WARLIKE JAPAN 537 Separated from China by narrow seas lay the island empire of Japan. If the Chinese had a hearty contempt for professional soldiers, they had a still deeper disdain for their Japanese neighbours. The " dwarfs" was the least rude expression by which the hardy little islanders were commonly described. Of all the "outer barbarians," the men of Japan were regarded as the most contemptible. And,indeed,judged by a purelyChinese standard, there was little to be feudalism and the ancient ways,and the reforming party set earnestly to work to introduce into the island empire of the East the methods and the appliancesof the civilised West. A fierce civil war followed, in which the more stubborn ot the feudalnobles set themselves to resist the sweepingchanges that were so suddenly forced upon them by the more progressive members of their own order. Feudalism fell, not without a struggle, in which deeds were done worthy of said for the Japanese. Instead of honouring the man of peace and treating with disdain those who wore the sword, the people ol Japan hadalwaysclung with strange persistency to the old-world prejudice thatgive- the highest honours to the warrior. For centuries they had been ruled by a class of feudal nobles, soldiers by instinct and hereditaryduty. Inmanya household, even among the comparativelypoor,the heirloomhandeddown from father to son and most prized byall was a sword, with a blade of matchless steel, a hilt adorned with strange and cunning workmanship. There were family traditions of the exploits in which its keen edge the old warrior traditions of the people. The newJapan sprang intobeing. Of the old some of the best elements remained. The wonderful art of the people of Japan, no longerhidden away in a country from which theforeigner wasrigidly excluded, won the admirationof thecivilised world. Thesamepainstaking industryand keen intelligence of which it givesevidence was devoted to acquiring the useful arts of civilisation. And the soldier instincts of Old Japan found a new outk-i and occupation in learningthe arts of war that had made Europeans able to dictate their own terms to the island empire in the troubledyears that pre ceded the revolution.

THE MIKADO IN THE UNIFORM OF COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMY.

had the leading part, and there were swords whose hereditary owners held that they should never be drawn except for action and never be sheathed till they had drunk blood. In the early sixties,while Gordon wasleading his welldrilled Chinese battalions to victory, and when the mandarins were beginning to import rifled cannon from Europe, the feudal caste still reignedinJapan,andthe guards of their moated and palisaded castles still wore strange armour of old-world type and head-piecesmade to look terrible with the help of distorted masks and bushy moustaches. Then came the Japanese revolution,and in a twelvemonththe Mikado's Government had cut the country adrift from Thus, while China clung persistently to the old paths, Japan launched out boldly upon newfound ways of thought and action. It was soon perceived that such near neighbours acting on such diverse lines of policy might wellcomeinto conflict. But those who were considered to be the best judgesof the affairs of the Far East for the most part held that Japan could not for many a long year venture to challenge the opposition of China. Even if war should break out between the two empires,it was anticipated by the experts that, although Japan might win some successes at the outset, the enormous population and latent resources of China would graduallybe brought to bear upon the struggle,