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An eye-opening account of a solo English woman’s journey through Japan on horse, jinriksha (human-powered carriages) and on foot in 1878. Bird’s journey took place 76 years after Shank’s Mare, of the Meiji Period.
Book Description:
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is a travel diary written by Isabella Bird of her trip to Japan in 1878, at the age of 47. It was first published in English in 1881 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. It was later translated into Japanese by Tsurukichi Ito. It chronicles the trip Bird made with a Japanese interpreter named Ito in 1878 from about June until September from Tokyo to Hokkaido (then Ezo, or Yezo), and recorded such things as Japanese houses, clothing, the sex industry, and the natural environment as they were during the early years of the Meiji restoration. It also has many descriptions of the Ainu people. The first edition was released in 1881 in two volumes and afterwards an edited version with a less detailed account of the Kansai area was released in 1885. Includes visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikko.
Books on Asia’s Take:
This travel diary is full of copious detail about Meiji Period Japan. Nowhere else can you get this kind of inside look at the superficial lives of the Japanese before the turn of the century. Bird writes her diary-form letters with a wicked honesty and doesn’t hide her biases which makes it all the more entertaining. She gives particular attention to the lives of the Ainu in what is now Hokkaido. The illustrations are excellent and lend insight to her descriptions.
About the Author:
Isabella Lucy Bird (1831 – 1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveller, writer, and a natural historian. She wrote several books about her travels around the world.