Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-14

topped hill Of the orthodox Japanese pat
tern at the entrance of.the harbor is called.
Their places of business and the hotels are
in the settlement, separated from the Bluff
by q creek, and mostly near the sea front or
Bunch. At the back OF this is "China-
town." Yokohama has a population o:
1000 or 5000 Chinese, and, separated from
the settlement and Chinatown, by the road
from the Hatoba to the cricket ground, is
the native town, faced in the front mostly
by buildings in the European style. Be
yond this, again, is the Kanagawa Bluff,
where the wealthy Japanese live, almost
'overhanging the railway station.
The houses Of thee wealthy foreigners on
the Bluff are some of them delightful. The
unevenness OF the ground gives a wonderful
opportunity for landscape. gardening, and
with bamboo brake, few palms, lotus
| pond and one or two of the great stone vo-
tive lanterns they call lshi doro, one can be
| as Oriental as Aladdin. The houses them
selves are great, roomy bungalows, full of
the artistic things which can be picked up
so easily in this land of recently decayed
| feudalism, and which will make the owners
| fortune, or remind him forever of the quaint
Eastern land in which he was pilgrim and
a sojourner, alter he has returned home, as
the EngliShman in the East always mean to
do. The houses are full of picturesque.
smiling, obliging servants, and really their
owners have as much quiet luxury as any
reasonable man could desire.
The Street Conf urers.
Tifin, as they call lunch In the East, is at
II, and so we had been able to drive all
around the native town; "the Bluff" and
''the Settlement" and back in time to see
some performances by daylight of the street
tumblers and acrobats and monkey trainers,
who had collected around the Club Hotel on
observing that new ship had come in. The
conjurer's principal tricks consist in slying
on his back with his feet in the air, support
ing tiers of human beings or spinning an
impossible number of large wooden tubs at
the same time, or eating flaming charcoal.
His sleight-of-hand is not, as rule, remark
able in Japan. I soon got tired of the con-
jurer, and persuaded the monkey trainer to
begin. Their monkey business" is very
funny in this particular troupe sThsre were
two men and very pretty and picturesque
young woman-a regular gypsy, as black as
Malay, who did everything with an up
tossed head and naughty look In her eyes. as
if she couldn't be bothered"
Her duties were multifarious. She had
to twang the samisen, beat the drum, and
keep the monkeys wardrobes sorted, SO
that the performers could dress up the ami
mails without delay.
If the japanese only knew how exactly
the monkeys counterfeit them in the ewes of
strangers, they would execute every monkey
in Dal Nippon. Now it would be an imita-
tion of staggering. two-sworded Samura;
now an old hunchbacked mendicant woman
hobbling along' with a stick; nov the
naughty master scolding a servant kowtow-
ing and groveling his forehead in the dust
-alwaps too lIfe-like.
Luxuriant but Cheap Living,
We lived luxuriously at the Club Hotel.
We had fine sitting room with Eve win
dows, less than q stones throw from the sea,
with a private entrance to the street, and
bedrooms, en- suite, for almost half what it
would cost US to live in the same style at
quite a second-class New York hotel, and
our first dinner will give an idea of how we
were led.
Our bill of fare that night included oys.
tiers and turtle soup and fish better cooked
than one ever gets in an American hotel,
and various kinds of meat and poultry and
game and entries, and three or four kinds of
pudding, with fruit and nuts to wind up
with.
This was the roughing it in Japan that we
had pictured to ourselves, and after dessert
1 spent delightful hour in the snug library
of the Yokohama United Club, one of the
coziest clubs 1 know. and then came back to
our sitting-room to join the others. ensconced
in easy chairs, with the feeling of content
one has when one has had thoroughly
good dinner as a climax to firing day on
shore and tiring fortnight on a stormy sea.
We sat with the dreamy happiness OF
'lotos-eaters, listening to all sorts Of unfamil-
liar sounds, the shrfll ho-he-to whistle on
the double bamboo, followed by the clop-
clop of blind mans staff proclaiming the
wandering mono (lnassage operator), task
performed almost exclusively by the blind
In Japan; the clattering Of the rishka boys,
whose vehicles we could count by the glim-
mering lanterns OF brightly painted paper,
and at 9 O'Clock the bugiing on the war
ships, which summoned to bed.