It Was A Splendid Day, With Foam Crests On The Wonderfully Blue
Water, And The Red Ashes Of The Volcano, Which Forms The South
Point Of The Bay, Glowed In The Sunlight.
This wretched steamer,
whose boilers are so often "sick" that she can never be relied
upon, is the only means of reaching the new capital without taking
a most difficult and circuitous route.
To continue the pier and
put a capable good steamer on the ferry would be a useful
expenditure of money. The breeze was strong and in our favour, but
even with this it took us six weary hours to steam twenty-five
miles, and it was eight at night before we reached the beautiful
and almost land-locked bay of Mororan, with steep, wooded sides,
and deep water close to the shore, deep enough for the foreign
ships of war which occasionally anchor there, much to the detriment
of the town. We got off in over-crowded sampans, and several
people fell into the water, much to their own amusement. The
servants from the different yadoyas go down to the jetty to "tout"
for guests with large paper lanterns, and the effect of these, one
above another, waving and undulating, with their soft coloured
light, was as bewitching as the reflection of the stars in the
motionless water. Mororan is a small town very picturesquely
situated on the steep shore of a most lovely bay, with another
height, richly wooded, above it, with shrines approached by flights
of stone stairs, and behind this hill there is the first Aino
village along this coast.
The long, irregular street is slightly picturesque, but I was
impressed both with the unusual sight of loafers and with the
dissolute look of the place, arising from the number of joroyas,
and from the number of yadoyas that are also haunts of the vicious.
I could only get a very small room in a very poor and dirty inn,
but there were no mosquitoes, and I got a good meal of fish. On
sending to order horses I found that everything was arranged for my
journey. The Governor sent his card early, to know if there were
anything I should like to see or do, but, as the morning was grey
and threatening, I wished to push on, and at 9.30 I was in the
kuruma at the inn door. I call it the kuruma because it is the
only one, and is kept by the Government for the conveyance of
hospital patients. I sat there uncomfortably and patiently for
half an hour, my only amusement being the flirtations of Ito with a
very pretty girl. Loiterers assembled, but no one came to draw the
vehicle, and by degrees the dismal truth leaked out that the three
coolies who had been impressed for the occasion had all absconded,
and that four policemen were in search of them. I walked on in a
dawdling way up the steep hill which leads from the town, met Mr.
Akboshi, a pleasant young Japanese surveyor, who spoke English and
stigmatised Mororan as "the worst place in Yezo;" and, after fuming
for two hours at the waste of time, was overtaken by Ito with the
horses, in a boiling rage.
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