We had therefore reached our destination, and found ourselves at the foot of a tall overhanging mountain; probably beyond the limits of the town, in some suburban district.  It apparently became necessary to continue our journey on foot, and climb up an almost perpendicular narrow path.  Around us, a number of small country houses, garden walls, and high bamboo palisades closed in the view.  The green hill crushed us with its towering height; the heavy, dark clouds lowering over our heads seemed like a leaden canopy confining us in this unknown spot; it really seemed as though the complete absence of perspective inclined one all the better to notice the details of this tiny corner, muddy and wet, of homely Japan, now lying before our eyes.  The earth was very red.  The grasses and wild flowers bordering the pathway were strange to me;—­nevertheless, the palings were covered with convolvuli like our own, and I recognized in the gardens, china asters, zinnias, and other familiar flowers.  The atmosphere seemed laden with a curiously complicated odor, something besides the perfume of the plants and soil, arising no doubt from the human dwelling-places,—­a mingled smell, I fancied, of dried fish and incense.  Not a creature was to be seen; of the inhabitants, of their homes and life, there was not a vestige, and I might have imagined myself anywhere in the world.

My djin had fastened up his little cart under a tree, and together we clambered the steep path on the slippery red soil.

“We are going to the Garden of Flowers, are we not?” I inquired, anxious to ascertain if I had been understood.

“Yes, yes,” replied the djin, “it is up there, and quite near.”

The road turned, steep banks hemming it in and darkening it.  On one side, it skirted the mountain all covered with a tangle of wet ferns; on the other appeared a large wooden house almost devoid of apertures and of evil aspect; it was there that my djin halted.

What, that sinister-looking house was the Garden of Flowers?  He assured me that it was, and seemed very sure of the fact.  We knocked at a big door which opened immediately, slipping back in its groove.  Then two funny little women appeared, oldish-looking, but with evident pretensions to youth:  exact types of the figures painted on vases, with their baby hands and feet.

On catching sight of me, they threw themselves on all fours, their faces touching the floor.  Good gracious! what can be the matter?  Nothing at all, it is only the ceremonious salute to which I am as yet unaccustomed.  They rise, and proceed to take off my boots (one never keeps on one’s shoes in a Japanese house), wiping the bottom of my trousers and feeling my shoulders to see if I am wet.

What always strikes one on first entering a Japanese dwelling is the extreme cleanliness, and white and chilling bareness of the rooms.