The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-27
The Pilgrimage ofC5oya-san.
BY IDA MANSFIELD WILSON.

which moved swiftly up and down inside
these huge buildings. She described the
wonderful cars which flew UP and down
hills without either horses or jinrikisha
runners at the command of a man who
stood in the front part and grasped an
iron handle. And then, most strange in
this land of topsyturvydom, the young
girls kissed the young men! What a stir
that statement had created! 1t was re-
ceived with little shrieks of incredulity
and fearful delight. What! Really Are
you certainl Impossiblel assailed the
ears of the Japanese Scheherasade.
O'Toya-san herself was skeptical. No
modest, self-respecting girl would be
guilty of such a breach of modesty. Still,
if one liked someone else very much-onc
face rose before O'Toya-san-and it were
the etiquette of even barbarous coun-
try-she blushed Later a thought fash
ed through her mind which crystallized
into a resolve. i will go to the shrine
she whispered to herself, land learn my
fate
The day was done. All the world rest
ed. From the sea crept UP the warm
dusk, blotting out the far, faint, dreamy
sky, and the deep-hued mountains, with
phantom mist-curtain, the man with
the ferret eyes. The delicate, fairylike,
indescribable. The roofs of blue-gray
tiles caught a fugitive CLEAN of rose, as
from the afterglow of a sunset memory
and left in deeper shadow the narrow
streets between the houses, where null
titude of twinkling lights appeared one
by one The shrillng of the crickets, and
the plaintiye cry of the itinerant blind
shampeoer threading his way, staff in
hand, through the eternal darkness,
broke tremendously upon the vast silence
of the night Along the Bund the de-
serted jinrikshas stood stiffiy upright,
like soldiers at attention" their Ian
terms glowing bravely, their man-horses
crouched against an adjacent embank-
ment, enjoying their Lilliputian pipes
and their well-earned repose. 1t is
reluctant kurumai who responds to the
shout of belated traveller.
Beyond the Bund lay the sea. Like
glistening onyx were its waters, parted
here and there by quivering shafts of
light from the port holes of shadowy
ships at anchor. Fishing boats drifted
here and there. When the bronze-leg-
ged fishermen cast their nets or dipped
an oar into the oily blackness of the sea
phosphorescent bubbles sparkled into
life, shimmered and glistened in a trail
of magical silver splendor, then vanished
with meteoric swiftness. Back of it all.
the rising moon just touched the edge Of
the world with a rim OF the palest gold.
Through tortuous ways, down the
street of the Temples, across bridges,
ever nearing the Shrine of the Hun
bred Steps, sped small nervous fig
urel disguised in the folds of mys-
terious silken headgear. 1t was O'Toya-
san. Her heart palpitated wildly
whenever a shadow fell across her
path or the voices of the night as
sumed an unwonted sound. Not that she
feared man or beasti Far from it! It
was the terror of the demon foxes that
blanched her cheek; those gaunt specr
tiers that skullS in dark places and in
tercept their victims, that they may
take diabolical possession Of them.
Everyone knows the demon foxes are
almost omnipotent for evil. Yes. and
the witch fires that lure one on to de-
struction -and the tsubaki trees, which
walk about at night. She recalled
fearful tale of an attack on one Of these