"The Japan of picturesque romance is passing away, and is being replaced by a land of materialism, which, however prosperous, powerful, and wealthy it may be, can no longer be the universally lovely fairyland that it was when first we knew it."<br><br>These words form the conclusion and the summing-up of an interesting and sympathetic review of one of the most recent works on Japan (Japan: The Rise of a Modern Power, by E. P. Porter, Times Literary Supplement, 18th February 1918). Yet, true as the writer's lament may be of the effects wrought by the unpleasing changes that have followed in the wake of modern industrialism in Tokyo and other large cities on the coast, the transformation is far more restricted in its extent than is at all realised by the outside world. For it is possible in a few short hours to pass from the beaten tracks of tourist traffic into what is virtually another state of existence.