Alone With The Hairy Ainu Part 16

At Baraputa I heard that it was impossible to continue my journey south on horseback along the coast, for the track was almost impa.s.sable, even on foot. It was a steep and difficult trail over the mountains, among rocks and precipitous cliffs, and I was quite unable to accomplish it; so I retraced my steps to s.h.i.tzo, and from there struck across the peninsula on the road for Oshamambe, on Volcano Bay. The road is a good one, and when bridges are built where needed it will be practicable for _bashas_, the four-wheeled vehicles of Southern Yezo. The way is across mountains or among well-wooded hills. Kuromatsunai is the largest group of houses found along the road. It is about halfway between the two coasts.

Late at night, after having ridden twenty-five miles, I arrived at Oshamambe, a semi-Ainu village on Volcano Bay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KOMATAGE VOLCANO, VOLCANO BAY.]

CHAPTER XIX.

Completing the Circuit of Yezo--The End of my Journey.

Oshamambe is a group of seventy houses, just midway between Mororran and Mori. The Ainu of this bay are poor specimens of their race, as most of them have intermarried with j.a.panese. They are, however, those most talked about by Europeans, for they are of easy access to globe-trotters.

They are mostly half-castes, and even second and third crosses; wherefore it is no wonder that the incautious travellers who have written on the Ainu, studying only these easily-visited specimens, have discovered in them a remarkable likeness to the j.a.panese!

The fact that I was rapidly nearing the end of my trip half filled me with pleasure, yet pleasure mingled with regret. It was nearly six weeks now since I met with the accident to my foot, and I was decidedly better. The cold weather had greatly contributed to this improvement of my condition; and had it not been for my bone which kept sticking out of my skin, I should have considered myself in fine case. I could hop along with my self-made crutch and my stick, and when riding the pain was not nearly as acute as it had been the first fifteen or twenty days.

As the road was good, and there was nothing interesting to me on this portion of the journey, I tried to push on rapidly towards Mori.

Unfortunately, at the last minute my patience was put to a trial. I hired a horse, and it was lame. No others were to be had that day for love or money. The animal had been lame for two years, they said, and though uncomfortable to ride he did not suffer any pain. This I ascertained afterwards was true, for that day the st.u.r.dy brute carried me 48 miles without once requiring punishment. It is needless to say that what I suffered that day by the continuous jerking is beyond description. I rode fourteen hours in a fearful storm of rain and snow, and my feverish anxiety to reach Hakodate soon, so that I might receive letters, and have news of my parents and friends--from whom I had not heard for five months--helped me to pull through all the fatigue and worry of the way. The road between Oshamambe and Kunnui is fair, getting still better towards Yurap and Yamakushinai. But to shorten the journey and lessen the jerking I followed the sandy sea-beach, which, describing a smaller circle than the road, necessarily diminishes the distance.

From Yamakushinai the road is very good and wide, and it has nicely-built bridges over the Otoshibe and Nigori Rivers. The small fishing villages, though not so imposing in appearance as some of those in other parts of Yezo, add to the picturesqueness of the bay, with its beautiful volcanic cone of Komagatage towering in the distance towards the south-east.

The fishing in Volcano Bay consists mostly of mackerel, sprats, halibut, and herrings.

I reached Mori late in the evening, and was received with a friendly greeting by the people of the tea-house in which I had stayed on my way up at the beginning of my journey.

The place was brilliantly lighted with numberless candles, and opposite the entrance was a kind of altar decked with flowers and cakes. A few _bonzes_, with their shaven heads and long, thin, depraved fingers, were saying their prayers and beating with a small wand on the round wooden bells. With the G.o.ds of j.a.pan you must ring a bell or clap your hands before you begin to pray, or else the G.o.d will pay no attention to your pet.i.tions. In the next room another j.a.panese, with less depraved fingers, but with a more wicked face, was dressed in European clothes, and was apparently giving a sermon, and sure enough he proved to be a native Christian minister!

"Hallo!" said I to the landlord; "what does all this mean?"

"Oh," said he, smiling--for Buddhism teaches you not to show pain--"my old mother is dead. You saw her when you were here before. She died yesterday, and as she was formerly a Buddhist and had become a Christian, I have now got some Buddhist _bonzes_ and a Christian minister to pray for her, for I want her to be happy in the other world."

"But do you not think," I replied, "that so much praying of different kinds might interfere with her happiness?"

"Oh, no, your honourable," he said quickly, "I have paid the _bonzes_ and the clergyman in advance, and the G.o.ds cannot get angry now!"

It was curious to notice the compet.i.tion between the representatives of the two different creeds.

On the one side the Christian shouted his prayers and sang his hymns in a stentorian voice, to put the _bonzes_ in the shade and get the start of them in the contest; and on the other side these rattled on the wooden bells with all their might, so that their prayers should be heard first. I was more than happy when this religious race was over, and I was allowed a few hours' rest.

Instead of going straight to Hakodate by _basha_ by the road I had already once traversed, I followed the coast in a south-easterly direction towards the volcano of Esan.

Near Usushiri, some two miles inland, are the hot springs of Obune, where, in a picturesque gully surrounded by mountains, are two dirty shanties for the benefit of those who wish to take the waters. At Isoya, five miles north of this place, similar springs are found, and three and a half miles south-east of Usushiri still more can be seen at Kak.u.mi.

The latter place is a picturesque little spot, with its three old sheds and the steaming bath-room framed in the multi-coloured foliage of trees with their lovely autumn tints. A clean path a few hundred yards long leads from the coast to the springs, and a track across the mountains is found between that place and Hakodate; also another leading from Obune to the latter port. By both these tracks a most lovely view of Hakodate Bay can be obtained when the summit of the mountain range is reached.

From Kak.u.mi the coast-line is wretched for travelling, set thick as it is with stones as sharp as knives, while the waves continually wash over the narrow beach, drenching the wayfarer to the skin.

I reached Otatsube, a group of a few fishermen's huts; and as there is no traffic whatever along this coast, there were no regular tea-houses.

Unfortunately for me, the British Squadron in the Pacific had spent the summer at Hakodate, and the ships had often gone for gun-practice somewhere near this place, scaring the natives to death, and furthermore angering them against foreigners in general, for they said the report of the guns frightened away all the fish. When I asked for food and offered money for it, they flatly refused me, saying contemptuously,--

"You foreigners come and scare all the fish away, and now you shall die of starvation before you shall get food from us. We do not want your money. We are rich."

And so I was held responsible for the doings of Her Majesty's fleet, which until then I did not even know had been in those waters!

At Furimbe, the next small village, only a few miles further on, my experience was even more unpleasant. Not only would they not give me food, but they would not shelter me for the night in any of the houses; and many of the fishermen, taking advantage of my wretched condition, were impudent to such a point that I thought we should have come to blows.

It was getting quite dark, and I was fearfully hungry and exhausted. The only course open to me was to push on, and see if I could come across some other hut where the owners were not so churlish. As it turned out, for the first time since I had been in Hokkaido I had some good luck that night!

A few hundred yards from this j.a.panese village, among the trees, was a little wooden shrine. Through the grating of the door I caught sight of offerings of cakes and rice which the religious fishermen had deposited on the kind of altar, probably to appease the angry G.o.ds, and induce them to fill the sea with fish again. The door of the shrine, as is usual in country places in j.a.pan, was not locked, but a small outside bolt was all there was to keep it closed. I had no difficulty in entering. The night was a terrible one. The rain was pouring in torrents, and having had nothing to eat all day, I felt I had not the strength to go another yard. "After all," I said to myself, "the home of the G.o.ds, j.a.panese or not, is good enough for me. So is this supper," I soliloquized, swallowing now a white cake, now a red one, then a green one, till nothing but the empty vessels were left. "Delicious" was my last word, when, smacking my lips over the last green cake, I proceeded to make myself comfortable for the night. It is needless to add that I left very early in the morning, when the first rays of light broke the dimness of the night, and I dare say that, for the sake of morality, I ought to add that I was sorry for committing the sacrilege; but I was not--indeed I was not!

The mountain track continued, rough and steep in many places, and the autumn tints on the foliage were lovely, though not as varied as those of Northern America. Past Todohotke another volcano, the Esan, stared me in the face. Its crater, or rather its craters, for there are several, are not on the summit of the mountain, which is well rounded, but nearly halfway down its western slopes. Acc.u.mulations of very pure sulphur are deposited in and around these craters, and a continuous rumbling can be heard inside the mountain. The craters eject sulphurous vapours, and molten lava bubbles up as if in gigantic caldrons, congealing at the mouths of the craters and cracking with the extreme heat.

The coast-line is precipitous and almost impa.s.sable round Cape Esan, therefore the track leads over the mountain. The alt.i.tude of Esan is 1740 feet above the sea-level, but owing to its rising directly from the sea it has the look of a much more lofty mountain. Komagatage, near Mori, is 4,011, or more than double the height of Esan, while Makkarinupuri volcano, or Shiribeshi Mountain, as others call it, about forty-five miles south-west of Sappro, and ten miles north of Toya Lake, reaches an alt.i.tude of 6,440 feet.

Iwaon.o.bori, which I pa.s.sed on the north coast in this latter part of my journey, is 3,374 feet. Usu, on Volcano Bay, 1868 feet. Tarumai, directly south of Sappro, only reaches a height of 2,800 feet.

When this volcanic part of the coast round Esan Cape is pa.s.sed the track becomes easier and flatter. One comes again to the sandy beaches, and the coast is lively with numbers of fishermen's huts, and a couple of villages like Shirikishinai and Toi. One day's journey on horseback from here takes you to Hakodate. The Hakodate Peak can be seen in the distance to the west; and only a few more hours, only a few more miles, and I should be in civilisation, I should see a few European faces, and I should hear English spoken again.

As I approached the sandy isthmus, and the peak grew bigger before me, I wondered what had been going on in the world, and what news I should receive of my dear ones. I imagined myself already devouring with my eyes the hundreds of letters which must have been ama.s.sed at Hakodate, waiting for me during the many months I had been away. I imagined myself half buried in newspapers months old, anxiously reading the news of the world. I hurried on my pony, I crossed the sand isthmus--and there I was in the lively streets of Hakodate, gazed at by the astonished j.a.panese, who, I believe, were more than a little amazed--perhaps scandalised--at my turn-out.

Such as I was, and before I went to the j.a.panese tea-house, I called at the Consulate for my correspondence. Her Britannic Majesty's representative, who knew me well enough, was more than thunderstruck when I appeared before him in such a strange attire. He was smoking a pipe, and he almost let it drop, such was his surprise.

"Who are you?" he feebly exclaimed, looking me all over from head to foot. "Surely you are not Landor?" he said when I told him my name.

"I believe I am," I answered, "and I have come to trouble you for my letters."

"Oh, none have come; we have none," he said drily.

And now that I was not quite so well dressed as when I had called on my arrival at Hakodate from Southern j.a.pan, he seemed anxious to see me off the premises as soon as possible, I dare say for fear lest I should expire on his doorstep.

"But there _must_ be some letters," I said, as I was sadly leaving.

"No, there are none. Good-bye," he repeated.

The first glimpse of civilisation and of a civilised being was certainly not a pleasing one. In a town where there are hardly half-a-dozen British subjects, all told, I expected a better reception than one which many would not bestow on a beggar to a compatriot in a foreign country.

Kindness costs nothing, and I was asking no favour.

I left the place disheartened, but feeling that the pompous official had made a blunder, unluckily at my expense.

Mr. Henson, in whose house I had left all my luggage, greeted me with open arms. He was kindness itself, and very different from the gold-collared gentleman of the Consulate. I must say that I felt most uncomfortable when, after having opened my trunks, I put on fresh clothes and boots; in fact, such was the change from my late airy costume that I caught a cold! I had now almost finished my self-imposed task. I had made the whole circuit of Yezo, and been up all its largest rivers, with the exception of that part of the western coast which lies between Barabuta and Hakodate. It would mean only a few more days of agony, and for the sake of completing my journey I left Hakodate again the next morning at 2 A.M. in a _basha_ for Esashi, on the west coast.

The distance is fifty-seven miles, and we employed sixteen hours in covering it. It was snowing when we crossed the hills, and it was fearfully cold. Fortunately, the road is one of the best in Hokkaido.

Just in front of me sat a poor man piteously ill with _kaki_. His body was dreadfully swollen and his limbs were stiff. What the poor man must have suffered in being shaken for so many hours is beyond description.

His lamentations were heartrending. He had come to Hakodate in the hope of getting cured, and now he was returning--to use his words--"to die near his home." When we reached Esashi he was truly more dead than alive. He was senseless, and had to be lifted up bodily and carried into the house.

Esashi is a large place, and is one of the oldest towns in Yezo. In front lies a small oblong island, with which various wonderful tales of treasure are connected. Its harbour is too unsafe, being exposed to all winds, and I was told that the sea is always rough except during the months of July and August. I believe that this is greatly due to the currents.

I went north to k.u.maishi and Cape Ota, the most westerly point of Yezo.

About ten miles west of this cape is the small island of Okushiri, peopled mostly by j.a.panese.