island of Kiushu) Japan.
At Nagasaki we read an account in an Anglo-Japonica paper, From our Special Correspondent," describing our
looked "fearfully worn and aged. appesranoe on arriving at Shanghai the folks of Nagasaki were, therefore, on boce the watch for three had well-nigh killed poycical wrecks who emgelves traversing China, they failed to-see them, We ha; pened to be particularly well-con and healthy. During our two Nagasaki nobody, except the British Conaul and the Governor of the Prefecture, kugw who we were. It was a blessed "Sagas spreads itef the wooded end rocky slopes tint blad a nagasaki spreads itself picturesquely over
deep inlet of the sex. It is the place where the Japanese first made an acquaintance with Buropeans, fire-arms, Christianity, and whisky. In order that the Japanese may not forget the fact, there are generally foreign warships in the harbour. We saw five Russian, one British, and one American man-o'-wat vessels. All the sailors hate one another like true patriots, but in the morning and in the evening, at flags, the "Hail Columbia," "the ying "God Save the Queen,'
blaring at "God Bless our Noble Czar." The medley is unmusical, but that is nothing in a matter' of international courtesy. hundred foreigners in Nagasaki, there are Though there are only a couple of
two, if not three, daily newspapers in English, and they keep up a spirited warfare, and call spades something stronger than agricultural "implements. 'The Americal Consul had just laid one of the editorial gentlemen by the heels and given him sixty days' imprisonment for libel.
"You know," the Consul gleefully explained, "I would like to have: given the rascal more, but, ha! hal he. would have appealed, and he can't appow days. Ha! Ha! I'm pretty cute, I un!
And in order that the sailors, spending un evening on shore, shall not devote too much time to admiring the Japanese sunsets, and so get poetical and discontented, there are a dozen drinking saloons, where they may obtain beer in great dotes and jetsam of the pinna-strumming quantity and strength, and where the
world, washed up on the Nagasaki shore,
on wheezy, out-of-tune upright grand: eke out a precarious livelihood by playing after the ball is over," oe eix fours stretch, while fresh relays of seafarers roll up and bawl the chorus. Nagasaki is rapidly becoming civills Phe Japanese are doing their best to drop into the rut of European ways. Of course, the cycling Londoner, who has nurtured himself on Mitford's Tales of Cid. Japan, Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthéme, and Sir Edwin Arnold's eroticiems, and acknowledges that the only Japanese life he is acquainted with is what. he has seen in the Mikado at the Savoy, and the Geisha at-Daly's Theatre..
is prone to expec: too much. He wants all the loveliness and sweetness and daintiness of Japan spread out before him at one fan sweep. He is disappointed. The day may be bleak and chilly, and he sees a number of shuffling little creatures in the lanes, And these are the charming, fascinating little mousmees, about whom every foreigner raves, and to whom loses his heart and a deal of. his money! And the men who wait upon you at your hotel, -clad much like your bathman at a German watering-place, and sniff for tips—thesa.are the artistic, ever-courteous Japanese, are they Yet we were glad to be disappointed. Tt meant a saving of money. We had threatened each o her that if any one started. gushing or raving or getting maudlin about the beauty of Japan within three days he should pay the usual penalty. We fixed three days because that is about the necessary time required according to the modern globe-trotting book-writer, to me thoroughly acquainted with a ple, their manners and custome, and to authority ever after.
But it was that. European rut into which the Japanese are forcing themselves that tickled us, dust as the inhabitant of Central Africa begins to swagger and put on airs, and consider him: is possessed of a whi so the Jnpeneso ce the medieval, sui is forefathers, and is a rampant, go-ahead civilised person if he wears a European hat.
And such hats! You must go to Japan to see what. Europe can really produce in the way of hats. They are fearful and wonderful. All th es that have ever been made have been shipped to Japan—silk hats in every stage of curve and width of brim ft felt hats that run the gradations in efcom the canopy beloved of Buffalo Bill to the meek covering adopted by the Methodist preacher, and down still note to the soft felt with hardly any brim, such as you find in German student towns; hard felts, low crowned, high crowned,-bulbous, with bands and without, brow:, black, green, and grey, a marvellous assortment and there are polo caps and cricket caps and blue cloth caps with glazed leather peaks, affected by pilots; and hats and caps which we, in our limited' years on earth, have never seen before. The Jaanese wear them at the same time as they went their national costume. They flaunt them as a signal te the world that they have becom:
How ridiculous! In their thirst to be modern they push themselves into ill-made, inartistic, antiquated, ugly European garments, that make them look puny and despicable. It is the fash Oh Japan!
We tesy call upon the Governor. stything was Europeanised. The room in which we were received lad 'a Wilton carpet; there was a veneered table and plush chairs, oleographs hung on the wall; there was an English fire-place and an electric bell: The Governor received us kindly. He was a little round man, wit face and head like a Dutch cheew; his hair was cropped extremely.close. He was dressed in a frock coat, and he smoked cigars. He laughed charmingly, and his teeth were plugged with gold. He spoke no English. His interpreter, however, did s0 excellently. He was a sallow man, was the interpreter, as though: he had been suckled on strong coffee and weaned on cigarettes. He couldn't laugh. We tried some of our best jokes on him, but he only lifted his upper lip and said, Ah The Governor was interested in our tour. Diplomatically, kno would please him, we rubbed it in strongly about how miserable and filthy and inhospitable China had been, and how our spirits were only sustained by the prospect of Teaching so lovely a land as Japan. We narrated glibly the countries we had:
—Germany, Hungary, Russia, Armenia, and past Mount Ararat.
Mount Ararat, you kn-yr, where the Ark rested," one of us supplemented.
"The place where the ship in whi-h Noahs and his family were stopped after ther "Who was Mr. Noah "You don't mean to say you've.never tell Hi Excellency this isa Blulical the interpreter)—Will you please "It's one we all know before we can'remember. You see in the old time, that is, a very long time ago, the world was wicked and it rained a lot—I think it rained, or it may have been a flood only—and everybody was drowned."
"All the Japanese as well Er—awell—you two, look here, do you think the Japs were drowned then?"
"T'm banged if I know said one of "How can I tell?" said the other, "Anyway, everybody was drowned, except Noah and his family, because they went into the Ark, and they took-in with them two of every ayjmal, every. animal with four legs and two" legs, and the fowls of the air and the—look here, how does that passage go?"
"Don't ask me!"—from one of us.
"However, we cycled past the place," wound up the speaker.
"Why Mout Ararat, of course., That's "What place asks the interpreter. the spot where the boat stopped when the flood went down, and where Noah Who was Noah "Noah was the good man who was saved."
have some more coffee?"
"ah! His Excellency asks if you will It so happened that we had reached Japan in the worst month of the year, January, when che weather was cold, and there was lik: od "f rain, and sleet, and snow. It wasa little dull and'gloomy as we strolled about Nagasaki, which is famous for its blue porcelain, though you probably buy it us chouply in Old Bond Street. is very pretty and tasteful is this porcelain. We were duly suspicious, however, when some parchment-featured old Japanese came and palavered at the hotel, and after mich mysteriousness produced a Satsuma jar and some Imari dishes from his sleeve. We have met the same sort of person at home, at street corners, wanting to sell us an old meerclaum pips dirt-cheap, because he was hard up, and because he knew we was a gentleman, we was. But even these imitation Imari dishes were better than the atrocious rubbish one sees in a suburban drawing-room, bought by the daughter of the house at the Stores, and which pass as Japanese ware among the pseudo-artistic.
We bought nothing. On the third morning we jumped astride our Rovers and began cycling across the island of Kiushiu towards the mainland. The lowering sky had lifted, and we had " bracing sunny morn: There was a good road, and on our way we met flocks of rosy-checked litle maidens trotting along with loads of juicy oranges. The children, more mites of humanity, ran forward and made a curtsey, by rubbing their chubby hands down their tiny knees and shouting Ohayo" (Good morning"), 'The scenery was curious, It was on a miniature scale. Tt was pretty and fantasy It hada twisted, home-park rockery appearance, as if the clumps of' trees had been planted to obtain an effect, and the rocks had been stationed on particular mounds to lend a rugged air. It was as if man had taken nature in hand'and altered and arranged it to get as much variety as possible ina little space;
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.