If reports are true, no one will ever again see Fujiyama as first I saw it. The day was cold and the early morning haze hid the rapidly rising shore. Dead ahead of the China’s plunging stem a tiny smudge of darker gray loomed through the mist, the lazy smoke of Okoshima, the island volcano off Yoko¬hama Harbor. An impatient small boy, less interested in the Japan that lay behind the haze than in the naval officer father which it somewhere concealed, I had been awake at dawn, and for nearly an hour had been staring through the portholes of the upper saloon when the haze lifted, and my breath left me in a long, audible gasp. The shore was not yet in sight, but up in the sky apparently without support hung the glittering blue-white cone of Fuji San. How long I stared I do not know. I have absolutely no recollection of moving from my bench, of breakfast, of the gradually rising coastline. In my memory there is nothing between that first wonder-sight of Fujiyama and the sudden glimpse of my father coming up the gangway ladder three steps at a time. To this day I do not know what the harbor entrance looks like from the outside, for the great white mountain has had all my attention at the beginning and the end of every visit.
All who have seen Yokohama will know the advantages from a small boy’s point of view of the rooms engaged for us. They were in the Grand Hotel, of course. The Bluff and the Oriental were not yet in existence. They were on the ground floor, and in the exact corner of the Canal and the Bund, or harbor-front. All Yokohama, permanent or transient, went past my window at speaking distance. Every fishing boat that poled up the Canal was close enough for the fishermen to shout a shrill “O-hai-o, chisai!” to the tow-haired youngster on the window-ledge. Troops of dusty pilgrims nearly at the end of a long foot journey to the Motomachi Temple would stop under that window to stare at my white pompadour and remain to pass the time of day. The little policeman who patrolled that part of the Bund sometimes found leisure to play ball with me; for this was more than thirty years ago, and even American children had the key to the heart of Japan, the children’s paradise.
There were many children in the hotel, but few of them ap¬pealed to me as playmates,—I had too many others, more inter¬esting. Aside from the policeman, who taught me intricate new versions of “cat’s cradle,” there was the waiter who now and then laid up my napkin into a lifelike sprawling frog with red-currant eyes, or dropped “midzu-hana” into my finger bowl,—thin, dry sticks that grew as they touched the water into gorgeous branch¬ing flowers, fierce samurai with hand on swordhilt, or gaudily colored fishes.
Outside the main entrance of the hotel, on the Bund, one of some thirty jinrikisha-men who made up the stand, I could usually find my bosom friend Shima. He first attracted my at¬tention because he alone of the entire rank was not dressed in blue. His jacket was the color of red clay and his running trunks were of burlap. I choose him for my runner for the first jin- rikisha journey I ever took, and thereafter each considered the other his especial property. It was Shima who helped me scramble down the sloping seawall at low tide and who taught me the proper flick of the wrist which sent flat stones and clamshells skipping over the water. It was Shima who would whistle on slack days when traffic was light and his turn in rank a long time ahead; and I would drop anything in hand and run out to climb into his jinrikisha, and we would start on an exploring tour. He would trot to the curio shops and with our two noses against the glass of the window, we would exchange languages. “Hibachi!” he would cry with pointing finger. “Hibachi!” I would reply, “Fire-pot!” “Fi-eyah paw!” Shima would chuckle trium¬phantly.
It was Shima who perpetrated the chief waterfront witticism of the year. We were taking a long trip through the hills, and as my father is a large man, it was necessary for him to have two men, a “pully-man,” and a “push-man.” I weighed perhaps forty-five pounds at the time, but I could not be outdone in style, so to Shima, who pulled, there was added Joe (spelled “Jeyo” on his hat) who pushed. Toward the end of the afternoon, we reached a short but very steep hill, and father’s men broke un¬consciously into the chant of the heavily loaded cartmen, “Hoi! Hoi!” alternately, keeping time to the thrust of their feet. They chanted under their breath, but loud enough for Shima, who was pulling with one hand, to hear. With a wide grin, Shima swung into the full-throated chorus, “Howda! Huda!” he intoned. Jeyo, who was pushing with one finger, chimed in. “Howda! Howdida, Huda!” My father’s men blushed crimson, but the rest of the journey was uproarious with the chantey of Shima and Jeyo. For days and weeks afterward, they would begin the refrain whenever I perched my small self in Shima’s cart, and they never failed to receive enthusiastic applause from the passers-by.
All the busy Motomachi was mine to play with. At every chance, I would scamper across the Canal bridge and into that narrow thoroughfare of wonders, there to spend an hour or so deciding what to do with the two or three copper coins in the pocket of my “regulation” overshirt. Sometimes it was a sword with silver-papered wooden blade that really pulled out of its red scabbard. Rarely (for my mother did not approve of the flies and sweet dust clustered on it) it was “midzu-ami,” the pale, brownish sugar candy peculiar to Japan; but oftenest of all, it was what my sister and I called “surprises.” These were tightly sealed clam shells of sweetened flour paste, one side pink and the other side white. After the first nibble, nothing could have induced us to eat the things; but once broken, something was always found inside, a tiny teapot, a doll, or a package of water flowers. One never knew what was inside until the shell was broken; and by some unwritten law, it became unsportsmanlike to break them until after reaching home.
At the head of the Motomachi stood (and I hope still stands), the Motomachi Temple, drowsing at the top of its long flight of steps. This temple has always been famous for silk paintings; but I remember little beyond its two points of attraction for me, the “traveler’s god” and my friend the priest. One led to the other. The god, swathed in brilliant red and blue rags, stood outside, and each pilgrim as he passed would throw a pebble. If the pebble glanced off the image, the journey would be hard. If it caught in the ragged draperies and did not fall, the thrower was protected against becoming footsore. I contemplated no journeys afoot,—was there not Shima ready and waiting?-—but I could never pass those steps without throwing my pebble. One day as I skilfully tossed a stone into the god’s sleeve, a new voice spoke, “O-hai-o, chisai!” (Good-morning, little fellow!) The thin gray priest I had sometimes noticed before was standing behind me with the smile that Japan reserves for children. I promptly answered “O-hai-o, gozarimasu!” and together we sat on the steps and began our first heart-to-heart talk. His name I never learned, but he was born to be a grandfather. He knew more fairy stories than even Gin San of the Hundred Steps. That jolly lady has been “written up” too often for me to depict her again; so I will only say that we children also knew O Gin San, no older, no younger and as chucklingly jovial as she was the day you yourself tugged up the Hundred Steps to taste her tea and sake. But unless you went there as a child, you probably never discovered what a treasure-house of fairy tales she was.
Crisp, smoky November days bring back memories of the far-stretched rice-paddies of Negishi and fish-nets spread to dry. There, tucked behind the shoulder of a hill was the little shrine with the carved bronze bell hung from a torii outside. Privileged as children are in Japan, it was I that swung the log clapper against its side and filled the valley with its throaty song. Bells in Japan neither clang nor boom—there is no consonant at the beginning of their music. The largest and deepest-toned of them croon like the humming of a tuneful giant, the little ones sing like rubbed glass.
There is a picture in my mind of Sugita, a riot of plum blos¬soms, and of a little gray man who rushed out, chattering volubly, and plucked me bodily from my ’riksha. Before my startled mother could even protest, he had me held high over his head to look into the hollow of a dead tree where some velvety yellow shoots like pussy-willows were growing, and his wrinkled face broke up into a mass of smiles as I shouted my delight.
Kamakura! Not a detail of that solemn avenue of mighty trees has been forgotten. Twenty-five years later I saw Kamakura again. Little shops crowded the road, which was marked at every turn by the signs of the Automobile Club of Japan. Huge billboards advertising beer and soap and safety matches flanked the approaches to the village. Stiff and unsmiling police re¬strained visitors from climbing into the lap of the great dreaming Buddha as I had done in my childhood. None of these things could break the spell of Kamakura. The hush was there, and the dappled sunlight, the ancient flagging marking the site of the pillars of the temple long ago overthrown by a tidal wave. Hachiman’s temple brooded in the same silence of the centuries. Of Kamakura as a man I remember little; but of Kamakura as a boy I have forgotten nothing, even to the eerie sensation that I must have been there before, that it was all queerly familiar. I can see the leer of the god at the gate as the wet paper-wad of my chewed-up good luck wish splashed on his eyeball. I can hear my very laugh as the little brown guide vividly enacted the murder of the Shogun Iyeyasu beneath the great icho-tree, first hiding as the assassin, then stepping proudly down the flagged walk as the Shogun, dodging around the tree to stab himself and dying with the correct facial scowl of the Japanese tragic actor. So strong was the grip of my first visit, that on my last, when a chattering shopkeeper begged me to buy some trinket “because I know your wife like very much,” I found myself answering in the forgotten formula of childhood, “Not now, I will come again the day before yesterday!”
The newspapers say that Enoshima is gone. Of course, in my recollection, Kwannon’s cave has its place. The jewel-like gray-green of the “picture island” is unforgettable. But the vivid picture is of the crowding, chattering divers who plunged far down into the crystal-clear water, down, down till their yellow bodies showed iridescent blue, returning with the silver coin my father had thrown in their mouths, and in their hands brilliant shells for me. I remember now that the shells were suspiciously polished and dry, and must have been carried down in the divers’ belt-pouches; but all I remember thinking then was a wistful wish that I, too, could swim down to those shimmering levels and pluck scarlet abalones and purple limpets from the waving sea¬weed on the rocks.
I knew the history of the Taiko Hideyoshi by heart. Every phase of the life of the great general was familiar and well-beloved. He was the Robin Hood of my childhood, bulking more heroically in my mind than even the Forty-seven Ronin of revered memory. I rejoiced in his insolence to Sakuma and Shibata, I gloried in the triumph which brought him his first suit of Owari armor, and chuckled with glee at his victory in the controversy over the length of spears. For that reason, Osaka holds much of the unchangeable quality of Kamakura. Factory chimneys now belch forth their soot and smoke, and the hum of spindles makes conversation in the crowded streets difficult; but Hideyoshi’s castle cannot be hidden. It looms impressively in the midst of the Twentieth Century, the stuff of which romances are fashioned, a dream in gray stone, visible, tangible evidence that my hero-general was not a myth like the silly, pompous Greeks in whom my teachers tried to interest me. Diorned and Hector shouted at each other for hours without a blow; but Sakuma and Shibata barely had time to learn that Hideyoshi had declared for the boy Emperor before they found themselves surrounded. Un¬like all other heroes of medieval legend, Hideyoshi stands the acid test of advancing years. The one blot on his record in my boyhood was the disaster of his Korean expedition. Now I can plainly see the consummate statesmanship which preserved the independence of Japan by saving the predominance of Shinto as the national religion.
Close behind the Taiko in my gallery of heroes stands Yoshitsune, the relentless boy soldier, killed at last, so the story goes, by the ghosts of the slaughtered Tairas who had fallen before the shock of his charge. Today I like to think that Mr. Chamberlain is right, that the yellow-eyed boy did not die, but was banished by jealous seniors of his own clan, to reappear twenty years later in Central Asia as—Jenghiz Khan!
Nara, the ancient capitol, fell asleep when Yoshitsune disap¬peared. Hundreds of the stone lanterns in the long avenue are comparatively new, scores have lived for centuries. Here and there stands one, black with weather and crumbling with age, in whose shade the hero himself may have rested. Yoshitsune’s nervous brown hands pulled the ears of the far-away ancestors of the sacred herd of dappled deer that today jump into your ’riksha and nose in your pockets for sugar cakes. His armor hangs in the oldest temple; and the plump white horse that crunches the handful of boiled beans you hold out to him is said to be the very descendant of his battle-charger. In the temple over the hill the No girls dance to his memory while the calm-¬eyed priest, a figure of old ivory in stiff silk, clangs wooden cymbals and sings of his exploits. Nara at least escaped the horror of the earthquake. We have not been robbed of Nara with its great black Buddha and its huge, roaring, bronze bell.
If our western newspapers could know the first question in the minds of all who loved Old Japan, they would have broadcasted in heavy headlines “Kyoto is Safe” There is no best time of the year in Kyoto. Come when you may, the glorious old city holds something better than your dreams. Now it is cherry trees, car¬peting the streets with their falling petals; again it is fragrant, rosy azalea, or royal wistaria, or scarlet maples blazing through the blue November haze between the hills. Cold and sparkling, mountain streams rush through the center of the streets, deep and swift between walls of gray stone. Incredibly poised on the cliff above the healing waterfall hangs Kyomidzudera with its low, hovering roof thatch and worn stone platform for meditation. San-ju-san Gendo’s crowded, smoky-bronze interior carries you back to the Middle Ages.
The old artist who keeps the museum in the valley is scrupu¬lously polite; but if your appreciation of the modern stuff on his tables is too loud, you will see nothing else. He watches you closely with a wistful look. Will you be another of the many who are pleased with the work of today? You show your appreciation mildly and glance around for more when you have seen all that the tables hold. You have pleased him by commenting on the two or three really old bronzes he has on display; so he timidly reaches for a locked box and with hope in his eyes slowly unrolls a very old piece of crackling silk before your eyes. Your in¬drawn breath catches in your throat, and the old man’s face flushes with pleasure to find you worthy to view his treasure. It is only a few bold brush-strokes, two shivering monkeys in the snow; but in all the world there is probably no picture more poignantly alive.
Down in the city, as long as the daylight lasts, craftsmen and craftswomen spin brilliant webs of copper and enamel, for Kyoto is the center of the cloisonne industry. Others are damascening gold on gray iron. Yonder in the big compound, boys from all over the Empire tug and push at each other learning to be wrestlers and swordsmen. Night falls, and as the yellow lamplight shines through the paper shoji of the close-nestled houses, the clinking of samisen and thrumming of Ko-tos accompany the trilling songs of the geisha, Japan’s glittering little human butter¬flies. They stand in a close circle as you enter and sing rollicking and impudent songs of welcome. No hostess of the great world, however, is more gracious than the girl who gives you your cushion by the charcoal brazier, pours out your tea or hot sake and peels and slices apples for you. The girl in the corner sweeps her ivory pick across the tinkling strings of her biwa and breaks into a song about the lady who wanted to be beautiful. The plumpest of the dancers, in gorgeous scarlet, rises,—holds a pug-nosed, inane mask in front of her saucy face and begins to dance in slow graceful movements. She holds a mirror in her hand and shudders at her own homeliness. Then as she dances, she primps. Cosmetics are rubbed on the staring white mask. She piles her hair, then pulls it down again and rolls it. She touches her lips with gold and her eyebrows with black. She is making herself beautiful. At last, she can do no more, and again she raises her mirror. The silly mask, unchanged, stares back into her horrified eyes. It is no use,—she is still ugly. The mirror is dashed to the floor and the girl sinks on the cushions, hiding her face and sobbing. The music stops with a sweeping, jangled chord, the ugly mask is tossed across the room, and the dancer bounces up, again her jolly self. Perhaps your mother is wearing a veil. “What is that?” the dancer demands. “That means you Number Two Wife?” “No-o!” scornfully replies the biwa-player, “that is for mos-keet!”
Up the steep cobbled street your ’riksha clatters, and before you go to bed, you stand on your gallery at the Miyako and watch the twinkling lights of the city below; and as you fall asleep, the great bell of Chon-in sobs and thunders a deep-voiced lullaby.
Spring was coming and the apple blossoms on the Bluff were showing white when I first left Japan. Our departure was delayed perilously long, for Shima was gone from the cab rank, and I wanted to wait for him to carry me to the hatoba where the steam launch from the flagship was waiting. At last we could wait no longer, and with tears in my eyes, I climbed into Jeyo’s jinriksha. As we whirled away, Shima appeared; but I could only shout over my shoulder, “Sayonara! Matakimasho!”
In later years, that is again my farewell to Japan, “Goodbye! I will surely come back!” Too much of my Japan is gone,— destroyed by progress as ruthlessly as by fire and earthquake and typhoon. It is lost to the coming generations; but to those of us who were children there, Old Japan cannot be destroyed. When we come back, as we always long to do, Old Japan is there as before, hardly blurred by the black asphalt of the streets or the glare of the arc lights. Hideyoshi’s castle still looms through the factory smoke. That Japan is ours, though misunderstand¬ing and the remorseless march of events have made the new Japan dislike us for a little while.
Sayonara! Matakimasho!
In Lacquer and Silk
By Lieutenant Commander K. C. Macintosh (SC), U. S. N.