the
feet, and charming waitresses in picturesque costumes.

The first Buddhist temple at Nikko dates back to the eighth century, but
it was not until the seventeenth century that the place was made a
national shrine by building here the mausoleum of the first shogun,
Ieyasu, and of his grandson, Iemitsu. Hardly less noteworthy than these
shrines and temples is the great avenue of giant cryptomeria trees,
which stretches across the country for twenty miles, from Nikko to
Utsunomiya.

One of the chief objects of interest in Nikko is the Sacred Red Bridge
which spans a swift stream about forty feet wide. This is a new bridge,
as the old one was carried away by a great flood nine years ago.
Originally built in 1638, it served to commemorate the legendary and
miraculous bridging of the stream by Shodo Shonin, a saint. He arrived
at the river one day while on a pilgrimage and called aloud for aid to
cross. On the opposite bank appeared a being of gigantic size, who
promised to help him, and at once flung across the stream two green and
blue dragons which formed a bridge. When the saint was safely over the
bridge, it vanished with the mysterious being. Shodo at once built a hut
on the banks of the stream. For fourteen years he dwelt there and
gathered many disciples. Then he established a monastery and a shrine at
Lake Chuzinji, about nine miles from Nikko. Nine hundred years later the
second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty sent two officials to Nikko to
select a site for the mausoleum of his father. They chose a site near
Nikko, on a hill called Hotoke-iwa, and in the spring of 1617 the tomb
was completed and the coffin was deposited under it with appropriate
Buddhist ceremonies.

The road to the mausoleum winds around the river. The first object on
the way is a pillar erected in 1643 to ward off evil influences. It is
a cylindrical copper column forty-two feet high, supported by short
horizontal bars of the same material, resting on four short columns.
Small bells hung from lotus-shaped cups crown the summit of the column.
Just beyond this column is a massive granite torii, twenty-seven and
one-half feet high, the gift of the Daimiyo of Chikuzen. To the left is
a five-story pagoda, one hundred and four feet in height, which is
especially graceful. Inside a red wooden wall are arranged a series of
lacquered storehouses, a holy water cistern cut out of a solid block of
granite, a finely decorated building in which rest a col