Before him sets an offering of rice, sake, and dried
fish in tiny porcelain bowls.
Clear and frosty opens the following morning; the road is good, the
country gradually improves, and by nine o'clock I am engaged in looking
at the military exercises of troops quartered in the populous city of
Hiroshima. The exercises are conducted within a large square, enclosed
with a low bank of earth and a ditch. Crowds of curious civilians are
watching the efforts of raw cavalry recruits to ride stout little horses,
that buck, kick, bite, and paw the air. Every time a soldier gets thrown
the on-lookers chuckle with delight. Both men and horses are undersized,
but look stocky and serviceable withal. The uniform of the cavalry is
blue, with yellow trimmings. The artillery looks trim and efficient, and
the horses, although rather small, are powerful and wiry, just the horses
one would select for the rough work of a campaign.
North of Hiroshima the country assumes a hilly character, the road
following up one mountain-stream and down another. In this mountainous
region one meets mail-carriers, the counterpart almost of the
fleet-footed postmen of Bengal. The Japanese postman improves upon nature
by the addition of a waist-cloth and a scant shirt of white and blue
cotton check; his letter-pouch is fastened to a bamboo-staff; as he
bounds along with springy stride he warns people to clear the way by
shouting in a musical voice, "Honk, honk.
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