Almost As Soon As I Arrived I Was Obliged To Go In Search Of Mr.
Fraser's Office In The Settlement;
I say SEARCH, for there are no
names on the streets; where there are numbers they have no
sequence, and
I met no Europeans on foot to help me in my
difficulty. Yokohama does not improve on further acquaintance. It
has a dead-alive look. It has irregularity without
picturesqueness, and the grey sky, grey sea, grey houses, and grey
roofs, look harmoniously dull. No foreign money except the Mexican
dollar passes in Japan, and Mr. Fraser's compradore soon
metamorphosed my English gold into Japanese satsu or paper money, a
bundle of yen nearly at par just now with the dollar, packets of
50, 20, and 10 sen notes, and some rouleaux of very neat copper
coins. The initiated recognise the different denominations of
paper money at a glance by their differing colours and sizes, but
at present they are a distracting mystery to me. The notes are
pieces of stiff paper with Chinese characters at the corners, near
which, with exceptionally good eyes or a magnifying glass, one can
discern an English word denoting the value. They are very neatly
executed, and are ornamented with the chrysanthemum crest of the
Mikado and the interlaced dragons of the Empire.
I long to get away into real Japan. Mr. Wilkinson, H.B.M.'s acting
consul, called yesterday, and was extremely kind. He thinks that
my plan for travelling in the interior is rather too ambitious, but
that it is perfectly safe for a lady to travel alone, and agrees
with everybody else in thinking that legions of fleas and the
miserable horses are the great drawbacks of Japanese travelling.
I. L. B.
LETTER II
Sir Harry Parkes - An "Ambassador's Carriage" - Cart Coolies.
YOKOHAMA, May 22.
To-day has been spent in making new acquaintances, instituting a
search for a servant and a pony, receiving many offers of help,
asking questions and receiving from different people answers which
directly contradict each other. Hours are early. Thirteen people
called on me before noon. Ladies drive themselves about the town
in small pony carriages attended by running grooms called bettos.
The foreign merchants keep kurumas constantly standing at their
doors, finding a willing, intelligent coolie much more serviceable
than a lazy, fractious, capricious Japanese pony, and even the
dignity of an "Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary" is not above such a lowly conveyance, as I have
seen to-day. My last visitors were Sir Harry and Lady Parkes, who
brought sunshine and kindliness into the room, and left it behind
them. Sir Harry is a young-looking man scarcely in middle life,
slight, active, fair, blue-eyed, a thorough Saxon, with sunny hair
and a sunny smile, a sunshiny geniality in his manner, and bearing
no trace in his appearance of his thirty years of service in the
East, his sufferings in the prison at Peking, and the various
attempts upon his life in Japan.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 6 of 219
Words from 2633 to 3134
of 115002
