Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE FLOWER FESTIVALS OF TOKYO Most visitors endeavour to arrive in Japan in spring, in time to see the Cherry-blossom Festivals. Reverence for flowers is one of the most charming characteristics of the Japanese. They are not flower-lovers, however, in the sense that Europeans are, for they care not for every flower. They love only a few; but these few they love in a different way from any other people. Their love amounts almost to worship. They hold great festivals in honour of their favourites, and they flock to famous spots to view them by hundreds of thousands. For a brief week or two each year, all Japan is a very s hrine to Flora, as any one who has been there in spring-time can affirm. It is a land of azaleas and cherry-blossoms. The face of the country smiles with them, and the latter are far more symbolical of the Empire of the Rising Sun than the chrysanthemum, which forms the Imperial crest. If trees be included in the category, the flower-festivals of Tokyo begin with the first day of the year, when everybody goes round visiting his neighbour to wish him "Shinnen ? médéto gozaimas"—the equivalent for our own greeting at that season. New Year's Day is the festival of the bamboo and the pine, and every house-door is decorated with these evergreens—the one emblematical of straight and honourable dealing; the other of long life and good fortune. The real flowers begin with the plum-blossoms, which burst late in February and bloom well on into March. In Tokyo, Kameido is one of the most famous places to see them, for in the gardens of this old Shinto temple are gnarled and tortured veteran trees that creep, and writhe, and twist them- CHERRY-BLOSSOM TIME IN JAPAN chapter{Section 4selves into amazing contortions along the surface of the gro... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.