a bell, of that
shape worn by ferrets at home, only of course on a much more gigantic
scale; this is to apprise the slumbering god of the applicant's
presence. He then commences his petition or confession; places an
offering of money in a large trough-like receptacle for the purpose;
takes a drink at the holy water font, and departs to his home chatting
gaily to his neighbours as he descends the steps. The whole business
occupies about five minutes.

Sintoo temples have but little interior or body. All the worshipping is
done outside on the beautifully kept polished floor. A notice in English
reminds us vandals that we must remove our shoes if we would tread this
sacred spot.

Within, is simplicity itself; a mirror and a crystal ball is all one
sees; the former typical of the ease with which the Almighty can read
our hearts; the second an emblem of purity. They worship the Supreme
Being under the threefold title, which, strangely enough, we find in the
Book of Daniel, by which we may infer they have no inadequate conception
of the true God.

We leave the temple court by a different outlet to that by which we
entered, and come out on a charmingly laid out garden and fish ponds,
where are seats and tea houses for the accommodation of visitors. Each
tea house has its bevy of dark-eyed houris, who use every wile and charm
known to the sex, to induce you to patronise their several houses. To do
the proper thing, and perhaps influenced by the bright eyes raised so
beseechingly to ours, we adjourn to one of these restaurants. Removing
our shoes--a proceeding you are bound to comply with before entering a
Japanese house--we seat ourselves cross-legged, tailor fashion, on the
straw mattresses I have previously mentioned, whilst an attendant
damsel, with deft fingers, makes the tea in a little terra-cotta
teapot, the contents of which she poured into a number of doll's cups,
without handles, on a lacquered tray. Other girls handed us each a cup,
in which was a liquid not unlike saffron water in colour and in taste.

They use neither milk nor sugar, and the cups are so provokingly small,
that it is only by keeping our attendant syrens under the most active
employment, that we are at last able to say we have tasted it. With our
tea we get some excellent sponge cake called "_casutira_," a corruption
of the Spanish word "castile," said to be, until very recently, the only
word of European etymology in the language. The Jesuits f