Between Ikaho and Savavatari, our next resting-place, the road was so bad that the jinrikisha could no longer be used, we accordingly had to use the kago, a Japanese sedan-chair made of bamboo, of the appearance of which the accompanying wood-cut gives an idea. It is exceedingly inconvenient for Europeans, because they cannot like the Japanese sit with their legs crosswise under them, and in course of time it becomes tiresome to let them dangle without other support by the side of the kago. Even for the bearers this sedan chair strikes me as being of inconvenient construction, which is shown among other things by their halting an instant every two hundred, or in going up a hill, every hundred paces, in order to shift the shoulder under the bamboo pole. We went up-hill and down-hill with considerable speed however, so that we traversed the road between Ikaho and Savavatari, 6 ri or 23.6 kilometres in length, in ten hours. The road, which was exceedingly beautiful, ran along flowery banks of rivulets, overgrown with luxuriant bamboo thickets, and many different kinds of broad-leaved trees. Only round the old temples, mostly small and inconsiderable, were to be seen ancient tall Cryptomeria and Ginko trees. The burying places were commonly situated, not as at home, in the neighbourhood of the larger temples, but near the villages. They were not inclosed, but marked out by stone monuments from a third of a metre to half a metre in height, on one side of which an image of Buddha was sometimes sculptured. The recent graves were often adorned with flowers, and at some of them small foot-high Shinto shrines had been made of wooden pins.
Savavatari, like Ikaho, is built on the slope of a hill. The streets between the houses are almost all stairs or steep ascents. Here too there well up from the volcanic rocks acidulous springs, at which invalids seek to regain health. The watering-place, however, is of less repute than Ikaho or Kusatsu.
While we walked about the village in the evening we saw at one place a crowd of people. This was occasioned by a competition going on there. Two young men, who wore no other clothes than a narrow girdle going round the waist and between the legs, wrestled within a circle two or three metres across drawn on a sandy area. He was considered the victor who threw the other to the ground or forced him beyond the circle. A special judge decided in doubtful cases. The beginning of the contest was most peculiar, the combatants kneeling in the middle of the circle and sharply eying each other in order to make the attack at a signal given by the judge, when a single push might at once make an end of the contest. In this competition there took part about a dozen young men, all well grown, who in their turn stepped with some encouraging cries or gestures into the circle in order to test their powers. The spectators consisted of old men and women, and boys and girls of all ages. Most of them were clean and well-dressed, and had a very attractive appearance.
Here it was the youth of the village themselves that took part in the contest. But there are also in Japan persons who carry on these games as their occupation, and exhibit themselves for money. They are in general very fat, as appears from the accompanying drawing, which represents the beginning of the contest, when both the combatants are still watching to get a good hold.
Next day, the 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle to traverse it, so that we had to use in some cases kagos, in others riding-horses. Unfortunately the Japanese high saddle does not suit the European, and if the traveller prefers a riding-horse to a kago, he must, if he does not
