I Cannot Think How The Japanese Can Regard A Hole Full Of
Dirty Water As An Ornamental Appendage To A House.
My hotel expenses (including Ito's) are less than 3s. a-day, and in
nearly every place there has been
A cordial desire that I should be
comfortable, and, considering that I have often put up in small,
rough hamlets off the great routes even of Japanese travel, the
accommodation, minus the fleas and the odours, has been
surprisingly excellent, not to be equalled, I should think, in
equally remote regions in any country in the world.
This evening, here, as in thousands of other villages, the men came
home from their work, ate their food, took their smoke, enjoyed
their children, carried them about, watched their games, twisted
straw ropes, made straw sandals, split bamboo, wove straw rain-
coats, and spent the time universally in those little economical
ingenuities and skilful adaptations which our people (the worse for
them) practise perhaps less than any other. There was no
assembling at the sake shop. Poor though the homes are, the men
enjoy them; the children are an attraction at any rate, and the
brawling and disobedience which often turn our working-class homes
into bear-gardens are unknown here, where docility and obedience
are inculcated from the cradle as a matter of course. The signs of
religion become fewer as I travel north, and it appears that the
little faith which exists consists mainly in a belief in certain
charms and superstitions, which the priests industriously foster.
A low voice is not regarded as "a most excellent thing," in man at
least, among the lower classes in Japan. The people speak at the
top of their voices, and, though most words and syllables end in
vowels, the general effect of a conversation is like the discordant
gabble of a farm-yard. The next room to mine is full of stormbound
travellers, and they and the house-master kept up what I thought
was a most important argument for four hours at the top of their
voices. I supposed it must be on the new and important ordinance
granting local elective assemblies, of which I heard at Odate, but
on inquiry found that it was possible to spend four mortal hours in
discussing whether the day's journey from Odate to Noshiro could be
made best by road or river.
Japanese women have their own gatherings, where gossip and chit-
chat, marked by a truly Oriental indecorum of speech, are the
staple of talk. I think that in many things, specially in some
which lie on the surface, the Japanese are greatly our superiors,
but that in many others they are immeasurably behind us. In living
altogether among this courteous, industrious, and civilised people,
one comes to forget that one is doing them a gross injustice in
comparing their manners and ways with those of a people moulded by
many centuries of Christianity. Would to God that we were so
Christianised that the comparison might always be favourable to us,
which it is not!
July 30. - In the room on the other side of mine were two men with
severe eye-disease, with shaven heads and long and curious
rosaries, who beat small drums as they walked, and were on
pilgrimage to the shrine of Fudo at Megura, near Yedo, a seated,
flame-surrounded idol, with a naked sword in one hand and a coil of
rope in the other, who has the reputation of giving sight to the
blind. At five this morning they began their devotions, which
consisted in repeating with great rapidity, and in a high
monotonous key for two hours, the invocation of the Nichiren sect
of Buddhists, Namu miyo ho ren ge Kiyo, which certainly no Japanese
understands, and on the meaning of which even the best scholars are
divided; one having given me, "Glory to the salvation-bringing
Scriptures;" another, "Hail, precious law and gospel of the lotus
flower;" and a third, "Heaven and earth! The teachings of the
wonderful lotus flower sect." Namu amidu Butsu occurred at
intervals, and two drums were beaten the whole time!
The rain, which began again at eleven last night, fell from five
till eight this morning, not in drops, but in streams, and in the
middle of it a heavy pall of blackness (said to be a total eclipse)
enfolded all things in a lurid gloom. Any detention is
exasperating within one day of my journey's end, and I hear without
equanimity that there are great difficulties ahead, and that our
getting through in three or even four days is doubtful. I hope you
will not be tired of the monotony of my letters. Such as they are,
they represent the scenes which a traveller would see throughout
much of northern Japan, and whatever interest they have consists in
the fact that they are a faithful representation, made upon the
spot, of what a foreigner sees and hears in travelling through a
large but unfrequented region. I. L. B.
LETTER XXVIII
Torrents of Rain - An unpleasant Detention - Devastations produced by
Floods - The Yadate Pass - The Force of Water - Difficulties thicken -
A Primitive Yadoya - The Water rises.
IKARIGASEKI, AOMORI KEN, August 2.
The prophecies concerning difficulties are fulfilled. For six days
and five nights the rain has never ceased, except for a few hours
at a time, and for the last thirteen hours, as during the eclipse
at Shirasawa, it has been falling in such sheets as I have only
seen for a few minutes at a time on the equator. I have been here
storm-staid for two days, with damp bed, damp clothes, damp
everything, and boots, bag, books, are all green with mildew. And
still the rain falls, and roads, bridges, rice-fields, trees, and
hillsides are being swept in a common ruin towards the Tsugaru
Strait, so tantalisingly near; and the simple people are calling on
the forgotten gods of the rivers and the hills, on the sun and
moon, and all the host of heaven, to save them from this "plague of
immoderate rain and waters." For myself, to be able to lie down
all day is something, and as "the mind, when in a healthy state,
reposes as quietly before an insurmountable difficulty as before an
ascertained truth," so, as I cannot get on, I have ceased to chafe,
and am rather inclined to magnify the advantages of the detention,
a necessary process, as you would think if you saw my surroundings!
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