Women who looked far beyond the time of motherhood were suckling infants, while all the young women seemed well provided with children. Girls of five or six were playing games with sleeping infants strapped to their backs, and even boys were impressed into this nursery work. The younger children are clothed only in kimonos, so that the passer-by witnesses many strange sights of naked Japanese cherubs.
In all quarters of Tokio the children were as numerous as in tenement streets of American cities on a Sunday afternoon, and in small country towns the number of children seemed even greater than in the big cities.
Another feature of Japanese life that made a profound impression on me was the pilgrimage of school children to the various sacred shrines throughout the empire. At Nikko and at Nara, two of the great seats of Buddhist and Shinto shrines, these child pilgrims were conspicuous. They were seen in bands of fifty or seventy-five, attended by tutors. The boys were dressed in blue or black jackets, white or blue trousers and white leggings. Each carried his few belongings in a small box or a handkerchief and each had an umbrella to protect him from the frequent showers.
The girls had dark red merino skirts, with kimono waists of some dark stuff. Many were without stockings, but all wore straw sandals or those with wooden sole and heavy wooden clogs. School children are admitted to temples and shrines at half rates and in every place the guides pay special attention to these young visitors.
Pilgrimages of soldiers and others are also very common. Whenever a party of one hundred is formed it receives the benefit of the half-rate admission. No observant tourist can fail to see that in the pilgrimages of these school children and these soldiers the authorities of new Japan find the best means of stimulating patriotism. Church and State are so closely welded that the Mikado is regarded as a god. Passionate devotion to country is the great ruling power which separates Japan from all other modern nations.
The number of young men who leave their country to escape the three years' conscription is very small. The schoolboy in his most impressionable years is brought to these sacred shrines; he listens to the story of the Forty-seven Ronins and other tales of Japanese chivalry; his soul is fired to imitate their self-sacrificing patriotism. The bloody slopes of Port Arthur witnessed the effect of such training as this.
The Japanese Capital and Its Parks and Temples
Tokio, the capital of Japan, is a picturesque city of enormous extent and the tourist who sees it in two or three days must expect to do strenuous work. The city, which actually covers one hundred square miles, is built on the low shore of Tokio bay and is intersected by the Sumi river and a network of narrow canals. The river and these canals are crossed by frequent bridges. At night the tourist may mark his approach to one of these canals by the evil odors that poison the air. Even in October the air is sultry in Tokio during the day and far into the night, but toward morning a penetrating damp wind arises.