th its roof of velvety-brown thatch, a
troop of sturdy urchins, suntanned and stark naked, are frisking in
the wildest gambols, all heedless of the scolding voice of the
withered old grandam who sits spinning and minding the house, while
her son and his wife are away toiling at some outdoor labour. Close at
our feet runs a stream of pure water, in which a group of countrymen
are washing the vegetables which they will presently shoulder and
carry off to sell by auction in the suburbs of Yedo. Not the least
beauty of the scene consists in the wondrous clearness of an
atmosphere so transparent that the most distant outlines are scarcely
dimmed, while the details of the nearer ground stand out in sharp,
bold relief, now lit by the rays of a vertical sun, now darkened under
the flying shadows thrown by the fleecy clouds which sail across the
sky. Under such a heaven, what painter could limn the lights and
shades which flit over the woods, the pride of Japan, whether in late
autumn, when the russets and yellows of our own trees are mixed with
the deep crimson glow of the maples, or in spring-time, when plum and
cherry trees and wild camellias--giants, fifty feet high--are in full
blossom?

All that we see is enchanting, but there is a strange stillness in the
groves; rarely does the song of a bird break the silence; indeed, I
know but one warbler whose note has any music in it, the _uguisu_, by
some enthusiasts called the Japanese nightingale--at best, a king in
the kingdom of the blind. The scarcity of animal life of all
descriptions, man and mosquitoes alone excepted, is a standing wonder
to the traveller; the sportsman must toil many a weary mile to get a
shot at boar, or deer, or pheasant; and the plough of the farmer and
the trap of the poacher, who works in and out of season, threaten to
exterminate all wild creatures; unless, indeed, the Government should,
as they threatened in the spring of 1869, put in force some adaptation
of European game-laws. But they are lukewarm in the matter; a little
hawking on a duck-pond satisfies the cravings of the modern Japanese
sportsman, who knows that, game-laws or no game-laws, the wild fowl
will never fail in winter; and the days are long past when my Lord the
Shogun used to ride forth with a mighty company to the wild places
about Mount Fuji, there camping out and hunting the boar, the deer,
and the wolf, believing that in so doing he was fostering a manly and
military spirit in