When you step into sight, a score dart forward, dragging their rickshaws after them with one hand and holding the other up to draw your attention, and shouting, "Riksha! Riksha! Riksha!" You choose one, and step in. The human steed springs between the shafts, raises them and tilts you backwards, and then darts off, as if eager to show you his strength and speed, and prove to you what a good choice you have made.

Away bounds the little man, and soon you are bowling along a narrow street where a passage seems impossible, so full is it of boys and girls, men and women, shops and stalls. There may be a side-walk, but then, the shopkeepers have taken that to spread out their wares, or the stallkeepers have set up their little booths there. So the people who want to go along the street, and the boys and girls who want to play in it, are all driven to the middle of the way.

Here and there your rickshaw dodges, working its way through the crowd. Now the man pauses a second lest he should run full-tilt over a group of gaily-dressed little girls, each with a baby on her back, playing at ball in the road. Half a dozen others are busy with battledores and shuttlecocks, and the gaily-painted toys drop into your carriage, and you are expected to toss them out again to the mites, who will bow very deeply and with the profoundest gravity in return for your politeness; then something flutters over your head, and you see that two boys and an old man are sitting on the roof of a house about as high as a tool-shed, trying to get their kites up. And you say to yourself that it is lucky that there are no horses, for the quietest beast that ever lifted a hoof would bolt here and charge through the whirl and uproar and the rain of dropping shuttlecocks and bouncing balls.

Another fine thing about rickshaw-riding is that no one can call it expensive. While the boy goes, you pay him about sevenpence an hour; while he waits you pay him rather less than twopence-halfpenny an hour, and you can have his services for a whole day for about half a crown. But some of them will try to cheat you in places where foreigners are often met with, and will put a whole twopence an hour on the regular price.

This is very sad, and causes the rickshaw-boy to be looked upon as a tradesman; he is not allowed the honour of being regarded as a servant and the member of an honourable profession—one who puts his master's interests before his own. But, as a rule, the foreigner who employs the same rickshaw-boy comes to look upon him as a guide, philosopher, and friend. He will tell you where to go and what to do; he knows all the sights, and can tell you all about them. If you go shopping, he will come in and see that you don't get cheated any more than you are bound to be. If you go on an expedition, he will find out the best tea-house to stay at, he will cook for you, wait on you, brush your clothes, put up the paper screens to form your bedroom, take them down again, see that the bill is reasonable, pay it, and fee the servants—in short, he will manage everything, and you have only to admire what you have gone to see.

Wherever you stop on a jaunt, whether it is some famous temple or some lovely park, there is sure to be a coolie's tea-house handy, and he takes the opportunity of refreshing himself. He dives into the well under the seat and fetches out his lacquer box full of rice. He whips the rice into his mouth with chopsticks, and washes it down with the yellow, bitter Japanese tea. Then he sits and smokes his tiny pipe until you are ready to go on.



CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE COUNTRY

The Japanese farmer is one of the steadiest workers in the world; he tills his patch of land, day in, day out, with untiring industry. He works seven days a week, for he knows nothing of the Sabbath, and only takes a day off for a fair or a festival when his land is in perfect order and he is waiting for the crop.

Almost the whole of the land is turned over with the spade, and weeds are kept down until the whole country looks like a neatly-kept garden. Many crops are grown, but the chief of them all is rice, and when the rice crop fails, then vast numbers of people in Japan feel the pinch of famine.

In order to grow rice much water is needed, so the fields are flooded from a river or canal near at hand, and the plants are set in the soft mud. This work is carried out by men or women who wade in slush above their knees, and it is a very dirty and toilsome task. The women tuck their kimonos up, and the men cast theirs aside altogether. After planting, this work in deep slush and clinging mud must be repeated three times in order to clear away the water-weeds which grow thickly around the young rice-plants.

When the rice is nearly ripe the water is drawn off and the fields are dried. The fields are of all sizes and shapes, from a patch of a few square yards up to an acre, and the latter would be considered large. There are no hedges or fences to divide off field from field, for the land is too valuable to permit of such being grown; but the boundaries are well understood, and each farmer knows his own patch.

Another important crop is the plants which are grown for making paper. Paper has a great place in the industries of Japan. It is used everywhere and for almost everything. A Japanese lives in a house largely built of paper, drinks from a paper cup, reads by a paper lantern, writes, of course, on paper, and wraps up his parcels in it, ties up the parcels with paper string, uses a paper pocket-handkerchief, wears a paper cloak and paper shoes and paper hat, holds up a paper umbrella against the sun and the rain, and employs it for a great number of other purposes. He makes more than sixty kinds of paper, and each kind has its own specified use. He can make it so tough that it is almost impossible to tear it, and he can make it waterproof, so that the fiercest rain cannot pass through it.

If your path leads you along the bank of a river you will often see a fisherman at work. He has many ways of catching his prey. He uses a line and hook and the net. In a large stream or pool he may be seen at work with the throwing-net, a clever device.

This net is made in the form of a circle twelve or fourteen feet across, and round the edge of the net heavy sinkers of lead are fastened. The fisherman folds this net over his arm, and then tosses into the water a ball of boiled rice and barley. The fish gather to eat this bait, and then he throws the net in such a way that it falls quite flat upon the water. The leads sink at once to the bottom, and the net covers the feeding fish in the shape of a dome. A strong cord is fastened to the top of the net, and he begins to haul it up. The leads are drawn together by their own weight, and close the bottom of the net, and the fish are imprisoned.

Sometimes he uses bow and arrows. This he does after putting into the water certain fruit and herbs which are very bitter. The juice of these herbs affects the water and drives the fish to the surface, where they leap about in pain. The fisherman shoots them with an arrow to which a cord is attached, and draws them ashore.

As night falls after a hot day, the people and children of the village near at hand will come down to the water-side on a fire-fly hunt. The tiny gleaming creatures now flash along the surface of river and lake, like a myriad of fairy lanterns flitting through the dusk. They are caught and imprisoned in little silken cages. At the bottom of the cage there is a very small mound of earth in which a millet seed has been planted and has sprung up to the height of an inch or more, and beside the little plant there is a tiny bowl of water. Here the firefly will live for several days, to the delight of the children.

Not far from the river is the village, with a brook running down the middle of its street. This brook serves many purposes. The women kneel beside it with sleeves and kimonos tucked up, washing clothes and vegetables, or dipping buckets in it to get water for baths. There is a loud rattle of wooden hammers at various points, for the stream turns a number of small water-wheels, and these work big wooden hammers which pound up the rice placed in a big stump of a tree hollowed out for a mortar. As you stroll along the village street you see what every one is doing, for the fronts of the houses are all open, and you can see into every corner of each dwelling.

Behind the houses tall bamboos shoot up, and the bamboo is welcome, for it is a tree of many uses. Its wood serves for the framework of houses, and its leaves are often used as thatch. It will make a dish, a box, a plate, a bowl, an oar, a channel for conveying water and a vessel for carrying it, a fishing-rod, a flower-vase, a pipe-stem, a barrel-hoop, a fan, an umbrella, and fifty other things, while young bamboo shoots are eaten and considered a great delicacy.

On fine summer evenings, when the work of the day is over, the villagers gather in the court of the village temple for the odori, the open-air dance. The court is decked with big beautiful paper lanterns, but there is a special one called toro (a light in a basket). The toro is often two feet square by five feet high. On one side of it is the name of the god in whose temple court the dance is being held, while the other is reserved for some short poem, written by one of the youths of the village. There is keen competition among them for the honour of writing the poem chosen to be inscribed on the toro, and two of these tiny poems run thus:

"I looked upon the cherry that blooms by the fence, down by the woodman's cottage, And wondered if an untimely snow had fallen upon it."

"Into the evening dew that rolls upon the green blade of the tall-grown grass in Mushashi Meadow The summer moon comes stealthily and takes up her dwelling."

The young men and maidens dance in a ring, circling round one who stands in the midst, from whom they take both the time and music of the many dances performed at the odori. The dancers are always young and unmarried. The older people sit on the steps of the temple and watch the merry frolic with a smile.



CHAPTER XIX

IN THE COUNTRY (continued)

On a wet day in the country the people thatch themselves to keep off the rain. The favourite waterproof of the coolie is a huge cloak made of rice straw, the long ends sticking out. With this and his great umbrella hat he keeps comfortably dry. Those who do not wear a big hat carry a large oiled paper umbrella, which shelters them well.

There is plenty of wet weather in Japan, particularly in the summer, and then travelling is not very pleasant. The good roads become muddy and soft, and the bad roads become sheer quagmires, in which the coolie pulling the rickshaw is continually losing his straw sandals. These sandals, called waraji, mark out the tracks in every direction, for they soon wear out, and are cast off to litter the wayside in their hundreds. They are quickly and cheaply replaced, however, for almost every roadside house sells them, and a pair may be bought for a sen—something less than a halfpenny.

Not only do the men wear straw shoes, but horses are shod in them also, and a very poor and clumsy arrangement it is. The shoes are thick, and are tied on the horse's feet with straw cords. They wear out so fast that a bunch has to be kept hanging to the saddle for use on the way, and in every village a fresh stock has to be secured, at the cost of a penny per set of four.

The foreign visitor who travels through country places in Japan has to submit to being stared at, but nothing more. The people are so interested in a person who looks so different from themselves that they are never tired of watching him and his ways. But otherwise their unfailing politeness remains. They do not crowd upon him, or, if they should come a little too near, they are soon warned off. An English artist, Mr. Alfred Parsons, was once sketching in Japan, and the crowd, anxious to see his work, came a little too near his elbow. He says: "The keeper of a little tea-shop hard by, where I took my lunch, noticed that I was worried by the people standing so close to me, and when I arrived next morning I found that he had put up a fence round the place where I worked. It was only a few slender bamboo sticks, with a thin string twisted from one to another, but not a soul attempted to come inside it. They are such an obedient and docile race that a little string stretched across a road is quite enough to close the thoroughfare."

A familiar figure along the Japanese highways and byways is that of the pilgrim going to see some famous shrine, or, most often of all, marching towards Fujisan, the sacred mountain. The Fuji pilgrim may be known by his garb. He is dressed in white, with white kimono, white socks and gaiters, and straw sandals. He wears a great basin-shaped white hat, and has a rush mat over his shoulders to temper the heat of the sun or shed the rain. Round his neck hangs a string of beads and a bell, which tinkles without ceasing as he goes. He carries a little bundle of spare sandals and a staff with an ornament of paper about its end.

His pilgrimage costs him very little. His food is of the simplest, and he gets a bed at a tea-house for a halfpenny, or he lodges with a villager who offers him hospitality. To entertain his guest the villager will fetch his best furniture from the village godown, for in the country one of these storehouses suffices for a whole hamlet. They are made very large and strong, with many thick coats of mud and plaster on a wooden frame, and with a door of iron or of bronze; then, when the fire, which is sure to come at some time or other, sweeps over the hamlet and leaves it a layer of smoking ashes around the big godown, there are the village treasures still unharmed, and ready to adorn the houses which will spring up again as if by magic.

When bedtime comes, the amado, the wooden shutters, are drawn around the house and securely fastened; for a Japanese dwelling, so open by day, is shut up as tightly as a sealed box by night. Now all is quiet save for the village watchman, whose duty it is to guard against fire and thieves. He marches up and down, beating two pieces of wood together—clop-clop, clop-clop—as he walks. This is to give assurance that he is not asleep himself, but watching over the slumbers of his neighbours, and to let the thieves know that he is looking out for them.



CHAPTER XX

THE POLICEMAN AND THE SOLDIER

The Japanese policeman is, first and foremost, a gentleman. He is a samurai, a man of good family, and therefore deeply respected by the mass of the people. He is often a small man for a Japanese, but though his height may run from four feet ten to five feet nothing, he is a man of much authority. When the samurai were disbanded, there were very few occupations to which they could turn. They disdained agriculture and trade, but numbers of them became servants, printers, and policemen. This seems an odd mixture of tasks, but there are sound reasons for it.

Many samurai became servants because service is an honourable profession in Japan; many became printers because the samurai were an educated class, and the only people fitted to deal with the very complicated Japanese alphabet; and many became policemen because it was a post for which their fighting instinct and their habit of authority well fitted them. Their authority over the people is absolute and unquestioning; and, again, there are sound reasons for this.

Forty years ago the Japanese people could have been divided very sharply into two classes, the ruling and the ruled. The ruling class was formed of the great Princes and the samurai, their followers, about 2,000,000 people in all. The remaining 38,000,000 of the population were the common people, the ruled. Now, in the old days when a Daimio left his castle for a journey, he was borne in a kago, a closed carriage, and was attended by a guard of his samurai. If a common person met the procession, he was expected either to retire quickly from the path or fling himself humbly on his face until the carriage had gone by; if he did not, the samurai whipped out their long swords and slew him in short order, and not a single word was said about it. This way of dealing with those who did not belong to the two-sworded class made the people very respectful to the samurai, and that respect is now transferred to the police.

The Japanese policeman is also to be respected for his skill in wrestling, and, small as he is, the tallest and most powerful foreigner is quite helpless in his hands. He is thoroughly trained in the art of Japanese wrestling—the jiu-jitsu of which we hear so much nowadays. In this system a trained wrestler can seize his opponent in such a manner that the other man is quite at his mercy, or with a slight impetus he can fling the other about as he pleases. One writer speaks of seeing a very small Japanese policeman arrest a huge, riotous Russian sailor, a man much more than six feet high. It seemed a contest between a giant and a child. The sailor made rush after rush at his tiny opponent, but the policeman stepped nimbly aside, waiting for the right moment to grip his man. At last it came. The sailor made a furious lunge, and the policeman seized him by the wrist. To the astonishment of the onlooker, the sailor flew right over the policeman's head, and fell all in a heap more than a dozen feet away. When he picked himself up, confused and half stunned, the policeman tied a bit of string to his belt and led him away in triumph to the station.

The policeman never has any trouble with his own people; they obey at once and without question. If a crowd gathers and becomes a nuisance to anyone, it melts as soon as one of the little men in uniform comes along and gives the order to disperse. He may sometimes be seen lecturing a coolie or rickshaw-boy for some misdeed or other. The culprit, his big hat held between his hands, ducks respectfully at every second word, and looks all humility and obedience.

Being an educated man, he has much sympathy with art and artists, and is delighted to help a foreigner who is painting scenes in Japan. Mr. Mortimer Menpes says: "Altogether I found the policeman the most delightful person in the world. When I was painting a shop, if a passer-by chanced to look in at a window, he would see at a glance exactly what I wanted; and I would find that that figure would remain there, looking in at the shop, as still as a statue, until I had finished my painting; the policeman meanwhile strutting up and down the street, delighted to be of help to an artist, looking everywhere but at my work, and directing the entire traffic down another street."

Of the Japanese soldier there is no need for us to say much here, since the world has so lately been ringing with his praises. The endurance, the obedience, the courage of the Japanese soldier and sailor have been shown in marvellous fashion during the great war with Russia, and Japan has fully proved herself to be one of the greatest of the naval and military Powers of the world.

The Japanese soldier is the result of the family life in Japan. From his infancy he is taught that he has two supreme duties: one of obedience to his parents, the other of service to his country. This unhesitating, unquestioning habit of obedience, a habit which becomes second nature to him, is of immense value to him as a soldier. He is a disciplined man before he enters the ranks, and he transfers at once to his officers the obedience which he has hitherto shown towards the elders of his family.

His second great duty of service to his country also leads him onward towards becoming the perfect soldier. He not only looks upon his life as a thing to be readily risked or given for his Emperor and for Japan, but he strives to make himself a thoroughly capable servant of his land. No detail of his duty is too small for him to overlook, for he fears lest the lack of that detail should prevent him from putting forth his full strength on the day of trial. He cleans a button as carefully as he lays a big gun, and this readiness for any duty, great or small, was a large factor in the wonderful victory of Japan over Russia.

In battle he questions no order. During the late war many Japanese regiments knew that they were being sent to certain death, in order that they might open a way for their comrades. They never flinched. Shouting their "Banzai!"—their Japanese hurrah—the dogged little men rushed forward upon batteries spouting flame and shell, or upon ramparts lined with rifles, and gave their lives freely for Dai Nippon, Great Japan, the country of their birth.



CHAPTER XXI

TWO GREAT FESTIVALS

There are two great Japanese festivals of which we have not yet spoken, but which are of the first importance. One is the New Year Festival, the other is the Bon Matsuri, the Feast of the Dead, in the summer. The New Year Festival is the great Japanese holiday of the year. No one does any work for several days, and all devote themselves to making merry. Although this festival comes in the middle of winter, every street looks like an arbour, decorated as it is with arches of greenery before each house. On either side of each door is a pine-tree and bamboo stems. These signify a hardy old age, and they are joined by a grass rope which runs from house to house along the street. This rope is supposed to prevent evil spirits from entering the houses, and so it ensures the occupants a lucky year. Japanese flags are entwined amid the decorations, and green feathery branches and ferns are set about, until the street looks like a forest.

Japanese people are so polite to each other that even the beggars in the streets bow to each other in the most ceremonious fashion, but at this festival the bowing is redoubled. There is a special form of greeting for this occasion, and not a bow is to be missed when two acquaintances meet.

There is much feasting and a great exchange of presents. The Japanese are always making presents to each other, and there is a prescribed way for every rank of life to make presents to every other rank, and for the manner in which the presents are to be received. A present may always be known by the little gold or red or white paper kite fastened to the paper string which ties up the parcel.

Every one enters into the fun of the time, from the highest to the lowest. They call upon each other; they march in great processions; they visit the gayest and liveliest of fairs; they feast; they drink tea and sake almost without ceasing. The fairs look most striking and picturesque after darkness has fallen. Then the streets and the long rows of white booths made of newly-sawn wood and gaily decorated, are lighted up by innumerable lanterns of every colour that paper can be painted, and of every size, from six inches high to six feet. The crowd wear their gayest kimonos, and the moosmes are brilliant in flowered or striped silks and splendid sashes, and the air is full of the rattle of the shuffling clogs and the tinkling samisen played in almost every booth.

At times the crowd opens to let some procession pass through. Now it is the dragon-dancers, the dragon's head being a huge and terrifying affair made of coloured pasteboard, and carried on a pole draped with a long garment which hides the dancer. In front march two men with drum and fife to herald the dragon's approach. Next comes a batch of coolies dragging a car upon which a swarm of masqueraders present some traditional pageant, and next a number of boys perform an old dance with much spirit and shouting. On New Year's Eve a very curious market is held. It is a custom in Japan for every one to pay all that he owes to his Japanese creditors before the New Year dawns. If he does not do so, he loses his credit. So on the last day of the Old Year the Japanese who is behind in his payments looks among his belongings for something to sell, and carries it to the market in order that he may gain a few sen to settle with his creditor.

In the great city of Tokyo this fair is visited by every traveller. For a space of two miles the stalls stretch along in double rows, lighted by lanterns of oil flares, and here may be seen every imaginable thing which is to be found in poorer Japanese households. As each Japanese arrives with his worldly possessions in a couple of square boxes swinging one at each end of a bamboo pole slung across his shoulder, he takes possession of a little stall or a patch of pavement and sets out his poor wares.

He has brought mats, or cushions, or shabby kimonos, or clogs, or socks, or little ornaments and vessels in porcelain or silver or bronze. Sometimes he brings really beautiful things, the last precious possessions of a family which has come down in the world—a fine piece of embroidery, a priceless bit of lacquer, bronze and silver charms, little boxes of ivory, temples and pagodas and bell-towers in miniature, tiny but perfect in every detail and of the most exquisite workmanship. Everything comes to market on this night of the year.

The Feast of the Dead takes place in the hot summer weather, and is celebrated in different ways in various parts of Japan. Everywhere the children, in their finest clothes, march through the streets in processions, carrying fans and banners and lanterns, and chanting as they march; but most great cities have their own form of celebration.

At Nagasaki the tombs of all those who have died during the past year are illuminated with large bright lanterns on the first night of the celebrations. On the second and third nights all tombs are illuminated, and the burial-grounds are one glorious blaze of many-coloured lights. The avenues leading to the burial-grounds are turned into fair-grounds, with decorations and booths, stalls and tea-houses, each illuminated by many brilliant lanterns. Fires are lighted on the hills, rockets shoot up on every hand, and vast crowds of people gather in the cemeteries to feast and make merry and drink sake in honour of their ancestors, whose spirits they suppose to surround them and be present at the festival. At the end of the feast a very striking scene takes place: the preparations for the departure of the dead.

"But on the third vigil, suddenly, at about two o'clock in the morning, long processions of bright lanterns are seen to descend from the heights and group themselves on the shores of the bay, while the mountains gradually return to obscurity and silence. It is fated that the dead should embark and disappear before twilight. The living have plaited them thousands of little ships of straw, each provisioned with some fruit and a few pieces of money. The frail vessels are charged with all the coloured lanterns which were used for the illumination of the cemeteries; the small sails of matting are spread to the wind, and the morning breeze scatters them round the bay, where they are not long in taking fire. It is thus that the entire flotilla is consumed, tracing in all directions large trails of fire. The dead depart rapidly. Soon the last ship has foundered, the last light is extinguished, and the last soul has taken its departure again from earth."

THE END