a
Kwaidan, as a mere fairy tale or novel of the day. The shrine of the
Tamiya Inari stands now to attest the truth of the tradition. Let the
doubter but witness the faith of the believer in the powers of the
fearful lady; and, if doubt still continues to exist, the salutary fear
of others at least will inspire respect.

THE YOTSUYA KWAIDAN OR O'IWA INARI

CHAPTER I

O'MINO AND DENSUKE

Yotsuya is a suburb--at the extreme west of Edo-To[u]kyo[u]. Its
streets are narrow and winding, though hilly withal; especially on the
southern edge toward the Aoyama district, still devoted to cemeteries
and palaces, sepulchres whited without and within. Echizenbori would be
at the other extremity of the great city. It fronts eastward on the bank
of the Sumidagawa. The populous and now poverty stricken districts of
Honjo[u] and Fukagawa beyond the wide stream, with other qualities,
deprive it of any claim of going to extremes. In fact Echizenbori is a
very staid and solid section of Edo-To[u]kyo[u]. Its streets are narrow;
and many are the small shops to purvey for the daily needs of its
inhabitants. But these rows of shops are sandwiched in between great
clumps of stores, partly warehouses and partly residences of the owners
thereof. These stores line the canals of Echizenbori, water courses
crowded with junks carrying their ten tons, or their hundreds of tons,
of freight--precious cargoes of rice to go into these stores in bulk, of
_shoyu_ (soy) by the hundred kegs, of sakarazumi (charcoal from Shimosa)
by the thousand _tawara_ (bale), of fish dried and fresh, of _takuan_ or
_daikon_ (the huge white radish) pickled in salt and rice bran, of all
the odds and ends of material in the gross which go to make up the
necessities of living in a great city. If Echizenbori then can make its
show of poverty, and very little _display_ of wealth, it is not one of
the poor quarters of this capital city of Nippon.

Crossing the Takabashi from Hacho[u]bori and plunging down the narrow
street opposite; a short turn to the right, a plunge down another narrow
street and a turn to the right; one comes to the high cement wall, in
its modernness of type a most unusual attachment to shrine or temple.
The gate is narrow and formal; almost like the entrance to a garden or
smaller burying ground. Within all is changed from the busy outside
world. The area inclosed is small--perhaps a square of a hundred and
fifty feet--but marked in lines by a ma