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Then a flying vision of open lamp-lighted shop- fronts, and lines of luminous shoji under high-tilted eaves, and Buddhist gateways guarded by lions of stone, and long, low, tile-coped walls of temple courts overtopped by garden shrubbery, and Shinto shrines prefaced by other tall torii; but no sign of the great temple itself.
But it being necessary to simulate trust in Mori and Ukita, then nominally his supporters, he placed in Momo-yama Castle a garrison of only two thousand men under his old and staunch friend, Torii Mototada.
Passing the torii I ascend a flight of perhaps one hundred stone steps, and find at their summit a second torii, from whose lower cross-beam hangs festooned the mystic shimenawa. It is in this case a hempen rope of perhaps two inches in diameter through its greater length, but tapering off at either end like a snake.
The approach to Miyajima, as we crossed the lake, gave us a fine first impression, the great torii standing boldly forth from its watery base; the stone lanterns in the foreground; the temple seen dimly through the green; and the thickly wooded hills in the background all added greatly to the landscape.
Geoffrey had read enough by now to recognize the gateway as a "torii"; a religious symbol in Japan which always announces the neighbourhood of a shrine. It is a common feature of the country-side, as familiar as the crucifix in Catholic lands.
In front, on the slope of golden sand, its base bathed by the tiny waves, stood the torii, the wooden archway which is Japan's universal religious symbol. Its message is that of the Wicket Gate in the Pilgrim's Progress. There was plenty of breeze. The boat shot down the length of the lake at a delicious speed. "Let's go and see the waterfall," suggested Yaé, "it's only a few minutes."
I am agreeably surprised to find, as we pass again under a magnificent bronze torii which I admired the night before, that the approaches to the temple lose very little of their imposing character when seen for the first time by sunlight.
It was impossible to rebuild the temple, as the disestablishment of Buddhism had entirely destroyed the resources of that faith in Oki. But the peasantry of Tsubamezato had built a little Shinto miya on the sight of the temple, with a torii before it, and people still prayed there to Agonaoshi-Jizo.
For his use alone a special bathing house has been built upon a ledge of the cliff overhanging the little settlement of Inasa: it is approached by a narrow pathway shadowed by pine-trees; and there is a torii before it, and shimenawa.
We moor in front of the great temple, the Miojinja. Its great paved avenue slopes to the water's edge, where boats are also moored at steps of stone; and looking up the broad approach, one sees a grand stone torii, and colossal stone lanterns, and two magnificent sculptured lions, karashishi, seated upon lofty pedestals, and looking down upon the people from a height of fifteen feet or more.
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