The Critic in the Orient

by George Hamlin Fitch

Illustrations

		Page
The Taj Mahal at Agra	[Frontispiece]
The Yomei-mori Gate, Ieyasu Temple, Nikko	Facing	[14]
The Daibutsu or Great Bronze Buddha at Hyogo		[30]
Imperial Gate, Fort Santiago, Manila		[56]
The City of Boats at Canton		[74]
Hindoos Bathing in the Ganges at Benares		[100]
Front View of the Taj Mahal, Agra		[114]
One of the Main Avenues of Bombay		[126]
The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak		[146]

Plates

		Plate
Japan	Following page 48
Street Scene, Asakusa Park, Tokyo		[I]
Entrance Hall of Modern Home of a Tokyo Millionaire		[II]
Bronze Lanterns and Sacred Fountain, Shiba Temple, Tokyo		[III]
Sacred Red Bridge at Nikko		[IV]
Avenue of Cryptomeria to Futaaru Temple, Nikko		[V]
Avenue of Cryptomeria Trees, near Nikko		[VI]
Great Bronze Torii, Nikko		[VII]
Stone Lanterns, Kasuga Temple Park, Nara		[VIII]
Religious Procession, Kyoto		[IX]
Scene on Canal, Kyoto		[X]
Street Scene in Kobe		[XI]
A Group of Japanese Schoolboys		[XII]
Japanese Peasant Group by the Roadside		[XIII]
Scene in Large Private Garden, Kyoto		[XIV]
Iris Bed at Horikiri, near Tokyo		[XV]
Private Garden, Kamakura		[XVI]
Manila	Following page 62
A Glimpse of the Escolta, Manila		[XVII]
Old Church and Bridge at Pasig		[XVIII]
The Binondo Canal at Manila		[XIX]
On the Malecon Drive, Manila		[XX]
View on a Manila Canal		[XXI]
A Filipino Peasant Girl on the Way to Market		[XXII]
The Carabao Cart in the Philippines		[XXIII]
The Nipa Hut of the Filipino		[XXIV]
Hongkong, Canton, Singapore, Rangoon	Following page 91
Queen's Road in Hongkong.		[XXV]
Flower Market in a Hongkong Street		[XXVI]
Coolies Carrying Burdens at Hongkong		[XXVII]
The Spacious Foreign Bund at Hongkong		[XXVIII]
Chinese Junks in Hongkong Harbor		[XXIX]
View of the Water-front at Canton		[XXX]
The New Chinese Bund at Canton		[XXXI]
A Confucian Festival at Singapore		[XXXII]
A Main Street in the Native Quarter of Singapore		[XXXIII]
The Y. M. C. A. Building at Singapore		[XXXIV]
The Great Shwe Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon		[XXXV]
Entrance to the Shwe Dagon Pagoda		[XXXVI]
Burmese Worshipping in the Pagoda at Rangoon		[XXXVII]
Riverside Scene at Rangoon		[XXXVIII]
Trained Elephant Piling Teak at Rangoon		[XXXIX]
Palm Avenue, Royal Lakes, Rangoon		[XL]
India	Following page 134
One of the Main Gates to Government House, Calcutta		[XLI]
A Street Scene in Calcutta		[XLII]
The Great Burning Ghat at Benares		[XLIII]
View of the Bathing Ghats at Benares		[XLIV]
A Holy Man of Benares Under His Umbrella		[XLV]
The Residency at Lucknow		[XLVI]
Tomb of Itmad-ul-Daulet at Agra		[XLVII]
The Mutiny Memorial at Cawnpore		[XLVIII]
Detail of Carving in the Jasmine Tower, Agra		[XLIX]
The Jasmine Tower in Agra Fort		[L]
Snap-shot of a Jain Family at Agra		[LI]
The Fort at Agra Which Encloses Many Palaces		[LII]
Kutab Minar, the Arch and the Iron Pillar, near Delhi		[LIII]
Shah Jehan's Heaven on Earth, Delhi		[LIV]
Street View in Delhi		[LV]
A Parsee Tower of Silence at Bombay		[LVI]
Egypt	Following page 164
A Typical Street in Old Cairo		[LVII]
An Arab Cafe in One of Cairo's Streets		[LVIII]
Women Water Carriers in Turkish Costume		[LIX]
The Rameseon at Karnak		[LX]
The Avenue of Sphinxes at Karnak		[LXI]
An Arab Village on the Nile		[LXII]
The Colossi of Memnon, near Thebes		[LXIII]
The Great Sphinx, Showing the Temple Underneath		[LXIV]

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Introduction

This book of impressions of the Far East is called "The Critic in the Orient," because the writer for over thirty years has been a professional critic of new books—one trained to get at the best in all literary works and reveal it to the reader. This critical work—a combination of rapid reading and equally rapid written estimate of new publications—would have been deadly, save for a love of books, so deep and enduring that it has turned drudgery into pastime and an enthusiasm for discovering good things in every new book which no amount of literary trash was ever able to smother.

After years of such strenuous critical work, the mind becomes molded in a certain cast. It is as impossible for me to put aside the habit of the literary critic as it would be for a hunter who had spent his whole life in the woods to be content in a great city. So when I started out on this trip around the world the critical apparatus which I had used in getting at the heart of books was applied to the people and the places along this great girdle about the globe.