Always, over, in, and through everything, rises day and night from
this Japanese landscape the song of the cicalas, ceaseless, strident,
and prodigious. It is everywhere, and never-ending, at no matter what
hour of the burning day, what hour of the cool and refreshing night.
In the midst of the roads, as we approached our anchorage, we had
heard it at the same time from the two shores, from both walls of
green mountains. It is wearisome and haunting; it seems to be the
manifestation, the noise expressive of the special kind of life
peculiar to this region of the world. It is the voice of summer in
these islands; it is the song of unconscious rejoicing, always content
with itself and always appearing to inflate, to rise upwards, in a
greater and greater exultation at the sheer happiness of living.
It is to me the noise characteristic of this country,--this, and the
cry of the falcon, which had in like manner greeted our entry into
Japan. Over the valleys and the deep bay sail these birds, uttering
from time to time their three cries, "Han! han! han!" in a key of
sadness, which seems the extreme of painful astonishment. And the
mountains around re-echo their cry.