In the present case the spectacle was one calculated to make a foreigner imagine himself in the interior of Africa. Approaching the jinrikishas occupied by Grant and his companions was a bullock cart, upon which a raised platform and scaffolding twenty feet high had been constructed.
The bullock and all were covered with paper decorations, green boughs and artificial flowers. In front a girl with a grotesque mask danced and postured, while a dozen musicians twanged impossible instruments and kept up an incessant tattoo on drums.
On foot around the bashi, as the whole structure is called, were twenty or thirty lads naked as to their legs, their faces chalked, their funny little heads covered with straw hats a yard wide, and their bodies clad in many-colored tunics, decked out with paper streamers and flowers.
In front, on all sides, behind, and even under the wheels, were scores of children marching to the tune of the band—if it could be so called—much as the youths of America do in the processions, be it circus or otherwise, in our country.
The boys forming the guard to the bullock cart marched step by step with military precision, chanting at the top of their voices, and banging upon the ground a long iron bar fitted with loose rings.
The colors, the songs, the dance and the clanging iron, formed together a combination calculated to draw the attention of every person not deaf, dumb and blind. To the boys it was a common sight, and they bade their karumayas hurry forward away from the din.
On reaching the field on the "bluff," they found an immense throng awaiting the commencement of ceremonies. The race track had been laid out in fitting style, and innumerable booths, tents and kiosks filled two-thirds of the space.
The morning hours were to be devoted to ancient Japanese games, and the time after tiffin to modern sports and matches, including the event of the day, the wrestling. Mori Okuma—an athlete in both European and native sports—was listed in a bout at Japanese fencing, so he left his companions for a dressing-tent.
Nattie and Grant glanced over the vast concourse of people, and exchanged bows with their many friends. The Americans and English in foreign countries keep green in their memory the land of their birth, and in all places where more than one foreigner can be found a club is organized.
It is a sort of oasis in the desert of undesirable neighbors, and forms a core around which cluster good fellowship and the habits and customs of home. The Strangers' Club in Yokohama had a membership of six hundred, and they were well represented in the present assemblage.