avenue are lines of booths--which make a brilliant and lavish
display of their contents--toy-shops, shops for smoking apparatus,
and shops for the sale of ornamental hair-pins predominating.
Nearer the gate are booths for the sale of rosaries for prayer,
sleeve and bosom idols of brass and wood in small shrines, amulet
bags, representations of the jolly-looking Daikoku, the god of
wealth, the most popular of the household gods of Japan, shrines,
memorial tablets, cheap ex votos, sacred bells, candlesticks, and
incense-burners, and all the endless and various articles connected
with Buddhist devotion, public and private. Every day is a
festival-day at Asakusa; the temple is dedicated to the most
popular of the great divinities; it is the most popular of
religious resorts; and whether he be Buddhist, Shintoist, or
Christian, no stranger comes to the capital without making a visit
to its crowded courts or a purchase at its tempting booths. Not to
be an exception, I invested in bouquets of firework flowers, fifty
flowers for 2 sen, or 1d., each of which, as it slowly consumes,
throws off fiery coruscations, shaped like the most beautiful of
snow crystals. I was also tempted by small boxes at 2 sen each,
containing what look like little slips of withered pith, but which,
on being dropped into water, expand into trees and flowers.

Down a paved passage on the right there is an artificial river, not
over clean, with a bridge formed of one curved stone, from which a
flight of steps leads up to a small temple with a magnificent
bronze bell. At the entrance several women were praying. In the
same direction are two fine bronze Buddhas, seated figures, one
with clasped hands, the other holding a lotus, both with "The light
of the world" upon their brows. The grand red gateway into the
actual temple courts has an extremely imposing effect, and besides,