To return to the streets--although one sees many carriages and a few motors, the man-drawn jinrikisha is still the most popular conveyance; a few years ago there were forty thousand of them in Tokyo alone. The runners can jog along at a good six miles an hour, and can keep up the pace for a long distance. With a leader or pusher, or with three men, as many as ninety miles can be made in a day. As Tokyo is almost as wide-spreading as London, an automobile is a convenience in returning visits, notwithstanding the narrowness of the streets, in which people walk and children play. Pedestrians pay little attention to the warning of the automobile horn, perhaps owing to the whistles and horns of the dealers and the other noises of the busy streets.
There are some large new brick buildings in Tokyo, and a new railway station is being built. Some of the European government buildings are quite handsome, as well as very large and imposing--they would look big anywhere, whether one admired their architecture or not. There are also two large European hotels, and a good bank.
Shiba Park is not very far from the Embassy. People go there to see the Shiba Temples, which were built in honour of the sixth, seventh, and ninth shoguns. As usual, one enters through a _torii_, or gateway, into a paved courtyard, and takes off one's shoes before going into the temple.
In feudal times, when the Shogun came to worship the spirits of his ancestors, he alone ascended to the sanctum of the temple, the _daimyos_ seating themselves next to him in the corridor below, while the rest of the nobility occupied the oratory.
The lacquer in these temples is perhaps the most beautiful that I saw in Japan, and the carvings are superb. In many places one sees the three-leafed asarum, which is the crest of the Tokugawa family, and the lotus, the Buddhist emblem of purity.
Behind the temples are the stone tombs with their bronze lanterns; the newest one bears the date 1877, and is the burial place of the present Emperor's great-aunt. Near the tombs can be seen the imprint of Buddha's feet, which must have been of phenomenal size!
One day we went over the Osaka Museum, which has probably more Buddhas than any other museum in the world. It is a private collection near the Embassy, and contains some superb red lacquers, all very well arranged. It was interesting to note that the porcelains were tied to the shelves, on account of earthquakes.