MIYNOSKITA.
MIYNOSKITA, JAPAN, Oct. 24, 1889.
Yesterday at 10 A.M. we left Yokohama, arrived at the railroad station
at twelve, and reached this favorite watering-place, among the
mountains, in four hours by _jinrickishas_. Our rooms had been engaged
in an excellent hotel, called Fujiya, and soon after our arrival a fine
dinner was served of soup, fish, roast beef, sago pudding, and other
delicacies, to which we did ample justice. The waitresses were all
pretty native girls, dressed in their native costumes; there were a
dozen, or more, of them about the hotel. These waitresses were pleasant,
jolly, and very polite, but very small in stature; some of them walked
under my outstretched arm, and all of them might have done so.
I have a fine front room, and look out upon the surrounding mountains,
which are very lofty and covered with green trees. This is an ideal
mountain resort--great mountains, a roaring river winding some hundreds
of feet below the road, and numerous water-falls; the water rushing down
into the river. From one point of view I counted seven water-falls, and
found, on trial, that one of them came from a hot spring far up among
the mountains, and the water was quite warm when it reached the road. I
walked along the road for several miles and found it wonderfully
romantic everywhere. The road itself is a fine specimen of engineering,
very expensive to build, and almost as good as the famous one built by
Napoleon III., from Geneva to Chamouni.
We are here rather too late in the season to thoroughly enjoy the place
and surroundings, it being cold and the methods of heating houses
imperfect, but in summer it must be perfectly lovely.
There is another hotel being erected near the one we are in, and I was
much interested watching their method of work. They required a lot of
earth for filling in, and were transporting it in baskets from the
mountains above. Two men would fill a basket, suspend it across their
shoulders by a bamboo pole, dump it where wanted, and return for more.
I longed to present them with a wheelbarrow, and show them how to move
earth ten times faster than they were doing. It would appear that there
are no saw-mills in this country, for the men were sawing out boards and
timber by hand, to use in the construction of this hotel. A stick of
timber a foot or two in diameter was arranged with one end resting on
the ground, and the other placed on a wooden horse four or five feet
high; a man then mounted the stick and laboriously sawed out boards with
a hand-saw. The workmen had no clothing on except a breech cloth, and
were all doing constant and faithful service for, as we were informed,
ten hours a day; the pay being ten cents per day. For similar service in
our country, as every one knows, mechanics are paid from $2.50 to $3.50
per day.
We left the hotel at nine this morning, and took a trip among the
mountains to Lake Hakone. I selected my horse this time, and he proved
an excellent animal, a small shaggy fellow, kind and easy trotting, but
much given to stumbling and letting both heels fly if another horse came
near, which little amusement of his nearly unseated me several times.
We went up six thousand feet over the worst of mountain roads, but my
animal walked carefully, often along narrow paths, where a fall would
have tumbled us down hundreds of feet below. I enjoyed the ride very
much. It took six horses and seven chairs to accommodate our party, each
horse having a man to attend to him, and each chair carried by four men,
making a large procession. We arrived in two or three hours at an hotel
on the lake, and after an excellent lunch took boats and crossed over to
near the foot of Fusiyama, the horses and men going around to meet us.
Fusiyama is the brag mountain of Japan, the only one of much size in the
Empire, and is universally known and photographed in all possible ways.
It is fourteen thousand feet high, and is, as I write, covered with
snow, and presents a beautiful appearance from the lake.
We landed and walked over the mountains to the place where the horses
had been sent. The sun was terribly hot in some places, and in others
the only path was along the bed of dry brooks. We passed over the crater
of an active volcano, steam and smoke rushing out near the path. The
guide said it was dangerous to wander from the path, and pointed out
where two native guides had fallen through and had not been seen since.
There was no wandering after this fact was stated. After two or three
hours of dreadful fatigue, we found our horses, and I was very glad to
mount my shaggy old fellow, who carried me safely over slippery rocks,
along narrow paths, and a road (where there was any) as bad as a road
could be, arriving at the hotel at six, much fatigued, but in good form
and ready for the excellent dinner which was waiting our arrival.
After thoroughly enjoying this delightful spot for two days, we started
down the mountain road in the morning and came along in _jinrickishas_
at a tremendous pace, making the distance--fourteen and one half
miles--to the railroad in two hours. We reached Yokohama at 7 P.M., in
season for a fine dinner.