, and wished in her heart to marry him; but,
being a virtuous woman, she never thought of doing any evil deed. But
the wife of my lord Asai was jealous of the girl, and persuaded her
husband that her rival in his affections had gone astray; when he
heard this he was very angry, and beat her with a candlestick so that
he put out her left eye. The girl, who had indignantly protested her
innocence, finding herself so cruelly handled, pronounced a curse
against the house; upon which, her master, seizing the candlestick
again, dashed out her brains and killed her. Shortly afterwards my
lord Asai lost his left eye, and fell sick and died; and from that
time forth to this day, it is said that the representatives of the
house have all lost their left eyes after the age of forty, and
shortly afterwards they have fallen sick and died at the same age as
the cruel lord who killed his concubine.

NOTE.

Of the many fair scenes of Yedo, none is better worth visiting than
the temple of Zojoji, one of the two great burial-places of the
Shoguns; indeed, if you wish to see the most beautiful spots of any
Oriental city, ask for the cemeteries: the homes of the dead are ever
the loveliest places. Standing in a park of glorious firs and pines
beautifully kept, which contains quite a little town of neat,
clean-looking houses, together with thirty-four temples for the use of
the priests and attendants of the shrines, the main temple, with its
huge red pillars supporting a heavy Chinese roof of grey tiles, is
approached through a colossal open hall which leads into a stone
courtyard. At one end of this courtyard is a broad flight of
steps--the three or four lower ones of stone, and the upper ones of
red wood. At these the visitor is warned by a notice to take off his
boots, a request which Englishmen, with characteristic disregard of
the feelings of others, usually neglect to comply with. The main hall
of the temple is of large proportions, and the high altar is decorated
with fine bronze candelabra, incense-burners, and other ornaments, and
on two days of the year a very curious collection of pictures
representing the five hundred gods, whose images are known to all
persons who have visited Canton, is hung along the walls. The big bell
outside the main hall is rather remarkable on account of the great
beauty of the deep bass waves of sound which it rolls through the city
than on account of its size, which is as nothing when compared