The prospect from Minë’s promontory is rivalled by that at Kanozan, directly across the Bay, one of the highest points on the long tongue of separating land. Here are splendid old temples, almost unvisited by foreigners, but the glory of the place is the view of the ninety-nine valleys, of Yeddo Bay, the ocean, and the ever-dominant Fujiyama. Every Japanese knows the famous landscapes of his country, and the mention of these ninety-nine valleys and the thousand pine-clad islands of Matsuyama brings a light to his eyes.
At Yokosuka, fifteen miles below Yokohama, are the Government arsenal, navy-yard, and dry docks, with their fleets of war-ships that put to shame the American squadron in Asiatic waters. The Japanese Government has both constructed and bought a navy; some vessels coming from Glasgow yards, and others having been built at these docks.
Uraga, reached from Yokosuka by a winding, Cornice-like road along the coast, is doubly notable as being the port off which Commodore Perry’s ships first anchored, and the place where midzu ame, or millet honey, is made. The whole picturesque, clean little town is given up to the production of the amber sweet, and there are certain families whose midzu ame has not varied in excellence for more than three hundred years. The rice, or millet, is soaked, steamed, mixed with warm water and barley malt, and left to stand a few hours, when a clear yellow liquid is drawn off and boiled down to a thick syrup or paste, or cooked until it can be moulded into hard balls. Unaffected by weather, it is the best of Japanese sweets, and in its semiliquid stage is twisted out on chopsticks at all seasons of the year. The older and browner the midzu ame is, the better. It may be called the apotheosis of butter-scotch, a glorified Oriental taffy, constantly urged upon one for one’s own good, and conceded by foreign physicians in Japan to be of great value for dyspeptics and consumptives. Though prepared all over the empire, this curative sweet is the specialty of Uraga; and the secrets and formulas held in the old families make for Uraga midzu ame, as compared with other productions, a reputation akin to that of the Grande Chartreuse, or Schloss Johannisberger, among other cordials or wines. Street artists mould midzu ame paste, and blow it with a pipe into myriad fantastic shapes for their small patrons; while at the greatest banquets, and even on the Emperor’s table, it appears in the fanciful flowers that decorate every feast.
CHAPTER V
KAMAKURA AND ENOSHIMA
The contemporary Yankee might anticipate the sage reflections of the future New Zealander on London Bridge were there left enough ruins of the once great city of Kamakura to sit upon; but the military capital of the Middle Ages has melted away into rice fields and millet patches. One must wrestle seriously with the polysyllabic guide-book stories of the shoguns, regents, and heroes who made the glory of Kamakura, and attracted to it a population of five hundred thousand, to repeople these lonely tracts with the splendid military pageants of which they were the scene.
The plain of Kamakura is a semicircle, bounded by hills and facing the open Pacific, the surf pounding on its long yellow beach between two noble promontories. The Dai Butsu, the great bronze image of Buddha, which has kept Kamakura from sinking entirely into obscurity during the centuries of its decay, stands in a tiny valley a half-mile back from the shore. The Light of Asia is seated on the lotus flower, his head bent forward in meditation, his thumbs joined, and his face wearing an expression of the most benignant calm. This is one of the few great show-pieces in Japan that is badly placed and lacks a proper approach. Seen, like the temple gate-ways and pagodas of Nikko, at the end of a long avenue of trees, or on some height silhouetted against the sky, Dai Butsu (Great Buddha) would be far more imposing. Within the image is a temple forty-nine feet in height; and through an atmosphere thick with incense may be read the chalked names of ambitious tourists, who have evaded the priests and left their signatures on the irregular bronze walls. An alloy of tin and a little gold is mingled with the copper, and on the joined thumbs and hands, over which visitors climb to sit for their photographs, the bronze is polished enough to show its fine dark tint. The rest of the statue is dull and weather-stained, its rich incrustation disclosing the seams where the huge sections were welded together.
A pretty landscape-garden, banks of blossoming plum-trees, and the usual leper at the gate-way furnish the accustomed temple accessories, and Buddha broods and meditates serene in his quiet sanctuary. The photographic skill of the priest brings a good revenue to the temple, and a fund is being slowly raised for building a huge pavilion above the great deity, like that which stood there three hundred years ago. During his six centuries of holy contemplation at Kamakura, Dai Butsu has endured many disasters. Earthquakes have made him nod and sway on the lotus pedestal, and tidal waves have twice swept over and destroyed the sheltering temple, the great weight and thickness of the bronze keeping the statue itself unharmed.
Kamakura is historic ground, and each shrine has its legends. The great temple of Hachiman, the God of War, remains but as a fragment of its former self, the buildings standing at the head of a high stone-embanked terrace, from which a broad avenue of trees runs straight to the sea, a mile and a half away. Here are the tomb of Yoritomo and the cave tombs of his faithful Satsuma and Chosen Daimios; and the priests guard sacredly the sword of Yoritomo, that of Hachiman himself, the helmet of Iyeyasu, and the bow of Iyemitsu.
In the spring, Kamakura is a delightful resort, on whose dazzling beach climate and weather are altogether different from those of Yokohama or Tokio. In summer-time, the steady south wind, or monsoon, blows straight from the ocean, and the pine grove between the hotel and shore is musical all day long with the pensive sough of its branches. In winter it is open and sunny, and the hot sea-water baths, the charming walks and sails, the old temples and odd little villages, attract hosts of visitors.