A visitor to Kyoto with no idea of Oriental art

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A characteristic emblem of Kyoto would be the picture of a maiko standing on one of the Kamo's classic bridges, against the blue-black mountains of Hiei or Higashiyama. Her manners and speech reflect the old Kyoto, and her dress--her obi, her hairpins and her very fan--display the arts and crafts of the ancient capital. Around her, the scenery is the same as in olden days. The same green mountains stand as veritable multifold screens, and the gentleflowing Kamo and Katsura are replete at every ten paces with episodes famous in history or tradition.

Of cities once great, but now decrepit, or important only as relics of ancient grandeur, there are many in Asia or Europe. Kyoto is not one of them. She is old with landmarks everywhere telling tales a thousand years old, and she is ever young and charming. A thousand years ago Kyoto was the Emperor's capital, or the loveliest city in the world, which is what "Miyako" doubtless meant.

Here then is a city where one would like to pass many years of this earthly life -- to live, amid its twentieth-century conveniences, the life of one born in the romantic era of Heian when the Emperors reigned in inviolable seclusion, and the Shōguns held their proud court in all the glory of temporal power, and when the great Buddhist monks and Shinto priests, in many of whose veins flowed the Imperial blood, performed their sacred rites in edifices no less impressive than those of the Emperors themselves.

It is one of the world's wonders that, despite the many calamities of war and of natural agency which have overwhelmed this beautiful city, it has kept all the relies of its ancient glory. Nor are they kept in a nutshell as in a dusky museum; they are preserved in a fresh environment of scenery, as if the contents of pictorial scrolls of the Heian period had stepped out into a modern setting.

If a visitor to Kyoto were a complete stranger, with no idea of her history or Oriental art, he could not fail to be impressed by her old-world charm all the same. Even a clumsy attempt at explanation made by a casual shopkeeper would give him a glimpse into the inexhaustible treasure-house, as it were, of its old arts and culture. Were he an art lover or a student of history or archæology, nothing but a prolonged stay could allay his craving for the beauty that Kyoto inspires.

Volumes could not describe all these objects of natural beauty and artistic elegance. For convenience sake therefore I shall treat them under the following categories. First, Kyoto as a historical museum; secondly, as the headquarters of the Buddhist religion; thirdly, as a center of arts, crafts and various refined tastes; fourthly, as a Mecca of sightseeing and beautiful scenery.