hen full grown.

Cows' milk is unknown among the natives, though the universal drink is
tea without sugar, and by no means strong. The general food is rice and
vegetables seasoned with dried fish, but no meats. Some domestic fowls
were seen, not in abundance, and the eggs are used for domestic
purposes. Doubtless the fowls are also eaten, but the average Japanese
is satisfied with rice and vegetables, adding the inevitable cup of tea
three or four times a day. Women carry their children lashed to their
backs like American Indians, and thus encumbered perform field labor or
domestic work, without seeming in the least to realize their double
task. The elder children carry the younger ones in the same manner,
going about their play with a load on their backs that would stagger a
Yankee child. This we found to be a universal custom both in town and
country, while the great multiplicity of young children was a constant
subject of surprise. The married women shave off their eyebrows and
blacken their teeth as evidences of wifehood, the effect being hideous,
which indeed is the wife's professed object; and, like the ancient
Grecian ladies, they count their age from the time of marriage, not from
the time of birth. The ideas of strangers as to the proprieties are
sometimes severely outraged; but habit and custom make law, and men and
women bathe promiscuously in the public baths,--notwithstanding which
there is a spirit of delicacy and good breeding among them, in itself a
species of Christianity. Windows are glazed with rice paper in place of
glass, and the light is really but little impeded, though one cannot see
through the paper, all of which circumstances fix themselves on the
memory.

The pictures and authorities relative to Japanese life which one has
accepted as authentic have not quite prepared the traveler for the facts
and experiences which crowd upon him, when among this very interesting
race. The actual embodiment of the people, their manners and customs,
together with the local surroundings, are all so different from the
preconceived ideal, that everything comes with the force of a surprise.
Figure, physiognomy, costume, nudity,--one is not quite prepared for
anything; all is like a fresh revelation. Once brought face to face with
Japanese life, our fabric of anticipation tumbles to pieces like a house
of cards. Everything is unique. There is no criterion for comparison.
Nothing but personal observation quite rec