October 10.—While still in bed, visitors began again this morning, and I had to shout to prevent an official visitor from coming in while I was taking off my night-gown. On starting two of them came with me, and their number more than doubled before the day was out. More terrible hours of kuruma riding—but the little village of Jito was worth a visit. Early in the morning heavy downy mists hung round the hills, and swirled up from the trees as the sun caught them. All the thousands of cobwebs were like fairy banners on the trees, and the rocky sides of the mountains rose from the rivers to be lost in the alluring distances. It was a sight well worth the shivering and the jolting, and directly the sun shone on one it gave a comforting heat. The nights are extremely cold, almost wintry, but the days are as hot as midsummer, hence the thick mists.
We entered the mine, which, unfortunately, though Triassic, is of no interest to me. A kind of dinner was given at the hotel at 2 o’clock, and I saw many rather crude native customs.
The man who had led me in the mine, whom I took to be a coolie, and to whom I gave sixpence, turned up at dinner. In the mine his entire costume had consisted of a striped flannelette shirt, very short, and a stand-up white collar!! Literally no more, and that was donned of course in my honour. Trousers with a red stripe down each leg, and socks, were added for the dinner.
Everything in this country seems to be the reverse of what it is with us, and here the dinner starts with much drinking of saké and very frequent exchange of the small cups; then no more is drunk and the food begins and finishes the feast.
After the coal mine business was finished, I was taken to a big school where there were festive sports going on, very similar in the main to our school sports, and obviously in imitation of them. Many of the boys and girls (the schools are mixed) were pretty and bright, though the Japanese child has not yet appealed to me as it does to those who gush over it.
October 11.—Things began at 6 this morning, when all the world was shivering in its thick white mantle of mist. After riding for a couple of hours the sun drove it all away, and by 10 o’clock I was streaming with perspiration from every pore as I went up the hills toward the little coal mine I had come out to see.
I thought I had fully impressed on the Japanese man who acted as local guide that I was desperately pressed for time and must return to the railroad town to-night—but after a couple of hours I found myself inside the big “middle school,” bowing to an English-speaking head, who soon asked me to give a lecture! Of course I refused, and said I was going at once to the coal mine, and would then return to Tatai, but he accompanied me to the mine, leaving his rightful duties with not the smallest compunction, and on the way requested me to stop and have my photograph taken. The Japanese are perfectly infuriating to one with a definite object and precious time. I cannot here retail the multitudinous instances of senseless delay I have had to suffer from, nor the irrelevant things I have had to examine. If I were to go at their rate I should be still looking at coal mines in Japan ten years hence. But I must not forget that I am seeing the country if I am not getting directly to my goal, and that I am in myself a certain amount of entertainment for them, a kind of creature they have not heard of before.
After a rather fruitless couple of hours in the mine (results locally interesting, as the Imperial Survey has mapped the district as solid granite) I had six hours in a kuruma returning to Tatai. The kuruma was just as uncomfortable as country ones always are, and as I was packed in with my fossils so that I could not change my position, and the roads were in places very bad, I was hardly in the mood at the end of the journey to be put into a train, merely to wait stock-still at the first local stopping-place for three-quarters of an hour. I am becoming far more patient than Job ever was, but at times my stock of patience runs out.
Apart from the mere weariness of one’s bones, the kuruma ride was very delightful. Every time I see the little groves of feathery bamboo in their grace and sweetness I rejoice anew. The valleys along which the road wound were very steep, and the great granite hills majestic and beautiful. The plants, too, are often charming, and one frequently sees a single trail of ampelopsis flung across the grey boulders. One great wall of granite was covered with blood-red ampelopsis and capped with the native pine, which is so rich in curious curves, and so green against the sapphire sky.
Although the country is quite wild and unspoiled, all along the flatter part of the valleys were very many houses—clusters of houses or hamlets lying at intervals of about one-eighth of a mile. It seems curious how the little rice fields, which are tucked into every available damp corner, can support so many people. Straw plaiting is also a source of income, and in almost every house some one was twisting the short lengths of gleaming white straw into braids.