A BUDDHIST SHRINE
wander through the buildings to the woods beyond. From the terrace they gaze down upon the grove of cherry and maple trees in the valley below, and then away over the grey roofs of Kyoto and the plain beyond, to Osaka, hidden in the morning mists, or to Arashiyama, whose groves will assuredly be visited in due time by these untiring holiday-makers. At every turn a new beauty wipes out the remembrance of the last, and fills our soul with sadness, that nature will not stand still for awhile and give us leisure to enjoy what we know will be here to-day and gone to-morrow. Already the early single flowers are fading and falling; every gentle breath of wind sends a fresh shower of the thin transparent petals to the ground. To-morrow the heavy clusters of the double pink blossoms will have lost their freshness, and will be hiding their glories under the brown leaves that seem to unfurl and grow while we look at them. Last, and perhaps best of all, will come the double white blossom, whose buds are now hanging in pink clusters, and whose beauty will linger until the close of the “cherry month.”
Maruyama Park in Kyoto has a great display of cherry blossom; an enormous drooping cherry of great age, which has taken its name of Gion sakura from the Gion temple adjoining, stands in the middle of the park, and thousands of people come to gaze at it every year when it is in flower. Towards the end of March, the park, which has been bleak and deserted all the winter, becomes a scene of bustle and activity. Temporary tea-houses are put up on every available space, hung with innumerable lanterns, and gaily-coloured curtains, most of these being painted with some representation of the cherry blossom. With the unerring taste of the Japanese all the colouring is in harmony with the blossoms, no false note will clash or take away from the beauty of the surroundings. By the 1st of April all is in readiness for the visitors, who from that day onwards will not fail to arrive in a never-ending stream during the whole month. Even if there come days when the rain descends in pitiless torrents, it does not seem to damp their ardour; their clogs may be an inch or so higher; their kimonos will be girt tighter about their knees, to keep them from the mud; each one will carry a huge paper umbrella, black and red, deep blue or purple, or, commonest of all, the natural yellowish colour of the oiled paper, with the owner’s name or the sign of the inn to which it may belong in large Katahana characters. Or should it be a late season
THE FEAST OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS
and the cherry not be in flower so early, it makes no difference, still the people come, it is the time when it ought to be in flower, and such is the imagination in the minds of these curious people, that they will gaze for hours at a tree with scarcely more than a tinge of colour in the buds with as much pleasure as if the tree were in all the glory of its full flower. On a holiday afternoon, when the weather is fine, every seat in the tea-houses is taken up by the pleasure parties, while in the open spaces the people spread mats brought with them for the purpose, and sit unfolding those neat little boxes and packets which contain their mysterious and wonderful food so unpalatable to our foreign ideas. Even the cakes and sugar-plums that accompany the cups of tea, unceasingly supplied by the tired little ne sans of the tea-houses, are in the shape of cherries impaled on wooden skewers, and eaten with relish by young and old alike. In no other country but Japan, where humanity is so closely associated with nature, and where the people mingle harmoniously with the background of flowers and trees, could one find such a scene—the entire population of a great city given up to the whole-hearted enjoyment of nature.