20

We return by another route.

For a while the way winds through a long narrow winding valley between
wooded hills: the whole extent of bottom-land is occupied by rice-farms;
the air has a humid coolness, and one hears only the chanting of frogs,
like a clattering of countless castanets, as the jinricksha jolts over
the rugged elevated paths separating the flooded rice-fields.

As we skirt the foot of a wooded hill upon the right, my Japanese
comrade signals to our runners to halt, and himself dismounting, points
to the blue peaked roof of a little temple high-perched on the green
slope. 'Is it really worth while to climb up there in the sun?' I ask.
'Oh, yes!' he answers: 'it is the temple of Kishibojin--Kishibojin, the
Mother of Demons!'

We ascend a flight of broad stone steps, meet the Buddhist guardian
lions at the summit, and enter the little court in which the temple
stands. An elderly woman, with a child clinging to her robe, comes from
the adjoining building to open the screens for us; and taking off our
footgear we enter the temple. Without, the edifice looked old and dingy;
but within all is neat and pretty. The June sun, pouring through the
open shoji, illuminates an artistic confusion of brasses gracefully
shaped and multi-coloured things--images, lanterns, paintings, gilded
inscriptions, pendent scrolls. There are three altars.

Above the central altar Amida Buddha sits enthroned on his mystic golden
lotus in the attitude of the Teacher. On the altar to the right gleams a