Mythological Plays—Japanese Theatres—The Forty-seven Rônins—Flower
Festivals.
Amongst the most interesting of my early experiences in Japan were
visits to two varieties of theatres, first to a mythological drama
called the Nô, in connection with a military religious festival at the
Imperial or Shinto temple, in memory of the soldiers who were killed in
quelling the Satsuma rebellion. First the troops, and then what appeared
an interminable procession of police, all in foreign uniform, marched
by, paused a moment before the temple, and passed on.
(The sum and substance of Shinto worship is simply homage to all
ancestors, and to the Emperor in particular in the person of his great
ancestress, the sun-goddess, who is represented by a circular mirror of
polished metal, and by one or more beautiful globes of pure crystal laid
on the altar. Straw ropes, and curiously cut out strips of white paper
called _gohei_, and the peculiar sort of gateway called _torii_, are the
only other symbols in this cold system. The temples are all of plain,
uncoloured wood, with thatched roof of a simple form intended to
represent a tent.)
(Including small shrines in the forests, there are said to be
ninety-eight thousand Shinto temples in Japan; but this worship of their
ancestors does not lessen the homage done to thousands of revered things
and persons, who are figuratively described as “the eight hundred
myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial
gods, and the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated
temples in all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands.”)
From the temple we adjourned to the open space facing the theatre,
where, under a grilling sun, a Nô play was being acted gratis for the
military. We were told that it was a drama of the fifteenth century, all
about semi-deified heroes. We endured it as long as possible, but were
not sorry when we could courteously retire to luncheon.
Hitherto these Nô have been the only plays at which nobles and ladies
might be present, the ordinary drama being considered essentially the
amusement of the people. But the Nô being religious plays, all of a
mythological character, have always been highly esteemed, and nobles of
the highest rank built theatres within their own palaces, where they
themselves were the actors in these classical operas, which represent
such scenes as the sun-goddess being lured from her cave, or the various
appearances of the gods in human form. Doubtless to the educated
Japanese these plays are as attractive as severely classical music is to
the true musician among ourselves, but to the uninitiated they certainly
appear exceedingly dull.
I am told that many of these are beautiful ancient poems, and as such
are familiar to the audience, but to a foreigner, even if he be a
classical student, they are very difficult reading, and when delivered
on the stage in a shrill, high pitched and very nasal intonation, with
an accompaniment of many discordant classical instruments, they are
positively unintelligible.
The acting is at once stilted and grotesque, the actors being disguised
by hideous wigs and masks of lacquered wood. The latter are venerable
relics which have been preserved for many generations, each in its own
silken cover, and the dresses are old court-robes of richest gold and
silver embroidered silk brocade.
I found the ordinary theatre very much more interesting just for once.
Going to the play in Japan is a very serious matter, as the performance
begins at 6 or 7 A.M., and continues till 6 or 7 P.M. So the women and
children are awake half the night dressing their hair, and painting and
otherwise gilding the lily. Long before dawn they must breakfast in
order to reach the theatre in time to see the quaint old dances, which
are performed just before sunrise, and represent strange scenes in the
lives of the gods and heroes, ogres and apes.
At the earliest glimmer of day the gay theatre street is thronged with
crowds of pleasure-seekers from town and country, eager to miss no
fragment of the play. The _mis-en-scène_ is excellent; appropriate
scenery and beautiful dresses, and to avoid long pauses, the stage
itself revolves, and you watch a scene of battle and murder disappear,
to be replaced on the instant by some elaborate court pageant.
This is a great advance on the early form of the drama, as I have seen
it performed by Tamil actors at Trincomalee, where a circular stage of
the rudest description was erected in the centre of a grassy plain; we,
the spectators, sat all round, and the magnificently dressed actors
played each scene four times over, that each section of their audience
might have a good view.
That primitive theatre on the grass was recalled to my mind on being
told that the Japanese name for the theatres is Shiba-i, which means
“the turf-plot,” and recalls the early days when religious dances and
dramas were first invented and performed on the smooth grass before the
temples.
There are no actresses in China or Japan; all female parts are taken by
men, excellently got up, and their parts are often admirably rendered. A
first-rate male actress is a highly popular person, and receives such
ovations as might rejoice the _prima-donna_ of our own stage; but to our
ears their painfully artificial elocution, and the shrill falsetto voice
which they assume, is very jarring, especially as there is the
accompaniment of a lugubrious and doleful orchestra. But to me all
Japanese music is trying—you never hear a deep chest-note, only squeaky
throat-sounds, the more tremulous the better, and the accompaniments are
twanging and discordant.
The theatre street is very conspicuous, all the neighbouring houses
being gay with red paper lanterns at nights, and by day tall banners
with inscriptions on bright ground flutter from bamboos higher than the
roof. The interior of the building has a gallery, and what we should
call the pit is divided into square boxes, each to hold a family party
sitting on the matted floor. There they can have their tiny _hibachi_,
or charcoal stove, and smoke, or drink tea, and eat cakes. Those who
really want their money’s worth stay the whole day, and have their three
meals and _entre-mets_ sent in from the tea-houses all round, so there
is incessant carrying of tea-pots and food-trays, fire-boxes and pipes.
The friend who engaged a box for me had kindly sent his servant and
family to occupy it since early morning, for fear of any mistake. They
sat on the mats till our arrival, when chairs were brought in for us. At
the outer door lay a huge pile of sandals and clogs, and the people hunt
out their own each time they go in or out.
As we entered, a nice old lady, bent double, was being helped out; her
son took her on his back and carried her downstairs. There were a number
of very pretty girls in the house, with well-brushed hair, but all very
quietly dressed, chiefly in grey or dove-coloured robes, with only a
touch of bright colour at the open neck and sash, so that with no light
save that of the grey autumn afternoon, the theatre looked very dingy
till about 5 P.M., when two chandeliers were lighted.
We arrived at the middle of the great piece, when a beautiful girl was
pleading for her father’s life before a Buddhist priest, who related his
own love-story ere he became a priest. Then the prisoners were
sentenced—their arms bound, and they were led out to execution. The
curtain fell, and the audience feasted on tiny dainties and sips of tea
or _saki_.
Then, lest people should weary of one story going on so long without a
break, a new short play in two acts was produced. A Daimio has adopted
the child of a previous Mikado. On the reigning Mikado hearing of this,
he sends a messenger to demand the boy’s head. (Bitter anguish of all
concerned.) The Daimio’s chief retainer and his wife, in the intensity
of their loyalty, resolve to give the head of their own beloved son, a
charming, winsome, coaxing child, who quite enters into the situation,
comforts his parents, tells them how glad he is to be able to make them
an offering of his head. (Applause tremendous!) The father then tries to
cut off the head of his own boy, but cannot. (Agony of all—this was very
fine acting.) Finally the head is brought in in a wooden-box and
presented to the messenger, who, seeing it, suspects the fraud. Then the
extraordinary couple produce the real prince as their own child, and of
course he is recognised, but the messenger greatly applauds their
loyalty, and gives a receipt as if for the prince’s head.
Again the curtain falls, and the first play is resumed in scenes
apparently quite unconnected. _Scene_—A tea-house beside _toriis_
leading to a Shinto temple. An old man, poor and weary, hobbles in,
leaning on a little child, and faints from exhaustion. He had been
robbed by the man who had set up this tea-house with ill-gotten wealth.
Then the whole stage revolved on a pivot, at once displaying a new
scene. Coolies getting rather drunk at a saki-shop. Again the whole
stage revolved, showing another scene, and so on till evening.
Funny little imps clothed in black, even their faces being veiled in
black crape, are supposed to be invisible, and creep about changing the
stage-furniture, or holding a curtain before dead men to enable them to
slip away. At night they hold lights before the faces of the principal
actors that all may see their play of feature. These are conventionally
got up, the eyes of nobles and high-caste ladies being painted to look
long (the much-admired almond-shape), and as if eyes and eye-brows
slanted up from nose to temple. The scenery is throughout of the very
simplest, but it answers its purpose well.
I must not allow myself even a brief summary of our daily enchanting
expeditions, exploring curio-shops and temples, cemeteries and gardens,
always under most able guidance of various very kind, experienced
residents. I can only say they were bewildering in their variety, their
beauty, and their interest. We lingered long in many gorgeous Buddhist
temples, and specially noted how here (as wherever else I have come
across modern Buddhism) it incorporates every conceivable variety of
gods and goddesses, as well as rendering divine honour to Buddha
himself, which was the last thing that good teacher of unaided
perfection ever desired.
Specially attractive to the people is the image of Binzuro, the kind god
of medicine. All who are afflicted with any sort of pain come and rub
the seat of suffering on the image, and then rub their own poor body.
The head, feet, and stomach of the image at Asakusa, originally coated
with brown lacquer, have been so persistently rubbed that much of the
bare wood is now exposed. Another very popular idol is Daikoku, the god
of wealth, a most jovial-looking person, one of the seven gods of
good-fortune. Naturally he is for ever receiving incense and offerings,
and his image has a place in almost all domestic shrines.
Asakusa is dedicated to Kwan-non, the kind thousand-armed goddess of
mercy, but she here shares her honours with so many other deities that I
did not realise her individuality till we visited another temple (rather
near Seido, which is a most beautiful old Confucian temple, all in
solemn black and gold lacquer). In that temple a gigantic gilt figure of
the goddess Kwan-non occupies the centre, and along the walls, right up
into the tower, are ranged rows and rows of gilt images of her,
numbering a thousand! All have many arms, and some have several heads
growing out of the original head, because the goddess owns eleven faces
as well as a thousand arms.
Afterwards I saw many of her temples, one of the most remarkable being
at Sanju-San-gen-Do, in Kioto, which is said to contain 33,333 gilt
images of her, but that is counting all the heads. There is one large
sitting figure of her eighteen feet high, and one thousand images, each
five feet high, all carved by celebrated artists in wood, and it is said
that no two images have their arms and the objects held by them arranged
alike!
(Just before visiting that wonderful homage to “mercy,” I had halted to
sketch a quaint relic-shrine on a mound called Mimi-dzuka, in which were
buried five thousand pairs of ears cut from the heads of the Koreans
slain by the Japanese in the year 1592, and brought back by the
victorious general to be laid at the feet of the Emperor Hideyoshi!)
Among the endless varieties of quaint shows at Asakusa, one of the most
curious is a representation of many of the most noted miracles wrought
by Kwan-non. Admirably modelled life-sized figures are arranged in
groups, each of which recalls some signal deliverance of her worshippers
in the hour of danger. One poor fellow was assaulted by robbers and
thrown into the river, whence he was happily brought up in a fishermen’s
net, and the presence of a small image of Kwan-non in his long
sleeve-pocket brought him back to life. Another group recalls the reward
of a kindly man who bought a tortoise which was about to be killed and
eaten. He restored it to the waters, and three days later, when his
child fell into the sea, it was saved by the grateful tortoise, who swam
ashore with the little innocent on its back.
Another instance of gratitude for life thus preserved is that of a girl
who saved the life of a crab, and afterwards, when she was in deadly
peril from a snake in human form, a legion of crabs summoned by Kwan-non
came to her rescue, and conquered the monster. Quaintest of all is a
group descriptive of a man enduring torture from headache, to whom it
was miraculously revealed that the root of a tree was growing through
the socket of the eye of the skull which was his in a previous
incarnation. On searching the place indicated, he found the root
splitting the skull, and on clearing it away, the pain subsided.
The temple grounds at Asakusa contain a concentrated essence of
everything most remarkable in the worship and amusements of the
people—it is a daily wonderful fair, and, however often the oldest
resident goes there, he always finds something he had not seen before.
So what would be the good of attempting to describe it?
But there is one oft-told tale which I cannot forbear telling, in case
it may be new to some one, because, although it is almost the first
story impressed on every traveller in Japan, I never in subsequent
wanderings heard any other quite so characteristic of that wonderful old
chivalry which in these aspects has so happily passed away. It is the
story which was told to me in the great cemetery at Sen-gaku-ji, “the
Temple of the Spring,” one corner of which attracts pilgrims from all
parts of Japan, for here are the tombs of the forty-seven Rônins, who,
about two hundred years ago, devoted their lives in the most approved
manner to accomplish vengeance for their dead master. They were the
followers of Takumi-no-Kami, who, under gross provocation, was guilty of
striking Kôtsuké-no-Suké, an officer of the Imperial court, within the
precincts of the palace.
For this offence he was sentenced to perform _hara kiri_—his castle was
confiscated, and his retainers became Rônins (literally wave-men, so
called because, having no master, they are tossed about like waves of a
troubled sea). But forty-seven of these faithful adherents determined to
avenge their master’s death. The story of all they underwent during the
long months of patient waiting while they strove to disarm the
suspicions of Kôtsuké and his followers, forms a long and highly popular
romance, full of details which to us seem scarcely praiseworthy, but
which are strongly characteristic of the strange code of honour of
Japan.
After unheard of sacrifices, their plan ripened, and with careful heed
of every chivalric detail, the forty-seven Rônins surprised the palace
of Kôtsuké, and, after a furious fight, succeeded in reaching his
sleeping-room. They found him hiding in a courtyard, dressed in a white
satin sleeping-robe, and falling on their knees before him, they most
respectfully besought him to perform _hara kiri_ and die the death of a
noble man, their leader offering to act as his second and cut off his
head in due form. But, being a low-minded churl, he could not summon
courage for this manly form of suicide, but crouched trembling before
them. At last, seeing their courtesy was vain, they apologised for the
liberty they were obliged to take, and having slain him, they cut off
his head and placed it in a bucket and departed, carefully extinguishing
all lights, lest perchance a fire might break out and damage innocent
neighbours.
Then they came to the monastery of Sen-ga-kuji, where their lord was
buried. The abbot met them at the gate and led them to the tomb, where
they laid the head as an offering, after they had washed it. Then they
all burned incense, and having presented to the abbot all the money they
had with them, they prayed him to have masses sung for their souls, when
they should have performed _hara kiri_. So, when the sentence of the
Imperial Court was pronounced, these brave men were ready to carry it
out, and having died nobly, they were all buried round the tomb of their
master.
Then the people came to pray at their honoured graves. But one man (who
had mistrusted and insulted one of them during the time when they were
striving to disarm the suspicions of Kôtsuké) was filled with such agony
of remorse that he came to his grave to implore forgiveness, and then
offered atonement by performing _hara kiri_ on the spot. So the pitying
priests buried him with the faithful Rônins, and this is the reason
there are now forty-eight graves, each adorned with its little offerings
of flowers and incense-sticks, oft renewed by pious hands.
In the temple close by, statues of the forty-seven Rônins, carved in
wood and lacquered, are ranged around the gilded image of the Goddess of
Mercy. They are all different, and represent men ranging from sixteen to
seventy years of age. The tattered garments and rusty old armour of the
Rônins are reverently preserved, together with the documents they had
drawn up for their own guidance. The well in which the head was washed
is likewise held in honour.
It does seem a curious anomaly that a nation naturally so warlike as the
Japanese should also be so delightfully simple in their enjoyments.
Surely no other race is so emphatically gifted with the poet-mind of
childhood. Nothing is lost on these imaginative people. The changeful
glories of storm and sunshine, of varying autumn-tints, of pale,
beautiful blossoms, are each embodied poems in which they rejoice, and
which they are for ever seeking to render in words—hence the couplets
and verses inscribed on paper, wood, or stone, whatever material comes
handy to the poet.
To the Japanese people the course of the seasons is marked by the
blossoming of different flowers, and each in turn becomes a reason for
holding festival and making holiday. Scarcely have the snows of January
quite vanished ere the leafless plum-trees are covered with such rich
blossom as might almost be mistaken for a fresh snowfall. Straightway
the citizens make up pleasure-parties and expeditions to the
neighbouring plum-gardens, where beneath the blossoming trees are placed
most inviting raised platforms covered with seats, where they can lounge
to their hearts’ content and compose verses in praise of the spring, the
blue sky, or the plum-blossoms, which verses they then write with a
paint-brush on strips of soft paper, and fasten them to the boughs in
graceful homage. Of course there are the invariable surroundings of
joyous, gaily-dressed children and women of all ages, and pretty little
attendants to keep up the supply of sweetmeats and tea.
Hardly is the plum-blossom festival over, when all the peach trees burst
into flower, and their delicate rose-colour calls for more holidays and
more poems. Next and loveliest of all come the rich masses of double
cherry-blossom, its snowy petals just tipped with pink. This is the
season of seasons, with which none other can compare. The whole city
makes holiday, for even the most poverty-stricken contrive for a while
to forget their cares in such an atmosphere of delight.
There are various gardens specially celebrated for their
cherry-blossoms, and early in April each of these is visited by crowds
of happy people in their gayest dresses. But the concentrated essence of
delight is to be found at Mukojima, on the further bank of Sumidagawa
(which is a river as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and crossed by
about as many bridges). Here there is an avenue two miles long of most
beautiful cherry-trees, beneath which the crowd of poets dream
blissfully and gather their inspiration from ever-falling showers of
pale petals. Then they betake them to one of the pretty garden-houses,
where they gain further inspiration from drinking some decoction
flavoured with cherry-blossom, and under its cheering influence their
poetic thoughts take form, and are committed to paper and then entwined
among the blossoms, as the reverent homage of devoted lovers.
As the twilight deepens, thousands of gay paper lanterns glow among the
foliage, giving a soft, coloured light, and producing a most fairy-like
effect. Feasting of a most æsthetic kind is indulged in, with occasional
accompaniment of strange instruments and songs, and then the happy
holiday-makers return to their pleasure-boats and row homewards in the
clear, beautiful moonlight.
When joyous April gives place to May, and all the cherry-blossoms have
floated away like some dream of ethereal loveliness, then a new
flower-queen reigns for a little season. This time it is the exquisite
lilac wistaria which holds sway over the hearts of the people.[63] It
differs from the wistaria of our gardens in that instead of bearing its
blossoms in short, thick bunches like grapes, these are scattered more
sparsely, and hang in long graceful clusters, some of which actually
exceed a yard in length. Lady Parkes assured me that she had seen some
of these which were about five feet in length! On such clusters as these
each pale lilac blossom shows separately, hence no flower that blows
finds such favour with the artists, whether on paper, porcelain, or
lacquer, as does this beautiful fuji (it bears the same name as the Holy
Mountain).
The fuji plants are trained to grow closely over a roof of trellis-work,
through which the drooping clusters hang in profusion; and beneath this
lovely canopy are set the soft mats which invite all comers to lie in
the pleasant shade and rejoice in the tender golden, green, and lilac
hues of the tremulous leaves and blossoms. I need scarcely say that the
fuji receives its full share of poetic utterances from enthusiastic
admirers, so that by the end of the season there flutter from its boughs
thousands of paper strips or even wooden tablets, most puzzling to the
uninitiated.
The most celebrated wistarias of Tokio are in the grounds of the temple
of Kameido (literally the tortoise-well), where, in addition to such
ecclesiastical sights as the marble ox and the stable containing the
white wooden horses, there is a highly ornamental artificial lake,
spanned by a very curiously curved bridge. A bamboo trellis-work has
been constructed over part of the lake, and the wistaria has been so
trained as completely to cover the framework, whence the long blossoms
droop till they almost touch the heads of the happy groups who establish
themselves on matted floors built out over the lake.
The wistaria is succeeded by gorgeous azaleas, and another flower, which
seems to us far more prosaic, namely, the peony. Certainly peonies as
grown here are magnificent, and inspire many an artistic painting. And
then come the irises, which are cultivated on a very large scale and in
extraordinary profusion. Again the holiday-makers troop forth. This time
their destination is most probably the artificial lakes of Hori Kiri,
where upwards of three hundred varieties of iris are to be seen.
August brings the lemon and rose-coloured lotus-blossoms, with their
great bluish-green leaves rising from the moats and lakes, and November
covers the camelia-trees with exquisite pink and white blossom, turns
the maples vivid scarlet and gold, and is emphatically the month of the
chrysanthemum. The latter has now been brought to such perfection in
Europe that it almost outdoes its Japanese ancestors, whose loveliness
induced the Emperors of Japan to adopt them as the Imperial crest, so
conventionalised that a sixteen-rayed chrysanthemum symbolises the
Rising Sun, that great ancestress from whom the Mikado claims lineal
descent.
Truly fascinating are the chrysanthemum shows of Japan, where throngs of
flower-loving folk of every degree, from the wealthiest down to the very
poorest, assemble to gaze enraptured at these triumphs of nature and
art. November brings weeping skies and cold, biting air in Japan as it
does here, but the holiday-makers find intervening days of radiant
sunlight, when the pretty little maidens and children don their gayest
apparel and go forth to join the cheery sightseers.
Perhaps their way lies by the far-famed wooded hill of Shiba, where each
sportive breeze showers down dainty pink leaves from the tree-camelias,
now laden with lovely pink single blossoms. On they walk merrily, as is
their wont, passing temples and moats, lakes and lilies, till they
reach, as we did, the beautiful park of Yueno, near to which are the
most celebrated of the chrysanthemum gardens.
For Japanese gardeners know better than to bring their treasures to be
all crowded together in scanty space. Each arranges his own little
garden so as to exhibit its produce in the most attractive light, and
truly such triumphs of horticultural art as he has for long months been
patiently preparing could not be exposed to the risks of transportation.
So a visit to the chrysanthemum show of Yueno means visiting at least a
dozen small gardens, each with its special exhibit of Japanese
ingenuity.
In the first place, the laying out of the half or quarter acre is in
itself often a marvel of miniature landscape-gardening, which represents
an infinity of patient toil, were it only in the production of the dwarf
trees—those strangely perfect miniatures—orange and peach trees—even
sturdy-looking, old gnarled oaks, pines, and cedars, whose twisted
boughs are well in keeping with their weather-beaten trunks—trees which
are probably at least thirty years old, though their average height is
barely two feet. These are produced by cutting off the tap-root of the
baby tree, and thereafter perpetually disturbing the soil and nipping
off the suckers and young shoots, so the leaves grow smaller and
smaller, all in proportion.
Such trees, growing in beautiful old bronze or blue porcelain vases, are
generally objects of much admiration; but as November is the
chrysanthemum festival, they are now neglected, and all eyes are riveted
on these kind winter beauties. First rank the magnificent queens of
chrysanthemum society—large, stately blossoms, some so large that when
their long, slender petals are unfurled, they would cover an average
breakfast-plate. Some are white as newly fallen snow, others creamy
saffron, pale yellow, bright gold, salmon-coloured, claret, maroon, deep
red, brown, and many other colours, the most fascinating being those
whose long petals are like reversible ribbons, showing on one side
claret-coloured velvet, on the other old-gold satin.
These receive due meed of loving admiration from a race so passionately
devoted to flowers that I have often watched exceedingly poor men expend
what might apparently have been their last cent on two or three blossoms
to carry back to their humble little home.
But for amusement and special interest, the crowds pass from one to
another of the little gardens which excel in the production of quaint
groups of figures all clothed in garments of growing flowers. These tiny
gardens are scattered all about in out-of-the-way corners, where,
assuredly, we could never have found them without the aid of sympathetic
jinricksha-men, keenly interested in our sight-seeing, who ran us
through an intricate labyrinth of narrow lanes and byways, passing on
from one garden to another, at each of which we paid some infinitesimal
coin, and joined the stream of delighted spectators, old and young.
Each gardener has devoted his whole energies to the production of one
complete scene, comprising men and women, fish, animals, houses—true
_tableaux vivants_ of which the silent, patient flowers are the life.
Apparently each scene is represented by a light wire framework, within
which the plants are growing, and in most perfect health, but trained
with such infinite care that to the eye of the spectator each presents
outside the wirework a compact mass, either of tiny blossoms or of
foliage. Thus patches of the richest colour, varied with sober green,
are produced wherever they are required, and so the most elaborate
scenes are developed. One gardener shows us a group of figures sitting
beside tiny tables, tea-drinking. Another has a music-party; a third, of
a festive turn of mind (or possibly a blue-ribbon man), has a
drinking-scene suggestive of “wine in, wit out.” Now we come to an
Arcadian scene, with a romantic couple on a pretty, high-arched bridge,
and beyond them is a tall pagoda, with walls of white chrysanthemums and
roofs of green, but all the little wind-bells hanging from each roof are
real bells of brass.
Next we come to a scene of court life thirty years ago, before the
nobles of Japan had discarded their strikingly characteristic garments
for the European broadcloth which to them is so unbecoming. But here we
have them in tippets and wide sleeves and long, loose trousers, and
robes, and extraordinary head-dresses; and all the ladies are in equally
picturesque attire—and, indeed, we have to look closely before we can
feel quite convinced that all this wealth of rich colour is really
produced by carefully-educated growing plants. True, all the heads,
hands, and feet are wooden, cleverly carved and coloured, but every
other detail is floral.
Here is a charming lady whose whole robe is of red blossoms, her sash of
pearly grey, her under-skirt of green foliage, the folds of crape round
her neck of snowy white blossoms. Her lord and master has bright golden
trousers, a green robe lined with red blossoms, and a tippet of maroon
chrysanthemums.
In one little garden, gay with camelia-trees in full blossom, there is a
dainty little tea-house. Evidently this gardener is a jocose man, for in
the foreground lies a gentleman who has tumbled over and dropped his
wooden clogs in terror at beholding some clothes hung up to dry, which
he has mistaken for a ghost. Out run the other guests, carrying
lanterns, to ascertain the cause of the hubbub. It does not sound very
exciting, but then you must remember that not only are all the figures
clothed in variegated floral drapery, but even the tea-house itself is
made of chrysanthemums; the woodwork is of red blossoms, the walls of
foliage—only the thatch is real, as are also the pretty paper lamps in
the hands of the travellers. So are the lamps hanging round the cabin of
a large green-andgold boat, in which are seen a gorgeously dressed but
evidently very aggravating woman and a very picturesque old Daimio, who
is evidently in a towering rage, and has gone so far as to draw his
sword and threaten the lady. The noble is robed in green, lined with
purple and trimmed with bands of gold, and the lady is chiefly clad in
white and gold, with a claret-coloured under-garment and dark red sash.
Some of the mythological scenes are exceedingly curious, one of the most
effective showing a woman robed in pink and green and gold, engaged in a
furious combat with a gigantic fish. The latter is claret-coloured, with
red head and tail and golden fins. The manner in which the scales are
defined is exceedingly ingenious; but space fails, and in truth such
descriptions must likewise fail to convey the smallest idea of the
amusement to be derived from so ingenious an exhibition as a Japanese
chrysanthemum show.
I saw these in November, just before I left Tokio _en route_ to Kobe,
where I arrived in time to see the dainty, tiny-leafed maple in full
glory. My kind hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Flower, took me a most beautiful
expedition along the sea-coast and then inland to Mino, which is one of
the glens most celebrated for the glory of its maples. These clothe the
banks of a very rocky stream which rushes down, forming picturesque
waterfalls gleaming dazzlingly through the veil of scarlet foliage. As
usual, charmingly pretty tea-houses are perched on the most attractive
sites overlooking the stream. Some of the maples were only just turning
from green to yellow, then gold, scarlet, and ermine, such a marvellous
blaze of colour as would be too gorgeous were it not for the contrast of
dark, pine-clad hills all round.
Large merry parties of men and gaily-dressed girls were thoroughly
enjoying their outing, the gentlemen, moreover, luxuriating in the hot
baths, followed by a cooling process, _al fresco_, in the original
attire of Adam, a custom somewhat embarrassing to the prejudiced
foreigner. To our uneducated ears the night was made hideous by the
discordant noise which to Japanese ears is high-class music, otherwise
all were enjoying themselves very quietly. But to us there was truer
music in the ceaseless murmur of the rushing, foam-flecked river, and
the wind sweeping over the fir-crested hills.