up; then another every seven days for forty-nine days, then one after
the lapse of a hundred days; then one at the end of a year; then one
after the passing of three years; and at successively longer periods
others are erected during one hundred years.

And in almost every group I notice some quite new, or freshly planed
unpainted white wood, standing beside others grey or even black with
age; and there are many, still older from whose surface all the
characters have disappeared. Others are lying on the sombre clay.
Hundreds stand so loose in the soil that the least breeze jostles and
clatters them together.

Not less unfamiliar in their forms, but far more interesting, are the
monuments of stone. One shape I know represents five of the Buddhist
elements: a cube supporting a sphere which upholds a pyramid on which
rests a shallow square cup with four crescent edges and tilted corners,
and in the cup a pyriform body poised with the point upwards. These
successively typify Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Ether, the five substances
wherefrom the body is shapen, and into which it is resolved by death;
the absence of any emblem for the Sixth element, Knowledge, touches more
than any imagery conceivable could do. And nevertheless, in the purpose
of the symbolism, this omission was never planned with the same idea
that it suggests to the Occidental mind.

Very numerous also among the monuments are low, square, flat-topped
shafts, with a Japanese inscription in black or gold, or merely cut into
the stone itself. Then there are upright slabs of various shapes and
heights, mostly rounded at the top, usually bearing sculptures in
relief. Finally, there are many curiously angled stones, or natural
rocks, dressed on one side only, with designs etched upon the smoothed