A Hard Day’s Journey—An Overturn—Nearing the Ocean—Joyful
Excitement—Universal Greyness—Inopportune Policemen—A Stormy Voyage—A
Wild Welcome—A Windy Landing—The Journey’s End.
HAKODATÉ, YEZO, August, 1878.
THE journey from Kuroishi to Aomori, though only 22½ miles, was a
tremendous one, owing to the state of the roads; for more rain had
fallen, and the passage of hundreds of pack-horses heavily loaded with
salt-fish had turned the tracks into quagmires. At the end of the first
stage the Transport Office declined to furnish a _kuruma_, owing to the
state of the roads; but, as I was not well enough to ride farther, I
bribed two men for a very moderate sum to take me to the coast; and by
accommodating each other we got on tolerably, though I had to walk up all
the hills and down many, to get out at every place where a little bridge
had been carried away, that the _kuruma_ might be lifted over the gap,
and often to walk for 200 yards at a time, because it sank up to its
axles in the quagmire. In spite of all precautions I was upset into a
muddy ditch, with the _kuruma_ on the top of me; but, as my air-pillow
fortunately fell between the wheel and me, I escaped with nothing worse
than having my clothes soaked with water and mud, which, as I had to keep
them on all night, might have given me cold, but did not. We met strings
of pack-horses the whole way, carrying salt-fish, which is taken
throughout the interior.
The mountain-ridge, which runs throughout the Main Island, becomes
depressed in the province of Nambu, but rises again into grand, abrupt
hills at Aomori Bay. Between Kuroishi and Aomori, however, it is broken
up into low ranges, scantily wooded, mainly with pine, scrub oak, and the
dwarf bamboo. The _Sesamum ignosco_, of which the incense-sticks are
made, covers some hills to the exclusion of all else. Rice grows in the
valleys, but there is not much cultivation, and the country looks rough,
cold, and hyperborean.
The farming hamlets grew worse and worse, with houses made roughly of
mud, with holes scratched in the side for light to get in, or for smoke
to get out, and the walls of some were only great pieces of bark and
bundles of straw tied to the posts with straw ropes. The roofs were
untidy, but this was often concealed by the profuse growth of the
water-melons which trailed over them. The people were very dirty, but
there was no appearance of special poverty, and a good deal of money must
be made on the horses and _mago_ required for the transit of fish from
Yezo, and for rice to it.
At Namioka occurred the last of the very numerous ridges we have crossed
since leaving Nikkô at a point called Tsugarusaka, and from it looked
over a rugged country upon a dark-grey sea, nearly landlocked by
pine-clothed hills, of a rich purple indigo colour. The clouds were
drifting, the colour was intensifying, the air was fresh and cold, the
surrounding soil was peaty, the odours of pines were balsamic, it looked,
felt, and smelt like home; the grey sea was Aomori Bay, beyond was the
Tsugaru Strait,—my long land-journey was done. A traveller said a
steamer was sailing for Yezo at night, so, in a state of joyful
excitement, I engaged four men, and by dragging, pushing, and lifting,
they got me into Aomori, a town of grey houses, grey roofs, and grey
stones on roofs, built on a beach of grey sand, round a grey bay—a
miserable-looking place, though the capital of the _ken_.
It has a great export trade in cattle and rice to Yezo, besides being the
outlet of an immense annual emigration from northern Japan to the Yezo
fishery, and imports from Hakodaté large quantities of fish, skins, and
foreign merchandise. It has some trade in a pretty but not valuable
“seaweed,” or variegated lacquer, called Aomori lacquer, but not actually
made there, its own speciality being a sweetmeat made of beans and sugar.
It has a deep and well-protected harbour, but no piers or conveniences
for trade. It has barracks and the usual Government buildings, but there
was no time to learn anything about it,—only a short half-hour for
getting my ticket at the _Mitsu Bishi_ office, where they demanded and
copied my passport; for snatching a morsel of fish at a restaurant where
“foreign food” was represented by a very dirty table-cloth; and for
running down to the grey beach, where I was carried into a large _sampan_
crowded with Japanese steerage passengers.
The wind was rising, a considerable surf was running, the spray was
flying over the boat, the steamer had her steam up, and was ringing and
whistling impatiently, there was a scud of rain, and I was standing
trying to keep my paper waterproof from being blown off, when three
inopportune policemen jumped into the boat and demanded my passport. For
a moment I wished them and the passport under the waves! The steamer is
a little old paddle-boat of about 70 tons, with no accommodation but a
single cabin on deck. She was as clean and trim as a yacht, and, like a
yacht, totally unfit for bad weather. Her captain, engineers, and crew
were all Japanese, and not a word of English was spoken. My clothes were
very wet, and the night was colder than the day had been, but the captain
kindly covered me up with several blankets on the floor, so I did not
suffer. We sailed early in the evening, with a brisk northerly breeze,
which chopped round to the south-east, and by eleven blew a gale; the sea
ran high, the steamer laboured and shipped several heavy seas, much water
entered the cabin, the captain came below every half-hour, tapped the
barometer, sipped some tea, offered me a lump of sugar, and made a face
and gesture indicative of bad weather, and we were buffeted about
mercilessly till 4 a.m., when heavy rain came on, and the gale fell
temporarily with it. The boat is not fit for a night passage, and always
lies in port when bad weather is expected; and as this was said to be the
severest gale which has swept the Tsugaru Strait since January, the
captain was uneasy about her, but being so, showed as much calmness as if
he had been a Briton!
The gale rose again after sunrise, and when, after doing sixty miles in
fourteen hours, we reached the heads of Hakodaté Harbour, it was blowing
and pouring like a bad day in Argyllshire, the spin-drift was driving
over the bay, the Yezo mountains loomed darkly and loftily through rain
and mist, and wind and thunder, and “noises of the northern sea,” gave me
a wild welcome to these northern shores. A rocky head like Gibraltar, a
cold-blooded-looking grey town, straggling up a steep hillside, a few
_coniferæ_, a great many grey junks, a few steamers and vessels of
foreign rig at anchor, a number of _sampans_ riding the rough water
easily, seen in flashes between gusts of rain and spin-drift, were all I
saw, but somehow it all pleased me from its breezy, northern look.
The steamer was not expected in the gale, so no one met me, and I went
ashore with fifty Japanese clustered on the top of a decked _sampan_ in
such a storm of wind and rain that it took us 1½ hours to go half a mile;
then I waited shelterless on the windy beach till the Customs’ Officers
were roused from their late slumbers, and then battled with the storm for
a mile up a steep hill. I was expected at the hospitable Consulate, but
did not know it, and came here to the Church Mission House, to which Mr.
and Mrs. Dening kindly invited me when I met them in Tôkiyô. I was unfit
to enter a civilised dwelling; my clothes, besides being soaked, were
coated and splashed with mud up to the top of my hat; my gloves and boots
were finished, my mud-splashed baggage was soaked with salt water; but I
feel a somewhat legitimate triumph at having conquered all obstacles, and
having accomplished more than I intended to accomplish when I left Yedo.
How musical the clamour of the northern ocean is! How inspiriting the
shrieking and howling of the boisterous wind! Even the fierce pelting of
the rain is home-like, and the cold in which one shivers is stimulating!
You cannot imagine the delight of being in a room with a door that will
lock, to be in a bed instead of on a stretcher, of finding twenty-three
letters containing good news, and of being able to read them in warmth
and quietness under the roof of an English home!