The People Are So
Kind And Courteous, That It Is Truly Brutal In Foreigners Not To Be
Kind And Courteous To Them.
You will observe that I am entirely
dependent on Ito, not only for travelling arrangements, but for
making inquiries, gaining information, and even for companionship,
such as it is; and our being mutually embarked on a hard and
adventurous journey will, I hope, make us mutually kind and
considerate.
Nominally, he is a Shintoist, which means nothing.
At Nikko I read to him the earlier chapters of St. Luke, and when I
came to the story of the Prodigal Son I was interrupted by a
somewhat scornful laugh and the remark, "Why, all this is our
Buddha over again!"
To-day's journey, though very rough, has been rather pleasant. The
rain moderated at noon, and I left Fujihara on foot, wearing my
American "mountain dress" and Wellington boots, - the only costume
in which ladies can enjoy pedestrian or pack-horse travelling in
this country, - with a light straw mat - the waterproof of the
region - hanging over my shoulders, and so we plodded on with two
baggage horses through the ankle-deep mud, till the rain cleared
off, the mountains looked through the mist, the augmented Kinugawa
thundered below, and enjoyment became possible, even in my half-fed
condition. Eventually I mounted a pack-saddle, and we crossed a
spur of Takadayama at a height of 2100 feet on a well-devised
series of zigzags, eight of which in one place could be seen one
below another. The forest there is not so dense as usual, and the
lower mountain slopes are sprinkled with noble Spanish chestnuts.
The descent was steep and slippery, the horse had tender feet, and,
after stumbling badly, eventually came down, and I went over his
head, to the great distress of the kindly female mago. The straw
shoes tied with wisps round the pasterns are a great nuisance. The
"shoe strings" are always coming untied, and the shoes only wear
about two ri on soft ground, and less than one on hard. They keep
the feet so soft and spongy that the horses can't walk without them
at all, and as soon as they get thin your horse begins to stumble,
the mago gets uneasy, and presently you stop; four shoes, which are
hanging from the saddle, are soaked in water and are tied on with
much coaxing, raising the animal fully an inch above the ground.
Anything more temporary and clumsy could not be devised. The
bridle paths are strewn with them, and the children collect them in
heaps to decay for manure. They cost 3 or 4 sen the set, and in
every village men spend their leisure time in making them.
At the next stage, called Takahara, we got one horse for the
baggage, crossed the river and the ravine, and by a steep climb
reached a solitary yadoya with the usual open front and irori,
round which a number of people, old and young, were sitting. When
I arrived a whole bevy of nice-looking girls took to flight, but
were soon recalled by a word from Ito to their elders. Lady
Parkes, on a side-saddle and in a riding-habit, has been taken for
a man till the people saw her hair, and a young friend of mine, who
is very pretty and has a beautiful complexion, when travelling
lately with her husband, was supposed to be a man who had shaven
off his beard. I wear a hat, which is a thing only worn by women
in the fields as a protection from sun and rain, my eyebrows are
unshaven, and my teeth are unblackened, so these girls supposed me
to be a foreign man. Ito in explanation said, "They haven't seen
any, but everybody brings them tales how rude foreigners are to
girls, and they are awful scared." There was nothing eatable but
rice and eggs, and I ate them under the concentrated stare of
eighteen pairs of dark eyes. The hot springs, to which many people
afflicted with sores resort, are by the river, at the bottom of a
rude flight of steps, in an open shed, but I could not ascertain
their temperature, as a number of men and women were sitting in the
water. They bathe four times a day, and remain for an hour at a
time.
We left for the five miles' walk to Ikari in a torrent of rain by a
newly-made path completely shut in with the cascading Kinugawa, and
carried along sometimes low, sometimes high, on props projecting
over it from the face of the rock. I do not expect to see anything
lovelier in Japan.
The river, always crystal-blue or crystal-green, largely increased
in volume by the rains, forces itself through gates of brightly-
coloured rock, by which its progress is repeatedly arrested, and
rarely lingers for rest in all its sparkling, rushing course. It
is walled in by high mountains, gloriously wooded and cleft by dark
ravines, down which torrents were tumbling in great drifts of foam,
crashing and booming, boom and crash multiplied by many an echo,
and every ravine afforded glimpses far back of more mountains,
clefts, and waterfalls, and such over-abundant vegetation that I
welcomed the sight of a gray cliff or bare face of rock. Along the
path there were fascinating details, composed of the manifold
greenery which revels in damp heat, ferns, mosses, confervae,
fungi, trailers, shading tiny rills which dropped down into
grottoes feathery with the exquisite Trichomanes radicans, or
drooped over the rustic path and hung into the river, and overhead
the finely incised and almost feathery foliage of several varieties
of maple admitted the light only as a green mist. The spring tints
have not yet darkened into the monotone of summer, rose azaleas
still light the hillsides, and masses of cryptomeria give depth and
shadow. Still, beautiful as it all is, one sighs for something
which shall satisfy one's craving for startling individuality and
grace of form, as in the coco-palm and banana of the tropics.
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