Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Volume II Part 14

Her wrinkled features lighted up with pleasure, as she bowed her thanks to him for those words. And she exclaimed: 'Then indeed all that I hoped and prayed for may be done! Since he thus remembers my poor youth, I beseech my lord to paint me, not as I now am, but as he saw me when I was not old and, as it has pleased him generously to say, not uncomely.

O Master, make me young again! Make me seem beautiful that I may seem beautiful to the soul of him for whose sake I, the unworthy, beseech this! He will see the Master's work: he will forgive me that I can no longer dance.

Once more the Master bade her have no anxiety, and said: 'Come tomorrow, and I will paint you. I will make a picture of you just as you were when I saw you, a young and beautiful shirabyoshi, and I will paint it as carefully and as skilfully as if I were painting the picture of the richest person in the land. Never doubt, but come.'

Sec. 5

So the aged dancer came at the appointed hour; and upon soft white silk the artist painted a picture of her. Yet not a picture of her as she seemed to the Master's pupils but the memory of her as she had been in the days of her youth, bright-eyed as a bird, lithe as a bamboo, dazzling as a tennin [9] in her raiment of silk and gold. Under the magic of the Master's brush, the vanished grace returned, the faded beauty bloomed again. When the kakemono had been finished, and stamped with his seal, he mounted it richly upon silken cloth, and fixed to it rollers of cedar with ivory weights, and a silken cord by which to hang it; and he placed it in a little box of white wood, and so gave it to the shirabyoshi. And he would also have presented her with a gift of money. But though he pressed her earnestly, he could not persuade her to accept his help. 'Nay,' she made answer, with tears, 'indeed I need nothing. The picture only I desired. For that I prayed; and now my prayer has been answered, and I know that I never can wish for anything more in this life, and that if I come to die thus desiring nothing, to enter upon the way of Buddha will not be difficult. One thought .alone causes me sorrow--that I have nothing to offer to the Master but this dancer's apparel, which is indeed of little worth, though I beseech him I to accept it; and I will pray each day that his future life may be a life of happiness, because of the wondrous kindness which I he has done me.'

'Nay,' protested the painter, smiling, 'what is it that I have done?

Truly nothing. As for the dancer's garments, I will accept them, if that can make you more happy. They will bring back pleasant memories of the night I pa.s.sed in your home, when you gave up all your comforts for my unworthy sake, and yet would not suffer me to pay for that which I used; and for that kindness I hold myself to be still in your debt. But now tell me where you live, so that I may see the picture in its place.' For he had resolved within himself to place her beyond the reach of want.

But she excused herself with humble words, and would not tell him, saying that her dwelling-place was too mean to be looked upon by such as he; and then, with many prostrations, she thanked him again and again, and went away with her treasure, weeping for joy.

Then the Master called to one of his pupils: 'Go quickly after that woman, but so that she does not know herself followed, and bring me word where she lives.' So the young man followed her, unperceived.

He remained long away, and when he returned he laughed in the manner of one obliged to say something which it is not pleasant to hear, and he said: 'That woman, O Master, I followed out of the city to the dry bed of the river, near to the place where criminals are executed. There I saw a hut such as an Eta might dwell in, and that is where she lives. A forsaken and filthy place, O Master!'

'Nevertheless,' the painter replied, 'to-morrow you will take me to that forsaken and filthy place. What time I live she shall not suffer for food or clothing or comfort.'

And as all wondered, he told them the story of the shirabyoshi, after which it did not seem to them that his words were strange.

Sec. 6

On the morning of the day following, an hour after sun-rise, the Master and his pupil took their way to the dry bed of the river, beyond the verge of the city, to the place of outcasts.

The entrance of the little dwelling they found closed by a single shutter, upon which the Master tapped many times without evoking a response. Then, finding the shutter unfastened from within, he pushed it slightly aside, and called through the aperture. None replied, and he decided to enter. Simultaneously, with extraordinary vividness, there thrilled back to him the sensation of the very instant when, as a tired.

lad, he stood pleading for admission to the lonesome little cottage among the hills.

Entering alone softly, he perceived that the woman was lying there, wrapped in a single thin and tattered futon, seemingly asleep. On a rude shelf he recognised the butsudan of' forty years before, with its tablet, and now, as then, a tiny lamp was burning in front of the kaimyo. The kakemono of the G.o.ddess of Mercy with her lunar aureole was gone, but on the wall facing the shrine he beheld his own dainty gift suspended, and an ofuda beneath it--an ofuda of Hito-koto-Kwannon [10]-- that Kwannon unto whom it is unlawful to pray more than once, as she answers but a single prayer. There was little else in the desolate dwelling; only the garments of a female pilgrim, and a mendicant's staff and bowl.

But the Master did not pause to look at these things, for he desired to awaken and to gladden the sleeper, and he called her name cheerily twice and thrice.

Then suddenly he saw that she was dead, and he wondered while he gazed upon her face, for it seemed less old. A vague sweetness, like a ghost of youth, had returned to it; the lines of sorrow had been softened, the wrinkles strangely smoothed, by the touch of a phantom Master mightier than he.

CHAPTER EIGHT From Hoki to Oki

Sec. 1

I RESOLVED to go to Oki.

Not even a missionary had ever been to Oki, and its sh.o.r.es had never been seen by European eyes, except on those rare occasions when men-of- war steamed by them, cruising about the j.a.panese Sea. This alone would have been a sufficient reason for going there; but a stronger one was furnished for me by the ignorance of the j.a.panese themselves about Oki.

Excepting the far-away Riu-Kiu, or Loo-Choo Islands, inhabited by a somewhat different race with a different language, the least-known portion of the j.a.panese Empire is perhaps Oki. Since it belongs to the same prefectural district as Izumo, each new governor of Shimane-Ken is supposed to pay one visit to Oki after his inauguration; and the chief of police of the province sometimes goes there upon a tour of inspection. There are also some mercantile houses in Matsue and in other cities which send a commercial traveller to Oki once a year.

Furthermore, there is quite a large trade with Oki--almost all carried on by small sailing-vessels. But such official and commercial communications have not been of a nature to make Oki much better known to-day than in the medieval period of j.a.panese history. There are still current among the common people of the west coast extraordinary stories of Oki much like those about that fabulous Isle of Women, which figures so largely in the imaginative literature of various Oriental races.

According to these old legends, the moral notions of the people of Oki were extremely fantastic: the most rigid ascetic could not dwell there and maintain his indifference to earthly pleasures; and, however wealthy at his arrival, the visiting stranger must soon return to his native land naked and poor, because of the seductions of women. I had quite sufficient experiences of travel in queer countries to feel certain that all these marvellous stories signified nothing beyond the bare fact that Oki was a terra incognita; and I even felt inclined to believe that the average morals of the people of Oki--judging by those of the common folk of the western provinces--must be very much better than the morals of our ignorant cla.s.ses at home.

Which I subsequently ascertained to be the case.

For some time I could find no one among my j.a.panese acquaintances to give me any information about Oki, beyond the fact that in ancient times it had been a place of banishment for the Emperors Go-Daigo and Go-Toba, dethroned by military usurpers, and this I already knew. But at last, quite unexpectedly, I found a friend--a former fellow-teacher--who had not only been to Oki, but was going there again within a few days about some business matter. We agreed to go together. His accounts of Oki differed very materially from those of the people who had never been there. The Oki folks, he said, were almost as much civilised as the Izumo folks: they, had nice towns and good public schools. They were very simple and honest beyond belief, and extremely kind to strangers.

Their only boast was that of having kept their race unchanged since the time that the j.a.panese had first come to j.a.pan; or, in more romantic phrase, since the Age of the G.o.ds. They were all Shintoists, members of the Izumo Taisha faith, but Buddhism was also maintained among them, chiefly through the generous subscription of private individuals. And there were very comfortable hotels, so that I would feel quite at home.

He also gave me a little book about Oki, printed for the use of the Oki schools, from which I obtained the following brief summary of facts:

Sec. 2

Oki-no-Kuni, or the Land of Oki, consists of two groups of small islands in the Sea of j.a.pan, about one hundred miles from the coast of Izumo.

Dozen, as the nearer group is termed, comprises, besides various islets, three islands lying close together: Chiburishima, or the Island of Chiburi (sometimes called Higashinoshima, or Eastern Island); Nishinoshima, or the Western Island, and Nakanoshima, or the Middle Island. Much larger than any of these is the princ.i.p.al island, Dogo, which together with various islets, mostly uninhabited, form the remaining group. It is sometimes called Oki--though the name Oki is more generally used for the whole archipelago. [1]

Officially, Oki is divided into four kori or counties. Chiburi and Nishinoshima together form Chiburigori; Nakanoshima, with an islet, makes Amagori, and Dogo is divided into Ochigori and Sukigori.

All these islands are very mountainous, and only a small portion of their area has ever been cultivated. Their chief sources of revenue are their fisheries, in which nearly the whole population has always been engaged from the most ancient times.

During the winter months the sea between Oki and the west coast is highly dangerous for small vessels, and in that season the islands hold little communication with the mainland. Only one pa.s.senger steamer runs to Oki from Sakai in Hoki In a direct line, the distance from Sakai in Hoki to Saigo, the chief port of Oki, is said to be thirty-nine ri; but the steamer touches at the other islands upon her way thither.

There are quite a number of little towns, or rather villages, in Oki, of which forty-five belong to Dogo. The villages are nearly all situated upon the coast. There are large schools in the princ.i.p.al towns. The population of the islands is stated to be 30,196, but the respective populations of towns and villages are not given.

Sec. 3

From Matsue in Izumo to Sakai in Hoki is a trip of barely two hours by steamer. Sakai is the chief seaport of Shimane-Ken. It is an ugly little town, full of unpleasant smells; it exists only as a port; it has no industries, scarcely any shops, and only one Shinto temple of small dimensions and smaller interest. Its princ.i.p.al buildings are warehouses, pleasure resorts for sailors, and a few large dingy hotels, which are always overcrowded with guests waiting for steamers to Osaka, to Bakkan, to Hamada, to Niigata, and various other ports. On this coast no steamers run regularly anywhere; their owners attach no business value whatever to punctuality, and guests have usually to wait for a much longer time than they could possibly have expected, and the hotels are glad.

But the harbour is beautiful--a long frith between the high land of Izumo and the low coast of Hoki. It is perfectly sheltered from storms, and deep enough to admit all but the largest steamers. The ships can lie close to the houses, and the harbour is nearly always thronged with all sorts of craft, from junks to steam packets of the latest construction.

My friend and I were lucky enough to secure back rooms at the best hotel. Back rooms are the best in nearly all j.a.panese buildings: at Sakai they have the additional advantage of overlooking the busy wharves and the whole luminous bay, beyond which the Izumo hills undulate in huge green billows against the sky. There was much to see and to be amused at. Steamers and sailing craft of all sorts were lying two and three deep before the hotel, and the naked dock labourers were loading and unloading in their own peculiar way. These men are recruited from among the strongest peasantry of Hoki and of Izumo, and some were really fine men, over whose brown backs the muscles rippled at every movement.

They were a.s.sisted by boys of fifteen or sixteen apparently--apprentices learning the work, but not yet strong enough to bear heavy burdens. I noticed that nearly all had bands of blue cloth bound about their calves to keep the veins from bursting. And all sang as they worked. There was one curious alternate chorus, in which the men in the hold gave the signal by chanting 'dokoe, dokoel' (haul away!) and those at the hatch responded by improvisations on the appearance of each package as it ascended:

Dokoe, dokoe!

Onnago no ko da.

Dokoe, dokoe!

Oya dayo, oya dayo.

Dokoe, dokoel Choi-choi da, choi-choi da.

Dokoe, dokoe!

Matsue da, Matsueda.

Dokoe, dokoe!

Koetsumo Yonago da, [20] etc.

But this chant was for light quick work. A very different chant accompanied the more painful and slower labour of loading heavy sacks and barrels upon the shoulders of the stronger men:--

Yan-yui!

Yan-yui!

Yan-yui!

Yan-yui!

Yoi-ya-sa-a-a-no-do-koe-shi! [3]

Three men always lifted the weight. At the first yan-yui all stooped; at the second all took hold; the third signified ready; at the fourth the weight rose from the ground; and with the long cry of yoiyasa no dokoeshi it was dropped on the brawny shoulder waiting to receive it.

Among the workers was a naked laughing boy, with a fine contralto that rang out so merrily through all the din as to create something of a sensation in the hotel. A young woman, one of the guests, came out upon the balcony to look, and exclaimed: 'That boy's voice is RED'--whereat everybody smiled. Under the circ.u.mstances I thought the observation very expressive, although it recalled a certain famous story about scarlet and the sound of a trumpet, which does not seem nearly so funny now as it did at a time when we knew less about the nature of light and sound.

The Oki steamer arrived the same afternoon, but she could not approach the wharf, and I could only obtain a momentary glimpse of her stern through a telescope, with which I read the name, in English letters of gold--OKI-SARGO. Before I could obtain any idea of her dimensions, a huge black steamer from Nagasaki glided between, and moored right in the way.