At Baraputa I heard that it was impossible to continue my journey south on horseback along the coast, for the track was almost impassable, even on foot. It was a steep and difficult trail over the mountains, among rocks and precipitous cliffs, and I was quite unable to accomplish it; so I retraced my steps to Shitzo, and from there struck across the peninsula on the road for Oshamambe, on Volcano Bay. The road is a good one, and when bridges are built where needed it will be practicable for bashas, the four-wheeled vehicles of Southern Yezo. The way is across mountains or among well-wooded hills. Kuromatsunai is the largest group of houses found along the road. It is about halfway between the two coasts.
Late at night, after having ridden twenty-five miles, I arrived at Oshamambe, a semi-Ainu village on Volcano Bay.
KOMATAGE VOLCANO, VOLCANO BAY.
CHAPTER XIX.
Completing the Circuit of Yezo—The End of my Journey.
Oshamambe is a group of seventy houses, just midway between Mororran and Mori. The Ainu of this bay are poor specimens of their race, as most of them have intermarried with Japanese. They are, however, those most talked about by Europeans, for they are of easy access to globe-trotters.
They are mostly half-castes, and even second and third crosses; wherefore it is no wonder that the incautious travellers who have written on the Ainu, studying only these easily-visited specimens, have discovered in them a remarkable likeness to the Japanese!
The fact that I was rapidly nearing the end of my trip half filled me with pleasure, yet pleasure mingled with regret. It was nearly six weeks now since I met with the accident to my foot, and I was decidedly better. The cold weather had greatly contributed to this improvement of my condition; and had it not been for my bone which kept sticking out of my skin, I should have considered myself in fine case. I could hop along with my self-made crutch and my stick, and when riding the pain was not nearly as acute as it had been the first fifteen or twenty days.