Costumes/types—Jinrikisha

“Tokio is a city of magnificent distances, and the jinrikisha has been in great request. Of all the methods of conveyance this is the most convenient. Riding at full speed, you can draw up in an instant, and that by a word. My kuruma-san is a stout, comical-looking fellow, good-natured and willing and as strong as a horse. Besides a blue shirt, he wears only a pair of cotton drawers ending above the knee and a blue handkerchief twisted around his head. Turning corners, his deep guttural ‘hei! hei!’ sends all foot-passengers scattering to the side of the road, along which he rushes at full speed.”

Albert Tracy, Rambles Through Japan Without a Guide,(London, 1892) p. 12