A Casual Invitation—A Ludicrous Incident—Politeness of a Policeman—A
Comfortless Sunday—An Outrageous Irruption—A Privileged Stare.
AT a wayside tea-house, soon after leaving Rokugo in _kurumas_, I met the
same courteous and agreeable young doctor who was stationed at Innai
during the prevalence of _kak’ke_, and he invited me to visit the
hospital at Kubota, of which he is junior physician, and told Ito of a
restaurant at which “foreign food” can be obtained—a pleasant prospect,
of which he is always reminding me.
Travelling along a very narrow road, I as usual first, we met a man
leading a prisoner by a rope, followed by a policeman. As soon as my
runner saw the latter he fell down on his face so suddenly in the shafts
as nearly to throw me out, at the same time trying to wriggle into a
garment which he had carried on the crossbar, while the young men who
were drawing the two _kurumas_ behind, crouching behind my vehicle, tried
to scuttle into their clothes. I never saw such a picture of abjectness
as my man presented. He trembled from head to foot, and illustrated that
queer phrase often heard in Scotch Presbyterian prayers, “Lay our hands
on our mouths and our mouths in the dust.” He literally grovelled in the
dust, and with every sentence that the policeman spoke raised his head a
little, to bow it yet more deeply than before. It was all because he had
no clothes on. I interceded for him as the day was very hot, and the
policeman said he would not arrest him, as he should otherwise have done,
because of the inconvenience that it would cause to a foreigner. He was
quite an elderly man, and never recovered his spirits, but, as soon as a
turn of the road took us out of the policeman’s sight, the two younger
men threw their clothes into the air and gambolled in the shafts,
shrieking with laughter!
On reaching Shingoji, being too tired to go farther, I was dismayed to
find nothing but a low, dark, foul-smelling room, enclosed only by dirty
_shôji_, in which to spend Sunday. One side looked into a little
mildewed court, with a slimy growth of _Protococcus viridis_, and into
which the people of another house constantly came to stare. The other
side opened on the earthen passage into the street, where travellers wash
their feet, the third into the kitchen, and the fourth into the front
room. Even before dark it was alive with mosquitoes, and the fleas
hopped on the mats like sand-flies. There were no eggs, nothing but rice
and cucumbers. At five on Sunday morning I saw three faces pressed
against the outer lattice, and before evening the _shôji_ were riddled
with finger-holes, at each of which a dark eye appeared. There was a
still, fine rain all day, with the mercury at 82°, and the heat,
darkness, and smells were difficult to endure. In the afternoon a small
procession passed the house, consisting of a decorated palanquin, carried
and followed by priests, with capes and stoles over crimson chasubles and
white cassocks. This ark, they said, contained papers inscribed with the
names of people and the evils they feared, and the priests were carrying
the papers to throw them into the river.
I went to bed early as a refuge from mosquitoes, with the _andon_, as
usual, dimly lighting the room, and shut my eyes. About nine I heard a
good deal of whispering and shuffling, which continued for some time,
and, on looking up, saw opposite to me about 40 men, women, and children
(Ito says 100), all staring at me, with the light upon their faces. They
had silently removed three of the _shôji_ next the passage! I called Ito
loudly, and clapped my hands, but they did not stir till he came, and
then they fled like a flock of sheep. I have patiently, and even
smilingly, borne all out-of-doors crowding and curiosity, but this kind
of intrusion is unbearable; and I sent Ito to the police station, much
against his will, to beg the police to keep the people out of the house,
as the house-master was unable to do so. This morning, as I was
finishing dressing, a policeman appeared in my room, ostensibly to
apologise for the behaviour of the people, but in reality to have a
privileged stare at me, and, above all, at my stretcher and mosquito net,
from which he hardly took his eyes. Ito says he could make a _yen_ a day
by showing them! The policeman said that the people had never seen a
foreigner.