the first three days of my journey. His name is Ito, and you will
doubtless hear much more of him, as he will be my good or evil
genius for the next three months.

As no English lady has yet travelled alone through the interior, my
project excites a very friendly interest among my friends, and I
receive much warning and dissuasion, and a little encouragement.
The strongest, because the most intelligent, dissuasion comes from
Dr. Hepburn, who thinks that I ought not to undertake the journey,
and that I shall never get through to the Tsugaru Strait. If I
accepted much of the advice given to me, as to taking tinned meats
and soups, claret, and a Japanese maid, I should need a train of at
least six pack-horses! As to fleas, there is a lamentable
concensus of opinion that they are the curse of Japanese travelling
during the summer, and some people recommend me to sleep in a bag
drawn tightly round the throat, others to sprinkle my bedding
freely with insect powder, others to smear the skin all over with
carbolic oil, and some to make a plentiful use of dried and
powdered flea-bane. All admit, however, that these are but feeble
palliatives. Hammocks unfortunately cannot be used in Japanese
houses.

The "Food Question" is said to be the most important one for all
travellers, and it is discussed continually with startling
earnestness, not alone as regards my tour. However apathetic
people are on other subjects, the mere mention of this one rouses
them into interest. All have suffered or may suffer, and every one
wishes to impart his own experience or to learn from that of
others. Foreign ministers, professors, missionaries, merchants--
all discuss it with becoming gravity as a question of life and