CHAPTER II.

From Mororran to the Saru River.

Thirteen more miles in a _basha_--for I was still in civilised regions--took me to Horobets--a village half Ainu and half Japanese.

The Ainu often name their villages after rivers, and this word Horobets, which in English means "large river," is an instance of this custom. In Southern Japan, previous to my visiting Yezo, I was told that nearly all the Ainu of Horobets had become "good Christians." If such were the case, which I do not wish my readers to doubt, the small experience which I had here, led me to believe that "good Christians" often make "very bad heathens."

I left all my baggage in a tea-house at the entrance of the village, and, taking my paint-box with me, I went for a walk along the beach. I saw a crowd of Ainu in the distance, and I hurried up to them. They were busy skinning a large Ushi-sakana (cow-fish), cutting it into pieces with their long knives. They did not pay much attention to me, and this disregard of what would be to others a cause of curiosity and interruption I afterwards found to be a characteristic of the Ainu. They are seldom distracted from any particular idea that occupies their mind at a certain moment. In fact, they are so little accustomed to reflect at all, that it seems almost impossible for them to think of two things at the same time. Of all the existing races of mankind they may be said to be the most purely one-idea'd.

Stark naked, with their long hair streaming in the wind, they formed a picturesque group. What a chance for a sketch! I sat down on the sand, opened my paint-box, and dashed off a picture, when a young lad, who had taken his share of the fish, came over to see what I was doing. "What is it?" he asked me in broken Japanese, to which question I answered that I was painting the group of them. The news seemed to give him a shock. He rejoined the others, excitedly muttered some words, and apparently told them that I had painted the whole group, fish and all. Had anyone among them been struck by lightning, they could certainly not have looked more dismayed. I never knew until then that painting could have such an overpowering effect on people, except, perhaps, when one has sat to an amateur artist for one's own likeness, the result of which is often one of dumb and blank amazement. Anger and disgust naturally followed. The fish was thrown aside, but not the knives, armed with which they all rushed at my back. The sudden change of ideas had evidently made them exceedingly angry. The grumbling became very loud, and louder still when they saw me complacently giving the finishing touches to the fish, which was now left alone, and not as before shifted about every second. They grew wilder and wilder, until one of the crowd shouted in my ears some words which sounded remarkably like swearing. Nevertheless it takes more than that to stop me from sketching; but ... "By Jove!" I exclaimed, when, all of a sudden, a rush was made on me. My paint-box, picture, palette and brushes were snatched out of my hands and smashed or flung away, and I found myself stretched on the sand, my late involuntary sitters holding me down fast by the legs and arms. A big knife was kept well over my head, so that I should not attempt to move, while the painting, on a heavy wooden panel, was being mercilessly destroyed by others. "If these are Christians, well I am ..." were, I must confess, the first words that rose to my lips.

It is, indeed, difficult to describe how and what one feels when, to all appearance, one is going to be murdered--for painting a fish! My first thought, of course, went to my parents. My next was, what a nuisance it was to be murdered with the sun shining in my eyes, so that I could not even see who would give me the "finishing touch." All the events of my life, the bad ones first, flashed across my mind in those few seconds, and then I almost began to feel as if I had made my first steps into the other world, and I could see angels and devils disputing for my company--the devils, of course, having by far the largest claims. The bitterness of death had in some sense passed, when, to my great astonishment, and with a few, but very sound, kicks I was made to understand that I could get up and go.

The sensation of being brought back to life, when one has made up one's mind to be dead, notwithstanding the abrupt manner in which it was produced, was indeed a pleasant one. I did get up, and pretty quick, I can tell you; but only to see my poor wooden paint-box floating half-smashed in the sea, my brushes stuck here and there in the sand, and the sketch utterly destroyed.

My assailants were about fifteen or twenty, and I was alone. Stupidly enough, and relying on the Christianity of the people, I had not burdened myself with the extra weight of my revolver; I had left it with my heavy luggage in the small Japanese tea-house where I had put up, nearly a mile away. The Japanese police-station was at Washibets, another village some miles off. Nothing was left for me but to pick up the few unbroken brushes which were within easy reach and retire; but I was neither frightened nor conquered, and I swore to myself that I would have my revenge. I hurried to the tea-house, took my revolver, and filled my pocket with cartridges, then I ran back to the spot where I had sketched and been assaulted. There they all were as I had left them, one of them mimicking me with the broken palette, which he had fished out of the sea. I had kept well behind some thick brushwood, so that they should not see me, and for some time watched them unobserved. The imitation was perfect. The impromptu Raphael's hair was long enough to give him the look of an artist, and he was sufficiently brave to carry on his imitation sketching under a shower of missiles and sand thrown at him by his friends and companions. As he turned his head I recognised in my brother-artist the man who had been holding the knife over my head about an hour before, and also the very person who had given me the soundest kick. Just like a brother-artist! If my sketching had not lasted long, his parody was even shorter. I sprang out from the brushwood screen and caught him by the throat, pointing my revolver at his head, and telling him in Japanese to follow me to the police-station. Another man, attacking me from behind, stabbed me in my left arm, but not very severely, as I saw him just in time to avoid his blow. The sight of my revolver had a salutary effect on my hairy friends, and they were done out of their fun when, keeping them at bay, I told them that if they did not follow me they would all be dead men before they knew where they were. They had seen guns of the Japanese, and they knew the effects of them, so the saucy gentlemen stroked their hair and beard and made signs of submission and obedience. However, I was not to be easily appeased, as it was necessary to give them a lesson to prevent the same thing happening to future travellers; so I made them march in front of me, not caring to have them at my back, and thus took them all to the Japanese police-station, where they were duly arrested. The Japanese are very severe with recalcitrant Ainu, and my assailants would have been unmercifully dealt with had it not been for their wives and children, who came to me begging me to forgive their husbands and fathers for what they had done. I willingly did so, on condition that they should all come and prostrate themselves at my feet, imploring pardon and forgiveness and offering submission, as well as confessing their sorrow. This penitential function was reluctantly fixed by the Japanese policeman--the only one in the place--at a late hour in the afternoon. During the interval, as I fortunately had a large supply of painting materials, I managed to repaint from memory the scene represented in the sketch destroyed. The evening came, and the little Japanese policeman brought the resigned and humbled Ainu to the inn. Their wives and relatives followed, and they all looked supremely mournful and sad. I sat, Japanese fashion, on the small verandah on the ground-floor, and the policeman placed the Ainu on a line in front of me, and then came to sit by my side. He then addressed them, partly in the Ainu language, partly in Japanese, and bestowed on them names which went well to the point. He scolded them harshly, and asked them why they had assaulted me.

One of them, as grave as a judge, with his eyes cast down, and in a half-broken voice, came forward and said, that if once you have your likeness taken you have to give up your life to it, and it brings illness to yourself, to your children, your parents, and your neighbours. Not only that, but as I had _taken_ many people together, famine was sure to fall on the country. "Then," he added--and he seemed positive of what he was talking about--"then there was a fish the stranger _made_"--the Ainu have no word for painting--"and had we not destroyed his _makings_ all the fish would have disappeared from the sea, and all the Ainu would have died of starvation"--which was a terrible contingency, as the Ainu live mainly by fishing. "We have not hurt the stranger," continued this hairy representative of Master Eustache de St. Pierre, "and now that all the Ainu and the fish he made are destroyed we are safe."

"You are mistaken," said I, when, by the aid of the policeman, I understood the meaning of this long harangue, and I produced the large sketch of the scene which I had repainted from memory. This certainly beat them. They could hardly believe their own eyes, and looked at each other as if some great calamity were approaching. I have no doubt that they considered me an evil spirit, and, as such, too powerful to be contended with. Discretion was their best part of valour, as they proved. One by one they approached the verandah, sat cross-legged in front of me, rubbed their hands together, stroked their hair and beard three times, and three times each put his head down to my feet, begging my pardon. The Ainu women and children who had assembled in the back yard, where the function took place, were crying and moaning piteously. The most trying part for me was, of course, to keep serious during this long tragi-comic performance, and I was indeed glad when it was all over; when my supremacy was acknowledged, and my immunity from further insult secured; when submission had been made, and such whips and stings of outrageous fortune as might come from the painting of a fish had been humbly accepted.

The Ainu are gentle and mild by nature, but, like all ignorant people, they are extremely superstitious, and superstition is a powerful excitant. Nevertheless, they are good people in their own way, and it must not be inferred from this small experience of mine that they are bullies, for they are not. The superstition regarding the reproduction of images is common all through the East, with the exception of the Japanese, and in many parts of Europe itself strange ideas are connected with portrait-painting. In Spain or Italy many a girl of the lower classes would think herself dishonoured if she happened to be sketched unawares, or if her picture were shown without the consent of her parents, brothers, relatives, and the parish priest.

However, these Horobets Ainu are said, since civilisation has set in in that part of Yezo, of late years to have become untrustworthy and violent. They are more given to drunkenness than their neighbours, as they can procure from the Japanese stronger beverages than their own. _Sake_ (Japanese wine) of inferior quality is sold and exchanged in large quantities, and has the same fatal effects on them as rum--our fire-water--had on the American Indians.

I was not sorry to leave a village which had displayed so little appreciation of my art. I took two ponies and two pack-saddles, to one of which was lashed my baggage, while I sat on the other. Riding is a delightful pastime when you have a good horse and a good saddle; but not when you have to look after two vicious animals, and are yourself perched on a rough wooden pack-saddle. Moreover, Ainu pack-saddles are perhaps the most uncomfortable of their kind. The illustration shows one of them. It is made with a rough, solid wooden frame, of which the front and back parts are semicircular. One large hole is perforated in each of these to allow ropes to be passed through. Under this frame are two mat cushions or pads, which are somehow supposed to fit the pony's back; and by means of three ropes, one of which is passed under the pony's body and fastened on each side of the saddle, while the others hang loose across its chest and under its tail respectively, the pack-saddle is made to remain in position either going uphill, downhill, or on level ground. Stirrups, of course, there are none; and mounting involves some difficulties at first. One has to face one's pony and place the left foot on the breast-piece, lift oneself up and swing right round, describing three-quarters of a circle before attaining one's seat in the saddle. If distances are miscalculated in this gymnastic feat, it is a common occurrence to find oneself seated on the pony's neck, or else landed heavily on either of the two hard wooden arches of the saddle, instead of gracefully falling between them. Keeping your equilibrium when you are on is also a trying exercise to anybody not born and bred a circus rider, and balancing your baggage perfectly on each side of the saddle is somewhat more difficult than it sounds.

Nine miles from Horobets one comes across the Nobori-bets[1] hot-springs. There was, formerly, a _geiser_ here, but it is seldom active now. These hot-springs are situated two-and-a-half miles from the sea-coast, and a miserable building, which is a mere shanty, is built in the vicinity of them, where people who wish to be cured of different complaints put up and take the waters.

[1] _Nobori_, mountain, volcano; _bets_, river, stream.

I rode on to the Noboribets village, consisting of a few houses only; and, though I reached it late in the evening, I had to ride fourteen miles further to Shiraoi, "a place of horse-flies."[2]

[2] _Shirao_, horse-fly; _i_, a suffix meaning _a place_.

At sunrise I was up again and on my way to Tomakomai,[3] the largest Japanese fishing village between Mororran and Cape Erimo.

[3] _To_, lake, swamp; _mak_, behind; _oma_, inside; _i_, a suffix meaning _a place_, or "a place behind which a hidden swamp is found."

Sardine fishing is the principal and, indeed, the only industry of the place. It is carried on in a practical way. When the long nets are ready, and one end of them is fastened to the shore, they launch the boat, which is rowed rapidly by twenty or thirty strong men, while the net is dropped as the boat goes along. Having thus described a semicircle, the boat is beached. All on board jump out, and the net is pulled on shore amid the shrieks and yells of the excited fishermen. Myriads of sardines are caught each time the net is hauled in; and it is a fantastic scene to see the naked crowd which, in clearing the nets from the beheaded fish, get covered with silver scales, which stick to their arms, legs, and body, and give them a strange appearance.

_Look-out_ towers are built on four high posts, where a watchman is posted to signal the arrival and approach of the shoals. The sea is so dense with them that it changes its colour, and these moving banks of sardines are distinguishable four or five miles from the coast. This method is the same as that adopted in Cornwall when the pilchards are expected, and the same discoloration of the sea takes place.

From Tomakomai a road branches to the north leading to Sappro, the capital of Hokkaido, and it is the last place on the southern coast which is visited by that rare specimen of the globe-trotter who ventures to Yezo. He hastily makes his way from here to Sappro and Otaru on the northern coast, and waits for a ship to be conveyed back to Hakodate. He then, of course, tells his friends that he has been round and about and through Yezo, while in fact he has seen absolutely nothing of Yezo or its inhabitants. About half-a-dozen Europeans, however, have been further on--as far as the Saru River; and each one has written a book on the Ainu, for the most part copying what the previous author had written.

As far as Tomakomai there is a road--a sure sign of civilisation--but nothing but a horse-track is to be found all along the southern coast after this place has been passed.

Changing my ponies at Yuhuts,[4] nine miles east, and again at Mukawa and Saru-buto, I was able to reach Saru Mombets that same night. Many Ainu and Japanese fishermen's huts are scattered between Horohuts[5] and Yuhuts, on the sandy track along the sea.

[4] _Yu_, springs; _huts_, mouth of river.

[5] _Horo_, large; _hut_, _huts_, _put_, the mouth of a river.

The traveller then leaves the sea on the right, and by a very uneven track, and after fording several rivers of little importance comes to Mukawa, a dirty little village fourteen miles from Yuhuts. My lunch that day consisted of a large piece of raw salmon, which was easily digested in riding nine more miles to Saru-buto. Sharu in Ainu, corrupted into Saru, means a grassy plain; and _buto_ is a Japanese corruption of the Ainu word _huts_, the mouth of a river. My ponies must have known of this "grassy plain," for they went remarkably well, and I reached the latter village some time before dark, so that I was able to push on to Saru Mombets, a larger village nearly four miles further. Saru Mombets translated means "a tranquil river in a grassy plain," a name thoroughly appropriate to the locality.

There is nothing to interest the traveller along the coast, unless he be a geologist. Almost the whole of the western part of the Iburi district is of volcanic formation. The eastern part is abundant in sandstones, breccias, and shales. In the neighbourhood of Yuhuts, and all along the coast as far west as Horobets, pumice forms the surface soil, showing that in former days frequent eruptions must have taken place. Vegetable mould alternates with pumice. Sand, clay, tufa, with beds of peat and gravel, are the components of the soil which is found filling up the declivities of mountains, covering low-lands and sea-beaches in this part of the island. Specimens of the palæozoic group are found in the pebbles of the Mukawa River and valley, like amphibolite, limestone, phyllite, sandstone, and clay-slate, besides variegated quartzite of greenish and red layers. Primary rocks are common all through Iburi and Hidaka.

The terraces surrounding the Saru valley are mostly wooded with oak, and the swampy region between the Mukawa and Sarubuto has many patches of green grass, and a thick growth of high swamp reeds.