Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/20

 silvery, shining vision, rivalled only by Mount Rainier, which, pale with eternal snows, rises from the dense forests of Puget Sound to glass itself in those green waters.

Yokohama disappoints the traveller, after the splendid panorama of the Bay. The Bund, or sea-road, with its club-houses, hotels, and residences fronting the water, is not Oriental enough to be very picturesque. It is too European to be Japanese, and too Japanese to be European. The water front, which suffers by comparison with the massive stone buildings of Chinese ports, is, however, a creditable contrast to our untidy American docks and quays, notwithstanding the low-tiled roofs, blank fences, and hedges. The water life is vivid and spectacular. The fleet of black merchant steamers and white men-of-war, the ugly pink and red canal-steamers, and the crowding brigs and barks, are far outnumbered by the fleet of sampans that instantly surround the arriving mail. Steam-launches, serving as mail-wagon and hotel omnibus, snort, puff, and whistle at the gang-ways before the buoy is reached; and voluble boatmen keep up a steady bzz, bzz, whizz, whizz, to the strokes of their crooked, wobbling oars as they scull in and out. Four or five thousand people live on the shipping in the harbor, and in ferrying this population to and fro and purveying to it the boatmen make their livelihood. Strict police regulations keep them safe and peaceable, and the harbor impositions of other countries are unknown. On many of these sampans the whole family abides, the women cooking over a handful of charcoal in a small box or bowl, the children playing in corners not occupied by passengers or freight. On gala days, when the shipping is decorated, the harbor is a beautiful sight; or when the salutes of the foreign fleets assembled at Yokohama are returned by the guns of the fort on Kanagawa Heights, and the air tingles with excitement. Only three 4