Following for some distance along the bank of a large canal I reach the village of Hakama for the night.  The yadoya here is simply spotless from top to bottom; however the Japanese hotel-keeper manages to transact business and preserve such immaculate apartments is more of a puzzle every day.  The regulation custom at a yadoya is for the newly arrived guest to take a scalding hot bath, and then squat beside a little brazier of coals, and smoke and chat till supper-time.  The Japanese are more addicted to hot-water bathing than the people of any other country.  They souse themselves in water that has been heated to 140 deg.  Fahr., a temperature that is quite unbearable to the “Ingurisu-zin” or “Amerika-zin” until he becomes gradually hardened and accustomed to it.  Both men and women bathe regularly in hot water every evening.  The Japs have not yet imbibed any great quantity of mauvaise honte from their association with Europeans, so the sexes frequent the bath-tub indiscriminately, taking no more notice of one another than if they were all little children.  “Venus disporting in the waves”—­of a bath-tub—­is a regular feature of life at a Japanese inn.  Nor can they quite understand why the European tourist should object to the proprietor, his wife and children, chambermaids, tea-girls, guests and visitors crowding around to see him undress and waltz into the tub.  Bless their innocent Japanese souls! why should he object.  They are only attracted out of curiosity to see the whiteness of his skin, to note his peculiar manner of undressing, and to satisfy a general inquisitiveness concerning his corporeal possibilities.  They have no squeamishness whatever about his watching their own natatorial duties; why, then, should he shrink within himself and wave them off?

The regular hotel meals consist of rice, fish in various forms, little slices of crisp, raw turnip, pickles, and a catsup-like sauce.  Meat is rarely forthcoming, unless specially ordered, when, of course, extra charges are made; sake also has to be purchased separately.  After supper one is supplied with a teapot of tea and a brazier of coals.

Passing the following night at Hakama, I pull out next morning for Shimonoseki.  Traversing for some miles a hilly country, covered with pine-forest, my road brings me into Ashiyah, situated on a small estuary.  Here, at Ashiyah, I indulge in nay first simon-pure Japanese shave, patronizing the village barber while dodging a passing shower.  The Japanese tonsorial artist shaves without the aid of soap, merely wetting the face by dipping his fingers in a bowl of warm water.  During the operation of shaving he hones the razor frequently on an oil-stone.  He shaves the entire face and neck, not omitting even the lobes of the ear, the forehead, and nose.  If the European traveller didn’t keep his senses about him, while in the barber-chair of a Japanese village, he would find himself with every particle of fuzz scraped off his face and neck, save, of course, his regular whiskers or mustache, and with eye-brows considerably curtailed.