I. L. B.



LETTER VI--(Continued)



A Coolie falls ill--Peasant Costume--Varieties in Threshing--The
Tochigi yadoya--Farming Villages--A Beautiful Region--An In
Memoriam Avenue--A Doll's Street--Nikko--The Journey's End--Coolie
Kindliness.

By seven the next morning the rice was eaten, the room as bare as
if it had never been occupied, the bill of 80 sen paid, the house-
master and servants with many sayo naras, or farewells, had
prostrated themselves, and we were away in the kurumas at a rapid
trot. At the first halt my runner, a kindly, good-natured
creature, but absolutely hideous, was seized with pain and
vomiting, owing, he said, to drinking the bad water at Kasukabe,
and was left behind. He pleased me much by the honest independent
way in which he provided a substitute, strictly adhering to his
bargain, and never asking for a gratuity on account of his illness.
He had been so kind and helpful that I felt quite sad at leaving
him there ill,--only a coolie, to be sure, only an atom among the
34,000,000 of the Empire, but not less precious to our Father in
heaven than any other. It was a brilliant day, with the mercury 86
degrees in the shade, but the heat was not oppressive. At noon we
reached the Tone, and I rode on a coolie's tattooed shoulders
through the shallow part, and then, with the kurumas, some ill-