These Are
The Flushed Scaurs And Outbreaks Of Bare Rock For Which I Sighed
Amidst The Smothering Greenery Of The Main Island, And The Silver
Gleam Of The Lakes Takes Away The Blindness From The Face Of
Nature.
It was delicious to descend to the water's edge in the
dewy silence amidst balsamic odours, to find not a clattering grey
village with its monotony, but a single, irregularly-built house,
with lovely surroundings.
It is a most displeasing road for most of the way; sides with deep
corrugations, and in the middle a high causeway of earth, whose
height is being added to by hundreds of creels of earth brought on
ponies' backs. It is supposed that carriages and waggons will use
this causeway, but a shying horse or a bad driver would overturn
them. As it is at present the road is only passable for pack-
horses, owing to the number of broken bridges. I passed strings of
horses laden with sake going into the interior. The people of Yezo
drink freely, and the poor Ainos outrageously. On the road I
dismounted to rest myself by walking up hill, and, the saddle being
loosely girthed, the gear behind it dragged it round and under the
body of the horse, and it was too heavy for me to lift on his back
again. When I had led him for some time two Japanese with a string
of pack-horses loaded with deer-hides met me, and not only put the
saddle on again, but held the stirrup while I remounted, and bowed
politely when I went away. Who could help liking such a courteous
and kindly people?
MORI, VOLCANO BAY, Monday.
Even Ginsainoma was not Paradise after dark, and I was actually
driven to bed early by the number of mosquitoes. Ito is in an
excellent humour on this tour. Like me, he likes the freedom of
the Hokkaido. He is much more polite and agreeable also, and very
proud of the Governor's shomon, with which he swaggers into hotels
and Transport Offices. I never get on so well as when he arranges
for me. Saturday was grey and lifeless, and the ride of seven
miles here along a sandy road through monotonous forest and swamp,
with the volcano on one side and low wooded hills on the other, was
wearisome and fatiguing. I saw five large snakes all in a heap,
and a number more twisting through the grass. There are no
villages, but several very poor tea-houses, and on the other side
of the road long sheds with troughs hollowed like canoes out of the
trunks of trees, containing horse food. Here nobody walks, and the
men ride at a quick run, sitting on the tops of their pack-saddles
with their legs crossed above their horses' necks, and wearing
large hats like coal-scuttle bonnets. The horses are infested with
ticks, hundreds upon one animal sometimes, and occasionally they
become so mad from the irritation that they throw themselves
suddenly on the ground, and roll over load and rider. I saw this
done twice. The ticks often transfer themselves to the riders.
Mori is a large, ramshackle village, near the southern point of
Volcano Bay - a wild, dreary-looking place on a sandy shore, with a
number of joroyas and disreputable characters. Several of the
yadoyas are not respectable, but I rather like this one, and it has
a very fine view of the volcano, which forms one point of the bay.
Mori has no anchorage, though it has an unfinished pier 345 feet
long. The steam ferry across the mouth of the bay is here, and
there is a very difficult bridle-track running for nearly 100 miles
round the bay besides, and a road into the interior. But it is a
forlorn, decayed place. Last night the inn was very noisy, as some
travellers in the next room to mine hired geishas, who played,
sang, and danced till two in the morning, and the whole party
imbibed sake freely. In this comparatively northern latitude the
summer is already waning. The seeds of the blossoms which were in
their glory when I arrived are ripe, and here and there a tinge of
yellow on a hillside, or a scarlet spray of maple, heralds the
glories and the coolness of autumn.
YUBETS. YEZO.
A loud yell of "steamer," coupled with the information that "she
could not wait one minute," broke in upon go and everything else,
and in a broiling sun we hurried down to the pier, and with a heap
of Japanese, who filled two scows, were put on board a steamer not
bigger than a large decked steam launch, where the natives were all
packed into a covered hole, and I was conducted with much ceremony
to the forecastle, a place at the bow 5 feet square, full of coils
of rope, shut in, and left to solitude and dignity, and the stare
of eight eyes, which perseveringly glowered through the windows!
The steamer had been kept waiting for me on the other side for two
days, to the infinite disgust of two foreigners, who wished to
return to Hakodate, and to mine.
It was a splendid day, with foam crests on the wonderfully blue
water, and the red ashes of the volcano, which forms the south
point of the bay, glowed in the sunlight. This wretched steamer,
whose boilers are so often "sick" that she can never be relied
upon, is the only means of reaching the new capital without taking
a most difficult and circuitous route. To continue the pier and
put a capable good steamer on the ferry would be a useful
expenditure of money. The breeze was strong and in our favour, but
even with this it took us six weary hours to steam twenty-five
miles, and it was eight at night before we reached the beautiful
and almost land-locked bay of Mororan, with steep, wooded sides,
and deep water close to the shore, deep enough for the foreign
ships of war which occasionally anchor there, much to the detriment
of the town.
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