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Soon
after leaving the yadoya we passed through a wide street with
the
largest and handsomest houses I have yet seen on both sides.
They
were all open in front; their highly-polished floors and
passages
looked like still water; the kakemonos, or wall-pictures,
on
their side-walls were extremely beautiful; and their mats were
very
fine and white. There were large gardens at the back, with
fountains
and flowers, and streams, crossed by light stone bridges,
sometimes
flowed through the houses. From the signs I supposed
them
to be yadoyas, but on asking Ito why we had not put up at one
of
them, he replied that they were all kashitsukeya, or tea-houses
of
disreputable character--a very sad fact. {8}
As
we journeyed the country became prettier and prettier, rolling
up
to abrupt wooded hills with mountains in the clouds behind. The
farming
villages are comfortable and embowered in wood, and the
richer
farmers seclude their dwellings by closely-clipped hedges,
or
rather screens, two feet wide, and often twenty feet high. Tea
grew
near every house, and its leaves were being gathered and dried
on
mats. Signs of silk culture began to appear in shrubberies of
mulberry
trees, and white and sulphur yellow cocoons were lying in
the
sun along the road in flat trays. Numbers of women sat in the
fronts
of the houses weaving cotton cloth fifteen inches wide, and
cotton
yarn, mostly imported from England, was being dyed in all
the
villages--the dye used being a native indigo, the Polygonum
tinctorium.
Old women were spinning, and young and old usually
pursued
their avocations with wise-looking babies tucked into the
backs
of their dresses, and peering cunningly over their shoulders.
Even
little girls of seven and eight were playing at children's
games
with babies on their backs, and those who were too small to
carry
real ones had big dolls strapped on in similar fashion.
Innumerable
villages, crowded houses, and babies in all, give one
the
impression of a very populous country.
As
the day wore on in its brightness and glory the pictures became
more
varied and beautiful. Great snow-slashed mountains looked
over
the foothills, on whose steep sides the dark blue green of
pine
and cryptomeria was lighted up by the spring tints of
deciduous
trees. There were groves of cryptomeria on small hills
crowned
by Shinto shrines, approached by grand flights of stone
stairs.
The red gold of the harvest fields contrasted with the
fresh
green and exquisite leafage of the hemp; rose and white
azaleas
lighted up the copse-woods; and when the broad road passed
into
the colossal avenue of cryptomeria which overshadows the way
to
the sacred shrines of Nikko, and tremulous sunbeams and shadows
flecked
the grass, I felt that Japan was beautiful, and that the
mud
flats of Yedo were only an ugly dream!
Two
roads lead to Nikko. I avoided the one usually taken by
Utsunomiya,
and by doing so lost the most magnificent of the two
avenues,
which extends for nearly fifty miles along the great
highway
called the Oshiu-kaido. Along the Reiheishi-kaido, the
road
by which I came, it extends for thirty miles, and the two,
broken
frequently by villages, converge upon the village of
Imaichi,
eight miles from Nikko, where they unite, and only
terminate
at the entrance of the town. They are said to have been
planted
as an offering to the buried Shoguns by a man who was too
poor
to place a bronze lantern at their shrines. A grander
monument
could not have been devised, and they are probably the
grandest
things of their kind in the world. The avenue of the
Reiheishi-kaido
is a good carriage road with sloping banks eight
feet
high, covered with grass and ferns. At the top of these are
the
cryptomeria, then two grassy walks, and between these and the
cultivation
a screen of saplings and brushwood. A great many of
the
trees become two at four feet from the ground. Many of the
stems
are twenty-seven feet in girth; they do not diminish or
branch
till they have reached a height of from 50 to 60 feet, and
the
appearance of altitude is aided by the longitudinal splitting
of
the reddish coloured bark into strips about two inches wide.
The
trees are pyramidal, and at a little distance resemble cedars.
There
is a deep solemnity about this glorious avenue with its broad
shade
and dancing lights, and the rare glimpses of high mountains.
Instinct
alone would tell one that it leads to something which must
be
grand and beautiful like itself. It is broken occasionally by
small
villages with big bells suspended between double poles; by
wayside
shrines with offerings of rags and flowers; by stone
effigies
of Buddha and his disciples, mostly defaced or overthrown,
all
wearing the same expression of beatified rest and indifference
to
mundane affairs; and by temples of lacquered wood falling to
decay,
whose bells sent their surpassingly sweet tones far on the
evening
air.
Imaichi,
where the two stately aisles unite, is a long uphill
street,
with a clear mountain stream enclosed in a stone channel,
and
crossed by hewn stone slabs running down the middle. In a room
built
over the stream, and commanding a view up and down the
street,
two policemen sat writing. It looks a dull place without
much
traffic, as if oppressed by the stateliness of the avenues
below
it and the shrines above it, but it has a quiet yadoya, where
I
had a good night's rest, although my canvas bed was nearly on the
ground.
We left early this morning in drizzling rain, and went
straight
up hill under the cryptomeria for eight miles. The
vegetation
is as profuse as one would expect in so damp and hot a
summer
climate, and from the prodigious rainfall of the mountains;
every
stone is covered with moss, and the road-sides are green with
the
Protococcus viridis and several species of Marchantia. We were
among
the foothills of the Nantaizan mountains at a height of 1000
feet,
abrupt in their forms, wooded to their summits, and noisy
with
the dash and tumble of a thousand streams. The long street of
Hachiishi,
with its steep-roofed, deep-eaved houses, its warm
colouring,
and its steep roadway with steps at intervals, has a
sort
of Swiss picturesqueness as you enter it, as you must, on
foot,
while your kurumas are hauled and lifted up the steps; nor is
the
resemblance given by steep roofs, pines, and mountains patched
with
coniferae, altogether lost as you ascend the steep street, and
see
wood carvings and quaint baskets of wood and grass offered
everywhere
for sale. It is a truly dull, quaint street, and the
people
come out to stare at a foreigner as if foreigners had not
become
common events since 1870, when Sir H. and Lady Parkes, the
first
Europeans who were permitted to visit Nikko, took up their
abode
in the Imperial Hombo. It is a doll's street with small low
houses,
so finely matted, so exquisitely clean, so finically neat,
so
light and delicate, that even when I entered them without my
boots
I felt like a "bull in a china shop," as if my mere weight
must
smash through and destroy. The street is so painfully clean
that
I should no more think of walking over it in muddy boots than
over
a drawing-room carpet. It has a silent mountain look, and
most
of its shops sell specialties, lacquer work, boxes of
sweetmeats
made of black beans and sugar, all sorts of boxes,
trays,
cups, and stands, made of plain, polished wood, and more
grotesque
articles made from the roots of trees.
It
was not part of my plan to stay at the beautiful yadoya which
receives
foreigners in Hachiishi, and I sent Ito half a mile
farther
with a note in Japanese to the owner of the house where I
now
am, while I sat on a rocky eminence at the top of the street,
unmolested
by anybody, looking over to the solemn groves upon the
mountains,
where the two greatest of the Shoguns "sleep in glory."
Below,
the rushing Daiyagawa, swollen by the night's rain,
thundered
through a narrow gorge. Beyond, colossal flights of
stone
stairs stretch mysteriously away among cryptomeria groves,
above
which tower the Nikkosan mountains. Just where the torrent
finds
its impetuosity checked by two stone walls, it is spanned by
a
bridge, 84 feet long by 18 wide, of dull red lacquer, resting on
two
stone piers on either side, connected by two transverse stone
beams.
A welcome bit of colour it is amidst the masses of dark
greens
and soft greys, though there is nothing imposing in its
structure,
and its interest consists in being the Mihashi, or
Sacred
Bridge, built in 1636, formerly open only to the Shoguns,
the
envoy of the Mikado, and to pilgrims twice a year. Both its
gates
are locked. Grand and lonely Nikko looks, the home of rain
and
mist. Kuruma roads end here, and if you wish to go any
farther,
you must either walk, ride, or be carried.
Ito
was long away, and the coolies kept addressing me in Japanese,
which
made me feel helpless and solitary, and eventually they
shouldered
my baggage, and, descending a flight of steps, we
crossed
the river by the secular bridge, and shortly met my host,
Kanaya,
a very bright, pleasant-looking man, who bowed nearly to
the
earth. Terraced roads in every direction lead through
cryptomerias
to the shrines; and this one passes many a stately
enclosure,
but leads away from the temples, and though it is the
highway
to Chiuzenjii, a place of popular pilgrimage, Yumoto, a
place
of popular resort, and several other villages, it is very
rugged,
and, having flights of stone steps at intervals, is only
practicable
for horses and pedestrians.
At
the house, with the appearance of which I was at once delighted,
I
regretfully parted with my coolies, who had served me kindly and
faithfully.
They had paid me many little attentions, such as
always
beating the dust out of my dress, inflating my air-pillow,
and
bringing me flowers, and were always grateful when I walked up
hills;
and just now, after going for a frolic to the mountains,
they
called to wish me good-bye, bringing branches of azaleas. I.
L.
B.
LETTER
VII
A
Japanese Idyll--Musical Stillness -My Rooms--Floral Decorations-
-Kanaya
and his Household--Table Equipments.
KANAYA'S,
NIKKO, June 15.
I
don't know what to write about my house. It is a Japanese idyll;
there
is nothing within or without which does not please the eye,
and,
after the din of yadoyas, its silence, musical with the dash
of
waters and the twitter of birds, is truly refreshing. It is a
simple
but irregular two-storied pavilion, standing on a stone-
faced
terrace approached by a flight of stone steps. The garden is
well
laid out, and, as peonies, irises, and azaleas are now in
blossom,
it is very bright. The mountain, with its lower part
covered
with red azaleas, rises just behind, and a stream which
tumbles
down it supplies the house with water, both cold and pure,
and
another, after forming a miniature cascade, passes under the
house
and through a fish-pond with rocky islets into the river
below.
The grey village of Irimichi lies on the other side of the
road,
shut in with the rushing Daiya, and beyond it are high,
broken
hills, richly wooded, and slashed with ravines and
waterfalls.
Kanaya's
sister, a very sweet, refined-looking woman, met me at the
door
and divested me of my boots. The two verandahs are highly
polished,
so are the entrance and the stairs which lead to my room,
and
the mats are so fine and white that I almost fear to walk over
them,
even in my stockings. The polished stairs lead to a highly
polished,
broad verandah with a beautiful view, from which you
enter
one large room, which, being too large, was at once made into
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