The following sketches of life in Japan and the voyage there and back are taken from a diary which I kept during my travels.
Since writing my little book of personal reminiscences, which, thanks to indulgent readers and kind friends, is now republished in a second edition, many and great changes have taken place in the Far East.
Japan has now become a great Power--not only in the East, but also in the West. It is little Japan no longer; or, rather, its greatness is now understood and acknowledged by all the world. Western civilization has taken a firm hold on the Japanese people. They have been rapidly adopting, and, in fact, improving on, Western methods, customs, and manners. The fear of the globe-trotter of to-day is whether he will be in time to see the Japan of his dreams and of romance, before this great Western wave of progress and reform has divested the Land of the Rising Sun of its quaint originality and fascinating charm.
E. H. B.
1906.