From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

And now we had done with our marching and our kagos, and once more took to our chariots, which drew up to the door—the men not exactly saddled and bridled, but stripped for the race, with no burden added to the burden of the flesh which they had to carry. A crowd collected to see us depart, and looked on admiringly as we went dashing through the long street of Odawara, and out upon the Tokaido. Our way, as before, led by the sea, which was in no tempestuous mood, but calm and tranquil, as if conscious that the summer was born. The day was not too warm, for the clouds that were flying over the sky shielded us from the direct rays of the sun; yet as we looked out now and then, the giant trees cast their shadows across our path. An American poet sings:

"What is so rare as a day in June?"

Surely nothing could be more rare or fair; but even the sky and the soft Summer air seemed more full of exquisite sensations to the strangers who were that day rolling along the shores of the Pacific, under the mighty cedars of the Tokaido.

Once more I was surprised and delighted at the agility and swiftness of the men who drew our jin-riki-shas. As we had but twenty-three miles to go in the afternoon, we took it easily, and gave them first only a gentle trot of five miles to get their limbs a little supple, and then stopped for tiffin. Some of the men had on a loose jacket when we started, besides the girdle about the loins. This they took off and wrung out, for they were dripping with sweat, and wiped their brawny chests and limbs, and then took their chopsticks and applied themselves to their rice, while we went upstairs in the tea-house, and had our soup and other dishes served to us, sitting on the floor like Turks, and then stretched ourselves on the mats, weary with our morning's walk, and even with the motion of riding. While we were trying to get a little rest our men talked and laughed in the court below as if it were child's play to take us over the road. As we resumed our places and turned out of the yard, I had the curiosity to "time" their speed. I had a couple of athletic fellows, who thought me a mere feather in weight, and made me spin like a top as they bowled along. They started off at an easy trot, which they kept up, without breaking, mile after mile. I did not need to crack the whip, but at the word, away they flew through villages and over the open country, never stopping, but when they came to slightly rising ground, rushing up like mettlesome horses, and down at full speed. Thus they kept on, and never drew rein till they came to the bank of a river, which had to be crossed in a boat. I took out my watch. It was an hour and a quarter, and they had come seven miles and a half! This was doing pretty well. Of course they could not keep this up all day; yet they will go thirty miles from sunrise to sunset, and even forty, if spurred to it by a little extra pay. Sometimes, indeed, they go even at a still greater speed for a short distance. The first evening, as we came into Fujisawa, I do not doubt that the last fifteen minutes they were going at a speed of ten miles an hour, for they came in on a run. This is magnificent, but I cannot think it very healthful exercise. As gymnasts and prize-fighters grow old and die before their time, so with these human racehorses. Dr. Hepburn says it exhausts them very early; that they break down with disease of the heart or lungs. They are very liable to rheumatism. This is partly owing to their carelessness. They get heated, and then expose their naked bodies to drafts of cold air, which of course stiffens their limbs, so that an old runner becomes like a foundered horse. But even with all care, the fatigue is very exhausting, and often brings on diseases which take them off in their prime. Yet you cannot restrain their speed, any more than that of colts that have never been broken. I often tried to check them, but they "champed at the bit," and after a few vain remonstrances I had to give it up, and "let them slide."

We did not stop at Fujisawa, where we had slept before, for it is a large and noisy town, but pushed on three miles farther, across a sandy beach to Enoshima, a little fishing village, which stands on a point of land jutting out into the sea, so that at high tide it is an island, and at low tide a peninsula. Indeed, it is not much more than a projecting rock of a few hundred acres, rising high out of the waters, and covered thickly with groves of trees, among which are several Buddhist temples. As we strolled along the top of the cliffs at sunset, there were a dozen points of view where we could sit under the shade of trees a hundred feet above the waves, as on the cliffs of the Isle of Wight, saying with Tennyson:

"Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!"

The next morning we rambled over the hills again, for it was a spot where one could but linger. The bay was alive with boats, as

"The fishers went sailing out into the West."

On the shore were divers, who plunged from the rocks into deep water, to bring up shells and coral for us, and a sort of sponge peculiar to this country, with spicules like threads of spun glass. Under the cliff is a long cave, hollowed out by the waves, with an arch overhead like a vaulted roof. Thus under ground or above ground we wandered hour after hour.