Mekeo

“ I can play Meeker again, which you chaps don't seem to know. I told the Times man on the waterfront over the telephone, five minutes before we sailed, to make a personal item about how the Rev. Luther Meeker, missionary, would sail next week for Hong-Kong in the Taming, and to tell the shipping-office to reserve a ticket for me. Nobody knows I went in the Kut Sang for sure, and I could drop into Manila to-morrow as Meeker, and not a man the wiser. ”

“ Editor I am Samurai, like all other Japanese Boys. When sick hand is well I am good for all fights. My friend, Arthur Kickahajama, missionary boy, is exceptional to this rule saying man-strangling and dynamite explosion to be bad for human race. He teach meek-eye as best disease for strong-arm. He come to Hospital and hold my sick hand to say,
[15]
“Togo, when union labour drop brick-bat upon Japanese Boy, what then?”
“Hara-kiri!” I explain. “Japanese Boy deliver jiu jitsu upon eye of Mr. Casey.” ”

“ The story of “The Mikado” is so well known that it need not be given with much fulness of detail. Nanki-Poo, the Mikado’s son, is in love with Yum-Yum, the ward of the tailor Ko-Ko, who is also Lord High Executioner, and to whom she is betrothed, as Nanki-Poo is informed by Pooh-Bah, when he comes to Titipu in quest of her. Pooh-Bah, who accepted all the offices of the Ministers of State after their resignations when Ko-Ko was made Lord High Executioner, is also “the retailer of state secrets at a low figure,” and [208] furnishes much of the delightful comedy of the opera. ”

“ Men like Hamilton, living on rocks that bucked and heaved along their orbits like chips riding the crest of a raging flood. Men who endured loneliness, dared death when crunching orbits intersected or, when rickety spacecraft flared, who went mad with nothing to do, with the mockery of space before them.
Meek shrugged his shoulders, almost upsetting himself.
The bugs had started the game and Meek craned forward cautiously, watching eagerly, stylus poised above the notebook. ”

“ Young men were encouraged to do rough violent deeds to show their strength and courage, and if they killed their antagonists in the fight, so much the more did this redound to their credit. It was the custom for a young samurai on obtaining a sword to go out into the highways to try the mettle of his blade. Woe to those who passed by; their blood must baptize the knight's sword. This training bred a martial spirit in the youth of Japan, and produced brave men of dauntless courage and resolution like Benkei, who became such a hero in after-life. ”

“ In those good old times when the Mikado was only a picturesque ornament of the community, subject himself to the dictates of some powerful shogun or warrior like our friend Hideyoshi; before the barbarous West with its parliaments and trousers and sense of art-perspective had begun to intrude, a great being ruled in the hearts of the Japanese and filled them with longing and hope and love. ”

“ The only thing that matters is that when men from sector Twenty-three meet those from sector Thirty-seven, the feud is taken up again. But that is at an end now. In a few days the feud will be played out to its bitter end when the ships from the Inner Ring go out into space to play that most dangerous of all sports, space polo. For the outcome of that game will decide, forever, the supremacy of one of the two sectors."
Meek rose from his chair, opened his mouth as if to speak, but sank back again when Gus hissed at him and held a finger to his lips for silence. ”

“ For what was polo, anyhow, except a mathematical equation, a problem of using certain points of force at certain points in space to arrive at a predetermined end? Back on Gus' rock the bugs had worked as a unit to solve equations ... and the new hatch in the ship was working as a unit, too, to solve another kind of problem ... the problem of taking a certain ball to a certain point despite certain variable and random factors in the form of opposing spaceships.
Tentatively, half fearfully, Meek stabbed cautiously at a key which should have turned the ship. The ship didn't turn. ”

“ In one writing it is said:—"The two Deities Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto stood in the midst of the mist of Heaven, and said:—'We wish to find a country.' So they thrust down the jewel-spear of Heaven, and groped about till they found the island of Ono-goro. Then they drew back the spear and rejoiced, saying:—'Good! there is a country!'"
In one writing it is said:—"The two Deities Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto sat in the Plain of High Heaven, and said:—'There must surely be a country.' So with the jewel spear of Heaven they scraped together the island of Ono-goro." ”

“ For his wheels ran so true, and there was such softness in the springs, that to take passage with Kito was like wooing lotus dreams. Think of that rush down the Tokaido! White-green rice-fields, black-green palms, glittering bamboos, pink cherries, golden temples, red shrines, laughing yadoya, bridges, canals, rivers, people, swiftly as the flight of the stork. How could he run all day? Why, he had stouter legs and a stouter heart then. ”

“ Meek stamped his feet gratefully, pleased at feeling Earth gravity under him again. He lifted the hinged helmet of his suit back on his shoulders.
"You are the gentleman who can fix things?" he asked the mechanic.
The mechanic stared. Here was no hell-for-leather freighter pilot, no be-whiskered roamer of the outer orbits. Meek's hair was white and stuck out in uncombed tufts in a dozen directions. His skin was pale. His blue eyes looked watery behind the thick lenses that rode his nose. Even the bulky spacesuit failed to hide his stooped shoulders and slight frame. ”

“ Every muscle of the native's magnificent body seemed to tense at once as if he would break his irons and brain or strangle the skipper. Meeker recoiled a little before the fury he had evoked. His hand reached back of him for his gun, and the first mate grasped Oku's arms from behind. ”

“ An ancient Imperial coach used by an Emperor who reigned more than a thousand years ago, and which is now in the Art Museum of Tokyo, was roofed with a thatch made of the husks of betel nuts. This speaks of the rarity of the betel trees at that time, for of course the Imperial cart was the most costly vehicle in the land. ”

“ It's more publicity than Saturn has gotten since the first expeditions were lost here."
"I don't like it," declared Moe, stolidly.
"I don't like it either," Meek confessed. "Gus and those other fellows on his team think I'm an expert. I told them what I knew about space polo, but it wasn't much. Trouble is they think it's everything there is to know. They figure they're a cinch to win and they got their shirts bet on the game. If they lose, they'll more than likely space-walk me."
Fingers tapped Meek's shoulders and he twisted around. ”

“ I noticed at the Judo the small waists of all these people; they breathe always from the abdomen. Their biceps are not specially large, but their forearms are larger than any I have ever seen. I have yet to see a Japanese throw his head back when he rises. In the army they have an indirect method of getting deep breathing which really goes back to the Buddhist Zen teaching of the old Samurai. However, they have adopted a lot of the modern physical exercises from other armies.
The gardens round here are full of cherry trees in blossom—and the streets are full of people too full of saké. ”

“ Nampeo, at Hano, is the best potter in all Moki-land.
Of course little figures have to be carved from cottonwood, painted and garnished to resemble the numerous divinities of the Mokis who take part in the ceremonies. Men and women make them for their children, who thus get kindergarten instruction on the appearance of the inhabitants of the spiritual world. These "dolls" can often be bought; they are among the most curious souvenirs of the Moki. The weaver, too, spends his odd times in weaving the far-famed blankets of wool, dyed blue with sunflower seeds. ”

“ In 645 a Japanese minister, addressing some envoys from Korea, described his sovereign as "the Emperor of Japan, who rules the world as a manifest deity." The same official recognized the Korean princes as "Sons of the Gods." The Mikado Keikō, admiring the strength and courage of his son Yamatodake, says to him: "Whereas in outward form thou art our child, in reality thou art a God." The Mikados called themselves, in notifications and elsewhere, Akitsu Kami, that is, manifest or incarnate deities, and claimed a general authority over the Gods of Japan. ”

“ The divine origin of the mikado was held to separate him from contact with mundane affairs, and he was therefore strictly secluded in the palace at Kiōto, his main function being to mediate between his heavenly ancestors and his subjects, entrusting to the shōgun and the samurai the duty of transacting all worldly business on behalf of the state. In obedience to this principle the mikado became a kind of sacrosanct abstraction. No one except his consorts and his chief ministers ever saw his face. ”

“ There was silence for a while, and then the giant spoke softly: ‘It is good, O Makoma!’ he said. ‘For I too have grown weary. There is no man so great as I, therefore I am all alone. Guard thyself!’ and bending suddenly he seized the hero in his hands and dashed him upon the ground. And lo! instead of death, Makoma had found life, for he sprang to his feet mightier in strength and stature than before, and rushing in he gripped the giant by the waist and wrestled with him. ”

“ They were Iwakura and Sanjo, Court nobles; Saigo and Okubo, samurai, of Satsuma; and Kido, a samurai of Chōshiu. In the second rank came many men of great gifts, whose youth alone disqualified them for prominence,—Ito, the constructive statesman of the Meiji era, who inspired nearly all the important measures of the time, though he did not at first openly figure as their originator; Inouye, who never lacked a resource, was never dismayed by an obstacle, nor ever swerved from the dictates of loyalty; Okuma, a politician of the most subtle, versatile, and vigorous intellect ”

“ Kioto remains faithful to its traditions, and yields but slowly to the foreign fashions which absorb Tokio. Tokio has nineteenth-century political troubles, even demagogues and hare-brained students, that unruly young element, the soshi, keep it in a state of agitation, and sometimes appeal to the old two-handed sword, the dagger, and the cowardly bomb. But Kioto, devoted to its old order, maintains the reign of peace, while the arts flourish. ”

“ Luther Meeker, still in his suit of duck and pongee shirt and battered pith helmet, just as I had seen him on the mole in Manila, was pacing the bridge in the calm, commanding way that marks the man accustomed to command. ”

“ The light side of life is uppermost in Moki-land. The disposition of the Moki is to make work a sport, necessity a pleasure and to have a laugh or joke ready in an instant. This is the home of song makers; the singing of the men at work, of the mother to her babe, of the corn grinders, of the priests in assembly chamber or in the kiva-vault, constantly ripples forth. ”

“ One has felt so distinctly the all-powerfulness of the men whose names and stories are the outer history of Japan. So full is the impression forced upon one by the outside of the life of such a ruler as Iyémitsŭ, bounded between the worship of his grandfather in golden temples and his own worship in almost equal splendors, and filled in by despotic use of power, that it leaves little place for the theory of all this power coming from the Mikado, who practically lived upon a narrow income apportioned to him by his lieutenant, the shogun. ”

“ The object of the player is to damage his adversary’s top or to make it cease spinning. The whipping top is also known and used. Besides the athletic sports of leaping, running, wrestling, slinging, the Japanese boys play at blind-man’s buff, hiding-whoop, and with stilts, pop-guns, and blow-guns. On stilts they play various games and run races. In the northern and western coast provinces, where the snow falls to the depth of many feet and remains long on the ground, it forms the material of the children’s playings, and the theatre of many of their sports. ”

“ Out of breath, he stops a moment to listen, to ascertain whether he has silenced his opponent. A jeer floats in from the distance. Meeko says, “Kilch-kilch! I’ll show that impostor; I’ll teach him a lesson,” and away he goes headlong. To follow him is to witness a characteristic squirrel argument, a challenge, a rush, an upset, a furious chase up and down the swaying branches, till your head grows dizzy in following [85] it. And then one long, triumphant yell to proclaim that another heresy is silenced forever. ”

“ On and on went the old Flathead woman, keeping always in the advance, and on and on followed Meek, anxiously scanning the horizon for a chance sight of the horses. Higher and higher mounted the sun, the temperature increasing in intensity until the great plain palpitated with radiated heat, and the horizon flickered almost like a flame where the burning heavens met the burning earth. Meek had been drinking a good deal of rum at the fort, which circumstance did not lessen the terrible consuming thirst that was torturing him. ”

“ The deification of the Mikados is a case in point. The Mikado is called "the Heavenly Grandchild," his courtiers are "men above the clouds," rural districts are spoken of as "distant from Heaven," that is, from the Imperial Palace. The heir to the throne was styled hi no miko, or "august child of the Sun," and his residence hi no miya, "the august house of the Sun." The native names of many of the Mikados contain the element hiko, or "Sun-child." The appearance in Court of the Empress Suiko (a.d. 612) is compared to the sun issuing from the clouds. ”