Various - "Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920"

Charles Kingsley - "Out of the Deep"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

From Pole to Pole

S >> Sven Anders Hedin >> From Pole to Pole




[Illustration: PLATE XX. FUJIYAMA.]

Painters also take a delight in devising various foregrounds to the
white cone. I once saw a book of a hundred pictures of Fujiyama, each
with a new foreground. Now the holy mountain was seen between the boughs
of Japanese cedars, now between the tall trunks of trees, and again
beneath their crowns. Once more it appeared above a foaming waterfall,
or over a quiet lake, where the peak was reflected in the water; or
above a swinging bridge, a group of playing children, or between the
masts of fishing-boats. It peeped out through a temple gate or at the
end of one of the streets of Tokio, between the ripening ears of a
rice-field or the raised parasols of dancing girls.

Thus Fujiyama has become the symbol of everything that the name Nippon
implies, and its peak is the first point which catches the rays of the
rising sun at the dawn of day.

Singularly cold and pale the holy mountain stands out against the dark
blue sky as we steer out again to sea in the moonlight night. It is our
last night on the long sea voyage from Bombay. Close to starboard we
have Oshima, the "great island," an active volcano with thin vapour
floating above its flat summit; Japan has more than a hundred extinct
and a score of still active volcanoes, and the country is also visited
by frequent earthquakes. On an average 1200 are counted in the year,
most of them, however, quite insignificant. Now and then, however, they
are very destructive, carrying off thousands of victims, and it is on
account of the earthquakes that the Japanese build their houses of wood
and make them low.

In the early morning the _Tenyo Maru_ glides into the large inlet on
which Yokohama and Tokio are situated. Yokohama is an important
commercial town, and is a port of call for a large number of steamboat
lines from the four continents. Its population is about 400,000, of whom
1000 are Europeans--merchants, consuls, and missionaries.

A few miles south-west of Yokohama is the fishing-village of Kamakura,
which was for many centuries the capital of the Shoguns. It has now
little to show for its former greatness--at one time it was said to
have over a million inhabitants--except the beautiful, colossal statue
of Buddha, the Daibutsu (Plate XXI.). The figure, which is about 40 feet
high, is cast in bronze, and dates from 1252.

At the head of the bay lies Tokio, the capital, with over two million
inhabitants. Here are many palaces surrounded by fine parks, but the
people live in small, neat, wooden houses, most of them with garden
enclosures. The grounds of the Japanese of rank are small masterpieces
of taste and excellence. It is a great relief to come out of the bustle
and dust of the roads into these peaceful retreats, where small canals
and brooks murmur among blocks of grey stone and where trees bend their
crowns over arched bridges.

In Tokio the traveller can study both the old and the new Japan, There
are museums of all kinds, picture galleries, schools, and a university
organized on the European model. There is also a geological institution
where very accurate geological maps are compiled of the whole country,
and where in particular all the phenomena connected with volcanoes and
earthquakes are investigated. In scientific inquiries the Japanese are
on a par with Europeans. In the art of war they perhaps excel white
peoples. In industrial undertakings they have appropriated all the
inventions of our age, and in commerce they threaten to push their
Western rivals out of Asia. Not many years ago, for example, some
Japanese went to Sweden to study the manufacture of those safety matches
which strike only on the box. Now they make safety matches themselves,
and supply not only Japan but practically all the East. At Kobe one can
often see a whole mountain of wooden boxes containing matches, waiting
for shipment to China and Korea. So it is in all other branches of
industry. The Japanese travel to Europe and study the construction of
turbines, railway carriages, telephones, and soon they can dispense with
Europe and produce all they want themselves.

The present Emperor of Japan, Mutsuhito,[18] came to the throne in 1867.
His reign is called _Mei-ji_, or the "Era of Enlightened Rule." During
this period Japan has developed into a Great Power of the first rank,
and it is in no small measure due to the wisdom and clear-sightedness of
the Emperor that this great transformation has been accomplished.

Formerly the country was divided into many small principalities under
the rule of _daimios_ or feudal lords, who were often at war with one
another, though they were all subject to the suzerainty of the Shogun,
the nominal ruler of the whole country. Together with the _samurais_
the _daimios_ constituted the feudal nobility. It is curious to think
that little more than forty years ago the Japanese fought with bows and
arrows, sword and spear, and that the _samurais_ went to battle in heavy
harness with brassards and cuisses, helms and visors over the face. They
were skilful archers, and wielded their great swords with both hands
when they rushed on the foe.

[Illustration: PLATE XXI. THE GREAT BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA.]

Then the new period suddenly began. In 1872 universal service was
introduced, and French and German officers were invited to organise the
defensive force. Now Japan is so strong that no Great Power in the world
cares to measure its strength with it.


NIKKO, NARA, AND KIOTO

From Tokio we travel northwards by train in two hours to Nikko. There
are several villages, and we put up in one of them. In front of the inn
ripples a clear stream, spanned by two bridges, one of which is arched
and furnished with a red parapet. Only the Emperor and his family may
step on to this bridge; other mortals must pass over another bridge near
at hand. On the farther side we ascend a tremendously long avenue of
grand cryptomerias rising straight up to the sky. It leads to a
mausoleum erected to the memory of the first Shogun of the famous
dynasty of Tokugawa. The first of them died in the year 1616.

This mausoleum is considered to be the most remarkable sight in Japan.
It is not huge and massive, like the Buddhist temple in Kioto, the old
capital of Japan. It is somewhat small, but both outside and inside it
displays unusually exquisite artistic skill. Granite steps lead up to
it. A _torii_, or portal, is artistically carved in stone, and another
is so perfect that the architect feared the envy of the gods, and
therefore placed one of the pillars upside down. We see carved in wood
three apes, one holding his hands before his eyes, another over his
ears, and the third over his mouth. That means that they will neither
see, hear, nor speak anything evil. A pagoda rises in five blood-red
storeys. At all the projections of the roof hang round bells, which
sound melodiously to the movement of the wind. In the interior of the
temple the sightseer is lost in dark passages dimly illuminated by oil
lamps carried by the priests. The walls are all covered with the finest
paintings in gold and lacquer. A moss-grown stone staircase leads down
to the tomb where the Shogun sleeps.

Nara is situated immediately to the south of Kioto. Here are many famous
temples, pagodas, and _torii_, and here also is the largest image of
Buddha in Japan, twelve hundred years old. The finest thing of all,
however, is the temple park of Nara, where silence and peace reign in a
grove of tall cryptomerias. Along the walks are several rows of stone
lamps placed on high pedestals of stone. They stand close together and
may number a thousand. Each of these lamps is a gift of some wealthy man
to the temple. On great festivals oil lamps are placed in them. Hundreds
of roedeer live in the park of Nara. They are as tame as lambs, and
wherever you go they come skipping up with easy, lively jumps. Barley
cakes for them to eat are sold along the paths of the park, and you buy
a whole basket of these. In a minute you are surrounded by roedeer,
stretching out their delicate, pretty heads and gazing at the basket
with their lovely brown eyes. Here a wonderful air of peace and
happiness prevails. The steps of roedeer and pilgrims are heard on the
sand of the paths, but otherwise there is complete silence and quiet.
The feeling reminds one of that which is experienced at the Taj Mahal.

All Japan is like a museum. You can travel about for years and daily
find new gems of natural beauty and of the most perfect art. Everything
seems so small and delicate. Even the people are small. The roads are
narrow, and are chiefly used by rickshas and foot passengers. The houses
are dolls' closets. The railways are of narrow gauge, and the carriages
like our tramcars. But if you wish to see something large you can visit
the Buddhist temple in Kioto. There we are received with boundless
hospitality by the high priest, Count Otani, who leads us round and
shows us the huge halls where Buddha sits dreaming, and his own palace,
which is one of the most richly and expensively adorned in all Japan.

If you wish to see something else which does not exactly belong to the
small things of Japan you should visit a temple in Osaka, the chief
manufacturing town of Japan. There hangs a bell which is 25 feet high
and weighs 220 tons. In a frame beside the bell is suspended a beam, a
regular battering-ram, which is set in motion up and down when the bell
is sounded. And when the bell emits its heavy, deafening ring it sounds
like thunder.

Kioto is much handsomer than Tokio, for it has been less affected by the
influence of Western lands, and lies amidst hills and gardens. Kioto is
the genuine old Japan with attractive bazaars and bright streets. Shall
we look into a couple of shops?

Here is an art-dealer's. We enter from the street straight into a large
room full of interesting things, but the dealer takes us into quite a
small room, where he invites us to sit at a table. And now he brings out
one costly article after another. First he shows us some gold lacquered
boxes, on which are depicted trees and houses and the sun in gold, and
golden boats sailing over water. One tiny box, containing several
compartments and drawers, and covered all over with the finest gold
inlaying, costs only three thousand _yen_, or about three hundred
pounds. Then he shows us an old man in ivory lying on a carpet of ivory
and reading a book, while a small boy in ivory has climbed on to his
back. From a whole elephant tusk a number of small elephants have been
carved, becoming smaller towards the point of the tusk, but all cut out
in the same piece. You are tired of looking at them, they are so many,
and they are all executed with such exact faithfulness to nature that
you would hardly be surprised if they began to move.

Then he sets on the table a dozen metal boxes exquisitely adorned with
coloured lacquer. On the lid of a silver box an adventure of a monkey is
represented in raised work. Pursued by a snake, the monkey has taken
refuge in a cranny beneath a projecting rock. The snake sits on the top.
He cannot see the monkey, but he catches sight of his reflection in the
water below the stone. The monkey, too, sees the image of the snake, and
each is now waiting for the other.

Now the shopman comes with two tortoises in bronze. The Japanese are
experts in metal-work, and there is almost life and movement in these
creatures. Now he throws on to the table a snake three feet long. It is
composed of numberless small movable rings of iron fastened together,
and looks marvellously life-like. Just at the door stands a heavy copper
bowl on a lacquered tripod, a gong that sounds like a temple bell when
its edge is struck with a skin-covered stick. It is beaten out of a
single piece, not cast, and therefore it has such a wonderful vibrating
and long-continued ring.

Let us also go into one of the famous large silk shops. Shining white
silk with white embroidered chrysanthemum flowers on it--women's kimonos
with clusters of blue flowers on the sleeves and skirt--landscapes,
fishing-boats, ducks and pigeons, monkeys and tigers, all painted or
embroidered on silk--herons and cranes in thick raised needlework on
screens in black frames--everything is good and tasteful.

Among the most exquisite, however, are the cloths of cut velvet. This is
a wonderful art not found in any other country than Japan. The finest
white silken threads are tightly woven over straight copper wires laid
close together, making a white cloth of perhaps ten feet square,
interwoven with copper wires. An artist paints in bright colours on the
cloth a landscape, a rushing brook among red maples, a bridge, a
mill-wheel, and a hut on the bank. When he has done, he cuts with a
sharp knife along each of the numberless copper wires. Every time he
cuts, the point of the knife follows one of the copper wires, and he
cuts only over the coloured parts. The fine silk threads are thus
severed and their ends stand up like a brush. Then the copper wires are
drawn out, and there stand the red trees, hut, and bridge in close
velvet on a foundation of silk.

In all kinds of handicrafts and mechanical work the Japanese are
experts. A workman will sit with inexhaustible patience and diligence
for days, and even months and years, executing in ivory a boy carrying a
fruit basket on his back. He strikes and cuts with his small hammers and
knives, his chisels and files, and gives himself no rest until the boy
is finished. Perhaps it may cost him a year's work, but the price is so
high that all his expenses for the year are covered when the boy is sold
to an art-dealer.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] "Fuji," without equal; "yama," mountain.

[18] The Emperor Mutsuhito died on July 30, 1912, and was succeeded by
his eldest son, Yoshihito, who was born in 1879.




XIV

BACK TO EUROPE


KOREA

Our journey eastwards ends with Japan, and we turn westwards on our way
back to Europe. The portion of the mainland of Asia which lies nearest
to Japan is Korea, and the passage across the straits from Shimonoseki
to Fu-san takes only about ten hours. The steamer sails in the morning,
and late in the afternoon we see to larboard the Tsushima Islands rising
out of the water like huge dolphins. Our course takes us almost over the
exact place where, on May 27, 1905, Admiral Togo annihilated the
squadron of the Russian Admiral Rozhdestvenski.

The Russian fleet had sailed round Asia, and steamed up east of Formosa
to the Strait of Korea. The Admiral hoped to be able to reach
Vladivostock, on the Russian side of the Sea of Japan, without being
attacked, and on May 27 his fleet was approaching the Tsushima Islands.
But Admiral Togo, with the Japanese fleet, lay waiting off the southern
coast of Korea. He had divided the straits into squares on a map, and
his scouting boats were constantly on the look-out. They could always
communicate with Togo's flagship by wireless telegraphy. And now
currents passing through the air announced that the Russian fleet was in
sight, and was in the square numbered 203. This number was considered a
good omen by the Japanese, for the fate of the fortress of Port Arthur
was sealed when the Japanese took a fort called "203-metre Hill" (Port
Arthur, which lies on the coast of the Chinese mainland, had fallen into
the hands of the Japanese on January 1, 1905).

When the news came, Togo knew what to do. With his large ships and sixty
torpedo boats he fell upon the Russian fleet, and the battle was
decided within an hour. The Russian Admiral's flagship sank just on the
spot where we are now on the way to Fu-san. The Admiral himself was
rescued, sorely wounded, by the Japanese. His fleet was dispersed, and
its various divisions were pursued, sunk, or captured. The Russians lost
thirty-four ships and ten thousand men. It was a bloody encounter which
took place on these usually so peaceful waters. The Japanese became
masters of the sea, and could, unhindered, transport troops, provisions,
and war material over to the mainland, where the war with Russia still
raged in Manchuria.

From Fu-san, which for two hundred years has been a Japanese town, the
railway takes us northwards through the Korean peninsula. We ascend the
beautiful valley of the Nak-tong-gang River. Side valleys opening here
and there afford interesting views, and between them dark hills descend
steeply to the river, which often spreads out and flows so gently that
the surface of the water forms a smooth mirror. The sky is clear and
turquoise-blue in colour, and spans its vault over greyish-brown bare
mountains. Where the ground on the valley bottom is level it is occupied
by rice and wheat fields. Every now and then we pass a busy village of
grey thatched houses, where groups of women and children in coloured
garments are seen outside the cabins. The men wear long white coats, and
on the head a thin black hat in the form of a stunted cone with flat
brim. Seldom are the eyes caught by a clump of trees; as a rule the
country is bare. Innumerable small mounds are often seen on the slopes;
these are Korean graves.

The signs of Japan's peaceful conquest of Korea are everywhere apparent.
Japanese guards, policemen, soldiers, and officials are seen at the
stations; the country now contains more than 200,000 Japanese. Settlers
from Japan, however, take up their residence only for a time in the
foreign country. For example, a landowner in Japan will sell half his
property there, and with the proceeds buy land in Korea three or four
times as large as all his estate in the home country, and in fertility
at least as good. There he farms for some years, and then returns home
with the profits he has earned. Numbers of Japanese fishermen also come
yearly to the coasts of Korea with their boats, and return home to Japan
with their catch. Thus Korea is deluged with Japanese of all kinds. The
army is Japanese, Japanese fortresses are erected along the northern
frontier, the government and officials are Japanese, and soon Korea
will become simply a part of the Land of the Rising Sun.

[Illustration: PLATE XXII. A SEDAN-CHAIR IN SEOUL.]

We cross the range of mountains which runs like a backbone all through
Korea from north to south, and late in the evening we come to the
capital, Seoul, which has 280,000 inhabitants, a fifth of whom are
Japanese. The town is confined in a valley between bare cliffs, and from
the heights all that can be seen is confusion of grey and white houses
with gabled roofs covered with grey tiles. In the Japanese quarter life
goes on exactly as in Japan; rows of coloured paper lanterns hang now,
at night, before the open shops, and trade is brisk and lively. In the
Korean quarters the lanes are narrow and dismal, but the principal
streets are wider, with tramcars rattling amidst the varied Asiatic
scenes. Here are sedan chairs (Plate XXII.), caravans of big oxen laden
with firewood, heavy carts with goods, men carrying unusually heavy
loads on a framework of wooden ribs on their backs, women sailing past
in white garments and a veil over their smooth-plaited hair. A row of
grown men and boys pass through the streets carrying boards with Korean
inscriptions in red and white: those are advertisements. Before them
marches a drum and flute band, filling the streets with a hideous noise.

Korea has 13 million inhabitants, and in area is just about as large as
Great Britain. It is now subject to Japan, and is administered by a
Japanese Resident-General, whose headquarters are at Seoul.


MANCHURIA

From Seoul we travelled northwards by rail to Wi-ju, a small place on
the left bank of the Yalu River, which forms the boundary between Korea
and Manchuria. Opposite, on the right or north bank of the Yalu, stands
An-tung, a town with 5000 Japanese and 40,000 Chinese inhabitants. The
river had just begun to freeze over, and the ice was still so thin that
it could be seen bending in great waves under the weight of our sledge,
which a Chinaman pushed along at a great speed with a long iron-shod
pole. However, we reached the other side in safety.

From An-tung to Mukden is only 200 miles, but the journey takes two
whole days. The little narrow-gauge railway was laid down during the
Russo-Japanese War to enable the Japanese to transport provisions and
material to the front. The small track goes up and down over the
mountains in the most capricious curves and loops, and the train seldom
accomplishes the whole journey without a mishap. The Japanese Consul at
An-tung, who had made the journey eight times, had been in four railway
accidents, and two days previously the train had rolled down a declivity
with a general and his staff.

The view through the carriage windows is magnificent. This part of
Manchuria is mountainous, but in the depths of the valleys lie farms and
fields. Manchus in long blue coats and black vests wind along the road
tracks, some on foot, others mounted, while others again drive
two-wheeled carts drawn by a horse and a pair of mules. All the
watercourses are frozen, but there is no snow. It is sunny, clear, and
calm in these valleys, where the thunder of battle has long died away
among the mountains.

Half-way to Mukden we halt for the night, and start next morning before
daybreak in biting cold. Some Chinese merchants join the train, attended
by servants bearing paper lanterns. A small party of Japanese soldiers
also is here. They are in thick yellow coats with high collars,
_bashliks_, red shoulder knots, caps with a red border, leather-covered
felt boots, and are armed with cutlasses and rifles. They are sinewy and
sturdy fellows, neat and clean, and always seem cheerful.

At length the Christmas sun rises glowing red, and the ice flowers
vanish from the windows. Here, where the winter cold is so piercing, it
is oppressively hot in summer. Our little toy train crosses a river
several times on fragile bridges of beams, which seem as though they
might at any moment collapse like a house of cards. Small strips of
tilled land, creaking ox-carts on the deeply rutted roads, tiny Buddhist
oratories, primitive stations with long rows of trucks of fuel, a
country house or two--that is all that is to be seen the whole day,
until late in the evening we arrive at Mukden.

Manchuria is one of the dependencies of China. The Russians constructed
a railway through the country to the fortress of Port Arthur, but, as is
well known, the Japanese succeeded in capturing the fortress during the
war. By the peace of Portsmouth,[19] concluded in September 1905, the
Japanese acquired Port Arthur, the adjacent commercial port of Dalny,
with the surrounding district, the southern half of the large island
Sakhalin, the supremacy over Korea, together with the South Manchurian
Railway--so that the Russians had unknowingly built this railway for the
benefit of their enemies.

Round Mukden was fought the greatest battle of the whole Russo-Japanese
War. The contest lasted twenty days; more than 850,000 men and 2500 guns
were engaged, and 120,000 were left dead on the field. On March 1, 1905,
the whole Japanese army began to move, and formed at last a ring round
the Russians and Mukden. Thus the Japanese became for the time being the
masters of Manchuria, but on the conclusion of peace the country was
handed back to China.

The life in the singular streets of Mukden is varied and attractive. The
Manchus seem a vigorous and self-confident people; they are taller than
the Chinese, but wear Chinese dress with fur caps on their heads. The
women seldom appear out of doors; they wear their hair gathered up in a
high knot on the crown, and, in contrast to the Chinese women, do not
deform their feet. Among the swarming crowds one sees Chinamen,
merchants, officers, and soldiers in semi-European fur-lined uniforms,
policemen in smart costumes with bright buttons, Japanese, Mongols, and
sometimes a European. Tramcars drawn by horses jingle through the
broader streets. The houses are fine and solidly built, with carved
dragons and painted sculpture, paper lanterns and advertisements, and a
confusion of black Chinese characters on vertically hanging signs. At
the four points of the compass there are great town gates in the noble
Chinese architecture, but outside stretches a bare and dreary plain full
of grave mounds.

In Pe-ling, or "Northern Tomb," rests the first Chinese Emperor of the
Manchu dynasty, and his son, the great Kang Hi, who reigned over the
Middle Kingdom for sixty-one years. Pe-ling consists of several
temple-like buildings. The visitor first enters a hall containing an
enormous tortoise of stone, which supports a stone tablet inscribed with
an epitaph extolling the deceased Emperor. At the farthest extremity of
the walled park is the tomb itself, a huge mass of stone with a curved
roof. In a pavilion just in front of this building the Emperor of China
is wont to perform his devotions when he visits the graves of his
fathers. Solemn peace reigns in the park, and under the pine-trees stone
elephants, horses, and camels gaze solemnly at one another.

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