Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/245

 boiled, pheasant (steamed with mushrooms), salmon-trout, boiled sea-bream, cuttle-fish soup, and suzuki soup. All these seem to have been served at once. When a guest took his place, he found that his section of the table bore a phalanx of vessels and utensils marshalled with symmetrical regularity. Immediately before him were a pair of chopsticks and a spoon; beyond these lay an empty cup, and, ranged in a line from left to right, having the cup for the centre, were a plate of sliced pears, a vessel of vinegar, a decanter of sake, and a pot of soy. Beyond these and parallel to them a row of four dishes were set, containing jelly-fish, trepang and bêche-de-mer. These constituted the hors d'œuvre. Beyond them, marshalled in two horizontal ranks of four plates each, were the entrées; and on the right and left, respectively, were the eight "dry viands" and the eight "moist viands," each group in two vertical ranks of four plates per rank.

Nothing in the way of table-decoration, as practised in Europe and America, seems to have been attempted. Flower and other decorative devices did, however, make their appearance in the banqueting-hall in accordance with peculiar customs. From ancient times, when offerings of scalloped paper and a mirror were presented at a shrine, etiquette required that they should be suspended from a branch of the Clyera japonica, since to touch them with the hand was to defile them. By refinement of conception habitual to