This hotel has a garden with pine trees, and a swing and cross bars, so I can exercise myself to my heart’s content, while it is quite isolated, the last house in the village and far from its neighbours. A delightful spot, to which I shall hope to return. The maid, O Sayo San, is the politest I ever met; and of all wonderful things, they refused Chadai money the first night when I offered it in an envelope in the ultra best Japanese way on my arrival.

September 4.—It is rather too bad, but the weather has turned miserably cold, both here and in Tokio, and I should have been at work in comfort, while bathing is not the pleasure it would have been the week before in the broiling sun. But there are several nice people down here, Tokio friends.

September 5.—I got the loan of the “Bromide” book from Mrs. C——, how good it is. Have all you who read this read the little book called “Are you a Bromide?” If not, do so; for I fear if you haven’t, much of the humour of life is a sealed book to you. It has added greatly to my enjoyment, and it can be read in half an hour.

Coming home I looked into the grove of the village temple, a pretty little place on a small hill, and was at first much puzzled by an apparition.

You know (or more probably don’t know) that the most usual form of decoration in a temple is torn strips of white paper, which hang down. Real paper usually—only very grand temples have gold as a symbol of torn paper! Such hanging strips are put in the mouths of the sacred animals very often, and you may see a pair of foxes sitting, carved in stone, with these paper spouts streaming from their mouths or floating on the breeze as they sit immovable. These foxes are often more dog-like than fox-like, and sometimes cleverly painted, but no one could confuse them with a real dog. But in this temple grove was a wonderful creature—a single one, not a pair as is usual—and instead of sitting on either side of the path to the shrine, he sat absolutely in the middle of the path—upright, pointed nose straight ahead, ears erect, and from his mouth the long fluttering streamer of sacred paper; so he sat, immovable, and before him I stood immovable but astonished, so marvellously was he wrought and coloured; could he but move, one would swear he was alive, but his gleaming eyes fixed glassy and unwinking on the distance to infinity in front of him, and only the paper fluttered in the breeze. I walked to either side and gazed—there was something impellingly arresting about this silent image—and for ten minutes I must have lingered near it, perhaps hypnotised by the fluttering white paper and the gleaming eyes; and then the creature rose, still holding the sacred paper in its mouth, and without a sound or a movement except the inevitable placing of its feet, walked down the centre of the path into the shadows of the shrine.

A dog?—a spirit? A wonderful dog then, and surely a spirit such as one only meets in the haunts of medieval religions.

September 7.—A simple day—bathing and walking and emptying my mind of thought as much as possible. Fuji mountain, alas, I cannot see, as the rain clouds cloak her, but on the horizon lies, dimly, Oshima, the burning island, and round the points of the rocky shore are countless islets crowned with a twisted pine or girt with white-fringed waves. From the hills one looks down on a long series of bays with brilliant blue horizon and solid white line at the shore—the Japanese artists are much truer to nature than we think.

September 9.—I went early to the Institute, where there is grand excitement over Ginkgo; the sperms are just swimming out, and they only do it for a day or two each year. It is no such easy business to catch them, in 100 seeds you can only get five with sperms at the best of times, and may get one and be thankful. I spent pretty well the whole day over them, and got three, and several in the pollen tube, not yet quite ripe. It is most entertaining to watch them swimming, their spiral of cilia wave energetically.

September 10 and 11.—Hunting Ginkgo sperms nearly all the time; but about 3 on Friday I began to feel so queer and feverish that I went home and took my temperature; it was 103°, so I went to bed.

September 12.—Still so feverish and queer feeling that I stopped in bed, though the temperature is down a little; but this is usually the case with fever, and I have been almost delirious in the night with the most absurd ideas.

All this long quiet day I lay and enjoyed the beauty of my room. I had the quilts which make a Japanese bed laid in the drawing-room, as several people came to see me, and for my own pleasure; it is nicer in the room with one’s favourite vase and kakemono. How funny this mixture of bedroom and drawing-room will sound in England! But there is nothing “bedroomy” in a Japanese house.

People who have seen my rooms may wonder where the beauty was that could keep me occupied a whole day in its contemplation, because most people seem to judge rooms by the number of beautiful things massed into them, and to think that twenty beautiful vases massed together on a stand counteract the clashing effects of three discordant antimacassars (this word is so old-fashioned, I never learnt how to spell it!)

As I lay I faced a wall of pale, warm, creamy distemper, with a band of cream unpainted wood about two feet from the unpainted beams of the ceiling, which show so beautifully their graining and the curving designs of their natural growth. In one side of the wall is a window, with wooden bars crossing and re-crossing till it looks like a diamond-paned window, only the glass is replaced by semi-transparent paper. This is taken down though, and I look out on to the smooth grey bark of a tree whose leaves are like the shining laurel leaves in a Burne-Jones design, and interlaid against the vivid blue of the sky. The window-ledge is inside the room (not outside in our mad Western way), and on it stands a low grey-green dish in which is growing a graceful spraying plant beside a gnarled grey stone that looks like a piece of a forest rock. Beside the window are short grey-green curtains, edged with a broad band of Chinese embroidery in which blue, pink, and coral run riot with half the other colours on the palette of a Watts. The other half of the wall is occupied with a bamboo settee, covered with the same cloth as the curtains, above which is a square of Japanese embroidery—a great golden flower (a richer tone of the colour of the walls) on a grey-green ground, with butterflies hovering over it—framed in dark brocade with a thread of gold. Above the band of wood is a picture, yellow, brown, and grey, a river scene at dusk. At right angles to this wall I can see the Tokonoma recess—a yard deep and two yards long and nearly as high as the room. It is dark brown, with one long kakemono—a grey-brown bird on a withered, gnarled branch, the work of an old and valued Chinese artist (lent me by Professor S——); below it to one side a stand of ebony, with a brilliant blue cloisonné vase round the slender stem of which curls a fiery dragon, and its colour is living and gleams against the brown. Then on the other side grows a little bent and twisted tree, in a flat earthenware bowl, and in the corner stands my sword. The left side of the house as I lie is open to the garden; there is no wall, and I look out over my own little green plot, with its Thuya trees and glowing “morning glories,” to the tree tops of the land around. In the verandah hangs a square black lamp which I had lit as the swift night fell, and from whose opaque white sides shines a light so soft that it does not frighten the moon or the fire-flies. Then the floor of my room is covered with tatami—straw mats closely fitted and edged with black, and the sliding walls of the cupboard recesses that make the room solid are also straw-coloured, with a narrow border of black. The wooden fretwork of the soji supports the white paper through which light shines so radiantly and softly; then there are a few straw-coloured chairs, a dark wood table and grey-green cushions—and that is all.

September 14.—As my temperature rose to 104° last night I felt I ought to have a doctor—the first doctor I have called in in my whole life! I felt it a serious and terrible event. But I am not seriously ill, an internal chill (probably the cold bathing at Hayama, one gets chills here so easily) and a temperature which runs up very soon in this country. He is taking the temperature down with drugs. I told him I must go to the Institute to-morrow, but he laughs.

September 22–24.—Quiet uneventful days at the Institute, working at fossils hard. What a lot of results you will expect! But to get one line of result often means days of labour over petty detail that does not show.

September 26.—At work all day till I went to the meeting of the Botanical Society where Professor M—— spoke of his visit to China during the vacation, but I couldn’t understand very much.

September 28.—At the Institute all day, at night how it rained! Like a typhoon rain, only lasting all night at high pitch; I couldn’t sleep for it.

September 29.—The results of that rain! It was fair in the morning so I bicycled, thinking that as the rain was so heavy it would have cleaned the roads. And so it had, cleaned them just as long boiling cleans the bones of a chicken, and there was only left the stony skeleton of most of the roads; but in the high ground of Azabu, where the roads are pretty well made, they were passably good.

But then I got to Koishikawa, and about a mile from the Institute the entertainment began. Coming down a tram-line road I had been rather astonished to see straw piled up all round the telegraph posts, and several domestic articles such as pillows lying about the road, but where the tram stops I saw the reason, this road, a big main high road, was entirely under a rushing flood of water. I asked a policeman if there was any way of getting to the Botanical Gardens without going through it, but there was none.

I got a kuruma man to take me and my cycle on a kuruma, and by keeping in the central ridge of the road, he waded with me through this mile of water. But what devastation on either side! Men walking by their houses (placed a little lower than the road) up to their shoulders in water, though it had subsided a good deal already, all sorts of things floating about, and signs of ruin everywhere. The underground channel they had made for the river burst through in one place, and at the side of the road a regular roaring waterfall. As we went along floating tatami (heavy mats of straw, as much as one can lift and about 6 feet long and 2–3 inches thick) rushed on the kuruma, and my man had difficulty in getting round them, for he couldn’t drop the shafts to free his hands for that would have landed me in the water. We got there without mishap, but saw many tragi-comic sights, for the loss and wreckage among the small one-storied shops is terrible.

Coming back the water had subsided a little, but there was still much to go through. It was funny to watch people wading through it; on the shore on either side men balanced themselves on one leg on their high stilt-like geta (no easy feat I can assure you) and drew off their trousers, but not always without a spill. Piles and piles of straw mats, washed into pulp, were all over the place. When I returned home I heard that in the low ground in my neighbourhood six children had been drowned.

September 30.—In the papers one reads of many deaths and terrible loss of property from the floods, which were almost universal in the low ground of the city. There are regular hills of straw and wreckage all along the main highway I passed yesterday in a kuruma and the smell is far from pleasing, but there is no other way into the gardens, as the other roads are still under water.

In the evening we had a Debate, “That lies may be justifiable”; an excellent meeting, nearly all of the people speaking, and very amusing. One missionary got up and said she was most strongly in favour of lying and that she told three or four every day! Shrieks of laughter, for she spoke immediately after a very sweet missionary who spoke in favour of truth. All the rest of us were about equally divided, and the truth only won by three votes on more than thirty.

October 4.—Went to Ōmori and walked on to the temple on the hill beyond. Its green groves and quietness were very peaceful and lovely. It is almost woodland there, and there are few people. In the temple grove was a scarlet high pagoda, which gleamed between the stately trees. The spot is so peaceful and sweet and I was so tired of working that the day was very pleasant. We collected moss, and some little stones covered with it, and I had five Cryptomeria seedlings to make a forest, and with them I made a miniature landscape in a flat earthenware dish when I returned home—but it isn’t half as easy as it looks!

October 5.—At work on the fossils; at 2 o’clock I gave the first of my course of lectures at the University, the room was more than full, several standing all through the hour, and there were several Professors and the Dean there. I didn’t do so badly as I feared, after being so long out of practice, but the flying chalk made me hoarse. It was a little terrifying, and half of them didn’t understand very much owing to the language difficulty, but the others did. It is nice lecturing again, it is an excellent tonic.

October 12.—At work at fossils in the morning—my lecture at 2. I find as I have to speak so slowly to be clear, that there isn’t much time in an hour. There is a sort of demonstration with microscopics afterwards which helps.

It is now very cold at night and in the early morning, but still warm enough to wear cotton frocks in the middle of the day. The clear moon is wonderful.

October 13.—At work all day on fossils, cycled back in time to dress for a dance, to which I cycled, as it was a lovely night. It was a very jolly dance and not the least pleasure of the evening was cycling back with Mr. G—— instead of jolting and freezing and catching cold in a slow kuruma. Out of every 24 hours the cycle saves me one to two or more in this slow Tokio, so that I shouldn’t grumble at it.

October 16.—At work all the morning, lunch with the Faculty at the Goten, and then at work all the afternoon. The fossils proved so enticing that though I had worn a traily frock all day intending to go to the Belgian Legation garden party, when it came to the point the fossils won, and I didn’t go. In the evening I cycled down to dinner at our Embassy.

When once one makes up one’s mind to a cycle, one can even go out to dinner on it. I wondered, however, what the footman thought when he had to lift it into the Embassy hall in case of thieves getting it in the garden (I was told he has a brother who is an attaché at the French Embassy! The Japanese are very quaint that way—one Count or Baron or other is driven up to the door every day by his own brother as a coachman). Thanks to the unmoved countenance of flunkeydom, added to the immobility of the Japanese, I could sail into the dining-room, past the same man, trailing a pink silk skirt with apparent dignity.

October 21.—Fossils all day. I cycled round on my way home and paid my dance calls. The streets, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Ginza and the station, are now very gay and crowded for the American Fleet, of which a really enormous fuss is being made. There are arches, and bands, and processions, and all manner of things all over the place. Bands of school children go about with flags, and—for the first time since I have been in Japan—I was insulted on my cycle by grown men, not once, but six times in the course of half an hour! Not badly, but in a coarse rude tone I was called out to, and one madman waved a lantern suddenly in my face on the cycle and nearly upset me. I suppose they are over-excited, for everywhere the echo rings with protestations of undying devotion to the Americans, for one of whom I would naturally be taken.

October 22.—A horribly wet morning, but by midday a lovely sun came out, and it felt almost like midsummer. When I got to the Embassy garden party (it was given to welcome Admiral Sperry) I found it had been postponed in the morning, but as the weather was now so lovely, it was put on again. That is to say, it was half on and would be repeated to-morrow. So we had one of the bands, and quite a lot of the American officers and other people turned up. The chief sight was seeing Admiral Sperry and Admiral Togo sitting side by side looking on at a kind of sword-dance. The dance itself was very dull, as all Japanese posture dances are unless you understand them intimately, but there were some sparks when the swords clashed, and one of the swords broke by accident, which was entertaining. It was rather wonderful the way the dancer to whom this happened kept his countenance, and put it in the sheath at the appointed time as calmly as if it hadn’t been a mere stump.

The American officers were a sad disillusionment. One fancies good class Americans must be all like the soulful adoring youths at the feet of the Gibson girls, but they aren’t—at least those officers aren’t. In fact, though they would be mad to hear it, they were mostly not easy to distinguish from Japanese when both stood with their caps down over their eyes, as they always wear them, except that the Americans looked the less smart owing to the untidy appearance of their small squash caps. So many of them were short and insignificant. Admiral Sperry, though not imposing or impressive in any way, seemed pleasant and keen, and was tall.

October 23.—Lunch at the Goten, with quite a lot of foreign visitors,—two Russians, a geologist and a botanist, and two Germans interested in law or some such thing. I hear we are to have Sven Hedin, which will be really interesting. I hope I shall see him.

October 24.—The Fleet left to-day, and the following was put in the paper: “Gentlemen will not be allowed on the platform except in frock-coats and silk hats; ladies in corresponding dress.”

The passion of the Japanese for the silk hat is intense, fervid, one might almost say it has become a fetish. But we have hitherto been spared a corresponding dress!

Think of its parallel in England—no gentleman allowed into Euston Station without a silk hat.

After working at fossils all morning (as you can imagine, I didn’t go to the station) I went along to preside at a Debate at Baroness d’A——’s. This Debate was on marriage. I had asked a very cultured missionary lady, with silver hair, to take a literary debate. No, said she, she was not interested in that, but if she might propose that “The unmarried life is the happier, then she would take the Debate.” So we had quite an amusing Debate, fortunately rather superficial.

The people here are not in touch with all our modern types, and I did not need to speak against the ranting type, who rave against men and marriage and prove themselves deformed. No, there were no such “problem” people here, only young spinsters who didn’t dare to say they would like to be married, and wives who didn’t dare or wish to speak against marriage, and elderly spinsters who were clever enough to be amusing without touching a fundamental note. The ranting type seems mercifully to be confined to big communities; I suppose it is an inevitable result of city life, where some must sterilise, but it is a pity when they have the power to write books.

In the evening I had a few of the Japanese botanists to dinner, and they seemed pretty well amused, or were sufficiently polite to pretend to be so. Fortunately they are not accustomed to violent amusement, nor have they the jaded palate of the European city dweller, so they are less exacting, for which I am thankful, as it was the first dinner-party I have given.

October 25.—In the afternoon I went to tea with Professor F—— and met Professor R—— from Russia, and others. We taught Professor R—— to use chop-sticks, and we examined dwarf trees, of which Professor F—— has some beautiful specimens. In a room in which dwarf trees are displayed everything must be specially simple and dignified. If the tree is not in the tokonomo, for instance, the screen behind it must be white, pure white, not even flecked with gold-dust. And when one sees it arranged rightly, one realises the true rightness of it, and the beauty seems to stand out clearly, with the outline of the tree against the background of white. I love more and more the simple culture of the old style Japanese when in harmonious surroundings. Though they have quite lovely and valuable dwarf trees in Kew, they are lost in the greenhouse with all the other things; the rays and suggestions from the other plants around them intermingle and conflict, till they produce a grey haze of mist in which the spirit of beauty envelops herself and is invisible; but if you place but one of those trees in the right place, she steals out and is radiant before you.

October 28.—A long quiet day of work. While we were at lunch an envelope was brought to Professor F—— containing 75 sen, partly in copper coins. It was a present from the Emperor! When I had done laughing he explained to me the reason. It is soon the Emperor’s birthday, and therefore all Government officials are expected to go to the palace to pay their respects, when they would receive a cup of saké and some light food. But to go one must have a grand gold-laced uniform, and many of the younger men don’t have it, also if every one went there would be an impossible crush, so that only the seniors go. The juniors now dispense with the formal letter stating that they are ill, but continue to receive the price of a cup of saké from the Emperor! Though the sum may seem ridiculous, it is an interesting survival, and as there are about ten thousand officials in the country, it is no joke for the Emperor!

October 30.—An uneventful day lunch at the Goten. I had been invited to go to the Peeresses School for their sports, as the Emperor was to be there, and I wished to see the school and the Royalty watching sports—but was prevented by the fossils.

October 31.—Frightfully cold and raining in torrents. I lit the lamp in my room in the Institute to try to warm me a little, but with lots of thick clothes as well, I shivered all day. In the evening I put on a fur-lined coat over my gown, and even then was too cold to write. There will be floods again if the rain continues so torrential.

November 1.—Gloriously sunny and clear. In a tussore silk frock I sat all day writing in my garden. One need never despair during rainy weather in Japan,—it doesn’t leave one in the clouds for long. Fresh green peas were brought in the pods for my approval, which they naturally got. There is a kind of second spring in November, and the roses are blooming in beauty. In the evening I went up the mound near me and looked down on the tree-covered country below, where curled white mists between the black trunks. Straight opposite stood Fuji mountain, with a coronet of golden clouds and a cloak of crimson, while in the deep blue behind began to peep out tiny stars.

November 3.—A national holiday, so the laboratory was locked up, and I couldn’t get work done there.

In the afternoon I went to a tea-party with friends. Coming home we did a lot of shopping, and had quite a festive time, as there was a kind of fair on and the streets were gay with lanterns and a bright crowd, and the shops full of the most delightful trifles. This street near our hostess is one of the best for shopping, as it is little frequented by foreigners and is a well-known shopping place for the Japanese. We went into both the kankobas (a kind of open bazaar I have described before), and I only wished for a bottomless purse. Nevertheless one must not run away with the idea, so often suggested by tourists, that all the native Japanese things are artistic and beautiful. Many are, but by far the greater number are not, and even when prepared to buy I often have to wait long and examine many stalls before finding the thing I want.

November 4.—Fossils all day. On the way home I called at the American Embassy—had the good luck to find the O——s alone.

I often wish Mrs. O—— were not the Ambassadress, as she is so charming and beautiful, I should like to know her intimately, but as it is, of course she is always overrun with people.

November 7.—Work in the morning. In the afternoon I went to a garden party at a Japanese Professor’s. He has a pretty garden, with houses in it for the various scions of the family. He had a lottery and all the guests had presents, some very pretty Japanese things. There were a number of remarkably bright and attractive little Japanese girls in brilliant kimonos, and some pretty maids a little older. At 4 we sat down to a typical “first class party” tea—cold meats of a dozen kinds, savoury jellies, hot soup, cakes, sweets, fruit, beer, ginger-beer and tea (at the end) were served to every one. And yet if you ask a Japanese about the old customs of the country he will assure you that simplicity and frugality is the chief note in their entertainments, and so it is and was in the pure Japanese style, but when they touch anything “foreign” they must outdo the foreigners.

We were placed curiously at the tables, the Japanese ladies put indoors, where the room opens wide on the garden, the foreign ladies in the garden, and the gentlemen somewhere else in the garden, quite out of sight of the ladies! And the men were perhaps quite happy that way, for they could smoke in peace.

The weather is lovely, and one could not imagine it was really November, but for the swiftly waning light. The roads riding home are terribly dark, but fortunately fewer children play in them at night than by day.

November 8.—I rode over to Shingawa to lunch with the D——s (he is Naval Attaché). They haven’t been in the house long, but they had brought out with them treasures given to their parents years ago, and so have many gems of Japanese carving and porcelain. The house is pretty within, and it was nice to meet some one who had recently come from home.

Afterwards I rode over to Hongo—an awful way across the country and city, to dinner with Professor S——, his wife and family. He had his lovely dream of a garden lit by a brilliant full moon, and the translucent stone lanterns among the trees. Roses grew on the trees, huge dainty ones, and sweet-scented rose-hearted buds. It was a vision of perfect beauty to be remembered. Afterwards he and his brother, who is an excellent singer, sang me some Nō songs, and everything was so harmonious, so lovely, so simply dignified.

November 9.—At work on fossils all day after my lecture, which was the last. Professor S—— spoke and “made me blush,”—his English is simply wonderful, I know few Englishmen who speak better,—the substance of what he said for me was more than kind, though I must deduct something from him, as from all Japanese, for, whatever faults they may have, they really are polite to people they know.

November 11.—Fossils all day. In the evening the great event—my farewell dinner from the University, given at the famous Maple Club. A farewell dinner, and they all know quite well that I do not sail till January! The reason it is given now is partly to thank me for the lectures and partly because of the weather! As the entertainment is to be true Japanese style, in a Japanese house, it is deemed necessary to have it before it becomes really cold.

I have looked forward very much to this party, for it is quite one of the treats of Tokio to be entertained at the Maple Club. My hosts were, of course, all Japanese, the University Professors, among them were a few Japanese ladies, one of whom I knew pretty well, the daughter of Baron H——. I was the only foreigner.

The rooms are splendidly large, about 100 mats when all opened out. It took me quite a long time to count up the mats, for I am rather stupid at it. In an ordinary room one can estimate immediately whether it is an 8 or 10 mat room, by the way they are placed, and without any counting. We were seated all round the edge of the end room, I in front of the tokonomo, as the chief guest. It left a large space in the middle to start with, but very soon the maids began to bring dishes of things to eat, and every guest had the same placed before him on the ground; as dish after dish was placed in front of us all, each in the same relative position before every guest, there grew up a symmetrical border pattern all round the room, which slowly encroached on the centre.

It made all moving about very difficult, really impossible for one with skirts, which most of us had, as a number of the men came in hakama (stiff silk divided skirts worn by men when dressed for ceremony). Moving about would not have been at all out of place, as the feeding was very intermittent, and it was only towards the very end of the evening that they brought the rice. While we were eating, a kind of superior geisha danced; three girls dressed in ancient-time costumes performed an old well-known dance supposed to bring good luck. Afterwards they brought in a red-arched bridge and some flowers, and did the butterfly dance—two red-and-white and two white, in such lovely embroidered dresses with butterfly wings on their backs, which they opened and shut. The whole effect was charmingly pretty. They said they were the same girls who waited on us earlier, but I did not recognise them. All the rooms and dishes and lacquer were ornamented with maple leaves, and they brought sweet cakes in the form of coloured maple leaves, which we ate before dinner and through the evening.

Professor S—— made a speech which really made me blush. He, in the goodness of his heart, may have meant what he said, but I can’t believe it voiced the views of any of the others. Then they all banzaied, and drank my health. Of course, I had to make a reply speech—after one of the men who had come to the lectures thanked me,—and read a poem he had made about me—it is a thousand times harder to make an “after-dinner-return-thanks” speech than a long scientific lecture. I did it somehow. Later, I proposed the health of the future of Japan, amid hearty banzais—but always feel a miserable failure at such things.

Baron K—— sat next me—he had just returned to Tokio, because to-morrow the great Sven Hedin is going to arrive, and he is on the reception committee. The dinner began at 5.30 and I went at 9.30, though I could have enjoyed it still longer, for the border of dishes had begun to melt, and we could move about a little. There is a beautiful garden, too, with a view of the sea in day-time, the Club being situated on the crest of the hill above Shiba Park. The whole building and atmosphere of the place is very charming, and I enjoyed the evening greatly.

I was shopping in the Ginza—the so-called “Regent Street” of Tokio. I need hardly say that the name is given by the Japanese. Paper was one of the things I needed. It is curious, in this land where so much is made of paper, how very difficult it is to get anything like our strong brown paper for parcels, or our letter paper, or our manuscript paper. The native sheets are unglazed, and though tough in one way are useless for parcels unless one gets oil paper, and even then the sheets are very small and are pasted together.

November 16.—Sven Hedin lectured to-day at the University, and I had been asked to tea previously to meet him before it. He is rather short, but sturdy, and very bronzed and rosy. His face is narrow, his eyes close together, and looking still closer, as he is evidently short-sighted, and has an exceptionally deep vertical groove between them. He gave me the impression of being a genial, friendly, hardy, pushful, but not a great man. The only other lady there was Madame G——, the mother of the French Ambassador, whom I think I have mentioned before. She was very gracious, as she always is, but cannot speak a word of anything but French. We all walked over to the Lecture Hall from the Goten—a slow and solemn procession. About the only people who spoke were Hedin and Madame G——, a few people said a sentence or two to me, but even the genial Dean seemed to be overpowered by the funereal solemnity of the march. I had my cycle, and the French Ambassador helped me to haul it up the steps! His only remark was, “Très moderne,” which was very moderate of him. In the lecture I was placed in the front row, between Madame G—— and Baron K——, and got into nice hot water! The poor lady couldn’t understand a word of the lecture, and Hedin often said things to make us laugh, and she could not join in, so now and then I translated a word or two for her. This upset Baron K——, who nudged me violently from the other side, so I had to stop, but then I hurt the lady, for I didn’t dare answer her further questions. After the lecture, when Hedin said he knew we were all interested, because no one spoke a word, and that was the sure test of interest, I felt worse and worse!

Hedin was received with tremendous applause, and spoke for two hours or more. His account was most interesting, though once or twice we felt he “drew the long bow.” His English was fluent, but amusing—“Here was I catched”—“There I did a beautiful discovery”—“We took camels laden with ice” (pronounced “eyes”)—so that I wondered quite a while what on earth “eyes” were for, and I worked up a little theory that they were part of the devotional paraphernalia of the Lamas before he said that they melted the “eyes” to give water in the desert. There is no need to give an account of his lecture—it has already appeared in Harper’s, and he is writing a book. He is not at all shy about his work, and is very clever at “buttering” the Japanese, so will be popular here. The students were very quiet while he spoke, and seemed to follow all his jokes.

November 17.—After fossils all day, I went to Hedin’s second lecture at the University. Several of the American Legation people and some ladies came this time, and he lectured for more than two and a half hours! Yesterday he tried to draw a tadpole on the board, and failed miserably, showing complete ignorance of its shape and of how to draw, but to-day there were many excellent sketches of the country and people given as slides on a screen. I did not get home and begin dinner until 8.30, and the lecture began at 4.30. He was cheered splendidly after his lecture; the papers are full of him and his doings. I thought I would escape Baron K—— this time, and got in a filled row behind the American Ambassador, but some people moved along—in came Baron K—— and sat down by me! However, as I had no one to talk to to-day, I behaved quite like a model schoolgirl, and took off my hat when the views came on without being asked, so perhaps I have reinstated myself in his eyes.

November 23.—A national holiday, so the Institute was locked, and I had, perforce, to take a holiday. It blew a perfect hurricane all day, and I was thankful to be able to stay at home. The dead leaves whirled into the garden, but the sky was brilliant, and the crimson maple trees glowed in the sunshine. My little house was protected, and I sat all day on a wide-open verandah. The day passed very peacefully and swiftly and I did some sewing for my clothes, that, even with an ideal maid, requires one’s own attention. At 4.30 the sun left the house, and the cold descended on me.

November 24.—From an early hour preparations were made to have a Botanical Demonstration for Sven Hedin. Ginkgo and cycas spermatozoids were provided, yeast of the native wine, fossil slides under the microscope—all in working order. But the poor man is being rushed all over Tokio to such an extent that but a short time was available for each thing. He was cordial and nice, and professed to like the fossils, and seemed fairly intelligently interested, and made every one feel pleased with him.

He lunched in the festival rooms at the foot of the garden, and when he had gone Professor S—— sang a Te Deum, and Professor K—— came back and looked at the fossils again, and with Professor F—— we had a merry tea-party. After the day was done I called in at the Embassy on the Z——s, who returned recently, and found them at home with a few guests. It amuses me very much to note the conversations in the different Tokio sets. The continual cry among the diplomats is, “There are no women in Tokio!” “So few women, we can’t give dinners,” etc. etc. Up the old cry came again to-day. But in the houses of the permanent residents, the clergy, missionaries, University professors, etc., the cry is, “There are so many, too many, girls, so difficult to get men for the dances.” Professedly the two sets mix, but practically they don’t to any real extent. But the tactless bad manners of the diplomats, who will announce to the ordinary people in Tokio that there are no women in Tokio, while those same ordinary people know that there are, and that the diplomats know that there are, is very amusing to one outside it all. One of my secret seldom-expressed ambitions, even as a girl at College, was to be an Ambassadress. Who would believe it? But now I am only too thankful that I know what a life it is, and will never need to fear that I drop into it dazzled and unawares. It is an endless round of calling and dining: they profess to complain of it themselves, but take little interest in anything else. Some one said to me, “The diplomats have no interest but themselves, and no subject of conversation but themselves,” and it really isn’t far from the truth.

November 25.—After working till it was dark, and worrying the laboratory attendants (for, nominally, we should all clear off at 4 now, but I can’t get out of the habit of working later, particularly now that there is so much to do), I called on Mrs. N——. She is the American wife of a Japanese journalist—a writer whose articles I have noticed. We started a correspondence, and she came to see me, but I was out. It was no easy job to find the house, for she had recently moved, so I went to the old house, but as it led to a little incident which illustrates the courtesy of the nice Japanese, I will relate it. I went to the house called No. 90, but, as I have remarked before, there may be twenty houses of the same number. Of course it was the wrong one, but they told me the N——s had left the house, and gone to Kamakura. The little lady of the house at which I inquired sent her maid to fetch the address, and asked me to sit down while she went. Then, with gentle voice, she asked all the polite questions—where I lived? how long I had been in the country? what was my native land? All capped by compliments on my Japanese. She fetched a book of picture post cards to entertain me, and when her maid returned, sent her again to make sure if Mrs. N—— was not living in the neighbourhood. When she found that she was, the lady herself came with me a little way to show me the road to follow, as if I had been an honoured guest.

As at last the gate was reached, a young lad came out in the dusk, and of him I inquired if it was really the house. He too had a soft voice and a courteous manner, and helped me to open the gate. After I had conversed with Mrs. N—— a little while, I learned that he was Lafcadio Hearn’s eldest son, the one he loved so, and wrote of so sweetly in many of his letters.

Mrs. N—— was dressed in grey: perhaps it was the shadow of the lamplight, but I received the impression that her life was in grey shadows. Her little son, however, was a bright contrast—round eyes, rosy cheeks, with a woollen cap with a long point and a dangling tassel—he was like a pixy. He was only four years old, but acted as interpreter between his mother and the maid. There was also the merriest kitten I ever saw—round, soft, and tailless, with a scatter of claws and a jump like a grasshopper, as it dashed after the shadow of the tail it never had. The grey woman spoke with such a sad lifeless voice—slowly, as though it were rather troublesome to have to speak at all, but not in unfriendly fashion. I heard much of the Hearns, as Mr. N—— is a very intimate friend of the family, and Mrs. N—— has come close to the eldest lad, and teaches him.

I heard from her what I have heard from many people, that Mrs. Hearn can neither speak nor write a single word of English. That baby English at the end of the Life and Letters is either a translation or a concoction.

There are many letters of Hearn’s to his wife in childish Japanese, that, since the appearance of Gould’s atrocious book, Mrs. Hearn has placed in Mr. N——’s hands for publication, though before that she had not wished to make them public.

November 27.—After the morning’s work, I went to the Goten for the Faculty lunch. Professor T—— took me from there to see the Anthropological Department of the University. They have a very considerable space, and lots of specimens of all kinds, though I did not see many European ones. The stone implements naturally interested me most. There are extraordinary numbers of arrowheads, and a good many celts of rough polished stone. It appears that there are no palaeoliths in the country; it is certainly true that none have been found, but that does not satisfy me that palaeolithic man did not live in Japan. Shell mounds of late Neolithic age seem to be the chief fundorts for the tools. In many cases earthenware, beads, and such like are found with them. The arrowheads are made of flint, rather more opaque and with a duller patina than English flint. But many of them are of obsidian, some of which are beautifully clear. There are also agate and chert ones, and one perfect gem of pure quartz. Their shapes are much like those common in Scotland, but a few were a little unusual with particularly fine edges, and some were very minute. The arrowheads rather preponderated, but I was more struck by the scrapers, which were particularly beautiful, and of a type I have not discovered anywhere before. There were many variations among the scrapers, the top edge being beautifully chipped; it was evident that a thong had kept them in a handle. Of the type composed of a straight single flake, so common at home, I saw very few.

Professor T—— has made the best arrangement for keeping the specimens I have ever seen—small tin boxes, with glass tops, and fastened by a tight ring clasp. The specimens, placed on cotton-wool in it, are immovable when the lid is shut, and the boxes can be placed in any position, but directly they are open they are free, and can be handled, unlike those sewn on to the irritating museum cards.

December 5.—At the Institute all day. I don’t at all approve of this Saturday work, but am too busy to feel justified in taking a single day off, as I can only work in the Institute; even writing for this work I can’t do at home, because I need the specimens and books at my hand.

December 6.—Lovely brilliant sunshine, but a heavy wind, so I am spending the day lying on a futon on the engawa (open verandah all along the house), in perfect shelter, for the ∠ shape of the house keeps off all the wind and cuts off none of the sun, and I am lying in a pink cotton kimono with my hair down, and can fancy myself on an August beach! but I know directly the sun goes in, Jack Frost will pop out, and in my thickest padded clothes I shall shiver. The sunshine is everything here—no wonder they put the sun and nothing else on their flag. The sky is more blue than our August heaven—and although dead leaves are whirling, the cryptomerias are green and the maples blood-red, while my rose bush has flawless leaves, with crimson petioles. Would it were always November in Japan!

December 11.—I have been too busy to write all these days, and as it happened, there has really been nothing worth recording except my discontent with the artisans and trades-people, which had perhaps better be left untold. To-day I lunched at the Goten and met Baron M——, last year the Minister of Education. He was very friendly and “made conversation” in quite a European and un-Japanese style, though I thought him stiff last year.

In the evening we had the second dinner of the University of London Union. Viscount I—— was there, the first Japanese to come to London to study, and a very entertaining brusque old man he is! Count H——, recently Ambassador to England, took me in, and there were sixteen of us altogether, seven foreigners and nine Japanese. It was quite a jolly dinner.

Count H—— proposed the toast “The University,” and later on Professor S—— proposed the toast “M. C. S.,” which they all stood and drank with banzai, so I have had my health drank by an Ambassador and a Viscount. But one has to pay for these delights—and the price is heavy—an after-dinner-return-thanks speech! Now I can lecture without feeling quite a fool, and I can speak at Debates, but when it comes to after-dinner speeches I am done for. I don’t know why I remain so stupid over it; this time in the return-thanks speech I entirely forgot the thanks! After dinner there was some business, and we elected Professor L—— to the Committee. Then various of us told stories or gave recitations, and we had a little laughter. I walked my bicycle back with Professor L—— to the broad road, and we discussed Dante, Milton, and other great ones on the way, and I am much relieved to find he doesn’t approve of the translation of Dante I have been reading. I began to fear I must be a monster, as I couldn’t feel the expected respect for Dante.

I then mounted my iron steed—which was champing its bit, a habit it has lately, and I can’t break it off with any amount of oil—and rode through the silent streets with an undertoned caroling. There is something very exhilarating about a ride under brilliant stars, through silent roads where silhouettes of pine trees cut the sky—after a good dinner and jolly company.

December 12.—Went over to Oyeno Park to see the Imperial Museum. It is really very fine indeed, a much more extensive and beautiful collection than I had expected, particularly of lacquer, kakemonos, and costumes of old Japan. Their Japanese collections were magnificent. But as I expect they are described by a thousand other pens, I won’t repeat. Suffice it to say that we had planned to go out to lunch at 1, though the usual University time is 12, and when we thought to look at a watch it was half-past two! and we were very cold as well as hungry. There are nice gardens round the Museum, which lie in the Park, and it was a very pleasant morning altogether.

December 13.—It has been a brilliant day with glowing sun, and at one Mrs. N—— and the Brownie son of hers came to lunch. The Brownie looked and acted splendidly, and was a pleasure, and his eyes twinkled a keen appreciation rare in men of four years old when, after warning him to be good and not to spill anything, I tipped the pheasant’s bread-crumbs into my own lap, and he got through the meal without a mishap of any sort. Almost immediately after lunch we went over to—Where do you think?—Lafcadio Hearn’s house, to see his wife and family! A rare privilege, for the sanctum is unusually well guarded. But Mrs. N——’s friendship has won me the way in, for, as I said, the eldest boy learns English from her and is devoted to her.

The house is some way out of town, in pure Japanese style, with a Japanese name on the lamp, for you will remember Hearn became a Japanese and took a Japanese name, which is written in Chinese characters over his door. “Koizumi,” we pronounce it.

There is a nice garden, visible partly from the entrance, where was the children’s swing. As we entered we passed along an engawa (verandah) bounding a tiny internal square of garden on our way to the reception-room. This was in the purest Japanese style, well built, with pretty woodwork, a thing one learns to notice in this country. I immediately observed the kakemono, which was exceptionally beautiful, tall peaks of bare rock pillars standing up against a grey sky, where a moon half shone through a band of cloud. A picture that one could never forget and yet would ever wish to see instead of merely remembering. I remarked on it to Mrs. Hearn, who told me that “Lafcadio had very good taste in kakemonos,” and always bought only what pleased him exactly. Wise man! when he had the cash! There was also a bronze in the room, the bent stalk of a fading lotus leaf with the collapsed blade of the leaf, and though there sounds no beauty in that, the bronze throbbed with it. Mrs. Hearn was very friendly: less shy and quiet than most Japanese women, she was yet distinctly Japanese in her shyness and quietness. Without beauty, she pleased.

She and the children were all in usual Japanese costume, and the only “foreign” things in the room were ourselves and the cakes and cups of tea she brought us. I inquired if she liked foreign food, and she told me that she did, very much, and that “Lafcadio” always ate it, for though he liked all the things to be pure Japanese, and would have nothing he could help that was not, Japanese food upset him, and he always had foreign food, but that now she never prepared it. We chatted about many things, and she spoke freely of Hearn, of whom I did not dare at first to ask any questions till she had spoken voluntarily so much, to show that she liked to speak of him.

After the tea and cakes we went to Hearn’s study, and got a sight of the real Japanese garden at the back of the house. The study was lined with low book-shelves filled with many charming volumes in French and English. There was a very high table made specially for him, for his extremely short sight, and the famous pipe box, with dozens of long tiny-bowled Japanese pipes.

The children were with us freely, and also a friend, a Mr. ——, who was the first student Hearn had in Japan, and who has remained faithful through everything, and now acts as adviser and friend of the family, and lives in part of the house. He was bright and intellectual-looking, beyond the average, and speaks excellent English.

Mrs. Hearn insisted on us staying to a meal, which we could not avoid doing without positive rudeness, though we had only expected afternoon tea. It was a “first-class” Japanese meal, with nearly all the things I like (sometimes the things are quite uneatable, as, for example, the “sea-cucumbers” in a raw salad, which are also first-class things), and I enjoyed it, but I got home at 8 instead of 5 as I expected.

The children were with us most of the evening, showing Brownie picture-books, of which they had a fine stock. Hearn evidently liked Andrew Lang’s fairy books, for they were nearly all there.

In his study, where we had supper, was the little family shrine, built rather like a miniature temple of plain wood; within was Hearn’s photo, and before it burnt a tiny lamp and stood dainty vases of small flowers. According to Japanese ideas, the spirit of the departed inhabits this dwelling and needs the love and attention of his kindred, and takes part in their life. Is Christianity more consoling to the bereaved than this? From the window by the shrine could be seen the grove of the tall bamboo Hearn loved, and in the room floated one or two of the mosquitoes with which he had such sympathy.

To see the eldest son, after having read that tender, wonderful letter of Hearn’s about his birth, was, I believe, a mistake. Hearn’s words had made me love the child—but he isn’t a child any longer, and is now a thin lanky youth, shy of manner and slow in English speech. But perhaps—for there is promise in his face—I shall like him well as a man in the years to come. How Hearn wove words into an opalescent cobweb! I could imagine him feeling intoxicated with the beauty of words—nay, he must have been, for as a reader I am intoxicated by words of his, which must have affected him a thousand times more strongly.

December 16.—It has been blowing a perfect hurricane, and is blowing still, so that I panted on my cycle to the University, but enjoyed the ride back, for by a most unusual chance the wind didn’t turn and face me on my home way also, as it generally does, but stopped respectfully behind me and blew me gaily at full speed up hills which always make me dismount on usual days. The sky was brilliantly clear, and Mount Fuji shone blue-and-white in the morning, and purple-black in front of a copper-and-gold sky at night. Wonderful mountain! “The only thing in Japan that is not overrated,” as some one told me he felt it was.

December 20.—Writing all the early part of the day, but went along to tea with the D——’s and met Ambassador O——. We had a cosy time; in the course of conversation the Ambassador told me to listen,—and then said that it was not necessarily the cleverest people who made the most mark in the world, but the people who wrote what they knew, who gave to the world of their knowledge, instead of letting it die with them, as so many of the truly great have done. The D——’s house is peculiarly charming—it is not, of course, a “salon” in any sense of the word, but more there than anywhere I know people really converse and sometimes say things that the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table might pop straight into his book. Though what they actually are I cannot record, the after effect is much the same as reading a chapter of a light, well-written book.

And the rooms too are so pretty, a charming mixture of Japanese and Western daintiness, like a black-eyed rosy-cheeked Eurasian, who sparkles with the beauty of both the parent countries.

December 21.—I worked hard all day. Professor F—— is back and we got quite a lot done. In the evening I went to some pretty tableau from Pride and Prejudice, arranged by a number of people I know, and at 10 went into the Opera House, where I met a party of friends. This Opera House merits a word of description. As in the newspaper it said—“For the first time we in Tokio can sit in a foreign theatre, listen to a foreign orchestra, and see a foreign play played by foreigners all at one time.” The theatre, or Opera House, built partly on the Vienna model, was opened only a few days ago, and is now playing Dorothy, by amateurs, but many of them have professional talent and training. The white-and-gilt interior, the brilliant lights without, and the real “home” effect of the piece were delightful after all these months without the possibility of anything of the sort. To permanent residents here it will be a very great boon, and is already patronised by all the Legations and many of the best Japanese. Outside were panting motors, and—I discovered that the smell of petrol is delightful in its reminder of home!

December 23.—I learn that last evening the D——’s house was burnt to the ground! That pretty house I liked so much! I am indeed grieved. The danger of the houses, which are all wood, is very great here. I have been in Japan about eighteen months, and in that time the Naval Attachés of both the British and American Embassies have been utterly burnt out. If a Japanese house goes, only one or two of the curios which are in use will be destroyed, the rest are safe in a “go-down,” but in a foreign house all the curios are about and in use, and a fire sweeps the whole away. How extravagant we foreigners are!

December 24.—I went up to the University intending to have a day’s quiet work—but at 9.30 Mrs. M—— (one of the family who gave the gas-engine) brought her sons to see the fossils being cut. Not much was done before lunch, when Dr. Mk—— was there. Soon after that the Dean came, and made a delightful stay, and we had just finished tea with him when the President, Baron H——, came and wanted to see some fossils, so we showed him some of the prettier ones under the microscope. I am glad he came and really saw the things. So that, after all, the Christmas eve I had expected to work through became a series of “parties” all the time, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected to, though I worked less.

December 26.—I got to the University at 9.30, though this same morn I crept into bed at 1 A.M. Work did not seem very exciting, but it was soon laid on one side, for the Dean came again. This time in an official capacity, bearing a huge box tied up nicely. This he solemnly opened up, and we found another box inside tied with broad green silk cord, which when opened revealed cotton-wool and yellow wrappings, which when removed gave place to squares of heavy rich white silk brocade, which were wrapped round the most wonderful blue-grey silver cloisonné vases—not the ordinary, but the special, new, rare and precious kind, made with very few silver wires, so that the colours melt into each other, and it looks like Markazu or Copenhagen porcelain. Far more than half are marred in the manufacture, so that a perfect pair are gems. These two of mine (for now I am the proud owner of them) are as beautiful as can be, on little carved ebony stands. Only far too beautiful for me. They are an official present from the University, in “recognition of the stimulus I have been to botany in Japan!”

I went round to call on Baron H—— (the President) on my way back home, to say my few halting words of thanks—but what can one say on such occasions, when, moreover, the present should come from me, who have accepted their hospitality so long? But they, out of their goodness of heart or courtesy, reverse everything, and profess to be indebted to me! I cannot cope with it at all.

December 27.—Time is now so precious, and the College will be shut for the New Year very soon, so I went to the laboratory to-day and worked till nearly 4 o’clock. A miserable wet day, with the streets ankle deep in slush. The pines and bamboos of the New Year are beginning to appear before the doors, and at the corners are stalls which sell the knotted rope festoons which every house will have over its gate. But the weather has a depressing effect to-day, and lanterns and gay street stalls are few and far between.

December 28.—A bright sunny day, but the roads are just unspeakable. My bicycle got quite blocked up a dozen times, so that the space between the mud-guard and the tyre was filled tight from top to bottom.

Hard at work at the Institute all day, for this is the last day before we are locked out for the New Year’s holiday.

December 29.—The Institute was quite locked up to-day, not even the attendant coming, but as we are so hard pressed I got permission to go and the garden porter unlocked the door for me, and let me into the cold echoing building. I was dripping wet and very cross at coming in the rain, no one who could possibly arrange otherwise would ever go out in the rain in Tokio. The old man brought me a little fire of charcoal, which started the stove, and then left me all alone in the place, where the only sound was the rain dripping and the scratching of an occasional rat, which made me think robbers had come to the place when the whole responsibility lay on me. After an hour I heard soft stealthy footsteps, and stood prepared to pounce on the unlawful intruder—when there was a knock at the door and in walked the Dean. He came nominally about the farewell party the University Union is getting up for me, but I expect it was also semi-official, as to have the place open was rather an anxiety, I fear. His stealthiness was the result of the rain, for he came in rubbers!

Later on Professor F—— came, and we got on well with the work, because there were none of the usual disturbing demands of the other workers in the Institute. On the way home it was forced in upon me that life was not worth living in Tokio when it rained.