Inarime

“ Oh, the poignant appeal to the senses of the dusky, sweet-smelling courtyard, rich with its departing spring blooms! It swept Inarime like the breath of childhood and filled her with fervent gratitude. To go away for the first time and come back! A month may hold the meaning of a cycle and awaken in the young heart all the fancies, the miseries and joys of the wanderer. ”

“ Inarime made a step back towards the window, her face still turned to Reineke’s, as a flower’s to the sun.
“Inarime!” cried Gustav, and in an instant she had bounded across the terrace, and was clinging to him as if for sheer life.
“You see, sir,” said Gustav, looking up triumphantly, when their lips were parted. “Love is ever conqueror.”
“I think not. My daughter, say at once, is this our parting—our last parting and our first?”
Inarime lifted her head and removed her arms from her lover’s neck. ”

“ February had set in sharp and chill when they returned to Athens, Constantine cured and spared the humiliation of seeing the town illuminated in honour of the new Mayor, Oïdas. He insisted on bringing Inarime to the ruinously expensive dressmaker, Madame Antoinette, and there she was supplied with every imaginable detail of fashionable toilet, crowned with a gorgeous red silk parasol and long embroidered Suède gloves.
Inarime, thus apparelled, stood before a cheval mirror, and placidly gazed astonishment at herself. It was impossible to deny that dress added glory to her beauty. ”

“ Inarime glanced pitifully at the youthful leader whose voice to these girls was as the voice of fame. Her own intellect was rare, and her knowledge profound, and yet she was humiliated and acutely conscious of her inferiority to this dainty damsel, who fluttered and flirted her fragile fan with inimitable grace, and wore her girlhood with an air of sovereignty that came of twenty years’ sway at home and abroad. We may divine that it was the extreme fastidiousness of the heiress and only child that allowed her to reach twenty unclaimed. ”

“ We can imagine how the fabric, sedulously raised by Constantine’s pursuit of his family’s fortune and advancement, tottered, shook, and fell utterly to pieces upon that one exchanged look between Inarime and Gustav. He in the world, and she the wife of another man! ”

“ The heavy ambassador danced hourly attendance upon the young goddess, and under her glance, sparkled, astounded spectators by feats of chivalry and semi-veiled gallantry that turned the clock of time for him back by twenty years. Ah, but his enslavement was not a serious defection. There was the wretched Rudolph, held breathless by his own faithlessness and variable heart-beats. The feeling he gave Andromache was but a rushlight, compared with this blaze of fire. He slept not, nor did he eat. Life died within him out of Inarime’s presence, and was flame in his members when she was near him. ”

“ Why was it so difficult for him, if he loved her, to understand and appreciate the nature of her repugnance? Are a girl’s objections never to count when others have her welfare in view?
“One would think I were disgraced, and marriage necessary at once as a shield for my reputation,” she retorted, crimsoning hotly, held by a sense of audacity and shame, as the full meaning of her words rushed upon her.
“Those are words it requires all my tenderness to forgive, Inarime,” said Pericles, gravely. “You wonder at my anxiety to marry you. Is it not simply a father’s duty? ”

“ But if a woman once let her glance dwell upon a live figure of a romance, it is astonishing how complete will be her discovery of the general ill looks and unattractiveness of men. Until Inarime had seen Gustav, she had not remarked whether nature favoured men physically or not. But now it was the appearance of Oïdas that told most emphatically against him. Nature had shown her what she could do for a man when she chose to be in a poetic mood, and she was not disposed to accept the exchange of a monkey shivering in a frock-coat. ”

“ Your voice has never yet been harsh to me. I am young. Show me some pity. Think what it is, on the threshold of life, to be asked to relinquish life’s best happiness. Plead with me—you,” she urged Gustav, her brows drawn in one line of repressed anguish.
“Sir, is there any sacrifice you will be satisfied with as a proof that for her sake I must utterly renounce my nationality? If I adopt Greece as my home, and your name instead of mine? Inarime is my life, my world, my future,” cried Gustav.
“You are a Turk. You cannot undo or alter that fact.” ”

“ Even Greek boys cannot do as much, but then they are not brought up by antiquated professors, who faithfully copy the precepts of [Pg 148] the old philosophers. Selaka, for this athletic training cultivated a strip of sanded path in his farm near the sea, with the shade of plane trees for rest. Here Inarime raced and exercised, sweeping the sanded path with flying feet, and lips parted with the joy of quick movement and the flush of health crimsoning her olive cheek. ”

“ Moreover, the greatest of all Shinto scholars, Hirata, as cited by Satow, says there is really no such god as Inari-San at all—that the very name is an error. But the common people have created the God Inari: therefore he must be presumed to exist—if only for folklorists; and I speak of him as a male deity because I see him so represented in pictures and carvings. As to his mythological existence, his great and wealthy temple at Kyoto is impressive testimony.
2 The white fox is a favourite subject with Japanese artists. ”

“ I was very angry. "Whew! says Ibrahim with a kind of whistle, that is downright nonsense. Who are those of my people that have authority to murder, and take prisoners while I am here? Here one of you, get upon Yagoube's horse, and bring that man to me." Then turning to me, he desired I would go into the tent and sit down: "For God renounce me and mine, (says he) , if it is as you say, and one of them hath touched the hair of his head, if ever he drinks of the Nile again." ”

“ Though Inari had four temples in which to welcome her votaries, other divinities, too, offered distraction and consolation. When the evil spirits had been exorcised on the fourteenth day of the first month, the field was clear to garner divine favour. Ebisu, the jovial, pot-bellied god of good luck, claimed his meed of fish and saké; the sacred monkey-dance preceded the fête of Inari; Tanabata, the star of happy marriage, was warmly greeted with poems and fans and paper stars, which budded on bamboo branches fastened to the door ”

“ The king next sent orders to Sela Christos, and Kefla governor of Gojam, that, assembling their troops, they should transfer the war into Bizamo, a province on the south side of the Nile, called also in the books a kingdom. Through this lies the road of the merchants leading to Narea. It is inhabited by several clans of Pagans, which together make the great division of these nations into Boren, and Bertuma Galla [7] .
The army passed the Nile, laying waste the whole country, driving off the cattle, collecting the women and children as slaves, and putting all the men to the sword ”

“ Inasmuch as rice is the most important and necessary product of Japan, the honours which Inari Sama receives are extraordinary. Almost every house in the country contains somewhere about the grounds a pretty little shrine in his honour; and on a certain day of the second month of the year his feast is celebrated with much beating of drums and other noises, in which the children take a special delight. "On this day," says the Ô-Satsuyô, a Japanese cyclopædia, "at Yedo, where there are myriads upon myriads of shrines to Inari Sama, there are all sorts of ceremonies. ”

“ Inari, which we might well have associated with Jizō, is to enable little boys and girls to bear with fortitude the troublesome performance of being shaved with a none too perfect razor, and also to help the little ones to go through the painful process of a hot bath, never less in Japan than 110° F.!
Inari not infrequently rewards human beings for any act of kindness to a fox. Only a part of his reward, however, is real; at least one tempting coin is bound to turn very quickly into grass! ”

“ It is best to carry out the Imperial instructions for the establishment of Imna. Thou shouldst now summon the agents of Imna and the Kanki of the various provinces, and concert along with them a common policy, which should be laid before the Emperor in proof of thy good intentions. Kahachi no Atahe, Yanasa and Mato are still resident in Ara-Imna, and (while this is so) it is to be feared that it will be hard to establish it. Add therefore a further memorial, praying that they may be removed to their original place. ”

“ They have expressed a wish to have their children educated; and I am sure the missionary need only go there to obtain all he desires on as secure a basis as he will find anywhere else in those parts of Africa which are not under the rule of Europeans. If this was effected by the aid of an Egyptian force at Gondokoro, together with an arrangement for putting the White Nile trade on a legitimate footing between that station and Unyoro, the heathen would not only be blessed, but we should soon have a great and valuable commerce. ”

“ Hirata calls her an ihe no kami, or household deity.
The Sake (rice-beer) God is sometimes the same as the Food-Goddess, and at others Sukuna-bikona.
Inari.—Notwithstanding the difference of sex, and to some extent of function, the Rice-God Inari is generally recognized by the Japanese as identical with Uke-mochi. Inari, it is explained, is only the name of the locality of her best-known shrine near Kiôto, first established in 711. It is not to be doubted that in Japan the name of the place of his worship has frequently been converted into the name of the God. ”

“ They were very fond of Indoma, as he was a just man.
A few years after they had built their compound, the two adjoining countries, Inde and Akparabong, made war against the Inkum, but Chief Indoma, who was skilled in warfare, led his people so well and wisely that both countries were driven back, and they have occupied the land ever since.
Indoma had two sons by his wife Isibe, whose names were Agatin and Ogum. When they were grown up, Chief Indoma died. All the country people were very sorry, and a big play was held, and the mourning was kept up for a long time. ”

“ Note 26.—Thousands of these miniature shrines are to be seen in the rice-fields or in the vicinity of hamlets. They are erected in honour of the Spirit of Food. As to the name "Inari," it is said by some sinologues to be that of a place, but the general belief in Japan makes it a contraction of ine-ninai or the rice-carrier. The fox is supposed to be an agent of the god ”

“ Tanaka no Omi said:—"Not so! Pèkché is a very changeable country. [126] Even on the roads they lie. Everything they ask for is unjust. Therefore (Imna) should not be given over to Pèkché." So the expedition was not carried out. Hereupon Kishi no Ihakane was sent to Silla, and Kishi no Kuranoshita to Imna, to inquire into the Imna affairs.
Now the Lord of Silla sent eight Daibu to inform Ihakane of the affairs of Silla and Kuranoshita of the affairs of Imna. Therefore they promised as follows:—"Imna, though a small country, is a dependency of the Empress. ”

“ King Syön-myöng further addressed the Japanese authorities of Imna, saying:—"The Emperor's decree amounts to this:—'If Imna falls, you are left without resources; if Imna is established, you will in that case have succour. You should therefore join us in setting up Imna and restoring it to its former position, so as to provide a help for yourselves and a kindly maintenance for your people.' Receive with respect the Imperial orders; let your hearts be filled with awe and dread, and make a vow to devote your earnest efforts. ”

“ I seemed to wander in dreams and thought that human life must soon cease here. If I had not given myself up to idle fictions [she herself had written several] and poetry, but had practised religious austerities night and day, I would not have seen such a dream-world.
At Hasé Temple a cedar branch was cast down to me by the Inari god and this thing [the loss of her husband] would not have happened if I had visited the Inari shrine on my way home. ”

“ Even Speke (see below) congratulated himself on identifying the old Ptolemian range with the high lands to the north of Tanganyika, and connected the name with that of Unyamwezi, the “country of the moon.”
In the fourteen centuries after Ptolemy virtually nothing was added to the knowledge of the geography of the Upper Nile. Arab writers of the 12th and 13th centuries make mention of the great lakes, and their reports served to revive the interest of Europe in the problem of the Nile. Idrisi made both the Nile and the Niger issue from a great lake, the Niger flowing west, the Nile north. ”

“ The Nile route is closed for many a day to come: the advance of the Manyuema, already spreading out far along the West like an immense line of skirmishers, destroying and slaying as they march eastward and northward, renders it very doubtful whether subsistence would be found for an Expedition from the west; the ferocity and number of the Wara Sura, and{314} the treacherous character of the Wanyoro, make it very certain that only a powerful force can ever be able to pass through Toro ”

“ I said, "Ibrahim, why should we be enemies in the midst of this hostile country? We believe in the same God, why should we quarrel in this land of heathens, who believe in no God? You have your work to perform; I have mine. You want ivory; I am a simple traveller; why should we clash? If I were offered the whole ivory of the country, I would not accept a single tusk, nor interfere with you in any way. Transact your business, and don't interfere with me: the country is wide enough for us both. I have a task before me, to reach a great lake— the head of the Nile. ”