CHAPTER XV

Mythological Plays—Japanese Theatres—The Forty-seven Rônins—Flower Festivals.

Amongst the most interesting of my early experiences in Japan were visits to two varieties of theatres, first to a mythological drama called the Nô, in connection with a military religious festival at the Imperial or Shinto temple, in memory of the soldiers who were killed in quelling the Satsuma rebellion. First the troops, and then what appeared an interminable procession of police, all in foreign uniform, marched by, paused a moment before the temple, and passed on.

(The sum and substance of Shinto worship is simply homage to all ancestors, and to the Emperor in particular in the person of his great ancestress, the sun-goddess, who is represented by a circular mirror of polished metal, and by one or more beautiful globes of pure crystal laid on the altar. Straw ropes, and curiously cut out strips of white paper called _gohei_, and the peculiar sort of gateway called _torii_, are the only other symbols in this cold system. The temples are all of plain, uncoloured wood, with thatched roof of a simple form intended to represent a tent.)

(Including small shrines in the forests, there are said to be ninety-eight thousand Shinto temples in Japan; but this worship of their ancestors does not lessen the homage done to thousands of revered things and persons, who are figuratively described as “the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods, and the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated temples in all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands.”)

From the temple we adjourned to the open space facing the theatre, where, under a grilling sun, a Nô play was being acted gratis for the military. We were told that it was a drama of the fifteenth century, all about semi-deified heroes. We endured it as long as possible, but were not sorry when we could courteously retire to luncheon.

Hitherto these Nô have been the only plays at which nobles and ladies might be present, the ordinary drama being considered essentially the amusement of the people. But the Nô being religious plays, all of a mythological character, have always been highly esteemed, and nobles of the highest rank built theatres within their own palaces, where they themselves were the actors in these classical operas, which represent such scenes as the sun-goddess being lured from her cave, or the various appearances of the gods in human form. Doubtless to the educated Japanese these plays are as attractive as severely classical music is to the true musician among ourselves, but to the uninitiated they certainly appear exceedingly dull.

I am told that many of these are beautiful ancient poems, and as such are familiar to the audience, but to a foreigner, even if he be a classical student, they are very difficult reading, and when delivered on the stage in a shrill, high pitched and very nasal intonation, with an accompaniment of many discordant classical instruments, they are positively unintelligible.

The acting is at once stilted and grotesque, the actors being disguised by hideous wigs and masks of lacquered wood. The latter are venerable relics which have been preserved for many generations, each in its own silken cover, and the dresses are old court-robes of richest gold and silver embroidered silk brocade.

I found the ordinary theatre very much more interesting just for once.

Going to the play in Japan is a very serious matter, as the performance begins at 6 or 7 A.M., and continues till 6 or 7 P.M. So the women and children are awake half the night dressing their hair, and painting and otherwise gilding the lily. Long before dawn they must breakfast in order to reach the theatre in time to see the quaint old dances, which are performed just before sunrise, and represent strange scenes in the lives of the gods and heroes, ogres and apes.

At the earliest glimmer of day the gay theatre street is thronged with crowds of pleasure-seekers from town and country, eager to miss no fragment of the play. The _mis-en-scène_ is excellent; appropriate scenery and beautiful dresses, and to avoid long pauses, the stage itself revolves, and you watch a scene of battle and murder disappear, to be replaced on the instant by some elaborate court pageant.

This is a great advance on the early form of the drama, as I have seen it performed by Tamil actors at Trincomalee, where a circular stage of the rudest description was erected in the centre of a grassy plain; we, the spectators, sat all round, and the magnificently dressed actors played each scene four times over, that each section of their audience might have a good view.

That primitive theatre on the grass was recalled to my mind on being told that the Japanese name for the theatres is Shiba-i, which means “the turf-plot,” and recalls the early days when religious dances and dramas were first invented and performed on the smooth grass before the temples.

There are no actresses in China or Japan; all female parts are taken by men, excellently got up, and their parts are often admirably rendered. A first-rate male actress is a highly popular person, and receives such ovations as might rejoice the _prima-donna_ of our own stage; but to our ears their painfully artificial elocution, and the shrill falsetto voice which they assume, is very jarring, especially as there is the accompaniment of a lugubrious and doleful orchestra. But to me all Japanese music is trying—you never hear a deep chest-note, only squeaky throat-sounds, the more tremulous the better, and the accompaniments are twanging and discordant.

The theatre street is very conspicuous, all the neighbouring houses being gay with red paper lanterns at nights, and by day tall banners with inscriptions on bright ground flutter from bamboos higher than the roof. The interior of the building has a gallery, and what we should call the pit is divided into square boxes, each to hold a family party sitting on the matted floor. There they can have their tiny _hibachi_, or charcoal stove, and smoke, or drink tea, and eat cakes. Those who really want their money’s worth stay the whole day, and have their three meals and _entre-mets_ sent in from the tea-houses all round, so there is incessant carrying of tea-pots and food-trays, fire-boxes and pipes.

The friend who engaged a box for me had kindly sent his servant and family to occupy it since early morning, for fear of any mistake. They sat on the mats till our arrival, when chairs were brought in for us. At the outer door lay a huge pile of sandals and clogs, and the people hunt out their own each time they go in or out.

As we entered, a nice old lady, bent double, was being helped out; her son took her on his back and carried her downstairs. There were a number of very pretty girls in the house, with well-brushed hair, but all very quietly dressed, chiefly in grey or dove-coloured robes, with only a touch of bright colour at the open neck and sash, so that with no light save that of the grey autumn afternoon, the theatre looked very dingy till about 5 P.M., when two chandeliers were lighted.

We arrived at the middle of the great piece, when a beautiful girl was pleading for her father’s life before a Buddhist priest, who related his own love-story ere he became a priest. Then the prisoners were sentenced—their arms bound, and they were led out to execution. The curtain fell, and the audience feasted on tiny dainties and sips of tea or _saki_.

Then, lest people should weary of one story going on so long without a break, a new short play in two acts was produced. A Daimio has adopted the child of a previous Mikado. On the reigning Mikado hearing of this, he sends a messenger to demand the boy’s head. (Bitter anguish of all concerned.) The Daimio’s chief retainer and his wife, in the intensity of their loyalty, resolve to give the head of their own beloved son, a charming, winsome, coaxing child, who quite enters into the situation, comforts his parents, tells them how glad he is to be able to make them an offering of his head. (Applause tremendous!) The father then tries to cut off the head of his own boy, but cannot. (Agony of all—this was very fine acting.) Finally the head is brought in in a wooden-box and presented to the messenger, who, seeing it, suspects the fraud. Then the extraordinary couple produce the real prince as their own child, and of course he is recognised, but the messenger greatly applauds their loyalty, and gives a receipt as if for the prince’s head.

Again the curtain falls, and the first play is resumed in scenes apparently quite unconnected. _Scene_—A tea-house beside _toriis_ leading to a Shinto temple. An old man, poor and weary, hobbles in, leaning on a little child, and faints from exhaustion. He had been robbed by the man who had set up this tea-house with ill-gotten wealth. Then the whole stage revolved on a pivot, at once displaying a new scene. Coolies getting rather drunk at a saki-shop. Again the whole stage revolved, showing another scene, and so on till evening.

Funny little imps clothed in black, even their faces being veiled in black crape, are supposed to be invisible, and creep about changing the stage-furniture, or holding a curtain before dead men to enable them to slip away. At night they hold lights before the faces of the principal actors that all may see their play of feature. These are conventionally got up, the eyes of nobles and high-caste ladies being painted to look long (the much-admired almond-shape), and as if eyes and eye-brows slanted up from nose to temple. The scenery is throughout of the very simplest, but it answers its purpose well.

I must not allow myself even a brief summary of our daily enchanting expeditions, exploring curio-shops and temples, cemeteries and gardens, always under most able guidance of various very kind, experienced residents. I can only say they were bewildering in their variety, their beauty, and their interest. We lingered long in many gorgeous Buddhist temples, and specially noted how here (as wherever else I have come across modern Buddhism) it incorporates every conceivable variety of gods and goddesses, as well as rendering divine honour to Buddha himself, which was the last thing that good teacher of unaided perfection ever desired.

Specially attractive to the people is the image of Binzuro, the kind god of medicine. All who are afflicted with any sort of pain come and rub the seat of suffering on the image, and then rub their own poor body. The head, feet, and stomach of the image at Asakusa, originally coated with brown lacquer, have been so persistently rubbed that much of the bare wood is now exposed. Another very popular idol is Daikoku, the god of wealth, a most jovial-looking person, one of the seven gods of good-fortune. Naturally he is for ever receiving incense and offerings, and his image has a place in almost all domestic shrines.

Asakusa is dedicated to Kwan-non, the kind thousand-armed goddess of mercy, but she here shares her honours with so many other deities that I did not realise her individuality till we visited another temple (rather near Seido, which is a most beautiful old Confucian temple, all in solemn black and gold lacquer). In that temple a gigantic gilt figure of the goddess Kwan-non occupies the centre, and along the walls, right up into the tower, are ranged rows and rows of gilt images of her, numbering a thousand! All have many arms, and some have several heads growing out of the original head, because the goddess owns eleven faces as well as a thousand arms.

Afterwards I saw many of her temples, one of the most remarkable being at Sanju-San-gen-Do, in Kioto, which is said to contain 33,333 gilt images of her, but that is counting all the heads. There is one large sitting figure of her eighteen feet high, and one thousand images, each five feet high, all carved by celebrated artists in wood, and it is said that no two images have their arms and the objects held by them arranged alike!

(Just before visiting that wonderful homage to “mercy,” I had halted to sketch a quaint relic-shrine on a mound called Mimi-dzuka, in which were buried five thousand pairs of ears cut from the heads of the Koreans slain by the Japanese in the year 1592, and brought back by the victorious general to be laid at the feet of the Emperor Hideyoshi!)

Among the endless varieties of quaint shows at Asakusa, one of the most curious is a representation of many of the most noted miracles wrought by Kwan-non. Admirably modelled life-sized figures are arranged in groups, each of which recalls some signal deliverance of her worshippers in the hour of danger. One poor fellow was assaulted by robbers and thrown into the river, whence he was happily brought up in a fishermen’s net, and the presence of a small image of Kwan-non in his long sleeve-pocket brought him back to life. Another group recalls the reward of a kindly man who bought a tortoise which was about to be killed and eaten. He restored it to the waters, and three days later, when his child fell into the sea, it was saved by the grateful tortoise, who swam ashore with the little innocent on its back.

Another instance of gratitude for life thus preserved is that of a girl who saved the life of a crab, and afterwards, when she was in deadly peril from a snake in human form, a legion of crabs summoned by Kwan-non came to her rescue, and conquered the monster. Quaintest of all is a group descriptive of a man enduring torture from headache, to whom it was miraculously revealed that the root of a tree was growing through the socket of the eye of the skull which was his in a previous incarnation. On searching the place indicated, he found the root splitting the skull, and on clearing it away, the pain subsided.

The temple grounds at Asakusa contain a concentrated essence of everything most remarkable in the worship and amusements of the people—it is a daily wonderful fair, and, however often the oldest resident goes there, he always finds something he had not seen before. So what would be the good of attempting to describe it?

But there is one oft-told tale which I cannot forbear telling, in case it may be new to some one, because, although it is almost the first story impressed on every traveller in Japan, I never in subsequent wanderings heard any other quite so characteristic of that wonderful old chivalry which in these aspects has so happily passed away. It is the story which was told to me in the great cemetery at Sen-gaku-ji, “the Temple of the Spring,” one corner of which attracts pilgrims from all parts of Japan, for here are the tombs of the forty-seven Rônins, who, about two hundred years ago, devoted their lives in the most approved manner to accomplish vengeance for their dead master. They were the followers of Takumi-no-Kami, who, under gross provocation, was guilty of striking Kôtsuké-no-Suké, an officer of the Imperial court, within the precincts of the palace.

For this offence he was sentenced to perform _hara kiri_—his castle was confiscated, and his retainers became Rônins (literally wave-men, so called because, having no master, they are tossed about like waves of a troubled sea). But forty-seven of these faithful adherents determined to avenge their master’s death. The story of all they underwent during the long months of patient waiting while they strove to disarm the suspicions of Kôtsuké and his followers, forms a long and highly popular romance, full of details which to us seem scarcely praiseworthy, but which are strongly characteristic of the strange code of honour of Japan.

After unheard of sacrifices, their plan ripened, and with careful heed of every chivalric detail, the forty-seven Rônins surprised the palace of Kôtsuké, and, after a furious fight, succeeded in reaching his sleeping-room. They found him hiding in a courtyard, dressed in a white satin sleeping-robe, and falling on their knees before him, they most respectfully besought him to perform _hara kiri_ and die the death of a noble man, their leader offering to act as his second and cut off his head in due form. But, being a low-minded churl, he could not summon courage for this manly form of suicide, but crouched trembling before them. At last, seeing their courtesy was vain, they apologised for the liberty they were obliged to take, and having slain him, they cut off his head and placed it in a bucket and departed, carefully extinguishing all lights, lest perchance a fire might break out and damage innocent neighbours.

Then they came to the monastery of Sen-ga-kuji, where their lord was buried. The abbot met them at the gate and led them to the tomb, where they laid the head as an offering, after they had washed it. Then they all burned incense, and having presented to the abbot all the money they had with them, they prayed him to have masses sung for their souls, when they should have performed _hara kiri_. So, when the sentence of the Imperial Court was pronounced, these brave men were ready to carry it out, and having died nobly, they were all buried round the tomb of their master.

Then the people came to pray at their honoured graves. But one man (who had mistrusted and insulted one of them during the time when they were striving to disarm the suspicions of Kôtsuké) was filled with such agony of remorse that he came to his grave to implore forgiveness, and then offered atonement by performing _hara kiri_ on the spot. So the pitying priests buried him with the faithful Rônins, and this is the reason there are now forty-eight graves, each adorned with its little offerings of flowers and incense-sticks, oft renewed by pious hands.

In the temple close by, statues of the forty-seven Rônins, carved in wood and lacquered, are ranged around the gilded image of the Goddess of Mercy. They are all different, and represent men ranging from sixteen to seventy years of age. The tattered garments and rusty old armour of the Rônins are reverently preserved, together with the documents they had drawn up for their own guidance. The well in which the head was washed is likewise held in honour.

It does seem a curious anomaly that a nation naturally so warlike as the Japanese should also be so delightfully simple in their enjoyments. Surely no other race is so emphatically gifted with the poet-mind of childhood. Nothing is lost on these imaginative people. The changeful glories of storm and sunshine, of varying autumn-tints, of pale, beautiful blossoms, are each embodied poems in which they rejoice, and which they are for ever seeking to render in words—hence the couplets and verses inscribed on paper, wood, or stone, whatever material comes handy to the poet.

To the Japanese people the course of the seasons is marked by the blossoming of different flowers, and each in turn becomes a reason for holding festival and making holiday. Scarcely have the snows of January quite vanished ere the leafless plum-trees are covered with such rich blossom as might almost be mistaken for a fresh snowfall. Straightway the citizens make up pleasure-parties and expeditions to the neighbouring plum-gardens, where beneath the blossoming trees are placed most inviting raised platforms covered with seats, where they can lounge to their hearts’ content and compose verses in praise of the spring, the blue sky, or the plum-blossoms, which verses they then write with a paint-brush on strips of soft paper, and fasten them to the boughs in graceful homage. Of course there are the invariable surroundings of joyous, gaily-dressed children and women of all ages, and pretty little attendants to keep up the supply of sweetmeats and tea.

Hardly is the plum-blossom festival over, when all the peach trees burst into flower, and their delicate rose-colour calls for more holidays and more poems. Next and loveliest of all come the rich masses of double cherry-blossom, its snowy petals just tipped with pink. This is the season of seasons, with which none other can compare. The whole city makes holiday, for even the most poverty-stricken contrive for a while to forget their cares in such an atmosphere of delight.

There are various gardens specially celebrated for their cherry-blossoms, and early in April each of these is visited by crowds of happy people in their gayest dresses. But the concentrated essence of delight is to be found at Mukojima, on the further bank of Sumidagawa (which is a river as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and crossed by about as many bridges). Here there is an avenue two miles long of most beautiful cherry-trees, beneath which the crowd of poets dream blissfully and gather their inspiration from ever-falling showers of pale petals. Then they betake them to one of the pretty garden-houses, where they gain further inspiration from drinking some decoction flavoured with cherry-blossom, and under its cheering influence their poetic thoughts take form, and are committed to paper and then entwined among the blossoms, as the reverent homage of devoted lovers.

As the twilight deepens, thousands of gay paper lanterns glow among the foliage, giving a soft, coloured light, and producing a most fairy-like effect. Feasting of a most æsthetic kind is indulged in, with occasional accompaniment of strange instruments and songs, and then the happy holiday-makers return to their pleasure-boats and row homewards in the clear, beautiful moonlight.

When joyous April gives place to May, and all the cherry-blossoms have floated away like some dream of ethereal loveliness, then a new flower-queen reigns for a little season. This time it is the exquisite lilac wistaria which holds sway over the hearts of the people.[63] It differs from the wistaria of our gardens in that instead of bearing its blossoms in short, thick bunches like grapes, these are scattered more sparsely, and hang in long graceful clusters, some of which actually exceed a yard in length. Lady Parkes assured me that she had seen some of these which were about five feet in length! On such clusters as these each pale lilac blossom shows separately, hence no flower that blows finds such favour with the artists, whether on paper, porcelain, or lacquer, as does this beautiful fuji (it bears the same name as the Holy Mountain).

The fuji plants are trained to grow closely over a roof of trellis-work, through which the drooping clusters hang in profusion; and beneath this lovely canopy are set the soft mats which invite all comers to lie in the pleasant shade and rejoice in the tender golden, green, and lilac hues of the tremulous leaves and blossoms. I need scarcely say that the fuji receives its full share of poetic utterances from enthusiastic admirers, so that by the end of the season there flutter from its boughs thousands of paper strips or even wooden tablets, most puzzling to the uninitiated.

The most celebrated wistarias of Tokio are in the grounds of the temple of Kameido (literally the tortoise-well), where, in addition to such ecclesiastical sights as the marble ox and the stable containing the white wooden horses, there is a highly ornamental artificial lake, spanned by a very curiously curved bridge. A bamboo trellis-work has been constructed over part of the lake, and the wistaria has been so trained as completely to cover the framework, whence the long blossoms droop till they almost touch the heads of the happy groups who establish themselves on matted floors built out over the lake.

The wistaria is succeeded by gorgeous azaleas, and another flower, which seems to us far more prosaic, namely, the peony. Certainly peonies as grown here are magnificent, and inspire many an artistic painting. And then come the irises, which are cultivated on a very large scale and in extraordinary profusion. Again the holiday-makers troop forth. This time their destination is most probably the artificial lakes of Hori Kiri, where upwards of three hundred varieties of iris are to be seen.

August brings the lemon and rose-coloured lotus-blossoms, with their great bluish-green leaves rising from the moats and lakes, and November covers the camelia-trees with exquisite pink and white blossom, turns the maples vivid scarlet and gold, and is emphatically the month of the chrysanthemum. The latter has now been brought to such perfection in Europe that it almost outdoes its Japanese ancestors, whose loveliness induced the Emperors of Japan to adopt them as the Imperial crest, so conventionalised that a sixteen-rayed chrysanthemum symbolises the Rising Sun, that great ancestress from whom the Mikado claims lineal descent.

Truly fascinating are the chrysanthemum shows of Japan, where throngs of flower-loving folk of every degree, from the wealthiest down to the very poorest, assemble to gaze enraptured at these triumphs of nature and art. November brings weeping skies and cold, biting air in Japan as it does here, but the holiday-makers find intervening days of radiant sunlight, when the pretty little maidens and children don their gayest apparel and go forth to join the cheery sightseers.

Perhaps their way lies by the far-famed wooded hill of Shiba, where each sportive breeze showers down dainty pink leaves from the tree-camelias, now laden with lovely pink single blossoms. On they walk merrily, as is their wont, passing temples and moats, lakes and lilies, till they reach, as we did, the beautiful park of Yueno, near to which are the most celebrated of the chrysanthemum gardens.

For Japanese gardeners know better than to bring their treasures to be all crowded together in scanty space. Each arranges his own little garden so as to exhibit its produce in the most attractive light, and truly such triumphs of horticultural art as he has for long months been patiently preparing could not be exposed to the risks of transportation.

So a visit to the chrysanthemum show of Yueno means visiting at least a dozen small gardens, each with its special exhibit of Japanese ingenuity.

In the first place, the laying out of the half or quarter acre is in itself often a marvel of miniature landscape-gardening, which represents an infinity of patient toil, were it only in the production of the dwarf trees—those strangely perfect miniatures—orange and peach trees—even sturdy-looking, old gnarled oaks, pines, and cedars, whose twisted boughs are well in keeping with their weather-beaten trunks—trees which are probably at least thirty years old, though their average height is barely two feet. These are produced by cutting off the tap-root of the baby tree, and thereafter perpetually disturbing the soil and nipping off the suckers and young shoots, so the leaves grow smaller and smaller, all in proportion.

Such trees, growing in beautiful old bronze or blue porcelain vases, are generally objects of much admiration; but as November is the chrysanthemum festival, they are now neglected, and all eyes are riveted on these kind winter beauties. First rank the magnificent queens of chrysanthemum society—large, stately blossoms, some so large that when their long, slender petals are unfurled, they would cover an average breakfast-plate. Some are white as newly fallen snow, others creamy saffron, pale yellow, bright gold, salmon-coloured, claret, maroon, deep red, brown, and many other colours, the most fascinating being those whose long petals are like reversible ribbons, showing on one side claret-coloured velvet, on the other old-gold satin.

These receive due meed of loving admiration from a race so passionately devoted to flowers that I have often watched exceedingly poor men expend what might apparently have been their last cent on two or three blossoms to carry back to their humble little home.

But for amusement and special interest, the crowds pass from one to another of the little gardens which excel in the production of quaint groups of figures all clothed in garments of growing flowers. These tiny gardens are scattered all about in out-of-the-way corners, where, assuredly, we could never have found them without the aid of sympathetic jinricksha-men, keenly interested in our sight-seeing, who ran us through an intricate labyrinth of narrow lanes and byways, passing on from one garden to another, at each of which we paid some infinitesimal coin, and joined the stream of delighted spectators, old and young.

Each gardener has devoted his whole energies to the production of one complete scene, comprising men and women, fish, animals, houses—true _tableaux vivants_ of which the silent, patient flowers are the life. Apparently each scene is represented by a light wire framework, within which the plants are growing, and in most perfect health, but trained with such infinite care that to the eye of the spectator each presents outside the wirework a compact mass, either of tiny blossoms or of foliage. Thus patches of the richest colour, varied with sober green, are produced wherever they are required, and so the most elaborate scenes are developed. One gardener shows us a group of figures sitting beside tiny tables, tea-drinking. Another has a music-party; a third, of a festive turn of mind (or possibly a blue-ribbon man), has a drinking-scene suggestive of “wine in, wit out.” Now we come to an Arcadian scene, with a romantic couple on a pretty, high-arched bridge, and beyond them is a tall pagoda, with walls of white chrysanthemums and roofs of green, but all the little wind-bells hanging from each roof are real bells of brass.

Next we come to a scene of court life thirty years ago, before the nobles of Japan had discarded their strikingly characteristic garments for the European broadcloth which to them is so unbecoming. But here we have them in tippets and wide sleeves and long, loose trousers, and robes, and extraordinary head-dresses; and all the ladies are in equally picturesque attire—and, indeed, we have to look closely before we can feel quite convinced that all this wealth of rich colour is really produced by carefully-educated growing plants. True, all the heads, hands, and feet are wooden, cleverly carved and coloured, but every other detail is floral.

Here is a charming lady whose whole robe is of red blossoms, her sash of pearly grey, her under-skirt of green foliage, the folds of crape round her neck of snowy white blossoms. Her lord and master has bright golden trousers, a green robe lined with red blossoms, and a tippet of maroon chrysanthemums.

In one little garden, gay with camelia-trees in full blossom, there is a dainty little tea-house. Evidently this gardener is a jocose man, for in the foreground lies a gentleman who has tumbled over and dropped his wooden clogs in terror at beholding some clothes hung up to dry, which he has mistaken for a ghost. Out run the other guests, carrying lanterns, to ascertain the cause of the hubbub. It does not sound very exciting, but then you must remember that not only are all the figures clothed in variegated floral drapery, but even the tea-house itself is made of chrysanthemums; the woodwork is of red blossoms, the walls of foliage—only the thatch is real, as are also the pretty paper lamps in the hands of the travellers. So are the lamps hanging round the cabin of a large green-andgold boat, in which are seen a gorgeously dressed but evidently very aggravating woman and a very picturesque old Daimio, who is evidently in a towering rage, and has gone so far as to draw his sword and threaten the lady. The noble is robed in green, lined with purple and trimmed with bands of gold, and the lady is chiefly clad in white and gold, with a claret-coloured under-garment and dark red sash.

Some of the mythological scenes are exceedingly curious, one of the most effective showing a woman robed in pink and green and gold, engaged in a furious combat with a gigantic fish. The latter is claret-coloured, with red head and tail and golden fins. The manner in which the scales are defined is exceedingly ingenious; but space fails, and in truth such descriptions must likewise fail to convey the smallest idea of the amusement to be derived from so ingenious an exhibition as a Japanese chrysanthemum show.

I saw these in November, just before I left Tokio _en route_ to Kobe, where I arrived in time to see the dainty, tiny-leafed maple in full glory. My kind hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Flower, took me a most beautiful expedition along the sea-coast and then inland to Mino, which is one of the glens most celebrated for the glory of its maples. These clothe the banks of a very rocky stream which rushes down, forming picturesque waterfalls gleaming dazzlingly through the veil of scarlet foliage. As usual, charmingly pretty tea-houses are perched on the most attractive sites overlooking the stream. Some of the maples were only just turning from green to yellow, then gold, scarlet, and ermine, such a marvellous blaze of colour as would be too gorgeous were it not for the contrast of dark, pine-clad hills all round.

Large merry parties of men and gaily-dressed girls were thoroughly enjoying their outing, the gentlemen, moreover, luxuriating in the hot baths, followed by a cooling process, _al fresco_, in the original attire of Adam, a custom somewhat embarrassing to the prejudiced foreigner. To our uneducated ears the night was made hideous by the discordant noise which to Japanese ears is high-class music, otherwise all were enjoying themselves very quietly. But to us there was truer music in the ceaseless murmur of the rushing, foam-flecked river, and the wind sweeping over the fir-crested hills.

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