opened my eyes wide the next morning when a cow came to the door for the lug: gage, led by an unkempt boy who wore a red blanket wrapped plaidwise across his shoulder. There was a fine dense rain falling when we set out. At a bend of the road I turned to look back at Kawachi, nestling so sweetly among its green hills, ith vapour rising from the hollows round about it like steam out of great caldrons, to join the immense pall that hung overhead and hid all the summits.
The cow and her leader headed the march; and in front of me stalked Moshi with bare legs through the mire, his kimono tucked into the girdle, his pot hat hidden deep under an umbrella, and an expression of disgust very plainly written across his broad shoulders. The road skirted winding valleys, at the bottom of which the brooks now flowed eastward, showing that we had crossed the water-parting. Terraced wheat-fields went down to the streamside and at every curve ranged themselves like tiers of an amphitheatre. Above, the dense shrubbery and tall trees went climbing into the clouds. How intensely green was all this overpowering vegetation! At times the mist would settle down we could see nothing twenty feet ahead. More often the lower slopes of the hills were visible as gray ghostly silkmoths; and there wore moments when a plumy summit would emerge, like an islet weirdly hung in the sky.
Many dowers peeped in the wild wood thickets, azaleas, pink or pure white, anemones with, petals like snowy sea-shells, most plentiful of all the yanabuki, the characteristic spring flower of these highlands, It is the same plant that has been introduced into Europe and baptised Kerria japonica by the botanists Dut those who only know its rather wispy and ragged growth in our gardens can have no ides of the fairy veil it spreads upon its native hill sides, when its trailing green tresses and blossoms of orange-yellow are diamonded with rain.
A picture one often sees in Japanese books is that of a surly-looking warrior. The warrior is Ota Dokwan, who nearly five centuries ago had his keep on the very spot where now stands the Emperor's palace in the modern town of Tokio. Ota, says the story, coming home from the chase one day was caught in shower, and stopped' at a farmhouse to borrow 'a rain-coat.
The farmer's daughter plucked a tuft of yamabuki and offered it to him without award. Ota turned and went his ways, angry and perplexed. For he was a man better acquainted with swords than with books, and knew no more than any bar-parian that an old poet had sung: "The yamabuli blossoms in petals seven and eight fold; tis pity that it bears not one seed and that the closing words might be punningly read, "Alas! we have not single rain-coat." As many people know, skilful play upon words is of the very essence of a Japanese poem. But here was a country damsel witty enough to cap her prodigious display of learning witha pun of herown. When Ota Dokwan came to understand the true import of the gentle offering, he was covered with confusion at his ignorance. Therefore he set himself to study from that day, and before many years were over became as good a a3 any going, and the author of far fter things than those lines about the yamabuki.
In the hamlets we passed through the cherry-blossoms were still in full bloom. There were many hamlets. Nothing strikes one so much throughout Kiushiu, as the throng of population. The marvellous hillculture is eloquent of it. Even in this wild region, you have scare lost sight of one cottage cluster before you are into another. Men differ in their demands for company. Some exult ina crowd. For my part I traversed this beautiful island with a sense of being hemmed in, jostled, I had almost said suffocated. The longing for space and solitude made a seldom absent under-current to more agreeable thoughts.
At Kawachi I had heard of a famous shrine called Amano Iwate, accessible by a detour from the Mitai road. As there was plenty of time to spare, I thought I would visit it. So at one of the villages we turned into a by-path; and, after some ups and downs, started to climb a steep hill. the cow led gallantly ata pace that made it hot work to follow, so hot that I must needs shed mackintosh and coat regardless of the rain. For a good three-quarters of an hour we mounted straight up, by paths thick strewn with leaves and with the crimson blossoms of the wild camellia, which to the Japanese carry a not inapt suggestion of gory severed heads. The prospect on a clear day must be superb, but was now cut off by an absolutely opaque wall of mist. Once over the pass on top, the long descent began, rich in lovely sights, though wondrous slushy underfoot, down to terraced levels, and finally, after many windings to the village of Amano-Iwate, in its charmingly-engirdled valley. In front of the village passes a volcanic fissure holding deep in its bosom a stream which is either the Gokasegawa, or branch thereof. Descending into this trench and crossing a bridge, close to which a magnificent wistaria with the spread of a chestnut tree hung out its hundreds and hundreds of tassels, found the famous temple in a cryptomeria grove on the hillside beyond. It was an} insignificant shrine, after all, with the! usual bare and empty aspect, and the usual notched strips of paper hanging down in front of a wooden grating.
It was a good while after we had left that I elicited from Moshi, by dint of eross-questioning, the news that this, was actual ly 'a temple to the sun-goddess Amaterasu; and then it flashed int" my mind that Amano-Iwate is none other than the "Heavenly Rock-Dwelling" in which the goddess once hid herself leaving the world in darkness, till the dancing of Uzume and the laughter of the eight hundred myriad deities tempted her forth again. Doubtless the cavern mouth was just behind the temple, if I had only thought of looking; but now I shall never know for certain. Indeed, if one must be painfully and pedantically and frantically accurate the real Rock-Dwelling" stood on the "Plain of High Heaven," as related in the sacred books, and not anywhere at all on earth; but dis-
appreciated by the people. tinctions Uke this are far too subtle to be hoe the o Tevisit Amano-Iwate, and travel once again the delightful road to Mitai. Perhaps one day the railway will invade these sequestered places. Globe-trotters will then flock hither and congregate, by the score and by the hundred, in flashy pseudo-European "hotels," and dress for dinner every evening, and go on picnics to the shrine of Amaterasu O Mi Kami.
When I parted from the cow that evening in the street of Mitai she was tranquilly chewing the cud, and in her mild philosophic eye there was a sprightliness that shamed me.
(Zo be continued.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.