t of over two miles, along and in which all the bustle and
business are conducted. Notwithstanding its recent opening,
public-houses, with their alluring signs, have sprung up with
mushroom-like rapidity. One in particular I will just mention, not that
you are ever likely to forget "Good old Joe," but simply that you may
smile, when reading this over, at the willingness with which you were
led as lambs to the slaughter. I trust you escaped without the mark of
the butcher's knife.

After traversing about half the length of the street I mentioned before,
the traveller finds himself abreast of the Nanko temple, a large and
imposing structure having a wide and noble-looking entrance from the
street, and just now presenting a very festive and animated appearance.
On either side the really grand avenue to the temple a veritable fair is
being held, and such a spectacle was as welcome as it was unlooked for.
The amusements were so like those provided at similar gatherings at home
that the wonder is, that peoples separated by half a world of varied
civilization can possess the details of such festivities in common.
Confection stalls, wild beast shows, shooting galleries, archery
grounds, theatres, music halls, even a Japanese edition of the
thimble-and-pea business was not wanting. In one of the theatres we
visited, the acting, although considered good from a Japanese point of
view, possessed too many muscular contortions, too much contraction and
expansion of the facial organs, to please an English audience. Men do
all the acting, women never appear on the Japanese stage.

The music halls are not more enlivening than are the theatres, though
the sight of an interior is worth the ten _sen_ fee, if only to see
their manner of conducting the opera. If you imagine the interior of a
church, having all its pews removed, leaving only the cant pieces on
which they were erected, and the spaces between these pieces covered and
padded with the beautiful rice-straw matting of the country, you will
get a fairly good idea of the simple fittings of a Japanese music hall.
A whole family seats itself in one of these squares; and as a concert in
this country is really a formidable affair, they bring their braziers,
teapots, and chow-boxes with them. The performer--a lady--is seated,
tailor fashion, on a raised platform, a music desk in front of her, and
her musical instruments near at hand. The Japanese, like the Chinese,
sing from the throat,