I have been eight times to Japan, living in the big European hotels in Yokohama, Tokio, Kobe, and Nagasaki, stopping for days at a time in the native inns in the interior, or visiting at the homes of friends. I decided that my ninth trip to the little island would be different; consequently we planned a few months’ stay in some out-of-the-way place where we could keep house and live à la Japonaise. We had heard of the beauties of Hakodate, the most northern port of any size in Japan, and obtaining a letter to the American Consul, we wrote him asking if it were possible for him to find us a furnished Japanese house for the summer months. We were delighted to hear a few days later that he had found a place for us, the summer home of a rich merchant, situated on the mountain-side, overlooking the sea, and surrounded by giant cryptomerias and pines. Needless to say, we were soon on our way to this paradise.
There were only four berths in the sleeping-car on the Northern Express, and we engaged two, but were not given the opportunity of using them. At one of the stations a prince with his retinue came on the train and pre-empted the entire car. He used only one of the berths, as no one could sleep over him, nor evidently near him, and on all the long journey he selfishly occupied the room by himself, while we, in company with the half-dozen men composing his suite, had to fit ourselves into a tiny compartment that should have only accommodated four. The men removed their elaborate outer robes, curled themselves into comfortable positions, and smoked and chatted or slept until a station of any importance was neared, when they donned their gowns, threw around their necks a long, stiff piece of silk on which was embroidered the Imperial chrysanthemum, and prepared to receive the delegation of townspeople who were always at the station to present an address to his Imperial Highness, or to send in an elaborate meal, served on beautifully lacquered trays.
I had a good look at the prince on his entrance, and found him exactly like the representations of the daimios of olden times that we see on the fans and tea-boxes. He had the long, slim, pale face of the aristocrat, absolutely different from the round-faced Japanese who comprise the greatest proportion of the island’s population. He looked as if he might almost belong to another race. I was told by one of his men that he represented to many thousands of the people a god, as in his branch of the family a certain godhead had descended from father to son. When the train stopped for any length of time at a station, the people came in crowds and knelt, touching their heads to the ground, and one old lady kept bowing and holding up her hands, with the tears streaming down her face at the joy of beholding so great a divinity. He looked at them without seeing them at all, never showing by any motion or sign that there was anything to be seen except the distant hills. I do not see how it was possible for any human being to look so thoroughly impersonal at a crowd of bowing, worshipping people, when he knew he was the object of all the adoration. Yet he looked at them as if their faces were windows and their back hair the landscape.
Train travel is interesting in Japan, if one will travel in the ordinary day coach and watch the people. The Japanese are great travellers, and the clack-clack of their wooden clogs makes a deafening noise at the stations, especially on the bridges leading over the tracks. One sees whole families going for an outing or on a visit to a distant relative. They come on the train with bundles and packages—most mysterious things done up in large squares of cloth. They drop their shoes before the seat and curl their feet under them, and proceed thoroughly to enjoy themselves. The seats run lengthwise of the cars, and often a little woman gets tired of looking out of the windows or at her fellow-passengers opposite, and, turning her back on the car and sitting practically upright, will lean her face against the side of the window and go to sleep. The manner in which they can sit upon their feet for hours impresses a foreigner. At the larger stations tea in tiny pots, with a little porcelain cup, is brought in by the salesmen, and “bento,” the lunch of cold rice, pickles, and fish of some description, is sold in neat boxes, the dainty lunch only costing ten cents, including a pair of new wooden chopsticks. The Japanese masses, like their prototypes everywhere, enjoy eating in public, and the car is filled with the divers and sundry odours of fruit, sweets, tea, and food. They are not noisy, and always most polite, and because of the dainty clothes of the women and children, and the variety of their colouring, a few hours can be spent quite well in studying travelling Japanese close at hand. At one station a party of pilgrims came on, dressed in white. They belonged to some club in a far northern village whose members paid a small assessment each week, and each year lots were chosen to judge who should benefit by the annual pilgrimage to some famous shrine or to Mount Fuji. The lucky winners in the lottery joined other pilgrims, donned the pilgrim’s dress, and under the direction of a guide made the one great visit of their lives, the wonders of which they would be able to tell their amazed neighbours when they returned. These would listen with interest, as it might be their good fortune to draw the lucky number the coming year.
At the end of our long train ride, Amorri, we went on the small boat bound for Hakodate, where we were met by the Consul, a jolly, big, whole-hearted man, who took us, metaphorically speaking, at once to his bosom and became as a long-lost brother. His wife, much to our surprise, was a tiny little Japanese woman, no bigger than a good-sized doll, and as pretty as a picture. They looked so incongruous together that one was inclined to smile. He weighed at least 250 lb., was over six feet tall; and I should think that when dressed in all her finery, Mrs. Consul might have weighed 85 lb. She was a well-educated, well-informed little woman, who needed all her charm and tact to keep her unruly family in order. It was a big one, the last, a boy, being the pride of the father’s heart, and as nearly spoiled as the clever mother would allow him to be by his worshipping father. When I knew them better it was a joy to me to see how she managed these children. The father, who had been at one time captain of a sailing vessel, always spoke to them as if they were at the top of a mast on a wintry night with a cyclone blowing. Tommy, the irrepressible, would get up on the window seat, and his father would hail him in a voice that could be heard by the boats coming from Kamschatka: “Tommy, get out of that window seat; you’ll break your neck.” Tommy would not move; again his father’s stentorian tone would offend the evening air. The quiet little mother would turn and give a nod of her pretty head to Tommy, and Tommy would immediately climb down from his perch and proceed to behave himself as young boys should.
The Consulate was partly foreign and partly Japanese, and the children while at home in the morning dressed in kimona and wooden clogs, but in the afternoon they were gay in “home” dresses and resplendent in hair ribbons, only showing by the little turn of the eyes that they were members of their mother’s race.
JAPANESE CHILDREN PLAYING.
To face p. [276].
Soon after our arrival we went to see the place that was to be our home for the next few months. We did not see the house until we came to the great gateway with its pointed roof leading into a path shaded by giant cryptomerias, completely guarding the house from view of the passer-by. This hillside garden contained about five acres of land, in which were winding pathways, giant pine-trees, terraces of flowers, and here and there a tori, a huge bronze stork, a grim stone lantern, or a calmly reposing Buddha to show us we were in the land of Nippon. We looked out over the northern ocean, dotted here and there with the sails of fishing-boats, or saw the smoke of a steamer coming from Kamschatka, Saghlain, or some of those mysterious northern ports, the names of which were only places on a map. After listening for awhile to the murmur of the surf, we visited the interior of the house, which contained five rooms. The furniture consisted of the matting on the floor, the sliding “shojis,” the fire-boxes, the cooking utensils, and dishes for the serving of the meals. It was necessary for us to buy our “futons”—that is, our bedding; but otherwise the home was completely furnished à la Japonaise. The servant problem was easily solved, as the daughter of the gardener wished to be our maid, the gardener would run our errands, and his wife would be the general superintendent of the place. I expected to do the cooking, as the time would be too short in Hakodate to train a man in matters culinary. We were soon installed, and then passed pleasant days in dolce far niente, spending our mornings in trips to the seashore, watching the fishermen come in with their boatloads of squids. Their arrival was the signal for all the women and children of the village to flock to the shore and unload the boats, then, after cleaning and pressing these ugly fish, hang them upon lines to dry, making the whole ocean front as far as the eye could see a miniature wash-Monday. We were not allowed to climb the mountain-sides except to a certain distance, as the hills were heavily fortified, and at sudden turns we were met by great signs which stated plainly in English, French, German, Japanese, and Russian that further explorations were forbidden. We never tried to disobey the laws in Japan, as these little people are vigorous in their punishment of offenders, to whatever race they may belong, and I feel that they have been justified in upholding the manhood of their people. In India and in China you see the white man treat the native with barbarous cruelty. While travelling once in India our servant was making up the bed in the compartment we had engaged on the train. A white man entered, and without one word of explanation, grabbed our man and beat and kicked him and nearly threw him out of the car. In reply to our indignant demands as to the cause of his ill-treatment of our servant, he said that he thought the man had made a mistake in the berth and was taking one for which he had paid. I said afterward to Ali, “Why did you not strike him when he treated you so brutally?” Ali replied: “Oh, mem-sahib, he was a white man. If I had touched him I would have lain many long days in prison.” In China also, on one hot day in August I saw a rickshaw coolie, naked to the waist, with the perspiration running down his face in streams, running swiftly with a heavy man inside his two-wheeled carriage. In passing by a crowded corner, he brushed against a white man, who was having his afternoon stroll. The white man angrily turned, and, grabbing the coolie by his hair, beat him across his bare back with his cane until he stopped from sheer exhaustion. The panting, perspiring coolie was helpless as he could not drop the shafts, and so was compelled to take the punishment. His patron in the carriage, a richly-dressed Chinese, dared not interfere because he also was a native and understood there was no court of justice when it was a question of a white man’s word against that of the yellow man. They have a saying in China, that when a Chinese walks along the sidewalk of his own city of Shanghai, he is pushed into the middle of the road by the American, who only laughs at him, by the Englishman, who swears at him, and by the German, who kicks him, but—he is pushed into the middle of the road. This could not happen in Japan, as the Japanese courts punish severely any one who dares to lay his hand in violence upon a Japanese, however lowly may be his station or however strong may be the provocation. While we were in Yokohama, an officer of an American ship had his hand severely hurt through the carelessness of a Japanese longshoreman. In his pain and first flush of anger he knocked the Japanese down, and for his impatience was compelled to remain six months in jail. His captain and his Consul tried their best to help him, but it was in vain, and he saw his ship sail away without him.
I came very near sharing his fate while in Hakodate. The fisherman came to our doors each morning with his enormous baskets of fish swung over his shoulders. The maid, her mother, and myself, spent many interesting moments in turning over the scaly contents of his baskets in order to make our choice amongst the varied assortment he had for sale. I paid him by the week, and one morning was called to the kitchen by an indignant maid, who said the fisherman had greatly overcharged me. The amount was far too small, it seemed to me, to cause such keen excitement, and I intended to dismiss the man, saying I would pay him, but employ him no more. I went over to a bucket of water, and taking up the long-handled dipper to take a drink, and not noticing that it was broken, I gave it a little shake toward the fisherman, and said, “Oh, go away, and don’t make so much noise.” The cup part of the dipper flew off and hit the indignant fisherman in the eye, whereupon he immediately shouldered his baskets and started for the magistrate. Needless to say, I was frightened, and I immediately donned my bonnet and started for the Consulate. The Consul heard my story and sadly shook his head: “If you really hit that coolie and he has you arrested, I can do nothing. It will only make matters worse to have me to interfere, so the best thing for you to do is to go with me and find that fisherman; offer him half of your estate, but don’t get mixed up with the law in Japan.” For two hours we haunted side-streets, where at last we found our man, and, after a small money payment and a promise to take fish from him for the rest of the season, and practically binding myself to listen to his insolence as long as I was in Hakodate, he grudgingly assented to withdraw his charge.