Yokohama
ludes at theatres, coming between the courses of great dinners, and supplying entertainment to any garden party or flower fête in the homes of rich hosts. More cunning than these gorgeously clad jugglers is an old man, who roams the vicinity of Yokohama, wearing poor cotton garments, and carrying two baskets of properties by a pole across his shoulders. On a street corner, a lawn, a piazza, or a ship’s deck, he sets up his baskets for a table, and performs amazing feats with the audience entirely encircling him. A hatful of coppers sufficiently rewards him, and he swallows fire, spits out eggs, needles, lanterns, and yards of paper-ribbon, which he twirls into a bowl, converts into actual soba, and eats, and by a magic sentence changes the remaining vermicelli into the lance-like leaves of the iris plant. This magician has a shrewd, foxy old face, whose grimaces, as well as his pantomime, his capers, and poses, are tricks in themselves. His chuckling, rippling stream of talk keeps his Japanese auditors convulsed. Sword walkers and knife swallowers are plenty as blackberries, and the phonograph is conspicuous in Isezakicho’s tents and booth. The sceptic and investigator wastes his time in the effort to penetrate the Japanese jugglers’ mysteries. Once, at a dinner given by Governor Tateno at Osaka, the foreign guest of honor determined to be cheated by no optical delusions. He hardly winked, so close was his scrutiny, and the juggler played directly to him. An immense porcelain vase having been brought in and set in the middle of the room, the juggler, crawling up, let himself down into it slowly. For half an hour the sceptic did not raise his eyes from the vase, that he had first proved to be sound and empty, and to stand on no trap-door. After this prolonged watch the rest of the company assailed him with laughter and jeers, and pointed to his side, where the old juggler had been seated for some minutes fanning himself.
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