Lake Biwa and Kioto
From the old temple of Ishiyama, east of Otsu, is seen the famous Seta bridge and Awatsu, where the lake takes on a wondrous silvery sheen when the sun shines and the wind blows, these being three more of the famous sights of Biwa. The grounds of Ishiyama contain what is known as a dry garden, where blackened rocks and rocks free from every green thing are piled fantastically with strange landscape resemblances. In the temple is a prayer-wheel, which is turned by thousands of pilgrims every summer, and in a small room off the temple a priest showed us the writing-box and ink-stone of Murusaki Shikibu, a poetess and novelist of the tenth century, whose work, the Genji Monogatari, is the great classic of its age. The remaining wonders of Lake Biwa are the flights of the wild geese, the return of the fishing-boats to Yabashi, and Mount Hira with the winter snows on its summit.
From Otsu over to the Kioto side of the mountains we went by train, rushing down the long grade and through tunnels to the great plain, where sits the sacred city, the capital and heart of old Japan, incomparable Kioto, Saikio, or Miako. We saw it in the sunset light, the western hills throwing purple shadows on their own slopes, and the long stretch of wheat fields at their base turned to a lake of pure gold. The white walls of the Shogun's castle, the broad roof of the old palace, and the ridges of temples rose above the low, gray plain of house roofs and held the sun’s last level beams.
After the imitations and tawdriness of modern Tokio, the unchanged aspect of the old capital is full of dignity. After many long stays in spring-time, midsummer, and midwinter, Kioto has always remained to me foremost of Japanese cities. Yaamis, the foreigner’s Kioto home, with its steep terraced garden, its dwarf-pine and blooming monkey-tree, its many buildings at different levels, its flitting figures on the outer galleries, is like no other
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