Forever, throughout everything, rises day and night from the whole
country the song of the cicalas, ceaseless, strident, and insistent. It
is everywhere, and never-ending, at no matter what hour of the burning
day, or what hour of the refreshing night. From the harbor, as we
approached our anchorage, we had heard it at the same time from
both shores, from both walls of green mountains. It is wearisome and
haunting; it seems to be the manifestation, the noise expressive of the
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, 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, “Ha! ha! ha!” in a key of sadness that seems
the extreme of painful astonishment. And the mountains around reecho
their cry.