The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and ChinaKnox, Thomas Wallace
General
The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and China
Knox, Thomas Wallace
China -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature; Japan -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
They were off at an early hour, and, as before, their route was along
the Tokaido. The provisions and other things had been sent on ahead
during the night, and they did not see them until they came to the place
where they were to sleep. They took a light meal before starting from
Yokohama, and found a substantial breakfast waiting for them at
Totsooka. Their host was a famous character in the East--an English
actor who had drifted through China and Japan, and finally settled down
here as a hotel-keeper.
"I met George Pauncefort in China years ago," said the Doctor, as they
entered the hotel; "I wonder if he will recognize me."
George greeted the travellers with all the dignity of an emperor
saluting an embassy from a brother emperor, and wished them welcome to
his roof and all beneath it. Then he straightened up to the very highest
line of erectness, and rested his gaze upon Doctor Bronson.
For fully a minute he stood without moving a muscle, and then struck an
attitude of astonishment.
"Can it be? Yes! No! Impossible!" he exclaimed. "Do my eyes deceive me?
No, they do not; it is; it must be he! it must! it must!"
Then he shook hands with the Doctor, struck another attitude of
astonishment, and with the same Macbethian air turned to a servant and
told him to put the steaks and the chicken on the table.
It is said by the residents of Yokohama, with whom the hotel at Totsooka
is a favorite resort, that George Pauncefort stirs an omelette as though
he were playing Hamlet, and his conception of Sir Peter Teazle is
manifested when he prepares a glass of stimulating fluid for a thirsty
patron.
[Illustration: A JAPANESE LOOM.]
Various industrial processes were visible as our party rode along. Some
women were weaving cotton at a native loom, and they halted the
jin-riki-shas a few moments to look at the process. The loom was a very
primitive affair, and the operator sat on the floor in front of it. A
man who appeared to be the chief of the establishment was calmly smoking
a pipe close by, and on the other side of the weaver a woman was winding
some cotton thread on a spool by means of a simple reel. After looking a
few moments at the loom, and the mode of weaving in Japan, the party
moved on. The boys had learned to say "Sayonara" on bidding farewell to
the Japanese, and they pronounced it on this occasion in the most
approved style. The Japanese salutation on meeting is "Ohio," and it is
pronounced exactly like the name of our Western state of which Columbus
is the capital. Everywhere the Japanese greet you with "Ohio," and a
stranger does not need to be long in the country to know how exceedingly
polite are the people we were accustomed only a few years ago to
consider as barbarians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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