irst opportunity to see
something of Japanese peasant life, and to admire the intensive and
thorough cultivation. Not a foot of productive soil is wasted. The
landscape of rice-fields, succeeded by tea-gardens, bamboo groves, up to
the forest or brush-clad hills, and the very picturesque villages and
farmhouses and rustic temples, form many a delightful picture. In the
growing season the whole country must be very beautiful. Excellent trout
and salmon fishing may then be had. The adopted national game for
youths seems to be base-ball, and not cricket as in China.

Next I went to Kobe, via Osaka, the great manufacturing centre of the
Empire. At Kobe took another Japanese steamer for Shanghai, calling at
Moji, Shimonoseki and Nagasaki, and traversing the wonderfully beautiful
inland Sea of Japan, a magnified, and quite as beautiful, Loch Lomond.
This sea was dotted with innumerable fishing-boats. Indeed, Japan's
sea-fisheries must be one of her most valuable assets. Moji harbour is a
beautiful one, has an inlet and an outlet, but appears land-locked. On
the mainland side is Shimonoseki, where Li Hung Chang signed the Peace
Treaty with Japan, and where he was later wounded by an assassin.
Nagasaki has also a fine harbour. From here I took a rickshaw ride over
the hills to a lovely little summer coast-resort, passing through a most
picturesque country.

Japan has, among many others, one particular curiosity in the shape of a
domestic cock, possessing a tail as much as fifteen feet in length, and
which tail receives its owner's, or rather its owner's owner's, most
careful consideration. The unfortunate bird is kept in a very small
wicker cage, so small that he can't turn round, the long tail feathers
escaping through an aperture and drooping to the ground. Once a day the
bird is taken out and allowed to exercise for a short time on a
spotlessly clean floor-mat.

While in Japan I was told that her modern cultured men are satisfied
with a simple work-a-day system of Ethics, priestly guidance being
unnecessary, and they regard religion as being for the ignorant,
superstitious or thoughtless. Thus they "emancipate their consciences
from the conventional bonds of traditional religions."

It has been remarked that the Japanese will probably never again be such
heroes, or at least will never be such reckless, fanatical fighters as
they were in the late war, as civilization and property rights will make
life more worth living an