lth
instead of worse.

Vainly they tried to imagine what death could be like. The wealthy
would have given all their money and all their goods if they could but
shorten their lives to two or three hundred years even. Without any
change, to live on forever, seemed to this people wearisome and sad.

In the drug-shops there was a drug which was in constant demand,
because after using it for a hundred years, it was supposed to turn
the hair slightly gray and to bring about disorders of the stomach.

Sentaro was astonished to find that the poisonous globe-fish was
served up in restaurants as a delectable dish, and hawkers in the
streets went about selling sauces made of Spanish flies. He never saw
anyone ill after eating these horrible things, nor did he ever see
anyone with as much as a cold.

Sentaro was delighted. He said to himself that he would never grow
tired of living, and that he considered it profane to wish for death.
He was the only happy man on the island. For his part he wished
to live thousands of years and to enjoy life. He set himself up in
business, and for the present never even dreamed of going back to his
native land.

As years went by, however, things did not go as smoothly as at first.
He had heavy losses in business, and several times some affairs went
wrong with his neighbors. This caused him great annoyance.

Time passed like the flight of an arrow for him, for he was busy from
morning till night. Three hundred years went by in this monotonous
way, and then at last he began to grow tired of life in this country,
and he longed to see his own land and his old home. However long he
lived here, life would always be the same, so was it not foolish and
wearisome to stay on here for ever?

Sentaro, in his wish to escape from the country of Perpetual Life,
recollected Jofuku, who had helped him before when he was wishing to
escape from death--and he prayed to the saint to bring him back to his
own land again.

No sooner did he pray than the paper crane popped out of his pocket.
Sentaro was amazed to see that it had remained undamaged after all
these years. Once more the bird grew and grew till it was large enough
for him to mount it. As he did so, the bird spread its wings and flew
swiftly out across the sea in the direction of Japan.

Such was the wilfulness of the man's nature that he looked back and
regretted all he had left behind. He tried to stop the bird in vain.
The crane held on its way