Sakurambō

Preface

In travelling through the highways and byways of a country there are many questions which present themselves, and which we try to answer on the facts familiar to us of our own present and .past, require a resume of the authorities to which recourse was had so numerously sprinkled over the land of Japan, naturally these questions come up, to which, with this secretive Oriental people, it is difficult to find an answer. The material of this book is largely made of personal impressions gained by four years of travel through its countryside. For the opinions here expressed, only the writer is responsible. The facts, dealing in some cases with the past, require a resume of the authorities to which recourse was had: to obtain such facts.

I would therefore mention, in connection with Chapter IV., Klaproth's translation of the O Dai IcJiirau, a Japanese dry-as-dust chronicle compiled about the middle of the seventeenth century, and carried down to 1818 by Klaproth himself; "Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan," by Simmons and VVigmore, and " Private Law in Old Japan," by Wigmore, especially his introduction. The first-mentioned is published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. XIX., Part I. ; the second, in Vol. XX., the Supplements. Also, mention should be made of Dr. Knox's translation of the Hyd-chu-ori of Arai Hakuseki (Vol. XXX., Part II., of the Transactions) ; also of Professor Dropper's "Population of the Tokugawa Period" (Vol. XX., Part II., of the Transactions). As to Chapter VI.. I would refer to " Ancestor Worship and Japanese Law," by Professor Nubushigi Hozumi, and to Mr. J. H. Gubbin's introduction to and translation of the civil code dealing with the Family in Japan ; also to Professor Pasquale Villari's chapters on the Feudal System in Italy and Rise of the Communes, in his " History of Florence ; " also^ to the " Institutions Politiques du Japon," by Theophile Collier. As to Chapter

PREFACE

VII., Mr. A. G. Lay's paper on " Political Parties in Japan " was consulted (Transactions, Vol. XXX., Part III.), as also authorities more specifically referred to in the text. As to Chapter VIII., in addition to the foot-note placed at the beginning of the chapter, I would add Mr. L. H. Parker's " Race Struggles in Korea " (Transactions, Vol. XVIIL, Part II.), and Mr. W. G. Aston's " Early History of Japan " (Transactions, Vol. XVI.).

The foreign newspapers published in Japan are also a valuable source of material. These contain the impressions and experiences of men resident for many years in the country. Many special articles are so contributed, especially to the Japan Times (published by Japanese, in English) and the Japan Daily Mail, the latter of which has a monthly summary of the religious and native press, covering the widest range of subjects. Histories of Japan are numerous. That of Murdoch and Yamagata is a philosophical discussion based on the original documents of the period from the times of Nobunaga to the death of lyeyasu. Of those covering the whole period of Japanese history from legendary to modern times, mention should be made of Murray's " History," in the Story of Nations series, and " The Mikado's Empire," by Doctor Griffis.

In dealing with so many subjects covering a wide field there is ample room for an equally wide divergence of opinion. In the laws of Shotoku Taishi it is said : " Be not angered with others on account of disagreement of opinion. Each one may have a different point of view, and may therefore come to a different conclusion." All that can be asked is sincerity, and this is claimed for the present volume. And one word as to the title. The cherry-blossom, as is known, is distinctly the national flower of Japan. The tree is cultivated with reference to the beautiful spring bloom, when for a few days the groves are a sight of exquisite beauty. Sakura is the term usually applied to the tree itself, as we say '' the cherry " meaning the cherry-tree. It enters into many combinations : Sakurabana, the cherry-blossom ; sakuraka, the delicate odour of the blossom ; sakiiragari, the excursions to see the blossoms ; and so we pass on to the fruit of the tree — Sakuramho.

Omarudani, August 7, 1905.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I.— FROM MY JAPANESE GARDEN .... 1

III.— IWASHIRO WAY. . . . . . .70

II

" High in the air the rock its summit shrouds In brooding tempests, and in rolling clouds ; Loud storms around, and mists eternal rise, Beat its bleak brow and intercept the skies."

— Odyssey (Pope's translation.)

One of the pleasantest features of Japanese character is its contentment. I do not mean that contentment which is associated with a sort of vegetable existence too lazy or too stupid to want to move out of its environment. Japanese content is far from any relation with such a phase ; but, on the contrary, it is the strongest evidence of the completeness with which the people as a whole have entered into the inward meaning and spirit of their surroundings. Now this artistic sympathy with their nature environment is not inborn in a race. It is a sign of age. The young pioneer nations have not the time to feel that sympathy with Nature that is found in an older civilization. Nature to them is unsubdued, and it is part of their daily labour to contend with her. The American pioneer could hardly be expected to look with unadulterated pleasure on the forests of the Miami and Monongahela. His object was to establish a home, and to him those forests represented the hardest labour in clearing them away. A wearisome monotonous course of felling, stumping, splitting, and hauling by main force so many thousand feet of timber in order to get at the ground and make it produce for him his daily bread. It was the trapper and explorer that could find time and inclination to appreciate the " murmuring pine and the hemlock." The husbandman on the contrary heard with joy of the rolling plains of Kansas and Nebraska, with few trees but those found in the river bottoms, and miles of prairie grass to feed and fatten his cattle. The

Japanese have long finished their contest with Nature in the rough, and this has taken on that sleepy immobility that is found in a top — " movement internal, rest external." The result has been that Nature has passed from the stage of being an active enemy, to that of a friend whose every peculiarity is known by long acquaintance. There is all the charm associated with intimate knowledge and pride of conscious superiority. Now this completeness with which Nature arouses and satisfies the aesthetic feelings has never reached the same development in the West that it has among the Japanese. Elaboration is the keynote, the entrance on the scene of more or less of the strictly human element, and a village of cafes, beer gardens, and hotels, with or without music, is certain to spring up around any great attraction of Nature until it is hard to tell which draws the crowd — Nature or the beer garden. So with the theiatre. The cost of production is growing to be a more important feature in the advertising than the play itself, and as the manager knows or tries to know his public, it is fair to assume that he judges it accurately for the benefit of his own pocket. The Japanese have as yet taken but a short step on this road, although likely to go further as time goes on. At present the tea house in its development is distinctly the merest adjunct to the attraction, a re.st, house not an object in itself. With all the means of amusement that are foun^ among the Japanese as among other peoples — music, dancing, pantomime, the stage, character sketches and story telling — the Japanese never mix them with natural scenery. Margate and Coney Island are found at Asakusa, not across the river at Mukojima where the crowds of people go in April to view the cherry-blossoms.

Mukojima and a host of other places it can be said is an instance of the fact that the Japanese appreciate colour in mass, for it is common to see it stated that to them the highest form of enjoyment of flowers is the single spray appropriately arranged in a vase. This has indeed been brought to a fine art. Perhaps when the Japanese woman is " emancipated " it will be found that the time now devoted to training in such subjects as flower arrangemerit and the tea ceremony will have to be curtailed and devoted to studies which will put her more on a par with man, to whom she will be not only wife but companion. It is undoubtedly the case that the western woman has not reached her present development without sacrificing something. There are only twenty-four hours in the day, and much of that is required by the simple necessity of ordinary living. But it is a question as to what is going to be of more value to the race; the tea ceremony or a course in hygiene as applied to the household; the arrangement of flowers or the ability to hold her own in that general- social life which is bound to come even in Japan. After all, both tea ceremony and flower arrangement have reached their highest development and are now living on their past reputation. The period of seclusion has passed away and new duties require a new training. As Europe treasures its old traditions and bewails the decadence of these present days in all the finer qualities of man's nature, so the Japanese will cling to their old traditions and masterwork, retain as much of the old as conditions allow, and gradually replace it with the new. Doubtless a millennium from now our descendants will equally be able to look back on arts which seem lost to them. The present age may not be very fruitful from the aesthetic point of view but periods of great material and political activity rarely are so. Man's mind after all is limited. Leaders are rare. This is an age of science and of politics, lines are changing rapidly in both spheres, and the mental material available to guide these changes is mainly occupied in that direction. Whether the Japanese will ever come to our " hideous bouquets " so often held up to derision is doubtful. The said bouquet is largely a back number now in the West and rarely figures except at weddings and funerals and the debutante's first plunge into the social world. The Japanese lack the one flower which is really effective in that form, the rose. No westerner will admit any standing to the Japanese " hara " and it is not at all surprising that the Japanese have very little regard for it themselves. The rose is a strictly western flower. Whether as a single masterpiece — the " American Beauty " — arranged a la

S6 SAKURAMBO

Japonaise on a maiden's bosom, or en masse covering a whole house as seen in southern Cahfornia, it outrivals any flower in the East in grace and beauty and fragrance. No more can be asked of the flower than the combination of these three qualities. It does not seem possible to acclimate the plant in Japan. Like western fruit, the stock soon degenerates, perhaps on account of the peculiar distribution of heat and moisture. The Japanese, however, do enjoy colour in mass as shown by the many flower shows based on just such effect. In May crowds of people flock to the Hon jo district in Tokyo to see the peony show, the effect depending largely on the massing of the plants which are of the most varied shades of colour. In the middle of May Kameido is at its best, the wisteria blossoms reaching the length of a yard or more. Still later in early June and in the same district the iris gardens are ready to display a wonderful variety of shade of the double iris. All this pleasure the Japanese gets at little cost. His country is one of the most picturesque in the world. Every hillside on the coast gives a charming vista of sea, mountain, and archipelago. He goes picnicking for the flowers and the view, not for the beer, or the merrygo-rounds, the shoot-the-chutes, that the time and money available will allow him. He not only wants to enjoy himself, but he wants to enjoy the view, and the latter is inextricably involved as the chief feature of ike outing. This characteristic it is to be hoped they will long retain.

Apart from the flower shows Hon jo presents but little other attraction. It is mainly a collection of small houses inhabited by fishermen and artisans and whenever plague or cholera visits Tokyo it is pretty sure that Hon jo has or will have a hand in it. However it contains a railway station, not absolutely necessary but still presenting great advantages over Uyeno for reaching- the country directly east of the great city. For several years I had been looking over the bay at the misty blue range of hills on the other side, of which Nokogiriyama and Kanozan are the most distinctive features. In legendary days of yore those blue intervening waters had witnessed the self-sacrifice of the Princess Oto-

Tachibana, wife of Yamato-take the hero, then on his mission against the hairy men of the North ; traits of character that show that her sex has changed but Httle in these many years. Later it w^as among those hills that Yoritomo, first of the Minamoto Shoguns, sought refuge, and. in fact Boshu, or Awa, seems to have been the refuge of those whose political fortunes were under a cloud. Nowadays there is no particular reason to take anyone there. The guide book speaks of it pleasantly but slightingly as a nice winter trip in which such phenomena as flowers and naked people were to be seen in December. Not at all wonderful as to the display, but as to season and about which I was somewhat sceptical withal for I had been led one winter to Atami, in part by the deceptive orange groves to be seen growing all through the countryside. The Japanese orange however I found to be a broken reed as an indicator of climate. The local orange grower does not sit up at nights losing sleep over cold snaps and providing steam heat and wood fires for his trees. The tree has a supreme indifference to frost or to snow and the sun comes out on the winter days to warm everything into life only to be locked up again in a zero temperature at nightfall. The ultimate result of this erratic treatment for a tree so delicate as the orange is a fruit of the mandarin size, sweet with a pleasant tart twang.

With these cold winter nights of Atami therefore in mind I postponed my visit to this " shadowy land of Avilion " until the w'armer weather of spring made Japanese inns less of a winter campaign in the open. Hence the first of May found me at Hon jo station with a minimum of luggage and also of expectation, for little was anticipated beyond pleasant valleys, rice-fields laid out in checkerboards between low hills, and native villages recalling some unfortunate town which has long ago been wiped out by fire and rebuilt temporarily, only the inhabitants have forgotten or. been toO' busy to rebuild in a more substantial manner. Leaving Honjo this anticipation was realized ; low hills to the left and the wide expanse of paddy fields to the right pleasantly varied at times by glimpses of the bay. As Ohara, the present jumping-off place of the railway, is approached the hills become a feature. Travel is Very light on this section as most of the traffic is diverted at Chiba to go toward Narita and the villages near the mouth of the Tamagawa. At present the Ohara line is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, the terminus being a tiny place, but with some little inns at which one can put up for the night if a sunrise start is desired down the coast. I managed to rout out a kuruniaya, a most ancient man who seemed to drop some present occupation to take me and my furniture part of the ten miles to Katsuura. The road was mainly good, the hills pleasing to the eye and much as in the neighbourhood of Kamakura, and some touch of interest was found in a traveller bound to Tokyo — a large maguro fish, some ten or twelve feet in length, riding in state and pushed along by a crowd of joyful fishermen.

A good haul, for such a fish I was told was worth a hundred yen to the Tokyo market. My ojisan (honourable old gentleman) left me to my own devices at the half-way stage, a knruinaya rest house at the point where the road reaches the sea. This place was better supplied and soon I was bowling along with a pushman in addition, through fishing villages and tunnels with slices of road interspersed and which seemed to improve with its distance from metropolitan life. It was getting toward night and the fishermen were already pushing off and putting to sea for the night's work. Ten to twenty men to a boat, naked to a breech clout, shouting and chanting, pushing and tugging, but with very little misdirected effort. Old men and children watched the process and the gay pictured kimonos, seen in scattered cases through the " treaty ports," were here the general outfit. Women seemed to be otherwise engaged as they were conspicuous by their absence, the group of watchers being almost entirely men. I cannot say that my welcome at my inn at Katsuura was a warm one. This is one of the accidents of travelling in unfrequented corners and even then is of rare occurrence. Misgivings as to chadai or tea money I think have little to do with it, for the innkeepers usually charge foreigners on a separate scale and incidentally get chadai in addition. There is perhaps an unwillingness to break the routine to cater to the possible idiosyncrasies of the foreigner which they do not understand and yet in the satisfaction of which they do not want to fail.

Again, the presence of a foreigner is ahvays a matter of curiosity in out of the way places and curiosity is not always pleasant to either innkeeper or his guests. Also, as is not unknown in the West, there are inns that wish to confine their custom to the native, The foreigner is only an occasional item in their clientele, unprofitable and perhaps annoying. There is moreover another complication for the innkeeper. The places of public resort are peculiarly under the thumb of the police, and they wish no trouble from that quarter, the simplest method therefore being that of avoidance. The .presence of a foreigner in a place is particularly noted. On application to the police, if it is feasible at all, the foreign traveller can get placed for the very good reason that his source of introduction is unimpeachable. If, however, he is taken in without question and trouble subsequently arises, the innkeeper is liable to an overhauling and his compliance with all the formalities gone into by very hypercritical judges seeking a scapegoat. Travel could be so hampered by a simple hint from headquarters to refuse accommodation that the country would practically be as close as before the revision of the Treaties. It happens therefore that it is necessary at times to make one's way good, and on such occasions once ensconced in the inn to lose all knowledge even fragmentary of the native tongue. In time they will cease dangling before the eyes of the obtuse foreigner the different means of exit from the town, and leave him alone much as one lets time and a burly canine planted on his premises take their course in due season. It can be added that it is no small matter in such cases to get ensconced behind the shoji. A favourable condition due simply to the innkeeper's hesitating frame of mind. In the morning my hosts and I parted company on rather cold terms. I stuffed away in available pockets the little book and towel which formed part of the external expression of our mutual forbearance toward each other and much etiquette was wasted on both sides. They certainly fulfilled all the duties of a host and made a good bargain for me with the kunmiaya who were to take me onward as far as Ho jo that night. Nothing more than that can fairly be asked of any inn.

It was beyond Katsuura that the pleasantness of the surprise of this new district came upon me. So near Yokohama, here was a place of which people seemed to know little and care less. From Katsuura to Matsuda was a succession of landscapes, cape after cape stretching into the ocean. In the intervening valleys the road ran beside the sea and through the fishing villages. Then it would ascend some narrow valley, gradually working its way into a sort of cul-de-sac and then plunging through a tunnel, giving on the further side a picture of land, sea, and rice-field, set as it were in a natural frame. From Katsuura and almost to Kamogawa the coast was of a bold character. The road, a sort of Corniche road, was cut in the face of the cliffs, and ran along at times several hundred feet sheer above the sea. There are places along this stretch, at the narrow turns on the face of the cliff, that must carry no little danger in a heavy gale to vehicles and even to men. The road is narrow and without any protection whatever. Standing on such a headland one looks far down the coast to Cape Nojima and often just at one's feet and filling the width of a narrow valley lies a jumble of roofs, a fishing village notable in these parts for cleanliness. So it goes on over a fairly good highway, up and down, through the little valleys and around the faces of the cliffs in picturesque alternation. It is not always plain sailing however. The tunnels are very numerous and sometimes undergoing repair. A stiff climb over one took me to the Nichiren temple at Kominato,- where I had to wait until my kurumaya arranged for our future progress, for the original kitruma could not be " toted " up the steep footway.

The site of this temple is the very dubious place of the saint's birth ; the supposed original being under water as the coast is losing to the sea on this side. He has gained by the transfer, for it is the most picturesque spot in the neighbourhood. The lack of any obtrusively Japanese vegetation on the scene gave it a touch of resemblance to our western world. A well-kept shaded road, the " God's acre " with its temple outhne only dimly shadowed among the large trees and the low wall surrounding the whole, recalled in a way a scene often met with on the outskirts of some of our country villages which have gone to sleep for the past sixty years or more and have never grown up to and around the old church placed on its outskirts. An excellent luncheon at the Yoshidaya at Kamogawa marked the end of this more picturesque section of the day's ride. Changing men I soon reached Matsuda, at which point the road cuts across the peninsula to Ho jo, a distance of about eight miles. Matsuda afforded another pleasant surprise. Japanese towns are not conspicuous by their attractiveness. In fact they are unusually commonplace and ugly, the graceful curves of the roofs being the only redeeming feature. But Matsuda recalls all the pleasing greenness of an English lane. The houses are hidden behind hedges and there is a long vista of green looking down the town. Passing under this archway of trees soon brings one again into open country, broader valleys and rice-fields broken up by fantastic hills, and over a splendid road by which my kurumaya, covering the eight miles in a trifle over an hour, landed me at the Kimuraya of Hojo.

These excellent inns in such an out of the way corner as this edge of Boshu have a reason for their being. At this May season Hojo was empty, but the land has a reputation in the Japanese world for mildness in winter and for bathing in summer. Many of the quieter people of the better class of Tokyo make a yearly pilgrimage hitherward. Only one remnant still clung to the Kimuraya at this off season. A venerable old gentleman who was accompanied by quite a large family, some of the younger members of which must have been granddaughters, although a Japanese retires from life and takes on the appearance of Ojisan so early that it is easy to mistake the second for the third generation. Japanese and western social life often touch at some unexpected point. I do not refer to the receptions, balls, and dinners given in foreign style in Tokyo, where men and women meet on terms akin, in outward seeming anyhow., to western usage; but to the social life as carried on independent of any but native usages. Women have their outside interests, their circles and societies for reHef of the poor, interests of school girls, hospital service, study of poetry, needlework, and a dozen and one other social objects. In the relation of women with women the social life is free enough or could be made so without opposition from any source, personal or conventional. In the home circle the relations between the sexes is free enough. The older women join freely in conversation; the younger, as they do or should do elsewhere, do not volunteer information until they are asked. Visiting perhaps is not so general as with us even among the women, being largely between families related in some way by marriage or blood, and there is no such concession shown to youth as represented by social functions which are mainly devoted to the pleasure of the young, and which are conspicuously a feature of Anglo-Saxon life. The Japanese father does not stand around cooling his head and his heels until the sun rises, while some young daughter wearies herself out with dancing and flirtation; both to return home, she to sleep until midday, and he to go to his office at nine o'clock.

The main feature of European life, the formal social intercourse between the sexes, is the feature that is lacking in Japanese life. External social life of course exists but is confined to men, moving much on th§ same plane as in the West, only granting difference in national taste and always apart from the home. Formal dinners and any such features of social life are confined to the tea house. There it is that the Japanese seeks to entertain his friends in sittings that last for hours, and on such occasions appear the only touch of femininity that is allowable in such public life — the geisha. This little creature is a product that it is extremely hard to classify because western life has nothing exactly to correspond. Her training is entirely directed in wit and accomplishments — dancing, singing and playing various musical instruments^ — toward pleasing men, and not only men but she must gauge the tastes of her particular employers at the time. The dancing and singing is but part of her " business." It is the " coffee and repartee," so to speak, between these intervals of the entertainment, the more intimate chatter, that is the attractive feature. In some ways she could be compared to the chorus girl of the western stage only the after-theatre life of the latter is purely her private affair, whereas with the geisha it is the main part of her function as entertainer. The comparison it can be said is, from an artistic point of view, hardly fair to the geisha who is a product of a very high and specialized training which raises her to that plane where the symbolism in her art in dancing (posturing) and singing calls in full play a species of elaborate mental aesthetics — a feature certainly far from being connected with the chorus of the comic opera stage which appeals purely to the eye. In some features she forms what might be called the demi-mondaine of Japan, but here again one would never think of her in connection wath Sappho, ancient or modern. Charming and witty as she often is, it is more as child than as woman ; a plaything for idle hours, not a steel that can flash out brilliants when the occasion calls for it, and the tragedy so often thrown across Sappho's path rarely figures in that of the geisha. There is one ground on which she and her western sister of the night life of great cities meet. Both are equally looked down on and envied by the rest of their sex for their life, apparently one of gay careless freedom. Fashions in Paris first appear on the boulevards and geisha deeds and misdeeds are constantly on the tongue of Japanese women ; and any good Japanese woman would resent being taken for a geisha, although she would speak warmly of her beauty and her dancing.

After all that a few gentlemen should meet for eating, drinking, and otherwise disporting themselves adds but little to the general life of a people. The brilliant night life of great European and American cities is not found in Japan. Matsuris or temple festivals, really fairs, are very small change compared to the panorama of cosmopolitan life that streams along the boulevards of Paris. For this the sexlessness of public life is responsible. Men have their clubs based on all sorts of objects, useful or otherwise, as are clubs in the West. Political clubs abound and, as politics are warm in Japan, new clubs are constantly in formation by a sort of fissile process. Scientific associations hold meetings on all sorts of subjects. The Japanese is by no means unclubbable. Quite the contrary. He does not seem to be able to get along without his kind. But women cutting no figure in man's public life, our general panorama of society is unknown. Now man (specific) is far more given to sensual pleasure than woman, and there is more particular application to him of the saying that " his god is his belly." It is no difficult matter to prove this, for the increasing influence of woman in social life has been accompanied by the retirement of the kitchen to the rear of the house. In the good old Saxon days, and long after, our ancestors used mainly to devote themselves to eating and drinking. Dinner began early and lasted pretty much all day. The great hall or dining room was the room of the house, and manners were such that woman generally had to disappear from the feast long before it got a good start.