6 RIFFIN, GERALD, an Irish novelist and poet; born at Limerick, December 12, 1803; died at Cork June 12, 1840. While he was a youth his family emigrated to America leaving him at Adare, situated in a beautiful valley which he has celebrated. in verse. At the age of twenty he went to London with two tragedies, Aguire and Gisippus, which he vainly tried to sell, although the latter was successfully brought out upon the stage after his death. He became a writer for periodicals, and in three or four years acquired a brilliant reputation. His first novel, Holland-tide, was published in 1827; this was followed by several others, of which The Collegians (1828), dramatized as the Colleen Bawn, presents an unusually vivid picture of Irish life. A complete collection of his works, with a Memoir by his brother, was issued in New York, in eight volumes, (1842-46). Among his other works are The Invasion and The Rivals. ADARE. Oh, sweet Adare! oh, lovely vale! Nor summer sun, nor morning gale, Within thy verdant bosom dwelling, The morning airs, how sweet at dawn, The slumbering boughs your song awaken, Thou rising sun, how richly gleams Thy smile from far Knockfierna's mountain, O'er waving woods and bounding streams, And many a grove and glancing fountain! In sweet Adare the jocund Spring His notes of odorous joy is breathing; The wild birds in the woodland sing, The wild flowers in the vale are wreathing. There winds the Mague, as silver clear, Among the elms so sweetly flowing; There fragrant in the early year, Wild roses on the banks are blowing. The wild duck seeks the sedgy bank, Or dives beneath the glistening billow, In thicket lone the stag is belling, A SONG OF FAREWELL. A place in thy memory, dearest, To pause and look back when thou hearest Could I be thy true lover, dearest, I would be the fondest and nearest But a cloud o'er my pathway is looming Which never must break upon thine; And Heaven, which made thee all blooming, Remember me not as a lover Whose fond hopes are crossed, As the young bride remembers the mother RIFFIS, WILLIAM ELLIOT, an American clergyman and traveler; born at Philadelphia, September 17, 1843. He entered Rutgers College, and was graduated in 1869. The next year he was appointed to organize schools in Japan on the American plan. For a year he was Superintendent of Education at Echizan, and from 1872 to 1874 he was Professor of Physics in the Imperial University of Tokio. On his return to America he studied theology at New Brunswick, N. J., and at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. He then held successive pastorates in Schenectady, N. Y., Boston, Mass., and Ithaca, N. Y. While in Japan he prepared the New Japan Series of Reading Books (1872); and a Guide to Tokio and Yokohama (1874). After his return he published The Mikado's Empire (1876); The Japanese Fairy World (1880); Asiatic History (1881); Corea, the Hermit Nation (1882); Corea Without and Within (1885), and the Life of Matthew Galbraith Perry (1887). Mr. Griffis is a prolific writer and his subjects cover a wide field. Among his later works are: The Lily Among Thorns (1889); Honda the Samurai (1890); Sir William Johnson (1891); Japan in History, Folk-lore and Art (1892); Brave Little Holland (1894); The Religions of Japan (1895); Townsend Harris (1895); The Romance of Discovery (1897); The Pilgrims in Their Three Homes (1898); The American in Holland (1899); The Pathfinder of the Revolution (1900); In the Mikado's Service (1902); and Memories of Three Pastorates (1903). A RIDE ON THE TOKAIDO. A frosty morning. Air keen, bracing, razor-like. Sky stainlessly clear. The Bay of Yedo glinting with unnumbered sunbeams. Blue sky, blue water, blue mountains, white Fuji. Our driver whips up the horses for sheer warmth, and we dash over the "iron bridge." A trifling bit of iron to our foreign eyes, but a triumph of engineering to the natives, who build of wood. We pass it, and then we are on the causeway that connects Yokohama with the great main road of the empire, the Tokaido. The causeway passed, and with foreign sights behind, real Japan appears. I am in a New World, not the Old. Everything is novel. I should like to be Argus: not less than a hundred eyes can take in all the sights. I should like to be a poet to express, and an artist to paint all I see. I wish I knew the language, to ask questions. What a wonderful picture-book! A line of villages are strung along the road, like a great illuminated scroll full of gay, brilliant, merry, sad, disgusting, horrible, curious, funny, delightful pictures. What pretty children! Chubby, rosy, sparkling-eyed. The cold only made their feet pink and their cheeks red. How curiously dressed, with coats like long wrappers, and long, wide, square sleeves, which I know serve for pockets, for I just saw a boy buy some rice cracknels, hot from the toasting-coals, and put them in his sleeves. A girdle three inches wide binds the coat tight to the waist. The children's heads are shaved in all curious fashions. The way the babies are carried is an improvement upon the Indian fashion. The Japanese ko is the papoose reversed. He rides eyes front, and sees the world over his mother's shoulder. Japanese babies are lugged pickaback. Baby Gohachi is laid on mamma's back and strapped on, or else he is inclosed in her garment, and only his little shaven noddle protrudes behind his mother's neck. His own neck never gets wrenched off, and often neither head nor tiny toes are covered, though water is freezing. Here are adults and children running around barefoot. Nobody wears any hat. As for bonnets, a Japanese woman might study a life-time, and go crazy in trying to find out their use. Every one wears cotton clothes, and these of only one or two thicknesses. None of the front doors are shut. All the shops are open. We can see some of the people eating their breakfast beefsteak, hot coffee, and hot rolls for warmth? No: cold rice, pickled radishes, and vegetable messes of all unknown sorts. These we see. They make their rice hot by pouring tea almost boiling over it. A few can afford only hot water. Some eat millet instead of rice. Do they not understand dietetics or hygiene better? Or is it poverty? Strange people, these Japanese! Here are large round ovens full of sweet potatoes being steamed or roasted. A group of urchins are waiting around one shop, grown men around another, for the luxury. Twenty cash (one-fifth of a cent) in iron or copper coin, is the price of a good one. Many of the children, just more than able to walk themselves, are saddled with babies. They look like two-headed children. The fathers of these youngsters are coolies, or burden bearers, who wear a cotton coat of a special pattern, and knot their handkerchiefs over their foreheads. These heads of families receive wages of ten cents a day when work is steady. Here stands one with his shoulder-stick (tembimbo) with pendant baskets of plaited rope, like a scale-beam and pans. His shoulder is to be the fulcrum. On his daily |