The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-10


daylight and all the
water lay out as smooth as the inside of
an oyster shell. Two children in blue and
white, their tanned limbs pink in the
fresh air, sculled a marvellous boat of
lemon-hued wood, and that was our fairy
craft, to the shore across the stiffness and
the mother-o'-pearl levels.
There are ways and ways of entering
Japan. The best is to descend upon it
from America and the Pacifc-from the
barbarians and the deep sea. Coming
from the East the blaze of India and the
insolent tropical vegetation of Singapore
dull the eye to half colors and little tones
1t is at Bombay that the Smell of All Asia
boards the ship miles off shore and holds
the passengers nose till he is clear of Asia
again. That is violent, an aggressive
SMELL apt to prejudice the stranger, but
kin none the less to the gentle and insinu-
ating flavor that stole across the light airs
of the daybreak when the fairy boat went
to shore-a smell of very clean new wood,
split bamboos, wood smoke, damp earth,
and the things that people, who are not
white people, eat-a homelike and COM
forting smell. Then followed on shore the
sound of an Eastern tongue, that is beau
know it. The Western races
have many languages, but crowd
of Europeans heard through closed doors
talk with the Western pitch and cadance.
So it is with the East. A line of genrick-
shaw coolies sat in the sun discoursing to
each other, and it was as though they
were welcoming return in speech that
the listener must know as we'll as English
oil 1,,& 81,
of familiar words would not grow any
clearer till presently the Smell came down
the open street again, saying that this was
the East where nothing matters, and tribes
old as the Tower of Babel mattered less
than nothing, and that there were old ac-
quaintances waiting at every corner be-
yond the township. Great is the Smell of
the East. Railways, telegraphs. docks
and gunboats cannot Danish it. and it will
endure till the railways are dead. He who
has not smelt that smell has not lived.
Three years ago Yokohama was suf-
fciently Europeanized in its shops to suit
the worst and wickedest taste. Today it
is still worse if you keep to the town
limits. Ten steps beyond into the fields
all the civilization stops exactly as 1t does
in another land few thousand miles
aires anxious to spend money, with nose
on whatever caught their libertine fancies,
had explained to US aboard ship that they
came to Japan in haste advised by their
guide books to do so, lest the land should
be suddenly civilized between steamer
sailing and steamer-sailing. When they
touched land they ran away to the curio
shops to buy things which are prepared
mr. hpp
vitriol things. BY this time they have
Murray under one arm and an electric
blue eagle, with copperas beak and a
yellow "E pluribus unum" embroidered on
apple-green silk, under the other.
We, being wise, sit in a garden that is
not ours, but belongs TO gentleman in
slate-colored silk, who. solely for the sake
OF the picture, condescends to work as a
gardener, in which employ he is sweeping
dellcately welt of fallen cherry blossoms
from under an azalea aching to burst into
bloom. Steep stone steps, of the color
that nature ripens through long winters,
lead up to this garden by way OF clumps of
bamboo grass. You see the Smell was
right when it talked Of meeting old friends.
Half dozen blue-black pines are standing
akimbo against real sky-not fog blur
nor cloud bank. nor gray dishclout
wrapped around the sun, but a blue sky.
A cherry tree on a slope below them
throws up a wave of blossoms that breaks
all creamy white against their feet, and a
clump of willows trail their palest green
shoots in front of all. The sun
sends for an ambassador through the
azalea bushes q lordiy swaliow-tailed
butterfly and his squire, very like the
hitting chalk blue" of the English downs.
The warmth OF the East that goes through,
not over, the lazy body is added to the
ight OF the East-the splendid. lavish
light that clears but does not bewilder the
eye. Then the new leaves Of the spring
wink like fat emcralds and the loaded
branches of cherry-bioom grow trans
parent and glow as hand CLOVIS held up
against tame. Little. warm signs come
up from the moist, warm earth, and the
fallen petals stir on the ground, turn over,
and go TO sleep again. Outside, beyond
The foliage, where the sunlight lies on the
eate-coored roofs, the ridged rice fields
beyond the roofs. and the hills beyond the
Hce telds, is all Japan-only all japan;
end this that they call the old French
legation Is the Garden of Eden that most
naturally dropped down here after the
ial!. For some small hint of the beauties
10 be shown later there is the roof of 4
temple, rldged and fiuted with dark tiles,
hung out casually beyond the corner of
the bluff on which the garden stands.
ANY other curve of the caves would not
have consorted with the sweep of the pine
ahd being made. was perfect. The congre-
CATION OF the globe trotters are in the
Motel. scuifllng for guides, in order that
they may be shown the sights of Japan,
which Is all on sight. They must go 10
iokyo; they must go 10 Nikko; they must
surely see all that is to be seen, and then
write home to their barbarian families
THAT they are getting used TO the sight of
bare brown legs. Before this day is ended
they VIII all thank goodness, have split
tlnS headaches and burnt-out eyes. IL is
better 10 lie still and hear the grass grow
To soak IN the heat and the smel! and the
sounds and the sights that come unasked.
Our garden oyerhangs the harbor, and
Dy pushing aside one branch We look
down upon 4 heavy-sterned fishing boat,
the strag-sold mats of the dec6houSe
pushed back 10 show the perfect order and
Propriety al the housekeeping that is go
Ing forward. The father fisher. sitting
ifog fashion, is poking at a tiny box iuu
OF charcoal, and the light white ash Is
blown back into the face of largish Jap
aheSe doll, price two shillings and three
pence IN Bavswater The doll wakes,
turns into a japanese baby something
more valuable than money could buy-a
naby with = shaver head aud aImlcss legs.
II cFaW!S TO the thing III the polished
Drown box, Is picked up just rs It
j. ready To eat live Goals. and set
down behind a Ihwart, where it drums
upon a bucket, addressing the iirebox
ut laE4 =. l.