We Had To Wait Two Hours For Horses, As All
Were Engaged In Moving Property And People.
The ground where the
houses had stood was absolutely bare of everything but fine black
ash, among which the kuras stood blackened, and, in some instances,
slightly cracked, but in all unharmed.
Already skeletons of new
houses were rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy
man, but I should probably have lost everything but my money.
LETTER XX - (Continued)
Lunch in Public - A Grotesque Accident - Police Inquiries - Man or
Woman? - A Melancholy Stare - A Vicious Horse - An Ill-favoured Town -
A Disappointment - A Torii.
Yusowa is a specially objectionable-looking place. I took my
lunch - a wretched meal of a tasteless white curd made from beans,
with some condensed milk added to it - in a yard, and the people
crowded in hundreds to the gate, and those behind, being unable to
see me, got ladders and climbed on the adjacent roofs, where they
remained till one of the roofs gave way with a loud crash, and
precipitated about fifty men, women, and children into the room
below, which fortunately was vacant. Nobody screamed - a noteworthy
fact - and the casualties were only a few bruises. Four policemen
then appeared and demanded my passport, as if I were responsible
for the accident, and failing, like all others, to read a
particular word upon it, they asked me what I was travelling for,
and on being told "to learn about the country," they asked if I was
making a map!
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