Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: Volume 2
An Account of Travels in the Interior, Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikkô and Isé

Unbeaten Tracks contains fascinating observational anecdotes of nineteenth-century Japan. This volume continues the journey, including experiences of tribal living.

Isabella Lucy Bird (Author)

9781108014632, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 June 2010

404 pages, 21 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.3 cm, 0.51 kg

Isabella Bird's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan was published in 1880 and recounts her travels in the Far East, begun four years earlier. Bird was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. She toured the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Sandwich Islands, before travelling to the Far East in order to strengthen herself to marry Dr John Bishop and live in Edinburgh. Based on the letters Bird wrote home, primarily to her sister, Volume 2 covers her journeys to Yeso, Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Ise Shrines, and includes her experiences of staying with the Hairy Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of northern Japan. As with the first volume, it includes much detail of the lifestyles, customs, and habits of the people she encountered, as well as a chapter on Japanese public affairs.

Notes on Yezo
38. Form and colour
39. Ito's delinquency
40. A lovely sunset
41. Savage life
42. Barrenness of savage life
43. A parting gift
44. A welcome gift
45. More than peace
46. A group of fathers
47. A dubious climate
48. Pleasant last impressions
49. Pleasant prospects
Notes on Tôkiyô
50. A dirty sky
51. The Hiroshima Maru
52. Mountain-girdled Kiyôto
53. The Protestants of Buddhism
54. Kiyôto shopping
55. Hugging a Hibachi
Notes on the Isé shrines
56. A dreary shrine
57. My Kuruma-runner
58. Water-ways in Ôsaka
59. Fine weather
A chapter on Japanese public affairs
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]