Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-11

Kyoto and Miyanoshita and the sumptuous
Koyokwan Club at Tokyo down to the hum
BILE inns which stranger has to put up with
in the country, and the taverns where the
Japanese disports himself In the great cities.
There are tea gardens usually attached to
the great temples. The japanese evidently
believe in the Roman proverb, Comnntscere
seria ludo, for the temple grounds are always
full of shows and stalls for holiday makers,
in which foods and drinks, archery. knock
ing down the gods of wealth "a species OF
Aunt Sally, trained monkeys, Gr quack
dentists are conspicuous. Some of these tea
gardens are very beautiful, writes Douglas
Sladen to the New York Sun. There IS one
at Nagasaki, terraced in the hillside, which
has its whole face covered with the ex-
ouisite and interminable Temple of the
Bronze Horse, eloquent with mem orles OF
Pierre Lofts fascinating Madam Chrysan-
theme, commanding view on one side Of
the fantastic mossy-thatched roofs of the
great Shinto Temple and on the other OF the
green, Firth-like harbor, once black with
the bodies of nearly 900 Christians
Some Historic Haunts.
There is another we loved to haunt under
the shadow of the Geographer's Monument
at Shiba. After we had been spending a
morning rambling through the temples Of
the dead Shoguns, glorious with scarlet and
gold and carven peacocks and dragons, or
toiling up over sod heavy with the fallen
needles of the Cryptomeria pines, to the
bronze-columed shrine in the dark wood
that holds the famous gold lacquer tomb Of
Ridetada, or fairing on public holiday, or
watching the tortoises in the Lotus Lake,
we used to haven ourselves with sigh of
relief in this little tea garden, on hill with
a great scarlet pagoda halfway down its
slope, and a view across the bay, broken
in the foreground by the fimsy French
built island forts and the Japanese fleet, and
bounded on the horizon by the blue hills Of
Kanozan.
The tea garden consisted only of the view
and of the broad benches with futon (cush-
ious) strewed over them for the japanese to
SQUAT on. Every time you went there the
pretty little musume, gay with scarlet ODE
and gaudy halrpins, used to approach with
q tray full of cups of tea favored with
salted cherry blossoms. For the mere fun
of the thing, because she did it so quantity
and prettily, we would wait until she had
sucked in her breath and rubbed her knees
with her hands (Which is the out-of-door
equivalent to the kowtow), and then send
her back with an "Irimasen: Yokohama
bieru-sake dozo" ("I don't oare about it; give
me some Yokohama beer, please"); and
then the old woman, the padrona who ran
the place, would come out, sufused with
smiles, for Yokohama bieru-sake cost so
cents bottle, and the cherry blossom tea
< for he RI
A Tea Garden in a Temple.
AtKameido they have lovely tea garden
in the temple OF Sugawara No-Michizane,
the patron Of Japanese literature. One has
to cross over the famous horseshoe bridge,
over which the arch is so steep that 1t has
steps like treadmill up its back. to tea
house formed by a natural arbor of wistaris
such wistaria! doubt if the world has its
eoual. The arbor stands on the waters
edge. and in May, when the Fuji, as the
Japs have named the wistaria, alter their
peerless mountain, is in full bloom, the
water is swept by vast, teathery racemes of
delicate, Iilac-colored blossoms three or four
feet long, odorous of honey and buzzing
sith bees. Jap bees have learned Every
likely the Japs have educated them, as they
educate fir trees to dwarf themselves, and
plum trees to tie themselves up into knots)
not to take the slightest notice of people who
20 to drink tea in their honey orchards.
Another delightful tea garden is the Gwa-
rio-bai. or Garden OF the Sleeping Dragon.
We went there in springtime, when the 500
queer gnarled old plum trees, which are
supposed to look like dragons, were one
mass of blossom.
Under the trees, with their shower of fra
grant blossom, were the few benches which
constituted the tea house. The trees were
all stuck over with pieces of paper contain
ing poems, for these gardens were the former
rendezvous of the japanese poetieal Eisted-
fodd.
All the trees had messy trunks, and moth
Ing can be imagined more delightful than
this antique orchard.
Patience Well Rewarded.
Very different was the tea garden we went
to at Kobe on the night OF the Mikado's
naval review. A wicket marked by a great
square lantern of rather dubious reputation
admitted US into funny little garden on the
Chinese pattern, full of lotus ponds, with
artificial waterfalls, and quaint tiny bridges,
and islands, and pagodas, and the stone
votive lanterns, Ishidoro, and fantastically
trained fir trees, and little summer houses,
which could be rendered private by drawing
the paper shoji (shutters).
When our rikisha boys knocked and we
were admitted little gaily dressed musume
led us to one of these summer houses, and
was proceeding forthwith to draw the shoji.
We expostulated because we had gone there
for the quaintness OF the garden and not for
amorous seclusion. The expostulatlon was
In signs and broken Japanese; 80 our
nusume flew away and returned with two of
The tall iron candlestieks, a couple of feet
high, which stand on the floor and hold
their candles on the point Of a spike instead
of the regulation socket, and Ooh, horrOrs!)
a box of "Bryant & Mays" matches. She
then dropped on. her knees and waited to see
what we were going to order for the good OF
the house. We ordered bottle OF Yoko-
hama beer, and sat down to listen to the
tiukle of the samisen waited across the gar
den. and wait for things to develop. We
were rewarded for our patience, because
presently the shoji, which were glimmering
behind the lotus pond and its native lanterns,
were flung open by an excited japanese,
overheated by the sultry evening and over
eating and sake, and alternately making
love to the geishas who performed before
hi,u, and getting irate with them for smiling
more amOrously at the younger gentlemen
of his party.
Forced to Retreat in Haste.
We felt grateful to him for feeling SO hot,
for his party made a most picturesque tout
ensemble. The quaint japanese summer
house, with its raised floor, dotted with soft
futon (cushions) a couple of feet square, on
which squatted, in a couple of crescents, a
party OF Japanese gentlemen with the regu-
lar japanese banquet before them-live fish,
potatoes and syrup. sea slugs and plums.
fsh soup and bean cakes. and sake! sake!
sake! aud on the other side a group OF geisha
girls, with their whltened iaces and gor-