Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/263

 recesses, quaint windows, curious lattices, and richly-panelled ceilings constitute its adornments. All the wonderful kakemonos, vases, and curios were stored in godowns when the Emperor left Kioto, and the seals have not since been broken. On the screens in the private apartments are many autograph poems, written by court poets or imperial improvisators. The tea-rooms and the garden tea-houses show how important were the long-drawn ceremonies of cha no yu in those leisurely days of the past.

The courts surrounding the state apartments are sanded quadrangles, their surfaces scratched over in fine patterns by the gardeners’ bamboo rakes for the easy detection of strange footprints. In the court-yard before the old audience hall a cherry-tree, a wild orange-tree, and a sacred bamboo, all emblematic, grow at either side of the broad steps. In the middle of the wide, temple-like apartment commanding this court stands the sacred white throne of past centuries, a square tent or canopy of white silk, with rich red borders at the edges of the overlapping curtains. Two antique Chinese dogs guard the throne. On New-year’s Day, and at rare intervals when the Emperor gave audience to his vassal jailer, the Shogun, he sat on a silk cushion within the closed tent, and only his voice was heard, speaking in the quavering, long-drawn tones still used by the actors in the No dance. The imperial princes stood at either side of the throne, the kugé and officials of the highest rank knelt on the steps, and the lowest officials in attendance, the jige or “down to the earth” subjects, prostrated themselves on the sands of the court, while the mournful and muffled tones of the sacred voice sounded.

When the Emperor gave his first audiences after the Restoration, in 1868, he occupied a newer throne in the Shishinden, a large audience hall with a lofty ceiling 247