CHAPTER I.

I was born in a small seaport town called Imabari, which is situated on

the western coast of the island of Shikoku, the eastern of the two

islands lying south of Hondo. The Imabari harbor is a miserable ditch;

at low tide the mouth shows its shallow bottom, and one can wade across.

People go there for clam-digging. Two or three little streams empty

their waters into the harbor. A few junks and a number of boats are

always seen standing in this pool of salt-water. In the houses

surrounding it, mostly very old and ramshackle, are sold eatables and

provisions, fishes are bought from the boats, or shelter is given to

sailors.

When a junk comes in laden with rice, commission merchants get on board

and strike for bargains. The capacity of the vessel is measured by the

amount of rice it can carry. The grain merchant carries about him a

good-sized bamboo a few inches long, one end of which is sharpened and

the other closed, being cut just at a joint. He thrusts the pointed end

into bags of the rice. The bags are rice-straw, knitted together roughly

into the shape of barrels. Having taken out samples in the hollow inside

of the bamboo stick, the merchant first examines critically the physical

qualities of the grains on the palm of his hand, and then proceeds to

chew them in order to see how they taste. Years of practice enable him

to state, after such simple tests, precisely what section of the country

the article in question came from, although the captain of the vessel

may claim to have shipped it from a famous rice-producing province.

About the harbor are coolies waiting for work. They are strong, muscular

men, thinly clad, with easy straw sandals on. Putting a little cushion

on the left shoulder, a coolie rests the rice-bag upon it and walks away

from the ship to a store-house; his left hand passed around the burden

and his right holding a short, stout, beak-like, iron hook fastened in

the bag. In idle moments the coolies get together and indulge in tests

of strength, lifting heavy weights, etc.

At a short distance to the right from the entrance of the harbor is a

sanitarium. It is a huge, artificial cave, built of stone and mortar and

heated by burning wood-fires in the inside. After it is sufficiently

warmed the fire is extinguished, the smoke-escape shut, and the oven is

ready for use. Invalids flock in with wet mats, which they use in

sitting on the scalding rocky floor of the oven. Lifting the mat that

hangs like a curtain at the entrance, they plunge into the suffocating

hot air and remain there some time and emerge again into daylight,

fairly roasted and smothered. Then they speedily make for the sea and

bathe in it. This process of alternate heating and cooling is repeated

several times a day. It is to cook out, as it were, diseases from the

body. For some constitutions the first breath of the oven immediately

after the warming is considered best, for others the mild warmth of

later hours is thought more commendable. I, for myself, who have

accompanied my mother and gone through the torture, do not like either

very much. The health-seekers rent rooms in a few large cottages

standing near by. In fact, they live out of town, free from business and

domestic cares, pass time at games, or saunter and breathe pure air

under pine-trees in the neighborhood. The establishment is opened only

during summer time. A person ought to get well in whiling away in free

air those glorious summer days without the aid of the roasting scheme.

To the left of the harbor along the shore stands the main body of

Imabari. Mt. Myozin heaves in sight long before anything of the town can

be seen. It is not remarkable as a mountain, but being so near my town,

whenever I have espied it on my return I have felt at home. I can

remember its precise outline. As we draw nearer, white-plastered

warehouses, the sea-god's shrine jutting out into the water, and the

castle stone walls come in our view. You observe no church-steeple, that

pointed object so characteristically indicative of a city at a distance

in the Christian community. To be sure, the pagoda towers toward the sky

in the community of Buddhists; but it is more elaborate and costly a

thing than the steeple, and Imabari is too poor to have one.

Facing the town, in the sea, rises a mountainous island; it encloses

with the neighboring islets the Imabari sound. A report goes that on

this island lies a gigantic stone, apparently immovable by human agency,

so situated that a child can rock it with one hand. Also that a monster

of a tortoise, centuries old, floats up occasionally from an

immeasurable abyss near the island to sun itself; and those who had seen

it thought it was an island.

Very picturesque if viewed from the sea but painfully poverty-stricken

to the sight when near, is a quarter closely adjoining Imabari on the

north. It is on the shore and entirely made up of fisher-men's homes.

The picturesque, straw-thatched cottages stand under tall, knotty

pine-trees and send up thin curls of smoke. Their occupants are,

however, untidy, careless, ignorant, dirty; the squalid children let

loose everywhere in ragged dress, bareheaded and barefooted. The men,

naked all summer and copper-colored, go fishing for days at a time in

their boats; the women sell the fishes in the streets of Imabari. A

fisher-woman carries her fishes in a large, shallow, wooden tub that

rests on her head; she also carries on her breast a babe that cannot be

left at home.

Imabari has about a dozen streets. They are narrow, dirty, and have no

sidewalks; man and beast walk the same path. As no carriages and wagons

rush by, it is perfectly safe for one to saunter along the streets half

asleep. The first thing I noticed upon my landing in New York was, that

in America a man had to look out every minute for his personal safety.

From time to time I was collared by the captain who had charge of me

with, "Here, boy!" and I frequently found great truck horses or an

express wagon almost upon me. In crossing the streets, horse-cars

surprised me more than once in a way I did not like, and the thundering

engine on the Manhattan road caused me to crouch involuntarily. Imabari

is quite a different place; all is peace and quiet there. In one section

of the town blacksmiths reside exclusively, making the street black with

coal dust. In another granite workers predominate, rendering the street

white with fine stone chips. On Temple street, you remark temples of

different Buddhist denominations, standing side by side in good

fellowship; and in Fishmongers' alley all the houses have fish-stalls,

and are filled with the odor of fish. The Japanese do not keep house in

one place and store in another; they live in their stores. Neither do we

have that singular system of boarding houses. Our people have homes of

their own, however poor.

My family lived on the main street, which is divided into four

subdivisions or "blocks." The second block is the commercial centre, so

to speak, of the town, and there my father kept a store. My grandfather,

I understood, resided in another street before he moved with his

son-in-law, my father, to the main street. He lived to the great age of

eighty: I shall always remember him with honor and respect. Of my

grandmother I know absolutely nothing, she having passed away before I

was born.

It is customary in Japan that a man too old for business and whose head

is white with the effect of many weary winters, should retire and

hibernate in a quiet chamber, or in a cottage called inkyo (hiding

place), and be waited upon by his eldest son or son-in-law who succeeds

him in business. My good grandfather--his kindly face and pleasant words

come back to me this moment--lived in a nice little house in the rear of

my father's. Although strong in mind he was bent with age and went about

with the help of a bamboo cane. He lived alone, had little to do, but

read a great deal, and thought much, and when tired did some light

manual work. It was a great pleasure for me to visit him often. In cold

winter days he would be found sitting by kotatsu, a native heating

apparatus. It is constructed on the following plan: a hole a foot square

is cut in the centre of the matted floor, wherein a stone vessel is

fitted, and a frame of wood about a foot high laid on it so as to

protect the quilt that is to be spread over it, from burning. The vessel

is filled with ashes, and a charcoal fire is burned in it. I used to

take my position near my grandfather, with my hands and feet beneath the

quilt, and ask him to tell stories. My feet were either bare or in a

pair of socks, for before getting on the floor we leave our shoes in the

yard. Our shoes, by the way, are more like the ancient Jewish sandals

than the modern leather shoes.

In this little house of my grandfather's I erected my own private shrine

of Tenjinsan, the god of penmanship. The Japanese and the Chinese value

highly a skilful hand at writing; a famous scroll-writer gets a large

sum of money with a few strokes of his brush; he is looked up to like a

celebrated painter. We school-boys occasionally proposed penmanship

contests. On the same sheet of paper each of us wrote, one beside

another, his favorite character, or did his best at one character we had

mutually agreed upon, and took it to our teacher to decide upon the

finest hand. The best specimens of a school are sometimes framed and

hung on the walls of a public temple of Tenjin. He is worshiped by all

school-boys, and I also followed the fashion. My image of him was made

of clay; I laid it on a shelf and offered saké (rice-wine) in two tiny

earthen bottles, lighted a little lamp every night and put up prayers in

childish zeal. The family rejoiced at my devotion; they finally bought

me, one holiday, a miniature toy temple. It was painted in gay colors; I

was delighted with it beyond expression, and my devotion increased

tenfold.