et away from Yeddo: I had a fit of anti-Caucasianism,
and wished to dwell a while amidst things purely Japanese. There
were too many foreigners in Yeddo. In that city of only eight hundred
thousand Japanese there are now full two hundred foreigners of all
nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too
much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama,
the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt
there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a
railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What _was_ the
use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is
brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect
a few cracks in the craniums belonging to some of the youths who wish
to introduce law, religion, steam, language, frock-coats and tight
boots by edict and ordinance. There was too much civilization. I
yearned for something more primitive, something more purely Japanese;
and tramping into the country I should find it. I should eat Japanese
food--profanely dubbed "chow-chow;" sleep in Japanese beds--on the
floor; talk Japanese--as musical as Italian; and live so much like an
old-time native that I should feel as one born on the soil. By that
time, returning to Yeddo as a Japanese of the period, I should of
course burn to adopt railways, telegraphs and balloons, codify the
laws, improve upon United States postage, coinage and dress-coats, and
finish off by annexing the English language after I had cut out all
irregularities and made all the crooked spelling straight.

So, resolving to be a heathen for a week at least, I left Yeddo one
afternoon, though it took several hours to do so: the big city is one
of distances more magnificent than those of Washington. I started in
a _jin-riki-sha_, which baby-carriage on adult wheels has already been
described, so as to be tolerably familiar to all American readers.
The "team" of this "man-power carriage" consists of two men, pulling
tandem--one in the shafts, the other running ahead with a rope over
his shoulder, and, until the recent passage of a law commanding
decency, attired only in his cuticle and a loin-cloth two inches wide.
You take three coolies when you wish to be stylish, while four are
not an unknown sensation in Yeddo. With these and fresh relays you can
travel sixty, or even eighty, miles a day; and I have known one man to
run thirty miles on t