be a scum on the top of the mixture, which should then be poured into a small teacup and placed near a fire. When it is warm, powdered gall-nuts and iron filings should be added to it, and the whole should be warmed again. The liquid is then painted on to the teeth by means of a soft feather brush, with more powdered gall-nuts and iron, and, after several applications, the desired colour will be obtained."
Books on Japan. Von Wenckstern's Bibliography of the Japanese Empire contains a great many thousands of entries, from which it may be inferred that not to have written a book about Japan is fast becoming a title to distinction. The art of Japan, the history of Japan, the language, folk-lore, botany, even the earthquakes and the diseases of Japan—each of these, with many other subjects, has a little library to itself. Then there are the works of an encyclopedic character, and there are the books of travel. Some of the latter possess great value, as photographing Japanese manners for us at certain periods. Others are at the ordinary low level of globe-trotting literature,—twaddle enlivened by statistics at second-hand.
We give references at the end of most of the articles of this work to the chief authorities on each special subject. At the risk of offending innumerable writers, we now venture to pick out the following dozen works as probably the most generally useful that are accessible to English readers. Of course it is more than possible that some of the really best have escaped our notice or our memory. Anyhow, an imperfect list will perhaps be deemed better than none at all:—
1. "The Mikado's Empire," by the Rev. W. E. Griffis. This is the book best-calculated to give the general reader just the information that he requires, and to give it to him in a manner not too technical. The first volume is devoted to history, the second to the author's personal experiences and to Japanese life in modern days. The tenth edition brings the story down to 1903. More than one reader of cultivated taste has, indeed, complained of the
