There is further mention of these Chinese chairs in Oliphant’s much later account of Lord Elgin’s mission. Lord Elgin himself travelled in a chair of the kind usually reserved for mandarins of the highest rank, which was larger than those in ordinary use and had a fine brass knob on the top. Eight bearers carried it. In processions a _hwakeaou_ or flowered chair was often used.
Japan, too, had early had sedans both for travelling and for more purely ceremonial purposes. Light bamboo chairs, they were, called _kangoes_ or _norimons_, which were borne by two or more persons. On the introduction of the European coach, however, a kind of brouette, as I have said, was substituted, and in a few years there were hundreds of thousands of these _jin-rick-shaws_ on the streets, not only in Japan, but throughout Asia. At first many of these were grotesquely adorned, but their appearance is too well-known at the present day for need of a lengthy description. Equipped with “every modern convenience” and very well built indeed, they afford a European a delightful sensation on his first ride, even though he may have visions of those earlier days of his youth when he was carried about in a similar way (though at a less speed) in the homely perambulator.
“We took our coach, two coachmen and four horses, And merrily from London made our courses. We wheel’d the top of th’ heavy hill called Holborne (Up which hath been full many a sinful soule borne,) And so along we jolted past St. Gileses, Which place from Brainford six (or neare) seven miles is.”
The seventeenth century saw great changes in vehicular design. In 1660 the first _berlin_ was made. Steel springs, as we have seen, appeared a few years later in the brouette. About this time, too, a hooded gig or _calèche_ made its appearance in the streets of Paris, the first of many carriages to be built upon entirely new lines. Glass windows and complete doors were used in the coaches, both public and private, which became smaller, more compact, and certainly more graceful. Improvements were not confined to one country, but proceeded simultaneously not only in various European countries, but also in South America. Roads, too, were improved, and laws for the regulation of traffic framed with some regularity and effect.