Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/134

 which swarms of tiny frogs were hopping. Everything—excepting the potato-patches—seemed to have been neglected for years. In a shed just within the gate, we observed a woman cooking; and my companion presumed to ask her if she knew anything about the tombs described in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.

“Ah! the tombs of O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné?” she responded, smiling;—“you will find them near the end of the first row at the back of the temple—next to the statue of Jizō.”

Surprises of this kind I had met with elsewhere in Japan.

We picked our way between the rain-pools and between the green ridges of young potatoes,—whose roots were doubtless feeding on the substance of many another O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné;—and we reached at last two lichen-eaten tombs of which the inscriptions seemed almost obliterated. Beside the larger tomb was a statue of Jizō, with a broken nose.

“The characters are not easy to make out,” said my friend—“but wait!” … He drew from his sleeve a sheet of soft white paper, laid it over the inscription, and began to rub the paper with a lump of clay. As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.