leather. These having been removed, I inspect the seal--an oblong,
vermilion-red polished stone, with the design cut in intaglio upon it.
He moistens the surface with red ink, presses it upon the corner of the
paper bearing the grim picture, and the authenticity of my strange
purchase is established for ever.

11

You do not see the Dai-Butsu as you enter the grounds of his long-
vanished temple, and proceed along a paved path across stretches of
lawn; great trees hide him. But very suddenly, at a turn, he comes into
full view and you start! No matter how many photographs of the colossus
you may have already seen, this first vision of the reality is an
astonishment. Then you imagine that you are already too near, though the
image is at least a hundred yards away. As for me, I retire at once
thirty or forty yards back, to get a better view. And the jinricksha man
runs after me, laughing and gesticulating, thinking that I imagine the
image alive and am afraid of it.

But, even were that shape alive, none could be afraid of it. The
gentleness, the dreamy passionlessness of those features,--the immense
repose of the whole figure--are full of beauty and charm. And, contrary
to all expectation, the nearer you approach the giant Buddha, the
greater this charm becomes You look up into the solemnly beautiful face
-into the half-closed eyes that seem to watch you through their eyelids
of bronze as gently as those of a child; and you feel that the image
typifies all that is tender and calm in the Soul of the East. Yet you
feel also that only Japanese thought could have created it. Its beauty,
its dignity, its perfect repose, reflect the higher life of the race
that imagined it; and, though doubtless inspired by some Indian model,