the day.  The heroes who served her, mourning over this, went to seek her; but she placed a huge stone in front of the cave, and would not come forth.  The heroes, seeing this, consulted together, and danced and played antics before the cave to lure her out.  Tempted by curiosity to see the sight, she opened the gate a little and peeped out.  Then the hero Tajikarao, or “Great Strength,” clapping his hands and stamping his feet, with a great effort grasped and threw down the stone door, and the heroes fetched back the Sun Goddess.[51] As Tajikarao is the patron god of Strength, wrestlers, on entering the ring, still commemorate his deed by clapping their hands and stamping their feet as a preparation for putting forth their strength.

[Footnote 51:  The author of the history called “Kokushi Riyaku” explains this fable as being an account of the first eclipse.]

The great Daimios are in the habit of attaching wrestlers to their persons, and assigning to them a yearly portion of rice.  It is usual for these athletes to take part in funeral or wedding processions, and to escort the princes on journeys.  The rich wardsmen or merchants give money to their favourite wrestlers, and invite them to their houses to drink wine and feast.  Though low, vulgar fellows, they are allowed something of the same familiarity which is accorded to prize-fighters, jockeys, and the like, by their patrons in our own country.

The Japanese wrestlers appear to have no regular system of training; they harden their naturally powerful limbs by much beating, and by butting at wooden posts with their shoulders.  Their diet is stronger than that of the ordinary Japanese, who rarely touch meat.

THE ETA MAIDEN AND THE HATAMOTO

It will be long before those who were present at the newly opened port of Kobe on the 4th of February, 1868, will forget that day.  The civil war was raging, and the foreign Legations, warned by the flames of burning villages, no less than by the flight of the Shogun and his ministers, had left Osaka, to take shelter at Kobe, where they were not, as at the former place, separated from their ships by more than twenty miles of road, occupied by armed troops in a high state of excitement, with the alternative of crossing in tempestuous weather a dangerous bar, which had already taken much valuable life.  It was a fine winter’s day, and the place was full of bustle, and of the going and coming of men busy with the care of housing themselves and their goods and chattels.  All of a sudden, a procession of armed men, belonging to the Bizen clan, was seen to leave the town, and to advance along the high road leading to Osaka; and without apparent reason—­it was said afterwards that two Frenchmen had crossed the line of march—­there was a halt, a stir, and a word of command given.  Then the little clouds of white smoke puffed up, and the sharp “ping” of the rifle bullets came