Jinrikisha Days in Japan

Kioto remains faithful to its traditions, and yields but slowly to the foreign fashions which absorb Tokio. Tokio has nineteenth-century political troubles, even demagogues and hare-brained students, that unruly young element, the _soshi_, keep it in a state of agitation, and sometimes appeal to the old two-handed sword, the dagger, and the cowardly bomb. But Kioto, devoted to its old order, maintains the reign of peace, while the arts flourish.

For the thousand years during which this ancient Saikio remained the home of the Emperor, and of his nominal subject, the Shogun, its western half was crowded with the life centering about the two rulers. The ancient Emperors were hidden within the vast palace enclosure, the centre of other large demesnes, whose yellow walls were marked with the five horizontal white lines which indicate imperial possessions. This collection of palaces and the yashikis of the kugés, or court nobles, were then surrounded by one exterior wall and moat, making an immense imperial reservation-a small isolated city. Within a few years this exterior wall has been destroyed, streets have been opened, and much of the space has been turned into a public park. The imperial palace buildings cover ten acres of ground, and are surrounded by twenty-six acres of ornamental park. In each of the four yellow outer walls is a richly roofed and gabled gate-way, as stately as a temple, the ends of the beams, the ridges, and eaves decorated with golden chrysanthemum crests. The great gate, opened only for the Emperor and his train, and through whose central passage only the sacred being himself may be borne, faces south, as does the throne, in accordance with the old superstitions of the East. The evil influences always threatening from the north-east are guarded against by many temples beyond that side of the palace.