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62 sacred edifice itself, or at least in the courtyard, while those of stone are kept for the grounds. These last are used in any places where stones or rocks might be found, and where they would fit in with their natural surroundings. They are nearly always of the ‘Standard’ type.

There are iron lanterns too, although these are usually hung up, not standing; and porcelain ones, which, from the inharmony of their colouring and composition to their surroundings, are seldom used.

A more lovely effect than that produced by the long lines of stone lanterns at Miyajima would be hard to imagine, with their myriad lights reflected and repeated in the waters of the incoming tide. These lanterns, and those in or about other temples, vary in size from the tiny ones inside the small temples to the huge ones which line the avenues or stand at the doors of the large temples. Some of those at Miyajima, which stand in rows, like troops, fronting the shore, might serve as guardsmen in the lantern army, although most of them would be a good deal more than six feet tall. Then there are giants, in pairs, in various places, that soar as high as eighteen or twenty feet. But as everything in this, as in other directions, is comparative, the height of the lantern is governed by that of the surrounding objects, by the scale of the whole composition. In temple or palace grounds, planned on a big scale, are the great stone or