Taking this in conjunction with the remarks Japanese have often made to me about the foreigners’ dislike of fresh air, and in conjunction also with numerous other observations of a similar nature, I am forced to conclude that the Japanese, as a nation, are not at all sensitive to bad air. Their houses, built according to the ancient plan, force them, by their construction, to live in ideally fresh rooms, but put them in a foreign house, and everything is hermetically sealed.
=August 29.=--I went into one of the Laboratories to-day, and found four men, three gas burners, and a stove at work, without an inch of window open--it nearly stifled me. I have noticed this Laboratory before, and _never_, all through this scorching summer, have I seen the windows unclasped. It is a foreign style building, of course.
=August 30.=--I got up very early and set off on my bicycle to see the sacred lotus flowers on the great pond near Oyeno Park, but I did not get there in time to see them burst open, for that takes place at sunrise, but the flowers were fresh and fair, still unfaded by the heat of the day when I got to the edge of the water. There must have been several acres of them, with their great leaves overtopped by huge rosy flowers. The purity and radiance of their opaque yet lustrous petals is something I have never seen surpassed in any other flowers, and as they stand up in a rich succession of curves to form a 9-inch bowl, their cumulative effect is magnificent, while in them glows a golden radiance of captured sun-rays. Glorious flowers!
A little island lies in the pond, which is reached by a bridge, and on it is a temple, with shrines standing on it. There those who come to see the lotus worship in their simple way, pulling the temple bell and clapping their hands to ensure that the gods hear the short muttered prayer and put to their credit the half-farthings they bestow. One is always hearing of the lack of religion among the Japanese, but there never was a land with so many shrines and temples. On my way back I passed a shrine under a tree trunk on a crowded thoroughfare. It was only a toy building a couple of feet high, but a workman was busy arranging his offering of dangling white papers. Religion and daily life are mingled here.