Part 19

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 decorative fringe; old straw sandals, or new and monstrous sandals specially made for the purpose, are offered in piles to a small shrine. This offering of straw is symbolic in a land where so many things are made of it. The matting and nearly all the comforts of the house are made of straw, the sandals and rain coats, the labourer’s hats,--in the very poor places even the walls as well as the thatch of his house are all made of straw. Those who are too poor to give the ears of the rice except on special occasions, can yet afford a wisp of rice-straw for many a shrine, and rice is naturally symbolic of all their material welfare. It is not only in the peasant that this close daily touch of religion may be found. Driven back to the secret places of the house, and not spoken of to foreigners, is yet the shrine, kept with its daily ministration, in homes where one would least expect to find it. I asked an “atheist” scientific professor once what he would do if the woman whom he loved should die. He told me that he would engrave her name on the tablet in his shrine, before which was a prayer made every day. The religious instinct is a far greater thing than any formulated religion, and though missionaries may continue to tell the world that the Japanese are naturally irreligious, that will not prevent the Japanese from being deeply religious--until they have assimilated the Western attitude to religion, as they are doing toward other things. Perhaps one reason that the missionary finds the Japanese irreligious is that they take religion so happily, and make of it so much a part of their daily life, laughing in the temples, playing round the temple grounds, lighting the light of their little shrines in their homes when their household lamps are lit. One of the commonest sights in Japan is a band of peasant pilgrims on their way to some shrine, and it is the ambition of innumerable poor folk, who could never afford ordinary travel and holidays, to visit every temple of importance in the country. How many English common folk since the days of the Canterbury Pilgrims would travel on foot for a hundred miles to lay a wisp of straw on a shrine? Because the Japanese are not (and I think never will be in our sense of the word) Christians there is no excuse for our concluding that they are not religious.

Only of one thing more will I now speak. Sometimes carelessly, sometimes sadly, it has often been said that there can be no true understanding, no deep friendship between the East and the West. Even Lafcadio Hearn is quoted as an instance of the disappointment that must await the foreigner who tries to get to the heart of a Japanese. And Lafcadio Hearn, as is now being recognised, has shown us more truly and more beautifully than any other writer the inner life of Japan. He tells us, it is true, that in the end he found that it was only with the children that we could reach a real and close understanding and love, that as they grew up to men and women they receded farther and farther from one, till a great wall was built between them, and the lovable and loving child had become a friend who had lost the key of sympathy. This is perhaps true in most cases, but we must not forget that with his genius for suggestive and true description, and for poetical rendering of the things around him, Hearn seems to have had also a perfect genius for destroying individual friendships. Evidence of this is found cropping up in many places in Japan, where he shattered his friendships with English and Japanese alike; and it is already made clear in his Letters. One of the tests of friendship is time, and only at the end of a lifetime can one say just which men and women had been one’s real friends, but circumstance is almost as good a test as time, and that may give its stamp to a relationship very swiftly. Some Japanese--perhaps, nay certainly, they are exceptional natures--have a genius for friendship. There is in them a sweetness and delicacy, a sensitive comprehension of moods, a depth of feeling and a beauty of feeling which only the exceptional Westerner could match. The almost inhuman coldness which is so often attributed to the Japanese is not at all truly characteristic of them. Their reserve appears to us to be reserve only because we do not know how to read the signs of their expression, and because many careless Europeans before us may have trampled on holy ground. The apparently immobile face is immobile only because we ourselves are not alive to its subtle changes. When you know a Japanese face it is as eloquent as that of a sensitive English girl. And the moods and feelings it mirrors are not alien to ours. Some of the thoughts and some of the conclusions from the same premises may be different from ours, but they are not the essentials in friendship. The coldness and the insincerity of the Japanese are qualities which we have largely invented for them to save us the trouble of learning their truths, and of cultivating the power to read their subtle expressions. Nor are they always difficult to read if we have the privilege of friendship. In the “changeless eyes” of the Japanese I have seen fire and mist, radiance and storm. I have seen men’s tears welling up from the sweetness beneath to veil the eyes that looked on sorrowful things, or things so beautiful as to be a pain--as is Mount Fuji in an opal morning. In the hearts of some Japanese I have found friendship, tested by circumstance, true, and generous, and sweet. Those from the West who cannot find it also need not lay all the blame on the Japanese.

INDEX

Admiralty gardens, 147

Agricultural University at Sapporo, 25; at Tokio, 174

Aino, village at Shiroi, 25; in the forest, 27; language, 27

Akabane, country round, 102

Alpine garden, at Nikko, 62

Amakusa, island of, 50; arrival at, 53; mines at, 54; difficulties of transit in, 56

American Fleet, in Japan, 226, 227

Anthropological Department of University, 242

Ants, discovery of curious habits of, 213

Aomori, 11, 28

Art in modern Japan, 266

Azaleas, at Okabu, 149

Balsam, troubles through, 93; bubbles in, 210

Bamboo, beauty of, 10; loved by Hearn, 249

_Basha_ (native carriage), delights of, 125, 126

Bell insect, 184

Bethell trial, 181

Boshu, walking tour in, 122 _et seq._

Botanical festival at the shrine of Inari, 114

Botanical Gardens in Tokio, first impression of, 3; tea-parties in, 5, 120; branch of, at Nikko, 62

Botanical Institute in Tokio, first impression of, 3; work in laboratory, 31 (and constant references after)

Botanical Institute of Agricultural University, 174

Camping in the virgin forests, 16, 17

Capacity of the Japanese, 267

Cherry flowers, blooming through the snow, 134; beauty of, in Tokio, 139; double blooms, 142

Cherry garden party at the palace, 144

Chikura, 123

Children’s stalls at holiday fair, 186

Chinese writing, value of, 59

Chōnan, 131

Chrysanthemums, popular exhibits of, 66; Imperial exhibition of, 68

Chuzenji, autumn colouring at, 62

Coal mines at Ōyubari, 15, 17; Ikushimbets, 20; Jito, 42; Omine, 47; Habu, 47; Nariwa, 48; Namazuta, 49; Miike, 50; Amakusa, 50, 54; Takashima, 57

Costumes, old Japanese style, 117

Crowds, smells of, 194

_Cryptomeria_, splendid avenues of, 61, 195; cones of, 210; seedlings of, 224

Cutting-machine, for fossils, 63, 82, 91, 102; testing disks for, 89

Cycads, expeditions to collect, 168, 205; ancient and branched specimens of, 170; at Yokohama, 191

Cycling, in Tokio, 153, 165, 225; in country, 201, 206; through floods, 206

Dancing, street, 180

Debating Society, started in Tokio, 158, 175, 228

Debts, all to be paid by New Year, 255

Dinners, advantage of uniform menus for, 88

Disease in Tokio, 98

Dolls’ Festival, preparation for, 106; food for, 110; arrangements for, 110, 111

Dwarf as luggage carrier, 195, 196

Earthquake, the first experience of, 33; small shocks of, 79

Emperor, garden-parties given by, 68, 144; present to all officials from, 229

English language used by Japanese professors to lecture to other Asiatics, 175

Enoshima, 8, 256

European artists, Japanese views on, 91

European entertainments given by Japanese, elaboration of, 120

_Feruské_, Japanese wrapping, value of, in removals, 136; use when carrying plants, 150

Fishing, use of dynamite for, 17

Floods, in Tokio, 187, 221; in the country, 206

Foreign influence in Yokohama, 192

Fossil plants, 16 _et seq._; insects, 201

Fox, apparition of? 217

Friendship with Japanese, 273

Frog, changing colour of, 185

Fruit, only obtainable in season, 97

Fuji mountain, 7 (and constant reference all through); last view of, 264

Fukuoka, 50

Furnishing in Japanese house, 118, 137

Furs worn by Japanese men, 104

Garden, watering stones in, 64; beauty of, in November, 67; Imperial palace, 68, 145; arrangements for winter in, 83; old garden of the Admiralty, 147; Japanese party in, 232. _See also_ Botanical Gardens

_Ginkgo_, swimming out of spermatozoids of, 31, 218; exhibited to Dr. Koch, 176

_Ginkgo_ seeds cooked, 93

_Ginkgo_ tree, golden colour of, in autumn, 66, 68

Gold-fish with double tails, 143

Greek church in Tokio, Easter service at, 151

Habu, small coal mine at, 47

Hail, exceptional size of hailstones, 173

Hakone, 195

“Hardening” process, 260

Hayama, 213

Hearn, Lafcadio, debate on, 159, 175; eldest son of, 241, 249; visit to house of, 247

Hearn, Mrs., 247

Hockey, attempts to play without grass, 94, 105

Hojo, 122

Hokkaido, arrival in, 11

Holidays, sight-seeing at temples on, 34

Horonai, 18

House cleaning, instituted by Government, 162

House hiring, difficulties of, 133

_Human Bullets_, by Lieut. Sakurai, 113

Ice pillars, curious effect of, 78

Ikushimbets, mine at, 20

Imperial crest, reverence towards, 67

Inari, festival for, 114

Inland Sea, beauty of, 1, 46

Insects, noise of, 160; song of, 184; fossil specimens of, 201

Interpreter, loss of, 18

Japanese houses, simplicity of, 118

Japanese language, difficulties of, 74; sound effect of, 77

Jehinomiya, 130

Jito, village of, 42

Kamakura, 86; Dai Butsu at, 86

Kanbara, bathing at, 172

_Kankobas_, delightful bazaars, 81, 231

Kasamori, Buddhist temple at, very ancient, 132

Katsuura, 124

Kitchen in Japanese house, 138

Kiushiu, 49, 56

Kominato, 123

Koraku-en gardens at Okayama, 38

Korean affairs, 181

_Kuruma_, country travel in, 40, 44, 72

Lafcadio Hearn, debate on, 159, 175; eldest son of, 241, 249; visit to house of, 247

Lectures in Government House, Sapporo, 23; at the Imperial University, 224; by Sven Hedin, 236

Lepers, 98, 209; contact with, 142; marrying of, 209

Lies told by tradespeople, 165

London University Union in Japan, 111, 245, 259

Lotus, fritters made of, 146; flowers of, at Oyeno, 212

Maple Club, dinner at, 233

Matsushima, beauty of, 28

Mera, 122

Misumi, arrival at, 50; delayed start from, 51

Mobara, 130, 131

“Morning glories,” 189

Mororan, 28

Museum, Imperial, 246

Nagasaki, 56

Namazuta, coal mine at, 49

Naval Briquette Factory, 47

Naval officers on duty in coal mine, 47

Neolithic implements, 243

New Year, gifts and debts of, 81; special food for, 84; streets during, 86

Nikko, excursion to, 61; avenue leading to, 61; Alpine garden at, 62

_Nō_, performance of, 64

Noboribetsu, 26; crater at, 26

Nodules containing fossils, collecting of, 16 _et seq._

Ōhara, 125

Okabu, azaleas at, 149

Okayama, visit to, 38

Okuma, Count, 70; garden of, 71

Omine, mine at, 47

Omori, plum blossom at, 115; temple near, 223

Opera House, foreign style, in Tokio, 251

Ōyubari, recently opened mine in, 15, 17; scenery of neighbourhood, 15

Paeonies, show of, 155

Pictures, special exhibition of, excellent arrangement in, 60

Poet, American wife of Japanese, 240, 246, 261

Police, as escort, 18; regulation of house cleaning by, 162

Porcelain, makers of, brought to private house, 262

Poronai, 18

Rackham’s illustrations, 119

Railway train returns to deliver forgotten parcel, 105

Railway trains, life in, 9, 12, 58; snowed up in April, 136

Religion in Japan, 270

Rivers, work in, while collecting, 20, 21

Roads, effect of rain on, 31; beauty of, in Tokio, 32

Robbers, frequent attempts of, 75

Roses, fading of scent of, in Japan, 67

Saké put to scientific use, 215

Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido, 11, 12; Government of, 12; scenery of, 13; return to, 23; University at, 25

Sendai, “fossil wood” at, 31

Sendocre, 129

Sheep, flock of, 73; scarcity of, in Japan, 179

Shimonoseki, 48

Shiobara, 201

Shiogama, 29, 30; women’s dress in neighbourhood of, 30

Shizuoka, 206

Shop signs, humorous, 182

Silk-worms, useful for scientific breeding, 175

Smells, of a Japanese crowd, 194

Snow, exceptional fall in April, 134; beauty of, at Shiba, 258

Stuffiness, endured by Japanese in Western-style vehicles or houses, 211, 212

Sven Hedin lecturing in Tokio, 236

Takahashi, beautiful river of, 40

Takashima, coal mine at, 57

Teachers, special dress for women, 161

Telegraph wire, dragon flies perched on, 45

Temples, two contrasting, 34, 35; a country temple, 36; at Nikko, 61; at Kasamori, 132; stay at country, 168; service in, 199; near Omori, 223; at Shiba, in the snow, 258

Tertiary coal, 49

Thunder, god of, 173; continuous peals of, 208

Tin box, difficulty in obtaining, 214

Togo, Admiral, 70, 226

Tokio, likeness to Venice, 1; getting about, 4; beauty of streets in, 82; streets at New Year, 86; floods in, 187, 221

Tokkaido, old road, 195

Tokuyama, 46

Traffic, lack of regulation of, 164

Triassic coal, 41, 42; difficulty in finding, 41

University, Agricultural, 174; Imperial, 6, 7, 60; farewell party from, 233; Anthropological Department of, 242; present from, 253

University for women, 164, 165

Wada, 123

Walking tour in Boshu, 122 _et seq._

Wind storm, 94

Wistaria, enormous flowering plan of, 155

Women’s University, 164, 165

Yejiri, 168, 205

Yubari, 13

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Illustrations have been moved next to the text which they illustrate, and may not match the locations in the List of Illustrations. A duplicate "INDEX" heading has been removed from the text.

The following apparent typographical errors have been corrected:

p. 88 "princesess" changed to "princesses"

p. 119 "intosuch" changed to "into such"

p. 127 "solid rock." changed to "solid rock,"

p. 136 "_feruske_" changed to "_feruské_"

p. 177 "(who leave on Friday" changed to "(who leave on Friday)"

p. 236 "Baron K----" changed to "Baron _K----_"

p. 279 "159, 175," changed to "159, 175;"

The following possible errors have been left as printed:

p. 86 went picnics

p. 166 Kyshyu

p. 187 When I get

p. 244 beach! but I

p. 263 the F----s

The following are inconsistently used in the text:

foothold and foot-hold

footpath and foot-path

Fujii and Fuji

Fujisan and Fuji-san

midday and mid-day

seaweed and sea-weed

tradespeople and trades-people

workshop and work-shop