lass has to offer:--

Vegetable soup.
Boiled rice, sometimes with minced fowl.
Boiled fish or raw fish with horse-radish.
Vegetables with fish-sauce.
Tea.

Soy is used to the fish. The rice is brought in hot in a wooden
vessel with a lid, and is distributed in abundance, but the other
dishes in extremely small portions. After meals, especially in the
evening, the Japanese often drink warm _saki_, or rice-brandy, out
of peculiar porcelain bottles and small cups set apart for that
purpose alone.

During the meal one is commonly surrounded by a numerous _personnel_
of female attendants, squatted down on the floor, who keep up with
the guest, if he understands their language, a lively conversation,
interrupted by salvoes of hearty laughter. The girls remain while
the man undresses in the evening, and permit themselves to make
remarks on the difference of the _physique_, of the Europeans and
Japanese, which are not only, in our way of thinking, unsuitable for
young girls, but even impertinent towards the guest. The male
attendants are seldom seen, at least in the inner apartments. In the
morning one washes himself in the yard or on the balcony, and if he
wishes to avoid getting into disfavour, the guest will be careful
not to spill anything or spit on the mat.

The Japanese tobacco-pipe now in use resembles that of the Chukches,
is very small, and is smoked out in a couple of whiffs. A Japanese
smokes without stopping a score of pipes in succession.
Tobacco-smoking is now very general among high and low of both
sexes. It was introduced at the close of the sixteenth century, it
is uncertain whether from Corea or from the Portuguese possessions
in Asia, and spread with great rapidity. As among us, it here too at
first gave occasion to stringent prohibitions, and a lively exchange
of writings for and against. In a work by the learned Japanologist,
Mr. E.M. SATOW ("The Introduction of Tobacco into Japan,"
_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol vi. part i. p.
68), the following statements among others are made on this
subject:--

"In 1609 there were in the capital two clubs whose main
delight was to contrive quarrels with peaceful citizens.
Upwards of fifty of the members of these clubs were
suddenly arrested and thrown into prison; but justice was
satisfied when four or five of the leaders were executed,
the rest were pardoned. As these societies were originally