The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-02-04
SOME SIGHTS AND EXPERIENCES
in THE CITY OF TOXIC, JAPAN.
REV. S. H. M'CoLLESTER. D. D.

[.
The stranger in Japan is often made
to feel that he is in some fairy land,
and all of "a sudden such a transposi-
tiOn comes he half imsgines that surely
he is in pandemonium. This is not so
singular when the fact is realized that
it is shaky land. AS often as twice
every month they feel the disturbance
of an earthquake, and frequently d
hundred volcanic upheavals take place
| during one moon. So deal of romance
and superstition is nodded into their
natures. The caTicatCres on their
fans prove this beyond a question.
Then, too, the shape of their houses,
the streets in which they move, the
way they dress, and their manner of
working and sporting, emphasize this
fact. Their myths Of fiery dragons,
bloody demons, crazy imps, hugest
| giants and tiniest men; the wonderful
stories related around the hibachi by
bare-pated women and doubled-up old
men to locks of children with eyes
staring and mouths gaping; women
holding the plOw, swinging the fail, or
tending the store with babies tied to
their backs, imply that there is some
thing peculiar and unique in the Japan
ese character.
Now as we are strolling through the
streets of Toxic, or riding in the jim
sikisha Ia curious pigmy chaise drawn
by fleet-fOoted young mani, we are
constantly being surprised at novelties
and antiquities.
This is a city of more than half a
million of souls. The site on which it
stands is elliptical, being some nine
miles long and five wide. Once it was
more a moat or morass than solid
earth. But Tyeyasa, the Napoleon of
Japan, said: cit must become the capi-
tai of my country" So the immense
fort upon which we are looking was
builded. Why, how did they pile up
such mass of huge granite blocks;
some of them are forty feet long,
eight feet wide and four feet thick. To
\ say the least it was well done. The
work has stood three centuries, and
still it looks as though it was finished
but a year ago. In style it surpasses
the castles on the Rhine, or those of
Asia Minor. The name yashiki,
Which is that OF building, signifies
spread out. AS we examine the struc-
lures here we are ready to say "spread
OUT is the proper term for them.
Around this castle is a mOat from four
to twelve feet deep and forty rods wide,
supplied with water conveyed nine
miles in an aqueduct. Large pines
and cedars now wave their pointed
tops above the lofty walls.
Around this grand structure the city
sprang up. The feudal lord dwelt
within the stronghold, guarded by his
doimiOs and defended at the portcullis
by the samurai, while his vassals dwelt
But the world moved and so did
Japan. Tyeyasa was more for peace
than war, He encouraged men to think
and do for themselves. He was
Shinto- Buddhist, but was better than
his religion, for that no longer said to
the people think and do. Really the
religious tree in this land had already
fallen and the priests were clinging to
the dead roots, and so they have clung
ever since. 1t would seem as though
their god is dead, and that they have
not now so much as live devil.
How the pigmy chaises fly about us.
There are four thousand of them in
this city,-they constitute the hack and
the jaunty, and did the tramway till
within two years. Look up and down
the streets and you feel to say, what
an encampment' 1t seems as though
thousands upon thousands of little
tents had been pitched alongside of
each other with the front sides opened
up.
No wonder this has been a city of
fires, for their houses now are but
little more than tindeT-boxes, only
waiting for the match to be struck; and
the hundreds of acres on which
the present city stands, in day would
be among the things that were. But
few buildings, comparatively speaking,
are more than one story high. The
front room of nearly every house is
used for a store or a shop. The article
for sale the most common is the clog
shoe, Oh. just hear the clattering in
the street Of those moving noisy
things. You can but be thankful this
is in Japan and not America. 1t would
appear as though everybody had got
outdoors. Surely the injunction is
needed here, increase and multiply"
The babies are beyond numbering.
Most of them have shaven heads and
are hanging to the back of the mother
or some older sister. We see but few
old men and women, and those visible
have no hair on their heads. Half of
the women have teeth as black as Jet
and eyebrows wanting; this is done to
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