LETTER LVI

Summary

In order to complete the round of Shintô pilgrimage, we left Yamada early this morning, ferried the Shiwoaigawa, rested at Futamiya, a neat village entirely composed of tasteful tea-houses, went on to Futami-sama in our kurumas, and then walked over the sand and rocks of a very pretty coast to a resort of pilgrims, which, even at this dead season, attracts large numbers, many of whom were bands of young girls. Shells, coralline, and curiosities, were offered for sale at booths under the grey cliffs, together with rude, coloured woodcuts of Fuji by sunrise, as seen from the shore; but it was all dull and grey, and Fuji had to be taken altogether for granted. Farther on there were booths where melancholy-looking women sold small torii, earthenware frogs, straw circles, and other ex votos, and then we came rather suddenly on the queerest and dreariest shrine of pilgrimage that I have ever seen.

A small promontory of grey sea gravel, with a low wall built round it, extended into the still, grey sea, terminating in a large torii of unpainted wood, and a wooden altar table, on which were laid four big, green stones, a piece of worm-eaten wood, two zen or small tables with offerings of rice, a number of bits of green pottery an inch long, with a distant resemblance to frogs [said to be the servants of the gods], three wands with gohei, and a number of rin.