"What a good thief I would make," I thought to myself, when to my horror I remembered that in the hurry of leaving the graveyard I had forgotten my paint-box in the very same spot from which I had taken the blade!
If any Ainu had gone to the graveyard and found it, I would get into a nice mess! During the night I felt more than uncomfortable about it, and at dawn the next morning I got the tea-house man to bring my horse and set me on it, for I said, "I wish to go and see the sunrise from the other side of the river."
The landlord thought it rather funny, and funnier still when he saw me coming back a couple of hours later with a paint-box lashed to my saddle, while he said he was sure I had started without one.
"Did you not see it this morning?" said I with assumed innocence.
"No, your honourable," said he, drawing in his breath.
"You did not look for it in the right place," said I, and up to this day the landlord does not know where the right place was.
The Ishikari is one of the great salmon rivers of Yezo. About the end of September the salmon enter the river to spawn. They are in such abundance then that the stream is crowded thick with them, and it is quite sufficient to have a hook fastened to a stick to pull out a large fish each time it is dipped into the water. Millions of fine salmon are caught within a few days, and the banks of the river are packed with dead fish, while the whole population is occupied in splitting open each fish, taking out its inside, for preservation.
The same method of netting as is practised for sardine fishing is employed for salmon. Eighteen or twenty excited men vigorously row the boats out into mid-stream, and after describing a semicircle, return to the bank. The nets are hauled in, the fish flung out on the river banks, and the same process begins de novo. A man in a "dug-out" watches when the salmon are more or less plentiful, and signals for the boat to start, while he himself spears them with a harpoon. At the right time of the year as many as 1500 or 2,000 and more good fish are caught each time the net is hauled in. This grand take of course only lasts a few days.
Though good, the Yezo salmon has none of the fine qualities of the salmon of northern European rivers, and it is not quite so good as that of the Canadian rivers. It does not keep so well, and in colour is much lighter than our salmon.
The Ishikari River opens to the north, and runs parallel to the coast, leaving a flat tongue of sand between it and the sea. Following the course of the stream against the current, it goes winding south, then sharply turns to the south-east, following this direction for about fourteen miles. Then again it winds up to the north, and then to the east for a distance of over one hundred miles, where its source lies in the very heart of Yezo.