Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/249

 one pretty creature in a red crape underdress and a dark-blue gauze kimono, who blushed most beautifully, bent her anxious face to the grating and deftly wound her fingers in and out. Following her a middle-aged coolie tossed in his fractional coin, rang, clapped, and tied his sentimental petition to the lattice.

Holiday crowds poured up and down the broad paved walks, wandered about the paths, or gathered in the pavilions, while new throngs toiled up the stone staircases to join in the festival. On the overhanging platforms sacred dances had been performed all day, giving place towards nightfall to the low tables covered with red blankets, around which companies picturesquely grouped themselves, while pretty nesans pattered back and forth to serve them. The whole scene was so spectacular and fascinating that we sat there watching the moving crowds and looking out over the city below us until the sun sank in clouds of splendid color, and twinkling lights began to creep upward from the streets.

Near the top of Teapot Hill a narrow lane diverges into a dense bamboo grove, where the feathery tips meet far overhead, and only a green twilight filters down to the base of the myriad slender columns. This bamboo grove is one of the finest in Kioto, and its cool shade is most grateful on a summer day. Beyond it is the famous Spectacle Bridge, a massive stone pile, whose two low arches are not unlike a bowed spectacle-frame. The lotus-pond which it crosses is surrounded in the early summer mornings with breakfasting parties, who sit there to see the splendid flowers open their cups with the first rays of the sun. When that show is over these flower-lovers wander through the farther confines of Nishi Otani, with its superb bronze gates and dragon-guarded tanks, and its imperial tombs hidden away in the quiet groves. The chain of temples still lengthens southward, and 233