And for gentle, polite, amiable manners they go as fur ahead of Americans as the leaves of their trees duz, and I've seen leaves there more'n ten feet long. The empire of Japan consists of three thousand eight hundred islands, from one eight hundred milds long to them no bigger than a tin pan, and the population is about forty-three million. I don't spoze any nation on earth ever made faster progress than Japan has in the last thirty years: railways, telegraph postal system. It seems as if all Japan wanted wuz to find out the best way of doin' things, and then she goes right ahead and duz 'em.
Robert Strong wuz talking about what the word Japan meant, the Sunrise Land. And he said some real pretty things about it and so did Dorothy. They wuz dretful took with the country. Robert Strong has travelled everywhere and he told me that some portions of Japan wuz more beautiful than any country he had ever seen. We took several short journeys into the interior to see the home life of the people, but Robert Strong, who seemed to be by the consent of all of us the head of our expedition, thought that we had better not linger very long there as there wuz so many other countries that we wanted to visit, but 'tennyrate we decided to start for Calcutta from Hongkong, stopping on the way at Shanghai.
We wuz a goin' to stop for a day or two at Shanghai and I wuz real glad on't, for I felt that I must see the Empress, Si Ann, without any more delay, and I hearn she wuz there visitin' some of her folks.
Yes, I felt the widder Hien Fong ort to hear what I had to say to her with no further delay, I felt it wuz a duty that I owed toward the nation and Josiah.
The voyage from Yokohama to Shanghai is very interesting, a part of it is through the inland sea, mountains and valleys on both sides, many islands and large and small towns all along the shores. Our hull party kep' well and all enjoyed all the strange picturesque scenery, most as new to us as if we wuz on another planet. Yes, I d'no as Jupiter would look any stranger to us than the country did, or Mars or Saturn.
We wuz over a day crossin' the Yaller Sea, well named, for its water is as yaller as the sands on its shores. I'd hate to wash white clothes in it. And as we drew near Shanghai it wuz all alive with Chinese junks full of men, wimmen and children. The children here on these boats seem to be tied up with ropes, givin' 'em room to crawl round, same as I have tied up Jonesville hens that wanted to set.