In due time brazier and quilt are removed, and dinner makes its appearance. Before each guest is placed a small lacquer table, about six inches high, with a pair of chopsticks, a basin of soup, a bowl of rice, a saki cup, and a basin of hot water; while in the middle sat the four Japanese Hebes, with fires to keep the saki hot, and light the long pipes they carried, from which they wished their visitors to take a whiff after each dish. Saki is a kind of spirit, distilled from rice, always drunk hot out of small cups. It is not unpleasant in this state, but when cold few European palates can relish it. The Japanese cookery was very good, though some of the dishes were compounded of ingredients not generally mixed together by the cooks of the West. Here is the bill of fare:-- Soup. Shrimps and Seaweeds. Prawns, Egg Omelette, and Preserved Grapes. Fried Fish, Spinach, Young Rushes, and Young Ginger. Raw Fish, Mustard and Cress, Horseradish, and Soy. Thick Soup--of Eggs, Fish, Mushrooms, and Spinach; Grilled Fish. Fried Chicken and Bamboo Shoots. Turnip Tops and Root Pickled. Rice _ad libitum_ in a large bowl. Hot Saki, Pipes, and Tea. The last dish presented was an enormous lacquer box of rice, from which all the bowls were filled--the rice being thence carried to the mouth of each guest by means of chopsticks, in the use of which it is only practice that makes perfect. Between each course a long interval occurred, which was filled up with songs, music, and dancing, performed by professional singing and dancing girls. The music was somewhat harsh and monotonous; but a word of praise may be given to the songs and to the dancing, or rather posturing, for there was little of that agility of foot practised by European dancers. "The girls, who were pretty, wore peculiar dresses to indicate their calling, and seemed of an entirely different stamp from the quiet, simply-dressed waitresses whom we found so attentive to our wants; still they all looked cheery, light-hearted, simple creatures, and appeared to enjoy immensely the little childish games they played amongst themselves between whiles."[35]