Advancing beyond this torii, I find myself in a sort of park or
pleasure-ground on the summit of the hill. There is a small temple on
the right; it is all closed up; and I have read so much about the
disappointing vacuity of Shinto temples that I do not regret the absence
of its guardian. And I see before me what is infinitely more
interesting,--a grove of cherry-trees covered with something
unutterably beautiful,--a dazzling mist of snowy blossoms clinging like
summer cloud-fleece about every branch and twig; and the ground beneath
them, and the path before me, is white with the soft, thick, odorous
snow of fallen petals.

Beyond this loveliness are flower-plots surrounding tiny shrines; and
marvellous grotto-work, full of monsters--dragons and mythologic beings
chiselled in the rock; and miniature landscape work with tiny groves of
dwarf trees, and Lilliputian lakes, and microscopic brooks and bridges
and cascades. Here, also, are swings for children. And here are
belvederes, perched on the verge of the hill, wherefrom the whole fair
city, and the whole smooth bay speckled with fishing-sails no bigger
than pin-heads, and the far, faint, high promontories reaching into the
sea, are all visible in one delicious view--blue-pencilled in a beauty
of ghostly haze indescribable.

Why should the trees be so lovely in Japan? With us, a plum or cherry
tree in flower is not an astonishing sight; but here it is a miracle of
beauty so bewildering that, however much you may have previously read
about it, the real spectacle strikes you dumb. You see no leaves--only
one great filmy mist of petals. Is it that the trees have been so long
domesticated and caressed by man in this land of the Gods, that they
have acquired souls, and strive to show their gratitude, like women