ves and colour their lips. Unfortunately I had not
time to avail myself of the opportunity which Kioto offers the
foreigner of judging with certainty regarding the Japanese taste in
female beauty. For here, as at various other Japanese towns, there
are a number of girls who have been officially selected as the most
beautiful among the youth of the place. The Japanese may visit them
for a certain payment, but to Europeans they do not show themselves
willingly, and only for a large sum. When this takes place at any
time, it is only a dumb show for a few moments, during which no
words are exchanged.

[Illustration: JAPANESE COURT DRESS. ]

The Governor had promised to carry me round next day to see whatever
was remarkable in the town. I was not much delighted at this,
because I feared that the whole day would be taken up with
inspecting the whole or half-European public offices and schools,
which had not the slightest interest for me. My fear however was
quite unjustified. The Governor was a man of genius, who, according
to the statements of my companions, was reckoned among the first of
the contemporary poets of Japan. He immediately declared that he
supposed that the new public offices and schools would interest me
much less than the old palaces, temples, porcelain and _faience_
manufactories of the town, and that he therefore intended to employ
the day I spent under his guidance in showing me the latter.

[Illustration: NOBLE IN ANTIQUE DRESS. ]

We made a beginning with the old imperial palace Gosho, the most
splendid dwelling of Old Japan. It is not however very grand
according to European ideas. A very extensive space of ground is
here covered with a number of one-story wooden houses, intended for
the Emperor, the imperial family, and their suite. The buildings
are, like all Japanese houses, divided by movable panels into a
number of rooms, richly provided with paintings and gilded
ornamentation, but otherwise without a trace of furniture. For the
palace now stands uninhabited since the Mikado overthrew the Shogun
dynasty and removed to Tokio. It already gives a striking picture of
the change which has taken place in the land. Only the imperial
family and the great men of the country were formerly permitted to
enter the sacred precincts of Gosho. Now it stands open to every
curious native or foreigner and it has even as an exhibition
building been already pressed into the service of industry.
Alongside the larg