The American Diary of a Japanese Girl: An Annotated Edition

On the Ocean

“Belgic,” 7th Good-night—native land! Farewell, beloved Empress of Dai Nippon! 12th—The tossing spectacle of the waters (also the hostile smell of the ship) put my head in a whirl before the “Belgic” left the wharf. The last five days have been a continuous nightmare. How many a time would I have preferred death! My little self wholly exhausted by sea-sickness. Have I to drift to America in skin and bone? I felt like a paper flag thrown in a tempest. The human being is a ridiculously small piece. Nature plays with it and kills it when she pleases. I cannot blame Balboa for his fancy, because he caught his first view from the peak in Darien. It’s not the “Pacific Ocean.” The breaker of the world! “Do you feel any better?” inquired my fellow passenger. He is the new minister to the City of Mexico on his way to his post. My uncle is one of his closest friends. What if Meriken ladies should mistake me for the “sweet” wife of such a shabby pock-marked gentleman? It will be all right, I thought, for we shall part at San Francisco. (The pock-mark is rare in America, Uncle said. No country has a special demand for it, I suppose.) His boyish carelessness and samurai-fashioned courtesy are characteristic. His great laugh, “Ha, ha, ha!” echoes on half a mile. On the Ocean T h e A m e r i c a n D i a r y 14 He never leaves his wine glass alone. My uncle complains of his empty stomach. The more the minister repeats his cup the more his eloquence rises on the Chinese question. He does not forget to keep up his honourable standard of diplomatist even in drinking, I fancy. I see charm in the eloquence of a drunkard. I exposed myself on deck for the first time. I wasn’t strong enough, alas! to face the threatening grandeur of the ocean. Its divineness struck and wounded me. O such an expanse of oily-looking waters! O such a menacing largeness! One star, just one sad star, shone above. I thought that the little star was trembling alone on a deck of some ship in the sky. Star and I cried. 13th—My first laughter on the ocean burst out while I was peeping at a label, “7 yens,” inside the chimney-pot hat of our respected minister, when he was brushing it. He must have bought that great headgear just on the eve of his appointment. How stupid to leave such a bit of paper! I laughed. He asked what was so irresistibly funny. I laughed more. I hardly repressed “My dear old man.” The “helpless me” clinging on the bed for many a day feels splendid to-day. The ocean grew placid. On the land my eyes meet with a thousand temptations. They are here opened for nothing but the waters or the sun-rays. I don’t gain any lesson, but I have learned to appreciate the demonstrations of light. They were white. O what a heavenly whiteness! The billows sang a grand slow song in blessing of the sun, sparkling their ivory teeth. The voyage isn’t bad, is it? I planted myself on the open deck, facing Japan. I am a mountain-worshipper. Alas! I could not see that imperial dome of snow, Mount Fuji. One dozen fairies—two dozen—roved down from the sky to the ocean. I dreamed. I was so very happy. o f a J a p a n e s e G i r l 15 14th—What a confusion my hair has suffered! I haven’t put it in order since I left the Orient. Such negligence of toilet would be fined by the police in Japan. I was busy with my hair all the morning. 15th—The Sunday service was held. There’s nothing more natural on a voyage than to pray. We have abandoned the land. The ocean has no bottom. We die any moment “with bubbling groan, without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.” Only prayer makes us firm. I addressed myself to the Great Invisible whose shadow lies across my heart. He may not be the God of Christianity. He is not the Hotoke Sama of Buddhism. Why don’t those red-faced sailors hum heavenly-voiced hymns instead...