the most fairy-like crystalline
effects imaginable. If only some good fairy could, with a touch of her
wand, preserve it all intact until a few months hence, what a delight
it would be in the hot summer weather!

To-day the paper house was indeed cold; but even so slight a shelter
from the bitter wind was acceptable, though we regretted the screens
could not be opened to enable us to admire the prospect on all sides.
The luncheon basket being quickly unpacked, the good priest warmed our
food and produced a bottle of port wine, which he mulled for our
benefit. Cheered and refreshed we proceeded on our way, leaving him
much delighted with what seemed to us but a small recompense for his
courtesy.

Every house and shop in those narrow picturesque streets was a study
in itself, and so were the quaint groups of people we met, and who
gazed eagerly at us. We looked into the public baths, two oblong
tanks, into which the mineral springs came bubbling up, thick and
yellow, and strongly impregnated with iron, at a temperature of 112 deg..
They are covered in, and there is a rough passage round them. Here, in
the bathing season, people of both sexes stand in rows, packed as
tight as herrings in a barrel, and there are just as many outside
waiting their turn to enter. To-day there were only two bathers,
immersed up to their chins in the steaming water. They had left all
their clothes at home, and would shortly have to pass through the
streets without any covering, notwithstanding the cold.

[Illustration: Arrima. The Village of Bamboo Basket Work]

From the baths we went to some of the best basket shops, where the
beauty and cheapness of the articles exposed for sale offered great
temptations. We had to disturb our _jinrikiska_ men, who were enjoying
their frugal meal at a separate tea-house. It was beautifully served,
and as clean and nicely cooked as possible, though consisting of
viands which we might not have fancied, such as various kinds of fish,
seaweed, sea-snails (_beche de mer_), and rice. Each man had his own
little table and eight or ten separate dishes, a bottle of _saki_,
tea-pipe, and _hibatchi_, arranged exactly as ours had been at the
tea-house at Yokohama. How well they managed their chop-sticks, how
quickly they shovelled the food down, and how clean they left each
dish! Habit is everything.

We were anxious to make the best of our way home, and starting at
four, with but a short stop at the halfway tea-ho