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A SOY PASTS LIFE. 77
fluence over the life of a child, just
us folks in our
country long ago believed the planets affected our
liver, bowels, lungs, and heart, as one sees in adver-
tising almanacs made by the patent-medicine makers.
A Japanese child born at the Hour of the Ox, or at
1 A.M., would be influenced in some way on this
account. Properly, as some folks thought, Mr.
Rai's son, being born at the Hour of the Dog, ought
to have the figure of a dog engraved on his kitte",
or bag-plate.
But Mr. Rai ordered, and wrote himself, these
words :
" Born on the nineteenth day, ninth month, fifth
year of Ka-ye"i; Holland style, November 3, A.D.
1853."
Rai Goro, as we have seen, was a student of the
Dutch language, and a scholar in the one tongue of
Europe studied by earnest natives of Japan.
The object of the kitte* was to show who the child
was in case he should be lost from home.
Now that the boy baby is fully dressed, let us look
at him and his surroundings, and behold him when a
year old. Unable yet to talk, and with only six
teeth, he was a fat, round, rollicking, lively crawler,
no longer a pink baby, or a ko, but a kodama, a big
baby. His little head was partly shorn with curious
little moons at the sides, a sun on the back-top, and
a tiny crescent on his front scalp. His feet were
cased in two thick felt-soled mittens. A curious
little partition ran between the big toe, or the " foot-
thumb," as they called it, and the white socks were