L. and I found most of the roads around Kyoto good. A few of them present difficulties, such as the one from Kyoto to Kamazawa, but from this point they are again fine, though many hills and dangerous spots are still to be met with. On a former visit we went in 'rickshas to the foot of these hills, passing green fields of rice and reaching the Harashiyawa River, which flows rapidly into the plain. We took a flat-bottomed boat and were towed and poled up the swift water between the steep, wooded banks, where it was very lovely. We had tea at a tea-house on the bank, and watched the fishermen in boats, and looked out over the pleasant landscape in the sunset glow of crimson and gold before the purple shadows fell across the plains.
From Kyoto to Otsu, which is on the shore of Lake Biwa, is about an hour's ride by rail. There one takes a small steamer up the lake to Nagahama, where, after a tiffin of carp with rice and soy at a tea-house, one may take a train again for Nara.
One may also go from Kyoto to Nara direct by kuruma—a day's journey. There are interesting temples to visit on the hillsides along the road—popular shrines where thousands of pilgrims with jangling staves, and holiday-makers taking tea and cakes, enjoy themselves simply in their beautiful surroundings. We passed among them, beneath the great gates guarded by fantastic demon gods, green and red and blue, and into temples, gorgeous but often dilapidated and dusty, past pagodas and through long avenues of stone lanterns. At Nara we saw the Golden Pavilion and the Silver Pavilion, the summer places of retired princes. There are entrancing gardens with little ponds filled with goldfish, tiny bridges and imitation mountains, the "wash-the-moon" cascade, and the platforms where warriors used to sit and look at the moon—those fierce, two-sworded warriors of other days.
The old temples of Nara have stood there silently for over a thousand years, beneath the gaze of that huge, ungainly bronze Buddha who looks down with half-shut eyes, one hand held up in benediction, the other resting on his knee. He sits on his open lotus flower beneath the tall, solemn cryptomerias,—this wonderful Dai Butsu, the largest in all Japan.
We wandered through the groves and the park where the dainty wild deer are so friendly. On the hillside above is a temple to Kwannon, over a thousand years old, standing out from the dark green of the pines. Farther along is a Shinto temple, low and with galleries and many lanterns. Here we saw priests praying—shaven-headed bonzes in their robes—at whom pilgrims were tossing coppers. Beyond is the Wakamiya, where, for a consideration, some priestesses perform a dance called kagura while priests chant and play the flute and the tom-tom. As we went by, we saw a veiled priestess dancing there in true Eastern style. At the foot of the slope is a five-storied pagoda, black with age, for it dates back to the eighth century.
ANCIENT TEMPLE NEAR NARA.
Nikko and Nara! The one a place of some three hundred years, gilded and coloured—the other ancient, and sombre, and impressive.
From Nara to Osaka you pass more old temples, where they say an eye of Buddha is secretly guarded. Osaka is sometimes called the Venice of Japan, on account of its many canals and bridges. The castle here must have been by far the most magnificent in the country before it was destroyed by fire. The moats and foundations that remain are splendid specimens of masonry.