Part 12

I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar rocking sensation, as if my bed were a cradle swung to and fro by invisible hands. Then I saw the _obbasan_, an old woman who waited on the European guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the verandah. It dawned on me that this must be a long-hoped-for earthquake, and as the vibrations ceased after some seconds, which naturally seemed of unusual length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say that the fear of earthquake, unlike the fear of other dangers, is increased rather than lessened by experience. Certainly the Japanese themselves, in spite of their fatalism, realise to the full the terrible penalty of inhabiting a land of volcanoes. That day little else was talked of. Two little girls, who had been adopted by Kindayu San after losing their parents in the great shock, followed by a tidal wave, some years before, became objects of particular attention. Now, Ikao is perched on the flank of a volcano, and the site of an extinct crater is occupied by the beautiful Haruna Lake, which I had not yet visited, so gladly I accepted the proposal of Nitobe San to walk there. I had made his acquaintance a few days previously on the archery-ground, adjoining the hotel, where he displayed remarkable skill in handling the unwieldy bow which is still a popular and effective weapon in the hands of Japanese archers. Indeed, he was only surpassed by a _samurai_ of about fifty, who hit the bull’s-eye four times out of five. Yet his appearance was far more studious than athletic, for Nitobe San attended the medical school at the University of Tōkyō, and when he pored over German text-books through gold-rimmed spectacles had already the reassuring gravity of a family doctor.

Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, instead of continuing to the source of the mineral spring, we ascended a steep and tortuous path to the right, which at every turn disclosed new aspects of the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop to gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like golden stars in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except where the carefully kept track wound in and out, the mountain side was swathed in evergreen. Issuing at length from the trees, we reached a grassy plateau, on which is the grazing ground of the milch-cows that supply Ikao. To the left is a curious conical hill, known as the Haruna Fuji; and other masses of irregular rock are partially covered with lichen, so as to produce the effect of ruined castles half hidden by clambering ivy. Indeed, my first impression was that these were relics of feudal fortresses, until closer inspection revealed the freakish cleverness of Nature. Two miles of level walking brought us to the lake, which is simply a large tarn surrounded by small bosom-shaped hillocks at such regular intervals as to repeat the irresistible suggestion of human ingenuity. It might have been a giant’s silver shield embossed upon the border with knobs of jade.

Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for hot sun and loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and ear. After lunch I took a bathe from the only boat to be obtained, though its crazy, water-logged condition left much to be desired. However, the boatman did his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft, and, as I undressed, hung each garment in succession round his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, as they otherwise certainly would have been. Much refreshed, I persuaded my companion to extend our walk to the ancient Shintō temple of Haruna, not more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes too narrow and precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges suddenly into a curiously imagined glen. Never had I seen such bizarre configuration, such eccentric juxtaposition of tree and stone. Pines darted like dragons from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a thicket, or lowered savagely across the torrent, which raced or trickled below. It seemed as though the spirits of water and wood and fire had suddenly been petrified at the supreme moment of a great triangular battle, and waited, weapon in hand, to spring once more each at his adversary’s throat. Evidently the old temple, dedicated to Ho-musubi, the god of fire, and Haniyasu-hime, the goddess of earth, was the citadel, defended and attacked by these weird combatants. Towering cryptomeria stood on guard around it, and huge rocks, tip-toe on tenuous bases, attended the word of command to crush the curving rafters. It needed but one signal from the imprisoned fire-god, one movement of the volcanic earth-goddess, to fill that fantastic glen with the clamour and _débris_ of primæval war. Elsewhere we might have admired the carven serpents, that writhed so realistically about the side-beams of the porch. At Nikkō or the Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyōto they might have impressed us as masterpieces of creative carpentry, but at Haruna the comparison was too trying. It was hopeless to compete with God’s more monstrous curios.

Here at last was a Shintō stronghold which did not seem abandoned and desolate, but bore traces of frequent worshippers. Above the sacred cisterns waved blue towels, suspended after purification; at the feet of a Shintōised Jizō rose a mound of propitiatory stones; on the _kagura-dō_, or dancing platform, an old woman, the priest’s wife, began her symbolic dance. As she slowly revolved, shaking her bunch of bells or waving her fan, she chanted words so venerable that all clue to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly the solemn contortions of a dying faith than the smart young priestesses of Nara in their red silk trousers and snowy mantles of flowered gauze. When those tripped forward, with thickly-powdered faces and chaplets of artificial wistaria, their garish aspect transformed the temple to a tea-house, but in this sombre fastness at the heart of Haruna we seemed to behold a very sibyl of aboriginal Japan. The assistant priest was affable but ignorant. A copy of the “Kojiki,” earliest of known records of the Way of the Gods, was kept there, he affirmed, but he had never opened it and might not show it to strangers. In winter it was terribly cold, and snow-storms would sometimes cut them off from all communication with the outer world. When floods made the torrent impassable the senior _kannushi’s_ children were obliged to do their lessons at home. But summer brought troops of pilgrims to the valley, and their offerings sufficed to keep the little band of guardians at their posts. “Are you never afraid,” I asked, “of the earth opening and the rocks falling? Only this morning we felt a slight shock of earthquake at Ikao.” The young priest smiled gravely. “No,” he answered. “For more than five hundred years the _kami_ have protected their holy place. Why should we be afraid?”

We made a small donation, and received in exchange a printed promise of Ho-musubi’s and Haniyasu-hime’s blessing, to which our names were appended. Then, turning our backs on that grim sanctuary, we climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we retraversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San described the student’s life at Tōkyō. Between 1890 and 1898 their numbers had increased from thirteen to nearly nineteen hundred, so that a second university was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyōto. But of course the Red Gate (as the Tōkyō University is familiarly called) would remain the classic portal of modern learning. The college of medicine, in which his own studies were pursued, is entirely under German influence: none but German and Japanese professors give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engineering, literature, science, and agriculture, English teachers predominate. Most of the students work desperately hard, but enjoy great liberty. The majority are poor, and some have very rough manners. The Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief of Police, who had been summoned to receive orders to repress anti-foreign demonstrations, that “the offenders were invariably either rickshaw-men or students.” Their life is far more gregarious than that of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the small block of residential buildings within the university grounds six or eight young men read, eat, and sleep in one room. These are a privileged minority of scholarship-winners, and are subjected to rather irksome restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. But the larger number live in lodging-houses, where practically no more control is exercised than over any other class of citizens. Competition is so severe that posts cannot be found for any but a small fraction of the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists who hope to make a living in those professions. In consequence the disappointed graduates turn _sōshi_ and live by their wits as spies, agitators, actors, authors, or even as itinerant musicians. Naturally, extreme views are adopted and discussed with the fervour of youth. The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western innovations, Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the substitution of Roman characters for Chinese ideographs. In vain I pointed out to him how the latter blocked the pupil’s advance and impeded international intercourse. He feared that such a step would not only tend to destroy communion with the past, but would also diminish the probability of that alliance between China and Japan which was cherished as the only means of checking Russian aggression. I formed the conclusion from this and other conversations that the salient qualities of a Japanese student are independence and passionate curiosity. It did not surprise me to learn afterwards from an English professor that his classes had summaries of his lectures printed at their own expense to facilitate the acquisition of new ideas in a foreign tongue.

While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men wearing blue cotton _hakama_ (trousers so ample as to resemble a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses, the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation--a joy too subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters.

Ikao was in truth a microcosm of Japanese society. Representatives of nearly every class came and bathed and went their way refreshed in spirit, if not cured in body, by the restful babbling water. One day an ex-daimyō, who had held high office in a recent Cabinet, arrived with a small retinue of relations and dependants. Quiet and dignified, he was only to be distinguished by a greater sobriety of manner from less aristocratic neighbours. Occasionally odd instances of polygamous experiment attracted general remark. A Tōkyō merchant came accompanied by an elderly wife, a blind baby, and two mistresses who had formerly been geisha. The three women were on excellent terms, and disputed only the privilege of spoiling the thrice-mothered child. Every evening for them was a “musical evening,” as the man had a good voice and the geisha were expert _samisen_ players. Nitobe San described the _ménage_ as “a little barbarous.” But, whether his opinion was shared by many or few, it made no difference in the reception of the new-comers, who were treated with the same frank courtesy as less numerously married folk. Indeed, frankness and propriety were marked characteristics of this hydropathic paradise. If the bathers imitated Adam and Eve in simplicity of _tenue_, their behaviour, too, like that of our first parents before the Fall, was faultless. Conversation was entirely unembarrassed and perfectly decorous. The very publicity of this hotel life was a guarantee of morality. And, in fact, one could see that beneath extreme freedom of intercourse careful etiquette was observed. Neither young girl nor married woman ever went out alone: the tea-party never became a _tête-à-tête_. The _shōji_ of the apartments were generally half open; the amusements were such as to assemble and introduce the visitors to one another. Dancing and flirting, as practised in English watering-place or French casino, were unknown. If the men desired other female society than that of their own class, they could seek the _geisha-ya_ or _jōro-ya_. If many of the diversions were childish, those of Brighton or Trouville cannot rank as intellectual exercises. It was a lazy, healthy, happy sort of paradise, and I did not live in it long enough to discover the serpent.

II

On the seventh day of the seventh moon I bade farewell to Ikao, and, loaded with little presents, descended slowly to Takasaki. Regret at leaving that delightful haven was soon lost in conjecturing the solution of an astronomic mystery. Village after village flaunted a galaxy of paper stars, which flecked the green background of interminable trees with dancing flakes of red, white, and blue. At every door stood a bamboo-stem crowned with a cluster of five-rayed stars, each ray being made of paper of a different colour. From this astral chaplet long streamers floated in the breeze, like the _gohei_, or cut paper inscribed with prayers, before a Shintō shrine. At Takasaki station I met Nitobe San’s sister-in-law, O Sen San, who was returning to her husband’s house at Tōkyō, while the student himself had gone to the more efficacious hot springs of Kusatsu. Being fellow-travellers as far as Akabane Junction, I begged her to reveal _en route_ the meaning of those starry signals which continued to flutter gaily in every district we passed, as though our train were freighted with royal passengers. Then I learned that all pious folk were celebrating that day the festival of Tanabata. The white streamers corresponded in number with the children in each household, and on every one was written a poem desiring happiness, especially good fortune in love, for the child whose name was appended. More than this she did not know, but a handsome young priest, who had remarked my zeal for knowledge, kindly volunteered the following legend:

THE HERDSMAN AND THE WEAVER.

“Long ago, as Chinese sages tell us, there dwelt in Heaven a herdsman and a weaver on opposite sides of the celestial river. All day the herdsman tended his cattle, and was far too busily occupied to think of taking a wife. All day the weaver sat at her loom, making clothes for the Emperor, and this labour took up so much of her thoughts that she even neglected to adorn her person. Then the Emperor, remarking her diligence and pitying her loneliness, sent for the herdsman and said: ‘Inasmuch as ye are both so devoted to my service, I will that ye shall henceforth be devoted to one another. I give thee this woman in marriage.’ So the girl crossed the river, and no married couple ever lived more happily together. But after a time the Emperor perceived that the marriage, though it might be a good thing for them, was an evil thing for him, since the weaver began to neglect her work, and his clothes, which had formerly won the admiration of his courtiers, showed signs of hasty and careless weaving. At this the Emperor grew very angry, and sent for the weaver and said: ‘Inasmuch as this marriage has been a joyful thing for thee and for thy husband, but a woeful thing for the Emperor of Heaven, I bid thee recross the river and return to thine old home. Once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, the herdsman may pay thee a visit, but on every other day in the year let him see to his herding and thou to thy weaving.’ So the girl returned to her old home, and the river flowed once more between herdsman and weaver; but every year, when the feast of Tanabata comes round, husband and wife are happy together. Therefore, all who desire their children to be fortunate in their love ask fortunate stars to shine upon them. Now, the Emperor of heaven is God; the celestial river is the Milky Way; the herdsman is a star in Aquila, and the weaver is no other than Vega, brightest and luckiest of stars.”

I thanked the priest for his pretty legend, and cautiously approached the subject of religion, asking if he had studied Christianity, and to what cause he attributed its slow progress among his compatriots. He answered that two facts, in his opinion, contributed greatly to its want of success. The first was its extraordinary similarity to Buddhism. The ideas of a saviour of mankind resigning kingly power to become a wandering beggar; of virginal motherhood; of trinitarian godhead; of the beauty of holiness and charity, love to men and kindness to animals; of heaven and hell, as the populace conceived them, though in reality but intermediary stages to the ultimate Nirvana;--these, and the miracles attributed to the _rakan_, or disciples of Buddha, which bore such remarkable resemblance to the wonders attributed to Christian saints, prayers for the dead, and monastic institutions;--indeed, almost every salient doctrine of Christianity, as taught by priests of the Roman See, could be found with more or less modification in one or other of the numerous Buddhist sects. Why should a believer, then, apostatise from the faith of his forefathers to adopt a foreign creed so similar to, and yet so remote from, his own? I found that his conceptions of Christianity were derived from a Romish priest, whom he had known in the island of Yezo. There was also a patriotic reason which struck me as rather unusual. The loyal Japanese believed that their Emperor was descended from the gods, and in the “Kojiki,” which is regarded with the same reverence by them as the Bible by Europeans, many actions implying divine power are said to have been performed by such beings as the Heavenly-August-Sky-Luxuriant-Dragonfly-Youth, by the Great-Refulgent-Mountain-Dwelling Grandee, and by other _kami_, or superior ones (“them that are above us,” Mrs. Dolly Winthrop would have said), to whom it was impossible to refuse the rank of deity. But the missionary said, “Thou shalt have none other gods but Me,” which commandment imposed on the convert the necessity of becoming disloyal as well as an apostate. Yet, so tolerant were Buddhist and Shintō believers, that they did not subject a pervert to any sort of persecution. They practised and allowed entire freedom of belief. I replied that, granting his premisses, his conclusions were irresistible, and we parted excellent friends.

At Akabane Junction I took leave of O Sen San, and met by appointment Mr. Richard Bates, whose acquaintance I had made about three months before in a curio dealer’s Shop at Kyōto. As we had agreed to take the waters of Akakura and Dōgō together, I must apologise to him and to the reader for interpolating a brief description of this invaluable companion. His accomplishments were so numerous that I shrink from detailing them, but they were all of such a nature as to enhance the pleasure of travelling. He was a good cook, a good nurse, a good photographer; he had the infallible _flair_ of a curio hunter, and while less wily collectors were hesitating and beating about the bush, he would mark his prey--perhaps an old lacquer bowl, perhaps a bronze incense-burner--pounce on it, appreciate it, depreciate it, and by sheer force of will-power whisk it away to his lair before the dealer had made up his mind on the subject of price. He had two deficiencies, which were also virtues on occasion: he easily lost command of Japanese idiom and British phlegm. As he chose to consider me a fair linguist, it fell to my lot to translate arguments and accusations which were violently impossible to reproduce. However, I did my best, and was rewarded by many scenes of rare comedy. I often thought he would have done better to rely on himself, since discussion gave the seller time to invent incredible merits for his wares: at such times one glance or gesture of contemptuous disbelief inspired more respect for the buyer than languid protest, and that fiery fashion of raiding a china shop, of assessing the stock with the rapidity of a freebooter, and helping himself to anything that took his fancy, was so appalling to the deliberate, ceremonious vendor, that I believe goods were frequently yielded up in terror and a vague hope of appeasement. Not that Mr. Bates invariably got the better of the bargain. It is my belief that many geese sully with unsuspected falsity the whiteness of his swans. But for him every purchase was a swan, and, if you hinted otherwise, the crime of a Frenchman who should express an unpatriotic belief in Captain Dreyfus’ innocence were light in comparison. I seldom committed that imprudence, but indulged a secret hope that one robbery balanced another, and that in the end the spoils of war were equally divided. Commercial habit does breed an instinct of distrust, which many tourists would find discomforting; but this instinct was so agreeably modified in my fellow-countryman by generosity and justice, that on the whole we made as many friends as enemies. If a landlord tried to cheat us, we told him so with reprehensible directness; if he treated us well, we gave him a handsome present, and were as pleased as Diogenes would have been had he pursued his famous quest by the light of a Japanese lantern.

Men, honest or dishonest, interested us but little that day, so absorbingly magnificent was the scenery. At Akakura we should be in sight of the Sea of Japan, while Tōkyō faces the Pacific, so that our route ran north-west at an angle of about forty-five degrees, very nearly from coast to coast of the main island. The train would have to climb to a height of 3080 feet, crossing by means of the Usui Pass the volcanic backbone of mountains which culminates in Asama-yama (8280 feet), the largest active volcano in the country. As we steamed slowly up the steep gradient to the grassy levels of New and Old Karuizawa, a series of twenty-six tunnels, bored at such short distances from each other as to resemble the disjointed sockets of a gigantic telescope, provided intermittent glimpses of jagged cliffs and terrific gorges. Far below lay green valleys and plains, threaded by silver rivulets and dotted with infinitesimal châlets; beside us, densely-wooded slopes; to left and right, on the horizon, Myyōgi San and the Kōtsuke peaks rose frowning to the sky. Many passengers descended at Karuizawa, for it stands on a lofty moor, where cows and wild flowers flourish to the joy of European children. Here the wise missionary builds his villa and transports his family in the hot months. Donkeys and bicycles, bestridden by sturdy, blue-eyed youngsters, excite wonder in the meek pedestrian native, while papa, untrammelled by clerical attire, manfully mounts his five thousand feet and gazes into the red sulphureous crater. Has not a local parodist thus celebrated the annual exodus?

“When summer strikes Tsukiji With rays, which frame in gold That glory of Meiji, Our evangelic fold, To colder heights and calmer Each missionary flies; He loves Asama-yama, For nearer Heaven it lies.”