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.