Samurai Trails: A Chronicle of Wanderings on the Japanese High Road

by Lucian Swift Kirtland

“Well,” said O-Owre-san as we walked away, “you’ve wondered what it would be like to be an amateur beach comber. Now is your admirable chance.”

O-Owre-san seemed to forget that he was in no better position than was I in regard to funds.

The day before we had had tea with the Premier of Japan. Now we faced forty-eight hours of starvation. Our horoscopes evidently had been cast that we were to be beach combers, the admirable chance of which O-Owre-san had suggested.

We did not deceive ourselves that our few hours of homelessness made us professionals, nevertheless we were given a picture impression of Yokohama that could only have been bought by hunger and sleeplessness. We saw the going to bed of the city, and we saw its getting up. We saw Theatre Street gay with lanterns and filled with merrymakers. Hours later we saw the lanterns go out and the waiters and waitresses come forth to crowd into the public baths. We walked through the glitter of the street which winds between the houses of the wall-imprisoned Yoshiwara district. There is but one entrance to this district—a long stone bridge. We saw that bridge again, at the hour of sunrise. It was then crowded with beggars and loathsome hangers-on, waiting to importune the exodus. Vice by grey daylight is horrible, and those brilliant palaces of the night before bulked in a row of dull and sinister ugliness in the half daylight. Back and forth we explored the streets of the city. We passed a foreign sailors’ low dive, and a toothless old woman and a leering youth grabbed at our arms and invited us in. They spoke phrases of English. There was wild laughter and music on the upper floor.

Sometimes the hours went quickly, sometimes they lingered interminably with no seeming relation between their speeding and the interest of the moment. Sometimes we were hungry and sometimes we forgot our hunger. We found a small park near the foreign settlement with benches admirable for sleeping if it had not been for the diligence of the sand fleas and the gnats. From the park we walked down along the bund and on the promenade facing the harbour we found two seats. A Japanese sailor was sitting on one.

We wished him good-evening and shared with him our cigarettes. After a time we wandered away to walk again through the streets of the bright lanterns. We had been refusing ’ricksha men for so many hours that the guild at last seemed to remember us as non-possibilities, that is, all except one man who persisted in turning up at every corner. He spoke some English and had a new suggestion for his every proposal. If ever a coolie looked theatrically villainous, it was that coolie; and furthermore, he was half-drunk from cheap sake. Eventually he discovered a companion and the two of them settled down at our heels. Whenever we hesitated they threw their ’ricksha shafts across our path. They thought that we were officers from some ship and they were counting upon our having to return before the four-o’clock watch. I do not know that officers ever do have to return at that hour, but the coolies were sure that we had such necessity. When four o’clock came they were mystified and angry. Until then they had rather amused us. We now told them to be off and we walked away into the quiet streets. They still persisted in their following. We tried indifference and we tried invective. I could see that the police at the corners were watching the procession. We might have appealed to them, but one seldom appeals to the police in a foreign land, especially in Japan, if there is any question of time to be considered. We had to take the boat the next morning. We had no desire to be ordered to report the next day at a police station; and for the matter of that, I should hardly have felt like criticizing any officer for deciding to lock us all up together. The coolies might have appealed that we had hired them and had not paid them. Anyhow, why should two foreigners be wandering around in questionable districts at such an hour of the night? If there had to be a settlement with our pair of villains, it was just as well to have it beyond the eye of the law.

Our next move was melodramatic. We drew a line across the road and when our parasites caught up we told them that they crossed that line at their peril. Just what we should have done if they had crossed the line I have no idea. We walked along pleased with the result of our ultimatum until, ten or fifteen minutes later, I happened to turn around and again saw the two men, this time without their ’rickshas.

We were now headed toward the sea front by way of the foreign sections. The buildings were absolutely dark but there was an occasional street light. If there were any watchmen they were within the walls. We had walked through the narrow streets of that district so often that we remembered the turns. We felt sure that the men could not catch up with us except from behind. We were well out on the bund before they came out of the alley that we had left. They were both carrying sticks, which looked like ’ricksha shafts, and the second man had a knife.

We walked along toward the benches where we had been sitting earlier in the night. Steamer lights were twinkling on the harbour and O-Owre-san pointed out our ship waiting to dock at sunrise. Years before I had been attacked in the streets of San Francisco, but that assault had been so sudden that there was no anticipatory excitement. Our Yokohama anticipatory reflection was the amusing idea that if the knaves should attain the triumph of searching our pockets they would have a most disheartening anti-climax after all their evening’s trouble.

Just as we reached the benches they came for us. We stepped around the first bench to break the charge. Outstretched on the bench was our Japanese sailor whom we had helped out with cigarettes. He may have been asleep, but when he jumped to his feet he was very wide awake. Without waiting for particulars he whipped out a clasp knife. We had been friends and this was a chance to even up his obligation to us. The two coolies stopped as if they had run against an invisible wire. We stood facing each other, and then, as stealthily as a great cat, the sailor began moving forward. He walked very slowly but he seemed to thirst to use his knife. Even with three to two, I felt that the coolies, half-drunken, would have tried to hold their ground if it had not been for the sailor’s uncanny deliberation. They waited for him to come no nearer. They fled. We could hear them running long after the darkness closed them in.