LIFE AT A JAPANESE WATERING PLACE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5156, 1 October 1877, Page 3

LIFE AT A JAPANESE WATERING PLACE.

(From Belgravia.) Life at Hakond, as passed by the healthseekers from Yokohama, has very little romance about it. The tourist will perhaps be lodged iu a couple of rooms—that is, a space consisting of so many mats divided into two by screens—in a farmhouse or in some tradesman’s residence, or even in some old temple. The sunrise artillery of opening shutters, inevitable in a Japanese house, wakes him from his sleep, he dons the airiest of costumes, and starts for a plunge in the clear, cold, and, as the natives say, unfathomable waters of the lake. If he has been for any length of time a wanderer in Japan, he has probably learned to exist on the food of the country, and to dispense witli articles of European food, the transport of which is always a source of annoyance and anxiety to the traveller ; and it, really requires very little training to become accustomed to Japanese food. The only point at which the palate rebels is that of drink—the fermented essence of rice, drank steaming hot, and resembling slightly in flavor diluted sherry of the Is. 3d. a bottle type, rarely finds favor with Englishmen. Moreover, it is a very rapid intoxicant, and it is very bad stuff to work physically upon. But with the edibles very little fault can be found. The flesh of animals, until the settlement of Europeans in Japan, was utterly unknown as an article of food. Now, however, shops for the sale of beef and pork are very numerous in Yedo and Yokohama, and are said to be wonderfully patronised by the natives. Fish and rice are the staple article of fond, and these when artfully seasoned by edible seaweeds, vegetables, eggs, and fruits, form dishes at which no European epicure could with reason turn up his nose. At the large fashionable restaurants of the capitals, if the traveller order a dinner on (an unlimited scale purely A la mode Japanaise, he must be prepared for a meal lasting over several hours, consisting of numberless courses, and composed entirely of these two articles, fish and rice. The very sweets with which the banquet opens are extracted from sea weed, and the side dishes and sauces made of e gg ß and vegetables are really the only “ plats” which are neither fish nor rice. In the country the traveller, of course, finds the menu more limited as to variety. But having learned the use of chopsticks, and possessing a bottle or two of English beer, and not being squeamish in the consumption of raw fish, he may fare uncommonly well, and, what is as important, will find that at the end of a meal be is perfectly free from the heaviness and drowsiness too generally consequent upon a hearty repast of the European calibre. Having breakfasted, armed with a pipe, a stick, a sketch-book, and a few shillings’ worth of paper money, he may start for his day’s ramble. If he be not a

convert'to Japanese food, at a very slight dost a coolie may be obtained who will carry provisions for a day dr two ; and with Hakond .as his head-quarters, the ; independent bachelor may spend a mo t enjoyable fortnight in exploring the'neighborhood—even venturing so far as to make the ascent of the holy mountain Fuji, distant some 20 miles ; in this case, however, he must be especially careful that his passport is in order, for if the Japanese are especially jealous about one subject more than another, it is their grand, lonely mountain. Acting thus independently, untrammelled by etiquette and the petty exactions of society, the traveller will never regret having passed a short time at Hakond. Walk as he may in any direction, pleasing subjects for his pencil, odd nooks and corners, little patches of the uncontaminated Japan of the romantic past, greet him at every turn of the road. If he be a sportsman he will find among the simple rustics many a sturdy fellow willing to show ; him happy hunting grounds abounding with big, and small game which have been accumulating ever since the days of feudalism, when the great lords of the neighborhood, and not unfrequently the Emperor himself, were wont to hold great hunting festivals extending over several weeks, and which, thanks to the stringent regulations concerning sporting licenses issued by {he Government, have never been massacred wholesale by the “ sportsmen” of Yokohama ; or he may pass a day of “ dolce far niente” with rod and line among the innumerable inlets and sequestered corners of the lake, sharing a rough tiffin with the boatman under the shade of some waterside shrine, and enjoying himself thoroughly, so long as he does not look for sport.