I Interceded For Him As The Day Was Very Hot, And
The Policeman Said He Would Not Arrest Him, As He Should Otherwise
Have Done, Because Of The Inconvenience That It Would Cause To A
Foreigner.
He was quite an elderly man, and never recovered his
spirits, but, as soon as a turn of the road took us out of the
policeman's sight, the two younger men threw their clothes into the
air and gambolled in the shafts, shrieking with laughter!
On reaching Shingoji, being too tired to go farther, I was dismayed
to find nothing but a low, dark, foul-smelling room, enclosed only
by dirty shoji, in which to spend Sunday. One side looked into a
little mildewed court, with a slimy growth of Protococcus viridis,
and into which the people of another house constantly came to
stare. The other side opened on the earthen passage into the
street, where travellers wash their feet, the third into the
kitchen, and the fourth into the front room. Even before dark it
was alive with mosquitoes, and the fleas hopped on the mats like
sand-flies. There were no eggs, nothing but rice and cucumbers.
At five on Sunday morning I saw three faces pressed against the
outer lattice, and before evening the shoji were riddled with
finger-holes, at each of which a dark eye appeared. There was a
still, fine rain all day, with the mercury at 82 degrees, and the
heat, darkness, and smells were difficult to endure.
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