These men, whether working on the soil or the roads,
or engaged in cutting bamboos or building houses, wear the large straw
hats that one sees in the old Japanese prints. Nothing has changed in
their dress. But the modernized Japanese, the dweller in the cities or
casual visitor to the country, pins his faith to the bowler. The bowler
is so much his favourite headgear that he wears it often with native
costume on his body. Perhaps it is to Japan that all the bowlers have
gone, now that London has taken to the soft Homburg. It was odd to meet
groups of these bizarre little men among the precipices: even stranger
perhaps were their little ladies, especially on Sunday, in the gayest
Japanese clothes, their faces plastered with rice powder and cigarettes
in their mouths. Too many of them are disfigured by gold teeth, which
are so common in Japan as to be almost the rule. An English resident
assured me that I must not assume that the Japanese teeth are therefore
unusually defective: often the gold is merely ostentation, a visible
sign that the owner of the auriferous mouth is both alive to American
progress and can afford it.
Even in Myanoshita Fujiyama has to be sought for and climbed for, the
walls of rock that form the valley being so high and enclosing. But the
result is worth every effort. Immediately above the hotel is a hill from
whose summit the upper part of the enchanted mountain can be seen, and I
ascended tortuously to this point within an hour of my arrival.
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