Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/125

Rh bamboo fences are to be seen, sometimes reaching up fifteen or even twenty feet. This, for the owner of the little garden, is a veritable house wall, and is only employed to ensure great privacy; so good taste dictates (as well as kindness towards the people who would have to pass, or to look at it from the other side) that this dull, blank surface should be broken and beautified by working the bamboo in patterns and by the introduction of round or square openings, like little latticed windows, part of the way up. When these are left open, as is occasionally done, a flowering tree, a Bamboo, or perhaps a Pine of just the right shape, is trained to act as the picture behind the frame, or maybe to thrust a graceful arm through, as if to wave its hand to those beyond the pale. More often, however, the opening is filled in, wholly or in part, with a delicately patterned fretwork of bamboo. This gives an almost Indian look to the spot, although no buildings in Japan have the air of permanent stability that those in India have. Even when these lunettes are elaborated with open-work traceries in this way, behind them still may be seen, through the little openings, the well-trained trees of the garden inside. These are more common in Kyoto and the central part of Japan than they are farther North, in Tokio and Yokohama, but it is only in crowded districts that they are to be seen even there.