Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/272

178 old home in the South when, a light, slim child, I had climbed up through the close, scratchy branches of an old Hawthorn tree, until I lay as in a prickly cradle on the flowering top itself. Then I loved the big Buddha who had revived that feeling of Nirvana-like rest after the thorns and struggles of my climb, and I love him still, though a snake entered my Eden, the serpent into Paradise. Now, I am really afraid of only one thing on earth, and that is a snake, my loathing for which approaches idiocy. When a child, if I but touched the picture of a snake, in turning a page, I would run and wash my hands. So when, after my descent from the Buddha, still dreaming, I flung myself down in the flickering shadows on a grassy bank, a big fat snake glided away beside my hands, I shot up in the air with a shriek that must have resounded from the metal god, with horror. One of our party was an ex-naval officer who served in South America, where a reptile is first killed and then examined afterwards to see if it is of a safe or dangerous sort. So, while I still yelled, he dispatched the worm of Buddha with his stick. As every one knows, Buddhists are forbidden to take life of any sort, and, as my noise had attracted every priest and acolyte in the country to the spot, it looked as if we should have some complicated explanations to make. But human nature was stronger than faith, in these people, and the natural aversion