There was no inn here, nor any place inhabited all the year round, but only a large open shed. This was divided into two by a pa.s.sage in the middle. We settled on one side of this, making our bed as well as we could on the raised floor, and protecting ourselves from the night air with coverings which our thoughtful host at Kusatsu had lent us. On the other side of the pa.s.sage our _kago_ bearers and guide pa.s.sed the night crowding round a log fire made on a stone foundation in the middle of the floor. The _kago_ bearers were protected from the very perceptible night cold only by thin cotton blouses. In order to warm them I ordered an abundant distribution of _saki_, a piece of generosity that did not cost very much, but which clearly won me the undivided admiration of all the coolies. They pa.s.sed the greater part of the night without sleep, with song and jest, with their _saki_ bottles and tobacco pipes. We slept well and warmly after partaking of an abundant supper of fowl and eggs, cooked in different ways by Kok-San with his usual talent and his usual variety of dishes.
We had been informed that at this place we would hear a constant noise from the neighbouring volcano, and that hurtful gases (probably carbonic acid) sometimes acc.u.mulated in such quant.i.ties in the neighbouring woods that men and horses would be suffocated if they spent the night there. We listened in vain for the noise, and did not observe any trace of such gases. All was as peaceful as if the glowing hearth in the interior of the earth was hundreds of miles away. But we did not require the evidence of the column of smoke which was seen to use from the mountain top, which formed the goal of our visit, or of the inhabitants who survived the latest eruption, to come to the conclusion that we were in the neighbourhood of an enormous, still active volcano. Everywhere round our resting-place lay heaps of small pieces of lava which had been thrown out of the volcano (so-called lapilli), and which had not yet had time to weather sufficiently to serve as an under-stratum for any vegetation, and a little from the hut there was a solidified lava stream of great depth.
Next day, the 4th October, we ascended the summit of the mountain.
At first we travelled in _kago_ over a valley filled with pretty close wood, then the journey was continued on foot up the steep volcanic cone, covered with small lava blocks and lapilli. The way was staked out with small heaps of stones raised at a distance of about 100 metres apart. Near the crater we found at one of these cairns a little Shinto shrine, built of sticks. Its sides were only half a metre in length. Our guide performed his devotions here. One of them had already at a stone cairn situated farther down with great seriousness made some conjurations with reference to my promise to make an extra distribution of red wine, if we got good weather at the top.
As on Vesuvius, we can also on Asamayama distinguish a large exterior crater, originating from some old eruption, but now almost completely filled up by a new volcanic cone, at whose top the present crater opens. This crater has a circ.u.mference of about two kilometres, the old crater, or what the old geologists called the elevation-crater, has been much larger. The volcano is still active.
For it constantly throws out "smoke," consisting of watery vapour, sulphurous acid, and probably also carbonic acid. Occasionally a perceptible smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is observed. It is possible without difficulty to crawl to the edge of the crater and glance down into its interior. It is very deep. The walls are perpendicular, and at the bottom of the abyss there are to be seen several clefts from which vapours arise. In the same way "smoke"
forces its way at some places at the edge of the crater through small imperceptible cracks in the mountain. Both on the border of the crater, on its sides and its bottom there is to be seen a yellow efflorescence, which at the places which I got at to examine it consisted of sulphur. The edge of the crater is solid rock, a little-weathered augiteandesite differing very much in its nature at different places. The same or similar rocks also project at several places at the old border of the crater, but the whole surface of the volcanic cone besides consists of small loose pieces of lava, without any trace of vegetation. Only at one place the brim of the old crater is covered with an open pine wood. The volcano has also small side craters, from which gases escape. The same coa.r.s.e fantasy, which still prevails in the form of the h.e.l.l-dogma among several of the world"s most cultured peoples, has placed the home of those of the followers of Buddha who are doomed to eternal punishment in the glowing hearths in the interior of the mountain, to which these crater-openings lead; and that the heresies of the well-meaning Bishop Lindblom have not become generally prevalent in j.a.pan is shown among other things by this, that many of these openings are said to be entrances to the "children"s h.e.l.l." Neither at the main crater nor at any of the side craters can any true lava streams be seen. Evidently the only things thrown out from them have been gases, volcanic ashes, and lapilli. On the other hand, extensive eruptions of lava have taken place at several points on the side of the mountain, though these places are now covered with volcanic ashes.
After having eaten our breakfast in a cleft so close to the smoking crater that the empty bottles could be thrown directly into the bottomless deeps, we commenced our return journey. At first we took the same way as during the ascent, but afterwards held off to the right, down a much steeper and more difficult path than we had traversed before. The mountain side had here a slope of nearly forty-five degrees, and consisted of a quite loose volcanic sand, not bound together by any vegetable carpet. It would therefore have been scarcely possible to ascend to the summit of the mountain this way, but we went rapidly downwards, often at a dizzy speed, but without other inconvenience than that one now and then fell flat and rolled head-foremost down the steep slopes, and that our shoes were completely torn to tatters by the angular lava gravel. Above the mountaintop the sky was clear of clouds, but between it and the surface of the earth there spread out a thick layer of cloud which seen from above resembled a boundless storm-tossed sea, full of foaming breakers. The extensive view we would otherwise have had of the neighbouring mountain ridges from the top of Asamayama was thus concealed. Only here and there an opening was formed in the cloud, resembling a sun-spot, through which we got a glimpse of the underlying landscape. When we came to the foot of the mountain we long followed a ridge, covered with greenery, formed of an immense stream of lava, which had issued from an opening in the mountain side now refilled. This had probably taken place during the tremendous eruption of 1783, when not only enormous lava-streams destroyed forests and villages at the foot of the mountain, but the whole of the neighbouring region between Oiwake and Usui-toge, previously fertile, was changed by an ash-rain into an extensive waste. Across this large plain, infertile and little cultivated, situated at a height of 980 metres above the sea, we went without a guide to the village Oiwake, where we lodged for the night at an inn by the side of the road Nakasendo, one of the cleanest and best kept of the many well-kept inns I saw during our journey in the interior of the country.
Hence I sent a messenger on foot to Takasaki to order a carriage to Tokio. A former _samurai_ undertook for a payment of three _yen_, (about 12_s_) to carry the message. Oiwake is indeed situated on the great road Nakasendo, but it can here only with difficulty be traversed by carriages, because between this village and Takasaki it is necessary to go over the pa.s.s Usui-toge, where the road, though lowered considerably of late, rises to a height of 1200 metres. We therefore here used _jinrikishas_, a mode of conveyance very agreeable to tourists, which, though introduced only recently, has already spread to all parts of the country.
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE LANDSCAPE. ]
Every one with an open eye for the beauties of nature and interest in the life and manners of a foreign people, must find a journey in _jinrikisha_ over Usui-toge pleasant in a high degree. The landscape here is extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps unmatched in the whole world. The road has been made here with great difficulty between wild, black, rocky ma.s.ses, along deep clefts, whose sides are often covered with the most luxuriant vegetation. No fence protects the _jinrikisha_ in its rapid progress down the mountains from the bottomless abysses by the wayside. A man must therefore not be weak in the nerves if he is to derive pleasure from the journey. He must rely on the coolie"s keen eye and sure foot. On all sides one is surrounded by a confused ma.s.s of lofty shattered mountain tops, and deep down in the valleys mountain streams rush along, whose crystal-clear water is collected here and there into small lakes confined between heights covered with greenery. Now the traveller pa.s.ses a dizzy abyss by a bridge of the most defective construction, now he sees a stream of water rushing down from an enormous height by the wayside. Thousands of foot-pa.s.sengers, crowds of pilgrims, long rows of coolies, oxen and horses bearing heavy burdens meet the traveller, who during frequent rests at the foot of the steep slopes has an opportunity of studying the variegated life of the people. He is always surrounded by cheerful and friendly faces, and the pleasant impression is never disturbed by the expressions of coa.r.s.eness in speech and behaviour which so often meet us in Europe.
It is not until the traveller has pa.s.sed the mountain ridge and descended to a height of only 300 metres above the sea that the road becomes pa.s.sable for a carriage. While we exchanged, not without regret, our clean, elegant _jinrikishas_ for two inferior vehicles drawn by horses, I saw two men wandering from shop to shop, standing some moments at each place, ringing a bell and pa.s.sing on when they were not attended to. On my inquiry as to what sort of people they were, I was informed that they were wandering players. For me of course they did not ring in vain. For a payment of fifty cents they were ready immediately to show in the street itself a specimen of their art. One of them put on a well-made mask, representing the head of a monster, with a movable jaw and terrible teeth. To the mask was fastened a cloak, in which the player wrapt himself during the representation. He then with great skill and supple tasteful gestures, which would have honoured a European _danseuse_, represented the monster now creeping forward fawningly, now rushing along to devour its prey. A numerous crowd of children collected around us. The small folks followed the representation with great glee, and gave life to the play, or rather formed its proper background, by the feigned tenor with which they fled when the monster approached with open mouth and rolling eyes, and the eagerness with which they again followed and mocked it when its back was turned.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BURDEN BEARERS ON A j.a.pANESE ROAD. j.a.panese drawing. ]
In few countries are dramatic representations of all kinds so much thought of as in j.a.pan. Playhouses are found even in small towns.
The play is much frequented, and though the representations last the whole day, they are followed by the spectators with the liveliest interest. There are playbills as at home, and numerous writings on subjects relating to the theatre. Among the j.a.panese books which I bought, there was for instance a thick one, with innumerable woodcuts, devoted to showing how the first j.a.panese artists conceived the princ.i.p.al scenes in their _roles_, two volumes of playbills bound up together, &c.
The j.a.panese pieces indeed strike a European as childish and monstrous, but one must admire many praiseworthy traits in the play itself, for instance the naturalness with which the players often declaim monologues lasting for a quarter or half an hour. The extravagances which here shock us are perhaps on the whole not more absurd than the scenes of the opera of to-day, or the buskins, masks, and peculiar dresses, which the Greeks considered indispensable in the exhibition of then great dramatic masterpieces.
When the j.a.panese have been able to appropriate what is good in European culture, the dramatic art ought to have a grand future before it among them, if the development now going on is carried out cautiously so that the peculiarities of the people are not too much effaced. For, in many departments, and not least in that of art, there is much to be found here which when properly developed will form a new and important addition to the culture of the West, of which we are so proud.
The large j.a.panese theatres, besides, often resemble the European ones in their interior arrangement. The part.i.tion between the stage and the s.p.a.ce occupied by the spectators is the same as among us.
Between the acts the former is concealed by a curtain. The stage is besides provided with painted scenes representing houses, woods, hills, &c., supported on wheels, so that a complete change of scene can be effected in a few moments. The music has the same place between the stage and the spectators as at home. The latter, as at home, are distributed partly in a gently rising amphitheatre, partly in several tiers of boxes rising one above another, the lowest tier being considered the princ.i.p.al one. The j.a.panese do not sit in the same way as we do. Neither the amphitheatre nor the boxes accordingly are provided with chairs or benches, but are divided into square compartments one or two feet deep, each intended for about four persons. They sit on cushions, squatting cross-legged in the common j.a.panese fashion. The compartments are divided by broad cross beams, which form the pa.s.sages by which the spectators get to their places. During the play we saw attendants running about with tea, _saki_, tobacco pipes, and small braziers. For every one smokes during the acts, and places himself in his crib as comfortably as possible. The piece is followed with great attention, favourite actors and favourite pa.s.sages being saluted with lively applause.
Even women and children visit the theatre, and I have seen the former give their children suck without the least discomposure among thousands of spectators. Besides the plays intended for the public, there are given also a number of other dramatic representations, as society plays, peculiar family plays intended for the homes of the old feudal princes, spectacles got up for the Mikado, and some which have a half religious significance, &c.
On the evening of the 5th October we came to Takasaki, prepared to start immediately for Tokio. But though the messenger we sent had duly executed his commission, horses could not be procured before midnight. We pa.s.sed the evening with our former host, who at our first visit received us so unwillingly, but now with great friendliness. We would easily have reconciled ourselves to the delay, for a j.a.panese small town such as Takasaki has much worth seeing to offer a European, but a great part of the time was wasted in fruitless attempts to get the horse-hirer to let us have the horses a few hours earlier. In spending time in long conversations mixed with civilities and bows the j.a.panese are masters. Of this bad habit, which still often makes the European desperate, it will not perhaps be long necessary to complain, for everything indicates that the j.a.panese too will soon be carried along at the endlessly roaring speed of the Steam Age.
When we had at last got horses we continued our journey, first in a carriage to Tokio, then by rail to Yokohama, arriving there on the afternoon of the 6th October. From this journey I shall only relate an incident which may form a little picture throwing light on life in j.a.pan.
While we halted for a short time in the morning of the 6th October at a large inn by the roadside, we saw half a dozen young girls finishing their toilets in the inn-yard. In pa.s.sing we may say, that a j.a.panese peasant girl, like girls in general, may be pretty or the reverse, but that she generally is, what cannot always be said of the peasant girls at home, cleanly and of attractive manners. They washed themselves at the stream of water in the inn-yard, smoothed their artistically dressed hair, which, however, had been but little disturbed by the cushions on which they had slept, and brushed their dazzlingly white teeth. Soap is not used for washing, but a cotton bag filled with bran. The teeth were brushed with a wooden pin, one end of which was changed by beating into a brush-like collection of wooden cords. The tooth-powder consisted of finely powdered sh.e.l.ls and corals, and was kept in small, neat wooden boxes, which, along with tooth-brushes and small square bundles of a very strong and cheap paper, all clearly intended for the use of the peasants, were sold for a trifle in most of the innumerable shops along the road.
For such stupid regulations as in former times in Europe rendered traffic in the country difficult, and often obliged the countryman to betake himself to the nearest town to buy some horse-shoes or a roll of wire, appear not to be found in j.a.pan, on which account most of the peasants living on a country road seek a subsidiary way of making a living by trafficking in small articles in request among the country people.
Incidents of the sort referred to we had seen so many times before that on this occasion it would not have attracted any further attention on our part, if we had not thereby been reminded that we must look after our own exterior, before we could make our entrance into the capital of j.a.pan. We therefore took from the carriage our basket with linen, shaving implements, and towels, settled down around the stream of water at which the girls stood, and immediately began to wash and shave ourselves. There was now general excitement.
The girls ceased to go on with their own toilet, and crowded round us in a ring in order to see how Europeans behave in such cases, and to give us the a.s.sistance that might be required. Some ran laughing and bustling about, one on the top of another, in order immediately to procure us what we wanted, one held the mirror, another the shaving-brush, a third the soap, &c. Round them gathered other elder women, whose blackened teeth indicated that they were married. A little farther off stood men of all ages. Chance had here quite unexpectedly shown us a picture from folk-life of the most agreeable kind. This pleasant temper continued while we immediately after, in the presence of all, ate our breakfast in the porch of the ground-floor, surrounded by our former ministering spirits, now kneeling around us, continually bowing the head to the ground, laughing and chattering. The same fun went on when a little after I bought some living fresh-water fishes and put them in spirit, yet with the difference that the girls now, with some cries, to show their fear of handling the living animals--though fish-cleaning was one of their ordinary occupations--handed over to the men the trouble of taking the fishes and putting them into the spirit-jars.
For a worm placed in spirit they feigned the greatest terror, notwithstanding its covering of spirit and gla.s.s, and ran shrieking away when any one suddenly brought the jar with the worm near their faces. It ought to be noted to the honour of the j.a.panese, that although we were by no means surrounded by any select circle, there was not heard during the whole time a single offensive word among the closely-packed spectators, a fact which gives us an idea of the excellent tone of society which prevails here, even among the lowest of the population, and which shows that the j.a.panese, although they have much to learn from the Europeans, ought not to imitate them in all. In j.a.pan there is much that is good, old, and national to take note of, perhaps more than the j.a.panese at present have any idea of, and undoubtedly more than many of the European residents will allow.
[Footnote 379: On the contrary, we saw a number of beggars on the country roads in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. ]
[Footnote 380: _Voyage de M. Golovin_, Paris, 1818, i. p. 176.
Golovin, who was captain in the Russian navy, pa.s.sed the years 1811-13 in imprisonment in j.a.pan. He and his comrades in misfortune were received with great friendliness by the people, and very well treated by the authorities, if we except the exceedingly tedious examinations to which they were subjected to extract from them the most minute particulars regarding Europe, and particularly Russia. ]
[Footnote 381: General Grant, as is well known, visited j.a.pan in the autumn of 1879. He left Yokohama the day after the _Vega_ anch.o.r.ed in its harbour. ]
[Footnote 382: According to the statement of the inhabitants, I had not time to visit the place. ]
CHAPTER XVIII.
Farewell dinner at Yokohama--The Chinese in j.a.pan--Voyage to Kobe--Purchase of j.a.panese Books--Journey by rail to Kioto --Biwa Lake and the Legend of its Origin--Dredging there-- j.a.panese Dancing-Girls--Kioto--The Imperial Palace--Temples --Swords and Sword-bearers--Shintoism and Buddhism-- The Porcelain Manufacture--j.a.panese Poetry--Feast in a Buddhist Temple--Sailing across the Inland Sea of j.a.pan --Landing at Hirosami and Shimonoseki--Nagasaki--Excursion to Mogi--Collection of Fossil Plants--Departure from j.a.pan.
The last days at Yokohama were taken up with farewell visits there and at Tokio. An afternoon"s leisure during the last day I spent in the capital of j.a.pan I employed in making an excursion in order to dredge from a j.a.panese boat in the river debouching at the town. The j.a.panese boats differ from the European in being propelled not by rowing but by sculling. They have usually a deck above the level of the water, which is dazzlingly white and laid with matting, like the rooms in a j.a.panese house. The dredging yielded a great number of Anodonta, large Paludina, and some small sh.e.l.ls.
During our stay in j.a.pan I requested Lieutenant Nordquist to make as complete a collection of the land and fresh-water crustacea of the country as the short time permitted. In consequence of the unusual poverty of the country in these animal forms the result was much smaller than we had hoped. During a preceding voyage to the Polar Sea I had a.s.sisted in making a collection of land crustacea on Renoe, an island north of the limit of trees in the outer archipelago of northern Norway. It is possible to collect there in a few hours as many annuals of this group as in fertile j.a.pan in as many days. There are parts of j.a.pan, covered with thick woods and thickets of bushes, where during a forenoon"s excursion one can scarcely find a single crustacean, although the ground is full of deep, shady clefts in which ma.s.ses of dried leaves are collected, and which therefore ought to be an exceedingly suitable haunt for land mollusca. The reason of this poverty ought perhaps to be sought in the want of chalk or basic calcareous rocks, which prevails in the parts of j.a.pan which we visited.
After the Swedish-Dutch minister had further given us a splendid farewell dinner at the Grand Hotel, to which, as before, the j.a.panese minsters and the representatives of the foreign powers in j.a.pan were invited, we at last weighed anchor on the 11th October to prosecute our voyage. At this dinner we saw for the first time the Chinese emba.s.sy which at the time visited j.a.pan with the view of settling the troublesome Loo-Choo affair which threatened to lead to a war between the two great powers of Eastern Asia. The Chinese amba.s.sadors were, as usual, two in number, being commissioned to watch one over the other. One of them laughed immoderately at all that was said during dinner, although he did not understand a word.
According to what I was told by one who had much experience in the customs of the heavenly empire, he did this, not because he heard or understood anything worth laughing at, but because he considered it good manners to laugh.
Remarkable was the interest which the Chinese labourers settled at Yokohama took in our voyage, about which they appeared to have read something in their own or in the j.a.panese newspapers. When I sent one of the sailors ash.o.r.e to execute a commission, and asked him how he could do that without any knowledge of the language, he replied, "There is no fear, I always meet with some Chinaman who speaks English and helps me." The Chinese not only always a.s.sisted our sailors as interpreters without remuneration, but accompanied them for hours, gave them good advice in making purchases, and expressed their sympathy with all that they must have suffered during our wintering in the high north. They were always cleanly, tall, and stately in their figures, and corresponded in no particular to the calumnious descriptions we so often read of this people in European and American writings.
From Yokohama the course was shaped for Kobe, one of the more considerable j.a.panese ports which have been opened to Europeans.
Kobe is specially remarkable on account of its having railway communication with Osaka, the most important manufacturing town of j.a.pan, and with Kioto, the ancient capital and seat of the Mikado"s court for centuries.
I had already begun at Yokohama to buy j.a.panese books, particularly such as were printed before the opening of the ports to Europeans.
In order to carry on this traffic with greater success, I had procured the a.s.sistance of a young j.a.panese very familiar with French, Mr. OKUSCHI, a.s.sistant in Dr. Geertz" chemico-technical laboratory at Yokohama. But because the supply of old books in this town, which a few years ago had been of little importance, was very limited, I had at first, in order to make purchases on a large scale, repeatedly sent Mr. Okuschi to Tokio, the seat of the former Shogun dynasty, and from that town, before the departure of the _Vega_ from Yokohama, to Kioto, the former seat of learning in j.a.pan. The object of the _Vega"s_ call at the port of Kobe was to fetch the considerable purchases made there by Mr. Okuschi[383]
Kobe, or Hiogo, as the old j.a.panese part of the town is called, is a city of about 40,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated at the entrance to the Inland Sea of j.a.pan, _i.e._, the sound which separates the main island from the south islands, Shikoku and Kiushiu. Mountain ridges of considerable height here run along the sea-sh.o.r.e. Some of the houses of the European merchants are built on the lower slopes of these hills, with high, beautiful, forest-clad heights as a background, and a splendid view of the harbour in front. The j.a.panese part of the town consists, as usual, of small houses which, on the side next the street, are occupied mainly with sale or work-shops where the whole family lives all day. The streets have thus a very lively appearance, and offer the foreigner an endless variety of remarkable and instructive pictures from the life of the people. The European part of the town, on the other hand, is built with stately houses, some of which are situated on the street that runs along the sh.o.r.e. Here, among others, are to be found splendid European hotels, European clubs, counting-houses, shops, &c.
Not far from Kobe, and having railway communication with it, is Osaka, the largest manufacturing town of j.a.pan, famed for its theatres and its dancing-girls. Unfortunately I had not time to visit it, for I started for the old capital, Kioto, a few hours after the _Vega_ anch.o.r.ed, and after I had waited on the governor in order to procure the pa.s.sport that is still required for travelling in the interior. He received me, thanks to a letter of introduction I had with me from one of the ministers at Tokio, in an exceedingly agreeable way. His reception-room was part of a large European stone house, the vestibule of which was tastefully fitted up in European style with a Brussels carpet gay with variegated colours. At our visit we were offered j.a.panese tea, as is customary everywhere in j.a.pan, both in the palace of the Emperor and the cabin of the poor peasant. The Governor was, as all the higher officials in j.a.pan now are, dressed like a European of distinction, but he could not speak any European language. He showed himself, however, to be much interested in our voyage, and immediately ordered an official in his court, who was well acquainted with English, Mr. YANIMOTO, to accompany me to Kioto.
We travelled thither by a railway constructed wholly in the European style. At Kioto my companion, at my special request, conducted me not to the European hotel there, but to a j.a.panese inn, remarkable as usual for cleanliness, for a numerous crowd of talkative female attendants, and for the extreme friendliness of the inn people to then guests as soon as they indicated, by taking off then boots at the door, that it was their intention not to break j.a.panese customs and usages in any offensive way. A calling card and a letter from Admiral Kawamura, minister of marine, which I sent from the hotel to the Governor of Kioto, procured me an adjutant No. 2, a young, cheerful, and talkative official, Mr. KOBA-YASCHI, whose eyes sparkled with intelligence and merry good humour. One would sooner have taken him for a highly-esteemed student president at some northern university, than for a j.a.panese official. It was already late in the day, so that before nightfall I had time only to take the bath which, at every j.a.panese inn not of too inferior a kind, is always at the traveller"s call, and arrange the dreding excursion which, along with Lieut. Nordquist, I intended to make next day on Lake Biwa.
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE SHOP. ]
The road between Kioto and Biwa we travelled the following morning in _jinrikishas_. In a short time there will be communication between these two places by a railway constructed exclusively by native workmen and native engineers. It will be, and is intended to be, an actual j.a.panese railway. For a considerable distance it pa.s.ses through a tunnel, which, however, as some of the Europeans at Kobe stated, might easily have been avoided "if the j.a.panese had not considered it desirable that j.a.pan, too, should have a railway tunnel to show, as such are found both in Europe and America." It is probable, in any case, that the bends which would have been required if the tunnel was to be avoided, would have cost more by the additional length than the tunnel, and that therefore the procedure of the j.a.panese was better considered than their envious European neighbours would allow. There appears to prevail among the European residents in j.a.pan a certain jealousy of the facility with which this country, till recently so far behind in an industrial respect, a.s.similates the skill in art and industry of the Europeans, and of the rapidity with which the people thereby make themselves independent of the wares of the foreign merchants.
When we reached Lake Biwa we were conducted by Mr. Koba-Yaschi to an inn close by the sh.o.r.e, with a splendid view of the southern part of the lake. We were shown into beautiful j.a.panese rooms, which had evidently been arranged for the reception of Europeans, and in which accordingly some tables and chairs had been placed. On the tables we found, on our arrival, bowls, with fruit and confections, j.a.panese tea, and braziers. The walls were formed partly of tastefully gilt paper panels ornamented with mottoes, reminding visitors of the splendid view.
A whole day of the short time which was allowed me to study the remarkable things of Kioto I devoted to Lake Biwa, because lakes are exceedingly uncommon in the south, for they occur only in the countries which have either been covered with glaciers in the most recent geological periods, or, in consequence of the action of volcanic forces, have been the scene of violent disturbances of the surface of the earth. I believed that Lake Biwa would form an exception to this, but I was probably mistaken, for tradition relates that this lake was formed in a single night at the same time that the high volcanic cone of Fusiyama was elevated. This tradition, in its general outline, corresponds so closely with the teaching of geology, that scarcely any geologist will doubt its truth.
After our arrival at the inn we had to wait a very long time for the steamer I had ordered. On this account I thoughtlessly enough broke out in reproaches on my excellent j.a.panese adjutants, who, however, received my hard words only with friendly smiles, which increased still further my impatience at the loss of time which was thus occasioned. It was not until far on in the day, when I was already out dredging from a small steamer, that I was informed as to the cause of the delay. The Biwa Steamship Company had, at the request of the Governor, intended to place at my disposal a very large boat well provided with coal, but after taking the coal on board it had sunk so deep that it grounded in the mud of the harbour. We had already got far out with the little steamer when the large one at last got off. I was now obliged to exchange vessels in order to be received "in a more honourable way." It was not until this took place that I was informed that I was guest and not master, on which account I was obliged to employ the rest of the afternoon in excusing my former violent behaviour, in which, with the help of friendly words, beer, and red wine, I succeeded pretty well, to judge by the mirth which soon began to prevail among my now very numerous j.a.panese companions.
On the little steamer I had ordered two of my crew whom I had brought with me from the _Vega_ to prepare a meal for the j.a.panese and ourselves. In this way the dinner that had been arranged for us, without my knowledge, became superfluous. I was obliged instead to receive as a gift the provisions and liquors purchased for the dinner, consisting of fowls, eggs, potatoes, red wine and beer, giving at the same time a receipt as a matter of form.
During our excursion on the lake we met with various boats laden with sea-weed, which had been taken up from the bottom of the lake to be used as manure for the neighbouring cultivated fields. Partly among these algae, partly by dredging, Lieut. Nordquist collected various interesting fresh-water crustacea (Paludina, Melania, Unio, Planorbis &c.,) several sorts of shrimps (a Hippolyte) small fishes, &c. Lake Biwa abounds in fish, and harbours besides a large clumsily-formed species of lizard. In order to make further collections of the animal forms occurring there, Lieut. Nordquist remained at the lake till next day. I, on the other hand, went immediately back to Kioto, arriving there in the evening after nightfall.
After having eaten, along with my two j.a.panese companions, an unexceptionable European dinner at the inn of the town, kept by j.a.panese, but arranged in European style, we paid a visit to a company of j.a.panese dancing-girls.
Kioto competes with Osaka for the honour of having the prettiest dancing-girls. These form a distinct cla.s.s of young girls, marked by a peculiar variegated dress. They wear besides a peculiar hair-ornament, are much painted, and have their lips coloured black and gold. At the dancing places of greatest note a European is not received, unless he has with him a known native who answers for his courteous behaviour. After taking off his shoes on entering, the visitor is introduced to a separate room with its floor covered with matting and its walls ornamented with j.a.panese drawings and mottoes, but without other furniture. A small square cushion is given to each of the guests. After they have settled themselves in j.a.panese fashion, that is to say, squatting cross-legged, pipes and tea are brought in, on which a whole crowd of young girls come in and, chatting pleasantly, settle themselves around the guests, observing all the while complete decency even according to the most exacting European ideas. There is not to be seen here any trace of the effrontery and coa.r.s.eness which are generally to be found in similar places in Europe. One would almost believe that he was among a crowd of school-girls who had given the sour moral lessons of their governess the slip, and were thinking of nothing else than innocently gossiping away some hours. After a while the dance begins, accompanied by very monotonous music and singing. The slow movements of the legs and arms of the dancers remind us of certain slow and demure scenes from European ballets. There is nothing indecent in this dance, but we learn that there are other dances wilder and less decorous.