Pathway to Japanese Literature

In Kagoshima, we waited four days for a ship.
When storms roughened the sea and ships couldn’t sail, there was nothing to do but stare at the water.
Rain fell nearly every day.
Though Kagoshima was my mother’s birthplace—and though this isn’t Mr. Muroo’s verse—even were I to become a beggar in foreign lands, one’s hometown remains something to yearn for from afar.

I walked through Kagoshima’s rainy streets.
I wandered searching for a sketchbook.
Through gaps between rooftops, Sakurajima loomed unexpectedly large—its beauty only confirming that Kagoshima had become alien ground to me.
The bombed town offered no anchors for memory.
When governors commandeered our inn for a Kyushu summit, we relocated in a day to a small hotel near Tenmonkan-dori.
Kagoshima refused to be my heart’s refuge.
This sensation of being pursued—it felt like some queer phenomenon.

I wanted to cross over to Yakushima as soon as possible.

In truth, when one travels for a long time, the desire to be fulfilled by something—the signs of this stir up nostalgia quite intensely.
Though I walked through the town with composure, deep in my heart I knew I had already given up on this journey.
Perhaps I had been seized by a kind of malady of wanderlust.

On the morning of the fourth day at nine o'clock, we boarded the Terukuni Maru.
The First Pier too was bustling with shops catering to ship passengers, as if a fruit market had materialized there.
Strangely enough, every fruit shop sold apples.
The white-painted Terukuni Maru was a vessel of over a thousand tons, the finest ship serving the Yakushima route.

Though skies remained overcast, the voyage seemed calm.
Through the kindness of this ship's first engineer, we received the convenience of boarding earlier than anyone else.
Every person boarding the deck carried a goldfish bowl dangling from their hand.
Perhaps there were no goldfish in Tanegashima or Yakushima.
There was something pastoral about those deck benches bathed in thin sunlight, each pair of hands cradling small goldfish bowls.

The voyage was calm.

We were supposed to arrive at Tanegashima around two in the afternoon.

The Terukuni Maru resembled the Haruna Maru that I had boarded long ago in Marseille.
Just as I was, I felt like sailing off toward some distant foreign land—anywhere would do.
After a long time venturing out into the vast ocean, I was liberated from the suffocating atmosphere of Kagoshima.
It was only this ship that devoted itself to advancing single-mindedly through the leaden-hued waterway of sky and sea.
Not a single island shadow was visible.
I thought I wanted to spend several days at sea like this.
Like Paul Gauguin’s ship heading toward Tahiti, I was beginning to feel a kind of unbearable anticipation for Yakushima.

What kind of place was Yakushima...

In present-day Japan, Yakushima was the southernmost island at the edge of the country and also served as a national boundary. By the time we rounded Tanegashima and Yakushima came into view, the atolls in these waters would likely be tinged with a mildly warm sea breeze. Even if there was no splendid harbor—not that I desired anything civilized—it was certain that I indulged in fantasies of only mysterious things as we approached the southernmost island. During the war, I had traveled to Borneo, Malaya, Sumatra, and Java; now facing Yakushima—floating in that same Kuroshio Current—my heart raced single-mindedly toward its island silhouette, and I found myself eagerly awaiting it.

Around two in the afternoon, the ship arrived at Nishinoomote Port on Tanegashima. It was a flat, elongated island. Wooden ships swarmed noisily in the harbor. It was an ordinary island. Here, many passengers disembarked. On the pier, a great crowd of welcoming people jostled noisily. I stepped out to the deck for a while and gazed at the island scenery from the ship.

Tanegashima belongs to the Osumi Islands, stretching approximately seventy-two kilometers from north-northeast to south-southwest in an elongated form—a chain of hillocks composed of Tertiary-period sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate and other rocks constituting what is called the outer belt of the Kyushu Mountain System, resembling the back of a reclining cow. It was the island famous for the introduction of firearms, where during the Tenbun era, Tanegashima Tokitaka received their manufacturing method from a Portuguese merchant ship that had drifted ashore. Having just written novels about Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, I found myself recalling how monks from Negoro-ji in Kii Province and Tachibana Matazaburo, a merchant from Sakai, had come to this Tanegashima to request instruction in firearms manufacturing.

The Terukuni Maru was scheduled to remain moored at Nishinoomote Port until nine o'clock at night, so I had thought that once the pier grew quiet, it would be fine to disembark on Tanegashima.
Weak sunlight shone, and the white sandy path along the coast looked desolate.
Nishinoomote had apparently also suffered air raids, for the harbor houses with tile roofs reinforced by white lime plaster had a new appearance.

While preparing to disembark, I was suddenly greeted here by Mayor Mogami and Mr. Tanegashima Tokimochi.
I recall that Mr. Tanegashima Tokimochi had previously held the title of baron or some other nobility.
He was a mild-mannered, dignified middle-aged gentleman in a navy jacket and gray Western-style trousers.
I walked through Nishinoomote town under Mr. Tanegashima’s guidance.
In Mr. Tanegashima’s retreating figure, against the backdrop of this ordinary island, I sensed an intensely lonely and somehow winnowed character; observing him through a writer’s eyes, I studied Mr. Tanegashima.
I had no interest in Tanegashima itself, but I was deeply intrigued by Mr. Tanegashima as a person.
I climbed the hill, looked down at the harbor, walked along the path through unusual five-ringed graves and under banyan trees, arrived before a small scissors shop at the foot of the slope, and noticed scissors displayed in a glass case at the storefront.
Inside the dark shop, an old man wearing a hunting cap was making scissors, having hung his work apron.
Under the low eaves of the entrance and above the workbench, several small birdcages were hanging.
I was shown here the entire process of how scissors are made.
This scissorsmith was called Mr. Hidaka, and I heard he had been making nothing but scissors since he was sixteen.
Since they were handmade, he said making about ten pairs a day was the utmost limit he could manage.
I had taken a complete liking to this unassuming old scissorsmith.
Inside the Japanese white-eye’s cage, shadows of birds fluttered in frantic, restless motion.
Pressing down on the bellows heaped with charcoal sent sparks scattering across the dark earthen floor.

For a while, I felt like I wanted to live on this island.
Tokyo’s stimuli were nowhere to be seen here.
I heard electricity would come on around the third day.
Fish shops were everywhere in the town.

Around eight o'clock, I returned to the ship to find an unusual moon that seemed to exhale mist hanging in the sky. A drunkard bellowed loudly while making rounds to open cabin doors with a woman in tow. Perhaps she too was drunk—her geta sandals clattered as she ran past the cabins laughing uproariously. The ship departed past nine o'clock. With the dull engine sound as my pillow, I reflected on how many people I had encountered on Tanegashima. There, I had purchased Soborin and Nosin at the island's pharmacy. Mayor Mogami—who also practiced medicine—had kindly compounded cold remedies for me. I took a dose of Nosin and lay down in my cabin.

The intended Yakushima would soon appear before my eyes.
Yakushima was apparently once called Yuku Island in the past.
Yuku apparently means "deer."
It was an island with many deer, and there was apparently even a time when deer hides constituted the entirety of the tribute.
On a map, Tanegashima appears as a long island, but Yakushima is round.

In the morning, around five o'clock, Yakushima began to come into view.

We arrived offshore at a place called Miyanoura around six o'clock, but since there was no pier here, a small launch came to pick up the passengers.
When I went out to the deck, it was bitterly cold.
The island rose more steeply than I had imagined, its mountains stretching in a continuous range as if draped in black velvet.
In the distance lay a white sandy shore where waves lapped like lace, with scarcely any houses visible.
On the rocky wall of the landing place, large timbers were stacked.

Around nine o'clock, the ship finally reached Anbō.
Here too, with no proper harbor, the Terukuni Maru had to anchor offshore.

It was an awe-inspiring silhouette of mountains. The sky had turned pitifully overcast, with mist spreading over the mountain peaks. Countless ranges of mountains towered in overlapping layers. As I gazed at these peaks shrouded in dense forests, I could scarcely believe this was an island inhabited by humans.

Having heard there was no rice on the island, I had purchased about five shō of rice in Kagoshima. Though the inn had prepared boxed meals for two days' worth of meals, we found ourselves with little appetite. Aboard the ship, we had done nothing but order coffee.

When I finished preparing to disembark and went out to the deck, a small launch came out to meet us surprisingly quickly.
The Terukuni Maru would not arrive here again for another week.
After that, I heard there were only regular ships of about three hundred tons.
When we transferred to the launch, it became filled with about twenty disembarking passengers.
Both luggage and people were charged the launch fare.
Three boatmen rowed the scull for us.
Anbō Port was situated at the mouth of a large river, and directly over the river could be seen an astonishingly huge suspension bridge.
As we drew nearer to the shore, rocky reefs appeared here and there among the waves.
The seawater was crystal clear to the bottom; there lay a green-colored sea.
The launch made little headway.
In the river inlet, a white lumber ship called the Keizan Maru, weighing about three to four hundred tons, lay moored, and that was all.
A wind carrying cold rain blew.

Before long, the launch was brought alongside the white sandy shore.
We jumped down onto the sandy area and walked toward the suspension bridge.
Beneath the suspension bridge formed a deep abyss, and upstream the river wound its way onward.
The edge of the abyss was deeply covered by a thick tree grove.
When we climbed up the right rock wall and emerged onto the white road, there was a house with a parked truck and a shack-like drinking establishment.
On the road, six or seven yellowish chickens were pecking at feed.
Crossing the suspension bridge, we headed toward what was called Anbōkan, which we had been told about on the ship.
On a slightly elevated spot right next to the suspension bridge, a barracks-style inn caught our eye.

Suddenly, the surroundings grew dark, and the rain began to patter down.
I had heard it rains thirty days a month here, but this was a dreary rain.
The inn resembled a forwarding agency; guided by a maid, we went up to the second floor from beside piled-up straw-wrapped luggage.
In the boarded-up tokonoma alcove hung a lamp.
The tokonoma alcove was filled with sheets of paper on which haiku were written.
There was a corridor overlooking the suspension bridge and river; considering the gloomy rooms, the vista was unexpectedly fine.
Amidst the blue scenery, the rain began to fall like silver needles.

We ordered a combined breakfast-lunch meal.
The young plump maid wore Western clothing.
The second floor had three adjoining rooms, where Tanegashima tax officials who had arrived on the same launch now occupied the front chamber.
Two or three of them conversed in raised voices.
The three of us—Mr. Nakayama, Mr. Kawachi, and I—sat around the brazier eating.
Omelette with thin miso soup.
The black-lacquered rice tub stood crammed full with rice.
Overhearing fragments of the tax officials' talk from the front room, I perceived how strictly taxes were exacted even on these remote islets.
Everywhere remains human society.

After the meal, we went to the forestry office in the rain.

Low-eaved barracks buildings lined both sides of the narrow road where women and children walked barefoot.
It was a white sandy road.
Chickens drenched like sodden rats pecked at feed before the houses.
Behind the houses rose towering mountains reminiscent of Southern School paintings, and I thought how fitting it was they bore the collective name Yae-dake.
With so many mountains, they said there were some hundred twenty rivers large and small across the island.
The whole island was mountainous with severe slopes; I heard rainfall swelled the waters into raging torrents that rushed violently downstream.
Along stretches of road grew massive banyan trees with long beard-like roots hanging down.

At the wooden Forestry Agency office, perhaps because it was exactly lunchtime, there was no one in the office.
After waiting about ten minutes, General Affairs Section Chief Mr. Sakaida returned from having eaten at a nearby government residence.
When we were shown into the empty reception room, Mr. Tokugawa Hiroshi of the Agricultural and Forestry Technical Service also entered and was introduced by Mr. Sakaida.
He looked exactly like Kobayashi Hideo, the literary critic.
I felt a sense of nostalgia.
Since they seemed like true mountain lovers planning to brave this rain around two o'clock and ascend to Kosugidani by trolley, we arranged to accompany them.
We heard it would take over two hours by trolley to reach Kosugidani and that the mountains grew bitterly cold.

I heard that on Yakushima, both roads and electricity had been created by the Forestry Agency—to such an extent that one could not speak of the island without first addressing their work.
Mr. Tokugawa was from Saga and Mr. Sakaida from Miyazaki, so since neither were originally from Yakushima, I found no means to hear detailed stories about the island.
Even while sitting in the rattan chair—likely running a fever of thirty-seven or thirty-eight degrees from this cold—I felt utterly exhausted.
The sleepiness became unbearable.
Drowsily, the body seemed to sink into itself.
The rain fell with a viscous gloom that clung to everything.

The land under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Agency apparently amounted to twenty thousand hectares, all government-owned forests where the Yakusugi cedars are renowned.
Since there were no printed materials available here, I took out a memo and had them write down the names of the trees for me.

Cryptomeria japonica, fir, hemlock, hinoki cypress, inugaya, red pine, black pine, Yakutanegoyou cedar, konara oak, oak, kashiwanara oak, sawtooth oak, tsurumanryou.

Yakushima rhododendron, deutzia crenata, Miyama shigure, Japanese rowan, ferns.

Perhaps because I had been exposed to the rain, my arms hurt as if they might tear off. When I touched my forehead, it burned feverishly hot. Outside, the rain clattered noisily against the glass door. Since Mr. Tokugawa said he would prepare the trolley, we returned to the inn for now and readied ourselves to climb the mountain. I tried taking two packets of Nōshin. The powdered medicine—apparently old stock—clumped on my tongue like dry confectionery. Suddenly, as if sunset had descended all at once, my vision began to swim.

After preparing myself, I went down to the wooden-floored area downstairs. A female peddler had come to sell dried mackerel. "Half a fish is twenty yen," she said. Out of curiosity, I bought about three pieces as well. At the narrow stone steps, I curiously watched a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy preparing a chicken by the water spout. While getting wet in the rain, the boy was skillfully preparing the chicken.

It seemed the trolley preparations were not easily completed, and I grew thoroughly tired of waiting.

Ninety-seven *ri* from Kagoshima lies this mountainous island—six *ri* east-west and three *ri* twenty-seven *chō* north-south—to which I had now crossed over in a daze.
Perhaps because of the cold, flies gathered around the brazier in front of the shop like scattered sesame seeds.

I had intended to sketch but felt feverish and uninterested in anything.

After about two hours had passed, we finally boarded a trolley with an attached locomotive from the hilltop trolley station.
Since reaching Kosugidani would absolutely require spending a night in the mountains, we decided instead to go only as far as Daichudake along the way.
I was permitted to ride in the locomotive cab.
The locomotive pulled about four trolleys behind it.
Luggage bound for the mountains had been loaded aboard.
Along rails laid across a narrow cliffside path, the locomotive roared as it climbed upward.
The densely wooded mountain slopes occasionally showed deep brick-red hues.
Thick clusters of hego—a type of large fern—grew everywhere.
Silverleaf plants, giant thistles, and mountain udo caught my eye.
The town of Anbo at the riverbed on our right gradually shrank and vanished into the distance.
The suspension bridge appeared no larger than a little finger.
Loaded with both luggage and numerous mountain-bound passengers, the trolley raced along the cliff edge.
The rain alternated between falling and ceasing.

From the oppressive labor born of all human greed and strife,

Mountains released
Vast heaven and earth where the mountain ascends inch by inch.
Nature that requires no sharp intelligence
Abandoning the metropolis that had entered its twilight years,
I climbed into the soft bosom of the mountain.
I knew no end to that delight.
Mountain rain fell upon my forehead and cooled me.
The mountain’s vitality fell as fine seeds.

Vine bindweed, basal shoots, mountain udo, giant thistle.

I grabbed anything I touched.

The traveler’s melancholy paraded by trolley.

The view grew dim, and the mountain rain began to fall like intermittent showers.
Sleepiness assailed me.
The inside of the locomotive smelled of gasoline and was stiflingly lukewarm.

Gray rain. Driving rain.

Falling rain. Rain that simply pours down to the earth.

A mountain path where rain repaid people
Rain that conveyed urban rumors from somewhere as it fell
A cuckoo cried
Silver rain glinted on ferns
A rainbow floated dimly beyond sawtooth-shaped mountains
Rain that sorrowfully shook the heart

After about an hour, the trolley finally reached Daichudake Pass
We got off the trolley in front of a mountain hut with sagging eaves
I thought no one lived in the mountain hut when the young wife with children—who had boarded the later trolley in Anbo Town—went in through its door
I too was allowed to take shelter from the rain
The woman was still young
Immediately she let her children down and lit a fire in the hearth
It was a dark wooden-walled room hollow and empty
They had only come here from Miyazaki about ten days prior and her husband was apparently a stonecutter by trade
The children were playing with toys made from simple wooden scraps with wheels attached

Here, they left a trolley for us. Mr. Tokugawa, dressed in a navy rain hat, gaiters, and tabi work boots, moved to the seat where I had been sitting, while through the rain, the locomotive we had arrived on climbed toward Kobanadani. I had wanted to go see Kobanadani, but upon hearing how severe the cold was there—it would be a disaster if we caught pneumonia—we decided to simply ride the trolley back down the mountain instead. Four of us squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder into a narrow trolley without a single tatami mat. A young mountain man skillfully operated the trolley for us. Along cliffside paths of sheer precipices, the trolley descended with a tremendous roar, tumbling like a rolling marble. Through the driving rain, it kept descending while getting drenched. Since I had brought one umbrella, I opened it and clung panting to its handle.

We reached the inn after dark.

Under the lamplight, we gathered around the brazier.
I was urged to take a bath, but due to my fever I declined and lay down on the sticky tatami.
The tax officials’ room in the front chamber was bustling—perhaps they had started a drinking party.
For dinner, we were served the local specialty sweet potato shochu, but no one drank it because of the foul smell.
As the night deepened, the rain fell like flowing slender threads.
I felt as if the whole house might sink into the rain.
The tax officials went out noisily into the rain, escorted by women, and did not return until morning.
I couldn't fall asleep because of the sound of the rain.
In the middle of the night, the electricity came on.
I gazed intently at the light of civilization.

In the morning, it was not raining, but the sky held an evening-like gloom.

At the transport company's truck depot by the port, we had them arrange a bus.
They said there was a bus purchased only about ten days prior that had never been used.
We made plans to try taking the bus along the four-ri road from Anbo to Onoma.
Though we heard the bridges along the way were quite rotten and the road resembled churned-up fields, we mustered our courage and decided to go by bus.
The young driver and transport company owner boarded to accompany us.
Fortunately, the sky cleared up abruptly too.
The passengers were just us three.
Perhaps because the road was terrible, we kept being thrown from our seats like jumping beans.
Along the way, we picked up two passengers bound for Mugio accompanied by women.
They appeared to be women from drinking establishments wearing navy-patterned kimonos.
They chattered away with glinting gold teeth.
They wore geta on bare feet.

The sea visible to the left was quite rough, with white waves busily racing across the open waters. The wheat fields here and there were meager as well. The bus passed the Nita Mine company housing and traveled over relatively flat terrain, but soon came upon another rotten bridge, beneath which lay a deep valley. Every time we crossed a bridge, it sent chills down our spines. Since it was the first time a bus was running on the village road, the children from the field school came running like a flock of chickens, chasing after the bus. Because the bus was slow, the children kept running after it for ages. When I asked the driver, he said that every time trucks passed by, the children would run after the vehicles for two or even three ri. The children were all barefoot.

No matter how far we went, jagged mountains reminiscent of Southern Chinese landscapes continued along our right—I heard the highest peaks reached some 1,950 to 1,960 meters.
In the vicinity of Kosugitani Logging Area at an elevation of 700 meters, the average annual temperature drops to 16 degrees; they say it experiences snowfall in December and remains snow-covered until March of the following year.
Perhaps because these high mountains stood continuously massed together, throughout the day the weather alternated between clear skies, cloudiness, and rain.
Even as the bus crawled along, rain occasionally spattered against us while wind blew through.

This Yakushima, lying in the path of typhoons, is struck by torrential rains year-round; however, due to the village’s impoverished finances, their flood control measures have not been making satisfactory progress.
May’s flying fish, sweet potatoes, sugarcane, and forestry—these are the foundations of the island’s finances.

At the village of Mugio, the two passengers disembarked and left.

After traveling over four ri—a distance that took about two hours—the bus finally arrived at Onoma Village around noon.
I went to Shimoyaku Village Office where I had them guide me to observe brown sugar production.
The sun shone with unusual brilliance, making it quite warm.
In the depths of certain alleys stood banana trees bearing fruit.
Here and there were wells with stone pavement resembling artesian springs, and great akou trees—so large they could be encircled by five or six people—stood verdant and lush.
When plucked, their leaves felt soft and shaped like persimmon foliage.
By this area grew numerous large banyan trees with hanging aerial roots.
I curiously observed a cemetery arranged like rows of beehives.

In a cluster of thatch-roofed huts, I came upon a place where sugarcane was being boiled into sugar.
Sugarcane stalks resembling bamboo were pressed in a motor-driven juicer; when they extracted the juice, boiled it, and solidified it with white bittern, caramel-colored sugar was transferred to draining boxes.
It was a primitive method of sugar production in its purest form.
The villagers had gathered together to make brown sugar, but even this simple sugar was subject to an eighteen-yen consumption tax per kin—and on top of that, an income tax too—they grumbled.

I had them wrap a lump of brown sugar in a banana leaf. Immediately after the war’s end, even Yakushima and its surroundings had apparently bustled with buyers of this sugar. Not being fond of sweet things, I was at a loss with the sugar wrapped in banana leaves. The sugar had a burnt smell. In the markets of Kagoshima too, this brown sugar had been put on sale at ninety yen per hundred momme (375 grams), piled high like mountains, but it was said to be used as a substitute for sweets. At a café called Edo-ya in Kagoshima, I drank coffee with this brown sugar added, but it was like drinking bitter-sweet sugar water.

The surroundings were unusually bright with sunlight and still.
Perhaps because the environs were so profoundly silent, I felt terribly weary.
I came across a barefoot girl carrying a bundle of wheat on her back.
This was a place where women labored diligently.
The mountains rose steeply over the village like upright inkstones.
Depending on the sun's position, they appeared red at times and purple at others.
We stood transfixed by those mountains.
Our guide informed us it was called Mount Motchiyomu.
I heard this granite colossus was also known as Japan's Matterhorn.

After some time, I went down toward the sea to look around.
I made my way down a narrow stone path that formed a rather steep slope toward the water's edge.
The waves were rough, appearing like white horses galloping across the open waters.
Suddenly I felt a loneliness that couldn't endure landscapes untouched by human presence.
I remembered what young Mr. Hidaka—the Asahi Shimbun correspondent living on Tanegashima—had said about how staying on such islands would drive one mad.
An urgent longing for human connection welled up within me.
Though Mageshima and Iōjima islands lay not far from here, a Shunkan-esque solitude swept through my heart.

Amidst the rough, rounded stones, white-weathered coral reefs were mixed in. It was a white stone resembling floral openwork carving.—I had heard that at some school on Yakushima, the PTA built a school through sugar smuggling; around Miyanoura, ships occasionally seemed to arrive from places like Ryukyu and Oshima.

When I looked at the rugged cliffs, it appeared like an uneventful island untrodden by human feet. Yakusugi cedars nearly a thousand years old towered majestically in those mountains. The coastal areas seemed a warm land year-round, with many trees splitting into twin trunks from their bases like wedded pairs. The pine trees lacked the contorted branch formations found on the mainland. They all stretched skyward, growing thick as broom bristles. The village girls would politely greet us travelers whenever we passed, then continue on their way.

I heard there was also a hot spring in Onoma.

In Yakushima, sugar was the main product; however, other exports included ponkans, flying fish, cattle and horses, marine algae, charcoal, pine resin, timber, camphor, leather, and such.
I only saw desolate fields where sugarcane had been harvested and not a single storefront lined with ponkans.
At times, I saw dog skins drying under the eaves of houses.

There was only a single road encircling the island.
It was also an extremely poor road.

In this village, people's feelings toward politics could be described as indifferent to such a degree that there appeared to be no clearly defined political parties.
I thought the simple customs here were somewhat different from those I had seen on Tanegashima.
I looked at the newspaper subscription table and saw that Minami Nippon had 306 copies, Asahi 87, Mainichi 68, Yomiuri 13, and Akahata 2.
The newspaper penetration rate was said to be no more than two to three percent of the total number of households.

By bus, we returned to Anbō around five in the evening. We encountered rain several times along the way. The sea appeared to have grown considerably rougher. They said the 350-ton Tachibana Maru was supposed to come tomorrow, but in this storm, I couldn't imagine the ship making it. Since there was a possibility it might come as far as Miyanoura, we steeled ourselves and decided to ask that earlier bus to take us out to Miyanoura. The surroundings were growing dim. When I looked at the sea from the second floor, rather large waves appeared to be moving the horizon up and down.

We had someone negotiate whether the bus could traverse the night road to Miyanoura.
Five ri to Miyanoura.
Even if we ate dinner now and departed, we likely wouldn't reach Miyanoura before nearly midnight.
The road was reportedly worse than the one to Onoma, and moreover, terribly narrow along the way.

It was settled that the bus would go.
We finished our meal in haste and boarded the bus again.

At the bus stop, I met an elderly woman I recognized from earlier that morning.
She was the woman who had come barefoot over two ri from Mugio to Anbō to buy miso.
I bought a pencil at the hardware store near the suspension bridge and was invited to tea there.
It was the kind hardware store owner.
The elderly woman had come to this shop to buy miso.
When I asked her—this woman who had walked two ri barefoot to shop—if she would take the bus back to Mugio, she declined, saying riding in vehicles made her feel unwell.

According to the hardware store owner, there were people in places like Nagata Village on the backside and around Ichinagisa who had never seen bicycles or automobiles.
He said there were even people who died without ever seeing Anbō Village.
The elderly woman, carrying shopping, would walk back to Mugio along the evening path that lay ahead.
The two-ri mountain path was surely not a lonely road at all for this elderly woman.

Around six o'clock, the bus started moving, but before it had gone far, it frequently sank into muddy ground, and the men struggled to lift the tires by gathering wood fragments from the surrounding mountain forests. With the young assistant included, three men took turns at the wheel. Around seven o'clock, it grew completely dark. The villages we occasionally passed through had lamplight flickering dimly, and children came running out of their homes shouting as they chased after the bus. Perhaps because it was a night journey, I felt as though we were passing through a village in the mountains of Java.

In every village, houses with stone-weighted roofs—lacking glass doors, only storm shutters beneath low eaves—lined both sides of the road like the huts of indigenous Javanese.
From the narrow entrances of those houses, I could see lamplight glimmering faintly.
The children illuminated by the bus’s headlights had gleaming eyes as they crowded around the vehicle.
They let out cries.
All were bathed in the bus’s headlights, their faces copper-colored.
The bus crept forward along the road, brushing past village eaves and scraping against the lower branches of banyan trees.
I kept my hands firmly gripping the window frame and watched the children waving on the dark road.
I felt as if my heart were scorching.
Returning to their homes, the children must have dreamed of the bus’s headlights that lit their wide eyes.
I occasionally leaned out the window and waved toward the dark road.

The night road stretched on and on, but no rain fell.
It was a profoundly quiet night.
Every time the bus stopped, ground insects were chirping loudly.
A muggy, subtropical heat rose from the vegetation.
The moon glimmered faintly through the trees.
A desolate thought—one that didn’t know what to do—swept through my chest.
Precisely because this was a land I would never visit again, this night remained vividly etched in my mind.
The night of Yakushima, surrounded by coral reefs, was a peace that knew nothing of the clamor of distant cities.
When traveling, I did not even read newspapers.
I didn’t feel like reading the books I’d brought along either.

To the islanders—some who had never seen trains or bicycles—urban civilization seemed unnecessary.
Though it was too brief a time to sketch, I felt I could paint at any moment.
These colors made me want oil paints rather than pencils.
The children's faces were vivid enough for a canvas.
The girls endured their labor barefoot.
Genuinely moved, I kept watching these barefoot maidens.
I too had grown up barefoot on Sakurajima's stony paths.

Yakushima was a weighty island cradling mountains and maidens.
The barefoot girls and children had white soles.
The soft sandy ground was like canvas.
A girl laughed shyly.

May of the flying fish season.

Yakushima's perimeter became a rim of silver fish brows.

The blue sea was an Olympus of glittering flying fish.

Around eleven o'clock, the bus arrived at Miyanoura Village.
At the village entrance stood a young policeman illuminated by the bus's headlights, looking curiously at us.
After asking this policeman about Tashirokan—an old inn—we disembarked.
Miyanoura Village was all lamplight.
There hung a briny scent.
The inn turned out to be unexpectedly substantial—a large ryokan.
I found myself pleased by the absence of maids.
The taciturn mistress lowered her lamp and led us to a spacious second-floor room.
When I inquired whether the Tachibana Maru would make port, she replied it likely would.
The bus drivers had shown us utmost kindness throughout this journey.
They mentioned intending to depart for Anbo at seven tomorrow.