|
The
houses have very steep roofs of shingle, weighted with stones,
and,
as they are of very irregular heights, and all turn the steep
gables
of the upper stories streetwards, the town has a
picturesqueness
very unusual in Japan. The deep verandahs are
connected
all along the streets, so as to form a sheltered
promenade
when the snow lies deep in winter. With its canals with
their
avenues of trees, its fine public gardens, and clean,
picturesque
streets, it is a really attractive town; but its
improvements
are recent, and were only lately completed by Mr.
Masakata
Kusumoto, now Governor of Tokiyo. There is no appearance
of
poverty in any part of the town, but if there be wealth, it is
carefully
concealed. One marked feature of the city is the number
of
streets of dwelling-houses with projecting windows of wooden
slats,
through which the people can see without being seen, though
at
night, when the andons are lit, we saw, as we walked from Dr.
Palm's,
that in most cases families were sitting round the hibachi
in
a deshabille of the scantiest kind.
The
fronts are very narrow, and the houses extend backwards to an
amazing
length, with gardens in which flowers, shrubs, and
mosquitoes
are grown, and bridges are several times repeated, so as
to
give the effect of fairyland as you look through from the
street.
The principal apartments in all Japanese houses are at the
back,
looking out on these miniature landscapes, for a landscape is
skilfully
dwarfed into a space often not more than 30 feet square.
A
lake, a rock-work, a bridge, a stone lantern, and a deformed
pine,
are indispensable; but whenever circumstances and means admit
of
it, quaintnesses of all kinds are introduced. Small pavilions,
retreats
for tea-making, reading, sleeping in quiet and coolness,
fishing
under cover, and drinking sake; bronze pagodas, cascades
falling
from the mouths of bronze dragons; rock caves, with gold
and
silver fish darting in and out; lakes with rocky islands,
streams
crossed by green bridges, just high enough to allow a rat
or
frog to pass under; lawns, and slabs of stone for crossing them
in
wet weather, grottoes, hills, valleys, groves of miniature
palms,
cycas, and bamboo; and dwarfed trees of many kinds, of
purplish
and dull green hues, are cut into startling likenesses of
beasts
and creeping things, or stretch distorted arms over tiny
lakes.
I
have walked about a great deal in Niigata, and when with Mrs.
Fyson,
who is the only European lady here at present, and her
little
Ruth, a pretty Saxon child of three years old, we have been
followed
by an immense crowd, as the sight of this fair creature,
with
golden curls falling over her shoulders, is most fascinating.
Both
men and women have gentle, winning ways with infants, and
Ruth,
instead of being afraid of the crowds, smiles upon them, bows
in
Japanese fashion, speaks to them in Japanese, and seems a little
disposed
to leave her own people altogether. It is most difficult
to
make her keep with us, and two or three times, on missing her
and
looking back, we have seen her seated, native fashion, in a
ring
in a crowd of several hundred people, receiving a homage and
admiration
from which she was most unwillingly torn. The Japanese
have
a perfect passion for children, but it is not good for
European
children to be much with them, as they corrupt their
morals,
and teach them to tell lies.
The
climate of Niigata and of most of this great province contrasts
unpleasantly
with the region on the other side of the mountains,
warmed
by the gulf-stream of the North Pacific, in which the autumn
and
winter, with their still atmosphere, bracing temperature, and
blue
and sunny skies, are the most delightful seasons of the year.
Thirty-two
days of snow-fall occur on an average. The canals and
rivers
freeze, and even the rapid Shinano sometimes bears a horse.
In
January and February the snow lies three or four feet deep, a
veil
of clouds obscures the sky, people inhabit their upper rooms
to
get any daylight, pack-horse traffic is suspended, pedestrians
go
about with difficulty in rough snow-shoes, and for nearly six
months
the coast is unsuitable for navigation, owing to the
prevalence
of strong, cold, north-west winds. In this city people
in
wadded clothes, with only their eyes exposed, creep about under
the
verandahs. The population huddles round hibachis and shivers,
for
the mercury, which rises to 92 degrees in summer, falls to 15
degrees
in winter. And all this is in latitude 37 degrees 55'--
three
degrees south of Naples! I. L. B.
LETTER
XVII
The
Canal-side at Niigata--Awful Loneliness--Courtesy--Dr. Palm's
Tandem--A
Noisy Matsuri--A Jolting Journey--The Mountain Villages--
Winter
Dismalness--An Out-of-the-world Hamlet--Crowded Dwellings--
Riding
a Cow--"Drunk and Disorderly"--An Enforced Rest--Local
Discouragements--Heavy
Loads--Absence of Beggary--Slow Travelling.
ICHINONO,
July 12.
Two
foreign ladies, two fair-haired foreign infants, a long-haired
foreign
dog, and a foreign gentleman, who, without these
accompaniments,
might have escaped notice, attracted a large but
kindly
crowd to the canal side when I left Niigata. The natives
bore
away the children on their shoulders, the Fysons walked to the
extremity
of the canal to bid me good-bye, the sampan shot out upon
the
broad, swirling flood of the Shinano, and an awful sense of
loneliness
fell upon me. We crossed the Shinano, poled up the
narrow,
embanked Shinkawa, had a desperate struggle with the
flooded
Aganokawa, were much impeded by strings of nauseous manure-
boats
on the narrow, discoloured Kajikawa, wondered at the
interminable
melon and cucumber fields, and at the odd river life,
and,
after hard poling for six hours, reached Kisaki, having
accomplished
exactly ten miles. Then three kurumas with trotting
runners
took us twenty miles at the low rate of 4.5 sen per ri. In
one
place a board closed the road, but, on representing to the
chief
man of the village that the traveller was a foreigner, he
courteously
allowed me to pass, the Express Agent having
accompanied
me thus far to see that I "got through all right." The
road
was tolerably populous throughout the day's journey, and the
farming
villages which extended much of the way--Tsuiji,
Kasayanage,
Mono, and Mari--were neat, and many of the farms had
bamboo
fences to screen them from the road. It was, on the whole,
a
pleasant country, and the people, though little clothed, did not
look
either poor or very dirty. The soil was very light and sandy.
There
were, in fact, "pine barrens," sandy ridges with nothing on
them
but spindly Scotch firs and fir scrub; but the sandy levels
between
them, being heavily manured and cultivated like gardens,
bore
splendid crops of cucumbers trained like peas, melons,
vegetable
marrow, Arum esculentum, sweet potatoes, maize, tea,
tiger-lilies,
beans, and onions; and extensive orchards with apples
and
pears trained laterally on trellis-work eight feet high, were a
novelty
in the landscape.
Though
we were all day drawing nearer to mountains wooded to their
summits
on the east, the amount of vegetation was not burdensome,
the
rice swamps were few, and the air felt drier and less relaxing.
As
my runners were trotting merrily over one of the pine barrens, I
met
Dr. Palm returning from one of his medico-religious
expeditions,
with a tandem of two naked coolies, who were going
over
the ground at a great pace, and I wished that some of the most
staid
directors of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society could
have
the shock of seeing him! I shall not see a European again for
some
weeks. From Tsuiji, a very neat village, where we changed
kurumas,
we were jolted along over a shingly road to Nakajo, a
considerable
town just within treaty limits. The Japanese doctors
there,
as in some other places, are Dr. Palm's cordial helpers, and
five
or six of them, whom he regards as possessing the rare virtues
of
candour, earnestness, and single-mindedness, and who have
studied
English medical works, have clubbed together to establish a
dispensary,
and, under Dr. Palm's instructions, are even carrying
out
the antiseptic treatment successfully, after some ludicrous
failures!
We
dashed through Nakajo as kuruma-runners always dash through
towns
and villages, got out of it in a drizzle upon an avenue of
firs,
three or four deep, which extends from Nakajo to Kurokawa,
and
for some miles beyond were jolted over a damp valley on which
tea
and rice alternated, crossed two branches of the shingly
Kurokawa
on precarious bridges, rattled into the town of Kurokawa,
much
decorated with flags and lanterns, where the people were all
congregated
at a shrine where there was much drumming, and a few
girls,
much painted and bedizened, were dancing or posturing on a
raised
and covered platform, in honour of the god of the place,
whose
matsuri or festival it was; and out again, to be mercilessly
jolted
under the firs in the twilight to a solitary house where the
owner
made some difficulty about receiving us, as his licence did
not
begin till the next day, but eventually succumbed, and gave me
his
one upstairs room, exactly five feet high, which hardly allowed
of
my standing upright with my hat on. He then rendered it
suffocating
by closing the amado, for the reason often given, that
if
he left them open and the house was robbed, the police would not
only
blame him severely, but would not take any trouble to recover
his
property. He had no rice, so I indulged in a feast of
delicious
cucumbers. I never saw so many eaten as in that
district.
Children gnaw them all day long, and even babies on
their
mothers' backs suck them with avidity. Just now they are
sold
for a sen a dozen.
It
is a mistake to arrive at a yadoya after dark. Even if the best
rooms
are not full it takes fully an hour to get my food and the
room
ready, and meanwhile I cannot employ my time usefully because
of
the mosquitoes. There was heavy rain all night, accompanied by
the
first wind that I have heard since landing; and the fitful
creaking
of the pines and the drumming from the shrine made me glad
to
get up at sunrise, or rather at daylight, for there has not been
a
sunrise since I came, or a sunset either. That day we travelled
by
Sekki to Kawaguchi in kurumas, i.e. we were sometimes bumped
over
stones, sometimes deposited on the edge of a quagmire, and
asked
to get out; and sometimes compelled to walk for two or three
miles
at a time along the infamous bridle-track above the river
Arai,
up which two men could hardly push and haul an empty vehicle;
and,
as they often had to lift them bodily and carry them for some
distance,
I was really glad when we reached the village of
Kawaguchi
to find that they could go no farther, though, as we
could
only get one horse, I had to walk the last stage in a torrent
of
rain, poorly protected by my paper waterproof cloak.
We
are now in the midst of the great central chain of the Japanese
mountains,
which extends almost without a break for 900 miles, and
is
from 40 to 100 miles in width, broken up into interminable
ranges
traversable only by steep passes from 1000 to 5000 feet in
height,
with innumerable rivers, ravines, and valleys, the heights
and
ravines heavily timbered, the rivers impetuous and liable to
freshets,
and the valleys invariably terraced for rice. It is in
the
valleys that the villages are found, and regions more isolated
I
have never seen, shut out by bad roads from the rest of Japan.
The
houses are very poor, the summer costume of the men consists of
the
maro only, and that of the women of trousers with an open
| 
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기