THE PARADISE OF TRAVELLERS.

Oamaru Mail, 13 March 1877, Page 3

THE PARADISE OF TRAVELLERS.

SUVA'S IS THE TRAVELLERS* PARADISE. So remarks Sir Charles Dilke, in an article contributed to the " Fortnightly Review." Through a atrangu medley of ptne» and palms, of rice and buckwheat, of bambooa antl elms. »>f tea and cotton ; ttvrpngti azalea thickets and camclia groves", across tohaeco fields, and jiast rocks covered with evergreen ferns of a hundred kinds, and crowned with grotesque remains; through tussock grass and forest* of scarlet maple, and - over mountains cohered with rich greenery, you may journey in perfect peace, safe from robbery, safe from violence, safe even from beggars, never troubled, never asked for anytbtnv.', except by a civil policeman asking for yottr passport, and that with the to-west of tow hows. The maidens say "■ Ohio " awettty to Volt in the villages as you pass, wher.% eight years ago, you might have been sliced up by the sharp swords of the Samurai. " Ofdo," too, tall the laborers iu the tietds, leaving their work to tome and bow at the roadside ; not as the bow of ttte Japanese bow to the Dutch, but as etptaE to equal, the bow of mhmte politeness. Wttitout servant or iuti-rpreter, a European can travel in safety throughout the land. The people and their houses have been described 100 often. One cannot but love their cteauhtuss, their tubom sense of art. tt is impossible tc» realise that the Japanese are realty men and women. \Vt;at with the smaUntss of the peopte, their incessant laughing, chatter, and their _ funny gestures, one fe. Is one's- self in elf land. Vn a tine day the men appear as grinning demons in Mack tights, streaked all with blue heraldry. On wet days the long rush coats and" tony-sided straw hats fipaiity remove alt ventage of humanity. Vv, eu"we turn ovt. r Jaj autse p'.eturta in our Lh'.'d.sb homes we tatvt.y ttnat the faces and the prtss must lie unlike real life. Oh the contrary, tiny ate vuy hke the old fashions of a wtalthy class, witli whom faces are as much a matter of fashion as are clothes. It is the country people of Japan who are my* elves—the tiny, jovial, cooper-coloured poor. Were I describing rural Japan at length, I would try to s,how ti at it can he looked at from a point of view from which it lias not yet been consub. red. Japan is the last refuge of joyous life. See the Thames on a hue Saturday iu July,, or the fair of St. Cloud on the; last Sunday evening of Us reign, and vott may for; a moment believe that eVe-n iu Europe the joyou-t life is not extinct ; but the fun of the Thames is vulgar, and the loose morals of St. Cloud are venal. The joyous life of the Middle Ages may have been bad or good—in Europe it is gone, and let us speak well of the dead—but it was neither vt-nal nor vulgar; that that life still lives in Japan, where no {»;:- H-auism of antique grandeur dwells, but retiiekiug. unthinking fun. All who lov? evittdreiVmUst love the Japanese, the most graivotts, the must courteous, and the most smiling of all peoples wliose rural districts form, with Througtt-ehe-Looking-CJlaas-t'ountry and Wonderland, the ttiree kingdoms of merry dreams.