Prosperity—Convict Labour—A New Bridge—Yamagata—Intoxicating
Forgeries—The Government Buildings—Bad Manners—Snow Mountains—A Wretched
Town.
KANAYAMA, _July_ 16.
THREE days of travelling on the same excellent road have brought me
nearly 60 miles. Yamagata _ken_ impresses me as being singularly
prosperous, progressive, and go-ahead; the plain of Yamagata, which I
entered soon after leaving Kaminoyama, is populous and highly cultivated,
and the broad road, with its enormous traffic, looks wealthy and
civilised. It is being improved by convicts in dull red _kimonos_
printed with Chinese characters, who correspond with our ticket-of-leave
men, as they are working for wages in the employment of contractors and
farmers, and are under no other restriction than that of always wearing
the prison dress.
At the Sakamoki river I was delighted to come upon the only thoroughly
solid piece of modern Japanese work that I have met with—a remarkably
handsome stone bridge nearly finished—the first I have seen. I
introduced myself to the engineer, Okuno Chiuzo, a very gentlemanly,
agreeable Japanese, who showed me the plans, took a great deal of trouble
to explain them, and courteously gave me tea and sweetmeats.
Yamagata, a thriving town of 21,000 people and the capital of the _ken_,
is well situated on a slight eminence, and this and the dominant position
of the _kenchô_ at the top of the main street give it an emphasis unusual
in Japanese towns. The outskirts of all the cities are very mean, and
the appearance of the lofty white buildings of the new Government Offices
above the low grey houses was much of a surprise. The streets of
Yamagata are broad and clean, and it has good shops, among which are long
rows selling nothing but ornamental iron kettles and ornamental
brasswork. So far in the interior I was annoyed to find several shops
almost exclusively for the sale of villainous forgeries of European
eatables and drinkables, specially the latter. The Japanese, from the
Mikado downwards, have acquired a love of foreign intoxicants, which
would be hurtful enough to them if the intoxicants were genuine, but is
far worse when they are compounds of vitriol, fusel oil, bad vinegar, and
I know not what. I saw two shops in Yamagata which sold champagne of the
best brands, Martel’s cognac, Bass’ ale, Medoc, St. Julian, and Scotch
whisky, at about one-fifth of their cost price—all poisonous compounds,
the sale of which ought to be interdicted.
The Government Buildings, though in the usual confectionery style, are
improved by the addition of verandahs; and the _Kenchô_, _Saibanchô_, or
Court House, the Normal School with advanced schools attached, and the
police buildings, are all in keeping with the good road and obvious
prosperity. A large two-storied hospital, with a cupola, which will
accommodate 150 patients, and is to be a medical school, is nearly
finished. It is very well arranged and ventilated. I cannot say as much
for the present hospital, which I went over. At the Court House I saw
twenty officials doing nothing, and as many policemen, all in European
dress, to which they had added an imitation of European manners, the
total result being unmitigated vulgarity. They demanded my passport
before they would tell me the population of the _ken_ and city. Once or
twice I have found fault with Ito’s manners, and he has asked me twice
since if I think them like the manners of the policemen at Yamagata!
North of Yamagata the plain widens, and fine longitudinal ranges capped
with snow mountains on the one side, and broken ranges with lateral spurs
on the other, enclose as cheerful and pleasant a region as one would wish
to see, with many pleasant villages on the lower slopes of the hills.
The mercury was only 70°, and the wind north, so it was an especially
pleasant journey, though I had to go three and a half _ri_ beyond Tendo,
a town of 5000 people, where I had intended to halt, because the only
inns at Tendo which were not _kashitsukeya_ were so occupied with
silk-worms that they could not receive me.
The next day’s journey was still along the same fine road, through a
succession of farming villages and towns of 1500 and 2000 people, such as
Tochiida and Obanasawa, were frequent. From both these there was a
glorious view of Chôkaizan, a grand, snow-covered dome, said to be 8000
feet high, which rises in an altogether unexpected manner from
comparatively level country, and, as the great snow-fields of Udonosan
are in sight at the same time, with most picturesque curtain ranges
below, it may be considered one of the grandest views of Japan. After
leaving Obanasawa the road passes along a valley watered by one of the
affluents of the Mogami, and, after crossing it by a fine wooden bridge,
ascends a pass from which the view is most magnificent. After a long
ascent through a region of light, peaty soil, wooded with pine,
cryptomeria, and scrub oak, a long descent and a fine avenue terminate in
Shinjô, a wretched town of over 5000 people, situated in a plain of
rice-fields.
The day’s journey, of over twenty-three miles, was through villages of
farms without _yadoyas_, and in many cases without even tea-houses. The
style of building has quite changed. Wood has disappeared, and all the
houses are now built with heavy beams and walls of laths and brown mud
mixed with chopped straw, and very neat. Nearly all are great oblong
barns, turned endwise to the road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long, with
the end nearest the road the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have no
paper windows, only _amado_, with a few panes of paper at the top. These
are drawn back in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses,
blinds, formed of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening.
There are no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in
the rafters, who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon a
mosquito net.
Again I write that Shinjô is a wretched place. It is a _daimiyô’s_ town,
and every _daimiyô’s_ town that I have seen has an air of decay, partly
owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled down, or has been
allowed to fall into decay. Shinjô has a large trade in rice, silk, and
hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it looks. The mosquitoes were in
thousands, and I had to go to bed, so as to be out of their reach, before
I had finished my wretched meal of sago and condensed milk. There was a
hot rain all night, my wretched room was dirty and stifling, and rats
gnawed my boots and ran away with my cucumbers.
To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky. The good road has come
to an end, and the old hardships have begun again. After leaving Shinjô
this morning we crossed over a steep ridge into a singular basin of great
beauty, with a semicircle of pyramidal hills, rendered more striking by
being covered to their summits with pyramidal cryptomeria, and apparently
blocking all northward progress. At their feet lies Kanayama in a
romantic situation, and, though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying
for a day or two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and
pleasant, the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me,
and Ito has secured a chicken for the first time since leaving Nikkô!
I find it impossible in this damp climate, and in my present poor health,
to travel with any comfort for more than two or three days at a time, and
it is difficult to find pretty, quiet, and wholesome places for a halt of
two nights. Freedom from fleas and mosquitoes one can never hope for,
though the last vary in number, and I have found a way of “dodging” the
first by laying down a piece of oiled paper six feet square upon the mat,
dusting along its edges a band of Persian insect powder, and setting my
chair in the middle. I am then insulated, and, though myriads of fleas
jump on the paper, the powder stupefies them, and they are easily killed.
I have been obliged to rest here at any rate, because I have been stung
on my left hand both by a hornet and a gadfly, and it is badly inflamed.
In some places the hornets are in hundreds, and make the horses wild. I
am also suffering from inflammation produced by the bites of “horse
ants,” which attack one in walking. The Japanese suffer very much from
these, and a neglected bite often produces an intractable ulcer. Besides
these, there is a fly, as harmless in appearance as our house-fly, which
bites as badly as a mosquito. These are some of the drawbacks of
Japanese travelling in summer, but worse than these is the lack of such
food as one can eat when one finishes a hard day’s journey without
appetite, in an exhausting atmosphere.
_July_ 18.—I have had so much pain and fever from stings and bites that
last night I was glad to consult a Japanese doctor from Shinjô. Ito, who
looks twice as big as usual when he has to do any “grand” interpreting,
and always puts on silk _hakama_ in honour of it, came in with a
middle-aged man dressed entirely in silk, who prostrated himself three
times on the ground, and then sat down on his heels. Ito in many words
explained my calamities, and Dr. Nosoki then asked to see my “honourable
hand,” which he examined carefully, and then my “honourable foot.” He
felt my pulse and looked at my eyes with a magnifying glass, and with
much sucking in of his breath—a sign of good breeding and
politeness—informed me that I had much fever, which I knew before; then
that I must rest, which I also knew; then he lighted his pipe and
contemplated me. Then he felt my pulse and looked at my eyes again, then
felt the swelling from the hornet bite, and said it was much inflamed, of
which I was painfully aware, and then clapped his hands three times. At
this signal a coolie appeared, carrying a handsome black lacquer chest
with the same crest in gold upon it as Dr. Nosoki wore in white on his
_haori_. This contained a medicine chest of fine gold lacquer, fitted up
with shelves, drawers, bottles, etc. He compounded a lotion first, with
which he bandaged my hand and arm rather skilfully, telling me to pour
the lotion over the bandage at intervals till the pain abated. The whole
was covered with oiled paper, which answers the purpose of oiled silk.
He then compounded a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable, I have
not hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and to avoid
_saké_ for a day or two!
I asked him what his fee was, and, after many bows and much spluttering
and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should think half a _yen_ too
much, and when I presented him with a _yen_, and told him with a good
deal of profound bowing on my part that I was exceedingly glad to obtain
his services, his gratitude quite abashed me by its immensity.
Dr. Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners, whose medical
knowledge has been handed down from father to son, and who holds out, as
probably most of his patients do, against European methods and drugs. A
strong prejudice against surgical operations, specially amputations,
exists throughout Japan. With regard to the latter, people think that,
as they came into the world complete, so they are bound to go out of it,
and in many places a surgeon would hardly be able to buy at any price the
privilege of cutting off an arm.
Except from books these older men know nothing of the mechanism of the
human body, as dissection is unknown to native science. Dr. Nosoki told
me that he relies mainly on the application of the _moxa_ and on
acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in chronic maladies
on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and vegetable medicines, and
certain kinds of food. The use of leeches and blisters is unknown to
him, and he regards mineral drugs with obvious suspicion. He has heard
of chloroform, but has never seen it used, and considers that in
maternity it must necessarily be fatal either to mother or child. He
asked me (and I have twice before been asked the same question) whether
it is not by its use that we endeavour to keep down our redundant
population! He has great faith in _ginseng_, and in rhinoceros horn, and
in the powdered liver of some animal, which, from the description, I
understood to be a tiger—all specifics of the Chinese school of
medicines. Dr. Nosoki showed me a small box of “unicorn’s” horn, which
he said was worth more than its weight in gold! As my arm improved
coincidently with the application of his lotion, I am bound to give him
the credit of the cure.
I invited him to dinner, and two tables were produced covered with
different dishes, of which he ate heartily, showing most singular
dexterity with his chopsticks in removing the flesh of small, bony fish.
It is proper to show appreciation of a repast by noisy gulpings, and much
gurgling and drawing in of the breath. Etiquette rigidly prescribes
these performances, which are most distressing to a European, and my
guest nearly upset my gravity by them.
The host and the _kôchô_, or chief man of the village, paid me a formal
visit in the evening, and Ito, _en grande tenue_, exerted himself
immensely on the occasion. They were much surprised at my not smoking,
and supposed me to be under a vow! They asked me many questions about
our customs and Government, but frequently reverted to tobacco.