Near the end of this book there is a quote describing Japanese people as a whole:
“…the yellow skins, the stiff horse hair, the feeble eyelids, the elongated eyes, the sloping eyebrows, the flat noses, the sunken chests, the Mongolian features, the puny physique, the shaky walk of the men, the restricted totter of the women, and the general impression of degeneracy conveyed by the appearance of the Japanese…”
Written almost 150 years ago, it is hard to imagine these words used to describe human beings today. It is exceptionally educational to read these words from a person who is a self-described “civilized” person talking about the Japanese people, most of whom are referred to as “savages”. I was surprised to find the author so judgmental of the people and culture she comes across during her four months traveling Japan.
At this time there were few foreigners who had seen Japan, and so the writing style is one of meeting an uncontacted tribe. Especially the Ainu are treated like a lost race rapidly going extinct (which was true then as now), but the writing about people tends towards documentary and scientific(?) information gathering.
But what saves this book for me is the beautiful descriptions of nature, the writer’s thorough documentation of each day of travel and episodes that she encounters. This is more like the type of travel writing that I enjoy.
Especially the descriptions of Hokkaido’s open spaces (and how much more open they must have been at that time), lonely outposts, and haunting ocean waves made an impact on me.
It is truly amazing that a solitary woman had the courage and fortitude to travel in this very rough style back when she did. This journey is only one of many she made around the world, and we are lucky to have the written evidence of her adventures.
This book is old enough to be out of copyright – making it a free book for anyone. Thanks to a very readable writing style it is the closest thing you can get to experiencing time travel into the past.
It is rather long thanks to her comprehensive journal of events, and if you can handle the old fashioned way of describing native people, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in travel writing.
Next I am reading Domesday Book by Connie Willis.
