The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-01 00:00:00

JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE.

'TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir,—The annexed extract of a private letter, re-
cfived by the last China mail, may be interesting
to many of your readers.
The writer, from his official position, had many
opportunities of gaining reliable information not
attainable by an ordinary traveller.—l am, Sir,

your obedient servant,
Oct. 31.

H. R.

At Sea, between Shanghai and Hongkong, Sept. 8.
I left Hongkong on the 17th July in the '

A week's light winds brought us to the beautiful

island of Formosa and into the harbour of Keelung,

on the nsrth•east coast. Here we anchored for a

day, and spent a few hours very agreeably in

- _
rambling over the mountains and visiting the coal

mines in the neighbourhood. These we found to be
worked in a very rude way, without machinery or
any of the appliances of modern science. Wherever
coal is seen cropping out on the side of the moun-
tain a small gallery is run in, so that nothing but
surface coal has yet been obtained. This is light
and not fitted for steam, but there can be little
doubt that deeper sinking would furnish a better
quality. However, this could not be done without
capital, and I doubt whether the Chinese Govern-

ment would allow an English company to work the
mines. From Formosa we made a stretch across to

Japan, rullning through the beautiful archipelago
formed by the Leo-choo islands and Cecilia group.

Eight days brought us to the entrance of the Gulf

of Jeddo.

At Jeddo i spent three *Muff' between. the Legal

tion in the city and Yokohama, the commercial port
open to foreigners, distant from Jeddo about 18
miles lower down the gulf ; here I was put up by
the representative of the great firm of --- and Co.,
one of the first and richest firms in the world, so I

had an opportunity of hearing both the diplo•

matic and commercial sides of the question. Here
I had the misfortune to get a violent attack of
sore throat and fever, which confined me to bed.
Fortunately, however, about a week afterwards the

French steam transport Confucius came in from
Shanghai, and M. Belcour, the French Minister,

knowing how anxious I was to get to Shanghai,
placed her at my disposal. As sh© went through
the inland sea and remained a few days at Nagasaki,

I saw a great deal, and reached Shanghai on the 2d
inst., in time for the mail steamer for Hongkong.

Altogether I had a most charming and interesting
trip. With Japan lam in raptures. It certainly

surpasses in beauty and interest any country I have
ever seen. The climate is. very fine. I was there
during the hottest three weeks of the year, and the
thermometer at noon 'probably ranged about 85
deg., but it is not the same enervating heat felt in
the south' of China.
I used to walk about Yokohama, shopping, all
day, under ttn umbrella, without either discomfort
or bad' effects. I fully expect that in a few years
Yokohama will become a sea-bathinivrefuge. and
sanitarium, to which the Europeans of the south of
China will resort during the hot months of June,
July, August, and September.
The soil about Jeddo is very rich, and appears
suited to every kind of crop. I used to take long
rides every afternoon into the country round. both
Jeddo and Yokohama, and I never shall forget the
loveliness of the scenes we passed through., The
cultivation is most luxuriant and finished—not a
weed or a stone to be seen. The fields are not large,
but every available square yard is utilized and pro-
ducing an endless variety of crops—rye, rice, barley,
Indian corn, Guinea corn, millet, Irish potatoes,
sweet potatoes, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins,
guimgaw or egg plant, French beans, Lima beans,
carrots, and many other vegetables which I cannot
now recollect. Interspersed with these crops are
young plantations of cedar, fir, larch, juniper, and
bamboo, which gave the whole face of the country
the appearance of an enormous nursery garden.
The Japanese are excellent foresters, and prune,
manure, and thin their plantations in the same
way as other crops. The bamboo plantations
are lovely, more like young Areca palms, having
no branches, but single, bare stems, with a tuft
of the softest feathery-looking leaves at the top,
so that they reminded me of the palm groves of

Penang, except that more neatness and care was
shown about them. Indeed, neatness, order, and
cleanliness were the characteristics observable in
everything Japanese. The hedge-rows were clipped,
the roads were clean and good, the cottages of the
labourers all along the roadsides neatness itself.
The country about Jeddo is very undulating, which
adds much to the beauty of the scenery. Indeed,
altogether the rich and varied colouring of the dif-
ferent crops, mingled with the masses of woodland
here and there, give a mixture of bright colouring
with deep shadow which forms a picture such as I
imagine cannot be found anywhere in the world out
of Japan. Through such scenes you can ride for
miles in any direction you may select, along lanes,
with the trees meeting overhead and giving shade
and coolness to the path. The creepers and wild
flowers along the banks and the almost nude figures
we constantly met alone prevented imagining one-
self in some of the green lanes and bridle-paths of
Old England.
The people—that is, the lower orders—are much
to be liked. They are good-humoured, gentle, and
polished in their manners, and far superior to the
Chinese in almost every respect. They have not
that ridiculous conceit which is the great bar to all
improvement in China, but are highly inquisitive
and most anxious to acquire information, and ready
to profit by and adopt all new inventions. When
you enter a shop, or a peasant's house in the coun-
try, after giving you a seat and offering tea, the in-
mates proceed deliberately to examine you all over
—take off your sun spectacles, ask the name, make
a note of it, look at your boots, hat, gloves, &c.,
examine the material of which your clothes are
made, and, if you send an article of European manu-
facture to be repaired, they are sure to take a copy
of it, or send you back a copy, keeping the original
themselves as a copy. They can copy a Colt's
revolver or Chubb's lock so that you would not
detect it from the original.
A gentleman sent a despatch-box to a Japanese
cabinetmaker to be repaired ; it had a Chubb's
patent lock on it. After the box had been some
time back his attention was accidently drawn to the
lock; he examined it, and found a facsimile of the
old lock had been put in, the man having retained
the old lock as a pattern.
The women also occupy a far higher position
than they do in China they are better educated.
It is an exception to,find a Japanese woman of the
lower orders who cannot both read and write. In
China the women are kept in strict seclusion, never
leaving the precincts of their houses. In Japan
woman mixes in public in all the occupations as
well as the amusements of daily life. She is the
partner and companion of man ; not as in China,
the mere slave to his passions. The first thing that
strikes a foreigner on landing in Japan is the
almost total absence of dress or clothing in both
sexes. The men wear nothing but a narrow loin
cloth, and the women one robe only, open from the
top to the bottom, and tied round the waist ; when
the day becomes hot, or when working in the
fields, the upper half of the gown is slipped
over the shoulders, and they are naked to the
waist. The very young women are good-looking
and well made, but they lose their looks at a very
early age from early marriage, immoderate use of
the warm bath, and long nursing. They nurse their
children often for six years, generally for five; the
consequence is that at 25 they are old women, and
an old woman without raiment is not a picturesque
object. They are the cleanest people in the world
—bathe daily, frequently twice or thrice. Indeed,
the bath is to them what the cafe is to the French
—a place where they meet, chat, joke, and listen to
the gossip of the place. Every village has its public
bath, and in the towns every street two or three.