After tea and sake and little Japanese cakes and peanuts, thence straightway to Tokio, whence the soldiers went to the front and the unknown correspondent was going, at that time, to an unknown destination in an unknown time. It is an hour between little patches of half-drowned rice bulbs, cottages thatched with rice straw, with green things growing on the roof, and little gardens laid out with an art minute and exquisite, blossoming trees of wild cherry, that beloved symbol of Japanese bravery because it dares to spread its petals under falling snow, dashed here and there with the red camellia that is unlucky because it drops its blossom whole and suggests the time when the Japanese head might fall for a slight offence; between little hills overspread with pine trees, and little leafless saplings that help so much to give the delicate, airy quality that characterizes the landscape of Japan. At every station was a hurrying throng of men, women, and children who clicked the stone pavements on xylophones with a music that some writer with the tympanum of a blacksmith characterized as a clatter. These getas are often selected, I am told, to suit the individual ear. At Tokio outward evidences of war were as meagre as ever. But to that lack, the answer is, "It is not the Japanese custom." I am told that the night war was declared the Japanese went to bed, but about every bulletin board there is now always an eager crowd of watchers. The shout of "Nippon banzai!" from the foreigner, which means "Good luck to Japan," always gets a grateful response from the child in the street, the coolie with his ricksha, policeman on his beat, or the Japanese gentleman in his carriage. And then the stories I heard of the devotion and sacrifice of the people who are left at home! The women let their hair go undressed once a month that they may contribute each month the price of the dressing--five sen. A gentleman discovered that every servant in his household, from butler down, was contributing a certain amount of his wages each month, and in consequence offered to raise wages just the amount each servant was giving away. The answer was: "Sir, we cannot allow that; it is an honor for us to give, and it would be you who would be doing our duty for us to Japan." A Japanese lady apologized profusely for being late at dinner. She had been to the station to see her son off for the front, where already were three of her sons. Said another straightway: "How fortunate to be able to give four sons to Japan!" In a tea-house I saw an old woman with blackened teeth, a servant, who bore herself proudly, and who, too, was honored because she had sent four sons to the Yalu. Hundreds and thousands of families are denying themselves one meal a day that they may give more to their country. And one rich merchant, who has already given 100,000 yen, has himself cut off one meal, and declares that he will if necessary live on one the rest of his life for the sake of Japan.