these Oriental amenities. For it is indeed a matter of looking for a square egg if one tries to find a place without. them. Even should one keep entirely away from their quarters and the tea-houses, the nights are so full with their shouting and playing that willy-nilly one has them with him. And when the summer comes, or during plum-blossom or cherry-blossom viewing, the tumult drifts into the public parks—and then one must indeed say farewell to peace.
It was while trying to avoid one such place that a friend of mine and I turned down the street towards the slums and the factories, instead of taking to the upper paths along the hill. The houses were monotonously regular, dirty and poor, their only virtue being that they were low and permitted an almost unobstructed view of the hills above. Occasionally the landscape opened, disclosing a glimpse of the sea like the carelessly closed kimono which often affords a peep at the Japanese woman's breasts.
When we reached the foot of the hills, we turned to the left, because the way to the right was so prohibitive. The factories, with their green and brown gaseous smoke, were too much for us. We had not gone very far when we came upon some buildings which puzzled us. They looked like barracks or prisons, yet we knew they could be neither. The window openings were about two feet square, closed with thin strips pasted over with paper. We were discoursing somewhat generally upon the materialism of modern Japan when a voice, coarse yet sweet, rang out from the nearest aperture. It made us stop and look each other in the face. Something drew us close to each other, as though the whole of that which is loveliest in all Japan had enveloped us. It was immediately followed by a chorus of voices unutterably sweet and wholesome. Our curiosity became aroused. The lure was so great that we decided to find out what these singers were doing.
Entering by way of an open gate in the high board fence, we came into a yard of picturesque simplicity. In the corner was a deep well over which stood the old fashioned well-sweep, for all the world just as it must have stood in the days of the patriarchs. Upon a ledge stood a Japanese, bringing the water up as rapidly as possible and pouring it into the buckets of another. That other, when his two pails were full, shouldered them on his yoke and with a jerky, swinging gait passed on into the darkened building beyond. The life was so primitive, the atmosphere so sober, we felt we had sud-
