One Old Peasant Said He Would Go Away If He Were Told
Whether "The Sight" Were A Man Or A
Woman, and, on the agent asking
if that were any business of his, he said he should like to tell
At
home what he had seen, which awoke my sympathy at once, and I told
Ito to tell them that a Japanese horse galloping night and day
without ceasing would take 5.5 weeks to reach my county - a
statement which he is using lavishly as I go along. These are such
queer crowds, so silent and gaping, and they remain motionless for
hours, the wide-awake babies on the mothers' backs and in the
fathers' arms never crying. I should be glad to hear a hearty
aggregate laugh, even if I were its object. The great melancholy
stare is depressing.
The road for ten miles was thronged with country people going in to
see the fire. It was a good road and very pleasant country, with
numerous road-side shrines and figures of the goddess of mercy. I
had a wicked horse, thoroughly vicious. His head was doubly
chained to the saddle-girth, but he never met man, woman, or child,
without laying back his ears and running at them to bite them. I
was so tired and in so much spinal pain that I got off and walked
several times, and it was most difficult to get on again, for as
soon as I put my hand on the saddle he swung his hind legs round to
kick me, and it required some agility to avoid being hurt. Nor was
this all. The evil beast made dashes with his tethered head at
flies, threatening to twist or demolish my foot at each, flung his
hind legs upwards, attempted to dislodge flies on his nose with his
hind hoof, executed capers which involved a total disappearance of
everything in front of the saddle, squealed, stumbled, kicked his
old shoes off, and resented the feeble attempts which the mago made
to replace them, and finally walked in to Yokote and down its long
and dismal street mainly on his hind legs, shaking the rope out of
his timid leader's hand, and shaking me into a sort of aching
jelly! I used to think that horses were made vicious either by
being teased or by violence in breaking; but this does not account
for the malignity of the Japanese horses, for the people are so
much afraid of them that they treat them with great respect: they
are not beaten or kicked, are spoken to in soothing tones, and, on
the whole, live better than their masters. Perhaps this is the
secret of their villainy - "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked."
Yokote, a town of 10,000 people, in which the best yadoyas are all
non-respectable, is an ill-favoured, ill-smelling, forlorn, dirty,
damp, miserable place, with a large trade in cottons. As I rode
through on my temporary biped the people rushed out from the baths
to see me, men and women alike without a particle of clothing. The
house-master was very polite, but I had a dark and dirty room, up a
bamboo ladder, and it swarmed with fleas and mosquitoes to an
exasperating extent. On the way I heard that a bullock was killed
every Thursday in Yokote, and had decided on having a broiled steak
for supper and taking another with me, but when I arrived it was
all sold, there were no eggs, and I made a miserable meal of rice
and bean curd, feeling somewhat starved, as the condensed milk I
bought at Yamagata had to be thrown away. I was somewhat wretched
from fatigue and inflamed ant bites, but in the early morning, hot
and misty as all the mornings have been, I went to see a Shinto
temple, or miya, and, though I went alone, escaped a throng.
The entrance into the temple court was, as usual, by a torii, which
consisted of two large posts 20 feet high, surmounted with cross
beams, the upper one of which projects beyond the posts and
frequently curves upwards at both ends. The whole, as is often the
case, was painted a dull red. This torii, or "birds' rest," is
said to be so called because the fowls, which were formerly offered
but not sacrificed, were accustomed to perch upon it. A straw
rope, with straw tassels and strips of paper hanging from it, the
special emblem of Shinto, hung across the gateway. In the paved
court there were several handsome granite lanterns on fine granite
pedestals, such as are the nearly universal accompaniments of both
Shinto and Buddhist temples.
After leaving Yakote we passed through very pretty country with
mountain views and occasional glimpses of the snowy dome of
Chokaizan, crossed the Omono (which has burst its banks and
destroyed its bridges) by two troublesome ferries, and arrived at
Rokugo, a town of 5000 people, with fine temples, exceptionally
mean houses, and the most aggressive crowd by which I have yet been
asphyxiated.
There, through the good offices of the police, I was enabled to
attend a Buddhist funeral of a merchant of some wealth. It
interested me very much from its solemnity and decorum, and Ito's
explanations of what went before were remarkably distinctly given.
I went in a Japanese woman's dress, borrowed at the tea-house, with
a blue hood over my head, and thus escaped all notice, but I found
the restraint of the scanty "tied forward" kimono very tiresome.
Ito gave me many injunctions as to what I was to do and avoid,
which I carried out faithfully, being nervously anxious to avoid
jarring on the sensibilities of those who had kindly permitted a
foreigner to be present.
The illness was a short one, and there had been no time either for
prayers or pilgrimages on the sick man's behalf. When death occurs
the body is laid with its head to the north (a position that the
living Japanese scrupulously avoid), near a folding screen, between
which and it a new zen is placed, on which are a saucer of oil with
a lighted rush, cakes of uncooked rice dough, and a saucer of
incense sticks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 51 of 112
Words from 51234 to 52280
of 115002
