Mount Fuji

“ Japanese histories furnish many records of these phenomena.
There is an ancient legend of a great earthquake in 286 B.C., when Mount Fuji rose from the bottom of the sea in a single night. This is the highest and most famous mountain of the country. It rises more than 12,000 feet above the water level, and is in shape like a cone; the crater is 500 feet deep. It is regarded by the natives as a sacred mountain, and large numbers of pilgrims make the ascent to the summit at the commencement of the summer. ”

“ The groups of rural pilgrims that annually swarm from all parts of Japan during the two hottest months of the year to pay their pious visit to the Holy Mount Fuji, return to their respective villages deeply inspired with a feeling of reverence and of love for the wonders and beauty of the remarkable dawn they witnessed from its summit. ”

“ With Kōbō Daishi for guide we shall witness the coming of Mount Fuji, wander in the Palace of the Sea King and in the Land of Perpetual Youth, watch the combats of mighty heroes, listen to the wisdom of saints, cross the Celestial River on a bridge of birds, and when we are weary nestle in the long sleeve of the ever-smiling Jizō. ”

“ Philology is the science that can tell us least; for no consensus of opinion has yet been reached as to the origin of the name of Fuji—anciently Fuzi or Fuzhi. Fuji-san, the current popular name, simply means "Mount Fuji," san being Chinese for "mountain." Fuji-no-yama, the form preferred in poetry, means "the mountain of Fuji" in pure Japanese ”

“ Princess Moonlight's letter was carried to the Palace. His Majesty was afraid to touch the Elixir of Life, so he sent it with the letter to the top of the most sacred mountain in the land, Mount Fuji, and there the Royal emissaries burnt it on the summit at sunrise. So to this day people say there is smoke to be seen rising from the top of Mount Fuji to the clouds. ”

“ The Japanese poet's words, "We being round thee forget to die," though written in recent years, seem to reflect the old idea. We have already seen, in the legend of "The Bamboo-cutter and the Moon-Maiden," that Tsuki was commanded by the Lady Kaguya to ascend Fuji and there burn the Elixir of Life, together with a certain scroll.
The fame of Fuji, so an old legend informs us, reached the ears of an Emperor of China. When he was told that this mountain had come into being in a [Pg 133] single night [2] he conjectured that Mount Fuji must needs yield the Elixir of Life itself. ”

“ The following legend will give some account of this creature and the nature of his favourite beverage.
We have already referred to the miraculous appearance of Mount Fuji. [3] On the day following this alleged miracle a poor man named Yurine, who lived near this mountain, became extremely ill, and feeling that his days were numbered, he desired to drink a cup of saké before he died. But there was no rice wine in the little hut, and his boy, Koyuri, desiring if possible to fulfil his father's dying wish, wandered along the shore with a gourd in his hand. ”

“ Above it, again, is a great band of forest; the warm color of the deciduous trees at its lower edge gradually merges into the dark blue-green of the pines, which mount a long way up on the summits of the ridges that at this point seam the surface of the mountain. It is over this forest-land that the morning clouds generally begin to form. As I write, a little one, that looks like a puff of white steam, is beginning to float over the trees, and this will grow until in an hour’s time the upper part of Fuji will be invisible. ”

“ December 22.—The fascination of Tokio streets is upon me. How often does one come out into a lonely country lane, or turn into a gem of a little temple garden so near a busy street!
Coming home down a steep hill at sunset I saw the great Fuji Mountain standing out in all its calm magnificence, black and grey against a crimson sky. The huge single cone, with sweeping curves, was like a silhouette, and below rolled a tumbled wave of smaller hills, while high above the one clear evening star shone over the great peak. ”

“ The most beautiful sight in Japan, and certainly one of the most beautiful in the world, is the distant apparition of Fuji on cloudless days,—more especially days of spring and autumn, when the greater part of the peak is covered with late or with early snows. You can seldom distinguish the snowless base, which remains the same color as the sky: you perceive only the white cone seeming to hang in heaven; and the Japanese comparison of its shape to an inverted half-open fan is made wonderfully exact by the fine streaks that spread downward from the notched top, like shadows of fan-ribs. ”

“ To a height of some 1500 ft. the slopes of the mountain are cultivated; a grassy moorland stretches up the next 2500 ft.; then follows a forest, the upper edge of which climbs to an altitude of nearly 8000 ft., and finally there is a wide area of ashes and scoriae. There is entire absence of the Alpine plants found abundantly on the summits of other high mountains in Japan, a fact due, doubtless, to the comparatively recent activity of the volcano. The ascent of Fuji presents no difficulties. ”

“ After the landscape with the hundred bridges, a very large sheet of 1823, there appeared until 1829 the celebrated Thirty-six Views of Fuji, the volcano, 3729 metres high, which lies to the west of Yedo, and which may be regarded as a landmark of the country. In this set, which was printed mainly in blue, green, and brown, and gradually increased to forty-six sheets, of medium size and oblong form, he exhibited the mighty mountain now near, now afar, in the reflection of varying hours and seasons. The ever-changing foreground, which differs in each print, in itself awakens our interest ”

“ It seems such a familiar friend now, this cone of Fuji, for we have seen it depicted upon numberless scrolls and screens, on tea services and china plaques, on cloisonné and lacquer, since we came to Japan.
This view of Fuji is superb. The mountains break away and leave a vast plain, out of which it sweeps up solitary, colossal. The crater at the top looks like the jagged edges of a tooth, down which streams of lava have streaked their course. And as we follow the sweeping lines of the great pyramid up 13,000 feet of height, the [175] clouds that lay half-way down, roll away. ”

“ In times gone by, there was no mountain where now the sacred peak reaches up to the sky; only a far-stretching plain bathed in sunlight all day. The peasants in the district were astonished, one morning, to behold a mighty hill where before had been the open plain. It had sprung up in a single night, while they slept. Flames and huge stones were hurled from its summit; the peasants feared that the demons from the under-world had come to wreak vengeance upon them. But for many generations there have been peace and silence on the heights. The good Sun-Goddess loves Fuji-yama. ”

“ Sometimes there will break forth, high above all clouds, a patch of deep grey against the blue, the broad head of Fuji. Sometimes you will only know where she sits by the immense collection of cirrus and cirro-cumulus there alone gathered in the sky; and sometimes—principally at dawn and nightfall—she will suddenly manifest herself, from her foot, jewelled with rich harvests, to her brow, bare and lonely as a desert—all violet against the gold of the setting sun, or else all gold and green against the rose and silver of the daybreak.... ”

“ I can never see a high place without wishing to be on the{120} top of it, and Fuji looks obtrusively high. The long sweep with which it heaves its twelve thousand feet above the shore, the absence of any competitive mountains, and the exaggerated perspective of its broad base and narrow summit, all add to this impression, and the ambitious soul longs to be on such a superior eminence. And there is no better way of taking a holiday than to climb a mountain. To go down a river leads to laziness ”

“ In winter the first sign of land is a distant silver dot on the horizon, which in summer turns to blue or violet, and gradually enlarges into the tapering cone of Fuji, sloping upward in faultless lines from the water’s edge. One may approach land many times and never see Fuji, and during my first six months in Japan the matchless mountain refused to show herself from any point of view. Cape King, terminating the long peninsula that shelters Yeddo Bay, shows first a line of purple cliffs, and then a front of terraced hills, green with rice and wheat, or golden with grain or stubble. ”

“ Even the matchless shape of Fuji, that snowy miracle which has been the inspiration of artists for centuries, is said to have been slightly changed since my advent to the country; and not a few other mountains have in the same short time taken totally new forms. Only the general lines of the land, the general aspects of its nature, the general character of the seasons, remain fixed. Even the very beauty of the landscapes is largely illusive,—a beauty of shifting colors and moving mists. ”

“ Tradition is furthermore responsible for the belief that snow disappears entirely from the mountain for a few hours on the fifteenth day of the sixth moon, and begins to fall again during the following night. Formerly an active volcano, Fuji even now emits steam from sundry crevices near the summit, and will some day probably fill the good people at Yoshiwara and adjacent villages with a lively sense of its power. Fuji is the special pride of the Japs, its loveliness appealing strongly to the national sense of landscape beauty. ”

“ At Nikko the avenue of cryptomerias is still wonderfully fine, while the huge blocks of stone in the long flights of steps on the wooded mountain-side bring up a vision of the armies of coolies who placed them there to remain through the ages. The bronze tombs are the same, only more beautifully coloured with age, and the wood-carving and lacquers of the glorious old temples have been kept bright and new by faithful, loving hands. The Inland Sea is just as mysterious and ever-changing, while Fuji is worshipped to-day as it has been since the beginning of all time. ”

“ Every raindrop on the pines was a prism; the mountain a brocade of blossom. To the right Fuji, the graceful, ever lovely Fuji; capricious as a coquette and bewitching in her mystery, with a thumbnail moon over her peak, like a silver tiara on the head of a proud beauty; at her base the last fleecy clouds of the day, gathered like worshipers at the feet of some holy saint. ”

“ Here is part of its description of the locality in question:—Whenever we visit the place, the first pleasure to be longed, is the view of Fuji Mountain and its summit is covered with permanent undissolving snow, and its regular configuration hanging down the sky like an opened white fan, may be looked long at equal shape from several regions surrounding it. Every one who saw it ever has nothing but applause. ”

“ The road then turns up the steep mountain-slopes, fringed with impenetrable thickets of bamboo. Fuji, from here, presents a grand and curious sight. The wind has risen, and the summit of the cone is almost hidden behind clouds of drifting snow, which at a distance might almost be mistaken for a steamy eruption of the volcano. Close by, too, the spirit of the wind moves through the bamboo-brakes, rubbing the myriad frost-dried flags together and causing a peculiar rustling noise—the whispering of the spirits of the mountains. ”

“ Even here on Fuji you do not escape the all-seeing eye of the Japanese police; your passport is examined by the keepers of the hut, and is copied into a book which gives every night the names and addresses of those who sleep under the roof. About two o’clock in the morning we were wakened by our host, who took us outside, and there at last was Fuji itself, straight over our heads, every detail softened, but clearly visible, and the summit looking ridiculously near in the brilliant moonlight. Below us was the slope of ashes and the moorland over which we had walked ”

“ Along the beach, as we rode away, the breakers ran far up the sand, and the water was green as emerald from the brown, wet shore to the distant blue haze of the ocean in the south. At the end of the great curve of the gulf stretched the lines of green and purple mountains, which run far off into Idzu, and above them stood Fuji in the sky, very pale and clear, with one enormous band of cloud half-way up its long slope, and melting into infinite distance toward the ocean. ”

“ There is some charm unutterable in the morning air, cool with the coolness of Japanese spring and wind-waves from the snowy cone of Fuji; a charm perhaps due rather to softest lucidity than to any positive tone—an atmospheric limpidity extraordinary, with only a suggestion of blue in it, through which the most distant objects appear focused with amazing sharpness. The sun is only pleasantly warm ”

“ No horse’s foot is allowed to fall on the steep approaches to her cloudy throne, and even the sand and cinders are so sacred, that whatever dust is carried down on the pilgrims’ feet by day is miraculously returned by night. Even to dream of the peerless mountain is a promise of good-fortune, and Fuji, with the circling storks and the ascending dragon, symbolizes success in life and triumph over obstacles. ”

“ She must never allow it to get choked with the noxious [Pg 69] undergrowth, but lead it up towards light and freedom, towards the pure air and broad space, where it can receive, in the dawn of its day and the darkness of its night, heaven's inspiration. Let the greatness of her ideals become visible to all men like her snow-crowned Fuji rising from the heart of the country into the region of the infinite, supremely distinct from its surroundings, beautiful like a maiden in its magnificent sweep of curve, yet firm and strong and serenely majestic. ”