Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/354

 well known as its industries, and its jinrikisha runners are reckoned the swiftest in the empire. The latter spin over the stone-paved streets and bridges and round corners at a terrifying pace, all for six cents an hour, and usually speed the departing guest to the station early enough to allow him a half-hour at the little tea-houses in the park, to eat cubes of the superlative Osaka sponge-cake. The maiko and geisha of this southern capital are renowned for their grace, beauty, and wit; their taste in arranging the obi and dressing the hair; their cleverness in inventing new dances; and the entertainments in which they figure, under the lanterned awnings of the house-boats as they float up and down the river at night, are unique among such fêtes.

There are many rich and splendid temples in Osaka that seem to have suffered little since the protection of the Shogun and the court were withdrawn. Osaka, Tokio, and Kioto, the three capitals, are the three religious centres; and the Buddhist establishments, the extensive yellow-walled monastery grounds in the district beyond the Osaka castle are worthy of a capital. The numbers of priests in the streets, the thousands of summer pilgrims, and the scores of shops for the sale of temple ornaments, altar furnishings, rosaries, and brocade triangles for the shelf of household images, give a certain sacerdotal aspect to the busy town. One temple possesses many relics of the Forty-seven Ronins, and at its annual matsuri, when these are exhibited, the surrounding courts are almost impassable with the crowds and the merry fair. The twin Monto temples are splendid structures, and priests from the Kioto Hongwanjis often assist in their ceremonials.

As one approaches Osaka from Kara, Tennoji's roofs and pagoda are seen at the same moment with the castle towers. This pagoda is one of the few in Japan which visitors are allowed to climb, and contains enough wood 338