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You do not see the Dai-Butsu as you enter the grounds of his long- vanished temple, and proceed along a paved path across stretches of lawn; great trees hide him. But very suddenly, at a turn, he comes into full view and you start! No matter how many photographs of the colossus you may have already seen, this first vision of the reality is an astonishment.
He was scarcely thinking of the half-caste girl who clung tightly to his neck. Yaé had no interest in the Dai-Butsu except as a grand background for love-making, a good excuse for hand squeezings and ecstatic movements. She had tried it once before with her school-master lover. It never occurred to her that Geoffrey was in any way different from her other admirers.
The fertilizing process is strictly observed and appreciated here, being the enrichment of the soil almost universally applied in liquid form. A trip to Kamakura, fifteen or eighteen miles from Yokohama, and near where is located the wonderful statue of Dai-Butsu, was one affording much satisfaction.
This rude piece of sculpture is fifty feet in height and otherwise duly proportioned, vividly recalling the mammoth bronze statue of Dai-Butsu at Kamakura, in Japan, which is nearly sixty feet in height, though it is represented in a sitting position. Within this statue fifty people can stand together, the interior being fitted like a chapel.
Warmth rose from the sleeping earth; and a breeze blew in from the sea, making a strange metallic rustling, which to Japanese ears is the sweetest natural music, in the gaunt sloping pine-trees, whose height in the semi-darkness was exaggerated to monstrous and threatening proportions. Geoffrey felt a little hand in his, warm and moist. "Shall we go and see Dai-Butsu?" said Yaé.
Notwithstanding its mutilated condition, showing the furrows of time, the features have still a sad, tranquil expression, the whole reminding us, in its apparent purpose, of the great bronze image Dai-Butsu at Kamakura, though it is some five thousand years older, at least, than the Japanese figure.
A trip of fifteen miles from Yokohama will take us to the town of Kamakura, where we find the remarkable idol of Dai-Butsu. This great Buddha image, composed of gold, silver, and copper, forms a bronze figure of nearly sixty feet in height, within which a hundred persons may stand together, the interior being fitted at the base as a small chapel.
Six Shoguns, members of the Tokugawa family, lie buried at Ueno. In general style the tombs here resemble those at Shiba Park. There are many objects of interest in Ueno Park other than its temples. One is the bronze image of Buddha, twenty-one and a half feet high, known as Dai-butsu, near which is a massive torii. We passed along an avenue of stately cryptomerias where stands an ancient pagoda.
Were not the groves God's first temples? Guide-books have not yet invaded the far East, or we should be told how many square inches of bronze is contained in the Dai-Butsu figure, and how many ounces it weighs; statistics concerning which we felt a most sublime indifference, while we gazed upon its combined and wonderful effect.
Geoffrey had no idea who Dai-Butsu might be, but he gladly agreed. She fluttered on beside him with her long kimono sleeves like a big moth. Geoffrey's head was full of wine and waltz tunes. They dived into a narrow street with dwellings on each side. Some of the houses were shuttered and silent.
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