I Spent Yesterday
Quietly In My Old Quarters, With A Fearful Storm Of Wind And Rain
Outside.
Pipichari appeared at noon, nominally to bring news of
the sick woman, who is recovering, and to have his nearly healed
foot bandaged again, but really to bring me a knife sheath which he
has carved for me.
He lay on the mat in the corner of my room most
of the afternoon, and I got a great many more words from him. The
house-master, who is the Kocho of Sarufuto, paid me a courteous
visit, and in the evening sent to say that he would be very glad of
some medicine, for he was "very ill and going to have fever." He
had caught a bad cold and sore throat, had bad pains in his limbs,
and was bemoaning himself ruefully. To pacify his wife, who was
very sorry for him, I gave him some "Cockle's Pills" and the
trapper's remedy of "a pint of hot water with a pinch of cayenne
pepper," and left him moaning and bundled up under a pile of
futons, in a nearly hermetically sealed room, with a hibachi of
charcoal vitiating the air. This morning when I went and inquired
after him in a properly concerned tone, his wife told me very
gleefully that he was quite well and had gone out, and had left 25
sen for some more of the medicines that I had given him, so with
great gravity I put up some of Duncan and Flockhart's most pungent
cayenne pepper, and showed her how much to use. She was not
content, however, without some of the "Cockles," a single box of
which has performed six of those "miraculous cures" which rejoice
the hearts and fill the pockets of patent medicine makers!
I. L. B.
LETTER XXXIX
A Welcome Gift - Recent Changes - Volcanic Phenomena - Interesting
Tufa Cones - Semi-strangulation - A Fall into a Bear-trap - The
Shiraoi Ainos - Horsebreaking and Cruelty.
OLD MORORAN, VOLCANO BAY, YEZO,
September 2.
After the storm of Sunday, Monday was a grey, still, tender day,
and the ranges of wooded hills were bathed in the richest indigo
colouring. A canter of seventeen miles among the damask roses on a
very rough horse only took me to Yubets, whose indescribable
loneliness fascinated me into spending a night there again, and
encountering a wild clatter of wind and rain; and another canter of
seven miles the next morning took me to Tomakomai, where I rejoined
my kuruma, and after a long delay, three trotting Ainos took me to
Shiraoi, where the "clear shining after rain," and the mountains
against a lemon-coloured sky, were extremely beautiful; but the
Pacific was as unrestful as a guilty thing, and its crash and
clamour and the severe cold fatigued me so much that I did not
pursue my journey the next day, and had the pleasure of a flying
visit from Mr. Von Siebold and Count Diesbach, who bestowed a
chicken upon me.
I like Shiraoi very much, and if I were stronger would certainly
make it a basis for exploring a part of the interior, in which
there is much to reward the explorer. Obviously the changes in
this part of Yezo have been comparatively recent, and the energy of
the force which has produced them is not yet extinct. The land has
gained from the sea along the whole of this part of the coast to
the extent of two or three miles, the old beach with its bays and
headlands being a marked feature of the landscape. This new
formation appears to be a vast bed of pumice, covered by a thin
layer of vegetable mould, which cannot be more than fifty years
old. This pumice fell during the eruption of the volcano of
Tarumai, which is very near Shiraoi, and is also brought down in
large quantities from the interior hills and valleys by the
numerous rivers, besides being washed up by the sea. At the last
eruption pumice fell over this region of Yezo to a medium depth of
3 feet 6 inches. In nearly all the rivers good sections of the
formation may be seen in their deeply-cleft banks, broad, light-
coloured bands of pumice, with a few inches of rich, black,
vegetable soil above, and several feet of black sea-sand below.
During a freshet which occurred the first night I was at Shiraoi, a
single stream covered a piece of land with pumice to the depth of
nine inches, being the wash from the hills of the interior, in a
course of less than fifteen miles.
Looking inland, the volcano of Tarumai, with a bare grey top and a
blasted forest on its sides, occupies the right of the picture. To
the left and inland are mountains within mountains, tumbled
together in most picturesque confusion, densely covered with forest
and cleft by magnificent ravines, here and there opening out into
narrow valleys. The whole of the interior is jungle penetrable for
a few miles by shallow and rapid rivers, and by nearly smothered
trails made by the Ainos in search of game. The general lie of the
country made me very anxious to find out whether a much-broken
ridge lying among the mountains is or is not a series of tufa cones
of ancient date; and, applying for a good horse and Aino guide on
horseback, I left Ito to amuse himself, and spent much of a most
splendid day in investigations and in attempting to get round the
back of the volcano and up its inland side. There is a great deal
to see and learn there. Oh that I had strength! After hours of
most tedious and exhausting work I reached a point where there were
several great fissures emitting smoke and steam, with occasional
subterranean detonations. These were on the side of a small, flank
crack which was smoking heavily. There was light pumice
everywhere, but nothing like recent lava or scoriae.
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