First a wharf of uncemented stone rising from the cove like a wall; then
great trees through which one caught sight of a torii before some Shinto
shrine, and of a dozen houses climbing the hollow hill one behind
another, roof beyond roof; and above these some terraced patches of
tilled ground in the midst of desolation: that was all. The packet
halted to deliver mail, and passed on.
But then, contrary to expectation, the scenery became more beautiful.
The shores on either side at once receded and heightened: we were
traversing an inland sea bounded by three lofty islands. At first the
way before us had seemed barred by vapoury hills; but as these, drawing
nearer, turned green, there suddenly opened magnificent chasms between
them on both sides - mountain-gates revealing league-long wondrous vistas
of peaks and cliffs and capes of a hundred blues, ranging away from
velvety indigo into far tones of exquisite and spectral delicacy. A
tinted haze made dreamy all remotenesses, an veiled with illusions of
colour the rugged nudities of rock.
The beauty of the scenery of Western and Central Japan is not as the
beauty of scenery in other lands; it has a peculiar character of its
own. Occasionally the foreigner may find memories of former travel
suddenly stirred to life by some view on a mountain road, or some
stretch of beetling coast seen through a fog of spray. But this illusion
of resemblance vanishes as swiftly as it comes; details immediately
define into strangeness, and you become aware that the remembrance was
evoked by form only, never by colour. Colours indeed there are which
delight the eye, but not colours of mountain verdure, not colours of the
land. Cultivated plains, expanses of growing rice, may offer some
approach to warmth of green; but the whole general tone of this nature
is dusky; the vast forests are sombre; the tints of grasses are harsh or
dull. Fiery greens, such as burn in tropical scenery, do not exist; and
blossom-bursts take a more exquisite radiance by contrast with the heavy
tones of the vegetation out of which they flame. Outside of parks and
gardens and cultivated fields, there is a singular absence of warmth and
tenderness in the tints of verdure; and nowhere need you hope to find
any such richness of green as that which makes the loveliness of an
English lawn.
Yet these Oriental landscapes possess charms of colour extraordinary,
phantom-colour delicate, elfish, indescribable - created by the wonderful
atmosphere. Vapours enchant the distances, bathing peaks in bewitchments
of blue and grey of a hundred tones, transforming naked cliffs to
amethyst, stretching spectral gauzes across the topazine morning,
magnifying the splendour of noon by effacing the horizon, filling the
evening with smoke of gold, bronzing the waters, banding the sundown
with ghostly purple and green of nacre. Now, the Old Japanese artists
who made those marvellous ehon - those picture-books which have now
become so rare - tried to fix the sensation of these enchantments in
colour, and they were successful in their backgrounds to a degree almost
miraculous. For which very reason some of their foregrounds have been a
puzzle to foreigners unacquainted with certain features of Japanese
agriculture. You will see blazing saffron-yellow fields, faint purple
plains, crimson and snow-white trees, in those old picture-books; and
perhaps you will exclaim: 'How absurd!' But if you knew Japan you would
cry out: 'How deliciously real!' For you would know those fields of
burning yellow are fields of flowering rape, and the purple expanses are
fields of blossoming miyako, and the snow-white or crimson trees are not
fanciful, but represent faithfully certain phenomena of efflorescence
peculiar to the plum-trees and the cherry-trees of the country. But
these chromatic extravaganzas can be witnessed only during very brief
periods of particular seasons: throughout the greater part of the year
the foreground of an inland landscape is apt to be dull enough in the
matter of colour.
It is the mists that make the magic of the backgrounds; yet even without
them there is a strange, wild, dark beauty in Japanese landscapes, a
beauty not easily defined in words. The secret of it must be sought in
the extraordinary lines of the mountains, in the strangely abrupt
crumpling and jagging of the ranges; no two masses closely resembling
each other, every one having a fantasticality of its own. Where the
chains reach to any considerable height, softly swelling lines are rare:
the general characteristic is abruptness, and the charm is the charm of
Irregularity.
Doubtless this weird Nature first inspired the Japanese with their
unique sense of the value of irregularity in decoration - taught them
that single secret of composition which distinguishes their art from all
other art, and which Professor Chamberlain has said it is their special
mission to teach to the Occident. [6] Certainly, whoever has once
learned to feel the beauty and significance of the Old Japanese
decorative art can find thereafter little pleasure in the corresponding
art of the West. What he has really learned is that Nature's greatest
charm is irregularity. And perhaps something of no small value might be
written upon the question whether the highest charm of human life and
work is not also irregularity.
9
From Chiburimura we made steam west for the port of Urago, which is in
the island of Nishinoshima. As we approached it Takuhizan came into
imposing view. Far away it had seemed a soft and beautiful shape; but as
its blue tones evaporated its aspect became rough and even grim: an
enormous jagged bulk all robed in sombre verdure, through which, as
through tatters, there protruded here and there naked rock of the
wildest shapes. One fragment, I remember, as it caught the slanting sun
upon the irregularities of its summit, seemed an immense grey skull. At
the base of this mountain, and facing the shore of Nakashima, rises a
pyramidal mass of rock, covered with scraggy undergrowth, and several
hundred feet in height - Mongakuzan. On its desolate summit stands a
little shrine.
'Takuhizan' signifies The Fire-burning Mountain - a name due perhaps
either to the legend of its ghostly fires, or to some ancient memory of
its volcanic period. 'Mongakuzan' means The Mountain of Mongaku - Mongaku
Shonin, the great monk. It is said that Mongaku Shonin fled to Oki, and
that he dwelt alone upon the top of that mountain many years, doing
penance for his deadly sin. Whether he really ever visited Oki, I am not
able to say; there are traditions which declare the contrary. But the
peaklet has borne his name for hundreds of years.
Now this is the story of Mongaku Shonin:
Many centuries ago, in the city of Kyoto, there was a captain of the
garrison whose name was Endo Morito. He saw and loved the wife of a
noble samurai; and when she refused to listen to his desires, he vowed
that he would destroy her family unless she consented to the plan which
he submitted to her. The plan was that upon a certain night she should
suffer him to enter her house and to kill her husband; after which she
was to become his wife.
But she, pretending to consent, devised a noble stratagem to save her
honour. For, after having persuaded her husband to absent himself from
the city, she wrote to Endo a letter, bidding him come upon a certain
night to the house. And on that night she clad herself in her husband's
robes, and made her hair like the hair of a man, and laid herself down
in her husband's place, and pretended to sleep.
And Endo came in the dead of the night with his sword drawn, and smote
off the head of the sleeper at a blow, and seized it by the hair and
lifted it up and saw it was the head of the woman he had loved and
wronged.
Then a great remorse came upon him, and hastening to a neighbouring
temple, he confessed his sin, and did penance and cut off his hair, and
became a monk, taking the name of Mongaku. And in after years he
attained to great holiness, so that folk still pray to him, and his
memory is venerated throughout the land.
Now at Asakusa in Tokyo, in one of the curious little streets which lead
to the great temple of Kwannon the Merciful, there are always wonderful
images to be seen - figures that seem alive, though made of wood only -
figures illustrating the ancient legends of Japan. And there you may see
Endo standing: in his right hand the reeking sword; in his left the head
of a beautiful woman. The face of the woman you may forget soon, because
it is only beautiful. But the face of Endo you will not forget, because
it is naked hell.
10
Urago is a queer little town, perhaps quite as large as Mionoseki, and
built, like Mionoseki, on a narrow ledge at the base of a steep
semicircle of hills. But it is much more primitive and colourless than
Mionoseki; and its houses are still more closely cramped between cliffs
and water, so that its streets, or rather alleys, are no wider than
gangways. As we cast anchor, my attention was suddenly riveted by a
strange spectacle - a white wilderness of long fluttering vague shapes,
in a cemetery on the steep hillside, rising by terraces high above the
roofs of the town. The cemetery was full of grey haka and images of
divinities; and over every haka there was a curious white paper banner
fastened to a thin bamboo pole. Through a glass one could see that these
banners were inscribed with Buddhist texts - 'Namur-myo-ho-renge-kyo';
'Namu Amida Butsu'; 'Namu Daiji Dai-hi Kwan-ze-on Bosats,' - and other
holy words. Upon inquiry I learned that it was an Urago custom to place
these banners every year above the graves during one whole month
preceding the Festival of the Dead, together with various other
ornamental or symbolic things.
The water was full of naked swimmers, who shouted laughing welcomes; and
a host of light, swift boats, sculled by naked fishermen, darted out to
look for passengers and freight. It was my first chance to observe the
physique of Oki islanders; and I was much impressed by the vigorous
appearance of both men and boys. The adults seemed to me of a taller and
more powerful type than the men of the Izumo coast; and not a few of
those brown backs and shoulders displayed, in the motion of sculling
what is comparatively rare in Japan, even among men picked for heavy
labour - a magnificent development of muscles.
As the steamer stopped an hour at Urago, we had time to dine ashore in
the chief hotel. It was a very clean and pretty hotel, and the fare
infinitely superior to that of the hotel at Sakai. Yet the price charged
was only seven sen; and the old landlord refused to accept the whole of
the chadai-gift offered him, retaining less than half, and putting back
the rest, with gentle force, into the sleeve of my yukata.
11
From Urago we proceeded to Hishi-ura, which is in Nakanoshima, and the
scenery grew always more wonderful as we steamed between the islands.
The channel was just wide enough to create the illusion of a grand river
flowing with the stillness of vast depth between mountains of a hundred
forms. The long lovely vision was everywhere walled in by peaks, bluing
through sea-haze, and on either hand the ruddy grey cliffs, sheering up
from profundity, sharply mirrored their least asperities in the flood
with never a distortion, as in a sheet of steel. Not until we reached
Hishi-ura did the horizon reappear; and even then it was visible only
between two lofty headlands, as if seen through a river's mouth.
Hishi-ura is far prettier than Urago, but it is much less populous, and
has the aspect of a prosperous agricultural town, rather than of a
fishing station. It bends round a bay formed by low hills which slope
back gradually toward the mountainous interior, and which display a
considerable extent of cultivated surface. The buildings are somewhat
scattered and in many cases isolated by gardens; and those facing the
water are quite handsome modern constructions. Urago boasts the best
hotel in all Oki; and it has two new temples - one a Buddhist temple of
the Zen sect, one a Shinto temple of the Izumo Taisha faith, each the
gift of a single person. A rich widow, the owner of the hotel, built the
Buddhist temple; and the wealthiest of the merchants contributed the
other - one of the handsomest miya for its size that I ever saw.
12
Dogo, the main island of the Oki archipelago, sometimes itself called
'Oki,' lies at a distance of eight miles, north-east of the Dozen group,
beyond a stretch of very dangerous sea. We made for it immediately after
leaving Urago; passing to the open through a narrow and fantastic strait
between Nakanoshima and Nishinoshima, where the cliffs take the form of
enormous fortifications - bastions and ramparts, rising by tiers. Three
colossal rocks, anciently forming but a single mass, which would seem to
have been divided by some tremendous shock, rise from deep water near
the mouth of the channel, like shattered towers. And the last promontory
of Nishinoshima, which we pass to port, a huge red naked rock, turns to
the horizon a point so strangely shaped that it has been called by a
name signifying 'The Hat of the Shinto Priest.'
As we glide out into the swell of the sea other extraordinary shapes
appear, rising from great depths. Komori, 'The Bat,' a ragged silhouette
against the horizon, has a great hole worn through it, which glares like
an eye. Farther out two bulks, curved and pointed, and almost joined at
the top, bear a grotesque resemblance to the uplifted pincers of a crab;
and there is also visible a small dark mass which, until closely
approached, seems the figure of a man sculling a boat. Beyond these are
two islands: Matsushima, uninhabited and inaccessible, where there is
always a swell to beware of; Omorishima, even loftier, which rises from
the ocean in enormous ruddy precipices. There seemed to be some grim
force in those sinister bulks; some occult power which made our steamer
reel and shiver as she passed them. But I saw a marvellous effect of
colour under those formidable cliffs of Omorishima. They were lighted by
a slanting sun; and where the glow of the bright rock fell upon the
water, each black-blue ripple flashed bronze: I thought of a sea of
metallic violet ink.
From Dozen the cliffs of Dogo can be clearly seen when the weather is
not foul: they are streaked here and there with chalky white, which
breaks through their blue, even in time of haze. Above them a vast bulk
is visible - a point-de-repre for the mariners of Hoki - the mountain of
Daimanji. Dogo, indeed, is one great cluster of mountains.
Its cliffs rapidly turned green for us, and we followed them eastwardly
for perhaps half an hour. Then they opened unexpectedly and widely,
revealing a superb bay, widening far into the land, surrounded by hills,
and full of shipping. Beyond a confusion of masts there crept into view
a long grey line of house-fronts at the base of a crescent of cliffs -
the city of Saigo; and in a little while we touched a wharf of stone.
There I bade farewell for a month to the Oki-Saigo.
13
Saigo was a great surprise. Instead of the big fishing village I had
expected to see, I found a city much larger and handsomer and in all
respects more modernised than Sakai; a city of long streets full of good
shops; a city with excellent public buildings; a city of which the whole
appearance indicated commercial prosperity. Most of the edifices were
roomy two story dwellings of merchants, and everything had a bright, new
look. The unpainted woodwork of the houses had not yet darkened into
grey; the blue tints of the tiling were still fresh. I learned that this
was because the town had been recently rebuilt, after a conflagration,
and rebuilt upon a larger and handsomer plan.
Saigo seems still larger than it really is. There are about one thousand
houses, which number in any part of Western Japan means a population of
at least five thousand, but must mean considerably more in Saigo. These
form three long streets - Nishimachi, Nakamachi, and Higashimachi (names
respectively signifying the Western, Middle, and Eastern Streets),
bisected by numerous cross-streets and alleys. What makes the place seem
disproportionately large is the queer way the streets twist about,
following the irregularities of the shore, and even doubling upon
themselves, so as to create from certain points of view an impression of
depth which has no existence. For Saigo is peculiarly, although
admirably situated. It fringes both banks of a river, the Yabigawa, near
its mouth, and likewise extends round a large point within the splendid
bay, besides stretching itself out upon various tongues of land. But
though smaller than it looks, to walk through all its serpentine streets
is a good afternoon's work.
Besides being divided by the Yabigawa, the town is intersected by
various water-ways, crossed by a number of bridges. On the hills behind
it stand several large buildings, including a public school, with
accommodation for three hundred students; a pretty Buddhist temple
(quite new), the gift of a rich citizen; a prison; and a hospital, which
deserves its reputation of being for its size the handsomest Japanese
edifice not only in Oki, but in all Shimane-Ken; and there are several
small but very pretty gardens.
As for the harbour, you can count more than three hundred ships riding
there of a summer's day. Grumblers, especially of the kind who still use
wooden anchors, complain of the depth; but the men-of-war do not.
14
Never, in any part of Western Japan, have I been made more comfortable
than at Saigo. My friend and myself were the only guests at the hotel to
which we had been recommended. The broad and lofty rooms of the upper
floor which we occupied overlooked the main street on one side, and on
the other commanded a beautiful mountain landscape beyond the mouth of
the Yabigawa, which flowed by our garden. The sea breeze never failed by
day or by night, and rendered needless those pretty fans which it is the
Japanese custom to present to guests during the hot season. The fare was
astonishingly good and curiously varied; and I was told that I might
order Seyoryori (Occidental cooking) if I wished - beefsteak with fried
potatoes, roast chicken, and so forth. I did not avail myself of the
offer, as I make it a rule while travelling to escape trouble by keeping
to a purely Japanese diet; but it was no small surprise to be offered in
Saigo what is almost impossible to obtain in any other Japanese town of
five thousand inhabitants. From a romantic point of view, however, this
discovery was a disappointment. Having made my way into the most
primitive region of all Japan, I had imagined myself far beyond the
range of all modernising influences; and the suggestion of beefsteak
with fried potatoes was a disillusion. Nor was I entirely consoled by
the subsequent discovery that there were no newspapers or telegraphs.
But there was one serious hindrance to the enjoyment of these comforts:
an omnipresent, frightful, heavy, all-penetrating smell, the smell of
decomposing fish, used as a fertiliser. Tons and tons of cuttlefish
entrails are used upon the fields beyond the Yabigawa, and the never-
sleeping sea wind blows the stench into every dwelling. Vainly do they
keep incense burning in most of the houses during the heated term. After
having remained three or four days constantly in the city you become
better able to endure this odour; but if you should leave town even for
a few hours only, you will be astonished on returning to discover how
much your nose had been numbed by habit and refreshed by absence.
15
On the morning of the day after my arrival at Saigo, a young physician
called to see me, and requested me to dine with him at his house. He
explained very frankly that as I was the first foreigner who had ever
stopped in Saigo, it would afford much pleasure both to his family and
to himself to have a good chance to see me; but the natural courtesy of
the man overcame any scruple I might have felt to gratify the curiosity
of strangers. I was not only treated charmingly at his beautiful home,
but actually sent away loaded with presents, most of which I attempted
to decline in vain. In one matter, however, I remained obstinate, even
at the risk of offending - the gift of a wonderful specimen of bateiseki
(a substance which I shall speak of hereafter). This I persisted in
refusing to take, knowing it to be not only very costly, but very rare.
My host at last yielded, but afterwards secretly sent to the hotel two
smaller specimens, which Japanese etiquette rendered it impossible to
return. Before leaving Saigo, I experienced many other unexpected
kindnesses from the same gentleman.
Not long after, one of the teachers of the Saigo public school paid me a
visit. He had heard of my interest in Oki, and brought with him two fine
maps of the islands made by himself, a little book about Saigo, and, as
a gift, a collection of Oki butterflies and insects which he had made.
It is only in Japan that one is likely to meet with these wonderful
exhibitions of pure goodness on the part of perfect strangers.
A third visitor, who had called to see my friend, performed an action
equally characteristic, but which caused me not a little pain. We
squatted down to smoke together. He drew from his girdle a remarkably
beautiful tobacco-pouch and pipe-case, containing a little silver pipe,
which he began to smoke. The pipe-case was made of a sort of black
coral, curiously carved, and attached to the tabako-ire, or pouch, by a
heavy cord of plaited silk of three colours, passed through a ball of
transparent agate. Seeing me admire it, he suddenly drew a knife from
his sleeve, and before I could prevent him, severed the pipe-case from
the pouch, and presented it to me. I felt almost as if he had cut one of
his own nerves asunder when he cut that wonderful cord; and,
nevertheless, once this had been done, to refuse the gift would have
been rude in the extreme. I made him accept a present in return; but
after that experience I was careful never again while in Oki to admire
anything in the presence of its owner.
16
Every province of Japan has its own peculiar dialect; and that of Oki,
as might be expected in a country so isolated, is particularly distinct.
In Saigo, however, the Izumo dialect is largely used. The townsfolk in
their manners and customs much resemble Izumo country-folk; indeed,
there are many Izumo people among them, most of the large businesses
being in the hands of strangers. The women did not impress me as being
so attractive as those of Izumo: I saw several very pretty girls, but
these proved to be strangers.
However, it is only in the country that one can properly study the
physical characteristics of a population. Those of the Oki islanders may
best be noted at the fishing villages many of which I visited.
Everywhere I saw fine strong men and vigorous women; and it struck me
that the extraordinary plenty and cheapness of nutritive food had quite
as much to do with this robustness as climate and constant exercise. So
easy, indeed, is it to live in Oki, that men of other coasts, who find
existence difficult, emigrate to Oki if they can get a chance to work
there, even at less remuneration. An interesting spectacle to me were
the vast processions of fishing-vessels which always, weather
permitting, began to shoot out to sea a couple of hours before sundown.
The surprising swiftness with which those light craft were impelled by
their sinewy scullers - many of whom were women - told of a skill acquired
only through the patient experience of generations. Another matter that
amazed me was the number of boats. One night in the offing I was able to
count three hundred and five torch-fires in sight, each one signifying a
crew; and I knew that from almost any of the forty-five coast villages I
might see the same spectacle at the same time. The main part of the
population, in fact, spends its summer nights at sea. It is also a
revelation to travel from Izumo to Hamada by night upon a swift steamer
during the fishing season. The horizon for a hundred miles is alight
with torch-fires; the toil of a whole coast is revealed in that vast
illumination.
Although the human population appears to have gained rather than lost
vigour upon this barren soil, the horses and cattle of the country seem
to have degenerated. They are remarkably diminutive. I saw cows not much
bigger than Izumo calves, with calves about the size of goats. The
horses, or rather ponies, belong to a special breed of which Oki is