The Long Street Of
Hachiishi, With Its Steep-Roofed, Deep-Eaved Houses, Its Warm
Colouring, And Its Steep Roadway With
Steps at intervals, has a
sort of Swiss picturesqueness as you enter it, as you must, on
foot, while your
Kurumas are hauled and lifted up the steps; nor is
the resemblance given by steep roofs, pines, and mountains patched
with coniferae, altogether lost as you ascend the steep street, and
see wood carvings and quaint baskets of wood and grass offered
everywhere for sale. It is a truly dull, quaint street, and the
people come out to stare at a foreigner as if foreigners had not
become common events since 1870, when Sir H. and Lady Parkes, the
first Europeans who were permitted to visit Nikko, took up their
abode in the Imperial Hombo. It is a doll's street with small low
houses, so finely matted, so exquisitely clean, so finically neat,
so light and delicate, that even when I entered them without my
boots I felt like a "bull in a china shop," as if my mere weight
must smash through and destroy. The street is so painfully clean
that I should no more think of walking over it in muddy boots than
over a drawing-room carpet. It has a silent mountain look, and
most of its shops sell specialties, lacquer work, boxes of
sweetmeats made of black beans and sugar, all sorts of boxes,
trays, cups, and stands, made of plain, polished wood, and more
grotesque articles made from the roots of trees.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 63 of 417
Words from 17420 to 17676
of 115002
