File:The playground of the Far East (1918) (14586471947).jpg

Identifier: playgroundoffare00west (find matches)
Title: The playground of the Far East
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Weston, Walter, b. 1861
Subjects: Mountaineering Japan -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ud on the southernhorizon (p. 273). It was this same far-off prospectof the Spanish snowy range, as seen on a clear,bright winter day from off the southern coast ofSpain, that at once presented itself when first thelong, snow-seamed ridge of the distant Japanese Alpsgreeted ones eyes over twenty years ago. And oneneed ask no closer description of the lovely lakes ofNishina (Aoki, Ejiri, and Kizaki) on the way to thesnowy fastnesses of Shirouma in the Northern Alpsof Japan than this: Where shall we look for theharmonious blending of grand mountains and sombrepine-forests with a still, pellucid, shallow, but notmarshy lake, tufted with graceful water-plants, suchas meets us in Stymphalus ? (p. 313). The parallels must not be pressed too closely,and it should not be forgotten that the mountainscenery of Japan to which reference has been madeis on a grander scale, generally sj)eaking, than thatof similar landscapes in Greece. But rememberingthe influence of mans environment upon his early
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(To face p. 302. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC 303 religious beliefs, and upon his outlook on nature, weshall expect to find in these respects, also, somepoints of close resemblance between the ruralJapanese and those who dwelt in similar surround-ings in Hellas. In this expectation we shall not bedisappointed, and for confirmation we will turn oncemore to our storehouse of illustration in Sir JamesFrazers suggestive pages, of the legends and lore ofancient rural Greece. In this connection he showsus that the interests of Pausanias on his travels weremainly antiquarian and religious, and that what hedoes describe is little more than the antiquities ofthe country and the religious traditions and ritual ofthe people. And many of the customs and legends herecords are just what would have struck him in thesame sort of surroundings and circumstances of evenlater-day Japan. When he tells us of the husband-men running with the bleeding pieces of a wfiite cockround the vineyards to avert the black squall

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