Good-tempered Intoxication—The Effect of Sunshine—A tedious
Altercation—Evening Occupations—Noisy Talk—Social Gathering—Unfair
Comparisons.
SHIRASAWA, _July_ 29.
EARLY this morning the rain-clouds rolled themselves up and disappeared,
and the bright blue sky looked as if it had been well washed. I had to
wait till noon before the rivers became fordable, and my day’s journey is
only seven miles, as it is not possible to go farther till more of the
water runs off. We had very limp, melancholy horses, and my _mago_ was
half-tipsy, and sang, talked, and jumped the whole way. _Saké_ is
frequently taken warm, and in that state produces a very noisy but
good-tempered intoxication. I have seen a good many intoxicated persons,
but never one in the least degree quarrelsome; and the effect very soon
passes off, leaving, however, an unpleasant nausea for two or three days
as a warning against excess. The abominable concoctions known under the
names of beer, wine, and brandy, produce a bad-tempered and prolonged
intoxication, and _delirium tremens_, rarely known as a result of _saké_
drinking, is being introduced under their baleful influence.
The sun shone gloriously and brightened the hill-girdled valley in which
Odaté stands into positive beauty, with the narrow river flinging its
bright waters over green and red shingle, lighting it up in glints among
the conical hills, some richly wooded with _coniferæ_, and others merely
covered with scrub, which were tumbled about in picturesque confusion.
When Japan gets the sunshine, its forest-covered hills and garden-like
valleys are turned into paradise. In a journey of 600 miles there has
hardly been a patch of country which would not have been beautiful in
sunlight.
We crossed five severe fords with the water half-way up the horses’
bodies, in one of which the strong current carried my _mago_ off his
feet, and the horse towed him ashore, singing and capering, his drunken
glee nothing abated by his cold bath. Everything is in a state of wreck.
Several river channels have been formed in places where there was only
one; there is not a trace of the road for a considerable distance, not a
bridge exists for ten miles, and a great tract of country is covered with
boulders, uprooted trees, and logs floated from the mountain sides.
Already, however, these industrious peasants are driving piles, carrying
soil for embankments in creels on horses’ backs, and making ropes of
stones to prevent a recurrence of the calamity. About here the female
peasants wear for field-work a dress which pleases me much by its
suitability—light blue trousers, with a loose sack over them, confined at
the waist by a girdle.
On arriving here in much pain, and knowing that the road was not open any
farther, I was annoyed by a long and angry conversation between the
house-master and Ito, during which the horses were not unloaded, and the
upshot of it was that the man declined to give me shelter, saying that
the police had been round the week before giving notice that no foreigner
was to be received without first communicating with the nearest police
station, which, in this instance, is three hours off. I said that the
authorities of Akita _ken_ could not by any local regulations override
the Imperial edict under which passports are issued; but he said he
should be liable to a fine and the withdrawal of his license if he
violated the rule. No foreigner, he said, had ever lodged in Shirasawa,
and I have no doubt that he added that he hoped no foreigner would ever
seek lodgings again. My passport was copied and sent off by special
runner, as I should have deeply regretted bringing trouble on the poor
man by insisting on my rights, and in much trepidation he gave me a room
open on one side to the village, and on another to a pond, over which, as
if to court mosquitoes, it is partially built. I cannot think how the
Japanese can regard a hole full of dirty water as an ornamental appendage
to a house.
My hotel expenses (including Ito’s) are less than 3s. a-day, and in
nearly every place there has been a cordial desire that I should be
comfortable, and, considering that I have often put up in small, rough
hamlets off the great routes even of Japanese travel, the accommodation,
_minus_ the fleas and the odours, has been surprisingly excellent, not to
be equalled, I should think, in equally remote regions in any country in
the world.
This evening, here, as in thousands of other villages, the men came home
from their work, ate their food, took their smoke, enjoyed their
children, carried them about, watched their games, twisted straw ropes,
made straw sandals, split bamboo, wove straw rain-coats, and spent the
time universally in those little economical ingenuities and skilful
adaptations which our people (the worse for them) practise perhaps less
than any other. There was no assembling at the _saké_ shop. Poor though
the homes are, the men enjoy them; the children are an attraction at any
rate, and the brawling and disobedience which often turn our
working-class homes into bear-gardens are unknown here, where docility
and obedience are inculcated from the cradle as a matter of course. The
signs of religion become fewer as I travel north, and it appears that the
little faith which exists consists mainly in a belief in certain charms
and superstitions, which the priests industriously foster.
A low voice is not regarded as “a most excellent thing,” in man at least,
among the lower classes in Japan. The people speak at the top of their
voices, and, though most words and syllables end in vowels, the general
effect of a conversation is like the discordant gabble of a farm-yard.
The next room to mine is full of storm-bound travellers, and they and the
house-master kept up what I thought was a most important argument for
four hours at the top of their voices. I supposed it must be on the new
and important ordinance granting local elective assemblies, of which I
heard at Odaté, but on inquiry found that it was possible to spend four
mortal hours in discussing whether the day’s journey from Odaté to
Noshiro could be made best by road or river.
Japanese women have their own gatherings, where gossip and chit-chat,
marked by a truly Oriental indecorum of speech, are the staple of talk.
I think that in many things, specially in some which lie on the surface,
the Japanese are greatly our superiors, but that in many others they are
immeasurably behind us. In living altogether among this courteous,
industrious, and civilised people, one comes to forget that one is doing
them a gross injustice in comparing their manners and ways with those of
a people moulded by many centuries of Christianity. Would to God that we
were so Christianised that the comparison might always be favourable to
us, which it is not!
_July_ 30.—In the room on the other side of mine were two men with severe
eye-disease, with shaven heads and long and curious rosaries, who beat
small drums as they walked, and were on pilgrimage to the shrine of Fudo
at Megura, near Yedo, a seated, flame-surrounded idol, with a naked sword
in one hand and a coil of rope in the other, who has the reputation of
giving sight to the blind. At five this morning they began their
devotions, which consisted in repeating with great rapidity, and in a
high monotonous key for two hours, the invocation of the Nichiren sect of
Buddhists, _Namu miyô hô ren ge Kiyô_, which certainly no Japanese
understands, and on the meaning of which even the best scholars are
divided; one having given me, “Glory to the salvation-bringing
Scriptures;” another, “Hail, precious law and gospel of the lotus
flower;” and a third, “Heaven and earth! The teachings of the wonderful
lotus flower sect.” _Namu amidu Butsu_ occurred at intervals, and two
drums were beaten the whole time!
The rain, which began again at eleven last night, fell from five till
eight this morning, not in drops, but in streams, and in the middle of it
a heavy pall of blackness (said to be a total eclipse) enfolded all
things in a lurid gloom. Any detention is exasperating within one day of
my journey’s end, and I hear without equanimity that there are great
difficulties ahead, and that our getting through in three or even four
days is doubtful. I hope you will not be tired of the monotony of my
letters. Such as they are, they represent the scenes which a traveller
would see throughout much of northern Japan, and whatever interest they
have consists in the fact that they are a faithful representation, made
upon the spot, of what a foreigner sees and hears in travelling through a
large but unfrequented region.