which there is so much in Japan, heavy and depressing, shrouding the
mountains from morning till night in dense masses of cloud, which seem
to slowly drag themselves up from the valley, and never succeed in
getting clear of the hill-tops. From Miya-no-shita to the Hakone Lake we
were from time to time enveloped in these clouds, and a thin drizzling
rain prevented us from enjoying what in fine weather would be a very
lovely walk. The moor at the northern end of the lake, Sengoku-hara, is
dotted with herds of cattle, and is perhaps the only place in Japan
where this familiar sight can be seen. You may wander for miles over the
green hills and moorlands which cover so large a portion of its surface
without ever seeing a four-footed animal; perhaps because the tall,
coarse grasses and the leaves of the dwarf bamboos are unsuitable for
fodder; perhaps because the Japanese are not a meat-eating nation, and
do not need herds and flocks.
Our intention was to cross this moor, and join the road which leads from
Miya-no-shita by way of the Maiden’s Pass, Otome-no-toge, to Gotemba, a
village at the foot of Fuji, but our coolie assured us that he knew a
shorter road by the Nagao-toge, so we struggled up the hill-side on our
left, reached a post which marked the top of the pass, and then stopped
in the mist to consider which track we should follow. Suddenly appeared
to us an aged man, whose venerable face inspired us with confidence, and
by him we were led astray. He took us by the semblance of a path along
the hill-top, and for about half an hour we plunged through wet grass up
to our necks, the thick white mist hiding everything more than ten yards
distant; then he confessed that he had lost his way, that he had heard
of that road, but had never taken it before, and that it was all grown
over--an obvious fact; so there was nothing to be done but find our way
back to the post, and try the wider track from which he had beguiled us.
He was a cheerful old soul, seventy-four years of age, who had just
walked to some hot springs about twenty miles from his home to take the
baths for a couple of days because he suffered from rheumatism. Either
it was a very mild case or the baths were marvellously efficacious, for
he led us down the hill at a rattling pace, and went five or six miles
out of his way to atone for his error, and to put us in the right road
for Gotemba.
[Illustration: A CLOUDY EVENING, FROM THE SANDS OF TAGO-NO-URA]
The mists reached far down the hill, and when we were at last free from
them we looked eagerly for Fuji. There was the sea below us, with the
great curve of sand, Tago-no-ura, bordering Suruga Bay, and the green
slopes rising from it showed where our mountain must be, but at the
height of about two thousand feet a straight bank of white cloud ruled
off the landscape, and of the summit we could see no sign. The path led
us along the hill-side, where men were cutting the rough grass, and
loading it on pack-horses; it wandered in and out of the dry gulleys,
and over the intervening ridges, and at last, descending to the
northward, brought us through cultivated fields to a tea-house near the
railway station, where our baggage and provisions were waiting for us.
Gotemba is on the Tōkaidō Railway, and is therefore a much-frequented
place during the six weeks or so when Fuji is considered to be “open.”
It has been ascended at all seasons, the laborious walking through soft
snow being the only difficulty, and the chance of bad weather the only
danger; but except from the latter part of July to the beginning of
September the numerous rest-houses are unoccupied, and the climber is
obliged to carry all provisions with him.
[Illustration: FUJI FROM THE ABEKAWA, AND THE TOKAIDO BRIDGE]
There were plenty of pilgrims about, waiting to start on the morrow or
just returned from the mountain, some washing their weary feet, others
tying their big hats and long walking-sticks in bundles for the
luggage-van, and all chattering incessantly. After dinner a travelling
company entertained us in front of our tea-house with songs and dances.
The band consisted of two samisen, a bell tapped with a stick, and
bamboo castanets. The dancers were all little girls, from ten to fifteen
years old, dressed in the ordinary long-sleeved kimono, and the
movements of their bodies and slim little hands and limbs were full of
grace and variety. Each performance was a mixture of song, dance, and
dialogue, with instrumental accompaniment; the music was queer,
tuneless, and often harsh to the European ear, but with the
blood-stirring quality of all genuine national music.
Before daybreak next morning the whole house was stirring, and it was
useless to hope for more sleep. Most of the pilgrims start early in
order to get to the top by sunset, sleep there, and descend the
following day, but we had decided to sleep two nights on the mountain,
and were in no hurry. Our heavier baggage was sent by pack-horse to
Yoshida, on the north side of the mountain, and three coolies went with
us as guides and porters, carrying some extra clothing and the solid
food which seems necessary for European stomachs. In the village street
our strolling players were already wandering round, trying with some
preliminary chords on the samisen to attract an audience. Daylight did
not suit them, they looked draggled and discouraged, and it was
difficult to believe that those dirty little figures shuffling along in
the mud could ever have had any charm or grace of movement.
The path from Gotemba to the summit is one steady ascent over beds of
old ashes. At first it is a very gentle rise; the lanes wind through the
fields with various crops,
[Illustration: ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE OF FUJI--GRASS-CUTTERS RETURNING]
and past cottages with hedges of pink and white hibiscus; but after a
few miles it begins to get steeper, the ashes are less disintegrated,
cultivation only appears in isolated spots, and there are large
stretches of gray moorland varied only with bushes and wild-flowers. The
mist still hung round us, there was no landscape to be seen in any
direction, and if it had not been for the flowers and the ever-new and
quaint figures on the road, this part of the walk would have been dull.
Besides the regular pilgrims there were many men and women leading
pack-horses, those on their way up carrying provisions and fuel for the
rest-houses, and those coming down bringing bundles of grass so large
that they looked like walking hay-stacks, and the wiry little ponies
that carried them were almost invisible. In front a misshapen head
peeped out, underneath were four thin little legs with enormous feet,
and as they passed, their narrow drooping quarters, cat-hammed and
cow-hocked, swayed at every step under the heavy load. Japanese drawings
of horses have risen in my estimation since I have seen the models the
artists have to work from; there never was a more ill-shaped beast than
the ordinary horse of the country. In this as in many other hill
districts mares only are used; they are shod with big straw over-shoes,
which give a finishing touch to their ludicrous shape; under them is
slung a square of dark-blue cotton cloth to keep off the flies, and a
narrow strip of the same material, with a big crimson cord and tassel
printed on it for decoration, is draped across their quarters. Many of
the pilgrims ride up as far as the tea-house called Uma-gaeshi (horse
send back), and the ponies look almost as much eclipsed under the big
pack-saddle with its trappings, and the pilgrim with his, as they do
under the loads of grass.
When all cultivation had disappeared, and the road was a mere cinder
track over a moorland of ashes, the flowers and bushes still grew in
clusters here and there. The most abundant plant was a large bushy
knotweed covered with sprays of white blossoms, and this grew far up the
mountain-side. There were also clumps of tall bocconia, a campanula with
large pink or lavender flowers sprinkled in each bell with tiny
ink-spots, and various less showy flowers. The flora on this side of the
mountain, devastated by the last eruption, in 1706, is not so rich as
that on the northern slope. As the ascent became steeper we got into a
wood of dwarfed and scraggy pine-trees, which extended as far as Tarōbō,
a large tea-house with a little temple attached, and then suddenly
ceased; above this there was only an occasional dead stump to break the
monotonous surface of ashes. Here every pilgrim purchases a stick to
help him up the mountain--an octagonal staff of birch, about five feet
long, with an inscription burned on it, and for a few coppers the
priests on duty at the summit will add a red stamp to prove that the
owner has actually been there.
We reached the second shelter beyond Tarōbō quite early in the
afternoon; great masses of wet mist came constantly driving up the
mountain-side; there was plenty of room in the hut, and nothing to be
gained by going higher, so we decided to stay there for the night. All
the regular tracks up Fuji are divided into ten portions, and a
rest-house is supposed to mark the end of each division; but they vary
much in their accommodation for travellers, and often get destroyed
during the winter, so it is well to find out before starting which are
habitable and which are not. Number Two (Ni-go-me), on the Gotemba path,
was a roomy hut, built with blocks of lava; from below it looked like a
wall with a hole in it, from above it was not visible, for the ashes
covering its roof of rough planks were simply a continuation of the
mountain slope; there was no chimney, but a mass of snow was piled over
the fireplace, which dripped through the roof into a tub and supplied
the establishment with water. By each shelter a small white flag
fluttered on a pole to make its situation obvious.
[Illustration: THE SECOND SHELTER IN THE GOTAMBA PATH]
Nothing could be more dreary than this spot on such an afternoon: above,
below, and on each side the waste of purple-gray ashes, light-green
spots of knotweed and thistle, only enforcing the gloom of its color,
seemed to stretch interminably into the mist, and nothing broke the
monotony of the long oblique line except the little eminence of
Hoei-zan, sticking up like a pimple on the great slope of Fuji, which
occasionally showed its outline through the vague and formless clouds.
Inside it was, at any rate, warm; the raised floor was covered with
coarse matting, and on this quilts were spread, and soon after dark we
were all in bed. Some later arrivals had added to our numbers, and we
slept thirteen in that hut, including the host and hostess; but this was
nothing to the crowd at the top, where I think we were nineteen, perhaps
more, for in some parts of the floor there must have been two or three
under a quilt, and it was difficult to count them. Even here on Fuji you
do not escape the all-seeing eye of the Japanese police; your passport
is examined by the keepers of the hut, and is copied into a book which
gives every night the names and addresses of those who sleep under the
roof. About two o’clock in the morning we were wakened by our host, who
took us outside, and there at last was Fuji itself, straight over our
heads, every detail softened, but clearly visible, and the summit
looking ridiculously near in the brilliant moonlight. Below us was the
slope of ashes and the moorland over which we had walked; and in the
distance the Hakone Mountains, already far below our level, lay half
hidden by masses of moonlit cloud. More energetic men might have started
at once for the final climb, but after gazing and shivering for a few
minutes we turned into our hard beds again, and it was not till after
sunrise that we left our hut, our party increased by a dreary and
footsore young soldier in a soiled white uniform, and a cheerful coolie,
carrying about a hundred-weight of planks to repair one of the higher
shelters.
The path goes zigzagging up to one rest-house after another, and there
was not one of them which we failed to patronize; even Number Seven,
which was a heap of ruins with nothing in the way of drink but a tub of
melted snow, was an excuse for a few minutes’ halt. In the clear morning
sunlight Fuji looked small, as most mountains do when there are no
clouds to give mystery and suggest height; but it was a grand morning
for distant views, and the sunshine brought out vividly the strange and
brilliant colors of the various materials which form the mountain--gray
ashes, blue lava, and the reds and oranges of burned earth.
[Illustration: FUJI WITH ITS CAP ON]
Above the seventh station the path turns to the left and passes behind
Hoei-zan; already bands of pilgrims, who had seen the sunrise from the
summit, were making their way back towards Gotemba, going at a great
pace down the glissade of loose sand and ashes on its side, while we
toiled on over harder cinders, with an occasional ridge of lava, on the
upward path. At this altitude the knotweed and thistles had disappeared,
and the only plants I saw were a dwarf sedge and a little starwort in
some of the sheltered nooks; higher still only a few lichens and mosses
can grow; there is no regular alpine flora on Fuji.
[Illustration: FUJI FROM THE KAWAGUCHI LAKE]
A big gully full of snow lies just below Number Eight, and from this
point the ascent is steeper than ever, winding among a chaos of
shapeless blocks of lava; a sharp spur on our left crowned with them
made a most curious outline against the sky. In front of us was a
strange pilgrim, an old and feeble Buddhist priest in canonicals and a
big cane hat; two coolies were hauling him by a cord round his waist,
and another was pushing from behind, and even with this help he had to
stop every few minutes to get his wind. He smiled a sickly smile as we
went by; he was even slower than we were, and it seemed cruel to pass
him; but he got to the top finally.
A sharp pull up a rocky gully at last brought us to a little wooden
torii, and to the “Famous Silver Water,” a clear, cold spring on the
edge of the crater. The supply is not large, and the priest in charge
of the enclosure doles it out to pilgrims at the rate of one brass cash
for a small teacupful. The principal temple, and the cluster of huts
round it, form a little square on the south side of the crater, just at
the top of the Mura-yama path, and are reached from the Silver Water by
means of a couple of ladders and a small fee. At the top of the ladders
there is a tiny shrine, serving as stable to a toy model of a horse, and
in front of this the coppers are deposited. There are only three
entrances to the crater of Fuji, and each of these is marked by a small
torii, the sacred gateway of the Shinto religion; two of them I have
already mentioned, the third is on the north side, where the paths from
Yoshida and Subashiri, which meet at Number Eight station, reach the
summit.
Clouds had, as usual, begun to form about mid-day, and there were only
occasional peeps of distance, but the crater itself was worthy of the
journey, and occupied us until the bitterly cold wind drove us to
shelter. Here, as on other mountains, I noticed that the first object of
the native is to get under cover; all the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them may be spread before his eyes, but if there is a little
smoky cabin, however rough and uncomfortable, the professional
mountaineer goes inside and stays there. This one was not luxurious;
near the doorway, the only aperture for admitting light, there was a
smouldering wood-fire, where our food was cooked before we lay down to
try and rest on the loose and creaky floor-boards; little blasts came
like squirts of cold water through the cracks of the unmortared walls,
and it was a relief when a general movement of the sleepers--for a
Japanese can apparently sleep anywhere--showed the approach of sunrise.
The morning was clear and bright, and we all crouched in nooks of the
rocks, wrapped in our quilts, and gazed at the straight gray line of the
Pacific and the gradually brightening line above it, watching for the
first sign of the approaching god. On the most prominent rock a priest
knelt, waving strips of paper tied to a stick and chanting prayers and
eulogies, and soon the sun rose, as he assuredly will every morning,
whether he is prayed to or not. There
[Illustration: FROM THE TOP OF FUJI, LOOKING NORTH]
was such a vast space of mysterious blue sea and distance below the
horizon that the big orange ball appeared to be already half-way up the
heavens when we first saw it. This daily occurrence seems ever new and
wonderful, always has something of the miraculous about it, and to most
minds it brings a sense of thankfulness, as the sunset gives that of
repose; though why we should feel grateful both that it is time to begin
to work and time to leave off is a puzzle to me. My thoughts turned to
an early morning near Plevna, and to an honest Turk, who, as the sun
rose over the bare Bulgarian hills, turned on his box-seat, and, gravely
touching his forehead, wished a good-day to his “little brothers” in the
carriage he was driving. There was a mixture of courteousness and
solemnity in his manner which seemed exactly suited to the important
moment.
When the orange glow had turned to a dazzling glare, we walked round to
the foot of Kenga-mine, the highest of the peaks encircling the crater,
and looked westward at the shadow of Fuji, a great pyramid of tender
blue stretching for miles across the country at its foot, darkening a
slice of the sunlit distant mountains, and towering above them into the
sky, clearly defined on the light mists and clouds of the horizon. So
sharp was the outline that it seemed as if our two shadows ought to show
on the distant sky; but though we waved our arms frantically there was
no visible movement on the edge; we were too small. When we returned to
get some breakfast many of the pilgrims were saying their morning
prayers at the little temple. “Sengen Sama” is the goddess of Fuji; a
prettier name for her is “Ko no hana saku ya Hime”--“the princess who
makes the blossoms of the trees to open.” There is another little temple
dedicated to her on the north side of the crater, and many more imposing
ones in various parts of Japan. On a banner which floated in front of
this second temple there was an inscription in Japanese, and under it
these words in English, “Place for worship the Heaven.” I suppose this
was an effort in the direction of civilization and rationalism, but I
resented it as an attempt to explain away the flower-loving princess,
and to dethrone her from the mountain-top where she has been worshipped
in peace for so many centuries. Close by the banner is another spring,
“The Famous Golden Water,” and a small shed, where bundles of chopsticks
and other mementos are sold, and where for ten sen you can buy a tin can
full of the famous water to take home to your friends. Most of the
descending pilgrims have one or two of these tins slung round them with
the rest of their travelling-kit. The regular Fuji pilgrim is dressed in
a white tunic with loose sleeves, close-fitting white cotton drawers,
white socks and gaiters, and a pair of straw sandals; he wears the usual
big hat, which serves as an umbrella, and slung round his shoulders he
has a light rush mat, which can be shifted to either side to keep off
sun or rain. Round his neck he has a string of beads, a little
incessantly tinkling bell, and a few pairs of extra sandals on a cord,
and fastened to his waistband is the small package containing his
personal baggage; he carries in his hand either the octagonal birch
staff or a
[Illustration: THE GREAT PALM AT RYUGEJI, FUJI IN THE DISTANCE]
longer peeled wand, with some paper tied round the end of it. The dress
of the women is the same as that of the men, except that they wear a
short petticoat under the tunic, about as long as a Highlander’s kilt. I
saw none of them adorned with the bell and beads, so perhaps these are
reserved for the men. It is only of late years that women have been
allowed to climb the sacred mountain.
[Illustration: THE CRATER OF FUJI]
No one point of the crater’s edge is high enough to give a panorama; you
have to walk all round, about two miles, in order to see the view on
every side. Eastward is the country round Yokohama and Tōkyō, with the
Pacific beyond as horizon; southward, too, is the ocean, with the Izu
Peninsula jutting out into it, and the sweep of Suruga Bay bringing it
close under your feet; westward you get a glimpse of the Fujikawa River,
with range after range of mountains behind it; and to the northward a
chain of little lakes lies at the base of Fuji, these, too, backed up by
mountains, which rise, one behind another, as far as you can see.
In some places the outer wall descends abruptly into the crater; in
others, as by the Golden Water, there is a narrow plateau between the
two. The crater itself is four or five hundred feet deep, the north side
mostly precipitous rock, and the south side, under Kenga-mine, a steep
slope of snow and débris; all the peaks round it have names, and one of
them near the Silver Water is dotted with cairns raised in honor of
Jizó, the patron saint of travellers, who helps little children to cross
the Buddhist Styx. There is a rough path all round the crater, leading
over some of the peaks, inside some, and outside others, which is kept
in passable condition by men who collect a few coppers for their labor:
the pilgrim season is harvest-time for the dwellers round Fuji, and its
barren top pays well for cultivation.
It was after ten o’clock before we had made the circuit and seen all the
sights; we met our coolies by the long row of huts at the top of the
Yoshida path, and could see the village itself, our destination, lying
in the blue hollow below us. Groups of ascending and descending pilgrims
were visible for a long distance on the slope; as we looked down on them
we saw only big round hats with an arm sticking out, and two little feet
working underneath. After a final cup of tea at one of the guest-houses
we passed under the wooden torii, and began the descent, a very steep
and stony one, the loose cinders and lumps of lava requiring attention
at every footstep. At Number Nine station there is a little shrine
called “Sengen’s Welcome,” and at Number Eight there are six or eight
good-sized huts built on a spur of harder lava, making quite a little
village, which can be seen on a clear morning from the foot of the
mountain. Here the Subashiri route branches off to the right; ours to
Yoshida turned to the left, and we went sliding with long strides down
an incline of loose ashes and sand, into which our legs sank up to the
knee at every step. It was rapid but fatiguing, and required very high
stepping to avoid heavy and ignominious falls. The track is marked by
hundreds of cast-off “waraji”--straw sandals--a common object on all
Japanese roads, but here especially plentiful. My companion had provided
himself in Yokohama with a stock of them, specially made to fit over the
European boot; they were carefully adjusted and tied on by our servants
and porters, but I noticed that after the first hundred yards they had
always worked loose, and after a quarter of a mile they were hanging
gracefully round his ankles instead of protecting his feet. The
enjoyment of walking depends so much upon foot-gear that I am shy of
trying experiments, and I found that my stout boots with plenty of nails
served as well on Fuji as on any other mountain. Worn as Japanese wear
them, with a thong passing between the big toe and the next, the waraji
hold on well; they are soon worn out, or made useless by the breaking of
one of the strings of twisted grass which tie them to the ankles; but
this does not matter, for new ones can be bought for about a half-penny
at any road-side house. This part of Fuji was very desolate, the rocks
were formless blocks piled up without any arrangement of line, and the
débris was too loose for any plant to find a foothold; but after a few
thousand feet a ridge of more solid lava rose on each side of the gully
we were descending, and
[Illustration: AN OLD RED PINE AT YOSHIDA]