The Bronze Fret-Work Alone Is A
Study, And The Wood-Carving Needs Weeks Of Earnest Work For The
Mastery Of Its Ideas And Details.
One screen or railing only has
sixty panels, each 4 feet long, carved with marvellous boldness and
depth in open work, representing peacocks, pheasants, storks,
lotuses, peonies, bamboos, and foliage.
The fidelity to form and
colour in the birds, and the reproduction of the glory of motion,
could not be excelled.
Yet the flowers please me even better. Truly the artist has
revelled in his work, and has carved and painted with joy. The
lotus leaf retains its dewy bloom, the peony its shades of creamy
white, the bamboo leaf still trembles on its graceful stem, in
contrast to the rigid needles of the pine, and countless corollas,
in all the perfect colouring of passionate life, unfold themselves
amidst the leafage of the gorgeous tracery. These carvings are
from 10 to 15 inches deep, and single feathers in the tails of the
pheasants stand out fully 6 inches in front of peonies nearly as
deep.
The details fade from my memory daily as I leave the shrines, and
in their place are picturesque masses of black and red lacquer and
gold, gilded doors opening without noise, halls laid with matting
so soft that not a footfall sounds, across whose twilight the
sunbeams fall aslant on richly arabesqued walls and panels carved
with birds and flowers, and on ceilings panelled and wrought with
elaborate art, of inner shrines of gold, and golden lilies six feet
high, and curtains of gold brocade, and incense fumes, and colossal
bells and golden ridge poles; of the mythical fauna, kirin, dragon,
and howo, of elephants, apes, and tigers, strangely mingled with
flowers and trees, and golden tracery, and diaper work on a gold
ground, and lacquer screens, and pagodas, and groves of bronze
lanterns, and shaven priests in gold brocade, and Shinto attendants
in black lacquer caps, and gleams of sunlit gold here and there,
and simple monumental urns, and a mountain-side covered with a
cryptomeria forest, with rose azaleas lighting up its solemn shade.
I. L. B.
LETTER IX
A Japanese Pack-Horse and Pack-Saddle - Yadoya and Attendant - A
Native Watering-Place - The Sulphur Baths - A "Squeeze."
YASHIMAYA, YUMOTO, NIKKOZAN MOUNTAINS,
June 22.
To-day I have made an experimental journey on horseback, have done
fifteen miles in eight hours of continuous travelling, and have
encountered for the first time the Japanese pack-horse - an animal
of which many unpleasing stories are told, and which has hitherto
been as mythical to me as the kirin, or dragon. I have neither
been kicked, bitten, nor pitched off, however, for mares are used
exclusively in this district, gentle creatures about fourteen hands
high, with weak hind-quarters, and heads nearly concealed by shaggy
manes and forelocks. They are led by a rope round the nose, and go
barefoot, except on stony ground, when the mago, or man who leads
them, ties straw sandals on their feet. The pack-saddle is
composed of two packs of straw eight inches thick, faced with red,
and connected before and behind by strong oak arches gaily painted
or lacquered. There is for a girth a rope loosely tied under the
body, and the security of the load depends on a crupper, usually a
piece of bamboo attached to the saddle by ropes strung with wooden
counters, and another rope round the neck, into which you put your
foot as you scramble over the high front upon the top of the
erection. The load must be carefully balanced or it comes to
grief, and the mago handles it all over first, and, if an accurate
division of weight is impossible, adds a stone to one side or the
other. Here, women who wear enormous rain hats and gird their
kimonos over tight blue trousers, both load the horses and lead
them. I dropped upon my loaded horse from the top of a wall, the
ridges, bars, tags, and knotted rigging of the saddle being
smoothed over by a folded futon, or wadded cotton quilt, and I was
then fourteen inches above the animal's back, with my feet hanging
over his neck. You must balance yourself carefully, or you bring
the whole erection over; but balancing soon becomes a matter of
habit. If the horse does not stumble, the pack-saddle is tolerable
on level ground, but most severe on the spine in going up hill, and
so intolerable in going down that I was relieved when I found that
I had slid over the horse's head into a mud-hole; and you are quite
helpless, as he does not understand a bridle, if you have one, and
blindly follows his leader, who trudges on six feet in front of
him.
The hard day's journey ended in an exquisite yadoya, beautiful
within and without, and more fit for fairies than for travel-soiled
mortals. The fusuma are light planed wood with a sweet scent, the
matting nearly white, the balconies polished pine. On entering, a
smiling girl brought me some plum-flower tea with a delicate almond
flavour, a sweetmeat made of beans and sugar, and a lacquer bowl of
frozen snow. After making a difficult meal from a fowl of much
experience, I spent the evening out of doors, as a Japanese
watering-place is an interesting novelty.
There is scarcely room between the lake and the mountains for the
picturesque village with its trim neat houses, one above another,
built of reddish cedar newly planed. The snow lies ten feet deep
here in winter, and on October 10 the people wrap their beautiful
dwellings up in coarse matting, not even leaving the roofs
uncovered, and go to the low country till May 10, leaving one man
in charge, who is relieved once a week. Were the houses mine I
should be tempted to wrap them up on every rainy day! I did quite
the wrong thing in riding here.
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