they smell of butter and fat.'"

In the city of Nagano early in the morning I went to a large Buddhist
temple where the authorities had kindly given me special facilities to
see the treasures--alas! all in a wooden structure. A strange thing
was the preservation untouched of the room in which the Emperor Meiji
rested thirty years ago. May oblivion be one day granted to that awful
chenille table cover and those appalling chairs which outrage the
beautiful woodwork and the golden _tatami_ of a great building! At the
entrance of the temple priests in a kind of open office were reading
the newspaper, playing _gō_ or smoking. More pleasing was the sight of
matting spread right round the temple below its eaves, in order that
weary pilgrims might sleep there, and the spectacle of travel-stained
women tranquilly sleeping or suckling their infants before the shrine
itself. There is a pitch dark underground passage below the floor
round the foundations of the great Buddha, and if the circuit be made
and the lock communicating with the entrance door to the sacred figure
be fortunately touched on the way, paradise, peasants believe, is
assured. I made the circuit a few moments after an old woman and found
the lock, and on returning to the temple with the rustic dame knelt
with her before the shrine as the curtain which veils the big Buddha
was withdrawn. The face of one wooden figure in the temple had been
worn, like that of many another in Japan, with the stroking that it
had received from the ailing faithful.

[Illustration: IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY. p. 142]

[Illustration: GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A WESTERN SCYTHE. p. 367]

I had the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was