Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/414

322 are interested in them and their ways, they are interested in you and yours, and they loved to compare notes and laugh over our different views.

Who ever went to Japan that did not speak of its great glory—its women! They are often quite ugly or commonplace in feature, though sometimes, especially in the higher classes (the difference being marked), very delicately featured. It is their irresistible charm, their delicate, refined ways, and their beautiful, soft, low-toned voices which so fascinate. A pretty, graceful, European girl looks quite an awkward monster beside them. I do not believe there is anything more charming in the world than the “Saronaya!”—the farewell of the Japanese women, with the dear little “Please come again,” in English at the end of it. What matters if it be but a polite, unmeaning phrase?—it is music to hear and makes you want to come again.

Quite insensibly you grow to adapt your manner to theirs, speak gently, feel inclined to be polite, and could not think of being loud-voiced or boisterous. Even when full of romping and high spirits it is in their own way.

Once, in a quiet street, I came across some Japanese girls learning to ride a bicycle—it is at any time a rather amusing sight—but those quaint little figures careering wildly, bicycle and all, into the arms of every passer-by, their peals of soft laughter and little cries—the gaiety of the thing was so infectious that you felt it quite natural to be as one of them and assist in the lesson, just as you would with children; and to them it seemed quite natural too.

I loved also to go to the railway station, watch a train come in and the people alight, and listen to the musical clatter and clang of their little wooden shoes.