Nikko

“ The strangest hierophant in Nikko is the priestess who dances at the temple of Iyeyasu. She looks her threescore years of age, and is allowed a small temple to herself, where she sits, posed like an altar image, with a big money-box on the sacred red steps before her, into which the pious and the curious toss their offerings. ”

“ It is such a picturesque, well-wooded range, this Nikko chain of mountains, and they all bear that peculiar Japanese characteristic of rising straight out of the plain, ending with sharp three-sided cones, and like all else in this country, though lofty, they are on a small scale, toy mountains that seem to fit in with the miniature picture. ”

“ Here and there it opens out into a village street, with abundance of refreshment booths for the pilgrims who still make the journey on foot.
Nikko itself is a long, steep street, leading up to a rushing mountain torrent in a rocky ravine, which is crossed by two bridges side by side. One is an ordinary wooden structure, used by all the world; the other, which is of red lacquer, with black supports and brass ornaments, is only opened for the Emperor and his family to pass over. ”

“ THE SHADOW OF A TO-MORROW Nikko's thin street, with its gigantic isle of cryptomeria, was a shimmer of gold, a flicker of crimson and mandarin-blue. All the town was out of doors, for it was the matsuri, the local festival of Ieyasu, the great shogun deity, when the ancient furniture and treasures of the temple are carried in priestly processional through the streets. The path of the pageant was lined with spectators: old country-women with shaven eyebrows and burnished, blackened teeth, and with hair tightly plastered in old-fashioned wheels and pinions ”

“ Everything proclaims a hoary past—trees, moss-grown stones, battered images, crumbling tombs, overgrown and forgotten graveyards.
Each summer half the Tokio legations move bodily to Nikko, and temples, monastery wings, priests’ houses, and the homes of the dwellers in the upper village are rented to foreigners in ever-increasing numbers. Nikko habitations do not yet bring the prices of Newport cottages, but the extravagant rate of three and even five hundred yens for a season of three months is a Japanese equivalent. ”

“ Poor Nikko sat weeping by the window. It was cold and dusty and untidy in the tower-room. She had pulled the brocaded shawl tight about her shoulders and had taken off her tiny shoes, for now that she was no longer an Empress she thought she might as well be comfortable. Her parasol lay up-side-down in a corner for she never expected to use it again. The sun never shone in the tower where she was to stay all her life.
How surprised she was when a small voice called: “Nikko, Empress of China!” and looking up, she discovered the golden spider sitting on the window-sill! ”

“ Nikko has the two most beautiful temples in the magic land—those of Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, and his grandson, Iyemitsu. Here you see the most perfect lacquer and carving in all Japan. And their courtyards are exquisitely terraced on the mountain-side. Here, too, besides these and other glorious temples, there are the added charms of scenery, a foaming sky-blue river, running beneath the sacred scarlet bridge, and between the avenue of Buddhas, commons of scarlet azalea, and thickets of wild wistaria. ”

“ Nikko's sacred grove of Cryptomerie trees said to be over three hundred years old, never looked more impressive than in the first rain we had had while in Japan. One of the party who had traveled extensively in the Orient previously, advised us to forget our trade commercial mission long enough to see Nikko and then we could afford to overlook all the other temples. Certainly nature and man's art achieved a double triumph here, and this advice must have piqued the curiosity of most of the stolid businessmen of the party ”

“ The shaving the face till it is smooth and shiny, and the cutting, waxing, and tying of the queue with twine made of paper, are among the evening sights of Nikkô.
Lacquer and things curiously carved in wood are the great attractions of the shops, but they interest me far less than the objects of utility in Japanese daily life, with their ingenuity of contrivance and perfection of adaptation and workmanship. A seed shop, where seeds are truly idealised, attracts me daily. ”

“ Leaving Nikko, with an altitude of two thousand feet higher than the sea, for Tokio, one hundred miles distant and at sea-level, was a decided drop. The day was bright and the views from the car window gave one an ever-varying panorama, consisting of mountains, a long avenue of tall cryptomerias that seemed to extend for miles, cultivated fields, and luxuriant vegetation freshened by the recent rain. Nature put forth her loveliest Spring tints, to which cherry blossoms ever and anon gave a touch of color. ”

“ The Japanese have a saying that you must call nothing beautiful until you have seen Nikko. L. says nothing is beautiful after you have seen Nikko. It is supreme, the climax. In 1889 he journeyed three hours to Utsunomiya, and then five hours by kuruma to Nikko, through the wonderful avenue of cryptomerias, with the foliage meeting overhead. This avenue is said to extend for fifty miles. When the temples at Nikko were being raised, some three hundred years ago, many nobles presented portions of them ”

“ They were planted, as an act of homage, some two centuries ago, by some mighty noble, when it was decided to place at Nikko the tomb of the great shogun Iyéyasŭ. They rise on each side of the sunken road, from banks and mounds, over which steps lead, from time to time, to plantations and rice-fields beyond, and to shrines peeping out among the trees. In side-roads above, on either hand, passed occasionally peasants and pack-horses laden with forage, or the bright shine of a peasant woman's red skirt. ”

“ This road was made two centuries ago, when the Shoguns chose Nikko as their burial place, and these venerable trees have shaded the magnificent funeral trains of the old warriors, and the splendid processions of their successors, who made pilgrimages to the tombs of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu. In our day, alas, instead of mighty daimios and men-at-arms in coats of mail, or brocaded grandees in gilded palanquins, telegraph-poles, slim, ugly, and utilitarian, impertinently thrust themselves forward before the grand old tree-trunks, and the jinrikisha and the rattle-trap basha take their plebeian way. ”

“ The glorious avenue of cryptomerias which lined the old road to Nikko has suffered from the hands of time and man; but long stretches of the splendid old trees still remain, and form a fitting approach to the little mountain village, celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the world for its mortuary shrines, whose final peacefulness and simplicity seem so striking after the ornate splendour and gorgeous colouring of the outer gates and temples. ”

“ It is not the real Japanese mind, I think, to build a house for the dead, as I know that it goes straight towards associating the dead with trees, mountains, water, winds, shadows, deer, ravens, foxes, wolves, and bears, and uses to leave them to the care of the sun and moon; indeed, it was the unlettered samurai mind to build such temples as I see at this Nikko, afraid to return to the gray elements and wishing to find a shelter even after death in materialism. ”

“ Besides the foreigners, there are many Japanese residents and tourists—little men in hot, uncomfortable foreign clothes, with field-glasses strapped across one shoulder, and the freshest and tightest of gloves. The white-clad pilgrims throng hither by thousands during July and early August, march picturesquely to the jingle of their staffs and bells round the great temples, and trudge on to the sanctuary on Chiuzenji's shores within the shadow of holy Nantaisan.
Two bridges cross the Daiyagawa, and lead to the groves and temples that make Nikko’s fame. ”

“ Campbell, smiling.
Billie knew perfectly well that Nancy was going to say: "Is Yoritomo going?" but had changed her mind, when she asked instead:
"Is Nikko a town?"
"It's a number of things. It's considered by some people to be the most beautiful place in the world, for one thing. It's a small town; it's a magnificent forest of cryptomerias; and it's a sacred mountain, and a collection of marvelous old temples and tombs and statues of Buddha. But first and foremost it is a cool, green, lovely spot with good, dry, pine-scented air for certain persons feeling in need of such." ”

“ Grand and lonely Nikko looks, the home of rain and mist. Kuruma roads end here, and if you wish to go any farther, you must either walk, ride, or be carried.
Ito was long away, and the coolies kept addressing me in Japanese, which made me feel helpless and solitary, and eventually they shouldered my baggage, and, descending a flight of steps, we crossed the river by the secular bridge, and shortly met my host, Kanaya, a very bright, pleasant-looking man, who bowed nearly to the earth. Terraced roads in every direction lead through cryptomerias to the shrines ”

“ There is said to be one temple in Nikko wholly covered with gold. One other thing so lovely in Nikko is the abundance of running water and cascades. One cannot go out of hearing of the constant rushing and rippling of water. ”

“ Craig urging them all to join her in the mountains near the famous temples of Nikko. "I have been unable to find you a proper house," she wrote, "but I think you can be very comfortable at one of the inns. I would my own cottage were larger so I could take you all in, but I shall insist upon having Nan and Mary Lee at least. Eleanor gets lonely and begs that they will not disappoint her. You know the old saying, 'Do not say kekko till you have seen Nikko,' meaning that you are not to call any spot magnificent until you have been up here." ”

“ Under the shadow of century-old pines and cryptomeria stand the mortuary temples of the later Shoguns, superb edifices ablaze with red and gold lacquer, and set with panels of carved wood, splendid in color and gilding, the gold trefoil of the Tokugawas shining on every ridge-pole and gable. These temples and tombs are lesser copies of the magnificent shrines at Nikko, and but for those originals would be unique. On a rainy day, the green shadow and gloom, the cawing of the ravens that live in the [49] old pine-trees, and their slow flight, are solemn as death itself ”

“ Who has not seen Nikko does not know how to pronounce the world 'beautiful.'"
Yokohama is not the proper place to arrange impressions in. The Pacific Ocean knocks at your door, asking to be looked at; the Japanese and American men-of-war demand serious attention through a telescope; and if you wander about the corridors of the Grand Hotel, you stop to play with Spanish Generals, all gold lace and spurs, or are captured by touts for curio-shops. It is not a nice experience to find a Sahib in a Panama hat handing you the card of his firm for all the [Pg 382] world like a Delhi silk-merchant. ”

“ It has fallen off considerably in trade and wealth since government took possession of it.
Nikko boonio.—At Nikko Hill is buried To sho goo, or Iyeyas, the first of the dynasty, and a fine temple (Chiu senji) is erected near the tomb. The actual tombs of heroes and great men in Japan, as has been said, seem to be generally very modest and unassuming memorials. From the roof of the temple at Nikko is hung a large chandelier presented by the Dutch. The Shiogoons after Iyeyas are buried, some at the Shibba, a temple in Yedo, some at Ooyayno or Toyay san, another large temple in Yedo ”

“ And they will help to give Iyémitsŭ existence for you. He seems too vague in the temple dedicated to him at Nikko, even when we look at his bronze tomb and are told that he lies there packed in vermilion: our minds have become so far removed from the ways of thinking of Japan that a divinized mortal is an empty phrase for us. ”

“ Nikko being a district far remote from any industrial centre, and even Yedo itself being unable to supply the great number of experts required for such a magnificent work as the mausoleum, skilled artists and artisans were invited from all parts of the Empire. ”

“ And you will feel encouraged when you observe the real fact, how even the barbarity of human work can calm down before Nature, and happier still how they can form a good friendship with one another for creating the one perfect art known as Nikko. I am glad to see the proof of power of a Japanese landscape artist who could use his art on a large scale as I see it here, not merely in a small city garden ”

“ It is a truly dull, quaint street, and the people come out to stare at a foreigner as if foreigners had not become common events since 1870, when Sir H. and Lady Parkes, the first Europeans who were permitted to visit Nikko, took up their abode in the Imperial Hombo. ”

“ The habits of many of the Yokohama foreigners have helped to obliterate any distinctions between right and wrong, if he ever made any. If he wishes to tell me that he has seen a very tipsy man, he always says he has seen "a fellow as drunk as an Englishman." At Nikko I asked him how many legal wives a man could have in Japan, and he replied, "Only one lawful one, but as many others (mekake) as he can support, just as Englishmen have." ”

“ The "beaten tracks," with the exception of Nikko, have been dismissed in a few sentences, but where their features have undergone marked changes within a few years, as in the case of Tokiyo (Yedo) , they have been sketched more or less slightly. Many important subjects are necessarily passed over. ”