I
In a large enclosure behind one of the smaller Shiba temples on a burning 1st of July sat a perspiring crowd of men and boys, whose attitude of joyful and critical attention strangely revived memories of a great match at Lord’s or the Oval. Yet the trial of strength which was provoking similar enthusiasm presented a very different spectacle. Instead of the green pitch, a sanded ring formed the arena; instead of twenty-two lithe cricketers, clad in white flannels and protected by glove and pad from dangerous balls, a band of twenty-two wrestlers, enormous and bloated, with no clothing but a garish loin-cloth and no protection but their own skill, awaited the umpire’s word to begin. He, too, bore little likeness to the straw-hatted oracle in a milkman’s coat, whose vigilant silence is unbroken but for occasional appeals from bowler or batsman. His kimono was of grey silk, his sash embroidered with gold, his short cape of black silk with brightly coloured clasp; and, as he gave the signal with his fan, or directed the combatants with excited insistence, hopping and crying on the flanks of the panting giants, he resembled some gorgeous gadfly goading two buffaloes to the fray. Nothing could be less Japanese than the build and bulk of the wrestlers. They seemed men of another race, Maoris or Patagonians, with their huge naked limbs and long hair, drawn forward in a queue to the middle of the head or falling loose on the shoulders. Before entering the ring each would carefully adjust his apron and bind his hair as coquettishly as possible, for, hideous though they appear to us, these monsters of fat and muscle are the darlings of every schoolboy, enjoying a popularity as fervent as that of “W. G.” or Prince “Ranji.” Their names, their records, their chances of success are on every tongue.
The bouts are more interesting to watch than any I had seen elsewhere, for attack and defence were more various. The conqueror might win by other methods than by bringing his opponent to the ground: if he could hurl or hustle him outside the ring, victory was his. The rules are said to authorise forty-eight falls—twelve throws, twelve lifts, twelve twists, and twelve throws over the back. To avoid being pinned down or pitched out, the smaller men must exercise extraordinary agility, and loud was the shouting when Goliath fell victim to a scientific ruse. It happened sometimes that the men lost their tempers; spitting, slapping, taunting would precede more legitimate sport: then indeed it was good to hear the bystanders’ Homeric laughter, which soon recalled the heroes to their higher selves. I will confess that these indecorous interludes were partly due to a mischievous American, who primed his favourites with praise and whisky. As the afternoon wore on, the heat became intolerable, but, fired with professional ambition, Dares succeeded Entellus, while cheap coloured portraits of the competitors found ready sale and the overcrowded enclosure reeked of sweat and sand. At length the final bout was announced. Each side chose a champion, whose laurels were difficult to gain, for three rivals must be worsted in continuous struggle by the prize-winner. Before the end was reached my patience had been exhausted. On a degenerate descendant of the fighting Anglo-Saxon breed this barbarous exhibition of brute locked with brute began to pall. Besides, the tropical atmosphere, which from that day forward made dress a weariness and sleep impossible, pleaded more eloquently than any argument how wise it were to seek less fiery pleasures. I resolved to leave Tōkyō the following day and take the waters of some mountain-spa, remote from wrestlers and mosquitoes.
At an altitude of nearly three thousand feet on the north-eastern slope of Mount Haruna, an extinct volcano, stands the picturesque village of Ikao. Half the houses are hotels and most have balconies, which command a view of the Tonegawa Valley and sublime Akagi San. The main street climbs from terrace to terrace, a natural staircase, between châlets equipped with bamboo pipes, through which the hot yellow water pours incessantly. Proximity to the capital makes this health resort very popular, yet access is not altogether easy. After five hours’ train to Mayebashi, another five hours are required of rather rough rickshaw travelling: at one point the Tonegawa must be crossed by means of a rope ferry; at others the traveller must dismount, so steep is the road. Yet he will be well rewarded at his journey’s end by a panorama of rare extent and beauty. Behind him, and eighteen hundred feet above, soars Soma-yama, from which the summit of Fuji is just visible; opposite stretch the Mikuni and Nikkō ranges; at his feet are wooded valleys and foaming torrents. The Kindayu Hotel, under most courteous and capable management, combines two great advantages. It supplies the foreigner with such food and general comfort as his habits generally render indispensable; at the same time, it accommodates so many Japanese of all classes, that exceptional opportunities are afforded of becoming more intimately acquainted with the latter than would be possible in their own homes, where various duties and claims absorb their time. Here they seek only health and pleasure: no obstacle but the easily surmounted barrier of language hinders mutually delightful intercourse. At least, the writer formed more friendships and obtained more glimpses of native life during a month at Ikao than at any other period of his stay in the country.
Bathing is, of course, the centre round which existence revolves. Half-a-dozen small baths, fitted with hot and cold water, that the temperature may be modified to suit each bather, enable the stranger to bathe in the solitude he prefers. But more than two dozen others, in which from three to thirteen people can bathe together, are more characteristic of the place. The largest has a hot douche, and the temperature is often as high as 115° Fahrenheit. Here the native guests return two or three times a day to soak and to gossip. In this al fresco salon laughter reigns and conversation flows as freely as the water. Surprised indeed would the bathers be to learn that a costume is deemed essential by more prurient races, whose artificial manners divorce simplicity from decency. Yet Western prudery is beginning to corrupt the upper classes, who tend to convert these social gatherings into family parties, without going so far as to adopt a bathing-dress. The water is rather turbid and yellow. It contains iron and sulphate of soda. Most of the patients suffer from rheumatism or barrenness, and look on a course of treatment as a sovereign remedy. Some also drink of the mineral spring which lies at the end of the Yusawa ravine, where seats and swings line a well-shaded avenue. Probably they derive more benefit from the pleasant promenade than the unpleasant beverage.
The first friend I made was a silk merchant and a poet. I shall call him Yamada San. I had gone one day a few hundred yards down the precipitous path leading to Shibukawa, when my attention was arrested by a very pretty tableau. To the left of the road lay a lute-shaped pond, traversed by little bridges and dotted with islands on which stone lanterns and wooden shrines proclaimed the owner’s piety. The deeper end of the lakelet was overshadowed by a balcony, on which sat two serious young men with rod and line, while a daintily-dressed girl reclining beside them was preparing bait—that is, crumbling a soft bread-cake with delicate fingers. The fish seemed wary, and I remarked one astute leviathan among gold-fish that succeeded in snatching the bait and swimming away with an impudent cock of the tail that would have exasperated a less patient angler. Remarking my interest, the fishermen politely invited me to join them; and then I discovered two curious features of this gentle angling—its cheapness and its humanity. The proprietor was willing to provide all accessories and implements for three-farthings, on one condition: any fish which had the imprudence to be hooked must be tenderly replaced in the water. Thus he reconciled Buddhistic kindness to animals with encouragement of sport, and the fish obtained a maximum of food with a minimum of risk. It seemed that Yamada San was also staying at Kindayu’s. We therefore returned together, while O Mitsu, his charming child-wife, walked submissively behind. Woven silk filled his business hours, but woven sentiments his leisure. Before the hotel was reached he confided to me the poem which had just germinated in his mind that afternoon. He had really been fishing for fancies.
“Yioyeyama
Kasanaru kumono
Ōkunaron
Honokani moreru
Saoshika no koye.”
Range above range, piled up to the clouds, what numberless mountains!
Faintly between escapes from afar the voice of the roebuck.
As he understood a little English, I conferred on him this brace of hexameters. He was naturally astonished by such long lines, but, as his Tanka contained thirty-one syllables and my translation only thirty, we had both expressed the same ideas in about the same space. Exchange of verses was followed by exchange of presents. In the evening I received a large cake with Yamada San’s compliments. Then came my first unconscious lapse from etiquette. In the hope of pleasing both husband and wife, I presented O Mitsu with a quaintly carven kanzashi, an ornamental hair-pin; but, though she did not seem displeased, the poet thanked me with a cold, disapproving air. At a later stage he explained how improper it was considered to pay the least attention to a married woman. I apologised, and he went on to explain that love-marriages were becoming the rule and not the exception, and that among his friends few matches were now arranged without consulting the wishes of the two most concerned. However, O Mitsu was permitted to play to me on her koto, and to condone my indiscretion with the parting gift of a much-cherished fan, on which was inscribed a famous poem by Tsuma to the following effect:
Though I may sing of the beautiful garments of beautiful women,
Dearer to me are the pines of Japan and the cherries in blossom.
By this engaging couple I was initiated into a novel game, played with flower cards, Hana-Karuta. The pack consists of forty-eight pieces, each three inches by two, and of twelve suits, Moon, Rain, Iris, Clover, Cherry-blossom, Maple-leaf, Wistaria, Chrysanthemum, Pine, Peony, Plum, and Paulownia Imperialis. The four cards of each suit are worth 1, 5, 10, and 20 points respectively. The player may only draw a card from the pool if he have one of the same suit in his hand. Failing this, he must enrich the pool by one of his cards when his turn comes to draw. Each pair, when made, is laid on the table, and when the pack is exhausted the player who has scored most points is declared winner. This very simple game had much vogue in Ikao, but when the party included no ladies the more difficult Go-Ban was more popular. Like all his countrymen, Yamada San was a rapid draughtsman, and would often, when appealed to for information on historical or religious matters, illustrate his meaning by clever sketches. Of these I retain two excellent specimens: a drawing of Yoshitsune in elaborate armour and a long-nosed tengu, or mountain-goblin, which has many characteristics in common with the Scandinavian trold. Unfortunately, our acquaintance was limited to three days, for at the end of that time business recalled the poet to Ashikaga, but he exacted a promise that I would pay a visit to that interesting town, given up to cotton and Confucius.
As if to console me on the evening of this departure, the kindly Kindayu family invited all their guests to a performance given by three local geisha in the principal room of the hotel. The chief musician was a masculine-looking woman of fifty, who thrummed a kokyu, or three-stringed fiddle, and broke in on the recitative of her young companions at unexpected moments with peculiar growls and sharp cries as of an animal in agony. When the narrative of the soloist took a tragic turn, these inhuman noises were so distressing that, without following the story, I experienced acute pain, while my neighbours of the more sympathetic sex were actually in tears. Had my musical education been more advanced, I should have realised that these were no singers of light Dodoitsu, but exponents of a far loftier type of entertainment, the Gedayu or musical drama. It originated in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is sometimes called Jōruri after a heroine of that name, whose tragic love for Yoshitsune is a favourite theme of composers. In fact, the geisha on this occasion were usurping the rôle of Jōruri-katari or dramatic reciters, whose chanted recitative formed the nucleus, first, of the marionette theatre, and, later, of the popular theatre, when dialogue and scenic art were superadded. In the absence of either human or wooden dolls, a most lugubrious effect was produced. At last, to my relief, a male performer, a pince-sans-rire, whose dry humour and staccato diction stamped him of the tribe of Grossmith, transformed the audience from weeping Niobes to effigies of mirth. In vain the polite little ladies tried to smother their smiles behind their raised kimono sleeves: as the song proceeded they were vanquished by fits of laughter, and shook helplessly on their cushions. I possessed but one cue to this infectious merriment in the constantly recurring word emma, which on the lips of Mr. Dan Leno would have assuredly referred to his wife or his mother-in-law, those patient butts of music-hall humour, but which would only mean for Japanese ears the Buddhist Rhadamanthus, who pronounces sentence on all who enter hell. Considerably mystified, I turned to Tanaka Okusama, another visitor from Ashikaga, and inquired if “the honourable singer were really singing about hell-things.” He was. The song was an amusing but irreverent pastiche of social satire. It described the arrival in Hades of the bad judge, the cheating merchant, the false singing-girl; their confession and appropriate punishment. Again I missed the marionettes, for their presence would have recalled an exactly similar treatment of the same theme in a Montmartre puppet-show. And I remembered how the Parisian populace joined delightedly in the cry of “A la chaudière!” as the mimic devil chased lawyer and cocotte into a Punch-and-Judy Inferno. It was the mystery play of the Middle Ages, surviving as a crude comedy for the ignorant poor—a rough travesty of the theology in which their more instructed superiors still affect to believe.
In the course of the next fortnight I became well acquainted with Tanaka Okusama, and through her with many others. She was a most intelligent, capable woman, who conducted one business while her husband had charge of another, grain and rice being the commodities in which they dealt. She considered herself middle-aged at the age of thirty-two, wore therefore most sombre colours, and was the mother of six boys, two of whom joined her at Ikao. Her explanation of the emma song was followed by an avowal of religious disbelief. She was neither a Buddhist nor a Shintōist, but believed that the priests taught old wives’ fables, and for her own part concentrated her mind on her business and her family. A free-thinking Japanese woman was a novel phenomenon to me then, though I have since met several. The fragments of Western history which she had acquired were also interesting items in her conversation. Plied with questions about English sights and customs, I was also asked to give an opinion on Cæsar, Napoleon, and Epaminondas. What I recalled of the last hero was so shadowy that I felt inclined to parody the Oxford undergraduate’s evasive reply: “About Epaminondas little is known, but it may safely be assumed that, as he lived, so he died.” However, Tanaka Okusama knew more than that about him, for she had just been reading “Keikoku Bidan,” a popular novel by Yano Fumiō, who is supposed to have selected Theban politics for his subject, that he might administer useful lessons to his compatriots. I suspected that novel-reading was the source of most of the lady’s knowledge. Indeed, she disclaimed all pretension to the title of blue-stocking.
Continual tea-parties in my room or hers, though very educational, were marred for one of us by two circumstances—the familiarity of servants and the uncertainty of time. Democratic in sympathy, preferring the expansiveness of the simple to the discreet inanity of the genteel, I was yet a little surprised to remark the ultra-friendly relations between servant and guest. A “boy” would enter with profound obeisance, deliver a message or an article demanded, and, being invited to join the party, would play cards, ask and be asked very personal questions, make himself thoroughly at home, and depart when duty called, bowing low. At first it is difficult not to associate these prostrations with subservience, but they really imply nothing but good manners. When the guest left the hotel, he would hand the “boy” a tip, wrapped in paper, as etiquette requires, for that delicacy which impels us to concede intimacy and refuse money, or to refuse intimacy and concede money to social inferiors, because the conjunction of the two offends our sense of the deference due to class-distinctions, would appear strange to the far more rigidly classified Japanese. In fact, more real democracy—if by that be meant frank and unembarrassed intercourse between high and low—is possible under a caste system than any other. Every one “knows his place,” and has no inducement to affect a higher rank than he really possesses by an assumption of haughty manners. The innate courtesy of most Japanese servants renders friendship with them more delightful than might be supposed, but occasionally one comes across a conceited, half-educated fellow in European dress, who passes from familiarity to impertinence. However, I was soon taught a more difficult lesson than that of forgetting class prejudice. Perhaps the hardest of all truths engrained in Oriental theory and conduct is the unimportance of time. We, who live by machinery which measures for most men the hours of work, the hours of play, until life becomes a time-table and the heart a chronometer, are absolutely incapable of indifference to Time’s tyranny. When I proffered or accepted an invitation, nothing amused these hospitable lotus-eaters so much as my natural bias towards punctuality. What did it matter? The morning, if I liked, or the afternoon, or the evening: time was made for man, not man for time. Accordingly, if I paid a promised call and became the involuntary witness of a toilette, a meal, or a siesta, I had merely to withdraw and call again. If my guests did not arrive at the prescribed hour, they would come some hours later, or even sooner, or not at all. At first I was so put out by these vagaries and so fearful of intruding, that it took message after message to draw me from my own society or that of a book. But gradually I realised that in this happy country offence was not readily given or taken; that time was a negligible convention; that to follow the impulse of the moment was wiser than to ape the precision of a clock. I have heard the British trader exclaim in Japan, “They can never become a great nation; they are so unbusinesslike!” and I sympathised with his horror of Eastern nonchalance, but I doubt his conclusion. Merchants in Russia are just as dilatory. Yet either country can count on promptitude in military or political exigency. What commerce loses in time it gains to some extent through restrictions imposed on foreign rivalry. In any case, as they emerge from feudal to industrial conditions those indolent races will be forced by the law of self-defence to quicken the pace. As for me, I resolved to ignore my watch and rely on Zaburo Tanaka.
Zaburo was a bright-eyed schoolboy of ten. Close-shaven and bare-footed, he raced from wing to wing of the hotel in a single cotton garment with cheerful impetuosity. At breakfast I would hear him on a balcony fifty yards away reading aloud in that monotonous sing-song which his countrymen adopt, even in trains, without evoking a protest from fellow-travellers. At first I imagined him to be reciting prayers, but this supposition was erroneous. Two or three times a day his knock would rattle on my sliding-door and a loud summons would entreat Edoardo San to keep him company. When his mother was occupied with private cares, he would obtain leave to visit with me the Benten-daki, and as we watched the tumbling terror of that lovely waterfall, sparkling against green boughs, I was the recipient of many schoolboy confidences. His great ambition was to fight for the Mikado; his accounts of school life were tinged with military ardour. The elder boys had guns and knapsacks of fur; in the summer boys and masters camped out together; his intimate friend, Rokutaro, had lost an elder brother in the war with China, and the others were quite envious of that funereal privilege. He remembered one verse of a song which his school-fellows were fond of singing, as they marched to the drill-ground. The air was spirited, but the words were more naïf than ingenious, if the following stanza be typical of the rest:
JAPANESE WAR-SONG
| Ana u-reshi | yo-ro-ko-bashi | ta-ta-kai ka-chi no |
| Oh, how full of bliss, | how delightful ’tis, | When you fight, to win the day! |
| Momo chi-ji no | Ad-a wa mina | A-to naka nari nu |
| Hundreds went before, | Thousands are no more, | All our foes have passed away. |
Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too old to play with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun cemented our too brief alliance.
In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of Bon, better known as the Feast of Lanterns, when the souls of the dead revisit the living. The decay of religion has unfortunately robbed this touching celebration of its more striking features. Formerly on the eve of the fête the graves were hung with lanterns, that the spirits might be lighted on the way to their old homes. On the day itself the villagers fasted, but left before the household shrine flowers and water and a little food, while they went out towards evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint songs and clapping their hands to the strains of drum and flute. Then, when the time was come for the spirits to return, on river and stream were launched a fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its paper lantern, in which the invisible visitors were wafted back to shadow-land. These things are done no more, or only in remote rural districts. Danger to shipping caused the floating of little fire-ships to be prohibited in the ports, while at Tōkyō the ceremony of “opening the river” covers the Sumidagawa with gay pleasure-boats, and in the secular crackle of fireworks the sacred associations of the day are forgotten. In the villages the peasants have not abandoned the dance, which town-folk delegate to geisha, but its date varies from district to district, and I did not witness one until a month later at Akakura. Yet Ikao has contrived to preserve the more pious aspect of All Souls’ Day by two simple services of devotion in graveyard and temple.
By the merest accident I caught sight of a group of women passing through a dark grove of cryptomeria, whose lofty aisles are sown with innumerable tombs. I had often been there, allured by the tranquil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed eloquent of everlasting repose. To-day their silent watch was broken by the passage of many rustling skirts and gentle laughter, for even in such places the childish musumé does not deem it sinful to smile. I struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my landlord, Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four serving-women. One carried a kettle of boiling water, another some sticks of incense, and a third some flowers. Permission being accorded to join them, I went along with them to more than thirty graves. On each a little water was poured, a little incense burned, and the prayer, “Namu Amida Butsu,” uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after relations by marriage or adoption had been visited, the last to receive salutation was a banto, or temporary bookkeeper, who had died four years before after eight years’ service. “Will not the honourable stranger also make a prayer?” was asked, and I complied, repeating “Namu Amida Butsu,” “I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha,” in the hope that their god would understand that his claim to adoration by barbarian lips lay in the kind memorial offices which his faith inspired. Many of the graves lay so far apart that we had crossed two valleys and found ourselves some miles from home at the luncheon-hour of noon. So we entered the nearest tea-house and were served with tea and sweet cakes. As the proprietor had a small stock of sacred images for sale, I bought for a souvenir of the day two clay foxes with tails gilded at the tip, the snarling door-keepers of the rice-goddess; but Inari must have rejected in anger my mock homage, for three weeks later in a carefully packed yanagori I grieved to find chaotic “fragments of no more a” fox.
Personators of Jizō (Kiōgen).
That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and clatter of small feet below my balcony. Crowds of children, on foot or slung behind the patient backs of mother or elder sister, were making their way to the large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond and below the southern entrance of the hotel. It being holiday time, I had never seen any of the scholars, and the sole occupant of the spacious play-ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of Jizō in a red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint (nure-botoke), as the Japanese laughingly call such unhoused divinities, had always excited my sympathy, for there he stood without his five companions’ society, exposed to rain and wind, disregarded even by the very infants whose patron saint he is considered to be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones would be glad enough, on reaching the dry bed of the River of Souls, to seek refuge in his large kimono sleeves, when mischievous demons should demolish the pebble-heaps which it would be their duty to pile up there as the penalty of childish faults. But perhaps they were too busy playing to remember him during the holidays, or perhaps they had unbelieving teachers who connived at their neglect. I indulged a faint hope that public expiation was to be made, and that the toddling crowd would lay some tribute on his faithful lap. But its destination was a temple situated below the school-house, and as it swept merrily by grotesque, deserted Jizō I fancied that the stone features grew more rigid and grey beneath the cotton night-cap, his consolatory proof of at least one worshipper.
Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed the rest to a small temple, which was surrounded by women and children. On a raised platform, which formed the temple-floor, about a dozen priests, resplendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The babies were gazing open-eyed on the bright embroideries of instruments and vestments, while as many people as could be accommodated were allowed to occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. Among them a place was obligingly made for me, and soon after I had taken my seat the priests also sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and watched the crowds making prostration, buying holy knick-knacks, and flinging copper coins into the broad-barred money-boxes, but this was the first sermon I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting to the theme, “Mina sekai no hito kiodai”—all beings in the universe are brothers—the orator spoke long and earnestly of the unseen ties which bind the living and the dead, of the infinite chords and scales of existence, of the love and goodwill which no creature was too humble to show or too lofty to accept. Sometimes an old man groaned, and sometimes an urchin was removed screaming, but most of the listeners remained passive and stolid till the end. Then babies were hoisted, farewell bows were exchanged, and the congregation melted away. If you ask me why so many children were present, I can only suppose that they were attracted by the excitement of novelty. There was none of the bustle and glare which make a matsuri, the ordinary temple fête, one glorious saturnalia of piety and merriment, when theatres and booths, covered with wonderful paper toys and every known variety of sweetmeat, block the approaches to the sacred building. In this the Buddhists greatly outshine their more austere Shintōist rivals. Probably nine-tenths of the peasants are in agreement with an old man with whom I conversed after an impressive service at Hommonji, the chief temple of the Nichiren sect. As we descended the temple-steps I asked him why he preferred Buddhism to other forms of faith. “Because,” he answered, “it is more amusing.”
I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar rocking sensation, as if my bed were a cradle swung to and fro by invisible hands. Then I saw the obbasan, an old woman who waited on the European guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the verandah. It dawned on me that this must be a long-hoped-for earthquake, and as the vibrations ceased after some seconds, which naturally seemed of unusual length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say that the fear of earthquake, unlike the fear of other dangers, is increased rather than lessened by experience. Certainly the Japanese themselves, in spite of their fatalism, realise to the full the terrible penalty of inhabiting a land of volcanoes. That day little else was talked of. Two little girls, who had been adopted by Kindayu San after losing their parents in the great shock, followed by a tidal wave, some years before, became objects of particular attention. Now, Ikao is perched on the flank of a volcano, and the site of an extinct crater is occupied by the beautiful Haruna Lake, which I had not yet visited, so gladly I accepted the proposal of Nitobe San to walk there. I had made his acquaintance a few days previously on the archery-ground, adjoining the hotel, where he displayed remarkable skill in handling the unwieldy bow which is still a popular and effective weapon in the hands of Japanese archers. Indeed, he was only surpassed by a samurai of about fifty, who hit the bull’s-eye four times out of five. Yet his appearance was far more studious than athletic, for Nitobe San attended the medical school at the University of Tōkyō, and when he pored over German text-books through gold-rimmed spectacles had already the reassuring gravity of a family doctor.
Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, instead of continuing to the source of the mineral spring, we ascended a steep and tortuous path to the right, which at every turn disclosed new aspects of the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop to gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like golden stars in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except where the carefully kept track wound in and out, the mountain side was swathed in evergreen. Issuing at length from the trees, we reached a grassy plateau, on which is the grazing ground of the milch-cows that supply Ikao. To the left is a curious conical hill, known as the Haruna Fuji; and other masses of irregular rock are partially covered with lichen, so as to produce the effect of ruined castles half hidden by clambering ivy. Indeed, my first impression was that these were relics of feudal fortresses, until closer inspection revealed the freakish cleverness of Nature. Two miles of level walking brought us to the lake, which is simply a large tarn surrounded by small bosom-shaped hillocks at such regular intervals as to repeat the irresistible suggestion of human ingenuity. It might have been a giant’s silver shield embossed upon the border with knobs of jade.
Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for hot sun and loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and ear. After lunch I took a bathe from the only boat to be obtained, though its crazy, water-logged condition left much to be desired. However, the boatman did his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft, and, as I undressed, hung each garment in succession round his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, as they otherwise certainly would have been. Much refreshed, I persuaded my companion to extend our walk to the ancient Shintō temple of Haruna, not more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes too narrow and precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges suddenly into a curiously imagined glen. Never had I seen such bizarre configuration, such eccentric juxtaposition of tree and stone. Pines darted like dragons from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a thicket, or lowered savagely across the torrent, which raced or trickled below. It seemed as though the spirits of water and wood and fire had suddenly been petrified at the supreme moment of a great triangular battle, and waited, weapon in hand, to spring once more each at his adversary’s throat. Evidently the old temple, dedicated to Ho-musubi, the god of fire, and Haniyasu-hime, the goddess of earth, was the citadel, defended and attacked by these weird combatants. Towering cryptomeria stood on guard around it, and huge rocks, tip-toe on tenuous bases, attended the word of command to crush the curving rafters. It needed but one signal from the imprisoned fire-god, one movement of the volcanic earth-goddess, to fill that fantastic glen with the clamour and débris of primæval war. Elsewhere we might have admired the carven serpents, that writhed so realistically about the side-beams of the porch. At Nikkō or the Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyōto they might have impressed us as masterpieces of creative carpentry, but at Haruna the comparison was too trying. It was hopeless to compete with God’s more monstrous curios.
Here at last was a Shintō stronghold which did not seem abandoned and desolate, but bore traces of frequent worshippers. Above the sacred cisterns waved blue towels, suspended after purification; at the feet of a Shintōised Jizō rose a mound of propitiatory stones; on the kagura-dō, or dancing platform, an old woman, the priest’s wife, began her symbolic dance. As she slowly revolved, shaking her bunch of bells or waving her fan, she chanted words so venerable that all clue to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly the solemn contortions of a dying faith than the smart young priestesses of Nara in their red silk trousers and snowy mantles of flowered gauze. When those tripped forward, with thickly-powdered faces and chaplets of artificial wistaria, their garish aspect transformed the temple to a tea-house, but in this sombre fastness at the heart of Haruna we seemed to behold a very sibyl of aboriginal Japan. The assistant priest was affable but ignorant. A copy of the “Kojiki,” earliest of known records of the Way of the Gods, was kept there, he affirmed, but he had never opened it and might not show it to strangers. In winter it was terribly cold, and snow-storms would sometimes cut them off from all communication with the outer world. When floods made the torrent impassable the senior kannushi’s children were obliged to do their lessons at home. But summer brought troops of pilgrims to the valley, and their offerings sufficed to keep the little band of guardians at their posts. “Are you never afraid,” I asked, “of the earth opening and the rocks falling? Only this morning we felt a slight shock of earthquake at Ikao.” The young priest smiled gravely. “No,” he answered. “For more than five hundred years the kami have protected their holy place. Why should we be afraid?”
We made a small donation, and received in exchange a printed promise of Ho-musubi’s and Haniyasu-hime’s blessing, to which our names were appended. Then, turning our backs on that grim sanctuary, we climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we retraversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San described the student’s life at Tōkyō. Between 1890 and 1898 their numbers had increased from thirteen to nearly nineteen hundred, so that a second university was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyōto. But of course the Red Gate (as the Tōkyō University is familiarly called) would remain the classic portal of modern learning. The college of medicine, in which his own studies were pursued, is entirely under German influence: none but German and Japanese professors give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engineering, literature, science, and agriculture, English teachers predominate. Most of the students work desperately hard, but enjoy great liberty. The majority are poor, and some have very rough manners. The Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief of Police, who had been summoned to receive orders to repress anti-foreign demonstrations, that “the offenders were invariably either rickshaw-men or students.” Their life is far more gregarious than that of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the small block of residential buildings within the university grounds six or eight young men read, eat, and sleep in one room. These are a privileged minority of scholarship-winners, and are subjected to rather irksome restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. But the larger number live in lodging-houses, where practically no more control is exercised than over any other class of citizens. Competition is so severe that posts cannot be found for any but a small fraction of the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists who hope to make a living in those professions. In consequence the disappointed graduates turn sōshi and live by their wits as spies, agitators, actors, authors, or even as itinerant musicians. Naturally, extreme views are adopted and discussed with the fervour of youth. The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western innovations, Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the substitution of Roman characters for Chinese ideographs. In vain I pointed out to him how the latter blocked the pupil’s advance and impeded international intercourse. He feared that such a step would not only tend to destroy communion with the past, but would also diminish the probability of that alliance between China and Japan which was cherished as the only means of checking Russian aggression. I formed the conclusion from this and other conversations that the salient qualities of a Japanese student are independence and passionate curiosity. It did not surprise me to learn afterwards from an English professor that his classes had summaries of his lectures printed at their own expense to facilitate the acquisition of new ideas in a foreign tongue.
While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton hakama (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation—a joy too subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters.
Ikao was in truth a microcosm of Japanese society. Representatives of nearly every class came and bathed and went their way refreshed in spirit, if not cured in body, by the restful babbling water. One day an ex-daimyō, who had held high office in a recent Cabinet, arrived with a small retinue of relations and dependants. Quiet and dignified, he was only to be distinguished by a greater sobriety of manner from less aristocratic neighbours. Occasionally odd instances of polygamous experiment attracted general remark. A Tōkyō merchant came accompanied by an elderly wife, a blind baby, and two mistresses who had formerly been geisha. The three women were on excellent terms, and disputed only the privilege of spoiling the thrice-mothered child. Every evening for them was a “musical evening,” as the man had a good voice and the geisha were expert samisen players. Nitobe San described the ménage as “a little barbarous.” But, whether his opinion was shared by many or few, it made no difference in the reception of the new-comers, who were treated with the same frank courtesy as less numerously married folk. Indeed, frankness and propriety were marked characteristics of this hydropathic paradise. If the bathers imitated Adam and Eve in simplicity of tenue, their behaviour, too, like that of our first parents before the Fall, was faultless. Conversation was entirely unembarrassed and perfectly decorous. The very publicity of this hotel life was a guarantee of morality. And, in fact, one could see that beneath extreme freedom of intercourse careful etiquette was observed. Neither young girl nor married woman ever went out alone: the tea-party never became a tête-à-tête. The shōji of the apartments were generally half open; the amusements were such as to assemble and introduce the visitors to one another. Dancing and flirting, as practised in English watering-place or French casino, were unknown. If the men desired other female society than that of their own class, they could seek the geisha-ya or jōro-ya. If many of the diversions were childish, those of Brighton or Trouville cannot rank as intellectual exercises. It was a lazy, healthy, happy sort of paradise, and I did not live in it long enough to discover the serpent.