THE SOLDIER OF THE FAR EAST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7979, 7 April 1904, Page 2

THE SOLDIER OF THE FAR EAST.

♦ : TWO VIEWS. (By ERNEST BBINDLE.) IN JAPAN. 16 was near the end of an oppressive afternoon last August that I saw the Japanese soldier on duty for the first time. , The dusty streets of Tokio were behind me, and on the right of the broad, white road were the still waters of the moat, the high wall, and the gifts Nature had added in the passage of the years to the handiwork of man. The jinriksha came to a stop at tie foot of a wide flight of massive 6tone steps, leading up and up, towards which the coolie, doomed by the nature of bis calling to run through life at a quicker rate than most of his fellows, made a comprehensive wave of the hand. I alighted from the vehicle, and made my way to the top of the stops, which led me on to a bridge thrown across the moat. At the other end of the bridge was a huge but handsome arch, in appearance very much like the arch of any English castle that has not suffered renovation, and in the gateway stood two sentinels who might nave been made to the order of the most exacting autocrat who ever took delight in a chosen regiment. With all the statuesqueness of pose characteristic of the European soldier on guard duty there was something about them which made me think of the watchful alertness of the tiger, just before the spring, the restraint of the greyhound at the voice of his master. Clothed in the bright and attractive uniforms of the West, provided with the arms used in the barracks of Paris and Berlin, and in a picturesque setting reminiscent of English history, they were not alien to me and my kind. I admired them and sympathised with them, and yet I knew that if I lived with them, talked with them, and laughed and cried with them for the reßt of my life, I should still be a stranger within the gate. Below was unrolled the map of the capital city, and hidden from sight behind the stately trees seen through the archway was the home of the Mikado, ruler of an Oriental race. IN CHINA. A German Minister to China had been done to death by a mob given over to the passions of the jungle beast, and a pripce of the Imperial house of China was on the first stage of his long jo-.i.rney of penance for the misdeeds of his subjects. To receive him on the jetty of the river port which was the last piece of Chinese territory on which he would set foot for many days were several hundred native soldiers. They wore red jackets of the worst fit, cumbersome hats placed at different angles adorned their heads, on their feet were boots many, sizes too big for them,. and their rifles were antique in make, and testified to the personal habits of the owners. Somewhere in the company a band played wild and fearful music, and* a vast, unwashed, noisy multitude of Chinese pushed and bayed at' the heels of the troops Many fingered, the red jackets, and examined the ancient guns Rnd tarnished swords with an insatiable curiosity which met with no check. The soldiers", for all the interest they displayed in this intimate scrutiny, might have been wooden images dressed by tailors to delight a school of children out on a holiday. Apathy, indifference, and, .it might- be but fancy, in some faces shame, were the masks worn by these men standing there in ragged lines to greet •their prince. And yet we know that they can fieht like lions when led by a Gordon, can supply the material for such a body as the Wei-hai-wei Regiment, and lead the first rush into the heart of the very fiercest fighting. In the gaily painted and decorated pavilion erected as a reception room, the flast of Imperial yellow, crested with the dragon, fluttering from the roof, were the officers and soldiers, smoking opium, gambling, sleeping, and showing no more interest in their men or their profession than does a dyspeptic teetotaller in a new kind of beer. Appropriating to ( their own base uses the wages due to their subordinate*, and grossly ignorant of the first principles of the military profession, they damn the Chinese Army from the start. And the makers of the type of soldier I saw on the bridge at Tokio are turning their eyes to China, and if ever they take m hand John Chinaman in^ the mass, China will pay no more indemnities.