Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/178

116 being simple stones of a good shape, roughly hollowed out to hold water. These usually have a wooden lid, to keep the water inside cool and clean, and to guard it from the chance pollution of a falling leaf or a flying insect. Those made in the shape of bowls, jars, vases, or pillars (square or round), generally have a top too, but of a sort more suitable to their shape.

Some shapes of the fantastic sort are frankly ugly. I can concede no claim except that of quaintness to those basins which are shaped like Fujiyama, the adored, whose crater forms the well, and whose cone is sawed off ridiculously, in order to make the water easily reached. As for the ‘half-moon bridges,’ and some other designs, I cannot understand how such artistic people as the Japanese can endure them. They are as hideous and absurd as are the china slippers and ladies’ boots of porcelain that one sometimes sees used for flowers in old-fashioned houses at home, or as the little alabaster models of the ‘Taj’ which I saw offered for sale, as pendants, in India. It is the more generally approved plain and classic shapes towards which my enthusiasm is directed.

Frequently these basins have water running in, over, and out again, where there is a stream of any sort on the premises; in which case, of course, no top is necessary. This type is very