thankfulness seems to thrill all about me softly, like a caress of
summer wind.

Outside the world appears to have suddenly grown beautiful; the light is
sweeter; it seems to me there is a new charm even in the azure of the
eternal day.

21

Then, having traversed the valley, we reach a main road so level and so
magnificently shaded by huge old trees that I could believe myself in an
English lane--a lane in Kent or Surrey, perhaps--but for some exotic
detail breaking the illusion at intervals; a torii, towering before
temple-steps descending to the highway, or a signboard lettered with
Chinese characters, or the wayside shrine of some unknown god.

All at once I observe by the roadside some unfamiliar sculptures in
relief--a row of chiselled slabs protected by a little bamboo shed; and
I dismount to look at them, supposing them to be funereal monuments.
They are so old that the lines of their sculpturing are half
obliterated; their feet are covered with moss, and their visages are
half effaced. But I can discern that these are not haka, but six images
of one divinity; and my guide knows him--Koshin, the God of Roads. So
chipped and covered with scurf he is, that the upper portion of his form
has become indefinably vague; his attributes have been worn away. But
below his feet, on several slabs, chiselled cunningly, I can still
distinguish the figures of the Three Apes, his messengers. And some
pious soul has left before one image a humble votive offering--the
picture of a black cock and a white hen, painted upon a wooden shingle.
It must have been left here very long ago; the wood has become almost