But no!--this grotto-work is not for the dead; and these are not haka,
as I imagined, but only images of the Goddess of Mercy. These chambers
are chapels; and these sculptures are the En-gaku-ji-no-hyaku-Kwannon,
'the Hundred Kwannons of En-gaku-ji.' And I see in the upper chamber
above the stairs a granite tablet in a rock-niche, chiselled with an
inscription in Sanscrit transliterated into Chinese characters,
'Adoration to the great merciful Kwan-ze-on, who looketh down above the
sound of prayer.' [3]

6

Entering the grounds of the next temple, the Temple of Ken-cho-ji,
through the 'Gate of the Forest of Contemplative Words,' and the 'Gate
of the Great Mountain of Wealth,' one might almost fancy one's self
reentering, by some queer mistake, the grounds of En-gaku-ji. For the
third gate before us, and the imposing temple beyond it, constructed
upon the same models as those of the structures previously visited, were
also the work of the same architect. Passing this third gate--colossal,
severe, superb--we come to a fountain of bronze before the temple
doors, an immense and beautiful lotus-leaf of metal, forming a broad
shallow basin kept full to the brim by a jet in its midst.

This temple also is paved with black and white square slabs, and we can
enter it with our shoes. Outside it is plain and solemn as that of En-
gaku-ji; but the interior offers a more extraordinary spectacle of faded
splendour. In lieu of the black Shaka throned against a background of
flamelets, is a colossal Jizo-Sama, with a nimbus of fire--a single
gilded circle large as a wagon-wheel, breaking into fire-tongues at
three points. He is seated upon an enormous lotus of tarnished gold--
over the lofty edge of which the skirt of his robe trails down. Behind