Look From a Different Angle

At the eastern edge of Nara, at the foot of a mountain called Mount Kono in the village of Yamazoe, there is a valley known as Nabekura-kei. It is about twenty-five metres wide on average and a little over six hundred and fifty metres long, and its floor is packed edge to edge with black boulders, large and small. The stone, they say, is a very hard rock called hornblende gabbro, formed deep down in the earth. While the mountains around it were worn away little by little over a long stretch of time, this stone alone stayed unbroken, and it came to lie along the course of an old valley like a river. Seen from a distance, it looks almost like black lava still flowing down without a sound.

A narrow path of wooden boards has been laid along the valley, and it takes you upward, right past the largest of the rocks. Someone stops partway along it. Ahead, the way looks closed off by stone piled higher than the head. Even in summer it is cool under the trees, and a thin coat of moss lies over the faces of the boulders. The person stands there for a while, waiting for the sweat to settle.

Just then, from somewhere near the feet, a faint sound of water carries up. This valley is not a dry streambed. Far below the black rock, they say, an unseen stream is running. However hard you look down between the stones, the water is nowhere to be seen. And still, if you listen, the water is certainly moving, down toward the lower end of the valley. The board path slips past the side of that rock and carries on, further up.