. Nine years in Nipon. Sketches of Japanese life and manners. very cleanand comfortable, although they did receive more noticefrom travellers than was pleasant. I got two fresh men, and dashed at a rapid rate overhill and dale, through brake and stream, till at last thelarge and picturesque town of Hachoji, with its clear coolriver, and its great sacred cars, now bright with paint andvarnish, began to draw near. There, after a hearty mealwith chop sticks, sitting cross-legged on the mats, I caughtan antiquarian oddity of a bus, which held together toler-ably well till we got to Tokio, which w^
. Nine years in Nipon. Sketches of Japanese life and manners. very cleanand comfortable, although they did receive more noticefrom travellers than was pleasant. I got two fresh men, and dashed at a rapid rate overhill and dale, through brake and stream, till at last thelarge and picturesque town of Hachoji, with its clear coolriver, and its great sacred cars, now bright with paint andvarnish, began to draw near. There, after a hearty mealwith chop sticks, sitting cross-legged on the mats, I caughtan antiquarian oddity of a bus, which held together toler-ably well till we got to Tokio, which w^as, as usual, redwith the glare of a great conflagration. Pilgrimage to Fuji the Peerless. 107 CHAPTER IX. Pilgrimage to Fuji the Peerless. A Village Festival—Butterflies and Cicadas—A Noisy Inn—River Scene—Silk—Dining on Hot Water—Mimicry in Spiders—A Mountain Pass—Tea and Tattle—A Tragic Pool—Dissolving Views—Spindle Whorl—An Exciting and Ludicrous Scene—Limbs of the Law— CuriousBridge—Pious Parishioners and a Prudent NE who wishes to admire a greatmountain must remain below. Thevery worst possible use you can put itto is to climb it. I have never climbedFuji, and dont mean ever to do so. Ibelieve what people say as to itsheight to be pretty nearly correct,and can quite understand that it mustbe intolerably cold up there, and that the fleas in therest-houses, on the way up, are found unusually stimulat-ing ; but I dont know that the simple repetition of otherpeoples monotonous experiences in this way would addmuch to my own knowledge or enjoyment. Besides, if itmust be said, I am getting middle-aged and somewhatshort of breath, and to go up Fuji on a mans back, as afriend once gravely proposed to me, would be simpleprofanity. I left Tokio one afternoon late in July, under a dullsky, in a jinrikisha, with tandem; was spun rapidlyacross the lotus-covered moats, past the ruined castle of io8 Nine Years in Nipon. the Shogun now mantled with
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