I AM enjoying Hakodaté so much that, though my tour is all planned and my
arrangements are made, I linger on from day to day. There has been an
unpleasant _éclaircissement_ about Ito. You will remember that I engaged
him without a character, and that he told both Lady Parkes and me that
after I had done so his former master, Mr. Maries, asked him to go back
to him, to which he had replied that he had “a contract with a lady.”
Mr. Maries is here, and I now find that he had a contract with Ito, by
which Ito bound himself to serve him as long as he required him, for $7 a
month, but that, hearing that I offered $12, he ran away from him and
entered my service with a lie! Mr. Maries has been put to the greatest
inconvenience by his defection, and has been hindered greatly in
completing his botanical collection, for Ito is very clever, and he had
not only trained him to dry plants successfully, but he could trust him
to go away for two or three days and collect seeds. I am very sorry
about it. He says that Ito was a bad boy when he came to him, but he
thinks that he cured him of some of his faults, and that he has served me
faithfully. I have seen Mr. Maries at the Consul’s, and have arranged
that, after my Yezo tour is over, Ito shall be returned to his rightful
master, who will take him to China and Formosa for a year and a half, and
who, I think, will look after his well-being in every way. Dr. and Mrs.
Hepburn, who are here, heard a bad account of the boy after I began my
travels and were uneasy about me, but, except for this original lie, I
have no fault to find with him, and his Shintô creed has not taught him
any better. When I paid him his wages this morning he asked me if I had
any fault to find, and I told him of my objection to his manners, which
he took in very good part and promised to amend them; “but,” he added,
“mine are just missionary manners!”
Yesterday I dined at the Consulate, to meet Count Diesbach, of the French
Legation, Mr. Von Siebold, of the Austrian Legation, and Lieutenant
Kreitner, of the Austrian army, who start to-morrow on an exploring
expedition in the interior, intending to cross the sources of the rivers
which fall into the sea on the southern coast and measure the heights of
some of the mountains. They are “well found” in food and claret, but
take such a number of pack-ponies with them that I predict that they will
fail, and that I, who have reduced my luggage to 45 lbs., will succeed!
I hope to start on my long-projected tour to-morrow; I have planned it
for myself with the confidence of an experienced traveller, and look
forward to it with great pleasure, as a visit to the aborigines is sure
to be full of novel and interesting experiences. Good-bye for a long
time.