The next
day I walked to Lake Hakone (where the Emperor has a summer palace),
some eight miles away, in the hope of getting Fuji's white crest
reflected on its surface; but a veil of mist enshrouded all. And then
twice I went to the edge of the watershed at the head of the valley:
once struggling through the snow to the Otome Pass, on an immemorial and
nearly perpendicular bridle path, and once by the modern road to the
tunnel which, with characteristic address, the Japanese have bored
through the rock, thus reducing a very steep gradient.
In the tunnel the icicles were hanging several feet long and as big as
masts, and the air was biting. But one emerged suddenly upon a prospect
the wonder of which probably cannot be excelled--a vast plain far below,
made up of verdure and villages and lakes, with distant surrounding
heights, and immediately in front, filling half the sky, Fuji himself.
It is from this point, and from the ancient Otome Pass, a mile or so
away on the same ridge, that the symmetry of the mountain is most
perfect; and here one can best appreciate the simplicity of it, the
quiet natural ease with which it rises above its neighbours. There was
more snow on the slopes than when I had seen it from the train a few
days before; and the sky again was without a cloud. I have never been so
conscious of majestic serenity, without any concomitant feeling of awe.
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