IN THE LAND OF THE MIKADO
Allen, George Hoyt
In the Land of the Mikado By GEORGE HOYT ALLEN (Copyright, 1910, The Robert M. La Follettc Co.) IHAVE been in the land of the Mikado six days. My Japanese friends all seem glad to see me. They...
...Two hundred more steps yet to go and my time was getting shorter, and it was hot, so hot...
...I leaned against one of those lovely walls and mopped my brow...
...I read the prayer...
...The cars, compared with ours, are little, light, dinkey affairs and the average speed on express trains is fifteen miles an hour...
...A rickshaw boy took me on a 45 minute ride through Tokyo to catch a train at 5:45 and it took five hours to travel that ninety miles on an express train...
...In return for our sending missionaries over here to teach the Japanese the right way of life, before the world has run its course the Japanese may have to send missionaries to us to teach us how to hang on and live...
...Only had two hours to do the temple stunt from the time of starting, so I told my guide that we would push along...
...Merchandise is moved on a correspondingly advantageous basis...
...Ths moving of merchandise in Japan, by rail, in large or small packages, in slow or quick time, is one business—transportation business—owned and operated by the government...
...They assured me that everything was "just lovely" around the Shogun's grave, and as everything was "just lovely" everywhere else around Nikko I hereby report: At Shogun Ieyasu.'s grave, at Xikko, Japan...
...He gets there with his land...
...They have first, second and third class...
...Up three hundred steps...
...James Hill says that the high cost of living is due to underproduction of food...
...In his other hand the priest held a little white paper dodger on which was printed the prayer in English...
...That same census shows 51,408,037 Japanese in Japan...
...My train leaves in an hour and it don't seem possible for me to carry out my laudable intention...
...That's one of the show places in Japan, noted for its temples, mountain scenery, Cedar trees and carved and lacquer work...
...As they were passing me I accosted them_ "Beg pardon, ladies," I said, "but have you been up stairs...
...As I only had a day to do it in I did it in a day...
...Third class, used by the great majority of the traveling public costs about 60 per cent, of second class...
...Hill is right—that's one of the causes aided and abetted by some others that James didn't mention...
...They get there—in time—and they have some money left at their destination...
...Everything Lovely at Shogun's Grave THE great event of the day was yet to come, and my time was getting short...
...To "arrive" is the oriental's chief aim...
...He evidently trusted the populace...
...So I left them together...
...It was a hot day, but I pushed ahead and made one hundred of those stone steps...
...The Royal family and globe trotters use first class...
...He said the two had to go together...
...He was buried there three hundred years ago...
...We had climbed pretty well up the mountain side to get to the temples and my time was limited...
...They were Americans...
...The pitcher was empty...
...The globe trotter is their legitimate prey...
...Beautiful temples, I found at Nikko, the finest in Japan, and nowhere else on earth have I even seen such a stand of timber, so many splendid trees growing so closely together...
...Japan is exceedingly mountainous...
...Also there are no Pullman or Wagoner sleeping car companies in Japan...
...In the largest one the Buddah priest had seemingly done a rushing trade, selling visitors sacred wine...
...Express companies in Japan are gilded excuses...
...This same land in Japan was being tilled and cropped a thousand years before the ancestors of the owners of those "worn out" farms had ceased going around in breech clothes, and hunting and going to war with clubs...
...They are quite able to distinguish between a globe trotter and a regular patron...
...They feel that they can get more for their money if they are a long time on the road...
...He is here today and gone tomorrow, probably never to return...
...When a fast train was put on between Tokyo and Yokohama to cater to the foreign trade between those two cities, eighteen miles apart,—within an hour of each other,—the Japanese objected to paying the extra price the railroad management charged for riding on a "fast" train...
...He stood at a corner of his temple on a narrow piazza and showed his wares...
...He unrolled about six feet of wall paper with a section of curtain roller at one end...
...The shogun's picture didn't appeal to me...
...On each side and so many of them...
...He had a prayer to sell...
...I thanked the ladies for helping me in this matter and after a few minutes delightful conversation, I excused myself and made a rush for my train...
...He, too, was after some of the foreigner's money...
...Dickering for a Prayer THE next temple was closed, but from it emereed a priest...
...It's a strenuous task to leave Tokyo, "make" that town and get back to Tokyo, all in one day...
...a ninety-mile journey...
...The fact is," I added, "I am not a regular tourist...
...If you could assure me that Shogun is resting quietly and that everything seems to be all right up there, I'll report the fact, make my train, and thank you kindly, ladies...
...The secret of the continued fertility of Japan's soils is due to her system of fertilizing...
...He wanted a yen—that's 50 cents in our money—for the two...
...Pluck him and pluck him clean while he is going through," is not exclusively a Japanese doctrine, but that doctrine is pretty well recognized by my friends, the Japs...
...An Enterprising Priest PUT in a day at Nikko...
...I didn't desire...
...On that wall paper was a picture of some shogun and above the picture the shogun's prayer in Japanese characters...
...The last thing the Oriental will savvey, is the value of time— and the trains do arrive,—on time...
...The winter rice is being harvested and the land prepared for the summer crop which will be harvested in October...
...I am a business man, over here in Japan on business and I'm doing a little writing for La Follette's Magazine...
...I believe I have ridden past more alleged "worn out" farms in the United States than would equal the total tillable land in Japan...
...Ieyasu was no relative of mine, but I started out to sweat at his grave...
...It was a good prayer...
...June 1st, 1910...
...Yes," 1 said, "Shogun Ieyasu is buried up top side...
...Three hundred stone steps up the mountain side from where we stood is the grave of Shogun Ieyasu...
...The number of bushels of grain they take from an acre of land in Japan would open the eyes of the American farmer...
...Shogun resting quietly...
...The total area of Japan is less by something over 20,000 square miles than the area of Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas...
...There is only a handful of foreigners in Japan anyway...
...During the breech cloth and club period of us smart Westerners, while our present "worn out" farms were lying fallow and gathering richness, Japan kept right on cropping this land (devoting herself to art and literature meanwhile) and she has kept it up ever since...
...Everybody satisfied...
...But that is fast enough to suit the Japanese...
...The area of land that can be tilled does not exceed the area of Illinois...
...If he hasn't sold that prayer to some globetrotter, with the shogun's picture for a chromo, he still has them...
...The walk is walled in on both sides, beautiful moss and lichen covered walls, and such beautiful trees...
...It was tilled for several thousand years before the descendants of those interesting ancestors had even discovered those now "worn out" farms...
...But they are the people's joke...
...Americans in coming to Japan for the first time look upon her railroads as a joke—and so they are...
...The more sprightly one exclaimed, "Have we been up stairs...
...In the case of the railroads in Japan, the traveling public "arrives" in two ways...
...Of those 3,171 were in Yokohama, 2,500 in Kobe and in all the rest of the empire only 831...
...The sleeping and dining cars are a part of the railroad business...
...Two ladies turned a corner in the walk, coming down...
...Jap "arrives" in other ways than with his railroad...
...The census of January, 1909, shows foreigners in Japan, exclusive of Chinese, 6,802...
...If you refer to climbing this mountain up these interminable steps simply as 'up stairs' we hare been up stairs...
...Arose at the seasonable hour of 4:30—which came within an hour and a half of carrying me back to the days of Brindle and the farm...
...His wine cups and pitcher were setting on the floor at one side...
...They insisted that the price should be reduced on that train as it took less time to make the journey...
...The priest wouldn't sell it that way...
...I think myself that Mr...
...First class is nearly double second...
...Railroads Suit the People, Anyway THE railroads in Japan (a monarchy, not—presumably—a government of, by and for the people) seem to suit the Japanese people and really that's what they are primarily built for —not for a few carping globe trotters and foreigners...
...My smell told me that the priest had probably gone to get more wine, that he would be back presently and that I could get a drink for 10 sen if I desired...
...It cost 80 sen for a ticket to go through the temples...
...Everything lovely...
...I wanted to buy the prayer without the wall paper...
...Today Japan has a population of fifty-one and a half million, and this same land that she has tilled and cropped so long is supporting that fifty-one and a half million, and her exports for the year 1909 of food, drink, tobacco and silk—drawn from that soil—exceed her imports of those four items by more than $12,-700,000...
...The chief difference between first and second class is the price...
...Second class corresponds with our regular day coach and is one cent a mile...
...He was nowhere in sight but the result of the day's business, pennies, silver pieces and bills, was scattered over the floor in front of the altar...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 31
