Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/314

 lily in a bronze vase, were the ornaments of the tokonoma.

Senké, now past seventy years of age, receives few pupils himself, but neither he nor his handsome son of about thirty years is wholly incurious as to the strange fashions that have entered the country since the Restoration. We bowed with the profound solemnity of mourners, but with the vigilance of spies we watched Senké as he built the fire, laid on the white azalea charcoal, dropped some chips of sandal-wood, and boiled his historic iron kettle. Then followed the feast of many delicate dishes—tea; bean-soup, with bits of egg-plant; raw fish with shreds of daiken and fresh ginger; tai-soup, with sea-weed and mushrooms; broiled ai with shoyu; bamboo-soup; dried Shikoku salmon; broiled birds; Kaga walnuts, preserved in a thick syrup, and other dishes; each course accompanied by rice, and ending with barley-water. An old iron saké-pot and shallow red lacquer saké-cups were passed around with the various dishes, and we gravely pledged one another and the master who served us. When the dried fish was brought in my Kencho friend nipped off some choice bits with his chop sticks and offered them on a paper to our host, who ate them, and put the paper in his sleeve. At the end of the feast the first guest—the one sitting nearest the tokonoma—wiped all his bowls and dishes clean with paper, which he put in his sleeve, and we followed his example. With the thirteenth course we gathered up our tray of sweets and retired to the garden, waiting there until soft strokes on an old bell called us back to the room, which had been swept, and the picture and vase in the tokonoma changed. Senké, too, had replaced his dark gauze kimono by one of pale-blue crape, and sat in a reverent attitude. With infinite deliberation he went through the solemn rites, and duly presented us each with a bowl of green gruel more bitter 298