bearing different names.  Like many of the rivers of Japan, the bed of the Minato-gawa is elevated considerably above the surrounding plain.  Confined between artificial banks to prevent the flooding of the adjacent fields in spring, the debris brought down from year to year has gradually raised the bed, and necessitated continued raising also of the levees.  These operations have very naturally ended in raising the whole affair to an elevation that leaves even the bottom of the stream several feet higher than the fields around.

Kobe is one of the treaty ports of Japan, and nowadays is reputed to do more foreign trade than any of the others.  One can imagine Kobe being a very pleasant and desirable place to live; the foreign settlement is quite extensive, the surroundings attractive, and the climate mild and healthful.

Pleasant days are spent at Kobe and Ozaka.  Twenty-seven miles of level road from the latter city, following the course of the Yodo-gawa, a broad shallow stream that flows from Lake Biwa to the sea, brings me to Kioto.  From the eighth century until 1868 Kioto was the capital of the Japanese empire, and is generally referred to as the old capital of the country.  The present population is about a quarter of a million, about half of what it was supposed to be in the heyday of its ancient glory as the seat of empire.

Living at Kioto is Mr. B, an American ex-naval officer, who several years ago forsook old Neptune’s service to embark in the more peaceful pursuit of teaching the ideas of youthful Japs to shoot.  The occasion was auspicious, for the whole country was fired with enthusiasm for learning English.  English was introduced into the public schools as a regular study.  Mr. B is settled at Kioto, and now instructs a large and interesting class of boys in the mysteries of his mother tongue.  Taking a letter of introduction he makes me comfortable for the afternoon and night at his pleasant residence on the banks of the Yodo-gawa.  Under the pilotage of his private jinrikisha-man, I spend a portion of the afternoon in making a flying visit to various places of interest.  A party of American tourists are unexpectedly met in the first temple we visit, that of Nishi Hon-gwan-ji.  The paintings and decorations of this temple, one of the ladies says with something akin to enthusiasm, are quite equal to those of the great temple at Nikko.  This lady appears to be a missionary resident, or, at all events, a person well versed in Japanese temples and things.  Her companions are fleeting tourists, who listen to her explanations with respect, but, like myself, know nothing more when they leave the temple than when they entered.  Japanese mythology, religion, temples, politics, history, and titles, seem to me to be the worst mixed up and the most difficult for off-hand comprehension of anything I have yet undertaken to peep into.  The multitudinous gods of the Hindoos, with their no less multitudinous functions, seem to me to be easily understood in comparison with the weird legends and mazy mythology of the Flowery Kingdom.