At six o'clock of 8 morning in early August I came up the dusty way to Uyeno, and found Shiroda, punctual to the minute prodigy among Japanese), awaiting mo at the park steps. his time he was in had pure native dress, hakamv, haori, and the rest; and looked so much handsomer and more dignified in it that I fell to wondering why Japanese will ever consent to wear anything else. He' had promised me a sight of the asagao or morning-glories, at this moment in the perfection of their bloom. Asagao is, literally, ' morning-face." Who, by-the-by, is responsible for the ugly and pedantic name "'convolvulus," which has not even scientific exactness to recommend it, since it would apply equally ing plant; and why does anybody persist in using it? One flower at @ time is worshipped in Japan; and the asagao, when its turn comes round, is the object of attention as nice and assiduous as we bestow upon the rose. It is one "'of the seven flowers of autumn the others being the chrysanthemum, pink, lespedesa or bush-clover, a splendid purple camprennda called Kikya (the platycodon of botanists), a variety of hibiscus, and the grass called Japanese poetry has much to say about the asagao. "Here is, to take a specimen, the seven-word rondel of the lady Chiyo, who one morning finds a spray turned around her well-rope, and loth to destroy it, takes her pail next door, saying Asagay ni Tourube lorarete, Moral mid: n!
Thievish morning-glories, they Have seized upon my well to-day Lend me of your water, pray And there is the more familiar song, beginning Asagao no Kaki ni motarete, ete., which the reader may perhaps have beand sung to the samisen, for geisha are fond of it Morning-glory, mournfulwise On the fence thy beauty leaning, Drenched in dew the livelong night Open those dream-laden eyes Once again with gladder meaning!
Yonder comes the Lord of light.
As our kurumas were starting, a black norimono passed by. "There goes & doctor,"
Says Shiroda, 'a doctor of the old. school, bien entendn. He has a fine practice, too. We ate not rid of fossils yet, you see, even in Tokio."
Half-an-hour's run through narrow streets: took us into the florists" quarter, an intricate region of mud lanes and bamboo fences. Hundreds were there before us. Through one little garden-gate after another we passed into throngs of quiet people in blue-and-white kimonos, come, like ourselves, to enjoy the bloom of an hour.
The morning-glory was the one flower visible, and it was everywhere; grown for the most part in earthen pots and trained over frail stalks and trellises of reed. The variety of size and colour in the filmy blossoms was something amazing. Pure white bells like those which we call "moonflowers," splendid crimsons and poles, rich terra-cotta tints abounded.
me, of a vivid sky-blue, were rayed with broad streaks of white. But much more frequent were neutral tones of infinite delicacy, such as the Japanese love: ethereal violet-greys; faint rose-tints, like the flush of mountain snows; crystal dilutions of turquoise, amber, amethya colours that play in the opal and on the doves' neck, and have no name in any Janguage. At rare intervals one cam" across a group of extraordinarily curious specimens, the victims of misdirected skill, grotesquely twisted, plicated and flattened, till one could never have told what they were.
In general the arrangement was charac-tensed by great simplicity; no attempt being made to catch the eye by such devices asthe massing of colours. But in a few booths, tableaus: of a very elaborate kind been contrived, with chy figures, smeared in lurid distemper, of gods and legendary personages. Amaterasu, refulgent with streaming rays of blossoms, issued from the cavern. Kojima, draped in rainbows, wrote his message on the cherry tree. Here was a Troup of fishermen hauling in a net which they find to contain a Buddha, spangled with flowers. There Mongaku did icy penance under many-coloured cascade.
The story of this Mongaku is, perhaps, worth repeating, since it.is scarcely known outside of Japan. A brilliant young soldier, with a great career before him, he had the misfortune to become enamoured of a comrade's beautiful wife. She, harassed by his importunities and threats, at length made believe to yield, on condition that he first killed her husband. That night she prepared a feast for her husband in a diatant part of the house, and having dressed her hair like a man's, lay down in his place. And Mongaku came in by stealth and struck off her head. But when he held it to the light and saw whom it was he had murdered, grief and herver fell on him. He renounced the world, and dedicated the remainder of his life to remorse and repentance. After sitting, in the depth of winter, for twenty days under a waterfall, he entered the monastery of Takao, near Kioto; whence, in course of time, the fame of his piety and learning spread through all the land. Great saints are made out of great sinners, East and West.
As befits the most poetic of tradesmen, your florist (in Japan) excels all others in long-suffering. Provided only you show some spark of appreciation, you are welcome to.roam among his treasures and enjoy them almost indefinitely; which, when one comes to think of it, amounts to a very effectual and superior mode of ownership. I do not recall seeing " single purchase made that morning. True, it is customary refreshments, each gardener turning his to levy a tiny tribute by the offer of light house into a chaya for the moment.
Fortune, or the contrivance of my amiable guide, reserved the finest garden for the last. And its owner ssu his colleagues no less in suave courtesy than in the magnificence of his floral display.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.