With Perry to Japan Book

Free download at Librivox here:

In 1878 the English-born Isabella Lucy Bird (831 – 1904) traveled to Japan. Suffering from spinal pain and “nerves,” she was advised by her doctor to get fresh air. Consistently this was her doctor’s remedy. She had previously taken sea voyages and traveled in the American Rocky Mountains by stagecoach and horseback. Over the span of her life, she came to travel in China, Tibet, Korea, islands of the Pacific, Australia and of course Japan. She was the first woman elected as Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.

Isabella arrives in April and departs in December. Arriving at Yokohama by boat, she travels by train to Edo (Tokyo) and then on to Nikko. Thereafter the journey up to Yezo (Hokkaido) is on the “unbeaten track,” which the title refers too. Her goal was to learn more about the aborigines, the Ainu people living up on the northern island of Hokkaido She travels alone. She employs an eighteen-year-old interpreter, a young but industrious Japanese lad. She chose him on a hunch; her intuition guided her. She did not come to regret her choice.

The book consists of letters written by Isabella to her sister Henrietta and a circle of other acquaintances. Henrietta died in 1880 from typhoid fever. Isabella went on to marry Henrietta’s doctor!

While A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains reads as beautiful nature writing, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan does not. The trip in Japan was arduous, extremely difficult. She had been warned that the food would be a problem, that fleas would be a torment and that the route she had chosen was impassible. These warnings she disregarded, and it poured incessantly. On the return trip, a typhoon lasting twenty-five hours had to be coped with. She was thrown from her horse innumerable times. Scarcely can this be called a pleasant trip, and her mood affects the writing. Isabella doesn’t complain, but neither is there enthusiasm or delight to be drawn from what she saw.

Isabella must rely upon a translator; she does not come to know the Japanese nor the Ainu people well. She never stays in one place very long. She observes and meticulously notes all that she sees. Clinically observing a place and the people living there is far different from getting to know them on a personal level. The ways, traditions and manners are noted with precision, but an in-depth understanding of the people and their cultures is not achieved.

There is a large quantity of technical information provided—foods eaten, the construction and appearance of houses, boats and even information detailing how sails are sewn. Clothes for children and adults are described, but in many instances, clothes are not worn. Kimonos are cumbersome. Often men and women wear only pants….if that! Nakedness is not frowned upon. Washing and cleanliness are not the norm. The life of the Japanese and Ainu people is sordid, squalid, filthier than one might imagine. We read of a funeral and a wedding and the new trend favoring the cremations of bodies on death. Within the pages of this book there is a treasure trove of information about the people living in the backwaters of northern Japan.

The book is interesting, but some of the details will be seen as excessive to an ordinary reader. The number of houses in each village passed did not interest me. To a modern day reader, the wording is at times off-putting. I cringed when Isabella referred to the Ainu people as savages. The dimensions of their body parts are measured! Such views are dated and border on being racist.

I wish there had been an accompanying map over the journey, but the larger cities, mountains and bays are not difficult to find on any ordinary map. It is not hard to understand approximately where Isabella raveled.

Availle narrates at Librivox. Her pronunciation of ordinary words is strange. For example, sewing sounds like suing. Often, she emphasizes the wrong syllable. With a little imagination though, it is not hard to guess what is meant. The narration is not hard to follow, so I have rated it with three stars.

Do I regret reading this book? No, but it failed in comparison to what I have read by the author before. My husband and I have traveled a similar route in Japan. This might have made the book a bit more interesting to me than to those having never visited northern Japan.



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*A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 4 stars
*Unbeaten Tracks in Japan 3 stars
*The Englishwoman in America TBR