ONE:The party went to Lake Biwa as they had proposed, and certainly no one should omit it from his excursions in the vicinity of Kioto. The distance is only seven miles, and an excellent road leads there from the city. Along the route they met a dense crowd of people coming and going, for there is a vast amount of business between the city and the lake. There were men on foot and in jin-riki-shas, there were porters with loads and porters without loads, there were pack-horses in great number, and there were wagons with merchandise bound for the interior or for the seaboard. Some of the pack-horses had burdens the reverse of savory, and the boys learned on inquiry that they were transporting liquid manure to the farms near the borders of the lake. Along the roadside[Pg 301] they saw little family groups that were always more or less picturesque; fathers were caring for their children, and seemed to take great delight in playing the part of nurse. It is very common in all the Japanese cities to see men thus occupied, and they never appear to be weary of their tasks. In summer both parent and child will be thinly clad, while in winter they will be wrapped against the cold. The summer garments are not always so thick as the rules of polite society require, and even the winter costume is not very heavy.At the edge of the wood, where we had parted, I tied my horse, and crept along the moonlight shadows of the melon-patch to the stable. The door was ajar. In the interior gloom I passed my hands over the necks and heads of what I recognized to be the pair of small mules I had seen at Gallatin. Near a third stall were pegs for saddle and bridle, but they were empty. So was the stall; the mare was gone.
ONE:Ah, I dare say hell find something he likes, said this dreadful old lady, observing with malicious{22} pleasure that Alices colour, as she would have phrased it, was mounting.
ONE:It required some time for them to get properly stowed in their new conveyances, as they needed considerable instruction to know how to double their legs beneath them. And even when they knew how, it was not easy to make their limbs curl into the proper positions and feel at home. Frank thought it would be very nice if he could unscrew his legs and put them on the top of the cango, where he was expected to place his boots; and Fred declared that if he could not do that, the next best thing would be to have legs of India-rubber. The cango is a box of light bamboo, with curtains that can be kept up or down, according to one's pleasure. The seat is so small that you must curl up in a way very uncomfortable for an American, but not at all inconvenient for a Japanese. It has a cushion, on which the traveller sits, and the top is so low that it is impossible to maintain an erect position. It has been in use for hundreds of years in Japan, and is not a great remove from the palanquin of India, though less comfortable. The body of the machine is slung from a pole, and this pole is upheld by a couple of coolies. The men move at a walk, and every few hundred feet they stop, rest the pole on their staffs, and shift from one shoulder to the other. This resting is a ticklish thing for the traveller, as the cango sways from side to side, and gives an intimation that it is liable to fall to the ground. It does fall sometimes, and the principal consolation in such an event is that it does not have far to go.To tell all that was done and seen by our young friends during their stay in Kioto would be to tell a great deal. They had their time fully occupied from their arrival to their departure, and they regretted much the necessity of leaving when they did. At the Doctor's suggestion, they attempted a new system of relating their adventures to their friends at home, and were so well pleased at the result that they determined to try it again. The new scheme was the preparation of a letter in which both had equal shares, Frank undertaking to write one half of it and Fred the other. They succeeded so well that when they read over their production to Doctor Bronson before sending it away, he was unable to say which was Fred's portion and which was Frank's. We will reproduce the letter and leave our readers to judge how well they performed their self-imposed duty. At the Doctor's suggestion, each of the boys wrote as though speaking for himself, and consequently the letter had a good deal of "I" in it.
