Beyond the gateway, the black path leads out under the blue sky, a pebbled square on either hand, set round with stately rows of bronze lanterns, the pious gifts of yet greater _daimyō_. Another gate stands waiting at the end of the pebbled square, a gateway with rounded wooden columns of red lacquer, like its fellow, and carvings of gold. But the beams of its ceiling have been smoothed away, and in the centre a much twisted and curled dragon, which, like Joseph’s coat, is of many colours, writhes across the ceiling. A carved and gilded gallery stretches away on either side past the gateway. Another yet more beautiful, with its slender square pillars of red lacquer bound at base and crown with beaten brass, leads a rainbow shadow through the sunny court to the cool dark door of the temple itself. In the shade of the gilded galleries, suspended from the red-lacquered cross-beams, hangs a row of still bronze lanterns. Dimly in their exquisite shapes can one trace the symbolised elements. Behind a wooden barrier five steps lead straight to the temple’s front, closed now with dark blinds of split bamboo bound together with a silken thread. The tiled eaves of the curving roof overhang the steps, and between door and lacquered pillar writhes in many wriggles of green and golden carving two royal dragons, the Ascending and the Descending--the going-up and the coming-down. Leaning on the barrier, the glory of those golden dragons, of those red columns, of the carved beams and inlaid porch rushed riotously into the soul. And now one understood the preparation of those successive gateways, set each between a sunny space of pebbled court; for the first had shown but red and gold, up in the ceiling of the second lingered lines of azure blue, the third added green to the other three, the gallery gave glances of mauve and violet, while here, under the eaves of the temple roof, the rainbow itself is glorious in carved wood. A culminating point of colour and splendour, what can the temple hold within? Cool spaces of matted floor set round with black boxes on black stools, each box holding its portion of Buddhist Scripture; sombre pennants of dark blue and green brocade upon the walls; a sober light clear but colourless; and which is more beautiful, the rainbow porch of many colours riotous in carving and scrolls, or the sober quiet of the temple, a beauty of spaces and restraint?