"There they stood glaring, as I told you, and making a noise like animals about to fight. They stamped on the ground and made two or three rushes at each other, and then fell back to watch for a better chance. They kept this up a minute or so, and then darted in and clinched; and then you could see their great muscles swell, and realize that they were as strong as they were fat.
"They did not try to throw each other, as we do when we wrestle, but they tried to push from one side of the ring to the other. I couldn't understand this until the Doctor told me that it is not necessary for one of the men to be thrown. All that is to be done is for one of them to push the other outside the ring; and even if he only gets one foot out, the game is up. Only once during all we saw of the match did anybody get thrown down, as we should expect to see him in a wrestling match in America. And when he did get fairly on the ground, it was not very easy for him to rise, which is probably the reason why the rules of the Japanese ring are so different from ours.
"They had several matches of this kind with the two men standing up facing each other before they clinched; and then they tried another plan. One man took his place in the ring, and braced himself as though he were trying to stop a locomotive. When he was ready a signal was given, and another man came out full tilt against him. They butted their heads together like two rams, and tried to hit each other in the breast. In a short time they were covered with blood, and looked very badly; but the Doctor says they were not hurt so much as they seemed to be. They kept this up for nearly a quarter of an hour, and took turns at the business--one of them being bull for the other to play railway train against. It was as bad for one as for the other; and if I had my choice which character to play, I wouldn't play either.
"After the wrestling was over they had some fencing, which I liked much better, as there was more skill to it and less brutality. The fencers were announced in the same way as the other performers had been. They wore large masks that protected their heads, and their fencing was with wooden swords or sticks, so that no harm was done. The game was for each to hit his adversary's head, and when this was done a point was scored for the man who made the hit. They did a good deal of shouting and snarling at each other, and sometimes their noise sounded more as if made by cats than by human beings. In other respects their fencing was very much like ours, and was very creditable to the parties engaged in it. One of the best fencers in the lot was a young girl. She wasn't more than sixteen years old, and she had arms strong enough for a man of thirty. The performance ended with the fencing, and then we went back to the hotel."