Splashing Through Mire And Water We Found That The People Of Tubine
Wished To Detain Us, Saying That All The
Ferries were stopped in
consequence of the rise in the rivers; but I had been so often
misled by false
Reports that I took fresh horses and went on by a
track along a very pretty hillside, overlooking the Yonetsurugawa,
a large and swollen river, which nearer the sea had spread itself
over the whole country. Torrents of rain were still falling, and
all out-of-doors industries were suspended. Straw rain-cloaks
hanging to dry dripped under all the eaves, our paper cloaks were
sodden, our dripping horses steamed, and thus we slid down a steep
descent into the hamlet of Kiriishi, thirty-one houses clustered
under persimmon trees under a wooded hillside, all standing in a
quagmire, and so abject and filthy that one could not ask for five
minutes' shelter in any one of them. Sure enough, on the bank of
the river, which was fully 400 yards wide, and swirling like a
mill-stream with a suppressed roar, there was an official order
prohibiting the crossing of man or beast, and before I had time to
think the mago had deposited the baggage on an islet in the mire
and was over the crest of the hill. I wished that the Government
was a little less paternal.
Just in the nick of time we discerned a punt drifting down the
river on the opposite side, where it brought up, and landed a man,
and Ito and two others yelled, howled, and waved so lustily as to
attract its notice, and to my joy an answering yell came across the
roar and rush of the river. The torrent was so strong that the
boatmen had to pole up on that side for half a mile, and in about
three-quarters of an hour they reached our side. They were
returning to Kotsunagi - the very place I wished to reach - but,
though only 2.5 miles off, the distance took nearly four hours of
the hardest work I ever saw done by men. Every moment I expected
to see them rupture blood-vessels or tendons. All their muscles
quivered. It is a mighty river, and was from eight to twelve feet
deep, and whirling down in muddy eddies; and often with their
utmost efforts in poling, when it seemed as if poles or backs must
break, the boat hung trembling and stationary for three or four
minutes at a time. After the slow and eventless tramp of the last
few days this was an exciting transit. Higher up there was a
flooded wood, and, getting into this, the men aided themselves
considerably by hauling by the trees; but when we got out of this,
another river joined the Yonetsurugawa, which with added strength
rushed and roared more wildly.
I had long been watching a large house-boat far above us on the
other side, which was being poled by desperate efforts by ten men.
At that point she must have been half a mile off, when the stream
overpowered the crew and in no time she swung round and came
drifting wildly down and across the river, broadside on to us. We
could not stir against the current, and had large trees on our
immediate left, and for a moment it was a question whether she
would not smash us to atoms. Ito was livid with fear; his white,
appalled face struck me as ludicrous, for I had no other thought
than the imminent peril of the large boat with her freight of
helpless families, when, just as she was within two feet of us, she
struck a stem and glanced off. Then her crew grappled a headless
trunk and got their hawser round it, and eight of them, one behind
the other, hung on to it, when it suddenly snapped, seven fell
backwards, and the forward one went overboard to be no more seen.
Some house that night was desolate. Reeling downwards, the big
mast and spar of the ungainly craft caught in a tree, giving her
such a check that they were able to make her fast. It was a
saddening incident. I asked Ito what he felt when we seemed in
peril, and he replied, "I thought I'd been good to my mother, and
honest, and I hoped I should go to a good place."
The fashion of boats varies much on different rivers. On this one
there are two sizes. Ours was a small one, flat-bottomed, 25 feet
long by 2.5 broad, drawing 6 inches, very low in the water, and
with sides slightly curved inwards. The prow forms a gradual long
curve from the body of the boat, and is very high.
The mists rolled away as dusk came on, and revealed a lovely
country with much picturesqueness of form, and near Kotsunagi the
river disappears into a narrow gorge with steep, sentinel hills,
dark with pine and cryptomeria. To cross the river we had to go
fully a mile above the point aimed at, and then a few minutes of
express speed brought us to a landing in a deep, tough quagmire in
a dark wood, through which we groped our lamentable way to the
yadoya. A heavy mist came on, and the rain returned in torrents;
the doma was ankle deep in black slush. The daidokoro was open to
the roof, roof and rafters were black with smoke, and a great fire
of damp wood was smoking lustily. Round some live embers in the
irori fifteen men, women, and children were lying, doing nothing,
by the dim light of an andon. It was picturesque decidedly, and I
was well disposed to be content when the production of some
handsome fusuma created daimiyo's rooms out of the farthest part of
the dim and wandering space, opening upon a damp garden, into which
the rain splashed all night.
The solitary spoil of the day's journey was a glorious lily, which
I presented to the house-master, and in the morning it was blooming
on the kami-dana in a small vase of priceless old Satsuma china.
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