VII
Kobe, April 23.
I have been visiting the exhibition of fishes and of fisheries which is at Hyogo, in a garden by the sea. Waraku-en is its name, which signifies, "The Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It is laid out like a landscape garden of old time, and deserves its name. Over its verge you behold the great bay, and fishermen in boats, and the white far-gliding of sails splendid with light, and beyond all, shutting out the horizon, a lofty beautiful massing of peaks mauve-colored by distance.
I saw ponds of curious shapes, filled with clear sea-water, in which fish of beautiful colors were swimming. I went to the aquarium where stranger kinds of fishes swam behind glass—fishes shaped like toy-kites, and fishes shaped like sword-blades, and fishes that seemed to turn themselves inside out, and funny, pretty fishes of butterfly-colors, that move like dancing-girls, waving sleeve-shaped fins.
I saw models of all manner of boats and nets and hooks and fish-traps and torch-baskets for night-fishing. I saw pictures of every kind of fishing, and both models and pictures of men killing whales. One picture was terrible,—the death agony of a whale caught in a giant net, and the leaping of boats in a turmoil of red foam, and one naked man on the monstrous back—a single figure against the sky—striking with a great steel, and the fountain-gush of blood responding to the stroke…. Beside me I heard a Japanese father and mother explain the picture to their little boy; and the mother said:—
"When the whale is going to die, it speaks; it cries to the Lord
Buddha for help,—Namu Amida Butsu!"
I went to another part of the garden where there were tame deer, and a "golden bear" in a cage, and peafowl in an aviary, and an ape. The people fed the deer and the bear with cakes, and tried to coax the peacock to open its tail, and grievously tormented the ape. I sat down to rest on the veranda of a pleasure-house near the aviary, and the Japanese folk who had been looking at the picture of whale-fishing found their way to the same veranda; and presently I heard the little boy say:—
"Father, there is an old, old fisherman in his boat. Why does he not go to the Palace of the Dragon-King of the Sea, like Urashima?"
The father answered: "Urashima caught a turtle which was not really a turtle, but the Daughter of the Dragon-King. So he was rewarded for his kindness. But that old fisherman has not caught any turtle, and even if he had caught one, he is much too old to marry. Therefore he will not go to the Palace."
Then the boy looked at the flowers, and the fountains, and the sunned sea with its white sails, and the mauve-colored mountains beyond all, and exclaimed:—
"Father, do you think there is any place more beautiful than this in the whole world?"
The father smiled deliciously, and seemed about to answer, but before he could speak the child cried out, and leaped, and clapped his little hands for delight, because the peacock had suddenly outspread the splendor of its tail. And all hastened to the aviary. So I never heard the reply to that pretty question.
But afterwards I thought that it might have been answered thus:—
"My boy, very beautiful this is. But the world is full of beauty; and there may be gardens more beautiful than this.
"But the fairest of gardens is not in our world. It is the Garden of Amida, in the Paradise of the West.
"And whosoever does no wrong what time he lives may after death dwell in that Garden.
"There the divine Kujaku, bird of heaven, sings of the Seven
Steps and the Five Powers, spreading its tail as a sun.
"There lakes of jewel-water are, and in them lotos-flowers of a loveliness for which there is not any name. And from those flowers proceed continually rays of rainbow-light, and spirits of Buddhas newly-born.
"And the water, murmuring among the lotos-buds, speaks to the souls in them of Infinite Memory and Infinite Vision, and of the Four Infinite Feelings.
"And in that place there is no difference between gods and men, save that under the splendor of Amida even the gods must bend; and all sing the hymn of praise beginning, 'O Thou of Immeasurable Light!'
"But the Voice of the River Celestial chants forever, like the chanting of thousands in unison: 'Even this is not high; there is still a Higher! This is not real; this is not Peace!'"