were marred for one of us by two circumstances--the familiarity
of servants and the uncertainty of time. Democratic in sympathy,
preferring the expansiveness of the simple to the discreet
inanity of the genteel, I was yet a little surprised to remark
the ultra-friendly relations between servant and guest. A “boy”
would enter with profound obeisance, deliver a message or an
article demanded, and, being invited to join the party, would play
cards, ask and be asked very personal questions, make himself
thoroughly at home, and depart when duty called, bowing low. At
first it is difficult not to associate these prostrations with
subservience, but they really imply nothing but good manners. When
the guest left the hotel, he would hand the “boy” a tip, wrapped
in paper, as etiquette requires, for that delicacy which impels us
to concede intimacy and refuse money, or to refuse intimacy and
concede money to social inferiors, because the conjunction of the
two offends our sense of the deference due to class-distinctions,
would appear strange to the far more rigidly classified Japanese.
In fact, more real democracy--if by that be meant frank and
unembarrassed intercourse between high and low--is possible under
a caste system than any other. Every one “knows his place,” and
has no inducement to affect a higher rank than he really possesses
by an assumption of haughty manners. The innate courtesy of most
Japanese servants renders friendship with them more delightful than
might be supposed, but occasionally one comes across a conceited,
half-educated fellow in European dress, who passes from familiarity
to impertinence. However, I was soon taught a more difficult lesson
than that of forgetting class prejudice. Perhaps the hardest
of all truths engrained in Oriental theory and conduct is the
unimportance of time. We, who live by machinery which measures for
most men the hours of work, the hours of play, until life becomes
a time-table and the heart a chronometer, are absolutely incapable
of indifference to Time’s tyranny. When I proffered or accepted
an invitation, nothing amused these hospitable lotus-eaters so
much as my natural bias towards punctuality. What did it matter?
The morning, if I liked, or the afternoon, or the evening: time
was made for man, not man for time. Accordingly, if I paid a
promised call and became the involuntary witness of a toilette,
a meal, or a siesta, I had merely to withdraw and call again. If
my guests did not arrive at the prescribed hour, they would come
some hours later, or even sooner, or not at all. At first I was
so put out by these vagaries and so fearful of intruding, that it
took message after message to draw me from my own society or that
of a book. But gradually I realised that in this happy country
offence was not readily given or taken; that time was a negligible
convention; that to follow the impulse of the moment was wiser than
to ape the precision of a clock. I have heard the British trader
exclaim in Japan, “They can never become a great nation; they are
so unbusinesslike!” and I sympathised with his horror of Eastern
nonchalance, but I doubt his conclusion. Merchants in Russia are
just as dilatory. Yet either country can count on promptitude
in military or political exigency. What commerce loses in time
it gains to some extent through restrictions imposed on foreign
rivalry. In any case, as they emerge from feudal to industrial
conditions those indolent races will be forced by the law of
self-defence to quicken the pace. As for me, I resolved to ignore
my watch and rely on Zaburo Tanaka.
Zaburo was a bright-eyed schoolboy of ten. Close-shaven and
bare-footed, he raced from wing to wing of the hotel in a single
cotton garment with cheerful impetuosity. At breakfast I would hear
him on a balcony fifty yards away reading aloud in that monotonous
sing-song which his countrymen adopt, even in trains, without
evoking a protest from fellow-travellers. At first I imagined him
to be reciting prayers, but this supposition was erroneous. Two
or three times a day his knock would rattle on my sliding-door
and a loud summons would entreat Edoardo San to keep him company.
When his mother was occupied with private cares, he would obtain
leave to visit with me the Benten-daki, and as we watched the
tumbling terror of that lovely waterfall, sparkling against
green boughs, I was the recipient of many schoolboy confidences.
His great ambition was to fight for the Mikado; his accounts of
school life were tinged with military ardour. The elder boys had
guns and knapsacks of fur; in the summer boys and masters camped
out together; his intimate friend, Rokutaro, had lost an elder
brother in the war with China, and the others were quite envious of
that funereal privilege. He remembered one verse of a song which
his school-fellows were fond of singing, as they marched to the
drill-ground. The air was spirited, but the words were more _naïf_
than ingenious, if the following stanza be typical of the rest:
[Illustration: JAPANESE WAR-SONG]
[Music:
_Ana u-reshi_ _yo-ro-ko-bashi_ _ta-ta-kai ka-chi no_
Oh, how full of bliss, how delightful ’tis, When you fight, to win
the day!
_Momo chi-ji no_ _Ad-a wa mina_ _A-to naka nari nu_
Hundreds went before, Thousands are no more, All our foes have
passed away.
]
Though precociously intelligent, Zaburo was not too old to play
with toys, and the gift of a pop-gun cemented our too brief
alliance.
In the middle of July falls the Buddhist festival of Bon, better
known as the Feast of Lanterns, when the souls of the dead revisit
the living. The decay of religion has unfortunately robbed this
touching celebration of its more striking features. Formerly on
the eve of the _fête_ the graves were hung with lanterns, that the
spirits might be lighted on the way to their old homes. On the
day itself the villagers fasted, but left before the household
shrine flowers and water and a little food, while they went out
towards evening and danced in a large circle, singing quaint songs
and clapping their hands to the strains of drum and flute. Then,
when the time was come for the spirits to return, on river and
stream were launched a fleet of tiny boats of straw, each with its
paper lantern, in which the invisible visitors were wafted back
to shadow-land. These things are done no more, or only in remote
rural districts. Danger to shipping caused the floating of little
fire-ships to be prohibited in the ports, while at Tōkyō the
ceremony of “opening the river” covers the Sumidagawa with gay
pleasure-boats, and in the secular crackle of fireworks the sacred
associations of the day are forgotten. In the villages the peasants
have not abandoned the dance, which town-folk delegate to geisha,
but its date varies from district to district, and I did not
witness one until a month later at Akakura. Yet Ikao has contrived
to preserve the more pious aspect of All Souls’ Day by two simple
services of devotion in graveyard and temple.
By the merest accident I caught sight of a group of women passing
through a dark grove of cryptomeria, whose lofty aisles are sown
with innumerable tombs. I had often been there, allured by the
tranquil images of Buddha, whose face and posture seemed eloquent
of everlasting repose. To-day their silent watch was broken by the
passage of many rustling skirts and gentle laughter, for even in
such places the childish _musumé_ does not deem it sinful to smile.
I struck across the wood and recognised the sister of my landlord,
Kindayu San, accompanied by three or four serving-women. One
carried a kettle of boiling water, another some sticks of incense,
and a third some flowers. Permission being accorded to join them,
I went along with them to more than thirty graves. On each a
little water was poured, a little incense burned, and the prayer,
“Namu Amida Butsu,” uttered. The humblest of the dead was equally
honoured with the nearest kinsman, and, after relations by marriage
or adoption had been visited, the last to receive salutation was a
_banto_, or temporary bookkeeper, who had died four years before
after eight years’ service. “Will not the honourable stranger also
make a prayer?” was asked, and I complied, repeating “Namu Amida
Butsu,” “I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha,” in the hope that their
god would understand that his claim to adoration by barbarian lips
lay in the kind memorial offices which his faith inspired. Many
of the graves lay so far apart that we had crossed two valleys
and found ourselves some miles from home at the luncheon-hour of
noon. So we entered the nearest tea-house and were served with tea
and sweet cakes. As the proprietor had a small stock of sacred
images for sale, I bought for a souvenir of the day two clay foxes
with tails gilded at the tip, the snarling door-keepers of the
rice-goddess; but Inari must have rejected in anger my mock homage,
for three weeks later in a carefully packed _yanagori_ I grieved to
find chaotic “fragments of no more a” fox.
[Illustration: Personators of Jizō (Kiōgen).]
That afternoon I remarked an unusual stir and clatter of small
feet below my balcony. Crowds of children, on foot or slung behind
the patient backs of mother or elder sister, were making their
way to the large school-house, which stood a few yards beyond and
below the southern entrance of the hotel. It being holiday time,
I had never seen any of the scholars, and the sole occupant of
the spacious play-ground was a weather-beaten stone effigy of
Jizō in a red cotton night-cap and yellow bib. This wet saint
(_nure-botoke_), as the Japanese laughingly call such unhoused
divinities, had always excited my sympathy, for there he stood
without his five companions’ society, exposed to rain and wind,
disregarded even by the very infants whose patron saint he is
considered to be. At any rate, I could see no pious heap of pebbles
laid on his knees, though the neglectful little ones would be glad
enough, on reaching the dry bed of the River of Souls, to seek
refuge in his large _kimono_ sleeves, when mischievous demons
should demolish the pebble-heaps which it would be their duty
to pile up there as the penalty of childish faults. But perhaps
they were too busy playing to remember him during the holidays,
or perhaps they had unbelieving teachers who connived at their
neglect. I indulged a faint hope that public expiation was to be
made, and that the toddling crowd would lay some tribute on his
faithful lap. But its destination was a temple situated below
the school-house, and as it swept merrily by grotesque, deserted
Jizō I fancied that the stone features grew more rigid and grey
beneath the cotton night-cap, his consolatory proof of at least one
worshipper.
Having set a few stones on his pedestal, I followed the rest to
a small temple, which was surrounded by women and children. On
a raised platform, which formed the temple-floor, about a dozen
priests, resplendently robed, were moving in rotatory procession
and chanting passages of the Buddhist canon. The babies were gazing
open-eyed on the bright embroideries of instruments and vestments,
while as many people as could be accommodated were allowed to
occupy mats at one extremity of the platform. Among them a place
was obligingly made for me, and soon after I had taken my seat the
priests also sat down to listen to a discourse from a young and
eloquent preacher. I had been in many temples, and watched the
crowds making prostration, buying holy knick-knacks, and flinging
copper coins into the broad-barred money-boxes, but this was the
first sermon I had the good fortune to hear. Continually reverting
to the theme, “Mina sekai no hito kiodai”--all beings in the
universe are brothers--the orator spoke long and earnestly of the
unseen ties which bind the living and the dead, of the infinite
chords and scales of existence, of the love and goodwill which no
creature was too humble to show or too lofty to accept. Sometimes
an old man groaned, and sometimes an urchin was removed screaming,
but most of the listeners remained passive and stolid till the
end. Then babies were hoisted, farewell bows were exchanged, and
the congregation melted away. If you ask me why so many children
were present, I can only suppose that they were attracted by the
excitement of novelty. There was none of the bustle and glare
which make a _matsuri_, the ordinary temple _fête_, one glorious
saturnalia of piety and merriment, when theatres and booths,
covered with wonderful paper toys and every known variety of
sweetmeat, block the approaches to the sacred building. In this the
Buddhists greatly outshine their more austere Shintōist rivals.
Probably nine-tenths of the peasants are in agreement with an old
man with whom I conversed after an impressive service at Hommonji,
the chief temple of the Nichiren sect. As we descended the
temple-steps I asked him why he preferred Buddhism to other forms
of faith. “Because,” he answered, “it is more amusing.”
I was awakened the next morning by a peculiar rocking sensation,
as if my bed were a cradle swung to and fro by invisible hands.
Then I saw the _obbasan_, an old woman who waited on the European
guests, rush, frightened and half-dressed, along the verandah. It
dawned on me that this must be a long-hoped-for earthquake, and as
the vibrations ceased after some seconds, which naturally seemed
of unusual length, I was slightly disappointed. Residents say
that the fear of earthquake, unlike the fear of other dangers,
is increased rather than lessened by experience. Certainly the
Japanese themselves, in spite of their fatalism, realise to the
full the terrible penalty of inhabiting a land of volcanoes. That
day little else was talked of. Two little girls, who had been
adopted by Kindayu San after losing their parents in the great
shock, followed by a tidal wave, some years before, became objects
of particular attention. Now, Ikao is perched on the flank of a
volcano, and the site of an extinct crater is occupied by the
beautiful Haruna Lake, which I had not yet visited, so gladly I
accepted the proposal of Nitobe San to walk there. I had made his
acquaintance a few days previously on the archery-ground, adjoining
the hotel, where he displayed remarkable skill in handling the
unwieldy bow which is still a popular and effective weapon in the
hands of Japanese archers. Indeed, he was only surpassed by a
_samurai_ of about fifty, who hit the bull’s-eye four times out
of five. Yet his appearance was far more studious than athletic,
for Nitobe San attended the medical school at the University of
Tōkyō, and when he pored over German text-books through gold-rimmed
spectacles had already the reassuring gravity of a family doctor.
Our way lay first along the Yusawa ravine, but, instead of
continuing to the source of the mineral spring, we ascended a steep
and tortuous path to the right, which at every turn disclosed new
aspects of the woods and valleys beneath. Often we would stop to
gather tiger-lilies or yellow roses, that shone like golden stars
in a sky of emerald foliage, for, except where the carefully kept
track wound in and out, the mountain side was swathed in evergreen.
Issuing at length from the trees, we reached a grassy plateau, on
which is the grazing ground of the milch-cows that supply Ikao.
To the left is a curious conical hill, known as the Haruna Fuji;
and other masses of irregular rock are partially covered with
lichen, so as to produce the effect of ruined castles half hidden
by clambering ivy. Indeed, my first impression was that these were
relics of feudal fortresses, until closer inspection revealed the
freakish cleverness of Nature. Two miles of level walking brought
us to the lake, which is simply a large tarn surrounded by small
bosom-shaped hillocks at such regular intervals as to repeat the
irresistible suggestion of human ingenuity. It might have been a
giant’s silver shield embossed upon the border with knobs of jade.
Gladly we rested at the tea-house on the margin, for hot sun and
loud cicada had been fatiguing eye and ear. After lunch I took
a bathe from the only boat to be obtained, though its crazy,
water-logged condition left much to be desired. However, the
boatman did his best to remedy the deficiencies of his craft,
and, as I undressed, hung each garment in succession round
his neck, to prevent their being soiled and immersed, as they
otherwise certainly would have been. Much refreshed, I persuaded
my companion to extend our walk to the ancient Shintō temple of
Haruna, not more than a mile and a half away. We climbed to the
top of Tenjin-toge, at which pass the road becomes too narrow and
precipitous for rickshaws, as it plunges suddenly into a curiously
imagined glen. Never had I seen such bizarre configuration, such
eccentric juxtaposition of tree and stone. Pines darted like
dragons from the cliff; rocks started like mammoths from a thicket,
or lowered savagely across the torrent, which raced or trickled
below. It seemed as though the spirits of water and wood and fire
had suddenly been petrified at the supreme moment of a great
triangular battle, and waited, weapon in hand, to spring once more
each at his adversary’s throat. Evidently the old temple, dedicated
to Ho-musubi, the god of fire, and Haniyasu-hime, the goddess
of earth, was the citadel, defended and attacked by these weird
combatants. Towering cryptomeria stood on guard around it, and
huge rocks, tip-toe on tenuous bases, attended the word of command
to crush the curving rafters. It needed but one signal from the
imprisoned fire-god, one movement of the volcanic earth-goddess,
to fill that fantastic glen with the clamour and _débris_ of
primæval war. Elsewhere we might have admired the carven serpents,
that writhed so realistically about the side-beams of the porch.
At Nikkō or the Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyōto they might have
impressed us as masterpieces of creative carpentry, but at Haruna
the comparison was too trying. It was hopeless to compete with
God’s more monstrous curios.
Here at last was a Shintō stronghold which did not seem abandoned
and desolate, but bore traces of frequent worshippers. Above the
sacred cisterns waved blue towels, suspended after purification; at
the feet of a Shintōised Jizō rose a mound of propitiatory stones;
on the _kagura-dō_, or dancing platform, an old woman, the priest’s
wife, began her symbolic dance. As she slowly revolved, shaking her
bunch of bells or waving her fan, she chanted words so venerable
that all clue to their meaning had been lost. Yet, in her faded
garb and shrunken person she personified more fitly the solemn
contortions of a dying faith than the smart young priestesses
of Nara in their red silk trousers and snowy mantles of flowered
gauze. When those tripped forward, with thickly-powdered faces and
chaplets of artificial wistaria, their garish aspect transformed
the temple to a tea-house, but in this sombre fastness at the heart
of Haruna we seemed to behold a very sibyl of aboriginal Japan. The
assistant priest was affable but ignorant. A copy of the “Kojiki,”
earliest of known records of the Way of the Gods, was kept there,
he affirmed, but he had never opened it and might not show it to
strangers. In winter it was terribly cold, and snow-storms would
sometimes cut them off from all communication with the outer world.
When floods made the torrent impassable the senior _kannushi’s_
children were obliged to do their lessons at home. But summer
brought troops of pilgrims to the valley, and their offerings
sufficed to keep the little band of guardians at their posts. “Are
you never afraid,” I asked, “of the earth opening and the rocks
falling? Only this morning we felt a slight shock of earthquake at
Ikao.” The young priest smiled gravely. “No,” he answered. “For
more than five hundred years the _kami_ have protected their holy
place. Why should we be afraid?”
We made a small donation, and received in exchange a printed
promise of Ho-musubi’s and Haniyasu-hime’s blessing, to which
our names were appended. Then, turning our backs on that grim
sanctuary, we climbed slowly back to the Tenjin Pass. As we
retraversed the plateau of Little Fuji, Nitobe San described the
student’s life at Tōkyō. Between 1890 and 1898 their numbers had
increased from thirteen to nearly nineteen hundred, so that a
second university was shortly to be inaugurated at Kyōto. But of
course the Red Gate (as the Tōkyō University is familiarly called)
would remain the classic portal of modern learning. The college
of medicine, in which his own studies were pursued, is entirely
under German influence: none but German and Japanese professors
give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engineering,
literature, science, and agriculture, English teachers predominate.
Most of the students work desperately hard, but enjoy great
liberty. The majority are poor, and some have very rough manners.
The Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief of Police,
who had been summoned to receive orders to repress anti-foreign
demonstrations, that “the offenders were invariably either
rickshaw-men or students.” Their life is far more gregarious than
that of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the small block of
residential buildings within the university grounds six or eight
young men read, eat, and sleep in one room. These are a privileged
minority of scholarship-winners, and are subjected to rather
irksome restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. But
the larger number live in lodging-houses, where practically no
more control is exercised than over any other class of citizens.
Competition is so severe that posts cannot be found for any but a
small fraction of the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists
who hope to make a living in those professions. In consequence
the disappointed graduates turn _sōshi_ and live by their wits as
spies, agitators, actors, authors, or even as itinerant musicians.
Naturally, extreme views are adopted and discussed with the fervour
of youth. The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find
apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western innovations,
Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the substitution of Roman
characters for Chinese ideographs. In vain I pointed out to him how
the latter blocked the pupil’s advance and impeded international
intercourse. He feared that such a step would not only tend to
destroy communion with the past, but would also diminish the
probability of that alliance between China and Japan which was
cherished as the only means of checking Russian aggression. I
formed the conclusion from this and other conversations that the
salient qualities of a Japanese student are independence and
passionate curiosity. It did not surprise me to learn afterwards
from an English professor that his classes had summaries of his
lectures printed at their own expense to facilitate the acquisition
of new ideas in a foreign tongue.
While we had been talking of his vices and his virtues, the
gregarious student had invaded Kindayu’s. On returning to the
hotel we encountered a band of eight or nine stalwart young men
wearing blue cotton _hakama_ (trousers so ample as to resemble
a divided skirt) and armed with small hammers. They had come to
geologise, disappeared on long expeditions during the day, and only
returned at a late hour. As they shared a room and were by no means
uproarious at night, the other guests were scarcely conscious of
their presence. I think, however, that two pretty schoolmistresses,
the wives of officers in the army, who had carefully abstained from
making the acquaintance of any other visitors, welcomed the arrival
of these ardent scientists. Their rooms adjoined, and sitting on
the threshold, that no beholder might misinterpret their platonic
comradeship, they indulged in intellectual flirtation--a joy too
subtle for the understanding of their unsophisticated sisters.