The Curse of Koshiu: A Chronicle of Old Japan. Wingfield Lewis
to hold gatherings. Even the great festivals of the year were for a while to be discontinued.
Over and above these precautions, the tyrant surrounded his person with a picked body-guard of Samurai, or two-sword men; hedged his fortress with bristling defences; and recalled his brother, the brilliant Sampei, from his career of victory abroad.
Urged possibly by a spirit of contrariness, a contempt for the society of his prisoner and the Kugés-perhaps by a sense of freedom from personal danger there-the favourite abode of No-Kami was his castle of Tsu, four days' journey from the capital, over precipitous hills. Here he loved to dwell, surrounded by his brawling warriors; sojourning from time to time, when business called him to Kiŷoto, at a small but superb villa, called the Golden House, which stood secluded in a park on the outskirts of the sacred city.
The castle of Tsu was one of the strongest in Japan (the outline of its foundations still remains to attest to its vast area), and covered, within the square space of the outer moat, sufficient ground to accommodate an army. This outer moat, upon which many a shallop floated, was wide and deep and sluggish on three sides, masked by a luxuriant crop of lotos; while the fourth wall was washed by a rapidly-running river, the Iwatagawa, which a couple of miles away brawled into the sea. Out of the water rose a platform of great stones, with a fringe of gnarled and rusty pines, through which were visible battlements of earth crowned by a low parapet. At each corner was a huge four-storied building, fitted with four wide roofs of sculptured copper; the walls of whitewashed plaster within frameworks of unpainted wood. Inside this outer defence was a recreation and drill-ground of sufficient extent to allow of room for jousts and spectators, as well as trees and vegetable gardens, and a village of wooden huts for soldiery and camp followers. Dwellings of a better class were clustered like seashells about the second or inner moat, which enclosed a second wall.
Within the inner square was a space of considerable size, in the centre of which uprose the castle, a four-sided tower three hundred feet in height, tapering towards the top. By reason of its many roofs or verandahs of burnished and sculptured bronze, it seemed more like a cluster of many towers, the centre one the loftiest; and a picturesque object it was, for owing to the prevalence of earthquakes, all the walls above the foundation platform were of whitened mud and plaster, enclosed like the corner buildings within frames of timber; while the middle roof reared its head with overhanging eaves to a sharp point, crowned on the apex by a great fish, fashioned of pure gold.
This fortress was, barring miracle or treachery, justly reputed impregnable. Both moats were crossed by drawbridges, as an extra caution against surprise. The outer entrance was approached round a corner, so that the gate with its side postern was doubly commanded from above. Even if the outer wall were stormed, the inner one frowned on the intruder with manifold engines, while the ground about it could be rendered untenable by missiles from the summit of the tower.
A bowshot from the outer moat, westward from the river bank, the town of Tsu, with straggling suburbs, meandered, low and grey, like a long serpent. All Japanese towns are of one colour, walls and roofs alike, of wood unpainted and weatherworn, rendered a shade more silvery by clusters of pale lichen; but Tsu was more monotonously gloomy in aspect than most, by reason of damp and misery. The country close around, with the exception of two low hills, was flat and sedgy, broken by marshes and shallow rivulets. Away, hazy, melting into blue, could be discerned the encircling peaks of the range, beyond which is Kiŷoto. Grand mountains these, rugged and austere, with many a beetling crag. Mikuni Yama; Outake San; and away to the south-east Asama Yama, the majestic chief volcano of Japan.
The town of Tsu differed from others in that it displayed none of the spick-and-span cleanliness for which the land of the Rising Sun is as conspicuous as European Holland. The outlying cottages bore the stamp of squalor and ague, standing in oozy sludge. So did the people bear the brand of sorrow, as, listless and inert, they dragged their heavy feet. As a poor show of enterprise, a few unripe persimmons, which no one desired to buy, were exposed for sale in the mire; while here and there a tray of sorrel-like leaves were placed to dry (?) – a plant used for dying blue the cotton which is the common garment of the peasant. There was none of the briskness and gaiety to be seen that make rural Japan so cheery. None of the incessant chatter and laughter and pattering of clogs, the rush-and-tumble of naked brown babies, the whirr of the silk-looms, the busy hammer of the carpenters.
The houses, wide open to the street, displayed the usual raised platform of wood, smoothly planed, covered with matting, with hibachi or firebox in the middle; but there was no brilliant glimpse beyond of the wonderful toy gardens, with rocks and dwarfed trees and straying tortoises and gaudy flowers and crickets in tiny cages, which distinguish a prosperous village. The paper windows or screens being always pushed back in their grooves during the day, a rustic Japanese household of the lower class may be said to live in public; for, till the screens are replaced, which they usually are at dusk, there may be said to be no privacy. You have a free view of goodman or matron in the bath, or at the toilet, or eating, or sleeping, or at work, and unabashed-with innocence sometimes for only garment-they nod to you pleasantly with a cheerful "Ohayo!" as you pass. Tsu was too degraded, steeped to the lips in grinding poverty, to have energy for work or washing, much less for the homely ornament of a single lily in a pot. Almost entirely nude the men, unkempt and frowsy, lolled and slept-such a marvellous variety of attitudes of sleep a sculptor might find there-while the housewife, thin and sallow, naked to the waist, fumbled feebly over the weaving of cheap hats, or grass sandals for man and horse.
Of course the town could boast of a superior quarter, where, in front of houses of a better kind, were flapping blue cotton awnings, each one adorned with the dominant daimio's cognisance. Into one of these, apparently the cleanest and the best, we will enter (first removing our clogs and swords), for what is proceeding within should interest us somewhat.
It is evening. The house-platform is raised on stilts as usual, two feet above ground, and the first room or ante-chamber is open to the street. When we rap with fan on the paper screen beyond, some one cries "Enter," and sliding it aside we find ourselves in a large low room, whose ceiling of unpolished cryptomeria is supported by pillars of cherry. Above the dais or recess of honour at the end, a single picture hangs, representing the thirty-three Kwannon; under it is a gilt image of Buddha; while the monotony of the one wooden wall (the others are formed by paper screens running in grooves) is broken by a wandering spray of maple foliage, painted in autumn tints.
Everything is scrupulously clean and severely simple. You only become aware that this is a superior dwelling, by remarking the fineness of the mats. In the centre, round a large hibachi of bronze, filled with charcoal, a group are huddled close, for the all-pervading damp is chilling to the bones. Two well-known elders of the town are there-Zembei, and Rokubei his friend-the former talking volubly; while a man of middle age, the master of the house, is listening with dubious frown. His wife, Kennui, sits by, his hand in hers; while apart in a corner, with eyes as bright as a squirrel's, and flushed cheek, stands their eldest daughter Miné. Her mind-some call her a forward damsel-is disturbed, for, impatient and annoyed, she pushes aside a screen, and clatters off into the back garden, to tease with a finger the darting gold-fish that with mosquitoes reign in a pond.
The frowning man is Koshiu, the most important farmer in these parts, broad-shouldered, grave, and grizzled, whose opinions are of weight in the province.
Zembei-aged, with face like a walnut-has brought unpleasant news; indeed he has often dropped in of late, and each time his tidings are less agreeable. It is the old story, gruesome and too familiar. The rapacious Hojo needs more money-is always demanding more. But it is quite too bad to worry the men of Tsu, his own home, the poorest district in the Empire. Already the starving population have abandoned hope. In a former life they must have been very wicked, to suffer so much in this.
After a long pause of dejection, "Maybe my lord knows not of our wretchedness," suggests the farmer's wife, by way of pouring oil upon the waters.
"Peace, Kennui!" sighs her spouse. "As well throw stones at the sun, or try to scatter a fog with a fan, as look for humanity from a Hojo! They were ever merciless."
"Too true!" groans Rokubei, the elder. "Thus the matter stands; though you have shown so little interest of late, that perchance I am wasting breath."
"Ay, that hath he!" chimes