Mon 18. [18 April 1898] Up at 6.30, early breakfast with Mandarin and
out to see the cherries and the temple. Our host took us to a charming
priests' house full of Yoshitsune and Benbei legends and of Kano
paintings. Off at 10, down a long valley and over a little hill to the
railway station where we caught a train at 12 and said goodbye to our
kuromayas paying each pair about 10 dollars. I had become much
attached to one of mine with a broken head. Koza followed with the
luggage an hour later and caught us up at Oji! Reached Nara at 3.
Sunny and windy, very disagreeable. Cherries all out. Tea house
good but horrid Neisan. I went out, through the park, fed the deer, had
a kagura dance of 3 girls and a priest reciting and beating two bits of
wood, tea on eggs and lemonade, subscribed to the roof repairing of
all the temples and so back to a bath. Mr de R. [de Rutzen] went to
bed with a headache. We dined and went early to bed. Cold.