A ri beyond Okabe and the pass of Utsunoya necessitates a mile or two of trundling.  Here occurs a tunnel some six hundred feet in length and twelve wide; a glimmer of sunshine or daylight is cast into the tunnel by a system of simple reflectors at either entrance.  These are merely glass mirrors, set at an angle to reflect the rays of light into the tunnel.

Descending this little pass the Tokaido traverses a level rice-field plain, crosses the Abe-kawa, and approaches the sea-coast at Shidzuoka, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants.  The view of Fuji, now but a short distance ahead, is extremely beautiful; the smooth road sweeps around the gravelly beach, almost licked by the waves.  The breakers approach and recede, keeping time to the inimitable music of the surf; vessels are dotting the blue expanse; villages and tea-houses are seen resting along the crescent-sweep of the shore for many a mile ahead, where Fuji slopes so gracefully down from its majestic snow-crowned summit to the sea.

It is indeed a glorious ride around the crescent bay, through the sea-shore villages of Okitsu, Yui, Kambara, and Iwabuchi to Yoshiwara, a little town on the footstool of the big, gracefully sweeping cone.  The stretch of shore hereabout is celebrated in Japanese poetry as Taga-no-ura, from the peculiarly beautiful view of Fuji obtained from it.

This remarkable mountain is the highest in Japan, and is probably the finest specimen of a conical mountain in existence.  Native legends surround it with a halo of romance.  Its origin is reputed to be simultaneous with the formation of Biwa Lake, near Kioto, both mountain and lake being formed in a single night—­one rising from the plain twelve thousand eight hundred feet, the other sinking till its bed reached the level of the sea.

The summit of Fuji is a place of pilgrimage for Japanese ascetics who are desirous of attaining “perfect peace” by imitating Shitta-Tai-shi, the Japanese Buddha, who climbed to the summit of a mountain in search of nirvana (calm).  Orthodox Japs believe that the grains of sand brought down on the sandals of the pilgrims ascend to the summit again of their own accord during the night.

Tradition is furthermore responsible for the belief that snow disappears entirely from the mountain for a few hours on the fifteenth day of the sixth moon, and begins to fall again during the following night.  Formerly an active volcano, Fuji even now emits steam from sundry crevices near the summit, and will some day probably fill the good people at Yoshiwara and adjacent villages with a lively sense of its power.  Fuji is the special pride of the Japs, its loveliness appealing strongly to the national sense of landscape beauty.  Of it their poet sings: 

“Great Fusiyama, tow’ring to the sky.  A treasure art thou, giv’n to mortal man, A god-protector watching o’er Japan:  On thee forever let me feast mine eye.”