Mombets Is A Stormily-Situated And Most Wretched Cluster Of Twenty-
Seven Decayed Houses, Some Of Them Aino, And Some Japanese.
The
fish-oil and seaweed fishing trades are in brisk operation there
now for a short time, and a number of Aino and Japanese strangers
are employed.
The boats could not get out because of the surf, and
there was a drunken debauch. The whole place smelt of sake. Tipsy
men were staggering about and falling flat on their backs, to lie
there like dogs till they were sober, - Aino women were vainly
endeavouring to drag their drunken lords home, and men of both
races were reduced to a beastly equality. I went to the yadoya
where I intended to spend Sunday, but, besides being very dirty and
forlorn, it was the very centre of the sake traffic, and in its
open space there were men in all stages of riotous and stupid
intoxication. It was a sad scene, yet one to be matched in a
hundred places in Scotland every Saturday afternoon. I am told by
the Kocho here that an Aino can drink four or five times as much as
a Japanese without being tipsy, so for each tipsy Aino there had
been an outlay of 6s. or 7s., for sake is 8d. a cup here!
I had some tea and eggs in the daidokoro, and altered my plans
altogether on finding that if I proceeded farther round the east
coast, as I intended, I should run the risk of several days'
detention on the banks of numerous "bad rivers" if rain came on, by
which I should run the risk of breaking my promise to deliver Ito
to Mr. Maries by a given day.
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