Yokohama 1900s
Yokohama Station

A strange sight has been witnessed recently in Japan. A railroad has been completed between Yokohama and Yeddo, and the Mikado opened the line while the band of a French corvette, the Belliqueuse, enlivened the scene by playing “Voici le Sabre de mon Père.”¹ The fantastic jumble of the gravity of the Orient and the burlesque of the Occident, the mingling of the prosaic and scientific spirit of a utilitarian age with the dreamy pomp and barbaric magnificence of an age of romance, must have not been a little curious, and the various surroundings tended to make it still more so.

It appears that deputations and officials were present from all the foreign maritime Powers, and, of course, these personages wore grand dresses and uniforms. The military which escorted the Mikado wore their native costumes—distinguished for the occasion by uncommon splendor—while the Mikado himself wore a plain, snow-white tunic, with a mantle of yellow silk.

Fair readers will be interested in knowing that this progressive monarch is a handsome man, with regular features, and skin of a pale olive; also, that he wore a chignon, formed of the back hair brought to the top of the head, and surmounted by a small silk cap.

The Ministers of State were attired in robes of green, violet, and rose-colored crape; the officers of the army and navy wore quantities of gold lace, and the various hangings and banners were gorgeous with many-hued embroideries and flashing with jewels.

When the State carriage of the Mikado arrived, a long carpet of luxurious texture was laid from the door to that of the palace car on the train. Along this the first gentleman of Japan moved with dignified deliberation, followed by his staff and a bevy of beautiful ladies of the Court.

Amid the booming of cannon and the rolling of drums, the “huzzas” of the Americans and Europeans, and the loyal cheers of the natives, the first steam locomotive that ever drew a train in Japan moved slowly toward Yokohama, and the fresh link forged by science to draw together the West and the East was thus firmly connected. There have been few sights in the time of this generation more suggestive.

The new Japanese railroad unites the first seaport of the Empire with its capital, and is, in French measure, some thirty kilometres in length. It has been built at the expense of the Japanese Government, but under the direction of English engineers. It has cost eleven millions of francs, or two hundred and twenty thousand dollars a mile, which is regarded as an enormous sum, but which, considering the line to be the first ever built in the country, does not seem to be excessive.

The road is to be continued to Osaka, and we shall doubtless soon hear of extensions in other directions. Soon, too, we shall probably be told of speculations in the stock, of “Bull” and “Bear” combinations to put it up and down, and of native “operators” distinguishing themselves like the famous, and infamous, magnates of Wall-street.

That railroads will be greatly encouraged in Japan seems certain, for very good reasons. In the first place, the present road is sure to be enormously profitable. By it, in half an hour, the Yokohama merchant can send his goods to Yeddo. The ease with which the rich products of the Japanese Islands can find a market by being sent to the sea-shore will be consequently illustrated in a forcible manner, and the advantages thus likely to accrue to our own Pacific trade are not less obvious. A market for American productions will undoubtedly be created, and a system of exchanges begun that will, in no distant future, increase in a great degree our national wealth.

Thus, whether in its dramatic aspect of extraordinary contrast and variety, its blending of the dreams of Aladdin and Sinbad with those of James Watt and of Fulton, or in its grand promise of a commercial future, the opening of the Yeddo-Yokohama Railroad is in every way interesting to us, and worthy to be recorded as one of the most memorable events of our time.