20
walked up to call on the priest, but he was at Sendai. The chief individual about the place was a little stout old man, in European clothing. He was very civil, and excessively fond of saki, for he kept sipping at a bottle of the strongest alcohol. I gave him some claret to taste but this he hardly appreciated as much as his own burning liquor. There are numerous beautifully clear streams in the Island, of delicious cold water. The coarse sand at the bottom and sides of these water courses is thickly filled with mica. The ancient custom allowed no women to land on the Island, but this is not now enforced. The deer which were grazing about the bare slopes as I landed were of old considered sacred; they are not so now.
I was rather amused when steaming across the Bay, and wanted to communicate with a fishing boat. I stopped, and, as the small craft passed close to the interpreter, hailed the men to come alongside, but, though only a few yards off, they paid not the slightest attention to him: he was dressed as a European. I then steamed after them, and got the boat close alongside, but nothing would induce the men in her to have the slightest communication with him. The fact was they did not believe he was a Japanese. I have observed frequently, that they lose weight and respect among their own people when dressed as foreigners. The natives about this northern part of Niphon appear to me to be a variety of the true Japanese. They are coarser built, have higher cheek bones, are larger limbed and unmistakably darker, this latter peculiarity I take from the small children and women. The men, of course, being mostly fishermen and exposed to the sun and salt water, would naturally soon become very dark.
The north side of Sendai Bay is a low flat sandy beach: immediately behind this are rice plains running far back into the interior, so far, in fact, that their extent cannot be seen. Some magnificent mountains towered in the extreme blue distance, still retaining a quantity of snow on the grand slopes.
