“The Chinese attach much importance to an elegant handwriting, a clever calligrapher, or to use their own expression, a clever brush, is worthy of their admiration. Captain Bouvier and one of the interpreters of the French legation, were one day paying a visit to Tchong-louen, one of the leading officials of Peking; his son, a mandarin with the blue button, a young man of twenty-two, and already father of a child—that is to say of a son, for girls do not count for anything—was present in the reception-room. Tchong-louen, wishing to give an idea of his son’s precocious accomplishments to his visitors, sent for a large cartoon in which the youth had traced in splendid outlines, the word longevity, and showed it to them with as much pride as if it had been the certificate of some noble action or a literary work. The rooms of every house contain similar cartoons, hung upon their walls as we in Europe hang paintings.
“The appearance of Chinese writing is very odd; the characters are placed one under the other in vertical lines, and run from right to left; in a word, on this point as in many others, the Chinese proceed in a manner diametrically opposed to ours. The position in which the characters are placed is besides very important; for instance, the Emperor’s name must be written with two letters higher than the others, to omit this would be to commit treason. Everybody is familiar with Chinese or Indian ink. It is with this substance, diluted in water and used with a brush, that the Chinese trace the letters of their writing, holding their hands perpendicularly, instead of placing them horizontally, on the paper.
“Their spoken language is much less difficult; it is composed of monosyllables, the union of which, in an infinite number of ways, expresses every possible idea. I must not forget the accents which give a difference of tone and expression to the monosyllabic roots. The language of the south differs sufficiently from that of the north to prevent the natives from understanding one another without the assistance of the brush. Moreover, every province has its particular dialect.
“In spite of the difficulties presented by the reading and writing of the Chinese character, China is doubtless the land in which primary instruction is most widely spread. Schools are found even in the smallest hamlets whose rustics deprive themselves of some of their gains, in order to pay a schoolmaster. It is very seldom you meet with an entirely uneducated Chinese. The workmen and the peasants are capable of writing their own letters, reading the government bills and proclamations, and making notes of their daily business. Teaching in the primary schools has for its basis, the San-tse-king, a sacred book attributed to a disciple of Confucius, which sums up in a hundred and sixty-eight lines all acquired knowledge and science. This little encyclopædia, properly explained and commented on by the teacher, suffices to give Chinese children a taste for positive knowledge, and even to give them the desire of acquiring a wider education. There are also colleges in the large towns where the children of the men of letters and of the mandarins receive a complete education. Such among others is the Imperial College at Peking.
“The citizens of the Celestial Empire enjoy thorough liberty of the press, but at their own risk and peril. The government, which has no right to forbid any publication, revenges itself afterwards by inflicting the bastinado on the authors of the pamphlets and the virulent satires that daily appear attacking it. A great quantity of small portable printing-presses exists among private individuals who both use and abuse them. There is no country in the world where the walls are so thickly covered with bills and advertisements.
“The Chinese have practised the typographical art from time immemorial; but as their alphabet is composed of more than forty thousand letters, they could not make use of moveable type; they restricted themselves therefore to carving on a piece of hard board the characters they required, to wetting these characters with ink and to striking off a number of copies, by applying different sheets of paper to the board. Their binders, in opposition to ours, make these leaves up into a volume by fastening them together by their edges. A note in the preface generally mentions the place where the boards that printed the first edition of the work have been deposited.
“There are in Peking several daily papers, amongst others the Official Gazette, a government print, the subscription for which is a piastre quarterly. This print, published in pamphlet shape, is a rectangular publication containing a dozen pages, with a likeness of the philosopher Meng-tsen on the cover. It contains a summary of all public matters, and all leading events, the petitions and memorials addressed to the Emperor, his decrees, the edicts of the viceroys of the provinces, judicial ceremonies and letters of pardon, the custom-house tariffs, the court circular, the news of the day, fires, crimes, &c., and finally the incidents, fortunate or unfortunate, of the war against the rebel Tae-pings. It even acknowledges the Imperial defeats, a piece of frankness worthy of notice by the official organs of Europe and America.
“The Chinese have a traditional and quasi-religious respect for the preservation of all printed and written papers; they are carefully collected and burnt when read, so as to put them beyond the reach of profanation. It is even asserted that societies exist who pay porters to go from street to street with enormous baskets to pick up fragments. These new kind of rag-gatherers are paid for saving the waifs and strays of human thought.
“Art like literature has been carried to some extent in an utilitarian and manufacturing sense. But imaginative art, the ideally beautiful, is a thing a Chinese does not understand.
“While acknowledging the skill with which the Chinese have written on social economy, on philosophy, on history, and on all moral and political science based on experience and logic, we must note the scarcity of their purely literary works. It must not however, be concluded that China, unlike every civilized country, does not possess plenty of poets, novelists and dramatic authors; but their little esteemed and badly remunerated productions are ephemeral. To-day an ode, something appropriate to the moment, is written, it is recited or played in the midst of applause, and to-morrow nothing remains of it.
“Theatrical propensities are nevertheless very strongly developed among the Chinese, and the cause of this forgetfulness, this neglect is that they are ashamed of attaching too much importance to a futile amusement. The managers of the theatres are generally the authors of the pieces they represent, or at any rate they modify them according to the exigencies of the actors and the suitability of the costumes. There are no permanent or authorized theatres in Peking: the government only allows their temporary construction in the open spaces of the town for a limited period during public festivals. Theatrical representations, however, take place in many of the tea-houses, which are analogous to our music-halls, and in nearly all the dwellings of the wealthy, who, every time they hire a company of actors to celebrate a family anniversary, take care, with an eye to popularity, to allow the public free ingress into that part of their house reserved for the auditorium.”
“I have just been present,” relates M. Trèves, “at a theatrical representation given by the secretary of state Tchong-louen in the gardens of his palace in the Tartar town, in honour of the new year. The theatre was something like those constructed in Paris on the esplanade of the Invalides on the occasion of the Emperor’s fête: it was an ample quadrilateral building in the shape of a Greek temple, supported on either side by four columns painted in sky-blue, golden, and scarlet stripes, and with a proscenium covered with carvings and decorations. The stage, much wider than it was deep, was a wooden platform raised about six feet above the level of the rest of the building. An immense screen shuts off the back passages, where the actors dress themselves and get themselves up. There was no scenery, only two or three chairs and a carpet. The circular hall reserved for the audience, very large in proportion to the stage, was paved with white marble; it was not roofed in, and the only shelter for the spectators was the shade cast by the large trees of the garden (fig. 129).
“We took our places on a reserved platform, placed expressly for us in front of the stage; on either side were boxes with bamboo blinds whence the wives of our host and those of his guests looked on at the play: to prevent their being seen, they wore veils of silk net. The guests of lower rank were seated in the first row, on chairs grouped round small tables capable of accommodating four or five people. Behind them I could see a swarm of human heads; these were the public who crowded and pressed together to enjoy the spectacle for which they were indebted to the munificence of the illustrious Tchong-louen. At Peking as in Paris, the common people willingly undergo for the sake of amusement the fatigue of standing, without any means of resting themselves, for hours together. A few indulgent fathers had two or three children perched upon their backs, and upon their shoulders, but I could not see a single woman.
“At a signal given from our dais, the orchestra, placed at one wing of the stage, and consisting of two flutes, a drum and a harp, began a charivari which took the place of an overture; then the screen opened, and the actors all appeared in their ordinary dress, and after bowing so deeply that their foreheads touched the ground, their leader advanced to the edge of the stage and commenced a pompous recital of the dramas they were going to perform.”
Here the writer gives a description of the pieces represented, which were kinds of allegories and historical pageants. Besides these regular theatrical representations, there are in Peking many acrobatic troops, male and female rope-dancers, and itinerant circuses.
Marionettes, absolutely identical with those in Europe, are seen in China. Which nation is their inventor? The name by which they have passed from time immemorial in France, ombres chinoises, seems to prove that their origin is Chinese. Hidden by ample drapery of blue cotton stuff, the man who moves the puppets stands on a stool. A case representing a little stage is placed on his shoulders and rises above his head, while his hands work without revealing the mechanical means he uses to impart the movements of players to these tiny automatons.
We will end our account of the Chinese with a glance at their administration of justice and their judicial forms. We again quote from M. Poussielgue:
“There is a direct relation in China between the penal judicial code and family organization. If the Emperor is the father and the mother of his subjects, the magistrates who represent him are also the father and mother of those they rule over. Every outrage against the law is an outrage upon the family. Impiety, one of the greatest crimes foreseen and punished by the law, is really nothing but a want of respect for parents. This is how the penal code defines impiety. ‘He is impious who insults his nearest relations, or he who brings an action against them, or who does not go into mourning for them, or who does not venerate their memory, or he who is wanting in the attention due to those to whom he owes his existence, by whom he has been educated, or by whom he has been protected and assisted.’ The punishments incurred for the crime of impiety are terrible; we intend to speak of them later.
“In thus carrying the feeling of what is due to family ties into the region of politics, the Chinese legislators have created a governmental machinery of prodigious power, which has lasted for thirty centuries, and which, neither the numerous revolutions and dynastic changes, neither the antagonism of the northern and southern races, neither the immense territorial extent of the empire, neither religious scepticism, nor finally the selfish creed of materialism developed to excess by a decayed and stationary civilization, have been able to destroy, or even seriously to disturb.
“Amongst the supreme courts that sit at Peking, is the Court of Appeal or Cassation (Ta-li-sse). Next to it come the assizes held in the chief towns of each province, and presided over by a special magistrate bearing the title of Commissary of the Court of Offences. A second magistrate of inferior rank exercises the duties of public accuser at these assizes. In towns of second and third importance inferior tribunals exist which have but one judge, the mandarin or the sub-prefect of the department. The punishments that can be awarded by the latter are limited; when the crime deserves a greater chastisement, the prisoner is sent to the assizes held in the chief town of his province: if this tribunal sentences him to death, the proceedings must be sent to the Court of Appeal at Peking, where a final decision is pronounced at the autumn sittings. Thus no provincial tribunal has the power of sentencing a prisoner to death; although in special cases, such as an armed insurrection, a governor can be invested with extreme power, similar to that conferred in Europe by martial law. Finally there are in every part of the empire, courts of information where the sub-prefect, in the course of his quarterly circuit, has to hear what is taking place, decide differences, and deliver moral lectures to the public; but this excellent institution has fallen into disuse in consequence of the relaxation of governmental authority and the carelessness of the mandarins.
“The result of this judicial organization is that the sub-prefect is invested with the entire correctional power within the limits of his civil jurisdiction, a very faulty state of things, which has been the cause of enormous abuses.
“There are no advocates in China, and, as has been seen, very few judges. Consequently the mode of administering justice is very summary, and the guarantees enjoyed by a prisoner amount to nothing. His friends or relations can, it is true, plead in his favour, but it is of no use, unless it happens to suit the mandarin at the head of the tribunal. As for the witnesses, they are liable to be flogged with a rattan, accordingly as their evidence is agreeable or not. Generally speaking, the long-winded witnesses are the most disagreeable to the mandarin who has a mass of matters to settle, and whose time does not allow him to enter into petty details. In point of fact the prisoner’s acquittal or condemnation depends upon the subaltern officers of the court, who prepare the proceedings in a manner favourable to the prisoners or the reverse, accordingly as they have received more or less money from his friends.
“If there is something to be praised in Chinese jurisprudence, the way in which the punishments are carried out is on the contrary shocking. Man is considered as a being sensitive only to physical agony and to death; Chinese legislators have not sought to restrain him by his honour, by his pride in himself, nor even by his self interest. The penal code consists mainly of the bastinado, inflicted with a thick bamboo cane, with the thick end or the thin one, and consisting of from ten up to two hundred blows, as the crime is trifling or serious, or as the object stolen is of little or of great value. The bastinado is given immediately in presence of the tribunal. The most common punishments, are, after the bastinado, the cangue, the pillory, imprisonment and perpetual exile into Tartary for mandarins who have committed political offences. We have mentioned that the High Court of Appeal alone can decide on a death sentence; but the sufferings inflicted by the orders of the inferior tribunals are so horrible, the executioners are so ingenious in varying the tortures without causing death, the management of the prisons is so hateful, and finally a man sentenced to the cangue, the pillory, or the cage is exposed to such horrible anguish, that when the death-warrant arrives from Peking, the unfortunate wretch goes cheerfully to the scaffold, as if his last day were really the day of his deliverance.
“Capital punishment, horribly varied in bygone days, is now only inflicted in three ways; strangulation, decapitation, and the slow death by stabbing.
“Strangulation is effected by means of a silken cord that two executioners pull at each end, or by an iron collar tightened by a screw, very much like the garote at present used in Spain. Strangulation by the silken cord, is reserved for the princes of the Imperial family; the iron collar is used to destroy, in the silence of the prison, those whose death it is desired to conceal.
“In public, the only mode of execution is decapitation, applied to all vulgar crimes. The preparations for this mode of death are very simple, and its action very rapid, owing to the temper and weight of the swords, and the skill of those who wield them. The guillotine never attained the lightning-like rapidity of the satellites of the dreaded Yeh, the viceroy from whom the Anglo-French delivered the province of Canton; they could strike off a hundred heads in a few moments. Their master used to boast that their skill was derived from a hundred thousand subjects of experiment he had furnished them with in less than two years.
“The slow death of stabbing is inflicted for the crimes of treason, parricide, and incest. The preparation for this mode of punishment must double the miseries of the condemned convict. Securely tied to a post, his feet and hands fastened with ropes, his head is placed in a kind of pillory, while the magistrate delegated to witness the execution of the sentence, draws from a covered basket a knife, on the handle of which is written the part of the body in which it is to be inserted. This horrible torture is continued until chance selects the heart, or some other vital part. We hasten to add, that generally the convict’s friends purchase the connivance of the magistrate, who takes care to draw at the very first venture, the knife intended for the mortal blow.
“It is little wonder that the Chinese accustomed to such penalties, and to the hideous and frequent spectacles they afford, should early become inured to the idea of death, and that even their women and children should possess in the highest degree the passive courage which enables them to meet it with calmness. For many of these poor people, death is only the welcome termination of a miserable and painful existence.
“I had the curiosity to be present at one of the last sittings of the Court, and at my request a place was reserved for me, where I could see without being seen.
“The hall of justice had nothing remarkable in an architectural sense. It was surrounded by a lofty wall, nearly as high as the principal edifice. The first court is enclosed by buildings used as prisons. I saw some boxes made of enormously thick bamboo bars placed at a little distance apart, in which prisoners were shut up during the night.
“In this court a crowd of wretched creatures with emaciated limbs, livid faces, and barely covered with a few loathsome rags, lay sweltering in the sun. Some were fastened by the foot with an iron chain to a weight so heavy, that they were unable to stir it, and staggered round it like caged wild beasts, continually turning in a space of a few feet. Others had their arms and legs shackled together, so that they could only move about in short jumps, which must have been very painful to judge by the expression of their faces.
“One of these prisoners had his left hand and right foot fastened in a board a few inches in width; a policeman dragged him forward by an iron chain fastened to a heavy collar clasped round his neck, whilst another flogged him from behind, to make him go on. This wretched creature crept along with great difficulty on the leg that was still free, his body bent double in the most painful position (fig. 132).
“In another corner of the court, other prisoners were undergoing the punishment of the cangue. I also saw a painful sight, a thief buried alive in a wooden cage.
“Imagine a heavy tub upside down, under which a human being is made to crouch; his head and his hands are slipped through three round holes, made so excessively tight that he cannot remove them; the weight of the cage presses on his shoulders, whatever movement he makes he must carry it about with him. When he wishes to rest, he can only crouch upon his knees in a most fatiguing position; when he wishes to take exercise, he can hardly lift the weight of the tub (fig. 133). One shrinks from attempting to realize the existence of a man condemned to a month of such a punishment. The miserable sufferer I saw, being unable to either eat or drink by himself, his wife had undertaken to help him; she was standing close to the cage feeding him with rice and some little pieces of pork, which she pushed into his mouth with chop-sticks. From time to time, she wiped with an old piece of cloth the livid countenance of her husband, which was running down with perspiration, whilst her little child, slung to her back with a strap, smiled in its utter ignorance of misery, and played with the curls of its mother’s flowing hair. This sight affected me deeply, and I hurried on to avoid making a protest against such atrocity.
“The entrance to the hall of justice is embellished with an external portico, on which some mythological scenes are painted in glowing colours.
“Presently the folding gates opened with a loud creaking, and admitted the crowd that had gathered in the first court. At the end of the large hall on a raised daïs, I perceived Tchong-louen in his ceremonial costume, surrounded with his councillors and the subaltern officers of justice. In front of him, on a table covered with a red cloth, were the records of criminal proceedings, brushes and saucers for the Indian ink, a bookcase containing the codes and the books of jurisprudence that might have to be consulted, and a large case full of painted and numbered pieces of wood. Behind the mandarin stood his fan-bearer, and two children richly dressed in silk, who held over his head the insignia of his dignity. On the twelve stone steps that ascended to the dais were posted, first, the executioner, conspicuous for his wire hat, and his red dress. He leant his right hand upon an enormous rattan cane, while his left wielded a curved sword; then came his assistants and the jailors carrying different instruments of torture which they clashed noisily together, whilst continuing at measured intervals to utter horrible yells, intended to throw terror into the minds of the prisoners. All round the hall stood police soldiers, in the red tasselled Manchú cap, armed with a short spear, and with two swords sheathed in the same scabbard. Red draperies inscribed with various sentences, and lanterns representing different monsters were hung around the walls. In short, the whole scene was got up to impress the eager and curious mob, which crowded thickly beneath the overhanging side galleries, with the imposing spectacle of the symbols of justice, as represented in fig. 134.
“I witnessed from the place reserved for me behind the judgment seat the trial of half a score of robbers. I will not attempt to describe the scenes of torture that followed their repeated denials of guilt. When a prisoner persisted in asserting his innocence, the judge tossed to the executioner one of the painted sticks or counters lying in the case on the table before him, and on which was marked the number of blows or the description of torture to be inflicted. This was immediately carried into effect under the eyes of the judge and registrars who made careful notes of the half avowals uttered by the victim in the midst of his screams of agony.”
Military matters are but little attended to in China. This sceptical and timorous nation is no believer in military glory and power. Our campaigns in China showed the value of a Chinese army. General Cousin Montauban, since Count de Palikao, cut numbers of them to pieces, after one or two skirmishes, in which the Chinese fled as hard as they could the very moment they perceived a uniform.
A nation of four hundred million inhabitants was conquered by six thousand Frenchmen. The unworthy cowardice of the Chinese explain the fact that they have always been an easy prey to conquerors.
In Chinese military matters we will restrict ourselves to reproducing their uniforms. Fig. 135 represents that of their infantry, and fig. 136 that of their mounted troops.
The real army of the Chinese nation is the care with which it holds itself aloof from foreigners, and the manner in which it forbids them access to its territory. Retrenched behind its wall, it is happy in its own way and does without soldiers. The system seems a good one, since it has succeeded for so many centuries.
The wall of China, which rigorously excludes all strangers from the empire, is no mere metaphor. It is a solid reality. Fig. 137 gives a view of the Great Wall taken near Peking.
The Marquis de Moges, an attaché of the embassy when M. Gros was French Ambassador in China, has wittily summed up, in his account of his travels, the contrast between Chinese and Western civilization. “In China,” he says, “the magnetic needle points to the south;—the cardinal points are five in number;—the left hand is the place of honour;—politeness requires you to keep your head covered in the presence of a superior, or in that of a person whom you wish to honour;—a book is read from right to left;—fruit is eaten at the beginning of dinner and soup at its close;—at school, children learn their lessons aloud and repeat them all together;—their silence is punished as a sign of idleness;—and finally, a title of nobility conferred upon a man for some signal service rendered to the state, does not descend to his posterity, but goes backwards and ennobles his ancestors.”
Japan, consisting of a large island, that of Nipon, and seven other smaller islands, of which the principal are Yesso, Sitkokf, and Kiousiou, is inhabited by an industrious and intelligent people. The Japanese, whilst resembling the Chinese in many points, differ from them in many others, and are far superior in a moral point of view to the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire.
The written character of Japan is the same as that of China, and its literature is not a distinctive one, but entirely Chinese. The two creeds of Buddha and of Confucius prevail in Japan as they do in China. The worship of these creeds is carried on in both countries in similar pagodas, and their ministers are the same bonzes with shaven heads and long gray robes. The buildings and the junks of both nations are identical. Their food is the same, a diet of vegetables, principally rice, and fish, washed down by plenty of tea and spirit. The coolies carry their loads in exactly the same manner in Japan and in China, at Nangasaki and at Peking, and make the streets resound with the same shrill measured cries. The Japanese women wear their hair as the Chinese women used to do before they adopted the fashion of pig-tails, and the townspeople in Yeddo, as in Nankin, seclude themselves in their houses, which are impervious both to heat and cold.
But the resemblance stops there. The Japanese, a warlike and feudal nation, would be indignant at being confounded with the servile and crafty inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, who despise war, and whose sole aim is commerce. A Chinaman begins to laugh when he is reproached with running away from the enemy, or when he is convicted of having told a lie; such matters give him little concern. A Japanese sets a different value on his life and on his honour; he is warlike and haughty. A Japanese soldier always confronts his enemy. To deprive him of his sword is to dishonour him, and he will only consent to take it back stained with the life-blood of his conqueror. The duello, unknown in China, is carried out in a terrible fashion among the Japanese. The islander of Nipon disembowels himself with a thrust of his own sword, and dares his adversary to follow his example. The Chinese race live in a state of disgusting and perpetual filth; every Japanese, on the contrary, without distinction of rank or fortune, takes a warm bath every other day. Of a jovial and frank disposition, and of great intelligence, they are always desirous of knowing what is going on in the world, and ever anxious to learn; whilst the Chinese, on the other hand, shut themselves up behind their classic wall, and recoil from everything that is strange to them. These characteristics show that the Japanese are a far superior race to the Chinese.
A few peculiarities, more especially found in the inhabitants of the sea coasts, the fishermen and the sailors, separate the Japanese physical type from that of the Chinese. The former are small, vigorous, active men with heavy jaws, thick lips, and a small nose, flat at the bridge, but yet with an aquiline profile. Their hair is somewhat inclined to be curly.
The Japanese are generally of middle height. They have a large head, rather high shoulders, a broad chest, a long waist, fleshy hips, slender short legs, and small hands and feet. The full face of those who have a very retreating forehead and particularly prominent cheek-bones is rather square than oval in shape. Their eyes are more projecting than those of Europeans, and are rather more veiled by the eyelid. The general effect is not that of the Chinese or Mongolian type. The Japanese have a larger head than is customary with individuals of these races, their face is longer, their features are more regular, and their nose is more prominent and better shaped.
They have all thick, sleek, dark black hair, and a considerable quantity of it on their faces. The colour of their skin varies according to the class they belong to, from the sallow sunburnt complexion of the inhabitants of southern Europe to the deep tawny hue of that of the native of Java. The most general tint is a sallow brown, but none remind you of the yellow skin of the Chinese. The women are fairer than the men. Amongst the upper and even the middle classes, some are to be met with with a perfectly white complexion.
Two indelible features distinguish the Japanese from the European type. Their half-veiled eyes, and a disfiguring hollow in the breast, which is noticeable in them in the flower of their youth, even in the handsomest figures.
Both men and women have black eyes, and white sound teeth. Their countenance is mobile and possesses great variety of expression. It is the custom for their married women to blacken their teeth. The national Japanese costume is a kind of open dressing gown (fig. 138), which is made a little wider and a little more flowing for the women than for the men. It is fastened round the waist by a belt. That, worn by the men, is a narrow silk sash, that, by the women, a broad piece of cloth tied in a peculiar knot at the back.
The Japanese wear no linen, but they bathe, as we have said, every other day. The women wear an under-garment of red silk crape.
In summer, the peasants, the fishermen, the mechanics and the Indian coolies follow their calling in a state of almost complete nudity, and the women only wear a skirt from the waist downwards. When it rains they cover themselves with capes made of straw, or oiled paper, and with hats made, shield shape, of cane bark. In winter the men of the lower classes wear, beneath their kirimon or dressing-gown, a tight fitting vest and pair of trousers of blue cotton stuff, and the women one or more wadded cloaks. The middle classes always wear a vest and trousers out of doors.
Figs. 138, 139, 140, and 141 represent different Japanese types.
Their costume generally differs only in the material of which it is made. The nobility alone have the right to wear silk. They only wear their costlier dresses on the occasions of their going to court or when they pay ceremonial visits. All classes wear linen socks and sandals of plaited straw, or wooden shoes fastened by a string looped round the big toe. They all, on their return to their own house, or when entering that of a stranger, take off their shoes, and leave them at the threshold.
The floors of Japanese dwellings are covered with mattings, which take the place of every other kind of furniture.
A Japanese has but one wife.
The Japanese have a taste for science and art, and are fond of music and pageants. Their manufactures are largely developed. They make all sorts of fine stuffs, work skilfully in iron and copper, make capital sword-blades, and their wood carvings, their lacquer-work, and their china, enjoy a wide reputation.
Political power is divided between an hereditary and despotic governor, the Taïcoon, and a spiritual chief, the Mikado.
The creed of Buddhism, that of the Kamis, and the doctrines of Confucius equally divide the religious tendencies of the Japanese.
We will give a few details on the interesting inhabitants of Japan, from the account of a visit to that country written by M. Humbert, the Swiss plenipotentiary there, which was published in 1870 under the title of “Japan.”
M. Humbert was present at the ceremonies which took place on the occasion of an official visit paid by the Taïcoon to the Mikado, and he gives the following account of it:—
“While I was in Japan, it happened that the Taïcoon paid a visit of courtesy to the Mikado.
“This was an extraordinary event. It made a great sensation, inspired the brush of several native artists, and gave resident foreigners a chance of seeing a little more clearly into the reciprocal relation of the two powers of the empire. Their respective position is really one of considerable interest.
“In the first place, the Mikado has over his temporal rival the advantage of birth and the prestige of his sacred character. Grandson of the Sun, he continues the traditions of the gods, the demi-gods, the heroes, and the hereditary sovereigns who have reigned over Japan in an uninterrupted succession since the creation of the empire of the eight great islands. Supreme head of their religion, under whatever form it may present itself to the people, he officiates as the sovereign pontiff of the ancient national creed of the Kamis. At the summer solstice, he offers sacrifices to the earth; at the winter solstice, to heaven. A god is specially deputed to watch over his precious destiny; from the shrine of the temple he inhabits at the top of Mount Kamo, in the neighbourhood of the Mikado’s residence, this deity watches night and day over the Daïri. And finally at the death of a Mikado, his name, which it has been ordained shall be inscribed in the temples of his ancestors, is engraved at Kioto, in the temple of Hatchiman; and at Isyé, in the temple of the Sun.
“It is indubitably from heaven that the Mikado, both theocratic emperor and hereditary sovereign, derives the authority which he exercises over his people. Though now-a-days, it must be acknowledged, he scarcely knows how to employ it. However, from time to time it seems proper to him to confer pompous titles, which are entirely honorary, on a few old feudal nobles who have deserved well of the altar. Sometimes also he allows himself the luxury of openly protesting against those acts of the temporal power, which seem to infringe on his prerogatives. This is the course he took with special reference to the treaties made by the Taïcoon with several western nations; it is true that he finally sanctioned them, but that was because he could not help himself.
“Now the Taïcoon, as everybody knows, is the fortunate successor of a common usurper. In fact, the founders of his dynasty, subjects of the then Mikado, robbed their lord and master of his army, his navy, his lands, and his treasure, as if they were desirous of depriving him of any subject of earthly anxiety.
“Possibly the Mikado was too ready to fall in with their plans. The offer of a two-wheeled chariot drawn by an ox, for his daily drive in the parks of his residence, doubtless a considerable privilege in a country where nobody uses a conveyance, should not have persuaded him to sacrifice the manly exercises of archery, hawking, and hunting the stag or wild boar. He might likewise, without making himself absolutely invisible, have spared himself the fatigue of the ceremonious receptions where, motionless on a raised platform, he accepts the silent adoration of his courtiers prostrated at his feet. The Mikado, now, they say, only communicates with the exterior world through the medium of the female attendants intrusted with the care of his person. It is they who dress and feed him, clothing him daily in a fresh costume, and serving his meals on table utensils fresh every morning from the manufactory which for centuries has monopolized their supply. His sacred feet never touch the ground; his countenance is never exposed in broad daylight to the common gaze; in a word, the Mikado must be kept pure from all contact with the elements, the sun, the moon, the earth, mankind, and himself.
“It was necessary that the interview should take place at Kioto, the holy town which the Mikado is never allowed to leave. His palace, and the ancient temples of his family are his sole personal possessions there, the town itself being under the rule of the temporal emperor; but the latter dedicates its revenues to the expenses of the spiritual sovereign, and condescends to keep up a permanent garrison within its walls for the protection of the pontifical throne.
“The preliminaries on both sides having been carried out, a proclamation announced the day when the Taïcoon intended to issue forth from his capital, the immense and populous modern town of Yeddo, the head-quarters of the political and civil government of the empire, the seat of the Naval and Military Schools, of the Interpreters’ College, and of the Academy of Medicine and Philosophy.
“He was preceded by a division of his army equipped in the European manner, and, while these picked troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were marching on Kioto by land along the great Imperial highway of the Tokaïdo, the fleet received orders to set sail for the inland sea. The temporal sovereign himself, embarked in the splendid steamer, the Lycemoon, which he had purchased of the firm of Dent and Co. for five hundred thousand dollars. Six other steamers escorted him; the Kandimarrah, notorious for its voyage from Yeddo to San-Francisco to convey the Japanese embassy sent to the United States; the sloop of war, the Soembing, a gift from the King of the Netherlands; the yacht Emperor, a present from Queen Victoria; and some frigates built in America and in Holland to orders given by the embassies of 1859 and 1862. Manned entirely by Japanese crews, this squadron left the bay of Yeddo, doubled Cape Sagami and the promontory of Idsou, crossed the Linschoten straits, and coasting along the eastern shores of the island of Awadsi, dropped its anchors in the Hiogo roadstead, where the Taïcoon disembarked amid larboard and starboard salutes.
“His state entry into Kioto took place a few days later, with no military parade but that of his own troops, as the Mikado possesses neither soldiers nor artillery, with the exception of a body-guard of archers, recruited from the families of his kinsmen or of the feudal nobility. Indeed, he can hardly afford even on this moderate scale, the expenses of his court; and his own revenue being insufficient, he is obliged to accept with one hand an income the Taïcoon consents to pay him out of his own private purse, and with the other, the amounts that the brethren of a few monastic orders yearly collect for him, from village to village, in even the furthest provinces of the empire. Another circumstance that assists him to support his rank, is the disinterested abnegation of many of his high officials. Some of them serve him with no other remuneration but the free use of the costly regulation dresses of the old imperial wardrobe. On their return home, after doffing their court costume, these haughty gentlemen are not ashamed to seat themselves at a weavers’ loom or an embroidery frame. More than one piece of the rich silk productions of Kioto, the handiwork of which is so much admired, has issued from some of the princely houses, whose names are inscribed in the register of the Kamis.