A HANDBOOK FOR CENTRAL AND NORTHERN JAPAN.*
ALMOST every want of the traveller in the main island of the Japanese Empire, whether of an inquisitive turn of mind or of the mere " globe-trotter " species, is met by this extremely interesting book. Of the more mechanical portion of their laborious and difficult task, the authors have, indeed, ac- quitted themselves in a manner that leaves but little oppor- tunity to criticism. They have walked over almost the whole of the country they describe, visited the temples, ascended the mountains, measured the heights and distances, and ransacked the towns for objects and places of interest ; while from the rich, but not easily worked mine of Japanese literature, as well as from local tradition, they have gathered a wealth of historical and legendary lore, vividly illustrative of a vanishing civilisa- tion, and adding a new zest to the enjoyment of the curious traveller in the most attractive of Eastern lands. The wanderer in Japan has hitherto been obliged to content himself with the picturesqueness of the country and the gaiety of its people. The monuments he met at every turn have been dumb to him ; the hills and dales barren of tradition ; the names of places and temples pointless and unmeaning. He has felt himself wrapped in a thick mist of ignorance, with the tantalising conviction that behind it lay a tract of knowledge of rare quaintness and surpass- ing interest. Probably no country in the world is richer in myth and legend than Japan. Not a hill-top, not a pass, a lake, a defile, or a cross-road but has been the scene of some miracle or prodigy, Buddhist or ShintO ; of the prowess of some ancient hero ; of the death, suffering, or ecstasy of some saint or recluse. Save in the wilder mountainous tracts, the traveller is seldom out of sight of a monastery or a temple. The sacred founts and groves are innumerable. Every peak has its name and myth, every cavern its monster, every mound its entombed hero. In the guest•chambers of remote temples, round the dimly-glowing hearths of sequestered inns during the long winter evenings, are still repeated harrowing tales of demons and goblins who yet haunt the neighbouring hills ; stirring traditions of ancient heroes, who fought and died or conquered within the confines of the ?aura ; moving stories of unhappy love, of which the village or shire was the scene ; dread legends of the Shinto gods that still hover about the red-stained shrines, or of the more or less metamorphosed Indian deities who, under a Buddhist guise, yet demand the prayers of the faithful. This aspect—the religious and traditional aspect of Japanese life—the traveller is now for the first time enabled to understand, and, thanks to the labours of Messrs. Satow and Hawes, may invest the places and objects he visits with the legendary halo that so delightfully touches the more prosaic present with the poetry of the past.
Of the wealth of folk-lore garnered up in this volume, we can give only a few examples, which we have selected as fairly typical of the bulk. Near Zenko-ji, the great Temple of Amida (Amitiblia), of which the 69,384 rafters equal in number the characters of the Ho-ke-kio (tbe sutra known as " Saddharma Pundarika "), and where are still to be seen the golden images of the deity and his two disciples, made by Sakya Muni himself, with metal found at the foot of the Beiruri tree (Vaidarya), at the base of Meru, the great central mountain of the Buddhist universe, is the hill To-gakushi (Door-hiding), recalling the feat of the god Strong-i'•th'-arms (Tajikara), who threw upon its summit the rocky door of the cavern into which the Sun Goddess had retired in her wrath at the conduct of the God of the Sea, so as to prevent her again withdrawing the necessary light and warmth from the world. Not far from the monastery of Chi-on (Knowledge and Grace), the principal seat of the Jodo or Pure Land sect, famous for its big bell, cast in 1633, and weighing nearly eighty tons, thus outdoing our own " Great Paul," is a mound known as the Mound of Ears (Mimi-dznka), beneath which the soldiers of Taiko, on their return from a raid in Korea towards the close of the seventeenth century, buried the ears they bad brought home as the most portable proofs of their valour. Close to the Bridge of Seta, at the lower end of Lake Biwa or Omi, which occupies the cavity left when the mass of Fuji was projected out of the bowels of the earth, some 200 miles eastwards into the provinces of Kai and Suruga, is a chapel commemorative of Hidesato, a romantic hero of the tenth century. A dragon then lived in
• A HandboOk for Travellers in Central and Northern Japan. With ascents of the Principal Mountains and Descriptions of Temples, Historical Notes, and Legends ; with Maps and Plane. By E. M. Sa'ow, Second S. cretary and Japanese Secretary to Her Majesty's Legation, and Lieutenant A. G. S. Hawes. R.M. (Retired.) Yokohama : Kelly and Co. Shanghai and Hong Kong : Kelly and Walsh.
the lake, who was sorely tormented by a huge centipede dwelling on Mount Mikami. The dragon asked Hidesato to assist him, but the hero, notwithstanding the terrible appearance of his interlocutor, calmly stepped over his back without deigning to notice his request. He then met a dwarf, to whom he could afford to listen without risking a charge of cowardice, and following him into the lake, walked along the bottom until he came to a magnificent palace of jade and lapis-lazuli. After having been regaled with a banquet, the hero was warned of the monster's approach. Getting ready his iron bow, that required five ordinary men to bend it, after several fruitless attempts he slew the monster, while still five miles off, with an arrow of which the head was moistened with spittle. The monster very unwisely made himself a capital mark by carrying a torch in each of his thousands of claws. A roar of thunder announced the hero's success, and he was rewarded with a roll of silk that grew again each time a piece was cut off, and with an immense bell, which he presented to the Temple of Mii. This bell the Japanese Hercules, Benkei, a retainer of Yoshitsune, brother of Yoritomo, and conqueror of Yezo, where the Ainos venerate him as a god—some assert that he afterwards reappeared in Mongolia as Jengbis Khan—carried off to the top of a neighbouring hill, where he amused himself by striking it all night, and refused to return it until the priests had given him as much bean broth as he could swallow. To do this they were obliged to fill a cauldron five feet in diameter, which may still be seen, to witness to the truth of the tale. A more striking tradition, perhaps, is that of the birth and life of Kiikai, commonly known as the Great Teacher K6b6, the founder of the famous monkish colony- of Mount Koya, and the reputed inventor of the hiragana, or cur- sive syllabary. He came into the world in the eighth century, with his hands folded as if in prayer, after his mother had dreamed of a holy man who flew to her from India and entered her bosom. During his childhood he held secret conversations with all the Buddhas, and his parents being persuaded that he must, in some former state, have been a disciple of Sakya him- self, brought him up for the priesthood. In 801 he was sent to China, and there met with an opposition which he only got over, characteristically enough, by means of his extra- ordinary talent as a caligraphist. Before returning, he threw up a vagra into the air, which made its way to Japan, and alighted on Mount Koya. On one occasion his doctrines were disputed in the presence of the Mikado, whereupon his face assumed the aspect of Vitirakana, and shone with a celestial brilliancy. On visiting Mount Koya to found the colony of temples that now cover its slopes, he was respectfully received by the local Shinto god, accompanied by a black and by a white dog. This fact explains the toleration of dogs in Mount Koya, from which women, musical instruments, &c., were rigidly ex- cluded. During his life he worked numerous miracles, and even after his death his hair grew and he required change of raiment. He still abides in his mausoleum, and will remain there until the coming of Mi-roku (Metitreya), the Buddhist Messiah, with whom he will hold a doctrinal discussion, but will, this time, be defeated. Not far from his mausoleum is an image of ED!), said to be covered every morning with the perspiration which the god's sufferings in hell for the good of the human race bring out upon his body. Close by is a tablet of more real in- terest, devoted to the memory of 4,000 persons, inhabitants of Yedo, who were destroyed in the great fire of 1828; and next to this the monument of the traitor Akechi, who was split in two by the wrath of Heaven, as a warning to disloyal servants.
The labour and research conspicuous in this volume have accumulated a mass of information upon Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism, and upon the singular civilisation that de- veloped itself in an unique isolation under the sway of the Tokugawa Shoguns, not less valuable to the student of men and manners than to the traveller in the Far East. The description of the three Fa or principal cities, T6ki6, Ki6t6, and Ozaka, resume the history of Japan, and include a minute account of their artistic treasures, which are lauded, however, with some- what less than the authors' usual discretion. In fine, the book is indispensable to the traveller, and will be found a welcome addi- tion to the shelves of all who have a taste for quaint folk-lore or love to study humanity under its various phases. In a future edition, some of the more palatable native dishes might be men- tioned, and a brief vocabulary would be of service to travellers in the interior. The more important of the Buddhist terms also should be explained, and a brief description of the Buddhic and Shinto religions systems would 'occupy but a small space, while adding greatly to the value of the book. Above all, the index should be greatly extended. In their own interests, the authors would do well to place the name of an English publisher on the title-page. We cannot take leave of the volume without a word of praise for its typography and get-up, which are fully equal to what Messrs. Murray and Baedeker have taught the public to expect.
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