We approach the Temple, with its black roof of crenellated copper, and the overhanging eaves, from each up-curved point of which hangs a tinkling bronze bell, and we can see that this sombre outside is only a wooden shell to preserve the gilding and brilliant colours of the exterior.
Our feet are bound up in cotton shoes, and we enter by a side door into an exquisite little sanctum, where the roof is all of lacquer, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and the panels on the walls are carved in marvellous repoussé work, with flowers and animals. A softened light comes through the open door, and the gold and red and blue and green, melt into a harmony of rich colouring, whilst the petal of each flower, the stalk of every leaf, the plumage on the wings of the birds, stand out in startling relief; and these panels represent storks, with their long red legs, doves with their silver-grey plumage, parrots with red and green tails, and peacocks with fan-spread tails. Or there are such flowers as the sacred lotus, the emblem of Buddhism, the chrysanthemum and the pink peony. One panel of exceptional beauty, is an exquisite spray of tiger lilies, carved in high relief. Tradition says that this was so greatly esteemed by the Shogun, and that the two nails we see were used to hang a cover over it, that no one should see it but himself. The priest throws open the golden trellis-work of a shrine, and shows us three memorial tablets with the Shogun's names inscribed on them. Around it there is a collection of china vases, paper lanterns, and lacquer stands. Passing behind the screen formed of bamboo bound with silken cords, we come to a square room covered as usual with matting, and with the same florid decoration, where there is a row of lacquer boxes each tied up with a cord. They contain the Buddhist books, and are used for the daily prayers.
Through a grove of glossy-leaved camellias we pass, and mount up some flights of ancient steps to another temple. This is the Praying Room in front of the Shogun's Tomb, and is only entered by the Mikado and Archbishop, when they come to worship the great departed on the day of his decease. We pass behind this, and ascend yet more moss-grown steps, to the tomb of the Great Shogun, which is surmounted by a bronze urn, and enclosed within stone parapets and iron railings. The tomb bears the three-leaved asarum, which is the crest of the House, and is seen on many buildings of the date of that dynasty. Since the fall of the Shoguns—or military usurpers of executive power—and the re-establishment to the Imperial City of the present dynasty of Mikados, it has been replaced by the Imperial Chrysanthemum. All is so quiet and solemn here, and the memorial above the tomb is so simple, as compared with the magnificence that goes before, that as Mitford says, "The sermon may have been preached by design, or it may have been by accident, but the lesson is there." The 9th, 12th and 14th Shoguns are buried at Shiba, and their three temples, their three praying rooms, and their three bronze urns, stand in precisely similar lines with the one we are at present by.
In the evening we take jinrikishas and go into the native quarters. If Tokio is charming in daylight, it is simply a fairyland at night. There are no lamps, save for a few electric beacons, that send out their far-reaching flashes over all the city, but the streets are lighted by innumerable pendulous drops of light, that dance and quiver and dart about, and cross and disappear quickly round corners. They are the paper lanterns which hang from the shafts of hundreds of jinrikishas, or are carried by pedestrians, for everyone in Japan carries his own lantern after dark; and some are pale pink and others red or blue. Now their soft light is reflected on the waters of the moat, or glides quickly and noiselessly round the stone ramparts and reappears like glow-worms on the other side. Now we pass the crimson light streaming out of the little box-like police station, or the barrow of the street vendor with the bulb of light shining mysteriously from behind his hanging curtains. Soft even light falls across the street from the windows of opaque paper, and we can trace the shadows crossing them. Then as we stealthily fly past, we see the dark interior of a shop lighted by a single lamp, under which squats a Rembrandt-like figure, intently working, for in these busy human hives late at night and early morning sees them still at work, or again the leaping flames of fire in the centre of the floor light up a family group. Then there is the street vendor, with his flaring torches, and his wares spread out against a wall. There is a festival held in some particular street, lighted with lunging designs of crimson paper lanterns, slung from bamboo poles, to the god of writing. Then as we return home through the dark quiet alleys, we hear the frequent and melancholy sound of the bamboo flute of the blind shampooer, as he feels his way, stick in hand, along the street. He sounds but two notes, but they have the wail of a world of sorrow in them, that goes to the heart.
Early the next morning we climbed up some steps and passed into the lovely groves of Ueno Park. The evergreen trees are still here, but the avenue of cherry trees is bare and leafless, "which presents a uniquely beautiful sight during the blossom season, when the air seems to be filled with pink clouds," and you can scarcely pass under the trees for the showers of falling blossoms. A little farther on there is a sheet of water covered with flat green leaves, which three weeks ago was a mass of pink and white lotus bloom. The blossoming of the cherry, plum, lotus or chrysanthemum are looked upon by the Japanese as national festivals. In fact they are their only holidays, for they have no Sunday or day of rest. The Japanese may be said to have little or no religion. The upper classes never worship at all, and the lower orders are either Buddhists or Shintoists (Shintoism being the worship of many gods), but they practically only go to the temples to offer prayers, accompanied by money to the gods, if they have any special request to make, such as for a good harvest, or recovery from sickness.
There are many little tea-houses at Ueno Park, and waiting damsels smile in a friendly manner and beckon us in, but we cross the road and leave this pleasant corner of the park, where the simple people come to drink tea and amuse themselves, and pass under one of those solemn archways hewn out of single blocks of stone, a torii or bird's rest. They are such grand yet simple monuments of a dead past, and are found at the entrance to all the temples in Japan. We wander up the stone-paved avenue, through the solemn illness of the great cryptomeria avenue, towards the Buddhist Temple at the end. This Temple, with its neighbouring pagoda, is more than usually brilliant, being recently restored, but the charm lies in its surroundings—in the quiet fir groves, and the clumps of camellia trees, in the pink blossoms of the monkey tree, and the solemn cawing of the rooks, in the click-click of the wooden sandals of the dear little waddling ladies as they saunter along the pavement, with their close-shaven children by their sides, so exactly like the Japanese dolls we know at home. But in the centre of this peaceful scene is a switchback railway, whose noisy clatter profanes the stillness, but of which the Japanese are truly proud. We pass a fortune stone. It is old and chipped, covered with hieroglyphics and bespattered with dirty pellets of paper, which are chewed first into a pulp and then thrown at it. If they adhere, it is considered a lucky omen.
After quickly passing through the Museum, a white Moorish building erected for the Exhibition, and which is as dull as museums usually are, we had one of those fascinating drives through the streets to the shop of the most celebrated cloisonné maker in Japan, and by special appointment to the Mikado. There was nothing exposed in the shop front, but leading us to the inmost recesses at the back, one by one with reverent care, each article was produced from its wooden case and foldings of crêpe and cotton wool, and placed with justifiable pride before us, for this prince of designers, Namikawa, is the greatest living artist in Japan, and exists only for the production of the masterpieces of his art. The exceeding tenderness of the pale grey, darkening into lilac, forming the background for a cock whose plumage, faithfully delineated, is shown by the outline of every feather, the rose pink, the translucent yellow—it is impossible to convey the delicate tones of colour, or the life-like drawing of his plaques and vases.
We subsequently saw the many processes through which cloisonné passes, and it is not until you have seen the skill and delicate workmanship required, that you really begin to appreciate cloisonné. And the same may be said about lacquer, which requires knowing to be fully understood. First the vase must be fashioned in copper, then the designer must delineate from memory some intricate design of flowers or birds or landscape. This again has to be reproduced in tiny pieces of wire, pinched and twisted deftly into shape and soldered on to the copper. The interstices of the wire are filled in with the brilliant colours that we see in the saucers by the side of the workers, and the mixing of these is the secret which ensures success. Five times the colours are "filled," and five times burnt in the kilns, and then the polisher with his different coarsenesses of stones polishes it into a burnished and chaste work of art.
Apart from temples, there is not much to see at Tokio, but it is the streets which fascinate you so completely, that waking and sleeping you dream of these, and you want to be always out and amongst the bright life that flows through them. To get any idea of Japan you must always remember that everything is so ridiculously small. Life here is in miniature. Everything is lilliputian; beginning with the little houses, continuing with the little men and women and their tiny children, and ending with the little ponies, for there are no horses in Japan. And so to imagine a Japanese street, you must picture to yourself rows of little brown houses, many of only one storey, with large overhanging eaves. The interior is wide open and only raised one step from the street, and you look across the brightly burnished floor through the opening of the paper sliding screens, which are thrown back in the daytime, and catch pretty glimpses of the home life in the back yard. Many of the shops are hung with funereal-looking purple and black hangings, inscribed with white hieroglyphics giving the names and nature of their wares. You recognize the chemist's shop by the gold tablets setting forth the details of the pharmacopœia within. There are barbers' shops, with a half-shaven customer with upturned chin seated in the chair; drapers' with samples of bright-coloured stuffs hung round a revolving wheel outside; toy-shops where are sold those paper kites and tiniest of shuttlecocks, or hobgoblin horses and animals of impossible shape and size, with which the children play in the street. There are others hung with nothing but strings of straw sandals, or wooden clogs; grain shops where the clean white green and red seeds are sorted into baskets of samples. Here is one for the sale of saké, the brandy of Japan, piled up with huge barrels, and with those tapering blue and white bottles which we are accustomed to use for flower-vases, but which are really manufactured to hold this popular beverage. And then the china shops; they are an incessant delight, with their hundreds of dear little common blue and white rice bowls, their artistic tea-pots of pale green ware with a spray of apple blossom, their hibachis, or china flower-pots of deep blue, green or bronze ware, which are used for the hot ashes to light the pipe with, and are found on the floor of all tea-houses. Again, we must look at this stationer's, where that soft crinkled tissue paper is sold, and the brushes with which the Japanese write so swiftly and deftly, that the ink is absorbed without blotting into the paper. In Japan they do everything upside down. The horses stand with their tails in their mangers and their heads where their tails should be. Locks revolve contrariwise, and the carpenters plane towards, instead of away from the person. So with writing; they write from the bottom of the page to the top, and from right to left, and the number of their characters is appalling. You must know from 3000 to 4000 characters to write Japanese at all, and an educated man will require some 6000; and the disappointing thing is that when a foreigner has mastered this, the literature opened up to him offers no reward for his labour, as it practically does not as yet exist.
See this fruit shop, where bunches of pale grey-green water-grapes, brown pears, and plentiful supplies of green figs are spread temptingly out, interspersed with bunches of those luscious orange persimmons that melt in the mouth, and taste like a ripe apricot; this umbrella emporium, where paper umbrellas, oiled to make them waterproof, are open inviting inspection; a tea-shop, where the tea is kept in gigantic jars striped purple and green; a greengrocer's, with oblong sweet potatoes in their pink skins, and turnips of abnormal length; a basket shop, where bamboo baskets of every shape and size are to be had; or a fishmonger's, where the delicate pink and rainbow scaled fish, are exposed daintily for sale on bright blue and green china dishes. Nor must I forget the confectioners' shops, where from a tiny oven heated by charcoal, we see the most attractive little pink, green, chocolate and white sugared cakes turned out and placed in alternate rows on trays. It is most amusing to see the extreme economy of the heating arrangements. Four tiny pieces of charcoal, turned over and husbanded together by a pair of iron tongs, suffice to cook a meal. The Government do not allow shops to sell European and Japanese goods together, so that now and again you pass one full of Manchester atrocities, gaudy stuffs, ill-shaped English umbrellas, cheap lamps, boots, hats, and underclothing, which you turn away from, to seek once more the tasteful display of the native stores.