The Village Smith Was Opposite, But He Was Not A Man Of Ponderous
Strength, Nor Were There Those Wondrous Flights And Scintillations
Of Sparks Which Were The Joy Of Our Childhood In The Tattenhall
Forge.
A fire of powdered charcoal on the floor, always being
trimmed and replenished by a lean and grimy satellite,
A man still
leaner and grimier, clothed in goggles and a girdle, always sitting
in front of it, heating and hammering iron bars with his hands,
with a clink which went on late into the night, and blowing his
bellows with his toes; bars and pieces of rusty iron pinned on the
smoky walls, and a group of idle men watching his skilful
manipulation, were the sights of the Abukawa smithy, and kept me
thralled in the balcony, though the whole clothesless population
stood for the whole evening in front of the house with a silent,
open-mouthed stare.
Early in the morning the same melancholy crowd appeared in the
dismal drizzle, which turned into a tremendous torrent, which has
lasted for sixteen hours. Low hills, broad rice valleys in which
people are puddling the rice a second time to kill the weeds, bad
roads, pretty villages, much indigo, few passengers, were the
features of the day's journey. At Morioka and several other
villages in this region I noticed that if you see one large, high,
well-built house, standing in enclosed grounds, with a look of
wealth about it, it is always that of the sake brewer. A bush
denotes the manufacture as well as the sale of sake, and these are
of all sorts, from the mangy bit of fir which has seen long service
to the vigorous truss of pine constantly renewed. It is curious
that this should formerly have been the sign of the sale of wine in
England.
The wind and rain were something fearful all that afternoon. I
could not ride, so I tramped on foot for some miles under an avenue
of pines, through water a foot deep, and, with my paper waterproof
soaked through, reached Toyoka half drowned and very cold, to
shiver over a hibachi in a clean loft, hung with my dripping
clothes, which had to be put on wet the next day. By 5 a.m. all
Toyoka assembled, and while I took my breakfast I was not only the
"cynosure" of the eyes of all the people outside, but of those of
about forty more who were standing in the doma, looking up the
ladder. When asked to depart by the house-master, they said, "It's
neither fair nor neighbourly in you to keep this great sight to
yourself, seeing that our lives may pass without again looking on a
foreign woman;" so they were allowed to remain! I. L. B.
LETTER XXVI
The Fatigues of Travelling - Torrents and Mud - Ito's Surliness - The
Blind Shampooers - A Supposed Monkey Theatre - A Suspended Ferry - A
Difficult Transit - Perils on the Yonetsurugawa - A Boatman Drowned -
Nocturnal Disturbances - A Noisy Yadoya - Storm-bound Travellers -
Hai!
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