A FIELD-DAY WITH THE MIKADO'S TROOPS

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5229, 19 March 1904, Page 9

A FIELD-DAY WITH THE MIKADO'S TROOPS

EXPERIENCES OF SIR EDWIN ARNOLD.

Writing in the London “Daily Telegraph.” Sir Edwin Arnold gives a dosari p'cion of a field-day with the Mikado's troops. He says:—“Although no value could possibly attach to any opinion of mine upon technical military problems, yet it may not be uninteresting if at th,o present juncture I venture to recall the incidents and pictures of a memorable day which I passed in the of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan, with’his miliicary staff, and some 35,000 troops, detailed for the annual manoeuvres. Several yeans havo gone by since then, but the impressions left are vivid in my mind, and may perchance have points of novelty and even information. The great review was to have'for its’centre the largo town, or rather .city, of Nagoya, where there stands a vast and picturesque royal residence, half-palace, half-fortress, surrounded by one of those massive ramparts with an encircling moat so common in Japan. The angle stones in these mighty walls are so laid that they tilt (upwards like the recurving stem of a naval ram, giving an extraordinary appearance of solidity and resisting ■ 'force.' • 'tv'; CA-'h - “Never can I forgot the glory of that early dawn, along the ridge of the southern hills, which sweep 'through all the length of ■ coast, from Kamakura and lovely Enoshima, over the foot of splendid and stately Fuji Yama to Gotemba Oiso and Nara itself. . It was in tire autumnal season' of the year, when our Scots'and northern moors would be covered with'the soft glory of the hea.■■thcr in pink and purple hue. It seems almost like treason to declare that any hills could look so gloriously beautiful as .do those rolling, embroidered ranges iof our Highland scenery, yet if you will imagine every one of those Japanese mountains clad from girdle to summit with azaleas, hydrangeas and thickets ol lillios in flower, orange and blue and scarlet, with gold and silver freckles, and then for background chimps of stone pine and bamboo in striking combination, there will: not bo found any -offence in such rivalry. THE SPIRIT OF THE ARMY.

•'As wo rode into the nplandk from the ; plain where Nagoya sits, the air was fragrant ■with the breath of tbede heavenly mountains, and I passqd spot after spot, any ono • of. which would . haye j brought out irresistibly the pencil and ;• coi’our-box of a landiscapo painter. Wo wore advancing up .'the steep paths, many thousand strong-—horse, foot and artillery—hut chiefly foot, to hold l the . long ridge against some detested,enemy ■deploying in tho vafib flats ; to ’the eastward and southward. Alas! it is not good that war should ever look so fair. The morning air seemed almost to intoxicate tho noalc, bnght, sturdy young soldier's tramping with laughter or low singing through the gay thickets'or lying^ as close as a dutch of hrown partridges behind the stems of matau and - bain boo tussocks. Boys out of school 1 could not have, taken more :pleasure, in tho implements of their play-field than ■ did • these young hrcwn-facod peasants in the field-pieces which they made to dance and rattle behinpl the rope traces, in their clean, shining weapons and sober equipments. Among them rode their officers, sharp as new pins, chipper as jays, proud as peacocks of their uniform and men, although some of them here and there were wearing spectacles. ‘•Though the sun was yet hardly high enough to touch the snow upon Fuji Yama with saffron and rose, Ids Imperial Majesty was there drinking tea from' a small! silver cup. The young Sovereign was held, as ono might easily see, in supremo reverence by all around, but a reverence which had in it passionate and unchanging affection as well as .custom. In Japan national loyalty has not as yet divided itself from the actual worship given to. the dynasty whose origin loses Kseif, in the thoughts of forty-five millions-' of homogeneous people, amid the mysteries of the invis.blc. -Time -was, ‘of course—and only a very few- years ago—when such a proximity as ours to,-that divinely-descended personage would have been impossible, inorod ‘bler'madly presumptuous. Three times afterwards even I myself had the privilege of respectfully watching, from near at hand, .the dark, serious, unchanging, introspective countenance of him uxion whom is focussed tho absolute devotion of the Japanese people, in a manner not only unparalleled elsewhere.

but hardly even comprehended. It is this traditional seutimedb of the wonderfph nation which is the mightiest of all her forces, and which will bring fees- ini honour and triumph out of all dangejs. I shall not attempt bo dwell upon what ; I have seen and 1 heaqd personally of his 1 Imperial Majesty. Other pens may dare to make him into paragraphs.

LINKING THE EAST AND WEST- . “Whenever I saw that silent Poten-' bate I was set thinking of 'the ancient legends, and of the Sun Goddess, and. of Avalokiteswara. Now that I can only recollect, it is still with something like awe, as well as with proroumi »espectt and sympathy, that I recall the steadfast brows and the stem, sad lips of his Imperial Majesty Matsuhito—-whose Order of the ‘Rising Sun’ I have the honour to boar; and of whom I am the very humble servant and well-wisher — believing, as I do, that in Ids august hands Providence has placed the duty and the glory of linking tor ever to. getter the East and the West in a uni o3 which once appeared impossible. VALOUR OF THE JAPANESE. “Now for "the army! I said I would not presume to offer any opinion on ils military merits, and the strong 00-nli-, dence which I place in its > valour and ultimate victory is but tho indelible impression of what scomod to mo an almost perfect fighting force. The darkclad masses covering those azalea slopes moved with ono mind, and sought tho success of tho manoeuvres as_ if each soldier had been himself the Emperor, or at least a general of brigade. GnO of tho artillerymen working at a twolvopoundor in a pit digged among the lily roots had his foot crushed 1 by the trail of tho gun. He never desisted from his duty till the blood running from the injury drew his officer's attention, to alt. and even then he submitted with reluctance to the order for an l ambulance. “And 1 when we turned back home, some of the troops from a long march.' I noticed how the infantry ■whipped off' their service foot-wear and tied' on the. Varaji’ sandals, made of string, price' three-farthings a pair, in which theyg could go twenty or thirty miles. That' night many of them did sleep fifteen ‘rp from the field of action, wliiteb 3000 of us civilians and loafers had supper round, tho Emperor’s table in the ancient. half at Nara, its roof sustained by twelve immense pillars of stripped suji 'trunks. 1 “It was a stand-up meal, his Maflestyi| condescending to d'rink a cup of sake at the far side of the high table, close to one of tho white shining shafts of those 01-yptomeria trunks which were at once so splendid- and so simple. The gay and happy city, through the main street, of which wo had returned in, joyous tumult, was from end to end aH red and .white with tho national flags and lanterns. And since that day I, for one, have never feared that the flag of the Rising Sun will ever ,he disgraced.”