lled _futon_,
and are very like our useful friend the _rezai_; we have some of our own
to add to them, and altogether the beds look so comfortable that we are
quite ready to get into them at an early hour. Having lit a Chinese
lantern at one end of the room before the little picture recess, a
sacred place in every Japanese household, the maid retires for the
night, and so does Yosoji. Only then do we discover that for pillows
they have given us tiny wooden stools, not unlike the national clogs,
only slightly larger! These we are supposed to place in the crick of the
neck; having tried it you declare that if you slept at all that way you
would certainly dream you were lying on the block to be beheaded, so
instead you choose the lid of one of the baskets, which, being yielding,
makes not half a bad pillow.

Good-night!

After a profound sleep I am awakened by a flood of light, and sit up
with a start, to find myself in bed before an admiring crowd. The
sliding panels opening on to the verandah have been pushed back, and
there stand my landlord and landlady, and the little maid-servant, and
several other persons, bowing and prostrating themselves and asking
innumerable questions, to which, as there is no Yosoji, I can give no
answers. Everyone in Japan asks questions, I find; it is supposed to
show a polite interest in you. I feel rather awkward sitting up there
among my futon and making a series of little jerks meant to be bows, and
I am glad when you wake up too and help me a little. You are not so shy,
it seems, for you hop out of your rugs and dance to the verandah,
revelling in the light and sunshine.

An hour later we have had a sluice down with cold water from the brass
basins, eaten a most unsatisfying and unsubstantial breakfast, much like
the dinner the night before, minus the fish, and are out to visit the
village schools, at the suggestion of Yosoji, before going on.

They are worth visiting! I never saw anything quite so quaintly pretty
as these rows of little dolls in their brilliantly gay garments, tied up
with their big sashes. They are sitting on the floor and laboriously
making strokes with a paint-brush. That is to say, they are learning to
write. The Chinese writing is not an alphabet like ours, but each
complicated symbol stands for an idea, and there are thousands and
thousands of them. It takes a child seven years even to learn fairly
what will be necessary in after life.

These little mites ar