Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/230

 in their richest costumes. As the guests were Japanese the feast was made a foreign dinner of as many courses as our guide and magician, Miyashta, could conjure from Nagoya’s markets and the Shiurokindo’s kitchen. Our three friends rustled in early, clad in ceremonial silk gowns, each with his family crest marked in tiny white circles on the backs and sleeves of his haori, or coat. At every praise of Nagoya, which the interpreter repeated to them on our behalf, they rose from their high chairs and bowed profoundly. At table the play of the knife and fork was as difficult to them as the chopsticks had once been for us, but they carried themselves through the ordeal with dignity and grace, and heroically ate of all the dishes passed them.

Towards the end of the dinner a gorgeous paroquet of a child appeared on our open balcony. Her kimono was pale blue crape, painted and embroidered with a wealth of chrysanthemums of different colors. Her obi, of the heaviest crinkled red crape, had flights of gray and white storks all over its drooping loops, and the neck-fold was red crape woven with a shimmer of gold thread. Her face was white with rice powder, and her hair, dressed in fantastic loops and puffs, was tied with bits of red crape and gold cord, and set with a whole diadem of silver chrysanthemums. She came forward smiling with the most charming mixture of childlike shyness and maidenly self-possession, becoming as much interested in our curious foreign dresses as we in her splendid attire.

Presently, against the background of the night, appeared another dazzling figure—Oikoto, the most bewitching and popular maiko of the day in Nagoya. She, too, was radiant in gorgeously-painted crape, a red and gold striped obi, and a crown of silver flowers. Oikoto had the long, narrow eyes, the deeply-fringed lids, the nose and contour of face of Egyptian women. Her hand 214