A rather alarming question arises as to how people will be able to endure the inevitable fatigue of passing twelve days continuously in a railway-carriage. Habit is second nature, and although there is no other line in the world of such great length, nevertheless countless Americans think nothing of spending a week or ten days constantly travelling by train. It must be remembered, too, that the carriages intended for this line will be built expressly, and contain every conceivable comfort and modern improvement. A long corridor down the centre of the compartments will enable passengers to take exercise; and, needless to say, everything will be arranged for the comfort of the sleeping department, and for the heating of the carriages in winter. Already those lines which have been opened in Siberia are supplied with restaurants providing very good food, and usually under the management of a Japanese, whose head cook is well skilled in the concoction of cosmopolitan dishes, and whose waiters leave nothing to be desired in point of cleanliness and civility. Even now, in out-of-the-way stations, where, a few years ago, the foot of man had never trod, travellers who have exhausted their store of novels may find a bookstall fairly well supplied with current fiction and guide-books.
The Russian Government, however, in its zeal for the comfort of Trans-Siberian travellers, has made arrangements for the installation of a super-excellent restaurant, a well-stocked library, and, in short, of all those many luxuries hitherto which are the joy and boast of Americans. One cannot expect the comfort of a first-class liner in a narrow, box-like train; but then we must remember that the passengers on board these floating palaces have to endure many miseries in the shape of sea-sickness and the numerous ills which invariably accompany a journey through the Torrid Zone. There can be no question as to the superiority of the Trans-Siberian route to the Pacific over the Canadian, inasmuch as the latter includes two long sea-journeys. In summer the Trans-Siberian line will be undoubtedly very pleasant, and even in winter the carriages can be kept warm, and, moreover, there need be no fear of an unexpected visitation from an avalanche as there is in Canada. And thus, in the course of a few years, the irrepressible globetrotters of the two worlds, as well as the business man, to whom ‘time is money,’ will find a new and rapid means to reach countries which distance and the difficulties of travel have hitherto placed beyond the reach of only the most enterprising or of those who do not mind a very long sea-voyage. From the purely commercial side of the question, however, there can be no doubt that a very long time may elapse before the Trans-Siberian Railway can compete with the sea route in transporting heavy merchandise to and from the Far East, and the great commercial centres of Europe and Asia. Still, certain lighter articles—silk and tea, for instance—can certainly be brought in fair quantities, viâ the Siberian line, at a reasonable price. One of the great advantages of the line will be the facilities it offers for forwarding letters to and from China, Japan, etc., in considerably less than half the time now taken.
As to the social transformation which must inevitably result from the constant passage of so many people belonging to the highly civilized nations of the west, through a country hitherto so backward as Siberia, it may well be summed up as incalculable. That Russia will specially benefit by the creation of a line which she has built at an enormous cost is but just, and, moreover, surely the reward for her courage and enterprise. At the same time, civilization will also find a common interest in the amazing difference which so important a factor must inevitably create in the history of progress in the Far East.
PART II.—JAPAN
CHAPTER I
THE ORIGIN AND PAST HISTORY OF JAPAN
Different opinions respecting Japan and the reforms which have been carried out in that Empire within the past few years—Necessity of understanding something of Japanese history in order to appreciate the recent transformation in the country—Origin of the Japanese—Early history—The Mikados—The Japanese adopt Chinese civilization between the fifth and eighth centuries of our era—Inability for the Japanese to accept certain Chinese institutions—Decline of the absolute power of the Mikados—Military government adopted in the twelfth century—Japanese feudalism—Increase of power among the feudal lords in the fourteenth century—Civil wars and anarchy in the fifteenth century—Order re-established and the Government centralized through the action of the great military chieftains at the end of the sixteenth century—Foundation of the dynasty of the Tokugawa Shoguns—Europeans in Japan in the sixteenth century—The Japanese accept our civilization with enthusiasm—Rapid spread of Christianity—Reaction in the seventeenth century—Purely political causes—Persecution of Christians and the expulsion of foreigners—Japan isolated during nearly two centuries.
The absolute isolation which Japan preserved for over three hundred years and her systematic rejection of any attempt at the introduction of even a ray of Western civilization, is not, it must be confessed, without fascination for all who take interest in the history of a people who, during the last thirty years, have become so popular and so progressive as the Japanese. Suddenly, and without any explicable cause, the country, which was as carefully sealed to the outer world as the enchanter’s famous casket, was thrown wide open, not only to admit, but even to court, foreign progress, science and civilization, and now Japan has definitively accepted without any hesitation the most absolute changes and audacious innovations in her political and social systems, and has effected a transformation in her manners, ideas, and customs, not to mention costumes, such as has never before been achieved by any other nation in so brief a space of time.
At first Europe watched this extraordinary evolution with interest, not unmingled, however, with scepticism, finding it difficult to take seriously what might in the end prove but a passing fashion or the result of caprice. Many, indeed, felt anxious lest the introduction of modern civilization into a country so deliciously quaint and fascinating as Japan might destroy the charm of a population of artists, and, moreover, do irreparable damage to that exquisite art for which it is so justly celebrated. For many, Japan ought to have remained the land of lovely china, of rich lacquers, of kakimonos, musmes and chrysanthemums. Indeed, who could be expected to believe that the home of the geisha and of all sorts of dainty delights, of dwarf trees and liliputian tea-gardens, could possibly acclimatize the smoky industries, the strict militarism and the matter of fact judicial and political systems of our humdrum civilization? As well expect such a transformation in a world of butterflies and glittering dragon-flies as in the Empire of the Mikado. One eminent writer declared that ‘the Japan of to-day is but a bad translation’; and yet another says: ‘I find Japan a sort of anæmic dwarf. I know that she is of antediluvian antiquity, but for all that I cannot help thinking this little old mummy, bedecking herself in the trappings of Western civilization, supremely ridiculous.’ This was the opinion held not only by casual visitors to Japan, but also by not a few who had lived for years in the country, and who were never happy excepting when contrasting the solid qualities of the Chinese, their circumspection, their prudence, and their profound attachment to ancient customs, with the intense vanity and frivolity of the Japanese.
What could not be achieved by twenty-five years of hard work and peaceful progress in the way of convincing Europe of the earnestness of her intentions Japan did in less than six months by her military successes. When Europe beheld the triumphant achievements of the Mikado’s army, she had to confess that Japan was not quite the butterfly she had imagined, and began to study with greater attention the remarkable work which had been accomplished in that Empire. But the wonderful progress made in Japan during the last half of this century would not seem so extraordinary were the history of the Land of Flowers and its people better known. By the light of the past, the Revolution of 1868, which led to the suppression of the feudal system in Japan, and to the opening of the ports throughout the country, becomes clear and sequent.
In the fifth century of our era Japanese history begins to assume definite form, and the chronicles of the Kojiki and the Nihongi, which were written in the eighth century, cease to record mythological events and to deal with those purely human. Since that date the ancestors of the present Emperor have been ruling sovereigns over the two meridional islands Kiu-Siu and Sikoku, and the south-western section of the great Island of Hondo. According to tradition, they had already been reigning princes for over a thousand years, and their history, like that of almost every other great dynasty, stretches back into the night of time, when the world was peopled by gods and demigods. The first Emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, was a grandson of Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun, herself a great-granddaughter of the gods Izanaghi and Izanami, who were the actual founders of Japan. We next learn that Japan sprang direct from the hands of the gods, whereas all the other countries of the world, even those from whom she is pleased to accept modern civilization, originated through the evolution of natural forces. Jimmu-Tenno having alighted on this earth from heaven on the island of Kiu-Siu, passed thence viâ the Inland Sea to Hondo, where, after conquering ‘people of the same race as his own subjects,’ who inhabited these parts, he subdued the whole of the western part of the island, even to the zone of the central forests, ‘which were peopled by barbarians.’ In the year 660 B.C., he established himself in the province of Yamato, where they pretend in our day to have discovered his tomb. It is from this very early date that the Japanese begin their history. Jimmu-Tenno was succeeded by several generations of Mikados, of whom the first seventeen were centenarians, who lived between a hundred and a hundred and forty years each. In those distant times, the gods, it seems, took the same personal interest in Japanese affairs as they condescended to do in those of the Trojans. The history, however, of Japan, in its legendary period, like that of most other countries, is exceedingly sketchy and contains nothing of a positive character until the year 200 A.D., when an Amazonian Empress, who rejoiced in the rather startling name of Jingo, headed a successful campaign against the Koreans.