rich profusion. It is one of the great delights of the Japanese at Yeddo, during all April, to make pic-nics to these suburban gardens and temples. Groups of men, women, and children, by families, may be seen trooping along the shady roads on their way to enjoy the beauty of the opening spring the rich in norimons, the middle and lower classes on foot. But this Arcadian scene is often marred by intemperance. Not content with drinking in the freshness of the opening flowers, the men indulge in deep libations of laki; nor is this practice altogether confined, as one would fain have hoped, to the rougher sex, who make the streets unsafe on their return, especially to dogs and foreigners. They may be met in bands of two or three with reeling gait and flushed faces, and, now and then, those of the lower classes are stretched across the road too drunk to go any further. In the vice of intemperance the Japanese have nothing to learn from foreigners. That at least cannot be laid to our charge. They are as much given to drunkenness as any of the northern races of Europe are quite as quarrelsome as the worst, and far more dangerous in their cups, though Mr. Oliphant stated that during his visit not a drunken man was to be seen. These are drawbacks to the beauty of the landscape and the country lanes; but it must also be admitted in candour, that the same evils exist in Christian lands. Very fortunately our British drunkards do not carry two sharp swords in their belt, or feel it a point of honour to flesh them, if any convenient opportunity can be found. In other respects, both country roads and streets in the city of Yeddo will bear advantageous comparison with the best kept of either in the West. No squalid misery or accumulations of filth encumber the wellcared-for streets of Yeddo; a strange but pleasant contrast with every other Asiatic land, and not a few European cities. The occasional passage of a train of porters carrying open pails of liquid manure from the town to the fields, or a string of horses laden with the same precious but perilous stuff' (carefully covered over in the latter case, however, in conical tubs), are not only the worst assaults made either on the olfactory or the visual organs, but the sole assailants-when once the eye is accustomed to the summer costume of the lower orders, which with the men is often reduced to a full suit of Tatoo with a narrow loin cloth, and the women a petticoat, sadly curtailed in the breadths.

In the lower level of the valley of Yeddo, miles and leagues of continuous streets may be traversed, filled with a busy, but not-overworked, and seemingly a very contented and goodhumoured people. Children and dogs abound everywhere.

Until the former can walk, they are generally secured to the back of the mother, while these pursue their daily occupations, their arms thus left free. Unfortunately, so it seems to the lookers-on, the poor babe's head is left equally free, the body only being supported by the sort of pocket in which the infant is deposited, and consequently with every movement of the parental trunk, it rolls from side to side, swaying to and fro, as if a dislocation of the neck must inevitably be the result. Vain fears! The mothers know better. They have been nursed for twenty generations in precisely the same way. The babies themselves, by use, may grow to like it, and certainly rarely cry or give other token of dislike-what will not use reconcile us to in this life? But the mothers are not the sole guardians of the infant progeny. It is a very common sight, in the streets and shops of Yeddo, to see a little nude cupid in the arms of a stalwart-looking father, nearly as nude, who walks about with his small burden, evidently handling it with all the gentleness and dexterity of a practised hand. It does not seem there is any need of a foundling hospital, nor has any intelligence reached us of infanticide, more or less common in China, especially of female children.

6

A good-humoured and contented as well as a a happy race are the Japanese, whatever may be their imperfections, with the one important exception, of the military, feudal, and official caste-classes we might say, but they are not easily separable indeed it seems doubtful whether there be a civil class, since all of a certain rank are armed with two formidable weapons projecting from their belt, swords, like everything else in Japan (to our worse confusion), being double! without much or obvious distinction between military and civil, -between Tycoons', Officers', and Damios' retainers. These are the classes which furnish suitable types of that extinct species of the race in Europe, still remembered as Swashbucklers,' swaggering, blustering bullies, cowardly enough to strike an enemy in the back, or cut down an unarmed and inoffensive. man. They are all entitled to the privilege of two swords, rank and file, and are saluted by the unprivileged (professional, mercantile, and agricultural) as 'Sama,' or lord. With a rolling straddle in his gait, reminding one of Mr. Kinglake's graphic description of the Janissary, due to the same cause, the heavy projecting blades at his waist, and the swaddling clothes round his body, the Japanese officer moves on in a very ungainly fashion, the hilts of his two swords at least a foot in advance of his person, very handy, to all appearance, for an enemy's grasp. One is a heavy two-handed weapon, pointed and sharp as a

razor; the other, short like a Roman sword, and religiously kept in the same serviceable state. In the use of these he is no mean adept. He seldom requires a second thrust with the shorter weapon, but strikes home at a single thrust. When the British Minister's linguist was murdered at the gate of the Legation, in January last, by one of the Damios followers, the assassin was seen, by some women and children standing near, to approach stealthily from behind, and with one lunge he pierced his victim through the stomach, leaving the sword buried to the hilt in his body, and the point projecting through his right breast. Such a fellow is a man to whom all peaceloving subjects and prudent people habitually give as wide a berth as they can! Often drunk, and always insolent, he is to be met with in the quarters of the town where the tea houses. most abound, returning about dusk and later from his day's debauch with a red and bloated face, not over steady on his legs, the terror of all the unarmed population and street dogs. Happy for the former when he is content with trying the edge of a new sword on the quadrupeds; and many a poor crippled animal is to be seen limping about slashed over the back, or with more permanent evidences of brutality. But at other times it is some coolie or inoffensive shopkeeper, who, coming unadvisedly between the wind and his nobility,' is just as mercilessly cut down at a blow. This does not quite accord with Kaempfer's account of the perfect order and respect for the law maintained throughout Japan; nor with Mr. Oliphant's impressions of the universal respect for the canine race; but a twelve-months' residence in the capital appears to have revealed to our informants many things still more opposed to the generally-received accounts. And that we may not be supposed to overcolour this part of our picture drawn from life in the capital, we refer our readers to the following extract from the Blue Book, taken from an official letter addressed by Mr. Alcock to the Japanese Ministers of Foreign Affairs in November, 1859:

'I was returning on horseback at a quiet pace from the American Legation about five o'clock, merely followed by a groom on foot, to take care of my horse, and a servant on horseback.'

'I met in the great "tocado " many officers, some in groups and others alone, armed with their two swords (about as dangerous and deadly weapons as men can well possess), and evidently intoxicated. They were drunk in various degrees, but all the best of them were in a state utterly unfit to be at large in a great thoroughfare, or trusted with weapons by which they might in an instant inflict fatal wounds or grievous injury. In such circumstances I have frequently observed before, that they are not only insolent, and as a general rule

offensive in their gestures and speech when they meet foreigners, but are very prone to put themselves directly in the path, and either dispute the passage with an air of menace, or sometimes even attempt to strike either horse or rider. Several of these disorderly persons I had passed-and as a dispute with a drunken man is always to be avoided by one in his sober senses, I took no heed of their demonstrations of ill-will, and left their passage free; but when within fifty yards of my own door, having just overtaken Mr. Heuskin, one, more intoxicated or more insolent than the rest, not content with standing in our path, pushed against both horse and rider, and was put aside by one of the grooms who came up; upon which he instantly put his hand to his sword, and fearing a defenceless servant might be cut down by this drunken bravo, I wheeled my horse round to protect him if necessary by interposing myself. But I was unarmed, with only a riding whip in my hand, and, undoubtedly, as I should not have stood quietly by and seen a servant murdered who had only done his duty in my defence, it is doubtful what might have been the issue; but my servant who was on horseback had a pistol, and hearing the officer vow immediate vengeance presented it, declaring he would shoot him if he drew his sword. But for this, both the groom and myself might very probably have been wounded, if not murdered, by this ruffian, maddened with drink, and armed to the teeth.

'Do your Excellencies mean to tell me that nothing can be done in this capital of Japan to prevent men of the rank of officers going about the streets furiously drunk with two deadly weapons at their sides? Is there no law against persons who thus go about to the disgrace of their rank, and to the manifest danger of every peaceable inhabitant—no punishment or penalty that can be inflicted to deter them from such conduct?' (Parliamentary Papers, pp. 85, 86.)

And subsequently, in writing to Lord John Russell, Mr. Alcock added in explanation of this communication,

'The task which devolves upon the diplomatic agents at Yeddo at the present moment is rather, therefore, to make head against immediate dangers and evils which threaten to make their position in the capital untenable, and all future trade impossible, than to reap the better fruit so sanguinely anticipated by many. Such fruit must be of slow growth in this soil, and, if ever matured, can only be gathered after much toil and care and patience have been bestowed on its cultivation.

'In referring to the recent attempt to assassinate, and the urgent necessity for such measures as shall prevent crimes of this kind taking place with impunity, I have taken occasion to bring before them an incident in Yeddo, which it required but the turning of a straw to have made as tragic as the event at Yokuhama, and all the more untoward that the victim in this case might have been Her Majesty's representative. As regards the population there is little to complain of, or to fear. Any hostility they may heretofore have shown, I am satisfied, was not spontaneous, but got up by the hostile Damios, or the Government. Here, as in China, it is all of mandarin or official

growth. If I had any hesitation in so charging them before, all doubt has passed from my mind since I have seen how surely, after it had been allowed to manifest itself with great violence for several weeks, it suddenly and entirely ceased. I rode through the city from one end to the other, a week ago through the most crowded thoroughfares over the "Niponbas," the centre where never foreigner had been allowed to penetrate, but a short time before, without popular tumult and a volley of stones; and not a hand or a voice was raised, neither there nor during the whole course of my ride of some ten miles. Yet, the other day, nearly at the gate of my own residence, I was in danger of either seeing a defenceless servant cut down, or being so dealt with myself in the effort to rescue him, by parties of drunken and ill-disposed officers, against which contingencies no precautionary measures whatever appear to be taken by the Government. When I state to your Lordship, therefore, that the first care of the foreign representatives is to secure their own lives, in other words, to make a residence in Yeddo tenable for diplomatic agents, I think it will be clear that I do not overestimate the importance of better means of protection being devised by the Japanese Government than they have hitherto seemed disposed to adopt, and not only to secure foreign representatives in the capital from violence, but the persons and property of foreigners at the port. These are the first conditions of any permanent relations, and these once secured, it will be more easy to devote an undivided attention to the removal of other evils and dangers, with which both the Government and the foreign Agents must successfully grapple, before any good or satisfactory results can be derived from the treaties.' (Parliamentary Papers, p. 79.)

But for this class of military retainers and Tycoon officials, high and low, both of which swarm in Yeddo, it seems it might be one of the pleasantest places of residence in the far East. The climate is superior to that of any other country east of the Cape. The capital itself, though spreading over a circuit of some twenty miles, with probably a couple of millions of inhabitants, can boast what no capital in Europe can,- the most charming rides beginning even in its heart, and extending in every direction over wooded hills, through smiling valleys and shady lanes fringed with evergreens and magnificent timber. Even in the city, especially along the ramparts of the official quarter, and in many woods and avenues leading thence to the country, broad green slopes, and temple gardens, or well-timbered parks gladden the eye as it is nowhere else gladdened within the circle of a city. No sooner is a suburb gained, in any direction, than hedgerows appear, which only England can rival either for beauty or neatness; while over all an eastern sun, through the greater part of the year, throws a flood of light from an unclouded sky, making the deepest shadow of the over-arching trees doubly grateful from its