We spent Xmas day in Kobe. The foreign houses and Japanese streets were gaily decked and Xmas in this eastern port showed something of its old time festivity. The boats in the harbour and the shipping firms on shore hoisted their flags in honour of Xmas, The stewards-on the Fushimi produced a delightful artistic Xmas tree laden with all those things so dear to English hearts. Aboard and on shore, foreign and_ Japanese, all tried to remember Xmas with something of the old time feeling. Motomachi was one blaze of light and colour and people on holiday thronged this well-known thoroughfare. The Japanese shops offered Xmas bargains and decked—their windows with tempting wares. We were certainly agreeably surprise 1 to see how deeply the spirit of Xmas had permeated this progress sive, industrious city. We were told on board that the shops on shore had Xuias sales and things were being sold at Xmas prices.
It was our first Xmas in Japan—we had already spend 12 in China—and we were more than surprised to find how rapidly and how vigorously the East was appropriate ing the West and the West the East. Religiously, politically, socially, industrially, " East and "West were meeting with a rapidity little dreamt of 10 or 15 years ago. After more than 12 years in terior China, Japan is quite a revelation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.