Jinrikisha Days in Japan
The fish dinners of Enoshima are famous, and the Japanese, who have the genius of cookery, provide more delicious fish dishes than can be named. At the many tateba set up in temple yards or balanced on the edges of precipices, conch-shells, filled with a black stew like terrapin, simmer over charcoal fires. This concoction has a tempting smell, and the pilgrims, who pick at the inky morsels with their chopsticks, seem to enjoy it; but in the estimation of the foreigner it adds one more to the list of glutinous, insipid preparations with which the Japanese cuisine abounds. The great marine curiosity of Enoshima is the giant crab, with its body as large as a turtle, and claws measuring ten, and even twelve, feet from tip to tip. These crustaceans are said to promenade the beach at night, and glare with phosphorescent eyes. Another interesting Japanese crab, the Doryppe Japonica, comes more often from the Inland Sea. A man's face is distinctly marked on the back of the shell, and, as the legend avers, these creatures incarnate the souls of the faithful samurai, who, following the fortunes of the Tairo clan, were driven into the sea by the victorious Minamoto. At certain anniversary seasons, well known to true believers, the spirits of these dead warriors come up from the sea by thousands and meet together on a moonlit beach.
In time Enoshima will be the great summer resort of the cities north of it, the Nahant or Marblehead of the far East, though a thousand times more picturesque than they. When typhoons rage or storms sweep in from the ocean, billows ring the island round with foam, spray dashes up to the drooping foliage on the summit, the air is full of the wild breath and wilder roar of the breakers, while the very ground seems to tremble. The underground shrine of Benten is then closed to worshippers, and looking down the sheer two hundred feet of rock, one sees only the whirl and rage of waters that hide the
42
