bustle. Kioto has the advantage of larger masses and greater variety of colour. In Tokio, Yokohama, and throughout the north generally, it is not good taste to dress in colours. The empress, it is true, comes out on state occasions in a blaze of glory. But that is the exception to her habitude, she being on other occasions dressed with the quiet good taste of Japanese ladies in the north. Dark blue, unrelieved by any variety, is the ordinary walking dress of the ladies, and women in lower stations adopt the custom. The southern blood of the Kioto ladies revels in colours of brighter hue.

A peacock is nothing to a Kioto girl out for the day. A paroquet is more closely imitated in respect of plumage. Bright reds, violets, greens, and yellows are frequently seen adorning the same little person. Where matronhood suggests greater sobriety, the average is struck with the assistance of the baby. Children are dressed in the most fantastic style, looking like little cardinals as they play about the streets in long wadded robes of many colours. It is notable that, whilst in the north women and children carrying infants on their back wrap them closely up within their dress, so that nothing but a little round head is visible, the Kioto women, whilst obliged to enclose

the babe within their garment, are careful to leave hanging loosely outside, in full view, the child's cloak. A purple cloak picked out with red and lavishly turned up with yellow at the sleeves is too precious a gift to be withheld from the enjoyment of the public.

There are some pretty girls in Tokio and Yokohama, and there are some ugly ones in Kioto. Eight out of every ten girls met in the streets of Kioto are good-looking, and five are decidedly pretty. They wear their hair differently from their sisters in the north, who, for the most part, are content to observe the general local custom of arranging it in a chignon at the back. In Kioto a young lady takes the chignon pad, and instead of laying it flat to her head, fixes it at right angles, after which all kinds of arrangements are possible. Artificial flowers are largely used to complete the adornment of the Kioto belle's hair. In the north, except on high festive occasions, this is very rare: girls there are content with thrusting a pin through the chignon. Kioto girl has several pins, in addition to a gaily coloured flower, wired so that it may stand an inch or two above the topmost flight of her hair.

The

The chignon shares with the obi the provision of opportunity to the Japanese lady to

display her wealth and her taste. Any amount of money may be spent in pins for the hair. The obi is the sash with which both men and women in Japan girdle their kimono, or outward robe. It is made of silk, runs to great length, is wound twice round the waist, and in the case of ladies is made into a stupendous bow at the back. A Japanese girl can by a glance at the obi and the value of the pins in the back hair reckon up the measure of affluence enjoyed by a lady she may pass in the street or meet in a tea-house. The obi frequently costs more than the kimono itself. Ito, from whom I have many confidences, tells me that he gave thirteen and a half yen, equal to about £2 12s. English, for his obi, whilst his kimono only cost twelve yen. But then Ito is a man of luxurious habits in respect of his clothing.

The day after our arrival at Kioto he came out in a perfectly new suit, the coat and waistcoat of rakish homespun, calculated to give him a sporting air, and a pair of plaid trousers, which I believe he selected from his wardrobe as a delicate attention to the young gentleman from Glasgow. These were happily saved when Ito was submerged in the bay at Yokkaichi on our way hither. What chiefly troubles Ito's soul now is the condition of his

shoes. These were bought new for this trip, and were much admired in the seductive hour of calm weather when we were steaming through the waters of Yokohama Bay into the stormy Pacific. When he went under water his shoes of course went with him. On landing at Yokkaichi he gave them to one of the maidens to dry. She seems to have taken the surest means to that end by putting them in the hibaichi, where a hole was burned clean through the sole. Ito, who, since we set forth on our journey, has received with calm resignation the news of the burning of his house and the imminent escape of his "mudder," who has scarcely murmured against the evil fate which, having first tried him with fire, whelmed him in water, is sorely taxed by this disaster to his shoe. As we were taking our boots off before entering the ancient temple of Hishi Hon-Gwan, I saw him gazing forlornly at the cruel wound in his sole.

The streets in Kioto, with the exception of one or two thoroughfares crossing the city, are curiously narrow. Passing through some lanes in a jinrikisha, it would have been almost possible to sit in the middle of the road and help yourself from the stores displayed in the shops on either hand. The buildings are very low, so much so that, glancing down their

lengths, it seems as if they were all one story high. This, however, is not the case, as on entering there is invariably found a low-ceiled suite of rooms up a steep staircase. All the roofs are deeply gabled, there not being a straight line anywhere in view. In the bright sunlight and under the blue sky arched over the city even in these November days, the streets are full of pleasant pictures. At night, when Chinese lanterns hang from shop fronts, and others go twinkling through the throng pendant on the right-hand shaft of the jinrikisha, it looks like a scene taken from a superlatively well-appointed stage.

I had heard at Yokohama that everything was very dear at Kioto, but that does not tally with my experience. I know that among other investments I paid a halfpenny to visit a Zoological Garden, and an uncommonly good collection it was. The yard which contained it backed into the surrounding houses, which, though perhaps objectionable on sanitary grounds, supplied opportunity to the residents for gratuitous observation on the mincing ways of the owl, the lofty manners of the hawk, and the indolence of the young alligator. Also they could hear through the livelong day the momentarily repeated lesson of the parrot, as it was taken in the pro

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