Day was fading into twilight as we trailed after the Satsuma men into the heart of Shinagawa. On either side of the Tokaido extended rows of handsome two-storied inns and teahouses, set one against the other without a gap except where divided by narrow cross streets. The upper windows and balconies of every building were sealed over with opaque screens to prevent persons from looking down upon the daimio and his retinue, and across the entrances of the side streets were stretched frail ropes of twisted straw, behind which kneeling crowds waited for the passage of the last Satsuma man.
The street was guarded by wardsmen, or householders, bearing iron staves with large rings at the top. We shuffled along between these warders, with downbent heads, perilously close to the rear of the procession. Three or four times the wardsmen seemed inclined to halt us, but we passed by them with outward indifference, keeping well in advance of the crowds that surged out behind us into the Tokaido from the unbarred side streets.
Midway of the long suburb Yoritomo turned sharply into a narrow street leading towards the bay. I stooped under the barring rope after him, and found myself in the midst of a dense crowd of men, many of whom were still kneeling. Packed side by side in the jam were cotton-clad tradesmen and silk-gowned samurais, half-naked artisans and nobles in lacquered norimon palanquins. All alike were provided with paper lanterns, round, square, or octagonal in shape, and inscribed with crest or name in Chinese ideographs. These lanterns and the rows of similar ones hung along the fronts of the houses were being lighted as twilight deepened into darkness.
Suddenly the crowd through which we were attempting to pass swayed forward and filled the air with the clash of their wooden clogs on the hard ground. The rope had been taken down and the crowd permitted to surge out into the Tokaido. While we worked our way in against the outpouring stream, I was pleased to see that there were no women in the jam. But on either side of the street wide-flung screens exposed to view artistically decorated interiors where smiling young girls in gorgeous dress knelt on the mats, twanging odd music on their three-string samisens or preening themselves before mirrors of polished bronze. In other houses dainty waiting maids fluttered about like butterflies, serving the hungry guests.
The crowd in the street was the sweetest one with which I had ever come in contact, and this was no less true when we elbowed our way through a band of breech-clouted porters. The explanation was not far off when, with the breaking of the jam, we approached a building through whose latticed front issued clouds of vapor and a babel of chatter and laughter.
When opposite this house I glanced in through the wide spaces of the lattice and was startled to see a large company of nude men and women splashing about together in a great tank of hot water. It was a public bath—public in all senses of the term! As we passed by, a dripping nymph stepped up from the water within a foot of the lattice and gazed idly out into the street, as naively unconscious in look and manner and as innocent of costume as Eve before the Fall.
Yoritomo swung by unheeding, and hastened on to the open front of one of the larger teahouses. A moment later we had entered a long stone-paved passageway that ran back through the centre of the building. On one side we looked in upon the charcoal ranges and sniffed the savory odors of the inn kitchen, on the other we viewed through half-closed screens the commoner guest-rooms of the house.
At sight of our tattered robes bowing waitresses sought to usher us into one of these front apartments. Yoritomo thrust past them and on down the passage, fifty paces or more, until we came out into a veritable fairy garden, strung with myriads of painted lanterns. As we seated ourselves on a low bench under a grape arbor, the host overtook us and, bowing curtly, asked what we desired.
“Does Kohana, the free geisha, still live here?” asked Yoritomo.
“Kohana San, the artist patronized by princes, still honors my poor establishment,” replied the man.