Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/250

 among the most ancient, surrounded with walls of Titanic bowlders, is the Dai Butsu temple, with its huge image of gilded wood, and its fallen bell, whose interior would make a temple in itself. A stone monument, the Mimizuka, covers the heap of thousands of human ears, cut by Hideyoshi’s generals from the heads of enemies slain in the Korean expedition, salted and brought home as proof of prowess. Last is the Sanjiusangendo, or Hall of the Thirty-three Thousand Buddhas, which, with its rows and rows of tall gilded statues, is a curious place, but less like a sanctuary than a wholesale warehouse of sacred images.

Northward from Yaami’s the chain of temples extends along the leafy hill-side, first among them being the great Chioin sanctuary, one of the largest, oldest, and richest in Kioto. Its colossal gate-way, its long avenues, great stone embankments, terraces, staircases, and groves of ancient trees proclaim its age and endless honors. Stretching over surrounding acres run the yellow walls of its monastery grounds and priests’ houses. The Chioin’s altar is a mass of carved and gilded ornaments surrounding a massive golden shrine, while the ceiling and walls of the vast interior are hardly less splendid. Occasional worshippers kneel in the vast matted hall muttering their prayers, but usually only a solitary old priest is seen industriously hammering at a drum, shaped like a huge, round sleigh-bell. From five o'clock in the morning until the temple closes at four in the afternoon the hard, mechanical thunk, thunk never stops. A nice old woman, who must be a professional mender, judging by her incessant patching and darning of blue-cotton garments, takes care of the shoes while visitors roam through the temple stocking-footed; and proudly does she point out, among the bracketed eaves, the sun-umbrella which the great builder of the temple purposely left there. Back of the main temple are other shrines and suites of reception-rooms, with screens and ceilings decorated by 234