Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/245

 one of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, to whiclh pilgrims flock by thousands, and where one sees the most active forms of the faith. Climbing the breathless hill-slopes and stone stair-ways the visitor reaches a giant gate-way, in whose shadow mendicant priests stand with extended bowl, straw hats concealing them to the shoulders, and their maize and purple garments hung with rosaries. There are two pagodas and innumerable stone lanterns and shrines, upon which the faithful toss pebbles as they pray. If the stone remains the prayer is answered, and the pilgrim proceeds with a lightened heart. The Hondo, or main hall, is a most ancient building, one half resting on the slope of the hill and the rest extending in a broad platform propped up by heavy timbers and scaffolding over the face of a precipice, from this platform jealous husbands used to hurl their wives; those who survived the fall of one hundred and fifty feet to the jagged rocks below being proved innocent of wrong-doing, and those who perished guilty. There are no rows of ticketed clogs at the steps of the Hondo, nor soft, clean mats within. The hall is open and benches are set before the altar, where the weary, dusty pilgrim may sit and, resting, pray. Votive tapers are brought to the shrine, and the low beams overhead are covered with votive pictures.

One fortunate afternoon we chanced upon a matsuri at Kiomidzu. All Teapot Hill was crowded with people, girls and children in their gayly-colored crapes and gauzes vying in brightness with the decorated houses. Priests, sitting on small, canopied platforms, hammered silver-toned gongs to call the faithful to give offerings. Coins were tossed in generously on the blankets where the priests sat, but they were not the thick modern copper sens, nor yet silver. Money-changers had their little stands along the via sacra, and in exchange for a sen the believers received a handful of ancient rins and 229