On the other side of the bay, in the docks recently constructed by the Mitsubishi Company, workmen are busy building a 5,000–ton vessel. Not far distant, on the southern slope of the hill overlooking the town, is the European quarter, situated in the midst of delightful gardens. The elegant steeple of the Catholic church rises sharply from among the pine-trees, and contrasts favourably with the massive and very ugly building—an eyesore on the pretty scene—that disagreeably emphasizes the very bad taste of the American missionaries, as also the absolute tolerance which the Government of the Mikado accords to all denominations in a country where, not so very long ago, so great was its exclusiveness that even the shipwrecked were put to a cruel death. As I gazed upon this charming scene, I could not forbear picturing to myself how it must have looked fifty years ago when a solitary Dutch vessel landed its tiny cargo for the benefit of a few foreign merchants imprisoned in the artificial island of Deshima, the only spot where they were allowed to live, and even then subjected to many vexatious humiliations.
In forty-five years Nagasaki has become the chief coaling port on the Pacific, and as safe for Europeans—perhaps safer—than many a seaport in Europe itself. Steamers do not remain long at Nagasaki, where they only touch to coal, but passengers have time to land for a few hours and visit the town. Happily, the inhabitants have retained their national costumes, but the men have unfortunately adopted our very ugly headgear, and flourish in every variety of bowler and yachting hat. In the shops one soon perceives the march of civilization, for they are full of articles imported from all parts of the world, as well as others imitated from European models, improved upon, in the artistic sense, by the natives. You can buy books by all the leading authors almost as cheaply as in Paris or London, as well as oil-lamps, gas-stoves, photographs representing recent Japanese battles with the Chinese, looking-glasses (which were absolutely unknown in Japan until quite recently), and little terrestrial globes, the sight of which latter reminded me of an anecdote related by a missionary when I was in China. At the beginning of the Chino-Japanese War, the Viceroy of a certain province asked the Reverend Father to show him where Japan was located, and he had the pleasure of pointing out to His Excellency, for the first time in his life, the exact place whence came the warriors with whom his Government was then at war. The Japanese are very proud of their victory over their colossal neighbour, and have placed some of the cannon which they took from her in the principal Shinto temples in the city.
Twelve hours after leaving Nagasaki you pass into the great Inland Sea, or heart of Japan, to effect an entrance into which in 1863 required the combined efforts of the fleets of England, France, Holland, and the United States. Now every great steamer that trades in the Pacific is free to weigh anchor in this glorious harbour, which, however, is never open at night on account of the many dangers to navigation in the Strait of Shimonoseki, which, by the way, is only a mile wide. As we passed through it, I perceived quite close to the southern shore no less than six immense steamers, anchored off the port of Moji—rapidly becoming a rival to Nagasaki—up to which the trains bring coal from the mines situated some miles inland. On the summit of the long range of hills a number of huge cannon stationed at intervals testify that the coasts of Japan are by no means unguarded.
Everything has been done by the Japanese Government to facilitate navigation in this rather dangerous Inland Sea, which was so hermetically shut to foreigners a half-century ago. In 1895 there were over 149 light-houses, built either by the State or the local authorities, admirably placed at intervals along the coast of Japan, the majority, of course, being erected along the shores of the Inland Sea, which, it must be remembered, contains not less than 5,000 islands. These light-houses are all the more necessary because, although the scenery of this magnificent expanse of water is very beautiful, the currents are exceedingly strong and dangerous, and the shoals, moreover, very numerous. An amazing number of little Japanese steamers of from 80 to 200 tons, and even less, constantly carry passengers to and fro between the various ports and towns on these innumerable islands. Mingling among these are still to be seen a few old Japanese junks, which, however picturesque, are not of much use in these go-ahead days, and are rapidly disappearing. Their shape is now only retained by a few fisher-boats. As a matter of fact, it is no longer legal to build vessels after the old Japanese model, excepting on a small scale, as in fishing or pleasure boats. Such a decree as this would, in any other country, have caused some unruly expression of public opinion; but in Japan it was otherwise, and the people very reasonably accepted a change for the better in the time-honoured form of their sea-craft. After twenty-four hours, of which one or two were passed at Kobe, we left the Inland Sea behind, and almost immediately afterwards beheld for the first time the peak of the celebrated Fusi-yama volcano, rendered so famous by Japanese engravers. Twenty-eight hours after leaving Kobe we entered the harbour of Yokohama, which is within fifty minutes’ rail of Tokio, the capital.
Yokohama was, before the enfranchising of the ports, a miserable little fishing village containing about a hundred houses. It was opened to foreign commerce in 1858 in the place of Shimoda, which was thought to be badly situated. It is a town of 170,000 inhabitants, having sprung up after the mushroom fashion hitherto deemed peculiar to America, and is the third largest port in the Far East, being alone surpassed by Hong-Kong and Shanghai; but its streets appear much less animated than those of the last-named ports. The Bund, the principal thoroughfare by the sea, always seems rather deserted. On the other hand, on the hill above, to the south of the concession, is the European quarter, which is full of delightful houses, surrounded by lovely gardens. There are about 1,800 foreigners of various nationalities, exclusive of Chinese, settled here, a good half being English. The port is very spacious and commodious, and the biggest ships ever built can anchor quite close up to the quay. The total value of the exports in 1896 was £6,169,600, the imports £7,280,400, making a total of £13,450,000, or about half the foreign commerce of Japan, which, during the same year, reached the very important figure of £28,500,000.[[16]] But this brand new town is not particularly interesting, and the traveller will do well to hurry on to Tokio.
The capital of Japan is the largest town in Asia, and the seventh in the world. On December 31, 1895, it was reputed to contain 1,268,930 souls, and must by this time, owing to the rapid increase of its population, have attained 1,400,000. It is spread over an enormous space, much larger than that occupied by Paris. The reason why it covers such an amazing extent is that everybody lives in his own house, which is never more than one story high, and then, again, nearly every house has its little garden. Under these conditions, it is, therefore, not surprising that such an enormous population requires unlimited space in which to accommodate itself. Moreover, Tokio contains a great many open spaces, and, odd to relate, most of these are to be found in the centre of the town in the neighbourhood of the Imperial Palace. These ‘building sites,’ if one might so call them, were formerly occupied by the palaces of the great daimios, the majority of which were surrounded by bastions, supported on a cyclopean stone wall rising from a deep moat. When the daimios first received permission to leave Tokio, a few years before the downfall of the old Government, they retired to their castles in the provinces, and, at the abolition of the feudal system in 1872, their lands became, as we have seen, the property of the State. On the site of several of them immense public buildings have been erected after the European fashion, among which are the palaces of the various Ministries, and also the Parliament House; but many other wide, open spaces are still waiting to be utilized, and, being weed-grown and disorderly, produce a distinctly dreary effect. The old ramparts, planted with pine-trees, which surrounded most of them, are still standing, and one, embracing the immense park of the Imperial Palace, is used as a public promenade. As you walk along it, and look towards the palace itself, it is difficult to believe that you are in Japan, everything is so very European, and on the other side the waste land contains a perfect forest of telegraph and telephone poles, which affirms, and very forcibly, too, that our civilization is distinctly the reverse of picturesque.
Telephones, telegraph, electric light, gas, petroleum lamps, etc., are now as plentifully used in Tokio as they are in any English or American town. It is most amusing to notice as you pass along the streets, when the paper screens which form the façade of most of the houses are removed, the artisans seated at their tatamis, working by the light of an Edison lamp. When they cannot afford electricity or gas, the Japanese use petroleum exclusively, but not without some considerable risk to the safety of a city entirely built of wood. Since a Japanese house contains next door to nothing in the way of furniture, and that even in the houses of the rich all valuable objects of art are usually kept in an iron safe, and only exposed on state occasions, a fire does not matter so much as it would in a London mansion or a Chicago ‘sky-scraper.’ A few cushions, coverlets, and household utensils, which are to be found in every house, are soon put outside the doors, so that the inhabitants have very little to fear, for their house is only one story high, and the whole façade consists of paper screens, which slide into one another when required. The only people who really have anything to fear from fire are the retail merchants, whose shops, of course, are well stocked. Fires are of very constant occurrence, and people are not at all surprised to wake up in the morning to hear that some hundred houses have been burnt down during the night.
The authorities at present avail themselves of fires in order to widen the streets and improve their sanitary condition. They are now as a rule much straighter and wider than any to be found in most other Oriental cities, and even, for the matter of that, in the towns of Southern Europe, and although they have no side-walks, they are much cleaner than any you will find in China or Siberia, or, indeed, in most cities of the United States. Possibly on account of the immense size of the city, they are nothing like so animated as the streets of Peking or Tien-tsin, and are much less picturesque than one might have been led to expect, for the Japanese, both men and women, after they have reached their tenth or twelfth year dress very plainly in neutral colours, blue, gray and brown prevailing. The women, however, enliven the scene by their bright-hued waistbands and huge bows. As to the children, especially on holidays, they wear the most vivid colours. Sometimes you can trace upon their tiny persons an entire landscape, and at others enormous bunches of flowers dashed upon a background of scarlet China crape, which decorate their exceedingly small figures. Their heads are generally close-shaven when they are infants, but as they grow older the dignity of age is marked by that funny zone of stiff black hair which adds so much to the comical appearance of a Japanese doll. Another peculiarity about these youngsters is that a smaller one generally hangs on to the back of another so tightly as to suggest a big barnacle. It is indeed amusing to watch a little lady of between five and six years of age carrying her still smaller brother on her back literally from morning to night, never appearing in the least degree incommoded by what to children of other nationalities would be a most uncomfortable position. The little boy accommodates himself to all the various movements his sister may make. If she tumbles, he tumbles, and if she gets up, up gets he, and it would really appear as if the younger child formed an integral part of the elder’s body. European children who are brought up in Japan fall into this singular habit quite as naturally as the Japanese, who can fall to sleep in a position which would, one imagine, have kept awake one of the famous Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
European costume has undoubtedly made some inroad throughout Japan, but fortunately not to the extent originally anticipated. Japanese ladies, who first adopted European fashions with enthusiasm, at present have nearly returned to the delightful way of dressing invented by their ancestresses, so that during the three months I spent in Japan I only once saw a Japanese lady dressed à la Parisienne. The European costume is now only to be seen at Court on state occasions, where, it should be observed, the old Japanese Court dress was not only very ugly and extremely heavy, but most uncomfortable. A few years ago an order was given that all the officials, little and great, should wear, when on duty, frock-coats and straight trousers, but this edict is no longer in force. Nevertheless, it has become the fashion for Japanese officials of rank to attend their offices in European costume, but here again there are already exceptions. English hats of all sorts and shapes, Tyrolese, bowler, sailor hats, and German caps, are universally worn by men in every class. Some young gentlemen, with pretensions to fashion, are adopting the tailor-made garments of Bond Street and the Rue de la Paix, and although this is regrettable from the æsthetic point of view, it must be conceded that our dress is much better adapted for the exigencies of our modern life than the loose, long-sleeved garments of the Japanese.
The kago, or palanquin, has absolutely disappeared from Tokio, and is now only to be found in the mountain districts, its place having been taken by the jinrikisha. It is now so well known in Europe, thanks to Japanese exhibitions, that all I need say is that it is a very small carriage supported by two very tall wheels, and pulled along by a runner. The jinrikisha is not, as many imagine, of Japanese origin, but due to the inventive genius of a foreigner, who made a fortune out of his invention. It is now used throughout the whole of the Far East; but Japan remains the land of its predilection, mainly on account of the extraordinary swiftness and skill of the native runners, who are unsurpassed in this respect in any other part of the East. There are at the present moment about 200,000 of these quaint vehicles in various parts of the Empire, of which about 40,000 are in Tokio. As a rule they can only seat one person, but a few are built to convey two passengers, exclusively Japanese; for the jinrikisha is not yet built that would accommodate a couple of Europeans, even ladies. The lowest fare is 2½d.; by the hour, 5d.; and for the half-day, 1s. 3d. These are the prices exacted from Europeans, but the Japanese pay considerably less.