s shoes, or slipping a cotton
covering over those he has on. The altars are ornamented with immense
brass storks, with candelabra in their mouths, and tinselled lotus
flowers with leaves of brass are much in vogue. The tombs are guarded
with painted monsters representing gods of Wind and Thunder. The
services are not unlike those conducted in the Catholic Church by
continuous chanting. Pilgrims are coming and going, offering their
prayers after first signaling the gods by ringing a bell, the rope of
which is often made of human hair, a sacrifice made to appease the gods
during an epidemic. Near by and in the same enclosure is the sacred
horse, a stupid looking animal, guarded by an old woman, who for a
trifling recompense will feed it a few beans from a small saucer.

From Niko we go to Tokio, a city of magnificent distances, the home of
the Mikado. We stop at the Imperial Hotel, the best kept in Japan.
Temples and tombs set apart in sequestered groves, seem to be the resort
of pleasure-seekers and pilgrims. Once the ceremonial worship is over,
the people clap their hands to notify their god of their duties having
been performed, and turn for rice, tea or chat. Many of the petitions
are written on slips of paper and are left on the gratings that protect
the idols, and those frightful guardians at the entrance are frequently
covered with moistened balls of paper containing their written prayers.

Thirty years of civilization has not changed the agricultural
implements. The same plow that upheaved the soil one thousand years ago
turns it now; the same punt that furrowed the waters is the same to-day;
the style of architecture of the old Tartar order, derived from the old
Tartar tents, with immense curving and overhanging roof, repeats itself
in keeps and temples. Possibly this stereotype is the result of being
for ages cut off from other nations. The ponderous bells, struck by
great beams of wood swung from the outside, give forth mighty mysterious
murmurings.

The population of the city of Tokio is a million and a half (1895) and
covers a territory as large as London. The castle of the Mikado, in the
center of the city, occupies a space of several miles in circumference.
There are three castles, and between each a moat; the inner side of each
has a wall of sixty to ninety feet high, built of huge stones of massive
weight. The inner castle is surrounded by beautiful wooded grounds,
miniature lakes, streams and meadows.