=July 1.=--An uneventful and solitary day’s work. Professor _F----_ too ill to come. I only suffered spasmodic anger from an outraged digestive mechanism, and continued my usual occupations, and dined with the Sh----s in the evening. The little Japanese girl I have mentioned as staying with her is pretty nice. Alas, to-morrow she is going to be put into foreign dress! She is going to marry Prince _S----_, however, who is very pro-English, and as she will be much about the court, is compelled to wear it by that sad decree of the Empress.
I heard one good story of a little English girl who went home after having spent all her early years in Japan. In the train between Southampton and London she was much interested with the outlook, the sheep particularly fascinating her, and she called on her mother to admire them: “Look, what a lot!” “Why, here is another!” “There, mother, look, look!” she kept exclaiming, when a benevolent old gentleman said, “Why are the sheep so interesting, little girl? Haven’t you seen a sheep before?”
“Of course I have,” she answered, drawing herself up; “of course--we have _two_ in the Zoo in Tokio.”
=July 2.=--Fossil-cutting all morning--I seem to be followed by misfortune, for the boy who works the engine has been away all this week, and my scientific colleague here only one afternoon! However, I keep at it, and slides are slowly accumulating, with a few nice things in them.
=July 3.=--Fossils in the morning and lunch at the Goten; Professor _S----_ jolly and talkative, and a great pleasure to meet. Professor _F----_ came in the afternoon, and we did a lot of looking through slides. There are a number of pretty little things among the fossils that puzzle us completely.
=July 5.=--There was a luncheon party with some nice neighbours to-day, and while we were there some strolling Japanese singers came to the door, and we gave them a few sen and watched them. There were an old woman and a young woman, both good-looking, and with the quaint huge round hats of their class, the young man wore a battered European-style hat--a jarring note, that was repeated in the little girl’s hat, red stockings, and European shoes. It is always the men and the children who wear the horrors of civilisation.