again, and cut short off, the stiff queue being brought forward and
laid, pointing forwards, along the back part of the top of the
head. This top-knot is shaped much like a short clay pipe. The
shaving and dressing the hair thus require the skill of a
professional barber. Formerly the hair was worn in this way by the
samurai, in order that the helmet might fit comfortably, but it is
now the style of the lower classes mostly and by no means
invariably.

Blithely, at a merry trot, the coolies hurried us away from the
kindly group in the Legation porch, across the inner moat and along
the inner drive of the castle, past gateways and retaining walls of
Cyclopean masonry, across the second moat, along miles of streets
of sheds and shops, all grey, thronged with foot-passengers and
kurumas, with pack-horses loaded two or three feet above their
backs, the arches of their saddles red and gilded lacquer, their
frontlets of red leather, their "shoes" straw sandals, their heads
tied tightly to the saddle-girth on either side, great white cloths
figured with mythical beasts in blue hanging down loosely under
their bodies; with coolies dragging heavy loads to the guttural cry
of Hai! huida! with children whose heads were shaved in hideous
patterns; and now and then, as if to point a moral lesson in the
midst of the whirling diorama, a funeral passed through the throng,
with a priest in rich robes, mumbling prayers, a covered barrel
containing the corpse, and a train of mourners in blue dresses with
white wings. Then we came to the fringe of Yedo, where the houses
cease to be continuous, but all that day there was little interval
between them. All had open fronts, so that the occupations of the
inmates, the "domestic life" in fact, were perfectly visible. Many
of these houses were roadside chayas, or tea-houses, and nearly all