Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/111

Rh shapes which are suitable for placing near buildings, but many modifications, as well as the regular temple variety, are to be seen in private grounds.

The other distinct type differs radically from the Standard in that it is short and very broad-topped, and has three—sometimes four—feet (they can hardly be called legs, since they are so short). This is the mushroom design before referred to, and is much admired in the central parts of Japan, where snow in winter reveals its beauty. It is employed, therefore, in the more rural parts of the garden, with rocks and shrubs about, and nearly always with a Pine tree drooping over it, so that in winter the ‘flowers of the snow’ adorn them together. Personally, at all times of the year I find these lanterns enchanting, and far better suited to the intimacy of a small garden than the tall and impressive ones can ever be.

Then there are other sorts, hardly more than two stones set one on top of a second, with the inside of the upper one roughly chipped out for holding its little light. These might almost as well be placed in the list of stones. Dozens of them are to be seen in the weird desolation of Oji Goku, or Owaji Dani, near Miyanoshita, and it is as if the Brocken Top scene from Faust had been transferred to the Bad Lands of Japan, and the elves and gnomes were there, crouching dwarfed figures in stone.