Jinrikisha Days in Japan
Beyond the poor, unfragrant town of Yoshiwara, a creaking, springing bridge leaped the torrent of a river fed by Fuji’s snows and clouds. In the good old days, when the traveller sat on a small square platform, carried high above the shoulders of four men, to be ferried over, these bearers often stopped in the most dangerous place to extort more pay—which was never refused. Above the river bank the road climbs a ridge, traverses the tiniest of rice valleys, and then follows the ocean cliffs for hours. This Corniche road, overhanging the sea, presents a succession of pictures framed by the arching branches of ancient pine-trees, and the long Pacific rollers, pounding on the beach and rocks, fill the air with their loud song. At sunset we came to the old monastery of Kiomiidera, high on the terraced front of a bold cliff. Climbing to a gate-way and bell tower worthy of a fortress, we roused the priests from their calm meditations. An active young brother in a white gown flew to show us the famous garden with its palm-trees and azaleas reflected in a tiny lake, a small waterfall descending musically from the high mountain wall of foliage behind it. Superbly decorated rooms, where Shoguns and daimios used to rest from their journeys, look out on this green shade. The main temple is a lofty chamber with stone flooring and gorgeous altar, shady, quiet, and cool, and a corner of the temple yard has been filled by pious givers with hundreds upon hundreds of stone Buddhas, encrusted with moss and lichens, and pasted bits of paper prayers.
All through those first provinces around Fuji the garden fences, made of bamboo, rushes, twigs, or coarse straw, are braided, interlaced, woven and tied in ingenious devices, the fashion and pattern often changing completely in a few hours’ ride. This region is the happy hunting-ground of the artist and photographer, where everything is so beautiful, so picturesque, and so artis-
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