Note on back of the card in Benjamin Smith Lyman's handwriting reads: "A stone TORI-I at or near Osaka, built in imitation of wood, as the wedges show. Also some stone lanterns. The straw rope is hung across at New Year's or other festivals and in this picture seems still to have traces in the middle of cut paper that is hung there nobody knows why. It is said sometimes to be an emblem of purity, but why is it cut? Formerly it was cotton cloth. Perhaps it is merely an offering."
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