eet as a preparation for
putting forth their strength.

[Footnote 51: The author of the history called "Kokushi Riyaku"
explains this fable as being an account of the first eclipse.]

The great Daimios are in the habit of attaching wrestlers to their
persons, and assigning to them a yearly portion of rice. It is usual
for these athletes to take part in funeral or wedding processions, and
to escort the princes on journeys. The rich wardsmen or merchants give
money to their favourite wrestlers, and invite them to their houses to
drink wine and feast. Though low, vulgar fellows, they are allowed
something of the same familiarity which is accorded to prize-fighters,
jockeys, and the like, by their patrons in our own country.

The Japanese wrestlers appear to have no regular system of training;
they harden their naturally powerful limbs by much beating, and by
butting at wooden posts with their shoulders. Their diet is stronger
than that of the ordinary Japanese, who rarely touch meat.

THE ETA MAIDEN AND THE HATAMOTO

It will be long before those who were present at the newly opened port
of Kobe on the 4th of February, 1868, will forget that day. The civil
war was raging, and the foreign Legations, warned by the flames of
burning villages, no less than by the flight of the Shogun and his
ministers, had left Osaka, to take shelter at Kobe, where they were
not, as at the former place, separated from their ships by more than
twenty miles of road, occupied by armed troops in a high state of
excitement, with the alternative of crossing in tempestuous weather a
dangerous bar, which had already taken much valuable life. It was a
fine winter's day, and the place was full of bustle, and of the going
and coming of men busy with the care of housing themselves and their
goods and chattels. All of a sudden, a procession of armed men,
belonging to the Bizen clan, was seen to leave the town, and to
advance along the high road leading to Osaka; and without apparent
reason--it was said afterwards that two Frenchmen had crossed the line
of march--there was a halt, a stir, and a word of command given. Then
the little clouds of white smoke puffed up, and the sharp "ping" of
the rifle bullets came whizzing over the open space, destined for a
foreign settlement, as fast as the repeating breech-loaders could be
discharged. Happily, the practice was very bad; for had the men of
Bizen been good shots, almost all the principal foreign o