Life — July 4, 1895 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- LIFE: JAPAN. APAN is to-day the most interesting J country in the world to the tourist. Those who annually make pilgrimages to the Old World, with its London and Paris, will in Japan find an older world with a still older civilization. Before there was a Lon- don or Paris, history was being made in Japan. When Ceasar invaded Britain, find- ing a savage people with no other art than war, and what is now London was only a thick wood with a ditch and rampart, yet the present dynasty of Japan was then centuries old. During all these long centuries the Japanese have been slowly working out their own destiny, but the last fifty years have seen marvelous changes, and with great strides the people are now taking their place beside the most progressive nations of the world. Western ideas and customs and dress are being so rapidly assimilated that much which is now quaint and curious will soon disappear. The tourist who visits Japan a few years hence, will find it altogether different from that of to-day. The success of the Japanese in the recent war with the Chinese, has demonstrated the superiority of Western civilization, and everything Western is now, one might say, the id" in Japan. To those intending to visit Japan, there is one advantage in sailing from San Francisco, as an opportunity is given to visit the Hawaiian Islands. As the steamer sails out of the beautiful Golden Gate Harbor of San Francisco and the Coast Range recedes slowly from view, one gazes on the stretch of water, behind which the sun is slowly dropping, with a strange sensation. It is like that of leaving a world which, with all its familiarity, is yet mysterious, and going to one en- tirely unknown, almost like journeying to another planet. On landing at Yokohama the stranger realizes that he is indeed in a new world. His introduction to all that is quaint and wonderful is so abrupt that he is unprepared for the strange sights that everywhere abound. Autumn is probably the best season to visit Japan, when the woods are aflame with the scarlet of the maple and the splendor of the chrysanthemum. GRAND HoTEL, CHINESE PAGODA, WHAMFOA. PAGODA AND ANCIENT PINE TREE AT NARA. The chance visitor, and especially “ around-the-world tourists " as a class, devote too little attention to Japan. Two or three weeks are generally taken for the stated tour, with a few side trip: and thus two little time is available for the chief cities; the result is that many im- portant places remain un- visited and interesting ob- jects unseen, One of the novel periences of the traveler in Japan is the mode of getting about within the cities, and also in the country. Horses are used to a very small extent, and in place of the vehicles of transit used in other countries, are the light and elegant little carriages, drawn by men, called jinrikishas or kurumas. The firm of Raymond & Whitcomb are arranging a tour, which will include the most interesting parts of Hawaiian Islands, Japan and portions of China and many places not access- ible to the ordinary traveler. It has been the aim of this firm from the first to conduct their tours in such a manner that there will be nothing whatever to offend the most fastidious, and the large number of people who have made tours under their auspices, is evidence that they have succeeded , in providing a method of travel for those who wish to do so without ostenta- tion, at the same time being free § from all annoy- ances, which are constantly occur- ring to mar the pleasure of such a trip under or- dinary conditions, They have almost entirely eliminated these objectionable features, this giving the entire time for sight seeing and pleasure. Another consider- ation worthy of mention in addition to the high character of their tours is the select pat- tonage which has come to themas the result of their superior arrangements. Descriptive book can be had of Raymond & Whitcomb, 31 East Fourteenth Street, corner Union Square, West, New York.—Advt. ex DAL BUTSU, KAMAKUKA, YOKOMASA, PUJIVA HOTEL AT MIYANOSHITA.