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diff --git a/old/62924-0.txt b/old/62924-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7c1ad3a..0000000 --- a/old/62924-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3964 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes in Japan, by Alfred Parsons - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Notes in Japan - -Author: Alfred Parsons - -Release Date: August 14, 2020 [EBook #62924] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES IN JAPAN *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - NOTES IN JAPAN - - [Illustration: - - [_See page 10_ - - IN KASUGA PARK, NARA--AN OLD CRYPTOMERIA] - - - - - NOTES IN JAPAN - - BY - ALFRED PARSONS - - _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR_ - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1896 - - - - - Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - - [Illustration] - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -THE JAPANESE SPRING 3 - -EARLY SUMMER IN JAPAN 45 - -THE TIME OF THE LOTUS 81 - -FUJISAN 119 - -SOME WANDERINGS IN JAPAN 153 - -AUTUMN IN JAPAN 193 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - -IN KASUGA PARK, NARA--AN OLD CRYPTOMERIA _Frontispiece_ - -DEDICATION vii - -CHERRY-BLOSSOM BADGE, YOSHINO 2 - -IN THE INLAND SEA 4 - -HILLS NEAR KŌBE, FROM SUWA-YAMA 5 - -EARLY PLUM BLOSSOMS, OKAMOTO, NEAR KŌBE 7 - -THE TORII OF KASUGA TEMPLE, NARA 11 - -OLD WISTARIA IN KASUGA PARK, NARA 13 - -THE PAGODA OF KOBŪKUJI, NARA 14 - -CHERRY-TREE AND LANTERNS, NI-GWATSU-DŌ, NARA 15 - -THE WELL OF SANKATCHU, NARA 17 - -CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE RAIN, NARA 19 - -SARA-HIKI-SAKA, NEAR YOSHINO--LATER CHERRIES 21 - -CHERRY AND LATE PLUM, TEMA-CHO, NEAR NARA 23 - -A BUDDHIST TEMPLE AT YOSHINO--DOUBLE-FLOWERED CHERRY -AND MAGNOLIA 27 - -CROSSING THE FERRY AT MUDA, ON THE YOSHINO-GAWA 30 - -MI KOMORI JINJA, A SHINTO TEMPLE NEAR YOSHINO 31 - -THE STREET, HASE 34 - -ANDROMEDA BUSHES IN KASUGA PARK, NARA 35 - -WHITE WISTARIA, HASE-DERA 37 - -A TALL WISTARIA, KASUGA PARK, NARA 39 - -NOTES AT MUDA 41 - -BADGE OF THE KIKU-SUI-YA 42 - -IRIS JAPONICA 44 - -CARRYING HOME TEA LEAVES, NEAR UJI 46 - -A PLANTATION COVERED WITH MATTING NEAR UJI 47 - -POND IN THE GARDEN OF RAKU-RAKU-TEI, HIKONE 49 - -THE CASTLE AT HIKONE 51 - -THE CASTLE AT NAGOYA, FIELD OF IRIS IN THE FOREGROUND 52 - -AN OLD CASTLE MOAT, AKASHI, NEAR KŌBE 53 - -FIELDS NEAR LAKE BIWA 55 - -O KAZU SAN 57 - -PREPARING THE RICE-FIELDS 59 - -MY ROOMS AT TENNENJI 60 - -BUDDHA AND HIS DISCIPLES, TENNENJI 61 - -HIKONE AND LAKE BIWA, FROM THE HILLS BEHIND TENNENJI 64 - -AZALEAS ON THE ROCKS, TENNENJI 65 - -THE POEM 67 - -WHITE AZALEA BUSH, RAKU-RAKU-TEI, HIKONE 69 - -THE BAMBOO GROVE, TENNENJI 71 - -SUNSET OVER LAKE BIWA, FROM TENNENJI 75 - -PLANTING RICE 77 - -A SPRING FLOWER--JIRO-BO 78 - -PLATYCODON GRANDIFLORUM, “KIKYO” 80 - -AURATUM LILIES AND BOCCONIA ON THE HILLS NEAR NIKKO 82 - -A FIELD OF LILIES, OFUNA, NEAR KAMAKURA 83 - -SEVEN BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF LATE SUMMER 85 - -HYDRANGEA BUSH, TOTSUKA, NEAR YOKOHAMA 87 - -UNDER THE CRYPTOMERIAS AT NIKKO 89 - -A LITTLE TEMPLE AT NIKKO 91 - -KIRIFURI, NEAR NIKKO 93 - -THE MOOR NEAR YUMOTO 94 - -A WET DAY AT CHŪZENJI 95 - -THE FOOT OF NANTAI-ZAN 97 - -THE MOAT OF BENTEN-SHIBA 99 - -SPECTATORS 104 - -THE LAST TEA LEAVES--COTTAGE NEAR YOKOHAMA 105 - -LOTUS-PONDS AT KAMAKURA 107 - -LOTUS-PATCH AMONG THE RICE-FIELDS, KAWASAKI, TŌKYŌ 109 - -A TEA-HOUSE AT KAMAKURA 110 - -YORITOMO’S WILLOWS AND HIS SHRINE 111 - -JAPANESE WRESTLERS 113 - -LESPEDEZA “HAGI” 115 - -THE HEART-LEAVED LILY 116 - -CAMPANULAS ON FUJI 118 - -GOING UP IN THE MIST 121 - -A CLOUDY EVENING, FROM THE SANDS OF TAGO-NO-URA 123 - -FUJI FROM THE ABEKAWA, AND THE TOKAIDO BRIDGE 124 - -ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE OF FUJI--GRASS-CUTTERS RETURNING 126 - -THE SECOND SHELTER IN THE GOTAMBA PATH 128 - -FUJI WITH ITS CAP ON 130 - -FUJI FROM THE KAWAGUCHI LAKE 131 - -FROM THE TOP OF FUJI, LOOKING NORTH 133 - -THE GREAT PALM AT RYUGEJI, FUJI IN THE DISTANCE 135 - -THE CRATER OF FUJI 136 - -AN OLD RED PINE AT YOSHIDA 139 - -NAKA-NO-CHAYA, ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE 143 - -THE RED-PINE GROVE AT YOSHIDA 145 - -FUJI OVER THE RICE-FIELDS OF SUZUKAWA 146 - -THE FLOWERY MOORLAND 147 - -TAIL-PIECE 150 - -TRICYRTIS HIRTA, ATAMI 152 - -TAGO-NO-URA 155 - -COTTAGES AT NEMBA 156 - -LAKE SUWA AND THE NAKASENDO MOUNTAINS, FROM KAMI-NO-SUWA 159 - -TOURISTS AT A WATERFALL 163 - -NIEGAWA, ON THE NAKASENDO 165 - -A LITTLE SHINTO SHRINE, NEAR THE NAKASENDO 166 - -A BOAT-MENDER BY THE TENRYUGAWA 167 - -BANANA-TREES AT ATAMI 171 - -THE FERRY AT TOKIMATA 173 - -ON THE TENRYUGAWA 174 - -THE VILLAGE STREET, ATAMI--VRIES ISLAND IN THE DISTANCE 175 - -ON THE TENRYUGAWA, NEAR KAJIMA 177 - -AUTUMN-GRASS (SUZUKI) 179 - -A RUSTIC BRIDGE AT DOGASHIMA, NEAR MIYA-NO-SHITA 183 - -AVENUES OF TORII IN FRONT OF AN INARI TEMPLE, NEAR SHIMIZU 185 - -JIZŌ SAMA, NEAR HAKONE 187 - -TAIL-PIECE 190 - -THE AUTUMN LILY 192 - -FIELDS NEAR HAMAMATSU 194 - -THE EDGE OF THE TOKAIDO, NEAR HAMAMATSU 195 - -THE ISLAND OF AWAJI, FROM MAIKO 198 - -ON THE SHORE NEAR MAIKO, THE STRAIT OF AKASHI TO THE RIGHT 199 - -LILIES BY THE SHORE, SUMA 200 - -A GRAVEYARD AT SUMA 201 - -HILLS BEHIND KŌBE 202 - -A BAMBOO-YARD AT MAIBARA 203 - -BLUE WATER-WEED 204 - -THE TRAVELLING THEATRE AT MAIBARA 205 - -LAUNCHING A BOAT 208 - -LAKE BIWA WITH FLOODED RICE-FIELDS, NEAR MAIBARA 209 - -ONE OF THE “YAMA” AT THE NAGAHAMA MATSURI 213 - -SOME HATS AT THE NAGAHAMA MATSURI 214 - -THE TEMPLE GARDEN, SEIGWANJI 215 - -MINIATURE PAGODA IN THE TEMPLE GARDEN, SEIGWANJI 217 - -A CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW AT YOKOHAMA 219 - -THE ARSENAL GARDEN, KOISHIKAWA, TŌKYŌ 223 - -TAIL-PIECE 225 - -LYCHNIS GRANDIFLORA, MISAKA-TOGE 226 - - - - -THE JAPANESE SPRING - -[Illustration: CHERRY-BLOSSOM BADGE, YOSHINO] - - - - -THE JAPANESE SPRING - - -[Illustration] - -We had left Hong-Kong enveloped in its usual spring fog, and for five -long, weary days had steamed across the China Sea in regular monsoon -weather, gray and wet and miserable, but during the fifth some rocky -islands, outlying sentinels of the three thousand which compose the -Mikado’s realm, and occasional square-sailed, high-sterned boats, showed -that we were near Japan, the Far East, the Land of Flowers and of the -Rising Sun, the country which for years it had been my dream to see and -paint; and by six o’clock in the evening, on the 9th of March, we were -at anchor in Nagasaki Bay. The aspect of that port on a wet day was not -inviting, nor were the little grimy girls, who in a chattering, laughing -line carried their baskets of coal on board; so, difficult as it was to -decline the hospitable invitations of the English residents, I decided -to go on with the ship to Kōbe. Early in the morning of the 11th we -passed through the Strait of Shimonoseki--the sun shining brightly on -the snowy hills and on the crowd of fishing-boats which had been -sheltering there from the bad weather--and entered the Inland Sea. -After so many days of monotonous gray ocean it was delightful to steam -along in sight of land, and wind about among the islets and rocks, so -near to many of them that we could see the little villages, the mists of -white plum blossoms, the rows of beans and barley growing wherever a -level patch could be made on the steep slopes, the people at work in -their - -[Illustration: IN THE INLAND SEA] - -fields, and always in the distance the ranges of snow-covered mountains -in Kiushiu and Shikoku, the islands which enclose this lovely sea on the -south. I longed to land and begin work at once, with a nervous dread in -my heart that I should find nothing so good elsewhere, and, indeed, -though there is plenty of material to be found everywhere in Japan, I -saw nothing finer than these islands of the Inland Sea; to cruise about -among them in a comfortable boat would be an ideal way to spend a -summer, and would probably not be devoid of adventure, for our captain -told me many tales of treacherous currents and sudden squalls and sunken -reefs. - -[Illustration: HILLS NEAR KŌBE, FROM SUWA-YAMA] - -We reached Kōbe next morning, and before I had been on shore more than -an hour I had heard of a village six miles away which was celebrated for -its plum orchards, and had started off to find it. Okamoto lies at the -foot of the hills which rise behind Kōbe on the north, and climbs a -little way up them, and in front of the highest cottage, a modest -tea-house with platforms arranged to accommodate the visitors who come -in crowds to gaze at the blossoms, I unfolded my stool and easel, and in -spite of a bitter wind and vicious little snow-storms made my first -sketch in Japan. All round me and in the village below were the -pink-and-white trees, then a band of rice-lands, pale green with young -barley, and beyond them lay Osaka Bay, and the mountains of Yamato, -which constantly changed in color as snow-storms passed over, or gleams -of sun lighted the shining water and the snow on the distant hills. It -is an exciting thing to begin work in a new country, to compare the -local color and the atmosphere with those you have tried before, and to -find yourself half unconsciously using an entirely new set of pigments. -I was too absorbed with these problems to take any notice of the fact -that my back was aching, but after two hours, when I had finished my -drawing, I found myself unable to rise from that sketching-stool, and -for the next fortnight an attack of lumbago prevented my seeing anything -more of the plum groves. The Buddhist pictures of their Inferno depict -many ingenious tortures; I think they ought to add a man with lumbago -doing six miles over a Japanese by-road in a jinricksha. When at last I -got back to Okamoto there were still some blossoms, and the trees were -tinged with the pink of withered petals, but the luxuriant freshness had -gone. - -On the 13th of April I said good-bye to my friends and to the comforts -of the Kōbe Club, and started for Nara, stopping on my way at Osaka to -have a look at the town and see the peach blossoms on Momo-Yama (peach -mountain). The narrow streets leading up the hill were crowded with -visitors, and among the orchards of dwarf trees temporary tea-sheds and -resting-places had been erected for their comfort and refreshment. In -spite of the many picturesque features in these fêtes the whole effect -is at first disappointing: railings and stages of new raw deal, the -untidy and unfinished look of rough bamboo structures, with corners of -matting hanging loosely in places where they interfere with the -perspective lines, the slovenly pathways, - -[Illustration: EARLY PLUM BLOSSOMS, OKAMOTO, NEAR KŌBE] - -which are mud or dust according to the weather--all these things make -unsatisfactory accessories for the figures and the flowers. After a time -they obtrude themselves less on your notice, and you have learned to -accept the fact that Japan is not a country of big masses and broad -effects, but of interesting bits and amusing details. This is usually -true of its landscape; the forms of mountains and trees are more quaint -than grand, and the cultivated land has no broad stretches of pasture or -corn, but is cut up into patches, mainly rice-fields, with various -vegetables grown in little squares here and there. - -It was as yet too early in the year for any rice to be planted out. In -the fertile valley through which the railway runs from Osaka to Nara -some new fields were lying wet or fallow, others were being prepared by -spade labor, and others again, not yet flooded, were covered with the -bright green of young barley, or the strong light yellow of rape in -flower. - -Though I had read much about life in Japan, it was an embarrassing -experience to be set down for the first time with my baggage in a -Japanese room, and to try and adapt myself mentally to the possibilities -of living under such conditions. In a bare hut or tent the problem is -comparatively simple; there is always one way by which you must enter; -but in a Japanese room there is too much liberty; three of the walls are -opaque sliding screens, the fourth is a transparent, or rather -translucent, one; you can come in or go out where you like; there is no -table on which things must be put, no chair on which you must sit, no -fireplace to stand with your back to--just a clean, matted floor and -perfect freedom of choice. European trunks look hopelessly ugly and -unsympathetic in such surroundings, nor are matters much improved when -the host, in deference to the habits of a foreigner, sends in a rough -deal table, with a cloth of unhemmed cotton, intended to be white, and -an uncompromising, straight-backed deal chair. These hideous articles -make a man feel ashamed, for though they are only a burlesque of our -civilization, they are produced with an air of pride which shows that -the owner is convinced they are the right thing, and one cannot but be -humiliated by their ugliness and want of comfort. Yet if you want to -read or write you have to keep them and make the best of them, for a -long evening on the floor is only to be borne after a good many weeks of -practice. Things begin to look brighter and pleasanter when the little -waiting-maid appears, bringing first some cushions and the hibachi, with -its pile of glowing charcoal, and then the tea-tray and a few sweet -cakes. This was more the sort of thing I had expected, and made me at -once feel at home with my surroundings. It is the first attention shown -you in every tea-house, no matter how humble; whether you go as an -inmate, or whether you merely sit down for a few minutes’ rest on a -journey, the little tea-pot and the tiny cups are at once produced, and -the hibachi is placed by your side, a pleasant and friendly welcome, -which never failed to make its impression on me, however poor the -quality of the tea might be. The Kiku-sui-ya (which means -Chrysanthemum-water house) is near the entrance to the great Kasuga Park -at Nara; just outside it the road passes under a granite torii flanked -with stone lanterns, and winds up to the temple through an avenue of -cryptomerias, with rows of lanterns on each side, which get closer and -closer together as they near the temple buildings, and are so numerous -that tradition says they have never been counted. There are booths here -and there where pilgrims can rest and get a cup of tea, for pilgrimage -in Japan is not made unnecessarily uncomfortable, and where the tame -deer congregate to take the nuts and cakes which are sold - -[Illustration: THE TORII OF KASUGA TEMPLE, NARA] - -for them to the passers-by. From early morning till nearly sundown this -road is lively with groups of visitors. Nara is so near to Osaka that -among them a sprinkling of men, mostly no doubt engaged in commerce, -wore foreign dress, but the majority of the people were in their native -clothes, and as I sat and painted by the road-side I could study the -variations of Japanese costume--from that of the old peasant with his -white or blue - -[Illustration: OLD WISTARIA IN KASUGA PARK, NARA] - -leggings, straw shoes, big hat, and robe tucked into his girdle, his -head shaved down the middle, and the back hair turned up in a queue in -the ancient mode, to that of the gay young musumé with her rich silk -kimono, gorgeous scarlet petticoat, broad obi, and black-lacquered -sandals on her pigeon-toed, white-socked feet. The cryptomerias are -good, but the old wistarias are the glory of Kasuga Park. The great -Fujiwara family formerly owned or were patrons of the temple, and though -it is now imperial property, their crest, the wistaria flower (_fuji no -hana_), is still worn by the little girls who perform the sacred dance -there, and all over the park the wistaria vines are allowed to grow as -they choose, their great snaky stems writhing along the ground and -twisting up to the tops of the highest trees. - -[Illustration: THE PAGODA OF KOBŪKUJI, NARA] - -One very wet day, when painting out-of-doors was impossible, I went -round to see the sights of Nara--Kobūkuji with its pagoda and fine old -statues, the great Buddha, the celebrated big bell, and beyond these the -Buddhist temple Ni-gwatsu-dō, perched on a hill-side, the steps leading -up to it lined with stone lanterns, little shrines, and booths for the -sale of endless trifles. The platform surrounding this temple is -supported in front by a scaffolding of beams, at the back it abuts -against the hill, and from the heavy projecting roof which covers both -platform and temple hang hundreds of bronze lanterns, votive offerings. -Each of these had been appropriated by a sparrow; trusting to the -sanctity of the spot, they had piled in all the rubbish they could find -to make their nests; odd ends of straw and paper stuck out everywhere, -showing that their stay in the East had not taught them tidy habits. I -am sorry to say that their confidence was misplaced; a temple festival -came round before their eggs were hatched, and the whole of them with -their embryo families were ruthlessly evicted in order that the lanterns -might be lighted. - -[Illustration: CHERRY-TREE AND LANTERNS, NI-GWATSU-DŌ, NARA] - -The park at Nara is one of the few places in Japan where you can see -real turf, and even there I was struck by the scarcity of ground -flowers; there were plenty of scentless violets, some yellow and white -dandelions, and in the damp ditches a little purple flower called jirobo -by the country people, but there was nothing to compare with the masses -of daisies, buttercups, and cowslips which make the English meadows so -bright in the spring. Perhaps the mountain moorlands would have been as -gay at that time as I found them later in the year; the fields are far -too well cultivated for any weed to get a chance of flowering. - -The earlier cherry-trees were in blossom by this time, and I lingered -on, making studies of them, and learning Japanese words and ways from O -Nao San, a young lady about twelve years old, who had appointed herself -my special attendant and protector at the Kiku-sui Hotel. One night at -the theatre I saw a modern farce, with a policeman, an old-fashioned -Japanese gentleman, a Chinaman, and an Englishman as the comic -characters. They were ridiculous and amusing, but when all the earlier -incidents of the piece were narrated with conscientious realism in -evidence before a magistrate the thing became monotonous, and struck me -as faulty in dramatic construction. This was the only theatre I saw in -Japan in which they had discarded the orchestra and chorus and other -traditions of the old stage. - -There is a modest little temple opposite Kobūkuji, which is visited by -most of the pilgrims to Nara; in its court-yard is a pile of stones from -which a stream of water flows, fed by the tears of the mother of -Sankatchu, a sacrilegious man who killed some of the sacred deer, who -was killed himself in consequence, and buried here by her. Day after day -groups of visitors stand by the fountain, listening intently to the -guide who tells them the pathetic story, and give their prayers and a -few coppers to her memory. The family affections are strong in Japan, -and the love between parents and children, and among the children -themselves, is always pleasant to see. The little ones are never -slapped or shaken or pulled about roughly; you may wander through the -streets for days without hearing a child cry, nor do they often quarrel -in their play. But it is possible to go too far, even in filial piety. -There was a murder trial while I was in the country, and by the evidence -it appeared that the prisoner’s mother was blind, that the doctor had -prescribed the application of a warm human liver, and that he, as he -could find no other way to get the remedy, had killed his wife in order -to restore his mother’s sight. - -[Illustration: THE WELL OF SANKATCHU, NARA] - -In most forms of Japanese art the technique which is admired by native -connoisseurs, and the associations connected with the subject -represented, can only be understood by those who have studied Japanese -methods and traditions, but the old wooden statuary has more in common -with Western art, and often reaches a high point of realism. In the -religious figures certain traditions had to be followed, and in looking -at these this fact has to be remembered; the exaggerated anatomy, -unnaturally fierce expressions, and arbitrary number of limbs often -disguise their true merits; but in the portrait figures of daimios, -priests, and abbots the treatment is both simple and dignified. Mr. -Takenouchi, a sculptor to whom I had letters, was making admirable -copies of the principal sculptures at Kobūkuji, which were to be -exhibited at Chicago, and afterwards added to the collection of the Fine -Art Museum in Ueno Park, Tōkyō. Among the old masters, Unkei, a sculptor -of the twelfth century, is perhaps the most noteworthy; there is a -mendicant ascetic by him in the Hall of the Thirty-three Thousand -Kwannon at Kyoto, a lean old man, clad only in a few rags, resting on -his staff and holding out his left hand for alms, which might rank with -the work of Rodin. - -On the 25th of April the cherry-trees were in full flower, and I left -Nara for Yoshino, a village at the foot of Mount Omine, in Yamato, which -has for centuries been noted for its cherry groves. Here the cult of the -cherry blossom has its headquarters, and during the ten days or so which -the blossoms last the little town is crowded with visitors. I was too -late to see the place in its full glory; it stands at some height above -the sea, and I consequently imagined that the flowers would be later -than those at Nara, but the cherry which grows there in such quantities -is an early species, and three days of wind and rain had covered the -ground with pink petals and left very few of them on the trees in the -celebrated groves. Fortunately there were still some flowery trees to be -found in gardens and sheltered corners, and at this time of year it -would be impossible to settle down in a Japanese village without finding -plenty of subjects to paint. The cherry in the Yoshino groves has a -single flower, pale pink in color; this is followed by another - -[Illustration: CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE RAIN, NARA] - -kind with white blossoms, more like the European species. Both of these -are wild, and from them the Japanese gardeners have raised many -varieties, double and single flowered, some with the growth of the -weeping-willow, and others with a spreading habit. The flowers vary in -color from white to light crimson, and I noticed some young trees with -large double blossoms which were pale yellow with a pink flush on the -outer petals, like a delicate tea-rose. - -[Illustration: SARA-HIKI-SAKA, NEAR YOSHINO--LATER CHERRIES] - -At the Tatsumi-ya, just by the remains of the huge bronze torii, which, -until it was blown down by a hurricane, formed the entrance to the main -street, I found a little suite of rooms built in the garden away from -the rest of the house, and at once engaged them, in happy anticipation -of quiet nights. These isolated rooms have some disadvantages, such as -having to get to the bath and back on wet nights, but a very short -acquaintance with life in a tea-house makes the traveller disregard such -trifling inconveniences for the certainty of peaceful sleep. The -Japanese wanderers usually finish their day’s journey about five in the -afternoon, and, after the preliminary cup of tea, discard their -travel-stained clothes for the clean kimono which every well-regulated -tea-house supplies to its guests, then bathe in water as near the -boiling-point as possible, eat their dinner, sit talking and smoking -till midnight, snore till five o’clock in the morning, when the clatter -of taking down shutters begins, and the elaborate business of -tooth-cleaning and tongue-scraping, with an accompaniment of complex -noises suggesting seasickness in its worst stages, so it is not till -they have departed at six or seven o’clock that a light sleeper gets -much chance. In the daytime the tea-house is deserted, except by the -proprietor, who sits in the front room and does his accounts, and by the -little servant-girls, who, with their heads tied up in towels, kimono -tucked into their obi, and sleeves fastened back, showing a good deal of -round brown leg and arm, busily sweep and dust the rooms in preparation -for the new set of visitors who will arrive in the evening. The thin -sliding partitions would be little bar to sound even if they reached to -the top of the room, and above them there is generally a foot or so of -open wood-work, which allows free ventilation and conversation between -the different apartments. Privacy, as we understand it, is no part of -the scheme of a Japanese tea-house. Real fresh air from outside is very -difficult to get at night. During the hot weather I was always careful -to examine the fastenings of the wooden shutters with which, after dark, -every house is enclosed like a box, so that I could surreptitiously open -a crack opposite my room, although by so doing I was disobeying the - -[Illustration: CHERRY AND LATE PLUM, TEMA-CHO, NEAR NARA] - -police regulations. These shutters do not keep out the noise of the -watchman, who all night long wanders round and knocks two blocks of wood -together, just to let burglars know that he is on the lookout. - -In these quarters I spent a week or so, painting all day when the -weather would allow me, and in the evening struggling with the language -and gambling for beans with the family and the servant-girls, who played -_vingt-et-un_ (_ni ju ichi_) with such keenness and discretion that I -was generally made a bankrupt, with much laughter and clapping of hands, -quite early in the game, and had to be set up again by general -contribution. - -Everything in Yoshino is redolent of the cherry; the pink and white -cakes brought in with the tea are in the shape of its blossoms, and a -conventional form of it is painted on every lantern and printed on every -scrap of paper in the place. The shops sell preserved cherry flowers for -making tea, and visitors to the tea-houses and temples are given maps of -the district--or, rather, broad sheets roughly printed in colors, not -exactly a map or a picture--on which every cherry grove is depicted in -pink. And all this is simply enthusiasm for its beauty and its -associations, for the trees bear no fruit worthy of the name. There is -an old Japanese saying, “What the cherry blossom is among flowers, the -warrior is among men.” I was reminded constantly of a sentence which a -friend had written in one of my books, “Take pains to encourage the -beautiful, for the useful encourages itself.” It is difficult for an -outsider to determine how much of this is genuine enthusiasm and how -much is custom or a traditional æstheticism; but it really matters -little. That the popular idea of a holiday should be to wander about in -the open air, visiting historic places, and gazing at the finest -landscapes and the flowers in their seasons, indicates a high level of -true civilization, and the custom, if it be only custom, proves the -refinement of the people who originated and adhere to it. - -The village street of Yoshino winds up a spur of the hills, passing many -temples and little hamlets, and gradually becomes a steep and stony -mountain path, which ascends to Mount Omine. The great tracks of forest -provide occupation for most of the people in this district; as I -sketched by the road-side strings of men and women were constantly -passing, carrying down heavy loads of wood and charcoal from the hills, -and in front of many of the cottages match-wood was spread out on mats -to dry. It was difficult to understand how it could ever get dry, for -all the mists of Japan seemed to collect round these mountains and -forests; the landscape was rarely free from them, and constantly looked -like a Japanese drawing, all vague and white in the valleys, with ridges -of hill and fringes of pine showing in sharp clear lines one behind the -other. - -It is a warm climate too, and everything grows luxuriantly. There are -great clumps of bamboo, enormous azalea bushes, and thick undergrowths -of palmetto. On the road-side banks in this last week of April, there -were ferns just unrolling, the fronds of maidenhair (_Adiantum pedatum_) -all bright-red young shoots of lily and orchid and Solomon’s-seal, and a -lovely iris (_I. japonica_), with many lavender-colored flowers on a -branching stalk, each outer petal marked with dark purple lines, and -decorated with a little horn of brilliant orange. The gardens of -tea-houses and temples were gay with azalea, camellia, magnolia, and -cherry, and with the young leaves of maple and andromeda, as bright as -any flowers. During a great part of the year these gardens have but few -blooms--they are only an arrangement of greens and grays--but in the -spring no amount of clipping and training can prevent the shrubs from -blossoming. The cherry-trees and magnolias are let - -[Illustration: A BUDDHIST TEMPLE AT YOSHINO--DOUBLE-FLOWERED CHERRY AND -MAGNOLIA] - -grow as they choose, but the others are trimmed into more or less formal -shapes, considered suitable to the species, or helping the carefully -studied arrangement of forms, which is the ideal of a Japanese gardener. -There are no beds for flowers. In the little ponds the irises and lotus -bloom, and in odd corners there may be clumps of lilies, chrysanthemums, -or other plants, but these are mere accidents: the designer’s aim is a -composition of rocks, shrubs, stone lanterns, ponds, and bridges, which -will look the same in its general features all the year round, and -conform to established rules. One of my Japanese friends told me, as an -instance of the complexity of the landscape-gardener’s art, that if a -certain shrub were used it would be necessary to place near it a stone -from Tosa, the distant province where it commonly grows. The decorative -garden is quite distinct from the flower garden, where the fine -varieties of iris, pæony, and chrysanthemum, for which Japan is famous, -are grown by professional florists, or by rich amateurs who can devote a -special place to their culture. - -On the 3d of May my host at the Ta-tsumiya brought me some pæony flowers -arranged in an old bronze vase. This showed me it was time to move on to -Hase, where there is a great display of them, so next morning I made an -early start for a long jinricksha ride through the hills of Yamato. My -baggage and painting materials could not be packed in less than two -kuruma, two more were necessary for my boy and myself, and the four -vehicles, with two men drawing each, made an imposing procession as we -bumped down the steep village street. The whole staff of the Tatsumi-ya -had turned out to say good-bye; there was a row of little girls kneeling -on the floor, their noses on the matting and their brown hands placed -flat, palms downward, in front of their heads, and the landlord, after -giving me the usual presents and a receipt for my “chadai”--the parting -tip--insisted on accompanying me to the end of the town. - -[Illustration: CROSSING THE FERRY AT MUDA, ON THE YOSHINO-GAWA] - -Our route for two or three miles, as far as the river Yoshino-gawa, was -the same that I had climbed on my way up; but nine days had made a great -difference in its aspect. Then many of the trees were still bare; now -they were covered with spring leaves. After ferrying over to Muda we -turned northwards, and a good road led us by low passes and through the -grand forests at the foot of Mount Tonomine down to Tosa in the Yamato -Valley. Jinricksha travelling is very pleasant when the roads are good, -the weather fine, and the men active; there is no noise of horses’ hoofs -to disturb the mind, the straw-sandalled feet of the coolies hardly make -a sound, nor is your attention distracted from the landscape by having -to drive; and the frequent short halts at way-side tea-houses give you a -chance of airing your few phrases of Japanese and seeing the ways of the -people. My lunch at Tosa was - -[Illustration: MI KOMORI JINJA, A SHINTO TEMPLE NEAR YOSHINO] - -enlivened by two charming waitresses, who had evidently seen but few -foreigners, and who were much interested in me and my belongings. My -watch, match-box, cigarette-case, and other small articles had to be -examined, talked over, and shown to the rest of the household, and I was -plied with questions about my age, my family, and other personal -matters, as Japanese etiquette prescribes. - -This valley of Yamato is the earliest historic home of the present race; -in it there are many tumuli which mark the burial-places of legendary -emperors, including that of Jimmu Tenno, the first of all, and it is -therefore considered sacred ground by the ancestor-loving Japanese. -Every year crowds of pilgrims walk over the district, making their -“Yamato-meguri,” or tour of the holy places of Yamato, and thereout the -innkeepers suck no small advantage. Hase was full of them, and every -tea-house crammed; in the room next mine at least a dozen must have -slept, and I thought myself lucky to get a place to myself. - -There were still some hours of daylight left after I had settled down in -my quarters, so I wandered up the street and climbed the long flight of -steps to the great temple of Kwannon. On each side of the steps small -beds were built up, and in these the pæonies grew, and their big -flowers, ranging in color from white to dark purple, glowed in the -afternoon light against a background of gray stone lanterns. The temple -is built on a hill-side, like Ni-gwatsu-dō at Nara and many other -Buddhist temples, and it consists of a wide veranda filled with -incense-burners and votive pictures and bronze lanterns, and of an inner -sanctuary. Across the entrance to this stands an altar, and over it an -opening in the dark purple curtains allows a glimpse of the great gold -figure of Kwannon, nearly thirty feet high, her face, with its -expression of calm beneficence, only just distinguishable by the light -of a few dim lamps in the gloom of the windowless shrine. Behind this -main temple there are various other buildings, priests’ houses and such -like, and a little pond for the sacred tortoises. - -[Illustration: THE STREET, HASE] - -The main street of Hase is cut up with rivulets; the middle one is used -for all domestic purposes, and at all hours you may see the women, with -skirts and sleeves tucked up, washing their clothes or their fish and -vegetables, and ladling up water for baths and cooking with their -long-handled wooden dippers. The side streams turn small water-wheels, -which work wooden hammers for pounding and cleaning the rice--an -important part of the day’s work in every Japanese village. In the most -primitive places it is done with a long-headed wooden mallet and the -stump of a tree hollowed out for a mortar; in others big wooden hammers -are fixed on a pivot, and are raised by stepping on the other end of the -handle, tread-mill fashion. A mountain brook, the parent of these little -streams, tumbles along close behind the houses; its banks are overhung -with - -[Illustration: ANDROMEDA BUSHES IN KASUGA PARK, NARA] - -bamboos, and the rocks at that season were covered with clumps of -lavender iris. From Atago-Yama, a hill just across the river, the view -is fine; below are the flat, gray roofs of Hase, and the _cul-de-sac_ in -which it lies--bordered on either side with green hills, its windings -indicated by the curves of road and shining river, its green surface -spotted here and there with gray hamlets--gradually opens out into the -wider Yamato Valley. Unebi-Yama, which marks the site of Jimmu Tenno’s -mausoleum, rises in the centre of the plain, and beyond it all is an -enclosing barrier of cloudy mountains. - -[Illustration: WHITE WISTARIA, HASE-DERA] - -A morning’s jinricksha ride took me back to my old quarters at Nara, and -Kwannon must have rejoiced at my departure from Hase-dera, for while I -was there most of the priests and all the acolytes sadly neglected her: -they spent the day looking over my shoulder or gazing open-mouthed in -my face. This was on the 9th of May, and I was glad to find that the -wistaria in Kasuga Park was just in its glory. The masses of flowers -turned the lower trees into big bouquets of pale mauve, and seemed to -drip like fountains from the tall oaks and cryptomerias; and to add to -the beauty, all the undergrowth of andromeda had put out its young -leaves in many shades of color; as Chaucer says, “Some very red, and -some a glad light green.” One glade particularly attracted me: a tiny -clear stream wound along through the brilliant grasses, and the trees -which covered the steep banks on each side of this little meadow were -completely overgrown with the vines, and smothered with their blossoms. -This too was a quiet spot, out of the track of tourists and pilgrims, -and it was a blessed relief to work without a gazing crowd; the only -passers were a few women and children collecting firewood or gathering -the young fern shoots which were sprouting through the grass. These are -cut just as they begin to unroll, and when they are boiled and flavored -with soy, they are really quite good to eat, at least one thinks so in -Japan. - -The wistaria blossoms were almost gone when I decided that though there -was still plenty to be done in Nara, it would be better to try some new -sketching-ground, and having heard of a tea-house with a fine old garden -at Hikone, on the shore of Lake Biwa, I determined to move on there for -my next venture. I packed all my belongings, and made arrangements for -the journey next morning, and then walked once more round the park and -the temples, gazing regretfully at all the good things which still -remained to be sketched, and climbed Mikasa Yama, a steep grassy hill -behind the park, which on fine days is dotted all over with picnic -parties. From its summit there is a great view over the plains round -Nara, with the Kizugawa, a good - -[Illustration: A TALL WISTARIA, KASUGA PARK, NARA] - -broad stream, winding through them. The grassy ridges and the few -wind-beaten pines which grow on them made a fine foreground, and the -little green gullies were spotted with low azalea bushes covered with -flame-colored flowers. It was too good to leave, and I ought to have -unpacked again and prolonged my stay for a few days; but laziness -prevailed, the bore of repacking seemed intolerable, and to my lasting -remorse this subject remained unpainted. - -[Illustration: NOTES AT MUDA] - -[Illustration: BADGE OF THE KIKU-SUI-YA] - - - - -EARLY SUMMER IN JAPAN - -[Illustration: IRIS JAPONICA] - - - - -EARLY SUMMER IN JAPAN - - -[Illustration] - -It is difficult nowadays to imagine how the Japanese managed to live -without tea; everybody drinks it at all hours of the day, and the -poorest people rarely get a chance of drinking anything stronger, and -yet it is, as things went in old Japan, a comparatively recent -introduction. Tea was introduced with Buddhism from China, and though -some plants were brought as early as the ninth century, it was not much -grown until the end of the twelfth. Daruma, an Indian saint of the sixth -century, often represented in Japanese art either crossing the ocean on -a reed, or sitting a monument of patience, with his hands in his -sleeves, was the father of the tea-plant. After years of sleepless -watching and prayer he suddenly got drowsy, and at last his eyelids -closed and he peacefully slept. When he awoke he was so ashamed of this -pardonable weakness that he cut off the offending eyelids and threw -them on the ground, where they instantly took root and sprouted into the -shrub which has ever since had power to keep the world awake. - -[Illustration: CARRYING HOME TEA LEAVES, NEAR UJI] - -In the twelfth century Kyoto was the centre of life in Japan, and the -district of Uji, between that city and Nara, has always kept its -reputation for producing the finest tea. The most valuable leaves are -those on the young spring shoots, and when I passed through on the 19th -of May these were just being gathered and dried. Most of the shrubs -grow in the open air without any protection, evergreen bushes from two -to three feet high, and among them the women and children were at work. -As they squatted by the plants, filling their baskets, very little of -them was visible, but their big grass hats shone in the sun, looking -like a crop of gigantic mushrooms. The Japanese “kasa” is made of -various light materials--straw, split bamboo, rushes, or shavings of -deal; it is used, like an umbrella tied to the head, as a protection -against sun and rain; in the evening or on cloudy days it is laid aside, -and the laborers wear only their cotton kerchief, spread out like a -hood, or tied in a band round their brows. Though it cannot be called -the “vast hat the Graces made,” it is, nevertheless, very effective in -the landscape, and the variations of its outline in different positions -indicate happily the action of its wearer. - -[Illustration: A PLANTATION COVERED WITH MATTING NEAR UJI] - -The plants which produce the most expensive teas, costing from six to -eight dollars a pound, are carefully protected by mats stretched on a -framework of bamboo, so that the tender leaves may neither be scorched -by the sun nor torn by the heavy rains, and there are acres of them so -enclosed. It was a curious thing to look down from a little hill-top on -a sea of matting which filled the whole valley from one pine-clad hill -to another, its surface only broken by the ends of the supporting poles -and by the thatched roofs of the drying-houses which stuck up here and -there like little islands. Underneath the mats women were picking, and -in every wayside cottage those who were not in the fields were busily -sorting and cleaning the leaves. There are no large factories or -firing-houses; each family makes its own brand of tea, labelling it with -some fanciful or poetic name, such as “jewelled dew.” - -The road through this fertile district crosses two large rivers, the -Kisugawa and Ujikawa, and many smaller streams. They are all carefully -banked in, and the water is carried where it is needed by endless -ditches and channels. During the heavy rains these rivulets become -raging torrents, and would soon cover the country with stones and gravel -if they were not kept under control; the quantity of débris they bring -from the mountains is so great that, instead of being down in a hollow, -they are raised above the rest of the country, and you have to go -up-hill to ford them. Before getting into the long and uninteresting -suburbs of Kyoto there are some large ponds on either side of the way, -willows and tall reeds growing on their banks, and in every little creek -fishermen with their boats and nets, all very picturesque and paintable. -So was the Nesan at the Tatsu-ya, who when I halted for lunch at once -led me round to the principal room at the back of the house (the best -rooms and the gardens are usually at the back), and showed me her tame -gold and silver carp, which came to be fed when she clapped her hands. -It was a tiny little - -[Illustration: POND IN THE GARDEN OF RAKU-RAKU-TEI, HIKONE] - -garden, not more than twenty-five feet square, but it had its pond and -bridge, and mountain of rock, and old pine-tree, like the best of them. - -[Illustration: THE CASTLE AT HIKONE] - -I reached Hikone by rail the same evening, and took up my quarters at -the Raku-raku-tei tea-house, a great rambling place, with a large garden -and suites of rooms to suit all tastes. I was shown into a gorgeous -apartment with gold screens, its floor raised above the level of the -rest of the house, which no doubt was intended for great people, who in -the old days must often have come here to see the Daimio, Ii Kamon no -Kami; but I felt I could not live up to this, and after viewing the -rooms overlooking the lake, and those built on piles over the fish-pond, -I selected some that looked out into the garden, with a trellis of -wistaria just in front under which the purple trails of blossom nearly a -yard long were still hanging. There are no crowds of - -[Illustration: THE CASTLE AT NAGOYA, FIELD OF IRIS IN THE FOREGROUND] - -visitors now, and the fine old garden looks rather tangled and -neglected, with bushes untrimmed and paths overgrown with weeds. On a -steep rocky hill close by is the castle where the Daimio formerly lived; -the hill is on one side protected by the lake, and on the others by a -wide moat, crossed by picturesque wooden bridges, and the roads which -lead to the plateau at the top are defended by more bridges over dry -moats, gate-houses, and zigzag walls of large, well-fitted stones. The -architecture of all these castles is very much alike, and though there -are not many of them now standing, they must have abounded in the feudal -times. The finest I saw was that at Nagoya; it was a good deal shaken by -the last great earthquake, but is still quite sound, and the great gold -dolphins on its bronze roof shine high above the rest of the city. In -the short period after the introduction of Western ideas, when the craze -for things European - -[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE MOAT, AKASHI, NEAR KŌBE] - -led to many acts of vandalism, most of them were pulled down, and this -one at Hikone was only just saved from destruction by the intervention -of the Emperor; now that a reaction has set in, and the Japanese -official mind is not so eager to forget the past and obliterate its -relics, they are likely to be carefully preserved. All of them have a -massive foundation of large stones, not squared except at the angles, -but carefully trimmed and fitted together without mortar; and the -superstructure is of timber and plaster, with roofs and eaves of heavy -tiles or metal. The moats, overhung with pines and filled with lotus -during the summer months, are always interesting. It was a blazing hot -day when I walked - -[Illustration: FIELDS NEAR LAKE BIWA] - -up and examined the castle; there was not a cloud in the sky, and Lake -Biwa and its mountains lay still and clear and soft in the delicate blue -haze which seems to be their own peculiar property. The fields outside -the town were covered with a bright pink flower like a clover, which is -not used for fodder, as there are hardly any animals to feed, but is dug -in to improve the land for the rice, and this blaze of color consoled me -for not finding as many azaleas as I expected. I set to work at a study -of it, and sent my boy Matsuba, who, with the quickness of his race, -quite understood the kind of thing I was looking for, to search the -neighborhood for azalea bushes. He came back early in the afternoon to -tell me that he had not been successful, but that there were some races -going on in the town, so we wandered up, and established ourselves in a -room just over the starting-post. The course was about two hundred and -fifty yards along the pebbly bed of a dry river, and all the -arrangements were very unlike those of a European racecourse. Two -upright posts of bamboo stood about five yards apart, with a stout pole -slung between them; the vicious little ponies were brought along by two -grooms, each holding a long cord fastened to the bridle, and with a good -deal of shoving and hustling were wedged in, shoulder to shoulder, -between this pole and another behind them at about the height of their -hocks. Their heads were pulled over the front pole, and held firmly by a -groom with a long running cord through the bridle rings, while the -jockeys were fully occupied in preventing the little brutes from -striking each other with their fore and hind legs. Meanwhile the -spectators, who had kept at a respectful distance until the ponies were -safely fixed, crowded up behind them, pulling their tails and whacking -them with bamboos. The starter then appeared, made a few remarks, and -beat a small drum, upon which the men in charge of the pulleys dropped -the front pole, the grooms slipped their ropes out of the bridle rings -and jumped aside, and the ponies scrambled off as best they could. The -jockeys rode without saddles or stirrups, with their great toes hitched -into a surcingle, and directly they were off they dropped the reins, -held their left hands in the air, and plied their whips with the right -until they had passed the winning-post. It was just a scurry, with no -time for scientific riding, and, as far as I could see, the pony who -got over the pole best always won. O Kazu San, my waitress at the -Raku-raku-tei, was helping at the tea-house, and kept me supplied with -tea and cakes, and I stayed watching the races and the spectators, and -being watched by them, until the dusk put a stop to sport. I left too -soon, for my boy told me that there was a fight afterwards about a bet; -it was the only fight I heard of while I - -[Illustration: O KAZU SAN] - -was in Japan, and I should have liked to see it. Two days of heavy rain -turned the course into a river once more, so that the heats were never -decided. Some few days after, Matsuba told me that there was a “Japanese -man’s circus” in the town. It was not in the least like a circus; it was -a theatrical performance in which all the members of the company, who in -this troupe were women, were mounted on horseback. There was a small -stage, with a set scene at the back, and in front of it, on the same -level as the spectators, a space of bare earth on which the action took -place. The play consisted mostly of combats; the swords and other -necessary properties were brought in by attendants, and placed on a high -stand where they could be easily reached by the actors, and the horses -were then led into position, and held there while the fighting went on. -None of the performers fell off, but beyond this there was no -horsemanship; they could not even get their steeds on and off the stage -without the help of a groom. - -My thoughts recurred to another travelling theatre, at -Stratford-on-Avon, where I saw a stirring drama called _Tel-el-Kebir, or -the Bombardment of Alexandria_, in which Sir Beauchamp Seymour had a -hand-to-hand conflict with Arabi Pasha. Mr. Lawrence, the spirited -actor-manager, informed me afterwards, when I congratulated him on the -performance, that it was always popular, and that he had played it -twenty-three times in one day at Nottingham Goose-Fair. In reply to my -objection that it took at least an hour, he said that of course they cut -the dialogue, and only had the combats and the bombardment. I -remembered, too, his remarks when called before the curtain at the end -of his season; he enlarged on the dignity of the actor’s profession, and -how essential it was that he should be a gentleman, saying, in -conclusion; “‘Ow, I harsk, could a chimney-sweep (if there’s a -chimney-sweep present I beg ’is pardon), but ’ow could ’e act the part -of a prince or a nobleman? ’E could not do it, my friends; ’e’s not ’ad -the hedjucation.” - -[Illustration: PREPARING THE RICE-FIELDS] - -The fine days at this season were perfectly glorious; hot enough to give -an inkling of what it would be like in the full blaze of summer, and yet -with a taste of spring’s freshness left in the air. They were -interspersed with too many wet or uncertain days, but, with the garden -close by, I managed to waste very little time. The first lotus leaves -were just coming up in the ponds and the irises blossoming round the -water’s edge, the azalea bushes were covered with flowers, and the tips -of the pale green maple boughs were tinged with rosy pink. When the -pouring rain had begun to drip through my sketching umbrella, and I was -driven in-doors, there was no lack of society. O Kazu San, a plain -little thing with brown velvet eyes, and the rest of the girls were -never tired of looking at my belongings, thumbing my sketch-books, and -asking me endless questions; and though I was sometimes irritable, their -good-humor was unlimited. This unvaried good temper is itself annoying, -when the foreigner feels that it is not the result of sympathy, but -because he is regarded as a strange animal, not to be judged by the -rules which govern the conduct of civilized people. At last Matsuba told -me that he had found a place, “top side,” with plenty of azaleas, and -rooms where I could stay. It was a small Buddhist temple called -Tennenji, once very popular but now almost deserted, which stood on the -hill-side beyond the rice lands, and somewhat above the swarms of -mosquitoes which haunt the marshy shores and the lagoons of Lake Biwa. -Ji means a Buddhist temple--at least - -[Illustration: MY ROOMS AT TENNENJI] - -[Illustration: BUDDHA AND HIS DISCIPLES, TENNENJI] - -that is one of its meanings--and tennen means “produced by nature.” The -name itself suggested peace and quietness and repose, and these I found -in that delightful place, always seen in my mind through a rosy haze of -azalea blossom. - -A granite sign-post where the little temple path turns off from a track -through the rice-fields tells all who can read it that the temple is -dedicated to the five hundred Rakkan (disciples of Buddha), and their -gilded and lacquered effigies sit in long tiers round one large building -within the court-yard; beyond this is the Hondo, where the principal -altars are, and where the services are performed at daybreak by the old -priest who has sole charge of the establishment. My room was a little -annex of the Hondo, quite apart from the living-rooms of the family, and -open on two sides to the air. The angle of my veranda projected over the -fish-pond, and on the right and the left stepping-stones led down from -it into the garden, a small patch of level ground, with a pine-clad -hill-side rising sharply beyond it. Just at the foot of this hill there -was a rocky projection, covered with an undergrowth of azaleas, and -spotted with statues of Buddha and his sixteen principal followers. -These were rudely carved of the natural stone; with their growth of -lichens and mosses they looked as old as the rocks themselves, and were -hardly to be distinguished from them at a little distance. Several stony -zigzagging footpaths, mere tracks through the bushes and pine-trees, led -to the top of the ridge, from which one looked down on fertile valleys -enclosed by more pine-clad ridges, and to the westward on the great -shining plain of Lake Biwa, its lagoons, islands, and distant mountains. -Many times I walked to the top of this hill, sometimes in the clear -brilliant moonlight, when the delicate pinks and reds of the azaleas -were hardly visible, and only their honeysuckle scent made me conscious -of their presence, and when all the world would have been silent but -for the incessant chorus of myriads of frogs which came up from the -rice-fields below. - -[Illustration: HIKONE AND LAKE BIWA, FROM THE HILLS BEHIND TENNENJI] - -In the daytime the whole of the wood was lively with cicadæ, who kept up -a constant and irritating clatter, but then there was the delight of -finding new flowers, or making the acquaintance of old garden friends in -their own homes. A little damp gully just behind the bamboo grove was -full of deutzia bushes in blossom, and under them grew a clump of pale -pink lilies (_Lilium krameri_), which seemed to me the loveliest flowers -I had ever seen. The priest at Tennenji was so anxious to have some of -my work that I made a drawing of these for him; it hangs among the -temple treasures, and may be a surprise to some wandering foreigner, who -will little expect to find any European traces in such an out-of-the-way -spot. The family, consisting of Sokin the father, O Shige San the -mother, and Takaki, a son employed in the office of police at Hikone, -soon - -[Illustration: AZALEAS ON THE ROCKS, TENNENJI] - -[Illustration: THE POEM] - -adopted me as a friend, and did all they could to make me comfortable. -Takaki had received a modern education (they teach English in the Hikone -schools, as you find out from the small boys, who shout A B C after you -in the streets); but he had not got beyond the word “Yes,” beginning -every sentence with it and then lapsing into Japanese. We made many -excursions together, he, Matsuba, and I, strolling down to the town -after dinner and looking in at the theatres and shops.[A] O Shige San -was great at cooking, and took delight in providing me with new and -strange forms of food every evening; for breakfast and lunch I ate what -European food Matsuba could provide, and as flour and whiskey could be -bought, and a cow was slaughtered in Hikone every Saturday, I did not do -badly; you can get the necessary sustenance in a shorter time on foreign -“chow,” but when work was over and I had taken my hot bath and exchanged -my suit of flannels for a cotton kimono, it was amusing to sit on the -floor and speculate on the composition of the dishes which she brought -me, trying with the aid of a dictionary to find out what they really -were, and to acquire a taste for “daikon.”[B] Among her successes were -eels cooked in soy, broiled fish, and bean curd “à la brochette”; young -bamboo shoots, chrysanthemum leaves fried in batter, and lily bulbs -boiled in sugar were eatable; but a sausage made of rice and herbs, and -some of the quaint vegetables, were simply nauseous. In one of my -water-colors there was a large group of leaves, round ones with a dark -hole where the stem goes in, commonly known as the “foreground plant,” -and I noticed one afternoon to my disgust that these had been cut; the -boiled stalks were given to me at dinner that evening, and I never -tasted anything more unpleasant. When the various dishes had all been -brought in and arranged round me by the priest or Takaki, O Shige San -would appear and kneel in front of me, keeping my sake cup and rice bowl -filled, and watching with intense anxiety my expression as I tasted each -compound, and at the end of my dinner would remark that I had eaten -nothing, and that Japan was a dirty, ugly country, to which I always -replied that I had feasted, that England was dirty and ugly, but that -Japan was a beautiful country. Such is Oriental politeness. Then Sokin -came in with his pipe and pouch and little fire-box, and, after taking a -cup of sake with me, sat and smoked and conversed, or brought out the -tea things of his lamented patron, Ii Kamon no Kami, and made me a bowl -of powder tea with all the correct ceremonies. The Cha-no-yu is not to -be confounded with ordinary tea-drinking. It is an elaborate form of -entertainment which cannot be appreciated by an uneducated foreigner; -every movement is regulated by laws known to the initiated, and the -conversation is confined to some object of art, or poem produced by the -host. The kettle, water-bowl, and other utensils should all have some -historic or artistic interest, and the cup from which the mixture is -drunk is usually an example of archaic pottery. The rules of the game -have not been altered for about two centuries, though there are various -schools which differ as - -[Illustration: WHITE AZALEA BUSH, RAKU-RAKU-TEI, HIKONE] - -to minor details--whether the whisk with which the drink is stirred -should afterwards be laid on the seventh or thirteenth seam of the -matting, and things of that sort, which seem of infinitely small -importance to the ignorant, but make a vast difference to the -connoisseur. Our love of tobacco was a great bond of sympathy, although -after trying each other’s pipes we both preferred our own. The old man, -who knew that I did not like to be watched while painting, would sit in -his little room and gaze at me as I worked in the garden or among the -stone gods on the hill-side, and when he saw that my pipe was out, would -fill another for me and bring it out with a box of matches, making this -an excuse to look over my shoulder for a few minutes, and to have a -little conversation. - -As the summer came on and the weather got hotter the insects became more -and more numerous; there were splendid butterflies and dragon-flies in -the daytime, swarms of fire-flies over the rice-fields at night, and -unfortunately many others which bit at all hours, flying things, and -things which mosquito-curtains could not keep out. The Japanese house -has no separate rooms for living and sleeping; when bedtime comes quilts -are brought in and laid on the floor, and, if necessary, a -mosquito-netting of thick green gauze is slung over them from the four -corners of the apartment. The natives use a small wooden pillow, with a -depression for the neck to rest in; I never could manage this, but after -a time I succeeded in sleeping well with coats or another quilt rolled -up for a bolster. - -Certain paragraphs about me in the local papers brought a good many -visitors to the temple to see what I was doing, among them a gentleman -who was introduced to me as the best singer in Hikone, and a little -conversation and whiskey induced him to give me some specimens of his -art--songs of the Buddhist and Shinto priests, and others - -[Illustration: THE BAMBOO GROVE, TENNENJI] - -which might be described as popular airs. To foreign ears they were -quite devoid of melody, and his elaborate vocalization only produced -sounds which were disagreeable and harsh, or else ludicrously inadequate -to the efforts they cost him. My friend, who appeared to be an all-round -æsthete, spent a good part of the afternoon in arranging a big bronze -jar of azalea boughs and a hanging vase of irises, curling the leaves -and snipping off any stray shoots which did not conform to the -fish-scale arrangement (sakana no uroko no kata) which he was trying to -make. - -The family were very busy all through this month with their crop of -silk-worms, which required incessant care and feeding. I was taken to -see them first in an outbuilding when they were just little black -specks; as they got older the air of this shed did not suit them, and -they were moved into the Hondo, where they flourished and grew with -astonishing rapidity under the eye of the Buddha, and devoured the -baskets of chopped mulberry leaves as fast as they could be prepared. -The caterpillars were huddled together on mats hung one above another in -a framework; a netting of string was spread over each mat so that the -whole mass could be lifted and the débris cleared away with very little -trouble. When they had ceased to grow, and began to stand on end, waving -their heads in the air after the idiotic fashion of silk-worms who want -to spin, they were picked off and put in little nests of straw or -bundles of brush-wood, which soon became a mass of soft yellow cocoons. -It was an anxious time for O Shige San, for a considerable part of her -income depended on the crop of silk; the cocoons are worth about thirty -yen a koku, a measure rather less than five bushels. - -The pond under my veranda was full of carp and baby tortoises, which -hurried up to be fed as soon as they saw me leaning over the rail; the -old tortoises were more shy, and I only saw them on very hot days, -sunning themselves on the stones, and they slipped into the water with a -flop if I attempted to get near them. I caught one on a patch of sandy -ground, after watching its struggles to cover up the hole in which it -had just laid some leathery-looking white eggs. These days brought out -the snakes too, some of them very big, and all unpleasant to look at, -but quite harmless. There is only one venomous snake in the country, a -small brown beast called “Mamushi”; the other sorts are not ill-treated, -indeed, they are considered lucky, but this is always killed and -skinned, and a medicine is prepared from its dried body. - -It would have been easy to dream away months here, but the wise -regulations of the Japanese government, foreseeing that the traveller -might be tempted to neglect his duties and become a mere loafer, forced -me to return to Kōbe and get a new passport, so I had to say good-bye to -my friends, and the Rakkan with the lichen-covered azaleas, still gay -with crimson flowers which trailed round their feet, and the terrace -where every evening I had watched the sun setting over Biwa, and to -descend once more to the railway and the commonplace. - -The rain came down in torrents as I left the temple, and continued to do -so all the day, but there was plenty that was amusing to be seen from -the carriage window. The people were busy putting out their young rice -plants, and the fields were full of men and women working in mud and -water half-way up to their knees, and wearing their “kasa” and straw -coats, oiled paper, rush mats, or other contrivances to keep off the -rain. It is surely the dirtiest and most laborious form of agriculture; -the work is almost entirely done by manual labor with a spade and a -heavy four-pronged rake, though I occasionally saw a cow - -[Illustration: SUNSET OVER LAKE BIWA, FROM TENNENJI] - -or a pony, with a little thatched roof on its back to shoot off the -rain, dragging a sort of harrow through the mud. As soon as the spring -crop of barley or rape-seed is garnered and hung up to dry, the ground -is trenched with the spade, and water is turned over it until it has -become a soft slush, which is worked level with the rake. The young rice -plants, grown thick together in nursery patches, are pulled up when the -fields are ready for planting, their roots are washed, and they are tied -in bundles, which are thrown into the mud and water; then the men and -women wade in, untie a bundle, and set the seedlings in lines by just -pressing them with their fingers into the mud. They do this wonderfully -quickly, and can plant eight or nine in a row without moving from their -places; when the field is all planted it looks like a pond with a -delicate green haze over it. The dividing banks are planted with beans -or other vegetables, so that not a yard of ground is wasted. This was -the 18th of June, the beginning of the “dew month,” a period full of -discomforts for the traveller, and especially for the landscape-painter. - -[Illustration: PLANTING RICE] - -[Illustration: A SPRING FLOWER--JIRO-BO] - - - - -THE TIME OF THE LOTUS - -[Illustration: PLATYCODON GRANDIFLORUM, “KIKYO”] - - - - -THE TIME OF THE LOTUS - - -The damp heat of the Japanese summer, which is so trying to human -beings, encourages all vegetation to grow with surprising luxuriance and -rapidity; the buds of yesterday are flowers to-day, and to-morrow -nothing is left but the ruin of a past beauty, making the painter’s -struggle most arduous just when he has least energy to contend with -nature. The young bamboo shoots come up like giant asparagus, growing so -fast that one can almost see them move; some of them are cut and eaten -while young and tender, and those which are allowed to grow to large -poles are used for every imaginable purpose. They are made into -water-pipes and flower-vases, barrel-hoops and umbrellas, baskets and -hats, scaffolding-poles and pipe-stems, fans and delicate whisks for -stirring the powdered tea--more things, in fact, than I could enumerate -in a page. The bamboo is surely the cause of much of the clever -constructive work of the Japanese; for though it will do most things -with proper treatment, it will not stand being handled like ordinary -timber; its peculiar qualities have to be considered, and every way in -which they use it is artistic and good. This is the large species which -grows to twenty or thirty feet high; there are many dwarf kinds, which -clothe the hills with green, and are used only for making fences and -such like. - -[Illustration: AUKATUM LILIES AND BOCCONIA ON THE HILLS NEAR NIKKO] - -The general aspect of Japan during the summer months is a harmony in -greens, the dark pines and cryptomerias striking the lowest note of a -scale which culminates in the - -[Illustration: A FIELD OF LILIES, OFUNA, NEAR KAMAKURA] - -brilliancy of the rice-fields--the most vivid green I know. There is -more variety of color in those districts which are not irrigated, such -as that round Kamakura, where the light sandy soil grows a great many -kinds of vegetables, sweet-potatoes, melons, tomatoes, beans, and big -patches of auratum and longiflorum lilies, the bulbs of which are -exported. The lily is not one of the flowers which the Japanese -themselves particularly admire, nor do they often use it for decoration. -In this, as in most other matters, there are recognized rules of taste, -and the man is considered - -[Illustration: SEVEN BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF LATE SUMMER - -1. Susuki 2. Kikyo 3. Asago 4. Shion 5. Omnia-Meshi 6. Kiku 7. Hagi - -Drawing by Teshoto Hario] - -an ignoramus who does not know the right thing to like. I was walking -one day at Yoshida with a Japanese artist, a remarkable man who was -engaged in making a series of steel-engravings, half landscape and half -map, of the country round Fuji, and called his attention to a splendid -clump of pink belladonna lilies growing near an old gray tomb; but he -would not have them at all, said they were foolish flowers, and the only -reason he gave me for not liking them was because they came up without -any leaves. When we got back to our tea-house he took my pen and paper, -and showed me what were the seven beautiful flowers of late summer--the -convolvulus, the name of which in Japanese is “asago,” meaning the same -as our “morning-glory;” wild chrysanthemum; yellow valerian; the -lespedeza, a kind of bush clover; _Platycodon grandiflorum_, a -purple-blue campanula; _Eulalia japonica_, the tall grass which covers -so many of the hills; and shion, a rather insignificant-flowered aster. -I noticed that some versions of the seven flowers differed from his; a -large-flowered mallow is often substituted for the last he named. There -are doubtless different schools which hold strong views on the subject, -but on the morning-glory and some others they are evidently agreed. The -auratum lily is a common wild flower in the hilly districts, and boiled -lily bulbs are a favorite vegetable, but I could not find out which was -considered the best variety for the table. O Shige San told me that it -was a red lily; I looked in vain for any of that color in their gardens. - -The cottages in the country round Kamakura are thickly thatched, and on -the top of the thatch is laid a mass of earth held together by iris -plants, which form a roof-crest of spiky green; near them in July there -often were large hydrangea bushes covered with balls of blossom, the -young flowers a pale yellow-green, changing as they grew older through -bright blue to purple. - -On the 9th of July the heat drove me from Europeanized Yokohama to the -hills. I left the train at Utso-no-miya, a little town which has been -financially ruined by the railway--for every one formerly stayed a night -there instead of travelling straight through--and was delighted to find -myself once more in thoroughly Japanese quarters. It was a wonderful -moonlight night, and I wandered round the town in kimono and clogs, -watched the people, and was stared at by them, climbed the steps to the -big Shinto temple, and - -[Illustration: HYDRANGEA BUSH, TOTSUKA, NEAR YOKOHAMA] - -gazed over the plains flooded with pale light, and thoroughly enjoyed -myself. - -[Illustration: UNDER THE CRYPTOMERIAS AT NIKKO] - -There is a railway now to Nikko, and most people rush up there without -seeing the glorious avenue of cryptomerias--described so well in Loti’s -_Japoneries d’Automne_--which line the old road for miles and miles. I -sent my boy and my baggage by rail, and went myself in a kuruma with two -good runners. The road is sadly out of repair in some places, but the -splendid old trees remain, and young ones have been planted where winds -and age have thinned their ranks. It is not like an ordinary avenue with -the trees planted some yards apart; these are so close together that the -trunks have often joined at the base, and I noticed one lot of seven big -trees all grown together at the bottom into a mass that must have been -eight or ten yards long. The road is sunk between the high banks on -which the trees grow, and it must be gloomy enough on such a night as -Loti experienced. Here and there it opens out into a village street, -with abundance of refreshment booths for the pilgrims who still make the -journey on foot. - -Nikko itself is a long, steep street, leading up to a rushing mountain -torrent in a rocky ravine, which is crossed by two bridges side by side. -One is an ordinary wooden structure, used by all the world; the other, -which is of red lacquer, with black supports and brass ornaments, is -only opened for the Emperor and his family to pass over. Beyond them the -hills rise, covered with cryptomerias, among which are concealed the -great mortuary temples of Ieyasu and Iemitsu, founders of the great -Tokugawa Shogunate that lasted for two centuries. Marvellous as these -mausolea are, they make no effect in the distance; it is only when you -get close to them, wander about in their successive court-yards, and -examine the lovely details of wood-carving, lacquer, and gilding, that -the wonder of them strikes you. The tombs themselves are plain bronze -pillars, and are reached by long flights of granite steps, green and -gray with mosses and lichens, which lead up under the dark masses of -foliage behind the temples. After passing through all the glories of -color and elaborate workmanship in the preliminary temples their final -peacefulness and simplicity are very striking. - -Nikko in the summer is full of foreign ladies and children; the Emperor, -too, has a country-house there, where some of his large family spend the -hot months. I saw the arrival of two little princesses, with a crowd of -nurses, tutors, and officials. They were funny little things, about -three or four years old, not as pretty as most Japanese children, but -dressed in the most gorgeous colors. The red lacquer bridge was opened -for them, decorated with “gohei”--the strips - -[Illustration: A LITTLE TEMPLE AT NIKKO] - -of white paper which are used so largely in the Shinto religion--and in -the middle of the bridge there was a little table with offerings of food -on it, where the children stopped and made their obeisances to the manes -of their ancestors as they passed over. All the priests of Nikko turned -out in gauze vestments of many colors, Buddhist and Shinto equally -anxious to do honor to the descendants of the gods. - -[Illustration: KIKIFURI, NEAR NIKKO] - -The hills are alive with little tinkling streams of clear water, and the -favorite walks mostly lead to waterfalls. I spent a soaking day making -a sketch of one of them--Kirifuri; the path to it crossed a wide, stony -river, and went over grassy hills where there were abundant wild -flowers, purple iris, white and mauve funkias, yellow orchids, clusters -of white roses, pink spiræas, hydrangeas, St.-John’s-wort, meadow-rue, -and bocconia appearing here and there, half hidden among the rank -herbage. The big buds of auratum lilies showed how fine they would be in -a few days’ time. Just in front of the waterfall a little tea-house gave -me shelter enough to work in; but the path, up which I had walked -dry-shod, by the time I got back had been turned to a raging torrent, -and I only just crossed the stony river in time, for the light bamboo -bridge was washed down during the night. - -[Illustration: THE MOOR NEAR YUMOTO] - -Chūzenji is a little hamlet, some hours’ walk from Nikko up a mountain -road, consisting of a group of tea-houses which overlook a charming -lake, a very sacred temple with a large bronze torii, and long rows of -sheds to accommodate the pilgrims who come in early August to make the - -[Illustration: A WET DAY AT CHŪZENJI] - -ascent of Nantai-zan, the mountain which rises close behind the village. -During five long days of incessant rain I painted everything that was -visible from my room in one of the tea-houses, the water of the lake -rising each day so much higher that on the last two I was able to take a -morning header from my balcony, and I hardly got a chance to explore the -country round. At last a bright morning tempted me to - -[Illustration: THE FOOT OF NANTAI-ZAN] - -walk on to Yumoto, and see the sulphur springs and the wide moorland, -Senjō-ga-hara, which lies surrounded by mountain-peaks at a height of -nearly five thousand feet above the sea. On the moor the grasses do not -grow high enough to conceal the flowers, and I found it gay with purple -iris and white meadow-rue. The baths in Yumoto are open to the public; -they are large wooden tanks under sheds by the road-side, and as you -walk along the street you see the patients, men, women, and children, -all sitting together, in a state of nature, up to their necks in the -steaming malodorous soup. The clouds were gathering round the -mountain-tops as I started to walk back to Chūzenji, and before I had -finished a rapid sketch on the moor the rain began again in torrents; -the road was a series of small ponds, and my coolie insisted on carrying -me, as well as my sketching materials, through them; but he -unfortunately stumbled under my weight, and dropped me in the deepest of -them, and what with the wet above and below I was well soaked by the -time I reached my tea-house. The hibachi seems a very inadequate means -of warmth on such occasions; a hot bath and whiskey and dry clothes are -more effective, and after dinner a bottle of tamago-sake, a hot compound -of whipped egg and sake, soon produces a pleasing drowsiness. Since -leaving Chūzenji I have recognized the place in many drawings on screens -and fans; the artist always gives its main features--the lake, the -cryptomerias, the huge bronze torii, and the steep wooded slope of -Nantai-zan--but he combines them in one view as you never can see them -in reality. The rain had played havoc with the road back to Nikko; -several bridges were down, but temporary ones built of fagots made it -possible to cross the streams. All the higher woods near the lake are -hung with gray moss, and the flowering shrubs which grow among them are -endless--azaleas, climbing and bushy hydrangeas, weigelia, seringa, and -wild vine; on the ground I found orange Turk’s-cap lilies, columbines, -the big _Lilium cordifolium_, and ferns of many kinds. - -Notwithstanding the advantage of cooler nights, I was glad to leave the -green mountains, with their constant rain and mists, and the shut-in -valleys, where it was impossible to see more than a few hundred yards -away, and get down - -[Illustration: THE MOAT OF BENTEN-SHIBA] - -again to the broader horizons and bigger skies of the plains. On the -journey to Tōkyō I saw my first lotus flowers in a lake near the -railway, and I hurried off at once to the pond which surrounds the -little temple of Benten at Shiba, where I found them in full glory. - -The lotus is one of the most difficult plants which it has ever been my -lot to try and paint; the flowers are at their best only in the early -morning, and each blossom after it has opened closes again before noon -the first day, and on the second day its petals drop. The leaves are so -large and so full of modelling that it is impossible to generalize them -as a mass; each one has to be carefully studied, and every breath of -wind disturbs their delicate balance, and completely alters their forms. -Besides this their glaucous surface, like that of a cabbage leaf, -reflects every passing phase of the sky, and is constantly changing in -color as clouds pass over. - -Japanese drawings of flowers--and they usually draw them -beautifully--are often influenced in some way by a tradition. The man -who invented the method was a true impressionist; he seized what -appeared to him characteristic of the plant, and insisted on that to the -exclusion of other truths, thus founding a mannerism which all following -artists imitated. In time, what he saw as characteristic became -exaggerated by his disciples, who looked at nature only through his eyes -and not with their own, and I have observed that the flowers which are -most frequently drawn are not depicted so naturally as those less -popular ones, in books of botany and such like, for drawing which there -is no recognized method, and where the draughtsman had to rely entirely -on his own observation for his facts. Take, for example, the spots on -the lotus stems; if you look very closely you can see that there are -spots, but certainly they could not strike every artist as a marked -feature of the plant, for they are not visible three yards away. But -some master noticed them many years ago and spotted his stems, and now -they all spot them, and the spots get bigger and bigger; and so it will -be until some original genius arises who will not be content with other -people’s eyes, but will dare to look for himself, and he may perhaps, -without abandoning Japanese methods, get nearer to nature, and start a -renaissance in Japanese art. - -The Japanese treatment of landscape is not more conventional than that -of Claude or David Cox, or than the shorthand of our pencil-sketches, -but it records its facts in a different way. The everlasting question in -art is the imitation of nature; it has never been carried further in -certain directions than by Millais and his pre-Raphaelite brethren, or -in others than by Manet, Monet, and the modern French, but no one can -put in everything; look at a simple bunch of leaves in sunlight against -a wall, and think how long it would take to really imitate all their -complexities of form, color, and light and shade; some facts can only be -given by ignoring others, and the question what is the important thing -which must be insisted on is the personal affair of each individual -artist in every country where art is unfettered and alive. But in -Japanese, as in Byzantine and other Eastern arts, this question is still -decided by the practice of past generations, and it will take all the -vitality of a strong man to infuse new life into it without destroying -its many exquisite qualities. Perhaps when Japanese artists absorb its -spirit instead of merely trying to imitate its methods, Western art may -help in the direction of freedom; at present I fear that its influence -has done more harm than good. - -The people are so quick to recognize the meaning of a few lines, and to -understand the poetic idea which they suggest, that it is a wonder the -artists ever learned to draw at all; they might have been content with -symbols, for a few lines like those below are enough to convey all the -poetry that is associated in their minds with any of the well-known art -motives. - -[Illustration] - -The little island of Benten is a frequented spot, and my easel was -surrounded from morning till night with a crowd of spectators; they -dispersed at the command of the policeman on his hourly round, but after -he had gazed his fill and left me, a new lot instantly assembled. They -were mostly children; and a crowd of Japanese children is twice as many -as any other crowd of its size, for every child has another smaller one -tied to its back. I suppose they are not born in pairs this way, but -they contract the habit of carrying a little one at a very early age, -and often tie on a doll when a sufficiently small human being cannot be -found. The spectators are almost always polite, and take care not to put -themselves between you and your subject; but they squeeze up very close -to your elbow, and trample on your nerves, if not on your materials. -They usually remarked that my work was a photograph; some more educated -ones said that it was an oil-painting, that being the medium which is -associated with foreign art; and one man said that it was enamel, which -I took as a compliment to the brilliancy of my color. The keeper of a -little tea-shed hard by, where I took my lunch, noticed that I was -worried by the people standing so close to me, and when I arrived next -morning I found that he had put up a fence round the place where I -worked; it was only a few slender bamboo sticks, with a thin string -twisted from one to another, but not a soul attempted to come inside it. -They are such an - -[Illustration: SPECTATORS] - -obedient and docile race that a little string stretched across a road is -quite enough to close the thoroughfare. It is difficult to reconcile the -character of this peaceable and pleasure-loving race which the modern -traveller sees with that which is ascribed to their forefathers--those -heroes of the desperate wars and bloody revolutions which fill the pages -of the early history of Japan. It may be that two centuries of Tokugawa -rule, fatherly but autocratic, developed qualities of unreasoning -obedience, and perhaps all the struggles of the past were merely -dynastic, or affairs between the warriors of different clans; perhaps -the people themselves have always been as gentle as they are now, -cultivating their land and pursuing their ingenious trades, little -affected by these turmoils, except that, like the producers of all times -and countries, they were called on to supply the sinews of war. - -[Illustration: THE LAST TEA LEAVES--COTTAGE NEAR YOKOHAMA] - -The lotus is intimately connected with Buddhism; most personifications -of the Buddha are represented as seated or standing on its flower, or -holding an unexpanded bud in their hands; it is largely used in temple -decorations, and vases with imitations in metal of the flowers, leaves, -buds, and seed-pods, often very exquisite in workmanship, stand on all -the altars. It is typical to the Buddhist mind of the qualities of the -ideal man: as it grows in the mud, yet produces a lovely flower, it is a -symbol of purity in a naughty world; as its odor sweetens the air -around, so his good deeds influence those about him; it opens in the -morning sunshine, and his mind is expanded by the light of knowledge; -its branchless stalks, rising without a break to the leaf or flower, are -a type of his single-mindedness and directness of purpose; and its -edible root shows that the basis of his life must be usefulness to -others. To this I may add that, like the very good, the flower always -dies young. It is lovely enough in itself without all this halo of -virtue. Hardy says of Tess, “Beauty to her, as to all who have felt, lay -not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized”; this is unavoidable -with most of us, and the suggestion of feelings and memories of our own -does not necessarily obscure our visual sense; but a fixed and -recognized suggestion is the result of mental laziness, and may lead to -the ignoring of intrinsic beauty; as our lovely primrose is to some eyes -a political badge, admired only because of its association with a name -and a faction, or rejected for the same cause. To quote Mr. Punch, - - “A primrose by the river’s brim - A party emblem was to him, - And it was nothing more.” - -But the lotus has not sunk so low as this; though it has been adopted by -the Buddhists, it excites no animosity in Shinto breasts; and where -temples under the present _régime_ have been handed over from the one -religion to the other, though the pagoda and other distinctively -Buddhist - -[Illustration: LOTUS-PONDS AT KAMAKURA] - -structures are pulled down, the lotus-ponds are left in their beauty. -The largest I saw were those connected with the great Hachiman temple at -Kamakura, which has been turned over to the state religion; they cover -several acres, and the flowers in them are of three colors--either -white, bright rose, or a delicate shell-like pink. All three varieties -seem to grow equally freely, and one is as lovely as the other. The -white one has been specially adopted by - -[Illustration: LOTUS-PATCH AMONG THE RICE-FIELDS, KAWASAKI, TŌKYŌ] - -the followers of Nichiren, a noisy sect which beats a drum during the -long hours of prayer, and it is this variety, too, which is usually -grown in patches here and there among the rice-fields for the sake of -its roots. They have not much flavor, except that of the sugar with -which they are boiled, but they are crisp in texture and pleasant to -munch. The children are very fond of the nutlike seeds which are -embedded in the fleshy seed-pod; it looks very like the rose of a -watering-pot. In the tea-booths round the temple of Benten they use a -dried slice of this pod for a mat on which to stand the cup or bowl. - -[Illustration: A TEA-HOUSE AT KAMAKURA] - -Kamakura was for a long time the capital of Japan; in the twelfth -century it was selected for his headquarters by Yoritomo, the great -warrior whose victories enabled him to take the reins into his own -hands, and to establish that system of military government which only -ended with the deposition of the last Shogun in 1868. But when a rival -family defeated his successors they removed the seat of government, and -Kamakura rapidly declined from a great city of more than a million -inhabitants to the insignificant fishing-village which it now is, with -nothing to show of its former greatness but this temple of Hachiman, and -the Daibutsu, an enormous bronze Buddha, not only remarkable for its -size, but also for being the finest and most dignified production which -the art of Japan can show. The temple buildings which once sheltered it -were destroyed ages ago, and the image is now in the open air, in one of -the little valleys which branch out from the plain and run back among -the pine-clad hills. Centuries of exposure to rain and sun have given -varied colors to the great bronze god. He is seated cross-legged on a -lotus-flower, his hands folded in his lap; the head is bent slightly -forward, and his face gazes down with an expression of calm superiority -which can only come from perfected wisdom and subjugated passions. A new -shrine to Yoritomo’s memory, all of black and gold, stands near one of -the lotus-ponds; in front of it are some splendid old willow-trees, -which he is said to have planted, and under which he sat and composed -poetry when he was not engaged more actively in fighting. It is hardly -possible that these willows can have lived to such a great age; they are -probably descendants of the original trees. Behind the shrine is a large -modern barrack, and I saw bands of white-clad recruits, with side-arms -and repeating rifles, trousers, - -[Illustration: YORITOMO’S WILLOWS AND HIS SHRINE] - -tunics, and forage-caps, quite European in everything but face and -stature, constantly passing to and fro over the ground where the old -warrior must have seen his quaint soldiers in lacquered armor and bronze -helmets carrying their long-bows and queer-shaped halberds. One day when -I was painting the willows my boy Matsuba, who had plenty of spare time -for investigating the neighborhood while waiting to carry home my -umbrella and things, came and told me that there was a wrestling-match -at a small temple about a mile away. I packed up at once and we walked -over there, for I was very anxious to see what kind of a sport it was. -This was a tournament, and all the professional wrestlers of the -neighborhood, and many youths anxious to distinguish themselves, had -collected to take part in it. They were divided into three classes. The -masters of the art were all past their first youth; not enormously -stout, as they are often represented in drawings and carvings, but fine, -athletic men, taller than the average of Japanese. They wore their hair -in the ancient style, shaved away from the centre of the head, and the -locks from the back and side made into a queue, turned up and knotted -with a string on the top of the poll; they had no clothes except a -loin-cloth and an embroidered apron. In the second class were men who -had won but few prizes; they were not all in the professional get-up, -and some of them were evidently laboring-men with a taste for sport. The -third class was composed of youths, none of them more than nineteen or -twenty years old. The contests took place in the temple court-yard on a -circular bed of sand, under a roof supported by wooden pillars, but not -enclosed at the sides; round the edge of this raised circle there was -laid a straw rope, and the man won who could either fairly throw his -opponent or force him across the rope without being dragged over -himself. The proceedings were conducted by a Shinto priest in full -dress, wide trousers, and a coat sticking out from the shoulders like -that of a modern young lady, who with a peculiar-shaped fan gave the -signal to begin and to stop. For the highest class this umpire was a -venerable old gentleman; for the others the place was taken by young -priests who needed to learn this part of their business. The wrestlers -came on in pairs as their names were called, and after a great deal of -marching round, stamping, rubbing their limbs, making gestures of -defiance, and so on, they squatted opposite each other. When the - -[Illustration: JAPANESE WRESTLERS] - -signal was given to begin they rested their fingers on the ground -between their knees, and leaned towards each other till their foreheads -touched, sometimes waiting several minutes before attempting to make any -grip. If the grip seemed unfair or unsatisfactory to one of the -opponents, he immediately put down his hands, the priest stopped the -bout, and all the preliminary business had to be gone through again; but -if it seemed all right the struggle began, and sometimes lasted for five -minutes, each man straining every muscle in a splendid way, and using -all the science and cunning he knew. If it lasted too long without -either man gaining any advantage, the priest signalled to them to stop, -and they had to wait till their turn came round again. The preceding -rough sketch, made while jammed in the crowd of spectators, will give -some idea of the attitude of the men waiting for the fan to be lowered. -Everything was conducted in the most ceremonious and orderly manner, and -there was no drunkenness or rowdyism, although the multitudes who had -assembled were entirely of the poorest class. The most fashionable -wrestling-matches are held in Tōkyō in spring and autumn, and the -champion is as much a popular favorite as a famous torero in Spain, or a -well-known prize-fighter in England and America. - -Those who read these notes will have gathered that the heat and the rain -make summer life in Japan not wholly enjoyable; let me also say some -words of warning to the thin-skinned against the mosquitoes, and even -more against a horrible little insect which lives in the grass or sand -and bites your legs and feet. It is so small that I never succeeded in -finding it, but its bite brings up a blister which breaks and leaves -troublesome sores. There were few nights from June till October when I -was not obliged to get up once or twice and bathe them in cold water to -allay the intolerable itching. The sea, too, has its terrors. I went -down to the shore near Kamakura one hot night, hoping that a swim would -soothe my troubled skin, but no sooner had I plunged into the -approaching wave than my neck and arms were embraced by jelly-fish, and -I scrambled out feeling and looking as if I had taken my bath in a bed -of nettles. The Japanese, although they grumble and fan themselves a -good deal, do not really mind the heat; their draughty houses are -admirably adapted for fine summer weather, and their clothing is -sensible and scanty. But the foreigners suffer, and as September comes, -and the lotus flowers fade, they hail with relief the approach of the -cooler and dryer weather of autumn. - -[Illustration: LESPEDEZA “MAGI”] - -[Illustration: THE HEART-LEAVED LILY] - - - - -FUJISAN - -[Illustration: CAMPANULAS ON FUJI] - - - - -FUJISAN - - -[Illustration] - -The great mountain of Japan is well known to us all; its form appears on -countless screens and fans, and its foreign name, Fusiyama, is as -familiar as Mont Blanc or Pike’s Peak. By the Japanese it is called -Fuji, or Fujisan, or sometimes Fuji-noyama when speaking poetically: it -is difficult to understand how an _s_ came to be substituted for the _j_ -by foreigners, but under any name there is a peculiar fascination about -the mountain, and the first sight of it, from the hundred steps in -Yokohama, from Ueno in Tōkyō through a haze of telephone wires, or -across the waves of Suruga Bay from the deck of a steamer, is an event -which will be fixed in the traveller’s memory. - -I can never see a high place without wishing to be on the top of it, -and Fuji looks obtrusively high. The long sweep with which it heaves its -twelve thousand feet above the shore, the absence of any competitive -mountains, and the exaggerated perspective of its broad base and narrow -summit, all add to this impression, and the ambitious soul longs to be -on such a superior eminence. And there is no better way of taking a -holiday than to climb a mountain. To go down a river leads to laziness; -things glide by which look as if they ought to be sketched, but to do so -would involve stopping the boat, and interfering with the forces of -nature which are gently furthering the traveller’s ends, and thus the -mind is tossed to and fro between the delight of seeing things and the -unpleasant feeling that it is a duty to work. Thinking is the one thing -to be especially avoided on a holiday, and there is too much time for -thinking on an ordinary river. The same objection holds against walking -on easy roads; in fact, the farther you walk the more you think; but in -climbing a really big hill all thought is killed for hours by the simple -physical exertion, and you become a mere machine, with a laboriously -pumping heart and very heavy legs. And what a sense of superiority comes -when the highest point is at last reached, when the world is all below -you, half cloud and half solid earth, lovely, mysterious, and absolutely -unpaintable. Even this sense fades from me in a few minutes, and I -become a nonentity, with only a vague feeling of the hugeness of the -universe and the infinitesimal smallness of the individual, and the -opening verse of Adam’s morning hymn always comes into my mind, as it -did years ago on the top of a Somersetshire hill overlooking the -Glastonbury flats, just after my first reading of “Paradise Lost.” - -An artist often hears the remark, “You must find painting a great -resource,” as if it were an amusement like golf or trout-fishing; and no -doubt to many people a landscape-painter’s life seems like one long -holiday; but the struggle with ever-changing skies and fast-fading -flowers has its fatigues, and the mind gets wearied of constantly -thinking how this and that ought to be painted, so when a friend in -Yokohama suggested that we should go up Fuji together, I accepted his -proposal with alacrity, and we chose the first week in August for our -excursion, that being the time when there is the best chance of good -weather, and when most pilgrims are to be seen on the mountain. One of -the most boring things in life is to walk through new and interesting -country with a man who has no eyes for anything but his watch, and who -insists on telling you how many minutes the last mile has taken; but my -friend’s figure was a sufficient guarantee against any attempt at -“record-cutting,” - -[Illustration: GOING UP IN THE MIST] - -and I felt sure that his pace would give me plenty of time for looking -about. - -The weather for our start was not promising--that damp summer heat of -which there is so much in Japan, heavy and depressing, shrouding the -mountains from morning till night in dense masses of cloud, which seem -to slowly drag themselves up from the valley, and never succeed in -getting clear of the hill-tops. From Miya-no-shita to the Hakone Lake we -were from time to time enveloped in these clouds, and a thin drizzling -rain prevented us from enjoying what in fine weather would be a very -lovely walk. The moor at the northern end of the lake, Sengoku-hara, is -dotted with herds of cattle, and is perhaps the only place in Japan -where this familiar sight can be seen. You may wander for miles over the -green hills and moorlands which cover so large a portion of its surface -without ever seeing a four-footed animal; perhaps because the tall, -coarse grasses and the leaves of the dwarf bamboos are unsuitable for -fodder; perhaps because the Japanese are not a meat-eating nation, and -do not need herds and flocks. - -Our intention was to cross this moor, and join the road which leads from -Miya-no-shita by way of the Maiden’s Pass, Otome-no-toge, to Gotemba, a -village at the foot of Fuji, but our coolie assured us that he knew a -shorter road by the Nagao-toge, so we struggled up the hill-side on our -left, reached a post which marked the top of the pass, and then stopped -in the mist to consider which track we should follow. Suddenly appeared -to us an aged man, whose venerable face inspired us with confidence, and -by him we were led astray. He took us by the semblance of a path along -the hill-top, and for about half an hour we plunged through wet grass up -to our necks, the thick white mist hiding everything more than ten yards -distant; then he confessed that he had lost his way, that he had heard -of that road, but had never taken it before, and that it was all grown -over--an obvious fact; so there was nothing to be done but find our way -back to the post, and try the wider track from which he had beguiled us. -He was a cheerful old soul, seventy-four years of age, who had just -walked to some hot springs about twenty miles from his home to take the -baths for a couple of days because he suffered from rheumatism. Either -it was a very mild case or the baths were marvellously efficacious, for -he led us down the hill at a rattling pace, and went five or six miles -out of his way to atone for his error, and to put us in the right road -for Gotemba. - -[Illustration: A CLOUDY EVENING, FROM THE SANDS OF TAGO-NO-URA] - -The mists reached far down the hill, and when we were at last free from -them we looked eagerly for Fuji. There was the sea below us, with the -great curve of sand, Tago-no-ura, bordering Suruga Bay, and the green -slopes rising from it showed where our mountain must be, but at the -height of about two thousand feet a straight bank of white cloud ruled -off the landscape, and of the summit we could see no sign. The path led -us along the hill-side, where men were cutting the rough grass, and -loading it on pack-horses; it wandered in and out of the dry gulleys, -and over the intervening ridges, and at last, descending to the -northward, brought us through cultivated fields to a tea-house near the -railway station, where our baggage and provisions were waiting for us. -Gotemba is on the Tōkaidō Railway, and is therefore a much-frequented -place during the six weeks or so when Fuji is considered to be “open.” -It has been ascended at all seasons, the laborious walking through soft -snow being the only difficulty, and the chance of bad weather the only -danger; but except from the latter part of July to the beginning of -September the numerous rest-houses are unoccupied, and the climber is -obliged to carry all provisions with him. - -[Illustration: FUJI FROM THE ABEKAWA, AND THE TOKAIDO BRIDGE] - -There were plenty of pilgrims about, waiting to start on the morrow or -just returned from the mountain, some washing their weary feet, others -tying their big hats and long walking-sticks in bundles for the -luggage-van, and all chattering incessantly. After dinner a travelling -company entertained us in front of our tea-house with songs and dances. -The band consisted of two samisen, a bell tapped with a stick, and -bamboo castanets. The dancers were all little girls, from ten to fifteen -years old, dressed in the ordinary long-sleeved kimono, and the -movements of their bodies and slim little hands and limbs were full of -grace and variety. Each performance was a mixture of song, dance, and -dialogue, with instrumental accompaniment; the music was queer, -tuneless, and often harsh to the European ear, but with the -blood-stirring quality of all genuine national music. - -Before daybreak next morning the whole house was stirring, and it was -useless to hope for more sleep. Most of the pilgrims start early in -order to get to the top by sunset, sleep there, and descend the -following day, but we had decided to sleep two nights on the mountain, -and were in no hurry. Our heavier baggage was sent by pack-horse to -Yoshida, on the north side of the mountain, and three coolies went with -us as guides and porters, carrying some extra clothing and the solid -food which seems necessary for European stomachs. In the village street -our strolling players were already wandering round, trying with some -preliminary chords on the samisen to attract an audience. Daylight did -not suit them, they looked draggled and discouraged, and it was -difficult to believe that those dirty little figures shuffling along in -the mud could ever have had any charm or grace of movement. - -The path from Gotemba to the summit is one steady ascent over beds of -old ashes. At first it is a very gentle rise; the lanes wind through the -fields with various crops, - -[Illustration: ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE OF FUJI--GRASS-CUTTERS RETURNING] - -and past cottages with hedges of pink and white hibiscus; but after a -few miles it begins to get steeper, the ashes are less disintegrated, -cultivation only appears in isolated spots, and there are large -stretches of gray moorland varied only with bushes and wild-flowers. The -mist still hung round us, there was no landscape to be seen in any -direction, and if it had not been for the flowers and the ever-new and -quaint figures on the road, this part of the walk would have been dull. -Besides the regular pilgrims there were many men and women leading -pack-horses, those on their way up carrying provisions and fuel for the -rest-houses, and those coming down bringing bundles of grass so large -that they looked like walking hay-stacks, and the wiry little ponies -that carried them were almost invisible. In front a misshapen head -peeped out, underneath were four thin little legs with enormous feet, -and as they passed, their narrow drooping quarters, cat-hammed and -cow-hocked, swayed at every step under the heavy load. Japanese drawings -of horses have risen in my estimation since I have seen the models the -artists have to work from; there never was a more ill-shaped beast than -the ordinary horse of the country. In this as in many other hill -districts mares only are used; they are shod with big straw over-shoes, -which give a finishing touch to their ludicrous shape; under them is -slung a square of dark-blue cotton cloth to keep off the flies, and a -narrow strip of the same material, with a big crimson cord and tassel -printed on it for decoration, is draped across their quarters. Many of -the pilgrims ride up as far as the tea-house called Uma-gaeshi (horse -send back), and the ponies look almost as much eclipsed under the big -pack-saddle with its trappings, and the pilgrim with his, as they do -under the loads of grass. - -When all cultivation had disappeared, and the road was a mere cinder -track over a moorland of ashes, the flowers and bushes still grew in -clusters here and there. The most abundant plant was a large bushy -knotweed covered with sprays of white blossoms, and this grew far up the -mountain-side. There were also clumps of tall bocconia, a campanula with -large pink or lavender flowers sprinkled in each bell with tiny -ink-spots, and various less showy flowers. The flora on this side of the -mountain, devastated by the last eruption, in 1706, is not so rich as -that on the northern slope. As the ascent became steeper we got into a -wood of dwarfed and scraggy pine-trees, which extended as far as Tarōbō, -a large tea-house with a little temple attached, and then suddenly -ceased; above this there was only an occasional dead stump to break the -monotonous surface of ashes. Here every pilgrim purchases a stick to -help him up the mountain--an octagonal staff of birch, about five feet -long, with an inscription burned on it, and for a few coppers the -priests on duty at the summit will add a red stamp to prove that the -owner has actually been there. - -We reached the second shelter beyond Tarōbō quite early in the -afternoon; great masses of wet mist came constantly driving up the -mountain-side; there was plenty of room in the hut, and nothing to be -gained by going higher, so we decided to stay there for the night. All -the regular tracks up Fuji are divided into ten portions, and a -rest-house is supposed to mark the end of each division; but they vary -much in their accommodation for travellers, and often get destroyed -during the winter, so it is well to find out before starting which are -habitable and which are not. Number Two (Ni-go-me), on the Gotemba path, -was a roomy hut, built with blocks of lava; from below it looked like a -wall with a hole in it, from above it was not visible, for the ashes -covering its roof of rough planks were simply a continuation of the -mountain slope; there was no chimney, but a mass of snow was piled over -the fireplace, which dripped through the roof into a tub and supplied -the establishment with water. By each shelter a small white flag -fluttered on a pole to make its situation obvious. - -[Illustration: THE SECOND SHELTER IN THE GOTAMBA PATH] - -Nothing could be more dreary than this spot on such an afternoon: above, -below, and on each side the waste of purple-gray ashes, light-green -spots of knotweed and thistle, only enforcing the gloom of its color, -seemed to stretch interminably into the mist, and nothing broke the -monotony of the long oblique line except the little eminence of -Hoei-zan, sticking up like a pimple on the great slope of Fuji, which -occasionally showed its outline through the vague and formless clouds. - -Inside it was, at any rate, warm; the raised floor was covered with -coarse matting, and on this quilts were spread, and soon after dark we -were all in bed. Some later arrivals had added to our numbers, and we -slept thirteen in that hut, including the host and hostess; but this was -nothing to the crowd at the top, where I think we were nineteen, perhaps -more, for in some parts of the floor there must have been two or three -under a quilt, and it was difficult to count them. Even here on Fuji you -do not escape the all-seeing eye of the Japanese police; your passport -is examined by the keepers of the hut, and is copied into a book which -gives every night the names and addresses of those who sleep under the -roof. About two o’clock in the morning we were wakened by our host, who -took us outside, and there at last was Fuji itself, straight over our -heads, every detail softened, but clearly visible, and the summit -looking ridiculously near in the brilliant moonlight. Below us was the -slope of ashes and the moorland over which we had walked; and in the -distance the Hakone Mountains, already far below our level, lay half -hidden by masses of moonlit cloud. More energetic men might have started -at once for the final climb, but after gazing and shivering for a few -minutes we turned into our hard beds again, and it was not till after -sunrise that we left our hut, our party increased by a dreary and -footsore young soldier in a soiled white uniform, and a cheerful coolie, -carrying about a hundred-weight of planks to repair one of the higher -shelters. - -The path goes zigzagging up to one rest-house after another, and there -was not one of them which we failed to patronize; even Number Seven, -which was a heap of ruins with nothing in the way of drink but a tub of -melted snow, was an excuse for a few minutes’ halt. In the clear morning -sunlight Fuji looked small, as most mountains do when there are no -clouds to give mystery and suggest height; but it was a grand morning -for distant views, and the sunshine brought out vividly the strange and -brilliant colors of the various materials which form the mountain--gray -ashes, blue lava, and the reds and oranges of burned earth. - -[Illustration: FUJI WITH ITS CAP ON] - -Above the seventh station the path turns to the left and passes behind -Hoei-zan; already bands of pilgrims, who had seen the sunrise from the -summit, were making their way back towards Gotemba, going at a great -pace down the glissade of loose sand and ashes on its side, while we -toiled on over harder cinders, with an occasional ridge of lava, on the -upward path. At this altitude the knotweed and thistles had disappeared, -and the only plants I saw were a dwarf sedge and a little starwort in -some of the sheltered nooks; higher still only a few lichens and mosses -can grow; there is no regular alpine flora on Fuji. - -[Illustration: FUJI FROM THE KAWAGUCHI LAKE] - -A big gully full of snow lies just below Number Eight, and from this -point the ascent is steeper than ever, winding among a chaos of -shapeless blocks of lava; a sharp spur on our left crowned with them -made a most curious outline against the sky. In front of us was a -strange pilgrim, an old and feeble Buddhist priest in canonicals and a -big cane hat; two coolies were hauling him by a cord round his waist, -and another was pushing from behind, and even with this help he had to -stop every few minutes to get his wind. He smiled a sickly smile as we -went by; he was even slower than we were, and it seemed cruel to pass -him; but he got to the top finally. - -A sharp pull up a rocky gully at last brought us to a little wooden -torii, and to the “Famous Silver Water,” a clear, cold spring on the -edge of the crater. The supply is not large, and the priest in charge -of the enclosure doles it out to pilgrims at the rate of one brass cash -for a small teacupful. The principal temple, and the cluster of huts -round it, form a little square on the south side of the crater, just at -the top of the Mura-yama path, and are reached from the Silver Water by -means of a couple of ladders and a small fee. At the top of the ladders -there is a tiny shrine, serving as stable to a toy model of a horse, and -in front of this the coppers are deposited. There are only three -entrances to the crater of Fuji, and each of these is marked by a small -torii, the sacred gateway of the Shinto religion; two of them I have -already mentioned, the third is on the north side, where the paths from -Yoshida and Subashiri, which meet at Number Eight station, reach the -summit. - -Clouds had, as usual, begun to form about mid-day, and there were only -occasional peeps of distance, but the crater itself was worthy of the -journey, and occupied us until the bitterly cold wind drove us to -shelter. Here, as on other mountains, I noticed that the first object of -the native is to get under cover; all the kingdoms of the world and the -glory of them may be spread before his eyes, but if there is a little -smoky cabin, however rough and uncomfortable, the professional -mountaineer goes inside and stays there. This one was not luxurious; -near the doorway, the only aperture for admitting light, there was a -smouldering wood-fire, where our food was cooked before we lay down to -try and rest on the loose and creaky floor-boards; little blasts came -like squirts of cold water through the cracks of the unmortared walls, -and it was a relief when a general movement of the sleepers--for a -Japanese can apparently sleep anywhere--showed the approach of sunrise. - -The morning was clear and bright, and we all crouched in nooks of the -rocks, wrapped in our quilts, and gazed at the straight gray line of the -Pacific and the gradually brightening line above it, watching for the -first sign of the approaching god. On the most prominent rock a priest -knelt, waving strips of paper tied to a stick and chanting prayers and -eulogies, and soon the sun rose, as he assuredly will every morning, -whether he is prayed to or not. There - -[Illustration: FROM THE TOP OF FUJI, LOOKING NORTH] - -was such a vast space of mysterious blue sea and distance below the -horizon that the big orange ball appeared to be already half-way up the -heavens when we first saw it. This daily occurrence seems ever new and -wonderful, always has something of the miraculous about it, and to most -minds it brings a sense of thankfulness, as the sunset gives that of -repose; though why we should feel grateful both that it is time to begin -to work and time to leave off is a puzzle to me. My thoughts turned to -an early morning near Plevna, and to an honest Turk, who, as the sun -rose over the bare Bulgarian hills, turned on his box-seat, and, gravely -touching his forehead, wished a good-day to his “little brothers” in the -carriage he was driving. There was a mixture of courteousness and -solemnity in his manner which seemed exactly suited to the important -moment. - -When the orange glow had turned to a dazzling glare, we walked round to -the foot of Kenga-mine, the highest of the peaks encircling the crater, -and looked westward at the shadow of Fuji, a great pyramid of tender -blue stretching for miles across the country at its foot, darkening a -slice of the sunlit distant mountains, and towering above them into the -sky, clearly defined on the light mists and clouds of the horizon. So -sharp was the outline that it seemed as if our two shadows ought to show -on the distant sky; but though we waved our arms frantically there was -no visible movement on the edge; we were too small. When we returned to -get some breakfast many of the pilgrims were saying their morning -prayers at the little temple. “Sengen Sama” is the goddess of Fuji; a -prettier name for her is “Ko no hana saku ya Hime”--“the princess who -makes the blossoms of the trees to open.” There is another little temple -dedicated to her on the north side of the crater, and many more imposing -ones in various parts of Japan. On a banner which floated in front of -this second temple there was an inscription in Japanese, and under it -these words in English, “Place for worship the Heaven.” I suppose this -was an effort in the direction of civilization and rationalism, but I -resented it as an attempt to explain away the flower-loving princess, -and to dethrone her from the mountain-top where she has been worshipped -in peace for so many centuries. Close by the banner is another spring, -“The Famous Golden Water,” and a small shed, where bundles of chopsticks -and other mementos are sold, and where for ten sen you can buy a tin can -full of the famous water to take home to your friends. Most of the -descending pilgrims have one or two of these tins slung round them with -the rest of their travelling-kit. The regular Fuji pilgrim is dressed in -a white tunic with loose sleeves, close-fitting white cotton drawers, -white socks and gaiters, and a pair of straw sandals; he wears the usual -big hat, which serves as an umbrella, and slung round his shoulders he -has a light rush mat, which can be shifted to either side to keep off -sun or rain. Round his neck he has a string of beads, a little -incessantly tinkling bell, and a few pairs of extra sandals on a cord, -and fastened to his waistband is the small package containing his -personal baggage; he carries in his hand either the octagonal birch -staff or a - -[Illustration: THE GREAT PALM AT RYUGEJI, FUJI IN THE DISTANCE] - -longer peeled wand, with some paper tied round the end of it. The dress -of the women is the same as that of the men, except that they wear a -short petticoat under the tunic, about as long as a Highlander’s kilt. I -saw none of them adorned with the bell and beads, so perhaps these are -reserved for the men. It is only of late years that women have been -allowed to climb the sacred mountain. - -[Illustration: THE CRATER OF FUJI] - -No one point of the crater’s edge is high enough to give a panorama; you -have to walk all round, about two miles, in order to see the view on -every side. Eastward is the country round Yokohama and Tōkyō, with the -Pacific beyond as horizon; southward, too, is the ocean, with the Izu -Peninsula jutting out into it, and the sweep of Suruga Bay bringing it -close under your feet; westward you get a glimpse of the Fujikawa River, -with range after range of mountains behind it; and to the northward a -chain of little lakes lies at the base of Fuji, these, too, backed up by -mountains, which rise, one behind another, as far as you can see. - -In some places the outer wall descends abruptly into the crater; in -others, as by the Golden Water, there is a narrow plateau between the -two. The crater itself is four or five hundred feet deep, the north side -mostly precipitous rock, and the south side, under Kenga-mine, a steep -slope of snow and débris; all the peaks round it have names, and one of -them near the Silver Water is dotted with cairns raised in honor of -Jizó, the patron saint of travellers, who helps little children to cross -the Buddhist Styx. There is a rough path all round the crater, leading -over some of the peaks, inside some, and outside others, which is kept -in passable condition by men who collect a few coppers for their labor: -the pilgrim season is harvest-time for the dwellers round Fuji, and its -barren top pays well for cultivation. - -It was after ten o’clock before we had made the circuit and seen all the -sights; we met our coolies by the long row of huts at the top of the -Yoshida path, and could see the village itself, our destination, lying -in the blue hollow below us. Groups of ascending and descending pilgrims -were visible for a long distance on the slope; as we looked down on them -we saw only big round hats with an arm sticking out, and two little feet -working underneath. After a final cup of tea at one of the guest-houses -we passed under the wooden torii, and began the descent, a very steep -and stony one, the loose cinders and lumps of lava requiring attention -at every footstep. At Number Nine station there is a little shrine -called “Sengen’s Welcome,” and at Number Eight there are six or eight -good-sized huts built on a spur of harder lava, making quite a little -village, which can be seen on a clear morning from the foot of the -mountain. Here the Subashiri route branches off to the right; ours to -Yoshida turned to the left, and we went sliding with long strides down -an incline of loose ashes and sand, into which our legs sank up to the -knee at every step. It was rapid but fatiguing, and required very high -stepping to avoid heavy and ignominious falls. The track is marked by -hundreds of cast-off “waraji”--straw sandals--a common object on all -Japanese roads, but here especially plentiful. My companion had provided -himself in Yokohama with a stock of them, specially made to fit over the -European boot; they were carefully adjusted and tied on by our servants -and porters, but I noticed that after the first hundred yards they had -always worked loose, and after a quarter of a mile they were hanging -gracefully round his ankles instead of protecting his feet. The -enjoyment of walking depends so much upon foot-gear that I am shy of -trying experiments, and I found that my stout boots with plenty of nails -served as well on Fuji as on any other mountain. Worn as Japanese wear -them, with a thong passing between the big toe and the next, the waraji -hold on well; they are soon worn out, or made useless by the breaking of -one of the strings of twisted grass which tie them to the ankles; but -this does not matter, for new ones can be bought for about a half-penny -at any road-side house. This part of Fuji was very desolate, the rocks -were formless blocks piled up without any arrangement of line, and the -débris was too loose for any plant to find a foothold; but after a few -thousand feet a ridge of more solid lava rose on each side of the gully -we were descending, and - -[Illustration: AN OLD RED PINE AT YOSHIDA] - -that on our left soon began to show some vegetation. There were pines -and larches, whose dwarfed and twisted forms showed the hardship of -their lives, and among them were some flowers too, clusters of a -delicate pink rhododendron, crimson wild roses, columbines, clematis, -golden-rod, and orange lilies. - -The glissade of fine ashes brought us down as far as Number Five -station, and there we rejoined the upward path, for no one tries to -ascend over this loose stuff. High up in the gully we had seen men -digging out snow from under the ashes, and taking it across the flank of -the mountain to supply one of the rest-houses on the ridge to our right, -and troops of ascending pilgrims were visible now and then as a turn of -their path brought them in profile against the sky. Below Number Five -there is but one track; it plunges at once into a thick undergrowth of -bushes, and after this we had no more desolate wastes of ashes, but a -constant succession of trees and flowers, temples, and luxurious -rest-houses, gay with the cotton flags presented to them by their -patrons. The forest through which this path leads covers a steep ridge -of lava; the trees are mostly pine and other conifers, often very fine -old specimens, and under them is a tangle of flowering shrubs and plants -and of fallen timber. The people we met coming up seemed to appear -suddenly under our feet out of the green gloom; one party had always to -draw aside while the other passed; at times the path was a stairway of -old roots, at others a ditch between high banks, and never wide enough -for two to walk abreast. We heard a sound of singing below us, and stood -on the bank while about twenty white-clad pilgrims filed by, men of all -ages, each with a little bell tinkling at his waist; the front ones -chanted a short strain, which those at the back took up and answered, -and their song was faintly audible in the woods above us long after the -last had disappeared up the winding path. The chant is called “Rokkon -shōjō”--the six senses purified--the six, according to the Buddhists, -being eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and heart, and it is only sung by -the Fuji pilgrims. - -At Number Two station we made a long halt, emptied the ashes out of our -boots, and washed our feet in the tubs of water which the little -servants brought us. It was a very different kind of place from the -rough shelter on the Gotemba side; the path came down a few steps as it -emerged from the wood, passed under a torii by a small temple, and then -spread out into quite a wide space in front of a long tea-house crowded -with pilgrims. On the opposite side of this space were three or four -platforms, spread with blankets and shaded with matting; these too were -occupied by groups of guests, who smoked and drank tea as they rested, -and below them the tops of the trees were cut away to give a space of -open sky and a view of the distance. Hundreds of little flags were -fluttering from long bamboo poles, and at the other end of this lively -scene the path went down a few more steps, and became again a narrow -track through the dense forest. The flowers all the way were abundant -and beautiful, constantly varying as we descended from one zone to -another; at last the wood became thinner, and we could get glimpses of -the distance, and of the grassy ridges on each side of us, tinged with -pale mauve by masses of funkia in blossom; and when we reached the -temple and the large open square of the Uma-gaeshi we were at the end of -the trees, and before us was a great slope of moorland leading down for -miles and miles to the pine grove by Yoshida. - -There is but one break in the long walk through flowers and grass--a -little tea-house called Naka-no-chaya, whose three pine-trees are -distinguishable for a long distance across the moor. All round it there -are monumental pillars covered - -[Illustration: NAKA-NO-CHAYA, ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE] - -with inscriptions, which look like tombstones, but were really erected -by pilgrims to commemorate the number of ascents which they have made. -The variety of plants which grow and flourish on this slope of fine -cinders is truly remarkable. The most abundant flower was a pale mauve -scabious, which gave a prevailing tint to the whole moorland, but the -most conspicuous was a tall, slender day-lily - -[Illustration: THE RED-PINE GROVE AT YOSHIDA] - -with a pale yellow flower, which shone like a star in the evening when -the color had gone from all the others. A dark purple-blue campanula -(_Platycodon grandiflorum_) was also very effective, and a bright -crimson pink (_Dianthus superbus_) with beautifully fringed petals. But -it would be hopeless to try and enumerate them. I find in a sketchbook a -list of fifty-seven which I noted on the way between Naka-no-chaya and -Yoshida. A little later in the year this mass of flowers and grass is -mown down and carried to the villages at the foot of the mountain. - -The last part of our walk was through a grove of grand red pines, which -seem to do better on this volcanic soil than anywhere else in Japan, and -then across a few fields to the top of the long village street, where we -at last found our tea-house and our baggage, and comfortable rooms, and -settled down for a night of well-earned repose. - -[Illustration: FUJI OVER THE RICE-FIELDS OF SUZUKAWA] - - -FUJI FROM SUZUKAWA. - - Oct. 3, 1892. - -Fuji is quite free from clouds this morning, and in the soft autumnal -sunshine every detail is clearly visible as I sit with the shutters wide -open and eat my breakfast. The foreground is a level plain of -rice-fields, which stretches away for three or four miles to where the -first gentle ascent is marked by a line of villages and trees, and in -some - -[Illustration: THE FLOWERY MOORLAND] - -places, where irrigation is possible, the terraced fields climb a little -way up the mountain. Above them is a band of cultivated country, the -general effect of it dark green, varied by stripes of paler green -fields. At first the forms are sharply defined, but higher up the whole -becomes a blue-green mass. Next above this is a band of moorland with no -trees on it, lighter and warmer in color, the grasses and plants which -cover it tinged with yellow or orange by the autumn. As the morning sun -shines on it little blue shadows, in spots and waving lines, mark the -undulations of its surface. This belt of moorland reaches to the height -of about five thousand feet, and is very rich in flowers. Above it, -again, is a great band of forest; the warm color of the deciduous trees -at its lower edge gradually merges into the dark blue-green of the -pines, which mount a long way up on the summits of the ridges that at -this point seam the surface of the mountain. It is over this forest-land -that the morning clouds generally begin to form. As I write, a little -one, that looks like a puff of white steam, is beginning to float over -the trees, and this will grow until in an hour’s time the upper part of -Fuji will be invisible. The well-defined gullies are a light orange-red -tint, and the contrast between them and the dark pines on the dividing -ridges is the strongest opposition of color on Fuji, except that where -the snow and the black lava meet at its summit. As the gullies ascend -and the pines disappear the color again becomes more uniform, dark gray -with a tinge of Indian red, the red disappearing and the gray becoming a -rich purple as it runs up in irregular points and lines among the lower -snows. Only the very highest band is a solid white; on the left of the -truncated top is Kenga-mine, the highest point of the crater’s edge, and -next it a flat line shows where the Murayama path enters; to the right -of this a well-marked ridge of lava runs high up into the snow, and can -be traced down to the moorland, cutting off the Hōeizan portion from the -rest of the mountain. Beyond this ridge are two flatter curves--the -summits of Jizotaké and Kwannon-také--on the eastern side of the crater. -The general outline of the mountain on the left is one simple curve, the -almost level line where it begins to ascend from the Fujikawa River -becoming steeper and steeper towards the top. The most distinct -acceleration of grade is where the forests end and the ridges of lava -begin. The outline on the right is broken just above the pine-clad -ridges by the projection of Hōeizan, and again at the top of the -moorland by another smaller hill--Tsurugi-zan; and the effect on this -side is not so much a curve as two inclined planes, the first from -Kwannon-také to Hōeizan, the second from there to the moorland, after -which it becomes an undulating line of mounds leading away to the -Ashitaka range of older mountains. On this right side there is much less -variety of color, a sharp ridge of warm orange lava makes a crest to -Hōeizan, but the great cup-like hollow behind it and the treeless slope -below it are one uniform gray. Nearly two centuries have passed since -the eruption which altered this outline of Fuji and destroyed the -vegetation, and many more will have to elapse before the ashes are -sufficiently disintegrated to entice back the trees and flowers. - -[Illustration] - - - - -SOME WANDERINGS IN JAPAN - -[Illustration: TRICYRTIS HIRTA, ATAMI] - - - - -SOME WANDERINGS IN JAPAN - - -[Illustration] - -The lakes which lie to the north of Fuji are not much visited by -foreigners; they are rather difficult of access, and the accommodation -in the tea-houses in that district is not luxurious; but for those who -can walk well, and put up with ordinary Japanese food and lodging, the -scenery will atone for everything. The old hills on the north once -looked over a great sloping plain to the shore of Suruga Bay, but the -upstart Fuji arose and blocked their view to the south; streams of lava -poured from it, and rolled down till they were stopped by these -buttresses of ancient rock, damming the rivers, and so forming this -chain of lakes at their base. Where the lava has been covered with fine -ashes, vegetation soon begins to conceal the work of destruction, but -the larger flows resist all attempts at cultivation; they still stand -in wide ridges above the rest of the country, gray lichens cover them, -and dwarfed trees find a foothold in the crevices between their blocks. -The winding tracks which lead across them are bad enough, for every -little hump in the path is not a pebble which rolls aside as your foot -touches it, but is a knob of solid rock, and it is your toe that has to -give way; the untrodden part of the scrubby forest would stop any animal -but an active monkey. We traversed one of the widest flows, called -Aoki-ga-hara (green-tree moor), from the number of evergreens which grow -over it, on the way between Shoji, the smallest, and Motosu, the largest -of the lakes, walking for hours in single file along a narrow trail with -hardly an opening anywhere in the dense foliage; it was late in the -evening, and the imprecations in Japanese and English ought to have -thrown a lurid light on that dusky path. The dividing-line between the -lava and the older rock is as clearly visible now as it was on that day -when the molten torrent was arrested in its course and piled itself in a -solid wave against the immovable hills. Some subterranean settling must -still be going on, for a few years ago the lakes began to rise, and they -have remained at the higher level, so that as we rowed along the shore -we could see below us the roofs of cottages and the fences of -rice-fields, and forests of dead pines rose gaunt and bare out of the -water. Of all the places I saw in Japan, Motosu seemed the most remote; -the rise of the lake must have ruined many of the inhabitants, and a -settled gloom seemed to hang over the few charcoal-burners, -wood-cutters, and fishermen who remain. We found rooms in an old -tea-house, where fine wood-work, now blackened and decayed, showed signs -of a former prosperity which will hardly revive unless prices rise, for -when we left the next morning the landlord sadly presented us with a -bill for nineteen sen (about sixpence), which for two foreigners and -two servants came to a very modest sum per head. We crossed the lake by -boat, and were landed at the foot of a trackless hill-side, overgrown -with tall grasses and wild flowers, through which it was difficult to -walk, but our local guides soon found a path which led us in the -direction of the Fujikawa. Here we were off the volcanic soil, the -beeches and other trees were magnificent, and in one wood we walked -between banks of maidenhair fern (_Adiantum pedatum_) growing five or -six feet high. How well I remember that day of glorious sunshine, the -view back over the lake with Fuji towering - -[Illustration: TAGO-NO-URA] - -behind it, the mountain road through forests with new trees and plants -at every turn, the gaudy butterflies, the long zigzag descent by the -pine-clad spur which brought us to the Suzukawa Valley, and the gorgeous -sunset as we whirled down the rapids to Shimoyama. There are five lakes -in the chain, Motosu, Shoji, Nemba, Kawaguchi, and Yamanaka, and they -descend in level from Motosu on the west to Yamanaka on the east. Nemba -lies in a hollow of wooded hills, with a couple of partially drowned -villages on its shore, in which the cottage roofs are strangely -constructed, and the people wear long knickerbockers of blue striped -cotton. Kawaguchi is the most beautiful of them all; its waters have -only risen a foot or two, so that no damage has been done except the -submersion of a few fields, and Funatsu and Kodachi, with picturesque -old temples and cottages shaded with gourds, like Jonah’s, are thriving -towns compared with the other lake-side hamlets. - -[Illustration: COTTAGES AT NEMBA] - -I was staying at Yoshida, within easy walking distance of Funatsu, in -the early part of September, when all the countryside was keeping the -Bon festival in memory of the dead--a sort of Japanese All-Souls day -which lasts for a week. Fires were lighted at night on all the -hill-sides; the path leading up to every little temple could be traced -by a line of blazing spots, and the great lonely slope of Fuji was -dotted with them here and there, marking the positions of the -rest-houses and the few scattered huts of grass-cutters and -charcoal-burners. I have seen the same thing in Switzerland, near -Martigny, where on the eve of St. John’s day every cattle-tender far up -the mountains greeted his distant neighbors with a bonfire. This part of -the ceremony is called, in Japanese, _hi-matsuri_ (fire festival). Other -observances are placing offerings of food before the family graves, -which in Yoshida were generally at the end of the back garden, and -erecting a little altar in the house, on which dishes of rice, fruit, -and sweetmeats are laid, and before which prayers are said. - -We had a typhoon on the 4th of September, with such torrents of rain and -gusts of wind that the houses had to be enclosed with their wooden -shutters, and there was nothing to be done but lie on the floor in the -darkness and listen to the turmoil of the elements outside. Suddenly, -above all the other noises, I heard a monotonous chant, and, opening a -crack in my shutters, I saw a procession of men, dressed only in “kasa” -and straw rain-coats passing down the village street. Some of them -carried big drums slung to poles, on which the others banged, while all -of them groaned in unison a sentence which I could not catch. It was a -long time before I could induce Matsuba to tell me what it all meant; -but at last he confessed that it was done to drive away the storm-demon; -he was evidently ashamed of this method of praying for fair weather, and -explained that it was only in these out-of-the-way places his countrymen -were so superstitious. Anyhow, it was efficacious, for the typhoon blew -itself out during the night. There was more or less rain for some days -after, but we had nothing again like that day’s downpour, and I started -in more promising weather for a walk over the hills to Kofu. From -Funatsu I crossed a corner of Kawaguchi, and took a steep mountain road -on the other side; some kind of matsuri was going on there too, and the -lake was dotted with boatfuls of people beating drums and singing. The -road we took is said in the guide-books to be practicable for -jinrikishas, but the typhoon had completed the work of destruction which -the heavy rains in July had begun, and there were very few yards of it -left over which a wheeled vehicle could travel. On the other side of the -pass, Misaka-toge, where I stayed to lunch and admire the view of Fuji, -and to collect seeds of a grand red lychnis which grew there abundantly, -we went through a village, Nakagawa, that had been almost destroyed by a -torrent. The street and the gardens were filled with bowlders and gravel -and fallen tree trunks, and the roofs only were visible above the mass -of wreckage. The well-fitted timbers of a Japanese roof, especially when -there is a heavy thatch over them, make it the least destructible part -of the house; the lower part may collapse in a typhoon or earthquake, -but the roof settles down over the ruins practically uninjured. I saw -one near the Tokaido which had been taken off bodily by the wind and -deposited in a field the other side of the road without losing its -shape. I looked for the river which had done all this damage to -Nakagawa, and found only a little, innocent, prattling brook about a -yard wide. - -Kofu is a busy place in the centre of a large silk-growing district. All -the hill-sides around are covered with scrubby-looking mulberry bushes, -and in the villages almost every cottage had its pile of golden cocoons, -which the women were winding off into skeins as they sat and chattered -by their doorways. As you pass Japanese houses in fine weather you see -almost everything that is going on inside; they are set down close to -the road, and the sliding-screens allow you to look right through to the -garden at the back. When it is cold or wet all the wooden shutters are -closed, and they have then a very sad and deserted appearance. I went to -a very good theatre in Kofu, and afterwards to what might be called a -wax-work show, but that the figures were - -[Illustration: LAKE SUWA AND THE NAKASENDO MOUNTAINS, FROM -KAMI-NO-SUWA] - -made of carved and painted wood, where the incidents of the murder of -Ii-Kamonno-Kami were represented with a startling fidelity to nature. He -was assassinated one winter’s night in the streets of Tōkyō by the -retainers of a rival Daimio, and the snowy ground showed to advantage -all the details of disembowelled bodies and mangled limbs. The last two -figures were mechanical. A retainer kneeling in front of the Daimio -slowly opened a bloody handkerchief and showed him the head of his -enemy, whereupon the Daimio’s eyebrows went up and the corners of his -mouth went down, giving him a most comical expression of horror. - -The roads are wider here than in most parts of Japan, and there are -comparatively few jinrikishas. Most of the travelling is done in basha, -small wagonettes with no springs, which jolt the very life out of you. I -engaged one to take me on to Lake Suwa, on the Nakasendo road, a journey -of forty miles, and arrived there feeling like an aching jelly. After -travelling a few miles from Kofu we came to a river where the bridge had -been washed away. I and my baggage were ferried over, and the driver -attempted to ford it, but the water was too deep for him, and I was left -stranded with my impedimenta on a wide waste of pebbles. Fortunately the -man with whom I had made my bargain had foreseen this possibility, and -when I could get some coolies to help me with my baggage across half a -mile of stones and bowlders, I found another basha waiting for me. All -the first part of the journey was a long ascent through wooded, hilly -country, with road-side villages at short intervals. In one of them, -Tsutaki, where we stopped to change horses, a school treat was going on. -The place was gayly decorated with lanterns and arches of leaves and -paper flowers, and in the temple court-yard the children had made -realistic figures, among them a life-sized tiger, ingeniously -constructed with straws of different colors. The low wooden cottages, -with broad eaves and stones piled on the top, looked very like Swiss -chalets, except that they all had green roof crests, sometimes of iris, -but more often of a bunchy kind of lycopodium which the natives called -yuwashiba. Almost every one had a screen of bamboo on the south side, -with gourds of different kinds growing up it and tumbling over the roof -and the out-buildings. At last, with long spells of walking, very -welcome as a rest from the weary jolting, we reached the tea-house at -the top of the pass, and then rattled down a somewhat better road for -about twelve miles, emerging at dusk into the broad mountain-guarded -valley in which Suwa lies. The flat lands near the lake are intersected -by little streams and canals, along which the peasants go to their work -in long, narrow punts, very like those which are used for the same -purpose in Picardy--another instance of the way in which similar -conditions in widely distant countries lead to similar habits and -inventions. - -I stayed at Kami-no-suwa in a delightful tea-house, with clean polished -wood-work, and quilts covered with a soft thin silk called kaiki, very -pleasant and cooling to a mosquito-tortured skin. Cleanliness is the -great luxury of the Japanese; their foot-gear is always removed before -entering the house, so that the mats may not be soiled; the wood-work is -never painted, stained, or varnished, but left with a well-planed -surface, which shows its natural color; the ceilings are thin planks, -slightly overlapping each other, the grain of each being carefully -selected to combine with the lines in those next it; there are no -hangings or fixed pieces of furniture to collect the dust, and no -carpets to be taken up and shaken, so that spring cleaning, that terror -of the Western house-keeper, is unnecessary; the whole room can be swept -out every morning, the walls and ceiling rubbed with a duster, and there -it is, all as neat as a - -[Illustration: TOURISTS AT A WATERFALL] - -[Illustration: NIEGAWA, ON THE NAKASENDO] - -new pin. At Shimo-no-suwa, about three miles on, the Koshu-kaido, along -which I had been travelling from Kofu, joins the Nakasendo, the central -mountain road, one of the main routes between Kyoto and Tōkyō. A new -road has been made most of the way, admirably engineered, with gentle -gradients, but so badly executed that it had already fallen to pieces in -some places, and it was covered with loose road-metal which made -jinrikisha travelling very laborious. My men usually preferred the old -steep road, which cuts off corners, and is solid though very rough, and -after a couple of days I sent back all the jinrikishas except the one -which carried my baggage, finding my own legs the best means of -conveyance. From the Shiojiri Pass I looked back over Suwa, saw Fuji -through the blue haze of a lovely autumn morning, a long way off, but -still towering above all the other hills, and then dropped down into a -new set of mountains, rivers, and valleys. The scenery of the Nakasendo -gets more and more picturesque, until it reaches a climax in the valley -of the Kisogawa, on which I first looked from the summit of the Torii -Pass, four thousand and odd feet above the sea. Each village on the road -had its own peculiarities of costume, architecture, and -manufacture--cheap lacquer-ware, combs, pickles, and so on, and of all -these Matsuba bought a stock, for it is the habit of every Japanese on -his travels to take back with him “meibutsu,” the characteristic -productions of the places he has visited, as presents for those he has -left at home. - -[Illustration: A LITTLE SHINTO SHRINE, NEAR THE NAKASENDO] - -There are many celebrated mountains in this district, each with its own -special god and shrines, and I constantly met bands of pilgrims dressed -in white, with long staves and big hats, or saw boat-loads of them going -down - -[Illustration: A BOAT-MENDER BY THE TENRYUGAWA] - -the Kisogawa in the few places where it is navigable. After some days of -glorious weather, with a sun which turned the wings of the myriad -dragon-flies hovering over the rivers to spots of light, and made all -clothing seem superfluous, I was suddenly arrested by a violent storm at -a little village called Suwara. A number of pilgrims had been driven to -shelter in the same tea-house; they spent the day in chanting prayers, -ringing a little bell, and tapping blocks of wood together to mark the -time; and they began it again at three o’clock the next morning, before -starting on their trudge. The motive of these pilgrimages is not in the -least penitential. Certain hardships have to be endured by every -traveller in mountain regions, but the Japanese are good walkers and -accustomed to simple living, and in their composition they have a large -stock of intelligent curiosity which makes them enjoy all that is new -and beautiful in the country through which they pass. The history and -literature of their fatherland form a large part of their education, and -almost every remarkable spot has some legendary or poetical association -apart from its natural beauty; their religion teaches them, too, that -not only temples and shrines are sacred, but that every poetic thought -or heroic deed, every grand tree or rock or lovely landscape, has in it -something of the divine. - -On the banks of the Kisogawa, not far from Suwara, there is a large flat -rock, which is called Nezame-no-toko, the Bed of Awakening, for here -Urashima the fisher-boy, a sort of Japanese Rip Van Winkle, is supposed -by some to have returned to real life after his long trance. The usual -version of the story is this: Urashima lived with his parents at Yura, -by the sea of Japan, helping them in their fishing; but one day his boat -did not return, and he was given up for dead. He had met the Sea-god’s -daughter, who had taken him away to live with her and love her in an -evergreen land. What seemed to him like a few weeks passed by in -happiness, but at last he said, “My parents will be sorrowing for me; I -must go back and comfort them,” and he prevailed on his princess to -spare him for a while. She gave him a casket, saying that as long as he -kept it closed she would always be with him, but if he opened it, she -and the evergreen land would be lost to him forever. He had really been -away for centuries, his home had disappeared, and everything in Yura was -changed. In despair he opened the forbidden box, a faint blue mist -floated out from it across the sea, he turned from a handsome youth to -an old decrepit man, and in a few minutes lay dead upon the shore, for -in that box his princess had enclosed all the hours of their happy life. - -No portion of the Nakasendo is finer than that near Midono; the valley -narrows and the road in many places overhangs the rushing Kisogawa, the -vegetation is luxuriant, walnuts, oaks, chestnuts, and maples shade the -road, and great groves of bamboo wave their plumes in every little -breeze which comes down from the mountains through the ravines in which -they grow. By the river-side I noticed many fine-leaved plants; some old -garden friends, and others new to me; yellow wagtails fluttered jauntily -from rock to rock, and lines of swallows on the telegraph wires showed -that autumn was at hand. - -I turned off from the Nakasendo at Hashiba, where it begins to ascend -the Magome Pass, and took a little cross-country track, turning eastward -again up the valley of the Hirosegawa, which, after two days’ walking, -brought me to Iida and the banks of the Tenryugawa. This road was not -mentioned in my guide-book, but Nakajima Sanju, the jinrikisha man who -had accompanied me all the way from Kami-no-suwa, maintained that it was -practicable, and that he could take my baggage through in his kuruma. He -did - -[Illustration: BANANA-TREES AT ATAMI] - -it, too, but I occasionally had to hire two extra men to help him, and -in some places they and Matsuba had to carry kuruma, baggage and all. -There was one long climb through a dense wood which particularly -impressed me; I walked so far ahead of them that I could only just hear -the continual cry, “Yo-sha! Yo-sha!” with which the men encouraged each -other; the masses of foliage above me, the shrubs and ferns below them, -enclosed me in a green maze; from under the arched roots of a colossal -cryptomeria a clear little spring gushed out; occasionally a -raucous-voiced jay flew across the path, or I had to stop and examine -the huge toads, seven or eight inches long and almost as broad, that -sprawled about on the road-side. When my men overtook me at a tea-house -some miles farther on, one of them was carrying a brace of these toads -skinned. They looked as big as the “poulet” of a cheap restaurant, and -he told me that they were very good for weakly children. - -[Illustration: THE FERRY AT TOKIMATA] - -At Tokimata I engaged a boat with five men to take me down the rapids as -far as the Tokaido; the river was running high, and they would not do it -for less than twenty-four yen--a good price for a journey of only ten or -twelve hours; but when you remember that it takes them ten days or a -fortnight to haul the boat back, it does not seem excessive. Don -Pedro’s remark, “What need the bridge much wider than the flood?” does -not apply to most of the Japanese rivers; usually they are just a -trickle of water among a wide bed of pebbles, which is filled after -heavy rains with a raging torrent, but Lake Suwa serves as a reservoir -for the Tenryugawa, and it always has enough water to be navigable. The -boats used on it are about thirty feet long, flat-bottomed and -flat-sided, with a square stern and a high, pointed bow; they are very -loosely built and flexible, and the bottom boards are so thin that they -wabble like a sheet of paper when passing over rough water or shallows. -A heavy foot would break through them, and it is necessary to tread only -on the bamboos which are laid lengthwise, resting on the cross-ribs. - -[Illustration: ON THE TENRYUGAWA] - -My baggage was piled in the middle of the boat, and a seat arranged on -it for Matsuba and myself; one man took the long stern oar while the -other four worked in the bows, and within a few minutes of the start we -were plunging down between high cliffs, charging at rocks which we only -avoided by a few inches, swirling round in eddies at the foot of one -rapid while the men got breath for the next, and until we stopped for -our mid-day meal at the little - -[Illustration: THE VILLAGE STREET, ATAMI--VRIES ISLAND IN THE -DISTANCE] - -village of Nakabe there was no time to sketch, or think, or do anything -but enjoy the wild, exciting race. The river twists, between high -mountains, down a gorge with such sharp curves that it is often -impossible to see any exit, and our boat would rush down, heading -straight for a cliff against which the water dashed furiously; while one -man in the bows whacked the side with his paddle for luck, and then -stood ready with a pole, the other three pulled like mad, and just when -I thought “we must come to grief this time,” she would suddenly turn and -swish round the corner into smoother water. The rapids continued to be -amusing, though the fun was not quite so fast and furious, all the way -to Kajima, where the mountains end and a broad plain begins; below here -the river still ran swiftly, but smoothly, divided into several channels -by long gravel banks, on which gray willows and bamboos grew, and snipe -and herons congregated. We met strings of boats being laboriously towed -along: the wind generally blows up stream, and they are - -[Illustration: ON THE TENRYUGAWA, NEAR KAJIMA] - -able on these lower reaches to help themselves by hoisting a sail, but I -shall never understand how they get their boats back through those upper -rapids. It was getting dark when we passed through the ruins of the old -Tokaido bridge, but in the dusk I could distinguish a row of familiar -Noah’s-ark-like forms; they were current-mills moored in the river; and -then I knew what my day had lacked--the companionship of the man with -whom I had passed so many hundreds of them on the Danube. There was -nothing on the Danube quite so sporting as these rapids, but I think it -would be possible to get through them in a decked canoe, such as those -we used on that river. The pace is tremendous; we did the ninety miles -from Tokimata to Naka-no-machi in ten hours of actual travelling, though -the latter portion of the journey was on comparatively sluggish water. - -About a month after this I stopped at Shizuoka, a large town on the -Tokaido, where Ieyasu, greatest of the Shoguns, spent the end of his -life in learned leisure, and where Keiki, the last of his successors, -deposed in 1868, when the Mikado came to his own again, still lives -quietly as a private gentleman. How much more dignified and reasonable -is his Oriental acceptance of the accomplished fact than the restless -scheming of some Western pretenders, who are unable to see that their -ancestors, whether kings or emperors, owed their power to national -feeling, and persist in a futile struggle against the inevitable! The -Japanese obedience to law and authority, which must, however indirectly, -be an expression of the will of the people, was never better shown than -in the promptness with which the sword-bearing Samurai ceased to carry -their weapons. The Samurai’s blade had been for centuries his most -sacred possession, a halo of poetry surrounded it, and the right to wear -it in public distinguished him from the common herd; and yet when the -imperial edict was issued in 1876 he laid it aside without a - -[Illustration: AUTUMN-GRASS (SUZUKI)] - -murmur, and the curio-shops were soon full of swords, which a month -before their owners would sooner have died than lose. It was no doubt -very inconvenient to walk about always with two swords stuck in your -obi, and perhaps he felt like the curate in the “Bab Ballads,” who was -forced by his mild rival to curl his hair and smoke-- - - “I long have wished for some - Excuse for this revulsion; - Now that excuse has come, - I do it on compulsion;” - -but recent events show that though his ordinary life has become peaceful -and bloodless, there has been no falling off in the pluck of a Japanese -soldier. - -Ieyasu was first buried at Kuno-zan, which I reached after about an -hour’s ride by jinrikisha from Shizuoka. The first part of the way was -over a rice-covered plain, from which gay-colored hills, striped with -white buckwheat, dark green tea, and pale green daikon, gradually rose, -narrowing down towards the sea, and finally leaving only a strip of -sandy soil, mostly planted with sugar-cane, between the steep cliffs and -the shore. The little villages were odorous with drying fish, slices of -bonito hanging in festoons in front of every cottage, and the shore was -dotted with evaporating-tubs for getting salt. The mortuary temples, -which served as a model for those afterwards built at Nikko, stand on -the top of the cliff, and are reached by a zigzag flight of steps cut -out of the rock; they are not so elaborate as the Nikko temples or the -Shiba shrines, but have a severer beauty of their own, which nature has -helped by decorating every stone and tree-trunk with silvery gray -lichen, lovely in color against the background of red-lacquered -buildings. The interior of the oratory, which, with its surrounding -fence, has a roof of bronze, is mostly black and gold, and there the -very affable priests who had shown me round held a little service in -honor of Ieyasu, presenting me afterwards with the sweet wine and cakes -which had been used as offerings. It is commonly said that the body of -the great Shogun still lies under the simple stone monument behind the -oratory, and that only a few hairs were removed and buried at Nikko; -certainly this is the more impressive spot for a warrior’s grave, with -the wild hills behind, and the sea and coast spread out for miles below -the towering cliff. - -The road on to Okitsu, where I had to rejoin the railway, led me inland -past Ryugeji, a temple where there are the finest specimens of the -screw-palm (_Cycas revoluta_) to be seen in Japan, and then to the sea -again at Shimizu, a nice little port, just opposite the sandy fir-clad -spit of land called Mio-no-matsubara, enclosing a smaller bay in the -great curve of Suruga, which often appears in Japanese pictures. This is -the scene of a legend which has been dramatized, if you can call them -dramas, for one of the classical No dances. It tells how a fisherman -watching his nets saw a fairy alight on the sand and lay aside her robe -of feathers; how he managed to steal the robe so that she could not fly -away again, and only restored it to her when she consented to dance for -him under the pine-trees one of the dances which are never seen by -mortal eyes. Near the tea-house in Shimizu where I stopped to refresh -there was a temple dedicated to Inari, the Shinto goddess of the -rice-fields, whose shrines are guarded by foxes; the approach to it was -under three avenues of small red wooden torii placed closely together, -apparently votive offerings, for some of them were old and decayed and -others quite bright and new. - -At Numadzu, farther to the east on the Tokaido, but still on the shore -of Suruga Bay, I again left the train and - -[Illustration: A RUSTIC BRIDGE AT DOGASHIMA, NEAR MIYA-NO-SHITA] - -followed the course of the old road, from which the railway here -diverges, as far as Mishima, and then, after crossing the ridge of -mountain which forms the backbone of the Idzu Peninsula, descended to -Atami on the western coast of Odawara Bay, a favorite watering-place -during the winter months. The orange and banana trees testify to the -mildness of its climate, and perhaps the geyser, which every fourth hour -squirts out mud and boiling water by the village street, helps to keep -up the temperature. Vries Island, with its eternally smoke-capped -volcano, lies on the horizon away across the sea, and the natives -believe that there is a connection between the two, for whenever Vries -is particularly active the geyser discharges more violently. - -[Illustration: AVENUES OF TORII IN FRONT OF AN INARI TEMPLE, NEAR -SHIMIZU] - -On the 3d of November I started with a friend from Yokohama to walk over -the Ten Province Pass (Jikkoku-toge) to Hakone and Miya-no-shita. It was -the Emperor’s birthday, and all Atami was gay with flags; the national -ensign with a red ball on a white ground fluttered everywhere. We -mounted the steep street, and looked back at the village roofs and the -deep blue water of Odawara Bay, and then turned into the woods of old -camphor-trees surrounding the temple Ki-no-miya. Some of the camphors -are enormous, and the largest of them are encircled with ropes of -twisted straw and bunches of gohei, which show that they are sacred -objects. Beyond the temple the path ascends, first through rice-fields -and then up rough grassy hills, until it reaches the long plateau of -turf where the Ten Province stone stands. Though so late in the year, -there were still plenty of flowers. Down near Atami long sprays of -hototogisu (_Tricyrtis_), with spotty purple flowers, hung out from the -sandy banks, and by our path I saw Michaelmas daisies, golden-rod, -dark-blue monk’s-hood, sky-blue gentians, magenta-flowered garlic, -thistles of various colors, wild chrysanthemums, pink or white with a -gold centre, and the beautiful white stars of the grass of Parnassus. -The sun was quite hot, and we pulled out some provisions and sat down on -the grass near the stone to enjoy them and the marvellous view. To the -north the snowy cone of Fuji rose high against the blue sky; between us -and it the long crest of down-land was mostly covered with suzuki -(_Eulalia japonica_), a lovely grass with tall plumes of seed which -shine like silver gossamer, and the ranges of lower mountains were -brilliant with the autumnal colors of maples and other trees; below us -on the east lay the little peninsula of Manazura, jutting out into -Sagami Bay, with a curve of rice-fields on each side of the narrow neck -which connects it with the mainland, and beyond it the long straight -line of the Pacific was broken only by Vries Island and its cloud of -smoke; a succession of hilly promontories and little bays stretched all -down the coast of Idzu to the southward, and returned northward again up -the other side of the peninsula, past Joyama, with a lake-like inlet of -sea, to Numadzu, where the great sweep of Suruga Bay began, bordered -with sands and sunny rice-fields, and ended only at Kuno-zan, far to the -westward. Our path went on along the downs, - -[Illustration: JIZŌ SAMA, NEAR HAKONE] - -through suzuki, dwarf bamboo, and little stunted woods, until a deep -descent led us down to the Hakone Lake, dark blue and sombre among its -encircling hills; it then mounted once more for a short distance, passed -the hot springs of Ashi-no-yu, and finally, while the grassy hills still -glowed in the light of the setting sun, brought us down to the Fujiya at -Miya-no-shita, where a delicious natural warm bath and a good dinner -made a fitting termination to a glorious day. - -At the bottom of a ravine almost perpendicularly below Miya-no-shita -lies the little village of Dogashima, with a turbulent mountain stream -and a very shaky bamboo bridge. The path and steps leading down to it -are kept continually green by the overflow from the warm springs, and -when I was there they swarmed with land-crabs, queer little beasts with -bodies of dark green, blue, brown, or red, and a pair of light-colored -claws, which they held up in a threatening attitude when I attempted to -catch them. As they heard me approach they scurried off towards their -holes, but they were so clumsy and so numerous that I could hardly help -stepping on them. - -One of the common objects by Japanese road-sides is the figure of Jizō, -a Buddhist saint who is the helper of all who are in trouble, and -especially the patron of travellers and children. Near the path between -Hakone and Ashi-no-yu we passed a colossal presentment of him, carved in -bold relief out of a mass of andesite rock, a very striking work of some -ancient sculptor. It is said to have been done in a single night by that -marvellously active saint Kobo Daishi, who, according to popular -tradition, climbed all the mountains in Japan, and found time, when he -was not preaching and confounding sceptics, to perform wonders in -sculpture, painting, and calligraphy. Jizō, in the rudely carved -statuettes by the way-sides, is a benevolent-looking priest, holding a -traveller’s staff in his right hand and a globe in his left. He stands -on a lotus flower, and around his feet are piled many pebbles, placed -there by wayfarers. The reason for the custom is this: On the banks of -the So-dzu-kawa, the river of the lower world, there lives a hag who -catches little children as they attempt to cross, steals their clothes, -and makes them toil with her at her endless task of piling the stones on -its shores. Jizō helps these children, and every pebble which is laid at -his feet lightens the labor of some little one below. I never passed -without adding my contribution, and if I cannot attribute my safety -during my wanderings to his kindly aid, at least I am indebted to him -for many a pleasant thought, and for the memory of many a lovely -landscape or flower seen by his side. - -[Illustration] - - - - -AUTUMN IN JAPAN - -[Illustration: THE AUTUMN LILY] - - - - -AUTUMN IN JAPAN - - -From the spring-time, when I reached Japan in the rain and began to -grumble at the weather, and all through the damp and the downpour of the -summer months, I had been consoled by the promises of my friends. They -assured me that when the autumn came I should have week after week of -glorious sunshine, a clear fresh air, and probably not a wet day between -Michaelmas and Christmas. Either the season was an exceptional one, or -else this is a cherished myth; there certainly were more fine days in -October and November, but not a week passed without one or two days when -work out-of-doors was impossible. They talked, too, of the glory of the -maples, of hill-sides and rocky ravines clothed with scarlet and -crimson, and their enthusiasm in this matter was amply - -[Illustration: FIELDS NEAR HAMAMATSU] - -justified, but no one had told me of the beauty of the lilies of the -field, which decorate so many of the banks between the rice patches with -their tassels of glowing scarlet. I saw them first near Hamamatsu, a -pleasant town on the Tokaido, which I reached on the 16th of September, -after a little tour in the interior; their brilliant color at once -attracted me, and I hastened to make drawings of them, for my passport -had almost expired, and I feared that I might not find them elsewhere. -There was no need to be in such a hurry, for they seem to grow -abundantly wherever they get a chance. Hamamatsu was quite unlike any -other Japanese town I had seen; the houses had a projecting upper story -and broad overhanging roofs, and the principal trade seemed to be in -toys. There were shops full of drums and kites, and dolls with all their -belongings, and the thousand and one things which the Japanese delight -in giving to their beloved children. As I passed a little garden I saw -what looked like a fearful atrocity--dozens of babies’ heads, pale and -gray as if in death, cut off at the neck and impaled on short - -[Illustration: THE EDGE OF THE TOKAIDO, NEAR HAMAMATSU] - -stakes, stood about the ground; but on coming nearer the mystery was -explained: they were life-sized dolls’ heads of papier-maché, put out to -dry in the sun before receiving their final coat of paint. The -neighboring villages were peculiar; every cottage was protected from the -winds by a high hedge of clipped yew, and the street seemed to pass -between two green walls, over which the heavily thatched roofs just -peeped. The openings gave a glimpse of court-yards and cottage fronts -where women and men were hard at work, threshing their beans of many -colors and spreading them on mats to dry, weaving blue cotton cloths, or -winding off the skeins of shining yellow silk. The typhoon a fortnight -earlier had strewn the Tokaido with pine-trees; a passage wide enough -for a jinrikisha to pass had been sawn through some of the great -prostrate trunks, and others were still supported by their mangled -limbs, so that we could squeeze under them. They sadly impeded the work -of a company of white-clad engineers, who, with all the latest military -contrivances, were laying a field-telegraph along the road. What a -contrast were these sons of change to the fishermen returning from their -morning’s work with heavy loads of bonito, and to the peasants with -their simple and primitive implements, all working and living as they -have done for centuries past! Politics and changes of government matter -very little to them; the rice crop and the take of fish are affairs of -much more importance; they are the real life of a country, preserving -its habits, costumes, and traditions, and staving off for a time the -influences of railroads and steamships, which threaten to reduce man’s -condition throughout the world to one dull level of uniformity. - -Fortunately they form a solid majority in every land, a mass not easily -moved, and even in progressive Japan it will be a long time before -ill-cut trousers and steam-ploughs replace the kimono and the spade. -The Tokaido Railway takes you in twelve hours from Hamamatsu to Kōbe, -and while waiting till a new passport came from Tōkyō I had time to see -a little more of the beautiful country around that hospitable port. The -shores near Suma and Maiko, a little to the westward, are picturesque, -and close by is the Strait of Akashi, through which a constant stream of -traffic passes, ships of all kinds and sizes, from the little -fishing-boats towed from the beach, to the big steamers from Europe and -America. The island of Awaji lies across the entrance to the Inland Sea, -leaving a narrow passage at each end; but the tide rushes so violently -through the Naruta Channel to - -[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF AWAJI, FROM MAIKO] - -the south, between Awaji and Shikoku, that it is often unnavigable, and -most of the shipping comes this way. There are the remains of a Daimio’s -castle at Akashi; the main building is gone, and the plateau on which it -stood is now a garden with tea-booths, but the foundation walls, the -corner turrets, and the moat show what an important stronghold it must -have been; and the view from it, down the Inland Sea to the west, over -to the Shikoku Mountains on the south, and eastward to Osaka Bay and the -hills of Yamato, is extensive and very fine in its outlines. At Maiko - -[Illustration: ON THE SHORE NEAR MAIKO, THE STRAIT OF AKASHI TO THE -RIGHT] - -there is a grove of curiously blown and twisted pine-trees, with the -quaint forms which are loved by all artists, especially by the Japanese; -and near Suma, wherever the wiry grasses had got a foothold among the -sand, the shore was gay with scarlet lilies. The botanic name of this -flower, which is really more like an amaryllis than a lily, is _Nerine -japonica_. Its Japanese name is not so easy to determine, for wherever I -went it had a different one; some of these names are shiwata-bana, -teku-sari, chiridji, and ushino-ninniku (cow-garlic), but I think the -commonest is higambana (equinox flower), and the best, for its opening -marks the change of the season, the beginning of the end. It is -probably because of this that, beautiful as it appears to European eyes, -to the Japanese it is a flower of ill omen, associated in their minds -with death and decay, and never used in art or in floral arrangements. -The children, indeed, gather great armfuls of it; but they never take it -inside their homes; the great bunches they have collected are either -scattered among the family tombstones or left to wither on the -foot-paths. They seem to like picking it because its juicy stem snaps so -easily, and often amuse themselves as they sit by the road-side by -breaking the stalks half through, leaving them hanging in regular -joints, much as our children make dandelion or daisy chains. Near a -little graveyard set down among the rice-fields the flowers grew in -great profusion, making a gorgeous splash of brilliant color as a -foreground to the gray stones, the yellowing grain, and the pale blue -distant hills. The rice was ripening fast, and flocks of - -[Illustration: LILIES BY THE SHORE, SUMA] - -rice-birds flew hurriedly across as they were chased from field to field -by shouting boys. I wish I had made a sketch of a Japanese scarecrow; -there were plenty of them about, and I never saw one without laughing; -they were full of quaint humor and invention, and the little birds -seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. They recalled the remark of a -stranger in a fly-haunted parlor in South Carolina, where a small -clock-work windmill revolved in the centre of the table. I asked whether -it drove the flies away, and the owner replied, - -[Illustration: A GRAVEYARD AT SUMA] - -“At first it scared them some, but now they come in to ride round on -it.” The shore was always full of life and activity; bronzed fishermen, -naked except for a narrow white loin-cloth, were launching their boats -or hauling them ashore, towing along the beach, pulling up nets, or -chanting as they rowed their heavy craft, standing up and pushing the -long bent oars with a forward jerk, in the same way that a gondolier -works. The smaller sailing-boats are all rigged with the simple oblong -sail which is so often shown in Japanese drawings, made of narrow strips -of cotton cloth loosely laced together; the larger ones have a jib and a -jig-sail as well. - -[Illustration: HILLS BEHIND KŌBE] - -Futa-tabi, Maya-san, and the other hills which rise behind Kōbe are as -well worth seeing as the shore, full of picturesque walks; the country -at the back of them, commonly called “Aden” by the foreign residents, on -account of its barenness, is a curious waste of disintegrating granite, -seamed and furrowed by the heavy rains, where only some scrubby bushes -find a precarious foothold on the shifting soil. Coolies from the -neighboring villages come and cut these for firewood, and carry the -heavy fagots for miles to earn a few halfpence. In Arima, one of the -hill villages, there are hot ferruginous springs where hundreds of -people go to bathe; but the arrangements are not so primitive as those I -saw at Yumoto; the baths and dressing-rooms are private enough for the -shy foreigner. There is so much iron in the water that you come out of -it covered with a red deposit which takes some days of washing to -remove. On this excursion, as my boots were in hospital, I tried -Japanese foot-gear--thick cotton socks and straw sandals; they were very -light and comfortable at first, but after a time I was conscious of -every little pebble I trod on, and I got back to Kōbe with a good deal -of pain and many blisters. Foreigners who have often worn them get -hardened between the toes, and many good walkers and mountaineers use -them habitually; heavy boots are an encumbrance when not on your feet, -and though the straw sandals are quickly worn out, a few extra pairs are -no serious addition to your baggage. - -On the 6th of October I had finished my drawings among the pines and the -sand hills, and a new passport had come, which gave me permission to -wander for three months longer through the provinces near the Tokaido, -so I bid farewell to my good friends and the comfortable club-house in -Kōbe, and Matsuba once more left his wife and family to follow my -fortunes. - -[Illustration: A BAMBOO YARD AT MAIBARA] - -Our destination was Maibara, a little town on Lake Biwa, not many miles -from Hikone. As I passed it by rail I had noticed that the flooded -fields on the margin of the lake were covered with a blue-flowered -water-plant, a good foreground to the blue water and the distant -mountains, and I hoped for blue skies to complete the picture, but they -came only at rare intervals. On a piece of waste - -[Illustration: BLUE WATER-WEED] - -ground near my tea-house a travelling theatre had been erected, a -structure of bamboo poles with mats hung over them, which was not -calculated to keep an audience dry, and not once during my stay were the -company able to give a performance. The manager occupied the room next -mine; he was an excellent performer on the samisen, and a pious man -withal. Every morning from seven till half-past he said his prayers, -repeating in a monotonous singsong voice a sentence which sounded to me -like “Ya ya yura no,” and tapping two blocks of wood together to keep -time. He belonged to the Shingon sect of Buddhists. - -[Illustration: THE TRAVELLING THEATRE, MAIBARA] - -The prayer formula of the Monto sect, one of the most popular and -powerful, owning the great Hongwanji temples which are found in all -large towns, is, “Namu Amida Butsu,” while the followers of Nichiren, as -they beat their drums, murmur constantly, “Namu myōhō renge kyō.” - -We soon became good friends, the manager and I, and he spent many hours -in my room drinking tea, looking at my sketches, and in such -conversation as my rudimentary knowledge of the language permitted, but -unfortunately I never had an opportunity of seeing him act. When I left -he presented me with a printed cotton towel in an ornamental wrapper, -and I gave him a penny black-lead pencil, and we parted with mutual -expressions of esteem. I had other visitors too: the station-master and -the chief of police wanted to see my pictures, and Takaki, O Shige San, -and little Kazu, with the brown velvet eyes, came over from Hikone to -call on me, and arranged to meet me at the Nagahama matsuri. This annual -festival takes place in the middle of October, and seems to be a -gathering-ground for all the country-side. In many respects it was very -like a country fair in England, but the main event on all the three days -is the perambulation of large triumphal cars, called yama, on which -companies of children give dramatic performances. I was fortunate in -having a brilliantly fine day, and as I bowled along the five miles of -level road from Maibara in a kuruma with two good runners, I passed -troops of people in holiday attire, old peasants, gayly dressed young -girls, and wandering friars with huge bamboo hats that looked like -bushel baskets. The town was gayly decorated with flags and with -lanterns bearing the device of the city, and crowds were pouring into it -by road and rail and boat; for Nagahama is a busy port at the northern -end of Lake Biwa, and a regular service of steamers runs between there -and Otsu, at the southern end. This mixture of things ancient and -modern in Japan always seems amusing, especially when, as in Nagahama, -there is not much of the modern. The row-boats which came in with their -loads of passengers were of unvarnished wood, decorated with black -patterns on the bows, and, except the police and the railway officials, -I saw very few men in European dress; there certainly were no women in -anything but their own becoming costume, and I was the only foreigner in -the town. My landlord had been thoughtful enough to engage a place for -me in a tea-house opposite which the yama stopped and gave a -performance: all the partitions had been removed, and the floor, divided -into squares by low movable railings, was covered with family parties -who had brought their own cushions and provisions. - -[Illustration: LAUNCHING A BOAT] - -My heart was filled with covetousness as I saw the fine old lacquer -bento boxes which they produced after carefully removing many silk -wrappings. There are twelve yama in the town, each owned by a different -guild or society, the members of which teach the children their parts, -provide dresses for their play, and accompany the yama on the festival -days. The cars are huge things, taller than most of the Japanese houses, -and quite fill up the - -[Illustration: LAKE BIWA WITH FLOODED RICE-FIELDS, NEAR MAIBARA] - -narrow streets; they are built on solid wooden wheels, and are dragged -about by strings of coolies, the young men of the guild dancing and -shouting in front of them, waving fans by day and lanterns after dark to -direct the coolies’ movements, while the older members follow in -white-curtained carts. The wood-work around the stage is lacquered, gold -and black and red, with elaborate brass ornaments, and the pagoda-like -roof which covers it is of burnished gold, surmounted with a dragon or -phœnix or other mythical animal. The part behind the stage is enclosed -with hangings, Chinese embroideries, Persian rugs, or silk brocades, and -two of them had fine pieces of Flemish tapestry, which must have come -over with the Dutch centuries ago; the buxom ladies and knights in armor -looked odd, and yet pleasantly familiar, and my heart went out to the -expatriated strangers, so lonely amid that Eastern crowd. In front of -each stage hung a bunch of “gohei,” the twisted strips of white paper -which are the universal emblem of the Shinto religion, the only simple -things among the masses of gorgeous color, and they seemed to give the -key-note to the whole; for Shinto is, above everything else, an -ancestor-worship, a religious respect for the country and for the men -whose heroic deeds still inspire its people, and the short dramas which -the children acted were all founded on old stories--how Yoritomo’s son -sacrificed his life to save the young Mikado, and other well-known -motives from Japanese history. The boys were admirably trained and -beautifully dressed; they rolled their eyes and grimaced in exactly the -same way as their elders of the profession, and the crowd vigorously -applauded their facial contortions. In one company there was a little -mite of two years old; he had not to speak at all, only to cry out once -or twice, but he knew his part as well as the rest, and always looked up -at his boy father at the right moment. During the afternoon I walked -round the town, first to the Buddhist temple, the great hall of which -was crowded with people sleeping, eating, and praying, and then up the -long avenue leading to the Shinto temple of Hachiman. It was lined with -stalls and booths for refreshments of all kinds, with conjurers, -purse-trick men, lucky wheels, quack-medicine vendors, and so on, and -near the big granite torii and lanterns were the market-gardeners with -dwarf pines, oranges laden with fruit, camellias, and other trees. One -had nothing but orchid-plants, none of them, unfortunately, in flower. I -joined a large circle of spectators who were watching a scriever, which -is, I believe, the professional name for the artists who draw on the -flag-stones; this one had no pavement, so he prepared an even ground by -sprinkling some light gray sand over the dusty road; his colors were -bags of black, white, red, and blue sand; from one of these he took a -handful, and drew his design by letting the powder run from his closed -fist in a line which varied in thickness as he tightened or loosened his -grasp. He wrote or drew in this way with wonderful rapidity as he -squatted on the ground, and he talked all the time, obliterating each -drawing as soon as he had finished it. I watched him draw a figure of a -girl, and he began by putting down the spots of the pattern on her -kimono with blue, then added the shadow lines of the dress, relieved it -here and there with white, sketched the face and hands in red, and -finally added a bold outline in black, which completed the picture, thus -working in that reverse way to our natural instincts which you so often -notice in this land of Topsy-turvydom. - -As evening approached, all the yama began to collect in the square in -front of another Shinto temple, where the great Hachiman car with -colossal swords, and the Mikoshi, a shrine carried about on men’s -shoulders, were already placed. In the river on one side of this square -many boats were moored, spread with rush mats and with the red blankets -which have become so common in Japan, and in them people were -picknicking; over the bridge which crossed it the unwieldy structures -were dragged from the town by shouting crowds; each in turn gave a final -performance in front of the temple, and was then drawn aside to make -room for the next. This began at half-past five, and it was eleven -o’clock before the last of - -[Illustration: ONE OF THE “YAMA” AT THE NAGAHAMA MATSURI - -From a printed programme sold on the street] - -them had been ranged with the others to the right of the temple steps. -As night came on they were covered with big lanterns, the stages were -lighted by lamps in glass shades, and attendants with candles on long -sticks illuminated the face of each little actor while he was speaking. -When the six gorgeous yama with their attendants and gayly dressed -performers were all drawn up in line against - -[Illustration: SOME HATS AT THE NAGAHAMA MATSURI] - -a background of solemn cryptomerias, with an excited crowd dancing and -waving lanterns in front of them, the spectacle was more beautiful than -any words of mine can suggest. In spite of the excitement, I saw only -one quarrel; a young man, in order to get nearer to the stage, had -pushed past a big coolie, who had evidently taken as much saké as he -could carry, and for a few seconds I thought there would be a fight; but -a bystander pointed out to the indignant man that the youth had to get -nearer because he was short-sighted and wore spectacles, and peace was -at once restored. On the way back to our tea-house, where my friends -from Tennenji had dined with me, we passed a street full of stalls, with -pipes and pouches, cheap jewelry, hair-pins and combs, and many other -knick-knacks suitable for presents. I wanted a few of them, and found -that O Shige San was a talented shopper; she had her limit, ten sen, and -usually succeeded in getting the article for that sum, whatever the -original price might have been. As I wandered round early the next -morning I found that the yama had already been moved to their stations -in various - -[Illustration: THE TEMPLE GARDEN, SEIGWANJI] - -streets, and were being cleaned up in preparation for the day’s -performances. The town is studded with tall fire-proof go-downs, in -which the precious vehicles are safely stored during the rest of the -year. - -Near Maibara there were large orchards of persimmons with -brilliant-colored fruit, which, as Andrew Marvel says of the oranges, -“hang like gold lamps in a green night.” They were particularly -beautiful in the well-designed garden of Seigwanji, where I made some -sketches. It is a fine example of a temple garden, and some massive -evergreen oaks form an impressive background to the gray stones, the -carefully trained pines, and the trimly clipped shrubs; but except for -the persimmons, a few reddening maple leaves, some late blooms of -platycodon, and the scarlet berries of a little ardisia, it was all -green and gray. - -[Illustration: MINIATURE PAGODA IN THE TEMPLE GARDEN, SEIGWANJI] - -In the cottage gardens near Suzukawa, a little station on the Tokaido to -the south of Fuji where I made a short halt late in October, I began to -see some chrysanthemum flowers; they were not particularly fine or -effective, but I found plenty to paint there, and wished very much that -the days and my remaining weeks in Japan were not getting so short. The -village lies behind a range of sand dunes, which are overgrown with -ancient pines, and beyond them is the shore of Suruga Bay, a grand -expanse of gray volcanic sand, called by the Japanese Tago-no-ura, -where fishermen are always hauling at nets in lines of naked brown -figures against the blue sea, or wandering back in groups across the -sands in long dark-blue coats, with pale-blue and white handkerchiefs -tied over their heads, carrying their nets and parcels of fish wrapped -in straw. At my tea-house, the Koshuya, I reaped the result of their -labors, and got excellent dinners of red or gray tai, lobsters, and huge -prawns, cooked by a man who was a real artist and took a pride in his -profession. - -The first really fine chrysanthemums I saw were in Yokohama, when I got -back there early in November; I was disappointed to find that they were -in temporary sheds put up to protect them from rain and sun, and not in -masses out-of-doors, as I expected to see them; but they were -excellently grown, and in the softened light of the oil-paper shades -their colors showed to great advantage. The plants are treated much as -they are with us, raised in pots from cuttings taken in the spring, and -encouraged with plenty of manure until the buds are formed; before -flowering they are removed from their pots and planted out in bold -groups of color in the beds which have been prepared for them. Some -plants are reduced to a single stem, on which only one enormous blossom -is allowed to develop; these are generally arranged in a line, with each -flower stiffly tied to a horizontal bamboo support, and the effect is -very sad; but the excellence of the gardeners is best shown in growing -large bushes, which have been known to carry as many as four hundred -flowers of medium size, all in perfect condition, on the same day. An -English gardener who had visited every show within reach of Tōkyō, -including the Emperor’s celebrated collection in the palace grounds, -told me that he had seen no individual blossoms equal to the best dozen -or so at a first-rate London exhibition, but that these great plants -with their hundreds of flowers were - -[Illustration: A CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW AT YOKOHAMA] - -triumphs of horticulture. The most curious examples of -chrysanthemum-growing were to be seen in the Dangozaka quarter of Tōkyō. -The long hilly street is bordered on each side with gardens enclosed -with high bamboo fences, and in every one, by paying three rin, you -could see groups of life-size figures mainly covered with chrysanthemum -leaves and flowers. They represented scenes from history, the drama, or -Buddhist mythology, and were constructed with frame-works of bamboo, -inside which the flower-pots were concealed, the shoots being brought -through the openings and trained over the outer surface. The heads and -hands were made of painted wood, and swords and other accessories were -added to make them more life-like; the draperies of living leaves and -flowers were skilfully arranged in large folds, and, as in most of the -popular shows, they depicted the costumes of Daimio and Samurai of the -past. At each entrance I was given a sort of play-bill, a roughly -printed broad-sheet with a wood-cut and a description of the different -groups, serving as an advertisement of the gardener’s establishment. One -of the finest places for autumn colors is the large garden behind the -arsenal in the Koishikawa quarter, laid out by a former Prince of Mito -as a quiet retreat for his old age. It covers several acres, and is -certainly very beautiful, with its lakes and islands, solemn groves and -shrines; but it is silent and deserted; the people are only admitted by -a special permission; and I liked better the maples which line the banks -of the Taki-no-gawa near Oji, where crowds were quietly enjoying -themselves, sipping tea and saké as they sat in front of the tea-houses -and gazed down on the trees, or strolling along in picturesque groups -under the crimson canopy of foliage. The little river glides along with -barely a ripple, and it reflected all the glory of the leaves which -stretched over it in sprays of scarlet and gold, reminding me of a -Japanese poem, “I wish to cross the river, but fear to cut the brocade -on its surface.” Another poem, dating from the time when it was -customary to present silk or cloth to the Shinto gods instead of the -“gohei,” which now serve as a symbol, shows the national admiration of -the autumn leaves: “This time I bring no offering; the gods can take the -damask of the maple-trees on Tamukeyama.” - -There are many other trees in the rich flora of Japan which are as gay -as the maples, though no others which show as great a variety of color; -the dark leaves of the tulip-tree turn to a rich cadmium yellow, and the -icho (Salisburia) is covered with pale gold, while many of the shrubs, -grasses, and herbaceous plants with bright and varied tints help to -relieve the solemn everlasting green of the pines and cryptomerias which -clothe the eternal hills. - -And so in a blaze of glory the Japanese year ends; but long before these -last leaves have fallen the camellias are once more in flower, and -continue until the plum blossom comes in February, a connecting link in -the chain of beauty and flowers which encircles this happy land. One of -my last days in Tōkyō was spent in showing my drawings to the students -of the Uyeno School of Art, where Professor Okakura, the president, who -combines with a good knowledge of Western art a great reverence for that -of his own country, is attempting with no small success to keep up the -artistic tradition, and to revive those artistic industries which were -falling into decay. He had invited artists of other schools, some of -whom had studied in Paris and Rome, but I was most interested in the -remarks and questions of the purely Japanese students, and in their -eagerness to discover any motive, besides the reproduction of nature, in -work so different from their own. - -At the Asakusa matsuri they were already selling emblems suited for the -new year--the rice-rake to scrape - -[Illustration: THE ARSENAL GARDEN, KOISHIKAWA, TŌKYŌ] - -together dollars; the rice-bag, daikon, and red tai, suggestive of good -fare; and the target with an arrow in the bull’s-eye, meaning, “May you -hit the mark!” arranged round a mask of the goddess of fortune; and with -a stock of these to bring me good-luck, I sailed away on the 10th of -December across the dreary and flowerless Pacific. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: LYCHNIS GRANDIFLORA, MISAKA-TOGE] - - * * * * * - - BOOKS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED PARSONS - - A SELECTION FROM THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Illustrated by - ALFRED PARSONS. 4to, Full Leather, Gilt Edges, $5 00. (_In a Box._) - - THE WARWICKSHIRE AVON. Notes by A. T. QUILLER-COUCH. Illustrations - by ALFRED PARSONS. 8vo, Ornamental Half Leather, $2 00. - - THE QUIET LIFE. Certain Verses by Various Hands: the Motive set - forth in a Prologue and Epilogue by AUSTIN DOBSON; the whole - Adorned with Numerous Drawings by EDWIN A. ABBEY and ALFRED - PARSONS. 4to, Ornamental Leather, Gilt Edges, $7 50. (_In a Box._) - - OLD SONGS. With Drawings by EDWIN A. ABBEY and ALFRED PARSONS. With - Mounted India Proof Frontispiece, left loose for framing. 4to, - Ornamental Leather Cover, Gilt Edges, $7 50. (_In a Box._) - -PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[A] Before I left Tennenji he wrote in one of my sketch-books the poem -inscribed above in Japanese characters. The reading is, “Yukuri no -Omi no midzu-umi no fukaki kokoro wa chiyomo chigiran,” and it may be -roughly translated thus: Deep as the water of Lake Biwa, my heart has -been ever true and changeless since chance brought us together. - -[B] “Daikon” is a large kind of white radish, which is boiled and cut -in strips and served as a savor with every meal; it is very tough, and -both the smell and the flavor are repulsive. A well-known Yokohama poet -has written some verses on the subject, which show a great knowledge of -culinary French, and a rooted dislike to the vegetable which is shared -by most foreigners. It commences in this way: - - _Cook loquitur (gently)._ - Won’t daikon do - To stew - With carrots and a bean or two? - Methinks ’twould give a savor rare - To cutlets à la Financière. - Won’t daikon do? - - _Master (decisively)._ - No--daikon will _not_ do! - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes in Japan, by Alfred Parsons - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES IN JAPAN *** - -***** This file should be named 62924-0.txt or 62924-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/2/62924/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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