LEAVES FROM "A JOURNAL JAPANESQUE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10515, 7 August 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

LEAVES FROM "A JOURNAL JAPANESQUE."

No. 111.-(Continued.) fBY MARTHA W. S. MYERS.] THE TOMBS AND TEMPLES AT NIK-KO.

A slow rido of six honrs, by rail, towards Nik-ko; over mountains patched with snow, acrose thriving fields closely cultivated in barley, bamboo, tobacco, tea, rice, and mulberry.

Truly, tea is the national beverage; in oar railroad coach there stands a neat contrivance of wood, holding tea and teacup;. (" Japanese Gozen.") At each station the puard renews the hoi) water, and refill* the large zinc foot-pan, needed to toast our toes on ! How snail-like these trains travel! Their average speed (!)—save the mark— is scarcely 20 miles per hour. A stately avenue of eryptomeria tress (like our cedars) stretches onward for 20 uninterrupted miles to Nik-ko. Nik-ko, the site of the nobleib group of tombs, the most splendid temples in Japan. The village, perched picturesquely on mountain ridges, in deep ravine 9 with rushing mountain streams, is too very Alps of Japan. Chough the thermometer registers 30 legrees, and snow sharpens the air, yet bamboo and eryptomeria, pine and palm grow verdantly. Hore, indeed, through all the year, nature smiles her sunniest; this lovely island, the Garden of the Sun, alone sees the mating of the northern pine to the tropical palm. Had Heinrich Heine beheld their wanton growth, his tragic poem of the sorrowing palm tree, burning with hopeless longing for its distant love, the lonely snow-starved pine, would never have ■tirrodoursoule. Past hedgerow and highway, up and around the hills, crowned green in tree and shrub, the first object of interest is the sacred bridge of the emperor; that, all of red and black and gold lacquer spans the brawling stream. Opened only when royalty passes over it, or on great fete days, it appears sacred, indeed to the vulgar herd. Then, the glory, the splendor, and the wonder of the tombs and temples burst upon us. Beauty piled upon beauty, nature in ecstasy, and art in triumphant transcendency. One outi-beautying the other. Art that seems to have exhausted itself in devising exquisite detail, to enhance nature's loveliest lineaments. We stand mute and motionless in the midst of this banquet of the beautiful, in the courtyard before a royally splendid gateway, Banked by temples and pagodas, their portals, columns, and domes ao gorgeously prismatic, and yob so ineffably dignified, that tinted adjectives are needed to adequately painb their matchless magnificence. No imagination can fancy the regal richness of effect, The eye burns from the varying, dazzling beauties; the mind throbs from impulsions of photograph after photograph, imprinting a surfeit of splendors, an iinforgotable festival of gorgeousness. The carnival of colours seems almost too much x to retain; the mind cannot endure continuous rapture; we slowly recover from a veritable debauch of enthusiasm. . These rhetorical intensities may read like hysterical hyperbole, their inflated verbiage due to optical intoxication; superlative adulation- belittling itielf in violent imagery, that, oddly enough, does not> half convey the opulent, glowing harmonies of composition and'colour. A flight of white stone steps leads to the entrance of a group of buildings, whose wealth of detail defies description. Twelve columns of pure white lacquer (priceless to-day, since the process of applying it has been lost), based in elaborate bronze-work, support tier upon tier of embellished carvings, each projecting beyond the lower one, and terminatingqn a balcony crowded in carvings, masses of decorated mouldings, encrusted in gold.and rainbow shades, running riotous in lavish ornamentations, and faiuge medallions of lions couchant. And all this prodigal beauty it but the portal, the triumphal arch, to greater glories beyond.' Removing our shoes, we enter the golden splendour of the temple's interior. The ceilings.of pure gold lacquer, iniaid with carvings of green-gold dragons; coiumns of solid gold, exquisitely diversified, each pillar costing thirty thousand yens 270 years ago, and worth today a king's ransom. What of the delicate detail of carvings, hues, grilles, freize?, cornices, panels, and pilasters ? It is beyond pen words to touch their artistic intricacies. No description can paint the adornments of the transparent lacework of panels and ontablatures.equally perfect from either eide, representing every species of fowl and flower—owls, phoenixes, peacocks, pigeons, encircled by dragons and devil* in' parti-coloured woods, their poise and expreision life-like and full of portent. Walls and screens of carved curyeantbe mums, gracefully executed on rare woods from India and in- native landd bark. Their variety of form, color, and wthetic design is limply amazing. These temples testify to industry and wealth incalculable; for no man can compute the time nor monies expended on their irection. About them lies a subtle poetry, a significant awe, profoundly expressive of the pervading spirit of idolatrous heatheniam, primeval paganism and pomp. I'aesing out to the court once more,we enter the Temples of Iyeyasu (the Augustus of their golden age) and lyemitsu (finb and third ehogune). Two huge unicorns of silver and bronze, male and female (the latter distinguished by the open mouth!) gaud the entrance.' ■ ' '• • \ The galleries of a smaller temple are curved with, the legend of the monkey. TheseanisUU, covering the .eyes, cart and

mouths, illustrate the precept, " See not, Lear not, speak nob 1" the very epitome ot wisdom, not yet mastered by modernity! Near by,.beneath gracefnl eloping roofs, is a solid block of granite, over which the mountain brook flows; and beside which sits a bent old priest, who for a few coppers permits us to dip our fingers in tbe sacred waters. In ancient days, all worshippers were compelled to wash hands and mouth. Colossal bronze lanterns and bells from Korea stand in finely wrought bronze cages. An antique prayer-wheel, the first we have seen, holds our attention. Looking in through the gilded fretwork, a massive piece of gold and scarlet is visible; it rests on a stone pedestal of lotus leaves, and holds the holy books in the form of upright scrolls. Another unique specimen, in the central court, is a huge bronze candlestick, encased in I a great bronze lantern, which revolves on its axis, seldom is this turned sunwards (as was the ancient rite), for this phase of religious superstition has entirely lost its hold on priests and people. These prayer-wheels or scriptural scrolls are rare: not being employed in the present ceremonials, but few of them are preserved, and little is known of their interesting treatment. The following paragraph may. explain :— "Peculiar to most countries where Buddha held sway, there existed a singular phase of mechanical devotion commonly called "a prayer wheel." Astonishing, indeed, that in those pristine times, when steam and electrical powers were unborn, the little that was known in machinery was put to use in multiplying the repetition of certain formulas of invocation, and the quicker dispatch of religious rites!" In the present century, however, but few models remain, the contrivance decaying as the practice fell into disuse. Standing stationary now, they serve an libraries for all Buddhisb books—" sacred tome 3 and volumes of Holy Writ." How complete those may be, we know not, since these number 11,000 volumes, arranged on cylinders, each holding many books; so that in ancient times tbe devout worshipper, by turning the mighty wheel on its axis, concentrated his entire supplications with oach revolution of the so-called wheel!

Smaller temples serving as treasure houses contain Shogun relics in perfecb preservation. Among the many antiquities (over 275 years old) Are original writings on vellum and silken stuffs, mote delicate in texture, more royally gorgeous in design than any materials manufactured tO'day by looms and inventions. For j few.coins, ab a smaller fane, a priestess ,! Jiliko" performs " ka'gura," an odd religious dance—if the alow gliding backward and forward and the demurely languid gestures can be called dancing. In her left hand she holds small brass bells, in her right: a small gilt fan; the movements, drearily solemn, end briefly in a kotow with bead to floor. The aecenti of hundreds of granite steps overshadowed by spreading trees (planted by noblemen decades past), bring us to the splendid tomb of Iyemitsu, the first Shogun, whose body was cremated 270 yeari ago. Of solid bronze and gold, tall and broad and grand, it adorns a spot the beauty of which any monarch on earth might covet. Bronze effigies of the stork and the turtle (denoting 1000 years of life) and the benign lotus plants rise at its base. Early next morning, we sing appropriately, " I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills," as each oi ue is borne aloft in a native " Kago" on the stalwart shoulders of four coolies. A queer, though comfortable arrangement, this " Kago"—a sort of cane chair, set on two heavy bamboo poles. Mounting craggy elopes, crossing bridge after bridge, that span the splashing, swirling streams, and fiercer currents, the kago coolies'carry us carefully upward and onward. They trudge with sure and steady steps in perfect unison, all the while droning a dull, tuneless sing-song, to which they keep step. The motion is abrupt, staccato, and very regular; somewhat, we fancy, like riding. on an'; elephant's back. The coolies, at regular intervals, shift the poles from one shoulder to the other. Smothered' in rugs and furs Mi-mi and Peggy look like Russian princesses being borne in state on the shoulders of faithful servitors, Higher and higher they mount, up perilously precipitous paths and woody ravines, through winter-green forests, out to tho open again ; near a tiny frozen lake, with miniature trees, over miniature gravestones'; past purling brooks, that leave their, icy tracings on leaf, and stem, and blade of grass; frost-ferns and delicate frozen filagree, fairy fashioning?, of Nature's frigid fingers. The heights are clothed in snow. Standing 4000 feet above the sea level, a matchless view of this Alpine landscape lies below us. The "Kirifuri" waterfalls, two foaming cascades, leaping from rocky ravines, tumble down a deep cleft in tbe cliffs.