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foot of its enclosure is historic. It is the popular temple of the
people, enshrining one of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the
empire, to which pilgrims flock by thousands, and where one sees
the most active forms of the faith. Climbing the breathless hill-slopes
and stone stair-ways the visitor reaches a giant gate-way, in whose
shadow mendicant priests stand with extended bowl, straw hats
concealing them to the shoulders, and their maize and purple
garments hung with rosaries. There are two pagodas and
innumerable stone lanterns and shrines, upon which the faithful toss
pebbles as they pray. If the stone remains the prayer is answered,
and the pilgrim proceeds with a lightened heart. The Hondo, or main
hall, is a most ancient building, one half resting on the slope of the
hill and the rest extending in a broad platform propped up by heavy
timbers and scaffolding over the face of a precipice. From this
platform jealous husbands used to hurl their wives; those who
survived the fall of one hundred and fifty feet to the jagged rocks
below being proved innocent of wrong-doing, and those who
perished guilty. There are no rows of ticketed clogs at the steps of
the Hondo, nor soft, clean mats within. The hall is open and benches
are set before the altar, where the weary, dusty pilgrim may sit and,
resting, pray. Votive tapers are brought to the shrine, and the low
beams overhead are covered with votive pictures.
One fortunate afternoon we chanced upon a matsuri at Kiomidzu.
All Teapot Hill was crowded with people, girls and children in their
gayly-colored crapes and gauzes vying in brightness with the
decorated houses. Priests, sitting on small, canopied platforms,
hammered silver-toned gongs to call the faithful to give offerings.
Coins were tossed in generously on the blankets where the priests
sat, but they were not the thick modern copper sens, nor yet silver.
Money-changers had their little stands along the via sacra, and in
exchange for a sen the believers received a handful of ancient rins
and half-rins. Thus provided, the pilgrim could bestow his pious alms
on each group of priests, and if he followed the polite custom of
wrapping any money gift in a bit of soft paper, the priests could not
tell whether he had thrown silver or copper. Within the temple
grounds tateba were crowded with feasters and tea-drinkers, dozens
of fruit-stands were piled with slices of watermelon, and fans painted
with Kiomidzu scenes were sold on every side.
Inside the temple itself the scuffle of clogs and mutterings of
pilgrims drowned all sounds save the silvery notes of the gongs. On
the image-covered altar, one hundred and ninety feet in length,
veiled by clouds of incense, were dimly visible the gilded statue of
the divine Kwannon, the special patroness of Kiomidzu, and the
figures of the priests. It was not easy to pick one’s way among the
kneeling multitudes offering their fervent prayers oblivious to all
surroundings. As one pilgrim departed the rest crowded forward,
continuing the beseeching “Namu Amida Butsu” (Hear me, Great
Lord Buddha) which they mutter so rapidly that only a long-drawn
“Na-na-na-na-na-a-a” is audible as they press their palms together
and wind their beads around their hands.
In the second temple, or Amida, were more candles, incense, and
priests, and more kneeling people. At the end of the hanging
platform of this temple is a small, latticed shrine dedicated to
Kamnosube-no-Kami, the goddess who watches over lovers. He who
would make sure of the affections of his beloved buys a printed
prayer from the priest, rolls it into a narrow strip, and then, with the
thumb and little finger of the right-hand, ties it to Kamnosube-no-
Kami’s grating, and implores her aid. If any other fingers are used to
tie the knot, or if they even touch the prayer-paper, the charm is
broken and the goddess is deaf. While we looked on one pretty
creature in a red crape underdress and a dark-blue gauze kimono,
who blushed most beautifully, bent her anxious face to the grating
and deftly wound her fingers in and out. Following her a middle-
aged coolie tossed in his fractional coin, rang, clapped, and tied his
sentimental petition to the lattice.
 THE TRUE-LOVER’S SHRINE AT KIOMIDZU

Holiday crowds poured up and down the broad paved walks,

wandered about the paths, or gathered in the pavilions, while new
throngs toiled up the stone staircases to join in the festival. On the
overhanging platforms sacred dances had been performed all day,
giving place towards nightfall to the low tables covered with red
blankets, around which companies picturesquely grouped
themselves, while pretty nesans pattered back and forth to serve
them. The whole scene was so spectacular and fascinating that we
sat there watching the moving crowds and looking out over the city
below us until the sun sank in clouds of splendid color, and twinkling
lights began to creep upward from the streets.
Near the top of Teapot Hill a narrow lane diverges into a dense
bamboo grove, where the feathery tips meet far overhead, and only
a green twilight filters down to the base of the myriad slender
columns. This bamboo grove is one of the finest in Kioto, and its
cool shade is most grateful on a summer day. Beyond it is the
famous Spectacle Bridge, a massive stone pile, whose two low
arches are not unlike a bowed spectacle-frame. The lotus-pond
which it crosses is surrounded in the early summer mornings with
breakfasting parties, who sit there to see the splendid flowers open
their cups with the first rays of the sun. When that show is over
these flower-lovers wander through the farther confines of Nishi
Otani, with its superb bronze gates and dragon-guarded tanks, and
its imperial tombs hidden away in the quiet groves.
The chain of temples still lengthens southward, and among the
most ancient, surrounded with walls of Titanic bowlders, is the Dai
Butsu temple, with its huge image of gilded wood, and its fallen bell,
whose interior would make a temple in itself. A stone monument, the
Mimizuka, covers the heap of thousands of human ears, cut by
Hideyoshi’s generals from the heads of enemies slain in the Korean
expedition, salted and brought home as proof of prowess. Last is the
Sanjiusangendo, or Hall of the Thirty-three Thousand Buddhas,
which, with its rows and rows of tall gilded statues, is a curious
place, but less like a sanctuary than a wholesale warehouse of
sacred images.
Northward from Yaami’s the chain of temples extends along the
leafy hill-side, first among them being the great Chioin sanctuary,
one of the largest, oldest, and richest in Kioto. Its colossal gate-way,
its long avenues, great stone embankments, terraces, staircases,
and groves of ancient trees proclaim its age and endless honors.
Stretching over surrounding acres run the yellow walls of its
monastery grounds and priests’ houses. The Chioin’s altar is a mass
of carved and gilded ornaments surrounding a massive golden
shrine, while the ceiling and walls of the vast interior are hardly less
splendid. Occasional worshippers kneel in the vast matted hall
muttering their prayers, but usually only a solitary old priest is seen
industriously hammering at a drum, shaped like a huge, round
sleigh-bell. From five o’clock in the morning until the temple closes
at four in the afternoon the hard, mechanical thunk, thunk never
stops. A nice old woman, who must be a professional mender,
judging by her incessant patching and darning of blue-cotton
garments, takes care of the shoes while visitors roam through the
temple stocking-footed; and proudly does she point out, among the
bracketed eaves, the sun-umbrella which the great builder of the
temple purposely left there. Back of the main temple are other
shrines and suites of reception-rooms, with screens and ceilings
decorated by famous artists, and quiet corners where abbot and
priest may sit and look upon the exquisite little gardens.
If I were a good Buddhist I should say a prayer or two to the
Chioin’s great bell, an inverted cup of bronze eighteen feet in height,
breathing music so sweet that it thrills the listener, and ringing so
seldom that no one willingly misses its voice. This bell hangs by itself
in a shady place at the top of a long stone staircase, and is struck
from the outside by a swinging wooden beam that brings out soft
reverberations without jar or clang. This huge hammer is unchained
on rare days of the month at the sunrise hour, and in the stillness of
dawn one cannot tell whence the sound comes. It is in the whole
air; under one’s feet, or tingling and beating within one’s body, while
yet the ear seems to drink in the very ecstasy of sound.
About Nanjenji’s lofty gate-way are clustering tea-bushes, and
between its ancient shrine, its tombs, and picturesque bell-tower
modern engineering has brought the aqueduct from Lake Biwa, the
long tunnel emerging from the hill-side back of the buildings. Further
on are Iyekando, with its lotus lake and verdant cemetery;
Niyakuoji’s pretty garden and cascade; and Shishigatami, Shinniodo,
and Yoshida, each with its distinctive charm and interest.
The way from these sacred places, passing through the potters’
district of Awata, and coming suddenly out on a level of rice fields,
with Kurodani’s pagoda and grove rising like an island from their
midst, has been likened to the abrupt transportation from Rome to
the Campagna. Kurodani is a beautiful old sanctuary, and the steep
hill on which stands its great pagoda is an ideal Buddhist burial-
ground. Tombs, stone tablets, and lanterns, and hundreds of images
of Buddha, in stone and bronze, crowd against each other, and some
priest or pilgrim, ever picturesque, is always moving up or down the
broad gray staircase.
 CHAPTER XXIV
THE MONTO TEMPLES AND THE DAIMONJI

As an evidence of the vitality of their faith the Monto Buddhists

point to their great new temple in the southern part of the city. This
Higashi Hongwanji (Eastern Temple) was eight years in building, at
an enormous cost, and is the largest temple in Japan. The squared
trunks of keyaki-trees that support floor and roof are of a fine, close
grain, that lasts for centuries without paint or preserving process. A
collection of thick black ropes hangs from the beams, all of them
made from the hair of pious women too poor to offer other
contributions. The largest rope is five inches in diameter and two
hundred and fifty feet long, the hair, wound in a dozen separate
strands around a slender core of hemp, having been given by three
thousand five hundred of the pious maids and matrons of the
province of Echizen. Here and there in this giant cable are pathetic
threads of white hair, the rest being deep black. Each summer pious
men came to give their days’ labor to the temple when they had no
money. The best workers in wood from several provinces, craftsmen
descended from generations of wood-carvers, were brought together
to labor for several years on the decorative panels, carving from
solid blocks of hard keyaki wonderful birds and flowers, curling
waves and dashing spray—designs full of movement and life.
This Shin, or Monto sect of Buddhists, is one of the richest and
largest. Its temples are always built in the heart of cities, and always
in pairs, a Nishi Hongwanji (Western Temple) and a Higashi
Hongwanji (Eastern Temple) being found in Tokio, Kioto, and Osaka.
At the Nishi Hongwanji of Kioto the vast interior discloses masses of
carving, gilding, lacquer, damascening, and paintings on golden
groundwork, and Monto altars are more splendid than those of any
other sect. This Hongwanji is very rich, having been endowed with
lands and mines in the days of Hideyoshi, its special protector, and
the temple enclosure holds many relics of the Taiko. Connected with
the temple is a great yashiki, or abbot’s residence, and the wall-
screens and superb ceilings, brought from Hideyoshi’s castle at
Fushimi, south of Kioto, to adorn the suites of reception-rooms, are
finer than any in the imperial palace. The carved, gilded, and
lacquered ceilings, the wonderful paintings on gold-leaf surfaces, the
damascened mountings of the screens, the vast audience hall, the
private rooms, the No pavilion, and the court where the enemies’
heads were displayed, are all magnificent. In a corner of the grounds
is the pleasure-garden of Hideyoshi, a leafy, lake-centred paradise,
and a marvel of artistic arrangement, with its winding water
overhung with wistaria arbors, crossed by picturesque bridges,
reflecting its stone lanterns, thickets of oleander, bamboo, pine,
palm, and banana trees, and the two beautiful miniature palaces
within the maze. On a pine-covered knoll is the thatched summer-
house, where the fierce yet poetic warrior sat in his armor to watch
the moon rise over the trees and turn the lake to a silver shield at
his feet.
The Hongwanji services are splendid and impressive ceremonies;
the companies of gorgeously-clad priests, the chanting, the incense,
the lighted tapers, the bells, the opening of the doors of the golden
shrine to display the image of Buddha, all bearing a strange
resemblance to the worship of Romish churches. The faithful kneel,
touch themselves, and use the rosary in prayer; and high mass at
the Hongwanji might almost be high mass at St. Mark’s. Mass is
celebrated at five o’clock on every morning of the year, and all day
worshippers may come to kneel and pray before the altars. On the
first and fifteenth days of each month special services are held at
two o’clock in the afternoon, and every January recurs a week of
prayer in honor of the founder of the Shin sect, when priests come
from all parts of the empire to the mother-temple. The fortnightly
afternoon services consist of readings from the sacred scriptures,
and the chanting of Japanese and Chinese sacred poems by some
twenty priests in black gauze stoles; a larger chorus, hidden behind
the central shrine and altar, joining in and responding. The high-
priest, in a cardinal and gold brocade kesa, sits directly facing the
shrine, and at intervals touches the swinging plate of bronze used as
a gong in the order of worship. The golden shrine, in a great gilded
alcove, or chancel, bears countless gilded lotus flowers and
candelabra, and slender columns of incense rise from the priests’ low
reading-desk. At the conclusion of the chanted service the doors of
the shrine are opened, and the sacred image displayed in a silence
broken only by low strokes on the gong. Then the priests file away,
and the faithful, flocking into the vacant place behind the rail, and
kneeling where the priests have knelt, prostrate themselves, rub
their rosaries in their palms, and repeat with ecstatic fervor the
invocation: “Namu Amida Butsu” (Hail, Great Lord Buddha).
Every year, on the temple steps, the contributions of rice from
distant provinces are stacked high in their cylindrical straw bales,
themselves emblems of abundance. This rice is sent as an annual
tribute from different parts of the empire to the head-temple of the
sect at Kioto, to be used for offerings in the sanctuaries, for the
priests’ food, and for alms to the poor.
The present high priest has a longer genealogy than the Emperor,
and is the seventy-third of his family, in direct succession, to live in
the same Kioto yashiki. Besides his ecclesiastical rank, he is a
nobleman of the first order, and moves in the imperial circle, his
modern brougham with liveried men being often seen driving in and
out of the palace enclosures in the western end of the city. Besides
his temple services, he directs the large college which the Hongwanji
maintains for the education of young men for the priesthood and for
advanced philosophical studies for lay students. In its library is a
vast literature of Buddhism, the scrolls of silk and paper in boxes of
priceless gold lacquer facing the neatly-bound volumes of Sinnett,
Sir Edwin Arnold, and other foreign writers. The college employs
teachers of all European languages, and intends to send missionary
workers to European countries. One of the priestly instructors, Mr.
Akamatsu, spent several years in England, and has made
comparative religions his great study. This admirable scholar is an
admirable talker as well, and every student of Buddhism in Japan is
referred to his vast stores of information. The breadth and liberality
of Mr. Akamatsu’s views are shown in his belief in the brotherhood of
all religions, their likeness, and their convergence towards “that far-
off, divine event, towards which the whole creation moves.” It was
he who drew up and translated that new canon of his faith, which
introduced passages from the Sermon on the Mount, and who
explained that these contained exactly the Buddhist tenets. The Shin
Buddhists are called the Protestants of that faith. The priests may
marry, and are not required to fast, to do penance, make
pilgrimages, or abstain from animal food. They believe in salvation
by faith in Buddha, and in those ever-higher transmigrations of the
soul which finally attain Nirvana. Their priests maintain that the
presence of Christian missionaries has made no difference with their
people, the scholarly and intelligent seeing that the two faiths differ
only in a few articles and practices. For the lower orders, these
spiritual shepherds declare Buddhism to be the better religion, its
practice for centuries having made the masses the gentle, kindly,
patient, and contented souls that they are. One priest, sent to
Europe to study the effects of Christianity, reported that vice, crime,
and misery were greater there than in Japan, and that the belief of
the west seemed less able to repress those evils than the belief of
the east. These Monto priests, too, express broad views about the
reciprocity of nations and the fair exchange of missionaries. Now
that English clergymen and thinkers study Buddhism in the
monasteries of Ceylon, avowing their acceptance of the articles with
much sacred ceremony, Monto apostles may yet preach to the
people of England and America. However this may be, the priests do
not fear the proselyting labors of the Doshisha teachers in Kioto, and
speak warmly of its good works, and particularly of its hospital and
training-school for nurses.
In 1885 the first American missionaries came to Kioto, and as the
sacred city is beyond the treaty limits, the college and hospital are
maintained under the name of the Doshisha company, and the
foreigners engaged in the work are ostensibly in Japanese employ.
Back of the Christian Japanese, who stands as president of this
company, are the rich Mission Boards, which furnish the money, and
direct its expenditure and the method of work. Each teacher in the
Doshisha school is really a missionary, and outside the class-room
carries on active evangelical work. School buildings, hospital, and
residences for the foreign teachers all front on the high yellow walls
of the imperial palace grounds, significant testimony to the changes
that have come, the barriers and prejudices that have given way.
The school is crowded to its furthest capacity, the hospital is
besieged, and physicians overworked. The teachers claim that all the
students are Christians, that the new religion is spreading, and that
the people are most anxious to know about it. While they do not
affirm that Buddhism and the old religions are dying, the success of
their work sustains their conviction. They have erected substantial
brick buildings and comfortable dwellings, and have a general air of
permanency. The Doshisha was fortunate in its founders and first
corps of instructors and the records they made, so that, when
disasters overtook it, that prestige prevailed, and after unhappy
dissensions the Doshisha returned to its original purposes and lines,
and the schools and hospital continue their excellent work.
Of foreign missions in Japan there are the French Catholic,
Russian-Greek, English and Canadian workers belonging to both
Established Church and dissenting sects, while the Foreign Mission
Boards of the United States have more than three hundred agents
and teachers in Japan, nearly all of whom have families. Meanwhile,
191,968 Shinto temples, 101,085 Shinto priests, and the whole
influence of the Government encourages this state religion, of which
the Emperor is the visible head. There are 72,039 Buddhist temples,
and 109,922 Buddhist priests and 13,922 students proclaim that
faith, while pilgrims to the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the
empire do not lessen in number. A large fraction of the people
profess no religion whatever, among whom are many of the younger
generation of nobles, who, having studied and lived abroad, have
adopted materialism, atheism, or agnosticism, like other foreign
fashions. When an American devotee of theosophy expounded his
occult science in a round of temple addresses he aroused a polite
interest, but caused no excitement and attracted no body of
followers. A Unitarian agent enjoyed greatest favor among the
highest circles of the capital, his system of higher philosophy
appealing strongly to those cultivated thinkers and men of letters.
The common people, like the ignorant of other races, do not at all
comprehend the religion they do profess, observing its forms as a
habit or a matter of blind convention, and celebrating its events with
ceremonies and decorations, festivals and anniversaries, whose
significance they cannot explain. Japanese streets suddenly blossom
out with flags and lanterns at every door-way and along miles of
eaves, and if you ask a shopkeeper what this rejoicing means, he
will reply, “Wakarimasen,” or “Shirimasen” (I do not know). Then
some learned man tells you that it is the anniversary of the death of
Jimmu Tenno, or the autumn festival, when the first rice of the
garnered crop is offered to the gods by the Emperor in the palace
chapel, by the priests at every Shinto shrine, and at every household
altar in pious homes, or some other traditional occasion kept as a
Government holiday. Closing the Government offices on Sunday, and
making that a day of rest, was a matter of practical convenience
merely, and the result of the adoption of a uniform calendar with the
rest of the world, and a modern military establishment on foreign
models.
One of the festivals of a religious character which is understood by
the people, and is, perhaps, the most remarkable of all Kioto’s great
summer illuminations, is that of the Daimonji, at the end of the Bon
Matsuri, or Festival of the Dead. According to Buddhist belief, the
spirits of the departed return to earth for three days in mid-August,
visiting their families and earthly haunts, and flitting back to their
graves on the night of the third day. During the continuance of the
Bon Matsuri, lanterns and paper strips are hung in front of those
houses in which a death has occurred during the year, and burning
tapers and bowls of food are set before the little household shrines.
Alike in the backs of shops, in the humblest abodes, and in villas and
noble yashikis, lights, offerings, and fragrant incense welcome back
the dead. In the cemeteries the bamboo sticks at each gravestone
are daily filled with fresh flowers, and on the night of their return the
spirits are guided to their resting-places by the light of lanterns and
oil-tapers burning throughout these cities of their silent habitation.
This beautiful custom, sanctified by the observance of many
centuries, is tinged with little sadness, and the last night of the
Festival of the Dead is the great Festival of Lanterns, the most
brilliant of the long, gay, fantastic Kioto summer.
We were kindly invited by a Japanese gentleman to witness the
illumination from the upper story of a pagoda-like school-house, that
rose high above all the roofs in the heart of the city. Two hundred
children were chirping and chattering in the open-sided class-rooms
of the lower floors, all eager to see the Daimonji, the great signal-
fires on the hills. All sat on their heels in orderly rows, and silently
bobbed to the mats at sight of us, going on afterwards with their
merry babble, which all through the summer evening floated up to
us in happy chorus.
As dusk gave way to dark, we beheld a glimmer of light like a
waving torch on the side of the mountain that stands like a tower
beyond Maruyama. Another and another flash shone out against the
dark face of Daimonji-yama’s long slope, until the flames joined and
lines of fire ran upward, touched, crossed, and finally blazed out in
the gigantic written character Dai, in outline not unlike a capital A.
Next a junk appeared in fiery outlines on the slope north of the city;
another mystic character glowed on the next hill; and to the north-
west a smaller Dai showed, like the reflection of the first huge
symbol. Full in the west gleamed a torii, a pillared gate-way of fire.
From every house-top and from the bridges came the shouts of
enthusiastic spectators, and the children in the rooms below us
twittered like a box full of sparrows. For centuries the priests of
mountain temples have taught their simple parishioners to lay their
gathered firewood in the proper lines, and regular trenches mark the
course of each device. The longer lines of the big Dai are each a
half-mile in length, and the five miles’ distance of our point of view
dwarfed them to perfect proportions. These fiery symbols burned for
half an hour before they began to waver, and long after their images
still danced and burned in our vision against the succeeding
blackness.
Down in the city the crowds surged through the lanterned streets,
each adding the illumination of his hand-lantern to the scene. The
river-bed was all recrossing lines and arches of lights, and myriad
points of uncovered flames were reflected in the waters. The hill-
sides twinkled and glowed with the innumerable torches in the
cemeteries, and thus, lighted back to their tombs by all the city and
the hill-side, the Buddhist spirits rest until the next midsummer
season recalls them to their joyous Kioto.
 CHAPTER XXV
THE PALACES AND CASTLE

Kioto remains faithful to its traditions, and yields but slowly to the
foreign fashions which absorb Tokio. Tokio has nineteenth-century
political troubles, even demagogues and hare-brained students, that
unruly young element, the soshi, keep it in a state of agitation, and
sometimes appeal to the old two-handed sword, the dagger, and the
cowardly bomb. But Kioto, devoted to its old order, maintains the
reign of peace, while the arts flourish.
For the thousand years during which this ancient Saikio remained
the home of the Emperor, and of his nominal subject, the Shogun,
its western half was crowded with the life centering about the two
rulers. The ancient Emperors were hidden within the vast palace
enclosure, the centre of other large demesnes, whose yellow walls
were marked with the five horizontal white lines which indicate
imperial possessions. This collection of palaces and the yashikis of
the kugés, or court nobles, were then surrounded by one exterior
wall and moat, making an immense imperial reservation—a small
isolated city. Within a few years this exterior wall has been
destroyed, streets have been opened, and much of the space has
been turned into a public park. The imperial palace buildings cover
ten acres of ground, and are surrounded by twenty-six acres of
ornamental park. In each of the four yellow outer walls is a richly
roofed and gabled gate-way, as stately as a temple, the ends of the
beams, the ridges, and eaves decorated with golden chrysanthemum
crests. The great gate, opened only for the Emperor and his train,
and through whose central passage only the sacred being himself
may be borne, faces south, as does the throne, in accordance with
the old superstitions of the East. The evil influences always
threatening from the north-east are guarded against by many
temples beyond that side of the palace.
In these days of departed greatness only the Daidokoro Mon (the
august kitchen gate), a fine gabled structure in the western wall, is
used. After the visitor presents the elaborate official permit, obtained
by his legation from the Imperial Household Department of Tokio,
and stamped after a personal inspection of the holder by the Kioto
bureau of that department, there is much running to and fro of
ancient officials, much restamping and recording, before he is led
through the precinct by an attendant. Even with this guarantee, the
severe and stately old guardians, in their ancient dress and tonsure,
seem to look on the intruder with suspicion.
The Japanese gosho is not exactly translated by the word
“palace,” and is merely a greater yashiki, or spread-out house,
constituting the sovereign’s residence. This gosho consists of so
many separate roofed, one-story wooden buildings as to make a
small village. Each room, or suite of rooms, occupies a distinct
building, its outside gallery or veranda forming the corridor, and its
sliding screens the inner walls. Each building has the great sweeping
roof of a temple, the belief in the divinity of the Emperor, and his
headship of the Shinto faith, requiring that his actual dwelling should
be a temple, rigidly simple as a Shinto shrine, with thatched roof and
unpainted woods. These clustered houses are the survival of the old
nomad camps of Asia, as the upward curving gables of the roof are
a permanent form of their sagging tent-tops. The palace has
suffered from many fires, the last occurring in 1854, but each
rebuilding has followed the original models, and the gosho looks just
as it did centuries ago. The same straw mats, open charcoal
braziers, and loose saucers of oil in paper lamp-frames, inviting a
conflagration there as in the humblest Japanese home.
The walk around the outer galleries and connecting corridors takes
half an hour, and one must go stocking-footed, or in the curious
slippers furnished by the guardians. In summer the recessed and
sunless apartments are cool and dim, but winter makes them bitterly
cold and forlorn. Except for two thrones, there is nothing to be
called furniture in the palace. The silk-bordered mats of the floor, the
paintings on the sliding screens, the fine metal plates on all the
wood-work, the irregularly-shelved recesses, quaint windows,
curious lattices, and richly-panelled ceilings constitute its
adornments. All the wonderful kakemonos, vases, and curios were
stored in godowns when the Emperor left Kioto, and the seals have
not since been broken. On the screens in the private apartments are
many autograph poems, written by court poets or imperial
improvisators. The tea-rooms and the garden tea-houses show how
important were the long-drawn ceremonies of cha no yu in those
leisurely days of the past.
The courts surrounding the state apartments are sanded
quadrangles, their surfaces scratched over in fine patterns by the
gardeners’ bamboo rakes for the easy detection of strange
footprints. In the court-yard before the old audience hall a cherry-
tree, a wild orange-tree, and a sacred bamboo, all emblematic, grow
at either side of the broad steps. In the middle of the wide, temple-
like apartment commanding this court stands the sacred white
throne of past centuries, a square tent or canopy of white silk, with
rich red borders at the edges of the overlapping curtains. Two
antique Chinese dogs guard the throne. On New-year’s Day, and at
rare intervals when the Emperor gave audience to his vassal jailer,
the Shogun, he sat on a silk cushion within the closed tent, and only
his voice was heard, speaking in the quavering, long-drawn tones
still used by the actors in the No dance. The imperial princes stood
at either side of the throne, the kugé and officials of the highest
rank knelt on the steps, and the lowest officials in attendance, the
jige or “down to the earth” subjects, prostrated themselves on the
sands of the court, while the mournful and muffled tones of the
sacred voice sounded.
 THE THRONE OF 1868.

When the Emperor gave his first audiences after the Restoration,
in 1868, he occupied a newer throne in the Shishinden, a large
audience hall with a lofty ceiling supported by round wooden
columns. On the lower part of the rear wall are some very old
screens painted with groups of Chinese and Korean sages. The floor
is of polished cedar, and the throne is like that of his ancestors, but
with the curtains rolled up from the front and two sides. It stands on
a dais, guarded by the Chinese dogs brought as trophies from Korea,
and holds within it a simple lacquered chair, with lacquer stands for
the sacred sword and seal. After those audiences of 1868 the
Emperor travelled to Tokio in a gold-lacquered norimon, or closed
litter, guarded by a train clad in the picturesque dress and armor of
centuries before, and equipped with curious old weapons. He,
himself, wore voluminous silk robes and a stiff lacquer hat, and the
faithful kugés were attired in gorgeous brocades and silks. When the
Emperor and court returned to Kioto in 1878, to open the railway to
the seaport of Hiogo-Kobé, he was dressed like a European
sovereign, alighted publicly from his railway car, and drove to the
palace in a smart brougham, escorted by troops with western
uniforms and weapons.
The Shiro, or Nijo castle, half a mile south of the palace, where
the Shoguns flaunted their wealth and power, is a splendid relic of
feudal days. The broad moat, drawbridge, strong walls, and tower-
topped gate-ways and angles date from the middle of the sixteenth
century. The great gate-way inside the first wall is a mass of
elaborate metal ornament, from the sockets of the corner posts to
the ridge-pole, but the many trefoils of the Tokugawas have been
everywhere covered by the imperial chrysanthemum. All the rooms,
but especially the two splendid audience-chambers, with a broad
dais before each tokonoma, are marvels of decorative art, rich in
gilded screens, with exquisite paintings and fine metal work,
wonderfully carved ramma, and sunken ceiling panels, ornamented
with flower circles, crests, and geometric designs. But, alas! a
hideous Brussels carpet, a round centre-table, and a ring of straight-
backed chairs have crowded their vulgar way into these stately
rooms, as into every government building and office, large shop, and
tea-house in Kioto.
The Shoguns had the Kinkakuji, the Ginkakuji, and other suburban
villas to which they might resort, and in which many of them ended
their days as abbots and priests. The Emperors had only the
exquisite Shugakuin gardens at the foot of Mount Hiyeizan for their
pleasurings, until the Restoration gave all such rebel property to the
crown. The Kinkakuji (the gold-covered pavilion) and the Ginkakuji
(the silver-covered pavilion) stand at opposite sides of the city, each
surrounded with landscape-gardens, from which nearly all Japanese
gardens are copied. Both are as old as the Ashikaga Shoguns, and
both are now monasteries. The Kinkakuji is the larger, and was even
more splendid before it was despoiled of so many rare and historic
stones and garden ornaments, but the place is still a paradise.
Yoshimitsu, third of the Ashikaga Shoguns, built the Kinkakuji, and
thither the great Ashikaga retired to end his life. This refuge figures
in the many novels of the time of the Ashikagas, when the War of
the Chrysanthemums, the Japanese War of the Roses, raged, and
the Emperors with the kugés suffered actual want and privation. The
memory of this third Ashikaga is abhorred, because he paid tribute
to China and accepted from that country in return the title of “King
of Japan;” but he so fostered luxury and art that some of his other
sins are forgiven him. The pretty little palace at the lake’s edge, with
its golden roof and lacquered walls, has successfully withstood the
centuries, and is still intact. In the monastery buildings near the
gate-way are shown many wonderful kakemonos and screens, and
in one court is a pine-tree trained in the shape of a junk, hull, mast,
and sail perfectly reproduced in the feathery, living green needles of
the tree. It is most interesting to see how the patient gardeners
have bent, interlaced, tied, weighted down, and propped up the
limbs and twigs to produce this model, with the slow labor of a
century.
To the Ginkakuji retired the dignified Yoshimasa, eighth of the
Ashikaga Shoguns, to found a monastery and to meditate, until with
Murata Shinkio, the priest, and Soami, the painter, he evolved the
minute and elaborate ceremonies of cha no yu. The weather-beaten
boards and finely thatched roof of the first ceremonial tea-house in
Japan, built before Columbus set sail for the Zipangu of Marco Polo,
are greatly revered by Japanese visitors. Beautiful is the way to the
Ginkakuji, past the high walls and gate-ways of monasteries, past
the towering gates of countless temples, up their long shaded
avenues, and on by bamboo groves and terraced rice fields. You buy
wooden admission tickets for ten sen, which you give to a little
acolyte, who opens the inner gate-way. This chisai bonze san (small
priest) might have been twelve years old, but looked not more than
five when I first knew him, and from shaven head to sandaled foot
he was a Buddhist priest in miniature. This Shinkaku, leading the
way to the lake with solemn countenance and hands primly clasped
before him, suddenly broke forth into a wild, sing-song chant, which
recited the names of the donors of the rocks and lanterns to the
great Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He made us take off our shoes and creep
up the steep and ancient stair-way of the Ginkakuji to see a
blackened and venerable image of Amida. Morning, noon, and night
service is said before the altar in the little old temple by the lake,
and this small priest burns incense, passes the sacred books, and
assists the wrinkled and aged priests in the observances of the Zen
sect of Buddhists. Back of the monastery buildings is a lotus pond,
where the great pink flower-cups fill the air with perfume, and every
morning are set fresh before Buddha’s shrine.
Going westward from Kioto the traveller crosses rice fields, skirts a
long bamboo hedge, and comes to the summer palace of Katsura no
Miya, a relic of the Taiko’s days. An aunt of the Emperor occupied it
until her recent decease, and to that is probably due its perfect
preservation. An ancient samurai with shaven crown and silken
garments receives, with a dozen bows, the handful of official papers
that constitute a permit to visit the imperial demesne. Dropping his
shoes at the steps, the visitor wanders through a labyrinth of little
rooms, each exquisite, simple, and charming, with its golden screens
and gold-flecked ceilings. The irregularly shelved recesses, the chigai
dana of each room, the ramma, the lattices and windows, are
perfect models of Japanese taste and art; and the Taiko’s crest is
wrought in silver, gold, and bronze on all the mountings, and is
painted and carved everywhere. The open rooms look upon a lovely
garden, and paths of flat-topped stones lead through the tiny
wilderness of lake, forest, thicket, and stream; over old stone
bridges, stained and lichen-covered, to picturesque tea-houses and
pavilions, overhanging the lake. Stone Buddhas and stone pagodas
stand in shadowy places, and stone lanterns under dwarf pine-trees
are reflected in the curve of every tiny bay. It is an ideal Japanese
garden, with the dew of a midsummer morning on all the spider
webs, and only the low note of the grasshoppers to break the
stillness.
 Although all tourists spend a day in shooting the rapids of the
Oigawa, it seems to me a waste of precious Kioto time and a
performance out of harmony with the spirit of the place, although in
May the blooming azaleas cause that wild and narrow cañon to blaze
with color. The flat-bottomed boats dart through the seven-mile
gorge and dash from one peril of shipwreck to another, just saved by
a dextrous touch of the boatmen’s poles, which fit into holes in the
rocks that they themselves have worn. The flooring of the boats is
so thin as to rise and fall with the pressure of the water, in a way
that seems at first most alarming. The passage ends at Arashiyama,
a steep hill clothed with pine, maple, and cherry-trees, which in
cherry-blossom time, or in autumn, is the great resort of all Kioto,
whose pleasurings there form the theme of half the geisha’s songs
and the accompanying dances. From the tea-house on the opposite
bank the abrupt mountain-side shows a mat of densest foliage. A
torii at the river’s edge, stone steps and lines of lanterns lead to a
temple on the summit, and down through the forest float the soft,
slow beats of a temple-bell. The tea-house is famous for its fish-
dinners, where tai, fresh from the cool, green river, are cooked as
only the Japanese can cook them, and the lily bulbs, rice
sandwiches, omelettes, and sponge-cake are so good that the place
is always crowded.
Katsura no Miya is just below Arashiyama, and after one morning
spent in the little palace, with its restful shade and stillness, our half-
naked coolies ran with us through the glaring sunlight to the tea-
house beside the cool waters of the Oigawa. They barely waited for
us to step out of the jinrikishas before they plunged, laughing and
frolicking, down the bank and leaped into the river, splashing and
swimming there like so many frogs. They had run ten miles that
morning, half of the way under a baking sun, the perspiration
streaming from their bodies, and they plunged into the river as they
were, taking off their one cotton garment and washing it, while they
cooled themselves in the rushing waters. Then, lying down quite
uncovered in their own quarters of the tea-house, they ate
watermelon and cucumber, drank tea and smoked, until they
dropped asleep in the scorching noonday of a cholera summer. In
the late afternoon, when it was time to begin the long ride back to
Maruyama, they limped out to us, lame and stiff in every joint and
muscle, coughing and croaking like ravens. We felt that they must
die in the shafts, but exercise soon relieved the cramped and
stiffened limbs, and they trotted on as nimbly as ever over the hills
to Kioto.
The coolie and his ways are matters of much interest to
foreigners, but after a time one ceases to be amazed at their
endurance or their recklessness. After the most violent exercise,
ninsoku, the coolie, will take off his one superfluous garment and sit
in summer ease in his decorated skin. Back, breast, arms, and thighs
are often covered with elaborate tattooed pictures in blue, red, and
black on the raw-umber ground. His philosophy of dress is a simple
one. When the weather is too hot to wear clothes they are left off,
and a wisp of straw for the feet, a loin-cloth, and a huge flat hat, a
yard in diameter, weighing less than a feather, are enough for him.
When there is no money to buy raiment he tattoos himself with
gorgeous pictures, which he would never hide were there not
watchful policemen and Government laws to compel him into some
scanty covering.
The diet of these coolies seems wholly insufficient for the
tremendous labor they perform—rice, pickled fish, fermented radish,
and green tea affording the thin nutriment of working-days. Yet the
most splendid specimens of physical health are reared and kept in
prize-fighting condition on what would reduce a foreigner to
invalidism in a week. I remember that while resting one hot morning
under Shinniodo’s great gate-way, my coolie, who by an unusually
early start had been interrupted in his breakfast of one green apple,
asked for some tea-money. I watched the hungry pony while he
treated his companions to a substantial repast of tea and
watermelon. Strengthened and recuperated, he came back,
shouldered camera and tripod, and as he walked down the hot
flagging, complacently picked his teeth with the sharp point of one
tripod stick—a toothpick four feet long!
 CHAPTER XXVI
KIOTO SILK INDUSTRY

Kioto remains the home of the arts, although no longer the seat of
government. For centuries it ministered to the luxury of the two
courts, which gathered together and encouraged hosts of artists and
artisans, whose descendants live and work in the old home. Kioto
silks and crapes, Kioto fans, porcelains, bronzes, lacquer, carvings,
and embroideries preserve their quality and fame, and are dearer
and better than any other.
Silk is the most valuable article of export which Japan produces,
and raw silk to the value of thirty millions of yens goes annually to
foreign consumers, while the home market buys nearly seven
millions of yens’ worth of manufactured fabrics. The Nishijin quarter
of Kioto and the Josho district, north-west of Tokio, are the great silk
centres of Japan, and any silk merchant, fingering a crape gown, will
tell instantly which of the rival districts produced it. Recently Kofu,
west of Tokio, and Hachioji, twenty miles south, have become
important centres of manufacture as well. The silk market has its
fluctuations, its panics, and its daily quotations by cable; but raw silk
has so inherent a value that it is a good collateral security at any
bank, and the silk-broker is as well established and important a
personage in the mercantile world of the Orient as the stock-broker
in the Occident. Next to specie or gems, silk is the most valuable of
commodities in proportion to its bulk, the cargo of a single steamer
often representing a value of two million dollars in gold. The United
States is the greatest consumer of Japan’s raw silk. In 1875 fifty-
three bales only of raw silk and cocoons were shipped to America. In
1878 there were two thousand three hundred and thirty-six bales, in
1887 some sixteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-four bales, and
in 1901 the export of raw silk to America amounted to forty seven
thousand six hundred and sixty-two bales. Our share of the raw silk
is nearly all consigned to Paterson, N. J. With the opening of this
great foreign trade, silk is dearer to the Japanese consumer than
twenty years ago; and while it still furnishes the ceremonial dress,
and is the choice of the rich, cotton and, of late, wool have taken its
place to a great extent.
Everywhere the rearing of the worms goes on. The silk districts
and villages are always thriving, prosperous, and tidily kept, forming
peaceful and contented communities. Each house becomes both a
nursery for the worms and a home factory, where every member of
the family engages in the work. Wages in silk districts range from
eight to twenty cents, in United States gold, for a day’s work of
eighteen hours, the higher price being paid to the most expert and
experienced only. The houses are all spacious, kept most exquisitely
clean, ventilated, and held to an even temperature. Sheets of paper
coated with eggs, and looking like so much sand-paper, will in a few
days fill the waiting trays with tiny white worms. The mulberry-
leaves have to be chopped as fine as dust for these new-comers,
which are daily lifted to fresh trays by means of chopsticks, the
fingers being too rough and strong for such delicate handlings. For a
week at a time the tiny gluttons crawl and eat, then take a day and
night of sleep, maintaining this routine for five weeks, when, having
grown large enough, they begin to wind themselves up in cocoons.
Then the cauldron of boiling water and the whirling reel change the
yellow balls into great skeins of shining silk, ready to be twisted,
tied, and woven either at home or across the seas. Compressed into
bales of a picul’s weight, or 133½ pounds, the raw silk finds its way
to market, or, woven in hand looms in the usual thirteen-inch
Japanese widths, or in wider measures for the foreign trade, it is
again sold by weight, the momé being the unit. One hundred and
twenty momé are equal to one pound. Twenty-five yards of fine
white handkerchief-silk weigh from 150 to 200 momé, and 100
momé of such silk varies in price from six to seven dollars, gold.
Steam-looms are fast supplanting the old hand-machines in
Nishijin and Josho. The Government sent men to study the methods
in use at Lyons and bring back machinery, and now there are
filatures and factories in all the silk districts. Private corporations are
following the Government example. At the Kwangioba no Shokoba
the first exhibition of foreign machines, with instruction in their use,
was given. To-day the lively clatter of the Jacquard loom is heard
above the slow, droning noise of the hand-loom behind Nishijin’s
miles of blank walls. Slowly the weavers are abandoning the rude
loom, which was probably in use, like gunpowder, at an age when
Europeans clothed themselves in skins and lived in caves; and the
singing draw-boy is descending from his high perch, where he has
so long been lifting the alternating handful of threads that make the
pattern.
In a tour of the Nishijin factories, one scorching August day, we
saw many of these primitive hand-looms, with half-clad weavers
tossing the shuttles of silk and gold thread, their skin shining with
the heat like polished bronze, and marked all over with the scars of
moxa cones. Everywhere were gathered books upon books filled
with samples of superb brocades, many of them more than a
century old. Everywhere we were regaled with sweets and thimble-
cups of lukewarm amber tea, that seemed harmless as water, but
murdered sleep. Everywhere we found a new garden more
enchanting than the last, and everywhere the way in which work-
room and kitchen, living-room and sales-room were combined;
women, children, family, workmen, and servants were ruled over by
the master of the home and factory, offered a curious study in
political economy and patriarchal government.
Until the Emperor, and finally the Empress and court ladies
abandoned the national dress, the court-weaver of brocade
remained a considerable personage, for he and his ancestors had
been both tailors and dress-makers to those august personages. We
visited the beautiful garden and lantern-hung verandas of this
artistic dictator, and sipped tea, fanned the while by attentive maids,
while the stout, dignified, and prosperous head of the ancient house
and our Japanese official escort conversed. Afterwards we were
shown the books of brocade and silks manufactured for the imperial
family and court. The gorgeousness of some of these, especially the
blazing red brocade, stiff with pure gold thread and covered with
huge designs of the imperial chrysanthemum, or the Paulownia crest
of the Emperor’s family, fairly dazzled us. We saw the pattern of the
old Emperors’ ceremonial robes, and patterns designed by past
Empresses for their regal attire. Several of these were of a pure
golden yellow, woven with many gold threads; one design half
covered with fine, skeleton bamboos on the shimmering, sunshiny
ground. The splendid fabrics that bear the imperial crest may be
woven only for the reigning family, and their furniture coverings,
draperies, and carriage-linings are as carefully made and guarded as
bank-note paper. Squares of thickest red silk, wrought with a single
gold chrysanthemum, are woven for the Foreign Office, as cases for
state papers and envoys’ credentials. Rolls of the finest white silk
were ready to be made into undergarments for the Emperor, who,
never wearing such articles twice, obliges his tailor to keep a large
supply ready; and these garments that have once touched the
sacred person are highly treasured by loyal subjects.
The weaver exhibited flaming silks covered with huge peonies, or
fine maple-leaves, or circles of writhing dragons, which the outside
million may buy if they choose, but not a sixteen-petalled
chrysanthemum are they privileged to obtain from him in any way.
In discussing the changeableness of the American taste, Kobayashi
and his staff wondered that the mass of our people did not care for
silks that would wear forever, rather than for the cheap fancies of
the moment. The Japanese cling to the really good things that have
stood the test of a century’s taste, and Japanese ladies had a pride
in wearing the brocade that had been theirs for a lifetime and their
mothers’ before them. In noble families inherited ceremonial dresses
are as highly treasured as the plate and jewels of European families,
though they are now seldom worn. Rolls of such silks and brocades
were often presented by Emperor and Shogun to their courtiers, and
the common saying, “He wears rags, but his heart is brocade,”
attests the esteem in which these nishikis (brocades) were held in
olden times, and those yesso nishikis, with their reverse a loose
rainbow of woof threads, are far removed from the thin, flat, papery,
characterless stuffs known as Japanese brocades in the cheap
foreign trade.
A heavy silk tapestry, peculiar to Japan, although suggested by
Chinese models, is best woven now at the Dotemachi Gakko, an
industrial school for girls, maintained by the Government. The art
had nearly died out when the aged tapestry-weaver was brought to
the school and given a class of the most promising pupils. The fabric
is woven on hand-frames, the design being sketched on the white
warp threads, wrought in with shuttles or bobbins, and the threads
pressed down with a comb. Each piece of the design is made by
itself, and connected by occasional cross threads, or brides, as in
lace. The fabric is not dear, considering its superior beauty and
durability, as compared to the moth-inviting tapestries of the
Gobelins and Beauvais, and conventional and classic designs are still
followed, the old dyes used, and gold thread lavishly interwoven.
The gold thread employed in weaving brocades and tapestries is
either a fine thread wound with gold foil, a strip of tough paper
coated with gold-dust, or threads wound with common gold-paper.
The fineness and quality of the gold affect the cost of any material
into which it enters, and in ordering a fabric or a piece of embroidery
one stipulates closely as to the gold-thread employed. The fine gold-
wires of Russian brocades are very rarely used, because of their
greater cost. The manufacture of gold thread is an open secret, and
women are often seen at work in the streets, stretching and twisting
the fine golden filaments in lengths of twenty and thirty feet.
The old dyers were as much masters of their craft as the old
weavers; and in trying to match the colors in a piece of yesso
nishiki, I once went the round of Paris shops and dress-makers’
establishments in vain. Nothing they afforded would harmonize with
the soft tones of the old dyes. A distinguished American connoisseur,
wishing to duplicate a cord and tassel from one of his old lacquer
boxes, took it to a Parisian cord-maker. The whole staff looked at it,
and the proprietor asked permission to unravel a bit, to decipher the
twist and obtain some long threads for the dyer. But with months of
time allowed him, he could not reproduce the colors nor braid a cord
like the original, nor even retwist the Japanese cord he had
unravelled.
Velvet-weaving is one of the old arts, but it was accomplished by
the most primitive and laborious means, and the fabrics, dull and
inferior to foreign factory velvets, do not rank among the more
characteristic productions of Japanese looms. Kioto’s painted velvets
are unique, however, and charming effects are obtained by painting
softly-toned designs on the velvet as it comes from the loom, with all
the fine wires still held in the looped threads. The painted parts are
afterwards cut, and stand in softly-shaded relief upon the uncut
groundwork.
The crape guild of Kioto is as large, and commercially as
important, in this day, as the brocade guild, whose members rank
first among manufacturers. All crape is woven in tans, or lengths of
sixty Japanese shaku, two and a half shaku being equal to an
English yard. On the loom this material is a thin, lustrous fabric,
hardly heavier than the gauze on which kakemonos and fan mounts
are painted. It is so smooth and glossy that one cannot discover the
smoother warp and twisted woof threads, alternately tight and
loose, which give it its crinkly surface. When finished, the web is
plunged into a vat of boiling water, which shrinks the threads and
ensures the wrinkled and lustreless surface. Once dried the tans are
tied like skeins, and lying in heaps, look like so much unbleached
muslin. Crape must be dyed in the piece, and stretched, while damp,
by bracing it across with innumerable strips of bowed bamboo. In
the bath the pieces shrink from one-third to one-half in width, and a
full tenth in length, but the more they shrink the more cockled is the
surface. When finished the tan may measure from seventeen to
twenty-four yards in length, but weight and not measure determines
its value, and the scales are used instead of the yard-stick.
 KABE HABUTAI

While the Chinese weave only the original Canton crape, with its
heavy woof and firmly twisted threads, the Japanese have produced
a dozen kinds, each wrinkled, cockled, waved, and crinkled in
different ways. The great Joshu district produces not as many kinds
of crape as Kioto, and Nishijin’s looms are busier each year, weaving
crapes as light and thin as gauze, or as heavy and soft as velvet;
some costing only thirty or forty cents a yard, and others two and
three dollars for an arm’s length. The soft, thick, heavily-ribbed kabe
habutai, once kept for ceremonial gowns and the favorite gifts of the
great, is most expensive, having heavier threads and larger cockles
than other crapes, and never showing crease or wrinkle. Plain crape,
or chirimen, differs as the fineness of thread and the closeness of
weaving add to its weight. Ebisu chirimen might be called repoussé,
from the scale-like convexities of its surface, and is a most
fascinating fabric. Finest and most exquisite of all is the lustrous kinu
chirimen, or crinkled silk, which shows only the finest lines and
parallel ridgings marking its surface lengthwise. Used chiefly for the