One of the first acts of the mikado after the restoration, was to assemble the kuges and daimios and make oath before them “that a deliberative assembly should be formed, and all measures be decided upon by public opinion; that impartiality and justice should form the basis of his action; and that intellect and learning should be sought for throughout the world in order to establish the foundations of the empire.” In the mid-summer of 1868, the mikado, recognizing Yeddo as really the center of the nation’s life, made it the capitalcapital of the empire and transferred his court thither; but the name Yeddo, being distasteful on account of its associations with the shogunate, was abolished, and the city renamed Tokio, or “Eastern Capital.” At the same time the ancient capital Kioto, received the new name of Saikio or “Western Capital.” For the creation of a central administration, however, more was necessary than the abolition of the shogunate and the establishment of the mikado’s authority. The great fabric of feudalism still remained intact. Within his own territory each daimio was practically an independent sovereign, taxing his subjects as he saw fit, often issuing his own currency, and sometimes even granting passports so as to control intercourse with neighboring provinces. Here was a formidable barrier to the consolidation of the empire. But the reformers had the courage and the tact necessary to remove it.

The first step towards the above revolution was taken in 1869, when the daimios of Satsuma, Choshiu, Hizen, and Tosa addressed a memorial to the mikado requesting his authorization for the resignation of their fiefs into his hands. Other nobles followed their example, and the consequence was the acceptance by the mikado of control over the land and revenues of the different provinces, the names of the clans however being still preserved, and the daimios allowed to remain over them as governors, each with one-tenth of the former assessment of his territory as rental. By this arrangement the evil of too suddenly terminating the relation between the clans and their lords was sought to be avoided, but it was only temporary; in 1871 the clan system was totally abolished, and the country redivided for administrative purposes, with officers chosen irrespectively of hereditary rank or clan connection.

But the payment of hereditary pensions and allowances of the ex-daimios and ex-samurai proved such a drain upon the national resources that in 1876 the reformed government found it necessary to compulsorily convert them into capital sums. The rate of commutation varied from five years’ purchase in the case of the largest pensions, to fourteen years’ in that of the smallest. The number of the pensioners with whom they had thus to deal was three hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred and twenty-eight. The act of the daimios in thus suppressing themselves looks at first sight like a grand act of self-sacrifice, as we are not accustomed to see landed proprietors manifesting such disinterestedness for the patriotic object of advancing their country’s good. But the vast majority of daimios had come to be mere idlers, as the greater mikado had been. Their territories were governed by the more able and energetic of their retainers, and it was a number of these men that had most influence in bringing about the restoration of the mikado’s authority. Intense patriots, they saw that the advancement of their country could not be realized without its unification, and at the same time they cannot but have preferred a larger scope for their talents, which service immediately under the mikado would give them. From being ministers of their provincial governments, they aspired to be ministers of the imperial government. They were successful; and their lords, who had all along been accustomed to yield to their advice quite cheerfully, acquiesced when asked for the good of the empire to give up their fiefs to the mikado. One result of this is that while most of the ex-daimios have retired into private life, the country is now governed almost exclusively by ex-samurai. Such sweeping changes were not to be accomplished without rousing opposition and even rebellion. The government incurred much risk in interfering with the ancient privileges of the samurai. It is not surprising that several rebellions had to be put down during the years immediately succeeding 1868.

Dr. William Elliot Griffis, in his exhaustive and interesting work, “The Mikado’s Empire,” discusses at length the change of Japan from feudalism to its present condition, the abolition of the shogunate, and the rebellions that followed that event. He declares that popular impression to be wrong which suggests that the immediate cause of the fall of the shogun’s government, the restoration of the mikado to supreme power, and the abolition of the dual and feudal systems, was the presence of foreigners on the soil of Japan. The foreigners and their ideas were the occasion, not the cause, of the destruction of the dual system of government. Their presence served merely to hasten what was already inevitable.

The history of Japan from the abolition of feudalism in 1871 up to the present time, is a record of advance in all the arts of western civilization. The mikado, Mutsuhito, has shown himself to be much more than a petty divinity, a real man. He has taken a firm stand in advocacy of the introduction of western customs, wherever they were improvements. The imperial navy, dockyards, and machine shops have been a pride to him. He has withdrawn himself from mediæval seclusion and assumed divinity, and has made himself accessible and visible to his subjects. He has placed the empress in a position like to that occupied by the consorts of European monarchs, and with her he has adopted European attire. In the latter part of June, 1872, the mikado left Tokio in the flagship of Admiral Akamatsu, and made a tour throughout the south and west of his empire. For the first time in twelve centuries the emperor of Japan moved freely and unveiled among his subjects.

Again in the same year Japan challenged the admiration of Christendom. The coolie trade, carried on by Portuguese at Macao, in China, between the local kidnappers and Peru and Cuba, had long existed in defiance of the Chinese government. Thousands of ignorant Chinese were yearly decoyed from Macao and shipped in sweltering shipholds, under the name of “passengers.” In Cuba and Peru their contracts were often broken, they were cruelly treated, and only a small portion of them returned alive to tell their wrongs. The Japanese government had with a fierce jealousy watched the beginning of such a traffic on their own shores. In the last days of the shogunate, coolie traders came to Japan to ship irresponsible hordes of Japanese coolies and women to the United States. To their everlasting shame, be it said some were Americans. Among the first things done by the mikado’s government after the restoration, was the sending of an official who effected the joyful delivery of these people and their return to their homes.

So the Japanese set to work to destroy this nefarious traffic. The Peruvian ship Maria Luz, loaded with Chinese, entered the port of Yokohama. Two fugitive coolies in succession swam to the English war ship Iron Duke. Hearing the piteous story of their wrongs, Mr. Watson, the British chargé d’affaires, called the attention of the Japanese authorities to these illegal acts in their waters. A protracted enquiry was instituted and the coolies landed. The Japanese refused to force them on board against their will, and later shipped them to China, a favor which was gratefully acknowledged by the Chinese government. This act of a pagan nation achieved a grand moral victory for the world and humanity. Within four years the coolie traffic, which was but another name for the slave trade, was abolished from the face of the earth, and the coolie prisons of Macao were in ruins. Yet the act of freeing the Chinese coolies in 1872 was done in the face of clamor and opposition, and a rain of protests from the foreign consuls, ministers, and a part of the press. Abuse and threats and diplomatic pressure were in vain. The Japanese never wavered, but marched straight to the duty before them, the liberation of the slaves. The British chargé and the American consul, Colonel Charles O. Shepherd, alone gave hearty support and unwavering sympathy to the right side.

During the same year, 1872, two legations and three consulates were established abroad, and from that time forward the number has been increasing until the representatives of Japan’s government are found all over the world. Scores of daily newspapers and hundreds of weeklies have been furnishing the country with information and awakening thought. The editors are often men of culture or students returned from abroad.

The Corean war project had, in 1872, become popular in the cabinet and was the absorbing theme of the army and navy. During the Tokugawa period Corea had regularly sent embassies of homage and congratulation to Japan; but not relishing the change of affairs in 1868, disgusted at the foreignizing tendencies of the mikado’s government, incensed at Japan’s departure from Turanian ideals, and emboldened by the failure of the French and American expeditions, Corea sent insulting letters taunting Japan with slavish truckling to the foreign barbarians, declared herself an enemy, and challenged Japan to fight. About this time a Liu Kiu junk was wrecked on eastern Formosa. The crew was killed by the savages, and, it is said, eaten. The Liu Kiuans appealed to their tributary lords at Satsuma, who referred the matter to Tokio. English, Dutch, American, German, and Chinese ships have from time to time been wrecked on this cannibal coast, the terror of the commerce of Christendom. Their war ships vainly attempted to chastise the savages. Soyejima, with others, conceived the idea of occupying the coast, to rule the wild tribes, and of erecting light houses in the interests of commerce. China laid no claim to eastern Formosa, all trace of which was omitted from the maps of the “Middle Kingdom.” In the spring of 1873, Soyejima went to Peking and there, among other things granted him, was an audience with the Chinese emperor. He thus reaped the results of the diplomatic labors of half a century. The Japanese ambassador stood upright before the “Dragon Face” and the “Dragon Throne,” robed in the tight black dress-coat, trousers, and linen of western civilization, bearing the congratulations of the young mikado of the “Sunrise Kingdom” to the youthful emperor of the “Middle Kingdom.” In the Tsung-li Yamen, Chinese responsibility over eastern Formosa was disavowed, and the right of Japan to chastise the savages granted. A Japanese junk was wrecked on Formosa, and its crew stripped and plundered while Soyejima was absent in China. This event piled fresh fuel on the flames of the war feeling now popular even among the unarmed classes.

Japan at this time had to struggle with opposition within and without, to every move in the direction of advancement in civilization. Says Griffis, “At home were the stolidly conservative peasantry backed by ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, and political hostility. On their own soil they were fronted by aggressive foreigners who studied all Japanese questions through the spectacles of dollars and cents and trade, and whose diplomatists too often made the principles of Shylock their system. Outside the Asiatic nations beheld with contempt, jealousy and alarm the departure of one of their number from Turanian ideas, principles, and civilization. China with ill-concealed anger, Corea with open defiance taunted Japan with servile submission to the ‘foreign devils.’

“For the first time the nation was represented to the world by an embassy at once august and plenipotentiary. It was not a squad of petty officials or local nobles going forth to kiss a toe, to play the part of figure-heads, or stool-pigeons, to beg the aliens to get out of Japan, to keep the scales on foreign eyes, to buy gun-boats, or to hire employees. A noble of highest rank, and blood of immemorial antiquity, with four cabinet ministers, set out to visit the courts of the fifteen nations having treaties with Dai Nippon. They were accompanied by commissioners representing every government department, sent to study and report upon the methods and resources of foreign civilizations. They arrived in Washington February 29, 1872, and for the first time in history a letter signed by the mikado was seen outside of Asia. It was presented by the ambassadors, robed in their ancient Yamato costume, to the President of the United States on the 4th of March, Mr. Arinori Mori acting as interpreter. The first president of the free republic, and the men who had elevated the eta to citizenship stood face to face in fraternal accord. The one hundred and twenty-third sovereign of an empire in its twenty-sixth centennial saluted the citizen ruler of a nation whose century aloe had not yet bloomed. On the 6th of March they were welcomed on the floor of Congress. This day marked the formal entrance of Japan upon the theater of universal history.”

In its subordinate objects the embassy was a signal success. Much was learned of Christendom. The results at home were the splendid series of reforms which mark the year 1872 as epochal. But in its prime object the embassy was an entire failure. One constant and supreme object was ever present, beyond amusement or thirst for knowledge. It was to ask that in the revision of the treaties the extra-territoriality clause be stricken out, that foreigners be made subject to the laws of Japan. The failure of the mission was predicted by all who knew the facts. From Washington to St. Petersburg point-blank refusal was made. No Christian governments would for a moment trust their people to pagan edicts and prisons. While Japan slandered Christianity by proclamations, imprisoned men for their beliefs, knew nothing of trial by jury, of the habeas corpus writ, or of modern jurisprudence; in short while Japan maintained the institutions of barbarism, they refused to recognize her as a peer among nations.

At home the watchword was progress. Public persecution for conscience' sake vanished. All the Christians torn from their homes and exiled and imprisoned in 1868 were set free and restored to their native villages. Education advanced rapidly, public decency was improved, and the standards of Christendom attempted.

While in Europe Iwakura and his companions in the embassy kept cognizant of home affairs. With eyes opened by all that they had seen abroad, mighty results, but of slow growth, they saw their country going too fast. Behind the war project lay an abyss of ruin. On their return the war scheme brought up in a cabinet meeting was rejected. The disappointment of the army was keen and that of expectant foreign contractors pitiable. The advocates of war among the cabinet ministers resigned and retired to private life. Assassins attacked Iwakura, but his injuries did not result fatally. The spirit of feudalism was against him.

On the 17th of January, the ministers who had resigned sent in a memorial praying for the establishment of a representative assembly in which the popular wish might be discussed. Their request was declined. It was officially declared that Japan was not ready for such institutions. Hizen, the home of one of the great clans of the coalition of 1868, was the chief seat of disaffection. With perhaps no evil intent, Eto, who had been the head of the department of justice, had returned to his home there and was followed by many of his clansmen. Scores of officials and men assembled with traitorous intent, and raised the cry of “On to Corea.” The rebellion was annihilated in ten days. A dozen ringleaders were sent to kneel before the blood pit. The national government was vindicated and sectionalism crushed.

The Formosan affair was also brought to a conclusion. Thirteen hundred Japanese soldiers occupied the island for six months, conquering the savages wherever they met, building roads and fortifications. At last the Chinese government in shame began to urge their claims on Formosa and to declare the Japanese intruders. For a time war seemed inevitable. The man for the crisis was Okubo, a leader in the cabinet, the master spirit in crushing the rebellion, and now an ambassador at Peking. The result was that the Chinese paid in solid silver an indemnity of $700,000 and the Japanese disembarked. Japan single-handed, with no foreign sympathy, but with positive opposition, had in the interests of humanity rescued a coast from terror and placed it in a condition of safety. In the face of threatened war a nation having but one-tenth the population, area, or resources of China, had abated not a jot of its just demands nor flinched from battle. The righteousness of her cause was vindicated.

The Corean affair ended happily. In 1875 Kuroda Kiyotaka with men of war entered Corean waters. Patience, skill, and tact were crowned with success. On behalf of Japan a treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce was made between the two countries February 27, 1876. Japan thus peacefully opened this last of the hermit nations to the world.

The rebellions which we have mentioned were of a mild type compared with that which in 1877 shook the government to its foundations. In the limits of our space it is impossible to enter deeply into the causes of the Satsuma rebellion. Its leader, Saigo Takamori, was one of the most powerful members of the reformed government until 1873 when he resigned as some of his predecessors had done, indignant at the peace policy which was pursued. A veritable Cincinnatus, he seems to have won the hearts of all classes around him by the Spartan simplicity of his life and the affability of his manner, and there was none more able or more willing to come to the front when duty to his country called him. It is a thousand pities that such a genuine patriot should have sacrificed himself through a mistaken notion of duty. Ambition to maintain and extend the military fame of his country seems to have blinded him to all other more practical considerations. The policy of Okubo and the rest of the majority in the cabinet, with its regard for peace and material prosperity, was in his eyes unworthy of the warlike traditions of old Japan. But we cannot follow out the story of this famous rebellion—how Saigo established a private school in his native city of Kagoshima for the training of young Shizoku in military tactics, how the reports of the policy of the government more and more dissatisfied him, until a rumor that Okubo had sent policemen to Kagoshima to assassinate him precipitated the storm that had been brewing. This report was not supported by satisfactory evidence, although the Kagoshima authorities extorted a so-called confession from a policeman. Okubo was too noble to be guilty of such an act. It was only after eight months of hard fighting, during which victory swayed from one side to another, and the death of Saigo and his leading generals when surrounded at last like rats in a trap, and the expenditure of over forty million yen, that the much tried government could freely draw breath again. The people of Satsuma believe that Saigo’s spirit has taken up its abode in the planet Mars, and that his figure may be seen there when that star is in the ascendant.

By this time railways, telegraphs, lighthouse service, and a navy were well under construction in native works. Two national exhibitions were held, one in 1877 and the second in 1881; the latter particularly was a pretentious one and a great success. In 1879 Japan annexed the Liu Kiu islands, bringing their king to Tokio, there to live as a vassal, and reducing the islands to the position of a prefecture in spite of the warlike threats of China. In the same year occurred the visit to Japan of General Grant while he was on his tour around the world. The famous American was entertained most enthusiastically by the citizens of Tokio for some two weeks in July. The enthusiasm awakened by his visit among the citizens was remarkable. Arches and illuminations were on every hand for miles. The entertainment provided by the Japanese for their distinguished guests at any time is so unique when seen by western eyes that it is always impressive and delightful.

The Islands and their Situation—The Famous Mountain Fuji-yama—Rivers and Canals—Ocean Currents and Their Effect on the Japanese Climate—Japan not a Tropical Country—Flora and Fauna—The Important Cities—Strange History of Yokohama—Commerce—Mining—Agricultural Products—Ceramic Art—Government of the Realm.

The empire of Japan is a collection of islands of various dimensions, numbering nearly four thousand, and situated to the east of the Asiatic continent. Only four of these however, are of size sufficient to entitle them to considerable fame, and around these a sort of belt of defense is formed by the thousands of islets. Dai Nippon is the name given by the natives to their beautiful land, and from this expression, which means Great Japan, our own name for the empire has been taken. Foreign writers have very often blundered in calling the largest island Nippon or Niphon. This more properly applies to the entire empire, while the main island is named in the military geography of Japan, Hondo. This word itself means main land. The other three important islands are Kiushiu, the most southeasterly of all; Shikoku, which lies between the latter and Hondo; and Yesso, which is the most northerly of the chain.

Japan occupies an important position on the surface of the globe, measured by political and commercial possibilities. Its position is such that its people may not unreasonably hope to form a natural link between the Occident and the Orient. Lying in the Pacific Ocean, in the temperate zone and not in the torrid, as many have the thought, it bends like a crescent off the continent of Asia. In the extreme north, near the island of Saghalien, the distance from the main land of Asia is so short that it is little more than a day’s sail in a junk. At the southern extremity, where Kiushiu draws nearest to the Corean peninsula, the distance to the main land is even less. Between this crescent of islands and the Asiatic main land is enclosed the Sea of Japan. For more than four thousand miles eastward stretches the Pacific Ocean, with no stopping point for steamers voyaging to San Francisco unless they diverge far from their course for a call at Honolulu.

The island connections of Japan are numerous. To the south are the Liu Kiu islands, which have been annexed to Japan, and still farther the great island of Formosa. To the north are the Kurile islands, which extend far above Yesso and were ceded to Japan by Russia in return for Saghalien, over which rule was formerly disputed. The chain is almost continuous, although broken and irregular, to Kamtchatka, and thence prolonged by the Aleutian islands in an enormous semicircle to Alaska and our own continent.

The configuration of the land is that resulting from the combined effects of volcanic action and wave erosion. The area of the Japanese islands is about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, or nearly as great as the New England and Middle States. But of this surface nearly two-thirds consists of mountain land, much of it still lying waste and uncultivated though apparently capable of tillage. On the main island a solid backbone of mountainous elevations runs through a great portion of its length, with subordinate chains extending at right angles and rising again in the other islands. The mountains decrease in height towards the south and there are few highlands along the sea coast. The range is reached by a gradual rise from the sea, until the backbone of the great island chain is reached. Japan rises abruptly from the sea, and deep water begins very close to the shore, indicating that the entire range of islands may be properly characterized as an immense mountain chain thrown up from the bottom of the ocean. The highest peak is Fuji-yama, which rises to a height of more than twelve thousand feet above the sea. It is a wonderfully beautiful mountain, and is the first glimpse that one has of land in approaching Yokohama from the Pacific Ocean. Of the position which this mountain occupies in the affections and traditions of the Japanese, mention will be made in a later chapter.

The islands forming the empire of Japan are comprehended in these limits; between twenty-four degrees and fifty-one degrees north latitude, and one hundred and twenty-four degrees and one hundred and fifty-seven degrees east longitude. That is, speaking roughly, it lies diagonally in and north of the subtropical belt, and has northern points corresponding with Paris and Newfoundland, and southern ones corresponding with Cairo and the Bermuda islands; or coming nearer home, it corresponds pretty nearly in latitude with the eastern coast line of the United States, added to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the contrasts of climate in the latter island and in Florida are probably not more remarkable than those which are observed in the extreme northern and southern regions of Japan.

The most striking geographical feature of Japan is the Inland Sea, which is one of the beauties of the world. It is a long, irregularly shaped arm of the sea, with tides and rapid currents, of variable width and no great depth, studded with innumerable thickly wooded islands. It is the water area which separates Hondo from Shikoku and Kiushiu, and is often spoken of as the Japanese Mediterranean.

One or two of the rivers of Japan, such as the Sumida, on the banks of which Tokio, the capital, lies, and which is about as broad as the East River between New York and Brooklyn, are worthy of note. Here at the present time are situated several ship yards, and many modern craft built in the American fashion may be seen along the shore. Here it may be mentioned that any particular appellation given to a river in Japan holds good only for a limited part of its course, so that it changes its name perhaps four or five times in flowing a few hundred miles. Indeed the river which passes through the city of Ozaka changes its name four times within the city limits. Most of the larger rivers in the main land run a course tending almost north and south. The general contour of the land is such that they must be short, but this direction gives them the greatest length possible. There are brief periods of excessively heavy rain, and they are often then in fierce flood, carrying everything before them and leaving great plains of water-worn stones and gravel around their mouths. There are many picturesque waterfalls which attract travelers and command the admiration of native artists and poets. The rivers at a short distance from their outlets are rendered navigable chiefly by the courage and expertness of the boatmen,—who are among the most daring and skillful in the world.

Till recently little has been done to deepen river channels or protect their banks, except in the interest of agriculture. In the lower courses, where broad alluvial plains of great fertility have been formed, they are frequently intersected by numerous shallow canals, for the most part of comparatively recent excavation, but some of them are many centuries old and these have been of immense service in keeping up communication throughout the country. In spite of their shallowness and rapid silting, some of the rivers of Japan are capable of being improved so as to admit of the passage of steam vessels of the largest size, and there are fine natural inlets and spacious bays which form harbors of great excellence.

The Japanese coast is usually steep and even precipitous. Its chief natural features, such as sunken rocks, capes, straits, entrances to bays and harbors and the mouths of rivers are now well marked with beacons or lighthouses of modern construction. The tides are not great, and in Yeddo bay the rise is only about four feet on an average. In spring tides it rarely exceeds six feet, and in general the height of the flood tide is never very great. Navigation in summer is somewhat dangerous and difficult, owing to the mists and fogs which are deemed by its sailors to be the great scourge of Japan. Indeed these malarious cloud banks are probably as dangerous to the health of the landsmen as they are to the safety of the mariner. While a large area of land lying under shallow water, during rice cultivation, may have some share in the formation of these dangerous mists, there is the more general cause which is readily to be found in the ocean currents.

Japan occupies a striking position in these currents which flow northward from the Indian ocean and the Malay peninsula. That branch of the great Pacific equatorial current called the Kuro Shiwo, or dark tide or current, on account of its color, flows in a westerly direction past Formosa and the Liu Kiu islands, striking the south point of Kiushiu and sometimes in summer sending a branch up the Sea of Japan. With great velocity it scours the east coast of Kiushiu and the south of Shikoku; thence with diminished rapidity it envelopes the group of islands south of the Bay of Yeddo; and at a point a little north of Tokio it leaves the coast of Japan and flows northeast towards the shores of America, ultimately giving to our own Pacific coast states a far milder climate than the corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic coast.

The yearly evaporation at the tropics, of fully fourteen or fifteen feet of ocean water, causes the great equatorial current of the Pacific to begin its flow. When the warm water reaches the colder waters to the northward, condensation of the water-laden air takes place, with the resulting formation of great cloud banks. The water appears to be of a deep, almost indigo-blue color, whence the name given to the current by the Japanese. Fish occur in great numbers where the Arctic current of fresher, lighter, and cooler water meets the warm salt stream from the south, amidst great commotion. The analogy of this great current to the Gulf stream of the Atlantic is apparent, and there can be no doubt as to its great influence on the climate of Japan. A difference of from twelve to sixteen degrees may be observed in passing from its waters to the cold currents from the north, and the effect of this on the atmosphere is very marked. The sudden and severe changes of temperature are often noticed on the southern coast of Japan and even in Yeddo bay. They are evidently due to eddies or branch currents from the great streams of cold and warm water which interweave themselves in the neighborhood.

In the island of Yesso, the most northerly of the large ones, the extremes of temperature are nearly as great as in New England. In the vicinity of Tokio the winter is usually clear and mild, with occasional sharp frosts and heavy falls of snow. In summer the heat is oppressive for nearly three months. Even at night the heat remains so high that sleep becomes almost impossible, the air being oppressive and no breeze stirring. The greatest heat is usually from the middle of June to early in September. The cold in winter is much more severe on the northwestern coast, and the roads across the main island are often blocked with snow for many months. In Yokohama the snow fall is light, not often exceeding two or three inches. The ice seldom exceeds an inch in thickness. Earthquake shocks are frequent, averaging more than one a month, but of late years there have been none of great severity.

The winds of Japan are at all seasons exceedingly irregular, frequently violent, and subject to sudden changes. The northeast and easterly winds are generally accompanied by rain, and are not violent. The southwest and westerly winds are generally high, often violent, and accompanied with a low barometer. It is from the southwest that the cyclones or typhoons almost invariably come. On clear and pleasant days, which in the neighborhood of Yokohama prevail in excess of foggy ones, there is a regular land and sea breeze at all seasons. The rainfall is above the average of most countries, and about two-thirds of the rainfalls during the six months from April to October.

The flora of Japan is exceedingly interesting, not only to botanists and specialists, but to casual travelers and readers. The useful bamboo flourishes in all parts of the land; sugar cane and the cotton plant grow in the southern part; tea is grown almost everywhere. The tobacco plant, hemp, corn, mulberry for silkworm food, rice, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, potatoes, and yams are all cultivated. The beech, the oak, maples, and pine trees in rich variety; azaleas, camelias, etc., grow in the forests. Some of the more characteristic plants are wisteria, cryptomeria, calceolaria and chrysanthemums. Various varieties of evergreens are grown, and the Japanese gardeners are peculiarly expert in cultivating these trees in dwarf forms of great beauty. Many familiar wild flowers can be gathered, such as violets, blue-bells, forget-me-nots, thyme, dandelions, and others. The woods are rich in ferns, among which the royal fern is conspicuous, and in orchids, ivies, lichens, mosses and fungi. The beautiful locusts, though imported, may now fairly be considered as naturalized. There are many water lilies, reeds and rushes, some of which are of great beauty and others of utility.

The mammalia of Japan are not numerous. In ancient times, before the dawn of history, two species of dwarf elephants existed in the plains around Tokio. There are many monkeys in some parts, even in the extreme northern latitudes. Foxes abound and are regarded with reverence. Wolves and bears are destructive in the north. There are wild antelopes, red deer, wild boars, dogs, raccoons, badgers, otters, ferrets, bats, moles, and rats; while the sea is specially rich in seals, sea-otters, and whales. The country has been found quite unsuitable for sheep, but goats thrive well, although they are not much favored by the people. Oxen are used for draught purposes. Horses are small but are fair quality, and the breed is being improved. The cats are nearly tailless. The dogs are of a low, half-wolfish breed. There are some three hundred varieties of birds known in Japan. Few of them are what we call song-birds, but the lark is one brilliant exception. Game birds are plentiful, but are now protected.

Insects are very numerous, as no traveler will dispute, and Japan is a great field for investigation by entomologists. Locusts are often destructive, and mosquitoes are a great pest. Bees, the silk worm and the wax-insect are highly appreciated.

There are several kinds of lizards, a great variety of frogs, seven or eight snakes, including one deadly species, and two or three kinds of tortoise. The crustaceans are numerous and interesting, and of fish there is extraordinary variety, especially those found in salt water. Oysters and clams are excellent and plentiful.

Let us now turn to the temporal affairs of the people who dwell in this island empire, their cities, their industries, and to their government.

Japan like its oriental companion, China, is a country of great cities, although the smaller empire has not so many famous for their size as has China. With scarcely an exception these greater cities are situated at the heads of bays, most of them good harbors and accessible for commerce. The largest of these cities, of course, is the capital Tokio, which doubtless passes a million inhabitants, although it is impossible that it should justify the American tradition of not many years ago, that its numbers were twice a million. Tokio, or the old city of Yeddo, is situated near the head of Yeddo Bay, but a few miles from Yokohama, and but little farther from Uraga where the first reception to Commodore Perry was given. Among the other more important cities on the sea coast are Nagasaki, Yokohama, Hakodate, Hiogo, Ozaka, Hiroshima, and Kanagawa.

Nagasaki is situated on the southwest coast of the island of Kiushiu, and is built in the form of an amphitheater. The European quarter in the east, stands upon land reclaimed from the sea at considerable labor and expense. Desima, the ancient Dutch factory, lies at the foot, and behind it is the native part of the town. The whole is sheltered by high wooden mountains. The city of Nagasaki was almost the first which attracted the attention of foreigners, partly from its being already known by name from the Dutch colony established there; partly because it was the nearest point to China and a port of great beauty; and also because before the political revolution which overthrew the power of the shogunate, the daimios of the south were there enabled, owing to its distance from Yeddo, to transact foreign affairs in their own way unmolested. This comparative importance did not last long, for affairs soon began to be concentrated in Yokohama, and the opening of the ports of Hiogo and Ozaka further reduced it to a secondary rank among commercial towns. It is still, however, a busy place and a great portion of the navigation of the Japanese seas passes by its beautiful port. But it is not a town of the future, and will be supplanted in prosperity to considerable extent by the more northern cities.

Yokohama, situated on the Gulf of Yeddo, owes its rise and importance to the merchants who came to seek their fortunes in the empire of the rising sun immediately after the signature of the treaties which threw open the coasts of Japan to adventurous foreigners. When Perry, with his augmented fleet, returned to Japan in February, 1854, the Japanese found him as inflexibly firm as ever. Instead of making the treaty at Uraga he must take it nearer Yeddo. Yokohama was the chosen spot, and there on the 8th of March, 1854, were exchanged the formal articles of convention between the United States and Japan.

By the treaty of Yokohama, Shimoda was one of the ports opened to Americans. Before it began to be of much service the place was visited by an earthquake and tidal wave, which overwhelmed the town and ruined the harbor. The ruin of Shimoda was the rise of Yokohama. By a new treaty Kanagawa, three miles across the bay from Yokohama, was substituted for Shimoda. The Japanese government decided to make Yokohama the future port. Their reasons for this were many. Kanagawa was on the line of the great highway of the empire, along which the proud Daimios and their trains of retainers were continually passing. With the antipathy to foreigners that existed, had Kanagawa been made a foreign settlement, its history would doubtless have had many more pages of assassination and incendiarism than did Yokohama. Foreseeing this, even though considered by the foreign ministers a violation of treaty agreements, the Japanese government immediately set to work to render Yokohama as convenient as possible for trade, residence and espionage.

They built a causeway nearly two miles long across the lagoons and marshes to make it of easy access. They built granite piers, custom house and officers’ quarters, and dwellings and store houses for the foreign merchants. After a long quarrel over which should be the city, the straggling colony of diplomats, missionaries, and merchants of Kanagawa finally pulled up their stakes and joined the settlement of Yokohama. Yokohama was settled in a squatter-like and irregular manner, and the ill effects of it are seen to this day. When compared with Shanghai, the foreign metropolis of China, it is vastly inferior.

The town grew slowly at first. Murders and assassinations of foreigners were frequent during the first few years. Diplomatic quarrels were constant, and threats of bombardment from some foreign vessel in the harbor of frequent occurrence. A fire which destroyed nearly the whole foreign town seemed to purify the place municipally, commercially, and morally. The settlement was rebuilt in a more substantial and regular manner. As the foreign population grew, banks, newspaper offices, hospitals, post-offices, and consulate buildings reappeared in a new dignity. Fire and police protection were organized. Steamers began to come from European ports and from San Francisco. Social life began as ladies and children came, and houses became homes. Then came the rapid growth of society and the finer things. Churches, theaters, clubs, schools were organized in rapid succession. Telegraph connection with Tokio, and thence around the globe, was accomplished, and the railway system increased rapidly. Within the thirty-five years of the life of Yokohama, it has grown from a fishing village of a few hundred to a city of fifty thousand people. Its streets are lighted with gas and electricity; its stores are piled full of rare silks, bronzes and curios. At present the foreign population of Yokohama numbers about two thousand residents. In addition to these the foreign transient population, made up of tourists and officers and sailors of the navy, and the merchant marine, numbers between three thousand and six thousand. Several daily newspapers, beside weeklies and monthlies, printed in English, furnish mediums of communication and news. Yokohama has become and will remain the great mercantile center of American and European trade in Japan.

Hiogo, or rather Kobe, as the foreign part has been called since the concession, is near Ozaka, both towns being situated on the inland Sea of Japan, near the south end of the Island of Niphon. Kobe is a considerable foreign settlement, with many fine houses and spacious warehouses. Ozaka, which contains more than half a million inhabitants, is one of the chief trading cities of Japan, and an immense proportion of the merchandise imported into the empire passes through it.

The commerce between Japan and western nations, European and American, increases year by year. England enjoys the profits from more than half of the total interchange, the United States is second, with a large portion of the remainder, and the rest of the commerce is divided among Germany, France, Holland, Norway, and Sweden. It is impossible to obtain figures recent enough to be a satisfactory index of the total volume of commerce annually, but it is now very many millions of dollars a year. Japan exports tobacco, rice, wax, tea, silks, and manufactured goods, such as curios, bronzes, lacquer ware, etc. The principal imports of Japan are cotton goods, manufactures of iron, machinery of all sorts, woolen fabrics, flour, etc.

Mining in Japan is seldom carried on by modern methods, and the mineral wealth has not been developed as it will be within a few years. In almost every portion of Japan are found ores of some kind and there is scarcely a district in which there are not traces of mines having been worked. No mines can be worked without special license of the government, and foreigners are excluded from ownership in any mining industry. Japan seems to be fairly well, though not richly, provided with mineral wealth. The mines include those for gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, tin, plumbago, antimony, arsenic, marble, sulphur, alum, salt, coal, petroleum, and other minerals.

The annual export of tea amounts to nearly thirty million pounds, of which considerably more than half is shipped from Yokohama. All Japanese tea is green and the United States is the chief customer for it.

The exact area of Japan is not known, though it is computed at nearly one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, with a population of more than two hundred persons to a square mile. The number of acres under cultivation is about nine million, or one-tenth of the entire area. Not one-fourth of the fertile portion of Japan is yet under cultivation. Immense portions of good land await the farmers’ plow and seed to return rich harvests. For centuries the agricultural art has been at a standstill. Population and acreage have increased, but the crop in bulk and quantity remains the same. The true wealth of Japan consists in her agricultural and not in her mineral and manufacturing resources. The government and intelligent classes seem to be awakening to this fact. The islands are capable of yielding good crops and adapted to support the finest breeds of cattle. With these branches of industry increased to the extent that they deserve, the prosperity of the empire will show constant increase.

The ceramic art of Japan and the art of the lacquer worker are two that have helped to make Japanese wares famous in the western world. The various wares of porcelain and faience are made in Japan in quality and art inferior to none in the world.

Since the restoration to power of the mikado in 1868, the government of Japan has been growing nearer and nearer into the forms of western monarchical governments. In a prior chapter the promise of the young mikado to advance the freedom of his people, and ultimately to adopt constitutional forms of rule, has been quoted. In the later years he has been aiming for the fulfillment of this promise. Supporting him, the party of progressionists, largely influenced by contact with European and American civilization, urge on every reform. The present government is simply the modernized form of the system established more than a thousand years ago, when centralized monarchy succeeded simple feudalism. After the emperor comes the Dai Jo Kuan, which is practically a supreme cabinet, and following this, three other cabinets of varying powers and duties. The council of ministers is made up of the heads of departments, the foreign office, home office, treasury, army, navy, education, religion, public works, judiciary, imperial household, and colonization. The Dai Jo Kuan directs the three imperial cities and the sixty-eight ken or prefectures. The provinces are now merely geographical divisions.

In the course of the efforts to bring the Japanese forms of government more into harmony with those of Europe and America, many important changes have been made. A system of nobility was devised, and titles were granted to those who were considered to be entitled to them, whether by birth or achievement. The four or five ranks included in this system closely follow the English models.