Through this framework of red and many-colored gold we passed into the inner court, made into a cloister by walls and narrow buildings, rich in red lacquer and black and gold. As before with Iyéyasŭ, so also within this inclosure, is another raised upon a base faced with great blocks of granite, fretted, spotted, and splashed with white and purple lichens. The sun-embroidered wall or fence that edges it is black with a bronze-and-gold roof; its trellises are of white, edged with gold; as usual, bands of carved and colored ornament divide so as almost to pierce its face; and its beams are capped with jointings of chiseled metal. The central gate spots joyously the long line of black and gold and color and bronze, with imposts of white carving, framed in rosy lacquer, and with gold pillars and a gold lintel, upon which is spread a great white dragon, and with a high gold pediment, divided by recesses of golden ornament on ultramarine, and with golden doors fretted with a fairy filagree of golden ornament.
Through this lovely gate, with an exquisite inlaid ceiling of pearl and gold and walls of carved and colored trellises, we pass to the main shrine, only just behind it.
Here again, less pretense than with Iyéyasŭ, and greater and more thoughtful elegance. The long white carved columns of the portico run straight up to the brackets of its roof—except where, to support the cross-beam of the transoms, project red lions' heads and paws, looking like great coral buds. The entire architrave of the building is divided into a succession of long friezes, stepping farther and farther out, like a cornice, until they meet the golden roof. Only a few gold brackets support the highest golden beam—carvings, color, and delicate stampings of the lacquer embroider the gold with a bloom of color. The gold doors look like jewelers' work in heavy filagree.
All within was quiet, in a golden splendor. Through the small openings of the black-and-gold gratings a faint light from below left all the golden interior in a summer shade, within which glittered on lacquer tables the golden utensils of the Buddhist ceremonial. From the coffered ceiling hangs the metal baldachin, like a precious lantern's chain without a lamp.
IN THE THIRD GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF IYÉMITSŬ, LOOKING TOWARD THE FOURTH.
A PRIEST AT IYÉMITSŬ.
The faces of the priests who were there were known to us, the elder's anxious and earnest, the younger's recalling an Italian monsignore. One of them was reading by the uplifted grating and rose to greet us, and to help to explain. We entered the narrow passage which makes the center, through whose returning walls project, in a curious refinement of invention, the golden eaves of the inner building beyond. Gratings which were carved and gilded trellises of exquisite design gave a cool, uncertain light. We passed out of a trellised door on to the black lacquered floor of a veranda, and then sat awhile in a simple room with our hosts to look at temple manuscripts and treasures, and at the open palanquin which once brought here the dead Iyémitsŭ—not reduced to ashes, as his grandfather Iyéyasŭ, but wrapped and covered up in innumerable layers of costly and preserving vermilion. We passed into the corridor behind the building and looked at the picture hanging on the wall, which faces the mountain and the tomb, in which Kuwan-on the Compassionate sits in contemplation beside the descending stream of life. Then for a few moments we entered by a low door the sanctuary, narrow and high and with pyramidal roof.