Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps. Walter Weston, 1896.
Chapter one starts out with Weston explaining how beautiful he finds the Japanese Alps, with focus on the Kita Alps he notes that although there are no glaciers, they maintain snow all year, even after Fuji has lost its mantle.
He explored the Japanese Alps in several trips over 6 years and his first extended adventure was with Mr H.W. Belcher, a railway engineer consulting in Japan. They started out by climbing Asamayama (2524m) - the active volcano with a crater full of sulphur gas and, apparently, a depth. His guide was good only at getting lost and was quickly dismissed.
That evening they settled in for a deep rest only to be kept awake until midnight by the “native dinner party” in the adjoining room, separated by a paper wall. Weston was not happy about the noisy singing and samisen strumming. Looking at the slumber of his friends he notes that the Japanese are able to sleep regardless of the noise or discomfort. To the western eye, this remains true in 2007. The party finished at midnight as required by a local law. They get to sleep for an hour before being woken by two American tourists, also out climbing the volcano that day and getting so lost that they did not arrive until 1am.
Who would have thought a travellers inn in 1890 Karuisawa would have been so busy.
The use of the term “Coolie” starts in chapter one and is used consistently thought the book, so much as to become irritating. To me the word has an offensive connotation, a slur. Indeed in early Australian mining days it was used to refer to Chinese gold migrants by the xenophobic early Australians/late British Empire migrants. Likewise in America and Canada. More can be read here.
Weston generally speaks very highly and respectfully of the Japanese – see the below quote - and I doubt he was using the word in a xenophobic or intentionally derogatory manner. It seems he used the term as that was the word of the day used by the British to refer to Asian people performing physical labour who by class and education alone where subordinate. I am sure he had his own class determined terms for his own countrymen in East London as well.
Weston employed Japanese people to pull him along country trails in a rickshaw and it is unlikely he would have known any other way to call his hardworking drivers. Indeed the word rickshaw comes from the Japanese word jinrikisha where jin = human and riki = strength, something described by the origins of the word coolie. None the less, reading his book all these years later, his usage of the term makes him sound disrespectful and ignorant - quite common when reading books so old and written by British travellers. It should be noted that the term was used as early as 1727 to describe dock workers unloading boats in Nagasaki. The word has non-English roots in various Asian languages and generally means hard work and strength. The racial connotations are more contemporary.
In the Japan of to-day the world has before it a unique example of an Eastern people displaying the power to assimilate and to adapt the civilization of the West whilst still preserving its own national dignity unimpaired. It is, moreover, more than probable that there awaits this remarkable race a future rich in developments, such as it is at present impossible to forecast, so capable are they of almost any degree of self sacrifice for the advancement of national prestige
Whether he believed it or felt obliged to say it I do not know. With the benefit of 110 years hindsight it today makes for an interesting opening paragraph to his book and offers plenty of discussion starters away from the topic of mountaineering.