Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/113

Rh or iron filigree work, in semi-conventional flower designs. Sometimes glowing silk, of the brilliant living colours known only in Japan, is put inside as a lining to the open-work bronze. They struck me as being very well suited for hall or vestibule hanging lamps; but I found, when trying to adapt them to the high rooms in the Hong-Kong houses, that they did not furnish enough light. They would be decorative in low-ceiled rooms more like those of Japanese houses, however, where their beauty of detail would be brought nearer to the eye.

But whether lanterns are architecturally fine, or left in the rough, whether they are of stone or of wood, of bronze or of iron, they should bear the marks of age. And it is truly wonderful how quickly young ones can be made to appear venerable in this moist and artistic country. All sorts of methods, it is true, are resorted to in order to age them. The stone ones are smeared with bird-lime, or the slime of snails, which attracts and encourages a pretty white lichen, and turns them from babes into old men with bleached heads in only a few months’ time. If the owners are in a still greater hurry to get the effect, they gum on mosses and lichens. If there is no haste, or if the stone has already put on its pretty green and gold velvet cap, it is carefully watered every day. It is droll to see this watering done, and to note with what