JAPANESE FRAGMENTS.
BY CAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN, R.N.
CHAPTER VI.
We have sat long enough indoors, making notes of Japan, historically, geographically, and politically speaking; we will now go into her streets and highways and study these people, as their native artist appears to do, by sketching from nature. I have not, it is true, seen in the flesh all the varied phases of Japanese life that are pourtrayed in the plates before me; but they agree so admirably with the notices of men like Saris, Cocks, Golowin, and Kœmpfer, that I may be forgiven for trying to reproduce the picture of every-day life by the way-sides of Japan. Those way-sides will, no doubt, be again one day open to the English traveller, they were once traversed by Christian priests, as well as by merchants and sailors, and are still visited, at periodical intervals, by the tribute-bearers from the long-oppressed Dutch factory of Nangasaki. In addition to what these various authorities relate, I shall avail myself of what passed under the observation of more recent visitors to Yedo, Simoda, and Nangasaki, so as to endeavour to reproduce photographs of the Japan to-day.
The spring has dawned on Nipon; the April sun has left the winter snows clinging to the crests of the mountain ranges around the matchless Fusi-hama, who, queen-like, rises clothed in glittering white and crowned with golden clouds from amidst a throng of jagged peaks and suspiciously picturesque craters. Beautiful valleys lie deeply embossed amongst the many spurs which shoot out from this the mountain-heart of Japan. We descend into these vales through which the road leads between the two capitals of Yedo and Miaco. The fields are already green with the young upland rice and tender wheat plants. The gardens—and they are as numerous and as well kept as in England—are bright with many a flower seen in Europe. The peach and other old familiar fruit trees bend under the weight of blossoms; streams leap downward through pretty copses already covered with tender leaflets. The fir-tree waves from the mountain crest overhead, the cedar overshadows the road, and the bamboo throws out its graceful plumes in the dell below. Asia and Europe have thus in this favoured land each contributed their share to make it rich in products conducive to the happiness of man—and man has done much; his industry gladdens us on every side, and as the soil is fertile, the valley may be said to be one great garden dotted with villages and neat cottages, whilst everywhere we see proofs of the redundancy of human life thronged into the space. Inhabitants and travellers, labourers, mendicants and priests, nobles, followers and ladies, children, jugglers and porters, who shall tell them all,—a human living kaleidoscope-full of beauty and interest are streaming along the road. We will travel a stage down it with the host of pilgrims who are going from Yedo to Yesi, the great shrine of the believers in Sin-too. The work is a good work, for they go there to be shrived of their sins—to obtain absolution, and by the toil and suffering undergone in the journey to give a living proof of the warmth of their faith.
Apart from the travellers, the road itself is worthy of notice. It runs in an excellent direction, so far as engineering skill is concerned, winds along many an ugly precipice, and crosses rapid mountain streams at places where they can be most conveniently bridged. The Taikoon’s highway would compare with many of our best; it is drained at the sides, it is arched to allow the water to fall off, and strangely enough, in many places, it is macadamised. Trees have been carefully planted in situations where they would afford shade, and a mound of earth, of conical form, marks every mile passed, and tells the pilgrim how far he is distant from Nipon-bas, the great bridge of Yedo, the London Bridge of eastern land.
The traveller notices, by certain characters upon a post erected by the way-side, that he has passed out of one district or country into another, and that he is now under the authority of such a prince or such a governor. We desire local information as to that portion of Nipon through which we pass, and our servant, for a small sum, procures from an itinerant book-hawker, an excellent guide-book, giving all the facts we require. We note that this Japanese institution, for imparting knowledge, is more than three centuries old, although the work is corrected and much improved by the increased modern knowledge of the art of wood-cutting. Perhaps Mr. Murray may smile and look forward to being able, before long, to give them a Japanese guide-book, which shall excel that modest and cheap itinerary; but there are many things in which he will never surpass it, amongst others in cost, and the confidence with which the days are predicted upon which it shall be fortunate to travel.
Our bearers rejoice in the fact of our luck being great upon the latter point, and we push on merrily, yet for a people who travel much they do not, it would appear, at first sight, study comfort. The sedans or palanquins are wretchedly uncomfortable, and attest the fact that they are rather adapted to mountain-paths, than to the broad and level roads of the plains. We may not at present stay to described those vehicles, for we approach a post-house, and our bearers have to be exchanged and paid. There are, we may find, no less than fifty-six of these establishments between Yedo and Meaco. The lords of the various manors are compelled by the authorities to maintain these places of refreshment for travellers, they are vastly superior to the caravanserais of the east, and relays of horses or porters are always ready at these Japanese post-houses, and must do all work at a regular fixed charge, ridiculously small, according to English notions. Another and still more onerous duty falls to these establishments, and that is the responsibility of forwarding all imperial despatches between the two capitals, or from Yedo to any part of the empire. Runners are consequently ever ready to execute this task. Haste!—post haste!—is no idle injunction in Japan, where the Taikoon or Mikado despatches are in question.
