Magical indeed the charm of this land, as of a land veritably haunted by gods: so lovely the spectral delicacy of its colours—so lovely the forms of its hills blending with the forms of its clouds—so lovely, above all, those long trailings and bandings of mists which make its altitudes appear to hang in air. A land where sky and earth so strangely intermingle that what is reality may not be distinguished from what is illusion—that all seems a mirage, about to vanish. For me, alas! it is about to vanish for ever.
The little steamer shrieks again, puffs, backs into midstream, turns from the long white bridge. And as the grey wharves recede, a long Aaaaaaaaaa rises from the uniformed ranks, and all the caps wave, flashing their Chinese ideographs of brass. I clamber to the roof of the tiny deck cabin, wave my hat, and shout in English: 'Good-bye, good- bye!' And there floats back to me the cry: 'Manzai, manzai!' [Ten thousand years to you! ten thousand years!] But already it comes faintly from far away. The packet glides out of the river-mouth, shoots into the blue lake, turns a pine-shadowed point, and the faces, and the voices, and the wharves, and the long white bridge have become memories.
Still for a little while looking back, as we pass into the silence of the great water, I can see, receding on the left, the crest of the ancient castle, over grand shaggy altitudes of pine—and the place of my home, with its delicious garden—and the long blue roofs of the schools. These, too, swiftly pass out of vision. Then only faint blue water, faint blue mists, faint blues and greens and greys of peaks looming through varying distance, and beyond all, towering ghost-white into the east, the glorious spectre of Daisen.
And my heart sinks a moment under the rush of those vivid memories which always crowd upon one the instant after parting—memories of all that make attachment to places and to things. Remembered smiles; the morning gathering at the threshold of the old yashiki to wish the departing teacher a happy day; the evening gathering to welcome his return; the dog waiting by the gate at the accustomed hour; the garden with its lotus-flowers and its cooing of doves; the musical boom of the temple bell from the cedar groves; songs of children at play; afternoon shadows upon many-tinted streets; the long lines of lantern-fires upon festal nights; the dancing of the moon upon the lake; the clapping of hands by the river shore in salutation to the Izumo sun; the endless merry pattering of geta over the windy bridge: all these and a hundred other happy memories revive for me with almost painful vividness—while the far peaks, whose names are holy, slowly turn away their blue shoulders, and the little steamer bears me, more and more swiftly, ever farther and farther from the Province of the Gods.
NOTES for Chapter One
1 Such as the garden attached to the abbots palace at Tokuwamonji, cited by Mr. Conder, which was made to commemorate the legend of stones which bowed themselves in assent to the doctrine of Buddha. At Togo-ike, in Tottori-ken, I saw a very large garden consisting almost entirely of stones and sand. The impression which the designer had intended to convey was that of approaching the sea over a verge of dunes, and the illusion was beautiful.
2 The Kojiki, translated by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, p. 254.
3 Since this paper was written, Mr. Conder has published a beautiful illustrated volume,-Landscape Gardening in Japan. By Josiah Conder, F.R.I.B.A. Tokyo 1893. A photographic supplement to the work gives views of the most famous gardens in the capital and elsewhere.
4 The observations of Dr. Rein on Japanese gardens are not to be recommended, in respect either to accuracy or to comprehension of the subject. Rein spent only two years in Japan, the larger part of which time he devoted to the study of the lacquer industry, the manufacture of silk and paper and other practical matters. On these subjects his work is justly valued. But his chapters on Japanese manners and customs, art, religion, and literature show extremely little acquaintance with those topics.
5 This attitude of the shachihoko is somewhat de rigueur, whence the common expression shachihoko dai, signifying to stand on ones head.