GATEWAY, JAPAN.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LAND OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE
We are standing in front of a mysterious gate which is yet not a gate. You must have seen pictures of Japan many a time, and in some of them there must have been one of these curious erections. Yet how can one describe it? The Greek letter Π is most like it. Imagine a giant Π with a second cross-bar below the top one. In Japan this is called a Torii. The one in front of us, rising like a great scaffolding far above our heads, is made of wood, but they are often of stone or metal too. They are always to be found before the entrance to a Shinto temple. There must have been some meaning in them once upon a time, but it is lost now, and they remain decorative but useless.
We have left our rickshaw and are climbing up a long, long flight of steps to a Shinto temple not far from Tokyo, the capital town of Japan. Very many of the Japs are Buddhists, but it is a strange sort of Buddhism, not pure like that of the Burmans, and is mixed up with another religion called Shinto, and many of the people are Shintoists altogether. This religion is vague and mystical, with much worship of spirits, especially the spirits of the elements—earth, air, fire, and water. Everyone who is dead becomes in some degree an object of worship, and the Jap thinks more of his parents and ancestors than his children—his dead ancestors especially being much venerated.
When we reach the top of the steps we find ourselves suddenly in a blaze of loveliness. To the right, to the left, and all around are cherry trees, covered thickly with blossom which hangs in wreaths and rosettes and festoons as if moulded in snow. The time for the best of the blossom is a little past, and the ground at our feet is as white as the trees, indeed whiter; for just here and there the fairy display on the trees is slightly browned. The scent is very sweet, and hangs in the air like delicate perfume. In the time of blossom there are many outings and festivities in Japan; people make up parties to go to the orchards, and thoroughly enjoy their beauty. Come right underneath the trees and look up, we can see the thick, heavily laden branches against the soft rich blue of a cloudless sky, and in our ears is the hum of a myriad bees. It is as if the freshness of early spring and the richness of full summer were mingled together.
As we wander on over the scented ground we notice, a little way off, a rather pathetic-looking Japanese in the national costume, with a flat board or book in his hand. He is looking at us earnestly, and follows on at a respectful distance behind us.
Next we come upon a quaint little garden on the lines of what we should call a landscape garden in England, but it is all on a tiny scale, as if made for dolls to walk in. There is a pond as big as a tea-tray, walks the breadth of one's foot, wee trees, gnarled with age and twisted and fully grown, but no higher than your knee. It is all so delicate and dainty and tiny that we are afraid to walk in it for fear we should spoil it; we feel thoroughly big and clumsy as Gulliver must have felt among the Lilliputians, and we expect every minute to see the rightful owners, wee men and women the size of a man's fingers, rushing out from the little summer-house with the curved roof at the end, and crying shrilly to us to go away!
Treading carefully, a foot at a time, along the miniature paths, we pass through this and go on toward the temple which now appears amid a grove of deep dark pines. The steps are worn and hollowed, and on each side of them is an astonishing red figure of a man-monster in a very ferocious attitude, like that of the lions rampant seen on crests. These figures are a dark hot red and are dotted all over with white dabs; as we draw nearer to them we see that these dabs are doubled up bits of white paper sticking irregularly here and there without any arrangement. We cannot imagine what they are for, but as we stare we hear a foot crunch the gravel gently, and the little Jap with the board creeps up and salaams deeply, making at the same time a curious hissing noise as if he sucked in his breath. He must be very nervous.