had a brand-new serpentine track laid out for it, while the old trail
at this point struck up to the right, coming out eventually at a
shrine that crowned the summit of the pass. Horse-railroads not
being as new to me as to the Japanese, I piously chose the narrow way
leading to the temple, to the lingering regret of the baggage
trundlers, who turned sorry eyes down upon the easier secular road at
every bend in our own.

A Japanese pass has one feature which is invariable: it is always
longer than you think it is going to be. I can, of my own
experience, recall but two exceptions to this distressing family
likeness, both of which were occasions of company which no doubt
forbade proper appreciation of their length, and vitiates them as
scientific observations. When toiling up a toge I have been tempted
to impute acute ascentomania to the Japanese mind, but sober second
thought has attributed this inference to an overheated imagination.
It seems necessary, therefore, to lay the blame on the land, which,
like some people, is deceptive from very excess of uprightness.
There is so much more soil than can possibly be got in by simple
directness of purpose, or even by one, more or less respectable,
slope.

It was cold enough at the summit to cool anything, imaginary or
otherwise. Even devotion shivered, as, in duty bound, it admired the
venerable temple and its yet more venerable tree. The roofs of the
chalets stood weighted with rocks to keep them there, and the tree,
raised aloft on its stone-girded parapet, stretched bare branches
imploringly toward the sky. So much for being a mile or so nearer
heaven, while still of the earth and earthy.