In Eastern Seas / Or, the Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83

by J. J. Smith

The males of the coolie class are very scantily clad, for all that they wear is the narrowest possible fold of linen around the loins; but, as if to compensate for this scarcity of rigging, they are frequently most elaborately tattooed from head to foot.

A Japanese husband does not make a slave of his wife, as is too often the case amongst orientals; she is allowed perfect liberty of action, and to indulge her fancy in innocent pleasures to an unlimited extent. Her lord is not ashamed to be seen walking beside her, nor does he think it too much beneath him to fondle and carry the baby in public. They are excessively fond of their children; the hundreds of toy shops and confection stalls about the streets bearing testimony to this.

The old custom of dressing the hair, which some of the men still affect, is rather peculiar. A broad gutter is shaved from the crown of the head forward, whilst the remaining hair, which is permitted to grow long, is gathered and combed upwards, where the ends are tied, marled down, and served over (as we should say in nautical phraseology) and brought forward over the shaven gangway.

One other custom I must mention, the strangest one of all: they have a legalized form of that vice which, in other countries, by tacit consent, is banned, but which even the most refined people must tolerate. But what makes it more strange still is, that no inconsiderable portion of the public revenue is derived from this source. The government sets aside a certain quarter in every city and town for its accommodation, gives it a distinct and characteristic name, and appoints officers over it for the collection of the revenues. I thought it not a little significant on landing for the first time in Japan to find myself and "rick-sha" wheeled, by the accommodating coolie, right into the heart of this quarter. The advances of the fair sex are likely to prove embarrassing to the stranger, for, before they are married, they are at liberty to do as they please, and do not, by such acts, lose caste or forfeit the respect of their friends and neighbours.

Here, as in the Indian Seas, our laundresses are men, the cleanest and quickest washers we have encountered in the voyage. As an instance of their despatch, they will take your bedding ashore in the morning, and by tea-time you will receive it ready for turning in, the blanket washed and dried, the hair teazed and made so soft that you would scarcely fancy it was the same old "doss" again.

Though the women do not wash our clothes, they do what is far harder work, i.e. coal our ship. We were surprised, beyond measure, to see women toiling away at this dirty, laborious calling. And the Japanese women are such little creatures, too! There was, however, one exception, a woman of herculean strength and limb, looking like a giantess amongst her puny sisters, and fully conscious of her superior muscular power. This lady, stripped to the waist as she was, would, I am sure, intimidate the boldest mariner from a too close acquaintance with her embrace. They belong to the coolie class, a distinct caste in Japan, wear a distinguishing badge on their clothing, form a community amongst themselves, and rarely marry out of their own calling.

At noon these grimy Hebes, Hercules as well, all tripped on board to dine, the upper battery offering them all the accommodation they required; each carried with her a little lacquered box, with three sliding drawers, in which was neatly and cleanly stowed her dinner—rice, fish, and vegetables; taking out all the drawers, and laying them on her lap, with a pair of chop-sticks, she soon demolished her frugal meal. After a whiff or two at a pipe, whose bowl just contained enough tobacco for two draws, she was ready to resume her work.

The European concession occupies the most picturesque position in Nagasaki, from which city it is separated by a creek, well known to our blue-jackets, spanned by two or three bridges. On either side of this strip of water a perfect cosmopolitan colony of beer-house keepers have assembled, with the sole intention of "bleeding" the sailor, and upon whose well-known devotion, to the shrine of Bass and Allsop, they manage to amass considerable fortunes.

Before leaving Nagasaki I would ask you to accompany me to one of the temples, that known as the Temple of the Horse, being, perhaps, the best. It is rather a long distance by foot, but Englishmen, at least according to Japanese ideas, have too much money to walk when they can ride, so to keep up the national conceit, but more for our own convenience, we jump into an elegant little carriage, or "jin-riki-sha," literally "man-power-carriage," but in sailor phrase "johnny-ring-shaw," or short "ring shaw." Away we go, a dozen or more in a line, over the creek bridge, past Desima, which we leave on our left hand, and soon we are in the heart of the native city, and traversing what is popularly known as "curio" street. At this point we request our human horses to trot, instead of going at the mad speed usual to them, in order that we make notes of Japanese life by the way. We pass many shops devoted to the sale of lacquer ware, for which the Japanese are so justly famed, catch glimpses of unequalled egg shell, and Satsuma china, made of a clay, formed only in this neighbourhood, and which, thanks to the European mania for collecting, fetch the most fancy prices; get a view of silk shops, full of rich stuffs and embroideries. Here an artist tinting a fan or a silk lantern; there a woman weaving cloth for the use of her household and everywhere people plying their various callings on the elevated floors of their houses. I should say needle making amongst these people is a rather laborious undertaking, and one which requires more than an ordinary amount of patience. The wire has first to be cut the desired length, then filed to a point at one end and the other flattened ready for the eye to be drilled, and finally the whole has to be filed up and smoothed off, and all by one man. The Japanese are but indifferent sewers, all their seams exhibiting numerous "holidays." Pretty children, with their hair clipped around their heads like a priest's tonsure, sport around us, but are not intrusive. Each child has a little pouch attached to his girdle, which, we are informed, contains the address of the child's parents, and also an invocation to the little one's protecting god, in case of his straying from home. We meet with cheerful looks and pleasant greetings everywhere. The gentle and musical "o-hi-o," "good day," with its softly accented second syllable, and as we pass the earnest "sayonara," the "au revoir" of the French, tell us very plainly we are no unwelcome visitors, whilst their bows are the most graceful, because natural, and therefore unaffected, actions it is possible to conceive.

We notice, too, that numbers of the males are in full European costume, which generally hangs about them in a most awkward manner, reminding one of a broom-handle dressed in a frock coat. Others, again, don't discard the national dress altogether, but compromise matters by putting on, in addition their long gown, a European hat and shoes, which, if anything, looks worse still. The ladies have not yet adopted the European style which, perhaps, they have sense enough to see, is far more complex and inconvenient than their own. Of this much I am certain that no mysterious production of Worth would be more becoming, or suit them better than their own graceful, national dress.