A JAPANESE BATH.
Public and private baths are probably more numerous in Japan than in any other country. The qualities of most of the natural sources are well known, and thousands flock to them every year to be cured of real or imaginary maladies. The country contains a great number of these springs; and, since the arrival of foreigners, and a careful analysis of the waters, certain properties have been discovered that were not known before. In some cases the curative powers of the Japanese springs are remarkable, and it has been predicted that patients will one day come to Japan from distant lands to be healed.
THE LAKE OF HAKONE.
The Lake of Hakone is a beautiful sheet of water, not unlike Lake Tahoe in California—an aquatic gem in a setting of rugged mountains. These are not lofty, like the mountains of the Golden State, so far as their elevation above the lake is concerned; but they rise directly from the water, and present nearly everywhere a bold frontage. The surface of the lake is said to be more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea; and the water is clear and cold. Our young friends tried a bath in the lake, and found it as inconveniently cold as the springs had been inconveniently warm. "Some people are never satisfied," said Fred, when Frank was complaining about the temperature of the water in the lake. "You wouldn't be contented with the springs because they boiled you, and now you say the lake freezes you. Perhaps we'll find something by-and-by that will come to the point."
The boys had observed that the farther they penetrated from Yokohama and Tokio, the less did they find the people affected in their dress and manners by the presence of the foreigners. Particularly was this the case with the women. They had seen in the open ports a good many women with blackened teeth; and the farther they went inland, the greater did they find the proportion of the fair sex who had thus disfigured themselves. So at the first opportunity they asked the Doctor about the custom.
"I know," said Frank, "that it is the married women that blacken their teeth; but how does it happen that there are so many more married ones here than on the shores of Yeddo Bay?"
"You are wrong there," answered the Doctor; "there is probably as large a proportion of married women in the one region as in the other. The difference is that the custom is rapidly falling off."