Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, page 130 by Isabella L. Bird
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laited straw. On this rests a ladder, curved up at the lower end like the runners of a sleigh. On this the load is carefully packed till it extends from below the man's waist to a considerable height above his head. It is covered with waterproof paper, securely roped, and thatched with straw, and is supported by a broad padded band just below the collar bones. Of course, as the man walks nearly bent double, and the position is a very painful one, he requires to stop and straighten himself frequently, and unless he meets with a bank of convenient height, he rests the bottom of his burden on a short, stout pole with an L-shaped top, carried for this purpose. The carrying of enormous loads is quite a feature of this region, and so, I am sorry to say, are red stinging ants and the small gadflies which molest the coolies.
Yesterday's journey was 18 miles in twelve hours! Ichinono is a nice, industrious hamlet, given up, like all others, to rearing silk-worms, and the pure white and sulphur yellow cocoons are drying on mats in the sun everywhere.
I. L. B.
LETTER XVIII
Comely Kine--Japanese Criticism on a Foreign Usage--A Pleasant Halt--Renewed Courtesies--The Plain of Yonezawa--A Curious Mistake- -The Mother's Memorial--Arrival at Komatsu--Stately Accommodation-- A Vicious Horse--An Asiatic Arcadia--A Fashionable Watering-place-- A Belle--"Godowns."
KAMINOYAMA.
A severe day of mountain travelling brought us into another region. We left Ichinono early on a fine morning, with three pack-cows, one of which I rode [and their calves], very comely kine, with small noses, short horns, straight spines, and deep bodies. I thought that I might get some fresh milk, but the idea of anything but a calf milking a cow was so new to the people that there was a universal laugh, and Ito told me that they thought it "most disgusting," and that the Japanese think it "most disgusting" in foreigners to put anything "with such a strong smell and taste" into their tea! All the cows had cotto