A Hurry—The Tsugawa Packet-boat—Running the Rapids—Fantastic Scenery—The
River-life—Vineyards—Drying Barley—Summer Silence—The Outskirts of
Niigata—The Church Mission House.
NIIGATA, _July_ 4.
THE boat for Niigata was to leave at eight, but at five Ito roused me by
saying they were going at once, as it was full, and we left in haste, the
house-master running to the river with one of my large baskets on his
back to “speed the parting guest.” Two rivers unite to form a stream
over whose beauty I would gladly have lingered, and the morning,
singularly rich and tender in its colouring, ripened into a glorious day
of light without glare, and heat without oppressiveness. The “packet”
was a stoutly-built boat, 45 feet long by 6 broad, propelled by one man
sculling at the stern, and another pulling a short broad-bladed oar,
which worked in a wistaria loop at the bow. It had a croquet mallet
handle about 18 inches long, to which the man gave a wriggling turn at
each stroke. Both rower and sculler stood the whole time, clad in
umbrella hats. The fore part and centre carried bags of rice and crates
of pottery, and the hinder part had a thatched roof which, when we
started, sheltered twenty-five Japanese, but we dropped them at hamlets
on the river, and reached Niigata with only three. I had my chair on the
top of the cargo, and found the voyage a delightful change from the
fatiguing crawl through quagmires at the rate of from 15 to 18 miles a
day. This trip is called “running the rapids of the Tsugawa,” because
for about twelve miles the river, hemmed in by lofty cliffs, studded with
visible and sunken rocks, making several abrupt turns and shallowing in
many places, hurries a boat swiftly downwards; and it is said that it
requires long practice, skill, and coolness on the part of the boatmen to
prevent grave and frequent accidents. But if they are rapids, they are
on a small scale, and look anything but formidable. With the river at
its present height the boats run down forty-five miles in eight hours,
charging only 30 _sen_, or 1s. 3d., but it takes from five to seven days
to get up, and much hard work in poling and towing.
The boat had a thoroughly “native” look, with its bronzed crew, thatched
roof, and the umbrella hats of all its passengers hanging on the mast. I
enjoyed every hour of the day. It was luxury to drop quietly down the
stream, the air was delicious, and, having heard nothing of it, the
beauty of the Tsugawa came upon me as a pleasant surprise, besides that
every mile brought me nearer the hoped-for home letters. Almost as soon
as we left Tsugawa the downward passage was apparently barred by
fantastic mountains, which just opened their rocky gates wide enough to
let us through, and then closed again. Pinnacles and needles of bare,
flushed rock rose out of luxuriant vegetation—Quiraing without its
bareness, the Rhine without its ruins, and more beautiful than both.
There were mountains connected by ridges no broader than a horse’s back,
others with great gray buttresses, deep chasms cleft by streams, temples
with pagoda roofs on heights, sunny villages with deep-thatched roofs
hidden away among blossoming trees, and through rifts in the nearer
ranges glimpses of snowy mountains.
After a rapid run of twelve miles through this enchanting scenery, the
remaining course of the Tsugawa is that of a broad, full stream winding
marvellously through a wooded and tolerably level country, partially
surrounded by snowy mountains. The river life was very pretty. Canoes
abounded, some loaded with vegetables, some with wheat, others with boys
and girls returning from school. _Sampans_ with their white puckered
sails in flotillas of a dozen at a time crawled up the deep water, or
were towed through the shallows by crews frolicking and shouting. Then
the scene changed to a broad and deep river, with a peculiar alluvial
smell from the quantity of vegetable matter held in suspension, flowing
calmly between densely wooded, bamboo-fringed banks, just high enough to
conceal the surrounding country. No houses, or nearly none, are to be
seen, but signs of a continuity of population abound. Every hundred
yards almost there is a narrow path to the river through the jungle, with
a canoe moored at its foot. Erections like gallows, with a swinging
bamboo, with a bucket at one end and a stone at the other, occurring
continually, show the vicinity of households dependent upon the river for
their water supply. Wherever the banks admitted of it, horses were being
washed by having water poured over their backs with a dipper, naked
children were rolling in the mud, and cackling of poultry, human voices,
and sounds of industry, were ever floating towards us from the dense
greenery of the shores, making one feel without seeing that the margin
was very populous. Except the boatmen and myself, no one was awake
during the hot, silent afternoon—it was dreamy and delicious.
Occasionally, as we floated down, vineyards were visible with the vines
trained on horizontal trellises, or bamboo rails, often forty feet long,
nailed horizontally on cryptomeria to a height of twenty feet, on which
small sheaves of barley were placed astride to dry till the frame was
full.
More forest, more dreams, then the forest and the abundant vegetation
altogether disappeared, the river opened out among low lands and banks of
shingle and sand, and by three we were on the outskirts of Niigata, whose
low houses,—with rows of stones upon their roofs, spread over a stretch
of sand, beyond which is a sandy roll with some clumps of firs.
Tea-houses with many balconies studded the river-side, and
pleasure-parties were enjoying themselves with _geishas_ and _saké_, but,
on the whole, the water-side streets are shabby and tumble down, and the
landward side of the great city of western Japan is certainly
disappointing; and it was difficult to believe it a Treaty Port, for the
sea was not in sight, and there were no consular flags flying. We poled
along one of the numerous canals, which are the carriage-ways for produce
and goods, among hundreds of loaded boats, landed in the heart of the
city, and, as the result of repeated inquiries, eventually reached the
Church Mission House, an unshaded wooden building without verandahs,
close to the Government Buildings, where I was most kindly welcomed by
Mr. and Mrs. Fyson.
The house is plain, simple, and inconveniently small; but doors and walls
are great luxuries, and you cannot imagine how pleasing the ways of a
refined European household are after the eternal babblement and indecorum
of the Japanese.