Transcriber’s Notes:
There is a glossary of Japanese words at the end of the text. Thefirst use of each of these words in the text is linked to the correspondingglossary entry
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at theend.
SAMURAI TRAILS
FOREIGNERS
SAMURAI TRAILS
A Chronicle of Wanderings on the
Japanese High Road
BY
LUCIAN SWIFT KIRTLAND
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1918,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY HARPER & BROTHER
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
H. W. J.
FOREWORD
FROM THE ALHAMBRA TO KYOTO
It was spring and it was Spain. Sunsetbrought the white-haired custodian of the Courtof the Lions to the balcony overhanging my fountain.His blue coat bespoke officialdom but hisAndalusian lisp veiled this suggestion of compulsion.His wishes for my evening’s happiness,nevertheless, were to be interpreted as a requestfor my going. The Alhambra had to be locked upfor the night.
I was lying outstretched on the stones of Lindaroxa’sCourt with my head against a pillar.The last light of the April sun had scaled thewalls and was losing itself among the top-mostbobbing oranges of Lindaroxa’s tree. To dreamthere must be to have one’s dreams come true,some inheritance from Moorish alchemy.
Despite the setting, I was dreaming nothingof the Alhambra, not even of Lindaroxa. I wasthinking of a friend of irresponsible imaginationbut of otherwise responsibility. I was wondering[viii]where he could be. On the previous summer wehad walked the highroads of England and I hadfound him a most satisfying disputatious companionof enquiring mind. We had talked somewhatof a similar wandering in Japan, a vagabondagefree from cicerones and away from the showplaces, but although we had treated this varietyof imagining with due respect, we had never anidea of transmuting it into action.
The Alhambra h