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Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird
page 36 of 383 (09%)
green devil, an indigo blue monster tramples on a sky-blue fiend,
and a bright pink monster treads under his clawed feet a flesh-
coloured demon. I cannot give you any idea of the hideousness of
their aspect, and was much inclined to sympathise with the more
innocent-looking fiends whom they were maltreating. They occur
very frequently in Buddhist temples, and are said by some to be
assistant-torturers to Yemma, the lord of hell, and are called by
others "The gods of the Four Quarters."

The temple grounds are a most extraordinary sight. No English fair
in the palmiest days of fairs ever presented such an array of
attractions. Behind the temple are archery galleries in numbers,
where girls, hardly so modest-looking as usual, smile and smirk,
and bring straw-coloured tea in dainty cups, and tasteless
sweetmeats on lacquer trays, and smoke their tiny pipes, and offer
you bows of slender bamboo strips, two feet long, with rests for
the arrows, and tiny cherry-wood arrows, bone-tipped, and feathered
red, blue, and white, and smilingly, but quite unobtrusively, ask
you to try your skill or luck at a target hanging in front of a
square drum, flanked by red cushions. A click, a boom, or a hardly
audible "thud," indicate the result. Nearly all the archers were
grown-up men, and many of them spend hours at a time in this
childish sport.

All over the grounds booths with the usual charcoal fire, copper
boiler, iron kettle of curious workmanship, tiny cups, fragrant
aroma of tea, and winsome, graceful girls, invite you to drink and
rest, and more solid but less inviting refreshments are also to be
had. Rows of pretty paper lanterns decorate all the stalls. Then
there are photograph galleries, mimic tea-gardens, tableaux in
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