“Having entered the gate, you will see a little hut where flowers are sold. Proceeding to the rear of the not very large hond� (main temple) by the left side of the building, you will come to a place thickly studded with numberless graves, tombstones and sotoba (stûpa). Near the thicket-like hedge, and here and there between the tombstones, stand clumps of gnarled and ancient e-no-ki trees whose branches quiver sadly and mournfully as the wind soughs through them with a plaintive sobbing sound like the burthen of a requiem. Glancing at the well-nigh undecipherable inscription carved on the first tombstone that meets the eye, we can trace a posthumous name such as 柳生院花容童女之墓 (Ryū-sho-in Kway�-d�j� no haka,) or the words ◻◻樓代々�墓 (the family grave of the _______ brothel). Or we may even see stones on which two names are carved together, one name being that of a man and one that of a woman. None of these stones are more than two or three feet in height—they are all small and dirty—and for a very long period of time no incense has been burned or flowers offered before them.
“Going on into the heart of this lonesome place one at length arrives behind the main temple. Here the whole surface of the earth is damp and humid, and a dismal grave-like smell of mouldy earth pervades the locality. Probably the sunshine has never penetrated to this spot for centuries. The dead leaves of the e-no-ki trees have been allowed to lie as they have fallen year after year, so they have piled up, crumbled, mouldered, and rotted on the dark ground, and from the purulent mildewed soil have sprung into being myriads of weird uncanny poisonous toadstools and foul fungi fearful and horrid in shape and strangely ghastly in colour. Ah!, what a desolate uncanny appearance the place has; persons visiting it soon experience a deep sense of commiseration and sympathy, and feel as if they had entered a chilly underground vault. In this gloomy dismal place lie the bones of the courtesan who only up to yesterday resembled a beautiful butterfly or lovely blossom when seen in all the glory of her gorgeous apparel, with her glossy black hair ornamented with gold and her snowy-white body clad in rich brocade robes now exchanged for the cerements of death.
“And look! at the rear of two great e-no-ki trees rises a high stone wall. Upon it stands a stone column bearing the six Chinese characters 新�原無緣墓 (Shin Yoshiwara Mu-en-dzuka) “The tomb of those of the Shin Yoshiwara who are without kith or kin.� Around it is a rank growth of various weeds and grasses, and near by still stands undecayed a huge stûpa which was erected as an offering to the spirits of the dead at the time of the great earthquake of the 2nd year of the Ansei period (1855).
The “Mu-en-dzuka� in the “J�-kan-ji� temple at Minowa.
“As a matter of fact such things really do occur, but the courtesan who is thus buried in the Mu-en-dzuka must be counted as the most truly unfortunate, because most of the women are given burial in the family burying places of the brothel-keepers, while the bodies of those who cannot obtain even this latter consideration, who are from a far country and without a friend to take delivery of their remains, are carried stealthily out of the back entrance of the brothels in the grey light of the dawn, and here transformed into a heap of grisly bones. In any case the end of these brothel women is very sad and lamentable, and looked at from this point of view there is indeed nothing so miserable or so awful as the brothel quarter.�
Five Curious Legal Documents actually used in the Yoshiwara in 1902.
(No. 1.)
Agreement.
Whereas I _______________, being unable to maintain myself, have consented to _______________’s practising prostitution in your establishment for the purpose of aiding in my support, it is hereby agreed as follows:—