Yomoto and the recommencement of the jinrikisha road is
reached; a broiled fish and a bottle of native beer are consumed for
lunch, and the kago coolies dismissed. The road from Yomoto is a gradual
descent, for four miles, to Odawara, a town of some thirteen thousand
inhabitants, on the coast. The road now becomes level and broader than
heretofore; vehicles drawn by horses mingle with the swarms of
jinrikishas and pedestrians. Both horses and drivers of the former seem
sleepy, woe-begone and careless, as though overcome with a consciousness
of being out of place.
Gangs of men are dragging stout hand-carts, loaded with material for the
construction of the Tokaido railway, now rapidly being pushed forward.
Every mile of the road is swarming with life--the strangely
interesting life of Japan. Thirty miles from Yomoto, and Totsuka provides
me a comfortable yadoya, where the people quickly show their knowledge of
the foreigner's requirements by cooking a beefsteak with onions, also in
the morning by charging the first really exorbitant price I have been
confronted with along the Tokaido. Totsuka is within the treaty limits of
Yokohama. A mile or so toward Yokohama I pass, in the morning, the "White
Horse Tavern," kept in European style as a sort of road-house for
foreigners driving out from that city or Tokio.
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