Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/99

Rh point of a path; the ‘Shoe-removing Stone’ and the ‘Sword-hanging Stone’ at the house entrance; the ‘Worshipping Stone,’ from which the best and most worshipful view is to be obtained; the ‘Lantern-lighting Stone’; the ‘Water-falling Stone’ beside the water-basin—all explain themselves.

In front of the veranda there is usually an extra big slab, to allow, as I suppose, of several opinions regarding the weather before venturing out to view the latest garden curiosity; and this stone Mr. Tyndale—and I too, in my humbler way—found most useful as a base from which to paint, for it practically always commands a choice view, and yet is sufficiently close to shelter to save oneself and one’s drawing, even at the last moment, from a sudden downpour.

Sometimes two long strips of stone border a flower-bed or overlapping well, of course being so placed for the convenience of flower-gazers. They are rather like the bits of cardboard on which these poetic people write verses, to hang like Orlando’s in the trees, and so are called ‘Label Stones.’ Others, longer and not so wide in proportion, are designated ‘Obi Stones’—‘obi’ being, of course, the indispensable sash of the whole nation.

This is but a meagre list of the many stones used in a Japanese garden, for wherever the ‘art of utility,’ if I may so call it, demands