July 2nd.—We are at Yokohama, and are a-taut; for to-day some members of the Japanese imperial family are to visit us. At noon they arrived amidst salvoes of artillery from the shore and from the Japanese men-of-war. The party consisted of prince Arisugawa's father and sister, her maids of honor, and two admirals. The princess was of course the "lion"—excuse the gender—of the party. But how lost, how utterly bewildered, she looked in reaching our quarter-deck! like little Alice in wonderland. I hear it is the first time she has ever been afloat. Her style of dress is different to anything we have yet seen in this country. A red silk skirt clothed her lower limbs, whilst a transparent gauzy purple tunic, figured with the imperial emblem, fell from her shoulders to the ground. But her hair was what drew most of our attention, for it was the most remarkable piece of head architecture possible. How shall I describe it? Imagine a frying-pan inverted, its inner rim resting on the crown of the head, and the handle depending down the back, and you will have a correct, though a homely idea, of the fashion of her hair. Each individual hair seemed as if picked out from it fellows, stiffened by some process until it appeared like a wire bent into shape; gathered in and tied a little below the nape of the neck, and from thence downward traced into a queue. Hers was the ideal type of Japanese feature, so rarely seen amongst the common people, and considered so unlovely by Europeans. A long face, narrow straight nose, almond eyes, very obliquely set in the head, and a mouth so tiny, so thin the upper lip, that it looks more like a scarlet button than any thing designed for kissing.
She was childishly pleased at everything she saw whilst accompanying the admiral around the decks, twitching at his arm incessantly that she might indulge her curiosity as to hatchways, stoke-hole gratings, and so on; clapping her hands continually in the exuberance of her joy.
The "Modeste" accompanied us in our trip to the north on this occasion.
A few days out we called in at Kamaishi, in the neighbourhood of which are the imperial copper mines and smelting works. The people here lack the rosiness and freshness of face of the Japanese, and have a dowdy, sickly look, due, I suppose, to the unhealthy exhalations from the copper.
Instead of calling in at Hakodadi we continued on along the eastern coast of Yezo until we reached Endermo harbour, sentinelled at its entrance by a grim vomiting volcano which, in addition to its charred and fire-scored crater, has innumerable other little outlets in its sides, giving out jets of steam and sulphurous smoke until the very air is loaded with the oppressive vapour.
At the anchorage we saw the "Pegasus."
Here we are then! in the country of Miss Bird's Aïnos, a people whom she describes as the most gentle and docile in the world. We had ample opportunity of making their acquaintance, for during our stay the decks were daily thronged with them. In these men the advocates of Darwinism might well behold the missing link. From head to heel they are covered with thick shaggy unkempt masses of hair; that on their heads and faces hanging down in wild elfish locks. They wear but scant raiment, a sort of over-all, which does not pretend to the use of even the most primitive covering. It is of the men I speak. Strangely enough, though, they all have their ears pierced, metal ornaments are not worn by any, but, instead, they have a thin strip of scarlet cloth, just simply placed through the hole. The women are strange looking creatures. Their garments are modest enough, far more so even than those of their southern sisters with whom, by the way, they have nothing in common, save their sex. Can it be that this is the primitive Japanese race—that the more enlightened people of Niphon trace their origin to such a degraded source? I should be inclined to say no, if I did not remember that history furnishes us with so many parallel cases of similar degraded origin—our own for example.
Well built, but oh! so ugly these women; and, as if nature had not done enough for them in this particular, they render their faces still more repulsive looking by tattooing the lips on the outside to the depth of an inch all around, elongating the mark at the corners. This, of course, does not tend to lessen the apparent size of an aperture, already suggestive of a main hatchway. This unhandsome, open, flat countenance, is also further decorated with bands of blue on the forehead. The females wear large rings of iron—some few of silver—in their ears.
Now, though of course I don't pretend to the faithfulness of portraiture, nor to the accuracy of observation of the travelled lady I have before quoted, yet I must add that my estimate of this people, in my own small way, is antagonistic to hers. To me they are only a very little removed from savages. Their women seem to be in abject slavery to the men, and are treated by them in the most shameful manner. An instance, which came under my own observation, will perhaps shew this. Whilst on shore fishing, I had wandered away from the main party to where I saw a native engaged at work on an upturned canoe. Up the beach was his hut—I have seen many a stye a king to it—and in the doorway his—wife must I call her? Curious I suppose like all her sex she came down the strand to get a look at the white-skinned, light-haired stranger, and was rewarded for temerity in a most summary manner. The man, at first, seemed to expostulate with her, and so far as I could judge, ordered her back to her domicile; but as the lady did not seem prompt to obey the mandate, he further emphasised his meaning and accelerated her movements by flinging a billet of wood at her with all the irresponsible and unrestrained force of a savage nature. In the face of this can I agree with Miss Bird? My first feeling was one of indignation and an angry twitching of my ten digits to form themselves into bunches of fives, but on second thoughts, seeing that the poor woman took the chastisement as a matter of course, and that she was seemingly used to such like gentle reminders, my indignation cooled down to matter of fact surprise.
This place is the exile home of one of the banished daïmios I spoke of in a former chapter.