Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/175

Rh a long bamboo, with a wooden bucket tied on the end, with which one jabs at the water, as if one were scooping up crabs; but usually it is a delightful affair of a rope over a pulley, with a bucket tied at each end. The pulley must, of course, have a cross-beam support to hold it in position over the well, and sometimes a leaning tree is utilized for this. The tree then becomes trebly useful, as it acts as support, as cover, and as decoration.

The buckets are simply and chastely shaped, usually round, and taller than ours are, with the handle a continuation of the middle staves carried up, and a wooden cross-piece on top. The design is so pretty and so popular that it is used for many other articles, such as jardinières and flower-holders. These buckets, strange to relate, should not be moss-bound or old-looking. New and beautifully white wood, unpainted, is used, and must be often renewed, or at least constantly cleaned and scrubbed, to keep them so bright and fresh-looking. This is, of course, owing to the national passion for cleanliness, and perhaps a little because the artistic eye of the Japanese dwells lovingly on the beautiful graining of their woods. In the many parts of Japan where sulphur is found in the water, that substance has dyed the wood the most lovely and varying shades of silvery amethyst, and the buckets look as if made of the rarest of grained and coloured stone.