Chapter II: Part 2

=September 8.=--I spent last night in the crater of a semi-active volcano! Yet it was not so thrilling as it sounds. The crater is nearly a mile across, and much of it is just like a deep-wooded circular valley, in which are a little hotel and one or two houses. Only a couple of hundred yards or so away from the hotel the active part remains, however, and there are vents and small cones, bubbling streams of boiling water, and piles of sulphur in any quantity. Some of the boiling basins are black and solid-looking, and some frisky with little geysers--most of them tame enough for close acquaintance, but a few dangerous and impossible to approach. As I look out on the hotel garden the steam rises in thick clouds from the boiling stream bubbling through it, which is utilised for baths. The Guide-book naively says: “The only drawback to a visit to the springs of Noboribetsu is the chance of meeting naked bathers.” I would say “_certainty_ of meeting.” But I got off quite alone and went up through the woods, following a track of course--it would be mad to leave it here--and saw three snakes in an hour, one nearly 4 feet long hardly moved from the path. I met an Aino, tattooing and all, and we exchanged a few courtesies in bad Japanese. Aino itself is a curiously hard language, nearly all _k’s_.

=September 9.=--A wet drizzling day, which blurs all the landscape, so that trees, sky, rain and sulphurous clouds all merge into one another. The air is heavy, and full of the odour of rotten eggs. I am the only European here, and am living absolutely _à la Japonaise_. The place is entirely untouched by our civilisation, and my room is a gem of native art: the delicate wooden trellis-work and bands of black lacquer on the paper doors and windows, the beautiful heavy metal fire-pot and embossed kettle are _real_ Japanese of good quality. I sincerely wish I could bring such a room to London, it would delight those followers of the _art nouveau_ who have retained some of their original conceptions of the beauty of simplicity. I was rather glad to leave the hot choking fumes, however, and reach Mororan at night. It is a pretty little port, in a beautiful bay forming a splendid natural harbour. I went on board at 9 o’clock at night.

=September 10.=--We should have arrived at 10 or 11 o’clock this morning at Aomori (on the main island), but there was a storm, the tail of one of the typhoons which are abounding this year, and we did not get in until after 4 in the afternoon. While waiting three hours to catch the train I saw a little of the town, and spent some time soothing a distracted missionary and his wife, recently from America, and not yet accustomed to waiting, and trusting large sums of money to Japanese porters with no guarantee that they would get the tickets they wanted. Japan takes some learning, and a highly-strung American accustomed to New York bustle must find it a peculiarly hard lesson.

=September 11.=--I arrived at Matsushima station at 5 o’clock this morning and took a _kuruma_[2] to the place itself, on the way stopping to climb a small hill which overlooks the wonderful archipelago--one of the three greatest sights of Japan. As I sat there the sun rose, and lit up the gleaming water and the thousand pine-decked islands, whose shapes are so fantastic that one can only imagine them to be the work of the drollest of trolls, who with his drollery had a soul that was rare enough to combine nobility of beauty with fantastic form.

[2] The native name for the mail-cart-like hand-carriage I called a rickshaw at first. It is only in Yokohama and such Europeanised places that the word rickshaw is understood.

The hamlet of Matsushima is built among similar rocks on the dry land, which has certainly risen from the sea. This little place, utterly unspoiled by European influence (I did not even see a European hat), is the Japan I have dreamed of, and had begun to fear I should not find. I cannot describe it here; if anything can move me to write literature some day, it may be that place as I saw it at sunrise.

I sailed among the fairy islands in a dreamland boat--which went so slowly and so smoothly that I thought it did not move--to Shiogama, in which I saw no romance, and took a _kuruma_ for 5 miles off the line of beaten roads, and the railway to a tiny hamlet by the sea. Here I put up in an inn built on a little rocky peninsula, which is just big enough to hold it and a few pine trees. When the tide is in we cannot get into the front door! The room which I have opens on two sides to the sea, the front is shut off only by folding-doors from another with three sides open to the sea, so that at will I could have my three walls removed and the sea view all round. A more ideally beautiful situation it would be quite impossible to find: on either side stretch blue bays with sandy shores, and rocky islets with twisted pines growing on them in all manner of ways, and beyond lie line after line of blue hills, which in the distance merge into the blue sky.

=September 12.=--To-day was spent in finding out paths to tiny fishing hamlets along the coast, and seeing ever new and delightful rocks--one is pierced by a big hole, 30 feet or so above sea-level.

At night there was a great sensation in the bay, as many big fishing-boats came in. On the shore they lit huge blazing fires, the men and women singing all the time, and every now and then one of them seizing a burning brand and rushing into the water with it up to their necks, and even swimming out with it to the boats. The new moon rose clear and sparkling above the bay. It seemed wicked to go to bed. I am the only visitor of any kind staying in this hotel.

=September 13.=--My hours are primitive: rising with the sun about 6, and breakfasting; eating again at 12 and 6, and going to bed after seeing the sunset shadows deepen into night and the stars rise over the sea--_i.e._ about 7 o’clock.

I walked into Shiogama for some shopping, but was much noticed by the country people, for I wore a white blouse, a skirt, and hat. Here the women all wear long blue trousers and short tunic-like kimonos, and I found they took no notice of me at all when I wore what I wore in the mountains, namely, short close knickers and coat to match.

=September 15.=--Alas, it is the last day of my short holiday. The weather has been perfect these four days.

=September 16.=--A long and tedious day travelling, beginning at 5 in the morning. I did not reach my Tokio home till 11 at night, and then found that they had given me up and all gone to bed. On the way I had to change and wait two hours at Sendai, which I therefore explored a little. It is noted for ornaments and trays made of fossil wood so-called, which is found in quantity in a mountain near by. It seems to be gymnospermic, however, and to correspond more to our “bog-oak” than to an actual fossil, so I lost scientific interest in it, but liked it well enough as a curiosity to buy some specimens.

=September 17.=--After a month’s absence my correspondence has accumulated, and to-day has been spent largely in reading and writing letters. Also, this is just the last day or so for the swimming out of the spermatozoids of _Ginkgo_, and I spent a few delightful hours in the Laboratory watching their infusorian-like movements and the quick vibrations of their spiral crowns of cilia. Fancy cutting up dozens of juicy Ginkgo seeds! I lunched in the Institute with the botanical staff, who have a wonderfully detailed knowledge of all my doings, likes and dislikes--from the newspaper! Apparently one or other of my retinue has acted as special correspondent for the papers. Mercifully, it is all published in Japanese characters, so that the European residents can’t read it, or I should not dare to present my introductions.

=September 18.=--A quiet day at the Institute, trying to overtake my writing arrears. The last forty-eight hours it has rained incessantly, and the roads are an interesting study. They may be divided into three main classes, viz. those which are well made, and which have been washed spotlessly clean by the rain--these are very few and far between; those which have retained the water, and mixed it with their own soil until there is a swamp of thick, boggy, squashy mud from 2 to 10 inches deep--these predominate; and those on which water alone is to be seen, varying from 2 inches to 3 feet in depth. Through a quarter of a mile of the latter I had to come, in a _kuruma_ of course, but the man was up to his hips in water, and I was glad indeed that my house is on the top of a hill as I saw the floods rushing through the houses.

=September 22.=--The roads of Tokio are a never-ending source of delight when their muddiness does not force itself home. A hundred times in a walk, even in the heart of the city, one comes upon a bend of the road where groves of bamboo or pine trees are seen, as though one were far away in the country; or a rivulet will cross the lane (so many of the city roads are like nothing but our country lanes), and its mossy banks hanging with ferns are luxuriant, as only our Lake District streams are luxuriant, in their glorious greenery of delicate fronds. Or perhaps a bend of the road will take one away from a little village of shops into a narrow avenue of straight-growing cryptomerias, leading to a tiny shrine or temple with its garden and moss-grown stepping-stones. Along the line of the electric city railway we all walk freely, and to-day I found corners of woodland and scraps of meadow along its course--little forgotten scraps of land where small bamboos and feathery grasses, and sweet white and blue flowers grow in brilliant, fresh, dustless perfection. A hundred times a day I ask myself, “Can this be a city?” While the main streets are “streety” enough, the charming spots are always only a few yards away from them.

I cannot understand how it is that land and rents are so outrageously dear, dearer even than in the parts of London just outside the city. Here so much seems to be left to run wild, or to form a garden or field round a tiny house--wasted commercially--but what a rich delight to those who live in this sweet garden city!

Early this morning I had a real Japanese experience. I was wakened at about 5 o’clock by a tremendous sensation among my walls and floor, as though they were all striving to part company. I at once thought of a typhoon, and as my floor was swaying like the ocean waves, I started to rush downstairs, my room being the only one on the second story. Then I rushed back, thinking of all the awful tales of robberies I had heard, and seeing a figure approaching me, I accosted it angrily and demanded it to give an account of itself and be off! It was some time before I recognised myself in the glass! All the time the floor was swaying violently in what I fancied was a fearful wind--when it suddenly stopped, and I lay down feeling very sea-sick. Then, and then only, did I remember that I was in a land of earthquakes, and had just experienced my first. I heard later in the day that it had been a moderately bad one.

=September 23.=--A rather broken day with papers at the Institute. I have not yet worked off my Hokkaido debt of letters and presents.

There was a local festival in the temple near my house, and the houses were gay with scarlet and white lanterns, and branches of scarlet and white paper flowers.

=September 24.=--A universal holiday, and the Institute is shut. The day was filled with sight-seeing, temples and gardens. Of the several I saw, two in the heart of the city were in such striking contrast as to be worth an attempt at description.

To the one, the approach was lined by rows of little open shops, whose trivial gaudy wares were pressed upon the throngs of passers-by. In the open court of the temple were many stalls and small tea-houses, and hundreds of pigeons fluttering about to be fed. One could buy one sen’s worth (about a farthing’s worth) of peas and rice from the numerous little stalls kept by ancient women. The birds did not appreciate my offering properly, as it was a festival, and they were already overfed, and so contented themselves with pruning their feathers perched on the great eaves of the temple, or on the nose or curly tail of some of the many great dragons. In the vestibule of the temple (this is hardly the right word, but I know no other to express it) hundreds of people clattered in their wooden clogs, and chattered loudly, gazing through the wire-netting into the inner portion, where the priests and readers in gorgeous array and pomp were carrying on a service. The whole effect was not unlike that of a good Roman Catholic Church, but more glittering and richer. As I was watching, a large part of the ceremony seemed to consist in turning over the folds of manuscript very rapidly, giving the effect of endless streams of writing. Into a money-box, as large as a small swimming bath, the devotees threw their small coins, often over the heads of the groups in front of them. Glitter, bustle, noise, and crowds characterise this temple. The other I found by chance in one of the dear little side roads I love. It stood grey and solemn in the midst of its green garden, its great bell in a little house beside it, and its old stone figures and great lotus of copper. Twisted pines and moss-grown paths around it, and behind a silent grove of pine and bamboo. Complete silence in the heart of the city, and though I remained in the garden some time no person came to disturb its peace. Greyness and greenness--and one brilliant golden butterfly dancing above the great green copper lotus, one shrub with scarlet flowers flung against a grey sky--and in the heart of it all the silence of Buddha, whose heart does not seem to beat as he contemplates the universe.

=September 25.=--A tiring day, but little to show for it. Tokio certainly makes one very sleepy, and also demands the expenditure of much time to get a small result.

=September 26.=--Official visit to the Director of the Survey--time spent getting there and back, three hours--length of visit, ten minutes. The rest of the day at the Institute.

=September 27.=--An amusing day spent at the sale by auction of all the household effects of the Spanish consul. It appears that these sales are recognised social functions, and all the good Society was represented, from the Embassy and some Baronesses downwards. I managed to get two feather pillows for twice what they cost in England, but half what they cost here in the shops; and so hope to rest more peacefully at night now. There is such a frightful duty on all foreign goods that every one here buys what they can at these sales; as they are all the goods of friends, which have sometimes been the round of several distinguished families, there is no feeling against obtaining them. It only wanted tea and a little music to be like an “At Home.”

=September 28.=--A quiet day at the Institute. The gardens surrounding it are largely situated on elevated ground, so that one looks down on tree tops and out over an expanse of clear blue sky and lovely light clouds. Now the temperature is like our best days in June, and the actual sunshine still hotter and brighter.

=September 29.=--Sunday--so we went to visit temples. This time to a tiny lonely one in the country to the north of the town. Though it was less than 10 miles out of Tokio, everything was fresh and beautiful, and quite untainted with the horrible suburban effect of our environs--it was real country, though not at all solitary. Between the green fields, where the crops looked as fresh and vigorously sprouting and green as with us in the late spring, were quiet lanes and narrow roads overhung by the swaying feathery shafts of the tall bamboos. Every quarter of a mile or so in all directions were little woods of bamboo and pine or cryptomeria, in the midst of which generally one or two small houses nestled, their thick thatches overgrown by the blue-flowered relative of tradescantia, which is here so pretty and so plentiful. Surrounded by its little grove of cryptomerias the wooden temple stands apart from all houses--a small closed building, hung with gaudy pictures from the devotees whose prayers have been answered. Leading to it is an imposing flight of well-kept stone steps, but as there is no gate, and a dozen paths through the wood lead to the temple by easier grades, they are more for show than use. A big stone trough stands filled with water for the worshippers to wash their hands before folding them in prayer--but I saw no worshippers, and I stayed there in the quiet for a number of hours.

A fraction of a mile away was the small ill-kept cemetery, with little grey headstones and forlorn wooden laths with the names of the dead, but no visible graves.

The tall _tsuzuki_ reed, with its clusters of feathery fruits standing out against the sky at evening, and the stars twinkling through the beautiful bamboo and the trees of sweet chestnuts, all seemed far too fresh and unsullied to be so near a city. The Japanese can certainly populate a place without defacing it. The absence of all railings and notice boards is also very soothing.

=September 30.=--A cut-up day at the Institute. Dr. _Y----_, one of the geologists from the Survey, visited me and we spent some time discussing the beds of Hokkaido. This country is an extremely difficult one for us all, so little is yet quite reliably finished, as exposures are so scarce.

=October 1.=--A long morning down at the Survey Offices with the Director and Dr. _Y----_, chiefly planning for the next venture, which is to be in the directly opposite direction from the last, and promises difficulties not a few. This time I _will not_ go with a huge escort like the last.

On the way back to the Institute I looked into the biggest drapers while the sale of the year was on--all Japanese of course, and very amusing.

=October 6.=--A miserable, wet day, spent with small profit at the Institute preparing for another long expedition. The least heavy rain seems to give rise to floods at some place or other, and again the roads were quite impassable except for the coolies, who drew my _kuruma_ through.

=October 8.=--I arrived at last at Okayama at about 3 in the afternoon, very dirty after the night in the train, and tired for want of food--to be met by a party of Japanese, most kind and welcoming, who took me to a charming hotel and kept me sitting and talking for two hours without a chance of even washing! They also took me to see the renowned Koraku-en garden, and it was half-past six before I could get a bath, and while I was still dressing the _kuruma_ came to take me off to a meeting of Naturalists, which took the form of a dinner in my honour.

The gardens of Koraku-en were certainly very pretty, but less so than one would expect from the descriptions of them one reads. They were once the private property of the owner of the castle at the foot of which they lie. In them are vistas and views cleverly constructed, and many pretty little rocky islands and bridges. There are also some sacred cranes which live in separate apartments in a house of their own, and which take the air and sun themselves in the best part of the day. What pleased me far more than these much-praised gardens were the little courts and gardens of the hotel in which I was staying. From my room I could look down from the verandah on to two little gardens, with dwarf trees and green paths and grey stepping-stones leading to imaginary distances.

On my way out, for the house was large and rambling, with several ways, I could pass a square garden but 10 feet or so big, in which was a little temple, with lanterns and lions and gateway all complete. Here every evening the lanterns were lit, and incense sticks glowed, sending a sweet scent along the corridors. It was the smallest temple I have seen, and also one of the prettiest additions to a house.

The dinner with the Naturalists was a somewhat trying affair. There was but one lady and she was obviously asked for my sake, and was put next me at the table. The President and I sat opposite to each other in the middle of the long table, and kept something of a conversation going, though I had to furnish all the subjects, which was a little difficult after more than twenty-four hours’ travelling and no rest after my arrival. The others were mute, except when I turned to ask a definite question, or said something which the President repeated to them, and suggested discussion. All could speak English nominally. The dinner was in foreign style and included four meat courses, and I found few of those present knew which things to eat with which table implement, so I was repaid in kind for the entertainment I must have afforded while learning to use chop-sticks. Fortunately it was possible to leave very early, and I welcomed a good night in my charming Japanese room.

=October 9.=--I was up at 6 to start to the real place for work and was seen off by a deputation, and shaken for some time in the train of a local branch line. After that came the truly awful business of the day--four hours in a _kuruma_!

The _kuruma_ is a kind of mail-cart on two wheels (country specimens have no springs), and is drawn by a man over stony roads. The works of the thing jolt, jingle, and clang till one’s head splits and one’s bones feel sore.

The road lay along a very beautiful valley, however, cut out of the steep rocky sides running along the broad and beautiful river of Takahashi. I entirely escaped the Guide-book--not so easy a job either, as it is written by Chamberlain, who knows the country better than most Japanese, and who has numerous collaborators who seem to inform him of minute details, even of very out-of-the-way places. At the end of the journey I found a much better inn than I expected under the circumstances.

Then the excitement began--and I had to explain at the Prefecture that I had come to see coal, and to find out where it was. The maps are so small (Geol. Survey though they be) that one is extremely dependent on local information. To do all this in Japanese with people who did not understand a syllable of English, was no joke! It is the first time I have been so absolutely cut off from English; they could not even read Japanese names in Romaji print, in which my maps and all scientific things are now done. It was interesting--and I hammered away till I got my end, and found the _Triassic_ coal I sought, but, alas, there was nothing in it of value to me. The trouble I had to get it began in Tokio, where they told me first it didn’t exist, second, that it was finished and the mines stopped down. In Okayama also they said no coal in this district existed--instinct kept me at it, however, and though the people even here said there was none, I insisted there was--and lo! after a while they took me to it. It was the very smallest and most primitive coal mine I ever saw, it is true--but it was coal. To-morrow I am going to another place: it is sad to find no fossils just here, they would have been such a triumph!

My dinner consisted of rice, green peas, and boiled chestnuts, with a little fish as well. One learns to value green peas, even though they be cold and floating in the water in which they were boiled, and eaten one by one with chop-sticks!

No three consecutive minutes of peace were allowed to me. I was desperately tired, and though I sat with my eyes shut for quite long periods and hardly spoke to them at all, my visitors sat on and on till I was frantic. I have a fellow-feeling now for animals at the Zoo.

=October 10.=--While still in bed, visitors began again this morning, and I had to shout to prevent an official visitor from coming in while I was taking off my night-gown. On starting two of them came with me, and their number more than doubled before the day was out. More terrible hours of _kuruma_ riding--but the little village of Jito was worth a visit. Early in the morning heavy downy mists hung round the hills, and swirled up from the trees as the sun caught them. All the thousands of cobwebs were like fairy banners on the trees, and the rocky sides of the mountains rose from the rivers to be lost in the alluring distances. It was a sight well worth the shivering and the jolting, and directly the sun shone on one it gave a comforting heat. The nights are extremely cold, almost wintry, but the days are as hot as midsummer, hence the thick mists.

We entered the mine, which, unfortunately, though Triassic, is of no interest to me. A kind of dinner was given at the hotel at 2 o’clock, and I saw many rather crude native customs.

The man who had led me in the mine, whom I took to be a coolie, and to whom I gave sixpence, turned up at dinner. In the mine his entire costume had consisted of a striped flannelette shirt, very short, and a stand-up white collar!! Literally no more, and that was donned of course in my honour. Trousers with a red stripe down each leg, and socks, were added for the dinner.

Everything in this country seems to be the reverse of what it is with us, and here the dinner _starts_ with much drinking of _saké_ and very frequent exchange of the small cups; then no more is drunk and the food begins and finishes the feast.

After the coal mine business was finished, I was taken to a big school where there were festive sports going on, very similar in the main to our school sports, and obviously in imitation of them. Many of the boys and girls (the schools are mixed) were pretty and bright, though the Japanese child has not yet appealed to me as it does to those who gush over it.

=October 11.=--Things began at 6 this morning, when all the world was shivering in its thick white mantle of mist. After riding for a couple of hours the sun drove it all away, and by 10 o’clock I was streaming with perspiration from every pore as I went up the hills toward the little coal mine I had come out to see.

I thought I had fully impressed on the Japanese man who acted as local guide that I was desperately pressed for time and must return to the railroad town to-night--but after a couple of hours I found myself inside the big “middle school,” bowing to an English-speaking head, who soon asked me to give a lecture! Of course I refused, and said I was going _at once_ to the coal mine, and would then return to Tatai, but he accompanied me to the mine, leaving his rightful duties with not the smallest compunction, and on the way requested me to stop and have my photograph taken. The Japanese are perfectly infuriating to one with a definite object and precious time. I cannot here retail the multitudinous instances of senseless delay I have had to suffer from, nor the irrelevant things I have had to examine. If I were to go at their rate I should be still looking at coal mines in Japan ten years hence. But I must not forget that I am seeing the country if I am not getting directly to my goal, and that I am in myself a certain amount of entertainment for them, a kind of creature they have not heard of before.

After a rather fruitless couple of hours in the mine (results locally interesting, as the Imperial Survey has mapped the district as solid granite) I had six hours in a _kuruma_ returning to Tatai. The _kuruma_ was just as uncomfortable as country ones always are, and as I was packed in with my fossils so that I could not change my position, and the roads were in places very bad, I was hardly in the mood at the end of the journey to be put into a train, merely to wait stock-still at the first local stopping-place for three-quarters of an hour. I am becoming far more patient than Job ever was, but at times my stock of patience runs out.

Apart from the mere weariness of one’s bones, the _kuruma_ ride was very delightful. Every time I see the little groves of feathery bamboo in their grace and sweetness I rejoice anew. The valleys along which the road wound were very steep, and the great granite hills majestic and beautiful. The plants, too, are often charming, and one frequently sees a single trail of ampelopsis flung across the grey boulders. One great wall of granite was covered with blood-red ampelopsis and capped with the native pine, which is so rich in curious curves, and so green against the sapphire sky.

Although the country is quite wild and unspoiled, all along the flatter part of the valleys were very many houses--clusters of houses or hamlets lying at intervals of about one-eighth of a mile. It seems curious how the little rice fields, which are tucked into every available damp corner, can support so many people. Straw plaiting is also a source of income, and in almost every house some one was twisting the short lengths of gleaming white straw into braids.

The greatest charm of Japan is the way the natives have of inhabiting, even thickly populating, a district without in the least spoiling it--except of course where there is a railway, a few yards on either side are necessarily spoiled a little.

The single line of telegraph wire puzzled me not a little to-day. I could not imagine why, when it was raised in the usual way on posts 20 feet or more, it should be made of _barbed wire_, when I discovered that the effect was caused by millions of dragon-flies, perched singly on it at intervals of about 6 inches from each other! I never saw two closer than that, or more than 18 inches apart, for about 10 miles! Now and then one would fly off, or another settle, but most of them sat quite motionless on the wire. So the only “barbed wire” I have seen in Japan was made voluntarily by blue dragon-flies who sat there to sun themselves.

=October 12.=--The hour for rising gets earlier every day. This morning it was 5 o’clock, with the prospect of 12–14 hours in a wretched slow train. I am writing in the train now, at the stoppings, which are never less than five minutes, and often ten or fifteen minutes long, at every station. The whole distance in all these hours of travel will be less than 200 miles. The people in the train are, of course, a little interesting, but far more saddening. Where the train with its Western atmosphere has penetrated, the beautiful and dignified robes, the silken skirts and kimonos of both men and women, though principally of the men, are giving place to a hybrid mixture of all the vulgar and hideous garments of “civilisation.” Only a few of the most cultured Japanese know how to dress in good taste in our things, the others are unspeakable.

Just now the train is skirting a part of the coast of the famous “Inland Sea,” and small islands lie thickly scattered in it, with their pines clinging by great twisting roots on to their rocks. The persimmon trees, with their great golden fruits, look very beautiful beside the pines, and are richly laden with their delicious fruit, so that they are noticeable from quite a distance.

After arriving at Tokuyama in the evening I went at once to the Naval Briquette factory of the Government, who own the coal mine farther on which I wish to see. A most courteous and charming Director, who had been in both France and England, put me on my way.

=October 13.=--I started early by train for Omine, where the mine lies on a little railway built on purpose for it during the last war. The coal is one of the very few smokeless ones in Japan, and therefore very important. Omine is a tiny hamlet, practically composed of miners and mine officials,--where the inn is poor but every one only too anxious to please.

The mines are interesting scientifically, of Rhaetic age. As they belong to the Navy, the surgeon attached to the mines wears the uniform of a Naval Officer, little sword and all, and is very smart. The coal is carried for a long distance by iron baskets on wires across valleys--stretches of wire 200 yards, with no support. It is so strange to find the mixture of modern engineering and science with such primitive native ways.

The weather is lovely, still scorching midsummer sunshine floods the hills, on which a tree here and there shows a flare of crimson autumn colouring.

=October 14.=--The Chief Engineer here is most helpful, and offered to come with me to Habu, a very small mine 20 kilometres or so distant, where we had to travel by _kuruma_. At first I refused, but afterwards I was very glad his importunity had prevented my coming alone. The _kuruma_ left us to walk the last 3-4 kilometres. There was no definite road, and an old woman volunteered to guide us across little tracks through rice fields and along the sandy seashore, and through rice fields again. The maps of course show none of these footpaths, and without Japanese help it would have been impossible to find the place. The mine, when we got there, was the most primitive I have ever seen, smaller than at Nariwa. On the way our old woman leader took us up from the shore to a big house standing by itself, telling us that here the manager of the mine lived. As we had despaired of ever finding the mine, this encouraged us, but we found the house was only in the process of building, and was of course not inhabited. It was a beautiful house, with a great temple-like porch gate, an inner courtyard, and quite a number of out-houses and servants’ dwellings. Then, when we came to the mine, we found the owner to be a common working man, and we saw his wife going into the mine to work like the rest of the peasant women! The whole situation seemed so ridiculously incongruous. A case of _nouveau riche_ retaining their old habits while their palace was being built.

In the mines I have often come across women, naked to the waist and up to the knee, working underground with the men. To-day I saw such a pretty girl, and her beautiful rounded body was far too sweet to be smeared with coal.

To-night we went on to Shimonoseki, and my Omine companion kindly took me to his father’s house there. A delightful house, with a great flight of rough granite steps leading up to it like those to a temple. Here I inhabited three big rooms, opening out of each other, as well as a dressing-room. They were extremely kind, and only spoiled things by refusing to believe that I could prefer not to have chairs, etc. brought into their rooms for my use. I pleaded with them, and was allowed to sit on cushions on the floor, but could not escape a European dinner instead of the true Japanese meal. However, it was very good, and I made up for several past meals of poor quality. I was given the seat of honour, and my host and I ate alone--his father, mother, aunt, and sister visiting us for short intervals, and bringing various things, but never sitting with us. They are certainly wealthy people, and not very cultured, yet there was not the slightest attempt at display. All that the rooms contained were a single vase of beautiful flowers in the corner by the _kakemono_ (long picture), a couple of quaint ornaments, cushions, and in one of the rooms a beautiful polished table 6 inches high, on which was a carved tray with hand-painted tea-cups, and the _hibachi_ (charcoal brazier) with an ornamental kettle boiling on it.

=October 15.=--I got up about 5.30, and crossed over to Kiushiu--my host coming to see me off and giving all possible help. I did not arrive at the mine--Namazuta--till 12.30. The mine is a large one, and though of Tertiary age, contains very many interesting stones.

After examining the mine I returned very late at night to Fukuoka, having escaped proper meals all day. The chief of the coal mine kindly gave me fish and rice and a few real Japanese things at 4.30. At Fukuoka the inn very noisy, but otherwise all right.

=October 16.=--Noise kept me awake till after 12, and I had to get up about 6.30. I visited the head office, where officials are arranging for my introduction to several small mines in Amakusa, which is an island off the island of Kiushiu--and on which no human being speaks a word of English, and all the natives speak such a curious dialect that even the Japanese themselves cannot understand it. I guess I shall have a gay time. On this whole expedition the amount of hours of travelling per hour in a coal mine is very great, and I seem to be going night and day to see a mine here and there. (Things have got wrong here somehow. I have forgotten to mention the Miike mine.)

Some of the scenery is very beautiful, and though, of course, I am missing all the regulation sights, I see glimpses of beauty here and there.

The train arrived very late at Misumi, a little port, from which I shall go to Amakusa. The moon was shining over the calm sea, stretching into many inlets and set with many islands, and the effect was most beautiful and romantic. Though I thought the train had landed me in Misumi, it turned out that I had to take a _kuruma_ to the hotel, and it went right out into the country, over a hill where not a human being or habitation was to be seen, and I began to think the _kuruma_ man had designs on my life and purse. After half an hour he landed me on the other side of the peninsula, where the village proper lies, and where there is a moderately good hotel. On the ride we passed many mud-walled thatched cottages, without a sign of life in them. The Japanese live in open houses by day, but at night they put boarded shutters up before every window, so that no one (at least no Japanese, _I_ insist on mine being opened) in Japan sleeps with fresh air round him, which, I believe, is the reason there is so much consumption. They cannot see the silliness of doing this, and are constantly bragging that they live in the open air, when all their eight to nine hours of sleep are spent in these very stuffy rooms, with a lamp and generally a charcoal fire burning beside them.

=October 17.=--The boat was supposed to start at 9 A.M. this day, but 1 P.M. saw it still gaily coaling. It is the very smallest steamer I have ever been in, not really as good as a ferry-boat, but the prospective journey is to last twelve hours. While waiting about the landing-place I saw many strange fish which were being brought in. One big fishing-boat had a load of huge creatures, bigger than men, of two kinds. One kind like lovely dragons, with long snouts and great wing-like fins, the other fish the most curious I have ever seen, and apparently, though I don’t know at all, some kind of shark. They were about 8 feet long and thick as a man’s body, and their heads were quite flat and square-ended.

I could not have imagined such strange creatures, a drawing gives none of the extraordinary effect they made lying there in numbers, their great flat bodies heavier than a man could lift unaided. They are to be eaten, but seem to me to be terribly coarse.

There is no first class on this steamer, and I am the only second class passenger, but as my portion should be in a minute cabin with stuffy curtains and tightly fixed port-holes, I am squatting on deck with the third class people, who are as thick as flies round a honey-pot. There are mats spread on the deck, and most of the people are lying on them wedged against each other. I am sitting on my bags, leaning fairly comfortably against the rail and next to the only man who is a real cute traveller. He has spread his blanket (Japanese always travel with blankets, generally _white_ ones!) its full size, and is lying in the middle, with a clear 2 feet of spare space all round him, and it is characteristic of Japanese travellers that though the others are terribly crowded no one sits on his blanket or asks him to curtail its extent. The scenery is lovely, and the sea without a ripple. On every side are hills with range after range of jagged peaks, and in the sea countless pine-decked islands; land lies all round, and it is difficult to believe one is at sea. 2 P.M.--I am certainly seeing life: we have just had tea in picnic fashion, squatting here together--and indeed most picnics are made to far less beautiful places than this island-dotted sea. One of the women had brought a tray of small cakes, all looking excellent, but most of them made with the sweet bean paste I have not yet learned to like, though there were delicious sponge-cakes as well, five of which I got for 1¼d.--and I paid three farthings for my tea, which was three times what any one else did. They would have given it to the foreigner for nothing--but one must support the honour of one’s country in a far land, and I have learned that though the Japanese give very freely and refuse a dozen times to take payment, they are not really at all averse to receiving it.[3]

[3] I now know that I ought to have given very much more than three times the price to the peasants had I been anywhere but in the most unsophisticated parts.

We are twisting in and out of the inlets and coming very close to the islands, and if the landscape were not so much softer and greener and more rounded, I could well imagine we were in the Fjords of Norway. The rocks are in places very white, and here and there near villages are groups of lime-kilns of primitive type. There are fleets of fishing-boats everywhere--and I believe (by this time I have seen a good deal of the country) that there are no consecutive 2 miles along the whole coast of Japan without a fishing village! It is not on the coast, but in the mountains that the really solitary places are to be found.

I arrived almost in the middle of the night, to be welcomed on the ship by various folk, from the inn-keeper upwards and downwards--there was a regular lantern procession of people. They all stopped round or in my room to talk or stare, according to their social stations; the landlord coming midway, he sat just outside the limit of the room--which was, of course, widely opened on three sides--and held converse with all of us within, or hurled abuse at all the maids and boys and small children who collected without. Fortunately the chief official of the mines left soon, intimating that it was late, so I got to bed earlier than I expected and slept well, though, as my window-walls were wide open, it was so light that I had to put up my umbrella. It is getting quite usual for me to sleep under my open umbrella, and as the mats they spread on the floor are never more than 3 or 4 inches thick, it feels very like sleeping on the seashore, and I quite enjoy it, though at first I used to wake up and wonder where I could be.

=October 18.=--Early this morning I started to look at mines--with five people in my official train. This island is one of the least civilised of Japan, and there are practically no roads on it, though tracks here and there, and some surprisingly big coal mines. We went from place to place on foot and in small fishing-boats across the bays, which would have caused very long detours to walk round; and these were numerous, for these islands are very much cut up, and the sea surprises one everywhere one goes, generally on two or three sides at once.

Some of the bigger fishing-boats we passed were most interesting, and looked, on a small scale, exactly like my imagination of what an old Egyptian boat must have been. The six oars (one can hardly call them oars in our sense of the word, for they are thick, and much the same shape from end to end, and with a little twist in them) were manned each by three naked men, all standing clad in their skins (which the scorching hot sun had burnt a lovely brown gold colour), and with the minutest white-and-blue waist cloth. Round their heads they had a white or white-and-blue towel tied fillet fashion, with a bow on one side. As they bent and rose over the oars they shouted all the time and very hoarsely a sort of meaningless refrain--but it was very good for keeping time and could be heard a long way off. Of the three oars on each side of the ships, two were pulled one way and one the other, and as the pullers kept forgetting which was which, I could not understand how the boats ever progressed, but they did, and at a pretty good speed, but far out at sea they put up sails. My little boat tried a sail for a short time. It was nearly square, with a bamboo to keep it out at each end, but the peg which held it down gave out when a puff of wind came and the boat tipped over gaily. The mast was tied in a very primitive fashion, and I wondered how the fishermen ever dared to go out to sea in such a craft. It landed us safely, however. One coal mine we went to was high up, 700 feet straight up from the sea, and amid pretty scenery. At one mine, where the people were most kind, they had gone to the extent of carrying a tea-cup with a handle for me, because they said I could not use their kind without a handle (as though I never drank out of glasses), but the owner of the mine took off all his English clothes, down to the shortest shirt I have ever seen, which was open up the back, and did not think I might find _that_ a little more difficult to put up with than a cup without a handle. It is a good thing that I had all the up-to-date ideas of hygiene before I came!

=October 19.=--To-day was spent in returning to the main island of Kiushiu, for the little ship took nine to ten hours about it. The start to-day was made in good time, so that three separate sets of people were late, and the steamer stopped to take them on one by one. A skiff came along propelled by three boards pulled up from the bottom of the boat, and left us two passengers. In order to get to the north of this small island of Amakusa, though only 25 miles or so from the south of the island, I must go back to the main island, to Mogi, and take another steamer back to the northern port of Amakusa!--multiplying the distance a hundred-fold, but there seems nothing else to do, it is impossible (they assert) to go on foot, and very dangerous to go in a small boat round the coast, and no steamer runs. The chief manager of the mines, who has some in the north and some in the south, has to go this ridiculous round every time he goes between them.

As the northern mines are the same formation and contain identical specimens with those I have collected in sufficient quantity in the south, I shall not return, it is too ridiculous and too expensive of time.

=October 20.=--I reached Nagasaki and found Mr. G---- (the half Japanese son of a Scotchman and an important person here) most kind. He arranged for a delightful steam-launch all to myself to take me to Takashima, a small island which exists for, and is entirely populated by, the coal-mining people, to whom it belongs.

The mine was the first opened in Japan, and was for some time owned by Mr. G----’s father; it is the most completely arranged I have yet seen, probably owing to its age, but is rather dangerous to work, as it goes miles under the sea, and there is a large quantity of gas. Last year 300 men were killed in it--I was on the very spot where the chief engineer was found dead.

There is another little island very near to it, with a coast-line of only 4000 feet and a population of 2500! It also has a mine which is entirely under the sea. If the little islands had not stuck up out of the sea to show where the coal lay hid below it, Japan would have been much the poorer. As well as working huge quantities, the quality of this coal is the best they have. They must use salt water, of course, so they combine their engine work with salt making, and thus make a lot of money, as well as provide their thousands of people with distilled water for domestic purposes. It was very funny to go only a couple of yards from the black coal sacks to the great room filled with snowy salt.

In the evening I went to dinner with the G----s, and then they took me to a kind of semi-amateur theatrical performance at the theatre. About 3000 people were in the theatre, very crowded, and nearly all sitting on the floor in the little divisions corresponding to boxes, but which fill practically all the space of a Japanese theatre. The only amusing thing--except the spectators themselves--was a huge dragon made to move and wriggle by a dozen men, and which darted in and out after a golden ball--it depends on some legend or other which I have not yet learned.

=October 21.=--Mrs. G---- saw me off at the station and brought butter and fruit, and the largest pear I have ever seen in my life, which is most delicious. A prospect of two nights and three days before reaching Tokio.