Bad Roads And Bad Horses Detracted From My Enjoyment.
One hour of
a good horse would have carried me across the plain; as it was,
seven weary hours were expended upon it.
The day degenerated, and
closed in still, hot rain; the air was stifling and electric, the
saddle slipped constantly from being too big, the shoes were more
than usually troublesome, the horseflies tormented, and the men and
horses crawled. The rice-fields were undergoing a second process
of puddling, and many of the men engaged in it wore only a hat, and
a fan attached to the girdle.
An avenue of cryptomeria and two handsome and somewhat gilded
Buddhist temples denoted the approach to a place of some
importance, and such Takata is, as being a large town with a
considerable trade in silk, rope, and minjin, and the residence of
one of the higher officials of the ken or prefecture. The street
is a mile long, and every house is a shop. The general aspect is
mean and forlorn. In these little-travelled districts, as soon as
one reaches the margin of a town, the first man one meets turns and
flies down the street, calling out the Japanese equivalent of
"Here's a foreigner!" and soon blind and seeing, old and young,
clothed and naked, gather together. At the yadoya the crowd
assembled in such force that the house-master removed me to some
pretty rooms in a garden; but then the adults climbed on the house-
roofs which overlooked it, and the children on a palisade at the
end, which broke down under their weight, and admitted the whole
inundation; so that I had to close the shoji, with the fatiguing
consciousness during the whole time of nominal rest of a multitude
surging outside. Then five policemen in black alpaca frock-coats
and white trousers invaded my precarious privacy, desiring to see
my passport - a demand never made before except where I halted for
the night. In their European clothes they cannot bow with Japanese
punctiliousness, but they were very polite, and expressed great
annoyance at the crowd, and dispersed it; but they had hardly
disappeared when it gathered again. When I went out I found fully
1000 people helping me to realise how the crowded cities of Judea
sent forth people clothed much as these are when the Miracle-Worker
from Galilee arrived, but not what the fatigue of the crowding and
buzzing must have been to One who had been preaching and working
during the long day. These Japanese crowds, however, are quiet and
gentle, and never press rudely upon one. I could not find it in my
heart to complain of them except to you. Four of the policemen
returned, and escorted me to the outskirts of the town. The noise
made by 1000 people shuffling along in clogs is like the clatter of
a hail-storm.
After this there was a dismal tramp of five hours through rice-
fields. The moist climate and the fatigue of this manner of
travelling are deteriorating my health, and the pain in my spine,
which has been daily increasing, was so severe that I could neither
ride nor walk for more than twenty minutes at a time; and the pace
was so slow that it was six when we reached Bange, a commercial
town of 5000 people, literally in the rice swamp, mean, filthy,
damp, and decaying, and full of an overpowering stench from black,
slimy ditches. The mercury was 84 degrees, and hot rain fell fast
through the motionless air. We dismounted in a shed full of bales
of dried fish, which gave off an overpowering odour, and wet and
dirty people crowded in to stare at the foreigner till the air
seemed unbreathable.
But there were signs of progress. A three days' congress of
schoolmasters was being held; candidates for vacant situations were
being examined; there were lengthy educational discussions going
on, specially on the subject of the value of the Chinese classics
as a part of education; and every inn was crowded.
Bange was malarious: there was so much malarious fever that the
Government had sent additional medical assistance; the hills were
only a ri off, and it seemed essential to go on. But not a horse
could be got till 10 p.m.; the road was worse than the one I had
travelled; the pain became more acute, and I more exhausted, and I
was obliged to remain. Then followed a weary hour, in which the
Express Agent's five emissaries were searching for a room, and
considerably after dark I found myself in a rambling old over-
crowded yadoya, where my room was mainly built on piles above
stagnant water, and the mosquitoes were in such swarms as to make
the air dense, and after a feverish and miserable night I was glad
to get up early and depart.
Fully 2000 people had assembled. After I was mounted I was on the
point of removing my Dollond from the case, which hung on the
saddle horn, when a regular stampede occurred, old and young
running as fast as they possibly could, children being knocked down
in the haste of their elders. Ito said that they thought I was
taking out a pistol to frighten them, and I made him explain what
the object really was, for they are a gentle, harmless people, whom
one would not annoy without sincere regret. In many European
countries, and certainly in some parts of our own, a solitary lady-
traveller in a foreign dress would be exposed to rudeness, insult,
and extortion, if not to actual danger; but I have not met with a
single instance of incivility or real overcharge, and there is no
rudeness even about the crowding. The mago are anxious that I
should not get wet or be frightened, and very scrupulous in seeing
that all straps and loose things are safe at the end of the
journey, and, instead of hanging about asking for gratuities, or
stopping to drink and gossip, they quickly unload the horses, get a
paper from the Transport Agent, and go home.
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