rks, the knack of using which, to a
certain extent, is soon acquired. The long intervals between the
dishes were beguiled with songs, music, and dancing, performed by
professional singing and dancing girls. The music was somewhat harsh
and monotonous; but the songs sounded harmonious, and the dancing was
graceful, though it was rather posturing than dancing, great use being
made of the fan and the long trailing skirts. The girls, who were
pretty, wore peculiar dresses to indicate their calling, and seemed of
an entirely different stamp from the quiet, simply dressed waitresses
whom we found so attentive to our wants. Still they all looked cheery,
light-hearted, simple creatures, and appeared to enjoy immensely the
little childish games they played amongst themselves between whiles.

After dinner we had some real Japanese tea, tasting exactly like a
little hot water poured on very fragrant new-mown hay. Then, after a
brief visit to the kitchen, which, though small, was beautifully
clean, we received our boots, and were bowed out by our pleasant
hostess and her attentive handmaidens.

On our return we had considerable difficulty in procuring a boat, our
own boats being all ashore under repair. It was a beautiful moonlight
night, but bitterly cold. The harbour being so full of shipping, our
boatmen were at first puzzled how to find the yacht, till we pointed
to the lights in the deck-house--always a good beacon at night in a
crowded harbour.

_Wednesday, January 31st_. We left the yacht soon after eight o'clock,
and started by the 9.34 a.m. train for the city formerly called Yeddo,
but latterly, since the Mikado has resided there, Tokio, or eastern
capital of Japan. The ground was covered with snow, and there were
several degrees of frost, but the sun felt hot, and all the people
were sunning themselves in the doorways or wide verandahs of their
houses.

Yokohama has been so completely Europeanised, that it was not until we
had left it that we caught our first glimpse of Japanese life; and the
whole landscape and the many villages looked very like a set of living
fans or tea-trays, though somehow the snow did not seem to harmonise
with it.

We crossed several rivers, and reached Tokio in about an hour, when we
at once emerged into the midst of a clattering, chattering crowd,
amongst whom there did not seem to be a single European. The
reverberation, under the glass roof of the station, of the hundreds of
pairs of wo