Lafcadio Hearn's Japan (28 page)

A typhoon was coming; and I sat on the sea-wall in a great wind to look at the breakers; and old Amano Jinsuké sat beside me. Southeast all was black-blue gloom, except the sea, which had a strange and tawny color. Enormous surges were already towering in. A hundred yards away they crumbled over with thunder and earthquake, and sent their foam leaping and sheeting up the slope, to spring at our faces. After each long crash, the sound of the shingle retreating was exactly like the roar of a railway train at full speed. I told Amano Jinsuké that it made me afraid; and he smiled.

“I swam for two nights and two days,” he said, “in a sea worse than this. I was nineteen years old at the time. Out of a crew of eight, I was the only man saved.

“Our ship was called the
Fukuju Maru;
¹
—she was owned by Mayéda Jingor
ō
, of this town. All of the crew but one were Yaidzu men. The captain was Saito Kichiyëmon,—a man more than sixty years of age: he lived in J
ō
-no-Koshi,—the street just behind us. There was another old man on board, called Nito Sh
ō
shichi, who lived in the Araya quarter. Then there was Terao Kankichi, forty-two years old: his brother Minosuké, a lad of sixteen, was also with us. The Terao folk lived in Araya. Then there was Saito Heikichi, thirty years old; and there was a man called Matsushir
ō
;—he came from Su
ō
, but had settled in Yaidzu. Washino Otokichi was another of the crew: he lived in J
ō
-no-Koshi, and was only twenty-one. I was the youngest on board,—excepting Terao Minosuké.

“We sailed from Yaidzu on the morning of the tenth day of the seventh month of Manyen Gwannen,
²
—the Year of the Ape,— bound for Sanuki. On the night of the eleventh, in the Kish
Å«
offing, we were caught by a typhoon from the southeast. A little before midnight, the ship capsized. As I felt her going over, I caught a plank, and threw it out, and jumped. It was blowing fearfully at the time; and the night was so dark that I could see only a few feet away; but I was lucky enough to find that plank, and put it under me. In another moment the ship was gone. Near me in the water were Washino Otokichi and the Terao brothers and the man Matsushir
ō
,—all swimming. There was no sign of the rest: they probably went down with the ship. We five kept calling to each other as we went up and down with the great seas; and I found that every one except Terao Kankichi had a plank or a timber of some sort. I cried to Kankichi:— ‘Elder brother, you have children, and I am very young;—let me give you this plank!' He shouted back:—‘In this sea a plank is dangerous!—keep away from timber, Jiny
ō
!—you may get hurt!' Before I could answer him, a wave like a black mountain burst over us. I was a long time under; and when I came up again, there was no sign of Kankichi. The younger men were still swimming; but they had been swept away to the left of me;—I could not see them: we shouted to each other. I tried to keep with the waves—the others called to me:— ‘Jiny
ō
! Jiny
ō
!—come this way,—this way!' But I knew that to go in their direction would be very dangerous; for every time that a wave struck me sideways, I was taken under. So I called back to them, ‘Keep with the tide!—keep with the current!' But they did not seem to understand;—and they still called to me,
‘Kocchi é koi!—kocchi é koi!'
³
—and their voices each time sounded more and more far away. I became afraid to answer. . . . The drowned call to you like that when they want company:
Kocchi é koi!—kocchi é koi!
. . .

“After a little time the calling ceased; and I heard only the sea and the wind and the rain. It was so dark that one could see the waves only at the moment they went by,—high black shadows,—each with a great pull. By the pull of them I guessed how to direct myself. The rain kept them from breaking much;—had it not been for the rain, no man could have lived long in such a sea. And hour after hour the wind became worse, and the swells grew higher;—and I prayed for help to Jiz
ō
-Sama of Ogawa all that night. . . . Lights?—yes, there were lights in the water, but not many: the large kind, that shine like candles. . . .

“At dawn the sea looked ugly,—a muddy green; and the waves were like hills; and the wind was terrible. Rain and spray made a fog over the water; and there was no horizon. But even if there had been land in sight I could have done nothing except try to keep afloat. I felt hungry,—very hungry; and the pain of the hunger soon became hard to bear. All that day l went up and down with the great waves,— drifting under the wind and the rain; and there was no sign of land. I did not know where I was going: under that sky one could not tell east from west.

“After dark the wind lulled; but the rain still poured, and all was black. The pain of the hunger passed; but I felt weak,—so weak that I thought I must go under. Then I heard the voices calling me,—just as they had called me the night before:—
‘Kocchi é koi!—kocchi é koi!'
. . . And, all at once, I saw the four men of the
Fukuju Maru,
—not swimming, but standing by me,—Terao Kankichi, and Terao Minosuké, and Washino Otokichi, and the man Matsushir
ō
. All looked at me with angry faces; and the boy Minosuké cried out, as in reproach:—‘Here I have to fix the helm; and you, Jinsuké, do nothing but sleep!' Then Terao Kankichi—the one to whom I had offered the plank—bent over me with a
kakémono
in his hands, and half-unrolled it, and said:—‘Jiny
ō
! here I have a picture of Amida Buddha—see! Now indeed you must repeat the
Nembutsu!
' He spoke strangely, in a way that made me afraid: I looked at the figure of the Buddha; and I repeated the prayer in great fear,—
Namu Amida Butsu!—namu Amida Butsu!
'
⁴
In the same moment a pain, like the pain of fire, stung through my thighs and hips; and I found that I had rolled off the plank into the sea. The pain had been caused by a great
katsuo no-éboshi. . . .
You never saw a
katsuo-no-éboshi?
It is a jelly-fish shaped like the
éboshi,
or cap, of a Shinto priest; and we call it the
katsuo-no-éboshi
because the
katsuo
-fish [bonito] feed upon it. When that thing appears anywhere, the fishermen expect to catch many
katsuo
. The body is clear like glass; but underneath there is a kind of purple fringe, and long purple strings; and when those strings touch you, the pain is very great, and lasts for a long time. . . . That pain revived me; if I had not been stung I might never have awakened. I got on the plank again, and prayed to Jiz
ō
-Sama of Ogawa, and to Kompira-Sama; and I was able to keep awake until morning.

“Before daylight the rain stopped, and the sky began to clear; for I could see some stars. At dawn I got drowsy again; and I was awakened by a blow on the head. A large sea-bird had struck me. The sun was rising behind clouds; and the waves had become gentle. Presently a small brown bird flew by my face,—a coast-bird (I do not know its real name); and I thought that there must be land in sight. I looked behind me, and I saw mountains. I did not recognize the shapes of them: they were blue,—seemed to be nine or ten
ri
distant. I made up my mind to paddle towards them,—though I had little hope of getting to shore. I was feeling hungry again,—terribly hungry!

“I paddled towards the mountains, hour after hour. Once more I fell asleep; and once again a sea-bird struck me. All day I paddled. Towards evening I could tell, from the look of the mountains, that I was approaching them; but I knew that it would take me two days to reach the shore. I had almost ceased to hope when I caught sight of a ship,—a big junk. She was sailing towards me; but I saw that, unless I could swim faster, she would pass me at a great distance. It was my last chance: so I dropped the plank, and swam as fast as I could. I did get within about two ch
ō
of her: then I shouted. But I could see nobody on deck; and I got no answer. In another minute she had passed beyond me. The sun was setting; and I despaired. All of a sudden a man came on deck, and shouted to me:—‘Don't try to swim! don't tire yourself!—we are going to send a boat!' I saw the sail lowered at the same time; and I felt so glad that new strength seemed to come to me;—I swam on fast. Then the junk dropped a little boat; and as the boat came towards me, a man called out:—‘Is there anybody else?—have you dropped anything?' I answered:—‘I had nothing but a plank.' . . . In the same instant all my strength was gone: I felt the men in the boat pulling me up; but I could neither speak nor move, and everything became dark.

“After a time I heard the voices again,—the voices of the men of the
Fukuju Maru:
—‘Jiny
ō
! Jiny
ō
!'—and I was frightened. Then somebody shook me, and said:—
‘Oi! oi!'
⁵
it is only a dream!'—and I saw that I was lying in the junk, under a hanging lantern (for it was night);—and beside me an old man, a stranger, was kneeling, with a cup of boiled rice in his hand. ‘Try to eat a little,' he said, very kindly. I wanted to sit up, but could not: then he fed me himself, out of the cup. When it was empty I asked for more; but the old man answered:—‘Not now;—you must sleep first.' I heard him say to someone else:—‘Give him nothing more until I tell you: if you let him eat much, he will die.' I slept again; and twice more that night I was given rice—soft-boiled rice—one small cupful at a time.

“In the morning I felt much better; and the old man, who had brought me the rice, came and questioned me. When he heard about the loss of our ship, and the time that I had been in the water, he expressed great pity for me. He told me that I had drifted, in those two nights and days, more than twenty-five
ri
⁶
. ‘We went after your plank,' he said, ‘and picked it up. Perhaps you would like to present it some day to the temple of Kompira-Sama.' I thanked him, but answered that I wanted to offer it to the temple of Jiz
ō
-Sama of Ogawa, at Yaidzu; for it was to Jiz
ō
-Sama of Ogawa that I had most often prayed for help.

“The kind old man was the captain, and also the owner, of the junk. She was a Bansh
Å«
ship, and was bound for the port of Kuki, in Kish
Å«
. . . . You write the name,
Ku-ki,
with the character for ‘demon,'—so that it means the Nine Demons. . . . All the men of the ship were very good to me. I was naked, except for a loincloth, when I came on board; and they found clothes for me. One gave me an under-robe, and another an upper-robe, and another a girdle;—several gave me towels and sandals;—and all of them together made up a gift of money for me, amounting to between six and seven
ry
ō
.

“When we reached Kuki—a nice little place, though it has a queer name—the captain took me to a good inn; and after a few days' rest I got strong again. Then the governor of the district, the Jit
ō
, as we called him in those days,—sent for me, and heard my story, and had it written down. He told me that he would have to send a report of the matter to the Jit
ō
of the Yaidzu district, after which he would find means to send me home. But the Bansh
Å«
captain, who had saved me, offered to take me home in his own ship, and also to act as messenger for the Jit
ō
; and there was much argument between the two. At that time we had no telegraph and no post; and to send a special messenger
(hikyaku),
from Kuki to Yaidzu,
⁷
would have cost at least fifty
ry
ō
. But, on the other hand, there were particular laws and customs about such matters,—laws very different from those of to-day. Meanwhile a Yaidzu ship came to the neighboring port of Arasha; and a woman of Kuki, who happened to be at Arasha, told the Yaidzu captain that I was at Kuki. The Yaidzu ship then came to Kuki; and the Jit
ō
decided to send me home in charge of the Yaidzu captain,— giving him a written order.

“Altogether, it was about a month from the time of the loss of the
Fukuju Maru
when I returned to Yaidzu. We reached the harbor at night; and I did not go home at once: it would have frightened my people. Although no certain news of the loss of our ship had then been received at Yaidzu, several things belonging to her had been picked up by fishing-craft; and as the typhoon had come very suddenly, with a terrible sea, it was generally believed that the
Fukuju Maru
had gone down, and that all of us had been drowned. . . . None of the other men were ever heard of again. . . . I went that night to the house of a friend; and in the morning I sent word to my parents and brother; and they came for me. . . .

“Once every year I go to the temple of Kompira in Sanuki: all who have been saved from shipwreck go there to give thanks. And I often go to the temple of Jiz
ō
-Sama of Ogawa. If you will come with me there to-morrow, I will show you that plank.”