In this dreadful earthquake 8000 people were killed, 10,000 injured, and 100,000 houses destroyed. Nagoya experienced 6600 earth-spasms, or an average of thirty shocks an hour. Fortunately the ancient castle—monument of an extinct dynasty—is unharmed, saved by its massive walls, and the decreasing size of its pagoda storeys.
We left the hotel amid many "Sayonaras" (farewells), reached the station by the drooping avenue of willows, and, with five hours in the train, arrived at Kioto, and settled ourselves into its excellent new Hotel, with palatially proportioned rooms.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WESTERN CAPITAL AND INLAND SEA.
Kioto is the western metropolis of Japan, and was the only capital from 793 until twenty years ago, when the present Mikado re-established his supremacy over the Shoguns, and selected Tokio as the metropolis of the Empire.
We began the next day by doing our duty by the sights of Kioto, and commenced with His Majesty's palace, of Gosho, for which a special permission had been sent us. This is now the third Imperial palace that we have visited. I think we were foolish to come, because by this time we might have known that there is really nothing worthy of interest to see.
The palace is enclosed by high walls and covers an area of twenty-six acres. At the gate of "the August Kitchen," we went through an elaborate ceremony of inscribing our names in the lacquer and gold tasselled visiting book of the Mikado, whilst two exceedingly unkempt officials, in rusty black kimonos, superintended our movements. Of course this palace, like the others, is bare of furniture, carpets or hangings. The fusumas, or screens are decorated with splashes of blue paint and green mountains, or with funny little pictures of Japanese life, drawn with a total neglect of perspective. A lot of old women in wicker hats were raking, with bamboo claws, His Imperial Majesty's courtyards. The garden is scarcely so good as the one at the Hotel, with its pond on which floated an unpainted wooden gondola. The whole produces an impression of discomfort.
We pass first into the Seiryoden, or "Pure and Cool Hall," where the square of cement in the corner was every morning strewn with earth, so that the Mikado could worship his ancestors on the earth without leaving the palace. Then into the Audience hall, in the centre of which is the Imperial throne, hung with white silken curtains and a pattern meant to represent the bark of a pine tree. The stools on either side of the throne were for the Imperial insignia, the sword and the jewel. On the eighteen steps stood the eighteen grades into which the Mikado's officials were divided. Then we see the Imperial study, where His Majesty's tutors delivered lectures. The suite of rooms called the "August Three Rooms," where Nō performances, a kind of lyric drama, were performed, and lastly a suite of eleven rooms, where the Mikados, when Kioto was the capital, lived and died. We see the Imperial sitting-room with the bed-room behind, completely surrounded by other apartments, so that no one should approach His Majesty without the knowledge of his attendants. This sounds perhaps interesting enough, and having read Murray's elaborate description we were eager to see Gosho, but the reality is a succession of ordinary Japanese rooms, dark and bare, without the redeeming feature of well painted fusumas.
The obnoxious janitors, notwithstanding our credentials, obstinately refused to show us the only thing of interest, namely the present Imperial living rooms, on the plea that they are being now prepared for the reception of the Heir Apparent who arrives in a few days, and we see bales of furniture covered with green and blue cloths, bearing the royal insignia of the chrysanthemum, being dragged across the inner courts.