The Grave
Dignity Of These Boys, With The Grotesque Patterns On Their Big
Heads, Is Most Amusing.
Would that these much-exposed skulls were always smooth and clean!
It is painful to see the prevalence of such repulsive maladies as
scabies, scald-head, ringworm, sore eyes, and unwholesome-looking
eruptions, and fully 30 per cent of the village people are badly
seamed with smallpox.
LETTER X - (Completed)
Shops and Shopping - The Barber's Shop - A Paper Waterproof - Ito's
Vanity - Preparations for the Journey - Transport and Prices - Money
and Measurements.
I have had to do a little shopping in Hachiishi for my journey.
The shop-fronts, you must understand, are all open, and at the
height of the floor, about two feet from the ground, there is a
broad ledge of polished wood on which you sit down. A woman
everlastingly boiling water on a bronze hibachi, or brazier,
shifting the embers about deftly with brass tongs like chopsticks,
and with a baby looking calmly over her shoulders, is the
shopwoman; but she remains indifferent till she imagines that you
have a definite purpose of buying, when she comes forward bowing to
the ground, and I politely rise and bow too. Then I or Ito ask the
price of a thing, and she names it, very likely asking 4s. for what
ought to sell at 6d. You say 3s., she laughs and says 3s. 6d.; you
say 2s., she laughs again and says 3s., offering you the tabako-
bon. Eventually the matter is compromised by your giving her 1s.,
at which she appears quite delighted. With a profusion of bows and
"sayo naras" on each side, you go away with the pleasant feeling of
having given an industrious woman twice as much as the thing was
worth to her, and less than what it is worth to you!
There are several barbers' shops, and the evening seems a very busy
time with them. This operation partakes of the general want of
privacy of the life of the village, and is performed in the raised
open front of the shop. Soap is not used, and the process is a
painful one. The victims let their garments fall to their waists,
and each holds in his left hand a lacquered tray to receive the
croppings. The ugly Japanese face at this time wears a most
grotesque expression of stolid resignation as it is held and pulled
about by the operator, who turns it in all directions, that he may
judge of the effect that he is producing. The shaving the face
till it is smooth and shiny, and the cutting, waxing, and tying of
the queue with twine made of paper, are among the evening sights of
Nikko.
Lacquer and things curiously carved in wood are the great
attractions of the shops, but they interest me far less than the
objects of utility in Japanese daily life, with their ingenuity of
contrivance and perfection of adaptation and workmanship. A seed
shop, where seeds are truly idealised, attracts me daily. Thirty
varieties are offered for sale, as various in form as they are in
colour, and arranged most artistically on stands, while some are
put up in packages decorated with what one may call a facsimile of
the root, leaves, and flower, in water-colours. A lad usually lies
on the mat behind executing these very creditable pictures - for
such they are - with a few bold and apparently careless strokes with
his brush. He gladly sold me a peony as a scrap for a screen for 3
sen. My purchases, with this exception, were necessaries only - a
paper waterproof cloak, "a circular," black outside and yellow
inside, made of square sheets of oiled paper cemented together, and
some large sheets of the same for covering my baggage; and I
succeeded in getting Ito out of his obnoxious black wide-awake into
a basin-shaped hat like mine, for, ugly as I think him, he has a
large share of personal vanity, whitens his teeth, and powders his
face carefully before a mirror, and is in great dread of sunburn.
He powders his hands too, and polishes his nails, and never goes
out without gloves.
To-morrow I leave luxury behind and plunge into the interior,
hoping to emerge somehow upon the Sea of Japan. No information can
be got here except about the route to Niigata, which I have decided
not to take, so, after much study of Brunton's map, I have fixed
upon one place, and have said positively, "I go to Tajima." If I
reach it I can get farther, but all I can learn is, "It's a very
bad road, it's all among the mountains." Ito, who has a great
regard for his own comforts, tries to dissuade me from going by
saying that I shall lose mine, but, as these kind people have
ingeniously repaired my bed by doubling the canvas and lacing it
into holes in the side poles, {9} and as I have lived for the last
three days on rice, eggs, and coarse vermicelli about the thickness
and colour of earth-worms, this prospect does not appal me! In
Japan there is a Land Transport Company, called Riku-un-kaisha,
with a head-office in Tokiyo, and branches in various towns and
villages. It arranges for the transport of travellers and
merchandise by pack-horses and coolies at certain fixed rates, and
gives receipts in due form. It hires the horses from the farmers,
and makes a moderate profit on each transaction, but saves the
traveller from difficulties, delays, and extortions. The prices
vary considerably in different districts, and are regulated by the
price of forage, the state of the roads, and the number of hireable
horses. For a ri, nearly 2.5 miles, they charge from 6 to 10 sen
for a horse and the man who leads it, for a kuruma with one man
from 4 to 9 sen for the same distance, and for baggage coolies
about the same.
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