SCENE III.—Enter coolies, approaching temple through forest at night. Coolies afraid. Drop box and run. Exeunt coolies. Box alone in the dark. Enter veiled figure, all white. Figure moans unpleasantly; utters horrid cries. Box remains impassive. Figure removes veil, showing Its face—a skull with phosphoric eyes. [Audience unanimously utter the sound 'Aaaaaa!'] Figure displays Its hands—monstrous and apish, with claws. [Audience utter a second 'Aaaaaa!'] Figure approaches the box, touches the box, opens the box! Up leaps noble samurai. A wrestle; drums sound the roll of battle. Noble samurai practises successfully noble art of ju-jutsu. Casts demon down, tramples upon him triumphantly, cuts off his head. Head suddenly enlarges, grows to the size of a house, tries to bite off head of samurai. Samurai slashes it with his sword. Head rolls backward, spitting fire, and vanishes. Finis. Exeunt omnes.

6

The vision of the samurai and the goblin reminded Kinjuro of a queer tale, which he began to tell me as soon as the shadow-play was over. Ghastly stories are apt to fall flat after such an exhibition; but Kinjuro's stories are always peculiar enough to justify the telling under almost any circumstances. Wherefore I listened eagerly, in spite of the cold:

'A long time ago, in the days when Fox-women and goblins haunted this land, there came to the capital with her parents a samurai girl, so beautiful that all men who saw her fell enamoured of her. And hundreds of young samurai desired and hoped to marry her, and made their desire known to her parents. For it has ever been the custom in Japan that marriages should be arranged by parents. But there are exceptions to all customs, and the case of this maiden was such an exception. Her parents declared that they intended to allow their daughter to choose her own husband, and that all who wished to win her would be free to woo her.

'Many men of high rank and of great wealth were admitted to the house as suitors; and each one courted her as he best knew how—with gifts, and with fair words, and with poems written in her honour, and with promises of eternal love. And to each one she spoke sweetly and hopefully; but she made strange conditions. For every suitor she obliged to bind himself by his word of honour as a samurai to submit to a test of his love for her, and never to divulge to living person what that test might be. And to this all agreed.

'But even the most confident suitors suddenly ceased their importunities after having been put to the test; and all of them appeared to have been greatly terrified by something. Indeed, not a few even fled away from the city, and could not be persuaded by their friends to return. But no one ever so much as hinted why. Therefore it was whispered by those who knew nothing of the mystery, that the beautiful girl must be either a Fox-woman or a goblin.

'Now, when all the wooers of high rank had abandoned their suit, there came a samurai who had no wealth but his sword. He was a good man and true, and of pleasing presence; and the girl seemed to like him. But she made him take the same pledge which the others had taken; and after he had taken it, she told him to return upon a certain evening.

'When that evening came, he was received at the house by none but the girl herself. With her own hands she set before him the repast of hospitality, and waited upon him, after which she told him that she wished him to go out with her at a late hour. To this he consented gladly, and inquired to what place she desired to go. But she replied nothing to his question, and all at once became very silent, and strange in her manner. And after a while she retired from the apartment, leaving him alone.

'Only long after midnight she returned, robed all in white—like a Soul —and, without uttering a word, signed to him to follow her. Out of the house they hastened while all the city slept. It was what is called an oborozuki-yo—'moon-clouded night.' Always upon such a night, 'tis said, do ghosts wander. She swiftly led the way; and the dogs howled as she flitted by; and she passed beyond the confines of the city to a place of knolls shadowed by enormous trees, where an ancient cemetery was. Into it she glided—a white shadow into blackness. He followed, wondering, his hand upon his sword. Then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom; and he saw.

'By a new-made grave she paused and signed to him to wait. The tools of the grave-maker were still lying there. Seizing one, she began to dig furiously, with strange haste and strength. At last her spade smote a coffin-lid and made it boom: another moment and the fresh white wood of the kwan was bare. She tore off the lid, revealing a corpse within—the corpse of a child. With goblin gestures she wrung an arm from the body, wrenched it in twain, and, squatting down, began to devour the upper half. Then, flinging to her lover the other half, she cried to him, "Eat, if thou lovest mel this is what I eat!" 'Not even for a single instant did he hesitate. He squatted down upon the other side of the grave, and ate the half of the arm, and said, "Kekko degozarimasu! mo sukoshi chodai." [3] For that arm was made of the best kwashi [4] that Saikyo could produce.

'Then the girl sprang to her feet with a burst of laughter, and cried: "You only, of all my brave suitors, did not run away! And I wanted a husband: who could not fear. I will marry you; I can love you: you are a man!"'

7

'O Kinjuro,' I said, as we took our way home, 'I have heard and I have read many Japanese stories of the returning of the dead. Likewise you yourself have told me it is still believed the dead return, and why. But according both to that which I have read and that which you have told me, the coming back of the dead is never a thing to be desired. They return because of hate, or because of envy, or because they cannot rest for sorrow. But of any who return for that which is not evil—where is it written? Surely the common history of them is like that which we have this night seen: much that is horrible and much that is wicked and nothing of that which is beautiful or true.'

Now this I said that I might tempt him. And he made even the answer I desired, by uttering the story which is hereafter set down:

'Long ago, in the days of a daimyo whose name has been forgotten, there lived in this old city a young man and a maid who loved each other very much. Their names are not remembered, but their story remains. From infancy they had been betrothed; and as children they played together, for their parents were neighbours. And as they grew up, they became always fonder of each other.

'Before the youth had become a man, his parents died. But he was able to enter the service of a rich samurai, an officer of high rank, who had been a friend of his people. And his protector soon took him into great favour, seeing him to be courteous, intelligent, and apt at arms. So the young man hoped to find himself shortly in a position that would make it possible for him to marry his betrothed. But war broke out in the north and east; and he was summoned suddenly to follow his master to the field. Before departing, however, he was able to see the girl; and they exchanged pledges in the presence of her parents; and he promised, should he remain alive, to return within a year from that day to marry his betrothed.

'After his going much time passed without news of him, for there was no post in that time as now; and the girl grieved so much for thinking of the chances of war that she became all white and thin and weak. Then at last she heard of him through a messenger sent from the army to bear news to the daimyo and once again a letter was brought to her by another messenger. And thereafter there came no word. Long is a year to one who waits. And the year passed, and he did not return.

'Other seasons passed, and still he did not come; and she thought him dead; and she sickened and lay down, and died, and was buried. Then her old parents, who had no other child, grieved unspeakably, and came to hate their home for the lonesomeness of it. After a time they resolved to sell all they had, and to set out upon a sengaji—the great pilgrimage to the Thousand Temples of the Nichiren-Shu, which requires many years to perform. So they sold their small house with all that it contained, excepting the ancestral tablets, and the holy things which must never be sold, and the ihai of their buried daughter, which were placed, according to the custom of those about to leave their native place, in the family temple. Now the family was of the Nichiren-Shu; and their temple was Myokoji.

'They had been gone only four days when the young man who had been betrothed to their daughter returned to the city. He had attempted, with the permission of his master, to fulfil his promise. But the provinces upon his way were full of war, and the roads and passes were guarded by troops, and he had been long delayed by many difficulties. And when he heard of his misfortune he sickened for grief, and many days remained without knowledge of anything, like one about to die.

'But when he began to recover his strength, all the pain of memory came back again; and he regretted that he had not died. Then he resolved to kill himself upon the grave of his betrothed; and, as soon as he was able to go out unobserved, he took his sword and went to the cemetery where the girl was buried: it is a lonesome place—the cemetery of Myokoji. There he found her tomb, and knelt before it, and prayed and wept, and whispered to her that which he was about to do. And suddenly he heard her voice cry to him: "Anata!" and felt her hand upon his hand; and he turned, and saw her kneeling beside him, smiling, and beautiful as he remembered her, only a little pale. Then his heart leaped so that he could not speak for the wonder and the doubt and the joy of that moment. But she said: "Do not doubt: it is really I. I am not dead. It was all a mistake. I was buried, because my people thought me dead— buried too soon. And my own parents thought me dead, and went upon a pilgrimage. Yet you see, I am not dead—not a ghost. It is I: do not doubt it! And I have seen your heart, and that was worth all the waiting, and the pain.. . But now let us go away at once to another city, so that people may not know this thing and trouble us; for all still believe me dead."

'And they went away, no one observing them. And they went even to the village of Minobu, which is in the province of Kai. For there is a famous temple of the Nichiren-Shu in that place; and the girl had said: "I know that in the course of their pilgrimage my parents will surely visit Minobu: so that if we dwell there, they will find us, and we shall be all again together." And when they came to Minobu, she said: "Let us open a little shop." And they opened a little food-shop, on the wide way leading to the holy place; and there they sold cakes for children, and toys, and food for pilgrims. For two years they so lived and prospered; and there was a son born to them.

'Now when the child was a year and two months old, the parents of the wife came in the course of their pilgrimage to Minobu; and they stopped at the little shop to buy food. And seeing their daughter's betrothed, they cried out and wept and asked questions. Then he made them enter, and bowed down before them, and astonished them, saying: "Truly as I speak it, your daughter is not dead; and she is my wife; and we have a son. And she is even now within the farther room, lying down with the child. I pray you go in at once and gladden her, for her heart longs for the moment of seeing you again."

'So while he busied himself in making all things ready for their comfort, they entered the inner, room very softly—the mother first.

'They found the child asleep; but the mother they did not find. She seemed to have gone out for a little while only: her pillow was still warm. They waited long for her: then they began to seek her. But never was she seen again.

'And they understood only when they found beneath the coverings which had covered the mother and child, something which they remembered having left years before in the temple of Myokoji—a little mortuary tablet, the ihai of their buried daughter.'

I suppose I must have looked thoughtful after this tale; for the old man said:

'Perhaps the Master honourably thinks concerning the story that it is foolish?'

'Nay, Kinjuro, the story is in my heart.'



CHAPTER ELEVEN The Japanese Smile

1

THOSE whose ideas of the world and its wonders have been formed chiefly by novels and romance still indulge a vague belief that the East is more serious than the West. Those who judge things from a higher standpoint argue, on the contrary, that, under present conditions, the West must be more serious than the East; and also that gravity, or even something resembling its converse, may exist only as a fashion. But the fact is that in this, as in all other questions, no rule susceptible of application to either half of humanity can be accurately framed. Scientifically, we can do no more just now than study certain contrasts in a general way, without hoping to explain satisfactorily the highly complex causes which produced them. One such contrast, of particular interest, is that afforded by the English and the Japanese.

It is a commonplace to say that the English are a serious people—not superficially serious, but serious all the way down to the bed-rock of the race character. It is almost equally safe to say that the Japanese are not very serious, either above or below the surface, even as compared with races much less serious than our own. And in the same proportion, at least, that they are less serious, they are more happy: they still, perhaps, remain the happiest people in the civilised world. We serious folk of the West cannot call ourselves very happy. Indeed, we do not yet fully know how serious we are; and it would probably frighten us to learn how much more serious we are likely to become under the ever-swelling pressure of industrial life. It is, possibly, by long sojourn among a people less gravely disposed that we can best learn our own temperament. This conviction came to me very strongly when, after having lived for nearly three years in the interior of Japan, I returned to English life for a few days at the open port of Kobe. To hear English once more spoken by Englishmen touched me more than I could have believed possible; but this feeling lasted only for a moment. My object was to make some necessary purchases. Accompanying me was a Japanese friend, to whom all that foreign life was utterly new and wonderful, and who asked me this curious question: 'Why is it that the foreigners never smile? You smile and bow when you speak to them; but they never smile. Why?'

The fact was, I had fallen altogether into Japanese habits and ways, and had got out of touch with Western life; and my companion's question first made me aware that I had been acting somewhat curiously. It also seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual comprehension between the two races—each quite naturally, though quite erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own. If the Japanese are puzzled by English gravity, the English are, to say the least, equally puzzled by Japanese levity. The Japanese speak of the 'angry faces' of the foreigners. The foreigners speak with strong contempt of the Japanese smile: they suspect it to signify insincerity; indeed, some declare it cannot possibly signify anything else. Only a few of the more observant have recognised it as an enigma worth studying. One of my Yokohama friends—a thoroughly lovable man, who had passed more than half his life in the open ports of the East—said to me, just before my departure for the interior: 'Since you are going to study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for me. I can't understand the Japanese smile. Let me tell you one experience out of many. One day, as I was driving down from the Bluff, I saw an empty kuruma coming up on the wrong side of the curve. I could not have pulled up in time if I had tried; but I didn't try, because I didn't think there was any particular danger. I only yelled to the man in Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve, with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and smiled, and then bowed. I can see that smile now. I felt as if I had been knocked down. The smile utterly nonplussed me—killed all my anger instantly. Mind you, it was a polite smile. But what did it mean? Why the devil did the man smile? I can't understand it.'

Neither, at that time, could I; but the meaning of much more mysterious smiles has since been revealed to me. A Japanese can smile in the teeth of death, and usually does. But he then smiles for the same reason that he smiles at other times. There is neither defiance nor hypocrisy in the smile; nor is it to be confounded with that smile of sickly resignation which we are apt to associate with weakness of character. It is an elaborate and long-cultivated etiquette. It is also a silent language. But any effort to interpret it according to Western notions of physiognomical expression would be just about as successful as an attempt to interpret Chinese ideographs by their real or fancied resemblance to shapes of familiar things.

First impressions, being largely instinctive, are scientifically recognised as partly trustworthy; and the very first impression produced by the Japanese smile is not far from the truth The stranger cannot fail to notice the generally happy and smiling character of the native faces; and this first impression is, in most cases, wonderfully pleasant. The Japanese smile at first charms. It is only at a later day, when one has observed the same smile under extraordinary circumstances—in moments of pain, shame, disappointment—that one becomes suspicious of it. Its apparent inopportuneness may even, on certain occasions, cause violent anger. Indeed, many of the difficulties between foreign residents and their native servants have been due to the smile. Any man who believes in the British tradition that a good servant must be solemn is not likely to endure with patience the smile of his 'boy.' At present, however, this particular phase of Western eccentricity is becoming more fully recognised by the Japanese; they are beginning to learn that the average English-speaking foreigner hates smiling, and is apt to consider it insulting; wherefore Japanese employees at the open ports have generally ceased to smile, and have assumed an air of sullenness.

At this moment there comes to me the recollection of a queer story told by a lady of Yokohama about one of her Japanese servants. 'My Japanese nurse came to me the other day, smiling as if something very pleasant had happened, and said that her husband was dead, and that she wanted permission to attend his funeral. I told her she could go. It seems they burned the man's body. Well, in the evening she returned, and showed me a vase containing some ashes of bones (I saw a tooth among them); and she said: "That is my husband." And she actually laughed as she said it! Did you ever hear of such disgusting creatures?'

It would have been quite impossible to convince the narrator of this incident that the demeanour of her servant, instead of being heartless, might have been heroic, and capable of a very touching interpretation. Even one not a Philistine might be deceived in such a case by appearances. But quite a number of the foreign residents of the open ports are pure Philistines, and never try to look below the surface of the life around them, except as hostile critics. My Yokohama friend who told me the story about the kurumaya was quite differently disposed: he recognised the error of judging by appearances.

2

Miscomprehension of the Japanese smile has more than once led to extremely unpleasant results, as happened in the case of T—a Yokohama merchant of former days. T—had employed in some capacity (I think partly as a teacher of Japanese) a nice old samurai, who wore, according to the fashion of the era, a queue and two swords. The English and the Japanese do not understand each other very well now; but at the period in question they understood each other much less. The Japanese servants at first acted in foreign employ precisely as they would have acted in the service of distinguished Japanese; [1] and this innocent mistake provoked a good deal of abuse and cruelty. Finally the discovery was made that to treat Japanese like West Indian negroes might be very dangerous.

A certain number of foreigners were killed, with good moral consequences.

But I am digressing. T—was rather pleased with his old samurai, though quite unable to understand his Oriental politeness, his prostrations or the meaning of the small gifts which he presented occasionally, with an exquisite courtesy entirely wasted upon T—. One day he came to ask a favour. (I think it was the eve of the Japanese New Year, when everybody needs money, for reasons not here to be dwelt upon.) The favour was that T—would lend him a little money upon one of his swords, the long one. It was a very beautiful weapon, and the merchant saw that it was also very valuable, and lent the money without hesitation. Some weeks later the old man was able to redeem his sword.

What caused the beginning of the subsequent unpleasantness nobody now remembers Perhaps T—'s nerves got out of order. At all events, one day he became very angry with the old man, who submitted to the expression of his wrath with bows and smiles. This made him still more angry, and he used some extremely bad language; but the old man still bowed and smiled; wherefore he was ordered to leave the house. But the old man continued to smile, at which T—losing all self-control struck him. And then T—suddenly became afraid, for the long sword instantly leaped from its sheath, and swirled above him; and the old man ceased to seem old. Now, in the grasp of anyone who knows how to use it, the razor-edged blade of a Japanese sword wielded with both hands can take a head off with extreme facility. But, to T—'s astonishment, the old samurai, almost in the same moment, returned the blade to its sheath with the skill of a practised swordsman, turned upon his heel, and withdrew.

Then T—wondered and sat down to think. He began to remember some nice things about the old man—the many kindnesses unasked and unpaid, the curious little gifts, the impeccable honesty. T— began to feel ashamed. He tried to console himself with the thought: 'Well, it was his own fault; he had no right to laugh at me when he knew I was angry.' Indeed, T— even resolved to make amends when an opportunity should offer.

But no opportunity ever came, because on the same evening the old man performed hara-kiri, after the manner of a samurai. He left a very beautifully written letter explaining his reasons. For a samurai to receive an unjust blow without avenging it was a shame not to be borne, He had received such a blow. Under any other circumstances he might have avenged it. But the circumstances were, in this instance, of a very peculiar kind, His code of honour forbade him to use his sword upon the man to whom he had pledged it once for money, in an hour of need. And being thus unable to use his sword, there remained for him only the alternative of an honourable suicide.

In order to render this story less disagreeable, the reader may suppose that T—was really very sorry, and behaved generously to the family of the old man. What he must not suppose is that T—was ever able to imagine why the old man had smiled the smile which led to the outrage and the tragedy.

3

To comprehend the Japanese smile, one must be able to enter a little into the ancient, natural, and popular life of Japan. From the modernised upper classes nothing is to be learned. The deeper signification of race differences is being daily more and more illustrated in the effects of the higher education. Instead of creating any community of feeling, it appears only to widen the distance between the Occidental and the Oriental. Some foreign observers have declared that it does this by enormously developing certain latent peculiarities —among others an inherent materialism little perceptible among fife common people. This explanation is one I cannot quite agree with; but it is at least undeniable that, the more highly he is cultivated, according to Western methods, the farther is the Japanese psychologically removed from us. Under the new education, his character seems to crystallise into something of singular hardness, and to Western observation, at least, of singular opacity. Emotionally, the Japanese child appears incomparably closer to us than the Japanese mathematician, the peasant than the statesman. Between the most elevated class of thoroughly modernised Japanese and the Western thinker anything akin to intellectual sympathy is non-existent: it is replaced on the native side by a cold and faultless politeness. Those influences which in other lands appear most potent to develop the higher emotions seem here to have the extraordinary effect of suppressing them. We are accustomed abroad to associate emotional sensibility with intellectual expansion: it would be a grievous error to apply this rule in Japan. Even the foreign teacher in an ordinary school can feel, year by year, his pupils drifting farther away from him, as they pass from class to class; in various higher educational institutions, the separation widens yet more rapidly, so that, prior to graduation, students may become to their professor little more than casual acquaintances. The enigma is perhaps, to some extent, a physiological one, requiring scientific explanation; but its solution must first be sought in ancestral habits of life and of imagination. It can be fully discussed only when its natural causes are understood; and these, we may be sure, are not simple. By some observers it is asserted that because the higher education in Japan has not yet had the effect of stimulating the higher emotions to the Occidental pitch, its developing power cannot have been exerted uniformly and wisely, but in special directions only, at the cost of character. Yet this theory involves the unwarrantable assumption that character can be created by education; and it ignores the fact that the best results are obtained by affording opportunity for the exercise of pre-existing inclination rather than by any system of teaching.

The causes of the phenomenon must be looked for in the race character; and whatever the higher education may accomplish in the remote future, it can scarcely be expected to transform nature. But does it at present atrophy certain finer tendencies? I think that it unavoidably does, for the simple reason that, under existing conditions, the moral and mental powers are overtasked by its requirements. All that wonderful national spirit of duty, of patience, of self-sacrifice, anciently directed to social, moral, or religious idealism, must, under the discipline of the higher training, be concentrated upon an end which not only demands, but exhausts its fullest exercise. For that end, to be accomplished at all, must be accomplished in the face of difficulties that the Western student rarely encounters, and could scarcely be made even to understand. All those moral qualities which made the old Japanese character admirable are certainly the same which make the modern Japanese student the most indefatigable, the most docile, the most ambitious in the world. But they are also qualities which urge him to efforts in excess of his natural powers, with the frequent result of mental and moral enervation. The nation has entered upon a period of intellectual overstrain. Consciously or unconsciously, in obedience to sudden necessity, Japan has undertaken nothing less than the tremendous task of forcing mental expansion up to the highest existing standard; and this means forcing the development of the nervous system. For the desired intellectual change, to be accomplished within a few generations, must involve a physiological change never to be effected without terrible cost. In other words, Japan has attempted too much; yet under the circumstances she could not have attempted less. Happily, even among the poorest of her poor the educational policy of the Government is seconded with an astonishing zeal; the entire nation has plunged into study with a fervour of which it is utterly impossible to convey any adequate conception in this little essay. Yet I may cite a touching example. Immediately after the frightful earthquake of 1891, the children of the ruined cities of Gifu and Aichi, crouching among the ashes of their homes, cold and hungry and shelterless, surrounded by horror and misery unspeakable, still continued their small studies, using tiles of their own burnt dwellings in lieu of slates, and bits of lime for chalk, even while the earth still trembled beneath them. [2] What future miracles may justly be expected from the amazing power of purpose such a fact reveals!

But it is true that as yet the results of the higher training have not been altogether happy. Among the Japanese of the old regime one encounters a courtesy, an unselfishness, a grace of pure goodness, impossible to overpraise. Among the modernised of the new generation these have almost disappeared. One meets a class of young men who ridicule the old times and the old ways without having been able to elevate themselves above the vulgarism of imitation and the commonplaces of shallow scepticism. What has become of the noble and charming qualities they must have inherited from their fathers? Is it not possible that the best of those qualities have been transmuted into mere effort,—an effort so excessive as to have exhausted character, leaving it without weight or balance?

It is to the still fluid, mobile, natural existence of the common people that one must look for the meaning of some apparent differences in the race feeling and emotional expression of the West and the Far East. With those gentle, kindly, sweet-hearted folk, who smile at life, love, and death alike, it is possible to enjoy community of feeling in simple, natural things; and by familiarity and sympathy we can learn why they smile.

The Japanese child is born with this happy tendency, which is fostered through all the period of home education. But it is cultivated with the same exquisiteness that is shown in the cultivation of the natural tendencies of a garden plant. The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy. Laughter is not encouraged, for obvious reasons. But the smile is to be used upon all pleasant occasions, when speaking to a superior or to an equal, and even upon occasions which are not pleasant; it is a part of deportment. The most agreeable face is the smiling face; and to present always the most agreeable face possible to parents, relatives, teachers, friends, well-wishers, is a rule of life. And furthermore, it is a rule of life to turn constantly to the outer world a mien of happiness, to convey to others as far as possible a pleasant impression. Even though the heart is breaking, it is a social duty to smile bravely. On the other hand, to look serious or unhappy is rude, because this may cause anxiety or pain to those who love us; it is likewise foolish, since it may excite unkindly curiosity on the part of those who love us not. Cultivated from childhood as a duty, the smile soon becomes instinctive. In the mind of the poorest peasant lives the conviction that to exhibit the expression of one's personal sorrow or pain or anger is rarely useful, and always unkind. Hence, although natural grief must have, in Japan as elsewhere, its natural issue, an uncontrollable burst of tears in the presence of superiors or guests is an impoliteness; and the first words of even the most unlettered countrywoman, after the nerves give way in such a circumstance, are invariably: 'Pardon my selfishness in that I have been so rude!' The reasons for the smile, be it also observed, are not only moral; they are to some extent aesthetic they partly represent the same idea which regulated the expression of suffering in Greek art. But they are much more moral than aesthetic, as we shall presently observe.

From this primary etiquette of the smile there has been developed a secondary etiquette, the observance of which has frequently impelled foreigners to form the most cruel misjudgements as to Japanese sensibility. It is the native custom that whenever a painful or shocking fact must be told, the announcement should be made, by the sufferer, with a smile. [3] The graver the subject, the more accentuated the smile; and when the matter is very unpleasant to the person speaking of it, the smile often changes to a low, soft laugh. However bitterly the mother who has lost her first-born may have wept at the funeral, it is probable that, if in your service, she will tell of her bereavement with a smile: like the Preacher, she holds that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh. It was long before I myself could understand how it was possible for those whom I believed to have loved a person recently dead to announce to me that death with a laugh. Yet the laugh was politeness carried to the utmost point of self-abnegation. It signified: 'This you might honourably think to be an unhappy event; pray do not suffer Your Superiority to feel concern about so inferior a matter, and pardon the necessity which causes us to outrage politeness by speaking about such an affair at all.'. The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence: 'Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and that I am now aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon.' The youth or girl beyond the age of childish tears, when punished for some error, receives the punishment with a smile which means: 'No evil feeling arises in my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved.' And the kurumaya cut by the whip of my Yokohama friend smiled for a similar reason, as my friend must have intuitively felt, since the smile at once disarmed him: 'I was very wrong, and you are right to be angry: I deserve to be struck, and therefore feel no resentment.'

But it should be understood that the poorest and humblest Japanese is rarely submissive under injustice. His apparent docility is due chiefly to his moral sense. The foreigner who strikes a native for sport may have reason to find that he has made a serious mistake. The Japanese are not to be trifled with; and brutal attempts to trifle with them have cost several worthless lives.

Even after the foregoing explanations, the incident of the Japanese nurse may still seem incomprehensible; but this, I feel quite sure, is because the narrator either suppressed or overlooked certain facts in the case. In the first half of the story, all is perfectly clear. When announcing her husband's death, the young servant smiled, in accordance with the native formality already referred to. What is quite incredible is that, of her own accord, she should have invited the attention of her mistress to the contents of the vase, or funeral urn. If she knew enough of Japanese politeness to smile in announcing her husband's death, she must certainly have known enough to prevent her from perpetrating such an error. She could have shown the vase and its contents only in obedience to some real or fancied command; and when so doing, it is more than possible she may have uttered the low, soft laugh which accompanies either the unavoidable performance of a painful duty, or the enforced utterance of a painful statement. My own opinion is that she was obliged to gratify a wanton curiosity. Her smile or laugh would then have signified: 'Do not suffer your honourable feelings to be shocked upon my unworthy account; it is indeed very rude of me, even at your honourable request, to mention so contemptible a thing as my sorrow.'

4

But the Japanese smile must not be imagined as a kind of sourire fig, worn perpetually as a soul-mask. Like other matters of deportment, it is regulated by an etiquette which varies in different classes of society. As a rule, the old samurai were not given to smiling upon all occasions; they reserved their amiability for superiors and intimates, and would seem to have maintained toward inferiors an austere reserve. The dignity of the Shinto priesthood has become proverbial; and for centuries the gravity of the Confucian code was mirrored in the decorum of magistrates and officials. From ancient times the nobility affected a still loftier reserve; and the solemnity of rank deepened through all the hierarchies up to that awful state surrounding the Tenshi-Sama, upon whose face no living man might look. But in private life the demeanour of the highest had its amiable relaxation; and even to-day, with some hopelessly modernised exceptions, the noble, the judge, the high priest, the august minister, the military officer, will resume at home, in the intervals of duty, the charming habits of the antique courtesy.

The smile which illuminates conversation is in itself but a small detail of that courtesy; but the sentiment which it symbolises certainly comprises the larger part. If you happen to have a cultivated Japanese friend who has remained in all things truly Japanese, whose character has remained untouched by the new egotism and by foreign influences, you will probably be able to study in him the particular social traits of the whole people—traits in his case exquisitely accentuated and polished. You will observe that, as a rule, he never speaks of himself, and that, in reply to searching personal questions, he will answer as vaguely and briefly as possible, with a polite bow of thanks. But, on the other hand, he will ask many questions about yourself: your opinions, your ideas, even trifling details of your daily life, appear to have deep interest for him; and you will probably have occasion to note that he never forgets anything which he has learned concerning you. Yet there are certain rigid limits to his kindly curiosity, and perhaps even to his observation: he will never refer to any disagreeable or painful matter, and he will seem to remain blind to eccentricities or small weaknesses, if you have any. To your face he will never praise you; but he will never laugh at you nor criticise you. Indeed, you will find that he never criticises persons, but only actions in their results. As a private adviser, he will not even directly criticise a plan of which he disapproves, but is apt to suggest a new one in some such guarded language as: 'Perhaps it might be more to your immediate interest to do thus and so.' When obliged to speak of others, he will refer to them in a curious indirect fashion, by citing and combining a number of incidents sufficiently characteristic to form a picture. But in that event the incidents narrated will almost certainly be of a nature to awaken interest, and to create a favourable impression. This indirect way of conveying information is essentially Confucian. 'Even when you have no doubts,' says the Li-Ki, 'do not let what you say appear as your own view.' And it is quite probable that you will notice many other traits in your friend requiring some knowledge of the Chinese classics to understand. But no such knowledge necessary to convince you of his exquisite consideration for others, and his studied suppression of self. Among no other civilised people is the secret of happy living so thoroughly comprehended as among the Japanese; by no other race is the truth so widely understood that our pleasure in life must depend upon the happiness of those about us, and consequently upon the cultivation in ourselves of unselfishness and of patience. For which reason, in Japanese society, sarcasm irony, cruel wit, are not indulged. I might almost say that they have no existence in refined life. A personal failing is not made the subject of ridicule or reproach; an eccentricity is not commented upon; an involuntary mistake excites no laughter.

Stiffened somewhat by the Chinese conservatism of the old conditions, it is true that this ethical system was maintained the extreme of giving fixity to ideas, and at the cost of individuality. And yet, if regulated by a broader comprehension social requirements, if expanded by scientific understanding of the freedom essential to intellectual evolution, the very same moral policy is that through which the highest and happiest results may be obtained. But as actually practised it was not favourable to originality; it rather tended to enforce the amiable mediocrity of opinion and imagination which still prevails. Wherefore a foreign dweller in the interior cannot but long sometimes for the sharp, erratic inequalities Western life, with its larger joys and pains and its more comprehensive sympathies. But sometimes only, for the intellectual loss is really more than compensated by the social charm; and there can remain no doubt in the mind of one who even partly understands the Japanese, that they are still the best people in the world to live among.

5

As I pen these lines, there returns to me the vision of a Kyoto night. While passing through some wonderfully thronged and illuminated street, of which I cannot remember the name, I had turned aside to look at a statue of Jizo, before the entrance of a very small temple. The figure was that of a kozo, an acolyte—a beautiful boy; and its smile was a bit of divine realism. As I stood gazing, a young lad, perhaps ten years old, ran up beside me, joined his little hands before the image, bowed his head and prayed for a moment in silence. He had but just left some comrades, and the joy and glow of play were still upon his face; and his unconscious smile was so strangely like the smile of the child of stone that the boy seemed the twin brother of the god. And then I thought: 'The smile of bronze or stone is not a copy only; but that which the Buddhist sculptor symbolises thereby must be the explanation of the smile of the race.'

That was long ago; but the idea which then suggested itself still seems to me true. However foreign to Japanese soil the origin of Buddhist art, yet the smile of the people signifies the same conception as the smile of the Bosatsu—the happiness that is born of self-control and self- suppression. 'If a man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand and another conquer himself, he who conquers himself is the greatest of conquerors.' 'Not even a god can change into defeat the victory of the man who has vanquished himself.' [4] Such Buddhist texts as these—and they are many—assuredly express, though they cannot be assumed to have created, those moral tendencies which form the highest charm of the Japanese character. And the whole moral idealism of the race seems to me to have been imaged in that marvellous Buddha of Kamakura, whose countenance, 'calm like a deep, still water' [5] expresses, as perhaps no other work of human hands can have expressed, the eternal truth: 'There is no higher happiness than rest.' [6] It is toward that infinite calm that the aspirations of the Orient have been turned; and the ideal of the Supreme Self-Conquest it has made its own. Even now, though agitated at its surface by those new influences which must sooner or later move it even to its uttermost depths, the Japanese mind retains, as compared with the thought of the West, a wonderful placidity. It dwells but little, if at all, upon those ultimate abstract questions about which we most concern ourselves. Neither does it comprehend our interest in them as we desire to be comprehended. 'That you should not be indifferent to religious speculations,' a Japanese scholar once observed to me, 'is quite natural; but it is equally natural that we should never trouble ourselves about them. The philosophy of Buddhism has a profundity far exceeding that of your Western theology, and we have studied it. We have sounded the depths of speculation only to fluid that there are depths unfathomable below those depths; we have voyaged to the farthest limit that thought may sail, only to find that the horizon for ever recedes. And you, you have remained for many thousand years as children playing in a stream but ignorant of the sea. Only now you have reached its shore by another path than ours, and the vastness is for you a new wonder; and you would sail to Nowhere because you have seen the infinite over the sands of life.'

Will Japan be able to assimilate Western civilisation, as she did Chinese more than ten centuries ago, and nevertheless preserve her own peculiar modes of thought and feeling? One striking fact is hopeful: that the Japanese admiration for Western material superiority is by no means extended to Western morals. Oriental thinkers do not commit the serious blunder of confounding mechanical with ethical progress, nor have any failed to perceive the moral weaknesses of our boasted civilisation. One Japanese writer has expressed his judgment of things Occidental after a fashion that deserves to be noticed by a larger circle of readers than that for which it was originally written:

'Order or disorder in a nation does not depend upon some-thing that falls from the sky or rises from the earth. It is determined by the disposition of the people. The pivot on which the public disposition turns towards order or disorder is the point where public and private motives separate. If the people be influenced chiefly by public considerations, order is assured; if by private, disorder is inevitable. Public considerations are those that prompt the proper observance of duties; their prevalence signifies peace and prosperity in the case alike of families, communities, and nations. Private considerations are those suggested by selfish motives: when they prevail, disturbance and disorder are unavoidable. As members of a family, our duty is to look after the welfare of that family; as units of a nation, our duty is to work for the good of the nation. To regard our family affairs with all the interest due to our family and our national affairs with all the interest due to our nation—this is to fitly discharge our duty, and to be guided by public considerations. On the other hand, to regard the affairs of the nation as if they were our own family affairs—this is to be influenced by private motives and to stray from the path of duty. ...

'Selfishness is born in every man; to indulge it freely is to become a beast. Therefore it is that sages preach the principles of duty and propriety, justice and morality, providing restraints for private aims and encouragements for public spirit.. . . . What we know of Western civilisation is that it struggled on through long centuries in a confused condition and finally attained a state of some order; but that even this order, not being based upon such principles as those of the natural and immutable distinctions between sovereign and subject, parent and child, with all their corresponding rights and duties, is liable to constant change according to the growth of human ambitions and human aims. Admirably suited to persons whose actions are controlled by selfish ambition, the adoption of this system in Japan is naturally sought by a certain class of politicians. From a superficial point of view, the Occidental form of society is very attractive, inasmuch as, being the outcome of a free development of human desires from ancient times, it represents the very extreme of luxury and extravagance. Briefly speaking, the state of things obtaining in the West is based upon the free play of human selfishness, and can only be reached by giving full sway to that quality. Social disturbances are little heeded in the Occident; yet they are at once the evidences and the factors of the present evil state of affairs. . . . Do Japanese enamoured of Western ways propose to have their nation's history written in similar terms? Do they seriously contemplate turning their country into a new field for experiments in Western civilisation? . . .

'In the Orient, from ancient times, national government has been based on benevolence, and directed to securing the welfare and happiness of the people. No political creed has ever held that intellectual strength should be cultivated for the purpose of exploiting inferiority and ignorance. . . . The inhabitants of this empire live, for the most part, by manual labour. Let them be never so industrious, they hardly earn enough to supply their daily wants. They earn on the average about twenty sen daily. There is no question with them of aspiring to wear fine clothes or to inhabit handsome houses. Neither can they hope to reach positions of fame and honour. What offence have these poor people committed that they, too, should not share the benefits of Western civilisation? . . . By some, indeed, their condition is explained on the hypothesis that their desires do not prompt them to better themselves. There is no truth in such a supposition. They have desires, but nature has limited their capacity to satisfy them; their duty as men limits it, and the amount of labour physically possible to a human being limits it. They achieve as much as their opportunities permit. The best and finest products of their labour they reserve for the wealthy; the worst and roughest they keep for their own use. Yet there is nothing in human society that does not owe its existence to labour. Now, to satisfy the desires of one luxurious man, the toil of a thousand is needed. Surely it is monstrous that those who owe to labour the pleasures suggested by their civilisation should forget what they owe to the labourer, and treat him as if he were not a fellow-being. But civilisation, according to the interpretation of the Occident, serves only to satisfy men of large desires. It is of no benefit to the masses, but is simply a system under which ambitions compete to accomplish their aims. . . . That the Occidental system is gravely disturbing to. the order and peace of a country is seen by men who have eyes, and heard by men who have ears. The future of Japan under such a system fills us with anxiety. A system based on the principle that ethics and religion are made to serve human ambition naturally accords with the wishes of selfish individuals; and such theories as those embodied in the modem formula of liberty and equality annihilate the established relations of society, and outrage decorum and propriety. . . .

Absolute equality and absolute liberty being unattainable, the limits prescribed by right and duty are supposed to be set. But as each person seeks to have as much right and to be burdened with as little duty as possible, the results are endless disputes and legal contentions. The principles of liberty and equality may succeed in changing the organisation of nations, in overthrowing the lawful distinctions of social rank, in reducing all men to one nominal level; but they can never accomplish the equal distribution of wealth and property. Consider America. . . . It is plain that if the mutual rights of men and their status are made to depend on degrees of wealth, the majority of the people, being without wealth, must fail to establish their rights; whereas the minority who are wealthy will assert their rights, and, under society's sanction, will exact oppressive duties from the poor, neglecting the dictates of humanity and benevolence. The adoption of these principles of liberty and equality in Japan would vitiate the good and peaceful customs of our country, render the general disposition of the people harsh and unfeeling, and prove finally a source of calamity to the masses. . .

'Though at first sight Occidental civilisation presents an attractive appearance, adapted as it is to the gratification of selfish desires, yet, since its basis is the hypothesis that men' 's wishes constitute natural laws, it must ultimately end in disappointment and demoralisation. . . . Occidental nations have become what they are after passing through conflicts and vicissitudes of the most serious kind; and it is their fate to continue the struggle. Just now their motive elements are in partial equilibrium, and their social condition' is more or less ordered. But if this slight equilibrium happens to be disturbed, they will be thrown once more into confusion and change, until, after a period of renewed struggle and suffering, temporary stability is once more attained. The poor and powerless of the present may become the wealthy and strong of the future, and vice versa. Perpetual disturbance is their doom. Peaceful equality can never be attained until built up among the ruins of annihilated Western' states and the ashes of extinct Western peoples.'

Surely, with perceptions like these, Japan may hope to avert some of the social perils which menace her. Yet it appears inevitable that her approaching transformation must be coincident with a moral decline. Forced into the vast industrial competition of nation's whose civilisations were never based on altruism, she must eventually develop those qualities of which the comparative absence made all the wonderful charm of her life. The national character must continue to harden, as it has begun to harden already. But it should never be forgotten that Old Japan was quite as much in advance of the nineteenth century morally as she was behind it materially. She had made morality instinctive, after having made it rational. She had realised, though within restricted limits, several among those social conditions which our ablest thinkers regard as the happiest and the highest. Throughout all the grades of her complex society she had cultivated both the comprehension and the practice of public and private duties after a manner for which it were vain to seek any Western parallel. Even her moral weakness was the result of an excess of that which all civilised religions have united in proclaiming virtue—the self-sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the family, of the community, and of the nation. It was the weakness indicated by Percival Lowell in his Soul of the Far East, a book of which the consummate genius cannot be justly estimated without some personal knowledge of the Far East. [8]

The progress made by Japan in social morality, although greater than our own, was chiefly in the direction of mutual dependence. And it will be her coming duty to keep in view the teaching of that mighty thinker whose philosophy she has wisely accepted [9]—the teaching that 'the highest individuation must be joined with the greatest mutual dependence,' and that, however seemingly paradoxical the statement, 'the law of progress is at once toward complete separateness and complete union.

Yet to that past which her younger generation now affect to despise Japan will certainly one day look back, even as we ourselves look back to the old Greek civilisation. She will learn to regret the forgotten capacity for simple pleasures, the lost sense of the pure joy of life, the old loving divine intimacy with nature, the marvellous dead art which reflected it. She will remember how much more luminous and beautiful the world then seemed. She will mourn for many things—the old-fashioned patience and self-sacrifice, the ancient courtesy, the deep human poetry of the ancient faith. She will wonder at many things; but she will regret. Perhaps she will wonder most of all at the faces of the ancient gods, because their smile was once the likeness of her own.



CHAPTER TWELVE Sayonara!

1

I am going away—very far away. I have already resigned my post as teacher, and am waiting only for my passport.

So many familiar faces have vanished that I feel now less regret at leaving than I should have felt six months ago. And nevertheless, the quaint old city has become so endeared to me by habit and association that the thought of never seeing it again is one I do not venture to dwell upon. I have been trying to persuade myself that some day I may return to this charming old house, in shadowy Kitaborimachi, though all the while painfully aware that in past experience such imaginations invariably preceded perpetual separation.

The facts are that all things are impermanent in the Province of the Gods; that the winters are very severe; and that I have received a call from the great Government college in Kyushu far south, where snow rarely falls. Also I have been very sick; and the prospect of a milder climate had much influence in shaping my decision.

But these few days of farewells have been full of charming surprises. To have the revelation of gratitude where you had no right to expect more than plain satisfaction with your performance of duty; to find affection where you supposed only good-will to exist: these are assuredly delicious experiences. The teachers of both schools have sent me a farewell gift—a superb pair of vases nearly three feet high, covered with designs representing birds, and flowering-trees overhanging a slope of beach where funny pink crabs are running about—vases made in the old feudal days at Rakuzan—rare souvenirs of Izumo. With the wonderful vases came a scroll bearing in Chinese text the names of the thirty-two donors; and three of these are names of ladies—the three lady-teachers of the Normal School.

The students of the Jinjo-Chugakko have also sent me a present—the last contribution of two hundred and fifty-one pupils to my happiest memories of Matsue: a Japanese sword of the time of the daimyo. Silver karashishi with eyes of gold—in Izumo, the Lions of Shinto—swarm over the crimson lacquer of the sheath, and sprawl about the exquisite hilt. And the committee who brought the beautiful thing to my house requested me to accompany them forthwith to the college assembly-room, where the students were all waiting to bid me good-bye, after the old-time custom.

So I went there. And the things which we said to each other are hereafter set down.

2

DEAR TEACHER:—You have been one of the best and most benevolent teachers we ever had. We thank you with all our heart for the knowledge we obtained through your kindest instruction. Every student in our school hoped you would stay with us at least three years. When we learned you had resolved to go to Kyushu, we all felt our hearts sink with sorrow. We entreated our Director to find some way to keep you, but we discovered that could not be done. We have no words to express our feeling at this moment of farewell. We sent you a Japanese sword as a memory of us. It was only a poor ugly thing; we merely thought you would care for it as a mark of our gratitude. We will never forget your kindest instruction; and we all wish that you may ever be healthy and happy.

MASANABU OTANI, Representing all the Students of the Middle School of Shimane-Ken.

MY DEAR BOYS:—I cannot tell you with what feelings I received your present; that beautiful sword with the silver karashishi ramping upon its sheath, or crawling through the silken cording of its wonderful hilt. At least I cannot tell you all. But there flashed to me, as I looked at your gift, the remembrance of your ancient proverb: 'The Sword is the Soul of the Samurai.' And then it seemed to me that in the very choice of that exquisite souvenir you had symbolised something of your own souls. For we English also have some famous sayings and proverbs about swords. Our poets call a good blade 'trusty' and 'true'; and of our best friend we say, 'He is true as steel'—signifying in the ancient sense the steel of a perfect sword—the steel to whose temper a warrior could trust his honour and his life. And so in your rare gift, which I shall keep and prize while I live, I find an emblem of your true- heartedness and affection. May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the graceful symbol!

And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty you expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps even more than you know, or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe everything that your fathers believed before you—though I sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But however much the life of New Japan may change about you, however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.

Perhaps some of you may have that wish. Many of you must become soldiers. Some will become officers. Some will enter the Naval Academy to prepare for the grand service of protecting the empire by sea; and your Emperor and your country may even require your blood. But the greater number among you are destined to other careers, and may have no such chances of bodily self-sacrifice—except perhaps in the our of some great national danger, which I trust Japan will never know. And there is another desire, not less noble, which may be your compass in civil life: to live for your country though you cannot die for it. Like the kindest and wisest of fathers, your Government has provided for you these splendid schools, with all opportunities for the best instruction this scientific century can give, at a far less cost than any other civilised country can offer the same advantages. And all this in order that each of you may help to make your country wiser and richer and stronger than it has ever been in the past. And whoever does his best, in any calling or profession, to ennoble and develop that calling or profession, gives his life to his emperor and to his country no less truly than the soldier or he seaman who dies for duty.

I am not less sorry to leave you, I think, than you are to see me go. The more I have learned to know the hearts of Japanese students, the more I have learned to love their country. I think, however, that I shall see many of you again, though I never return to Matsue: some I am almost sure I shall meet elsewhere in future summers; some I may even hope to teach once more, in the Government college to which I am going. But whether we meet again or not, be sure that my life has been made happier by knowing you, and that I shall always love you. And, now, with renewed thanks for your beautiful gift, good-bye!

3

The students of the Normal School gave me a farewell banquet in their hall. I had been with them so little during the year—less even than the stipulated six hours a week—that I could not have supposed they would feel much attachment for their foreign teacher. But I have still much to learn about my Japanese students. The banquet was delightful. The captain of each class in turn read in English a brief farewell address which he had prepared; and more than one of those charming compositions, made beautiful with similes and sentiments drawn from the old Chinese and Japanese poets, will always remain in my memory. Then the students sang their college songs for me, and chanted the Japanese version of 'Auld Lang Syne' at the close of the banquet. And then all, in military procession, escorted me home, and cheered me farewell at my gate, with shouts of 'Manzai!' 'Good-bye!' 'We will march with you to the steamer when you go.'

4

But I shall not have the pleasure of seeing them again. They are all gone far away—some to another world. Yet it is only four days since I attended that farewell banquet at the Normal School! A cruel visitation has closed its gates and scattered its students through the province.

Two nights ago, the Asiatic cholera, supposed to have been brought to Japan by Chinese vessels, broke out in different parts of the city, and, among other places, in the Normal School. Several students and teachers expired within a short while after having been attacked; others are even now lingering between life and death. The rest marched to the little healthy village of Tamatsukuri, famed for its hot springs. But there the cholera again broke out among them, and it was decided to dismiss the survivors at once to their several homes. There was no panic. The military discipline remained unbroken. Students and teachers fell at their posts. The great college building was taken charge of by the medical authorities, and the work of disinfection and sanitation is still going on. Only the convalescents and the fearless samurai president, Saito Kumataro, remain in it. Like the captain who scorns to leave his sinking ship till all souls are safe, the president stays in the centre of danger, nursing the sick boys, overlooking the work of sanitation, transacting all the business usually intrusted to several subordinates, whom he promptly sent away in the first hour of peril. He has had the joy of seeing two of his boys saved.

Of another, who was buried last night, I hear this: Only a little while before his death, and in spite of kindliest protest, he found strength, on seeing his president approaching his bedside, to rise on his elbow and give the military salute. And with that brave greeting to a brave man, he passed into the Great Silence.

5

At last my passport has come. I must go.

The Middle School and the adjacent elementary schools have been closed on account of the appearance of cholera, and I protested against any gathering of the pupils to bid me good-bye, fearing for them the risk of exposure to the chilly morning air by the shore of the infected river. But my protest was received only with a merry laugh. Last night the Director sent word to all the captains of classes. Wherefore, an hour after sunrise, some two hundred students, with their teachers, assemble before my gate to escort me to the wharf, near the long white bridge, where the little steamer is waiting. And we go.

Other students are already assembled at the wharf. And with them wait a multitude of people known to me: friends or friendly acquaintances, parents and relatives of students, every one to whom I can remember having ever done the slightest favour, and many more from whom I have received favours which I never had the chance to return—persons who worked for me, merchants from whom I purchased little things, a host of kind faces, smiling salutation. The Governor sends his secretary with a courteous message; the President of the Normal School hurries down for a moment to shake hands. The Normal students have been sent to their homes, but not a few of their teachers are present. I most miss friend Nishida. He has been very sick for two long months, bleeding at the lungs but his father brings me the gentlest of farewell letters from him, penned in bed, and some pretty souvenirs.

And now, as I look at all these pleasant faces about me, I cannot but ask myself the question: 'Could I have lived in the exercise of the same profession for the same length of time in any other country, and have enjoyed a similar unbroken experience of human goodness?' From each and all of these I have received only kindness and courtesy. Not one has ever, even through inadvertence, addressed to me a single ungenerous word. As a teacher of more than five hundred boys and men, I have never even had my patience tried. I wonder if such an experience is possible only in Japan.

But the little steamer shrieks for her passengers. I shake many hands— most heartily, perhaps, that of the brave, kind President of the Normal School—and climb on board. The Director of the Jinjo-Chugakko a few teachers of both schools, and one of my favourite pupils, follow; they are going to accompany me as far as the next port, whence my way will be over the mountains to Hiroshima.

It is a lovely vapoury morning, sharp with the first chill of winter. From the tiny deck I take my last look at the quaint vista of the Ohashigawa, with its long white bridge—at the peaked host of queer dear old houses, crowding close to dip their feet in its glassy flood—at the sails of the junks, gold-coloured by the early sun—at the beautiful fantastic shapes of the ancient hills.

Magical indeed the charm of this land, as of a land veritably haunted by gods: so lovely the spectral delicacy of its colours—so lovely the forms of its hills blending with the forms of its clouds—so lovely, above all, those long trailings and bandings of mists which make its altitudes appear to hang in air. A land where sky and earth so strangely intermingle that what is reality may not be distinguished from what is illusion—that all seems a mirage, about to vanish. For me, alas! it is about to vanish for ever.

The little steamer shrieks again, puffs, backs into midstream, turns from the long white bridge. And as the grey wharves recede, a long Aaaaaaaaaa rises from the uniformed ranks, and all the caps wave, flashing their Chinese ideographs of brass. I clamber to the roof of the tiny deck cabin, wave my hat, and shout in English: 'Good-bye, good- bye!' And there floats back to me the cry: 'Manzai, manzai!' [Ten thousand years to you! ten thousand years!] But already it comes faintly from far away. The packet glides out of the river-mouth, shoots into the blue lake, turns a pine-shadowed point, and the faces, and the voices, and the wharves, and the long white bridge have become memories.

Still for a little while looking back, as we pass into the silence of the great water, I can see, receding on the left, the crest of the ancient castle, over grand shaggy altitudes of pine—and the place of my home, with its delicious garden—and the long blue roofs of the schools. These, too, swiftly pass out of vision. Then only faint blue water, faint blue mists, faint blues and greens and greys of peaks looming through varying distance, and beyond all, towering ghost-white into the east, the glorious spectre of Daisen.

And my heart sinks a moment under the rush of those vivid memories which always crowd upon one the instant after parting—memories of all that make attachment to places and to things. Remembered smiles; the morning gathering at the threshold of the old yashiki to wish the departing teacher a happy day; the evening gathering to welcome his return; the dog waiting by the gate at the accustomed hour; the garden with its lotus-flowers and its cooing of doves; the musical boom of the temple bell from the cedar groves; songs of children at play; afternoon shadows upon many-tinted streets; the long lines of lantern-fires upon festal nights; the dancing of the moon upon the lake; the clapping of hands by the river shore in salutation to the Izumo sun; the endless merry pattering of geta over the windy bridge: all these and a hundred other happy memories revive for me with almost painful vividness—while the far peaks, whose names are holy, slowly turn away their blue shoulders, and the little steamer bears me, more and more swiftly, ever farther and farther from the Province of the Gods.

NOTES for Chapter One

1 Such as the garden attached to the abbots palace at Tokuwamonji, cited by Mr. Conder, which was made to commemorate the legend of stones which bowed themselves in assent to the doctrine of Buddha. At Togo-ike, in Tottori-ken, I saw a very large garden consisting almost entirely of stones and sand. The impression which the designer had intended to convey was that of approaching the sea over a verge of dunes, and the illusion was beautiful.

2 The Kojiki, translated by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, p. 254.

3 Since this paper was written, Mr. Conder has published a beautiful illustrated volume,-Landscape Gardening in Japan. By Josiah Conder, F.R.I.B.A. Tokyo 1893. A photographic supplement to the work gives views of the most famous gardens in the capital and elsewhere.

4 The observations of Dr. Rein on Japanese gardens are not to be recommended, in respect either to accuracy or to comprehension of the subject. Rein spent only two years in Japan, the larger part of which time he devoted to the study of the lacquer industry, the manufacture of silk and paper and other practical matters. On these subjects his work is justly valued. But his chapters on Japanese manners and customs, art, religion, and literature show extremely little acquaintance with those topics.

5 This attitude of the shachihoko is somewhat de rigueur, whence the common expression shachihoko dai, signifying to stand on ones head.

6 The magnificent perch called tai (Serranus marginalis), which is very common along the Izumo coast, is not only justly prized as the most delicate of Japanese fish, but is also held to be an emblem of good fortune. It is a ceremonial gift at weddings and on congratu-latory occasions. The Japanese call it also the king of fishes.

7 Nandina domestica.

8 The most lucky of all dreams, they say in Izumo, is a dream of Fuji, the Sacred Mountain. Next in order of good omen is dreaming of a falcon (taka). The third best subject for a dream is the eggplant (nasubi). To dream of the sun or of the moon is very lucky; but it is still more so to dream of stars. For a young wife it is most for tunate to dream of swallowing a star: this signifies that she will become the mother of a beautiful child. To dream of a cow is a good omen; to dream of a horse is lucky, but it signifies travelling. To dream of rain or fire is good. Some dreams are held in Japan, as in the West, to go by contraries. Therefore to dream of having ones house burned up, or of funerals, or of being dead, or of talking to the ghost of a dead person, is good. Some dreams which are good for women mean the reverse when dreamed by men; for example, it is good for a woman to dream that her nose bleeds, but for a man this is very bad. To dream of much money is a sign of loss to come. To dream of the koi, or of any freshwater fish, is the most unlucky of all. This is curious, for in other parts of Japan the koi is a symbol of good fortune.

9 Tebushukan: Citrus sarkodactilis.

10 Yuzuru signifies to resign in favour of another; ha signifies a leaf. The botanical name, as given in Hepburns dictionary, is Daphniphillum macropodum.

11 Cerasus pseudo-cerasus (Lindley).

12 About this mountain cherry there is a humorous saying which illustrates the Japanese love of puns. In order fully to appreciate it, the reader should know that Japanese nouns have no distinction of singular and plural. The word ha, as pronounced, may signify either leaves or teeth; and the word hana, either flowers or nose. The yamazakura puts forth its ha (leaves) before his hana (flowers). Wherefore a man whose ha (teeth) project in advance of his hana (nose) is called a yamazakura. Prognathism is not uncommon in Japan, especially among the lower classes.

13 If one should ask you concerning the heart of a true Japanese, point to the wild cherry flower glowing in the sun.

14 There are three noteworthy varieties: one bearing red, one pink and white, and one pure white flowers.

15 The expression yanagi-goshi, a willow-waist, is one of several in common use comparing slender beauty to the willow-tree.

16 Peonia albiflora, The name signifies the delicacy of beauty. The simile of the botan (the tree peony) can be fully appreciated only by one who is acquainted with the Japanese flower.

17 Some say kesbiyuri (poppy) instead of himeyuri. The latter is a graceful species of lily, Lilium callosum.

18 Standing, she is a shakuyaku; seated, she is a botan; and the charm of her figure in walking is the charm of a himeyuri.

19 In the higher classes of Japanese society to-day, the honorific O is not, as a rule, used before the names of girls, and showy appellations are not given to daughters. Even among the poor respectable classes, names resembling those of geisha, etc., are in disfavour. But those above cited are good, honest, everyday names.

20 Mr. Satow has found in Hirata a belief to which this seems to some extent akin—the curious Shinto doctrine according to which a divine being throws off portions of itself by a process of fissure, thus producing what are called waki-mi-tama—parted spirits, with separate functions. The great god of Izumo, Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, is said by Hirata to have three such parted spirits: his rough spirit (ara-mi- tama) that punishes, his gentle spirit (nigi-mi-tama) that pardons, and his benedictory or beneficent spirit (saki-mi-tama) that blesses, There is a Shinto story that the rough spirit of this god once met the gentle spirit without recognising it,

21 Perhaps the most impressive of all the Buddhist temples in Kyoto. It is dedicated to Kwannon of the Thousand Hands, and is said to contain 33,333 of her images.

22 Daidaimushi in Izunio. The dictionary word is dedemushi. The snail is supposed to be very fond of wet weather; and one who goes out much in the rain is compared to a snail,—dedemushi no yona.

23 Snail, snail, put out your horns a little it rains and the wind is blowing, so put out your horns, just for a little while.

24 A Buddhist divinity, but within recent times identified by Shinto with the god Kotohira.

25 See Professor Chamberlains version of it in The Japanese Fairy Tale Series, with charming illustrations by a native artist.

26 Butterfly, little butterfly, light upon the na leaf. But if thou dost not like the na leaf, light, I pray thee, upon my hand.

27 Boshi means a hat; tsukeru, to put on. But this etymology is more than doubtful.

28 Some say Chokko-chokko-uisu. Uisu would be pronounced in English very much like weece, the final u being silent. Uiosu would be something like ' we-oce.

29 Pronounced almost as geece.

30 Contraction of kore noru.

31 A kindred legend attaches to the shiwan, a little yellow insect which preys upon cucumbers. The shiwan is said to have been once a physician, who, being detected in an amorous intrigue, had to fly for his life; but as he went his foot caught in a cucumber vine, so that he fell and was overtaken and killed, and his ghost became an insect, the destroyer of cucumber vines. In the zoological mythology and plant mythology of Japan there exist many legends offering a curious resemblance to the old Greek tales of metamorphoses. Some of the most remarkable bits of such folk- lore have originated, however, in comparatively modern time. The legend of the crab called heikegani, found at Nagato, is an example. The souls of the Taira warriors who perished in the great naval battle of Dan-no- ura (now Seto-Nakai), 1185, are supposed to have been transformed into heikegani. The shell of the heikegani is certainly surprising. It is wrinkled into the likeness of a grim face, or rather into exact semblance of one of those black iron visors, or masks, which feudal warriors wore in battle, and which were shaped like frowning visages.

32 Come, firefly, I will give you water to drink. The water of that. place is bitter; the water here is sweet.

33 By honzon is here meant the sacred kakemono, or picture, exposed to public view in the temples only upon the birthday of the Buddha, which is the eighth day of the old fourth month. Honzon also signifies the principal image in a Buddhist temple.

34 A solitary voice! Did the Moon cry? Twas but the hototogisu.

35 When I gaze towards the place where I heard the hototogisu cry, lol there is naught save the wan morning moon.

36 Save only the morning moon, none heard the hearts-blood cry of the hototogisu.

37 A sort of doughnut made of bean flour, or tofu.

38 Kite, kite, let me see you dance, and to-morrow evening, when the crows do not know, I will give you a rat.

39 O tardy crow, hasten forward! Your house is all on fire. Hurry to throw Water upon it. If there be no water, I will give you. If you have too much, give it to your child. If you have no child, then give it back to me.

40 The words papa and mamma exist in Japanese baby language, but their meaning is not at all what might be supposed. Mamma, or, with the usual honorific, O-mamma, means boiled rice. Papa means tobacco.

Notes for Chapter Two

1 This was written early in 1892

2 Quoted from Mr. Satow's masterly essay, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto,' published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. By 'gods' are not necessarily meant beneficent Kami. Shinto has no devils; but it has its 'bad gods' as well as good deities.

3 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.'

4 Ibid.

5 In the sense of Moral Path,—i.e. an ethical system.

6 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.' The whole force of Motowori's words will not be fully understood unless the reader knows that the term 'Shinto' is of comparatively modern origin in Japan,—having been borrowed from the Chinese to distinguish the ancient faith from Buddhism; and that the old name for the primitive religion is Kami-no- michi, 'the Way of the Gods.'

7 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.'

8 From Kami, 'the [Powers] Above,' or the Gods, and tana, 'a shelf.' The initial 't' of the latter word changes into 'd' in the compound,— just as that of tokkuri, 'a jar' or 'bottle,' becomes dokkuri in the cornpound o-mi kidokkuri.

9 The mirror, as an emblem of female divinities, is kept in the secret innermost shrine of various Shinto temples. But the mirror of metal commonly placed before the public gaze in a Shinto shrine is not really of Shinto origin, but was introduced into Japan as a Buddhist symbol of the Shingon sect. As the mirror is the symbol in Shinto of female divinities, the sword is the emblem of male deities. The real symbols of the god or goddess are not, however, exposed to human gaze under any circumstances.

10 Anciently the two great Shinto festivals on which the miya were thus carried in procession were the Yoshigami-no-matsuri, or festival of the God of the New Year, and the anniversary of Jimmu Tenno to the throne. The second of these is still observed. The celebration of the Emperor's birthday is the only other occasion when the miya are paraded. On both days the streets are beautifully decorated with lanterns and shimenawa, the fringed ropes of rice straw which are the emblems of Shinto. Nobody now knows exactly what the words chanted on these days (chosaya! chosaya!) mean. One theory is that they are a corruption of Sagicho, the name of a great samurai military festival, which was celebrated nearly at the same time as the Yashigami-no-matsuri,—both holidays now being obsolete.

11 Thuya obtusa.

12 Such at least is the mourning period under such circumstances in certain samurai families. Others say twenty days is sufficient. The Buddhist code of mourning is extremely varied and complicated, and would require much space to dilate upon.

13 In spite of the supposed rigidity of the Nichiren sect in such matters, most followers of its doctrine in Izumo are equally fervent Shintoists. I have not been able to observe whether the same is true of Izumo Shin-shu families as a rule; but I know that some Shin-shu believers in Matsue worship at Shinto shrines. Adoring only that form of Buddha called Amida, the Shin sect might be termed a Buddhist 'Unitarianism.' It seems never to have been able to secure a strong footing in Izumo on account of its doctrinal hostility to Shinto. Elsewhere throughout Japan it is the most vigorous and prosperous of all Buddhist sects.

14 Mr. Morse, in his Japanese Homes, published on hearsay a very strange error when he stated: 'The Buddhist household shrines rest on the floor—at least so I was informed.' They never rest on the floor under any circumstances. In the better class of houses special architectural arrangements are made for the butsudan; an alcove, recess, or other contrivance, often so arranged as to be concealed from view by a sliding panel or a little door In smaller dwellings it may be put on a shelf, for want of a better place, and in the homes of the poor, on the top of the tansu, or clothes-chest. It is never placed so high as the kamidana, but seldom at a less height than three feet above the floor. In Mr. Morse's own illustration of a Buddhist household shrine (p. 226) it does not rest on the floor at all, but on the upper shelf of a cupboard, which must not be confounded with the butsudan—a very small one. The sketch in question seems to have been made during the Festival of the Dead, for the offerings in the picture are those of the Bommatauri. At that time the household butsudan is always exposed to view, and often moved from its usual place in order to obtain room for the offerings to be set before it. To place any holy object on the floor is considered by the Japanese very disrespectful. As for Shinto objects, to place even a mamori on the floor is deemed a sin.

15 Two ihai are always made for each Buddhist dead. One usually larger than that placed in the family shrine, is kept in the temple of which the deceased was a parishioner, together with a cup in which tea or water is daily poured out as an offering. In almost any large temple, thousands of such ihai may be seen, arranged in rows, tier above tier— each with its cup before it—for even the souls of the dead are supposed to drink tea. Sometimes, I fear, the offering is forgotten, for I have seen rows of cups containing only dust, the fault, perhaps, of some lazy acolyte.

16 This is a fine example of a samurai kaimyo The kaimyo of kwazoku or samurai are different from those of humbler dead; and a Japanese, by a single glance at an ihai, can tell at once to what class of society the deceased belonged, by the Buddhist words used.

17 'Presenting the honourable tea to the august Buddhas'—for by Buddhist faith it is hoped, if not believed, that the dead become Buddhas and escape the sorrows of further transmigration. Thus the expression 'is dead' is often rendered in Japanese by the phrase 'is become a Buddha.'

18 The idea underlying this offering of food and drink to the dead or to the gods, is not so irrational as unthinking Critics have declared it to be. The dead are not supposed to consume any of the visible substance of the food set before them, for they are thought to be in an ethereal state requiring only the most vapoury kind of nutrition. The idea is that they absorb only the invisible essence of the food. And as fruits and other such offerings lose something of their flavour after having been exposed to the air for several hours, this slight change would have been taken in other days as evidence that the spirits had feasted upon them. Scientific education necessarily dissipates these consoling illusions, and with them a host of tender and beautiful fancies as to the relation between the living and the dead.

19 I find that the number of clappings differs in different provinces somewhat. In Kyushu the clapping is very long, especially before the prayer to the Rising Sun.

20 Another name for Kyoto, the Sacred City of Japanese Buddhism.

Notes for Chapter Three

1 Formerly both sexes used the same pillow for the same reason. The long hair of a samurai youth, tied up in an elaborate knot, required much time to arrange. Since it has become the almost universal custom to wear the hair short, the men have adopted a pillow shaped like a small bolster.

2 It is an error to suppose that all Japanese have blue-black hair. There are two distinct racial types. In one the hair is a deep brown instead of a pure black, and is also softer and finer. Rarely, but very rarely, one may see a Japanese chevelure having a natural tendency to ripple. For curious reasons, which cannot be stated here, an Izumo woman is very much ashamed of having wavy hair—more ashamed than she would be of a natural deformity.

3 Even in the time of the writing of the Kojiki the art of arranging t hair must have been somewhat developed. See Professor Chainberlai 's introduction to translation, p. xxxi.; also vol. i. section ix.; vol. vii. section xii.; vol. ix. section xviii., et passim.

4 An art expert can decide the age of an unsigned kakemono or other work of art in which human figures appear, by the style of the coiffure of the female personages.

5 The principal and indispensable hair-pin (kanzashi), usually about seven inches long, is split, and its well-tempered double shaft can be used like a small pair of chopsticks for picking up small things. The head is terminated by a tiny spoon-shaped projection, which has a special purpose in the Japanese toilette.

6 The shinjocho is also called Ichogaeshi by old people, although the original Ichogaeshi was somewhat different. The samurai girls used to wear their hair in the true Ichogaeshi manner the name is derived from the icho-tree (Salisburia andiantifolia), whose leaves have a queer shape, almost like that of a duck's foot. Certain bands of the hair in this coiffure bore a resemblance in form to icho-leaves.

7 The old Japanese mirrors were made of metal, and were extremely beautiful. Kagamiga kumoru to tamashii ga kumoru ('When the Mirror is dim, the Soul is unclean') is another curious proverb relating to mirrors. Perhaps the most beautiful and touching story of a mirror, in any language is that called Matsuyama-no-kagami, which has been translated by Mrs. James.

Notes for Chapter Four

1 There is a legend that the Sun-Goddess invented the first hakama by tying together the skirts of her robe.

2 'Let us play the game called kango-kango. Plenteously the water of Jizo-San quickly draw—and pour on the pine-leaves—and turn back again.' Many of the games of Japanese children, like many of their toys, have a Buddhist origin, or at least a Buddhist significance.

3 I take the above translation from a Tokyo educational journal, entitled The Museum. The original document, however, was impressive to a degree that perhaps no translation could give. The Chinese words by which the Emperor refers to himself and his will are far more impressive than our Western 'We' or 'Our;' and the words relating to duties, virtues, wisdom, and other matters are words that evoke in a Japanese mind ideas which only those who know Japanese life perfectly can appreciate, and which, though variant from our own, are neither less beautiful nor less sacred.

4 Kimi ga yo wa chiyo ni yachiyo ni sazare ishi no iwa o to narite oke no musu made. Freely translated: 'May Our Gracious Sovereign reign a thousand years—reign ten thousand thousand years—reign till the little stone grow into a mighty rock, thick-velveted with ancient moss!'

5 Stoves, however, are being introduced. In the higher Government schools, and in the Normal Schools, the students who are boarders obtain a better diet than most poor boys can get at home. Their rooms are also well warmed.

6 Hachi yuki ya Neko no ashi ato Ume no hana.

7 Ni no ji fumi dasu Bokkuri kana.

8 This little poem signifies that whoever in this world thinks much, must have care, and that not to think about things is to pass one's life in untroubled felicity.

9 Having asked in various classes for written answers to the question, 'What is your dearest wish?' I found about twenty per cent, of the replies expressed, with little variation of words, the simple desire to die 'for His Sacred Majesty, Our Beloved Emperor.' But a considerable proportion of the remainder contained the same aspiration less directly stated in the wish to emulate the glory of Nelson, or to make Japan first among nations by heroism and sacrifice. While this splendid spirit lives in the hearts of her youth, Japan should have little to fear for the future.

10 Beautiful generosities of this kind are not uncommon in Japan.

11 The college porter

12 Except in those comparatively rare instances where the family is exclusively Shinto in its faith, or, although belonging to both faiths, prefers to bury its dead according to Shinto rites. In Matsue, as a rule, high officials only have Shinto funeral.

13 Unless the dead be buried according to the Shinto rite. In Matsue the mourning period is usually fifty days. On the fifty-first day after the decease, all members of the family go to Enjoji-nada (the lake-shore at the foot of the hill on which the great temple of Enjoji stands) to perform the ceremony of purification. At Enjoji-nada, on the beach, stands a lofty stone statue of Jizo. Before it the mourners pray; then wash their mouths and hands with the water of the lake. Afterwards they go to a friend's house for breakfast, the purification being always performed at daybreak, if possible. During the mourning period, no member of the family can eat at a friend's house. But if the burial has been according to the Shinto rite, all these ceremonial observances may be dispensed with.

14 But at samurai funerals in the olden time the women were robed in black.

Notes for Chapter Five

1 As it has become, among a certain sect of Western Philistines and self-constituted art critics, the fashion to sneer at any writer who becomes enthusiastic about the truth to nature of Japanese art, I may cite here the words of England's most celebrated living naturalist on this very subject. Mr. Wallace's authority will scarcely, I presume, be questioned, even by the Philistines referred to:

'Dr. Mohnike possesses a large collection of coloured sketches of the plants of Japan made by a Japanese lady, which are the most masterly things I have ever seen. Every stem, twig, and leaf is produced by single touches of the brush, the character and perspective of very complicated plants being admirably given, and the articulations of stem and leaves shown in a most scientific manner.' (Malay Archipelago, chap. xx.)

Now this was written in 1857, before European methods of drawing had been introduced. The same art of painting leaves, etc., with single strokes of the brush is still common in Japan—even among the poorest class of decorators.

2 There is a Buddhist saying about the kadomatsu:

Kadomatsu Meido no tabi no Ichi-ri-zuka.

The meaning is that each kadomatsu is a milestone on the journey to the Meido; or, in other words, that each New Year's festival signal only the completion of another stage of the ceaseless journey to death.

3 The difference between the shimenawa and shimekazari is that the latter is a strictly decorative straw rope, to which many curious emblems are attached.

4 It belongs to the sargassum family, and is full of air sacs. Various kinds of edible seaweed form a considerable proportion of Japanese diet.

5 'This is a curiously shaped staff with which the divinity Jizo is commonly represented. It is still carried by Buddhist mendicants, and there are several sizes of it. That carried by the Yaku-otoshj is usually very short. There is a tradition that the shakujo was first invented as a means of giving warning to insects or other little creatures in the path of the Buddhist pilgrim, so that they might not be trodden upon unawares.