From Matsue to Mionoseki by steamer is a charming journey in fair
weather. After emerging from the beautiful lagoon of Naka-umi into the
open sea, the little packet follows the long coast of Izumo to the left.
Very lofty this coast is, all cliffs and hills rising from the sea,
mostly green to their summits, and many cultivated in terraces, so as
to look like green pyramids of steps. The bases of the cliffs are very
rocky; and the curious wrinklings and corrugations of the coast suggest
the work of ancient volcanic forces. Far away to the right, over blue
still leagues of sea, appears the long low shore of Hoki, faint as a
mirage, with its far beach like an endless white streak edging the blue
level, and beyond it vapoury lines of woods and cloudy hills, and over
everything, looming into the high sky, the magnificent ghostly shape of
Daisen, snow-streaked at its summit.
So for perhaps an hour we steam on, between Hoki and Izumo; the rugged
and broken green coast on our left occasionally revealing some miniature
hamlet sheltered in a wrinkle between two hills; the phantom coast on
the right always unchanged. Then suddenly the little packet whistles,
heads for a grim promontory to port, glides by its rocky foot, and
enters one of the prettiest little bays imaginable, previously concealed
from view. A shell-shaped gap in the coast--a semicircular basin
of clear deep water, framed in by high corrugated green hills, all
wood-clad. Around the edge of the bay the quaintest of little Japanese
cities, Mionoseki.
There is no beach, only a semicircle of stone wharves, and above these
the houses, and above these the beautiful green of the sacred hills,
with a temple roof or two showing an angle through the foliage. From the
rear of each house steps descend to deep water; and boats are moored at
all the back-doors. We moor in front of the great temple, the Miojinja.
Its great paved avenue slopes to the water's edge, where boats are also
moored at steps of stone; and looking up the broad approach, one sees
a grand stone torii, and colossal stone lanterns, and two magnificent
sculptured lions, karashishi, seated upon lofty pedestals, and looking
down upon the people from a height of fifteen feet or more. Beyond all
this the walls and gate of the outer temple court appear, and beyond
them, the roofs of the great haiden, and the pierced projecting
cross-beams of the loftier Go-Miojin, the holy shrine itself, relieved
against the green of the wooded hills. Picturesque junks are lying in
ranks at anchor; there are two deep-sea vessels likewise, of modern
build, ships from Osaka. And there is a most romantic little breakwater
built of hewn stone, with a stone lantern perched at the end of it;
and there is a pretty humped bridge connecting it with a tiny island on
which I see a shrine of Benten, the Goddess of Waters.