orated and very showy, and at the same
time very old. This combination is quite impossible. The old Japanese
bronze work was always very simple in design, depending for its beauty,
not upon the flowery decorations surrounding it, but upon the exquisite
proportions of the piece itself. To create the aged appearance necessary
in the eyes of the faddy European, the bronzes have to be buried in the
earth--in a special kind of earth--for a few days; after which they are
dug up and sold to connoisseurs and English people, who are by way of
understanding works of art, for fabulous sums.

[Illustration: STENCIL-MAKERS]

I had occasion to employ many embroiderers; and here, as in every other
branch of Japanese art work, I received a series of "eye-openers."
Hitherto I had been envious of the many fine old bits of embroidery and
temple hangings shown me by the different globe-trotters staying at the
hotel. They had all come upon their treasures in some lucky and
unexpected manner. By much good fortune every man had secured his own
special piece of embroidery, and each by clever manipulation had
outwitted the dealer from whom he had managed to wrest this one old
temple hanging. But when I went to headquarters, and began to employ the
men who actually made the fabric, my envy vanished. I soon found that
none of these coveted treasures was old at all. Such large pieces of
embroidery are not used in temples, nor have they ever been; they are
quite modern introductions, and have been brought about simply to
attract and make money out of the credulous strangers. I have spent
hour after hour with the embroiderers, watching them manipulate old
temple hangings, and have seen them when the task was over wash on gold
stains with base metal. Here and there a few little touches would be of
real gold, and it was all done so cleverly that none but a Jap could
possibly detect that they were modern.

It is almost a depressing sight to watch these embroiderers at work--so
different are they from the happy boisterous metal-workers talking and
laughing amid the clanging of their little hammers. They are sad and
silent. You will be in a roomful of these people for perhaps a whole
morning, and not one of them will utter a word. They work on and on,
with heads bent down, picking up thread after thread of the one piece of
embroidery that they have been constantly working on for months, or
perhaps for years. Never a word nor a smile; each peering into