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Unbeaten
Tracks in Japan, by Bird
PREFACE
Having
been recommended to leave home, in April 1878, in order to
recruit
my health by means which had proved serviceable before, I
decided
to visit Japan, attracted less by the reputed excellence of
its
climate than by the certainty that it possessed, in an especial
degree,
those sources of novel and sustained interest which conduce
so
essentially to the enjoyment and restoration of a solitary
health-seeker.
The climate disappointed me, but, though I found
the
country a study rather than a rapture, its interest exceeded my
largest
expectations.
This
is not a "Book on Japan," but a narrative of travels in Japan,
and
an attempt to contribute something to the sum of knowledge of
the
present condition of the country, and it was not till I had
travelled
for some months in the interior of the main island and in
Yezo
that I decided that my materials were novel enough to render
the
contribution worth making. From Nikko northwards my route was
altogether
off the beaten track, and had never been traversed in
its
entirety by any European. I lived among the Japanese, and saw
their
mode of living, in regions unaffected by European contact.
As
a lady travelling alone, and the first European lady who had
been
seen in several districts through which my route lay, my
experiences
differed more or less widely from those of preceding
travellers;
and I am able to offer a fuller account of the
aborigines
of Yezo, obtained by actual acquaintance with them, than
has
hitherto been given. These are my chief reasons for offering
this
volume to the public.
It
was with some reluctance that I decided that it should consist
mainly
of letters written on the spot to my sister and a circle of
personal
friends, for this form of publication involves the
sacrifice
of artistic arrangement and literary treatment, and
necessitates
a certain amount of egotism; but, on the other hand,
it
places the reader in the position of the traveller, and makes
him
share the vicissitudes of travel, discomfort, difficulty, and
tedium,
as well as novelty and enjoyment. The "beaten tracks,"
with
the exception of Nikko, have been dismissed in a few
sentences,
but where their features have undergone marked changes
within
a few years, as in the case of Tokiyo (Yedo), they have been
sketched
more or less slightly. Many important subjects are
necessarily
passed over.
In
Northern Japan, in the absence of all other sources of
information,
I had to learn everything from the people themselves,
through
an interpreter, and every fact had to be disinterred by
careful
labour from amidst a mass of rubbish. The Ainos supplied
the
information which is given concerning their customs, habits,
and
religion; but I had an opportunity of comparing my notes with
some
taken about the same time by Mr. Heinrich Von Siebold of the
Austrian
Legation, and of finding a most satisfactory agreement on
all
points.
Some
of the Letters give a less pleasing picture of the condition
of
the peasantry than the one popularly presented, and it is
possible
that some readers may wish that it had been less
realistically
painted; but as the scenes are strictly
representative,
and I neither made them nor went in search of them,
I
offer them in the interests of truth, for they illustrate the
nature
of a large portion of the material with which the Japanese
Government
has to work in building up the New Civilisation.
Accuracy
has been my first aim, but the sources of error are many,
and
it is from those who have studied Japan the most carefully, and
are
the best acquainted with its difficulties, that I shall receive
the
most kindly allowance if, in spite of carefulness, I have
fallen
into mistakes.
The
Transactions of the English and German Asiatic Societies of
Japan,
and papers on special Japanese subjects, including "A Budget
of
Japanese Notes," in the Japan Mail and Tokiyo Times, gave me
valuable
help; and I gratefully acknowledge the assistance afforded
me
in many ways by Sir Harry S. Parkes, K.C.B., and Mr. Satow of
H.B.M.'s
Legation, Principal Dyer, Mr. Chamberlain of the Imperial
Naval
College, Mr. F. V. Dickins, and others, whose kindly interest
in
my work often encouraged me when I was disheartened by my lack
of
skill; but, in justice to these and other kind friends, I am
anxious
to claim and accept the fullest measure of personal
responsibility
for the opinions expressed, which, whether right or
wrong,
are wholly my own.
The
illustrations, with the exception of three, which are by a
Japanese
artist, have been engraved from sketches of my own or
Japanese
photographs.
I
am painfully conscious of the defects of this volume, but I
venture
to present it to the public in the hope that, in spite of
its
demerits, it may be accepted as an honest attempt to describe
things
as I saw them in Japan, on land journeys of more than 1400
miles.
Since
the letters passed through the press, the beloved and only
sister
to whom, in the first instance, they were written, to whose
able
and careful criticism they owe much, and whose loving interest
was
the inspiration alike of my travels and of my narratives of
them,
has passed away.
ISABELLA
L. BIRD.
LETTER
I
First
View of Japan--A Vision of Fujisan--Japanese Sampans--
"Pullman
Cars"--Undignified Locomotion--Paper Money--The Drawbacks
of
Japanese Travelling.
ORIENTAL
HOTEL, YOKOHAMA,
May
21.
Eighteen
days of unintermitted rolling over "desolate rainy seas"
brought
the "City of Tokio" early yesterday morning to Cape King,
and
by noon we were steaming up the Gulf of Yedo, quite near the
shore.
The day was soft and grey with a little faint blue sky,
and,
though the coast of Japan is much more prepossessing than most
coasts,
there were no startling surprises either of colour or form.
Broken
wooded ridges, deeply cleft, rise from the water's edge,
gray,
deep-roofed villages cluster about the mouths of the ravines,
and
terraces of rice cultivation, bright with the greenness of
English
lawns, run up to a great height among dark masses of upland
forest.
The populousness of the coast is very impressive, and the
gulf
everywhere was equally peopled with fishing-boats, of which we
passed
not only hundreds, but thousands, in five hours. The coast
and
sea were pale, and the boats were pale too, their hulls being
unpainted
wood, and their sails pure white duck. Now and then a
high-sterned
junk drifted by like a phantom galley, then we
slackened
speed to avoid exterminating a fleet of triangular-
looking
fishing-boats with white square sails, and so on through
the
grayness and dumbness hour after hour.
For
long I looked in vain for Fujisan, and failed to see it, though
I
heard ecstasies all over the deck, till, accidentally looking
heavenwards
instead of earthwards, I saw far above any possibility
of
height, as one would have thought, a huge, truncated cone of
pure
snow, 13,080 feet above the sea, from which it sweeps upwards
in
a glorious curve, very wan, against a very pale blue sky, with
its
base and the intervening country veiled in a pale grey mist.
{1}
It was a wonderful vision, and shortly, as a vision, vanished.
Except
the cone of Tristan d'Acunha--also a cone of snow--I never
saw
a mountain rise in such lonely majesty, with nothing near or
far
to detract from its height and grandeur. No wonder that it is
a
sacred mountain, and so dear to the Japanese that their art is
never
weary of representing it. It was nearly fifty miles off when
we
first saw it.
The
air and water were alike motionless, the mist was still and
pale,
grey clouds lay restfully on a bluish sky, the reflections of
the
white sails of the fishing-boats scarcely quivered; it was all
so
pale, wan, and ghastly, that the turbulence of crumpled foam
which
we left behind us, and our noisy, throbbing progress, seemed
a
boisterous intrusion upon sleeping Asia.
The
gulf narrowed, the forest-crested hills, the terraced ravines,
the
picturesque grey villages, the quiet beach life, and the pale
blue
masses of the mountains of the interior, became more visible.
Fuji
retired into the mist in which he enfolds his grandeur for
most
of the summer; we passed Reception Bay, Perry Island, Webster
Island,
Cape Saratoga, and Mississippi Bay--American nomenclature
which
perpetuates the successes of American diplomacy--and not far
from
Treaty Point came upon a red lightship with the words "Treaty
Point"
in large letters upon her. Outside of this no foreign
vessel
may anchor.
The
bustle among my fellow-passengers, many of whom were returning
home,
and all of whom expected to be met by friends, left me at
leisure,
as I looked at unattractive, unfamiliar Yokohama and the
pale
grey land stretched out before me, to speculate somewhat sadly
on
my destiny on these strange shores, on which I have not even an
acquaintance.
On mooring we were at once surrounded by crowds of
native
boats called by foreigners sampans, and Dr. Gulick, a near
relation
of my Hilo friends, came on board to meet his daughter,
welcomed
me cordially, and relieved me of all the trouble of
disembarkation.
These sampans are very clumsy-looking, but are
managed
with great dexterity by the boatmen, who gave and received
any
number of bumps with much good nature, and without any of the
shouting
and swearing in which competitive boatmen usually indulge.
The
partially triangular shape of these boats approaches that of a
salmon-fisher's
punt used on certain British rivers. Being floored
gives
them the appearance of being absolutely flat-bottomed; but,
though
they tilt readily, they are very safe, being heavily built
and
fitted together with singular precision with wooden bolts and a
few
copper cleets. They are SCULLED, not what we should call
rowed,
by two or four men with very heavy oars made of two pieces
of
wood working on pins placed on outrigger bars. The men scull
standing
and use the thigh as a rest for the oar. They all wear a
single,
wide-sleeved, scanty, blue cotton garment, not fastened or
girdled
at the waist, straw sandals, kept on by a thong passing
between
the great toe and the others, and if they wear any head-
gear,
it is only a wisp of blue cotton tied round the forehead.
The
one garment is only an apology for clothing, and displays lean
concave
chests and lean muscular limbs. The skin is very yellow,
and
often much tattooed with mythical beasts. The charge for
sampans
is fixed by tariff, so the traveller lands without having
his
temper ruffled by extortionate demands.
The
first thing that impressed me on landing was that there were no
loafers,
and that all the small, ugly, kindly-looking, shrivelled,
bandy-legged,
round-shouldered, concave-chested, poor-looking
beings
in the streets had some affairs of their own to mind. At
the
top of the landing-steps there was a portable restaurant, a
neat
and most compact thing, with charcoal stove, cooking and
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