TAKING THE WATERS (continued 2)

No shadow of trickery marred our joyous reminiscences of Dōgō. When we left the landlord presented a bill so ridiculously low, that we bestowed on him as much again in tea-money. Not to be outdone, he loaded our departing rickshaws with four bottles of beer. And the photographer, whose camera was worth a fortune to him as a means of gratifying all sorts and conditions of men, took an excellent group of that smiling host and his cheery household.

The voyage to Kōbe was no less agreeable. We had for fellow-passenger a distinguished middle-aged officer, who had fought on the losing sides in the revolution and the Satsuma-rebellion headed by Saigō Takamori, whose grave we had seen at Miyajima. Experience had long since convinced him of the folly of anti-progressive movements, and he realised as clearly as the most democratic reformer that national security was best served by adopting Western ideas. We had no idea of his rank until a small boat put off at Tadotsu, in which were three officers of inferior grade, who had come to escort him ashore. From his seat in the boat he waved his hand genially to us, while the men pulled in to harbour, but the three officers remained standing, as unmoved by the shock of the waves as by the rattle of Chinese artillery.

Kōbe received us, weary and late, with hospitable arms. In that prosperous port, so rapidly distancing Yokohama in commercial importance, an English colony is solidly entrenched with pews and cricket-bats and pianos. I went to the club, and was at once in England. The Saturday Review was reviewing and The World revolving on the same lines as when I was last in Fleet Street. Mr. Bernard Shaw was still unmasking demerits in Shakespeare, while Mr. William Archer was inventing merits for American comic opera. In a moment of nostalgia I sauntered into a well-filled church, whose congregation were listening with rapture to a beautiful rendering of Gounod’s “There is a Green Hill”: finally, I learned at a friend’s table that a cricket-match between the ladies and gentlemen of Kōbe was the burning topic of the week. Between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Buddha (vegetarians both), between Gounod and geisha, between batting and bathing, lay the gulf which separates the hard-hitting West from the lotus-loving East. I could not bridge the gulf without a violent effort. In fact, I felt a little ashamed on mixing with my fellow-countrymen, so pious and strenuous and practical. While they had been working and playing as only Britons can, I had utterly forgotten that any country except Japan could enthral and stimulate. I had been taking the waters—of Lethe.

PLAYING WITH FIRE