Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/356

 about, the whole colony dive off and swim towards their benefactor.

All around Tennoji are the yellow walls of the monasteries, with miniature moats and heavy gate-ways, and this quarter is a religious city by itself, which was once a separate suburb with a population of 30,000.

had cause to rejoice when the Tokaido railroad made it a twenty-four hours’ journey on dry land from Tokio to Kobé, the foreign settlement adjoining the ancient town of Hiogo. It is almost always a miserable trip by water, notwithstanding the beauty of Fuji and the coast. Chopping seas, cross-currents, and unexpected pitchings and motions disturb the equilibrium even of an old sailor, and the trip to Kobé often lays him low, while smiling skies and seemingly smooth waters seem to make a mock of him. When typhoons sweep, the province of Kii is a magnet for them, and frightful seas rage around that point which guards the entrance to the Inland Sea.

Kobé, as the port of Osaka and Kioto, and the outlet of the great Yamashiro tea-district, is an important place commercially; its growth more than equalling Yokohama’s since the opening of the port. Beginning with less than 10,000 native inhabitants in the town of Hiogo in 1868, it had risen to more than 80,000 in 1887. The foreign colony has increased in proportion, and in 1888 its foreign trade amounted to $42,971,976. Of this sum $24,667,906 were imports, and $18,304,070 were exports. Ships of all nations lie at anchor in its busy harbor, and 340