There, As
Usual, I Sat Under The Verandah Of The Transport Office, And Waited
For The One Horse Which Was Available.
It was a large shop, but
contained not a single article of European make.
In the one room a
group of women and children sat round the fire, and the agent sat
as usual with a number of ledgers at a table a foot high, on which
his grandchild was lying on a cushion. Here Ito dined on seven
dishes of horrors, and they brought me sake, tea, rice, and black
beans. The last are very good. We had some talk about the
country, and the man asked me to write his name in English
characters, and to write my own in a book. Meanwhile a crowd
assembled, and the front row sat on the ground that the others
might see over their heads. They were dirty and pressed very
close, and when the women of the house saw that I felt the heat
they gracefully produced fans and fanned me for a whole hour. On
asking the charge they refused to make any, and would not receive
anything. They had not seen a foreigner before, they said, they
would despise themselves for taking anything, they had my
"honourable name" in their book. Not only that, but they put up a
parcel of sweetmeats, and the man wrote his name on a fan and
insisted on my accepting it. I was grieved to have nothing to give
them but some English pins, but they had never seen such before,
and soon circulated them among the crowd.
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