Kominato to Katsuura was a short walk, but a very wet one, and we became more Japanese than ever. I discarded boots and walked with my skirts up to my knees, bare legs and Japanese tabi, as did J—— and C——. We bought the great round bamboo hats the coolies wear, and were altogether very picturesque. I came to no harm, but the others were not so well wrapped up in woollen under-things, and C—— in particular suffered. It was funny, when she broke down, to see her gobble up three hard-boiled eggs faster than M—— could peel them for her! It became one of the jokes of the party. My saucepan (the little one I have carried in all my walking and many other tours, and that I bought in beloved München and made jam in) has also become proverbial. I told every one to bring one, but they all laughed the advice to scorn, and now grudgingly acknowledge the service mine does, though it runs itself off its legs to provide them with cocoa, and to turn hard uneatable meat into soup.
The hotels we have stopped at have been fairly good, but Japanese cooking does not always coincide with our tastes.
At Katsuura we turned in, wet to the skin, and very hungry, to the inn recommended to us, but found it rather more of a pot-house than any we had been in, so M—— and I went out in the torrents and sought another and found it—one with three stories (the first I have seen outside the city), the top one consisting of two lovely rooms, with verandah, which we took, and the beauty of the wooden trellis-work in the soji, the reverential politeness of the men and maids, and the luxury of silk to lie on and to cover us, was well worth the 5s. a day it cost! Hotels in Boshu are very cheap, and for the first time I have been astonished by the smallness of our bills—of course it is out of the way of Tokio and Yokohama people (seven hours in a small steamer, with sudden and frequent storms, keeps off a crowd), and there are no mines or special industries to bring commercial people. It seems to be a little scrap of Japan of thirty years ago, where the people were all simple-minded and polite, and content with little money. The beauty is not superlative, but is really very charming, and unspoiled, and with the lovely shore and blue sea, the place is well worth the visit.
On Sunday (5th) it was simply pelting with rain, and the roads were unspeakably awful with the heavy recent rains, so that we were quite gloomy. The third miserable day in succession, and we had such brilliant weather in Tokio for weeks! Ōhara is about 10 miles off, and we had reckoned to walk in there in time to catch the 3 train to Tokio, but it was impossible, and we chartered a basha (a kind of carriage), reputed to hold eight, but we four found it a tight fit. I went with the others in it, instead of walking, though I felt like a shorn Samson, because I wanted to see them off at Ōhara, and really walking was an impossibility. After seeing them to the train, I was going on farther by myself. They had to return, because they teach in a school, and the holidays were to be over on Monday—but I am free a little longer.
Well, that basha, it was quite worth going into! No windows, but sides of beaten brass that would let down at our pleasure. The only drawback to brass as a window is that it necessitates patience. Unless we opened the windows we couldn’t see out, if we shut them they crashed and clattered like drums and cymbals. If we shut them we were stuffy, and if we opened them we were frozen and drowned by driving rain. We managed with forbearance and care to fit our knees into the space between the seats, but thought with wonder how a single other knee could get in, and the space was legally that for four more! The road was as indescribably rutty and muddy as a country road can be in any country of the world, and it had further a dash of a Swiss mountain road as it came along some of the cliffs by the sea. We were frightfully cold, and stopped at a tea-house to fill “Tommy,” the hot-water bottle, who had hitherto been a useless burden to the party, but was at a premium to-day. At this tea-house we also bought three bright red lobsters for 1¼d. each, and they helped to amuse us. Not long after we found that the wheel was only held together by its rim, and it had to be knocked into shape every few minutes; fortunately it was the off-side one from the cliff. When I said farewell at the train we were loath to part—but as I tucked up my skirts, slung on my knapsack and put on my mountaineering cloak, I was consoled by the thought I was really off walking and alone, and once more had the open road before me and my fancy as my guide.
As the roads were so terrible, and it was late and wet, I decided to stop off for the night near by—and went about a mile and a half to the coast and found a perfectly ideal inn. It was in a tiny bay, all by itself, or rather on the cliff above a tiny bay, on the peninsular point of which was a miniature temple. No human foot-print but mine was on the sand of the shore, and none but the maids of the house within call. I took a small room upstairs, facing the sea, where the breakers dashed on to the cliffs, and found that though inside the house, on one side it was open, because a big piece of cliff stuck right into the building. This gave a charming view of moss-grown rocks, and a hollow stone with a lake in it, all lying between me and the next-door room.
The bath-room was downstairs, and to reach it one went along a long corridor hewn out of solid rock. The bath-room itself was also built in the solid rock, and was a great vault-like place. How J—— and M—— would have revelled in it!
The food was such that my saucepan worked wonders with it, and converted stony chicken, hard rice, and half-cooked green pickle into a very tasty stew. The beds were excellent, though not of silk, and I slept splendidly. Last night we had talked till one o’clock, so to-night I turned in at 8.30 and slept till 8.15. Alternations of solitude and company are refreshing, and though I enjoyed those girls immensely, and laughed as I haven’t done since I left England, it is delicious to be alone with the grey sea in a hotel half hewn out of solid rock.
April 6. After pouring all night the clouds broke about 9 o’clock, and I set forth in sight of gleams of blue between the grey; the hotel people were all very polite, though all they got out of me was 2s. 8d. It is a hotel I shall note and hope to return to, I wish I could bring some of my friends there from home. In the next little bay, where the cliffs are also very steep right down to the sea, so that there is no beach at high tide, the fishermen beach their boats on a series of piles and trestles, and very picturesque and quaint they look.