Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/261

Rh was accomplished. As they climbed the broad avenue, lined with little booths, at which were sold rosaries, candles, breviaries, incense, toys, and sweetmeats, Beauregard realised for the first time what vast influence is still wielded in Japan by the Buddhist faith. Hundreds of pilgrims, in curiously-patterned white dresses and palmer hats, moved with chatter and laughter towards the chief gateway. On the left of the entrance stands a nunnery, ruled by an abbess of high rank, and those who cross a graceful bridge to enter it find themselves between two large ponds of pink-flowered and white-flowered lotos, about the roots of which crawl sacred tortoises. Where the shops end an avenue of gods extends upto the main temple. Not only Monju and Shi Tenno and images of the chief rakan or disciples of Buddha alternate with lanterns of bronze or stone, but the six Jizō, elsewhere so humbly carved in common wood, sit proudly prominent in white marble. O Maru had bought a packet of rice, some sticks of incense, and a little rosary, whose beads were daintily strung on purple cord. Beauregard took off his shoes and followed her into the main temple. In that enormous building, two hundred feet in depth by one hundred in width, the huge outlines of gilded gods glimmered darkly, while rustling priests moved to and fro on mysterious errands. From the multitudinous rafters, whose number, 69,384, is said to correspond with the number of Chinese characters in the Buddhist scriptures, pigeons flew continually, and the flutter of their wings, together with the jingle of copper rin tossed lightly into the money-box, accompanied, without distracting, the low mutter of perpetual prayer. When O Maru approached one of the priests with her filial