As we glide out into the swell of the sea other extraordinary shapes appear, rising from great depths. Komori, 'The Bat,' a ragged silhouette against the horizon, has a great hole worn through it, which glares like an eye. Farther out two bulks, curved and pointed, and almost joined at the top, bear a grotesque resemblance to the uplifted pincers of a crab; and there is also visible a small dark mass which, until closely approached, seems the figure of a man sculling a boat. Beyond these are two islands: Matsushima, uninhabited and inaccessible, where there is always a swell to beware of; Omorishima, even loftier, which rises from the ocean in enormous ruddy precipices. There seemed to be some grim force in those sinister bulks; some occult power which made our steamer reel and shiver as she passed them. But I saw a marvellous effect of colour under those formidable cliffs of Omorishima. They were lighted by a slanting sun; and where the glow of the bright rock fell upon the water, each black-blue ripple flashed bronze: I thought of a sea of metallic violet ink.

From Dozen the cliffs of Dogo can be clearly seen when the weather is not foul: they are streaked here and there with chalky white, which breaks through their blue, even in time of haze. Above them a vast bulk is visible—a point-de-repre for the mariners of Hoki—the mountain of Daimanji. Dogo, indeed, is one great cluster of mountains.

Its cliffs rapidly turned green for us, and we followed them eastwardly for perhaps half an hour. Then they opened unexpectedly and widely, revealing a superb bay, widening far into the land, surrounded by hills, and full of shipping. Beyond a confusion of masts there crept into view a long grey line of house-fronts at the base of a crescent of cliffs— the city of Saigo; and in a little while we touched a wharf of stone. There I bade farewell for a month to the Oki-Saigo.

13

Saigo was a great surprise. Instead of the big fishing village I had expected to see, I found a city much larger and handsomer and in all respects more modernised than Sakai; a city of long streets full of good shops; a city with excellent public buildings; a city of which the whole appearance indicated commercial prosperity. Most of the edifices were roomy two story dwellings of merchants, and everything had a bright, new look. The unpainted woodwork of the houses had not yet darkened into grey; the blue tints of the tiling were still fresh. I learned that this was because the town had been recently rebuilt, after a conflagration, and rebuilt upon a larger and handsomer plan.

Saigo seems still larger than it really is. There are about one thousand houses, which number in any part of Western Japan means a population of at least five thousand, but must mean considerably more in Saigo. These form three long streets—Nishimachi, Nakamachi, and Higashimachi (names respectively signifying the Western, Middle, and Eastern Streets), bisected by numerous cross-streets and alleys. What makes the place seem disproportionately large is the queer way the streets twist about, following the irregularities of the shore, and even doubling upon themselves, so as to create from certain points of view an impression of depth which has no existence. For Saigo is peculiarly, although admirably situated. It fringes both banks of a river, the Yabigawa, near its mouth, and likewise extends round a large point within the splendid bay, besides stretching itself out upon various tongues of land. But though smaller than it looks, to walk through all its serpentine streets is a good afternoon's work.

Besides being divided by the Yabigawa, the town is intersected by various water-ways, crossed by a number of bridges. On the hills behind it stand several large buildings, including a public school, with accommodation for three hundred students; a pretty Buddhist temple (quite new), the gift of a rich citizen; a prison; and a hospital, which deserves its reputation of being for its size the handsomest Japanese edifice not only in Oki, but in all Shimane-Ken; and there are several small but very pretty gardens.

As for the harbour, you can count more than three hundred ships riding there of a summer's day. Grumblers, especially of the kind who still use wooden anchors, complain of the depth; but the men-of-war do not.

14

Never, in any part of Western Japan, have I been made more comfortable than at Saigo. My friend and myself were the only guests at the hotel to which we had been recommended. The broad and lofty rooms of the upper floor which we occupied overlooked the main street on one side, and on the other commanded a beautiful mountain landscape beyond the mouth of the Yabigawa, which flowed by our garden. The sea breeze never failed by day or by night, and rendered needless those pretty fans which it is the Japanese custom to present to guests during the hot season. The fare was astonishingly good and curiously varied; and I was told that I might order Seyoryori (Occidental cooking) if I wished—beefsteak with fried potatoes, roast chicken, and so forth. I did not avail myself of the offer, as I make it a rule while travelling to escape trouble by keeping to a purely Japanese diet; but it was no small surprise to be offered in Saigo what is almost impossible to obtain in any other Japanese town of five thousand inhabitants. From a romantic point of view, however, this discovery was a disappointment. Having made my way into the most primitive region of all Japan, I had imagined myself far beyond the range of all modernising influences; and the suggestion of beefsteak with fried potatoes was a disillusion. Nor was I entirely consoled by the subsequent discovery that there were no newspapers or telegraphs.

But there was one serious hindrance to the enjoyment of these comforts: an omnipresent, frightful, heavy, all-penetrating smell, the smell of decomposing fish, used as a fertiliser. Tons and tons of cuttlefish entrails are used upon the fields beyond the Yabigawa, and the never- sleeping sea wind blows the stench into every dwelling. Vainly do they keep incense burning in most of the houses during the heated term. After having remained three or four days constantly in the city you become better able to endure this odour; but if you should leave town even for a few hours only, you will be astonished on returning to discover how much your nose had been numbed by habit and refreshed by absence.

15

On the morning of the day after my arrival at Saigo, a young physician called to see me, and requested me to dine with him at his house. He explained very frankly that as I was the first foreigner who had ever stopped in Saigo, it would afford much pleasure both to his family and to himself to have a good chance to see me; but the natural courtesy of the man overcame any scruple I might have felt to gratify the curiosity of strangers. I was not only treated charmingly at his beautiful home, but actually sent away loaded with presents, most of which I attempted to decline in vain. In one matter, however, I remained obstinate, even at the risk of offending—the gift of a wonderful specimen of bateiseki (a substance which I shall speak of hereafter). This I persisted in refusing to take, knowing it to be not only very costly, but very rare. My host at last yielded, but afterwards secretly sent to the hotel two smaller specimens, which Japanese etiquette rendered it impossible to return. Before leaving Saigo, I experienced many other unexpected kindnesses from the same gentleman.

Not long after, one of the teachers of the Saigo public school paid me a visit. He had heard of my interest in Oki, and brought with him two fine maps of the islands made by himself, a little book about Saigo, and, as a gift, a collection of Oki butterflies and insects which he had made. It is only in Japan that one is likely to meet with these wonderful exhibitions of pure goodness on the part of perfect strangers.

A third visitor, who had called to see my friend, performed an action equally characteristic, but which caused me not a little pain. We squatted down to smoke together. He drew from his girdle a remarkably beautiful tobacco-pouch and pipe-case, containing a little silver pipe, which he began to smoke. The pipe-case was made of a sort of black coral, curiously carved, and attached to the tabako-ire, or pouch, by a heavy cord of plaited silk of three colours, passed through a ball of transparent agate. Seeing me admire it, he suddenly drew a knife from his sleeve, and before I could prevent him, severed the pipe-case from the pouch, and presented it to me. I felt almost as if he had cut one of his own nerves asunder when he cut that wonderful cord; and, nevertheless, once this had been done, to refuse the gift would have been rude in the extreme. I made him accept a present in return; but after that experience I was careful never again while in Oki to admire anything in the presence of its owner.

16

Every province of Japan has its own peculiar dialect; and that of Oki, as might be expected in a country so isolated, is particularly distinct. In Saigo, however, the Izumo dialect is largely used. The townsfolk in their manners and customs much resemble Izumo country-folk; indeed, there are many Izumo people among them, most of the large businesses being in the hands of strangers. The women did not impress me as being so attractive as those of Izumo: I saw several very pretty girls, but these proved to be strangers.

However, it is only in the country that one can properly study the physical characteristics of a population. Those of the Oki islanders may best be noted at the fishing villages many of which I visited. Everywhere I saw fine strong men and vigorous women; and it struck me that the extraordinary plenty and cheapness of nutritive food had quite as much to do with this robustness as climate and constant exercise. So easy, indeed, is it to live in Oki, that men of other coasts, who find existence difficult, emigrate to Oki if they can get a chance to work there, even at less remuneration. An interesting spectacle to me were the vast processions of fishing-vessels which always, weather permitting, began to shoot out to sea a couple of hours before sundown. The surprising swiftness with which those light craft were impelled by their sinewy scullers—many of whom were women—told of a skill acquired only through the patient experience of generations. Another matter that amazed me was the number of boats. One night in the offing I was able to count three hundred and five torch-fires in sight, each one signifying a crew; and I knew that from almost any of the forty-five coast villages I might see the same spectacle at the same time. The main part of the population, in fact, spends its summer nights at sea. It is also a revelation to travel from Izumo to Hamada by night upon a swift steamer during the fishing season. The horizon for a hundred miles is alight with torch-fires; the toil of a whole coast is revealed in that vast illumination.

Although the human population appears to have gained rather than lost vigour upon this barren soil, the horses and cattle of the country seem to have degenerated. They are remarkably diminutive. I saw cows not much bigger than Izumo calves, with calves about the size of goats. The horses, or rather ponies, belong to a special breed of which Oki is rather proud—very small, but hardy. I was told that there were larger horses, but I saw none, and could not learn whether they were imported. It seemed to me a curious thing, when I saw Oki ponies for the first time, that Sasaki Takatsuna's battle-steed—not less famous in Japanese story than the horse Kyrat in the ballads of Kurroglou—is declared by the islanders to have been a native of Oki. And they have a tradition that it once swam from Oki to Mionoseki.

17

Almost every district and town in Japan has its meibutsu or its kembutsu. The meibutsu of any place are its special productions, whether natural or artificial. The kembutsu of a town or district are its sights—its places worth visiting for any reason—religious, traditional, historical, or pleasurable. Temples and gardens, remarkable trees and curious rocks, are kembutsu. So, likewise, are any situations from which beautiful scenery may be looked at, or any localities where one can enjoy such charming spectacles as the blossoming of cherry-trees in spring, the flickering of fireflies in summer nights, the flushing of maple-leaves in autumn, or even that long snaky motion of moonlight upon water to which Chinese poets have given the delightful name of Kinryo, 'the Golden Dragon.'

The great meibutsu of Oki is the same as that of Hinomisaki—dried cuttlefish; an article of food much in demand both in China and Japan. The cuttlefish of Oki and Hinomisaki and Mionoseki are all termed ika (a kind of sepia); but those caught at Mionoseki are white and average fifteen inches in length, while those of Oki and Hinomisaki rarely exceed twelve inches and have a reddish tinge. The fisheries of Mionoseki and Hinomisaki are scarcely known; but the fisheries of Oki are famed not only throughout Japan, but also in Korea and China. It is only through the tilling of the sea that the islands have become prosperous and capable of supporting thirty thousand souls upon a coast of which but a very small portion can be cultivated at all. Enormous quantities of cuttlefish are shipped to the mainland; but I have been told that the Chinese are the best customers of Oki for this product. Should the supply ever fail, the result would be disastrous beyond conception; but at present it seems inexhaustible, though the fishing has been going on for thousands of years. Hundreds of tons of cuttlefish are caught, cured, and prepared for exportation month after month; and many hundreds of acres are fertilised with the entrails and other refuse. An officer of police told me several strange facts about this fishery. On the north-eastern coast of Saigo it is no uncommon thing for one fisherman to capture upwards of two thousand cuttlefish in a single night. Boats have been burst asunder by the weight of a few hauls, and caution has to be observed in loading. Besides the sepia, however, this coast swarms with another variety of cuttlefish which also furnishes a food-staple—the formidable tako, or true octopus. Tako weighing fifteen kwan each, or nearly one hundred and twenty-five pounds, are sometimes caught near the fishing settlement of Nakamura. I was surprised to learn that there was no record of any person having been injured by these monstrous creatures.

Another meibutsu of Oki is much less known than it deserves to be—the beautiful jet-black stone called bateiseki, or 'horsehoof stone.' [7] It is found only in Dogo, and never in large masses. It is about as heavy as flint, and chips like flint; but the polish which it takes is like that of agate. There are no veins or specks in it; the intense black colour never varies. Artistic objects are made of bateiseki: ink- stones, wine-cups, little boxes, small dai, or stands for vases or statuettes; even jewellery, the material being worked in the same manner as the beautiful agates of Yumachi in Izumo. These articles are comparatively costly, even in the place of their manufacture. There is an odd legend about the origin of the bateiseki. It owes its name to some fancied resemblance to a horse's hoof, either in colour, or in the semicircular marks often seen upon the stone in its natural state, and caused by its tendency to split in curved lines. But the story goes that the bateiseki was formed by the touch of the hoofs of a sacred steed, the wonderful mare of the great Minamoto warrior, Sasaki Takatsuna. She had a foal, which fell into a deep lake in Dogo, and was drowned. She plunged into the lake herself, but could not find her foal, being deceived by the reflection of her own head in the water. For a long time she sought and mourned in vain; but even the hard rocks felt for her, and where her hoofs touched them beneath the water they became changed into bateiseki. [8]

Scarcely less beautiful than bateiseki, and equally black, is another Oki meibutsu, a sort of coralline marine product called umi-matsu, or 'sea-pine.' Pipe-cases, brush-stands, and other small articles are manufactured from it; and these when polished seem to be covered with black lacquer. Objects of umimatsu are rare and dear.

Nacre wares, however, are very cheap in Oki; and these form another variety of meibutsu. The shells of the awabi, or 'sea-ear,' which reaches a surprising size in these western waters, are converted by skilful polishing and cutting into wonderful dishes, bowls, cups, and other articles, over whose surfaces the play of iridescence is like a flickering of fire of a hundred colours.

18

According to a little book published at Matsue, the kembutsu of Oki-no- Kuni are divided among three of the four principal islands; Chiburishima only possessing nothing of special interest. For many generations the attractions of Dogo have been the shrine of Agonashi Jizo, at Tsubamezato; the waterfall (Dangyo-taki) at Yuenimura; the mighty cedar- tree (sugi) before the shrine of Tama-Wakusa-jinja at Shimomura, and the lakelet called Sai-no-ike where the bateiseki is said to be found. Nakanoshima possesses the tomb of the exiled Emperor Go-Toba, at Amamura, and the residence of the ancient Choja, Shikekuro, where he dwelt betimes, and where relics of him are kept even to this day. Nishinoshima possesses at Beppu a shrine in memory of the exiled Emperor Go-Daigo, and on the summit of Takuhizan that shrine of Gongen-Sama, from the place of which a wonderful view of the whole archipelago is said to be obtainable on cloudless days.

Though Chiburishima has no kembutsu, her poor little village of Chiburi —the same Chiburimura at which the Oki steamer always touches on her way to Saigo—is the scene of perhaps the most interesting of all the traditions of the archipelago.

Five hundred and sixty years ago, the exiled Emperor Go-Daigo managed to escape from the observation of his guards, and to flee from Nishinoshima to Chiburi. And the brown sailors of that little hamlet offered to serve him, even with their lives if need be. They were loading their boats with 'dried fish,' doubtless the same dried cuttlefish which their descendants still carry to Izumo and to Hoki. The emperor promised to remember them, should they succeed in landing him either in Hoki or in Izumo; and they put him in a boat.

But when they had sailed only a little way they saw the pursuing vessels. Then they told the emperor to lie down, and they piled the dried fish high above him. The pursuers came on board and searched the boat, but they did not even think of touching the strong-smelling cuttlefish. And when the men of Chiburi were questioned they invented a story, and gave to the enemies of the emperor a false clue to follow.

And so, by means of the cuttlefish, the good emperor was enabled to escape from banishment.

19

I found there were various difficulties in the way of becoming acquainted with some of the kembutsu. There are no roads, properly speaking, in all Oki, only mountain paths; and consequently there are no jinricksha, with the exception of one especially imported by the leading physician of Saigo, and available for use only in the streets. There are not even any kago, or palanquins, except one for the use of the same physician. The paths are terribly rough, according to the testimony of the strong peasants themselves; and the distances, particularly in the hottest period of the year, are disheartening. Ponies can be hired; but my experiences of a similar wild country in western Izumo persuaded me that neither pleasure nor profit was to be gained by a long and painful ride over pine-covered hills, through slippery gullies and along torrent-beds, merely to look at a waterfall. I abandoned the idea of visiting Dangyotaki, but resolved, if possible, to see Agonashi-Jizo.

I had first heard in Matsue of Agonashi-Jizo, while suffering from one of those toothaches in which the pain appears to be several hundred miles in depth—one of those toothaches which disturb your ideas of space and time. And a friend who sympathised said:

'People who have toothache pray to Agonashi-Jizo. Agonashi-Jizo is in Oki, but Izumo people pray to him. When cured they go to Lake Shinji, to the river, to the sea, or to any running stream, and drop into the water twelve pears (nashi), one for each of the twelve months. And they believe the currents will carry all these to Oki across the sea.

'Now, Agonashi-Jizo means 'Jizo-who-has-no-jaw.' For it is said that in one of his former lives Jizo had such a toothache in his lower jaw that he tore off his jaw, and threw it away, and died. And he became a Bosatsu. And the people of Oki made a statue of him without a jaw; and all who suffer toothache pray to that Jizo of Oki.'

This story interested me for more than once I had felt a strong desire to do like Agonashi-Jizo, though lacking the necessary courage and indifference to earthly consequences. Moreover, the tradition suggested so humane and profound a comprehension of toothache, and so large a sympathy with its victims, that I felt myself somewhat consoled.

Nevertheless, I did not go to see Agonashi-Jizo, because I found out there was no longer any Agonashi-Jizo to see. The news was brought one evening by some friends, shizoku of Matsue, who had settled in Oki, a young police officer and his wife. They had walked right across the island to see us, starting before daylight, and crossing no less than thirty-two torrents on their way. The wife, only nineteen, was quite slender and pretty, and did not appear tired by that long rough journey.

What we learned about the famous Jizo was this: The name Agonashi-Jizo was only a popular corruption of the true name, Agonaoshi-Jizo, or 'Jizo-the-Healer-of-jaws.' The little temple in which the statue stood had been burned, and the statue along with it, except a fragment of the lower part of the figure, now piously preserved by some old peasant woman. It was impossible to rebuild the temple, as the disestablishment of Buddhism had entirely destroyed the resources of that faith in Oki. But the peasantry of Tsubamezato had built a little Shinto miya on the sight of the temple, with a torii before it, and people still prayed there to Agonaoshi-Jizo.

This last curious fact reminded me of the little torii I had seen erected before the images of Jizo in the Cave of the Children's Ghosts. Shinto, in these remote districts of the west, now appropriates the popular divinities of Buddhism, just as of old Buddhism used to absorb the divinities of Shinto in other parts of Japan.

20

I went to the Sai-no-ike, and to Tama-Wakasu-jinja, as these two kembutsu can be reached by boat. The Sai-no-ike, however, much disappointed me. It can only be visited in very calm weather, as the way to it lies along a frightfully dangerous coast, nearly all sheer precipice. But the sea is beautifully clear and the eye can distinguish forms at an immense depth below the surface. After following the cliffs for about an hour, the boat reaches a sort of cove, where the beach is entirely corn posed of small round boulders. They form a long ridge, the outer verge of which is always in motion, rolling to and fro with a crash like a volley of musketry at the rush and ebb of every wave. To climb over this ridge of moving stone balls is quite disagreeable; but after that one has only about twenty yards to walk, and the Sai-no-ike appears, surrounded on sides by wooded hills. It is little more than a large freshwater pool, perhaps fifty yards wide, not in any way wonderful You can see no rocks under the surface—only mud and pebbles That any part of it was ever deep enough to drown a foal is hard to believe. I wanted to swim across to the farther side to try the depth, but the mere proposal scandalised the boat men. The pool was sacred to the gods, and was guarded by invisible monsters; to enter it was impious and dangerous I felt obliged to respect the local ideas on the subject, and contented myself with inquiring where the bateiseki was found. They pointed to the hill on the western side of the water. This indication did not tally with the legend. I could discover no trace of any human labour on that savage hillside; there was certainly no habitation within miles of the place; it was the very abomination of desolation. [9]

It is never wise for the traveller in Japan to expect much on the strength of the reputation of kembutsu. The interest attaching to the vast majority of kembutsu depends altogether upon the exercise of imagination; and the ability to exercise such imagination again depends upon one's acquaintance with the history and mythology of the country. Knolls, rocks, stumps of trees, have been for hundreds of years objects of reverence for the peasantry, solely because of local traditions relating to them. Broken iron kettles, bronze mirrors covered with verdigris, rusty pieces of sword blades, fragments of red earthenware, have drawn generations of pilgrims to the shrines in which they are preserved. At various small temples which I visited, the temple treasures consisted of trays full of small stones. The first time I saw those little stones I thought that the priests had been studying geology or mineralogy, each stone being labelled in Japanese characters. On examination, the stones proved to be absolutely worthless in themselves, even as specimens of neighbouring rocks. But the stories which the priests or acolytes could tell about each and every stone were more than interesting. The stones served as rude beads, in fact, for the recital of a litany of Buddhist legends.

After the experience of the Sai-no-ike, I had little reason to expect to see anything extraordinary at Shimonishimura. But this time I was agreeably mistaken. Shimonishimura is a pretty fishing village within an hour's row from Saigo. The boat follows a wild but beautiful coast, passing one singular truncated hill, Oshiroyama, upon which a strong castle stood in ancient times. There is now only a small Shinto shrine there, surrounded by pines. From the hamlet of Shimonishimura to the Temple of Tama-Wakasu-jinja is a walk of twenty minutes, over very rough paths between rice-fields and vegetable gardens. But the situation of the temple, surrounded by its sacred grove, in the heart of a landscape framed in by mountain ranges of many colours, is charmingly impressive. The edifice seems to have once been a Buddhist temple; it is now the largest Shinto structure in Oki. Before its gate stands the famous cedar, not remarkable for height, but wonderful for girth. Two yards above the soil its circumference is forty-five feet. It has given its name to the holy place; the Oki peasantry scarcely ever speak of Tama- Wakasu-jinja, but only of 'O-Sugi,' the Great Cedar.

Tradition avers that this tree was planted by a Buddhist nun more than eight hundred years ago. And it is alleged that whoever eats with chopsticks made from the wood of that tree will never have the toothache, and will live to become exceedingly old.[10]

21

The shrine dedicated to the spirit of the Emperor Go-Daigo is in Nishinoshima, at Beppu, a picturesque fishing village composed of one long street of thatched cottages fringing a bay at the foot of a demilune of hills. The simplicity of manners and the honest healthy poverty of the place are quite wonderful even for Oki. There is a kind of inn for strangers at which hot water is served instead of tea, and dried beans instead of kwashi, and millet instead of rice. The absence of tea, however, is much more significant than that of rice. But the people of Beppu do not suffer for lack of proper nourishment, as their robust appearance bears witness: there are plenty of vegetables, all raised in tiny gardens which the women and children till during the absence of the boats; and there is abundance of fish. There is no Buddhist temple, but there is an ujigami.

The shrine of the emperor is at the top of a hill called Kurokizan, at one end of the bay. The hill is covered with tall pines, and the path is very steep, so that I thought it prudent to put on straw sandals, in which one never slips. I found the shrine to be a small wooden miya, scarcely three feet high, and black with age. There were remains of other miya, much older, lying in some bushes near by. Two large stones, unhewn and without inscriptions of any sort, have been placed before the shrine. I looked into it, and saw a crumbling metal-mirror, dingy paper gohei attached to splints of bamboo, two little o-mikidokkuri, or Shinto sake-vessels of red earthenware, and one rin. There was nothing else to see, except, indeed, certain delightful glimpses of coast and peak, visible in the bursts of warm blue light which penetrated the consecrated shadow, between the trunks of the great pines.

Only this humble shrine commemorates the good emperor's sojourn among the peasantry of Oki. But there is now being erected by voluntary subscription, at the little village of Gosen-goku-mura, near Yonago in Tottori, quite a handsome monument of stone to the memory of his daughter, the princess Hinako-Nai-Shinno who died there while attempting to follow her august parent into exile. Near the place of her rest stands a famous chestnut-tree, of which this story is told:

While the emperor's daughter was ill, she asked for chestnuts; and some were given to her. But she took only one, and bit it a little, and threw it away. It found root and became a grand tree. But all the chestnuts of that tree bear marks like the marks of little teeth; for in Japanese legend even the trees are loyal, and strive to show their loyalty in all sorts of tender dumb ways. And that tree is called Hagata-guri-no-ki, which signifies: 'The Tree-of-the-Tooth-marked-Chestnuts.'

22

Long before visiting Oki I had heard that such a crime as theft was unknown in the little archipelago; that it had never been found necessary there to lock things up; and that, whenever weather permitted, the people slept with their houses all open to the four winds of heaven.

And after careful investigation, I found these surprising statements were, to a great extent, true. In the Dozen group, at least, there are no thieves, and practically no crime. Ten policemen are sufficient to control the whole of both Dozen and Dogo, with their population of thirty thousand one hundred and ninety-six souls. Each policeman has under his inspection a number of villages, which he visits on regular days; and his absence for any length of time from one of these seems never to be taken advantage of. His work is mostly confined to the enforcement of hygienic regulations, and to the writing of reports. It is very seldom that he finds it necessary to make an arrest, for the people scarcely ever quarrel.

In the island of Dogo alone are there ever any petty thefts, and only in that part of Oki do the people take any precautions against thieves. Formerly there was no prison, and thefts were never heard of; and the people of Dogo still claim that the few persons arrested in their island for such offences are not natives of Oki, but strangers from the mainland. What appears to be quite true is that theft was unknown in Oki before the port of Saigo obtained its present importance. The whole trade of Western Japan has been increased by the rapid growth of steam communications with other parts of the empire; and the port of Saigo appears to have gained commercially, but to have lost morally, by the new conditions.

Yet offences against the law are still surprisingly few, even in Saigo. Saigo has a prison; and there were people in it during my stay in the city; but the inmates had been convicted only of such misdemeanours as gambling (which is strictly prohibited in every form by Japanese law), or the violation of lesser ordinances. When a serious offence is committed, the offender is not punished in Oki, but is sent to the great prison at Matsue, in Izumo.

The Dozen islands, however, perfectly maintain their ancient reputation for irreproachable honesty. There have been no thieves in those three islands within the memory of man; and there are no serious quarrels, no fighting, nothing to make life miserable for anybody. Wild and bleak as the land is, all can manage to live comfortably enough; food is cheap and plenty, and manners and customs have retained their primitive simplicity.

23

To foreign eyes the defences of even an Izumo dwelling against thieves seem ludicrous. Chevaux-de-frise of bamboo stakes are used extensively in eastern cities of the empire, but in Izumo these are not often to be seen, and do not protect the really weak points of the buildings upon which they are placed. As for outside walls and fences, they serve only for screens, or for ornamental boundaries; anyone can climb over them. Anyone can also cut his way into an ordinary Japanese house with a pocket-knife. The amado are thin sliding screens of soft wood, easy to break with a single blow; and in most Izumo homes there is not a lock which could resist one vigorous pull. Indeed, the Japanese themselves are so far aware of the futility of their wooden panels against burglars that all who can afford it build kura—small heavy fire-proof and (for Japan) almost burglar-proof structures, with very thick earthen walls, a narrow ponderous door fastened with a gigantic padlock, and one very small iron-barred window, high up, near the roof. The kura are whitewashed, and look very neat. They cannot be used for dwellings, however, as they are mouldy and dark; and they serve only as storehouses for valuables. It is not easy to rob a kura.

But there is no trouble in 'burglariously' entering an Izumo dwelling unless there happen to be good watchdogs on the premises. The robber knows the only difficulties in the way of his enterprise are such as he is likely to encounter after having effected an entrance. In view of these difficulties, he usually carries a sword.

Nevertheless, he does not wish to find himself in any predicament requiring the use of a sword; and to avoid such an unpleasant possibility he has recourse to magic.

He looks about the premises for a tarai—a kind of tub. If he finds one, he performs a nameless operation in a certain part of the yard, and covers the spot with the tub, turned upside down. He believes if he can do this that a magical sleep will fall upon all the inmates of the house, and that he will thus be able to carry away whatever he pleases, without being heard or seen.

But every Izumo household knows the counter-charm. Each evening, before retiring, the careful wife sees that a hocho, or kitchen knife, is laid upon the kitchen floor, and covered with a kanadarai, or brazen wash- basin, on the upturned bottom of which is placed a single straw sandal, of the noiseless sort called zori, also turned upside down. She believes this little bit of witchcraft will not only nullify the robber's spell, but also render it impossible for him—even should he succeed in entering the house without being seen or heard—to carry anything whatever away. But, unless very tired indeed, she will also see that the tarai is brought into the house before the amado are closed for the night.

If through omission of these precautions (as the good wife might aver), or in despite of them, the dwelling be robbed while the family are asleep, search is made early in the morning for the footprints of the burglar; and a moxa [11] is set burning upon each footprint. By this operation it is hoped or believed that the burglar's feet will be made so sore that he cannot run far, and that the police may easily overtake him.

24

It was in Oki that I first heard of an extraordinary superstition about the cause of okori (ague, or intermittent fever), mild forms of which prevail in certain districts at certain seasons; but I have since learned that this quaint belief is an old one in Izumo and in many parts of the San-indo. It is a curious example of the manner in which Buddhism has been used to explain all mysteries.

Okori is said to be caused by the Gaki-botoke, or hungry ghosts. Strictly speaking, the Gaki-botoke are the Pretas of Indian Buddhism, spirits condemned to sojourn in the Gakido, the sphere of the penance of perpetual hunger and thirst. But in Japanese Buddhism, the name Gaki is given also to those souls who have none among the living to remember them, and to prepare for them the customary offerings of food and tea.

These suffer, and seek to obtain warmth and nutriment by entering into the bodies of the living. The person into whom a gaki enters at first feels intensely cold and shivers, because the gaki is cold. But the chill is followed by a feeling of intense heat, as the gaki becomes warm. Having warmed itself and absorbed some nourishment at the expense of its unwilling host, the gaki goes away, and the fever ceases for a time. But at exactly the same hour upon another day the gaki will return, and the victim must shiver and burn until the haunter has become warm and has satisfied its hunger. Some gaki visit their patients every day; others every alternate day, or even less often. In brief: the paroxysms of any form of intermittent fever are explained by the presence of the gaki, and the intervals between the paroxysms by its absence.

25

Of the word hotoke (which becomes botoke in such com-pounds as nure- botoke, [12] gaki-botoke) there is something curious to say.

Hotoke signifies a Buddha.

Hotoke signifies also the Souls of the Dead—since faith holds that these, after worthy life, either enter upon the way to Buddhahood, or become Buddhas.

Hotoke, by euphemism, has likewise come to mean a corpse: hence the verb hotoke-zukuri, 'to look ghastly,' to have the semblance of one long dead.

And Hotoke-San is the name of the Image of a Face seen in the pupil of the eye—Hotoke-San, 'the Lord Buddha.' Not the Supreme of the Hokkekyo, but that lesser Buddha who dwelleth in each one of us,—the Spirit. [13]

Sang Rossetti: 'I looked and saw your heart in the shadow of your eyes.' Exactly converse is the Oriental thought. A Japanese lover would have said: 'I looked and saw my own Buddha in the shadow of your eyes.

What is the psychical theory connected with so singular a belief? [14] I think it might be this: The Soul, within its own body, always remains viewless, yet may reflect itself in the eyes of another, as in the mirror of a necromancer. Vainly you gaze into the eyes of the beloved to discern her soul: you see there only your own soul's shadow, diaphanous; and beyond is mystery alone—reaching to the Infinite.

But is not this true? The Ego, as Schopenhauer wonderfully said, is the dark spot in consciousness, even as the point whereat the nerve of sight enters the eye is blind. We see ourselves in others only; only through others do we dimly guess that which we are. And in the deepest love of another being do we not indeed love ourselves? What are the personalities, the individualities of us but countless vibrations in the Universal Being? Are we not all One in the unknowable Ultimate? One with the inconceivable past? One with the everlasting future?

26

In Oki, as in Izumo, the public school is slowly but surely destroying many of the old superstitions. Even the fishermen of the new generation laugh at things in which their fathers believed. I was rather surprised to receive from an intelligent young sailor, whom I had questioned through an interpreter about the ghostly fire of Takuhizan, this scornful answer: 'Oh, we used to believe those things when we were savages; but we are civilised now!'

Nevertheless, he was somewhat in advance of his time. In the village to which he belonged I discovered that the Fox-.superstition prevails to a degree scarcely paralleled in any part of Izumo. The history of the village was quite curious. From time immemorial it had been reputed a settlement of Kitsune-mochi: in other words, all its inhabitants were commonly believed, and perhaps believed themselves, to be the owners of goblin-foxes. And being all alike kitsune-mochi, they could eat and drink together, and marry and give in marriage among themselves without affliction. They were feared with a ghostly fear by the neighbouring peasantry, who obeyed their demands both in matters reasonable and unreasonable. They prospered exceedingly. But some twenty years ago an Izumo stranger settled among them. He was energetic, intelligent, and possessed of some capital. He bought land, made various shrewd investments, and in a surprisingly short time became the wealthiest citizen in the place. He built a very pretty Shinto temple and presented it to the community. There was only one obstacle in the way of his becoming a really popular person: he was not a kitsune-mochi, and he had even said that he hated foxes. This singularity threatened to beget discords in the mura, especially as he married his children to strangers, and thus began in the midst of the kitsune-mochi to establish a sort of anti-Fox-holding colony.

Wherefore, for a long time past, the Fox-holders have been trying to force their superfluous goblins upon him. Shadows glide about the gate of his dwelling on moonless nights, muttering: 'Kaere! kyo kara kokoye: kuruda!' [Be off now! from now hereafter it is here that ye must dwell: go!] Then are the upper shoji violently pushed apart; and the voice of the enraged house owner is heard: 'Koko Wa kiraida! modori!' [Detestable is that which ye do! get ye gone!] And the Shadows flee away.[15]

27

Because there were no cuttlefish at Hishi-ura, and no horrid smells, I enjoyed myself there more than I did anywhere else in Oki. But, in any event, Hishi-ura would have interested me more than Saigo. The life of the pretty little town is peculiarly old-fashioned; and the ancient domestic industries, which the introduction of machinery has almost destroyed in Izumo and elsewhere, still exist in Hishi-ura. It was pleasant to watch the rosy girls weaving robes of cotton and robes of silk, relieving each other whenever the work became fatiguing. All this quaint gentle life is open to inspection, and I loved to watch it. I had other pleasures also: the bay is a delightful place for swimming, and there were always boats ready to take me to any place of interest along the coast. At night the sea breeze made the rooms which I occupied deliciously cool; and from the balcony I could watch the bay-swell breaking in slow, cold fire on the steps of the wharves—a beautiful phosphorescence; and I could hear Oki mothers singing their babes to sleep with one of the oldest lullabys in the world:

Nenneko, O-yama no Usagi. no ko, Naze mata O-mimi ga Nagai e yara? Okkasan no O-nak ni Oru toku ni, BiWa no ha, Sasa no ha, Tabeta sona; Sore de O-mimi ga Nagai e sona. [16]

The air was singularly sweet and plaintive, quite different from that to which the same words are sung in Izumo, and in other parts of Japan.

One morning I had hired a boat to take me to Beppu, and was on the point of leaving the hotel for the day, when the old landlady, touching my arm, exclaimed: 'Wait a little while; it is not good to cross a funeral.' I looked round the corner, and saw the procession coming along the shore. It was a Shinto funeral—a child's funeral. Young lads came first, carrying Shinto emblems—little white flags, and branches of the sacred sakaki; and after the coffin the mother walked, a young peasant, crying very loud, and wiping her eyes with the long sleeves of her coarse blue dress. Then the old woman at my side murmured: 'She sorrows; but she is very young: perhaps It will come back to her.' For she was a pious Buddhist, my good old landlady, and doubtless supposed the mother's belief like her own, although the funeral was conducted according to the Shinto rite.

28

There are in Buddhism certain weirdly beautiful consolations unknown to Western faith.

The young mother who loses her first child may at least pray that it will come back to her out of the night of death—not in dreams only, but through reincarnation. And so praying, she writes within the hand of the little corpse the first ideograph of her lost darling's name.

Months pass; she again becomes a mother. Eagerly she examines the flower-soft hand of the infant. And lo! the self-same ideograph is there—a rosy birth-mark on the tender palm; and the Soul returned looks out upon her through the eyes of the newly-born with the gaze of other days.

29

While on the subject of death I may speak of a primitive but touching custom which exists both in Oki and Izumo—that of calling the name of the dead immediately after death. For it is thought that the call may be heard by the fleeting soul, which might sometimes be thus induced to return. Therefore, when a mother dies, the children should first call her, and of all the children first the youngest (for she loved that one most); and then the husband and all those who loved the dead cry to her in turn.

And it is also the custom to call loudly the name of one who faints, or becomes insensible from any cause; and there are curious beliefs underlying this custom.

It is said that of those who swoon from pain or grief especially, many approach very nearly to death, and these always have the same experience. 'You feel,' said one to me in answer to my question about the belief, 'as if you were suddenly somewhere else, and quite happy— only tired. And you know that you want to go to a Buddhist temple which is quite far away. At last you reach the gate of the temple court, and you see the temple inside, and it is wonderfully large and beautiful. And you pass the gate and enter the court to go to the temple. But suddenly you hear voices of friends far behind you calling your name— very, very earnestly. So you turn back, and all at once you come to yourself again. At least it is so if your heart cares to live. But one who is really tired of living will not listen to the voices, and walks on to the temple. And what there happens no man knows, for they who enter that temple never return to their friends.

'That is why people call loudly into the ear of one who swoons.

'Now, it is said that all who die, before going to the Meido, make one pilgrimage to the great temple of Zenkoji, which is in the country of Shinano, in Nagano-Ken. And they say that whenever the priest of that temple preaches, he sees the Souls gather there in the hondo to hear him, all with white wrappings about their heads. So Zenkoji might be the temple which is seen by those who swoon. But I do not know.'

30

I went by boat from Hishi-ura to Amamura, in Nakanoshima, to visit the tomb of the exiled Emperor Go-Toba. The scenery along the way was beautiful, and of softer outline than I had seen on my first passage through the archipelago. Small rocks rising from the water were covered with sea-gulls and cormorants, which scarcely took any notice of the boat, even when we came almost within an oar's length. This fearlessness of wild creatures is one of the most charming impressions of travel in these remoter parts of Japan, yet unvisited by tourists with shotguns. The early European and American hunters in Japan seem to have found no difficulty and felt no compunction in exterminating what they considered 'game' over whole districts, destroying life merely for the wanton pleasure of destruction. Their example is being imitated now by 'Young Japan,' and the destruction of bird life is only imperfectly checked by game laws. Happily, the Government does interfere sometimes to check particular forms of the hunting vice. Some brutes who had observed the habits of swallows to make their nests in Japanese houses, last year offered to purchase some thousands of swallow-skins at a tempting price. The effect of the advertisement was cruel enough; but the police were promptly notified to stop the murdering, which they did. About the same time, in one of the Yokohama papers, there appeared a letter from some holy person announcing, as a triumph of Christian sentiment, that a 'converted' fisherman had been persuaded by foreign proselytisers to kill a turtle, which his Buddhist comrades had vainly begged him to spare.

Amarnura, a very small village, lies in a narrow plain of rice-fields extending from the sea to a range of low hills. From the landing-place to the village is about a quarter of a mile. The narrow path leading to it passes round the base of a small hill, covered with pines, on the outskirts of the village. There is quite a handsome Shinto temple on the hill, small, but admirably constructed, approached by stone steps and a paved walk.

There are the usual lions and lamps of stone, and the ordinary simple offerings of paper and women's hair before the shrine. But I saw among the ex-voto a number of curious things which I had never seen in Izumo— tiny miniature buckets, well-buckets, with rope and pole complete, neatly fashioned out of bamboo. The boatman said that farmers bring these to the shrine when praying for rain. The deity was called Suwa- Dai-Myojin.

It was at the neighbouring village, of which Suwa-Dai-Myojin seems to be the ujigami, that the Emperor Go-Toba is said to have dwelt, in the house of the Choja Shikekuro. The Shikekuro homestead remains, and still belongs to the Choja'sa descendants, but they have become very poor. I asked permission to see the cups from which the exiled emperor drank, and other relics of his stay said to be preserved by the family; but in consequence of illness in the house I could not be received. So I had only a glimpse of the garden, where there is a celebrated pond—a kembutsu.

The pond is called Shikekuro's Pond,—Shikekuro-no-ike. And for seven hundred years, 'tis said, the frogs of that pond have never been heard to croak.

For the Emperor Go-Toba, having one night been kept awake by the croaking of the frogs in that pond, arose and went out and commanded them, saying: 'Be silent!' Wherefore they have remained silent through all the centuries even unto this day.

Near the pond there was in that time a great pine-tree, of which the rustling upon windy nights disturbed the emperor's rest. And he spoke to the pine-tree, and said to it: 'Be still!' And never thereafter was that tree heard to rustle, even in time of storms.

But that tree has ceased to be. Nothing remains of it but a few fragments of its wood and hark, which are carefully preserved as relics by the ancients of Oki. Such a fragment was shown to me in the toko of the guest chamber of the dwelling of a physician of Saigo—the same gentleman whose kindness I have related elsewhere.

The tomb of the emperor lies on the slope of a low hill, at a distance of about ten minutes' walk from the village. It is far less imposing than the least of the tombs of the Matsudaira at Matsue, in the grand old courts of Gesshoji; but it was perhaps the best which the poor little country of Oki could furnish. This is not, however, the original place of the tomb, which was moved by imperial order in the sixth year of Meiji to its present site. A lofty fence, or rather stockade of heavy wooden posts, painted black, incloses a piece of ground perhaps one hundred and fifty feet long, by about fifty broad, and graded into three levels, or low terraces. All the space within is shaded by pines. In the centre of the last and highest of the little terraces the tomb is placed: a single large slab of grey rock laid horizontally. A narrow paved walk leads from the gate to the tomb; ascending each terrace by three or four stone steps. A little within this gateway, which is opened to visitors only once a year, there is a torii facing the sepulchre; and before the highest terrace there are a pair of stone lamps. All this is severely simple, but effective in a certain touching way. The country stillness is broken only by the shrilling of the semi and the tintinnabulation of that strange little insect, the suzumushi, whose calling sounds just like the tinkling of the tiny bells which are shaken by the miko in her sacred dance.

31

I remained nearly eight days at Hishi-ura on the occasion of my second visit there, but only three at Urago. Urago proved a less pleasant place to stay in—not because its smells were any stronger than those of Saigo, but for other reasons which shall presently appear.

More than one foreign man-of-war has touched at Saigo, and English and Russian officers of the navy have been seen in the streets. They were tall, fair-haired, stalwart men; and the people of Oki still imagine that all foreigners from the West have the same stature and complexion. I was the first foreigner who ever remained even a night in the town, and I stayed there two weeks; but being small and dark, and dressed like a Japanese, I excited little attention among the common people: it seemed to them that I was only a curious-looking Japanese from some remote part of the empire. At Hishi-ura the same impression prevailed for a time; and even after the fact of my being a foreigner had become generally known, the population caused me no annoyance whatever: they had already become accustomed to see me walking about the streets or swimming across the bay. But it was quite otherwise at Urago. The first time I landed there I had managed to escape notice, being in Japanese costume, and wearing a very large Izumo hat, which partly concealed my face. After I left for Saigo, the people must have found out that a foreigner—the very first ever seen in Dozen—had actually been in Urago without their knowledge; for my second visit made a sensation such as I had never been the cause of anywhere else, except at Kaka-ura.

I had barely time to enter the hotel, before the street became entirely blockaded by an amazing crowd desirous to see. The hotel was unfortunately situated on a corner, so that it was soon besieged on two sides. I was shown to a large back room on the second floor; and I had no sooner squatted down on my mat, than the people began to come upstairs quite noiselessly, all leaving their sandals at the foot of the steps. They were too polite to enter the room; but four or five would put their heads through the doorway at once, and bow, and smile, and look, and retire to make way for those who filled the stairway behind them. It was no easy matter for the servant to bring me my dinner. Meanwhile, not only had the upper rooms of the houses across the way become packed with gazers, but all the roofs—north, east, and south— which commanded a view of my apartment had been occupied by men and boys in multitude. Numbers of lads had also climbed (I never could imagine how) upon the narrow eaves over the galleries below my windows; and all the openings of my room, on three sides, were full of faces. Then tiles gave way, and boys fell, but nobody appeared to be hurt. And the queerest fact was that during the performance of these extraordinary gymnastics there was a silence of death: had I not seen the throng, I might have supposed there was not a soul in the street.

The landlord began to scold; but, finding scolding of no avail, he summoned a policeman. The policeman begged me to excuse the people, who had never seen a foreigner before; and asked me if I wished him to clear the street. He could have done that by merely lifting his little finger; but as the scene amused me, I begged him not to order the people away, but only to tell the boys not to climb upon the awnings, some of which they had already damaged. He told them most effectually, speaking in a very low voice. During all the rest of the time I was in Urago, no one dared to go near the awnings. A Japanese policeman never speaks more than once about anything new, and always speaks to the purpose.

The public curiosity, however, lasted without abate for three days, and would have lasted longer if I had not fled from Urago. Whenever I went out I drew the population after me with a pattering of geta like the sound of surf moving shingle. Yet, except for that particular sound, there was silence. No word was spoken. Whether this was because the whole mental faculty was so strained by the intensity of the desire to see that speech became impossible, I am not able to decide. But there was no roughness in all that curiosity; there was never anything approaching rudeness, except in the matter of ascending to my room without leave; and that was done so gently that I could not wish the intruders rebuked. Nevertheless, three days of such experience proved trying. Despite the heat, I had to close the doors and windows at night to prevent myself being watched while asleep. About my effects I had no anxiety at all: thefts are never committed in the island. But that perpetual silent crowding about me became at last more than embarrassing. It was innocent, but it was weird. It made me feel like a ghost—a new arrival in the Meido, surrounded by shapes without voice.

32

There is very little privacy of any sort in Japanese life. Among the people, indeed, what we term privacy in the Occident does not exist. There are only walls of paper dividing the lives of men; there are only sliding screens instead of doors; there are neither locks nor bolts to be used by day; and whenever weather permits, the fronts, and perhaps even the sides of the house are literally removed, and its interior widely opened to the air, the light, and the public gaze. Not even the rich man closes his front gate by day. Within a hotel or even a common dwelling-house, nobody knocks before entering your room: there is nothing to knock at except a shoji or fusuma, which cannot be knocked upon without being broken. And in this world of paper walls and sunshine, nobody is afraid or ashamed of fellow-men or fellow-women. Whatever is done, is done, after a fashion, in public. Your personal habits, your idiosyncrasies (if you have any), your foibles, your likes and dislikes, your loves or your hates, must be known to everybody. Neither vices nor virtues can be hidden: there is absolutely nowhere to hide them. And this condition has lasted from the most ancient time. There has never been, for the common millions at least, even the idea of living unobserved. Life can be comfortably and happily lived in Japan only upon the condition that all matters relating to it are open to the inspection of the community. Which implies exceptional moral conditions, such as have no being in the West. It is perfectly comprehensible only to those who know by experience the extraordinary charm of Japanese character, the infinite goodness of the common people, their instinctive politeness, and the absence among them of any tendencies to indulge in criticism, ridicule, irony, or sarcasm. No one endeavours to expand his own individuality by belittling his fellow; no one tries to make himself appear a superior being: any such attempt would be vain in a community where the weaknesses of each are known to all, where nothing can be concealed or disguised, and where affectation could only be regarded as a mild form of insanity.

33

Some of the old samurai of Matsue are living in the Oki Islands. When the great military caste was disestablished, a few shrewd men decided to try their fortunes in the little archipelago, where customs remained old-fashioned and lands were cheap. Several succeeded—probably because of the whole-souled honesty and simplicity of manners in the islands; for samurai have seldom elsewhere been able to succeed in business of any sort when obliged to compete with experienced traders, Others failed, but were able to adopt various humble occupations which gave them the means to live.

Besides these aged survivors of the feudal period, I learned there were in Oki several children of once noble families—youths and maidens of illustrious extraction—bravely facing the new conditions of life in this remotest and poorest region of the empire. Daughters of men to whom the population of a town once bowed down were learning the bitter toil of the rice-fields. Youths, who might in another era have aspired to offices of State, had become the trusted servants of Oki heimin. Others, again, had entered the police, [17] and rightly deemed themselves fortunate.

No doubt that change of civilisation forced upon Japan by Christian bayonets, for the holy motive of gain, may yet save the empire from perils greater than those of the late social disintegration; but it was cruelly sudden. To imagine the consequence of depriving the English landed gentry of their revenues would not enable one to realise exactly what a similar privation signified to the Japanese samurai. For the old warrior caste knew only the arts of courtesy and the arts of war.

And hearing of these things, I could not help thinking about a strange pageant at the last great Izumo festival of Rakuzan-jinja.

34

The hamlet of Rakuzan, known only for its bright yellow pottery and its little Shinto temple, drowses at the foot of a wooded hill about one ri from Matsue, beyond a wilderness of rice-fields. And the deity of Rakuzan-jinja is Naomasa, grandson of Iyeyasu, and father of the Daimyo of Matsue.

Some of the Matsudaira slumber in Buddhist ground, guarded by tortoises and lions of stone, in the marvellous old courts of Gesshoji. But Naomasa, the founder of their long line, is enshrined at Rakuzan; and the Izumo peasants still clap their hands in prayer before his miya, and implore his love and protection.

Now formerly upon each annual matsuri, or festival, of Rakuzan-jinja, it was customary to carry the miya of Naomasa-San from the village temple to the castle of Matsue. In solemn procession it was borne to .those strange old family temples in the heart of the fortress-grounds—Go-jo- naiInari-Daimyojin, and Kusunoki-Matauhira-Inari-Daimyojin—whose mouldering courts, peopled with lions and foxes of stone, are shadowed by enormous trees. After certain Shinto rites had been performed at both temples, the miya was carried back in procession to Rakuzan. And this annual ceremony was called the miyuki or togyo—'the August Going,' or Visit, of the ancestor to the ancestral home.

But the revolution changed all things. The daimyo passed away; the castles fell to ruin; the samurai caste was abolished and dispossessed. And the miya of Lord Naomasa made no August Visit to the home of the Mataudaira for more than thirty years.

But it came to pass a little time ago, that certain old men of Matsue bethought them to revive once more the ancient customs of the Rakuzan matauri. And there was a miyuki.

The miya of Lord Naomasa was placed within a barge, draped and decorated, and so conveyed by river and canal to the eastern end of the old Mataubara road, along whose pine-shaded way the daimyo formerly departed to Yedo on their annual visit, or returned therefrom. All those who rowed the barge were aged samurai who had been wont in their youth to row the barge of Matsudaira-Dewa-no-Kami, the last Lord of Izumo. They wore their ancient feudal costume; and they tried to sing their ancient boat-song—o-funa-uta. But more than a generation had passed since the last time they had sung it; and some of them had lost their teeth, so that they could not pronounce the words well; and all, being aged, lost breath easily in the exertion of wielding the oars. Nevertheless they rowed the barge to the place appointed.

Thence the shrine was borne to a spot by the side of the Mataubara road, where anciently stood an August Tea-House, O-Chaya, at which the daimyo, returning from the Shogun's capital, were accustomed to rest and to receive their faithful retainers, who always came in procession to meet them. No tea-house stands there now; but, in accord with old custom, the shrine and its escort waited at the place among the wild flowers and the pines. And then was seen a strange sight.

For there came to meet the ghost of the great lord a long procession of shapes that seemed ghosts also—shapes risen out of the dust of cemeteries: warriors in created helmets and masks of iron and breastplates of steel, girded with two swords; and spearmen wearing queues; and retainers in kamishimo; and bearers of hasami-bako. Yet ghosts these were not, but aged samurai of Matsue, who had borne arms in the service of the last of the daimyo. And among them appeared his surviving ministers, the venerable karo; and these, as the procession turned city-ward, took their old places of honour, and marched before the shrine valiantly, though bent with years.

How that pageant might have impressed other strangers I do not know. For me, knowing something of the history of each of those aged men, the scene had a significance apart from its story of forgotten customs, apart from its interest as a feudal procession. To-day each and all of those old samurai are unspeakably poor. Their beautiful homes vanished long ago; their gardens have been turned into rice-fields; their household treasures were cruelly bargained for, and bought for almost nothing by curio-dealers to be resold at high prices to foreigners at the open ports. And yet what they could have obtained considerable money for, and what had ceased to be of any service to them, they clung to fondly through all their poverty and humiliation. Never could they be induced to part with their armour and their swords, even when pressed by direst want, under the new and harder conditions of existence.

The river banks, the streets, the balconies, and blue-tiled roofs were thronged. There was a great quiet as the procession passed. Young people gazed in hushed wonder, feeling the rare worth of that chance to look upon what will belong in the future to picture-books only and to the quaint Japanese stage. And old men wept silently, remembering their youth.

Well spake the ancient thinker: 'Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers, and that which is remembered.'

35

Once more, homeward bound, I sat upon the cabin-roof of the Oki-Saigo— this time happily unencumbered by watermelons—and tried to explain to myself the feeling of melancholy with which I watched those wild island- coasts vanishing over the pale sea into the white horizon. No doubt it was inspired partly by the recollection of kindnesses received from many whom I shall never meet again; partly, also, by my familiarity with the ancient soil itself, and remembrance of shapes and places: the long blue visions down channels between islands—the faint grey fishing hamlets hiding in stony bays—the elfish oddity of narrow streets in little primitive towns—the forms and tints of peak and vale made lovable by daily intimacy—the crooked broken paths to shadowed shrines of gods with long mysterious names—the butterfly-drifting of yellow sails out of the glow of an unknown horizon. Yet I think it was due much more to a particular sensation in which every memory was steeped and toned, as a landscape is steeped in the light and toned in the colours of the morning: the sensation of conditions closer to Nature's heart, and farther from the monstrous machine-world of Western life than any into which I had ever entered north of the torrid zone. And then it seemed to me that I loved Oki—in spite of the cuttlefish—chiefly because of having felt there, as nowhere else in Japan, the full joy of escape from the far-reaching influences of high-pressure civilisation—the delight of knowing one's self, in Dozen at least, well beyond the range of everything artificial in human existence.



Chapter Nine Of Souls

Kinjuro, the ancient gardener, whose head shines like an ivory ball, sat him down a moment on the edge of the ita-no-ma outside my study to smoke his pipe at the hibachi always left there for him. And as he smoked he found occasion to reprove the boy who assists him. What the boy had been doing I did not exactly know; but I heard Kinjuro bid him try to comport himself like a creature having more than one Soul. And because those words interested me I went out and sat down by Kinjuro.

'O Kinjuro,' I said, 'whether I myself have one or more Souls I am not sure. But it would much please me to learn how many Souls have you.'

'I-the-Selfish-One have only four Souls,' made answer Kinjuro, with conviction imperturbable.

'Four? re-echoed I, feeling doubtful of having understood 'Four,' he repeated. 'But that boy I think can have only one Soul, so much is he wanting in patience.'

'And in what manner,' I asked, 'came you to learn that you have four Souls?'

'There are wise men,' made he answer, while knocking the ashes out of his little silver pipe, 'there are wise men who know these things. And there is an ancient book which discourses of them. According to the age of a man, and the time of his birth, and the stars of heaven, may the number of his Souls be divined. But this is the knowledge of old men: the young folk of these times who learn the things of the West do not believe.'

'And tell me, O Kinjuro, do there now exist people having more Souls than you?'

'Assuredly. Some have five, some six, some seven, some eight Souls. But no one is by the gods permitted to have more Souls than nine.'

[Now this, as a universal statement, I could not believe, remembering a woman upon the other side of the world who possessed many generations of Souls, and knew how to use them all. She wore her Souls just as other women wear their dresses, and changed them several times a day; and the multitude of dresses in the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth was as nothing to the multitude of this wonderful person's Souls. For which reason she never appeared the same upon two different occasions; and she changed her thought and her voice with her Souls. Sometimes she was of the South, and her eyes were brown; and again she was of the North, and her eyes were grey. Sometimes she was of the thirteenth, and sometimes of the eighteenth century; and people doubted their own senses when they saw these things; and they tried to find out the truth by begging photographs of her, and then comparing them. Now the photographers rejoiced to photograph her because she was more than fair; but presently they also were confounded by the discovery that she was never the same subject twice. So the men who most admired her could not presume to fall in love with her because that would have been absurd. She had altogether too many Souls. And some of you who read this I have written will bear witness to the verity thereof.]

'Concerning this Country of the Gods, O Kinjuro, that which you say may be true. But there are other countries having only gods made of gold; and in those countries matters are not so well arranged; and the inhabitants thereof are plagued with a plague of Souls. For while some have but half a Soul, or no Soul at all, others have Souls in multitude thrust upon them, for which neither nutriment nor employ can be found. And Souls thus situated torment exceedingly their owners. . . . .That is to say, Western Souls. . . . But tell me, I pray you, what is the use of having more than one or two Souls?'

'Master, if all had the same number and quality of Souls, all would surely be of one mind. But that people are different from each other is apparent; and the differences among them are because of the differences in the quality and the number of their Souls.'

'And it is better to have many Souls than a few?' 'It is better.'

'And the man having but one Soul is a being imperfect?'

'Very imperfect.'

'Yet a man very imperfect might have had an ancestor perfect?'

'That is true.'

'So that a man of to-day possessing but one Soul may have had an ancestor with nine Souls?'

'Yes.'

'Then what has become of those other eight Souls which the ancestor possessed, but which the descendant is without?'

'Ah! that is the work of the gods. The gods alone fix the number of Souls for each of us. To the worthy are many given; to the unworthy few.'

'Not from the parents, then, do the Souls descend?'

'Nay! Most ancient the Souls are: innumerable, the years of them.'

'And this I desire to know: Can a man separate his Souls? Can he, for instance, have one Soul in Kyoto and one in Tokyo and one in Matsue, all at the same time?'

'He cannot; they remain always together.'

'How? One within the other—like the little lacquered boxes of an inro?'

'Nay: that none but the gods know.'

'And the Souls are never separated?'

'Sometimes they may be separated. But if the Souls of a man be separated, that man becomes mad. Mad people are those who have lost one of their Souls.'

'But after death what becomes of the Souls?'

'They remain still together. . . . When a man dies his Souls ascend to the roof of the house. And they stay upon the roof for the space of nine and forty days.'

'On what part of the roof?'

'On the yane-no-mune—upon the Ridge of the Roof they stay.'

'Can they be seen?'

'Nay: they are like the air is. To and fro upon the Ridge of the Roof they move, like a little wind.'

'Why do they not stay upon the roof for fifty days instead of forty- nine?'

'Seven weeks is the time allotted them before they must depart: seven weeks make the measure of forty-nine days. But why this should be, I cannot tell.'

I was not unaware of the ancient belief that the spirit of a dead man haunts for a time the roof of his dwelling, because it is referred to quite impressively in many Japanese dramas, among others in the play called Kagami-yama, which makes the people weep. But I had not before heard of triplex and quadruplex and other yet more highly complex Souls; and I questioned Kinjuro vainly in the hope of learning the authority for his beliefs. They were the beliefs of his fathers: that was all he knew. [1]

Like most Izumo folk, Kinjuro was a Buddhist as well as a Shintoist. As the former he belonged to the Zen-shu, as the latter to the Izumo- Taisha. Yet his ontology seemed to me not of either. Buddhism does not teach the doctrine of compound-multiple Souls. There are old Shinto books inaccessible to the multitude which speak of a doctrine very remotely akin to Kinjuro's; but Kinjuro had never seen them. Those books say that each of us has two souls—the Ara-tama or Rough Soul, which is vindictive; and the Nigi-tama, or Gentle Soul, which is all-forgiving. Furthermore, we are all possessed by the spirit of Oho-maga-tsu-hi-no- Kami, the 'Wondrous Deity of Exceeding Great Evils'; also by the spirit of Oho-naho-bi-no-Kami, the 'Wondrous Great Rectifying Deity,' a counteracting influence. These were not exactly the ideas of Kinjuro. But I remembered something Hirata wrote which reminded me of Kinjuro's words about a possible separation of souls. Hirata's teaching was that the ara-tama of a man may leave his body, assume his shape, and without his knowledge destroy a hated enemy. So I asked Kinjuro about it. He said he had never heard of a nigi-tama or an ara-tama; but he told me this:

'Master, when a man has been discovered by his wife to be secretly enamoured of another, it sometimes happens that the guilty woman is seized with a sickness that no physician can cure. For one of the Souls of the wife, moved exceedingly by anger, passes into the body of that woman to destroy her. But the wife also sickens, or loses her mind awhile, because of the absence of her Soul.

'And there is another and more wonderful thing known to us of Nippon, which you, being of the West, may never have heard. By the power of the gods, for a righteous purpose, sometimes a Soul may be withdrawn a little while from its body, and be made to utter its most secret thought. But no suffering to the body is then caused. And the wonder is wrought in this wise:

'A man loves a beautiful girl whom he is at liberty to marry; but he doubts whether he can hope to make her love him in return. He seeks the kannushi of a certain Shinto temple, [2] and tells of his doubt, and asks the aid of the gods to solve it. Then the priests demand, not his name, but his age and the year and day and hour of his birth, which they write down for the gods to know; and they bid the man return to the temple after the space of seven days.

'And during those seven days the priests offer prayer to the gods that the doubt may be solved; and one of them each morning bathes all his body in cold, pure water, and at each repast eats only food prepared with holy fire. And on the eighth day the man returns to the temple, and enters an inner chamber where the priests receive him.

'A ceremony is performed, and certain prayers are said, after which all wait in silence. And then, the priest who has performed the rites of purification suddenly begins to tremble violently in all his body, like one trembling with a great fever. And this is because, by the power of the gods, the Soul of the girl whose love is doubted has entered, all fearfully, into the body of that priest. She does not know; for at that time, wherever she may be, she is in a deep sleep from which nothing can arouse her. But her Soul, having been summoned into the body of the priest, can speak nothing save the truth; and It is made to tell all Its thought. And the priest speaks not with his own voice, but with the voice of the Soul; and he speaks in the person of the Soul, saying: "I love," or "I hate," according as the truth may be, and in the language of women. If there be hate, then the reason of the hate is spoken; but if the answer be of love, there is little to say. And then the trembling of the priest stops, for the Soul passes from him; and he falls forward upon his face like one dead, and long so—remains.

'Tell me, Kinjuro,' I asked, after all these queer things had been related to me, 'have you yourself ever known of a Soul being removed by the power of the gods, and placed in the heart of a priest?'

'Yes: I myself have known it.'

I remained silent and waited. The old man emptied his little pipe, threw it down beside the hibachi, folded his hands, and looked at the lotus- flowers for some time before he spoke again. Then he smiled and said:

'Master, I married when I was very young. For many years we had no children: then my wife at last gave me a son, and became a Buddha. But my son lived and grew up handsome and strong; and when the Revolution came, he joined the armies of the Son of Heaven; and he died the death of a man in the great war of the South, in Kyushu. I loved him; and I wept with joy when I heard that he had been able to die for our Sacred Emperor: since there is no more noble death for the son of a samurai. So they buried my boy far away from me in Kyushu, upon a hill near Kumamoto, which is a famous city with a strong garrison; and I went there to make his tomb beautiful. But his name is here also, in Ninomaru, graven on the monument to the men of Izumo who fell in the good fight for loyalty and honour in our emperor's holy cause; and when I see his name there, my heart laughs, and I speak to him, and then it seems as if he were walking beside me again, under the great pines. . . But all that is another matter.

'I sorrowed for my wife. All the years we had dwelt together no unkind word had ever been uttered between us. And when she died, I thought never to marry again. But after two more years had passed, my father and mother desired a daughter in the house, and they told me of their wish, and of a girl who was beautiful and of good family, though poor. The family were of our kindred, and the girl was their only support: she wove garments of silk and garments of cotton, and for this she received but little money. And because she was filial and comely, and our kindred not fortunate, my parents desired that I should marry her and help her people; for in those days we had a small income of rice. Then, being accustomed to obey my parents, I suffered them to do what they thought best. So the nakodo was summoned, and the arrangements for the wedding began.

'Twice I was able to see the girl in the house of her parents. And I thought myself fortunate the first time I looked upon her; for she was very comely and young. But the second time, I perceived she had been weeping, and that her eyes avoided mine. Then my heart sank; for I thought: She dislikes me; and they are forcing her to this thing. Then I resolved to question the gods; and I caused the marriage to be delayed; and I went to the temple of Yanagi-no-Inari-Sama, which is in the Street Zaimokucho.

'And when the trembling came upon him, the priest, speaking with the Soul of that maid, declared to me: "My heart hates you, and the sight of your face gives me sickness, because I love another, and because this marriage is forced upon me. Yet though my heart hates you, I must marry you because my parents are poor and old, and I alone cannot long continue to support them, for my work is killing me. But though I may strive to be a dutiful wife, there never will be gladness in your house because of me; for my heart hates you with a great and lasting hate; and the sound of your voice makes a sickness in my breast (koe kiite mo mune ga waruku naru); and only to see your face makes me wish that I were dead (kao miru to shinitaku naru)."

'Thus knowing the truth, I told it to my parents; and I wrote a letter of kind words to the maid, praying pardon for the pain I had unknowingly caused her; and I feigned long illness, that the marriage might be broken off without gossip; and we made a gift to that family; and the maid was glad. For she was enabled at a later time to marry the young man she loved. My parents never pressed me again to take a wife; and since their death I have lived alone. . . . O Master, look upon the extreme wickedness of that boy!'

Taking advantage of our conversation, Kinjuro's young assistant had improvised a rod and line with a bamboo stick and a bit of string; and had fastened to the end of the string a pellet of tobacco stolen from the old man's pouch. With this bait he had been fishing in the lotus pond; and a frog had swallowed it, and was now suspended high above the pebbles, sprawling in rotary motion, kicking in frantic spasms of disgust and despair. 'Kaji!' shouted the gardener.

The boy dropped his rod with a laugh, and ran to us unabashed; while the frog, having disgorged the tobacco, plopped back into the lotus pond. Evidently Kaji was not afraid of scoldings.

'Gosho ga waruil' declared the old man, shaking his ivory head. 'O Kaji, much I fear that your next birth will be bad! Do I buy tobacco for frogs? Master, said I not rightly this boy has but one Soul?'



CHAPTER TEN Of Ghosts and Goblins

1

THERE was a Buddha, according to the Hokkekyo who 'even assumed the shape of a goblin to preach to such as were to be converted by a goblin.' And in the same Sutra may be found this promise of the Teacher: 'While he is dwelling lonely in the wilderness, I will send thither goblins in great number to keep him company.' The appalling character of this promise is indeed somewhat modified by the assurance that gods also are to be sent. But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen Japanese goblins, and I do not like them.

Kinjuro showed them to me last night. They had come to town for the matsuri of our own ujigami, or parish-temple; and, as there were many curious things to be seen at the night festival, we started for the temple after dark, Kinjuro carrying a paper lantern painted with my crest.

It had snowed heavily in the morning; but now the sky and the sharp still air were clear as diamond; and the crisp snow made a pleasant crunching sound under our feet as we walked; and it occurred to me to say: 'O Kinjuro, is there a God of Snow?'

'I cannot tell,' replied Kinjuro. 'There be many gods I do not know; and there is not any man who knows the names of all the gods. But there is the Yuki-Onna, the Woman of the Snow.'

'And what is the Yuki-Onna?'

'She is the White One that makes the Faces in the snow. She does not any harm, only makes afraid. By day she lifts only her head, and frightens those who journey alone. But at night she rises up sometimes, taller than the trees, and looks about a little while, and then falls back in a shower of snow.' [1]

'What is her face like?'

'It is all white, white. It is an enormous face. And it is a lonesome face.'

[The word Kinjuro used was samushii. Its common meaning is 'lonesome'; but he used it, I think, in the sense of 'weird.']

'Did you ever see her, Kinjuro?'

'Master, I never saw her. But my father told me that once when he was a child, he wanted to go to a neighbour's house through the snow to play with another little boy; and that on the way he saw a great white Face rise up from the snow and look lonesomely about, so that he cried for fear and ran back. Then his people all went out and looked; but there was only snow; and then they knew that he had seen the Yuki-Onna.'

'And in these days, Kinjuro, do people ever see her?'

'Yes. Those who make the pilgrimage to Yabumura, in the period called Dai-Kan, which is the Time of the Greatest Cold, [2] they sometimes see her.'

'What is there at Yabumura, Kinjuro?'

'There is the Yabu-jinja, which is an ancient and famous temple of Yabu- no-Tenno-San—the God of Colds, Kaze-no-Kami. It is high upon a hill, nearly nine ri from Matsue. And the great matsuri of that temple is held upon the tenth and eleventh days of the Second Month. And on those days strange things may be seen. For one who gets a very bad cold prays to the deity of Yabu-jinja to cure it, and takes a vow to make a pilgrimage naked to the temple at the time of the matsuri.'

'Naked?'

'Yes: the pilgrims wear only waraji, and a little cloth round their loins. And a great many men and women go naked through the snow to the temple, though the snow is deep at that time. And each man carries a bunch of gohei and a naked sword as gifts to the temple; and each woman carries a metal mirror. And at the temple, the priests receive them, performing curious rites. For the priests then, according to ancient custom, attire themselves like sick men, and lie down and groan, and drink, potions made of herbs, prepared after the Chinese manner.'

'But do not some of the pilgrims die of cold, Kinjuro?'

'No: our Izumo peasants are hardy. Besides, they run swiftly, so that they reach the temple all warm. And before returning they put on thick warm robes. But sometimes, upon the way, they see the Yuki-Onna.'

2

Each side of the street leading to the miya was illuminated with a line of paper lanterns bearing holy symbols; and the immense court of the temple had been transformed into a town of booths, and shops, and temporary theatres. In spite of the cold, the crowd was prodigious. There seemed to be all the usual attractions of a matsuri, and a number of unusual ones. Among the familiar lures, I missed at this festival only the maiden wearing an obi of living snakes; probably it had become too cold for the snakes. There were several fortune-tellers and jugglers; there were acrobats and dancers; there was a man making pictures out of sand; and there was a menagerie containing an emu from Australia, and a couple of enormous bats from the Loo Choo Islands—bats trained to do several things. I did reverence to the gods, and bought some extraordinary toys; and then we went to look for the goblins. They were domiciled in a large permanent structure, rented to showmen on special occasions.

Gigantic characters signifying 'IKI-NINGYO,' painted upon the signboard at the entrance, partly hinted the nature of the exhibition. Iki-ningyo ('living images') somewhat correspond to our Occidental 'wax figures'; but the equally realistic Japanese creations are made of much cheaper material. Having bought two wooden tickets for one sen each, we entered, and passed behind a curtain to find ourselves in a long corridor lined with booths, or rather matted compartments, about the size of small rooms. Each space, decorated with scenery appropriate to the subject, was occupied by a group of life-size figures. The group nearest the entrance, representing two men playing samisen and two geisha dancing, seemed to me without excuse for being, until Kinjuro had translated a little placard before it, announcing that one of the figures was a living person. We watched in vain for a wink or palpitation. Suddenly one of the musicians laughed aloud, shook his head, and began to play and sing. The deception was perfect.

The remaining groups, twenty-four in number, were powerfully impressive in their peculiar way, representing mostly famous popular traditions or sacred myths. Feudal heroisms, the memory of which stirs every Japanese heart; legends of filial piety; Buddhist miracles, and stories of emperors were among the subjects. Sometimes, however, the realism was brutal, as in one scene representing the body of a woman lying in a pool of blood, with brains scattered by a sword stroke. Nor was this unpleasantness altogether atoned for by her miraculous resuscitation in the adjoining compartment, where she reappeared returning thanks in a Nichiren temple, and converting her slaughterer, who happened, by some extraordinary accident, to go there at the same time.

At the termination of the corridor there hung a black curtain behind which screams could be heard. And above the black curtain was a placard inscribed with the promise of a gift to anybody able to traverse the mysteries beyond without being frightened.

'Master,' said Kinjuro, 'the goblins are inside.'

We lifted the veil, and found ourselves in a sort of lane between hedges, and behind the hedges we saw tombs; we were in a graveyard. There were real weeds and trees, and sotoba and haka, and the effect was quite natural. Moreover, as the roof was very lofty, and kept invisible by a clever arrangement of lights, all seemed darkness only; and this gave one a sense of being out under the night, a feeling accentuated by the chill of the air. And here and there we could discern sinister shapes, mostly of superhuman stature, some seeming to wait in dim places, others floating above the graves. Quite near us, towering above the hedge on our right, was a Buddhist priest, with his back turned to us.

'A yamabushi, an exorciser?' I queried of Kinjuro.

'No,' said Kinjuro; 'see how tall he is. I think that must be a Tanuki- Bozu.'

The Tanuki-Bozu is the priestly form assumed by the goblin-badger (tanuki) for the purpose of decoying belated travellers to destruction. We went on, and looked up into his face. It was a nightmare—his face.

'In truth a Tanuki-Bozu,' said Kinjuro. 'What does the Master honourably think concerning it?'

Instead of replying, I jumped back; for the monstrous thing had suddenly reached over the hedge and clutched at me, with a moan. Then it fell back, swaying and creaking. It was moved by invisible strings.

'I think, Kinjuro, that it is a nasty, horrid thing. . . . But I shall not claim the present.'

We laughed, and proceeded to consider a Three-Eyed Friar (Mitsu-me- Nyudo). The Three-Eyed Friar also watches for the unwary at night. His face is soft and smiling as the face of a Buddha, but he has a hideous eye in the summit of his shaven pate, which can only be seen when seeing it does no good. The Mitsu-me-Nyudo made a grab at Kinjuro, and startled him almost as much as the Tanuki-Bozu had startled me.

Then we looked at the Yama-Uba—the 'Mountain Nurse.' She catches little children and nurses them for a while, and then devours them. In her face she has no mouth; but she has a mouth in the top of her head, under her hair. The YamaUba did not clutch at us, because her hands were occupied with a nice little boy, whom she was just going to eat. The child had been made wonderfully pretty to heighten the effect.

Then I saw the spectre of a woman hovering in the air above a tomb at some distance, so that I felt safer in observing it. It had no eyes; its long hair hung loose; its white robe floated light as smoke. I thought of a statement in a composition by one of my pupils about ghosts: 'Their greatest Peculiarity is that They have no feet.' Then I jumped again, for the thing, quite soundlessly but very swiftly, made through the air at me.

And the rest of our journey among the graves was little more than a succession of like experiences; but it was made amusing by the screams of women, and bursts of laughter from people who lingered only to watch the effect upon others of what had scared themselves.

3

Forsaking the goblins, we visited a little open-air theatre to see two girls dance. After they had danced awhile, one girl produced a sword and cut off the other girl's head, and put it upon a table, where it opened its mouth and began to sing. All this was very prettily done; but my mind was still haunted by the goblins. So I questioned Kinjuro:

'Kinjuro, those goblins of which we the ningyo have seen—do folk believe in the reality, thereof?'

'Not any more,' answered Kinjuro—'not at least among the people of the city. Perhaps in the country it may not be so. We believe in the Lord Buddha; we believe in the ancient gods; and there be many who believe the dead sometimes return to avenge a cruelty or to compel an act of justice. But we do not now believe all that was believed in ancient time. . . .Master,' he added, as we reached another queer exhibition, 'it is only one sen to go to hell, if the Master would like to go—'Very good, Kinjuro,' I made reply. 'Pay two sen that we may both go to hell.'

4

And we passed behind a curtain into a big room full of curious clicking and squeaking noises. These noises were made by unseen wheels and pulleys moving a multitude of ningyo upon a broad shelf about breast- high, which surrounded the apartment upon three sides. These ningyo were not ikiningyo, but very small images—puppets. They represented all things in the Under-World.

The first I saw was Sozu-Baba, the Old Woman of the River of Ghosts, who takes away the garments of Souls. The garments were hanging upon a tree behind her. She was tall; she rolled her green eyes and gnashed her long teeth, while the shivering of the little white souls before her was as a trembling of butterflies. Farther on appeared Emma Dai-O, great King of Hell, nodding grimly. At his right hand, upon their tripod, the heads of Kaguhana and Mirume, the Witnesses, whirled as upon a wheel. At his left, a devil was busy sawing a Soul in two; and I noticed that he used his saw like a Japanese carpenter—pulling it towards him instead of pushing it. And then various exhibitions of the tortures of the damned. A liar bound to a post was having his tongue pulled out by a devil— slowly, with artistic jerks; it was already longer than the owner's body. Another devil was pounding another Soul in a mortar so vigorously that the sound of the braying could be heard above all the din of the machinery. A little farther on was a man being eaten alive by two serpents having women's faces; one serpent was white, the other blue. The white had been his wife, the blue his concubine. All the tortures known to medieval Japan were being elsewhere deftly practised by swarms of devils. After reviewing them, we visited the Sai-no-Kawara, and saw Jizo with a child in his arms, and a circle of other children running swiftly around him, to escape from demons who brandished their clubs and ground their teeth.

Hell proved, however, to be extremely cold; and while meditating on the partial inappropriateness of the atmosphere, it occurred to me that in the common Buddhist picture-books of the Jigoku I had never noticed any illustrations of torment by cold. Indian Buddhism, indeed, teaches the existence of cold hells. There is one, for instance, where people's lips are frozen so that they can say only 'Ah-ta-ta!'—wherefore that hell is called Atata. And there is the hell where tongues are frozen, and where people say only 'Ah-baba!' for which reason it is called Ababa. And there is the Pundarika, or Great White-Lotus hell, where the spectacle of the bones laid bare by the cold is 'like a blossoming of white lotus- flowers.' Kinjuro thinks there are cold hells according to Japanese Buddhism; but he is not sure. And I am not sure that the idea of cold could be made very terrible to the Japanese. They confess a general liking for cold, and compose Chinese poems about the loveliness of ice and snow.

5

Out of hell, we found our way to a magic-lantern show being given in a larger and even much colder structure. A Japanese magic-lantern show is nearly always interesting in more particulars than one, but perhaps especially as evidencing the native genius for adapting Western inventions to Eastern tastes. A Japanese magic-lantern show is essentially dramatic. It is a play of which the dialogue is uttered by invisible personages, the actors and the scenery being only luminous shadows. 'Wherefore it is peculiarly well suited to goblinries and weirdnesses of all kinds; and plays in which ghosts figure are the favourite subjects. As the hall was bitterly cold, I waited only long enough to see one performance—of which the following is an epitome:

SCENE 1.—A beautiful peasant girl and her aged mother, squatting together at home. Mother weeps violently, gesticulates agonisingly. From her frantic speech, broken by wild sobs, we learn that the girl must be sent as a victim to the Kami-Sama of some lonesome temple in the mountains. That god is a bad god. Once a year he shoots an arrow into the thatch of some farmer's house as a sign that he wants a girl—to eat! Unless the girl be sent to him at once, he destroys the crops and the cows. Exit mother, weeping and shrieking, and pulling out her grey hair. Exit girl, with downcast head, and air of sweet resignation.

SCENE II.—Before a wayside inn; cherry-trees in blossom. Enter coolies carrying, like a palanquin, a large box, in which the girl is supposed to be. Deposit box; enter to eat; tell story to loquacious landlord. Enter noble samurai, with two swords. Asks about box. Hears the story of the coolies repeated by loquacious landlord. Exhibits fierce indignation; vows that the Kami-Sama are good—do not eat girls. Declares that so-called Kami-Sama to be a devil. Observes that devils must be killed. Orders box opened. Sends girl home. Gets into box himself, and commands coolies under pain of death to bear him right quickly to that temple.