The Streets Are Very Wide And Clean, But The Houses Are
Mean And Low.
The city looks as if it had just recovered from a
conflagration.
The houses are nothing but tinder. The grand tile
roofs of some other cities are not to be seen. There is not an
element of permanence in the wide, and windy streets. It is an
increasing and busy place; it lies for two miles along the shore,
and has climbed the hill till it can go no higher; but still houses
and people look poor. It has a skeleton aspect too, which is
partially due to the number of permanent "clothes-horses" on the
roofs. Stones, however, are its prominent feature. Looking down
upon it from above you see miles of grey boulders, and realise that
every roof in the windy capital is "hodden doun" by a weight of
paving stones. Nor is this all. Some of the flatter roofs are
pebbled all over like a courtyard, and others, such as the roof of
this house, for instance, are covered with sod and crops of grass,
the two latter arrangements being precautions against risks from
sparks during fires. These paving stones are certainly the
cheapest possible mode of keeping the roofs on the houses in such a
windy region, but they look odd.
None of the streets, except one high up the hill, with a row of
fine temples and temple grounds, call for any notice. Nearly every
house is a shop; most of the shops supply only the ordinary
articles consumed by a large and poor population; either real or
imitated foreign goods abound in Main Street, and the only
novelties are the furs, skins, and horns, which abound in shops
devoted to their sale. I covet the great bear furs and the deep
cream-coloured furs of Aino dogs, which are cheap as well as
handsome. There are many second-hand, or, as they are called,
"curio" shops, and the cheap lacquer from Aomori is also tempting
to a stranger.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXXIV
Ito's Delinquency - "Missionary Manners" - A Predicted Failure.
HAKODATE, YEZO.
I am enjoying Hakodate so much that, though my tour is all planned
and my arrangements are made, I linger on from day to day. There
has been an unpleasant eclaircissement about Ito. You will
remember that I engaged him without a character, and that he told
both Lady Parkes and me that after I had done so his former master,
Mr. Maries, asked him to go back to him, to which he had replied
that he had "a contract with a lady." Mr. Maries is here, and I
now find that he had a contract with Ito, by which Ito bound
himself to serve him as long as he required him, for $7 a month,
but that, hearing that I offered $12, he ran away from him and
entered my service with a lie! Mr. Maries has been put to the
greatest inconvenience by his defection, and has been hindered
greatly in completing his botanical collection, for Ito is very
clever, and he had not only trained him to dry plants successfully,
but he could trust him to go away for two or three days and collect
seeds. I am very sorry about it. He says that Ito was a bad boy
when he came to him, but he thinks that he cured him of some of his
faults, and that he has served me faithfully. I have seen Mr.
Maries at the Consul's, and have arranged that, after my Yezo tour
is over, Ito shall be returned to his rightful master, who will
take him to China and Formosa for a year and a half, and who, I
think, will look after his well-being in every way. Dr. and Mrs.
Hepburn, who are here, heard a bad account of the boy after I began
my travels and were uneasy about me, but, except for this original
lie, I have no fault to find with him, and his Shinto creed has not
taught him any better. When I paid him his wages this morning he
asked me if I had any fault to find, and I told him of my objection
to his manners, which he took in very good part and promised to
amend them; "but," he added, "mine are just missionary manners!"
Yesterday I dined at the Consulate, to meet Count Diesbach, of the
French Legation, Mr. Von Siebold, of the Austrian Legation, and
Lieutenant Kreitner, of the Austrian army, who start to-morrow on
an exploring expedition in the interior, intending to cross the
sources of the rivers which fall into the sea on the southern coast
and measure the heights of some of the mountains. They are "well
found" in food and claret, but take such a number of pack-ponies
with them that I predict that they will fail, and that I, who have
reduced my luggage to 45 lbs., will succeed!
I hope to start on my long-projected tour to-morrow; I have planned
it for myself with the confidence of an experienced traveller, and
look forward to it with great pleasure, as a visit to the
aborigines is sure to be full of novel and interesting experiences.
Good-bye for a long time. I. L. B.
LETTER XXXV {17}
A Lovely Sunset - An Official Letter - A "Front Horse" - Japanese
Courtesy - The Steam Ferry - Coolies Abscond - A Team of Savages - A
Drove of Horses - Floral Beauties - An Unbeaten Track - A Ghostly
Dwelling - Solitude and Eeriness.
GINSAINOMA, YEZO, August 17.
I am once again in the wilds! I am sitting outside an upper room
built out almost over a lonely lake, with wooded points purpling
and still shadows deepening in the sinking sun. A number of men
are dragging down the nearest hillside the carcass of a bear which
they have just despatched with spears. There is no village, and
the busy clatter of the cicada and the rustle of the forest are the
only sounds which float on the still evening air.
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