What a strange ‘tiffin’ those kind monks gave us, and what a merry party we were sitting on the floor, round a little table one foot high and trying to eat with chopsticks! How our hosts laughed at our awkwardness. I think Chang got most of those queer-looking little dishes. I can remember the menu now.
First we had raw fish, with soy and pickled turnip; then seaweed soup and young rushes; prawns, bamboo-shoots, and lotus-root; rice, in bowls, which we found absolutely maddening to eat with chopsticks; hot saké, tea, and pipes. I believe there were also some unwholesome-looking little biscuits and arsenic-coloured bean-cakes. Without these delicacies no Japanese banquet is complete.
Then, after an hour’s rest, off we started again to the caves down by the sea. How clear the water was! We could distinctly see the beds of coral far, far down below. A shoal of sardines flitted hither and thither like a long line of silver. A school of porpoises were splashing about at a little distance; and we fancied we saw the black fin of a shark rising out of the water not very far off.
As we sat there watching the waves dashing up over the rocks, two strange, brown, naked beings suddenly appeared from one of the caves and offered to dive for some live lobsters, if we would give them a few sen. Down they plunged, and so long were they gone that we began to think, they really must be demons from the sea, and not men at all. Suddenly, a dripping creature stood before us, with surely a lobster in its mouth, which it put down on the rocks with a grin of triumph. Then, what must Chang do but examine this strange-looking sea-trophy, with the result that we heard a yell of pain and saw him dancing madly about with a black lobster firmly fastened to his nose! Before we could come to his help over he fell, backwards, into the sea below, and was borne rapidly away by the swift current. The two brown demons plunged in after him, and with some difficulty he was restored to land, gasping and stunned, but safe.
Full of gratitude, I presented the rescuers with a yen (Japanese dollar), which they received with many bows, rubbing their knees with their claw-like fingers and hissing through their teeth in the most polite Japanese manner. We noticed, however, they seemed much entertained about something as they scrambled off to their caves, chattering and laughing.
What could have so amused them?
After some hesitation, our guide confessed that they were saying that the ‘ojo-san’ must be a silly fool to have given so much for saving a dog, when, on a previous occasion, having rescued a child at the same spot, the grateful parents had presented them with only ten sen (2½d.)!
I have not forgotten how Chang was once the means of saving my life. How well I remember that night in January! The snow lay thick on the ground and there was every appearance of a continued hard frost as I looked out of my bedroom window on the moonlit scene below.
Chang had been very restless all the evening, jumping up and giving an impatient bark from time to time, as if something were disturbing him. I had induced him, however, to lie down on the mat in my room, where he always slept, and jumping into bed myself, I was soon fast asleep.