After this, these gentry, if they attempted to follow, were driven back at once, and if they spied upon our movements at all, it was at such a distance, that their presence was not perceived by us. In a short time, the officers moved as freely in the area of country granted by the treaty—a radius of about sixteen English miles, as if they were in the United States. The chief objects of interest ashore to visit, are the Sintoo, Buddhist temples, and some smaller ones, dedicated to the tutelar deities of the soldiers, and the marines. The Japanese display great rural taste always in their locations, selecting the most picturesque, and at times, the most elevated spots for their erection. Attached to these temples are usually kungwas, or places, where the weary traveller may rest for the night, and get some tea and eatables from the attendant priests. A Sintoo temple just at the end of the principal street from the landing at Simoda, was the chief place for the holding of official interviews, and subsequently for bazars. It stood in the midst of a cemetery overhung by large trees, and steep boulders of granite. The spacious and level yard in front, was divided with stone crossings smoothly cut, and in it stood alone, a tower of cyclopean masonry, in which was hung one of their sweet-toned bells. Their manner of striking, which is by a piece of green wood swung horizontally on the outside of the bell, gives a delightful softness to the sound, while the proximity to the earth increases the distance at which it may be heard. The carving and frieze work about the columns at the entrance to this temple are as elaborate and fantastic as can be imagined, while the little hydras and animal images perched upon the eaves and roof, are as numerous as on a Chinese Joss house. The interior is very plain, and the Sintooist worships no idol. Living here was a priest named Dosangee—his head entirely shorn. He was quite polite to us, and in return used to expect us to give him the pronunciation of some words in English, which he was endeavoring to learn by the aid of an English and Dutch dictionary, which he had. He accompanied me through the temple.
In one part of the temple, the commodore, from the initials “M. C. P.” on some boxes there seen, seemed to have had a room set apart. The altar, in the place of worship was very plain, and had incense burning on it. Its only ornaments consisted of bronze castings representing their sacred crane on the back of a tortoise, and a small gilded elephant. There, of course, was the invariable accompaniment of Sintoo worship—a small mirror—an emblem of the soul’s perfect purity; or, according to some, as plainly as the votary sees his own features in that mirror, so plainly do the mediatory spirits to whom he prays, see his spiritual and temporal wants. Such a style of worship would scarcely answer for the belles of our land. As the devotee enters one of these temples he first drops a few “cash” (about the fifteenth of a cent) into a carefully-secured box at the door, then by shaking a lot of sleigh-looking bells hanging from a beam, attracts to his prayers the attention of his mediatory spirits, who only number some three thousand—these are the kami, confreres of the spiritual emperor or mikado, and analogous to the saints of the catholics.
The Sintoo mythology also comprehends a god of war. On entering the grounds where one of these temples were located, we passed through a military barrack, where were a number of small stallions tethered from either cheek, wrong end foremost in their stalls, who grew quite indignant in their cavortings at our presence. On our approach they turned out their guard—three or four stupid-looking soldiers, with tin-basin looking hats, and the calves of their legs swathed in blue cotton cloth, upholding the insignia of rank of their chief, which were cruciform lances in coverings of shark-skin. In the building, we saw on the walls, offerings of swords and bows, from those who had deemed themselves miraculously preserved in battle.
In the Mariners’ temple we saw suspended from boards on the walls small queues of the Japanese seamen, who had undergone the imminent peril of shipwreck, together with details of the particular storm, pictures of foundering junks, and the names of those who escaped. The parting with this little pig-tail of hair, the Japanese sailor thinks is one of the greatest sacrifices that he can make to his patron divinity. The approach to this place was over a fine balustraded bridge, and under a noble well-planted avenue of the yew-pine tree. Another yasiro, on a mountain-side, is reached by a direct and continuous flight of over a hundred steps. Over at Kakisaki, in one of the temples, is an allegorical painting of some size, the subject of which is very nearly an embodiment of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and the hero is as defiant as Saint George with the Dragon. The plan of the picture is a birds’-eye view. A horrid ogre or devil dwells deep in a cavernous recess or hell, and his daily food is women, many of whom are confined in the gloomy precincts of his prison. A young prince prays for power to rescue them, which is granted, and he is provided with a potent potion. Disguised as a pedlar he crosses dangerous chasms and descends steep cliffs; at last, arriving at the door of the devil’s abode, he gains admittance, and gives the devil the potion, which he drinks and becomes drunk, when the young champion despatches him, and sets at liberty all the unfortunate victims that he has there confined.
This explanation is from memory, and may not be entirely correct.
At the first-named temple, a party of our officers, who taking a long tramp on a hunt, during the day, did not get back until a late hour of the night, desired to lay on the mats in the kunqwa until morning, and threw themselves down. The Japanese strongly objected to this, and insisted upon their going off to their ships. This, on account of the lateness of the hour, they declined doing. The officials went off and came back with a lot of soldiers and a number of lanterns, and were finally guilty of the rudeness of pulling them by the feet. At this, our officers kicked over their lanterns, and cocked and capped their pieces, when the valiant assailants vanished at once. Tatsnoske, one of the chief officers of the place, at four o’clock in the morning, then went off to the flag-ship, had the commodore woke up, and desired him to order these officers off to the ship. The commodore refused to do any such thing; and the next morning sent the same officers and a captain of marines to demand an apology for their conduct from Karakaha Kahai, which was given without delay.
There being no treaty of commerce with the Japanese, preparatory to such a result hereafter, a number of our coins had been delivered to them before leaving the bay of Yedo, that they, might be assayed at the capital, and the relative value, with their own, established. In the meantime, it was no doubt intended, or thought on our side, that as the people in the stores were willing to sell, and our officers were continually offering to purchase little curiosities and other articles of their handicraft that were to be found in their shops, that in this way, things would find their level, and an impromptu trade, as it were, spring up. This notion proved a mistaken one; things were purchased, but they were paid for in silver dollars at the rate of twelve hundred cash each, and not directly to the seller, but through a government officer called gayoshio.
In strolling the streets of Simoda you see old crones, arranging, in the open air, their warp for weaving. The personal pulchritude of the cadaverous-complexioned Japanese women, is not much under the best circumstances, but when it is remembered that on marrying, they shave off their eyebrows, and blacken their teeth with some iron rust and acid, as a badge of the marital state, their appearance becomes most repulsive. The younger women, with their elaborate arrangement of hair, who have not yet undergone this process of disfigurement, though rather ungainly in gait, owing to the use of clogs, and wearing about the hips an awkward compressing scarf, are quite good-looking and with lighter complexions, have also much better-shaped eyes than the Chinese.
The only wheeled vehicle you may see is a rude hand-cart, the wheels without tires. Should you meet a man on the back of an ox bringing to town bundles of wood, the sight of your barbarian garments are very apt to incense him greatly; and the rider, disturbed by his movements dismounts, takes him by the tether, and leads him aside.
The fronts of the shops are closed with sliding screens of paper, oiled to admit the light, and the floors raised about two feet from the ground are covered with mat-cushions, upon which, a-la-Turk, sits the shopkeeper, who has left his straw sandals at the door. You would scarcely be expected to remove your boots at every shopdoor you entered, but if you stepped up on the platform the shopkeeper would intimate that your leather shoon would mar the whiteness of his mats. The plan of purchase was mostly pantomimic. Pointing to the article, you ask, “How mutchee?” The shopkeeper repeating your “how mutchee?” as he makes a mental calculation, proceeds to hold up the fingers of one or both hands before you, each finger being one hundred cash—estimating twelve hundred to the dollar. The purchase completed, you do not pay the seller, but the articles with your name, and his mark are sent to the government officer, gayoshio, when the imperial paw is placed upon the specie you pay, and the seller is apt to get the amount in copper coin. By an arbitrary decision they made their itzeboo—a square piece of silver with the government stamp, equal to a Spanish dollar—and as they could take this dollar and coin nearly three itzeboos from it, it became a very good operation for the imperial treasury, at no time suffering from over-filled coffers.