Eight Years in Japan, 1873-1881, etc

Preface

. The following pages have been written in an interval of leisure following upon a return home from service in Japan, by a civil engineer who has been engaged for several years under the Japanese Department of Public Works. They form a record of work, travel and recreation, but do not offer any formal summary of the results of study ; though it will scarcely be supposed that the institutions of the country have failed to impress the writer, who has ventured to express some views that are the outcome of his own experience and observation, in terms that it is hoped may not be found unduly prejudiced. For reasons stated in their place, this work is of an unambitious and necessarily egotistical character, and its production may be attributed to the author's own obstinacy in face of some discouragement arising from the number and interest of previous works by more accomplished writers, the list of whom includes, how ever, more students and visitors than actual participators VI

PREFACE.

. in the material tasks undertaken of late in Japan ; and as one of the latter class the author submits his tiny effort to the indulgence of readers. The maps are intended chiefly to illustrate the travels recorded ; but they contain some contribution to the corrections by which those having local knowledge can aid compilers. It only remains to be stated that the "Chief" referred to in the earlier part of the book is Mr. R. Vicars Boyle, C.S.I., to whom the author would have sought permission to inscribe his work, were it more worthy ; and that the " Chief Commissioner," or head of the Railway Bureau, is Mr. Inouye Masaru, now Vice- Minister of Public Works, to whose energy a large measure of the success and progress of railway work in Japan is due. April, 1883. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Yokohama and Kobe (1873) •■• ■-. ... 1 II.

Journey up Country ... ... ... ... 18 III. First Year's Work : Tsuruga, Shiotsu, and Nagahama (1874) ... ... ... ... ... 39 IV. Second Year's Work: Akasaka, Nagoya (1875) 71 V. Third Year's Work (1876) ... ... ... 101 VI. Completion of the Osaka-Kiyoto Railway — The Great Rebellion of 1877 122 VII. Holiday Trip -. Nikko, the Nakasendo, and Ise 138 VIII. Osaka and Tokiyo (1877) ... ... ... 193 IX. Tokiyo (1877-8) ... ... ... ... ... 204 X. Trip to Fujisan and Neighbourhood (1878) ... 223 XI. TokiyO (1878-9) ... ... ... ... ... 239 XII. Journey in the North (1879) ■■• •■• ••• 26i XIII. Tokiyo (1879-80) ... ... ... ... ... 278 XIV. Tokiyo and HakoniS (1880-1) ... ... ... 297 XV. Journey from Nagasaki to Kobe (1882) ... ... 321 MAPS AT END OF THE VOLUME. Central Japan. Northern Japan. Southern Japan.

Chapter I. Yokohama And Kobe

(1873). The day before our arrival in Japan was a fine Friday in the beginning of November. We were a select few, on this the last stage of our passage out, having dropped our contingent to the Mediterranean garrisons at Gibraltar and Malta, and our Egyptian merchants at Alexandria, transferred our chaplains and frisky matrons to another steamer at Suez, lost our only presentable maiden at Galle, cleared out all mothers and babies at Penang and Singapore, and parted from our tea-men and missionaries at Hong Kong. The nine or ten remaining drew closer together (chiefly in a little smoking tent rigged up over the main hatchway of the Avocd) as we ran up the China coast against the monsoon, and slanted over north of Formosa for the islands at the south-west extremity of Japan. Clear skies and a tranquil sea enabled us thenceforward to enjoy the views presented by the ever-changing coasts, clothed in manytinted B woods, and indented by strangely named bays or pierced by channels communicating with the Inland Sea.

The twin lighthouses on the Kii promontory, Oshima hiding its lovely haven, the rugged and forbidding-looking mountains that frowned at us across the Gulf of Isd, as we sped away eastward, rose to us and fell away ; and then above a hazier coast-line the cone of Fuji lifted its snowy crest into the blue to our left, as we ploughed along on our last afternoon's course, towards the evening dusk and the tiny bright guide that stood waiting for us on Rock Island. Our skipper was a jovial soul, always popular with his passengers, good for a song or two in an evening, and for a private store of ripe pumelo, to be shared with whomsoever would turn out and sit on the rail with him at sunrise. We induced him, by gentle pressure, to contravene all the rules of the service by authorizing the steward to serve out anchovy toast and hot grog at an abnormally late hour on this our last evening on board.

Then for the last time we had (always by special request) " Old Uncle Noah " (copyright), " Sandy, he belongs to the mill " (author unknown, music ad libitum), " Lorelei " (for no less than five of us were Germans), " Auld lang syne," " Die Wacht am Rhein," and " God save the Queen " (by the whole strength of the company) — and then we went to roost, leaving the skipper to keep the ship's head straight. We all got our traps into shape betimes next morning, and I noticed that whereas the English three rather affected the free and easy costume of the traveller, the Germans, and those who had been in Yokohama before, appeared in ceremonial garments as if to per petrate a series of afternoon calls, and presented a noble and dignified appearance as we steamed up the Bay of Yedo. As soon as the harbour master (for in those days there was one in Yokohama) had come on board, and the anchor was dropped, we were surrounded by boats of all descriptions, from the modest one-scull sampan, to the lordly steam-launch, and all Yokohama swarmed on to our decks.

Being fortunate enough to get ashore in a comfortable gig, I left all my heavy baggage in charge of a hotel tout who looked trustworthy, and encumbering myself only with a hand-bag steered for the Grand Hotel, and was speedily outside a light repast of oysters and Chablis. This accomplished, and a specimen cigarette disposed of, two travellers, one with a brown complexion and a yellow beard, and the other with a yellow com plexion and a brown beard, wearing billycocks to match the complexion of the one and the beard of the other, might have been descried by the glass-protected eye of Yokohama fashion, wending their way towards the railway offices, there to report themselves as newly arrived members of the engineering staff. But as it was Saturday afternoon, no persons of sufficient dignity to receive them were to be found ; so the two travelling companions separated, one to seek his friends in TokiyS, and the other to go about his own devices.

An English-speaking clerk of doubtful nationality volunteered the information that the Engineer-in-chief lived at Ya-ma-go-ju-ku-ban, and the traveller, who secretly prided himself upon his accurate memory of syllables, set out in the direction indicated ; but the syllables became mixed, and after trying various com binations of them, or others like them, the wanderer concluded that he had better regain his hotel ; and being tired, accepted the offer of an economically-clothed man to wheel him. But the word " hotel " was not the required talisman either, it seemed, in this case. However, the coolie assumed an interrogative air, and placed the tips of his fingers together prayerfully twice ; which being recognized as probably signifying " twenty," the number of the Grand Hotel, which the traveller had fortunately picked up and remembered, led to a joyful assent and ultimate attainment of that haven.

A fresh start on lines properly laid down, was of course practicable, but on consideration it was deemed better to wait for Monday morning for the official presentation ; and a second venture into the streets of Yokohama was rewarded by the discovery of a sympathetic hair-dresser, whose ministrations were highly beneficial, conferring as they did a sense of respecta bility that rendered Sunday morning not such an utterly purposeless incongruity as it had seemed since leaving Galle. So attendance at Christ Church, after a good night's rest, and the sight of the skipper in a tall hat and a new pair of gloves, became a special comfort ; and a sense of home influence was also imparted by the assistance at the service of more than one specimen of the bend, limp, and panier school of feminine refinement, then in favour with the matrons of Yokohama.

The Sunday afternoon was partly devoted to the study of the mystic syllables Ya-ma-go-ju-ku-ban ; and it became apparent that a good deal depended upon how much one might recollect of this formula, as, while the whole indicated with sufficient exactness the residence of the Engineer-in-chief, the last four syllables would take one to the general store, and the last two to the devil. However, the sacred character of the day assisted the finding of the "yama," or bluff, as the hill east of the settlement is called, and the " gojukuban," or number fifty-nine, situated thereupon, without mishap, and the achievement of an unofficial presentation. Monday morning duly brought about an introduction to the service, represented by the aforesaid chief, a director, an accountant, and a commissioner ; the last named being a dapper little Japanese gentleman who understood English pretty well.

He, however, adhered to the courteous native practice of ejaculating "heh !'" at every second word addressed to him, by way of assuring his interlocutor that he was paying the greatest attention, and also intimating his entire concurrence in what was said by echoing the last words of each phrase as it came to a conclusion. After a time one gets used to this sort of undercurrent, and can glide over it smoothly in flowing periods ; but at first it has a decidedly interruptive effect. I remember this first example of a native official with great pleasure, for though I did not meet him again for two years, I had then to act in conjunction with him, and a very good fellow I found him to be. Then we (for the other man had come in from what I had supposed to be the country, but which turned out to be the metropolis) made acquaintance with the resident engineer, and an assistant of his, and also with the traffic manager — all engaged on the short line of railway between Yokohama and Tokiyo ; and we were provided with an interpreter and free passes, and requested to make ourselves acquainted with the results so far of railway enterprise in Japan, as a preliminary to our own start upon active service.

I will not venture to say that what we saw commanded our entire approval ; but it is futile now to criticise in detail the works of this first railway in Japan, as it became necessary within a very few years to undertake operations that almost amounted to re-making the whole line from one end to the other, and as events turned out this had to be done under my own superintendence. Our inspection of the railway ; the concoction (purely as a pastime) of a design for altering the Yokohama terminus in case an impossible extension should be undertaken ; the making of short excursions into the country that we might become acquainted with the customs of the people ; a visit to Tdkiyo, to look at temples, the area devastated by the last great fire, the castle, and the engineering college ; and several en deavours to acquire a taste for hot water with cherry blossoms in it, and for raw fish with soy, filled up part of our leisure during the ensuing three weeks, fortunately of faultless weather, while we were waiting for instruc tions.

We also dined with the director, and tiffined with the chief ; attended a performance by the Amateur Dramatic Society (Sheridan's " Critic," very well done) ; and partook of such other amusements as our acquaintances helped us to. But as this was not what we had come out for, we were glad to receive instructions to proceed to Kobe, and thence start up country on a survey of some difficulty for a projected railway across the mainland of Japan ; and I fear I had contracted a pronounced dislike for the scene of our enforced idleness, after our long voyage out from England, before the Colorado, some days overdue from San Francisco, steamed into harbour, and our coast mail-boat, the Golden Age, that had been detained till she should arrive, at last stirred her lazy paddles and swung about her lofty deck-houses as she staggered away, rolling and pitching down the Gulf of Yedo, against a head-wind.

The run from Yokohama to Kobe takes usually about thirty hours ; but we had an exceptionally long passage, leaving Yokohama at four o'clock on the after noon of a Saturday, and dropping anchor about one o'clock on Monday. For about three hundred miles we retraced our track of three weeks before, and then turned northwards through the Kii channel into the Idzumi sea, a land-locked expanse of water communicating with the Inland Sea of Japan to the westward by the straits of Akashi about a dozen miles from Kobe. As we steamed up towards the harbour, a range of snow-tipped hills, about three thousand feet high, con fronted us ; but these sank behind a lower and nearer range as we neared the land, and the white houses of the settlement came in view. While we were taking our tiffin before landing we were joined by one of the old staff, who years before had been in the same service in India as my companion ; so we fraternized promptly.

Our friend led us to the Astor House, at which we had been ((/../..'-officially) recommended to stay while in Kobe, in preference to the larger and better-appointed Hiogo Hotel, frequented by sea-faring men, billiard players, and the consumers of cock-tails. We found, however, that such things were not entirely unknown at the quieter house in the back street. Then, having engaged our rooms, we proceeded further under the guidance of our friend to the railway offices, where we found our consignee, the Chief Assistant- Engineer, and sundry others of our own persuasion ; and formed the centre of a procession from the offices to the club, taking the consulate on the way. We had of course to be registered as British subjects, and certified and rendered poorer in worldly goods to the extent of five dollars each ; but it being now December, the worthy consul certified us as for the following year, such liberality well befitting his dignity as the best paid consul in Japan.

At the club we found more billiard-tables, and a bowling alley and library ; and were solemnly intro duced to the honorary secretary, whom we had before seen on board in his official capacity as harbour master. Further, we made acquaintance with about fifty wild young merchant princes of Kobe, all of them very affable and condescending ; and went home to our hotel to dinner, feeling free of the place. The idea we had formed from our observations in the neighbourhood of Yokohama, namely, that railway engineering in Japan was not as railway engineering elsewhere within our knowledge, was strengthened by what we saw at Kobe. The permanent buildings for the station and workshops were of iron, and had been designed upon the assumption that all the columns would be most suitably supported upon screw-piles ; but when it came to erecting them, the screw-piles proved to be not quite long enough to reach the ground when the columns were fixed with reference to the intended rail level.

So the structure was propped up in the air on tem porary supports, while the ground was elevated, by means of concrete in blocks and sand filling, until the screws at the lower ends of the piles were reached and imbedded. Hard by we found one of the engineering staff despairing of getting into proper position a series of pegs intended to denote the centre line of railway, on a curve, because his theodolite was marked the wrong way round, as he said ; but his resources were not by any means at an end, for in our presence he instructed his foreman to set the rails right, as near as he could, by eye alone, that he might get his centre line by measuring from them, and thus have no mistake as to the proper position of his future platforms ! We had tiffin afterwards with this good fellow — as he really was — and I don't think he ever knew the real cause of our suddenly losing our gravity when he mentioned for our information that the railway had many quite unnecessary curves in it.

Other funny things did we see that day and the next, and presently learned to keep our countenances under proper discipline ; and, moreover, ceased to wonder at the alleged delay in completing the line. For it appeared that the only known way of passing a stream of water eighteen inches wide under the line, was to build a couple of walls that would have served for the abutments of a fifty-foot bridge, a foot and a half apart, and span the yawning gulf between them by means of beams sixteen inches square, of expensive timber, of sufficient length to have about a dozen feet at each end buried in the embankment behind the masonry. The walls were of finely worked granite, and must have cost a mint of money ; but a structure of this description was to be found nearly every hundred yards. Then we came upon two tunnels under rivers, justified by the peculiarity of the situation, but remark able as being constructed for a single line only, while a third tunnel, a little further on, was made wide enough for a double line — the difference being explained by the statement that it had always been intended that the tunnels should be for a double line, but it was not found out while the two first were being constructed that they were not so.

We found, at any rate, that our Chief, who had not been long in the country, and who had at first to make the best use he could of a staff constituted on the basis of taking any one to be an engineer who said he was an engineer, and who was rapidly bringing order out of chaos, had some justification for thinking that a few men selected in London would perhaps leaven the whole lump so as to render his task in the future some what easier, establish a healthier constitution in his department, and secure for the Japanese good value for their money. These ends were certainly attained, though I will leave it to those specially interested to say in what measure the services of the recruits of 1873-4 contributed to secure them. On the second day we had a tramp through to Osaka, twenty miles, of which we rode four or five on a ballast engine.

We crossed two considerable rivers by the railway bridges, already completed and wanting only the rails ; and a third river we passed by boat, the bridge being yet unfinished. What with calling in upon three several engineers on the way, as in duty bound, and discussing with each of them the future possibilities of railway work, we found it falling dark as we arrived at the wilderness that was all yet achieved of Osaka station ; but one of our party who had left England a few weeks earlier than ourselves, and had already paid a flying visit to Osaka, piloted us down to the foreign settlement at Kawaguchi (the word signifies river-mouth, but does not suggest the fact that the river Yodo has two mouths, neither of which are near the settlement), and then we fetched the French hotel. The landlord of this establishment did not show, except by his substitute, a Chinese steward, who gave us some dinner, as to which I only remember that it was very bad, or there would not have been enough of it.

Then we started in search of the Osaka club, traversing the settlement two or three times (which did not involve any great amount of pedestrianism) before we hit upon the right place. So far as we could judge by the uncertain light of the oil lamps, Kawaguchi appeared to consist chiefly of new roads and vacant lots, the houses that were then in existence having all their back premises in front, and no fronts anywhere. How ever, we made ourselves free of the club, by the simple process of putting our cards in the rack, and fell to billiards. One member of the club looked in at the door, in the course of the evening, but he didn't stop *, and we soon tired of our game, and returned to the hotel, to find sound sleep in our barely furnished chambers. After a hasty breakfast (for there was no temptation to linger over it), and payment of an enormous bill, we returned to Kobe in two steamers, dividing our party of four impartially between the rival boats.

I had selected the larger one, which had a deck-cabin and was not crowded, and we were the first to stir up the mud of the dirty river and scoop our way down to Temposan, the western mouth ; but here the other steamer, a cranky little screw, whose skipper had craftily followed us down the groove we had excavated, gave us the go-by and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, making a noise that surely advertised to the whole of Osaka, Kobe, and the surrounding country, when she was underway, and that by its cessation made the hills aware when she stopped. Our comfortable paddle-boat had economical engines and a cynical owner-captain who positively snorted at us when we asked him if he could not hurry up a little. He said he only took passengers who weren't in a hurry, because he didn't care to burn coal ; and further gave us to understand that he lived on board his boat, and his dinner would be ready quite irrespective of the time of arrival at Kobe.

This worthy is, I believe, still living in his floating home, which he removed to China when the Kobe-Osaka Railway was opened. He informed us that on one occasion he had carried the Director, the Engineerin-chief, and the Chief Commissioner; and had covered them with confusion by asking firstly, what a railway was wanted for, and secondly, what they would take to delay the opening for another year — but could get no satisfactory answer from any of them. I was after wards told by one of the above dignitaries, that the skipper was asked how much he was prepared to put down, and that the unsatisfactory issue of the negocia tion was thereupon inevitable. We did arrive at Kobe in time for tiffin, much to the disappointment of the skipper, who had hoped that we should lunch with him, and had, I believe, shut off steam with this hospitable intention ; but the wind followed fair abaft and was too strong for him.

We found the Chief Assistant-Engineer, who was charged to facilitate our exit from the settlements, always ready to make an appointment for the trans action of business, but always unable to keep it. He was acting agent, acting store-keeper, acting locomotive superintendent, and a few other things ; and was further engaged during great part of his day in mollifying the wrath of every individual member of the staff under him. If any man, from an engine-driver to a resident engineer, had a spare half hour, he always looked up the Chief Assistant-Engineer and complained of some thing. If eligible, he was thereupon taken round to the club ; if not, he was promised special mention when the next general rise of wages was setting in. As, about the time we were in Kobe, two engineers were engaged in setting out the line from Osaka to Kiyoto, and they of course had their share of complaints to make, the Chief Assistant-Engineer used to meet them at Osaka (where, as above mentioned, there was a club), and this made it additionally difficult for us to get at him.

At last, however, after about ten days in Kobe, we succeeded in getting to business ; and, with his assistance, drew up a list of such articles as we required, and the department was prepared to furnish. As for our living and feeding, he gave us to understand that all we had to do was to make ourselves comfortable, and the native officials would get us anything in reason that we wanted ; and referred us to the regulations, which set forth that, while we were living in the settlements, unprovided with quarters, we were entitled to so much a day as allowances to cover all our expenses ; but when in the interior of the country, we were to receive half allowance, to pay for whatever we were obliged to have from the settlements, and that furnished quarters and such food as was obtainable in the district would be supplied to us.

In former times, he said, some foreigners in Japanese service had insisted upon being supplied with champagne and other luxuries at departmental cost ; so that it had been thought better to give the half allowance, and let us buy for ourselves such exotic comforts as we required ; the propriety of which course was obvious. So we made out our requisitions in accordance with the official scale ; but as some few days — or weeks or more — might be required in order to execute the requi sitions properly (for which our Kobe experience had prepared us), we did not propose to wait, but resolved to go on and make a start, hoping to make ourselves comfortable afterwards ; and accordingly set to work to concentrate our personal belongings, get instruments and tools packed, and prepare to rough it generally.

The absolute folly of leaving Christmas behind us was eloquently set forth by our Kobe friends, who pre dicted all manner of ill-luck for us if we started before the New Year ; but we had lost quite time enough already, and set off by steamer for Osaka, on the 23rd December, to be lost, as we were assured, in the wilds, for the people who went away from the settlements might of course (though they never did) come out at the other side, but returned never ! As, however, the farthest point to which we were bound was distant only a hundred and thirty miles, or thereabouts, from the Kobe club, and it was stated on good authority that people lived more or less all along the way — on both sides of the road, so to speak — we were ready to back our luck with that hardened effrontery, born of experience, which is cultivated by the race of engineers.

We did not, however, leave Kobe in quite the same frame of mind as we started in from Yokohama. I have never been quite able to account for the different impres sions the two places produce upon a large number of people. Except that Yokohama is about five times the size of Kobe, there appears to be no great contrast between them in essentials. Each has its business quarter, its villas on the hill, its native town and harbour. Yokohama, though it has not within a half-hour's walk the mountains that have such a charm for pedes trians or lovers of scenery at Kobe, is within easy travelling distance of some lovely hill country ; Kobe, though it has not the advantage of propinquity to the metropolis, is nevertheless entitled to rejoice in the neighbourhood of Osaka and Kiyoto, together at least equal in interest to Tokiyo.

Society is pretty much the same in both places, Kobe having the advantage that its numbers will not support quite as many distinct cliques as flourish in the larger settlement. Both are hideous for three or four months in the year by reason of the tea-firing industry that crams the godowns with dirty and per spiring women of the lowest class, and defiles the streets with their wretched children, and the neighbourhood for miles around with both, morning and evening, as they tramp to and from their squalid villages. In both the simple children of nature — to wit, sailors ashore, policemen craftily concealed behind sticks and spectacles, and Chinamen patiently abiding the day when they may have amassed enough dollars for their ease at home — form a large proportion of the visible inhabitants ; in both the flags of all nations fly from consular masts, and missionaries swarm and multiply in godly contentment.

And yet I have never found among the people who are equally acquainted with both places, even a respectable minority who did not profess to prefer the smaller settlement and there are many who, like myself, could, on good cause shown, live and die in Kobe, who never perhaps appreciated Yokohama at its worth, never tried to like it or its belongings and surroundings, never rejoiced to see it before them or grieved when they left it, and who, to all intents and purposes, are as much strangers in the most important foreign settlement of Japan, as if they had never been near it. In my own case, I attribute a permanent prejudice, which I confess with sorrow, to the fact that I arrived in Yokohama to find I had to go farther for a welcome, and that I never had anything more to do with the place than was absolutely necessary, which was very little.