Jinrikisha Days in Japan

It required an elaborate negotiation extending through two weeks, as well as the tactful aid of an officer of the Kioto Kencho to arrange for me a cha no yu at the house of Senké, the great master of the oldest school of that art. Senké was about going to Uji to choose his teas; he was changing his teas; he was airing his godowns, and he sent a dozen other excuses to prevent his naming a day. Not until it had been explained fully to this great high-priest of the solemnity that I had studied cha no yu with his pupil, Matsuda, and that, knowing that Matsuda had first studied the _Hori no Uji_-method, I was pursuing the art to its fountain-head, to make sure that no heterodox version of the Senké method had betrayed my inexperience, would he consent to receive me.

Senké is a descendant of Rikiu, the instructor and friend of Hideyoshi, the Taiko. For years they practised the "outward" rites together, and wrote poems to one another, until Hideyoshi admired Rikiu's beautiful daughter. Rikiu refused her to him, and estrangement followed. Rikiu had built a splendid gate-way for the Daitokuji temple, within which, as was the fashion of the time, he had placed a small wooden statue of himself. Taiko Sama, riding through with his train one day, was told of the statue overhead. He declared it an insult to him, the Shogun, and sent to Rikiu the fateful short sword, the _wakazashi_, and the great master died the honorable death of seppuku, or hara kiri.