demon or goblin.

In one little mountain resort, far from the railroad but in touch with
the outside world through the hundreds of visitors that seek its hot
baths during the summer, it was my good fortune to spend a few weeks
recently. Our walks were rather limited in variety, as the village lay
in an almost inaccessible mountain valley through which a carefully
engineered road ran along the edge of the river gorge. About half a mile
out of the village, close to the road and overhanging the waters of the
river at a spot where the rocks were so worn and carved by the rushing
torrent as to have gained the appropriate title of the "Screen Rocks,"
was a little shop and a tea-house. It was a pleasant resting-place after
a warm and dusty walk, and almost daily we would halt there for a cup of
tea and a slice of _yokan_, or bean marmalade, before returning to our
rooms in the hotel. The managers of the place were an old man and his
wife, who divided their labor between the shop and the tea-house. The
old man was an artist in roots. His life was devoted to searching out
grotesquely shaped roots on the forest-covered hills, and whittling,
turning, and trimming them into the semblance of animal or human forms.
_Tengu_ and goblins, long-legged birds and short-legged beasts, all
manner of weird products of his imagination and his handiwork, peopled
the interior of the little shop, and he was always ready to welcome us
and show us his latest work, with the pride of an artist in his
masterpiece.

His wife, a cheery old woman, attended to the tea-house, and as soon as
we had seated ourselves, bustled about to bring us cool water from the
spring that bubbled out of the rocks across the road, and to set before
us the tiny cups of straw-colored tea and the delicious slices of
_yokan_ which we soon learned was the specialty of the place. She was
glad to have a little gossip as we sipped and nibbled, telling us many
interesting bits of folklore about the immediate locality. It was from
her that we learned that the pinnacle of rock that dominated the village
was built by _tengu_ long ago, though now they were all gone from the
woods, for she had looked for them often at night when she went out to
shut the house, but she had never seen one,--and even the monkeys were
becoming scarce. She it was, too, who sent us to look for the mysterious
draught of cold air that crossed the road near the base of the great
rock, colder on hot days than o