The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II

by A. E. Nordenskiöld

CHAPTER XVII.

Excursion to Asamayama—The Nakasendo road—Takasaki—Difficulty of obtaining quarters for the night—The Baths at Ikaho—Massage in Japan—Swedish matches—Travelling in Kago—Savavatari—Criminals —Kusatsu—The Hot Springs and their healing power—Rest at Rokuriga-hara— The summit of Asamayama—The descent—Journey over Usui-toge—Japanese actors—Pictures of Japanese folk-life—Return to Yokohama.

On the 28th September, early in the morning, accompanied by Lieut. Hovgaard, Herr Bavier, an interpreter, and a Japanese cook skilled in European cookery, I started on a journey to Asamayama. At first we travelled in two very rattling and inconvenient carriages, drawn each by a pair of horses, to the town Takasaki, situated on the great road "Nakasendo," which passes through the interior of the country and connects Tokio and Kioto. This road is considered something grand by the Japanese. In Sweden it would be called an indifferently kept district road. On this road jinrikishas are met in thousands, and a great many horses, oxen, and men, bearing heavy burdens, but with the exception of the posting carriages, by which, for some years back, a regular communication between Tokio and Takasaki has been kept up, not a single wheeled vehicle drawn by horses or oxen, and though the road passes through an unbroken series of populous villages, surrounded by well cultivated rice fields and small gardens, there is not a single workhorse or work-ox to be seen. For all the ground in Japan is cultivated by the hand, and there are few cattle. Most of the roads in the country consist of foot-paths, so narrow that two laden horses can pass each other only with difficulty. Goods are therefore carried, where there is no canal or river, for the most part by men. The plains are extraordinarily well cultivated, and we must specially admire the industry with which water-courses have been cut and the uneven slopes changed into level terraces.

The post-horses on Nakasendo were so poor and wretched that in Sweden one would have been liable to punishment for cruelty to animals for using them. They went, however, at a pretty good speed. There were places for changing horses at regular distances of fifteen to twenty kilometres. The driver besides halted often on the way at some dwelling-house to take a couple of scoopfuls of water out of the water-vessel standing before it and throw them into the horses' mouths and between their hind-legs. The opportunity was always taken advantage of by the girls of the house to come out and offer the travellers a small cup of Japanese tea, an act of courtesy that was repaid with some friendly words and a copper coin.

When we visited any of the peasants' gardens by the wayside we were always received with extreme friendliness, either on a special dais in the common room looking to the road, or in an inner room whose floor was covered with a mat of dazzling whiteness, and on whose walls hung pictures, with songs and mottoes. The brazier was brought forward, tea and sweetmeats were handed round, all with lively conversation and frequent bows. The difference between the palace of the rich (if we may distinguish with the name any building in Japan) and the dwelling of the less well-to-do is much smaller here than in Europe. We did not see any beggars in our journey into the interior of the country.[379] Nor did the distraction of class appear to be so sharp as might be expected in a land where the evils of rank had been so great as in Old Japan. We several times saw in the inns by the roadside, people of condition who were travelling in jinrikishas eat their rice and drink their saki together with the coolies who were drawing their vehicles.

To judge by the crowds of children who swarmed everywhere along the roads the people must be very prolific. A girl of eight or ten years of age was seldom to be seen without another young one bound on her back. This burden did not appear to trouble the sister or attendant very much. Without giving herself any concern about the child or thinking of its existence, she took part actively in games, ran errands, &c.

Even in the interior of the country foreigners are received with great friendliness. The lower classes in Japan have also reason for this, for whatever influence the latest political changes may have had on the old kuge, daimio, and samurai families of Japan, the position of the cultivator of the soil is now much more secure than before, when he was harmed by hundreds of small tyrants. His dress is the same as before, with the exception, however, that a great proportion of the male population, even far into the interior, have laid aside the old troublesome way of collecting the hair in a knot over a close shaven spot on the crown of the head. Instead, they wear their thick raven-black hair cut short in the European style. How distinctive of the new period this change is may be seen from the eagerness with which the Japanese authorities questioned GOLOVIN about the religious and political revolutions which they assumed to have been connected with the change in the European mode of wearing the hair during the commencement of the nineteenth century, for the Russian ambassador LAXMAN, who was highly esteemed by the Japanese, had worn a pig-tail and powdered hair, while Golovin and his companions had their hair unpowdered and cut short.[380] When it is warm the workmen wear only a small, generally light-blue, girdle round the waist and between the legs. Otherwise they are naked. They are thus seen to be in many cases strongly tattooed over the greater part of the body. I have not seen the women working naked. They perhaps do so at the warmest season of the year. At least they do not refrain from undressing completely while bathing right in the midst of a crowd of men known and unknown, a state of things which at first, in consequence of the power of prejudice, shocks the European, but to which even the former prude gets accustomed sooner than one would suppose. We even frequently see European ladies drawn in a jinrikisha by a youth completely naked with the exception of the blue girdle. Many, especially of the younger men, have besides so well-formed a body, that the sculptor who could accurately reproduce it in marble would at once attain a reputation co-extensive with the globe.

Takasaki is the residence of a governor, with a population of about 20,000; but, like most of the towns of Japan, it differs little from many of the villages we passed through. We arrived late in the evening, and there had our first and last experience of an inconvenience of which Europeans often complain in travelling in Japan, and to which they have themselves given occasion by the offensive way in which they not unfrequently behave. We knocked at the door of one inn after another without being received. At one place "the house was full," at another "the rooms were under repair," at a third "the inn people were out," &c. At last we had to apply to the police. When we had shown them our passport, we succeeded with their help in getting a night's lodging with an elderly host, who received us with a countenance which clearly indicated that he would rather have hewn us in pieces with one of the two swords he had formerly as samurai been entitled to wear, than received us under his roof. After our entrance he still turned to the police official with the cry of lamentation: "Must I then actually receive these barbarians?" But we had our revenge in a noble way. We took off our boots before we entered the room, were so profuse with talk, civilities, and bows, and on the whole behaved in such a courteous fashion, that our previously distracted host not only bade us welcome back, but also gave us a letter of introduction to the innkeepers at an inn where we were to stay next, declaring that if we showed this letter we need not fear any such disagreeable adventure as that just described.

Most of the houses in the Japanese towns are built of pretty thin, carefully joined timbers. But besides these there are to be seen here and there small houses with very thick walls, windows provided with heavy iron gratings, and doors that could be fastened with large locks and bolts. These houses are fire-resisting, and are used as storehouses for valuables and household articles when there is danger of fire. Fires are so common in Japan that it is supposed that a tenth part of every town is burned down yearly. The fireman corps is numerous, well ordered from old times, its members bold and daring. During our stay overnight at Takasaki we were lodged in such a fireproof house, in very large clean apartments with the floor partly covered with carpets after the European pattern. The walls were very thick and of brick, the interior fittings and stairs on the other hand of wood.

I have just mentioned that we were compelled to resort to the police in order to obtain quarters for the night. Policemen are numerous in Japan, both in town and country. For the most part they are taken from the former samurai class. They are clothed in the European style, and walk, with a long stick in a certain position under the arm, quietly and calmly on the streets and roads, without, except in cases of necessity, making any show of their authority. Commonly they are, or appear to be, young, and all have a gentlemanlike appearance. In a word, they appear to be equal to the best European police of the present day, and stand immeasurably above the guardian of the peace, or rather the raiser of dispeace, as he appeared some decades ago on the European continent. During the latest revolt the police were employed by the Government as infantry, and elicited general admiration by the fire, the gallantry, and the contempt of death with which they went into action with their old favourite weapon, the Japanese sword.

A passport is still required for travelling in the interior of the country, but this is easily obtained at the request of the consul if health or the wish to prosecute researches be given as the reason, it being possible perhaps to include common love of travelling under the latter head. Commercial travelling is not yet permitted in the interior, nor is the right of settling for the purpose of carrying on business granted to Europeans. The foreign ambassadors have often entered into negotiations in order to bring about a change on this point, but hitherto without success, because the Government, as a condition for the complete opening of the country, require the abrogation of the unreasonable "extraterritorial" arrangement which is in force, and by which the foreigner is not subject to the common laws and courts of Japan, but to the laws of his own country, administered by consular courts. An alteration in this point may however be brought about in a short time, as Japan will soon be sufficiently powerful to be able to abrogate all the injurious paragraphs in her treaties with the civilised countries of Europe. Now, besides, the ambassadors of the foreign powers, who in former times all acted together, have divided into two parties, of which one—Russia and America—wishes, or at least feigns to wish, gradually to free Japan from all tutelage and to place it on an equality with other civilised countries, the other again—England, Germany, Holland, and France—wishes still to retain the guardianship, which was established by violence, and confirmed by treaty several years ago.

Shortly before our arrival a quarrel took place between Japan and the European powers about, as the Japanese themselves said, a breach of international law, which caused much irritation in the country. A German vessel coming from Nagasaki, where the cholera was raging, on the advice of the German minister broke the quarantine prescribed by the Government, and without further precautions discharged her cargo in the harbour of Yokohama. That the cholera in this town was thereby made worse is indeed not only unproved but also undoubtedly incorrect, though many Japanese in their irritation positively affirmed that this was the case, but the words that were uttered by Japan's fêted guest, ex-President General GRANT,[381] that the Japanese Government had the right without more ado to sink the vessel, have left a memory in the minds both of the Government and of the people, which may in the future lead them to a perhaps unwise but fully justified exertion of their strength were such a deed to be repeated.

The first impression of the Japanese, both men and women, is exceedingly pleasant, but many Europeans who have lived a considerable time in the country say that this impression is not maintained, a circumstance which in my belief depends more on the Europeans themselves than on the Japanese. For the European merchants are said not to find it so easy to cut gold here with a case-knife as before, and the ambassadors of the Great Powers find it day by day more difficult to maintain their old commanding standpoint towards a government which knows that a great future is before the country, if inconsiderate ambition or unlooked-for misfortune do not unexpectedly hinder its development. Another reproach, that the Japanese can imitate what another has done, but is unable himself to invent anything new, appears on the other hand to be justified in the meantime. But it is unreasonable to demand that a nation should not only in a few decades pass through a development for which centuries have been required in Europe, but also immediately reach the summit of the knowledge of our time so as to be at the same time creative. But it would be wonderful, if the natural science, literature, and art of the nineteenth century, transplanted among a gifted people, with a culture so peculiar and so pervasive, and with an art-sense so developed as those of Japan, did not in time produce new, splendid, and unexpected fruit. The same irresistible necessity which now drives the Japanese to learn all that the European and the American know, will, when he has reached that goal, spur him on to go further up the Nile river of research.

A short distance beyond Takasaki the road to the volcano to which we were on our way, was no longer along Nakasendo, and we could therefore no longer continue our journey in carriages drawn by horses, but were compelled to content ourselves with jinrikishas. In these, on the 29th of September, we traversed in five and a half hours the very hilly road to Ikaho, noted for its baths, situated at a height of 700 metres above the sea. The landscape here assumes a quite different stamp. The road which before ran over an unbroken plain, thickly peopled, and cultivated like a garden, now begins to pass between steep uncultivated hills, overgrown with tall, uncut, withered grass, separated by valleys in which run purling rivulets, nearly concealed by exceedingly luxuriant bushy thickets. Ikaho is celebrated for the warm, or more correctly hot, springs which well up from the volcanic hills which surround the little town, which is beautifully situated on a slope. As at the baths of Europe, invalids seek here a remedy for their ailments, and the town therefore consists almost exclusively of hotels, baths, and shops for the visitors. The baths are situated, partly in large open wooden sheds, where men and women bathe together without distinction, partly in private houses. In every bath there is a basin one metre in depth, to which a constant stream of water is conducted from some of the hot springs. The spring water has of course cooled very much before it is used, but is still so hot notwithstanding that I could only with difficulty remain in it a couple of seconds.

In the streets of the town we often met blind persons who walked about very safely without any attendant, only feeling their way with a long bamboo. They blew a short pipe now and then to warn passers-by of their presence. I thought at first that these unfortunates were trying to regain the sight of the eye at the hot springs, but on inquiring whether the water was beneficial in that respect, I was informed that they were not there as seekers after health, but as "massageurs" (shampooers). Massage has been in use in Japan for several centuries back, and therefore persons are often to be met with in the streets offering their services as massageurs, crying in the streets in about the same way as the fruit-sellers in Russia.

The inn where we lodged for the night, consisted as usual of a number of very clean rooms covered with mats, without furniture, but ornamented with songs and mottoes on the walls. One would live here exceedingly well, if like the Japanese he could manage to live wholly on the floor and conform carefully to the indispensable rules, an observance which besides is necessary, because otherwise the inmate is exposed to a very unfriendly reception not only from his host but also from the attendants. An inconvenience in travelling in Japan is the difficulty a European has in accustoming himself to the dietary of the Japanese. Bread they do not use, nor meat, but their food consists mainly of rice and fish, with fowls, fruit, mushrooms, sweetmeats, Japanese tea, &c., in addition. Fish is generally eaten raw, and in that case is said to differ little in taste from our pickled salmon. The food is not unfrequently cooked with fish oils of anything but an agreeable taste. If a traveller wishes to avoid this dietary, he must have his own cook with him on the journey. In this capacity there attended us a Japanese, whose name was Senkiti-San, but who was commonly called by his companions Kok-San (Mr. Cook). He had learned European (French) cooking at Yokohama, and during the journey devoted himself with so great zeal to his calling, that even in the deserts at the foot of Asamayama he gave himself no rest until he could offer us a dinner of five dishes, consisting of chicken soup, fowl omelette, fowl-beefsteak, fowl fricassé, and omelette aux confitures, all thus consisting only of fowls and hens' eggs, cooked in different ways.

For some years back lucifer matches have been an article of necessity in Japan, and it was pleasing to us Swedes to observe that the Swedish matches have here a distinct preference over those of other countries. In nearly every little shop, even in the interior of the country, are to be seen the well-known boxes with the inscription "Säkerhets tändstickor utan svafvel och fosfor." But if we examine the boxes more carefully, we find upon many of them, along with the magic sentence unintelligible to the Japanese, an inscription indicating that they have been made by some Japanese manufacturer. On other boxes this is completely wanting, but the falsification is shown by an unfortunate error in the inscription. It thus appears that the Swedish matches are not only introduced into Japan on a large scale, but are also counterfeited, being made with the Swedish inscription on the box and with a cover resembling that used at home. The imitation, however, is not nearly so good as the original, and my Japanese servant bade me therefore, when I purchased a box of matches, observe carefully that I got one of the right (Swedish) sort.

Photography also has spread so rapidly in the country that at many places in small towns and villages in the interior Japanese photographers are to be met with who put out of their hands by no means bad work. The Japanese appear to have a great liking for having their by no means remarkable dwellings photographed. On several occasions, when we left a place we received from our host as a parting gift a photograph of his house or inn. Perhaps this was done with the same view as that which induces his European brother-in-trade to advertise at great expense.

Between Ikaho and Savavatari, our next resting-place, the road was so bad that the jinrikisha could no longer be used, we accordingly had to use the kago, a Japanese sedan-chair made of bamboo, of the appearance of which the accompanying wood-cut gives an idea. It is exceedingly inconvenient for Europeans, because they cannot like the Japanese sit with their legs crosswise under them, and in course of time it becomes tiresome to let them dangle without other support by the side of the kago. Even for the bearers this sedan chair strikes me as being of inconvenient construction, which is shown among other things by their halting an instant every two hundred, or in going up a hill, every hundred paces, in order to shift the shoulder under the bamboo pole. We went up-hill and down-hill with considerable speed however, so that we traversed the road between Ikaho and Savavatari, 6 ri or 23.6 kilometres in length, in ten hours. The road, which was exceedingly beautiful, ran along flowery banks of rivulets, overgrown with luxuriant bamboo thickets, and many different kinds of broad-leaved trees. Only round the old temples, mostly small and inconsiderable, were to be seen ancient tall Cryptomeria and Ginko trees. The burying places were commonly situated, not as at home, in the neighbourhood of the larger temples, but near the villages. They were not inclosed, but marked out by stone monuments from a third of a metre to half a metre in height, on one side of which an image of Buddha was sometimes sculptured. The recent graves were often adorned with flowers, and at some of them small foot-high Shinto shrines had been made of wooden pins.

Savavatari, like Ikaho, is built on the slope of a hill. The streets between the houses are almost all stairs or steep ascents. Here too there well up from the volcanic rocks acidulous springs, at which invalids seek to regain health. The watering-place, however, is of less repute than Ikaho or Kusatsu.

While we walked about the village in the evening we saw at one place a crowd of people. This was occasioned by a competition going on there. Two young men, who wore no other clothes than a narrow girdle going round the waist and between the legs, wrestled within a circle two or three metres across drawn on a sandy area. He was considered the victor who threw the other to the ground or forced him beyond the circle. A special judge decided in doubtful cases. The beginning of the contest was most peculiar, the combatants kneeling in the middle of the circle and sharply eying each other in order to make the attack at a signal given by the judge, when a single push might at once make an end of the contest. In this competition there took part about a dozen young men, all well grown, who in their turn stepped with some encouraging cries or gestures into the circle in order to test their powers. The spectators consisted of old men and women, and boys and girls of all ages. Most of them were clean and well-dressed, and had a very attractive appearance.

Here it was the youth of the village themselves that took part in the contest. But there are also in Japan persons who carry on these games as their occupation, and exhibit themselves for money. They are in general very fat, as appears from the accompanying drawing, which represents the beginning of the contest, when both the combatants are still watching to get a good hold.

Next day, the 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle to traverse it, so that we had to use in some cases kagos, in others riding-horses. Unfortunately the Japanese high saddle does not suit the European, and if the traveller prefers a riding-horse to a kago, he must, if he does not

carry a saddle with him, determine to ride on an unsaddled horse, which, with the wretched steeds that are only available here, soon becomes so unpleasant that he at last prefers to let his legs hang benumbed from the kago. A peculiarity in Japan is that the rider seldom himself guides his horse. It is commonly led by a halter by a groom running alongside the rider. These grooms are very light-footed and enduring, so that even at a rapid pace they are not left behind. Running footmen also attend the carriages of people of distinction in the towns and the mail-coaches on Nakasendo. When there is a crowd before the carriage they jump down and drive away the people by a dreadful shouting. From the mail-coach they also blow the post-horn, not just to the advantage of the ear-drums of the travellers.

The scenery by the roadside was exceedingly beautiful. Now it consisted of wild valleys, filled with luxuriant vegetation which completely concealed the crystal-clear streams purling in the bottoms; now of level grassy plains or hill-slopes, thickly studded with solitary trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks. The inhabitants were fully occupied with the chestnut harvest. Before every hut mats were spread out, on which chestnuts lay drying in thick layers. Grain and cotton were being dried in the same small way, as it appeared to us Europeans. On the plains there stood besides in the neighbourhood of the cabins large mortars, by which the grain was reduced to groats. On the hills these tramp-stamps are partly replaced by small mills of an exceedingly simple construction, introduced by the Dutch.

We passed the 2nd October at Kusatsu, the Aix-la-Chapelle of Japan, famed like that place for its hot sulphurous springs. Innumerable invalids here seek an alleviation of their pains. The town lives upon them, and accordingly consists mainly of baths, inns, and shops for the visitors.

The inns are of the sort common in Japan, spacious, airy clean, without furniture, but with good braziers, miniature tea-services, clean matting, screens ornamented with poetical mottoes, which even when translated were almost unintelligible to us, friendly hosts, and numerous female attendants. If the traveller brings his own cook with him, as we did, he can live very comfortably, as I have before stated, at such an inn.

The hot springs which have conferred on Kusatsu its importance rise at the foot of a pretty high hill of volcanic origin. The rocks in the surrounding country consist exclusively of lava and volcanic tuffs, and a short distance from the town there is an extinct volcano in whose crater there are layers of sulphur.[382] In the immediate neighbourhood of the place where the main spring rises there is a thick solidified lava stream, surrounded by tuffs, which near the surface is cleft into a number of large vesicular blocks. From this point the hot water is conducted in long open wooden channels to the bath-house of the town, and to several evaporating pools, some by the wayside, others in the town, intended for collecting the solid constituents of the water, which are then sold in the country as medicine. The great evaporation from these pools, from the open channels and the hot baths, wraps the town almost constantly in a cloud of watery vapour, while a very strong odour of sulphuretted hydrogen reminds us that this is one of the constituents of the healing waters.

The road between the wells and the town appears to form the principal promenade of the place. Along this are to be seen innumerable small monuments, from a half to a whole metre in height, consisting of pieces of lava heaped upon each other. These miniature memorials form by their littleness a peculiar contrast to the bauta stones and jettekast of our Swedish forefathers, and are one of the many instances of the people's fondness for the little and the neat, which are often to be met in Japan. They are said to be erected by visitors as thank-offerings to some of the deities of Buddha or Shinto.

I received from a Japanese physician the following information regarding the wells at Kusatsu and their healing power. In and near the town there are twenty-two wells, with water of about the same quality, but of different uses in the healing of various diseases. In the hottest well the water where it rises has a temperature of 162° F (= 72.2° C.). The largest number of the sick who seek health at the baths, suffer from syphilis. This disease is now cured according to the European method, with mercury, iodide of potassium, and baths. The cure requires a hundred days, from seventy to eighty per cent. of the patients are cured completely, though purple spots remain on the skin. The disease does not break out anew. A large number of leprous patients also visit the baths. The leprosy is of various kinds; that with sores is alleviated by the baths, and is cured possibly in two years; that without sores but with the skin insensible is incurable, but is also checked by frequent bathing. All true lepers come from the coast provinces. A similar disease is produced also among the hills by the eating of tainted fish and fowl. This disease consists in the skin becoming insensible, the nerves inactive, and the patient, who otherwise feels well, finding it impossible to walk. It is also cured completely in very severe cases, by baths, ammonia applied inwardly, castor-oil, Peruvian bark, &c. A third type of this ailment is the bone-disease, kak'ke', which is exceedingly common in Japan, and is believed to be caused by unvarying food and want of exercise. It is very obstinate, but is often cured in two or three years with chloride of iron, albumen, change of diet from the common Japanese to the European, with red wine, milk, bread, vegetables, &c. This disease begins with a swelling in the legs, then the skin becomes insensible, first on the legs, next on the stomach, the face, and the wrists. Then the swelling falls, fever comes on, and death takes place. There are besides, certain wells for curing rheumatism, for which from two to three years are required; for eye-diseases and for headache, the latter playing an important part among the illnesses that are cured at Kusatsu. It principally attacks women between twenty and thirty years of age. One of the Kusatsu wells acts very beneficially in this case. Its water is conducted to a special bathing-shed open to the street, intended exclusively for the men and women who suffer from this disease.

Many of the baths at Kusatsu are taken so hot that special precautions must be adopted before one steps down into the water. These consist in winding cotton cloths round those parts of the body which are most sensitive, and in causing the body to perspire strongly before the bath is taken, which is done by the bathers with cries and shouts and with certain movements stirring the water in the basin with large heavy boards. They then all step down into the bath and up again simultaneously at a sign given by the physician sitting at the back of the bathing shed. Without this arrangement it would perhaps be difficult to get the patients to go into the bath, for agreeable it could not be, to judge from the grave faces of the bathers and the fire-red colour of their bodies when they come out.

The baths are under open sheds. Men and women all bathe in common, and in presence of both male and female spectators. They make their remarks without reserve on the diseases of the patients, even if they are of that sort about which one would not speak willingly even to his physician. Often the bath-basin is not fenced off in any way, except that it is protected from rain and sunshine by a roof resting on four posts. In such cases the bathers dress and undress in the street.

In consequence of the situation of Kusatsu at a height of 1050 metres above the sea, the winter there is very cold and windy. The town is then abandoned not only by the visitors to the baths, but also by most of the other inhabitants. Already, at the time of our visit, the number of bathers remaining was only inconsiderable. Even these were preparing to depart. During the second night that we passed at Kusatsu, our night's rest was disturbed by a loud noise from the next room. It was a visitor who was to leave the place the following morning, and who now celebrated his recovery with saki (rice-brandy) and string music.

The environs of Kusatsu are nearly uncultivated, though the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant. It consists partly of bamboo thickets, partly of a high rich grass, above which rise solitary pines, mixed with a few oaks or chestnuts.

On the 3rd October we continued our journey to the foot of Asamayama. The road was very bad, so that even the kago bearers had difficulty in getting along. It first ran across two valleys more than 300 feet deep, occupied with close, luxuriant, bushy thickets. We then came to an elevated plain of great extent covered with unmown grass, studded with beautiful oaks and chestnuts. The plain was not turned to any account, though thousands of the industrious population could find an abundant living there by tending cattle. Farther up the oaks and chestnuts were mixed with a few birches, resembling those at home, and we came next to complete deserts, where the ground consisted of lava blocks and lava gravel, scarcely covered by any grass, and yielding nourishment only to solitary pines. This continued to the place—Rokuriga-hara—where we were to pass the night, and from which the next day we were to ascend the summit of Asamayama.

Rokuriga-hara is situated at a height of 1270 metres above the sea. 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 passage 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 passage our kago bearers and guide passed 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 passed 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 accumulated in such quantities 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 circumference 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 coarse fantasy, which still prevails in the form of the hell-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 Japan is shown among other things by this, that many of these openings are said to be entrances to the "children's hell." 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 12s) 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 pass 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.

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 masses, 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 mass 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 passes 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-passengers, 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 coarseness in speech and behaviour which so often meet us in Europe.

It is not until the traveller has passed the mountain ridge and descended to a height of only 300 metres above the sea that the road becomes passable 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 passing 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.

In few countries are dramatic representations of all kinds so much thought of as in Japan. 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 Japanese books which I bought, there was for instance a thick one, with innumerable woodcuts, devoted to showing how the first Japanese artists conceived the principal scenes in their rôles, two volumes of playbills bound up together, &c.

The Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese theatres, besides, often resemble the European ones in their interior arrangement. The partition between the stage and the space 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 principal one. The Japanese 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 Japanese fashion. The compartments are divided by broad cross beams, which form the passages 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 passages 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 passed 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japan.

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 passing we may say, that a Japanese 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 shells 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 Japan, 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 Japan. 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 assistance 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 glass, 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 Japanese, 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 Japanese, although they have much to learn from the Europeans, ought not to imitate them in all. In Japan there is much that is good, old, and national to take note of, perhaps more than the Japanese at present have any idea of, and undoubtedly more than many of the European residents will allow.

FOOTNOTES:

[379] On the contrary, we saw a number of beggars on the country roads in the neighbourhood of Yokohama.

[380] Voyage de M. Golovin, Paris, 1818, i. p. 176. Golovin, who was captain in the Russian navy, passed the years 1811-13 in imprisonment in Japan. 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.

[381] General Grant, as is well known, visited Japan in the autumn of 1879. He left Yokohama the day after the Vega anchored in its harbour.

[382] According to the statement of the inhabitants, I had not time to visit the place.