Finally, if I were asked to enumerate the interesting sights of Tokio, or to give advice what to see, and especially how to see Tokio, I should to a certain extent deviate from the generally adopted plans of the guide-books. Instead of drawing attention to the past, I would deal more with the present; instead of describing the monuments of bygone ages only, I would point out the modern institutions of the capital; instead of dreaming in the old cemeteries of the Shoguns and Ronins, I would awaken some interest in schools, factories, and barracks. In fact, instead of dwelling on what is dead, I would study what is to be born and what is already alive. And so the first disappointment of missing the expected gay fairyland will turn into interest in serious reality. Thus travellers would derive greater benefit and waste less time, if they were prepared at the outset for Tokio, not as it may once have been and as we still imagine it from description, but as it has developed in the last quarter of a century. To conjure up the past or to recall bygone traditions, one ought to linger in Nara's sacred groves and Nikko's hidden shrines; but on arrival in Tokio and Osaka, one is awakened to the reality of modern times, and dreams are bound to give place to the hard work of life. After the first disappointment caused by the capital's inartistic and rather incoherent aspect of today, one cannot fail to be impressed by the activity of its inhabitants; and the repugnance roused by its prosaic outlook, where new and old mingle indiscriminately, once overcome, one begins to understand and appreciate the indefatigable labour by which all this change has been achieved.