and gives us this verse composed on the occasion: "Casting my glance over the sea, on each fir-tree[1] top a crane has his dwelling. They have been comrades for a thousand years."
It became dark before they reached their next stopping-place. The idea of pursuing their voyage all night long does not seem to have occurred to them. Besides, to judge from its having gone up the Osaka river as far as Yamazaki, their junk must have been a very small one, and the diary shows that it depended more on oars than on sails. Here is Tsurayuki's description of nightfall:—
"Whilst we rowed along gazing on this scene, the mountains and the sea became all dark, the night deepened, and east and west could not be distinguished, so we entrusted all thought of the weather to the mind of the master of our ship. Even the men who were not accustomed to the sea became very sad, and still more the women, who rested their heads on the bottom of the ship and did nothing but weep. The sailors, however, seemed to think nothing of it, and sung the following boat-song." Tsurayuki gives a few lines of it, and then proceeds. "There was a great deal more of this kind of stuff, but I do not write it down. Listening to the laughter at these verses, our hearts became somewhat calmed in spite of the raging of the sea. It was quite dark when we at length reached our anchorage for the night."
Three more days leisurely travelling brought them to Murotsu, a port just to the west of the eastern of the two horns which the island of Shikoku sends out to the southward. The morning after their arrival here, a slight but constant rain prevented them from starting, and the passengers took the opportunity to go on shore for a
- ↑ Both the crane and the fir are, in Japan, emblems of long life.
