on of a
usual mode of travelling in Japan. In this the passenger is seated in a
light bamboo palanquin borne on men's shoulders. A miniature festival is
thought great fun, when a few bits of rough wood mounted on wheels are
decorated with cut paper and evergreens, and drawn slowly along amidst
the shouts of the exultant contrivers, in mimicry of the real festival
cars. Games of soldiers are of two types. When copied from the
historical fights, one boy, with his kerchief bound round his temples,
makes a supposed marvelous and heroic defence. He slashes with his
bamboo sword, as a harlequin waves his baton, to deal magical
destruction all around on the attacking party. When the late
insurrection commenced in Satsuma, the Tokio boys, hearing of the
campaign on modern tactics, would form attack and defence parties. A
little company armed with bamboo breech-loaders would march to the
assault of the roguish battalion lurking round the corner.

[Illustration: Playing at Batter-Cakes.]

Wrestling, again, is popular with children, not so much on account of
the actual throwing, as from the love of imitating the curious growling
an animal-like springing, with which the professional wrestlers
encounter one another. Swimming, fishing, and general puddling about are
congenial occupation for hot summer days; whilst some with a toy bamboo
pump, like a Japanese feeble fire-engine, manage to send a squirt of
water at a friend, as the firemen souse their comrades standing on the
burning housetops. Itinerant street sellers have, on stalls of a height
suited to their little customers, an array of what looks like pickles.
This is made of bright seaweed pods that the children buy to make a
"clup!" sort of noise with between their lips, so that they go about
apparently hiccoughing all day long. The smooth glossy leaves of the
camellia, as common as hedge roses are in England, make very fair little
trumpets when blown after having been expertly rolled up, or in spring
their fallen blossoms are strung into gay chains.

On a border-land between games and sweets are the stalls of the
itinerant batter-sellers. At these the tiny purchaser enjoys the
evidently much appreciated privilege of himself arranging his little
measure of batter in fantastic forms, and drying them upon a hot metal
plate. A turtle is a favorite design, as the first blotch of batter
makes its body, and six judiciously arranged smaller dabs soon suggest
its head, tail, and fee