baggage, crossed the river and the ravine, and by a steep climb
reached a solitary yadoya with the usual open front and irori,
round which a number of people, old and young, were sitting. When
I arrived a whole bevy of nice-looking girls took to flight, but
were soon recalled by a word from Ito to their elders. Lady
Parkes, on a side-saddle and in a riding-habit, has been taken for
a man till the people saw her hair, and a young friend of mine, who
is very pretty and has a beautiful complexion, when travelling
lately with her husband, was supposed to be a man who had shaven
off his beard. I wear a hat, which is a thing only worn by women
in the fields as a protection from sun and rain, my eyebrows are
unshaven, and my teeth are unblackened, so these girls supposed me
to be a foreign man. Ito in explanation said, "They haven't seen
any, but everybody brings them tales how rude foreigners are to
girls, and they are awful scared." There was nothing eatable but
rice and eggs, and I ate them under the concentrated stare of
eighteen pairs of dark eyes. The hot springs, to which many people
afflicted with sores resort, are by the river, at the bottom of a
rude flight of steps, in an open shed, but I could not ascertain
their temperature, as a number of men and women were sitting in the
water. They bathe four times a day, and remain for an hour at a
time.

We left for the five miles' walk to Ikari in a torrent of rain by a
newly-made path completely shut in with the cascading Kinugawa, and
carried along sometimes low, sometimes high, on props projecting
over it from the face of the rock. I do not expect to see anything
lovelier in Japan.

The river, always crystal-blue or crystal-green, largely increased