Chapter Chapter 10 · At Mionoseki

. At Mionoseki

Seki wa yoi toko, Asahi wo ukete; O-Yama arashiga Soyo-soyoto! (SONG OF

MIONOSEKI.)

[Seki is a goodly place, facing the morning sun. There, from the holy

mountains, the winds blow softly, softly--soyosoyoto.]

Sec. 1

THE God of Mionoseki hates eggs, hen's eggs. Likewise he hates hens

and chickens, and abhors the Cock above all living creatures. And in

Mionoseki there are no cocks or hens or chickens or eggs. You could not

buy a hen's egg in that place even for twenty times its weight in gold.

And no boat or junk or steamer could be hired to convey to Mionoseki so

much as the feather of a chicken, much less an egg. Indeed, it is even

held that if you have eaten eggs in the morning you must not dare

to visit Mionoseki until the following day. For the great deity of

Mionoseki is the patron of mariners and the ruler of storms; and woe

unto the vessel which bears unto his shrine even the odour of an egg.

Once the tiny steamer which runs daily from Matsue to Mionoseki

encountered some unexpectedly terrible weather on her outward journey,

just after reaching the open sea. The crew insisted that something

displeasing to Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami must have been surreptitiously

brought on board. All the passengers were questioned in vain. Suddenly

the captain discerned upon the stem of a little brass pipe which one of

the men was smoking, smoking in the face of death, like a true Japanese,

the figure of a crowing cock! Needless to say, that pipe was thrown

overboard. Then the angry sea began to grow calm; and the little vessel

safely steamed into the holy port, and cast anchor before the great

torii of the shrine of the god!

Sec. 2

Concerning the reason why the Cock is thus detested by the Great Deity

of Mionoseki, and banished from his domain, divers legends are told;

but the substance of all of them is about as follows: As we read in the

Kojiki, Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, Son of the Great Deity of Kitsuki, was

wont to go to Cape Miho, [1] 'to pursue birds and catch fish.' And for

other reasons also he used to absent himself from home at night, but

had always to return before dawn. Now, in those days the Cock was his

trusted servant, charged with the duty of crowing lustily when it was

time for the god to return. But one morning the bird failed in its duty;

and the god, hurrying back in his boat, lost his oars, and had to paddle

with his hands; and his hands were bitten by the wicked fishes.

Now the people of Yasugi, a pretty little town on the lagoon of

Naka-umi, through which we pass upon our way to Mionoseki, most devoutly

worship the same Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami; and nevertheless in Yasugi

there are multitudes of cocks and hens and chickens; and the eggs of

Yasugi cannot be excelled for size and quality. And the people of Yasugi

aver that one may better serve the deity by eating eggs than by doing as

the people of Mionoseki do; for whenever one eats a chicken or devours

an egg, one destroys an enemy of Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami.

Sec. 3

From Matsue to Mionoseki by steamer is a charming journey in fair

weather. After emerging from the beautiful lagoon of Naka-umi into the

open sea, the little packet follows the long coast of Izumo to the left.

Very lofty this coast is, all cliffs and hills rising from the sea,

mostly green to their summits, and many cultivated in terraces, so as

to look like green pyramids of steps. The bases of the cliffs are very

rocky; and the curious wrinklings and corrugations of the coast suggest

the work of ancient volcanic forces. Far away to the right, over blue

still leagues of sea, appears the long low shore of Hoki, faint as a

mirage, with its far beach like an endless white streak edging the blue

level, and beyond it vapoury lines of woods and cloudy hills, and over

everything, looming into the high sky, the magnificent ghostly shape of

Daisen, snow-streaked at its summit.

So for perhaps an hour we steam on, between Hoki and Izumo; the rugged

and broken green coast on our left occasionally revealing some miniature

hamlet sheltered in a wrinkle between two hills; the phantom coast on

the right always unchanged. Then suddenly the little packet whistles,

heads for a grim promontory to port, glides by its rocky foot, and

enters one of the prettiest little bays imaginable, previously concealed

from view. A shell-shaped gap in the coast--a semicircular basin

of clear deep water, framed in by high corrugated green hills, all

wood-clad. Around the edge of the bay the quaintest of little Japanese

cities, Mionoseki.

There is no beach, only a semicircle of stone wharves, and above these

the houses, and above these the beautiful green of the sacred hills,

with a temple roof or two showing an angle through the foliage. From the

rear of each house steps descend to deep water; and boats are moored at

all the back-doors. We moor in front of the great temple, the Miojinja.

Its great paved avenue slopes to the water's edge, where boats are also

moored at steps of stone; and looking up the broad approach, one sees

a grand stone torii, and colossal stone lanterns, and two magnificent

sculptured lions, karashishi, seated upon lofty pedestals, and looking

down upon the people from a height of fifteen feet or more. Beyond all

this the walls and gate of the outer temple court appear, and beyond

them, the roofs of the great haiden, and the pierced projecting

cross-beams of the loftier Go-Miojin, the holy shrine itself, relieved

against the green of the wooded hills. Picturesque junks are lying in

ranks at anchor; there are two deep-sea vessels likewise, of modern

build, ships from Osaka. And there is a most romantic little breakwater

built of hewn stone, with a stone lantern perched at the end of it;

and there is a pretty humped bridge connecting it with a tiny island on

which I see a shrine of Benten, the Goddess of Waters.

I wonder if I shall be able to get any eggs!

Sec. 4

Unto the pretty waiting maiden of the inn Shimaya I put this scandalous

question, with an innocent face but a remorseful heart:

'Ano ne! tamago wa arimasenka?'

With the smile of a Kwannon she makes reply:-'He! Ahiru-no tamago-ga

sukoshi gozarimasu.'

Delicious surprise!

There augustly exist eggs--of ducks!

But there exist no ducks. For ducks could not find life worth living in

a city where there is only deep-sea water. And all the ducks' eggs come

from Sakai.

Sec. 5

This pretty little hotel, whose upper chambers overlook the water, is

situated at one end, or nearly at one end, of the crescent of Mionoseki,

and the Miojinja almost at the other, so that one must walk through the

whole town to visit the temple, or else cross the harbour by boat. But

the whole town is well worth seeing. It is so tightly pressed between

the sea and the bases of the hills that there is only room for one real

street; and this is so narrow that a man could anywhere jump from the

second story of a house upon the water-side into the second story of

the opposite house upon the land-side. And it is as picturesque as it is

narrow, with its awnings and polished balconies and fluttering figured

draperies. From this main street several little ruelles slope to the

water's edge, where they terminate in steps; and in all these miniature

alleys long boats are lying, with their prows projecting over the edge

of the wharves, as if eager to plunge in. The temptation to take to the

water I find to be irresistible: before visiting the Miojinja I jump

from the rear of our hotel into twelve feet of limpid sea, and cool

myself by a swim across the harbour.

On the way to Miojinja, I notice, in multitudes of little shops,

fascinating displays of baskets and utensils made of woven bamboo. Fine

bamboo-ware is indeed the meibutsu, the special product of Mionoseki;

and almost every visitor buys some nice little specimen to carry home

with him.

The Miojinja is not in its architecture more remarkable than ordinary

Shinto temples in Izumo; nor are its interior decorations worth

describing in detail. Only the approach to it over the broad sloping

space of level pavement, under the granite torii, and between the great

lions and lamps of stone, is noble. Within the courts proper there is

not much to be seen except a magnificent tank of solid bronze, weighing

tons, which must have cost many thousands of yen. It is a votive

offering. Of more humble ex-votos, there is a queer collection in the

shamusho or business building on the right of the haiden: a series of

quaintly designed and quaintly coloured pictures, representing ships

in great storms, being guided or aided to port by the power of

Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami. These are gifts from ships.

The ofuda are not so curious as those of other famous Izumo temples; but

they are most eagerly sought for. Those strips of white paper, bearing

the deity's name, and a few words of promise, which are sold for a few

rin, are tied to rods of bamboo, and planted in all the fields of the

country roundabout. The most curious things sold are tiny packages of

rice-seeds. It is alleged that whatever you desire will grow from these

rice-seeds, if you plant them uttering a prayer. If you desire bamboos,

cotton-plants, peas, lotus-plants, or watermelons, it matters not; only

plant the seed and believe, and the desired crop will arise.

Sec. 6

Much more interesting to me than the ofuda of the Miojinja are the

yoraku, the pendent ex-votos in the Hojinji, a temple of the Zen sect

which stands on the summit of the beautiful hill above the great

Shinto shrine. Before an altar on which are ranged the images of the

Thirty-three Kwannons, the thirty-three forms of that Goddess of Mercy

who represents the ideal of all that is sweet and pure in the Japanese

maiden, a strange, brightly coloured mass of curious things may be

seen, suspended from the carven ceiling. There are hundreds of balls of

worsted and balls of cotton thread of all colours; there are skeins

of silk and patterns of silk weaving and of cotton weaving; there are

broidered purses in the shape of sparrows and other living creatures;

there are samples of bamboo plaiting and countless specimens of

needlework. All these are the votive offerings of school children,

little girls only, to the Maid-mother of all grace and sweetness and

pity. So soon as a baby girl learns something in the way of woman's

work--sewing, or weaving, or knitting, or broidering, she brings her

first successful effort to the temple as an offering to the gentle

divinity, 'whose eyes are beautiful,' she 'who looketh down above the

sound of prayer.' Even the infants of the Japanese kindergarten bring

their first work here--pretty paper-cuttings, scissored out and plaited

into divers patterns by their own tiny flower-soft hands.

Sec. 7

Very sleepy and quiet by day is Mionoseki: only at long intervals one

hears laughter of children, or the chant of oarsmen rowing the most

extraordinary boats I ever saw outside of the tropics; boats heavy as

barges, which require ten men to move them. These stand naked to the

work, wielding oars with cross-handles (imagine a letter T with the

lower end lengthened out into an oar-blade). And at every pull they

push their feet against the gunwales to give more force to the stroke;

intoning in every pause a strange refrain of which the soft melancholy

calls back to me certain old Spanish Creole melodies heard in West

Indian waters:

A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!

The chant begins with a long high note, and descends by fractional

tones with almost every syllable, and faints away a last into an almost

indistinguishable hum. Then comes the stroke, 'Ghi!--ghi!'

But at night Mionoseki is one of the noisiest and merriest little havens

of Western Japan. From one horn of its crescent to the other the fires

of the shokudai, which are the tall light of banquets, mirror themselves

in the water; and the whole air palpitates with sounds of revelry.

Everywhere one hears the booming of the tsudzumi, the little hand-drums

of the geisha, and sweet plaintive chants of girls, and tinkling of

samisen, and the measured clapping of hands in the dance, and the wild

cries and laughter of the players at ken. And all these are but echoes

of the diversions of sailors. Verily, the nature of sailors differs but

little the world over. Every good ship which visits Mionoseki leaves

there, so I am assured, from three hundred to five hundred yen for sake

and for dancing-girls. Much do these mariners pray the Great Deity who

hates eggs to make calm the waters and favourable the winds, so that

Mionoseki may be reached in good time without harm. But having come

hither over an unruffled sea with fair soft breezes all the way,

small indeed is the gift which they give to the temple of the god, and

marvellously large the sums which they pay unto geisha and keepers of

taverns. But the god is patient and long-suffering--except in the matter

of eggs.

However, these Japanese seamen are very gentle compared with our own

Jack Tars, and not without a certain refinement and politeness of their

own. I see them sitting naked to the waist at their banquets; for it

is very hot, but they use their chopsticks as daintily and pledge each

other in sake almost as graciously as men of a better class. Likewise

they seem to treat their girls very kindly. It is quite pleasant

to watch them feasting across the street. Perhaps their laughter is

somewhat more boisterous and their gesticulation a little more vehement

than those of the common citizens; but there is nothing resembling

real roughness--much less rudeness. All become motionless and silent as

statues--fifteen fine bronzes ranged along the wall of the zashiki, [2]

--when some pretty geisha begins one of those histrionic dances which,

to the Western stranger, seem at first mysterious as a performance of

witchcraft--but which really are charming translations of legend and

story into the language of living grace and the poetry of woman's smile.

And as the wine flows, the more urbane becomes the merriment--until

there falls upon all that pleasant sleepiness which sake brings, and

the guests, one by one, smilingly depart. Nothing could be happier or

gentler than their evening's joviality--yet sailors are considered in

Japan an especially rough class. What would be thought of our own roughs

in such a country?

Well, I have been fourteen months in Izumo; and I have not yet heard

voices raised in anger, or witnessed a quarrel: never have I seen one

man strike another, or a woman bullied, or a child slapped. Indeed I

have never seen any real roughness anywhere that I have been in Japan,

except at the open ports, where the poorer classes seem, through

contact with Europeans, to lose their natural politeness, their native

morals--even their capacity for simple happiness.

Sec. 8

Last night I saw the seamen of Old Japan: to-day I shall see those of

New Japan. An apparition in the offing has filled all this little port

with excitement--an Imperial man-of-war. Everybody is going out to look

at her; and all the long boats that were lying in the alleys are already

hastening, full of curious folk, to the steel colossus. A cruiser of the

first class, with a crew of five hundred.

I take passage in one of those astounding craft I mentioned before--a

sort of barge propelled by ten exceedingly strong naked men, wielding

enormous oars--or rather, sweeps--with cross-handles. But I do not go

alone: indeed I can scarcely find room to stand, so crowded the boat

is with passengers of all ages, especially women who are nervous about

going to sea in an ordinary sampan. And a dancing-girl jumps into the

crowd at the risk of her life, just as we push off--and burns her arm

against my cigar in the jump. I am very sorry for her; but she laughs

merrily at my solicitude. And the rowers begin their melancholy

somnolent song: A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!

It is a long pull to reach her--the beautiful monster, towering

motionless there in the summer sea, with scarce a curling of thin smoke

from the mighty lungs of her slumbering engines; and that somnolent song

of our boatmen must surely have some ancient magic in it; for by the

time we glide alongside I feel as if I were looking at a dream. Strange

as a vision of sleep, indeed, this spectacle: the host of quaint

craft hovering and trembling around that tremendous bulk; and all the

long-robed, wide-sleeved multitude of the antique port--men, women,

children--the grey and the young together--crawling up those mighty

flanks in one ceaseless stream, like a swarming of ants. And all this

with a great humming like the humming of a hive,--a sound made up of

low laughter, and chattering in undertones, and subdued murmurs of

amazement. For the colossus overawes them--this ship of the Tenshi-Sama,

the Son of Heaven; and they wonder like babies at the walls and the

turrets of steel, and the giant guns and the mighty chains, and the

stern bearing of the white-uniformed hundreds looking down upon the

scene without a smile, over the iron bulwarks. Japanese those also--yet

changed by some mysterious process into the semblance of strangers.

Only the experienced eye could readily decide the nationality of those

stalwart marines: but for the sight of the Imperial arms in gold, and

the glimmering ideographs upon the stern, one might well suppose one's

self gazing at some Spanish or Italian ship-of-war manned by brown Latin

men.

I cannot possibly get on board. The iron steps are occupied by an

endless chain of clinging bodies--blue-robed boys from school, and old

men with grey queues, and fearless young mothers holding fast to the

ropes with over-confident babies strapped to their backs, and peasants,

and fishers, and dancing-girls. They are now simply sticking there like

flies: somebody has told them they must wait fifteen minutes. So they

wait with smiling patience, and behind them in the fleet of high-prowed

boats hundreds more wait and wonder. But they do not wait for fifteen

minutes! All hopes are suddenly shattered by a stentorian announcement

from the deck: 'Mo jikan ga naikara, miseru koto dekimasen!' The monster

is getting up steam--going away: nobody else will be allowed to come on

board. And from the patient swarm of clingers to the hand-ropes, and

the patient waiters in the fleet of boats, there goes up one exceedingly

plaintive and prolonged 'Aa!' of disappointment, followed by artless

reproaches in Izumo dialect: 'Gun-jin wa uso iwanuka to

omoya!-uso-tsuki dana!--aa! so dana!'

('War-people-as-for-lies-never-say-that-we-thought!--Aa-aa-aa!')

Apparently the gunjin are accustomed to such scenes; for they do not

even smile.

But we linger near the cruiser to watch the hurried descent of the

sightseers into their boats, and the slow ponderous motion of the

chain-cables ascending, and the swarming of sailors down over the bows

to fasten and unfasten mysterious things. One, bending head-downwards,

drops his white cap; and there is a race of boats for the honour of

picking it up. A marine leaning over the bulwarks audibly observes to

a comrade: 'Aa! gwaikojn dana!--nani ski ni kite iru daro?'--The other

vainly suggests: 'Yasu-no-senkyoshi daro.' My Japanese costume does

not disguise the fact that I am an alien; but it saves me from the

imputation of being a missionary. I remain an enigma. Then there are

loud cries of 'Abunail'--if the cruiser were to move now there would

be swamping and crushing and drowning unspeakable. All the little boats

scatter and flee away.

Our ten naked oarsmen once more bend to their cross-handled oars, and

recommence their ancient melancholy song. And as we glide back, there

comes to me the idea of the prodigious cost of that which we went forth

to see, the magnificent horror of steel and steam and all the multiple

enginery of death--paid for by those humble millions who toil for ever

knee-deep in the slime of rice-fields, yet can never afford to eat their

own rice! Far cheaper must be the food they live upon; and nevertheless,

merely to protect the little that they own, such nightmares must be

called into existence--monstrous creations of science mathematically

applied to the ends of destruction.

How delightful Mionoseki now seems, drowsing far off there under its

blue tiles at the feet of the holy hills!--immemorial Mionoseki, with

its lamps and lions of stone, and its god who hates eggs!--pretty

fantastic Mionoseki, where all things, save the schools, are medieval

still: the high-pooped junks, and the long-nosed boats, and the

plaintive chants of oarsmen!

A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!

And we touch the mossed and ancient wharves of stone again: over one

mile of lucent sea we have floated back a thousand years! I turn to look

at the place of that sinister vision--and lo!--there is nothing there!

Only the level blue of the flood under the hollow blue of the sky--and,

just beyond the promontory, one far, small white speck: the sail of a

junk. The horizon is naked. Gone!--but how soundlessly, how swiftly! She

makes nineteen knots. And, oh! Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, there probably

existed eggs on board!