Chapter III: Sinaic Branch (2)

Here the writer gives a description of the pieces represented, which were kinds of allegories and historical pageants. Besides these regular theatrical representations, there are in Peking many acrobatic troops, male and female rope-dancers, and itinerant circuses.

Marionettes, absolutely identical with those in Europe, are seen in China. Which nation is their inventor? The name by which they have passed from time immemorial in France, _ombres chinoises_, seems to prove that their origin is Chinese. Hidden by ample drapery of blue cotton stuff, the man who moves the puppets stands on a stool. A case representing a little stage is placed on his shoulders and rises above his head, while his hands work without revealing the mechanical means he uses to impart the movements of players to these tiny automatons.

We will end our account of the Chinese with a glance at their administration of justice and their judicial forms. We again quote from M. Poussielgue:

“There is a direct relation in China between the penal judicial code and family organization. If the Emperor is the father and the mother of his subjects, the magistrates who represent him are also the father and mother of those they rule over. Every outrage against the law is an outrage upon the family. Impiety, one of the greatest crimes foreseen and punished by the law, is really nothing but a want of respect for parents. This is how the penal code defines impiety. ‘He is impious who insults his nearest relations, or he who brings an action against them, or who does not go into mourning for them, or who does not venerate their memory, or he who is wanting in the attention due to those to whom he owes his existence, by whom he has been educated, or by whom he has been protected and assisted.’ The punishments incurred for the crime of impiety are terrible; we intend to speak of them later.

“In thus carrying the feeling of what is due to family ties into the region of politics, the Chinese legislators have created a governmental machinery of prodigious power, which has lasted for thirty centuries, and which, neither the numerous revolutions and dynastic changes, neither the antagonism of the northern and southern races, neither the immense territorial extent of the empire, neither religious scepticism, nor finally the selfish creed of materialism developed to excess by a decayed and stationary civilization, have been able to destroy, or even seriously to disturb.

“Amongst the supreme courts that sit at Peking, is the Court of Appeal or Cassation (Ta-li-sse). Next to it come the assizes held in the chief towns of each province, and presided over by a special magistrate bearing the title of Commissary of the Court of Offences. A second magistrate of inferior rank exercises the duties of public accuser at these assizes. In towns of second and third importance inferior tribunals exist which have but one judge, the mandarin or the sub-prefect of the department. The punishments that can be awarded by the latter are limited; when the crime deserves a greater chastisement, the prisoner is sent to the assizes held in the chief town of his province: if this tribunal sentences him to death, the proceedings must be sent to the Court of Appeal at Peking, where a final decision is pronounced at the autumn sittings. Thus no provincial tribunal has the power of sentencing a prisoner to death; although in special cases, such as an armed insurrection, a governor can be invested with extreme power, similar to that conferred in Europe by martial law. Finally there are in every part of the empire, courts of information where the sub-prefect, in the course of his quarterly circuit, has to hear what is taking place, decide differences, and deliver moral lectures to the public; but this excellent institution has fallen into disuse in consequence of the relaxation of governmental authority and the carelessness of the mandarins.

“The result of this judicial organization is that the sub-prefect is invested with the entire correctional power within the limits of his civil jurisdiction, a very faulty state of things, which has been the cause of enormous abuses.

“There are no advocates in China, and, as has been seen, very few judges. Consequently the mode of administering justice is very summary, and the guarantees enjoyed by a prisoner amount to nothing. His friends or relations can, it is true, plead in his favour, but it is of no use, unless it happens to suit the mandarin at the head of the tribunal. As for the witnesses, they are liable to be flogged with a rattan, accordingly as their evidence is agreeable or not. Generally speaking, the long-winded witnesses are the most disagreeable to the mandarin who has a mass of matters to settle, and whose time does not allow him to enter into petty details. In point of fact the prisoner’s acquittal or condemnation depends upon the subaltern officers of the court, who prepare the proceedings in a manner favourable to the prisoners or the reverse, accordingly as they have received more or less money from his friends.

“If there is something to be praised in Chinese jurisprudence, the way in which the punishments are carried out is on the contrary shocking. Man is considered as a being sensitive only to physical agony and to death; Chinese legislators have not sought to restrain him by his honour, by his pride in himself, nor even by his self interest. The penal code consists mainly of the bastinado, inflicted with a thick bamboo cane, with the thick end or the thin one, and consisting of from ten up to two hundred blows, as the crime is trifling or serious, or as the object stolen is of little or of great value. The bastinado is given immediately in presence of the tribunal. The most common punishments, are, after the bastinado, the cangue, the pillory, imprisonment and perpetual exile into Tartary for mandarins who have committed political offences. We have mentioned that the High Court of Appeal alone can decide on a death sentence; but the sufferings inflicted by the orders of the inferior tribunals are so horrible, the executioners are so ingenious in varying the tortures without causing death, the management of the prisons is so hateful, and finally a man sentenced to the cangue, the pillory, or the cage is exposed to such horrible anguish, that when the death-warrant arrives from Peking, the unfortunate wretch goes cheerfully to the scaffold, as if his last day were really the day of his deliverance.

“Capital punishment, horribly varied in bygone days, is now only inflicted in three ways; strangulation, decapitation, and the slow death by stabbing.

“Strangulation is effected by means of a silken cord that two executioners pull at each end, or by an iron collar tightened by a screw, very much like the _garote_ at present used in Spain. Strangulation by the silken cord, is reserved for the princes of the Imperial family; the iron collar is used to destroy, in the silence of the prison, those whose death it is desired to conceal.

“In public, the only mode of execution is decapitation, applied to all vulgar crimes. The preparations for this mode of death are very simple, and its action very rapid, owing to the temper and weight of the swords, and the skill of those who wield them. The guillotine never attained the lightning-like rapidity of the satellites of the dreaded Yeh, the viceroy from whom the Anglo-French delivered the province of Canton; they could strike off a hundred heads in a few moments. Their master used to boast that their skill was derived from a hundred thousand subjects of experiment he had furnished them with in less than two years.

“The slow death of stabbing is inflicted for the crimes of treason, parricide, and incest. The preparation for this mode of punishment must double the miseries of the condemned convict. Securely tied to a post, his feet and hands fastened with ropes, his head is placed in a kind of pillory, while the magistrate delegated to witness the execution of the sentence, draws from a covered basket a knife, on the handle of which is written the part of the body in which it is to be inserted. This horrible torture is continued until chance selects the heart, or some other vital part. We hasten to add, that generally the convict’s friends purchase the connivance of the magistrate, who takes care to draw at the very first venture, the knife intended for the mortal blow.

“It is little wonder that the Chinese accustomed to such penalties, and to the hideous and frequent spectacles they afford, should early become inured to the idea of death, and that even their women and children should possess in the highest degree the passive courage which enables them to meet it with calmness. For many of these poor people, death is only the welcome termination of a miserable and painful existence.

“I had the curiosity to be present at one of the last sittings of the Court, and at my request a place was reserved for me, where I could see without being seen.

“The hall of justice had nothing remarkable in an architectural sense. It was surrounded by a lofty wall, nearly as high as the principal edifice. The first court is enclosed by buildings used as prisons. I saw some boxes made of enormously thick bamboo bars placed at a little distance apart, in which prisoners were shut up during the night.

“In this court a crowd of wretched creatures with emaciated limbs, livid faces, and barely covered with a few loathsome rags, lay sweltering in the sun. Some were fastened by the foot with an iron chain to a weight so heavy, that they were unable to stir it, and staggered round it like caged wild beasts, continually turning in a space of a few feet. Others had their arms and legs shackled together, so that they could only move about in short jumps, which must have been very painful to judge by the expression of their faces.

“One of these prisoners had his left hand and right foot fastened in a board a few inches in width; a policeman dragged him forward by an iron chain fastened to a heavy collar clasped round his neck, whilst another flogged him from behind, to make him go on. This wretched creature crept along with great difficulty on the leg that was still free, his body bent double in the most painful position (fig. 132).

“In another corner of the court, other prisoners were undergoing the punishment of the cangue. I also saw a painful sight, a thief buried alive in a wooden cage.

“Imagine a heavy tub upside down, under which a human being is made to crouch; his head and his hands are slipped through three round holes, made so excessively tight that he cannot remove them; the weight of the cage presses on his shoulders, whatever movement he makes he must carry it about with him. When he wishes to rest, he can only crouch upon his knees in a most fatiguing position; when he wishes to take exercise, he can hardly lift the weight of the tub (fig. 133). One shrinks from attempting to realize the existence of a man condemned to a month of such a punishment. The miserable sufferer I saw, being unable to either eat or drink by himself, his wife had undertaken to help him; she was standing close to the cage feeding him with rice and some little pieces of pork, which she pushed into his mouth with chop-sticks. From time to time, she wiped with an old piece of cloth the livid countenance of her husband, which was running down with perspiration, whilst her little child, slung to her back with a strap, smiled in its utter ignorance of misery, and played with the curls of its mother’s flowing hair. This sight affected me deeply, and I hurried on to avoid making a protest against such atrocity.

“The entrance to the hall of justice is embellished with an external portico, on which some mythological scenes are painted in glowing colours.

“Presently the folding gates opened with a loud creaking, and admitted the crowd that had gathered in the first court. At the end of the large hall on a raised daïs, I perceived Tchong-louen in his ceremonial costume, surrounded with his councillors and the subaltern officers of justice. In front of him, on a table covered with a red cloth, were the records of criminal proceedings, brushes and saucers for the Indian ink, a bookcase containing the codes and the books of jurisprudence that might have to be consulted, and a large case full of painted and numbered pieces of wood. Behind the mandarin stood his fan-bearer, and two children richly dressed in silk, who held over his head the insignia of his dignity. On the twelve stone steps that ascended to the dais were posted, first, the executioner, conspicuous for his wire hat, and his red dress. He leant his right hand upon an enormous rattan cane, while his left wielded a curved sword; then came his assistants and the jailors carrying different instruments of torture which they clashed noisily together, whilst continuing at measured intervals to utter horrible yells, intended to throw terror into the minds of the prisoners. All round the hall stood police soldiers, in the red tasselled Manchú cap, armed with a short spear, and with two swords sheathed in the same scabbard. Red draperies inscribed with various sentences, and lanterns representing different monsters were hung around the walls. In short, the whole scene was got up to impress the eager and curious mob, which crowded thickly beneath the overhanging side galleries, with the imposing spectacle of the symbols of justice, as represented in fig. 134.

“I witnessed from the place reserved for me behind the judgment seat the trial of half a score of robbers. I will not attempt to describe the scenes of torture that followed their repeated denials of guilt. When a prisoner persisted in asserting his innocence, the judge tossed to the executioner one of the painted sticks or counters lying in the case on the table before him, and on which was marked the number of blows or the description of torture to be inflicted. This was immediately carried into effect under the eyes of the judge and registrars who made careful notes of the half avowals uttered by the victim in the midst of his screams of agony.”

Military matters are but little attended to in China. This sceptical and timorous nation is no believer in military glory and power. Our campaigns in China showed the value of a Chinese army. General Cousin Montauban, since Count de Palikao, cut numbers of them to pieces, after one or two skirmishes, in which the Chinese fled as hard as they could the very moment they perceived a uniform.

A nation of four hundred million inhabitants was conquered by six thousand Frenchmen. The unworthy cowardice of the Chinese explain the fact that they have always been an easy prey to conquerors.

In Chinese military matters we will restrict ourselves to reproducing their uniforms. Fig. 135 represents that of their infantry, and fig. 136 that of their mounted troops.

The real army of the Chinese nation is the care with which it holds itself aloof from foreigners, and the manner in which it forbids them access to its territory. Retrenched behind its wall, it is happy in its own way and does without soldiers. The system seems a good one, since it has succeeded for so many centuries.

The wall of China, which rigorously excludes all strangers from the empire, is no mere metaphor. It is a solid reality. Fig. 137 gives a view of the Great Wall taken near Peking.

The Marquis de Moges, an attaché of the embassy when M. Gros was French Ambassador in China, has wittily summed up, in his account of his travels, the contrast between Chinese and Western civilization. “In China,” he says, “the magnetic needle points to the south;--the cardinal points are five in number;--the left hand is the place of honour;--politeness requires you to keep your head covered in the presence of a superior, or in that of a person whom you wish to honour;--a book is read from right to left;--fruit is eaten at the beginning of dinner and soup at its close;--at school, children learn their lessons aloud and repeat them all together;--their silence is punished as a sign of idleness;--and finally, a title of nobility conferred upon a man for some signal service rendered to the state, does not descend to his posterity, but goes backwards and ennobles his ancestors.”

THE JAPANESE FAMILY.

Japan, consisting of a large island, that of Nipon, and seven other smaller islands, of which the principal are Yesso, Sitkokf, and Kiousiou, is inhabited by an industrious and intelligent people. The Japanese, whilst resembling the Chinese in many points, differ from them in many others, and are far superior in a moral point of view to the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire.

The written character of Japan is the same as that of China, and its literature is not a distinctive one, but entirely Chinese. The two creeds of Buddha and of Confucius prevail in Japan as they do in China. The worship of these creeds is carried on in both countries in similar pagodas, and their ministers are the same bonzes with shaven heads and long gray robes. The buildings and the junks of both nations are identical. Their food is the same, a diet of vegetables, principally rice, and fish, washed down by plenty of tea and spirit. The coolies carry their loads in exactly the same manner in Japan and in China, at Nangasaki and at Peking, and make the streets resound with the same shrill measured cries. The Japanese women wear their hair as the Chinese women used to do before they adopted the fashion of pig-tails, and the townspeople in Yeddo, as in Nankin, seclude themselves in their houses, which are impervious both to heat and cold.

But the resemblance stops there. The Japanese, a warlike and feudal nation, would be indignant at being confounded with the servile and crafty inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, who despise war, and whose sole aim is commerce. A Chinaman begins to laugh when he is reproached with running away from the enemy, or when he is convicted of having told a lie; such matters give him little concern. A Japanese sets a different value on his life and on his honour; he is warlike and haughty. A Japanese soldier always confronts his enemy. To deprive him of his sword is to dishonour him, and he will only consent to take it back stained with the life-blood of his conqueror. The duello, unknown in China, is carried out in a terrible fashion among the Japanese. The islander of Nipon disembowels himself with a thrust of his own sword, and dares his adversary to follow his example. The Chinese race live in a state of disgusting and perpetual filth; every Japanese, on the contrary, without distinction of rank or fortune, takes a warm bath every other day. Of a jovial and frank disposition, and of great intelligence, they are always desirous of knowing what is going on in the world, and ever anxious to learn; whilst the Chinese, on the other hand, shut themselves up behind their classic wall, and recoil from everything that is strange to them. These characteristics show that the Japanese are a far superior race to the Chinese.

A few peculiarities, more especially found in the inhabitants of the sea coasts, the fishermen and the sailors, separate the Japanese physical type from that of the Chinese. The former are small, vigorous, active men with heavy jaws, thick lips, and a small nose, flat at the bridge, but yet with an aquiline profile. Their hair is somewhat inclined to be curly.

The Japanese are generally of middle height. They have a large head, rather high shoulders, a broad chest, a long waist, fleshy hips, slender short legs, and small hands and feet. The full face of those who have a very retreating forehead and particularly prominent cheek-bones is rather square than oval in shape. Their eyes are more projecting than those of Europeans, and are rather more veiled by the eyelid. The general effect is not that of the Chinese or Mongolian type. The Japanese have a larger head than is customary with individuals of these races, their face is longer, their features are more regular, and their nose is more prominent and better shaped.

They have all thick, sleek, dark black hair, and a considerable quantity of it on their faces. The colour of their skin varies according to the class they belong to, from the sallow sunburnt complexion of the inhabitants of southern Europe to the deep tawny hue of that of the native of Java. The most general tint is a sallow brown, but none remind you of the yellow skin of the Chinese. The women are fairer than the men. Amongst the upper and even the middle classes, some are to be met with with a perfectly white complexion.

Two indelible features distinguish the Japanese from the European type. Their half-veiled eyes, and a disfiguring hollow in the breast, which is noticeable in them in the flower of their youth, even in the handsomest figures.

Both men and women have black eyes, and white sound teeth. Their countenance is mobile and possesses great variety of expression. It is the custom for their married women to blacken their teeth. The national Japanese costume is a kind of open dressing gown (fig. 138), which is made a little wider and a little more flowing for the women than for the men. It is fastened round the waist by a belt. That, worn by the men, is a narrow silk sash, that, by the women, a broad piece of cloth tied in a peculiar knot at the back.

The Japanese wear no linen, but they bathe, as we have said, every other day. The women wear an under-garment of red silk crape.

In summer, the peasants, the fishermen, the mechanics and the Indian coolies follow their calling in a state of almost complete nudity, and the women only wear a skirt from the waist downwards. When it rains they cover themselves with capes made of straw, or oiled paper, and with hats made, shield shape, of cane bark. In winter the men of the lower classes wear, beneath their _kirimon_ or dressing-gown, a tight fitting vest and pair of trousers of blue cotton stuff, and the women one or more wadded cloaks. The middle classes always wear a vest and trousers out of doors.

Figs. 138, 139, 140, and 141 represent different Japanese types.

Their costume generally differs only in the material of which it is made. The nobility alone have the right to wear silk. They only wear their costlier dresses on the occasions of their going to court or when they pay ceremonial visits. All classes wear linen socks and sandals of plaited straw, or wooden shoes fastened by a string looped round the big toe. They all, on their return to their own house, or when entering that of a stranger, take off their shoes, and leave them at the threshold.

The floors of Japanese dwellings are covered with mattings, which take the place of every other kind of furniture.

A Japanese has but one wife.

The Japanese have a taste for science and art, and are fond of music and pageants. Their manufactures are largely developed. They make all sorts of fine stuffs, work skilfully in iron and copper, make capital sword-blades, and their wood carvings, their lacquer-work, and their china, enjoy a wide reputation.

Political power is divided between an hereditary and despotic governor, the _Taïcoon_, and a spiritual chief, the _Mikado_.

The creed of Buddhism, that of the _Kamis_, and the doctrines of Confucius equally divide the religious tendencies of the Japanese.

We will give a few details on the interesting inhabitants of Japan, from the account of a visit to that country written by M. Humbert, the Swiss plenipotentiary there, which was published in 1870 under the title of “Japan.”

M. Humbert was present at the ceremonies which took place on the occasion of an official visit paid by the Taïcoon to the Mikado, and he gives the following account of it:--

“While I was in Japan, it happened that the Taïcoon paid a visit of courtesy to the Mikado.

“This was an extraordinary event. It made a great sensation, inspired the brush of several native artists, and gave resident foreigners a chance of seeing a little more clearly into the reciprocal relation of the two powers of the empire. Their respective position is really one of considerable interest.

“In the first place, the Mikado has over his temporal rival the advantage of birth and the prestige of his sacred character. Grandson of the Sun, he continues the traditions of the gods, the demi-gods, the heroes, and the hereditary sovereigns who have reigned over Japan in an uninterrupted succession since the creation of the empire of the eight great islands. Supreme head of their religion, under whatever form it may present itself to the people, he officiates as the sovereign pontiff of the ancient national creed of the Kamis. At the summer solstice, he offers sacrifices to the earth; at the winter solstice, to heaven. A god is specially deputed to watch over his precious destiny; from the shrine of the temple he inhabits at the top of Mount Kamo, in the neighbourhood of the Mikado’s residence, this deity watches night and day over the Daïri. And finally at the death of a Mikado, his name, which it has been ordained shall be inscribed in the temples of his ancestors, is engraved at Kioto, in the temple of Hatchiman; and at Isyé, in the temple of the Sun.

“It is indubitably from heaven that the Mikado, both theocratic emperor and hereditary sovereign, derives the authority which he exercises over his people. Though now-a-days, it must be acknowledged, he scarcely knows how to employ it. However, from time to time it seems proper to him to confer pompous titles, which are entirely honorary, on a few old feudal nobles who have deserved well of the altar. Sometimes also he allows himself the luxury of openly protesting against those acts of the temporal power, which seem to infringe on his prerogatives. This is the course he took with special reference to the treaties made by the Taïcoon with several western nations; it is true that he finally sanctioned them, but that was because he could not help himself.

“Now the Taïcoon, as everybody knows, is the fortunate successor of a common usurper. In fact, the founders of his dynasty, subjects of the then Mikado, robbed their lord and master of his army, his navy, his lands, and his treasure, as if they were desirous of depriving him of any subject of earthly anxiety.

“Possibly the Mikado was too ready to fall in with their plans. The offer of a two-wheeled chariot drawn by an ox, for his daily drive in the parks of his residence, doubtless a considerable privilege in a country where nobody uses a conveyance, should not have persuaded him to sacrifice the manly exercises of archery, hawking, and hunting the stag or wild boar. He might likewise, without making himself absolutely invisible, have spared himself the fatigue of the ceremonious receptions where, motionless on a raised platform, he accepts the silent adoration of his courtiers prostrated at his feet. The Mikado, now, they say, only communicates with the exterior world through the medium of the female attendants intrusted with the care of his person. It is they who dress and feed him, clothing him daily in a fresh costume, and serving his meals on table utensils fresh every morning from the manufactory which for centuries has monopolized their supply. His sacred feet never touch the ground; his countenance is never exposed in broad daylight to the common gaze; in a word, the Mikado must be kept pure from all contact with the elements, the sun, the moon, the earth, mankind, and himself.

“It was necessary that the interview should take place at Kioto, the holy town which the Mikado is never allowed to leave. His palace, and the ancient temples of his family are his sole personal possessions there, the town itself being under the rule of the temporal emperor; but the latter dedicates its revenues to the expenses of the spiritual sovereign, and condescends to keep up a permanent garrison within its walls for the protection of the pontifical throne.

“The preliminaries on both sides having been carried out, a proclamation announced the day when the Taïcoon intended to issue forth from his capital, the immense and populous modern town of Yeddo, the head-quarters of the political and civil government of the empire, the seat of the Naval and Military Schools, of the Interpreters’ College, and of the Academy of Medicine and Philosophy.

“He was preceded by a division of his army equipped in the European manner, and, while these picked troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were marching on Kioto by land along the great Imperial highway of the Tokaïdo, the fleet received orders to set sail for the inland sea. The temporal sovereign himself, embarked in the splendid steamer, the _Lycemoon_, which he had purchased of the firm of Dent and Co. for five hundred thousand dollars. Six other steamers escorted him; the _Kandimarrah_, notorious for its voyage from Yeddo to San-Francisco to convey the Japanese embassy sent to the United States; the sloop of war, the _Soembing_, a gift from the King of the Netherlands; the yacht _Emperor_, a present from Queen Victoria; and some frigates built in America and in Holland to orders given by the embassies of 1859 and 1862. Manned entirely by Japanese crews, this squadron left the bay of Yeddo, doubled Cape Sagami and the promontory of Idsou, crossed the Linschoten straits, and coasting along the eastern shores of the island of Awadsi, dropped its anchors in the Hiogo roadstead, where the Taïcoon disembarked amid larboard and starboard salutes.

“His state entry into Kioto took place a few days later, with no military parade but that of his own troops, as the Mikado possesses neither soldiers nor artillery, with the exception of a body-guard of archers, recruited from the families of his kinsmen or of the feudal nobility. Indeed, he can hardly afford even on this moderate scale, the expenses of his court; and his own revenue being insufficient, he is obliged to accept with one hand an income the Taïcoon consents to pay him out of his own private purse, and with the other, the amounts that the brethren of a few monastic orders yearly collect for him, from village to village, in even the furthest provinces of the empire. Another circumstance that assists him to support his rank, is the disinterested abnegation of many of his high officials. Some of them serve him with no other remuneration but the free use of the costly regulation dresses of the old imperial wardrobe. On their return home, after doffing their court costume, these haughty gentlemen are not ashamed to seat themselves at a weavers’ loom or an embroidery frame. More than one piece of the rich silk productions of Kioto, the handiwork of which is so much admired, has issued from some of the princely houses, whose names are inscribed in the register of the Kamis.

“These drawbacks did not prevent the Mikado from inaugurating the day of the interview, by exhibiting to his royal visitor the spectacle of the grand procession of the Daïri. Accompanied by his archers, by his household, by his courtiers, and by the whole of his pontifical staff, he left his palace by the southern gateway, which, towards the close of the ninth century, was decorated by the historical compositions of the celebrated painter-poet, Kosé Kanaoka. He descended along the boulevards to the suburb washed by the Yodogawa, and returned to the castle through the principal streets of the town.

“The ancient insignia of his supreme power were carried in state at the head of the procession; the mirror of his ancestress Izanami, the beautiful goddess who gave birth to the sun in the island of Awadsi; the glorious standard, the long paper streamers of which had waved above the heads of the soldiery of Zinmou the conqueror; the flaming sword of the hero of Yamato, who overcame the eight-headed hydra to which virgins of princely blood used to be sacrificed; the seal that stamped the first laws of the empire; and the cedar wood fan, shaped like a lath and used as a sceptre, which for more than two thousand years has descended from the hands of the dead Mikado to those of his successor.

“I will not stop to describe another part of the pageant, intended doubtless to complete and enhance the effect of the rest, namely the banners embroidered with the armorial bearings of all the ancient noble families of the empire. Perhaps they were intended to remind the Taïcoon, that, in the eyes of the old territorial nobility, he was nothing but a _parvenu_; if so, the _parvenu_ could smile complacently at the thought, that the whole of the Japanese grandees, the great as well as the lesser daïmios, are, nevertheless, obliged to pass six months of the year, at his Court in Yeddo, and offer him their homage in the midst of the nobles of his own creation.

“The most numerous and the most picturesque ranks of the procession were those of the representatives of all the sects who recognise the spiritual supremacy of the Mikado. The dignitaries of the ancient creed of the Kamis are scarcely distinguishable, as to dress, from the high officials of the palace. I have already described their costume, it reminds the spectators that the Japanese possessed originally a religion without a priesthood. Buddhism, on the contrary, which came from China, and rapidly spread throughout the empire, has an immense variety of sects, rites, orders, and brotherhoods. The bonzes and the monks belonging to this faith composed in the procession endless ranks of devout-looking individuals, with the tonsure or with entirely shaven heads, some of them uncovered, and some wearing curiously shaped caps, mitres, and hats with wide brims. Some of them carried a crozier in their right hand, others a rosary, others again, a fly-brush, a sea-shell, or a holy water sprinkler made of paper. They were dressed in cassocks, surplices, and cloaks of every shape and hue.

“Behind them came the household of the Mikado. The pontifical body-guard in their full dress, aim beyond everything at elegance. Leaving breast-plates and coats of mail to the men-at-arms of the Taïcoon, they wear a little lacquer-work cap, ornamented on both sides with rosettes, and a rich silk tunic trimmed with lace edgings. The width of their trousers conceals their feet. They are equipped with a large curved sabre, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows.

“Some of the mounted ones had a long riding-whip fastened to their wrist by a coarse silken cord.

“A great deal of brutality is too often hidden beneath this imposing exterior. The wildness and the dissipation of the young nobles of the Japanese pontifical court have supplied history with pages recalling the worst period of papal Rome, the days of Cæsar Borgia. Conrad Kramer, the envoy of the Dutch West Indian islands to the court of Kioto, was allowed to be present in 1626 at a festival held in honour of a visit of the temporal emperor to his spiritual sovereign. He relates that the following day, corpses of women, young girls, and children, who had fallen victims to nocturnal outrages, were found in the streets of the capital. A still larger number of married women and maidens, whom curiosity had attracted to Kioto, were lost by their husbands and parents in the turmoil of the crowded streets, and were only found a week or a fortnight later, their families being utterly unable to bring their abducers to justice.

“Polygamy being a legal institution for the Mikado only, it was perhaps natural for him to make some display of his prerogative. It costs him sufficiently dear. It is the abyss hidden with flowers that the first usurpers of the imperial power dug for the feet of the successors of Zinmou. It is easy to imagine the cynical smile on the lips of the Taïcoon as he saw the long row of the equipages of the Daïri making its appearance.

“A pair of black buffaloes, driven by pages in white smocks, were harnessed to each of these cumbrous vehicles which were made of precious woods and glistened with coats of varnish of different tints. They contained the empress and the twelve other legitimate wives of the Mikado seated behind doors of open latticework. His favourite concubines, and the fifty ladies of honour of the empress followed close behind, in covered palanquins.

“When the Mikado himself leaves his residence, it is always in his pontifical litter. This litter, fastened on long shafts, and borne by fifty porters in white liveries, can be seen from a long distance off towering above the crowd. It is constructed in the shape of a _mikosis_, the kind of shrine in which the holy relics of the Kamis are exposed. It may be compared to a garden summer-house, with a cupola roof with bells hanging all round its base. On the top of the cupola there is a ball, and on top of the ball there is a kind of cock couchant on its spurs, with its wings extended and its tail spread: this is meant as a representation of the mythological bird known in China and Japan under the name of Foô.

“This portable summer-house, glistening all over with gold, is so very hermetically closed that it is difficult to believe that any body could be put inside it. A proof, however, that it is really used for the high purpose attributed to it, is that on each side of it are seen walking the women who are the domestic attendants of the Mikado. They alone have the privilege of surrounding his person. To the rest of his court as well as to his people, the Mikado remains an invisible, dumb, and inapproachable divinity. He kept up this character even in the interview with the Taïcoon.

“Amongst the group of buildings that constitute the right of Kioto to be styled the pontifical residence, there is one that might be called the Temple of Audience, for it is constructed in the sacred style of architecture peculiar to the religious edifices of the faith of the Kamis, and it bears like them the name of Mia. Adjoining the apartments inhabited by the Mikado, it stands at the bottom of a large court paved and planted with trees, in which are marshalled the escorts of honour on high and solemn festivals.

“A detachment of officers of the artillery and of the body-guards of the Taïcoon (fig. 143), and several groups of dignitaries of the Mikado’s suite drew up successively in this open space.

“The women had retired to their own apartments.

“Deputations of bonzes and different monastic orders occupied the corridors along the surrounding walls. Soldiers of the Taïcoonal garrison of Kioto, posted at intervals, kept the line of the avenue which led to the broad steps reaching up to the front of the building. Up this avenue the courtiers of the Mikado, clad in mantles with long trains, passed with measured tread, majestically ascended the steps, and placed themselves right and left on the verandah with their faces turned towards the still closed doors of the great throne room. Before taking up their position they took care to lift the trains of their mantles and throw them over the balustrade of the verandah, so as to display to the crowd the coats of arms which were embroidered on these portions of their garments. The whole verandah was soon curtained with this brilliant kind of tapestry.

“Presently the sound of flutes, of sea-shells and of the gongs of the pontifical chapel, proceeding from the left wing of the building, announced that the Mikado was entering the sanctuary. A deep silence fell upon the crowd. An hour passed away in solemn expectation, whilst the preliminaries of the reception were being performed. Suddenly a flourish of trumpets announced the arrival of the Taïcoon. He advanced up the avenue on foot and without any escort; his prime minister, the commanders in chief of the army and navy, and a few members of the council of the Court of Yeddo, walked at a respectful distance behind him. He stopped for a moment at the foot of the great staircase, and immediately the doors of the temple slowly opened, gliding from right to left in their grooves. He then ascended the steps, and the spectacle which had held in suspense the expectation of the multitude at last unveiled itself to their eyes.

“A large green awning of cane-bark fastened to the ceiling of the hall, hung within two or three feet of the floor. Through this narrow space, could be perceived a couch of mats and carpets, on which the broad folds of an ample white robe spread themselves out. This was all that could be seen of the spectacle of the Mikado on his throne.

“The chinks in the plaits of the cane awning allowed him to see everything without being seen. Wherever he directed his gaze, he perceived nothing but heads bent before his invisible majesty. One alone remained erect on the summit of the stairs of the temple, but it was one crowned with the lofty golden coronet, the royal symbol of the temporal head of the empire. And even he too, the powerful sovereign whose might is boundless, when he had reached the last step, bent his head, and sinking slowly, fell on his knees, stretched his arms forward towards the threshold of the throne-room, and bowed his forehead to the very ground.

“From that moment, the ceremony of the interview was accomplished, the aim of the solemnity was gained. The Taïcoon had openly prostrated himself at the feet of the Mikado.

“The interview at Kioto, had for its result two facts. By the first, the bending of the knee, the temporal sovereign showed that he continued to be the traditional obedient son of the high pontiff of the national religion; but, by the second, that is to say by accepting this act of homage, the theocratic emperor formally recognised the representative of a dynasty sprung from a source alien to the only legitimate one.”

As the art of war is of some importance in Japan, we quote a few details from M. Humbert, on the equipments and the uniforms of the Taïcoon’s soldiers.

“The common soldiers are,” M. Humbert tells us, “inhabitants of the mountains of Akoui. They return to their homes after a short service of two or three years. Their uniform is made of blue cotton stuff, striped with white across the shoulders, and consists of a tight-fitting pair of trousers, and a shirt like that worn by the followers of Garibaldi. They wear cotton socks, leather sandals, and a waist-belt supporting a large sword in a japanned scabbard. Their cartridge-pouch and their bayonet are slung to their right side by a baldric. Their get-up is completed by a pointed hat, sloping at the sides, and made of lacquered cardboard; but they only wear it when on guard or at drill.

“As for the muskets of the Japanese troops, they have all, it is true, percussion-locks, but they vary both in calibre and in make, according to where they happen to come from. I saw four different kinds in the racks of some barracks at Benten, which a Yakounine did me the favour to show me. He showed me first a Dutch sample musket, and then one of an inferior quality manufactured in some workshops that had been started in Yeddo to turn out arms copied from this sample; he then pointed out an American gun; and finally, a Minié rifle, the use of which a young officer was teaching a squad of soldiers in the barrack-yard.”

The dress of the Japanese soldiery is curious in this respect, that it reproduces and preserves the whole military paraphernalia of European feudal times. A helmet, a coat-of-mail, a halberd, and a two-handed sword, such are the equipment of the better class of soldiery.

Fencing is held in high esteem in the Japanese army. The men are very clever at this exercise, which keeps up their vigour and their skill. Even the women practise it. Their weapon is a lance with a bent piece of iron at the end of it. The ladies learn how to use it in a series of regular positions and attitudes. The Japanese Amazons can also skilfully make use of a kind of knife, fastened to the wrist with a long silken string. When they have hurled this weapon at the head of their enemy, they draw it back again by means of the cord. The men also hurl the knife, but without fastening it to their wrist, and in the same way as they practise throwing the knife in Spain.

The Japanese nobles carry very costly weapons. The temper of their sword-blades is matchless, and their sword-hilts and scabbards are enriched with finely chased and engraved metal ornaments. But the chief value of their swords lies in their great age and reputation. In old families, every sword has a history and tradition of its own, whose brilliancy corresponds with the blood it has shed. A maiden sword must not remain so in the hand of its purchaser. Till an opportunity turns up of dyeing it with human blood, its possessor tries its prowess on living animals, or better still, on the corpses of executed criminals. The executioner, having obtained permission, hands him over two or three dead bodies. Our Japanese then proceeds to fasten them to crosses, or on trestles, in a courtyard of his house, and practises cutting, slashing, and thrusting, till he has acquired enough strength and skill to cut a couple of bodies in two at one stroke.

The sword, in Japan, is the classical, the national weapon. Nevertheless, in process of time, it will have to give way to the new improved firearms. In spite of the traditional prestige with which the Japanese nobility still endeavour to surround the former old-fashioned weapon; in spite of the contempt they affect for military innovations; the rifle, the democratic arm of arms, is becoming more and more used in Japan. This weapon will inaugurate a social revolution that will put an end to the feudal system. The rifle will cause an Eastern ’89 in Japan.

We have said that two creeds are followed in Japan, the Buddhist faith and the religion of the Kamis. The latter, with its ancient rites, has been replaced, however, nearly throughout the empire by the former.

We quote some of M. Humbert’s remarks on Buddhism.

“Our imagination can hardly conceive,” says this traveller, “that nearly a third of the human race has no religious belief but that of Buddhism, a creed without a God, a faith of negation, an invention of despair.

“One would wish to persuade oneself that the multitudes who follow its doctrines, do not understand the faith they profess, or at least refuse to admit its natural consequences. The idolatrous practices engrafted on the book of its law seem in fact to bear witness that Buddhism has neither been able to satisfy or destroy the religious instinct innate in man, and germinating in the bosoms of all nations.

“On the other hand, it is impossible not to recognize the influence of the philosophy of final annihilation in many of the habits and customs of Japanese life. The Irowa teaches the school children that life disappears like a dream, and leaves no trace behind. A Japanese, arrived at man’s estate, sacrifices with the most disdainful indifference his own life or that of his neighbour, to appease his pride, or for some trifling cause of anger. Murders and suicides are of such every-day occurrence in Japan, that there are few families of gentle birth who do not make it a point of honour to boast at least one sword that has been dyed in blood.

“Buddhism is, however, superior in some respects to the creeds it has dethroned. It owes this relative superiority to the justice of its fundamental axiom, which is an avowal of a need for a redeeming principle, grounded on the double fact of the existence of evil in the nature of man, and of an universal state of misery and suffering in the world.

“The promises of the religion of the Kamis had all reference to this life. A strict observance of the rules of purification would preserve the faithful from the five great ills, which are the fire of heaven, sickness, poverty, exile, and early death. The aim of their religious festivals was the glorification of the heroes of the empire. But were patriotism idealized and exalted into a national creed, it would still be true that this natural feeling, so precious and so appropriate, could never suffice to satisfy the soul and answer its every craving. The human soul is more boundless than the world. It needs a belief to raise it beyond the earth. Buddhism to a certain extent met these aspirations which had been hitherto neglected. This circumstance alone will explain the success with which it is propagated, in Japan and elsewhere, by the mere force of persuasion. At all events we may well believe that it is not its abstract and philosophical form that has made it so popular, and nothing is a better proof of this than its present state.

“The bonzes Sinran, Nitziten, and twenty or thirty others, have made themselves a reputation as founders of sects, each of which is distinguished by some peculiarity worthy of rivalling the ingenious invention of Foudaïsi.

“Thus one particular brotherhood has a monopoly of the patronage of the great family rosary. It must be explained that a Buddhist rosary can only exercise its power if its beads are properly enumerated. Now in a numerous family there is no guarantee against errors being committed in the use of the rosary; whence the inefficiency it is sometimes accused of. Instead of indulging in recrimination, however, the plan pursued is to send for a bonze of the Order of the Great Rosary to set matters right again.

“This good man hastens up with his instrument, which is about as big as a good-sized boa-constrictor, and places it in the hands of the family kneeling in a circle, whilst he himself, standing in front of the shrine of the domestic idol, directs operations with a bell and a small hammer. At a given signal, father, mother, and children, intone with the whole force of their lungs the prayers agreed upon. The small and the large beads of the rosary and the strokes of the hammer fall with a cadenced rhythm that inspires them. The rosary ring grows excited, their cries become passionate, their arms and hands work like machinery, the perspiration streams down them, and their bodies get stiff with fatigue. At last the close of the ceremony leaves everybody breathless, exhausted, but radiant with happiness, for the interceding gods must be satisfied!

“Buddhism is a flexible conciliating, insinuating religion, which accommodates itself to the bent and the habits of the most different races. From the very first, the bonzes in Japan managed to get themselves entrusted with some of the shrines and small chapels of the Kamis, in order to protect them in the enclosures of their sanctuaries. They hastened to add to their ceremonies symbols borrowed from the ancient national faith; and in short, for the purpose of better fusing the two creeds, they introduced into their temples, Kamis deities invested with the titles and attributes of Hindoo divinities, and at the same time, Hindoo gods transformed into Japanese Kamis. There was nothing inadmissible in these exchanges, which were explained in the most natural manner by the dogma of transmigration. Thanks to this combination of the two creeds, which received the name of Rioobou-Sintoo, Buddhism has become the prevalent religion of Japan.

“. . . . Within their temples the bonzes officiate at the altar, in the sight of the people, beyond the sanctuary which a veil separates from the crowd. The latter are only directly addressed by them in preaching, and only on the special festivals consecrated to this practice.

“They are only allowed to go in procession at certain periods of the year, and then only in the presence of the government officials who superintend public pageants.

“The pastoral portions of their duty have been cut down to such narrow limits, that I can only find one word to apply to the duties that remain. They are simply the duties of a mute. In fact, the bonzes perform the sacramental ceremonies that the Japanese of all sects are accustomed to see accompany the last moments of the dying. They arrange the funeral procession, and provide, according to the wishes of the relatives of the deceased, for the burial or for the burning of his remains, and for the consecration and protection of his tomb.”