Part 4

The dinner with the Naturalists was a somewhat trying affair. There was but one lady and she was obviously asked for my sake, and was put next me at the table. The President and I sat opposite to each other in the middle of the long table, and kept something of a conversation going, though I had to furnish all the subjects, which was a little difficult after more than twenty-four hours’ travelling and no rest after my arrival. The others were mute, except when I turned to ask a definite question, or said something which the President repeated to them, and suggested discussion. All could speak English nominally. The dinner was in foreign style and included four meat courses, and I found few of those present knew which things to eat with which table implement, so I was repaid in kind for the entertainment I must have afforded while learning to use chop-sticks. Fortunately it was possible to leave very early, and I welcomed a good night in my charming Japanese room.

=October 9.=--I was up at 6 to start to the real place for work and was seen off by a deputation, and shaken for some time in the train of a local branch line. After that came the truly awful business of the day--four hours in a _kuruma_!

The _kuruma_ is a kind of mail-cart on two wheels (country specimens have no springs), and is drawn by a man over stony roads. The works of the thing jolt, jingle, and clang till one’s head splits and one’s bones feel sore.

The road lay along a very beautiful valley, however, cut out of the steep rocky sides running along the broad and beautiful river of Takahashi. I entirely escaped the Guide-book--not so easy a job either, as it is written by Chamberlain, who knows the country better than most Japanese, and who has numerous collaborators who seem to inform him of minute details, even of very out-of-the-way places. At the end of the journey I found a much better inn than I expected under the circumstances.

Then the excitement began--and I had to explain at the Prefecture that I had come to see coal, and to find out where it was. The maps are so small (Geol. Survey though they be) that one is extremely dependent on local information. To do all this in Japanese with people who did not understand a syllable of English, was no joke! It is the first time I have been so absolutely cut off from English; they could not even read Japanese names in Romaji print, in which my maps and all scientific things are now done. It was interesting--and I hammered away till I got my end, and found the _Triassic_ coal I sought, but, alas, there was nothing in it of value to me. The trouble I had to get it began in Tokio, where they told me first it didn’t exist, second, that it was finished and the mines stopped down. In Okayama also they said no coal in this district existed--instinct kept me at it, however, and though the people even here said there was none, I insisted there was--and lo! after a while they took me to it. It was the very smallest and most primitive coal mine I ever saw, it is true--but it was coal. To-morrow I am going to another place: it is sad to find no fossils just here, they would have been such a triumph!

My dinner consisted of rice, green peas, and boiled chestnuts, with a little fish as well. One learns to value green peas, even though they be cold and floating in the water in which they were boiled, and eaten one by one with chop-sticks!

No three consecutive minutes of peace were allowed to me. I was desperately tired, and though I sat with my eyes shut for quite long periods and hardly spoke to them at all, my visitors sat on and on till I was frantic. I have a fellow-feeling now for animals at the Zoo.

=October 10.=--While still in bed, visitors began again this morning, and I had to shout to prevent an official visitor from coming in while I was taking off my night-gown. On starting two of them came with me, and their number more than doubled before the day was out. More terrible hours of _kuruma_ riding--but the little village of Jito was worth a visit. Early in the morning heavy downy mists hung round the hills, and swirled up from the trees as the sun caught them. All the thousands of cobwebs were like fairy banners on the trees, and the rocky sides of the mountains rose from the rivers to be lost in the alluring distances. It was a sight well worth the shivering and the jolting, and directly the sun shone on one it gave a comforting heat. The nights are extremely cold, almost wintry, but the days are as hot as midsummer, hence the thick mists.

We entered the mine, which, unfortunately, though Triassic, is of no interest to me. A kind of dinner was given at the hotel at 2 o’clock, and I saw many rather crude native customs.

The man who had led me in the mine, whom I took to be a coolie, and to whom I gave sixpence, turned up at dinner. In the mine his entire costume had consisted of a striped flannelette shirt, very short, and a stand-up white collar!! Literally no more, and that was donned of course in my honour. Trousers with a red stripe down each leg, and socks, were added for the dinner.

Everything in this country seems to be the reverse of what it is with us, and here the dinner _starts_ with much drinking of _saké_ and very frequent exchange of the small cups; then no more is drunk and the food begins and finishes the feast.

After the coal mine business was finished, I was taken to a big school where there were festive sports going on, very similar in the main to our school sports, and obviously in imitation of them. Many of the boys and girls (the schools are mixed) were pretty and bright, though the Japanese child has not yet appealed to me as it does to those who gush over it.

=October 11.=--Things began at 6 this morning, when all the world was shivering in its thick white mantle of mist. After riding for a couple of hours the sun drove it all away, and by 10 o’clock I was streaming with perspiration from every pore as I went up the hills toward the little coal mine I had come out to see.

I thought I had fully impressed on the Japanese man who acted as local guide that I was desperately pressed for time and must return to the railroad town to-night--but after a couple of hours I found myself inside the big “middle school,” bowing to an English-speaking head, who soon asked me to give a lecture! Of course I refused, and said I was going _at once_ to the coal mine, and would then return to Tatai, but he accompanied me to the mine, leaving his rightful duties with not the smallest compunction, and on the way requested me to stop and have my photograph taken. The Japanese are perfectly infuriating to one with a definite object and precious time. I cannot here retail the multitudinous instances of senseless delay I have had to suffer from, nor the irrelevant things I have had to examine. If I were to go at their rate I should be still looking at coal mines in Japan ten years hence. But I must not forget that I am seeing the country if I am not getting directly to my goal, and that I am in myself a certain amount of entertainment for them, a kind of creature they have not heard of before.

After a rather fruitless couple of hours in the mine (results locally interesting, as the Imperial Survey has mapped the district as solid granite) I had six hours in a _kuruma_ returning to Tatai. The _kuruma_ was just as uncomfortable as country ones always are, and as I was packed in with my fossils so that I could not change my position, and the roads were in places very bad, I was hardly in the mood at the end of the journey to be put into a train, merely to wait stock-still at the first local stopping-place for three-quarters of an hour. I am becoming far more patient than Job ever was, but at times my stock of patience runs out.

Apart from the mere weariness of one’s bones, the _kuruma_ ride was very delightful. Every time I see the little groves of feathery bamboo in their grace and sweetness I rejoice anew. The valleys along which the road wound were very steep, and the great granite hills majestic and beautiful. The plants, too, are often charming, and one frequently sees a single trail of ampelopsis flung across the grey boulders. One great wall of granite was covered with blood-red ampelopsis and capped with the native pine, which is so rich in curious curves, and so green against the sapphire sky.

Although the country is quite wild and unspoiled, all along the flatter part of the valleys were very many houses--clusters of houses or hamlets lying at intervals of about one-eighth of a mile. It seems curious how the little rice fields, which are tucked into every available damp corner, can support so many people. Straw plaiting is also a source of income, and in almost every house some one was twisting the short lengths of gleaming white straw into braids.

The greatest charm of Japan is the way the natives have of inhabiting, even thickly populating, a district without in the least spoiling it--except of course where there is a railway, a few yards on either side are necessarily spoiled a little.

The single line of telegraph wire puzzled me not a little to-day. I could not imagine why, when it was raised in the usual way on posts 20 feet or more, it should be made of _barbed wire_, when I discovered that the effect was caused by millions of dragon-flies, perched singly on it at intervals of about 6 inches from each other! I never saw two closer than that, or more than 18 inches apart, for about 10 miles! Now and then one would fly off, or another settle, but most of them sat quite motionless on the wire. So the only “barbed wire” I have seen in Japan was made voluntarily by blue dragon-flies who sat there to sun themselves.

=October 12.=--The hour for rising gets earlier every day. This morning it was 5 o’clock, with the prospect of 12–14 hours in a wretched slow train. I am writing in the train now, at the stoppings, which are never less than five minutes, and often ten or fifteen minutes long, at every station. The whole distance in all these hours of travel will be less than 200 miles. The people in the train are, of course, a little interesting, but far more saddening. Where the train with its Western atmosphere has penetrated, the beautiful and dignified robes, the silken skirts and kimonos of both men and women, though principally of the men, are giving place to a hybrid mixture of all the vulgar and hideous garments of “civilisation.” Only a few of the most cultured Japanese know how to dress in good taste in our things, the others are unspeakable.

Just now the train is skirting a part of the coast of the famous “Inland Sea,” and small islands lie thickly scattered in it, with their pines clinging by great twisting roots on to their rocks. The persimmon trees, with their great golden fruits, look very beautiful beside the pines, and are richly laden with their delicious fruit, so that they are noticeable from quite a distance.

After arriving at Tokuyama in the evening I went at once to the Naval Briquette factory of the Government, who own the coal mine farther on which I wish to see. A most courteous and charming Director, who had been in both France and England, put me on my way.

=October 13.=--I started early by train for Omine, where the mine lies on a little railway built on purpose for it during the last war. The coal is one of the very few smokeless ones in Japan, and therefore very important. Omine is a tiny hamlet, practically composed of miners and mine officials,--where the inn is poor but every one only too anxious to please.

The mines are interesting scientifically, of Rhaetic age. As they belong to the Navy, the surgeon attached to the mines wears the uniform of a Naval Officer, little sword and all, and is very smart. The coal is carried for a long distance by iron baskets on wires across valleys--stretches of wire 200 yards, with no support. It is so strange to find the mixture of modern engineering and science with such primitive native ways.

The weather is lovely, still scorching midsummer sunshine floods the hills, on which a tree here and there shows a flare of crimson autumn colouring.

=October 14.=--The Chief Engineer here is most helpful, and offered to come with me to Habu, a very small mine 20 kilometres or so distant, where we had to travel by _kuruma_. At first I refused, but afterwards I was very glad his importunity had prevented my coming alone. The _kuruma_ left us to walk the last 3-4 kilometres. There was no definite road, and an old woman volunteered to guide us across little tracks through rice fields and along the sandy seashore, and through rice fields again. The maps of course show none of these footpaths, and without Japanese help it would have been impossible to find the place. The mine, when we got there, was the most primitive I have ever seen, smaller than at Nariwa. On the way our old woman leader took us up from the shore to a big house standing by itself, telling us that here the manager of the mine lived. As we had despaired of ever finding the mine, this encouraged us, but we found the house was only in the process of building, and was of course not inhabited. It was a beautiful house, with a great temple-like porch gate, an inner courtyard, and quite a number of out-houses and servants’ dwellings. Then, when we came to the mine, we found the owner to be a common working man, and we saw his wife going into the mine to work like the rest of the peasant women! The whole situation seemed so ridiculously incongruous. A case of _nouveau riche_ retaining their old habits while their palace was being built.

In the mines I have often come across women, naked to the waist and up to the knee, working underground with the men. To-day I saw such a pretty girl, and her beautiful rounded body was far too sweet to be smeared with coal.

To-night we went on to Shimonoseki, and my Omine companion kindly took me to his father’s house there. A delightful house, with a great flight of rough granite steps leading up to it like those to a temple. Here I inhabited three big rooms, opening out of each other, as well as a dressing-room. They were extremely kind, and only spoiled things by refusing to believe that I could prefer not to have chairs, etc. brought into their rooms for my use. I pleaded with them, and was allowed to sit on cushions on the floor, but could not escape a European dinner instead of the true Japanese meal. However, it was very good, and I made up for several past meals of poor quality. I was given the seat of honour, and my host and I ate alone--his father, mother, aunt, and sister visiting us for short intervals, and bringing various things, but never sitting with us. They are certainly wealthy people, and not very cultured, yet there was not the slightest attempt at display. All that the rooms contained were a single vase of beautiful flowers in the corner by the _kakemono_ (long picture), a couple of quaint ornaments, cushions, and in one of the rooms a beautiful polished table 6 inches high, on which was a carved tray with hand-painted tea-cups, and the _hibachi_ (charcoal brazier) with an ornamental kettle boiling on it.

=October 15.=--I got up about 5.30, and crossed over to Kiushiu--my host coming to see me off and giving all possible help. I did not arrive at the mine--Namazuta--till 12.30. The mine is a large one, and though of Tertiary age, contains very many interesting stones.

After examining the mine I returned very late at night to Fukuoka, having escaped proper meals all day. The chief of the coal mine kindly gave me fish and rice and a few real Japanese things at 4.30. At Fukuoka the inn very noisy, but otherwise all right.

=October 16.=--Noise kept me awake till after 12, and I had to get up about 6.30. I visited the head office, where officials are arranging for my introduction to several small mines in Amakusa, which is an island off the island of Kiushiu--and on which no human being speaks a word of English, and all the natives speak such a curious dialect that even the Japanese themselves cannot understand it. I guess I shall have a gay time. On this whole expedition the amount of hours of travelling per hour in a coal mine is very great, and I seem to be going night and day to see a mine here and there. (Things have got wrong here somehow. I have forgotten to mention the Miike mine.)

Some of the scenery is very beautiful, and though, of course, I am missing all the regulation sights, I see glimpses of beauty here and there.

The train arrived very late at Misumi, a little port, from which I shall go to Amakusa. The moon was shining over the calm sea, stretching into many inlets and set with many islands, and the effect was most beautiful and romantic. Though I thought the train had landed me in Misumi, it turned out that I had to take a _kuruma_ to the hotel, and it went right out into the country, over a hill where not a human being or habitation was to be seen, and I began to think the _kuruma_ man had designs on my life and purse. After half an hour he landed me on the other side of the peninsula, where the village proper lies, and where there is a moderately good hotel. On the ride we passed many mud-walled thatched cottages, without a sign of life in them. The Japanese live in open houses by day, but at night they put boarded shutters up before every window, so that no one (at least no Japanese, _I_ insist on mine being opened) in Japan sleeps with fresh air round him, which, I believe, is the reason there is so much consumption. They cannot see the silliness of doing this, and are constantly bragging that they live in the open air, when all their eight to nine hours of sleep are spent in these very stuffy rooms, with a lamp and generally a charcoal fire burning beside them.

=October 17.=--The boat was supposed to start at 9 A.M. this day, but 1 P.M. saw it still gaily coaling. It is the very smallest steamer I have ever been in, not really as good as a ferry-boat, but the prospective journey is to last twelve hours. While waiting about the landing-place I saw many strange fish which were being brought in. One big fishing-boat had a load of huge creatures, bigger than men, of two kinds. One kind like lovely dragons, with long snouts and great wing-like fins, the other fish the most curious I have ever seen, and apparently, though I don’t know at all, some kind of shark. They were about 8 feet long and thick as a man’s body, and their heads were quite flat and square-ended.

I could not have imagined such strange creatures, a drawing gives none of the extraordinary effect they made lying there in numbers, their great flat bodies heavier than a man could lift unaided. They are to be eaten, but seem to me to be terribly coarse.

There is no first class on this steamer, and I am the only second class passenger, but as my portion should be in a minute cabin with stuffy curtains and tightly fixed port-holes, I am squatting on deck with the third class people, who are as thick as flies round a honey-pot. There are mats spread on the deck, and most of the people are lying on them wedged against each other. I am sitting on my bags, leaning fairly comfortably against the rail and next to the only man who is a real cute traveller. He has spread his blanket (Japanese always travel with blankets, generally _white_ ones!) its full size, and is lying in the middle, with a clear 2 feet of spare space all round him, and it is characteristic of Japanese travellers that though the others are terribly crowded no one sits on his blanket or asks him to curtail its extent. The scenery is lovely, and the sea without a ripple. On every side are hills with range after range of jagged peaks, and in the sea countless pine-decked islands; land lies all round, and it is difficult to believe one is at sea. 2 P.M.--I am certainly seeing life: we have just had tea in picnic fashion, squatting here together--and indeed most picnics are made to far less beautiful places than this island-dotted sea. One of the women had brought a tray of small cakes, all looking excellent, but most of them made with the sweet bean paste I have not yet learned to like, though there were delicious sponge-cakes as well, five of which I got for 1¼d.--and I paid three farthings for my tea, which was three times what any one else did. They would have given it to the foreigner for nothing--but one must support the honour of one’s country in a far land, and I have learned that though the Japanese give very freely and refuse a dozen times to take payment, they are not really at all averse to receiving it.[3]

[3] I now know that I ought to have given very much more than three times the price to the peasants had I been anywhere but in the most unsophisticated parts.

We are twisting in and out of the inlets and coming very close to the islands, and if the landscape were not so much softer and greener and more rounded, I could well imagine we were in the Fjords of Norway. The rocks are in places very white, and here and there near villages are groups of lime-kilns of primitive type. There are fleets of fishing-boats everywhere--and I believe (by this time I have seen a good deal of the country) that there are no consecutive 2 miles along the whole coast of Japan without a fishing village! It is not on the coast, but in the mountains that the really solitary places are to be found.

I arrived almost in the middle of the night, to be welcomed on the ship by various folk, from the inn-keeper upwards and downwards--there was a regular lantern procession of people. They all stopped round or in my room to talk or stare, according to their social stations; the landlord coming midway, he sat just outside the limit of the room--which was, of course, widely opened on three sides--and held converse with all of us within, or hurled abuse at all the maids and boys and small children who collected without. Fortunately the chief official of the mines left soon, intimating that it was late, so I got to bed earlier than I expected and slept well, though, as my window-walls were wide open, it was so light that I had to put up my umbrella. It is getting quite usual for me to sleep under my open umbrella, and as the mats they spread on the floor are never more than 3 or 4 inches thick, it feels very like sleeping on the seashore, and I quite enjoy it, though at first I used to wake up and wonder where I could be.

=October 18.=--Early this morning I started to look at mines--with five people in my official train. This island is one of the least civilised of Japan, and there are practically no roads on it, though tracks here and there, and some surprisingly big coal mines. We went from place to place on foot and in small fishing-boats across the bays, which would have caused very long detours to walk round; and these were numerous, for these islands are very much cut up, and the sea surprises one everywhere one goes, generally on two or three sides at once.