ONE:The party went to Lake Biwa as they had proposed, and certainly no one should omit it from his excursions in the vicinity of Kioto. The distance is only seven miles, and an excellent road leads there from the city. Along the route they met a dense crowd of people coming and going, for there is a vast amount of business between the city and the lake. There were men on foot and in jin-riki-shas, there were porters with loads and porters without loads, there were pack-horses in great number, and there were wagons with merchandise bound for the interior or for the seaboard. Some of the pack-horses had burdens the reverse of savory, and the boys learned on inquiry that they were transporting liquid manure to the farms near the borders of the lake. Along the roadside[Pg 301] they saw little family groups that were always more or less picturesque; fathers were caring for their children, and seemed to take great delight in playing the part of nurse. It is very common in all the Japanese cities to see men thus occupied, and they never appear to be weary of their tasks. In summer both parent and child will be thinly clad, while in winter they will be wrapped against the cold. The summer garments are not always so thick as the rules of polite society require, and even the winter costume is not very heavy.The junk was all ready in the morning; and as soon as the passengers were on board, her sail was lifted, and she slowly worked her way through the water. The wind was all right for the voyage to the mouth of the river where Osaka lay; and if they had been on a sail-boat such as all New-Yorkers are familiar with, the journey would have been over in three or four hours. But the junk was not built for racing purposes, and the most that could be hoped for from her was a speed of about three miles an hour. This was no detriment, as they could thus make the mouth of the river by noon; and if the bar could be easily crossed, they would be at the city long before sunset. Life on a junk was a novelty, and therefore they were not annoyed to think that their craft was not a swift one.
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