He And Lady Parkes Were Most
Truly Kind, And Encourage Me So Heartily In My Largest Projects For
Travelling In The Interior, That I Shall Start As Soon As I Have
Secured A Servant.
When they went away they jumped into kurumas,
and it was most amusing to see the representative of England
hurried down the street in a perambulator with a tandem of coolies.
As I look out of the window I see heavy, two-wheeled man-carts
drawn and pushed by four men each, on which nearly all goods,
stones for building, and all else, are carried. The two men who
pull press with hands and thighs against a cross-bar at the end of
a heavy pole, and the two who push apply their shoulders to beams
which project behind, using their thick, smoothly-shaven skulls as
the motive power when they push their heavy loads uphill. Their
cry is impressive and melancholy. They draw incredible loads, but,
as if the toil which often makes every breath a groan or a gasp
were not enough, they shout incessantly with a coarse, guttural
grunt, something like Ha huida, Ho huida, wa ho, Ha huida, etc.
I. L. B.
LETTER III
Yedo and Tokiyo - The Yokohama Railroad - The Effect of Misfits - The
Plain of Yedo - Personal Peculiarities - First Impressions of Tokiyo-
-H. B. M.'s Legation - An English Home.
H.B.M.'s LEGATION, YEDO, May 24.
I have dated my letter Yedo, according to the usage of the British
Legation, but popularly the new name of Tokiyo, or Eastern Capital,
is used, Kiyoto, the Mikado's former residence, having received the
name of Saikio, or Western Capital, though it has now no claim to
be regarded as a capital at all. Yedo belongs to the old regime
and the Shogunate, Tokiyo to the new regime and the Restoration,
with their history of ten years. It would seem an incongruity to
travel to Yedo by railway, but quite proper when the destination is
Tokiyo.
The journey between the two cities is performed in an hour by an
admirable, well-metalled, double-track railroad, 18 miles long,
with iron bridges, neat stations, and substantial roomy termini,
built by English engineers at a cost known only to Government, and
opened by the Mikado in 1872. The Yokohama station is a handsome
and suitable stone building, with a spacious approach, ticket-
offices on our plan, roomy waiting-rooms for different classes -
uncarpeted, however, in consideration of Japanese clogs - and
supplied with the daily papers. There is a department for the
weighing and labelling of luggage, and on the broad, covered, stone
platform at both termini a barrier with turnstiles, through which,
except by special favour, no ticketless person can pass. Except
the ticket-clerks, who are Chinese, and the guards and engine-
drivers, who are English, the officials are Japanese in European
dress. Outside the stations, instead of cabs, there are kurumas,
which carry luggage as well as people. Only luggage in the hand is
allowed to go free; the rest is weighed, numbered, and charged for,
a corresponding number being given to its owner to present at his
destination. The fares are - 3d class, an ichibu, or about 1s.; 2d
class, 60 sen, or about 2s. 4d.; and 1st class, a yen, or about 3s.
8d. The tickets are collected as the passengers pass through the
barrier at the end of the journey. The English-built cars differ
from ours in having seats along the sides, and doors opening on
platforms at both ends. On the whole, the arrangements are
Continental rather than British. The first-class cars are
expensively fitted up with deeply-cushioned, red morocco seats, but
carry very few passengers, and the comfortable seats, covered with
fine matting, of the 2d class are very scantily occupied; but the
3d class vans are crowded with Japanese, who have taken to
railroads as readily as to kurumas. This line earns about
$8,000,000 a year.
The Japanese look most diminutive in European dress. Each garment
is a misfit, and exaggerates the miserable physique and the
national defects of concave chests and bow legs. The lack of
"complexion" and of hair upon the face makes it nearly impossible
to judge of the ages of men. I supposed that all the railroad
officials were striplings of 17 or 18, but they are men from 25 to
40 years old.
It was a beautiful day, like an English June day, but hotter, and
though the Sakura (wild cherry) and its kin, which are the glory of
the Japanese spring, are over, everything is a young, fresh green
yet, and in all the beauty of growth and luxuriance. The immediate
neighbourhood of Yokohama is beautiful, with abrupt wooded hills,
and small picturesque valleys; but after passing Kanagawa the
railroad enters upon the immense plain of Yedo, said to be 90 miles
from north to south, on whose northern and western boundaries faint
blue mountains of great height hovered dreamily in the blue haze,
and on whose eastern shore for many miles the clear blue wavelets
of the Gulf of Yedo ripple, always as then, brightened by the white
sails of innumerable fishing-boats. On this fertile and fruitful
plain stand not only the capital, with its million of inhabitants,
but a number of populous cities, and several hundred thriving
agricultural villages. Every foot of land which can be seen from
the railroad is cultivated by the most careful spade husbandry, and
much of it is irrigated for rice. Streams abound, and villages of
grey wooden houses with grey thatch, and grey temples with
strangely curved roofs, are scattered thickly over the landscape.
It is all homelike, liveable, and pretty, the country of an
industrious people, for not a weed is to be seen, but no very
striking features or peculiarities arrest one at first sight,
unless it be the crowds everywhere.
You don't take your ticket for Tokiyo, but for Shinagawa or
Shinbashi, two of the many villages which have grown together into
the capital.
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