「イザベラ・バード」を歩く:/10 初めての「温泉」体験！ 奥日光

明治時代に日本を旅した英国人女性旅行家、イザベラ・ルーシー・バード。インバウンドの先駆けといえる外国人に日本はどう映ったのか。彼女が残した旅行記から、時空を超えて、当時の日本を旅する連載です。

12日間に及ぶ日光滞在中、イザベラ・バードは泊まりがけで奥日光の湯元温泉を訪ねている。バードにとっては初の温泉体験となった。修験の場でもあった奥日光は明治初頭まで「女人禁制・牛馬禁制」だったが、明治5（1872）年に解禁されていた。バードもどこかで聞き及んだのだろう。

現在でこそ、バスに揺られて「いろは坂」を40分ほど上れば中禅寺湖畔に着くが、この時代は奥日光まで行くのは一日がかりだった。バードは日本に来て初めて、馬を使った。「Unbeaten Tracks in Japan」を見てみよう。

To-day I have made an experimental journey on horseback, have done fifteen miles in eight hours of continuous travelling, and have encountered for the first time the Japanese pack-horse -- an animal of which many unpleasing stories are told, and which has hitherto been as mythical to me as the kirin, or dragon. I have neither been kicked, bitten, nor pitched off, however, for mares are used exclusively in this district, gentle creatures about fourteen hands high, with weak hind-quarters, and heads nearly concealed by shaggy manes and forelocks.

They are led by a rope round the nose, and go barefoot, except on stony ground, when the mago, or man who leads them, ties straw sandals on their feet. The pack-saddle is composed of two packs of straw eight inches thick, faced with red, and connected before and behind by strong oak arches gaily painted or lacquered. There is for a girth a rope loosely tied under the body, and the security of the load depends on a crupper, usually a piece of bamboo attached to the saddle by ropes strung with wooden counters, and another rope round the neck, into which you put your foot as you scramble over the high front upon the top of the erection.

The load must be carefully balanced or it comes to grief, and the mago handles it all over first, and, if an accurate division of weight is impossible, adds a stone to one side or the other. Here, women who wear enormous rain hats and gird their kimonos over tight blue trousers, both load the horses and lead them. I dropped upon my loaded horse from the top of a wall, the ridges, bars, tags, and knotted rigging of the saddle being smoothed over by a folded futon, or wadded cotton quilt, and I was then fourteen inches above the animal's back, with my feet hanging over his neck. You must balance yourself carefully, or you bring the whole erection over; but balancing soon becomes a matter of habit. If the horse does not stumble, the pack-saddle is tolerable on level ground, but most severe on the spine in going up hill, and so intolerable in going down that I was relieved when I found that I had slid over the horse's head into a mud-hole; and you are quite helpless, as he does not understand a bridle, if you have one, and blindly follows his leader, who trudges on six feet in front of him.

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