From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

After this first visit to the capital, we took a week for an excursion into the interior, which gave us a sight of the country and of Japanese life. This we could not have made with any satisfaction but for our friends the missionaries. They kindly sketched the outlines of a trip to the base of Fusiyama, seventy miles from Yedo. It was very tempting, but what could we do without guides or interpreters? We should be lost like babes in the wood. It occurred to us that such a journey might do them good. Dr. Brown and Dr. Hepburn, the oldest missionaries in Japan, had been closely confined for months in translating the Scriptures, and needed some relief. A little country air would give them new life; so we invited them to be our guests, and we would make a week of it. We finally prevailed upon them to "come apart and rest awhile," not in a "desert," but in woodland shades, among the mountains and by the sea. Their wives came with them, without whom their presence would have given us but half the pleasure it did. Thus encompassed and fortified with the best of companions, with a couple of English friends, we made a party of eight, which, with the usual impedimenta of provisions and a cook, and extra shawls and blankets, required eleven jinrikishas, with two men harnessed to each, making altogether quite a grand cavalcade, as we sallied forth from Yokohama on a Monday noon in "high feather." To our staid missionary friends it was an old story; but to us, strangers in the land, it was highly exciting to be thus starting off into the interior of Japan. The country around Yokohama is hilly and broken. Our way wound through a succession of valleys rich with fields of rice and barley, while along the roads shrubberies, which at home are cultivated with great care, grew in wild profusion—the wisteria, the honeysuckle, and the eglantine. The succession of hill and valley gave to the country a variety and beauty which, with the high state of cultivation, reminded us of Java. As we mounted the hills we had glimpses of the sea, for we were skirting along the Bay of Yedo. After a few miles we came to an enchanting spot, which bears the ambitious title of the Plains of Heaven, yet which is not heaven, and is not even a plain—but a rolling country, in which hill and valley are mingled together, with the purple mountains as a background on one side and the blue waters on the other.

As we rode along, I thought how significant was the simple fact of such an excursion as this in a country, where a few years ago no foreigner's life was safe. On this very road, less than ten years since, an Englishman was cut down for no other crime than that of being a foreigner, and getting in the way of the high daimio who was passing. And now we jogged along as quietly, and with as little apprehension, as if we were riding through the villages of New England.

On our way lies a town which once bore a great name, Kamakura, where nine centuries ago lived the great Yoritomo, the Napoleon of his day, the founder of the military rule in the person of the Shogun (or Tycoon, a title but lately assumed), as distinguished from that of the Mikado. Here he made his capital, which was afterwards removed, and about three hundred years since fixed in Yedo; and Kamakura is left, like other decayed capitals, to live on the recollections of its former greatness. But no change can take away its natural beauty, in its sheltered valley near the sea.

A mile beyond, we came to the colossal image of Dai-Buts, or Great Buddha. It is of bronze, and though in a sitting posture, is forty-four feet high. The hands are crossed upon the knees. We crawled up into his lap, and five of us sat side by side on his thumbs. We even went inside, and climbed up into his head, and proved by inspection that these idols, however colossal and imposing without, are empty within. There are no brains within their brazen skulls. The expression of the face is the same as in all statues of Buddha: that of repose—passive, motionless—as of one who had passed through the struggles of life, and attained to Nirvana, the state of perfect calm, which is the perfection of heavenly beatitude.

It was now getting towards sunset, and we had still five or six miles to go before we reached our resting-place for the night. As this was the last stage in the journey, our fleet coursers seemed resolved to show us what they could do. They had cast off all their garments, except a cloth around their loins, and straw sandals on their feet, so that they were stripped like Roman gladiators, and they put forth a speed as if racing in the arena. A connoisseur would admire their splendid physique. Their bodies were tattooed, like South Sea Islanders, which set out in bolder relief, as in savage warriors, their muscular development—their broad chests and brawny limbs. With no stricture of garments to bind them, their limbs were left free for motion. It was a study to see how they held themselves erect. With heads and chests thrown back, they balanced themselves perfectly. The weight of the carriage seemed nothing to them; they had only to keep in motion, and it followed. Thus we came rushing into the streets of Fujisawa, and drew up before the tea-house, where lodgings had been ordered for the night. The whole family turned out to meet us, the women falling on their knees, and bowing their heads till they touched the floor, in homage to the greatness of their guests.

And now came our first experience of a Japanese tea-house. If the jin-riki-sha is like a baby carriage, the tea-house is like a baby house. It is small, built entirely of wood with sliding partitions, which can be drawn, like screens, to enclose any open space, and make it into a room. These partitions are of paper, so that of course the "chambers" are not very private. The same material is used for windows, and answers very well, as it softens the light, like ground glass. The house has always a veranda, so that the rooms are protected from the sun by the overhanging roof. The bedrooms are very small, but scrupulously clean, and covered with wadded matting, on which we lie down to sleep.

At Fujisawa is a temple, which is visited by the Mikado once or twice in the year. We were shown through his private rooms, and one or two of us even stretched ourselves upon his bed, which, however, was not a very daring feat, as it was merely a strip of matting raised like a low divan or ottoman, a few inches above the floor. The temples are not imposing structures, and have no beauty except that of position. They generally stand on a hill, and are approached by an avenue or a long flight of steps, and the grounds are set out with trees, which are left to grow till they sometimes attain a majestic height and breadth. In front of this temple stands a tree, which we recognized by its foliage as the Salisburia adiantifolia—a specimen of which we had in America on our own lawn, but there it was a shrub brought from the nursery, while here it was like a cedar of Lebanon. It was said to be a thousand years old. Standing here, it was regarded as a sacred tree, and we looked up to it with more reverence than to the sombre temple behind, or the sleepy old bonzes who were sauntering idly about the grounds.

The next morning, as we started on our journey, we came upon the Tokaido, the royal road of Japan, built hundreds of years ago from Yedo to Kioto, to connect the political with the spiritual capital—the residence of the Tycoon with that of the Mikado. It is the highway along which the daimios came in state to pay their homage to the Tycoon at Yedo, as of old subject-princes came to Rome. It is constructed with a good deal of skill in engineering, which is shown in carrying it over mountains, and in the building of bridges. Portions of the road are paved with blocks of stone like the Appian Way. But that which gives it a glory and majesty all its own, is its bordering of gigantic cedars—the Cryptomeria Japonica—which attain an enormous height, with gnarled and knotted limbs that have wrestled with the storms of centuries.

As we advance, the road comes out upon the sea, for we have crossed the peninsula which divides the Bay of Yedo from the Pacific, and are now on the shores of the ocean itself. How beautiful it seemed that day! It was the last of May, and the atmosphere was full of the warmth of early summer. The coast is broken by headlands shooting out into the deep, which enclose bays, where the soft, warm sunshine lingers as on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the waters of the mighty Pacific come gently rippling up the beach. So twixt sea and land, sunshine and shade, we sped gaily along to Odawara—another place which was once the residence of a powerful chief, whose castle is still there, though in ruins; its stones, if questioned of the past, might tell a tale like that of one of the castles on the Rhine. These old castles are the monuments of the same form of government, for the Feudal System existed in Japan as in Germany. The kingdom was divided into provinces, ruled by great daimios, who were like the barons of the Middle Ages, each with his armed retainers, who might be called upon to support the central government, yet who sometimes made war upon it. This Feudal System is now completely destroyed. As we were riding over the Tokaido, I pictured to myself the great pageants that had swept along so proudly in the days gone by. What would those old barons have thought if they could have seen in the future an irruption of invaders from beyond the sea, and that even this king's highway should one day be trodden by the feet of outside barbarians?

At Odawara we dismissed our men, (who, as soon as they received their money, started off for Yokohama,) as we had to try another mode of transportation; for though we still kept the Tokaido, it ascends the mountains so steeply that it is impassable for anything on wheels, and we had to exchange the jinrikisha for the kago—a kind of basket made of bamboo, in which a man is doubled up and packed like a bundle, and so carried on men's shoulders. It would not answer badly if he had neither head nor legs. But his head is always knocking against the ridge-pole, and his legs have to be twisted under him, or "tied up in a bow-knot." This is the way in which criminals are carried to execution in China; but for one who has any further use for his limbs, it is not altogether agreeable. I lay passive for awhile, feeling as if I had been packed and salted down in a pork-barrel. Then I began to wriggle, and thrust out my head on one side and the other, and at last had to confess, like the Irishman who was offered the privilege of working his passage on a canal-boat and was set to leading a horse, that "if it were not for the honor of the thing, I had as lief walk." So I crawled out and unrolled myself, to see if my limbs were still there, for they were so benumbed that I was hardly conscious of their existence, and then straightening myself out, and taking a long bamboo reed, which is light and strong, lithe and springy, for an alpenstock, I started off with my companions. We all soon recovered our spirits, and