BY THE SAME ARTIST

THE ITALIAN LAKES

Painted by Ella Du Cane

Described by Richard Bagot

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Containing 69 full-page Illustrations in Colour

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THE FLOWERS AND GARDENS
OF JAPAN

THE FLOWERS
AND
GARDENS OF JAPAN

PAINTED BY
ELLA DU CANE
DESCRIBED BY
FLORENCE DU CANE

PREFACE

An apology is due to the reader for adding this volume to the long list of books already written on Japan; but, being a lover of flowers myself, I found there was no book giving a short account of the flora of the country which is so often called the Land of Flowers. Hence my excuse for offering these pages, either to those who may be intending to visit, or to those who may wish to recall the memories of a sojourn in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The book does not pretend to furnish a complete list of all the flowers to be found in the country, but rather to give a description of those which are most remarkable for their beauty and profusion, and which are most closely associated with Japan. The pages on landscape gardening have been condensed, partly owing to want of space, and also because I felt that those who take a real and thorough interest in the subject have Mr. Conder’s admirable volumes on “Landscape Gardening in Japan” to help them in the study of the most complicated form of gardening in the world. Being debarred, through lack of sufficient knowledge of the language, from availing myself of original works in Japanese, I have drawn much information from Mr. Conder’s works, and from those of other foreigners; but I wish gratefully to acknowledge the help I received from Mr. Y. Noguchi, who provided me with the flower legends and fairy tales, which are household words in every Japanese home.

FLORENCE DU CANE.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FLOWERS & GARDENS OF JAPAN

CHAPTER I
LANDSCAPE GARDENING

It is safe to assert that no other country has such a distinctive form of landscape gardening as Japan. In English, French, Italian, and Dutch gardens, however original in their way, there are certain things they seem all to possess in common: terraces, which originally belonged to Italian gardens, were soon introduced into France; clipped trees, which were a distinctive feature of Dutch gardens, were copied by the English; the fashion of decorating gardens with flights of stone steps, balustrades, fountains, and statues at one time spread from Italy throughout Europe; and possibly the over-decoration of gardens led to a change in taste in England and a return to a more natural style. The gardens of China and Japan have remained unique; the Eastern style of gardening has never spread to any other country, nor is it ever likely to; for, just as no Western artist will ever paint in the same manner as an Oriental artist because his whole artistic sense is different, so no Western gardener could ever hope to construct a garden representing a portion of the natural scenery of Japan—which is the aim and object of every good Japanese landscape garden, however small—because, however long he might study the original scene, he would never arrive at the Japanese conception of it, or realise what it conveyed to the mind of a Japanese. Their art of gardening was originally borrowed from the Chinese, who appear to have been the first to construct miniature mountains, and to bring water from a distance to feed miniature water-falls and mountain torrents. They even went so far as, in one enclosure, to represent separate scenes for different seasons of the year, and different hours of the day, but to the Japanese belongs the honour of having perfected the art of landscape gardening.

It is not my intention to weary the reader with technical information on the subject, which he will find admirably explained in Mr. Conder’s volume on Landscape Gardening in Japan, but an outline of some of the theories and rules which guide the Japanese gardener will help us to appreciate his work and give an additional interest to the hours spent in these refreshing retreats from the outer world.

The designer of a good landscape garden has to be guided by many things. A scene must be chosen suited to the size of the ground and the house, and its natural surroundings; and the Japanese garden being above all a spot for secluded leisure and meditation, the temperament, sentiment, and even the occupation of the owner are brought into consideration. Their conception of the expression of nature is governed in its execution by endless æsthetic rules; considerations of scale, proportion, unity, and balance, in fact all that tends to artistic harmony, must be considered, so as to preserve the perfect balance of the picture, and any neglect would destroy that feeling of repose which is so essential in the landscape garden. When we realise that the art has occupied the minds of poets, sages, and philosophers, it is not to be wondered at that something more than the simple representation of natural views has entered into the spirit of their schemes, which attain to poetical conceptions; and a garden may be designed to suggest definite ideas and associations, in fact the whole art is enshrouded by quaint æsthetic principles, and it is difficult for the Western mind to unravel the endless laws and theories by which it is governed.

In gardens which cover a larger area the scheme must necessarily be very different from that required for the making of a tiny garden, only some few yards square, but the materials used will be the same; only the stone bridges and garden ornaments will all be in proportion to the size of the garden, for the rule of proportion is perhaps the most important of all. I visited a garden which was being enlarged by the addition of a hill and the suggestion of mountain forests, to give the impression of unknown limits. The owner explained that as he had enlarged his house it was therefore necessary at the same time to enlarge his garden. A landscape garden may be of any size, from the miniature scenes, representing pigmy groves, and mossy precipices, with lilliputian torrents of white sand, compressed into the area of a china dish, to the vast gardens with their broad sheets of water and majestic trees which surrounded the Daimyo castles of old or the Imperial palaces of to-day; but the sense of true proportion must be rigidly adhered to. Large rocks and boulders are out of

WISTARIA IN A KYOTO GARDEN

place in a small garden, and small stones in a large garden would be equally unsuitable. The teachers of the craft have been most careful to preserve the purity of style. Over-decoration is condemned as vulgar ostentation, and faulty designs have even been regarded as unlucky, in order to avoid degeneration in the art.

In some of the most extensive gardens it is not uncommon to represent several favourite views, and yet the composition will be so contrived that all the separate scenes work into one harmonious whole. In the immediate foreground of a nobleman’s house there will be an elaborately finished garden full of detail and carefully composed, the stones employed will be the choicest, the water-basin of quaint and beautiful design. Stone lanterns in keeping with the scene will be found, miniature pagodas possibly, and a few slabs of some precious stone to form the bridges. Farther away from the house the scheme should be less finished. Surrounding the simple room set apart for the tea ceremony the law forbids the garden to be finished in style, it must be rather rough and sketchy, and then if some natural wild scene is represented, a broad effect must be retained; a simple clump of pines or cryptomerias near a little garden shrine will represent some favourite temple, or a small grove of maples and cherry-trees by the side of a stream of running water will suggest the scenery of Arashiyama or some other romantic and poetical spot.

To our Western ideas it seems impossible that a garden without flowers could be a thing of beauty, or give any pleasure to its owner. Yet, strange as it may appear, flowers for their own sakes do not enter into the scheme of Japanese gardening, and if any blossoms are to be found, it is probably, so to speak, by accident, because the particular shrub or plant which may happen to be in flower was the one best suited by its growth for the position it occupies in the garden. For instance, azaleas are often seen covering the banks with gorgeous masses of colour, but they are only allowed, either on account of their picturesque growth and the fact that they are included in the natural vegetation of the scene produced, or else because the bushes can be cut into regulation shapes, which, as often as not, is done when the flowers are just opening. Though the Japanese are great lovers of flowers, their taste is so governed by rules, that they are extremely fastidious in their choice of the blossoms they consider worthy of admiration. The rose and the lily are rejected as unworthy, their charms are too obvious: their favourites are the iris, pæony, wistaria, lotus, morning glory, and chrysanthemum; and even among these the iris, wistaria, and possibly the lotus, are the only ones which seem ever to be allowed to belong in any way to the real design of the garden. Flowering trees take more part, and the plum, peach, cherry, magnolia, and camellia are all permitted; and the numerous fancy varieties of the maple, whose leaves enrich the autumn landscape with their scarlet glory, are as much prized as any of the blossoming shrubs. It is rather to the storm-bent old pine-trees and other evergreen trees and shrubs, to the mossy lichen-covered stones, to the clever manipulation of the water to represent a miniature mountain cascade or a flowing river, and to broad stretches of velvety moss that the true Japanese garden owes its beauty.

Mr. Conder tells us that the earliest style of gardening in the country was called the Imperial Audience Hall Style, because, not unnaturally, it was round the palaces and houses of the great nobles that the idea was first adopted of arranging the ground to suggest a real landscape. The designs appear to have been primitive, but they usually contained a large irregular lake, with at least one island reached by a bridge of picturesque form. Later—from the middle of the twelfth to the beginning of the fourteenth century—the art of gardening was much practised and encouraged by the Buddhist priests. They even went so far as to ascribe imaginary religious and moral attributes to the grouping of the stones, a custom which has more or less survived to this day and is described elsewhere. In those days a lake came to be regarded as a necessary feature, and poetical names were given to the little islets, just as the pine-clad islands of Matsu-shima have each their poetical name. Cascades also received names according to their character, such as the “Thread Fall,” the “Spouting Fall,” or the “Side Fall.” In the making of a garden then, as to-day, the first work was the excavation of the lake, the designing and forming of the islands, the placing in position of a few of the most important stones, and finally the arrangement of the waterfall or stream which was to feed the lake, and the outlet had also to be carefully considered. After this period came the fashion of representing lakes and rivers by means of hollowed-out beds and courses, merely strewn with sand, pebbles, and boulders, a practice followed also to this day where water is not available. Shallow water or dried-up river-beds are suggested in this way, and therefore the style received the name of Dried-up Water Scenery. Artificial hills were used, stones and winding pathways were introduced, and large rocks helped to suggest natural scenery.

It was in the fifteenth century that the art of gardening received the greatest encouragement and attention at the hands of the Ashikaya Regents, who also encouraged the other arts of flower arrangement—tea ceremony and poetry. The Professors of Cha no yu (tea ceremony) became the principal designers of gardens, and they naturally turned their attention to the ground which surrounded the rooms set apart for this ceremonial tea-drinking; and to the famous Soami, who was a Professor of Tea-ceremonial and the Floral Art, they owe the practice of clipping trees and shrubs into fantastic shapes. Though the Japanese never attained to the unnatural eccentricities of the Dutch in their manner of using clipped trees, yet in many old and modern gardens a pine-tree may be seen clipped and trained in the shape of a junk, and a juniper may be trained to form a light bridge to fling across a tiny stream; but as a rule the gardener contents himself by training and clipping his pine-tree to mould it into the shape of an abnormal storm-bent specimen of great age. To that period belonged Kobori Enshiu, the designer of so many celebrated gardens, and to him we owe the garden of the Katsura Rikui, a detached Palace near Kyoto, which, though fallen into decay, retains much of its former beauty, especially when the scarlet azalea bushes, which now escape the clipping they no doubt were subjected to in old days, light up the scene, their lichen-clad stems bending under the weight of their blossoms and enhancing the beauty of the moss-grown lanterns and stones. The garden which surrounded the temple of Kodaiji, a portion only of the grounds of the old palace of Awata, the Konchi-in garden of the Nanzenji Temple, and many other specimens of his work remain in Kyoto alone. He is reported to have said that his ideal garden should express “the sweet solitude of a landscape clouded by moonlight, with a half gloom between the trees.” Rikiu, another great tea professor and designer of landscape gardens, said the best conception of his fancy would be that of the “lonely precincts of a secluded mountain shrine, with the red leaves of autumn scattered around.” However different their ideal, they all agreed that the tea garden was to be somewhat wild in character, suggesting repose and solitude. Then came the more modern style of gardening: from 1789 to 1830 was a period when large palaces were built and surrounded by magnificent gardens, fit residences for the great Tokugawa feudal lords. For these gardens great sums were expended on collecting stones from all parts of the country, and often a garden would be left unfinished until the exact stone suited to express the required religious or poetical feeling, or else specially required to complete a miniature natural scene, had been procured. The extravagance in this craving for rare stones, which cost vast sums to transport immense distances, reached such a pitch, that at last, in the Tempo period (1830-1844), an edict was issued limiting the sum which might be paid for a single specimen. Stone and granite lanterns of infinite variety in size and shape were introduced with their poetical names, each having a special position assigned to it by the unbending laws which surround this art, for the arrangement of not only every tree and stone, but almost every blade of grass and drop of water. I feel my readers will begin to think that there must be a lack of variety in these landscape gardens, but I can safely say that never did I see—and I saw a great many—any two gardens, large or small, which bore any resemblance to each other; the materials are the same, but the design is never the same.

Garden water-basins, miniature pagodas, stone bridges, also of infinite variety, and other garden ornaments, such as rustic arbours, fanciful constructions of bamboo, reeds, or plaited rushes, primitive, fragile-looking structures, but none the less costly, were made use of, and a few rare birds, such as storks and cranes, were allowed to wander and adorn the scene with their stately grace. Here and there the crooked branches of stunted pine-trees of great age overhung the lake or stream, transplanted probably with infinite care; but no trouble and no expense was too great to make these gardens fitting settings for the castles and palaces of those great lords. Alas, how few remain to-day in anything like their former splendour; the hand of the Goth has swept away most of the ancient glories of Yedo, and on the spot where these princely dwellings and gardens stood, to-day some great factory chimneys rise and belch forth columns of smoke, which will surely bring death and destruction to the pines and cherry-trees

THE STORKS

of Uyeno or the avenues of Mukojima, which are still the pride of Tokyo.

Tokyo may still retain the remains of some of her princely gardens, but I fear she has lost her love of gardening; the town is too large, too crowded; the rich who could afford to make new gardens, even if the old ones are swept away, prefer to live in foreign houses of impossible architectural design; the public gardens are no longer laid out in true Japanese style, but suggestive rather of foreign gardens of the worst form and taste, so if you would see the making of a new garden it is to Kyoto you must wend your way. Here the love of landscape gardening seems still alive, and though the gardens may not surround the palaces of the Daimyos, yet these humbler gardens which as often as not surround the house of a rich Osaka tradesman are none the less beautiful for that reason; and I was glad to think that riches had not, as is too often the case, brought with it a love for foreign life and stamped out the true Japanese, and that here at least are left many who are content to spend their hours of leisure in the contemplation and in the repose of a true landscape garden.

In the course of an evening walk on the outskirts of Kyoto I came upon a half-built house. Through the newly planted cryptomeria hedge could be seen glimpses of stone lanterns, rocks, and a few trees kept in place by bamboo props, while in the road outside lay stones of all colours, shapes, and sizes. Garden coolies were passing in and out, carrying baskets of earth slung on bamboo poles, so it was evident that a garden was being made. My curiosity was aroused, so I ventured within the enclosure, and, in the most polite language I could command, asked permission of the owner to watch the interesting work. A Japanese is always gratified by the genuine interest of a foreigner in anything connected with his home, and will usually point out the special features of the object of interest in eloquent and poetical phrases, confusing enough to the foreigner, whose command of the Japanese language cannot as a rule rise to such heights. On this occasion, however, any explanation was unnecessary, the scene in itself was sufficient to call forth my admiration and surprise. The piece of ground occupied by the garden did not comprise more than half an acre, and was merely the plot usually attached to any suburban villa in England. Not withstanding the limited space, a perfect landscape was growing out of the chaos of waste ground which had been chosen as the site of the house. A miniature lake of irregular shape had been dug out; an island consisting of just one bold rock, to be christened no doubt in due time with some fanciful name, had been placed in position; and there were the “Guardian Stone,” always the most important stone in the near distance, and its associates the “Stone of Worship”—also sometimes called the “Stone of Contemplation,” as from this stone the best general view of the garden is obtained—and the “Stone of the Two Deities.” The presence of these three stones being essential in the composition of every garden, they are probably the first to be placed. A few trees of venerable appearance had already been planted in the orthodox places; and already one spreading pine-tree stretched across the future lake, supported on an elaborate framework of bamboo, to give it exactly the right shape and direction; near to it, and resting on a slab of rock at the very edge of the water, was a stone lantern of the “Snow Scene” shape; the two forming the principal features of the garden, upon which the eye rested involuntarily. Another stone lantern stood in the shadow of a tall and twisted pine, half buried in low-growing shrubs, bedded in moss of a golden-brown colour. On one side was a bank thickly planted with azaleas, groups of maples, or camellias, and at the far end of the garden some tall evergreen trees cleverly disguised the boundary line of the hedge and gave the impression that the garden had no ending, save in the wooded hills that shut in the surrounding valley. A cutting in the bank and a wonderfully natural arrangement of “Cascade Stones” showed where the water would eventually rush in from the stream outside, which had its source in Lake Biwa. A path of beaten earth with stepping-stones embedded in it wound round the little lake and through the grove at the side; a simple bridge of mere slabs of stone crossed the water to where the pathway ended in the inevitable tea-room. Many more lanterns, pagodas, and other garden ornaments lay on the ground waiting for their allotted place, while a whole nursery of trees carefully laid in loose earth showed that much more planting was needed to complete the garden, which would some day be the pride and delight of the owner’s heart.

The whole country is often searched for a tree of exactly the right size and shape required for a particular position, and while watching the work of making this new garden I was much struck by the extraordinary skill the Japanese display in the transplanting of trees of almost any size and age. The season chosen for their removal is the spring, when the sap is rising, and the dampness of the climate and the rich soil no doubt help considerably towards their success in moving these old trees; unlike England, spring is their best season for planting, as the trees will have all the benefit of the summer rains and run no risk of drought or cold winds. The roots are trenched round, to our idea, perilously near the tree; as much earth is retained as possible and bound round with matting. Five or six coolies with a length of rope, a few poles, and not a little ingenuity, will move the largest tree in a very short time. There is no machinery or fuss of any kind, merely a hand-barrow, on which the tree rests on its journey. Very little preparation is made in the place where the tree is to be planted; no trenching of the ground, or preparing of vast holes to be filled with prepared soil, only a hole just large enough for the ball of earth surrounding the roots is considered sufficient. The tree is then put in place, upright or leaning, according to the effect required, the soil tightly rammed round the roots, the necessary pruning and propping carefully attended to; the ground artistically planted with moss and made to look as if it had never been disturbed for centuries, and the thing is done. I remember seeing a piece of ground which was being prepared for building, on which were a few plum-trees of considerable size and age; these were being carefully removed, doubtless to give a venerable appearance to some new garden, or to be planted in a nursery garden until they should be wanted elsewhere,—surely a better fate than would have awaited them in our country under similar circumstances, where the devastating axe of the builder’s labourer would certainly have cleared the ground in a few minutes of what he would have regarded as useless rubbish.

CHAPTER II
STONES—GARDEN ORNAMENTS AND FENCES

Stones and rocks are such important features in all Japanese gardens that when choosing the material for the making of a landscape garden, however large or however small, the selection of the stones would appear to be the primary consideration. Their size must be in perfect proportion with the house and grounds which they are to transform into a natural landscape, and they will give the scale for all the other materials used—the lanterns, bridges, and water-basins, and even the trees and fences. Their number may vary from five important stones to as many as 138, each with its especial sense and function. I think the correct position and placing of the stones is the part of the art which it would be most difficult for a foreigner to accomplish: the mere names and special functions of the stones would require years of careful study. To the eye of a Japanese one stone wrongly placed would upset all the balance and repose of the picture. Large rocks and boulders seem to be essential for the success of a large garden, and are used to suggest mountains, hills, and the rocks of the natural scene; any very fantastic and artificial-looking rocks are avoided, for fear they should give an appearance of unreality to the landscape. The fancy of giving sex to certain stones, and in temple grounds of assigning holy attributes and even of giving them the names of Buddhist deities, dates from very early days, and this custom of applying a religious meaning to the most important rocks survives to this day. Mr. Conder tells us that “formerly it was said that the principal boulders of a garden should represent the Kuji, or Nine Spirits of the Buddhist pantheon, five being of standing and four of recumbent form; and it was supposed that misfortune was averted by observing this classification.” Stones of good shape, colour, and proportion are treasured as carefully as any jewel, and in the gardens of the rich are brought together from all parts of the empire. The granite for slabs, steps, and lanterns may come from the neighbourhood of Osaka, Bingo, and other places. Large blocks which have an irregular surface are usually limestones, and the action of water has produced those much-coveted shapes. Blue and white limestone and a kind of jasper rock of a reddish colour are prized for certain positions, slabs of a dark green colour seemed to come from the vicinity of Lake Biwa, and volcanic rock and honeycombed sea-rocks are valuable for water scenes. It would only weary the reader if I were to attempt to describe the endless combinations of stones as laid down by the unbending laws, or to give all the names applied to the various sets of stones known as Hill Stones, Lake and River Stones, Cascade Stones, Island Stones, Valley Stones, Water-basin Stones, Tea-garden Stones, and, finally, Stepping-Stones. Often did I regret that my knowledge of the art was not sufficient to enable me to recognise all these various stones. How intensely it would add to one’s appreciation of these perfect specimens of artificial scenery if one could at once among the Hill Stones point out the “Mountain Summit Stone” and the poetical “Propitious Cloud Stone,” or the “Mist-enveloped Stone”; or among the River and Lake Stones find the “Sentinel Stone,” which, as its name suggests, should be placed in the position of a look-out man near the edge of the water; or the “Wave-receiving Stone” hidden in the current of the stream. So often the water scenery of the garden is intended to represent sea-views, the favourite being a portion of the scenery of Matsushima with its countless islets, that many of these Lake Stones have names suggestive of the sea; such as the “Sea-gull Resting Stone,” situated on a stony beach, or the “Wild Wave Stone,” placed so as to meet the current of the water.

Next come the Cascade Stones, which do not seem quite so numerous, and among them one at least forms so important a feature in every garden that it is easy to distinguish—the “Guardian Stone,” which should form the main part of the rocky cliff over which the water falls; it is also sometimes called the “Cascade-supporting Stone.” “The Stone of Fudo,” named after a Buddhist god, and its eight small attendants, the “Children Stones,” are among the more important features of the cascade or waterfall.

The Island Stones are perhaps more interesting still, as they are such important features in the landscape. The “Elysian Isle,” the “Master’s Isle,” and the “Guest’s Isle” are the most favourite trio of islands, and are formed of combinations of stones. That of the “Elysian Isle,” whose origin comes from China, is a combination of four stones suggesting

AZALEAS IN A KYOTO GARDEN

the different members of a tortoise’s body, and a pine-tree of carefully trained form should grow, as it were, out of the back of the animal. The “Master’s Isle” has three principal stones—the “Stone of Easy Rest,” which speaks for itself; the “Stone of Amusement,” suggesting the best spot for fishing; and finally the “Seat Stone.” The “Guest’s Isle” has five important stones—the “Guest-honouring Stone”; the “Interviewing Stone”; “Shoe-removing Stone,” on which the clogs or sandals are changed; the “Water-fowl Stone”; and again the “Sea-gull Resting Stone.”

Among the Valley Stones many have a religious suggestion; but under this head we find the important “Stone of Worship,” a broad flat stone upon which one has to assume an attitude of veneration; it should be in front of the garden, at the point from which the best view is obtained. The Water-basin Stones are not those which form the basin itself, but may merely serve as a base for the actual water receptacle, and either act as an embellishment, or perform certain functions in connection with the basin. The Tea-garden Stones have the “Kettle Stone,” the “Candlestick Stone,” and many others suggestive of the tea-drinking ceremonies—merely fanciful in their names, as these ceremonies invariably take place in a room, and therefore the stones are never used to fulfil their supposed functions.

Finally we come to the Stepping-Stones, and the art of the Japanese in placing these stones cannot fail to strike any one who has any interest in the making of an ordinary rock garden. Their presence in all gardens in Japan is essential, as the use of turf being almost, if not entirely, unknown for paths and open spaces, it is replaced by firmly beaten earth, or, for larger spaces, by fine sand carefully raked into patterns; as footmarks, and more especially the marks of wooden clogs, would destroy the symmetry of these patterns, and in damp weather cut up the beaten earth, the use of stones for crossing the spaces or taking a walk round the garden is an absolute necessity. The alternative name for these stones is Flying Stones or Scattered Islands, which at once suggests how gracefully and artistically they are placed. Nothing, as a rule, could be less artistic than the way stepping-stones are placed in English gardens; they seem at once to bring to my mind visions of people trying to keep a steady gait, a feat which it is positively difficult to accomplish where the stones are laid in an almost straight row. In commenting on this fact Mr. Conder says:—

It is not, therefore, surprising to find that the Japanese gardener follows carefully devised rules for the distribution of “Stepping-Stones.” He uses certain special stones and combinations, having definite shapes and approximate dimensions assigned to them, and he connects these with secondary blocks, the whole being arranged with a studied irregularity, both for comfort in walking and artistic grace. This is attained by the employment of ragged slabs of slate, schist, or flint, flat water-worn rocks or boulders, and hewn slabs or discs of granite or some other hard stone. The natural boulders are placed in zigzags of fours and threes, or sometimes in threes and twos, artificially hewn slabs, discs, or strips intervening. Though uniformity of tread is carefully calculated, the different sizes of the stones cause the intervals to vary considerably, and any apparent regularity is avoided. The distance between “Stepping-Stones” should not, however, be less than four inches, to allow of the intermediate spaces being kept clean. The smaller stones are of sufficient size for the foot to rest firmly upon, and should not, as a general rule, be higher than two inches from the soil. In ancient times it is said that “Stepping-Stones” for the Emperor’s gardens were made six inches high, those for a Daimyo four inches, those for ordinary Samurai nearly three inches, and for common folk an inch and a half in height. The larger stones are intended as a rest for both feet, and two of them should never be used consecutively. In some cases several continuous pathways formed of “Stepping-Stones” may be seen. When such walks branch off in two directions a larger and higher stone, called the “Step-dividing Stone,” will be placed at the point of divergence.

The stones leading to the house end usually in a high slab of granite which forms the step on to the verandah. It is no exaggeration to say that the Stepping-Stones of a well-planned garden, besides being of strict utility, are a great ornament to the garden.

Probably the garden ornaments which will first attract the eye of the visitor are the stone lanterns, which are to be found in almost every garden, however humble. These lanterns appear to be of purely Japanese origin; no record of them is to be found in the history of Chinese gardens, though the introduction of miniature stone pagodas as garden ornaments came to Japan from China through the medium of Korea, for which reason they are still called “Korean Towers.” The use of stone lanterns as a decoration for gardens seems to date from the days when the Professors of Tea-ceremonial turned their attention to landscape gardening. The custom of presenting votive offerings of lanterns in bronze or stone, large or small, plain or decorated, dates from early days, and no Buddhist temple or shrine is complete without its moss-grown lanterns adorning the courts and grounds. The correct placing of stone lanterns in the landscape garden is almost as complex as the placing of stones. They should be used in combination with rocks, shrubs and trees, and water-basins. They have no use except as ornaments, as seldom, if ever, did I see one with a light in its fire-box except in temple grounds. They appeared to be almost more valued for their age than their form, as new ones can be easily procured of any desired shape; but however ingenious the devices may be for imparting a look of age to new specimens, it is time, and time alone, which will bring that thick green canopy of velvet moss on their roof, and the granite will only become toned down to the coveted mellow hue by long exposure to the weather.

Roughly speaking, garden lanterns are divided into two classes, the Standard and the Legged class, though many others of fanciful design may sometimes be seen. The origin of the Standard class was known as the “Kasuga” shape, after a Shinto god to whom the well-known Nara temple is dedicated. Thousands of these Kasuga lanterns adorn the temple grounds, and the exact form is that of “a high cylindrical standard, with a small amulet in the centre, erected on a base and plinth of hexagonal plan, and supporting an hexagonal head crowned with a stone roof of double curve, having corner scrolls. The top is surmounted with a ball drawn to a point above. The head of the lantern, which is technically called the fire-box, is hollowed out, two of its faces having a square opening large enough to admit an oil lamp; and the remaining four sides being carved respectively with representations of a stag, a doe, the sun, and the moon.” These lanterns may vary in size, from six to as much as eighteen feet, and in this colossal size make a most imposing decoration for a large garden. There are several other designs which closely resemble the true Kasuga shape. Many others there are which still belong to the Standard class: some with the standards shortened and the heads elongated; others with flat saucer-shaped caps or wide mushroom-shaped roofs—in fact, an infinite variety; and even in humble gardens rude specimens are seen built of natural mossy stones chosen to resemble as closely as possible the regulation form, and the fire-box made of wood. Another form of the Standard shape is suggestive of glorified lamp-posts; these lanterns are mostly used in the approach to gardens or near the tea-rooms. Some of them are very quaint and quite rustic in appearance, being always made of wood. The square wooden lantern on a tall post is covered by either a wooden or thatched roof with

AZALEAS, KYOTO

wide-projecting eaves. One of these is called the Who goes there? shape, and derives its original name from the fact that the dim light seen through its paper doors is only sufficient to enable a person to vaguely distinguish an approaching form; and the Thatched Hut shape is in the form of a little thatched cottage.

The class known as Legged lanterns have the alternative name of Snow Scene lanterns, as the very wide umbrella-shaped roof or cap, by which they are invariably covered, makes a broad surface for snow to rest upon. To the eye of a Japanese the effect of snow is almost more beautiful than any of their floral displays, and a snow-clad scene gives them infinite pleasure. The position of these lanterns in the garden should be partly overshadowed by the crooked branch of a spreading pine-tree, and certainly after a fall of snow the effect is one of great beauty.

Ornamental bronze or iron lanterns are hung by a chain from the eaves of the verandah of either the principal house or tea-room, and, like the water-basin, are often very beautiful in design. Bronze Standard lanterns are never seen in landscape gardens, only as votive offerings to temples; but occasionally an iron lantern with no standard, only resting on low feet, may be placed on a flat stone near the water’s edge, or nestling in the shadow of a group of evergreen shrubs. Near the larger Kasuga-shaped lanterns a stepping-stone (or even two, if the lantern be unusually large) should be placed higher than the surrounding ones; these are called Lamp-lighting Stones, as by their aid the fire-box can be conveniently reached for lighting the lamp.

A garden water-basin may be either ornamental in form, or merely a very plain hollowed-out stone with a strictly utilitarian aspect. Its position in the garden is invariably the same, within easy reach of the verandah, so that the water can be reached by the wooden ladle which is left by the side of the basin; and usually an ornamental fence of bamboo or rush-work separates it from that part of the house in its immediate neighbourhood. For a small residence, and where the basin is for practical use, the distance from the edge of the verandah should not be more than eighteen inches, and the height three to four feet; but as the law of proportion applies to the water-basin just as it applies to the rest of the composition, the ornamental basin in front of a large house will have to be three or four feet away, and its height seven or eight feet from the ground. In this case, in spite of the stepping-stones, the basin becomes merely an ornament, as it is out of reach for practical purposes, and even has to be protected by a separate decorative roof to keep off the rain.

Each shape of basin has its own name, but perhaps one of the most popular forms is that of a natural rock of some unusual shape, hollowed at the top and covered with a delicate little wooden construction, like a tiny shed or temple, to keep the water cool and unpolluted. The Running-water Basins, as their name suggests, receive a stream of clear water by means of a little bamboo aqueduct, and in that case arrangement has to be made for the overflow of the water.

As water is so essential in the composition of all landscape gardens, it is not surprising to find that the various styles of bridges which are employed to cross the lake or miniature torrents, and connect the tiny islands with the shore, are so graceful in design, and yet so simple, that they must certainly be classed as ornaments to the garden. The more elaborate bridges of stone or wood are only seen in large gardens. The semicircular arched bridge, of which the best-known example is in the grounds of the Kameido temple in Tokyo, where it forms a most picturesque object in connection with the wistaria-clad trellises, is of Chinese origin, and is supposed to suggest a full moon, as the reflection in the water below completes the circle. It was not these elaborate bridges that I admired most, but rather the simpler forms made out of a single slab of granite slightly carved, spanning a narrow channel, or, more imposing still, two large parallel blocks, overlapping in the middle of the stream, supported by a rock or by a wooden support.

Very attractive, too, are the little bridges made of bundles of faggots laid on a wooden framework, covered with beaten earth, the edges formed of turf, bound with split bamboo, to prevent the soil from crumbling away. There is an infinite variety of these little fantastic bridges, and the cleverness displayed in the placing of them was a never-failing source of admiration to me. The common idea of a bridge being a means of crossing water in the shortest and most direct manner is by no means the Japanese conception of a bridge. Their fondness for water, and their love of lingering while crossing it, in order to feed and gaze at the goldfish, or merely to enjoy the scene, has no doubt been responsible for the position of many of their bridges: one slab will connect the shore with a little rocky islet, and then, instead of continuing in the most direct route to the opposite shore, as often as not the next slab will branch away in an entirely different direction, probably with the object of revealing a different view of the garden, or merely in order to prolong the pleasure of crossing the lake or stream.

In most gardens, unless they are very diminutive in size, there is at least one Arbour or Resting Shed. It may consist merely of a thick rustic post supporting a thatched roof in the shape of a huge umbrella, with a few movable seats, or its proportions may assume those of a miniature house carefully finished in every detail. When they are of such an elaborate form they partake more of the nature of the Tea-ceremony room, with raised matted floors, plastered walls, and shoji on at least two sides of the room. The open structures in various shapes, with rustic thatched roofs, some fixed seats with a low railing or balustrade to lean against, are of more common form; and if the Resting House is by the side of the lake, a projecting verandah railed round is very popular, affording a comfortable resting-place from which to gaze at the scene.

Decorative garden wells are picturesque objects, with their diminutive roofs to protect the cord and pulley from the rain. As often as not they are purely for ornament, but even in this case the cord, pulley, and bracket should all look as antique as possible. A few stepping-stones should lead to it, and a stone lantern should be at hand with a suitable group of trees or shrubs.

Finally we come to garden fences and gateways, which again are bewildering in their infinite variety and style. The Imperial gardens, and even less imposing domains, are not enclosed by fences, but by solid walls of clay and mud, plastered over, carrying a roof of ornamental tiles. Even fences made of natural wood all carry a projecting roof to afford protection from the rain, which adds very much to their picturesque effect. The humblest garden must have two entrances, which therefore necessitates two gateways—the principal entrance, by which the guests enter, and the back entrance, called The Sweeping Opening from its practical use as a means of egress for the rubbish of the garden. This gate will be made of wood or bamboo, quite simple in style; but the Entrance Gate is a far more important feature of the domain, and must be in character with the garden it leads to. The actual garden doors are of

TIGER LILIES

natural wood, their panels decorated with either carving or lattice-work, and set in a wooden frame which may vary considerably in style. Roofed gateways are very common, and the practice of hanging a wooden tablet between the lintels, with an inscription either describing the style of the garden or merely conveying a pretty sentiment in keeping with its character, is often seen. The fashion of planting a pine-tree of twisted and crooked shape just inside the gateway so that its leaning branches may be seen above the fence, is not only for artistic effect, but, the pine being an emblem of good luck, it is supposed to bring long life and happiness to the owner of the garden.

Mr. Conder tells us that over a hundred drawings exist of ornamental Screen Fences, called by the Japanese Sleeve Fences. They may be used to screen off some portion of the garden, but are mainly ornamental, and are usually placed near the water-basin and a stone lantern. Without illustrations it is hopeless to attempt to describe their fanciful shapes, each again with a poetical name. The materials used in their construction consist chiefly of bamboo tubes of various sizes, rushes and reeds tied with dyed fibre, or even the tendrils of creepers or wistaria. In some of the simpler forms the patterns are only made by the placing of the bamboo joints; but others are much more elaborate, and have panels of lattice-work formed of tied rushes or reeds, or openings of different shapes like windows. Mr. Conder gives a detailed description of an immense number of these fantastic screens, and one at least I must quote as an example.

The Moon-entering Screen Fence is about seven feet high and three feet wide, having in the centre a circular hole, from which it receives its name. The vertical border on one side is broken off at the edge of the orifice, so that the circle is not complete, and this gives it the form of a three-quarter moon. Above the hole the bundles of reeds are arranged vertically, like bars, and below in a diagonal lattice-work, tied with hemp cords.

Through the openings in these fences a branch of pine, or some creeper, is often brought through and trained with excellent effect.

I feel I have said enough about the materials used for the construction of a landscape garden, to convey to the mind of the reader something of the difficulties which surround the correct combination of these materials, and sufficient to make any one realise that the making of a Japanese garden is a true art, which it is not surprising that it is impossible for a foreigner to imitate, hence the lamentable failure of the so-called “Japanese gardens” which it has been the fashion of late years to try and make in England frequently by persons who have never even seen one of the gardens of Japan. The owner of probably the best of these English “Japanese gardens” was showing his garden, which was the apple of his eye, to a Japanese, who with instinctive politeness was full of admiration, but had failed to recognise the fact that it was meant to be a true landscape garden of his own country, and therefore exclaimed, “It is very beautiful; we have nothing at all like it in Japan!”

CHAPTER III
LANDSCAPE GARDENS

Having made some attempt to elucidate the mysterious and wonderful construction of Japanese gardens, I feel the reader will expect to learn something of their effect as a whole when completed. Unfortunately many of the finest specimens of landscape gardens, the old Daimyos’ gardens in Tokyo, have been swept away to make room for foreign houses, factories, and breweries, and no trace of them remains; old drawings or photographs alone tell of their departed glories. Probably the largest of these gardens which still remains entire is the Koraku-en, or Arsenal Garden, as it is more commonly called. It is now empty and deserted, and seems only filled with sadness, its groves recalling days gone by, when succeeding Daimyos entertained their friends in regal pomp, and the sound of revelry broke the silence of the woods; to-day only the incessant sound of metal hammering metal breaks the silence of the glades, and the sound of explosions from the Arsenal near by might well rouse the dead. The garden covers a large extent of ground, and is an example of a scheme in which many separate scenes were skilfully worked together to form a perfect whole. Its fame dates from early in the seventeenth century, when the Daimyo of Mito, who was a great patron of landscape gardening, laid out the grounds. The fact that they are remarkable for many Chinese characteristics is not surprising, when we learn that the Shogun Iyemitsu took an interest in the work, and lent the aid of a great Chinese artist called Shunseu, who completed the scheme. A semicircular stone bridge of Chinese design, called a Full-moon Bridge, spans a stretch of water in which, in the scorching heat of August mornings, the great buds of white lotus flowers will crack and slowly open, their giant leaves almost hiding the bridge; this important feature of the garden is called Seiko Kutsumi, after a famous lotus lake in China. The island in the lake is the Elysian Isle of Chinese fame, and formerly was connected with the shore by a long wooden bridge, which has long since disappeared; but the path wanders on, past the rocky shore, skirting the headland and high wooded promontory, through the dense gloom of a forest, and by the time I had made a complete tour of this garden I felt as though I had paid a flying visit to half Japan.

There was an avenue of cherry-trees to recall the avenues of Koganei; the river Tatsuda in miniature, its banks clothed with maples and other reddening trees, to give colour to the garden in autumn, when the setting sun will seem to light the torch and set all the trees ablaze; there also is the Oi-gawa or Rapid River with its wide pebble-strewn bed, down which a rapid-flowing stream is brought; then we are transported to scenes in China; and beyond, again, the wanderer is reminded of the scenery of Yatsuhashi, where one of the eight bridges crosses in zigzag fashion a marshy swamp which in the month of June is a mass of irises, great gorgeous blossoms of every conceivable shade of lilac and purple, completely hiding their foliage; then this little valley becomes a stream of colour and recalls the more extensive glories of Hori-kiri.

Perhaps most ingenious of all is that part of the garden where the cone of Fuji-yama appears, snow-capped in May, as it is densely planted with

AN OLD GARDEN

white azaleas. Many other scenes there were—tiny shrines built in imitation of great temples, cascades and waterfalls named after other celebrated falls, rare rocks, moss-grown lanterns, bridges of all designs; in fact, the garden seemed a perfect treasure-house, and I felt glad that this one garden has escaped the hand of the destroyer and is left entire, a masterpiece of conception and execution.

Of another Tokyo garden—which unfortunately has not been left untouched, as it is shorn of half its former glories, a glaring red-brick brewery covering half the area of the beautiful grounds formerly known as Satake-no-niwa—only a portion remains, though a very lovely portion, and as it seems complete in itself it is still worth a visit. Unlike the Koraku-en, the Satake Garden was a rather artificial example of hill gardening, more open, with no dense groves, but essentially a hill and water garden. The large lake remains, and, like most of the gardens in the Honjo district of Tokyo, its waters are salt and tidal, being connected with the neighbouring river Sumida. Thus at high and low tide the shores of the lake present a very different aspect; pebbly bays can only be crossed by stepping-stones at high tide, and even some of the stone lanterns by the water’s edge have their standards half submerged. The hills are closely planted with evergreen bushes and shrubs, and most of the year the garden is all grey and green; the island is reached by a grey stone bridge formed of two slabs of granite of giant proportions, the grey lanterns stand among shrubs, cut into rounded form, and the mossy rocks and boulders have still more neutral tones; so it is only in spring when Nature asserts herself, and no gardener can prevent the young leaves of the maples being a variety of vivid colouring, and the grey rounded azalea bushes become perfect balls of scarlet, rosy-pink and white blossoms, that the garden has any colour in it. But to the mind of the Japanese all sense of repose and quiet charm would be gone if the eye were always worried by a distracting mass of colour; so even if flowers were grown in these more extensive gardens they had a special part of the grounds set apart for their culture. In one corner of the lake a piece of swampy ground was thickly planted with irises and water-plants, and a wistaria trellis overhung the lake, otherwise no flowers entered into the scheme; but it was a perfect specimen of the typical Japanese arrangement of garden hills planted with rounded bushes and adorned with lanterns.

SATAKE GARDEN, TOKYO

A magnificent example of a modern landscape garden is that belonging to Baron Iwasaki, made some forty years ago. The venerable pine-trees supported by stout props overhanging the lake are suggestive of countless ages; but in this garden old trees of gnarled and twisted growth, rare rocks, and immense boulders were collected from all parts of the empire, regardless of expense, and brought together to ensure the success of the scheme. The grounds cover many acres, the one blot in the landscape being the large red-brick foreign house; but luckily the most lovely part of the garden is laid out in front of the perfect specimen of a Japanese gentleman’s house, where the verandah of the cool matted rooms looks over a scene of indescribable beauty. The large lake is cleverly divided, and the portion of the garden in front of the foreign house is left behind; groves of evergreen trees screen the house—the one jarring note; and here the lake becomes the lagoon of Matsu-shima, tiny pine-clad islets rise from the water, and in the distance rises the cone of Fuji from an undulating plain of close-mown turf and groups of dwarfed pines. Here again flowers have no official existence; azaleas there are in profusion, but they are only introduced as shrubs; so the garden is not a flower garden, but a true landscape garden—the reproduction in miniature of natural scenery. The lanterns and bridges near the foreign house are of immense size, carrying out the law of proportion; the rocks and boulders are large to correspond, and the whole effect is one of great breadth; only near the tea-house and the main Japanese house does the garden become more finished in style and on a smaller scale. The balcony overhangs the rocky edge of the tidal lake; each rock has its history and its especial place; but the laws which have governed the making of such a garden are laws drawn up by great artists,—there is no false note, even the grouping of the reeds and irises by the water’s edge has been planned by a master hand, so the picture remains graven on one’s memory as that of an ideal pleasaunce for leisure and repose.

In Kyoto there still remain the gardens of the Gold and Silver Pavilions—gardens of much older date, the splendour of their pavilions dimmed by age, more especially in the case of Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. Mr. Conder says, “Long neglect has converted what was once an elaborate artificial landscape into a wild natural scene of great beauty.” The little pine-clad islets remain, but they are now island wildernesses; the trees have partially resumed their normal shapes; great leaning pines overhang the shores of the Mirror Ocean, representing the Sea of Japan, and its three islands suggesting the Empire of the Mikado. It was in the fourteenth century that this quiet spot became the so-called retreat of the scheming Yoshimitsu, who, pretending to have resigned the Shogunate in favour of his son, here lived in the garb of a monk, but in reality directing the affairs of State. The two-storied Pavilion itself, seen reflected in the Mirror Ocean, is possibly more picturesque in decay than it was in the days of its splendour; the gilding from which it takes its name has been partially restored; it is backed by the wooded hill fancifully called the Silken Canopy or Silk Hat Mountain, from the fact that the ex-Mikado Uda ordered it to be covered with white silk on a scorching summer’s day, in order that his eyes might enjoy the sensation of gazing on a cool, snow-covered scene. To this day the garden of Kinkakuji under a light canopy of snow is one of the favourite sights of the people of Kyoto. In days gone by there were smaller arbours in which the Shogun, wearied with his walk among the groves of the Silk Hat Pg089 Mountain, would rest, and compare the scene which the garden was intended to represent, to the real Sea of Japan, whence the name of one of the arbours, The House of the Sound of the Seashore.

To the north-east of Kyoto, nestling among the woods that clothe the lower hills of Hiei-san, lie the grounds of Ginkakuji or the Silver Pavilion. In imitation of his predecessor Yoshimitsu, the Shogun Yoshimasa after his abdication retired from the affairs of the world, built himself a country house with grounds of vast extent, even with despotic impatience sweeping away a temple because it interfered with his plans,—though we are told he was filled with remorse, and afterwards restored it at great expense. The two-storied Pavilion was partly copied from its rival, the Golden Pavilion, though it never seems to have attained to the same splendour; but here the ex-Shogun and his boon companions, the philosopher Soami and Shuko the Nara priest, held their æsthetic revels. They may be said to have laid down the laws which raised the tea-ceremonial to the rank of a fine art. Mr. Farrar, in writing of it, says:—

It has its prescribed ritual of appalling rigidity, this tea-ceremony, invented and elaborated by a pious monk to

A TOKYO GARDEN

distract a young and giddy Shogun from his debaucheries. It was taken up as a political weapon by the House of Tokugawa, and crystallised into its present adamantine form, becoming a social engine of the most powerful nature in its power of bringing all the nobles together. Here, then, is one of its temples where the rites were celebrated in their due ordinance, with their prescribed compliments, obeisances, and admiring exclamations over the prescribed flower, arranged in the prescribed spot, and indicated by the host in the prescribed words, to be followed by the invariable litany of conversation and courtesy over the cup of tea to be made, handed, accepted, and drunk all with remarks and gestures and smiles of ancestral rubric.

Outside any tea-house built in accordance with these prescribed regulations one sees “a row of stepping-stones, finishing beneath a little œil-de-bœuf in the wall above, by which the visitors had to enter, ignoring the thoroughly practical door. They approached, making the due bows upon each stone, and at last their host was to fish them in through the window.”

Another ceremony inaugurated within these precincts was the ceremonial of “incense sniffing,” to our minds merely an innocent, childish game, the winner being the person possessing the keenest sense of smell, as the pastime consisted of five or more different kinds of incense being burnt, sniffed, given poetical names, then mixed up and sniffed again, and the man who guesses best the names of the various kinds, is the winner. The boxes which contained the incense, the burners in which it was burnt, were all works of art, and the same grave etiquette which governed the tea-ceremonial governed these incense-sniffing parties, in which poets, writers, priests, philosophers, Daimyos, Shoguns, the greatest and most learned in the land, took part. We can only gaze with wonder and perplexity—not hoping to understand—at a “nation’s intellect going off on such devious tracks as this incense-sniffing and the still more intricate tea-ceremonies, and on bouquets arranged philosophically, and gardens representing the cardinal virtues. Such strict rules, such grave faces, such endless terminologies, so much ado about nothing!” (Professor Chamberlain’s Things Japanese.)

To return to the garden proper, laid out with great elaboration by Soami. Although it is now much neglected, the trees are not kept trimmed according to the rigid laws, their stems are lichen-clad, and Nature has tried to reassert herself over art, yet the beauty of the spot is great. The lake, of ingenious form, backed on the north side by the thickly pine-clad hills and to the west by the regulation grove of maples, is an admirable example of the arrangement of garden stones, its shores being rich in rare and precious rocks, each with its characteristic name. One of the principal stones lying in the lake is the stone of Ecstatic Contemplation; the little bridge which divides the lake is the Bridge of the Pillar of the Immortals; the water of the cascade which fills the lake, being of exceptional purity, is called the Moon-washing Fountain. In the foreground of many of these older gardens was an open space covered with white sand, carefully raked into ornamental patterns, and here is a large mound of the sand suggestive of a mammoth sugar-loaf with a flattened top, called the Silver Sand Platform, the smaller one of the same shape being the Mound facing the Moon; on these sat Yoshimasa and his favourites, indulging in another favourite pastime of moon-gazing, to our prosaic minds merely another elaborately conceived method of killing time. I know no garden in Japan which seemed to take one back so far into the world of the Old Japan as this little garden of Ginkakuji, and no more peaceful spot to sit and enjoy the reddening maple leaves on a bright evening in late autumn, when there is a touch of sadness in the air, in keeping with the departed glories of the Pavilion and the fast-fading beauties of the trees.

Many of the smaller and most interesting gardens in Japan are those attached to tea-houses or small suburban houses, showing, as they do, the ingenuity and resource of the landscape gardener in making a perfect garden of any size, from ten acres to half an acre, or only a few square yards. Among tea-house gardens, that attached to the Raku-raku-tei at Hikone can hardly be counted, as it was formerly the garden of a great Daimyo and is one of the finest gardens in the country. The numerous little summer-houses built out on piles in the lake have been erected for the entertainment of the guests of the tea-house, a gathering place for the most élite, but otherwise the garden remains unchanged; the paths which wind round the lake, across the bridges, past the Stone of Worship, from where the beauties of the garden may be enjoyed to best advantage, are the same paths which the feet of successive Daimyos trod in the feudal days of old.

It is rather to the Hira-niwa, or Flat Gardens, that I allude, made in the small enclosures at the back of private houses or tea-houses in towns, or even in the actual courts, no space being apparently too small for the construction of one of these little fresh-looking and artistic gardens. How superior to the dusty, neglected back garden or court of a European house, too often only a piece of waste ground where the rubbish of the house accumulates, the space being condemned as too small for a garden. I can recall visions of many a tiny court no more than twenty feet square, within whose limits were compressed a liliputian pond, fed with clear water by the overflow of the water-basin; a dwarf pine, the soul of every Japanese garden, which in conjunction with a few small evergreen shrubs sheltered a moss-grown lantern. Some small rocks and a few foliage or water plants in a tuft by the water’s edge, were the sole materials used for the making of this court-garden. Stepping-stones, let into the beaten earth, led from the step of the verandah to the edge of the pond, ending in one stone larger than the rest, suggesting the Stone of Worship, or the Stone of Amusement, in case there should be any goldfish in the pond. As these little courts are kept profusely watered, being sprinkled out of a wooden ladle several times a day in the hottest days of summer, the effect is always damp and cool, the mossy stones are always fresh and green, however fierce the heat may be. The variety in the actual form of these gardens seemed infinite; in some the pond was omitted, and the suggestion of water and dampness came from the rustic garden well or the ornamental water-basin, behind which always stands a portion of screen-fencing of elaborate design. When the area is not quite so limited, bridges will be introduced to cross the pond, possibly consisting only of a single stone slab supported on a natural piece of rock, or a granite bridge slightly curved in form, or perhaps only the suggestion of a bridge, formed of a branch of juniper or some flat close-growing evergreen trained in a curve across the water. According to the size of the ground, so these gardens will increase in elaboration of their design, and many an enclosure at the back of a merchant’s house in Kyoto or Osaka has been transformed into a perfect specimen of Hira-niwa.

One I recall which always gave me as much pleasure as the most extensive landscape garden in the country. The lake was of the prescribed form known as the Running Water shape, fed by a fast-flowing stream which came in at the far end of the garden over the regulation Cascade Stones; a garden arbour of elaborate form overlooked the lake, in which stood the “Elysian Isle” with its pine-tree

A LANDSCAPE GARDEN

growing out of the rock, and a few azalea bushes filling the interstices of the stone, forming a most attractive feature of the garden; banks there were planted with more azaleas; pines, kept dwarfed to about two feet in height, grew out of cushions of thick moss; bridges crossed and re-crossed the stream; stepping-stones, discs, and label stones guided our feet as we wandered about at leisure. There were the two garden entrances, and even the back entrance, or Sweeping Opening, was a thing of beauty. Every detail of this garden had been first carefully thought out, and then as carefully carried into execution.

The landscape gardener in Japan is no gardener in the sense that we regard a gardener in the West—a cultivator of flowers: he is a garden artist; he leaves none of his effects to chance; so carefully are his plans made that before the first sod of the new garden has been turned, he knows exactly how the garden will look when completed. He will see in his mind’s eye the appointed place for every tree, every stone, which is to be used in its composition. I could not help thinking that if more thought were given to the planning of our English gardens there might be something more complete and satisfying to the eye than the meaningless gardens—often laid out by the owner of the house, who by the wildest stretch of imagination could not be called a garden artist—which too often surround our English homes. Our gardens are made beautiful in summer by the wealth and profusion of their flowers; but when the winter comes and the beds are shorn of their summer glories, the deficiencies of the plan of the garden are laid bare, and might well give us food for thought through the long winter months.

CHAPTER IV
NURSERY GARDENS—DWARF TREES AND HACHI-NIWA

A nursery garden in Japan may be called a revelation in the art of pruning. A singular idea exists in the minds of many people, that all the trees in Japan are like the dwarf specimens they have occasionally seen in England on a nurseryman’s stand at a flower-show, and frequently they display surprise, not unmixed with incredulity, when assured that such is not the case. I would recommend those unbelievers to take a walk in the cryptomeria avenues at Nikko, among the camphor groves of Atami, or to wander through the pine-woods which clothe the hillsides above Kyoto, when they would see for themselves the magnificence of the trees, untouched by the pruning knife of the gardener. The Japanese bestow as much time and care on the trees in their gardens as the Western gardener would give to his choicest flowers. The gardener’s ideal tree is not the ordinary tree of the forest, but the abnormal specimen which age and weather have twisted and bent into quaint and unusual shapes. Here, in the nursery garden, we shall find specimen trees; old trees it is true, but trees giving proof that art has had to improve upon nature, as scarcely a single tree in the whole collection—waiting, possibly, to transform the new garden of a nouveau riche into an ancestral home—will have been allowed to follow its own inclination of growth and shape.

The pine-tree is generally chosen as the subject for the operating knife, and is cut and trained into all manner of shapes; an umbrella made of a single tree of Pinus densiflora trained on a framework of light bamboo, or a junk of perfect form, the reward of years of patience, will be waiting until it is required to be the chief feature in a landscape garden. The curiously twisted appearance characteristic of a Japanese pine-tree, in gardens and temple grounds, is achieved by a clever system of pruning, and gives the trees a stunted and venerable appearance, which they would otherwise not attain for years. The leading shoot of each branch and most of the side ones are removed, giving the branch a new direction, sometimes at right angles to the previous year’s growth. This operation is repeated every year, and the branches thinned out, so that every line of the stems can be followed. Another favourite and very effective way of training a pine, is to carry a long branch out over a stream or pond, and by skilful training and cutting to give it the direction that, after a few years’ growth, will have become natural to it, and the whole strength of the tree will seem concentrated in that one branch. These trees should be placed by the water’s edge or on the slope of a hill, and are often planted leaning at all manner of angles. The gardener is never sparing in his use of stout bamboo props, which to our Western ideas would appear unsightly.

It is not in these trees, interesting as they always are, that the admiration of the visitor to a Japanese nursery garden will be centred; for how few foreigners remain long enough in the country, or take sufficient interest in their temporary home, to construct a new garden round it; yet how easy it seems to accomplish, when old gnarled trees are ready grown. It would appear as though a few hours’ planning and plotting, a few stones and trees, a few days’ work for a few coolies, are all that is required, and the thing would be done; but remember success depends upon the plan, one false touch would set the whole conception ajar, so woe betide the foreigner if he were to attempt to interfere with the making of his garden; left to himself a Japanese is never guilty of that one false touch.

Arranged in rows on wooden platforms will be the object of our visit to the nursery garden—the dwarf trees—whose fame has spread throughout the world, and who seem to share with the cherry blossom the floral fame of Japan. When first I visited the country I went prepared to be disappointed with the dwarf trees; I had seen inferior specimens shipped to Europe no doubt because of their inferiority, pining away a lingering life in a climate unsuited to them, deprived of all care and attention; for an idea prevailed in England when they were first imported, that these tiny trees, the result of years of patient training, required no water, and either no fresh air or else were equally indifferent to the fiery rays of the summer suns or the icy blasts of the winter winds. A visit to a garden in their native country will soon reveal that such is not the case. The trees are not coddled, it is true, but the proper allowance of water, especially in their growing season, is most important, and they are impatient of a draught; though many seem to stand the full rays of the sun, the best specimens had generally some light canvas or bamboo blinds, arranged so that they could be drawn over the stands during the hottest hours of the scorching summer days. I have heard these trees described as tortured trees; to me, good specimens never gave that impression, their charm took possession of me, and a grand old pine or juniper whose gnarled and twisted trunk suggested a giant of the forest, and yet was under three feet in height, standing in a soft-coloured porcelain bowl, gave me infinite pleasure. I could see no fault in them, they are completely satisfying and give a strange feeling of repose.

Their variety is infinite, from six inches in height to as many feet; pines, junipers, thujas, maples, larch, willows, and, among the flowering trees, pink and white plum, single and double cherries, tiny peach-trees, smothered by their blossoms, pyrus trained in fantastic shapes, all will be there in bewildering choice of beauty. I have heard of a single treasure, a weeping willow, only six inches in height, the reward of years of patience, for which the price of 7000 yen (£700) was paid; probably to our eyes it would have had no more value than a humble “dwarf” which, in consequence of some slight imperfection, would not fetch more than sevenpence. In a perfect specimen not only each branch, but each twig and each leaf, must conform absolutely in direction and proportion to the same unbending laws which govern this art, as well as its sister arts of landscape gardening and flower arrangement—laws which a writer says were “the iron rules laid down by the canons of taste in the days when Iyeyasu Tokugawa paralysed into an adamantine immobility the whole artistic and intellectual life of the country.” So in every garden there will be failures as perfect works of art, but beautiful in our eyes, which fail to see any difference between the perfect specimen with its boughs bent down by the weight of the laws which have trained it and priced it at some hundred yen, or the “failure” by its side, beautiful and wonderful, with all its imperfections an exquisite and dainty thing, priced at as many pence.

Perhaps one of the best opportunities for buying these imperfect trees, which are still admired and readily bought by the Japanese themselves, though not to be treasured as works of art, is at

THE OLD WISTARIA

the sales which take place at night in the streets of Kyoto on certain days of the month. The plants are arranged on stalls down each side of a narrow street, and the intending purchaser has to fight his way through a dense crowd to choose his plants. No lover of dwarf trees should miss attending one of these sales, and perhaps the uncertainty as to whether the plant is in good health, or the bowl containing it is broken, adds to the excitement of bargaining with the stall-holder; every Japanese loves a bargain, and the transaction is eagerly watched by the crowd, and the “foreign devil” will gain their admiration if he can hold his own against the rapacity of the salesman. As the plants vary in price, from a few sen to two or three yen, one can afford to carry off a sufficient number to ensure having some, at least, that will be a reward for one’s patience. On the 1st of April the best night-market of the year is held. The stalls will be covered with tempting little flowering trees, their buds almost bursting and full of promise of lovely blossoms to come—sturdy little peach-trees, their branches thickly covered with soft velvet buds just tinged with pink; drooping cherries wreathed with red-brown buds; slender pyrus trained into wonderful twisted shapes; little groves of maple-trees, their scarlet or bronze leaves just unfurling, or miniature forests of larch, shading mossy ravines with rivers of white sand; ancient pine-trees spreading their branches over rocky precipices rising from a bed of pebbles; sweet-scented daphnes, golden-flowered forsythias, and early azaleas in porcelain dishes, which are round or oval, square, shallow or deep, and of every shade, from white, through soft greys and blues to a deep green. Every plant is a picture in itself, and the difficulty lies in deciding, not which to buy, but which one can bring oneself to leave behind.

Siebold, who visited Japan and wrote the Flora Japonica upwards of sixty years ago, thus describes the dwarf trees:—

The Japanese have an incredible fondness for dwarf trees, and with reference to this the cultivation of the Ume, or Plum, is one of the most general and lucrative employments of the country. Such plants are increased by in-arching, and by this means specimens are obtained which have the peculiar habit of the Weeping Willow. A nurseryman offered me for sale in 1826 a plant in flower which was scarcely three inches high; this chef d’œuvre of gardening was grown in a little lacquered box of three tiers, similar to those filled with drugs which the Japanese carry in their belts; in the upper tier was this Ume, in the second row a little Spruce Fir, and at the lowest a Bamboo scarcely an inch and a half high.

The Japanese still love their dwarf trees as much as they did in the days of Siebold, and the trade in them has received additional impetus of late years, as great numbers are exported annually to Europe and the United States, where I fear they are not treasured as works of art, but are only regarded as curiosities.

At different seasons of the year the nursery gardens will be gay with the display of some especial flower. Early in May the gaudy-coloured curtains and paper lanterns at the gates will announce, in the bold black lettering which is one of the chief ornaments of the country, that a special exhibition of azaleas is being held. It is scarcely conceivable that any plants can bear so many blossoms as do these stiff and prim little azalea-trees; the individual blooms are small, but their serried ranks form one dense even mass, flat as a table, for no straggling branches are allowed in these perfectly grown plants. Every shade is there, an incredible blaze of colour, all the plants the same shape, all practically the same size, and all in the same shaped pots; the only variety being in the delicate hue of the faience pots or the vivid colouring of the blossoms. The pots are arranged in rows or stages under the blue and white checked roofing, which seems peculiarly to belong to flower exhibitions; the effect cannot be said to be artistic, but there is something very attractive about the little trees, which are visited by the same crowd of sight-seers, who seem to spend their days in “flower-viewing” and quiet feasting on the matted benches, the latter being inseparable from these flower resorts.

Other flower exhibitions will follow in their turn—great flaunting pæonies, brought with loving care from the gardens near Osaka; and then the last and most treasured flower of all, the chrysanthemum. Again the little matted or chess-board roof will be brought into requisition, and an unceasing throng of visitors will discuss the merits of the last new variety, or of a plant more perfectly grown than its neighbour. Here, too, I saw plants of single chrysanthemums, like great soft pink daisies, grown in tall narrow porcelain pots, grey-blue in colour; left untrained and unsupported the main stem fell over the side of the pot, and the whole plant hung down with natural grace; the effect was charming, and I could not help thinking might easily be accomplished in any garden.

At the end of the year may also be seen the dishes being prepared with a combination of plum, bamboo, and pine which will be found on the tokonoma of almost every house throughout the empire at the New Year, bringing good luck and long life to the inmates. Sometimes the combination will be merely a flower arrangement, but usually it is of a more lasting nature, and a little plum-tree covered with soft pink buds, a tiny gnarled old pine, and a small plant of bamboo, will be firmly planted in the dish, a rock and a few stones may be added for effect, and the ground mossed over to suggest great age. Occasionally a clump of some everlasting flower, such as Adonis amurensis, is used instead of the plum.

It is probably in the nursery garden that the traveller will first see one of the toy gardens called Hachi-niwa—dish gardens—where a perfect landscape and a well-known scene is accurately represented within the limited area of a shallow china dish, varying in size from six inches in length to two feet. Here we have another art, for the making of Hachi-niwa is almost as much trammelled by rules and conventions as its fellow-arts of flower arrangement and landscape gardening, and the same unbending law of proportion is the first consideration. Just as the landscape gardener chooses the scene which his garden is to represent, in proportion to the size of the ground which the future garden is intended to cover, so the maker of a Hachi-niwa must choose his scene in proportion to the size of his dish; or, as his choice of dishes may be infinite, varying from a few inches upwards, and being in shape round or oval, long and narrow, with square or rounded ends; so having decided on his landscape, he may then choose his dish. As I had been much attracted by these little miniature gardens, each in itself a perfect picture, I determined to learn something of the manner of their construction and to try and grasp a few of the principles of the art. I had heard of a gardener in Kyoto who was a great master in the art, a disciple and pupil of one of the Tokyo professors, who might tell me what I wished to learn. On my first visit to his house he looked incredulous at the idea of a foreigner wishing to study the art of Hachi-niwa. Thinking I could only wish to purchase a ready-made garden to carry off as a curiosity, he appeared decidedly reserved, and reluctant to impart any information on the subject of their composition. A friend who accompanied me, and was more eloquent in his language than I was, assured him that I was in earnest—not merely a passer-by, but one who had already spent many months in his country; then his interest awoke, and he asked me to return the next day, when he would have all the materials prepared and I could choose my own subject.

Many a happy hour did I spend making these little gardens and learning something of their history. A certain paraphernalia is necessary for the construction of these miniature landscapes, and the requisite materials include a supply of moss of every variety—close cushions of moss to form the mountains, flat spreading moss to clothe the rocks, white lichened moss to carpet the ground beneath the venerable pine-trees, which in themselves are especially grown and dwarfed, till at the age of four or five years they will only have attained the imposing height of as many inches; leaning and bent pines for the scenery of Matsushima or the garden of Kinkakuji, groves of tiny maples for Arashiyama, and pigmy trees of all descriptions. Finally, there are microscopic toys to give life to the scene—perfect little temples and shrines, in exact imitation of the originals, modelled out of the composition that is used for pottery, baked first in their natural colour, then coloured when necessary and baked again; coolies, pedlars, pilgrims in endless variety, less than an inch in height; bridges, lanterns, torii, boats, junks, rafts, mills, thatch-roofed cottages—everything, in fact, that is necessary in the making of a landscape, down to breakwaters for the rivers, made like tiny bamboo cages filled with stones, such as exist at every turn of rivers like the Fuji-kawa. The necessary implements consisted of chop-sticks, the use of which is an art in itself, a trowel suggesting a doll’s mason’s trowel, a tiny flat-iron for smoothing the surface of the sand, besides diminutive scoops for holding only a few grains of sand, a pair of enlarged forceps for placing the moss, little fairy brooms about two inches long to sweep away sand which may have got out of place, and a sieve of like dimensions to sift white powder for a snow scene, and, finally, a fine water sprayer to keep the moss damp and fresh.

When the selection of the dish has been made—the regulation kind being of white or mottled blue china, in size twelve inches by eight, or eighteen inches by twelve, about one inch deep—and the scene decided upon, damp sifted earth will form the mountains and the foundations in which the rocks are embedded; the hills are carefully carved and moulded into perfect shape; crevasses, down which a torrent of white sand will flow, to represent a river, or a mountain road running between a gorge of terrific rocks, are marked out. Then will come the firm planting of the stones, toy temples, houses, or bridges; the position of the trees is carefully weighed and considered; and last of all comes the sand—sand of a deep grey colour for deep water, lighter in colour for the shallows, yellowish sand for the ground or roads, snow-white granite chips for water racing down from the mossy mountains or dashing against the cliffs, coarser shingle for the beach in sea scenes; and the correct use of all these sands is a history in itself, as all the different coloured varieties come from the different rivers of Japan, and to use the wrong sand to represent water or earth would be an unforgivable crime in the eye of the master.

To show that great men have turned their attention to these little toy gardens, no less an artist than the celebrated Hiroshige, whose colour-prints of the fifty-three stages of the journey on the old Tokaido road, along which the Shoguns, in days gone by, travelled with all the pomp and state due to their rank, from Kyoto to Yedo, are well known and prized by all lovers of these prints, evidently considered these scenes so suited for the making of toy gardens, that he designed a special book in which the fifty-three views appear as Hachi-niwa. The book is now, unfortunately, scarce and difficult to obtain, but I had the delight of seeing the whole set of views in real life, each in its little dish. My teacher told me that the first Exhibition of Hachi-niwa ever held in Kyoto would take place at the Kyoto Club, where the various competitors would exhibit different views, and a prize would be awarded, from votes by ballot, to the best in the collection. Needless to say, as soon as the doors, or rather the sliding shoji, of the club were thrown open to the public, I hastened to study these perfect little works of art. Round three white-matted rooms they stood, each dish on a low black wood stand a few inches high, raised on a dais only another few inches from the ground, so that to view them properly it was necessary to kneel in adoration before them. I was asked to vote for the three I liked best, and never did I have a greater difficulty in deciding. At first a view of Kodzu attracted my attention, with its pine-clad cliffs, deep-indented coast line, stony beach with a moored junk, and stretching away in the distance an expanse of pale blue sea, in the offing being a fleet of fishing-boats with sails not more than half an inch in size bellying in the breeze. This seemed to me perfection; every ripple on the water was marked in the sand, the crests of the waves white, the shadows a deep blue, and the reflection of the junk in perfect outline—a marvel of neatness and ingenuity. But to the Japanese this did not appeal; they condemned it for its very perfection; any one, they said, could make such a scene who had sufficient patience and neat fingers; whereas the view of Kanaya appealed to them as having something grand and yet simple in its conception. A river of white sand threaded its way through the mossy plain, and in the distance stood the little mountain village nestling at the foot of a range of mountains carved in stone. This was awarded the prize, and, I was glad to think, had been made by my teacher. Such an exhibition I had expected would be principally visited by women and children, as I had heard that the making of Hachi-niwa was a favourite occupation for the ladies of Tokyo, but here in Kyoto they found interest in the eyes of “grave and reverend seigneurs” who gathered in groups about the rooms. I saw all the members of the club, politicians, writers, poets, the greatest in the land, engrossed in discussing the merits or demerits of toy gardens, and I could not help thinking that here was a country indeed where “small things amuse great minds.”

CHAPTER V
TEMPLE GARDENS

Of all the gardens in Japan, and surely in no other country are there so many different forms of gardening, the temple garden, or often the garden surrounding some mouldering Buddhist monastery, remains a peaceful, secluded spot, recalling the Old Japan and days gone by. Unluckily many of them are fast falling into decay, like the buildings they surround; but perhaps it is better so, as they would surely suffer at the hands of the restorer, just as many of the temples have suffered; and though little may remain of the original gardens, the stones, beautified possibly by time, are still the same; the trees may have grown old and gnarled, but the form of the garden remains unchanged.

It has been said that every good garden should be a “modulation from pure nature to pure art,” and no one seems to have understood the saying better

AT KITANO TENJIN

than the makers of these old temple gardens: they are always a setting for the building they surround, adding to its grandeur, never dwarfing it; the placing of every stone, the curve of every walk, the shape of the pond, all seem to have been duly weighed and considered, and the result is an harmonious whole.

The grand Nikko temples, the shrines in Uyeno or Shiba, have been left in their natural surroundings; the tall grey masts of the cryptomerias stand like sentries to guard their precious treasure, the avenues broken only by long vistas of enormous steps or the uprights of a colossal granite torii. Nothing could be more imposing, and the effect of the bronze green of the cryptomerias against the splendid colour of the temple gives the crowning touch to a picture which in itself alone is worth travelling many thousand miles to see.

At Uyeno the cherry-trees reign all supreme, they do their full work; the mixing of other shrubs or trees would be unnecessary and meaningless; this is the simplest and yet the grandest form of gardening; a few large bronze lanterns and grey stones help to show off the delicate pink of the blossoms when they are in their glory, and yet seem to be part of the temple itself, as no temple or shrine is complete without some of these beautiful votive offerings.

At Nara, again, the cryptomeria forms the principal setting; in spring, many of the trees are wreathed with wistaria, the royal fuji, but this only helps to enhance their colour, and is suggestive of a grey misty vapour rather than a real flower, as often one sees no trace of the stem of the wistaria, and one wonders how the mass of mauve flowers has managed to appear suddenly at the very top of one of those giants of the forest.

It is not around these large and world-renowned temples that one finds a garden, in the sense that we Europeans regard a garden, but rather in some peaceful spot which seems to have been overlooked by the hustle and bustle of the large town in which it may be situated. I am thinking now of one such garden in Kyoto; the evening bell seems to call you to come within its sanctuary, and once there one would surely never leave until the final closing of its great outer wooden door sends the loiterer away. It has an irresistible charm this tiny garden, hardly more than a toy compared to the scale of our English gardens, and it was no surprise to me to learn that it was planned to suggest in miniature the

THE DROOPING CHERRY

fabulous Garden of Paradise. One enters its outer precincts through one of those solid wooden gateways which seem so fitting to guard their charge, wood guarding wood, for remember all temples are made of wood in Japan; though many different kinds may be used, and the rarer and more beautifully veined pieces are brought together and collected from far and wide, still it is all wood, and for that reason the buildings seem to be especially in keeping with a garden.

On either side of the gateway stand two old pine-trees, carefully trained and thinned at the proper season; but the most beautiful guardian is just within the gate, a grand old weeping cherry-tree, in April its boughs bent down by the weight of its blossoms, while its glory lasts for a week or two, casting a pinky light on all around. Even now you are only being prepared for the beauty to come, as you must knock on yet another little wooden door and ask permission of the acolyte to enter; he will offer to tell you the history of the garden in his peculiar sing-song note, suggesting a recitative, and utterly incomprehensible, unless you have thoroughly mastered his language. Seeing a foreigner he will probably reconcile himself to letting you wander at your will, and enjoy the beauties of this little haven of rest. We are told that the buildings were formerly magnificent, but have suffered from fire at the hands of the ronins, and in later days from accidental fires. What remains of the original building seems complete in itself, and one feels one would not have it otherwise. The garden was designed by the celebrated Kobori Enshu, and, like all his work, is much regarded and valued by the Japanese. The plan, roughly speaking, appears to be two ponds, a wooden bridge, and three tiny islands; but to the understanding one, they are the Crane and Tortoise ponds, the two small islands on the south being regarded as a crane, while the northern one is a tortoise. The wooden bridge is a Bridge of Heaven, and contains the Kwangetsudai, or Moon-gazing Platform, brought from the Momoyama Palace at Fushimi, where Hideyoshi is said to have used it for that purpose. All this is of deep interest to the Japanese; but to our eyes the charm of the garden lies in the fact that it is a little old-world garden full of repose, suggesting the Old Japan, and spots where foreign feet have seldom trod. I have known this garden at all seasons of the year. In February, when biting snow-showers remind one that winter is not yet over, the moss-and lichen-clad stones, the trim, clean-cut azalea and sweet box bushes, and the carpet of velvety moss in broad patches where the turf has not yet recovered from the winter frosts, are its only adornments. The pink buds of the one plum-tree it contains are fast swelling, and show you that spring’s fairy raiment is being prepared by Nature; the buds of the large bush of flame-coloured Azalea mollis—possibly the pride of the garden—also help to give promise of future glories.

Kodaiji was once famous for its cherry-trees, but now few remain, and we must content ourselves with its other treasures, which seem to bloom in one never-ending succession throughout the year. July is the only month in which I have never seen this garden, but I feel certain that even then there is no blank, something would spring up to be the pride of the garden. In March her one plum-tree reigns supreme, in April the cherry blossom; in May the Crane pond is fringed with purple irises, and the gorgeous azalea casts its reflection also; in June the later Azalea indica ... flower as best they can, but how many of their buds fall victims to the gardener’s shears. In July the lotus leaves in both the ponds are already getting taller every hour, and in the early hours of some morning late in July the first lotus bud will open with a crack and gradually unfurl its beautiful pink or white blossom. All through August fresh buds will appear, and indeed well into September, when at last the leaves will begin to curl and shrivel, and one can only wonder how they stood the scorching heat of the sun all through those long weeks.

By the beginning of October the leaves of the maples will be turning, gradually growing more and more fiery in colour as the month dies out, till in November they are in all their gaudy splendour, and Kodaiji is noted for its momiji. The priest, too, who evidently loves his garden, has by now moved with tender care his chrysanthemum plants, whose pots have been kept from the sun’s fiercest rays, and never allowed to cry out for water, and placed them in one of those curiously fragile little structures which seem to exist only for the protection of chrysanthemums, with a roof more suggestive of a chess-board than anything else, and arranged them in front of his dwelling-room, so that he can sit and gaze at them, just as in old days Hideyoshi sat on the neighbouring platform to gaze at the moon. Do not imagine

A SHRINE AT KYOMIDZU

that when the last maple falls, or the last kiku flower is cut, the year is over in this favoured little spot, for in December the Camellia Sasanqua holds its own against frost and even snow; its lovely rose-coloured flowers, which with their yellow stamens, are more suggestive of the blooms of Penzance briar roses than of camellias, are in sharp contrast with the deep glossy foliage, and seem more fitted for a spring flower than one for the dying year.

It is not always easy for the foreigner to obtain permission to visit some of these secluded and hallowed spots. I can recall a long rough ricksha drive in the environs of Kyoto, through somewhat uninteresting country, consisting of endless miles of rice-fields—Hiezan, it is true, forming a beautiful background; but though I was armed with credentials which I was assured would gain me admission to a veritable holy of holies, a garden so old that no one knew its origin, my enthusiasm was beginning to wane when we arrived within some large rambling temple grounds. We asked to see the garden, and were bowed into a not very interesting and rather uncared-for court, but I felt this could not be the spot I had come so far to see; besides, admission had been too readily granted; it would require patience and perseverance to find this inner sanctuary. After many explanations and many times being assured there was no other garden, we were eventually directed to the priest’s private dwelling, and then I knew my chance had come, as an especially holy man was the owner of the precious little garden. I was greeted with a look of horror and incredulity: “Was it possible that the foreigner had even penetrated within these mouldering monastery grounds?” The permission was granted, and I entered the spotlessly clean white-matted rooms, which all looked on the garden. First a little forecourt, and beyond, the sacred spot. At the first glance what did it consist of? A few stone lanterns, almost diminutive in size, to be in keeping with the rest of the garden; some so buried in velvety moss that their shape seemed almost altered by the thickness of their green canopy; a few curiously shaped and fantastic stones, also with their covering of grey lichen and moss; some old gnarled and twisted shrubs, and two or three little toy stone bridges. Not a single flower to break the severity of the outline. The garden lay in a pine wood, and at first I thought, “How curious that a spot so evidently well cared for should be carpeted thickly

WHITE CHERRY AT KITANO

with pine needles!” Never had I seen stone bridges placed where there was no water to cross; the only water in the garden appearing to be a tiny little ceaseless trickle in the beautifully shaped water-basin, which stands at the entrance to nearly all Japanese gardens, however small; but presently I noticed that the pine needles only covered the actual ground, not one was lying on the little rising mound or lodging in any bush, and then I realised the cleverness, the ingenuity of the idea—the pine needles represented the water; each spine seemed to be in its place under the little bridge; they came perfectly smooth and always following each the same way like flowing water. Presently some projecting point or little island in this fancy lake would break their regularity, and they would be turned and twisted to represent the current of the water. It took one’s breath away. “Who ever had the patience to arrange this carpet?” It seemed almost as if it might be the work of some one undergoing a penance, being condemned to keep these pine needles in perfect order; one puff of wind might mean hours of work to their guardian. I felt that my perseverance had been well repaid, as during all my wanderings in Japan I never came across another example of that style of gardening, nor was I ever able to obtain the real history of this garden.

The gardens round the smaller temples seem generally to be in the special care of some old priest. Many of them unfortunately are fast falling into decay, and are often neglected; but many are evidently the pride and joy of their owner, who usually seems much gratified by the admiration they evoke. Often only a very small piece is kept in anything like trim and formal order, and then one wanders up the hill and finds a different scene—nature running riot, helped by a minute mountain stream, as an unceasing supply of moisture seems almost more necessary to the vegetation of Japan than to that of any other country; but still the path winds on, and the wanderer is impelled to see where it will lead him to. The end is always the same, some silent graveyard—perhaps only a score or so of memorials of the dead, or perhaps hundreds, or even it would seem almost thousands, of these ghostly moss-blackened monuments, jostling each other, so crowded are they, hardly any two alike in size or shape, leaning all of them, suggesting endless earthquakes, but mostly with a section of bamboo in front of them to hold a branch of evergreen or flower, showing that some one still remembers the departed one, and loving hands light the humble incense bowl.

Perhaps one of the most elaborate gardens I ever saw was that of Sampo-in, on the way to Otsu. Here one feels as if the work of man had almost distorted nature, if such a thing were possible, and yet the picture would be poor indeed were it not for its splendid setting of forest trees. Again a giant weeping cherry stands like a guardian within the gate, and then you pass on; and never have I seen trees so fantastically twisted into the most impossible angles and shapes. The keynote of the garden seems to be the lilliputian mountain torrent, for does not that give a raison d’être for the stone or turf bridges which are flung across it to connect the mossy banks with the diminutive islands, on one of which stands a celebrated pine, twisted, and torn, and cut, so that it has lost all trace of what nature intended it to be, but surely not lost all charm. In this garden also there are no flowers, only little trespassers. I noticed numbers of little wild flowers nestling in the shadow of the bridges or between the mossy rocks, seeming to pray to be left undisturbed by the ruthless weeder. The pride of this especial garden was its maples. When I saw it, they had not yet lost the red glow in which their leaves unfurl in spring; but in November they would doubtless be better still, and the garden illuminated by a blaze of colour. On leaving, it seemed impossible to avoid marring the patterns traced in the silver sand, patterns of a thousand years ago.

Round some of the larger and more imposing temples and monasteries the ground is less a garden than a pleasaunce, for the little miniature gardens I have described would be no fitting framework, for instance, for that noble building the Chion-in in Kyoto, whose grounds include some sixty acres on the wooded slope of those hills which form an unrivalled background to the fairest city of Japan. So large an extent could not possibly be broken up and formed into a garden such as I have already described; the effect would be grotesque and all sense of true proportion lost. How imposing is the great gate standing in its setting of pines, in spring softened by the cherry blossom which shows here and there between them. A long dizzy flight of stone steps leads up to the main building of the temple. Here the ground has been levelled, the work of many thousand hands, it being no petty task to level a plateau large enough for the main building of this mighty edifice, some

CHERRY BLOSSOM, CHION-IN TEMPLE

146 feet long and 114 feet wide. Hardly less imposing is the assembly hall or room of a thousand mats, surrounded by a wooden corridor so constructed that in walking round it there is produced a sound which is thought to resemble the singing of the uguisu, the Japanese nightingale, and there is yet another grand hall, the Dai Hojo. How grandly and simply the grounds of this temple are adorned. The large square in front of the main building has for its chief adornment two stone lanterns of colossal size, and the celebrated bronze water-basin in the form of a lotus leaf, from whose lip runs a ceaseless stream of clear water brought from the hill above. A few specially beautiful cherry-trees and some grand old pines, leaning most of them, but all the more beautiful for that reason, surround this square, and form a fitting setting to that massive pile. Yet another flight of steps leads to the bell-tower—also a fitting guardian, as more than once the thundering of this mighty bell has summoned all who revered their beloved Chion-in to come and protect it from an imminent danger of fire.

The Japanese are great respecters of legends, which may make a tree or stone sacred for all time. The Melon Rock, Kwasho Seki, has been so called from the story that a melon plant sprouted out from beneath the rock and grew so rapidly that in a single night it had covered the whole rock, blossomed, and borne fruit. Many hundred sight-seers trail during their weary tramp to gaze with awe at this plain grey stone inscribed with the characters of Gozu Tenno or Bull-head Emperor, and we in our turn cannot fail to gaze with respect at their simple faith.

CHAPTER VI
SUMMER FLOWERS

May is essentially the flower month in Japan, and a ramble through the country cannot fail to be a never-ending joy and surprise to the flower lover. It was nearly the middle of the flower month when, wearied of the works of man, the glories and splendour of the endless round of temples, museums, theatres, no dances, and the usual sights which all new-comers to the country must be introduced to, I started for Matsushima, the land of the pine-clad islands. I had not expected to find flowers there, but rather change of scene and peace. I felt that for a time I must be “far from the madding crowd.”

It is a fairy scene which greets the eye in the early dawn after a long and dusty journey, and I had to look and look again to make sure that these tiny phantom islands were real and solid, not merely shadows on the water, or even a moored junk, which presently would pass on and vanish from the scene. As the sun rose higher the islands stood out clear in the yellow morning light, then one realised why they are called collectively Matsushima—Pine Islands,—for, however tiny it may be, each isle has to support its burden of twisted, bent, and leaning trees. How the seed has ever found the crannies and cracks between the rocks in which to ripen, and eventually develop into those fantastic trees, was a never-ending source of marvel and admiration to me. Think of the cruel winter snows, and storms blowing in from the Pacific, that these trees have had to withstand from their earliest infancy; small wonder that some appear to have more spreading roots than branches. Many an idle day was spent exploring this little host of islands, some with their rosy carpet of azalea, perhaps not more than a few inches high, creeping along close to the ground as if seeking protection from the fierce winter gales. None the less beautiful for being dwarfed, it seemed rather as though this fiery pink azalea had taken the place of ground ivy, and what a beautiful remplaçant! On other islands the wild wistaria had flung its long vine-like branches from tree to tree, and suggested the lianes of a tropical forest; one scrambled knee-deep in many of the hardier ferns to attain the summit of Ogidani, in order to gaze across the whole lagoon and out to Kinkwosan; shrubs of bird-cherry were in all their glory; and many others unknown to me helped, in this month of flowers, to make them not only pine-clad but flower-clad islands. It was with genuine regret that I left behind this enchanted land, and with the cries of “Sayonara” and “Please come again” ringing in my ears I turned my back on the Toyo Hotel and its hospitable owner; but time was slipping by, and though it would have been easy to dream away months here, I feared I might become a mere loafer, so, after watching the sun set one evening late in May, I returned once more to the railway, and the commonplace.

The train took me back to Itsunomiya through wilder country than I had ever seen on any other railway line in Japan. Bandai San stood glowering and threatening in the distance, and we sped past pine-clad ridges and mountain streams, down to the lower land where glowing rose-coloured azalea seemed to grow as hazel or hornbeam undergrowth in England. One flashed past broad stretches of colour, growing fewer and smaller where the ruthless hand of the cultivator had no doubt found out that the fertile soil would grow other things more profitable, but how far less beautiful, than wild crimson satsuki. I was bound for Nikko on an “azalea pilgrimage,” for surely every traveller should not fail to see the Nikko azaleas in all their glory, and later in the year the maples, which vie with the cryptomerias for the palm of beauty. The glorious avenue of cryptomerias which lined the old road to Nikko has suffered from the hands of time and man; but long stretches of the splendid old trees still remain, and form a fitting approach to the little mountain village, celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the world for its mortuary shrines, whose final peacefulness and simplicity seem so striking after the ornate splendour and gorgeous colouring of the outer gates and temples.

But it was azaleas, not temples, that I had come to see this time at Nikko, and surely no one could be disappointed. Climbing up the hill, every shade from delicate pink to clear red, pale transparent yellow, and even rosy purple, seems to have run riot in a veritable feast of colour. Little shrines nestle by the path, perhaps sheltering a small stone image of Jizo the Helper, the travellers’ and the children’s God; so we ask his kindly aid, and add our contribution to that of hundreds of other travellers, and pause to gaze by his side at the landscape—across the valley where the river threads its way, now a harmless-looking stream, but in autumn to be swollen into a dangerous roaring torrent, sweeping along, leaving death and destruction in its wake. The azaleas here are not the satsuki of Matsushima, but the Azalea Beni Renge, leafless as yet, as the flowers seem so thick upon their stems they leave no room for leaves. Their honeysuckle scent filled the air, and hither and thither darted huge black butterflies, looking strangely like humming-birds, only pausing for a second to suck a drop of honey, and then on again to another, perhaps more freshly opened flower. I noticed these same black butterflies always haunt red or deep pink flowers. Is it vanity on their part—are they stopping to think how admirably the colour contrasts with their own glossy black wings? Then I remembered that the first time I ever saw a humming-bird it was darting from one crimson hibiscus flower to another. Was that also vanity? Or have crimson flowers sweeter or more delicately flavoured honey than the rest?

As the mountain road winds higher and higher above Nikko, on its way to Chuzenji, we left behind this variety of azalea, and came upon another quite unknown to me. At first I thought the mountain-sides were covered with peach-trees, whose blossoms lingered on in the higher or bleaker regions, but it was not so, all was azalea; some so tall that their bare stems stretched high among the other trees, before they got enough light and air to wreathe their branches with the peach-coloured blossoms. On these, lichen seemed to take the place of leaves; the effect is indescribable to one who has not seen it: the soft greenish-grey tufts clothe the stems, which might without their furry covering look lean and bare; but all this beauty suggests weeks of autumn rain and damp heat, more healthy for plant life than for man. Often the path would be strewn with freshly fallen blossoms, and there overhead one could see the pink flowers against the sky. The banks and moorland were full of tender shoots and buds of shrubs and flowers, which in July will be an endless source of surprise and delight to the wild-flower hunter.

Leaving Nikko behind in all its gay clothing, I bent my steps towards the Watanase valley, one of Japan’s most beautiful valleys. The early summer

THE KOBAI PLUM BLOSSOM

is indeed a harmony in greens; the maples had hardly lost their spring colouring when I started in the early dawn from Ashio to follow the course of the river which dashes down some hundred feet or more below the road with a thundering roar, and certainly the valley well deserves its celebrity. The Paulonia trees were then in all their beauty, and side by side with great masses of their purple flowers the wild fuji wreathed the trees with its delicate mauve blossoms, until at last I felt that the valley ought to be called the “purple valley.” A few tree pæonies were shedding their last petals in a tiny garden where we stopped to rest and sip the inevitable little cup of pale green tea, reminding one that summer had come and spring was gone, not to come again until the scorching summer months, the autumn storms, and winter snows had come and gone.

In early summer the higher moorlands afford a happy hunting-ground for the flower collector. Purple iris and white rue seem to fight their way among the moorland grasses, here and there a Turk’s-cap lily raises its scarlet head proudly, the purple bells of the Platycodon are just opening, and the wild white and pink campanula is already fading. The columbine, not the glorified hybrid Aquilegia of our English gardens, but the humble pale-coloured wild columbine with its long spurs and delicate fern-like foliage; yellow valerian, mauve and white funkias, pink spiræas, Solomon’s seal, endless varieties of orchises, and in favoured districts the pale pink Cypredium macranthum are among the summer wild flowers, scattered over the plain or nestling on the banks of the mountain streams. The flowering shrubs seemed endless; think how many shrubs introduced into Europe of late years are “japonica”! all these find their homes in one district or another. Besides all the varieties of plum, cherry, and peach, in spring the andromeda bushes are laden with their white bell-flowers, suggestive of a waxy lily of the valley, to be followed by their young leaves as bright as any flowers; every variety of crabs, white deutzias, spiræas, weigelias, the wild white syringa, which also seemed to differ from our garden variety, save only in its delicious odour; and a form of Rhincospernum jasminoides which I had not seen before, whose heavy scent filled the air at sundown. All these I can recall having come across during my summer rambles, and doubtless there are many more.

In the later summer months I wandered along the beautiful coast of the province of Izu, which again seemed to be a home of flowers. The tall spikes of Bocconia cordata reared their heads proudly wherever they had escaped the hand of the destroyer; apparently the plant is regarded by the country people as either poisonous or unlucky, as often a splendid clump of it, its height showing how thoroughly it appreciates the deep rich soil, will be here to-day and gone to-morrow, cut off and trampled down with evident intention. This coast seemed to be the home of the hydrangea and also of many different varieties of lilies. In May, on the lower ground of Hiezan, and especially in the neighbourhood of Lake Biwa, the pale pink Lilium Krameri may be found in tufts nestling under the shadow of some sheltering shrub, and scattered throughout the district the various forms of Lilium umbellatum, but the province of Izu seems to have soil more suited to the late summer lilies. By the middle of July the big buds of the Lilium auratum will be fighting their way among the rank growth along the roadside, and in a few days the air will be filled with their scent. Often I was attracted by their fragrance, perhaps all the more remarkable in a land which, alas! is not famed for sweet smells, and then far above one’s head, hanging defiantly out of reach, could be seen a single splendid bloom of this king among lilies. They seem to love the shelter and dampness of the wood, where the falling leaves each autumn make a fresh covering for their bulbs. Once I tried to see how deep in the earth the bulbs were buried, but I did not succeed in getting down low enough, and could only tell, from the mark on the stem of the lily which had been pulled, that about eight to ten inches seemed to be the usual depth of the bulb. Often the stems seemed to bear only one splendid bloom, but I was told that was only because the bulbs were young, and even in their wild state from six to eight perfect blooms on one head were not uncommon. There appeared to be every variety of auratum, and I noticed that the broad-leaved platyphyllum seemed even more sturdy than the rest, the foliage a deeper green, and the individual blossoms more perfect, the markings more distinct, and their scent, if such a thing were possible, even stronger and more overpowering than the more slender-growing Auratum virginale.

Then there were the Rubro Vittatum with their band of pink down each petal, but never in a purely wild state did I see it so deep in colour and truly defined as in the cultivated form which

LILIUM AURATUM

is exported under that name. It was in the cottage gardens that I saw the finest lilies, and many a giant bearing from twenty to thirty unblemished blooms, at the top of a stem some six or seven feet high, clad with equally unblemished foliage, was brought to me, as it soon became known that the “foreigner” staying at Atami had come especially to see their yuri no hana. Not that the Japanese seem ever especially to admire them, and they are not included among their “seven beautiful flowers of late summer.” Mr. Parsons gives an example of this fact:—

I was walking one day at Yoshida with a Japanese artist, a remarkable man, who was engaged in making a series of steel engravings, half landscape, half map, of the country round Fuji, and called his attention to a splendid clump of belladonna lilies growing near an old grey tomb; but he would not have them at all, said they were foolish flowers, and the only reason he gave me for not liking them was because they came up without any leaves. When we got back to our tea-house he took my pen and paper and showed me what were the seven beautiful flowers of late summer: the convolvulus, the name of which in Japanese is “asago,” meaning the same as our “morning glory”; wild chrysanthemum; yellow valerian; the lespedeza, a kind of bush clover; Platycodon grandiflorum and purple blue campanula; Eulalia japonica, the tall grass which covers so many of the hills; and shion, a rather insignificant aster. I noticed that some versions of the seven flowers differed from his; a large flowered mallow is often substituted for the last he named. There are doubtless different schools which hold strong views on the subject, but on the “morning glory” and some others they are evidently agreed.

The tiger lilies were in bloom in the village gardens, but never in any great number—a clump here and there, for they are seldom allowed to bloom, it is for their bulbs they are cultivated; this is their “edible lily,” and young bulbs of Lilium tigrinum are among their most prized vegetables. I had noticed a square bed of these lilies suggestive of an asparagus bed, in a priest’s garden in Kyoto in May, and thought what a wealth of colour they would provide later in the year; but next time I saw the garden, early in June it may have been, the lilies had all been executed—just their heads cut off,—and when I expressed amazement and regret I was told that this was always done to strengthen the bulb. The variety did not seem to be as fine as those grown under the name of Tigrinum Fortunii in England, and yet more robust and with larger heads than our common tiger lily; probably the different soil and damper climate would account for this.

The apricot-coloured Lilium Batemanni seemed to know how to protect their bulbs from the hand

LILIES ON THE ROCKS, ATAMI

of the collector, for jutting out between the rocks, hanging perhaps a hundred feet above the sea, these lilies grow, tantalising to those who want to pick them, for these rocks are not easy to climb; but how beautiful they are, their clear colour standing out against the grey cliffs and the restless deep blue sea below.

The cultivation of lilies for exporting seems to have developed into quite an important industry in Japan of late years; the district round Kamakura and right away to Yumoto appeared to be the best soil for their culture. I never saw any Lilium longiflorum in their wild state, but thousands, I should think millions, of bulbs of this lily are exported annually, in all its different forms. For indoor growing the variety known as Harrisii seems still to be the favourite; though giganteum is a stronger form, and certainly is to be preferred for the open ground. Multiflorum is for the impatient grower, as it flowers some three weeks earlier, though it is a more slender kind; and there are many others. Even in Japan the dreaded disease among Lilium auratum seemed to be not unknown; apparently cultivation brings it in its train, as in fields and gardens I noticed occasionally the fatal yellow leaves, which means death to the bulb; and the other form of disease known as “clubbing” may occur, even when the lilies are growing in their natural state—the two stems grown into one, and the monster head so closely packed with blossoms that none can develop to their full size or beauty; on one head alone I counted over a hundred blooms, but the effect was only that of a poor deformity.

Very beautiful were the large bushes of hydrangea, their branches weighed down by their burdens of immense heads of bright blue flowers. In some parts of England where there is iron in the soil, hydrangeas in the open ground are blue, but what a poor washed-out blue compared to the intensely deep colour of this Japanese variety, Ajisia Aiyaku, meaning the blue hydrangea. Their great balls of blossom change from a pale yellow green to bright blue, brighter almost than the sky above, and as they fade, they turn to rosy purple, and back again to a dull green, clinging with ungraceful tenacity to life, as though loth or afraid to die, preferring to rot on their stem rather than drop untimely—unlike the blossoms of spring, ever ready to depart life at the call of nature. A more graceful form is Hortensis Shirogaku, with its more loosely formed heads,

AN HYDRANGEA BUSH

never forming a densely packed mass, each individual blossom showing, with the outer petals of a much paler colour in contrast with the deep blue centres. They are moisture-loving plants, as they seem to flourish best on the very brink of the miniature mountain torrents. The garden at Atami known as the Bai-en, celebrated for its early plum blossoms, was gay with great bushes of these shrubs in July; they clothed the banks of the roaring stream, till, as their heads grew heavier, the lower branches were swept by the water.

In the early days of August the hedges and banks in the low country were beginning to look parched and dusty, waiting for the autumn rains, which never fail, and will bring new life and freshness to all the herbage, but not new flowers—the season of wild flowers is nearly gone; though the autumn will bring us the true “lily of the field,” the scarlet Nerine japonica—a lily of the field, as it is only growing along the edges of the rice patches on neglected banks or nestling among the grey stone tombs of some forgotten graveyard, that you will ever see these lilies. Never in any garden however ill kept, never in any house, and never used as any form of decoration did I see this lily; for are they not the “death flower,” the flower of ill omen, or sometimes the “equinox flower,” also suggestive of a season full of death and decay. Nerine or Lycoris japonica, or the spider lily—its name seems difficult to determine—made the land gay in the fading year, gorgeous splashes of colour against the ripening rice, its fringed heads rising leafless from the soil, sometimes in scattered tufts, and sometimes great banks closely covered with their flaunting heads. I felt Japan must indeed be rich in flower treasures for such a one to be overlooked and uncared for. Perhaps in the South of England it might find a home—a resting-place where it would be treasured, not destroyed; at the foot of a grey stone wall a few tufts of this brilliant lily would be a “thing of beauty,” though not “a joy for ever.”

By November the flower year is over; the last chrysanthemum pots are being hurried under their temporary shelters, away from the danger of the early frost, which any night may turn the country into a blaze of scarlet and gold. Not only the maples will help the year to die in splendour, for so many other trees have as great a variety of colour, though perhaps not quite so brilliant, and the dark leaves of the tulip-trees will presently turn to a sheet of gold, the larch will be shedding its pale yellow spines, while the Japanese oak, Shira Kashi, with its ruddy colour will help to relieve the solemn everlasting green of the pines and cryptomerias which clothe the hills. The ripened rice is being quickly stored, and only the grasses and foliage of herbaceous plants are left to give a note of colour to the fields and higher moorland; the tall Eulalia japonica, waving in the wind, clothes the golden hills, but will soon be beaten down by the winter snows. So in a blaze of glory the year ends in this Land of Flowers.

CHAPTER VII
PLUM BLOSSOM

In Japan the flower year begins earlier than in Europe, and while the snow is still lying deep on the ground in the northern provinces, in warm and sheltered districts the Ume or plum blossom will clothe the trees with flowers as white as the snow. But in the country round Kyoto or Tokyo it is not until the end of February or the first days of March that the pale pink buds of the plum blossoms will be opening, and there will come a whisper through the air that in a few days the beloved ume-no-hana will be in all its glory. The plum is one of the favourite, perhaps the favourite tree of the Japanese, so in early March, when the sunny days will remind us that spring is coming, though the cruel frosts and snow showers at night will warn us that winter is not yet gone, every passer-by seems to be talking of ume, discussing

VIEWING THE PLUM BLOSSOMS

probably where the earliest blossoms are to be found, and when the first flower-viewing excursion of the year is to take place.

The Japanese are essentially a flower-loving people; in no other country would you find whole families, old and young, rich and poor, tramping for miles in the hot sun or through the drenching rain to indulge in their favourite pastime of flower-viewing. Showing how universal is this custom of special flower-viewing excursions, there is even a phrase in the Japanese language, hana miru, meaning to view flowers.

The earliest plum blossom, known as the no-ume, is a somewhat uninteresting little white flower, not unlike the wild sloe in our English hedgerows, and I was beginning to think the celebrated plum blossom of Japan was an overrated flower, when gradually its full beauty dawned upon me. The deep pink buds of the later varieties opened into pale blush coloured blossoms, and the crimson buds of the kobai—the most cherished of all—burst into a cloud of brilliant pink flowers; others there were, pale lemon coloured or large pure white, in great variety. The plum-tree is especially valued for its age, and a venerable tree, its stems covered with grey lichen, though its flowers may be poor in quality, will be more prized than a young tree with the most brilliant coloured blossoms.

Tsukigase, in the province of Shima, a little village famous for the beauty of its plum-trees, is one of the first places to be visited by that large proportion of the inhabitants of Kyoto who seem to spend most or all their days during the spring months in a never-ending round of sight-seeing and flower-viewing. In the month of March the village is made gay for the reception of these holiday-makers, and undaunted by the bitter winds and vicious scuds of snow which mingle with the falling petals of the ume, they will spend long hours in quiet admiration of the mass of blossom which appears to fill the whole valley with a pink and white haze; for over two miles the trees clothe the banks of the river Kizu. Countless tea-stalls are prepared for the guests, light bamboo structures adorned with a few printed linen curtains in soft harmonious colouring, and innumerable paper lanterns suffice for the preparation of a flower feast. Each night, or at the approach of rain, the little maids will carefully pack away the matted benches and these frail decorations under the thatched roof, to be brought forth on the

THE GATE OF THE PLUM GARDENS

morrow or when the storm has cleared. The Japanese regard the flower of the plum with a peculiar reverence, and their feeling for it always seems to be touched with some mysterious sense of sorrow, which perhaps accounted for the fact that these plum-blossom feasts never seemed to attain to the same merry boisterous revels held at the time of the cherry blossom. The people were more quiet and sober in their demeanour; at first I thought their spirits were frozen by the cold, but even the endless drinking of tea and tiny cups of saké did not seem to thaw them, and often whole parties, wrapped in their outer winter kimonos, would sit in silent contemplation of the blossoms, warming their hands over that Japanese apology for a fire—an hibachi—consisting merely of a pot of charcoal.

In old days the plum blossom was their ideal of purity, an ideal which some attempted to emulate in their lives. The same feelings prevail in China, if we may judge from the poets. This, to be sure, is not surprising, inasmuch as Japan took her literature, like most other things, from the Chinese. The early poems of both countries are much alike, and among them both are many ume poems, as the Japanese call them, extolling the beauty and charm of the plum blossom, which ranks as the poet’s own flower. Mr. Kango Uchimura has written an ode to it in prose, which contains the following passage:——

While Spring was still cold I knew that it was at hand by your flowering. You are not Spring, but the prophet of Spring. The cherry blossom is Spring, the iris and the wistaria; but, as each of these has its own season, the gods sent you to keep green our hope of Spring.

I do not say I love you, rather I fear you; you are too dignified; you blossom alone on the branches with no green leaves to bear you company. I do not call you beautiful; your scent is too keen, your petals too stiff. No one will ever sing or dance beneath your boughs. You are the prophet Jeremiah; you are John the Baptist. Standing before you I feel as though in the presence of a solemn master. Yet by your appearance I know that Winter has passed, and that the delightful Spring is at hand. The herald of Spring, you denounce the tyranny of Winter. Your face is stern, but your heart is soft. It is easy to misunderstand you, for, though the daughter of Spring, you wear the garb of a man the man ordained to break the power of cruel Winter.

Two famous men in olden days were particularly associated with the flowers of the plum. One of these was Kajiwara Genda Kagesuge, a great warrior of the twelfth century, who always went into battle carrying in his quiver fresh branches of the blossom, to which, so says the legend, he was indebted for his splendid courage. The other was Sugawara No Michizane, the minister of the Emperor Ude. The Kwampaku Tokihira, wishing to be quit of the sage’s wisdom, sent him into a sort of honourable exile in the island of Kyushu, where he died in 903. After his death came a great reaction in his favour. He was canonised under the name of Tenjin, or the Heavenly god, and to this day he is venerated by all men of letters as their patron saint; in every school the twenty-fifth day of each month is kept as a holiday, and every year on the twenty-fifth of June a great festival is held in his honour. His life is dramatised in the popular play Sugawara Tenjin Ki, and all over the land shrines dedicated to his memory rise from groves of plum-trees.

One of the most famous and beautiful of these is the temple of Kitano Tenjin at Kyoto, which has provided subjects for several of the illustrations in this volume. In the inner court of the temple near the splendid two-storied gateway of the Sun, Moon, and Stars stands a large tree of the bright pink blossom, and it would be difficult to find a more beautiful setting for the tree than the background of grey wooden buildings, of which the decorations have been toned by the hand of time into soft mellow hues. In the outer grounds the trees have a background of giant cryptomerias, with long avenues of stone lanterns—votive offerings of every conceivable shape and size—small shrines, and two great granite torii, the plain yet majestic gateways which guard the entrance to all Shinto temples. When the trees are in all their glory the flower-viewing parties wander through the grounds in silent admiration, down to the little ravine outside the temple grounds, where the snow-white blossom fills the little valley and clouds of petals fall into the brook below, to be carried away down the stream like drifts of foam. Here may be seen a poet of the old school rapt in thought composing an ode to the blossom and the nightingale. It is a pretty fancy much honoured in Japan, the plum blossom, the poet, and the nightingale making, they say, the world of beauty complete. For no Japanese ever thinks of the plum blossom apart from the nightingale—which, it should be observed, is not the bird of Keats’s poem, singing of summer in full-throated ease, but a little light-winged creature whose favourite haunt is among the flowering branches of this tree.

In Japanese legends the plum blossom and the nightingale are inseparable companions, and represent

THE TIME OF THE PLUM BLOSSOMS

the two spirits of the awakening spring when the mists of winter first begin to roll away. There is a story, for instance, of the daughter of the poet Kino Tsurayuki, who lived in the days of the Emperor Murakami, in the tenth century. From time immemorial a single plum-tree had always stood before the south pavilion of the Imperial Palace at Nara, and when at some period of this Emperor’s reign the tree died, messengers were despatched in hot haste to find one worthy to replace it. One was found in the garden of the poet aforesaid, a fine tree with crimson blossoms belonging to his daughter, who was most reluctant to part with her favourite. However, there was, of course, no help for it, and the tree was sent off to the palace grounds with some verses fastened to it, which run thus in Mr. Brinkley’s translation——

Claimed for our sovereign’s use,
Blossoms I’ve loved so long,
Can I in duty fail?
But for the nightingale,
Seeking her home of song,
How shall I find excuse?

The Emperor, struck with the graceful sentiment of the verses, made inquiries as to the writer, and finding that she was the daughter of his favourite poet, ordered the tree to be returned to her.

Throughout Japan there is scarcely a district to be found without orchards and groves or temple grounds where the flower-seeker can go to greet spring and the ume, but the people of Tokyo are singularly fortunate in their plum orchards. One of the most famous and beautiful is at Sugita, a charming little village nestling by the bluest of waters, near Yokohama, where a thousand trees have stood for upwards of a century, displaying their blossom every spring to admiring eyes from all the country round. Here there are six special kinds of the tree, and their fancy names mark the different characters of the flowers, the Japanese being very clever at finding characteristic names for flowers and trees. The Gwario Bai, or Recumbent Dragon Tree, is the most famous of these, being indeed the most notable thing in the outskirts of Tokyo. Some fifty years ago there grew a wonderful tree of vast age and strange shape, its branches having ploughed up the ground and thrown out new roots in no fewer than fourteen places, thus naturally covering an extensive area. The name of Gwario Bai was given to the tree by old Prince Rekko, who planted the groves in Tokiwa Park in 1837, a piece of forethought highly appreciated by many visitors to this day. The Shogun (or Generalissimo) of that day also paid a visit to the spot, and made the tree Goyobaku or the Tree of Honourable Service, in return for which gracious act of condescension the fruit was presented to him every year. All these honours, however, could not save it from a natural death when its time came; in its place now flourish a number of much less interesting trees, which nevertheless bear the same name, and apparently the same reputation, as their predecessor the Dragon of the prime.

Not far from the Gwario Bai is the orchard of Kinegawa, which can boast an honoured name too, for here the poets come, and you may see perhaps a hundred slips of paper, containing uta or hokku (seventeen-syllabled) poems, fluttering from the branches. Perhaps here, too, we may find a family party, the mother with the youngest child tightly strapped on her back, its tiny shaven head hardly showing above the wadded quilt which is wrapped closely round it; a little mite of a very few summers, tottering unsteadily on its clogs, clasping a branch of the natural tree adorned with paper blossoms, from which floats a streamer with some strange device, or any of the countless toys which go towards the making of a holiday; and only a few years older a little solemn-faced maiden, whose black beady eyes will glisten with wonder when she is told that she is called Ume san after the snow-white blossom at which she has been gazing with awe and admiration. Ume is a common name among Japanese women; they connect it with the ideas of virtue and sweetness, and they are taught to keep the name unspotted during life and to leave it fair after death, even as the scent of the plum blossom smells sweet in the darkness. The following verses are from Piggot’s Garden of Japan:—

Home friends change and change,
Years pass quickly by;
Scent of our ancient plum-tree,
Thou dost never die.

Home friends are forgotten;
Plum-trees blossom fair,
Petals falling to the breeze
Leave their fragrance there.

Cettria’s fancy, too,
Finds his cup of flowers,
Seeks his peaceful hiding-place,
In the plum’s sweet bowers.[1]

Though the snow-flakes hide
And thy blossoms kill,
He will sing, and I shall find
Fragrant incense still.

[1] Cettria, the nightingale.

Ginsekai is yet another orchard in the neighbourhood of Tokyo, its name signifying Silver World, and on a moonlit night in spring you would say that never was a place more aptly named, if you saw the forest of white blossoms rising out of the snow-clad landscape. There are some pretty verses on the sight, which run thus in English:—

How shall I find my ume tree?
The moon and the snow are white as she.
By the fragrance blown on the evening air
Shalt thou find her there.

It is true that the white varieties of plum blossom have nearly all a most delicious and delicate scent, but the red varieties are quite devoid of any fragrance. The plum is known as one of the Four Floral Gentlemen, the others being the pine, the bamboo, and the orchid. It has flourished in China from time immemorial, where it is known as the Head of the Hundred Flowers, because it is the first to bloom, and it was probably imported from that country through the medium of Korea into Japan. Even that learned botanist the late Dr. Keisuke Ito could not say where the plum-tree first flowered in Japan, nor can any one say with certainty whether ume is a Chinese or a Japanese word. Kakimoto no Hitomaro, who lived about the end of the seventh century, was probably the first to celebrate the plum blossom in his verse; and it may be said to have taken rank as a national flower when the Emperor Kwamaru (782-806) planted it before his palace when he moved his capital from Nara to Kyoto.

In those days the word flower meant the flower of the plum, just as the word mountain meant Hiei san, but it was dethroned from its pride of place when the Emperor Murakami planted the cherry-tree in its stead, and though the plum still stands first with the men of mind, the cherry-tree has ever since been the popular favourite. That the latter is most beautiful cannot be disputed; but for purity of outline, fragrance, and that touch of sadness, which the Japanese profess to find in it, the bloom of the plum is still unrivalled.

There are upwards of three hundred and fifty specimens of the plum, white, pale and bright pink, or even red in colour, single or double in form. Of these the more important are: Yatsu buse ume, which derives its name from bearing eight fruits, the blossoms having from two to eight stamens, the word signifying eight tassels; only two or three of these, however, ripen fully, and they are unfit for eating. The Bungo ume grows in the Bungo

PLUM BLOSSOM AND LANTERNS

province of the island of Kyushu; its fruit is large and can be eaten uncooked, though the Japanese prefer it pickled or candied. The fruit of the Ko ume, celebrated for the beauty of its bright pink blossom, is no bigger than the tip of one’s thumb, but has a delicious flavour. Toko no ume is a late fruit, clinging to the branch even when fully ripe, whence its name Toko, meaning eternal. The flowers of Suisen ume have six petals, round or long in shape. Hava ume, or the early plum, blooms at the winter solstice.

In no other country does the culture of plants go hand in hand with art as it does in Japan; not only in the case of their dwarf trees, marvels of horticultural art, but even the trees which are necessary for the scenery of their landscape gardens have to conform to the rules which govern the entire art of the country. I remember being shown with great pride by the owner of a tiny garden his one solitary plum-tree, the pride of his garden in those cold March days. It stood leaning over a miniature rocky precipice, down which tumbled a diminutive cascade; old and venerable it looked, having endured ruthless pruning, and only a few large single blossoms clothed its branches. I expressed surprise and some regret that it did not bear more blossoms, and then it was explained to me that many of the buds had been removed, as otherwise the thick cloud of flowers would have hidden the outline of the branches; this was a flight of æstheticism to which I could not rise, and I felt I should have preferred to see the tree bearing its full burden of blossom. This practice of disbudding is also occasionally carried out with old specimens of dwarf plum-trees when it is considered that a wealth of blossom would hide the growth of the little tree, which by careful training has after years of patience rewarded the owner by conforming to the desired shape laid down by the canons of art. These little trees are in great demand at the close of the year, for hardly a house in the land is without a tiny tree of ume, to bring luck at the opening of another year; so during November and December, when their pale-pink buds are fast swelling, they are tended with the greatest care, brought into the sun during the day, plentifully watered at sundown, and sheltered from all cold winds. Thus they flower sometimes as early as New Year’s Day, to the intense pride and joy of their owners. The hearts of the plum-trees, say the Japanese, are a thousand years old, and yet young as the hopes of Japan.

CHAPTER VIII
PEACH BLOSSOM

The peach blossom has never attained the fame in Japanese art, or among their poets, that its classical predecessor the plum, or its successor the cherry of patriotic fame, has been honoured with; but it is none the less beautiful for that reason, and its blossoms excel those of the plum in size, richness, and colouring. Towards the end of March the first flowers of the peach-trees will be opening, although long before this time, branches closely covered with the bright-pink buds will have been among the flowers offered for arrangement on the tokonoma, as in the warmth of the house (though surely there seems to be very little warmth in a Japanese house all through the long cold March days) the buds will quickly open and last in beauty for many days. These will be branches of the early bright pink variety, but it is not until the beginning of April that the large flowered pure white, double and semi-double flowers of every shade of pink, and even a deep crimson of a remarkably beautiful tone, will be in their full glory, and it is hard to understand why this splendid blossom should be comparatively neglected and relegated to secondary rank by the artist as a decorative motive and material.

The less severely artistic, who find enjoyment at any spot where blossom and colour are to be seen, will visit Momoyama (Peach Mountain) in crowds during the first week in April, and the narrow streets leading up to the hill will be gay with visitors, and among the orchards the little temporary tea sheds will be set out for their comfort and refreshment. So yet another “Feast of blossom” will be celebrated. The trees may perhaps lack some of the grace of the old gnarled plum-trees, and they do not appear to have such a long life, as never did I hear of any very celebrated old specimen trees, but rather groves or orchards of younger trees, which no doubt, in order to make them bloom freely, receive drastic treatment at the hand of the pruner. Very lovely are these groves of peach-trees, and surely they must have found favour in the ancient days, as on Momoyama stood

PEACH BLOSSOM

Hideyoshi’s palace, the grandest ever built in Japan, whose spoils in the shape of gold screens and fusuma adorn half the temples in Kyoto.

The peach orchards of Soka-no-momoyama at Senju are a favourite resort of the Tokyo holiday-makers, who make annual pilgrimages to do honour to the peach blossoms, and parties sit feasting on the matted benches; here and there perhaps a group discussing the politics of the capital, or a solitary poet composing a hokku on the peach blossom, or a family party; and there the little boys and girls, decked out in their brightest-coloured kimonos and obis in honour of the holiday, will be listening with rapt attention to the fairy-story of Momo Taro, who jumped out of a large peach-stone. To the older children it is an old story, for every Japanese child has listened at bedtime to the tale of Momo Taro told by its mother, but for the little ones this may be their first year of “peach-viewing” and understanding, and their eyebrows will rise in amazement when they hear the history. “Once upon a time,” the story says, “there was an old man and an old woman; the old man went up the mountain to collect dried brushwood, and the old woman went to the river to wash clothes,” and there one of the older boys will interrupt, I am sure, saying, “A big peach came down the river; and Momo Taro jumped out of the stone when the old woman brought it home and cut it open, didn’t he?” So there is not a child in Japan who does not know the history of Momo Taro, the children’s hero, who made an expedition into the Oniga Shima (Devil’s Island) followed by his dog and monkey servitors. It would be no surprise to them to see even a fat little boy like themselves spring out of the end of the fruit, so the Japanese boys adore the peach; and the little girls share their affection for it, as it is always associated in their mind with their own especial festival.

During the season of the early peach blossoms (on 3rd March) the Girls’ Festival (Jōmi-no-sekku) is celebrated throughout Japan; it is also called the Feast of Dolls (Hina Matsuri), and the Peach Festival, for no Girls’ Festival is complete without some branches of peach blossom in the vase on the tokonoma. This day is eagerly looked forward to by every little girl in Japan, from the highest to the lowest in the land, for every house possesses its little store of dolls, only to be brought out and exhibited with due pomp and ceremony on this one day in the year. In the houses of the rich, the Dairi Hina—tiny models of people and their belongings—the dolls will be dressed in gorgeous silk, and their accessories mostly made of priceless lacquer. The whole ancient Japanese Court in miniature there may be: these will all be displayed on the tokonoma of the guest chamber, possibly on a piece of brocade as gorgeous as the peach blossom in colour. And there you will see an emperor and an empress and a set of Court musicians; before them the most elaborate dinner sets in ancient form; beside them there will be the Sho kudai (lamp-stand with paper shade) with pictures of peach blossom on it. The little daughters of the house will surely look to our eyes only like larger dolls, with their delicate coloured silk crepe kimonos and stiff brocade obis standing out like great butterflies on their backs, their hair carefully dressed according to their age, the older ones with just a little powder on their tiny inscrutable faces, acting as hostesses with all the solemn grace of their mother, offering to the guests tiny cups of tea and little fairy cakes shaped and coloured like peach petals. This girls’ day is one of the prettiest sights in Japan, and yet there is no record how far back the festival originated, though it is believed to date from a thousand years ago. In the days of the Tokugawa feudal régime—days of perfect peace and prosperity—it became a very expensive festival, and great sums were expended on these toy Dairi Hina, so it is not surprising that they were handed down as heirlooms in families only to be displayed once a year, or sometimes a bride, scarcely more than a child herself, would take her set of favourite dolls with her to her husband’s house, so that her little daughter might perhaps some day also use them to celebrate the Girls’ or Peach Festival. So in Japan the peach is truly the children’s tree.

Momo, meaning a hundred, is considered “emblematic of longevity and perfection,” which probably is the origin of the story of Seibo the fairy who governed the western realm of China. She gave some peaches to the Emperor Butei, and told him that that variety of peach only bore fruit once in three thousand years, and he would live eternally from the fruit’s heavenly influence. If we could only get such peaches to-day? Perhaps it might do as well to eat a common peach from the market and dream, if possible, of the beauty of eternal life and be happy.

In Chinese art the peach blossom seems to rank higher than it does in Japan, and a very favourite subject with Chinese artists is an ox in a peach orchard. The finest pot-grown peach-trees I ever saw were in China, their gnarled stems looking truly a thousand years old, their branches trained and bent or merely drooping like a willow, covered with the clear pink blossoms. The trunks of these fine old trees may have been three or four feet high; but in Japan it is possible to procure a little plant for perhaps 25 sen (about sixpence) whose branches are so tightly packed with blossoms it is impossible to see a trace of even the bark between them—a perfect little tree in a delicate green or mottled blue porcelain pot. I could not help thinking what pleasure such trees would give in England, but apparently it is only the Japanese who know the real secret of growing them, the exact shoots to leave and which to cut away, to ensure this wealth of blossom. I felt in England my little peach-tree would only flower here and there, and its beauty would be lost.

There is a popular saying in Japan, Momo kuri san nen, kaki hachinen, meaning “three years for peach and chestnut, eight years for persimmon.” The peach-tree is of rapid growth; this fact is proved by there being a variety called Issai momo, because it blooms the first year of its growth, and bears fruit the second. There is Futairo momo, the two-coloured peach, whose blossoms are mingled red and white in colour, single and double in petals; there is Hiku momo, or chrysanthemum peach, as its blossoms are the shape of a chrysanthemum flower, in clusters of twelve or thirteen; the camellia peach and many others with fancy names from their supposed resemblance to their god-father. The native peaches do not bear good fruit, and the better varieties have been introduced from America, but up to now with only moderate success. There are no good eating peaches in Japan; this may be the fault of the climate, possibly the hot damp summer does not suit them, or the cultivation may be at fault; but when their blossoms provide such a feast of colour and beauty it seems altogether too unromantic and too material to worry over the texture and flavour of the fruit.

THE PAGODA, KYOMIDZU

CHAPTER IX
CHERRY BLOSSOM

Japan is often called “The Land of the Cherry Blossom,” and it is true that for centuries their Sakura-no-hana has been the favourite flower of the Japanese. The refinement and grace of its beauty appeals to them so intensely, that the month of April, the time of the cherry blossom, might almost be regarded as a national holiday throughout the country; and can one wonder that a whole nation should forget for a time their work and domestic worries in the innocent enjoyment of sitting under the flower-laden trees?

In contrast to the simple growth of the plum-tree, the blossom of the cherry covers the whole tree in rich profusion, the branches bending under the weight of its luxuriance, scattering a rosy shower of petals as they sway in the spring breezes. Lafcadio Hearn, in his Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, says: “When, in spring, the trees flower, it is as though fleecy masses of clouds, faintly tinged by sunset, had floated down from the sky, to fold themselves about the branches.... The reader who has never seen a cherry-tree blossoming in Japan cannot possibly imagine the delight of the spectacle. There are no green leaves; these come later; there is only a glorious burst of blossoms, veiling every bough and twig in their delicate mist; and the soil beneath each tree is covered deep out of sight by fallen petals, as by a drift of snow.”

Unlike many of the favourite flowers of Japan, which are only grown in certain districts, and might bloom altogether unobserved if one did not make a special search for them, the cherry is so lavishly planted throughout the Empire that it would be impossible to find any part of the country without some display of the blossom.

The full beauty of the cherry is short-lived, and, almost before one has realised the transformation of the whole landscape, brought about by this wonderful flower, with the help of the glorious April sunshine, a heavy rain-shower or sudden squall will scatter the petals like snow before the wind, and nothing will remain but the young brown leaves and the carpet of fallen petals beneath the trees. We are told of Fujiwara-no-Narinori, of the twelfth century, who prayed to the god Tai-zanfukun for the prolongation of the glory of his beloved cherry blossom. Fujiwara had planted over a hundred of the trees in his garden, and had, on that account, been named Sakura Machi by the people. It is said that the gods answered his prayer, and allowed the trees to remain in flower for twenty-one days.

Another legend tells of Minamoto-no-Yoshiyo the warrior, who was despatched to fight with Abe-no-Sadato of Oshu. While on his way to the enemy’s camp, he passed through groves of falling cherry blossoms, and was struck with lamentation over the changing of nature. His poem remains to this day, and after his death a monument was erected to his memory, on the spot where his inspiration seized him.

It is difficult to decide in which surroundings the cherry blossom shows to best advantage. In the groves or orchards devoted entirely to the sakura, where the flower-laden trees will surround one on all sides, there will be cherry blossom, and nothing but cherry blossom almost as far as the eye can reach. From every tree will hang rosy-red lanterns, or a poetical name and inscription will flutter in the breeze, while crowds of visitors wander through the grounds; children clapping their chubby hands in sheer enjoyment of the blossoms, tumbling, in their haste to find fresh treasures, over their gay-coloured kimonos, which, with their gorgeous obi, have been put on to-day for the first time in the honour of spring, and the sakura. Perhaps you might prefer to see the trees in a setting of red-brown maples and deep-green pines, in a wilder and more natural state, where one of the many fast-flowing rivers will hurry along beneath the overhanging boughs, carrying away great drifts of fallen petals; or, again, by the sea-shore, where a few great trees, high up on the cliffs, away from all danger of salt sprays, will make a glorious foreground for the rugged coast-line and the wide stretch of sea beyond. But surely there is no more beautiful setting for the trees than the old temple buildings, with their wooden structures toned by countless ages. A great weeping cherry-tree will stand as a sentinel at the gateway, or a little tree laden with rosy blossoms will guard a tiny shrine.

All through the bright spring days, thousands of sight-seers will climb the stone steps of the temple of Kyomizu—or Good Water—in Kyoto, and