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At
a house in the scrub a number of men were drinking sake with
much
uproar, and a superb-looking Aino came out, staggered a few
yards,
and then fell backwards among the weeds, a picture of
debasement.
I forgot to tell you that before I left Biratori, I
inveighed
to the assembled Ainos against the practice and
consequences
of sake-drinking, and was met with the reply, "We must
drink
to the gods, or we shall die;" but Pipichari said, "You say
that
which is good; let us give sake to the gods, but not drink
it,"
for which bold speech he was severely rebuked by Benri.
Mombets
is a stormily-situated and most wretched cluster of twenty-
seven
decayed houses, some of them Aino, and some Japanese. The
fish-oil
and seaweed fishing trades are in brisk operation there
now
for a short time, and a number of Aino and Japanese strangers
are
employed. The boats could not get out because of the surf, and
there
was a drunken debauch. The whole place smelt of sake. Tipsy
men
were staggering about and falling flat on their backs, to lie
there
like dogs till they were sober,--Aino women were vainly
endeavouring
to drag their drunken lords home, and men of both
races
were reduced to a beastly equality. I went to the yadoya
where
I intended to spend Sunday, but, besides being very dirty and
forlorn,
it was the very centre of the sake traffic, and in its
open
space there were men in all stages of riotous and stupid
intoxication.
It was a sad scene, yet one to be matched in a
hundred
places in Scotland every Saturday afternoon. I am told by
the
Kocho here that an Aino can drink four or five times as much as
a
Japanese without being tipsy, so for each tipsy Aino there had
been
an outlay of 6s. or 7s., for sake is 8d. a cup here!
I
had some tea and eggs in the daidokoro, and altered my plans
altogether
on finding that if I proceeded farther round the east
coast,
as I intended, I should run the risk of several days'
detention
on the banks of numerous "bad rivers" if rain came on, by
which
I should run the risk of breaking my promise to deliver Ito
to
Mr. Maries by a given day. I do not surrender this project,
however,
without an equivalent, for I intend to add 100 miles to my
journey,
by taking an almost disused track round Volcano Bay, and
visiting
the coast Ainos of a very primitive region. Ito is very
much
opposed to this, thinking that he has made a sufficient
sacrifice
of personal comfort at Biratori, and plies me with
stories,
such as that there are "many bad rivers to cross," that
the
track is so worn as to be impassable, that there are no
yadoyas,
and that at the Government offices we shall neither get
rice
nor eggs! An old man who has turned back unable to get horses
is
made responsible for these stories. The machinations are very
amusing.
Ito was much smitten with the daughter of the house-
master
at Mororan, and left some things in her keeping, and the
desire
to see her again is at the bottom of his opposition to the
other
route.
Monday.--The
horse could not or would not carry me farther than
Mombets,
so, sending the baggage on, I walked through the oak wood,
and
enjoyed its silent solitude, in spite of the sad reflections
upon
the enslavement of the Ainos to sake. I spent yesterday
quietly
in my old quarters, with a fearful storm of wind and rain
outside.
Pipichari appeared at noon, nominally to bring news of
the
sick woman, who is recovering, and to have his nearly healed
foot
bandaged again, but really to bring me a knife sheath which he
has
carved for me. He lay on the mat in the corner of my room most
of
the afternoon, and I got a great many more words from him. The
house-master,
who is the Kocho of Sarufuto, paid me a courteous
visit,
and in the evening sent to say that he would be very glad of
some
medicine, for he was "very ill and going to have fever." He
had
caught a bad cold and sore throat, had bad pains in his limbs,
and
was bemoaning himself ruefully. To pacify his wife, who was
very
sorry for him, I gave him some "Cockle's Pills" and the
trapper's
remedy of "a pint of hot water with a pinch of cayenne
pepper,"
and left him moaning and bundled up under a pile of
futons,
in a nearly hermetically sealed room, with a hibachi of
charcoal
vitiating the air. This morning when I went and inquired
after
him in a properly concerned tone, his wife told me very
gleefully
that he was quite well and had gone out, and had left 25
sen
for some more of the medicines that I had given him, so with
great
gravity I put up some of Duncan and Flockhart's most pungent
cayenne
pepper, and showed her how much to use. She was not
content,
however, without some of the "Cockles," a single box of
which
has performed six of those "miraculous cures" which rejoice
the
hearts and fill the pockets of patent medicine makers!
I.
L. B.
LETTER
XXXIX
A
Welcome Gift--Recent Changes--Volcanic Phenomena--Interesting
Tufa
Cones--Semi-strangulation--A Fall into a Bear-trap--The
Shiraoi
Ainos--Horsebreaking and Cruelty.
OLD
MORORAN, VOLCANO BAY, YEZO,
September
2.
After
the storm of Sunday, Monday was a grey, still, tender day,
and
the ranges of wooded hills were bathed in the richest indigo
colouring.
A canter of seventeen miles among the damask roses on a
very
rough horse only took me to Yubets, whose indescribable
loneliness
fascinated me into spending a night there again, and
encountering
a wild clatter of wind and rain; and another canter of
seven
miles the next morning took me to Tomakomai, where I rejoined
my
kuruma, and after a long delay, three trotting Ainos took me to
Shiraoi,
where the "clear shining after rain," and the mountains
against
a lemon-coloured sky, were extremely beautiful; but the
Pacific
was as unrestful as a guilty thing, and its crash and
clamour
and the severe cold fatigued me so much that I did not
pursue
my journey the next day, and had the pleasure of a flying
visit
from Mr. Von Siebold and Count Diesbach, who bestowed a
chicken
upon me.
I
like Shiraoi very much, and if I were stronger would certainly
make
it a basis for exploring a part of the interior, in which
there
is much to reward the explorer. Obviously the changes in
this
part of Yezo have been comparatively recent, and the energy of
the
force which has produced them is not yet extinct. The land has
gained
from the sea along the whole of this part of the coast to
the
extent of two or three miles, the old beach with its bays and
headlands
being a marked feature of the landscape. This new
formation
appears to be a vast bed of pumice, covered by a thin
layer
of vegetable mould, which cannot be more than fifty years
old.
This pumice fell during the eruption of the volcano of
Tarumai,
which is very near Shiraoi, and is also brought down in
large
quantities from the interior hills and valleys by the
numerous
rivers, besides being washed up by the sea. At the last
eruption
pumice fell over this region of Yezo to a medium depth of
3
feet 6 inches. In nearly all the rivers good sections of the
formation
may be seen in their deeply-cleft banks, broad, light-
coloured
bands of pumice, with a few inches of rich, black,
vegetable
soil above, and several feet of black sea-sand below.
During
a freshet which occurred the first night I was at Shiraoi, a
single
stream covered a piece of land with pumice to the depth of
nine
inches, being the wash from the hills of the interior, in a
course
of less than fifteen miles.
Looking
inland, the volcano of Tarumai, with a bare grey top and a
blasted
forest on its sides, occupies the right of the picture. To
the
left and inland are mountains within mountains, tumbled
together
in most picturesque confusion, densely covered with forest
and
cleft by magnificent ravines, here and there opening out into
narrow
valleys. The whole of the interior is jungle penetrable for
a
few miles by shallow and rapid rivers, and by nearly smothered
trails
made by the Ainos in search of game. The general lie of the
country
made me very anxious to find out whether a much-broken
ridge
lying among the mountains is or is not a series of tufa cones
of
ancient date; and, applying for a good horse and Aino guide on
horseback,
I left Ito to amuse himself, and spent much of a most
splendid
day in investigations and in attempting to get round the
back
of the volcano and up its inland side. There is a great deal
to
see and learn there. Oh that I had strength! After hours of
most
tedious and exhausting work I reached a point where there were
several
great fissures emitting smoke and steam, with occasional
subterranean
detonations. These were on the side of a small, flank
crack
which was smoking heavily. There was light pumice
everywhere,
but nothing like recent lava or scoriae. One fissure
was
completely lined with exquisite, acicular crystals of sulphur,
which
perished with a touch. Lower down there were two hot springs
with
a deposit of sulphur round their margins, and bubbles of gas,
which,
from its strong, garlicky smell, I suppose to be
sulphuretted
hydrogen. Farther progress in that direction was
impossible
without a force of pioneers. I put my arm down several
deep
crevices which were at an altitude of only about 500 feet, and
had
to withdraw it at once, owing to the great heat, in which some
beautiful
specimens of tropical ferns were growing. At the same
height
I came to a hot spring--hot enough to burst one of my
thermometers,
which was graduated above the boiling point of
Fahrenheit;
and tying up an egg in a pocket-handkerchief and
holding
it by a stick in the water, it was hard boiled in 8.5
minutes.
The water evaporated without leaving a trace of deposit
on
the handkerchief, and there was no crust round its margin. It
boiled
and bubbled with great force.
Three
hours more of exhausting toil, which almost knocked up the
horses,
brought us to the apparent ridge, and I was delighted to
find
that it consisted of a lateral range of tufa cones, which I
estimate
as being from 200 to 350, or even 400 feet high. They are
densely
covered with trees of considerable age, and a rich deposit
of
mould; but their conical form is still admirably defined. An
hour
of very severe work, and energetic use of the knife on the
part
of the Aino, took me to the top of one of these through a mass
of
entangled and gigantic vegetation, and I was amply repaid by
finding
a deep, well-defined crateriform cavity of great depth,
with
its sides richly clothed with vegetation, closely resembling
some
of the old cones in the island of Kauai. This cone is
partially
girdled by a stream, which in one place has cut through a
bank
of both red and black volcanic ash. All the usual phenomena
of
volcanic regions are probably to be met with north of Shiraoi,
and
I hope they will at some future time be made the object of
careful
investigation.
In
spite of the desperate and almost overwhelming fatigue, I have
enjoyed
few things more than that "exploring expedition." If the
Japanese
have no one to talk to they croon hideous discords to
themselves,
and it was a relief to leave Ito behind and get away
with
an Aino, who was at once silent, trustworthy, and faithful.
Two
bright rivers bubbling over beds of red pebbles run down to
Shiraoi
out of the back country, and my directions, which were
translated
to the Aino, were to follow up one of these and go into
the
mountains in the direction of one I pointed out till I said
"Shiraoi."
It was one of those exquisite mornings which are seen
sometimes
in the Scotch Highlands before rain, with intense
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