white azaleas. Many other scenes there were—tiny shrines built in imitation of great temples, cascades and waterfalls named after other celebrated falls, rare rocks, moss-grown lanterns, bridges of all designs; in fact, the garden seemed a perfect treasure-house, and I felt glad that this one garden has escaped the hand of the destroyer and is left entire, a masterpiece of conception and execution.
Of another Tokyo garden—which unfortunately has not been left untouched, as it is shorn of half its former glories, a glaring red-brick brewery covering half the area of the beautiful grounds formerly known as Satake-no-niwa—only a portion remains, though a very lovely portion, and as it seems complete in itself it is still worth a visit. Unlike the Koraku-en, the Satake Garden was a rather artificial example of hill gardening, more open, with no dense groves, but essentially a hill and water garden. The large lake remains, and, like most of the gardens in the Honjo district of Tokyo, its waters are salt and tidal, being connected with the neighbouring river Sumida. Thus at high and low tide the shores of the lake present a very different aspect; pebbly bays can only be crossed by stepping-stones at high tide, and even some of the stone lanterns by the water’s edge have their standards half submerged. The hills are closely planted with evergreen bushes and shrubs, and most of the year the garden is all grey and green; the island is reached by a grey stone bridge formed of two slabs of granite of giant proportions, the grey lanterns stand among shrubs, cut into rounded form, and the mossy rocks and boulders have still more neutral tones; so it is only in spring when Nature asserts herself, and no gardener can prevent the young leaves of the maples being a variety of vivid colouring, and the grey rounded azalea bushes become perfect balls of scarlet, rosy-pink and white blossoms, that the garden has any colour in it. But to the mind of the Japanese all sense of repose and quiet charm would be gone if the eye were always worried by a distracting mass of colour; so even if flowers were grown in these more extensive gardens they had a special part of the grounds set apart for their culture. In one corner of the lake a piece of swampy ground was thickly planted with irises and water-plants, and a wistaria trellis overhung the lake, otherwise no flowers entered into the scheme; but it was a perfect specimen of the typical Japanese arrangement of garden hills planted with rounded bushes and adorned with lanterns.
SATAKE GARDEN, TOKYO
A magnificent example of a modern landscape garden is that belonging to Baron Iwasaki, made some forty years ago. The venerable pine-trees supported by stout props overhanging the lake are suggestive of countless ages; but in this garden old trees of gnarled and twisted growth, rare rocks, and immense boulders were collected from all parts of the empire, regardless of expense, and brought together to ensure the success of the scheme. The grounds cover many acres, the one blot in the landscape being the large red-brick foreign house; but luckily the most lovely part of the garden is laid out in front of the perfect specimen of a Japanese gentleman’s house, where the verandah of the cool matted rooms looks over a scene of indescribable beauty. The large lake is cleverly divided, and the portion of the garden in front of the foreign house is left behind; groves of evergreen trees screen the house—the one jarring note; and here the lake becomes the lagoon of Matsu-shima, tiny pine-clad islets rise from the water, and in the distance rises the cone of Fuji from an undulating plain of close-mown turf and groups of dwarfed pines. Here again flowers have no official existence; azaleas there are in profusion, but they are only introduced as shrubs; so the garden is not a flower garden, but a true landscape garden—the reproduction in miniature of natural scenery. The lanterns and bridges near the foreign house are of immense size, carrying out the law of proportion; the rocks and boulders are large to correspond, and the whole effect is one of great breadth; only near the tea-house and the main Japanese house does the garden become more finished in style and on a smaller scale. The balcony overhangs the rocky edge of the tidal lake; each rock has its history and its especial place; but the laws which have governed the making of such a garden are laws drawn up by great artists,—there is no false note, even the grouping of the reeds and irises by the water’s edge has been planned by a master hand, so the picture remains graven on one’s memory as that of an ideal pleasaunce for leisure and repose.
In Kyoto there still remain the gardens of the Gold and Silver Pavilions—gardens of much older date, the splendour of their pavilions dimmed by age, more especially in the case of Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. Mr. Conder says, “Long neglect has converted what was once an elaborate artificial landscape into a wild natural scene of great beauty.” The little pine-clad islets remain, but they are now island wildernesses; the trees have partially resumed their normal shapes; great leaning pines overhang the shores of the Mirror Ocean, representing the Sea of Japan, and its three islands suggesting the Empire of the Mikado. It was in the fourteenth century that this quiet spot became the so-called retreat of the scheming Yoshimitsu, who, pretending to have resigned the Shogunate in favour of his son, here lived in the garb of a monk, but in reality directing the affairs of State. The two-storied Pavilion itself, seen reflected in the Mirror Ocean, is possibly more picturesque in decay than it was in the days of its splendour; the gilding from which it takes its name has been partially restored; it is backed by the wooded hill fancifully called the Silken Canopy or Silk Hat Mountain, from the fact that the ex-Mikado Uda ordered it to be covered with white silk on a scorching summer’s day, in order that his eyes might enjoy the sensation of gazing on a cool, snow-covered scene. To this day the garden of Kinkakuji under a light canopy of snow is one of the favourite sights of the people of Kyoto. In days gone by there were smaller arbours in which the Shogun, wearied with his walk among the groves of the Silk Hat Pg089 Mountain, would rest, and compare the scene which the garden was intended to represent, to the real Sea of Japan, whence the name of one of the arbours, The House of the Sound of the Seashore.
To the north-east of Kyoto, nestling among the woods that clothe the lower hills of Hiei-san, lie the grounds of Ginkakuji or the Silver Pavilion. In imitation of his predecessor Yoshimitsu, the Shogun Yoshimasa after his abdication retired from the affairs of the world, built himself a country house with grounds of vast extent, even with despotic impatience sweeping away a temple because it interfered with his plans,—though we are told he was filled with remorse, and afterwards restored it at great expense. The two-storied Pavilion was partly copied from its rival, the Golden Pavilion, though it never seems to have attained to the same splendour; but here the ex-Shogun and his boon companions, the philosopher Soami and Shuko the Nara priest, held their æsthetic revels. They may be said to have laid down the laws which raised the tea-ceremonial to the rank of a fine art. Mr. Farrar, in writing of it, says:—