Completing the Circuit of Yezo--The End of my Journey.
Oshamambe is a group of seventy houses, just midway between Mororran and
Mori. The Ainu of this bay are poor specimens of their race, as most of
them have intermarried with Japanese. They are, however, those most
talked about by Europeans, for they are of easy access to
globe-trotters.
They are mostly half-castes, and even second and third crosses;
wherefore it is no wonder that the incautious travellers who have
written on the Ainu, studying only these easily-visited specimens, have
discovered in them a remarkable likeness to the Japanese!
The fact that I was rapidly nearing the end of my trip half filled me
with pleasure, yet pleasure mingled with regret. It was nearly six weeks
now since I met with the accident to my foot, and I was decidedly
better. The cold weather had greatly contributed to this improvement of
my condition; and had it not been for my bone which kept sticking out of
my skin, I should have considered myself in fine case. I could hop along
with my self-made crutch and my stick, and when riding the pain was not
nearly as acute as it had been the first fifteen or twenty days.
As the road was good, and there was nothing interesting to me on this
portion of the journey, I tried to push on rapidly towards Mori.
Unfortunately, at the last minute my patience was put to a trial. I
hired a horse, and it was lame. No others were to be had that day for
love or money. The animal had been lame for two years, they said, and
though uncomfortable to ride he did not suffer any pain. This I
ascertained afterwards was true, for that day the sturdy brute carried
me 48-1/2 miles without once requiring punishment. It is needless to say
that what I suffered that day by the continuous jerking is beyond
description. I rode fourteen hours in a fearful storm of rain and snow,
and my feverish anxiety to reach Hakodate soon, so that I might receive
letters, and have news of my parents and friends--from whom I had not
heard for five months--helped me to pull through all the fatigue and
worry of the way. The road between Oshamambe and Kunnui is fair, getting
still better towards Yurap and Yamakushinai. But to shorten the journey
and lessen the jerking I followed the sandy sea-beach, which, describing
a smaller circle than the road, necessarily diminishes the distance.
From Yamakushinai the road is very good and wide, and it has
nicely-built bridges over the Otoshibe and Nigori Rivers. The small
fishing villages, though not so imposing in appearance as some of those
in other parts of Yezo, add to the picturesqueness of the bay, with its
beautiful volcanic cone of Komagatage towering in the distance towards
the south-east.
The fishing in Volcano Bay consists mostly of mackerel, sprats, halibut,
and herrings.
I reached Mori late in the evening, and was received with a friendly
greeting by the people of the tea-house in which I had stayed on my way
up at the beginning of my journey.
The place was brilliantly lighted with numberless candles, and opposite
the entrance was a kind of altar decked with flowers and cakes. A few
_bonzes_, with their shaven heads and long, thin, depraved fingers, were
saying their prayers and beating with a small wand on the round wooden
bells. With the gods of Japan you must ring a bell or clap your hands
before you begin to pray, or else the god will pay no attention to your
petitions. In the next room another Japanese, with less depraved
fingers, but with a more wicked face, was dressed in European clothes,
and was apparently giving a sermon, and sure enough he proved to be a
native Christian minister!
"Hallo!" said I to the landlord; "what does all this mean?"
"Oh," said he, smiling--for Buddhism teaches you not to show pain--"my
old mother is dead. You saw her when you were here before. She died
yesterday, and as she was formerly a Buddhist and had become a
Christian, I have now got some Buddhist _bonzes_ and a Christian
minister to pray for her, for I want her to be happy in the other
world."
"But do you not think," I replied, "that so much praying of different
kinds might interfere with her happiness?"
"Oh, no, your honourable," he said quickly, "I have paid the _bonzes_
and the clergyman in advance, and the gods cannot get angry now!"
It was curious to notice the competition between the representatives of
the two different creeds.
On the one side the Christian shouted his prayers and sang his hymns in
a stentorian voice, to put the _bonzes_ in the shade and get the start
of them in the contest; and on the other side these rattled on the
wooden bells with all their might, so that their prayers should be heard
first. I was more than happy when this religious race was over, and I
was allowed a few hours' rest.
Instead of going straight to Hakodate by _basha_ by the road I had
already once traversed, I followed the coast in a south-easterly
direction towards the volcano of Esan.
Near Usushiri, some two miles inland, are the hot springs of Obune,
where, in a picturesque gully surrounded by mountains, are two dirty
shanties for the benefit of those who wish to take the waters. At Isoya,
five miles north of this place, similar springs are found, and three and
a half miles south-east of Usushiri still more can be seen at Kakumi.
The latter place is a picturesque little spot, with its three old sheds
and the steaming bath-room framed in the multi-coloured foliage of trees
with their lovely autumn tints. A clean path a few hundred yards long
leads from the coast to the springs, and a track across the mountains is
found between that place and Hakodate; also another leading from Obune
to the latter port. By both these tracks a most lovely view of Hakodate
Bay can be obtained when the summit of the mountain range is reached.
From Kakumi the coast-line is wretched for travelling, set thick as it
is with stones as sharp as knives, while the waves continually wash over
the narrow beach, drenching the wayfarer to the skin.
I reached Otatsube, a group of a few fishermen's huts; and as there is
no traffic whatever along this coast, there were no regular tea-houses.
Unfortunately for me, the British Squadron in the Pacific had spent the
summer at Hakodate, and the ships had often gone for gun-practice
somewhere near this place, scaring the natives to death, and furthermore
angering them against foreigners in general, for they said the report of
the guns frightened away all the fish. When I asked for food and offered
money for it, they flatly refused me, saying contemptuously,--
"You foreigners come and scare all the fish away, and now you shall die
of starvation before you shall get food from us. We do not want your
money. We are rich."
And so I was held responsible for the doings of Her Majesty's fleet,
which until then I did not even know had been in those waters!
At Furimbé, the next small village, only a few miles further on, my
experience was even more unpleasant. Not only would they not give me
food, but they would not shelter me for the night in any of the houses;
and many of the fishermen, taking advantage of my wretched condition,
were impudent to such a point that I thought we should have come to
blows.
It was getting quite dark, and I was fearfully hungry and exhausted. The
only course open to me was to push on, and see if I could come across
some other hut where the owners were not so churlish. As it turned out,
for the first time since I had been in Hokkaido I had some good luck
that night!
A few hundred yards from this Japanese village, among the trees, was a
little wooden shrine. Through the grating of the door I caught sight of
offerings of cakes and rice which the religious fishermen had deposited
on the kind of altar, probably to appease the angry gods, and induce
them to fill the sea with fish again. The door of the shrine, as is
usual in country places in Japan, was not locked, but a small outside
bolt was all there was to keep it closed. I had no difficulty in
entering. The night was a terrible one. The rain was pouring in
torrents, and having had nothing to eat all day, I felt I had not the
strength to go another yard. "After all," I said to myself, "the home of
the gods, Japanese or not, is good enough for me. So is this supper," I
soliloquized, swallowing now a white cake, now a red one, then a green
one, till nothing but the empty vessels were left. "Delicious" was my
last word, when, smacking my lips over the last green cake, I proceeded
to make myself comfortable for the night. It is needless to add that I
left very early in the morning, when the first rays of light broke the
dimness of the night, and I dare say that, for the sake of morality, I
ought to add that I was sorry for committing the sacrilege; but I was
not--indeed I was not!
The mountain track continued, rough and steep in many places, and the
autumn tints on the foliage were lovely, though not as varied as those
of Northern America. Past Todohotke another volcano, the Esan, stared me
in the face. Its crater, or rather its craters, for there are several,
are not on the summit of the mountain, which is well rounded, but nearly
halfway down its western slopes. Accumulations of very pure sulphur are
deposited in and around these craters, and a continuous rumbling can be
heard inside the mountain. The craters eject sulphurous vapours, and
molten lava bubbles up as if in gigantic caldrons, congealing at the
mouths of the craters and cracking with the extreme heat.
The coast-line is precipitous and almost impassable round Cape Esan,
therefore the track leads over the mountain. The altitude of Esan is
1740 feet above the sea-level, but owing to its rising directly from the
sea it has the look of a much more lofty mountain. Komagatage, near
Mori, is 4,011, or more than double the height of Esan, while
Makkarinupuri volcano, or Shiribeshi Mountain, as others call it, about
forty-five miles south-west of Sappro, and ten miles north of Toya Lake,
reaches an altitude of 6,440 feet.
Iwaonobori, which I passed on the north coast in this latter part of my
journey, is 3,374 feet. Usu, on Volcano Bay, 1868 feet. Tarumai,
directly south of Sappro, only reaches a height of 2,800 feet.
When this volcanic part of the coast round Esan Cape is passed the track
becomes easier and flatter. One comes again to the sandy beaches, and
the coast is lively with numbers of fishermen's huts, and a couple of
villages like Shirikishinai and Toi. One day's journey on horseback from
here takes you to Hakodate. The Hakodate Peak can be seen in the
distance to the west; and only a few more hours, only a few more miles,
and I should be in civilisation, I should see a few European faces, and
I should hear English spoken again.
As I approached the sandy isthmus, and the peak grew bigger before me, I
wondered what had been going on in the world, and what news I should
receive of my dear ones. I imagined myself already devouring with my
eyes the hundreds of letters which must have been amassed at Hakodate,
waiting for me during the many months I had been away. I imagined myself
half buried in newspapers months old, anxiously reading the news of the
world. I hurried on my pony, I crossed the sand isthmus--and there I was
in the lively streets of Hakodate, gazed at by the astonished Japanese,
who, I believe, were more than a little amazed--perhaps scandalised--at
my turn-out.
Such as I was, and before I went to the Japanese tea-house, I called at
the Consulate for my correspondence. Her Britannic Majesty's
representative, who knew me well enough, was more than thunderstruck
when I appeared before him in such a strange attire. He was smoking a
pipe, and he almost let it drop, such was his surprise.
"Who are you?" he feebly exclaimed, looking me all over from head to
foot. "Surely you are not Landor?" he said when I told him my name.
"I believe I am," I answered, "and I have come to trouble you for my
letters."
"Oh, none have come; we have none," he said drily.
And now that I was not quite so well dressed as when I had called on my
arrival at Hakodate from Southern Japan, he seemed anxious to see me off
the premises as soon as possible, I dare say for fear lest I should
expire on his doorstep.
"But there _must_ be some letters," I said, as I was sadly leaving.
"No, there are none. Good-bye," he repeated.
The first glimpse of civilisation and of a civilised being was certainly
not a pleasing one. In a town where there are hardly half-a-dozen
British subjects, all told, I expected a better reception than one which
many would not bestow on a beggar to a compatriot in a foreign country.
Kindness costs nothing, and I was asking no favour.
I left the place disheartened, but feeling that the pompous official had
made a blunder, unluckily at my expense.
Mr. Henson, in whose house I had left all my luggage, greeted me with
open arms. He was kindness itself, and very different from the
gold-collared gentleman of the Consulate. I must say that I felt most
uncomfortable when, after having opened my trunks, I put on fresh
clothes and boots; in fact, such was the change from my late airy
costume that I caught a cold! I had now almost finished my self-imposed
task. I had made the whole circuit of Yezo, and been up all its largest
rivers, with the exception of that part of the western coast which lies
between Barabuta and Hakodate. It would mean only a few more days of
agony, and for the sake of completing my journey I left Hakodate again
the next morning at 2 A.M. in a _basha_ for Esashi, on the west coast.
The distance is fifty-seven miles, and we employed sixteen hours in
covering it. It was snowing when we crossed the hills, and it was
fearfully cold. Fortunately, the road is one of the best in Hokkaido.
Just in front of me sat a poor man piteously ill with _kaki_. His body
was dreadfully swollen and his limbs were stiff. What the poor man must
have suffered in being shaken for so many hours is beyond description.
His lamentations were heartrending. He had come to Hakodate in the hope
of getting cured, and now he was returning--to use his words--"to die
near his home." When we reached Esashi he was truly more dead than
alive. He was senseless, and had to be lifted up bodily and carried into
the house.
Esashi is a large place, and is one of the oldest towns in Yezo. In
front lies a small oblong island, with which various wonderful tales of
treasure are connected. Its harbour is too unsafe, being exposed to all
winds, and I was told that the sea is always rough except during the
months of July and August. I believe that this is greatly due to the
currents.
I went north to Kumaishi and Cape Ota, the most westerly point of Yezo.
About ten miles west of this cape is the small island of Okushiri,
peopled mostly by Japanese.
The track is tolerably fair for about twenty-four miles as far as
Kumaishi. It runs either along the beach or around clay and conglomerate
rocky points, occasionally over the cliffs and through ravines. North of
Esashi, along the Assap River, is a good stretch of cultivable land;
then the thickly-wooded mountainous region begins again towards the
north.
Kumaishi is said to be the best district for herring fishing along that
coast.
From Kumaishi to Kudo numerous reefs extend out at sea, and small
headlands afford a safe anchorage to junks. The track is mostly on a
rough coast backed by high and well-wooded hills. Striking across the
mountains, which rise sheer from the sea, we come to Cape Ota, the most
westerly point of Yezo. From here the coast turns towards the north-east
as far as Barabuta; but as it was impossible for me to go on horseback
to that place, though only a few miles distant, I turned back and
returned to Esashi, then following the coast towards the south to
Matsumai or Fukuyama, one of the first Japanese settlements established
in Yezo, and formerly the capital of the island. The coast is rugged and
picturesque from Esashi to the two villages of Kaminokumi and Shiofuki,
after which a mountain path leads to Ishisaki.
I found the Japanese on this coast most polite and honest, and more like
the "old Japanese" than the younger generations.
The cliffs on the south side of the Ishizaki River were resplendent in
beauty under the brilliant red and yellow light of the setting sun.
Oshima (or Large Island) could be seen on the horizon in the distant
south. Five miles further, across a mountain track, I came to Cisango,
and five more miles beyond that place landed me at Haraguchi, two small
fishing villages, with houses resting on high posts and against the
cliffs, somewhat similar to the villages I found previous to my reaching
the Ishikari River.
After that are eight or ten miles of a monotonous hilly road, where you
do nothing but ascend and descend one small hill after another, up and
down a snake-like or a zig-zag path; but when Eramachi is passed the
track becomes much more interesting, with its peculiar groups of rocks
of all shapes sticking out of the sea, and the long line of reef over
which the breakers roll foaming and thundering. From here by the side of
Oshima, another small island, "Koshima," is seen on the horizon. Going
south the coast gradually gets more and more picturesque, with its
pretty little fishing villages hidden among the rocks and sheltered
under the high cliffs. At Neptka a good road leads over the cliffs to
Fukuyama.
About a mile before the town is reached, from a high point of vantage on
the road, is a pretty peep of Benten Island, just off the shore, with an
old temple on it, and by its side a new lighthouse. On the shore, a few
yards from the road opposite the island, a large rock is literally
covered with hundreds of stone images of Amida and different gods, and
two _Torii_, sacred emblems of Japan, are placed in front of it.
I descended the slope gently and reached Koromatsumai, otherwise called
Matsumai, or Fukuyama. It is a "dear old spot," the most picturesque of
all the towns in Hokkaido. It is ancient, for one thing, while other
places are modern--some villages, indeed, only a year or two old, or
even less. Thus weather has toned down the light yellow colour of the
new wood, which is so offensive to the eye in a landscape, and is so
common in all Japanese villages of Yezo. Besides, Fukuyama has pretty
temples on the surrounding hills, and prettily-laid-out gardens with
tiny stone bridges, bronze lanterns, and dwarfed trees. It is more like
a town of old Japan. It has a three-storied castle with turned-up roofs,
as one sees on the willow-pattern plates.
The castle, formerly the residence of the Daimio, a feudal prince, is
now a restaurant. The irregular streets of the town, the narrow lanes,
the houses blackened by smoke and age, give a certain _cachet_ which is
peculiar to the place itself. The inhabitants, too, are more
conservative than the younger colonists, and are quite "in keeping" with
the place. Unluckily, the town has seen better days! It possesses no
good harbour, and all its trade, little by little, is being carried
away by its more fortunate rival, Hakodate. The population of Matsumai
decreases considerably every year, as the inhabitants leave this
poetical but dead-alive and decaying spot for the more exciting life to
be found in newly-opened districts further east or north.
Between Fukuyama and Hakodate, a distance of over sixty miles, the road
is extremely bad, and there is nothing whatever to see. Shirakami Cape
is interesting as being the most southern point of Yezo, and from here
the coast turns slightly towards the north-east.
Fukushima is an old village. The other headlands, and the Cape of
Yagoshi, have no special features calling for attention. Near the latter
cape the coast is volcanic, which renders it very rugged in shape and
warmly tinted in colour. There are many villages along the coast, as
Yoshioka, Shiriuchi, Kikonai, Idzumizawa, Mohechi, and Kamiiro, and the
inhabitants seem well off and well-to-do people.
A great quantity of coal and firewood is carried on pony-back from these
mountains to Hakodate. Rows of ten, twelve, or fifteen ponies one after
the other, loaded with as much as they can carry, can be seen slowly
travelling, under the care of one man, down to the principal port of
Yezo, especially at the beginning of the winter season; and here and
there stacks of split wood are piled ready for transportation.
Rounding the Hakodate Bay, I was again at the point whence I had first
started, and happy that, notwithstanding all the ill-luck I had had,
notwithstanding the strain on my physique, which is not by any means
herculean, and notwithstanding all the obstacles which had come in my
way, I had finally succeeded in doing what no European had ever done
before, namely, in completing the whole circuit of Yezo at one time,
exploring all its most important rivers and lakes, studying the habits,
customs, and manners of that strange race of people, the Hairy Ainu, and
visiting the Kuriles besides.
Many parts which I travelled over had never been trodden by European
foot, and this made my journey all the more interesting to me. As the
book stands I have related but the principal adventures which I had
during my long peregrinations in Hokkaido, most of which are intended to
illustrate Ainu customs and traits by my own personal experience rather
than to excite sympathy for my hardships. Really, though the journey
nearly cost me my life, I have never, in my extensive wanderings,
enjoyed a trip more than that to Ainuland.
I have touched but slightly, and not more than was absolutely necessary,
on subjects relating to the Japanese; for this is intended as a work on
the Ainu.
I was happy yet sorry to be at the end of my journey! This was the 146th
day since I first left Hakodate, and the distance I had travelled was
about 4,200 miles, out of which 3,800 were ridden on horseback, or an
average of twenty-five miles a day. The remaining 400 miles were either
by steamer or canoe travelling.
From the day I broke the bone in my foot I travelled fifty-eight days,
mostly on horseback, and the first time it was attended to and properly
bandaged up was sixty days after it occurred, or two days after my
arrival in Hakodate, by Mr. Pooley, chief engineer on board the SS.
_Satsuma Maru_.
Mr. Henson was again extremely kind, and pressed me to leave the
tea-house and go and stay at his place, and after five months of "hard
planks" I slept again in a comfortable bed. What a treat it was! What a
curious sensation to sleep in a bed again, and actually have sheets and
blankets! But this was not all, for surprise followed surprise.
The pompous Consul, who for the sake of saving himself the trouble of
looking into his desk, had made my last portion of the journey wretched
and sorrowful, found that after all he was mistaken, and on the
breakfast-table in my place I found a packet of about 100 letters and
newspapers, which the Consul sent to me with a message saying that when
I called last time he had forgotten who I was, and therefore had
forgotten to give me my correspondence!
Now that we have travelled round and through the country in every
direction; now that we have seen where the different tribes of Ainu are,
I shall attempt to give my readers some insight into the Ainu
themselves, and their mode of living.
[Illustration: WOODEN DRINKING VESSELS.]