This unwritten law, which demands such a lavish hospitality if any is given, is, I see, one of the chief causes that there is so little social life, in our sense of the thing, among the Japanese. It is a real strain on their purse and their time, and they naturally ask guests seldom when they give so much trouble.
To ask a guest to come to your house and give him only tea and cake, or a dinner of no greater magnificence than the one you eat yourself every night, is almost impossibly rude.
After cutting fossils till 5, I went home to entertain a Japanese to the same food that I eat every day. Am I a laughing-stock among them? Doubtless, and for more things than one.
=March 28.=--Fossil-cutting all morning. Late in the afternoon I called on Mr. and Mrs. B----, who have come up to Tokio for a couple of weeks from Sapporo, where the snow is in parts 28 feet deep--the worst they have had for more than twenty years. They have brought up their adopted daughter--the Aino girl I described from Sapporo--this time we were able to talk in Japanese, which of course she generally speaks.
=March 31.=--I am making the experiment of going on a walking tour for a few days with friends, and we have chosen Boshu peninsula, as it is little frequented and beautiful. We were up at 5 o’clock this morning. Very late too, as we should have got up at 4.30. However, we managed to catch the boat which is to take us to Boshu Province, the scene of our tour. The sail past Tokio down the bay was very calm and lovely; we had perfect weather and were allowed, as a special privilege, to go on the top front part of the deck, where we had a good view. Fuji gleamed white over clouds and pine tree foregrounds, and the sky was blue. The journey lasted seven hours, and we saw many small bays and islands down the coast, of perfect loveliness.
Landing at Hojo in Boshu about 1 o’clock, we walked across a point of the peninsula to Mera. Here the inn we expected to find was demolished, but we found another and got put up. It was next door to a big school, however, and we had a very large and very interested audience of about a hundred children in constant attendance. C---- had never been to a Japanese inn before, and we were a very merry party indeed. The scenery here was in no way striking, that I hope is to come.