CHAPTER XVIII.
Farewell dinner at Yokohama—The Chinese in Japan—Voyage to Kobe—Purchase of Japanese Books—Journey by rail to Kioto—Biwa Lake and the Legend of its Origin—Dredging there—Japanese Dancing-Girls—Kioto—The Imperial Palace—Temples—Swords and Sword-bearers—Shintoism and Buddhism—The Porcelain Manufacture—Japanese Poetry—Feast in a Buddhist Temple—Sailing across the Inland Sea of Japan—Landing at Hirosami and Shimonoseki—Nagasaki —Excursion to Mogi—Collection of Fossil Plants—Departure from Japan.
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 Japan I employed in making an excursion in order to dredge from a Japanese boat in the river debouching at the town. The Japanese 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 Japanese house. The dredging yielded a great number of Anodonta, large Paludina, and some small shells.
During our stay in Japan 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 assisted 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 Japan in as many days. There are parts of Japan, 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 masses 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 Japan 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 Japanese minsters and the representatives of the foreign powers in Japan 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 embassy which at the time visited Japan 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 ambassadors 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 Japanese newspapers. When I sent one of the sailors ashore 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 assisted 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 Japanese 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 Japan, and with Kioto, the ancient capital and seat of the Mikado's court for centuries.
I had already begun at Yokohama to buy Japanese 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 assistance of a young Japanese very familiar with French, Mr. OKUSCHI, assistant 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 Japan. The object of the Vega's call at the port of Kobe was to fetch the considerable purchases made there by Mr. Okuschi[383]