CHAPTER XI
AMUSEMENTS
AS the traveller's first idea on reaching land after a long voyage is to enjoy himself, I am going to suggest several forms of amusement. Perhaps I had better begin by trying to answer what is sure to be his first question—"Where is the best tea-house with the prettiest geisha girls?"
We found that the most celebrated geishas were in Kyoto, where the dancing is classic, a model for the rest of the country. Here were also the best-trained maikos, or little dancers. The Ichiriki, or One-Power, Tea-house, which we visited, is one of the most famous in the country, for here in the long-ago Oishi, leader of the Forty-Seven Ronins, resorted in order to mislead the emissaries sent out to watch him by pretending dissipation and cowardliness. There is a shrine in the tea-house to the revered hero.
The place is very typical, with its clean-matted rooms and its tiny garden with miniature features of rock and water, its lanterns and stepping-stones, its gnarled trees and clumped bamboo. At the entrance to this tea-house we removed our shoes and passed over the soft mats into the simple, pretty rooms, open to the air and overlooking the lovely garden.
It took some time for the little entertainers to gather, for they are not used to haste. In the meantime we sat on mats while tea and saké were served by the naisan, or maids, who shave off their eyebrows in order to make themselves plainer and so set off the beauty of the dancers. They came slipping in and falling upon their knees before us, bowing low and presenting the tiny cups for drinking—all a matter of much ceremony and etiquette when politely done.
