190 
PRETTY LANES AND HEDGES. Chap. XII. 
Tables and benches were arranged under its shade, 
which at the time of our visit were well occupied 
with travellers and visitors, all sipping and appa- 
rently enjoying the grateful and invigorating 
beverage. As the day was cloudless, and the sun’s 
rays powerful, we were not slow to imitate the ex- 
ample they set before us, so we sipped our tea, 
smoked a cigar, and admired this beautiful speci- 
men of the vegetable kingdom. 
Our road during the remainder of our journey 
was a very pleasant one, and led us through lanes 
fringed on each side with pretty hedges and tall 
trees, the latter affording a pleasing shade. Many 
little villages and comfortable-looking inns or tea- 
houses were passed by the way. Most of these tea- 
houses had gardens filled with pretty flowering 
plants for the enjoyment of their patrons, and in 
more than one of them we noticed a trellis covered 
with the Glycine sinensis in full bloom. This trail- 
ing tree is evidently a great favourite with the 
Japanese, and it well deserves to be so. Every- 
where the people seemed most inoffensive and even 
friendly, showing a natural curiosity to see the 
Tojins (Chinamen or foreigners), as they called us, 
and now and then saluting us with the friendly 
“Anata, Ohio.” Japan would be a pleasant place 
to live or travel in were it freed from those bands 
of two-sworded idlers which infest the capital, 
and render a residence there sometimes far from 
agreeable. 
As we entered the suburbs of Yedo we met the 
