here, but the walls
were richly carved and ornamented with a number of drawings and
gildings. The innermost wall of the temple was fenced by heavy doors
provided with secure locks and bolts, within which "the divine
spirit dwelt," or within which "there was nothing else," as the
priest phrased it on another occasion.

Enoshima is a little rocky peninsula, which is connected with the
mainland by a low, sandy neck of land. Occasionally this neck of
land has been broken through or overflowed, and the peninsula has
then been converted into an island. It is considered sacred, and is
studded with Shinto temples. On the side of the peninsula next the
mainland there is a little village, consisting of inns, tea-houses,
and shops for pilgrims' and tourists' articles, among which are
beautiful shells, and the fine siliceous skeleton of a sponge,
_Hyalonema mirabilis_, Gray. Here I lived for the first time in a
Japanese inn of the sort to which Europeans in ordinary
circumstances are not admitted. I was accompanied by two officials
from the governor's court at Yokohama, and it was on their assurance
that I did not belong to the common sort of uncultivated and
arrogant foreigners that the host made no difficulty in receiving
us.

After we had at our entrance saluted the people of the inn and
passed some time in the exchange of civilities, there came a girl,
and, in a kneeling posture, offered the foreigners Japanese tea,
which is always handed round in very small cups only half full. Then
we took off our shoes and went into the guest-chamber. Such chambers
in the Japanese inns are commonly large and dazzlingly clean.
Furniture is completely wanting but the floor is covered with mats
of plaited straw. The walls are ornamented with songs suitable for
the place, or mottoes, and with Japanese paintings. The rooms are
separated from each other by thin movable panels, which slide in
grooves, which can be removed or replaced at will. One may,
therefore, as once happened to me, lay himself down to sleep in a
very large room, and, if he sleeps sound, awake in the morning in a
very small one. The room generally looks out on a Japanese
garden-inclosure, or if it is in the upper story, on a small
balcony. Immediately outside there is always a vessel filled with
water and a scoop. Generally on one side of the room there is a
wall-press, in which the bed-clothes are kept. Those, the only
household articles in the room, consist of a thick mat