The near green shore ran in and out, and in and out, wooded thick with the slim green fingers of the bamboo, until it opened into a tiny green bay, with a thin bamboo landing-stage running out into the silent water. Here we stopped with such an amount of “ay-aying” on the part of the captain--a short man in a grey _kimono_, who sat in a hole in the deck the other side of the funnel reading Chinese poetry--and the crew, a tall youth in “foreign” trousers, who greased wheels, that we might have been an Atlantic liner approaching an unknown shore. There were no passengers for the invisible village behind the landing-stage but the captain, who climbed over the side of the boat up on to the landing-stage, and disappeared. By-and-by from out of the green there came a charming little figure in a sea-blue _kimono_, lined with lacquer-red, followed by a maid bearing neatly matted parcels. The crew wiped its hands and moved forward, while the sea-blue _kimono_, kneeling on the landing-stage, handed down the parcels on to the boat for safe carriage to Shobara. They seemed to require quantities of explanation those parcels, accompanied by irrepressible giggles, principal giggles on the part of the mistress, and secondary giggles on the part of the maid; while the crew listened, replied, grew eloquent. It was one of the most effective flirtations I ever saw, but alas! conducted in that Izumo dialect so hard for the Tokyo-taught foreigner to understand. And it went on like the hum of the _semmi_, while the water, the world, and the boat drowsed in the heat. * * * * * Suddenly, from out of the nowhere, appeared our captain, who swung himself down from the landing-stage on to the boat as imperturbably as a stone Buddha. The sea-blue _kimono_, still on its knees at the edge of the water, swayed in one last enchanting giggle that showed all the lacquer-red linings in a quiver of flame, while the supplementary giggles of the stout little maid followed us regretfully out of the bay.