Mitsu-ura stands with its back to the mountains, at the end of a small
deep bay hemmed in by very high cliffs. There is only one narrow strip
of beach at the foot of the heights; and the village owes its existence
to that fact, for beaches are rare on this part of the coast. Crowded
between the cliffs and the sea, the houses have a painfully compressed
aspect; and somehow the greater number give one the impression of things
created out of wrecks of junks. The little streets, or rather alleys,
are full of boats and skeletons of boats and boat timbers; and
everywhere, suspended from bamboo poles much taller than the houses,
immense bright brown fishing-nets are drying in the sun. The whole curve
of the beach is also lined with boats, lying side by side so that
I wonder how it will be possible to get to the water's edge without
climbing over them. There is no hotel; but I find hospitality in a
fisherman's dwelling, while my kurumaya goes somewhere to hire a boat
for Kaka-ura.
In less than ten minutes there is a crowd of several hundred people
about the house, half-clad adults and perfectly naked boys. They
blockade the building; they obscure the light by filling up the doorways
and climbing into the windows to look at the foreigner. The aged
proprietor of the cottage protests in vain, says harsh things; the crowd
only thickens. Then all the sliding screens are closed. But in the
paper panes there are holes; and at all the lower holes the curious take
regular turns at peeping. At a higher hole I do some peeping myself.
The crowd is not prepossessing: it is squalid, dull-featured, remarkably
ugly. But it is gentle and silent; and there are one or two pretty faces
in it which seem extraordinary by reason of the general homeliness of
the rest.
At last my kurumaya has succeeded in making arrangements for a boat; and
I effect a sortie to the beach, followed by the kurumaya and by all my
besiegers. Boats have been moved to make a passage for us, and we embark
without trouble of any sort. Our crew consists of two scullers--an old
man at the stem, wearing only a rokushaku about his loins, and an old
woman at the bow, fully robed and wearing an immense straw hat shaped
like a mushroom. Both of course stand to their work and it would be
hard to say which is the stronger or more skilful sculler. We passengers
squat Oriental fashion upon a mat in the centre of the boat, where a
hibachi, well stocked with glowing charcoal, invites us to smoke.