cost very much, but which
clearly won me the undivided admiration of all the coolies. They
passed the greater part of the night without sleep, with song and
jest, with their _saki_ bottles and tobacco pipes. We slept well and
warmly after partaking of an abundant supper of fowl and eggs,
cooked in different ways by Kok-San with his usual talent and his
usual variety of dishes.

We had been informed that at this place we would hear a constant
noise from the neighbouring volcano, and that hurtful gases
(probably carbonic acid) sometimes accumulated in such quantities in
the neighbouring woods that men and horses would be suffocated if
they spent the night there. We listened in vain for the noise, and
did not observe any trace of such gases. All was as peaceful as if
the glowing hearth in the interior of the earth was hundreds of
miles away. But we did not require the evidence of the column of
smoke which was seen to use from the mountain top, which formed the
goal of our visit, or of the inhabitants who survived the latest
eruption, to come to the conclusion that we were in the
neighbourhood of an enormous, still active volcano. Everywhere round
our resting-place lay heaps of small pieces of lava which had been
thrown out of the volcano (so-called lapilli), and which had not yet
had time to weather sufficiently to serve as an under-stratum for
any vegetation, and a little from the hut there was a solidified
lava stream of great depth.

Next day, the 4th October, we ascended the summit of the mountain.
At first we travelled in _kago_ over a valley filled with pretty
close wood, then the journey was continued on foot up the steep
volcanic cone, covered with small lava blocks and lapilli. The way
was staked out with small heaps of stones raised at a distance of
about 100 metres apart. Near the crater we found at one of these
cairns a little Shinto shrine, built of sticks. Its sides were only
half a metre in length. Our guide performed his devotions here. One
of them had already at a stone cairn situated farther down with
great seriousness made some conjurations with reference to my
promise to make an extra distribution of red wine, if we got good
weather at the top.

As on Vesuvius, we can also on Asamayama distinguish a large
exterior crater, originating from some old eruption, but now almost
completely filled up by a new volcanic cone, at whose top the
present crater opens. This crater has a circumference of about tw