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Of all the beautiful objects in "the land of the holy gods," as the Japanese call their country, none are more beautiful than Fuji Mountain and Lake Biwa. The one is a great cone of white snow, the other is a sheet of heaven-blue water, in shape like a lute with four strings.
It must have been fully apparent to the great captains of the fourteenth century that Kyoto was easy to take and hard to hold. Lake Biwa and the river Yodo are natural bulwarks of Yamato, not of Yamashiro. Hiei-zan looks down on the lake, and Kyoto lies on the great plain at the foot of the hill.
Tsunémasa was a hero of the twelfth century, who died in the civil wars; he was famous for his skill in playing on the biwa, a sort of four-stringed lute. A priest enters, and announces that his name is Giyôkei, and that before he retired from the world he held high rank at Court. He relates how Tsunémasa, in his childhood the favourite of the Emperor, died in the wars by the western seas.
A shrewd, clever, and scheming old man, the Prince of Mito now became the defender of the cause of the Emperor and the mouthpiece of the conservative party. At the head of the Bakufu party was a man of iron and fertile resources, Ii Kamon No Kami. He was the Daimio of Hikone, a castled town and fief on Lake Biwa, in Mino. His revenue was small, being only three hundred and fifty thousand koku.
After leaving the city the Tokaido leads over a low pass through the hills to Otsu, on the lovely sheet of water known as Biwa Lake. This lake is of about the same dimensions as Lake Geneva, and fairly rivals that Switzer gem in transcendental beauty. The Japs, with all their keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, go into raptures over Biwa Lake.
All that he could do was to arrest momentarily the tide of onset by planting handfuls of men to guard the chief avenues at Uji and Seta where, four years previously, Yorimasa had died for the Minamoto cause, and Seta, where a long bridge spans the waters of Lake Biwa as they narrow to form the Setagawa.
So ever afterward, even to this day, after driving out all the bad creatures with parched beans, they place sprigs of holly at their door-posts on New Year's eve, to keep away the oni and all evil spirits. On one of the hills overlooking the blue sky's mirror of Lake Biwa, stands the ancient monastery of Miidera which was founded over 1,200 years ago, by the pious mikado Tenchi.
It had also reached His Majesty that, although blind, he was exceedingly skilled in the art of playing the biwa, both in the Flowing Fount manner and the Woodpecker manner, and that, especially on nights when the moon was full, this aged man made such music as transported the soul. This music His Majesty desired very greatly to hear.
All sorts of legends and romantic stories are associated with the waters of Lake Biwa. Its origin is said to be due to an earthquake that took place several centuries before the Christian era; the legend states that Fuji rose to its majestic height from the plain of Suruga at the same moment the lake was formed.
The Left-Handed Artist. Japanese Art City of Kobé. Kioto and its Temples. Idol Worship. Native Amusements. Morals in Japan. Lake Biwa. Osaka on a Gala Day. The Inland Sea. Island of Pappenburg. The Tarpeian Rock of Japan. Nagasaki. Girls Coaling a Ship. National Products.
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