Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/155

 of the temple mats, each his proper pair. The high-priest walks near the middle of the line underneath an immense red umbrella. He carries an elaborate red lacquer staff, not unlike a crozier, and even his clogs are of red lacquered wood. The service in the temple suggests the forms of the Roman Church, and this Buddhist cardinal, in his red robes and umbrella, is much like his fellow-dignitary of the West.

To citizens of the United States Ikegami has a peculiar interest. When the American man-of-war Oneida was run down and sunk with her officers and crew by the P. and O. steamer Bombay, near the mouth of Yeddo Bay, January 23, 1870, our Government made no effort to raise the wreck or search it, and finally sold it to a Japanese wrecking company for fifteen hundred dollars. The wreckers found many bones of the lost men among the ship’s timbers, and when the work was entirely completed, with their voluntary contributions they erected a tablet in the Ikegami grounds to the memory of the dead, and celebrated there the impressive Buddhist segaki (feast of hungry souls), in May, 1889. The great temple was in ceremonial array; seventy -five priests in their richest robes assisted at the mass, and among the congregation were the American admiral and his officers, one hundred men from the fleet, and one survivor of the solitary boat’s crew that escaped from the Oneida.

The Scriptures were read, a service was chanted, the Sutra repeated, incense burned, the symbolic lotus-leaves cast before the altar, and after an address in English by Mr. Amenomori explaining the segaki, the procession of priests walked to the tablet in the grounds to chant prayers and burn incense again. No other country, no other religion, offers a parallel to this experience; and Americans may well take to heart 139