Letters from the Land of the Rising Sun. Being a selection from correspondence contributed to 'The Times' between the years 1886 and 1892 ... With seventy-six illustrations

Front matter

FROM Tl LiAMP i»F TSWB* RISING SW PALMEE LETTERS FROM THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN. THE NAGARAGWA BRIDGE AFTER THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE— SIDE VIEW. THE SAME — END MEW LETTERS FROM THE LAND OF the RISING SUN. Being a Selection from Correspondence contributed to "The Times" between the Years 1886 and i8g2, and re produced with the permission of the Proprietors of that Journal. By HENRY SPENCER PALMER, F.R.A.S., Maioi*. Genhkal, Retired List, Royal Engineers. WITH SEVENTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS. YOKOHAMA: PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY THE "JAPAN MAIL" OFFICE 1894. PRINTED AT THE "JAPAN MAIL" OFFICE, YOKOHAMA. CONTENTS. PAGE. Letter I. — Life at a Japanese Spa i

Letter VI

— -The Story of an Earthquake 71 Letter VII. — A Japanese Story from Real Life... 81 Letter VIII. — The recent Volcanic Explosion in Japan 87 Letter IX. — The Bandai-san Eruption 105 Letter X. — The Shrines in I se, in Japan ... 113

LETTER XI.

— The Birthday of a Constitution ... 129

LETTER XII.

— The Birthday of a Constitution ... 141 Letter XIII. — Japanese Polo 157

LETTER XIV.

— Cormorant .Fishing' in Japan ... 167 Letter XV. — The attempted Assassination of the Japanese Foreign Minister ... 177 Letter XVI. — The Shinto Festival of he, in Japan 185 Letter XVII. — Japanese Ways 207

LETTER XVIII.

— The Birthday of Japan's First Parliament 219

LETTER XIX.

— The Death and Burial of a Great Japanese Noble 233

LETTER XX.

— The Attack on the Csarevitch in Japan 243

LETTER XXI.

— The Departure of the Czarevitch from Japan 251

LETTER XXII.

— Parliamentary Procedure in Japan 259

LETTER XXIII.

— Parliamentary Reporting in Japan 271

LETTER XXIV.

— The Great Earthquake in Japan... 279 Letter XXV. — The Flower Art of the Japanese ... 295

LETTER XXVI.

— The Great Japan Earthquake ... ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. The Nagaragawa Bridge — Side View {Frontispiece). The Nagaragawa Bridge— End View {Frontispiece). I kao ; the Main Street ... ... ... ... ... 4 Kago, for Mountain Travel ... ... ... 8 I kao Hotels ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 Japanese Archers ... ... ... ... ... 12 A Buddhist Priest ... ... ... ... ... 14 Japanese Girls ... ... ... ... ... 15 Japanese Children ... ... ... ... ... 16 Fuji-san ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 Haruna Temple ... ... ... ... ... ... 21 Asama-yama... ... ... ... ... ... 25 A Bird's-eye View of Clou dland ... ... ... 28 The Crater of Asama-yama ... ... ... 30 A Japanese Pack-horse... ... ... ... ... 32 Kusatsu ... ... ... ... ... ... 37 Bathers in the Netsu-no-yu ... ... ... ... 42 A Street in Kyoto ... ... ... ... ... 46 Maiko ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 51 Geisha ... ... ... ... ... ... 57 Man in Foreign Dress — Same in Japanese Dress ... 65 Japanese Lady in Ceremonial Dress ... ... 66 Children in Hakama ... ... ... ... ... 68 Earthquake Effects ... ... ... ... ... 72 Wistaria 82 Scene in the Crater... ... ... ... ...

ILLUSTRATIONS. The Houses of Parliament ... ... ... ... 223 House of Peers — Interior ... ... ... ... 225 A Shinto Funeral ... ... ... ... ... 237 Otsu ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 245 The Coolies who saved the Czarevitch ... ... 253 A Member of the Diet ... ... ... ... ... 265 Mr. Kaneko Kent ar 0 ... ... ... ... 277 Osaka ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 281 Kasamatsu ... ... ... ... ... ... 283 Nagoya Spinning Mill ... ... ... ... ... 285 On the Road from Nagoya to Gift ... ... 289 Ruins of Ogaki ... ... ... ... ... ... 291 Ruins at Bhva-jima... ... ... ... ... 293 Specimen of Flower Arrangement ... ... ... 299 Specimen of Flower Arrangement ... ... ... 303 Ruins in the Neo Valley ... ... ... ... 309 Ruined Bridge in the Neo Valley ... ... ...

Preface

. This volume contains a series of letters written by the late Major-General H. S. Palmer, R.E., during his residence in Tokyo, for The Times newspaper. They were collected for publication in book form a few weeks before his last ill ness, and appear here exactly as they were written, his own scheme of arrangement and plan of illustration being also carefully followed. Perhaps it should be added that the political letters have been excluded and the descriptive alone retained, by the Author's choice. F. Brinkley. Tokyo, November 20th, 1894.

Letter I. Life At

A JAPANESE SPA. IKAO, 20th August, 1886. Competition, allied with steam and steel, is fast operating to lessen the enormous distance which separates Japan from Europe. Already, with ordinary luck, the traveller who does not tarry may reach Tokyo from London vid San Francisco in thirty days. Soon he will be able to do so in twenty-five or twenty-six days, by way of Montreal and Port Moody. Hitherto, the wonders and beauties of this pleasant land have been virtually monopolized, as far as foreigners are concerned, by a thin stream of travellers, mainly of the globe-trotting class. But the day cannot be far off when they will be brought fairly within the reach of any vacation tourist able to spare three or four months for exploiting a country that offers attractions of the highest order as a holiday resort.

Japan, indeed, has the enviable reputation of inspiring love at first sight in the heart of every comer. Nor is this a mere passing sentiment. It grows steadily as acquaintance ripens. As well with those who remain for years as with those whose stay lasts but for a month or two, there is a something about the country and its people that never fails to win lasting and even affection ate regard. A Much has been written, in many books, concerning the characteristics of Japanese cities and life therein. Every one has read over and over again about the parks, gardens, and fortresses ; the tea-houses and hotels ; the jin rikisha-riding and river excursions ; the sights and sounds of the streets ; the tempting curio-shops, with their wealth of art-products; the theatres, conjurers, tumblers, and wrestlers ; the temples, all-glorious without and unspeakably glorious within ; the national festivals and fairs ; the dainty and exquisitely dressed little geisha who minister at dinners and suppers a la Japonaise ; and the many other items which enter into ihe round of existence in Japan's capital and provincial towns.

We have also heard a good deal of the ordinary features of travel along the main highways, and even along some of the " unbeaten tracks." But very little has yet been told about those delightful spas and highland health-resorts, long and well beloved by the Japanese, which are yearly becoming better known and better liked by foreign residents and travellers. The greater part of Japan's territory is essentially volcanic. Professor Milne counts up a hundred and twenty-nine mountains scattered over the empire which are distinctly of volcanic origin, and fifty-one of which are still active and giving off steam. The same indefatigable authority has lately collected and published the records of as many as two hundred and thirty-three eruptions. It is no wonder, then, that hot springs abound in several parts of the country.

Some are found in the lowlands, but a much greater number in the mountains and hills. Now, as opium to a Chinese, or mint-juleps to a Virginian, so is hot-water bathing to a Japanese. The luxury of the daily hot bath is, indeed, almost as necessary to him as his dinner. And when the hot water is of Nature's heating, when it rises ceaselessly and in goodly volume from the depths of the earth, in some cool, elevated region blessed with salubrious air and attractive scenery, and when, especially, it possesses valuable medicinal or healing properties — then you have the ideal conditions of a Japanese summer watering-place. To such spots — and there are many of them — the better classes of Japanese swarm at this season, glad to escape from the trammels of town life, from the blazing heat of the plains, and from cities which, alas ! are nowadays only too often ravaged by cholera in its direst form.

Notable among these spots is Ikao. Any one in search of the novel and picturesque, of quiet seclusion from the world's worry and unrest, and of an almost Arcadian existence in a soft, balmy climate and amid enchanting scenery, would be very queerly constituted if he failed to find contentment at Ikao. Up in the highlands of the province of Joshu, a small, compact assemblage of long, low-roofed Japanese buildings, wide-eaved and wide-veran dahed, clings to the abrupt face of a lovely nook in the north-east escarpment of the Haruna mountain group. A narrow picturesque street, or rather flight of rude steps, to be likened only for steepness to the most breakneck alleys of Malta or Hongkong, climbs directly up the acclivity, and ends at an unpretending temple dedicated to the Shinto god Onamuji-no-Mikoto.

Provision and sweetmeat shops, tea-houses, public baths, and stalls for the sale of local curios line the little thoroughfare. At each stage of the ascent lanes lead off right and left to the dozen or two of large two-storied hotels which form the main feature of the place. These, built on artificial terraces, rise tier upon tier so quickly that the roof of one is barely higher than the ground floor of the next above it. Thus, from its upper story always, and often from its lower, each commands a IKAO : THE MAIN STREET goodly view of the fair landscape that is spread below. Behind rise bold, rounded masses of mountains, covered to their summits with the richest verdure. Far beneath on the right, in the depths of a precipitous and beautiful ravine, a noisy torrent, foaming over a rust-coloured bed, carries down to the plain the waters of the mineral spring which first sees the light a little behind and above the village.

This — a mere handful of a place, yet capable at a pinch of accommodating between 2,000 and 3,000 guests in its short summer season— is Ikao, now fast becoming one of the most popular spas in Japan. Until recently, Ikao was but little known, and frequented only by the holiday folk of the neighbouring region. But the virtues of its water, both for drinking and bathing, and the advantages of its situation, were brought into prominent notice a few years ago by the distinguished German physician, Dr. E. Baelz, who fills the chair of Medicine in the University of Japan ; and, as three-fourths of the seventy miles which separate it from Tokyo can now be traversed by rail, the whole journey thence is easily compassed in a day. To the hot-water loving and Nature loving denizens of the vast capital a chance like this was welcome as showers in spring.

Here the town-wearied official or citizen can taste for a while the sweets of the old easy-going life which preceded foreign intercourse, and which in the busier haunts is now slipping out of sight with dreamlike rapidity. Here, during the lazy warmth of the summer days, he can lounge through existence in all the happy luxury of airy rooms, 2,700 feet above the sea, and yet airier costume, oft-repeated bathing and water-drinking, a good deal of eating and sleeping, and entire freedom from work, worry, and mosquitoes — and all this in a lovely retreat which still retains its old simplicity, with scarce a symptom of modern improvement. He can walk or romp with his children, gossip with his friends, and play " go " or Chinese chess with them to his heart's content. He can drink innumerable little cups of tea and sake, smoke untold pipes (three or four whiffs apiece)* of the mildest of tobacco, and, if it please him, beguile the time with musical and dancing entertainments by infant prodigies, middle-aged experts whose only charm is in their skill, or the livelier and more enchanting geisha.

There is no room on this crowded site for even as much as the little patch of trimly-kept garden which is a stereotyped feature in the town home of a Japanese. But a garden of man's making would have no charm for him here. For, is not the whole outlook one vast and exquisite garden of Nature's own handiwork, replete with those scenic features the faithful reproduc tion of which, in miniature, is at once the aim and delight of the artist gardener of Japan ? From the verandah of his hotel at Ikao he can survey a glorious panorama of mountain and valley, hill and plain, the uplands clad with dense forest and open green expanses of waving grass, the low country richly cultivated, and dotted with copses, villages, and hamlets. Before him the extinct vol cano Akagi-san and a host of other peaks tower to heights of 5,000 and 6,000 feet.

Far below, in the plain, he can trace for many a mile the silver thread of the winding Tone gawa, on its way to the Gulf of Yedo. Beyond, in the remoter distance, loom the gigantic masses of the Nikko range, overhanging those solemn forest aisles where stately cryptomeria wave over the honoured shrines of the Shoguns Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu, of pious and immortal memory. And over the whole landscape broods that delicate crystalline atmosphere which assuredly justifies Japan's title to be called the Land of the Rising Sun. But, if the Japanese thus well enjoys the dolce far niente at his inn, he at the same time shows a laudable keen ness to explore the beauties which nature and art have furnished for his delectation, with no niggard hands, in the neighbourhood of Ikao. From the higher of the airy heights which rise behind the village he can be sure of a goodly prospect over a vast expanse of Central Japan, including the Kwanto, or great plain of Tokyo.

For more adventurous spirits, athirst to behold the wonders of a live volcano, the smoking crater of the mighty Asama-yama offers the temptation of a three or four days' excursion. Or, at Haruna and Midzusawa, each within a moderate walk through the fairest of fair Japanese hill scenery, are to be seen rare examples of those ancient tree-embowered temples and shrines, always erected on the choicest natural sites, whose fine proportions, exquisite details, and lavish art decoration so surprise and delight the traveller in many parts of the empire. To the Japanese, on any of these ex cursions, there is real luxury in the wealth of foliage, the play of sunlight, and the splendid combinations of form and colour which meet him at every turn. He loves the music of the glad streams that rush down every ravine, the roar and thunder of the cascades which here and there dash over the cliffs to meet them, or the still beauty of some glassy lake half-hidden in the depths of the hills.

He re joices in the sweet, fresh country air, breathing, as it often does, the perfume of flowers, conspicuous among which at this season is the magnificent Lilium auratum, that here almost whitens the surface of the grassy upland plains and slopes. And wherever he goes he may be pretty sure of finding, at spots which command the best views, cool, shady little tea-houses or kiosks, where he may rest and re- KAGO, FOR MOUNTAIN TRAVEL. fresh himself with tea or sake, and be fanned and waited on by brisk, comely Japanese damsels. Groups of such happy tourists are daily to be seen rambling over the hills and glens around Ikao. Perhaps, if the excursion be a long one, one or two ladies of the party have indulged them selves with kago — a kind of bamboo tray, slung on a pole and carried by coolies — which, in a region that no wheeled vehicle can penetrate and where side-saddles are unknown, furnish their only possible, albeit most tiresome, means of conveyance.

But the rest, men and women, boys and girls, lightly and ahvays tastefully clad, tramp gaily along, their loins well girt and nether limbs well gaitered, staffs in their hands, and feet shod -with the admirable Japanese rice straw sandals which are the best of all foot-garniture for mountain work. If the day be bright, some of them will be shaded by orange-tinted paper parasols, which form delicious bits of colour in the landscape. Happiness, content ment, and good temper are stamped on every countenance — the impress of their sunshiny natures, and aptly har monizing with the spirit of the place. Except at moments given to hushed admiration of some fresh beauty in the view or rare product of forest or field, they keep up a con stant flow of chat and laughter. Towards night they return, tired it may be, but always cheery, laden with flowers and perhaps little purchased trifles for friends at home characteristic of the scenes they have visited, to enjoy with ever fresh delight the luxuries of hot water, cool bathing-robes, and much gossip over the day's adventures.

Being charged with iron and sulphate of soda, and hence serving as a specific for some stomachic disorders that are common among the upper and middle classes in Japan, the water of Ikao is much prized for its medicinal properties, which are also efficacious in certain ailments of the daughters of Eve. But, after all, it is the bathing that chiefly attracts three-fourths of those who come here. If you explore the little town you find an all-pervading pre sence of hot water. Its steam is everywhere. Go where you will you hear its rush and trickle, and the splashing and chatter of happy bathers immersed to their chins in a rusty fluid at the high temperature — only pleasantly warm to a Japanese — of 117 degrees Fahrenheit. Wooden or bamboo pipes lead it all over the place, and supply a con stant stream through every bath.

Each large hotel has several such baths — roomy wooden tanks three or four feet deep. Here the sexes bathe separately. But in the public baths men and women of the lower orders often bathe to gether, in half-open sheds at the street side, yet with a degree of modesty and decorum, and a quiet unconcern 1KA0 HOTELS. about one another's presence or the stray glances of pas sers-by, which are absolutely incomprehensible to those who have not witnessed the habit as still practised in a few parts of Japan. "Cleanliness before all other things" seems, however, to be a cardinal maxim with the Japanese. You see this in the everlasting scrubbing, pumice-stoning, and tubbing in the bath-houses, which from dawn till far into the night know hardly a moment's rest. You see it also in the scrupulous cleanliness of their houses, and in their careful provision for light and ventilation, all of which are so griev ously wanting in the unsavoury dwellings of the Flowery Land.

Here, even the most crowded second-class inn, where the guests may sometimes be counted at literally one per mat of six feet by three feet, can show spotless — would that we could say flealess — floors and walls, while an abundance of air and light is obtained by the simple ex pedient of sliding back or removing the paper-glazed parti tions at the front and rear. Foreign visitors to Ikao may now count on finding fairly comfortable quarters in one or two clean and cheap hotels, with bedsteads and other furniture, foreign cooking, and a tolerable menu. With these accessories, with the luxurious baths which, when the water is a little cooled, Europeans soon learn to appreciate, with many attractions of scenery and climate, as well as a host of novelties that are to be seen nowhere but in Japan, and best of all at a Japanese spa — the man who fails to be pleased with life at Ikao can have no one but himself to blame.

Something of its chief characteristics has been told above. But it would need columns to do more than mention the tea-houses, curio-shops, and kiosks ; the story-tellers, strolling musi cians, jugglers, mountebanks, and quacks ; the clever old JAPANESE ARCHERS moji-yaki, who handles his hot liquid streams of sweetstuff with such persuasive skill that they are quickly fashioned, as by magic, into the most amazing baskets, tortoises, and other quaint shapes, before the very eyes of the delighted children who are his patrons ; of the archery-ground, where you can indulge in target practice with the formidable bows and arrows of old Japanese warfare ; and of other novelties and diversions — all as distinctively Japanese as is the land scape itself — in which the visitor, whatever his age or country, may find simple enjoyment without stint at Ikao.

To some foreigners, enfeebled by long residence in the East, the medicinal value of the water is a great attraction ; and, whether he drinks the water or no, what new-comer ever tires of the short walk to the Yumoto, or hot spring's source, in the glen behind the village? There is no "pump-room" here — only a dusky sylvan dell, a rustic bench or two, a square hole in the rock beneath which the steaming water flows, and a single bamboo dipper for those who drink. But the morning or evening walk thither is delightful, in the cool shade of a lovely ravine, rich with greenery, enlivened by the murmur of falling water and the shrill whirr of cicadas, and brightened by the most pictur esque and happy of human throngs. On this neutral ground you meet representatives of nearly all classes of Japanese society, from the plain shopkeeper or professional man of the capital to the blue-blooded scions of an aristocracy so ancient that no member of it begins to think his family worthy to be called an old one until he can trace a clear descent for six or seven centuries at least.

There are Daimyos of the old regime, Ministers and Secretaries of the new — possibly, also, a Prince or Princess of the Imperial family. There are the greater and lesser nobles of the feudal era, most of them now enrolled in the lately-created peerage ; and former samurai, of all degrees, who mainly compose the large official class of modern Japan. Many are accompanied by their wives — those gentle, devoted, well bred, and essentially feminine women who brighten Japa nese homes, and who, you rejoice to see, are no longer disfigured as of old by blackened teeth, but can, and do, smile on you in all their native comeliness. The prevailing dress of both sexes, if it be morning, is the yukata, or modest cotton bathing-robe, of all hues and patterns, bound at the waist by a girdle of silk, satin, or crape.

Here, however, comes a Buddhist priest, all shaven and shorn, in his silk robe and cool mantle of delicate gauze, fanning himself with holy but needless fervour. Next, a high Foreign Office dignitary, looking, as he well may do, a good deal bewildered about the Treaties, and clad A BUDDHIST PRIEST. in the quiet silk and crape garments of ordinary life, with the crest of his house woven in white on the back and sleeves of the uppermost one. Then, perhaps, you come upon a pair of young dandies, in all the pride of foreign clothes, stand-up collars, tight gloves, and dainty canes and and shoes. But they are a mistake here, where, excepting themselves and the foreign-style socks, shoes, and straw hats, now pretty common among the men, you have little or nothing to remind you that you are not in Old Japan.

Next, oh happy contrast ! a flutter of fans, a patchwork of vivid colours, a ripple of laughter, and you are face to face with a gay troop of Japanese Hebes, rosy-lipped and dark-eyed, with beautiful teeth, clear complexions of all shades from ivory-white to nut-brown, willowy forms, finely-pencilled eyebrows, and rich masses of black hair, tastefully braided and set off by some bright flower or coral ornament, with a 15 JAPANESE CHILDREN. neat binding of blue or crimson crape. Mirth, guilelessness, and — if there be anything in physiognomy — a large capa city for love, beam from the faces of those most killing Japanese belles. And their dresses are a study. While Japanese parents and adult folk generally content them selves with colours of almost Quaker-like sobriety, the nation seems to have lavished a world of artistic taste and skill on the raiment of its girls and children.

Be the colours bright or dull, the patterns bold or tame, the fabrics coarse or fine, the contrasts sharp or soft, you find that in artistic arrangement, grace, and beauty, the whole effect is always charming. As for the children, they swarm, they are delightful, and they present veritable nosegays of colour. If at first they look a little old-fashioned, in costumes which as to cut are merely reproductions in miniature of those of their parents, you soon find out that in reality they are very children of children. When you know them better you also find that, with all the attractions and virtues of children, they have very few of their faults. Long before Herbert Spencer taught the Western world how children should be reared, Japanese parents had of their own motion adopted most of the very principles of training which he inculcates.

The result is the Japanese child of to-day. Great changes have passed over Japan during the last thirty years. Great changes still lie before her. But, come what may, let us at least hope that in disposition, manners, grace, and dress, Japanese children and young girls may remain, essentially, as they are. B

Letter II. Asama-yama

.* A JAPANESE VOLCANO. IKAO, 30th August, 1886. Of Japan's numerous volcanic peaks, some active, some inactive, others apparently extinct for ever, one of the greatest and most famous is Mount Asama, in the province of Shinshu. While in height, grandeur, and grace of out line, and in the veneration with which it is regarded by the Japanese people, the lordly Fujisan stands a head and shoulders above every rival, there is a second order of eminences, comprising some half-dozen peaks of from 8,000 to 10,000 feet in altitude, among which Asama-yama, though not the highest, holds perhaps the chief place, as being the loftiest of the fifty-one active volcanoes in the Empire. The fires of Fuji are, for the time at least, virtually dead. But in Asama-yama's dark and cloud capped ridge there is, as an old native account says, "a fire always burning ; " and the records of its eruptions are among the most harrowing and terrible in the whole history of volcanoes.

An opportunity which was lately afforded me of visiting this celebrated mountain in the company of a chosen friend, and of returning hither by way of Kusatsu — the most unique watering-place in all Japan, if not in all the world — was too tempting to be thrown away. And cer- FUJISAN tainly, among the varied experiences of a wandering life in many parts of the globe, I can recall no excursion that em braced so much of things wonderful, beautiful, and uncom mon, within the short compass of four or five days' travel. Our first afternoon's march lay over the lovely heights of Mount Haruna, and past the time-hallowed Shinto temple of the same name, which is situated in a sequestered and romantically beautiful glen on the southern slope of the mountain. Noon of the second day found us toiling up the weary zigzag of the Shizuma Pass, the summit of which, 4,800 feet above the sea, commands in clear weather a magnificent view of Asama-yama, and of the wooded and grassy uplands that spread around its base.

It had been dull since morning, with a steady drizzle, and long before reaching the top of the pass we had fairly entered the zone HARUNA TEMPLE of cloud, and abandoned all hope of better weather. Sud denly, however, while we were yet resting on the summit, there was a play of light below. Then the fog began to lift, break, and roll away, and, one by one, the peaks, small and great, near and far, shed their garments of mist, until at length the whole glorious landscape of mountain and park-like dale, moor and forest, sharp-cut crags, and grassy plains bright with flowers, lay before us, glowing in the brilliant light of the midday sun. Asama-yama alone was denied to us. We were dead to leeward. We could see far up on his brown and naked shoulders ; but the crater peak remained doggedly hidden behind the vapour-cloud of its own creation.

In front of us, five or six miles awav, where the highest stretch of moorland meets the foot of the volcano, could be just descried the spot at which we were to pass the night. A wretched place enough this after wards proved to be — a mere barn, flea-ridden and smoke begrimed, yet honoured by the high-sounding title of the Wakasare-no-chaya. But what more of comfort could be fairly expected in a wild region some five thousand feet above the sea, and in the ticklish neighbourhood of a live volcano, ready at the shortest notice to belch forth over whelming ruin and destruction upon everything, animate and inanimate, within a radius of miles ? Growling, at any rate, was useless in such a place. Then, at sundown, came rain, to reconcile us to our rude quarters. And while the Japanese " boy " who served in the triple capacity of drago man, valet, and cook to the expedition was getting ready the supper we had brought with us, we were glad to turn once more to the interesting details that Professor Milne has collated about the Big Mountain, as the country folks of the district call it, which towers four thousand feet above the W'akasare-no-chaya.