"the further I go / more letters from home / never arrive / and I am alone / all of the way"

Recent interesting read: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by that indefatigable Victorian traveler Isabella Bird. This records, in letters to her sister, a 1878 journey through Tohoku and Hokkaido. Largely because I've never seen much by way of the conditions in the countryside mid-Meiji period.

Bird is not a completely reliable or unbiased observer (and I wonder just how much she's failing to see that I don't know enough to recognize), and when she reaches Hokkaido, among the Ainu, she becomes an Amateur Victorian Anthropologist, Wince-Worthy Variety. However, comma, she's a curious and generally sympathetic observer, is far less orientalizing than many Western writers of the period (AVAWWV aside), and has a lively and entertaining style.

Also, it's amusing to see her casually press "Dr. Hepburn" into use as an interpreter in Yokohama.

---L.