On This Pass I Saw
Birches For The First Time; At Its Foot We Entered Yamagata Ken By
A Good
Bridge, and shortly reached this village, in which an
unpromising-looking farm-house is the only accommodation; but
though all
The rooms but two are taken up with silk-worms, those
two are very good and look upon a miniature lake and rockery. The
one objection to my room is that to get either in or out of it I
must pass through the other, which is occupied by five tobacco
merchants who are waiting for transport, and who while away the
time by strumming on that instrument of dismay, the samisen. No
horses or cows can be got for me, so I am spending the day quietly
here, rather glad to rest, for I am much exhausted. When I am
suffering much from my spine Ito always gets into a fright and
thinks I am going to die, as he tells me when I am better, but
shows his anxiety by a short, surly manner, which is most
disagreeable. He thinks we shall never get through the interior!
Mr. Brunton's excellent map fails in this region, so it is only by
fixing on the well-known city of Yamagata and devising routes to it
that we get on. Half the evening is spent in consulting Japanese
maps, if we can get them, and in questioning the house-master and
Transport Agent, and any chance travellers; but the people know
nothing beyond the distance of a few ri, and the agents seldom tell
one anything beyond the next stage. When I inquire about the
"unbeaten tracks" that I wish to take, the answers are, "It's an
awful road through mountains," or "There are many bad rivers to
cross," or "There are none but farmers' houses to stop at." No
encouragement is ever given, but we get on, and shall get on, I
doubt not, though the hardships are not what I would desire in my
present state of health.
Very few horses are kept here. Cows and coolies carry much of the
merchandise, and women as well as men carry heavy loads. A baggage
coolie carries about 50 lbs., but here merchants carrying their own
goods from Yamagata actually carry from 90 to 140 lbs., and even
more. It is sickening to meet these poor fellows struggling over
the mountain-passes in evident distress. Last night five of them
were resting on the summit ridge of a pass gasping violently.
Their eyes were starting out; all their muscles, rendered painfully
visible by their leanness, were quivering; rills of blood from the
bite of insects, which they cannot drive away, were literally
running all over their naked bodies, washed away here and there by
copious perspiration. Truly "in the sweat of their brows" they
were eating bread and earning an honest living for their families!
Suffering and hard-worked as they were, they were quite
independent. I have not seen a beggar or beggary in this strange
country. The women were carrying 70 lbs. These burden-bearers
have their backs covered by a thick pad of plaited straw. On this
rests a ladder, curved up at the lower end like the runners of a
sleigh. On this the load is carefully packed till it extends from
below the man's waist to a considerable height above his head. It
is covered with waterproof paper, securely roped, and thatched with
straw, and is supported by a broad padded band just below the
collar bones. Of course, as the man walks nearly bent double, and
the position is a very painful one, he requires to stop and
straighten himself frequently, and unless he meets with a bank of
convenient height, he rests the bottom of his burden on a short,
stout pole with an L-shaped top, carried for this purpose. The
carrying of enormous loads is quite a feature of this region, and
so, I am sorry to say, are red stinging ants and the small gadflies
which molest the coolies.
Yesterday's journey was 18 miles in twelve hours! Ichinono is a
nice, industrious hamlet, given up, like all others, to rearing
silk-worms, and the pure white and sulphur yellow cocoons are
drying on mats in the sun everywhere.
I. L. B.
LETTER XVIII
Comely Kine - Japanese Criticism on a Foreign Usage - A Pleasant
Halt - Renewed Courtesies - The Plain of Yonezawa - A Curious Mistake-
-The Mother's Memorial - Arrival at Komatsu - Stately Accommodation -
A Vicious Horse - An Asiatic Arcadia - A Fashionable Watering-place -
A Belle - "Godowns."
KAMINOYAMA.
A severe day of mountain travelling brought us into another region.
We left Ichinono early on a fine morning, with three pack-cows, one
of which I rode [and their calves], very comely kine, with small
noses, short horns, straight spines, and deep bodies. I thought
that I might get some fresh milk, but the idea of anything but a
calf milking a cow was so new to the people that there was a
universal laugh, and Ito told me that they thought it "most
disgusting," and that the Japanese think it "most disgusting" in
foreigners to put anything "with such a strong smell and taste"
into their tea! All the cows had cotton cloths, printed with blue
dragons, suspended under their bodies to keep them from mud and
insects, and they wear straw shoes and cords through the cartilages
of their noses. The day being fine, a great deal of rice and sake
was on the move, and we met hundreds of pack-cows, all of the same
comely breed, in strings of four.
We crossed the Sakuratoge, from which the view is beautiful, got
horses at the mountain village of Shirakasawa, crossed more passes,
and in the afternoon reached the village of Tenoko. There, as
usual, I sat under the verandah of the Transport Office, and waited
for the one horse which was available. It was a large shop, but
contained not a single article of European make.
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