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from the Government House of Tosa, and his arrival at the port from which he was to set sail. He was accompanied here by large numbers of people who came to take leave of him. Most brought with them parting presents, usually of eatables or saké. The result was that in Tsurayuki’s words, “Strange to say, here we were all fresh by the shore of the salt sea.” He did not actually set sail till the 27th, the intervening six days being chiefly taken up in disposing of the presents, and in a visit to the newly appointed Prefect, with whom he spent a day and right in drinking and verse-making, after which he took a final leave. Tsurayuki’s successor in office shook hands with him at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house, and they bade each other farewell with many cordial, but tipsy expressions of good-will on both sides. On the following day, however, we find Tsurayuki in a different frame of mind. He tells us that during his stay in Tosa a girl had died who was born in Kioto, and that amid all the bustle and confusion of leaving port, her friends could think of nothing but her. Some one, he says, composed this verse of poetry on the occasion.
“With the joyful thought, ‘Home to Kioto,’ there mingles the bitter reflection that there is one who never will return.” We are informed by another writer that Tsurayuki here deplores the loss of his own daughter, a little girl of nine years of age.
But the jollifications had not yet come to an end. The new Prefect’s brother made his appearance at a projecting cape on their way to the first stopping place, and they were accordingly obliged to land on the beach, where there was more drinking and composing of verses. Of these verses Tsurayuki seems to have had no great opinion. He says that it required the united efforts of two of the party to make one bad verse, and he compares them to two fishermen labouring along with a heavy net on their shoulders. Their jollity was interrupted by the master of the junk who summoned them on board. There was a fair wind, he said, and the tide served; and Tsurayuki maliciously adds that
