SIR EDWIN ARNOLD'S "SEAS AND LANDS."* THE " seas "

do not occupy much space in Sir Edwin Arnold's book. He gives fifteen pages to the passage from Liverpool to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sixteen to the voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama, and not quite twenty to the home- ward journey, yid, Hong Kong, Singapore, Penang, and Colombo. Of lands, he tells us something about Canada and the United States ; but the real subject of his book is Japan. Here he made a sojourn of more than a year. Of it he gives a description so attractive, that it is impossible not to begin thinking whether we too cannot exchange the gloom of Eng- lish skies and the cold reserve of English manners, for the lightness and kindly freedom of the Sun-Land.

Sir Edwin chose for his outward voyage the Canadian route, and describes with enthusiasm the scenery of the St. Lawrence, though he would seem to have been troubled by the signs of "priestly domination" which he discerned—how, we cannot exactly say, except from the cottages being of " one insigni-

• Sews and Lands. By Sir gdwin Arnold. London; Longmans. 1891.

ficant and submissive pattern "—amidst the many " solid tokens of well-being and social tranquillity." A chapter is given to the Canadian capital, and another to Niagara, in the course of which the author takes occasion to give some kindly criticism of Canadian verse-writers. There is a good descrip- tion of Washington ; and Sir Edwin, who has not yet shaken off the " editor," has some judicious things to say about American affairs, especially about the Supreme Court, a great institution without which, as he would remind our new Con- stitution-mongers, no Federal Government can possibly work. The chief incident of a visit to Philadelphia he finds in an interview with Walt Whitman, on whom he bestows encomiums that will take away the breath of all sober readers. " A most musical and majestic style," the "finest and most daring ranges of thought," "a singer nobly and perfectly native to the New World," "a poet-philosopher" than whom "no one has ever proclaimed loftier veracities of life and re- ligion,"—these are some of Sir Edwin's praises. He records no very remarkable utterance of the great man, except it be that, when asked whether he thought that American children respected and obeyed their parents sufficiently, he replied : " Your Old World has been soaked and saturated in reverentiality. We are laying here in America the basements

and foundation-rooms of a new era By-and-by, when that job is through, we will look after the steeples and pinnacles." Of course the Fifth Commandment is an Old-World affair, and Mr. Walt Whitman would doubtless apply to it the words of a famous compatriot : " They didn't know everythin' down in Jndee." A pleasant chapter is given to Boston, and another to Harvard. The author tells us that he had the honour of lecturing before the University, and informed it, not having, it would seem, the fear of Professor Freeman before his eyes, that " his own particular College was founded by King Alfred the Great." But then, there is an irresistible temptation to an Englishman, overwhelmed by the bigness of things American, to brag a little about the antiquity of things English.

When we come to Japan, we have nothing further to criticise. The author would allow, of course, that he has described only one aspect of the life, that here as elsewhere there is a seamy side. Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, to whose knowledge of the country, its people and language, Sir Edwin pays a well- deserved tribute, quotes, in his Things Japanese, a number of conflicting opinions on the real character of the people— as to the charm of their manners, all are agreed—while he declines, with a reserve which is not reassuring, to give any opinion of his own. Sir Edwin Arnold does not so much controvert adverse judgments as ignore them. Courteous, kindly, contented, philosophical, happy, the Japanese, as they appear in his pages, are an ideal people to live among. Even an earthquake gives to the unconquerable cheerfulness of the delighted guest excitement rather than alarm. " It imparted a feeling of pleasure rather than apprehension to realise that the planet itself was also quick and active, full of secret developments and hidden evolutions, shaping itself for fate's destinies with these throes and soft mysterious up- heavals." This is very pretty, and pleasant to read—say, in Fleet Street ; but Sir Edwin himself, when he recalls that in 1855 one hundred thousand lives were lost—a dismal ex- perience almost repeated within the last few months—is fain to say that " decidedly one would prefer these interesting phenomena on a smaller scale." The cholera—which, though not endemic in Japan, is a pretty frequent visitor, imported from infected ports in the East—is another gloomy topic on which our author feels constrained to touch. But he finds consolation,—first in the intelligence and firmness shown by the Government in their method of dealing with the plague, and next in the courage and resignation of the people. And, indeed, the patience and dignity with which they bear the calamity does afford a striking contrast with the blind panic, the frantic suspicions, which are characteristic of some of the populations of Southern Europe under the same visitation.

It is not easy to choose specimens of Sir Edwin Arnold's descriptions of Japanese men (women being not by any means forgotten) and Japanese manners. There is no fine-writing, no purple patches, but a fine uniform glow of singularly attractive colour. Here is a picture of the unfailing courtesy with which the stranger is received :— " Returning from that long journey into the interior, and from wandering about the hills and valleys of the Nikko-zan, the strongest impression left is of the invariable gentleness and

courtesy of this people. With the restless curiosity of our kind, we have gone into temples, cemeteries, shrines, teahouses, native hotels, private residences, farmyards, rice-mills, and bathing- places—encountering nowhere the smallest deviation from the soft and pleasant manners already noted. It would be absurd to think that the foreign element can be particularly welcome in a

land so intensely patriotic and peculiar, where the best-informed stranger constantly violates the proprieties of Japanese speech and customs, and where the most considerate must be often rather a nuisance than otherwise. But—whether it be due to the humanising influence of Buddhism, or to the happy mixture in Japanese veins of the good-humoured Mongolian blood with the subtle and grace- ful Malay nature—on all sides and in all places the well-conducted traveller in Japan meets with the same douceur inalterable of behaviour. As you pass through the villages lining the high road, the little ones, waddling about on wooden pattens, with their smaller brothers and sisters strapped upon their backs, wag their shaven heads and bend low—shaking the baby altogether out of position—uttering cheerful and friendly Mayes ! The very baby, if he can say anything at all, blinks with his tiny almond eyes, and nods his small poll, and babbles 'Hap ! hap r to the passing wayfarer. At the tea-houses, when all is paid, and there is nothing more to expect, the girls will offer the departing guest a bunch of chrysanthemums, or a red or white camellia, and to whatever expressions of thanks you employ the pretty answer is, What have I done ?' (' D8 itashinutshita? If you ask the way, your guide for the time being will almost rather let you take the wrong turning in a forest path than walk before you. You are led into awful mistakes and mutual misapprehensions by the Japanese habit of never contradicting. They answer Yes' to almost everything, and the mummies in particular softly murmur 'Hi ! Hi ! Hi!' all the time you are giving orders or asking ques- tions. If they have anything to say longer than a word or two off goes the hat, and the hands are laid on the bended knees by the men, while the women slide down upon their heels, and smooth their kimono over their laps, and so continue the august com- munication.' Faces plain and sad and toil-worn you may meet, and faces inquisitive, indifferent, or unintelligent. But these are rare even amongst the males, while among the females the young have almost always bright and kindly looks, and the old a sweet serenity of expression, as if they were sure, as they are, of respect and affection."

The perplexing habit of never contradicting reminds one of a similar characteristic amongst the Scotch Highlanders, who have a curious way of answering questions in the way that they think the questioner would like them to be answered.

Our author's opinion of Japanese art is noteworthy :—

" I should be inclined to declare the supremacy of Japanese art most assured in wood, ivory, and panel carving. Certainly there is nothing known to me in Europe, from the masterpieces of Grinling Gibbons down to the best things in modern churches and mansions, to come near what superior Japanese workmen can achieve. Their ivory Netsukis are well enough known, but you must still come to Japan to see the best and finest. These little articles—cut out of any scrap of elephant tusk on hand—are used as toggles or studs wherewith to suspend from the girdle the purse, the tobacco-pipe, or the doctor's case of medicines. With incredible patience, with instinctive skill, and nicest observation of Nature, the craftsman not only produces by manual use of the file, graver, and drill, the perfect if grotesque object intended, and finishes it off in all its hidden corners, with a scrupulous con- scientiousness, but obtains also by dexterous superficial lines and marks, the exact texture of the skin, or hair, or feather to be indicated?'

But in the higher walks of art they are, so to speak, nowhere.

Among the chapters dealing with more serious topics, we may mention that on " Japan and Foreign Powers," where Sir Edwin discusses the very grave difficulty in which the rela- tions of the country to foreign residents are involved. These are at present, for the most part, subject to no law, either native or foreign, and the Japanese Government has therefore to exercise a rigid supervision over their movements. It was only by a polite fiction that our author was permitted to reside in the capital. He was supposed to be tutor to his landlord's family 1 Another interesting chapter is that of "The First Asiatic Parliament," with the text of the Mikado's opening

speech.

The copious illustrations, for the most part taken from photographs, must not be forgotten when we thank Sir Edwin Arnold for this most interesting volume.