I
Was Awoke Out Of A Sound Sleep By Ito Coming In With A Rumour,
Brought By Some Travellers, That The Prime Minister Had Been
Assassinated, And Fifty Policemen Killed!
[This was probably a
distorted version of the partial mutiny of the Imperial Guard,
which I learned on landing
In Yezo.] Very wild political rumours
are in the air in these outlandish regions, and it is not very
wonderful that the peasantry lack confidence in the existing order
of things after the changes of the last ten years, and the recent
assassination of the Home Minister. I did not believe the rumour,
for fanaticism, even in its wildest moods, usually owes some
allegiance to common sense; but it was disturbing, as I have
naturally come to feel a deep interest in Japanese affairs. A few
hours later Ito again presented himself with a bleeding cut on his
temple. In lighting his pipe - an odious nocturnal practice of the
Japanese - he had fallen over the edge of the fire-pot. I always
sleep in a Japanese kimona to be ready for emergencies, and soon
bound up his head, and slept again, to be awoke early by another
deluge.
We made an early start, but got over very little ground, owing to
bad roads and long delays. All day the rain came down in even
torrents, the tracks were nearly impassable, my horse fell five
times, I suffered severely from pain and exhaustion, and almost
fell into despair about ever reaching the sea. In these wild
regions there are no kago or norimons to be had, and a pack-horse
is the only conveyance, and yesterday, having abandoned my own
saddle, I had the bad luck to get a pack-saddle with specially
angular and uncompromising peaks, with a soaked and extremely
unwashed futon on the top, spars, tackle, ridges, and furrows of
the most exasperating description, and two nooses of rope to hold
on by as the animal slid down hill on his haunches, or let me
almost slide over his tail as he scrambled and plunged up hill.
It was pretty country, even in the downpour, when white mists
parted and fir-crowned heights looked out for a moment, or we slid
down into a deep glen with mossy boulders, lichen-covered stumps,
ferny carpet, and damp, balsamy smell of pyramidal cryptomeria, and
a tawny torrent dashing through it in gusts of passion. Then there
were low hills, much scrub, immense rice-fields, and violent
inundations. But it is not pleasant, even in the prettiest
country, to cling on to a pack-saddle with a saturated quilt below
you and the water slowly soaking down through your wet clothes into
your boots, knowing all the time that when you halt you must sleep
on a wet bed, and change into damp clothes, and put on the wet ones
again the next morning. The villages were poor, and most of the
houses were of boards rudely nailed together for ends, and for
sides straw rudely tied on; they had no windows, and smoke came out
of every crack. They were as unlike the houses which travellers
see in southern Japan as a "black hut" in Uist is like a cottage in
a trim village in Kent. These peasant proprietors have much to
learn of the art of living. At Tsuguriko, the next stage, where
the Transport Office was so dirty that I was obliged to sit in the
street in the rain, they told us that we could only get on a ri
farther, because the bridges were all carried away and the fords
were impassable; but I engaged horses, and, by dint of British
doggedness and the willingness of the mago, I got the horses singly
and without their loads in small punts across the swollen waters of
the Hayakuchi, the Yuwase, and the Mochida, and finally forded
three branches of my old friend the Yonetsurugawa, with the foam of
its hurrying waters whitening the men's shoulders and the horses'
packs, and with a hundred Japanese looking on at the "folly" of the
foreigner.
I like to tell you of kind people everywhere, and the two mago were
specially so, for, when they found that I was pushing on to Yezo
for fear of being laid up in the interior wilds, they did all they
could to help me; lifted me gently from the horse, made steps of
their backs for me to mount, and gathered for me handfuls of red
berries, which I ate out of politeness, though they tasted of some
nauseous drug. They suggested that I should stay at the
picturesquely-situated old village of Kawaguchi, but everything
about it was mildewed and green with damp, and the stench from the
green and black ditches with which it abounded was so overpowering,
even in passing through, that I was obliged to ride on to Odate, a
crowded, forlorn, half-tumbling-to-pieces town of 8000 people, with
bark roofs held down by stones.
The yadoyas are crowded with storm-staid travellers, and I had a
weary tramp from one to another, almost sinking from pain, pressed
upon by an immense crowd, and frequently bothered by a policeman,
who followed me from one place to the other, making wholly
unrighteous demands for my passport at that most inopportune time.
After a long search I could get nothing better than this room, with
fusuma of tissue paper, in the centre of the din of the house,
close to the doma and daidokoro. Fifty travellers, nearly all men,
are here, mostly speaking at the top of their voices, and in a
provincial jargon which exasperates Ito. Cooking, bathing, eating,
and, worst of all, perpetual drawing water from a well with a
creaking hoisting apparatus, are going on from 4.30 in the morning
till 11.30 at night, and on both evenings noisy mirth, of alcoholic
inspiration, and dissonant performances by geishas have added to
the dim
In all places lately Hai, "yes," has been pronounced He, Chi, Na,
Ne, to Ito's great contempt.
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