Jinrikisha Days in Japan/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
TOKIO
The first view of Tokio, like the first view of Yokohama, disappoints the traveller. The Ginza, or main business street, starting from the bridge opposite the station, goes straight to Nihombashi, the northern end of the Tokaido, and the recognized centre of the city, from which all distances are measured. Most of the roadway is lined with conventional houses of foreign pattern, with their curb-stones and shade-trees, while the tooting tram-car and the rattling basha, or light omnibus, emphasize the incongruities of the scene. This is not the Yeddo of one's dreams, nor yet is it an Occidental city. Its stucco walls, wooden columns, glaring shop-windows, and general air of tawdry imitation fairly depress one. In so large a city there are many corners, however, which the march of improvement has not reached, odd, unexpected, and Japanese enough to atone for the rest.
Through the heart of Tokio winds a broad spiral moat, encircling the palace in its innermost ring, and reaching, by canal branches, to the river on its outer lines. In feudal days the Shogun’s castle occupied the inner ring, and within the outer rings were the yashikis, or spread-out houses, of his daimios. Each gate-way and angle of the moat was defended by towers, and the whole region was an impregnable camp. Every daimio in the empire had his yashiki in Tokio, where he was obliged to spend six months of each year, and in case of war to send his family as pledges of his loyalty to the Shogun. The Tokaido and the other great highways of the empire were always alive with the trains of these nobles, and from this migratory habit was developed the passion for travel and excursion that animates every class of the Japanese people. When the Emperor came up from Kioto and made Tokio his capital, the Shogun’s palace became his home, and all the Shogun’s property reverted to the crown, the yashikis of the daimios being confiscated for government use. In the old days the barrack buildings surrounding the great rectangle of the yashiki were the outer walls, protected by a small moat, and furnished with ponderous, gable-roofed gate-ways, drawbridges, sally-ports, and projecting windows for outlooks. These barracks accommodated the samurai, or soldiers, attached to each daimio, and within their lines were the parade ground and archery range, the residence of the noble family, and the homes of the artisans in his employ. With the new occupation many yashiki buildings were razed to the ground, and imposing edifices in foreign style erected for government offices. A few of the old yashiki remain as barracks, and their white walls, resting on black foundations, suggest the monotonous street views of feudal days. Other yashiki have fallen to baser uses, and sign-boards swing from their walls.
Modern sanitary science has plucked up the miles of lotus beds that hid the triple moats in midsummer. From the bridges the lounger used to overlook acres of pink and white blossoms rising above the solid floors of bluish-green leaves; but the Philistines could not uproot the moats, which remain the one perfect feudal relic of Japanese Yeddo. The many-angled gate-ways, the massive stone walls, and escarpments, all moss and lichen-grown, and sloping from the water with an inward curve, are noble monuments of the past. Every wall and embankment is crowned with crooked, twisted, creeping, century-old pines, that fling their gaunt arms wildly out, or seem to grope along the stones. Here and there on the innermost rings of the moat still rise picturesque, many-gabled towers, with white walls and black roofs, survivors from that earlier day when they guarded the shiro, or citadel, and home of the Shogun.
The army is always in evidence in Tokio, and the little soldiers in winter dress of dark-blue cloth, or summer suits of white duck, swarm in the neighborhood of the moats. In their splendid uniforms, the dazzling officers, rising well in the saddle, trot by on showy horses. On pleasant mornings, shining companies of cavalry file down, the line of the inner moat and through the deep bays of the now dismantled Cherry-Tree gate to the Hibiya parade-ground, where they charge and manœuvre. When it rains, the files of mounted men look like so many cowled monks, with the peaked hoods of their great coats drawn over their heads, and they charge, gallop, and countermarch through mud and drizzle, as if in a real campaign. Taking the best of the German, French, Italian, and British military systems, with instructors of all these nationalities, th? Japanese army stands well among modern fighting forces. There is a military genius in the people, and the spirit of the old samurai has leavened the nation, making the natty soldiers of to-day worthy the traditions of the past.
A large foreign colony is resident in Tokio, the diplomatic corps, the great numbers of missionaries, and those employed by the Government in the university, schools, and departments constituting a large community. The missionary settlement now holds the Tsukiji district near the railway station; that piece of made ground along the shore first ceded for the exclusive occupation of foreigners. Besides being malarial, Tsukiji was formerly the rag-pickers’ district, and its selection was not complimentary to the great powers, all of whose legations have now left it. To reside outside of Tsukiji is permitted to non-officials only when in Japanese employ. Rich art collectors, scientists, and enthusiasts, who choose to live in Tokio, must be claimed as employés or teachers by some kindly Japanese friend, who becomes responsible for the stranger’s conduct. These limitations pertain to the treaty regulations, which permit no foreigners to go more than twenty-five miles beyond a treaty port without a passport, which may be obtained through a legation, and which names the places to be visited. The police register the arrival of all strangers, and keep a record of their movements. The United States Legation issues as a passport only a page of thick mulberry paper covered with the essential writings in Japanese characters. The British Legation encloses a similar passport in a small pamphlet of instructions, wherein the holder is minutely admonished as to his behavior, warned not to quarrel, not to deface monuments, not to destroy shrubs or trees, nor break windows. At Kobé, any American citizen may, if he likes, procure a passport for Kioto from the Kencho, or governor’s office, without applying to his consul. Travellers of all other nationalities must proceed through their consuls, and this recognition of the freedom and independence of the American citizen is a tribute to the individual sovereignty of his nation, concerning which a Japanese poet writes:
“What are those strangely-clad beings
Who move quickly from one spot of interest to another
Like butterflies flitting from flower to flower?
These are Americans,
They are as restless as the ocean,
In one day they will learn more of a city
Than an inhabitant will in a year.
Are they not extraordinary persons?”
All the legations are now on the high ground in the western part of the city near the castle moats. All legation buildings are owned and kept up by their respective governments, except that of the United States, which still uses rented property, although the Japanese Government has offered the land as a gift, if the United States will erect a permanent edifice.
The English possess a whole colony of buildings in the midst of a large walled park, affording offices and residences for all the staff. Germany, Russia, France, and the Netherlands own handsome houses with grounds. The Chinese legation occupies part of an old yashiki, inside whose bright vermilion and pea-green gate-way the Chinese gate keepers lounge, and over which the triangular yellow dragon flag flies.
The show places of Tokio are the many government museums at Uyéno Park, the many mortuary temples of the Tokugawa Shoguns at Shiba and Uyéno, the popular temple of Asakusa, and the Shinto temple at the Kudan, with its race-course and view of the city; but the Kanda, the Kameido, the Hachiman temples, many by-streets and queer corners, the out door fairs, the peddlers, and shops give the explorer a better understanding of the life of the people than do the great monuments. Here and there he comes upon queer old nameless temples with ancient trees, stones, lanterns, tanks, and urns that recall a forgotten day of religious influence, when they possessed priests, revenues, and costly altars.
An army of jinrikisha coolies waits for passengers at the station, and among them is that Japanese Mercury, the winged-heeled Sanjiro, he of the shaven crown and gun-hammer topknot of samurai days. His biography includes a tour of Europe as the servant of a Japanese official. On returning to Tokio he took up the shafts of his kuruma again, and is the fountain-head of local news and gossip. He knows what stranger arrived yesterday, who gave dinner parties, in which tea-house the “man-of-war gentlemen” had a geisha dinner, where your friends paid visits, even what they bought, and for whom court or legation carriages were sent. He tells you whose house you are passing, what great man is in view, where the next matsuri will be, when the cherry blossoms will unfold, and what plays are coming out at the Shintomiza. Sanjiro is cyclopædic at the theatre, and as a temple guide he exhales ecclesiastical lore. To take a passenger on a round of official calls, to and from state balls or a palace garden party, he finds bliss unalloyed, and his explanations pluck out the heart of the mystery of Tokio. “Mikado’s mamma,” prattles Sanjiro in his baby-English, as he trots past the green hedge and quiet gate of the Empress Dowager’s palace, and “Tenno San," he murmurs, in awed tones, as the lancers and outriders of the Emperor appear.
First, he carries the tourist to Shiba, the old monastery grounds that are now a public park. Under the shadow of century-old pines and cryptomeria stand the mortuary temples of the later Shoguns, superb edifices ablaze with red and gold lacquer, and set with panels of carved wood, splendid in color and gilding, the gold trefoil of the Tokugawas shining on every ridge-pole and gable. These temples and tombs are lesser copies of the magnificent shrines at Nikko, and but for those originals would be unique. On a rainy day, the green shadow and gloom, the cawing of the ravens that live in the old pine-trees, and their slow flight, are solemn as death itself; and the solitude of the dripping avenues and courtyards, broken only by the droning priests at prayer, and the musical vibrations of some bell or sweet-voiced gong, invite a gentle melancholy. On such a day, the priests, interrupted in their statuesque repose, or their pensive occupation of sipping tea and whiffing tiny pipes in silent groups around a brazier, display to visitors the altars and ceilings and jewelled walls with painstaking minuteness, glad of one ripple of excitement and one legitimate fee. Led by a lean, one-toothed priest, you follow, stocking-footed, over lacquer floors to behold gold and bronze, lacquer and inlaying, carving and color, golden images sitting in golden shadows, enshrined among golden lotus flowers, and sacred emblems. In one temple the clear, soft tones of the bronze gong, a bowl eighteen inches in diameter and a little less in depth, vibrate on the air for three full minutes before they die away.
Up mossy stair-ways, between massive embankments, and through a shady grove, the priest’s clogs scrape noisily to the hexagonal temple, where the ashes of Hidetada, the Ni Dai Shogun, Iyeyasu’s son, lie in a great gold lacquer cylinder, the finest existing specimen of the lacquer of that great art age. The quiet of Shiba, the solemn background of giant trees, the deep shadows and green twilight of the groves, the hundreds of stone lanterns, the ponds of sacred lotus, the succession of dragon-guarded gate-ways, and carved and gorgeously-colored walls, crowd the memory with lovely pictures. Near a hill-top pagoda commanding views of the Bay and of Fuji, stands the tateba of a cheerful family, who bring the visitor a telescope and cups of cherry-blossom tea.
A colony of florists show gardens full of wonderful plants and dwarf-trees, and then Sanjiro minces, “I think more better we go see more temples;” and we go, spinning past the giant Shiba gate and up the road to Atago Yama, a tiny temple on the edge of a precipitous hill-top, approached by men’s stairs, an air-line flight of broad steps, and women’s stairs, curving by broken flights of easier slope. A leper, with scaly, white skin and hideous ulcers, extends his miserable hand for alms, and picturesque, white-clad pilgrims, with staff and bell, go up and down those breathless flights. The tateba, with their rows of lanterns, where the nesans offer tea of salted cherry blossoms, that unfold again into perfect flowers in the bottom of the cup, overhang the precipice wall, and look down upon the Shiba quarter as upon a relief map.
A breathless rush of two miles or more straight across the city, past flying shops, beside the tooting tram-way and over bridges, and Sanjiro runs into Uyéno Park, with its wide avenues, enormous trees, and half-hidden temple roofs. The ground slopes away steeply at the left, and at the foot of the hill lies a lotus lake of many acres that is a pool of blossoms in midsummer. A temple and a tiny tea-house are on an island in the centre, and around the lake the race-course is overarched with cherry-trees. Great torii mark the paths and stairs leading from the shore to the temples above.
At Uyéno are more tombs and more sanctuaries, avenues of lanterns, bells, and drinking-fountains, and a black, bullet-marked gate-way, where the Yeddo troops made their last stand before the Restoration. Near this gate way is the sturdy young tree planted by General Grant. Far back in the park stand the mortuary temples, splendid monuments of Tokugawa riches and power, though the most splendid, here as at Shiba, have been destroyed by fire.
When the Tokio Fine Arts Club holds one of its loan exhibitions in its Uyéno Park house, Sanjiro is inexorable, deposits his fare at the door-way, shows the way to the ticket-office, and insists upon his seeing the best work of the great artists. The noble club men contribute specimens from their collections of lacquer, porcelain, ivories, bronzes, and kakemonos. Behind glass doors hang kakemonos by the great artists, and Japanese visitors gaze with reverence on the masterpieces of the Kano and Tosa schools. The great art treasures of the empire are sequestrated in private houses and godowns, and to acquire familiarity with them, to undertake an art education in semiannual instalments by grace of the Fine Arts Club, is a discouraging endeavor. It would be more hopeful to seek the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the British Museum, or Mr. Walters's Baltimore galleries, which contain an epitome of all Japanese art. At the Tokio Club, however, works of Sosen and Hokusai, the two masters of the last century, are often exhibited. Sosen painted inimitable monkeys, and connoisseurs of to-day award him the tardy fame which his contemporaries failed to give. As a rule, foreigners prefer Hokusai to all other masters, and they search old book-shops in the hope of stumbling upon one of the innumerable books illustrated and sometimes engraved by this prolific genius. His genius never lacked recognition, and a century ago all feudal Yeddo went wild over his New-year's cards, each one a characteristic and unique bit of landscape, caricature, or fantasy. His fourteen volumes of Mangwa, or rough sketches, and his One Hundred Views of Fuji are most celebrated; but wonderfully clever are his jokes, his giants, dwarfs, demons, goblins, and ghosts; and when he died, at the age of ninety, he sighed that he could not live long enough to paint something which he should himself esteem. After the visit to the club Sanjiro takes his patron to the tomb of Hokusai, in a near-by temple yard, and shows the brushes hung up by despairing and prayerful artists, who would follow his immortal methods.
East of Uyeno stands the great Asakusa temple, shrine of one of the most famous of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, the great place of worship for the masses, and the centre of a Vanity Fair unequalled elsewhere. Every street leading to the temple grounds is a bazaar and merry fair, and theatres, side shows, booths, and tents, and all the devices to entrap the idle and the pleasure-seeking, beset the pilgrim on his way to the sanctuary. In florists’ gardens are shown marvels of floriculture, in their ponds swim gold-fish with wonderfully fluted tails, and in tall bamboo cages perch Tosa chickens with tail feathers ten and twelve feet long. Menageries draw the wondering rustics, and they pay their coppers for the privilege of toiling up a wood, canvas, and pasteboard Fujiyama to view the vast plain of the city lying all around it, and on timbered slopes enjoy tobogganing in midsummer. Penetrating to the real gate way, it is found guarded by giant Nio, whose gratings are spotted with the paper prayers that the worshipful have chewed into balls and reverently thrown there. If the paper wad sticks to the grating, it is a favorable omen, and the believer may then turn the venerable old prayer-wheel, and farther on put his shoulder to the bar, and by one full turn of the revolving library of Buddhist scriptures endow himself with all its intellectual treasure.
The soaring roof of the great temple is fitly shadowed by camphor-trees and cryptomeria that look their centuries of age, and up the broad flagging there passes the ceaseless train of believers. One buys corn and feeds the hundreds of pigeons, messengers of the gods, who live secure and petted by all the crowds in the great enclosure, or pays his penny to secure the release of a captive swallow, that flies back every night to its owner. At the foot of the steps the pilgrim begins to pray, and, ascending, mumbles his way to the altar. The colossal money-box, which is said to gather in over a thousand dollars on great holidays, rings and echoes well to the fall of the smallest coin. The sides of the temple are open to the air, and the visitor may retain shoes and clogs, so that the clatter of these wooden soles, the pilgrims’ clapping and mumbling, mingle in one distracting roar.
Tame pigeons fly in and out through the open walls, and children chase each other across the floor; but behind the grating candles burn, bells tinkle, priests chant, and rows of absorbed worshippers clap, toss their coppers, and pray, oblivious of ll their surroundings.