ve given the colic to an elephant. One day,
after her visit to me, as I was sitting upon the matted and roofed
square that served me for a room, my eye wandered idly toward the
bathing beach, and, under the slight shelter where the bathers were in
the habit of depositing their sandals and towels, I spied the well-known
yoke and fruit baskets, as well as a small heap of blue cotton garments
that I knew to be the clothing of the little fruit-vender. She had
evidently taken a moment when trade was slack to enjoy a dip in the
soft, blue, summer sea. Hardly had I made up my mind as to the meaning
of the fruit baskets and the clothing, when our little friend herself
emerged from the sea and, sitting down on a bench, proceeded to rub
herself off with the small but artistically decorated blue towel that
every peasant in Japan has always with him, however lacking he may be in
all other appurtenances of the toilet. As she sat there, placidly
rubbing away, a friend of the opposite sex made his appearance on the
scene. I watched to see what she would do, for the Japanese code of
etiquette is quite different from ours in such a predicament. She
continued her employment until he was quite close, showing no unseemly
haste, but continuing her polishing off in the same leisurely manner in
which she had begun it; then at the proper moment she rose from her
seat, bowed profoundly, and smilingly exchanged the greetings proper for
the occasion, both parties apparently unconscious of any lack in the
toilet of the lady. The male friend then passed on about his business;
the little woman completed her toilet without further interruptions,
shouldered her yoke, and jogged cheerfully on to her home in the little
village, a couple of miles away.

As one travels through rural Japan in summer and sees the half-naked
men, women, and children that pour out from every village on one's route
and surround the _kuruma_ at every stopping place, one sometimes wonders
whether there is in the country any real civilization, whether these
half-naked people are not more savage than civilized; but when one finds
everywhere good hotels, scrupulous cleanliness in all the appointments
of toilet and table, polite and careful service, honest and willing
performance of labor bargained for, together with the gentlest and
pleasantest of manners, even on the part of the gaping crowd that shut
out light and air from the traveling foreigner who rests for a moment at
the vil