sea—it must have been on a night like this that the ancient poet wrote of “oars piercing the moon on the waves, the boat traversing skies in the sea’s depths.” At least, those are his words so far as I remember. Someone composed this poem on a similar theme:
As we row over the moon in the sea bottom,
Will our oars be entangled in a Katsura tree?
Hearing this, another said:
Gazing down, we row across a firmament
Beneath the water—how small we feel!
As we proceed it grows gradually lighter. “Dark clouds have suddenly appeared!” shouts the pilot. “It will blow, I think. I’m turning the boat back!” We return to the harbor amid rain, feeling miserable.
They wait for several more days at Murotsu, for a chance to round Muroto Cape.
Twenty-first day: At about the hour of the Hare we set out once more. All the other boats move out at the same time, so that, as we look around us, it seems as if the early spring seas are already dotted with fallen autumn leaves. Perhaps in answer to our constant prayers, the wind no longer blows, arid we row along in bright sunshine. … As we continue on our way, talking of this and that, the master of the boat anxiously scans the seas. It seems that, now that we are leaving the bounds of the province, there is a danger that pirates may seek vengeance on the ex-governor. As we think of this, the sea once more becomes a place of terror. All of us have grown white-haired in these last weeks. Truly, an age of seventy or eighty years is soon reached on the sea!
Tell us, Lord of the Islands, which is the whitest—
The surf on the rocks or the snow on our heads?
Ask him, pilot!
Twenty-second day: We set out from last night’s harbor. Mountains are visible in the far distance. A boy of eight—looking even less than
