A Little Beyond Mombets Flows The River Osharu, One Of The Largest
Of The Yezo Streams.
It was much swollen by the previous day's
rain; and as the ferry-boat was carried away we had to swim it, and
the swim seemed very long.
Of course, we and the baggage got very
wet. The coolness with which the Aino guide took to the water
without giving us any notice that its broad, eddying flood was a
swim, and not a ford, was very amusing.
From the top of a steepish ascent beyond the Osharugawa there is a
view into what looks like a very lovely lake, with wooded
promontories, and little bays, and rocky capes in miniature, and
little heights, on which Aino houses, with tawny roofs, are
clustered; and then the track dips suddenly, and deposits one, not
by a lake at all, but on Usu Bay, an inlet of the Pacific, much
broken up into coves, and with a very narrow entrance, only obvious
from a few points. Just as the track touches the bay there is a
road-post, with a prayer-wheel in it, and by the shore an upright
stone of very large size, inscribed with Sanskrit characters, near
to a stone staircase and a gateway in a massive stone-faced
embankment, which looked much out of keeping with the general
wildness of the place. On a rocky promontory in a wooded cove
there is a large, rambling house, greatly out of repair, inhabited
by a Japanese man and his son, who are placed there to look after
Government interests, exiles among 500 Ainos.
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