Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/325

 stag lumbers forward and nibbles from their hands. Moving at leisure, these deer have a stiff, wooden gait, and seem badly-proportioned animals. It is when one leaps and bounds down some avenue, or across a clearing, that it shows its grace. The gentleness of these Nara pets is due, of course, to the long immunity from violence enjoyed by their race, beloved and protected by gods and men. Only once have they ever been harmed, and that blow was dealt by a young Japanese convert to Christianity, who struck at them as emblems of heathenism!

The atmosphere of Nara is serene and gentle—the true atmosphere of Japan. The priests are quiet, courteous old men, and the little priestesses, soft-footed and tranquil, dance in a slow succession of dignified poses. The Kasuga temple is a very cathedral of Shintoism, a place of many court-yards, surrounded by gates, and buildings painted bright Shinto red, with sacred straw ropes and symbolical bits of rice-paper hanging before the open doors. Venerable cryptomeria-trees, worthy of a California grove, stretch the great buttresses of their roots over the ground of the court-yard, and one thatched roof lovingly embraces the trunk of a crooked old tree that almost rests on it. Wistaria vines, thick, gnarled, and lichen-covered with the growth of years, hang in giant festoons from the trees, roll in curves and loops over the ground, and, climbing to the top of the tallest pines, hang their clusters of pale-green leaves like blossoms against the dark evergreens. A giant trunk, from which grow branches of the camellia, cherry, plum, wild ivy, wistaria and nandina, is a perpetual marvel. All through the woods the wistaria runs wild, leaps from tree to tree, and ties and knots itself in titanic coils.

In such lovely scenes the Kasuga priests lead an ideal existence. They marry, they raise families; their little daughters perform the sacred dance in the temple for a 309