To-day we took a small steamer and visited the arsenal upon the invitation of our friend Captain Totaki, Mlle. Rio being of the party. It is finely situated on the bay about fifteen miles below Yokohama, and is quite extensive, having good shops filled with modern tools. Several ships have already been built here, and two men-of-war are now upon the stocks—another evidence of so-called civilization. Japan, you see, is ambitious. All the officials, foremen, and mechanics, are natives, and these have proved their ability in every department. The wages paid surprise us. All branches are about upon an equality. Painters, moulders, blacksmiths, carpenters, machinists, all get the same compensation—from 25 to 40 cents per day, according to their respective value as workmen; common labor, outside, 18 cents; shop labor, inside, 25 cents; foreman of department, $80 per month. Work, nine hours per day, every tenth day being a day of rest corresponding to our Sunday. In addition to the two men-of-war under construction, the machinery for which is all designed and manufactured here, the Emperor is having built for his private use a large side-wheel yacht, which promises to be magnificent. However poor a nation may be, or however depreciated its currency, if it set up an emperor, king, or queen, improper personal expenditure inevitably follows. Even as good a woman as Queen Victoria, probably the most respectable woman who ever occupied a throne—such a character as one would not hesitate to introduce to his family circle, which is saying much for a monarch—will squander thirty thousand pounds per annum of the people's money on a private yacht which she has used but a few times, and which is one of three she insists upon keeping at the State's expense. It is the old story: make any human being believe he is born to position and he becomes arbitrary and inconsiderate of those who have exalted him. Serves the foolish ones right, I suppose is the proper verdict. But one is not indignant at the worship of their emperor by the Japanese: he is a real ruler, has power, and stands firmly upon divine right. The Japanese are yet children politically; but the English should be out of their swaddling-clothes, surely.
The captain being high in command, and this being his first visit to the arsenal since his return from a tour round the world, he was received by the officials with manifestations of delight. We had another opportunity of seeing the bowing practice in its fullest development. The various foremen as they approached bowed three times almost to the ground, and in some cases they went first upon their knees and struck the floor three times with their foreheads. We were afterward informed that only a few years ago these would have added to the obeisance by extending the arms to their full length and placing the palms of the hands flat upon the ground; now this is omitted, and I have no doubt, as intelligence spreads, less and less of this deference will be exacted. But up to this date it may safely be said Japan is in the condition of Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, who, it will be remembered, admitted that his success came from "booing." He "never could stand strecht in the presence of a great man;" no more can a Japanese.
My writing has just been interrupted by another earthquake shock. My chair began to tremble, then the house; I could not write, and looking up I saw Vandy standing in amazement. For a few moments it seemed as if we were rocking to pieces, and that the end of all things had come. I shall never forget the sensation. The motion of a ship rolling at sea transferred to land, where you have the solid earth and heavy stone walls surrounding and threatening to fall upon you, is far from agreeable; but it passed away, and old Mother Earth became steady once more.
The way to buy in Japan is not by visiting the shops, for there nothing is displayed, and a stranger has infinite difficulty in learning where certain articles are to be found; but just intimate to your "boy" what you wish, and at your door in a few minutes stand not one or two merchants, but five or six, all bowing as you pass in or out, and awaiting master's pleasure to examine their wares. They leave any articles you may wish to decide upon, and the result is that one's rooms become perfect bazaars. The most unpleasant feature connected with purchasing is that everything is a matter of bargain. A price is named, and you are expected to make an offer. Vandy is a great success at this game, and seems to enjoy it. I am strictly prohibited from interfering, and so escape all trouble. It is always comforting to know that one's interests are in much abler hands than his own, and I always have this pleasure when Vandy is about.
Wherever we go, Fusiyama looks down upon us. What a beautiful cone it is, and how grandly it pierces the heavens, its summit clad with perpetual snow! No wonder that the Japanese represent it on so many of their articles. Thousands of pilgrims flock to it annually from all parts of the Empire, for it is their sacred mount and the gods reward such as worship at this shrine. It was once an active volcano; but there has been no eruption since about 1700, when ashes were thrown from it into Yeddo, sixty miles away. The crater is nearly five hundred feet deep. Fusiyama stands alone among mountains, a vast pyramid rising as Cheops does from the plain, no "rascally comparative" near to dispute its sway.
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WEDNESDAY, November 27.
We sail to-day for Shanghai, leaving Yokohama with sincere regret; nor shall we soon forget the good, kind faces of those who have done so much to make our visit to Japan an agreeable one. Had it been possible to remain until Saturday I should have been greatly tempted to do so to accept an invitation received to respond to a toast at St. Andrew's banquet. It would surely have stirred me to hold forth on Scotland's glory to my fellow-countrymen in Japan; but this had to be foregone. At Kiobe the steamer lay for twenty-four hours, and this enabled us to run up by rail to Kioto, the former residence of the Mikado, reputed to be the Paris of Japan. The city itself deserves this reputation about as well as Cincinnati does that of our American Paris, which I see some one has called it. Kioto is only a mass of poor one-story buildings, but its situation is beautiful, and cannot probably be equalled elsewhere in the Empire, and this one can justly say of Cincinnati as well, while the beauty of Paris is of the city and not at all rural. There are more pretty toy villas embowered in trees upon the little hills about Kioto than we saw in all other parts of Japan. The temples at Kioto are much inferior to those at Shibba. Our journey enabled us to see about seventy miles of the interior, and we were again impressed by the evidences on every hand of a teeming population. Gangs of men and women were everywhere at work upon small patches of ground, six or seven persons being busily engaged sometimes on less than one acre. It is not farming; there is in Japan scarcely such a thing as farming in our sense; it is a system of gardening such as we see in the neighborhood of large cities. Compared with that prevalent throughout the whole country, I have seen nothing equal to it in thoroughness, not even in Belgium.
We are upon the old steamer Costa Rica, now belonging to the Japanese Company, which recently purchased this and other boats from the Pacific Mail Company. Among our cargo is a large lot of live turkeys which some pushing Jap is taking over to Shanghai for Christmas; and listen, you favored souls who revel in the famous bird at a dollar a head, your fellow countrymen in China have to pay ten dollars for their Christmas turkey. It is said the Chinese climate is too damp for the noble bird; but it flourishes in Japan. I wish the exporter who thus develops the resources of his country much profit on his venture. But it strikes me that, instead of the eagle, the more useful gobbler has superior claims to be voted the national bird of America. "A turkey for a dollar!" repeated the shipper as I told him our price; "a turkey for a dollar—what a country!" The climate of Northern China is not favorable for Europeans, and many take a run over to Japan to recuperate, a fact which argues much for the future of Japan. Although our ship belongs to the Japanese, the servants are generally Chinamen, and the agent explains this by informing us that while the former do very well until they arrive at the age of manhood, they then begin to develop more ambitious ideas and cannot be managed, while with the Chinese a "boy" (a servant throughout the East is called "boy") is always a boy, and is constantly on the watch to serve his master. Again, the Japs are pugnacious, a race of little game-cocks, always in for a fight, especially with a Chinaman. The captain told us the other day a great big Chinaman had complained to him that one of the Japs had abused him. Upon calling up the belligerent, he proved to be such a small specimen that the captain asked the sufferer why he hadn't picked him up and thrown him overboard. The complaint was dismissed: served the big fellow right. But some missionary should expound the civilized doctrine to him, per revised edition, which reads: "When smitten on the one cheek, turn to the smiter the other also, but if he smites you on that, go for him." To-morrow is to be one of the great days of our trip, for we shall enter the famous inland sea of Japan at daybreak. Will it be fine to-morrow? is the question with all on board. The signs are earnestly discussed. The sun sets favorably, and I quote Shakespeare to them, which settles the question:
"The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And by the bright track of his fiery car
Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow."