week there, and spoke favorably of the Sei-yo-ken, as the hotel is called.



152 THE BOY TRAVELLERS.

It is kept by a Japanese, and all the servants are natives, but they manage
to meet very fairly the wants of the strangers that go there. It was some
time after the opening of Tokio to foreigners before there was any hotel
there, and a visitor was put to great inconvenience. He was compelled to
accept the hospitality of his country's representative. As he generally had
no personal claims to such hospitality, he was virtually an intruder; and if
at all sensitive about forcing himself where he had no business to go, his
position could not be otherwise than embarrassing. The American minis-
ters in the early days were often obliged to keep free boarding-houses, and
even at the present time they are not entirely exempt from intrusions.
Our diplomatic and consular representatives abroad are the victims of a
vast amount of polite fraud, and some very impolite frauds in addition.
It is a sad thing to say, but nevertheless true, that a disagreeably large
proportion of travelling Americans in distant lands make pecuniary raids
on the purses of our representatives in the shape of loans, which they
never repay, and probably never intend to. Another class manages to
sponge its living by quartering at the consular or diplomatic residence,
and making itself as much at home as though it owned everything. There
are many consuls in Europe and Asia who dread the entrance of a strange
countryman into their offices, through the expectation, born of bitter ex-
perience, that the introduction is to be followed by an appeal for a loan,
which is in reality a gift, and can be ill afforded by the poorly paid repre-
sentative.

The next day the party returned to Tokio, but, unfortunately for their
plans, a heavy rain set in and kept them indoors. Japanese life and
manners are so much connected with the open air that a rainy day does
not leave much opportunity for a sight-seer among the people. Finding
the rain was likely to last an indefinite period, they returned to the hotel
at Yokohama. The boys turned their attention to letter-writing, while the
Doctor busied himself with preparations for an excursion to Hakone a
summer resort of foreigners in Japan and possibly an ascent of Fusiyama.
The boys greatly wished to climb the famous mountain ; and as the Doctor
had never made the journey, he was quite desirous of undertaking it,
though, perhaps, he was less keen than his young companions, as he knew
it could only be accomplished with a great deal of fatigue.

The letters were devoted to descriptions of what the party had seen
in their visit to Tokio, and they had a goodly number of comments to
make on the manners and customs of the Japanese. Frank declared that he
had never seen a more polite people than the Japanese, and then he added
that he had never seen any other people outside of his own country, and



A TALE OF TAILLESS CATS.



153



therefore his judgment might not be worth much. Fred had been greatly
impressed with his discovery that the babies of Japan do not cry, and he
suggested that the American babies would do well to follow the example of
the barbarian children. Then, too, he was much pleased with the respect
the children showed for their parents, and he thought the parents were
very fond of their children, if he were to judge by the great number of
games that were provided for the amusement of the little folks. He de-
scribed what he had seen in the temple at Asakusa, and in other parts of
Tokio, and enclosed a picture of a Japanese father seated with his children,
the one in his arms, and the other clinging to his knee, and forming an in-
terestino- scene.




FATHER AND CHILDREN.



Frank had made a discovery about the cats of Japan, and carefully
recorded it in his letter as follows :

" There are the funniest cats in this country that you ever saw. They
have the shortest kind of tails, and a good many of them haven't any tails
at all any more than a rabbit. You know we expect every kitten in
America to play with her tail, and what can she do when she has no tail
to play with ? I think that must be the reason why the Japanese cats are



154 THE BOY TRAVELLERS.

so solemn, and why they won't play as our cats do. I have tried to find
out how it all happens, but nobody can tell. Doctor Bronson says the kit-
tens are born without tails, and that is all he knows about it. I think they
must be a different kind of cat from ours ; but, apart from the absence of
tails, they don't look any way dissimilar. Somebody says that an American
once took one of these tailless cats to San Francisco as a curiosity, and
that it would never make friends with any long-tailed cat. It would spit
and scratch, and try to bite off the other cat's tail ; but one day, when they
put it with a cat whose tail had been cut off by a bad boy, it was friendly
at once."

Fred wanted ever so much to send home a goldfish with a very wide
and beautiful tail. The fish didn't seem to be much unlike a common
goldfish, except in the tail, which was triple, and looked like a piece of
lace. As it swam around in the water, especially when the sun was shining
on the globe, its tail seemed to have nearly as many colors as the rainbow,
and both the boys were of opinion that no more beautiful fish was ever
seen. But the proposal to send it to America was rather dampened by
the statement of the Doctor that the experiment had been tried several
times, and only succeeded in a very few instances. Almost all the fish
died on the voyage over the Pacific ; and even when they lived through
that part of the trip, the overland journey from San Francisco to the At-
lantic coast generally proved too much for them. The Japanese name for
this fish is kin-giyo, and a pair of them may be bought for ten cents. It
is said that a thousand dollars were offered for the first one that ever
reached New York alive, which is a large advance on the price in Yoko-
hama.

The Japanese dogs were also objects of interest to our young friends,
though less so than the cats and the goldfish. They have several varieties
of dogs in Japan, some of them being quite without hair, while others
have very thick coats. The latter are the most highly prized, and the
shorter their noses, the more valuable they are considered. Fred found a
dog, about the size of a King Charles spaniel, that had a nose only half an
inch long. He was boasting of his discovery, when Frank pointed out
one that had less than a third of an inch. Then the two kept on the hunt
for the latest improvement in dogs, as Frank expressed it, and they finally
found one that had no nose at all. The nostrils were set directly in the
end of the little fellow's head, and his under-jaw was so short that the
operations of barking and eating were not very easy to perform. In spite
of the difficult}' of barking, he made a great deal of noise when the boys
attempted to examine him, and he gave Frank to understand in the most



JAPANESE UMBRELLAS.



155



practical way that a noseless dog can bite. As they walked away from the
shop where they found him, he kept up a continual snarling, which led to
the remark by Fred that a noseless dog was very far from noiseless.

As they had been kept in by the rain, Frank thought he could n6t do
better than send to his sister a Japanese picture of a party caught in a
rain-storm. He explained that the rain in Japan was quite as wet as in any
other country, and that umbrellas were just as necessary as at home. He
added that the Japanese umbrellas were made of paper, and kept the rain
off very well, but they did not last a long time. You could buy one for
half a dollar, and a very pretty one it was, and it spread out farther than
the foreign umbrella did. The sticks were of bamboo, and they were
covered with several thicknesses of oiled paper carefully dried in the sun.
They were very much used, since nearly everybody carried an umbrella,
in fair weather as well as in foul ; if the umbrella was not needed against
the rain, it was useful to keep off the heat of the sun, which was very se-
vere in the middle of the day.

The letters were ready in season for the mail for America, and in due
time they reached their destination and carried pleasure to several hearts.
It was evident that the boys were enjoying themselves, and at the same
time learning much about the strange country they had gone to see.




CAUGHT IN THK RAIN.



156 THE BOY TRAVELLERS.



CHAPTER XI.

AN EXCURSION TO DAI-BOOTS AND ENOSHIMA.

A FAVORITE resort of the foreign residents of Yokohama during
the summer months is the island of Enoshima. It is about twenty
miles away, and is a noted place of pilgrimage for the Japanese, on ac-
count of certain shrines that are reputed to have a sacred character. Doc-
tor Bronson arranged that his party should pay a visit to this island, as it
was an interesting spot, and they could have a glimpse of Japanese life in
the rural districts, and among the fishermen of the coast.

They went thither by jin-riki-shas, and arranged to stop on the way to
see the famous bronze statue of Dai-Boots, or the Great Buddha. This
statue is the most celebrated in all Japan, as it is the largest and finest in
every way. Frank had heard and read about it ; and when he learned
from the Doctor that they were to see it on their way to Enoshima, he
ran straightway to Fred to tell the good news.

"Just think of it, Fred," said he, "we are to see a statue sixty feet
high, all of solid bronze, and a very old one it is, too."

" Sixty feet isn't so very much," Fred answered. " There are statues
in Europe a great deal larger."

" But they were not made by the Japanese, as this one was," Frank
responded, "and they are statues of figures standing erect, while this rep-
resents a sitting figure. A sitting figure sixty feet high is something you
don't see every day."

Fred admitted that there might be some ground for Frank's enthusi-
asm, and, in fact, he was not long in sharing it, and thinking it was a very
good thing that they were going to Enoshima. and intending to see Dai-
Boots on the way.

At the appointed time they were off. They went through the foreign
part of Yokohama, and through the native quarter, and then out upon the
Tokaido. The boys were curious to see the Tokaido, and when they
reached it they asked the Doctor to halt the jin-riki-shas, and let them
press their feet upon the famous work of Japanese road-builders. The



JAPANESE RURAL SCENE-HULLING RICE.



157






_.




158 THE BOY TRAVELLERS.

halt was made, and gave a few minutes' rest to the men that were drawing
them, and from whose faces the perspiration was running profuselj'.

The Tokaido, or eastern road, is the great highway that connects Kioto
with Tokio the eastern capital with the western one. There is some ob-
scurity in its history, but there is no doubt of its antiquity. It has been
in existence some hundreds of years, and has witnessed many and many a
princely procession, and many a display of Oriental magnificence. It was
the road by which the Daimios of the western part of the empire made
their journeys to Tokio in the olden days, and it was equally the route by
which the cortege of the Shogoon went to Kioto to render homage to the
Mikado. It is a well-made road ; but as it was built before the days of
wheeled carriages, and when a track where two men could ride abreast
was all that was considered requisite, it is narrower than most of us would-
expect to find it. In many places it is not easy for two carriages to pass
without turning well out into the ditch, and there are places on the great
route where the use of wheeled vehicles is impossible. But in spite of
these drawbacks it is a fine road, and abounds in interesting sights.

Naturally the Tokaido is a place of activity, and in the ages that have
elapsed since it was made many villages have sprung into existence along
its sides. Between Yokohama and Tokio there is an almost continuous
hedge of these villages, and there are places where you may ride for miles
as along a densely filled street. From Tokio the road follows the shore
of the bay until near Yokohama, when it turns inland ; but it comes to
or near the sea again in several places, and affords occasional glimpses of
the great water. For several years after the admission of foreigners to Ja-
pan the Tokaido gave a great deal of trouble to the authorities, and figured
repeatedly in the diplomatic history of the government. The most noted
of these affairs was that in which an Englishman named Richardson was
killed, and the government was forced to pay a heavy indemnity in conse-
quence. A brief history of this affair may not be without interest, as it
will illustrate the difficulties that arose in consequence of a difference of
national customs.

Under the old laws of Japan it was the custom for the Daimios to
have a very complete right of way whenever their trains were out upon
the Tokaido or any other road. If any native should ride or walk into a
Daimio's procession, or even attempt anything of the kind, he would be
put to death immediately by the attendants of the prince. This was the
invariable rule, and had been in force for hundreds of years. When the
foreigners first came to Yokohama, the Daimios' processions were fre-
quently on the road ; and, as the strangers had the right to go into the



HOW MR. RICHARDSON WAS KILLED.



159




A PARTY ON THE TOKAIDO.



country, and consequently to ride on the Tokaido, there was a constant
fear that some of them would ignorantly or wilfully violate the ancient
usages and thus lead the Daimios' followers to use their swords.

Things were in this condition when one day (September 14th, 1862)
the procession of Shimadzu Saburo, father of the last Daimio of Satsuma,
was passing along the Tokaido on its way from the capital to the western
part of the empire. Through fear of trouble in case of an encounter with
the train of this prince, the authorities had previously requested foreign-
ers not to go upon the Tokaido that day; but the request was refused, and
a party of English people three gentlemen and a lady embraced the
opportunity to go out that particular afternoon to meet the prince's train.
Two American gentlemen were out that afternoon, and encountered the
same train ; they politely turned aside to allow the procession to pass, and
were not disturbed.

When the English party met the train, the lady and one of the gentle-
men suggested that they should stand at the side of the road, but Mr.
Richardson urged his horse forward and said, " Come on ; I have lived
fourteen years in China, and know how to manage these people." He
rode into the midst of the procession, and was followed by the other gen-
tlemen, or partially so ; the lady, in her terror, remained by the side of the
road, as she had wished to do at the outset. The guards construed the
movements of Mr. Richardson as a direct insult to their master, and fell
upon him with their swords. The three men were severely wounded.
Mr. Richardson died in less than half an hour, but the others recovered.
The lady was not harmed in any way. On the one hand, the Japanese



100 THE BOY TRAVELLERS.

were a proud, haughty race who resented an insult to their prince, and
punished it according to Japanese law and custom. On the other, the
foreigners had the technical right, in accordance with the treaty, to go
upon the Tokaido ; but they offered a direct insult to the people in whose
country they were, and openly showed their contempt for them. A little
forbearance, and a willingness to avoid trouble by refraining from visiting
the Tokaido, as requested by the Japanese authorities, would have pre-
vented the sad occurrence.

As a result of this affair, the Japanese government was compelled to
pay a hundred thousand pounds sterling to the family of Mr. Richardson,
or submit to the alternative of a war with England. In addition to this,
the city of Kagoshima, the residence of the Prince of Satsuma, was bom-
barded, the place reduced to ashes, forts, palaces, factories, thrown into
ruins, and thousands of buildings set on fire by the shells from the British
fleet. Three steamers belonging to the Prince of Satsuma were captured,
and the prince was further compelled to pay an additional indemnity of
twenty-live thousand pounds. The loss of life in the affair has never been
made known by the Japanese, but it is certain to have been very great.
It would not be surprising if the Japanese should entertain curious no-
tions of the exact character of the Christian religion, when such acts are
perpetrated by the nations that profess it. The blessings of civilization
have been wafted to them in large proportion from the muzzles of can-
non ; and the light of Western diplomacy has been, all too frequently, from
the torch of the incendiary.

But we must not forget our boys in our dissertation on the history of
foreign intervention in Japan. In fact, they were not forgotten in it, as
they heard the story from the Doctor's lips, and heard a great deal more
besides. The Doctor summarized his opinion of the way the Japanese
had been treated by foreigners somewhat as follows :

" The Japanese had been exclusive for a long time, and wished to con-
tinue so. They had had an experience of foreign relations two hundred
years ago, and the result had well-nigh cost them their independence. It
was unsatisfactory, and they chose to shut themselves up and live alone.
If we wanted to shut up the United States, and admit no foreigners
among us, we should consider it a matter of great rudeness if they forced
themselves in, and threatened to bombard us -when we refused them ad-
mittance. We were the first to poke our noses into Japan, when we sent
Commodore Perry here with a fleet. The Japanese tried their best to
induce us to go away and let them alone, but we wouldn't go. We stood
there with the copy of the treaty in one hand, and had the other resting



LORD ELGIN AND THE JAPANESE COMMISSIONERS.



161




11



162



THK HOY TRAVELLERS.



on a cannon charged to the muzzle and read} r to fire. "We said, ' Take the
one or the other; sign a treaty of peace and good-will and accept the
blessings of civilization, or we will blow you so high in the air that the
pieces won't come down for a week.' Japan was convinced when she
saw that resistance would be useless, and quite against her wishes she
entered the family of nations. We opened the way and then England
followed, and then came the other nations. We have done less robbing
and bullying than England has, in our intercourse with Japan, and the
Japanese like us better in consequence. But if it is a correct principle
that no man should be disturbed so long as he does not disturb any one
else, and does no harm, the outside nations had no right to interfere with
Japan, and compel her to open her territory to them."

This conversation occurred while they were halted under some ven-
erable shade-trees by the side of the Tokaido, and were looking at the
people that passed. Every few minutes they saw groups varying from
two to six or eight persons, very thinly clad, and having the appearance of
wayfarers with a small stock of money, or none at all. The Doctor ex-
plained that these men were pilgrims on their way to holy places some

of them were doubtless bound for
Enoshima, some for Hakone, and
some for the great mountain
which every now and then the
turns in the road revealed to the
eyes of the travellers. These pil-
grimages have a religious charac-
ter, and are made by thousands of
persons every year. One mem-
ber of a party usually carries a
small bell, and as they walk along
its faint tinkle gives notice of
their religious character, and prac-
tically warns others that they are
not commercially inclined, as they
are without more money than is
actually needed for the purposes
of their journey. They wear broad hats to protect them from the sun,
and their garments, usually of white material, are stamped with mystic
characters to symbolize the particular divinity in whose honor the journey
is made.

Tillage after village was passed by our young adventurers and their




FILGK1MS OX THK KOAO.



JAPANESE HARVEST SCENE.



163



older companion, and many scenes of Japanese domestic life were un-
folded to their eyes. At one place some men were engaged in removing
the hulls from freshly gathered rice. The grain was in large tubs, made
of a section of a tree hollowed out, and the labor was performed by beating
the grain with huge mallets. The process was necessarily slow, and re-
quired a great deal of patience. This mode of hulling rice has been in
use in Japan for hundreds of years, and will probably continue for hun-
dreds of years to come in spite of the improved machinery that is being
introduced by foreigners. Rice is the principal article of food used in




THRESHING ORAIN.



Japan, and many people have hardly tasted anything else in the whole
course of their lives. The opening of the foreign market has largely in-
creased the cost of rice ; and in this way the entrance of Japan into the
family of nations has brought great hardships upon the laboring classes.
It costs three times as much for a poor man to support his family as it did
before the advent of the strangers, and there has not been a corresponding
advance in wages. Life for the coolie was bad enough under the old form
of government, and he had much to complain of. His condition has not
been bettered by the new order of things, according to the observation
of impartial foreigners who reside in Yokohama and other of the open
ports.

About ten miles out from Yokohama the party turned from the To-
kaido, and took a route through the fields. They found the track rather
narrow in places ; and on one occasion, when they met a party in jin-riki-
shas, it became necessary to step to the ground to allow the vehicles to be
lifted around. Then, too, there had been a heavy rain the storm that
cut short their visit to Tokio ; and in some places the road had been



164



THE BOY TRAVELLERS.



washed out so that they were obliged to walk around the breaks. Their
journey was consequently somewhat retarded; but they did not mind
the detention, and had taken such an early start that they had plenty of
time to reach Enoshima before dark. They met groups of Japanese peas-
ants returning home from their work; and in every instance the latter
made way for the strangers, and stood politely by the roadside as the man-
power carriages went rolling by. Frank wanted to make sketches of some
of the groups, and was particularly attracted by a woman who was carry-
ing a teapot in one hand and a small roll or bundle under her other arm.

By her side walked a man
carrying a couple of buck-
ets slung from a pole, after
the fashion so prevalent
in Japan and China. He
steadied the pole with his
hands, and seemed quite in-
different to the presence of
the foreigners. Both were
dressed in loosely fitting
garments, and their feet
were shod with sandals of
straw. The Japanese san-
dal is held in place by two
thongs that start from near
the heel on each side and
come together in front.
The wearer inserts the
thong between the great
toe and its neighbor. When
he is barefooted this oper-
ation is easily performed ;
and, in order to accommo-
date his stockinged feet to
the sandal, the Japanese

stocking has a separate place for the " thumb-toe," as one of them called
the largest of his " foot-fingers." The foot of the Japanese stocking closely
resembles the mitten of America, which young women in certain locali-
ties are said to present to discarded admirers.

The road wound among the fields where the rice was growing luxu-
riantly, and where now and then they found beans and millet, and other




PEASANT AND HIS WIFE RETURNING FROM THE FIELD.




RURAL SCKNERY IN JAPAN. 1G5

products of Japanese agriculture. The
cultivation was evidently of the most
careful character, as the fields were cut
here and there with little channels for
irrigation ; and there were frequent de-
posits of fertilizing materials, whose char-
acter was apparent to the nose before it A JAPANE8K SANDAL .
was to the eye. In some places, where

the laborers were stooping to weed the plants, there was little more of them
visible than their broad sun-hats ; and it did not require a' great stretch of
the imagination to believe they were a new kind of mushroom from Brob-
dingnagian gardens. Hills like sharply rounded cones rose from each side
of the narrow valley they were descending ; and the dense growth of wood