clanging of the temple gong, each clang the signal of an offering and a
prayer. Doubtless a cataract of cash is pouring into the great alms-
chest; for to-night is the Festival of Yakushi-Nyorai, the Physician of
Souls. Borne to the steps at last, I find myself able to halt a moment,
despite the pressure of the throng, before the stand of a lantern-seller
selling the most beautiful lanterns that I have ever seen. Each is a
gigantic lotus-flower of paper, so perfectly made in every detail as to
seem a great living blossom freshly plucked; the petals are crimson at
their bases, paling to white at their tips; the calyx is a faultless
mimicry of nature, and beneath it hangs a beautiful fringe of paper
cuttings, coloured with the colours of the flower, green below the
calyx, white in the middle, crimson at the ends. In the heart of the
blossom is set a microscopic oil-lamp of baked clay; and this being
lighted, all the flower becomes luminous, diaphanous--a lotus of white
and crimson fire. There is a slender gilded wooden hoop by which to hang
it up, and the price is four cents! How can people afford to make such
things for four cents, even in this country of astounding cheapness?

Akira is trying to tell me something about the hyaku-hachino-mukaebi,
the Hundred and Eight Fires, to be lighted to-morrow evening, which bear
some figurative relation unto the Hundred and Eight Foolish Desires; but
I cannot hear him for the clatter of the geta and the komageta, the
wooden clogs and wooden sandals of the worshippers ascending to the
shrine of Yakushi-Nyorai. The light straw sandals of the poorer men, the
zori and the waraji, are silent; the great clatter is really made by the
delicate feet of women and girls, balancing themselves carefully upon
their noisy geta. And most of these little feet are clad with spotless
tabi, white as a white lotus. White feet of little blue-robed mothers
they mostly are--mothers climbing patiently and smilingly, with pretty
placid babies at their backs, up the hill to Buddha.