Jr. John Fox

“ Talienwan—a thin curve of low gray stone buildings, hugging the sweep of the bay, spread the welcome that the officer of that port came to speak in English—and we landed among carts, Chinese coolies, Japanese soldiers, Chinese wagons, mules, donkeys, horses, ponies, squealing stallions, ammunition, a medley of human cries. The bustle was terrific. A man must look out for himself in that apparent confusion. ”

“ As far as I can make out at long distance, the Japanese army and the individual Japanese soldier seem the best in the world: the soldier for the reason that he cares no more for death than the average [pg 158] Occidental for an afternoon nap—the army for the reason that the Buschido spirit—feudal fealty—having been transferred from Daimio and Samurai to Colonel and General—gives it a discipline that seems perfect. Imagine an army without stragglers or camp-followers, in which one man is as good as another and all boast of but one thing—a willingness to die. ”

“ III LINGERING IN TOKIO
I might as well confess, I suppose, that these "Hardships of the Campaign," pleasant as they are, ecstatic as they might be to an untroubled mind, constitute a bluff pure and simple. Here goes another, but it shall be my last, and I shall write no more until the needle of my compass points to Manchuria. A month ago the first column got away when the land was lit with the glory of cherry-blossoms. We have been leaving every week since—next week we leave again. One man among us now calls himself a cherry-blossom correspondent. ”

“ Through the stamping grounds of Wister's "Virginian" and other men of fact and fiction in the West, the trail led—through barren wastes with nothing alive in sight except an occasional flock of gray, starved sheep with a lonely herder and his sheep-dog watching us pass, while a blue-eyed frontiersman gave me more reasons for race arrogance with his tales of Western ethics in the old days: How men trusted each other and were not deceived in friendship and in trade; how they sacrificed themselves for each other without regret, and no wish for reward, and honored and protected women always. ”

“ The soldier at the front or on the seas will give no better account of himself than the man, woman, or child who is left at home, and a national spirit like this is too beautiful to be lost.
Here forks the trail of the Saxon. One branch goes straight to the Philippines. The other splits here into a thousand tiny paths—where railway coach has supplanted the palanquin, battle-ship the war-junk, electricity the pictured lantern; where factory chimneys smoke and the Japanese seems prouder of his commerce than of his art and his exquisite manners ”

“ From Yokohama the little coaches start slowly for the country—so slowly that, like Artemus Ward, you wonder if it wouldn't be wise sometimes to put the cow-catcher on behind. There is the charm of thatched cottage, green squares of wind-shaken barley, long waving grass and little hills, pine-crowned; but by and by your heart gets wrung with sympathy for Mother Nature. Every blade of grass, every rush, every little tree seems to have been let grow only through human sufferance. ”

“ It looks as though for the first time in history the fanatical spirit of the Mussulman who believed that he would step, at death, from the battle-field into Paradise, was directed by an acute and world-trained intelligence. As to the soldier, the pivotal point of effectiveness seems to be this: an Occidental and a Japanese quarrel, and they step outside to settle matters. The Occidental thinks not only of killing the Japanese, but of getting out alive. His energies are divided, his concentration of purpose suffers. ”

“ Hundreds of coolies are squatting along the railroad track. In front of us a group of Japanese soldiers has stood for five minutes staring at us with the frank curiosity of children. They began to move away when I pulled this note-book. Leaning against the tallest telegraph-pole, with hands bound behind him, his pigtail tied to a thick wire twice twisted, stands a miserable Chinese coolie. An hour ago I saw him on his knees across the track, held down by four men, while the littlest Japanese soldier in the group beat him heavily with a stick much thicker than the thumb. ”

“ Without flies, fleas, mosquitoes, or scorpions, we slept when and where we pleased and as long as we pleased. Once more we wore the white man's clothes and ate his food and drank his drink, and were happy. In the afternoon we passed for miles through the scattered cargoes of Chinese junks that had been destroyed by the Japanese while on their way to supply the Russians at Port Arthur, and that night we saw the flash of big guns as once more we swept near the fortress we had hoped to see. ”

“ These were the men who thought they were going to Port Arthur and who, with the sound [pg 105] of the big guns at that fortress growing fainter behind them, struck Oku's trail, up through a rolling valley that was bordered by two blue volcanic mountain chains. The sky was cloudless and the sun was hot. The roads were as bad as roads would likely be after 4,000 years of travel and 4,000 years of neglect, but the wonder was that, after the Russian army had tramped them twice and the Japanese army had tramped them once, they were not worse. ”

“ The eye alone gives pleasure—to the color-loving, picture-loving brain—delight unmeasurable: but the eye does not understand. The ear hears strange new calls and sounds—unmusical except in the xylophonic click of wooden getas, the plaintive cry of the blind masseur, and in the national anthem, which is moving beyond words; and the ear, too, does not understand. But the nose—"that despised poet of the senses"—his faculty holds firm the world over. In Tokio he puts on sable trappings at sunset that would gloom the dark hour before dawn. ”

“ Wong had caught the military salute from the Japanese soldiers, and every morning, when he came in, he would go around to each of us in turn, clicking his heels, hand at his forehead, and always with that radiant smile flashing from his gentle eyes and his beautiful teeth. The Irishman always slept late. ”

“ There was no response.
"Then I'll call you both," said Davis, and that wayward animal was Williams and Walker through the campaign. A double name was never more appropriate, for a flagrant double life was his. There was Bill the Brill of the gentle heart, on a nice chestnut; Burleigh, the veteran, on a wretched beast that was equally dangerous at either end; Lionel James with cart and coolies of his own, and the Italian on a handsome iron-gray. ”

“ From Takeuchi I have learned much about Japanese character, especially about the Buschido spirit—the fealty of Samurai to Daimio, of retainer to Samurai, of servant to master. It is useless to be harsh with or to scold a Japanese servant. Just make your appeal to that traditional spirit of loyalty and all will be better—if not well. He may rob you himself in the way of traditional commissions, but you can be sure that he will allow the same [pg 91] privilege to nobody else. But of Takeuchi—as of Fuji—more anon. ”

“ O-kin-san's people lost their money once, and she opened the tea-house, as the American girl under similar circumstances would have taken to the typewriter and the stenographer's pen. The house has a year of life for almost every one of the steps that mount to it, which is ancient life for Japan, where fires make an infant life of three years for the average Japanese home. The tea-girls are O-kin-san's own kin. Everything under her roof is blameless, and the women of any home in any land can be taken there fearlessly. ”

“ And, among the new types one sees in Tokio to-day, the dapper men in European clothes about the clubs and hotels, the statesmen in high hats and frock-suits, the half-modernized class, who wear derby hats and mackintoshes with fur collars and show their legs naked to the knee when they step from a rickshaw—the most interesting and significant is the Tokio University student you see lilting on his getas through the public gardens. ”

“ Before I learned that the Mikado had sent a general edict through the land that all foreigners in Japan were to be treated with particular consideration while this war is going on—thus making it safer for the tourist now in this country than it ever has been or will be, perhaps, for a long time—I had been greatly [pg 44] impressed by the absence of all signs of disorder, street quarrels, loud talking, and by the fact that in Tokio, one of the largest cities in the world, one could go about day or night in perfect safety. I told this to the Maid of Miyanoshita. ”

“ I have eaten a Japanese dinner at the Maple Club, while Geishas and dancing-girls held fast the wondering Occidental eye; have heard, there, American college songs sung by Japanese statesmen, and have joined hands with them in a swaying performance of "Auld Lang Syne." I have seen wrestling matches that looked at first sight like two fat ladies trying to push each other out of a ring—but which was much more. ”

“ He has an intelligent face, looks you straight in the eye, is agile as a panther, and as tall, I believe, as the average college student. [pg 61] I suppose the emperor issued an edict that his people should grow taller and if he did—they will. But these students—one can't help wondering what, when they grow up, they will do for Japan and to the rest of the East.
With bird-like cries the rickshaw men turn under an arched gateway into a little court-yard paved with stones. The wheels rattle as in a hollow vault and come to a sudden halt. ”

“ But there is no charm here as there is everywhere in Nature and Man in Japan. Besides the Chinese, here at least, are filthy in person and in their homes—the smell of the Chinaman is positively acrid—while the Japanese are beyond doubt the very cleanliest people in the world. I wish I could see for myself what they really are in battle. ”

“ There was not a man who had not long dreamed of that grim easternmost symbol of Russian aggression, and each man knew that no matter what might happen on land, Port Arthur held place and would hold place for dramatic interest in the eyes of the world. ”

“ In a tea-house I saw an old woman with blackened teeth, a servant, who bore herself proudly, and who, too, was honored because she had sent four sons to the Yalu. Hundreds [pg 15] and thousands of families are denying themselves one meal a day that they may give more to their country. And one rich merchant, who has already given 100,000 yen, has himself cut off one meal, and declares that he will if necessary live on one the rest of his life for the sake of Japan. ”

“ One day a sampan, with a very old man and a young one aboard, made fast to the gangway. They had fish to sell, and during the haggling that followed, a Japanese sprang aboard, dropped a coin or two, picked up the fish, and tried to cast the sampan away—the Chinamen sputtering voluble but feeble protests meanwhile. In the confusion, the stern of the sampan struck a ship's boat that was swinging on a long hawser from the same gangway, the bow of it struck the ship's side, and the racing tide did the rest. ”

“ We had a shock and a thrill to-day—Brill, Lewis, Davis, and I. It was noon, and while we sat on a low stone wall in a grassy grove, a few carts filled with wounded Japanese passed slowly by. In one cart sat a man in a red shirt, with a white handkerchief tied over his head and under his chin. Facing him was a bearded Japanese with a musket between his knees. The man in the red shirt wearily turned his face. ”