Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/282

184 we had in the little wooden money-box as offerings, when we told him what the old woman hoped his act might do for her son. It was all we could do to keep her from carrying the child on her back up the remaining three miles to the top, so grateful was she. Indeed, I doubt if we could have dissuaded her if the laws of hospitality had not prevailed. Himself declaring his intention of awaiting our return at her little rest-house, and being in instant need of tea.

I wish I had the space—speaking of rest-houses—to describe the little garden on the bleak mountain-side of Fuji which I saw there when I made a memorable ascent years ago. The people who open these places are only allowed there for a few weeks in the summer, but, in spite of that, in the very cinders halfway up the old couple who gave out tea to pilgrims had managed to place some evergreen shrubs, had cultivated the white Fuji flower (not Wistaria) that grows in the ashes, and had some Reeds and grasses in a jar. In that desolation, as of death, there was life and greenness, and the joy in beauty.

Of private gardens it seems invidious to speak in particular, where, from rich and poor, I have been given of their best. One of the most splendid I have seen was at Uraga, a great park-like place, a hill garden, well watered, with cascade and brook and a little lake, trained