Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/103

 “Moon Temple,” a very curious and interesting specimen of a Buddhist sanctuary, which well repays the wearisome climb, for it can only be reached on foot, with a magnificent view, which stretches away for many miles, over land and water, islands, bays and harbors, dotted with junks and fishing craft. At our feet is the town, which seems so near that we can almost toss a stone into its straits. About half way up a little streamlet issues from the side of the mountain, and dances down from rock to rock, until in one fall of one hundred and fifty feet it is lost in spray, like a miniature Yosemite cascade.

Hiogo is the port of the foreign trade of Osaca, twenty miles distant, on a river which empties into the bay. Osaca is one of the great cities of the empire, with a population of half a million. This city is the center of a very fertile and populous district, famous for its manufactures of silk, sugar, cotton goods and paper, It is traversed by a winding river and numerous canals, over which there are about four hundred bridges, all of stone, and some of great architectural beauty and elaborate workmanship. It is the Venice of Japan, and a favorite dwelling place of the great Princes or Daimios, whose estates are in this part of the empire. The paper made here is remarkably tough and in great variety. The materiel used is the inner bark of the mulberry tree. Chinese and India paper is made of bamboo, and is much inferior in strength and finish to that of Japan, when it supplies for many domestic uses the place of linen and cotton. From paper the Japanese make a very ingenious imitation of leather, and pocket handkerchiefs of the material are universally used. A roll of paper handkerchiefs is always seen in the girdle of a Japanese lady. The narrow wooden blocks upon which they rest their heads at night are covered with a padding of several thicknesses of paper. Removing the outside one every morning affords a clean pillow case without the trouble of washing.

Leaving the harbor of Hiogo we enter the inland sea, which has been described by every traveler in such glowing terms, that all I can say in the way of descriptions of its surpassing beauty of scenery seems but a repetition of what others have said before. The lamented Bishop Kingsley, whom none will accuse of exaggeration, says, “I have seen and admired the far-famad Loch