Kobe, Japan
Kobe, Japan, on board the SS Rohilla, Monday, May 2/98.
We left Nagasaki harbour at 5 o’clock on Saturday morning & had a fine passage, tho’ it was hazy throughout the Inland Sea, the scenery must be beautiful & I hope to have a clear view on my return. The Straits of Shimonoseki we passed through between 5 & 7 on Saturday night, very interesting but intricate navigation, pilot all the way from Nagasaki to Kobe – consult your Chambers & see map of Japan. It was very cold all the passage, & over coat on. We arrived here at 4 p.m. yesterday. It was raining. I went ashore at 5 & had a rickshaw about the town for 2 hours. Some of our company left the ship & went ashore with the object of getting on to Yokohama, however, none of them got away. 3 of us stayed by the ship. All but myself are going on to America with the Empress of India, leaving Yoko on the 5th, & they, like myself, are disappointed that our viewing has been curtailed with laying at quarantine. We were at Nagasaki from Thursday till the Saturday week & at least 7 of those days would have been available for sight seeing.
The journey from here to Yokohama is 18 hours [3:73] & of course, the same returning. The Company’s agent is forwarding the passengers by train today but as I have only 4 days – the steamer leaves here for Hong Kong 4 p.m. Thursday – I can’t see my way to spend 36 hours out of that time in the train, & it is a wretched day, raining & blowing tempestuously, no work going on, too wet, so you can imagine what it is like. I can’t get ashore so am housed on board where I intend staying. If it clears up during the afternoon, I go ashore to view & if fine tomorrow I will go early to Kioto & Osaka, returning here either Wednesday night or Thursday forenoon. I shall see Japanese life probably, & more natural at Kioto than at any other town in Japan, so travellers say. Kioto was the ancient capital. Now Tokio is the capital, near Yoko’, the ancient Jeddo, so they have changed its name.
My Japan tour has been unfortunate & brought me a long way out of route for nothing profitable in the shape of viewing information. Of course, this is quite beyond calculation & a disappointment which carrys [sic] with it nothing but submission, but it has given me a distaste for anything Japanese, so has it all our passengers. Some are disgusted & vexed. The P&O Coy. have a condition in their rules relating [3:74] to quarantine whereby all passengers must pay 10/- per day during the period of quarantine detention & we were each notified by presentation with a bill for £3-10-0, & the clause was attached to a notice & fixed on the notices board. We were not surprised at this knowing there was such a bye law but seeing we passengers were not the cause but one of their crew, we doubted the legality & agreed not to take any notice of the charge, & on arrival here the agent was consulted. I had no part in it, & decided not to make the charge. Some of the passengers threatened to write to the English papers & expose the incident were the charge enforced, so I suppose for the sake of the exposure & small sum of about £40 they thought it judicious to wave [sic] it. I really believe any court would have decided against the company, because they alone was [sic] responsible for the crew, & we passengers might, had more cases broken out, which wasn’t unlikely during our detention, we might have been in quarantine for an indefinite period, not to speak of the annoyances of having to go ashore to the station & be disinfected on every occasion of an outbreak. As for me, I am done out of my pleasure here, however, I hope to make it up as I journey onward.
I will pass this on by the first outgoing [3:75] mail. I think it will be by one of the Empress steamers & the one our passengers will join at Yoko. She will likely be in here tomorrow or Wednesday from Hong Kong & Shanghai, where they call en route.
Just before coming down to write I had been watching a fine 4 master coming sailing into the harbour a fine wind for her & she looked very majestic, she seems even larger than Andorinha. I may get her name from the papers tomorrow. A great number of steamers are here. We are luckily at a jetty, only two berths & the other is occupied with the P&O SS Brindisi. These are the only harbour berths here. All others lay at buoys & discharge & load by lighters. Fortunately one of these 2 berths were unoccupied. It is scarcely possible to get a boat out to ships at buoys. Only steam launchers can go & come. We are not 3 minutes from the entrance to town. I have a letter of introduction from Hanson’s to their agent here & will call on him when ashore. He is also agent here for Samuels & Co. (Mrs. Abrahams, late Station Hotels brother’s company). I shall feel glad when we get on the way again as it is no pleasure to me sight seeing under such uncomfortable conditions as rain & its accompanying effects.
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