Jinrikisha Days in Japan

In this day of French uniforms, Gatling-guns, and foreign tactics, it is only in Nagoya that the garrison occupies the old castle; the fortress, with its gates and moats, remains unchanged, and the bugle-calls echo daily around the quaintly-gabled citadel. In the great parade-grounds outside the deep inner moat rise foreign-looking barracks and offices, and dumpy little soldiers in white-duck coats and trousers and visored caps stand as sentries on the fixed bridges, and in the portals of the huge, heavy-roofed, iron-clamped gate-ways. Of course these guards should be men in old armor, with spears and bows, and the alarms should be given on hoarse-toned gongs or conch-shell bugles, as in feudal days. Instead, the commandant of Nagoya has on his staff young nobles of old feudal families, who speak French, German, or English, as they have been taught in foreign military schools. A dapper little lieutenant, in spotless gloves and an elaborately-frogged white uniform, conducted us along the deep moat, over the bridge, and under the great gate of the citadel, whose stones, timbers, and iron clampings would defy a dozen medieval armies. Gay chatter about _la belle Paris_, which the little lieutenant had learned to adore in his student-days, echoed under the yet more ponderous inner gate, and the ghosts of the old warriors must have groaned at the degeneracy of their sons.

Below the frowning citadel is an old palace, wherein the son of Iyeyasu, the first Prince of Owari, lived in state and entertained the Shogun's messengers. The empty rooms are musty and gloomy from long neglect, but the beautifully-carved and colored ceilings, and the screens and recess walls, decorated by famous artists with paintings on a ground of thinnest gold-leaf, remain the sole relics of his splendor.