us who could not understand the words were charmed, delighted.
Last night a royal shogun, dressed in regal robes, treading the boards with tremendously dramatic effect; today, washing down the decks or polishing up the brass trimmings of the ship, that Japanese sailor man is an object for contemplation.
But again: "Land ho." Japan is sighted, and all interest centers at the ship's rail as we steam towards Yokohama.
VI
THE JAPS' FIVE-STORY SKYSCRAPER AND A BASEMENT
I believe I ended my last letter by ho-ing the land, and hanging a shipload of passengers over the rail, sailing into Yokohama harbor.
When a shipload of passengers get off at Yokohama, there is joy among the rikisha boys, and the passengers who are getting their first ride in a rikisha have an experience they will never forget. The first ride in a jinrikisha in Japan is an experience to lay away among one's choice collection of experiences.
A first ride in a rikisha has been fully described by myself and published, and to go into it in these letters would be to plagiarize myself: so, on to Tokio, the capital and largest city in Japan—the same old tremendous town, only more so—Greater Tokio has three million souls today. Compared to one of our great cities Tokio has the appearance of an overgrown village.
Many wide thoroughfares and narrow streets lined with low one- and two-story buildings—a clean city, covering a tremendous area.
You occasionally see a three-story building and they have one "skyscraper" that towers up into the air five stories—a landmark.
The Mitsukoshi, Japan's one great department store, is now housed in a modest three-story building, but they are building a new store.
The general factotum of the store who can speak English showed me a drawing of the new store. I exclaimed with admiration: "And she is going to be five stories high, isn't she?" "Yes," he said, proudly, "and a basement."
The government buildings are not so imposing as in many other of the world's capitals, and there is no single business center. The business of the city is widely scattered. Rapid transit in Tokio is in a state of transition. The trolley has come, but not sufficiently strong to be adequate for the traffic, but enough to discourage the rikisha boys—the rikisha boy has run his legs off in Tokio. He is still here, but in decreasing numbers, and what there is left of him is the beginning of the end, so far as Tokio is concerned.
He is an expensive proposition. He wants ten cents to take one any distance at all, and that is equivalent to a ten-cent car ride at home; and to take one any considerable distance is twenty-five cents.
They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days' stay
They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days' stay. They have automobiles, but not to such an extent that one has to do much dodging. In an hour's ride across the city I counted six—and it was a fine day for automobile riding, too.
To get around in Tokio is a problem. Like Washington, it is a city of magnificent distances. The street cars go where you want to go, but they don't come where you are. The charge is only two and one-half cents for a ride, but it costs ten cents for a rikisha boy to take you to the car. The boy will land you where you want to go for twenty-five cents, but there is a two and one-half cent street car fare against a twenty-five cent rikisha ride; so you tell your boy to take you to the car. Then it percolates into your mind that you have ten cents invested in that ride. But there is still a fifteen cent salvage if you take the car, less the two and one-half cents the car will cost—twelve and one-half cents net. While you are working out the problem your car passes, and you tell your boy to go on and take you there—you'd only save twelve and one-half cents anyway.
But that's another ride—twenty-five cents—new deal—and you sigh for the days of your old Tokio, before the street cars came to fuss you up.
While you are working out the problem your car passes
Also, they have raised the price of laundry in Tokio—yes, sir, the price of laundry has gone up. They now have the effrontery to charge you two and one-half cents to wash a handkerchief or a pair of socks. Of course it's two and one-half cents for a shirt, a white coat, or a pair of pants—flat rate, two and one-half cents, "Big or little piecee all samee." But it used to be one and one-half cents.
Those were the days when you didn't have to hold a shirt in one hand while you speculated with the other as to whether it would go one more time—under that old scale you just put it in the wash.
VII
JAPANESE GIRLS IN AMERICAN COSTUMES—THEY MAR THE LANDSCAPE
I noticed the following account of the death of the Empress Dowager in the Japan, a magazine printed in English in Tokio:
"Whilst as yet the earth mound set up over the august remains of the late lamented Emperor Meiji at Momoyama, Fushimi, is fresh and damp, the Japanese have been stricken with a renewed sorrow and bereavement, none the less profound, at the demise of their cherished, beloved Empress Dowager, the First Lady of the Land, who graciously shared the glorious throne of Japan with her lord and sovereign, the late illustrious Emperor Meiji, for forty-five long years of brilliant progress, splendid achievement, and the 'Reign of Enlightened Government.' As the beautiful, fragrant blooms of the cherry fall, ere the dawn comes when the stern, pitiless tempest ravages the tree in the evening, so the exalted person has sunk to rise no more at the inevitable, nay, unexpected, touch of the death's cold fingers.
"Although her recovery from the illness had been ardently prayed and hoped for by all her devout subjects, and although the medical attentions, the best the modern sciences can procure, having been concentrated upon the noble patient, the rays of hope for her recovery seemed to beam, the fatal crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly.
"Her Majesty had been suffering from chronic bronchial catarrh and nephritis, which became complicated by angina pectris on March 29, followed by a urine poisoning toward the end of that month. She seemed to be recovering from the urine-poisoning and the heart trouble due to angina pectris, until April 9, when at about 1:30 A. M. the second attack of angina pectris came, followed by the failure of the heart. The latter proved fatal; and the exalted patient in this critical condition returned to the capital from the imperial villa at Numazu, where she had been laying ill. The sad event was officially announced two hours after Her Majesty's arrival at the imperial detached palace at Aoyama, Tokio, the demise having been recorded as taking place April 11 at two A. M."
I was moved over that account more than I was over the fact that the Empress Dowager had passed away. I was not acquainted with the Empress Dowager, and therefore only felt that general interest one naturally feels in an event of the kind; but over that account I had emotions.
I had still more acute emotions when I saw a Japanese girl dressed in American girls' clothes. The Japanese girl in her own clothes is an old friend of mine.
I have known her for forty years—in her clothes—on lacquer boxes, screens, and fans; and for fifteen of those forty years, on periodical visits to Japan, she has danced and sung for me, and bowed and smiled to me, most bewitchingly—"belitchingly" in her native garb. But to see her tog herself out in high-heeled shoes, a basque, and a polonaise, and a hat with heaven knows what and then some on it! The editor of the Japan in his account moved me some, but that girl gets me