A Passport Must Be Applied For, For Reasons Of "Health,
Botanical Research, Or Scientific Investigation." Its Bearer Must
Not Light
Fires in woods, attend fires on horseback, trespass on
fields, enclosures, or game-preserves, scribble on temples,
shrines, or walls,
Drive fast on a narrow road, or disregard
notices of "No thoroughfare." He must "conduct himself in an
orderly and conciliating manner towards the Japanese authorities
and people;" he "must produce his passport to any officials who may
demand it," under pain of arrest; and while in the interior "is
forbidden to shoot, trade, to conclude mercantile contracts with
Japanese, or to rent houses or rooms for a longer period than his
journey requires."
NIKKO, June 13. - This is one of the paradises of Japan! It is a
proverbial saying, "He who has not seen Nikko must not use the word
kek'ko" (splendid, delicious, beautiful); but of this more
hereafter. My attempt to write to you from Kasukabe failed, owing
to the onslaught of an army of fleas, which compelled me to retreat
to my stretcher, and the last two nights, for this and other
reasons, writing has been out of the question.
I left the Legation at 11 am. on Monday and reached Kasukabe at 5
p.m., the runners keeping up an easy trot the whole journey of
twenty-three miles; but the halts for smoking and eating were
frequent.
These kuruma-runners wore short blue cotton drawers, girdles with
tobacco pouch and pipe attached, short blue cotton shirts with wide
sleeves, and open in front, reaching to their waists, and blue
cotton handkerchiefs knotted round their heads, except when the sun
was very hot, when they took the flat flag discs, two feet in
diameter, which always hang behind kurumas, and are used either in
sun or rain, and tied them on their heads.
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