THE GEOGRAPHY OF JAPAN 



77 



Of the 200 volcanoes of Japan, some 

 fifty are more or less active. Their forms 

 are most varied, some exhibiting a cluster 

 of lofty, sword-like peaks or serrated 

 ramparts converging to a common center 

 like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. 



Of the beautiful cone-shaped peaks, 

 the unique example is, of course, the 

 famous Fuji - san (Fuji-yama), the 

 "Matchless Mountain." Its snow - clad 

 form, rising in one majestic sweep from 

 the Pacific shore to a height of 12,400 

 feet, is revered, admired, and loved by 

 millions of toilers in busy cities and on 

 wide-spread countrysides. 



Its influence on the imagination is ex- 

 pressed in the art and the religious as- 

 pirations of the nation in every conceiv- 

 able form. Its summit is sought by 

 thousands of white-robed pilgrims every 

 summer, who, during the two months of 

 the climbing season, toil to the topmost 

 of its many sacred shrines for adoration 

 and prayer. 



On one occasion I asked of the vener- 

 able leader of one of these bands of 

 climbers the significance of the white gar- 

 ments. "We wear them," he said, "in 

 token of the purity of thought and action 

 which we desire and without which the 

 mountain divinity will not listen to our 

 prayers." Indeed, his reply was almost 

 a quotation from familiar Hebrew poetry 

 we know : "Who shall ascend into the 

 Hill of the Lord, and who shall rise up 

 in His Holy Place? Even he that hath 

 clean hands and a pure heart." 



JAPANESE REGARD OBJECTS OE NATURE 

 WITH EEAR AND EOVE 



It is, however, in the great Alpine 

 ranges of central Japan that the influence 

 of Nature upon man is most marked and 

 most far - reaching. A day's journey 

 from the many modernizing influences of 

 the twentieth-century civilization of the 

 capital constitutes a leap from the pres- 

 ent day to a world of a thousand years 

 agcx 



Until we grasp this fact we can have 

 only a very partial and misleading con- 

 ception of the mental attitude of the ma- 

 jority of the Japanese people toward 

 their physical surroundings. The rever- 

 ence, admiration, and fear with which, as 

 I have already pointed out, they regard 

 the most striking objects of Nature are 



most forcefully expressed in their views 

 regarding the great mountains. 



But it is when we penetrate into the 

 secluded fastnesses of the wild Alpine re- 

 gions beyond, where scores of splendid 

 peaks attain a height of nearly 10,000 

 feet or over, that the feelings inspired in- 

 dicate a different mood. There fear is 

 apt to replace love. Some personal ex- 

 periences will perhaps best serve to illus- 

 trate my meaning. 



WASPS AS SPIRITS OE VENGEANCE 



I was one day returning from the first 

 ascent of the greatest granite peak in the 

 northern Japanese Alps, when my hunter- 

 guide and I were suddenly attacked and 

 badly stung by a number of wasps on 

 whose nest my companion, in the dark- 

 ness of the forest, had unwittingly 

 trodden. 



Later on that evening, as I stood at the 

 camp-fire, drying sodden clothes, a Jap- 

 anese traveler approached with the in- 

 quiry, "Where did the wasps sting your 

 honorable body?" 



On my replying, he proceeded to squat 

 down behind me by the camp-fire and 

 make a series of mesmeric passes over 

 my person. He then rose, took his stand 

 in the doorway toward the now moonlit 

 form of the mountain towering above, 

 and, after clapping his hands, for a while 

 he bowed his head in silent prayer to the 

 Mountain God. 



He then approached me with the ex- 

 planation that what I had thought — and 

 felt — to be wasps were really the em- 

 bodied spirits of vengeance, sent by that 

 divinity to punish an impious intruder 

 who had ventured to desecrate the sacred 

 summit with an alien hoof. He, how- 

 ever, possessing the power of exorcism, 

 was able to remove the evil by its exer- 

 cise. 



On a later occasion I was making the 

 ascent of the pinnacle of Ho-wo-zan, an- 

 other virgin peak, in the southern Jap- 

 anese Alps, when my hunters stalked a 

 fine chamois in an adjoining ravine. 

 Meeting me later on, and carrying the 

 carcass with them, they suddenly laid it 

 down, scarcely lifeless, at my feet and 

 proceeded to cut it up. The choicest por- 

 tion of its interior they then respectfully 

 offered to me to partake of, raw and 



