His curiosity
evidently shortened his devotions, and he came and asked me where I
had been and where I was going, to which, of course, I replied in
excellent Japanese, and then stuck fast.
Along the paved avenue, besides the usual stone trough for holy
water, there are on one side the thousand-armed Kwan-non, a very
fine relief, and on the other a Buddha, throned on the eternal
lotus blossom, with an iron staff, much resembling a crozier, in
his hand, and that eternal apathy on his face which is the highest
hope of those who hope at all. I went through a wood, where there
are some mournful groups of graves on the hillside, and from the
temple came the sweet sound of the great bronze bell and the beat
of the big drum, and then, more faintly, the sound of the little
bell and drum, with which the priest accompanies his ceaseless
repetition of a phrase in the dead tongue of a distant land. There
is an infinite pathos about the lonely temple in its splendour, the
absence of even possible worshippers, and the large population of
Ainos, sunk in yet deeper superstitions than those which go to make
up popular Buddhism. I sat on a rock by the bay till the last pink
glow faded from Usu-taki and the last lemon stain from the still
water; and a beautiful crescent, which hung over the wooded hill,
had set, and the heavens blazed with stars:
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