The sky is the limit
ISBN: 9788893454117
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Table of contents
Preface
LETTER I
LETTER II
LETTER III
LETTER IV
LETTER V
LETTER VI
LETTER VII
LETTER VIII
LETTER IX
LETTER X
LETTER XI
LETTER XII
LETTER XIII
LETTER XIV
LETTER XV
LETTER XVI
LETTER XVII
LETTER XVIII
LETTER XIX
LETTER XX
LETTER XXI
LETTER XXII
LETTER XXIII
LETTER XXIV
LETTER XXV
LETTER XXVI
LETTER XXVII
LETTER XXVIII
LETTER XXIX
LETTER XXX
LETTER XXXI
LETTER XXXII
ITINERARY OF ROUTE FROM NIIGATA TO AOMORI
LETTER XXXIII
LETTER XXXIV
LETTER XXXV
LETTER XXXVI
LETTER XXXVII
LETTER XXXVIII
LETTER XXIX
LETTER XL
LETTER XLI
ITINERARY OF TOUR IN YEZO.
LETTER XLII
LETTER XLIII
LETTER XLIV
Preface
Having been recommended to leave
home, in April 1878, in order to recruit my health by means which
had proved serviceable before, I
decided to visit Japan, attracted less by the reputed excellence of
its climate than by the certainty that it possessed, in an especial
degree, those sources of novel and sustained interest which conduce
so essentially to the enjoyment and restoration of a solitary
health-seeker. The climate disappointed me, but, though I found
the country a study rather than a rapture, its interest exceeded my
largest expectations.
This is not a "Book on Japan," but a narrative of travels in Japan,
and an attempt to contribute something to the sum of knowledge of
the present condition of the country, and it was not till I had
travelled for some months in the interior of the main island and in
Yezo that I decided that my materials were novel enough to render
the contribution worth making. From Nikko northwards my route was
altogether off the beaten track, and had never been traversed in
its entirety by any European. I lived among the Japanese, and saw
their mode of living, in regions unaffected by European contact.
As a lady travelling alone, and the first European lady who had
been seen in several districts through which my route lay, my
experiences differed more or less widely from those of preceding
travellers; and I am able to offer a fuller account of the
aborigines of Yezo, obtained by actual acquaintance with them, than
has hitherto been given. These are my chief reasons for offering
this volume to the public.
It was with some reluctance that I decided that it should consist
mainly of letters written on the spot to my sister and a circle of
personal friends, for this form of publication involves the
sacrifice of artistic arrangement and literary treatment, and
necessitates a certain amount of egotism; but, on the other hand,
it places the reader in the position of the traveller, and makes
him share the vicissitudes of travel, discomfort, difficulty, and
tedium, as well as novelty and enjoyment. The "beaten tracks,"
with the exception of Nikko, have been dismissed in a few
sentences, but where their features have undergone marked changes
within a few years, as in the case of Tokiyo (Yedo), they have been
sketched more or less slightly. Many important subjects are
necessarily passed over.
In Northern Japan, in the absence of all other sources of
information, I had to learn everything from the people themselves,
through an interpreter, and every fact had to be disinterred by
careful labour from amidst a mass of rubbish. The Ainos supplied
the information which is given concerning their customs, habits,
and religion; but I had an opportunity of comparing my notes with
some taken about the same time by Mr. Heinrich Von Siebold of the
Austrian Legation, and of finding a most satisfactory agreement on
all points.
Some of the Letters give a less pleasing picture of the condition
of the peasantry than the one popularly presented, and it is
possible that some readers may wish that it had been less
realistically painted; but as the scenes are strictly
representative, and I neither made them nor went in search of them,
I offer them in the interests of truth, for they illustrate the
nature of a large portion of the material with which the Japanese
Government has to work in building up the New Civilisation.
Accuracy has been my first aim, but the sources of error are many,
and it is from those who have studied Japan the most carefully, and
are the best acquainted with its difficulties, that I shall receive
the most kindly allowance if, in spite of carefulness, I have
fallen into mistakes.
The Transactions of the English and German Asiatic Societies of
Japan, and papers on special Japanese subjects, including "A Budget
of Japanese Notes," in the Japan Mail and Tokiyo Times, gave me
valuable help; and I gratefully acknowledge the assistance afforded
me in many ways by Sir Harry S. Parkes, K.C.B., and Mr. Satow of
H.B.M.'s Legation, Principal Dyer, Mr. Chamberlain of the Imperial
Naval College, Mr. F. V. Dickins, and others, whose kindly interest
in my work often encouraged me when I was disheartened by my lack
of skill; but, in justice to these and other kind friends, I am
anxious to claim and accept the fullest measure of personal
responsibility for the opinions expressed, which, whether right or
wrong, are wholly my own.
The illustrations, with the exception of three, which are by a
Japanese artist, have been engraved from sketches of my own or
Japanese photographs.
I am painfully conscious of the defects of this volume, but I
venture to present it to the public in the hope that, in spite of
its demerits, it may be accepted as an honest attempt to describe
things as I saw them in Japan, on land journeys of more than 1400
miles.
Since the letters passed through the press, the beloved and only
sister to whom, in the first instance, they were written, to whose
able and careful criticism they owe much, and whose loving interest
was the inspiration alike of my travels and of my narratives of
them, has passed away.
ISABELLA L. BIRD.
LETTER I
First View of Japan--A Vision of
Fujisan--Japanese Sampans--
"Pullman Cars"--Undignified Locomotion--Paper Money--The
Drawbacks
of Japanese Travelling.
ORIENTAL HOTEL, YOKOHAMA,
May 21.
Eighteen days of unintermitted rolling over "desolate rainy seas"
brought the "City of Tokio" early yesterday morning to Cape King,
and by noon we were steaming up the Gulf of Yedo, quite near the
shore. The day was soft and grey with a little faint blue sky,
and, though the coast of Japan is much more prepossessing than most
coasts, there were no startling surprises either of colour or form.
Broken wooded ridges, deeply cleft, rise from the water's edge,
gray, deep-roofed villages cluster about the mouths of the ravines,
and terraces of rice cultivation, bright with the greenness of
English lawns, run up to a great height among dark masses of upland
forest. The populousness of the coast is very impressive, and the
gulf everywhere was equally peopled with fishing-boats, of which we
passed not only hundreds, but thousands, in five hours. The coast
and sea were pale, and the boats were pale too, their hulls being
unpainted wood, and their sails pure white duck. Now and then a
high-sterned junk drifted by like a phantom galley, then we
slackened speed to avoid exterminating a fleet of triangular-
looking fishing-boats with white square sails, and so on through
the grayness and dumbness hour after hour.
For long I looked in vain for Fujisan, and failed to see it, though
I heard ecstasies all over the deck, till, accidentally looking
heavenwards instead of earthwards, I saw far above any possibility
of height, as one would have thought, a huge, truncated cone of
pure snow, 13,080 feet above the sea, from which it sweeps upwards
in a glorious curve, very wan, against a very pale blue sky, with
its base and the intervening country veiled in a pale grey mist.
{
1} It was a wonderful vision, and shortly,
as a vision, vanished.
Except the cone of Tristan d'Acunha--also a cone of snow--I never
saw a mountain rise in such lonely majesty, with nothing near or
far to detract from its height and grandeur. No wonder that it is
a sacred mountain, and so dear to the Japanese that their art is
never weary of representing it. It was nearly fifty miles off when
we first saw it.
The air and water were alike motionless, the mist was still and
pale, grey clouds lay restfully on a bluish sky, the reflections of
the white sails of the fishing-boats scarcely quivered; it was all
so pale, wan, and ghastly, that the turbulence of crumpled foam
which we left behind us, and our noisy, throbbing progress, seemed
a boisterous intrusion upon sleeping Asia.
The gulf narrowed, the forest-crested hills, the terraced ravines,
the picturesque grey villages, the quiet beach life, and the pale
blue masses of the mountains of the interior, became more visible.
Fuji retired into the mist in which he enfolds his grandeur for
most of the summer; we passed Reception Bay, Perry Island, Webster
Island, Cape Saratoga, and Mississippi Bay--American nomenclature
which perpetuates the successes of American diplomacy--and not far
from Treaty Point came upon a red lightship with the words "Treaty
Point" in large letters upon her. Outside of this no foreign
vessel may anchor.
The bustle among my fellow-passengers, many of whom were returning
home, and all of whom expected to be met by friends, left me at
leisure, as I looked at unattractive, unfamiliar Yokohama and the
pale grey land stretched out before me, to speculate somewhat sadly
on my destiny on these strange shores, on which I have not even an
acquaintance. On mooring we were at once surrounded by crowds of
native boats called by foreigners sampans, and Dr. Gulick, a near
relation of my Hilo friends, came on board to meet his daughter,
welcomed me cordially, and relieved me of all the trouble of
disembarkation. These sampans are very clumsy-looking, but are
managed with great dexterity by the boatmen, who gave and received
any number of bumps with much good nature, and without any of the
shouting and swearing in which competitive boatmen usually indulge.
The partially triangular shape of these boats approaches that of a
salmon-fisher's punt used on certain British rivers. Being floored
gives them the appearance of being absolutely flat-bottomed; but,
though they tilt readily, they are very safe, being heavily built
and fitted together with singular precision with wooden bolts and a
few copper cleets. They are SCULLED, not what we should call
rowed, by two or four men with very heavy oars made of two pieces
of wood working on pins placed on outrigger bars. The men scull
standing and use the thigh as a rest for the oar. They all wear a
single, wide-sleeved, scanty, blue cotton garment, not fastened or
girdled at the waist, straw sandals, kept on by a thong passing
between the great toe and the others, and if they wear any head-
gear, it is only a wisp of blue cotton tied round the forehead.
The one garment is only an apology for clothing, and displays lean
concave chests and lean muscular limbs. The skin is very yellow,
and often much tattooed with mythical beasts. The charge for
sampans is fixed by tariff, so the traveller lands without having
his temper ruffled by extortionate demands.
The first thing that impressed me on landing was that there were no
loafers, and that all the small, ugly, kindly-looking, shrivelled,
bandy-legged, round-shouldered, concave-chested, poor-looking
beings in the streets had some affairs of their own to mind. At
the top of the landing-steps there was a portable restaurant, a
neat and most compact thing, with charcoal stove, cooking and
eating utensils complete; but it looked as if it were made by and
for dolls, and the mannikin who kept it was not five feet high. At
the custom-house we were attended to by minute officials in blue
uniforms of European pattern and leather boots; very civil
creatures, who opened and examined our trunks carefully, and
strapped them up again, contrasting pleasingly with the insolent
and rapacious officials who perform the same duties at New York.
Outside were about fifty of the now well-known jin-ti-ki-shas, and
the air was full of a buzz produced by the rapid reiteration of
this uncouth word by fifty tongues. This conveyance, as you know,
is a feature of Japan, growing in importance every day. It was
only invented seven years ago, and already there are nearly 23,000
in one city, and men can make so much more by drawing them than by
almost any kind of skilled labour, that thousands of fine young men
desert agricultural pursuits and flock into the towns to make
draught-animals of themselves, though it is said that the average
duration of a man's life after he takes to running is only five
years, and that the runners fall victims in large numbers to
aggravated forms of heart and lung disease. Over tolerably level
ground a good runner can trot forty miles a day, at a rate of about
four miles an hour. They are registered and taxed at 8s. a year
for one carrying two persons, and 4s. for one which carries one
only, and there is a regular tariff for time and distance.
The kuruma, or jin-ri-ki-sha, {
2} consists of a light perambulator
body, an adjustable hood of oiled paper, a velvet or cloth lining
and cushion, a well for parcels under the seat, two high slim
wheels, and a pair of shafts connected by a bar at the ends. The
body is usually lacquered and decorated according to its owner's
taste. Some show little except polished brass, others are
altogether inlaid with shells known as Venus's ear, and others are
gaudily painted with contorted dragons, or groups of peonies,
hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and mythical personages. They cost
from 2 pounds upwards. The shafts rest on the ground at a steep
incline as you get in--it must require much practice to enable one
to mount with ease or dignity--the runner lifts them up, gets into
them, gives the body a good tilt backwards, and goes off at a smart
trot. They are drawn by one, two, or three men, according to the
speed desired by the occupants. When rain comes on, the man puts
up the hood, and ties you and it closely up in a covering of oiled
paper, in which you are invisible. At night, whether running or
standing still, they carry prettily-painted circular paper lanterns
18 inches long. It is most comical to see stout, florid, solid-
looking merchants, missionaries, male and female, fashionably-
dressed ladies, armed with card cases, Chinese compradores, and
Japanese peasant men and women flying along Main Street, which is
like the decent respectable High Street of a dozen forgotten
country towns in England, in happy unconsciousness of the
ludicrousness of their appearance; racing, chasing, crossing each
other, their lean, polite, pleasant runners in their great hats
shaped like inverted bowls, their incomprehensible blue tights, and
their short blue over-shirts with badges or characters in white
upon them, tearing along, their yellow faces streaming with
perspiration, laughing, shouting, and avoiding collisions by a mere
shave.
After a visit to the Consulate I entered a kuruma and, with two
ladies in two more, was bowled along at a furious pace by a
laughing little mannikin down Main Street--a narrow, solid, well-
paved street with well-made side walks, kerb-stones, and gutters,
with iron lamp-posts, gas-lamps, and foreign shops all along its
length--to this quiet hotel recommended by Sir Wyville Thomson,
which offers a refuge from the nasal twang of my fellow-voyagers,
who have all gone to the caravanserais on the Bund. The host is a
Frenchman, but he relies on a Chinaman; the servants are Japanese
"boys" in Japanese clothes; and there is a Japanese "groom of the
chambers" in faultless English costume, who perfectly appals me by
the elaborate politeness of his manner.
Almost as soon as I arrived I was obliged to go in search of Mr.
Fraser's office in the settlement; I say SEARCH, for there are no
names on the streets; where there are numbers they have no
sequence, and I met no Europeans on foot to help me in my
difficulty. Yokohama does not improve on further acquaintance. It
has a dead-alive look. It has irregularity without
picturesqueness, and the grey sky, grey sea, grey houses, and grey
roofs, look harmoniously dull. No foreign money except the Mexican
dollar passes in Japan, and Mr. Fraser's compradore soon
metamorphosed my English gold into Japanese satsu or paper money, a
bundle of yen nearly at par just now with the dollar, packets of
50, 20, and 10 sen notes, and some rouleaux of very neat copper
coins. The initiated recognise the different denominations of
paper money at a glance by their differing colours and sizes, but
at present they are a distracting mystery to me. The notes are
pieces of stiff paper with Chinese characters at the corners, near
which, with exceptionally good eyes or a magnifying glass, one can
discern an English word denoting the value. They are very neatly
executed, and are ornamented with the chrysanthemum crest of the
Mikado and the interlaced dragons of the Empire.
I long to get away into real Japan. Mr. Wilkinson, H.B.M.'s acting
consul, called yesterday, and was extremely kind. He thinks that
my plan for travelling in the interior is rather too ambitious, but
that it is perfectly safe for a lady to travel alone, and agrees
with everybody else in thinking that legions of fleas and the
miserable horses are the great drawbacks of Japanese travelling.
I. L. B.
[1]
This is an altogether exceptional aspect of
Fujisan, under exceptional atmospheric conditions. The mountain
usually looks
broader and lower, and is often compared to an inverted fan.
[2]
I continue hereafter to use the Japanese word
kuruma instead of the Chinese word Jin-ri-ki-sha. Kuruma, literally
a wheel or
vehicle, is the word commonly used by the Jin-ri-ki-sha men and
other Japanese for the "man-power-carriage," and is certainly more
euphonious. From kuruma naturally comes kurumaya for the kuruma
runner.
LETTER II
Sir Harry Parkes--An
"Ambassador's Carriage"--Cart Coolies.
YOKOHAMA, May 22.
To-day has been spent in making new acquaintances, instituting a
search for a servant and a pony, receiving many offers of help,
asking questions and receiving from different people answers which
directly contradict each other. Hours are early. Thirteen people
called on me before noon. Ladies drive themselves about the town
in small pony carriages attended by running grooms called bettos.
The foreign merchants keep kurumas constantly standing at their
doors, finding a willing, intelligent coolie much more serviceable
than a lazy, fractious, capricious Japanese pony, and even the
dignity of an "Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary" is not above such a lowly conveyance, as I have
seen to-day. My last visitors were Sir Harry and Lady Parkes, who
brought sunshine and kindliness into the room, and left it behind
them. Sir Harry is a young-looking man scarcely in middle life,
slight, active, fair, blue-eyed, a thorough Saxon, with sunny hair
and a sunny smile, a sunshiny geniality in his manner, and bearing
no trace in his appearance of his thirty years of service in the
East, his sufferings in the prison at Peking, and the various
attempts upon his life in Japan. He and Lady Parkes were most
truly kind, and encourage me so heartily in my largest projects for
travelling in the interior, that I shall start as soon as I have
secured a servant. When they went away they jumped into kurumas,
and it was most amusing to see the representative of England
hurried down the street in a perambulator with a tandem of coolies.
As I look out of the window I see heavy, two-wheeled man-carts
drawn and pushed by four men each, on which nearly all goods,
stones for building, and all else, are carried. The two men who
pull press with hands and thighs against a cross-bar at the end of
a heavy pole, and the two who push apply their shoulders to beams
which project behind, using their thick, smoothly-shaven skulls as
the motive power when they push their heavy loads uphill. Their
cry is impressive and melancholy. They draw incredible loads, but,
as if the toil which often makes every breath a groan or a gasp
were not enough, they shout incessantly with a coarse, guttural
grunt, something like Ha huida, Ho huida, wa ho, Ha huida, etc.
I. L. B.
LETTER III
Yedo and Tokiyo--The Yokohama
Railroad--The Effect of Misfits--The Plain of Yedo--Personal
Peculiarities--First Impressions of Tokiyo-
-H. B. M.'s Legation--An English Home.
H.B.M.'s LEGATION,
YEDO, May 24.
I have dated my letter Yedo, according to the usage of the British
Legation, but popularly the new name of Tokiyo, or Eastern Capital,
is used, Kiyoto, the Mikado's former residence, having received the
name of Saikio, or Western Capital, though it has now no claim to
be regarded as a capital at all. Yedo belongs to the old regime
and the Shogunate, Tokiyo to the new regime and the Restoration,
with their history of ten years. It would seem an incongruity to
travel to Yedo by railway, but quite proper when the destination is
Tokiyo.
The journey between the two cities is performed in an hour by an
admirable, well-metalled, double-track railroad, 18 miles long,
with iron bridges, neat stations, and substantial roomy termini,
built by English engineers at a cost known only to Government, and
opened by the Mikado in 1872. The Yokohama station is a handsome
and suitable stone building, with a spacious approach, ticket-
offices on our plan, roomy waiting-rooms for different classes--
uncarpeted, however, in consideration of Japanese clogs--and
supplied with the daily papers. There is a department for the
weighing and labelling of luggage, and on the broad, covered, stone
platform at both termini a barrier with turnstiles, through which,
except by special favour, no ticketless person can pass. Except
the ticket-clerks, who are Chinese, and the guards and engine-
drivers, who are English, the officials are Japanese in European
dress. Outside the stations, instead of cabs, there are kurumas,
which carry luggage as well as people. Only luggage in the hand is
allowed to go free; the rest is weighed, numbered, and charged for,
a corresponding number being given to its owner to present at his
destination. The fares are--3d class, an ichibu, or about 1s.; 2d
class, 60 sen, or about 2s. 4d.; and 1st class, a yen, or about 3s.
8d. The tickets are collected as the passengers pass through the
barrier at the end of the journey. The English-built cars differ
from ours in having seats along the sides, and doors opening on
platforms at both ends. On the whole, the arrangements are
Continental rather than British. The first-class cars are
expensively fitted up with deeply-cushioned, red morocco seats, but
carry very few passengers, and the comfortable seats, covered with
fine matting, of the 2d class are very scantily occupied; but the
3d class vans are crowded with Japanese, who have taken to
railroads as readily as to kurumas. This line earns about
$8,000,000 a year.
The Japanese look most diminutive in European dress. Each garment
is a misfit, and exaggerates the miserable physique and the
national defects of concave chests and bow legs. The lack of
"complexion" and of hair upon the face makes it nearly impossible
to judge of the ages of men. I supposed that all the railroad
officials were striplings of 17 or 18, but they are men from 25 to
40 years old.
It was a beautiful day, like an English June day, but hotter, and
though the Sakura (wild cherry) and its kin, which are the glory of
the Japanese spring, are over, everything is a young, fresh green
yet, and in all the beauty of growth and luxuriance. The immediate
neighbourhood of Yokohama is beautiful, with abrupt wooded hills,
and small picturesque valleys; but after passing Kanagawa the
railroad enters upon the immense plain of Yedo, said to be 90 miles
from north to south, on whose northern and western boundaries faint
blue mountains of great height hovered dreamily in the blue haze,
and on whose eastern shore for many miles the clear blue wavelets
of the Gulf of Yedo ripple, always as then, brightened by the white
sails of innumerable fishing-boats. On this fertile and fruitful
plain stand not only the capital, with its million of inhabitants,
but a number of populous cities, and several hundred thriving
agricultural villages. Every foot of land which can be seen from
the railroad is cultivated by the most careful spade husbandry, and
much of it is irrigated for rice. Streams abound, and villages of
grey wooden houses with grey thatch, and grey temples with
strangely curved roofs, are scattered thickly over the landscape.
It is all homelike, liveable, and pretty, the country of an
industrious people, for not a weed is to be seen, but no very
striking features or peculiarities arrest one at first sight,
unless it be the crowds everywhere.
You don't take your ticket for Tokiyo, but for Shinagawa or
Shinbashi, two of the many villages which have grown together into
the capital. Yedo is hardly seen before Shinagawa is reached, for
it has no smoke and no long chimneys; its temples and public
buildings are seldom lofty; the former are often concealed among
thick trees, and its ordinary houses seldom reach a height of 20
feet. On the right a blue sea with fortified islands upon it,
wooded gardens with massive retaining walls, hundreds of fishing-
boats lying in creeks or drawn up on the beach; on the left a broad
road on which kurumas are hurrying both ways, rows of low, grey
houses, mostly tea-houses and shops; and as I was asking "Where is
Yedo?" the train came to rest in the terminus, the Shinbashi
railroad station, and disgorged its 200 Japanese passengers with a
combined clatter of 400 clogs--a new sound to me. These clogs add
three inches to their height, but even with them few of the men
attained 5 feet 7 inches, and few of the women 5 feet 2 inches; but
they look far broader in the national costume, which also conceals
the defects of their figures. So lean, so yellow, so ugly, yet so
pleasant-looking, so wanting in colour and effectiveness; the women
so very small and tottering in their walk; the children so formal-
looking and such dignified burlesques on the adults, I feel as if I
had seen them all before, so like are they to their pictures on
trays, fans, and tea-pots. The hair of the women is all drawn away
from their faces, and is worn in chignons, and the men, when they
don't shave the front of their heads and gather their back hair
into a quaint queue drawn forward over the shaven patch, wear their
coarse hair about three inches long in a refractory undivided mop.
Davies, an orderly from the Legation, met me,--one of the escort
cut down and severely wounded when Sir H. Parkes was attacked in
the street of Kiyoto in March 1868 on his way to his first audience
of the Mikado. Hundreds of kurumas, and covered carts with four
wheels drawn by one miserable horse, which are the omnibuses of
certain districts of Tokiyo, were waiting outside the station, and
an English brougham for me, with a running betto. The Legation
stands in Kojimachi on very elevated ground above the inner moat of
the historic "Castle of Yedo," but I cannot tell you anything of
what I saw on my way thither, except that there were miles of dark,
silent, barrack-like buildings, with highly ornamental gateways,
and long rows of projecting windows with screens made of reeds--the
feudal mansions of Yedo--and miles of moats with lofty grass
embankments or walls of massive masonry 50 feet high, with kiosk-
like towers at the corners, and curious, roofed gateways, and many
bridges, and acres of lotus leaves. Turning along the inner moat,
up a steep slope, there are, on the right, its deep green waters,
the great grass embankment surmounted by a dismal wall overhung by
the branches of coniferous trees which surrounded the palace of the
Shogun, and on the left sundry yashikis, as the mansions of the
daimiyo were called, now in this quarter mostly turned into
hospitals, barracks, and Government offices. On a height, the most
conspicuous of them all, is the great red gateway of the yashiki,
now occupied by the French Military Mission, formerly the residence
of Ii Kamon no Kami, one of the great actors in recent historic
events, who was assassinated not far off, outside the Sakaruda gate
of the castle. Besides these, barracks, parade-grounds, policemen,
kurumas, carts pulled and pushed by coolies, pack-horses in straw
sandals, and dwarfish, slatternly-looking soldiers in European
dress, made up the Tokiyo that I saw between Shinbashi and the
Legation.
H.B.M.'s Legation has a good situation near the Foreign Office,
several of the Government departments, and the residences of the
ministers, which are chiefly of brick in the English suburban villa
style. Within the compound, with a brick archway with the Royal
Arms upon it for an entrance, are the Minister's residence, the
Chancery, two houses for the two English Secretaries of Legation,
and quarters for the escort.
It is an English house and an English home, though, with the
exception of a venerable nurse, there are no English servants. The
butler and footman are tall Chinamen, with long pig-tails, black
satin caps, and long blue robes; the cook is a Chinaman, and the
other servants are all Japanese, including one female servant, a
sweet, gentle, kindly girl about 4 feet 5 in height, the wife of
the head "housemaid." None of the servants speak anything but the
most aggravating "pidgun" English, but their deficient speech is
more than made up for by the intelligence and service of the
orderly in waiting, who is rarely absent from the neighbourhood of
the hall door, and attends to the visitors' book and to all
messages and notes. There are two real English children of six and
seven, with great capacities for such innocent enjoyments as can be
found within the limits of the nursery and garden. The other
inmate of the house is a beautiful and attractive terrier called
"Rags," a Skye dog, who unbends "in the bosom of his family," but
ordinarily is as imposing in his demeanour as if he, and not his
master, represented the dignity of the British Empire.
The Japanese Secretary of Legation is Mr. Ernest Satow, whose
reputation for scholarship, especially in the department of
history, is said by the Japanese themselves to be the highest in
Japan {
1}--an honourable distinction for an
Englishman, and won by
the persevering industry of fifteen years. The scholarship
connected with the British Civil Service is not, however,
monopolised by Mr. Satow, for several gentlemen in the consular
service, who are passing through the various grades of student
interpreters, are distinguishing themselves not alone by their
facility in colloquial Japanese, but by their researches in various
departments of Japanese history, mythology, archaeology, and
literature. Indeed it is to their labours, and to those of a few
other Englishmen and Germans, that the Japanese of the rising
generation will be indebted for keeping alive not only the
knowledge of their archaic literature, but even of the manners and
customs of the first half of this century.
I. L. B.
[1]
Often in the later months of my residence in
Japan, when I asked educated Japanese questions concerning their
history,
religions, or ancient customs, I was put off with the answer, "You
should ask Mr. Satow, he could tell you."
LETTER IV
"John Chinaman"--Engaging a
Servant--First Impressions of Ito--A Solemn Contract--The Food
Question.
H.B.M.'s LEGATION,
YEDO, June 7.
I went to Yokohama for a week to visit Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn on the
Bluff. Bishop and Mrs. Burdon of Hong Kong were also guests, and
it was very pleasant.
One cannot be a day in Yokohama without seeing quite a different
class of orientals from the small, thinly-dressed, and usually
poor-looking Japanese. Of the 2500 Chinamen who reside in Japan,
over 1100 are in Yokohama, and if they were suddenly removed,
business would come to an abrupt halt. Here, as everywhere, the
Chinese immigrant is making himself indispensable. He walks
through the streets with his swinging gait and air of complete
self-complacency, as though he belonged to the ruling race. He is
tall and big, and his many garments, with a handsome brocaded robe
over all, his satin pantaloons, of which not much is seen, tight at
the ankles, and his high shoes, whose black satin tops are slightly
turned up at the toes, make him look even taller and bigger than he
is. His head is mostly shaven, but the hair at the back is plaited
with a quantity of black purse twist into a queue which reaches to
his knees, above which, set well back, he wears a stiff, black
satin skull-cap, without which he is never seen. His face is very
yellow, his long dark eyes and eyebrows slope upwards towards his
temples, he has not the vestige of a beard, and his skin is shiny.
He looks thoroughly "well-to-do." He is not unpleasing-looking,
but you feel that as a Celestial he looks down upon you. If you
ask a question in a merchant's office, or change your gold into
satsu, or take your railroad or steamer ticket, or get change in a
shop, the inevitable Chinaman appears. In the street he swings
past you with a purpose in his face; as he flies past you in a
kuruma he is bent on business; he is sober and reliable, and is
content to "squeeze" his employer rather than to rob him--his one
aim in life is money. For this he is industrious, faithful, self-
denying; and he has his reward.
Several of my kind new acquaintances interested themselves about
the (to me) vital matter of a servant interpreter, and many
Japanese came to "see after the place." The speaking of
intelligible English is a sine qua non, and it was wonderful to
find the few words badly pronounced and worse put together, which
were regarded by the candidates as a sufficient qualification. Can
you speak English? "Yes." What wages do you ask? "Twelve dollars
a month." This was always said glibly, and in each case sounded
hopeful. Whom have you lived with? A foreign name distorted out
of all recognition, as was natural, was then given. Where have you
travelled? This question usually had to be translated into
Japanese, and the usual answer was, "The Tokaido, the Nakasendo, to
Kiyoto, to Nikko," naming the beaten tracks of countless tourists.
Do you know anything of Northern Japan and the Hokkaido? "No,"
with a blank wondering look. At this stage in every case Dr.
Hepburn compassionately stepped in as interpreter, for their stock
of English was exhausted. Three were regarded as promising. One
was a sprightly youth who came in a well-made European suit of
light-coloured tweed, a laid-down collar, a tie with a diamond (?)
pin, and a white shirt, so stiffly starched, that he could hardly
bend low enough for a bow even of European profundity. He wore a
gilt watch-chain with a locket, the corner of a very white cambric
pocket-handkerchief dangled from his breast pocket, and he held a
cane and a felt hat in his hand. He was a Japanese dandy of the
first water. I looked at him ruefully. To me starched collars are
to be an unknown luxury for the next three months. His fine
foreign clothes would enhance prices everywhere in the interior,
and besides that, I should feel a perpetual difficulty in asking
menial services from an exquisite. I was therefore quite relieved
when his English broke down at the second question.
The second was a most respectable-looking man of thirty-five in a
good Japanese dress. He was highly recommended, and his first
English words were promising, but he had been cook in the service
of a wealthy English official who travelled with a large retinue,
and sent servants on ahead to prepare the way. He knew really only
a few words of English, and his horror at finding that there was
"no master," and that there would be no woman-servant, was so
great, that I hardly know whether he rejected me or I him.
The third, sent by Mr. Wilkinson, wore a plain Japanese dress, and
had a frank, intelligent face. Though Dr. Hepburn spoke with him
in Japanese, he thought that he knew more English than the others,
and that what he knew would come out when he was less agitated. He
evidently understood what I said, and, though I had a suspicion
that he would turn out to be the "master," I thought him so
prepossessing that I nearly engaged him on the spot. None of the
others merit any remark.
However, when I had nearly made up my mind in his favour, a
creature appeared without any recommendation at all, except that
one of Dr. Hepburn's servants was acquainted with him. He is only
eighteen, but this is equivalent to twenty-three or twenty-four
with us, and only 4 feet 10 inches in height, but, though bandy-
legged, is well proportioned and strong-looking. He has a round
and singularly plain face, good teeth, much elongated eyes, and the
heavy droop of his eyelids almost caricatures the usual Japanese
peculiarity. He is the most stupid-looking Japanese that I have
seen, but, from a rapid, furtive glance in his eyes now and then, I
think that the stolidity is partly assumed. He said that he had
lived at the American Legation, that he had been a clerk on the
Osaka railroad, that he had travelled through northern Japan by the
eastern route, and in Yezo with Mr. Maries, a botanical collector,
that he understood drying plants, that he could cook a little, that
he could write English, that he could walk twenty-five miles a day,
and that he thoroughly understood getting through the interior!
This would-be paragon had no recommendations, and accounted for
this by saying that they had been burned in a recent fire in his
father's house. Mr. Maries was not forthcoming, and more than
this, I suspected and disliked the boy. However, he understood my
English and I his, and, being very anxious to begin my travels, I
engaged him for twelve dollars a month, and soon afterwards he came
back with a contract, in which he declares by all that he holds
most sacred that he will serve me faithfully for the wages agreed
upon, and to this document he affixed his seal and I my name. The
next day he asked me for a month's wages in advance, which I gave
him, but Dr. H. consolingly suggested that I should never see him
again!
Ever since the solemn night when the contract was signed I have
felt under an incubus, and since he appeared here yesterday,
punctual to the appointed hour, I have felt as if I had a veritable
"old man of the sea" upon my shoulders. He flies up stairs and
along the corridors as noiselessly as a cat, and already knows
where I keep all my things. Nothing surprises or abashes him, he
bows profoundly to Sir Harry and Lady Parkes when he encounters
them, but is obviously "quite at home" in a Legation, and only
allowed one of the orderlies to show him how to put on a Mexican
saddle and English bridle out of condescension to my wishes. He
seems as sharp or "smart" as can be, and has already arranged for
the first three days of my journey. His name is Ito, and you will
doubtless hear much more of him, as he will be my good or evil
genius for the next three months.
As no English lady has yet travelled alone through the interior, my
project excites a very friendly interest among my friends, and I
receive much warning and dissuasion, and a little encouragement.
The strongest, because the most intelligent, dissuasion comes from
Dr. Hepburn, who thinks that I ought not to undertake the journey,
and that I shall never get through to the Tsugaru Strait. If I
accepted much of the advice given to me, as to taking tinned meats
and soups, claret, and a Japanese maid, I should need a train of at
least six pack-horses! As to fleas, there is a lamentable
concensus of opinion that they are the curse of Japanese travelling
during the summer, and some people recommend me to sleep in a bag
drawn tightly round the throat, others to sprinkle my bedding
freely with insect powder, others to smear the skin all over with
carbolic oil, and some to make a plentiful use of dried and
powdered flea-bane. All admit, however, that these are but feeble
palliatives. Hammocks unfortunately cannot be used in Japanese
houses.
The "Food Question" is said to be the most important one for all
travellers, and it is discussed continually with startling
earnestness, not alone as regards my tour. However apathetic
people are on other subjects, the mere mention of this one rouses
them into interest. All have suffered or may suffer, and every one
wishes to impart his own experience or to learn from that of
others. Foreign ministers, professors, missionaries, merchants--
all discuss it with becoming gravity as a question of life and
death, which by many it is supposed to be. The fact is that,
except at a few hotels in popular resorts which are got up for
foreigners, bread, butter, milk, meat, poultry, coffee, wine, and
beer, are unattainable, that fresh fish is rare, and that unless
one can live on rice, tea, and eggs, with the addition now and then
of some tasteless fresh vegetables, food must be taken, as the
fishy and vegetable abominations known as "Japanese food" can only
be swallowed and digested by a few, and that after long practice.
{
}
Another, but far inferior, difficulty on which much stress is laid
is the practice common among native servants of getting a "squeeze"
out of every money transaction on the road, so that the cost of
travelling is often doubled, and sometimes trebled, according to
the skill and capacity of the servant. Three gentlemen who have
travelled extensively have given me lists of the prices which I
ought to pay, varying in different districts, and largely increased
on the beaten track of tourists, and Mr. Wilkinson has read these
to Ito, who offered an occasional remonstrance. Mr. W. remarked
after the conversation, which was in Japanese, that he thought I
should have to "look sharp after money matters"--a painful
prospect, as I have never been able to manage anybody in my life,
and shall surely have no control over this clever, cunning Japanese
youth, who on most points will be able to deceive me as he pleases.
On returning here I found that Lady Parkes had made most of the
necessary preparations for me, and that they include two light
baskets with covers of oiled paper, a travelling bed or stretcher,
a folding-chair, and an india-rubber bath, all which she considers
as necessaries for a person in feeble health on a journey of such
long duration. This week has been spent in making acquaintances in
Tokiyo, seeing some characteristic sights, and in trying to get
light on my tour; but little seems known by foreigners of northern
Japan, and a Government department, on being applied to, returned
an itinerary, leaving out 140 miles of the route that I dream of
taking, on the ground of "insufficient information," on which Sir
Harry cheerily remarked, "You will have to get your information as
you go along, and that will be all the more interesting." Ah! but
how?
I. L. B.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!