Jinrikisha Days in Japan
An army of jinrikisha coolies waits for passengers at the station, and among them is that Japanese Mercury, the winged-heeled Sanjiro, he of the shaven crown and gun-hammer topknot of samurai days. His biography includes a tour of Europe as the servant of a Japanese official. On returning to Tokio he took up the shafts of his kuruma again, and is the fountain-head of local news and gossip. He knows what stranger arrived yesterday, who gave dinner parties, in which tea-house the “man-of-war gentlemen” had a geisha dinner, where your friends paid visits, even what they bought, and for whom court or legation carriages were sent. He tells you whose house you are passing, what great man is in view, where the next matsuri will be, when the cherry blossoms will unfold, and what plays are coming out at the Shintomiza. Sanjiro is cyclopædic at the theatre, and as a temple guide he exhales ecclesiastical lore. To take a passenger on a round of official calls, to and from state balls or a palace garden party, he finds bliss unalloyed, and his explanations pluck out the heart of the mystery of Tokio. “Mikado’s mamma,” prattles Sanjiro in his baby-English, as he trots past the green hedge and quiet gate of the Empress Dowager’s palace, and “Tenno San," he murmurs, in awed tones, as the lancers and outriders of the Emperor appear.
First, he carries the tourist to Shiba, the old monastery grounds that are now a public park. Under the shadow of century-old pines and cryptomeria stand the mortuary temples of the later Shoguns, superb edifices ablaze with red and gold lacquer, and set with panels of carved wood, splendid in color and gilding, the gold trefoil of the Tokugawas shining on every ridge-pole and gable. These temples and tombs are lesser copies of the magnificent shrines at Nikko, and but for those originals would be unique. On a rainy day, the green shadow and gloom, the cawing of the ravens that live in the
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