Glimpses of Japan and Formosa

The monastery and temple to which my self-appointed host was attached did not differ greatly in appearance from any large and high-class Japanese dwelling, dull and time-worn without, to be sure, but spacious, pleasing, and comfortable within. Word of the unexpected "distinguished guest" had evidently gone ahead, for as we turned into the grassless courtyard six or seven members of this particular group-in other words, half of it-lined up along the groove of the open sliding wall to bow me welcome. One of them wore the modern hair-cut and ordinary kimono of the Japanese layman, and was, as his appearance suggested, no priest or priest-to-be, but a temporal business manager-"bookkeeper," my guide, with his limited English vocabulary, called him-such as attends to the worldly affairs of each temple. Besides him there were a dozen inmates, ranging from the head bonze, whose rank made him invisible to casual visitors, down to my cicerone, latest and therefore lowest in rank of the several youthful novices. When he had exchanged our shoes for slippers, these in turn to be abandoned in the polished wooden hallways at the entrance to the mat-carpeted rooms, and had washed from bamboo dippers at a sort of sanctified water-trough filled with glass-clear water from a spring up the hillside, the group from Osaka, three women among them, and I were shown to cushions in a matted room. The paper walls of this were decorated with painted bamboo branches, peacocks, and various species of birds that were no mean examples of the best Japanese art. Later on, when the other guests had departed, I was assigned to an adjoining suite of two rooms such as no Japanese inn I have ever inhabited can boast, and distinctly superior in decoration, size, and specklessness to the quarters reserved for the royal family in another monastery, which I was shown later in the day.

In short, there was nothing about the establishment, except the close-cropped heads, black robe-like kimonos, and rosaries of the inmates, to distinguish it from a sumptuous private residence accustomed to receive frequent guests. The three women, with that indifference to public exposure characteristic of the Japanese, changed from their road-worn kimonos to more decorative ones from their bags, merely turning their backs on us during the process. Boys as wooden-faced as the serving-lads of any layman inn, and hired in the same way for the same purpose, brought us the noonday meal with all the requisite kneeling and bowing of such service. I know not how often Caucasian visitors come to Koya-san, except that I saw no other foreigners than a group of Koreans during my whole pilgrimage, but certainly I was the sight of the town, with inmates of other monasteries constantly calling on one pretext or another to see this queer fellow and hear his giggle-producing speech. But there were evidences, too, of real culture, and certainly hints of European influence had crept in at some time, for though all the novices escorted me to the bath-room, they did not come inside to help me into the big square wooden tub of scalding water, or to pour it over me with the little wooden buckets scattered about the flooded floor. In fact, they even permitted me, almost without argument, to bathe before, instead of immediately after, the evening meal, sure proof of something un-Japanese.