Fig. 286.—Garden of a daimio. (Reproduced from “Chikusan teizoden”, a Japanese work.)
It is a remarkable fact that the various trees and shrubs which adorn a Japanese garden may be successfully transplanted again and again without impairing their vitality. Trees of very large size may be seen, almost daily, being dragged through the streets on their way from one garden to another. A man may have a vigorous and healthy garden under way in the space of a few days,—trees forty or fifty feet high, and as many years old, sturdy shrubs and tender plants, all possessing a vitality and endurance under the intelligent management of a Japanese gardener, which permits them to be transported from one end of the city to the other. If for some reason the owner has to give up his place, every stone and ornamental fence, and every tree and plant having its commercial value, may all be dug up and sold and spirited away, in a single day, to some other part of the town. And such a vicissitude often falls to the lot of a Japanese garden, enduring as it is. The whole affair, save the circular well-hole, may be transported like magic from one end of the country to the other.
CHAPTER VII. MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS.
With the exception of a few of the larger cities, the water-supply of Japan is by means of wooden wells sunk in the ground. In Tokio, besides the ordinary forms of wells which are found in every portion of the city, there is a system of aqueducts conveying water from the Tamagawa a distance of twenty-four miles, and from Kanda a distance of ten miles or more. It is hardly within the province of this work to call attention to the exceeding impurity of much of the well-water in Tokio and elsewhere in Japan, as shown by many analyses, or to the imperfect way in which water is conveyed from remote places to Tokio and Yokohama. For valuable and interesting papers on this subject the reader is referred to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Japan.[23]
The aqueducts in the city are made of wood, either in the shape of heavy square plank tubes or circular wooden pipes. These various conductors are intersected by open wells, in which the water finds its natural level, only partially filling them. These wells are to be found in the main streets as well as in certain open areas; and to them the people come, not only to get their water, but often to do light washing.
The time must soon come when the authorities of Tokio will find it absolutely necessary to establish water-works for the supply of the city. Such a change from the present system would require an enormous expenditure at the outset, but in the end the community will be greatly benefited, not only in having more efficient means to quell the awful conflagrations which so frequently devastate their thoroughfares, but also in having a more healthful water-supply for family use. In their present imperfect method of water-service it is impossible to keep the supply free from local contamination; and though the death-rate of the city is low compared with that of many European [pg 298] and American cities, it would certainly be still further reduced by pure water made available to all.
