How delightful Mionoseki now seems, drowsing far off there under its blue tiles at the feet of the holy hills!--immemorial Mionoseki, with its lamps and lions of stone, and its god who hates eggs!--pretty fantastic Mionoseki, where all things, save the schools, are medieval still: the high-pooped junks, and the long-nosed boats, and the plaintive chants of oarsmen!
A-ra-ho-no-san-no-sa, Iya-ho-en-ya! Ghi! Ghi!
And we touch the mossed and ancient wharves of stone again: over one mile of lucent sea we have floated back a thousand years! I turn to look at the place of that sinister vision--and lo!--there is nothing there! Only the level blue of the flood under the hollow blue of the sky--and, just beyond the promontory, one far, small white speck: the sail of a junk. The horizon is naked. Gone!--but how soundlessly, how swiftly! She makes nineteen knots. And, oh! Koto-shiro-nushi-no-Kami, there probably existed eggs on board!
AKIRA is no longer with me. He has gone to Kyoto, the holy Buddhist city, to edit a Buddhist magazine; and I already feel without him like one who has lost his way--despite his reiterated assurances that he could never be of much service to me in Izumo, as he knew nothing about Shinto.
But for the time being I am to have plenty of company at Kitzuki, where I am spending the first part of the summer holidays; for the little city is full of students and teachers who know me. Kitzuki is not only the holiest place in the San-indo; it is also the most fashionable bathing resort. The beach at Inasa bay is one of the best in all Japan; the beach hotels are spacious, airy, and comfortable; and the bathing houses, with hot and cold freshwater baths in which to wash off the brine after a swim, are simply faultless. And in fair weather, the scenery is delightful, as you look out over the summer space of sea. Closing the bay on the right, there reaches out from the hills overshadowing the town a mighty, rugged, pine-clad spur--the Kitzuki promontory. On the left a low long range of mountains serrate the horizon beyond the shore-sweep, with one huge vapoury shape towering blue into the blue sky behind them--the truncated silhouette of Sanbeyama. Before you the Japanese Sea touches the sky. And there, upon still clear nights, there appears a horizon of fire--the torches of hosts of fishing-boats riding at anchor three and four miles away--so numerous that their lights seem to the naked eye a band of unbroken flame.