The damp heat of Yokohama is very trying. It is well that there are no glasses in the windows; in the frames and above half of the door are blinds, which let in the soft tropical air and produce an agreeable draught.
We are besieged by tiresomely polite Japanese and Chinese furnishers, tailors, shoe-makers and other purveyors with names almost impossible to pronounce for European tongues. They all bowed a great deal, and thrust their advertisements in our hands. I could not resist the temptation of purchasing a gorgeously embroidered pink satin thing with long, wide sleeves, which can serve as a wonderful tea-dress. I did not recognise myself when I passed before the mirror arrayed in that costume.
We went down to dinner at table-d’hôte and entered a large hall, full of smartly-dressed ladies in low gowns and gentlemen in evening dress. We were served by Japanese boys dressed in kimonos, who spoke very good English. The head-butler is a Chinaman who had his pig-tail cut off. He told us that he could never put his foot in China again, because he would be beheaded for having changed his national head-gear. Human life seems to be regarded rather lightly in the Celestial Empire!
After dinner we went out on the verandah for a breath of fresh air. The verandah, covered with straw mats and furnished with bamboo chairs, was full of loungers, Englishmen mostly, reclining upon their seats with their feet rather higher than their heads, their legs stretched wide apart and resting upon the arms of their rocking-chairs, in order to feel cooler.
28th July.—I woke up in the middle of the night with a suppressed scream and jumped up in my bed. I had been dreaming I was at sea, and the engines of the Peru had come to a sudden stand-still. “Why are the engines not working?” I asked Sergy in an alarmed tone. After he had comforted me and I had pinched myself to be sure I was not dreaming, I fell fast asleep again.
It was an agreeable surprise to wake up and find land all around me. To-day is the birthday of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. At daybreak I heard the beat of the drum from an English cruiser lying on the Quay, a warship bound to Siam where a mutiny has recently broken out. Two American cruisers deafened us with artillery discharges. Their admiral, who has put up at our hotel, has sent a military band to play during tiffin. In the afternoon Sergy went to visit a military Japanese school where the officers are taught to inculcate, by suggestion, bravery to their soldiers, and how to vanquish, at the same time, their enemies. I sat by the window awaiting my husband’s return, and looked through the chinks of a blind, whence I could see without being seen. Life over here is all new and strange to me. Everything seems elfish—men, trees, houses. Flat-faced aborigines patter along noisily upon wooden clogs, dressed in the garments of old Japan. They seem all alike; when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen all. The women are clad in gaily flowered kimonos, girded by a wide sash tied into a gigantic bow, their hair beautifully dressed with mock-flowers and combs and pins, their feet placed on small planes with two little pieces of white wood, in front and behind, just like small stilts. The married women are recognised by their shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth with oxide of iron. They indulge in this fearful custom in the view of alienating all masculine admiration, and remaining faithful to their husbands. But do their husbands remain faithful to their wives, their virtue being so unattractive? That is the question! The Japanese girls grow fast under the Southern sun, and many of them, at the age when little girls in Europe play at dolls, are married materfamilias. I see philosophical-looking babies, with a button of hair at the top of their head, strapped on their mother’s back by a scarf, their bald heads falling backwards as though they would drop off. I am unable to recall any single occasion on which I saw a Japanese baby smile. Little children straddle astride on the hip of bigger children, who run after the passers-by with unencumbered hand outstretched. Artisans and tradesmen in blue cotton tunics, with the description of their trades printed in white on their backs, were setting their wares on the pavement, where they thought themselves most sure of attention. Vendors of green cocoa-nuts, slices of melon and sweetmeats, and victual merchants expose for sale in the streets along the walls, on planks, grasshoppers fried in oil and other nasty things. Just in front of our windows is the stand of the rikshas. I see a porter, his face hidden under an immense straw hat, advance towards the riksha-men, stooping under the burden of two cases, at the bottom of which very hot cinders keep the dishes hot. The portions, put into small saucers, are microscopic. The riksha-men, sitting on their heels on the ground, thrust their food into their mouth by the aid of two little sticks.
After lunch we got into rikshas and went for a ride through the streets of Yokohama. The first sensation of having a human being for a horse is not agreeable, but one soon gets accustomed to it. There was a place for one person only in each riksha. Our riksha-men moved briskly in files towards the native quarters of the town, through narrow and dark streets. On each hand was a row of toy-houses mostly unpainted, with the first storeys all open to the street, each standing in a little square of a toy-like garden. We hurried on between two long lines of painted paper lanterns, a festoon of blazing rubies in the intense darkness that surrounds them, suspended before low-thatched shops, constructed chiefly of bamboo, the front wall all doorway with hanging draperies, blue and white, covered with Japanese lettering, before which stood platforms heaped high with tropical fruit. The air was full of that sweet and subtle odour which one has long learned to associate with things imported from Japan. My runner trotted as fast as a horse; I was rather frightened at first and tried in fantastical language to moderate his ardour. Our riksha-men stopped before a fountain surrounded by dwarf-trees, and after having quenched their thirst, my man-horse began to run with such a frenzy that I began to cry out for help, fearing to be upset. After a quarter of an hour of such mad driving, we arrived at the door of a native theatre lit up with pink and yellow lamps. Our drivers set the shafts of their vehicles on the ground and mopped their faces with a blue towel; their clothing was drenched with perspiration. We entered a long narrow corridor, and came into a hall lighted by a few oil lamps. The audience consisted of whole families: grand-parents, parents and children of all ages, sitting on the floor on mats. All had their dinners with them, laid on little trays. Each place is separated by a bamboo stick that must be stepped over. A boy rang the bell which was to announce the signal for the beginning of the performance. The musicians began to play upon strange instruments, which made uncanny noises of a sort to make one’s flesh creep. We seated ourselves on the floor of our so-called box. The whole representation consisted of a troupe of acrobats who went energetically through their performance and rolled about the stage upon big india-rubber balls.
In a theatre on the opposite side of the street, a parody was played on the ancient Japanese sovereigns. The theatre had no walls; it was simply supported by columns, and all around was a large crowd struggling to see what took place without paying for the sight. The walls were covered with pictures representing different war scenes between Japs and Chinamen, in which the Chinese were running away and the Japs triumphed all along the line. In Japan the plays have usually fourteen, fifteen acts, and last sometimes two days. The men assume all the female parts.
We ended our nocturnal rambles in rather a fickle manner. We were trotted briskly up to a tea-house, where we were received with many bows by pretty musumés (waiting-girls). After having removed our shoes at the entrance hall, we were conducted up a steep and creaking staircase to the room where the “geishas” dance, and where mats and carpets were the only furniture. We seated ourselves with our feet tucked under us on cushions that the musumés had set in a half circle on the mats, and waited patiently for the appearance of the geishas—dancing girls—who were occupied elsewhere just then. Presently a musumé slipped in, bearing a tray with all sorts of eatables, and set it before us. There were lobsters and raw-fish, and evil-looking vegetables, and nasty sweetmeats, and green tea in microscopic cups, and unspeakable horror, very strong and salt. The little musumés waited upon us silently and swiftly. The tea that one of them handed me made me feel sick, and after one disgusting mouthful, when I felt myself unobserved, I poured the contents of my cup outside the window on the neighbouring roof. I had cramps, being obliged to sit so long cross-legged, like the rest of the company, expecting the geishas. It was getting late, and having no more patience to wait for them we returned to our hotel.