Japanese foot has the antique symmetry: it has not yet been distorted by
the infamous foot-gear which has deformed the feet of Occidentals. Of
every pair of Japanese wooden clogs, one makes in walking a slightly
different sound from the other, as kring to krang; so that the echo of
the walker's steps has an alternate rhythm of tones. On a pavement, such
as that of a railway station, the sound obtains immense sonority; and a
crowd will sometimes intentionally fall into step, with the drollest
conceivable result of drawling wooden noise.

6

'Tera e yuke!'

I have been obliged to return to the European hotel--not because of the
noon-meal, as I really begrudge myself the time necessary to eat it, but
because I cannot make Cha understand that I want to visit a Buddhist
temple. Now Cha understands; my landlord has uttered the mystical words:
'Tera e yuke!'

A few minutes of running along broad thoroughfares lined with gardens
and costly ugly European buildings; then passing the bridge of a canal
stocked with unpainted sharp-prowed craft of extraordinary construction,
we again plunge into narrow, low, bright pretty streets--into another
part of the Japanese city. And Cha runs at the top of his speed between
more rows of little ark-shaped houses, narrower above than below;
between other unfamiliar lines of little open shops. And always over the
shops little strips of blue-tiled roof slope back to the paper-screened
chamber of upper floors; and from all the facades hang draperies dark
blue, or white, or crimson--foot-breadths of texture covered with
beautiful Japanese lettering, white on blue, red on black, black on