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218 BONDA THE UAMUSAl.
the city. In spite of himself, being an eager student,
he became interested in the study of Dutch, with
the desire of learning how it came to pass that the
European was so far ahead of the Japanese in military
science. Okuma, the learned teacher, gave him
a start by teaching him the alphabet and a few
pages of a little school geography, and the privilege
of transcribing a small Dutch dictionary. With a
perseverance worthy of a samurai Honda actually
copied out with pen and ink every one of the four
hundred pages of the fat duodecimo and committed
to memory hundreds of the most important words.
He thus gained in six months considerable knowledge
of the Holland language, though his pronunciation
would have shocked even an African Dutchman.
He took his amusement, not in the tea-houses,
drinking-places, or theaters, but in studying the endless
variety of street characters, the country folk,
the parades, festival celebrations and processions
at the daimi5s', as they came into the city from all
quarters of the empire. Etiquette and pride required
each of these noblemen, according
to his
rank, to make his full show of horses, palanquins,
state umbrellas, baggage -boxes, and all the paraphernalia
of feudal display. On the road, while
traveling, a daimio might, for economy's sake, get
along with only a few followers, since paying the
hotel bills of so many retainers was an onerous
burden; but once in Yedo, the full quota was a
as an alter-
necessity, with disgrace or punishment
native. Hence as Honda Jiro soon found there