He Thinks We Shall Never Get Through The Interior!
Mr. Brunton's Excellent Map Fails In This Region, So It Is Only By
Fixing On The Well-Known City Of Yamagata And Devising Routes To It
That We Get On.
Half the evening is spent in consulting Japanese
maps, if we can get them, and in questioning the house-master and
Transport Agent, and any chance travellers; but the people know
nothing beyond the distance of a few ri, and the agents seldom tell
one anything beyond the next stage.
When I inquire about the
"unbeaten tracks" that I wish to take, the answers are, "It's an
awful road through mountains," or "There are many bad rivers to
cross," or "There are none but farmers' houses to stop at." No
encouragement is ever given, but we get on, and shall get on, I
doubt not, though the hardships are not what I would desire in my
present state of health.
Very few horses are kept here. Cows and coolies carry much of the
merchandise, and women as well as men carry heavy loads. A baggage
coolie carries about 50 lbs., but here merchants carrying their own
goods from Yamagata actually carry from 90 to 140 lbs., and even
more. It is sickening to meet these poor fellows struggling over
the mountain-passes in evident distress. Last night five of them
were resting on the summit ridge of a pass gasping violently.
Their eyes were starting out; all their muscles, rendered painfully
visible by their leanness, were quivering; rills of blood from the
bite of insects, which they cannot drive away, were literally
running all over their naked bodies, washed away here and there by
copious perspiration.
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