Tokio
old pine-trees, and their slow flight, are solemn as death itself; and the solitude of the dripping avenues and courtyards, broken only by the droning priests at prayer, and the musical vibrations of some bell or sweet-voiced gong, invite a gentle melancholy. On such a day, the priests, interrupted in their statuesque repose, or their pensive occupation of sipping tea and whiffing tiny pipes in silent groups around a brazier, display to visitors the altars and ceilings and jewelled walls with painstaking minuteness, glad of one ripple of excitement and one legitimate fee. Led by a lean, one-toothed priest, you follow, stocking-footed, over lacquer floors to behold gold and bronze, lacquer and inlaying, carving and color, golden images sitting in golden shadows, enshrined among golden lotus flowers, and sacred emblems. In one temple the clear, soft tones of the bronze gong, a bowl eighteen inches in diameter and a little less in depth, vibrate on the air for three full minutes before they die away.
Up mossy stair-ways, between massive embankments, and through a shady grove, the priest’s clogs scrape noisily to the hexagonal temple, where the ashes of Hidetada, the Ni Dai Shogun, Iyeyasu’s son, lie in a great gold lacquer cylinder, the finest existing specimen of the lacquer of that great art age. The quiet of Shiba, the solemn background of giant trees, the deep shadows and green twilight of the groves, the hundreds of stone lanterns, the ponds of sacred lotus, the succession of dragon-guarded gate-ways, and carved and gorgeously-colored walls, crowd the memory with lovely pictures. Near a hill-top pagoda commanding views of the Bay and of Fuji, stands the tateba of a cheerful family, who bring the visitor a telescope and cups of cherry-blossom tea.
A colony of florists show gardens full of wonderful plants and dwarf-trees, and then Sanjiro minces, “I think more better we go see more temples;” and we go, spinning past the giant Shiba gate and up the road to Atago
49
