The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-11-16
A SUNDAY IN KIOTO.
A Place Where Children Wear
Many.C0lOred Skirts.

We ascend the high ste on one side Of
the tower and pass with the Sunday crowd
through the great hall, like corridor,
along which are seated on altar steps golden
images of gods, in shadow busted by the
long beams of the afternoon sun that pour
across 1T from one open side. Through this
veil of dancing notes we see the statues
and the great gilded lotuses and candelabra,
and the forms of attendant priests, and the
crowd that passes and that stops for mo-
ment in prayer. The words that they re-
peat come into cadence with the shutting of
their feet and the creaklng of the planks of
the flooring, and the sounds of the dropping
OF offerings.
The crowd is quiet, orderly. but amused at
being out. The women smile out of their
slaniing eyes and walk leaning forward,
and their black hair shines like lacquer, and
the artificial flowers in the great folds of
the couture dance in the sunlight. They
are quietly dressed, all but the young girls,
who wear bright colors and blue satin
sashes. The men slide about, also in quiet
SILK or cotton. large part of them are
dressed in every shade of blue; occasionally
the bare leg comes out, but all wear holiday
dress, except our runners OF their fellows,
who keep their wOrk-day looks. And the
children-they are all everywhere, and all
many -colored skirts and SNOWY Sashes, aud
every little head with some new and uneX-
plainable spot of tonSure.
Many of the crowd turn around the build
ing or its veranda, touching the columns
with their hands and following tracks, worn
deep like ruts. in the planking Of enormous
thickness. Oye-San points this out to me
and indicates its religious intention. Both
he and our other companion clap their
hands and pray for moment. A wave of
seriousness and abstraction passes over their
faces; then again all is as before and we
step out on the wide balcony. which, built
upon gigantic piles. hangs over q deep hol-
low filled with trees and buildings, ali in the
shadow now. From below rise, with the
GOODNESS of the green trees and grass, the
sounds of dropping waters. In time we de-
scend the path and the steps aud drink from
one Of the streams which fall from gigantic
gargoyles out OF great mass OF wall.
But it Is late; we look again upon KiOt0
from the temple above, all swimming in
light and haze, and walk back to our knru-
mas; final good-by to the children, but we
shall see their parents again, and then We
return AID look from our veranda for the
last time at the city stretched out in tile
evening, lest almost entirely in the twilight
OF great lake of violet fog. A few shapes
are just felt in the misty space, but no more
than as waves in wafer or as grea;er densi-
ties in tie fluctuations of the colOred vapOr
So uncertain is everything that the nearest
temple building loses its place and floats all
below its roof; but its wet tiles glitter, re-
fecting the rose-colored drift in the highest
paIe turquois shy. Below US the trees make
delicate pattern of dark wet lace.
Then the rose color deepens and dulls the
upper sky becomes c0lOrleSs; all floats in
unreal space, and kiOto disappears from be-
fore my eyes; forever, suppose-as the
charm of this scene, which will never come
again; as the little maiden whom met to-
day, only for an eternal good.by.-John la
FARCE in the Century