which the average man has from wiggly things made them palliate our crime. Indeed, they were so cordial and sympathetic that one might have thought they were secretly glad to be rid of the serpent, with the onus on another’s conscience! They gave me tea and picture-books and post cards, as they might have done for a frightened child, and measured the cause of all the tumult—out of sight of the windows. It was just under four Japanese feet in length, which would be just over four of ours; and to this day my naval friend declares, in self-extenuation, that it was of a highly poisonous variety.
How many other temple gardens might I name, enshrined in my remembrance! Ishiyama, on Lake Biwa, where the great authoress of that quaint and charming romance, Gengi Monogatari, who is known to history as Murasaki no Shikibu, tired of Court life, is said to have retired for seclusion and peace; another little place of worship, in the village of Uraga, below Yokosuka, in the Bay of Tokio, which, like Gongen, had red Shinto torii for the gateway, but Buddhist ceremonial and priests; the temple garden on the hill above Nagasaki; the water that forms the garden of the great temple at Myagima, with its darkly lapping tide delicately starred with the reflections of a hundred lanterns, and North and South, East and West, others which I know and love.
Of tea-gardens there are as many more in
