Captain F and Mr. B, the American consul, have come to the hotel to see me off. A showery night has made the roads a trifle muddy. Through the long, neat-looking streets of Nagasaki, into a winding road, past crowded hill-side cemeteries, adorned with queer stunted trees and quaint designs in flowers, I ride, followed by wondering eyes and a running fire of curious comments from the Japs.
Nagasaki lies at the shoreward base of a range of hills, over a pass called the Himi-toge, which my road climbs immediately upon leaving the city. A good road is maintained over the pass, and an office established there to collect toll from travellers and people bringing produce into Nagasaki. The aged and polite toll-collector smiles and bows at me as I trundle innocently past his sentry-box-like office up the steep incline, hoping that I may take the hint and spare him the necessity of telling me the nature of his duty. My inexperience of Japanese tolls and roads, however, renders his politeness inoperative, and, after allowing me to get past, duty compels him to issue forth and explain. A wooden ticket containing Japanese characters is given me in exchange for a few tiny coins. This I fancy to be a passport for another toll-place higher up. Subsequently, however, I learn it to be a return ticket, the old toll-keeper very naturally thinking I would return, by and by, to Nagasaki.
Ponies and buffaloes, laden with baskets of rice, fodder, firewood, and various agricultural products, are encountered on the pass, in charge of Japanese rustics in broad bamboo-hats, red blankets, bare legs, and straw sandals, who lead their charges by long halter-ropes. Both horses and buffaloes are shod with shoes of the same unsubstantial material as the men. When the Japanese traveller sets out on a journey, he provides himself with a new pair of straw sandals; these last him for a tramp of from ten to twenty miles, according to the nature of the road. When worn out, his foot-gear may be readily renewed at any village for a mere song. The same may be said of his horse or buffalo, although several extra shoes are generally carried along in case of need.
The summit of the pass is distinguished by a very deep cutting through the ridge rock of the mountain, and a series of successive sharp turns back and forth along narrow-terraced gardens and fields bring the road down into the valley of a clear little stream, called the Himi-gawa. Smooth, hard roads follow along this purling rivulet, now and then crossing it on a stone or wooden bridge. A small estuary, reaching inland like a big bite out of a cake, is passed, and the pretty little village of Yagami reached for dinner. The eating-house, like nearly all Japanese eating-places, is neat and cleanly, the brown wood-work being fairly polished bright from floor to ceiling.
Sitting down on the edge of the raised floor, I am approached by the landlady, who kneels down and bows her forehead to the floor. Her politeness is very charming, and her smile would no doubt be more or less winsome were it not for the hideous blackening of the teeth. Blackened teeth is the distinguishing mark between maid and matron in the flowery kingdom of the Mikados. The teeth are stained black at marriage, and henceforth a smile that heretofore displayed rows of small white ivories, and perchance was fairly bewitching, becomes positively repulsive to the Western mind.
Fish and rice (sakana and meshi) are the most readily obtainable things to eat at a Japanese hotel, and often form the only bill of fare. Sake, or rice-beer, is usually included in the Jap's own meal, but the average European traveller at first prefers limiting his beverage to tea. The sake is served up in big-necked bottles of cheap porcelain holding about a pint. The bottle is set for a few minutes in boiling water to warm the sake, the Japs preferring to drink it warm. Sake is more like spirits than beer, an honest alcoholic production from rice that soon recommends itself to the European palate, though rather offensive at first.
Every tea-house along the road is made doubly attractive by prettily dressed attendants-smiling girls who come out and invite passing travellers to rest and buy tea and refreshments. Their solicitations are chiefly winsome smiles and polite bows and the cheerful greeting "O-ai-o" (the Japanese "how do you do"). A tiny teapot, no larger than those the little girls at home play at "keeping house" with, and shell-like cup to match, is brought on a lacquered tray and placed before one, with charming grace, if a halt is made at one of these tea-houses. Persimmons, sweets, cakes, and various tid-bits are temptingly arrayed on the sloping stand in front. The most trifling purchase is rewarded with an exhibition of good-nature and politeness worth many times the money.
About sunset I roll into the smooth, clean streets of Omura, a good-sized town, and seek the accommodation of a charming yadoya (inn) pointed out by a youth in semi-European clothes, who seems bubbling over with pleasure at the opportunity of rendering me this slight assistance. A room is assigned me upstairs, a mat spread for me to recline on, by a polite damsel, who touches her forehead to the floor both when she makes her appearance and her exit. Having got me comfortably settled down with the customary service of tea, sweets, little boxed brazier of live charcoal, spittoon, etc., the proprietor, his wife, and daughter, all come up and prostrate themselves after the most approved fashion.
After all the salaaming and deferentiality experienced in other Eastern countries, one still cannot help being impressed with the spectacle of several grotesque Japs bowing before one's seated figure like Hindoos prostrating themselves before some idol With any other people than the Japs this lowly attitude would seem offensively servile; but these inimitable people leave not the slightest room for thinking their actions obsequious. The Japs are a wonderful race; they seem to be the happiest people going, always smiling and good-natured, always polite and gentle, always bowing and scraping.
After a bountiful supper of several fishy preparations and rice, the landlord bobs his head to the floor, sucks his breath through the teeth after the peculiar manner of the Japs when desirous of being excessively polite, and extends his hands for my passport. This the yadoya proprietor is required to take and have examined at the police station, provided no policeman calls for it at the house.