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210 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
on the tree-roosts, and in the winter over-populated
the region, fearing neither gun of fowler nor the
stone of the small boy. The municipal law, enforced
with a
death penalty, forbade the firing of a
gun in the open air within ten miles of the center
of the great castle, whose citadel and intricate lines
of wall and moat covered a space several leagues
square. With arrow, bird-lime, snare, or falcon the
fowler must go beyond city limits for his game.
Our travelers were awakened on their first morning
by sounds that showed how strong were the
probabilities of war with the Americans. On a lot
only a few streets away a cannon foundry had been
erected, and the heavy reports during the day
showed that the bronze field-pieces and siege-guns
were being tested. Even before they had their
breakfast the sound of matchlock and musket-firing
showed that in nearly every clan head-quarters target-shooting
was going on. Every one of the few
learned men who could read Dutch was busy in
and fortifica-
translating military books on gunnery
tion. In scores of places groups of men were busy
with mud and trowels, making mimic forts, fieldworks,
or rifle-pits,
and mounting them with toy
cannon or bamboo tubes. This was the work of the
progressive
or modern men under a few teachers.
The majority of clansmen, reared in old-fashioned
ideas, still believed in the divine sword, the soul of
the samurai, and in wearing armor. These exercised
themselves in helmet and cuirass, on horseback
or on foot. They practiced with wooden swords or