Dutchy nor the Devil.



HIROSHIMA, Christmas Eve, 1902.


I am in the very thickest of Christmas, and yet such a funny, unreal
Christmas, that it does not seem natural at all. Hiroshima is busy
decorating for the New Year, and everything is gay with brilliant
lanterns, plum blossoms and crimson berries. The little insignificant
streets are changed into bowers of sweet smelling ferns and spicy
pines, and the bamboo leaves sway to every breeze, while the waxen
plum blossoms send out a perfume sweet as violets.

The shop-keepers and their families put on their gayest kimonos and
their most enticing smiles and greet you with effusion.

On entering a shop you are asked if your honorable eyes will deign to
look upon most unworthy goods. Please will you give this or that a
little adoring look? The price? Ah! it's price is greatly enhanced
since the august foreigner cast honorable eyes upon it. (Which is no
joke!) Whether the article is bought or not, the smile, the bow, the
compliment are the same. All this time the crowd around the door of
the shop has been steadily increasing until daylight is shut out, for
everyone is interested in your purchase from the man who hauls the
dray up to the highest lady in the land. The shop-keeper is very
patient with the crowd until it shuts out the light, then he invites
them to carry their useless bodies to the river and throw them in.