I confess to a chronic desire to explore the Island Empire in which I
dwell. Having already, in the central provinces of Japan, trodden many
a path never before touched by foreign foot, I yearned to explore
the twin provinces of Kadzusa and Awa, which form the peninsula lying
between the Gulf of Yeddo and the Pacific Ocean. A timely holiday and
a passport from the Japanese foreign office enabled me to start toward
the end of March, the time when all Japan is glorious with blossoming
plum trees, and the camellia trees in forests of bloom are marshaled
by thousands on the mountain-slopes.

I was glad to get away from Yeddo: I had a fit of anti-Caucasianism,
and wished to dwell a while amidst things purely Japanese. There
were too many foreigners in Yeddo. In that city of only eight hundred
thousand Japanese there are now full two hundred foreigners of all
nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too
much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama,
the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt
there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a
railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What _was_ the
use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is
brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect
a few cracks in the craniums belonging to some of the youths who wish
to introduce law, religion, steam, language, frock-coats and tight
boots by edict and ordinance. There was too much civilization. I
yearned for something more primitive, something more purely Japanese;
and tramping into the country I should find it. I should eat Japanese
food--profanely dubbed "chow-chow;" sleep in Japanese beds--on the
floor; talk Japanese--as musical as Italian; and live so much like an
old-time native that I should feel as one born on the soil. By that