Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/427

Rh Sake. No appropriate European name exists for this favourite intoxicant. Both "rice-beer" and "rice-brandy," by which the word has sometimes been translated, give a false idea of the thing. Sake is obtained from fermented rice by a complicated process, which can only be carried out during the winter, and it contains from eleven to fourteen per cent of alcohol. Curiously enough, European heads seem to be affected by it much less easily than the Japanese themselves are; but it is unwise to indulge in sake and wine at the same repast. A very strong variety called shōchii, which is distilled from the dregs, contains from twenty to fifty per cent of alcohol. Another kind, called mirin, is more of a liqueur.

 Salutations. The only native Japanese salutation is the bow, which often amounts to a prostration wherein the forehead touches the ground. Hand-shaking was unknown till a few years ago, and is little practised even now,—a proof of Japanese good sense, especially in hot weather. As for kissing, that is tabooed as utterly immodest and revolting.

 Samurai. In the early Middle Ages—say, before the twelfth century—the soldiers of the Mikado's palace were said to samurau, that is, "be on guard" there. But when feudalism came in, the word Samurai was taken to denote the entire warrior class. "Warriors," "the military class," "the gentry," are perhaps the best English renderings of the word; for it was of the essence of Old Japan that all gentlemen must be soldiers, and all soldiers gentlemen.

The training, the occupations, the code of honour, the whole mental atmosphere of the Samurai exhibited a striking similarity to those of our own nobility and gentry during the Middle Ages. With them, as with us, obedience unquestioning and enthusiastic was yielded to feudal superiors, to monarchs ruling by right