Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1921-10-06

| ed for. An attendant comes with
words and gestures amid the confus-
ion of sounds, and we understand
the service for them is ended, so they
get up and leave.
We have noticed that attendants
from the opposite side of the build
| ing have been bringing little pine
boxes about 20 inches long. six
inches wide and an inch or so deer
and holding them for moment in
the flame of the pine sticks which
the chief priest. keeps burning or
the altar. The flames leap up and
lick the boxes, but they seem not to
be smoked nor scorched. What's in
them? Oh, perhaps a piece of paper
with some kind of writing. I take
it that pilgrims have bought them
and this is something in the nature
Of blessing" ceremony.
AS we continue on around the
building we observe great wooden
panels on it's sides very elaborately
filled with carvings of human and
other beings. Though Buddhism
holds that all animals will be saved
the saints are here seen pushing the
dragon back down from their midst
Now the drum inside is sounding,
Yes, sounding is the word, for how
it booms! 1t must be a big drum and
the man who hits it is doing so in a
vigorous way. But that woman 60
ing around and around the temple
with her hair loosened as though
about to fall down, and such an
empty look on her face 'Is she in
sane. do you suppose?" One of the
party makes an inquiry and we learn
that she is engaged in making 1OOI
circuits around the temple. She has
a little bunch of strings, like a short
section of rope, containing 1OOI
strands, and every time she makes
circuit, she turns down one string
Here are some men so1emnly making
the rounds too Now the woman re-
moves her sandals of straw at the
front of the temple and goes on pur
suing merit, or healing, or some
thing else she will not receive. How
far will she travel in making these
circuits? An estimate of the size Of
the building leads to the conclusion
that she will have to go a little bet
ter than three miles.
! AT the rear of the building. the hill
rises about as high as the temple IT.
sell and the slope or steep side has
been artlstically filled in or lined
with lava rock, SO we'll placed that if
I LOOKS as though it had been formed
by nature. And here. there and
everywhere are small figures OF hu-
man beings, or are they idols? Well
IL doesn't matter so much which We
! VIII go on up to the plateau behind
the temple and walk around q 1ittra
4 Here are booths and booths of trinlx-
4 cts, souvenirs of small cost cakes
candy, and maybe other things. An
other large building of some kind
mas place on this hill and we 90 in
behlnd 1t and look through hola
IN the door, away in to the middle of
the second structure or mound ond
! see-not much of anything. meralv
light burning in there and that is
! counted the holiest place of al;
! AS we look down over the grounds
to the left of the temple as we face
the street from which we entered.
we behold a pagoda. Perhaps Won
can see picture of one in the die
tionary. And just below it is the
bell tower and man is ringing the
bell He doesn't shake it; he doesn't
swing 1t by handle as the teacher
out in the country school used to ring
ms oell when we were boys and girls.
) He pulls no rope and doesn't swing
hammer, but he rings the gong.
How! Well there is suspended hori-
zontally by some ropes a good sized
beam, about like an old time wooden
lamp pest (if your memory runs
back to the days before electricity
came) and this he pulls back and
lets swing like 4 battering ram at in
;: tervals. We identify the scene with
one OF the picture post cards already
bought and 20 on down the stairs.
AT our left we pass some kind of
building in which there is we'll
as we can see something of the
drawing of water. AS we stop not
far away it is remarked that ,hev
are perhaps taking holy bath in
SIDE. They are doing something
which attracts attention from folks
outside acting like a small bow who
mas not the price of admission to the
ball game. A return TO The sont and
! look over the top from the stairway
SHOWS some naked men over there
bathing surely enough. They take
a dlpper (made like a peck measure
with a handle) and douse their heads
with the water
Will you take time to go over hera
to this open-sided place and see what
can be seen? This big metal globe,
two or three feet in diameter is in
| teresting, for Here is japan and
here is Kentucky" and we have an
estimate of the fraction of the
earth's circumference between where
we are today and where we'd be if
we were at home. These old anchors
give evidence of having been long
IN the salt water. In one corner,
wrapped around a column is a great
coil OF rope made from human hair
and estimated at 400 feet in length,
IL is thick as my wrist and what a
history it may have! Some one sug-
gests 1t has been used in placing the
t1mbers of the temple at the time of
it's erection.
! Another building near by houses
the temple library which is in a re-
! VolVlng book case of enormous size
so big it is that it is with difficulty
that a man starts it to turning. One
SAYING is that if you revolve the IL
brary it is the same as going to var
lous other shrines from which. I sup
pose, these writings have been
Drought, and another version is that
one turn of the big book case makes
you learned person.
!. Yonder goes the priest to his
lunch or something else. It is as
y,