SIB. FREDERICK TREVES had a right to expect that his
countrymen would wish to have his experiences and impres- sions of travel, and his expectation has been fulfilled. The Press has noticed his book with a promptitude and a fulness
which are, in themselves, the highest praise. The reader soon feels that this appreciation is just, so vivid are the pictures which the traveller draws for us, so penetrating his criticism of life and manners. We will frankly say that we should have been better pleased if he had omitted certain comments on British ways and manners, which may be true, but are certainly not kind, nor, as far as we can see, neces- sary. He paints, for instance, in very lurid colours the "Starting from Tilbury." Doubtless there was much folly, much bad taste, much of which yet harsher words might be used in the scene. When the steamer has just started the traveller sees a " middle-aged widow of lamentable aspect " trying to hide herself behind a pile of rusty boiler-plates while she takes her last look at the ship which is carrying her son to India. " The dear son at the moment is drinking whiskey and water in the second-class saloon. He has already confided to the acquaintance of an hour how much money has screwed out of the old mater.' " Did Sir Frederick see this scene "at the moment" when he also saw the widow? And if he did, was it so typical as to stand for an example of bow English sons part from their mothers ?
It may be said for every traveller that the countries which he sees are not exactly the same as were seen by those who have gone before him. This is eminently true of Japan, and
it is the chapters on Japan that we find the most interesting part of a highly interesting book. Not a few of previous visitors to the country have occupied many of their pages with the charms of the Japanese woman. She is certainly better known than any of her sisters of either the Far or the Near East. Sir Frederick Treves does not ignore her. There is, in particular, a most entertaining description of how a Japanese lady, apparently a grande dame, demeaned herself at the theatre, how she finished her toilet, "wiped her face in places with paper and applied powder when necessary," how she smoked three pipes, taking three whiffs at each, how she had first tea and then dinner, then for a while looked at the play, till her three-year-old baby, "as
radiant in colour as a tropical bird," was brought in, where- upon the play ceased to interest her. But commonly our traveller has more to say about the Japanese man. Here is a picture of the soldiers :—
" When the companies were disbanded for the day they strolled about the streets, or flocked around the humbler tea- houses. In physique they appeared to be splendid, while in the matter of cheerfulness they could not be surpassed. They behaved like a posse of school-boys out of school. They rehearsed items of drill in the street, drilled one another, pre- tended to engage in mortal combat, and filled not a few rickshaw coolies with panic by kneeling in the roadway as they advanced, and levelling rifles at them. They appeared to find soldiering a most excellent jest, which they appreciated with keenness and exuberant enjoyment. It is needless to say that there was an absence of that drunkenness which, in more countries than one, • The Other Side of the Lantern: an Account of a Commonplace Tour Bound the World. By Sir Frederick Troves, Bart., &C. V.°, C.B., LL.D. London Ceasoll and Co. [12e. net.] makes the surroundings of gallant men squalid and pitiable. I saw many regiments entrained for the front. There was much enthusiasm in these leave-takings, much cheering, much waving of paper flags. It was a little curious to see the sweetheart pressing upon her hero a bunch of flowers in place of the whiskey bottle, which to many is inseparable from the ceremony of seeing soldiers off. There was everywhere an absence of swagger and bravado. The enemy were spoken of neither in terms of hatred nor of contempt. The war, they said, was most regrettable ; and I never once congratulated a Japanese acquaintance upon a victory when he did not reply by expressing regret that so many Russian lives had been lost. This might have been mere politeness, and possibly a little insincere ; but, at least, it was not brutal."
A curious proof of the iron nerve which these gay and gallant little men possessed is given elsewhere. In the hospitals, when a patient is so ill that he must be left in absolute quiet, the bed is marked with a little red ball. Here the symbol, which is almost equivalent to a death-warrant, would be regarded with dismay. The Japanese patient is not in the least disturbed by it. And he has certainly the satisfaction of knowing that he is in the best of hands. Sir Frederick Treves—and there could not be a better judge— is loud in praise of Japanese doctors and nurses :—
" There is every probability that the Japanese school of sur- gery will become a great school, for the native of Japan has qualities which are excellent in the making of a surgeon : he is not troubled by ' nerves,' he is infinitely patient, fastidiously clean, as well as most neat and dexterous with his hands. More- over, he has a love of ritual as well as of precision in ritual, and in the prosecution of antiseptic surgery this counts for much. The Japanese are shrewdly observant, nimble of apprehension, receptive, and of large-minded and catholic views. It is said that they are neither logical nor profound. If this be true, they seem to have come to small ill from the lack of these qualities."
He was equally impressed with the efficiency of the Japanese trained nurse. It is not surprising, accordingly, that the hygienic results are moat satisfactory. " During six months of terrible fighting and exposure in a foreign country there was only a. fraction of 1 per cent. of loss from preventable disease." "In the Boer War," Sir Frederick goes on, "13,250 soldiers died of disease," and this, it might be added, though
the climate was, on the whole, more favourable to health than that of Manchuria can be said to be.
It would be easy to fill all our available space out of the chapters on Japan, but it is necessary to say something about other parts of the book. More than half is given to India, including Burmah and Ceylon. The chapter in which the traveller records his first impressions—summed up in the two phrases " teeming life," both of man and beast, and " intense colour "—is especially good. Here is one of the pictures :-
" A hard, azure sky against which stand out, keenly out, some cocoanut palms and a slate-coloured dome. The dome rises above a white wall which ends below in a dusty road. It is ever in India the white wall with the sun on it. In the wall are shops —square recesses where men squat as more patches of red and yellow, white and blue. An awning of brown matting, propped up by bamboos, takes a little from the bareness of the wall and shades the spots where the plaster has fallen away from the bricks. Crows glistening like beetles look down from the wall. The road is full of moving figures, lean and black-haired. The gaunt garments that are wrapped about them are of every colour in the world. A purple hood for the head and a scarlet gown, a bright green turban with an amber cloak, an orange-tinted tunic and a yellow scarf, a naked brown boy, and a man clothed all in white make up the ever-changing eddies of colour in the street. The light that boats upon all this is blinding, while the shadows by the walls are lit up with the gleam of brass vessels and the silver bangles on the women's feet."
For the most part the traveller limits himself to description, though he illustrates what he pictures with some vigorous sketches from history, as at Agra, where the Golden Pavilion and the Taj Mahal recall to his mind the rise and fall of the Mogul Empire, and the singularly interesting personalities of Babar the Lion and his descendants; and at Cawnpore and Lucknow, where the wells and the Residency suggest a tale of suffering and of heroism such as can scarcely be
matched in history. Sir Frederick compresses the story into a few vigorous pages, which the reader, however familiar with it, can hardly read without being moved to the heart.
From Lucknow the traveller made his way to Calcutta, which altogether failed to please him, and from Calcutta to Burmah, which seems to have more than made up for the disappointment. The praises that other wayfarers have showered on the Japanese woman Sir Frederick Treves gives to the "Ladies of Creation," the daughters of Burmah. He contrasts them, not a little to their advantage, with the fashionable dames of his own country, whom, we may guess, he has not forgiven for all the trouble they gave him in South Africa. Ceylon was almost as pleasing as Burmah. Professionally it interested him more, for he had the oppor- tunity of seeing exorcism applied to the treatment of disease. He gives a most vivid description of the scene, and ingeniously suggests that as each malady has its particular devil, the system " represents in an allegorical form the bacterial basis of disease, which is a leading feature of modern pathology." We are compelled to pass over the chapters given to China and to the route homewards from Japan. We should much like to know how the passages about President Roosevelt and Washington found their way into the pages (370 and 373-74) where they now stand. They are just what we should have expected to find, but they are a trifle out of place. We have to thank Sir Frederick Treves for a quite admirable volume of travel.
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