Identifier: mikadosempire05grif (find matches)
Title: The mikado's empire
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Griffis, William Elliot, 1843-1928
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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he wax candlesmade from it, selling to the Japanese at an advanced price. It hap-pened once, so I have read, that a Japanese junk drifted to the shoresof California. A newspaper reporter announced in type, with sensa-tional iptent, next day, that the junk had been salt-water-logged so LIFE IN A JAPANESE HOUSE. 447 long that the wick had been entirely corroded by the action of thewater, until the candle had a hole entirely through it! In Tnj own room, I had my Connecticut lamp, well fed with Penn-sylvania petroleum. The snow had begun to melt, and, at intervals, a heavy, thunderousnoise overhead told of a huge snow-slide—the accumulation of wintersliding off. Over the castle and city and yashiki gates, and over thedoors of houses, I had noticed a long timber bar riveted to the roof,which prevented the snow from falling on the heads of people below,while it slid freely in other places. Anon the whirring of wings, andthe screaming of the flocks of wild geese as they clove the air, told
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Night Scene on the River-flats. (Hokusai.) how these restless birds enjoyed the night as well as the day. Thesegeese were my nocturnal barometer. I could tell from the height orlowness of their flight, and the volume of sound of their throats, whatwere the weather probabilities for the morrow. A view from my garden-gate included the street, the river-flats, afew boats like black spots on the water, the bridge, and the masts ris-ing spectrally beyond Atago yama with its twinkling lights,-peoplereturning home, and coolies hurrying along with belated travelers.The moon shone overhead, but yet, dimly seen, reminded me vividlyof a sketch by one of the native artists, whose great merits and pe-culiarities I was then beginning to appreciate and distinguish. I could 448 THE MIKADOS EMPIRE. hear the voices outside, the womens chatting, the childrens prattle,and the coolies grunt. The crows of Fukui were as numerous, merry, audacious, and ab-surd as their black brethren in the pine-roosts of Ne

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