Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/251

 artists, and quiet corners where abbot and priest may sit and look upon the exquisite little gardens.

If I were a good Buddhist I should say a prayer or two to the Chioin’s great bell, an inverted cup of bronze eighteen feet in height, breathing music so sweet that it thrills the listener, and ringing so seldom that no one willingly misses its voice. This bell hangs by itself in a shady place at the top of a long stone staircase, and is struck from the outside by a swinging wooden beam that brings out soft reverberations without jar or clang. This huge hammer is unchained on rare days of the month at the sunrise hour, and in the stillness of dawn one cannot tell whence the sound comes. It is in the whole air; under one’s feet, or tingling and beating within one’s body, while yet the ear seems to drink in the very ecstasy of sound.

About Nanjenji’s lofty gate-way are clustering tea-bushes, and between its ancient shrine, its tombs, and picturesque bell-tower modern engineering has brought the aqueduct from Lake Biwa, the long tunnel emerging from the hill-side back of the buildings. Further on are Iyekando, with its lotus lake and verdant cemetery; Niyakuoji’s pretty garden and cascade; and Shishigatami, Shinniodo, and Yoshida, each with its distinctive charm and interest.

The way from these sacred places, passing through the potters’ district of Awata, and coming suddenly out on a level of rice fields, with Kurodani’s pagoda and grove rising like an island from their midst, has been likened to the abrupt transportation from Rome to the Campagna. Kurodani is a beautiful old sanctuary, and the steep hill on which stands its great pagoda is an ideal Buddhist burial-ground. Tombs, stone tablets, and lanterns, and hundreds of images of Buddha, in stone and bronze, crowd against each other, and some priest or pilgrim, ever picturesque, is always moving up or down the broad gray staircase. 235