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You are in the eastern part of the city.  There are over 375,000 people in Kyoto and a great amount of prosperous business is transacted here.  This handsome bridge (Shijo means "Fourth") is of iron, constructed by a foreign firm; those electric lights were made practicable by the plans of a young Japanese engineer at the University of Tokyo—he brought water from Lake Biwa (seven miles away behind you) down past Kyoto in a canal, tunnelling [[tunneling]] through the mountains for the purpose. An electric tramway carries Kyoto people across the town.

Local "teaming" is done with bulls or freight is packed on trays hanging, scale-fashion, from the two-ends of a carrying pole, and borne on a coolie's shoulders.  Jinrikishas are the favorite carriages.  You notice that European umbrellas are common—they are rapidly superseding those made of bamboo and paper.  There is the widest variety of custom with regard to head-gear; some men go bareheaded, some wear big flat straws of native weave, and not a few adopt European styles. Women always go bareheaded except in severe cold or storms.

Those buildings with the railed verandas, over on the west bank of the river, are chiefly teahouses where you could spend the evening sipping amber tea, eating little cakes of rice and sugar, listening to music and watching the graceful dances of geishas.  In mid-summer the water in the river is always very low, so that great dry patches appear in its bed, and these are utilized for summer gayeties.  Little foot-bridges are set temporarily over the narrow places where water still runs; and the river-bed becomes a garden full of gay arbors hung with paper lanterns and filled with orderly crowds of chattering merry-makers.

(See Scidmore's "Jinrikisha Days in Japan," Davidson's "Present Day Japan," Fraser's "Letters from Japan," Hartshorn's "Japan and Her People," etc.)

From notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.



Shijo Bridge, Kyoto, Japan.
Pont de Shijo, Kyoto, Japon.
Shijo Brücke, Kyoto, Japan.
Puente de Shijo, Kyoto, Japón
Shijo-bron, Kioto, Japan.
Мостъ Шизо, Кіото, Японія.