a very prominent part of the proceedings. Of course this was
placing of a nature very different from the artistic placing that I have
just described; but as a scientific bit of work it was simply wonderful!
It was an enormous tree by the side of a temple; there were two little
men sawing away at its base, little mites of men, half hidden by the
huge gaping crowd, chiefly composed of children, that stood watching the
performance, waiting for the tree to fall. A wall stood close by with an
opening cut in it, just large enough to allow the trunk to place itself;
and away in the distance strewn about at different angles were a series
of huge stone boulders, and these, I soon found out, were to split up
the boughs for firewood when the tree fell, thus saving labour. Imagine
the science of it--the calculation and the accuracy of their judgment!
The men went on sawing, every now and then pausing in their work to look
up at the sky with their backs against the wall. At last there came a
moment when the excitement was terrific: the trunk was nearly sawed
through, and the tree seemed prepared to fall anywhere and everywhere,
more particularly in my direction. Presently it began to give slightly,
and it was one of the prettiest and most wonderful things I have ever
seen in my life, the way that tree began to bend--gently, gracefully,
ever so gently, the trunk fitting itself into the wall, and the branches
dashing on to those great boulders that were waiting for them, splitting
them up into fragments. Those little mites of Japanese handling that
giant of a tree was a sight that I shall never forget. Where we would
have had twenty men with ropes and paraphernalia, they had nothing but
their big heads and their power to place a thing mathematically in the
right position to help them. And it all looked so graceful and so easy
that it would not have surprised me in the least to have seen one of
those little men come sailing down on the branches. But what struck me
the most forcibly was the great confidence of the people. They all stood
round, almost touching the tree, but quite sure of the success of this
venture; the fact that it was possible for the wood-cutter to fail
never occurring to them for an instant.

[Illustration: PEACH-BLOSSOM]

Placing takes a prominent part in everything that the Japanese
undertake; it shows itself not only in the arrangement of the landscape
and in artistic matters where there is scope for their decorat