Nearly All The Archers Were
Grown-Up Men, And Many Of Them Spend Hours At A Time In This
Childish Sport.
All over the grounds booths with the usual charcoal fire, copper
boiler, iron kettle of curious workmanship, tiny cups, fragrant
aroma of tea, and winsome, graceful girls, invite you to drink and
rest, and more solid but less inviting refreshments are also to be
had.
Rows of pretty paper lanterns decorate all the stalls. Then
there are photograph galleries, mimic tea-gardens, tableaux in
which a large number of groups of life-size figures with
appropriate scenery are put into motion by a creaking wheel of
great size, matted lounges for rest, stands with saucers of rice,
beans and peas for offerings to the gods, the pigeons, and the two
sacred horses, Albino ponies, with pink eyes and noses, revoltingly
greedy creatures, eating all day long and still craving for more.
There are booths for singing and dancing, and under one a
professional story-teller was reciting to a densely packed crowd
one of the old, popular stories of crime. There are booths where
for a few rin you may have the pleasure of feeding some very ugly
and greedy apes, or of watching mangy monkeys which have been
taught to prostrate themselves Japanese fashion.
This letter is far too long, but to pass over Asakusa and its
novelties when the impression of them is fresh would be to omit one
of the most interesting sights in Japan. On the way back we passed
red mail carts like those in London, a squadron of cavalry in
European uniforms and with European saddles, and the carriage of
the Minister of Marine, an English brougham with a pair of horses
in English harness, and an escort of six troopers - a painful
precaution adopted since the political assassination of Okubo, the
Home Minister, three weeks ago.
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