Synopsis "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (in English)"
Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrine of Nikko by Isabella L. Bird. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is a travel diary written by Isabella Bird of her trip to Japan in 1878, at the age of 47. This is not a "Book on Japan," but a narrative of travels in Japan, and an attempt to contribute something to the sum of knowledge of the present condition of the country, and it was not till I had travelled for some months in the interior of the main island and in Yezo that I decided that my materials were novel enough to render the contribution worth making. From Nikko northwards my route was altogether off the beaten track, and had never been traversed in its entirety by any European. I lived among the Japanese, and saw their mode of living, in regions unaffected by European contact. As a lady travelling alone, and the first European lady who had been seen in several districts through which my route lay, my experiences differed more or less widely from those of preceding travellers; and I am able to offer a fuller account of the aborigines of Yezo, obtained by actual acquaintance with them, than has hitherto been given. These are my chief reasons for offering this volume to the public. 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), and recorded such things as Japanese houses, clothing, the sex industry, and the natural environment in great detail, 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. Isabella Lucy Bird, married name Bishop, 15 October 1831 - 7 October 1904, was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist. With Fanny Jane Butler she founded the John Bishop Memorial hospital in Srinagar. She was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
