AINU MAN OF THE UPPER TOKACHI.
CHAPTER VIII.
From the Tokachi River to the Kutcharo River.
I decided to stop a day at Otsu, so as to recover from the fatigue of my late travels and adventures, and I chose my quarters in the yadoya of a Japanese called Inomata Yoshitaro. I was told that he was an ex-convict. Be that as it may, he had now turned into a fisherman and innkeeper. Like all Japanese, he was an inexhaustible talker, and his politeness was so great that it became a bore.
It was about three in the morning when I reached Otsu. I had taken off my boots on entering his house—for it is an insult to enter Japanese houses with one's boots on—and I had seated myself on the soft mat in order to rest my aching limbs, when Yoshitaro made me get up to place a small square cushion under me, on which he said I should be more comfortable. I had not been on it one minute before Yoshitaro, wanting to increase my comforts, made me rise again to exchange the first cushion covered with cotton for one covered with silk—a detail to which a man is not likely to pay much attention when tired to death, and only anxious to be left alone. It followed as a matter of course that before I was allowed to go to sleep I had to sip several cups of tea, which Yoshitaro's wife had hurriedly made, and I had to relate the result of my expedition to the sleepy fishermen who had crept out of their foutangs at the news of my arrival. In spite of all this, when I had got rid of my audience I had a good night's rest; but when I woke up the next day at noon I found myself surrounded by a crowd of fishermen of Otsu, who had invaded the yadoya to have a peep at the young foreigner, while in the back yard I recognised the voices of Yoshitaro and his wife, who evidently were occupied in the exciting chase of a fowl.
A few minutes later Yoshitaro triumphantly entered the room with a large dish, on which the same fowl, uncooked, and cut into a thousand little bits, was served to me, together with pieces of raw salmon, daikon (a vegetable), and boiled rice. This he called a European dinner! I did my best to roast the chicken bits on the hibachi (the brazier); but I was never well up in the culinary art, and, as my landlord remarked, he had brought up the meat for me to eat, not to "burn."
Fowls are very scarce indeed in Hokkaido, and the few found have been imported; therefore the landlord did not fail to explain, in a roundabout manner, under what great obligation I was to him for killing such a precious bird.
I said that I had not asked him to do this, and with his perfect Japanese politeness, bowing gracefully down to the ground, he said:
"Sayo de gozarimas" ("Yes, your honourable sir"). "But," he added, "the bird was so old that if I had not killed it I fear it would have died by itself ere long." Such a sacrifice undoubtedly deserved a reward, and he assured me that we should be "quite even" if I, being an artist, would condescend to paint twelve portraits of him. I had no little trouble to make him understand that he was mistaking me for a photographic camera, but I offered to paint him a small sketch the next morning if he would leave me alone all that day.
Punctually at sunrise he entered my room. He had his best clothes on, and his anxiety to be painted was such that he had not been able to sleep all night. I painted the sketch, and Yoshitaro and his male and female friends joined in exclamations of admiration at the good result of the abura è (oil painting). He professed to be very grateful, and carefully packed the picture in a box, which he carried into another room.