nightfall.

After having eaten, along with my two Japanese companions, an
unexceptionable European dinner at the inn of the town, kept by
Japanese, but arranged in European style, we paid a visit to a
company of Japanese dancing-girls.

Kioto competes with Osaka for the honour of having the prettiest
dancing-girls. These form a distinct class of young girls, marked by
a peculiar variegated dress. They wear besides a peculiar
hair-ornament, are much painted, and have their lips coloured black
and gold. At the dancing places of greatest note a European is not
received, unless he has with him a known native who answers for his
courteous behaviour. After taking off his shoes on entering, the
visitor is introduced to a separate room with its floor covered with
matting and its walls ornamented with Japanese drawings and mottoes,
but without other furniture. A small square cushion is given to each
of the guests. After they have settled themselves in Japanese
fashion, that is to say, squatting cross-legged, pipes and tea are
brought in, on which a whole crowd of young girls come in and,
chatting pleasantly, settle themselves around the guests, observing
all the while complete decency even according to the most exacting
European ideas. There is not to be seen here any trace of the
effrontery and coarseness which are generally to be found in similar
places in Europe. One would almost believe that he was among a crowd
of school-girls who had given the sour moral lessons of their
governess the slip, and were thinking of nothing else than
innocently gossiping away some hours. After a while the dance
begins, accompanied by very monotonous music and singing. The slow
movements of the legs and arms of the dancers remind us of certain
slow and demure scenes from European ballets. There is nothing
indecent in this dance, but we learn that there are other dances
wilder and less decorous.

The dancing-girls are recruited exclusively from the poorer classes,
pretty young girls, to help their parents or to earn some styvers
for themselves, selling themselves for a certain time to the owners
of the dancing-places, and when the time agreed upon has come to an
end returning to their homes, where notwithstanding this they marry
without difficulty. All the dancing-girls therefore are young, many
of them pretty even according to European ideas, though their
appearance is destroyed in our eyes by the tasteless way in which
they paint themsel