Ballou Maturin Murray - Foot-prints of Travel: or, Journeyings in Many Lands стр 7.

Every steamship on the trip westward carries more or less Chinamen, who, having acquired a certain sum of money by industry and self-denial, are glad to return to their native land and live upon its income. Interest is very high in China, and money is scarce. It is curious to watch these second-class passengers. In fine weather they crowd the forward deck, squatting upon their hams in picturesque groups, and playing cards or dominos for small stakes of money. The Chinese are inveterate gamblers, but are satisfied generally to play for very small stakes. When the sea becomes rough and a storm rages, they exhibit great timidity, giving up all attempts at amusement. On such occasions, with sober faces and trembling hands, they prepare pieces of joss-paper (scraps with magic words), bearing Chinese letters, and cast them overboard to propitiate the anger of the special god who controls the sea. The dense, noxious smell which always permeates their quarters, in spite of enforced ventilation and the rules of the ship, is often wafted unpleasantly to our own part of the vessel, telling a significant story of the opium pipe, and a certain uncleanliness of person peculiar to Africans and Mongolians.

After a three

weeks' voyage we reach Yokohama, the commercial capital of Japan. When Commodore Perry opened this port in 1854 with a fleet of American men-of-war, it was scarcely more than a fishing village, but it has now a population of a hundred and thirty thousand, with well-built streets of dwelling-houses, the thoroughfares broad and clean, and all macadamized. The town extends along the level shore, but is backed by a half-moon of low, wooded hills, known as the Bluff, among which are the dwellings of the foreign residents, built after the European and American style. A deep, broad canal surrounds the city, passing by the large warehouses, and connected with the bay at each end, being crossed by several handsome bridges. If we ascend the road leading to the Bluff we have a most charming and extended view. In the west, seventy miles away, the white, cloud-like cone of Fujiyama, a large volcanic mountain of Japan, can clearly be discerned, while all about us lie the pretty villas of the foreign settlers.

In looking about this commercial capital everything strikes us as curious; every new sight is a revelation, while in all directions tangible representations of the strange pictures we have seen upon fans and lacquered ware are presented to view. One is struck by the partial nudity of men, women, and children, the extremely simple architecture of the dwelling-houses, the peculiar vegetation, the extraordinary salutations between the common people who meet each other upon the streets, the trading bazaars, and the queer toy-like articles which fill them; children flying kites in the shape of hideous yellow monsters. Each subject becomes a fresh study. Men drawing vehicles, like horses between the shafts, and trotting off at a six-mile pony-gait while drawing after them one or two persons, is a singular sight to a stranger. So are the naked natives, by fours, bearing heavy loads swung from their shoulders upon stout bamboo poles, while they shout a measured chant by means of which to keep step. No beggars are seen upon the streets; the people without exception are all neat and cleanly. The houses are special examples of neatness, and very small, being seldom more than twenty feet square, and one story in height. All persons, foreigners or natives, take off their shoes before entering upon the polished floors, not only out of respect to the customs of the country, but because one does not feel like treading upon their floors with nailed heels or soiled soles. The conviction forces itself upon us that such universal neatness and cleanliness must extend even to the moral character of the people. A spirit of gentleness, industry, and thrift are observable everywhere, imparting an Arcadian atmosphere to these surroundings. In the houses which we enter there are found neither chairs, tables, nor bedsteads; the people sit, eat, and sleep upon the floors, which are as clean as a newly laid tablecloth.

Here and there upon the roadsides moss-grown shrines bearing sacred emblems are observed, before which women, but rarely men, are seen bending. The principal religions of Japan are Shinto and Buddhism, subdivided into many sects. The Shinto is mainly a form of hero worship, successful warriors being canonized as martyrs are in the Roman Catholic Church. Buddhism is another form of idolatry, borrowed originally from the Chinese. The language of the country is composed of the Chinese and Japanese combined. As we travel inland, places are pointed out to us where populous cities once stood, but where no ruins mark the spot. A dead and buried city in Europe or in Asia leaves rude but almost indestructible remains to mark where great communities once built temples and monuments, and lived and thrived, like those historic examples of mutability, Memphis, Pæstum, Cumæ, or Delhi; but not so in Japan. It seems strange indeed that a locality where half a million of people have made their homes within the period of a century, should now present the aspect only of fertile fields of grain. But when it is remembered of what fragile material the natives build their dwellings, namely, of light, thin wood and paper, their utter disappearance ceases to surprise us. It is a curious fact that this people, contemporary with Greece and Rome at their zenith, who have only reared cities of wood and temples of lacquer, have outlived the classic nations whose half-ruined monuments are our choicest models. The Greek and Latin races have passed away, but Japan still remains, without a change of dynasty and with an inviolate country.