camera. But one child had a very bad skin disease on his
innocent head,--so bad that none of the others would play with him,--and
he stood in a corner and sobbed and sobbed as though his heart would
break. Poor little Gehazi!

No. XIV

EXPLAINS IN WHAT MANNER I WAS TAKEN TO VENICE IN THE RAIN, AND CLIMBED
INTO A DEVIL FORT; A TIN-POT EXHIBITION, AND A BATH. OF THE MAIDEN AND
THE BOLTLESS DOOR, THE CULTIVATOR AND HIS FIELDS, AND THE MANUFACTURE OF
ETHNOLOGICAL THEORIES AT RAILROAD SPEED. ENDS WITH KIOTO.

"There's a deal o' fine confused feedin' about sheep's head."

--_Christopher North._

"Come along to Osaka," said the Professor.

"Why? I'm quite comfy here, and we shall have lobster cutlets for
tiffin; and, anyhow, it is raining heavily, and we shall get wet."

Sorely against my will--for it was in my mind to fudge Japan from a
guide-book while I enjoyed the cookery of the Oriental at Kobe--I was
dragged into a 'rickshaw and the rain, and conveyed to a railway
station. Even the Japanese cannot make their railway stations lovely,
though they do their best. Their system of baggage-booking is borrowed
from the Americans; their narrow-gauge lines, locos, and rolling stock
are English; their passenger-traffic is regulated with the precision of
the Gaul, and the uniforms of their officials come from the nearest
ragbag. The passengers themselves were altogether delightful. A large
number of them were modified Europeans, and resembled nothing more than
Tenniel's picture of the White Rabbit on the first page of _Alice in
Wonderland_. They were dressed in neat little tweed suits with
fawn-coloured overcoats, and they carried ladies' reticules of black
leather and nickel platings. They wore paper and celluloid stuck-up
collars which must have been quite thirteen inches round the neck, and
their boots were number fours. On their hands--their wee-wee hands--they
had white cotton gloves, and they smoked cigarettes from fairy little
cigarette cases. That was young Japan--the Japan of the present day.

"Wah, wah, God is great," said the Professor. "But it isn't in human
nature for a man who sprawls about on soft mats by instinct to wear
Europe clothes as though they belonged to him. If you notice, the last
thing that they take to is shoes."

A lapis-lazuli coloured locomotive which, by accident, had a mixed train
attached to it happened to loaf up to the platform just then, and we
entered a first-class Eng