Above the white cloud of the plum-blossoms, through the dark wood of the cryptomerias, on the top of the hill lies the temple of Ikkégami. The broad spaces of its courtyards and its gardens are sunny and still, and the blue sky above is a bed of celestial forget-me-nots. Down each side the big, dark trunks of the giant fir-trees stand straight and tall--two rows of sombre pillars, shutting in a sunny aisle. In front, at the end of the wandering white path of rounded stones sunk into the bare earth, is the _Hondō_ or main building with the tent curves of its roof, and the polished floor of its veranda shining like a sword in the sun. Behind is the big wooden gateway, and the hundred stone steps which lead from the hilltop to the village beneath. And scattered down the wide earth courtyard, and half hidden under the dark arches of the trees, are the innumerable little buildings which form the complete whole of a Buddhist temple; the belfry, with its bronze bell hung from the big wooden beam of the ceiling to within three feet of the ground, and the polished wooden spar with which it is beaten; the quaint revolving library--like a dwarf windmill without sails--where the hundred volumes of the Buddhist Scripture can be dimly seen through the thick wooden lattice; the wide granite tank under its tiled roof, all hung with lengths of brown temple towels, where the faithful pour water over their hands from bamboo dippers as a symbol of purification; the side chapels with their drums and offerings. All are quiet to-day and deserted, only by the side of the tank, in front of a worn-out stone statue, a peasant mother is standing, her baby tucked in the back of her _kimono_--fast asleep. She claps her hands three times to call the attention of the gods, and then she prays, and the baby’s shaven head nods heavily over her shoulder. Then she takes the bamboo dipper and pours water over the head of the stone statue, carefully, that not a dry spot may remain, and prays again. Between the dark pillars of the tree-trunks and the stamped earth of the courtyard, a line of narrow, pointed laths runs like a wooden fencing round the temple precincts. I wonder what they are and leave the stepping-stones of the pathway to see. Tombstones? Yes. Set close together, and sometimes three or four deep, the long line of thin pointed laths closes in the temple and its courtyard with a fence of graves. Not a rich man’s graveyard this, but the last home of the peasants from the rice-fields and the fishermen from the sea. I look at the rows of Chinese characters running lengthwise down the narrow tombstones, and stop in wonder, for on one the Roman letters with their familiar outlines stand out plainly. “To the Men of the Warship _Onega_.” That is all.