At length we came in sight of the smoke and vapour of the volcano.  Soon we were near the top, where the white trunks and branches of dead trees and scrub, killed by falling ash or gusts of vapour, dotted an awesome desolation of calcined and fused stone and solidified mud.  At the summit we looked down into the churning horror of the volcano’s vat and at different spots saw the treacly sulphur pouring out, brilliant yellow with red streaks.  The man to whom there first came the idea of hell and a prisoned revengeful power must surely have looked into a crater.  In the throat of this crater there seethed and spluttered an ugliness that was scarlet, green, brown and yellow.  The sound of the steam blowing off was like the roar of the sea.  The air was stifling.  It was very hot, and there was a high eerie wind.

Adventurous men had built rude bulwarks of stone over some of the orifices, and in this way had compelled the volcano to furnish them with sulphur free from dirt.  The production of sulphur in Japan is valued at close on three million yen.

As we went on our journey we spoke of the sturdiness and cheeriness of our chief carrier, who had told us that he was seventy.  I asked him if he thought it fair that he should have to walk so far on a hot day with so much to carry while we were empty-handed.  He replied that it might appear to be unjust, but that he was happy enough.  He said that he had lived long and seen many things, and he knew that to be rich was not always to be happy.  He quoted the proverb, “Sunshine and rice may be found everywhere,” and the poem which may be rendered, “If you look at a water-fowl thoughtlessly you may imagine that she has nothing to do but float quietly on the water, yet she is moving her feet ceaselessly beneath the surface.”

At the little hot spring inn where we next stayed, insect powder was on sale, not without reasonable hope of patronage by the guests.  The Asahi once facetiously reported that I had taken on a journey three to (six pecks) of insect powder.  The chief protector of the prudent traveller in remote Japan is a giant pillowslip of cotton.  He gets into it and ties the strings together under his chin.  The mats and futon of old-fashioned hotels are full of fleas.  The hard cylindrical Japanese pillow has no doubt its tenants also, but I never got accustomed to using it, and laid my head on a doubled-up kneeling cushion.

A foot-high partition separated the men’s hot bath from the women’s.  My cold bath in the morning I found I had to take unselfconsciously at a water-gush in front of the house.  As the food was poor here, we were glad of our tinned food and ship’s biscuits.  This was of course in a remote part.  Apart from ordinary Japanese food, there are usually available at the inns chicken, fish of some sort, eggs, omelettes and soups.  With a pot of jam or two and some powdered milk in one’s bag, one can live fairly well.  Fresh