Peeps at Many Lands: Japan | Page 2

been disbanded, and Japan is ruled and managed just like a
European country, with judges, and policemen, and law-courts, after
the model of Western lands.
When the Japanese decided to come out and take their place among the
great nations of the world, they did not adopt any half-measures; they
simply came out once and for all. They threw themselves into the
stream of modern inventions and movements with a will. They have
built railways and set up telegraph and telephone lines. They have
erected banks and warehouses, mills and factories. They have built
bridges and improved roads. They have law-courts and a Parliament, to
which the members are elected by the people, and newspapers flourish
everywhere.
Japan is a very beautiful country. It is full of fine mountains, with
rivers leaping down the steep slopes and dashing over the rocks in
snowy waterfalls. At the foot of the hills are rich plains and valleys,
well watered by the streams which rush down from the hills. But the
mountains are so many and the plains are so few that only a small part
of the land can be used for growing crops, and this makes Japan poor.
Its climate is not unlike ours in Great Britain, but the summer is hotter,
and the winter is in some parts very cold. Many of the mountains are
volcanoes. Some of these are still active, and earthquakes often take
place. Sometimes these earthquakes do terrible harm. The great
earthquake of 1871 killed 10,000 people, injured 20,000, and destroyed
130,000 houses.
The highest mountain of Japan also is the most beautiful, and it is
greatly beloved by the Japanese, who regard it as a sacred height. Its

name is Fujisan, or Fusi-Yama, and it stands near the sea and the
capital city of Tokyo. It is of most beautiful shape, an almost perfect
cone, and it springs nearly 13,000 feet into the air. From the sea it
forms a most superb and majestic sight. Long before a glimpse can be
caught of the shore and the city, the traveller sees the lofty peak,
crowned with a glittering crest of snow, rising in lonely majesty, with
no hint of the land on which it rests. The Japanese have a great love of
natural beauty, and they adore Fujisan. Their artists are never tired of
painting it, and pictures of it are to be found in the most distant parts of
the land.

CHAPTER II
BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN
In no country in the world do children have a happier childhood than in
Japan. Their parents are devoted to them, and the children are always
good. This seems a great deal to say, but it is quite true. Japanese boys
and girls behave as quietly and with as much composure as grown-up
men and women. From the first moment that it can understand anything,
a Japanese baby is taught to control its feelings. If it is in pain or sad, it
is not to cry or to pull an ugly face; that would not be nice for other
people to hear or see. If it is very merry or happy, it is not to laugh too
loudly or to make too much noise; that would be vulgar. So the
Japanese boy or girl grows up very quiet, very gentle, and very polite,
with a smile for everything and everybody.
While they are little they have plenty of play and fun when they are not
in school. In both towns and villages the streets are the playground, and
here they play ball, or battledore and shuttlecock, or fly kites.
Almost every little girl has a baby brother or sister strapped on her back,
for babies are never carried in the arms in Japan except by the nurses of
very wealthy people. The baby is fastened on its mother's or its sister's
shoulders by a shawl, and that serves it for both cot and cradle. The
little girl does not lose a single scrap of her play because of the baby.

She runs here and there, striking with her battledore, or racing after her
friends, and the baby swings to and fro on her shoulders, its little head
wobbling from side to side as if it were going to tumble off. But it is
perfectly content, and either watches the game with its sharp little black
eyes, or goes calmly off to sleep.
In the form of their dress both boys and girls appear alike, and, more
than that, they are dressed exactly like their parents. There is no child's
dress in Japan. The garments are smaller, to fit the small wearers--that
is all.
The main article of dress is a loose gown, called a kimono. Under the
outer kimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are