December 13.—A bright sunny day with a clear blue sky and ice pillars on the ground—such heavenly weather that I hated to remain in the Institute. Dinner with the G——s at the Embassy in the evening.
December 17.—The machinery for the fossils is now installed and very fine it is. It is far and away more compact, more ingeniously contrived, and grander than our English outfit. I have been endlessly astonished at the resource displayed by Professor F—— in the whole business.
December 18.—A day at the Institute testing the cutting-machine. As to-day the machinery goes for the first time, all the workmen have to be treated to Soba (a kind of macaroni made of buckwheat), and we had the chief engineer from the factory to tea. The machinery goes almost noiselessly, and the ingenious shield round the wheel makes it very clean. At present, however, it cuts rather slowly, probably because the wheels are new and have not got thoroughly penetrated by the carborundum. In the evening I went to a nice dance.
December 19.—A quiet day at the Institute. The Japanese fossils are harder than the English ones, and take a lot of cutting.
In the evening the Geologists of Tokio gave me a dinner—European style, of course; they cannot understand that I would much prefer Japanese style. There were no other ladies, and no foreigners, and the dinner was very enjoyable; as nearly all of them could speak English or German, conversation did not flag. I am beginning not to be so afraid of after-dinner speeches, though I make them very short.
Afterwards we sat round and talked music the whole evening, some examples of all their kinds being given by a dear old fat professor, whose name I have forgotten, and who looked very German. It seemed rude to refuse to let them hear English and other European music, so I sang a Norwegian, a Scotch, an English, and a German song; the two latter they did not like—the two former pleased them, as I knew they would. Their music is so fundamentally different that they cannot like our music without training, particularly soprano singing; the minor key Scotch things appeal to them much more directly. I rather like their music, which is somewhat unusual for a foreigner—but the strained sound in it which they cultivate (a question largely of breathing) spoils it for me. On the other hand, our clear notes, with no sound of the breath, do not please them!
But, as they are always telling me, a foreigner cannot understand their tastes.
Two of the party saw me home at the modest hour of half-past nine, but as the dinner began at five, my entertaining powers were pretty well exhausted.
December 20.—A day at the Institute cutting slices of the fossils.