Trying to walk to the station, I was blown away at the first corner, and then two men with a jinrikisha began a hand-to-hand struggle with the wind, making scarcely any progress, and across the open spaces being literally blown backwards, and only able to steady the jinrikisha from going bodily over. How we reached the Shimbashi station I never understood, but I know that we arrived breathless, blinded, and soaked through with the rain, with dishevelled hair and battered hats, thankful only for the shelter of the station; and just as we seated ourselves in the carriage, a lady was brought in very much bruised and hurt by the overturning of her jinrikisha, which had been blown away over an embankment into the canal. You may read descriptions of typhoons, but until you have seen one, I defy anyone to have the smallest idea of its awful power.
The fury of the wind was terrible. The train stood quite still at times, unable to steam, however slowly, against the wind, whilst the carriages trembled and rocked on the narrow gauge with every blast of wind, and we thought more than once that it must be blown over. The sea was carried in long spindrifts or lashed into brown whirlpools; an awfully angry sea, boiling and hungry, lashing up in mist and spray against the breakwater we were on. And here are several heartrending sights, for one sampan has been washed up and completely broken on the breakwater, whilst others are being wrecked against its sides, and we can see the horror-stricken faces of the men clinging in agony to it; whilst other sampans are fast drifting on to it, and we watch with awful fear their frantic efforts to save themselves. Houses are unroofed or blown down, trees bent double or uprooted as we look, hedges collapse, crops are laid low, and we in this little carriage are out in its midst, with nothing to break the full fury of the elements. But even as we begin to wonder what to do on our arrival at Yokohama, we see that the crisis is past and the gale subsiding. At Yokohama the streets are strewn with the débris of the typhoon, and all vessels in the harbour still have their steam up, should their anchors drag. In two hours the most extraordinary change had taken place. The waters of the harbour had become blue, and tranquilly lapped the shore, the sun shone out, the wind died to a breeze. It was a perfect summer's afternoon. The wind when we left Tokio was blowing at 76·8 miles an hour; four hours afterwards it had fallen to 40, and soon after died away.