Our next port of call was Kobe, where we arrived at evening and saw a most beautiful sunset, with the town and hills dark against it, and the water glowing with the reflected glory of the sky. A busy harbour it is. I spent a few pleasant hours on shore next day meeting some friends and looking through curio-shops, where the wily dealer provides newly made old curios for the unwary traveller ; but, after all, these new things are very cunningly fashioned and very beautiful, and, as they are not expensive, I am not sure the buyer suffers much.
The town is more modern and Western-looking than Nagasaki ; it has wide open streets and large buildings with fine hotels.
Soon after leaving Kobe we got into the open sea, but kept land in sight nearly all the way. We were to call and ship a quantity of tea at a small port called Shimuzi, which is rapidly becoming the tea-shipping place, as it is near the tea-growing district. Kobe and Yokohama will be hard pressed to retain the trade. We were not allowed to land at this place.
Early next morning I was on deck just in time to get a sight—the only one I did get—of Fujiyama, that flat-topped, snow-capped sacred mountain ; and most im pressive it was. Would that I could have seen more of it ! but weathe; decreed otherwise ; mist enveloped it and it was gone.
At Yokohama I left the America Maru for land. Here, again, at any rate near the harbour, the town is distinctly European in size and style of building. It has good, well-made roads with electric tramcars in every direction. But when he goes behind all this the visitor finds the native style of house, built mostly of wood. Here I saw what I should imagine was true Japanese appearance of the streets, with plenty of florid signs and flags hanging out. Most of the people were in gay native costume, stumping about on their high wooden shoes. In this neighbourhood I thought I discovered a reason, beyond possibly the wish to increase their height, for their being set up on those pieces of wood ; I looked down a side street and it was inches deep in mud. The main streets were good and well laid with macadam.
From Yokohama I went by rail via Tokio to Nikko, famed as one of the most beautiful spots in Japan. Here are many famous temples with equally gorgeously decorated exteriors and interiors. In form they are
somewhat similar to the Chinese. The roofs are much decorated with gilded ornament, and altogether more ornate than the Chinese, and, at Nikko at any rate, they are kept in better order ; the red lacquer is as fresh on the posts and windows as if put on yesterday. The interiors are very different from the Chinese, which are generally rather dull and dirty looking, with little orna ment. The Japanese seem to lavish all their skill on the fine carving, inlaying, and decorating of the interiors. To enter them one has to leave one's boots outside and put on straw slippers, kept for that purpose.
They are all very pretty and interesting, but they failed to impress me as the Chinese temples did.
The scenery at Nikko is fine, and in some respects like Scottish or Welsh hill country. The rushing, tumbling river might easily be one of our home streams. I made a delightful excursion by ricksha to Chuzenzi, which, with its fine lake and mountain scenery, is an ideal place for a foreigner from China to recruit in. Hotels with the latest comforts abound.
The road to Chuzenzi winds away up by the river, in places rising high above, with, at one point, a view of a very fine and high waterfall ; it pierces deep wood lands and is altogether delightful. It is only because you are in a ricksha, pulled and pushed by slightly clothed coolies wearing wide umbrella-like hats, that you realise you are not at home.
At Nikko is the world-famous Cryptomaria Road, extending for miles and miles. I doubt if it has an equal in the world. It is said to be over three hundred years old, and I was told the tale of how these grand old trees came to be there.
At a time when wealthy nobles were contributing, each according to his means, to make this road to the sacred temples at Nikko, one noble who had not much money said that instead of money he would give in kind, and undertook to plant the new road on either side with cryptomaria trees. This was done ; and to this day the trees remain to beautify this roadway, and give joy and shelter to those who travel on it.
They are glorious stately trees, and gaps here and there only make the scene more picturesque. I consider that these trees are amongst the most beautiful in Japan.