Japanese Gardens/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
WELLS, WATER-BASINS, ETC.
“The Morning Glory
Her leaves and bells has bound
My bucket handle round.
I could not break the bands
Of those soft hands.
The bucket and the well I left;
Lend me some water, for I come bereft.”
Sir Edwin Arnold’s Translation
Not only from practical utility, but from the ethical and æsthetic suggestion which water makes to the Japanese mind also, are wells a necessity in their gardens. So much stress is laid on their ornamental qualities, as an aid to a garden’s beauty, that often there are two wells, one with artistic surroundings in keeping with the whole scheme, and another nearer the house, less elaborate (though never ugly in design), for constant use. But wherever it is placed,—and of course there are rules as to where it may be and where it may not (and how the water diviner gets over that difficulty I really cannot say),—it must be ornamental or simple according to the design of the grounds in which it is found. There are the usual three degrees of finish: highly wrought, medium, and rough. The first, with wood or stone copings, carefully cut, fitted, and planed, is architectural in character, and may be employed in a carefully finished garden. It would probably have a roof over it, similar in character to that of the house itself, or of the summer- or tea-house near it.
The roughest sort would most likely have its coping of unplaned old logs—with moss and worm holes for decoration—perhaps crossed, like a ‘rustic’ picture frame, at the corners, and tied with dark wood rope or dyed vine fibres. Or it might be of rough uncut stones, fitted together like an old well-top at home, and perhaps cemented crudely round the well hole, but all kept purposely free and unfinished in style. This would look casual enough, but the stones would be secure, and the whole structure safe as a church. The middle degree would, of course, be more carefully arranged than this, but not so well finished as the first.
Mr. Conder tells us that “The well frequently assists to express the mood of the garden, and some designers have used it to imply a sentiment, not unlike the familiar Scriptural analogy of Eternal Life.” I am afraid I must disagree with this opinion a little. A poetic Japanese friend laid great stress on other open spaces of water expressing the garden’s mood, as they reflect the colour and changes of the sky; the well, dark and shadowed, sombre though pure, remains the constant and unfailing spring of life, the soul of the garden. When that fails the flowers wither and fade, the leaves and mosses dry and shrivel, the trees, even, droop and die. The garden’s spirit is gone!
I like the idea, more especially in that land of unfailing springs, for there it has not the sadness, the tragedy even, that the sentiment might suggest in places where the wells are not of eternal life, but even of a briefer space than man’s. One might remark—but luckily it has nothing to do with gardens—that some of their wells, whose water comes from but little below the surface, where it is contaminated by the drainings from house and yard, and is trustingly used for drinking, are veritable wells of death, not life! This is one of the reasons why tea, the national beverage of the country, is so much safer to drink than the favourite tipple of my own land—‘ice-water.’ (It is not ‘iced,’ but ice-water in name as in reality. Lumps of ice fill the tumbler and a little water is put with them. ‘Iced’ water means water cooled in bottles on ice.)
The Japanese have many legends and superstitions of poisoned and of haunted wells. But even where no story is told of goblins, they have always a respect for the spirits which frequent water. Lafcadio Hearn tells the following tale of one haunted well:—
“Himeji contains the ruins of a great castle of thirty turrets; and a daimio used to dwell therein, whose revenue was one hundred and fifty-six thousand koku of rice. Now, in the house of one of that daimio’s chief retainers was a maid-servant of good family, whose name was O Kiku; and the Kiku signifies a Chrysanthemum flower. Many precious things were entrusted to her charge, and among other things ten costly dishes of gold. One of these was suddenly missed and could not be found; and the girl, being responsible therefor, and knowing not otherwise how to prove her innocence, drowned herself in a well. But ever thereafter her ghost, returning nightly, could be heard counting the dishes slowly, with sobs: Ichi-mai, Ni-mai, San-mai, Yo-mai, Go-mai, Roku-mai, Shichi-mai, Hachi-mai, Ku-mai.
“Then there would be heard a despairing cry and a loud burst of weeping, and again the girl’s voice counting the dishes plaintively: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’
“Her spirit passed into the body of a strange little insect, whose head faintly resembled that of a ghost with long dishevelled hair; and it is called the O Kiku-Mushi, or the ‘Fly of O Kiku’; and it is found, they say, nowhere save in Himeji. A famous play was written about O Kiku, which is still acted in all the popular theatres, entitled Banshu-O-Kiku-no-Sara-ya-shiki, or ‘The Manor of the Dish of O Kiku of Banshu.’ ”
Even with Western nations the old well seems still to retain a few shreds of the romance of bygone years, when it was a meeting-place for village youths and maidens, and love-making and water-drawing went on simultaneously. But ‘laid on’ water has driven out even the homely pump that superseded the ‘old wooden buckets.’ Wells, to us nowadays, are out of date; and although we preserve an affection for them, as we do for old furniture, they no longer form a striking feature of our gardens or back yards. The Japanese, on the contrary, make the well the pivot of a charming bit of scenery, the central part of a picture which is composed of the well cover and coping; with its proper complement of ‘Standing’ or ‘Recumbent’ rocks, a stone lantern, perhaps, and an Azalea bush, clipped round; a clump of Irises, not too close to the stepping-stones; and over all a drooping Pine tree, or perhaps a Cherry, to carry on, in spring (and even in winter, for its bare bark and branches are lovely then in their own way), the tender, penetrating sense of beauty and of continued life. Seen from any point such a group makes a picture; and, what is far more, to a Japanese mind it conveys its delicate but perpetual suggestion of the hidden depths of serene and beautiful and unhurried living.
Well borders never sacrifice picturesqueness to an austere usefulness, nor is the careless look of natural beauty obtained at the expense of safety. Even a log-bound mouth, though it be full of holes and covered with moss, will be quite safe and secure; and a cover, either of boards, of woven bamboo, or a straw mat, will protect the water from pollution by fallen leaves or inquisitive insects, and, where there are children, will be strong enough to keep them on the right side of it. Sometimes a pretty thatched roof will go over well, pulley, and cross-beam, buckets and all, or a smaller roof of boards may protect only the pulley top. With this style irregular stepping-stones would be used; but where the well border is of squarely hewn stone, or of cement, the stepping-stones would be squarely cut to correspond, and this dignified well would have a cover of severer model also. These roofs, on two legs, look very much like the old lich-gates of England, and are spoken of in the chapter on fences and gates.
Arrangements for drawing up the water vary a good deal. Sometimes there is a regular old-fashioned well-sweep (the Egyptian shadoof), such as may still be seen in some retired country places in our own lands; and sometimes it is a long bamboo, with a wooden bucket tied on the end, with which one jabs at the water, as if one were scooping up crabs; but usually it is a delightful affair of a rope over a pulley, with a bucket tied at each end. The pulley must, of course, have a cross-beam support to hold it in position over the well, and sometimes a leaning tree is utilized for this. The tree then becomes trebly useful, as it acts as support, as cover, and as decoration.
The buckets are simply and chastely shaped, usually round, and taller than ours are, with the handle a continuation of the middle staves carried up, and a wooden cross-piece on top. The design is so pretty and so popular that it is used for many other articles, such as jardinières and flower-holders. These buckets, strange to relate, should not be moss-bound or old-looking. New and beautifully white wood, unpainted, is used, and must be often renewed, or at least constantly cleaned and scrubbed, to keep them so bright and fresh-looking. This is, of course, owing to the national passion for cleanliness, and perhaps a little because the artistic eye of the Japanese dwells lovingly on the beautiful graining of their woods. In the many parts of Japan where sulphur is found in the water, that substance has dyed the wood the most lovely and varying shades of silvery amethyst, and the buckets look as if made of the rarest of grained and coloured stone.
But although the perfection of each detail of the accessories of a well is so carefully looked after, each is only a part of the whole, and must be in keeping with it. And that whole, the well, is but a part of a greater whole, the garden, and the garden part of the country itself. There must be no jarring note.
I like to think that the wells, in their grounds, are more than places from which to draw water, more than picturesque adjuncts to their gardens, more than pretty foregrounds to a picture; that they are an expression of the whole national character. We are too apt to judge of these people hastily, and, because they are so charming on the surface, to think that they have no depths. I believe that, as deep in the heart of their gardens an eternal water springs, so in the hidden depths of their natures, charming, gay, polite, responsive, there lies the eternal fount of deep spiritual feeling; that the flowers of their gracefulness and tact and courtesy would wither, as those in their gardens would, if they were not watered and refreshed from the recesses of that deep and ever-bubbling well.
Water-Basins.—Those beautiful and artistic objects for holding water, in the shape of bowls, basins, and vases, have so often excited envy in my heart that I approach the subject with some timidity. In these indispensable adjuncts to a Japanese garden, these people (than whom the Greeks and Etruscans never turned out more classically lovely although simple designs) have reached a very high level of art. I wonder why they never seem to be mentioned in the artistic rhapsodies of writers on things Japanese. It is a well-known fact that however common the object, however modest and lowly the use to which it is allotted, taste and care and love—for it comes to that—is put into the shape and the decoration of it. The latches of their doors, the screws of their cabinets, the shapes of their wooden water buckets, the patterns on their towels, indeed everything they have, either for use or for beauty, is adorned, and well adorned too. And so these stone basins close to the veranda, used for washing hands in a simple peasant’s modest domain, may be of so truly good and artistic a shape as to be worthy of a place near the work of the early Greeks. This is not in the least an exaggeration; indeed, it is the latter who are honoured in the comparison: for in dignity, simplicity, chastity, and restraint in decoration the Japanese are second to none, and yet this is not at the expense of beauty and of the greatest conceivable variety.
I would not say, nevertheless, that all water-basins are of a sort to withstand the test of comparison with those of the acknowledged masters of form, the Greeks, for many can only be compared with Nature’s own hewing, being simple stones of a good shape, roughly hollowed out to hold water. These usually have a wooden lid, to keep the water inside cool and clean, and to guard it from the chance pollution of a falling leaf or a flying insect. Those made in the shape of bowls, jars, vases, or pillars (square or round), generally have a top too, but of a sort more suitable to their shape.
Some shapes of the fantastic sort are frankly ugly. I can concede no claim except that of quaintness to those basins which are shaped like Fujiyama, the adored, whose crater forms the well, and whose cone is sawed off ridiculously, in order to make the water easily reached. As for the ‘half-moon bridges,’ and some other designs, I cannot understand how such artistic people as the Japanese can endure them. They are as hideous and absurd as are the china slippers and ladies’ boots of porcelain that one sometimes sees used for flowers in old-fashioned houses at home, or as the little alabaster models of the ‘Taj’ which I saw offered for sale, as pendants, in India. It is the more generally approved plain and classic shapes towards which my enthusiasm is directed.
Frequently these basins have water running in, over, and out again, where there is a stream of any sort on the premises; in which case, of course, no top is necessary. This type is very
WHITE LOTUS, THE CASTLE MOAT
KOFU
attractive too, for often, with the ingenuity in simple mechanical contrivances which the Japanese are apt to show, the water is piped in picturesque bamboo instead of the ugly iron or lead pipes that we should use if we were doing it.
But contrast the whole washing arrangement—the beautifully formed basin; the daintily contrived pipes and drain; the well-shaped stepping-stone in front of it, on which to stand during the operation of ladling out water and throwing it over the head and hands; the delightful screen-fence of bamboo, with its graceful plant or young tree beside it—contrast these with what a workman or artisan in those we call civilized countries would have. He might perhaps indulge in a tin, or at the best an enamelled basin (the chances are in favour of a line or two of grime for interior decoration), with an ugly iron sink to receive the dirty water, and a fragment of yellow soap on a greasy half-saucer, as the last touch of beauty, beside him!
Water, and its æsthetic idea of moral as well as physical cleanliness, is most important to the Japanese, more particularly near temples. In these grounds the water-basin, according to the scale of the design, is of a size to correspond; so that it is sometimes really too large for its purpose. In such a case a ‘working model’ is put behind a screen for use, while the big and impressive basin acts only as an ornament. It is treated, however, not as a drone, but exactly as if it commanded the respect of utility by occupying its proper place, and is given the same relative position it would hold if it were really a worker.
I do not know that the water-basins which are placed at the beginning of the avenues leading to Shinto temples, at which worshippers cleanse themselves before going up the steps to clap their hands and pray, can be classed exactly with these. They are frequently large square blocks of stone, partially hollowed out at the top, and suggest ancient sarcophagi. They have religious designs, such as the Svastika, Senfuku-rin-so, and Ho-Kwan (all essentially Buddhist symbols), carved upon their sides, and, above the water, are often hung beautifully coloured and decorated towels,—the votive offerings of pilgrims,—which wave and flutter like tiny flags in the breeze, and are reflected in the water beneath.
These tanks resemble the basins of holy water in a Roman Catholic church, as we discovered once at Gongen Temple beside Hakone Lake. While I was sketching near by, my three children, in playing about, discovered that the big stone basin was dry, and further, much to their satisfaction, that it made a most desirable ‘steamer-boat.’ Their nurse, who was in attendance, saw no reason against their climbing into it, since their little Japanese amah did not suggest that there was any irreverence in this course; so, with many tootings and shoutings and high glee, they were just setting sail with the half of the fluttering towels above them (the juvenile imagination can overcome everything), when the chief priest happened to pass by. I heard his sharp and angry voice, and rushed to the scene of disorder just in time to see him roughly, and almost savagely, ordering the children out, throwing as far away as he could the little twigs of bamboo with which they had been pretending to row—for they had turned the great stone tomb into a steamer, a sailing ship, and a rowboat at one and the same time. I began with the most abject apologies, which, however, were so rudely and ungraciously received that I ended by telling him that my children were doing no more than I had seen many Japanese children do in the same place, without his having offered any objection; and that if he had stopped the latter, the nurse and amah would never have allowed these foreign children to touch what was regarded as sacred. But a rude Japanese is such a wonderful exception to the national rule of politeness, that I can only believe that my unwitting little people had committed some heinous crime of disrespect to a sacred object. However, even in that event, his breach was worse than theirs, for, according to the Japanese code, few things can warrant rudeness to foreigners, and nothing can excuse unkindness to children. If water and the ideas appertaining to it are holy, not less so are the little hands which touch it and the vessels which contain it.