dawned a salmon-coloured glow; it brightened to fire; lit up the clouds
above and the clouds below; blazed more and intolerably, till, as we
reached the summit, the sun leapt into view and sent a long line of
light down the tumultuous sea of rolling cloud.

How cold it was! And what an atmosphere inside the highest shelter,
where sleepers had been packed like sardines and the newly kindled fire
filled the fetid air with acrid smoke! What there was to be seen we
saw--the crater, neither wide nor deep; the Shinto temple, where a
priest was intoning prayers; and the Post Office, where an enterprising
Government sells picture-postcards for triumphant pilgrims to despatch
to their friends. My friend must have written at least a dozen, while I
waited and shivered with numbed feet and hands. But after an hour we
began the descent, and quickly reached the shelter where we were to
breakfast. Thence we had to plunge again into the clouds. But before
doing so we took a long look at the marvellous scene--more marvellous
than any view of earth; icebergs tossing in a sea, mountains exhaling
and vanishing, magic castles and palaces towering across infinite space.
A step, and once more the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. But
the clouds had moved higher; and it was not long before we saw, to the
south, cliffs and the sea, to the east, the gleam of green fields,
running up, under cloud-shadows, to mountain ridges and peaks. And so
back to Gotemba, and our now odious inn.

We would not stop there. So we parted, my friend for Tokyo, I for
Kyoto. But time-tables had been fallacious, and I found myself landed at
Numatsa, with four hours to wait for the night train, no comfort in the
waiting-room, and no Japanese words at my command. I understood then a
little better why foreigners are so offensive in the East. They do not
know the language; they find themselves impotent where their instinct is
to domineer; and they visit on the Oriental the ill-temper which is
really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I
had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who
was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue--the
station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the
unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in
a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not
ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of