It Sounds Like An Expletive Or
Interjection Rather Than A Response, And Seems Used Often As A Sign
Of Respect Or Attention Only.
Often it is loud and shrill, then
guttural, at times little more than a sigh.
In these yadoyas every
sound is audible, and I hear low rumbling of mingled voices, and
above all the sharp Hai, Hai of the tea-house girls in full chorus
from every quarter of the house. The habit of saying it is so
strong that a man roused out of sleep jumps up with Hai, Hai, and
often, when I speak to Ito in English, a stupid Hebe sitting by
answers Hai.
I don't want to convey a false impression of the noise here. It
would be at least three times as great were I in equally close
proximity to a large hotel kitchen in England, with fifty Britons
only separated from me by paper partitions. I had not been long in
bed on Saturday night when I was awoke by Ito bringing in an old
hen which he said he could stew till it was tender, and I fell
asleep again with its dying squeak in my ears, to be awoke a second
time by two policemen wanting for some occult reason to see my
passport, and a third time by two men with lanterns scrambling and
fumbling about the room for the strings of a mosquito net, which
they wanted for another traveller. These are among the ludicrous
incidents of Japanese travelling. About five Ito woke me by saying
he was quite sure that the moxa would be the thing to cure my
spine, and, as we were going to stay all day, he would go and fetch
an operator; but I rejected this as emphatically as the services of
the blind man! Yesterday a man came and pasted slips of paper over
all the "peep holes" in the shoji, and I have been very little
annoyed, even though the yadoya is so crowded.
The rain continues to come down in torrents, and rumours are hourly
arriving of disasters to roads and bridges on the northern route.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXVII
Good-tempered Intoxication - The Effect of Sunshine - A tedious
Altercation - Evening Occupations - Noisy Talk - Social Gathering -
Unfair Comparisons.
SHIRASAWA, July 29.
Early this morning the rain-clouds rolled themselves up and
disappeared, and the bright blue sky looked as if it had been well
washed. I had to wait till noon before the rivers became fordable,
and my day's journey is only seven miles, as it is not possible to
go farther till more of the water runs off. We had very limp,
melancholy horses, and my mago was half-tipsy, and sang, talked,
and jumped the whole way. Sake is frequently taken warm, and in
that state produces a very noisy but good-tempered intoxication. I
have seen a good many intoxicated persons, but never one in the
least degree quarrelsome; and the effect very soon passes off,
leaving, however, an unpleasant nausea for two or three days as a
warning against excess. The abominable concoctions known under the
names of beer, wine, and brandy, produce a bad-tempered and
prolonged intoxication, and delirium tremens, rarely known as a
result of sake drinking, is being introduced under their baleful
influence.
The sun shone gloriously and brightened the hill-girdled valley in
which Odate stands into positive beauty, with the narrow river
flinging its bright waters over green and red shingle, lighting it
up in glints among the conical hills, some richly wooded with
coniferae, and others merely covered with scrub, which were tumbled
about in picturesque confusion. When Japan gets the sunshine, its
forest-covered hills and garden-like valleys are turned into
paradise. In a journey of 600 miles there has hardly been a patch
of country which would not have been beautiful in sunlight.
We crossed five severe fords with the water half-way up the horses'
bodies, in one of which the strong current carried my mago off his
feet, and the horse towed him ashore, singing and capering, his
drunken glee nothing abated by his cold bath. Everything is in a
state of wreck. Several river channels have been formed in places
where there was only one; there is not a trace of the road for a
considerable distance, not a bridge exists for ten miles, and a
great tract of country is covered with boulders, uprooted trees,
and logs floated from the mountain sides. Already, however, these
industrious peasants are driving piles, carrying soil for
embankments in creels on horses' backs, and making ropes of stones
to prevent a recurrence of the calamity. About here the female
peasants wear for field-work a dress which pleases me much by its
suitability - light blue trousers, with a loose sack over them,
confined at the waist by a girdle.
On arriving here in much pain, and knowing that the road was not
open any farther, I was annoyed by a long and angry conversation
between the house-master and Ito, during which the horses were not
unloaded, and the upshot of it was that the man declined to give me
shelter, saying that the police had been round the week before
giving notice that no foreigner was to be received without first
communicating with the nearest police station, which, in this
instance, is three hours off. I said that the authorities of Akita
ken could not by any local regulations override the Imperial edict
under which passports are issued; but he said he should be liable
to a fine and the withdrawal of his license if he violated the
rule. No foreigner, he said, had ever lodged in Shirasawa, and I
have no doubt that he added that he hoped no foreigner would ever
seek lodgings again. My passport was copied and sent off by
special runner, as I should have deeply regretted bringing trouble
on the poor man by insisting on my rights, and in much trepidation
he gave me a room open on one side to the village, and on another
to a pond, over which, as if to court mosquitoes, it is partially
built.
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