devil with me. In Japan, to attempt to live off the country in the
country is a piece of amateur acting the average European bitterly
regrets after the play, if not during its performance. We are not
inwardly contrived to thrive solely on rice and pickles.

It is best, too, for a journey into the interior, to take with you
your own bedding; sheets, that is, and blankets. The bed itself
Yejiro easily improvised out of innumerable futons, as the quilts
used at night by the Japanese are called. A single one is enough for
a native, but Yejiro, with praiseworthy zeal, made a practice of
asking for half-a-dozen, which he piled one upon the other in the
middle of the room. Each had a perceptible thickness and a rounded
loglike edge; and when the time came for turning in on top of the
lot, I was always reminded of the latter end of a Grecian hero,
the structure looked so like a funeral pyre. When to the above
indispensables were added clothes, camera, dry plates, books,
and sundries, it made a collection of household gods quite appalling
to consider on the march. I had no idea I owned half so much in the
world from which it would pain me to be parted. As my property lay
spread out for packing, I stared at it aghast.

To transport all these belongings, native ingenuity suggested a thing
called a yanagigori; several of them, in fact. Now the construction
of a kori is elementally ingenious. It consists simply of two wicker
baskets, of the same shape, but of slightly different size, fitting
into each other upside down. The two are then tied together with cord.
The beauty of the idea lies in its extension; for in proportion as
the two covers are pulled out or pushed home will the pair hold from
a maximum capacity of both to a minimum capacity of one. It is
possible even to start with more than a maximum, if the contents be