when the eye gets accustomed to the darkness, one can see behind
them the ranks of the tea-jars of Uji, or layers of dark kimono stuff.

The character of the shops changed as the Barringtons and their party
approached their destination. The native element predominated more and
more. The wares became more and more inexplicable. There were shops
in which gold Buddhas shone and brass lamps for temple use, shops
displaying queer utensils and mysterious little bits of things, whose
secret was hidden in the cabalistic signs of Chinese script. There
were stalls of curios, and second-hand goods spread out on the
pavement, under the custody of wizened, inattentive old men, who
squatted and smoked.

Red-faced maids stared at the foreigners from the balconies of lofty
inns and eating-houses near Uyeno station. Further on, they passed
the silence of old temple walls, the spaciousness of pigeon-haunted
cloisters, and the huge high-pitched roofs of the shrines, with their
twisted horn-like points. Then, down a narrow alley appeared the
garish banners of the Asakusa theatres and cinema palaces. They heard
the yelling of the door-touts, and the bray of discordant music. They
caught a glimpse of hideous placards whose crude illustrations showed
the quality of the performance to be seen within, girls falling from
aeroplanes, demon ghosts with bloody daggers, melodrama unleashed.

Everywhere the same crowds loitered along the pavements. No hustle, no
appearance of business save where a messenger-boy threaded the maze
on a break-neck bicycle, or where a dull-faced coolie pulled at an
overloaded barrow. Grey and brown, the crowd clattered by on their
wooden shoes. Grey and black, passed the _haikara_ young men with
their yellow side-spring shoes. Black and sabre-dragging, the
policeman went to and fro, invisibly moored to his wooden sentry-box.

The only bright notes among all these drab multitudes were the little
girls in their variegated kimonos, who fluttered in and out of the
entrances, and who played unscolded on the footpaths. These too were
the only notes of happiness; for their grown-up relatives, especially
the women, carried an air, if not an actual expression, of animal
melancholy, the melancholy of driven sheep or of cows ruminant.

The crowds were growing denser. Their faces were all set in one
direction. At last the whole roadway was filled with the slow-moving
tide. The Harringtons and their friends had to alight from the