JAPANESE JUNKS.
When we left next morning it was to pass more promontories on beautiful islands, lovely mountains rising behind, and picturesque shores fringed with tiny trees all green and purple in the haze. In the afternoon the clouds and rain that crossed our path only added to and varied the loveliness of the approach to Hiroshima.
During the day we had an unsurpassed panorama of Japanese scenery, with grotesque, broken islands fringed with pine, and ravined mountains dipping down into the calm blue waters, on which the quaintest and most unreal of sampans and junks were idly floating. We felt as if we were passing through a miniature ocean with its islands and old-world villages constantly appearing and disappearing in the rising, shifting mist. No wonder the Japanese believe in ghosts and in Bahu, the Eater of Dreams!
As the sun went down we rounded the enchanted island of Miyajima—the third of the "three finest views"—and glided into the bay before the famous temple. When it grew darker the four hundred lanterns of bronze and stone along the water's edge were lighted for us. The temple itself is built on piles, and the torii stands far out from the shore. We were sculled across the still waters in a sampan. The tide was at its highest, and the hundreds of little lights were reflected in its glassy surface. Slowly we drifted beneath the great torii to the temple entrance. Once more the Spell of Japan stole over us.
THE GREAT TORII.
The sunrise next morning was too beautiful for words. We appeared to be coming out from a rosy dawn into a grey, dim future, as the sun came up through a pearly mist and the little clouds rose in wreaths about the tops of the strange mountains, making pictures such as the art of Japan loves to depict. Tiny straw-sailed boats appeared and disappeared mysteriously. It was all very silent and lovely.