A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

>m aJJAPANSHe Japanese are one of the cleanliest people on earth.Everything is so neat and tidy. Their streets arenearly all broad and straight, regularly paved.Their cage-lik neat little houses, their pine-covered evergreen^Jittlehills forming the back-ground of almost everytorn*and village, -the short statured, fair-skinned, quaintlydressed Japs, their movements, attitudes, gestures, everything is picturesque.Japan is the land of the picturesque.IJvjry house almost has a garden at the back, very nicelylaid out according to Japanese* fashion, with small shrubs,grass plots, small artificial waters and small stone bridges.The Japanese seem now to have fully awakened themselves to the necessity of the present times. They havenow a thoroughly organised army equipped with guns whichoneof their own officers has invented and which are saidto be second to none. They are continuously increasingtheir navy. I have seen a tunnel bored by a JapaneseEngineer, nearly a mile long. The match factories aresimply a sight to see. And they are bent upon makingeverything they want in their own country. There* is aJapanese line of ****** steamers plying between China and JapananA which will shortly be running between Bombay andYokohama, ^*I saw quite a lot of temples. In every temple thereare some Mantras written in old Bangalee characters inSanskrit. ^Only a few of the priests know Sanskrit, Butthey are an intelligent sect. The modern rage for progress38letter written from Japan in 1893.