deceptions. Have they though? Not
a bit of it, for we are quite as ready to be "taken in" to-day or
to-morrow, as we were four years since. Still, there are some very
handsome and, now and then, really elegant things to be picked up in the
shops: bronzes, lacquers, china, tortoise-shell earrings, fans,
paintings, or silk, combining in their execution, the most educated
taste, and the most wonderful skill. Generally speaking a "Japper" after
naming a price will rarely retract. The Chinaman always will, the rogue!
The Japanese know this peculiarity of the Chinaman, and nothing will
wound a Jap's self-respect more than to compare his mode of dealing with
the celestial's.

They seem to enjoy arguing and chaffering over prices, and will
frequently go to the length of pulling down masses of paper, supposed to
be invoices, to shew that they are asking you fair. We pretend to
examine these inventories with a most erudite expression on our ignorant
faces, and invariably commence to open the wrong end of the book,
forgetful that the Japanese commence at what we call the last page. The
dealers display the utmost indifference as to whether you buy or not,
and you may pull their shops to pieces without raising their ire in the
slightest, for they will bow to you just as ceremoniously on leaving as
though you had purchased twenty dollars' worth.

Strange as Japanese art appears to us, there is design in all their
executions. This presents a marked contrast to Chinese art, which
appears to be simply the result of the artist's fancy. A Chinaman seems
to have no idea, when he commences a thing, what he is going to produce,
he goes on cutting and scraping, taking advantage of, here a vein in a
stone, perhaps, or there a knot in the gnarled branches of a tree, and
his imagination, distorted by the diabolical forms with which his
superstition surrounds him, does the rest.

* * * * *

And now I will ask you to take a run with me to Tokio, the capital of
Japan.

The hour's ride by rail conducts us through a pleasant, well cultivated
country. Fields of ripe grain, clusters of woods with cottages peeping
out of their bosky shades, and surrounded by stacks of hay and corn,
have, for the Englishman, a farm-like and altogether a home-like look.

The best and safest method to adopt on arriving at the terminus is to
hire rickshas of the company at the railway station, by so doing you are
saved from being victi