LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA" (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)
The most capital article, the character of the inhabitants.—Tytler
In travelling southwards I noticed between Kyoto and Osaka that farms were being irrigated from wells in the primitive way by means of the weighted swinging pole and bucket. Along the coast to the south, indeed as far as Hiroshima, there have been great gains from the sea, and in the neighbourhood of Kobe there are three parallel roads which mark successive recoveries of land. Before crossing the Inland Sea at Okayama to Shikoku (area about 1,000 square miles) I visited one of the new settlements on recovered land. The labour available from a family was reckoned as equal to that of two men, and as much as 4 to 5 chō was allotted to each house. It will be seen how much larger is this area—5 chō is 12½ acres—than the average Japanese farming family must be content with, a little less than 3 acres. The company supplied houses, seeds, manures, etc., and after all expenses were met the workers were allowed 25 per cent, of the net income of their summer crop and 35 per cent, of the net income of their second crop. The cultivation was directed by the company. There had been 300 applications for the last twenty houses built. An experiment station was maintained, and a campaign against a rice borer had been of benefit to the amount of about 10,000 yen. I found the company's winnowing machine discharging its chaff into the furnace of the rice-drying apparatus.
One of the experts of the company came with me for some distance in the train in order to discuss some of his problems. He thought agricultural work could be done in less back-breaking ways. He wanted a small threshing machine which would be suitable not only for threshing small quantities of rice or corn but for easy conveyance along the narrow and easily damaged paths between the rice fields. If he had such a machine he would like to improve it so that it would lay out the threshed straw evenly, so making the straw more valuable for the many uses to which it is put. He wished to see a machine invented for planting out rice seedlings and another contrivance devised for drying wheat. The company's rice-drying machine handled 200 koku of rice a day, but there were difficulties in drying wheat. (In many places I noticed the farmers drying their corn by the primitive method of singeing it and thus spoiling it.) [[173]]
On the Inland Sea, aboard the smart little steamer of the Government Railways, my companion spoke of the extent to which sea-faring men, a conservative class, had abandoned the use of the single square sail which one sees in Japanese prints; the little vessels had been re-rigged in Western fashion. But many superstitions had survived the abolished square sails. The mother of my fellow-traveller once told him that, when she crossed the Inland Sea in an old-style ship and a storm arose, the shipmaster earnestly addressed the passengers in these words, "Somebody here must be unclean; if so, please tell me openly." The title of the book my companion was reading was The History of the Southern Savage. Who was the "Southern Savage"? The word is namban, the name given to the early Portuguese and Spanish voyagers to Japan. (The Dutch were called komojin, red-haired men.) In looking through the official railway guide on the boat I saw that there was a list of specially favourable places for viewing the moon. An M.P. passenger told me that the average cost of getting returned to the Diet was 10,000 yen[ [174]].
The difficulties of communication in Shikoku are so considerable that I was compelled to leave the two prefectures of Tokushima and Kochi unvisited. Kochi is without a yard of railway line. In the prefecture of Ehime most of my journey had to be made by kuruma. Communication between the four prefectures of Shikoku—the one in which I landed was Kagawa—is largely conducted by coasting steamers and sailing craft. An interesting thing in Kochi is the area by the sea in which two crops of rice are grown in the year. Tokushima holds a leading place in the production of indigo. At one place in the hills the adventurous have the satisfaction of crossing a river by means of suspension bridges made of vine branches.
The streets of Takamatsu, the capital of Kagawa, are many of them so narrow that the shopkeepers on either side have joint sun screens which they draw right across the thoroughfares. Here I found the carts hauled by a smallish breed of cow. The placid animals are handier in a narrow place and less expensive than horses. They are shod, like their drivers, in waraji. In Shikoku the cow or ox is generally used in the paddies instead of the horse. "It is slower but strong and can plough deep," one agricultural expert said. "It eats cheaper food than the horse, which moves too fast in a small paddy. Cows and oxen are probably not working for more than seventy-five or eighty days in the year."
At Takamatsu I had the opportunity of visiting a daimyo's castle. I was impressed by its strength not only because of the wide moats but because of the series of earthen fortifications faced with cyclopean stonework through which an invading force must wind its way. There was within the walls a surprisingly large drilling ground for troops and also an extensive drug garden. The present owner of the castle proposed to build here a library and a museum for the town. I was glad of the opportunity to ascend one of the high pagoda-like towers so familiar in Japanese paintings. I was disillusioned. Instead of finding myself in beautiful rooms for the enjoyment of marvellous views and sea breezes I had to clamber over the roughest cob-webbed timbers. One storey was connected with another by a stair of rude planking. Such pagodas were built only for their military value as lookouts and for their delightful appearance from the outside.
The town now enjoyed as a park of more than ten acres the grounds of a subsidiary residence of the daimyo. The magnificent trees, with lakes, rivulets and hills fashioned with infinite art, [[175]] and the background of natural hill and woodland, made in all a possession which exhibited the delectable possibilities of Japanese gardening. An occasional electric light amid the trees gave an effect in the evening in which Japanese delight. Some of the old carp which dashed up to the bridges when they heard our footsteps seemed to be not far short of 3 ft. long.
Except for a small patch of sugar cane in Shidzuoka—it is grown practically on the sea beach where it is visible from the express—the visitor to Japan may never see sugar cane until Shikoku is reached. The value of the crop in the whole island is about 800,000 yen. The tall cane is conspicuous alongside the more diminutive rice. In this prefecture an experiment is being made in growing olives.
Kagawa is remarkable in having had until lately 30,000 pond reservoirs for the irrigation of rice fields. Under the new system of rice-field adjustment many of the ponds are joined together. Because in Shikoku flat tracts of land or tracts that can be made flat are limited in number the farmers have to be content with small pieces of land. The average area of farm in Kagawa outside the mountainous region is less than two acres. When the farms are near the sea, as they commonly are, the agriculturists may also be fishermen.
The number of place names ending in ji (temple) proclaims the former flourishing condition of Buddhism. Shikoku is a great resort of white-clothed pilgrims. Sometimes it is a solitary man whom one sees on the road, sometimes a company of men, occasionally a family. Not seldom the pilgrim or his companion is manifestly suffering from some affection which the pilgrimage is to cure. In the old days it was not unusual to send the victim of "the shameful disease" or of an incurable ailment on a pilgrimage from shrine to shrine or temple to temple. He was not expected to return. In Shikoku there are eighty-eight temples to Buddha and the founder of the Shingon sect, and it is estimated that it would mean a 760 miles' journey to visit them all.
We went off our route at one point where my companion wished to visit a gorgeous shrine. A guidebook said that people flocked there "by the million," but what I was told was that last year's attendance was 80,000. The street leading to the approach to the shrine was in a series of steps. On either side were the usual shops with piled-up mementoes in great variety and of no little ingenuity, and also, on spikes, little stacks of rin—the old copper coin with a square hole through the middle—into which the economical devotee takes care to exchange a few sen. We climbed to the shrine when twilight was coming on. At the point where the series of street steps ended there began a new series of about a thousand steps belonging to the shrine. A thousand granite steps may be tiring after a hot day's travel in a kuruma. All the way up to the shrine there were granite pillars almost brand new, first short ones, then taller, then taller still, and after these a few which topped the tallest. They were conspicuously inscribed with the names of donors to the shrine. A small pillar was priced at 10 yen. What the big, bigger and biggest cost I do not know. I turned from the pillars to the stone lanterns. "They burn cedar wood, I believe," said my companion. But soon afterwards I saw a man working at them with a length of electric-light wire.
The great shrine was impressive in the twilight. There was a platform near, and from it we looked down from the tree-covered heights through the growing darkness. Where the lights of the town twinkled there was a subsidiary shrine. A bare-headed, kimono-clad sailor stepped forward near us and bowed his head to some semblance of deity down there. Various fishermen had brought the anchors of their ships and the oars of their boats to show forth their thankfulness for safety at sea. In the murkiness I was just able to pick out the outlines of a bronze horse which stands at the shrine, "as a sort of scape-goat," my companion explained. "It is probably Buddhist," he said; "but you can never be sure; these priests embellish the history of their temples so."
It was at the inn in the evening that someone told me that in the town which is dependent on the shrine there were "a hundred prostitutes, thirty geisha and some waitresses." Late at night I had a visit from a man in a position of great responsibility in the prefecture. He was at a loss to know what could be done for morality. "Religion is not powerful," he said, "the schools do not reach grown-up people, the young men's societies are weak, many sects and new moralities are attacking our people, and there are many cheap books of a low class."
Next day I laid this view before a group of landlords. They did not reply for a little and my skilful interpreter said, "they are thinking deeply." At length one of them delivered himself to this effect: "Landowners hereabouts are mostly of a base sort. They always consider things from a material and personal point of view. But if they are attacked and made to act more for the public good it may have an effect on rural conditions which are now low."
I enquired about the new sects of Buddhism and Shintoism, for there had been pointed out to me in some villages "houses of new religions." "New religions in many varieties are coming into the villages," I was told, "and extravagant though they may be are influencing people. The adherents seem to be moral and modest, and they pay their taxes promptly. There is a so-called Shinto sect which was started twenty years ago by an ignorant woman. It has believers in every part of Japan. It is rather communistic." [[176]] None of the landlords who talked with me believed in the possibility of a "revival of Buddhism." One of them noted that "people educated in the early part of Meiji are most materialistic. It is a sorrowful circumstance that the officials ask only materialistic questions of the villagers."
I asked one of the landlords about his tenants. He said that his "largest tenant" had no more than 1.3 tan of paddy. It was explained that "tenants are obedient to the landowner in this prefecture." Under the system of official rewards which exists in Japan, 1,086 persons in the prefecture had been "rewarded" by a kind of certificate of merit and nine with money—to the total value of 26 yen.
When I drew attention to the fact that the manufacture of saké and soy seemed to be frequently in the hands of landowners it was explained to me that formerly this was their industry exclusively. Even now "whereas an ordinary shop-keeper is required by etiquette to say 'Thank you' to his customer, a purchaser of saké or soy says 'Thank you' to the shop-keeper."
The flower arrangement in my room in the inn consisted of an effective combination of hagi (Lespedeza bicolor, a leguminous plant which is grown for cattle and has been a favourite subject of Japanese poetry), a cabbage, a rose, a begonia and leaf and a fir branch.
A landowner I chatted with in the train showed me that it was a serious matter to receive the distinction of growing the millet for use at the Coronation. One of his friends who was growing 5 sh=o, the actual value of which might be 50 or 60 sen, was spending on it first and last about 3,000 yen.
I enquired about the diversions of landowners. It is easy, of course, to have an inaccurate impression of the extent of their leisure. Only about 1 per cent, have more than 25 acres. [[177]] Therefore most of these men are either farmers themselves or must spend a great deal of time looking after their tenants. Still, some landowners are able to take things rather easily. The landowners I interrogated marvelled at the open-air habits of English landed proprietors. They were greatly surprised when I told them of a countess who is a grandmother but thinks nothing of a canter before breakfast. The mark of being well off was often to stay indoors or at any rate within garden walls, which necessarily enclose a very small area. (Hence the fact that one object of Japanese gardening is to suggest a much larger space than exists.) A good deal of time is spent "in appreciating fine arts." Ceremonial tea drinking still claims no small amount of attention. (In many gardens and in the grounds of hotels of any pretensions one comes on the ostentatiously humble chamber for Cha-no-yu.) No doubt there is among many landowners a considerable amount of drinking of something stronger than tea, and not a few men sacrifice freely to Venus. Perhaps the greatest claimant of all on the time of those who have time to spare is the game of go, which is said to be more difficult than chess. One cannot but remark the comparatively pale faces of many landowners.
As we went along by the coast it was pointed out to me that it was from this neighbourhood that some of the most indomitable of the old-time pirates set sail on their expeditions to ravage the Chinese coast. They visited that coast all the way from Vladivostock, now Russian (and like to be Japanese), to Saigon, now French. There are many Chinese books discussing effectual methods of repelling the pirates. In an official Japanese work I once noticed, in the enumeration of Japanese rights in Taiwan (Formosa), the naïve claim that long ago it was visited by Japanese pirates! The Japanese fisherman is still an intrepid person, and in villages which have an admixture of fishing folk the seafarers, from their habit of following old customs and taking their own way generally, are the constant subject of rural reformers' laments.
I spent some time in a typical inland village. The very last available yard of land was utilised. The cottages stood on plots buttressed by stone, and only the well-to-do had a yard or garden; paddy came right up to the foundations. Now that the rice was high no division showed between the different paddy holdings. I noticed here that the round, carefully concreted manure tank which each farmer possessed had a reinforced concrete hood. I asked a landowner who was in a comfortable position what societies there were in his village. He mentioned a society "to console old people and reward virtue." Then there was the society of householders, such as is mentioned in Confucius, which met in the spring and autumn, and ate and drank and discussed local topics "with open heart." There were sometimes quarrels due to saké. Indeed, some villagers seemed to save up their differences until the householders' meeting at its saké stage. At householders' meetings where there was no saké peace appeared to prevail. The householders' meeting was a kind of informal village assembly. That assembly itself ordinarily met twice a year. There were in the village, in addition to the householders' organisation, the usual reservists' association, the young men's society and agricultural association. As to kō, from philanthropic motives my informant was a member of no fewer than ten.
My host told me that he spent a good deal of time in playing go, but in the shooting season (October 15 to April 15) he made trips to the hills and shot pheasants, hares, pigeons and deer. In the garden of his house two gardeners were stretched along the branches of a pine tree, nimbly and industriously picking out the shoots in order to get that bare appearance which has no doubt puzzled many a Western student of Japanese tree pictures. Each man's ladder—two lengths of bamboo with rungs tied on with string—was carefully leant against a pole laid from the ground through the branches. Many of the well-cared-for trees in the gardens and public places of Japan pass the winter in neat wrappings of straw.
I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets. When I was examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon might come out. There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure and a well-roofed manure house. The family bath in an open shed was of a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it. Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made by the farmer's son, a day's work being 40 yds. At another farm a woman showed me the working of a rough loom with which she could in a day make a score of mats worth in all 60 sen. From the farmer's house I went to the room of the young men's association and looked over its library. I was impressed by the high level of civilisation which this village seemed to exhibit in essentials.
When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by means of which water was being lifted into a paddy. Each wheel was worked by a man who continually ascended the floats. The two men were able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell. It seems that a man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour. The two wheels together were lifting an amazing amount of water at a great rate. When the pumping is finished one of these light water wheels is easily carried home on a man's shoulders.
Farther on I saw in a dry river bed a man sieving gravel in an ingenious way. The trouble in sieving gravel is that if the sieve be filled to its capacity the shaking soon becomes tiring. This man had a square sieve which when lying on the ground was attached at one side by two ropes to a firmly fixed tripod of poles. When the sieve was filled the labourer lifted it far enough away from the tripod for it to be swinging on one side. Therefore when he shook the sieve he sustained a portion only of its weight.
As we rode along I was told that the largest taxpayer in the county "does not live in idleness but does many good works." The next largest taxpayer "labours every day in the field." When I enquired as to the recreations of moneyed men I was told "travelling, go and poem writing."
As we rode by the sea a trustworthy informant pointed out to me an islet where he said the young men have the young women in common and "give permission for them to marry." There is a house in which the girls live together at a particular time and are then free from the attentions of the youths. Children born are brought up in the families of the mothers but there is some infanticide. In another little island off the coast there are only two classes of people, the seniors and the juniors. Any person senior to any other "may give him orders and call him by his second name." (The surname comes first in Japanese names.)
Our route led us along the track of the new railway line which was penetrating from Kagawa into Ehime. Not for the first time on my journeys was I told of the corrupting influence exerted on the countryside by the imported "navvies," if our Western name may be applied to men who in figure and dress look so little like the big fellows who do the same kind of work in England. Although these navvies were a rough lot and our ancient basha (a kind of four-wheeled covered carriage) was a thing for mirth, we met with no incivility as we picked our way among them for a mile or two. I was a witness indeed of a creditable incident. A handcart full of earth was being taken along the edge of the roadway, with one man in the shafts and another pushing behind. Suddenly a wheel slipped over the side of the roadway, the cart was canted on its axle, the man in the shafts received a jolt and the cargo was shot out. Had our sort of navvies been concerned there would have been words of heat and colour. The Japanese laughed.
The reference to our venerable basha reminds me of a well-known story which was once told me by a Japanese as a specimen of Japanese humour. A basha, I may explain, has rather the appearance of a vehicle which was evolved by a Japanese of an economical turn after hearing a description of an omnibus from a foreigner who spoke very little Japanese and had not been home for forty years. The body of the vehicle is just high enough and the seats just wide enough for Japanese. So the foreigner continually bumps the roof, and when he is not bumping the roof he has much too narrow a seat to sit on. Sometimes the basha has springs of a sort and sometimes it has none. But springs would avail little on the rural roads by which many basha travel. The only tolerable place for Mr. Foreigner in a basha is one of the top corner seats behind the driver, for the traveller may there throw an arm round one of the uprights which support the roof. If at an unusually hard bump he should lose his hold he is saved from being cast on the floor by the responsive bodies of his polite and sympathetic fellow-travellers who are embedded between him and the door. The tale goes that a tourist who was serving his term in a basha was perplexed to find that the passengers were charged, some first-, some second-and some third-class fare. While he clung to his upright and shook with every lurch of the conveyance this problem of unequal fares obsessed him. It was like the persistent "punch-in-the-presence-of-the-passengare." What possible advantage, he pondered, could he as first class be getting over the second and the second class over the third? At length at a steep part of the road the vehicle stopped. The driver came round, opened the door, and bowing politely said: "Honourable first-class passengers will graciously condescend to keep their seats. Second-class passengers will be good enough to favour us by walking. Third-class passengers will kindly come out and push." And push they did, no doubt, kimonos rolled up thighwards, with good humour, sprightliness and cheerful grunts, as is the way with willing workers in Japan.