We wakened, stiff and sore, a full two hours after noon. Yoritomo, who
was first to rouse up, ran to the door to look out. He turned about,
with an urgent cry that cut short my yawnings in the midst: “Up! up,
brother! We’ve slept past midday. We must lose no time if we expect to
reach the heart of Yedo by nightfall.”
“Do you remember the two biscuits I wrapped in my bundle?” I demanded.
“I’m famished. A drink and a biscuit for me before I take to any road
race.”
“We must dress and eat. There is water outside,” he responded, and he
slashed open our bundles.
Not a drop of water had penetrated the oil-paper wrappings. We slipped
off our stained and tattered Yamabushi robes to put on the silken
garments which he had carried from his country all the long voyage
to Europe and back. First came a pair each of the gorgeous baggy
trousers, or _hakama_. They were provided with side slits, into which
we tucked the skirts of our silk _kimonos_. The narrow twisted _obi_,
or sash, served to hold my revolvers and the magnificent Masamune sword
presented to me by Yoritomo that eventful night in the cabin of the
_Sea Flight_.
My friend thrust his sword and dirk into his girdle, not in the
horizontal Japanese fashion, but vertically, as I wore mine, that the
scabbards might not show beneath our outer robes. His writing case
and the bag containing his smoker’s outfit were secured on the other
side by passing the carved ivory buttons of their cords through a fold
of the girdle. Inside, about my waist, I placed my twenty odd pounds
of metallic revolver cartridges, while he packed within his bosom a
lighter though bulkier load consisting of white silk foot-mittens,
extra sandals, a roll of crinkly writing paper, and the box with the
remainder of his gold coins.
Over all we drew our cloak-like coats, or _haoris_, of rich stiff silk,
upon which the circled mallow-leaf trefoil of the Tokugawa crest was
embroidered on back, breasts, and sleeves. These coats were in turn
covered with our dingy priest robes, and we were outwardly prepared
to take the road. There remained our inward preparation. We took our
ship’s biscuits and passed out the narrow entrance.
My first glance was directed towards Fujiyama. But the glorious peak
was shrouded from view by a bank of envious clouds. Yoritomo turned at
once to a hollowed stone from which trickled a rill of pure water. We
drank and crouched down beside the spring to gnaw at our biscuits. At
first I was too hungry to heed my surroundings. Yoritomo, however, soon
pointed southward, through a gap in the shrubbery, to where, some four
miles distant, a hilly promontory jutted out into the bay.
“That is the town of Kanagawa,” he said.
“Where?” I asked. “I see no smoke. Do you mean that little gray blotch
low down on the edge of the promontory?”
“No, that is only a small fishing village lying among the rice
swamps,--Yokohama, I believe, is its name. Kanagawa lies about two
miles to the west of it. You see no smoke because in Japan we use
charcoal only. Kanagawa is the last station on the Tokaido where the
_daimios_ stop over night before marching into Yedo.”
“But the sons of the _daimios_ repose amidst the splendors of the
temples,” I bantered him.
He glanced about reverently at the decaying little edifice. “The spirit
of Shinto is simplicity. Yet I wish I could have entertained you with
proper hospitality, and that we might enter Yedo in the manner to which
we are entitled by our rank.”
“Ours?” I questioned.
“Are we not brothers?” he countered.
“You know the position of my family at home,” I said. “But it is a far
cry from America to Dai Nippon. I have read what the Dutch writers tell
about the hauteur of your nobility. Even as a friend of a kinsman of
your Emperor, will I be received?”
“I am not the kinsman of the Emperor,” he replied.
“You’re not? Yet you said that your father, the Prince of Owari--”
“He and the princes of Kii and Mito are the heads of the August Three
Families, descendent from the three sons of Iyeyasu. He is the cousin
of the Shogun, not of the Emperor. One alone can be called Emperor of
Nippon. That is the Dairi--the Mikado, lineal descendant of Ama-terasu,
the Sun Goddess. The sacred Son of Heaven lives in awesome seclusion at
Kyoto.”
“Yet I am aware that your shoguns, whom the outer world has known as
the temporal emperors, have ruled Nippon with mailed fist since the
days of my ancestor, the English counsellor of Iyeyasu.”
He stared at me in blank astonishment. “The English counsellor of
Iyeyasu!--he your ancestor?--Anjin Sama your ancestor?”
“Will Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan,” I answered. “Surely
you have heard of him.”
“Adams! Was that the English name of Anjin Sama?--and he your ancestor?
You never told me!”
“How much have you told me of your family, Tomo?”
“But Anjin Sama, of all the _kami_--!” He gazed at me with a strange
glow in his black eyes. “You know our belief, Worth, that the dead come
back many times and are often born again.”
“The Buddhistic reincarnation,” I remarked.
“And the Shinto rebirth of the _kami_--the high ones,” he added.
“But what of Will Adams?” I demanded, aflame with curiosity. “I know
that he married a Japanese wife and left children by her. Have they any
living descendants?”
He looked away, with an enigmatic smile.
“You may learn more of your ancestor, brother, after we reach Yedo.
There is an Anjin Street, whose householders still hold a yearly
festival in his memory.--Come; it is time for us to be going.”
As he spoke, he rose and started around the corner of the temple. I
followed him to the corner and back along the side of the decaying
building, below the ragged thatch of the eaves. At the rear corner we
came to a narrow gap in the shrubbery looking down upon the Tokaido.
Yoritomo suddenly turned about, with his fingers to his lips, and drew
me down.
“Kwannon be praised!” he whispered. “They did not see us! For
common beggar-priests to be caught staring down upon a _daimio’s_
train--_Namu!_”
I peered forward and down into the Tokaido, which ran past less than a
hundred yards below us. Along the broad roadway was marching the most
curious and stately procession I had ever seen. It was the retinue of a
_daimio_ who was going up to Yedo for the half-year’s visit required by
law. By far the greater part of the procession was already strung out
Yedo-ward farther than the eye could see. But half a thousand of the
rearguard had yet to pass.
Used as I was to the sight of Yoritomo’s garments, there was much to
surprise and interest me in the appearance of the _daimio’s_ retainers.
Though as short as our women, they were of a more stalwart build than I
had expected, and the _samurais_, or two-sword men, carried themselves
with a proud assurance that went far towards offsetting their lack of
height. Among the loose ranks of these gentlemanly men-at-arms marched
lesser retainers,--grooms with grotesquely accoutred led-horses and
porters with rattan baskets and lacquered chests.
Yoritomo whispered that the box-like palanquin, or _norimon_, of the
_daimio_ had long since been carried past by its bearers. Yet this rear
end of the procession marched slowly along with a demeanor that could
not have been exceeded in solemnity and stateliness had the _daimio_
been present in its midst. The hush was almost oppressive. No man among
them called out or spoke or even whispered. The only sounds were the
scuffle of sandals in the dusty road and the muffled thud of straw-shod
horse hoofs.
“What is the crest?” I whispered, staring at the insignia embroidered
on the outer garments of every retainer and marked on every piece of
baggage. “It looks like a white cross in a circle.”
“A circled cross,” confirmed Yoritomo. “You saw it in Kagoshima
Bay,--the crest of my friend Nariakiri, Daimio of Satsuma.”
“The Prince of Satsuma!” I exclaimed. “Why not hasten down and join
him?”
“Hasten down, and be slashed or beheaded by the first _samurai_ we
passed!” rejoined Yoritomo, grasping my sleeve as I sought to spring
up. “Even without these tattered robes it would mean certain death.
Each _daimio_ is appointed a time for passing along the highroad. Any
one who breaks in upon the procession may expect to die without benefit
of medicine.”
“But he is your friend, and if you are so anxious to reach home by
nightfall--”
“There are no by-ways through the rice swamps,” he replied. “We must
trail after the rearguard.”
“They move at a snail’s pace!”
“It will bring them into Shinagawa, the southern suburb of Yedo, about
sunset. In Shinagawa I expect to find a friend with whom we can spend
the night. Meantime we may as well wait here until the cortege has gone
on four or five miles. I will take advantage of the opportunity to
write a petition asking permission to present a memorial to the Shogun.”
He crept back around the corner of the temple. I stretched out in
the balsamic shade of the pines, and watched the slow passing of the
procession. When the last strutting _samurai_ had marched on up the
road, I gazed around at the landscape. Across the full width of the
bay the mountains on the promontory of Awa loomed dimly through the
haze, while the blue waters between, already stilled from their night’s
turmoil, were dotted with the white sails of junks and fishing smacks.
Inland the golden sunlight streamed down out of the sapphire sky
upon a scene no less peaceful and charming. About me and far to the
northward the land lay in broad plain, for the most part cut up into
a checkerboard of rice fields. Here and there rose knolls and hills,
some terraced to the top for rice, others wooded, and the most eminent
crowned with temples that reminded me of China. In the rice swamps
naked peasants, knee-deep in the slush, were transplanting tufts of
young rice, while about them waterfowl waded or paddled, untroubled by
the presence of man. Above them soared numbers of eagles and hawks.
Birds were to be seen or heard on every side, but I noticed a marked
absence of animals from the landscape.
Some time after the rear of the procession had disappeared up the
Tokaido, Yoritomo came back around the temple, and said that we must
start. I pulled my hat brim low over my face, and swung after him down
the hillside to the smooth road.
For a time we met no other traveller. The road had been swept clear
by the procession. But we soon came to groups of odd little shops and
inns, strung along the roadside in almost continuous rows. Within
the open fronts of the shops cotton-robed tradesmen knelt on matted
platforms in the midst of their cheap wares, while from under the
shallow porticos of the inns quaint little maidens with powdered
doll-like faces and narrow skirts smiled at us invitingly and bowed
until we could see the great bows at the back of their sashes. But
Yoritomo kept on up the road at a fast pace, unmoved by the alluring
glances of these charming little waitresses.
Within the second mile we began to encounter a stream of travellers
released from the post town of Kawasaki by the passage of the
_daimio’s_ train. We were the first to come up from the south in the
wake of the _daimio_, but the people we met had no more than a casual
glance for a pair of dirty-robed Yamabushi priests.
As we swung along through their midst I peeped out at them between the
meshes of my loosely woven hat brim. My first observations were that
they averaged far below the height of Americans, and that clothing was
rather a minus quantity among all but the white-robed pilgrims and
the silk-clad _samurais_. The brown skins of peasants and fishermen,
porters, grooms, and beggars were either innocent of all covering
except narrow loincloths or at most limited to a shirt-like _kimono_ of
blue-figured cotton, a straw hat, and sandals.
Aside from the aristocratic swordsmen, these people were the merriest
I had ever met. When not smiling and chatting, they were laughing or
singing. Among the peasants and groups of pilgrims were several women,
the younger of whom possessed a buxom rural prettiness. The married
women looked aged and withered, and pleasant as were their smiles, my
Western eye was repulsed by their shaven brows and the gray-black teeth
which showed between their rouged lips at every smile.
At Kawasaki we swung briskly down to the bank of the Rokugu River,
where bronzed ferrymen, stripped to loincloths, stood waiting for
passengers in their big flat-bottomed punts. A boat in which the party
of a _samurai_ horseman had embarked was being thrust off. Before
Yoritomo could check me, I sprang forward to leap aboard. In a flash
the _samurai_ drew his two-handed sword and aimed a blow at me that
would have split my head in two had I not dropped backwards beyond
reach. Furious at the wanton attempt to murder me, I sprang up and
fumbled for a revolver as the boat shot out from the bank.
“Hold, brother!” warned Yoritomo, springing to catch my arm. “Remember,
we are only begging priests. He had the right to resent our company.
What’s more, he is a _hatamoto_, one of the Shogun’s _samurais_. If I
remember aright, he is Yuki, a captain of the palace guard.”
“He tried to cut me down in cold blood!” I protested.
“It is a right of all _samurais_ to kill lower-class men, and you
affronted Yuki by seeking to board the same boat. Here’s a smaller boat
putting off.”
We ran and leaped aboard the small boat as it swung into the stream.
For fellow-passengers we had a wealthy old merchant, dressed in plain
cotton robes, and the half-naked bearers of his narrow U-shaped
basket-litter. In paying our ferry fees, Yoritomo offered one of his
gold pieces, and the boat’s owner being unable to make full change, he
gave him the difference. As a result the polers bent to their work with
such hearty good-will that we reached the opposite bank a full three
lengths in advance of the _samurai’s_ boat.
We sprang ashore past a bevy of little brown children who were
paddling, stark naked, in the mud. Shortly beyond we met a pair of
neatly dressed girls, whose large mushroom hats rested upon black silk
skullcaps. They smiled and greeted us in a familiar manner. Yoritomo
muttered a hasty response, and pointed back at the _samurai_. The girls
hastened to advance upon that quick-tempered gentleman, with their
battery of charming smiles and alluring glances in full action.
“Courtesans?” I asked, as we swung on along the Tokaido.
“No, not _joros_, only _bikunis_--begging nuns, daughters of Yamabushi
priests. None would be quicker to penetrate our disguise,” replied
Yoritomo, and he quickened his pace.
After a mile or so we again met a crowd of southbound travellers,
people caught at Omuri by the closing of the highroad. We hastened
on to Omuri, the first post village out of Shinagawa. Recently as
the _daimio’s_ procession had passed, the place was already alert for
business, its shops wide open and teahouse girls standing coy-eyed in
the verandas. We hastened on through, pausing only to buy some large
dried persimmons that caught my eye.
A mile behind the town we came up with the rear of the Satsuma
procession, and were compelled by prudence to slacken our pace to a
tortoise-like gait. Making the best of the situation, I relished my
persimmons and viewed the scenery. There was much novelty and pleasure
in the sight of orange trees and bamboos and even an occasional banana
and palm growing in the same garden with pines and other evergreens,
while the deep-thatched roofs of the farmhouses were oddly attractive
with the beds of blue irises and vivid red lilies blooming on their
flattened ridges.
Above us towered the giant red-limbed cryptomerias of the Tokaido, with
their pine-like foliage, while on our right the road skirted along near
the sparkling blue waters of the bay, upon which sailed flotillas of
quaint fishing craft and high-sterned junks that might have served as
models for a painter of the sixteenth century.
Yoritomo touched my arm and pointed to something lying on the opposite
side of the road. I looked closer, and saw that it was the corpse of a
peasant, mangled by terrible sword cuts.
“A drunken fool,” he said, unmoved by the horrible sight. “No sober
man would have been found in the road after it had been sanded for the
passage of a _daimio_.”
Before I could reply, a little bell tinkled in the road behind us,
and Yoritomo drew me quickly out of the middle of the thoroughfare.
I glanced about and saw two runners racing towards us at headlong
speed. One carried the little bell I had heard, the other bore a small
bundle on a stick, across his shoulder. Both were stripped to their
loincloths, though at first glance I thought that they were clad in
tights, so completely were they covered with animal designs tattooed in
red, blue, and white.
In a moment the couriers had dashed past us and were flying on,
regardless of the stately cortege that barred the road. With the
murdered peasant fresh in mind, I looked to see the Satsuma men turn
about with sword and lance to avenge this outrage upon the dignity of
their lord. To my vast astonishment, the solemn ranks split apart all
along the centre of the road at the first tinkle of the little bell,
and the naked runners raced on without a check through the midst of the
procession.
“Carriers of despatches for the Shogun,” explained Yoritomo in response
to my look of amazed inquiry.
Here was food for thought to last me into Shinagawa, slow as was our
pace. Nowhere in the world had I witnessed such solemn state as was
exhibited by this _daimio_ cortege, a state so exalted that men were
killed for venturing within sword-sweep of the procession’s vanguard.
Yet at the tinkle of a bell, all had yielded the road to a pair of
naked, sweaty, unarmed postmen. What, then, must be the sublimity of
rank and state arrogated to himself by the master of this prince? Yet
the father of the quiet, mild-mannered gentleman trudging along in the
dust beside me was the blood kinsman of that Oriental lord of lords.
We were close upon Shinagawa before I realized that the sun was far
down the western sky and fast sinking behind a bank of black clouds. As
I looked up my eye fell upon a rude pillory, standing near the roadside
on ground raised above the level of the rice swamp. Along the top of
the rude structure sat five roundish objects sharply outlined against
the blood-red sky. Looking closer, I made out ghastly human faces--a
crow flapped up from the ground, with a hoarse cry, and began pecking
at one of the severed heads.