138 STALKS ABROAD 



quietly-clad groups converging on all sides. Men in 

 every variety of dress, their appearance usually ruined 

 by some ghastly European headgear, stood aside to let 

 us pass. Their dainty little wives clutched desper- 

 ately, with the flash of a red underskirt, at adventurous 

 tonsured mites toddling about the road. Babies of three 

 or four, purple-faced infants with wildly-rolling eyes 

 strapped to their backs, played among the grasses. 

 A row of school-girls, picturesque in their old-fashioned 

 purple and maroon riding skirts, were drawn up beside 

 the path. Dainty musumes (I really must apologise, 

 but I believe every article on Japan should properly 

 contain this word and I don't want to spoil the record!) 

 with elaborate coiffures looked up, caught an appre- 

 ciative twinkle, slowly dawned into smiles and giggles, 

 then voluble talk. Old ladies with blackened teeth, 

 shaved eyebrows and, of course, the inevitable baby, 

 sat beside their booths vending pomegranates, apples, 

 persimmons, dried seaweed (this for chewing), small 

 metal deer, horns, and a host of other curious articles. 

 Ropes, festooned with flags, hung above the grey 

 stone lanterns standing in mute mossgrown rows, 

 and by contrast threw the dark shadows of the 

 cryptomerias into yet deeper shade. Up the long 

 avenue, past the thousand-year-old temple of Kasuga 

 they went, this kaleidoscopic procession, happy, 

 smiling, and talking, attracting us a thousand times 

 more than we did them despite their friendly glances. 

 The babbling murmur of their clogs made a soft 

 undernote which still haunts me. 



