Not The Least Of The Charms Of The
Evening Is That I Am Absolutely Alone, Having Ridden The Eighteen
Miles
From Hakodate without Ito or an attendant of any kind; have
unsaddled my own horse, and by means of much
Politeness and a
dexterous use of Japanese substantives have secured a good room and
supper of rice, eggs, and black beans for myself and a mash of
beans for my horse, which, as it belongs to the Kaitakushi, and has
the dignity of iron shoes, is entitled to special consideration!
I am not yet off the "beaten track," but my spirits are rising with
the fine weather, the drier atmosphere, and the freedom of Yezo.
Yezo is to the main island of Japan what Tipperary is to an
Englishman, Barra to a Scotchman, "away down in Texas" to a New
Yorker - in the rough, little known, and thinly-peopled; and people
can locate all sorts of improbable stories here without much fear
of being found out, of which the Ainos and the misdeeds of the
ponies furnish the staple, and the queer doings of men and dogs,
and adventures with bears, wolves, and salmon, the embroidery.
Nobody comes here without meeting with something queer, and one or
two tumbles either with or from his horse. Very little is known of
the interior except that it is covered with forest matted together
by lianas, and with an undergrowth of scrub bamboo impenetrable
except to the axe, varied by swamps equally impassable, which give
rise to hundreds of rivers well stocked with fish.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 272 of 417
Words from 75066 to 75326
of 115002
