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Updated: June 1, 2025
The wives and mothers and daughters rode in jinrikishas, hand folded meekly in hand, and eyes downcast. Such calm resigned faces I have never seen, many white and wasted with sorrow, but under absolute control. Of the entire number only one gave vent to her grief; a bent old woman with thin grey hair cut close to her head, rode with both hands over her face.
Such crowds of jinrikiskas, full of gaily dressed and painted women and children, with their hair plastered into all sorts of inconceivable shapes, and decorated with artificial flowers and glittering pins! We met six of the wrestlers themselves, riding in jinrikishas big men, prodigiously fat, and not at all, according to our ideas, in fighting or wrestling condition.
We drove on to the village, adjacent to the Summer Palace, where we took jinrikishas for a ride of about two miles, following along the outskirts of the Summer Palace. Here were some temples, evidently not now used as places of worship, since the guide informed us that our luncheon would be served in the open court of one of them.
They travelled about the city so persistently, on foot and in the quaint jinrikishas, that he felt that he knew almost every part of Tokio, and he witnessed every side of native existence, as well as the life in the foreign quarter. It was all charmingly new and interesting, and, as in Hong Kong, they were both sorry when the day for their sailing came around.
These gigs with their peculiar animals, and the jinrikishas drawn by Tamils, are striking and novel features to a stranger when he first lands at Colombo, unless he comes from the East. The idea of the jinrikisha is borrowed from Japan, but that of the small bullock cart comes from India, where they are common all over the country.
To one with a free mind the scene was highly diverting, with jinrikishas and occasional victorias thronging the bund, and gay parties constantly arriving and departing.
We reached Kyoto at 5 P.M., having had a long, though extremely delightful day. Excursions being in order, we went the next day to "shoot the rapids ending at Arashi-yama." We had various means of transportation during the day, jinrikishas, trains, and a short railway trip which was highly picturesque, the line running along just above the dashing river.
After luncheon we went to still another very interesting Buddhist temple, Kiyomizu-dera. Kyoto abounds in fine temples. We left our jinrikishas at the foot of the hill and walked up a long, high lane called Teapot Street because in all the little shops bordering the thoroughfare china and teapots are displayed, forming the favorite purchases of the country people who frequent this temple.
Sally and I rode down to the pier in the jinrikishas that my father's secretary had had imported for us for a wedding present; and, I give you my word, the motor-boat as it slowed into the pier looked like an excursion steamer out to view the beauties of the Hudson. Everybody on board was hidden behind a newspaper. "Fong," said Sally to her jinrikisha man, "take me back to the house."
Without pausing for a reply, she pushed open a door and called in Japanese to her father and mother, who never made their appearance till Merrit's breakfast was finished. "Come, make ready to give our guest an honorable departure," she said. In the small courtyard facing the street the girl found the men, with their jinrikishas and baggage-wagon, waiting to convey Merrit to the station.
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