The day is clear blue to the end of the world, with a faint wind from
the east, barely enough to wrinkle the sea, certainly more than enough
to 'move three hairs.' Nevertheless the boatwoman and the boatman do not
seem anxious; and I begin to wonder whether the famous prohibition is
not a myth. So delightful the transparent water looks, that before we
have left the bay I have to yield to its temptation by plunging in and
swimming after the boat. When I climb back on board we are rounding
the promontory on the right; and the little vessel begins to rock. Even
under this thin wind the sea is moving in long swells. And as we
pass into the open, following the westward trend of the land, we find
ourselves gliding over an ink-black depth, in front of one of the very
grimmest coasts I ever saw.
A tremendous line of dark iron-coloured cliffs, towering sheer from
the sea without a beach, and with never a speck of green below their
summits; and here and there along this terrible front, monstrous
beetlings, breaches, fissures, earthquake rendings, and topplings-down.
Enormous fractures show lines of strata pitched up skyward, or plunging
down into the ocean with the long fall of cubic miles of cliff. Before
fantastic gaps, prodigious masses of rock, of all nightmarish shapes,
rise from profundities unfathomed. And though the wind to-day seems
trying to hold its breath, white breakers are reaching far up the
cliffs, and dashing their foam into the faces of the splintered
crags. We are too far to hear the thunder of them; but their ominous
sheet-lightning fully explains to me the story of the three hairs. Along
this goblin coast on a wild day there would be no possible chance for
the strongest swimmer, or the stoutest boat; there is no place for
the foot, no hold for the hand, nothing but the sea raving against a
precipice of iron. Even to-day, under the feeblest breath imaginable,
great swells deluge us with spray as they splash past. And for two long
hours this jagged frowning coast towers by; and, as we toil on, rocks
rise around us like black teeth; and always, far away, the foam-bursts
gleam at the feet of the implacable cliffs. But there are no sounds save
the lapping and plashing of passing swells, and the monotonous creaking
of the sculls upon their pegs of wood.
At last, at last, a bay--a beautiful large bay, with a demilune of soft
green hills about it, overtopped by far blue mountains--and in the very
farthest point of the bay a miniature village, in front of which many
junks are riding at anchor: Kaka-ura.
But we do not go to Kaka-ura yet; the Kukedo are not there. We cross
the broad opening of the bay, journey along another half-mile of ghastly
sea-precipice, and finally make for a lofty promontory of naked Plutonic
rock. We pass by its menacing foot, slip along its side, and lo! at an
angle opens the arched mouth of a wonderful cavern, broad, lofty, and
full of light, with no floor but the sea. Beneath us, as we slip into
it, I can see rocks fully twenty feet down. The water is clear as air.
This is the Shin-Kukedo, called the New Cavern, though assuredly older
than human record by a hundred thousand years.