Among the more startling but characteristic of the sketches of “Old
Japan,” as drawn by the skilful pen of Lafcadio Hearn, there is perhaps
no one which has excited a wider interest than that he was pleased
to entitle “A Living God.” The few pages which it covers illustrate
all the well-known excellencies and faults of this gifted writer.
Purporting to give facts, but quite careless as to what the facts
really were, exaggerating impressions and twisting the meanings of
quaint old-time customs and faiths, Mr. Hearn nevertheless celebrates
the deed of Hamaguchi so as to initiate the reader duly into the
spirit of a half-century ago, in the Land of the Rising Sun. I say,
“a half-century ago”; for although the story makes its hero to have
died at an advanced age more than a hundred years before, the real Mr.
Hamaguchi died in New York City, as late as April 21, 1889, at the age
of sixty-six. He was then only thirty-two years old when in 1855 he
enabled the villagers of Hiro-mura to escape with their lives from the
overwhelming wave caused by the earthquake of that year.
It is worth while to correct some of the other mistakes of Mr. Hearn,
before giving the narrative of a recent visit to Hiro-mura, where we
were the guests of the present head of the Hamaguchi family. These
mistakes, indeed, do not at all detract from the nobility of the
hero’s action, nor greatly mar the writer’s reputation for picturing
graphically a certain aspect of the spiritual life and character of
the Japanese. Since it does not appear that he had ever travelled in
this part of the country (we were assured by our host that we were
the only foreigners who had ever been seen in Hiro-mura), the topical
inaccuracies of Mr. Hearn’s story are easily excusable. Instead of
Hamaguchi’s watching the merrymakers of the village from a farm-house
on the hill-side, he saw the ebbing of the water that followed the
earthquake and presaged the incoming wave, from his own house which
was in the village itself. Indeed the heighth to which the water rose
in its rooms was pointed out to us as it was marked plainly upon the
wooden pillars in front of the _tokonoma_, or alcove where the artistic
and other similar interests of a Japanese household are centred. Nor
was the man himself simply the principal farmer of the district. For
many generations his family had been one of the largest and richest
in this part of Japan. Their wealth had been accumulated in the
manufacture of _Shoyu_--the Japanese sauce invented as a modification
of a Chinese original, which was introduced into Japan some centuries
ago by a Buddhist priest, and without which no food “tastes good” to
the modern Japanese. Moreover, the huge wave occurred in the middle of
a moonless night; and thus the stacks of grain, which were not only his
own, but also all that Hamaguchi could come upon in the village, served
for lights to guide the villagers in their flight; and not at all, as
Mr. Hearn would have us believe, for signals that their help was needed
to rescue a neighbour’s property from fire.
Mr. Hamaguchi did, however, come perilously near to losing his own
life for the sake of saving the lives of others; for he was himself
the last to leave the lower ground of the village and escape to the
hills. As it was, he was saved only by making a marvellous jump across
a stream which checked the relentless wave that was pursuing and
overtaking him. His son, Mr. Tan Hamaguchi, tells us this incident,
which is unmentioned by Mr. Hearn, and adds: “I can recollect well that
in my boyhood I used to bathe and fish in this very stream, without
realising that it had been the means of saving my father’s life.” Nor
is it true that the hero “continued to live in his old thatched house
on the hill, with his children and his children’s children, just as
humanly and simply as before, while his soul was being worshipped in
the shrine below.” Even before the incident narrated above, at the
time of the coming of the “black ships”--i. e., Commodore Perry’s
fleet,--Hamaguchi Gōryo had been prominent in politics as one opposed
to admitting foreigners without armed resistance; and, after their
admittance, he organised the militia of his Province and drilled them
according to his ideas of the European system. At the time that the
supreme power was restored by the Revolution to the Emperor, Gōryo was
appointed to a position corresponding to that of Postmaster-General.
And later, in 1879, when the _Ken-Kwai_, or system of a local body
of representatives, was introduced, he was elected president of the
Council of his native place. Still later he organised a so-called
“conciliation society,” which, while deprecating the then rising,
ignorant strife of the political parties in process of formation, urged
a “careful study of politics, rather than unrestrained violence and
empty vapourings of irresponsible talk.” Like other notable Japanese
of his day, Hamaguchi had for years previous to his death cherished
the plan of foreign travel for the purpose of studying the social
and political institutions of foreign countries. Indeed, it was in
pursuance of this plan that--as has already been said--we find him in
New York City, where he died in 1889.
But this true patriot did not forget his own humble village in his
larger interest in the political development of the province of Kishu
and of the country at large. The tidal wave of 1885 had left nearly the
entire village of Hiro-mura desolate, and its inhabitants homeless,
destitute, and quite unable to provide for themselves. Hamaguchi Gōryo
found employment for them by organising and carrying through a scheme
for building an enormous dyke to protect the village from future
inundations. This dyke, now shadowed with well-grown trees, under which
we took a part of our Sunday’s walk, March 10, 1907, is 1800 yards in
length, 16 yards wide, and 5 yards high. “With the permission of the
Daimyo of Kishu” (how thoroughly of the “Old Japan” does this phrase
smack!), and with the assistance of his kinsman, Mr. K. Hamaguchi,
the whole cost of this expensive construction was defrayed by their
private means. Moreover, Gōryo did much for the roads and bridges, as
well as the farms, of this region in Kishu.
But quite apart from any curiosity to see the village where dwelt the
hero who won by his courage and benevolence the name of _Daimyojin_,
or the “divinely great and bright” (it is not true, as Lafcadio Hearn
affirms in his semi-fairy tale, that a shrine was built to Gōryo
during his life-time by the villagers), I had other important reasons
for visiting Hiro-mura. A former pupil of mine, Mr. Takarayama, was
principal of a flourishing school which has been established and
patronised generously by the Hamaguchi family. An invitation from the
head-master and the patrons of this school, and their representations
as to what it would mean for the cause of education in the whole
district, combined with descriptions of the beauty of its scenery and
the as yet unsophisticated nature of the country people, were quite
sufficient to make us eager to be the first of foreigners to see and
describe this wholly unfamiliar part of Japan. In all these respects,
as well as others, our experiences left us emphatic in the conclusion
that we had seldom, or never, in any part of the world had a more
rewarding three days of travel and of sight-seeing than those spent in
this trip through Kishu.
In order that we might reach our destination by a single day’s travel
in jinrikishas--for the village is some twenty-five miles from the
nearest railway station--we went from Kyoto to Osaka on the evening of
the day before and took the early morning train for the interesting
and beautiful town of Wakayama. At the station in Osaka we found the
reserved carriage which the Governor of Wakayama had requested to have
ready for us. As the manager of the railway acknowledged “the honour
which we were doing his road by condescending to travel over it,” I
think we felt somewhat as the daimyo of Kishu must have felt when he
granted “permission” to Hamaguchi Gōryo to pay for the dyke which the
latter’s enterprise and industry had succeeded in building.
The ride between the great manufacturing and modernised city and the
ancient town, with its well-preserved feudal castle, is entertaining
throughout; the part along the sea is especially picturesque. On the
platform of the station at Wakayama stood the Mayor, the heads of
various educational associations, and others, ready to welcome the
arriving guests in the customary formal but friendly fashion of “Old
Japan,”--adapted, however, to modern conditions of travel and clothing.
Four jinrikishas, with three runners for each, were in waiting. After a
short interval of discussion as to certain details, all were arranged
in proper order;--our escort from the city leading the way, then the
lady and the gentleman who were guests (a reversal of the ancient order
of the precedence of the sexes), with Mr. Takarayama bringing up the
rear. The cavalcade started off at a brisk trot which was broken only
once during the first six miles; and this was in order to pass a loaded
cart where the road along the cliff was somewhat narrow and rough. In
this way we reached the village of Kuroé in time for luncheon. A turn
aside from the main street, a somewhat steep climb by a branch road and
then by a path through the fields to the hill-side above the village,
brought us to the beautiful home of our mid-day host.
Mr. Kimura, who entertained us at luncheon that day, is a younger
brother of Mr. K. Hamaguchi, who, as so often happens in Japan, has
been adopted into another family and in this manner changed his family
name. Over the gateway to his private grounds were hung the flags of
Japan and of the United States; and the family, which still retains
something of its patriarchal constitution in the country places of
Japan, including a number of the principal servants, were all in
waiting to welcome the foreign guests. Mr. Kimura’s residence is
charmingly situated; the house, which is purely Japanese, although a
part of the structure is more than two hundred years old, is still in
excellent repair; in sunny and fairly warm weather it has the beauty
which is peculiar to the best Japanese dwellings when set in one of
those picturesque landscapes that abound here as nowhere else. In the
room where we were received were a few treasures of art, which had been
brought from the go-down for the occasion, such as a princess might
covet; some rare old kakemonos, a piece or two of the finest lacquer,
and one of the most interesting and artistic of bronze vases for
flowers which I have ever seen. The base of this vase represented, or
rather suggested in barest outline, the surf of the sea, with sea-birds
flying here and there above the curling waves.
This entire district is an interesting example of the persistence in
modern times of artisan and artist work, as done in humble houses by
private individuals and families, with a certain independence and
pride of craft, and on their own account as it were. In and about
this small and obscure village of Kuroé there are as many as one
thousand houses in which work in lacquer is going on. Most of this
work is, of course, of cheap and ordinary character; although some of
the older forms of cheap utensils of lacquer have a certain artistic
beauty. Other specimens of the work done to-day in these houses of
the village and the adjoining fields may, however, well lay claim to
a rather high order of merit. For if there is not much initiative or
originality shown by the peasant workers, the designs of the celebrated
Korin, made a century and a half ago, are still being faithfully and
skilfully copied by them. But there surely was not much work done,
whether in fields, shops, or houses, during the hours of our stay. For
the people, of all sorts, ages, and sizes, were gathered in groups,
with that mild-mannered and unabashed curiosity which characterises
the old-fashioned country folk of Japan, to watch the doings of the
strangers who had so suddenly and unexpectedly appeared within their
borders.
If further experience had been needed--as, indeed it was not--to
convince me of the ease with which one, properly introduced and
conducted, can make acquaintances among the good people of Japan, our
short stay with Mr. Kimura and his family would furnish it. We met at
noon as strangers; we parted at two in the afternoon of the same day as
friends. As a souvenir of this friendship both host and guests cherish
a photograph in which four generations of this Japanese family, and its
trusted and aged head-steward, are grouped around the foreign visitors.
From the village of Kuroé to Hiro-mura the jinrikisha ride is one of
almost unexampled charm. Indeed the landscapes through which we were
passing combined the three qualities of such charm--beauty of form,
beauty of colour, and human interest--in a higher degree, I think, than
does either the drive around the Bay of Naples or along the Bosphorus.
The day was superb--bright with the light of the sky and the sparkling
of the sea, and just cool enough for comfortable travelling. We had
changed runners and vehicles at Kuroé and so our men were fresh and
ambitious to show how well they could do. The first part of the course
took us over the tops and along the sides of the cliffs above the Bay
of _Shimidzu_, or “Clear Water.” Here the landscape had its beauty
of form contributed by the very configuration of the coast-line and,
as well, of the mountain’s slopes and crests. But the curious and
graceful curves of the terraces, both above and below the road as it
wound along the bay, and up and down, were added features of delight
to the eye that appreciates this kind of beauty. The reddish brown
of the rock, where it shone through the sombre green of the lichens,
emphasised by the light green and fawn colour of the dried grasses, or
the dark and almost blackish green of the pines; the reaches up Between
the cliffs, with the variegated colours of the vegetable gardens, the
ooze of the as yet unplanted rice-fields, the shiny foliage of the
orange groves, with the various shades of yellow fruit showing in
places through the leaves; the limpid blue waters of the Inland Sea
and of the Italian sky, which combined to reveal all the many hues
of shell, and pebble, and seaweed, and reflected rock and tree and
shrub,--all this made an unsurpassed beauty of colouring to give warmth
and feeling to the beauty of form.
[Illustration: “PEASANTS WERE GOING TO AND FROM THEIR WORK”]
And then there was that indescribable picturesqueness of human interest
which belongs to the country places where most of the life of “The
Old Japan” is lingering still. In the succession of villages through
which we were passing, the houses, boats, costumes, means of carriage,
forms of labour, and modes of social intercourse, were little changed
from one and two centuries ago. The highway was by no means solitary
at any point of the twenty-five miles between Wakayama and Hiro-mura.
Indeed the absence of steam-cars and of trolley made all the more
necessary an active life on the road in order to do the necessary
business for this busy and not unprosperous district. All along its
course men were trudging with baskets and buckets and immense packages
slung on poles over their shoulders. Peasants were going to and from
their work in the fields with old-fashioned mattocks and rakes in hand
or over the shoulder. Men and boys were pushing up, or holding back,
along all the slopes of the hills, the long dray-like carts, loaded
with boxes of oranges, or with bales of raw cotton to be spun, or
of cotton yarn or cotton cloth already prepared for the market. For
just as a thousand houses in the district nearer Wakayama are making
things of lacquer, so a thousand houses in this district are spinning
cotton yarn or weaving cotton cloth. We can hear the cheerful rattle
of the looms as we approach the way-side cottages--a noise which is
suspended as the cavalcade of curiously loaded jinrikishas draws near;
only to be resumed again when the workers have seen the foreigners
pass by. Indeed, a considerable percentage of the products of the
Fuji Cotton-Spinning Company, of which our host at Hiro-mura is the
president, is manufactured in the homes of the villagers and farmers of
this district. May a kindly Providence prevent this sort of domestic
industry from being displaced by smoky mills, in crowded centres, under
conspiracies of monopolies and trusts!
But bye and bye we leave the cliffs along the shore of Shimidzu Bay
and come to the Arida River. Here the scenery is still interesting and
beautiful, but of quite different character. Our road lies, much of the
way, along the dykes built to restrain the overflow of this stream,
down which, at the present time, an almost unbroken succession of rafts
of lumber is being driven by the lumbermen. Upon the banks of the river
is an equally endless succession of orange groves; for we are now in
the Florida of Japan. With as much propriety, we might call it, so far
as orange culture goes, the California of Japan. In these groves, or
rather yards,--since the fruit seems to be for the most part cultivated
in small patches in the gardens of the cottagers,--are grown the small
free-skinned and deliciously sweet oranges for which this region of
Kishu is particularly celebrated. But here, too are the groves of Navel
oranges, the trees for planting which were imported from California
some eight or ten years ago. (I noticed, however, that this variety
is deteriorating in Japan. The one small hard semblance of an orange
which is at the navel of the California variety in this country, seems
there to be multiplying itself three- and four-fold, until it threatens
to occupy most of the inside of what from the outside appears to be a
fine, large specimen of fruit.)
The quieter rural beauty, with its commerce along the river rather than
along the shores of the sea, is satisfying enough, however, to prevent
the fatigue of travel until we reach Yuasa, a village separated only
by about one mile from Hiro-mura. At the outskirts of this place it
is necessary to pass under an arch of “Welcome” which the townspeople
have erected; and then between lines of school children, who, drawn
up on either side to the number of three hundred, greet us with bows
and waving of flags. A little further on, we are handed a large card
which announces that twenty-five of the chief men of the village of
Yuasa have also come out to welcome us. And there they are--friendly
and yet dignified in their bearing--in a single row along one side of
the highway. Evidently the demands of politeness cannot be satisfied
in such a case by allowing one’s self to be drawn in one’s jinrikisha
slowly by the line, with uncovered head and frequent exchange of bows.
So the male of the two guests dismounts and on the common level of the
highway exchanges salutations with the numerous representatives of the
party of the host.
While passing through the streets of Yuasa we noticed entire blocks
of houses which, sometimes on one side and sometimes on two or more
sides, were railed off from the highway, at a short distance from their
fronts, by a barrier of galvanised iron about two feet and a half high.
At the time, this strange sight only aroused a momentary curiosity.
It was not until we were about leaving Hir-omura that we learned the
meaning of it all. In July of the previous Summer some boatmen from
Osaka had landed in Yuasa and had brought to the villagers the dreadful
bubonic plague. It had taken until the following December for the
authorities to stamp out the scourge effectually. By this contrivance
of an iron wall it was intended to trap the rats and prevent their
carrying the infection from house to house and from street to street,
before they could be killed. Aided by the barrier of the little river,
although there were several hundred cases in this village, the other
village, which was less than a mile away, wholly escaped. In general,
it is only by the most untiring and intelligent diligence, extended
into all the smaller places upon the coast and into the remotest
country districts, that Japan prevents the plagues which are endemic in
China, India, and Korea, from ravaging her own land.
On the other side of the Hiro,--the stream which gives its name to
the village where Hamaguchi Gōryo lived, and across which he made his
famous jump when closely pursued by the incoming wave, in 1855,--the
“guests” were met by another “Welcome” arch, and another yet longer
array of school-masters and school-children. Indeed, both villages,
in the persons of as nearly all their inhabitants as could get about,
were obviously playing the part of welcoming hosts. All doorways were
crowded; all the streets along which the jinrikishas passed were lined
with citizens curious to see the “first-arrived” foreigners in this
part of Kishu.
On reaching his hospitable gateway we were met and welcomed by Mr. K.
Hamaguchi and his entire family, and were ushered into a room which
was such a surprise as can now be met by those who have access to the
houses of the cultivated and wealthy, even in remote country districts
of Japan. The floor of the large parlour or drawing-room was entirely
covered by a beautiful Chinese rug, spread over the soft Japanese
mats. In violation, to be sure, of the native custom, but presumably
for the delectation of his guests, a temporary display of numerous art
treasures had been arranged by our host. Kakemonos painted by Enshu and
other celebrated native artists were hung upon the walls. Screens of
the greatest artistic interest and of almost priceless value were to be
admired on every hand. Nor were these art objects limited to the best
specimens of Japanese, or Chinese, or other Oriental workmen. Mr. K.
Hamaguchi in his travels around the world had made judicious selection
of things of beauty from many places. It was his boast, for example,
that he had collected flower-vases to represent the best work of a
score of different foreign countries.
This room, with its _shoji_ drawn aside, looked out upon one of those
gardens which the Japanese are able, without exhausting a large space,
to make so very exquisite. In a darkened cage, which hung in the
verandah outside, a nightingale occasionally burst forth in song. And
when, after a dinner cooked in foreign style by a cook imported from
Osaka, the _shoji_ were drawn and we were put to bed within a small
space curtained-off, in a bedstead brought expressly for this purpose
all the way from Tokyo, and covered with thickly wadded Japanese
_futons_ of the winter variety, our only wish was that we might have
been allowed the much more comfortable but less dignified spread of
the same _futons_ upon the floor of the large room, with the sides
still left open into the garden, so that we could breath its delicious
air, and go to sleep to the murmur of the fountain and the song of the
nightingale. But the return to the improved and more elegant use of the
better points in the art of comfortable and healthful living, which
were enforced before foreign customs were introduced into the “Old
Japan,” will come through the growth of understanding and the added
appreciation of a comfortable and healthful simplicity, in the “New
Japan.” Meantime we hope that the genuine and delightful, if somewhat
too elaborate, courtesies of host and guest will not be wholly changed.
The next day was the time of work, the day for which the other
days of the rather lengthy but altogether delightful journey had
been undertaken. Its experiences were calculated to strengthen the
conclusions derived from all my other experiences during three
different visits to Japan,--namely, that no other nation is now, in
comparison with its resources, giving the same care to the intellectual
and ethical education of the common people. For Hiro-mura, the reader
will remember, is an obscure village, not even mentioned in the
guidebooks, some twenty-five miles from the nearest railway station,
and never, according to the testimony of their leading citizen, visited
by foreigners before.
[Illustration: “YOU CANNOT MOCK THE CONVICTION OF MILLIONS”]
But the day was also calculated to impress yet more deeply another
characteristic of the social and public, as well as of the domestic,
life of Japan. The spirit of Hamaguchi Gōryo was everywhere in the
air. And here is where Mr. Hearn shows his insight into, and his
appreciation of, a momentous truth. It is, indeed, a truth which cannot
be argued with the Westerner,--easily or without embarrassment, for
lack of a sufficient standing upon common ground. It is a truth which
must be profoundly felt. Japan, perhaps more than any other civilised
nation, is constantly under the prevailing influence of a belief in
what Mr. Hearn is pleased--not altogether aptly--to call “ghosts.”
These are the ghosts--I should rather say, the _felt spiritual
presences_--“of great warriors and heroes and rulers and teachers, who
lived and loved and died hundreds or thousands of years ago.” As he
says truly: “You cannot mock the conviction of forty (now more than
fifty) millions of people while that conviction thrills all about you
like the air,--while conscious that it is pressing upon your psychical
being just as the atmosphere presses upon your physical being.” Even
to-day, in the school-rooms and university halls and public playgrounds
of the children and youth of Japan, it is not the trophies of some
individual player or team of athletes, but the mottoes and injunctions
and other relics of the great and the good, not only of the present,
but also and chiefly of the older, and the most ancient times, which
excite their feelings of pride and emulation.
Soon after nine o’clock Mr. Takarayama, the head-master, came to
conduct us to the school. Our way there was lined with villagers, some
of them with chubby babies strapped upon their backs or held aloft
in the arms, and all eager to see the wonderful sight. A yet more
beautiful arch than any we had before seen had been constructed by the
pupils at the entrance to the school-grounds. Inside the gateway, too,
was a most elaborate system of decorations, arranged by displaying many
flags of all nations which had been laboriously painted by the same
youthful hands. Teachers and scholars made a thick-set avenue by which
the building where the addresses were to be given must be approached.
This and all the other buildings, now newly completed but already paid
for, stand within grounds that are ample for the future expansion of
the school. The site is lovely. It is a gently sloping ground, with the
water in sight. The bay which washes its feet is called “_Nagi_,” or
“The Peaceful”; and it is rightly named.
The morning exercises, including the address by the foreign _Sensei_,
or Teacher, were to be devoted to the pupils and patrons of the school;
while the afternoon meeting was more particularly intended for the
several hundred teachers in the district, many of whom had come by
jinrikisha or, more often, on foot, from twenty and even thirty miles
away. But even the morning’s programme was sufficiently elaborate to
impress the visitors from surrounding parts with the great importance
of an occasion so unique. A study of the somewhat quaint translation
of the Japanese original disclosed the following particulars, duly
itemised and correctly numbered:
(1) Visiting the recitation rooms; (2) Salutation (all together);
(3) introduction (the Principal); (4) singing a welcome song (the
pupils); (5) address of welcome (a pupil); (6) sketch of the school
(a pupil); (7) welcome (Mr. K. Hamaguchi); (8) Address (Professor
Ladd); (9) Thanks (the Principal); (10) singing of a school song; (11)
(dismission).
Under certain circumstances it is no small advantage _not_ to be
familiar with the language in which you are being addressed. This is
especially true when one is either excessively praised or excessively
blamed and denounced. In this way the foreign speaker at this morning
gathering in Hiro-mura was spared the temptation which would have
accompanied the knowledge that the youth who gave the address of
welcome--No. 5 upon the programme--was comparing his fame to Fuji and
his graciousness and charm to the cherry-blossoms on Mount Yoshino; but
this is what the translation of the address subsequently revealed. Such
things, however, were commoner and more congenial to the poetic license
of the Old Japan. Now, in spite of certain attempts at modernising,
this part of Kishu remains much the same as of old; and so, both the
youthful reader of the words and the adult hearers of them were quite
properly solemn and unmoved by the sight and fragrance of such flowers
of flattery.
Nature, however, was preparing to give the audience another sort of
reminder of the days and deeds of Hamaguchi Gōryo. For the foreign
guest had scarcely heard his last sentences interpreted by the
head-master, when a loud explosion, followed by rumbling noises like
those which would be made by scores of huge ten-pin balls rolling over
a wooden alley, startled us all. It was within a few seconds of noon;
and the watches of those who had them came out promptly in order that
their owners might note the exact time. The lady of the foreign guests
indeed interpreted it all to mean that the noon-gun had just been
fired. She was alone in this impression; every one else knew that there
was no noon-gun to be fired, within many miles; but that some stratum
of rock under the neighbouring sea could no longer bear the strain, and
so had parted in this sudden and demonstrative way. In brief, it was an
earthquake--just such an one as is peculiar to this region, and such
as caused the incoming wave which overwhelmed Hiro-mura in 1855. This,
however, was only a small quake; although the building shook under
the first blow upon its foundations. Nor was there any perceptible
disturbance of “Peaceful Bay” to follow. And if there had been, it
would not easily have surmounted the high and broad earth-works, with
their avenue of stately trees, which were a half-century ago made the
guardians of the future safety of the village.
After tiffin it was necessary almost immediately to return to the
school for the address to the teachers of Hiro-mura, Yuasa, and the
country districts far around. Nearly five hundred of these teachers
were present at the afternoon meeting. The subject of the address was
“The Ideals of the Teacher.” Here, as quite uniformly in the country at
large, the speaker’s heart went out to the audience with warm feelings
of respect, sympathy, and even pity.
I have been in more or less familiar intercourse for nearly twenty
years with thousands of this class in Japan. In spite of the sincere
and largely intelligent interest which both Government and people take
in matters of education, the public-school teachers of the country
are heavily overworked and lamentably underpaid. But the ideal of His
Majesty’s celebrated Imperial Rescript is steadily held up before
them--namely, that there shall be no household in the land, and no
member of any household, to whom the benefits of education shall not
have been supplied in liberal measure. To realise this ideal, Japan
must have an entire generation or more of peace and of peaceful
development. At present its Normal Schools, Higher Schools (those of
the so-called _Koto_ grade), and Universities, can scarcely provide for
more than one-tenth of those who are desirous of fitting themselves for
advanced positions and larger influence in the service of the nation.
As a result, in many of the country places the scholastic training of
the teachers cannot be of a high grade. But the eagerness with which
these humble men (for, unlike-the case with us, the great majority of
the common-school teachers are males,--many of them in middle life and
beyond) avail themselves of every opportunity to see and hear anything
which may help them in their work, is both encouraging and pathetic.
Where in the United States, for example, could a voluntary class of
more than eight hundred teachers be held together for twenty hours of
lectures on education,--each session more than filling up the period
between four and six o’clock of the afternoon, during the busiest part
of term-time? Yet--as I have already said--this was readily done in
Kyoto, the ancient capital, in the Winter of 1907.
[Illustration: “THE BEAUTIFUL GROUNDS IN FULL SIGHT OF THE BAY”]
Nowhere else, therefore, in Hiro-mura, not even in the strong
protecting dyke, is the spirit of Hamaguchi, with its affectionate
interest in the welfare of his fellow villagers, more prominently
and powerfully displayed than in the planting of the school on the
beautiful grounds in full sight of the bay which is called _Nagi_, or
“The Peaceful.” The dyke shall continue to push back the sea; and the
school, under its protection, shall continue to push back the forces of
ignorance and immorality.
After the lecture and the inevitable photographing of the group--a
species of photographing in which the Japanese peculiarly excel--a
considerable party accompanied the guests to a grove, high up upon the
hillside, from which the fields, and school and villages, and bay,
could be overlooked. There chocolate and cake were served. And from
there, after the descent to the plain was made, we walked to the house
of our host along the dyke, under the shadow of the pine-trees, and
looking down upon the waters which had once deluged the place--all
speaking to the memory, sympathetic with Japanese ideas, of the spirit
of Hamaguchi Gōryo.
The plan had been to start our jinrikisha ride back to Wakayama not
later than half-past six the following morning. But things in the
country places of Japan have not yet learned to occur at the expected
hour. Or rather, the experienced traveller has learned not to expect
to start his journey exactly at the promised time. We were doing well
when we bade our friendly host and hostess good-bye an hour later than
the one appointed. The return ride was indeed pleasant; but it lacked
the charms of brightness and of novelty; for the sky was overcast and
the air was that of March rather than of May. We changed kurumas at
Kuroé, as before, but did not stop there; and making the run of some
eight miles without a single pause, we arrived at Waka-no-Ura about
half-past eleven o’clock.
Now Waka-no-Ura, as the very name signifies, is the “coast” (_Ura_)
for which the old feudal town, the capital of the Province of Kishu,
Wakayama, is the “mountain” (_Yama_). It is one of the most notable
for its beauty of all the sea-coasts of Japan. The picturesque
features of the landscape, which have been celebrated in innumerable
poems by centuries of poets and poet-asters, were all in evidence on
that day. There were the storks standing on one leg in the water, or
flying low above the rushes. There were the rocks and the pines--not
straight, of course, like ours, but by their knarled and knotty shapes,
irregularities and eccentricities of outline, provoking in the mind of
the Japanese all manner of sentimental expressions and similes touching
human life. There were the boats of the fishermen, at sea or lying
in the offing; and nearer by were the boats of the women who were
gathering sea-weed for their food or for sale.
A regular “shore dinner” of fish and birds was somewhat hastily
concluded, in the company of the Governor of the Ken, the Mayor of the
City, and a representative of the Educational Societies. Immediately
after this, the Governor excused himself and, mounting his bicycle,
went on ahead of us, who followed in jinrikishas. The highway along
which we passed rapidly, was, for much of the three miles between the
coast and the city, made picturesque with its shading of pines; and
once within the more thickly settled streets of Wakayama it circuited
the castle walls and brought us to the Government-building where the
afternoon’s lecture was to be given. Here, as everywhere, the audience,
which numbered about eight hundred teachers and officials, many of whom
had come from considerable distances away, bore convincing testimony to
the interest of the Japanese people at large in questions of education
and ethics. But we were not to carry out the plan of seeing more of the
sights and of the people of Wakayama. For a telegram informed me that
Marquis Ito had already left Oiso and would reach Kyoto that evening,
where he would plan to see me the next morning. Directly from the
hall, therefore, we were taken in haste to the station, and by late
evening we had reached our hotel in Kyoto.
But Hiro-mura and Hamaguchi Gōryo cannot be dismissed with propriety
from our present thought, however pleasant its purely personal
reminiscences may be, without recurring to the more impersonal and
important impressions, such as are made by Lafcadio Hearn’s story of
“A Living God.” In a little book published in England about five years
ago, the son, Mr. Tan Hamaguchi, tells us of the following incident:
He had been reading a paper on “Some Striking Female Personalities in
Japanese History,” before the Japan Society of London; following which
a lady in the audience raised the question of a possible relationship
between the reader of the paper and the hero of Mr. Hearn’s tale. The
question led, not only to the exposure of the intimate character of
this relation, but also to the correction and amplification of the more
fanciful of the points emphasised by the celebrated foreign romancer of
Japan’s characteristic ideals and forms of behaviour. It was admitted
that “Mr. Lafcadio Hearn throws around the facts a golden aureole of
fancy.” But it was justly claimed that, although the long list of posts
held, and services rendered, by a good patriot to his country may
“lack the glamour of a single action, which has the fortune to attract
the genius of a sympathetic writer, and so carry his name and fame on
words of English eloquence across the world,” discerning readers will
none the less see in these offices and services “so many fresh titles
to veneration and regard.” There was--we have already said--no shrine
built to the hero during his life-time by the villagers of Arita. The
shrine was “metaphorically erected in their hearts and on their lips.”
In at least two important respects, however, the facts are more
honourable to Hamaguchi Gōryo and to his countrymen than are the
fancies of Mr. Hearn. For it was not one seemingly supernatural
deed of heroism, but a life-time of service such as all may try to
perform, which constituted this hero’s claim to immortality; and
the time, instead of being more than a hundred years gone by, was
in the generation of yet living men. It is, therefore, thoroughly
representative, both of the spirit which still animates many of the
leaders and principal citizens of Japan, and also of the kind of
recognition and grateful remembrance which Japan accords to those who
serve her in this spirit. Thus much, which tends to foster the “worship
of ghosts” and the multiplication of “living gods”--to borrow phrases
from Mr. Hearn--is a fairly effective and most praiseworthy force in
the country down to the present hour.
Nor is this force evanescent, ineffective, and limited to politicians
and promoters of large business enterprises, as is for the most part
the case at present with us. It is the “ghosts” of great “rulers and
teachers,” as well as of warriors and heroes; of those “who lived and
loved and died hundreds and thousands of years ago,” as well as of
the successful and influential man of the passing hour. And the hope
of being numbered among the innumerable host that have served their
country, and that are regarded as all of one band, whether here on
earth or members of the “choir invisible,” is no impotent factor in
that spirit with which Japan met its enemy (now its friend) in the war
of 1904-’05. As one of her generals said to me: “It is the _spiritual_
training of the soldier which we find most difficult and on which we
place the greatest emphasis.” This worshipful attitude toward the great
and the good of the past, which is something more than admiration and
even something more than mere reverence, and yet is not quite what
we call “worship,” it is that binds the living and the dead together
in a peculiar bond of unity; that fills the actor of to-day with an
inspiration and a hope which takes a hold upon the universal and the
eternal; and that makes the sacrifice of what is temporal and selfish
more prompt, cheerful, and easy to bear. And who shall say that there
is not something admirable and eminently hopeful for the nation in
this? Or, at least, such are the thoughts connected in my mind with
the visit to Hiro-mura and with the facts, even when stripped of the
pleasing but not veritable fancies of Mr. Hearn, concerning the history
of Hamaguchi Gōryo.