a very slippery ascent like a ladder that is
trying to grow into a staircase. While you hop along gaily I leave one
slipper behind on the last rung, and in trying to recover it slip and
bark my shin! However, when it is retrieved, I take off the other and,
carrying them both in my hand, mount quite easily.

[Illustration: FUJIYAMA.]

The room we go into is specklessly clean, and through the wide sliding
panels, which are open on to the verandah, we see a glimpse of the blue
sea. The floor is made of mattresses in wooden frames neatly fitted
together, and is quite soft and comfortable to the feet; boots with
heels would certainly be out of place here. In a little alcove on one
side is a miniature tree such as those you sometimes see offered for
sale in England now, and behind it a quite beautiful sketch of Fujiyama
on a scroll. There is no other furniture at all, but when our luggage is
brought up we can sit on the baskets. We explain to Yosoji that we would
greatly like--first, a hot bath, after the heat and dust of the journey,
and next some food. Presently in comes the little Japanese maid whom we
saw on her face at the door in company with her master and mistress.
She prostrates herself at once, and with her forehead against the floor
says something, indrawing her breath in a most accomplished hiss. Do you
think we ought to do it back again?

[Illustration: IN COMES THE LITTLE MAID.]

Yosoji interprets that with great good luck the hot water is ready, and
if we go down now we can have a bath. Our things have been brought up,
so selecting a few clean garments we go once more along the polished
passage and down that dangerous ladder, then through a room, presumably
the kitchen, which is quite full of people, on to a covered-in verandah
on one side of the house, where two large shining brass basins stand on
a sink, and an iron tub stands on the floor, with its own fire beneath
it like a copper; clouds of steam arise from it. But what catches our
attention most quickly is an amiable Japanese man, who, clad in a very
slight garment, has evidently just had a bath. We can see he has been
pouring the contents of the basins over himself, and letting the water
run away between the wooden slats of the floor, so we wait for them to
be refilled for us. All the people who were in the kitchen have by this
time drifted in here, and stand in interested contemplation of our
proceedings. "Which is the bath?" I ask Yosoji. He motions