I visited a good many of the Mororan
Ainos, saw their well-grown bear in its cage, and, tearing
Myself
away with difficulty at noon, crossed a steep hill and a wood of
scrub oak, and then followed a trail which runs on the amber sands
close to the sea, crosses several small streams, and passes the
lonely Aino village of Maripu, the ocean always on the left and
wooded ranges on the right, and in front an apparent bar to farther
progress in the volcano of Usu-taki, an imposing mountain, rising
abruptly to a height of nearly 3000 feet, I should think.
In Yezo, as on the main island, one can learn very little about any
prospective route. Usually when one makes an inquiry a Japanese
puts on a stupid look, giggles, tucks his thumbs into his girdle,
hitches up his garments, and either professes perfect ignorance or
gives one some vague second-hand information, though it is quite
possible that he may have been over every foot of the ground
himself more than once. Whether suspicion of your motives in
asking, or a fear of compromising himself by answering, is at the
bottom of this I don't know, but it is most exasperating to a
traveller. In Hakodate I failed to see Captain Blakiston, who has
walked round the whole Yezo sea-board, and all I was able to learn
regarding this route was that the coast was thinly peopled by
Ainos, that there were Government horses which could be got, and
that one could sleep where one got them; that rice and salt fish
were the only food; that there were many "bad rivers," and that the
road went over "bad mountains;" that the only people who went that
way were Government officials twice a year, that one could not get
on more than four miles a day, that the roads over the passes were
"all big stones," etc.
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