I HAVE well-nigh exhausted the resources of this place. They are to go
out three times a day to see how much the river has fallen; to talk with
the house-master and _Kôchô_; to watch the children’s games and the
making of shingles; to buy toys and sweetmeats and give them away; to
apply zinc lotion to a number of sore eyes three times daily, under which
treatment, during three days, there has been a wonderful amendment; to
watch the cooking, spinning, and other domestic processes in the
_daidokoro_; to see the horses, which are also actually in it, making
meals of green leaves of trees instead of hay; to see the lepers, who are
here for some waters which are supposed to arrest, if not to cure, their
terrible malady; to lie on my stretcher and sew, and read the papers of
the Asiatic Society, and to go over all possible routes to Aomori. The
people have become very friendly in consequence of the eye lotion, and
bring many diseases for my inspection, most of which would never have
arisen had cleanliness of clothing and person been attended to. The
absence of soap, the infrequency with which clothing is washed, and the
absence of linen next the skin, cause various cutaneous diseases, which
are aggravated by the bites and stings of insects. Scald-head affects
nearly half the children here.
I am very fond of Japanese children. I have never yet heard a baby cry,
and I have never seen a child troublesome or disobedient. Filial piety
is the leading virtue in Japan, and unquestioning obedience is the habit
of centuries. The arts and threats by which English mothers cajole or
frighten children into unwilling obedience appear unknown. I admire the
way in which children are taught to be independent in their amusements.
Part of the home education is the learning of the rules of the different
games, which are absolute, and when there is a doubt, instead of a
quarrelsome suspension of the game, the fiat of a senior child decides
the matter. They play by themselves, and don’t bother adults at every
turn. I usually carry sweeties with me, and give them to the children,
but not one has ever received them without first obtaining permission
from the father or mother. When that is gained they smile and bow
profoundly, and hand the sweeties to those present before eating any
themselves. They are gentle creatures, but too formal and precocious.
They have no special dress. This is so queer that I cannot repeat it too
often. At three they put on the _kimono_ and girdle, which are as
inconvenient to them as to their parents, and childish play in this garb
is grotesque. I have, however, never seen what we call child’s play—that
general abandonment to miscellaneous impulses, which consists in
struggling, slapping, rolling, jumping, kicking, shouting, laughing, and
quarrelling! Two fine boys are very clever in harnessing paper carts to
the backs of beetles with gummed traces, so that eight of them draw a
load of rice up an inclined plane. You can imagine what the fate of such
a load and team would be at home among a number of snatching hands. Here
a number of infants watch the performance with motionless interest, and
never need the adjuration, “Don’t touch.” In most of the houses there
are bamboo cages for “the shrill-voiced Katydid,” and the children amuse
themselves with feeding these vociferous grasshoppers. The channels of
swift water in the street turn a number of toy water-wheels, which set in
motion most ingenious mechanical toys, of which a model of the automatic
rice-husker is the commonest, and the boys spend much time in devising
and watching these, which are really very fascinating. It is the
holidays, but “holiday tasks” are given, and in the evenings you hear the
hum of lessons all along the street for about an hour. The school
examination is at the re-opening of the school after the holidays,
instead of at the end of the session—an arrangement which shows an honest
desire to discern the permanent gain made by the scholars.
This afternoon has been fine and windy, and the boys have been flying
kites, made of tough paper on a bamboo frame, all of a rectangular shape,
some of them five feet square, and nearly all decorated with huge faces
of historical heroes. Some of them have a humming arrangement made of
whale-bone. There was a very interesting contest between two great
kites, and it brought out the whole population. The string of each kite,
for 30 feet or more below the frame, was covered with pounded glass, made
to adhere very closely by means of tenacious glue, and for two hours the
kite-fighters tried to get their kites into a proper position for sawing
the adversary’s string in two. At last one was successful, and the
severed kite became his property, upon which victor and vanquished
exchanged three low bows. Silently as the people watched and received
the destruction of their bridge, so silently they watched this exciting
contest. The boys also flew their kites while walking on stilts—a most
dexterous performance, in which few were able to take part—and then a
larger number gave a stilt race. The most striking out-of-door games are
played at fixed seasons of the year, and are not to be seen now.
There are twelve children in this _yadoya_, and after dark they regularly
play at a game which Ito says “is played in the winter in every house in
Japan.” The children sit in a circle, and the adults look on eagerly,
child-worship being more common in Japan than in America, and, to my
thinking, the Japanese form is the best.
From proverbial philosophy to personal privation is rather a descent, but
owing to the many detentions on the journey my small stock of foreign
food is exhausted, and I have been living here on rice, cucumbers, and
salt salmon—so salt that, after being boiled in two waters, it produces a
most distressing thirst. Even this has failed to-day, as communication
with the coast has been stopped for some time, and the village is
suffering under the calamity of its stock of salt-fish being completely
exhausted. There are no eggs, and rice and cucumbers are very like the
“light food” which the Israelites “loathed.” I had an omelette one day,
but it was much like musty leather. The Italian minister said to me in
Tôkiyô, “No question in Japan is so solemn as that of food,” and many
others echoed what I thought at the time a most unworthy sentiment. I
recognised its truth to-day when I opened my last resort, a box of
Brand’s meat lozenges, and found them a mass of mouldiness. One can only
dry clothes here by hanging them in the wood smoke, so I prefer to let
them mildew on the walls, and have bought a straw rain-coat, which is
more reliable than the paper waterproofs. I hear the hum of the children
at their lessons for the last time, for the waters are falling fast, and
we shall leave in the morning.