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It is noticeable that in spite of the honour paid to the stars in the Chinese cosmogony, the only star specially alluded to in Japanese myth is Kagase, who is represented as the last of the rebellious Kami on the occasion of the subjugation of Izumo by order of the Sun goddess and the Great-Producing Kami.
The townsfolk in their manners and customs much resemble Izumo country-folk; indeed, there are many Izumo people among them, most of the large businesses being in the hands of strangers. The women did not impress me as being so attractive as those of Izumo: I saw several very pretty girls, but these proved to be strangers.
Ponies can be hired; but my experiences of a similar wild country in western Izumo persuaded me that neither pleasure nor profit was to be gained by a long and painful ride over pine-covered hills, through slippery gullies and along torrent-beds, merely to look at a waterfall. I abandoned the idea of visiting Dangyotaki, but resolved, if possible, to see Agonashi-Jizo.
On this coast no steamers run regularly anywhere; their owners attach no business value whatever to punctuality, and guests have usually to wait for a much longer time than they could possibly have expected, and the hotels are glad. But the harbour is beautiful a long frith between the high land of Izumo and the low coast of Hoki.
There are large schools in the principal towns. The population of the islands is stated to be 30,196, but the respective populations of towns and villages are not given. From Matsue in Izumo to Sakai in Hoki is a trip of barely two hours by steamer. Sakai is the chief seaport of Shimane-Ken.
The first of the southwestern routes is from the northwest of Kyushu via the islands of Iki and Tsushima to the southeast of Korea; and the second is from the south of the Izumo promontory in Japan, by the aid of the current which sets up the two southern routes.
This dance Honen-odori is peculiar to Izumo; and the opportunity to witness it in this city is a rare one, as it is going to be performed only by order of the Guji. The robust pontiff himself loves the sea quite as much as anyone in Kitzuki; yet he never enters a beach hotel, much less a public bathing house.
Already a multitude of gardens, more spacious and more beautiful than mine, have been converted into rice-fields or bamboo groves; and the quaint Izumo city, touched at last by some long-projected railway line perhaps even within the present decade will swell, and change, and grow commonplace, and demand these grounds for the building of factories and mills.
The Buddhist family worship coexists in the vast majority of Izumo homes with the Shinto family worship; and whether the dead be honoured in the mitamaya or before the butsudan altogether depends upon the religious traditions of the household.
Moreover, there are families in Izumo particularly in Kitzuki whose members do not profess Buddhism in any form, and a very few, belonging to the Shin-shu or Nichirenshu, whose members do not practise Shinto. But the domestic cult of the dead is maintained, whether the family be Shinto or Buddhist.
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