[Illustration: CHERRY AND LATE PLUM, TEMA-CHO, NEAR NARA]
police regulations. These shutters do not keep out the noise of the watchman, who all night long wanders round and knocks two blocks of wood together, just to let burglars know that he is on the lookout.
In these quarters I spent a week or so, painting all day when the weather would allow me, and in the evening struggling with the language and gambling for beans with the family and the servant-girls, who played _vingt-et-un_ (_ni ju ichi_) with such keenness and discretion that I was generally made a bankrupt, with much laughter and clapping of hands, quite early in the game, and had to be set up again by general contribution.
Everything in Yoshino is redolent of the cherry; the pink and white cakes brought in with the tea are in the shape of its blossoms, and a conventional form of it is painted on every lantern and printed on every scrap of paper in the place. The shops sell preserved cherry flowers for making tea, and visitors to the tea-houses and temples are given maps of the district--or, rather, broad sheets roughly printed in colors, not exactly a map or a picture--on which every cherry grove is depicted in pink. And all this is simply enthusiasm for its beauty and its associations, for the trees bear no fruit worthy of the name. There is an old Japanese saying, “What the cherry blossom is among flowers, the warrior is among men.” I was reminded constantly of a sentence which a friend had written in one of my books, “Take pains to encourage the beautiful, for the useful encourages itself.” It is difficult for an outsider to determine how much of this is genuine enthusiasm and how much is custom or a traditional æstheticism; but it really matters little. That the popular idea of a holiday should be to wander about in the open air, visiting historic places, and gazing at the finest landscapes and the flowers in their seasons, indicates a high level of true civilization, and the custom, if it be only custom, proves the refinement of the people who originated and adhere to it.
The village street of Yoshino winds up a spur of the hills, passing many temples and little hamlets, and gradually becomes a steep and stony mountain path, which ascends to Mount Omine. The great tracks of forest provide occupation for most of the people in this district; as I sketched by the road-side strings of men and women were constantly passing, carrying down heavy loads of wood and charcoal from the hills, and in front of many of the cottages match-wood was spread out on mats to dry. It was difficult to understand how it could ever get dry, for all the mists of Japan seemed to collect round these mountains and forests; the landscape was rarely free from them, and constantly looked like a Japanese drawing, all vague and white in the valleys, with ridges of hill and fringes of pine showing in sharp clear lines one behind the other.