Newfoundland to Cochin China

CHAPTER V.

TO THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

On Wednesday, September 9th, 1891, we embarked on board the Pacific s.s. Empress of Japan. We congratulate ourselves upon having a roomy cabin exactly amidships on the main deck, and the unprecedented luxury of two drawers and two cupboards. Otherwise our voyage does not promise well. The C.P.R. thoroughly understands its opportunities, and their putting on three new steamships, the Empresses of Japan, India, and China, is justified by the large number of saloon passengers. Thirty passengers have been their average up to the last voyage, when it was sixty, and this time it is 130. We hope that the resources of the ship will not break down under this strain, but consider it doubtful. The stewards are all Chinese, and excellent they appear, especially our table steward, who boasted the aristocratic name of "Guy."

It was a miserable day, the rain coming down in torrents, and under the wet awnings we dawdled about until the mails, five hours late, arrived. At six o'clock we left the wharf and went "forward" to see this ship of 4000 tons pass through the confined channel of "The Narrows." We could almost have touched the overhanging branches of the trees in the park, so closely did the ship hug the bank. At midnight we stopped opposite to Victoria to take on board some more passengers. They were in a sorry plight, for they had been sitting on an open barge in pitch darkness, and in pouring rain, for six hours.

The next day was cold, gloomy, and rough. Scarcely a soul but was sick and sorry. The usual whale excited but a feeble interest along the row of deck chairs, occupied by people in varying stages of malaise. We must expect bad weather. In truth we had a miserably cold cheerless voyage across this Northern Pacific Ocean, and it was such a contrast to our bright and sunny passage across the South Pacific, from San Francisco to Auckand, six years ago. The ship takes a northerly course until we get to the mouth of the Behring Sea. Here we had a miserable Sunday. Such an angry grey sea, crested with white horses, seething and boiling around us. It was abominably rough. Everybody was sea-sick again, and, to complete the tale of woe, there was a dense sea-fog, the decks dripping with this clammy moisture and from the spray, as the Empress's nose was buried in the ocean's waves and, quivering from stem to stern, she rose and shook herself. The discordant shriek of the fog-horn was heard all day. Everybody agrees that life on board ship is bearable if you can be on deck, some even may go so far as to enjoy it, though I cannot say that we belong to that number, but when, as on this occasion, that refuge was denied to us, we were indeed miserable. We had service in the saloon, the little remnant able to appear, and all joined in those familiar prayers, that seem to bind us together on the stormy ocean as "one family in heaven and earth." The Bishop of Exeter, who, with his son, the Bishop of Japan, is on board, preached the sermon. Weary of being knocked about at the mercy of the waves, there was not a soul on board but was thankful when night came, and we sought such rest as we could find in our berths.

We shall have a Wednesday missing all our lives, that of Wednesday, September 17th, and we have lost a whole day, besides sundry and many half-hours by the putting back of the ship's clock. We are now just half-way round the world from the Greenwich meridian.

The next day we saw one island of the Aleutian group, and the "early birds" saw a snow-cone on it. These islands extend for many miles at the entrance to the Behring Sea, and we discover that in the event of a shipwreck our boats have orders to steer for this island. There are a number of missionaries, from thirty to forty, on board, who, with their wives and numerous families are bound for China. Some of them are very intolerant, as was shown when the officers got up a dance, and there was some question as to where the piano would come from: "Oh!" said one, "the devil will be sure to provide that."

The last two days we experience a sudden change from the intense cold. We awake one morning to find a tropical downpour, accompanied by a damp heat that enervates everybody, and this is accompanied by the tail end of a typhoon, and a grand sea. All ports are closed, the heat below is terrific, and the ship labours and rolls heavily. And thus ends a most disagreeable and lonely voyage, for we have not seen a single sail since leaving Vancouver.

There is no sensation in the world more delightful than landing in a new country, and especially when it is in such a different corner of the world as Japan.

Our expectations are vague and enthusiastic, but, alas! the approach to Yokohama through the beautiful channel of islands is lost to us. We are on deck at 5 a.m., only to see the lights of the numerous lighthouses on the coast extinguished, and then blotted out in blinding mists of rain. Fugi, the sacred mountain, whose cone, dominating the whole island, we had been taught to watch for in our first view of Japan, is lost to us. Sullen clouds and the gloomiest grey sky hang over Yokohama.

The departure from the Empress of Japan is a scene of more than usual confusion, but we get safely down the one gangway, thronged with passengers and their luggage, and into the steam-launch sent for us by the Government, and are soon speeding along the pretty Bund to the Grand Hotel. The first morning on shore after a long voyage is always a harassing one. There are letters to be posted, the money of the country to be obtained, departure of the next steamer to be ascertained, and here in Japan, above all, passports to be seen about, for you cannot leave the Treaty Ports without one. We afterwards found that in an incredibly short space after arriving in any town, the police always came to inquire for a passport. Then we had to engage a guide, without which you are assured you cannot travel in Japan. I may at once say that, though we had an excellent guide, we found him an unnecessary nuisance, and parted with him in a few days. In going into the interior of the country you require one to cook and arrange, but keeping to the more beaten tracks you can comfortably manage without.

Of course we have spent the whole of our first day in Japan in jinrikishas. Everyone does so. Nor can we resist a visit to the curio shops, though we harden ourselves against temptations, knowing that we shall have but too many opportunities to spend in the future. We were glad of this afterwards, for we heard that the curio dealers, on learning the large number of passengers leaving Vancouver on the Empress of Japan, had met together and by agreement raised their prices. In the afternoon we went for a drive round the Bluff, or European Settlement. Yokohama is a treaty port, and at these ports, which were first opened by the efforts of Commodore Perry to foreigners in 1868, a concession of land was allotted to the Europeans, where alone they are allowed to reside. And very charming houses they have built here, coloured red and green, or grey, and buff, with well-kept roads and pretty gardens, fenced in with bamboo hedges. We drive round by the racecourse, with its grand stand and white railings just like our Epsom course. The Mikado visits Yokohama once a year to come to the races, and we see his private box on the top of the stand. Then home by the sea-shore and across a plain of rice fields, descending through the Settlement once more.

Yokohama is a cosmopolitan place and enjoys the glamour of being the landing-place in a new country and the first sight of a new nation, hut it contains nothing of interest. Along the Bund or sea wall is a row of grey verandahed houses, looking very Eastern amongst their palm trees. Behind the sea front there are two or three streets, chiefly containing curio shops, interspersed with many grey walled godowns with their forbidding barred and shuttered windows. People stay at Yokohama, some because the hotel is comfortable, some, like the American ladies, who, though bringing large boxes of dresses, are so fascinated by the Chinese tailors' prices, that they stay to have more made, others again to haunt the curio shops, and really the selection of articles made with a view to the wants of the ordinary traveller is so good, that you can scarcely do better, we determined afterwards, than shop at Yokohama. Others again are so foolish as to be marked for life, by employing the services of Hori-Chigo, whose advertisement runs thus: "The celebrated Tattooer, patronized by T.R.H. Princes Albert Victor and George, and known all over the world for his fine and artistic work. Designs and samples can be seen at the Tattooing Rooms."

Thursday, September 24th.—Such a glorious day, and we took a sudden determination to go at once to Tokio, a short hour's journey. We found, on arriving at the station, our luggage surrounded by a group of the smallest of porters in neat blue uniforms, and caps with yellow bands, dubiously surveying my large basket, which was ultimately transported by the help of all. The railways in Japan were built by English engineers, and worked by them, until the Japanese learnt to do it for themselves. They are perfectly English, and the names of stations, directions, even the mile posts are written in both languages. The fares are extraordinarily cheap, and the third-class crowded, whilst the one first-class carriage on each train is almost exclusively used by Europeans. There are newspapers in the waiting-rooms; they have the French system of locking you in the latter until shortly before the arrival of the train; and the American check system for luggage. There was a funny little toy train waiting for us on the very narrow gauge, drawn by a tiny black and yellow engine. The long carriages with their seats lengthways have as many as twenty-two windows, and they are lined with Lincrusta-Walton paper. There is a wooden tray with a tea-pot filled with hot water, and glasses for the tea, which the Japanese are always drinking. When we stop at the stations there is such a cheerful chorus of clicking high-heeled clogs, as the men and the little ladies, with their smiling brown babies on their bent backs, tippet and shuffle along.

The short run between Tokio and Yokohama is perfectly flat, with nothing but rice fields, or if there is a little eminence it is crowned by the dwarf forestry, which is the peculiar feature of Japanese scenery.

Tokio or Tokyo, is the official capital of Japan. It is the old Yedo of our schoolroom geography. The Minister of Foreign Affairs had sent his secretary to meet us at the station, with a carriage similar to an English victoria, drawn by pretty thick-set black Japanese ponies, and with the Indian custom of a running sayce, who jumps off and clears the way at the corners. To the right of the broad canal, along which we are driving, we see a grand structure, which we suppose to be an official building at least, and are surprised when we are told that it is the Imperial Hotel. It is as palatial inside, with its broad staircase and passages, and marble dining hall, and its crowds of obsequious servants, who, hands on knees, slide down in deep bows at every corner, and that drawing in of the breath like a gentle gasp, which in Japan is a sign of great respect. The government have shown much enterprise in assisting to build several of these large hotels by grants of lands and subsidies, thus encouraging foreign travellers to come and stay. They serve also as places where imperial guests, like the Duke and Duchess of Connaught (who stayed here), and the Czarewitch, can be entertained, as the palaces, owing to their complete absence of furniture, according to the custom of the country, cannot be rendered habitable for the reception of Europeans.

Tokio, beautiful Tokio, with its multitudinous little brown-eaved houses, crowded in lowly company together, its broad moats, with the green water, over which the mists gather at night and disperse in the early morning sun, its great walls, formed of blocks of stone piled up obliquely without the aid of mortar that guard the Shogun's Castle, and the pale-blue grey skies, with the clear bright atmosphere, which lends such a charm and softness to the picturesque scenes around. The charm of Tokio is undefinable. It is so subtle as only to be felt. But wherever you go, you will be always coming back to those miles of solid masonry and those moats with their grassy banks, with a single row of twisted dragon-shaped fir trees at the top—trees, that like all else in Japan, are dwarfed, and where perhaps two or three solemn rooks will perch and caw hoarsely, or even a red-legged stork, with outstretched wings, will flap idly across.

I shall never forget the delight of our first drive in Tokio. It was enough to be drawn swiftly and silently along in the midst of those broad white roads, shaded by avenues of graceful willows, and see all the strangely fascinating life of every-day Japan passing swiftly by, without going to see anything in particular. For the motion of these jinrikishas, the only practicable mode of progression in Japan, is delightfully easy and pleasant. The coolies in their dark blue cotton breeches and loose jacket and large mushroom-shaped hats, go at an easy trot of six miles an hour, and they will do forty miles in one day. This patient, toiling, perspiring race never seem to tire, and their bare brown legs, with their large muscular development, with sinews and veins standing out, and their high regular action, trot as steadily as the rough docile ponies. Their feet are bare, or covered with a straw sandal, kept on by a ribbon passed round the great toe. We see many shops hung with hundreds of these sandals. Their cost is infinitesimally small, but the roads are strewn with cast-off ones, for they only last for a few journeys.

We are driving along by the Inner Moat; for there are three separate moats surrounding the Castle, and then crossing over a bridge we pass under an ancient stone gateway, and find ourselves, between this and another one, equally massive and with iron-plated doors studded with nails. We are shut in by these curious walls of obsolete masonry. Huge blocks of granite are piled up obliquely, one resting on the other for support, without being filled in by earth or mortar. They are broader at the base, slope inwards, and stand by their own weight. Again and again we came upon these Titanic walls in the ancient buildings of Japan, and never ceased wondering how they were first placed in position and then held so, for centuries. Passing through the second archway, we are in a great open space, and above us are the white walls and brown crinkled roofs of the Mikado's palace. There is the grey stone bridge lighted by clusters of electric lamps, across which the 121st Mikado and the successor of the Shoguns passes to the palace, around which linger mysteries leaving the imagination free to picture the interior, for it is invisible to everyone. The authors of that delightful "Social Departure," it is true, saw it, but they dare not record how the permission was obtained. It is said that Mr. Liberty was the last to see this enchanted abode, but then his visit was from a professional view, to give his opinion on the decorations, as one of the great æsthetic decorators of the day.

The office of the Imperial Household, whither we were bound to call on Monsieur Nagasaki, the Emperor's Master of the Ceremonies, lies under the Imperial Palace. The sentry at the gateway stopped us, but after some parleying we were allowed to proceed on foot, as none but titled Japanese are allowed to pass in a jinrikisha. The officer who accompanied us was typical of the politeness which is the pleasantest feature of the Japanese, and requested a souvenir of our visit in a visiting card. In coming away we passed the Minister of Justice in a victoria, with a jinrikisha roped behind, containing his detective.

Tokio is one of the ten largest cities in the world, and with its population of 1,400,000 spread out over an extended area, the distances are great. It has tramways, drawn by the diminutive ponies, and an ear-piercing horn heralds an antique omnibus in the principal thoroughfares. It has electric light, gas, and telephones. Nor is it wanting in handsome public buildings and offices like the Admiralty, the Ministry for Foreign and Home Affairs. The Houses of Parliament are a skeleton of poles, for, just completed last year, they were burnt down immediately and are now rebuilding. We are passing an enclosure with rows of white-washed buildings, little barracks, suited to the little soldiers we see marching bravely along in the streets, and crowned with the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum, the royal insignia, which is everywhere and on everything.

Before the afternoon light fails we visit the temples at Shiba Park, the park being a grove of trees under which picturesque groups of children and nurses wander, or ladies stroll about, with their jinrikishas following them.

The entrance to this succession of mortuary chapels, where the remains of the 7th and 9th Shoguns are buried, is by a gorgeous gate of red and green and gold—a gate such as we grew to be familiar with, in the ceaseless succession of temples in Japan, for all these Buddhist shrines have a wearisome sameness in common, however beautiful they may individually be. There is a quiet court inside, filled with rows of stone pillars, with a circular pagoda with open holes at the top. They are lanterns offered as a mark of respect by the Daimyos or great nobles to their master. Every August, from the 12th to the 16th, lights are kept burning there to entice the spirits to return during their time of wandering, and not to journey by mistake to hell. Another stone court with more lanterns, and a pagoda-erection to a Minister of War, whither, should a war occur, they hope his spirit would return to watch over it and bring them luck.

We approach the Temple, with its black roof of crenellated copper, and the overhanging eaves, from each up-curved point of which hangs a tinkling bronze bell, and we can see that this sombre outside is only a wooden shell to preserve the gilding and brilliant colours of the exterior.

Our feet are bound up in cotton shoes, and we enter by a side door into an exquisite little sanctum, where the roof is all of lacquer, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and the panels on the walls are carved in marvellous repoussé work, with flowers and animals. A softened light comes through the open door, and the gold and red and blue and green, melt into a harmony of rich colouring, whilst the petal of each flower, the stalk of every leaf, the plumage on the wings of the birds, stand out in startling relief; and these panels represent storks, with their long red legs, doves with their silver-grey plumage, parrots with red and green tails, and peacocks with fan-spread tails. Or there are such flowers as the sacred lotus, the emblem of Buddhism, the chrysanthemum and the pink peony. One panel of exceptional beauty, is an exquisite spray of tiger lilies, carved in high relief. Tradition says that this was so greatly esteemed by the Shogun, and that the two nails we see were used to hang a cover over it, that no one should see it but himself. The priest throws open the golden trellis-work of a shrine, and shows us three memorial tablets with the Shogun's names inscribed on them. Around it there is a collection of china vases, paper lanterns, and lacquer stands. Passing behind the screen formed of bamboo bound with silken cords, we come to a square room covered as usual with matting, and with the same florid decoration, where there is a row of lacquer boxes each tied up with a cord. They contain the Buddhist books, and are used for the daily prayers.

Through a grove of glossy-leaved camellias we pass, and mount up some flights of ancient steps to another temple. This is the Praying Room in front of the Shogun's Tomb, and is only entered by the Mikado and Archbishop, when they come to worship the great departed on the day of his decease. We pass behind this, and ascend yet more moss-grown steps, to the tomb of the Great Shogun, which is surmounted by a bronze urn, and enclosed within stone parapets and iron railings. The tomb bears the three-leaved asarum, which is the crest of the House, and is seen on many buildings of the date of that dynasty. Since the fall of the Shoguns—or military usurpers of executive power—and the re-establishment to the Imperial City of the present dynasty of Mikados, it has been replaced by the Imperial Chrysanthemum. All is so quiet and solemn here, and the memorial above the tomb is so simple, as compared with the magnificence that goes before, that as Mitford says, "The sermon may have been preached by design, or it may have been by accident, but the lesson is there." The 9th, 12th and 14th Shoguns are buried at Shiba, and their three temples, their three praying rooms, and their three bronze urns, stand in precisely similar lines with the one we are at present by.

In the evening we take jinrikishas and go into the native quarters. If Tokio is charming in daylight, it is simply a fairyland at night. There are no lamps, save for a few electric beacons, that send out their far-reaching flashes over all the city, but the streets are lighted by innumerable pendulous drops of light, that dance and quiver and dart about, and cross and disappear quickly round corners. They are the paper lanterns which hang from the shafts of hundreds of jinrikishas, or are carried by pedestrians, for everyone in Japan carries his own lantern after dark; and some are pale pink and others red or blue. Now their soft light is reflected on the waters of the moat, or glides quickly and noiselessly round the stone ramparts and reappears like glow-worms on the other side. Now we pass the crimson light streaming out of the little box-like police station, or the barrow of the street vendor with the bulb of light shining mysteriously from behind his hanging curtains. Soft even light falls across the street from the windows of opaque paper, and we can trace the shadows crossing them. Then as we stealthily fly past, we see the dark interior of a shop lighted by a single lamp, under which squats a Rembrandt-like figure, intently working, for in these busy human hives late at night and early morning sees them still at work, or again the leaping flames of fire in the centre of the floor light up a family group. Then there is the street vendor, with his flaring torches, and his wares spread out against a wall. There is a festival held in some particular street, lighted with lunging designs of crimson paper lanterns, slung from bamboo poles, to the god of writing. Then as we return home through the dark quiet alleys, we hear the frequent and melancholy sound of the bamboo flute of the blind shampooer, as he feels his way, stick in hand, along the street. He sounds but two notes, but they have the wail of a world of sorrow in them, that goes to the heart.