The Cleanly Japs.

Southland Times, Issue 14516, 16 December 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Cleanly Japs.

In the neighbourhood of Matsumoto an off day for rest can nowhere be more agreeably spent than at the delightful thermal springs of A sama no Yu. Indeed, I am. free to .own that such places, with their variety of situation and style, are amongst the pleasantest accessories to mountaineering in Central Japan. Whatever may be the character of the establishment that has grownup round these natural hot baths, whose waters are credited with such marvellous therapeutic powers by the simple country folk who flock to them, it is certainly very refreshing, after some days’ hard scrambling, to spend a quiet week end and relax one’s stiffened limbs in the grateful warmth of the ‘onsen,’ the sulphur spring. Sometimes, os here, one finds accommodation at a comfortable inn on the outskirts of a busy plain. Sometimes it is a group of chalets in the heart of the Alps where a secluded valley is shut in by precipitous tree-clad mountain sides. Or, more quaint and curious still, you find yourself the first foreign traveller sharing a rude shanty with a party of rustics far up the side of some tall peak, where the customs of the bathers are primitive in the extreme, yet you will find more decorum in these out-of-the-world ‘yuba’ (bath houses) of Orenge San than at Leukerbad and elsewhere in ‘ civilised Europe.’ The Japanese value baths to a most extraordinary extent. In one out-of-the-way place I know of they will stay m for a month at a time, and sit with large stones on the knees to keep them from floating or ‘turning turtle’ in their sleep. The caretaker of this establishment, a cheery old boy of seventy-three summers, stops in the water practically the whole winter through. At another spot the villagers apologised to a friend or mine for being what they called ‘so dirty ;’ ‘for,’ they said, ‘you see,. it is the summer time, and we are too busy to bathe more than twice a day.’ ‘How often, then, do you bathe in winter ?’ inquired my friend. ‘Oh, we have less to do then, and can have four or—five baths daily, and the children get into the water whenever they feel cold !’