The Days of a Man 11900 



dealer wanted to ask me four yen - - two dollars - - a 

 pound, stating that he paid three yen himself, though 

 the usual price of the article in America was only 

 forty cents a pound. I then returned to Osaka, and 

 entering a native pharmacy, without saying a word I 

 picked out the necessary amount and laid down a 

 considerable sum of money before the proprietor. 

 Native Charging me at the rate of a yen a pound, he returned 

 honesty ^fa proper change. And from one end of Japan to 

 the other I did not meet a single case of overcharge or 

 extortion, nor for that matter, outside the narrow 

 beaten path, did I find a servant who asked or ex- 

 pected a tip. 



The level shelf on which the Station stands having 

 been the site of the ancient castle of the daimyo of 

 Arai, its three-hundred-year-old basement, cut hori- 

 zontally into the cliff, serves as laboratory cellar. In 

 his fastness, according to tradition, the old prince was 

 Breaking once hopelessly besieged. Despairing at last, he 

 mounted the hill, cut off his head, and by supreme 

 effort threw it as far as possible, even unto Odawara 

 twenty miles away on the other side of Sagami Bay! 

 The holiday throng had come to attend a celebration 

 in honor of their stalwart old hero. This consisted 

 of religious services on the beach, accompanied by a 

 series of wrestling matches, the specialty of rustic 

 Japan. 



Next morning I rose very early, the monotonous 

 "yo-shi, yo-shi" 1 of the fishermen pulling at the nets 

 having called me to be up and doing. Out on the 

 rocks, at low tide, various little gobies and blennies 

 waited to be caught, but instead I was rowed to 



1 Short for "yoroshii, yoroshii," "all right, all right." 



c 76 n 



