OLD BRIDGE DOOMED. 325 



fish carried between them, — a shark apparently. Pre- 

 sently there advances a wheelbarrow bearing a young 

 woman, preventing her charms being injured by 

 holding up a large paper umbrella, — horses are not 

 used in Japan for drawing vehicles, hence men perform 

 that task. Some of these conveyances are more 

 elaborate than others, and take various shapes ; 

 then there is the norunon of the nobles and the kango 

 of the gentiles, — the latter made of bamboo, barely 

 large enough to hold a grown-up person, even in the 

 position of his knees touching the chin ; whilst the 

 former, already likened to a toy-house, about four feet 

 square, is handsomely lacquered and gilded, and 

 provided with cushions and rich silk curtains ; both 

 are carried suspended from a strong pole. Here comes 

 a man with an enormous mask representing a dragon's 

 head, — a favourite design, — and distributing printed 

 papers announcing the arrival of a quack, whose mar- 

 vellous filters promise instant relief to the heart-sick 

 as well as to the leper ; behind him hobbles a matron, 

 with her two Ijlooming charges on high wooden clogs, 

 trying to catch one of these papers as they are flying 

 about ; there creeps a priest with shaven crown 

 enveloped in dirty folds, which make it diflicult to 

 discover whether yellow or grey, Buddhist or Sintist; 

 and many other curious sights, doomed to disappear 



