The country observed from the elevation of the Hakone Pass is extremely beautiful, the white-tipped cone of the magnificent Fuji towering over all, like a presiding genius.  Near the hamlet of Yamanaka is a famous point, called Fuji-mi-taira (terrace for looking at Fuji).  Big cryptomerias shade the broad stony path along much of its southern slope to Hakone village and lake.

Hakone is a very lovely and interesting region, nowadays a favorite summer resort of the European residents of Tokio and Yokohama.  From the latter place Hakone Lake is but about fifty miles distant, and by jinrikisha and kago may be reached in one day.  The lake is a most charming little body of water, a regular mountain-gem, reflecting in its clear, crystal depths the pine-clad slopes that encompass it round about, as though its surface were a mirror.  Japanese mythology peopled the region round with supernatural beings in the early days of the country’s history, when all about were impenetrable thickets and pathless woods.  Until the revolution of 1868, when all these old feudal customs were ruthlessly swept away, the Tokaido here was obstructed with one of the “barriers,” past which nobody might go without a passport.  These barriers were established on the boundaries of feudal territories, usually at points where the traveller had no alternate route to choose.

A magnificent avenue of cryptomeria shades the Tokaido for a short distance out of Hakone village; on the left is passed a large government sanitarium, one of those splendid modern-looking structures that speak so eloquently of the present Mikado’s progressive and enlightened policy.  The road then turns up the steep mountain-slopes, fringed with impenetrable thickets of bamboo.  Fuji, from here, presents a grand and curious sight.  The wind has risen, and the summit of the cone is almost hidden behind clouds of drifting snow, which at a distance might almost be mistaken for a steamy eruption of the volcano.  Close by, too, the spirit of the wind moves through the bamboo-brakes, rubbing the myriad frost-dried flags together and causing a peculiar rustling noise—­the whispering of the spirits of the mountains.

The summit reached, the Tokaido now leads through glorious pine-woods, descending toward the valley of the Sakawagawa by a series of breakneck zigzags.  The region is picturesque in the extreme; a small mountain-stream tumbles along through a deep ravine on the left, mountains tower aloft on the other side, and here and there give birth to a cataract that tumbles and splashes down from a height of several hundred feet.

By 1 p.m.  Yomoto and the recommencement of the jinrikisha road is reached; a broiled fish and a bottle of native beer are consumed for lunch, and the kago coolies dismissed.  The road from Yomoto is a gradual descent, for four miles, to Odawara, a town of some thirteen thousand inhabitants, on the coast.  The road now becomes level and broader than heretofore; vehicles drawn by horses mingle with the swarms of jinrikishas and pedestrians.  Both horses and drivers of the former seem sleepy, woe-begone and careless, as though overcome with a consciousness of being out of place.