STREET IN JAPAN
"I never saw more poles and beams and masts of different height piercing the sky"
[To face page 300]
The European hopes to find Japan above all an Asiatic, even an exotic country. He wants something like the bazaars of Cairo or Ceylon's palm-groves, tropical like the wildernesses of Java, and ever-blooming like Burmah's gardens. Arriving at Tokio, disappointment in this respect is general, for Tokio is neither bright nor artistic. In fact, the capital of Japan is one of the most colourless and prosaic places on the globe.
Its buildings are nearly all of logs of wood—planks nailed to each other—without any external ornamentation; to commend their style or taste is impossible, for most of the houses have not even an attractive appearance. The old pagodas and the historic temples make an exception to the general rule, but their number is limited, and they are hidden by the groves of centuries.
The general impression of the town is monotonous, and what makes it even more so is that the houses are, as a rule, only one storey high, and the unpainted wood they are constructed of assumes in time a weather-beaten hue; in fact, the outline is only broken by an innumerable number of telegraph-poles. I never saw more poles and beams and masts of different height piercing the sky.
I was rather sorry to have such a cold morning for the day of the audience graciously accorded to me by the Emperor. I must confess that I should have preferred a warm, bright day in the late spring, when everything is in blossom, every corner full of flowers, and Japan looks more as it is pictured on its rich screens and artistic fans.
It is still quite early when the large, heavy barouche belonging to our legation comes to fetch me, and the two strong, well-bred, native horses have hard work to get through the snow-covered streets. Our way is uninteresting; the thoroughfares are too wide altogether, and the small houses on both sides are dwarfed and insignificant.
But we also pass some large modern buildings, American brick-and-steel erections. These are public offices and banks, and make a rather unpleasant contrast in the calm scenery. For some time we skirt a large canal partly frozen over; this forms the outer moat of the Imperial castle.
We stop before a large gate. It is opened at once, and a detachment of small but well-set-up Japanese soldiers present arms. Next comes a bridge, a new stone construction, ornamented with huge candelabra, without much architectural beauty, and without any Japanese flavour. But it leads to a magnificent avenue of cryptomerea, each tree a giant, and all of them of venerable age, their trunks covered with dark moss, and their foliage forming an emerald arch—emerald set in crystals, for their branches are heavily laden with frost.
The avenue looks like a corner of the famous Tokaïdo highway, the Japanese main artery for centuries, where the whole country wandered—rich and poor, mighty and humble, from Kioto to Tokio, from the Mikado's to the Shogun's Court, the Daimios with their retinues in gold and silver; where, too, all the warriors rode in their rich armour, and all the troops marched to war, or home to rest; where all the pilgrims walked to the famous shrines of Nara and Nikko.