Towering Above The Low Grey Houses
There Were Objects Which At First Looked Like Five Enormous Black
Fingers, Then Like Trees With Their Branches Wrapped In Black, And
Then - Comparisons Ceased; They Were A Mystery.
Dismissing the kurumas, which could go no farther, we dived into
the crowd, which was wedged along a mean
Street, nearly a mile
long - a miserable street of poor tea-houses and poor shop-fronts;
but, in fact, you could hardly see the street for the people.
Paper lanterns were hung close together along its whole length.
There were rude scaffoldings supporting matted and covered
platforms, on which people were drinking tea and sake and enjoying
the crowd below; monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep
and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these
animals is known in this region of Japan; a booth in which a woman
was having her head cut off every half-hour for 2 sen a spectator;
cars with roofs like temples, on which, with forty men at the
ropes, dancing children of the highest class were being borne in
procession; a theatre with an open front, on the boards of which
two men in antique dresses, with sleeves touching the ground, were
performing with tedious slowness a classic dance of tedious
posturings, which consisted mainly in dexterous movements of the
aforesaid sleeves, and occasional emphatic stampings, and
utterances of the word No in a hoarse howl. It is needless to say
that a foreign lady was not the least of the attractions of the
fair.
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