For an hour and a half the ranges to left and right alternately recede
and approach. Beautiful blue shapes glide toward us, change to green,
and then, slowly drifting behind us, are all blue again. But the far
mountains immediately before us--immovable, unchanging--always remain
ghosts. Suddenly the little steamer turns straight into the land--a
land so low that it came into sight quite unexpectedly--and we puff up a
narrow stream between rice-fields to a queer, quaint, pretty village
on the canal bank--Shobara. Here I must hire jinricksha to take us to
Kitzuki.
There is not time to see much of Shobara if I hope to reach Kitzuki
before bedtime, and I have only a flying vision of one long wide street
(so picturesque that I wish I could pass a day in it), as our kuruma
rush through the little town into the open country, into a vast plain
covered with rice-fields. The road itself is only a broad dike, barely
wide enough for two jinricksha to pass each other upon it. On each side
the superb plain is bounded by a mountain range shutting off the white
horizon. There is a vast silence, an immense sense of dreamy peace,
and a glorious soft vapoury light over everything, as we roll into
the country of Hyasugi to Kaminawoe. The jagged range on the left is
Shusai-yama, all sharply green, with the giant Daikoku-yama overtopping
all; and its peaks bear the names of gods. Much more remote, upon our
right, enormous, pansy-purple, tower the shapes of the Kita-yama, or
northern range; filing away in tremendous procession toward the sunset,
fading more and more as they stretch west, to vanish suddenly at last,
after the ghostliest conceivable manner, into the uttermost day.
All this is beautiful; yet there is no change while hours pass. Always
the way winds on through miles of rice-fields, white-speckled with
paper-winged shafts which are arrows of prayer. Always the voice of
frogs--a sound as of infinite bubbling. Always the green range on the
left, the purple on the right, fading westward into a tall file of
tinted spectres which always melt into nothing at last, as if they were
made of air. The monotony of the scene is broken only by our occasional
passing through some pretty Japanese village, or by the appearance of a
curious statue or monument at an angle of the path, a roadside Jizo, or
the grave of a wrestler, such as may be seen on the bank of the
Hiagawa, a huge slab of granite sculptured with the words, 'Ikumo Matsu
kikusuki.'
But after reaching Kandogori, and passing over a broad but shallow
river, a fresh detail appears in the landscape. Above the mountain chain
on our left looms a colossal blue silhouette, almost saddle-shaped,
recognisable by its outline as a once mighty volcano. It is now known by
various names, but it was called in ancient times Sa-hime-yama; and it
has its Shinto legend.
It is said that in the beginning the God of Izumo, gazing over the land,
said, 'This new land of Izumo is a land of but small extent, so I will
make it a larger land by adding unto it.' Having so said, he looked
about him over to Korea, and there he saw land which was good for the
purpose. With a great rope he dragged therefrom four islands, and added
the land of them to Izumo. The first island was called Ya-o-yo-ne, and
it formed the land where Kitzuki now is. The second island was called
Sada-no-kuni, and is at this day the site of the holy temple where
all the gods do yearly hold their second assembly, after having first
gathered together at Kitzuki. The third island was called in its new
place Kurami-no-kuni, which now forms Shimane-gori. The fourth island
became that place where stands the temple of the great god at whose
shrine are delivered unto the faithful the charms which protect the
rice-fields. [4]
Now in drawing these islands across the sea into their several places
the god looped his rope over the mighty mountain of Daisen and over the
mountain Sa-hime-yama; and they both bear the marks of that wondrous
rope even unto this day. As for the rope itself, part of it was changed
into the long island of ancient times [5] called Yomi-ga-hama, and a
part into the Long Beach of Sono.
After we pass the Hori-kawa the road narrows and becomes rougher and
rougher, but always draws nearer to the Kitayama range. Toward sundown
we have come close enough to the great hills to discern the details of
their foliage. The path begins to rise; we ascend slowly through the
gathering dusk. At last there appears before us a great multitude of
twinkling lights. We have reached Kitzuki, the holy city.