e hidden beaches which are
the principal charm of the lake, where baskets are unpacked and cakes
and sandwiches appear, where dry sticks are gathered for a rustic
fire, and after an hour or more of anxious stoking the kettle boils.

"Of all the Japanese holiday places, Chuzenji is the most select and
the most agreeable," Reggie Forsyth explained; "it is the only place
in all Japan where the foreigner is genuinely popular and respected.
He spends his money freely, he does not swear or scold. The
woman-chasing, whisky-swilling type, who has disgraced us in the
open ports, is unknown here. These native mountaineers are rough and
uneducated savages, but they are honest and healthy. We feel on easy
terms with them, as we do with our own peasantry. In the village
street of Chuzenji I have seen a young English officer instructing the
sons of boatmen and woodcutters in the mysteries of cricket."

In Chuzenji there are no Japanese visitors except the pilgrims who
throng to the lake during the season for climbing the holy mountain of
Nantai. These are country people, all of them, from villages all over
Japan, who have drawn lucky lots in the local pilgrimage club. One
can recognize them at once by their dingy white clothes, like
grave-clothes--men and women are garbed alike--by their straw mushroom
hats, by the strip of straw matting strapped across their shoulders,
and by the long wooden staves which they carry and which will be
stamped with the seal of the mountain-shrine when they have reached
the summit. These pilgrims are lodged free by the temple on the
lake-side, in long sheds like cattle-byres.

The endless files of lean pack-horses, laden with bags of rice and
other provisions, the ruddy sexless girls who lead them, and the women
who have been foraging for wood and come down from the mountain with
enormous faggots on their bent shoulders, provide a foreground for the
Chuzenji landscape.

* * * * *

Geoffrey was sleeping upstairs in his bedroom. Yae was sleeping
downstairs on the sofa. He had expected her to return to the hotel
after lunch, but her attitude was that of "_J'y suis, j'y reste_."

He awoke with a start to find the girl standing beside his bed.
Afterwards he became sure that he had been awakened by the touch of
soft fingers on his face.

"Wake up, big captain," she was saying. "It is four o'clock, and the
Ark's coming."

"What Ark?" he yawned.

"Why, the Embassy boat