See these happy Japanese girls enjoying their ride through the park, in ’rickshaws. They look very comfortable and cool in their kimonos, don’t they?
The park they are riding in is at Nara and is such a beautiful place! It is there that a very tame herd of sacred deer is kept. Nara is on the island of Hondo, Japan, and is a very old city, famous for its carvings, cutlery and toys. You would enjoy seeing the toys that are made there, wouldn’t you?
India ink and fans come from there, too; perhaps your little fan, or your sister’s, was made in Nara. Did you know that all the figures on a Japanese fan mean something, and sometimes a whole story is connected with them? The parasols, too, are interesting, and the designs on them are not arranged simply to look pretty, but each has its meaning to the Japanese people.
In Nara, as in most of the Japanese cities, there are some noted temples, and the carving in a few of them is said to be the finest in Japan. In one of the temples is a huge bell over thirteen feet high. Would you like to hear it? In another is a statue of Buddha more than ten times as tall as you are, the biggest one in Japan. In Nara, too, are storehouses in which there are specimens of articles used in the Imperial household hundreds of years before our grandfathers lived.
A Ride in the old Park at Nara, Japan. Pretty Japanese Maidens in ’Rickshaws
From Stereograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York
A JAPANESE LADY IN A YAMA-KAGO
This does not look like a very safe way of travelling, does it? The bridge is so narrow and the water rushes by so rapidly that we should not enjoy crossing in a yama-kago (mountain chair).
The Japanese people are used to going this way over mountain roads and rough places, so they do not mind. This little bridge is near Nikko (“Sunny Splendour”), a very beautiful city at the foot of a great mountain range in Japan.