The next day we spent going about the great city and seeing its wonders, chief of which is the Mikado's palace and grounds. I called on the American Minister and asked him to get me a permit to go into the palace, but he said it was impossible, no foreigners being allowed in the palace or the grounds. The palace and gardens looked like immense fortifications, being surrounded by three moats, each a hundred feet wide, and filled with water, and by three stone walls, each thirty or forty feet high.
The palace is in the heart of the city, and I should say the grounds were two hundred acres in extent, all, including the neighboring streets, being lighted by the New York Edison Company. I saw the superintendent who had charge of the construction of the plant, who said it took them a year to do it.
The women to be seen in the streets and tea-houses are invariably small and very pretty, except some of the married ones, who have their teeth colored black in accordance with an ancient custom, which makes them look hideous.
It is very cool in this part of Japan at this season. There is not sufficient frost to affect the crops, but one gets cold riding about—and there is no efficient method of heating the houses. There is no coal used for domestic purposes, and wood is very scarce and high. If you ask for a fire, at most hotels, they bring you a copper pan containing ignited charcoal covered with ashes, which does about as much good as a kerosene lamp. I suffer greatly with the cold, and would be glad to pay a large price for a pair of Arctic overshoes.
The price of newspapers, printed in the English language, at Yokohama is twenty-five cents a copy, or thirty dollars per annum. They have very little news, and almost none from America.
We went through the museum, and saw many extraordinary curiosities of ancient and modern Japan. Among them was a stuffed rooster in a glass case, whose tail feathers were ten feet long. I thought there was some humbug about it, but I afterwards saw a live one with tail feathers twelve feet long.
The public buildings are modern, large, and handsome, and the people very polite and good-natured. The streets are narrow. Great crowds are everywhere. It seems to me that I must have seen a hundred thousand people to-day. Every thing about the city is strange, often disagreeable and offensive. A couple of days in it is quite sufficient, and I shall be very glad to go away to-morrow.
