From Proverbial Philosophy To Personal Privation Is Rather A
Descent, But Owing To The Many Detentions On The Journey My
Small
stock of foreign food is exhausted, and I have been living here on
rice, cucumbers, and salt salmon - so
Salt that, after being boiled
in two waters, it produces a most distressing thirst. Even this
has failed to-day, as communication with the coast has been stopped
for some time, and the village is suffering under the calamity of
its stock of salt-fish being completely exhausted. There are no
eggs, and rice and cucumbers are very like the "light food" which
the Israelites "loathed." I had an omelette one day, but it was
much like musty leather. The Italian minister said to me in
Tokiyo, "No question in Japan is so solemn as that of food," and
many others echoed what I thought at the time a most unworthy
sentiment. I recognised its truth to-day when I opened my last
resort, a box of Brand's meat lozenges, and found them a mass of
mouldiness. One can only dry clothes here by hanging them in the
wood smoke, so I prefer to let them mildew on the walls, and have
bought a straw rain-coat, which is more reliable than the paper
waterproofs. I hear the hum of the children at their lessons for
the last time, for the waters are falling fast, and we shall leave
in the morning.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXIX
Hope deferred - Effects of the Flood - Activity of the Police - A
Ramble in Disguise - The Tanabata Festival - Mr. Satow's Reputation.
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