There is a delightful outlook from the glazed screens, a European concession, which probably will be general a few years hence, showing how easily the Japanese assimilate all foreign improvements, over the dark crinkled roofs across the wall of the street, into a seed merchant's opposite, where golden bunches of persimmons mingle with the sample baskets of grain. A dozen pairs of inquisitive eyes from the open balcony opposite, watch me brush my hair. Then we breakfast in a room, or rather, I should say, in five rooms, for the sliding screens are all thrown back, and, free and open as a summer-house, there are vistas of rooms on either side; and these screens are decorated with such artistic designs, a spray of bamboo with a red-legged stork; a branch of crimson maple with hanging tendrils, or a purple iris and some water-rushes. There is a bronze vase, too, filled with fresh wild flowers on the table. Then come the curio vendors, and, spreading their handkerchiefs on the floor, produce their treasures one by one.
Nagoya is celebrated for its magnificent feudal Castle. A police emissary, with silver-mounted jinrikishas, comes to conduct us over it, and it is as well, as there appears to be much red tape formality in admission to these royal domains.
Across the courtyard—a typical one, where the three yards to the gate is made by the winding paving-stones to appear quite a long distance, we sally forth into those kaleidoscopic streets, towards the great white donjon-keep, with its golden dolphins dominating the town.
The Castle has three moats; the outer one, with its green slopes and single row of fir trees, is given up to barracks and parade grounds, for there are upwards of 3000 troops at Nagoya, and being a holiday, the streets are full of their white uniforms and yellow-banded caps. The white walls of the Castle are raised from the moat on parapets formed of gigantic stones, and roofed with crenellated bronze tiles, whilst at the corners rise pagoda-shaped towers. These walls are the most wonderful part of the Castle, for many of the stories are six and nine feet long, and proportionately broad, and can be traced out, as length ways, slantways, across, they are piled up on a broad base, shelving backwards, without cement or earth, supported by their own weight. On many of the largest corner-stones are engraved marks and designs, to show that they were the contribution of the Daimyos, for the Castle was erected in 1610, by twenty barons, to serve as a residence for Yeyasu's son. Crossing the moat, which is dry, and used for tame deer, over a drawbridge, we enter the courtyard through a massive gateway.
The decorations inside the palace are exquisite, though the rooms are bare and uncared-for, and many of the paintings are defaced. In the first chamber, the fusumas, or sliding screens, are of dull gold, and painted on them are the most life-like lions, panthers, and leopards, the spots of the latter being specially well delineated; with glaring eyes, fierce whiskers, and lashing tails, they crouch in life-like attitudes, ready to spring; or in another group are mothers with their young ones gambolling around them. In another screen the bamboo trees have the joints of their stems faithful to life, and an adjoining one has a straggling fir-tree, just like one of those on the moat wall outside, with a blinking owl perched on the topmost branch. There are others with weeping willows, and red-leaved maples, and pink-and-white lotus; one in particular we noticed that had painted on it a tiger-lily, with yellow spots, a crimson peony, a blue convolvulus, and a white daisy, forming a peculiarly beautiful panel. Next to this is a spray, a mass of snow-white plum blossom, against a dull gold ground.
Nor are the animals less faithfully depicted, for there are pheasants with eyes on their tails, wild ducks flying across a pale-blue ground, with their flapping, outstretched wings, and webbed feet; a stork with red legs on which the sinuous rings are so life-like. In one room, which was especially reserved for the use of the Shogun when he came to visit his kinsman, the decorations are especially gorgeous, and here there are ideal Chinese scenes, which exactly resemble the familiar willow-pattern plate. There is the five-storied pagoda, the willow trees, and the high curve of the bamboo bridge. The roofs of these rooms are of black lacquer, inlaid with gold, whilst the windows are made of that geometrically carved lattice work, covered with opaque paper.
But perhaps the most beautiful thing of all is the open wood carving on the ramma, or ventilating screens, between the rooms, for here, that great Japanese artist, Hidara Jingoro, has carved the most exquisitely faithful representations of a white crane, a tortoise, a hen with her little ones, parrots, and birds of paradise. There is one that excites everybody's admiration. It is a cock perched on a drum, its beak wide open in the act of crowing, so natural, that you expect to hear the "Cock-a-doodle-doo." The red, erect coxcomb, and the brown and blue iridescence of the tail are life-like. And when we look round on this mass of gorgeous paintings and carvings, we marvel that their resplendent colours are undimmed by the lapse of three hundred years, that some are as bright to-day, as when they were executed three decades ago.
We ascend the great, gloomy, five-storied Keep, which is built up inside on massive beams of wood, whole tree trunks being used as supports. From the gallery at the top we have a charming view of the brown roofs of Nagoya, lying around the castle, of the military prison below, where the prisoners are exercising in the yard, of the heavy square roof of the temple rising up majestically above the squat houses—of the wide-reaching plain, and the circling mountains. The precious golden dolphins, covered over with wire netting, are above us, glittering resplendent in the sun. They measure eight feet in height, and are valued at 180,000 dols. One of them was sent to the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, and great was the despair of the citizens when, on its return voyage, it was wrecked in the Messageries steamer, the Nil. However, it was recovered from the deep, with great difficulty, and proudly restored to its original position.
Then we went for a drive, and I am not sure that the great centre street of Nagoya was not the most fascinating and absorbing one that we saw in Japan, and the whole town was charming in its bright cleanliness and bustling streets.
It is with a peculiar feeling of sadness that I write this description of Nagoya and recall its pleasant reminiscence, because the terrible news has just reached us in far off China, that an earthquake has destroyed this thriving town. It makes one's heart ache with pity to think of those smiling streets, that happy swarm of industrious people suddenly left homeless, the survivors surrounded by their dead or dying relatives, whilst the muffled booming, the precursor of the earthquake shocks, tell them that they might be the next victims.