ony." It seems to be a perpetuation of some old court
ceremony of making tea for the Mikado. Expressing a wish to see the
ceremony, I am conducted to a small room divided off by the usual sliding
paper panels. A class of girls are kneeling in a row, confronting a very
neat-looking old lady who sits beside a small brazier of coals. The old
lady is the teacher; when she claps her hands, one of the paper screens
slides gently aside and one of the scholars enters, bearing a small
lacquer tray with tiny teapot and cups, a canister of tea, and various
other paraphernalia. There is really very little to the "ceremony," the
graceful motions of the tea-maker being by far the more interesting part
of the performance. The tea used is finely powdered and comes from Uji,
where it is grown especially for the use of the Mikado's household. The
tea-dust is mixed with hot water by means of a curiously splintered
bamboo mixer that looks very much like a shaving-brush. The result is a
very aromatic cup of tea, delicious to the nostrils, but hardly
acceptable to the European palate.

My jinrikisha-man of yesterday precedes me through the streets, shouting
the "honk, honk, honk." of the mail-runners, to clear the way. To see him
cleave a way through the multitudes for me to follow, keeping up a
six-mile pace the while, swinging his arms like a windmill, one might
well imagine me a real dai-mio on wheels with faithful samurai-runner
ahead, warning away the common herd from my path.

At Kioto begins the Tokaido, the most famous highway of Japan, a road
that is said to have been the same great highway of travel, that it is
to-day, for many centuries. It extends from Kioto to Tokio, a distance of
three hundred and twenty-five miles.

Another road, called the Nakasendo, the "Road of the Central Mountains,"
in contradistinction to the Tokaido, the "Road of the Eastern Sea," also
connects the old capital with the new; but, besides being somewhat
longer, the Nakasendo is a hillier road, and less interesting than the
Tokaido. After leaving the city the Tokaido leads over a low pass through
the hills to Otsu, on the lovely sheet of water known as Biwa Lake.

This lake is of about the same dimensions as Lake Geneva, and fairly
rivals that Switzer gem in transcendental beauty. The Japs, with all
their keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, go into raptures over
Biwa Lake. Much talk is made of the "eight beauties of Biwa." These eight
beauties