period this change is may be seen from
the eagerness with which the Japanese authorities questioned GOLOVIN
about the religious and political revolutions which they assumed to
have been connected with the change in the European mode of wearing
the hair during the commencement of the nineteenth century, for the
Russian ambassador LAXMAN, who was highly esteemed by the Japanese,
had worn a pig-tail and powdered hair, while Golovin and his
companions had their hair unpowdered and cut short.[380] When it is
warm the workmen wear only a small, generally light-blue, girdle
round the waist and between the legs. Otherwise they are naked.
They are thus seen to be in many cases strongly tattooed over the
greater part of the body. I have not seen the women working naked.
They perhaps do so at the warmest season of the year. At least they
do not refrain from undressing completely while bathing right in
the midst of a crowd of men known and unknown, a state of things
which at first, in consequence of the power of prejudice, shocks
the European, but to which even the former prude gets accustomed
sooner than one would suppose. We even frequently see European
ladies drawn in a _jinrikisha_ by a youth completely naked with the
exception of the blue girdle. Many, especially of the younger men,
have besides so well-formed a body, that the sculptor who could
accurately reproduce it in marble would at once attain a reputation
co-extensive with the globe.

Takasaki is the residence of a governor, with a population of about
20,000; but, like most of the towns of Japan, it differs little
from many of the villages we passed through. We arrived late in the
evening, and there had our first and last experience of an
inconvenience of which Europeans often complain in travelling in
Japan, and to which they have themselves given occasion by the
offensive way in which they not unfrequently behave. We knocked at
the door of one inn after another without being received. At one
place "the house was full," at another "the rooms were under
repair," at a third "the inn people were out," &c. At last we had
to apply to the police. When we had shown them our passport, we
succeeded with their help in getting a night's lodging with an
elderly host, who received us with a countenance which clearly
indicated that he would rather have hewn us in pieces with one of
the two swords he had formerly as _samurai_ been entitled to wear,
than received us under his roof.