File:In lotus-land Japan (1910) (14784262642).jpg

Identifier: cu31924023222312 (find matches)
Title: In lotus-land Japan
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Ponting, Herbert George
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., limited
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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spent in roamingamongst its grey old temples ; exploring the surround-ing woods ; rambling over the hills that half encirclethe old city ; searching its innumerable pottery- andcurio-shops ; shooting the rapids of the lovely Katsurariver ; visiting the homes of famous artist-craftsmen ;viewing seas of cherry-blossoms or gorgeously colouredmaple-trees, and in a hundred other ways storing upmemories that have left this enchanting old city dearerthan any other to my heart. Many a time, too, I have seen old-time religiousand feudal processions pass along its quaint old-fashioned streets, taking one back in spirit to the days,not half a century gone, when Japan had as yet madeno endeavour to fall in line with even the least of thePowers of the world. My first impressions of Kyoto, however, were notreassuring, for the station is in an uninteresting part ofthe town, and the houses seemed devoid of interest asI passed them on the way to the Miyako Hotel. But 4 GREETINGS IN FHE TEMPLE GROUNDS
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CHAP. II THE TEMPLES OF KYOTO 5 as my kurumaya^ drew me further along, the feelingof disappointment gave way to interest, and then topleasure, as he entered a street in which every houseseemed to be a curio-shop, and where the crowd was sothick that he could scarcely make his way. A greatmatsuri was being held—the festival of a near-bytemple. Hundreds of stalls lined the thoroughfare forthe sale of every kind of article, and dozens of vendorshad not set up stalls at all, but merely laid their waresupon the ground. The street blazed with the light of innumerablepaper lanterns and oil lamps ; and by their colouredglare I could see silks, pottery, bronzes, brasses, beauti-ful boxes, and a thousand other dainty things andcurios peeping out from a perfect forest of dwarf trees.There were tiny maples, and pines, and wistarias, andpeach and plum-trees, and many others ; but the bulkof these Lilliputian arboreal wonders were cherry-trees,whose branches, pink with blossoms, drooped over thep

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