Lake Biwa and Kioto
badge rather than as a garment. The momban, or gate-keeper, sits, spider-like, in a web of his own, a mere doll’s house by the gate-way. In olden times, and even to-day, in large establishments, the momban announces an arrival with strokes upon his gong, but this particular functionary corresponds more nearly to the Parisian octroi. All who enter the gates answer for themselves and pay tribute, or they are forever barred out. Even coolies disgorge their black-mail to the colony of fleet-footed brethren who hold a valuable monopoly at Yaami’s gate, and in guilds and labor organizations the Orient is ages older and wiser than the Occident.
All of Maruyama’s slope is holy ground and pleasure-ground. Tea-houses and bath-houses are scattered in between the great temples, and prayer-gongs and pious hand-clapping are heard in unison with samisens and revellers’ songs. Praying and pleasuring go together, and the court-yard of the Gion temple at the foot of the hill is lined with monkey-shows and archery ranges, and in the riding-schools the adventurous may, for a few coppers, mount a jerky horse and be jolted around a shady ring. There, too, are many rows of images of fierce, red-cloaked Daruma, the Buddhist saint, who sailed across from Korea on a rush-leaf. He sat facing a wall for nine years, and wore off his lower limbs, and now his image, weighted with lead, is the target for merry ball-throwers, and is seen in every quarter of the empire.
From the airy galleries on Maruyama the city lies below one like a relief map. The river, the Kamogawa, crossed at intervals by long bridges, cuts the city in two. From each bridge a street runs straight on to the westward. By day these thoroughfares look like furrows ploughed through the solid plain of gray-tiled roofs; but at night they shine with thousands of lamps and lanterns, and their narrow, wavering lines of fire look like so many
223
