brought with us; for, of all meals, a Japanese breakfast is the most
cold, the most watery, and the most generally fishy in the world.
As it was, breakfast consisted of pathetic copies of consecrated
originals. It might have been excellent but for the canned milk.

No doubt there are persons who are fond of canned milk; but, for my
part, I loathe it. The effect of the sweetish glue upon my inner man
is singularly nauseating. I have even been driven to drink my
matutinal coffee in all its after-dinner strength rather than
adulterate it with the mixture. You have, it is true, the choice of
using the stuff as a dubious paste, or of mixing it with water into a
non-committal wash; and, whichever plan you adopt, you wish you had
adopted the other. Why it need be so unpalatably cloying is not
clear to my mind. They tell me the sugar is needed to preserve the
milk. I never could make out that it preserved anything but the
sugar. Simply to see the stuff ooze out of the hole in the can is
deterrent. It is enough to make one think seriously at times of
adding a good milch cow to his already ample trip encumberment, at
the certain cost of delaying the march, and the not improbable chance
of being taken for an escaped lunatic. Indeed, to the Japanese mind,
to be seen solemnly preceding a caravan of cattle for purposes of
diet would certainly suggest insanity. For cows in Japan are never
milked. Dairy products, consequently, are not to be had on the road,
and the man who fancies milk, butter, or cheese must take them with
him.

It used to be the same in Tokyo, but in these latter days a dairy has
been started at Hakone, which supplies fresh butter to such Tokyoites
as like it. One of my friends, who had been many years from home,
was much taken with the new privilege, and called my attention to it