In this Oriental tour the stamp of strange religions is over all the lands. The temple is the keynote of each race. And religion with the Oriental is not a matter of one day's worship in seven: it is a vital, daily function into which he puts all the dreamy mysticism of his race. The first sight of several Mohammedans bowed in the dust by the roadside, with their faces set toward Mecca, gives one a strange thrill, but this spectacle soon loses its novelty. Everywhere in the Far East religion is a matter of form and ceremony: it includes regular visits to the temple and regular prayers and offerings to the deities enshrined in these houses of worship. But it also includes a daily ritual that must be observed at certain fixed hours, even though the believer may be in the midst of the crowded market place. The spiritual isolation of an Oriental at his prayers in any big city of the Far East is the most significant feature of this life—so alien to all the mental, moral, and religious training of the Occident. Vain is it for one of Anglo-Saxon strain to attempt to bridge this abyss that lies between his mind and that of the Burman or the Parsee. Each lives in a spiritual world of his own and each would be homesick for heaven were he transferred to the ideal paradise of the other. So the traveler in the Orient should give heed to the temples, for in them is voiced the spiritual aspirations of the people, who have little of comfort or hope to cheer them in this world.
JAPAN, THE
PICTURE COUNTRY OF
THE ORIENT
First Impressions of Japan and The Life of The Japanese
Yokohama looks very beautiful to the traveler who has spent over two weeks on the long sea voyage from Seattle; but it has little to commend it to the tourist, for most of its native traits have been Europeanized. It is noteworthy, however, as the best place except Hongkong for the traveler to purchase an oriental outfit and it is probably the cheapest place in the world for trunks and bags and all leather goods. Its bund, or water-front, is spacious and its leading hotels are very comfortable.
Of Japan and the Japanese, all that can be given are a few general impressions of the result of two weeks of constant travel over the empire and of talks with many people.
Of the country itself, the prevailing impression of the tourist, who crosses it on the railroad or who takes rides through the paddy fields in a rickshaw, is of a perennial greenness. Instead of the tawny yellow of California in October, one sees here miles on miles of rice fields, some of vivid green, others of green turning to gold. The foothills of the mountains remind one of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, as they all bear evidences of the rounding and smoothing of glacial action.