But Japanese Rivers Are
Much Choked With Sand And Shingle Washed Down From The Mountains.
In All That I Have
Seen, except those which are physically limited
by walls of hard rock, a river-bed is a waste of sand,
Boulders,
and shingle, through the middle of which, among sand-banks and
shallows, the river proper takes its devious course. In the
freshets, which occur to a greater or less extent every year,
enormous volumes of water pour over these wastes, carrying sand and
detritus down to the mouths, which are all obstructed by bars. Of
these rivers the Shinano, being the biggest, is the most
refractory, and has piled up a bar at its entrance through which
there is only a passage seven feet deep, which is perpetually
shallowing. The minds of engineers are much exercised upon the
Shinano, and the Government is most anxious to deepen the channel
and give Western Japan what it has not - a harbour; but the expense
of the necessary operation is enormous, and in the meantime a
limited ocean traffic is carried on by junks and by a few small
Japanese steamers which call outside. {13} There is a British
Vice-Consulate, but, except as a step, few would accept such a
dreary post or outpost.
But Niigata is a handsome, prosperous city of 50,000 inhabitants,
the capital of the wealthy province of Echigo, with a population of
one and a half millions, and is the seat of the Kenrei, or
provincial governor, of the chief law courts, of fine schools, a
hospital, and barracks. It is curious to find in such an excluded
town a school deserving the designation of a college, as it
includes intermediate, primary, and normal schools, an English
school with 150 pupils, organised by English and American teachers,
an engineering school, a geological museum, splendidly equipped
laboratories, and the newest and most approved scientific and
educational apparatus. The Government Buildings, which are grouped
near Mr. Fyson's, are of painted white wood, and are imposing from
their size and their innumerable glass windows. There is a large
hospital {14} arranged by a European doctor, with a medical school
attached, and it, the Kencho, the Saibancho, or Court House, the
schools, the barracks, and a large bank, which is rivalling them
all, have a go-ahead, Europeanised look, bold, staring, and
tasteless. There are large public gardens, very well laid out, and
with finely gravelled walks. There are 300 street lamps, which
burn the mineral oil of the district.
Yet, because the riotous Shinano persistently bars it out from the
sea, its natural highway, the capital of one of the richest
provinces of Japan is "left out in the cold," and the province
itself, which yields not only rice, silk, tea, hemp, ninjin, and
indigo, in large quantities, but gold, copper, coal, and petroleum,
has to send most of its produce to Yedo across ranges of mountains,
on the backs of pack-horses, by roads scarcely less infamous than
the one by which I came.
The Niigata of the Government, with its signs of progress in a
western direction, is quite unattractive-looking as compared with
the genuine Japanese Niigata, which is the neatest, cleanest, and
most comfortable-looking town I have yet seen, and altogether free
from the jostlement of a foreign settlement. It is renowned for
the beautiful tea-houses, which attract visitors from distant
places, and for the excellence of the theatres, and is the centre
of the recreation and pleasure of a large district. It is so
beautifully clean that, as at Nikko, I should feel reluctant to
walk upon its well-swept streets in muddy boots. It would afford a
good lesson to the Edinburgh authorities, for every vagrant bit of
straw, stick, or paper, is at once pounced upon and removed, and no
rubbish may stand for an instant in its streets except in a covered
box or bucket. It is correctly laid out in square divisions,
formed by five streets over a mile long, crossed by very numerous
short ones, and is intersected by canals, which are its real
roadways. I have not seen a pack-horse in the streets; everything
comes in by boat, and there are few houses in the city which cannot
have their goods delivered by canal very near to their doors.
These water-ways are busy all day, but in the early morning, when
the boats come in loaded with the vegetables, without which the
people could not exist for a day, the bustle is indescribable. The
cucumber boats just now are the great sight. The canals are
usually in the middle of the streets, and have fairly broad
roadways on both sides. They are much below the street level, and
their nearly perpendicular banks are neatly faced with wood, broken
at intervals by flights of stairs. They are bordered by trees,
among which are many weeping willows; and, as the river water runs
through them, keeping them quite sweet, and they are crossed at
short intervals by light bridges, they form a very attractive
feature of Niigata.
The houses have very steep roofs of shingle, weighted with stones,
and, as they are of very irregular heights, and all turn the steep
gables of the upper stories streetwards, the town has a
picturesqueness very unusual in Japan. The deep verandahs are
connected all along the streets, so as to form a sheltered
promenade when the snow lies deep in winter. With its canals with
their avenues of trees, its fine public gardens, and clean,
picturesque streets, it is a really attractive town; but its
improvements are recent, and were only lately completed by Mr.
Masakata Kusumoto, now Governor of Tokiyo. There is no appearance
of poverty in any part of the town, but if there be wealth, it is
carefully concealed. One marked feature of the city is the number
of streets of dwelling-houses with projecting windows of wooden
slats, through which the people can see without being seen, though
at night, when the andons are lit, we saw, as we walked from Dr.
Palm's, that in most cases families were sitting round the hibachi
in a deshabille of the scantiest kind.
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