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The town itself is a quaint collection of castle-like turrets of the most fantastical architecture; of ancient viharas; of wooden fortresses, so gaily painted that they look like toys; of pagodas, with loopholes and overhanging curved little balconies; and all this over-grown by such abundance of roses, dahlias, aloes and blossoming cactuses, that it is hardly possible to tell a door from a window.
In the fourth year of Tai-ei, one Amako Tsune Hisa, becoming Lord of Izumo, committed the great temple to the charge of a Buddhist priest, and even built pagodas about it, to the outrage of the holy traditions. But when the Amako family were succeeded by Moro Mototsugo, this latter purified the temple, and restored the ancient festivals and ceremonies which before had been neglected.
Yves treats my wife as if she were a plaything, and continually assures me that she is charming. I find her as exasperating as the cicalas on my roof; and when I am alone at home, side by side with this little creature twanging the strings of her long-necked guitar, facing this marvellous panorama of pagodas and mountains, I am overcome by sadness almost to tears. July 13th.
But the splendor of apparent architectural creations arrests the eye. "Solomon's Temple," the "Temple of Vishnu," and altars, minarets, towers, pagodas, colonnades, as if designed by architectural art, lie grouped in wonderful combinations of form and color.
These boats the "San-pan," or boat of this country are used expressly for the conveyance of passengers and their effects, and are kept scrupulously clean for that purpose. They pull from three to six oars, according to their size. Passed two Pagodas, each of nine stories, and made a romantic cut-off, via Lob Creek.
Generally, such impetuous summoning foreboded an interview the reverse of agreeable. The sun had set in glory below the red horizon when I entered the extensive range of monastic buildings that adjoin the temple. Wide tracts of waving corn and avenues of oleanders screened from view the distant city, with its pagodas and palaces.
It was a charming room, that could not be equalled in the whole world. It was crammed full of Japanese sunshades and armour, miniature pagodas from India, bows and lances from Australia, nigger drums and dried flying fish, sugar cane and opium pipes. Papa, whose hair was growing thin at the top, did not feel very happy outside his own four walls.
But when Cousin Annie was gone, Sukey found the Flats a dreary place. She wished there were some pagodas, such as they have in India, or that there were some cannibals living near her. She thought if she were rich, she would buy an omnibus, with four "blaze-faced" sorrel horses, to drive for her own amusement.
The building is situated in a striking position and commands a view of the entire city. The two-storied gateway at the top of the steps was restored in 1897. Outside this gate are two pagodas, each three-storied, and the large green bell, dating from 1624. We then passed up through a colonnade to the main temple, whose rough, hewn columns and bare floor are most unusual.
As we approached the city we could see dimly outlined against the foothills the slender shafts of three ancient pagodas. They were erected to the feng-shui, the spirits of the "earth, wind, and water," and for fifteen hundred years have stood guard over the stone graves which, in countless thousands, are spread along the foot of the mountains like a vast gray blanket.
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