Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for Keview should be addressed to the Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , 67 Barbican , E . C . — : ot—My Circular Notes . Extracts from Journals , Letters sent Home , Geological , aud other Notes , written whilo travelling westwards round the World , from 6 th July 1 * 74 , to 6 th July 1 S 75 . By J . F . CAMPBELL , Author of " Frost and Fire . " In two volumes . London : Macmillan and Co . 1876 .
[ S ECOND NOTICE . ] WITHOUT doubt the most interesting portion of these Notes relates to Japan , whither Mr . Campbell was steering as fast as wind and weather would permit when we took momontary leave of him last week . Towards the end of October tho traveller lands at Yokohama . Having got his goods , and settled at tho Grand Hotel ,
Mr . Campbell proceeds at once to tako stock of the place , m spite of tho heavy raiu which greets him on his arrival . " Every man , woman , and child , and tree , and fish , and dog , and house , aud fowl , was new and strange . They carried paper umbrellas , like those yon havo from G . W . R ., but grander and bigger , and gorgeous with colours . They walked on wooden pattens , thoir beards were shaved
into patterns , thoir hair was twisted into horns and devices , and stuck full of pins and ornaments . They grinned and I grinned , and wo got friends . Two-wheeled carriages with hoods of yellow paper drawn by coolies were everywhere . Sometimes a fine lady , sometimes a Jack-tar , sat inside ; sometimes a bearded Briton , sometimes a Japanese , but everywhere these marvellous coolies went trotting at
a fast run through the rain , showing leg 3 that would havo made a chairman stare , seventeen of them charged our party at one place , all grinning . Then we got into tho curiosity shops , and I began to use my slender stock of words with success . Then I got out my pencil , and presently I had an audience of shop-people grinning , chattering , and charmed . Then we got to a bridge and watched the
fisherboats going out to sea . Two men m a boat were castmg a net after the Thames fashion , bat better and bigger . Then we heard the railway whistle , and then tho bugles of the marines . There never was such a strange mixture of East and West as is to be found in this strange port No theatre ever was half so amnsing as tho street . The sun has come out , and it is bright as summer , and
warm . Camellias aro out blooming in the gardens . Men are solliug breakfasts . Men as naked as Adam aro rowing off to fish , pumping water in tho back yard , and going about their work unconcernedly . The housemaid is a man in black tights , all over curious worked designs , for all the world liko a demon in a pantomime . The waiters are all imps like him , ' Petits diablotin , ' the Frenchman calls them ;
and here I sit writing amongst them as pleased as a child at his first play . Now I must go stare and make pictures mentally . " We are not surprised that the writer should go off into raptures over the qnaiut sights that meet him . everywhere . Now it is a " garden with dwarf trees and Japanese plants , and pots and rocks and dragons , " that strikes him , now " a shrine hung with strips of inscribed paper , "
now a streot where the people aro buying aud selling and eating fish fried , and strange fruits served in Japaneso dishes , chattering liko baboons under the eaves of curious brown wooden honses ; " then the shore " where were strange boats : there wild boatmen wero drying barges of sea-weed for market . " •The day following he goes off to Yedo , and having mounted a jinrikisha or gig , drawn by running
coolies , at the station , traverses tho streets of that city , visiting its lions , subsequently driving out to tho Templo of tho Goddess of Parity , then to Sbiba to see tho tombs ol the Tycoons , and afterwards to tho tombs of tho forty-seven Ronius , and wheu dark back again to Yokohama . It it imposiblo to repeat all that Mr . " Campbell saw , but some of the stranger sights are worth noticing . " I see
again what I saw , says he , " on forty miles of very good road , with houses in sight on both , sides of the way , as thickly peopled as a London street , with all the people workiug in the open air , in any dress that happenod to suit thom , or in uo dress at all . " Again , " I see a lady in full dress—gown , veil , gloves , bracelets , and parasolgravely seated in a perambulator at Yokohama , going out to visit
another lady as calmly as if her yahoo wero a horso . She does not sec tho grotesque incongruity which makes mo stare . Tho mau is clad according to police regulations , but tho old man of Japan is strong within him , and his garments flutter loose . Ho is a coolie adorned with pictures ; — an illustrious illustrated edition of a civilised man , whoso civilisation is
barely coveroil by European forms . Such a man takes mo out for a drive , and strips to his work , aud becomes a Japaueso Greek athlete by folding up his swments aud stalling them under my seat . His hide is a gallery of Japanese art ; serpents coil about his legs , a tortoise is on ono arm , au eagle flies on tho other , or a Japanese lady smiles at mo from between his shoulders in some theatrical pose ,
There is no indecency iu nudity ; thero is nono in tho . stylo of art ; but this particular Japanese 2 > basc of Eastern civilisation is new to n traveller who comes westward from England over America , through another phase of European life . Tho East and tho West in a jinrikisha aro utterly astounding and rrotcsque to an amateur artist .... I can run away to tho Vatican and realise the
magnificenco of the human form , and the ugliness of all manner of clothes ; but clothes and no clothes , iu one carriage , tend to laughter . " Then he passes somo " stones set up liko stones , which I cat ; look at here or in Argyllshire , Btono pillars at two ends of a lon g regiment of megalithic monuments , whose wings aro at the
extremities of tho old world . Wo call them ' Druidical' ; here thoy aro 'Buddhist ? Nobody living knows aivrthiug about tlicni . Chinese civilisation is old ; Pyramids of Egypt are old ; but who is to say where this custom of setting up memorial stones first began ? " A little later , we read— " There they are , familiar Scotch cairns , A man was drowned , in my youth , in a ditch . Many
Reviews.
a stone havo I thrown on his cairn . Here is a stone Buddha with a cairn of stones in his lap . Tho children of tho place throw stones , and one who had been half round tho world explaiued that each stone meant a prayer to Buddha to help their dead parents ami friends quickly out of the Buddhist limbo into somo future better state . Each stone cast is ono act of merit which will help tho young
cairnbnilder to rise in his next life , according to tho heathen It is a human enstom to make cairns , Americans , Easterns , and Scotch are groat cairn-builders . It is a human custom to account for such customs . Here , within my experience , are' memorial cairns , ' of which ono was built to record tho gathering of ferns iu Mull , cairns nn . explained , sephulchral cairns of my own time , matrimonial cairns ,
frivolous bottle cairns , serious Buddhist cairns in Japan , and pyramids in Egypt . I read that tho pyramid is but tho improved Sepulchral cairn of megalithic Turanians civilised . " Many aro tho points of resemblance between Western and Eastern habits which Mr . Campbell meets with . Tlio Japanese and Turkish baths are not dissimilar . At Daibntsu , bo compares tho Buddhist
service with that celebrated at Astrakhan tho year bofore . " Great bronze Buddha , 500 years old , and forty-four feet high as he sits , looking out ovor tho ocean as far oast as his religion could go . An altar , very like a Roman Catholic altar , adorned with vases and flowers and candlesticks ; a priest investments chanting in front of an altar ; drums and noisy instruments keeping timo ; an old woman
on her knees with a string of beads rubbing her palms , and praying earnestly with her wholo heart . That , and a frame of bamboos waving near a yellow beach , a blue sea , and a distant volcano , is part of my Japaneso picture book . Besido it is the chapel of Astra , khan , and near these extremes of Buddhist worship is an old Irish dame , on her knees with her beads , praying earnestly , and rising to paco sunwise round a grey pillar of stone in Donegal . "
Then wo havo a sketch of going to the race 3 . " The way is crowded for a mile or two with all that is quaint , grotesque , eastern and strange , western and out of keeping . A very handsome Italian lady in a carriage , with smart horses driven by a Southern French silk merchant , is led at a sharp run by a ' betto . ' Ha is tho running footman of Japan . With his crested pigtail and shaven crown , and
horns of hair , his black tights and looso sleeves , he flits noislessly along at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour , making way for the quality . He is a remnant of the Daimio's procosssion ; his followers are his leaders now , and thoy are all racing to tho races . " By tho wayside a disciple of Buddha , " with nothing earthly on but a hat , a waistcloth , and a pair of straw
sandals , " contemplates the crowd . Then comes the favourite , " a wiry pony , led by a following of bettos , who might bo tho troops of the Spectre Monarch Astiey ' s Amphitheatre . " Then " Hurra , here comos Jack Tar in a perambulator , drawn at a fast rate by a little Jap half his size . A French Marino follows in his gig . A Russian , a Brazilian , a canny Scotchman , two Chinese bankers' clerks iu blue ,
drawn by a littlo Bantam cock of a Jap , warranted to thrash them both into fits in no time . Here aro all the races and Japan going ahead of thom and hauling thom all to tho races . Hero is a herald iu a Tabard , hero a Venus in transitu , scrambling up a hill on pattons with Cupid on her back . Thero is tho grand stand , there tho ring , and tho opora glasses , and tho costumes of Paris , Glasgow ,
Vienna , New York , and Frisco . There in a carriage sit the ladres of Japan , all embroidery , tortoise-shell hair-pins , paint , silks , and braverie . Bat their beauty cannot withstand that brilliant Eurasian grand stand . Thoy aro but civilised Samoyedes . " A day or two after tho races , a second visit is paid to Yedo . Ho goes by tho railway , " opened in form by tho heaven-born Emperor , tho Mikado ,
not very long ago / ' when a groat number of Japaneso swells and belles wero invited . " They camo , aud they got into tho train ; and were as pleased as children , with a now toy . Now it is tho custom in this land of lean mat floors to kick off sandals , shoes , pattens , clogs , or any other walking foot-gear that may have been worn outside . They enter a dwelling bare foot or in splic white socks with a thumb
end , as neat as gloves . All tho well-bred , polite Japanese people who got into tho first aud second class carriages for the first timo stepped out of their clogs and left them on the platform in rows . The engine snorted and tho train moved . Then a miugled cry of woo and laughter burst from the passengers as thoy realised tho fact that they had left their old clogs in the lurch , aud that regrets Wire
bootless as they were . Being a very practical people they have taken to wearing boots , aud thoy suffer horribly , for their feet as uot as A ryau feet , and their boots being imported pinch . " In half an hour ho is in Yedo or Tokio , a journey which , a fow years since was a feat , for tho foreigner went armed to the teeth and with a strong escort of sworded men to protect him . Here he wanders about enjoving
himself , and notes what he sees , in particular a great buildiug—the public bath— " being full of hot water and citizens of all sorts and sizos , sexes aud ages , bathing aud conversing as people do elsewhere iu clubs or reading rooms You inn ¦¦ n ' t look in there . Tlior don ' t like strangers to staro at thom . Some few years ago these bath ; ; were open to the streets , and thoy all bathed in the same bath .
* Sow , since foreigners have come , the baths aro closed , and there is a bamboo rail bootveen the men and women . They have learned that , we think all this strange , and they don't liko us to laugh at them . Come along , So we went . " One evening he dined with a Japanese Prince and Princes . ) . Tho day following he meets with a ludicrous accident while sketching , which u ' . ibles him to contrast Aryan and
Japanese manners , greatly to the advantage of tho latter . He also sees a crysauthemum show , aud pays a visit to the theatre , and late ; , spends a day among tho tombs of the Shoguns ( Tycoons ) at Shibu . " Tho gates aro red and gold with dark tile roofs , urA much carving . The temples and shrine aro carved and finished as a Japanese
cabinet is of the very best kind . Black aud red and gold lacquer houses of considerable size , all ovor alto-relievo cocks and crysanthemnms , gold pheasants and monsters , and fastened with gilt bronze and enamel , are things to look at more th . ui once . Thoy really are marvels of art of this kind . Lastly , on the hill stands a simple solid bronze or stone urn , iu which is tho body or boucs . of the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Reviews.
REVIEWS .
All Books intended for Keview should be addressed to the Editor of The Freemason ' s Chronicle , 67 Barbican , E . C . — : ot—My Circular Notes . Extracts from Journals , Letters sent Home , Geological , aud other Notes , written whilo travelling westwards round the World , from 6 th July 1 * 74 , to 6 th July 1 S 75 . By J . F . CAMPBELL , Author of " Frost and Fire . " In two volumes . London : Macmillan and Co . 1876 .
[ S ECOND NOTICE . ] WITHOUT doubt the most interesting portion of these Notes relates to Japan , whither Mr . Campbell was steering as fast as wind and weather would permit when we took momontary leave of him last week . Towards the end of October tho traveller lands at Yokohama . Having got his goods , and settled at tho Grand Hotel ,
Mr . Campbell proceeds at once to tako stock of the place , m spite of tho heavy raiu which greets him on his arrival . " Every man , woman , and child , and tree , and fish , and dog , and house , aud fowl , was new and strange . They carried paper umbrellas , like those yon havo from G . W . R ., but grander and bigger , and gorgeous with colours . They walked on wooden pattens , thoir beards were shaved
into patterns , thoir hair was twisted into horns and devices , and stuck full of pins and ornaments . They grinned and I grinned , and wo got friends . Two-wheeled carriages with hoods of yellow paper drawn by coolies were everywhere . Sometimes a fine lady , sometimes a Jack-tar , sat inside ; sometimes a bearded Briton , sometimes a Japanese , but everywhere these marvellous coolies went trotting at
a fast run through the rain , showing leg 3 that would havo made a chairman stare , seventeen of them charged our party at one place , all grinning . Then we got into tho curiosity shops , and I began to use my slender stock of words with success . Then I got out my pencil , and presently I had an audience of shop-people grinning , chattering , and charmed . Then we got to a bridge and watched the
fisherboats going out to sea . Two men m a boat were castmg a net after the Thames fashion , bat better and bigger . Then we heard the railway whistle , and then tho bugles of the marines . There never was such a strange mixture of East and West as is to be found in this strange port No theatre ever was half so amnsing as tho street . The sun has come out , and it is bright as summer , and
warm . Camellias aro out blooming in the gardens . Men are solliug breakfasts . Men as naked as Adam aro rowing off to fish , pumping water in tho back yard , and going about their work unconcernedly . The housemaid is a man in black tights , all over curious worked designs , for all the world liko a demon in a pantomime . The waiters are all imps like him , ' Petits diablotin , ' the Frenchman calls them ;
and here I sit writing amongst them as pleased as a child at his first play . Now I must go stare and make pictures mentally . " We are not surprised that the writer should go off into raptures over the qnaiut sights that meet him . everywhere . Now it is a " garden with dwarf trees and Japanese plants , and pots and rocks and dragons , " that strikes him , now " a shrine hung with strips of inscribed paper , "
now a streot where the people aro buying aud selling and eating fish fried , and strange fruits served in Japaneso dishes , chattering liko baboons under the eaves of curious brown wooden honses ; " then the shore " where were strange boats : there wild boatmen wero drying barges of sea-weed for market . " •The day following he goes off to Yedo , and having mounted a jinrikisha or gig , drawn by running
coolies , at the station , traverses tho streets of that city , visiting its lions , subsequently driving out to tho Templo of tho Goddess of Parity , then to Sbiba to see tho tombs ol the Tycoons , and afterwards to tho tombs of tho forty-seven Ronius , and wheu dark back again to Yokohama . It it imposiblo to repeat all that Mr . " Campbell saw , but some of the stranger sights are worth noticing . " I see
again what I saw , says he , " on forty miles of very good road , with houses in sight on both , sides of the way , as thickly peopled as a London street , with all the people workiug in the open air , in any dress that happenod to suit thom , or in uo dress at all . " Again , " I see a lady in full dress—gown , veil , gloves , bracelets , and parasolgravely seated in a perambulator at Yokohama , going out to visit
another lady as calmly as if her yahoo wero a horso . She does not sec tho grotesque incongruity which makes mo stare . Tho mau is clad according to police regulations , but tho old man of Japan is strong within him , and his garments flutter loose . Ho is a coolie adorned with pictures ; — an illustrious illustrated edition of a civilised man , whoso civilisation is
barely coveroil by European forms . Such a man takes mo out for a drive , and strips to his work , aud becomes a Japaueso Greek athlete by folding up his swments aud stalling them under my seat . His hide is a gallery of Japanese art ; serpents coil about his legs , a tortoise is on ono arm , au eagle flies on tho other , or a Japanese lady smiles at mo from between his shoulders in some theatrical pose ,
There is no indecency iu nudity ; thero is nono in tho . stylo of art ; but this particular Japanese 2 > basc of Eastern civilisation is new to n traveller who comes westward from England over America , through another phase of European life . Tho East and tho West in a jinrikisha aro utterly astounding and rrotcsque to an amateur artist .... I can run away to tho Vatican and realise the
magnificenco of the human form , and the ugliness of all manner of clothes ; but clothes and no clothes , iu one carriage , tend to laughter . " Then he passes somo " stones set up liko stones , which I cat ; look at here or in Argyllshire , Btono pillars at two ends of a lon g regiment of megalithic monuments , whose wings aro at the
extremities of tho old world . Wo call them ' Druidical' ; here thoy aro 'Buddhist ? Nobody living knows aivrthiug about tlicni . Chinese civilisation is old ; Pyramids of Egypt are old ; but who is to say where this custom of setting up memorial stones first began ? " A little later , we read— " There they are , familiar Scotch cairns , A man was drowned , in my youth , in a ditch . Many
Reviews.
a stone havo I thrown on his cairn . Here is a stone Buddha with a cairn of stones in his lap . Tho children of tho place throw stones , and one who had been half round tho world explaiued that each stone meant a prayer to Buddha to help their dead parents ami friends quickly out of the Buddhist limbo into somo future better state . Each stone cast is ono act of merit which will help tho young
cairnbnilder to rise in his next life , according to tho heathen It is a human enstom to make cairns , Americans , Easterns , and Scotch are groat cairn-builders . It is a human custom to account for such customs . Here , within my experience , are' memorial cairns , ' of which ono was built to record tho gathering of ferns iu Mull , cairns nn . explained , sephulchral cairns of my own time , matrimonial cairns ,
frivolous bottle cairns , serious Buddhist cairns in Japan , and pyramids in Egypt . I read that tho pyramid is but tho improved Sepulchral cairn of megalithic Turanians civilised . " Many aro tho points of resemblance between Western and Eastern habits which Mr . Campbell meets with . Tlio Japanese and Turkish baths are not dissimilar . At Daibntsu , bo compares tho Buddhist
service with that celebrated at Astrakhan tho year bofore . " Great bronze Buddha , 500 years old , and forty-four feet high as he sits , looking out ovor tho ocean as far oast as his religion could go . An altar , very like a Roman Catholic altar , adorned with vases and flowers and candlesticks ; a priest investments chanting in front of an altar ; drums and noisy instruments keeping timo ; an old woman
on her knees with a string of beads rubbing her palms , and praying earnestly with her wholo heart . That , and a frame of bamboos waving near a yellow beach , a blue sea , and a distant volcano , is part of my Japaneso picture book . Besido it is the chapel of Astra , khan , and near these extremes of Buddhist worship is an old Irish dame , on her knees with her beads , praying earnestly , and rising to paco sunwise round a grey pillar of stone in Donegal . "
Then wo havo a sketch of going to the race 3 . " The way is crowded for a mile or two with all that is quaint , grotesque , eastern and strange , western and out of keeping . A very handsome Italian lady in a carriage , with smart horses driven by a Southern French silk merchant , is led at a sharp run by a ' betto . ' Ha is tho running footman of Japan . With his crested pigtail and shaven crown , and
horns of hair , his black tights and looso sleeves , he flits noislessly along at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour , making way for the quality . He is a remnant of the Daimio's procosssion ; his followers are his leaders now , and thoy are all racing to tho races . " By tho wayside a disciple of Buddha , " with nothing earthly on but a hat , a waistcloth , and a pair of straw
sandals , " contemplates the crowd . Then comes the favourite , " a wiry pony , led by a following of bettos , who might bo tho troops of the Spectre Monarch Astiey ' s Amphitheatre . " Then " Hurra , here comos Jack Tar in a perambulator , drawn at a fast rate by a little Jap half his size . A French Marino follows in his gig . A Russian , a Brazilian , a canny Scotchman , two Chinese bankers' clerks iu blue ,
drawn by a littlo Bantam cock of a Jap , warranted to thrash them both into fits in no time . Here aro all the races and Japan going ahead of thom and hauling thom all to tho races . Hero is a herald iu a Tabard , hero a Venus in transitu , scrambling up a hill on pattons with Cupid on her back . Thero is tho grand stand , there tho ring , and tho opora glasses , and tho costumes of Paris , Glasgow ,
Vienna , New York , and Frisco . There in a carriage sit the ladres of Japan , all embroidery , tortoise-shell hair-pins , paint , silks , and braverie . Bat their beauty cannot withstand that brilliant Eurasian grand stand . Thoy aro but civilised Samoyedes . " A day or two after tho races , a second visit is paid to Yedo . Ho goes by tho railway , " opened in form by tho heaven-born Emperor , tho Mikado ,
not very long ago / ' when a groat number of Japaneso swells and belles wero invited . " They camo , aud they got into tho train ; and were as pleased as children , with a now toy . Now it is tho custom in this land of lean mat floors to kick off sandals , shoes , pattens , clogs , or any other walking foot-gear that may have been worn outside . They enter a dwelling bare foot or in splic white socks with a thumb
end , as neat as gloves . All tho well-bred , polite Japanese people who got into tho first aud second class carriages for the first timo stepped out of their clogs and left them on the platform in rows . The engine snorted and tho train moved . Then a miugled cry of woo and laughter burst from the passengers as thoy realised tho fact that they had left their old clogs in the lurch , aud that regrets Wire
bootless as they were . Being a very practical people they have taken to wearing boots , aud thoy suffer horribly , for their feet as uot as A ryau feet , and their boots being imported pinch . " In half an hour ho is in Yedo or Tokio , a journey which , a fow years since was a feat , for tho foreigner went armed to the teeth and with a strong escort of sworded men to protect him . Here he wanders about enjoving
himself , and notes what he sees , in particular a great buildiug—the public bath— " being full of hot water and citizens of all sorts and sizos , sexes aud ages , bathing aud conversing as people do elsewhere iu clubs or reading rooms You inn ¦¦ n ' t look in there . Tlior don ' t like strangers to staro at thom . Some few years ago these bath ; ; were open to the streets , and thoy all bathed in the same bath .
* Sow , since foreigners have come , the baths aro closed , and there is a bamboo rail bootveen the men and women . They have learned that , we think all this strange , and they don't liko us to laugh at them . Come along , So we went . " One evening he dined with a Japanese Prince and Princes . ) . Tho day following he meets with a ludicrous accident while sketching , which u ' . ibles him to contrast Aryan and
Japanese manners , greatly to the advantage of tho latter . He also sees a crysauthemum show , aud pays a visit to the theatre , and late ; , spends a day among tho tombs of the Shoguns ( Tycoons ) at Shibu . " Tho gates aro red and gold with dark tile roofs , urA much carving . The temples and shrine aro carved and finished as a Japanese
cabinet is of the very best kind . Black aud red and gold lacquer houses of considerable size , all ovor alto-relievo cocks and crysanthemnms , gold pheasants and monsters , and fastened with gilt bronze and enamel , are things to look at more th . ui once . Thoy really are marvels of art of this kind . Lastly , on the hill stands a simple solid bronze or stone urn , iu which is tho body or boucs . of the