'Tera?' queries Cha, with his immense white hat in his hand, as I resume
my seat in the jinricksha at the foot of the steps. Which no doubt
means, do I want to see any more temples? Most certainly I do: I have
not yet seen Buddha.
'Yes, tera, Cha.'
And again begins the long panorama of mysterious shops and tilted eaves,
and fantastic riddles written over everything. I have no idea in what
direction Cha is running. I only know that the streets seem to become
always narrower as we go, and that some of the houses look like great
wickerwork pigeon-cages only, and that we pass over several bridges
before we halt again at the foot of another hill. There is a lofty
flight of steps here also, and before them a structure which I know
is both a gate and a symbol, imposing, yet in no manner resembling the
great Buddhist gateway seen before. Astonishingly simple all the lines
of it are: it has no carving, no colouring, no lettering upon it; yet it
has a weird solemnity, an enigmatic beauty. It is a torii.
'Miya,' observes Cha. Not a tera this time, but a shrine of the gods of
the more ancient faith of the land--a miya.
I am standing before a Shinto symbol; I see for the first time, out of a
picture at least, a torii. How describe a torii to those who have never
looked at one even in a photograph or engraving? Two lofty columns, like
gate-pillars, supporting horizontally two cross-beams, the lower and
lighter beam having its ends fitted into the columns a little distance
below their summits; the uppermost and larger beam supported upon the
tops of the columns, and projecting well beyond them to right and left.
That is a torii: the construction varying little in design, whether made
of stone, wood, or metal. But this description can give no correct idea
of the appearance of a torii, of its majestic aspect, of its mystical
suggestiveness as a gateway. The first time you see a noble one, you
will imagine, perhaps, that you see the colossal model of some beautiful
Chinese letter towering against the sky; for all the lines of the thing
have the grace of an animated ideograph,--have the bold angles and
curves of characters made with four sweeps of a master-brush. [2]
Passing the torii I ascend a flight of perhaps one hundred stone steps,
and find at their summit a second torii, from whose lower cross-beam
hangs festooned the mystic shimenawa. It is in this case a hempen
rope of perhaps two inches in diameter through its greater length, but
tapering off at either end like a snake. Sometimes the shimenawa is
made of bronze, when the torii itself is of bronze; but according to
tradition it should be made of straw, and most commonly is. For it
represents the straw rope which the deity Futo-tama-no-mikoto
stretched behind the Sun-goddess, Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami, after
Ame-no-ta-jikara-wo-no-Kami, the Heavenly-hand-strength-god, had pulled
her out, as is told in that ancient myth of Shinto which Professor
Chamberlain has translated. [3] And the shimenawa, in its commoner and
simpler form, has pendent tufts of straw along its entire length, at
regular intervals, because originally made, tradition declares, of grass
pulled up by the roots which protruded from the twist of it.
Advancing beyond this torii, I find myself in a sort of park or
pleasure-ground on the summit of the hill. There is a small temple
on the right; it is all closed up; and I have read so much about the
disappointing vacuity of Shinto temples that I do not regret the
absence of its guardian. And I see before me what is infinitely more
interesting,--a grove of cherry-trees covered with something unutterably
beautiful,--a dazzling mist of snowy blossoms clinging like summer
cloud-fleece about every branch and twig; and the ground beneath them,
and the path before me, is white with the soft, thick, odorous snow of
fallen petals.
Beyond this loveliness are flower-plots surrounding tiny shrines; and
marvellous grotto-work, full of monsters--dragons and mythologic beings
chiselled in the rock; and miniature landscape work with tiny groves of
dwarf trees, and Lilliputian lakes, and microscopic brooks and bridges
and cascades. Here, also, are swings for children. And here are
belvederes, perched on the verge of the hill, wherefrom the whole fair
city, and the whole smooth bay speckled with fishing-sails no bigger
than pin-heads, and the far, faint, high promontories reaching into the
sea, are all visible in one delicious view--blue-pencilled in a beauty
of ghostly haze indescribable.
Why should the trees be so lovely in Japan? With us, a plum or cherry
tree in flower is not an astonishing sight; but here it is a miracle of
beauty so bewildering that, however much you may have previously read
about it, the real spectacle strikes you dumb. You see no leaves--only
one great filmy mist of petals. Is it that the trees have been so long
domesticated and caressed by man in this land of the Gods, that they
have acquired souls, and strive to show their gratitude, like women
loved, by making themselves more beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly
they have mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful
slaves. That is to say, Japanese hearts. Apparently there have been some
foreign tourists of the brutal class in this place, since it has been
deemed necessary to set up inscriptions in English announcing that 'IT
IS FORBIDDEN TO INJURE THE TREES.'