JAPANESE KAGO.JAPANESE KAGO.
Between Ikaho and Savavatari, our next resting-place, the road was so bad that thejinrikishacould no longer be used, we accordingly had to use thekago, a Japanese sedan-chair made of bamboo, of the appearance of which the accompanying wood-cut gives an idea. It is exceedingly inconvenient for Europeans, because they cannot like the Japanese sit with their legs crosswise under them, and in course of time it becomes tiresome to let them dangle without other support by the side of thekago. Even for the bearers this sedan chair strikes me as being of inconvenient construction, which is shown among other things by their halting an instant every two hundred, or in going up a hill, every hundred paces, in order to shift the shoulder under the bamboo pole. We went up-hill and down-hill with considerablespeed however, so that we traversed the road between Ikaho and Savavatari, 6rior 23.6 kilometres in length, in ten hours. The road, which was exceedingly beautiful, ran along flowery banks of rivulets, overgrown with luxuriant bamboo thickets, and many different kinds of broad-leaved trees. Only round the old temples, mostly small and inconsiderable, were to be seen ancient tall Cryptomeria and Ginko trees. The burying places were commonly situated, not as at home, in the neighbourhood of the larger temples, but near the villages. They were not inclosed, but marked out by stone monuments from a third of a metre to half a metre in height, on one side of which an image of Buddha was sometimes sculptured. The recent graves were often adorned with flowers, and at some of them small foot-high Shinto shrines had been made of wooden pins.
Savavatari, like Ikaho, is built on the slope of a hill. The streets between the houses are almost all stairs or steep ascents. Here too there well up from the volcanic rocks acidulous springs, at which invalids seek to regain health. The watering-place, however, is of less repute than Ikaho or Kusatsu.
While we walked about the village in the evening we saw at one place a crowd of people. This was occasioned by a competition going on there. Two young men, who wore no other clothes than a narrow girdle going round the waist and between the legs, wrestled within a circle two or three metres across drawn on a sandy area. He was considered the victor who threw the other to the ground or forced him beyond the circle. A special judge decided in doubtful cases. The beginning of the contest was most peculiar, the combatants kneeling in the middle of the circle and sharply eying each other in order to make the attack at a signal given by the judge, when a single push might at once make an end of the contest. In this competition there took part about a dozen young men, all well grown, who in their turn stepped with some encouraging cries or gestures into the circle in order to test their powers.The spectators consisted of old men and women, and boys and girls of all ages. Most of them were clean and well-dressed, and had a very attractive appearance.
JAPANESE WRESTLERS.JAPANESE WRESTLERS.
Here it was the youth of the village themselves that took part in the contest. But there are also in Japan persons who carry on these games as their occupation, and exhibit themselves for money. They are in general very fat, as appears from the accompanying drawing, which represents the beginning of thecontest, when both the combatants are still watching to get a good hold.
JAPANESE BRIDGE.JAPANESE BRIDGE.After a Japanese drawing.
Next day, the 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle to traverse it, so that we had to use in some caseskagos, in others riding-horses. Unfortunately the Japanese high saddle does not suit the European, and if the traveller prefers a riding-horse to akago, he must, if he does not
JAPANESE MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE.JAPANESE MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE.
carry a saddle with him, determine to ride on an unsaddled horse, which, with the wretched steeds that are only available here, soon becomes so unpleasant that he at last prefers to let his legs hang benumbed from thekago. A peculiarity in Japan is that the rider seldom himself guides his horse. It is commonly led by a halter by a groom running alongside the rider. These grooms are very light-footed and enduring, so that even at a rapid pace they are not left behind. Running footmen also attend the carriages of people of distinction in the towns and the mail-coaches on Nakasendo. When there is a crowd before the carriage they jump down and drive away the people by a dreadful shouting. From the mail-coach they also blow the post-horn, not just to the advantage of the ear-drums of the travellers.
The scenery by the roadside was exceedingly beautiful. Now it consisted of wild valleys, filled with luxuriant vegetation which completely concealed the crystal-clear streams purling in the bottoms; now of level grassy plains or hill-slopes, thickly studded with solitary trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks. The inhabitants were fully occupied with the chestnut harvest. Before every hut mats were spread out, on which chestnuts lay drying in thick layers. Grain and cotton were being dried in the same small way, as it appeared to us Europeans. On the plains there stood besides in the neighbourhood of the cabins large mortars, by which the grain was reduced to groats. On the hills these tramp-stamps are partly replaced by small mills of an exceedingly simple construction, introduced by the Dutch.
We passed the 2nd October at Kusatsu, the Aix-la-Chapelle of Japan, famed like that place for its hot sulphurous springs. Innumerable invalids here seek an alleviation of their pains. The town lives upon them, and accordingly consists mainly of baths, inns, and shops for the visitors.
The inns are of the sort common in Japan, spacious, airy clean, without furniture, but with good braziers, miniaturetea-services, clean matting, screens ornamented with poetical mottoes, which even when translated were almost unintelligible to us, friendly hosts, and numerous female attendants. If the traveller brings his own cook with him, as we did, he can live very comfortably, as I have before stated, at such an inn.
INN AT KUSATSU.INN AT KUSATSU.
The hot springs which have conferred on Kusatsu its importance rise at the foot of a pretty high hill of volcanic origin. The rocks in the surrounding country consist exclusively of lava and volcanic tuffs, and a short distance from the town there is an extinct volcano in whose crater there are layers of sulphur.[382]In the immediate neighbourhood of the place where the main spring rises there is a thick solidified lava stream, surrounded by tuffs, which near the surface is cleft into a number of large vesicular blocks. From this point the hot water is conductedin long open wooden channels to the bath-house of the town, and to several evaporating pools, some by the wayside, others in the town, intended for collecting the solid constituents of the water, which are then sold in the country as medicine. The great evaporation from these pools, from the open channels and the hot baths, wraps the town almost constantly in a cloud of watery vapour, while a very strong odour of sulphuretted hydrogen reminds us that this is one of the constituents of the healing waters.
The road between the wells and the town appears to form the principal promenade of the place. Along this are to be seen innumerable small monuments, from a half to a whole metre in height, consisting of pieces of lava heaped upon each other. These miniature memorials form by their littleness a peculiar contrast to thebautastones andjettekastof our Swedish forefathers, and are one of the many instances of the people's fondness for the little and the neat, which are often to be met in Japan. They are said to be erected by visitors as thank-offerings to some of the deities of Buddha or Shinto.
I received from a Japanese physician the following information regarding the wells at Kusatsu and their healing power. In and near the town there are twenty-two wells, with water of about the same quality, but of different uses in the healing of various diseases. In the hottest well the water where it rises has a temperature of 162° F (= 72.2° C.). The largest number of the sick who seek health at the baths, suffer from syphilis. This disease is now cured according to the European method, with mercury, iodide of potassium, and baths. The cure requires a hundred days, from seventy to eighty per cent. of the patients are cured completely, though purple spots remain on the skin. The disease does not break out anew. A large number of leprous patients also visit the baths. The leprosy is of various kinds; that with sores is alleviated by the baths, and is cured possibly in two years; that without sores but with the skininsensible is incurable, but is also checked by frequent bathing. All true lepers come from the coast provinces. A similar disease is produced also among the hills by the eating of tainted fish and fowl. This disease consists in the skin becoming insensible, the nerves inactive, and the patient, who otherwise feels well, finding it impossible to walk. It is also cured completely in very severe cases, by baths, ammonia applied inwardly, castor-oil, Peruvian bark, &c. A third type of this ailment is the bone-disease,kak'ke', which is exceedingly common in Japan, and is believed to be caused by unvarying food and want of exercise. It is very obstinate, but is often cured in two or three years with chloride of iron, albumen, change of diet from the common Japanese to the European, with red wine, milk, bread, vegetables, &c. This disease begins with a swelling in the legs, then the skin becomes insensible, first on the legs, next on the stomach, the face, and the wrists. Then the swelling falls, fever comes on, and death takes place. There are besides, certain wells for curing rheumatism, for which from two to three years are required; for eye-diseases and for headache, the latter playing an important part among the illnesses that are cured at Kusatsu. It principally attacks women between twenty and thirty years of age. One of the Kusatsu wells acts very beneficially in this case. Its water is conducted to a special bathing-shed open to the street, intended exclusively for the men and women who suffer from this disease.
Many of the baths at Kusatsu are taken so hot that special precautions must be adopted before one steps down into the water. These consist in winding cotton cloths round those parts of the body which are most sensitive, and in causing the body to perspire strongly before the bath is taken, which is done by the bathers with cries and shouts and with certain movements stirring the water in the basin with large heavy boards. They then all step down into the bath and up again simultaneously at a sign given by the physician sitting at the back of the bathingshed. Without this arrangement it would perhaps be difficult to get the patients to go into the bath, for agreeable it could not be, to judge from the grave faces of the bathers and the fire-red colour of their bodies when they come out.
The baths are under open sheds. Men and women all bathe in common, and in presence of both male and female spectators. They make their remarks without reserve on the diseases of the patients, even if they are of that sort about which one would not speak willingly even to his physician. Often the bath-basin is not fenced off in any way, except that it is protected from rain and sunshine by a roof resting on four posts. In such cases the bathers dress and undress in the street.
BATH AT KUSATSU.BATH AT KUSATSU.
In consequence of the situation of Kusatsu at a height of 1050 metres above the sea, the winter there is very cold and windy. The town is then abandoned not only by the visitors tothe baths, but also by most of the other inhabitants. Already, at the time of our visit, the number of bathers remaining was only inconsiderable. Even these were preparing to depart. During the second night that we passed at Kusatsu, our night's rest was disturbed by a loud noise from the next room. It was a visitor who was to leave the place the following morning, and who now celebrated his recovery withsaki(rice-brandy) and string music.
The environs of Kusatsu are nearly uncultivated, though the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant. It consists partly of bamboo thickets, partly of a high rich grass, above which rise solitary pines, mixed with a few oaks or chestnuts.
On the 3rd October we continued our journey to the foot of Asamayama. The road was very bad, so that even thekagobearers had difficulty in getting along. It first ran across two valleys more than 300 feet deep, occupied with close, luxuriant, bushy thickets. We then came to an elevated plain of great extent covered with unmown grass, studded with beautiful oaks and chestnuts. The plain was not turned to any account, though thousands of the industrious population could find an abundant living there by tending cattle. Farther up the oaks and chestnuts were mixed with a few birches, resembling those at home, and we came next to complete deserts, where the ground consisted of lava blocks and lava gravel, scarcely covered by any grass, and yielding nourishment only to solitary pines. This continued to the place—Rokuriga-hara—where we were to pass the night, and from which the next day we were to ascend the summit of Asamayama.
Rokuriga-hara is situated at a height of 1270 metres above the sea. There was no inn here, nor any place inhabited all the year round, but only a large open shed. This was divided into two by a passage in the middle. We settled on one side of this, making our bed as well as we could on the raised floor, and protecting ourselves from the night air with coverings which ourthoughtful host at Kusatsu had lent us. On the other side of the passage ourkagobearers and guide passed the night crowding round a log fire made on a stone foundation in the middle of the floor. Thekagobearers were protected from the very perceptible night cold only by thin cotton blouses. In order to warm them I ordered an abundant distribution ofsaki, a piece of generosity that did not cost very much, but which clearly won me the undivided admiration of all the coolies. They passed the greater part of the night without sleep, with song and jest, with theirsakibottles and tobacco pipes. We slept well and warmly after partaking of an abundant supper of fowl and eggs, cooked in different ways by Kok-San with his usual talent and his usual variety of dishes.
We had been informed that at this place we would hear a constant noise from the neighbouring volcano, and that hurtful gases (probably carbonic acid) sometimes accumulated in such quantities in the neighbouring woods that men and horses would be suffocated if they spent the night there. We listened in vain for the noise, and did not observe any trace of such gases. All was as peaceful as if the glowing hearth in the interior of the earth was hundreds of miles away. But we did not require the evidence of the column of smoke which was seen to use from the mountain top, which formed the goal of our visit, or of the inhabitants who survived the latest eruption, to come to the conclusion that we were in the neighbourhood of an enormous, still active volcano. Everywhere round our resting-place lay heaps of small pieces of lava which had been thrown out of the volcano (so-called lapilli), and which had not yet had time to weather sufficiently to serve as an under-stratum for any vegetation, and a little from the hut there was a solidified lava stream of great depth.
Next day, the 4th October, we ascended the summit of the mountain. At first we travelled inkagoover a valley filled with pretty close wood, then the journey was continued on footup the steep volcanic cone, covered with small lava blocks and lapilli. The way was staked out with small heaps of stones raised at a distance of about 100 metres apart. Near the crater we found at one of these cairns a little Shinto shrine, built of sticks. Its sides were only half a metre in length. Our guide performed his devotions here. One of them had already at a stone cairn situated farther down with great seriousness made some conjurations with reference to my promise to make an extra distribution of red wine, if we got good weather at the top.
As on Vesuvius, we can also on Asamayama distinguish a large exterior crater, originating from some old eruption, but now almost completely filled up by a new volcanic cone, at whose top the present crater opens. This crater has a circumference of about two kilometres, the old crater, or what the old geologists called the elevation-crater, has been much larger. The volcano is still active. For it constantly throws out "smoke," consisting of watery vapour, sulphurous acid, and probably also carbonic acid. Occasionally a perceptible smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is observed. It is possible without difficulty to crawl to the edge of the crater and glance down into its interior. It is very deep. The walls are perpendicular, and at the bottom of the abyss there are to be seen several clefts from which vapours arise. In the same way "smoke" forces its way at some places at the edge of the crater through small imperceptible cracks in the mountain. Both on the border of the crater, on its sides and its bottom there is to be seen a yellow efflorescence, which at the places which I got at to examine it consisted of sulphur. The edge of the crater is solid rock, a little-weathered augiteandesite differing very much in its nature at different places. The same or similar rocks also project at several places at the old border of the crater, but the whole surface of the volcanic cone besides consists of small loose pieces of lava, without any trace of vegetation. Only at one place the brim of the old crater is covered with an open pinewood. The volcano has also small side craters, from which gases escape. The same coarse fantasy, which still prevails in the form of the hell-dogma among several of the world's most cultured peoples, has placed the home of those of the followers of Buddha who are doomed to eternal punishment in the glowing hearths in the interior of the mountain, to which these crater-openings lead; and that the heresies of the well-meaning Bishop Lindblom have not become generally prevalent in Japan is shown among other things by this, that many of these openings are said to be entrances to the "children's hell." Neither at the main crater nor at any of the side craters can any true lava streams be seen. Evidently the only things thrown out from them have been gases, volcanic ashes, and lapilli. On the other hand, extensive eruptions of lava have taken place at several points on the side of the mountain, though these places are now covered with volcanic ashes.
After having eaten our breakfast in a cleft so close to the smoking crater that the empty bottles could be thrown directly into the bottomless deeps, we commenced our return journey. At first we took the same way as during the ascent, but afterwards held off to the right, down a much steeper and more difficult path than we had traversed before. The mountain side had here a slope of nearly forty-five degrees, and consisted of a quite loose volcanic sand, not bound together by any vegetable carpet. It would therefore have been scarcely possible to ascend to the summit of the mountain this way, but we went rapidly downwards, often at a dizzy speed, but without other inconvenience than that one now and then fell flat and rolled head-foremost down the steep slopes, and that our shoes were completely torn to tatters by the angular lava gravel. Above the mountaintop the sky was clear of clouds, but between it and the surface of the earth there spread out a thick layer of cloud which seen from above resembled a boundless storm-tossed sea, full of foaming breakers. The extensive view we would otherwise havehad of the neighbouring mountain ridges from the top of Asamayama was thus concealed. Only here and there an opening was formed in the cloud, resembling a sun-spot, through which we got a glimpse of the underlying landscape. When we came to the foot of the mountain we long followed a ridge, covered with greenery, formed of an immense stream of lava, which had issued from an opening in the mountain side now refilled. This had probably taken place during the tremendous eruption of 1783, when not only enormous lava-streams destroyed forests and villages at the foot of the mountain, but the whole of the neighbouring region between Oiwake and Usui-toge, previously fertile, was changed by an ash-rain into an extensive waste. Across this large plain, infertile and little cultivated, situated at a height of 980 metres above the sea, we went without a guide to the village Oiwake, where we lodged for the night at an inn by the side of the road Nakasendo, one of the cleanest and best kept of the many well-kept inns I saw during our journey in the interior of the country.
Hence I sent a messenger on foot to Takasaki to order a carriage to Tokio. A formersamuraiundertook for a payment of threeyen, (about 12s) to carry the message. Oiwake is indeed situated on the great road Nakasendo, but it can here only with difficulty be traversed by carriages, because between this village and Takasaki it is necessary to go over the pass Usui-toge, where the road, though lowered considerably of late, rises to a height of 1200 metres. We therefore here usedjinrikishas, a mode of conveyance very agreeable to tourists, which, though introduced only recently, has already spread to all parts of the country.
Every one with an open eye for the beauties of nature and interest in the life and manners of a foreign people, must find a journey injinrikishaover Usui-toge pleasant in a high degree. The landscape here is extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps unmatched in the whole world. The road has been made here
JAPANESE LANDSCAPE.JAPANESE LANDSCAPE.
with great difficulty between wild, black, rocky masses, along deep clefts, whose sides are often covered with the most luxuriant vegetation. No fence protects thejinrikishain its rapid progress down the mountains from the bottomless abysses by the wayside. A man must therefore not be weak in the nerves if he is to derive pleasure from the journey. He must rely on the coolie's keen eye and sure foot. On all sides one is surrounded by a confused mass of lofty shattered mountain tops, and deep down in the valleys mountain streams rush along, whose crystal-clear water is collected here and there into small lakes confined between heights covered with greenery. Now the traveller passes a dizzy abyss by a bridge of the most defective construction, now he sees a stream of water rushing down from an enormous height by the wayside. Thousands of foot-passengers, crowds of pilgrims, long rows of coolies, oxen and horses bearing heavy burdens meet the traveller, who during frequent rests at the foot of the steep slopes has an opportunity of studying the variegated life of the people. He is always surrounded by cheerful and friendly faces, and the pleasant impression is never disturbed by the expressions of coarseness in speech and behaviour which so often meet us in Europe.
It is not until the traveller has passed the mountain ridge and descended to a height of only 300 metres above the sea that the road becomes passable for a carriage. While we exchanged, not without regret, our clean, elegantjinrikishasfor two inferior vehicles drawn by horses, I saw two men wandering from shop to shop, standing some moments at each place, ringing a bell and passing on when they were not attended to. On my inquiry as to what sort of people they were, I was informed that they were wandering players. For me of course they did not ring in vain. For a payment of fifty cents they were ready immediately to show in the street itself a specimen of their art. One of them put on a well-made mask, representing the head of a monster, with a movable jaw and terrible teeth. To themask was fastened a cloak, in which the player wrapt himself during the representation. He then with great skill and supple tasteful gestures, which would have honoured a Europeandanseuse, represented the monster now creeping forward fawningly, now rushing along to devour its prey. A numerous crowd of children collected around us. The small folks followed the representation with great glee, and gave life to the play, or rather formed its proper background, by the feigned tenor with which they fled when the monster approached with open mouth and rolling eyes, and the eagerness with which they again followed and mocked it when its back was turned.
BURDEN BEARERS ON A JAPANESE ROAD.BURDEN BEARERS ON A JAPANESE ROAD.Japanese drawing.
In few countries are dramatic representations of all kinds so much thought of as in Japan. Playhouses are found even in small towns. The play is much frequented, and though therepresentations last the whole day, they are followed by the spectators with the liveliest interest. There are playbills as at home, and numerous writings on subjects relating to the theatre. Among the Japanese books which I bought, there was for instance a thick one, with innumerable woodcuts, devoted to showing how the first Japanese artists conceived the principal scenes in theirrôles, two volumes of playbills bound up together, &c.
The Japanese pieces indeed strike a European as childish and monstrous, but one must admire many praiseworthy traits in the play itself, for instance the naturalness with which the players often declaim monologues lasting for a quarter or half an hour. The extravagances which here shock us are perhaps on the whole not more absurd than the scenes of the opera of to-day, or the buskins, masks, and peculiar dresses, which the Greeks considered indispensable in the exhibition of then great dramatic masterpieces. When the Japanese have been able to appropriate what is good in European culture, the dramatic art ought to have a grand future before it among them, if the development now going on is carried out cautiously so that the peculiarities of the people are not too much effaced. For, in many departments, and not least in that of art, there is much to be found here which when properly developed will form a new and important addition to the culture of the West, of which we are so proud.
The large Japanese theatres, besides, often resemble the European ones in their interior arrangement. The partition between the stage and the space occupied by the spectators is the same as among us. Between the acts the former is concealed by a curtain. The stage is besides provided with painted scenes representing houses, woods, hills, &c., supported on wheels, so that a complete change of scene can be effected in a few moments. The music has the same place between the stage and the spectators as at home. The latter, as at home, aredistributed partly in a gently rising amphitheatre, partly in several tiers of boxes rising one above another, the lowest tier being considered the principal one. The Japanese do not sit in the same way as we do. Neither the amphitheatre nor the boxes accordingly are provided with chairs or benches, but are divided into square compartments one or two feet deep, each intended for about four persons. They sit on cushions, squatting cross-legged in the common Japanese fashion. The compartments are divided by broad cross beams, which form the passages by which the spectators get to their places. During the play we saw attendants running about with tea,saki, tobacco pipes, and small braziers. For every one smokes during the acts, and places himself in his crib as comfortably as possible. The piece is followed with great attention, favourite actors and favourite passages being saluted with lively applause. Even women and children visit the theatre, and I have seen the former give their children suck without the least discomposure among thousands of spectators. Besides the plays intended for the public, there are given also a number of other dramatic representations, as society plays, peculiar family plays intended for the homes of the old feudal princes, spectacles got up for the Mikado, and some which have a half religious significance, &c.
On the evening of the 5th October we came to Takasaki, prepared to start immediately for Tokio. But though the messenger we sent had duly executed his commission, horses could not be procured before midnight. We passed the evening with our former host, who at our first visit received us so unwillingly, but now with great friendliness. We would easily have reconciled ourselves to the delay, for a Japanese small town such as Takasaki has much worth seeing to offer a European, but a great part of the time was wasted in fruitless attempts to get the horse-hirer to let us have the horses a few hours earlier. In spending time in long conversations mixed with civilities and bows the Japanese are masters. Ofthis bad habit, which still often makes the European desperate, it will not perhaps be long necessary to complain, for everything indicates that the Japanese too will soon be carried along at the endlessly roaring speed of the Steam Age.
When we had at last got horses we continued our journey, first in a carriage to Tokio, then by rail to Yokohama, arriving there on the afternoon of the 6th October. From this journey I shall only relate an incident which may form a little picture throwing light on life in Japan.
While we halted for a short time in the morning of the 6th October at a large inn by the roadside, we saw half a dozen young girls finishing their toilets in the inn-yard. In passing we may say, that a Japanese peasant girl, like girls in general, may be pretty or the reverse, but that she generally is, what cannot always be said of the peasant girls at home, cleanly and of attractive manners. They washed themselves at the stream of water in the inn-yard, smoothed their artistically dressed hair, which, however, had been but little disturbed by the cushions on which they had slept, and brushed their dazzlingly white teeth. Soap is not used for washing, but a cotton bag filled with bran. The teeth were brushed with a wooden pin, one end of which was changed by beating into a brush-like collection of wooden cords. The tooth-powder consisted of finely powdered shells and corals, and was kept in small, neat wooden boxes, which, along with tooth-brushes and small square bundles of a very strong and cheap paper, all clearly intended for the use of the peasants, were sold for a trifle in most of the innumerable shops along the road. For such stupid regulations as in former times in Europe rendered traffic in the country difficult, and often obliged the countryman to betake himself to the nearest town to buy some horse-shoes or a roll of wire, appear not to be found in Japan, on which account most of the peasants living on a country road seek a subsidiary way of making a living by trafficking in small articles in request among the country people.
Incidents of the sort referred to we had seen so many times before that on this occasion it would not have attracted any further attention on our part, if we had not thereby been reminded that we must look after our own exterior, before we could make our entrance into the capital of Japan. We therefore took from the carriage our basket with linen, shaving implements, and towels, settled down around the stream of water at which the girls stood, and immediately began to wash and shave ourselves. There was now general excitement. The girls ceased to go on with their own toilet, and crowded round us in a ring in order to see how Europeans behave in such cases, and to give us the assistance that might be required. Some ran laughing and bustling about, one on the top of another, in order immediately to procure us what we wanted, one held the mirror, another the shaving-brush, a third the soap, &c. Round them gathered other elder women, whose blackened teeth indicated that they were married. A little farther off stood men of all ages. Chance had here quite unexpectedly shown us a picture from folk-life of the most agreeable kind. This pleasant temper continued while we immediately after, in the presence of all, ate our breakfast in the porch of the ground-floor, surrounded by our former ministering spirits, now kneeling around us, continually bowing the head to the ground, laughing and chattering. The same fun went on when a little after I bought some living fresh-water fishes and put them in spirit, yet with the difference that the girls now, with some cries, to show their fear of handling the living animals—though fish-cleaning was one of their ordinary occupations—handed over to the men the trouble of taking the fishes and putting them into the spirit-jars. For a worm placed in spirit they feigned the greatest terror, notwithstanding its covering of spirit and glass, and ran shrieking away when any one suddenly brought the jar with the worm near their faces. It ought to be noted to the honour of the Japanese, that although we were by nomeans surrounded by any select circle, there was not heard during the whole time a single offensive word among the closely-packed spectators, a fact which gives us an idea of the excellent tone of society which prevails here, even among the lowest of the population, and which shows that the Japanese, although they have much to learn from the Europeans, ought not to imitate them in all. In Japan there is much that is good, old, and national to take note of, perhaps more than the Japanese at present have any idea of, and undoubtedly more than many of the European residents will allow.
FOOTNOTES:
[379]On the contrary, we saw a number of beggars on the country roads in the neighbourhood of Yokohama.
[380]Voyage de M. Golovin, Paris, 1818, i. p. 176. Golovin, who was captain in the Russian navy, passed the years 1811-13 in imprisonment in Japan. He and his comrades in misfortune were received with great friendliness by the people, and very well treated by the authorities, if we except the exceedingly tedious examinations to which they were subjected to extract from them the most minute particulars regarding Europe, and particularly Russia.
[381]General Grant, as is well known, visited Japan in the autumn of 1879. He left Yokohama the day after theVegaanchored in its harbour.
[382]According to the statement of the inhabitants, I had not time to visit the place.
Farewell dinner at Yokohama—The Chinese in Japan—Voyage to Kobe—Purchase of Japanese Books—Journey by rail to Kioto—Biwa Lake and the Legend of its Origin—Dredging there—Japanese Dancing-Girls—Kioto—The Imperial Palace—Temples—Swords and Sword-bearers—Shintoism and Buddhism—The Porcelain Manufacture—Japanese Poetry—Feast in a Buddhist Temple—Sailing across the Inland Sea of Japan—Landing at Hirosami and Shimonoseki—Nagasaki —Excursion to Mogi—Collection of Fossil Plants—Departure from Japan.
The last days at Yokohama were taken up with farewell visits there and at Tokio. An afternoon's leisure during the last day I spent in the capital of Japan I employed in making an excursion in order to dredge from a Japanese boat in the river debouching at the town. The Japanese boats differ from the European in being propelled not by rowing but by sculling. They have usually a deck above the level of the water, which is dazzlingly white and laid with matting, like the rooms in a Japanese house. The dredging yielded a great number of Anodonta, large Paludina, and some small shells.
During our stay in Japan I requested Lieutenant Nordquist to make as complete a collection of the land and fresh-water crustacea of the country as the short time permitted. In consequence of the unusual poverty of the country in these animal forms the result was much smaller than we had hoped. During a preceding voyage to the Polar Sea I had assisted in makinga collection of land crustacea on Renoe, an island north of the limit of trees in the outer archipelago of northern Norway. It is possible to collect there in a few hours as many annuals of this group as in fertile Japan in as many days. There are parts of Japan, covered with thick woods and thickets of bushes, where during a forenoon's excursion one can scarcely find a single crustacean, although the ground is full of deep, shady clefts in which masses of dried leaves are collected, and which therefore ought to be an exceedingly suitable haunt for land mollusca. The reason of this poverty ought perhaps to be sought in the want of chalk or basic calcareous rocks, which prevails in the parts of Japan which we visited.
After the Swedish-Dutch minister had further given us a splendid farewell dinner at the Grand Hotel, to which, as before, the Japanese minsters and the representatives of the foreign powers in Japan were invited, we at last weighed anchor on the 11th October to prosecute our voyage. At this dinner we saw for the first time the Chinese embassy which at the time visited Japan with the view of settling the troublesome Loo-Choo affair which threatened to lead to a war between the two great powers of Eastern Asia. The Chinese ambassadors were, as usual, two in number, being commissioned to watch one over the other. One of them laughed immoderately at all that was said during dinner, although he did not understand a word. According to what I was told by one who had much experience in the customs of the heavenly empire, he did this, not because he heard or understood anything worth laughing at, but because he considered it good manners to laugh.
Remarkable was the interest which the Chinese labourers settled at Yokohama took in our voyage, about which they appeared to have read something in their own or in the Japanese newspapers. When I sent one of the sailors ashore to execute a commission, and asked him how he could do that without any knowledge of the language, he replied, "There is nofear, I always meet with some Chinaman who speaks English and helps me." The Chinese not only always assisted our sailors as interpreters without remuneration, but accompanied them for hours, gave them good advice in making purchases, and expressed their sympathy with all that they must have suffered during our wintering in the high north. They were always cleanly, tall, and stately in their figures, and corresponded in no particular to the calumnious descriptions we so often read of this people in European and American writings.
From Yokohama the course was shaped for Kobe, one of the more considerable Japanese ports which have been opened to Europeans. Kobe is specially remarkable on account of its having railway communication with Osaka, the most important manufacturing town of Japan, and with Kioto, the ancient capital and seat of the Mikado's court for centuries.
I had already begun at Yokohama to buy Japanese books, particularly such as were printed before the opening of the ports to Europeans. In order to carry on this traffic with greater success, I had procured the assistance of a young Japanese very familiar with French, Mr. OKUSCHI, assistant in Dr. Geertz' chemico-technical laboratory at Yokohama. But because the supply of old books in this town, which a few years ago had been of little importance, was very limited, I had at first, in order to make purchases on a large scale, repeatedly sent Mr. Okuschi to Tokio, the seat of the former Shogun dynasty, and from that town, before the departure of theVegafrom Yokohama, to Kioto, the former seat of learning in Japan. The object of theVega'scall at the port of Kobe was to fetch the considerable purchases made there by Mr. Okuschi[383]
Kobe, or Hiogo, as the old Japanese part of the town is called, is a city of about 40,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated at the entrance to the Inland Sea of Japan,i.e., the sound which separates the main island from the south islands, Shikoku and Kiushiu. Mountain ridges of considerable height here run along the sea-shore. Some of the houses of the European merchants are built on the lower slopes of these hills, with high, beautiful, forest-clad heights as a background, and a splendid view of the harbour in front. The Japanese part of the town consists, as usual, of small houses which, on the side next the street, are occupied mainly with sale or work-shops where thewhole family lives all day. The streets have thus a very lively appearance, and offer the foreigner an endless variety of remarkable and instructive pictures from the life of the people. The European part of the town, on the other hand, is built with stately houses, some of which are situated on the street that runs along the shore. Here, among others, are to be found splendid European hotels, European clubs, counting-houses, shops, &c.
Not far from Kobe, and having railway communication with it, is Osaka, the largest manufacturing town of Japan, famed for its theatres and its dancing-girls. Unfortunately I had not time to visit it, for I started for the old capital, Kioto, a few hours after theVegaanchored, and after I had waited on the governor in order to procure the passport that is still required for travelling in the interior. He received me, thanks to a letter of introduction I had with me from one of the ministers at Tokio, in an exceedingly agreeable way. His reception-room was part of a large European stone house, the vestibule of which was tastefully fitted up in European style with a Brussels carpet gay with variegated colours. At our visit we were offered Japanese tea, as is customary everywhere in Japan, both in the palace of the Emperor and the cabin of the poor peasant. The Governor was, as all the higher officials in Japan now are, dressed like a European of distinction, but he could not speak any European language. He showed himself, however, to be much interested in our voyage, and immediately ordered an official in his court, who was well acquainted with English, Mr. YANIMOTO, to accompany me to Kioto.
We travelled thither by a railway constructed wholly in the European style. At Kioto my companion, at my special request, conducted me not to the European hotel there, but to a Japanese inn, remarkable as usual for cleanliness, for a numerous crowd of talkative female attendants, and for the extreme friendliness of the inn people to then guests as soon as they indicated, by taking off then boots at the door, that it