ther who had first come to seek his fortune in
Yedo, were buried at Ikegami. Here the priests gave to each _hotoke_
(Buddha or dead person) his new name, which was inscribed on small
black tablets, the _ihai_. One of these tablets for each dead person
was kept in the household shrine at Tokyo, and one in the temple at
Ikegami.

Asako was taken to the October festival, because her father too was
buried in the temple grounds--one small bone of him, that is to say,
an _ikotsu_ or legacy bone, posted home from Paris before the rest of
his mortality found alien sepulture at Pere Lachaise. Masses were said
for the dead; and Asako was introduced to the tablet. But she did not
feel the same emotion as when she first visited the Fujinami house.
Now, she had heard her father's authentic voice. She knew his scorn
for pretentiousness of all kinds, for false conventions, for false
emotions, his hatred of priestcraft, his condemnation of the family
wealth, and his contempt for the little respectabilities of Japanese
life.

* * * * *

A temple in Japan is not merely a building; it is a site. These sites
were most carefully chosen with the same genius which guided our
Benedictines and Carthusians. The site of Ikegami is a long-abrupt
hill, half-way between Tokyo and Yokohama. It is clothed with
_cryptomeria_ trees. These dark conifers, like immense cypresses, give
to the spot that grave, silent, irrevocable atmosphere, with which
Boecklin has invested his picture of the Island of the Dead. These
majestic trees are essentially a part of the temple. They correspond
to the pillars of our Gothic cathedrals. The roof is the blue vault
of heaven; and the actual buildings are but altars, chantries and
monuments.

A steep flight of steps is suspended like a cascade from the crest of
the hill. Up and down these steps, the wooden clogs of the Japanese
people patter incessantly like water-drops. At the top of the steps
stands the towered gateway, painted with red ochre, which leads to the
precincts. The guardians of the gate, _Ni-O_, the two gigantic Deva
kings, who have passed from India into Japanese mythology, are encaged
in the gateway building. Their cage and their persons are littered
with nasty morsels of chewed paper, wherever their worshippers have
literally spat their prayers at them.

Within the enclosure are the various temple buildings, the bell-tower,
the library, the washing-trough, the hall of