A few miles from Poronai I came to a headland, and about one mile from it lay the small island of Chuskin.
The coast again, instead of being sandy, showed traces of its volcanic formation, forming beautiful cliffs and a rugged outline, rising in terraces at places, or cliffs of clay and gravel sediments, with reefs extending far out to sea, while below them stretched a beach of coarse sand or pebbles, strewn with enormous volcanic boulders. These terraces are wooded mostly with alder, Yezo fir, and beech.
Soon after crossing the Porobets River I came across the wreck of a sailing ship, which lay flat on the shore disabled and dismasted; and at last I reached Esashi. There I again noticed a curious fact, which may be of some interest to anthropologists; namely, that Yezo is mostly formed of Tertiaries and volcanic rocks, and that the Ainu are mostly to be found in regions of Cainozoic or Tertiary formation. In volcanic districts they are very scarce. This is curious, for it is a well-known fact that the typical life-form of Tertiaries is anthropoid apes, and it is a remarkable coincidence that we should find ape-like men populating the same strata.
From Esashi the coast is extremely rough and rocky for about eight miles. I had to take my famished pony up and down steep mountains rising directly from the sea in places where the beach was impassable. Owing to the lack of grass my wretched beast had but little to eat; and what with the danger of riding, and the miserable condition my pony was in, I had to walk most of the way and lead him. Shanoi, about thirteen miles further, came in sight—a group of wretched fishermen's huts; and from here the coast was somewhat better. The scenery all along is beautiful, especially looking back towards the Shanoi Mountains. I saw one or two abandoned huts blown down by the wind, but no people.
Near Shanoi the eruptive rocks and granitic cliffs suddenly come to an end, as well as the mountainous character of the country, and for fifteen miles, till one comes to Sarubuts, the country is pretty flat and swampy, with a thick vegetation inland of spruce trees. There is a small lagoon formed by the Tombets River, and which often has its mouth blocked by the quicksands, which cause it to overflow.
I left Sarubuts in pouring rain, following the trail along the beach. The river forms a long narrow lake similar to that of Tombets, and at the back of it are terraces and high lands, but no very high mountains. Another wreck of a large boat lay in fragments on the sand, and after fifteen miles of very uninteresting scenery I arrived at Chietomamai, a group of four or five fishermen's huts. Here again the coast was rough, but my pony did not sink in the sand as it did on leaving Sarubuts, but it stumbled among large pebbles and stones as pointed as needles. Further on were grey and brown steep cliffs, which were extremely picturesque. The Mezozoic nature of this coast shows more distinctly between Chietomamai and Soya Cape, and a large rock emerging from the sea is both peculiar and picturesque with its numerous square sections. It is from this point that one gets the first view of Soya Cape. Going round a bay one passes a few fishermen's houses, and on the cliffs above them has been erected the Siliusi lighthouse. I cleared the Cape and rounded the bay on the other side, where I saw another wreck of a sailing ship dashed upon the rocks, making the scene a sad one. I still went on, and went round two or three smaller headlands, when the melancholy sight of a fourth wreck stood before me. This last ship had her stern out of the water, and a Turkish name was painted on it. Her appearance also was Turkish, and I was more than once puzzled as to what a Turkish ship could have been doing in the La Perouse Strait. Many months afterwards, on my return to Yokohama, but too late to be of any help to them, the sad story of the survivors of that ship was revealed to me. The mission of the ship in those far-off seas was a mysterious one. No one ever knew exactly whence she came, or whither she was bound. No one ever learned whether she had been disabled in a typhoon in the Chinese Sea, and had been drifted so far north by the strong currents, or whether the careless Turkish master had mistaken his course and had met his fate in the dangerous currents of La Perouse Strait. Only four of the crew survived. There they were on that deserted coast, with no clothes, no food, no money; but the few natives treated them kindly. Two of them wore "Tarbouches" (red caps), the only things they had saved from the wreck. The natives on the north-west coast told me of these men who were tramping their way south, unable to make themselves understood, continually asking for "Sekhara," or "Sakhara," which, I believe, in the Turkish language means tobacco or cigarettes. After months of privations, half starved, and worn out with fatigue, they reached Hakodate, where, having no passport, and not being able to explain themselves, they were duly arrested and sent down to Yokohama. Unfortunately for them, at that time the "Entogroul," a Turkish man-of-war, had come to Japan, a voyage which took her two years, to bring some decorations which the Sultan had bestowed on the Mikado. Osman Pasha, the Admiral, had the poor devils brought before him, and they told him their sad story, what they had suffered, and how they had lost their ship. The story was too true to be believed, or too strange to sound true!
"Impostors!" said Osman Pasha, and declining to listen any more to their tale of woe, which he called "pure lies," had them "put in irons," in which condition they were to be taken back to Constantinople. None of the foreign residents in Japan believed the story of these wretches, and all were glad to see the miscreants punished. "Impossible," said everybody, "that a Turkish ship should have been up there!"
As it so happened, the "Entogroul," on her return trip to Constantinople, was herself caught in a typhoon, and, steaming full speed to resist the force of the wind and the waves, her boilers burst, and Osman Pasha and nearly all hands on board were blown to pieces or drowned. If I remember right, over three hundred and sixty lives were lost, and no doubt the four men, whose prison, I was told, was near the boilers, thus found a tragic end to their life of misery.
When I arrived at Yokohama all this had already happened, and my evidence, which probably might have saved the life of these men, was therefore useless.
But let us return to Soya Cape, where we have left the wreck.