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Beyond this came a comparatively flat stretch, and then the road disappeared into a gorge. Here and there it was pointed with people toiling slowly up. Of the encircling hills the shoulders alone were visible. While I was still surveying the scene, the jinrikisha men, one after the other, emerged from the gulf out of sight on the right and proceeded to descend into the one on the left.
Further down the boardwalk they stopped at the Japanese exhibition, and on the way out he caught himself saying that if it were possible, he would take great pleasure in hauling her in a jinrikisha. "I'll remember that promise and make you push me in a wheel-chair," she answered. When they were back at the hotel, she turned suddenly and said: "By the way, what's your name? Mine's Clara Hunt."
The boy, looking on, began to laugh, a laugh that began in his eyes, ran over his face and down into his throat, whence it came again in a shout of boyish merriment. Yuki Chan, looking from him to the smiling jinrikisha man, grew crimson with anger. With a swift movement she ran toward the ditch. Divining her purpose by the look in her eyes, Dick Merrit went gallantly to the rescue of the kitten.
Reid, advanced on the authority of Jinrikisha boys, that "for days beforehand the priests connected with the temple devote themselves to fasting and prayer to prepare for the ordeal. . . . The performance itself usually takes place in the late afternoon during twilight in the temple court, the preceding three hours being spent by the priests in final outbursts of prayer before the unveiled altar in the inner sanctuary of the little matted temple, and during these invocations no visitors are allowed to enter the sacred precincts."
The Chinese coolie who officiated as jinrikisha man was a sturdier specimen of humanity than the one seen at Colombo, and we could enjoy a ride without the conscientious scruples experienced at the former place. Arriving at Singapore, we found we must postpone our visit there, as the steamer Rembrandt, of the Dutch line, was soon to leave for Java.
I reached the top before the jinrikisha, and as a sort of reward of merit scrambled a little farther up the steep slope to the left. From here I commanded the pass, especially that side of it I had not come up. The corkscrew of the road carried the eye most pleasingly down with it. I could see a teahouse a few hundred feet below, and beyond it, at a much lower level, a bridge.
Standing over her was the jinrikisha man, and beside him was his passenger, a young American boy, whose light hair and blue eyes held her spell-bound. He was brushing the dust from her kimono, and his foreign tongue made strange sounds. "Say, kid," the boy was saying, as he transferred the dust from his hands to his handkerchief, "glad you're not hurt or got any bones cracked.
Singapore is very gay in the season, and a centre for the wealth of the Far East; indeed, sultans and nabobs consider it a veritable Paris. The last morning of our stay, I went around in a jinrikisha, and my man was as fleet as a horse. I had an experience trying to find so simple an article as a paper of pins, visiting shop after shop.
These quick rides in a jinrikisha, especially at night, are very amusing. You have the pleasure of going at a high speed, and yet, being on a level with the people, you can see much more of them and of their manners than would be possible in a carriage.
NIUCHWANG: When near Niuchwang, we came to the city of Shai-seng, and saw the long lines of Russian barracks which are now occupied by the Japanese. We reached our destination late in the evening, and had a jinrikisha ride of over an hour before turning to the Central Hotel, which had been greatly damaged by fire, but which we persuaded our Director to select for us.
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