The Fronts Are Very Narrow, And The Houses Extend Backwards To An
Amazing Length, With Gardens In Which Flowers, Shrubs, And
Mosquitoes Are Grown, And Bridges Are Several Times Repeated, So As
To Give The Effect Of Fairyland As You Look Through From The
Street.
The principal apartments in all Japanese houses are at the
back, looking out on these miniature landscapes, for a
Landscape is
skilfully dwarfed into a space often not more than 30 feet square.
A lake, a rock-work, a bridge, a stone lantern, and a deformed
pine, are indispensable; but whenever circumstances and means admit
of it, quaintnesses of all kinds are introduced. Small pavilions,
retreats for tea-making, reading, sleeping in quiet and coolness,
fishing under cover, and drinking sake; bronze pagodas, cascades
falling from the mouths of bronze dragons; rock caves, with gold
and silver fish darting in and out; lakes with rocky islands,
streams crossed by green bridges, just high enough to allow a rat
or frog to pass under; lawns, and slabs of stone for crossing them
in wet weather, grottoes, hills, valleys, groves of miniature
palms, cycas, and bamboo; and dwarfed trees of many kinds, of
purplish and dull green hues, are cut into startling likenesses of
beasts and creeping things, or stretch distorted arms over tiny
lakes.
I have walked about a great deal in Niigata, and when with Mrs.
Fyson, who is the only European lady here at present, and her
little Ruth, a pretty Saxon child of three years old, we have been
followed by an immense crowd, as the sight of this fair creature,
with golden curls falling over her shoulders, is most fascinating.
Both men and women have gentle, winning ways with infants, and
Ruth, instead of being afraid of the crowds, smiles upon them, bows
in Japanese fashion, speaks to them in Japanese, and seems a little
disposed to leave her own people altogether. It is most difficult
to make her keep with us, and two or three times, on missing her
and looking back, we have seen her seated, native fashion, in a
ring in a crowd of several hundred people, receiving a homage and
admiration from which she was most unwillingly torn. The Japanese
have a perfect passion for children, but it is not good for
European children to be much with them, as they corrupt their
morals, and teach them to tell lies.
The climate of Niigata and of most of this great province contrasts
unpleasantly with the region on the other side of the mountains,
warmed by the gulf-stream of the North Pacific, in which the autumn
and winter, with their still atmosphere, bracing temperature, and
blue and sunny skies, are the most delightful seasons of the year.
Thirty-two days of snow-fall occur on an average. The canals and
rivers freeze, and even the rapid Shinano sometimes bears a horse.
In January and February the snow lies three or four feet deep, a
veil of clouds obscures the sky, people inhabit their upper rooms
to get any daylight, pack-horse traffic is suspended, pedestrians
go about with difficulty in rough snow-shoes, and for nearly six
months the coast is unsuitable for navigation, owing to the
prevalence of strong, cold, north-west winds. In this city people
in wadded clothes, with only their eyes exposed, creep about under
the verandahs. The population huddles round hibachis and shivers,
for the mercury, which rises to 92 degrees in summer, falls to 15
degrees in winter. And all this is in latitude 37 degrees 55' -
three degrees south of Naples! I. L. B.
LETTER XVII
The Canal-side at Niigata - Awful Loneliness - Courtesy - Dr. Palm's
Tandem - A Noisy Matsuri - A Jolting Journey - The Mountain Villages -
Winter Dismalness - An Out-of-the-world Hamlet - Crowded Dwellings -
Riding a Cow - "Drunk and Disorderly" - An Enforced Rest - Local
Discouragements - Heavy Loads - Absence of Beggary - Slow Travelling.
ICHINONO, July 12.
Two foreign ladies, two fair-haired foreign infants, a long-haired
foreign dog, and a foreign gentleman, who, without these
accompaniments, might have escaped notice, attracted a large but
kindly crowd to the canal side when I left Niigata. The natives
bore away the children on their shoulders, the Fysons walked to the
extremity of the canal to bid me good-bye, the sampan shot out upon
the broad, swirling flood of the Shinano, and an awful sense of
loneliness fell upon me. We crossed the Shinano, poled up the
narrow, embanked Shinkawa, had a desperate struggle with the
flooded Aganokawa, were much impeded by strings of nauseous manure-
boats on the narrow, discoloured Kajikawa, wondered at the
interminable melon and cucumber fields, and at the odd river life,
and, after hard poling for six hours, reached Kisaki, having
accomplished exactly ten miles. Then three kurumas with trotting
runners took us twenty miles at the low rate of 4.5 sen per ri. In
one place a board closed the road, but, on representing to the
chief man of the village that the traveller was a foreigner, he
courteously allowed me to pass, the Express Agent having
accompanied me thus far to see that I "got through all right." The
road was tolerably populous throughout the day's journey, and the
farming villages which extended much of the way - Tsuiji,
Kasayanage, Mono, and Mari - were neat, and many of the farms had
bamboo fences to screen them from the road. It was, on the whole,
a pleasant country, and the people, though little clothed, did not
look either poor or very dirty. The soil was very light and sandy.
There were, in fact, "pine barrens," sandy ridges with nothing on
them but spindly Scotch firs and fir scrub; but the sandy levels
between them, being heavily manured and cultivated like gardens,
bore splendid crops of cucumbers trained like peas, melons,
vegetable marrow, Arum esculentum, sweet potatoes, maize, tea,
tiger-lilies, beans, and onions; and extensive orchards with apples
and pears trained laterally on trellis-work eight feet high, were a
novelty in the landscape.
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