August 2.—I feel still ill. I expect it was the relative cold and the constant wet, for all the time the clouds were driving through us. So I walked down the pass and went back to Tokio—a long hot journey. Last summer I described all the varieties of undress one can study in the railway carriage, and as the Kobe express cars are as big as big Pullmans and crowded, you can imagine I did not lack entertainment.
August 3.—I went up to the University and the Bank in the morning, and in the afternoon Professor B—— came to tea. He is as talkative as ever, but is now thoroughly disgusted with the Japanese. Their “futility,” their “absurd waste of time,” their “indirectness” irritate him, as they must irritate any one; and he sees no deeper to the things one loves, and which in some degree compensate. He proclaims, infuriated, that all the mysticism that was ever in Japan was brought there by Lafcadio Hearn himself.
August 4.—I set off with my bicycle, carrying all my luggage, for a fossil-insect hunt in Shiobara. The train takes five hours, according to the time-table, to go to the nearest station, and after that I had about 16 miles to ride to the haunt of the fossil insects. Fossil insects are shy and scarce, and I am the first to stalk them here, so I came with a double lot of patience; and I believe I remarked half a year ago, I have been so battered and worn in this country, where my impetuous spirit tugs at Oriental passivity in vain, that I have now normally the patience of two Jobs.
The train journey was remarkable only for the small quantity of clothing the passengers in the cushioned second class (pauper as I am, I only once travelled third) considered essential. Then the bicycle began, and as I spun past the jolting kurumas the other travellers engaged, my heart rejoiced, for not only was I safe from their horrors, but I should reach the hotel first and get the pick of what rooms there might be; for it is a hot-spring place, and much frequented in August.
The first half of the journey was nearly flat, and I have described it before, when I came to this place hunting plants; and then the hills began, but the road was splendidly graded, and I rode up all but one with great ease. The road followed the winding valley, and sometimes seemed to hang over the roaring flood of the river beneath, so precipitous was the slope. At each curve of the road a broiling sun shone on me, and at each convex bend there was a waterfall, which seemed to emanate the coolness of hidden ice, and as the road curved and wound in and out like a Chinese dragon’s tail, I did not lack sensations. The beauty of the solitude of a million trees whispering together, of the silvery blue water and the grey rocks, shone with a clearness and brilliance that is so rare in England, and that is one of the chief charms of this country.
When I arrived and settled into my rooms, I had a bath. It was a big hotel, built for the hot springs which ran directly into the baths, and I was ushered into a bath-room where a man and woman were disporting themselves after the manner of Adam and Eve before the Fall. I felt like the serpent; but refused, with more tact than he showed, to form a third. This surprised the bath-attendant, who, however, allowed me to wait, and then stood outside the door all the time I was bathing to keep others out, and only peeped through the broken glass in the door now and then just to see whether I was ready to come out. After the bath he escorted me across the road (I had to sleep in the annexe), holding the umbrella over me, as I trotted along in a kimono and a pair of stilt-like gheta. In the luxury of idleness after supper I watched a woman in the house opposite. She was clad in a brilliant blue kimono, just the right old china blue—open at the throat, and her face and neck were the colour of warm sun-tanned unstained wood. “Olive,” I suppose people call the complexion, but it was warmer, and more beautiful than that, while her hair was smooth and black as polished ebony, arranged with a series of rich curves in it. The old abused word “chaste” expressed her more exactly than any other I know. The tawdry fluffiness of most of our women’s dress and hair seemed like flannelette beside rich satin as compared with her. Yet a curl may bewitch one and entangle one’s soul, I know—a curl, but not the frippery and broken lines that are so rife in Europe. I wonder till I verge on lunacy how it is that the West has not yet discovered the glory that lies in smooth curves and gleaming surfaces, and in lines of cloth, unbroken by frilling and tucking and ruching and pleating.
August 5.—I hunted fossil insects morning and afternoon, and got a haul, better than I might have expected, if not so good as I had hoped. I left the bicycle at a primitive little saw-mill, turned by the river one has to cross to get the fossil quarry. The people are all greatly interested in it, never having seen a woman’s bicycle before. The hotel is about a couple of miles from the fossil place, so I go on it as far as I can get, for it is hot to walk, and stones are heavy to carry.
August 6.—Another quiet day. I took a walk over the stream up a branch valley. How gloriously limpid and clear the water is. The solitude is complete, and yet there are footpaths where one can wander without battling with sasa. It is a particularly charming place.
August 7.—I got very wet while getting fossils, indeed, it was like fishing rather than anything else. After I got back there was a terrible storm, really a small typhoon; one realised then why the houses are built with such greatly projecting roofs. The rain washed over them in a torrent, a white cascade, and streamed off the sides and swirled up into the air like a great waterfall. I have never seen anything like it; the whole building was like a giant fountain of dashing white water, and the wind blew till I feared for our roof.