At Last One Was Successful,
And The Severed Kite Became His Property, Upon Which Victor And
Vanquished Exchanged Three Low Bows.
Silently as the people
watched and received the destruction of their bridge, so silently
they watched this exciting contest.
The boys also flew their kites
while walking on stilts - a most dexterous performance, in which few
were able to take part - and then a larger number gave a stilt race.
The most striking out-of-door games are played at fixed seasons of
the year, and are not to be seen now.
There are twelve children in this yadoya, and after dark they
regularly play at a game which Ito says "is played in the winter in
every house in Japan." The children sit in a circle, and the
adults look on eagerly, child-worship being more common in Japan
than in America, and, to my thinking, the Japanese form is the
best.
From proverbial philosophy to personal privation is rather a
descent, but owing to the many detentions on the journey my small
stock of foreign food is exhausted, and I have been living here on
rice, cucumbers, and salt salmon - so salt that, after being boiled
in two waters, it produces a most distressing thirst. Even this
has failed to-day, as communication with the coast has been stopped
for some time, and the village is suffering under the calamity of
its stock of salt-fish being completely exhausted. There are no
eggs, and rice and cucumbers are very like the "light food" which
the Israelites "loathed." I had an omelette one day, but it was
much like musty leather. The Italian minister said to me in
Tokiyo, "No question in Japan is so solemn as that of food," and
many others echoed what I thought at the time a most unworthy
sentiment. I recognised its truth to-day when I opened my last
resort, a box of Brand's meat lozenges, and found them a mass of
mouldiness. One can only dry clothes here by hanging them in the
wood smoke, so I prefer to let them mildew on the walls, and have
bought a straw rain-coat, which is more reliable than the paper
waterproofs. I hear the hum of the children at their lessons for
the last time, for the waters are falling fast, and we shall leave
in the morning.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXIX
Hope deferred - Effects of the Flood - Activity of the Police - A
Ramble in Disguise - The Tanabata Festival - Mr. Satow's Reputation.
KUROISHI, August 5.
After all the waters did not fall as was expected, and I had to
spend a fourth day at Ikarigaseki. We left early on Saturday, as
we had to travel fifteen miles without halting. The sun shone on
all the beautiful country, and on all the wreck and devastation, as
it often shines on the dimpling ocean the day after a storm. We
took four men, crossed two severe fords where bridges had been
carried away, and where I and the baggage got very wet; saw great
devastations and much loss of crops and felled timber; passed under
a cliff, which for 200 feet was composed of fine columnar basalt in
six-sided prisms, and quite suddenly emerged on a great plain, on
which green billows of rice were rolling sunlit before a fresh
north wind. This plain is liberally sprinkled with wooded villages
and surrounded by hills; one low range forming a curtain across the
base of Iwakisan, a great snow-streaked dome, which rises to the
west of the plain to a supposed height of 5000 feet. The water had
risen in most of the villages to a height of four feet, and had
washed the lower part of the mud walls away. The people were busy
drying their tatami, futons, and clothing, reconstructing their
dykes and small bridges, and fishing for the logs which were still
coming down in large quantities.
In one town two very shabby policemen rushed upon us, seized the
bridle of my horse, and kept me waiting for a long time in the
middle of a crowd, while they toilsomely bored through the
passport, turning it up and down, and holding it up to the light,
as though there were some nefarious mystery about it. My horse
stumbled so badly that I was obliged to walk to save myself from
another fall, and, just as my powers were failing, we met a kuruma,
which by good management, such as being carried occasionally,
brought me into Kuroishi, a neat town of 5500 people, famous for
the making of clogs and combs, where I have obtained a very neat,
airy, upstairs room, with a good view over the surrounding country
and of the doings of my neighbours in their back rooms and gardens.
Instead of getting on to Aomori I am spending three days and two
nights here, and, as the weather has improved and my room is
remarkably cheerful, the rest has been very pleasant. As I have
said before, it is difficult to get any information about anything
even a few miles off, and even at the Post Office they cannot give
any intelligence as to the date of the sailings of the mail steamer
between Aomori, twenty miles off, and Hakodate.
The police were not satisfied with seeing my passport, but must
also see me, and four of them paid me a polite but domiciliary
visit the evening of my arrival. That evening the sound of
drumming was ceaseless, and soon after I was in bed Ito announced
that there was something really worth seeing, so I went out in my
kimono and without my hat, and in this disguise altogether escaped
recognition as a foreigner. Kuroishi is unlighted, and I was
tumbling and stumbling along in overhaste when a strong arm cleared
the way, and the house-master appeared with a very pretty lantern,
hanging close to the ground from a cane held in the hand. Thus
came the phrase, "Thy word is a light unto my feet."
We soon reached a point for seeing the festival procession advance
towards us, and it was so beautiful and picturesque that it kept me
out for an hour.
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