There was also another personage, with
a Dan Leno-like face and an extraordinary gift of contorting his legs,
who played the buffoon, and gyrated round the dignified M.C., who
remained unmoved while the audience laughed. It was evidently the
right thing for the prizes--they were awarded at the end of each
bout--to be presented as comically as possible; and some of the
Shakespearean humours which appealed so powerfully to the groundlings
at the Globe were enacted as if neither space nor time intervened
between us and the Elizabethans.

The bouts were not so fast as professional wrestlers are accustomed
to, but they were none the less exciting. The result was invariably in
some doubt and often entirely unexpected. The usual rule was that he
who threw his man twice was the winner. In some events, immediately a
wrestler had been thrown, a succession of other contestants rushed at
the victor, one after the other, without allowing him time even to
straighten his back. Some of the competitors were poorly developed but
the lankiest and skinniest were often excellent wrestlers. At an
interval in the wrestling the committee flung hard peaches to
wrestlers and spectators. I wanted to make some little acknowledgment
of the kindness of the young men's association in providing us with
our little platform, and it was suggested that autographed fans at
about a penny three-farthings apiece for about forty wrestlers would
be acceptable. This gift was announced on a long streamer. The funny
man of the ring also made a speech of welcome. I may add that the
young men's association had fitted up on the way to the scene of the
wrestling a number of special lanterns which bore efforts in English
by a student home for the holidays.

I was told that the people of the village were "honest, independent
and earnest," and I am disposed to think that this may be true of most
of them. As to honesty, we had the satisfaction of living without any
thought of _dorobo_ (robbers). It is a great comfort to be able at
night to leave open most of the _shoji_ and not to have to pull out
the _amado_ (wooden shutters) from their case. The nature of our
possessions was well known not only in the village but throughout the
district, for there was seldom a day on which a knot of grown-ups or
children did not come to peer into our rooms. The inspection was
accompanied by many polite bows and friendly smiles. On a festival day
the crowd occasionally reached about fi