Japan and the Japanese

260 JAPAX A. V. IC'JO 1W3.
or mountain priests, and fifty Tiros, temples of four different
Buddhist sects or observances, including the three temples erected
by the Chinese, as mentioned in a previous chapter.
" These temples are sacred not only to devotion and worship,
but serve also for recreation and diversion, being for this purpose
curiously adorned with pleasant gardens, elegant walks, and fine
apartments, and by much the best buildings of the town. The
Buddhist temples are not so much to be commended for their
large-
ness or splendor as for their pleasant and agreeable situations, being
moreover adorned within with fine raised altars, gilt images as big
as life, lackered columns, gates and pillars, the whole very neat
and pretty rather than magnificent.
" Those who attend the service of the Kami temples, though not
collected into monasteries, like the Buddhist clergy, but secular
and married persons, yet assume to themselves a far higher degree
of holiness and respect than they think the common bulk of secular
persons deserve. They live with their families in houses built for
them in the descent of the mountains. Their way of life, as well
as their common dress at home and abroad, is no waj-s different
from that of the other inhabitants, except that they do not shave
their heads, but let their hair grow, and
When they go to the temple they dress in
tie it
together behind.
an ecclesiastical habit,
with various head-dresses, according to every one's office and qual-
ity. They maintain themselves by the alms and offerings given
them by those who come to worship in their temples, or at their
appearance in solemn processions.
" The ecclesiastics of the Buddhist religion have no processions
nor other public solemnities, like the Sinto clergy. They always
keep within the district of their convent, where they mind little
else but their prayers in the temple at certain stated hours. Their
maintenance arises from the fees given them for prayers to be said
in their temples, or at funerals for the relief of departed souls, as
also from voluntary and charitable contributions."
The gardens in and about the city and the neighboring villages
abundantly furnish it with all sorts of fruits, vegetables and roots
with firewood, and also with some venison and poultry ; but the
domestic supply of rice is insufficient, and that capital article has to
be imported fr m the neighboring provinces. The harbor and