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floats upwards from the city to these mossy terraces, cool and dim beneath the fretted boughs. A few pink lotuscups linger among their yellowing leaves on the sacred ponds crossed by hump-backed bridges, and the tall lanterns of stone and bronze, green with the damp and lichen of centuries, give an aspect of hoary antiquity to these groves of Old Japan. The aromatic fragrance of the slumbrous air, thrilled by a lulling melody as of murmuring harps, suggest a world of dreams and fancies; and the towering conifers, in their stately growth and pyramidal solidity, introduce an element of order and precision into the rocky landscape, rendering it a fitting frame for the solemnities of religion. These typical trees of Japan have been regarded as the divining rods of earth, which discover water in the thirsty wilderness, and, like the rod of Moses, smite the barren rock to reveal the living fountain. This natural truth underlies the Chinese proverb, that "The mightiest rivers are cradled in the needles of the pine," a conception originating in the fact of the forked boughs condensing and distilling the passing clouds which percolate the crags and flow in streams down the valleys.

The city of Kyoto attracted the entire resources of the empire, which consecrated art, genius, and wealth to the service of religion. All the rocky slopes of Maruyama are holy ground, and the further hills bristle with gray temples, red pagodas, and yellowwalled monasteries, approached by long avenues and mouldering stairways, still trodden by myriad pilgrim feet. The eastern and western Hengwanji, each temple a blaze of gold and vermilion, its carved brown woodwork picked out with white in the fashion peculiar to the Monto sect of Buddhists, contain state-rooms for the use of the Mikado. The screens and

scrolls of gold leaf adorned with sym. bolical flowers, water-birds, and snowy landscapes, display the utmost refinement of Japanese art. A certain delicate austerity belongs to these exquisite rooms, with their tender coloring and pale mats of finest workmanship but thickest texture. The Buddhist temples at the present day only number a third of the Shinto sanctuaries, which Government influence supports and encourages; but in spite of the two hundred thousand Shinto temples, and the eighty thousand shrines of Buddhism, the younger generation of New Japan, like that of India, loudly proclaims itself agnostic, or avowedly atheistic. The national love of flowers is immortalized on a hundred golden screens; lilac coils of drooping wistaria cover cornice and gallery; rosy plum-blossom, sprinkled with snow, alternates with the double cherry of the later spring-time; and life-size trees of reddening peach or scarlet maple, painted on oval panels, are encircled with willow and bamboo, forming rustic frames. Cruel vengeance and savage torture were integral parts of Japanese warfare and conquest; but in the intervals of calm between the frequent storms, the relentless warrior mused beneath the blossoming boughs, composed poems in their praise, and when nightfall turned his fantastic garden into a dreamland of sable and silver, sought inspiration from "moon-gazing," as he mounted a heap of sand placed for this sentimental purpose on the brink of a miniature lake. Religious feeling results in unfamiliar forms of self-sacrifice, and long black ropes of human hair swing from temple rafters, one huge cable, two hundred and fifty feet long, having been given by four thousand women of the province too poor to make any other offering at the shrine of faith. The cost of the sacrifice can only be estimated by the fact

that the uncovered chevelure, always elaborately dressed, is the pride of Japanese womanhood; and a different style of coiffure marks each special epoch of existence, as child, maiden, wife, or widow. Though dire ́ poverty may forbid many innocent vanities of happy girlhood, and life itself be supported on starvation rations, money must be found for the hairdresser to mould the black tresses into the semblance of polished marble, with the camellia oil which keeps in place each shining loop in this crown of glory.

Tea-houses and baths creep up to the temple grounds, and below the great Gion sanctuary a pleasure fair is in full swing, that the worshippers may intermingle earthly delights with spiritual experiences. Flowers, incensesticks, candles, and images stand amid peepshows and merry-go-rounds, a quasi-religious aspect belonging to the rows of targets, formed by brightly colored figures of Daruma, a celebrated Buddhist anchorite, who sailed across from Korea on a floating rush-leaf, and sat in contemplation until his cramped legs fell off. Archery, always a favorite amusement in Japan, borrows double zest from this pious association, and shouts of applause greet a skilful marksman whose arrow has lodged in the mouth of the long-suffering Daruma who now plays the part of a Japanese St. Sebastian,

Through green thickets of bamboo and camellio roped with twisting wistaria boughs, up noble stairways, and along mossy terraces, bordered by woodlands with imperial tombs in their shade, we reach the red pagoda of Yasaka, the bronze bells green with the rust of a thousand years, and the silvery verdure of a giant wistaria climbing to the gray tiles of the mossy roof. The lower slope of the hill crowned by the Klomidzu temple contains the manycolored porcelain shops of Teapot-hill, the narrow streets crowded with

gaily-clad pilgrims chaffering at cheap stalls for yellow Buddhas, figures of Inari, the Rice Goddess with her guardian foxes, or of the divine Kwannon, the popular Goddess of Mercy in her varying personality as the Elevenfaced, the Horse-headed, or the Thousand-handed, for the Kiomidzu temple enshrines one of the thirty-three miraculous Kwannons of Japan. Priests

in huge straw hats hold alms-bowls at the gate, and sell the rosaries hung round their necks by hundreds. Weary pilgrims sustain their devotions by minute cups of green tea from the straw-thatched sheds erected in the temple grounds. Girls, in gray robes open to show soft pink folds round each brown neck, are casting pebbles at a gray shrine, but the sacrilege is only apparent, for each stone represents a prayer. Happy indeed is the worshipper whose steady aim lands a pebble on the mossy lap or folded arms of the battered Buddha, for the petition he retains must needs be answered. The booming of the gongs sounds a melodious accompaniment to the murmur of voices in the crowded temple, where blue clouds of incense veil the golden face of the colossal Kwannon above an altar two hundred feet long. Young men and maidens leave the gentle Goddess of Mercy to the devotions of their elders, and flock to a second temple, dedicated to Amida, God of Boundless Light, but containing the trellised shrine of a minor divinity who guards the interests of faithful lovers. Folded strips of paper, inscribed with private prayers, are tied to the bamboo lattice; but if these love-lorn petitions be handled by other fingers than those of the writer, the supplication remains unanswered, for love is the secret of life, and no profane touch must tarnish the purity of the priceless pearl. The poetic idea appeals to the popular heart in this land of imagery and symbolism, for

poetry is the one indissoluble link whereby an ethical truth binds itself to the soul of the Japanese.

The great bell of the grand Chion Temple tolls a diapason to the tremulous echoes of the silvery gongs, but the colossal sanctuary above the mosscovered embankments is deserted in the glory of declining day, as we wander through the dusky splendor of the golden interior. Great monasteries flank the outer courts of hoary temples, the High Priest of the Monto Order being the seventy-third of his race to occupy this exalted position, belonging to the highest grade of Japanese nobility. This branch of Buddhism discards the asceticism of the original creed, but spiritualizes the doctrine of transmigration, and regards Nirvana as a state of conscious peace rather than of annihilation. The temples of Kyoto are legion, and only a brief notice can be given of those to which some special interest is attached in this city of ancient faith.

Beyond the curiously shaped Spectacle Bridge over a broad lotus-pool, a stone monument covers a heap of salted human ears, cut off by the Samurai of the Shogun Hideyoshi in Korea, ond brought to Japan as a trophy of victory. In one of the beautiful Otani temples priests are chanting alternately Japanese and Chinese lyrics of divine and heroic exploits. In another gold-screened chapel nuns in blue and white sit at the feet of a yellow-robed monk, who reads aloud the Buddhist scriptures. The gilded Buddha of the Daibutsu temple is rivalled by the thirty thousand brazen images of Kwannon in the vast galleries of San ju-San Jendo, for Kyoto, as the Mecca of Japan, offers an endless variety of sacred and historic memorials for the contemplation of the faithful. At the autumn rice-harvest the first-fruits of this national staff of life are offered to the gods, not only in

Shinto temples, but by the Emperor in his palace chapel, and by all his subjects, from the proudest prince to the poorest coolie, who casts his handful of hardly earned rice on the little ancestral altar of his humble home, beseeching Inari to accept and bless the gift she bestows. The great Shinto temple of Inari at Kyoto is the model of all other shrines dedicated to this popular divinity, for on this lonely hillside twelve hundred years ago Inari was supposed to manifest herself to mortals. A colossal red gateway and a flight of moss-grown steps lead to the main entrance flanked by the great stone foxes which guard every temple of Inari, and symbolize the goddess worshipped under their form. Japanese superstition regards the fox with abject terror; his craft and cunning are celebrated in legendary ballads, and a condition of mental disorder known as "possession by the fox," is a common belief, bringing crowds of devotees to Inari's temples, either to pray for the exorcism of the demoniac influence, or to avert the danger of falling under the dreadful spell. Dark curtains hang before the mysterious shrine of the goddess: wire cages cover granite foxes on tall columns, that no bird may rest upon their sacred forms; and the metal mirrors of Shinto magic adorn the pillared portico. At either end of the long verandah, we trace in the gilt Komaina and Ama-ima, with their blue and green names, the prototype of the familiar Lion and Unicorn, evidently derived from an unknown origin of fabulous antiquity. Numerous smaller shrines crown pine-clad knoll and mouldering terrace, approached by flights of steps hollowed by the agelong ascent of pilgrim processions. Four hundred scarlet gateways form long colonnades for the ceremonial circuit of the mountain hollows, where numerous fox-holes denote the bodily

presence of the sacred animals. Mossgrown boulders, inscribed with prayers and marked by little gates as dedicated to Inari, deprecate the mental and physical ills attributed to the power of the fox; but even on this demon-haunted hill a straw-thatched tea-house stands in close proximity to every shrine, and offers a feeble but welcome solace to the

terror-stricken worshipper, who frequently paces the red colonnade all night long that some wandering fox may hear the chanted litany and whisper it in the ear of Inari.

On the night of a temple festival the streets of Kyoto are ablaze with colored lanterns; the sacred pony of the tutelary god is ridden by the Shinto High Priest; long banners, red, yellow, and green, wave in the wind as their bearers dance in wild gyrations, the bamboo poles tipped with sparkling brazen ornaments and swaying in rhythmic movement. Stacks of lighted lanterns bearing the temple crest, generally a flower in red or blue, are borne in the gay procession; every house is open, the paper screens drawn to show the lighted altar heaped with offerings of rice and flowers to the guardian god, a gilded figure, further adorned with the full dress insignia of scarlet bib or pink pinafore. Strips of paper inscribed with prayers flutter from tall staves, and every man, woman, or child in the street adds to the feast of color by a brilliant lantern held on a stick, a gaudy kite, or a flag with the red disc of the Rising Sun, or the Imperial Chrysanthemum, traced on the white or yellow surface. Guitars twang in every verandah, alternating with the long-necked lute, the barbaric music blending curiously with the joyous voices of the processional throngs. Masked dancers vary the performance; drums beat, and children, running in and out of the ceremonial procession with the liberty always accorded to them in Japan, supplement

the performances of the authorized drummers by vigorous blows from tiny fist, lantern-stick, or fir-bough plucked from the roadside. Little faces are hidden by grim masks of gods or monsters, with red silk manes streaming in the breeze, and boys, carrying green branches, wear the white fox-head, the long ears and sharp teeth peeping through the rustling leaves. Amid the fantastic absurdities of religious ceremonial a mystic suggestion of remote antiquity underlies external frivolity. Mirth sometimes merges into the fear which it strives to drown, for the gods are watching with their thousand eyes, and the garnered influences of uncounted centuries still bind the soul of the populace with heredity's eternal chains.

The gold and silver pavilions, known as Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji, on either side of the city, were quasi-monastic abodes of the early Shoguns, who frequently ended a stormy career in the religious life. Sometimes the fortunes of war deserted the luckless Tycoon, and he sought a refuge from the world, owing to straits of poverty, or personal unpopularity, which rendered the insecure position of a usurper practically untenable. The dynasty of the Ashikaga Shoguns, who built these pavilions, began in the fourth century and lasted for two hundred years. During this period the long War of the Chrysanthemums took place, and though the memory of the artistic Shogun who erected the golden pavilion is execrated on account of his paying tribute to China, it is immortalized by his palace on the lotus-lake of the garden which serves as a model for the artificial landscapes of Chinese origin reproduced by Japanese horticulture. Rock, stream, and stepping-stones, dwarfed fir-tree, fairy bridge, and miniature cascade, often form sketches of some extensive landscape wellknown and easily recognized. A tiny

Fujiyama is a favorite object in this room, wherein the great Yoshimasha

quaint gardening, with lakes, rivers, and pine-woods on doil's house scale, like a small etching of a colossal picture. Beautiful Kinkakuji, shadowed by an immemorial pine-tree clipped into the shape of a green junk in full sail, is, however, eclipsed by the greater charm of the smaller Ginkakuji, the silver pavilion of a later date.

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On an afternoon of a mellow October we set forth by a beautiful country road skirting the wooded declivities of the northern hills. Temples and monasteries, approached by grown steps, hide in the shadowy aisles of cryptomeria and camphor trees, ringed with the records of buried centuries scored on red boles of enormous girth and height. At the great Kurodani monastery yellow-robed Buddhist novices are playing lawn-tennis in a stone court, where a fountain spouts from a dragon's moss-lined jaws into a carved basin lined with dripping fronds of pale green fern. Black ilex and reddening maple vary the dark verdure of the fretted pines, and beyond the latticed screens of a lacquered temple a golden Buddha dreams among the shadows of his dusky shrine. Arching vistas of feathery bamboo, with yellow stems bending in the breeze, border the terraced rice-fields which extend to the gates of Ginkakuji, whither the æsthetic Shogun Yoshimasha retired after his abdication. This two-storeyed silver pavilion imitates the older Kinkakuji, but offers a more complete illustration of contemporary ideas. Sliding screens of black and white, painted by medieval artists, enclose the Shogun's private apartments, and three modern chambers reproduce a decayed suite of rooms formerly used for incense parties and for practice in the aesthetic art of "incensesniffing." Cream-tinted paper screens faintly traced with shadowy plumblossoms, surround the famous tea

evolved the stilted observances of cha-no-yu, the ceremonial tea-drinking, probably devised as a means of keeping the peace between the Shogun and his vassals, the formularies of the entertainment requiring undivided attention and scrupulous exactitude. A lifelike statue of Yoshimasha, in sacerdotal vestments, gains additional importance from the surrounding emptiness of rooms only furnished with delicately painted screens, hanging scrolls grotesque but priceless, and straw-colored mats of finest texture.

Ater all this sight-seeing an offer of "O cha (the honorable tea)" was most welcome, and we subsided on the soft mats while the old priest who inhabits Ginkakuji prepared the ceremonial beverage. Tea-box and bowl, spoon and whisk, kept in silken bags, are of simple form, but of priceless value from age and association. The powdered tea, like green gruel, is served in red lacquer cups and beaten up to foam with the bamboo whisk. Little cakes coated with white sugar are offered by a kneeling novice on a scarlet tray. The old Buddhist appears somewhat weary of his oft repeated task, and the ignorance of the heretics suggests an abbreviated version of the ceremony though every turn of wrist and finger is the result of profound study. An authorized number of bows and sips is enjoined on the recipient, but the inflated emptiness of the performance in the hands of this prosaic exponent lacks the living interest lent to it by the graceful geisha of the Kyoto teahouses.

The blue waters of Lake Biwa, so called from a fanciful resemblance to the long-nicked native guitar, were famous under another name, as suggesting those Eight Beauties of Omi, continually painted on screen, fan, and scroll. These pictures are known as the Autumn Moon, the Sunset Glow,

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