(2) Men.

The uniform of Japanese seamen is identical with that of British seamen, save that the cap is a little flatter and nearer the French shape. The cap ribbon is just like ours—the name of the depôt instead of ship is on it in Chinese characters.

XIX
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Officers.

Japanese naval officers, like as they are to European ones in many characteristics, are yet of a more distinct class by themselves than any other body of men in the world. The likeness to European officers is superficial, a first impression; the real Japanese officer is not to be known or understood at a casual glance; he needs knowing.

Whether the Western brain can ever get to truly comprehend the Oriental is a favourite question, usually answered in the negative. But, true as the negative may be in a general way, it is only true to that extent. Sea service marks all its votaries as a class apart; and additionally apart as the Japanese may be by race, they are not more so than Russians or Frenchmen. It is just as easy or just as impossible to “bottom” a Japanese as a Russian. Still, Japanese officers as a class are, as before stated, a unique class.

Their primary and principal characteristic is that they are utterly different to the Japanese that we read about in books. Art books tell us of Japanese art instinct, of their feeling for decorative art, and so forth. Japanese artists may possess, or have possessed, this feeling, but it is conspicuous for its absence in Japanese naval officers, who are as “Philistine” as British officers—if possible, more so. The decorative art that their nation is supposed to live for they cordially despise. I have never heard one admire a picture for its colour, but light and shade (that decorative art knows not) appeals to many. Effects, action, motion, sentiment they will understand, but abstract art, never. They are truly and healthily “Philistines.”

So much for art, which I have touched on because it is said to be, over here, the keynote of Japanese character. Illustrated as a good deal of this work is with Japanese drawings and photographs, selected for the book by Japanese officers, this matter deserves mention apart from the question of artistic influence on national life. We may note, therefore, that “art-instinct” was the first thing flung behind him by the Japanese when he “advanced.” If the so-called taking to civilisation of the Japanese means anything, it means having abandoned art for something more utilitarian and more forceful.

Some slight recapitulation is now necessary. When Japan, as the saying goes, “adopted Western civilisation,” she did little but adopt Western methods of war and business, and, in the strictly ethical sense, discarded a good deal of civilisation rather than adopted it; she abandoned all those forms of civilisation that have a decadent tendency. Her advance was not the birth of a new empire with a new civilisation, but the awakening of an old nation that for centuries had been sleeping, steeped in ultra-civilisation. In this fact lies her strength and her weakness.

A forgotten history was studied, and with that study slumbering ambitions were revived. The man of action, relegated to the background by ultra-civilisations,[30] again began to loom upon the stage. Disputes with foreigners called him on to it; Japan awoke determined to be again a nation. “Let us have intercourse with foreigners, learn their drill and tactics, and ... we shall be able to go abroad and give lands in foreign countries to those who have distinguished themselves in battle,”—this sentiment every Japanese officer has imbibed with his mother’s milk. The introduction of Western social institutions, such as newspapers, railways, telegraphs, the new criminal code, the abolition of torture as a punishment, all these things are side issues. They have contributed to build commercial Japan; but they have had small part in making her Navy; the Navy, indeed, would perhaps have been stronger without them. The mechanical arts and the food[31] of the West, not its social institutions, have made the new Japan an empire.

Now, having decided to adopt Western methods, the Japanese sought Western instructors. The British being the premier navy, they sought naval instruction from us, and were chiefly supplied with officers of what even then was the “old school.” In one of Major Drury’s books of naval stories[32] there is a British admiral who always read his Bible in his shirt-sleeves, because the sight of his uniform made it difficult for him to realise the existence of a Higher Power! Absurd, no doubt; but this seemingly far-fetched yarn exactly represents the “old-school” sentiment, and the sentiment upon which every Japanese officer has been dry-nursed. Even to-day a British admiral is encircled with a halo of pomp, formula, and etiquette equal to that of any Court; in the old days the reverence was greater still. The young Japanese officers’ first lessons in “sea-power” were in reverence to its chief practitioners. With their reverential loyalty to their Emperor, they proved apt pupils. As the seat of power the quarter-deck is revered in the British service; lesson number two taught this to the Japanese, and included the bridge and a few other places. Practical work they were taught on our model; the theoretical they more or less taught themselves. Japanese naval strategy and tactics are much less the result of European tuition than we suppose. What they learnt from the West was after the Nelson model.

To understand a Japanese naval officer at all, we must fully realise that he has been brought up with the things mentioned above as his religion—indeed, it is the only religion he knows. Whether a professed atheist, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, the only semblance of reality in his creed is this religion of “Sea-Power,” and the worship of its visible embodiment. Such god as he has is the navy to which he belongs.

We are more or less given to understand nowadays that Japan has adopted Christianity. A Japanese told me that, to a certain extent, they have. “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,” struck him as an excellent text for the common people—Cæsar being translated Emperor of Japan. He preferred Christianity too, he said, “because it was more modern and general.” Had the leading Powers been Mahomedan, I have no doubt that official Japan would revere Mecca. It was, I think, this same officer who told me that some friends of his who had become Christians were anxious that he should do the same. He agreed, therefore, to go and be baptised on a certain date if it were fine. The day was wet, so he did not go. Some other friends were anxious that he should embrace Buddhism. “As their temple was much nearer, I went there,” he said; “so I am a Buddhist. But, of course, I do not believe in any religion really.”

A Christian Jap, on the other hand, once asked me whether Santa Klaus was one of our gods—the combination of monotheism and pantheism of the Doctrine of the Trinity being altogether outside their philosophy.

Actually the Japanese are members of that “Agnostic Creed” which some of our greater materialists have preached, plagiarising both Christianity and Buddhism. “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” And in a great measure they live up to it. Where they seem not to, the difference between ideals of the Orient and the West explains the omission. Our particular type of hypocrite is not known in Japan. But, as I have said before, the only “Power” that they recognise and worship is their fleet. To grasp the true inwardness of this is not over and above easy to our mental processes, but it is the keynote.

One might imagine that a far-seeing administrative brain had evolved this most utilitarian religion, but I have never detected evidences of purpose. The seed was planted by our “old-school” naval officers; it fell on fruitful soil, and grew of its own accord into a weapon of almost indescribable potency. It is not on the lines of fanaticism exactly—the case of the Mahomedan is not altogether analogous. Rather, it is on all fours with Calvinism.

“If people don’t like being killed, why do they fight?” a Japanese officer remarked when discussing war. Individually and physically, a Japanese officer is not at all brave, if we define “bravery” in our sense of the word, but he will fight harder and die harder than any Westerner. To him a wound taken in action is on a par with a toothache or more serious ailment in ordinary everyday life; death in battle he views as we view ordinary death in our beds. The risk of death in action is an idea that moves him about as much as an actuary’s table affects us. Unlike the Mahomedan warrior, death in battle entails no Paradise with beautiful Houris as a reward; nor does dulce et decorum est pro patria mori seem to weigh much. Death is an incident, nothing more. “If people do not like being killed, why do they fight?” is the beginning and end of their ideas on the subject.

In every navy there are men who work at their profession and men who do not. The Japanese Navy is no exception to the rule, but the proportion of those who are casual is very small.

“Working at their profession” has, however, a very liberal meaning in the Japanese Navy. It means the absolute ignoring of everything else. I once inquired of a Japanese naval officer over here what the Japanese military attaché was called. “I cannot tell you,” was the answer, “because I work at my profession.”

And, judging by his expression, my friend was proud of this little bit of evidence that he wasted no time on extraneous matters. This, too, was in England. His ship was then in an elementary stage at Elswick; he was at Portsmouth on leave.

The “working at his profession” in this particular case, of an officer with his ship a mere skeleton on the building slip, consisted in spending the day poring over naval books. I generally found him deep in Mahan, with halma-pieces on sheets of paper to work out the tactics.

Speaking generally, a Japanese naval officer’s (in England) idea of a holiday appears to be to come to Portsmouth, spend the day going over the dockyard, with a visit to my house to play naval war-game into the small hours as a kind of subsequent dissipation and relaxation! Whatever naval Kriegspiel may or may not be, it takes a Japanese to regard it as a dissipation.

In person, Japanese officers are very short, but the generality of them are far more “physically fit” than popular opinion imagines. The narrow-chested, sloping-shoulder variety is the exception, not the rule. Many are very well proportioned indeed. Height averages about five feet, or an inch or two over. In type of feature there is an immense variety; though black hair, high cheek-bones, and narrow eyes are common to all, general resemblance ends there. Colour varies much. Some have the same pale, yellow complexion that one often meets with in Russians; others have the more olive Italian tint. The former type have the nez retroussé, usually small; the latter have a more or less hooked nose. Features vary much according to the province or island from which the owner hails.[33] Occasionally one encounters a swarthy officer, hailing from the Northern islands, while here and there one meets a face almost typically European.

In character they are all more or less after one model. Taking them in the lump, they are the merriest lot I ever came across. No one enjoys the “At Homes” which Japanese officers invariably give before their ships leave England more than the givers of them; they make the best of hosts for that reason. These “At Homes” are a distinctive Japanese feature; no other foreign visitors in our harbours ever give them. The usual foreigner arrives, official calls are made, one or two of us may perhaps be entertained on board, and there the matter ends. With a Japanese ship, on the other hand, that is about where it begins. As an old waterman on Portsmouth Hard observed, “One Japanee is worth a dozen bloomin’ Rooshians and Eyetalians. Give me a Japper here once a month and I’ll make my bloomin’ fortune,” the fact being that the civil population, who never dare venture near a Russian, crowd on board a Japanese ship in season and out, sure that, even if they are not wanted, their invasion will be forgiven. I suppose the Japanese derive some pleasure from watching the enjoyment of these self-invited guests, though their good nature must be a trifle strained at times.

When the Shikishima was docked at Portsmouth, I happened to call, with an officer of ours in uniform. In company with several of the Shikishima’s officers, we were doing the round of the upper deck, when a tripper of the regulation type suddenly confronted us, and addressed my companion.

“One moment, sir!” he cried. “I want to see over the ship.”

My companion indicated the Japanese officers, telling the man to apply to them.

THE SHIKISHIMA ENTERING
PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD.

“Bother the foreigners!” returned the man. “I was told that if I went on board the officials would show me round. Can’t you send one of ’em? You can tell ’em I ain’t a spy. I don’t mind showing ’em my card—at least, no; I find I haven’t any about me. But here’s my return ticket from London; they can see that if they want to. I assure you I’m not a spy, or connected with the Press in any way.”

As all the Japanese understood and spoke English perfectly, this was not the happiest of introductions. However, one of them volunteered to show the tripper round, for which the tripper tendered thanks to our officer. He then called out to a party of his friends on the jetty that he had “managed to make one of the silly foreigners understand,” after which he devoted himself to patronising his guide. He meant no harm, doubtless, but it was a good deal of a tax on Japanese politeness, and had he been kicked off the ship he would have only had himself to thank for it. There are, unhappily, a good many of these tripper-folk who, given an inch in the way of being allowed on board at all, grab a good many ells in the way of taking advantage of it. Nor is it only the tripper-folk who take undue advantage of Japanese hospitality. At the “At Homes” I have seen women, who certainly ought to know better, armed with scissors, with which they cut down any decoration that takes their fancy. The sight of the decorations does not make the Tenth Commandment easy to observe. At the close of the “At Home,” the paper flowers are always all given away to the guests. But this sort of thing would never happen on board an English ship in a Japanese harbour.

For an “At Home” the Japanese officers put all the men to work making paper flowers. Chrysanthemums and cherry blossoms are the favourites, but convolvuli and iris are also made, as well as a few others. All are singularly beautiful and realistic reproductions—very different things to the ordinary artificial flower of commerce. With these flowers the greater part of the ship is profusely decorated, numbers of lanterns are hung about, and here and there a “Welcome” is stuck up. In addition, each ship hits on some device of its own; thus the Kasagi went in for a host of Japanese and British naval ensigns, while the Shikishima turned diving-dresses into decorative uses. Generally, as in the [illustration] of the Kasagi’s “At Home,” some sports make a programme, fencing, single stick, conjuring tricks, and so on, with some Japanese songs in between the turns. The Shikishima, however, before she left England, capped all these things by rigging up a stage, scenery, platform, and all, upon the quarter-deck, and here old Japanese plays, with the proper costumes and everything, were performed, while the entire upper deck was transformed into a paper flower-garden. I have attempted in the illustration to give some idea of the fairyland thus created, but it needs colour to give anything like the real effect.

“AT HOME”
ON BOARD THE KASAGI.

I have dwelt thus upon Japanese “At Homes,” because the way in which the officers put themselves out to enjoy these, and make their guests do the same, is an index to one of their leading characteristics. It is a curious thing that no descriptions or illustrations of these gala days of the Japanese war-god ever find their way into print. The whole thing is essentially Japanese, and shows that Western drill and weapons have not killed Oriental charm.

Beyond relegating art to its proper and inferior position, I do not think that Western influence has altered Japanese character to any great extent. A Japanese naval officer of some note, in relating to me his experiences during the war against China, referred to a combined naval and military operation in which he was engaged. Cholera killed them off like rats. “It was one of the funniest sights I have ever seen,” he said, “to see the soldiers all doubled up and rolling about by the side of the road as we marched.” This frame of mind is distinctly Oriental; it is also distinctly useful for a fighting-man. A British bluejacket might have contrived to see the humour of the situation also,[34] but no other Westerner is so blest—for it is a case of blest; the toughest warrior is the one that wins. Japan is not going to collapse in a war while this sort of sentiment can obtain. Modern warfare is becoming more and more a matter of acting on the morale of the personnel; it is on nerves rather than on bodies that shell-fire is intended to have its most powerful effect, and it will take a good deal of it, and a very deadly deal, to affect those who can see the humorous side of what is primarily a very terrible thing. Probably the root of the “war-instinct” lies somewhere hereabouts, and we should think many times ere we endeavour to “humanise” such ideas out of our own Mark Tapleys.

The Japanese also retains his old native dignity; European uniform has not abated one jot of that dignity which we have all read about as having been beneath the Kimino. Mostly, though not invariably, they are the descendants of the old fighting men, the Samaurai.[35] In the midst of the new order all the best of the old traditions live, just as, in a few cases in our new social order, pauper members of old families scorn the wealthy mushroom aristocracy around them. Whatever he may do, in whatever position he may be placed, the Japanese officer never forgets his dignity, and, further, is always a gentleman. I believe this is the first impression that he creates; it is also the last.

On the whole, though their politeness generally hides it completely, the Japanese are a very “touchy” and sensitive people. Quite unwittingly one is apt to tread on tender corns, without in the least realising it, until one gets to know them a good deal more than casually. They are sensitive about any infraction of the extended laws of etiquette, which they themselves observe most punctilliously. There are numbers of little things to be learnt and observed by one who would come to be on friendly terms with them, and I doubt if any Westerner can acquire all. Still, if he offends through ignorance he will never learn his fault from his hosts.

They carry this sensitiveness a considerable distance, and into a variety of things. For instance, to see themselves represented in print in broken English and queer pronunciation annoys them intensely. An Englishman, seeing his rendering of a foreign language guyed, would laugh at it; but not so the Japanese. I remember well the indignation of a Japanese at reading in a Portsmouth local paper that his countrymen had talked about their vessel as a fine “sipp.” He did not like it at all. Incidentally, I may mention that “sipp” was phonetically inaccurate; the majority say the word “ship” just as we do, while the rest would merely give the “i” the same phonetic value that it has in French, Italian, or Russian. On their part, I have known Japanese deliberately pronounce many of their own ship-names wrongly, so as not to offend English ears by emphasising an English error.

It is a legend in our navy that the first English word learnt by a Japanese is always Damn! but I have only once heard a Japanese use it. His own language is singularly defective in swear words. Japanese learn English very rapidly, and soon grow to speak it remarkably well. After a year, or less, in England they acquire not merely a mastery of the English, but also a far more difficult thing for a foreigner—a mastery of our slang. Ability to pick this up argues a singularly quick brain, as dictionaries are of no avail here. It is characteristic of them, too, to set about it with a serious thoroughness, essentially Japanese. Recently a sub-lieutenant, not long from the Far East, who had learnt school English out there, took to studying a novel of mine, “The Port Guard Ship,” a book that deals solely with social naval life, and so is loaded to the muzzle with current naval slang and phraseology. Every time I met this sub. he used to haul a notebook from his pocket, and reel off a list of slang and, possibly, now and again, profanities culled from its pages, the exact import of each of which I had to explain! In consequence that sub. is now able to join in any conversation without difficulty, or without the talk having to be suited for him. The Frenchman’s dilemmas over such expressions as “Look out!” do not bother him at all. In fine, he knows “English as she is spoke,” by virtue of adopting a method.

Curiously enough, Japanese never learn to write English so well as they speak it—thus reversing the condition of all other foreigners. Their caligraphy is fine and bold always, but the phraseology as invariably formal. Possibly it is due to the etiquette of letter-writing in their own country that their letters here almost always begin with a “Thank you for your kind letter,” and continue formal all through.

Mentally, the Japanese is adaptive, not originative. If one is explaining anything to a Japanese, he will have seized on the idea and absorbed it while a European is still struggling with the externals of it. Japanese invention has extended to a small quickfirer and a water-tube boiler, but in both cases the invention is merely a change of some existing mechanism. Even so, neither is of great moment; their abilities do not lie in that direction at all. If an entirely new system of naval tactics is ever evolved, it will not be by a Japanese; like their British confrères, they shine better at practical work than in the regions of theory.

They are not, however, devoid of views. Every Japanese gives time to thinking of the future, and were any lieutenant suddenly made into an admiral, I fancy that he would acquit himself quite as well as if he had reached his rank by orthodox gradations. He is apt to fail now and again at his present task from this trait, which is in many ways his chief defect, and one that may lead to trouble in war. It is sometimes dangerous to reason before proceeding to obey. A Japanese tends to do this. It is details that they think about. For instance, I once got a Japanese officer to give me his views on the conduct of a naval war. They are worth quoting in extenso, because naval opinions invariably run more or less in grooves.

His primary detail was strategical, and referred to the Press. “I shall have no correspondents with my fleet when I am an admiral in war,” said he. “If they insist on coming, directly we get out to sea I shall set them all adrift in a boat. If they do their duty to their papers they are a hindrance to me; if they do not they are no good at all.”

Detail number two referred to his fleet. “I shall hoist the signal, ’No ship is to surrender; if beaten, it must sink.‘ If any ship hoists the white flag, the rest of my ships will open fire on it till it sinks.”

I shall watch this officer’s career with interest if ever he commands a war fleet in the future, for he will go far; every detail was similarly thought out. I fancy every Japanese who stands any prospect of being an admiral in the future does the same, though the matter is not one upon which they talk at all readily to a stranger.

It is also, however, their weakest point, this fondness for thinking of the future. Too often they think of it unduly, and to the detriment of the present. Not invariably, of course, still there is, I fancy, a fair sprinkling of lieutenants who devote as much or more thought to an admiral’s duty twenty years hence than to lieutenant work of to-day. It is not, primarily, a bad thing so much as a good thing overdone; but that is a Japanese naval characteristic all through. They are always in more danger of overdoing a good thing than anything else. Curiously enough, this tendency to think for the admiral does not lead to any great evil in the way of an undue corresponding tendency to be critical.

On the other hand, a Japanese naval officer never underrates his own abilities. Every junior officer feels in his inmost soul that he is fully as capable and as fully able to do anything as his senior. None of them suffer from false modesty. On the whole, this, within due bounds, is by no means a defect; self-confidence is a fine thing for begetting ability; but, as before stated, they are prone to overdo many good things. Some of them, doubtless, overdo the confidence in their own abilities.

They are, in a way, a discontented lot of men as a whole, despite all their fatalism, their enthusiasm, and their joviality. Every civilian officer fumes over to himself that he is not an executive; every lieutenant curses the time that must pass before he is a lieutenant-commander, and so on all through. Wherever they are in the professions, they want to be better and higher. Sometimes this is a defect, sometimes not. When it is a defect, it is again a case of the good thing overdone.

With all this, however, they are not ambitious in the exact way that we define the word. A friend of mine was appointed skipper of a destroyer, to take her out to Japan. He had worried everything and everybody for the post. Now, he could have gone back to Japan as a passenger in a steamer, drawing more pay, and without the risks and heavy responsibilities of being a destroyer captain; but, having got his wished-for ship, there the matter ended. There was no “another rung in the ladder” about it; it was simply “a good opportunity to get experience.”

He got it. He left the Thames in a blizzard. Down Channel he had a gale, a head sea, and a thermometer well below freezing-point. Not having been to sea for some time, he was seasick continually, and the weather gave him neuralgia and bronchitis in addition. Having a crew new to the ship, he had to spend nearly the whole trip from the Thames to Portsmouth on deck, and when he snatched a brief watch below a defective cowl gave him shower-baths in his bunk. Yet, when he put into Portsmouth Harbour to coal, I found him sitting in the wardroom, expatiating to his officers on his good luck in having thus early been favoured with some bad weather experience.

“Duty,” in the sense in which one finds it in the British or Russian navies, is not much of a motive-power to Japanese officers. The religion of war, the interest of their profession, the longing to put theories to a fuller practical test—here lie the springs of their motive-power. To quote one of them, they “like being killed.” I believe they do.

Personal glory is, again, discouraged rather than otherwise; a solidarity of glory is rather aimed at. In the torpedo attacks at Wei-hai-wei some boats “got in,” some failed. No Japanese officer who participated will tell you his share. I once asked one of these, whom I met, about the famous action. “Oh yes,” said he, “I was there. It was a very cold night.”

Subsequently I learnt from another officer that this particular one had commanded the boat that sank the Ting Yuen. “But,” added my informant, “he would not tell you, and you should not ask. All did well; some were lucky, some not; since all did well, they agreed not to speak of it after and say who did this or did that, for all were equally worthy of praise.”

Ethically our socialists theorise on this sort of thing, but only the Japanese have actually practised it. Such are Japanese naval officers. To sum up, they have little ambition, little thirst for personal glory, but a good deal of thirst for the thunder of battle. The only religion that they wot of is the worship of their fleet; their only heaven, that fleet in action. They cannot originate, but they are peerless at practising the things that they have learnt. And there is only one possible way of beating a Japanese fleet—by sinking it.

In many of these things the trail of Samaurai may be visible. The Samaurai were trained to kill and to be killed; it was the thing they lived for. Take the case of the old Japanese duelling laws, which ceased to exist quite recently comparatively. No French affaire about these duels. To a Japanese serious European duels are as comic as French duels are to us. With the Japs the vanquished had to die, only death or a mortal wound stopped the duel, and the victor had then to commit suicide.

Hari-kari, though now illegal, is not yet entirely dead. It is not very many years ago that a Japanese sub-lieutenant disembowelled himself because of the disgrace of some affront that he felt had been put on him; in the war with China there were one or two cases. Hari-kari is not a nice thing to describe, and has been described in detail often enough before to-day. It has altered somewhat from the orthodox manner. The torpedo-gunner who, after his frozen-in torpedo failed to leave the tube at Wei-hai-wei, committed hari-kari, slit his stomach across with a knife, and then fired a pistol at his throat—according to the captain of his boat, who told me about it. This was not quite after the orthodox manner, but it was a singular painful means of death for a man to choose of his own accord. The ancestors of Japanese officers, near and remote, lived for centuries under the hari-kari régime. In other ways human life was cheap, and torture was common. Their descendants reap the results in an age when war has become so much a matter of “moral effect.” And this is one great reason why a Japanese fleet will have to be sunk en masse for it to be defeated.

I will close this chapter with one anecdote, a trifle shocking to our convictions possibly, but so eminently characteristic that I must give it. One Japanese I know was studying naval history, noting the most effective dying words of great commanders (the distant future in his mind’s eye very probably). “They are pretty, some of them,” he said, “but I do not think them very useful. Now, if I get killed, I think I shall say, ‘I die a good Christian, and shall soon be an angel with very pretty wings.’”

I can quite imagine him saying it, and his comrades finding the jest useful.

XX
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Men.

I sometimes wonder who it was first coined that well-known phrase, “little Japanese sailors.” As phrases go it is very “catchy,” but in the matter of accuracy it is very general only. Save for Russians and Italians, some of the biggest sailors going are Japanese. Beside their own officers they look giants, while actually they average nearly an inch higher than British bluejackets, and in breadth fully equal them. One and all, they are fine men physically, able to hold their own in size with almost any other nation’s bluejackets, except Russians and Italians. They are almost invariably stout and well set up, and they are always smiling; they take to their profession much as their officers do.

As previously stated, they are recruited chiefly from the northern islands, and chiefly from the lowest classes. These make the bravest sailors, and they have been educated from early youth upward into a disregard for death. Till quite recently, most Japanese villages had feuds with neighbouring hamlets, and these resulted in a good many broken heads and a fair amount of blood-letting, all of which the Government, if it did not actually encourage, at least viewed with a very lenient eye on account of its practical utility in rearing fighters.

Japanese officers have, on the whole, a preference for sailors of little education. Their view is that such are less hampered by appreciating danger. Apparently some of the better class sailors—artificers and others drawn from a rather better class socially, acquire with their education an inconvenient ability to realise some of the frightful dangers of modern naval warfare. Either from experience or instinct, these more educated men are not looked on with favour. “The less a man knows the better sailor he will make,” is the saying.

A rabid anti-Japanese of my acquaintance, who has spent his life in the Far East, allows the Japanese only one virtue—general and complete bravery. “No Japanese,” said he, “is ever afraid.” It is not easy to reconcile this statement with the Japanese estimate of educated sailors given above; but I am not in a position to deliver a verdict of any value on the question. The officers’ contempt of danger, alluded to some pages back, has little bearing on the point. The fact that “cowardice” exists as an offence in the Japanese naval code of punishments may, perhaps, throw a little light upon the matter; but, even so, we need an exact definition of what the word “cowardice” means to a Japanese. It does not mean cowardice as we should understand it. I incline to fancy that it means the absence of an utter disregard for life; and that what the Japanese call a coward we describe as a waverer—which is by no means the same thing. It is not impossible that their more liberal definition of cowardice would include a man who got unduly excited in action. After Yalu, several men were punished for that.

The general intelligence of Japanese bluejackets is high, they have the national aptitude for “picking things up” with marvellous rapidity—wherein they form a marked contrast to the Russian sailors, who learn very slowly. They—some of them—also forget rapidly; a national defect in Japan.

In many ways they are replicas of their officers. Like their officers, their ideas of dissipation centre round learning something. Parties of fifty or so “do” London and our chief industrial centres when they are in England. On these occasions, and, indeed, always in foreign ports, their behaviour leaves nothing to be desired. At Portsmouth, where public houses are thick as can be, and where leave is given very freely, a hundred or so will roam the town all day in groups, fraternising and being made much of by the populace, but any disorder or trouble with the police in consequence is almost unknown.

On shipboard drinking is said to be on the increase; but it is rarely a cause of trouble, though a drunken Japanese is a nasty customer. Most are temperate.

Stealing is practically unknown. Natural causes operate here. If by any chance a Japanese sailor steals, he is a marked man. His shipmates refuse to have any dealings with him whatever, he is an absolute outcast; and his crime is passed on against him by his comrades should he be sent to another ship. This perpetual ostracism is a most effectual safeguard.

Till recently Japanese sailors were not over and above obedient. A marked change has since sprung up, and they are now, as a rule, very amenable and willing, as well as able. They still, however, need some tact in management; and attempts to knife officers are not unknown.

Cleanliness is a national characteristic. Japanese sailors, like all of the lower class in Japan, bathe more frequently even than the upper classes—twice each day every Japanese sailor has a bath. If from war, or any other cause, they are prevented from bathing for a couple of weeks or so, the lower class Japanese suffer a great deal from skin diseases. Hence they are ill-adapted for lengthy torpedo boat service.

In general neatness their average is high; on whatever work they are engaged—except, of course, coaling ship—they are usually spick and span.

Despite his good qualities, however, the average Japanese bluejacket is not on a par with his officers in value. He lacks stolidity; and, take him all and all, he is inferior to a Chinese sailor. The Chinaman is braver, or, rather, what the Japanese call braver. According to the Japanese, Ah Sin is the finest material for bluejackets in the world, and they are not alone in this opinion.

To return to the Japanese bluejacket. Like his officers, he has little, if any, religion—though, nominally, a certain proportion may be Buddhists or Shinto. They have, however, a species of semi-religious code over some minor matters—for instance, no Japanese sailor will accept a tip for small services, such as showing visitors round a ship, or because he is coxswain of a boat in which you have taken passage. According to their ethics, it is a crime to accept special payment for anything done in the way of duty, and if a man by any chance did accept anything, his shipmates would render his life unbearable by their contemptuous ridicule of him. So, though they will as readily and gladly take any amount of trouble for a stranger, to try and give them a tip annoys them. I once kept a Japanese boat’s crew, which had been sent for me, waiting a long time, on a bitterly cold day, through some misunderstanding as to time. It was a long row to the ship, against a strong tide, in which they were soon wet through. Arrived at the ship, my first attempt to tip the coxswain was greeted by a shake of the head. Thinking he had misunderstood my intention, I repeated the attempt. He at once called out, “No. Go away!” in a most indignant tone, and his whole expression was that of a man on whom I had put a deadly insult.

Japanese sailors are very quick in everything. In the Far East brawls between them and Russian sailors, before the war, were very frequent, and though the Russians are physically much the superior, yet, from their quickness, the Japanese were more frequently the victors.

When Japanese sailors are in England, some of our missionary societies keep an eye on them—taking them about, and generally trying to help them. One old lady is particularly kindly remembered by the crews of those destroyers that fitted out at the West India Docks. She gave the crew of one of them a good many texts of the usual ornamental sort when they left. They hung all these up, giving the post of honour to one that said, “The wicked shall be destroyed.” They regarded this as a very kindly compliment and good wish to their destroyer! I do not think that the texts stand any chance of fulfilling a missionary rôle—however, there they hung, in the fok’s’le, and over the officers’ bunks in the wardroom also, in the hopes that “the old lady, who had been so good to the men,” would derive some quid pro quo in the way of satisfaction at the sight.

XXI
MESSING

In the Japanese Navy, as in ours, there are many messes—admirals being by themselves, captains by themselves, and below them the wardroom, gun-room, warrant officers, and petty officers’ messes.

The officers have three meals a day—

The food is alternately English and Japanese—thus, one day there are two meals European and one Japanese; the day following two Japanese and one European. Preference is probably towards our food, but sentiment retains the national diet. At the Japanese meals chopsticks are used. The staple of these meals is rice.

In the way of liquids, our whisky-and-soda has now as great a vogue as anything; but in all ships the national saki still abounds. This is a light wine made from rice—a sort of cross between hock and thin cider—disagreeable at first to most European palates, but for which one soon cultivates a liking. It is apt to play unexpected tricks on the stranger who imbibes it too freely. In the winter time saki is drunk warm.

Japanese tea is always “on tap.” It bears no resemblance to tea as we know it, being a strong green tea made with water just off the boil. Neither milk nor sugar is taken with it—sweets are, however, eaten beforehand.

So far from these national drinks being in abeyance, if a visitor in a Japanese warship elects to take one or the other in place of whisky or champagne, it is taken as a compliment by his hosts.

Japanese sailors are fed entirely, or nearly so, on European food. It was found that they could not work so well on Japanese diet, and they prefer European. They cook it, however, in more or less Japanese fashion, and always eat it with chopsticks.

24-CM. (9.4-IN.) 36-CALIBRE SCHNEIDER-CANET ON
DISAPPEARING MOUNTING FOR THE JAPANESE
COAST SERVICE. FIRING POSITION.

XXII
ARMAMENT AND EQUIPMENT