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Updated: June 29, 2025
The largest lake in Japan is that of Biwa, a very fine sheet of water, nearly fifty miles long, but rather narrow, probably not exceeding an average width of more than ten miles. It is situated about eight miles from Kioto, and thither we went in jinrikishas.
The temples at Kioto are much inferior to those at Shibba. Our journey enabled us to see about seventy miles of the interior, and we were again impressed by the evidences on every hand of a teeming population. Gangs of men and women were everywhere at work upon small patches of ground, six or seven persons being busily engaged sometimes on less than one acre.
Once upon a time in the country of Japan there lived two frogs, one of whom made his home in a ditch near the town of Osaka, on the sea coast, while the other dwelt in a clear little stream which ran through the city of Kioto.
Soon after this the Emperor ordered the Shogun to come to Kioto with all the Daimios and ascertain the opinion of the country. But the Shogun did not come, so the Emperor sent his envoy, Ohara Sammi, and called the meeting of the Daimios at Yedo in 1862, in which the noted Shimadzu Saburo was also present. In 1864 the council of Daimios was again held, and Minister Pruyn, in his letter to Mr.
At Kiobe the steamer lay for twenty-four hours, and this enabled us to run up by rail to Kioto, the former residence of the Mikado, reputed to be the Paris of Japan. The city itself deserves this reputation about as well as Cincinnati does that of our American Paris, which I see some one has called it.
Everything seems so small and delicate. Even the people are small. The roads are narrow, and are chiefly used by rickshas and foot passengers. The houses are dolls' closets. The railways are of narrow gauge, and the carriages like our tramcars. But if you wish to see something large you can visit the Buddhist temple in Kioto.
Not more than a few court nobles were allowed to approach the throne, a practice most opposed to the principles of Heaven. This vicious practice has been common in all ages. But now, let pompous etiquette be done away with, and simplicity become our first object. Kioto is in an-out-of-the way position, and is unfit to be the seat of government!
But our time is so short, that we could not afford to waste it; so half our party started early for Kioto, it being arranged that Tom and Mabelle should follow us by an early train to-morrow. It was a wet cheerless day, and the country did not look its best. Still, the novelty of the scenes around could not fail to make them interesting.
The missionary party landed at Kagoshima, in Satsuma. Here they had little success, only the family and relatives of Anjiro accepting the new faith, and Xavier set out on a tour through the land, his goal being Kioto, the mikado's capital.
Even the palaces of the mikado in Kioto never contained tables, chairs, bedsteads or any such inconvenient and space-robbing thing. The tables upon which they ate, played chess or wrote were six inches or a foot high. A Japanese of the old style thinks the cumbrous furniture in our Western dwellings impertinent and unnecessary.
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