September 21.
We leave to-morrow morning.
This has been Sunday, our last day in Kioto. I have been trundled all day in a fearful rain, to see last sights, to look up shops for the last time. My runners have taken me to this or that place, near the great temples, where I hope finally to decide upon some little Buddha or Amida, which have tempted me among other sculptures, and I have dallied in the other shops that supply the small things that adhere to worship, and finally I have made a long visit to the good lady who has sold me pottery, and who once shocked my Western prudery by dilating upon the merits of unmentionable designs and indescribable bric-à-brac.
At length I return in the gray noon, giving a last look at each shop that I know; at the long facade of the "Inn of Great Wealth," at the signs and the flags of the theater; at the little gei-shas trotting about in couples, whom I recognize (for how can I tell them from those whom I know?); at the quaint, amusing little children, always a fresh delight; at the little pavilion near us, where the archers shoot; at the places where horses stand under the trees to be ridden by amateurs; at the small tea garden's pretty gates; at the latticed windows which open in the dusk; and then, with their coats sticking to their backs, and wet, stained legs, my runners leave me at the gate of the hotel; final settlement of purchases in boxes, packing, and receiving visits of departure.
In the late afternoon we go to the temples on the edge of the hill near us (the temples of Kiyomidzu) with two of our good friends and their children. Our runners insist upon dragging and bumping us up many steps, and finally escort us, almost to the temple itself, in a procession of double file, which, like a long tail, halts when we stop, and again waggles after us in uncertainty when we set off anew. We walk along the ascending street and stop to bargain at the innumerable little shops, full of little odds and ends, half playthings and half religious emblems or images, which are sold certainly to the pleasure of the many children who throng the place. And I, too, feel pleased at having children with us, and at having occasionally the timid little fingers of Miss Kimi in mine. In her other small hand she holds a fan that I painted yesterday for her father, and I wonder occasionally whether she wishes me to notice her possession. I surmise that the foreign gentleman gives her sometimes a little doubtful fear, as I catch her eyes looking up cautiously from below her "bangs." We talk, exactly of what it would be hard to say, for there is not with us enough of any one language "to go round," and our interpreter has been left out; but we feel distinctly that we understand each other, and our older companions explain quite a number of things in this partnership of a few words.
We ascend the high steps on one side of the tower and pass with the Sunday crowd through the great hall, like a corridor, along which are seated on altar steps golden images of gods, in a shadow dusted by the long beams of the afternoon sun, that pour across it from one open side. Through this veil of dancing motes we see the statues and the great gilded lotuses and candelabra, and the forms of attendant priests, and the crowd that passes, and that stops for a moment in prayer. The words that they repeat come into cadence with the shuffling of their feet, and the creaking of the planks of the flooring, and the sounds of the dropping of offerings.
The crowd is quiet, orderly, but amused at being out. The women smile out of their slanting eyes and walk leaning forwards, and their black hair shines like lacquer, and the artificial flowers in the great folds of the coiffure dance in the sunlight. They are quietly dressed, all but the young girls, who wear bright colors and blue satin sashes. The men slide about, also in quiet silk or cotton. A large part of them are dressed in every shade of blue; occasionally the bare leg comes out, but all wear holiday dress, except our runners or their fellows, who keep their workday looks. And the children—they are all everywhere, and all at home; they are all dressed up, with full, many-colored skirts, and showy sashes, and every little head with some new and unexplainable spot of tonsure.
Many of the crowd turn around the building, or its veranda, touching the columns with their hands and following tracks, worn deep like ruts, in the planking of enormous thickness. Oye-San points this out to me, and indicates its religious intention. Both he and our other companion clap their hands and pray for a moment. A wave of seriousness and abstraction passes over their faces; then again all is as before, and we step out upon the wide balcony, which, built upon gigantic piles, hangs over a deep hollow filled with trees and buildings, all in the shadow now. From below rise, with the coolness of the green trees and grass, the sounds of dropping waters. In time we descend the path and the steps, and drink from one of the streams which fall from gigantic gargoyles, out of a great mass of wall.
But it is late: we look again upon Kioto from the temple above, all swimming in light and haze, and walk back to our kurumas, a final good-by to the children, but we shall see their parents again; and then we return, and look from our veranda for the last time at the city stretched out in the evening, lost almost entirely in the twilight of a great lake of violet fog. A few shapes are just felt in the misty space, but no more than as waves in water, or as greater densities in the undulations of the colored vapor. So uncertain is everything that the nearest temple building loses its place, and floats all below its roof; but its wet tiles glitter, reflecting the rose-colored drift in the highest pale turquoise sky.