From Gion gate to Shijo bridge the street was one wavering, glittering line of light, and crowded solidly with people. Where the street narrows near the bridge there is a region of theatres and side-shows, and there banners and pictures, drums and shouting ticket-sellers, and a denser crowd of people gathered. A loud shout and a measured chorus heralded a group of men carrying a Brobdingnagian torch, a giant bamboo pole blazing fiercely at its lofty tip. The crowd surged back to the walls as the torch-bearers ran by and on to the middle of Shijo bridge, where they waved the burning wand in fiery signals to the other bridges that the real procession was starting. More torches and lanterns, lines of priests in garments of silk and gauze, wearing strange hats, beating and blowing strange instruments; and a sacred red chair, reason for all this ceremony, was borne on from the Gion to a distant Shinto sanctuary to remain until the matsuri of the following year.
From Shijo bridge to Sanjo bridge Kioto’s river-bed is like a scene from fairy-land throughout the summer, and during the Gion matsuri the vision is enhanced. The tea-houses that line the river-bank with picturesquely galleried fronts set out acres of low platform tables in the clear, shallow stream. The water ripples pleasantly around them, giving a grateful sense of coolness to these æsthetic Japanese, who sit in groups on the open platforms, smoking their pipes and feasting under the light of their rows of lanterns. All the broad river-bed is ablaze with lights and torches, and on the dry, gravelly stretches a multitude of small peddlers, venders, and showmen set up their attractive tents and add to the general glitter and illumination. Hundreds linger and stroll on the bridges to admire the gay sight, for as only this people could have conjured up so brilliant a spectacle out of such simple and every-day means, so only they can fully enjoy its beauty and charm. All the children wear their gayest holiday clothes on such a great matsuri night, and the graceful women of the old capital, bareheaded, rustling in silk and gauze, their night-black hair spread in fantastic loops and caught with beautiful hair-pins, are worthy of their surroundings.
We left the bridge and wandered over the loose gravel and rocks of the river-beds, crossing by many planks and tiny bridges from one small island of shingle to another. There were countless fruit-stands, with their ingenious little water-fountains spraying melons and peaches to a dewy coolness and freshness, hair-pin stands glittering with silver flowers, and fan and toy and flower booths, and all the while we wandered there the people watched and followed with a respectful curiosity that amused but could not annoy. Attracted by the beautiful face of a young girl just within the curtained door of a side-show, we paid the one cent entrance fee to see the conjurers. The tent was empty when we entered, but such a stream of natives poured in after us as to delight the proprietor and encourage the musicians to pound out more violent airs. A few miserable poodles were made to walk on two legs and otherwise discomfort themselves at the bidding of the beautiful girl, whose strange soft eyes and lovely face were set off by an elaborate coiffure, a coronet of silvery hair-pins, and a kimono of gray silk shot with many tinsel threads. We foreigners found the faces and holiday garb of the people more interesting than the performance, and the natives in turn seemed equally absorbed in watching us. Horse-shows, where daring but terrified Japanese bestrode steeds and ambled three times around the ring for a penny, puppet-shows, juggler-shows, and peep-shows drew us in turn from one end of the river-bed fair to the other, and when too weary to walk we remounted to the bridge to admire afresh this feast of lanterns, until at midnight we sought the groves of Maruyama.
CHAPTER XXIII
KIOTO TEMPLES
Kioto is seen at its best in summer-time, in the fulness and color of its out-door life. Though the great plain of the city bakes and quivers in the sun, the heat is no greater than in other cities. The views from Maruyama are always enchanting, and the sunset sky is not lovelier than the dawn, when all the hill-side lies in cool, green shade, when the opposite mountain-wall wears a veil of rose and lilac, and the air above the plain of gray roofs is full of filmy mists and tiny smoke-wreaths.
All travellers are abroad at sunrise or in the early morning, for by ten o’clock the sun blazes down with fury, and humane people keep their jinrikisha coolies and themselves in-doors. With the cooling dusk mosquitoes swarm from all these gardens and hill-side groves, and the victim fans and slaps until he creeps for safety under his mosquito-net, which, unhappily, does not exclude the nimble flea, whose ravages test both his endurance and his temper. At sunrise all the temples in Kioto open their gates for the first mass, and at dawn pilgrimages to these sacred spots may begin, the odor and silence of that dewy hour adding to their peace and sanctity.
All the way from Yaami’s to the Yasaka pagoda and the Kiomidzu temple the hill-side is covered with temple and monastery grounds, the way leading through broad, tree-shaded avenues and narrow paths by bamboo groves or evergreen thickets. Wide, flagged walks and grand stair-ways follow the terraces to temples and bell-towers, screened by open-work walls and approached through monumental gate-ways made beautiful by carving, gilding and painting, inlaid metals, and fine tiles. Crossing from one temple enclosure to another, the walk extends for two miles along the brow of the hill through beautiful grounds. The park-like demesne of Higashi Otani, with its imperial tombs, adjoins Yaami’s, and next it is the Kotaiji, with its noble avenues. At the end of one broad path-way, traversing the upper part of the Kotaiji grounds, the Yasaka pagoda, with its five stories of curving roofs and gables hung with old bronze bells, stands like a picture in the arching frame of green. These venerable pagodas, their walls covered with wondrous carvings and bracketings, faded to dim red and tarnished gold, with the gray and white tiles of their picturesque roofs half overgrown with mosses and vines, the topmost ridge finished with a tapering, spiral piece of iron, delight the lover of the picturesque. Yasaka’s cracked and tongueless bells have long ceased to swing and ring with every breeze, but they give an airy and fantastic touch to the fine old structure. The pagoda dates from the sixth century, and for twelve hundred years its four altars have heard the prayers of faithful Buddhists. The early light gilds its eastern wall, and the rich sunset makes of it a palace of the imagination. To me it seemed most beautiful one late afternoon, when, hurrying down the steep steps of a narrow street behind it, I saw its outlines, delicate and strong, against a glowing orange sky.
All about the pagoda and the neighboring slopes of Kiomidzu are potteries and shops for the sale of the cheap porcelain and earthen-ware that pilgrims and visitors are prone to buy on their way to and from the temples. The eminence is known as Teapot Hill, and the long, steep street leading from Gojo bridge to the Kiomidzu gates is lined on either side of its hilly half-mile with china shops. There one may collect his three hundred and sixty-five teapots in an hour, and few leave without a souvenir of Kiomidzu porcelain, be it from Kanzan’s or Dohachi’s godowns of exquisite wares, or from the long rows of charming little open shops. Kiomidzu is the centre of the porcelain-makers’ district, as the manufacturers of faience are grouped together in the Awata quarter, a mile beyond, and behind the little shop-fronts and blank walls are busy work-rooms and burning kilns.
The founding of the Kiomidzu temple is lost in fable, and its legends are many and confusing. All the Japanese rulers, warriors, and Shoguns have had something to do with the place, and every foot of its enclosure is historic. It is the popular temple of the people, enshrining one of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, to which pilgrims flock by thousands, and where one sees the most active forms of the faith. Climbing the breathless hill-slopes and stone stair-ways the visitor reaches a giant gate-way, in whose shadow mendicant priests stand with extended bowl, straw hats concealing them to the shoulders, and their maize and purple garments hung with rosaries. There are two pagodas and innumerable stone lanterns and shrines, upon which the faithful toss pebbles as they pray. If the stone remains the prayer is answered, and the pilgrim proceeds with a lightened heart. The Hondo, or main hall, is a most ancient building, one half resting on the slope of the hill and the rest extending in a broad platform propped up by heavy timbers and scaffolding over the face of a precipice. From this platform jealous husbands used to hurl their wives; those who survived the fall of one hundred and fifty feet to the jagged rocks below being proved innocent of wrong-doing, and those who perished guilty. There are no rows of ticketed clogs at the steps of the Hondo, nor soft, clean mats within. The hall is open and benches are set before the altar, where the weary, dusty pilgrim may sit and, resting, pray. Votive tapers are brought to the shrine, and the low beams overhead are covered with votive pictures.
One fortunate afternoon we chanced upon a matsuri at Kiomidzu. All Teapot Hill was crowded with people, girls and children in their gayly-colored crapes and gauzes vying in brightness with the decorated houses. Priests, sitting on small, canopied platforms, hammered silver-toned gongs to call the faithful to give offerings. Coins were tossed in generously on the blankets where the priests sat, but they were not the thick modern copper sens, nor yet silver. Money-changers had their little stands along the via sacra, and in exchange for a sen the believers received a handful of ancient rins and half-rins. Thus provided, the pilgrim could bestow his pious alms on each group of priests, and if he followed the polite custom of wrapping any money gift in a bit of soft paper, the priests could not tell whether he had thrown silver or copper. Within the temple grounds tateba were crowded with feasters and tea-drinkers, dozens of fruit-stands were piled with slices of watermelon, and fans painted with Kiomidzu scenes were sold on every side.