1894.] ESSAYS. 63 



of Cambridge, and the condition of the plants is most creditable to 

 his skill. Mr. Hovey took me to Los Angeles, a more southern point, 

 where palms are permanently grown in the open air, I saw them 

 twenty to thirty feet high, and Araucarias thirty to forty feet high, a 

 novel and pleasing sight. 



I reached Chicago again Dec. 20, and came home direct, arriving in 

 a snowstorm, which was in chilling contrast with the tropical climate 

 and weather of California, so recently enjoyed. 



Japan is a paradise for travellers ; there every one has opportunity 

 to practise the lost art of politeness. Civility is a common virtue, 

 even among the lower classes. I mastered enough of the language in 

 five daj's to get along fairly well. The guide books are excellent, 

 and the rikisha men are intelligent and faithful attendants. The 

 women are exceedingly submissive, attentive to your wants and 

 pleasing in manner. They are shy, demure little dolls and always 

 seem happy. They are good housewives. I was invited to take tea 

 with several Europeans who have taken Japanese wives ; in each case 

 I found the children were well educated in English and music, and 

 the mothers very accomplished. The home is very sacred in Japan. 

 You can visit a residence, go into certain rooms, but the inner sanctu- 

 ary you cannot enter. 



In Yokohama there are about 6,000 Europeans, many of whom 

 have married native women. The theatres of Tokio are grand. I 

 was surprised by the size and beauty of the Imperial Opera House, 

 and as much pleased with the music and dancing. Japanese gardens 

 are the most fairy-like places. You see in them tiny trees and flower- 

 ing plants, ponds, bridges, summer-houses, lanterns ; here, dwarf 

 pines six or eight inches high, but 125 years old ; there, others one 

 foot high, but 500 years old. In the garden of Yeiju-iu — within the 

 temple grounds — there are many pieouy plants, mostly old, but one is 

 100 years old, and is eight feet high — quite a tree. Most of the soil 

 of Japan is a rich peaty loam ; this is interspersed with a yellow light 

 clayey soil. Both are extremely fertile, and in each there seems to be 

 planted that which is peculiar to that soil. The fertilizer most used 

 is rice straw, cut into small pieces, as with a hay cutter. But culti- 

 vators depend mostly upon irrigation from the rivers, and most care- 

 ful cultivation ; not a weed nor a waste piece of land will be seen in 

 a long railroad journey. The farmer utilizes every bit of land he 

 possesses. But farm tools are very crude. The bog-hoe is the chief 

 tool used ; occasionally a black bull may be seen hitched to what is 

 called a plough, but the implement is so small it looks like a toy. 



