The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and ChinaKnox, Thomas Wallace
General
The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and China
Knox, Thomas Wallace
China -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature; Japan -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
"Kioto is a place of great interest, as has been said already; and
we have not been able to exhaust its sights, though we have worked
very diligently. It is the most famous city in all Japan for its
temples, as it contains altogether about three thousand of them.
They are of all sizes and kinds, but the most of them are small and
not worth the trouble of visiting. But, on the other hand, there
are some magnificent ones, and a charming feature of the temples is
the way they are situated. They are nearly all on hill-sides, and
in the midst of groves and gardens where you may wander for hours
in the shade; and whenever you feel weary you can be sure of
finding a tea-house close by, where you may rest and refresh
yourself on the fragrant tea of Japan. Children romp and play on
the verandas of the temples without thought of harm, and run as
they please through the edifices. Outside are the tea-gardens; and
the people chatter and laugh as they move to and from the temple,
without any of the solemnity of a congregation entering or leaving
a church in America. At the hour of worship, the crowd kneels
reverently, and pronounces in unison the prayers that are repeated
by the priest, and when the prayers are ended, they return to their
sport or their work as gayly as ever.
[Illustration: A JAPANESE ARCHER.]
"I must not fail to tell you of a remarkable temple that we have
seen; not that any are unworthy of mention, but this one is
certainly very curious. It is known as the Temple of Rengenhoin,
and contains one thousand idols of large size; then each idol in
this lot is surrounded by several smaller ones, and there is one
idol larger than all the rest. The whole number is said to be
33,333. We did not count them to make sure that the estimate was
correct, but I should think that there must be thirty thousand at
least, so that a few odd thousands, more or less, would make no
difference. The whole of the inside of the temple is full of them,
and each figure is said to have a particular fable connected with
it. The temple is nearly four hundred feet long, and is certainly a
very fine building; and there is an artificial pond in front of it,
which is covered with aquatic flowers in the season for them. There
is a veranda that was used in olden times for a shooting-gallery
for archery purposes; it is more than two hundred feet long, and
there are records of some famous matches that have been shot there.
The best on the books took place more than six hundred years ago,
when one man is said to have hit the bull's-eye of the target 8,000
times out of 10,000, and another is reported to have done the same
thing 8,133 times in 13,053. That was certainly good shooting, and
I don't believe that it would be easy to find a bowman to-day who
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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