lk industry. The
Japanese trader has got the trick of asking twice as much as he is
willing finally to take for his goods, but there are also some of these
establishments where the one price system is honestly observed. As a
rule, however, all through the cities, the price at first asked for an
article need not be taken by the purchaser as any real criterion of its
value. Strangers would do well to engage the services of a resident whom
they can trust, when they go upon a shopping expedition; otherwise the
result of their bargains will probably be anything but satisfactory,
when the goods are received at home and prices considered. All buying
and selling in the East seems to be a sort of warfare, where each party
endeavors to take advantage of the other. In China it is much more so
than in Japan. Main Street, as the name indicates, is the principal
thoroughfare, quite Europeanized, mostly improved for stores and
offices, and containing at the northwest end the town hall, telegraph
and post offices.

A ride in a jinrikisha, a small man-propelled chaise, afforded us other
agreeable surprises. The loveliness of the hills and valleys, so
delicate and diminutive compared with our late Yosemite experience,
seemed more like fairy land than reality, making one crave the pencil of
an artist to depict them. In little plots adjoining the small, frail
native houses, various cultivated flowers were observed, among which
chrysanthemums and occasionally roses were to be seen; also a species of
fuchsia, bearing a bell-like blue and scarlet flower. The foliage of the
trees, and especially of the feathery bamboo groves, was very beautiful,
while the specimens of the various pines, yews, and arbor vitae were many
of them odd and new to us. The leaves and minor branches of the pines
seemed to emulate the alphabetical characters of the Japanese language,
growing up, down, and inward, after their own eccentric will. The tea
fields, mostly located upon side hills with favorable exposures, were in
full bloom, looking as though there had been a fall of snow, and the
flakes still rested on the delicate tips and branches. Far away and all
around were yellow rice fields, heavy with the milk-white grain, the
broad acres undulating gracefully beneath the pressure of the passing
breezes. The abundant wild flowers were vivid in color and fantastic in
shape, nearly all unknown to us, save now and then an azalea, an iris,
or some single-leaved represent