gons, the _Shoguns'_ lacquered palanquins, by feudal warriors in
their death-like armour, and by the swinging strides of the _samurai_.

"Look, look, Fujiyama!"

There was a movement in the observation-car, where Geoffrey and his
wife were watching the unfolding of their new country. The sea was
away to the right beyond the tea-fields and the pine-woods. To the
left was the base of a mountain. Its summit was wrapped in cloud. From
the fragment visible, it was possible to appreciate the architecture
of the whole--_ex pede Herculem_. It took the train quite one hour to
travel over that arc of the circuit of Fuji, which it must pass on its
way to Tokyo. During this time, the curtained presence of the great
mountain dominated the landscape. Everything seemed to lead up to that
mantle of cloud. The terraced rice fields rose towards it, the trees
slanted towards it, the moorland seemed to be pulled upwards, and the
skin of the earth was stretched taut over some giant limb which
had pushed itself up from below, the calm sea was waiting for its
reflection, and even the microscopic train seemed to swing in its
orbit round the mountain like an unwilling satellite.

"It's a pity we can't see it," said Geoffrey.

"Yes; it's the only big thing in the whole darned country," said a
saturnine American, sitting opposite; "and then, when you get on to
it, it's just a heap of cinders."

Asako was not worrying about the landscape. Her thoughts were directed
to a family of well-to-do Japanese, first-class passengers, who had
settled in the observation car for half an hour or so, and had then
withdrawn. There was a father, his wife and two daughters, wax-like
figures who did not utter a word but glided shadow-like in and out of
the compartment. Were they relations of hers?

Then, when she and her husband passed down the corridor train to
lunch, and through the swarming second-class carriages, she wondered
once more, as she saw male Japan sprawling its length over the
seats in the ugliest attitudes of repose, and female Japan squatting
monkey-like and cleaning ears and nostrils with scraps of paper
or wiping stolid babies. The carriages swarmed with children, with
luggage and litter. The floors were a mess of spilled tea, broken
earthenware cups and splintered wooden boxes. Cheap baggage was
piled up everywhere, with wicker baskets, paper parcels, bundles of
drab-coloured wraps, and cases of imitation leather. Among this debris
childre