A loud yell of “steamer,” coupled with the information that “she could
not wait one minute,” broke in upon _gô_ and everything else, and in a
broiling sun we hurried down to the pier, and with a heap of Japanese,
who filled two _scows_, were put on board a steamer not bigger than a
large decked steam launch, where the natives were all packed into a
covered hole, and I was conducted with much ceremony to the forecastle, a
place at the bow 5 feet square, full of coils of rope, shut in, and left
to solitude and dignity, and the stare of eight eyes, which perseveringly
glowered through the windows! The steamer had been kept waiting for me
on the other side for two days, to the infinite disgust of two
foreigners, who wished to return to Hakodaté, and to mine.
It was a splendid day, with foam crests on the wonderfully blue water,
and the red ashes of the volcano, which forms the south point of the bay,
glowed in the sunlight. This wretched steamer, whose boilers are so
often “sick” that she can never be relied upon, is the only means of
reaching the new capital without taking a most difficult and circuitous
route. To continue the pier and put a capable good steamer on the ferry
would be a useful expenditure of money. The breeze was strong and in our
favour, but even with this it took us six weary hours to steam
twenty-five miles, and it was eight at night before we reached the
beautiful and almost land-locked bay of Mororan, with steep, wooded
sides, and deep water close to the shore, deep enough for the foreign
ships of war which occasionally anchor there, much to the detriment of
the town. We got off in over-crowded _sampans_, and several people fell
into the water, much to their own amusement. The servants from the
different _yadoyas_ go down to the jetty to “tout” for guests with large
paper lanterns, and the effect of these, one above another, waving and
undulating, with their soft coloured light, was as bewitching as the
reflection of the stars in the motionless water. Mororan is a small town
very picturesquely situated on the steep shore of a most lovely bay, with
another height, richly wooded, above it, with shrines approached by
flights of stone stairs, and behind this hill there is the first Aino
village along this coast.
The long, irregular street is slightly picturesque, but I was impressed
both with the unusual sight of loafers and with the dissolute look of the
place, arising from the number of _jôrôyas_, and from the number of
_yadoyas_ that are also haunts of the vicious. I could only get a very
small room in a very poor and dirty inn, but there were no mosquitoes,
and I got a good meal of fish. On sending to order horses I found that
everything was arranged for my journey. The Governor sent his card
early, to know if there were anything I should like to see or do, but, as
the morning was grey and threatening, I wished to push on, and at 9.30 I
was in the _kuruma_ at the inn door. I call it the _kuruma_ because it
is the only one, and is kept by the Government for the conveyance of
hospital patients. I sat there uncomfortably and patiently for half an
hour, my only amusement being the flirtations of Ito with a very pretty
girl. Loiterers assembled, but no one came to draw the vehicle, and by
degrees the dismal truth leaked out that the three coolies who had been
impressed for the occasion had all absconded, and that four policemen
were in search of them. I walked on in a dawdling way up the steep hill
which leads from the town, met Mr. Akboshi, a pleasant young Japanese
surveyor, who spoke English and stigmatised Mororan as “the worst place
in Yezo;” and, after fuming for two hours at the waste of time, was
overtaken by Ito with the horses, in a boiling rage. “They’re the worst
and wickedest coolies in all Japan,” he stammered; “two more ran away,
and now three are coming, and have got paid for four, and the first three
who ran away got paid, and the Express man’s so ashamed for a foreigner,
and the Governor’s in a furious rage.”
Except for the loss of time it made no difference to me, but when the
_kuruma_ did come up the runners were three such ruffianly-looking men,
and were dressed so wildly in bark cloth, that, in sending Ito on twelve
miles to secure relays, I sent my money along with him. These men,
though there were three instead of two, never went out of a walk, and, as
if on purpose, took the vehicle over every stone and into every rut, and
kept up a savage chorus of “_haes-ha_, _haes-hora_” the whole time, as if
they were pulling stone-carts. There are really no runners out of
Hakodaté, and the men don’t know how to pull, and hate doing it.
Mororan Bay is truly beautiful from the top of the ascent. The coast
scenery of Japan generally is the loveliest I have ever seen, except that
of a portion of windward Hawaii, and this yields in beauty to none. The
irregular grey town, with a grey temple on the height above, straggles
round the little bay on a steep, wooded terrace; hills, densely wooded,
and with a perfect entanglement of large-leaved trailers, descend
abruptly to the water’s edge; the festoons of the vines are mirrored in
the still waters; and above the dark forest, and beyond the gleaming sea,
rises the red, peaked top of the volcano. Then the road dips abruptly to
sandy swellings, rising into bold headlands here and there; and for the
first time I saw the surge of 5000 miles of unbroken ocean break upon the
shore. Glimpses of the Pacific, an uncultivated, swampy level quite
uninhabited, and distant hills mainly covered with forest, made up the
landscape till I reached Horobets, a mixed Japanese and Aino village
built upon the sand near the sea.
[Picture: Aino Store-House at Horobets]
In these mixed villages the Ainos are compelled to live at a respectful
distance from the Japanese, and frequently out-number them, as at
Horobets, where there are forty-seven Aino and only eighteen Japanese
houses. The Aino village looks larger than it really is, because nearly
every house has a _kura_, raised six feet from the ground by wooden
stilts. When I am better acquainted with the houses I shall describe
them; at present I will only say that they do not resemble the Japanese
houses so much as the Polynesian, as they are made of reeds very neatly
tied upon a wooden framework. They have small windows, and roofs of a
very great height, and steep pitch, with the thatch in a series of very
neat frills, and the ridge poles covered with reeds, and ornamented. The
coast Ainos are nearly all engaged in fishing, but at this season the men
hunt deer in the forests. On this coast there are several names
compounded with _bets_ or _pets_, the Aino for a river, such as Horobets,
Yubets, Mombets, etc.
[Picture: Aino Lodges (from a Japanese Sketch)]
I found that Ito had been engaged for a whole hour in a violent
altercation, which was caused by the Transport Agent refusing to supply
runners for the _kuruma_, saying that no one in Horobets would draw one,
but on my producing the _shomon_ I was at once started on my journey of
sixteen miles with three Japanese lads, Ito riding on to Shiraôi to get
my room ready. I think that the Transport Offices in Yezo are in
Government hands. In a few minutes three Ainos ran out of a house, took
the _kuruma_, and went the whole stage without stopping. They took a boy
and three saddled horses along with them to bring them back, and rode and
hauled alternately, two youths always attached to the shafts, and a man
pushing behind. They were very kind, and so courteous, after a new
fashion, that I quite forgot that I was alone among savages. The lads
were young and beardless, their lips were thick, and their mouths very
wide, and I thought that they approached more nearly to the Eskimo type
than to any other. They had masses of soft black hair falling on each
side of their faces. The adult man was not a pure Aino. His dark hair
was not very thick, and both it and his beard had an occasional auburn
gleam. I think I never saw a face more completely beautiful in features
and expression, with a lofty, sad, far-off, gentle, intellectual look,
rather that of Sir Noël Paton’s “Christ” than of a savage. His manner
was most graceful, and he spoke both Aino and Japanese in the low musical
tone which I find is a characteristic of Aino speech. These Ainos never
took off their clothes, but merely let them fall from one or both
shoulders when it was very warm.
The road from Horobets to Shiraôi is very solitary, with not more than
four or five houses the whole way. It is broad and straight, except when
it ascends hills or turns inland to cross rivers, and is carried across a
broad swampy level, covered with tall wild flowers, which extends from
the high beach thrown up by the sea for two miles inland, where there is
a lofty wall of wooded rock, and beyond this the forest-covered mountains
of the interior. On the top of the raised beach there were Aino hamlets,
and occasionally a nearly overpowering stench came across the level from
the sheds and apparatus used for extracting fish-oil. I enjoyed the
afternoon thoroughly. It is so good to have got beyond the confines of
stereotyped civilisation and the trammels of Japanese travelling to the
solitude of nature and an atmosphere of freedom. It was grey, with a
hard, dark line of ocean horizon, and over the weedy level the grey road,
with grey telegraph-poles along it, stretched wearisomely like a grey
thread. The breeze came up from the sea, rustled the reeds, and waved
the tall plumes of the _Eulalia japonica_, and the thunder of the Pacific
surges boomed through the air with its grand, deep bass. Poetry and
music pervaded the solitude, and my spirit was rested.
Going up and then down a steep, wooded hill, the road appeared to return
to its original state of brushwood, and the men stopped at the broken
edge of a declivity which led down to a shingle bank and a foam-crested
river of clear, blue-green water, strongly impregnated with sulphur from
some medicinal springs above, with a steep bank of tangle on the opposite
side. This beautiful stream was crossed by two round poles, a foot
apart, on which I attempted to walk with the help of an Aino hand; but
the poles were very unsteady, and I doubt whether any one, even with a
strong head, could walk on them in boots. Then the beautiful Aino signed
to me to come back and mount on his shoulders; but when he had got a few
feet out the poles swayed and trembled so much that he was obliged to
retrace his way cautiously, during which process I endured miseries from
dizziness and fear; after which he carried me through the rushing water,
which was up to his shoulders, and through a bit of swampy jungle, and up
a steep bank, to the great fatigue both of body and mind, hardly
mitigated by the enjoyment of the ludicrous in riding a savage through
these Yezo waters. They dexterously carried the _kuruma_ through, on the
shoulders of four, and showed extreme anxiety that neither it nor I
should get wet. After this we crossed two deep, still rivers in scows,
and far above the grey level and the grey sea the sun was setting in gold
and vermilion-streaked green behind a glorified mountain of great height,
at whose feet the forest-covered hills lay in purple gloom. At dark we
reached Shiraôi, a village of eleven Japanese houses, with a village of
fifty-one Aino houses, near the sea. There is a large _yadoya_ of the
old style there; but I found that Ito had chosen a very pretty new one,
with four stalls open to the road, in the centre one of which I found
him, with the welcome news that a steak of fresh salmon was broiling on
the coals; and, as the room was clean and sweet and I was very hungry, I
enjoyed my meal by the light of a rush in a saucer of fish-oil as much as
any part of the day.
* * * * *