Samurai Trails: A Chronicle of Wanderings on the Japanese High Road

by Lucian Swift Kirtland

“Tell him to send for fowls for the pot,” we oratorically assailed Hori. “Let us mix rich sauces and warm the sake. And tell him to remember that for us there can be but one choice—the maid to serve our dinner must be the prettiest maid in all Narii.”

I had not the slightest idea that Hori would translate our exact words, but I found later that such was his act.

Thus the mountain village of Narii faced a problem. Two foreigners, and a Japanese almost as alien as a foreigner, had appeared from nobody knew where, not preceded, ’twas true, by retainers as had been the travellers of old, but nevertheless demanded the old-time service with as much gusto as if they were accustomed to having what they wished. They had asked that the prettiest maid in all Narii be called to the inn to exercise the privilege of guarding the steaming rice box. It was obvious that there could be only one prettiest maid, and all Narii knew with one mind that the prettiest maid was the daughter of the Shinto priest. However, the daughter of a priest is not a likely candidate for service in an inn, even if the master has ever been a faithful devotee of the temple. Nevertheless there was the honour of the hospitality of Narii at stake. Messengers (or even appropriately, it might be said, heralds) were sent to explain the problem to the maid and her father, and to use, if necessary, the pressure of “the state demands.”

Thus came O-Hanna-san to the inn. (In all Japan there cannot be a prettier, a more bashful, or a more modest maiden.) Her eyes were downcast behind long black lashes. Her soft cheek flushed and paled—perhaps somewhat from the excitement of the adventure. Neither she nor her friends had ever seen one of that strange race, the foreigner. And, indeed, even a priest’s daughter may think that to be chosen as the prettiest maid——!! Ah, her courage failed her to glance up and words would not come to her lips to answer their questions, but they did not seem to be so very predatory nor so very fearsome—and they were very hungry.

Two great bronze braziers had been filled with glowing charcoal. The foreigners and the outer-world Japanese who could speak their strange words were busily cooking the fowls, chopped into dice, and they were arguing about their respective talents and abilities, as do all amateur cooks. Perhaps she could now look up for an instant unobserved. No, a glance met her eyes and she felt hot blushes grow again on her cheek.

While they feasted and laughed she had to run many times to the kitchen for forgotten dishes. When she passed along the hall by the entrance to the street she was each time stopped and besieged by the questions of the gathered mob. (Some of those inquiring investigators had also gathered outside the wall of my bath an hour before. I had been suddenly aware of an eye at every crack and crevice of the boards as I was cautiously stepping into the superheated tub. There was not a sound, merely the glitter of their star-scattered eyes.)

The foreigners put sugar on their rice and one of them even put sugar in his tea. They handled their chopsticks so awkwardly that it was marvellous that they did not spill the rice grains on the matting. She thought of the twenty rules in etiquette for the proper and graceful use of chopsticks and she imagined that if there had been a ten score of rules they might have all been broken. At last the three feasters finished their mighty meal and stretched out on the cushions to smoke in deep contentment. She doubted whether they had even noticed that her superior kimono was not such as a maid of an inn would possess. After the feast her quick feet, in spotless white [tabi], carried away the bowls and little tables. Then she sat down by the door to await any further clapping of hands.

The host came in, moving silently across the matting. He kneeled and bent his forehead to the floor. Before the meal he had himself arranged the flowers, in an old iron vase, to stand in the takemona corner. We tried to express our appreciation for the flowers and our admiration of the vase.

We asked him how old the inn was. It had been his father’s before him, and his grandfather’s before his father. Yes, in those days the Nakescendo had rivalled the Tokaido, and yearly, on the hastening to Yedo to give obeisance to the Shogun, the great nobles of the northwest provinces with their armed retainers had had to pass through Narii. In the pride of their gifts to the Shogun, in their numbers, in their courage, they had never yielded place to the envoys from the great families of the South. This now forgotten inn had then been famous. Our room, overhanging the river, he repeated, had been only given to the daimyos. The samurai had crowded the other rooms. The inn had boasted a score, two score, of trained and pretty ne-sans to wait upon those fiery warriors. (The modern geisha, in many of her accomplishments, is daughter to the inn maidens of the feudal days who sang and danced and played musical instruments in addition to the graces of more domestic duties.) The inn had then rung with shouting and laughter, and sometimes the dawn of the morning start of the cavalcade found the retainers still sitting around the feast.