Kobe, April 23.
I have been visiting the exhibition of fishes and of fisheries
which is at Hyogo, in a garden by the sea. Waraku-en is its name,
which signifies, "The Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It is
laid out like a landscape garden of old time, and deserves its
name. Over its verge you behold the great bay, and fishermen in
boats, and the white far-gliding of sails splendid with light,
and beyond all, shutting out the horizon, a lofty beautiful
massing of peaks mauve-colored by distance.
I saw ponds of curious shapes, filled with clear sea-water, in
which fish of beautiful colors were swimming. I went to the
aquarium where stranger kinds of fishes swam behind glass--fishes
shaped like toy-kites, and fishes shaped like sword-blades, and
fishes that seemed to turn themselves inside out, and funny,
pretty fishes of butterfly-colors, that move like dancing-girls,
waving sleeve-shaped fins.
I saw models of all manner of boats and nets and hooks and
fish-traps and torch-baskets for night-fishing. I saw pictures of
every kind of fishing, and both models and pictures of men
killing whales. One picture was terrible,--the death agony of a
whale caught in a giant net, and the leaping of boats in a
turmoil of red foam, and one naked man on the monstrous back--a
single figure against the sky--striking with a great steel, and
the fountain-gush of blood responding to the stroke.... Beside me
I heard a Japanese father and mother explain the picture to their
little boy; and the mother said:--
"When the whale is going to die, it speaks; it cries to the Lord
Buddha for help,--_Namu Amida Butsu!_"
I went to another part of the garden where there were tame deer,
and a "golden bear" in a cage, and peafowl in an aviary, and an
ape. The people fed the deer and the bear with cakes, and tried
to coax the peacock to open its tail, and grievously tormented
the ape. I sat down to rest on the veranda of a pleasure-house
near the aviary, and the Japanese folk who had been looking at
the picture of whale-fishing found their way to the same veranda;
and presently I heard the little boy say:--
"Father, there is an old, old fisherman in his boat. Why does he
not go to the Palace of the Dragon-King of the Sea, like
Urashima?"
The father answered: "Urashima caught a turtle which was not
really a turtle, but the Daughter of the Dragon-King. So he was
rewarded for his kindness. But that old fisherman has not caught
any turtle, and even if he had caught one, he is much too old to
marry. Therefore he will not go to the Palace."
Then the boy looked at the flowers, and the fountains, and the
sunned sea with its white sails, and the mauve-colored mountains
beyond all, and exclaimed:--
"Father, do you think there is any place more beautiful than this
in the whole world?"
The father smiled deliciously, and seemed about to answer, but
before he could speak the child cried out, and leaped, and
clapped his little hands for delight, because the peacock had
suddenly outspread the splendor of its tail. And all hastened to
the aviary. So I never heard the reply to that pretty question.