laces of Tokio. To the European tourist or
the visitor from our Eastern States the beauty of the vegetation is a
source of marvel, but San Francisco's Golden Gate Park can equal
everything that grows here in the way of ornamental shrubs, trees and
flowers. On the south side of the park are the Parliament buildings, and
near by the fine, new brick buildings of the Naval and Judicial
Departments and the courts. Near by are grouped many of the foreign
legations, the palaces of princes and the mansions of the Japanese
officials and foreign embassadors. Here also is the Museum of Arms,
which is very interesting because of the many specimens of ancient
Japanese weapons and the trophies of the wars with China and Russia. In
this museum one may see the profound interest which the Japanese
pilgrims from all parts of the empire take in these memorials of
conquest. To them they rank with the sacred shrines as objects of
veneration.

Not far away is the moat which surrounds the massive walls of the
imperial palace, open only to those who have the honor of an imperial
audience. These walls are of granite laid up without mortar, the corner
stones being of unusual size. The visitor may see the handsome roofs of
the imperial palaces. Those who have been admitted declare that the
decorations and the furniture are in the highest style of Japanese art,
although the simplicity and the neutral colors that mark the Shinto
temples prevail in the private chambers of the Emperor. In the throne
chamber and the banquet hall, on the other hand, gold and brilliant hues
make a blaze of color. Near the palace grounds are the Government
printing office and a number of schools.

Turning down into Yoken street, one of the great avenues of traffic, you
soon reach Uyeno Park--the most popular pleasure ground of the capital,
and famous in the spring for its long lines of cherry trees in full
blossom. In the autumn it impressed me, as did all the other Japanese
parks, as rather damp and unwholesome. The ground was saturated from
recent rain; all the stonework was covered with moss and lichen; the
trees dripped moisture, and the little lakes scattered here and there
were like those gloomy tarns that Poe loved to paint in his poems. Near
the entrance to this park is a shallow lake covered with lotus plants,
and a short distance beyond from a little hill one may get a good view
of the buildings of the imperial university. Here is a good foreign
restaurant wh