We are now going downhill again, and can look down an avenue of great trees and many steps which we descend. We are coming to Hakone; I can see the lake beyond a Torii, and at the first corner of the road under the trees begins the village.
Miyanoshita, September 28.
Again the kago, and the rain as soon as we departed. I turned as well as I could, to find the lovely lines, now lost in general shapes and values, blurred into masses. Once the light opened on the top of some high hill, and I could see, with wild roses right against me, some flat milestone marked with an image against the edges of distant mountains, and a sky of faint twilight pink; or again we pattered along in wet grass, past a great rock with a great bas-relief image—a Jizo (patron of travelers) sitting in the loneliness with a few flowers before him. Then in the rain, and mingling with the mist, thicker cloudings marked the steam from hot springs, which make these parts of the mountains a resort for invalids and bathers.
Soon the darkness: then pine knots were lighted and we descended among the trees, in a path like a torrent, the water running along between the stones, which the feet of the bearers seemed to find instinctively. The arms of the torch-bearers were modeled in wild lights and shadows; the hats of the men made a dusky halo around their heads; the rain-coats of straw glistened with wet; occasionally some branch came out, distinct in every leaf, between the smoke and the big sparks and embers. The noise of torrents near by rose above the rain and the patter and the song of the men. The steepness of the path seemed only to increase the rapidity of our runners, who bounded along from stone to stone. After a time anxiety was lost in the excitement of the thing and in our success, but quite late in our course I heard behind me a commotion—one of A——'s runners had slipped and the kago had come down; no one hurt—the kago keeps its occupant packed too tightly. Then the path left the wild descent; we trotted through regular, muddy roads, stopped once on disbanding our torch-bearers, and reached the Europeanized hotel at Miyanoshita, where I intend to sleep to-night on a European bed, with a bureau and a looking-glass in my room. One little touch not quite like ours, as a gentle lady of uncertain age offers me her services for the relief of fatigue by massage, before I descend to drink Bass's ale in the dining-room, alongside of Britons from the neighboring Yokohama, only one day's journey farther.
[POSTSCRIPT]
[This much of my letters, or all but a few pages, has been published at intervals in "The Century Magazine." I had hoped for time to add some further notes on Japanese art, and some fragments of my journal, but neither time nor health allows me more. I should have preferred also to replace some of the drawings and photographs here engraved by some pages from note-books nearer to the feeling of the text—something more serious and less finished than suits a magazine.
With some regret I let these matters stand; with less regret because my notes are merely impressions of a given date. Since then Loti has written, and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn has written and writes with his usual charm. Mr. Lowell has opened singular pages, Mr. Chamberlain's authority has been given to popular information; Mrs. Coates has written in laughter; Miss Scidmore has adorned the guide-book, Mr. Parsons, Mr. East ... the list is too long.
I must thank Mr. H. Shugio for the "grass characters" of his elegant translation of my preface; and Mr. M. Tsuchiya for much information.]