ation, _Mite yo! Mite yo!_ but when the beast
stopped too long to meditate or to chew the bit, as if vainly trying
to pick its teeth, a lively jerk of the rope and a "You old beast!
come on," started the animal on its travels. Finally, when the
creature stopped to deliberate upon the propriety of going forward at
all, the vials of the wrath of the Japanese spinster exploded, and I
was tempted to believe her affections had been blighted. But when we
met any of her friends on the road, or passed the wayside shops or
farm-houses, the scolder of horses was the lady who wished all _Ohaio_
("Good-morning"), or remarked that the weather was very fine; and when
joked for carrying a foreigner, replied, "Yes, it is the first time I
have had the honor."

I need not trouble the reader with many details of geography. My
trip lasted eight days, during which I passed over two hundred miles,
two-thirds of the way on foot. I made the entire circuit of the lower
half of the peninsula, but shall dwell only on my visit to Kanozan
(Deer Mountain), famous for its lovely scenery, temple and Booddhist
monastery. From the top of the mountain there are visible innumerable
valleys, nearly the whole of the Gulf of Yeddo, and the white-throned
Foosiyama, called the highest mountain in Japan and the most beautiful
in the world. We spent the night previous in Kisaradzu, the capital
of the now united provinces, and a neat little city, just beginning to
introduce foreign civilization. Its streets were lighted with Yankee
lamps and Pennsylvania petroleum. Postal boxes after the Yankee custom
were erected and in use. Gingham umbrellas were replacing those made
of oiled paper. Barbers' poles, painted white with the spiral red
band, were set up, and within the shops Young Japan had his queue
cut off and his hair dressed in foreign style. Ignorant of the
significance of the symbolic relic of the old days, when the barber
was doctor and dentist also, and made his pole represent a bandage
wound around a broken limb, the Japanese barber has, in many cases,
added a green or blue band. Not being an adept in the use of that
refractory language which Young Japan would so like to flatten out and
plane down for vernacular use, the Japanese barber is not always happy
in executing the English legend for his sign-board. The following are
specimens:

"A HAIR-DRESSING SALOON FOR
JAPANES AND FOREIGNER."

"S