286 
CRUISE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER . 
As the evening was closing on us, we took leave of 
our friends at the tea-house, and retraced our way 
back to Shiba in a jinirikisha. 
A tour through the business quarter of the city is of 
great interest, for at every step something new is to 
be seen. The streets are always filled with vast 
numbers of people, and run on for miles. The shops 
are filled with goods to suit every requirement : some 
are rich in specimens of Japanese ingenuity and per- 
fection of work in lacquer, porcelain, basket-work, and 
bronze, fancy silks, and embroideries spread out in 
every tempting form. 
Like every visitor, I had come with the intention 
of getting some of the many beautiful things in 
cabinets and lacquer ware for which Japan is so 
famed, but the variety on view is beyond my powers 
of description, for we see lacquer trays, oblong, round, 
and oval, of beautiful design and wonderfully cheap ; 
boxes and cabinets, with every kind of gold tracery 
and design, some with birds and trees in raised gold 
and bronze relief, as rich as well as can be, of 
all prices, from one dollar to five hundred. Besides 
these were cabinets of many woods, inlaid, some of 
infinite ingenuity and perfection of form, opening 
out into a multiplicity of drawers and trays, of 
finished workmanship, embossed in silver and gold, 
such as could not fail to win the most fastidious of 
mortals. 
The silk stores and book-shops are equally attrac- 
