SOUTHERNMOST JAPAN 165 



After the tea-drinking that m-^ning at Tanegashima, I opened a 

 panel at one side of our room and stepped out on the porch under the 

 low roof. Just before me was the white beach and the water's edge, 

 where two junks that looked for all the world like ancient Spanish 

 galleons were moored ; and I looked off beyond to the little rock-hemmed 

 bay banded with green and purple water under the changing cloud 

 shadows, and still farther to the distant pine-crowned sand dunes and 

 headlands fringing the blue of the open sea. To a stranger, such a 

 scene is overpowering witii a sense of isolation in which there are 

 mingled elements of loncVness and charm. 



Upon the announcenv.it that "go-hang," the meal, or literally, 

 the " rice," was ready, we s. .natted on the floor and the maid laid before 

 each of us a square tray of viands, and herself kneeled to serve the rice 

 from the wooden firkin. Each tray bore four main dishes, one in each 

 corner, and a cup in the center. There were three bowls, an empty 

 one of porcelain for the main food — rice, another of lacquered wood 

 containing a very thin soup, and the third a mingling of dried fish and 

 seaweed, while the fourth corner was occupied by a plate holding a 

 small baked fish entire. The central cup contained two square pieces 

 of pickled turnip. The maid remained throughout the meal and filled 

 the bowls with rice when they were passed. And, of course, we ate 

 with chop-sticks, drinking the soup. This was a typical hotel meal, 

 purely Japanese, even more elaborate than what one would expect at 

 a private home of people of the middle class, and far better than any- 

 thing one is served with when traveling in country places away from the 

 seashore. 



The island of Tane is not very thickly inhabited and the people are 

 fairly well-to-do. They are half fisher-folk, and the rest farmers or 

 peasants. The low hills that rise from the coast leaving no bordering 

 flat-land are wide and level on the summit, and, in contrast to most of 

 the hills in other parts of Japan, are wooded on their flanks and culti- 

 vated on the top. Eice, wheat, yellow mustard for oil, and sweet 

 potatoes are the principal crops. The little fields and patches are 

 usually hemmed in by shrubbery and trees, or often by rows of banana 

 palms. The people live in homesteads that come nearer to being homes 

 as we know them than most of the habitations in other parts of 

 Japan. The low houses with steep thatched roofs are bosomed in 

 gardens of luxuriantly growing vegetables, vines, shrubbery, palms and 

 flowers, with a deep, rich background of old cryptomeria, pine, oak, 

 camphor and banyan trees. It was a pleasure to walk through the 

 rank forest away from the coast on a hot summery day, and there to 

 come upon old settlements framed in the abundant greenery and other 

 coloring of the woods. 



One of these old homes situated on the hills above Nishi-no-omote, 



