Bridge for Passing by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online Page A

was already filled with touring school children and their teachers.
    School children are the darlings of Japan, as anyone can see. They are all dressed in western clothes nowadays and from the smallest village and the most ancient, one sees at eight o’clock in the morning bevies of smartly dressed little boys and girls, all spotlessly clean, each with a knapsack and a thermos, wending their way to school. On holidays or special days they proceed in the same spotless state to various famous places, always in order and apparently very happy.
    On the little steamer that day the crowd of school children was appallingly large, and the ship sank far below the water-line. No one seemed afraid, however, and since the day was fine and the sea bright with whitecaps, I decided to cast fear aside and enjoy the brief voyage. We skirted the superbly beautiful coastline all morning without seeing a village that looked possible, and drew up at last at a wide dock and found ourselves in the port. We were to spend the night and return in the morning ship, and we went at once to the hotel. It was a large place, a summer hotel, a little on the shabby side as most summer hotels are inclined to be anywhere, and I found to my embarrassment that I had been assigned to the Emperor’s suite. The cordial innkeeper assured me that the Emperor and Empress had occupied it only the week before and had found it so comfortable that they had not wanted to get up for breakfast, which put me in such awe that I begged for a less exalted room. We then engaged a car and were driven around the island and to the volcano.
    Oshima is black. I thought of the song that King Solomon sang to his dark love. “Thou art dark, but comely.” So it is with Oshima. The entire island is the overflow of the volcano, and this means that the soil is lava, crushed by time and weather. There are no farms but the valleys and lower hillsides are green with wild camellias. When they are in bloom in early spring the island is transformed into a bower, famous in all Japan. The livelihood of the people depends, however, not upon the flowers but upon the oil extracted from their seed pods. Camellia oil—how luxurious it sounds! Actually it is a thin liquid, as clear as water and as scentless. It is used for everything from cookery to hair oil.
    A few fishing villages cling to the coast of the island and the population is small because of the poverty of the land. The coastline is wild and I stopped the car often so that I might enjoy the fearful beauty of high white surf crashing against the ebony-black cliffs.
    The roads were rough and we were glad to give up our search at last and go to the volcano itself. All day I had seen it smoking and steaming above us and rolling out its clouds of sulphur-yellow gas, an awesome sight. When we reached its base we were really appalled. The mountains were smooth and black and completely devoid of grass or even of camellia trees. Smoke and gas and steam had killed everything for hundreds of square miles and the gaunt mountains encircling the volcano raised their black crests against the sky. So may the moon look when the first astronaut descends and like an astronaut I felt, so incredible did it seem that this could be our Earth. Nor could we approach the crater, not at least upon this journey. The winding road, I was told, was seven to ten miles long, and one must ride horseback. Scores of horses stood saddled and waiting with their eager owners. It was not necessary for us, however, to climb the volcano to know that we had found what we were looking for. I stood for a long time on top of a bare black hill at the foot of the volcano and saw the setting sun redden the swirling white steam until it looked like flames of living fire. Here we would come later with our actors and cameramen and crew. We would climb to the top of the crater and take the scene of our little hero, Yukio, the farmer’s son, as he stands looking down into the center of our