Part 13

* * * * *

Five sturdy naval cadets shared our luncheon with us, and knew the number and the tonnage of England’s smallest gunboats, and for all their blue uniform and “foreign” dirk, their _Sayonara_ as they left us were courteous with an old-time courtesy.

And the sun grew hot and hotter. The light like a mist wrapt sea and islands round. The continuous quivering hurt. On the other side the deep-dented mountains of the mainland, grown bare and scraped now, caught the sunshine on their rocky patches, and sent it in glittering arrows of light across the still air. And yet in the brown villages, at the mountains’ feet, the blue-tuniced, brown-legged peasants were working in the sun; and at each stopping-place the bareheaded men and women came off in boats to offer their fruit and _saké_ in long-handled fishing-nets, scent-bottles full of _saké_ flavoured with plum-blossom, _saké_ flavoured with chrysanthemum or peach-blossom, white rice, “woman’s” _saké_, _saké_ to ward off old age, or all and any of the nine different kinds of _saké_ for which Tomotsu is famous, and all in scent-bottles, artistically tied up and labelled, and costing, bottle and all, _is-sen_. One old lady was highly indignant when after much excitement we had contrived to haul up in the fishing-net the exact scent-bottle we coveted, and had sent her down one sen in return, for the patois of the district makes _is-sen_ of _jis-sen_ (10 sen = 2½_d._), to the unaccustomed ear.

And the ship and the sun travelled on.

* * * * *

As the shadows grew the quivering ceased, the light no longer like a veil of darkness hid the land and sea. The islands grew a gradual green, as they drowsed on the clear blue water. And slowly the still sea opened wider; the islands passed more slowly until they ceased to pass at all; and then on the blue water there grew that indefinite look of ocean space. The Inland Sea was ending. Away on the still sweep of waters lay Awaji, the First-born of the Gods, the Eden of Japan.

“And when,” says the legend, “the first man and the first woman met after they had journeyed round a pillar set upon the land the woman cried, ‘How joyful a thing it is to meet a lovely man!’ Whereupon the man, displeased that language had been invented by a woman, required the circuit to be made again, that he might speak first. So again they journeyed round the pillar, and again they met, and loudly the man cried out, ‘How joyful a thing it is to meet a lovely woman!’ And thus,” says the chronicle, “was Speech invented, and the Art of Love and the human race begun.”

Dim grey on a grey sea lay Awaji; before us stretched the broad sweep of the landless ocean; the Inland Sea, dreaming among its islands, lay behind.

THE LAND OF THE GODS

“That which I saw seemed to me a smile of the Universe.” “Paradiso,” canto xxvii.

I

ACROSS THE LAGOON

We sat still on the deck, with our backs propped against portions of the ship’s cargo, and watched.

It was necessary to sit still, for a rise of only a few inches would have sent the awning over our heads into the blue waters of the lagoon; and each newcomer, as he stepped from the wharf on to this Kensington Garden craft, doubled himself in two and stayed so. First-class passengers lay flat, for a square hole in the side of the boat opened into a three-feet-high saloon elegantly carpeted; we had matting. When the first half of the passenger was inside, a big-headed boy removed his _gheta_ and piled them up on the deck, reshoeing him in the same way when he emerged. The difficulty of extracting foreign boots in this manner would alone have deterred us from using our first-class tickets; and then the deck passengers under the awning had at least six inches more room, besides ventilation. So we sat on the matting and watched.

Anything out of a toy-shop so tiny as this absurd little steamer was never seen. She might with generosity have been fifteen feet long; yet she carried some twenty passengers besides cargo down the lagoon and up the river, from Matsué to Shobara, with safety and Oriental speed; and did it twice a day too.

The carpeted saloon was reasonably filled with half a dozen passengers; the deck overflowed with the rest. The brown-skinned, bullet-headed, ugly, good-natured Japanese peasant, sitting on his heels with his dark blue _kimono_ tucked up above his brown legs, and his fan in his hand; or his little wife, wrinkled and meek, her white cotton towel, with its bamboo design in blue, folded round her head and tucked up under her hair behind in something between a night-cap and a sun-bonnet; quiet and sweet, but never abject, and always respected. Here and there a shopkeeper or a clerk, or some one from the town in a grey _kimono_, with a face pale yellow against the other’s brown. We all sat bare-footed on the matting to keep it clean, with our _gheta_ in our hands, fanning ourselves with rice-paper fans decorated with storks flying across the moon, or sprays of plum-blossom or pine-trees, each man of us showing his well-turned leg and thigh, with all the muscles brought into strong relief by the weight of the body on the toes. All polite, all amused, all conversational.

After a great deal of snorting on the part of our very small steamer, we casually left the wharf and shot into the lagoon. Matsué, hidden by the sunlight, disappeared; and even the wide sweep of waters wavered indistinct beneath the hard glitter of the morning light. It was not yet nine o’clock, and already the distant blue shore was blurred with the shimmering heat, and the near green one fitful with the scissor-grinding of the _semmi_. The heat was dropping down on the world with the swiftness of a tropical night and the glitter of it hurt.

Away over the surface of the waters a red-brown head floated, lazy, the nimbus of straw hat against the light glowing yellow as a halo. Slowly, idly, the head moved over the water, suspended between blue and blue. Too hot to doubt or question or deny, I accepted the head and shut my eyes, only to find on opening them again two, three, a dozen heads strolling slowly over the lagoon.

“Honourably please to understand, dredging for mussels,” said a voice at my elbow. And the passengers repeated the information in a sort of Greek chorus with many bows.

Matsué’s only representative of the vast world of the _Ijin San_ is one missionary; but these peasants, with the refinement of true breeding, accepted our outlandish dress and faces, our boots on their matting too, without a stare of curiosity, although when our attention was apparently absorbed elsewhere, the whiteness of our skins, the aristocratic bridge of our noses (it is only the _noblesse_ in Japan, and not all of them, who possess an aquiline nose), were commented on with interest and admiration.

* * * * *

The near green shore ran in and out, and in and out, wooded thick with the slim green fingers of the bamboo, until it opened into a tiny green bay, with a thin bamboo landing-stage running out into the silent water. Here we stopped with such an amount of “ay-aying” on the part of the captain--a short man in a grey _kimono_, who sat in a hole in the deck the other side of the funnel reading Chinese poetry--and the crew, a tall youth in “foreign” trousers, who greased wheels, that we might have been an Atlantic liner approaching an unknown shore. There were no passengers for the invisible village behind the landing-stage but the captain, who climbed over the side of the boat up on to the landing-stage, and disappeared.

By-and-by from out of the green there came a charming little figure in a sea-blue _kimono_, lined with lacquer-red, followed by a maid bearing neatly matted parcels. The crew wiped its hands and moved forward, while the sea-blue _kimono_, kneeling on the landing-stage, handed down the parcels on to the boat for safe carriage to Shobara. They seemed to require quantities of explanation those parcels, accompanied by irrepressible giggles, principal giggles on the part of the mistress, and secondary giggles on the part of the maid; while the crew listened, replied, grew eloquent. It was one of the most effective flirtations I ever saw, but alas! conducted in that Izumo dialect so hard for the Tokyo-taught foreigner to understand. And it went on like the hum of the _semmi_, while the water, the world, and the boat drowsed in the heat.

* * * * *

Suddenly, from out of the nowhere, appeared our captain, who swung himself down from the landing-stage on to the boat as imperturbably as a stone Buddha. The sea-blue _kimono_, still on its knees at the edge of the water, swayed in one last enchanting giggle that showed all the lacquer-red linings in a quiver of flame, while the supplementary giggles of the stout little maid followed us regretfully out of the bay.

With more “ay-aying” we shot back into the hard glitter of the lagoon. The captain retired to his hole and his Chinese poetry, the crew had completely disappeared, but the big-headed boy, emerging from some unknown region behind the captain, carried out a _hibachi_ and a kettle. He set the kettle on the brass tripod over the _hibachi_ and blew up the charcoal fire with a large fan; and we all watched him with interest as he made Japanese tea in a green china teapot, rather larger than the kettle, with a black handle and with dividing lines of black separating the green into leaf-like petals. At this we all sat up, thirstier with anticipation, and the little china bowls filled from the green kettle-teapot vanished from the tray. Then the big-headed boy handed round _manju_ cakes (like boiled chestnuts in a white coat of sweet rice-paste), and collected payment, one _sen_ (a farthing). We all promptly demanded more tea, and the little bowls were filled and refilled until the green kettle-teapot ran dry; and we all subsided again. Only the _tink, tink_, of the metal pipes, knocking out the glowing wad of tobacco on to the deck in order to light a fresh pipeful from the burning remains of the old one, broke the drowsy silence. Three little whiffs and the acorn bowl of a Japanese pipe is empty, so the _tink, tink_, of the metal on the deck was rhythmic as the _vee-um_ of the _semmi_. They were all smoking, men and women, and the scent of the bright brown tobacco, fine-cut as hair, lay under the awning.

* * * * *

The near green shore ran in and out, and in and out, until all the wide sheet of glittering light, spread over the blue waters, lay behind us; in front a bright green bank of rushes hemmed in the light. The lagoon was ended, and still we went on, seemingly with the intention of stranding ourselves among the bulrushes. But the bulrushes stood back as we came on, and ranging themselves on either hand, left a water pathway down which we went, until the bank of rushes following the lagoon lay far behind, and we found ourselves in a narrow river that seemed half natural stream and half artificial canal.

Our unnautical captain, who, ever since we had entered the rushes, had been intoning directions to the invisible crew as though he were reading poetry aloud, got up out of his hole. The _tink, tink_, of the metal pipes on the wooden deck died gradually away as each smoker knocked out his last wad of tobacco and put away his pipe. Then with a sudden and terrific snort the absurd little steamer, an end in either bank, stood still. The big-headed boy, hanging over the side of the boat, kicked violently with his heels, while the unexpected apparition of the crew’s head rose up at our feet. The head took a look round and sank again, and the engines rattled. Still with an end in either bank, and with the big-headed boy clasping the gunwale in his arms, we proceeded to turn slowly round, and then, assisted by several ropes and several haulers, to back majestically into the main street of Shobara.

Our journey was ended. The big-headed boy, leaving the gunwale, rushed to reshoe the first-class passengers as they wriggled from the saloon on to the roadway. The bullet-headed peasants and their little brown wives bowing low bows to each other, the captain and to the _Ijin San_, took up their bundles and trudged off, while we, like a Royal arrival, were received by the authorities of Shobara, in the person of a fierce little policeman in a new white suit, and duly escorted the three-and-a-half paces from the ship’s side to the tea-house door in a procession, the people lining up the way.

And the last we saw of that absurd little steamer, as we turned into the tea-house, was a glimpse of the crew looking down the funnel, while the big-headed boy, standing amidships, handed out the cargo to its owners on either bank.

II

TO KIZUKI

The green earth lay burning in the sun, wrapt round and round with heat. Between the tall blue lines of hills it stretched, the flat green floor of a deep blue cavern, whose roof-top was the sky. And through the green the long white road ran out of sight. The only living thing that moved was the running _kurumaya_, all else lay sleeping in the bright night-time of heat, a heavy drugged sleep that neither rested nor refreshed.

Inert the green earth stretched between the blue hills, weighed down with heat; a palpable heat through which we moved as a fish moves through water; a visible heat which was lying there heavy on the land, floating round the blue hills, quivering against the white sky, humming in the still air, rolling in great drops down the bronzed back of the _kurumaya_, drowsing me to sleep as with the soft waving of a heated fan, a heavy, encompassing heat that stunned.

And always the white road ran on through the green earth, and the long, straight lines of hills on either side shut off the sky.

Between the fields of rice, here and there among the green, a brown-thatched house like an open shed rose up, its roof supported on the square pillars of the four corner posts, its walls rolled out of sight. And on the matted floor the women and children lay sleeping, their necks supported on a narrow stool; the men stretched on their backs, or lying prone, their heads between their arms.

Not a living thing in house or field, in land or road, was moving save the running _kurumaya_. Heat had slain the world and life itself was senseless.

* * * * *

On either side the straight blue hills stretched out of sight, the green earth lay like a narrow passage-way between; and on and on we ran, until the green floor contracted, and the white road became a broad still street, where brown houses shut out the hills.

A rapid spurt through the empty village, for a _kurumaya_ never stops except at the top of his speed, and we arrive at the tea-house. Dazed, weary, and stiff with two hours of continuous running, we struggle from under the shawls and wraps that keep out the sun, and sink on to the matting; while the crowd which has grown no man knoweth how, from out of an empty village, stands silently, staring. With equal suddenness a small policeman starts up in front. He inquires our names, ages, residence and destination; orders back the crowd with one wave of his arm, commands that we be taken into an inner apartment, remote from public gaze; and, in short, declares we may repose on him.

We are taken into an inner apartment, a room that is almost cool, while the crowd drifts patiently round the house trying to look in. One little wide-eyed _nēsan_ brings us tea, and then house and world sink back into slumber again.

The _nēsan_, reluctant, but at last dismissed, lies down on the matting, beyond the courtyard, and falls asleep. Her neck rests on a narrow wooden pillow that has the curves of a _torī_; she lies like a long-stalked flower on the ground, rigid, quite graceful. Every fold of her _kimono_, every twist of her hair, is in place. She is fast asleep, unconscious, perfectly tidy, with a neatness that has passed into its essence, grace, and is natural as the feathers to a bird.

We cannot sleep, the mere transition from the greater heat outside to the cooler heat of this open matted space makes us wakeful. It is cooler here actually, in degree, and imaginatively, from the green palms of the baby garden. The garden of a doll’s house, which any moderate-sized bath-towel would have roofed, yet with a forest of dwarf palm-trees in one corner, a winding pool in another, the cool grey outlines of a stone lantern to hold the eyes, and a sense of still greenness, of limpid freshness, which not rivers of water or forests of giant trees could more distinctly convey. To look at that garden was to take a mental bath and drown out the sense of heat. But the heat itself remained, intense and stagnant, a heavy presence in the house that permeated all things.

Out in the courtyard one shaft of burning light shone down, turning the cotton towel on its bamboo line to a white-hot banner, the polished passage to a molten pool, while the water in the big stone font was warm as condensed steam. Like the flaming sword of the Archangel Michael, the shaft of burning light cut the passage-way in two, and the sharp white-heat of it seemed to cut. It was absolutely still, only the heat moved awake in a house and a world asleep.

* * * * *

Very slowly the little _nēsan_ sat up; some one had called her. A moment, and she was on her feet, neat as a growing flower.

“The _kurumaya_ awaits,” she said, kneeling on the matting, “when it honourably pleases the august ones to come.”

Then she touched her forehead to the floor and waited for what it honourably pleased the august ones to do.

They came, down the polished passage, under the flaming sword of light, out into the open space before the tea-house, where the little policeman waited to command them to be packed into their _kuruma_, to deliver stringent orders for their safe conduct to the _kurumaya_, to authoritatively bid them the politest of _sayonara_.

The crowd had disappeared, harangued out of existence; the village street was empty as a desert, the houses dead; and then the steep line of blue hills grew up on either side, shutting in the sky, and the long white road stretched away through the green earth.

Palpable, visible, the heat lay over the land, quivering against the white sky, floating round the blue hills, humming in the still air, drowsing me into a somnambulant life that was neither sleep nor waking.

Between the green earth and the white sky the telegraph wires cut a bronze line against the quivering blue; and the rows of little birds, all sitting with their tails to the road, hung drowsily there, rows on rows of them. And still the long white road ran on and on.

Beneath the short thick hair of the _kurumaya_ the heat gathered in wet patches on the white scalp, rolled in big drops over the black head, trickled down the bronze neck, and was wiped off with one rapid movement of the blue cotton towel, as the running _kurumaya_ sped swiftly on; gathered again, rolled again, trickled again, was wiped dry again; gathered, rolled, trickled, until the automatic movements, repeated and repeated, grew part of Time itself. They were Time.

* * * * *

Then I awoke. It was as if some one had slid a thin lining of fresh air along the tops of the blue hills, beneath the burning sky. A thin, thin sheet of fresh air, but the green earth gave a great sigh, the _kurumaya_ a little shake, and I awoke.

The peasants in their brown thatched houses, open as a shed, were stirring, the naked red figures in their white cloths were moving down the road.

In the fields the long bamboo poles that shot up out of the green earth like masts were dipping up and down, drawing water for the thirsty rice.

The little birds on the telegraph wires were chirping sleepily, flying off in twos and threes, and settling down again, audibly fussing over the laziness of their friends and relations.

The bright night-time of heat was over and gone.

I sat up in my _kuruma_ and looked. We were running through green rice-fields, under a blue sky. And it was a hot summer’s afternoon.

III

IZUMO’S GREAT TEMPLE

“So they made fast the temple pillars on the nethermost rock-bottom, and they made high the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven;” and the god Onamuji, the “Master of the Great Land,” King of Izumo, in accordance with his compact with high heaven, entered into that temple and dwelt there.

So the province of Izumo and the kingdom of Western Japan passed under the rule of the great Sun-Goddess whose descendants endure to this day. But the Master of the Great Land, the god Onamuji, is worshipped from end to end of the Emperor’s dominions, and his temple and his priests are sacred as the mirror of the Sun-Goddess in their eyes.

All through the year, the pilgrims in thousands journey into Izumo to remote Kizuki, whose name to their ears is still resonant with the beating (_tsuku_) of the pestles (_ki_) which made the foundations of that first great temple firm and everlasting, while in the month of October the immortal gods themselves, from every shrine throughout the land, come to visit Onamuji, and that desolate month known in Japan as _kami-na-zuki_ (month without gods) is called in Izumo alone _kami-ari-zuki_ (the month with gods).

At the foot of the everlasting hills the temple stands, and the far-off ripple of the Western Sea, half a memory, half a dream, wanders through its sunlit courts, a sound to listening ears.

The long dark avenue of twisted trees, so old that many are almost limbless, the three giant _torī_, hewn in solid granite, lie behind us; we have reached the white sunlight of the outer temple space, and the scattered buildings of the shrine are in front. Our landlord, in his Sunday-best _kimono_ of silver-grey, leads the way. He has walked, since we left the inn, exactly three paces behind us, while three paces behind him came our _kurumaya_. In Kizuki it has not been considered consonant with our dignity to allow us to move anywhere without them.