Letters of Gilbert Little Stark : July 23,1907-March 12, 1908

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

II. China ..... no

III. Diary of the Mongolian Trip . •145

Chapter I Japan

S. S. Shinano Maru, July 23, 1907.

Dear Family, — To-day we are three quarters of the way to Japan. A map of the world hangs where I can see it as I write, and the red line which traces our course has crawled slowly past the Aleutian Islands that hang like a hammock between the oldest and the newest continents, almost to Kamschatka — sounds like the farthest end of the world, does n't it ? — and now we are pointing straight towards Hokkaido — the northern island of Japan. When I look at the end of this red line and think that I am there, and then look at the other edge of North America and think how far off you are — but I don't do it very often; it is n*t worth while.

We have had fog every day since we left Seattle. Sometimes fog and rain, sometimes fog and sunshine, sometimes just common or garden fog. Twice we have had a sunrise, and one memorable day a sunset. The weather has been very cold, but only once did we have any wind to speak of; that once it certainly did itself proud in the wind line. We have had two fire-drills and seen nine whales, had three meals and five o'clock tea every day, and played two thousand five hundred and three or seven games of shuffle-board. There in a nutshell is our life on shipboard for two weeks to-day. And yet we have all been contented, — more than contented, actively happy. It is a wonderful, calm, and unholy joy to have nothing to do but sit and watch for fire-drills and whales. I am growing so fearfully rotund under this schedule that I fear even climbing Fuji Yama will not be sufficient to reduce my girth to normal proportions.

The routine remains the same as it was at first : Bath — coffee — walk — breakfast — diary — luncheon — book — tea — walk or shuffle-board — dinner — talk — sleep. We do absolutely nothing; but really can't find time to get it all in. The meals continue to surprise us by their excellence and freshness — and also the inventive genius of the cook. "Toad in the hole," "Bubble and Squeak," "Fried devilled bones," and "Angels on horseback" march on to the festal board in unblushing succession.

The day of storm that we had last Wednesdaywas one of the most interesting of the trip. We tumbled out of our bunks in the morning, to find the water in the bath-tubs splashing over in an alarming manner. The wind had veered during the night and was now driving an endless herd of great, unvdeldy white horses straight down through Behring Straits on to the side of our poor ship. Big as houses were these wild white horses, foaming at the mouth as they towered over us, throwing us easily over their huge green shoulders as they rushed from beneath us, and flinging back their great snowy manes and tails as they raced off towards the horizon.

We put on rubber coats and stood all morning on the wind'ard side swallowing the wind in great gulps, our faces numbed with the cold and dripping with spray. The lower decks fore and aft were swept continually by great clouds of spray. Several times a wave would swell higher and higher, and finally hurl a few barrels of green water over the rail of our promenade deck and slap up against the doors of the staterooms.

In the afternoon the sun came out suddenly and the whole black sea was instantly transformed into a floor of deep sapphire above which the sky was a pale arch, paler than a robin's egg. The white crests of the waves dazzled with their brightness, and the wind boomed over the great wave-hollows like a mighty organ.

Some of our fellow passengers are very interesting. At the head of the list is Juji Nakada San, a Japanese Christian missionary now returning from his second trip around the world. He is one of the brightest, joUiest, cleverest, most cultured men that I have ever known. He is a master of jiu-jitsu, and some of his early conversions were accompHshed by sitting on the neophyte's head and talking to him of the glories to come. He has told us invaluable things about the religions and prejudices of the .people, and knowing him has revolutionized our ideas of his people, of the possibility of introducing Christianity into the Orient, and the present attitude of the United States towards Japan.

Next in interest is Mr. C , the man whom

I met between Chicago and St. Paul. He is Scotch, and piece by piece we have learned a little of his history. His brother is a famous

musician, and Mr. Oswald C , for such is

his unfortunate cognomen, is a musician of no mean education. Then it also appears that he has painted pictures which have attracted wide attention. In addition to his achievements on canvas we are assured by Nakada, with whom C is travelling, that he is a very good architect. Add to these accompHshments the facts that he has taught philosophy and psychology for twelve years, is an ordained minister, and intends to spend twelve years in travelling around the world, and you will appreciate the conviction with which I repeat that he is an interesting man.

In the next stateroom to C are two callow youths from Salt Lake City, Utah. Speculation was rife for several days as to what their business could be in Japan, for they declared that their stay was to be for three years at least. Finally the truth came out with all the startHng effect of an exploding bomb. Aged eighteen and nineteen respectively, with hardly a grammarschool education, and unmistakable proclivities towards the Coney Island dance-hall type of amusement, these noble youths are starting out on a career as — guess if you can — Mormon missionaries!

Exhibit number four is one that we are really very fond of, but he must forgive us a brief smile He is aged twenty-nine; but before we knew we should have believed any one who told us he was fifty. He is Abraham Lincoln come to life, in appearance. Tall, gaunt, ungainly, with hands like hams, and a great oblong face that looks as if it had been rather poorly carved out of a tough blockof hickory and then been severely weather-beaten for several years. He always wears a rusty black suit and a high black fedora hat with a deep crease and a brim that imitates the size and angles of his ears. He is to be seen at any time of day or night twisting his mouth around a toothpick just as some men chew a cigar. He graduated from Vanderbilt University at Nashville, and before embarking on this noble ship he had never seen an ocean. He is very shy, but rather lonely and inquisitive. The result is that he never misses a trick. Whenever a group of more than one is gathered on the deck, you may see his dark clothes and toothpick towering back of it like a brooding Fate. For the first three days he did not speak. Now that he feels more at home he is very willing, nay, anxious, to talk, but he has nothing to talk about. His life has been about as exciting as that of a sponge. Under all the awkwardness, however, there is a fine, solid character and fund of humor too. This trip is making history for him, he is learning to exchange ideas, to be flippant. The least sally will draw an appreciative roar from him, and he has even ventured one or two himself. The other day, after a good meal, he lapsed into baby talk ! Imagine it if you can ; it caused the nearest approach to an attack of apoplexy in me that I ever hope to have. Oh, yes, his name is T !

There are about as many Japanese as there are Americans, maybe a few more, and they are interesting and very friendly. They tell us that a little coldness or slow service in the country is absolutely the only result of the present trouble that we are likely to experience.

Our captain is a delightful man. Commander Kaware he is, and well known among those up in naval affairs. During the late war he commanded the transport Ceylon Maru, and he has many interesting tales to tell. He has brought out his pictures of the war for us, and danced the samurai dance on deck, and made himself entertaining generally. He has some wonderful photographs of executions and battlefields.

He is a little taller than most of his race; I think he is almost my height, but he is well muscled and very heavy. His face is tanned a rich apple red through the natural brown, and his teeth are very white. He is always smiling, and his trim little mustache curls way up at the corners in consequence. I should call him a very handsome man. In both the captain and Nakada two traits have struck me. First, their remarkable good nature and jollity and their athletic activity; they are both like boys in their teens. Second, the strange power of mimicry and making faces. The faces they make while they are telling a story are exactly the grotesque masks that we see on their gods and demons. I think the secret lies in the mobile mouth, for they are both remarkably good-looking men.

Since I last wrote we have had beautiful weather, two sparkling blue days during which we lay around the deck with our coats off, for the weather is now like the mildest, best September days at the Lake. Yesterday we sighted land at daybreak, and in a hazy, intermittent way it has been with us ever since. About noon a bold promontory came out to interfere with us, and pushed a beautiful island almost in our path. We passed so close that w^e could see the shade under the funny gnarled pines that covered the whole island, and we exchanged signals

GILBERT LITTLE STARK ii

for several minutes. Kinkwa San the island is called ; it is a little cone-shaped mountain rising straight out of the sea, with its sides covered by a dark olive-green forest, a Hghthouse on its outer edge, and a shrine on its summit; the inhabitants are sacred apes and deer, Kinkwa San — Mount of the Golden Flower — our first glimpse of Japan.

This morning I got up at 5.30, just in time to see the mast of the poor Dakota rising above the calm water. We are now entering the Bay of Yeddo, Yokohama harbor. We have passed between two points, and the shore circles away from us on both sides. The sky line is like the sky line of a very stormy sea viewed from a deep wave-hollow — the volcanic origin is easy to see. All around us are the fishing boats starting out on their morning trip. Queer junks, with bodies like a hollow wooden wheel cut in two, and great square sails at the back. The fishermen wear kimonos and do their heads up in white towels. Sometimes, too, we run past a flock of little sampans with two men sculling as they stand, Venetian fashion.

I will write fully of our plans in Japan as soon as we have landed and gotten our bearings. We shall be on shore in a very few hours, and you can imagine how excited I am ! Sad to say, it is too cloudy to see Fuji.

I thought I had forgotten how to be excited over things, but this is teaching me over again.

Loads and loads of love to all.

Your loving son, Gilbert.

Tokyo, July 27, 1907.

Dear Family, — This is the first morning we have seen in Nippon — Land of the Rising Sun — and it is a beautiful one. I have not yet dressed, but am sitting in that cool dressinggown of father's, which, by the way, is one of the most useful things I have with me, and looking out over the funny waffle-like roofs of the Imperial City.

Our hotel is a big, roomy European building, with verandahs and courts and gardens in unexpected corners. No elevator, but it is only three stories high, so they don't need one. Our rooms are on the third floor, and we each have a single room about the size of both of our parlors together.

July 28, Sunday.

My letter yesterday was interrupted by the announcement that it was time to keep an engagement at Shimbashi station; more of that anon.

On Friday the approach to Yokohama had hardly anything foreign about it to make us feel that we were really half the world away from home ; but as soon as we got close enough to the dock to see the people there to meet the steamer, then the surprises commenced. The general effect given by the crowd at the wharf was a melee of very bare legs and chests, and a cloud of light, blowy, floating draperies, all colors of the rainbow.

After a great deal of talking and bowing and scraping, we succeeded in getting our baggage checked to Tokyo. Then we rode about the town in rickshaws. Getting into a rickshaw for the first time is like going back to childhood days and the baby carriage. They are frail creations on two wheels, with a pair of bare legs and illconcealed brown body between the shafts, the brown affair being topped by an inverted chopping-bowl, or possibly a great flat disk of straw, perhaps an acre in area. As you roll comfortably along the street you look right into and through the houses and stores on both sides of the street, and every phase of private life Hes open before you. We got a bite to eat at a little tea-house and then climbed about one hundred steps to the Yokohama temple and had a magnificent view of the harbor and the flat roofs of the city. At 5. 1 5 we caught a train to Tokyo, and here we are. Tokyo is a fascinating place. There is very little European architecture, and the streets are full of more strange and interesting sights than ever the Midway exhibited. Imagine yourself in a soft, cushioned, easy-running rickshaw, with a pair of legs twinkling swiftly along in front of you. On each side are little one-story stores open like caves, and full of china, silks, flowers, vegetables, fish, and bronze work. Right among the stores are the shops where the things are made, and you see carpenters or embroiderers at work in every block. The streets vary from little alleys, where you can almost touch both walls, to great broad thoroughfares that equal our broadest streets. Sometimes you strike a residence district where an open gate gives you a glimpse of a quaint garden, or behind a bamboo grating you see a little maid polishing and scrubbing for dear life. Every street has the peculiarity of seeming to end in open country. That is, if you look up or down the street, you might think you were in a village and that the street led out into broad fields.

That is because everything is so low; it is hard to realize that this is one of the great cities of the world, but when you have been pulled for several hours at a dog-trot and find the same streets everywhere, the truth comes home to you.

Then the people ! There are two millions here, and I think I must have seen every one. Imagine if you can a street of the kind I have tried to describe above, then fill street and shops as far as the eye can reach with people. Old and young, older and younger, some of them, than any one you have ever seen before. Imagine them dressed in kimonos, the men in a sober blue or stripes, the women in all sorts of pretty colors, with great sashes, and hair like the cream whirls on a fancy charlotte russe all covered with black shellac. Sprinkle in every color and shade from almost negro black, through coffee and tan shoes, to pure pink and white. Add a little live Jap doll to every square foot of ground, until you have created about three million babies, and

make every third man look exactly like H

B . Wherever you cast your eyes let there

be a flash of very white teeth from ten or twelve people at once, and let there be a continual undercurrent of audible laughter. Season well with low bows on all sides and a great abundance of bare skin, and you have a Tokyo street complete. One thing I forgot, however, — just a dash of sandalwood smell everywhere.

In all Tokyo we have not seen a really ugly person, a frown, or a beggar, and now we know what Nakada meant when he kept saying that we are " too much civiHzed." Here is a people intellectually our equal, every bit, and yet they live in play-houses and wear night-gowns all day, when they wear anything. What is the use of our elaborate kitchens when we can cook fish on a hot soapstone while sitting on the doorstep ? Another surprise is the absence of European costumes. I suppose they are worn more in the winter, but now they are as rare among the common people as kimonos are on Fifth Avenue.

Yesterday we met John, Ted, and their friend Mr. Tsuika at the Shimbashi station as they came in from Yokohama, and Mr. Tsuika took us all to the Imperial University, where we found Dr. Sato, to whom John had a letter. Dr. Sato is one of the most famous surgeons in Japan, and he has his own hospital and is the head of the medical department at the University. That department has two beautifully appointed hospitals, and an anatomical building that puts anything I have seen before to shame, with a pathological building as large. The doctor showed us all over the University. (Called away.)

5 p. M., same day.

The University has more ground and more buildings than our own, but about the same number of students. At noon, Mr. Tsuika treated us to a luncheon at the Seiyoken restaurant in one of the city parks — Neyeno Park. Luncheon was served in European style, and we had no sooner gotten well started than in came two of our classmates who are going to teach in the PhiHppines!

At 5.30 we started out for a dinner-party at the Maple Leaf Restaurant in Shiba Park. Dr. Sato had asked us all to be his guests, and we found him awaiting us with a friend. Dr. Sakai, a professor of the University and a young man about thirty years old. Neither of our hosts could talk English, so all our conversation was in German. This restaurant is the Sherry's of Tokyo. It is a long, low building, with a large courtyard in front for rickshaws. At the door our shoes were removed and we proceeded to enter in our stocking feet. Our host led the way through to the back, over mats as spotless as our table-cloths and soft as velvet. At the back v^as an exquisite garden, rocks, bridges, pools of goldfish, gnarled trees, and masses of flowering shrubs. One wing of the building stretched into the garden and almost to the edge of a high clifF that gave a fine broad view over trees and houses far below. Our party had the whole end of this wing. The room in which we found ourselves was a very large rectangle without furniture or ornament. The floor of beautiful soft mats, one wall and one end of delicately painted screens, one end open to the view from the clifF, and the remaining side all open to the garden. Outside of the open sides ran a little roofed verandah of teak-wood polished like a piano-top. There were niches in the one stationary side-wall, and in each niche was either a single vase of flowers or a great bronze dragon.

After we had admired the room and view and garden, in came a procession of geisha girls — one for each of us, and two extra little butterflies about eleven years old. They ofi^ered us tea and then fixed cushions for us along the open end, being the end of the room that was screened off. We sat cross-legged without anything to lean against, and our geishas sat directly in front, facing us. A tray was placed between each of us and our geisha, and on that the supper was served. As the hght faded from outside, some quaint, soft electric lights were turned on by an unseen agency. Of course we used chopsticks only, and our geishas had a great time teaching us the art. Everything was served on little open plates or in covered bowls. First we had soup, then mushrooms cut lengthwise in thin slices, next a sort of pressed meat, fat, cut in slices and garnished with mushrooms and vegetables, then roast fish with many vegetables, then raw fish ! This raw fish was really delicious, it was almost the best dish that we had served us ! It was cut in very thin slices and looked clean and white, and the sauce in which you dipped it before eating was a marvel and a triumph ; you must have raw fish at home. Next we had crawfish and vegetables, and then chicken with vegetables, mushrooms, and candied apricots. With this they served thimblefuls of warm sake, the Japanese wine made of rice. It is customary — but I will tell about that when I describe the geisha girls.

After we had waded through the dishes mentioned above, we heard a few strains of the weirdest music you have ever listened to, and the screens at the further end slipped back disclosing three women seated behind instruments like autoharps. They gave us a little concert and then started to sing. At the first few bars of the song we heard a rustle at the door and in floated five more geishas in the most beautiful silks you could imagine. I say floated in because that is exactly what they did. The whole secret of the dance is to hide all means of motion, and you can hardly tell when the girls take a step, so smoothly do they glide. All of the movements are in unison, and there are no fancy steps — the girls simply glide from one pose to another, illustrating some love poem or some bit of history. Fans play a great part, and the hands, which are the only parts of the body visible, are most expressive. The dance lasted about eight minutes. Afterwards we were served with a different soup and some more cooked fish, — tai^ this time, a favorite species, — and then stuffed lobsters with a mustard sauce. After this three still different geishas acted a little play, with an orchestra of five pieces in the background. The orchestra kept chanting the story like a Greek chorus. The three characters were i, an early Emperor; 2, his Shogun; 3, a witch who enchanted them and threw magic spider-webs about them. The costumes were gorgeous, and the expression of their hands and face marvellous. They say the training of these geishas takes infinite pains and years and years of time.

After this second dance we were served with rice over which green tea was poured, and then we were given great round cakes.

The geishas sat facing us, and each one had by her side a little bowl of glowing coals to offer us as a light for cigarettes, a dainty china vase full of warm sake, and a bowl of water. The sake is very mild, and there is the following form involved in drinking it : you sip it, empty what you do not want in the bowl of water, wash the tiny bowl you drink from, and then offer it to the geisha. She holds the little dish and you pour for her. She takes a sip and removes it with her handkerchief, empties the rest into the water bowl, and presents the cup to you. Some of the girls drink it, but ours did not. The girls we talked with are the highest representatives of their class, many of them coming from good families. Some are dancers and some conversationalists; they are Hke the Greek Hetairae. The good ones are among the most polished, esteemed, and beautiful ladies in Japan. Their speech is much more refined than the wives of the men they entertain, and some are experts in philosophy and Hterature; all are masters of polite small talk. Aside from the tiny ones of eleven, our girls ranged in age from sixteen to thirty, the oldest being the most beautiful and by far the most accomplished. In fact, those whose services bring the highest price are between twenty-five and thirty years old. After the last dance about eight more geishas came in, so we had a very large party. We stayed over four hours in all, and during the evening the girls peeled great luscious peaches for us. We had a delightful time, and laughed ourselves almost sick.

It was just like a children's party. We taught them several English words and they taught us some Japanese phrases, and we got along beautifully without a sign of an interpreter, for it was all the doctors could do to get their own thoughts through our heads in German. Whenever a new girl came into the room, or when a girl changed her seat to sit before another fellow, she would touch her forehead to the floor and get off a long, very polite sentence. We amused them with our American tricks, eating matches and snapping coins from the backs of our hands, and they taught us funny ways of twisting their fingers together and apparently turning their arms inside out. They laughed more than we did, but their laughter was low and musical and their voices sweeter than Occidental voices. They were very prudish when they handed us anything, for they took terrific pains to keep from touching our fingers. We left in a gale and whirlwind of *' Good-byes" and " Sayonaras," — all the girls kneeling in the great lighted doorway and touching their heads to the ground, — a great crowd of boys and coolies gathered around us, and each of us in a rickshaw with a big paper lantern lighted and swung from the shafts. Each "Sayonara'' on our part was greeted with a roar of laughter from geishas and coolies, and as we raced off into the night our rickshaw boys threw back their heads and sent out peal after peal of laughter. The road wound downhill through great, tall pine trees, and a wonderful moon, almost full, shone through the branches. All down the road we could hear the laughter at the Maple Leaf growing fainter, and we found we could n*t stop laughing ourselves ; so we dashed down the hill all guffawing in chorus with the rickshaw boys, a great procession in the darkness with our lanterns. All together, we swung across the road and around corners like a flock of traveUing birds.

All afternoon and evening we had just been waiting for the leading tenor of this great comic opera company to step out of some little playhouse and begin his solo ! And on that ride home we decided that this is not Japan — we have wandered into fairyland by mistake.

I suppose that living here has its drawbacks, but we have not found them, and we are not going to hunt them up.

Loads of love to all, Gilbert.

Tokyo, Friday, July, or rather August i, 1907.

Dear Family, — Here goes for a yard or two of small talk with my "geliebte familie." This week has been like a long carnival. We have spent our days wandering through parks, temples, and shops, and our evenings in rickshaw rides or calls on our friends here. We have really seen a great deal of Nakada and his young nephew, Yoshinari; the latter has been down every day, and we have been at the Mission twice.

On Sunday Yoshinari took us to one of the town missions, and we visited a Japanese Sunday-school, and later a church service. I wish you could have seen the children at Sundayschool. They sang " Bringing in the Sheaves " in the purest Japanese, and carried the tune much better than our children do. The children are just like little dolls; every one is as pretty as a picture, and the way the little tots carry their small relations around on their backs is a strange sight.

On Monday morning we took an electric car to Nakada's house. I wish you could see us try to make the conductors on these cars understand; by the way, none of them talk English. We rode for about an hour and then alighted at the prettiest little doll village of a suburb you can imagine. Narrow lanes, clean as the proverbial whistle, with high hedges like boxes on both sides. Tiny houses that you can look clear through from any side, with all the screens pushed back to let in the breeze, hidden in gardens full of twisted pine trees and little goldfish pools. Now and then we would pass a carpenter shop with three or four men with beautiful bronze-muscled backs, working as Father Adam worked, except for a necktie around the waist; and once we passed four farmers in a field threshing rice with flails. They had great peaked straw hats tied under their chins, and were at it so hard that they did not look up to see us.