packed in great baskets which fit into each other like
two lids; we see them in England often, but there they are rather looked
down upon, here they are quite the correct thing. Indeed, among all the
luggage in the van there is no trunk or wooden or tin box at all, only a
great pile of such baskets of all sizes, mingled with a few bundles
simply tied up. When our belongings are rescued and identified they are
stowed away in a rickshaw by themselves, while we three mount in three
others and set off for far the most interesting part of the journey. At
first the road is quite good, and the men trot away contentedly, the
big hats bobbing up and down before us. What do these hats remind you
of? To me they are exactly like the lids of those galvanised dustbins
you see put out in streets for the dustmen at home.

[Illustration: PORTERS, JAPAN.]

The air is brilliantly fresh and sweet; we pass along by pine trees of
many sorts, and between them see the fresh green of the feathery
bamboos; these two colours, the dark blue-green of the pines and the
brilliant yellow-green of the bamboo, are seen everywhere in Japan. Then
there are avenues of red-stemmed trees called cryptomeria, we should say
cedars, with dark heads spreading out at the top of their immense
branchless stems. We see squirrels leaping about and scuttering up the
trunks. Then we go across open spaces, which are like an emerald sea,
for they are the brightest green you can imagine, the green of the
growing paddy, which is cultivated here as in Burma. There are men
dressed in garments of glorious blue, like those we saw in Egypt, hoeing
and watching the important crops. Then we plunge into cool woods and
follow little paths up and down, and when we want to get out and walk,
feeling lazy brutes to sit still and let a fellow-creature haul us
uphill, Yosoji says no, it would hurt the feelings of our men, who would
imagine we thought them poor weak things and scorned them.

We twist down to a wooden bridge, dark maroon in colour, and built in
one single span across a raging, leaping stream that dashes and splashes
merrily far below. At the other end is one of the picturesque roofed
arches or gates that the Japanese are so fond of, with its rich red
tiles curved up at the corners. Not far on we catch a glimpse of a
waving sheet of blue, a mass of flowers growing wild on a hillside, and
in sight of it, but still in the shade of the trees, we sit down for
lunch and to give