through suzuki, dwarf bamboo, and little stunted woods, until a deep descent led us down to the Hakone Lake, dark blue and sombre among its encircling hills; it then mounted once more for a short distance, passed the hot springs of Ashi-no-yu, and finally, while the grassy hills still glowed in the light of the setting sun, brought us down to the Fujiya at Miya-no-shita, where a delicious natural warm bath and a good dinner made a fitting termination to a glorious day.
At the bottom of a ravine almost perpendicularly below Miya-no-shita lies the little village of Dogashima, with a turbulent mountain stream and a very shaky bamboo bridge. The path and steps leading down to it are kept continually green by the overflow from the warm springs, and when I was there they swarmed with land-crabs, queer little beasts with bodies of dark green, blue, brown, or red, and a pair of light-colored claws, which they held up in a threatening attitude when I attempted to catch them. As they heard me approach they scurried off towards their holes, but they were so clumsy and so numerous that I could hardly help stepping on them.
One of the common objects by Japanese road-sides is the figure of Jizō, a Buddhist saint who is the helper of all who are in trouble, and especially the patron of travellers and children. Near the path between Hakone and Ashi-no-yu we passed a colossal presentment of him, carved in bold relief out of a mass of andesite rock, a very striking work of some ancient sculptor. It is said to have been done in a single night by that marvellously active saint Kobo Daishi, who, according to popular tradition, climbed all the mountains in Japan, and found time, when he was not preaching and confounding sceptics, to perform wonders in sculpture, painting, and calligraphy. Jizō, in the rudely carved statuettes by the way-sides, is a benevolent-looking priest, holding a traveller’s staff in his right hand and a globe in his left. He stands on a lotus flower, and around his feet are piled many pebbles, placed there by wayfarers. The reason for the custom is this: On the banks of the So-dzu-kawa, the river of the lower world, there lives a hag who catches little children as they attempt to cross, steals their clothes, and makes them toil with her at her endless task of piling the stones on its shores. Jizō helps these children, and every pebble which is laid at his feet lightens the labor of some little one below. I never passed without adding my contribution, and if I cannot attribute my safety during my wanderings to his kindly aid, at least I am indebted to him for many a pleasant thought, and for the memory of many a lovely landscape or flower seen by his side.
