In front of the tea-house proper are rows of summer pavilions, in one of which the party make themselves at home, while gentle little tea-house girls toddle forth to serve them the invariable preliminary tea and confections.

Each man then produces from up his sleeve, or from out his girdle, paper, ink, and brush, and proceeds to compose a poem on the beauty of the spot and the feelings it calls up, which he subsequently reads to his admiring companions.
Hot sake is next served, which is to them what beer is to a German or absinthe to a blouse; and there they sit, sip, and poetize, passing their couplets, as they do their cups, in honor to one another.

At last, after drinking in an hour or two of scenery and sake combined, the symposium of poets breaks up.
Sometimes, instead of a company of friends, a man will take his family, wife, babies, and all, on such an outing, but the details of his holiday are much the same as before.

For the scenery is still the centre of attraction, and in the attendant creature comforts Far Eastern etiquette permits an equal enjoyment to man, woman, and child.
This love of nature is quite irrespective of social condition.

All classes feel its force, and freely indulge the feeling.