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They eat more of rice than of anything else. Then they drink tea without either milk or sugar. They use neither forks nor knives. Instead they eat with small sticks of wood or ivory. These are called "chopsticks." They hold them between the thumb and first two fingers. They use them to carry their food to their mouths as you use a fork or a spoon. Do you know how they catch fish in China?

They are dressed in loose blanket robes, girt about the waist with a leather belt, in which they place their iron or brass pipes, and from which they suspend their long knives, chopsticks, tobacco-pouch, tweezers, tinder-box, etc. The robe, boots, and cap are grey, or striped with bright colours, and they wear skull-caps, and the hair plaited into a pig-tail.

In deference to the fact that all but our Japanese friend were unaccustomed to chopsticks, forks were placed on the table as well as the little sticks that the Orientals use so deftly. At each place was a beautiful lacquer tray, about twelve by eighteen inches, a pair of chopsticks, a fork and a teaspoon. Before the meal was over several of us became quite expert in using the chopsticks.

Chrysantheme tastes a little of all, with dainty pecks and the aid of her little chopsticks, raising the tips of her fingers with affected grace. At every dish she makes a face, leaves three parts of it, and dries her finger-tips after it in apparent disgust. These menus vary according to the inspiration that may have seized Madame Prune.

They were represented in lacquer-ware of many kinds, on the sides and covers of carven boxes, on tobacco-pouches, on sleeve-buttons, in designs for hairpins, on women's combs, even on chopsticks. Bundles of toothpicks in tiny cases were offered for sale, each toothpick having engraved upon it, in microscopic text, a different poem about the war.

The simplest of simple beds in most cases merely a few boards with a straw mattress placed thereon the straw sandal on the foot, wooden chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing much of this finds favor in the eye of the English traveler.

He brings into this fragile little paper house, his sailor's freedom and ease of manner, and his Breton accent; side by side with these tiny mousmés of affected manners and bird-like voices, who, small as they are, rule the big fellow as they please; make him eat with chopsticks; teach him Japanese "pigeon-vole," and cheat him, and quarrel, and almost die of laughter over it all.

"Not bad," commented Ned, after taking a preliminary mouthful of it for a taste, delving out the rice with his fingers, no spoon or fork being provided, and the chopsticks a la Chinoise furnished with the bowl being useless to us from our not being accustomed to their proper manipulation. "Better served up, too, than we ever got on board!"

Carleton, if you will just imagine we are in China, and introduct a pair of familiar chopsticks into this basket, I shall be repaid for the loss of a strawberry by the expression of ecstasy which will immediately spread itself over your features. I intend to patronize the natural mode of eating in future. I find the ends of my fingers decidedly odoriferous."

The Japanese had heard that the Dutch people like cheese, walk in wooden shoes, eat with forks, instead of chopsticks, and the women wear twenty petticoats apiece, while the men sport jackets with two gold buttons, and folks generally do things the other way from that which was common in Japan.