obes, saluting one another
with all the grave ceremonial in which the courtiers delighted. The
costumes have vanished; but the ancient residences, with their private
waterway approaches to the river, remain; and the avenue is still the
fashionable promenade.

But it is the iris gardens at Horikiri seen by night that have left an
impression which will never fade from my mind. We visited the gardens
frequently; but it is one particular visit that I remember above all the
others. Leaving the Hotel Metropole late in the afternoon, the ricksha
men took us at a rattling pace through the city. After an hour's run we
found ourselves far away from the river in the midst of uninviting
rice-fields, with a glimpse of the gardens in the distance--a blue and
white oasis in a waste of green. If one visits the gardens in the
afternoon the changes that the flowers undergo are marvellous. In the
full warm rays of the sun, the great petals, turning back towards their
stems, are rich and glowing in every shade. Then, as evening comes on
and the sunlight fades, the deeper purple blooms lose their richness and
grow shadowy, while the white ones take on an icy purity that seems
unearthly in its transparency, and they shine as with an internal light.
Still a little later, and with the last rays of daylight, all the darker
flowers have disappeared, and where a short time ago stood a proud bed
of royal colour one can see only the ghastly heads of the pure white
petals looming like phantom flowers in the purple night.

[Illustration: A SUNNY GARDEN]

The effect of the picture was heightened by the atmospheric colouring.
As the silver evening gradually changed to purple night--a purple
only seen in Japan--the festoons of lanterns which illuminated the
summer-houses became of one colour with the landscape, and then, as the
night darkened to a deeper purple, the lights changed to bright orange.
It would be impossible to put such colours on canvas: the only way to
represent them would be by precious stones. We dined in one of the
summer-houses off dainty plates served us by little musmes while seated
on the white mats. The blooms of the iris appeared softly luminous,
emitting a ghostly light. It is this spiritual beauty which makes the
flowers such a favourite in temple gardens, and inspires the Japanese to
poetry. On the edge of a tiny lake, approached by a winding walk,
through an avenue of bamboo trellis-work, was a small shed with a quaint
roo