December 26.—In the morning we all spent the time skipping in the garden to work off yesterday’s feeds, and as the afternoon was my day at home, I went home: several nice people called, among them Professor S——, who brought gifts, one of which was a huge and beautifully executed enlargement of the group at the University the day of his silver professorship celebrations.
December 27 and 28.—The fossils fill all my time, so I cannot have Christmas holidays. I worked at the Institute; nothing special arose.
December 29.—Round my house the garden is now ready for the onslaught of winter. All the delicate shrubs done up in straw, and decorated with little top-knots, they look quaint. Then the bare ground is covered with straw, and very neatly edged with rope to look pretty. Some of the pine trees which have rather brittle branches have a kind of tent of string over them, which is to prevent the weight of the snow breaking them, so that everything looks neat and well prepared for the cold.
THE PINE TREE TIED UP FOR THE WINTER
The Camellia tree has still opening flowers, out in this neatly packed-up little garden, and they look gay among its glossy leaves.
It is only at nights that it is so cold, and then often there is more than an inch of ice on our little pond, all to be melted in the sun of midday.
December 30.—The University is shut for the New Year holiday, so I cannot work there now, and played tennis in the morning and spent the rest of the day “domestically.” The climate rots one’s clothes so, that there is plenty to do. I also made up some writing.
January 1, 1908.—This is the greatest day of the year in Japan. Until long past midnight the people in my house were up preparing for it. Outside the door of every house is a pair of leafy bamboos and pines, and over every front door a line of pointed straws. Most also have a wreath with fern leaves, sea-weed, fish, and a large kind of bitter orange—each of these symbolic of some special aspect of good luck. In the house are found the mochi cakes, a kind of round cake made with much-pounded rice-paste, a horrid glutinous sticky mass, but very essential for the future welfare of the household! These are put two together in little piles; and there is a pair of big ones, 10 inches or so across, and a number of little ones all round it. The little ones are distributed on white papers in various nooks and crannies of the house, and are said to be for the rats, though those I have watched have not appealed as yet to those ubiquitous creatures. At the end of the year there is a rampage of present-giving, in which, of course, I had to join. The gift from my house lord overwhelmed me with its splendour: he presented a beautiful ancient sword, with pearl-inlaid sheath, a handle richly set, and ornamented with gold flowers. I had given very small things, only cotton dresses to the maids, and a silk bag to the lady. The sword is a gem, and I love it very much—but perhaps it is only lent me for the year I am here: I don’t quite know, but gathered from their flow of words that I was to take it to England.
On the first day of the year every one wears their very grandest silk robes, and instead of my usual breakfast I was requested to partake of the prescribed New Year dishes. The two maids and the mistress, all in their best (and in their best the Japanese women are truly butterfly-like and fascinating), brought a tray, and on the tray a stand of old valuable lacquer with three lacquer drinking-cups, out of all of which I should have drunk, and exchanged with her, the special sweet saké that is a vital element in the proceedings. To pacify my hostess I sipped from one, and handed it to her. She raised the cup to her forehead and drank also a sip. Then I had to eat the three foods. A kind of paste, or rather “shape,” of finely-pounded fish, a kind of rolled omelette, and a mash of sweet stuff made principally of chestnuts, and, of course, mochi. The three subsidiary dishes I did not eat, one of which looked too queer, a kind of foundation of small brown beans with brilliantly coloured pickles. The dishes were covered with beautifully embroidered silk crape, representing a gold tortoise or turtle (old age luck), storks (ditto), pine, plum blossom, and other New Year symbolic plants and animals.