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.
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