A Stranger In Yeddo

From Ilon. James Brookft'a Lettere. What a miserable life to be in a eonntry where you can undorstand notbing through your ears, except the yclling and niowing of cats, tlic barking oí' dogs, and tíie crying öf babie, sfrapped on their mothers' or littlo sisters' backs. Even dogs bark, not in English, but iu a Jap anüse way. The baby-crying is the only real familiar sound to greet my ears. Tho cocks havo a ne way ot' Gre-wing, and the hens of oackliog. None of the; sing n orer sing,. if any of fliem siug at all, tbough they make nn infernal noise for birds. Thero aro no hei 'p to bleat and mako you happy, and the cows, if there any and Iho bulls, but 7ery fetr, are 80 well drilled they nerpr low or roar. The temple blls, even, are not eur beUs. 'Ehey don't 8peak Enp ish, nor French, nor Germán, nor any othcr European language, tmt have notes of their own. I should, thereforc. have the blues in such a dcaf and dumb land ii' American and English frienda had not sprung up in five or six direetions. Tliö fish, all are new lisk, as fee liinfs; the ■ïrees, most of thcin new trees : the flower.s all new, if -ve li.nl not importad a gro;lt inany of theui intO America. I can't even go a shopping alone, where there is everything wonderful to buy. I an't teil what I want, and wnën 1 do I caii'fe gBt a tbe yñoa of it, csiwuially in measures and weights, all new to U6, worsc by far than the kilómetros and kil'ogrammes of our French and English neig'ibors. If the rascáis that -went to ■wor.c at thq tiiffir of linliü! had :niy idea of the confesión. thjy wev.i niakiig, do you thiuk they would have tried to lbuiMit? Ho re I au in a Yeddo street, staring and atafed at, and profiting nothing f rom Greek and Latin and sonio consiJerable smattoiing of European SiTs. I would (perhaps'i) givu up all my five or six yeaFB of Greék and Latin if I eould only spêtik five ot six words of Jai)iini'S(, smii as " Whnt's the prit;? of ihis or thati-" or, "show me soine silks oc crapes, or satina, or l'ins, or laequer, or oopjjer esgavings." Hefd are thirtyfi.vo millk'tti.s oí' living Japanese, anti I spent years of my life in studying dead latiu and. dfeaiVjr Grcck - (I would not d"o it over again. thoTigh.) I can't réad tho n unes of the streets, or the numbers of the houses. I wiint 4o ask a million questions, such as " How do you weavo or spin that, or carve this ? " or, " Why do you atable your hoi-ses heads whero we put the horses' tails?" " Why do you mount your biiists 011 the wrong sido '( " " Why don' you uso wheelbar rows in lieu of 1stoïA. basksts wben digging canals in Tedáo?' "Why do yon plañe backwards 'r " But I can't talk ; I am deaf ; I ira dumb ; I might as well be a horsu in Yeddo, when alone, as a man in the stroot all alone.