After looking at all the pictures I visited the great palace garden,
only recently opened to the public. It is called the Garden of the
Cavern of the Genii. (At least "genii" is about the only word one can
use to translate the term "Sennin," for which there is no real English
equivalent; the Sennin, who are supposed to possess immortal life,
and to haunt forests or caverns, being Japanese, or rather Chinese
mythological transformations of the Indian Rishi.) The garden deserves
its name. I felt as if I had indeed entered an enchanted place.
It is a landscape-garden,--a Buddhist creation, belonging to what is
now simply a palace, but was once a monastery, built as a religious
retreat for emperors and princes weary of earthly vanities. The first
impression received after passing the gate is that of a grand old
English park: the colossal trees, the shorn grass, the broad walks,
the fresh sweet scent of verdure, all awaken English memories. But as
you proceed farther these memories are slowly effaced, and the true
Oriental impression defines: you perceive that the forms of those
mighty trees are not European; various and surprising exotic details
reveal themselves; and then you are gazing down upon a sheet of water
containing high rocks and islets connected by bridges of the strangest
shapes. Gradually,--only gradually,--the immense charm, the weird
Buddhist charm of the place, grows and grows upon you; and the sense of
its vast antiquity defines to touch that chord of the aesthetic feeling
which brings the vibration of awe.
Considered as a human work alone, the garden is a marvel: only the
skilled labor of thousands could have joined together the mere bones
of it, the prodigious rocky skeleton of its plan. This once shaped
and earthed and planted, Nature was left alone to finish the wonder.
Working through ten centuries, she has surpassed--nay, unspeakably
magnified--the dream of the artist. Without exact information,
no stranger unfamiliar with the laws and the purpose of Japanese
garden-construction could imagine that all this had a human designer
some thousand years ago: the effect is that of a section of primeval
forest, preserved untouched from the beginning, and walled away from
the rest of the world in the heart of the old capital. The rock-faces,
the great fantastic roots, the shadowed by-paths, the few ancient
graven monoliths, are all cushioned with the moss of ages; and climbing
things have developed stems a foot thick, that hang across spaces like
monstrous serpents. Parts of the garden vividly recall some aspects
of tropical nature in the Antilles;--though one misses the palms, the
bewildering web and woof of lianas, the reptiles, and the sinister
day-silence of a West Indian forest. The joyous storm of bird life
overhead is an astonishment, and proclaims gratefully to the visitor
that the wild creatures of this monastic paradise have never been
harmed or frightened by man. As I arrived at last, with regret, at the
gate of exit, I could not help feeling envious of its keeper: only to
be a servant in such a garden were a privilege well worth praying for.