A PICTURE ISLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1939, Page 7

A PICTURE ISLE

SIGHTS OF KYUSHU

SMOKING PEAKS & GARDENS

To take the overnight boat from Osaka for Beppu means to enter Kyushu through its back door, for the face of this southernmost of the four big Japanese Islands, at least in normal times, is turned towards the west, writes Ernest. O. Hauser in the "New York Times." Before the Far Eastern war broke out the cool and charming island was on its way to becoming a suburb of nearby Shanghai. Some 30.000 summer guests, chiefly Americans and Europeans, used to fill Kyushu's smart and lofty resorts. The war has changed this picture, and Kyushu is turning eastwards again, attracting steadily increasing numbers of sightseeing travellers from Japan.

Thus there is ample justification for exploring the scarcely-known western coast before one gets around to the smart resorts, making the trip "a la Japonnaise." From Beppu, where schools and hotels have been transformed into emergency hospitals for wounded soldiers, a noisy little railroad hustles down the shore, following the winding line of bays and peninsulas. One never ventured to think that the Pacific could '>c so much like the Mediterranean in its soft opaque blue and that those white sails could look so much like Hiroshige j colour prints. j There are steaming paddy fields, but they look very different from the paddy fields up north. The Kyushu | peasant, who works and lives in a semi-tropical atmosphere, is the most prosperous among the Japanese farmers. His fields are small, but" they keep him busy throughout the year, for there is rice in the spring and wheat in autumn. And there are Kyushu's famous mushroom plantations, which require nothing but patience and vhich may net a hand some income on the side. ■ NUMBERS OF HOLY MEN. In the sleepy streets of Miyasaki one wonders about the number of holy men, pilgrims in white garments, who have come to visit Kyushu's sacred and historic places. They live, on alms, and cynics say that piety has grown into a racket. This is a good place for religious contemplation, though. The steep summit of Takachiho-dake, where Japan's first emperor descended from the skies 3000 years ago, is looming on the western horizon, and the fantastic cave-temple, Udojingu, one of Japan's holy of holies, is a few hours down the coast. There is no train connection, and few people trust the shaky buses that go down. The road passes by the freak island of Aoshima, a tiny spot of tropical forest whose exuberant palm tree and banana jungle, alien to this latitude, has puzzled scientists and has. given rise to most romantic legends. Down in Kagoshima, facing ihe peacefully smoking .crater of Mount Sakurajima, one breathes the atmosphere of feudal Japan. Except for the' South Sea steamers in the harbour* there is hardly a touch of Western civilisation, and the strong influence of the powerful Satsuma clan is still perceptible. The Shimazu Park which is now open to the public (at least intermittently) is one of'the typical. Japanese fairy-tale gardens; there is a bamboo forest °n the slope of the, protecting hill where each slim shaft is marked according to its age.

There is Kumamoto, with its disappointing castle and its surprisingly metropolitan life, just in the **entre of the western coast Some four or five hundred school children were having a drawing class in Suizenji Park. They painted pavilions and lakes and bridges with an amazing skill, and they found time enough to throw some, bean-cake crumbs to the swans and ducks. ' MOUNT ASO AN ACTIVE VOLCANO.

The fame of Kumamoto is towering Mount Aso, the world's largest active volcano, renowned for its majestic beauty and for its suicides. The whole area, with its five volcanic cones, ,was selected as a national park a few years ago. Nakadake, the only active one. sends a sinister grumbling into the pure mountain air, and the white-grey smoke comes in incalculable spurts.

It is hard to get information on the suicide epidemic, as' the controlled Press and the official guides refrain from references. It seems, however, that Mount Aso has been "slipping" of late, as Mount Mihara, near Tokio, has got a wave/of publicity.

There. are still two or three people, though, who come up to jump into Mount Aso every week. Many of them are rescued fay the übiquitous police, for they do not know that there are terraces within the crater upon which one gets stuck if one does not jump far enough. ' A group of sake (rice liquor) manufacturers who had attended a national conference in Kumamoto and who wanted to do some sight-seeing in Unzen Spa asked for the best hotel in the town. The best hotel in town was a deplorable sieht. however. The glamour of a peaceful mass migration from Shanghai and Manila, upon which the resort had founded its . was gone. The great halls were empty and the keyboard was full. But the red and pink and salmon azaleas were as beautiful as ever, and the view from the mountains. down -over the China Seas was the priceless gift of a bizarre and moodily restrained Nature. JAPANESE FASHION. The circle tour of Kyushu Island, which takes the better part of a fortnight, must be made in the Japanese fashion. There are good Japanese inns, and there is Japanese food aplenty. And one will appreciate the beds of' Unzen after having spent a dozen nights sleeping on the floor. This way of travelling is both,amusing and appropriate. Kyushu fs easily the most "Japanese" of the four big islands of Japan, and even the short prosperity of Nagasaki—Japan's first open port, of "Madame Butterfly" famehas not changed its character.

Kyushu is Japanese from the picturesque cave-temple and the bamboo gardens to the camouflaged air fields where scores of planes wait for the deadly attack on nearby China.

The foreign traveller who leaves the island on one of the small ferry boats that shuttle between Moji and Shimonoseki is shocked and annoyed by swarming plain-clothes men, whose apprehensive questions remind him of the fact that Japan is at war and that he is closer to the battlefields than anywhere else in the Empire of the Rising Sun.