6o2 



NA TURE 



{April 2%, 1 88 1 



twenty years. In the narration of occurrences which 

 have compelled the foreign powers, and especially Great 

 Britain, to join issue with the Japanese Government Dr. 

 Rein displays an absence of partisanship quite novel to 

 those experienced in the discussion of Anglo-Japanese 

 politics. His review of the present position and future 

 prospects of the nation is thoughtfully cautious, and while 

 drawing attention to the recent educational studies and 

 the many wise acts of the present Government, shows a 

 dark reverse to the picture in the financial difficulties now 

 threatening serious obstruction to the path of improve- 

 ment. The question of the opening of new ports or of 

 the entire country to foreign enterprise and capital is also 

 considered, and the writer points out the deadlock 

 created on the one side by the great disadvantages which 

 the Japanese foresee in admitting to competition an 

 infinitely stronger commercial race, over whose actions 

 they can have no judicial control, and on the other by 

 the inexpediency, from the foreigners' point of view, of a 

 surrender of the treat>' rights while the laws and means 

 of administration in Japan are in so unsatisfactory a 

 condition as at the present time. 



In an interesting chapter upon the Ethnography of the 

 Japanese the author takes up the ve.\ed problem of the 

 origin of the now dominant race, who displaced the 

 aboriginal Ainos. He believes, from considerations of 

 speech, physiognomy, and traditions that they are a 

 branch of the old Altiic family, which spread from its 

 birthplace in all directions over the continent of Asia, 

 some reaching Japan vid Tsushima, Iki, and Oki, others 

 settling at various parts of the mainland to form the 

 Korean, Mandschurian, and other kindred people. In 

 this view he is supported to some extent by the 

 physiognomical identity with the Japanese of the yet 

 pure descendants of the Korean potters brought over as 

 trophies of Taiko's victorious arms at the end of the 

 sixteenth century, and established in the province of 

 Satsuma. Mr. Aston's researches into the comparative 

 philology of the Japanese and Korean languages [Trans. 

 Royal Asiatic Society, 1S79) tend to a similar conclusion, 

 but leave the question still open. 



The analyses of literature, language, and religion are 

 necessarily incomplete, but awaiting the further progress 

 of the labours of the scholars no .v engaged in the study 

 of these special branches, Dr. Rein's summary of the 

 present knowledge will be of great service. 



The author's views as to the character of the Japanese 

 as a race are neither romantically favourable, like those 

 of the great majority of travellers, nor unjustly contemp- 

 tuous, like the convictions cherished by nearly all settlers. 

 The national defects Dr. Rein considers to be a greed 

 for novelty and a lack of stability and perseverance ; but 

 although this verdict would appear to be sanctioned by 

 recent experience, the history of the country really points 

 to nothing less than instability. A blind admiration for 

 antiquity and a persevering if not energetic industry has 

 characterised nearl)- the whole of their older manufactures 

 and artistic productions, and the many centuries of per- 

 sistence in the path opened by their forefathers were 

 terminated only by a sudden change of circumstances, 

 and an entirely forced and unsought relationship with the 

 outer world. They are now learning an entirely new 

 exercise of their powers, and some clumsiness at the 



outset is inevitable, while the very impetuosity of their 

 progression necessarily brings their faults more easily 

 within the scope of a passing glance. They have now 

 bought experience, and until the world sees how they 

 can utilise their expensive purchase any judgment is 

 premature. They have indeed two serious drawbacks, 

 poverty of material resources, and a written language 

 that isolates them from the European world, and imposes 

 serious limitations upon the interchange of the higher 

 order of ideas amongst themselves ; but the present 

 generation can scarcely be blamed for either evil. If 

 there be a charge in the past and present to which they 

 are fairly open it is defect of invention, for as their recent 

 knowledge is taken from Europe, so in former times were 

 they indebted to the Asiatic continent for literature, arts, 

 religion, and laws, as well as for a thousand smaller 

 traits of civilisation, some of which they have preserved 

 longer or better than their teachers. 



Whatever dispraise is laid upon the people, nearly all 

 writers agree to credit them with remarkable cleanliness. 

 Miss Bird, however, who has studied Japan under a 

 new aspect, gives a different testimony as to the 

 interior, and the few travellers who have caught a 

 glimpse of the unbeaten tracks of the great cities might 

 make strange revelations. As the better class European 

 generally knows little or nothing of the secrets of his own 

 metropolitan slums, it is conceivable that a foreigner 

 living in Tokio may not be aware that it contains other 

 habitations than those he passes in the public thorough- 

 fares ; but were curiosity or chance to lead him to thread 

 some of the little, hardly noticeable, inlets which here and 

 there break the line of the street dwellings he would be 

 startled by the new world revealed to him — one where the 

 hundreds of thousands of poor of the great city live, 

 densely packed in filth and disease, in dilapidated dens 

 with crumbling walls and roofs that would render needless 

 the spell of Asmodeus to the Don Cleofas who cares to 

 peer at the miseries only half concealed by the long lines 

 of sheds, moated with foul stagnant drains, flanked by 

 reeking accumulations of sewage and garbage, and cut off 

 from ventilating breezes by the dwellings of the more 

 fortunate but less numerous citizens. Had Dr. Rein 

 extended his pilgrimage to the Uradaiia he would have 

 written a new and curious chapter. 



As regards bathing, it is certainly a common custom, 

 but with the poorer classes it is far less frequent than 

 travellers would lead us to believe. It is moreover not 

 so much dictated by any unconquerable intolerance of 

 dirt as by the combined attractions of warm water and 

 neighbourly gossip. Whatever purification may be de- 

 rived from the common use of a limited quantity of water 

 by several dozens of people, it is doubtful whether we 

 may not take as a set-off the odoriferous condition of the 

 unwashed winter garments which often do unrelieved 

 duty day and night for the whole season, and the very 

 scant attention that the native feels impelled to bestow 

 upon his hands and face in the intervals of his visits to 

 the bathing-house. These remarks however do not imply 

 that the working orders in Japan compare unfavourably 

 in respect to physical purity with their European brethren. 



The maps and illustrations are excellent in choice and 

 execution. One error must however be indicated in the 

 woodcut described as a " Rhi-kiu-Iiisiilandcr'," ^h\c)i is 



