into the single long street which is Imaichi village. We were now on
high ground, some two thousand feet above our point of departure, and
could feel, but not see clearly, in the blaze of sunlight, great
mountains lost in great wet clouds.
* * * * *
We stopped at the village inn; drivers and runners were sitting on the
stone bench in front, drinking tea, when we drove up. We sat down on the
straw-matted porch inside, the whole front of the building open, and
drank miserable, herby tea, and tasted the usual sweet balls of sugary
stuff.
Alongside the tea-house, in one of the recesses between the buildings,
we could see the runners of _kurumas_ being washed off and rubbed down,
just as if they were horses in a livery stable. As they stood naked,
their companions poured pails of water over them, its brown spread
covering the stone slabs. Some of them, in the porch, lay on their
backs, others prone, others on the side, all near a kettle, which hung
over a charcoal fire, in which, perhaps, they were heating sakè. One on
his back, his neck on the wooden pillow, was smoking. The village itself
lay in hot, clean repose,--not dusty,--the rows of buildings on each
side of the street irregular, but all of the same appearance. Most of
the fronts were open, the goods all displayed outside of the walls, or
on the floors, innumerable pieces of paper hanging about everywhere. A
few men sat about on the porches, their naked feet hanging off, their
sandals on the ground below them, the inevitable umbrella by their side.
Most of the village was asleep in nakedness. The color of flesh glowed
in the hot shade; brown and sallow in the men, ruddy on the breasts of
the women and the entirely nude bodies of the children.
[Illustration: NIKKO-SAN.]
And here, now, we said good-by to the _basha_, and got into the
two-wheeled baby wagon, which they call a _kuruma_. One man ran between
the shafts, and another, in front, was fastened to the cross-bar by a
long strip of cloth tied about him. The file of our five wagons started
off at a rapid trot--we had two for our baggage--with the Doctor
ahead, his white helmet dancing before us in the sun. From under my
umbrella I tried to study and occasionally to draw the motions of the
muscles of our runners, for most of them were naked, except for the
complicated strip around the loins--a slight development of the early
fig-leaf. The vague recall of the antique that is dear to artists--the
distinctly rigid muscles of the legs and thighs, the rippling swellings
of the backs--revived the excitement of professional study and seemed a
god-send to a painter. The broad, curved hat, lifted by a pad over the
head, was but an Eastern variation, not so far removed from the Greek
πέτασος [Greek: petasos] of Athenian riders. Some heads were bare;
that is to say, their thick black thatch was bound with a long
handkerchief, which otherwise hung on the shoulders or danced around
their necks. Not all were naked. The youngest, a handsome fellow, had
his tunic pulled up above the thighs, and the slope of his drapery and
his wide sleeves gave him all the elegance of a medieval page. I found
it easier now to struggle against heat and indolence, and to make my
studies as our runners ran along, for we had entered again the avenue
of the great cryptomeria. We had passed the entrance of another, which
in old times was the road traveled by the Mikado's ambassador, in the
fifth month, when he journeyed across the island to carry offerings
to Iyéyasŭ, in his tomb at Nikko. The big trees grew still taller in
this higher air, their enormous roots spreading along the embankments
in great horizontal lines and stages of buttresses. Prolonged wafts of
cool air blew upon us from the west, to which we were hurrying. Above
us spread a long avenue of shade, high up and pale in the blue. And so
we got into Nikko as the sun was setting with the delicious sensation
that at last we were in coolness and in shade.
* * * * *
Right before us, crossing the setting sun, was the island mountain of
Nikko-san; small enough to be taken in by the eye, as it stood framed by
greater mountains, which were almost lost in the glittering of wet
sunlight. The mountain threw its shade on the little village; down its
one long street we rode to the bridge that spans the torrent, which,
joining another stream, gives Nikko the look of an island. Alongside
this bridge, at a distance of two hundred feet, crosses the red lacquer
bridge, over which we are not allowed to pass. It is reserved for the
family Tokugawa, the former shoguns of japan, whose ancestors built the
great shrines of Nikko, and for the Emperor on his occasional visits. It
stands supported on a gigantic framework of stone, imitating wood, the
uprights being pierced to allow the crosspieces to run through, against
all European constructional principles, but with a beauty which is
Japanese, and a fitness proved by time.
[Illustration: THE WATERFALL IN OUR GARDEN.]
These great posts under the bridge lean against what seems the wall
of the mountain; the rock foundation being supplemented, everywhere that
a break occurs, by artificial work. Here and there cascades fall over
natural and over artificial walls and glisten far up through the trees
on the opposite side of the bridge. As we rattled over it, we looked
down on the overflowing long wooden trough, which carried the pure
waters of the mountain to the village that we had passed, and upon the
torrent below, whose limpid clearness was made blue by mist, where the
warmer air was chilled by a coldness drawn from far-up mountains. Before
us steps of enormous width passed under the foliage and turned above in
many directions, and there on the lowest step, her dainty feet on straw
sandals, whose straps divided the toes of the close-fitting Japanese
socks, with bare ankles, stood our hostess, in latest European dress,
most graceful contrast to our own consciousness of being jaded and
dirty, and to the nakedness of our runners. Panting with the last run,
they stood at rest, and leaned forward against the cross-bar of the
shafts, with muscles still trembling, clear streams of sweat varnishing
their bronze nakedness, and every hair plastered with wet on forehead,
chest, and body. Just before them rustled the unrumpled starched spread
of the skirts of the fair American. She was summering at Nikko, and,
friendly with the Buddhist clergy, had arranged that one of the priests
should let us have his house, and kindly walked with us to it, a little
way up in one of the first open spaces of the mountain. After passing
the great outside fringe of trees we found a large clear opening, broken
up by walled inclosures, the wall sometimes high and sometimes low, and
edged by gutters through which the torrents ran. These were the former
residences of princes, whom etiquette obliged to worship officially at
Nikko. A quarter of a mile up we came to our own garden,--with an
enormous wide wall or embankment of stone, some twenty feet deep,--which
also had been a prince's, and now belongs to the little Buddhist priest
who is our landlord. There are two houses in the inclosure, one of which
he lets to us. Ours is brand-new and two stories high, while his is old
and low, with an enormous roof, and an arbor built out from the eaves
and connecting with his little garden. High behind his house rise rocks
and wall; and on top of them are planted willows, pines, maples, and the
paulownia, whose broad leaves are part of the imperial crest. A little
waterfall tumbles over the rocks and gives us water for our garden and
for our bath. In our house we made the acquaintance of Kato, who is to
wait upon us. A few minutes later we were welcomed by our landlord,
dressed for the occasion. He conducted us to our rooms, and, leaving for
a moment, returned with a china bowl that was covered with a napkin, and
contained sweetmeats which he told me are peculiar to Nikko.
Seeing that we were helpless with the language, he bowed low and left
us to our bath and to a survey of our new quarters. We were tired, sick,
miserable, weary travelers, having gone through a shipwreck of heat and
fatigue, but there was a fascination in feeling that this baby-house was
ours, that it was typical, that on entering we left our shoes out on our
own threshold and were walking on the soft clean mats, stocking-toed;
that in a few minutes we should be stretched on these as on a bed, and
that Kato would pour out our tea. Our lowest story, which has a veranda,
can be divided so as to make a servant's room and a hall beyond. In an L
behind stretches out a wash-room with a big dresser fixed to the wall,
under which, through a trough, rolls a torrent from the waterfall; and,
farther on, is the little square bath-room with one side all open to the
floor, when the wooden screen is drawn, through which we get light and
air, and through which the box containing burning charcoal is brought
from the priest's house to heat our bath. We have a little
staircase--just the width of our trunk--which leads sharply up to the
veranda above, from which we step into A----'s room and then into mine;
they are separated by movable screens, so that we can be about as
private as if the division were a chalk line. But outside we have a
wealth of moving wall: first the paper screens, which, when we wish, can
separate us from the veranda; then, lastly, on its edge, the _amado_, or
wooden sliding-doors, which are lying now in their corner box, but which
later will be pulled out and linked together, and close the open house
for the night.
Then, as we were about leaving, we solemnly placed a great ornamental
revolver before the little god of Contentment who sits upon the
Tokonoma--that mantelpiece which is at the level of my eye when I lie on
the floor, and which is the Japanese ideal seat of honor, but never
occupied. This revolver is left there to appease a Japanese conventional
fear of robbers. We went down in the twilight to our friends, and had a
very European supper, and sat on their veranda, looking through the
trees toward the bridge, in a moonlight of mother-of-pearl; and we were
so sleepy that I can only suppose we must have talked of home, and I can
only remember our host clapping his hands for lanterns, and Kato leading
us back, with the light held low, and the noise of the torrents running
under the little stone bridges that we passed, and our taking off our
shoes on our own door-step, and the thunder of the _amado_ as Kato
rolled them out for the night.
[1] The usual etymology of Torii is bird-perch; from _Torĭ_, a
bird.
[2] Rain-doors, outer wooden screens, which close the house at
night, and roll in a groove.
THE SHRINES OF IYÉYASŬ AND IYÉMITSŬ IN THE HOLY MOUNTAIN OF NIKKO
July 25.
From where we are in the Holy Mountain, our first visit would be
naturally to the shrine of the shogun Iyéyasŭ, whose extreme walls I see
among the highest trees whenever I look from our balcony over our little
waterfall.
Iyéyasŭ died in 1616, having fought, he said, ninety battles and
eighteen times escaped death, having almost destroyed Christianity, and
leaving his family established as rulers of Japan. In obedience to his
dying wishes, his son and successor removed the body of his father from
its resting-place in the south to this final tomb at Nikko. Here, in
1617, with complicated and mystic ceremonial, he was buried and deified.
If you have no work on Japan near by to refer to, _sub voce_ Iyéyasŭ, I
can tell you, briefly, what he did or what he was, though I, too, have
no books at my hand. He was a great man, a patient waiter upon
opportunity, who at the end of the sixteenth century came upon the scene
of a great civil war, then filled by two protagonists, the military
ruler, Nobunaga, and his lieutenant, Hidéyoshi, who was to be known
later as Taiko Sama. Their aim was to settle something more definitely,
of course in their favor; and, in fact, the death of the former and the
triumphant success of the latter, who succeeded him, went far toward
disposing of many contending claims, and toward a crystallizing of the
feudal system, which had grown of centuries of civil war. This is the
moment that we see reflected in the annals of the first Christian
missionaries, to whom the military chiefs of Japan were alternately kind
or cruel.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT-STATUE OF IYÉYASŬ IN CEREMONIAL DRESS.]
When Hidéyoshi died he had grown to be the master of Japan; he had been
made Regent of the Empire, as a title of honor, for he was that and more
in reality; he had become one of the greatest of Oriental warriors, and
had begun life as a groom, the son of a humble peasant. The name of
Taiko (Great Gate) he took like other regents, on retiring nominally
from office, but with the addition of Sama (Lord) it is applied to him
alone in popular memory. Naturally, then, he believed in a possible
dynasty originating in him. At his death he could see, as his greatest
fear for the future of the young son to whom he wished to leave his
power, this man Iyéyasŭ Tokugawa, lord now of many provinces, but who
had begun humbly, and who had assisted him in breaking many enemies,
receiving a reward with every success, and consolidating meanwhile his
own smaller powers. The dying Taiko made complicated arrangements to
secure the good-will of Iyéyasŭ, and also to prevent his encroachments.
These arrangements, including and combining the agencies of numbers of
princes and vassals, many of them newly Christianized, seem only the
more certainly to have forced on a position in which Iyéyasŭ, with few
allies, but with clear aims and interests, took the field against a
larger number of princes, commanding more men, but not united in any
intention as fixed as his was. These he defeated for once and all, on a
great battlefield, Sékigahara, on some day in October in the year 1600.
It was the greatest battle that Japan ever saw, and one of the
bloodiest--remarkable for us because of the death of three of the
Christian leaders against Iyéyasŭ, warriors distinguished before in many
wars, who could not, being Christians, take their own lives in defeat,
as their Japanese traditions of honor commanded. Hence the victor had
them beheaded--a shameful death, and thereby heroic. These were almost
his only immediate victims. Iyéyasŭ wisely forgave, when it paid, and
merely weakened the beaten, increasing the possessions but not the
powers of his adherents; and finally remained in undisputed power, with
great titles from the Mikado, who, though poor in power, was still a
dispenser of honors, for, as with the greater gods, the _victrix causa_
pleased.
Meanwhile the protection of the son of the great Taiko Sama, for which
all this war had been supposed to grow, had not been effected, and even
this one obstacle or reminder was to disappear from before Iyéyasŭ, but
not for several years, and only just before his death.
[Illustration: AVENUE TO TEMPLE OF IYÉYASŬ.]
He had, in Japanese custom, resigned his apparent power to his son,
for behind him he could act more obscurely and with less friction. Then
began the drama of the extinction of Christianity; slowly, for many
reasons, not the least being that several Christian princes, with their
vassals, had supported Iyéyasŭ in his struggle. And at length the son of
Taiko Sama, Hidéyori, indirectly connected with the Christian side, fell
before Iyéyasŭ. His strong castle at Osaka was said to have become a
place of refuge for the persecuted and the discontented, even to the
very Christians whom his father had cruelly persecuted.
Which was in the wrong and disturbed the waters, the wolf or the lamb, I
do not know, but only that in June, 1615, the great castle was attacked
by Iyéyasŭ and his son in as bloody a battle as was ever fought; and
notwithstanding that for a moment victory hung in the balance, the
Tokugawa Luck prevailed, the castle took fire, thousands perished, and
Hidéyori and his mother disappeared.
Whether Iyéyasŭ was the author of the code of laws or rules at which he
is supposed to have worked during these years of waiting, with the aid
of learned scholars, to bequeath them to his descendants for the
maintenance of the order of things he left, I do not know; nor perhaps
was the information I once had about them at all accurate. They, or
their spirit, however, served to guide the nation for the next two
hundred and fifty years; that is to say, until the second Commodore
Perry came to Japan, with the increased weight of an outside world much
changed.
[Illustration: SKETCH OF STATUE OF IYÉYASŬ TOKUGAWA.]
Meanwhile the great man died, leaving a great personal fame behind him,
over and above the powers he could transmit. He was buried here, as I
said. The place was chosen in 1616; at the end of the same year the
buildings were begun, and in the beginning of the next year were partly
completed. When the funeral procession arrived, in nineteen days from
Iyéyasŭ's former resting-place, amid great ceremonies and religious
rites, the title of "Supreme Highness, Lord of the East, Great
Incarnation," was given to the hero and ruler and son of the small laird
of Matsudaira.
While he was being thus deified the persecution of the Christians
increased in violence, passing into a hideous delirium of cruelty;
wiping out its victims, but unable to affect their courage. There can be
apparently no exaggeration of the sufferings of the martyrs nor of the
strength of mind shown by them--a courage and constancy ennobling to
Japan.
Hidetada, the son of Iyéyasŭ, is buried at Yeddo (Tokio); but Iyémitsŭ,
the grandson, has a temple and a tomb here in the forest, alongside of
his grandfather's.
He succeeded to power in 1623, and lived and ruled some thirty years
more with an energy worthy of Iyéyasŭ, and carried the system to
completion. The laws known as the laws of Iyéyasŭ are sometimes made out
to be his. These laws, based on the old feudal habits, and influenced
and directed by the great Chinese doctrines of relationship and duties,
are not laws as we think of law, nor were they to be published. They
were to be kept secret for the use of the Tokugawa house; to serve as
rules for conduct in using their power, so as to secure justice, which
is in return to secure power, that exists for its own end in the mind of
rulers. These laws, some of which are reflections, or moral maxims, or
references to the great man's experience, made out a sort of criminal
code,--the relations of the classes,--matters of rank and etiquette, and
a mechanism of government. They asserted the supremacy, and at the same
time destroyed the power, of the Mikado, and by strict rules of
succession, residence, and continued possession bound up the feudal
nobles. They reasserted the great individual virtues of filial piety and
of feudal loyalty, and insisted on the traditions of military honor.
"The sword" was to be "the soul of the Samurai,"[3] and with it these
have carried the national honor and intelligence in its peculiar
expressions.
Full recognition was given to the teaching, "Thou shalt not lie beneath
the same sky, nor tread on the same earth, with the murderer of thy
lord." The rights of the avenger of blood were admitted, even though he
should pay the penalty of his life.
Suicide, which had long been a Japanese development of chivalrous
feeling and military honor, was still to be regarded as purifying of all
stain, and, for the first time, allowed in mitigation of the death
penalty.
Indeed, half a century later, the forty-seven Ronin
("wave-people"--Samurai who had lost their natural lord and their
rights) were to die in glorious suicide, carrying out the feudal idea of
fidelity.
You know the story probably; at any rate, you will find it in Mitford's
tales of old Japan. It is a beautiful story, full of noble details,
telling how, by the mean contrivance of a certain lord, the Prince of
Ako was put in the wrong, and his condemnation to death and confiscation
obtained. And how, then, forty-seven gentlemen, faithful vassals of the
dead lord, swore to avenge the honor of their master, and for that
purpose to put aside all that might stand in the way. For this end they
put aside all else they cared for, even wife and children, and through
every obstacle pursued their plan up to the favorable moment when they
surprised, on a winter night, in his palace, among his guards, the
object of their vengeance, whose suspicions had been allayed by long
delay. And how his decapitated head was placed by them upon his victim's
tomb, before the forty-seven surrendered themselves to justice, and were
allowed to commit suicide by hara-kiri, and how they have since lived
forever in memory of Japan.
These laws, then, destroyed nothing; they reasserted certain Japanese
traditions and customs, but made out, through many details, the
relations of dependence of all classes of society upon the shogun, as
vassal indeed of the Mikado, but supreme ruler who held the key of all.
All this did Iyémitsŭ carry out, as well as the consequent seclusion of
the country; the only manner of avoiding ideals which might clash with
those upon which this consolidation of the past was based. And to many
of these ideals, to the idea of the sacredness of the family, to the
idea of subjection to the law of the ruler, Christianity, by its ideal
of marriage, by its distinctions of the duty to Cæsar,--to name only a
few reasons,--might be found an insidious dissolvent. Therefore, if it
be necessary to find a high motive, Iyémitsŭ did what he could to
trample out the remains of Christianity, which were to expire, a few
years after his death, in a final holocaust as terrible and glorious as
Nero himself could have wished to see.
From that time, for two centuries, all went on the same, until the
arrival of the foreigners found a system so complete, so interlocked and
rigid, as to go to pieces with the breaking of a few links.
That break was supplied by the necessity of yielding to the Christian
and foreign demand of entrance, and in so far abandoning the old ways.
With this proof of weakness the enemies of the Tokugawa and those of the
system began to assert themselves, circumstances aiding, and in 1868 the
last of the race resigned all powers and retired to private life.
The details of the enormous changes, as they followed one another, are
too many and sudden, and apparently too contradictory, for me to explain
further. Even now I repeat this deficient summary of the Tokugawa story
only because of wishing to recall who they were that have temples and
tombs about us, and to recall, also, that such has been the end of the
beginning which is buried here.
[Illustration: STABLE OF SACRED HORSES.]
* * * * *
The approach to the temple, to which most paths lead, is through a great
broad avenue, a quarter of a mile long, bordered by high stone walls,
above which rise high banks and higher trees. Between these dark green
walls, all in their own shade,--in the center of the enormous path and
in the full light of the sky,--a brilliant torrent rushes down in a
groove of granite, hidden occasionally under the road. Here and there
drop out from the walls noisy columns of clearest water.