The little hotel I went to stands on a hill among the woods, looking down on the sea; it was beautifully quiet, but it was “foreign style,” and the beds were miserable. I made a most interesting observation very shortly after my arrival: some ants had built the most extraordinary galleries all up the branches of a tree, and they had taken the leaves and rolled them up, and built houses inside them.
Then in some cases they had covered the whole twig over with their sandy houses, and just left little bits of leaves sticking out here and there.[5] I was ever so much interested, and found several plants of the same kind (a species of smooth-leaved holly) with the same thing happening. I fancy it is new to science, and I wish now I had brought down some instruments and reagents to examine it properly, but I brought nothing as I decided I would have one week’s real holiday.
It was amusing to find how difficult it was to get anything to fix the specimens and bring them back home. There was only one shop that sold foreign biscuits and so had tins, but they wouldn’t sell or give a tin for love or money. No, they said, they had no tins; of course I did not believe them, and roamed round the shop opening every tin to see what was in it, and I found one that was empty. But they refused absolutely to sell it. They were returning to Tokio, it was the end of the season, and they needed it for packing their own things, and they would not sell it—no, not for a yen. But I grew desperate in the thought of my specimens, probably new to the scientific world, and whose preservation depended on that tin; the man who owned it sat and smiled on his Japanese mats, his geta (sandals) were not in sight, and I knew I could run fast enough to get a start any way. So I took the tin under my arm (a huge square biscuit one it was too) and smiling, explained that I must and would have that tin, and put down 30 sen on his table and said I was just going to take it, and off I went. He didn’t chase me; I suppose he thought it hopeless, and besides, I had paid a very good price, for the tin was ancient and bent.
Then came the search for spirit to preserve it in, for I wanted to have the ants and all in situ; but one could not expect to find spirit in such a village, and it was no shock to find there was none. Then I bethought me of saké, the poet-famed drink, the wine of the marriage cups and the friendly festival, and I sent a maid for a jorum of saké; the wine is reported to be very highly alcoholic, I know two spoonfuls sent me to sleep after weeks of sleeplessness, and in the saké I plunged my specimens and hoped for the best.
September 3.—I moved to a Japanese hotel down on the shore, far more comfortable for bathing—and with much cosier sleeping arrangements. It is curious, but I am miserable in a bed now unless it is soft and safe feeling. If it is hard and rises up in the middle I dream of precipices all night, for all this year I have slept on the floor, which seems so nice and safe, and really the obvious thing to do when you have tatami floors.
This hotel has a garden with pine trees, and a swing and cross bars, so I can exercise myself to my heart’s content, while it is quite isolated, the last house in the village and far from its neighbours. A delightful spot, to which I shall hope to return. The maid, O Sayo San, is the politest I ever met; and of all wonderful things, they refused Chadai money the first night when I offered it in an envelope in the ultra best Japanese way on my arrival.
September 4.—It is rather too bad, but the weather has turned miserably cold, both here and in Tokio, and I should have been at work in comfort, while bathing is not the pleasure it would have been the week before in the broiling sun. But there are several nice people down here, Tokio friends.
September 5.—I got the loan of the “Bromide” book from Mrs. C——, how good it is. Have all you who read this read the little book called “Are you a Bromide?” If not, do so; for I fear if you haven’t, much of the humour of life is a sealed book to you. It has added greatly to my enjoyment, and it can be read in half an hour.
Coming home I looked into the grove of the village temple, a pretty little place on a small hill, and was at first much puzzled by an apparition.
You know (or more probably don’t know) that the most usual form of decoration in a temple is torn strips of white paper, which hang down. Real paper usually—only very grand temples have gold as a symbol of torn paper! Such hanging strips are put in the mouths of the sacred animals very often, and you may see a pair of foxes sitting, carved in stone, with these paper spouts streaming from their mouths or floating on the breeze as they sit immovable. These foxes are often more dog-like than fox-like, and sometimes cleverly painted, but no one could confuse them with a real dog. But in this temple grove was a wonderful creature—a single one, not a pair as is usual—and instead of sitting on either side of the path to the shrine, he sat absolutely in the middle of the path—upright, pointed nose straight ahead, ears erect, and from his mouth the long fluttering streamer of sacred paper; so he sat, immovable, and before him I stood immovable but astonished, so marvellously was he wrought and coloured; could he but move, one would swear he was alive, but his gleaming eyes fixed glassy and unwinking on the distance to infinity in front of him, and only the paper fluttered in the breeze. I walked to either side and gazed—there was something impellingly arresting about this silent image—and for ten minutes I must have lingered near it, perhaps hypnotised by the fluttering white paper and the gleaming eyes; and then the creature rose, still holding the sacred paper in its mouth, and without a sound or a movement except the inevitable placing of its feet, walked down the centre of the path into the shadows of the shrine.