of settlers, very different from disappointed adventurers and ferocious banditti.

All the most curious and perplexing questions of the immigration of races exist in full activity at San Francisco. The bulk of the emigrants are Irish, Chinese, and Germans, with a hotch-pot of Swiss, English, French, Spaniards, and Americans. It is the most singular combination that can be conceived; and the result may well be the evolution of some novel forms of humanity. Meanwhile, however, the old forms treat each other with excessive intolerance and brutality; and the condition of the Chinaman in California is not much above the condition of the negro, except that he is at liberty to return to his own country. Every one of the monthly steamers which cross the Pacific brings from 800 to 1,200 Chinese passengers to San Francisco, or takes back a returning party of emigrants, with a fortune in their trunks and the bitterest hatred of Christian civilisation in their breasts.

Baron Hübner remarks, that since the irruption of the barbarians in the fourth century, the world has not beheld so strange and chaotic a confusion of races as that which exists at this moment on the western shores of the American continent. But this is not all. The traveller who reaches those distant longitudes finds himself in what may be termed the penumbra of civilisation. Men are driven there by fierce material wants and passions-the thirst for gold, the love of adventure, the pursuit of gain; but it is impossible that the moral forces which control and guide society should keep pace with this boiling surge of men, who people a province in a decade. They are without religion, without education, without a clergy, and without an educated class, almost without laws. Human nature is stripped of its traditions and disguises. Almost all that constitutes a civilised nation and a State has yet to be called into being; and it is difficult to foresee or to conceive by what process these wild elements will eventually be moulded into a more compact form. Nothing is more perplexing than the contrast between the savage condition of the inhabitants and the mechanism of civilisation which is cropping up in that rude soil, under the influence of the railroad, the steamer, and the ideas imported from Europe and the Eastern States of America.

The tourist may embark on the first day of every month at San Francisco in a huge paddle-wheel steamer, which arrives on the 24th, with the punctuality of a railroad, at Yokohama, in Japan. But this passage of the Pacific is one of the most extraordinary exploits of our age. The distance is 5,000 geo

graphical miles, without a port to touch at or a harbour of refuge. The crews of the vessels are Chinese, with American officers and engineers. The vessels themselves have scarcely any rigging or sails. Scarcely a ship is to be seen on those unfrequented seas, except the sister-packet performing the same voyage on the opposite course. The severest precautions are taken against fire, for a fire on board in the mid-Pacific would be inevitable destruction. Thus far the voyages have been singularly fortunate. The vessels of the company had made eighty voyages down to 1871 without an accident, though two or three have since perished in harbour.

No unofficial traveller has as yet visited Japan with higher qualifications than those possessed by Baron Hübner. His social and political rank were at once recognised by the Japanese, who have a keen perception of those distinctions, known only in aristocratic societies. The barriers still subsisting by treaty, which exclude Europeans from the interior of the country, fell before him; and he penetrated into the recesses of Japanese life, the ancient temples of an outworn faith, the palace of the Mikado (now deserted), and even to the presence of that mysterious potentate. He had hardly been a week in Yokohama, when he started, with Mr. Van der Hoven, the Netherlands Minister, on an expedition to Fujiyama-the well-known mountain, which figures in a thousand Japanese designs, by a route hitherto inaccessible to strangers. His object was not to ascend the mountain for the purpose of seeing a bird's-eye view of the country, but to reach the shrines and places of pilgrimage, which in that land of irreligion are still consecrated by the superstition of the people. The party started, as it is called, in kangho, from the feudal town of Odowara, at the foot of the mountain. A kangho is a board or litter, on which the traveller sits or reclines, holding on by holes made to receive his fingers. Four naked men lift the board, and in this way plunge at once into a river. The current is strong, the stream is deep, the sea itself not far off; but the intrepid bearers carry you across and land you on the opposite sand. From time to time-indeed every few minutes-they shift their load with marvellous rapidity from one shoulder to the other, and on each occasion they bow to one another with infinite politeness, and assurances that they are eager to relieve their weary companions. Everything was gay as light; the flowers glistened, the sun sparkled, and the company laughed and joked at every step of the way. Thus they reached Joshida, celebrated for its great Shintoite temple, to which innumerable pilgrims wend their way in the months of July

and August. They were lodged in an immense temple-inn on one of the spurs of the mountain. A host of pilgrims, clad in white, were defiling along the street. Those who descend the mountain have their garments stamped by the innkeeper, to attest the performance of the pilgrimage. People of quality hang up their coat-of-arms to show they have been there. One could understand this fervour in a country of Mahommedan zealots or Roman Catholic believers; but the most extraordinary thing is, that in Japan these marks of devotion are paid by an incredulous people to the sanctuary of an extinct faith. The following scene is so strange and characteristic that we are tempted to translate it :

The innkeeper officiates as priest, or rather as guardian of the temple, for, as I am assured, the Shintoite religion recognises no priesthood, in the ordinary sense of the word. The members of the present government are systematically opposed to Buddhism, which is the faith held by the immense majority of the people. The tenets of Shintoism are nearly forgotten. The literate class are alone familiar with them. They are ignored by the political men of the day, and freely confounded with the doctrines of Confucius, which, in fact, are no more than lofty moral maxims. Every one knows that the great Chinese philosopher, on being questioned by one of his disciples concerning the existence of another world, replied, "I know nothing about it, I never was there." Such is the religion of the present councillors of the Mikado; and thus do they practise Shintoism, which they protect and indirectly impose upon the people as the religion of the State. But it seems that exception may be taken to this version of their proceedings. Shintoism was certainly the ancient religion of the country, but it has been forced to give way to Buddhism, which, having first been officially brought into China at the end of the first century of our era, invaded, and one may say conquered, Japan in the middle of the sixth. The old faith professed for form's sake by the Mikados was overcome by the doctrines and practices of Buddhism. As for the shoguns, they were all Buddhists. That explains the rapid spread of the religion imported from India by way of China, and one also understands how the dogmas and the rites of the ancient religion fell first into disuse and afterwards into oblivion. The official Shintoism of the day consists in the denial of all faith, and in the abolition of all observances; in the destruction of the Buddhist temples already begun by the demolition of a large portion of the celebrated sanctuary of Kamakura, and in the confiscations aimed at the property of the priests. Clearly this is not the old rcligion of the empire. In many temples both forms of religion have been carried on simultaneously; in others, as in those of Yoshida and its environs, many Buddhist ceremonies congenial to the people have been introduced by degrees. Nowhere have the doctrines, the dogmas, or the observances of the ancient faith been truly preserved in their original purity.

In this spot, however, and all around the base of Fujiyama, the

people profess the old religion of the country, but more or less practise Buddhism. Our reverend innkeeper comes of a noble family, and by reason of his holy office he abstains from carrying arms. Every afternoon he assumes his official vestments and betakes himself to the Great Temple. His wife, still beautiful, but wanting in dignity-alas! I see her every evening somewhat the worse for saki-his two daughters, who discharge the duties of serving-maids at the inn, and his son, a charming lad of fifteen, compose his family circle. This young samurai, with his two swords, likes to parade before us dressed as a gentleman should be. His good manners are equalled by the delicacy of his feelings. A slight incident which occurred on the return of my companions was a proof of this. One of them wished to carry away a votive picture as a memorial; the scruples of the innkeeper having been overcome by a munificent bribe, the work of art was unhooked and handed over to its new owner. But they had reckoned without the young samurai, who began to sob. "You have no right to sell that picture," said he to his father; "it is the property of the temple, it is one of the ornaments of our house, which belonged to our ancestors, and is your's now, but one day will be mine. And to let a stranger carry it off! what a shame! what a calamity!" and then a fresh torrent of tears. It is hardly necessary to add that the picture was reinstated in its place.

"The Great Temple stands at a few steps from the entrance to the upper town, in the midst of a sacred wood of ten times centenarian cedars and cryptomerias. A long avenue of these venerable trees, with a double row of stone lanterns, leads from the high road to the gallows-that is to say, to the isolated gateway whose upright supports consist of two beams, rather out of the perpendicular, across which two more are laid horizontally one above the other. This unostentatious, and, it must be confessed, somewhat repulsive entrance, since it suggests a gibbet, is found in all Shintoite temples, and leads to an angular courtyard of oblong form. In the centre, in front of the temple itself, is a platform raised five or six feet from the ground, and sheltered by a heavy roof, reminding one of a felt hat with a broad turned-up brim. Some tressels reserved for the priests, and placed there for the occasion, unite the platform to the temple. There are steps leading up to it; a gallery extends along the whole front. Behind the gallery, a vestibule affords access to the sanctuary, which is completely exposed to the gaze of the profane, and which contains the altar, with its candelabras, its censers, and the sacred mirror wherein the Divinity is reflected. The heaviness of the roofing appears to crush the edifice. The friezes are elaborately carved, and still preserve traces of gilding. We greatly admired some itchos (salisburia adimantifolia) of rare beauty in the courtyard, and a stone fountain with a roof to protect it, completed by a bronze waterpipe in the form of a serpent-dragon. We visited the temple every afternoon.

'On the eve of our departure, there was a great function. The court was filled with people. Upon the daïs, where had been erected a small altar decorated with flowers, on which was the mystic mirror, appeared a priest, clad in a flowing robe of silk, with a helmet upon his head and

two blades by his side, to perform the sword dance. It was a furious combat with an imaginary foe. He passed from the defensive to the attack, then drew back, turned on his heel, and again rushed in pursuit of the demon who, this time, was decidedly vanquished. The platform, scene of the combat, was at most twenty feet square. The warrior was often obliged to retrace his steps. His noble gestures were modulated by the plaintive notes of a flute, with the harsh and lugubrious accompaniment of a big drum. The band consisted in an old man and a child squatting on their heels in a corner of the daïs. The warrior at last retired inside the temple. At this juncture half-adozen priests appeared on the steps and flung small copper coins to the women and children.

Second ceremony.-A high priest now presented himself at the threshold of the temple, and advanced majestically towards the daïs. His mien was that of a tragedian. He dragged one foot after the other, and paused a moment at each step. He wore a species of chasuble, richly embroidered. The general effect of his garment was suggestive of our own church vestments. His partially shaved head-for he was a Shintoite, and not a Buddhist-was bound round with a pink riband, having one end so effectually stiffened with gum that it stood erect above his forehead, waving gracefully. In his hand he carried a bow, slung over his shoulder by a belt was a quiver full of arrows. Profound silence reigned through the blue and flesh-tinted crowd-the invariable hue of all crowds in Japan. The monotonous note of the cricket, and the light evening breeze playing in the cedars, were the only sounds we heard. Thousands of eyes followed the priest, but no face betrayed the slightest emotion, or wore the expression of devout feeling or of holy meditation, or even of common curiosity. Those near us seemed to consider us as more worthy objects of their attention. They regarded us with a half-scared look. Two white men at the Temple of Yoshida! On the priest's reaching the daïs the music struck up afresh. The flute executed recitatives of the most undoubted antiquity; from time to time the big drum produced an imitation of a distant storm. The high priest, after stalking several times round the platform with his tragic air and his eyes turned towards heaven, suddenly bent forward, drew his bow, aimed at the evil spirit which he perceived, let fly the arrow, and killed him dead. Immediately a hymn of victory was heard on the flute. The priest continued his walk, discovered and slew another demon, the music again interpreting the successive phases of the combat. Finally, after delivering the neighbourhood of Yoshida from several of these evil beings, the priest chanted a hymn, flung some beans into the air, prostrated himself before the mirror, and withdrew.

'Words fail me to describe the play of his features, the classical beauty of his attitudes, the striking effect of the music, the noble and mysterious majesty of the scene. The attitudes of the priest were, I repeat, classical, but not only so in a general sense; one could not fail to perceive in them a likeness to the well-known examples of Greek sculpture of the best period. On the other hand, the transitions from one position to another bore the stamp of Japanese taste; the movements,

7