Would That These Much-Exposed Skulls Were Always Smooth And Clean!
It Is Painful To See The Prevalence Of Such Repulsive Maladies As
Scabies, Scald-Head, Ringworm, Sore Eyes, And Unwholesome-Looking
Eruptions, And Fully 30 Per Cent Of The Village People Are Badly
Seamed With Smallpox.
LETTER X - (Completed)
Shops and Shopping - The Barber's Shop - A Paper Waterproof - Ito's
Vanity - Preparations for the Journey - Transport and Prices - Money
and Measurements.
I have had to do a little shopping in Hachiishi for my journey.
The shop-fronts, you must understand, are all open, and at the
height of the floor, about two feet from the ground, there is a
broad ledge of polished wood on which you sit down. A woman
everlastingly boiling water on a bronze hibachi, or brazier,
shifting the embers about deftly with brass tongs like chopsticks,
and with a baby looking calmly over her shoulders, is the
shopwoman; but she remains indifferent till she imagines that you
have a definite purpose of buying, when she comes forward bowing to
the ground, and I politely rise and bow too. Then I or Ito ask the
price of a thing, and she names it, very likely asking 4s. for what
ought to sell at 6d. You say 3s., she laughs and says 3s. 6d.; you
say 2s., she laughs again and says 3s., offering you the tabako-
bon. Eventually the matter is compromised by your giving her 1s.,
at which she appears quite delighted. With a profusion of bows and
"sayo naras" on each side, you go away with the pleasant feeling of
having given an industrious woman twice as much as the thing was
worth to her, and less than what it is worth to you!
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