work was going on they were evidently fatigued, and at each change that allowed a brief spell of waiting, they were stretched out on the planks of the boats, the greater number still, but some of the younger ones talking and laughing.  There did not seem to be much flirtation, nothing like as much as when both sexes of Europeans are engaged in the same wheat or barley field harvesting.  There were, it is needful to remark, neither lights nor shadows to invite the blanishments of courting.  The coal handling women were from fifteen to fifty years of age, and all so busy the inevitable babies must have been left at home.  I have never seen many American or European babies “good” as weary mothers use the word, as the commonest Japanese kids.  They do not know how to cry, and a girl of ten years will relieve a mother of personal care by carrying a baby, tied up in a scarf, just its head sticking out (I wish they could be induced to use more soap and water on the coppery heads, from which pairs of intent eyes stare out with sharp inquiry, as wild animals on guard).  The girl baby bearer, having tied the child so that it appears to be a bag, slings it over her shoulder, and it interferes but slightly with the movements of the nurse; does not discernibly embarrass her movements.  The men colliers, it must be admitted, are a shade reckless in the scarcity of their drapery when they are handling baskets in the presence of ladies.  They do usually wear shirts with short tails behind, and very economical breechcloths, but their shirts are sleeveless, and the buttons are missing on collar and bosom.  The only clothing beneath the knees consists of straw sandals.  The precipitation of perspiration takes care of itself.  There are no pocket handkerchiefs.

Nagasaki has good hotels, a pleasant, airy European quarter, and shops stored with the goods of the country, including magnificent vases and other pottery that should meet the appreciation of housekeepers.  There is no city in Japan more typically Japanese, few in which the line is so finely and firmly drawn between the old and the new, and that to the advantage of both.

It is hardly possible for those who do not visit Japan to realize what a bitter struggle the people have had with their native land, or how brilliant the victory they have won.  The passage of the China through the inner sea and far along the coast gave opportunity to see, as birds might, a great deal of the country.  The inner sea is a wonderfully attractive sheet of water, twice as long as Long Island Sound, and studded with islands, a panorama of the picturesque mountains everywhere, deep nooks, glittering shoals, fishing villages by the sea, boats rigged like Americans, flocks of white sails by day, and lights at night, that suggest strings of street lamps.  The waters teem with life.  Evidently the sea very largely affords industry and sustenance to the people, for there is no botlom or prairie land, as we call the