raised in his honour, the dust of Iyeyasu sleeps in an unadorned
but Cyclopean tomb of stone and bronze, surmounted by a bronze urn.
In front is a stone table decorated with a bronze incense-burner, a
vase with lotus blossoms and leaves in brass, and a bronze stork
bearing a bronze candlestick in its mouth. A lofty stone wall,
surmounted by a balustrade, surrounds the simple but stately
enclosure, and cryptomeria of large size growing up the back of the
hill create perpetual twilight round it. Slant rays of sunshine
alone pass through them, no flower blooms or bird sings, only
silence and mournfulness surround the grave of the ablest and
greatest man that Japan has produced.

Impressed as I had been with the glorious workmanship in wood,
bronze, and lacquer, I scarcely admired less the masonry of the
vast retaining walls, the stone gallery, the staircase and its
balustrade, all put together without mortar or cement, and so
accurately fitted that the joints are scarcely affected by the
rain, damp, and aggressive vegetation of 260 years. The steps of
the staircase are fine monoliths, and the coping at the side, the
massive balustrade, and the heavy rail at the top, are cut out of
solid blocks of stone from 10 to 18 feet in length. Nor is the
workmanship of the great granite cistern for holy water less
remarkable. It is so carefully adjusted on its bed that the water
brought from a neighbouring cascade rises and pours over each edge
in such carefully equalised columns that, as Mr. Satow says, "it
seems to be a solid block of water rather than a piece of stone."

The temples of Iyemitsu are close to those of Iyeyasu, and though
somewhat less magnificent are even more bewildering, as they are
still in Buddhist hands, and are crowded with the gods of the