The Universal Language—The Yezo Corrals—A “Typhoon Rain”—Difficult
Tracks—An Unenviable Ride—Drying Clothes—A Woman’s Remorse.
THIS morning I left early in the _kuruma_ with two kind and delightful
savages. The road being much broken by the rains I had to get out
frequently, and every time I got in again they put my air-pillow behind
me, and covered me up in a blanket; and when we got to a rough river, one
made a step of his back by which I mounted their horse, and gave me
nooses of rope to hold on by, and the other held my arm to keep me
steady, and they would not let me walk up or down any of the hills. What
a blessing it is that, amidst the confusion of tongues, the language of
kindness and courtesy is universally understood, and that a kindly smile
on a savage face is as intelligible as on that of one’s own countryman!
They had never drawn a _kuruma_, and were as pleased as children when I
showed them how to balance the shafts. They were not without the
capacity to originate ideas, for, when they were tired of the frolic of
pulling, they attached the _kuruma_ by ropes to the horse, which one of
them rode at a “scramble,” while the other merely ran in the shafts to
keep them level. This is an excellent plan.
Horobets is a fishing station of antique and decayed aspect, with
eighteen Japanese and forty-seven Aino houses. The latter are much
larger than at Shiraôi, and their very steep roofs are beautifully
constructed. It was a miserable day, with fog concealing the mountains
and lying heavily on the sea, but as no one expected rain I sent the
_kuruma_ back to Mororan and secured horses. On principle I always go to
the _corral_ myself to choose animals, if possible, without sore backs,
but the choice is often between one with a mere raw and others which have
holes in their backs into which I could put my hand, or altogether
uncovered spines. The practice does no immediate good, but by showing
the Japanese that foreign opinion condemns these cruelties an amendment
may eventually be brought about. At Horobets, among twenty horses, there
was not one that I would take,—I should like to have had them all shot.
They are cheap and abundant, and are of no account. They drove a number
more down from the hills, and I chose the largest and finest horse I have
seen in Japan, with some spirit and action, but I soon found that he had
tender feet. We shortly left the high-road, and in torrents of rain
turned off on “unbeaten tracks,” which led us through a very bad swamp
and some much swollen and very rough rivers into the mountains, where we
followed a worn-out track for eight miles. It was literally “_foul_
weather,” dark and still, with a brown mist, and rain falling in sheets.
I threw my paper waterproof away as useless, my clothes were of course
soaked, and it was with much difficulty that I kept my _shomon_ and paper
money from being reduced to pulp. Typhoons are not known so far north as
Yezo, but it was what they call a “typhoon rain” without the typhoon, and
in no time it turned the streams into torrents barely fordable, and tore
up such of a road as there is, which at its best is a mere water-channel.
Torrents, bringing tolerable-sized stones, tore down the track, and when
the horses had been struck two or three times by these, it was with
difficulty that they could be induced to face the rushing water.
Constantly in a pass, the water had gradually cut a track several feet
deep between steep banks, and the only possible walking place was a stony
gash not wide enough for the two feet of a horse alongside of each other,
down which water and stones were rushing from behind, with all manner of
trailers matted overhead, and between avoiding being strangled and
attempting to keep a tender-footed horse on his legs, the ride was a very
severe one. The poor animal fell five times from stepping on stones, and
in one of his falls twisted my left wrist badly. I thought of the many
people who envied me my tour in Japan, and wondered whether they would
envy me that ride!
After this had gone on for four hours, the track, with a sudden dip over
a hillside, came down on Old Mororan, a village of thirty Aino and nine
Japanese houses, very unpromising-looking, although exquisitely situated
on the rim of a lovely cove. The Aino huts were small and poor, with an
unusual number of bear skulls on poles, and the village consisted mainly
of two long dilapidated buildings, in which a number of men were mending
nets. It looked a decaying place, of low, mean lives. But at a
“merchant’s” there was one delightful room with two translucent sides—one
opening on the village, the other looking to the sea down a short, steep
slope, on which is a quaint little garden, with dwarfed fir-trees in
pots, a few balsams, and a red cabbage grown with much pride as a
“foliage plant.”
It is nearly midnight, but my bed and bedding are so wet that I am still
sitting up and drying them, patch by patch, with tedious slowness, on a
wooden frame placed over a charcoal brazier, which has given my room the
dryness and warmth which are needed when a person has been for many hours
in soaked clothing, and has nothing really dry to put on. Ito bought a
chicken for my supper, but when he was going to kill it an hour later its
owner in much grief returned the money, saying she had brought it up and
could not bear to see it killed. This is a wild, outlandish place, but
an intuition tells me that it is beautiful. The ocean at present is
thundering up the beach with the sullen force of a heavy ground-swell,
and the rain is still falling in torrents.