Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/47

 into Mississippi Bay, one looks across to Sugita, a fishing village with an ancient temple set in the midst of plum-trees and cherry-trees that make it a place of fêtes in February and April, when those two great flower festivals of the empire, the blossoming of the plum and the cherry, are observed. From the bluff above Sugita, at the end of the watery cresent [sic], is a superb view of the Bay and its countless sharp, green headlands. Wherever the view is fine some Japanese family has encamped in a tateba, the least little mat shed of a house, furnished with a charcoal brazier, half a dozen tea-pots and cups, and a few low benches covered with the all-pervading red blanket. Their national passion for landscape and scenery draws the Japanese to places having fine prospects, and a thrifty woman, with her family of children, turns many a penny by means of her comfortable seat and good cheer for the wayfarer. Japan is the picnicker's own country, whether he be native or foreign. Everywhere, climbing the mountain-tops, or crouching in the valleys, hidden in the innermost folds of the hills, or perched on the narrowest and remotest ledges overhanging the water, one finds the tea-house, or its summer companion, the tateba, with its open sides and simmering kettle. Everywhere hot water, tea, rice, fruits, eggs, cups, plates, glasses, and corkscrews may be had. These things become so much a matter of course after a time, that the tourist must banish himself to China, to value, as they deserve, the clean Japanese tea-house, and the view-commanding tateba with its simple comforts.

Sugita's plum-trees bud in January, and blossom as mild days and warm suns encourage, so that the last week of February finds the dead-looking branches clothed with clouds of starry white flowers. The blossoming plum-tree is often seen when snow is on the ground, and the hawthorn pattern of old porcelains is only a conventional representation of pale blooms fallen on the seamed 31