The appearance of the country along the western end of the Sanyo Railway on this last day of May, 1907, fully confirmed the account of the character and the policy of the men who, since the time of Hideyoshi, have developed it. The views of the sea on the right-hand side of the train cannot easily be surpassed anywhere in the world. On the other side, the fields in the valleys, and the terraces on the hills, constitute one almost continuous, highly cultivated garden for more than one hundred miles. The tops of the mountains, except in a few unfavorable spots, are covered with forests of thickly-set and varied arborage. The comparatively damp climate of Japan covers with that exquisite soft haze which the Japanese artists appreciate so highly and reproduce so well, the same kind of soil and of rocks which shine out so bright and strong in their coloring across the straits in Korea. In the train, my next neighbor on my right—a big German who smoked strong cigars incessantly, and who said that he had been in the Orient for forty years—declared unhesitatingly that the people of Japan, outside of a certain portion of a few cities where foreign influences had operated most strongly, were all savages to-day, as they were when the country was first opened to Western civilization. When he was reminded that the percentage of children in actual attendance in the public schools was much larger than in the United States, and at least equal to the most favored parts of Germany, he replied that the children were never really being taught in school, but always to be seen out of doors, going through some kind of “fanatics” or gymnastics! It is no wonder that this comment elicited no reply. But the picture of the more than a score of thousands of eager and attentive teachers and students to whom I had spoken—not by way of occasional, popular speeches, but in courses of lectures and addresses on serious themes—left me unconvinced. Nor was the remark attributed to the inferior insight of his own nation, whose scholastic training for diplomatic service has been superior to that of other countries, and whose commercial education is fast approaching the same grade of excellence. But it was another lesson in the purely external and untrustworthy character of the prevailing knowledge of the Far East, its people, their excellences and their faults; and, _per contra_, of the only way reasonably to estimate and effectually to attain friendly relations with men in general and with Oriental peoples in particular. The views of the “old resident”—missionary, diplomat, or business man—as such, are of little or no value. This is especially true as touching the relations of Japan and Korea. CHAPTER VIII PERSONAL REMINISCENCES AND IMPRESSIONS