A Journal from Japan: A Daily Record of Life as Seen by a Scientist

How this country can possibly pretend to be a first-class Power, how it can build warships and drill armies to the blare of trumpets, how it can have a “World’s Fair” in a few y...

The boy children were naked, with smooth glowing copper limbs like sun-burned clay--as indeed they were. The girl children had usually some floating robe of a dressing-gown natu...

The view from the temple itself was superb. One stood on a level with the topmost branches of the giant trees, and looking through them saw all round stretch after stretch of gr...

=March 25.=--At work all day over fossils--then dressed in my green-and-gold Venetian dress and called on Mrs. G---- on the way to the Embassy dinner. She and her children were...

The special party to-day was to welcome the married daughter of one of the earliest and most useful of the American missionaries, a Dr. Brown, who had had a school in Yokohama,...

I think I have already spoken of the temple, the most popular one in Japan, where incessant crowds are praying or clattering through, or come with aches and pains to lay their h...

=June 30.=--A good day’s work. In the evening there was a dinner where met all the botanists of Tokio. One or two could not come, but there were 18 men there. Seemingly foreign...

=October 16.=--At work all the morning, lunch with the Faculty at the Goten, and then at work all the afternoon. The fossils proved so enticing that though I had worn a traily f...

Some of the bigger fishing-boats we passed were most interesting, and looked, on a small scale, exactly like my imagination of what an old Egyptian boat must have been. The six...

=November 25.=--After working till it was dark, and worrying the laboratory attendants (for, nominally, we should all clear off at 4 now, but I can’t get out of the habit of wor...

After reaching home, in about an hour, a courteous secretary followed, bringing with him all the cakes which I had not eaten at the reception. Alas, that etiquette demanded that...

After the party the catching of one’s _kuruma_ was an exciting game; there was no system of getting at them, and the several hundreds of guests and several hundreds of coolies s...

=August 15.=--I spent the day at Enoshima, an island about two hours’ journey from Tokio. It is perfectly exquisite. The island is connected with the mainland by a very long nar...

The dinner with the Naturalists was a somewhat trying affair. There was but one lady and she was obviously asked for my sake, and was put next me at the table. The President and...

=January 1, 1909.=--A bright sunny day for the New Year. This year I did not enter at all into the national customs, but went for a walk with Flora to see her school, the Conven...

The streets of Tokio are simply enchanting, the pine and bamboo at every door, and wherever there are shops, strings of gay red and white lanterns. At night it is a fairy-land....

=May 23.=--After working at fossils all morning, I cycled over to Miss B---- for lunch. She was as entertaining as usual. I often think she is one of the best talkers I have met...

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 44475-h.htm or 44475-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44...

It is curious to notice how largely straw enters into the place of religious offerings. Straw ropes hang before the temple gates, or single straws depending from a line make a d...