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Accredited pilgrim though one be not, to pass by so famous a shrine as Zenkoji without the tribute of a thought were to be more or less than human, even though one have paid his devoirs before. Sought every year by thousands from all parts of Japan, it serves but to make the pilgrimage seem finer that the bourne itself should not be fine.
The very principle of cosmic continuity has a decency about it. Nature holds with one hand to the past even as she grasps at the future with the other. Some religions consecrate by the laying on of hands; Nature never withdraws her touch. Zenkoji. We were now come more than half-way from sea to sea, and we were still in the thick of Europeanization.
To be thought worth catching partakes, after all, of the nature of a compliment. What was not so gratifying was the embarrassment of choice that followed; for each of these gayly beckoning caravansaries proved to be a catch-pilgrim for its inn up-town. Being on a hill, Zenkoji is not by way of easy approach by train; and the pilgrims to it are legion.
We were getting back again into the world, it was painfully evident. At last fares rose to six cents a ri. Before they could mount higher we had taken refuge in the train, and were hurrying toward Zenkoji by steam. Our objective point was now the descent of the Tenriugawa rapids.
'Now, it is said that all who die, before going to the Meido, make one pilgrimage to the great temple of Zenkoji, which is in the country of Shinano, in Nagano-Ken. And they say that whenever the priest of that temple preaches, he sees the Souls gather there in the hondo to hear him, all with white wrappings about their heads. So Zenkoji might be the temple which is seen by those who swoon.
A few short hours of shifting panorama, a varying foreground of valley that narrowed or widened like the flow of the stream that had made it, peaks that opened and shut on one another like the changing flies in some spectacular play, and we had compassed two days' worth of old-time travel when a man made every foot of ground his own, and were drawing near Zenkoji.
The path was strung with pedlars and pilgrims; the latter of both sexes and all ages, under mushroom hats with their skirts neatly tucked in at the waist, showing their leggings; the former doing fulcrum duty to a couple of baskets swung on a pole over their shoulders. The pilgrims were on their way back from Zenkoji.
One may well linger where each mile builds the scenery afresh. And in this world, whose civilization grows at the expense of the picturesque, it is something to see a culture that knows how least to mar. Upon this mood of unsatisfied satisfaction my night fell, and shortly after the train rolled into the Zenkoji station, amid a darkness deepened by falling rain. The passengers bundled out.
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