Chapter IV: Part 4

=January 12.=--New Year calls on Professor and Mrs. _S----_, and a dinner-party at Professor _F----’s_, where every one but I was Japanese. Though the food was all European, we sat on the floor all the time and ate off a table a foot high. After dinner numerous reproductions of famous pictures were brought out, and I amused myself (and them also, I expect) by making them give their real opinions on the beauty or otherwise of the people in them. Most of our beautiful women would be wasted in Japan. Blue eyes are hard and unloving! Burne-Jones’ chins are laughable; Botticelli’s Madonna has no beauty and the saints are ugly. But Burne-Jones’ women’s hands are lovely, and the reflection in the water of one of his attendants of Venus very lovely too. Turner’s pictures are too crowded with detail!! Kaulbach was much admired.

=January 13–15.=--These three days have been very cold, and I have been at the Institute practically all the time cutting fossils; the machine going at normal speed, giving finally very good results. But who would have imagined that on the amount of water dropping on the revolving wheel depends the rate at which you cut through your stone--or that carborundum put on at 1 inch or 2 inches from the cutting point makes all the difference in the world? These and a thousand little details like them have to be learnt by series of experiments. The weather has been lovely, and even wonderful. One day there was snow, and it covers these little Japanese houses so picturesquely, picking out the detail and making them more like picture-book-land than ever. The sky is brilliantly blue, and the hot sun melts the snow on the little pine trees, so that they are like fountains of glittering drops, while from the grassy banks beneath them soft wreathing clouds of white steam curl up and are lost in the blue, and I long to be a poet. But the next day! The roads were quite unspeakable, and for many days following.

=January 17.=--At the Institute all day again. At 2 o’clock Sir Claude Macdonald (the Ambassador) and Mr. Clive (the Secretary) came to see me and the stones. The former is huge, and with his glorious fur-lined coat and pale-green suède-edged waistcoat, looked sadly out of place in my work-room, which is nearly filled with packing-cases and lumps of coal, but they stayed ever so long. The people are much honoured that the representative of his Britannic Majesty should have visited their Institute.

=January 18.=--I worked at fossils all day, and this evening, commencing at 5, was the Biologists’ supper. Every biologist in Tokio comes, from head professors to first-year students, about 130 in all, and I was the only lady, of course. This time we ate from high tables, sitting on European chairs, but we ate Japanese food with chop-sticks! The most thrilling things were sagittaria and _ginkgo seeds!_ cooked quite soft in a dish which is a kind of cross between a soup and a custard (a gay thing to eat with chop-sticks any way!), and by carefully biting the tiniest piece off the top of the seed one can see the embryo and suspensors; the endosperm alone, of course, is the only part eaten. Just as we have chocolates or almonds on the table through the meal, they had tins of tiny dried fish, about half an inch or so big and quite crisp, like roasted pea-nuts. It was a very frivolous meeting; there was story-telling with much laughter, and comic pictures of various professors and students under amusing circumstances; and a drawing by lot for gifts of all sorts of things, from an old newspaper or a turnip to books or ornaments.

=January 24.=--Canada Balsam is causing much trouble in the fossil work-shop, and I spent most of the day over its little fads and vagaries. The young man who is to learn how to cut the fossils (after we have learnt ourselves and can teach him) is very quaint in his personal appearance, and reminds me constantly of the Golliwog, his hair grows so far down his neck and the back of his head is so flat. I fear some day I shall give vent to the amusement he causes me. But he is undoubtedly quick in some ways and very tidy in his methods.

=January 25.=--I had to mess round over the gas-engine all the morning, and in the afternoon (Saturday) went to watch some of the mad foreigners playing, or trying to play, I should say, Hockey. They were only six a side, but I really wouldn’t join in spite of their entreaties, for they were not playing on grass, but on _bare earth_! The dust was awful, and I should think very unhealthy. It is simply impossible to get any grass in Tokio, it is only to be seen in small quantities in a few sacred places, and even then dies down all through the winter, so that it is quite unusable. Moss and liverworts grow here so well that it is very curious that grass is so impossible to cultivate. Professor _M----_ is trying experiments with English grass seed at the gardens, but it isn’t very successful, though better than the native product.

=January 26.=--I called on Mrs. G---- at the Embassy. I heard a true story of certain small children in Yokohama, a girl and a boy: the former caused her mother much sorrow because of her habit of fibbing. Her brother fell out of the window and was helpless in bed for some time, and she was left to amuse him one Sunday afternoon. When the mother returned she found pencil scribbling all over her white dimities, and said, “Who did this?” (a form of question she usually avoided, using subtler means). “Brother,” promptly answered the maiden. When asked why she told that lie, said, “Because I forgot Brother couldn’t get out of bed to do it!”

=January 27.=--A day spent on work of various sorts on the fossils. A terrible wind suddenly arose in the afternoon, and going home along the streets it blew first on one side and then on the other, and the dust it raised hung like a fog all over the city, while the sun, usually a fiery brilliance at which one dare not blink, hung like a disk of pale gold in the fawn-coloured sky. Along the road, as one walked, fancying peace, suddenly a snake-like form would rise, its cobra head would expand till it formed a huge surging wave, that spit and stung and blinded; or a little whirlpool would start at one’s feet, shake itself and open in a second into a great torrent, that showered upwards instead of downwards. I never saw such dust, but they say it will be worse in February.

=January 30.=--A national holiday, so no work was allowed at the Institute. I gave a tea-party, only to about twenty people, of whom the merriest and jolliest was Baron _K----_! When I have seen him hitherto it has been in solemn manners. The intense agitation this caused in my house all day cannot be imagined by you English people who give tea-parties every little while! The entire household for the entire day was quivering with excitement; and I must add to their credit that they produced several treasures of art, _kakemonos_ and gold screens, from the _go-down_ (or safe), where they are kept.

=January 31.=--I was fossil-cutting all day, a nice new stem and leaf turned up to cheer us on. The following cutting may be amusing; it was in the Japan _Gazette_ a few days ago:--

An amusing incident occurred at an “At home” in Tokyo this week. A
matron, talking to a slender young woman in a pretty art gown of
blue velvet, said, “Oh, I hear Dr. Stopes is here. I want to meet
the delightful old party. I understand he is strong on fossils.”
Later on she said to her hostess, “Who is that girl I’ve been
talking to, in the blue dress? seems a nice girl.” “That is Dr.
Stopes, the learned geologist,” said the hostess, and the Yokohama
matron collapsed.

=February 1.=--I was fossil-cutting all morning. Aluminium, of all metals, seems to be forging ahead as the prize saw-maker.

=February 2.=--A dull day, so I didn’t go out exploring as I had intended, but snuggled into bed all the morning to counteract the cutting-machine, which is really rather wearing.

=February 3.=--At work all day on the fossils. Dinner at the P----s, after which I had to give the long-promised lecture on fossils to the Literary Society of Tokio. Naturally, to an audience in which missionaries played an important part, but little science was desirable. However, they seemed pleased to hear about the various adventures connected with fossil collecting.

=February 4.=--At work in the Institute over fossils all day. In the course of my walk to the Institute, which takes about forty minutes, I pass quiet streets which are little frequented by the foreigner. In all these months I have never yet met a single foreigner between my house and the Institute, though in other parts of the town they are common enough.

Every day I see something or other I long to record, and forget when it comes to writing this journal what it was.

The shops are now full of oranges. Small ones, like our “Tangerines,” but native grown, and _seedless_. They are sent to the shops in little boxes, universally the same size. How sensible the Japanese are about such things--in spots! But oranges are a little tedious, and there is really almost nothing else to be had but tasteless and expensive apples. This country is still in that primitive state when we can only get the fruits and flowers that are locally in season. Even well-off people, who at home could command strawberries in March and roses in December, must here eat the things at the time Nature intended. It has a certain charm but--I am a Londoner.

Another striking thing about this country’s products is the extraordinary richness and variety of the vegetation,--palms and pines, bamboos and magnolias, chestnuts and orange trees, rice and roses; the number of plant species in the little country of Japan alone exceeds that in all Europe. Also the number of species of birds and insects is extraordinarily great, and their brilliance and beauty quite unusual. Yet it has been said by one who knows the country, “The flowers have no scent, the fruit no flavour, and the birds no song!”

To this, I myself would add, “and the people no souls.” And in the whole saying there is truth enough to justify its existence, probably as much truth as there is in any saying, for in all our sheaves of words there are but a few ears bearing the grains of truth. Now I hasten to add that a spray of plum blossom in January scents a whole room with its fragrance; that the native-grown figs are the most luscious and sweet I ever tasted, and the nightingales’ thrilling melody to be heard even in the cities; while I have met men and women who are as the plum, the fig, and the nightingale. And yet on the whole, that hard saying is true.

=February 5.=--At the fossil workshop all day. Nearly every day in this clear weather I see the great Fujisan, its whiteness high up in the clouds on the horizon. The pearl of mountains, that, alas, I have not seen yet except from this great distance. From her superb height she looks down on this grey-roofed city, and I wonder if she sees in it all the things I see! The dirt, for instance, and the horrors of disease. I have praised so much in Tokio that I think you can bear to hear something of the other side, of the sights that sicken and appal. Of these, the ones that struck me first were the numerous children (only very young ones) with frightful eczema; the one that now haunts me is the sight of lepers. They are not allowed to _live_ in the city, when in an advanced state of disease, but they are allowed to come in and beg. One may easily touch one by accident! To-day I was within a foot of one before I noticed it. They hold out their hands, with the fingers eaten away, gruesome sights, and mumble prayers for alms. Once one died, or nearly died, on the road, a crowd formed round, with a policeman on guard, but no one would touch it to give assistance.

On the whole, the Japanese do not fear leprosy nearly so much as we do, they say we over-rate its contagion; but how can they pretend to civilisation with such sights in their streets?

One hears on all sides, from themselves and from others, that the Japanese are pre-eminently a _clean_ people. _In_ their houses that is true, but just outside! Even to-day in all the smaller streets of Tokio a little gutter or ditch runs along on either side and carries away, or is blocked by, as the case may be, all the refuse and drainage of the houses near by. No wonder that even Ambassadresses get typhoid. I am thankful there are chickens kept by so many poor people, that roam the streets and pick at the dainties, but I wonder if it is wise to take a raw egg beaten into milk.

=February 6.=--There are more stars in Japan than in (or over, should I say?) England. After the glowing sun sinks from the cloudless blue sky, the stars spring out at once, and by 6 o’clock the heavens are crowded. In the milky way one sees not a haze of white, but a glittering stream of bright minute gems. Sometimes too the stars have haloes, quite big ones, such as we only see round our moon, and when they shine out of the clear sky they almost dazzle.

=February 7.=--I was at the fossil laboratory all day, cutting away at my stones. Dinner with the P----s, and after that the Tokio Bachelors’ Ball--a truly delightful function. I left at 2 A.M. and walked the 3 odd miles home with two nice men. It was really too cold to ride in these open _kurumas_, even with two rugs and an eiderdown. The walk through the quiet streets under these ever enchanting stars was delightful. One of the men was a military attaché here, and has been to camp with Japanese regiments. I find every one who knows only military men thinks less highly of the Japanese character than do those who mix with the University men. It is not unnatural that the army is rather suffering from “swelled head”--and then, who would give a German Professor for half a dozen or more of the German officers!

=February 8.=--Though Saturday, and though I did not get to bed till 4, I went to the fossils from 10 till 4, and then to tea with Professor _F----_, where we discussed dancing, which does not seem to find favour in his eyes, or in those of most Japanese.

=February 9.=--A nice quiet morning in bed; after lunch I went with Miss C---- and J---- to see the temple of Kwannon at Akasaka. People who habitually drive in carriages see less of the truly Japanese streets than do the _kuruma_ riders. Most of the old roads are so narrow that a carriage cannot pass, and they must perforce go through the newer or widened streets, where they encounter electric trams and maybe glass-windowed stores for “Foreign Goods.” Not that these latter do not afford amusement--one may see a Store that carries on the “Import and Manufacture of Grocers”--another that sells “Unnecessary Provisions.” Of which latter I may add there are many in Tokio, to wit, the beaded mittens, crochet atrocities, Paisley shawls, etc., _ad infinitum_, that are destroying the beauty and harmony of the national costume, and are making the people ludicrous in their hybrid garb. An irritating little habit the coachman and _Betto_[4] have, is to cry in hoarse duet to every child or old woman (of which not less than several thousand seem to be encountered in a drive) to warn them off the road. It becomes inexpressibly irritating to the unfortunates in the carriage.

[4] _Betto_, name for native groom.

I think I have already spoken of the temple, the most popular one in Japan, where incessant crowds are praying or clattering through, or come with aches and pains to lay their hands on the wooden figure that will heal. It is a case of physician heal thyself, for the poor god has all its features rubbed flat by the hands of a sick humanity. The temple is so popular and so certainly described in every book of travel, that I shall not stop to do so. It is situated in the Whitechapel of Tokio, and the stalls and entertainments in the neighbouring grounds are reminiscent in some degree of a Bank Holiday--though noisy behaviour is lacking.

=February 11.=--A national holiday, so that schools, etc. are closed. To-day the Emperor ceremoniously worships his ancestors, attended by practically all the Government head officials, including Professor _M----_, who wears a uniform smothered with gold lace. I went to lunch with Mr. _Mj----_ in his house in Azabu, which is surrounded by a lovely garden, with pines and a pond and regular scenery. The party was composed of foreigners, and we sat at a table 1 foot high, and had a sumptuous Japanese luncheon. His two little girls--aged six and eight, in brilliant true Japanese kimonos--were very gay in entertaining us, pouring out the _saké_ and singing many little songs (“God save the King” among them), and bringing their dolls to table. Not at all shy, and not at all like Japanese children in this, and yet not forward, they were pretty, bright little things.

=February 13.=--Fossil-cutting all morning. We are getting on finely now; it is nice to see the actual structure at last, leaves, stems, and roots are turning up with all their cells very well preserved in the stone.

=February 15.=--Fossil-cutting all the day. The engine has a curious way of giving little explosions when it is not quite clean at the burner--they make the boy jump to such an extent that I fear he is a coward. Also, when I put the molten pans of metal into water and they fizzle, he won’t go on working near me till I have assured him that it is perfectly safe. I sometimes wonder if the Japanese are really brave except when worked up to it _en masse_. Several people who have been here some time tell me they think they are not.

=February 16.=--I spent the day out of Tokio in a country place, about an hour-and-a-half’s walk from Akabane. The country was slightly hilly, the sunshine brilliantly hot, and the jagged snow-covered hills in the distance very lovely. The fields were cultivated with wheat and green stuff, and here and there patches filled with the round tea bushes. The houses were all set amid trees, tall and red-brown trees, though “evergreens.” The same leaves, now looking so dead, revive their chlorophyll, and become green in the spring. The plum trees, pink and white, were in bloom, but they were the only flowers we saw. In the plain were rice fields, all dead and brown, but here and there along the little irrigating canals green grass roots flourished. Japanese grass all goes brown in the winter, but I am beginning to suspect that it is the dryness that does it, for here and there in damper, very shady places, I find brilliant green roots. By the broad river, with only one house near it, and that set some way back in clumps of bamboo, was a plain of tall coarse reed-like plants, partly cut down for mat-making. Here we are promised masses of pink primroses in the spring. Some young bamboos were green, and amid these we lay and listened to the absolute silence, undisturbed all the day. There was not even a bird’s song or an insect’s buzz, and one might have imagined it the top of some snowy peak for the stillness of it all.

In the evening I went to dinner at the G----s, and enjoyed it very much; there were some entertaining people there.

=February 17.=--On my way to the College I pass a small factory, whose owner keeps his coal piled up in a great heap _on_ the road against the wall. It doesn’t seriously interfere with the traffic, as the road is quite wide enough for a good-sized cart to pass even with it there, and I have never seen two trying to pass. The coal has been there many weeks now, but no one seems even to think of stealing it, though the houses around are extremely poor. I thought it wonderful honesty till I remembered that the Japanese think coal horrid, smoky, dirty stuff, quite unfit for use in rooms, but even so, in their bath-tubs they burn wood, and it might well tempt them to go after dark and help themselves. The streets, of course, are totally devoid of “street lamps.”

=February 19.=--I often wonder why I have not mentioned before the most extraordinary furs worn by the Japanese men. Though the fox is a kind of evil witch, a devil in popular imagination, yet practically every man wears a great fox skin round his neck. No pretence about making up into “boas” or anything: it is simply the whole skin, unlined, and doubled, fur outwards, along the middle of the back. The tail is then put through a hole in the animal’s head or neck, and both hang down in front of the wearer. A really rich man has so fine a skin that the bushy, brilliant red-yellow tail hangs down to his waist, waving around when he walks. Japanese ladies almost never wear furs, except when in foreign costume.

=February 20.=--Quietly busy over the fossils. There is no need to relate the innumerable details that require attention or exasperate one--the sections are yielding good results, all things considered, and I quite enjoy the cutting.

=February 21.=--Though the sun is so hot through the day that I sit in it with almost nothing on but a thin slip, night and morning are so cold that one shivers, and the ice is thick on the little pond in my garden. Yet a stark-naked youth comes to the well in the next garden, and a trim little maid works the rope and brings up buckets of cold water, which he pours over himself, and then proceeds to dry himself with a towel which he first carefully soaks in water (in the true Japanese way). This corner of the garden is the meeting-place of three gardens, and the well is common to the three households, so that sometimes a second maid may assist in his morning amusement. Behind the trees I can see the painted wood walls of the Mission church, where people go in European clothes to sing hymns.

=February 22.=--I had been really bullied into playing Hockey to represent the world against Japanese-born British. They were, of course, far stronger than we, as nearly all live together in Yokohama and practice twice a week, while none of us had played together before. We got 2 goals to their 4, however, and patted ourselves on the back.

Returning by train (Yokohama to Tokio, of course, is _the_ chief line of rail in the country, so that the incident should not be compared with doings in some far-off highland place in Scotland), the train suddenly drew up with a jerk, far from one station and about the same distance from the next. The passengers were surprised, some slightly alarmed, and the train calmly waited for some time and then started racing back to the station from which we had come. We all resigned ourselves to a broken bridge, overturned carriages on the track, or something of the sort, and finally drew up at the station we had just left--much commotion on the platform, and we learned that from the luggage van some parcels had not been delivered! They were delivered over to the proper person and the train started off once more, to reach Tokio not a little late.

=February 24.=--There have been signs of the coming Dolls’ Festival, to take place on the 3rd day of the 3rd month. I have mentioned them already (see p. 74). The shops are now full of them, and most fascinating they are, but too expensive to indulge in as I should like. The figures are all in little boxes, and sit solemnly, with their stiff robes spread out, as though they were really the nobles that they represent, and every one is interested in buying them, or at least gazing at them in their temporary homes. Several shops have sprung up this week filled with these boxes of dolls, and selling nothing else.

=February 25.=--At work all day at fossils, the record so far, for with the boy I cut and finished eleven sections in one day, some very nice. A ball at the British Embassy in the evening, very pleasant. Many interesting and amusing things happened, but unless given in great detail would not appeal to any one outside local gossip. Captain von L---- introduced me to the loveliest woman there--an American (sad to hear their awful accent coming out of such patrician lips!), the one who at a previous dance had so entranced me and my young partner that we spent our sitting-out time following her around to see her eat ices and laugh; her manner was perfection--calm, still, and gracious, honey-sweet looks in eyes that never smiled while one was speaking to her, and that just broke into little curls of smiles as she answered--a suggestion of humility while waiting to hear another’s banalities, yet with it a commanding dignity that forbade any one else to interrupt the person who was speaking to her. Her name is Mrs. D----, and I am going to see her, as she very graciously invited me to do. I wonder if she includes thought-reading among her other charms and read my admiration? Her high-heeled pink satin slippers twinkled gaily in the dance; she did not hesitate to lift the Worth frock very high--with such ankles I wouldn’t! On her white soft neck were the loveliest little blue veins, I never saw anything so suggestive of living marble. She was like white marble, with an underflush of rose and violet. The little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes added to her charm rather than detracted from it. She is the only woman in Tokio who has bewitched me.

There was a very striking-looking girl, daughter of a French mother and a Japanese father, her hair done cavalier fashion, with a side bunch of ringlets under a big white bow; her very French frock and tiny waist became her well, and she strode through the Lancers with such a devil-may-care manner that we could not but remark her--favourably too in spite of it all.

Tokio is a fine soil for gossip, very good-natured and amusing. I love it, it’s such a relaxation after gas-engines and fossils.

=February 27.=--Sunshine wonderful again--just the remains of the recent snow left here and there. I regret to find that the people in my house have been lying to me for long about a point on which I laid some stress--a whole complex of lies as well as the actual disobedience.

=February 28.=--I visited the Charmer to-day, and stayed an unconscionably long time. No one has bewitched me in this way since my school-days. She had a lovely gown of blue-and-white chiffon. Several people were there--Baron and Baroness S----, Count C----, and the wife of the Swiss Minister. I had about half an hour of the Charmer to myself--her husband is the Naval Attaché. She was simply alluring, and her house is far the prettiest I have yet seen in Tokio. She was telling me how all the Corps Diplomatique agree that there is no capital in the world where the social life is so delightful, and where there is so much gaiety and friendliness among the Corps as a whole, as in Tokio. Also there is really no other capital where other people can enter the charmed circle; that, of course, is the result of the small number of Westerners in the place, and their social position; as I have remarked before, there are almost no commercial people in Tokio.

At lunch at the Faculty to-day. Dr. _Y----_ brought me a paper on fossils to correct the English, he is soon starting for Europe. I have mentioned him before as being a rising paleontologist, such a shy, young-looking creature, utterly lacking in all social gifts; I wonder how he will fare in Europe, perhaps some of you who read this may meet him. He is predestined to be professor in a new University about four years hence.

=February 29.=--I worked at the fossils till 12, and then set out for Baron _H----’s_ long arranged luncheon party.

We were received in rooms with tables and chairs, and an oil-painting! There were the “lace” curtains found in every “foreign style” Japanese house, alas! The Baroness was very gracious and sweet, and acceded to my request to play on the Koto, playing a very charming piece.

As we sat on the cushions I could just see out of the small panes of glass put into the paper _soji_, and I delighted in the garden, with its trees of pink and white plum just bursting into blossom. After some time the men came in and Baron _H----_ showed us his collection of sword rings and knives, etc., all good, and some very beautiful.

=March 1.=--It was terribly wet all night and this morning; I went to lunch with Miss B---- (before mentioned as a very amusing lady, despite the fact that she is a missionary). I think no one would be better qualified to write memoirs than she. I was hearing something about the inner life of the Court at Korea. She is a friend of the English lady doctor who attended the royal ladies, and it was all extremely amusing, but it is not my place to tell her anecdotes.

I returned early to do some writing, but was greeted by my landlady with the announcement that to-day, to-morrow, and the next day are the Festival of the Dolls. I must, therefore, drink some special sweet thick _saké_ and eat various sweets, some nice little ones like fried caterpillars being very tasty. I was also asked to come and see the pictures and screens brought up from the store-house, two of them 200 years old, and one, a really magnificent one, 500 years,--gold with plum blossom and birds. I am constantly seeing new treasures they have in hiding.

They gave me a lovely granite hill with clustering rosy flowers growing round its base--all 6 inches square--and we admired together the wet pine leaves in the garden.

=March 2.=--Fossil-cutting all day; a very nice dance in the evening after dinner with the P----s, where I spent the night.

=March 3.=--The Dolls’ Festival. Mr. _Mj----_ and his three little girls have a very gorgeous collection; the dolls, however, are far too exalted for any child to play with them. The _Mj----s_ must literally have hundreds of these expensive little miniatures of the Emperor and Empress in the old-style garments, of historical and mythological figures, of musicians and actors from the _Nō_--all of whose dress is a wonder of design and execution. Then there were all the household utensils in tiny lacquered form, and on the little trays and dishes was real food arranged, as well as large models of fish in sugar. There was even a little temple, with most of the appointments correct. A large room was given over to them, and looked like a bazaar, but the arrangement was not merely chosen to display the detail, it was all according to prescribed rule--the Emperor and Empress on the top shelf, with their jingling elaborate head-dresses and long silk tassels on their many robes; below them the musicians; on the lowest shelf the tray of food, the little houses, screens and fans in inexhaustible variety. The children are provided with special sweet food which they themselves eat, the crisp sweet “puffed” rice, sweet blocks of jelly and sugar concoctions of many kinds. The guests were also provided with these dainties, and some of them were delicious, but I could not drink the sauce-like _saké_.

In the evening there was our inaugural dinner of the London University Union in Japan. I found there was quite a number of old U.C.L. students in Japan, and so started the idea, which was very keenly taken up by Professor _S----_; others joined in, Baron _K----_, Professor _S----_, Professor _F----_, Professors L----, S----, etc. etc., up to the number of twenty-one, are members, and the first dinner was quite a success. Professor _S----_, Baron _K----_ and I form the Committee elected then, and I hope the Union will live. Cambridge and Harvard, etc. all have their Unions, why should London be less honoured and remembered by her children?

=March 4.=--A long day at fossils.

=March 5.=--Fossils till 4--then I went to tea with Mrs. D----. She had invited the American Ambassadress and her niece to meet me, and I liked them both. The former is very like a slightly slimmer and handsomer Miss S---- of Wintersdorf! Mrs. D---- had another lovely frock, and was a dream of sweetness and beauty. Why do I always fall in love with women!

=March 7.=--Fossils all day till 4.30, then to tea with Dr. _H----_ and his wife, recently married and very cordial; they live in a really tiny Japanese house, no room more than six mats, but so spick and span, with a dear little garden. Though I have done my best to teach that man how to treat a wife--and he always seemed to be drinking it in quite properly--she herself brought the tea for us two, taking none herself (I know she has a maid), and sitting in the corner away from us, and not even taking a cushion to sit on, when he had been shamed into giving her one by my remarking that she had none. However, they seem happy, and she looks quite well, and she has not a soul quivering with every touch of the material things of life. She says he loves her very much, and has loved no other woman.

=March 8.=--To-day I visited the sick. Poor Mrs. G---- was riding in a _kuruma_ a week ago and the _Embassy_ carriage ran into her, knocked the _kuruma_ to pieces, and the horse fell on Mrs. G---- and rolled over! How she escaped fearful injuries no one knows, but a muscle is severed and she can’t walk just now. She looked very pretty in bed, and was holding quite a court. Horses in Japan are really dangerous and constantly run away.

I called my duty call on Baroness _H----_ after the luncheon party, and the conversation did not flag, though what she thought of my Japanese (the horrors of which I am daily realising more acutely) I don’t know, as she held it under with her fine native politeness.

I have read two interesting books this week--Lieutenant Sakurai’s _Human Bullets_ and _As the Hague Ordains_, the supposed journal of the wife of a Russian prisoner who comes to him in Japan, and is gradually converted to love the Japanese. The first book was rather a shock to all one’s preconceived notions about the unflinching bravery and repression of feelings among the Japanese soldiers! They were either weeping or embracing each other or writing sentimental letters--on every other page. I was quite sick of all their tears and self-adulation, though the writer gave a vivid picture of the ghastly carnage of the siege of Port Arthur. Yet people praise the book and don’t seem to notice the sentimentality as much as I do. I wonder if those who praise it have read it.

I heard from an old resident (thirty years here) that the Japanese are the most sentimental people under the sun. Oh, ye who stop at home and dream your dreams about Japan! Stay there.

=March 9.=--The following happened a few days ago, and I should have put it in then, but I forgot. The day was miserable, wet, cold, and windy, with snow blustering about, and instead of quietly having lunch in the warm Institute I was told we were to go to the big state-rooms at the other side of the gardens. There I found that all the Biology students and the Botanical and garden staff were lunching in Japanese style. There was a special kind of pink rice, with small beans boiled with it, and the various more or less savoury pieces of fish, vegetables, and a kind of pancake that go to make up a _bento_. Afterwards we all had packets of highly ornamental sticky cakes, chiefly made of the stodgy bean-paste I cannot eat, but some were good. This was the feast of the God Inari (the God of Rice), who is very appropriately worshipped by the botanists. After the feast we cowered under our umbrellas and went a pilgrimage through the gardens to his shrine, where we found the hundred-year-old blue cotton banner put up outside. Within the shrine was incense, lit by the Botanical Laboratory attendant, and a great tray of cakes, the same as we had been eating. Led by the Staff, we all rang the bell to call Inari’s attention to our visit, and clapping our hands in prayer we gave him a few sens each, throwing the copper coins in among the cakes. Then we ploughed our way through the bog-like paths to the Institute.

=March 10.=--So seedy that I did not get up at all. It is the very first day in my life that I have ever spent in bed (except for the measles, when I was too ill to notice anything much), and I feel it a solemn and important event. The first half of the day sped on magic wings, and I wondered how one could be so _bête_ as to find bed a wearisome place when one is surrounded by the lovely golden lights on bare wood. How we spoil wood by staining and painting it! The range of delicate colour in the woodwork of my room is a perfect delight. Then I had also a little tree, shaped like a weeping-willow, but one mass of rosy pink plum blossom, some flowers wide open, with recurved petals and a flare of silver stamens, others in perfectly round crimson buds, alluring as only roundness can be.

Till 3 o’clock in the afternoon that tree and the wood made me blissfully happy, but the hours between 3 and 5 seemed terribly long, and by night I was sated with the delights of bed. The next day seemed very far off.

=March 13.=--I went to the Institute in the morning and cut some fossils. It has simply been an influenza cold, but it has rather played havoc; after lunch at the Faculty and a long and varied talk with the Dean, I wasn’t fit to do any more, so I called on the B----s and went to tea with the Charmer on my way home to bed. I went to bed before 6 o’clock, and was so worn out that I howled for an hour, but dinner revived me, and I am now as cheerful as if I hadn’t contemplated suicide two hours ago. Tokio is a terrible place for ups and downs. To-day it is fearfully cold, even my bath towel frozen; and a week ago it was like summer for two days--one day a miserable snowstorm, the next glowing blue skies.

=March 14.=--In the afternoon a party had been arranged to visit a noted plum garden at Omori, and have tea in a tea-house. As the H----s had asked me to go home with them to dinner and sleep, I went, though by the end of the day I was far too tired out. We carried cakes, trusting the tea-house for cups and hot water. The plum garden was indescribably beautiful, and a typical “Japanese” scene. The garden sloped in the double hollow of a shell-shaped valley, and the rich white bloom on the trees surged up it as the thick drifting mists surge up a mountain pass. Standing out from the cloud-sea of blossoms, like peaks from out the mists, were two or three tea-houses, white papered and inhabited by gaily-decked maidens, and men who admired the plums, in grey silk. The sky was clear sapphire, and the sea beyond lay like a blue gauze veil along the horizon. While the others went on into the midst of the trees, I left the garden and sat in the sun on the steps of a little temple, which was a perfect harmony of curves, and behind lay a bamboo grove.

Tea was amusing, for Captain S---- would not take off his boots, and therefore had to walk with his feet in the air; which he did on his knees or hands. The tea-house was perched on the side of a hill, and looked down on rice fields and woody patches on little elevations. After tea we explored the temple and its pretty groves, and had a lovely merry-go-round ride on the old revolving library, a huge thing, but so perfectly poised that we could all sit on it and go round without its even creaking.

=March 16.=--Called on Mrs. P---- on my way to the Institute in the morning. She captured me, and then and there my clothes were taken off and I was put to bed--and was secretly thankful to be there. She is quite exceptionally kind to take me in in this way.

=March 25.=--At work all day over fossils--then dressed in my green-and-gold Venetian dress and called on Mrs. G---- on the way to the Embassy dinner. She and her children were having a preliminary view of some of the gowns--she is, alas, still in bed. The party was splendid--several Japanese were there in magnificent old court dresses and simply marvellous arrangements for their hair. Baroness _S----_ also wore Japanese court dress. Perhaps I had better shortly describe it. The lower part consists of scarlet trousers with extremely wide stiff legs, and the garment is much like our “divided skirt” of some years ago, but the cloth is much stiffer. Over it is a gorgeously embroidered kimono, with sweeping train. Some of the hair ornaments are extremely bizarre, others (according to the period) rather simple, the hair falling down the back and tied in three places.

One, something like the sketch, was very effective, the funny little brush of hair coming straight out at either side being its speciality. Several of the Englishmen came as Japanese pirates, etc., with great wigs of long hair, rich gold-embroidered robes and swords; the girls were not remarkable. After dinner we all went along to the German Embassy, and met there the parties from all the other Embassies. The scene in the reception-rooms and in the beautiful white ball-room was vivid and gorgeous beyond my power to describe. Whom to describe, when nearly all were beautiful or striking, and nearly all of the important folk in Tokio were present? Count _H----_ (the foreign minister) was in old daimio dress, with two swords and rich brocade--and one could not imagine how he ever came to wear anything else! The evening was one to remember, with its brilliance and beauty and courtliness.

=March 26.=--Yesterday morning at breakfast I had imagined I would remain in my present house as long as I was in Japan. This morning by ten o’clock I had taken a house and garden of my own and engaged a maid!

Apparently, one can do things quickly sometimes in Japan, though it is usually a terrible business to get a house. Of course, I haven’t yet moved in, and “there is many a slip,” etc.

The house is tiny, but is said to have five rooms--the paper walls between these can be taken out at will to make two, or even one room. There are lots of cupboards, for in this, as in all true Japanese houses, the solid walls are all lined with great cupboards, a yard deep and reaching from floor to ceiling. The rent of the house with its garden is about 7s. a week! Less than I have been paying for my two rooms.

The joy of these houses is that one needs almost no furniture, they are provided with the soft, thick straw mats (_tatami_), and these serve as carpets if one likes. I infinitely prefer their delicate straw colour and black borders, which harmonise with the cream walls and unpainted woodwork, to the clashing carpets most people have. Then fireplaces being absent, overmantels, fenders, coal-scuttles and fire-irons are all represented by a little china bowl of ashes, manipulated with metal chop-sticks. Beds, though introduced by many foreigners into such houses, I dispense with, and use the native mattresses on the mats, so that they are folded away in the big cupboards by day and the room is used for what one will. Wardrobes are also needless incumbrances, the wall cupboards serving excellently--wash-stands are but eyesores, as the little bath-rooms are so arranged that one can splash at will and the water all runs away from the sloping floor. So I am a householder, and prepared to lead the simple life.

Providence must have arranged it all, for the cook next door (that is at Mrs. P----’s, I forgot to state) has a protégée who wants an easy place in a foreigner’s house, and doesn’t care so much for money, as she is timid and wants experience before going to a big house--but she can bake bread and Scotch scones and cakes! I pay her 18s. a month and give her no food at all! She even brings her own saucepans and mattresses! Well, it all looks too good to be true, and until I have moved in I had better say no more about my own little house.

I went back to my present abode, for it was my At Home day, and I entertained some Japanese, who were charmed with Arthur Rackham’s illustrations of _Rip Van Winkle_, and thought they showed something of the spirit of Japanese art, which I think is true.

I flew down to the station for Yokohama, and dined there with Mrs. L----, and dressed in a fancy dress costume and set out with her and her daughter to a _mi-carême_ ball. I enjoyed the dance hugely.

=March 27.=--Rushed up to Tokio in the morning; to the University for lunch, where I had a long talk with the Dean. The Mitsui family (the Japanese Rothschilds) gave the money for the fossil laboratory and part of the apparatus, and the Dean proposes (now that everything is practically finished in the making of the arrangements) to give a tea-party in the Botanic Gardens to show the building apparatus and slides (I have cut 221 so far), as well as the new herbarium buildings. As I have often remarked, he is very English in his tastes and culture, and he planned to give what would be usual in England--tea and coffee and cakes. But when I saw him yesterday, how he had fallen! Nothing less than meats and wines and jellies would satisfy him. It was not his own wish, but he had been driven into it by the strength of the custom in Japan, which demands that if you have guests at all (even at 3 or 4 in the afternoon) you must give them a meat feed, and that they must eat like greedy schoolboys. Whence comes it? This mad ostentatious display, and the guzzling, which is so foreign to their real culture. A mutation derived from crossing such distinct cultures as those of Japan and Europe, not even a hybrid with the characters of one of the parents. Well, I laughed at Professor _S----_, for he said he hated the custom and had hoped to set the fashion for simplicity in this party of his, but that he was really afraid to do so; he would be the laughing-stock of the Japanese if he _only_ gave tea, coffee, and chocolate, ice-cream, cakes and sandwiches from 3 to 6 o’clock! I asked him where the spirit of his Samurai ancestors lay sleeping--asked him who could set the fashion for reasonable entertainments if not himself, in his exalted position of Dean of the University--and got him to swear to me that he would be a pioneer, that he would be brave and face the ordeal of being the laughing-stock of the Japanese. I wonder how it will go.

This unwritten law, which demands such a lavish hospitality if any is given, is, I see, one of the chief causes that there is so little social life, in our sense of the thing, among the Japanese. It is a real strain on their purse and their time, and they naturally ask guests seldom when they give so much trouble.

To ask a guest to come to your house and give him only tea and cake, or a dinner of no greater magnificence than the one you eat yourself every night, is almost impossibly rude.

After cutting fossils till 5, I went home to entertain a Japanese to the same food that I eat every day. Am I a laughing-stock among them? Doubtless, and for more things than one.

=March 28.=--Fossil-cutting all morning. Late in the afternoon I called on Mr. and Mrs. B----, who have come up to Tokio for a couple of weeks from Sapporo, where the snow is in parts 28 feet deep--the worst they have had for more than twenty years. They have brought up their adopted daughter--the Aino girl I described from Sapporo--this time we were able to talk in Japanese, which of course she generally speaks.

=March 31.=--I am making the experiment of going on a walking tour for a few days with friends, and we have chosen Boshu peninsula, as it is little frequented and beautiful. We were up at 5 o’clock this morning. Very late too, as we should have got up at 4.30. However, we managed to catch the boat which is to take us to Boshu Province, the scene of our tour. The sail past Tokio down the bay was very calm and lovely; we had perfect weather and were allowed, as a special privilege, to go on the top front part of the deck, where we had a good view. Fuji gleamed white over clouds and pine tree foregrounds, and the sky was blue. The journey lasted seven hours, and we saw many small bays and islands down the coast, of perfect loveliness.

Landing at Hojo in Boshu about 1 o’clock, we walked across a point of the peninsula to Mera. Here the inn we expected to find was demolished, but we found another and got put up. It was next door to a big school, however, and we had a very large and very interested audience of about a hundred children in constant attendance. C---- had never been to a Japanese inn before, and we were a very merry party indeed. The scenery here was in no way striking, that I hope is to come.

=April 1–5.=--We have been walking all day all these days, and there was no time to write in this journal, for though we have walked and slept very little we have eaten and talked and laughed so much that we had time for nothing else.

The first day’s walk was disappointing, flat, not very near the sea, and with villages every half-mile or so, but we reached a pretty place by 5 o’clock, and slept at Chikura in greater comfort than we did at Mera.