III.

IN TÕKIŌ, THE EASTERN CAPITAL.

I was a stranger in a wilderness of a million souls. In half an hour I had left the yard of the huge caravansary, which the Japanese who had built it fondly believed to be a comfortable hotel, and was on my way to the distant quarter of the city in which was situated the Imperial College. I walked by preference, as I had studied the map of Tōkiō, and some rude native pictures of certain landmarks while in America, and I now determined to test the soundness of my knowledge. I had that proficiency in speaking the language which five words badly pronounced could give. Every foreigner who sojourns in Japan for a week learns "Sukoshi matté" (wait a little), "Ikura ?” (how much?), "Doko?" (where ?), "Yoroshiu" (all right), and "Hayaku" (hurry). With these on my tongue, and my map in my hand, I started. I passed through the foreign quarter, which is part of the old district called Tsukiji (filled-up land). It faces the river, and is moated in on all sides by canals. It is well paved, cleaned, and lighted, contrasting favorably with the streets of the native city. The opening of Yedo as a foreign port cost a great outlay of money, but as a settlement was a failure, partly on account of high ground-rent, but mainly because the harbor is too shallow. Almost the only persons who live in Tsukiji are the foreign officials at the consulates, missionaries, and a few merchants. I walked on, interested at seeing novel sights at every step, and at the limits passed a guard-house full of soldiers of Maëda, the daimiō of Kaga. These kept watch and ward at a black gate, flanked by a high black paling fence. For years it was absolutely necessary to guard all the approaches to the foreign quarter, and keep out all suspicious two-sworded men. Incendiarism and the murder of the hated foreigners were favorite amusements of the young blades of Japan, who wished both to get the shogun in trouble and to rid their beautiful land of the devilish foreigners. Every approach to Yokohama was thus guarded at this time. From the foreign quarter into the Yoshiwara is but a step. Handsome two-storied

wooden buildings, open to the street, were filled with pretty young girls, playing upon the samisen (banjo), having their hair dressed, sitting idle, or engaged at their toilet mirrors. Japanese male cynics say that a looking-glass is the mind of a woman. Handsome streets of neat houses extended to a distance of half a mile on each side, from which the same sounds proceeded. Why were these houses so fine? Why so many young girls gathered? Here were beauty, tender years, soft smiles, and luxurious houses. Here were little girls trained to do, when grown, as the older girls. For what purpose?

In every port open to foreigners in Japan, in a few of the other large cities, but not in daimiōs' capitals, there is the same institution. It is Japan's own. Before they opened any port to foreign trade, the Japanese built two places for the foreigners-a custom-house and a brothel. The Yoshiwara is such a place. For the foreigners they supposed it to be a necessary good; for themselves, a protection to their people against ships' crews suddenly set free on land: they counted it a necessary evil. They believed the foreigners to be far worse than themselves. How far were they wrong?

We proceed through the quarter into streets lined with open shops. Privacy is not at a premium in Japan. One might live at home for years without understanding the mysteries of a lady's toilet. In Japan one learns it in a few days. Here is the human form divine bare to the waist, while its possessor laves her long black hair in warm water. She is about eighteen years old, evidently. Her mirror, powder-box, etc., lie about her. There is a mother shaving her baby's head. The chief occupation of the shop-keepers seems to be that of toasting their digits. I halt at a shop full of ivory carvings. Some of them are elegant works of art. Some are puns in ivory. Some are historical tableaux, which I recognize at once. These trophies of the geological cemeteries, or refrigerators, of Siberia are metamorphosed into whatever form of beauty and grotesque humor the lively fancy of the carver has elected. The ivory in Japan was anciently brought from India, but in later times, through Corea, from the shores of the Arctic Ocean, where it is said modern dogs feed on the prehistoric meat of mammoths and mastodons frozen hard ages ago. Nearly all the ivory thus imported is put to a single use. It is carved into nitsūkis, or large buttons perforated with two holes, in which a silken cord is riven, and which holds the smoking apparatus, the vade mecum, of the native. Flint, tinder, and steel in one bag; tobacco in another; tiny - bowled, brass-tipped bamboo pipe, in a case, are all suspended by the nitsuki,

thrust up through the girdle. The one represented in the accompanying cut shows how a Japanese rider, evidently somebody, from his hempen toque, mounts a horse,

i. e., on the right (or wrong) side, while his bettō holds the steed.

I pass through one street devoted to bureaus and cabinets, through another full of folding screens, through another full of dyers' shops, with their odors. and vats. In one small but neat shop sits an old man, with horn-rimmed spectacles, with

the mordant liquid beside him, Nitsuki, or Ivory Button, for holding a Gentlepreparing a roll of material for

its next bath. In another street there is nothing on sale but bamboopoles, but enough of these to make a forest. A man is sawing one, and I notice he pulls the saw with his two hands toward him. Its teeth are set contrary to ours.

Another man is planing. He pulls

the plane toward him. I notice a blacksmith at work: he pulls the bellows with his foot, while he is holding and hammering with both hands. He has several irons in the fire, and keeps his dinner-pot boiling with the waste flame. His whole family, like the generations before him, seem to "all get their

Pattern Designer preparing a Roll of Silk living in the hardware line." The

for the Dye-vat.

cooper
holds his tub with his toes.
How strange! Perhaps that

All of them sit down while they work. is an important difference between a European and an Asiatic. One sits down to his work, the other stands up to it.

Why is it that we do things contrariwise to the Japanese? Are we upside down, or they? The Japanese say that we are reversed. They call our penmanship "crab-writing," because, say they, "it goes backward." The lines in our books cross the page like a craw-fish, instead of going downward "properly." In a Japanese stable we find the horse's flank where we look for his head. Japanese screws screw the

other way. Their locks thrust to the left, ours to the right. The baby-toys of the Aryan race squeak when squeezed; the Turanian gimcracks emit noise when pulled apart. A Caucasian, to injure his enemy, kills him; a Japanese kills himself to spite his foe. Which race is left-handed? Which has the negative, which the positive of truth? What is truth? What is down, what is up?

I emerge from the bamboo street to the Tori, the main street, the Broadway of the Japanese capital. I recognize it. The shops are gayer and richer; the street is wider; it is crowded with people. Now, for the first time, comes the intense and vivid realization that this is Japan. Here is a kagō, with a woman and baby inside. Two half-naked coolies bear the pole on their shoulders, and hurry along, grunting in Japanese. They bear sticks in their hands, and stop at every few yards, rest the beam on their sticks, and change shoulders. Here comes an officer on horseback, with a lacquered helmet on his head, and bound with white pads over his chin. His two swords protrude from his girdle, his feet rest flat in wide iron stirrups, curved up like a skate-runner, and have room to spare. His saddle has enormous flaps of gilt leather. He grasps the reins, one in each hand, at about six inches from the bit, holding his horse's head so that his lower lip is higher than the space between his ears. This is torture and grace combined. It is the stylish thing in Japan. The horse's mane is tied up in a row of stiff pompoons; his tail is incased in a long bag of silk. Enormous tassels hang from the horse's shoulders. "There is a method in riding," is a Japanese saying. I believe it.

Here are soldiers, so I judge. They are dressed in every style of hybrid costume. One, in a broadcloth suit, finishes with bare head and clogs on the feet. Another has a foreign cap, but a Japanese suit. This man has on a pair of cowhide boots, against which his kilt flaps ungracefully, reminding one of an American tycoon going to the well to draw water. This one has a zouave jacket and native kilt. The soldiers look as if they had just sacked New York, and begun on Chatham Street. The braves have a brace of stabbing tools stuck in their belt. They are the two-sworded men, and insolent, swaggering bullies many of them are. As they pass the foreigner, they give him black scowls for a welcome. They are chiefly the retainers of the daimiōs of Tosa, Satsuma, Chōshiu, and Hizen, and are pride-swollen with victory over the rebels at Wakamatsu and Hakodaté. It is ticklish to walk among so many armed fellows who seem to be spoiling for foreign blood. Japanese swords are quickly drawn, and are sharp. No