At length we heard the distant sound of a locomotive whistle. We were approaching the newly opened railway which was to take us the short run to the sea. Soon we were in a rather unkempt village which had hardly recovered from its surprise at finding that it had a railway station. We paid our kurumaya the sum contracted for and something over for their faithful service and for their long return run, and having exchanged bows and cordial greetings, we left for a time the glorified perambulators which a foreign missionary is supposed to have introduced half a century ago. (The Japanese claim the honour of "inventing" the jinrikisha.)
FOOTNOTES:
[ [123] See [Appendix XXXVII].
[ [124] See [Appendix XXXVIII].
[ [125] In Tokyo one may sleep night after night in summer with no covering but the thinnest loose cotton kimono and have an electric fan going within the mosquito curtain, and still feel the heat.
[ [126] The kimono has no button, hook, tie, or fastening of any kind, and is kept in place by the waist string and obi.
[ [127] It is an illustration of the difficulty of using a foreign symbolism that it is unlikely that a single child in the school had ever seen a shepherd or a sheep.
[ [128] In 1918 the value of seaweed was returned at 13,600,000 yen.
[ [129] In fifteen years a kiri tree may be about 20 ft. high and 3 ft. in circumference and be worth 30 yen. Kiri trees to the value of 3 million yen were felled in 1918.