Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn Page A

towels are mostly humbly offered to Benten. They are what you call
votive offerings. And there are many kinds of votive offerings made to
famous shrines. Some people give towels, some give pictures, some give
vases; some offer lanterns of paper, or bronze, or stone. It is common
to promise such offerings when making petitions to the gods; and it is
usual to promise a torii. The torii may be small or great according to
the wealth of him who gives it; the very rich pilgrim may offer to the
gods a torii of metal, such as that below, which is the Gate of
Enoshima.'
    'Akira, do the Japanese always keep their vows to the gods?'
    Akira smiles a sweet smile, and answers: 'There was a man who promised
to build a torii of good metal if his prayers were granted. And he
obtained all that he desired. And then he built a torii with three
exceedingly small needles.'
Sec. 17
    Ascending the steps, we reach a terrace, overlooking all the city roofs.
There are Buddhist lions of stone and stone lanterns, mossed and
chipped, on either side the torii; and the background of the terrace is
the sacred hill, covered with foliage. To the left is a balustrade of
stone, old and green, surrounding a shallow pool covered with scum of
water-weed. And on the farther bank above it, out of the bushes,
protrudes a strangely shaped stone slab, poised on edge, and covered
with Chinese characters. It is a sacred stone, and is believed to have
the form of a great frog, gama; wherefore it is called Gama-ishi, the
Frog-stone. Here and there along the edge of the terrace are other
graven monuments, one of which is the offering of certain pilgrims who
visited the shrine of the sea-goddess one hundred times. On the right
other flights of steps lead to loftier terraces; and an old man, who
sits at the foot of them, making bird-cages of bamboo, offers himself as
guide.
    We follow him to the next terrace, where there is a school for the
children of Enoshima, and another sacred stone, huge and shapeless:
Fuku-ishi, the Stone of Good Fortune. In old times pilgrims who rubbed
their hands upon it believed they would thereby gain riches; and the
stone is polished and worn by the touch of innumerable palms.
    More steps and more green-mossed lions and lanterns, and another terrace
with a little temple in its midst, the first shrine of Benten. Before it
a few stunted palm-trees are growing. There is nothing in the shrine of
interest, only Shinto emblems. But there is another well beside it with
other votive towels, and there is another mysterious monument, a stone
shrine brought from China six hundred years ago. Perhaps it contained
some far-famed statue before this place of pilgrimage was given over to
the priests of Shinto. There is nothing in it now; the monolith slab
forming the back of it has been fractured by the falling of rocks from
the cliff above; and the inscription cut therein has been almost effaced
by some kind of scum. Akira reads 'Dai-Nippongoku-Enoshima-no-reiseki-
ken . . .'; the rest is undecipherable. He says there is a statue in the
neighbouring temple, but it is exhibited only once a year, on the
fifteenth day of the seventh month.
    Leaving the court by a rising path to the left, we proceed along the
verge of a cliff overlooking the sea. Perched upon this verge are pretty
tea-houses, all widely open to the sea wind, so that, looking through
them, over their matted floors and lacquered balconies one sees the
ocean as in a picture-frame, and the pale clear horizon specked with
snowy sails, and a faint blue-peaked shape also, like a phantom island,
the far vapoury silhouette of Oshima. Then we find another torii, and
other steps leading to a terrace almost black with shade of enormous
evergreen trees, and surrounded on the sea side by another stone
balustrade, velveted with moss. On the right more steps, another torii,
another terrace; and more mossed green lions and stone lamps; and a
monument inscribed with the record of the change whereby Enoshima passed
away