We Got Off In Over-Crowded Sampans, And Several
People Fell Into The Water, Much To Their Own Amusement.
The
servants from the different yadoyas go down to the jetty to "tout"
for guests with large paper lanterns, and the effect of these, one
above another, waving and undulating, with their soft coloured
light, was as bewitching as the reflection of the stars in the
motionless water.
Mororan is a small town very picturesquely
situated on the steep shore of a most lovely bay, with another
height, richly wooded, above it, with shrines approached by flights
of stone stairs, and behind this hill there is the first Aino
village along this coast.
The long, irregular street is slightly picturesque, but I was
impressed both with the unusual sight of loafers and with the
dissolute look of the place, arising from the number of joroyas,
and from the number of yadoyas that are also haunts of the vicious.
I could only get a very small room in a very poor and dirty inn,
but there were no mosquitoes, and I got a good meal of fish. On
sending to order horses I found that everything was arranged for my
journey. The Governor sent his card early, to know if there were
anything I should like to see or do, but, as the morning was grey
and threatening, I wished to push on, and at 9.30 I was in the
kuruma at the inn door. I call it the kuruma because it is the
only one, and is kept by the Government for the conveyance of
hospital patients. I sat there uncomfortably and patiently for
half an hour, my only amusement being the flirtations of Ito with a
very pretty girl. Loiterers assembled, but no one came to draw the
vehicle, and by degrees the dismal truth leaked out that the three
coolies who had been impressed for the occasion had all absconded,
and that four policemen were in search of them. I walked on in a
dawdling way up the steep hill which leads from the town, met Mr.
Akboshi, a pleasant young Japanese surveyor, who spoke English and
stigmatised Mororan as "the worst place in Yezo;" and, after fuming
for two hours at the waste of time, was overtaken by Ito with the
horses, in a boiling rage. "They're the worst and wickedest
coolies in all Japan," he stammered; "two more ran away, and now
three are coming, and have got paid for four, and the first three
who ran away got paid, and the Express man's so ashamed for a
foreigner, and the Governor's in a furious rage."
Except for the loss of time it made no difference to me, but when
the kuruma did come up the runners were three such ruffianly-
looking men, and were dressed so wildly in bark cloth, that, in
sending Ito on twelve miles to secure relays, I sent my money along
with him. These men, though there were three instead of two, never
went out of a walk, and, as if on purpose, took the vehicle over
every stone and into every rut, and kept up a savage chorus of
"haes-ha, haes-hora" the whole time, as if they were pulling stone-
carts. There are really no runners out of Hakodate, and the men
don't know how to pull, and hate doing it.
Mororan Bay is truly beautiful from the top of the ascent. The
coast scenery of Japan generally is the loveliest I have ever seen,
except that of a portion of windward Hawaii, and this yields in
beauty to none. The irregular grey town, with a grey temple on the
height above, straggles round the little bay on a steep, wooded
terrace; hills, densely wooded, and with a perfect entanglement of
large-leaved trailers, descend abruptly to the water's edge; the
festoons of the vines are mirrored in the still waters; and above
the dark forest, and beyond the gleaming sea, rises the red, peaked
top of the volcano. Then the road dips abruptly to sandy
swellings, rising into bold headlands here and there; and for the
first time I saw the surge of 5000 miles of unbroken ocean break
upon the shore. Glimpses of the Pacific, an uncultivated, swampy
level quite uninhabited, and distant hills mainly covered with
forest, made up the landscape till I reached Horobets, a mixed
Japanese and Aino village built upon the sand near the sea.
In these mixed villages the Ainos are compelled to live at a
respectful distance from the Japanese, and frequently out-number
them, as at Horobets, where there are forty-seven Aino and only
eighteen Japanese houses. The Aino village looks larger than it
really is, because nearly every house has a kura, raised six feet
from the ground by wooden stilts. When I am better acquainted with
the houses I shall describe them; at present I will only say that
they do not resemble the Japanese houses so much as the Polynesian,
as they are made of reeds very neatly tied upon a wooden framework.
They have small windows, and roofs of a very great height, and
steep pitch, with the thatch in a series of very neat frills, and
the ridge poles covered with reeds, and ornamented. The coast
Ainos are nearly all engaged in fishing, but at this season the men
hunt deer in the forests. On this coast there are several names
compounded with bets or pets, the Aino for a river, such as
Horobets, Yubets, Mombets, etc.
I found that Ito had been engaged for a whole hour in a violent
altercation, which was caused by the Transport Agent refusing to
supply runners for the kuruma, saying that no one in Horobets would
draw one, but on my producing the shomon I was at once started on
my journey of sixteen miles with three Japanese lads, Ito riding on
to Shiraoi to get my room ready. I think that the Transport
Offices in Yezo are in Government hands.
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