I take passage in one of those astounding craft I mentioned before—a sort of barge propelled by ten exceedingly strong naked men, wielding enormous oars—or rather, sweeps—with cross-handles. But I do not go alone: indeed I can scarcely find room to stand, so crowded the boat is with passengers of all ages, especially women who are nervous about going to sea in an ordinary sampan. And a dancing-girl jumps into the crowd at the risk of her life, just as we push off—and burns her arm against my cigar in the jump. I am very sorry for her; but she laughs merrily at my solicitude. And the rowers begin their melancholy somnolent song: A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!
It is a long pull to reach her—the beautiful monster, towering motionless there in the summer sea, with scarce a curling of thin smoke from the mighty lungs of her slumbering engines; and that somnolent song of our boatmen must surely have some ancient magic in it; for by the time we glide alongside I feel as if I were looking at a dream. Strange as a vision of sleep, indeed, this spectacle: the host of quaint craft hovering and trembling around that tremendous bulk; and all the long-robed, wide-sleeved multitude of the antique port—men, women, children—the grey and the young together—crawling up those mighty flanks in one ceaseless stream, like a swarming of ants. And all this with a great humming like the humming of a hive,—a sound made up of low laughter, and chattering in undertones, and subdued murmurs of amazement. For the colossus overawes them—this ship of the Tenshi-Sama, the Son of Heaven; and they wonder like babies at the walls and the turrets of steel, and the giant guns and the mighty chains, and the stern bearing of the white-uniformed hundreds looking down upon the scene without a smile, over the iron bulwarks. Japanese those also—yet changed by some mysterious process into the semblance of strangers. Only the experienced eye could readily decide the nationality of those stalwart marines: but for the sight of the Imperial arms in gold, and the glimmering ideographs upon the stern, one might well suppose one's self gazing at some Spanish or Italian ship-of-war manned by brown Latin men.
I cannot possibly get on board. The iron steps are occupied by an endless chain of clinging bodies—blue-robed boys from school, and old men with grey queues, and fearless young mothers holding fast to the ropes with over-confident babies strapped to their backs, and peasants, and fishers, and dancing-girls. They are now simply sticking there like flies: somebody has told them they must wait fifteen minutes. So they wait with smiling patience, and behind them in the fleet of high-prowed boats hundreds more wait and wonder. But they do not wait for fifteen minutes! All hopes are suddenly shattered by a stentorian announcement from the deck: 'Mo jikan ga naikara, miseru koto dekimasen!' The monster is getting up steam—going away: nobody else will be allowed to come on board. And from the patient swarm of clingers to the hand-ropes, and the patient waiters in the fleet of boats, there goes up one exceedingly plaintive and prolonged 'Aa!' of disappointment, followed by artless reproaches in Izumo dialect: 'Gun-jin wa uso iwanuka to omoya!-uso-tsuki dana!—aa! so dana!' ('War-people-as-for-lies-never-say-that-we-thought!—Aa-aa-aa!') Apparently the gunjin are accustomed to such scenes; for they do not even smile.
But we linger near the cruiser to watch the hurried descent of the sightseers into their boats, and the slow ponderous motion of the chain-cables ascending, and the swarming of sailors down over the bows to fasten and unfasten mysterious things. One, bending head-downwards, drops his white cap; and there is a race of boats for the honour of picking it up. A marine leaning over the bulwarks audibly observes to a comrade: 'Aa! gwaikojn dana!—nani ski ni kite iru daro?'—The other vainly suggests: 'Yasu-no-senkyoshi daro.' My Japanese costume does not disguise the fact that I am an alien; but it saves me from the imputation of being a missionary. I remain an enigma. Then there are loud cries of 'Abunail'—if the cruiser were to move now there would be swamping and crushing and drowning unspeakable. All the little boats scatter and flee away.
Our ten naked oarsmen once more bend to their cross-handled oars, and recommence their ancient melancholy song. And as we glide back, there comes to me the idea of the prodigious cost of that which we went forth to see, the magnificent horror of steel and steam and all the multiple enginery of death—paid for by those humble millions who toil for ever knee-deep in the slime of rice-fields, yet can never afford to eat their own rice! Far cheaper must be the food they live upon; and nevertheless, merely to protect the little that they own, such nightmares must be called into existence—monstrous creations of science mathematically applied to the ends of destruction.
How delightful Mionoseki now seems, drowsing far off there under its blue tiles at the feet of the holy hills!—immemorial Mionoseki, with its lamps and lions of stone, and its god who hates eggs!—pretty fantastic Mionoseki, where all things, save the schools, are medieval still: the high-pooped junks, and the long-nosed boats, and the plaintive chants of oarsmen!
A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!
And we touch the mossed and ancient wharves of stone again: over one mile of lucent sea we have floated back a thousand years! I turn to look at the place of that sinister vision—and lo!—there is nothing there! Only the level blue of the flood under the hollow blue of the sky—and, just beyond the promontory, one far, small white speck: the sail of a junk. The horizon is naked. Gone!—but how soundlessly, how swiftly! She makes nineteen knots. And, oh! Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, there probably existed eggs on board!
Chapter Eleven
Notes on Kitzuki