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AT THE SIG GOLD-PISS. 217
swords. Thousands of the common people at night,
or on journeys, also carried one sword. It is no
wonder, then, that many of these swordsmen itched
to flesh their weapons and stain them with real blood.
The dogs that ran ownerless, numerous in every town
and these were
and city, furnished tempting objects,
well utilized. To see them minus one ear, or a tail,
or gashed in
face, flank, or limb, was no uncommon
sight to say nothing of those cloven asunder in
skull or severed in twain by single blows of the keen
blades. Until taxed and owned, the dogs led a life
level with the proverbs about them. One favorite
game was the " dog-chasing affair," it being archery
on horseback, in which the riders,
dressed in picturesque
costume of leopard-skin aprons and gay silk
tunics, chased a dog around an enclosure. They
made a target of the animal, which limping, confused,
or killed with blunt arrows furnished them
with sport. In too many cases, when dogs were
lacking, the gentlemanly ruffians took human life,
and the unburied carcass that for hours defiled
the streets was that of a man.
As for Honda Jiro, he too attended fencing-school
and practiced spear exercise, adding the accomplishments
of rushing suddenly and drawing sword on the
full run, and cutting an orange set on a post, or by
backward sweep smiting off a flower from a bush.
He had been told that Americans were tall, and so
he trained himself to lunge and sweep at objects
above his head. He went down frequently to see
the crowds of laborers building forts in the bay near