Darkness visible—Nikko Shops—Girls and Matrons—Night and Sleep-Parental Love—Childish Docility—Hair-dressing—Skin Diseases.

I DON't wonder that the Japanese rise early, for their evenings are cheerless, owing to the dismal illumination. In this and other houses the lamp consists of a square or circular lacquer stand, with four uprights, 2½ feet high, and panes of white paper. A flatted iron dish is suspended in this full of oil, with the pith of a rush with a weight in the centre laid across it, and one of the projecting ends is lighted. This wretched apparatus is called an andon, and round its wretched “darkness visible” the family huddles—the children to play games and learn lessons, and the women to sew; for the Japanese daylight is short and the houses are dark. Almost more deplorable is a candlestick of the same height as the andon, with a spike at the top which fits into a hole at the bottom of a “ farthing candle “ of vegetable wax, with a thick wick made of rolled paper, which requires constant snuffing, and, after giving for a short time a dim and jerky light, expires with a bad smell. Lamps, burning mineral oils, native and imported, are being manufactured on a large scale, but, apart, from the peril connected with them, the carriage of oil into country districts is very expensive. No Japanese would think of sleeping without having an andon burning all night in his room.

These villages are full of shops. There is scarcely a house which does not sell something. Where the buyers come from, and how a profit can be made, is a mystery. Many of the things are eatables, such as dried fishes, l½ inch long, impaled on sticks; cakes, sweetmeats composed of rice, flour, and very little sugar; circular lumps of rice dough, called mochi’, roots boiled in brine; a white jelly made from beans; and ropes, straw shoes for men and horses, straw cloaks, paper umbrellas, paper waterproofs, hair-pins, tooth-picks, tobacco pipes, paper mouchoirs and numbers of other trifles made of bamboo, straw, grass, and wood.