There seemed no limit
to the forest-covered mountains and the unlighted ravines.
The
wealth of vegetation was equal in luxuriance and entanglement to
that of the tropics, primeval vegetation, on which the lumberer's
axe has never rung. Trees of immense height and girth, specially
the beautiful Salisburia adiantifolia, with its small fan-shaped
leaves, all matted together by riotous lianas, rise out of an
impenetrable undergrowth of the dwarf, dark-leaved bamboo, which,
dwarf as it is, attains a height of seven feet, and all is dark,
solemn, soundless, the haunt of wild beasts, and of butterflies and
dragonflies of the most brilliant colours. There was light without
heat, leaves and streams sparkled, and there was nothing of the
half-smothered sensation which is often produced by the choking
greenery of the main island, for frequently, far below, the Pacific
flashed in all its sunlit beauty, and occasionally we came down
unexpectedly on a little cove with abrupt cedar-crested headlands
and stacks, and a heavy surf rolling in with the deep thunder music
which alone breaks the stillness of this silent land.
There was one tremendous declivity where I got off to walk, but
found it too steep to descend on foot with comfort. You can
imagine how steep it was, when I tell you that the deep groove
being too narrow for me to get to the side of my horse, I dropped
down upon him from behind, between his tail and the saddle, and so
scrambled on!
The sun had set and the dew was falling heavily when the track
dipped over the brow of a headland, becoming a waterway so steep
and rough that I could not get down it on foot without the
assistance of my hands, and terminating on a lonely little bay of
great beauty, walled in by impracticable-looking headlands, which
was the entrance to an equally impracticable-looking, densely-
wooded valley running up among densely-wooded mountains. There was
a margin of grey sand above the sea, and on this the skeleton of an
enormous whale was bleaching. Two or three large "dug-outs," with
planks laced with stout fibre on their gunwales, and some bleached
drift-wood lay on the beach, the foreground of a solitary,
rambling, dilapidated grey house, bleached like all else, where
three Japanese men with an old Aino servant live to look after
"Government interests," whatever these may be, and keep rooms and
horses for Government officials - a great boon to travellers who,
like me, are belated here. Only one person has passed Lebunge this
year, except two officials and a policeman.
There was still a red glow on the water, and one horn of a young
moon appeared above the wooded headland; but the loneliness and
isolation are overpowering, and it is enough to produce madness to
be shut in for ever with the thunder of the everlasting surf, which
compels one to raise one's voice in order to be heard. In the
wood, half a mile from the sea, there is an Aino village of thirty
houses, and the appearance of a few of the savages gliding
noiselessly over the beach in the twilight added to the ghastliness
and loneliness of the scene. The horses were unloaded by the time
I arrived, and several courteous Ainos showed me to my room,
opening on a small courtyard with a heavy gate. The room was
musty, and, being rarely used, swarmed with spiders. A saucer of
fish-oil and a wick rendered darkness visible, and showed faintly
the dark, pathetic faces of a row of Ainos in the verandah, who
retired noiselessly with their graceful salutation when I bade them
good-night. Food was hardly to be expected, yet they gave me rice,
potatoes, and black beans boiled in equal parts of brine and syrup,
which are very palatable. The cuts and bruises of yesterday became
so very painful with the cold of the early morning that I have been
obliged to remain here.
I. L. B.
LETTER XLI
A Group of Fathers - The Lebunge Ainos - The Salisburia adiantifolia-
-A Family Group - The Missing Link - Oshamambe - Disorderly Horses -
The River Yurapu - The Seaside - Aino Canoes - The Last Morning -
Dodging Europeans.
HAKODATE, September 12.
Lebunge is a most fascinating place in its awful isolation. The
house-master was a friendly man, and much attached to the Ainos.
If other officials entrusted with Aino concerns treat the Ainos as
fraternally as those of Usu and Lebunge, there is not much to
lament. This man also gave them a high character for honesty and
harmlessness, and asked if they might come and see me before I
left; so twenty men, mostly carrying very pretty children, came
into the yard with the horses. They had never seen a foreigner,
but, either from apathy or politeness, they neither stare nor press
upon one as the Japanese do, and always make a courteous
recognition. The bear-skin housing of my saddle pleased them very
much, and my boots of unblacked leather, which they compare to the
deer-hide moccasins which they wear for winter hunting. Their
voices were the lowest and most musical that I have heard,
incongruous sounds to proceed from such hairy, powerful-looking
men. Their love for their children was most marked. They caressed
them tenderly, and held them aloft for notice, and when the house-
master told them how much I admired the brown, dark-eyed, winsome
creatures, their faces lighted with pleasure, and they saluted me
over and over again. These, like other Ainos, utter a short
screeching sound when they are not pleased, and then one recognises
the savage.
These Lebunge Ainos differ considerably from those of the eastern
villages, and I have again to notice the decided sound or click of
the ts at the beginning of many words. Their skins are as swarthy
as those of Bedaween, their foreheads comparatively low, their eyes
far more deeply set their stature lower, their hair yet more
abundant, the look of wistful melancholy more marked, and two, who
were unclothed for hard work in fashioning a canoe, were almost
entirely covered with short, black hair, specially thick on the
shoulders and back, and so completely concealing the skin as to
reconcile one to the lack of clothing.
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