The most harrowing situation of the old romances was the falling in love of a noble with a beautiful eta girl. Now the eta children attend the Government schools on the same terms as their betters. But this liberality was of slow growth, and in one province, where the stiff-necked parents withdrew their children because of the presence of these pariahs, the governor entered himself as a pupil, sitting side by side with the little outcasts in the same classes, after which august demonstration of theoretical equality caste distinctions were allowed to fade.
Nikko becomes a great curio mart each summer, the curios having, naturally, a religious cast; and bells, drums, gongs, incense-burners, images, banners, brocade draperies, and priestly fans make a part of every peddler’s pack, each thing, of course, being certified to have come from the sacred treasuries near by. The souvenirs, which the most hardened tourist cannot resist buying, are the Nikko specialties of trays, cups, boxes, and teapots of carved and lacquered wood, and of curious roots, decorated with chrysanthemums or incised sketches of the Sacred Bridge. The Japanese eye sees possibilities in the most unpromising knot, and the Japanese hand hollows it into a casket, or fits it with the spout and handle that turn it into a teapot. All the village street is lined with these wooden-ware shops, alternating with photograph and curio marts.
Visitors to Nikko always buy its yuoki, a candy made of chestnuts and barley-sugar, which comes in slabs an inch square and six inches long, wrapped in a dried bamboo sheath, and put in the dainty little wooden boxes which make Japanese purchases so attractive. It is like a dark-brown fig-paste, and has a flavor of marrons glaces and of maple-sugar. Flocks of children, with babies on their backs, hover about the yuoki shop in upper Nikko, and if the tourist bestows a box on them, their comical bobs and courtesies, their funny way of touching the forehead with the gift during all the bowing, and the rapture with which they attack the bar of sweets express most eloquent thanks.
When rain or fatigue prevented our making any out-door excursions, the village street furnished us with an all-day occupation. A mossy and abandoned rice-mill faced us across the road, with a tiny cascade dripping down from the leafy hill behind it, feeding its overshot wheel, and dropping by dwarf water-falls to the side of the road, whence it ran down the slope to add its singing to the water chorus that makes all Nikko musical. Pack-horses, farmers, pilgrims, and villagers went picturesquely by, each pedestrian tucking his kimono in his belt to shorten it, and holding a vast golden halo over his head in the shape of a flat, oil-paper rain umbrella.
A small garden separated our summer home at Nikko from our landlord’s house, and from early morning, when his amados thundered open, until dark, when they rumbled shut, the whole conduct of Japanese household life lay before us. Our neighbors came out of doors betimes. A bucket of water from a tiny cascade filled the broad, shallow copper wash-basin, in which one by one they washed their faces. Meanwhile the kettle boiled over the charcoal fire, and some child ran down to a provision-shop for a square slab of bean-curd, which, with many cups of tea, a little rice, and shreds of pickled fish, composed their breakfast. Then the futons were hung over poles or lines to sun; the andons, pillows, and big green tents of musquito-nets put away; the tatami brushed off, and the little shop put in order for the day.
The women washed and starched their gowns, pasting them down on flat boards to smooth and dry; sewed and mended, scrubbed and scoured in the narrow alcove of a kitchen all the morning; while the children trotted back and forth with buckets of water to sprinkle the garden, wash the stones, fill the bath-tubs, and supply the kitchen. The rice, after being washed and rubbed in the cascade, was soaked for an hour and then poured into the furiously boiling rice-pot. The brush fire under the stone frame of the kettle was raked out, and when the steam came only in interrupted puffs from under the cover, this was lifted to show a pot full to the brim of snowy-white grains. A soup had meanwhile been stewing, a fish had been broiled over charcoal, and, with tea, the noonday dinner was ready. At some hour of the day offerings of rice and food were mysteriously placed on the steps of the tiny shrine to the fox-god, chief ornament of the farther garden. Towards sundown came supper, and then the lighting of the lamps. Shadow pictures on the shoji repeated the actions and groupings within, the splash of water betrayed the family bath, and when all, from grandfather to baby, had been boiled and scrubbed, the amados banged, and the performance was over until sunrise.
CHAPTER XVI
CHIUZENJI AND YUMOTO
The Inquisition should have been put in possession of the Japanese kago as a lesser punishment for heretics, so exquisite and insidious are its tortures. This kago is a shallow basket with a high back, slung from a pole carried on the shoulders of two men, and in the mountains and remote districts is the only means of travel, except by pack-horses. The Japanese double their knees and sit on their feet with great dignity and apparent comfort; but the greater size of the foreigner, his stiff joints and higher head, prevent his fitting into the kago; nor is he much better off when he gets astride, dangling his long legs over the edges. Moreover, he not only knows that he looks ridiculous, but suffers the pangs of conscience for imposing his weight on two small coolies no larger than the ten-year-old boys of his own land. There are a few arm-chairs on poles, in which one may ride, like the Pope, or an idol in a procession, but the long poles, springing with the gait of four bearers, often make the passenger sea-sick.
