[Illustration: JAPANESE TEMPLE AND CEMETERY.]
"If I should name half the temples and public places we have seen I should make you wish, perhaps, that I had not written at all, as the list alone would be tedious, and I could no more give you an idea of the peculiar beauty and attractions of each than I could describe the perfume of each flower in a bouquet from the hands of the florist. One temple had a large cemetery attached to it, and we walked around looking at the inscriptions in a language which we could not read, and studying symbols we could not understand. The temple stands in a grove, as do nearly all the temples of Kioto, and the place reminded us very much of some of our burial-places at home.
"Then we have had glimpses of the way the people spin cotton, and perform other work in the manufacturing line. Their apparatus is very simple, and it is rather surprising than otherwise that they can accomplish so much with so little machinery. Then we have walked about the streets, and several times we have had close escapes from being run over by some of the carts that were carrying heavy loads. With two men to push them, and two pulling at the same time, they will move loads that would be no small matter for a pair of horses. They keep up a great shouting, and at first it puzzles you to know why they do it until you remember that it is desirable they should all pull together. You can hear them a long way off, and if you get in their way it is your own fault, as it was ours.
[Illustration: HANDCART FOR A QUARTETTE.]
"Well, if we kept on telling you all we have seen in Kioto we should be a long time at it, and so we may as well stop short. Besides, we are going to Lake Biwa, and it is time to be off. If you enjoy this letter half as much as we have enjoyed the material for making it you will have a very pleasant time over it."
[Illustration: HORSE CARRYING LIQUID MANURE.]
The party went to Lake Biwa as they had proposed, and certainly no one should omit it from his excursions in the vicinity of Kioto. The distance is only seven miles, and an excellent road leads there from the city. Along the route they met a dense crowd of people coming and going, for there is a vast amount of business between the city and the lake. There were men on foot and in jin-riki-shas, there were porters with loads and porters without loads, there were pack-horses in great number, and there were wagons with merchandise bound for the interior or for the seaboard. Some of the pack-horses had burdens the reverse of savory, and the boys learned on inquiry that they were transporting liquid manure to the farms near the borders of the lake. Along the roadside they saw little family groups that were always more or less picturesque; fathers were caring for their children, and seemed to take great delight in playing the part of nurse. It is very common in all the Japanese cities to see men thus occupied, and they never appear to be weary of their tasks. In summer both parent and child will be thinly clad, while in winter they will be wrapped against the cold. The summer garments are not always so thick as the rules of polite society require, and even the winter costume is not very heavy.