Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1888-01-25
Travelling in Japan.

When we went over to Asakasa, the
temple grounds were deserted, and the
hundreds of tame pigeons, counter
parts of the Venetian birds at st.
Marks, flew through the open temple
and walked up and down the broad
tagging with no one to feed them, and
none of the score of old women at their
accustomed stalls to sell grain. Before
the altar of the Goddess Kwannon
Sama candles were burning, bells tink-
ling and priests chanting prayers, but
only rare and occasional copper was
heard dropping through the Stats of the
huge money box that on some festival
seasons brings in a daily revenue OF
$1,000. Idle youngsters lounged or
chased one another through the temple,
and women with babies on their backs
toddled up and down with the halting,
infantile gait of Japanese women keep
ing In out of the glare of the sun that
was scorching the very fagstones out
side. A group Of pilgrims in big hats
and with sections of straw mating
fastened to their shoulders as protection
from sun OF rain, and bed and abiding
place at night, gaped with wide open,
rustic mouths at the sights of Asakasa.
These pilgrims are a feature of Japa-
neSe summer life, and every year as
soon as the rice has been transplanted
and the paddy fields show a mantle of
waving green, the farmers take up
their staffs and go wandering off in
parties from one shrine and region of
temples to another, until 1t is time to
return and look to the harvest in the
early fall. Their wives meanwhile
weed the fields and look after affairs at
/ home.
In one of the show gardens near the
temple, where one pays few pennies
10 see all the curiosties and miracles of
horticulture, dwarf trees that look a
thousand years old, fan-tailed and many
tailed goldfish, whose globular bodies
are almost hidden by the elaborate pea
cock spread behind them, Tosa chick
ems. with their tail feathers 2 yards
long, roostlng in high, narrow cages
| that let their feathers droop gracefully,
cages of queer parrots and birds, and a
Gagged leopard and tiger greatly enter
tain one. The tiger painted in the
heat, and grew so restless as the light
began to dwindle that we left his quiet
corner and went out to the temple
grounds, where men and children were
watching the sun through coIored glass.
We wanted to see ignorant and super
stitious people prostrating themselves
before the altars, Changing the gongs
and raining their coppers into the
money box, fleeing here and there OF
budding into terrified groups; but
there was nothing of that kind going
on. a few old men were muttering
their prayers in secluded corners, but
all the rest were as blase and sophistI-
cated as If ecIlpses were everyday
affairs. Tea house girls even knew
enough to put out a tub of water and
watch on Its rejecting surface the
whole celestial proceeding.
The day grew suddenly darker, the
sky deep blue overhead, with flocks
wh:rling through the air, and bright
stars began to twinkle. The light was
1 weird and greenish-yellow, and, with
| cool breeze suddenly springing up,
)ne felt as If terrible thunderstorm
with inBy clouds, were coming on.
Europeans looked pale green and corpse
ike, and the yellow skin of the Japa-
aese assumed an unnatural blush
Jallor. The queer light made one feel
iiZZy or cross-eyed, and want to rub his
eyes and get clear look all the time,
and as the sun diminished to a cres-
cent the sharp, clear-cut shadows were
Ilnpleasantly distinct, a foreshortened,
nky shadow walking beside one like a
black ghost. The leaves on the trees
threw strange, wavering lines of
shallow, like the reflected light from
l1ppling water, and when the sun at
asst became mere curving thread of
light in the sky, the vendors in the long
bazaar began to light lamps. The
curved line of light in the sky sud-
1enty reversed itself, and slowly the
sun grew TO crescent, half circle and
full again, while daylight asserted itself
more rapidly than the half twilight
came on. The unusually high tide
orophesied for the day came on at
yhe schedule time, but the earthquake
so freely promised, and suggested to so
many by the still, breathless heat of
5he Two days, failed to come, and the
'orewarned, who put away porcelain
and fragile things as a forearming,
found their exertIons had been un-
llecesSarys