Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/252

166 pagodas, shrines, and tiny houses, securely cemented in, while porcelain people wandered everywhere, in defiance of all Chinese laws, in the neighbourhood of toy tigers. It seemed as if the gallant artists would prove that there, at any rate, their people were brave and valorous. Sometimes, my informant said, they planted grass and little ferns and sprigs of trees about, and brought up a microscopic rill of water to form a cascade or a lake, but the models I saw had no such fancy touches, and, except for the gay colours of the porcelain accessories, all was of the hue of putty—the natural shade of the coral rock.

From this primitive type which has not advanced in China the Japanese have evolved their exquisite art.

The Japanese Hachi Niwa, even of the commonest sort, which may be sold for a sum smaller than itself at a fair, is, however, a far better specimen of landscape gardening in a tea-plate than this. Others are veritable gems of art of their kind, and are expensive out of all proportion to their size. Some of these are most artistic, though I confess I have never had the passion for them which many foreigners evince, and I cannot understand how dignified statesmen and men of letters in Japan can take such an interest in them. It is said that the great artist Hiroshige so loved this diminutive art that he went to the trouble of designing a book