ONE:Well, Im sure its been a very pleasant if a very quiet evening, she said. Theres nothing nicer than to dine, as you may say, tte--tte like that and have a little agreeable conversation afterwards, not but what I should have been sorry to have as tough a pheasant as that served at my table, for I declare I could hardly get my teeth into it though it did come on a silver plate, and nothing but a nut and an apple for dessert, though you can get choice grapes so cheap now. But there! what does that matter when you dine with{172} friends? Such a pleasant talk as I had too with Lady Inverbroom, who, Im sure, is a very sensible and agreeable sort of woman. Nothing very gifted, I dare say, but a great deal of common sense. Common sense now! I often wish it was commoner. But the time passed so quickly while you and Lord Inverbroom were talking together in the dining-room that I was quite surprised when you came in. The soup, too, did you not find it insipid? But I expect Lady Inverbroom does not have the sort of cook that I have always been accustomed to. No jewels either, just that little diamond brooch, which made me feel that I was too fine with the beautiful pearl pendant you gave me for my birthday. Dont you agree with me, Thomas?
FORE:The Doctor explained that at sea the time is divided into watches, or periods, of four hours each. The bell strikes once for each half-hour, until four hours, or eight bells, are reached, and then they begin again. One o'clock is designated as "two bells," half-past one is "three bells," and[Pg 54] four o'clock is "eight bells." Eight o'clock, noon, and midnight are also signalled by eight strokes on the bell, and after a little while a traveller accustoms himself to the new mode of keeping time.
FORE:I surrender, he said, with amiable ease."Not at all," said the Doctor, endeavouring without much success to treat his guest as an ordinary being, "I am to blame. I ought to have realised that you would require nourishment. But, of course, I am still in the dark"
FORE:As nearly as can be ascertained the first European who landed on Japanese[Pg 307] soil was Mendez Pinto, a Portuguese who combined the occupations of merchant and pirate in such intimate relations that it was not always easy for him to determine where the one ended and the other began. He has been greatly slandered, and his name has an ignoble place in history, as that of a champion liar. The fact is, that the stories he told on his return to Europe, and which caused him to be called "The Mendacious," were substantially correctquite as much so as those of Marco Polo, and far more than the narrations of Sir John Mandeville. Pinto came with two companions to the island of Tanegashima in 1542, and, as might be expected, they were great curiosities. Even more curious were the fire-arms they carried; and they were invited to visit the Daimio of Bungo, and bring their strange weapons with them. They did so, and taught the natives how to make guns and powder, which soon became generally used throughout Japan. To this day fire-arms are frequently called "Tanegashima," after the island where Pinto landed with the first of these weapons. Christianity followed closely on the track of the musket. The adventurers returned with a profit of twelve hundred per cent. on their cargo. Their success stimulated others, and in 1549 two Portuguese missionaries, one of them being Francis Xavier, landed in Japan, and began the work of converting the heathen. Xavier's first labors were in Satsuma, and he afterwards went to Kioto and other cities. Personally he never accomplished much, as he could not speak the language fluently, and he remained in the country only a few years. But he did a great deal to inspire others; numbers of missionaries flocked to Japan, and it is said that thirty years after Xavier landed on the soil there were two hundred churches, and a hundred and fifty thousand native Christians. At the time of the highest success of the missionaries it is estimated that there were not less than half a million professing Christians in Japan, and perhaps another hundred thousand who were nominally so, though their faith was not regarded as[Pg 308] more than "skin deep." Among the adherents of the new religion there were several Daimios, and a great number of persons occupying high social and official positions. Some of the Daimios were so zealous that they ordered their people to turn Christians whether they wished it or not; and one of them gave his subjects the option of being baptized or leaving the country within twenty-four hours.
