In all likelihood he has become infatuated with this style of Western
clothes from studying a copy of the London Graphic, has gone to great
trouble and expense to procure the garments from Yokohama, and now
blossoms forth upon the dazed provincials of his native town in a make-up
that stamps him as the swellest of the swell He affects great interest in
the bicycle--much more so than the average Jap--from which I infer
that he has actually imbibed certain notions of Western sport, and is
desirous of posing before his uninitiated and, consequently,
unappreciative, countrymen, as an exponent of athletics. Altogether the
horsey young gentleman is the most startling representative of "New
Japan" I have yet encountered.
A cold drizzle ushers in the commencement of my next day's journey. One
is loath to exchange the neat yadoya, with everything within so spotless
and so pleasant, the tiny garden, not over ten yards square, but
containing a miniature lake, grottos, quaint stone lanterns, bronze
storks, flowers, and stunted trees, for the road. Disagreeable weather
has followed me, however, from Nagasaki like an avenging Fate, bent on
preventing the consummation of my tour from being too agreeable. Even
with rain and mud and consequent delays my first few days in Japan have
seemed a very paradise after my Chinese experiences; what, then, would
have been my impressions of country and people amid sunshine and
favorable conditions of weather and road, when the novelty of it all
first burst upon my Chinese-disgusted senses?
The country round about is mountainous, snow lying upon the summits of a
few of the higher peaks.
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