A Traveller Said A Steamer Was Sailing For Yezo At Night, So, In A State Of Joyful Excitement, I Engaged

Four men, and by dragging, pushing, and lifting, they got me into Aomori, a town of grey houses, grey roofs,

And grey stones on roofs, built on a beach of grey sand, round a grey bay - a miserable-looking place, though the capital of the ken.

It has a great export trade in cattle and rice to Yezo, besides being the outlet of an immense annual emigration from northern Japan to the Yezo fishery, and imports from Hakodate large quantities of fish, skins, and foreign merchandise. It has some trade in a pretty but not valuable "seaweed," or variegated lacquer, called Aomori lacquer, but not actually made there, its own speciality being a sweetmeat made of beans and sugar. It has a deep and well-protected harbour, but no piers or conveniences for trade. It has barracks and the usual Government buildings, but there was no time to learn anything about it, - only a short half- hour for getting my ticket at the Mitsu Bishi office, where they demanded and copied my passport; for snatching a morsel of fish at a restaurant where "foreign food" was represented by a very dirty table-cloth; and for running down to the grey beach, where I was carried into a large sampan crowded with Japanese steerage passengers.

The wind was rising, a considerable surf was running, the spray was flying over the boat, the steamer had her steam up, and was ringing and whistling impatiently, there was a scud of rain, and I was standing trying to keep my paper waterproof from being blown off, when three inopportune policemen jumped into the boat and demanded my passport.

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