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148 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
in the stable and riding-school under Mr. Honda's
oversight in 1853. Perhaps our eyes and the eyes
of the Japanese are very different, and which of us
see things the wrong way is not fully settled. The
stable is another illustration of things turned upside
down or wrong part before. In walking past the
stalls one sees in an American stable the flanks and
tails of the animals, that stand with heads fronting
the street. In the Fukui stable, as you walked by
the stalls, the horses stood with their heads towards
you, and their tails were at the closed end of the stall.
The stalls were boarded up to the height of the ani-
mal's head ; but the most curious thing was the way
that the horses were tied. The halters were different
from ours. When they led a horse they tied a rope
around the lower jaw between the incisor and grinder
teeth. In the stable the bit was kept in the mouth,
and the horse was tied up by a rope from each side
of its jaw, as when we secure a horse to curry
him. The brute was thus kept all day with his head
as high as Job's war-horse, and his nostrils were on
the level of the eye, as if sniffing the battle afar
off. Such a dramatic attitude, long continued, must
make his neck ache, until long use inured him to it.
It would have seemed to us a standing wonder that
the Japanese genus Equus had not long
since devel-
oped into the Camelopardalis girafa; but Japanese
horses have been thus tied for centuries, and no
instance of such transformation has taken place, nor
is the giraffe found in Japan.
Some of the horse-lore would have amused and