Each man had his own
little table and eight or ten separate dishes, a bottle of _saki_,
tea-pipe, and _hibatchi_, arranged exactly as ours had been at the
tea-house at Yokohama. How well they managed their chop-sticks, how
quickly they shovelled the food down, and how clean they left each
dish! Habit is everything.
We were anxious to make the best of our way home, and starting at
four, with but a short stop at the halfway tea-house, we reached the
hotel soon after seven, having taken less than an hour to come five
miles over a very bad road, an inch deep in mud. So much for a
'man-power carriage,' the literal translation of the word
_jinrikisha_.[18] Soon after an excellent dinner we returned on board,
so as to be ready for an early start to-morrow morning.
[Footnote 18: Or 'pull-man-car,' as it is sometimes called.]
_Wednesday, February 14th_.--We were called at 4 a.m. Fires were
lighted, but before steam was up the wind had risen; so our start was
once more postponed to the afternoon. We steamed out to the buoy, from
among the shipping, in order to be able to get away more easily at
night. The wind generally goes down at sunset, and Tom hoped that, by
taking our departure then, we should get through the worst part of the
Inland Sea before the wind again rose with the sun.
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