the coolies a rest.

Several times during the run we have noticed shrines with images of
little foxes before them, some clean and new, but some weather-worn and
grown over with lichen. As Yosoji unpacks the lunch he tells us these
are Shinto shrines put up in honour of the god of rice. It seems very
appropriate to hear this now, just as we are going to fare merrily on
hard-boiled eggs, a tiny chicken, and plenty of rice, finishing up with
those astonishing bright-coloured cakes, which we have learnt to eat
without fear. We rest a long time, and all except you smoke contentedly,
watching the blue films curl upward under the still foliage; and then up
and on once more.

[Illustration: OUR DINNER IN A JAPANESE INN.]

It is nearly five o'clock before we reach our destination, a little
village, with a rather famous inn, not very far from the sea. In fact,
as we approach we can see the blue water shining out only about a mile
away across a flat expanse broken by hummocky sandhills. The village is
one long straggling street of thatched huts, rather like huge beehives,
with broad eaves. Our rickshaw men, who have been showing signs of
exhaustion, make a gallant effort at the last, and run us up to the door
of the inn in fine style. The inn stands on legs raised a foot or two
from the ground, and is well built, with solid wooden posts and a tiled
roof. It is two storeys high and has verandahs round both floors.

As our men let down the shafts of the chairs for us to alight, two women
and a man in native dress come out on to the verandah, and immediately
fall down on their faces before us, with their foreheads on the ground.
I don't know how you feel about it, but not having been born in the
purple this sort of thing is embarrassing to me, and I wish they
wouldn't! I have a vague idea that I ought to rise to the occasion by
taking their hands and saying, "Rise, friend, I also am mortal," or
something like that!

Yosoji, of course, does all the talking, and with a great deal of bowing
and volumes of flowing language, arranges for us to stay here the night,
requesting us to pass on into the house. In the porch it is evidently
expected that we should take off our boots, so we do, and they are
stowed away in a little pigeon-hole, while we are offered instead large
and awkward pairs of slippers like those we had at the mosques. You
reject them, preferring stocking feet, and you have the best of me, for
the next move is to go up