Part 14

Most famous of these insular jewels is Miyajima. As no boats were running thither from Kōbe, we travelled by the San-yo railway as far as Onomichi, skirting the coast so closely that we hardly once lost sight of the sea. Though sorely tempted to break the journey for the purpose of visiting the great feudal castles of Himeji and Okayama, we pressed on until the bay of Fukuyama, glittering like molten fire in a superb sunset, was hailed with rapture and relief, for the train journey had been hot and long, and we welcomed the prospect of repose. One of those delicious, indolent evenings, when the traveller reclines on piled cushions, drinking tea or _saké_, until he be roused from waking dreams by the low laughter of attendant _musumé_, demanding permission to strew the beds and light the lanterns, would have formed an excellent climax to that fatiguing day. But I never dared anticipate repose in the company of Mr. Bates, who was apt to burst into sudden flame on the slightest provocation. And during that week provocation lurked in two hotels out of three. The guide-book describes Onomichi as “a bustling, prosperous place”: it may be “prosperous”; it is undeniably “bustling.” We were barely out of the train and had just set foot in the straggling main street, when two hotel touts seized us by the arm, jovially aired some broken English, and deposited us with our bags on the steps of a large hotel. “Ask the price!” shouted Mr. Bates, “ask the price! I have never yet entered an hotel without knowing what I have to pay. Ask the price!” I complied, but the landlord with soft, evasive phrases, wafted us to an upper floor, while my companion smouldered. Suddenly a chair and table appeared. “Take them away!” he shouted, “take them away! I know the trick. They will make us pay double, and I refuse to be swindled.” This time we insisted on knowing the charges, and the proprietor, as we expected, demanded three times as much as we had now become accustomed to pay. We protested. He assured us that “honourable guests from Yokohama and Kōbe” never paid less, but we replied that Kōbe and Yokohama were nothing to us, who always paid Japanese prices for Japanese accommodation. Finding him impervious to reason, we shouldered our bags and marched out of the house. Then he consented to receive his due, and reinstalled us on our own terms. But the hotel girls were cross and discourteous, the native visitors noisy, the food bad and badly served. As a last attempt to get the better of us, the landlord affirmed that now there was no chance of a boat being despatched to Miyajima before the following afternoon, and that the information we had gathered from a casual shopkeeper the night before, that one would sail at eight o’clock in the morning, was erroneous. But Mr. Bates had been compelled twice before to spend an extra day in one of these seaside hotels, on the plea that the boat had gone, or would only go, apparently, at the landlord’s bidding. Smiling, therefore, but without hesitation, we made our own way to the wharf at seven o’clock and took our own tickets, that there might be no collusion between the hotel-boy and the official who booked passengers. At eight o’clock we steamed away from Onomichi. Through clustered islands our tiny steamer threaded in and out, until Kure appeared, an important arsenal at the foot of the Aki Hills. Here we discharged some hundreds of copper slabs, and while that slow operation was in progress were amused by the animation which prevailed on the men-of-war and on the numerous sampans plying between them and the shore. About four miles away on the island of Etajima stands the Imperial Naval College. When this and other points of interest had been indicated to us by polite fellow-passengers, our attention was riveted on the labourers, who jerked the slabs from hand to hand and piled them on the floor of a barge in symmetrical heaps. The “chantey” which they sang to lighten the labour was simple and monotonous, consisting of two words, which sounded absurdly like “Hong Kong” and “Shanghai” repeated _ad infinitum_. At last we continued our voyage, but were again subjected to a long delay at Hiroshima, where we landed and beguiled the tedium of waiting by chaffering with bum-boat women for sweets and chestnuts. The town stands far back from the water, and a causeway three miles in length runs out into the spacious harbour, formed by the delta of the Otagawa. As this is the most busy commercial centre west of Kōbe, there was plenty of movement: rows of boats were loading and unloading, rickshaws driving up perpetually from the town, while shrill-voiced youngsters did a brisk trade in fruit and vegetables. At the risk of being left behind, my indefatigable companion made a dash for the distant shops, and returned triumphant, hugging in one arm two loaves of bread and in the other a dilapidated Buddha, whose grimy gilt was irresistible to the collector. His disgust when I guessed the exact price he had paid (about five _yen_, or ten shillings), and refused to believe that it could be worth a penny more to any one, was too deep for words.

Darkness had fallen when Miyajima was reached, and as we were rowed ashore the outlines of temple and grove were shrouded in gloom. Only the _colossal torii_ loomed black against the shimmering water, while all that lay behind was covered by the shadow of climbing forests. We took supper at an hotel near the entrance to the temple-grounds, and were then conducted by two of the landlord’s daughters on a tour of inspection through the main street. We discovered a curio-shop, of which the proprietress set such extravagant value on her wares that Mr. Bates at once was lured into hot discussion. Night interposed, and at an early hour, before I was well awake, I heard the resumption of battle below my balcony. The proprietress with gentle laughter and firm accent extolled her treasures; the would-be purchaser, in nervous tones which tingled with cupidity and despair, attempted in vain to cheapen them. His patience was rapidly giving way, and very soon he cried out for his interpreter to descend and assault the enemy. But this time I deliberately closed ears and eyes, feigning sleep. I had not come to that holy island to fight for curios, and though I had attained the knack of giving the lie courteous to crafty dealers, I shrank from translating rough language to a woman. Fidelity was routed by chivalry. They finished the struggle without my intervention, and victory remained with the lady.

When I descended, the defeated combatant was seeking consolation in photography. And seldom had his camera been confronted with more beautiful pictures. The winding valleys and soaring rocks converge at an elevation of more than a thousand feet on a little shrine, in which has been burning a sacred fire for more than a thousand years. From the opposite shore, as one traces the salient features of this evergreen island, all the details--streamlet and temple-roof, cliff and maple and pine--merge in a majestic harmony of serried line and luxuriant colour. But on the island itself one is drawn, as by a magnet, to the great temple of Itsukushima Hime, which, being partly built over the water on piles, seems at high tide, like the Breton vision of Is, to rise from the depths of the sea. At all times the _torii_, or wooden archway, which stands before this Shintō temple is partially submerged, and Hiroshigi in his fifty-four _meisho_, or views of Japan, gives such prominence to it, that the long galleries and avenue of stone lanterns, as well as the central hall, from which the colonnades diverge like wooden arms, bent to embrace the incoming tide, are barely suggested. Daimyō, Shōgun, and Emperor have vied with one another in decorating this temple, and the successive chapels are hung with paintings by famous artists from the sixteenth century to the present time. Many quaint customs, formerly regarded as conducive to the purity of a holy place, are still observed. Neither death nor birth is allowed to sully its eternal immunity from change. When either is anticipated, the patient is ferried across to the mainland. Dogs are forbidden, but deer roam the streets and feed fearlessly from the hands of tourist or pilgrim. All day the temple-courts are thronged with worshippers, and sometimes at night, when a pious noble or rich American affords himself the sight, the lit lanterns of stone or bronze, which line the approaches to the temple, define the interlacing courts and bridges in traceries of fire. But this illumination we had not the good fortune to see.

Another temple on a neighbouring hill, though less beautiful, is equally unique. It consists of a vast platform, from which spring twenty-four massive columns to support the roof, whose only ornamentation on the interior, if ornamentation it can be called, is a frieze of wooden spoons, some small, others enormous: they are nailed there, or on the columns, as the donor’s caprice dictates, and confer comparative immortality at trifling cost, for each is inscribed with an autograph. Thus the ingenious Japanese have found a way of diverting and profiting by that first infirmity of ignoble minds, which robs St. Paul’s of dignity and desecrates Westminster Abbey with such legends as “Peter Jones from Hampstead” and “Eliza Smith of Bethnal Green.” Much impressed by this strange custom, each of us bought a spoon and, veiling our vulgarity in Latin, suspended this device from the right-hand pillar of the porch:

Venit, Vidit, Oravit, O. E. R. B.

For two months I had been haunted by visions of the bridge-Kintaikyō, as it seems to have haunted the landscape-painters of Japan. I remembered it as one of the most remarkable in Hokusai’s series of “A Hundred Bridges”; I had another marvellous drawing of the five arches overwhelmed by a snow-storm and apparently detached from both land and water, for Hiroshigi understands the isolation of his subject from irrelevant detail as few others, slaves of perspective, would dare imagine. If uneducated eyes took the picture to represent a peal of blue bells, sprinkled with cotton-wool and straddling through space, so much the worse for uneducated eyes. But at any rate, being so near, I resolved to dispel vision by looking on reality, and spent half a day in visiting Iwakuni. We were obliged to leave our rickshaws at the foot of Katō Kiyomasa’s towering temple that overlooks the almost waterless bed of the Nishikigawa, for none but a pedestrian could climb the huge arcs, thirty feet long, which spring in five bounds from shore to shore, like the curves of a switchback railway. Then the faithful camera was brought into play, and a bevy of perplexed ducks were hustled into the foreground, with the inevitable result of attracting several loiterers to share with them the glory of being photographed. These had to be politely expelled, and in the end several excellent views were taken. But not one of them conveys the fantastic liberty of that flying bridge so realistically as the snowscape of Hiroshigi.

Lulled by the honest countenance of our courteous landlady into misplaced confidence, we were astonished by her presenting on our departure a bill more exorbitant than that of the hotel-keeper of Onomichi. We expostulated, and repeated the terms named by her clerk the night before. At once the amount was cut down to half and the lesser sum accepted with no gratitude or resentment. Mr. Bates is furious, and delivers a lecture on probity; but I cannot bring myself to regard these bland banditti, who extort without violence and restore the booty without a murmur, as on a par with the cheating innkeepers of other lands. Their motive is probably either religious or patriotic, perhaps both. Some one must have told them that foreigners are only permitted by autochthonous gods to visit Japan on condition of enriching its inhabitants. By overcharging the tourist, then, they are pleasing their gods and serving their country. Their compatriots are protected by legal prices, publicly posted in every inn, but they know that the barbarian cannot read official notices, and quixotic indeed would it be to enlighten him. To me such _naïf_ graceful swindling (when exposed and thwarted) is more delightful than churlish, prosaic probity.

Returning to Hiroshima, we thence took steamer to Mitsugahama, one of the chief ports in the island of Shikoku, whose mineral baths were the goal of our voyage. Had time allowed, we would gladly have visited all the four provinces of this magnificent island--provinces which in earlier times were known as “Lovely Princess,” “Prince Good Boiled Rice,” “The Princess of Great Food,” and “The Brave Good Youth.” But we had only leisure to do homage to Iyo-Ehime, the Lovely Princess, who amply justified her title by the loveliness of her domain. Between her territory and that of Tosa or Take-yori-wake, the Brave Good Youth, whose sons are to-day the staunchest advocates of progress, runs a mountain ridge, varying in height from three to four thousand feet, so richly covered with forests that not only are the pines, maples, and alders as plentiful as elsewhere, but with these is intermingled an endless host of beeches, oaks, and horse-chestnuts. Except in the neighbourhood of Akakura, we had not seen a finer stretch of mountain-scenery.

But we never came close to these wooded heights, for Dōgō is only a short distance from the seashore, and is reached in half-an-hour by what I can only describe as a toy train. We crept into a first-class carriage, and just managed to avoid bumping our heads against the low-pitched roof. The fare was on the same scale as the compartments, for the cost of the ticket was three _sen_ (farthings). The rickshaw-men were polite and reasonable, the landlord of the Iwai-ya both affable and honest; in a word, we had left the track of long-suffering and all-corrupting tourists, and had reached one of those districts, so pleasant to discover, where manners are as yet unspoiled by money. Delighted with our lot, we settled down to three days of paradise regained.

Our first care was to discover the bath-house. In front of the hotel rose a mansion of pine, surrounded by iron railings of curious pattern, a line of storks in zigzag flight, and surmounted by a stork of gold with outstretched wings. The Governor’s house, we thought, or perhaps a court of justice, resplendent with carven symbol to impress the natives with reverence for the new _régime_. But no: this was the principal bath-house. As we passed from storey to storey and remarked the beauty of rafter and balustrade, my companion, who speaks with knowledge, declared that he had never seen such superb carpentry. In many of the chambers were flowers and _kakemono_ by modern painters; in short, we had found a more lordly palace of bathing than even Ikao could boast. The baths were of granite and the dressing-rooms hung with silken curtains. As we had paid the highest tariff, ten _sen_ (about twopence-halfpenny), before entering the bath, we were served by daintily-robed waitresses with cherry-blossom-and-water, a rather saline concoction prepared from the national flower. When we issued from the hot salt waters the same attendants brought tea and cigarettes. Enchanted with our first experience of Dōgō fashions, we returned to the hotel and demanded of the landlord what other sights the town possessed.

The public garden, the wood-carvers’ shops, the big temple of Ōkuni-nushi and Sukuna-bikona, which crowns a hill on the outskirts of the town, were duly visited, and pronounced inferior to those we had seen elsewhere. But O Yoshi San informed us at dinner that every stranger who came to Dōgō was considered unlucky if he departed without seeing and hearing two beautiful sisters, geisha of shining notoriety. We sent a summons at once, and by good luck it happened that one hour of their deeply engaged evening was at our disposal. Our room was brightened up with flowers and sweetmeats, _saké_ and cigarettes were lavishly provided, cushions set and lanterns lit. The geisha were announced by their professional names--White Jewel and Young Butterfly--made smiling obeisance to the “honourable strangers,” and took their seats in the centre of the room, while their duenna, the Katti Lanner of Shikoku, whose pupils had spread the fame of their teacher all over Japan, remained respectfully in the doorway. The age of Young Butterfly cannot have exceeded thirteen years. She wore a white silk _kimono_, heavily embroidered with gold, and gold dragons on a green sash chased one another round her slender waist. In her coiffure was an ivory pin, terminating in a miniature birdcage, from which a red tassel fluttered defiantly. Her pantomimic dances (in which she required occasional prompting) represented the wooing of a coy damsel and the capture of a standard in the Chinese war; her childish emphasis of amorous and martial gesture was extremely piquant. White Jewel was, however, not only a clever artist but a most intelligent woman. About ten years older than her sister, she was dressed far more simply. Her _kimono_ was of black _crépon_, her sash of iris-coloured brocade, and her hair had no ornament but a purple iris. She sang, like all her tribe, with nasal intonation and harsh lower notes, but her smile when she talked was as bright as her wits, quick to grasp my questions and explain the meaning of her songs. Indeed, I owe to White Jewel some of the prettiest instances of popular _dodoitsu_ collected in a previous chapter. She was very pleased with her calling, which she had found lucrative, and was not offended by the assertion that most people considered geisha to be like cats, sly and treacherous; otherwise, how was it they had acquired the nickname of “Nekko” or “Pussie”? She replied by singing a quatrain which conveys in the original two meanings for every line:

’Ware of the Pussie! Pussie, seen smoothing Coat of striped velvet, Trimming her claws.

’Ware of the geisha! Geisha, seen folding Soft-striped _yukata_, Binding her shoes.

At this point Mr. Bates manifested a desire to bask in the rays of White Jewel, and completely ousted me from favour by a fraudulent piece of palmistry. As he traced the lines in her sensitive hand he discovered pledges of prodigious prosperity--rich lovers, increased fame, long life, and ultimate marriage to a deputy-judge! The only prediction which missed the mark was a prophecy of twin daughters, who should rival and perpetuate the glory of White Jewel and Young Butterfly. The Japanese consider it rather gross and catlike to have more than one child at a time. White Jewel made a grimace of playful disgust and offered to sing another song, which would be the last, as other houses had engaged her to appear at ten o’clock and at eleven. It was exactly half-past ten; if she went now, her punctuality would be unimpugned. So she took leave of us with a chansonette as dainty as her own personality.

LIGHT LOVE.

If love be thoughtless, Then is love shallow; Though love be shallow, Do not forget.

We devoted the second day of our visit to Matsuyama, the capital of the province of “Lovely Princess,” not more than four miles from Dōgō. There is little to be seen there, however, except the castle, one of the largest in Japan, and some excellent curio-shops, in which the zeal of my companion was rewarded by some precious finds. Leaving him to indulge his master-passion, which I found less amusing than the pursuit of living curios, I laid siege to the castle. At the bureau where tickets are to be obtained many officials referred me to one another, and requested me to wait until certain formalities were complied with. After two hours’ stolid patience the fortress capitulated, and I was assigned to the care of a gallant sergeant, who spoke a little English and proved a most competent guide. From the summit of the tower a fine panorama was visible: below us the fertile Matsuyama plain stretched away to the shore of the Inland Sea, and on the opposite side the horizon was shut in by forest and mountain. To tell the truth, my conductor’s account of the castle’s history, as illustrated by its structure and some surviving weapons of war, interested me much less than his own exploits. For had he not with his own hand slain five Chinese braves in the battle of Port Arthur? My compliments on his heroism must have touched his heart, for, turning suddenly, he grasped my hand and cried: “I like you. You shall be my friend. I will dine with you.” This abrupt proposition at once solved for me the embarrassing question of remuneration. I could not press surreptitious silver into the palm of this obliging lover of England and slayer of Chinamen, but a friendly dinner would put us on terms of franker intimacy. So we descended the winding path from the ramparts, crossed the moat, and marched home to the Iwai-ya. We drank cherry-blossom and _saké_; we bathed, and dined off the best fare which our host could provide; we discussed the character of native and foreigner, arriving at the conclusion that, while the best type of Japanese inhabited Shikoku, the wiliest and worst of foes were Russian. We had not time to go deeply into ethnology, for at half-past eight my guest buckled on his sword and with many protestations of affectionate regard returned to barracks.

No shadow of trickery marred our joyous reminiscences of Dōgō. When we left the landlord presented a bill so ridiculously low, that we bestowed on him as much again in tea-money. Not to be outdone, he loaded our departing rickshaws with four bottles of beer. And the photographer, whose camera was worth a fortune to him as a means of gratifying all sorts and conditions of men, took an excellent group of that smiling host and his cheery household.

The voyage to Kōbe was no less agreeable. We had for fellow-passenger a distinguished middle-aged officer, who had fought on the losing sides in the revolution and the Satsuma-rebellion headed by Saigō Takamori, whose grave we had seen at Miyajima. Experience had long since convinced him of the folly of anti-progressive movements, and he realised as clearly as the most democratic reformer that national security was best served by adopting Western ideas. We had no idea of his rank until a small boat put off at Tadotsu, in which were three officers of inferior grade, who had come to escort him ashore. From his seat in the boat he waved his hand genially to us, while the men pulled in to harbour, but the three officers remained standing, as unmoved by the shock of the waves as by the rattle of Chinese artillery.