Unbeaten Tracks in Japan | Page 7

I. L. B.

LETTER II

Sir Harry Parkes--An "Ambassador's Carriage"--Cart Coolies.
YOKOHAMA, May 22.
To-day has been spent in making new acquaintances, instituting a
search for a servant and a pony, receiving many offers of help, asking
questions and receiving from different people answers which directly
contradict each other. Hours are early. Thirteen people called on me
before noon. Ladies drive themselves about the town in small pony
carriages attended by running grooms called bettos. The foreign
merchants keep kurumas constantly standing at their doors, finding a
willing, intelligent coolie much more serviceable than a lazy, fractious,
capricious Japanese pony, and even the dignity of an "Ambassador
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" is not above such a lowly
conveyance, as I have seen to-day. My last visitors were Sir Harry and
Lady Parkes, who brought sunshine and kindliness into the room, and
left it behind them. Sir Harry is a young-looking man scarcely in
middle life, slight, active, fair, blue-eyed, a thorough Saxon, with sunny
hair and a sunny smile, a sunshiny geniality in his manner, and bearing
no trace in his appearance of his thirty years of service in the East, his
sufferings in the prison at Peking, and the various attempts upon his life
in Japan. He and Lady Parkes were most truly kind, and encourage me
so heartily in my largest projects for travelling in the interior, that I
shall start as soon as I have secured a servant. When they went away
they jumped into kurumas, and it was most amusing to see the
representative of England hurried down the street in a perambulator
with a tandem of coolies.
As I look out of the window I see heavy, two-wheeled man-carts drawn
and pushed by four men each, on which nearly all goods, stones for
building, and all else, are carried. The two men who pull press with
hands and thighs against a cross-bar at the end of a heavy pole, and the
two who push apply their shoulders to beams which project behind,
using their thick, smoothly-shaven skulls as the motive power when

they push their heavy loads uphill. Their cry is impressive and
melancholy. They draw incredible loads, but, as if the toil which often
makes every breath a groan or a gasp were not enough, they shout
incessantly with a coarse, guttural grunt, something like Ha huida, Ho
huida, wa ho, Ha huida, etc.
I. L. B.

LETTER III

Yedo and Tokiyo--The Yokohama Railroad--The Effect of
Misfits--The Plain of Yedo--Personal Peculiarities--First Impressions
of Tokiyo- -H. B. M.'s Legation--An English Home.
H.B.M.'s LEGATION, YEDO, May 24.
I have dated my letter Yedo, according to the usage of the British
Legation, but popularly the new name of Tokiyo, or Eastern Capital, is
used, Kiyoto, the Mikado's former residence, having received the name
of Saikio, or Western Capital, though it has now no claim to be
regarded as a capital at all. Yedo belongs to the old regime and the
Shogunate, Tokiyo to the new regime and the Restoration, with their
history of ten years. It would seem an incongruity to travel to Yedo by
railway, but quite proper when the destination is Tokiyo.
The journey between the two cities is performed in an hour by an
admirable, well-metalled, double-track railroad, 18 miles long, with
iron bridges, neat stations, and substantial roomy termini, built by
English engineers at a cost known only to Government, and opened by
the Mikado in 1872. The Yokohama station is a handsome and suitable
stone building, with a spacious approach, ticket- offices on our plan,
roomy waiting-rooms for different classes-- uncarpeted, however, in
consideration of Japanese clogs--and supplied with the daily papers.
There is a department for the weighing and labelling of luggage, and on
the broad, covered, stone platform at both termini a barrier with

turnstiles, through which, except by special favour, no ticketless person
can pass. Except the ticket-clerks, who are Chinese, and the guards and
engine- drivers, who are English, the officials are Japanese in European
dress. Outside the stations, instead of cabs, there are kurumas, which
carry luggage as well as people. Only luggage in the hand is allowed to
go free; the rest is weighed, numbered, and charged for, a
corresponding number being given to its owner to present at his
destination. The fares are--3d class, an ichibu, or about 1s.; 2d class, 60
sen, or about 2s. 4d.; and 1st class, a yen, or about 3s. 8d. The tickets
are collected as the passengers pass through the barrier at the end of the
journey. The English-built cars differ from ours in having seats along
the sides, and doors opening on platforms at both ends. On the whole,
the arrangements are Continental rather than British. The first-class
cars are expensively fitted up with deeply-cushioned, red morocco seats,