n of
their art. One of them put on a well-made mask, representing the
head of a monster, with a movable jaw and terrible teeth. To the
mask was fastened a cloak, in which the player wrapt himself during
the representation. He then with great skill and supple tasteful
gestures, which would have honoured a European _danseuse_,
represented the monster now creeping forward fawningly, now rushing
along to devour its prey. A numerous crowd of children collected
around us. The small folks followed the representation with great
glee, and gave life to the play, or rather formed its proper
background, by the feigned tenor with which they fled when the
monster approached with open mouth and rolling eyes, and the
eagerness with which they again followed and mocked it when its back
was turned.

[Illustration: BURDEN BEARERS ON A JAPANESE ROAD. Japanese drawing. ]

In few countries are dramatic representations of all kinds so much
thought of as in Japan. Playhouses are found even in small towns.
The play is much frequented, and though the representations last the
whole day, they are followed by the spectators with the liveliest
interest. There are playbills as at home, and numerous writings on
subjects relating to the theatre. Among the Japanese books which I
bought, there was for instance a thick one, with innumerable
woodcuts, devoted to showing how the first Japanese artists
conceived the principal scenes in their _roles_, two volumes of
playbills bound up together, &c.

The Japanese pieces indeed strike a European as childish and
monstrous, but one must admire many praiseworthy traits in the play
itself, for instance the naturalness with which the players often
declaim monologues lasting for a quarter or half an hour. The
extravagances which here shock us are perhaps on the whole not more
absurd than the scenes of the opera of to-day, or the buskins,
masks, and peculiar dresses, which the Greeks considered
indispensable in the exhibition of then great dramatic masterpieces.
When the Japanese have been able to appropriate what is good in
European culture, the dramatic art ought to have a grand future
before it among them, if the development now going on is carried out
cautiously so that the peculiarities of the people are not too much
effaced. For, in many departments, and not least in that of art,
there is much to be found here which when properly developed will
form a new and important addition to the culture of the West, o