Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/206

 delayed the opening of the whole line until 1889. Before the iron horse had cleared all picturesqueness from the region three of us made the jinrikisha journey down the Tokaido.

The Tokaido having been the great post-road and highway of the empire for centuries, with daimios and their trains constantly travelling between the two capitals, its villages and towns were most important, and each supplied accommodations for every class of travellers. All the world knew the names of the fifty-three post stations on the route, and there is a common game, which consists in quickly repeating them in their order backward or forward. As the railroad touched or left them, some of the towns grew, others dwindled, and new places sprang up. Each village used to have its one special occupation, and to ride down the Tokaido was to behold in succession the various industries of the empire. In one place only silk cords were made, in another the finely-woven straw coverings of saké cups and lacquer bowls; a third produced basket-work of wistaria fibres, and a fourth shaped ink-stones for writing-boxes. Increased trade and steam communication have interfered with these local monopolies, and one town is fast becoming like another in its industrial displays.

May is one of the best months for such overland trips in Japan, as the weather is perfect, pilgrims and fleas are not yet on the road, and the rainy season is distant. The whole country is like a garden, with its fresh spring crops, and the long, shaded avenue of trees is everywhere touched with flaming azaleas and banks of snowy blackberry blossoms. The tea-house and the tateba everywhere invite one to rest and watch the unique processions of the highway, and away from foreign settlements much of the old Japan is left. Tea is everywhere in evidence in May. It is being picked in the fields, carted along the roads, sold, sorted, and packed in every town, 190