work in gold and silver thread upon rich silk and satin. A respectable looking woman shortly appears, accompanied by her husband. She was fair to loak upon once upon a time; but Japanese husbands sacrifice their personal gratification, provided they can insure that no man when looking upon their partners shall break the Tenth Commandment. The lady has pulled out her eye-brows, and blackened her teeth! The effect is most marvellous, you take one glance at her face, and at the black gulf which is scored across it, and you never again covet that man his wife, though you may the wares she exhibits. Poor soul, how good, and self-sacrificing of her; yet it is a pity, for there is a grace and beauty about her voice, her hand, and manner which you cannot but admire. Another look at that mouth! and your eye involuntarily turns to the many pretty faces and white teeth in the street for refreshment and repose. But what taste, what skill, and handiwork we have in the tapestry and embroidery displayed. Where could these Japanese have learnt this art? It is not monstrous, heavy, overladen with ornament, or, grotesque as in China; but delicate, refined, artistic, and such as we believe women’s, or men’s work seldom, if ever, equalled. Gobelin never excelled it, Bayeux is hideous beside it, and the drawing and shading of many of the pieces are so perfect, that they may be safely framed as pictures. The vendors of embroidery are dismissed just as the porch is suddenly intruded upon by a gang of native jugglers and showmen surrounded by a troop of children, all whooping with delight, and as free, and evidently as well loved, as they would be in England. A man in the garb of a Japanese sailor, leads a large monkey which climbs up a pole, and seats itself on the summit, and to the delight of the villagers fans itself à la Japonaise. The mountebank climbs on top of a pile of tea-cups, and stands on one foot on the summit of fragile crockery; the clown chaffs, and excites ridicule, and the peep-showman vaunts his marvels, and beseeches the patronage of your distinguished self.
Curious to know what a Japanese show may be like, you peep into one lens—brilliant—a vivid life-like scene, a Japanese earthquake, everything topsy-turvey, wreck, fire, death, and horror, quite worth the fraction of a penny charged. The next one is hardly inferior in interest; a great battle against rebels. They are valiant, and stand in firm array, discharging clouds of arrows, which perpetually darken the sky; but nothing avails against duty and loyalty. Men clad in armour, lance in hand, are charging down, and it is evidently certain that the rebels will be exterminated, and the Divine Warrior’s kingdom be still intact. We pass on to the next picture. Oh, fie! it cannot be, surely we were mistaken. No, by Jove! there is no doubt of it. A picture to be viewed by all at which Holywell Street would stand aghast! We express indignation, the showman laughs immoderately at our squeamishness, and everybody joins in the joke against us. Even the two nuns, who have just joined, and are humming a plaintive native air, raise their hoods, and smile, coupling their mirth with sly remarks as to our mock modesty. How is this we ask? Elsewhere in the East we are told, that it is the exclusion of the female element from society which renders it when unrestrained by ceremony or etiquette, so hideous, so unrefined. Here we have women everywhere; here is a nation which has attained a wonderful degree of civilisation and good government, a people possessing much delicacy, sensitiveness, and good feeling; yet in some points so coarse, so wanting in decency as to shock the lowest Europeans.
Breakfast is announced and we have another stage to travel to-day, so we hasten to it. Piles of white rice, surrounded with a multitude of small made dishes, in which fish generally prevails. A roasted rock-cod rises before us, a real pièce-de-resistance, flanked by many curious sauces, that would puzzle Soyer, or Francatelli; all to the purpose, however, and grand incentives to feeding, if more than the bracing air of those mountains were necessary. Seizing our lacquer-bowl and two chop-sticks, as well as a wooden-spoon, we progress apace; pulling our fragments of fish, and dipping them into the sauces before eating. There is abundance of rice-beer, or sakee, the constant beverage of the jovial souls of Japan, as well as other stronger beverages, made by vintners, cunning in such matters. In deference to our wish, tea is constantly supplied; a strong, coarse-flavoured description, which is much more like what we drink in England as good tea, than like anything met with in China. We are told that it is grown in most places, where the hills are too steep for terrace cultivation; that it was imported from China, and has been acclimatised in Japan; that formerly a cup of tea in Meaco cost an English shilling, but that the herb now abounds on the Eastern coast near the sea-side so much that they can sell it as an article of export. There is great consolation in these facts; who knows but that one day we too in Europe may learn, like these good people, to acclimatise the herb called tea. All the conditions of soil, climate, temperature, and locality found on the east coast of Japan, are to be found repeated in parts of Europe, if not in the United Kingdom. Elated at the prospect of being rid of Chinese questions and Chinese difficulties, we hob and nob, in sakee, to our shadow, a Japanese funcionary, who follows us and reports all we say and do to his masters. We pay our far from exorbitant bill, gravely confer little courtesies upon the fair handmaidens, amidst the cheers of the small boys, and shout to horse in good Saxon, which is readily understood by our eager-eyed attendants.
THE TRAMWAYS OF LONDON AND ENVIRONS.
It is now thirty years since I beheld the first attempt at steam-locomotives on common roads on the trial of Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam-coach round the Regent’s Park. It was a strange-looking machine, on four wheels, with a pair of supplementary wheels in front, to serve as a steering-apparatus. I watched all the subsequent doings of Maceroni, Oyle, and Sumner, Scott Russell, Hancock, and others, and came to the conclusion that the whole scheme was a practical fallacy—an
