Three days of traveling on the same excellent road
have brought me nearly 60 miles. Yamagata ken impresses me as being singularly
prosperous, progressive, and go-ahead; the plain of Yamagata, which I entered
soon after leaving Kaminoyama, is populous and highly cultivated, and the
broad road, with its enormous traffic, looks wealthy and civilized. It
is being improved by convicts in dull red kimonos printed with Chinese
characters, who correspond with our ticket-of-leave men, as they are working
for wages in the employment of contractors and farmers, and are under no
other restriction than that of always wearing the prison dress.
At the Sakamoki river I was delighted to come upon
the only thoroughly solid piece of modern Japanese work that I have met
with—a remarkably handsome stone bridge nearly finished—the first I have
seen. I introduced myself to the engineer, Okuno Chiuzo, a very gentlemanly,
agreeable Japanese, who showed me the plans, took a great deal of trouble
to explain them, and courteously gave me tea and sweetmeats.
Yamagata, a thriving town of 21,000 people and the
capital of the ken, is well situated on a slight eminence, and this and
the dominant position of the kencho at the top of the main street give
it an emphasis unusual in Japanese towns. The outskirts of all the cities
are very mean, and the appearance of the lofty white buildings of the new
Government Offices above the low gray houses was much of a surprise. The
streets of Yamagata are broad and clean, and it has good shops, among which
are long rows selling nothing but ornamental iron kettles and ornamental
brasswork. So far in the interior I was annoyed to find several shops almost
exclusively for the sale of villainous forgeries of European eatables and
drinkables, specially the latter. The Japanese, from the Mikado downwards,
have acquired a love of foreign intoxicants, which would be hurtful enough
to them if the intoxicants were genuine, but is far worse when they are
compounds of vitriol, fusel oil, bad vinegar, and I know not what. I saw
two shops in Yamagata which sold champagne of the best brands, Martel’s
cognac, Bass’ ale, Medoc, St. Julian, and Scotch whisky, at about one-fifth
of their cost price—all poisonous compounds, the sale of which ought to
be interdicted.
The Government Buildings, though in the usual confectionery
style, are improved by the addition of verandahs; and the Kencho, Saibancho,
or Court House, the Normal School with advanced schools attached, and the
police buildings, are all in keeping with the good road and obvious prosperity.
A large two-storied hospital, with a cupola, which will accommodate 150
patients, and is to be a medical school, is nearly finished. It is very
well arranged and ventilated. I cannot say as much for the present hospital,
which I went over. At the Court House I saw twenty officials doing nothing,
and as many policemen, all in European dress, to which they had added an
imitation of European manners, the total result being unmitigated vulgarity.
They demanded my passport before they would tell me the population of the
ken and city. Once or twice I have found fault with Ito’s manners, and
he has asked me twice since if I think them like the manners of the policemen
at Yamagata!
North of Yamagata the plain widens, and fine longitudinal
ranges capped with snow mountains on the one side, and broken ranges with
lateral spurs on the other, enclose as cheerful and pleasant a region as
one would wish to see, with many pleasant villages on the lower slopes
of the hills. The mercury was only 70 degrees, and the wind north, so it
was an especially pleasant journey, though I had to go three and a half
ri beyond Tendo, a town of 5000 people, where I had intended to halt, because
the only inns at Tendo which were not kashitsukeya were so occupied with
silk-worms that they could not receive me.
The next day’s journey was still along the same
fine road, through a succession of farming villages and towns of 1500 and
2000 people, such as Tochiida and Obanasawa, were frequent. From both these
there was a glorious view of Chokaizan, a grand, snow-covered dome, said
to be 8000 feet high, which rises in an altogether unexpected manner from
comparatively level country, and, as the great snow- fields of Udonosan
are in sight at the same time, with most picturesque curtain ranges below,
it may be considered one of the grandest views of Japan. After leaving
Obanasawa the road passes along a valley watered by one of the affluents
of the Mogami, and, after crossing it by a fine wooden bridge, ascends
a pass from which the view is most magnificent. After a long ascent through
a
region of light, peaty soil, wooded with pine, cryptomeria, and scrub oak,
a long descent and a fine avenue terminate in Shinjo, a wretched town of
over 5000 people, situated in a plain of rice- fields.
The day’s journey, of over twenty-three miles, was
through villages of farms without yadoyas, and in many cases without even
tea- houses. The style of building has quite changed. Wood has disappeared,
and all the houses are now built with heavy beams and walls of laths and
brown mud mixed with chopped straw, and very neat. Nearly all are great
oblong barns, turned endwise to the road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long,
with the end nearest the road the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have
no paper windows, only amado, with a few panes of paper at the top. These
are drawn back in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses, blinds,
formed of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening. There are
no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in the rafters,
who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon a mosquito net.
Again I write that Shinjo is a wretched place. It
is a daimyo’s town, and every daimyo’s town that I have seen has an air
of decay, partly owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled down,
or has been allowed to fall into decay. Shinjo has a large trade in rice,
silk, and hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it looks. The mosquitoes
were in thousands, and I had to go to bed, so as to be out of their reach,
before I had finished my wretched meal of sago and condensed milk. There
was a hot rain all night, my wretched room was dirty and stifling, and
rats gnawed my boots and ran away with my cucumbers.
To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky.
The good road has come to an end, and the old hardships have begun again.
After leaving Shinjo this morning we crossed over a steep ridge into a
singular basin of great beauty, with a semicircle of pyramidal hills, rendered
more striking by being covered to their summits with pyramidal cryptomeria,
and apparently blocking all northward progress. At their feet lies Kanayama
in a romantic situation, and, though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying
for a day or two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and pleasant,
the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me, and Ito has
secured a chicken for the first time since leaving Nikko!
I find it impossible in this damp climate, and in
my present poor health, to travel with any comfort for more than two or
three days at a time, and it is difficult to find pretty, quiet, and wholesome
places for a halt of two nights. Freedom from fleas and mosquitoes one
can never hope for, though the last vary in number, and I have found a
way of “dodging” the first by laying down a piece of oiled paper six feet
square upon the mat, dusting along its edges a band of Persian insect powder,
and setting my chair in the middle. I am then insulated, and, though myriads
of fleas jump on the paper, the powder stupefies them, and they are easily
killed. I have been obliged to rest here at any rate, because I have been
stung on my left hand both by a hornet and a gadfly, and it is badly inflamed.
In some places the hornets are in hundreds, and make the horses wild. I
am also suffering from inflammation produced by the bites of “horse ants,”
which attack one in walking. The Japanese suffer very much from these,
and a neglected bite often produces an intractable ulcer. Besides these,
there is a fly, as harmless in appearance as our house-fly, which bites
as badly as a mosquito. These are some of the drawbacks of Japanese traveling
in summer, but worse than these is the lack of such food as one can eat
when one finishes a hard day’s journey without appetite, in an exhausting
atmosphere.
July 18.—I have had so much pain and fever from
stings and bites that last night I was glad to consult a Japanese doctor
from Shinjo. Ito, who looks twice as big as usual when he has to do any
“grand” interpreting, and always puts on silk hakama in honor of it, came
in with a middle-aged man dressed entirely in silk, who prostrated himself
three times on the ground, and then sat down on his heels. Ito in many
words explained my calamities, and Dr. Nosoki then asked to see my “honorable
hand,” which he examined carefully, and then my “honorable foot.” He felt
my pulse and looked at my eyes with a magnifying glass, and with much sucking
in of his breath—a sign of good breeding and politeness—informed me that
I had much fever, which I knew before; then that I must rest, which I also
knew; then he lighted his pipe and contemplated me. Then he felt my pulse
and looked at my eyes again, then felt the swelling from the hornet bite,
and said it was much inflamed, of which I was painfully aware, and then
clapped his hands three times. At this signal a coolie appeared, carrying
a handsome black lacquer chest with the same crest in gold upon it as Dr.
Nosoki wore in white on his haori. This contained a medicine chest of fine
gold lacquer, fitted up with shelves, drawers, bottles, etc. He compounded
a lotion first, with which he bandaged my hand and arm rather skilfully,
telling me to pour the lotion over the bandage at intervals till the pain
abated. The whole was covered with oiled paper, which answers the purpose
of oiled silk. He then compounded a febrifuge, which, as it is purely vegetable,
I have not hesitated to take, and told me to drink it in hot water, and
to avoid sake for a day or two!
I asked him what his fee was, and, after many bows
and much spluttering and sucking in of his breath, he asked if I should
think half a yen too much, and when I presented him with a yen, and told
him with a good deal of profound bowing on my part that I was exceedingly
glad to obtain his services, his gratitude quite abashed me by its immensity.
Dr. Nosoki is one of the old-fashioned practitioners,
whose medical knowledge has been handed down from father to son, and who
holds out, as probably most of his patients do, against European methods
and drugs. A strong prejudice against surgical operations, specially amputations,
exists throughout Japan. With regard to the latter, people think that,
as they came into the world complete, so they are bound to go out of it,
and in many places a surgeon would hardly be able to buy at any price the
privilege of cutting off an arm.
Except from books these older men know nothing of
the mechanism of the human body, as dissection is unknown to native science.
Dr. Nosoki told me that he relies mainly on the application of the moxa
and on acupuncture in the treatment of acute diseases, and in chronic maladies
on friction, medicinal baths, certain animal and vegetable medicines, and
certain kinds of food. The use of leeches and blisters is unknown to him,
and he regards mineral drugs with obvious suspicion. He has heard of chloroform,
but has never seen it used, and considers that in maternity it must necessarily
be fatal either to mother or child. He asked me (and I have twice before
been asked the same question) whether it is not by its use that we endeavor
to keep down our redundant population!He has great faith in ginseng, and
in rhinoceros horn, and in the powdered liver of some animal, which, from
the description, I understood to be a tiger—all specifics of the Chinese
school of medicines. Dr. Nosoki showed me a small box of “unicorn’s” horn,
which he said was worth more than its weight in gold!As my arm improved
coincidently with the application of his lotion, I am bound to give him
the credit of the cure.
The host and the kocho, or chief man of the village,
paid me a formal visit in the evening, and Ito, en grande tenue, exerted
himself immensely on the occasion. They were much surprised at my not smoking,
and supposed me to be under a vow!They asked me many questions about our
customs and Government, but frequently reverted to tobacco.
I. L. B.
Very early in the morning, after my long talk with
the Kocho of Kanayama, Ito wakened me by saying, “You’ll be able for a
long day’s journey to-day, as you had a chicken yesterday,” and under this
chicken’s marvelous influence we got away at 6.45, only to verify the proverb,
“The more haste the worse speed.” Unsolicited by me the Kocho sent round
the village to forbid the people from assembling, so I got away in peace
with a pack-horse and one runner. It was a terrible road, with two severe
mountain-passes to cross, and I not only had to walk nearly the whole way,
but to help the man with the kuruma up some of the steepest places. Halting
at the exquisitely situated village of Nosoki, we got one horse, and walked
by a mountain road along the head-waters of the Omono to Innai. I wish
I could convey to you any idea of the beauty and wildness of that mountain
route, of the surprises on the way, of views, of the violent deluges of
rain which turned rivulets into torrents, and of the hardships and difficulties
of the day; the scanty fare of sun-dried rice dough and sour yellow rasps,
and the depth of the mire through which we waded! We crossed the Shione
and Sakatsu passes, and in twelve hours accomplished fifteen miles! Everywhere
we were told that we should never get through the country by the way we
are going.
The women still wear trousers, but with a long garment
tucked into them instead of a short one, and the men wear a cotton combination
of breastplate and apron, either without anything else, or over their kimonos.
The descent to Innai under an avenue of cryptomeria, and the village itself,
shut in with the rushing Omono, are very beautiful.
The yadoya at Innai was a remarkably cheerful one,
but my room was entirely fusuma and shoji, and people were peeping in the
whole time. It is not only a foreigner and his strange ways which attract
attention in these remote districts, but, in my case, my India-rubber bath,
air-pillow, and, above all, my white mosquito net. Their nets are all of
a heavy green canvas, and they admire mine so much, that I can give no
more acceptable present on leaving than a piece of it to twist in with
the hair. There were six engineers in the next room who are surveying the
passes which I had crossed, in order to see if they could be tunnelled,
in which case kurumas might go all the way from Tokyo to Kubota on the
Sea of Japan, and, with a small additional outlay, carts also.
In the two villages of Upper and Lower Innai there
has been an outbreak of a malady much dreaded by the Japanese, called kak’ke,
which, in the last seven months, has carried off 100 persons out of a population
of about 1500, and the local doctors have been aided by two sent from the
Medical School at Kubota. I don’t know a European name for it; the Japanese
name signifies an affection of the legs. Its first symptoms are a loss
of strength in the legs, “looseness in the knees,” cramps in the calves,
swelling, and numbness. This, Dr. Anderson, who has studied kak’ke in more
than 1100 cases in Tokyo, calls the sub-acute form. The chronic is a slow,
numbing, and wasting malady, which, if unchecked, results in death from
paralysis and exhaustion in from six months to three years. The third,
or acute form, Dr. Anderson describes thus. After remarking that the grave
symptoms set in quite unexpectedly, and go on rapidly increasing, he says:-
“The patient now can lie down no longer; he sits up in bed and tosses restlessly
from one position to another, and, with wrinkled brow, staring and anxious
eyes, dusky skin, blue, parted lips, dilated nostrils, throbbing neck,
and labouring chest, presents a picture of the most terrible distress that
the worst of diseases can inflict. There is no intermission even for a
moment, and the physician, here almost powerless, can do little more than
note the failing pulse and falling temperature, and wait for the moment
when the brain, paralyzed by the carbonised blood, shall become insensible,
and allow the dying man to pass his last moments in merciful unconsciousness.” {15}
The next morning, after riding nine miles through
a quagmire, under grand avenues of cryptomeria, and noticing with regret
that the telegraph poles ceased, we reached Yusowa, a town of 7000 people,
in which, had it not been for provoking delays, I should have slept instead
of at Innai, and found that a fire a few hours previously had destroyed
seventy houses, including the yadoya at which I should have lodged. We
had to wait two hours for horses, as all were engaged in moving property
and people. The ground where the houses had stood was absolutely bare of
everything but fine black ash, among which the kuras stood blackened, and,
in some instances, slightly cracked, but in all unharmed. Already skeletons
of new houses were rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy
man, but I should probably have lost everything but my money.
Yusowa is a specially objectionable-looking place.
I took my lunch—a wretched meal of a tasteless white curd made from beans,
with some condensed milk added to it—in a yard, and the people crowded
in hundreds to the gate, and those behind, being unable to see me, got
ladders and climbed on the adjacent roofs, where they remained till one
of the roofs gave way with a loud crash, and precipitated about fifty men,
women, and children into the room below, which fortunately was vacant.
Nobody screamed—a noteworthy fact—and the casualties were only a few bruises.
Four policemen then appeared and demanded my passport, as if I were responsible
for the accident, and failing, like all others, to read a particular word
upon it, they asked me what I was traveling for, and on being told “to
learn about the country,” they asked if I was making a map!Having satisfied
their curiosity they disappeared, and the crowd surged up again in fuller
force. The Transport Agent begged them to go away, but they said they might
never see such a sight again!One old peasant said he would go away if he
were told whether “the sight” were a man or a woman, and, on the agent
asking if that were any business of his, he said he should like to tell
at home what he had seen, which awoke my sympathy at once, and I told Ito
to tell them that a Japanese horse galloping night and day without ceasing
would take 5.5 weeks to reach my county—a statement which he is using lavishly
as I go along. These are such queer crowds, so silent and gaping, and they
remain motionless for hours, the wide-awake babies on the mothers’ backs
and in the fathers’ arms never crying. I should be glad to hear a hearty
aggregate laugh, even if I were its object. The great melancholy stare
is depressing.
The road for ten miles was thronged with country
people going in to see the fire. It was a good road and very pleasant country,
with numerous road-side shrines and figures of the goddess of mercy. I
had a wicked horse, thoroughly vicious. His head was doubly chained to
the saddle-girth, but he never met man, woman, or child, without laying
back his ears and running at them to bite them. I was so tired and in so
much spinal pain that I got off and walked several times, and it was most
difficult to get on again, for as soon as I put my hand on the saddle he
swung his hind legs round to kick me, and it required some agility to avoid
being hurt. Nor was this all. The evil beast made dashes with his tethered
head at flies, threatening to twist or demolish my foot at each, flung
his hind legs upwards, attempted to dislodge flies on his nose with his
hind hoof, executed capers which involved a total disappearance of everything
in front of the saddle, squealed, stumbled, kicked his old shoes off, and
resented the feeble attempts which the mago made to replace them, and finally
walked in to Yokote and down its long and dismal street mainly on his hind
legs, shaking the rope out of his timid leader’s hand, and shaking me into
a sort of aching jelly!I used to think that horses were made vicious either
by being teased or by violence in breaking; but this does not account for
the malignity of the Japanese horses, for the people are so much afraid
of them that they treat them with great respect:they are not beaten or
kicked, are spoken to in soothing tones, and, on the whole, live better
than their masters. Perhaps this is the secret of their villainy—“Jeshurun
waxed fat and kicked.”
Yokote, a town of 10,000 people, in which the best
yadoyas are all non-respectable, is an ill-favored, ill-smelling, forlorn,
dirty, damp, miserable place, with a large trade in cottons. As I rode
through on my temporary biped the people rushed out from the baths to see
me, men and women alike without a particle of clothing. The house-master
was very polite, but I had a dark and dirty room, up a bamboo ladder, and
it swarmed with fleas and mosquitoes to an exasperating extent. On the
way I heard that a bullock was killed every Thursday in Yokote, and had
decided on having a broiled steak for supper and taking another with me,
but when I arrived it was all sold, there were no eggs, and I made a miserable
meal of rice and bean curd, feeling somewhat starved, as the condensed
milk I bought at Yamagata had to be thrown away. I was somewhat wretched
from fatigue and inflamed ant bites, but in the early morning, hot and
misty as all the mornings have been, I went to see a Shinto temple, or
miya, and, though I went alone, escaped a throng.
The entrance into the temple court was, as usual,
by a torii, which consisted of two large posts 20 feet high, surmounted
with cross beams, the upper one of which projects beyond the posts and
frequently curves upwards at both ends. The whole, as is often the case,
was painted a dull red. This torii, or “birds’ rest,” is said to be so
called because the fowls, which were formerly offered but not sacrificed,
were accustomed to perch upon it. A straw rope, with straw tassels and
strips of paper hanging from it, the special emblem of Shinto, hung across
the gateway. In the paved court there were several handsome granite lanterns
on fine granite pedestals, such as are the nearly universal accompaniments
of both Shinto and Buddhist temples.
After leaving Yakote we passed through very pretty
country with mountain views and occasional glimpses of the snowy dome of
Chokaizan, crossed the Omono (which has burst its banks and destroyed its
bridges) by two troublesome ferries, and arrived at Rokugo, a town of 5000
people, with fine temples, exceptionally mean houses, and the most aggressive
crowd by which I have yet been asphyxiated.
There, through the good offices of the police, I
was enabled to attend a Buddhist funeral of a merchant of some wealth.
It interested me very much from its solemnity and decorum, and Ito’s explanations
of what went before were remarkably distinctly given. I went in a Japanese
woman’s dress, borrowed at the tea-house, with a blue hood over my head,
and thus escaped all notice, but I found the restraint of the scanty “tied
forward” kimono very tiresome. Ito gave me many injunctions as to what
I was to do and avoid, which I carried out faithfully, being nervously
anxious to avoid jarring on the sensibilities of those who had kindly permitted
a foreigner to be present.
The illness was a short one, and there had been
no time either for prayers or pilgrimages on the sick man’s behalf. When
death occurs the body is laid with its head to the north (a position that
the living Japanese scrupulously avoid), near a folding screen, between
which and it a new zen is placed, on which are a saucer of oil with a lighted
rush, cakes of uncooked rice dough, and a saucer of incense sticks. The
priests directly after death choose the kaimiyo, or posthumous name, write
it on a tablet of white wood, and seat themselves by the corpse; his zen,
bowls, cups, etc., are filled with vegetable food and are placed by his
side, the chopsticks being put on the wrong, i.e. the left, side of the
zen. At the end of forty-eight hours the corpse is arranged for the coffin
by being washed with warm water, and the priest, while saying certain prayers,
shaves the head. In all cases, rich or poor, the dress is of the usual
make, but of pure white linen or cotton.
At Omagori, a town near Rokugo, large earthenware
jars are manufactured, which are much used for interment by the wealthy;
but in this case there were two square boxes, the outer one being of finely
planed wood of the Retinospora obtusa. The poor use what is called the
“quick-tub,” a covered tub of pine hooped with bamboo. Women are dressed
for burial in the silk robe worn on the marriage day, tabi are placed beside
them or on their feet, and their hair usually flows loosely behind them.
The wealthiest people fill the coffin with vermilion and the poorest use
chaff; but in this case I heard that only the mouth, nose, and ears were
filled with vermilion, and that the coffin was filled up with coarse incense.
The body is placed within the tub or box in the usual squatting position.
It is impossible to understand how a human body, many hours after death,
can be pressed into the limited space afforded by even the outermost of
the boxes. It has been said that the rigidity of a corpse is overcome by
the use of a powder called dosia, which is sold by the priests; but this
idea has been exploded, and the process remains incomprehensible.
Bannerets of small size and ornamental staves were
outside the house door. Two men in blue dresses, with pale blue over-garments
resembling wings received each person, two more presented a lacquered bowl
of water and a white silk crepe towel, and then we passed into a large
room, round which were arranged a number of very handsome folding screens,
on which lotuses, storks, and peonies were realistically painted on a dead
gold ground. Near the end of the room the coffin, under a canopy of white
silk, upon which there was a very beautiful arrangement of artificial white
lotuses, rested upon trestles, the face of the corpse being turned towards
the north. Six priests, very magnificently dressed, sat on each side of
the coffin, and two more knelt in front of a small temporary altar.
The widow, an extremely pretty woman, squatted near
the deceased, below the father and mother; and after her came the children,
relatives, and friends, who sat in rows, dressed in winged garments of
blue and white. The widow was painted white; her lips were reddened with
vermilion; her hair was elaborately dressed and ornamented with carved
shell pins; she wore a beautiful dress of sky-blue silk, with a haori of
fine white crepe and a scarlet crepe girdle embroidered in gold, and looked
like a bride on her marriage day rather than a widow.
Indeed, owing to the beauty of the dresses and the
amount of blue and white silk, the room had a festal rather than a funereal
look. When all the guests had arrived, tea and sweetmeats were passed round;
incense was burned profusely; litanies were mumbled, and the bustle of
moving to the grave began, during which I secured a place near the gate
of the temple grounds.
The procession did not contain the father or mother
of the deceased, but I understood that the mourners who composed it were
all relatives. The oblong tablet with the “dead name” of the deceased was
carried first by a priest, then the lotus blossom by another priest, then
ten priests followed, two and two, chanting litanies from books, then came
the coffin on a platform borne by four men and covered with white drapery,
then the widow, and then the other relatives. The coffin was carried into
the temple and laid upon trestles, while incense was burned and prayers
were said, and was then carried to a shallow grave lined with cement, and
prayers were said by the priests until the earth was raised to the proper
level, when all dispersed, and the widow, in her gay attire, walked home
unattended. There were no hired mourners or any signs of grief, but nothing
could be more solemn, reverent, and decorous than the whole service. [I
have since seen many funerals, chiefly of the poor, and, though shorn of
much of the ceremony, and with only one officiating priest, the decorum
was always most remarkable.] The fees to the priests are from 2 up to 40
or 50 yen. The graveyard, which surrounds the temple, was extremely beautiful,
and the cryptomeria specially fine. It was very full of stone gravestones,
and, like all Japanese cemeteries, exquisitely kept. As soon as the grave
was filled in, a life-size pink lotus plant was placed upon it, and a lacquer
tray, on which were lacquer bowls containing tea or sake, beans, and sweetmeats.
The temple at Rokugo was very beautiful, and, except
that its ornaments were superior in solidity and good taste, differed little
from a Roman church. The low altar, on which were lilies and lighted candles,
was draped in blue and silver, and on the high altar, draped in crimson
and cloth of gold, there was nothing but a closed shrine, an incense-burner,
and a vase of lotuses.
At a wayside tea-house, soon after leaving Rokugo
in kurumas, I met the same courteous and agreeable young doctor who was
stationed at Innai during the prevalence of kak’ke, and he invited me to
visit the hospital at Kubota, of which he is junior physician, and told
Ito of a restaurant at which “foreign food” can be obtained—a pleasant
prospect, of which he is always reminding me.
Traveling along a very narrow road, I as usual first,
we met a man leading a prisoner by a rope, followed by a policeman. As
soon as my runner saw the latter he fell down on his face so suddenly in
the shafts as nearly to throw me out, at the same time trying to wriggle
into a garment which he had carried on the crossbar, while the young men
who were drawing the two kurumas behind, crouching behind my vehicle, tried
to scuttle into their clothes. I never saw such a picture of abjectness
as my man presented. He trembled from head to foot, and illustrated that
queer phrase often heard in Scotch Presbyterian prayers, “Lay our hands
on our mouths and our mouths in the dust.” He literally grovelled in the
dust, and with every sentence that the policeman spoke raised his head
a little, to bow it yet more deeply than before. It was all because he
had no clothes on. I interceded for him as the day was very hot, and the
policeman said he would not arrest him, as he should otherwise have done,
because of the inconvenience that it would cause to a foreigner. He was
quite an elderly man, and never recovered his spirits, but, as soon as
a turn of the road took us out of the policeman’s sight, the two younger
men threw their clothes into the air and gambolled in the shafts, shrieking
with laughter!
On reaching Shingoji, being too tired to go farther,
I was dismayed to find nothing but a low, dark, foul-smelling room, enclosed
only by dirty shoji, in which to spend Sunday. One side looked into a little
mildewed court, with a slimy growth of Protococcus viridis, and into which
the people of another house constantly came to stare. The other side opened
on the earthen passage into the street, where travelers wash their feet,
the third into the kitchen, and the fourth into the front room. Even before
dark it was alive with mosquitoes, and the fleas hopped on the mats like
sand-flies. There were no eggs, nothing but rice and cucumbers. At five
on Sunday morning I saw three faces pressed against the outer lattice,
and before evening the shoji were riddled with finger-holes, at each of
which a dark eye appeared. There was a still, fine rain all day, with the
mercury at 82 degrees, and the heat, darkness, and smells were difficult
to endure. In the afternoon a small procession passed the house, consisting
of a decorated palanquin, carried and followed by priests, with capes and
stoles over crimson chasubles and white cassocks. This ark, they said,
contained papers inscribed with the names of people and the evils they
feared, and the priests were carrying the papers to throw them into the
river.
I went to bed early as a refuge from mosquitoes,
with the andon, as usual, dimly lighting the room, and shut my eyes. About
nine I heard a good deal of whispering and shuffling, which continued for
some time, and, on looking up, saw opposite to me about 40 men, women,
and children (Ito says 100), all staring at me, with the light upon their
faces. They had silently removed three of the shoji next the passage!I
called Ito loudly, and clapped my hands, but they did not stir till he
came, and then they fled like a flock of sheep. I have patiently, and even
smilingly, borne all out-of- doors crowding and curiosity, but this kind
of intrusion is unbearable; and I sent Ito to the police station, much
against his will, to beg the police to keep the people out of the house,
as the house-master was unable to do so. This morning, as I was finishing
dressing, a policeman appeared in my room, ostensibly to apologize for
the behavior of the people, but in reality to have a privileged stare at
me, and, above all, at my stretcher and mosquito net, from which he hardly
took his eyes. Ito says he could make a yen a day by showing them!The policeman
said that the people had never seen a foreigner.
I. L. B.
I arrived here on Monday afternoon by the river
Omono, what would have been two long days’ journey by land having been
easily accomplished in nine hours by water. This was an instance of forming
a plan wisely, and adhering to it resolutely!Firmness in traveling is nowhere
more necessary than in Japan. I decided some time ago, from Mr. Brunton’s
map, that the Omono must be navigable from Shingoji, and a week ago told
Ito to inquire about it, but at each place difficulties have been started.
There was too much water, there was too little; there were bad rapids,
there were shallows; it was too late in the year; all the boats which had
started lately were lying aground; but at one of the ferries I saw in the
distance a merchandise boat going down, and told Ito I should go that way
and no other. On arriving at Shingoji they said it was not on the Omono
at all, but on a stream with some very bad rapids, in which boats are broken
to pieces. Lastly, they said there was no boat, but on my saying that I
would send ten miles for one, a small, flat-bottomed scow was produced
by the Transport Agent, into which Ito, the luggage, and myself accurately
fitted. Ito sententiously observed, “Not one thing has been told us on
our journey which has turned out true!”This is not an exaggeration. The
usual crowd did not assemble round the door, but preceded me to the river,
where it covered the banks and clustered in the trees. Four policemen escorted
me down. The voyage of forty-two miles was delightful. The rapids were
a mere ripple, the current was strong, one boatman almost slept upon his
paddle, the other only woke to bale the boat when it was half-full of water,
the shores were silent and pretty, and almost without population till we
reached the large town of Araya, which straggles along a high bank for
a considerable distance, and after nine peaceful hours we turned off from
the main stream of the Omono just at the outskirts of Kubota, and poled
up a narrow, green river, fringed by dilapidated backs of houses, boat-building
yards, and rafts of timber on one side, and dwelling-houses, gardens, and
damp greenery on the other. This stream is crossed by very numerous bridges.
I got a cheerful upstairs room at a most friendly
yadoya, and my three days here have been fully occupied and very pleasant.
“Foreign food”—a good beef-steak, an excellent curry, cucumbers, and foreign
salt and mustard, were at once obtained, and I felt my “eyes lightened”
after partaking of them.
Kubota is a very attractive and purely Japanese
town of 36,000 people, the capital of Akita ken. A fine mountain, called
Taiheisan, rises above its fertile valley, and the Omono falls into the
Sea of Japan close to it. It has a number of kurumas, but, owing to heavy
sand and the badness of the roads, they can only go three miles in any
direction. It is a town of activity and brisk trade, and manufactures a
silk fabric in stripes of blue and black, and yellow and black, much used
for making hakama and kimonos, a species of white silk crepe with a raised
woof, which brings a high price in Tokyo shops, fusuma, and clogs. Though
it is a castle town, it is free from the usual “deadly-lively” look, and
has an air of prosperity and comfort. Though it has few streets of shops,
it covers a great extent of ground with streets and lanes of pretty, isolated
dwelling-houses, surrounded by trees, gardens, and well-trimmed hedges,
each garden entered by a substantial gateway. The existence of something
like a middle class with home privacy and home life is suggested by these
miles of comfortable “suburban residences.” Foreign influence is hardly
at all felt, there is not a single foreigner in Government or any other
employment, and even the hospital was organized from the beginning by Japanese
doctors.
This fact made me greatly desire to see it, but,
on going there at the proper hour for visitors, I was met by the Director
with courteous but vexatious denial. No foreigner could see it, he said,
without sending his passport to the Governor and getting a written order,
so I complied with these preliminaries, and 8 a.m. of the next day was
fixed for my visit Ito, who is lazy about interpreting for the lower orders,
but exerts himself to the utmost on such an occasion as this, went with
me, handsomely clothed in silk, as befitted an “Interpreter,” and surpassed
all his former efforts.
The Director and the staff of six physicians, all
handsomely dressed in silk, met me at the top of the stairs, and conducted
me to the management room, where six clerks were writing. Here there was
a table, solemnly covered with a white cloth, and four chairs, on which
the Director, the Chief Physician, Ito, and I sat, and pipes, tea, and
sweetmeats, were produced. After this, accompanied by fifty medical students,
whose intelligent looks promise well for their success, we went round the
hospital, which is a large two- storied building in semi-European style,
but with deep verandahs all round. The upper floor is used for class-rooms,
and the lower accommodates 100 patients, besides a number of resident students.
Ten is the largest number treated in any one room, and severe cases are
treated in separate rooms. Gangrene has prevailed, and the Chief Physician,
who is at this time remodeling the hospital, has closed some of the wards
in consequence. There is a Lock Hospital under the same roof. About fifty
important operations are annually performed under chloroform, but the people
of Akita ken are very conservative, and object to part with their limbs
and to foreign drugs. This conservatism diminishes the number of patients.
The odor of carbolic acid pervaded the whole hospital,
and there were spray producers enough to satisfy Mr. Lister!At the request
of Dr. K. I saw the dressing of some very severe wounds carefully performed
with carbolised gauze, under spray of carbolic acid, the fingers of the
surgeon and the instruments used being all carefully bathed in the disinfectant.
Dr. K. said it was difficult to teach the students the extreme carefulness
with regard to minor details which is required in the antiseptic treatment,
which he regards as one of the greatest discoveries of this century. I
was very much impressed with the fortitude shown by the surgical patients,
who went through very severe pain without a wince or a moan. Eye cases
are unfortunately very numerous. Dr. K. attributes their extreme prevalence
to overcrowding, defective ventilation, poor living, and bad light.
After our round we returned to the management room
to find a meal laid out in English style—coffee in cups with handles and
saucers, and plates with spoons. After this pipes were again produced,
and the Director and medical staff escorted me to the entrance, where we
all bowed profoundly. I was delighted to see that Dr. Kayabashi, a man
under thirty, and fresh from Tokyo, and all the staff and students were
in the national dress, with the hakama of rich silk. It is a beautiful
dress, and assists dignity as much as the ill-fitting European costume
detracts from it. This was a very interesting visit, in spite of the difficulty
of communication through an interpreter.
The public buildings, with their fine gardens, and
the broad road near which they stand, with its stone-faced embankments,
are very striking in such a far-off ken. Among the finest of the buildings
is the Normal School, where I shortly afterwards presented myself, but
I was not admitted till I had shown my passport and explained my objects
in traveling. These preliminaries being settled, Mr. Tomatsu Aoki, the
Chief Director, and Mr. Shude Kane Nigishi, the principal teacher, both
looking more like monkeys than men in their European clothes, lionized
me.
The first was most trying, for he persisted in attempting
to speak English, of which he knows about as much as I know of Japanese,
but the last, after some grotesque attempts, accepted Ito’s services. The
school is a commodious Europeanized building, three stories high, and from
its upper balcony the view of the city, with its gray roofs and abundant
greenery, and surrounding mountains and valleys, is very fine. The equipment
of the different class-rooms surprised me, especially the laboratory of
the chemical class-room, and the truly magnificent illustrative apparatus
in the natural science class-room. Ganot’s “Physics” is the text book of
that department.
I. L. B.
My next visit was to a factory of handloom silk-weavers,
where 180 hands, half of them women, are employed. These new industrial
openings for respectable employment for women and girls are very important,
and tend in the direction of a much-needed social reform. The striped silk
fabrics produced are entirely for home consumption.
Afterwards I went into the principal street, and, after a long search through the shops, bought some condensed milk with the “Eagle” brand and the label all right, but, on opening it, found it to contain small pellets of a brownish, dried curd, with an unpleasant taste!As I was sitting in the shop, half stifled by the crowd, the people suddenly fell back to a respectful distance, leaving me breathing space, and a message came from the chief of police to say that he was very sorry for the crowding, and had ordered two policemen to attend upon me for the remainder of my visit. The black and yellow uniforms were most truly welcome, and since then I have escaped all annoyance. On my return I found the card of the chief of police, who had left a message with the house- master apologizing for the crowd by saying that foreigners very rarely visited Kubota, and he thought that the people had never seen a foreign woman.
I went afterwards to the central police station to inquire about an inland route to Aomori, and received much courtesy, but no information. The police everywhere are very gentle to the people,- a few quiet words or a wave of the hand are sufficient, when they do not resist them. They belong to the samurai class, and, doubtless, their naturally superior position weighs with the heimin. Their faces and a certain hauteur of manner show the indelible class distinction. The entire police force of Japan numbers 23,300 educated men in the prime of life, and if 30 per cent of them do wear spectacles, it does not detract from their usefulness. 5600 of them are stationed at Yedo, as from thence they can be easily sent wherever they are wanted, 1004 at Kyoto, and 815 at Osaka, and the remaining 10,000 are spread over the country. The police force costs something over 400,000 pounds annually, and certainly is very efficient in preserving good order. The pay of ordinary constables ranges from 6 to 10 yen a month. An enormous quantity of superfluous writing is done by all officialdom in Japan, and one usually sees policemen writing. What comes of it I don’t know. They are mostly intelligent and gentlemanly-looking young men, and foreigners in the interior are really much indebted to them. If I am at any time in difficulties I apply to them, and, though they are disposed to be somewhat de haut en bas, they are sure to help one, except about routes, of which they always profess ignorance.
On the whole, I like Kubota better than any other Japanese town, perhaps because it is so completely Japanese and has no air of having seen better days. I no longer care to meet Europeans—indeed I should go far out of my way to avoid them. I have become quite used to Japanese life, and think that I learn more about it in traveling in this solitary way than I should otherwise.
I am here still, not altogether because the town
is fascinating, but because the rain is so ceaseless as to be truly “a
plague of immoderate rain and waters.” Travelers keep coming in with stories
of the impassability of the roads and the carrying away of bridges. Ito
amuses me very much by his remarks. He thinks that my visit to the school
and hospital must have raised Japan in my estimation, and he is talking
rather big. He asked me if I noticed that all the students kept their mouths
shut like educated men and residents of Tokyo, and that all country people
keep theirs open. I have said little about him for some time, but I daily
feel more dependent on him, not only for all information, but actually
for getting on. At night he has my watch, passport, and half my money,
and I often wonder what would become of me if he absconded before morning.
He is not a good boy. He has no moral sense, according to our notions;
he dislikes foreigners; his manner is often very disagreeable; and yet
I doubt whether I could have obtained a more valuable servant and interpreter.
When we left Tokyo he spoke fairly good English, but by practice and industrious
study he now speaks better than any official interpreter that I have seen,
and his vocabulary is daily increasing. He never uses a word inaccurately
when he has once got hold of its meaning, and his memory never fails. He
keeps a diary both in English and Japanese, and it shows much painstaking
observation. He reads it to me sometimes, and it is interesting to hear
what a young man who has traveled as much as he has regards as novel in
this northern region. He has made a hotel book and a transport book, in
which all the bills and receipts are written, and he daily transliterates
the names of all places into English letters, and puts down the distances
and the sums paid for transport and hotels on each bill.
He inquires the number of houses in each place from
the police or Transport Agent, and the special trade of each town, and
notes them down for me. He takes great pains to be accurate, and occasionally
remarks about some piece of information that he is not quite certain about,
“If it’s not true, it’s not worth having.” He is never late, never dawdles,
never goes out in the evening except on errands for me, never touches sake,
is never disobedient, never requires to be told the same thing twice, is
always within hearing, has a good deal of tact as to what he repeats, and
all with an undisguised view to his own interest. He sends most of his
wages to his mother, who is a widow—“It’s the custom of the country”—and
seems to spend the remainder on sweetmeats, tobacco, and the luxury of
frequent shampooing.
That he would tell a lie if it served his purpose,
and would “squeeze” up to the limits of extortion, if he could do it unobserved,
I have not the slightest doubt. He seems to have but little heart, or any
idea of any but vicious pleasures. He has no religion of any kind; he has
been too much with foreigners for that. His frankness is something startling.
He has no idea of reticence on any subject; but probably I learn more about
things as they really are from this very defect. In virtue in man or woman,
except in that of his former master, he has little, if any belief. He thinks
that Japan is right in availing herself of the discoveries made by foreigners,
that they have as much to learn from her, and that she will outstrip them
in the race, because she takes all that is worth having, and rejects the
incubus of Christianity. Patriotism is, I think, his strongest feeling,
and I never met with such a boastful display of it, except in a Scotchman
or an American. He despises the uneducated, as he can read and write both
the syllabaries. For foreign rank or position he has not an atom of reverence
or value, but a great deal of both for Japanese officialdom. He despises
the intellects of women, but flirts in a town-bred fashion with the simple
tea-house girls.
He is anxious to speak the very best English, and
to say that a word is slangy or common interdicts its use. Sometimes, when
the weather is fine and things go smoothly, he is in an excellent and communicative
humor, and talks a good deal as we travel. A few days ago I remarked, “What
a beautiful day this is!” and soon after, note-book in hand, he said, “You
say ‘a beautiful day.’Is that better English than ‘a devilish fine day,’
which most foreigners say? ” I replied that it was “common,” and “beautiful”
has been brought out frequently since. Again, “When you ask a question
you never say, ‘What the d-l is it? ’ as other foreigners do. Is it proper
for men to say it and not for women? ” I told him it was proper for neither,
it was a very “common” word, and I saw that he erased it from his note-book.
At first he always used fellows for men, as, “Will you have one or two
FELLOWS for your kuruma? ” “FELLOWS
and women.” At last he called the Chief Physician of the hospital here
a FELLOW, on which I told him that it was slightly slangy, and at least
“colloquial,” and for two days he has scrupulously spoken of man and men.
To-day he brought a boy with very sore eyes to see me, on which I exclaimed,
“Poor little fellow!” and this evening he said, “You called that boy a
fellow, I thought it was a bad word!”The habits of many of the Yokohama
foreigners have helped to obliterate any distinctions between right and
wrong, if he ever made any. If he wishes to tell me that he has seen a
very tipsy man, he always says he has seen “a fellow as drunk as an Englishman.”
At Nikko I asked him how many legal wives a man could have in Japan, and
he replied, “Only one lawful one, but as many others (mekake) as he can
support, just as Englishmen have.” He never forgets a correction. Till
I told him it was slangy he always spoke of inebriated people as “tight,”
and when I gave him the words “tipsy,” “drunk,” “intoxicated,” he asked
me which one would use in writing good English, and since then he has always
spoken of people as “intoxicated.”
He naturally likes large towns, and tries to deter me from taking the “unbeaten tracks,” which I prefer—but when he finds me immovable, always concludes his arguments with the same formula, “Well, of course you can do as you like; it’s all the same to me.” I do not think he cheats me to any extent. Board, lodging, and traveling expenses for us both are about 6s. 6d. a day, and about 2s. 6d. when we are stationary, and this includes all gratuities and extras. True, the board and lodging consist of tea, rice, and eggs, a copper basin of water, an andon and an empty room, for, though there are plenty of chickens in all the villages, the people won’t be bribed to sell them for killing, though they would gladly part with them if they were to be kept to lay eggs. Ito amuses me nearly every night with stories of his unsuccessful attempts to provide me with animal food.
The traveling is the nearest approach to “a ride on a rail” that I have ever made. I have now ridden, or rather sat, upon seventy-six horses, all horrible. They all stumble. The loins of some are higher than their shoulders, so that one slips forwards, and the back-bones of all are ridged. Their hind feet grow into points which turn up, and their hind legs all turn outwards, like those of a cat, from carrying heavy burdens at an early age. The same thing gives them a roll in their gait, which is increased by their awkward shoes. In summer they feed chiefly on leaves, supplemented with mashes of bruised beans, and instead of straw they sleep on beds of leaves. In their stalls their heads are tied “where their tails should be,” and their fodder is placed not in a manger, but in a swinging bucket. Those used in this part of Japan are worth from 15 to 30 yen. I have not seen any overloading or ill- treatment; they are neither kicked, nor beaten, nor threatened in rough tones, and when they die they are decently buried, and have stones placed over their graves. It might be well if the end of a worn-out horse were somewhat accelerated, but this is mainly a Buddhist region, and the aversion to taking animal life is very strong.
I. L. B.
The weather at last gives a hope of improvement,
and I think I shall leave to-morrow. I had written this sentence when Ito
came in to say that the man in the next house would like to see my stretcher
and mosquito net, and had sent me a bag of cakes with the usual bit of
seaweed attached, to show that it was a present. The Japanese believe themselves
to be descended from a race of fishermen; they are proud of it, and Yebis,
the god of fishermen, is one of the most popular of the household divinities.
The piece of seaweed sent with a present to any ordinary person, and the
piece of dried fish-skin which accompanies a present to the Mikado, record
the origin of the race, and at the same time typify the dignity of simple
industry.
Of course I consented to receive the visitor, and
with the mercury at 84 degrees, five men, two boys, and five women entered
my small, low room, and after bowing to the earth three times, sat down
on the floor. They had evidently come to spend the afternoon. Trays of
tea and sweetmeats were handed round, and a labako-bon was brought in,
and they all smoked, as I had told Ito that all usual courtesies were to
be punctiliously performed. They expressed their gratification at seeing
so “honorable” a traveler. I expressed mine at seeing so much of their
“honorable” country. Then we all bowed profoundly. Then I laid Brunton’s
map on the floor and showed them my route, showed them the Asiatic Society’s
Transactions, and how we read from left to right, instead of from top to
bottom, showed them my knitting, which amazed them, and my Berlin work,
and then had nothing left. Then they began to entertain me, and I found
that the real object of their visit was to exhibit an “infant prodigy,”
a boy of four, with a head shaven all but a tuft on the top, a face of
preternatural thoughtfulness and gravity, and the self-possessed and dignified
demeanor of an elderly man. He was dressed in scarlet silk hakama, and
a dark, striped, blue silk kimono, and fanned himself gracefully, looking
at everything as intelligently and courteously as the others. To talk child’s
talk to him, or show him toys, or try to amuse him, would have been an
insult. The monster has taught himself to read and write, and has composed
poetry. His father says that he never plays, and understands everything
just like a grown person. The intention was that I should ask him to write,
and I did so.
It was a solemn performance. A red blanket was laid
in the middle of the floor, with a lacquer writing-box upon it. The creature
rubbed the ink with water on the inkstone, unrolled four rolls of paper,
five feet long, and inscribed them with Chinese characters, nine inches
long, of the most complicated kind, with firm and graceful curves of his
brush, and with the ease and certainty of Giotto in turning his O. He sealed
them with his seal in vermilion, bowed three times, and the performance
was ended. People get him to write kakemonos and signboards for them, and
he had earned 10 yen, or about 2 pounds, that day. His father is going
to travel to Kyoto with him, to see if any one under fourteen can write
as well. I never saw such an exaggerated instance of child worship. Father,
mother, friends, and servants, treated him as if he were a prince.
The house-master, who is a most polite man, procured
me an invitation to the marriage of his niece, and I have just returned
from it. He has three “wives” himself. One keeps a yadoya in Kyoto, another
in Morioka, and the third and youngest is with him here. From her limitless
stores of apparel she chose what she considered a suitable dress for me—an
under-dress of sage green silk crepe, a kimono of soft, green, striped
silk of a darker shade, with a fold of white crepe, spangled with gold
at the neck, and a girdle of sage green corded silk, with the family badge
here and there upon it in gold. I went with the house-master, Ito, to his
disgust, not being invited, and his absence was like the loss of one of
my senses, as I could not get any explanations till afterwards.
The ceremony did not correspond with the rules laid
down for marriages in the books of etiquette that I have seen, but this
is accounted for by the fact that they were for persons of the samurai
class, while this bride and bridegroom, though the children of well-to-do
merchants, belong to the heimin.
In this case the trousseau and furniture were conveyed
to the bridegroom’s house in the early morning, and I was allowed to go
to see them. There were several girdles of silk embroidered with gold,
several pieces of brocaded silk for kimonos, several pieces of silk crepe,
a large number of made-up garments, a piece of white silk, six barrels
of wine or sake, and seven sorts of condiments. Jewelry is not worn by
women in Japan.
The furniture consisted of two wooden pillows, finely
lacquered, one of them containing a drawer for ornamental hairpins, some
cotton futons, two very handsome silk ones, a few silk cushions, a lacquer
workbox, a spinning-wheel, a lacquer rice bucket and ladle, two ornamental
iron kettles, various kitchen utensils, three bronze hibachi, two tabako-bons,
some lacquer trays, and zens, china kettles, teapots, and cups, some lacquer
rice bowls, two copper basins, a few towels, some bamboo switches, and
an inlaid lacquer etagere. As the things are all very handsome the parents
must be well off. The sake is sent in accordance with rigid etiquette.
The bridegroom is twenty-two, the bride seventeen,
and very comely, so far as I could see through the paint with which she
was profusely disfigured. Towards evening she was carried in a norimon,
accompanied by her parents and friends, to the bridegroom’s house, each
member of the procession carrying a Chinese lantern. When the house-master
and I arrived the wedding party was assembled in a large room, the parents
and friends of the bridegroom being seated on one side, and those of the
bride on the other. Two young girls, very beautifully dressed, brought
in the bride, a very pleasing-looking creature dressed entirely in white
silk, with a veil of white silk covering her from head to foot. The bridegroom,
who was already seated in the middle of the room near its upper part, did
not rise to receive her, and kept his eyes fixed on the ground, and she
sat opposite to him, but never looked up. A low table was placed in front,
on which there was a two- spouted kettle full of sake, some sake bottles,
and some cups, and on another there were some small figures representing
a fir-tree, a plum-tree in blossom, and a stork standing on a tortoise,
the last representing length of days, and the former the beauty of women
and the strength of men. Shortly a zen, loaded with eatables, was placed
before each person, and the feast began, accompanied by the noises which
signify gastronomic gratification.
After this, which was only a preliminary, the two
girls who brought in the bride handed round a tray with three cups containing
sake, which each person was expected to drain till he came to the god of
luck at the bottom.
The bride and bridegroom then retired, but shortly
reappeared in other dresses of ceremony, but the bride still wore her white
silk veil, which one day will be her shroud. An old gold lacquer tray was
produced, with three sake cups, which were filled by the two bridesmaids,
and placed before the parents-in-law and the bride. The father-in-law drank
three cups, and handed the cup to the bride, who, after drinking two cups,
received from her father-in- law a present in a box, drank the third cup,
and then returned the cup to the father-in-law, who again drank three cups.
Rice and fish were next brought in, after which the bridegroom’s mother
took the second cup, and filled and emptied it three times, after which
she passed it to the bride, who drank two cups, received a present from
her mother-in-law in a lacquer box, drank a third cup, and gave the cup
to the elder lady, who again drank three cups. Soup was then served, and
then the bride drank once from the third cup, and handed it to her husband’s
father, who drank three more cups, the bride took it again, and drank two,
and lastly the mother-in- law drank three more cups. Now, if you possess
the clear- sightedness which I labored to preserve, you will perceive that
each of the three had imbibed nine cups of some generous liquor! {16}
After this the two bridesmaids raised the two-spouted
kettle and presented it to the lips of the married pair, who drank from
it alternately, till they had exhausted its contents. This concluding ceremony
is said to be emblematic of the tasting together of the joys and sorrows
of life. And so they became man and wife till death or divorce parted them.
This drinking of sake or wine, according to prescribed usage, appeared to constitute the “marriage service,” to which none but relations were bidden. Immediately afterwards the wedding guests arrived, and the evening was spent in feasting and sake drinking; but the fare is simple, and intoxication is happily out of place at a marriage feast. Every detail is a matter of etiquette, and has been handed down for centuries. Except for the interest of the ceremony, in that light it was a very dull and tedious affair, conducted in melancholy silence, and the young bride, with her whitened face and painted lips, looked and moved like an automaton.
I. L. B.