Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/323

 Inari, the great temple of the fox-god, and we came out on the plain beyond Fushimi; then an irregular, hilly country, green with ancient pine and bamboo groves, every open valley and hill-side set with low, green mounds of tea-bushes; sandy, white roads, clear rushing streams, and we were in the heart of Uji, the finest tea district of Japan.

Groups of bobbing hats beside the tea-bushes, carts loaded with sacks and baskets of tea-leaves; trays of toasting tea-leaves within every door-way, a delicate rose-like fragrance in the air; women and children sorting the crop in every village; and this was the tea season in its height. Here were bushes two and three hundred years old yielding every year their certain harvest, and whole hill-sides covered with matted awnings to keep from scorching or toughening in the hot sun those delicate young leaves, which are destined to become the costly and exquisite teas chosen by the sovereign and his richest subjects.

Then we toiled up bush-covered steeps to cross elevated river-beds; rode through towered floodgates of dry watercourses, down to the green plain their lost waters had fed; through village streets, and past many a picturesque tateba, in one of which stood a little yellow Cupid in the sunshine that filtered through a wistaria trellis; and so on through ever-changing country scenes to the famous view of Nara’s temples, trees, and pagodas.

Nara! A mountain-side covered with giant trees bound together by vines and old creepers; an ancient forest seamed with broad avenues, where the sunlight falls in patches and deer lie drowsing in the fern; double and triple lines of moss-covered stone lanterns massing themselves together, their green tops dim in the dense shadow; temples twelve centuries old; the booming of bells, and the music of running water. 307