CHAPTER V.
From the Saru River to Cape Erimo.
After quitting Saru Mombets I was altogether out of the beaten tracks. The twenty-two miles to Shimokebo were monotonous in the extreme. High cliffs towered above me on the one side, and the sea stretched into infinity on the other. River after river had to be waded, the At-pets,[7] the Nii-pak-pets,[8] and the Shibe-gari-pets.[9] The Nii-pak-pets is wide and fairly deep. Near the At-pets river the Japanese Government has established a horse farm, in order to improve the breed of Yezo ponies. A few miserable Ainu huts are scattered along the coast, and millions of scavenger crows, with their monotonous cries, seem to claim sovereignty over these shores. Near the Takae village, on the Nii-kap-pets, is an enormous perpendicular cliff, which, jutting out into the sea, bars the way to the traveller; therefore I had to abandon the sandy shore, and with considerable trouble get the ponies to climb over the steep banks, which was no easy task for them. Shimokebo is a peculiar-looking place. It is entirely a fishermen's village, and I put up at the Ogingawa Zunubi yadoya—a tea-house owned by a Japanese fisherman.
Japanese will be Japanese wherever they go, and people who have had anything to do with them know how difficult it is to satisfy their curiosity.
"How old are you?" inquired the occamisan—the landlady. "Where do you come from? What is your country? Why are you travelling? Have you a wife and children? Can you eat Japanese food; also Ainu food? Can you sleep in foutangs?" (Japanese bedding). "Also with a makura?" (a wooden pillow).
About fifty more personal and indiscreet questions were also asked, and all my belongings were examined with ever-increasing astonishment as one thing after another was handled and investigated. I was tired, and felt as if I could have kicked the whole crowd of them out of my room; but I was unintentionally polite to them to such an extent that the occamisan loudly exclaimed—
"Honto Danna, Anata Nihonno shto, onaji koto!"—"Really, sir, you are just like a Japanese!"
"Domo neh!" rose up in a chorus from the large assembly, "nandemo dannasan wakarimas!"—"The gentleman really understands everything!" This was a decided compliment, and I was bound to accept it as it was intended. When they heard that I was indeed "Taihen kutabire mashita" (very tired), they reluctantly left the room, and closed the shoji (sliding doors of tissue paper on a wooden frame). Each bowed gracefully, drawing in his breath at the same time. This is the Japanese polite way of leaving a room. Their conversation was resumed in the next apartment, regardless of the fact that tissue paper walls are not sound-proof. Remarks on me, not quite in harmony with their courteous bearing, were passed freely about, and the politest thing I heard them say was that I must be a lunatic to travel alone in these inhospitable regions, and what a pity it was for a man so young to be so fearfully afflicted.
"Oh, those seyono shto (foreigners) are all born lunatics," said the voice of one who knew better.
The Shibegari River, at the mouth of which Shimokebo is situated, is also called Shibe-chari—"sprinkled salmon river." Very minute traces of gold are found in the river-sands and gravels, and also some well-developed brown garnet crystals and quartzite and phyllite pebbles. The gold, however, is not in sufficient quantity to enable it to be worked profitably. Seven and a half miles from Shimokebo the Japanese Government has another horse farm similar to that of the At-pets.
The travelling along the coast was heavy, and I could ride but slowly. I had to make the ponies go where the sand was wet along the beach, as there it was harder and they did not sink. This had its drawbacks, for the sea was very rough, and once or twice my ponies and I came very near being washed against the cliffs by some extra large wave. Instead of green banks, as between Tomakomai and Shimokebo, here were high cliffs of volcanic formation, with a narrow strip of sand at their foot.