Part 3

[1] This does not hold for Westernised places like Tokio, as I afterwards discovered, where the European method of clapping is much in vogue.

After reaching home, in about an hour, a courteous secretary followed, bringing with him all the cakes which I had not eaten at the reception. Alas, that etiquette demanded that I should return the pretty red lacquer trays they came in!

=September 5.=--I spent the morning seeing the Museum (pathetic) and the Botanical Gardens (most interesting) of Sapporo. Mr. B---- took me out in the afternoon, and we had a long and delightful talk--even though he is a missionary! I received a most valuable and magnificent present from the people to whom I lectured last night. Apparently the lecture pleased them--for of course no well-bred Japanese will tell one to one’s face that he is pleased or otherwise with anything one does. Mr. _Y----_ came to supper and we were all very merry.

=September 6.=--Another present! The Inspector of Mines “fears I shall not be able to get good food when I leave Sapporo” and brings me a dozen tins of the best meats! chicken, beef, and all kinds of things. I often wonder why people say that the Japanese are not sincere in their kindness.

I saw a most interesting method of laying a foundation of a native building--two dozen women pulling on a fan of ropes, and singing in a weird way, half drawing and twisting between each pull. A couple of men directed the heavy pounder which they raised in this way, and let it fall with a crash to stamp down the earth.

In the afternoon I paid two official and one delightful call, and saw the beginning of the “Opening of the University” decorations. The College attains the dignity of a University on September 11. They are still actively building new departments and have unlimited ground for more; the whole temple of learning is most pleasing, extensive, and picturesque.

=September 7.=--I left early for Shiroi, a small village which is largely pure Aino. A contingent saw me off at Sapporo, and I was extremely sorry to say farewell to some of them; but to be alone once more is a real pleasure. At Shiroi I saw all there was to be seen; the little straw homes and boats (it is a fishing village) of the Aino are very different from those of the Japanese.

Some of the Aino are extremely picturesque and dignified-looking, their long, thick, black hair standing out all round their patriarchal heads. They are not all small; most of the men I have seen are taller than I am, and very thick-set. The women are terribly disfigured by green tattoo marks on their faces, the most essential of which is the one across the lips, which has the appearance of a moustache. One or two of the young women who have not been tattooed are very handsome. They are a fundamentally different race from the Japanese, and there is very good evidence that they are actually descended from the stone-tool using people, who once covered all the Japanese islands.

I came on to Noboribetsu to spend the night. It is about ten miles from the station, and to it runs the first road I have yet seen outside a village. Such a road! It is a marvel to me how we ever got out of its swamps and ruts, and how the wheels could all be at such extremely various and varying angles without coming off. Half-way there it got dark, and the rest of the journey we went tearing down little slopes or crashing and jolting over the ruts, when there was only a margin of about a foot between us and a ravine. Yet nothing happened.

=September 8.=--I spent last night in the crater of a semi-active volcano! Yet it was not so thrilling as it sounds. The crater is nearly a mile across, and much of it is just like a deep-wooded circular valley, in which are a little hotel and one or two houses. Only a couple of hundred yards or so away from the hotel the active part remains, however, and there are vents and small cones, bubbling streams of boiling water, and piles of sulphur in any quantity. Some of the boiling basins are black and solid-looking, and some frisky with little geysers--most of them tame enough for close acquaintance, but a few dangerous and impossible to approach. As I look out on the hotel garden the steam rises in thick clouds from the boiling stream bubbling through it, which is utilised for baths. The Guide-book naively says: “The only drawback to a visit to the springs of Noboribetsu is the chance of meeting naked bathers.” I would say “_certainty_ of meeting.” But I got off quite alone and went up through the woods, following a track of course--it would be mad to leave it here--and saw three snakes in an hour, one nearly 4 feet long hardly moved from the path. I met an Aino, tattooing and all, and we exchanged a few courtesies in bad Japanese. Aino itself is a curiously hard language, nearly all _k’s_.

=September 9.=--A wet drizzling day, which blurs all the landscape, so that trees, sky, rain and sulphurous clouds all merge into one another. The air is heavy, and full of the odour of rotten eggs. I am the only European here, and am living absolutely _à la Japonaise_. The place is entirely untouched by our civilisation, and my room is a gem of native art: the delicate wooden trellis-work and bands of black lacquer on the paper doors and windows, the beautiful heavy metal fire-pot and embossed kettle are _real_ Japanese of good quality. I sincerely wish I could bring such a room to London, it would delight those followers of the _art nouveau_ who have retained some of their original conceptions of the beauty of simplicity. I was rather glad to leave the hot choking fumes, however, and reach Mororan at night. It is a pretty little port, in a beautiful bay forming a splendid natural harbour. I went on board at 9 o’clock at night.

=September 10.=--We should have arrived at 10 or 11 o’clock this morning at Aomori (on the main island), but there was a storm, the tail of one of the typhoons which are abounding this year, and we did not get in until after 4 in the afternoon. While waiting three hours to catch the train I saw a little of the town, and spent some time soothing a distracted missionary and his wife, recently from America, and not yet accustomed to waiting, and trusting large sums of money to Japanese porters with no guarantee that they would get the tickets they wanted. Japan takes some learning, and a highly-strung American accustomed to New York bustle must find it a peculiarly hard lesson.

=September 11.=--I arrived at Matsushima station at 5 o’clock this morning and took a _kuruma_[2] to the place itself, on the way stopping to climb a small hill which overlooks the wonderful archipelago--one of the three greatest sights of Japan. As I sat there the sun rose, and lit up the gleaming water and the thousand pine-decked islands, whose shapes are so fantastic that one can only imagine them to be the work of the drollest of trolls, who with his drollery had a soul that was rare enough to combine nobility of beauty with fantastic form.

[2] The native name for the mail-cart-like hand-carriage I called a rickshaw at first. It is only in Yokohama and such Europeanised places that the word rickshaw is understood.

The hamlet of Matsushima is built among similar rocks on the dry land, which has certainly risen from the sea. This little place, utterly unspoiled by European influence (I did not even see a European hat), is the Japan I have dreamed of, and had begun to fear I should not find. I cannot describe it here; if anything can move me to write literature some day, it may be that place as I saw it at sunrise.

I sailed among the fairy islands in a dreamland boat--which went so slowly and so smoothly that I thought it did not move--to Shiogama, in which I saw no romance, and took a _kuruma_ for 5 miles off the line of beaten roads, and the railway to a tiny hamlet by the sea. Here I put up in an inn built on a little rocky peninsula, which is just big enough to hold it and a few pine trees. When the tide is in we cannot get into the front door! The room which I have opens on two sides to the sea, the front is shut off only by folding-doors from another with three sides open to the sea, so that at will I could have my three walls removed and the sea view all round. A more ideally beautiful situation it would be quite impossible to find: on either side stretch blue bays with sandy shores, and rocky islets with twisted pines growing on them in all manner of ways, and beyond lie line after line of blue hills, which in the distance merge into the blue sky.

=September 12.=--To-day was spent in finding out paths to tiny fishing hamlets along the coast, and seeing ever new and delightful rocks--one is pierced by a big hole, 30 feet or so above sea-level.

At night there was a great sensation in the bay, as many big fishing-boats came in. On the shore they lit huge blazing fires, the men and women singing all the time, and every now and then one of them seizing a burning brand and rushing into the water with it up to their necks, and even swimming out with it to the boats. The new moon rose clear and sparkling above the bay. It seemed wicked to go to bed. I am the only visitor of any kind staying in this hotel.

=September 13.=--My hours are primitive: rising with the sun about 6, and breakfasting; eating again at 12 and 6, and going to bed after seeing the sunset shadows deepen into night and the stars rise over the sea--_i.e._ about 7 o’clock.

I walked into Shiogama for some shopping, but was much noticed by the country people, for I wore a white blouse, a skirt, and hat. Here the women all wear long blue trousers and short tunic-like kimonos, and I found they took no notice of me at all when I wore what I wore in the mountains, namely, short close knickers and coat to match.

=September 15.=--Alas, it is the last day of my short holiday. The weather has been perfect these four days.

=September 16.=--A long and tedious day travelling, beginning at 5 in the morning. I did not reach my Tokio home till 11 at night, and then found that they had given me up and all gone to bed. On the way I had to change and wait two hours at Sendai, which I therefore explored a little. It is noted for ornaments and trays made of fossil wood so-called, which is found in quantity in a mountain near by. It seems to be gymnospermic, however, and to correspond more to our “bog-oak” than to an actual fossil, so I lost scientific interest in it, but liked it well enough as a curiosity to buy some specimens.

=September 17.=--After a month’s absence my correspondence has accumulated, and to-day has been spent largely in reading and writing letters. Also, this is just the last day or so for the swimming out of the spermatozoids of _Ginkgo_, and I spent a few delightful hours in the Laboratory watching their infusorian-like movements and the quick vibrations of their spiral crowns of cilia. Fancy cutting up dozens of juicy Ginkgo seeds! I lunched in the Institute with the botanical staff, who have a wonderfully detailed knowledge of all my doings, likes and dislikes--from the newspaper! Apparently one or other of my retinue has acted as special correspondent for the papers. Mercifully, it is all published in Japanese characters, so that the European residents can’t read it, or I should not dare to present my introductions.

=September 18.=--A quiet day at the Institute, trying to overtake my writing arrears. The last forty-eight hours it has rained incessantly, and the roads are an interesting study. They may be divided into three main classes, viz. those which are well made, and which have been washed spotlessly clean by the rain--these are very few and far between; those which have retained the water, and mixed it with their own soil until there is a swamp of thick, boggy, squashy mud from 2 to 10 inches deep--these predominate; and those on which water alone is to be seen, varying from 2 inches to 3 feet in depth. Through a quarter of a mile of the latter I had to come, in a _kuruma_ of course, but the man was up to his hips in water, and I was glad indeed that my house is on the top of a hill as I saw the floods rushing through the houses.

=September 22.=--The roads of Tokio are a never-ending source of delight when their muddiness does not force itself home. A hundred times in a walk, even in the heart of the city, one comes upon a bend of the road where groves of bamboo or pine trees are seen, as though one were far away in the country; or a rivulet will cross the lane (so many of the city roads are like nothing but our country lanes), and its mossy banks hanging with ferns are luxuriant, as only our Lake District streams are luxuriant, in their glorious greenery of delicate fronds. Or perhaps a bend of the road will take one away from a little village of shops into a narrow avenue of straight-growing cryptomerias, leading to a tiny shrine or temple with its garden and moss-grown stepping-stones. Along the line of the electric city railway we all walk freely, and to-day I found corners of woodland and scraps of meadow along its course--little forgotten scraps of land where small bamboos and feathery grasses, and sweet white and blue flowers grow in brilliant, fresh, dustless perfection. A hundred times a day I ask myself, “Can this be a city?” While the main streets are “streety” enough, the charming spots are always only a few yards away from them.

I cannot understand how it is that land and rents are so outrageously dear, dearer even than in the parts of London just outside the city. Here so much seems to be left to run wild, or to form a garden or field round a tiny house--wasted commercially--but what a rich delight to those who live in this sweet garden city!

Early this morning I had a real Japanese experience. I was wakened at about 5 o’clock by a tremendous sensation among my walls and floor, as though they were all striving to part company. I at once thought of a typhoon, and as my floor was swaying like the ocean waves, I started to rush downstairs, my room being the only one on the second story. Then I rushed back, thinking of all the awful tales of robberies I had heard, and seeing a figure approaching me, I accosted it angrily and demanded it to give an account of itself and be off! It was some time before I recognised myself in the glass! All the time the floor was swaying violently in what I fancied was a fearful wind--when it suddenly stopped, and I lay down feeling very sea-sick. Then, and then only, did I remember that I was in a land of earthquakes, and had just experienced my first. I heard later in the day that it had been a moderately bad one.

=September 23.=--A rather broken day with papers at the Institute. I have not yet worked off my Hokkaido debt of letters and presents.

There was a local festival in the temple near my house, and the houses were gay with scarlet and white lanterns, and branches of scarlet and white paper flowers.

=September 24.=--A universal holiday, and the Institute is shut. The day was filled with sight-seeing, temples and gardens. Of the several I saw, two in the heart of the city were in such striking contrast as to be worth an attempt at description.

To the one, the approach was lined by rows of little open shops, whose trivial gaudy wares were pressed upon the throngs of passers-by. In the open court of the temple were many stalls and small tea-houses, and hundreds of pigeons fluttering about to be fed. One could buy one sen’s worth (about a farthing’s worth) of peas and rice from the numerous little stalls kept by ancient women. The birds did not appreciate my offering properly, as it was a festival, and they were already overfed, and so contented themselves with pruning their feathers perched on the great eaves of the temple, or on the nose or curly tail of some of the many great dragons. In the vestibule of the temple (this is hardly the right word, but I know no other to express it) hundreds of people clattered in their wooden clogs, and chattered loudly, gazing through the wire-netting into the inner portion, where the priests and readers in gorgeous array and pomp were carrying on a service. The whole effect was not unlike that of a good Roman Catholic Church, but more glittering and richer. As I was watching, a large part of the ceremony seemed to consist in turning over the folds of manuscript very rapidly, giving the effect of endless streams of writing. Into a money-box, as large as a small swimming bath, the devotees threw their small coins, often over the heads of the groups in front of them. Glitter, bustle, noise, and crowds characterise this temple. The other I found by chance in one of the dear little side roads I love. It stood grey and solemn in the midst of its green garden, its great bell in a little house beside it, and its old stone figures and great lotus of copper. Twisted pines and moss-grown paths around it, and behind a silent grove of pine and bamboo. Complete silence in the heart of the city, and though I remained in the garden some time no person came to disturb its peace. Greyness and greenness--and one brilliant golden butterfly dancing above the great green copper lotus, one shrub with scarlet flowers flung against a grey sky--and in the heart of it all the silence of Buddha, whose heart does not seem to beat as he contemplates the universe.

=September 25.=--A tiring day, but little to show for it. Tokio certainly makes one very sleepy, and also demands the expenditure of much time to get a small result.

=September 26.=--Official visit to the Director of the Survey--time spent getting there and back, three hours--length of visit, ten minutes. The rest of the day at the Institute.

=September 27.=--An amusing day spent at the sale by auction of all the household effects of the Spanish consul. It appears that these sales are recognised social functions, and all the good Society was represented, from the Embassy and some Baronesses downwards. I managed to get two feather pillows for twice what they cost in England, but half what they cost here in the shops; and so hope to rest more peacefully at night now. There is such a frightful duty on all foreign goods that every one here buys what they can at these sales; as they are all the goods of friends, which have sometimes been the round of several distinguished families, there is no feeling against obtaining them. It only wanted tea and a little music to be like an “At Home.”

=September 28.=--A quiet day at the Institute. The gardens surrounding it are largely situated on elevated ground, so that one looks down on tree tops and out over an expanse of clear blue sky and lovely light clouds. Now the temperature is like our best days in June, and the actual sunshine still hotter and brighter.

=September 29.=--Sunday--so we went to visit temples. This time to a tiny lonely one in the country to the north of the town. Though it was less than 10 miles out of Tokio, everything was fresh and beautiful, and quite untainted with the horrible suburban effect of our environs--it was real country, though not at all solitary. Between the green fields, where the crops looked as fresh and vigorously sprouting and green as with us in the late spring, were quiet lanes and narrow roads overhung by the swaying feathery shafts of the tall bamboos. Every quarter of a mile or so in all directions were little woods of bamboo and pine or cryptomeria, in the midst of which generally one or two small houses nestled, their thick thatches overgrown by the blue-flowered relative of tradescantia, which is here so pretty and so plentiful. Surrounded by its little grove of cryptomerias the wooden temple stands apart from all houses--a small closed building, hung with gaudy pictures from the devotees whose prayers have been answered. Leading to it is an imposing flight of well-kept stone steps, but as there is no gate, and a dozen paths through the wood lead to the temple by easier grades, they are more for show than use. A big stone trough stands filled with water for the worshippers to wash their hands before folding them in prayer--but I saw no worshippers, and I stayed there in the quiet for a number of hours.

A fraction of a mile away was the small ill-kept cemetery, with little grey headstones and forlorn wooden laths with the names of the dead, but no visible graves.

The tall _tsuzuki_ reed, with its clusters of feathery fruits standing out against the sky at evening, and the stars twinkling through the beautiful bamboo and the trees of sweet chestnuts, all seemed far too fresh and unsullied to be so near a city. The Japanese can certainly populate a place without defacing it. The absence of all railings and notice boards is also very soothing.

=September 30.=--A cut-up day at the Institute. Dr. _Y----_, one of the geologists from the Survey, visited me and we spent some time discussing the beds of Hokkaido. This country is an extremely difficult one for us all, so little is yet quite reliably finished, as exposures are so scarce.

=October 1.=--A long morning down at the Survey Offices with the Director and Dr. _Y----_, chiefly planning for the next venture, which is to be in the directly opposite direction from the last, and promises difficulties not a few. This time I _will not_ go with a huge escort like the last.

On the way back to the Institute I looked into the biggest drapers while the sale of the year was on--all Japanese of course, and very amusing.

=October 6.=--A miserable, wet day, spent with small profit at the Institute preparing for another long expedition. The least heavy rain seems to give rise to floods at some place or other, and again the roads were quite impassable except for the coolies, who drew my _kuruma_ through.

=October 8.=--I arrived at last at Okayama at about 3 in the afternoon, very dirty after the night in the train, and tired for want of food--to be met by a party of Japanese, most kind and welcoming, who took me to a charming hotel and kept me sitting and talking for two hours without a chance of even washing! They also took me to see the renowned Koraku-en garden, and it was half-past six before I could get a bath, and while I was still dressing the _kuruma_ came to take me off to a meeting of Naturalists, which took the form of a dinner in my honour.

The gardens of Koraku-en were certainly very pretty, but less so than one would expect from the descriptions of them one reads. They were once the private property of the owner of the castle at the foot of which they lie. In them are vistas and views cleverly constructed, and many pretty little rocky islands and bridges. There are also some sacred cranes which live in separate apartments in a house of their own, and which take the air and sun themselves in the best part of the day. What pleased me far more than these much-praised gardens were the little courts and gardens of the hotel in which I was staying. From my room I could look down from the verandah on to two little gardens, with dwarf trees and green paths and grey stepping-stones leading to imaginary distances.

On my way out, for the house was large and rambling, with several ways, I could pass a square garden but 10 feet or so big, in which was a little temple, with lanterns and lions and gateway all complete. Here every evening the lanterns were lit, and incense sticks glowed, sending a sweet scent along the corridors. It was the smallest temple I have seen, and also one of the prettiest additions to a house.