The Ainu, like the Scotch or the French, give a rolling sound to the "r." Thus, for instance, if I had written the word "Riruran" as it is pronounced I should have spelt it "Rrirrurran." Then the Ainu almost sing their words—the women in a falsetto voice, ending in a singularly mournful kind of cadenza. On his return from a journey, a hunt, or a fishing expedition, the Ainu squats down cross-legged in his hut, and, after the conventional introductory ceremony of rubbing the palms of his hands together and then repeatedly stroking his hair and beard, proceeds to relate the adventures that have befallen him during his absence. This he does by singing out his story in a sort of monotone, or sometimes chanting it. When conversing with Japanese the Ainu have slightly modified this habit, which gave rise to much mirth to the light-hearted sons of the Mikado's empire. However, like all people who are ready to laugh at everything novel, the local Japanese have now themselves fallen into that same manner of speaking, which, after all, has its charms, as it is rather sentimental in spirit, and so far pleasant to the ear. What is more, they have also acquired the slow ways of the Ainu.
All along the beach between Hammanaka and Hattaushi, a distance of nearly twenty miles, there are fishermen's and seaweed gatherers' huts; but none of them is inhabited by Ainu. Men, women, and children are all occupied in the seaweed gathering industry; and it is when the sea is stormy that the largest quantity of kelp is collected. The numerous reefs and rocks all along the shore-line afford suitable ground and bottom for its growth and production; and during a stormy sea quantities of kelp float on the breaking waves, to be finally thrown on shore. The industrious gatherers seldom wait for this "jetsam," as the long weeds, after they are washed off the rock, and before they are finally swept on shore, are apt to be damaged by the waves, and are therefore of less value for the export market than when long and fresh; wherefore, each gatherer provides himself with a long pole or hook, and from morning till night these half-naked "toilers of the sea" can be seen running to and fro in and out of the waves dragging bunches of long ribbon-like seaweeds, which are then carefully disentangled, stretched on the sands to dry, and, after several days of exposure, are packed for the market.
Some huge cliffs towering over the sandy beach make the track interesting; and here and there, scattered in the Hammanaka Bay, are some oyster-banks before reaching the single shed of Hattaushi. The following twelve miles were on an extremely bad track, partly over steep hills and partly on tiresome soft sand. Then I arrived at Otchishi—without exception the loveliest little spot in Yezo. It lies in the centre of a small bay, on the two sides of which are magnificent headlands with precipitous cliffs and rocks of volcanic formation. On a pretty bit of green grass in the foreground, only a few feet above the sea-level, were a shed and a storehouse. A reef and shallow water closed the entrance of the bay to the foaming waves of the Pacific. In the sheltered water, which was as smooth as a mirror, the dark rich colour of the overhanging rocks, caressed by the last warm rays of the dying sun, was reflected with absolute fidelity and almost increased loveliness. A cold whitish sky, and the white horses breaking on the reef, completed the ensemble of that lovely scene; and it was with great regret, after having attempted a sketch, that I was told my horse was ready, and I had to leave this poetical and exquisite scene.
On the slight elevations near Otchishi, and in the valley, pits are still to be seen, showing that the pit-dwellers were once numerous in this district. They are found both along the coast as well as slightly inland by the side of small rivers, and on the shores of the Saruffu lagoon. A well-kept road begins at Otchishi, and goes on to Nemuro. At first it runs over hilly ground and through an oak-wooded country, then through thick forests of spruce trees, the trees standing very close together. About four miles from Nemuro a military settlement—"Hanasaki"—similar to the one on the Shibetcha-Akkeshi road, has been established by the Japanese Government. Here, again, I was struck by the difficulty and the amount of labour involved in clearing the trees off the ground. It will take many years before the industrious farmers will have any return for their hard labour. I do not know what the object of the Japanese Government may have been in starting these two militia settlements in spots so unfit for cultivation, but it seems a great pity to see the Tokachi region, which has all the requisites for successful agriculture, quite deserted, while hundreds of men are wasting their strength and time at other places, where it will take several years to open enough ground for even a kitchen-garden.
Past the long row of houses at Hanasaki the road descends gently, and I arrived at Nemuro, a thriving place of about fifteen hundred houses, on the south-west coast of the plateau-like peninsula ending at Cape Noshafu. The general elevation of the plateau is between sixty and one hundred and twenty feet above the sea-level, and the high land is covered with undergrowth and stunted trees, such as scrub bamboo, oak, birch, and alder, the east winds and fogs no doubt preventing the latter from attaining a larger growth. Some low islands and reefs lie north and south off Cape Noshafu, and make navigation very unsafe for the small coasting crafts which sometimes during the summer call at Nemuro for sea-weed, herring, salt, salmon, and herring guano; the first exported chiefly to China, the others to Tokio and Southern Japan. Herrings are caught in large numbers during the spring and summer, and the export of fish-manure would be considerably increased if the harbour at Nemuro could be safely entered by larger ships. As it is now, though well sheltered by the small island of Bentenjima, it can only harbour small ships, as, besides not being deep, its entrance is narrow and of difficult access during the thick fogs of the summer. In the winter and part of the spring the harbour and the coast as far as Noshafu Cape are blocked with drift ice, thus stopping navigation altogether. The trade from the adjoining coast and the Kurile Islands concentrates at this port, and as a farming region the small portion of available land north-west of the town has given fairly good results. Horse-breeding has proved a success for the local wants, but hardly so in producing a fine breed of horses. Cattle-breeding, on the other hand, has been a failure all through, owing to the severe weather in winter, which the imported animals could not stand. In spite of strong easterly winds, heavy fogs, ice, and snow, fair crops of daikon, potatoes, turnips, barley, beans, wheat, and hemp are successfully raised here, as the soil is of extremely good quality. As to the town itself, it is prettily laid out, the streets crossing each other at right angles, while some of the houses are built in semi-European style, to meet the severity of the climate. A Shinto temple is erected on the high level; and from this is obtained a fine bird's-eye view of the harbour and town, with the numerous storehouses overlooking the sea.
As I have given a short description of the town—uninteresting save from a commercial point of view—I feel that I owe a few lines to its go-ahead inhabitants. Belonging, nearly all, to a young and adventurous generation, they reminded me of the same type of Englishmen who have abandoned their fatherland and settled in America and Australia, striving, and often succeeding, in making a fortune. Such men are invariably of a different "make" from that of the young fellows who are satisfied to drudge for life in a bank, a merchant's office, or a shop—vegetating rather than living; following their day's routine in a mechanical sort of way; grumbling continually, but never bold enough to attempt any improvement of their position. As one is born an artist, a musician, or a literary man, one has to be born a colonist to be a successful one.
The young Japanese whom I met at Nemuro impressed me as being thoroughly different from any I had come across in my one year's stay in Southern Japan; and I was agreeably surprised when I found that I was dealing with a lot of young, clever, and serious men, willing to improve their country and themselves, and anxious to accept any practical hint that would enable them to accomplish this in the shortest time possible. In other words, they had lost the slow, phlegmatic way of transacting business of the "stay-at-homes," and had accepted the quick perception of the true colonist, who is always ready to catch all the chances which will help him to get on in life.
I had been struck with this energy, this go-ahead faculty, several times along the south-west and south-east coasts, when conversing with the Japanese with whom I came in contact; but I was never so much impressed as at Nemuro, where, indeed, the men are of a superior class, well-educated, and belonging to good families, while most of the Japanese at fishing stations along the coast are taken from the scum of the towns. They are often escaped or ex-convicts, or else people who found it advisable to abandon the livelier shores of Nippon, leaving no trace of themselves rather than end their days in a prison cell.
Nemuro is a progressive place in every way, and had it been built five miles further west it would have been intersected by the Onnetto River—a short outlet of the Onnetto Lagoon, which would have formed a larger and safer harbour than the present Nemuro anchorage. As it is, prosperity showed itself in the usual way, by the number of eating-houses for all classes, a theatre, numerous guechas—singers and dancers—and a whole street of houses of light morals, in which, behind a wooden grating similar to a huge cage, dozens of girls are shown in their gaudy red and gold embroidered kimonos, with elaborate obis round their waist, and expensive long tortoise-shell hairpins artistically surrounding their heads like a halo. There in a line the pretty girls sit for several hours on their heels in front of a hibachi—brazier—smoking their diminutive pipes. They are fair game for now the compliments and now the jokes of the crowd promenading up and down the street in the evening. Every now and then, when an admirer approaches the cage, one of the girls gets up, refills her tiny pipe with tobacco, and offers it to him, not forgetting to wipe the mouthpiece with the palm of her hand before so doing. He (the admirer) puffs away, and returns the empty pipe with thanks, shifting on to another cage to have his next smoke. Japanese men cannot live without guechas, and it follows as a matter of course that Nemuro, being a prosperous place, there are many of them.
A guecha is a singer or dancer (posturing), or both, and one or more generally attend dinner-parties and festivities of any kind. Some sing with self-accompaniment of shamesen; others display their wonderful powers of mimicking and posturising, in which grace is never lacking. A long kimono, a carefully-arranged obi, and a pretty pair of white tabi—short socks with split toes—make up the graceful and simple attire in which they appear in the house. Their hair, plastered down with camelia oil, is a veritable work of art. It is carefully combed, oiled, and flattened behind the ears. A metal fastener at the lowest point of the curve keeps it in this flat position, and it is then raised again and fastened at the back of the head, first in a most elaborate twist, and then rolled up in graceful curves. A pretty, tasteful kanzashi—a long hairpin—is placed on the left side of the head, thus completing that part of a guecha's toilette.