I Should Have Welcomed Twenty Of Their
Species, For Their Presence Assured Me Of The Fact That I Am Known
And Registered, And That A Government Which, For Special Reasons,
Is Anxious To Impress Foreigners With Its Power And Omniscience Is
Responsible For My Safety.
While they spelt through my passport by their dim lantern I opened
the Yedo parcel, and found that it contained a tin of lemon sugar,
a most kind note from Sir Harry Parkes, and a packet of letters
from you.
While I was attempting to open the letters, Ito, the
policemen, and the lantern glided out of my room, and I lay
uneasily till daylight, with the letters and telegram, for which I
had been yearning for six weeks, on my bed unopened!
Already I can laugh at my fears and misfortunes, as I hope you
will. A traveller must buy his own experience, and success or
failure depends mainly on personal idiosyncrasies. Many matters
will be remedied by experience as I go on, and I shall acquire the
habit of feeling secure; but lack of privacy, bad smells, and the
torments of fleas and mosquitoes are, I fear, irremediable evils.
I. L. B.
LETTER VI - (Continued)
A Coolie falls ill - Peasant Costume - Varieties in Threshing - The
Tochigi yadoya - Farming Villages - A Beautiful Region - An In
Memoriam Avenue - A Doll's Street - Nikko - The Journey's End - Coolie
Kindliness.
By seven the next morning the rice was eaten, the room as bare as
if it had never been occupied, the bill of 80 sen paid, the house-
master and servants with many sayo naras, or farewells, had
prostrated themselves, and we were away in the kurumas at a rapid
trot. At the first halt my runner, a kindly, good-natured
creature, but absolutely hideous, was seized with pain and
vomiting, owing, he said, to drinking the bad water at Kasukabe,
and was left behind. He pleased me much by the honest independent
way in which he provided a substitute, strictly adhering to his
bargain, and never asking for a gratuity on account of his illness.
He had been so kind and helpful that I felt quite sad at leaving
him there ill, - only a coolie, to be sure, only an atom among the
34,000,000 of the Empire, but not less precious to our Father in
heaven than any other. It was a brilliant day, with the mercury 86
degrees in the shade, but the heat was not oppressive. At noon we
reached the Tone, and I rode on a coolie's tattooed shoulders
through the shallow part, and then, with the kurumas, some ill-
disposed pack-horses, and a number of travellers, crossed in a
flat-bottomed boat. The boatmen, travellers, and cultivators, were
nearly or altogether without clothes, but the richer farmers worked
in the fields in curved bamboo hats as large as umbrellas, kimonos
with large sleeves not girt up, and large fans attached to their
girdles. Many of the travellers whom we met were without hats, but
shielded the front of the head by holding a fan between it and the
sun.
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