Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/87

NUMBER TEN.

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Excursion to Yeddo—A Cosmopolitan Turnout—The Asiatic has no Rights the African is Bound to Respect—An Undress Uniform—Musicians Without Melody—Blind Beggars—A State Carriage—Norimons and Cangos—A Traveling Dentist—A Fashionable Tea House—Suggestion to Young Housekeepers—Grimalkin Minus the Tail—Fancy Pigs—Cheap and Primitive Clothing—The Unfortunate Mr. Richardson—A Family Moving—Young Sprigs of Aristocracy—Sinagawa—Inside the Capital.

Yeddo, Japan, December, 1870.

This famous city which school boys class with Pekin and London, among the largest in the world, and for over four hundred years the “capital of the Tycoons,” is, according to Japanese chronology, a modern city. Kamakura, the second city, with its hundred temples, its collossal bronze statue of Buddha, though now but an insignificant village, dates one thousand years further back than Yeddo, when it was the great Eastern capital of the empire. The Tycoon dynasty removed the capital to Yeddo, and under their rule it has become the most populous and wealthy city in Japan. Its name signifies ‘the river gate,” and its location, about eighteen miles above Yokohama, on the shores of the bay of the same name, is very beautiful. It is beyond the treaty limits for foreigners, but passes can readily be obtained from the government upon application through the foreign consuls.

Starting from Yokohama for the excursion our turnout was indeed cosmopolitan, and represented the four great continents. An English built “trap” was drawn by Japanese ponies and driven by an African Jehu, whose style of handling the ribbons seemed to us quite reckless. I did not feel much compassion for the ponies, for they are perhaps the worst horses in the world; ill-shaped and vicious, given to kicking, biting, shying, rearing and bolting. Curiously enough, except on the breeding grounds,