This Is Considerably Under The Actual Distance, As On Several Of
The Mountain Routes The Ri Is 56 Cho, But In The Lack Of Accurate
Information The Ri Has Been Taken At Its Ordinary Standard Of 36
Cho Throughout.
LETTER XXXIII
Form and Colour - A Windy Capital - Eccentricities in House Roofs.
HAKODATE, YEZO, August 13, 1878
After a tremendous bluster for two days the weather has become
beautifully fine, and I find the climate here more invigorating
than that of the main island. It is Japan, but yet there is a
difference somehow. When the mists lift they reveal not mountains
smothered in greenery, but naked peaks, volcanoes only recently
burnt out, with the red ash flaming under the noonday sun, and
passing through shades of pink into violet at sundown. Strips of
sand border the bay, ranges of hills, with here and there a patch
of pine or scrub, fade into the far-off blue, and the great cloud
shadows lie upon their scored sides in indigo and purple. Blue as
the Adriatic are the waters of the land-locked bay, and the snowy
sails of pale junks look whiter than snow against its intense
azure. The abruptness of the double peaks behind the town is
softened by a belt of cryptomeria, the sandy strip which connects
the headland with the mainland heightens the general resemblance of
the contour of the ground to Gibraltar; but while one dreams of the
western world a kuruma passes one at a trot, temple drums are
beaten in a manner which does not recall "the roll of the British
drum," a Buddhist funeral passes down the street, or a man-cart
pulled and pushed by four yellow-skinned, little-clothed mannikins,
creaks by, with the monotonous grunt of Ha huida.
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