Squatting by the wood fire, I listen to the gōriki and the
station-keeper telling of strange happenings on the mountain. One
incident discussed I remember reading something about in a Tōkyō paper:
I now hear it retold by the lips of a man who figured in it as a hero.
A Japanese meteorologist named Nonaka, attempted last year the rash
undertaking of passing the winter on the summit of Fuji for purposes
of scientific study. It might not be difficult to winter upon the peak
in a solid observatory furnished with a good stove, and all necessary
comforts; but Nonaka could afford only a small wooden hut, in which he
would be obliged to spend the cold season _without fire_! His young wife
insisted on sharing his labors and dangers. The couple began their
sojourn on the summit toward the close of September. In midwinter news
was brought to Gotemba that both were dying.
Relatives and friends tried to organize a rescue-party. But the
weather was frightful; the peak was covered with snow and ice; the
chances of death were innumerable; and the gōriki would not risk their
lives. Hundreds of dollars could not tempt them. At last a desperate
appeal was made to them as representatives of Japanese courage and
hardihood: they were assured that to suffer a man of science to perish,
without making even one plucky effort to save him, would disgrace the
country;--they were told that the national honor was in their hands.
This appeal brought forward two volunteers. One was a man of great
strength and daring, nick-named by his fellow-guides, _Oni-guma_,
“the Demon-Bear,” the other was the elder of my gōriki. Both believed
that they were going to certain destruction. They took leave of their
friends and kindred, and drank with their families the farewell cup of
water,--_midzu-no-sakazuki_,--in which those about to be separated by
death pledge each other. Then, after having thickly wrapped themselves
in cotton-wool, and made all possible preparation for ice climbing, they
started,--taking with them a brave army-surgeon who had offered his
services, without fee, for the rescue. After surmounting extraordinary
difficulties, the party reached the hut; but the inmates refused to
open! Nonaka protested that he would rather die than face the shame of
failure in his undertaking; and his wife said that she had resolved
to die with her husband. Partly by forcible, and partly by gentle
means, the pair were restored to a better state of mind. The surgeon
administered medicines and cordials; the patients, carefully wrapped up,
were strapped to the backs of the guides; and the descent was begun.
My gōriki, who carried the lady, believes that the gods helped him on
the ice-slopes. More than once, all thought themselves lost; but they
reached the foot of the mountain without one serious mishap. After weeks
of careful nursing, the rash young couple were pronounced out of danger.
The wife suffered less, and recovered more quickly, than the husband.
* * * * *
The gōriki have cautioned me not to venture outside during the night
without calling them. They will not tell me why; and their warning is
peculiarly uncanny. From previous experiences during Japanese travel,
I surmise that the danger implied is supernatural; but I feel that it
would be useless to ask questions.
The door is closed and barred. I lie down between the guides, who are
asleep in a moment, as I can tell by their heavy breathing. I cannot
sleep immediately;--perhaps the fatigues and the surprises of the
day have made me somewhat nervous. I look up at the rafters of the
black roof,--at packages of sandals, bundles of wood, bundles of many
indistinguishable kinds there stowed away or suspended, and making queer
shadows in the lamplight.... It is terribly cold, even under my three
quilts; and the sound of the wind outside is wonderfully like the sound
of great surf,--a constant succession of bursting roars, each followed
by a prolonged hiss. The hut, half buried under tons of rock and drift,
does not move; but the sand does, and trickles down between the rafters;
and small stones also move after each fierce gust, with a rattling just
like the clatter of shingle in the pull of a retreating wave.
* * * * *
4. _a. m._--Go out alone, despite last evening’s warning, but keep
close to the door. There is a great and icy blowing. The Sea of Milk is
unchanged: it lies far below this wind. Over it the moon is dying....
The guides, perceiving my absence, spring up and join me. I am reproved
for not having awakened them. They will not let me stay outside alone:
so I turn in with them.
* * * * *
Dawn: a zone of pearl grows round the world. The stars vanish; the sky
brightens. A wild sky, with dark wrack drifting at an enormous height.
The Sea of Milk has turned again into Cotton,--and there are wide
rents in it. The desolation of the black slope,--all the ugliness of
slaggy rock and angled stone, again defines.... Now the cotton becomes
disturbed;--it is breaking up. A yellow glow runs along the east like
the glare of a wind-blown fire.... Alas! I shall not be among the
fortunate mortals able to boast of viewing from Fuji the first lifting
of the sun! Heavy clouds have drifted across the horizon at the point
where he should rise.... Now I know that he has risen; because the upper
edges of those purple rags of cloud are burning like charcoal. But I
have been so disappointed!
* * * * *
More and more luminous the hollow world. League-wide heapings of cottony
cloud roll apart. Fearfully far-away there is a light of gold upon
water: the sun here remains viewless, but the ocean sees him. It is
not a flicker, but a burnished glow;--at such a distance ripplings are
invisible.... Further and further scattering, the clouds unveil a vast
grey and blue landscape;--hundreds and hundreds of miles throng into
vision at once. On the right I distinguish Tōkyō bay, and Kamakura,
and the holy island of Enoshima (no bigger than the dot over this
letter “i”);--on the left the wilder Suruga coast, and the blue-toothed
promontory of Idzu, and the place of the fishing-village where I have
been summering,--the merest pin-point in that tinted dream of hill and
shore. Rivers appear but as sun-gleams on spider-threads;--fishing-sails
are white dust clinging to the grey-blue glass of the sea. And the
picture alternately appears and vanishes while the clouds drift and
shift across it, and shape themselves into spectral islands and
mountains and valleys of all Elysian colors....