All my friends over the seas, the curtain has risen at last; the play is now beginning.

'Buses and again 'buses! Cabs and again cabs! What a crowd! How dirty are

those streets! I am glad not to see any dog around here, whom I always hate. But isn't it a pity that the English girls wear rather shabby hats? The gentlemen look to play with their own dignity. I have not seen even one gentleman who is fat and jolly; I see that it would be taken here as a crime to look happy. I am often told that we must see the Englishman at home, if we wish to see him at his best. That may be true.

I felt already influenced by the English atmosphere silent and solemn, even before a few hours had hardly passed. I almost forgot, under such an influence, how to speak.

I never saw before such tired-looking people who filled the hotel lobby; they may be, like myself, foreigners who have come to see London. I should like to know their first impression here.

Ladies and gentlemen, where is famous St. Paul's Cathedral? Didn't I expect to see it from any corner? I wished in my heart an evening bell would sing out from Westminster Abbey, when I stepped into

London. Oh, where is the London Bridge? I will dust my hat, and go out to dine somewhere, and study a bit London by night.

4th. I ate a "grilled chop" last night. My friends in America, do you ever know what is a "lemon squash"? Is there no water in London? The waiter looked strangely at me when I asked after it; why, I forgot this was England, where are only two things, beer and Bible.

I believe the word economy is the keynote of English greatness. Let me learn it (what a great problem) beginning with one pitcher of water, with which I have to be content for my morning toilet. Indeed, I wish to have bath-houses rather than the statues I encounter here at almost every corner; I see that you have to begin with hero-worship in England, while cleaning your body is the first thing in Japan.

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Biscuit, sir," the waiter says when I ask for crackers. Any name will do as long as the thing is the same. Let me get a copy of the book, How to Act in London.

I have the most unhappy breakfast at this hotel; it would be better, I thought, to eat even alone in any big temple. The air in the hotel is cold; the dining-room

reminds me of a drawing-room of an American undertaker.

What a parade of frock coats! I never saw before such a crowd of men in that coat; the frock coat will be eternally unchanged and the same, however the world might change, or an Imperial Kingdom turn to a republic. How many hundred thousand people in that immortal coat pass by Charing Cross every day? It is here that I wrote one seventeen syllable hokku poem, which appears, when translated, as follows:

"Tell me the street to Heaven.

This? Or that? Oh, which?
What webs of streets!"

To-day I rode on a 'bus, taking a "garden seat," from which I could command a general view over the streets; what a human desert under my feet, groaning monotonous and sad! The air above my head was clear. The driver touched the horses lightly, and tried to encourage them with the hum of song. Oh, where did I wish to go? I did not know, to be sure. And how could I know since the London streets were a perfect puzzle? The horses stopped. I left the 'bus before I had any thought. Somebody said to me: "This is the place where John

son, Boswell, too, used to walk in ancient day, and they laughed, talked, and ate beefsteak pie to heart's content.” Why, this was Temple Bar.

6th.-I wrote to my friend in America that the price of champagne was delightfully cheap. I was much pleased to buy chestnuts in the street, an excusable taste, considering their price. But I am very sorry that I cannot give any good word to coffee here; I am learning to drink tea even at breakfast. A healthy symptom of Englishmen can be seen in the amount that they eat every day; they cannot go to sleep till they eat a full supper at ten or eleven o'clock. What simplicity! I am beginning to use a pipe for my smoke, following after an English fashion.

I was pleased not to see many advertisements round the Tower of London, when I went there to-day. You will be inquisitive of a little handbag that I carried; you must not laugh and say something mean, if I confess I had a copy of the London guidebook in it.

Thames was black like ink. It would be on such a day as this that the ghosts of those who have been killed may appear and disappear, haunting the Tower. I was far