The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-16

and fragrant blossoms are cultivated there. The 800 odd varieties of chry- santhemum grown in Japan are with out fragrance. Their peonies and tu- l lips and many other blossoms are like wise scentless, and the tourist wonders how the native can attach so much TO- mantle value to them. True. their To- | tus flowers send up from the ponds where they grow a eloying, sickly ex- halation that we associate with the atmosphere of a cathedral on Easter Day. Not always. though; on a fresh spring morning I have round the per , fume of the lotus delicious.
 But the Japanese idea of flowers diff CTS from ours. An autumn maple lear, touched with the flaming dyes of sunset, is as much a flower to them as is the geranium to us. They put also in the same category their dwarf trees, which they train to grow ill many fam tastic, grotesque and sometimes att tractive shapes. But their cherry and plum blossoms are the pride of the Ja- panese. Some varieties of these are fragrant, but this attribute is second ary to the delicate tints of white and
 
 vet snowhakes." They are not culti- vated and cherished for their fruit, but only for their beautiful blossoms.
 There is the incense which the tour ist burns at the feet of Japan, in the form of wild eulogies and panegydics. Such praise is sweet to the recipients, no doubt, but it helps to spoil them. The more in their favor they hear the more polite these ochrehued children get but one cannot help feeling that much of their courtesy in sincere and based, as it largely is in France on the idea of relieving the foreigner of his money. To say fiattering things to you and rob you at the same time in the way of trade or by exorbitant charges for services, and so forth, is a game they play with great patiece and address. A man should not go to foreign country expecting to be fleeced and laughed at in the same minute. It sets q bad precedent, and there are numerous travellers who must count their pennies. To be stranded in Japan, l fancyl would be the ne plus ultra of misfortune
 MT. Lafcadio Hearn has told ID in his delightful way about the incense of the temples. He says: Tt makes one element of the faint but complex and never-to-be forgotton odor of the Far East. It haunts the dwelling not less than the temple-the home of the peasant not less than the yaskiki Of the prince. Shinto shrines. indeed, are free from it, incense being ap abomine ton to the elder gods. But wherever Buddhism lives there is incense. Tn every house containing a Buddhist shrine or Buddhist tablets incense is burned at certain times. and in even the rudest country coliuudes you will find incense smoldering before wayside images-little stone figures of Fudo Jizo or Kwannon
 The costlier kinds of incense. instead of in rods, come in the form either of pastiles, waters and lozengers. or loose powder, and thus take the place of the Western lady's sachet. The Japanese are so fond of artificial perfumes that they have a popular game, which proves an amusing as well as certain test for the keenness of their olfaetory nerves. In one of his books Mr. Hearn has described this game so beautifully that I shall not attempt to do SC here. I may add that in the matter of soaps their favorite scent is sandalwood.- NeNw York Times.