Part 59 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE KAGO. ]
Between Ikaho and Savavatari, our next resting-place, the road was so bad that the _jinrikisha_ could no longer be used, we accordingly had to use the _kago_, a j.a.panese sedan-chair made of bamboo, of the appearance of which the accompanying wood-cut gives an idea. It is exceedingly inconvenient for Europeans, because they cannot like the j.a.panese sit with their legs crosswise under them, and in course of time it becomes tiresome to let them dangle without other support by the side of the _kago_. Even for the bearers this sedan chair strikes me as being of inconvenient construction, which is shown among other things by their halting an instant every two hundred, or in going up a hill, every hundred paces, in order to s.h.i.+ft the shoulder under the bamboo pole. We went up-hill and down-hill with considerable speed however, so that we traversed the road between Ikaho and Savavatari, 6 _ri_ or 23.6 kilometres in length, in ten hours. The road, which was exceedingly beautiful, ran along flowery banks of rivulets, overgrown with luxuriant bamboo thickets, and many different kinds of broad-leaved trees. Only round the old temples, mostly small and inconsiderable, were to be seen ancient tall Cryptomeria and Ginko trees. The burying places were commonly situated, not as at home, in the neighbourhood of the larger temples, but near the villages. They were not inclosed, but marked out by stone monuments from a third of a metre to half a metre in height, on one side of which an image of Buddha was sometimes sculptured. The recent graves were often adorned with flowers, and at some of them small foot-high s.h.i.+nto shrines had been made of wooden pins.
Savavatari, like Ikaho, is built on the slope of a hill. The streets between the houses are almost all stairs or steep ascents. Here too there well up from the volcanic rocks acidulous springs, at which invalids seek to regain health. The watering-place, however, is of less repute than Ikaho or Kusatsu.
While we walked about the village in the evening we saw at one place a crowd of people. This was occasioned by a compet.i.tion going on there. Two young men, who wore no other clothes than a narrow girdle going round the waist and between the legs, wrestled within a circle two or three metres across drawn on a sandy area. He was considered the victor who threw the other to the ground or forced him beyond the circle. A special judge decided in doubtful cases. The beginning of the contest was most peculiar, the combatants kneeling in the middle of the circle and sharply eying each other in order to make the attack at a signal given by the judge, when a single push might at once make an end of the contest. In this compet.i.tion there took part about a dozen young men, all well grown, who in their turn stepped with some encouraging cries or gestures into the circle in order to test their powers. The spectators consisted of old men and women, and boys and girls of all ages. Most of them were clean and well-dressed, and had a very attractive appearance.
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE WRESTLERS. ]
Here it was the youth of the village themselves that took part in the contest. But there are also in j.a.pan persons who carry on these games as their occupation, and exhibit themselves for money. They are in general very fat, as appears from the accompanying drawing, which represents the beginning of the contest, when both the combatants are still watching to get a good hold.
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE BRIDGE. After a j.a.panese drawing. ]
Next day, the 1st October, we continued our journey to Kusatsu. The road was uphill for a distance of 550 metres, downhill for nearly as far, then up again, and ran often without any protecting fence past deep abysses, or over high bridges of the most dangerous construction. It was, therefore, impossible for any wheeled vehicle to traverse it, so that we had to use in some cases _kagos_, in others riding-horses. Unfortunately the j.a.panese high saddle does not suit the European, and if the traveller prefers a riding-horse to a _kago_, he must, if he does not carry a saddle with him, determine to ride on an unsaddled horse, which, with the wretched steeds that are only available here, soon becomes so unpleasant that he at last prefers to let his legs hang benumbed from the _kago_. A peculiarity in j.a.pan is that the rider seldom himself guides his horse. It is commonly led by a halter by a groom running alongside the rider. These grooms are very light-footed and enduring, so that even at a rapid pace they are not left behind. Running footmen also attend the carriages of people of distinction in the towns and the mail-coaches on Nakasendo. When there is a crowd before the carriage they jump down and drive away the people by a dreadful shouting.
From the mail-coach they also blow the post-horn, not just to the advantage of the ear-drums of the travellers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE. ]
The scenery by the roadside was exceedingly beautiful. Now it consisted of wild valleys, filled with luxuriant vegetation which completely concealed the crystal-clear streams purling in the bottoms; now of level gra.s.sy plains or hill-slopes, thickly studded with solitary trees, chiefly chestnuts and oaks. The inhabitants were fully occupied with the chestnut harvest. Before every hut mats were spread out, on which chestnuts lay drying in thick layers.
Grain and cotton were being dried in the same small way, as it appeared to us Europeans. On the plains there stood besides in the neighbourhood of the cabins large mortars, by which the grain was reduced to groats. On the hills these tramp-stamps are partly replaced by small mills of an exceedingly simple construction, introduced by the Dutch.
We pa.s.sed the 2nd October at Kusatsu, the Aix-la-Chapelle of j.a.pan, famed like that place for its hot sulphurous springs. Innumerable invalids here seek an alleviation of their pains. The town lives upon them, and accordingly consists mainly of baths, inns, and shops for the visitors.
The inns are of the sort common in j.a.pan, s.p.a.cious, airy clean, without furniture, but with good braziers, miniature tea-services, clean matting, screens ornamented with poetical mottoes, which even when translated were almost unintelligible to us, friendly hosts, and numerous female attendants. If the traveller brings his own cook with him, as we did, he can live very comfortably, as I have before stated, at such an inn.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INN AT KUSATSU. ]
The hot springs which have conferred on Kusatsu its importance rise at the foot of a pretty high hill of volcanic origin. The rocks in the surrounding country consist exclusively of lava and volcanic tuffs, and a short distance from the town there is an extinct volcano in whose crater there are layers of sulphur.[382] In the immediate neighbourhood of the place where the main spring rises there is a thick solidified lava stream, surrounded by tuffs, which near the surface is cleft into a number of large vesicular blocks.
From this point the hot water is conducted in long open wooden channels to the bath-house of the town, and to several evaporating pools, some by the wayside, others in the town, intended for collecting the solid const.i.tuents of the water, which are then sold in the country as medicine. The great evaporation from these pools, from the open channels and the hot baths, wraps the town almost constantly in a cloud of watery vapour, while a very strong odour of sulphuretted hydrogen reminds us that this is one of the const.i.tuents of the healing waters.
The road between the wells and the town appears to form the princ.i.p.al promenade of the place. Along this are to be seen innumerable small monuments, from a half to a whole metre in height, consisting of pieces of lava heaped upon each other. These miniature memorials form by their littleness a peculiar contrast to the _bauta_ stones and _jettekast_ of our Swedish forefathers, and are one of the many instances of the people's fondness for the little and the neat, which are often to be met in j.a.pan. They are said to be erected by visitors as thank-offerings to some of the deities of Buddha or s.h.i.+nto.
I received from a j.a.panese physician the following information regarding the wells at Kusatsu and their healing power. In and near the town there are twenty-two wells, with water of about the same quality, but of different uses in the healing of various diseases.
In the hottest well the water where it rises has a temperature of 162 F (= 72.2 C.). The largest number of the sick who seek health at the baths, suffer from syphilis. This disease is now cured according to the European method, with mercury, iodide of pota.s.sium, and baths. The cure requires a hundred days, from seventy to eighty per cent. of the patients are cured completely, though purple spots remain on the skin. The disease does not break out anew. A large number of leprous patients also visit the baths. The leprosy is of various kinds; that with sores is alleviated by the baths, and is cured possibly in two years; that without sores but with the skin insensible is incurable, but is also checked by frequent bathing. All true lepers come from the coast provinces. A similar disease is produced also among the hills by the eating of tainted fish and fowl. This disease consists in the skin becoming insensible, the nerves inactive, and the patient, who otherwise feels well, finding it impossible to walk. It is also cured completely in very severe cases, by baths, ammonia applied inwardly, castor-oil, Peruvian bark, &c. A third type of this ailment is the bone-disease, _kak'ke'_, which is exceedingly common in j.a.pan, and is believed to be caused by unvarying food and want of exercise. It is very obstinate, but is often cured in two or three years with chloride of iron, alb.u.men, change of diet from the common j.a.panese to the European, with red wine, milk, bread, vegetables, &c. This disease begins with a swelling in the legs, then the skin becomes insensible, first on the legs, next on the stomach, the face, and the wrists. Then the swelling falls, fever comes on, and death takes place. There are besides, certain wells for curing rheumatism, for which from two to three years are required; for eye-diseases and for headache, the latter playing an important part among the illnesses that are cured at Kusatsu. It princ.i.p.ally attacks women between twenty and thirty years of age. One of the Kusatsu wells acts very beneficially in this case. Its water is conducted to a special bathing-shed open to the street, intended exclusively for the men and women who suffer from this disease.
Many of the baths at Kusatsu are taken so hot that special precautions must be adopted before one steps down into the water.
These consist in winding cotton cloths round those parts of the body which are most sensitive, and in causing the body to perspire strongly before the bath is taken, which is done by the bathers with cries and shouts and with certain movements stirring the water in the basin with large heavy boards. They then all step down into the bath and up again simultaneously at a sign given by the physician sitting at the back of the bathing shed. Without this arrangement it would perhaps be difficult to get the patients to go into the bath, for agreeable it could not be, to judge from the grave faces of the bathers and the fire-red colour of their bodies when they come out.
The baths are under open sheds. Men and women all bathe in common, and in presence of both male and female spectators. They make their remarks without reserve on the diseases of the patients, even if they are of that sort about which one would not speak willingly even to his physician. Often the bath-basin is not fenced off in any way, except that it is protected from rain and suns.h.i.+ne by a roof resting on four posts. In such cases the bathers dress and undress in the street.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BATH AT KUSATSU. ]
In consequence of the situation of Kusatsu at a height of 1050 metres above the sea, the winter there is very cold and windy. The town is then abandoned not only by the visitors to the baths, but also by most of the other inhabitants. Already, at the time of our visit, the number of bathers remaining was only inconsiderable. Even these were preparing to depart. During the second night that we pa.s.sed at Kusatsu, our night's rest was disturbed by a loud noise from the next room. It was a visitor who was to leave the place the following morning, and who now celebrated his recovery with _saki_ (rice-brandy) and string music.
The environs of Kusatsu are nearly uncultivated, though the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant. It consists partly of bamboo thickets, partly of a high rich gra.s.s, above which rise solitary pines, mixed with a few oaks or chestnuts.
On the 3rd October we continued our journey to the foot of Asamayama. The road was very bad, so that even the _kago_ bearers had difficulty in getting along. It first ran across two valleys more than 300 feet deep, occupied with close, luxuriant, bushy thickets. We then came to an elevated plain of great extent covered with unmown gra.s.s, studded with beautiful oaks and chestnuts. The plain was not turned to any account, though thousands of the industrious population could find an abundant living there by tending cattle. Farther up the oaks and chestnuts were mixed with a few birches, resembling those at home, and we came next to complete deserts, where the ground consisted of lava blocks and lava gravel, scarcely covered by any gra.s.s, and yielding nourishment only to solitary pines. This continued to the place--Rokuriga-hara--where we were to pa.s.s the night, and from which the next day we were to ascend the summit of Asamayama.
Rokuriga-hara is situated at a height of 1270 metres above the sea.
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