The Village Smith Was Opposite, But He Was Not A Man Of Ponderous
Strength, Nor Were There Those Wondrous Flights And Scintillations
Of Sparks Which Were The Joy Of Our Childhood In The Tattenhall
Forge.
A fire of powdered charcoal on the floor, always being
trimmed and replenished by a lean and grimy satellite,
A man still
leaner and grimier, clothed in goggles and a girdle, always sitting
in front of it, heating and hammering iron bars with his hands,
with a clink which went on late into the night, and blowing his
bellows with his toes; bars and pieces of rusty iron pinned on the
smoky walls, and a group of idle men watching his skilful
manipulation, were the sights of the Abukawa smithy, and kept me
thralled in the balcony, though the whole clothesless population
stood for the whole evening in front of the house with a silent,
open-mouthed stare.
Early in the morning the same melancholy crowd appeared in the
dismal drizzle, which turned into a tremendous torrent, which has
lasted for sixteen hours. Low hills, broad rice valleys in which
people are puddling the rice a second time to kill the weeds, bad
roads, pretty villages, much indigo, few passengers, were the
features of the day's journey. At Morioka and several other
villages in this region I noticed that if you see one large, high,
well-built house, standing in enclosed grounds, with a look of
wealth about it, it is always that of the sake brewer. A bush
denotes the manufacture as well as the sale of sake, and these are
of all sorts, from the mangy bit of fir which has seen long service
to the vigorous truss of pine constantly renewed. It is curious
that this should formerly have been the sign of the sale of wine in
England.
The wind and rain were something fearful all that afternoon. I
could not ride, so I tramped on foot for some miles under an avenue
of pines, through water a foot deep, and, with my paper waterproof
soaked through, reached Toyoka half drowned and very cold, to
shiver over a hibachi in a clean loft, hung with my dripping
clothes, which had to be put on wet the next day. By 5 a.m. all
Toyoka assembled, and while I took my breakfast I was not only the
"cynosure" of the eyes of all the people outside, but of those of
about forty more who were standing in the doma, looking up the
ladder. When asked to depart by the house-master, they said, "It's
neither fair nor neighbourly in you to keep this great sight to
yourself, seeing that our lives may pass without again looking on a
foreign woman;" so they were allowed to remain! I. L. B.
LETTER XXVI
The Fatigues of Travelling - Torrents and Mud - Ito's Surliness - The
Blind Shampooers - A Supposed Monkey Theatre - A Suspended Ferry - A
Difficult Transit - Perils on the Yonetsurugawa - A Boatman Drowned -
Nocturnal Disturbances - A Noisy Yadoya - Storm-bound Travellers -
Hai! Hai! - More Nocturnal Disturbances
ODATE, July 29.
I have been suffering so much from my spine that I have been unable
to travel more than seven or eight miles daily for several days,
and even that with great difficulty. I try my own saddle, then a
pack-saddle, then walk through the mud; but I only get on because
getting on is a necessity, and as soon as I reach the night's
halting-place I am obliged to lie down at once. Only strong people
should travel in northern Japan. The inevitable fatigue is much
increased by the state of the weather, and doubtless my impressions
of the country are affected by it also, as a hamlet in a quagmire
in a gray mist or a soaking rain is a far less delectable object
than the same hamlet under bright sunshine. There has not been
such a season for thirty years. The rains have been tremendous. I
have lived in soaked clothes, in spite of my rain-cloak, and have
slept on a soaked stretcher in spite of all waterproof wrappings
for several days, and still the weather shows no signs of
improvement, and the rivers are so high on the northern road that I
am storm-bound as well as pain-bound here. Ito shows his sympathy
for me by intense surliness, though he did say very sensibly, "I'm
very sorry for you, but it's no use saying so over and over again;
as I can do nothing for you, you'd better send for the blind man!"
In Japanese towns and villages you hear every evening a man (or
men) making a low peculiar whistle as he walks along, and in large
towns the noise is quite a nuisance. It is made by blind men; but
a blind beggar is never seen throughout Japan, and the blind are an
independent, respected, and well-to-do class, carrying on the
occupations of shampooing, money-lending, and music.
We have had a very severe journey from Toyoka. That day the rain
was ceaseless, and in the driving mists one could see little but
low hills looming on the horizon, pine barrens, scrub, and flooded
rice-fields; varied by villages standing along roads which were
quagmires a foot deep, and where the clothing was specially ragged
and dirty. Hinokiyama, a village of samurai, on a beautiful slope,
was an exception, with its fine detached houses, pretty gardens,
deep-roofed gateways, grass and stone-faced terraces, and look of
refined, quiet comfort. Everywhere there was a quantity of indigo,
as is necessary, for nearly all the clothing of the lower classes
is blue. Near a large village we were riding on a causeway through
the rice-fields, Ito on the pack-horse in front, when we met a
number of children returning from school, who, on getting near us,
turned, ran away, and even jumped into the ditches, screaming as
they ran. The mago ran after them, caught the hindmost boy, and
dragged him back - the boy scared and struggling, the man laughing.
The boy said that they thought that Ito was a monkey-player, i.e.
the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my
bed the scaffolding of the stage!
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