.994 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



stones, if the moss and lichens, which completely hid them, could be removed. 

 .Thither Taro hied, and, after a long search, found the tomb of his parents. A cold 

 shiver ran through him; his teeth, one by one, dropped from his mouth; his limbs 

 stiffened, and his face wrinkled. The weight of four centuries was upon him he 

 died. The fishermen in various parts of Japan worship the memory of this good 

 boy, Taro, who, even in the palace of the sea gods, forgot not his old parents. (The 

 Mikado's Empire, p. 498.) In those days the jelly-fish which is now a simple 

 lump of jelly as white and as helpless as a pudding was a lordly fellow, who waited 

 upon the Queen of the World under the Sea, and right proud he was of his office. 

 He would get his back up and keep it up high when he wished. He was on good 

 terms with the king's dragon, which often allowed him to play with his scaly tail 

 and never hurt him in the least. But, alas! by betraying the Queen's confidence on 

 a certain occasion he was condemned to lose his shell and was afterwards to float help- 

 lessly and ashamed. Their children also were ever to be soft and defenseless. Ban- 

 ished from the Queen's province, the jelly-fish blushed in confusion, and, squeezing 

 himself out of his shell,, he swam out of- sight. (Japanese Fairy World, p. 141. ) 



No. 35. Carpenter with his adze. 



No. 36. Old man and boy, sheltered from the storm by a palm. 



No. 37. Daikoku. (A small ivory figure with a dragon on its back.) A long while 

 ago, when the Japanese first became Buddhists, they continued to burn incense to 

 Daikoku, because he was the patron of wealth. The Buddhist idols took exception 

 to this, and determined to get rid of him. They sent a dragon to destroy him, but 

 Daikoku clung fast to his money bags, and only laughed at the dragon and all efforts 

 to destroy him. At last he shook him off, and sent him away howling. 



The dragon. Chief among the ideal creatures of Japan is the dragon. It is seen 

 carved upon the tombs, on the temples, dwellings, and shops. It appears upon the 

 government documents, on their paper money, stamped upon their coins, carved in 

 bronze, in wood, in ivory, and glares upon you from their pictures. There are many 

 kinds of dragons, such as the violet, the green, the red, the white, the black, and 

 the flying dragon. Some are scaly, some horned, all hideous the more so the better. 

 When the white dragon breathes, the breath of his lungs goes into the earth and 

 turns to gold. When the violet dragon spits, his spittle becomes balls of pure crystal. 

 One delights to kill human beings. One causes floods and storms. The fire dragon 

 is only 7 feet long, but its body is all flame. (The Mikado's Empire, p. 478.) 



No. 38. Finely wrought group, representing the goat tamer with his little boy. 



In case No. 87 will also be found a choice collection of Somali but rare specimens of 

 carving in bronze. They are all antiques. They are numbered from 39 to 67, 

 inclusive. 



These exquisite specimens of the carver's art are called Netsuke. They are all 

 drilled with two holes in the back, through which silken cords (holding pipe, tobacco 

 pouch, and the smoker's outfit) are run; and the ivory button thrust through the 

 girdle holds the smoker's kit easily. In every sense, these ivory toggles are fine illus- 

 trations of Japanese decorative art. 



No. 68. A case containing a collection of Japanese coins. These were secured only 

 after several years' persevering labor. No attempts at preserving the corns of the 

 country had been made, and those were found here and there among the old curio 

 hunters, assisted by the obliging managers of the Oriental Bank, and Mitsui, the 

 great Japanese banker. Some date" from the sixteenth century, others from the four- 

 teenth, and exhibit the early attempts of the Japanese to convert their bullion into 

 convenient forms for circulation, and show their gradual advancement to the beauti- 

 ful milled coinage of the present day. 



Nos. 72 and 73 are two albums, bearing the Tycoon's crest. They were taken from 

 his private collection. They were originally intended for the preservation of auto- 

 graph verses of their most renowned poets, of which some twenty or more specimens 



