To the Ginkakuji retired the dignified Yoshimasa, eighth of the Ashikaga Shoguns, to found a monastery and to meditate, until with Murata Shinkio, the priest, and Soami, the painter, he evolved the minute and elaborate ceremonies of cha no yu. The weather-beaten boards and finely thatched roof of the first ceremonial tea-house in Japan, built before Columbus set sail for the Zipangu of Marco Polo, are greatly revered by Japanese visitors. Beautiful is the way to the Ginkakuji, past the high walls and gate-ways of monasteries, past the towering gates of countless temples, up their long shaded avenues, and on by bamboo groves and terraced rice fields. You buy wooden admission tickets for ten sen, which you give to a little acolyte, who opens the inner gate-way. This chisai bonze san (small priest) might have been twelve years old, but looked not more than five when I first knew him, and from shaven head to sandaled foot he was a Buddhist priest in miniature. This Shinkaku, leading the way to the lake with solemn countenance and hands primly clasped before him, suddenly broke forth into a wild, sing-song chant, which recited the names of the donors of the rocks and lanterns to the great Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He made us take off our shoes and creep up the steep and ancient stair-way of the Ginkakuji to see a blackened and venerable image of Amida. Morning, noon, and night service is said before the altar in the little old temple by the lake, and this small priest burns incense, passes the sacred books, and assists the wrinkled and aged priests in the observances of the Zen sect of Buddhists. Back of the monastery buildings is a lotus pond, where the great pink flower-cups fill the air with perfume, and every morning are set fresh before Buddha’s shrine.
Going westward from Kioto the traveller crosses rice fields, skirts a long bamboo hedge, and comes to the summer palace of Katsura no Miya, a relic of the Taiko’s days. An aunt of the Emperor occupied it until her recent decease, and to that is probably due its perfect preservation. An ancient samurai with shaven crown and silken garments receives, with a dozen bows, the handful of official papers that constitute a permit to visit the imperial demesne. Dropping his shoes at the steps, the visitor wanders through a labyrinth of little rooms, each exquisite, simple, and charming, with its golden screens and gold-flecked ceilings. The irregularly shelved recesses, the chigai dana of each room, the ramma, the lattices and windows, are perfect models of Japanese taste and art; and the Taiko’s crest is wrought in silver, gold, and bronze on all the mountings, and is painted and carved everywhere. The open rooms look upon a lovely garden, and paths of flat-topped stones lead through the tiny wilderness of lake, forest, thicket, and stream; over old stone bridges, stained and lichen-covered, to picturesque tea-houses and pavilions, overhanging the lake. Stone Buddhas and stone pagodas stand in shadowy places, and stone lanterns under dwarf pine-trees are reflected in the curve of every tiny bay. It is an ideal Japanese garden, with the dew of a midsummer morning on all the spider webs, and only the low note of the grasshoppers to break the stillness.
Although all tourists spend a day in shooting the rapids of the Oigawa, it seems to me a waste of precious Kioto time and a performance out of harmony with the spirit of the place, although in May the blooming azaleas cause that wild and narrow cañon to blaze with color. The flat-bottomed boats dart through the seven-mile gorge and dash from one peril of shipwreck to another, just saved by a dextrous touch of the boatmen’s poles, which fit into holes in the rocks that they themselves have worn. The flooring of the boats is so thin as to rise and fall with the pressure of the water, in a way that seems at first most alarming. The passage ends at Arashiyama, a steep hill clothed with pine, maple, and cherry-trees, which in cherry-blossom time, or in autumn, is the great resort of all Kioto, whose pleasurings there form the theme of half the geisha’s songs and the accompanying dances. From the tea-house on the opposite bank the abrupt mountain-side shows a mat of densest foliage. A torii at the river’s edge, stone steps and lines of lanterns lead to a temple on the summit, and down through the forest float the soft, slow beats of a temple-bell. The tea-house is famous for its fish-dinners, where tai, fresh from the cool, green river, are cooked as only the Japanese can cook them, and the lily bulbs, rice sandwiches, omelettes, and sponge-cake are so good that the place is always crowded.
Katsura no Miya is just below Arashiyama, and after one morning spent in the little palace, with its restful shade and stillness, our half-naked coolies ran with us through the glaring sunlight to the tea-house beside the cool waters of the Oigawa. They barely waited for us to step out of the jinrikishas before they plunged, laughing and frolicking, down the bank and leaped into the river, splashing and swimming there like so many frogs. They had run ten miles that morning, half of the way under a baking sun, the perspiration streaming from their bodies, and they plunged into the river as they were, taking off their one cotton garment and washing it, while they cooled themselves in the rushing waters. Then, lying down quite uncovered in their own quarters of the tea-house, they ate watermelon and cucumber, drank tea and smoked, until they dropped asleep in the scorching noonday of a cholera summer. In the late afternoon, when it was time to begin the long ride back to Maruyama, they limped out to us, lame and stiff in every joint and muscle, coughing and croaking like ravens. We felt that they must die in the shafts, but exercise soon relieved the cramped and stiffened limbs, and they trotted on as nimbly as ever over the hills to Kioto.
The coolie and his ways are matters of much interest to foreigners, but after a time one ceases to be amazed at their endurance or their recklessness. After the most violent exercise, ninsoku, the coolie, will take off his one superfluous garment and sit in summer ease in his decorated skin. Back, breast, arms, and thighs are often covered with elaborate tattooed pictures in blue, red, and black on the raw-umber ground. His philosophy of dress is a simple one. When the weather is too hot to wear clothes they are left off, and a wisp of straw for the feet, a loin-cloth, and a huge flat hat, a yard in diameter, weighing less than a feather, are enough for him. When there is no money to buy raiment he tattoos himself with gorgeous pictures, which he would never hide were there not watchful policemen and Government laws to compel him into some scanty covering.
The diet of these coolies seems wholly insufficient for the tremendous labor they perform—rice, pickled fish, fermented radish, and green tea affording the thin nutriment of working-days. Yet the most splendid specimens of physical health are reared and kept in prize-fighting condition on what would reduce a foreigner to invalidism in a week. I remember that while resting one hot morning under Shinniodo’s great gate-way, my coolie, who by an unusually early start had been interrupted in his breakfast of one green apple, asked for some tea-money. I watched the hungry pony while he treated his companions to a substantial repast of tea and watermelon. Strengthened and recuperated, he came back, shouldered camera and tripod, and as he walked down the hot flagging, complacently picked his teeth with the sharp point of one tripod stick—a toothpick four feet long!
CHAPTER XXVI
KIOTO SILK INDUSTRY
Kioto remains the home of the arts, although no longer the seat of government. For centuries it ministered to the luxury of the two courts, which gathered together and encouraged hosts of artists and artisans, whose descendants live and work in the old home. Kioto silks and crapes, Kioto fans, porcelains, bronzes, lacquer, carvings, and embroideries preserve their quality and fame, and are dearer and better than any other.
Silk is the most valuable article of export which Japan produces, and raw silk to the value of thirty millions of yens goes annually to foreign consumers, while the home market buys nearly seven millions of yens’ worth of manufactured fabrics. The Nishijin quarter of Kioto and the Josho district, north-west of Tokio, are the great silk centres of Japan, and any silk merchant, fingering a crape gown, will tell instantly which of the rival districts produced it. Recently Kofu, west of Tokio, and Hachioji, twenty miles south, have become important centres of manufacture as well. The silk market has its fluctuations, its panics, and its daily quotations by cable; but raw silk has so inherent a value that it is a good collateral security at any bank, and the silk-broker is as well established and important a personage in the mercantile world of the Orient as the stock-broker in the Occident. Next to specie or gems, silk is the most valuable of commodities in proportion to its bulk, the cargo of a single steamer often representing a value of two million dollars in gold. The United States is the greatest consumer of Japan’s raw silk. In 1875 fifty-three bales only of raw silk and cocoons were shipped to America. In 1878 there were two thousand three hundred and thirty-six bales, in 1887 some sixteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-four bales, and in 1901 the export of raw silk to America amounted to forty seven thousand six hundred and sixty-two bales. Our share of the raw silk is nearly all consigned to Paterson, N. J. With the opening of this great foreign trade, silk is dearer to the Japanese consumer than twenty years ago; and while it still furnishes the ceremonial dress, and is the choice of the rich, cotton and, of late, wool have taken its place to a great extent.