I said naughty things ever so many times, but stuck on my bicycle and wouldn’t get off for the stony-bedded little torrents that impertinently crossed the roads, and just went through them. What matter if I couldn’t see the bottom upon my bicycle, I couldn’t see it any better if I waded them. I folded up the sheets (I always travel with sheets for sleeping), put them in a pad under my cloak to try and keep my back dry, but soon they were saturated and merely added to the general weight of water. I never felt more depressed and more weary; what with the road as it was, the floods, and the punctures, I couldn’t go much more than 5 miles an hour, and that with jolting like an Irish cart, and at an expense of effort that would have taken me 20 miles an hour the day before. All the time I ploughed along I remembered the part I was to act by 4 o’clock in Tokio, clad in white samite (I mean muslin), gracefully dispensing tea and small talk to a distinguished visitor.
There was nothing to do to counterbalance the leg-aching pedalling or to lend a little warmth to the clammy, dripping mass that I was. I got to the station and missed the train! There was two hours’ interval to the next, and I was so drowned I couldn’t go to a hotel, for the abominable sun had come out as I got to the station and the sky was blue and innocent-looking, and every one was dry, and supercilious to a creature who left pools at every step. A little sweet-shop provided hot water and peppermint, and things drained off a little as I rode slowly back, and then walked round and round and round the waiting-room reading Thackeray’s Pendennis, as the crowd entertained itself with speechless staring, and the porters volubly sympathised as I took a towel out of my bag, which was less saturated than the rest of me, and dried my hair a little.
When the next train came it was mercifully the Nagasaki express, with a dining-car attached, so I left my car and went along and had coffee. The waiters were so sympathetic, that as I was the only customer, one offered to lend me a nice dry kimono of his own while I took everything off, and they dried them over the train fire. As every other passenger was in a kimono I felt less shy than the situation warranted, till I saw the stuck-up nose of an English lady tourist at the far end of the passenger car as I returned in my Japanese rig-out.
However, it was better than sitting five hours in a super-saturated condition. They dried my things very quickly, for fortunately they had nothing else to do (the weather was now glorious), and except that all the colours from belts, books, and cases had got on to the garments I was normal again, and got back to Tokio in time to have just changed my dress, when the cheery voice of Professor B—— hailed me in the garden.
August 17.—What a thunder-storm! I never could have imagined anything like it. One peal lasted eleven minutes, and another began again after a couple of seconds’ interval, and so they kept it up for an hour and a half, rolling round and round the heavens, as though the gods played nine-pins with Mount Fuji. The lightning was almost continuous, too, and filled the heavens with broad sheets of flame. Yet with all the terrific massiveness and grandeur of the storm, it lacked the point of sharp concentration that would have added terror. I always enjoy a storm, unless it is centred and concentrated just above me. And this stupendous storm was the finest display I have ever imagined, let alone experienced, and I did not grudge the hours of sleep of which it robbed me.
The morning dawned clear and still, but the garden was full of wrecked things.
August 19.—Are the gods never going to have mercy and stop their cruel play of battering Professor F——, and through him me and our fossil work? Instead of coming early in the morning, as we arranged, he came very late, with the horrible news that he had just heard that the people who lived in his house before him (he moved last year) had a leper in the family! Consequently he and his household have stood grave danger of getting this ghastly disease, and may actually have it now, the latent period is so uncertain and often so long that the doctor cannot tell for some time to come. It sometimes lies dormant for years. Of course, he must move at once, and in the meantime take every possible precaution. A nice waste of time, even if there were not the horror hanging over it all!
How this country can possibly pretend to be a first-class Power, how it can build warships and drill armies to the blare of trumpets, how it can have a “World’s Fair” in a few years, and invite all the nations to join in its Exhibition, and all the time have hundreds and thousands of lepers scattered about the country, and marrying—how they can do this simply passes my comprehension.
In this land of islands why don’t they take one, fenced round by the sea, and isolate the fearful disease? In a generation Norway cleared the country of lepers—but here one may touch one any day. On my way back I saw several beggars, ghastly creatures, kneeling by the wayside, with fingerless hands, all purple blotched. True, it is not so contagious as we imagine it to be, being chiefly hereditary, but that makes it all the easier to stamp out if they will do it.
I am not really afraid (not terrified, at least) for Professor F—— (and through him, for myself), but I fear the removal will still further hinder the progress of the fossil work.