Peoples and Places in the Orient. VII: Nagasaki and the Inland Sea of Japan

Peoples and Places in the Orient.

BY FRANK J. HEWLETT, DIRECTOR OF THE UTAH STATE FAIR AND PRESIDENT OF HEWLETT BROS. COMPANY.

VII.— Nagasaki and the Inland Sea of Japan. With the exception of a slight collision with a barge just out- side of the harbor, the return voyage to Hongkong was delightful. Father Neptune was on his best behavior. It was amusing to hear some passengers relate some "tipping" experiences, on the other fellow. The habit is not as bad in Asia as in Europe, the tips, as a rule, aremuch smaller. The American tourists, how- ever, have gained the reputation of rapidly spoiling the Asiatic servants. To the unsophisticated tourist the natives in the hotels, being dressed alike, on short acquaintance strikingly resemble each other. A Yankee banker, noted for his generosity, after partaking of the last meal, jingled the silver in his pocket, which caused the Chinese waiter boy's stolid countenance to be wreathed in one huge smile. "What is the largest tip you ever received?" asked the American. "Twenty Mexee," replied China, still grinning. The man of means handed him thirty Mex,— fifteen dollars — thinking to outdo the other fellow in generosity. The "tip was '

accepted with a bow. As he was leaving the dining room, the American called him back and said, "Who gave you the large tip?" The almond-eyed boy looked at him curiously, and hesitated to answer.

302 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

"Now, who was it?" in a sharp tone. "You samee man, sir, when here last time." Another one. An English business man, stopping at the King Edward Hotel, Hongkong, was so very economical with his tips that his friends delighted to jolly him, especially so, as, through a blunder, he had tipped the wrong coolies at Singapore. Entering the lavatory, his glance caught a sign reading, "Please tip the washbowl." "Blarst it,

if I do," said the irate Brit- on, leaving the room in a rage. Once more we board the big mail ship with her bow pointed to the realm of the Mikado. Our first sight of Japan from the Western side is the Island of Goto, precip- itous and craggy. As it

fades in the distance, there rises, far away, the high and jagged coastlines of Japan. Skirting islets and fantastic pinnacles of rock, the vessel glides under a wild sky of violet and flaming orange, into the harbor of Nagasaki. The Tax Administration Bureau, Na- The harbor is a dream of gasaki. loveliness, on this early morn-

ing in June. It is known everywhere as cne of the most picturesque in the world.Green mountains, terraced and wooded to their very summits, have parted far enough to let an arm of the sea cleave its way inland. Chains of islands, with precipitious shores, guard the entrance of this haven of rest. The city of Nagasaki seems to have emerged from the ravines and spread itself out at the end of the inlet. Temples, tea-houses, and typical Japanese homes, with high, ivy-clad stone walls, formed a sub- stantial background to the clean streets and lanes. Handsome

PEOPLES AND PLACES IN THE ORIENT. 803

villas of foreign residents cling to the hillside, or dot the groves on the heights. Nagasaki lost some commercial importance after the opening of the port of Kobe, which took the tea trade to the opposite side of the Inland Sea, around which cluster the great tea districts

JAPANESE WOMEN COALING A SHIP AT NAGASAKI.

of Japan. Its coal mines and immense dry docks make it a har- bor which no ship passes without a call. The Takashima mines are only a few miles away. These furnish the only coal used by many of the big steamships. These vast coal deposits are owned by the Mitsu-Bishi Co., the Rockefellers of Japan. This company retained the coal properties when they sold their steamship line to the Japanese government. Considerable of the coal has been shipped to San Francisco with profit. Although soft and dirty, it is much inferior as fuel to the Australian and much of the American coal. The Mitsu-Bishi Company clear over a mil- lion dollars yearly from the mine.The deepest shaft is over three hundred feet. Barges carry the coal from the mouth of the shaft to the waiting ships in harbor. The coal is weighed as it goes aboard, and brings from two to four dollars a ton, according to quality.

304 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

Look at the string of barges coming toward the ship! They are drawn by puffing gasoline launches. Some are loaded with coal, others are covered with men, women and children. The barges are soon alongside and made fast to the big liner. The men and women are laughing and chatting like a lot of school children on a picnic. Rope ladders, with wooden steps, are quickly fastened on both sides of the ship. The women, many of them with babes strapped on their backs, take their places on the steps, forming a human elevator. The men remain in the barges to fill the half -bushel baskets with coal. The baskets are then tossed from one woman to the other, until they reach the hold of the ship. They worked like a colony of ants. In seven hours, three thousand tons of coal were safely loaded aboard, without an acci- dent. When we returned, at dusk, the canvas had been removed,

MARKET OF TSUKIMADIX AT NAGASAKI.

and the decks of the vessel carefully scrubbed. The men earn forty sen, twenty cents, and the women thirty sen, per day. -We were told that the coaling station at Nagasaki is the only one in the world where ships are coaled without the aid of machinery. Let us go ashore and view the reputed home of Madame

PEOPLES AND PLACES IN THE ORIENT. 305

Butterfly. We will walk along the paths lined by moss, shrubs and flowers, so naturally painted by our American artists. A few min- utes ride on the launch, and we are at the Hotobo, where are scores of Japanese jinrikisha-men waiting to receive us. The purser informs us that the coolies of Nagasaki are the most ignor- ant and the boldest in the empire. Every few days the little brown policemen beat them with the flat side of their swords, to teach them to remember for a brief period the need of being civil to strangers. We are surrounded^ by then. They are worse

VIEW OF HONGOCHI AT NAGASAKI.

than a bunch of San Francisco hack-drivers. Cries of rikisha, rikisha, English, English! greet our ears. We prefer to take a short walk first and a ride afterwards. Though they all pretend to have a perfect knowledge of the English language, not one of them seemed to have learned the meaning of the little word "no." There is a good pavement leading to the shopping districts. Long, narrow, red banners, covered with Japanese characters abound everywhere. We happened to arrive on a day celebrated as the Feast of Buddah. Nagasaki is noted for its large tortoise- shell factories and shops. Here one can buy tortoise-shell combs, toys, miniature sampans and jinrikishas, — typical' "souvenirs.

306 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

Hundreds of merchants display, in their tiny shops, shells beauti- fully carved, artificial dragons, hideous idols, cups and bowls, both in chim and lacquer, books, purses, pouches with knobs of carved ivory, sweets, cakes of all

colors, and many-tailed fishes.in globes. There are lanterns plain, and lanterns painted, in every conceivable shape. One passes shops heaped high with china for common use, whose blues and whites make a picture of attrac- tion, fruit-shops, where scores of kinds are stacked up in dainty piles, and mostly sold by the single piece. All tourists enjoy shopping in Japan. P.oto by F. J. Hewlett. There is something fascinating about Passengers dickering with na- it that one cannot resist. tive curio sellers on S. S. Korea. Japanese clerks, whether male or female, are polite and patient. Half of tne shops of Japan are regular "old curiosity shops." There are bronzed figures, curios, all kinds of pictures, oil paintings and water colors, kimonas, fantastic scenes on shield and screen, swords and dag- gers that look to be a thousand years old. Clocks of all kinds abound, for the Japanese love plenty of time pieces, but very few of them keep correct time. We enter one of the largest shops and are met by the proprietor, who politely bows, leaves the room, but soon returns with cakes and tea on a dainty little tray. We point to a beautiful hammered brass vase. A price is asked; Oriental fashion, about one half of the price is offered. Much genial courtesy, bowing, smiles and compliments accompany the first half of when both parties have reached the negotiation; but the limit of their concessions, a stern war begins on the debated grounds. Every device is employed, groans, protests, anger, contempt, and several feigned departures, on the part of the pur- chaser. Finally one stretches and the other retracts his price until a common figure is reached; in truth, it is the one that should have been asked in the beginning. Then sweet peace once more prevails. The vendor assumes an air of one who has spent his last cent for the benefit of another, and is flushed with the joy

PEOPLES AND PLACES IN THE ORIENT. 307

of his own excellence. We rise, amid many bows and cheerful soyonarras, good-byes, and depart bearing our treasure. Our rikisha-boy takes the package, and stows it carefully away. We are now ready to saunter once more. Japan is thronging around us most of the time. Babies in orange, red, green and purple dress, play about the narrow streets _

They are strapped to their brothers' or sisters' backs. In most cases it looks like a child carrying a child.

Women of the lower class brown and tousled, with fat, red cheeks and almond eyes, Fishing Boat, Inland Sea of Japan. go slowly about their market- ing. Coolies and workmen amble up and down dressed in their tights, and doublets of blue, figured with white, fantastic char- acters. Ladies and gentlemen of the better class, dressed in their quiet gray or black kimonas, pass slowly by, while ladies of quality are borne through the crowd in their own handsomely carved jinrikishas. The ride to Mogi is the star attraction of Nagasaki. It lies

six miles distant. Being hilly, you need two boys, tandem fash- ion, to pull your rikisha. Mogi is a typical fishing village. The road thither is cele- brated for fine scenery. We pass the famous Nagasaki reservoirs that supply the city with sparkling spring water. The terraced hills, on either side of the macadam road, are planted with tea, rice and vegetables. All is cultivated. The whole country is divided up into tiny farms, varying in size from patches not much bigger than a bed quilt to tracts of nearly an acre. No weeds are permitted to grow, the whole being as clean as an 0. S. L. flower bed. There are no fences. As one goes along the side hills, they remind him of a big crazy quilt, made up of patches of many-colored crops, bound together with green grass, or a ridge of soil to denote the boundaries of each tiny farm. All is

carefully watered, through an almost perfect system of irrigation.

308 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

Where the water does not flow by gravity, or the farmers are too poor to invest in a pumping-plant, it is carried by means of a stick across the shoulders, to each end of which is fastened a five gal- lon oil can. The Japanese farmers seldom live on their farms. They dwell in little villages located at a distance of every mile or so, and live in wooden houses thatched with rice straw. The father, mother, brothers and sisters all work in harmony together in the fields. With them, work seems a pleasure. You can see them chatting and laughing together, as they toil from dawn to dark. We passed an old lady who must have been between seventy and eighty years of age. Her head had been shaved clean as a babe's, and was now protected by a paper Passengers Viewing the Charms of the pa rasol. With bamboo staff Inland Sea. , , , ,

m hand, she was bravely ,

trudging along the road to Mogi. We arrived at Mogi just in time for a nice fish-tiffin. After a rest, we went for a walk along a narrow path that led around the hill to the ocean. Just ahead of us was the same aged woman. We followed until she stopped in front of a plain temple in a small grove of trees. . She entered. At either side of the doorwas a square box, with narrow slats across the top. From a pocket in the sleeve of her kimona she took a handful of rice and gently dropped it into the box. From the pocket in the other sleeve she took a copper coin which she deposited in the receptacle opposite. The devout soul then proceeded to a hideously carved image at the rear end of the temple. Clapping her hands three times, she held them up as if in supplication, and mumbled a prayer to her God. This was repeated a second time. What she said we could not understand, but if sincerity, patience, and hard toil are to be rewarded, surely she is entitled to the blessing. Once more we board our ship which soon gently churns her way through the beautiful inland sea of Japan This land-locked

PEOPLES AND PLACES IN THE ORIENT. 309

Japanese water is a broad lake over two hundred miles long, filled with islands and sheltered by uneven shores, the jagged mountains of intense green, nowhere become wild enough to disturb the green-like color. The sea's verdant islands lie in groups. The channel is always broad and plain. All the shallow places are marked with buoys, but it is a difficult task for the pilot to steer the liner and at the same lime keep clear of the hundreds of fishing boats. Besides the danger to life, there is a heavy fine imposed for running down one of these boats. The day is beautiful. The passen- gers are all on deck with their kodaks Island in'Jthe Inland Sea of Japan. taking pictures of one of the most picturesque and delightful spots injthe world. We seemed to be gliding by enchanted islands. Light- houses, perched on the highest points, flashed brilliant, revolving lights, to guide the faithful pilot after dark. Along the shores are chains of villages, protected by stone sea-walls, with castles and temples rising above the clustered roofs, or peeping from wooded slopes. Huge stone lanterns marked the way to the temple groves. Cemeteries were there with ancient Buddahs of granite and bronze to attest that they are centuries old. Junks and sampans : lie

anchored in fleets, or creep idly across the waters, and small coast-

ing steamers thread their way in and out among the islands. At Shimonsiki the Inland Sea ends, and ships pass out by the narrow- est of the channels— one that boils with rips and cross-currents. Bright and early next morning we arrive at Kobe, the second important seaport of Japan. It has been open to foreign trade since 1868. It is the capital of the Hyogo prefecture, has 285,- 000 inhabitants, and is one of the live trade-centers of the empire There are many pretty walks in the neighborhood, and among the hills. The Nunobiki Falls and their picturesque surroundings are well worth seeing. On the side of one of the largest hills, an immense, green anchor, made from shrubs, dotted with flowers, attracts the eye, as you sail into the magnificent harbor. Nagasaki, Japan.