October 21.—Mrs. G—— saw me off at the station and brought butter and fruit, and the largest pear I have ever seen in my life, which is most delicious. A prospect of two nights and three days before reaching Tokio.
October 22.—As this train only stops about every fifty miles or so, and we have to pay extra for its being an express, there are relatively few passengers, and none of them at all amusing except one old man, whom I take to be a Chinaman. He is tall and dressed in widest garments, the trousers being of such flowing description that he hitches them up behind when he walks, as a lady does her skirts. He has an amber-coloured silk jacket, slashed up the front, and into this and the front of his lower garments he has stuffed so many things that he looks very rotund, which he isn’t by nature. His long hair is done on the top of his head inside a little fine gauze hat, with a band under his chin, and he wears enormous brown horn spectacles attached to the hat.
He smokes a pipe a yard long, and sits all day, with his swathed feet crossed Buddha fashion, on a brilliant cerise-pink blanket. He cannot speak a word of Japanese, but can of course write Chinese, so that when any one wants his ticket or anything from him it must be written down, or else his three attendants sent for. The attendants are travelling third class, two in a costume like his, but simpler, the third in a European knicker-suit combined with a similar gauze hat! Here we see Chinese writing acting as a medium of communication between these people, who cannot understand a word of the other’s spoken language.
October 23.—I am surprised how well I sleep in these rackety trains—but the East is very soporific. Much of the scenery is pretty, particularly the hilly distances. Indeed, most of Japan seems to be beautiful. I am spending the day reading through the dictionary, a word here and there sticks and is useful sometimes. It is awful to be so entirely without literature—nothing is obtainable but character Japanese, of which, of course, I cannot read a word, and I have had nothing to read for weeks on these tedious journeyings. This express train is quite good, and there is an excellent luncheon car attached.
October 24.—A day spent at the Institute seeing after letters, etc., which of course have all been awaiting my return. I also received congratulatory and other visits from several people. They seem to think it some wonderful thing that I go into the mines! At Nagasaki, the trouble I had to escape interviewers! Two telephoned up for permission to see me, two came to the hotel, and I refused to see them, and one followed me to the station, and though I used some insulting Japanese to him, he bought a ticket and followed me to the train. I wouldn’t speak a word to him, so I guess very unfavourable comments appeared.
October 25.—A very full day, which I began by calling on the Vice-Minister of Education, to whom an official call has long been due. Once more I had to grieve over the poverty and bad taste of the European furniture with which so many official Japanese are replacing their own simple and dignified arrangements.
I then went to a Faculty lunch at the University—to-day being the day when all the professors of the Science College meet and lunch together. Through the week the other colleges and faculties have their day. I met many friendly people, Professor S—— being particularly charming. The dining-hall is in Japanese style, but tables and food European. The floor mats being Japanese, we must take off our boots and patter about in slippers, which are all made of one size and belong to the University. I can’t keep them on, and people are always fetching me new ones when I quietly discard an importunate pair.
The Minister of Education has this year started a sort of Academy of Pictures, and gave me an invitation for the private view. There were three sections, Japanese paintings proper, oils after the manner of foreigners, and sculpture. The latter very bad; the two former sections, though containing only about a couple of hundred exhibits, yet had a larger number of beautiful things than our Academy ever shows. The selection had been very careful, eight out of every ten rejected, and each hung with at least 1 foot of wall space all round it, and nothing skied!
October 26.—A party from the Botanical Institute went on a botanical excursion to Nikko, a very renowned and lovely district about 2000 feet above the sea. The temples there are marvellous, and the whole region one of the “three places” of Japan, and so well known and often described that I shall not attempt to give any account of its technical glories. A few things struck me specially, but the glorious carving and gilding and rich beauty of the temples I am not qualified to describe. In the temple I specially liked the Sacred Horse. Dear beast (he is alive, of course), he had been at the war and come through safely, but his rider, a prince of the Imperial house, who had been a High Priest up to the dis-establishment of the priesthood, was killed. The horse now lives in his beautiful dwelling in the temple, and is fed by the faithful on beans, which are sold at a farthing a dish. It seems so cruel to give him such small helpings at a time that I gave him half a dozen simultaneously, and so the keeper-priest gave me a picture of this animal in all his sacred trappings.
One of the principal glories of the temples is the magnificent avenue of giant cryptomeria trees,—an avenue more than 20 miles long, all planted 300 years ago by a single Daimio. Along the turbulent stony river a quiet paved path runs beneath tall trees, and beside it are many little shrines and temples. On the hill above, with a great flight of stone steps leading to it, is the tomb of the first great Shogun, a man in his time mightier than the Mikado. The stones used in the building of the steps and foundations are enormous, and one wonders how it was possible to engineer them 300 years ago. Now it would be almost an impossibility to build in such a grand style. Close to the temples is the small Alpine garden belonging to the University, and really a branch of the Tokio Botanical Garden. It is small, but charming, with many little streams and rocky pinnacles on which the alpine plants are growing, and from it is a splendid view of the fine hills beyond. Every tourist goes to Nikko, and every book on Japan describes it, so I need say nothing.