In the city of Nagano early in the morning I went to a large Buddhist temple where the authorities had kindly given me special facilities to see the treasures—­alas! all in a wooden structure.  A strange thing was the preservation untouched of the room in which the Emperor Meiji rested thirty years ago.  May oblivion be one day granted to that awful chenille table cover and those appalling chairs which outrage the beautiful woodwork and the golden tatami of a great building!  At the entrance of the temple priests in a kind of open office were reading the newspaper, playing go or smoking.  More pleasing was the sight of matting spread right round the temple below its eaves, in order that weary pilgrims might sleep there, and the spectacle of travel-stained women tranquilly sleeping or suckling their infants before the shrine itself.  There is a pitch dark underground passage below the floor round the foundations of the great Buddha, and if the circuit be made and the lock communicating with the entrance door to the sacred figure be fortunately touched on the way, paradise, peasants believe, is assured.  I made the circuit a few moments after an old woman and found the lock, and on returning to the temple with the rustic dame knelt with her before the shrine as the curtain which veils the big Buddha was withdrawn.  The face of one wooden figure in the temple had been worn, like that of many another in Japan, with the stroking that it had received from the ailing faithful.

[Illustration:  IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY. p. 142]

[Illustration:  GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A WESTERN SCYTHE. p. 367]

I had the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery.  As I was specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to see some nuns’ cells.  They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas.  The word “cells” was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned rooms of a cheerful Japanese house.  The fragile, wistful nun who was so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression.  Her dress was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination of green and cream.  Her head was shaven; her hands, which continually told her beads, were hidden.  Religious services are conducted and sermons are delivered here and in other nunneries by the nuns themselves.  I could not but be sorry for some girl children who had become nuns on their relatives’ or guardians’ decision.  Adult newcomers are given a month in which, if they wish, they may repent them of their vows; but what of the children?  The head of this nunnery was a member of the Imperial family.  The institution, like the temple from which I had just come, stores thousands of wooden tablets to the memory of the dead.  There are many little receptacles in which the hair, the teeth or the photographs of believers are preserved.  I found that both at the nunnery and the temple a practical interest was being shown in the reformation of ex-criminals.