Chapter XXV: Part 25

Contemporary with the early Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Hebrews, and comprising an empire that in 241 B.C. represented as nearly as possible the present limits of the Eighteen Provinces, the Middle Kingdom has been affected by the great upheavals of the Western world as little as she herself has troubled to impress her methods and manner of government upon the aboriginal races beyond her borders. Indeed, filled with a lofty disdain of the outer barbarians, it was not until the chance migration to Korea of some five thousand Chinese under Ki-tze, in 1122 B.C., that the ethical, social, and political systems in vogue in China were carried further afield. Once transplanted, however, the aboriginal life of the cave-dwellers of the peninsula gave way before the superior culture of Ki-tze’s followers, and within the course of the succeeding thousand years a cluster of independent states, fashioned upon the parental model, was firmly established.

Although in the centuries just before the Christian era there was a constant interchange of communications with these states of the Eastern Peninsula, the classic conservatism of the Middle Kingdom was unabated by any expression of curiosity or interest in the welfare of the unknown islands. Yet the islanders, confronted with a struggle for existence, had risked the perils of many voyages to the neighbouring coasts, spreading wonderful stories of their own land and returning with ample evidences of the power and importance of the Korean kingdom. Unconscious of this intercourse, but by reason of it, China, the tutor of Korea, became through the agency of her pupil a determining factor in the upward progression of the islanders when, between 290 B.C. and 215 B.C., in consequence of dynastic difficulties, a steady stream of inhabitants from the peninsula passed from the Land of Morning Radiance eastwards with the intention of settling on the coasts of Japan, with whose inhabitants, in fact, they at once merged.

[Sidenote: Japan at the Dawn of Our Era]

Though at the other end of the pole of human endeavour in comparison with the Chinese, and familiar only with the elemental accessories to life, the islanders, under the influence of this alien strain, at the dawn of our era had emerged from a state of tribal control to the recognition of the authority of a single and supreme ruler. Two centuries later Japanese arms were strong enough to invade Korea, where several victories were gained; but even then the Middle Kingdom maintained no communication with the islands of the Yellow Sea, and was more or less indifferent to the rise of over-sea relations between her vassal and the mariners from the East. It is possible to trace to this obliquity in the political vision of the Celestial Empire of the day much of the subsequent havoc that the self-same race were to inflict upon the coasts of Asia. Impressed with no consideration for the interests of the mainland, and troubled by no sense of material responsibility, Japanese corsairs harried the Chinese and Korean coasts unmercifully, finding in the occupation an outlet for that primitive but inherited instinct for aggression that stimulates the race to-day.

Disturbed less by the appearance of an island Power than by a confederacy of barbarian clans that, by 1000 A.D., had exerted a mastery over Mongolia, Tartary, and Manchuria, and a century later served as a menace to the safety of the dynasty itself, the Celestial Empire was beset on two sides by enemies who were attracted by the prosperity of its people. Unmindful to a great degree of the dangers which were accumulating, an instinct for and an interest in trade, confirmed by the revelation of the self-supporting character of an empire that reached to Cochin-China in one direction and the Pamirs in another, prompted the Chinese to neglect the arts of war in their preference for the triumphs of peace.

[Sidenote: The Peaceful Path of the Chinese]

Characterised by a capacity for infinite pains, and possessed of a complete understanding of the varied resources of agriculture, the Chinese insensibly pursued a path leading always in a contrary direction to those marked out by Nature for the islanders, as for the fierce nomads of the steppe. Thus innately addicted to habits of peace, centuries upon centuries of undisturbed prosperity chastened natures that were never very warlike; whereas the exact inversion of this existence propelled those hordes of Tartars, Huns, Turks, Khitans, Kins, Mongols, and Manchus to leave the Far North in a disfiguring passage through Asia, and bade the islanders release their sails in expeditions against Korea. It was not enough for the founder of the Tzin dynasty to fortify his northern frontiers by the construction of the Great Wall, or for that great warrior Panchow to drive the Huns before him to the Oxus itself, or for the rulers in the long period of disunion which unites the fall of the Han dynasty to the rise of the Sung to compromise with the leaders of successive rushes of barbarian horsemen by matrimonial alliances with their families. The cause lay in the foundations of the race itself. Yet, such was the insidious character of the land against which these mounted hordes so often flung themselves that, although the imminence of attack ultimately became a thing with which the Government of China was wont to conjure the peaceful, well-contented lower classes and the luxury-loving upper classes, the effect of each invasion was dissipated so soon as the invaders experienced the subtle blandishments of Chinese civilisation.

[Sidenote: Swift-moving History in Little Known Lands]

Presented with remarkable clearness, we have an array of devastating invasions, the one following the other in rapid succession and occasionally assuming such dimensions that the operations riveted the attention of Europe upon the little-known lands of Asia, which in most instances required only the passage of a few centuries for the minutest vestige to be obliterated. Thus the Kins, who left no trace, displaced the Khitans, equally irrecoverable, and were in turn dispossessed by the Mongols, whose wide dominion embraced so much of the earth’s surface that in 1227 A.D. the whole of High Asia, from the Caspian to Korea, and from the Indus to the Yellow Sea, recognised its sway--always excepting the strong but still despised sea-state of Japan, whose lusty inhabitants threw back the allied hosts of China, Korea, and the Mongol monarch in 1274 and 1281.

Yet if the Mongols, in an effort to wreak their vengeance on the Chinese, razed to the ground the cities of the vanquished so that their horsemen could ride over their deserted sites without stumbling, none the less they earned the acclamations of posterity by the facilities that the Mongol domination of Central Asia offered to communications between the West and Cathay. Marco Polo was not alone in his knowledge of the Court of the Great Khan, although doubtless he was the first to visit it. But this liberty of intercourse, existing only by the land route to Asia, was measured solely by the duration of the Mongol rule; freedom of action along the high-road from West to East stopped prematurely when the sway of Islam settled once again over Central Asia. Two centuries elapsed before, under the banners of the Manchus, bold horsemen of the North, in 1644, flashed once again through the plains of China, imposing, by a change of costume and of coiffure, perhaps the most striking effect of any that has followed in the train of these invasions.

[Sidenote: Opening the Gates of the East]

[Sidenote: Lifting the Veil in Japan]

But if the exclusiveness of the Mohammedan conquerors closed the route to Cathay so effectually that for two hundred years nothing more was heard of the country, Columbus, Cabot and others set themselves the task of opening up communications by water. But it was not Cathay that they reached. That was left to the Portuguese Raphael Perestralo to accomplish by sailing, in 1511, from Malacca to Canton, and thus winning the coveted distinction of first approaching China by sea. Fifty years later (1560) the same race succeeded in obtaining a settlement at Macao, while the Spaniards gazed with longing eyes from their strongholds in the Philippine Islands upon the rich junks on the China seas. Such was the effect of these trading visits from the West that the Chinese in their turn were emboldened to visit for themselves these outlying centres of Western traffic. But it was more usually vessels from Japan that were seen, for the Chinese were still without any special appetite for Western trade. With the islanders, on the other hand, a love of barter, acting on the native instincts of a maritime people, caused them to traverse these more distant waters; although occasionally the scantiness of the resources in their own country moved them, so that they were propelled as much by stern necessity as by the lust of war and loot or a passion for trade. At first Polynesia, then Malaysia and India were visited. Again, trips were made to the remote coasts of Mexico. Still later, a colony founded at Goa became the centre of an important trading connection throughout the Indian hemisphere. In these voyages we see the attractive influence exercised by the Pacific and the Indian Oceans on an island people, who, fitted by temperament no less than by position, played in Eastern waters the rôle filled by the Elizabethan explorers on the coasts of the New World.

[Sidenote: Raising the Curtain]

As yet the distinctive call of the East had been heard only along the byways of Turkestan, and even those who had responded had ventured no further than the provinces of Cathay. Thus the isles of the Yellow Sea were to the Western mariner at the dawn of the sixteenth century as much a terra incognita as the Arctic and Antarctic regions are to the sailor of to-day. The spectacle of Japanese junks sailing gaily across the heaving waters of the Spanish Main and rounding the heel of India aroused the interest of the Western traders, who at once embarked for the fortunate lands of the East, arranging relations there even before they had been welcomed by the Chinese.

With the arrival of Portuguese traders off Japan in 1542, a curtain was raised which was never quite to descend. In the interval a commercial entrepôt was established on the island of Hirado, and an intercourse set afoot that encouraged a visit from a Spanish squadron towards the close of the sixteenth century. This visit was returned in 1602 by the despatch of a ceremonial embassy to the Governor-General of the Philippines.

[Sidenote: Untold Wealth of Asia]

Throughout the first half of that century Japan continued to attract the adventurous, and the Dutch now followed in the wake of the Portuguese and Spanish ships. The reception of the bold spirits was unequal, and in 1624 all foreigners except the Dutch and the English were banished. By 1641 no traders were allowed but Dutch, who, in spite of being restricted to the island of Deshima, enjoyed a monopoly of the trade with Japan until 1867. In the meantime, abroad, rumours of the untold wealth of Asia had brought the Indies, together with Cathay and Japan, into distinct prominence. Under the Chinese Emperor Kien-Lung, whose reign of sixty years, 1735-1795, was remarkable for its conquests and successful administration, commercial intercourse with the West was regularised, and the founding of recognised trading settlements on the China coast ended the era of furtive attempts to open trade relations with this exclusive people. From these early trading stations have sprung the several commercial capitals that now grace the China coast. Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Tientsin, and Newchang are the links existing to-day between the magnificence of the merchant princes and the sway of the “John Company.” Of course conditions are now much altered, yet the memories of the past find a very splendid setting in the size, dignity, and importance of the modern treaty ports. Although the Far East was already manifesting its powers of holding the attention of the civilised world, the centres of interest there were concerned for many years solely with the kingdoms of China and Japan.

[Sidenote: China on the Western Horizon]

Australasia was a great unknown when the high latitudes of Asia were the fount of many conquering races. Obviously, therefore, the magnet of acquisitiveness pointed to the value of investigating the bleak northern steppes. Once started, the Pacific and the Amur were reached within eighty years under the impetus of an unrelenting progress which swept from west to east across the regions of North Asia. Begun at the instigation of Stroganoff, who pushed the hesitating footsteps of Yermak across the Urals in 1580, by 1584 this gallant freebooter was offering to Ivan IV. with no uncertain voice the wide dominions of Siberia as the price of pardon. Khan after khan was unseated, tribe after tribe dispossessed, for neither Tartar nor Turk, Buriat nor Tunguse, could offer effective resistance to the Cossacks from the Don. In the end this all-conquering advance was stayed by the Chinese, who, in the treaty of Nertchinsk, 1689, contracted their first formal convention with a foreign Power. For nearly two centuries Russia faithfully observed the terms of this engagement, apprehensive of endangering the Kiachta trade if she continued her encroachments upon Manchu territory. By this action the trade of China, which has now made the problem of the Far East of dominating importance, became of more than passing interest to a Western Government. As generations passed, however, the advance of Russia, to the Pacific in one direction, and in search of a warm-water harbour in another, was resumed. First Eastern Siberia and then Northern Manchuria were added to her Asiatic satrapy, and the Amur ceased to be the containing line. Ultimately her frontier rested on the ocean to the north, the east, and the south; Vladivostock, Port Arthur, Harbin, and Mukden becoming the centres from which her Far Eastern dominions were administered.

[Sidenote: The English Find Australia]

The spirit of adventure, now inspiring all ranks of society as well as most of the civilised races of the world, was by no means satisfied by territorial conquest. The wide dominions of the sea, as yet untraced and all unknown, embraced an empire which appealed as strikingly to the sympathies of geographers as did the prospects of Far Eastern trade to the feelings of the East India merchants. Much the same ceaseless quest carried the Cossack Dejneff, in 1648, round the north-eastern extremity of Asia; Torres, a Spaniard commissioned by the Spanish Government of Peru, in 1606 negotiated the strait between New Guinea and the mainland; and various Dutch expeditions in 1606, 1616, 1618, 1627 and 1642 endured the dangers of the reef-bound coasts. But it was not until 1688 that the English first made their appearance on the Australian coast. In some measure the situation was awaiting the man. The voyages of Captain Cook (1769-1777) took up the work of geographical exploration in the Southern Hemisphere in a style quite befitting the records already elsewhere accomplished.

[Sidenote: Pacific and the Destinies of Peoples]

If between the continent of Australia and the coasts of China to-day there is only a commercial connection, it must not be forgotten that Australia is closely identified with the Polynesian races, who in turn are related to the early Japanese. New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, and New Guinea, as parts of one and the same continent, which now in many places has disappeared beneath the sea, present an ethnographic study of unusual importance and interest. In few other parts of the world is so great an ethnographic variation imposed upon a single connecting racial family as in the island divisions of the South Seas--Australasia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. It is by the existence of this underlying relationship that the Indo-Pacific races, whatever their specific origin, undoubtedly link up two hemispheres which organically are widely separated. By the abruptly disintegrated character of existing racial location, however, it is possible to read the impression made by the Pacific Ocean on the history of the world. If oceanic influences are represented in other ways to-day, and tribal migrations in a body are occurrences of the past, the necessities of the age still make such heavy demands on what is, after all, the immemorial highway of mankind that the Pacific can still be said to mould the destinies of races to-day as easily as it has obliterated them in the past.

[Sidenote: What will Happen To-morrow?]

Turning to Asia, although the Empires of Russia in Siberia and of China have worked out their destinies independently of the Pacific, remaining unaffected by it more than all other Eastern states, the part that the Pacific has played in the development of Asia since the eighteenth century cannot go unnoticed. Japan, in particular, has profited by the readiness of communication that the ocean provides to rise above prejudices which are usually inseparable from an island people and are pre-eminently to be expected among Asiatics. In China the absence of any prominent dependence on the sea, either for food or means of transport, has produced in very sinister form an aversion against the West. None the less, under pressure from the Occident, and without regarding the example set by Japan, the Celestial Empire has permitted much commercial encroachment. Succeeding the galleons of the buccaneers have come the stately traders of the merchant princes of Europe and America, and these in turn have given place to the steamers of industrial trusts, exacting as large a tribute as the earliest marauders. While the consequences of industrial expansion among Oriental people have made the Pacific the focus of much restless energy, Japan, now as great a Power on land as formerly she was, and is, at sea, has developed an intelligence that has made her pre-eminent among the trading nations of the East. Undeterred by exertion, unmoved by expenditure, Japan has displaced the carrying trade of the Pacific by her fearless invasion of Western markets. Throughout the isles of the Southern Seas, and up and down the face of the Pacific slope, the islanders have swarmed, filling the lands of their passage with unaccustomed energy.

Looking back, then, at the conditions of Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and comparing them with those existing to-day, it will be noticed that a wide gulf still separates Japan from China in the twentieth century as it formerly separated China from the rest of the Far East. On the one side there is China, now emerging from revolution; on the other there is Japan, voicing the regeneration of Asia with raucous tones.

[Sidenote: China Thirty years Hence]

Meanwhile the vast interests of the Occident in the Orient are united with either power by frequent political intercourse and a traffic which has given to the Pacific priority of place in the battle for commercial supremacy. Yet while China is commercially independent of the West, and Japan dependent upon it, all branches of foreign industry cannot but view with alarm the increasing aggressiveness of the spirit of independence now inspiring Asia at the prompting of Japan. Obviously these signs are the indication of an approaching cleavage between East and West, which, when fully attained, will bear witness to the complete severance of the shackles hitherto enthralling Asia to the interests and purposes of the West. It must not be forgotten that Japan already has achieved her complete regeneration. Thirty years hence China, no doubt, will have followed suit, when a federacy of the Far Eastern Powers may become an accomplished fact. Even at this moment such a union is possible, and its realisation would impose upon all European Governments the immediate revision of their Asiatic policies.

At this time such a combination is hampered only by the unwillingness of China to accept the suggestions of Japan in anything affecting the policy of Asia, although, in spite of this objection, active reforming influences are gradually effecting important changes throughout the Chinese Empire. For the moment, therefore, Japan is content to tread alone the path she has marked out, encouraging her subjects by example to exploit Asia for the Asiatics, and to secure recognition of the doctrine of equality between the white and Asiatic races.

If the full significance of this movement is not yet discernible, there is enough evidence to show that the problem will rank among the greatest that the politics of the twentieth century can disclose. Not only one part of the civilised globe will be affected by the rise of a dominant Asia, for the whole world will be confronted equally with the necessity of resisting whatever indications may appear. If it is difficult to devise an arrangement short of total exclusion that does not admit an annual influx of a large number of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Indian immigrants into the lands affected by this invasion, it is at least tolerably certain that if the existing flow of Asiatics across the Pacific to America and Australasia continues unabated for a further decade, the areas now menaced will be inhabited by a white minority.

[Sidenote: Problem of the Century]

It appears evident that the continuation of the Far East under existing conditions is doubtful, if not impossible, in view of the awakening of Asia and the visible prejudices that Western democracy entertains against the Asiatic. Yet if the clash of conflicting interests ultimately precipitates a struggle between the two great racial divisions of the world, there can be no doubt that the moral teachings of humanity will be discredited.

ANGUS HAMILTON

+---------------------------------------------------+
| GREAT DATES IN THE HISTORY OF JAPAN |
+------+--------------------------------------------+
|=B.C.=| =To 500 A.D.= |
| =660=| Supposed foundation of the Japanese |
| | Empire by Jimmu |
| | |
|=A.D.=| |
| =3=| Emperor Suinin flourished. Abolition |
| | of the practice of burying retainers |
| | alive on the master’s death |
| =59=| Reputed Korean immigration |
| =125=| Legendary hero Yamato Daké |
| | flourished |
| =202=| Reputed conquests in Korea by Empress |
| | Jingō Kōgō |
| =397=| Probable introduction of Chinese |
| | civilisation, through Korea |
| | |
| | =500-1000= |
| =552=| Introduction of Buddhism |
| =645=| The Taikwa Laws of Kōtōku |
| =675=| Encouragement of Buddhism by Temmu |
| =689=| The Laws reduced to a written code |
| =750=| Development of the Samurai class |
| =782=| Emperor Kwammu |
| =800=| Fusion of Shintō with Buddhism by |
| | Kōbō Daishi |
| =889=| High offices become hereditary in the |
| | Fujiwara family |
| | |
| | =1000-1500= |
|=1155=| Wars of the Taira and Minamoto |
| | clans |
|=1186=| Victory of the Minamoto |
|=1192=| The Minamoto Shogunate established |
| | Japanese feudal system |
|=1220=| Supremacy of the Hōjō family |
|=1275=| Attempt of Kublai Khan to invade |
| | Japan |
|=1281=| Destruction of the Chinese (Mongol) |
| | Armada |
|=1333=| Ashikaga revolt and overthrow of the |
| | Hōjō |
|=1337=|Rival Mikados of the North and South |
| | for fifty-five years |
| | |
| | =1500-1800= |
|=1543=| First appearance of Europeans |
| | (Portuguese) in Japan |
|=1549=| Francis Xavier attempts to introduce |
| | Christianity |
|=1574=| Overthrow of Ashikaga by Nobunaga |
|=1581=| Rapid development of Christianity |
|=1582=| Death of Nobunaga. Supremacy of his |
| | general Hideyoshi (Taikō Sama) |
|=1583=| Envoys sent from feudal lords to the |
| | Pope |
|=1592=| Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea |
|=1598=| Death of Hideyoshi. Accession to |
| | power of Iyeyasu |
|=1606=| Prohibition of Christianity |
|=1615=| Restoration of Minamoto Shōgunate |
|=1617=| Foreign trade limited to two ports |
|=1621=| Japanese prohibited from foreign travel |
|=1624=| Decree of expulsion against all foreigners |
| | except Dutch and Chinese |
|=1637=| Peasant and Christian revolt |
|=1641=| Dutch and Chinese restricted to Nagasaki |
|=1694=| Development of trade-guilds |
|=1792=| Russian squadron visits Japanese coast |
+------+--------------------------------------------+
| | |
| | =1800-1867= |
|=1804=| Russia attempts unsuccessfully to open |
| | relations with Japan |
|=1818=| Captain Gordon at Yedo Bay |
|=1844=| Holland makes proposals for extension |
| | of trade |
|=1848=| Visit of American and French warships |
| | to Japanese waters |
|=1853=| Commodore Perry in Yedo Bay |
|=1854=| First Japanese Treaty with a Western |
| | Power (U.S.A.) in March. First Treaty |
| | with Great Britain in October |
|=1855=| Russian Treaty |
|=1856=| Dutch Treaty |
|=1859=| Readmission of Christian missionaries |
|=1861=| Attack on British Legation |
|=1862=| Murder of Mr. Richardson |
| | Japanese Embassy to the Treaty Powers |
|=1863=| Bombardment of Kago-shima by British |
|=1864=| Bombardment of Shimonoseki by |
| | international squadron |
| | Contest and reconciliation of the two |
| | great clans (Sats-cho) |
|=1866=| Kei-ki, last Shōgun |
| | New Conventions with Western Powers |
|=1867= Accession of Mutsu-hito as Mikado |
| | Appointment of Europeans: French |
| | military and British naval instructors |
| | Resignation of Shōgun Kei-ki |
| | |
| | =1868-1907= |
|=1868=| Restoration of imperial power |
|=1869=| The Emperor takes up residence at |
| | Yedo, re-named Tokio. Emperor’s |
| | “charter” oath |
| | The Daimiyo surrender feudal rights |
|=1871=| Feudalism abolished |
|=1872=| Establishment of religious toleration |
|=1873=| Adoption of Gregorian Calendar |
| | Universal Military Service |
|=1874=| Saga rebellion. Formosan expedition |
|=1875=| Saghalin exchanged for Kuriles |
|=1876=| Korean Treaty |
|=1877=| Revolt and death of Saigo |
|=1879=| Annexation of Riu-Kiu Islands |
|=1889=| Promulgation of the Constitution. |
| | Establishment of local self-government. |
| | Anti-foreign reaction |
|=1890=| First Imperial Parliament. New civil |
| | and commercial codes |
|=1894=| War with China |
|=1895=| Victory over China. Formosa annexed |
|=1897=| Revised customs tariff. Gold standard. |
| | Freedom of Press and public meetings |
|=1899=| New Treaties on terms of equality. |
| | Opening of the whole country |
|=1900=| Expedition against Boxers in China |
|=1902=| Anglo-Japanese agreement |
|=1904=| War with Russia |
|=1905=| Victory over Russia. Japan obtains |
| | Port Arthur, S. Saghalin, control of |
| | S. Manchuria, and protectorate of |
| | Korea |
| | Anglo-Japanese alliance |
|=1907=| Franco-Japanese Agreement |
| | Russo-Japanese Convention |
|=1910=| Korea annexed |
|=1911=| Anglo-Japanese Agreement |
+------+--------------------------------------------+

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE

BY ARTHUR DIOSY

THE EMPIRE OF THE EASTERN SEAS

[Sidenote: Length and Breadth of Great Japan]

Asia’s furthest outpost towards the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean, a long, narrow chain of rocky, volcanic islands, extends north-east to south-west along the eastern coast of the mainland, separated from it by the Sea of Japan and the China Seas. A glance at the map shows this long string of more than three thousand islands and islets, stretching from 51°5′, the latitude of Shumo-shu, the most northern of the Kurile group of islands, down to 21°48′, the latitude of the South Cape of Formosa, a total length of nearly thirty degrees. Its component parts extend from 157°10′ east longitude, at Shumo-shu, as far westwards as 119°20′, the position of the extreme western islets of the Pescadores, or Hokoto, archipelago, a distance of nearly thirty-eight degrees, the total breadth of the Empire of Dai Nippon--Great Japan.

The enormous length of the island empire, the configuration of which is likened by the Japanese to the slender body of a dragon-fly, provides a great variety of climate, from the Arctic rigour of the Kurile Islands and the Siberian climate, with its long and terrible winter and its short but fierce summer, obtaining in the larger northern islands, to the sweltering, steamy heat of Formosa, the tropic of Cancer passing through that island and through the Pescadores. These extreme temperatures apart--and they prevail only at the ends of the empire--Japan possesses a temperate climate, similar to that of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, but colder in winter and much damper, the excessive humidity causing both heat and cold to be very trying, though never dangerous. The rainfall is especially heavy in June and in September, but no month is entirely without rain. The hottest period of the year is called dō-yō, corresponding to our “dog-days,” and follows the rainy season of June and early July.

[Sidenote: What Japan Owes to its Position]

Japan owes its great humidity, the consequent fertility of such parts of its surface as are cultivable--about 84·3 per cent. of the whole area of Japan proper is too rocky to yield food for man--and the luxuriant verdure that clothes the lower slopes of its wooded hills, to its insular position, and, chiefly, to two great factors, a current and a wind. The great warm current known as the Kuro-shio, the Black Brine, or Black Tide, flowing from the tropical region between the Philippines and Formosa, raises the temperature of the east coast, and, where it is in part deflected by contact with the southern coast of Kiū-shū, also of the west coast, acting in the same beneficent manner as the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. The wind that affects the Japanese climate most strongly is the north-east monsoon, tempered by the action of the dark, warm, ocean current.

Keystone View Co.

A GLIMPSE OF THE INLAND SEA, THE LOVELIEST SHEET OF WATER IN JAPAN

Studded with hundreds of islands, every part of the Inland Sea of
Japan, stretching 240 miles in length, and widening once to 40
miles, offers an enchanting prospect. The islands occur often in
clusters, giving the appearance of lakes.
]

The geographical position of Japan has had great influence on the history of its people, and clearly indicates the supremely important part the empire is destined to play in the future development of the Far East. Its insular character has preserved it from invasion--it is the proud and legitimate boast of the Japanese that no foe has, within historical times, trodden Japanese soil for more than a few hours--and whilst it rendered possible the seclusion in which the nation lived for more than two centuries, developing, undisturbed, a high civilisation of its own, the basis of many of the qualities displayed by the Japanese in our day, it has been, in recent times, the cause of Japan’s real might in the world--her sea-power, naval and commercial.

The map shows the four principal islands of Japan Proper: HON-SHŪ, or Hon-dō--“Principal Circuit,” the largest island of Japan, commonly called Nippon, really the name of the whole empire, meaning “Sun-origin,” equivalent to Sunrise Land; KIŪ-SHŪ, or Nine Provinces; SHI-KOKU, or Four States; and the great northern island of YEZO, the second in size, officially termed Hok-kai-dō--“North Sea Circuit.”

The four islands extend, opposite the mainland, from the coast of the Russian Maritime Province, on the north-west, down to the southern extremity of the Korean peninsula, on the south-west. North of Yezo, facing the mouth of the great River Amur, the long, narrow island of Saghalin--Karafuto, in Japanese--belongs partly to Russia, partly to Japan, its southern districts, up to the fiftieth degree of latitude, being ceded to the victors by Article IX. of the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905). Separating these islands, important channels afford communication between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific. The Gulf of Tartary divides Saghalin from the mainland, whilst the Strait of La Pérouse, or Strait of Tsugaru, separates the island from Yezo. The Straits of Korea, between that empire, now under the protectorate of Japan, and the main island, Hon-shū, or Nippon, are the way of communication joining the Sea of Japan and the eastern part of the China Sea, the straits being divided into three channels by the island of Iki and by those of Tsu-shima, a name rendered for ever glorious by Togo’s great victory on May 27th, 1905. The various straits are sufficiently narrow to be easily closed to an enemy by Japan’s splendid fleet.

Keystone View Co.

A CRATER WITH EIGHTY VILLAGES, IN WHICH TWENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE LIVE

Twenty thousand people live in eighty villages in the outer crater
of Aso-san, probably the largest crater on earth, competing, says
Professor Milne, with some of the great craters of the moon. The
crater of Aso-san is from 10 to 14 miles across, and its wall is
everywhere 2,000 feet high, the highest peak being Taka-dake, 5,630
feet.
]

Although Japan has remained immune from invasion throughout historical time, its proximity to the mainland, and especially to the Korean peninsula, led, in prehistoric ages, to its receiving from the continent an influx of immigrants who gradually conquered the insular natives, and whose descendants probably form the main stock of the present Japanese race. It was this proximity that brought the civilisation of China into Japan, in the first instance through Korea; the same route was followed by another mighty invasion of foreign thought, the introduction of Buddhism.

Keystone View Co.

HAKONÉ LAKE AND THE GATEWAY TO THE INARI TEMPLE IN KIŌTO

Hakoné Lake, the top picture, is a delightful summer resort. The
bottom picture, the avenue of Torii (portals), forming the entrance
to a Shintō Temple at Kiōto, is a wonderful sight. There are over
400 Torii, arranged in two colonnades.
]

Keystone View Co.

A GLIMPSE OF THE BUSY NAGOYA CANAL AND OF THE PARK AT KUMAMOTO

Nagoya is one of the great manufacturing cities of Japan, and a
busy canal links the city with the port of Yokkaichi. The park of
Suizenji, in Kumamoto, is a beautiful example of Japanese landscape
gardening.
]

No country has been better fashioned by Nature for the acquirement of sea-power than the Island Empire of the Rising Sun. Its enormous extent of coast-line, with countless indentations, especially numerous on the south-eastern coasts of Hon-shū, Shi-koku, and Kiū-shū, its many excellent harbours, naturally fortified by reason of the narrow entrances to the gulfs in which they are situated--for example: Nagasaki, in Kiū-shū, the naval stations at Sasebo, in the same island, Kure, in the Inland Sea, and Yoko-suka, near Tōkio Bay--and, above all, the excellence of its seafaring population, supply the elements that give Japan the mastery in Far Eastern waters.

[Sidenote: Seafaring Qualities of Japanese]

In the thousands of hamlets nestling in the bays, large and small, and creeks of the Japanese islands, dwells a hardy race of fishermen, inured to peril and fatigue, men of brawny strength and indomitable pluck, frugal and enduring, as fine material for the manning of warships and trading craft as the world has ever known. The persistence of those seafaring qualities which the Japanese owe chiefly to the natural advantages of their island home--partly, no doubt, to a strain of the blood of Malay sea-rovers, perhaps also of Polynesian canoe-men--is a remarkable phenomenon. In olden times they were bold seafarers, roaming as far as the Philippines and the coast of Indo-China. The waters of Formosa and of Siam were the scene of their piratical exploits, for, like all nations destined to be great at sea, they passed through a period when the spirit of adventure, as much as the lust for spoil, made them into daring sea-robbers.

But, with the closing of Japan to foreign intercourse--save on a strictly limited scale--early in the seventeenth century, came the enactment of laws devised to prevent the Japanese from visiting foreign parts; the tonnage and build of ships were fixed by these decrees in such a manner that only fishing and coasting trips were thenceforward possible. This prohibition lasted for two centuries and a half; yet, on its removal, the germ of the seafaring qualities, supposed to have died out, was found to have been only in a state of suspended animation; it revived with surprising rapidity. In less than a quarter of a century it produced a naval _personnel_ capable of manning a highly efficient fleet of thirty-three sea-going fighting-ships; in ten years more the amazed world recognised Japan’s Navy as the triumphant victor in the greatest battle since Trafalgar, and coupled Admiral Togo’s name with that of Nelson.

[Sidenote: The Sea as Japan’s Friend]

The sea has, indeed, ever been Japan’s friend; to this day it supports a large number of the population, and, in a sense, it may be said to keep the whole nation alive, as the fish that teem in Japanese waters supply a considerable part of the people’s food. Every marine product available as nutriment is utilised, even seaweed of various kinds being largely used as food. Fishing seems to have been practised from the earliest times; it is probably in recognition of its antiquity and national importance that the Japanese of our day still affix to any gift a strip of dried seaweed, passed through a piece of paper peculiarly folded, the idea they thus symbolise being, it is said: “This is but a trumpery present, but it comes from a cheerful giver; be pleased to take it as it is meant. Remember our forefathers were poor fisherfolk; this strip of seaweed is to remind you that poverty is no crime.”

[Sidenote: Japan’s Beautiful Scenery]

There are many other customs connected with the harvest of the sea, and innumerable legends and folk-tales wherein the chief part is played by some marine spirit or by a visitor--deity or mortal--to the mysterious realms of the deep. And deep it is, for, off the eastern coast of Northern Japan, the sea-bed falls abruptly to a depression--the famous Tuscarora Deep, called after the United States warship of that name--of 4,655 fathoms, nearly 28,000 ft., or more than five miles, probably the deepest sea-bed in the world. The encircling sea forms an important part of most of the beautiful pictures the scenery of Japan offers to the delighted eye. Whether the waves dash tumultuously against the precipitous rocks of the south-eastern side of the main islands, especially of Shi-koku and Kiū-shū; whether the waters dance in the sunshine in the countless bays and creeks of those coasts where the frequency of the shelter afforded to fishing-craft led to an earlier and more dense settlement than on the north-west coast of Hon-shū; whether the far-famed Inland Sea shines like a mirror under the moonbeams, or the Sea of Japan tosses its grey billows or spreads a sullen expanse under the pall of fog caused by the meeting of warm and cold currents--in all its moods the ocean forms part of nearly all the grandest scenery of Japan.

There is at least one shock of earthquake every day in Japan; there
are 500 shocks in a year. As late as 1891 an earthquake wrecked two
populous towns and destroyed two smaller ones. These photographs
show the havoc of such earthquakes.
]

The “Japan Bridge,” one of the striking features of the capital of
Old Japan, was regarded as the centre of the empire, and from it
all distances were measured.
]

The “Three Views,” known to every Japanese man, woman and child, for they are portrayed in countless pictorial representations, are sea-scapes. The 808 islets of Matsu-shima, with the thousand trees from which the group derives its name of Pine Islands, are the glory of the province of Sen-dai, in Northern Hon-shū; the hoary tori-i, or gateway, of the great Shin-tō temple at the sacred island of Miya-jima, or Itsuku-shima--so holy that no birth nor death may take place on the island, and no dog is allowed there--stands firmly amidst the very waves of the Inland Sea; Ama-no Hashidaté, the “Sacred Bridge,” stretches its slender two-mile length of sandy spit, only 190 ft. broad--crowned, all along, with an avenue of pine-trees--into the blue waters of the gulf of Miya-zu, in the Sea of Japan.

The so-called Inland Sea, 240 miles long from its narrow western entrance, only one mile across, between Shimo-no-seki on the main island and Mo-ji, the busy colliery port in Kiū-Shū to its eastern extremity, where it joins the open sea through the Aka-shi and Naru-to Straits--it widens to forty miles where the Bungo Channel divides Shi-koku from Kiū-shū--is perhaps the most lovely sheet of salt water in the world. Studded with many hundreds of islands, every part of its expanse offers an enchanting prospect, the islets being often in clusters, making many stretches appear like lakes.

Water enters into the beauty of every Japanese landscape; districts remote from the sea have their lakes and rivers--generally short, swiftly-flowing streams, almost, sometimes quite, dry in summer, exposing beds of pebbles, but rushing torrents in the wet season.

Keystone View Co.

MODERN YOKOHAMA: THE HARBOUR, SEEN FROM THE HEIGHTS OF THE TOWN]

Biwa is the largest lake in Japan, and far-famed for its scenery; its area is about the same as that of the Lake of Geneva, and it is nearly as beautiful. Lake Chū-zen-ji, or Chū-gū-shi, is surrounded by luxuriant verdure at an altitude of 4,375 ft. above sea-level, and is surpassed in beauty by the smaller Lake Yumoto, higher up, in the sulphur-springs region, 5,000 ft. above the sea. There are many other lovely lakes in Japan, Lake Hakoné amongst them. Those just mentioned are singled out because they lie in the mountainous district round Nikkō, a region on the main islands, to the north of Tōkio, presenting, in their greatest beauty, characteristic features of Japanese inland scenery--imposing mountains, stately, venerable trees, and grand waterfalls comparable to those of Norway. The aspect of the Japanese islands is, as may be inferred, diversified, stern and rugged amidst the dark forests of the north, smiling in the sunlit regions further south, beautiful almost everywhere.

A natural arch The White Co.

SCENES IN MATSUSHIMA BAY, JAPAN]

The land is chiefly mountainous, the ranges running from south-west to north-east, interspersed with smiling valleys, fertile plains, chequered into regular squares by the narrow, raised embankments dividing the rice-fields, with, here and there, wild, desolate moors in places where even the untiring industry and agricultural skill of the people could not induce the stubborn ground to yield sustenance. Where anything useful can possibly be made to grow, the Japanese grow it. Beside plants of utility, they grow, to a greater extent than in any other land, plants intended only for pleasure, for the delight they give the Japanese eye by their beauty.

In no other country are flowers so reverently admired as in Japan; nowhere are they more skilfully grown and tended. Every month has a special blossom, and what may be termed its flower festival, when the people, high and low, rich and poor, go in their tens of thousands to seek happiness in the contemplation of Nature’s most delicate productions. The plum-blossom appears about a month after the New Year, and is followed by the far-famed cherry-flower early in April, when, in many ancient groves and on many hillsides, the lightest of delicate clouds, faintly pink, seem to have settled on the trees.

No words can do justice to the exquisite beauty of Japan in cherry-blossom time; it is then easily to be understood how dear the flower of the cherry is to the Japanese heart. To the people of Great Japan it is the emblem of patriotism and of chivalry, sharing their affections with the chrysanthemum, the badge of the empire. Other flowers grown to wonderful perfection are the peony, symbolical of valour; the graceful wistaria, the glowing azalea, the slim-stalked iris, the convolvulus, or “morning-glory,” in many strange forms, and the lotus, the sacred flower of Buddhism. Besides these and other cultivated flowers, Japan possesses wild blossoms galore that fleck its plains and valleys with colour. The leaves of the maple turn, in November, to hues of crimson and gold, clothing the woods with a glory to be equalled only in Canada.

The natural, beauty of Japan has undoubtedly fostered the æsthetic taste inborn with the Japanese of all classes. High and low, they admire and enjoy intensely the lovely scenes amidst which they dwell. This admiration and enjoyment are strong incentives to their patriotism. It seems to them that their beautiful country must indeed be _Kami-no-Kuni_, “the Land of the Gods.” To travelled Occidentals, the scenery of Japan suggests, in places, the Norwegian fjords; in others, the smiling shores of the Italian lakes; at some points the coves of Devonshire, the rocky coasts of the Channel Islands, or the pleasant hills of Surrey. That these impressions are correct is proved by the fact that Japanese travellers who visit any of these places never fail to recognise their similarity to some favourite spot in Japan.

The “backbone” of the southern half of the main island and of the whole island of Shikoku consists of rock, principally primitive gneiss and schists; Kiū-shū, Yezo and the northern half of the main island are partly, the Kurile islands--Chishima--entirely, volcanic. Subterranean fires still smoulder in many parts of Japan, many of the mountains being volcanoes, not all of them extinct. Fuji, the glorious cone so dear to the Japanese heart, uplifting its peak 12,365 ft. from the surrounding plain, is a volcano that erupted last in January, 1708. Fifty-one volcanoes, such as Asama and Bandai-san in Eastern Japan, Aso-san in Kiū-shū, Koma-ga-také in Yezo, have been active in recent years, some of them, especially Bandai-san, with disastrous results. Nor do only volcanoes threaten danger to the inhabitants of Japan: earthquakes are frequent--about 500 shocks yearly--and sometimes appallingly destructive of life and property.

The great earthquake in the Gifu region, in the central provinces of the main island, on October 28th, 1891, wrecked two populous towns--Gifu and Ōgaki--completely destroyed two smaller ones--Kasamatsu and Takegahana--killed about ten thousand people, and caused more or less severe wounds to nearly twenty thousand. In Japanese earthquakes, a great part of the destruction arises from the innumerable fires that break out when the flimsy houses--mostly of wood, with paper partitions, in sliding frames, between the rooms--collapse through the shock, scattering the glowing charcoal from the kitchens amidst heaps of highly inflammable materials. Earth-tremors bring not only fiery ruin in their train; they cause at times upheavals of the sea that work stupendous havoc. On the evening of June 15th, 1896, the north-eastern coasts of the main island were overwhelmed by a so-called “tidal wave.” The sea, impelled probably by a seismic convulsion on the bed of the Northern Pacific, rose in a wave of towering height and, rushing inland with terrific speed, engulfed whole districts. More than 28,000 lives were lost, and more than 17,000 people were injured.

The Sacred Bridge at Nikko

The White Co.

View of Fuji-yama across Motosu

THREE FAMOUS SCENES IN JAPAN]

Japan has fifty volcanoes that have been active in recent years;
this picture shows the crater of the most famous mountain in the
island empire. Fuji, the cone so dear to the Japanese heart,
uplifts its peak 12,365 feet from the plain. It has not erupted
since the beginning of 1708. No other natural feature in Japan
comes so often into its pictures as Fuji.
]

ARTHUR DIÓSY]

QUALITIES OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

[Sidenote: The Wonderful Islanders]

It is in presence of great calamities that the best qualities of the Japanese masses shine brilliantly. Their resignation, their patient endurance, the altruism that prompts them to mutual help and to countless acts of kindness; their self-sacrificing bravery in the work of rescue, the proud honesty with which they will content themselves with the barest pittance, when relief is distributed, so that enough may be left for others in greater need--these are only some of the fine characteristics of the wonderful islanders whose achievements in recent times have earned the respectful admiration of the world, even of their late foes. There is, of course, another aspect of their character; they are not without some of the vices and failings human nature is heir to. An attempt is made, later in these pages, to describe their moral and mental characteristics, and in so doing to hold the scales impartially.

Underwood & Underwood

THE RISING GENERATION IN JAPAN]

According to the census of 1913 there were 52,985,423 subjects of the Emperor of Japan (excluding Korea), and their number is increasing steadily and rapidly. The number of males exceeds that of females by well-nigh a million. The population is very dense in the fertile regions, and increases so rapidly that emigration is absolutely necessary. The masses are healthy and strong, capable of great endurance--a fact brought into striking prominence by the achievements of the Japanese forces in the Arctic winter of Manchuria, and in its torrid summer. The Japanese can, as a rule, bear cold much better than heat. Living thinly clad in unwarmed houses that offer but little protection and are by day draughty as bird-cages, they early become inured to cold. The average physique of the upper classes is by no means so good as that of the manual workers, and is considerably below the Occidental standards.

[Sidenote: A Race of Little People]

The Japanese are a black-haired race, with smooth skins, varying in colour through various yellowish shades, from a hue of brown, in the case of those working in the sun, to a light tint no darker than that of the Southern European, with comparatively large skulls, prominent cheek-bones, and a tendency to projecting jaws. They are of small stature, the average height of the male being only slightly over five feet (5·02 ft.), that of the female slightly over four feet six inches (4·66 ft.). In other words, the men are of about the same average stature as European females, the women proportionately shorter.

[Sidenote: The Two Types of Japanese]

There are, of course, exceptions, some Japanese being of a height that would cause them to be considered tall amongst Occidentals; but they appear as giants amongst their diminutive compatriots. Both men and women have small hands and feet, those of the upper classes being beautifully shaped. Even amongst manual workers it is not rare to find, especially amongst females, hands of an aristocratic type. The shapely appearance of the feet is often spoiled by thick ankles, probably the result of wearing sandals. The black hair is abundant on the head, straight and coarse; there is hardly any on the arms, legs and chest. The eyelashes are scanty, and grow immediately out of the eyelids, without the “hem” that borders the eyelids of Occidental races. The eyes are dark, full in the broad-faced, plebeian type, narrow in the aristocratic cast of countenance. In the latter they are generally set more or less obliquely, their slanting appearance being enhanced by the fact that the aperture for the eye seems to have been cut, as it were, directly in the smooth skin, tightly stretched over the upper part of the face, not, as in the white races, in a very marked depression under the brow.

Japan is the land of love for children, and many quaint customs
are observed for their sake. On the third day of the third month
in each year the Feast of Dolls is held in thousands of Japanese
homes, and the day is one of great delight.
]

Society in Old Japan was based on the principle that the producer
was worthy of high honour. There were four great classes. At
the top were the _Shi_, the nobility and gentry, warriors,
administrators, and scholars. Next were the _No_, the agricultural
class; thirdly came the _Ko_, craftsmen and artists; and at the
bottom were the _Sho_, traders and bankers. Some of the wealthier
classes were thus at the bottom, because they were not producers
but only circulators.
]

[Sidenote: Physique of the Nation]

[Sidenote: Cleanest Nation in the World]