Connecticut western news., 1880-04-14
Japan Letter. Nm. A.
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IT, KOBE, June 21st, 1879. -Aere will be lively times in Kobe soon 1eneral Grant will be here in 8 day or two, and grandson of Queen Victoria will soon follow, as told you. Then we will see the Johnny Bulls get down in the dust. expect to have an introduction to General Grant,
 The weather has been very fine since last wrote you. The farmers are busy with their wheat and barley. It looks curious to see the wheat and other grain set out in rows as we plant onions and other vegetables in the gar den. They cut the grain with 6 knife not cheap here that the tools and implements in use with us at home are not needed here. We needed some blanks sht Tt time ago. and in- stead of sending to lumber yard for them, they got log of shinoka, 8 wood very much like our white pine, and after marking it out, long and one foot wide. and saws it by hand. He IS now at work at it just outside of the place where l am writing. The log will make five H inch blanks about 12 feet long, and he will be about two days saving it, His wages are 30 cents 8 day for himself and saw.
 The tea plant or bush is grown in the field, set out in rows about as they plant corn at home, but perhaps 8 little further apart. The bushes she grow about four feet high, and have are carefully picked by the natives, and dried in the air. Just think of the labor required to pick the tea leaves, one by one, of the thous- ands of tons of tea shipped from this little port of Kobe. After being air dried by the natives, the leaves are packed in straw mats or bags made of straw, and brought to the port where it is sold to tea dealers. Each house, or finn, has largebuilding one story high, called Tea Firing godowns, and by the way, every building that is not dwelling house, or fac tory where there is machinery, is godown. In the tea firing houses, or place where the tea is dried by fire heat, there are shallow metal pans set over charcoal furnace, and at each pan woman works. They weigh out the leaves as they come from the natives, and give each woman the portion she must dry for her days work. The leaves are placed in the pans, and stirred and rolled by these women at 8 temperature as high AS they can bear. After being dried and rolled up as you see shipment. There is great deal of mixing and coloring done at the tea firing godown to make inferior lots of leaves pass for first-class tea There is tea prepared by the natives. which to be worth four or five dollars pound. It is used in frst-class tea houses, where they charge according to quality. It is served with out sugar or cream, and has a sweet taste, and is very strong. There are over five thousand women employed in tea firing in Kobe. They go to their work from 8 to % o'clock in the morning, and go home about seven o'clock in the evening. There are over two thousand pass our house on their way to and from their work they go along in crowds, singing, laugh,
 
 babies on their backs. How the poor childy en get along during the long day. do not know. You would see plenty of little boys and girls around the neighborhood of the godowns, with baby strapped on their backs, and many Of them only about years old; thus day: It sounds like Bedlam. to go by one of the larger tea firing houses where there are hundreds of women working, singing and shouting st the top of their voice. They carry some kind of vessel to make their tea in, for the Japanese must have tea very often. suppose their rice is furnished them at the place they work, for they do not seem to carry any with them. They do not look very neat :: you must not think of these dirty looking custom of tea drinking is carried out here universally. We have an office near the gate called the Japanese office, where the clerks and servants, or messengers stay. They have a fire and kettle of hot water always ready, 8 Japanese, or company ot them come on any business, they have tea first, after first making their very low bows all around. After their tea, they proceed to business. If you stop st 8 Japanese house, tea is offered immediately. In the town, along the road and around places of anu usement, small tea houses are as plenty as beer houses at home. The Japanese are very temperate people. There is very little drinking of intoxicating liquors to excess, but tea they drink without limit.
 While out walking to-day passed through such gardens of fruits and vegetables as never saw before. All the running vines are trained up on strings and stakes, even the GU cumbers are not allowed to creep on the ground, but are trained up straight about three or four feet high. They are now trans- planting their rice. It is very healthy here in Kobe. but in the native town Hiogo, the cholera.ls raging pretty badly. They have had 1t for anumber of years past and great num- Der of natives have died from it. l supposeit is caused principally by lack of drainage, and their manner, of living When was coming home from church last evening, saw a man sitting at the corner of the street with two large baskets oi stale cucumbers. They had been picked SO long they had turned yellow and wilted. Just at that time there were hun dreds of women passing on their way home from their work of tea firing; they bought out the stock of cucumbers in few minutes They eat rice and cucumbers, or some other vegetable, and it is no wonder they have the cholera. The natives are subject to pain in the bowels, caused, suppose, from the nature of their food. Just imagine acres of burdock raised for food the natives eat the root with their rice. It is raised the same as we raise carrots and beets.
 gone to meet Gen. Grant The Micado is go- ing to send down state carriages for the Gen. to use while here. I expect we will have & visit from him at the mill.
 The Japanese are 6 very cleanly people in their persons, but their diet, and mode of huddling their dwellings together, is the cause of sickness among them. You must not feel alarmed about the cholera, for it has pre- vailed among the natives for years. The for eigners are very little effected by it.