Watanabe and Dick, with the little maids, all wore Japanese costumes. Watanabe, the "head boy," or butler, had been in the Embassy for thirty-five years, and had entire charge of the housekeeping arrangements. He was head of the "Boys' Guild" of Tokyo, and an important person. Dick was the only one of the servants who had been in America, although the cook had been in France, and O Sawa, the maid, had been to China and the Philippines.
JAPANESE SERVANTS.
Every morning the cook sent up a French menu for approval. European food, as prepared by the Japanese, is really very good. Turtle, served in American fashion, is quite as palatable as our terrapin, and the "mountain whale," or wild boar, is a real delicacy. (In olden times the Buddhists were not supposed to eat meat, and because it was difficult for the people of the mountains to get to the sea for fish the priests allowed them to eat the wild boar on the hills, but called it "mountain whale!") Some of the meat used in the city comes from Australia, as does also the canned butter. Cows are few, but we were able to get our own milk and butter from a local dairy. My husband is very fond of Japanese food, and as I like it too, often of an evening when we were alone or had friends who also enjoyed it, we would have Japanese dinners at the Embassy, served upon the table but in the pretty lacquer bowls on little lacquer trays. Eels with rice and soy was a favourite dish.
I used to enjoy sitting in the den and listening to the street noises, they were so strange and interesting. There were the songs of men carrying heavy loads, and the bells of the men who, in the winter, run from temple to temple, almost naked, and have cold water poured over them, as a penance. There was the fanfare of the soldiers, too, something like that of the Italians, and the flute of the blind masseur, and the steady whistle of the man who cleans the pipes of smokers. The newsboys all wore bells, and the people selling wares often had little drums which they beat.
When not listening to the sounds outside, I often used to sit and look into the bowl of glistening water where the goldfish lived, for they quite fascinated me, with their jawless chins, which they kept opening and shutting for food in such a greedy manner! The swish of their tails was like the grace of a trailing kimono worn by the ladies of long ago, while their fins suggested the sleeves of a geisha girl. Some of them had popping eyes that stared at you, some were so fat that they swam upside down quite comfortably. They would rush from one side of the bowl to the other, pushing their noses up close against the glass, as if they were eager to swim out of their lovely opalescent world. Many humans live in a world not very much larger than a goldfish's bowl, and never try to get out at all!
Of an evening one heard the notes of the samisen, an instrument like a small-headed banjo, made of catskin and having three strings. Japanese music is minor, and being in half tones, which our ear is not trained to appreciate, sounds very strange, and to many even uncouth. None of it is written—the songs are simply passed on from one to another. Although so many Europeans do not care for this music, I find it very fascinating.
But our ideas of what is beautiful are bound to differ. Watanabe caught a nightingale in the Embassy garden by means of a spider, and put it in a cage in the house. It had several notes, not all very pleasant, I must admit, but I suppose it was a compliment when he told some one, after having heard me sing, "Bird's high note just like Madam!"
In the silence of the night, one also heard the clack, clack of the watchman at a house near-by, who beat two sticks together so that his master might hear and know that he was keeping watch. Besides this, there was the squeaking of rats, the meow of our cat, or the barking of a dog. It must have been this same dog, by the way, who came to such an untimely end while we were there.