夜明け前

The Shogun (or Generalissimo) of that day also paid a visit to the spot, and made the tree Goyobaku or the Tree of Honourable Service, in return for which gracious act of condescension the fruit was presented to him every year. All these honours, however, could not save it from a natural death when its time came; in its place now flourish a number of much less interesting trees, which nevertheless bear the same name, and apparently the same reputation, as their predecessor the Dragon of the prime.

Not far from the Gwario Bai is the orchard of Kinegawa, which can boast an honoured name too, for here the poets come, and you may see perhaps a hundred slips of paper, containing uta or hokku (seventeen-syllabled) poems, fluttering from the branches. Perhaps here, too, we may find a family party, the mother with the youngest child tightly strapped on her back, its tiny shaven head hardly showing above the wadded quilt which is wrapped closely round it; a little mite of a very few summers, tottering unsteadily on its clogs, clasping a branch of the natural tree adorned with paper blossoms, from which floats a streamer with some strange device, or any of the countless toys which go towards the making of a holiday; and only a