In a large enclosure behind one of the smaller Shiba temples on a burning 1st of July sat a perspiring crowd of men and boys, whose attitude of joyful and critical attention strangely revived memories of a great match at Lord’s or the Oval. Yet the trial of strength which was provoking similar enthusiasm presented a very different spectacle. Instead of the green pitch, a sanded ring formed the arena; instead of twenty-two lithe cricketers, clad in white flannels and protected by glove and pad from dangerous balls, a band of twenty-two wrestlers, enormous and bloated, with no clothing but a garish loin-cloth and no protection but their own skill, awaited the umpire’s word to begin. He, too, bore little likeness to the straw-hatted oracle in a milkman’s coat, whose vigilant silence is unbroken but for occasional appeals from bowler or batsman. His kimono was of grey silk, his sash embroidered with gold, his short cape of black silk with brightly coloured clasp; and, as he gave the signal with his fan, or directed the combatants with excited insistence, hopping and crying on the flanks of the panting giants, he resembled some gorgeous gadfly goading two buffaloes The bouts are more interesting to watch than any I had seen elsewhere, for attack and defence were more various. The conqueror might win by other methods than by bringing his opponent to the ground: if he could hurl or hustle him outside the ring, victory was his. The rules are said to authorise forty-eight falls—twelve throws, twelve lifts, twelve twists, and twelve throws over the back. To avoid being pinned down or pitched out, the smaller men must exercise extraordinary agility, and loud was the shouting when Goliath fell victim to a scientific ruse. It happened sometimes that the men lost their tempers; spitting, slapping, taunting would precede more legitimate sport: then indeed it was good to hear the bystanders’ Homeric laughter, which soon recalled the heroes to their higher selves. I will confess that these indecorous interludes were partly due to a mischievous American, who primed his favourites with praise and whisky. As the afternoon wore on, the heat became intolerable, but, fired with professional ambition, Dares succeeded Entellus, while cheap coloured portraits of the competitors found ready sale and the overcrowded enclosure At an altitude of nearly three thousand feet on the north-eastern slope of Mount Haruna, an extinct volcano, stands the picturesque village of Ikao. Half the houses are hotels and most have balconies, which command a view of the Tonegawa Valley and sublime Akagi San. The main street climbs from terrace to terrace, a natural staircase, between chÂlets equipped with bamboo pipes, through which the hot yellow water pours incessantly. Proximity to the capital makes this health resort very popular, yet access is not altogether easy. After five hours’ train to Mayebashi, another five hours are required of rather rough rickshaw travelling: at one point the Tonegawa must be crossed by means of a rope ferry; at others the traveller must dismount, so steep is the road. Yet he will be well rewarded at his journey’s end by a panorama of rare extent and beauty. Behind him, and eighteen hundred feet above, soars Soma-yama, from which the summit of Fuji is just visible; opposite stretch the Mikuni and Nikko ranges; at his feet are wooded valleys and Bathing is, of course, the centre round which existence revolves. Half-a-dozen small baths, fitted with hot and cold water, that the temperature may be modified to suit each bather, enable the stranger to bathe in the solitude he prefers. But more than two dozen others, in which from three to thirteen people can bathe together, are more characteristic of the place. The largest has a hot douche, and the temperature is often as high as 115° Fahrenheit. Here the native guests return two or three times a day to soak and to gossip. In this al fresco salon laughter reigns and conversation flows as freely as the water. Surprised indeed would the bathers be to learn that a costume is deemed essential by more prurient races, whose artificial manners divorce simplicity from decency. Yet Western prudery is beginning to corrupt the upper classes, who tend to convert these social gatherings into family parties, without going so The first friend I made was a silk merchant and a poet. I shall call him Yamada San. I had gone one day a few hundred yards down the precipitous path leading to Shibukawa, when my attention was arrested by a very pretty tableau. To the left of the road lay a lute-shaped pond, traversed by little bridges and dotted with islands on which stone lanterns and wooden shrines proclaimed the owner’s piety. The deeper end of the lakelet was overshadowed by a balcony, on which sat two serious young men with rod and line, while a daintily-dressed girl reclining beside them was preparing bait—that is, crumbling a soft bread-cake with delicate fingers. The fish seemed wary, and I remarked one astute leviathan among gold-fish that succeeded in snatching the bait and swimming away with an impudent cock of the tail that would have exasperated a less patient angler. Remarking my interest, the fishermen politely invited me to join them; and then I discovered two curious features of this gentle angling—its cheapness and its humanity. The proprietor was willing to provide all accessories and implements for three-farthings, on one condition: any fish which had the imprudence to be hooked must be tenderly replaced in the water. Thus he reconciled Buddhistic kindness to animals with “Yioyeyama Kasanaru kumono Okunaron Honokani moreru Saoshika no koye.” Range above range, piled up to the clouds, what numberless mountains! Faintly between escapes from afar the voice of the roebuck. As he understood a little English, I conferred on him this brace of hexameters. He was naturally astonished by such long lines, but, as his Tanka contained thirty-one syllables and my translation only thirty, we had both expressed the same ideas in about the same space. Exchange of verses was followed by exchange of presents. In the evening I received a large cake with Yamada San’s compliments. Then came my first unconscious lapse from etiquette. In the hope of pleasing both husband and wife, I presented O Mitsu with a quaintly carven kanzashi, an ornamental hair-pin; but, though she did not seem displeased, the poet thanked me with a cold, disapproving air. At a later stage he explained how improper it was considered to pay the least attention to a married woman. I apologised, and he went on to explain that Though I may sing of the beautiful garments of beautiful women, Dearer to me are the pines of Japan and the cherries in blossom. By this engaging couple I was initiated into a novel game, played with flower cards, Hana-Karuta. The pack consists of forty-eight pieces, each three inches by two, and of twelve suits, Moon, Rain, Iris, Clover, Cherry-blossom, Maple-leaf, Wistaria, Chrysanthemum, Pine, Peony, Plum, and Paulownia Imperialis. The four cards of each suit are worth 1, 5, 10, and 20 points respectively. The player may only draw a card from the pool if he have one of the same suit in his hand. Failing this, he must enrich the pool by one of his cards when his turn comes to draw. Each pair, when made, is laid on the table, and when the pack is exhausted the player who has scored most points is declared winner. This very simple game had much vogue in Ikao, but when the party included no ladies the more difficult Go-Ban was more popular. Like all his countrymen, Yamada San was a rapid draughtsman, and would often, when appealed to for information on historical or religious matters, illustrate his meaning by clever sketches. Of these I retain two excellent specimens: a drawing of Yoshitsune As if to console me on the evening of this departure, the kindly Kindayu family invited all their guests to a performance given by three local geisha in the principal room of the hotel. The chief musician was a masculine-looking woman of fifty, who thrummed a kokyu, or three-stringed fiddle, and broke in on the recitative of her young companions at unexpected moments with peculiar growls and sharp cries as of an animal in agony. When the narrative of the soloist took a tragic turn, these inhuman noises were so distressing that, without following the story, I experienced acute pain, while my neighbours of the more sympathetic sex were actually in tears. Had my musical education been more advanced, I should have realised that these were no singers of light Dodoitsu, but exponents of a far loftier type of entertainment, the Gedayu or musical drama. It originated in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is sometimes called Joruri after a heroine of that name, whose tragic love for Yoshitsune is a favourite theme of composers. In fact, the geisha on this occasion were usurping the rÔle of Joruri-katari or dramatic reciters, whose chanted recitative formed the nucleus, first, of the marionette theatre, and, later, of the popular theatre, when dialogue and scenic art were superadded. In the absence of either human or In the course of the next fortnight I became well acquainted with Tanaka Okusama, and through her with many others. She was a most intelligent, capable woman, who conducted one business while her husband had charge of another, grain and rice being the commodities in which they dealt. She considered herself middle-aged at the age of thirty-two, wore therefore most sombre colours, and was the mother of six boys, two of whom joined her at Ikao. Her explanation of the emma song was followed by an avowal of religious disbelief. She was neither a Buddhist nor a Shintoist, but believed that the priests taught old wives’ fables, and for her own part concentrated her mind on her business and her family. A free-thinking Japanese woman was a novel phenomenon to me then, though I have since met several. The fragments of Western history which she had acquired were also interesting items in her conversation. Plied with questions about English sights and customs, I was also asked to give an opinion on CÆsar, Napoleon, and Epaminondas. What I recalled of the last hero was so shadowy that I felt inclined to parody the Oxford undergraduate’s evasive reply: “About Epaminondas little is known, but it may safely be assumed that, as he lived, so he died.” However, Tanaka Okusama knew more than that about him, for she had just been reading “Keikoku Bidan,” a popular novel by Yano Fumio, who is supposed to have selected Theban politics for his subject, that he might administer useful lessons to his compatriots. I suspected that novel-reading was the source of most of the lady’s knowledge. Indeed, she disclaimed all pretension to the title of blue-stocking. Continual tea-parties in my room or hers, though very educational, were marred for one of us by two circumstances—the familiarity of servants and the uncertainty of time. Democratic in sympathy, preferring the expansiveness of the simple to the discreet inanity of the genteel, I was yet a little surprised to remark the ultra-friendly relations between servant and guest. A “boy” would enter with profound obeisance, deliver a message or an article demanded, and, being invited to join the party, would play cards, ask and be asked very personal questions, make himself thoroughly at home, and depart when duty called, bowing low. At first it is difficult not to associate these prostrations with subservience, but they really imply nothing but good manners. When the guest left the hotel, he would hand the “boy” a tip, wrapped in paper, as etiquette requires, for that delicacy which impels us to concede intimacy and refuse money, or to refuse intimacy and concede money to social inferiors, because the conjunction of the two offends our sense of the deference due to class-distinctions, would appear strange to the far more rigidly classified Japanese. In fact, more real democracy—if by that be meant frank and unembarrassed intercourse between high and low—is possible under a caste system than any other. Every one “knows his place,” and has no inducement to affect a higher rank than he really possesses by an assumption of haughty manners. The innate courtesy of most Japanese servants renders friendship with them more delightful than might be supposed, but occasionally one comes across a conceited, half-educated fellow in European dress, who passes from familiarity to impertinence. However, I was soon taught a more difficult lesson than that of Zaburo was a bright-eyed schoolboy of ten. Close-shaven and bare-footed, he raced from wing to wing of the hotel in a single cotton garment with cheerful impetuosity. At breakfast I would hear him on a balcony fifty yards away reading aloud in that monotonous sing-song which his countrymen adopt, even in trains, without evoking a protest from fellow-travellers. At first I imagined him to be reciting prayers, but this supposition was erroneous. Two or three times a day his knock would rattle on my sliding-door and a loud summons would entreat Edoardo San to keep him company. When his mother was occupied with private cares, he would obtain leave to visit with me the Benten-daki, and as we watched the tumbling terror of that lovely waterfall, sparkling against green boughs, I was the recipient of many schoolboy confidences. His great ambition was to fight for the Mikado; his accounts of school life were tinged with military ardour. The elder boys had guns and knapsacks of fur; in the summer boys and masters camped out together; his intimate friend, Rokutaro, had lost an elder brother in the war with China, and the others were quite envious of that funereal privilege. He remembered one verse of a song which his school-fellows were fond of singing, as they marched to the drill-ground. The air was spirited, but the words were more naÏf than ingenious, if the following stanza be typical of the rest: JAPANESE WAR-SONG
Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too old to play with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun cemented our too brief alliance. In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of Bon, better known as the Feast of Lanterns, when the souls of the dead revisit the living. The decay of religion has unfortunately robbed this touching celebration of its more striking features. Formerly on the eve of the fÊte the graves were hung with lanterns, that the spirits might be lighted on the way to their old homes. On the day itself the villagers fasted, but left before the household shrine flowers and water and a little food, while they went out towards evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint songs and clapping their hands to the strains of drum and flute. Then, when the time was come for the spirits to return, on river and stream were launched a fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its paper lantern, in which the invisible visitors were wafted back to shadow-land. These things are done no more, or only in remote rural districts. Danger to shipping caused the floating of little fire-ships to be prohibited in the ports, while at Tokyo the ceremony of “opening By the merest accident I caught sight of a group of women passing through a dark grove of cryptomeria, whose lofty aisles are sown with innumerable tombs. I had often been there, allured by the tranquil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed eloquent of everlasting repose. To-day their silent watch was broken by the passage of many rustling skirts and gentle laughter, for even in such places the childish musumÉ does not deem it sinful to smile. I struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my landlord, Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four serving-women. One carried a kettle of boiling water, another some sticks of incense, and a third some flowers. Permission being accorded to join them, I went along with them to more than thirty graves. On each a little water was poured, a little incense burned, and the prayer, “Namu Amida Butsu,” uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after relations by marriage or adoption had been visited, the last to receive salutation was a banto, or temporary bookkeeper, who had died four years before after eight years’ service. “Will not the honourable stranger also make a prayer?” was asked, and I That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and clatter of small feet below my balcony. Crowds of children, on foot or slung behind the patient backs of mother or elder sister, were making their way to the large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond and below the southern entrance of the hotel. It being holiday time, I had never seen any of the scholars, and the sole occupant of the spacious play-ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of Jizo in a red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint (nure-botoke), as the Japanese laughingly call such unhoused divinities, had always excited my sympathy, for there he stood without his five companions’ society, exposed to rain and wind, disregarded even by the very infants whose patron saint he is considered to be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones would be glad enough, on reaching the dry bed of the Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed the rest to a small temple, which was surrounded by women and children. On a raised platform, which formed the temple-floor, about a dozen priests, resplendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The babies were gazing open-eyed on the bright embroideries of instruments and vestments, while as many people as could be accommodated were allowed to occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. Among them a place was obligingly made for me, and soon after I had taken my seat the priests also sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and watched the crowds making prostration, buying holy knick-knacks, and flinging copper coins into the broad-barred money-boxes, but this was the first sermon I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting to the theme, “Mina sekai no hito kiodai”—all beings I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar rocking sensation, as if my bed were a cradle swung to and fro by invisible hands. Then I saw the obbasan, an old woman who waited on the European guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the verandah. It dawned on me that this must be a long-hoped-for earthquake, and as the vibrations ceased after some seconds, which naturally seemed of unusual length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, instead of continuing to the source of the mineral spring, we ascended a steep and tortuous path to the right, which at every turn disclosed new aspects of the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop to gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like golden stars in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except where the carefully kept track wound in and out, the mountain side was swathed in evergreen. Issuing at Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for hot sun and loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and ear. After lunch I took a bathe from the only boat to be obtained, though its crazy, water-logged condition left much to be desired. However, the boatman did his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft, and, as I undressed, hung each garment in succession round his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, as they otherwise certainly would have been. Much refreshed, I persuaded my companion to extend our walk to the ancient Shinto temple of Haruna, not more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes too narrow and precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges suddenly into a curiously imagined glen. Never had I seen such bizarre configuration, such eccentric juxtaposition of tree and stone. Pines darted like dragons from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a thicket, or lowered savagely across the torrent, which Here at last was a Shinto stronghold which did not seem abandoned and desolate, but bore traces of frequent worshippers. Above the sacred cisterns waved blue towels, suspended after purification; at the feet of a Shintoised Jizo rose a mound of propitiatory stones; on the kagura-do, or dancing platform, an old woman, the priest’s wife, began her symbolic dance. As she slowly revolved, shaking her bunch of bells or waving her fan, she chanted words so venerable that all clue to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly the solemn contortions of a dying faith than the smart We made a small donation, and received in exchange a printed promise of Ho-musubi’s and Haniyasu-hime’s blessing, to which our names were appended. Then, turning our backs on that grim sanctuary, we climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we retraversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San described the student’s life at Tokyo. Between 1890 and 1898 their numbers had increased from thirteen to nearly nineteen hundred, so that a second university was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyoto. But of While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton hakama (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation—a joy too subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters. Ikao was in truth a microcosm of Japanese society. Representatives of nearly every class came and bathed and went their way refreshed in spirit, if not cured in body, by the restful babbling water. One day an ex-daimyo, who had held high office in a recent Cabinet, arrived with a small retinue of relations and dependants. Quiet and dignified, he was only to be distinguished by a greater sobriety of manner from less aristocratic neighbours. Occasionally odd instances of polygamous experiment attracted general remark. A Tokyo merchant came accompanied by an elderly wife, a blind baby, and two mistresses who had formerly been geisha. The three women were on excellent terms, and disputed only the privilege of spoiling the thrice-mothered child. Every evening for them was a “musical evening,” as the man had a good voice and the geisha were expert samisen players. Nitobe San described the mÉnage as “a little barbarous.” But, whether his opinion was shared by many or few, it made no difference in the reception of the new-comers, who were treated with the same frank courtesy as less numerously married folk. Indeed, frankness and propriety were marked characteristics of this hydropathic paradise. If the bathers imitated Adam and Eve in simplicity of tenue, their behaviour, too, like that of our first parents before the Fall, was faultless. Conversation was entirely unembarrassed and perfectly decorous. The very publicity of this hotel life was a guarantee of morality. And, in fact, one could see that beneath extreme freedom of intercourse careful etiquette was observed. Neither young girl nor married woman ever went out alone: the tea-party never became a tÊte-À-tÊte. The shoji of the apartments were generally half open; the amusements IIOn the seventh day of the seventh moon I bade farewell to Ikao, and, loaded with little presents, descended slowly to Takasaki. Regret at leaving that delightful haven was soon lost in conjecturing the solution of an astronomic mystery. Village after village flaunted a galaxy of paper stars, which flecked the green background of interminable trees with dancing flakes of red, white, and blue. At every door stood a bamboo-stem crowned with a cluster of five-rayed stars, each ray being made of paper of a different colour. From this astral chaplet long streamers floated in the breeze, like the gohei, or cut paper inscribed with prayers, before a Shinto shrine. At Takasaki station I met Nitobe San’s sister-in-law, O Sen San, who was returning to her husband’s house at Tokyo, while the student himself had gone to the more efficacious hot springs of Kusatsu. Being fellow-travellers as far as Akabane Junction, I begged her to reveal en route the meaning of those starry signals which continued to flutter gaily in every district we passed, as though our train were freighted with royal passengers. Then I learned that all pious folk were celebrating that day the festival of Tanabata. The white streamers corresponded in number with the children in each household, The Herdsman and the Weaver. “Long ago, as Chinese sages tell us, there dwelt in Heaven a herdsman and a weaver on opposite sides of the celestial river. All day the herdsman tended his cattle, and was far too busily occupied to think of taking a wife. All day the weaver sat at her loom, making clothes for the Emperor, and this labour took up so much of her thoughts that she even neglected to adorn her person. Then the Emperor, remarking her diligence and pitying her loneliness, sent for the herdsman and said: ‘Inasmuch as ye are both so devoted to my service, I will that ye shall henceforth be devoted to one another. I give thee this woman in marriage.’ So the girl crossed the river, and no married couple ever lived more happily together. But after a time the Emperor perceived that the marriage, though it might be a good thing for them, was an evil thing for him, since the weaver began to neglect her work, and his clothes, which had formerly won the admiration of his courtiers, showed signs of hasty and careless weaving. At this the Emperor grew very angry, and sent for the weaver and said: ‘Inasmuch as this marriage has been a joyful thing for thee and for thy husband, but a woeful thing for the Emperor of Heaven, I bid thee recross the river and return to thine old home. Once a year, on the I thanked the priest for his pretty legend, and cautiously approached the subject of religion, asking if he had studied Christianity, and to what cause he attributed its slow progress among his compatriots. He answered that two facts, in his opinion, contributed greatly to its want of success. The first was its extraordinary similarity to Buddhism. The ideas of a saviour of mankind resigning kingly power to become a wandering beggar; of virginal motherhood; of trinitarian godhead; of the beauty of holiness and charity, love to men and kindness to animals; of heaven and hell, as the populace conceived them, though in reality but intermediary stages to the ultimate Nirvana;—these, and the miracles attributed to the rakan, or disciples of Buddha, which bore such remarkable resemblance to the wonders attributed to Christian saints, prayers for the dead, and monastic institutions;—indeed, almost every salient doctrine of Christianity, as taught by priests of the Roman See, could be found with more or less modification in one or other of the numerous Buddhist sects. Why should At Akabane Junction I took leave of O Sen San, and met by appointment Mr. Richard Bates, whose acquaintance I had made about three months before in a curio dealer’s Shop at Kyoto. As we had agreed to take the waters of Akakura and Dogo together, I must apologise to him and to the reader for interpolating a brief description of this invaluable companion. His accomplishments were so numerous that I shrink from detailing them, but they were all of such a nature Men, honest or dishonest, interested us but little that day, so absorbingly magnificent was the scenery. At Akakura we should be in sight of the Sea of Japan, while Tokyo faces the Pacific, so that our route ran north-west at an angle of about forty-five degrees, very nearly from coast to coast of the main island. The train would have to climb to a height of 3080 feet, crossing by means of the Usui Pass the volcanic backbone of mountains which culminates in Asama-yama (8280 feet), the largest active volcano in the country. As we steamed slowly up the steep gradient to the grassy levels of New and Old Karuizawa, a series of twenty-six tunnels, bored at such short distances from each other as to resemble the disjointed sockets of a gigantic telescope, provided intermittent glimpses of jagged cliffs and terrific gorges. Far below lay green valleys and plains, threaded by silver rivulets and dotted with infinitesimal chÂlets; beside us, densely-wooded slopes; to left and right, on the horizon, Myyogi San and the Kotsuke peaks rose frowning to the sky. Many passengers descended at Karuizawa, “When summer strikes Tsukiji With rays, which frame in gold That glory of Meiji, Our evangelic fold, To colder heights and calmer Each missionary flies; He loves Asama-yama, For nearer Heaven it lies.” Alas! the pagan mountain-god, who when he speaks will fulminate in fire and ashes, has been dumb for more than a hundred years. He allows the preachers of an alien creed to fill their lungs with his life-giving air; he knows that their ingratitude will take the form of denying his divinity. “And yet God has not said a word.” From Karuizawa, without breaking the journey at Ueda or Nagano, we advanced more quickly to lower ground, until the rapid torrent of Sekigawa, which divides the provinces of Shinshu and Echigo, arrested our attention and signified the nearness of our destination. Leaving the railway at the little station of Taguchi, we ascended in rickshaws the zigzag path which conducts the pious to the sacred summit of Geisha, dramatic reciters, jugglers, and itinerant musicians never reach such solitary heights. But, happily for us, the Bon-Odori, those antique dances, which should have been danced on All Souls’ Day by the modernised Ikao folk, began in this neighbourhood two nights after our arrival. The landlord requested a contribution of forty sen (about fourpence), which we readily doubled, for the benefit of the performers. Then ensued a long wait, for, if Japanese city-people are dilatory, no adjective exists which could do justice to the country-people’s contempt for celerity. Always “While we loudly dance and sing, Spirits of our dead return, Guided, where the lanterns burn; In the houses they will find Rice and water left behind; Then sail in boats of straw away, Until next Bon-Odori day. Peasants, come and join the ring!” Lines like these might emanate from an Arcadian singer of Fleet Street, but the daughters of Akakura must have lost all sense of the solemn festival they were affecting to celebrate. What they sang was this: “My lad is handsome, My lad is comely; He has no money; Sad is my heart.” And again: “Only to meet thee Troubled my heart is; When the dance ends, I Ask to be thine.” For custom in those parts has gradually established the right of Love to oust Death from his old prerogative. Dancing enables the lovers to find each other more easily than at other times. Courtship is the recognised sequel of the August revels so eagerly anticipated, so long remembered. The love-sick maiden is the first to avow her passion, as little girls choose their partners at a London party. Perhaps the gentle neglected ghosts bear no resentment, but are consoled by the hope that one day it will be their turn to live again as happily as these their descendants. Acquaintances were not as easily made in Akakura as in Ikao. The Kogakuro, as our hotel was called, contained but few other guests, and we occupied the two bedrooms which formed a sort of annexe, apart from the rest of the building. In the public baths at certain hours one was sure of meeting from twenty to thirty bathers of all ages and either sex, but they were extremely timid, kept silence when we entered, and did not respond to friendly overtures, so that we ceased to intrude upon their privacy. One old man, however, was very fond of calling and cross-examining the strangers. He had been a samurai, and at the age of seventy-six retained full vigour of mind and body. I should have given him ten years less. The landlord expressed his opinion that this visitor was a In this dearth of human subjects to study we acquired a habit of making daily expeditions to neighbouring localities, and were often repaid by beautiful sights. Within two hours’ walking distance lies the lake of Nogiri, which is larger than Lake Haruna, but not so prettily environed. On a densely wooded islet stands a temple of Benten, “the goddess of luck, eloquence, and fertility,” to which we were ferried across by an obliging schoolboy. Before it stand two immense cedars, of which one boasts a girth of twenty-seven feet. A long flight of steps leads from the shore of the island to the shrine, and, viewed from the summit of the steps, the belt of mountains which rim the horizon amply rewards the climber. Except for this view, however, Nogiri is in itself an ordinary unromantic piece of water. Far more exceptional is the important town of Takata, several hundred feet below the level of Taguchi, from which the railway descends a steep valley between mountain walls precipitously grand. Thousands of feet above snow is surmised, waterfalls The railway line is here the dividing-line between sacred and profane. To the left of it the Buddhist monks traffic in holy wares; to the right cotton and cotton-cloth and a species of muslin peculiar to the place compose the stock-in-trade of half the shopkeepers. The latter reside in homogeneous batches, as in feudal times: all the mercers in one part, all the curio-dealers in another, and so on. But the most curious feature in the town is the wooden projecting roof conterminous with the street on either side, which enables the pedestrian to perambulate the main thoroughfare under shelter of an arcade. These are not found in the eastern or central provinces, and have been adopted on account of heavy snow-drifts, which in winter render the roads impassable. We had Our longest excursion was to Naoetsu, a rising sea-port at the mouth of the Sekigawa and the present terminus of the Tokyo and Karuizawa line. Though it has long been a port of call for steamers which ply on the western coast, it presented the appearance of a new, unfinished town. Two months before a disastrous fire had consumed three-fourths of the houses, which were rising phoenix-like from the charred relics of their own dÉbris. But fires are so common in these flimsy, inflammable habitations that one ends by regarding them as inevitable, as instruments of the universal law of reincarnation, which applies equally to men and to the works of men’s hands. Every twenty years the two great temples of Ise are demolished and reconstructed as antique ordinance requires. Humbler buildings cannot expect to escape the fiat of periodic resurrection. There is, however, little of interest at Naoetsu, unless it be the hardy fisher-folk and field-labourers. We drove to a fine temple of Kwannon and some tea-houses surrounded by tasteful gardens overlooking the sea. But we had seen their analogues before: never had we seen in Japan, except in the case of the wrestlers, such sturdy human frames as these men and women of Echigo display. Husband and wife, naked to the waist, strain beneath a common yoke and draw ponderous carts to market. Their bronzed busts and blue cotton hakama make grateful patches of colour between the hot sky and dusty road. My photographic friend could not resist the chance of “taking” an Amazonian mother disdainfully recumbent on bent elbow and suckling her child. As she “The deep division of prodigious breasts The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep.” Could she really be of the same race as the fragile, geisha-fairies of the Myako-odori? Her photograph had better claim perhaps to the title of miyage than the crystal and jade kakemono weights, which we bought from a specious hawker on the cliffs. He who would conform to Japanese etiquette, with its charming code of trifling generosities, is sorely perturbed by this problem of miyage. The dictionary defines it clearly enough: “A present made by one returning home from a journey, or by one coming from another place—generally of some rare or curious production of another place.” Now, I was perpetually “coming from another place,” and the search before I left it for “some rare or curious production,” which would serve as a present for Ashikaga or Tokyo friends, baffled at times even my insatiable curiosity. The hawker’s streaked pebbles were pretty enough as pledges of transitory kindness, but the souvenirs most vividly stamped on the tablets of remembrance by the glaring sunlight of Naoetsu in August show a vision of brown sea-goddesses against a turquoise sea. IIIThe last lotus had shed its stately coronal of broad petals before our short stay at Akakura came to an end: business detained us in the capital throughout the September rains; when we determined to take the waters of Dogo October was well advanced, and the hills were already flushed with reddening maple-leaves. As we sat on “the bridge that is joined to heaven” and gazed into the maple-lined ravine, which is crossed and crowned by the monastery of Tofukuji, we seemed to be watching the slow sepulture of that lingering summer beneath a pall of fiery foliage. Yet we knew that, though there on the hills around Kyoto autumn was mistress of the woods, there still reigned on the sheltered shores of the Inland Sea a summer of St. Martin, the diaphanous ghost of summer, mild and tender in heat and hue. There and then our trip was planned. We would skirt its northern coast from Kobe to Hiroshima, spend a day in the holy island of Miyajima, and thence take boat to Mitsugahama, the nearest port to the Dogo baths, whence a second boat would take us back to Kobe. Thus the circuit of the eastern waters of the sea between Shikoku and the Main Island might be accomplished in a leisurely ten days. For the moment, however, we might as well It certainly required no slight effort of imaginative sympathy to appraise at its historic worth a most paltry wooden bridge, devoid of grace or ornament, which seemed a rustic plank in comparison with the Shogun’s red-lacquer Mi Hashi at Nikko, so finely poised and firmly flung across the foaming Daiyagawa. But that was worthy of the military usurpers, who took the substance of sovereignty and left its shadow to their nominal sovereigns, while this is only Yume no Uki-hashi, the Floating Bridge of Dreams, aptly symbolic of the recluse rois fainÉants, absorbed in sentiment and moonshine. Here, we are told, as the midnight mourners bore along their dead emperor to sleep with his fathers, they would throw down a little fruit, some libatory cakes, into the whispering rivulet. Then steep and dark before them rose the narrow road, which terminates in a large hollow hewn out of the hillside to be the cradle of the sceptred heirs of the sun-goddess. Like the palaces in which they lived, their houses of death are clean and august. I could not bring myself to pass Osaka on the way to Kobe without visiting the temple of Tennoji, where Mr. Lafcadio Hearn gathered some of his happiest “Gleanings in Buddhist Fields.” Though the children’s chapel has been so touchingly described by him that any other writer may well shrink from following in his footsteps, a rapid impression of a fugitive glimpse will be pardoned and more than justified if it should induce the reader to re-read his more elaborate account. An enormous temple, Tennoji lies on the very outskirts of the town, and, after traversing innumerable canals, one is still a little puzzled to locate the indo-no-kane among wide courts grouped about the central colonnade. After some searching we discerned a man and woman kneeling on the threshold of a shrine, in which a wrinkled priest in shabby brown vestments was reciting a “Peonies, roses, Faded, are equal; Only while life blooms Differ the flowers.” The beauties of the Inland Sea have been so often and so graphically described, that detailed praise is superfluous. Every one has heard of the thousands of islets, on which are perched villages, villas, and pines innumerable; of the hillsides, geometrically subdivided into rice-fields; of the junks with pleated and divided sails, which dart like white birds through the exquisite blue plain; of the strange mirage, which throws upon the sky at certain hours, when the heaven above and the waters beneath melt into a vast Most famous of these insular jewels is Miyajima. As no boats were running thither from Kobe, we travelled by the San-yo railway as far as Onomichi, skirting the coast so closely that we hardly once lost sight of the sea. Though sorely tempted to break the journey for the purpose of visiting the great feudal castles of Himeji and Okayama, we pressed on until Darkness had fallen when Miyajima was reached, and as we were rowed ashore the outlines of temple and grove were shrouded in gloom. Only the colossal torii loomed black against the shimmering water, while all that lay behind was covered by the shadow of climbing forests. We took supper at an hotel near the entrance to the temple-grounds, and were then conducted by two of the landlord’s daughters on a tour of When I descended, the defeated combatant was seeking consolation in photography. And seldom had his camera been confronted with more beautiful pictures. The winding valleys and soaring rocks converge at an elevation of more than a thousand feet on a little shrine, in which has been burning a sacred fire for more than a thousand years. From the opposite shore, as one traces the salient features of this evergreen island, all the details—streamlet and temple-roof, cliff and maple and pine—merge in a majestic harmony of serried line and luxuriant colour. But on the island itself one is drawn, as by a magnet, to the great temple of Itsukushima Hime, which, being partly built over the water on piles, seems at high tide, like the Breton vision of Is, to rise from the Another temple on a neighbouring hill, though less beautiful, is equally unique. It consists of a vast platform, from which spring twenty-four massive columns to support the roof, whose only ornamentation on the interior, if ornamentation it can be called, is a frieze of wooden spoons, some small, others enormous: they are nailed there, or on the columns, as the donor’s caprice dictates, and confer comparative immortality at trifling cost, for each is inscribed with an autograph. Venit, Vidit, Oravit, For two months I had been haunted by visions of the bridge-Kintaikyo, as it seems to have haunted the landscape-painters of Japan. I remembered it as one of the most remarkable in Hokusai’s series of “A Hundred Bridges”; I had another marvellous drawing of the five arches overwhelmed by a snow-storm and apparently detached from both land and water, for Hiroshigi understands the isolation of his subject from irrelevant detail as few others, slaves of perspective, would dare imagine. If uneducated eyes took the picture to represent a peal of blue bells, sprinkled with cotton-wool and straddling through space, so much the worse for uneducated eyes. But at any rate, being so near, I resolved to dispel vision by looking on reality, and spent half a day in visiting Iwakuni. We were obliged to leave our rickshaws at the foot of Kato Kiyomasa’s towering temple that overlooks the almost waterless bed of the Nishikigawa, for none but a pedestrian could climb the huge arcs, thirty feet long, which spring in five bounds from shore to shore, like the curves of a switchback railway. Then the faithful camera was brought into play, and a bevy of Lulled by the honest countenance of our courteous landlady into misplaced confidence, we were astonished by her presenting on our departure a bill more exorbitant than that of the hotel-keeper of Onomichi. We expostulated, and repeated the terms named by her clerk the night before. At once the amount was cut down to half and the lesser sum accepted with no gratitude or resentment. Mr. Bates is furious, and delivers a lecture on probity; but I cannot bring myself to regard these bland banditti, who extort without violence and restore the booty without a murmur, as on a par with the cheating innkeepers of other lands. Their motive is probably either religious or patriotic, perhaps both. Some one must have told them that foreigners are only permitted by autochthonous gods to visit Japan on condition of enriching its inhabitants. By overcharging the tourist, then, they are pleasing their gods and serving their country. Their compatriots are protected by legal prices, publicly posted in every inn, but they know that the barbarian cannot read official notices, and quixotic indeed would it be to enlighten him. To me such naÏf graceful swindling (when exposed and thwarted) is more delightful than churlish, prosaic probity. Returning to Hiroshima, we thence took steamer to Mitsugahama, one of the chief ports in the island of Shikoku, whose mineral baths were the goal of our But we never came close to these wooded heights, for Dogo is only a short distance from the seashore, and is reached in half-an-hour by what I can only describe as a toy train. We crept into a first-class carriage, and just managed to avoid bumping our heads against the low-pitched roof. The fare was on the same scale as the compartments, for the cost of the ticket was three sen (farthings). The rickshaw-men were polite and reasonable, the landlord of the Iwai-ya both affable and honest; in a word, we had left the track of long-suffering and all-corrupting tourists, and had reached one of those districts, so pleasant to discover, where manners are as yet unspoiled by money. Delighted with our lot, we settled down to three days of paradise regained. Our first care was to discover the bath-house. In The public garden, the wood-carvers’ shops, the big temple of Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-bikona, which crowns a hill on the outskirts of the town, were duly visited, and pronounced inferior to those we had seen elsewhere. But O Yoshi San informed us at dinner that every stranger who came to Dogo was considered unlucky if he departed without seeing and hearing two beautiful sisters, geisha of shining notoriety. We sent a summons at once, and by good luck it happened ’Ware of the Pussie! Pussie, seen smoothing Coat of striped velvet, Trimming her claws. ’Ware of the geisha! Geisha, seen folding Soft-striped yukata, Binding her shoes. At this point Mr. Bates manifested a desire to bask in the rays of White Jewel, and completely ousted me from favour by a fraudulent piece of palmistry. As he traced the lines in her sensitive hand he discovered pledges of prodigious prosperity—rich lovers, increased fame, long life, and ultimate marriage to a deputy-judge! The only prediction which missed the mark was a prophecy of twin daughters, who should rival and perpetuate the glory of White Jewel and Young Butterfly. The Japanese consider it rather gross and catlike to have more than one child at a time. White Jewel made a grimace of playful disgust and offered to sing another song, which would be the last, as other houses had engaged her to appear at ten o’clock and at eleven. It was exactly half-past ten; if she went now, her punctuality would be unimpugned. So she took leave of us with a chansonette as dainty as her own personality. Light Love. If love be thoughtless, Then is love shallow; Though love be shallow, Do not forget. We devoted the second day of our visit to Matsuyama, the capital of the province of “Lovely Princess,” not more than four miles from Dogo. There is little to be seen there, however, except the castle, one of the largest in Japan, and some excellent curio-shops, in which the zeal of my companion was rewarded by some precious finds. Leaving him to indulge his master-passion, which I found less amusing than the pursuit of living curios, I laid siege to the castle. At the bureau where tickets are to be obtained many officials referred me to one another, and requested me to wait until certain formalities were complied with. After two hours’ stolid patience the fortress capitulated, and I was assigned to the care of a gallant sergeant, who spoke a little English and proved a most competent guide. From the summit of the tower a fine panorama was visible: below us the fertile Matsuyama plain stretched away to the shore of the Inland Sea, and on the opposite side the horizon was shut in by forest and mountain. To tell the truth, my conductor’s account of the castle’s history, as illustrated by its structure and some surviving weapons of war, interested me much less than his own exploits. For had he not with his own hand slain five Chinese braves in the battle of Port Arthur? My compliments on his heroism must have touched his heart, for, turning suddenly, he grasped my hand and cried: “I like you. You shall be my friend. I will dine with you.” This abrupt proposition at once solved for me the embarrassing No shadow of trickery marred our joyous reminiscences of Dogo. When we left the landlord presented a bill so ridiculously low, that we bestowed on him as much again in tea-money. Not to be outdone, he loaded our departing rickshaws with four bottles of beer. And the photographer, whose camera was worth a fortune to him as a means of gratifying all sorts and conditions of men, took an excellent group of that smiling host and his cheery household. The voyage to Kobe was no less agreeable. We had for fellow-passenger a distinguished middle-aged officer, who had fought on the losing sides in the revolution and the Satsuma-rebellion headed by Saigo Takamori, whose grave we had seen at Miyajima. Experience had long since convinced him of the folly of anti-progressive movements, and he realised as clearly as the most democratic reformer that national security was best served by adopting Western ideas. We had no idea of his rank until a small boat put off at Kobe received us, weary and late, with hospitable arms. In that prosperous port, so rapidly distancing Yokohama in commercial importance, an English colony is solidly entrenched with pews and cricket-bats and pianos. I went to the club, and was at once in England. The Saturday Review was reviewing and The World revolving on the same lines as when I was last in Fleet Street. Mr. Bernard Shaw was still unmasking demerits in Shakespeare, while Mr. William Archer was inventing merits for American comic opera. In a moment of nostalgia I sauntered into a well-filled church, whose congregation were listening with rapture to a beautiful rendering of Gounod’s “There is a Green Hill”: finally, I learned at a friend’s table that a cricket-match between the ladies and gentlemen of Kobe was the burning topic of the week. Between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Buddha (vegetarians both), between Gounod and geisha, between batting and bathing, lay the gulf which separates the hard-hitting West from the lotus-loving East. I could not bridge the gulf without a violent effort. In fact, I felt a little ashamed on mixing with my fellow-countrymen, so pious and strenuous and practical. While they had been working and playing as only Britons can, I had utterly forgotten that any country except Japan could enthral and stimulate. I had been taking the waters—of Lethe. PLAYING WITH FIRE
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