From of old Buddhism forbade the eating of anything that had animal life, and hence it came about that the Japanese are probably as vegetarian in their diet as any people on earth. Even such animal food as butter and milk is not used. Butter is very unpalatable to them, but many are beginning to use a little milk. Bread, so necessary {81} to a Western table, forms no part of a Japanese bill of fare. The staple here is rice, not boiled and mashed to pieces, with milk and butter, but simply boiled in water sufficiently to cook it well without breaking the grains. When it is cooked each grain remains intact, and it is snowy white and perfectly dry. No salt or seasoning of any kind is put into it, as it is thought to spoil the flavor. The rivers, lakes, and seas of Japan are teeming with splendid fish, which form an important part of the native diet. It seems that Buddhism, while forbidding the use of meats generally, permitted the eating of fish. Certain kinds of fish, cut into thin slices and eaten raw with a kind of sauce, are considered a great delicacy. The idea of eating raw fish seems very repugnant, but many of my readers would eat it without realizing what it is unless they were told. I often eat it. But only a few of the fish consumed are eaten raw; most are boiled or fried. Foreign vegetables are rare, and are not much liked by the natives. But there is an abundance of native vegetables. The most common one is a large, coarse radish called _daikon_, which is pickled, and eaten at nearly every meal. This daikon is very cheap, and is a chief part of the diet of that small portion of the population that cannot afford rice. Sweet potatoes are abundant and cheap. {82} They are considered the poor man's food, and the well-to-do people are ashamed to eat them. Often at hotels, when I have asked for sweet potatoes, the servant has replied in astonishment, "Why, do you eat sweet potatoes? They are for coolies." A mountain-potato and the roots of the lotus and bamboo are also eaten. Since the country has been opened to foreign trade and foreigners have settled here it is possible to get meats and flour and some foreign vegetables at most places. Japanese clothing is frequently conspicuous by its absence. Many of the people do not realize the necessity of burdening themselves with clothing on a hot summer day, and wear very little. The government has been constrained to make laws against nudity, but these are enforced only in the cities. The usual summer garment of many of the children in my city is simply the dark-brown one given them by nature. Most of the coolies wear nothing but a little loin-cloth when at work.