rted on the
countryside by the imported "navvies," if our Western name may be
applied to men who in figure and dress look so little like the big
fellows who do the same kind of work in England. Although these
navvies were a rough lot and our ancient _basha_ (a kind of
four-wheeled covered carriage) was a thing for mirth, we met with no
incivility as we picked our way among them for a mile or two. I was a
witness indeed of a creditable incident. A handcart full of earth was
being taken along the edge of the roadway, with one man in the shafts
and another pushing behind. Suddenly a wheel slipped over the side of
the roadway, the cart was canted on its axle, the man in the shafts
received a jolt and the cargo was shot out. Had our sort of navvies
been concerned there would have been words of heat and colour. The
Japanese laughed.

The reference to our venerable _basha_ reminds me of a well-known
story which was once told me by a Japanese as a specimen of Japanese
humour. A _basha_, I may explain, has rather the appearance of a
vehicle which was evolved by a Japanese of an economical turn after
hearing a description of an omnibus from a foreigner who spoke very
little Japanese and had not been home for forty years. The body of the
vehicle is just high enough and the seats just wide enough for
Japanese. So the foreigner continually bumps the roof, and when he is
not bumping the roof he has much too narrow a seat to sit on.
Sometimes the _basha_ has springs of a sort and sometimes it has none.
But springs would avail little on the rural roads by which many
_basha_ travel. The only tolerable place for Mr. Foreigner in a
_basha_ is one of the top corner seats behind the driver, for the
traveller may there throw an arm round one of the uprights which
support the roof. If at an unusually hard bump he should lose his hold
he is saved from being cast on the floor by the responsive bodies of
his polite and sympathetic fellow-travellers who are embedded between
him and the door. The tale goes that a tourist who was serving his
term in a _basha_ was perplexed to find that the passengers were
charged, some first-, some second-and some third-class fare. While he
clung to his upright and shook with every lurch of the conveyance this
problem of unequal fares obsessed him. It was like the persistent
"punch-in-the-presence-of-the-passengare." What possible advantage, he
pondered, could he as first class be getting over the second and the