them. Nobody looks at them, yet it is contrary to our ideas of propriety, and we do not like seeing children in the neighbourhood, but so it is.
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Soldiers arming. (Fac-simile.)
The boys, we are told, are not left to run about in the streets until they grow into men. About seven years of age they are taken in hand by their fathers, or hired masters; hardihood, obedience, and skill in the use of arms is steadily inculcated. They are kept away from women, whether mothers or sisters, who are said to only render them effeminate, and the best schools or colleges are situated in lonely unfrequented places. A knowledge of reading and writing is very general amongst these people, more so we fear than in England, and the gentry take care to finish the education of their sons by severe training in all the forms of etiquette, and above all in their extraordinary code of honour, the sum of which is, that suicide, or “the happy despatch,” by cutting open the stomach, absolves a gentleman from all blame; and if he misconducts himself, or fail in his duty to the state, he may, by self-destruction, save family and connection from shame, and his property from confiscation.
Thoroughly drilled and schooled into this idea, impressed with a deep sense of obedience, the Japanese boy is then put into the world to play his part, and we are not therefore astonished to find that, one day, his ruler can restrain him from gratifying his eager curiosity to see us, by simply stretching a piece of packthread across the end of a street full of a thousand excited creatures; or that, next day, if he is told to do so, he will cut up a European—nay, more, if he be a retainer, at the command of his immediate chief, attack any one, at any personal risk or cost, be he Taikoon, Mikado, or prince.
The future of the Japanese girl playing at our stirrup is far less certain; she has an important part to play, but it is a fearful lottery with her if she be of humble extraction. Those poor girls in the tea-houses, the women in the temples, the attendants in the public gardens, the ranks of the Bikuni, have all to be filled up from the middle and lower classes. They may become famous in Japanese history, for Japanese history recognises its Aspasias, as Greece and Egypt did of old. They may, by their wit or beauty, win the hearts of wealthy men, who will take them for wives, and thus rescue them from their wretched lot. But in Japan, as in Europe, there is a wide, wide difference between the high and low of womankind, though equally gentle, though equally lovely. We have told of the Bikuni, for whom we shall claim the character given them by one whose heart was in the right place; he generously said, “They are as great beauties as one shall see in Japan, yet their behaviour, to all appearance, is modest and free, neither too bold and loose, nor dejected and mean.” The poor girls at the tea-houses we need not dwell upon; their counterparts are found in all lands; but the opposite extreme of the social scale is proportionately refined.
The child of the nobleman—a sketch of one we gave in a previous chapter—is an example of the luxury of those classes. A face of classical beauty, according to Japanese notions, combined with great modesty of expression, black hair turned up and ornamented with long gold pins and scarlet crape flowers, an outer robe of the most costly silk, embroidered in gold and confined at the waist by a scarf, upon which the highest female art has been expended in ornament, and tied in a large bow behind, the ends flowing over a long train formed by seven or eight silk petticoats, each longer and richer than the other. A sailor may pry no farther into the mysteries of female finery! She must be accomplished in music, embroidery, singing, and, above all, in skilfully improvising verses for the delectation of her future lord. Duty, a bundle of keys, weekly accounts, and good housewifery are all very well. They are expected—the Japanese gentleman requires all that; but he wishes, nay, insists upon the marriage-yoke being entwined with roses and padded with the softest silk,—it must not chafe; if it does, off he goes to his club, or, what is nearly as bad, his tea-house. The law allows him to do so, and is he not lord of the land? The consequence is, that Japanese ladies are very accomplished, very beautiful, and bear high characters in all that constitutes charming women; and their admirers, touched with their many attractions, declare in Eastern metaphor, that for such love as theirs the world were indeed well lost.
These lovely creatures do sometimes confer their hands and hearts upon love-lorn swains, and all we pray is that it may never be our lot, like “my Lord Brockhurst,” to be popped down in a palanquin on the dusty highway, because we happen to meet such a royal lady proceeding to meet her future spouse, and have to sit in dust and heat for three long hours whilst her array passes on its way. A proud pageant must be such a cavalcade—attendants on generous steeds, all richly appareled, emblazoned saddles, bridles studded with precious metals, and a body-guard armed with bows and arrows, pikes and muskets; ladies of honour seated in chariots drawn by oxen and horses, adorned with gilded chains and led by numerous lacqueys; the chariots glittering with