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60 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
with flint and steel, having already placed a pinch
" one is
of tinder in his hollow wooden bag-button ;
Hachiman, the great Buddha of the Eight Flags,
and," mentioning a lot of long-named Buddhist di-
vinities,
"and Tsuruga is the place where the first
people from Corea, who had horns on their heads,
landed in great Japan. Is n't that the reason why the
bay was called in old times the Bay of the Bright
Horns ? " asked Uh^i, holding the glowing pellet of
tinder for his master to kindle the ball of shreds of
tobacco rolled up in his silver-bowled pipe.
" I see you have learned your lessons from the
priests well. The gentlemen and Shinto people, of
course, do not call them by their Buddhist names,
but use their oldest and real names ; but who told
you about the foreigners, the Coreans, having horns
on their heads ? "
" Why, grandmother told me a long, long time ago
that when the first ambassadors came from the Land
of Morning Calm to our coast to bring tribute to
the Son of Heaven in Kyoto, they had each a horn
sticking
" What !
out of his forehead."
like a rhinoceros ? " laughed
the master.
Uhe*i looked up with an offended air.
" Oh ! no ; it was a shining white horn. Had n't
all the foreign people of old time horns?"
"
Well, perhaps so ; but we have foreign people
now in our holy country, but they have no horns.
Did you ever see one of the Holland men?'
"
No, master," said Uhe'i, who had lighted his own
pipe, and was now with hand in pouch rolling off a