I descended in the twilight at Hiroshima in company with two English-speaking youths who had taken upon themselves the task of finding me a lodging. The proprietor of a hotel not far from the station acknowledged that he had never housed a white man, but begged for permission to show his versatility. I bade my new acquaintances farewell. The hotel office was a sort of patio, paved with small stones, from which a broad stairway with quaintly carved balustrade led upward. Mine host shouted a word of command. A smiling matron, short of stature, her inclination to embonpoint rendered doubly conspicuous by the ample oba wound round and round her waist, appeared on the landing above and beckoned to me to ascend. I caught up my bundle; but before I had mounted two steps the proprietor sprang forward with a scream and, clutching at my coat-tails, dragged me back. A half-dozen servant girls tumbled wild-eyed into the patio and joined the landlord in heaping abuse upon me. I had dared to start up the stairway without removing my shoes! The sight of a guest at a Fifth-avenue hotel jumping into bed fully clad could not have aroused such an uproar.
I pulled off the offending brogans; the keeper added them to a long line of wooden sandals ranged along the wall; and the matron conducted me to a small chamber with a balcony opening on the street. Everything about the apartment added to the feeling that I was a giant among Lilliputians; the ceiling, gay with gorgeously tinted dragons, was so low, the walls mere sliding panels of half-transparent paper stamped with flowers and strange figures, the highly-polished floor so frail that it yielded under every step. With a flying start a man could have run straight through the house and left it a wreck behind.
The room was entirely unfurnished. The hostess placed a cushion for me in the center of the floor and clapped her hands. A servant girl slipped in, bearing a tray on which was a tiny box of live coals, several cigarettes, a joint of bamboo standing upright, and a pot of tea with cup and saucer. Having deposited her burden at my feet, and touched her forehead to the floor, the maid handed me a cigarette, poured out tea, and remained kneeling a full half-hour, filling the tiny cup as often as I emptied it. When she was gone I picked up the joint of bamboo, fancying it contained sweetmeats or tobacco. It was empty, however, and I was left to wonder until the hostess returned. When she had understood my gestures she began a wordy explanation; but I shook my head. With a grimace that was evidently meant to be an apology, she caught up the hollow joint and spat into it. The thing was merely a Japanese spittoon.
A maid soon served supper. She brought first of all a table some eight inches high, then a great wooden bucket brimming full of hard-packed rice, and lastly, several little papier-mâché bowls. One held a greasy liquid in which floated the yolk of an egg, another a small, soggy turnip, a third a sample of some native salad, at the bottom of the fourth lay in dreary isolation a pathetic little minnow. Of rice there was sufficient for a squad of soldiers; but without it the meal could not have satisfied a hungry canary.
Horses are rare in Japan. Men and baggage are drawn by coolies
Japanese children playing in the streets of Kioto
As I ate, the girl poured out tea in a cup that held a single swallow. Fortunately, I had already served my apprenticeship in the use of chopsticks, or I should have been forced to revert to the primitive table manners of the Hindu. As it was, it required great dexterity to possess myself of the swimming yolk; and he who fancies it is easy to balance a satisfying mouthful of rice on the ends of two slivers has only to try it to be disillusioned.
The meal over, I descended for a stroll through the town. The host brought my shoes, grinning sympathetically at the weight thereof, and I stepped out to mingle with the passing throng. There is nothing more inimitable than the voice of the street in Japan. He who has once heard it could never mistake it for another. There is no rumble of traffic to tire the senses, no jangle of tramways to inflict the ear. Horses are almost as rare as in Venice, and the rubber-tired ’rickshah behind a grass-shod runner passes as silently as a winged creature. The rank and file, however, are content to go on foot, and the scrape, scrape, scrape of wooden clogs sounds an incessant trebled note that may be heard in no other land.