these serene heights and in this glorious summer weather? How much better to lie supine beneath a spreading tree, or in the bottom of a softly cushioned sampan, and forget the distracted world! It is as easy and as satisfying to do nothing at Chiuzenji as on Venetian lagoons; and this is fortunate, since there is nothing to do, unless you care to try your hand at trolling for salmon or lake trout, with which these waters have been well stocked.

Lake Yumoto, 800 feet higher than and eight miles distant from Chiuzenji, is arrived at by a forest path, a bare, grassy plain, and a somewhat precip itous final ascent, down which a torrent dashes in successive cascades. The sulphur springs for which the village of Yumoto is celebrated announce themselves to the nose from afar. The public baths, which are as public as it is possible to be, inasmuch as they stand open to the adjoining road, are freely used by bathers of both sexes, who do not wear bathing-costumes. Honi soit qui mal y pense! It is a mere question of conventionality, and the Japanese, who see no reason for keeping their clothes on while washing themselves, are disagreeably impressed, it is said, by the garb which European ladies describe as full dress. The lake itself, set amid barren heights, is not unlike that of Chiuzenji, but is less smiling, somehow. One can readily believe that both Yumoto and Chiuzenji are liable to be transformed into swift, chilly dreariness by the heavy rains for which the district is, unfortunately, notorious.

But this summer of 1903, memorable for its inclemency all over the Western world, has been exceptionally fine in the Far East, and although clouds gather at sunrise and sunset about the summit of Nantaizan, they disperse in a few hours, leaving turquoise outlines to melt into a sky of sapphire or

a silvery moon to contemplate her image in the still mirror of the lake. What a joy it must be to forsake malarious seaboard cities and the weary routine of commercial life for this high, cool and restful retreat! Very likely the exiled British merchants, with their wives and children, do not even mind the bad weather (so reminiscent of sweet home) very much when it comes.

"The great pull of this place," remarks one of them, with unconscious pathos, "is there being so little about it to remind you that you are in Japan."

Little or nothing, it must be confessed, so long as you keep your back turned towards the modest village and the temple and the white-clad, strawhatted pilgrims, plodding steadily along through the dust. But this, whether "pull" or drawback, does not prevent Chiuzenji from being what he atrociously characterizes as a "beauty spot."

At Kobe, that busy, prosperous port on the Inland Sea, a great wrestling tournament has been appointed to take place, and spectators from every neighboring town and village have assembled to witness it, notwithstanding the appalling heat-which, for that matter, does not appal them in the least. They seem, indeed, impervious to all extremes of temperature, these remarkable people, who skip unhesitatingly into baths heated well-nigh to boiling-point and brave Arctic cold without wincing. Some six thousand of them are packed together now in the canvas-enclosed circus which is to be the scene of the coming encounters, and although the atmosphere is stifling, one cannot help noticing how much less offensive it is than would be the case in a European crowd of similar dimensions. The Japanese are, without doubt, the very cleanest people in the

world. Patient, too, and gayly goodhumored, as always, upon the very uncomfortable and perilously rickety tiers of planks which have been run up to accommodate them.

They are kept waiting a long time before a posse of dignitaries in antique costumes ascend the platform in the middle of the arena. These having seated themselves upon their heels, the wrestlers step forth by bands to do obeisance-big men, deep-chested, and possibly muscular, but so loaded with superfluous flesh that an English trainer would stare at them aghast. They do not, it appears, train at all in our sense of the term, but are, on the contrary, heavy feeders and deep drinkers. How, with such a system of preparation, they contrive to accomplish the feats which they are said to accomplish must remain one of the many mysteries of this land of contradictions. Naked to the waist and wearing gorgeously laced and embroidered aprons (the trophies, perhaps, of former victories?), they strut round the arena, bow profoundly again and again, and withdraw. Then two of them, stripped now to their loin-cloths, reappear, face one another, and the sport, one hopes, is about to begin.

But they are in no hurry to come to close quarters. They crouch down upon their haunches, eye to eye, but some distance apart, change their relative positions very slightly, make some half-feints, scratch up the sand, exactly like a pair of fighting cocks, retire, advance, retire once more, finally rise erect, and strut back to their seconds, who sprinkle them with water. Half-a-dozen times or more this performance, which may be highly skilful, but which is not a little comic to the uninitiated, is repeated, until on a sudden, like a lightning flash, they are locked together. The struggle, when at last it comes, is quite short. One of the combatants is forced beyond the

chalked line of the circle which surrounds the couple, and the bout is at an end. It is not necessary to throw your antagonist: all you have to do is to drive him, upright or prone, outside the boundary.

In the course of the numerous contests which follow there are a few rattling falls; but the length of time spent in preliminaries seems-at least to an ignorant onlooker-rather out of proportion to the brief excitement of the actual fray. The thing is almost as tedious to watch as first-class billiards. However, the temptation to scramble out, jump into a jinrikisha, and seek a breath of fresh air on the hillside must be resisted until the great event of the day, which is to bring together the champion of Kyoto and the champion of Osaka, has come off.

The champion of Kyoto is a huge. shapeless. mass of obesity, appears to be middle aged, and cannot, one would think by the look of him, be altogether sound in heart and lungs. Somebody shrilly asserts that he has never been beaten. Osaka's representative is sparer, younger, and more wiry. Evidently he has numerous adherents, and one unenlightened alien would be prepared to back him at even money if any takers were to be found. However, he scores nothing by the prompt vigor of his attack upon the fat man; for the latter catches his right arm below the wrist as in a vice, throws it up aloft, and so for an instant holds him in imminent peril of being thrown off his balance. Only for an instant, though. Osaka's long left arm winds itself round Kyoto's mountainous bulk and clutches the back of his loin-cloth; Kyoto's massive left encircles Osaka's ribs; the right arms of both remain upraised, rigid and motionless, while both pairs of legs, firmly planted upon the sand-strewn platform, but with starting muscles, resist the tremendous pressure which one divines rather than sees.

And thus, amidst breathless silence, they stand minute after minute, neither yielding by a hair's breadth, neither visibly distressed, although the sweat begins to run from their glistening bodies. What price Osaka? It looks as if, in a trial of strength so conditioned, sheer weight must end by telling. Presently the umpire, a quaint figure in gay kimono and silken haori, irresistibly reminiscent of an actor in The Mikado, rises and begins to prowl round the combatants with soft, catlike strides, fan in hand. After making the circuit of the ring perhaps half-a-dozen times, he taps one of the men on the shoulder with his fan, and immediately they fall apart. Time is up; the bout has ended in a draw.

During the rather protracted interval allowed for repose much excited chattering arises among the spectators, partisan feeling running high, no doubt; but there are no signs of loss of temper anywhere, and hushed expectation falls upon the assemblage once more when the rivals step forth to meet in a second essay. The umpire places them carefully on the precise spot and in precisely the same posture as when they were separated; which seems a little hard upon Osaka, who is somewhat at a disadvantage through his right arm being held, so to speak, in chancery. However, he has an air of confidence which should be reassuring to his friends, and one guesses, without quite knowing why, that he means to employ a more active system of tactics this time. Almost at once, indeed, he does something (exactly what he does only a quick and skilled eye could detect) which causes his colossal opponent to sway perceptibly. A swift change of grip follows; the Kyoto champion throws back one massive leg, then the other, yielding unmistakably, drawing nearer and nearer to the fatal chalk line. Now, friend Osaka, one last, supreme effort, and the day is

yours. But Osaka has shot his bolt. Very slowly he, in his turn, has to fall back and resign the inches that he has gained. And now, lo and behold! up flies his right arm as before, and the old position, from which neither competitor seems capable of shifting the other, is resumed. The umpire renews his stealthy, feline gyrations, bending double and flirting his fan; at length comes the tap on the shoulder which proclaims truce, and all is over. There is to be no third encounter; honors are divided; Kyoto and Osaka may retire to their respective borders with laurels undiminished, if unaugmented.

The result, to judge by the applause, gives general satisfaction. Bets, it must be assumed, are off; but were there any on? One likes to think not. Inveterate borrowers though the Japanese are, they have a discriminating gift, and if, in their keenness to grasp the kernel of Western civilization, they have sometimes assimilated too much of the husk, they have seldom been slow to discover and repair their error. May these wrestling contests, which seem to be their sole form of popular sport, remain for ever free from adjuncts which bid fair to degrade and destroy most forms of sport in certain other islands that we know of.

Here at last, in Kyoto, is a wet day. Last night there broke over the hillencircled, gray-roofed city a not unwelcome thunderstorm, accompanied by a veritable deluge, which has now dwindled to a steady, determined drizzle. Through the streets, ankle-deep in mud, splash pedestrians on high clogs, their garments wrapped tightly round their legs, their shoulders protected (more or less) by oil-paper rain-cloaks and flat umbrellas of the same material held above their heads. From the overhanging eaves and gutters streams

descend upon these last, which sometimes cause the bearers to stagger; all the swaying lanterns and signs which hang along and across the thoroughfares are woefully bedraggled, and as one pokes one's nose out between the leathern apron and the lowered hood of the jinrikisha, to see how other folk are getting on, one is strongly impressed with the idea that the use of paper is overdone in a climate liable to such visitations. On the other hand, it does not cost much to buy a new rain-cloak or a new umbrella, while, as for mud, the process of removing that from bare legs is swift and easy.

At all events, the bad weather does not seem to keep anybody at home, nor need it prevent the hooded, leatheraproned sightseer from letting himself be whisked about to the temples, monasteries, parks, and palaces in which the old capital is so rich. Of the former, perhaps the finest and most interesting are the Nishi Hongwanji and Higashi Hongwanji, which adjoin one another and are the headquarters of the wealthy Monto sect of Buddhists. Both are vast treasure-houses of lacquer, bronze, painted screens, and jewelled altars. In the neighboring monastery, divided by sliding panels, are the usual long suites of empty rooms with polished floors, immaculate matting, coffered ceilings, and wallpaintings on paper, which are but dimly visible on this cloudy day. The cornices of carved wood, representing birds and flowers, are some of them more than a foot thick, and, although pierced, have designs ingeniously differing on the one side from those on the other. What time and patience must have been expended upon thinking them out! The Nishi is called the Mikado's temple, the Higashi that of the people-no misnomer, seeing that it has been rebuilt entirely by popular subscriptions since it was burnt down forty years ago. . The total cost is said

to have been a million yen (about 100, 0007.), and it is fully equal to its neighbor both in architectural design and in elaborate ornamentation; which does not look as though either Japanese faith or Japanese art were on the wane.

Is Japanese art doomed to perish? In a pictorial sense it is already dead -never, perhaps, despite its charm of dexterity, poetry, and color, possessed the elements of permanence or growth. But is it the case that the beautiful painstaking work in porcelain, lacquer, bronze, ivory, and enamel, which to most of us represents what is really glorious in the art of Japan, must cease to be produced under the changed conditions of to-day? Unfortunately, a high authority, the author of Things Japanese, seems to think so. He points out-quite truly, of coursethat under the old régime the Japanese ceramists, lacquerers, workers in metal and enamel, were not hirelings, but artists and clansmen, faithful to their feudal chief. "By him they were fed; for him and for the love of their art they worked . . . time was no object

...

there was no public of mediocre taste to cater for . . . the art was perfectly and essentially aristocratic.” Hence he concludes that "it is a mere piece of amiable optimism to suppose that such a tradition can be kept up in the days which have produced that frightful, but aptly descriptive term, 'art manufacture.'"

It may nevertheless be permissible, with all proper deference, to take a more sanguine view. Shoguns and daimyos have passed away; but the old artistic spirit remains among a people who have changed their laws, their customs, and, in some degree, their dress, but who have not changed-indeed, could not change-their national character. Here, to-day, in Kyoto, Namikawa is polishing in his little workshop pieces of cloisonné as charming in design and coloring, as perfect

in finish, as any that have ever seen the light of his native land. Another artist of the same name at Tokyo, who works in a different and, as some people think, an inferior style-but it is a matter of opinion-has more orders than he can execute. At Nagoya, too, whence comes a third form of cloisonné, applied to silver, with the cloisons generally invisible, Kumeno and others are assiduously carrying on the difficult, minute handicraft. These enamellers are enthusiastic, and are not greedy. Although they work hard, their annual output is small, for in the repeated processes of baking which are required many pieces are destroyed. Consequently their wares are expen

sive. They do not make large fortunes. Doubtless they might, if they cared to turn out rubbish in profusion; doubtless rubbish is turned out in profusion and fortunes are made. But that matters little so long as what is honestly good and enduring is not choked out of existence. Why, after all, should it be? Given the survival and vitality of the artistic spirit (which must surely be conceded), given a sufficient number of purchasers, native or foreign, to provide the craftsman with a living wage, and it does not seem so desperately optimistic to believe that what has been will continue to be. Hope, moreover, is fortified when one remembers that a very large proportion of the so-called "old" Japanese porcelain, lacquer, metalwork, and enamelling is not in reality old at all. The finest examples of the microscopically ornate Satsuma ware, for instance, were painted little more than half a century ago, while cloisonné work was brought to its present pitch of perfection long after Commodore Perry, cruising in Far Eastern waters, brought up off Yedo to mention to those whom it might concern that feudalism was out of date. Lacquering, though a very ancient craft, has had quite recent tri

umphs, which connoisseurs pronounce on a level with those of the best periods, and nothing in the past can exceed for beauty the embroideries, brocades, painted silks, and cut velvets of to-day.

Let it be frankly admitted, all the same, that the actual aspect of Japanese towns is not of a nature to reassure æsthetic persons. It is difficult to understand how or why an art-loving race has endured such hideous disfigurement of its streets. Streets, too, in which fires have ever been so common and so easily kindled! In Kyoto, the home and symbol of old Japan, the capital of many generations of dignified, powerless Mikados, the eye is less distressed than elsewhere by monstrous, inappropriate modern constructions; yet even in Kyoto, alas! are tramcars, electric lights, aggressive telegraph-posts and wires. Indispensable though these accompaniments of twentieth-century life may be, one cannot help feeling that if they are to prevail urban picturesqueness must go, and with it by degrees that appreciation of what is fitting and picturesque which constitutes what we call good taste. One remembers certain European cities once renowned for their beauty and distinction, and one knows of what their municipal authorities have been capable in these latter days.

The end, in any case, is not yet. For many years to come, in all probability, the traveller who knows what to avoid will be able to wander about all day long among the temples and palaces, the hills and gardens of widespread, gray-tiled Kyoto without meeting a solitary European or running against a single telegraph-post. Temples and pagodas innumerable; quaint, stiff gardens, recalling the tea ceremonies of a bygone period; vast, scrupulously dusted, vacant palaces-all these, unchanged and unchanging, breathe a gentle defiance to time. If the Imperial