Comfort disappears—Fine Scenery—An Alarm—A Farm-house—An unusual Costume—Bridling a Horse—Female Dress and Ugliness—Babies—My Mago—Beauties of the Kinugawa—Fujihara—My Servant—Horse-shoes —An absurd Mistake.

FUJIHARA, June 24.

ITO's informants were right. Comfort was left behind at. Nikkô!

A little woman brought, two depressed-looking mares at. six this morning; my saddle and bridle were put on one, and Ito and the baggage on the other; my hosts and I exchanged cordial good wishes and obeisances, and, with the women dragging my sorry mare by a rope round her nose, we left, the glorious shrines and solemn cryptomeria groves of Nikkô behind, passed down its long, clean street, and where the In Memoriam avenue is densest and darkest, turned off to the left by a path like the bed of a brook, which afterwards, as a most atrocious trail, wound about among the rough boulders of the Daiya, which it. crosses often on temporary bridges of timbers covered ‘with branches and soil. After crossing one of the low spurs of the Nikkôsan mountains, we wound among ravines whose steep sides are clothed with maple, oak, magnolia, elm, pine, and cryptomeria, linked together by festoons of the redundant. Wistaria cJrinensis, and brightened by azalea and syringa clusters. Every vista was blocked by some grand mountain, waterfalls thundered, bright, streams glanced through the trees, and in the glorious sunshine of June the country looked most, beautiful.

We travelled less than a ri an hour, as it was a mere flounder either among rocks or in deep mud, the woman in her girt-up dress and straw sandals trudging bravely along, till she suddenly flung away the rope, cried out, and ran backwards, perfectly scared by a big grey snake, with red spots, much embarrassed by a large frog which he would not let go, though, like most of his kind, he was alarmed by human approach, and made desperate efforts to swallow his victim and wriggle into the bushes. After crawling for three hours we dismounted at the mountain farm of Kohiaku, on the edge of a rice valley, and the woman counted her packages to see that they were all right, and without waiting for a gratuity turned homewards with her horses.