. Nine years in Nipon. Sketches of Japanese life and manners. an adjoining house agrand display of old-fashioned court dancing, or ratherposturing in operatic costume, varying with the nature ofthe piece to be performed. It was rather a dull perform-ance, and far too artificial to interest even a Japanese. Before leaving Kioto we paid a visit to a porcelain estab-lishment, and were pleased to see artists painting extemporedesigns of great beauty with a firm, free hand. In a tankclose by I noticed a great eft-like brute, which lay quitestill. It was a splendid specimen of the gigantic Sala-mand
. Nine years in Nipon. Sketches of Japanese life and manners. an adjoining house agrand display of old-fashioned court dancing, or ratherposturing in operatic costume, varying with the nature ofthe piece to be performed. It was rather a dull perform-ance, and far too artificial to interest even a Japanese. Before leaving Kioto we paid a visit to a porcelain estab-lishment, and were pleased to see artists painting extemporedesigns of great beauty with a firm, free hand. In a tankclose by I noticed a great eft-like brute, which lay quitestill. It was a splendid specimen of the gigantic Sala-mander of Japan. I obtained a dead specimen of a kind of tree frog called Kajika, a con-traction for kawa-shika (river-deer), which is found at ArashiYama, about four or five milesfrom Kioto—a district famous forits fine cherry-trees. Those frogse- . zr ,n /? A7 . ) are prized greatly for their fine Clinging Prog [JJrawnjrojn JSIature). -C^ o • musical voice, which resembles the sweet chirp of sometree crickets, and like them they are kept in cages. They. 184 Nine Years in Nipon. are fed on flies when in confinement Similar frogs occurin one or two other parts of Japan, and I had once thegood fortune to hear one in Tokio, chirping in a verysweet and mellow tone, which I am not musician enoughto describe. We visited all that was to be seen in Kioto,which left a very charming impression on me, so little doesit seem to differ from the Kioto one reads of in old worldtales of the feudal times that have fled for ever. We walked on a rough newly-laid road to Otsu, gotcaught in a deluge of rain, and in the circumstances had arather dispiriting view of the great fresh water lake of Ja-pan, called Biwa, from its supposed resemblance in shapeto the Japanese lute of that name. We spent our firstnight on the way to Tokio at Ishibe. The people were veryattentive, and soon after we retired for the night closedour shutters, depriving us of every breath of air. We hadmade a successful appeal ag
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