Breakfast at 7.0 to 7.30 a.m.
Lunch at 12 noon.
Dinner at 7.0 p.m.
The food is alternately English and Japanese—thus, one day there are
two meals European and one Japanese; the day following two Japanese and
one European. Preference is probably towards our food, but sentiment
retains the national diet. At the Japanese meals chopsticks are used.
The staple of these meals is rice.
In the way of liquids, our whisky-and-soda has now as great a vogue
as anything; but in all ships the national _saki_ still abounds. This
is a light wine made from rice—a sort of cross between hock and thin
cider—disagreeable at first to most European palates, but for which
one soon cultivates a liking. It is apt to play unexpected tricks on
the stranger who imbibes it too freely. In the winter time _saki_ is
drunk warm.
Japanese tea is always “on tap.” It bears no resemblance to tea as we
know it, being a strong green tea made with water just off the boil.
Neither milk nor sugar is taken with it—sweets are, however, eaten
beforehand.
So far from these national drinks being in abeyance, if a visitor in a
Japanese warship elects to take one or the other in place of whisky or
champagne, it is taken as a compliment by his hosts.
Japanese sailors are fed entirely, or nearly so, on European food.
It was found that they could not work so well on Japanese diet, and
they prefer European. They cook it, however, in more or less Japanese
fashion, and always eat it with chopsticks.
[Illustration: 24-CM. (9.4-IN.) 36-CALIBRE SCHNEIDER-CANET ON
DISAPPEARING MOUNTING FOR THE JAPANESE COAST SERVICE. FIRING POSITION.]