Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/475

 tIXT 29, 1885.1

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��spirals, coiled together, filling the area of a circle. They are emblematic of the positive and negative eSBencea of Chinese philosophy. Above them is the representation of tongues of flame. All this tj-pifies the power of the king, joined, since the nation espoused the morality of Confucius, with a reverence for the sage. As the name implies, the whole is painted a bright red, which, in Korea, ia the kingly color. Its height is from thirty to forty feet.

Its situation is striking. It i-ises by itself in solitarj- grandeur. It is not connected with

��least, passers-by do the king homage. Hut this is simply because the sti-eet is the natural approach. In the rural districts, where the street is wider, the portal's span of twenty feet can only occupy the centre, while the thorough- fare is as much around as under it. And yet BO compelling is ceremonial that no one would think of entering save beneath its arch ; and in Japan it is counted little short of sacrilege by properly superstitious persons, on their way to the temple or the shrine, to avoid it bj- going around.

���either walls or buildings. It stands alone and apart. Nor has it any particular position as- signed it. It may stand near to, or far from, the shrine or the magistracy to which it leads. Placed only at a respectful distance, it fulfils but the one condition, — that it shall face what it foretells. It is there to direct the thought as mucli as to impress the mind. In Japan, where certain mountains are sacred, and wor- shipped as shrines, it is often met with tens of miles away fVom what it heralds ; alone in the midst of nature, on the top of some high mountain pass, over which lies the road, and from whose summit the pilgrim catches the first view of the desired goal, framed in like a picture between its {xists. In Korea it com- monly spans the street; so that, in so far at

��Its discovery In Korea is further interesting as supplying another presumption, amounting almost to proof, in favor of the opinion ex- pressed by Mr. Chamberlain of Tokio, that the ordinarily received meaning of the Japanese name for it, (oni( 'bird's rest' ), is erroneous. This is the meaning of the Chinese characters by which it is at present expressed. But though these are the only direct and positive evidence in the matter, they are nevertheless but prima ftxcie proof. The Japanese lan- guage existed before ever the Cliinese ideo- graphs were adopted to write it, and therefore the ideographs with which any word is now written are only evidence of what was con- sidered to be the meaning of that word at the time they were adopted. There is always be.

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