
being thus assured, they do not bother who holds theii
«hits, or whether the chits were signed ten days or ten
years ago. There are few men, however, who have
signed chits steadily for ten years. Three years is gen
erally the limit. A man can sign a barrelful in that time
— a barrelful that stands for many other barrels empty.
When the assured man dies, his chits appear, and
straightway are paid, the first money collected from the
policy going for this.
The number of chits not paid is large considered by
itself, though relatively small. It is this fact that is the
penniless man's advantage. He lives on the fringe or
ragged edge of the crazy quilt of chits until he " loses
his face," or drinks himself into the hereafter. When
his " face " is gone he may sign no longer. He drifts
into the Consul's hands, and is sent home steerage at his
Government's expense. He may so dread the thought of
home that he flies to the natives, among the disreputable
of whom he must have some acquaintance, and in return
for a modicum of seaweeds, fish, and rice-beer, teaches
Peter Parley's " History of the World," or possibly the
art of mixing cocktails.
When he dies, the chances are that the foreign resi
dents will subscribe to bury him decently, and others of
his class will mourn for him, hoping that some day some
one will do the same for them. The class is one, how
ever, that is less in evidence each year.
As the transient population of Yokohama increases,
chit-signing may disappear, although the habit is second
nature to those who live there now. Here and there a
[ 124]

THOSE WHO SIGN CHITS
man rebels, and swears that he will never sign another
chit, but a temptation that is ever present is hard to
resist for long. With nothing between a thirsty man
and the drink he longs for but the scrawling of his name
on a slip of paper, the chances are that the thirst will
win. Other things, too, he may crave as keenly, things
that will do him less good than a drink ; the fatal paper
makes it all too easy, and reform difficult.
" So they sent him out here to sober up, did they? "
said a member of Parliament who was at tiffin at a club
in one of the treaty ports one day, and was speaking to
a friend of a youth whose parents thought Japan would
do wonders for their bright, but wayward, child.
" Might have as well sent him to Hades to cool off."

[125]

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE CENSOR AND THE CRAFTY EDITOR
OKASHI SAN had given us a letter to a Tokio
friend, the editor of a newspaper. He had been
to Oxford, and to Harvard University in Amer
ica, and we were eager to meet him, but inquiries at the
address Okashi had given us were singularly unavail
ing. After much searching we found our gentleman in
jail. When I learned of the vicissitudes of his profession,
however, I wondered how he had kept out at all. It was
an occupation beset with difficulties indeed. Vexatious
enough in all countries, in the Land of the Rising Sun it
has been so uncertain that it is a marvel it was even pos
sible. To an Englishman, and yet more to an American
or an Australian, such uncertainty would be intolerable.
The Japanese editor, like Brer Rabbit in " Uncle Re
mus," never has known " what minnit's going to be the
next." In looking into the business I found that since the
promulgation of the Constitution in 1889, papers had
been suspended at the rate of one a week, while some of
the more outspoken writers had grown so familiar with
the way to the " honorable jail " that it was said they
could go there blindfolded.
As was natural, after the war with China, the Japanese
[ 126 ]

THE CENSOR
'did some little talking about their equality to Western
ers ; but on the other hand, in the matter of the freedom
of the press, they cannot fail to see that they are years
behind the times. This has been demonstrated in the
trial of the editors of several papers, among them the
Tokio Shimbun, for criticising the Minister of the Im
perial Household. The trial aroused public opinion,
and Parliament has passed laws modifying the rigor of
press censorship to some extent. Still, to-day, an
editor might as well commit hara-kiri, so far as his paper
is concerned, as to give a line of army or of navy news,
or say what he thinks the Government should do to hold
back Russian aggression. Even in papers in the Eng
lish language, which are published in the seaports, and
are owned and edited almost exclusively by Englishmen,
writers must go slowly. Before the recent treaties came
into effect they did not fear the red pencil of the censor.
Then they alone dared to discuss questions of state.
Now, however, they must be as careful as the editors of
papers published in the vernacular.
The list of " don'ts," that is, the list of things a writer
on a paper must not say, is long, and, worse than this,
no one outside the Bureau of Press Censorship knows
what it contains. It is only by guessing and by bitter
experience that an editor can approximate as to what
to avoid. If a paper publishes an article that is not
approved it has been the custom to suspend the paper,
and that has been all there was about it. No reason was
given. The disapproved article was not even mentioned
in the order of suspension. Small wonder, then, that
[127]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
there has been great discontent, and that the cry for
reform grows louder every day. And this cry is not
without effect, for now Government promises to give
editors a public trial when there has been transgression.
Here is a translation by Basil Hall Chamberlain of
what the editor of the Nichi^Nichi-Shimbun says of the
tribulations of journalism in Dai Nippon: "News
papers and magazines are confronted by a special
danger — the danger, namely, of suspension when their
words are held to be prejudicial to the public order; and
a suspension, too, against which there is no appeal.
Article xix. of the Newspaper Regulations now in force
says : ' When a newspaper has printed matter which is
considered prejudicial to public order or subversive of
public morality, the Minister of State for the Interior
is empowered to suspend its publication either totally or
temporarily.' Nor is there a word said in the regula
tions whereby the prejudicial or non-prejudicial char
acter of a statement or argument is to be determined.
It is sufficient that the official in question should decide,
in accordance with his own individual opinion, that the
statement or argument is thus prejudicial to public
order, for a newspaper to incur at any moment the pen
alty of suspension, whether total or temporary. It is
indisputable that the authorities are empowered by the
law of the land to act thus. The Constitution itself
gives them this power. The result is that we writers are
constantly obliged, in taking our pen in hand, to keep
to ourselves seven or eight of every ten opinions we would
fain express."
[128]

THE CENSOR
When a paper ventures too far, and the censor is called
upon to write the order of suspension, he is brief, but
polite — wonderfully polite. He puts the honorific " 0 "
or " Go " before each of the nouns and verbs. Prefixed
to a noun " O " means honorable, to a verb it means hon
orably ; similarly " Go " means august, augustly. So
the order, when it arrives, will read somewhat as follows :
" Deign honorably to cease honorably publishing
august paper. Honorable editor, honorable publisher,
honorable chief printer, deign honorably to enter august
jail." The honorable editor with his honorable co-workers
bow low before the messenger of the censor, acknowledg
ing the honor of the august notification, and then accom
pany him to the honorable jail, chatting the meanwhile
of the weather, or of the flower shows, or of the effects
of the floods on the rice crop. Centuries of breeding
under Japanese etiquette have rendered it impossible for
them to show annoyance. They do not know how.
When a paper has been suspended, the first intima
tion the public has of the fact is the quiet in the compos
ing-room. Few places in the world where regular busi
ness is carried on are noisier than a Japanese composing-
room. The amount of noise therein is determined only
by the cubic capacity of the apartment. If it is a larger
room, there is more noise ; if a smaller, there is less ; but
in working hours it is always chock-full. The con
fusion at the Tower of Babel is there vividly suggested
every day.
For the ordinary Tokio paper there will be at least
[ 129 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
twenty men and boys marching to and fro, each yelling
at the top of his voice. There seems neither head nor
tail to this confusion, but nevertheless each of these
screeching persdns has an object at which he looks in
tently while he parades about. This object is a line or
stick of Japanese characters, for which he must find the
appropriate types. It is something of a job to find all
these, for to print even a four-page paper in Japan up
wards of five thousand different characters are used.
These require many fonts, which are crowded into a
small space, that there may be as little traveling as
possible. The " devil " goes about these fonts with a waltz
ing motion, there are so many corners to turn, and
always with his eyes fixed on his stick, as though it were
a sacred relic. Indeed, to the stranger in the street
below who looks up through the long windows which
reach from floor to ceiling, it might seem that a religious
dance was going on, and that the devotees were wrought
well up to the frenzy point.
On going inside one finds an old man sitting in a
corner reading copy, and cutting it into strips with what
looks at first glance like a pair of sugar-tongs, but which
are really shears. As each slip falls, a " devil " grabs
it and starts off on his pilgrimage, singing at the top
of his voice the names of the characters he seeks. He
has to pronounce the name of each character aloud in
order to know what it is, for he understands by hearing
rather than by seeing, and his own paper would be un
intelligible to him unless he read it aloud. As all the
[130 ]

THE CENSOR
other imps yell also, he has to be vociferous in order to
hear himself.
When he has collected the types for all the characters
on his slip he gives them to the head-compositor, a
learned man with goggles, who puts in the particles and
the connecting words, and hands the completed form to
a pair of proofreaders, one of whom sings them to the
other. As soon as the proof is ready, the paper is made
up, all hind-side before, it would seem to a foreigner.
The reading lines are perpendicular, and the columns
run across the page from right to left, the first column
beginning at the upper right-hand corner of what in a
European paper would be the last page.
There are no headlines nor many display advertise
ments. The paper consists generally of a leading
article, a lot of news items — more or less untrustworthy,
a jumble of advertisements sometimes printed on the
margin of the sheet, and a section of a continued story.
There is almost no telegraphic news, though in this the
papers are improving, and little correspondence either
local or foreign. There is also improvement in these
departments now. Occasionally a student who is study
ing abroad will send a letter, but very few of the six-
hundred-and-odd papers and periodicals now published
in the Empire maintain a regular correspondent any
where, not even in the large Japanese cities.
The news department is as largely " fake " as it is in
any of the issues of the " new journalism " in this coun
try. That it is fake the public is coming to recognize. .
As an example of this recognition one of the achieve-
[ 131 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
ments of a particularly yellow journal in Tokio may
be of interest. It had a " beat " in the shape of an
exclusive notice of the English-Japanese alliance six
weeks before any other paper in the Empire had a
word on the subject — which was one of the most im
portant subjects a newspaper in Japan could have a
" beat " on. But no one paid attention — there was not
a line of comment in other papers the next day, nor did
the public pay heed. Even in Japan it is possible to be
too yellow.
But it is the leaders, after all, that make one wonder
why the paper is published. With the sharp red pencil
of the censor pointing at him, ready to be thrust into him
behind his back at any moment, the editor has evolved
into a man skilled in the art of saying nothing, or, at
least, what reads like nothing to the uninitiated. He
is a marvel at double entendre. But with all his clever
ness he is caught so often that he has become inventive,
and has devised artifices whereby he has hoped to escape.
The most successful of these was the dummy or
" prison editor," as he was known in the Oriental sanc
tum. This functionary had an easy time. He had
nothing to do on the paper, never wrote a line, but when
those who did write said anything that the censor judged
might mean something, and the paper was suspended,
the prison editor stepped forward, bowed low, and said,
" What augustly must be, probably augustly must be."
Then he trotted off to august jail. This scheme worked
well for a long time, but after a while the censor de
manded that the principal three men connected with the
[132]

THE CENSOR
paper should go to the " honorable jail." Three dum
mies were more than any paper could afford to main
tain, and so there are no proxies now.
The remarkable thing about the majority of these
papers, however, is not that they are so meager in every
department, but that they exist. Here is a brief sketch
of their coming into being. Their birth was hardly
under lucky stars. The first Japanese newspaper was
published in 1872, by John Black, an Englishman, who
founded the Nisshm Shinji Shi. Before that there had
been only occasional terror sheets which the " yomi uri "
(the native chapmen) hawked about after a particularly
bloody murder or a catastrophe, such as a great fire, a
flood, or an earthauake.
Black's paper was followed by others, among them
the Kwampo or official Gazette ; the ToJcio Shimpo aiid
the Kokai, semi-official; the Mai Nichi Shimbun, the
Yomi Uri Shimbun, and the Ubin Hochi Shimbun, all
Liberal ; the Jin Shimbun and the Ninkin Shimbun,
Radical ; the Nihon and the Chusei Nippo, Conservative
and anti-foreign; the Fuzaku Gwaho, an interesting
illustrated record of manners and customs ; and the
Maru Maru, a comic paper inspired originally by Punch.
There are also prominent the Chuguai Shiogio Shimpo,
a commercial daily; the Jiji Sin Shimpo, Imperial; the
Tokio Nichi-Nichi-Shimbun; and in Osaka the Asahi
(Morning Sun), and the Mainichi, which are read widely
in the south of Japan. Altogether between six and
seven hundred issue from the press at more or less regu
lar intervals, and as a rule are improving in quality.
[133]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
The Japanese reporter makes about as much money
as the Japanese policeman — that is, about three dollars
a month. In Tokio some of them make more, and in the
smaller towns they make as little as two dollars a month,
but three dollars is a fair average. There are reporters
that make far more than this — say thirty dollars — but so
very many make small wages that the average is low.
They are not sent out on regular assignments as a rule,
but are given a roving commission. The editor tells
them to get news, real news if there is any, but to get
news; and they never return empty-handed. A good
news-gatherer is rare among them, but the " fakir " is
plentiful enough and really clever. Interviewing can
hardly be said to be popular. The people do not under
stand it and do not like it. Japan is esoteric, and
doesn't tell what it knows if it can help itself. Still,
there are interviews in Japanese papers. Politicians
have themselves interviewed occasionally, and " globe
trotters " usually submit.
Japanese editors are gaining in power now that the
press laws show a tendency to become less restrictive,
and consequently first-class editorial writers make what
in Japan are excellent salaries, despite the increased ex
pense of living throughout the Empire. One editor told
me that as much as four and even five hundred yen a
month went into the envelopes of some of the first-rate
writers. That would be two hundred to two hundred
and fifty dollars in gold. Another thing he spoke of
was that Japan's new woman was learning the business,
and several of them were getting on well as essay writers
[134]

THE CENSOR
on subjects connected with the advancement of their
sex. All the papers use the written language, which differs
from the spoken language both in its grammar and in
its vocabulary. Mr. Chamberlain says that the Jap
anese are still in the condition of Europeans of the
twelfth century : " They do not write as tb^r speak.
A man may know the spoken language thoroughly, and
yet not be able to understand the daily paper when it
is read aloud, nor even the note he has just asked his
native clerk in his office to write and to send up to the
house, announcing that he will take up a friend to
' tiffin.' "
Speeches are taken down in shorthand, but are almost
always translated into the written language before they
are printed. The one exception to the rule is in the
Record of Parliament speeches, wherein the words are
published just as they were uttered. When this Record
first appeared the rural members were filled with con
sternation, for there they saw held up to the public eye
all their peculiarities of provincial dialect. Old men as
some of them were, they got themselves teachers and set
about learning to speak like townsfolk.
This Record is the beginning of a tremendous reform
which students hope will lead to the disuse of the written
language, first in newspapers, and finally in books as
well. For the spoken language is the living language,
the language of the people. With the present Parlia
ment a new order of things will be established in Japan,
and the freedom of the press must follow in due course.
[135]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Ministers of State incline to think that the time is almost
come. But it is well to remember that while the present
laws are cruelly severe, as judged by Western notions,
they are, as Professor Chamberlain points out, not so
severe historically speaking, because it is hardly a
quarter of a century since freedom of speech was denied
to the Mikado's subjects, not theoretically, perhaps, but
to all intents and purposes.
It was long a capital offense to memorialize the Gov
ernment. Those who did so — and history gives many
instances — were wont to write what they had to say in
the form of a letter to the Prime Minister, and then,
calmly kneeling at the gate of some public building,
commit " hara-kiri," or, to use the polite term, " sep-
puku." The police, who may have stood respectfully
at a distance while the act was committing, would find
the letter on searching the body of the suicide, and report
its contents to the Minister. Sometimes they made bold
to hand a petition to a minister or even to the Shogun
direct, as Viscount Hayashi recounts in his interesting
book " For His People," but the result was always hara-
kiri or worse. His Excellency, the Viscount's hero, an
historical person, was led out with his wife and four
children. First the little ones were beheaded, then the
frantic mother was crucified, and, finally, Sogoro also
was crucified beside her.

[136]

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BOBBY
IN our visits to the honorable editor in the august
jail we saw much of Junsa, the police officer. We
liked him. So do all foreigners.
This is natural, for the Japanese Bobby is a gentle
man by birth, a model of courteous dignity and a good
fighter. In consideration of these qualifications the
Government gives him six yen a month, almost three
dollars. He is a gentleman, because he comes from the
highest of the social grades — the samurai — and until
1871 was a military retainer of a daimiyo, as the feudal
lords were called who ruled over the provinces of Japan.
He was born to the use of the sword, and even now, ex
cept in seaports, it is his weapon as well as his badge of
office, though rarely is he compelled to use it.
Samurai, according to the dictionaries, means " mili
tary class," " warriors," or " gentry." Recently the
Chinese word " shizoku," of precisely the same meaning,
has come into vogue, why, no one knows, for it adds
nothing to the significance of the idea. It is strange
that the Japanese, who look down on the Chinese, delight
to use their words. The samurai lived in the daimiyo's
castle, and received annually an allowance of so many
koku of rice, according to his importance and the rich
ness of the province. Japanese still reckon incomes in
[137 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
koku. The samurai's business was to be a gentleman.
In Old Japan all gentlemen must be soldiers and all sol
diers gentlemen. To-day it would not be quite wrong to
say policemen. The samurai attended his daimiyo on
all occasions, and fought for him whenever there was
trouble with another daimiyo. He was the embodiment
of loyalty, and would give his life deliberately to avenge
an insult to his lord.
Mitford's " Story of the Forty-Seven Ronins " shows
how he could do this. The ronins were samurai without
a master. In Mitford's story, which relates a fact of
Japanese history, they carried out a scheme of vengeance
requiring months of preparation, knowing all the while
that, whether they failed or succeeded, the Shogun would
sentence them to hara-kiri.
So to-day, the samurai, with all the instincts of ancient
chivalry and his three dollars a month salary, prome
nades the highways and byways of Dai Nippon armed
with a saber and a ball of twine, and preserves order
the like of which no other country in the world maintains.
The saber is in lieu of a policeman's " billy," and the
twine he uses instead of handcuffs.
It is interesting to watch Bobby as he deftly weaves
a net about his captive until he looks as though he were
wrapped up in a hammock. This weaving has an esoteric
significance, doubtless, as no need of doing it is manifest.
Etiquette in Japan is against a captive's trying to escape
after he has been informed courteously that he is under
arrest and should augustly condescend to accompany his
captor to the police-station.
[138]

A SAMURAI WITH PRISONER

BOBBY
The policeman always says, " Go men nasai "
("August pardon deign"), and the culprit, as he
stands patiently to be woven in, replies, " Do itashima-
shite " (" Oh, don't mention it "). When the weaving
is over Bobby has the culprit " on a string " and, hold
ing one end thereof, escorts him to the station, where the
captor salutes his chief in military style, and the captive
bows low and declares he is mortified to be the cause of
so much trouble. Both ends of the string are heard
from, and the chief then decides whether to fine or to dis
miss, or to hold the offender for further examination.
Bobby wears a military uniform — white in summer
and blue in winter. He always salutes when a foreigner
speaks to him, and will walk a half-mile with one to
show the way. He will not accept a tip. His instincts
and the rules of the Police Department forbid his doing
so, and then, besides, there is the Government pay —
three dollars a month, on which he feeds and clothes his
family. He will take charge of a foreigner in search of an
hotel, and will escort him to the best lodgings to be had,
where he will caution mine host against overcharging
the guest. In the monthly bazaars that are held in the
streets leading to various temples in Tokio, Bobby is
ever watchful lest the dealers ask the foreigner too much
for their wares. So vigilant is he that the stranger often
makes a better bargain than a native could.
One of them through clever detective work secured
over one thousand yen that a native had stolen from a
foreigner, but he refused the gift of money that grati-
[ 139 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
tude prompted. After much persuasion, however, he ac
cepted a kimono, though not before the American had re
ceived special permission from the Police Department to
make the present.
In Yokohama and the other seaports, where the police
man does not carry a saber, he handles his " billy " quite
as well as any foreign policeman. He is as wonderfully
dexterous in the use of this as he is with the saber, and
that is saying much. Let an expert speak. Professor
Norman, late of the Imperial Naval College of Japan,
with whom fencing is a hobby, has studied fencing of
all sorts in England, France, Germany, Austria, Turkey,
Persia, Siam, China, and Japan. He says that the Japa
nese policeman is the most dexterous swordsman living.
Even with his club he will enter a drinking place
where a half-dozen men-o'-war's men are having a
rough-and-tumble fight, and arrest them all with celer
ity and ease. Jack has a wholesome dread of the little
man in blue, and trembles when he sees the " billy." It
is an odd sight to see him staggering to the station-house
in charge of a man whom it would seem he could pack
under his arm. It is like an ant taking home a beetle.
The entire police force in Japan is under a single
head, with the chief offices in Tokio and a subdepart-
ment in each province. The chief is a man of extraor
dinary powers. His officers command such respect as
only military men enjoy on the continent of Europe, and
the entire system is as efficient, probably, as can be found
in the world to-day.
[140 ]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PLAYHOUSES, PLAYERS, AND PLAYS
THE Secretary to the Chief of Police, a young
Viscount who spoke English well, and who had
conducted us on our first visit to the august jail,
took us to the theater one morning, and we spent the
day there. We went often after that, and on the west
coast brought criticism on our youthful heads by the
keenness we displayed in studying the stage.
The influence of Count Inouye's garden party, at
which the Mikado was present and saw Danjuro and
other great actors, had not reached Etchiu. But we per
sisted in our researches and found out several things.
One of the first of our impressions was that a man needs
gymnastic eyes and a laminated throat to be an actor in
Japan. The eyes count for more, however. A good
eye-wriggler need not want for a position, nor should
the owner of an india-rubber face, for " making faces "
is an art with the Japanese stage folk.
The achievements of these artists are illustrated ac
curately by the contorted countenances shown on the
cheap paper fans so plentiful in summer time the world
over. These fan illustrations, be they never so gro
tesque or weird or fantastic, are exact representations
of stage scenes. They are not exaggerations. The gar
ments shown in the pictures conceal effectively all out
line of the human form, but they are stage costumes
[ 141 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
such as Japanese actors wear to-day; and the faces, in
spite of the distortion they display, are portraits of
theatrical stars which anyone familiar with the native
theater would recognize immediately.
I believe there are no better equipped actors in the
world to-day than those found on the Japanese boards.
The theaters, too, such as Meijiza and Kabukiza, in
Tokio, are excellent, with their electric lights, their re
volving stages, and their simple yet beautiful scenery.
Many of the plays would be intelligible to an audience
that did not know a word of Japanese. Danjuro, whose
real name is Horikoshi Shu, and Kiugoro the great
comedian, speak a world language and will make you
laugh or cry at will. It is a pity they cannot be pre
vailed upon to make a foreign tour. They would draw
well. Their versatility is marvelous. They play comedy,
tragedy, and farce, in either male or female parts, with
equal facility and happiness. They were born to the
stage, as were their parents and grandparents before
them for ten generations, and have taken parts from the
time they were of sufficient size to be seen by the spec
tators. With such inheritance and such training it
would be strange if they did not excel.
In spite of all this excellence, however, it is only re
cently the theater has been in good repute in the Mi
kado's Empire. Count Inouye, then Minister of Foreign
Affairs, gave his famous garden-party in the autumn of
1887, for the purpose of elevating the stage. His Im
perial Majesty Mutsu Hito attending, set the seal of
[142 ]

PLAYHOUSES
supreme approval upon a profession which before that
time had been taboo with gentlefolk.
The records of the census-taker show the position of
actors under the old regime. This official counted them,
" ip piki, ni hikki, sam biki," etc., when reckoning the
number of men in the theater. That seems harmless
enough until it is explained that, in counting in Japa
nese, " ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku," etc. (one, two, three,
four, five, six), certain auxiliaries to the numerals are
used, according to the kind of things that are being
counted. For instance, human beings are " mei " or
" nin," and are usually counted " ichi nin, ni nin, san
nin," etc. Flat things, such as sheets of paper, are
" mai " — " ichi mai, ni mai," etc. ; houses are " ken " —
" ik ken, ni ken, san ken," etc. ; boats are " so " — " is
so, ni so, san zo," etc. ; and living creatures, except
human beings and birds, are " hiki " — " ip piki, ni hiki,
sam biki, shi hiki," etc. Actors, therefore, came under
the general classification of beasts.
Until recently the upper classes kept away from the
theaters or went there only in disguise. But, in spite
of this, good plays were produced and, financially, at
least, the profession prospered. To-day distinguished
actors are received in the homes of persons of noble rank.
The Japanese theater is the only place left in which
one can study the ways of Old Japan. Though it re
tains many of the ancient and grotesque traditions of its
early days, it is accurate in presenting customs that else
long since would have passed from memory. Its lan
guage, too, is formal and archaic, and the intonation of
[143 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
the actors almost terrible. You will not find such lan
guage or such voices anywhere off the stage. A half-
minute's attempt to imitate the sounds the native actors
produce would give a Westerner bronchitis. The throat
is contracted, the veins swell, and the blood seems ready
to burst from every pore in the tragedian's face. Then
the eyes roll, individually and independently, one up,
the other down, one to the east and the other to the west,
or only one gyrates and the other rolls, until only the
white shows. The iris disappears entirely. This is
done especially when the eye-wriggler wishes to demon
strate that he represents a character that is bold and
bad. When you see him you will believe he does so.
The bearing of the actors cast for kings and queens
is comical. It brings to mind descriptions of the old
miracle plays. To walk like ordinary mortals would not
do for royalty or for personages of any sort. They
must strut like a German recruit breaking in. It is
something to remember the entrance of a Chinese Em
peror as he comes down the aisle through the audience.
At each step his foot rises quite to the level of his chin,
while his revolving eyes appear to be two inches in diam
eter. All this seems childish enough to ruin the effect of
the most excellent acting, but it does not.
In battle scenes, particularly, the exaggeration is ex
treme. Japanese actors die hard — on the stage. It is
appalling to see how long they last. They stagger about,
still lashing at each other, after they are shot as full of
arrows as a porcupine is full of quills. The first arrow
would have done for them anywhere but in the theater.
[ 144 ]

PLAYHOUSES
Stage blood is over everything; but the audience de
lights in gory scenes, and the actors must be " an uncon
scionable time a-dying." Arms and legs are lopped off.
The wounded roll about making terrible grimaces, and
dummy limbs, appearing through the floor, twitch and
jerk about the stage in a way not pleasant to weak
nerves. In place of the calcium with the colored slides, a black-
hooded mute with a bamboo pole, at the end of which is
a lighted candle, moves about with much agility and
illumines the chief actor's countenance by means of the
sputtering dip. To the stranger this jet-black elf is
rather an attraction in himself and a serious distraction
from the play, but after a while the spectator grows ac
customed to the imp and is oblivious to his presence, and
the actor holds the entire attention.
Another distraction is the orchestra, and a dismal one
it is to the uninitiated. Its performances should have a
chapter to themselves. It is usually at one end of the
stage, behind a screen, which conceals the appalling
physiognomies of the members, but does not add har
mony to the sounds. The " music " and " singing " con
tinue without a pause all the time the curtain is up.
The songs are indescribable, for the tones are something
between the squealing of a pig and the wail of a lost
soul. It has a certain fitness, however, one discovers
after several hearings, especially in the ghost and goblin
acts — and during the carnage of the battle scenes it is
quite in harmony with the interminable slaughter.
The general appearance of the Japanese stage is much
[ 145 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
the same as the stage in a foreign theater. The stage
itself revolves, but otherwise the scenery is managed
much as it is in this country. The actors, when they die,
are attended to by the hooded elves, who see them safely
away behind blankets.
The audience does not applaud by hand-clapping; it
shouts the actor's name. It is a comfortable audience,
with any amount of time. Plays begin at eight o'clock
in the morning and continue until seven in the evening.
Different theaters give performances at different hours,
however. In some places the doors open only in the even
ing. The floor of an empty theater looks like a checker
board, otherwise the theater looks much like a playhouse
in this country. The difference is, that there are no
stalls. The entire seating space is partitioned off into
squares by means of railing, about a foot above the soft-
matted floor. This gives the orchestra and pit the ap
pearance of a checker board. Each square holds a half-
dozen spectators. In the balcony often there are boxes.
Generally the spectators have tea-caddies and their
lunch with them, especially in the country. Folk often
take gourds of sake too, but in towns the tea-houses of
the neighborhood provide all sorts of refreshments at
moderate cost.
Between the acts the spectators visit about the house
and exchange sake cups. Occasionally some of the
actors come down to see them. They always receive a
present, just as geisha do. All sorts of hawkers of food
and drink run about on the railings while the curtain is
down, offering their wares to the spectators.
[ 146 ]

PLAYHOUSES
Smoking goes on all through the performance. There
is no formality of dress, nor is it unusual to see a spec
tator curl up for a nap to carry him through a portion
of the play he does not care for. When an act is end
ing, the curtain-man announces it by a nerve-shattering
racket, made with two hard pieces of wood which he beats
together. As the curtain falls, all the children in the
place rush for the stage and have a merry game of tag.
Often they crawl behind to see what is going on. No
one interferes with them nor shows the least annoyance
at their pranks. The stage is theirs until the clatter-
man sends the curtain up again.
Queer as Japanese theatrical methods are, they are far
ahead of the methods that obtain in China. The Chi
nese theater is familiar to some extent abroad, for one
may see it wherever there is a Chinese colony, notably
in San Francisco, in New York City, and in various
places in the colonies ; but the Japanese play has stayed
at home, though Kawakami and Yakko, the geisha, after
various adventures in America, made a hit in Lon
don, and especially at the Paris Exposition, where they
showed that a good Japanese troop, aided by a clear
translation with intelligible notes, could do exceedingly
well. Their French manager knew his business.
At present there is little differentiation in the foreign
mind between things Japanese and Chinese. This an
noys the subjects of the Mikado, for they are not re
lated to the people they recently conquered. Neither in
blood nor in language is there any relationship what
ever, unless Japan's many borrowings make China a
[147 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
sort of uncle. In Japan, foreigners enjoy the theater;
but in China, hardly. There is no way of stopping a
Chinese play. Once it is fairly started it runs until the
theatre is burned down, or the actors die of old age.
Many Japanese plays, however, are of the same structure
and duration as English plays. Where the theater is
open all day the play is broken in two, and between the
sections of a sketch, something like a curtain-raiser fills
in. On the Japanese stage dead men are taken off by the
attendants. They do not jump up and trot off in the
merry Chinese fashion. The orchestra in Japan is not
entirely tomtom and squeak, either ; nor does it sit on the
stage, mixed up with the actors. Indeed, some of the
performances on the samisen are exceedingly clever and
full cf life. Japanese scenery is well-nigh perfect, and
the revolving stage, of which the Chinese know nothing,
saves much time.
Recently, too, in Japan, mixed troops are allowed.
Men and women may appear on the stage together. This
is not so in China, nor can it be said to be in great favor
as yet in Japan, because the old ideas are not gone yet.
Japanese plays are extremely realistic, more so than
would be allowable were both sexes on the stage together.
The appearance of women in companies with men cer
tainly would curtail this realism, and it is thought by
some that drama would lose thereby.
Since the war the theater has prospered, mightily,
and prices have gone up. Still, two dollars is not a
great sum to pay for twelve hours' use of a good box,
[148]

PLAYHOUSES
and a chance to see much that is ludicrous, but also much
that is admirable and instructive.
One evening Gardner beckoned two of the performers
to our square. We had a cup of sake with them and
asked them to come to see us the next day, Nichiyobi,
that being our one holiday in the week and therefore a
reception day. They did so. In fact the whole troop
came, so that we had to adjourn to a tea-house not far
away, where there was more room. The news that we
were entertaining players spread, and I fear we lost
caste sadly, but we had a grand time, nevertheless. Sev
eral of the townsfolk whom we knew came also, and
though they may have held an actor in contempt no one
would have suspected it from their actions. They ex
changed sake-cups with the men from the theater,
played chess with them, and later, when the geisha had
arrived, joined in a sort of grand march, which the pro
fessional folk led. There was never such a Nichiyobi
before in Etchiu, I will warrant. We felt we were work
ing along the lines of the distinguished chief of the For
eign Office.
The dismay that came upon us when first we saw how
many the two whom we had invited were, changed rap
idly to joy under the stimuli of the occasion — stimuli,
by the way, which the master of the tea-house kept con
stantly in evidence. We were pleased with our good
work. " I wish it continuing always," said Okashi. Then he
had a cask of sake set out in the road where several in
dividuals had collected, and the theater folk helped to
[149]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
apportion it, and in this kindly work our other guests as
sisted, until someone ran away with the cask. We re
tired, of course, without saying good-night, feeling sure
that Okashi would not let the evening drag. Gardner's
last remark was, " Don't you think the stage will be all
right if only the people on it are elevated? "
They were, so I agreed with him.

[150]

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
" MUSIC "
BESIDES the actors and the plays that we
, studied in the theaters, " gaku " attracted our
attention. It was so persistently bad we could
not help becoming interested. We had some of the
" gakunin " at the house one afternoon for a close in
spection. Okashi San treated them with some consideration, for,
as he said, their fame was great, but Gardner and I had
trouble in keeping up to Okashi's dignity of bearing.
I do not believe either of us ever had such another hour
in our lives. We were full of internal cramps through
trying not to laugh, and the pain was such that it was
equally difficult to restrain our tears. To sit there in
apparent peace, while trying desperately not to do two
things so opposite in kind, was a strain our nervous sys
tems did not soon recover from.
" Gaku " is a Japanese word which the dictionaries
translate " music." If you ever hear any gaku you will
wonder what is the matter with the dictionaries, and will
suspect their trustworthiness ever after, consulting them
I fear with hesitancy. But they are rather good except
for such words as song, music, and tadaima.
Gaku should be translated, " a series of irregular and
disconnected vocal squeaks accompanied by strings
[151]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
twanging out of tune and interspersed with caterwauls."
That would be comprehensive and exact, except when the
vocal squeaks are omitted. Without the squeaks gaku
is the same in kind — unqualified and willful discord, but
not so much of it.
• The dictionaries would have you believe also that the
vocal squeaks are singing. They say that " uta " means
song, that " utau " means to sing, and that " O uta
utau nasai " means " Honorable song to sing conde
scend," i. e., " Please sing a song." Again your faith
receives a shock. " O uta utau nasai " should be trans
lated " Bring me two earfuls of cotton." With your
ears well stuffed you may listen to gaku without going
mad. Otherwise much self-control is necessary. Per
haps Brinkley's new edition will give uta as " song "
with the modifying word " Japanese " or " native " be
fore it, and I trust it will do as much for gaku, too.
There are many kinds of gaku in Japan, each of which
is worse than any of the others, with one exception that
may be made occasionally in favor of classical gaku.
This kind is esoteric, so very esoteric at some of the
Shinto festivals that only the motions of producing the
discord are made, and the soul-piercing uta is left out
as well. These are the only times you will not desire
cotton. When court musicians, the most classical of all gaku
folk in Japan, break out into sound, the atmosphere is
torn to ribbons. There is something in the result to sug
gest that striking picture, "The March of the Con
querors." One sees the chief killers that the world has
[152]

GAKUNIN

" MUSIC "
known advancing between the parallel lines of dead, and
also a tidal-wave full of cats, pawing helplessly in the
foam and clamoring for succor. Yet all this pleases the
Japanese ear, so that the more discordant of the
gakunin acquire fame and are talked about. But the
gaku itself never attracts notice. No one discusses it, no
one cares who composed it.
Classical gaku is a thousand years old, two thousand
likely. It came over from China, back somewhere in
the sixth century, and no one knows how long it had
afflicted China before leaving for the Land of the Rising
Sun. It has not grown better ever since.
After watching our guests we understood how, now
and again, a gakunin dies of heart failure or of con
gestion of the brain. The men strained so in squeezing
out the uta that their necks swelled and the veins stood
out as large as clothes-lines. Their eyes were blood
shot, and their faces a dull brown purple. Each growled
and gagged and yapped until he reached the convulsion
point. One of the gakunin unlimbered his neck and
thrust it out like a chicken reaching for a bug, and the
blood receding, left his face the color of washed-out
leather. Then the other did the same; and they alter
nated for a while, antiphonally, so to speak. I felt it
would be foresight to order coffins for Gardner and me
at once, but I could not speak.
When several gakunin unite in crime they pay no at
tention to key or to harmony, for such things do not
concern gaku. They do, however, keep common time to
gether — the only time the Japanese know anything
[153 )

THE HEART OF JAPAN
about. Each " singer " strains and exhausts himself in
dependently of the others, in whatever way he can pro
duce most discord. Gardner estimated that with each
word the gakunin squeezed out he expended enough
energy to wind an eight-day clock.
As there was no notation for any but the classical
gaku, all gaku must be handed down by word of mouth
and learned from the living teacher. Wee girls sit
for hours each day before the instructor — usually a
woman past the flower of her youth, and no longer in
demand in the tea-houses — and practice at the " break,"
the point just between the lower and higher register,
where all the possible raspiness of her little voice can be
brought to complete development.
All Japanese uta are rendered at the " break." This
is a cruel surprise to the foreigner when he first hears it,
for nothing further from his expectations well could
be when the dainty maid sits down before him, with a
winsome smile, her samisen resting on her knee, and her
taper fingers playing up and down the strings. He is
utterly unprepared for the series of weird, discordant
notes, which sound more like an incantation to " blue
devils " than what the interpreter assures you it is — a
love-song. After this attempt to give the reader a suspicion of
what gaku is like, it need not be a surprise to hear that
both Professor Chamberlain and Koidzumi Yakumo
(Lafcadio Hearn) say that a Japanese Bayreuth is un
thinkable. Still there is some hope. The speaking voice
of the natives is soft and sweet. The vocal organs are
[154 ]

" MUSIC "
all there, and the ear does not appear to be abnormal, for
with the violin and the piano Japanese students studying
abroad have done good work. An effort is making now
to build up a school of foreign music in Tokio.
As yet, however, the general run of Japanese care
nothing for our music. It does not distress them, it is
true, as much of theirs does us, but they do not under
stand it. It is ridiculous to them, as a charming young
European found out once in singing in a Japanese
theater. When she gave her high notes some of her
hearers laughed so hard they became ill and had to be
carried out by attendants who themselves were nearly as
helpless. Those who would like to study the " music " of Japan,
and have not at hand the appalling facilities Gardner
and I enjoyed, cannot do better than get Mr. Piggatt's
beautifully illustrated volume, " The Music and Musical
Instruments of Japan." Mr. Piggatt finds in the native
instrumental music " some reflex of the national grace,
some prettily quaint flashes of melody and curious phrase
repetitions." According to Confucius, China had something like
real music once, and Japan probably learned something
of this in early days. It is too bad she did not develop
it. The idea of the man who said " Let me write the
songs of a country and I care not who makes the laws "
is an old one. The great Chinese philosopher saw the
truth in it twenty-four centuries ago. He said, " Har
mony has the power to draw heaven downwards towards
the earth. It inspires men to love the good and to do
[ 155 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
their duty. If one should desire to know whether a
kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad,
the quality of its music shall furnish forth the an
swers." On this theory, what must a Boxer band be like?

[156]

CHAPTER [NINETEEN
BLOSSOMS ALWAYS IN BLOOM
SEVERAL times there were geisha in our theater
parties, and of course they were present at all our
feasts. No Japanese would think of giving a din
ner without these innocent hetserse, whether it were to be
in a public tea-house or in private dwelling. That is, of
course, unless his feast were in the foreign style. Then
the native buds and blossoms would be quite out of place.
'They are indispensable for the native celebration,
though. In five years I never saw a gathering for
pleasure without them. They make everything go suc-
cssfully, so cleverly, and with so little friction.
The mission of the geisha is to make life merry. Her
whole education is to that end. She can dance and sing,
and play on all sorts of instruments ; she knows the best
stories and the latest j okes ; she is quick at repartee ; the
games she doesn't know are those that have not yet been
invented. She is as graceful and frolicsome as a kitten,
her manners are exquisite, and she is as beautiful as —
well, as beautiful as a geisha. Only dead folk can with
stand her charms, and it is doubtful about them. Her
mirth is the best of tonics. It will mend one when any
thing ails the health. She cures everything, that is to
say, but diseases of the heart. These the geisha has
been known to aggravate. In truth she doesn't need
[157]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
more than half a chance to put a heart in a terrible
way. Now, in Japan everyone is always entertaining some
one ! Few things happen that do not demand a feast.
Consequently the geisha is never out of sight for long.
She appears at the festal place soon after the earliest ar
rivals, or about two hours before dinner is announced.
It is the custom in Japan for guests come ahead of time,
instead of on the minute or a little late.
The first sight you have of her is as she bows low at
the threshold, her hands palm down on the floor before
her, and her face pressed close against them. She says,
" Omina sama gomen kudasai," which means, " Honor
able Mr. and Mrs. Everybody, august pardon deign."
" Irashai," call out some of the guests as they look up
from the chess boards or tiny packs of flower cards with
which they have been playing. Irashai means " wel
come," and the geisha enter to take possession of the tea
pots and to "jolly" everyone as they serve the gentle
stimulant. Their entrance is not the last bit wabbly, as one
might think from the performances wherein foreign ac
tresses try to represent the geisha. A singer's robes
(kimono) are quite too long for any gait like that. The
European stage-folk must have got their ideas of the
Japanese foot motions from a study of native women
dressed in European style, certainly not by watching
Yakko the Entrancing. Japanese women do walk
queerly when their feet are incased in high-heeled boots.
Their gracefulness is gone then, the glide that holds
[158]

IN JAPAN EVERYONE IS ALWAYS ENTERTAINING SOMEONE

BLOSSOMS ALWAYS IN BLOOM
their sandals on becomes a shuffle, and the inward swing
ing of the right foot, caused by the side pull of the
kimono, which clings so closely to the figure, develops
into pigeon-toe.
When a geisha has served tea all round, and had a
dainty bit of chaff with everyone, she glides off to the
kitchen to see that the sake, sashimi, the kwashi, and
other things are ready. She has an artist's eye, and
can serve raw fish — which sounds anything but appe
tizing to Westerners — so daintily on a lacquered tray
that you simply have to try a little.
As soon as the portions are arranged, she glides back
to the guest-room with china bottles full of hot rice-beer.
She puts bowls of water full of tiny cups at intervals
about the room before the guests, who have ranged them
selves along the border of the apartment. To each one
she offers a cup, and then pours out the sake with a
bow, saying, " Please condescend to drink one full."
With the wine come kwashi, that is different kind of
cakes, which she serves on little oblong brazen dishes.
It seems like beginning with the desert, but it is quite
the proper way in Japan.
While the guests are busy with this appetizer of
kwashi and sake, the geisha goes to the corner of the
room and puts on her evening robes. She does not go
out of the room to do this, for she is a lightning-change
artist, and as the daytime garments are sliding from one
shoulder the clinging folds of the evening gown are upon
the other, and with a bit of a shrug and a wriggle the
thrush becomes a nightingale.
[159]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
An assistant binds the robe with a broad sash, tied in
a square knot behind (which, by the way, is the original
bustle), and she comes purring among the guests once
more, bearing trays loaded with lacquered bowls and
china cups, containing soups and fish of many kinds.
until before each guest there is a fair foundation for an
art museum. Then she brings out her " samisen," a
three-stringed, square-headed " banjo," and, plucking
with her " bachi " or " plectrum," tunes it to the weird
est key that sounds were ever known to give. The sad
melody of waters beating on a foreign shore as the surf-
sprite sings of loneliness — such is the spirit of the
geisha's song.
As she plays, her younger sister dances. Not as we
dance here, nor as any of the imitation geisha dance.
There is a little motion, but much harmony of line,
as she turns about and postures and wields her fan
so deftly that it seems to hover in the air as if it were a
moth circling above a candle-light. Her posing tells
more clearly than any words might do the story of her
elder sister's song. It is a love-story always. It could
not be anything else when a geisha sings it. It is not
" Chon Kino," however, unless she is a seaport geisha, '
and a cheap geisha at that ; for " Chon Kino " is sung
in the lowest places only, and except in seaports there
are no low places in the whole Empire.
"Chon Kino " is for sailors, and men-of-war's men,
whom the natives call " Damyoureyes San." It is sung
by a class of girls unknown in Japan before foreigners
arrived. Its origin is not Japanese at all. It came from
[160]

A GEISHA

BLOSSOMS ALWAYS IN BLOOM
the early Dutch, who taught it to their temporary wives
at Deshima, Nagasaki. It is really part of a game of
forfeits, after the manner of " Simon says ' thumbs
up.' " The usual forfeit after " Yokohama, Nagasaki,
Hakodate, hai," is to take off one piece of cloth. This
forfeiting continues until there is not anything more to
cake off. Whoever has the most on at the end of the
game wins.
Geisha dancing is often pantomime, and where a half-
dozen of them dance together they form a theatrical
troop in themselves. They would be delighted with
their counterparts in foreign theaters, but they would be
amused, too, at the funny differences. Fluffy hair is
not Japanese ; petticoats are not worn under kimono ;
high heels would play sad havoc with the delicate tatami
that cover Japanese floors; waraji, or rough straw san
dals, are not worn in the house except in the kitchen.
(Geisha either go barefoot or in tabi.) Kimono fold
round the body with the left side over and the right side
under, unless the wearer is a corpse. Real geisha never
hug each other nor even hold hands — much less kiss.
Geisha do not cross their hands over the breast when they
bow, they bend over as though giving a back for a game
of leapfrog. The hands are pressed against the knees
and the spine is horizontal.
And another thing is conspicuous by its absence in the
European imitations. It would be a sad thing for the
dear little girls if they had not even one smoke in a whole
evening ! Geisha carry pipes of gold and silver bronze,
with which they enjoy ippuku, one whiff from time to
[161 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
time, taking a pinch of mild tobacco from the leather
pouch each one has slipped into her obe.
Moreover, it would surprise geisha to know that they
could be bought and sold easily, as the foreign play-
writers represent. A geisha is usually indentured to a
teacher when she is young, or perhaps the teacher pays
the parents for a release, and then adopts the child.
But even then she is not owned as a slave was owned.
Her contract, if she is indentured, stipulates a sum on
payment of which she can be released. Indenture papers
may change hands, they do, but there is no slavery. If
a man purchases a release he has no legal claim. All
depends upon the girl's willingness. If she is adopted,
and later runs away and marries, there is no legal cause
for her recovery. Indeed, she does this very thing occa
sionally. Many a Japanese official of high rank has
been proud of such a helpmeet.

[162]

CHAPTER TWENTY
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
ONE of our amusements as we strolled about the
towns we visited was to study the signs along
the streets. There was human interest in them,
and a few of those we saw were unique. Yet in spite of
their oddity they are truly signs of the times ; there is
some history in telling how they came to be, for they
are of the period when Japan was stepping from her old
clothes into her new. Feudalism with its daimiyos and
military retainers was disappearing, and so were caste
distinctions. The Government had just established a
system of schools on a German-American plan, with
much English and much military drill, and had set all
the youth of the nation to school together to gain West
ern knowledge. Children of the four classes of society
— warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants, and even
of the outcast " Etta," met on a common footing for the
first time.
Hasami San, the son of Kami San the barber, was the
equal of the son of the samurai, and the barber was
happy in the fact. Kami San knew nothing whatever
of foreign ways. He was of the old regime, but he had
perfect faith in his Government, and if Government
favored foreign ways surely they were good. And this
English language, too, which all the schools "were teach-
[163]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
ing, so that no matter where one went he would hear of
the great Peter Parley and his History, of Lord
Macaulay, and Clive, and Warren Hastings, of George
Washington and the cherry tree. Was not Hasami
studying about these things every day in classes side by
side with gentlefolk? Surely he must put up an Eng
lish sign to show the world that his abode was the home
of learning as well as other houses, even those of great
pretensions. His sons should have the job — Hasami San,
who played with the children of fighting men and of the
owners of many rice-fields, who knew the characters for
writing " Eigo " — as he called the foreign tongue, and
who even at this moment was in military uniform, drill
ing to become a soldier in the army of the great Mikado.
The barber's nose was high.
Kami San talked of these things to his friend Hige
San while Hige was receiving a one "cent's worth of
treatment. He had gone entirely over Hige San's face
with his thin narrow blade, even to the eyelids, and now
had hold of his friend's nose and was reaming the hair
from his nostrils with a tiny gouge-shaped razor, that
few but a native barber would dare to use.
" The times are changing," he said, as he rolled Hige's
head a little to the right, twirling his gouge, " and when
Hasami has leisure from his studies in the coming rest
days of the school, he shall show by the new knowledge
that I have the pride to make changes too, keeping by
the times closely in my business."
Here he lifted Hige San a little, saying, " Augustly
condescend honorable head to elevate," and began to
[164 ]

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
shave the ears. He did so deftly and thoroughly, both
inside and out. When this was over, and he had taken a
run round the neck, he struck a tuning-fork and put the
handle, which had a knob on its end, first into one ear
and then into the other. The tuning-fork gives the
customer the impression that he can hear himself purr,
and so makes him happy.
Hige San arose shining and beaming, paid his two
sen [one cent], said that Kami San was augustly glori
ously expertissimo and declared that an English sign
over the sliding-doors that made the front wall of the
shop would be an honor to the neighborhood, a sign, in
truth, befitting the new era which Tenshi Sama, the Son
of Heaven, had deigned to honor with the name of Meiji
— the Epoch of Enlightenment.
" Oh, it will be, of course, a most unworthy and dis
graceful object, as is everything about my miserable
shop. But the new language from the wonderful people
of the West, that it is which I wish to place on high,"
replied the polite Kami San.
The " rest days " Kami had referred to came soon,
and Hasami San had the leisure of his first vacation.
He had learned the alphabet, " aye, bee, shee, dee, ee,
efoo, jee," etc., and could tell a " dee " from an " oh "
if he took time to think and then made the right guess.
Besides, he knew many words and short sentences from
his first reader. He could not pronounce " el," it is
true ; the nearest he could come to it was " eroo," as is
the case with the general run of Japanese to-day ; such
words as " literally " and " literary " are beyond them,
[165]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
but he could draw characters skillfully, English letters
being simple compared with the Chinese intricacies that
youngsters learn to write so deftly with a brush.
So when his father explained the sign idea to him he
set to work diligently, and by the time the holidays were
over he had produced an ornament over his father's
Chinese lettered sign that filled the old man's heart with
joy. It was in three lines, which he printed and shaded
beautifully. It read :
BARBER
TO SHAVE BEARD OR TO ORESS
HAIRS WAY
Kami San was the proudest man in town when he
gazed up at the completed work. He gave a dinner to
celebrate the event, and had all his friends in for the
day. Sake flowed. There was raw fish, boiled fish,
grilled fish, and cuttle-fish in profusion, and even the
hardy little fishes that submit to slicing up alive. In
the evening he had lanterns all over the front of his
shop, with special illumination for the sign. Geisha
strummed their samisens and danced and sang, and the
guests had so good a time that many of them forgot all
about going home until Kami San awoke them in the
morning. The fame of the sign spread. Soon it was the envy
of every one of Kami San's brothers in the " hairs
way," and of the tradesfolk generally. Those of them
who had sons that had learned the " aye, bee, shee,"
commanded them to do as Hasami had done, and those
[166]

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
who had no sons sought to engage Hasami's services.
Kami San would not hear of his boy's neglecting his
studies of the wonderful Eigo, however, nor the military
drills. He was busy, too, he said, for customers flocked
to him, so that he had to hire two more assistants, and
he needed Hasami himself whenever the youngster had
any spare time.
He said to Hige San one day, as he was shaving care
fully over the tip of his friend's nose and giving a curve
deftly to his eyebrows, that he knew when the honorable
good thing came his way ; he was a respecter of signs and
would not do anything to make a good one common.
Except that his son had explained to him by means of a
dictionary what his sign signified, he did not know its
meaning, but its influence as it shone down on the pass
ing throng was agreeable to his ideas, and he proposed
not to meddle with it.
Kami San's lack of assistance did not hinder matters
much, however. The sign craze was on, and it lasted
longer than the rabbit craze. But then the Government
put a stop to that, whereas it has never interfered with
signs. English lettering appeared in Yokohama, Tokio,
Nagasaki, Hakodate, Kobe, Kiyoto, and hundreds of
other places, even at the tea-houses along the great high
ways where the jin-riki-sha men stopped for a sip of tea
and a whiff from their tiny pipes, as this one, for
example :
" The tas are restful and for sharpen the minds."
And another : " The Genuinely bier buy the health
for drink."
[167]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
And a third : " Of smokes our tobacco is preasure to
our Tongue and give the Healthiness to Hers and Hes !
Also All People by It."
These little notices in unexpected places relieved the
monotony of a journey on a dull day. Their passing
will leave a void. Some of them have disappeared
already now that the railway has come, and the old Kaido
with their inns do little of their former business. But
those in the towns remain, except where they were, like
the language of the " Damyoureyes San," far too frank.
The camera has caught them, and should Kami San and
Hasami San be taken up in a chariot of fire, their work
would live. An " Eta " who was once an outcast, but
is now " Heimin," that is, a member of the great class
that includes all but officials and nobles, expanded under
the radiant announcement over the entrance of his leather
shop:
To Trade Hair-Skin Sort Shop.
An entomologist of some repute in Yokohama, who
supplied collectors of insects and also silk raisers with
their " seeds," ornamented the front of his place of busi
ness with his name and the words :
Butterfly and Worm Merchants.
(Does the plural imply that this man has been leading
a double life?)
The man who safeguards against sun and rain de
clared the fact publicly as follows:
A Shop the Kind of Parasol or Umbrella and
Sticks. [168]

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
and either of " parasol " or of " umbrella and sticks "
he had great variety.
Japan looked askance at butchers in the early days of
the new order. Beef and pork were taboo pretty well
all over the country. Even now it is not easy to get
animal food in the small villages of the interior, where
some Buddhist priests still declare war against flesh and
wine. But medical advice following a cholera scare has
had much influence, so that one may see this sign to-day
exposed boldly to view over a shop :
COWMEAT AND PlGMEAT.
In a country where there has been much raw fish, espe
cially salmon, and not particularly good drainage until
William Kinimond Burton took to teaching it sanitation,
troublesome ailments would occur. To one of these Mr.
Swiftriver had turned his attention with success. His
sign read as one straight line:
Tape-Worm Swiftriver Shop
Mr. Pinecape, who dealt in coals, took the public into
his confidence and confessed the secret of his success.
Beneath his name and address are these two lines :
Honest, Industorious make the Cont
inual Prosperity.
Mr. Seedsmall, who dealt in so-called temperance
drinks, which the Japanese call " gun-water " because
of the " pop," got hold of a dictionary in which someone
had translated the names of his beverages into Japanese
phonetic equivalents. These Japanese syllables do not
[169 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
conform with extreme nicety to English sounds, prin
cipally because none of them ends in a consonant, but
always in a vowel, and none of them has the sound of
" 1 " in it. This is the English part of Seedsmall's sign :
Ramune Souda Sasupre Zinzinbiya Jinjyae-l,
which one sees at a glance to mean Lemon Soda, Sars-
aparilla, Ginger Beer and Ginger Ale.
The brilliancy of official uniforms attracted the atten
tion of a tailor, and he sought to make business amongst
the men of the army and navy and the Government.
His sign read :
Gold Tail Shop.
Posterior decoration, apparently, was his specialty.
Another sign, that of a tobacco merchant on Ginza,
the Broadway of Tokio, was probably the best known
in the capital for half a dozen years. It was not amus
ing, for it merely declared the maker's brand and where
one could find it on sale, but it was ubiquitous. The
merchant had taken the contract to water the city's
streets from one end to the other on all dry days the
year round. The brilliant red carts his coolies pulled
about told everyone that in the tobacco business Mr.
Pinemountain of the Ginza was supreme.
And so one might go on indefinitely quoting signs,
labels on bottles and cigarette packages, the covers of
books, and what not, all of them strange and some of
them incomprehensible, yet all of them signs of the effort
of Old Japan to become New Japan, an effort that has
been triumphant.
[170]

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BOWS AND BALLOTS
GARDNER and I had the good fortune to be in
- Japan at the time of the first election the coun
try ever had. It' passed off with the greatest
decorum and the absence of anything approaching osten
tation, or even excitement, but it was not without some
amusing aspects.
One wonders how the officials stand the strain. Elec
tion inspectors, for instance, must have rubber backs.
They need them, for on voting days they have, at the
lowest calculation, five hundred and twenty thousand
bows to make, and now the franchise has been extended
they will soon have to " ojigi " five times as often.
That is a great deal of hinge-work, and demands
elasticity and lubrication, especially as ojigi does not
mean a mere nod of the head. To be done properly,
the body must double at the hips, folding after the
manner of a two-foot rule. The " tachiainin," there
fore, as the inspectors are called, no matter how auto
matic their early training may have made them, have no
easy work on balloting days. When night comes, and
the polls have closed, they climb into their j in-riki-shas
and go home, to be shampooed by some blind " amma "
and restored to life.
Five hundred and twenty thousand bows is a conserva-
[171]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
tive estimate. It allows each voter only one ojigi, which
is ridiculously low, for it is hardly conceivable that a
voter should approach the inspectors who are seated
behind the ballot boxes with less than half a dozen fold
ings, and etiquette naturally demands that the inspectors
should fold, too. It is safe to allow three ojigi for each
voter, and to declare boldly that every general election
day in Japan has witnessed inspectorial doubling to the
extent of one million five hundred thousand, or enough
to supply the most energetic saint with genuflections for
a lifetime. The new franchise, by similar reasoning,
implies seven million five hundred thousand bows. Allow
ing a hundred foot-pounds to a bow, the energy folded
off into space on voting days is found to be seventy-five
million foot-pounds; or two thousand two hundred and
seventy-two horse-power.
It costs something to be polite, and it takes time ; but
time is plentiful in the Land of the Rising Sun. A
Japanese needs about a quarter of a minute to ojigi.
At this rate one man would be occupied continuously for
345 years 6 months and 14 days if he were to do all the
folding himself. As Japanese draw in the breath with
a sucking sound when they bow, a person in a room ad
joining the one where votes are cast might think from
the sound, if he did not see, that a file of geese were
marching through.
Japan's population is something over 43,000,000.
In area the Empire is about a quarter again as large as
the British Isles, and speaking roughly it has one-third
more of population. Only about twelve per cent, of this
[172]

BOWS AND BALLOTS
land is suitable for cultivation. The people, therefore,
are crowded together, and large land-holdings are not
numerous. This accounts in some measure for the few
voters in Japan at present, because the franchise was
limited to men at least twenty-five years old, who paid
direct taxes on land or on incomes of at least fifteen
yen ($7.50).
As an instance of a result of the operation of this
law, Tokio, the capital, with a population of 2,000,000,
has had only 7000 voters, or one to every 285 of the
inhabitants. Almost all of the men entitled to vote have
availed themselves of the privilege. The " kikensha,"
or " stay-at-homes," have been rare when compared to
those in some of the elections here in America and Eng
land. Voting is a semi-private, semi-public act, performed
with much solemnity and no disorder. No one besides
the voter and the inspectors is allowed in the polling
booth while the function is in progress. The inspectors
are the Mayor, or the headman of the district, and two
or four other men chosen by him. They may be all of
the same political faith, and, if inclined to do so, could
manipulate the ballots to their own advantage materially.
The law says nothing about bi-partisan Inspection
Boards. Another opportunity these officials have to help their
friends along is in advising the voter how to vote. They
may even fill out the ballot for him, if he does not wish
to do it himself. His education may not extend to
Chinese characters, and not caring to use the humble
[173]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
syllabic form, he begs the inspectors, with many fold
ings, to do the names of the candidates for him in
Chinese. The ballot-box is almost an idol in the eyes of the
newly enfranchised natives. Indeed, they approach it
with a reverence beyond that accorded to the temple
images of Buddha. They are used to Buddha's images,
but the ballot-box is still mysterious. In the eyes of the
older natives it is still a fearful matter for a private
citizen to take it upon himself to make suggestions to
the Government. They remember that in former days
they might have been punished by death. A ballot is
certainly a suggestion, and so the old men stand in awe
of it.1
iThere had been a box for private petitions which was a means of
communication, at one time in the olden days, directly between the
Shogun and the humblest of his subjects. It seems to have been
essentially for private and personal appeals, however, and not
for the purpose of making suggestions to the government regarding
matters of state. Such suggestions would lead to the extreme
penalty whenever made.

[ 174 ]

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE FLOWERS OF TOKIO
IT rained fire one night when we were in the capital.
The air was full of flying shingles all ablaze. A
beautiful sight to those with tile roofs over them,
but hardly so if one were under thatch. " Tokio no
hana," said Okashi, who had appeared the day before
to ascertain our whereabouts. Translated literally,
" Tokio no hana " means " Tokio's blossoms," translated
freely, it means " fire." Fires are the flowers of Tokio.
Any Japanese carpenter will tell you that, and the
bigger the blossom is the better he likes it, for the more
work there will be for him.
The carpenter ranks high in the artisan class, and in
the popular mind Daiku San, as he is called, is still above
the farmer, next to samurai, and far above the merchant.
He is therefore an important man, and when he is happy
it is well to rejoice with him. Do not be vexed if you
find him purring at your front gate as you rush out to
notify the nearest policeman that your house is on fire.
Rather tell him where the sake is, and beg iiim to help
himself and to take home what he does not drink as a
present to his family.
He will do his prettiest in building a new house for
you a few days later, and describe you to his co-laborers
as a man of noble birth. Thus stimulated, the product
[175]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
of their labor will be excellent, and you will stand well
with the community. In Tokio it is expected that a
house will burn down about once in seven years (in some
sections once in three years was the rule). There are
plenty of exceptions, but rents are calculated on this
basis. The owner reckons to get his money back with
interest in that time, and then is quite ready to build
anew. A large fire in Tokio means good times, and a picnic
always. The first thing a man does when he is burned
out is. to banquet all his friends. His credit is good
under the circumstances, and a lack of ready cash is no
hindrance to festivity. The more houses he has lost the
greater banquet he will serve, and Daiku San will be
much in evidence. He will assist in opening a koku of
sake with generous dexterity, and will stand by till the
last drop of the forty gallons has been distributed. He
will aid in the distribution of balls of rice, neatly rolled
up in jackets of raw fish, assuring each guest in turn
that there is nothing like the fires that bloom in the
spring, and that in Tokio it is always spring.
Figures do not lie, but in statements about fires in
Japan they are misleading. A " griffin " reading in the
Mail of a fire of one hundred houses, would think it a
conflagration; but nothing less than one thousand is a
conflagration in the Mikado's Empire, and a thousand
make only a small one.
Bishop Williams of the American Episcopal Church
looked out of his study window one pleasant evening
watching a fire two miles away, and then retired to dream
[176]

THE FLOWERS OF TOKIO
that the inevitable festivities of the morrow were inter
fering with his mission services. Three hours later his
boy aroused him with the words, " Conflagration's wrath
encroaches precipitately," and the good Bishop escaped
in a robe not prescribed by canon. His dreams were all
too true. Eighteen thousand houses disappeared in
smoke, and Tokio was on a spree for two weeks. The
greatest fire of all was away back in 1557, when over
one hundred thousand people lost their lives.
Houses in Japan, however, signify less than in Eng
land. They are really roofs on pegs. The walls are
sliding doors — " amado " on the outside, along the outer
edge of the " engawa " or verandas ; " shoji " along the
inner edge, which shut off the engawa from the living-
rooms ; and " karakami " or fusuma, which are the divi
sions between living-rooms. All these can be lifted out
of their grooves easily and carried off. Even the tatami
are not fastened down. They hold their place without
nails or other fastening because they fit the floor-space
exactly, and there is not room for them to move, and
they can be hurried away if there is a half-hour's
warning. All but the poorest houses have " kura," alleged fire
proof buildings, near at hand, into which everything of
value may be stored away. These kura are of mud,
plaster, and tile, and look to be impervious to heat ; but
the radiance of " Tokio no hana " is often too much for
them, and they crumble into dust.
The Japanese fire engine is used to throw water on the
firemen, not on the fire. That would be an utter waste.
[ 177 ]

THE HEART OFJAPAN
Few of the pumps, which generally are worked by man
power, throw more of a stream than ordinary garden
hose — just about enough to keep the firemen soppy and
steaming.
With his heavily padded " kimono," short in the skirt
and bound to his waist, like a Norfolk jacket, his com
bination of tights and leggings, his blue mitts and
pointed hood, and his long, barbed pole, Hitashi, the
fireman, prances about in the smoke and the glare of the
flames, pulling down everything to clear a path to lee
ward and so starve the fire. He looks like a devil, but
he is only an acrobat.
Whenever there is a lull he will perform on a bamboo
ladder — standing on his head on the top rung, and doing
other difficult feats. He will be in for the picnic, too,
along with the carpenter. On January 4 each year the
firemen give a grand parade in Tokio, and do their clever
tricks at frequent halting-places along the route.
The combination of kerosene lamp and earthquake
produces many " Tokio no hana " and similar blossoms
in other parts of Japan. Instinctively everyone runs to
the lamps when the house begins to shake. Another
cause of fire is the lucifer match, still in use among the
poorer people.
A record of Tokio fires in the last two hundred and
seventy years shows the district where they are most
prevalent. This is called the fire district, and within its
boundary shingle roofs are prohibited. Tin roofs are
not yet introduced. But Tokio's future regarding her
famous blossoms will be much safer, if less picturesque,
[178]

THE FLOWERS OF TOKIO
thanks to the excellent work done by the late Professor
W. K. Burton of the Japanese Home Office, who devised
an excellent system of waterworks, with extensive pipe
lines and frequent hydrants. The foreign style of fire
engine has appeared also, with a stream strong enough
to destroy the average native house more quickly than
the blossom of Tokio, working in combination with the
steaming acrobat. This combination may be a legend
some day, but it is still in evidence.

[ 179 j

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IN TRADE
IT was odd to us that the " shraff " should be in
variably Chinese, but he was. Whenever we had
occasion to call at a foreign counting-house in
Yokohama, Nagasaki, Kobe, or wherever it might be,
the man that counted the money was a long-cued Celes
tial in flowing robes, never a short-haired, frock-coated
subject of the Mikado. And this in Japan ! — where the
natives had held all China in contempt until they
whipped her so soundly and speedily that the contempt
changed into pity !
" Why is it? " asked Gardner. " Can't Japanese
count ? "
Okashi said they could count well enough, but that
Japanese gentlemen (samurai like himself) abhorred the
touch of money, and no other class could be trusted to
count it honestly.
We knew that our precious landlord's dislike of the
medium of exchange would not allow money to remain
near him if there were any possible way of getting rid
of it, but we did not know that he could count. There
was truth in what he said, however. His statement
merely lacked comprehensiveness.
When Gardner asked an English friend about the
shraffs, the man replied:
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IN TRADE
" Yes, we have the Chinaman every time, if we can
get him. We can trust him. We can't trust the
natives. We have tried them and it doesn't do. Come
over to the go-downs and I'll show you something.
*' There," he said, when we had reached the ware
houses, " those three buildings are half -full of stuff
one or other of us has got from home, on positive orders.
They would be full up, if we had not given a lot of
machinery away to make room for other goods that had
to come in out of the rain. The men who gave us the
orders are among the richest merchants in Yokohama,
but while the goods were on the way they changed their
minds, or exchange went against them. That left the
orders on our hands.
" Now a Chinaman would not have treated us that
way. He would take what he had ordered, even if he
lost by it, because he would be unwilling to ' lose his
face ' — that is, his credit.
" When I was first over, a Japanese merchant whom I
had met several times pleasantly, and had had some
small business dealings with in London, wanted a thou
sand bolts of flannel. I gave him the price, which he
said was satisfactory, and then I cabled for the goods.
A few days later he came in and said he wanted a dozen
cows. I told him that cows weren't much in my line,
but I knew an agent in Seattle who could get him twelve
hundred if he wished. We talked over the price he was
willing to pay, and incidentally I remarked that I had re
ceived word from home that the flannel was on the
way.
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THE HEART OF JAPAN
" ' Yes,' he said ; ' but now I do not wish flannel ; I
need cows.'
" ' You do not mean cows instead of flannel? '
" ' Yes.'
" ' But I have ordered the flannel. It is already on
the way. It is too late to change.'
" ' Probably that may be so,' he replied, ' but as I do
not desire the flannel I hope you will obtain cows in
stead.' " I did not order cows, but the flannel came promptly
enough. I have part of it still. The rest I sold at a
loss of twenty-five per cent, to the very man I had ordered
it for in the first place. No one else would touch it.
To all that I said to him he only answered, ' Shikataga
nai,' which means ' doing way is not,' — or, ' the joke is
on you.' It was a good lesson for me, just what I needed
to fit me for business over here. Why, my present part
ner has been here twenty-five years and says he hasn't
found a man he can trust yet — that is, among the
natives. " Here's a good instance, right here in your Things
Japanese. I knew the parties, and Professor Cham
berlain has stated the case accurately.
" Kimura is rich. He used to be the manager of the
Yokohama Specie Bank. When this happened he was
a. director, and even now he is president of the Yokohama
Guild. So you can see his Japanese standing is good.
Just let me read you this. It is a fair sample:
" ' May 29, 1894. Messrs. Comes & Co., of Yoko
hama, sold to Mr. Kimura Reimon, for delivering in
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IN TRADE
September and October, one hundred bales of yarn,
' Purple Hokuroku ' quality, but to be marked with a red
ticket instead of a purple. On arrival of the goods,
Mr. Kimura refused to take delivery on the plea of
difference of color in the ticket. These tickets are the
ordinary marks the trade uses in distinguishing grades
and qualities.
" Finding it impossible to get him to make a settle
ment of any kind, Messrs. Cornes & Co. decided to take
the case into court; but, before doing so, they, for
reasons peculiar to this country, placed a statement of
the dispute before the Yarn Traders' Guild of Yoko
hama. This body replied that another application
should be made by the firm to Mr. Kimura, failing which
it would endeavor to bring the two parties together, and,
failing that again, the case might be filed. Upon this
Mr. Kimura was again approached. He asked for time
to consider, and was given until March 10. No reply
having been received by March 15, and Messrs. Cornes
being anxious to avoid litigation, they requested the per
sonal intervention of three prominent members of the
Guild. But Mr. Kimura refused even to discuss the
matter with them. The case was at length taken into
court. " ' After several hearings, beginning on May 16,
before Judge Akiyama and two assistants, judgment
was postponed at the request of defendant till July 9.
Three days before this term, namely, on July 6, the
standing committee of the Guild waited on the foreign
firm to inform them that unless they agreed to withdraw
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THE HEART OF JAPAN
the suit and accept as a settlement the delivery of thirty-
five bales (canceling the sale of the remaining sixty-five
bales) at contract price, and waive all charges, no dealer
would be allowed to call at their office. Messrs. Cornes
declined these terms, but on the following day (July 7)
offered to withdraw the suit, provided Mr. Kimura would
take delivery of fifty bales at contract price, and pay
half interest and fire assurance. These offers the Guild
declined. Judgment was delivered on July 9 to the
following effect:
" ' Defendant to take delivery of the hundred bales,
and to pay the sum of $29,528.59, together with in
surance ($837.70), interest ($139.61), and go-down
rent ($112), minus ninety days usually allowed pending
delivery.' " ' On July 18 a general meeting of the Yokohama
Guild was held, with the result that Mr. Kimura's action
was fully indorsed, and Messrs. Cornes condemned to a
boycott in which the dealers in Tokio, Nagoya, and other
important towns were to be asked to join. The next
incident was a visit to Messrs. Cornes by representatives
of the Tokio Guild, who came to say that they were deter
mined to settle the dispute, and that unless their arbitra
tion were accepted they would join the boycott. Messrs.
Cornes, having previously ascertained from an eminent
Japanese lawyer that Japanese law could afford them no
redress, were compelled to accept the Tokio Guild's offer
of arbitration, and were thereupon informed that Mr.
Kimura would take delivery within sixty days of the
hundred bales at $93% per picul, the foreign firm to
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IN TRADE
pay their own legal expenses. This, which meant a loss
of over $2500, had perforce to be submitted to.'
" Now that is the sort of thing that happens every
time a foreigner tries to force a native. The native has
all the advantage on his side, and he uses it."
" Well, why don't you merchants unite against the
Guild — boycott the boycotters ? " asked Gardner.
" There are too many kinds of us," was the reply,
" and only one kind of native. You can't do much
uniting in a community that is Chinese, English, Ameri
can, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch,
Indian, Parsee, and what not. Even the white for
eigners can't keep together. If we were only English
and Americans we could accomplish something, but when
it comes to getting Frenchmen to stand shoulder to
shoulder with Germans — ausgespielt! "
We got pretty much the same story from every mer
chant that we spoke to. Some of them would allow the
Japanese merchants no sense of business decency what
ever, while others said it was not so much actual dis
honesty as total ignorance of the principles of trade, and
no idea of the value of credit.
The Japanese, on the other hand, told us that it was
not their fault, for they had not enough capital to take
great risks or to wait long for things to come from
Europe. One man said:
" It is very hard to take things that we do not need.
It is not our fault that the foreign merchant has to order
things from a long way off. Nor is it our fault if ex
change varies. Why should we lose money by such
[ 185 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
causes? Then, too, when we began to trade with for
eigners they sold us many worthless things. We could
not judge values of imports in the early days of foreign
intercourse. We trusted foreign merchants, and they
took advantage of our ignorance. Now they are suffer
ing from the bad examples they set us."
It is probably true that those samurai who tried to
be merchants after the break-up of the feudal system
were soon in a bad way. They trusted foreign agents
implicitly, with sad results. It was not only the for
eigner, however. Merchants of their own race treated
them badly. There have been many queer instances of
these business methods. Some of them show that a
native can " do " another native as complacently as he
can do a foreigner. One lager beer brewing company,
for instance, which does an enormous business, abstained
a long time from paying dividends because it needed the
money for bottles which had to be imported. The direc
tors, as individuals, bought the bottles and sold them to
the company. The stockholders paid, and the individ
ual directors pocketed the profits, which quite ate up all
chance for dividends. A native told us that the bottle
business was very pleasant, the net gain being about
six hundred per cent.
Another lot of directors who were pretty well under
the control of one of the wealthy merchants put up a
hat factory under American supervision, and fitted it
with the best English machinery. The merchant re
ceived $27.50 for every $5 he spent for the machinery,
— so the superintendent told us. The merchant had the
[186 ]

IN TRADE
advantage of knowing what machinery was worth, while
the stockholders to whom he sold it had no idea at all.
Business was dull on account of the low duty on imported
hats, so the merchant made less money than he had hoped.
tie must devise a plan. What his plan was none ex
cept himself knows, but one night the factory burned
down. The fire was a good example of " Tokio no hana," for
the whole force of working men and women had a grand
picnic by the ruins the next day. There was no limit
to the sake and the rice and fish, and other things that
Japanese picnickers are fond of. Then the directors
ordered a new set of machines from England, and
charged the company seven prices instead of five.
Japanese courts recognize the lack of business sense
and training on the part of those who appear before
them, and deal paternally with the contestants. When a
breach of contract comes up for investigation, the inter
ested parties go over the contracts and agreements care
fully and explain every item to the best of their ability.
Then the court studies the conditions under which the
contract would needs be carried out if the contractor
should go on with his work. If it finds no obstacle in the
way of fulfillment, it decides against the contractor ; but
if it finds the contractor had miscalculated, and would
lose money were he to go on with the work, it decides for
him, as manifestly it would be a hardship were he forced
to work without profit.
The court communicates with the man who let the
contract, saying, " Oki no doku Sama " and " Shikata
[187]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
ga nai " most graciously. Then it suggests that he
make a new contract and give the other party a better
chance. This is a method of procedure hardly calcu
lated to develop business acumen or the courage that is
so often necessary for successful enterprise.
Feudalism had much to do with the disgrace attach
ing to trade— feudalism and the policy of isolation,
which early missionary meddling with Japanese state
affairs forced upon the country early in the seventeenth
century. The Shogun, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, was in con
trol then. He discovered that the Dominicans and Fran
ciscans had political as well as spiritual ends in view.
He believed they were advance agents of Spain and Por
tugal, and, being adverse to having Japan become the
possession of a foreign power, he cleared the country of
Christians, though only after furious persecutions, and
then shut it up. One Dutch ship a year visited Naga
saki, and that was the extent of Japan's foreign inter
course until Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853.
During these years, whatever Japan may have known
of foreign business ways she naturally forgot, while at
the same time the class organization of society continued.
The feudal idea was that the only honorable men, except
scholars and some priests, were military. The merchant
was at the foot of the social ladder. He had almost no
rights at all. Politically he was a cipher. He did not
venture to call his life his own. His wit and his cunning
were all he could depend upon. If he had a dispute with
samurai, and the samurai cut him down, there would be
one less merchant for the next census to report ; the law
[ 188]

IN TRADE
would not call a member of the military class to account
for trying his sword on a mere tradesman ; and anyway
merchants should be patient and respectful. So it was
that society, having denied honor to merchants for many
centuries, its possession became valueless, and apprecia
tion of it disappeared.
Now, however, there is a serious attempt at improve
ment, as we learned in talking to one of the leading men
in the Japanese Consular service. Gardner had quoted
the Cornes-Kimura incident, and the Consul had deplored
the conditions that made such a thing possible.
" We are working hard," he said, " to show merchants
the value of credit. I think the fact that the Chinese
have good credit is rather shaming our folk into better
methods. I sometimes quote to them what one of the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's man
agers said in favor of the Chinese. He puts them quite
at the top of the list of those who are trustworthy. He
told me that in the Shanghai Bank the business with
Chinese in twenty-five years amounted to over $1,600,-
000,000, and that there had never been a defalcation, so
far as he knew. I show our merchants how much more
business they would do if they had credit, and I make a
point of having the Japanese merchants abroad give
data from time to time to illustrate foreign business
methods. Besides this, the Minister of Agriculture and
Commerce is sending out ' Jitsu Renshiu Sei,' or prac
tical trade students, whose business it is to study markets
all over the world, and report to the various Chambers
of Commerce in Japan. These .students are under the
[189 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
consuls in various parts of the world, and really supple
ment their work.
" This has helped us to develop our manufactures on
paying lines, and has already increased the nation's
wealth. With every recommendation from these sources
the minister has coupled the strongest possible plea for
fair and honorable commercial dealing, and the various
Chambers are awaking to the fact that credit is a most
desirable asset."
One reason to help explain the unfortunate relations
between native and foreign merchants is mutual misun
derstanding. From the beginning of intercourse each
has not had a clear idea of the other's ways in business.
The Japanese looks upon the foreigner as harsh, and the
foreigner looks upon the native as a rogue. Until for
eigners arrived the Japanese knew nothing at all of busi
ness methods of the world outside. As they slowly
learned a little they found them different from their
own — incomprehensibly different. The Japanese in
their own country had dealt with friends mostly, or at
least with acquaintances.
It was the custom for friend to oblige friend, and even
mere acquaintances did business with some little cere
mony of courtesy and politeness, and avoided brusque-
ness as much as possible. Generally they did not press
too hard if the friend's need were apparent. They modi
fied the contract or postoned the date of payment. It
was courtesy to do so, and even acquaintances expected
it. Custom and courtesy determined their actions.
That a contract should be enforced from an idea of
[190 ]

IN TRADE
right that was purely abstract did not occur to them.
An abstract idea of right that produced concrete discom
fort and unhappiness was a thing they did not and could
not approve. That a man should do a thing merely
because he said so, when by so doing he would cause per
sons to suffer, was not and is not in the Japanese code.
This is one difference between the Western and the
Eastern idea of right.
Another cause of the wrath of travelers and even of
foreign residents in Japan is that they often have to
pay more for an article than would a native. In the
first place, the native takes it that foreigners are rich.
As a rule they live more expensively than he, therefore
they must be rich, and if they are 'rich they should pay.
For according to the Japanese idea it is not right that
rich and poor should pay alike. There may be one law
for rich and poor, but not one price. It is best in their
view to sell to the poor man for little or no profit, and
then to make up for this by charging the wealthy man
more. The wealthy can stand it. If they object they
are not nice. Their hearts are hard.
This, too, explains how it is that in some shops, even
now, in Japan, the price per piece increases as a larger
number of pieces is asked for. If you ask the price of
a cup you may be told that it will cost a cent, but if you
say you wish for one hundred the price per cup will be
a cent and a half. The Japanese mind reasons that if a
man wants a hundred cups he must be able to pay more
than if he wishes for only one.
It is not business, but it is not miles away from some
[191]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
of the ideas of the Founder of Christianity. Nor is it
just to say that the idea of credit did not exist in feudal
Japan. There was good faith as the Japanese under
stood it. The commercial regulations were minute, ex
acting, and even severe in the punishment of roguery.
They were too restrictive, in fact, for they went far to
hinder trade between one province and another, and ham
pered breadth of view and wide knowledge, keeping the
dealers confined to little groups, one might almost say.
But in spite of all this, one house, the Mitsu Bishi,
arose to eminence and obtained Government recognition,
so that it did much business for the state. Socially it
was far from the foot of the ladder where the common
run of merchants were. But when the foreigner ap
peared the Mitsu Bishi did not wish to deal with him,
simply because it had no experience of foreign methods.
It was only on the direct command of the Government
that the company came into commercial relations with
the " Outside Barbarians." The student of Feudal
Japan should look to the career of the Mitsu Bishi com
pany for much enlightenment.

[192]

PAUODA AT TEMPLE IIORUJI, NARA

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
DIVING BELLES
IT is odd that in a country where woman counts for
so little there should be some households in which
she rules supreme.
" Our New Woman would faint with envy if she could
see the way some of her Japanese sisters run things in
their homes," said Gardner in one of his discourses. He
was talking to some globe-trotters at the Club Hotel one
day. " She would realize that with all her bloomers,
cigarettes, canes, and masculine shirt fronts, she is yet
so far from her goal that she could hardly hope to reach
it in this life. She'd either quit living or come to
Japan. " Yes, I know it sounds a little strange. Mrs. Hugh
Fraser, Sir Edwin Arnold, and Lafcadio Hearn say that
the Japanese woman is the gentlest person in the world,
and that she is as sweet and charming as she is mild.
Sir Edwin Arnold writes about the ' three obediences 7
— ' As a child she obeys her father, as a wife she obeys
her husband, and as a mother she obeys her eldest son.'
That's true of almost all the women, but had Sir Edwin
been with us he might have seen something to make an
other story out of.
" I first heard of the Japanese New Woman, who, by
the way, isn't at all new, when I was over in Noto, that
[193]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
little peninsula on the west coast that juts up into the
Japan Sea.
" I had been knocking about there for a couple of
months, and had lost my identity as a foreigner alto
gether and turned so brown that I was sure I'd never
bleach out again. I lived in a temple; and that is a
point to remember if you roam off the beaten tracks in
Japan. Temples are better than hotels. The priests
I lived with were of the Hongwanji sect. They Had
wives, and their wives could cook. Board and lodging
cost me three dollars a month. I never saw the country
inn that could do better.
" Worshipers from every part of Noto came to this
temple, for it was older than any man could say, and
famous. Through the good offices of these priests I
made friends in many conditions of life. The folk I
grew most interested in were some fisherwomen who came
from a cluster of tiny hamlets down the coast. In trav
eling by the hill-roads one wouldn't see a sign of this
hamlet, although one might be only a stone's-throw
away. This was because it was hidden under the cliff.
" I noticed these women at the temple several times,
but there were never any men with them. Women from
other places came with their husbands. These women
didn't, but they had children who called them ' mamma,'
so I knew there must be husbands somewhere. They
were handsome, with clear skin, bright eyes, and rounded
limbs which their peasant garb scarcely at all concealed.
I couldn't understand why there were no men with them.
" One evening as my best friend among the priests
[194]

DIVING BELLES
sat with me, enjoying a feast the inhabitants offered up
that day to the astral body of the dead headsman of the
village, I learned the reason. My friend was born in
one of those hamlets, and would have been there yet if
his mother hadn't said that he should be a priest. His
mother, mind you, not his father. That sounded
strange, for I had been in the country so long that I
had forgotten that women ever expressed an opinion.
" ' Yes,' my friend went on, as he rubbed his hand
over his shaven poll, ' it was fortunate for me, because
a man doesn't have a good time down there. He has to
stay in the house to do the cooking and to keep things
clean. That is because he can't swim. At least, he
can't swim as well as a woman. Why, my mother can
swim two days in the busy season and not be used up,
but my father would be tired out if he stayed in the
water six hours.
" ' That's the way the women earn a living,' added the
priest. ' If none of the people could swim they would
have to go somewhere else, for there is no other work to
do there. These shell-fish that you like so well,' he said,
picking up a portion of the offering to the august de
parted, ' come from there. They are difficult to get.
The women go down twenty-five to fifty feet after them.
While the woman is diving for shell-fish the man is at
home caring for the house. That's the custom in every
household. " ' Once I remember a man got drunk, and did not
have the dinner ready when his wife came up. She told
her friends, and they pulled him into the sea. Then
[195 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
they sat on him, and pushed him down till he was almost
drowned. He was crying " Go men nasai " all the time.
He wept, and the women laughed — all except his wife.
She struck his head with her hand, and called him
" dara," which means " lacking " or stupid. When
they brought him to the beach again the intoxication
was all gone, and he was humble.
" ' People in Japan generally do not know about this
place,' continued my friend; ' a foreigner never saw it.
" ' One day when I was a small boy I went with my
mother to sell shell-fish on Kashima. When we were
there a ship anchored off the shore. A boat full of men
with green eyes and white clothes came to land. They
took my mother's shell-fish and all the pickles on the
island. Then they went away. Someone said they were
" Rokoku no hito " (Russians). I don't know, but they
are the only foreigners most of us have ever seen.'
" ' Does your mother ever come here ? ' I asked.
" ' Oh, yes ; she is coming to-morrow, and I am going
back with her. Wouldn't you like to go too? If you
would condescend to travel in such rude company, and
to enter our unworthy hovel, we shall be honored
greatly.' " ' I should be very glad indeed,' I said. It was quite
too good a chance to lose.
" The next day his mother came. He said she was
his mother, though she did not look to be thirty years
old. She was plump and graceful and merry. On her
back was a boy, her grandson as I learned afterwards,
just past his sixth birthday. She had carried him six-
[196]

DIVING BELLES
teen miles that morning. When she had bowed to us
a half-dozen times she took a dip in the sea, gliding
through the water like a seal, and then entered the
temple. " Then we all seated ourselves in the guest-room, and
she nursed the six-year-old at her breast. (Grand
mothers do that here in Japan.)
" She was going back that afternoon, she said.
" ' It will be moonlight, and we can be there by ten
o'clock,' she explained. ' I do not like to leave the hus
band there all alone.'
" I flattered her a little, and when dinner was served
offered her my sake cup so often with my profoundest
bow that she said she would wait till morning.
" She woke us about four o'clock, and by five we were
on our way, she carrying the child.
" Before noon we were in her home. The tide was out,
so we did not see the women, who were in the water, and
were hidden from view beyond some rocks. The men
were at home doing chores in a shy, submissive way.
Some were preparing shell-fish and laying them on the
sandy beach to dry, while others were grinding buck
wheat flour, of which they would make ' soba,' the
native substitute for macaroni. Some were bringing in
faggots, and were putting in order the square holes in
the floor that in every peasant's hut serve as fireplace,
or were burnishing kettles and doing other odd jobs.
No wonder my friend was glad he was a priest.
" With the rising of the tide the women came up.
Even the older were good-looking. They had pouches
[197]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
hung to belts about their loins, and in these they placed
the shell-fish they found upon the bottom. All of the
pouches had something in them, many of them were full.
As each one came out she emptied her pouch into a
common pile on the beach, and one of the older women
called off the name from a book, and made a mark op
posite. The marks seemed all alike, so I suppose the
women were communists. The priest told me that all
the villagers were in one company, and that each member
did the best she could for the good of all. If anyone
grew lazy there was a penalty, but it had not been used
for so long he had forgotten what it was.
" As I stood watching the heap grow, the priest's
father came to us, and bowing low, said, ' Honorable
pardon deign ! There is absolutely nothing either to
eat or to drink, but please honorably condescend to
partake.' " I followed him into the house, and was just sitting
down to a banquet of many shapes and sizes, the like
of which I had never seen before, when there was a com
motion outside.
" ' Nan deshoka ! ' exclaimed the priest. ' What's
up? ' ' Ah, korario ' (' Come here '). I hurried after
him. There was a luckless man in the midst of a mob of
women. He was protesting, and they, talking all at
once, were heading to the sea, just like the case of which
my friend had told me. The man was ducked, and then
laid out to dry.
" ' Was he drunk? ' I asked. ' Oh, no. That woman
in the tub over there fell in love with him, and his wife
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DIVING BELLES
found them talking together this morning. Now she is
telling him that he must not have eyes or ears for other
women. He will be careful after this, for he doesn't
like the sea.'
" The woman in the tub was burnishing her arms with
a small bag of rice powder, and paid little attention to
what was going on. No one said anything to her,
though she was the cause of the trouble.
" I wonder what will happen if the shell-fish become
extinct? "

[199]

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
AMONGST THE GODS
LIVING in the temples, as we did during the
greater part of the time we were in Japan, we
-* grew familiar with the images of the saints and
heroes and the gods and goddesses whom the temples
honor. This familiarity did not breed contempt, but
gave us a personal interest and a feeling akin to rever
ence. Certainly we could reverence some of the ideas
for which, in Buddhist minds, those strange images
stood. The gods had their humorous side, too.
When pious Japanese are ill they rub Binzuru. If
they are very ill, they ask the priest to hang a bib about
his neck or to put a cap on him and mitts. Binzuru is
the head of the great faith-cure of Japan ; a sort of
Buddhist science, like the so-called Christian science of
America, of which, indeed, it might have been anciently
the prototype, though the rubbers do not call their rub
bing " science." But it is fully equal scientifically to
the orisons of the ogygian healers on the other side of
the Pacific, and its efficacy is similar.
Binzuru shows the effect of so great faith. His nose
is gone and his abdomen, his kneecaps also, and there is
a great hollow in his chest. The process of his wearing
out — or rather in — does not worry him, however. What
matters it if all his organs go, so long as his disciples
[200]

a.SHHaWoa

AMONGST THE GODS
rescue theirs from the ravages of disease ? And, besides,
the simple faith of those who believe in him is agreeable
to his contemplation. Therein is his reward.
The story goes that this far-famed healer, whose
image is ubiquitous in Japan, was one of the sixteen
Rakkan once, that is one of the perfected saints whom
Buddha chose for his immediate disciples ; but he back
slid a little in a way that shows that early Buddhism
looked upon the female sex much as did early Christian
ity centuries afterwards : he noticed one day that a
woman was beautiful, and said so in the hearing of
another perfected saint, who straightway reported him
to the Master. Buddha put poor Binzuru down a full
hair's-breadth in the scale of virtue, but to offset this
punishment gave him power to cure all human ills.
Generally in Buddhist temples Binzuru sits outside
the chancel because of his unfortunate remark, but he
is all the easier of access for this reason, and is probably
as popular as Jizo, the patron saint of children and of
travelers. He has small opportunity for loneliness un
less he wakes up of nights, for rubbers are about him
from the first opening of the temples doors until their
closing. Even at night some say the holy images com
mune together. If this is so, what a wondrous tale the
pigeon-hunting owl might tell of what he sees as he looks
in upon the sacred precincts on his rounds.
One finds Binzuru in temples of all degrees of wealth,
and of many sects. He is on good terms with the Kami
or Shinto gods and the Hotoke or Buddhist deities. He
is more often in the " tera," or' Buddhist temple, how-
[201 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
ever, than in the " miya," the Shinto temple, for Bud
dhism is the popular religion of Japan and receives the
Shinto gods into its pantheon with cordial welcome. So
in looking for the Healer, the man with faith and a pain
he would be rid of, does not look with much expectancy
beyond the gateway of the miya, in shape like that of the
Greek it, but goes through the tera's gate with con
fidence. We watched a man one day as he approached Binzuru
in all humility and childlike faith. How gently, almost
caressirgly, he runs his hand along the Healer's side and
then up and down his own ! He was badly bent when he
came in, but he walked away erect and grateful. For
him Binzuru is far better than a plaster. Just by the
man stood a woman. She was well, but the infant in her
arms had trouble with its eyes. So the mother stroked
the image's old worn face, her hand scarce hiding more
than half its eye, and then touched the baby lids, say
ing, "Namu Amida Butsu" ("Behold Amida the
Buddha"). It reminded one of Lourdes.
Amida is Boundless Light. He and Binzuru are great
friends. His image is not far away. His " goku," or
halo, is widespread, typical of his radiance. Sometimes
it is like a great oval screen of gold behind him, but his
almost certain sign for recognition is the position of his
hands lying in his lap, the fingers crossed and the thumb
tips barely touching.
On the other side, so near that the babe's wee hand
touched him as the mother passed with her infant, cooing
now, is Daruma the Abstracted, or, as some say, " leg-
[202 ]

o

AMONGST THE GODS
less," who lost himself in contemplation of the Infinite
fourteen centuries ago, and withered slowly as he sat
until his nether limbs dropped off. Looking at his
features, one fancies that this contemplation is still in
progress, and that it will continue until all beings are
united into the Eternal Absolute.
It is Daruma, by the way, whom legend credits with
the origin of tea. Before he went off into his present
trance he had made another effort at permanent con
templation, and had failed through falling asleep at the
end of the ninth year. When he awoke he was so vexed
at his eyelids for their drooping that he cut them off.
No sooner had they fallen to the ground than, lo ! they
took root, sprouted, and sent forth leaves. As the old
monk looked in wonder, a disciple of the Buddha ap
peared and told him to brew the leaves of the new shrub
and then drink thereof. Daruma plucked the leaves,
which now all the world knows as tea, did as the vision
commanded him to do, and has not slept a moment since.
The " Heavenly Shiner " is over opposite the Daruma.
Ama-Terasu is her name. She is a most important per
sonage in Japan, for she was the mother of the first
Mikado. One of her images is so sacred that only the
holiest of priests and personages of Imperial blood may
look into the room where it is kept. The image itself
no one ever sees. It is wrapped in a silken sack, in a box
of chamaecyparis wood, which rests on a stand under a
white silk cloth. For centuries this box was the special
charge of a virgin daughter of the Mikado. Even she
never saw the sacred relic, for as age began to tell upon
[203]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
the silken sack she put a new sack on over the old one
without undoing it. Before she did this, she had to fast
three days, to bathe three times each day, and during
the ceremony to wear garments of material fresh from
the loom — garments that no one had ever worn nor would
ever wear again.
A Minister of State lost his life for being curious as
to the appearance of the apartment wherein the image
of this Imperial ancestor reposes. He pushed aside an
intervening curtain with his cane, and peeped. A young
Government clerk in Tokio, Nishino by name, hearing
of this peep some months later, went to Ise, to Goku
Temple, the scene of the sacrilege, to confirm the story.
Then he returned to Tokio and stabbed the Minister
with a kitchen fish-knife, so that he died. This was Vis
count Mori, who had been Minister Plenipotentiary to
Washington and to London, and at the time of his
death was in the Imperial Cabinet as head of the Depart
ment of Education.
As affording a glimpse into the Japanese mind, it is
interesting to note that popular sympathy was alto
gether with the murderer, whom an officer of the Min
ister's household cut down, striking off his head with a
single blow of his sabre. The newspapers abused this
officer, but not a word for the Viscount nor for his fam
ily, whom Nishino's act had plunged into grief on the
greatest gala day of Japan's history. It was February
11, 1889, the day on which the Mikado presented a
Constitution to his people.
The young fanatic's grave in the Yanaka cemetery
[204]

THE TERA OR BUDDHIST TEMPLE

AMONGST THE GODS
became sacred as though it were a saint's. There was a
great pyramid of wreaths on it, which daily pilgrim
ages replenished till at last the Government had to in
terfere and forbid all ceremonies there except by rela
tives. The assassin is now to all intents and purposes a
saint, for though this happened fourteen years ago na
tives still pray to Nishino to intercede for them with
Heaven on their behalf.
The priests at Ise tell you that Ama-Terasu was born
from the left eye of Izanagi, the Creator, just after a
visit to Hades, where he had been to see his wife. Ama
had trouble with her brother, the Impetuous Male, Susa-
no-o, who was bom of Izanagi's right eye. In her vexa
tion she hid herself in a cavern, which was a thought
less thing for a sun-goddess to do, as it made the whole
world dark. The other gods and goddesses came to the
cavern's mouth to coax Ama-Terasu out. Ama would
not come. Then they danced and sang, and the sun-
goddess ventured just to peep, when one of the gods
held up a mirror, and catching sight of the reflection of
her own lovely face Ama-Terasu came out and the uni
verse had light once more.
Not far away from the sun-goddess is an eight-armed
image of Marishiten, whom in India folks call Krishna.
She lives in Ursa Major, whence she oversees the sun and
the moon, using two of her arms in guiding them.
Within speaking distance sits a sweet-faced image
whose lap is full of children's tokens, dolls and bibs and
little caps, the offerings of mothers whose children the
gods have called. She is Kishi Bojin, Protectress of
[205]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Children. Often she speaks of her miraculous conver
sion. Like St. Paul, she changed from an enemy into
the friend of a new religion. She had determined to de
stroy the Buddhists, " being exceedingly mad against
them." But she turned into a dragon, and gave birth to
five hundred children whom Heaven decreed she should
eat — at the rate of one each day.
Gautama, the Buddha, taking pity, restored her to
womanhood and taught her the Doctrine, whereupon she
entered a convent, and ever since has been the protectress
of those whom formerly she would destroy. She holds
a pomegranate in one hand, which emblem is her crest.
Just over Kojin, the Kitchen god, whom the house
wife looks well after, are the Sam-biki-Zaru, or three
monkey gods. Saru means monkey. In combination
with other words it is pronounced Zaru. One of these
gods of the prehensile tail has his hands over his mouth,
he is the Iwa Zaru or Dumb Monkey god ; another stops
his ears, he is the Kita Zaru, Deaf Monkey god ; and the
third covers his eyes, he is Mi-Zaru, the Blind Monkey
god: a good trinity these, for they refuse to speak evil,
to look upon it, or to listen to it. Mrs. Grundy does not
stand well with them.
There is an image of Kompira also, who has especial
care of those who go down into the sea in ships. Some
call him Kotohira. For centuries he was a Buddhist
pure and simple, and at one time so eager was he to
bring mankind to the true faith that he took on the form
of a crocodile with a body one thousand feet long, pos
sessed of one thousand heads and one thousand arms.
[206 ]

THE FAMOUS DRAGON FOUNTAIN

AMONGST THE GODS
Thus arrayed he made many converts. There was a
grand Buddhist temple in his honor at the foot of Zozu
San Shikoku until recently. It dated back nearly twelve
centuries. Thirty years ago the Shintoists came into
power for a little, and claimed this temple, saying that
Kompira belonged to them, for they had worshiped him
since the world began. So the Government let them
have their way. They tore down nearly all of the
ancient tera and put a miya in its place. But the people
throng there regularly on the tenth and eleventh days
of October each year, just as they did anciently, for
whether Kompira is Buddhist or Shinto is a small mat
ter in their eyes ; they love him for himself alone.
Monkeys are not the only animals natives reverence
in Japan. There are pink-eyed horses, alive and fat,
within their sacred stalls just inside the temple gates.
Those who desire grace give these pink-eyed ones a shell
full of beans, which the attending Doctor of Divinity
supplies at a ha'penny a shell. Besides the horses there
are Imari, stone foxes, goddesses of the fruitful rice-
fields. Farmers' wives decorate these images with bibs,
and then if the good women have faith, proper seed,
sufficient water, good fertilizers, and the right sort of
weather, they may expect crops.
Another acquaintance of Binzuru's is Fudo, the god of
Wisdom, whose throne appears to be on fire. Appar
ently his wisdom has not made him happy, for his
countenance is anything but joyous. He is armed with
a sword in his right hand and a lariat in the other. It
is rumored that he ropes in the wicked and dispatches
[207 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
them. Emma 0, sitting opposite, glares quite as fiercely
as Awful Wisdom. He is regent of the Buddhist hells,
and receives all comers according to their deserts. His
attending scribe and reader have kept a record of each
soul. The record is true, and there is no escape from the
sentence that Emma 0 pronounces. Tradition says that
the regent was a great Chinese general, whose love of
truth exceeded every other love, so that he turned his
back upon the throne of the Heavenly Kingdom when
his legions offered it to him, sought out one whom he be
lieved should have it by right of birth, established him,
and then retired to the obscurity of private life. How
ever this may be, Emma 0 is the patron of many a joss-
house the world over, and it is before his image that
Chinese administer their most sacred oaths and make
compacts binding by chopping off the heads of cocks.
Despite the furious faces of Fudo and Emma O there
is no fear upon the countenances of the seven gods of
Luck, the Shichi Fukujin, whom Binzuru looked kindly
on before his eyes were rubbed away. There is the
Honest Labor god, Ebisu the fisherman, whose name all
drinkers of good beer in Japan must be familiar with.
He has just caught a noble bream, a fish the Japanese
call " tai." Next to him is Daikoku with his bales of
rice. He is richer than a Trust. The Tokio folk are
laying out a pleasure park in his honor, with a grand
Daikoku statue, malet and rice bales included, in the
midst thereof. Benten is a lady, and is musical. She
can charm snakes, and uses one to go about with instead
of a motor-car. Fukurokuji has a long head, and a pet
[208 ]

AMONGST THE GODS
crane with a neck almost as long. Both he and his pet
signify longevity. Bishamon, with his spear and Pa
goda, in protective armor like unto a battleship, is the
lucky god of War. Jurokujin has the great good for
tune to know the thoughts of animals. They come to
him in perfect trust, for friendship's sake. No menag
erie should be without Jorokujin. Singularly enough,
Hotei, the seventh god of Luck, who is supposed to
represent good-nature, is stout, one might say fat, and
has a high sack of sustenance to lean back against.
Of course there are many Shakas in this temple of
gods — images of Gautama, the Buddha, to whom ex
istence as he had known it in Far Eastern countries was
a weariness. Where he journeyed to and fro, human
vitality was at low ebb and life a constant struggle. He
sought escape therefrom, and found it in the knowledge
which contemplation and pure living give. Having con
quered all desire, the illusions of the world revealed them
selves to him and he was ready for Nirvana, but he de
clined to enter until he had shown the truth to every
other living creature and they too had become worthy of
the great reward. When the others were safely in he
would follow after.
The goddess of Mercy has many images, too. Her
name is Kwannon. She possesses the omnipotent gem
" nyo-i-rin," and has the Twenty-eight Constellations to
wait on her. Professor Chamberlain likes Kwannon, and
knows all about her thousand arms, her horse's head, her
eleven faces, and her wondrous gem, as well as about the
" Saikoku Sanju-san Sho," or Thirty-Three Shrines,
[209]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
sacred to her. They are all near Kiyoto. This is what
the Professor discovered as to their origin:
Many years ago lived a famous Buddhist Abbot,
Tokudo Shonin by name. Suddenly, as the Japanese
say of holy men, he " divinely retired " — that is, he died.
He went to the Underworld, where two dignitaries from
the court of the regent Emma O met him with respectful
salutations, and conducted him with much ceremony to
the August Presence.
" I have sent for your Holiness," said Emma O, " be
cause I know from the piety of your life that I may
trust you even as your children upon earth have learned
to trust you. I have an important mission for you."
Then he told the Abbot of thirty-five places the god
dess of Mercy was interested in particularly, and of her
labors to save the world. In her great love for mankind
she had divided herself into three-and-thirty parts or
bodies, and each of these bodies had become the guardian
spirit of one of the Thirty-Three Holy Places; each
Place having power to cure one of the spiritual ills that
flesh is heir to.
" At present," said Emma O, " the men and the women
of the world above do not know of the existence of these
Places. They do evil instead of good, and come drop
ping into hell as rain falls in a sudden summer shower.
It shall be your work to inform them how they may
avoid this horrid fate. Tell them to make pilgrimages
to the Three-and-Thirty Holy Places, and then, having
worshiped at them all, they shall radiate light even
from the soles of their feet and shall have power to crush
[210]

AMONGST THE GODS
all the hells there ever were. So sure am I of this that
should one that has made this pilgrimage backslide, I
myself will suffer in his stead. Here is my seal to take
up with you as a testimony of the authority of the
message which you bear."
Now while Tokudo had been in hell his body had lain
in the Abbey three days and three nights, the priests
thinking he might return, as the body did not grow cold.
At the beginning of the fourth day the Abbot awoke
with the seal in his hand as testimony. Immediately he
and his followers visited the Places, erected shrines, and
the downpour of souls into hell diminished.

[211]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ON THE EARTHQUAKE PLAN
WE were up to dine near the Imperial Uni
versity in Tokio one evening, in the beauti
ful puzzle-pathed grounds known as Kaga
Yashiki, where once the Prince of Kaga had his palace.
The house in which we met was long and low, all but
the central part, which had been the Government Ob
servatory in the early days of the University. The tele
scopes had gone, however, and instead of being a place
for the study of the movements of other worlds, the
building had become one for the investigation of move
ments nearer home — an earthquake laboratory, as it were,
where these uncanny disturbances made records on the
various contrivances a famous specialist had devised for
measuring all sorts of jolts and jars and palpitations.
Their capacity for notation included all disturbances,
from the upheaval of a mountain range to the alighting
of the most careful fly.
Naturally the conversation took the earthquake turn,
and the Professor, our host, whose home was in the build
ing, had many interesting things to tell us on the subject
of seismology. He explained what a " quake " did to an
earth particle during a seismic disturbance, how it moved
east and west, north, south, and up and down. He
showed a " track " a colleague of his, Professor Sekiya,
[212]

, ON THE EARTHQUAKE PLAN
had made to illustrate the movement. The track was of
wire, bent and wound and turned about, in and out, till
it looked like a skein of yarn a kitten had been playing
with. To follow it from end to end would have taken a
patient man a week. But it was accurate undoubtedly,
for the Professor and his assistants had worked it out
from thousands of seismograph records which they had
collected from many parts of the world. The seismo
graph told the truth, the Professor declared, for he had
tested it on stands he had built especially for artificial
oscillation. The record of the seismographs and the
known oscillation of the stands corresponded exactly.
It was wonderful, especially to those of us who were
" griffins." " 0 for an earthquake ! " said the griffins.
" Well, you may not have long to wait," said the Pro
fessor, who has a reputation as an earthquake prophet.
" We have about five hundred a year in Japan, you
know. One may be along before the evening's over."
And he spoke truly, for the servants had no more than
brought on the fish when the floor began to wriggle, the
lamps and pictures to sway, the windows to rattle, and
the dishes on the mahogany to clatter about like a lot of
frightened turtles.
The Professor had just made a remark about earth
quakes' construction when the swirling began. He
looked round at us as though to observe individual
effects, and said:
" Here you are, boys. How singularly a propos. I'll
have some goods records to show you in the morning.
[213 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Meanwhile, as this building is a bit old, I suggest we get
under the table. It is built on the earthquake plan, and
should the roof fall we are safe there."
By the time he had said " there " all of us were there,
riding on the sealess billows of the floor, which creaked
and undulated and bumped our heads against the table's
under surface, and rolled us against its stalwart legs,
and against each other, as though we were great dough
billiard-balls trying to make caroms and cushion shots.
These were the sensations, as I can testify after compar
ing notes with my companions, but as none of us had on
seismographs I cannot say that I am dynamically
correct. When we came out from under the table the fish was
cold, but we had had such a warm time we did not mind.
We told the Professor that he was the cleverest arranger
we had ever known. We had never met before with such
a happy combination of theory and practice, and we all
said: " Here's looking at you."
It was excellent sherry, an additional reason for not
caring that the fish was cold.
The Professor lighted a cigarette, and as the entree
came on smiled and said:
" Thank you kindly, but really it's only this — any
one must see that a good strong table like ours may be a
protection if one is on the right side of it — the under
side, for instance ; and as to the earthquake coming along
just as we were talking — that is not so extraordinary.
Quite often my friends mention earthquakes when they
[214]

ON THE EARTHQUAKE PLAN
are up here, and in a country where there are fifty-one
volcanoes it would be strange if a quake did not come
opportunely at times. Upheavals and subsidences are
going on all the time. Half Japan is an upheaval ; and
off the coast a bit, say from fifty to two hundred miles
east of Sendai, a town north of here, there is one of the
greatest depressions in the world's crust we know of : the
Tuscarora Deep we call it, after the United States Gov
ernment vessel that discovered it. It would be safe to
dive from the top of Fuji into Tuscarora Deep — at
least there would be plenty of water and no danger of
striking bottom. The depth is over 24,000 feet — Fuji,
the highest point of Japan's upheaval, is 12,400 feet, so
we have 36,000 feet between top and bottom; a safe
seven miles, I fancy."
" Do you think, Professor," asked one of the party,
" that old Tuscarora dropped a mile or so just now, or
did Fuji shoot up farther into the sky? "
" Oh, no. Neither. This was just a bit of a rumble
down Yokohama way, nearly twenty miles off, where the
center of disturbance is for this particular region. I
dare say we'll have a recurrence, and to-morrow we'll
read in the papers, when they come up from Yokohama,
that some chimneys are over. It was lively enough to do
that." Again the Professor spoke truly. The recurrence
came, and with its coming we went below as before, and
listened to the ballet of the dishes overhead. We did
not stay as long this time, however, and when a third
shock came we were down for just a moment, and then
[215]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
only from force of habit. We believed in the Pro
fessor's scheme, however, and each of us decided to have
a heavy table round somewhere so long as we had resi
dence in the country.
" Another point for you chaps that live in foreign
style," said the Professor, " and one to remember, is that
a heavy bedstead is a good thing. If a quake comes
after you have retired, roll out and under, and there you
are safe though the heavens fall. If any of you build
here, see to the door-posts, and especially to the lintels
across the tops of the posts. Have the lintels over the
windows strong, too, or else do not have the windows
directly one above the other. A row of windows
running up a wall in a straight line is like the holes in
a sheet of postage-stamps. When the quake comes,
there's where the wall will tear, right up and down along
that row of windows."
We all agreed to follow the Professor's advice faith
fully. Personally I can say that I have never put up
walls since that in the least suggested postage-stamp
construction. The Professor gave us some further tips,
too, which some of us found of great value later on.
One man, a Japanese professor, Kashikoi by name, built
a house in Yokohama strictly in accordance with the
Professor's instructions. He also dug a trench round
the border of his grounds about six feet deep, similar to
the one round the Engineering College at Kaga Yashiki.
The Professor had explained to him how this ditch cut
off surface vibrations. These vibrations, it seems, skim
along like ripples on the surface of a pond into which a
[216]

ON THE EARTHQUAKE PLAN
boy has thrown a stone thinking he could hit a frog. A
few feet down, the effect of this kind of vibration is prac
tically nil. The frame of Kashikoi's house was like a
broad inverted V. A neighbor asked him one day if his
house was to be all roof.
" No," Kashikoi replied ; " but yours will be one of
these days, Aho, old chap, if you don't do as I do." And
indeed Aho's roof did settle down upon him one night,
so close to the ground that it took an hour for his appre
hensive friends to dig him out. It was only the shape of
the roof, an inverted V, that saved him. Kashikoi, tak
ing advantage of the Professor's experience, shunned a
cubic frame like Aho's, which could twist to pieces easily,
and he did not have a house all roof either. Only the
upper half of the frame was roof. Along the lower half
on each side he ran a porch. The frame of the porch
looked like wings on the V. The house was between two
porches, and as thoroughly protected by the roof-
like frame as Aho had been, only much more com
fortably. Kashikoi became expert in chimneys, too, after his
first failure. Pie had an interest in the Yokohama elec
tric-light plant, and had let a young Japanese engineer
put up the chimney. With the first quake it fell in a
heap and smashed things. Examination showed that
each brick had fallen separately, what little cement there
was between them being of no use at all. Kashikoi had
the young engineer up before a committee of investiga
tion. Question followed question, until the young
native, seeing no escape, said he had built the thing with
[217]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
non-cohesive cement purposely. Had he used the Al
article the chimney, instead of sinking into a heap in a
comparatively small area, would have fallen in a rigid
mass extending far from its base and resulting possibly
in the death of unsuspecting passers-by.
Chimney number two went up under Kashikoi's per
sonal supervision, large at the base, knitted together with
steel bands within the brickwork, and Al cement
throughout. But to go on with our dinner. Over the coffee and
cigarettes our host told of his volcanic experiences, of
climbing miles into the air and looking down into boiling
craters, and other weird tales. His journeyings are the
most comprehensive ever made in Japan. Down near
Nagasaki, the chief seaport on the island of Kiushiu, he
found the largest active, volcano in the world, Aso San ;
yet, in spite of its activity and the terrible eruptions it
has had, there are some seventy villages inside the crater,
v/ith a total population of perhaps 20,000. During one
eruption Aso San destroyed 50,000 lives — literally ob
literated them.
All conditions of men, from the Mikado down to the
most lowly, have made offerings and prayers to pro
pitiate the wrath of this vast volcanic mountain. Once,
says the Professor, the people heard rumblings and
went to the priest with money, but in vain — the rum
blings continued and the priest said that God probably
wanted more money. Then the people gave again, but
still God did not grant their prayer. " He thinks you
have given insufficiently," explained the priest; so the
[218 ]

.•¦sua*.  v

THE EFFECTS OF AN EARTHQUAKE

ON THE EARTHQUAKE PLAN
people gave a third time. Then the holy man beat his
sacred drum and clanged the sacred gong, repeated seven
prayers, and informed his parishioners that God advised
them twice. First, in case of flood run to the hills.
Second, in case of earthquakes to run to the bamboo
forest, where the matted roots form a network that would
hold them up even though the ground should open. But.
the people went away dissatisfied, for they had known
these things all along.
Then the Professor told us of the most extraordinary
earthquake phenomenon he had ever observed. It had to
do with the very table we had been sitting about. It was
temporarily in the house of another man then, while the
Professor's present house was being put in order for his
moving in from another part of the city. There had
been a dinner, much like the one to-night, said our host,
and after the dinner a little game with a kitty. It was
a quiet little game, of the sort that relieves the mind of
all sorts of worry, and is restful. Relief indeed comes
to anyone sooner or later if he will stick to it. It is one
of the game's strong points.
" Well," continued our host, " we had relieved each
other quite a bit when one of these quakes came, rather a
lively one, and the party disappeared through doors and
windows, and under the table, or through the floor, for
all I know. When the rumbling ceased, we returned, one
by one, from various retreats, until five of the six were
back at the table. We waited for number six, but he
did not come; then we searched for half an hour, I
should say, until we found him in a wardrobe of the most
[219 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
distant room in the building. He was so upset it took
more than was in the soda syphon to restore him. We
got him round, however, and resumed our seats at the
relief table, but the kitty had disappeared. We never
found a trace of it."

[220]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MISSIONARIES AND MISSIONARIES
WHENEVER our roaming along the byways
of Japan brought us to the door of a mission
ary home we went in and found a welcome.
There was always room for two more at the missionary's
table, and if we could stay for the night there were
always futon enough for a couple of extra beds. This
hospitality was due partly, perhaps, to the fact that
both he and we were far from home, partly to the genial
influence of Japan, where the very atmosphere breathes
welcome, but chiefly because the missionary himself was
a good fellow — a man living pleasantly and setting a
wholesome example.
The example is not exciting, but it is as an example
he is most effective. The missionary is taken seriously,
as a rule, except when the Mail, the Herald, or the
Gazette, being short of copy, gives him opportunity to
point out in print the weak spots in the creeds, the cus
toms, the rites, or beliefs of his brother missionaries of
other sects.
The Japanese smile at him then, and the Buddhists
say : " August divergence of august opinion apparently
existing is among the teachers of religion from the
West." Then they rub their polls and become abstracted
in contemplation of the Absolute. The Imperial Gov-
[221 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
ernment likes the missionary, and the Mikado decorated
one some years ago. Later he and his family were
granted all tha rights of citizenship. The Minister of
State, in transmitting the papers, declared that the
Empire was to be congratulated on having so worthy a
man within its borders. When this reverend gentleman
was presented to the Court of the Heaven-Descended,
he gave his Imperial Majesty a Bible, the only one that
ever found its way within the palace gates.
Like other folks who accomplish things, the missionary
comes in for criticism. He expects this. Sometimes he
even welcomes it. As he leaves home to live among the
" heathen " — a word, by the way, that he carefully
eschews so long as he resides among them — the older
women of his church tell him that his noble self-sacrifice
awakens pity in their hearts. Pity there is certainly,
and admiration, too. These are comforting to him, for
to the missionary, as to most folks, it is grievous to give
up home.
But after he has lived a year in Japan it would be
more grievous were he ordered to return. He has eaten
of the lotus. When his seventh year arrives, and he is
to come back for a twelvemonth, he does so with some
little eagerness to see what home will look like after an
absence of six years, and with a joyous expectation of
seeing relatives and old friends again ; but, after he has
seen, his face turns towards the Far East with yearning,
and he is not quite himself again until the land beyond
the setting sun — or, as the ancient name describes it, the
Land of the Rising Sun — is beneath his feet once more.
[222 ]

MISSIONARIES
The Empire he has sought to convert has converted him.
He does not say so, perhaps he does not know, but it is
a fact. The missionary is an influential person in the East.
He has established schools far and wide, several of them
of exceptional excellence. He is the intellectual father of
thousands of the young men and women of New Japan.
These young folks do not all profess the creed of their
teacher, but it is safe to say that not one of them has
failed altogether to profit by contact with the foreigner.
The young man may still be apt to speak what is not so,
probably he is, but at least he has learned there is such
a thing as truth-telling — strange and wonderful though
it is to him and of doubtful utility — yet worthy of inves
tigation. To accomplish even this is no small gain.
Mission schools teach everything, from chemistry to
knitting socks. They represent nearly every denomina
tion of importance in the world, and they dispense knowl
edge almost without cost. They are a boon to the coun
try, but sometimes the earnest student takes advantage
of them, and, if slang may be allowed, he " pulls the
missionary's leg."
Such a student soon discovers that he receives more
attention from the missionary and from the wife if
he shows signs of conversion. Consequently, at what
ever school he enters his name, he begins to be converted
right away. As he changes from school to school —
change being a delight to the Japanese — he is converted
frequently. By the time his education is complete he
is one of the most converted persons in the world.
[223 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Indeed, it is not impossible to find a member of the Greek
Church who is also a Congregationalist, a French
Catholic, a Baptist, a Unitarian, a Methodist, a com
municant of the Church of England, and belonging,
possibly, to half a dozen minor mission organizations.
The general run of mission students are as religious
as the average American youth. Apparently they enjoy
their lessons in piety thoroughly, the girls in particular ;
but they have such gentle natures that it is hard to be
lieve they need instruction in humility and meekness.
They are themselves living lessons in these virtues.
The missionary-in-the-cannibal-stew idea is upset by
a visit to the houses of the evangelists in Tsukiji, Tokio.
One sees there that, even from a worldly point of view,
it is not a sad thing to be " called." So long as he is
faithful to his creed, he need not worry over worldly
matters. His salary will be paid regularly until he
resigns or passes on to the land he has sought to prepare
so many others for. He will have a home to live in, the
mission doctor and pharmacist will attend to him and
to his family without charge. He goes to the mountains
when the heat of summer comes, usually to Nikko, con
cerning which place the Japanese legend says : " Nikko
wo minai uchi wa kekko to iuna " (" Until you have seen
Nikko do not use the word beautiful"). His children
may be educated at the mission's expense, and he receives
his traveling money for his septennial vacation home.
The salary for bachelor missionaries is about $750
a year, and for married men $1500. When one re
members that lodging and medical attendance are found,
[ 224 ]

MISSIONARIES
and that servants' wages are low — cooks, $5 to $7.50 a
month, nurses and maids, $4; and that a jin-riki-sha,
with a man to pull it, who finds himself, costs $5 a month
— it is not a wonder that the missionary is fairly well
content. Learning the language is the work the missionary
takes hold of first. He must master the colloquial, in
order to preach to the natives. Usually five years are
allowed for this. He may take up the written language,
too, if it seems advisable, but no one ever learned that
well in five years. It is a large undertaking, for he
must learn all over again how to think; the mode of
thought and the world of ideas into which he is entering
are wholly different from those he was born into.
His teacher shows him that Japanese nouns have
neither number nor gender; adjectives, though not com
pared, have tense and mood inflections. There are no
pronouns ; verbs do not have person but have a negative
voice, and, as Professor Chamberlain says, forms to indi
cate causation and potentiality. The written language
is so different from the spoken that were the daily paper
read aloud, a master of the colloquial might not under
stand even the general import of the article. To read
the newspapers comfortably, one should know at least
four thousand Chinese characters. Some minds have
given way in the attempt to learn them.
Still, to the missionary with a turn for original investi
gation, there is an infinite field in Japan, and this has
saved men who loved intellectual life, and found little
congenial companionship among the natives — history,
[225 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Buddhism, land tenure, philology, and the intricacies of
the native family relationship, are only a few of the
subjects that, as yet, foreigners need light upon. But
the missionary is investigating patiently. Already he
has enough material for an Encyclopedia Japonica.
The thing he has to fight against is the influence of his
surroundings, which tend to allay keen desire for
achievement which scholars in the West maintain. In
counteracting this, the septennial home-coming is a
wholesome tonic.
On the west coast the nearest missionary to us was
at Kanazawa. When we went there we fell by the way
side, as it were, returned to our former habits of life,
sat on an American rocking-chair and slept on a spring
bed. It was a sad fall from the floor up into a rocking-
chair and on to a spring bed, but the missionary's hospi
tality was as difficult to resist as that of our native
friends at Tatsumi.
One of our Hongwanji friends was with us on one of
our journeys through Kanazawa. His home was in
Kiyoto, where he had studied with interest the work of
the teachers in Doshisha, the Christian college which
American missionaries had established there over twenty
years ago. He had been to America and to Europe;
at Oxford had attracted some little attention by his in
dustry in history and in philosophy. I believe he had
been a student under Max Muller. He had a fine ad
miration for Christianity, and only asked for fair judg
ment. " We are on good terms with the Doshisha folk," he
[226]

MISSIONARIES
Said, as we went along on foot towards some famous hot
springs a few ri south, " and we have learned much from
them. Our priests have gone abroad to study religious
institutions in the lands where this wonderful religion
came from. Jesus seems to us much like what we call a
Buddha. We notice, too, that Christianity is divided
into sects much as Buddhism is. I think for the most
part, though, that our sects get along together with
less friction than do the Christian sects. At least we
do not criticise each other in the newspapers. Perhaps
at home you do not. I was only a student when I was
abroad, and my text-books took so much of my time that
I am sorry to say I did not read much else. I have seen
rather unpleasant letters in the Yokohama and Kobe
papers. I do not think the Doshisha folk contributed
any of these letters.
" It seems unfair to me that we should be condemned
without being studied. We do not wish to keep Chris
tian missionaries out of Japan. We welcome them, for
there is work enough to keep us all busy, but we should
like to have those who come over to teach us the truth
study our doctrines, to see if we have not already some
of this truth ourselves. Here and there a missionary
studies Buddhism, but the instances are not sufficient to
make a large percentage of the men and women who
come to live among us. How can they expect to teach
the Japanese people if they do not understand the Jap
anese people? and how can they expect to understand
the people unless they understand the people's religion?
Why, our Foreign Office officials study Christianity
[227]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
before going abroad. That is part of their diplomatic
training. How much more, then, should missionaries
of religion study the faiths of the lands they go to?
" The good work that Christian missionaries are doing
in Japan would progress more rapidly if the missionaries
would learn the Buddhist doctrines and study the influ
ence these doctrines have had on the minds of Japanese.
Whatever there is of truth in the religion of Europe
and America and in the religion of Japan must har
monize. I do not see why Buddhists and Christians
should be at war. I do not believe they are at heart.
We both should like to save the world, and we shall. To
save the world, however, it is not necessary that one
party should annihilate the other. It will be more in
accordance with wisdom for each man to do whatever
directly helpful work there is before him. There is so
much to do, we cannot afford to expend even the min
utest quantity of energy needlessly.
" Look at China, for instance, where we have some
missionary interest. We may have some hard work
there before long. We are foreigners there, you know,
and the anti-foreign feeling is increasing. This is
partly the fault of greedy European Powers and partly
the fault of methods in missionary work. It is unfortu
nate that religion and statecraft should be mixed to
gether, but to many Chinese to-day the foreign mission
ary is a sort of advance-agent of the gunboat. Mis
sionaries come and provinces go. The Chinese look upon
this as cause and effect. Sequence in time is logical con
nection in their minds. You see they are a very old
[228]

MISSIONARIES
people, and are still living in the past. They know little
of anything that is less than two thousand years old.
" Ieyasu, Mayor of the Palace, early in the seven
teenth century thought the same of Spanish and Portu
guese missionaries once, and ordered them to leave.
Their refusal to do so led to a massacre. He was able
to forestall foreign invasion because in his day Japan
was far from the West, and the military abilities of the
East and the West were more nearly on a footing.
China is powerless to-day. She cannot defend herself.
" A convert is likely to get into trouble when he be
comes a Christian, unless he is able to keep up a double
set of subscriptions. To keep the peace he should pay
sums regularly to his guilds and societies and to the
mission he has joined. He is often too poor to do both,
and if he gives his money to the mission his former
friends and his relatives may annoy him. Suppose he
is forced into a fight and is taken to jail, naturally he
looks to the missionary. The missionary sees the Ger
man or French or English Consul, whichever it may be,
who, in his turn, writes to the Minister Plenipotentiary
at Peking, and the Minister goes to the ' Tsung li
Yamen,' or Chinese Foreign Office. An official of the
Tsung li Yamen then comes to the governor of the prov
ince in which the convert and the missionary live, and
talks to His Excellency about the annoyance of foreign
complications. The governor proceeds against the
mayor or the chief of the town in which the convert is
confined, and the mayor has it out with the convert's
accusers. It reads like the story of ' The House that
[ 229 ] ,

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Jack Built,' but it usually ends badly. The mayor is
between the governor and the populace. He will have.
a hard time of it either way. The governor is afraid
of the Tsung li Yamen, and will make trouble for him if
he does not let the convert go. If he does liberate him
the people will conspire against him for favoring an
apostate. Not that the apostacy enrages them. They
would forgive that would the convert continue his sub
scriptions. They need his money and are wroth with
the missionary for depriving them of it.
" The missionary is also laying up trouble for himself
by his lack of understanding of Chinese social institu
tions. For one thing, he should let the Chinese pay
respect to their ancestors as much as they like. A
Chinaman reverences his father and his mother, his
grandfather, his grandmother, and all his ancestors.
Living or dead his forefathers receive the same venera
tion. The Chinaman obeys your Fifth Commandment
better than the Christian obeys it. He continues to pay
his respects after death has taken his parents from him.
He believes their spirits know of his fidelity, and that he
is pleasing them by his acts of filial piety. He does not
ask the spirits to assist him, or to protect him, or to do
anything for him in any way. He does not pray to
them nor does he worship them. He honors them.
" The missionary, not understanding what he saw,
mistook the Chinese obeisance for an act of worship.
This mistake has led him to protest against the most
sacred of Chinese customs, and to irritate the people in
their most sensitive spot. In fact, from the Chinese
[ 230 ]

MISSIONARIES
standpoint, the remarks of some of the Protestant mis
sionaries as to the worthiness and the fate of ' heathen '
ancestors, have been revolting. What would you say to
the man who applied to your mother epithets that would
shame a fallen woman? Kill him? Yes, that is your
attitude, and it is the attitude of many Chinese towards
the missionaries. You will see the result some day.
" We do not have this antagonism in Japan because
the Japanese are tolerant and are eager to learn. We
Buddhists are glad to work with all who will help man
kind. Japanese reverence their ancestors, but they are
not as keen about it as the Chinese are; and, altogether,
Christian missionaries may be said to have a rather easy
time of it here. If they will master our language and
understand our doctrines they will have a yet easier time.
" And I should like to say, too, that some of those
missionaries who are rather hot against Buddhism would
see, if they would consider, that we are Buddhists for
pretty much the same reason that accounts for their
being Christians. Their parents were Christians, their
relatives were, their friends were. They heard their
learned men preach Christianity, their teachers told them
it was true, and thus growing up in it they believe it.
That is natural. If they did not, it would be remark
able. Buddhism came to us in the same way. We both
did not know of other religions at first, and as each has
the same practical end in view perhaps we can work
better side by side than against each other. As there
are many things about which a Christian missionary
would find fault if he studied Buddhist sects, so there are
[231 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
points in some missionaries' teachings that we do not
see clearly or do not think of great value to the world.
" We believe that good done for the sake of reward
has no merit and will not benefit the individual who acts
with such a motive. The Christian's heaven, as some
preach it, seems to us a bribe. We do not claim to be
the only folks that possess the truth. I have heard that
this religion (Christianity) was the only true one, that
others were all wrong — as filthy rags, I think the mis
sionary said. Then he added that, of the forty or fifty
kinds of Christianity, his kind was the only right kind.
(I believe he was a member of what he called the Chris
tian Church, and his followers were Christian Christians,
instead of Baptist, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or
Episcopalian, or Unitarian Christians.) He said that
if there could be such a thing as grades of joy in heaven,
the Christian Christians would have the best grade.
" The Christian Bible, in which we find much that is
noble and beautiful and sacred, seems to us to be two
Bibles, one Jewish and one Gentile. The New Testa
ment contains the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old,
some say, but the Jews, the ' chosen people of God,' do
not agree to this statement. As the Old Testament
belongs to them, their opinion as to its meaning should
have weight. Why do Christian priests preach from
the Old Testament if the doctrine of immortality is not
to be found there ? What would Christianity be without
immortality ?
" We do not understand why it is that what Jesus
taught and what Christians do are so different. Jesus
[ 232 ]

MISSIONARIES
said ' Love your enemies,' yet Christians are at war in
some place or other almost all the time. How many
Christians have Christians killed? And why? We do
not find the answer in the teachings of Jesus.
" The Jews, too, seem to have been at war a great
deal. A ' heathen ' might suppose that there was some
thing in Bible study which made a man desire to fight.
Some of our Buddhists are very careful to live up to the
idea ' thou shalt not kill.' They have their wooden
clogs made with one support underneath instead of two
so that they will step on fewer insects when walking.
Though there have been many fighting priests who
served their emperor loyally or defended their homes
against assault, there have been no Buddhist wars at
all. " We do not understand how the doctrines of ' Eternal
Punishment ' and ' Remission of Sins ' agree. We have
heard so often of incarnations — they are ubiquitous and
perennial — that the Christian story does not have much
force. We believe in liberation rather than in sacrifice,
and the story of Jehovah offering His Son seems to us
to be a myth founded on ideas of human sacrifice similar
to those the Druids held. New Japan is scientific and
critical. She is learning to compare foreign ideas and
to discriminate between them. At first she accepted them
in totd, as there was no help for it. Her experience gave
her nothing to gauge by. Such religious theories or
schemes or plans, as the Fall of Man and his Redemption,
will hardly meet with general acceptance, but I should
think that Christianity could proceed without them."
[233 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
A Japanese friend of ours who had been among the
first to receive a graduation certificate from a mission
school told us that his relations with the missionaries had
been pleasant and cordial always. Though he was not
a professing Christian when we saw him, he continued
his friendship with his former teachers and visited them
in Tsukiji with some frequency. He was in the Foreign
Office, and had seen something of the world at the capi
tals of Christian nations, besides having spent up
wards of a year in India. He had several missionary
friends there as well as in China.
He rather admired the work of the missions in various
parts of the world, but not without reservations. " They
do not get near enough to the heart of the people," he
said to us one morning as we sat round a free box at
the riding school in Tokio. " Sometimes it is the lan
guage that is between them and the natives, sometimes it
is native customs which the missionaries without under
standing do not hesitate to disapprove, and again it is
missionary habits which arouse suspicion in the native
mind. " In India, for instance, the missionaries go with the
officials in the civil service, whom the natives look upon as
set to watch over them and towards whom there is no
feeling of brotherhood or equality or trust. Indeed,
natives in India often regard officials with suspicion and
even with dislike. If the missionary were capable of
the great self-sacrifice of giving up his own people and
finding his companionships among the natives, showing
himself to be their friend rather than the friend of the
[ 234 ]

MISSIONARIES
not over-popular officials, he would learn the native mind
and win the native heart.
" In China the missionary should show the natives the
fifth commandment and explain to them that on that
point the Chinese world and the Christian world were
at one. We should have heard little of Boxers if the
missionaries had seen that the reverence the Chinese pay
to the memory of their ancestors was, to all intents and
purposes, a Christian ceremony. The tact of the Jesuits
succeeded here, and China might be Christian now had
not the Government suspected the Jesuits of political
aspirations. " In Japan the missionaries herd together too much.
They should be scattered broadcast amongst our people,
not in a colony down in Tsukiji, where the majority
have lived pretty much as they live at home — the differ
ence being that in Japan they have more servants than
they would at home, and perhaps in some cases more
comfort. There were four servants in the missionary's
house in which I stayed for several months, and we had
considerable luxury in our life — more than I have seen
in the average clergyman's home in America. We had
tea and toast before getting out of bed, brought by one
of the maids ; we had a breakfast, better certainly than
one usually has in England and especially in France;
we had a hot tiffin at 12.30 ; we had tea, jam, and sand
wiches at four o'clock ; we had a dinner at seven o'clock
that usually had pheasant or chicken or duck or some
thing like that in it, and we had a supper at ten o'clock
of cold chicken or meat and bread and butter and beer.
[235]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
" I thought that very good indeed compared to Jap
anese living, and it is perhaps as good as any mission
aries have. Though I noticed that, excepting the Roman
Catholics, the missionaries thought a lot about food and
even ordered things to eat from San Francisco. It is
comfortable to have nice food inside of one, but we
natives do not think so much about that. We like good
food, but good eaters do not appeal to us with much
power for uplifting. We do not look to them with any
special expectancy for information on spiritual matters.
As you know, we do not show much interest in spiritual
affairs as a rule. We are rather materialistic. It takes
much influence to draw us to matters not thoroughly
practical. " I think, therefore, it would be good for the mis
sionary not to eat so much. It would be good, too, if he
would come among us and live more as we live. He
should learn our written as well as our spoken language.
He should not have to ask his jin-riki-sha man the mean
ing of the street signs. He should not have to ask his
cook to translate the butcher's bill or the grocer's bill for
him. These things lower the missionary in the eye of
the native. The coolie says, ' He has come to teach us !
Why, he can't even read ! '
" Then, too, in some habits of taste the missionary is
not quite with us here in Japan. We think him, and
especially her, prudish in some ways. We do not blush
over necessary things or try to conceal them as though
they were wrong. On the other hand, we are not given
to caressing. We dislike personal contact, and to see,
[236]

MISSIONARIES
as sometimes one sees, a missionary man and his wife
' spooning,' I think you call it, shocks us. Our people
do not understand, or rather they misunderstand most
seriously. After witnessing such a spectacle as even
mild spooning is to them they have little faith in the
moral or the spiritual elevation of the spooners.
" In the matter of our bathing, too, the missionary
misunderstands. There is absolutely no thought of im
morality connected with baths in the minds of Japanese,
but missionary ladies raise their hands in horror. If
they understood they would be thankful that there is on
this earth a people clean mentally as well as physically,
who can bathe as we bathe — in perfect innocence."

[237]

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
GILDED WITH OLD GOLD
WE found the pace of the gilded youth in
Japan quite as rapid as it is in other coun
tries. In fact it was so fast that, as Walter
Besant once said of a man who was runnings away from
a bear, " it was manifest to the most casual observer that
the primary effort was speed."
The Prince of Sendai set such a pace in the days of
the Shogunate that the Mayor of the Palace remon
strated, and told him if he had money to get rid of he
had better rid himself of it in a way that would be of
some advantage to the state. Thereupon he ordered the
Prince to dig a moat through Surugadai, the highest
hill in Yedo. This moat completed a sort of spiral
canal around the Shogun's palace. It took three thou
sand men two j^ears to dig this ditch, which is known
as " Sendai's Sorrow."
Sendai's chief exploit, one that brought him national
notoriety, was hiring the entire Yoshiwara and closing
the gates while he entertained his friends. The Yoshi
wara is a community by itself on the outskirts of the
city, and contains some two thousand persons whose lives,
so long as they remain there, are dedicated to joy and
sin. To hire the Waldorf-Astoria in order to eat a
[238 ]

GILDED WITH OLD GOLD
sandwich would be on a par, financially, with this act of
Sendai's. Sendai liked the " No " dance, which is indeed perfect
in its dainty grace, but, like classic music, one cannot
learn to appreciate it in an afternoon. A long course
of training is necessary. This training is expensive
when one persists in it on the scale that Sendai followed.
He delighted to look over his sake cup while five hundred
beautifully robed geisha postured before him in rhyth
mic motion, like a field of flowers in the wind. He gave
great dances on all the festal days, sometimes on a flotilla
in the river, and sometimes beneath the cherry blossoms
along the banks of Sumida Gawa. He would hire a
theater, with a company of actors, and give a continuous
performance for a week, with the little square pens in
the pit filled with singing girls, all banqueting.
The tea-houses that he patronized grew rich, for his
custom was to order " the best there is and all there is
of it." He would have broken the Satsuma dishes off
which he fed if he had not been too thoroughly an artist.
He ate kami-boku, a kind of fish paste made of the
little kernel of flesh taken from the head of " tai," a
variety of bream much esteemed by Japanese epicures.
Court nobles would have relished the bodies, but Sendai
threw these away. He ate mountain-sparrow soup, that
even the Shogun saw only once a year when he offered
food to the spirits of his ancestors.
With all this he seems to have kept his health, owing,
perhaps, to his practice of fencing with the long, two-
handed bamboo swords that are popular to this day.
[239 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
The exercise is rougher than either broadsword or rapier,
for which reason the fencers need well-padded armor.
No European has a chance at sword-play against a Jap
anese expert, and with his two-handed weapon it was said
that the Prince of Sendai could draw his sword and take
off an enemy's head in a single sweep.
Of course, being a great swell, he had blades that
were worth many times their weight in gold. One could
not be a swell in those days without owning good swords,
for " the sword was the soul of the samurai." Sendai,
like others in his class, went in for archery, too, and
could shoot while standing in his stirrups or from under
his horse's neck. Archery is still a gentleman's pastime
in Japan ; likewise polo, with scoop nets instead of mal
lets. It is rough work, but not as fierce as the game they
play in India and in England.
Tea-drinking hardly would seem to come under the
head of a sport, or to appeal to a man who led a fast,
fierce life. But Sendai spent enough at it to make a
dozen experts in its ceremonies independent for life. Of
this pastime Professor Chamberlain says : " The art of
drinking tea has gone through three stages — medico-
religious, luxurious, and aesthetic." It was the third
stage that appealed to Sendai.
The ceremony originated in a worthy cause. A priest
named Eisai, who wished to reform a youthful Shogun
who drank too much sake and sham-shiu, got him inter
ested in tea by elaborating a set of rules for drinking it.
When the ceremony was well established in the august
favor the old priest gave the Shogun tracts on the bene-
[240 ]

HERE HIDEYOSHI, THE TAIKO, DRANK HIS TEA

GILDED WITH OLD GOLD
ficial effects of tea, how it regulated the whole system
and drove out devils — might, indeed, be preferred to the
gold cure.
Eisai worked in a good deal of religion along with
his tea, but the ceremony of drinking grew more and
more worldly, until it was all luxury and no religion.
The swells drank tea daily in gorgeous apartments hung
with brocade and damask, where they burned precious
perfumes, and served rare fishes and strange birds with
sweetmeats and wine. In time they lost their fortunes
and themselves in this extravagance of etiquette, for the
rules ordained that all the things rich and rare that were
exhibited were to be given to the singing and dancing
girls who entertained the guests. Troops of them were
always present, and this explains why Sendai was so fond
of tea.
Even in such extravagant observance, however, tea-
drinking was not altogether an evil. While it lasted it
gave great stimulus to art. Some of the finest specimens
of native work date from the " tea period." So Sendai
may be said to have done good in a negative way, not
meaning to, perhaps, but those of us who care for Japan
ese art may say " Thank you " to him and his class, and
drink his health from one of the famous bowls of the tea
period.

[241]

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AND SO HE BECAME A SAINT
NACHI has waterfalls, temples, and big trees.
The big trees are glorious in the autumn, the
temples have many famous relics, and the
waterfalls, among them the highest in Japan, will wash
away all sin. When Gardner and I were down there we
tried one, with gratifying results. We may return to
it some day, should it seem advisable. It does one good
to take a fall now and again.
The pool we chose for our ablutions was below " Ichi-
no-taki," or No. 1 Fall, the largest of the three, which
tumbles down a good three hundred feet. It was the
very place that Saint Mongaku Shonin had soaked in
continuously for three weeks some centuries before. A
peasant woman showed us where he sat, and then sold
us several pictures taken on the spot — ages after the
event. Mongaku portraits are common in Nachi. They are
accurate representations of what was in the mind of
whoever made them. No one should blame the saint that
they are not beautiful. He has quite enough else to
answer for, and were it not for the virtues of Ichi-no-
taki, and his long atonement in the pool below, one
dreads to think where he would be now. Mongaku was
the name he was known by after death ; his living name
[242]

AND SO HE BECAME A SAINT
was Rambo. Rambo's experience was one to have made
of him a saint or else a raging devil. Fate ordained
him saint, with a purgatory on earth.
When young he had been full of fiery ambitions. His
father was dead, and being the only son what could his
mother do ? Her parents had " augustly departed," and
her husband too; was not hers the third obedience?
Rambo was not much about the house, however, nor keen
for the books that his uncle, the chief priest at Fuda-
rakuji, the first of the Kwannon temples, gave him to
read. He was for the mountains. He knew the Kumano
Three Peaks better than the oldest hunters, at least so
said the village folk. He was a wonderful swimmer too,
and could dive into pools and catch fishes with his hands.
Occasionally he would be away for weeks at Oshima,
watching with the whalers and going out with them to
place the nets. He was the first to jump on the dying
mammal to cut the slits in the creature's back and make
the hawser fast for towing the body ashore. Both on
land and on the water, and in the water too, he was as
skillful at eighteen as others were at eight-and-thirty.
Furthermore, he was a handsome youth, according to
traditions, not the pictures, and had small traces about
him of the saint that was to be.
One day of a season that had been poor for whales,
Rambo had been with the topmost look-outs watching
vainly for a chance to give the signal to the men below,
when a messenger from his mother came to him with
tidings that Shinrui San of Kanazawa, his kinsman by
adoption, would be in Nachi soon. His mother wished
[243 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
to have everything in readiness for the guest from such
a distance, and begged Rambo so to order it. Rambo
had never seen this kinsman, but he had heard of him as
a man of prowess, one after his own heart, so he returned
quickly with the messenger and prepared to receive
Shinrui. The guests were two days late in reaching Nachi, ow
ing to the fall of an embankment, which came down upon
the road, making it impassable for half a ri. Shinrui
could have come round by a footpath probably, but
Gozen his wife was with him, and to climb the mountain
with her would be more troublesome than to wait for
men to clear the road. Rambo chafed at the delay, and
threatened to go back to Oshima, but his mother per
suaded him to stay, saying that now that her brother-
in-law, Gozen's father, was dead, and the mother also,
and the young couple were coming to them, everything
possible should be ready to give them a welcome to
Nachi, as if it were their own home, as indeed, with her
son's permission, she hoped it might be.
" It is of no matter to me," said Rambo. " I wish to
see Shinrui, for he is a brave samurai and famous as a
hunter. I can exercise with him. If he will stay I shall
be glad. I can show him the whales, too, if ever they
come to this coast again. He has no such sport off
Kanazawa. If my cousin stays too, it will do perhaps.
I can tell when I see her. But she must be a daughter
to you and company, if you need such things."
These words pleased the mother greatly, for the days
had been long and lonely since she became a widow.
[ 2U ]

AND SO HE BECAME A SAINT
" Your selfish, stupid mother thanks you with much
gratefulness," she said, bowing to her son, who was busy
making a net for ducks and did not notice.
On the following day after this talk, Shinrui came
and O Gozen San with him. Rambo's mother greeted
them with many welcomes.
" It is indeed good to see you," she said. " Come in !
come in ! My son has gone to the river for some trout
and will be back directly. What a pity there should
have been an accident to the embankment ! We heard of
it only yesterday, but it explained your delay. Indeed
we hardly thought you could arrive before night, or
possibly to-morrow morning. Here ! I will put your lug
gage in this cupboard where you can open it at your
leisure. This corner of our unworthy house is to be
yours always. Excuse the dirty and miserable condition
of everything. Do you like the view across the river to
the hillside temple? The bath will be hot in a few min
utes. Here are the futon. Lie down and rest, and I will
call you presently. Here is some hot sake. Pardon the
rude way in which I serve it. Now I will leave you and
send a messenger for Rambo."
So in a short time the new arrivals had bathed and
rested and refreshed themselves with cakes and sake, and
by the time for the midday meal Rambo was back with a
basket of fish such as gives joy to the hearts of the chil
dren of Japan. Shinrui and O Gozen San bowed low
and apologized for their slow coming, and for the
trouble they were giving, and for having the " disgust
ing effrontery to be in existence," as well as for other
[245 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
things beyond the ken of those uninitiated to the mys
teries of Japanese etiquette. Rambo bowed with due
formality, and then, not noticing O Gozen San, who,
after the manner of Japanese women, kept herself on the
verge of obliteration, he proceeded to ask about the
sports of the west coast — the fencing, the wrestling, the
boar hunting, the bear and the deer, the ducks and
the pheasants, about the dangers of the mountains, the
storms on the North Sea, and what not.
In the afternoon he took Shinrui to show him the falls
and the pools where the fishing was best. The next day
the pair went into the mountains, and later they trav
eled down to see if the whales had come in sight. One did
come in towards shore, and the Oshima men got him.
Shinrui was astonished at what he saw. Soon after they
were home again Shinrui had to go to Kiyoto on busi
ness connected with the estate of the man who had
adopted him. It was then that Rambo really saw O
Gozen San. The shyness which her new surroundings
caused at first had disappeared, and her new mother, as
she called her hostess, had treated her so kindly that the
cheerfulness she had not known since her father's death
returned. Rambo watched her often, though he did not realize
why. He had not thought seriously of any woman be
fore, nor cared much whether or no there were such
beings ; but now, his mother noticed, he was round the
house much more, sometimes the whole day long; he
was more careful of his dress> and of his appearance gen
erally ; when he was away it was only to procure some
[246]

AND SO HE BECAME A SAINT
dainty, which, though he did not present it directly to
0 Gozen San, he encouraged her to eat with much
solicitude. The old lady did not suspect the meaning of the
change, until she said one morning:
" Shinrui San will return soon, now. You will then
have a companion for your hunting. I see how you have
missed him. It is too bad you should have had a stupid
time so long about the house where only women are."
" I do not wish Shinrui to return," said Rambo.
" There will be no peace for me when he comes back.
I wish the gods would take him to the Bonin islands."
" Oya ! oya ! " cried the old lady ; " what can cause
you to talk so of a friend, and our relation ? "
" That is just the matter. He is a relation. If he
were not, all would be easy. But I must have my way
in spite of that. You must arrange it for me."
" Arrange what, my son ? "
" I must have O Gozen San. She must go with me
and be my wife."
"Are you mad? Why do you make such horrid
jests? Surely you do not mean these words. You would
not harm the honor of our house? "
But Rambo convinced his mother, whose face was hid
den in her sleeves, that he was in earnest, and was de
termined to have his way despite all obstacles. She had
always done his bidding, she must do so now.
" No, no, you may kill me, but I cannot," was the
hapless woman's reply. Rambo was in such a rage that
no one knows what he might have done, had not O Gozen
[247 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
San, who had been in the next room and had heard all
through the karakami that shut off her apartment,
rushed out, and clutching her new mother's sleeve, turned
to her cousin and said slowly and distinctly:
" Do not urge your mother now, or vex her with re
proaches. There is no reason to do so. I am willing to
do as you wish, on one condition which I will explain to
you apart." Then stepping to the farther end of the
room she talked with Rambo in a low voice, lest the
mother hear.
" It would never do to run away together and leave
my husband to follow us. We might both lose our
lives. You must await his return, and at night when he
is asleep put an end to him. We can then hve in peace
without fear of molestation."
There was fierce joy in Rambo's heart on hearing O
Gozen San speak these words. To kill Shinrui would
be a simple matter, and he readily agreed to await his
home-coming. Turning to his mother, he said:
" All is settled ; have no more fear."
He had not long to wait. Gozen's husband returned
three days later, and that night Rambo feasted him and
saw that his sake cup was never empty. When Shinrui
was beginning to show the effects of this attention,
Rambo, saying he would return shortly, left the room
to put his sword in order. O Gozen San sat by her hus
band, helping in the plot, and pouring him sake until
he yawned and called for his futon. She got some and
laid them out in order.
Not noticing what they were, nor in what place she
[248]

AND SO HE BECAME A SAINT
had arranged them, he rolled over to them and immedi
ately was asleep. Then wistfully Gozen looked at him,
and drawing the yagu up to cover him, she bowed her
head to the floor, saying:
" Dana San, O yasumi nasai."
Closing the karakami to her apartment she changed
the dark kimono she was wearing for one all white.
Then she laid out Shinrui's own futon in the accustomed
place, took a rosary that once had been her mother's,
and kneeling with the beads between her palms, she re
peated slowly several times:
" Namu Amida Butsu ! Namu Amida Butsu ! "
And now lying down she covered herself with Shinrui's
yagu, and lay as though asleep quite in the position her
husband had been wont to occupy. Only she herself
knew it was the woman and not the man that lay there.
What happened afterwards who shall say? But in
the morning a moaning mother's mind had given way
through grief for a son's crime; a husband had been
drowned in searching fiercely for a murderer; and a
youth of splendid promise had turned from the world
with the horror of remorse upon him, with a great
awakening in his soul, a cry demanding life-long pen
ance and self -obliterating service to the glory of Amida
Buddha. The service he began in the sanctuary pool of
penitents, which to this day is beneath the great fall at
Nachi.

[249]

CHAPTER THIRTY
KADE AND THE REPEATERS
WE had a pupil in one of our classes for Eng
lish conversation whom we called " Pokan no
Kade"— or "Kade," for short. When
Pokan no Kade was a youngster his particular play
mate was Mutsu Hito, the present Emperor of Japan.
Mutsu and Kade had many likes in common, and
many dislikes too ; but they were generous lads, and had
never been known to quarrel. Difference in rank had not
come between them, and each one was devoted to the
other, as two chums should be. One of their common
likes was cakes. There was much discussion about the
palace whether Kade or the Son of the Immortals ate this
sweet of the pastry-maker with the more relish. Cer
tainly it was a joyous sight to see either of them
a-munching, and when they munched together, as they
often did in the palace garden, even the fiercest of the
guardsmen would begin to purr.
But one day there was no cake. The Son of the Im
mortals had had a pain that morning, and the thirteen
Court physicians, after consultation, had told the Grand
Marshal of the Household about this pain. The grand
marshal told the chamberlain, who told the keeper of the
royal purse, who told the imperial provider, who told the
high caterer, who told the dispenser of the sacred pastry,
[250 ]

KADE AND THE REPEATERS
that cake was the cause of the ache. Eleven minutes
later there was no cake to be found in the royal palace.
When Mutsu said " cake " to the noble to whose
charge he had been committed for the day, that func
tionary bowed low, and told the officer next in rank that
the Son of the Immortals wished for cake. This officer,
in turn, bowed to the ground and then repeated the royal
wish to an officer still lower, and so it went on ; but cake
did not appear.
" Chin no kwashi doko ka? " cried Mutsu — which
being interpreted means, "Where is my cake?" The
noble guardian bowed low, and said to the officer below
him, " The Son of the Immortal Ones has deigned to
say, ' Where is my cake ? ' " These words were also re
peated, and many others, petulant, wrathful, and be
seeching; but that which was longed for did not come.
The palace and the grounds about echoed with the
voices of officers and servants of many grades, who we're
as the links of a chain, beginning at the feet of the Son
of the Immortals and ending nowhere — at least, not in
the cake pantry. The air was full of the word " cake,"
but the thing cake came not in sight.
While all this was going on, Pokan no Kade sat on a
pile of sand near the great gate of the palace, playing
with a half-dozen watches which his Imperial chum had
given to him the day before. Watches, or " toki," as
Mutsu had called them, were new things in Japan then,
especially repeaters, and all six of these were repeaters.
Kade had great fun with them, ringing their bells,
and laying them like stepping-stones about a dainty
[251]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
garden such as all Japanese children can lay out in
miniature so prettily. Once he built a castle, and
planted the watches in two piles on the very top, just
as the gold dolphins are put on the Castle of Nagoya.
He was so busy with his play that for a long time
he did not hear the many voices saying " cake." But
finally, when an inadvertent kick had upset his castle,
and he was looking about for something else to do, he
heard the cries, and soon found out their meaning.
Thrusting the watches into his sleeve — which was
large enough to hold more playthings than the pockets
of a whole suit of clothes such as an English boy wears
— he ran to the royal kitchen ; but of course there was no
cake there, nor would the cooks make any, though Kade
begged never so hard.
" I'll get some, anyhow," he said to himself. " A
watch is as pretty as a cake. I know where there's an
old woman with a houseful of cakes. She just sits and
looks at them all day. I'll go to see her."
So Kade slipped out unseen and went to the cake-
shop, where he laid the six watches on the floor near
where the old woman sat, and picking up six of the
prettiest cakes, put them in his sleeves, and scampered
back to the palace.
That night the Court physicians held another con
sultation.

[252 ]

CHAPTER THIRTY -ONE
KADE WOULD ADVENTURE
KADE thought to run away from his home one
night. He had planned for the adventure as
he sat on the edge of the veranda of his home in
Tokio. Years after he told us the story. Here it is
in substance, if not in his exact words.
" Yes, I must have waraji, of course," he said to him
self as he sat swinging his bare legs to and fro. " The
road over the mountain is rough. I remember how it
cut my feet when I got out of the kago up there and
ran on ahead to see if the men had caught a bear. If
I had only worn sandals then I could have gone into the
woods and helped."
Kade was only nine years old then, and though of a
Kuge or Court noble family had been adopted by a per
sonage who stood high in favor with the Shogun. He
knew the folklore of his country well, and believed it all
was true, and he could tell of many of the brave deeds
that had been done in Dai Nippon since Jimmu Tenno,
the founder of the Empire, had descended from the skies
upon the sacred mountain that all Japanese still hold in
reverence. His tutor had told him of these things, for he
was a man of war as well as learning, and he found a
ready listener in the lad whom the daimiyo had given
into his charge.
[253]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Kade wished to do great things, too. He had just
made up his mind to go over the mountains to a place
where lived the most valiant of all the clans, the great
clan of Satsuma. There he would learn the art of war
by actual fighting, and would win fame for himself and
honor for his house.
He was to start out that very night, and it was time
to make ready. All that he knew was that his goal was
over the mountains, that the road was rough, that he
needed waraji and that waraji cost money. He did not
know what money was, for, like other children of gentle
birth in Old Japan, he had never bought anything in
his life, or even touched a coin or a piece of script ; but
he had heard the steward of the household talking about
money one day while counting bright pieces of some
thing yellow, and he knew where those bright pieces were
kept. " I am almost sure they were money," he said, as lie
went on with his planning to run away from home to be
a soldier. " I'll get some of them as soon as everyone is in bed
to-night, and then everything will be all right. I'll go
down to the shop by the stone bridge and give the money
to the old woman in the sandal shop, and she will give
me the waraji."
So when all was still throughout the house Kade
crawled out from the futon where he had been lying as
though fast asleep, and sliding back the karakami and
the shoji, and the little door in the gate outside, made
his way quickly to the hut near Ishibashi, as the old stone
[254]

THE OLD STONE BRIDGE

KADE WOULD ADVENTURE
bridge is called. He had with him the wooden box in
which he had seen the steward put the shining yellow
pieces. The sandal maker was a light sleeper, and heard the
first low call that Kade made. She found the kind of
waraji that he wanted, and he thanked her for them.
Then he opened the wooden box and handed her a piece
of money.
When the sandal maker saw it she gasped for breath.
Kade had offered her a gold piece stamped jiu yen. A
jiu yen piece! Why, that was enough to buy six thou
sand waraji, or sixty thousand likely. It was more
money than the ojd woman had seen in all her life. She
had heard of such enormous pieces, but that she should
ever touch one with her poor old hand 
" Come, take it," said Kade. " It's money. I must
put on the waraji and be off."
The old woman was still speechless.
The lad called out to her again, but there was no
answer. Then the moon broke through a cloud and
shone upon the aged face. When Kade saw it, fear came
upon him, and he ran back to this uncle's house so fast
that he seemed to fly. He took with him the wooden box
and the waraji, but he left the jiu yen piece in the dead
woman's hand, where a guardsman found it in the early
morning.

[255 ]

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
SHE is so frolicsome, jolly, and good-natured, and
above all she delights so much in pleasing, that
globe-trotters, the " transients " of Japan, misun
derstand the " musume," while she is too innocent to un
derstand their views of her. They think she cannot
say " no," but she can. They think, too, that com
placency is the law of her life. There they are right
and wrong, for she accepts what her conscience tells her
is her duty with a resignation that has the outward
aspect of complacency, but she is far indeed from being
complacent with infringements of those proprieties that
are natural to the social conditions of her far-distant
land. She can draw the line for the globe-trotter, and for
the foreigner resident, too, for that matter, as one of
our friends knows full well, or did know until a log
rolled over him in a Western lumber camp and blotted
out all memory of the past, so that even tapping his sub
consciousness has not recalled it.
He was an American with various degrees which he
had picked up here and there, and a keen fondness for
travel. He was M. A. of Harvard, LL. B. of Colum
bia, Ph. D. of Heidelberg, J. V. D. of Paris ; and some
thing else in St. Petersburg that is impossible in Eng-
[256 ]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
lish type. While he had been picking up degrees he had
done what he called " a few stunts on the side," running
a paper in one place, and lecturing on philosophy, San
scrit, Greek, French literature, and the History of Law
in other places. In truth he had an appalling quantity
of education, and in spite of it much charm of manner.
He came to Japan as a sociologist. He wished to study
whatever relics of the recent feudalism might remain,
and to watch the progress in the national kindergarten.
With his string of degrees he had no trouble in finding
a university appointment that gave him the oppor
tunities he needed for investigation. A Dai Gakko pro
fessor ranks high in Japan. Soon he was established.
He rented a home on Small Stone-River Hill, near a
famous temple, and had arranged his life quite on the
Japanese order. Excepting when he was in the lecture-
room he wore " kimono " instead of foreign dress, and
" geta," or clogs, instead of shoes. He went barefoot,
ate with chopsticks, sat on the floor, slept on the floor,
learned to like raw fish and plain boiled rice. He had
not a stove in the house, only the charcoal braziers, called
hibachi, and a sort of furnace for burning wood that
the cook used in the kitchen. The smoke from this
found its way out through a hole high up in the wall
under one end of the ridge pole at the top of the ceiling-
less kitchen, or else it blew round and pervaded the
apartment generally. The gas from the charcoal got
out easily, too, for the ventilation in Japanese houses is
particularly thorough.
Allen, whom, by the way, the natives called Sensei
[257]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
(first-born), a title of respect to scholars, professional
men, and old gentlemen generally, went so far as to
master the Japanese pillow. This was a triumph; the
fame of it spread abroad. The newspapers got hold
of it, and made diagrams of the process of the achieve
ment, picturing Allen in all manner of contorted shapes
as the result of " first attempts." In the serenity of his
ultimate attainment he dreamed such dreams as only a
Japanese artist can depict or a Japanese paper would
dare to print.
When he had made himself familiar with his new en
vironment, a kind of thing he had especial aptitude for,
he fell in love. That was natural enough and proper.
He could not well have helped it even had it not been
proper, as any other man would say had he known O
Toku San. She was one of a class of girls that came to
Allen's house for an hour's English conversation exer
cise each afternoon. At first he was in love with the
whole dozen of them, but gradually, though he did not
love eleven less, he loved O Toku San more. She had
clear brown eyes, that glowed and flashed and sparkled
merrily, and changed as one looked at them, showing
wonder at Allen's words, then comprehension, and then
delight at the possession of new knowledge. It is not
strange that the instruction wandered now and then,
deviating from the " system " the instructor had laid
down on psychologic principles for harmonious develop
ment according to the laws of thought.
All the twelve learned rapidly, as is the custom of
girls in Dai Nippon, but O Toku got hopelessly ahead,
[258 ]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
so far, indeed, that Allen's system wore itself to ravels
catching up — and then it never reached her. He put
her into French to hold her back, and later into German ;
and finally he gave her a series of essays on general lit
erature that he had worked up for a P. G. course for
some college down in Melbourne. In this composition he
had used whatever language had come handiest. For
French he had used German, for German French, and
for English both French and German. O Toku San was
equally indifferent in her reading of the essays, and one
day, bowing very low, she handed to Allen the whole
series written out in Japanese, saying she thought all
students would like to read it if they could have it in
their language. Allen had the translation printed, with O
Toku's name and family crest on the title-page — the last
page in the book as European volumes go — and six months
later the Empress sent the girl a special decoration.
.While all this acquisition was in progress, Allen was
growing very chummy round at O Toku San's home,
just off the corner of the famous Denzuin temple
grounds. This home had been a temple in itself once,
and all the paraphernalia of Buddhist worship was still
in place in the chief apartment of the building ; but with
the disappearance of the Shogun and the reappearance
of the Mikado, the Government had disestablished Bud
dhism, and the priests had abandoned many temples for
lack of the funds needful to maintain them. O Toku
San's home was one of these abandoned temples. The
beautiful shaft of light-brown stone standing by the
gateway declared that eaters of flesh and drinkers of
[259 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
wine must not enter with the sacred precincts ; but the
fair maid's father troubled little about this ancient
warning, and gave banquets almost every seventh day
with beef and sake much in evidence.
Allen was much in evidence too on these occasions, and
most of his spare moments between times also, so that
his brethren at the University took it upon themselves to
warn him against the danger of overstudy in the electric
climate of Japan. They suspected the newcomer of
trying to break the record made by a young German
professor who had learned to read, write, and speak an
extraordinary amount of Japanese within twelve months,
and had never been right since. Allen thanked them,
and said he would knock off at the first moment he felt
ill. Then he hired an extra man for his jin-riki-sha and
pushed for Little Stone-River Hill as fast as he could
go. Getting into his kimono, he " ran over " to pass
the time until the twelve should assemble for their con
versation lesson.
It was delicious lying on the porch there or on the
soft mats just within, listening to O Toku San as she
read some favorite bit of foreign literature he had
brought to her, and answering the questions she asked
of the customs of the lands on the other side of the world.
And what a tremendous thing a little question was some
times — or its answer, rather! He had lived in many
countries and had studied much, but time and again
O Toku San had him. His inheritance and hers had
been so different. She would ask about some chance
allusion in the text — a question that would never occur
[260]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
to a youth in Europe or America, for it referred to what
was of the life there, which everyone in those countries
knew unconsciously, and Allen would realize there was
more in heredity, evolution, and development than he
had ever dreamed of.
He had made much progress in Japanese, but that did
not aid him. Had he known the sum total of languages
in the Far East, his vocabulary would have been lacking.
Intellectually, she was a child of China, he of Greece and
Rome and the ancient Hebrews. If their family trees
had any roots in common, it must have been in the days
when their ancestors lived among the branches with
foliage for clothes. He would go through the history
of the half of the world he knew about, and she would
listen, but it was all so different to the other half whose
800,000,000 people and their history he, like others,
treated almost flippantly, that she could scarcely com
prehend, and she said so sadly.
" You should go abroad. Then you would soon un
derstand," said Allen, " for you would see with your
own eyes."
" I wish it very much, but I am only the little Japa
nese girl," replied O Toku San.
" And why can't the little Japanese girl go? " asked
Allen. " The foreigners won't eat you."
" No, I know they are all kind, but next year my
parents make me a marriage and I have not time for
travels. Japanese women must be at home."
She spoke gently, with a low, sweet voice, as do all
women in Japan. There was not a trace of bitterness in
[261 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
the tones, or any intimation of complaining. That
her longing should be considered or even noticed never
crossed her mind. In her day the musume never had
such thoughts.
Allen thought of none of these things just then, how
ever. The word " marriage " had hit him hard.
Another realization was upon him, and O Toku San was
again the cause.
" No, you must not marry," he said. " You are too
young. You must go to Europe and to America to
study ; and besides, I love you, and I want you to be my
wife." The man of many degrees had spoken words he would
have laughed to scorn an hour earlier ; and as for 0 Toku
San her heart stopped beating nearly. She looked at
Allen with such a look as only perfect faith can give,
and said slowly:
" I am very glad and have greatest astonishment you
care for such foolish girl as I am all the time. I love
you by all my heart because — because — it is very won
derful and how I cannot translate why, but you are kind
and my most best good friend."
That was a long speech for a Japanese girl to make,
and probably none ever made one so long before. Allen
had taken her hand and was saying many things, when
O Toku San's mother entered, saying:
" O Sanji go fun mai degozaimasa " ("Honorable
Three five minutes before augustly-existing is "). And
with that Allen made off for his conversation, and O
Toku, whom custom forbade walking in the streets with
[262 ]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
a man other than her father, clattered along two minutes
later. The lesson was mostly with the eleven other girls that
afternoon, for Allen said hardly a word to O Toku San,
nor did she ask questions. To his disgust the August
Sensei had to show himself at an official ball at the
Rokumeikwan that evening, so he did not see O Toku
San again until the next midday, when to his chagrin her
mother sat out the entire visit. This annoyed him
seriously, but it seemed the old lady had a purpose in
her presence. She had been glad at first at the kind
attentions of the foreigner who taught her daughter with
so much care, but now she was worried. Falling in love
was a thing she knew nothing about from personal ex
perience, but she had heard of such indiscretions, and
wished to protect O Toku from any such misfortune.
The girl must marry soon. She had been engaged since
before she was born, for her father had promised his
first daughter to a chum's first son long ago when he
was a student in " The Bureau for the Investigation of
Barbarian Literature," now grown into the Imperial
University. Neither of the young men had married
then, but they engaged their prospective children never
theless, and the engagement held. That it could be
otherwise was one of those ideas that " is not " in the
Japanese mind, for Japanese society has developed on
Eastern, not on Western lines, — and O Toku San's
mother wished to avoid entanglements that might make
the inevitable unpleasant.
She was always about when Allen went round to coach
[263]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
O Toku San in the foreign language lessons, and she
told the girl she must not talk so much in English, but
should use the native Japanese instead. She forgot
that language as an instrument for the interchange of
thought might be written as well as spoken, and so said
not a word against notes and letters. And so a small
miracle came about. Allen, for once in his life, became
a correspondent of decent regularity. Written messages
passed each way each day between O Toku and himself.
The girl longed to become Allen's wife, and was doing
all in her power to escape the engagement of such long
standing. " I am often kiss your photograph," she declared,
" and wondering, ' Oh, where is my lover? ' all the time
you are not by me."
This was sweet to Allen, but to be so near 0 Toku San
and yet have her always out of reach was tantalizing. It
began to tell on him. He saw he must have a change
of scene or break down altogether. He told his friends
at the University that he was going to the interior to
investigate the subject of land-tenure in several of the
provinces. He would have carried O Toku San with him
had she been willing to elope. She would not go, but
at the moment of his leave-taking, when her mother had
slipped into the next room for an instant to get a fresh
cup of tea, she said to him:
" When you are in the country, please have a house
keeper to look after you, and I will look upon her as my
sister." She was in bed three days with what the doctors called
[264]

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALLEN
" Shinkei-byo " (nerve-sickness) after he had gone.
Prescriptions did no good; but the postman who called
when the mother happened to be at the market worked
a cure that anyone but a Christian Scientist would have
marveled at. Perhaps he was a Buddhist Scientist.
Regular correspondence between the lovers, however, was
hard to manage, owing to maternal vigilance, and in a
few months Allen was back again to see if progress had
been made in the destruction of that engagement.
He found that O Toku San had not yet seen the man
she was engaged to, but that, so far as she had ventured
to ascertain, her father's intention as to the marriage
had not altered, and her mother's mind of course was
" inside " her father's.
More land-tenure then, thought Allen, and was about
leaving for the interior a second time, when a cable called
him to America. Someone was dead, and there were
affairs in the Northwest that demanded his immediate
attention. He had just time to catch his steamer, but
he sent a note of love and explanation to O Toku San by
a friend, and wrote to her soon after his arrival in Seattle,
telling her of certain moneys he had come into, and
asking her to wait patiently a little, when he would be
able to return to Japan to get her — his own little girl
forever. Six weeks later came this reply:
" Sir, — I am married, and is called Mrs. Sodesuka.
And by our Japanese morality and my natural tempera
ment I decline for ever your impliteness letter,
" Sodesuka O Toku."
[265]

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
WE were sitting round the charcoal fire glowing
in a huge hibachi at the Jobagwaisha one
crisp autumn morning, drinking " tea " made
from roasted wheat, and waiting for the betto to bring
our horses out. A jolly place it was in those days, but
the Hachioji railway station has obliterated all trace
of it.
As we prodded the coals and sipped the tea we dis
cussed plans for the morrow. Suddenly Count Kuro,
our champion rider, and own cousin of Pokan no Kade,
went out on the " engawa," the narrow veranda that ran
along the edge of the lounging rooms of the Riding
Association, and pointed towards the east. " Ducks ! "
he shouted ; " now I know what we can do to-morrow."
" What may that be? " asked a lean, bright-eyed man
in a suit of foreign clothes that had done duty in an
American university years before, and now pretty well
disguised the fact that he was a Vice-Minister, of State.
He watched the couple of broad V's in the distance sail
ing south towards Kobe, as Kuro waved towards them,
and said, " Those are ducks without doubt, but we cannot
get at them."
" Oh ! they are quite safe as far as any one of us is
concerned," said Kuro ; " but there is no reason why we
[266]

THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
should not have some others if you like. To-morrow will
be Nichiyobi, and after we have done riding in the rings
here why not stay on our horses until we reach my mis
erable hovel in the country. It's only a little farther
than Oji, as you may do me the honor to remember. We
can make it in time for lunch, and then try the nets so
long as the light holds."
Not one of us said " no " ; so the next morning, after
we had done our prettiest work with the extra maneuvers
that Nichiyobi always brought, we took to the road
through Ueno and Komagome to Oji, and in less than
two hours reached the " miserable hovel." I wish all our
homes were as miserable. It is not overstating the case
to say that the misery we saw there and underwent per
sonally we were able to endure without a murmur. It
was one of the places Kuro's father, the Governor of
Tokio, had handed over to his son on retiring from office
and becoming inkiyo. The house was low, and rambled
along three sides of a parallelogram. It stood near the
center of a piece of land that measured some fifty thou
sands of tsubo. There were miniature lakes well stocked
with fish, a stream in which in springtime one found
trout, a house for the especial purpose of drinking tea,
various gardens for flowers in the different seasons, a
splendid collection of kiku, and away down in a corner,
half a mile from the " hovel," the duck-pond.
Here we gathered after lunch. There must have been
a couple of hundred ducks in the pond, but there was
quite room enough for them, and evidently they had not
lacked for sustenance. If they had wished to seek for
[267]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
better board and lodgings elsewhere they could not do so,
for the pond was in a cage.
Two of Kuro's helpers entered this cage as we arrived,
and stepped into small punts. Then they poled along
the edge of the pond and raised several gates, which
opened into canals leading out from the cage in various
directions. Kuro gave each of us a net on the end of a
pole, much like a fisherman's landing-net, and stationed
us at points on opposite sides of the canals. When we
were in position he called out " Yoroshiii ! " and a great
quacking and fluttering began. The men in the punts
drove the ducks as best they might up to the gates and
through into the canals. It was not an easy job for the
drivers, for many of the birds were shy of the openings,
but enough came through to keep us men busy with our
nets. Our trick was to land them either as they swam, or
on the wing as they rose out of the canals. The ease
and the difficulty of doing this depend much on the depth
and the width of the canal, on the netter's skill, and on
the ducks. There were seven of us, and we caught be
tween forty and fifty before sundown. Some we put
back in the cage again, and the others we in due course
incorporated. Kuro had given his steward a word
before we came down to the pond, with the result that
when we reached the house with, our bags the " hovel "
looked more like the stage setting for an old Greek drama
than like a gentleman's country residence. Another
feast confronted us.
" Condescend to drink a cupful," said Kuro to me
[268]

THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
.when the first dance was over, and he handed sake cups
to Gardner and to me from a basin of water before him
where they had been floating. We condescended and so
did he. Then he said:
" That was rather easy work this afternoon, just
enough to finish off a lunch with and make one ready for
a bit of supper. I wish you two would come with me
to my uncle's on the west coast, to see how they net ducks
there. It is more interesting ; and Fukui, near where he
lives, is a famous town. It was in that country, in
ancient times, that the Chinese and Korean embassies
used to arrive. If you come, you will learn something of
our history and our wild ducks too." Such a combina
tion of easily-to-be-obtained knowledge was irresistible.
Off we went.
Kuro's uncle was a fine old samurai — a knight of the
days gone by, who had fought for the restoration. He
proved to us that hospitality was every whit as warm in
Fukui as in Tokio. The day after our arrival he gave
us a lesson in " Sakudori," as he called netting for ducks.
Kuro knew all about it, but he paid as much attention to
his uncle's discourse as if he had never heard of the art
before. Then the old gentleman took us up over the
hills near his home and showed us the positions that the
hunters take when waiting for the ducks either in the
evening or the early morning. Small posts, each with a
number, marked these positions.
" You see the ducks come up this way in the morning
and from the opposite direction in the evening. They
always go over these hills. It has been their custom ever
[269]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
since the hills were here. Our plan for their capture is
simply to intercept them. I will explain better to-night,
when several of my friends will be here from the Duck
Club that has leased these hills. Watching them, and
trying as they try, will soon teach you all there is to
know. You see these numbers on the posts. They corre
spond with numbers on little wooden tickets which the
members have. A member has the same ticket for two
mornings and two nights, then he changes with another
member — and so on in rotation, so that no one member
may have too many chances at a good stand or too many
absences of chances at a poor stand."
About four o'clock that afternoon twenty of us set out,
all in native dress, with straw sandals, straw rain-coats,
straw leggings, and huge straw hats like umbrellas, that
fitted to our heads with a bamboo framework and tied
under our chins. When squatted on the ground we
looked like small ricks of straw that not even a duck
would suspect. Our weapons looked like fish-poles, but
they were not. They were slender masts on which we
hung nets, much as the square sails are rigged to the
mast of a ship. We set out with our poles over our
shoulders, like a band of spearmen in feudal times, and
with a half-dozen attendants with stacks of lacquered
boxes full of things the kitchen-folk had been preparing
all the day.
" When you see the ducks," said Kuro, after we had
taken our places, " get your pole ready to toss up, and
be sure you don't have the edge of the net turned towards
the birds. Have it spread out wide, and throw it square
[270]

THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
in front of them. As soon as you can judge their speed
and direction you'll be all right. There they come! Be
ready." We were all crouched low with our hands on our poles,
and a minute later the air was full of nets and a tremen
dous clatter of quacks. Four nets had been successful,
and had performed the act of interception to a nicety.
One of the nets went far afield, however, it having met a
duck that was a drake, and a right lusty one he was, for
he gave the attendants a chase of over a mile. I learned
how not to throw sideways, and once came very near
landing a beauty. Gardner had actually caught a drake,
while Kuro had three and uncle five, the largest number
anyone had, but luck had favored him with a " double,"
a very rare occurrence, — one bird following another
directly into the net.
The next day Kuro said, " Suppose we go over to
Soko and shoot some ' yama kujira.' There's good
pheasant shooting too. The farmers would be grateful
to you for killing kujira, for they do so much damage
to the crops. It's a wheat country over there, you see,
and the fields have fences all about to keep the kujira
out. You'll seldom see a fence on farms anywhere else
in Japan. We can put up at Hongwanji temples. I
know some of the priests. In fact some of them are
relations of mine, and you, being a foreigner, will be
doubly welcome. Most of the folk in Soko have never
seen a foreigner."
All the time he was talking, Gardner and I had been
wondering what " yama kujira " could mean. " Kujira "
[ 271 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
meant whale, and " yama " meant mountain. What
could whales be doing in wheat-fields or on mountains?
Impossible, of course. So I said :
" Kuro, my honorable friend, you have deigned to
make the august joke."
" What ! you don't know mountain whale ? " he asked.
" That is very famous wherever there is Buddhism in
Japan. It is an old name, fifteen hundred years per
haps. The first Buddhist priests here tired of the same
kind of fish and vegetables every day without any meat,
and one of them discovered a way to escape from so much
monotony. ' It is wrong to eat flesh,' he said, ' but to
eat whale is lawful. We will call deer mountain whale
and then we may eat venison as much as we like.' So he
began, and many others followed his example."
Soko proved to be as interesting as Kuro had sug
gested. " Whales " were plentiful, and pheasants also,
while the Hongwanji priests offered us more hospitality
that it was possible to accept. Every temple we came
to had a " matsuri " on the day of our arrival: We had
never seen so many festivals consecutively. It was
Kuro's doing, I fancy, though he would not own up to it.
From Soko we went up into the mountains and tried for
bear and wild boar. We had some luck with them and
plenty of excitement. Some of the native hunters are
extremely skillful with their spears. We met one who
had run as high as sixty for his winter's work.
New Year saw us in Tokio, but we came back to the
west coast again for fishing and for monkeys. We knew
the salmon fishing already. It is quite the same in Japan
[272]

THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
as it is in England, and the trout fishing, too, though
Kuro had a way of using small fish as decoys that was
interesting. " I'll coax them," he said one day when we had made
several casts and got nothing. He took a hand-net and
went to a bit of a stream that flowed into the one we were
whipping. Presently he cried, " Now we're ready. See
what these will do," and he showed me wiggly things
the size of whitebait. " I'll just put a bit of black
thread to each of them," he continued, " let them down
the brook, and draw them up a few times and we shall
have something large enough to eat." He was a prophet,
for two hours later we had a mess that sufficed not only
for ourselves, but for the entire household of the temple
in which we were staying.
The fishing we enj oyed most, however, was down Gif u
way. " I'll show you an old Japanese custom for night-
fishing which perhaps you cannot see in England," re
marked Kuro as we journeyed south. " We have not
packs of hounds for hunting like the English, because
we cannot ride in paddy-fields, but we have packs of
birds for fishing: cormorants you call them. It is an
old custom, for our most ancient poetry speaks of it.
The birds know the business well, as you will see. They
have good training."
Indeed they had. We were out in a boat on the river
the next night with a bonfire at one end of the craft and
a screamy, squawking lot of cormorants in the water
about us, which two men kept hold of by means of reins
of spruce fiber, guided them, yelling and splashing at
[273]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
them with sticks, disentangling them when they got too
badly mixed up, and unloading them when their pouches
were quite filled. Each bird had a ring round its neck
which prevented it swallowing all but the smaller fishes,
and a band round its body with a handle at the top with
which to lift it in and out of the water. The men with
the reins had their hands full, for they had sixteen hun
gry, excited birds to manage which dived and flopped in
sixteen directions at once. The fire at the bow was the
bait that brought the fish to the surface of the water in
reach of the fatal beaks which gobbled them in at an
astounding rate — the birds averaging over a hundred
fishes an hour for the three hours we were out. Kuro was
in great glee, for the weird appeals to him. " If we could
only photograph by torchlight ! " he cried. But there
was not much of the definiteness required in a picture.
The water was dark, and the birds were dark all but
their necks. The men handling the birds were merely
silhouetted against the beacon. What light there was
was fitful, and cast the blackest of shadows, that lost
themselves in the near distance. We ourselves could not
see the fish till the cormorants brought them up. We
had a fine mess by the time we had gone the course, and
were thoroughly gratified with our experience, but per
sonally I should rather keep hounds than cormorants,
having a prejudice against some odors.
The monkeys were the easiest game imaginable. The
weapon used has laid many a good man low, but it is not
a gun — it is sake. Monkeys like sake quite as well as
men like it, and, like some men, they do not know when
[ 274 ]

NIGHT-FISHING IN JAPAN

THE SPORTSMAN IN JAPAN
they have had enough. Kuro, Gardner, and I went into
the hills with a guide who had a three-gallon cask of sake
on his back and a dozen cups made from gourds. When
we came to monkey town the guide set the bowls about
under various trees and poured into each an inch or so
of sake. Then we retired. I wished to stay by to watch,
but the guide said if I did so the monkeys would know
it, and I might wait until my beard grew to the ground
— I should never see one. Probably he was right. At
any rate when we returned we found four monkeys fast
asleep and the twelve cups empty.

[275]

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
THE FATHER OF THE VILLAGE"
IT is hard to give up the fine things one is going to
do — to leave the " big road " and hide one's self
among the bypaths, but it is harder to give up what
one has already accomplished — the thing that is done,
which is a real possession ; to give up the fruits of a long
life; to lay aside a just reward when age has come upon
one and it is too late to begin again.
But in Japan men can do this. Here is an instance.
Gardner, Okashi, and I heard it one night from an aged
fisherman whose grandfather was among the saved. It
is the story of an old man who gave up what he had to
save others, and afterwards the people worshiped him.
The fisherman said the birth of this old hero was at a
time of good omen.
" Shiawase no hito " (one of those who are fortunate) ;
all the women said so, and they knew everything there
was to know about babies. Therefore was it true that
the small, wrinkled, reddish thing given to the house of
i The actual occurrence this story describes tells something of the
native character. Lafcadio Hearn, whose wonderful sympathy
with the Far East has given him so clear an insight to the soul of
Japan, as well as a knowledge of the mind and of the spiritual
aspirations of the people altogether unique, has used the incident
in another guise in a delightful chapter.
[276]

THE FATHER OF THE VILLAGE
Hamaguchi early one morning, ere the great round har
vest moon had set, was lucky. To be born by the light
of the harvest moon is to be favored of the gods. " li
ambai," said the old women ; " the way that is well " —
which was the whole truth. After that each household
in the hamlet understood the newcomer was " shiawase
no hito."
Hamaguchi no Bochan was a rare baby. Not because
he seldom cried — all Japanese babies are too happy to
cry; or because he was gentle, for in this he was like
all other merry, almond-eyed youngsters in the land
where the sun rises ; or was it because he never had the
colic, or fussed about his teeth, or kept a maid busy
putting things right and cleaning up round the house
and grounds wherever he had been. He was just like the
other Japanese babies in these things too. But he had
a baby dignity and wisdom that marked him.
He had as much fun as the j oiliest of his playmates,
who numbered probably a hundred. He was in all the
games, and in all the mischief too; but somehow he was
there as master, one whom the rest acknowledged. He
did not squabble. Not even when he came to be a big
boy, large enough to stand up with an oar in the sharp-
pointed fishing-boats, did he order others about ; but,
nevertheless, the others did as he wished, and they liked
to do so. It is not strange, then, that when he had grown
to be a man and was the head of the Hamaguchi house
hold, the people of the village made him their chief or
mayor. As a husbandman he prospered. He raised rice for
[ 277 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
the villagers, whose chief business was on the sea, and
they paid him in kind, for money was scarce in those
days. What there was, was mostly in the strong box
of the daimiyo of the province. This daimiyo owned all
the villages within the boundaries of his dominion. The
rice the farmers raised, and all the fish that men caught
in their nets, were his. Whatever portion he was pleased
to allow them they took, and the rest he held as taxes
to maintain himself, his castles, and his fighting-men.
The head of the house of Hamaguchi grew rice on
thousands of tsubo of the daimiyo's land, and paid him
many koku of his produce at harvest time in tithes and
rents and tributes, but the koku that remained to the
choja were more than the portion of any other person in
the village. A koku of rice in those days was well-nigh
the year's income of some folk, though it seems hard a
man should have to live twelve months on what he can
sell five bushels of grain for in the market.
But the chief of the village was generous with his
abundance, and gave freely to those who had not; so
freely, indeed, that at each year's end when the day of
accounting came he found he had used all the yielding
of his fields — the greater part had gone to the daimiyo
and the rest to his household and to the other villagers.
This was so, no matter how large the harvest might
be, but it did not matter, the chief did not think of it.
He was a favored one. Always, both in spring and
autumn, his crops were good; always he had enough to
satisfy even the steward of the great lord who ruled the
province, enough for his home, and for all who called
[278 ]

THE FATHER OF THE VILLAGE
him chief. So as " shiawase no hito " the folk spoke
of him who was now the father of fair daughters and
brave sons — a man of dignity and gentleness and wis
dom, who ruled the village well and served his daimiyo
loyally. What more could he be? He certainly had no thought
of anything. His people's happiness was all he cared
for. Nor could those who knew him believe he had not
all that a dweller in a humble fishing village could ac
quire. But greater honor came upon him, nevertheless.
He became a god, and his people worshiped him.
It was when he was well along in years, a gray-haired
man, in the evening of his days. On an evening of this
evening he did the great deed of his life. Although for
a long time he had been " inkiyo," or retired, and his
son had succeeded to the active head of the household,
he was too much alive to give himself up to poetry and
meditation, and had continued to be the head of village
affairs and to oversee the rice fields rented from the dai
miyo. It was again the time of the harvest moon, near four
score years since the old women had stood by and greeted
him with prophecies of the favors that should be his
through life. The crops were in, and the yellow stacks
stood high about the home of the village chief near the
temple on the hill. There was a festival in the village
in honor of the Goddess of Good Luck — she of the round,
merry, dimpled face, and of the Gods of Wealth and
Plenty — corpulent deities with fat ears, koku of rice
stacked high, and piles of gold pieces.
[279 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
The fishermen and the few who were farmers, with
their wives and families, and the singing and dancing
girls, or geisha, were making merry within and round
about their sacred tera, high .above the beach, when
someone cried, " Look for a moment, the tide, is gone far
out ! " And so it was, and seemed going farther still.
Everyone arose, and, after wondering for a moment, ran
down to the beach below and far out towards the reced
ing waters.
That is, everyone went down but the chief of the
village. He was old, and besides he knew something of
low tides and that they boded ill for the coast where they
appeared. " This ebb was so very low, what would the
return of the waters be? " he thought to himself.
Though the moon was up, that glorious golden moon
in the deep, full blue sky of Japan, the sun hardly had
set, and the last rays still flitted lingeringly across the
bosom of the sea. The old man looked down and saw
his people away out beyond the natural limits of the
beach. He could hear their shouts and laughter — deaf
ness is rare even with the aged in Japan — and his heart
was heavy with fear. He looked towards the spot where
the sun had set, and away almost to the horizon, it
seemed, was a fine strip of light that glistened and
moved towards him.
" The wave ! " he said ; " the wave ! " And so it was, a
great wave coming to the shore, a wave so great it had
sucked the sea away from the land and piled it up in
a wall like a mountain range. It was a tidal-wave, such
as an earthquake beneath the waters of the ocean makes
[280]

THE FATHER OF THE VILLAGE
sometimes and sends against the coast to smite it as the
very wrath of God.
This is what the chief saw, and he saw, too, that be
fore he could climb down with his aged limbs and reach
his people to give them warning, that awful wall of water
would be upon them and they would be lost. There was
no time to think — only to act.
He was standing by the house in which he had lived
since he was born. Almost touching the walls, on the
windward side, were the stacks of rice his sons and their
helpers had finished harvesting the day before. There
were the portions for the lord of the province and for
his own use and for the needy ones. All of this he must
have, to settle the accounts of the business of the year.
To have this grain threshed and safely in the village
warehouse meant prosperity and comfort; but in a mo
ment it was crackling fiercely, blazing high over the hill
top, and sending a glare down upon the startled vil
lagers below, who turned together as one person and
rushed landward, looking up and crying that their choja
was burning in his house and must be saved.
Great was their amazement when they reached the hill
top to see the old man standing by watching the fire
calmly as it consumed his home and the produce of his
fields — leaving him without a roof to shelter him and
making him a debtor to his lord for the remainder of his
years. A charred bamboo pole was in his hands, which
he had used to feed the flames. The people thought him
mad. He had not looked up at their coming, so busy he had
[281]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
been, but now he turned toward them and pointed to the
sea. They were dumb, but had they all cried at once,
and to their utmost, their voices would not have sounded
even in their own ears. The waters had returned, and the
crested wave, reaching up thirty feet above the beach,
had broken, washing away the fishers' huts along the
shore as houses built of cards would go. It receded and
returned, and again drew back to flood a third time.
When it had finished this last assault, night was upon the
place and the village had disappeared. The harvest
moon looked down on a place where one had been, and
upon a crowd of frightened fisherfolk huddled round the
ruins of the home of an old man for whom, later, when
they had recovered from their wonder and had mort
gaged their belongings, they built a temple and wor
shiped as Hamaguchi Daimiyojin. So was he, even at
the last, " shiawase no hito."

[282]

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
THE THEFT OF THE GOLDEN SCALE
OKASHI KINTARO was gazing into his sake
cup reflectively. It was a cup with pictures on
it — two views of the same subject; the front
presentation on the inside of the cup, and the other on
the bottom — a cup such as you have sometimes when
cooling on the dry bed of Kamogawa in Kiyoto if you
happen to be on good terms with those who serve you,
but which you never leave with your other curios for
Custom House inspection on reaching home.
" That inside picture seems to interest you," said
Gardner. " Do you recognize the face ? " The reply
and the story following Okashi told in language all his
own, to this effect:
" The countenance resembles that of Daredesuka's
sweetheart, but I never saw it on a sake cup before."
" Daredesuka ? "
" Yes, the man who tried to steal gold from the shachi
hoko on the tenshu in Nagoya."
" The which on the what? "
" The great gold dolphins on the ends of the ridge of
Nagoya Castle. General Kato Kiyomasa put them up
there nearly three hundred years ago, quite out of harm's
way you would think."
" Yes, I remember you pointed out the fishes a little
[283]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
before we reached Nagoya Station on our way through ;
but tell us about Daredesuka and his sweetheart. What
did they do?"
" Daredesuka was a samurai who had been with the
daimiyo of Kaga once, and had won fame as a great
swordsman. But when the daimiyo died Daredesuka
became ' ronin ' ; that is, a samurai without a master.
He went about teaching fencing, and sometimes winning
prizes in contests before distinguished folk, but never
getting established anywhere. He was too fond of
roaming. He used to practice with his sword on all the
forked limbs of trees that he could reach, and also on the
wild dogs that are as dangerous as wolves on the west
coast roads. It is said that once when robbers tried to
take him he cut through two bodies with a single stroke,
and that the other robbers, seeing this, ran away, crying
that he was an ' Oni ' (demon), not a man.
" In time he came to Kiyoto, which was a larger city
then, and was the home of the Tenshi, our Emperor.
The Shogun lived in Yedo — this was a long time before
the name was changed to Tokio. Soon after Darede
suka arrived, the Shogun came down to Kiyoto to see
the Tenshi. He had to come once a year, according to
ancient custom. Of course this meant a great deal of
preparation. The ceremonies were elaborate, and the
court nobles, who usually were poor, made money by
teaching the proper etiquette to the Shogun's officers.
Geisha were busy in all the tea-houses, and gathered gold
pieces enough to last them a whole month, which is a long
time when speaking of geisha. There were all sorts of
[284 ]

THEFT OF THE GOLDEN SCALE
sport too — polo, archery on horseback, fencing, and
' jiujutsu,' which is a kind of wrestling.
" Daredesuka was the right kind of man for such a
time. He went into many contests and won so often that
the people talked about him in the streets. Because he
was a winner he became the guest at many banquets, and
did not have to buy any food himself for several weeks.
At the banquets he saw many geisha, who came to dance
and to sing and to play, just as they are doing over
yonder now," pointing to a tea-house all open on one side
along the river bank.
" Being a military man, Daredesuka did not care much
for geisha. He had the name of a strict and severe man.
One night, however, at a chaya just at the end of this
bridge, the most famous tea-house of all in Kiyoto, Dare
desuka changed his idea.
" Eikibo San was the cause of the change. She was
a geisha who did the fan dancing most famously, and
was never engaged except in the best houses and by the
richest guests. When Daredesuka saw her dancing he
could not look from her. She swayed this way and that
way gently as a lily when the autumn wind is blowing,
and her fan went round her like a butterfly that she had
tamed. Her face was white except the color of cherry
blossoms on the cheeks, and her eyebrows high as in the
pictures on these fans. Her hands were long and fine,
and waved like birds' wings when she turned about, play
ing and tossing with the fan. So long and so hard was
Daredesuka looking that the soups and fishes the other
geisha were serving to him became quite cold, and some
[285 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
of the guests near by were wondering. Then one of
these said:
" ' You have never seen Eikibo San before? She is
our best dancer. Even the Shogun, they say, has seen
her. Many men have tried to take her home, but she
does not listen. She has no lover. She lives with an old
aunt, as she calls her, in the geisha quarter, and never
leaves the old woman alone for a single night, nor does
she ever respond to any callers who go there to give her
presents. These gift-bearers talk with the old aunt at
the gate, but no one of them has ever had his foot
inside.' " This, if it could be, made Daredesuka even keener,
so that, when the fan-dancing was over and Eikibo came
round to do her turn at pouring sake, beginning before
him as the chief guest, he said she must first drink from
his cup, and might afterwards serve him. She took the
dainty bit of porcelain from him and, bowing low,
touched it to her forehead. Then Daredesuka poured
sake from the china bottle in front of him, but could
give her only a few drops, as she pushed the mouth of
the bottle up with the edge of the cup, saying, ' More
would be a great deal.' She made as though she drank
it, but one could not tell, for the geisha is skillful to
pretend. Then, before she could rinse the cup, Dare
desuka took it from her and said, ' Ippai dozo gomen
nasai ' (' Full please and excuse me ').
" Eikibo laughed because he did not let her rinse the
cup. Then she passed on to the next guest, reaching
out the sake bottle with her arm at full length and her
[ 286 ]

THEFT OF THE GOLDEN SCALE
sleeve caught up between her teeth out of the way of the
soup bowls and other dishes on the mat before her.
" After this everything was different for Daredesuka.
He wished to see Eikibo San every day and all day long.
That could not be/but if he kept his fame he might see
her at the tea-house festivals while the Shogun remained
in Kiyoto, and after that, if he could get money, he could
call for her by himself, he hoped.
" He kept his fame in the remaining contests. Per
haps he made it even greater, for he had an offer to go
with a great daimiyo to the south, who promised him
a post as instructor of his retainers and many koku of
rice with a home and servants. Before the fan-dancing
he would have gone, I am sure, had such a good chance
come, but now he could not travel far and leave Eikibo
San behind.
" As he could not take her on the daimiyo's train he
made humble apologies, and said that so great honor
could not be his, for he had made an agreement already
with another to travel farther north. There was more
truth than he thought in this, for he did go from Kiyoto
later and along the road that takes one north. He did
not mean to when he declined this offer though.
" Five or six times after this Daredesuka saw Eikibo
before the Shogun left, always in the same tea-house
and with the same few words, for he could not detain her
beyond the drinking of a single cup of sake. She would
apologize and say that there were many guests and too
few to wait on them, therefore she must not stay long.
After the Shogun had set out on his return to Yedo,
[287]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Daredesuka called the geisha several times from a quiet
tea-house down the river, but only once she came, for her
engagements almost never failed. Her name was on
some lists for months ahead.
" As soon as the maids had brought refreshments and
retired he made an offer to her which almost always a
geisha will accept. She should be his wife. He would
take service with some quiet daimiyo within the next six
months, and she would then be in the highest of the
four classes of society and ranking almost as one of the
nobility. He told her of offers he had received and had
refused because he could not bear to leave her, and said
he would accept whichever one she chose if she would
come with him.
" Eikibo laughed at all this, being, she said, familiar
with fine promises. ' They are all of a kind,' she told
him ; ' interesting to hear, if you did not know they were
like little flies that live a day and then no one knows what
has become of them.' Daredesuka persisted, but only to
find that words did not avail. At last he cried :
" ' Give me some test, for I must have you know that
I speak truth. Shall I bring you pearls from the deep
sea or golden scales from the dolphins on Nagoya Castle ?
Only say the thing and I shall do it. You shall believe
me.' " Eikibo looked merrily at him, and said :
" ' Yes, I must believe you if you bring me a dolphin's
golden scale from the ridge of the fifth story of the
tower, as I know well, for I am in Nagoya every year.
Only the birds go up there. Yes, I should know you
[288]

THEFT OF THE GOLDEN SCALE
spoke the truth if you brought the scale ; ' and she
laughed again, for to the geisha the parents of the truth
ful man are not yet born. Then she added : ' My call
time for the Full Moon tea-house over the river has
arrived. I beg your honorable pardon. I must go.
At the great matsuri ' (religious festival) ' in Nagoya
next month I am to dance. Bring me the scale then,
and I shall know your heart.'
" Daredesuka sat still for an hour thinking, and then,
as the samurai often did on the night before the battle,
he clapped his hands, ordered more sake and more food,
sent to an inn near by for a friend who was lodging
there, and made merry until the watch announced the
hour for closing. Two nights later he was in Nagoya.
" As you know, those goldfishes are high up, and per
haps you could see that each is now in a heavy cage.
That cage was not there in Daredesuka's time. You
know, too, that we Japanese enjoy our play with kites.
We can send them very high and can guide them nicely.
Well, Daredesuka was a wonderful man with kites. He
had made large ones when he was with his late lord, and
had once dropped a line far out over a junk that was
blowing off to sea, and so saved many lives. He now
said he would use a kite to get the scale that Eikibo had
declared would tell if he spoke true. Secretly he went to
work, and made one so large he was sure it would carry
the weight of his body on the wind. He found another
ronin whom some gold and the promise of future aid
persuaded to give him help in his strange plan. Then,
on a stormy night, with wind and clouds and rain, he
[289]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
went up and secured a golden scale. But the tool he
had used in prying was very wet and slippery and fell
from his hands. The guards went out and discovered
the kite, which a rift in the sky let the moon shine down
upon for a fatal moment, and when he reached the earth
they caught him and put him in prison. The golden
scale convicted him and his companion. Being samurai
they received sentence to commit hari-kiri, and they
performed the act serenely before the state officials.
" Eikibo did not do the fan dance at the matsuri, for
on the morning of the day she was to appear an old
priest found her body on Daredesuka's grave."

[ 290 ]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE KANJI
I WAS living in a charming missionary family in
Tsukiji, wishing I could be a missionary too. (This
was before Gardner had come to the Land of the
Rising Sun.) It was one of those mornings one sees
only in Japan. There was such glorious satisfaction
in the air that one was quite too happy to think of work.
As I contemplated the peacefulness of everything, the
joy of being absolutely idle and equally as happy, I
heard a clatter at the door below. Then Seikichi, the
hall-boy, came up to the music room where I had ar
ranged a temporary studio and announced:
" Honorable guest augustly waits in honorable recep
tion room."
" Ah ! honorable he does, does he? " queried I. " Who
the deuce augustly is he ? " I did not like the racket he
had made. It had disturbed my contemplation. Why
had not he pressed the button at the door instead of
hammering? " Honorable guest, honorable name card has not,"
replied Seikichi with a low bow, and I thought the sus
picion of a grin. Then he explained that the caller came
from a school up on Surugadai, near the Greek cathedral.
He was " kanji," or business manager, of this school.
" Perhaps the school is looking for a teacher," I said
[291]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
to myself. " I should like to see it." I knew Surugadai.
It was about the highest point in Tokio. From the scaf
folding over the dome of the Greek cathedral building
there I had seen the entire capital by merely looking
straight before me and turning on my heel. Never was
such another view in all the world. Even the province
of Suruga, ninety miles away, was visible. Hence the
name Suruga-" dai," or terrace. I hoped the kanji really
was eager to engage me.
As I went down I heard more clatter, but I soon ascer
tained it was only the honorable guest calling for
tobacco, which the reverend owner of the house, in
violence to the custom of the country, had neglected to
put on his free list.
Looking through the door of the reception room I
spied the kanji sitting on his shins amongst the chairs,
which seemingly he disdained, looking about for the
tobacco jar that was not there, and pounding a footstool
the while to attract the attention of someone who might
minister to his wants.
" May I have the honor to be of service to you ? " I
ventured. " I wish smoking," he replied; and then jumping up
he put out his hand, saying :
" How do you do I am very well I thank you yes sir I
think so myself." Which was rather good for one
breath. Then he replenished himself with air by an in
drawn hiss that must have appropriated a good two
gallons of the Tsukiji atmosphere. Handing him a
cigar I waited for him to continue the conversation which
[292]

THE KANJI
he had begun so cleverly himself, but he needed a match
first, and then a dip to bite the tip off with, and a tip
as to which end to bite, before he could go on. He was
not quite into New Japan yet, though he had made some
progress in getting out of the Old.
" Sir," he said at last, " our name are Ojigoku Kit
sune. Our business are the Kanji of Atama no Naka-
kara school on Surugadai's top and our desire is you
come every days for the teaching by the English lan
guages and the improvement to the mind, for the many
scholars and female ladies and boy." Then he sucked in
air again.
By the way his words came out I was sure he had writ
ten them down and committed them to memory. I was
right, for here he hesitated and began feeling in his
pockets for his " crib." It took him some time to find
it, and as he searched I inventoried his appearance. His
face was stubby and suggestive of a fox, his eyes rounder
and a trifle lighter than is usual with Japanese, and his
hair was of the same length all over, and stuck out
straight from his head like fretful quills. This, was due
to much early shaving of the poll.
His coat was of the full frock, or " Prince Albert "
cut, the material was alpaca. When he unbuttoned it
he discovered a waistcoat that once had been suitable
for evening dress, and also the upper half of a shirt-
front to which the ingenious constructor thereof had
affixed a collar and a bright green tie. The tie had
worked round under the coat collar, or I might have
noticed it before. What was between him and that shirt-
[293]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
front I could only guess. It might have been a liver
pad with sleeve attachments. His trousers were linen,
but whether the right leg or the left leg preserved the
original shade I could not say. There was a marked
difference between the two. As he had taken off his
shoes on entering the house I noticed that he wore mit
tens on his feet.
When he had found his crib he puckered up his mouth
again and said :
" How do you do — er O ah — no, I am mistake." He
had started at the beginning again, like the interrupted
cathedral guide of Europe. Farther down he found the
place, and read:
" The hour shall be paid the dollar and the transpor
tation to the school and to the house." A dollar an
hour and a jin-riki-sha from home to school and back
again is what he meant. I did not agree to quite those
terms, but eventually I said I would visit Surugadai to
promote the knowledge among all the students, including
" and boy."
When I said I would go, he replied:
" Yes, I think so myself." Then putting on his hat,
a fore-and-aft arrangement like an inverted baby-car
riage, he pushed his mittens into his shoes, pocketed his
cigar, and disappeared.
While at tiffin, two days later, Seikichi announced :
" Jin-riki-sha from Surugadai."
He smiled as he spoke, and I understood why when
I was outside. There was the man-power-cart, all but
the man. Instead of man there was a midget of the size
[294 ]

THE KANJI
the native factories pay a penny a day for now. Quite
useless for a grade either up or down, for he weighed
a quarter of what I did. When I came to try him on the
levels, however, I found he was not half bad.
The next time he called for me, Mrs. Gazell, the mis
sionary's wife, happened to be giving instructions to the
cook at the rear, where the midget waited until I had
finished tiffin. When she came in' she said :
" Your insect has arrived. He is buzzing in the
kitchen now. I hope he doesn't get stuck in the jam ! "
From that time on Tsukiji knew him as my " mushi "
(mushi is Japanese for insect).
Mushi and I got on very well together. Whenever
we came to an incline I jumped out and let him rattle
along by himself. On the way home he took me to the
shops along the Ginza, where usually I had some house
hold commissions to attend to, and then I would buy
him an egg to suck, in the hope that he would grow.
One evening when I reached home I found a professor of
Atama no Nakakara waiting for my mushi, He had
walked over from the Ginza, a mile out of his way, and
had been waiting an hour to save threepence, the fare
from a Ginza jin-riki-sha stand to Surugadai.
On my next visit to the school, Ojigoku Kitsune
addressed me elaborately on the subject of jin-riki-sha.
" Sir," he said, " from the school to the home and the
jin-riki-sha not stopping is for the agreement."
" You did not mention anything about time or route
when you said you would furnish the jin-riki-sha," I
replied. [295 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
" Yes, but the man being only the small boy by the
long distances are very tiresome."
" He is resting while I am in the shops," I said, " and
Ginza is not a very indirect route home."
"But he wishes times for eatings or he catch the
stomach illness."
" I give him eggs, won't they do? " I asked.
Here the kanji disappeared for a few minutes. When
he returned he said:
" Honorable egg are good, but it is necessity for the
fish and rice."
" But you did not mention fish and rice nor say I
should feed the infant when you engaged me."
" Yes, but he have the unhealth and are not powerful
to transport the long distances."
" Get a man then."
Here the kanji made another disappearance. On
coming out again he said:
" Sir, every days four sen (2 cents) you are giving
for the eating and we are adjust."
" But I understood you to say that the infant has the
unhealth." " Yes," replied the kanji, " but he have become
strong." I had nothing to say.
All went well until the end of the month, when the
payment agreed upon was due me. The kanji came into
the classroom and said:
" The money is come to-morrow by the bank for clos
ing is too early to-day." The bank closing, he meant.
[296]

THE KANJI
" You will come to Tsukiji? "
" Oh, I am, doubtless. I am Christian."
" Yes ? You had not told me so before. I shall be
away by nine o'clock. Will you call earlier? "
" I before nine time — sure."
" The bank will be open before nine o'clock? "
" Yes, the bank is close perhaps but we shall do the
arrangement by the night."
Well, in the morning the kanji came: alpaca frock-
coat, green tie, inverted baby-carriage, and all — all but
my salary, that is. He said he had started out with the
full amount, but on the way down he saw some things he
needed, and " therefore we are spend parts. I am return
it pleasantly." (Meaning presently, for he had learned
the sound of " 1 " and, being proud of the accomplish
ment, rather overworked it. )
" Yes," I replied, " perhaps you will, but I shall be
at Surugadai this afternoon and shall see the Principal.
Perhaps he will arrange the matter."
The kanji smiled and went away. I never saw him
again, but Atama no Nakakara made good bis deficit.

L*297 j

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE REVERENCE OF KATO
FOR a man to reverence his father and his mother
is a grand thing. The fifth commandment is the
law of laws in the Far East; folk obey it with a
fervor that Westerners can hardly understand. Their
zeal calls to mind one of Freeman's words anent the
chivalry of knights who made arbitrary choice of some
one virtue which they practiced with such enthusiasm that
it became a vice, while they neglected the ordinary laws
of right and wrong entirely.
In China, for example, the " great calamity " is that
ancestors should lack descendants to do them honor.
This idea led long ago to plural wives and " the devil
in the household." In Japan ancestors and even step-
ancestors came to be supreme. All other relations were
trifling compared to the attitude of son to father, and
an Abraham offering up Isaac would be a small matter
beside some acts of " filial piety " in the Land of the
Rising Sun, for a Japanese has sacrificed not only a son,
but his whole family and himself, and that to do the
bidding of one who was his father by adoption only. The
story will show this better than a volume of essays on
what Confucius taught concerning reverence.
Years ago, in the province of Owari, near the center
of Japan, lived Kato Tamakichi, a potter. Kato went
[298]

THE REVERENCE OF KATO
through with a difficult enterprise successfully, and won
for his countrymen great fame. In this achievement
duty was the only stimulus, for the reward he knew he
should receive was not attractive.
Seto was Kato Tamakichi's native town. In his time
it was the center of the porcelain industry of the Empire,
as it is to-day. Indeed it has been the center ever since
his famous ancestor Kato Shirozemon returned from
China seven centuries ago with the store of knowledge
he had gleaned during his years of study among the
ancient kilns of the Celestials. And now " setomono "
(Seto-things) is a generic term in Japanese for all pot
tery and porcelain, just as " china " is in English.
But though descended from a long line of masters
of the kiln in a country where potters had great honor,
and though he was the cleverest of the pupils of his
master, Tsugane Bunzaemon, chief of the Seto Guild of
Potters, Kato was not content.
A stranger looking in on him would not have suspected
his discontent, perhaps, for the Japanese face is wonder
fully effective as a mask, but the discontent was there.
He was at his home one day in Tsugane's house, and
had seated himself on his heels by a large bronze hibachi,
making ready to put the kettle on for a little tea. Be
fore him were several tea-bowls, delicate and beautiful in
design and of exquisite glaze.
This glaze was the cause of Kato's discontent. Tsu
gane San had just returned from his voyage round Cape
Shiwo to Osaka, where he went each year to visit the
great bazaars, which at that time were the largest in the
[299 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
Empire, and to dispose of the product of the Seto kilns,
and he had brought back with him these tea-bowls.
They were so good they worried the young potter.
He would pause, fire-tongs in hand, every moment or two,
pick up one of the bowls, hold it between his eye and the
light, put a coal close to it to study the glow reflected
from the surface, rub it along his sleeve, touch it gin
gerly with the tip of his tongue as though to taste the
deep, rich color under the glaze, tap it very, very gently
with one of the long tips, and then set it down again and
become absorbed in the arrangement of the fire.
Tsugane San came in shortly and seated himself upon
a square cushion on the opposite side of the hibachi. He
pulled the tea-tray towards him, and taking the tall blue
cup — the master's cup — poured a little hot water in it
and replaced it on the tray. Opening an air-tight can
ister which had a lid with a rim quite half as deep as the
canister's entire height, he took out two pinches of tea,
dried leaves of a deep, dull green that had never suffered
from other heat or chemical process than the sun's rays
effect. The two pinches went into the " kibisho," or small
porcelain teapot. Next he poured boiling water from
the " tetsubin," the iron tea-kettle, into a sort of gravy
boat, where it must cool a bit, lest it make the brew astrin
gent. Replacing the tea-kettle on the brazier, he turned
the moderated boiling water on the leaves, let it stand
perhaps a minute, and pouring a tiny cup half full for
Kato San, his cup full for himself, drank the sherry-
colored liquor slowly with a sound somewhere between a
kiss and a sigh.
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THE REVERENCE OF KATO
Kato San drank with him, and when he had done the
master said:
" As for those tea-bowls from Osaka, what do you
think?"
" Augustly beautiful," replied Kato, using the hon
orific form, out of the respect a pupil should always show
to his master.
" Yes, beautiful they are. Too beautiful for Osaka
— too beautiful for Seto. They are from far south, as
you see by their bottoms, from Arita and Karatsu, in the
province of Hizen, where the Prince of Satsuma settled
some Koreans a hundred years ago and made them teach
the natives many things about enamels. There is good
stone there for porcelain, and the ports of Karatsu and
of Imari, where the Dutch send every year for wares,
have become as famous in Kiushiu as our Seto is in the
remainder of Dai Nippon. In fact, those southerners
call everything of clay, Karatsumono. They are push
ing their wares north now. I had a hard time selling
in Osaka this visit, and all because those low Koreans
whom we conquer so easily whenever we cross the channel
had a secret about glaze which they were fools enough to
tell the potters in Hizen."
" Honorably augustly so it contemptibly deigns to
be," said Kato San, inclining his head and bending for
ward. " We must discover that secret," continued the master.
To which Kato San assented with more honorifics and
inclinations. " In Osaka I saw a ' nakado ' (middleman) who has
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THE HEART OF JAPAN
gone to Hizen to arrange for a marriage with the daugh
ter of the chief of the Arita Guild. It will cost all of
the year's profits and something besides, but we shall
lose our face if we do not discover the secret of the
glaze." Respectful acquiescence as before.
" From what I learned through Nakado San I am
confident of success. He will be here within a few days
and will return with you directly, for it is a long journey,
and I would have you be there before the next firing of
the kilns."
This was the first intimation of Tsugane San's scheme
that had reached Kato San ; it was in fact the first time
the subject of marriage had been mentioned to him, but
he bowed quite as reverently as before, and ejaculated
honorifics in the same deferential tone. On his coun
tenance there was no sign that he had just heard he was
to go to a strange country, there to marry a strange
woman whose speech even would be unintelligible. But
Japanese surprise, if there is such a thing, is purely in
ternal. Tsugane San had made arrangements, and that
was the affair in a nutshell. Why discuss matters that
are already settled?
In due course Nakado San appeared with a letter show
ing that he had done all as Tsugane San instructed him,
so nothing remained for him to do except to receive the
money stipulated and then hasten back with Kato San
to Arita, where the potters were waiting eagerly to cele
brate. Kato received money, too, and handsome gifts
for the wife he had never seen and for her parents. As
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THE REVERENCE OF KATO
Tsugane handed these to his pupil and adopted son, he
said :
" When you have learned the blue and white, return."
And Kato, with his forehead against the mats, had
replied :
" Kashikomarimashita " (" August commands rev
erently understanding am " ) .
Then with his guide he set out, hardly daring to
look about him on the sights he had.known since the light
first shone upon him. Their luggage was partly on the
backs of two lusty coolies and partly in their " kagos," or
palanquins, for Kato had small liking to be carried along
the road. He preferred exercise. Nagoya, where the
golden dolphins are, was their first halt, about six " ri "
(fifteen miles) from home. Thence they went on to
Kokkaichi, thence over the mountains to Lake Biwa, and
to Kiyoto, where the Son of Heaven, Tenshi Sama, the
Mikado, was a sacred prisoner by order of the Shogun
Tauna Yoshi ; on to Osaka, where more business was and
is done more slowly than in any other city in Japan;
thence by boat through the wondrous Inland Sea which
angels look down upon with envy ; on through the Strait
of Shimonoseki, where allied Western fleets were to meet
years afterwards, and into the " Genkai Nada " (the
Watchful Sea), to Karatsu, where the men of Arita met
them as Nakado San had arranged.
As Kato San had left his own home and was coming
to the bride's house to become a member of her family,
which is just the reverse of what usually occurs when
young folks marry in Japan, and as, furthermore, the
[

THE HEART OF JAPAN
homes of bride and bridegroom were far apart, as dis
tances went in those days, the Nakado altered the ordi
nary arrangements to suit the circumstances. He ar
ranged the " mi-ai " (mutual seeing or first look) to
take place in rooms he had rented near Arita for the
purpose. It was satisfactory, of course, — it always is
with dutiful children in Japan, and in those days, before
knowledge of Western ways had reached the country,
there was no other sort than dutiful in the land.
It is true the young people sat at opposite sides of
the room with the widths of many mats between them,
and that neither ventured a word to the other directly,
but Kato's fine features, his clear, keen eye, as an artist
should have, and his erectness, all of which O Tsuru San
saw without looking at their possessor, put her into a
most pleasurable confusion ; while as for Kato himself, he
looked directly at 0 Tsuru as she came in, and from that
moment forgot his homesickness entirely.
The ceremony of " San San Kudo " (Three Three
Nine Times) where bride and bridegroom go through
the form of exchanging each of three sake cups three
times, and drinking from them, was in the bride's house
two days later, where Kato took the name of Higashi-
dori from his father-in-law, whose son he now became,
and was duly registered at the office of the district by
the census-taker as Higashidori Tokuzayemon, chief of
the Arita Guild of Potters.
It seems that Rei Sampei had just discovered some
fine porcelain stone in Idzumi Yama, and the kilns had
better clay in them than they had ever known before.
[ 304]

THE REVERENCE OF KATO
Higashidori, too, had added to the knowledge the
Koreans had brought over through his dealings with the
Dutch, whom the Shogun allowed once a year to do a
little business at Deshima, Nagasaki. His skill with
red oxide of iron and with Chinese and Dutch cobalt
gave him the advantage that Tsugane Bunzaemon had
envied so keenly. Under the catalogue title " Old
Hizen," in the Dresden collection, one may see specimens
of Higashidori's skill to-day.
Kato San, skillful as he was himself, marveled at the
work of his new father, and set about diligently to assist
him. Being a potter born and bred, he was soon in love
with his occupation, almost half as much as he was with
his wife, which is saying a great deal. Higashidori smiled
as he watched his new-found son, and thought what a fine
man he would be when age came on and it was time for
the headship of the guild to pass on to one of a younger
generation. " I shall be ' inkiyo ' (retired) then," he said to him
self, " and Kintaro will have the kilns and will be chief
in my stead. He will be worthy of our name."
When, a year later, O Tsuru San presented her hus
band with a son, the old chief's countenance was lighted
with a joy that shone more brightly than the finest vases
he had ever made. The bond between him and the son
from far away was now complete, and the honor of his
house secure. He took Kintaro into his full confidence,
and the young man, learning rapidly, was soon well-nigh
as expert as the chief himself. His work delighted him,
and his home, to which two more children came in the
[305 ]

THE HEART OF JAPAN
next three years, was all that a human heart could wish
for. So absorbed had he become in the development of
the porcelains from the new-found stone, that Seto and
the master waiting there were as dim shadows in his mind,
if ever he thought of them at all.
But a stranger to Arita passed through one day, leav
ing a written message with Kintaro, and affairs changed.
It was from Tsugane Bunzaemon, the master. Kintaro
turned to stone on reading it. It was a clear, fine day,
but he did know it. A few feet from him two of his
children were playing at baby games ; he did not hear
them. On the mats just beyond the shallow grooves
along which the sliding doors had been pushed back,
making an entrance to the adjoining room, O Tsuru
San sat nursing the youngest of the three — a lovely pic
ture of young motherhood, but Kintaro did not see.
He folded the letter and went out and over to the
quarry, then he walked to the kilns, and then — he never
knew himself where he wandered during the next few
hours, but his thoughts were on the serving of two
masters, one whom he had forgotten and the other
whom he had come to look upon as in very truth his
father. " Yet he is not," he murmured to himself. " My real
father, who died when I was so young, gave me to the
master, for he wished me to grow up to be famous among
the Seto kilns, as he was himself. I kept his name, and
I must be true to him — as he would have it ; — that — is —
true — to — Seto, — and these four years are gone, and the
end of them and of me is near."
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THE REVERENCE OF KATO
" Of them " — the tragedy of the thoughts that came
with those two words !
Kintaro thought things over many ways and slowly
as he wandered. Then, his mind being clear, he said to
Higashidori :
" You are to become inkiyo soon and retire from all
active pursuits, as your honorable years entitle you to
do, and as you have had the august condescension to
name so unworthy a person as I to be your heir and suc
cessor, I beg you to allow me a short visit to my former
home that I may say farewell to the comrades of my
early youth whom I shall otherwise have no opportunity
to see again."
The journey was speedily arranged. Kintaro bowed
low to Higashidori, put his hand on the children's heads
as he asked them which could strike the shuttlecock the
farther, and just for a moment touched the hem of O
Tsuru's sleeve, as he said he must hasten lest a waiting
junk make sail before he reached the harbor.
He did not see them again, nor Arita neither. Ten
months later news came that the Seto kilns produced all
the glaze and colorings that had made Hizen so famous,
and that the new Seto had monopolized the markets in
Osaka. In their rage the Arita potters crucified Kin-
taro's wife and his children. Kintaro — or Kato Tama-
kichi — when the story reached him became a raving
maniac. In Seto his memory is sacred, for he had
obeyed the commands of the master to whom his father
had committed him. Filial piety had its reward.
THE END
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