Lafcadio Hearn

1 Derived from the Sanscrit stupa.

2 'The real origin of the custom of piling stones before the images of Jizo and other divinities is not now known to the people. The Custom is founded upon a passage in the famous Sutra, "The Lotus of the Good Law."

'Even the little hoys who, in playing, erected here and there heaps of sand, with the intention of dedicating them as Stupas to the Ginas,-they have all of them reached enlightenment.' - Saddharma Pundarika, c. II. v. 81 (Kern's translation), 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxi.

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KAMAKURA.

1 Yane, 'roof'; shobu, 'sweet-flag' (Acorus calamus).

2 At the time this paper was written, nearly three years ago, I had not seen the mighty bells at Kyoto and at Nara.

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IT is just past five o'clock in the afternoon. Through the open door of my little study the rising breeze of evening is beginning to disturb the papers on my desk, and the white fire of the Japanese sun is taking that pale amber tone which tells that the heat of the day is over. There is not a cloud in the blue - not even one of those beautiful white filamentary things, like ghosts of silken floss, which usually swim in this most ethereal of earthly skies even in the driest weather.

1 It is related in the same book that Ananda having asked the Buddha how came Mokenren's mother to suffer in the Gakido, the Teacher replied that in a previous incarnation she had refused, through cupidity, to feed certain visiting priests.

2 A deity of good fortune

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Over the mountains to Izumo, the land of the Kamiyo, [1] the land of the Ancient Gods. A journey of four days by kuruma, with strong runners, from the Pacific to the Sea of Japan; for we have taken the longest and least frequented route.

1 The period in which only deities existed.

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1 Thick solid sliding shutters of unpainted wood, which in Japanese houses serve both as shutters and doors.

2 Tanabiku.

3 Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami literally signifies 'the Heaven-Shining Great- August-Divinity.' (See Professor Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki.)

4 'The gods who do harm are to be appeased, so that they may not punish those who have offended them.' Such are the words of the great Shinto teacher, Hirata, as translated by Mr. Satow in his article, ~ The Revival of Pure .Shintau.

SHINKOKU is the sacred name of Japan - Shinkoku, 'The Country of the Gods'; and of all Shinkoku the most holy ground is the land of Izumo. Hither from the blue Plain of High Heaven first came to dwell awhile the Earth-makers, Izanagi and Izanami, the parents of gods and of men; somewhere upon the border of this land was Izanami buried; and out of this land into the black realm of the dead did Izanagi follow after her, and seek in vain to bring her back again. And the tale of his descent into that strange nether world, and of what there befell him, is it not written in the Kojiki?