I am strictly prohibited from interfering, and so escape
all trouble. It is always comforting to know that one's interests
are in much abler hands than his own, and I always have this
pleasure when Vandy is about.
Wherever we go, Fusiyama looks down upon us. What a beautiful cone
it is, and how grandly it pierces the heavens, its summit clad
with perpetual snow! No wonder that the Japanese represent it on
so many of their articles. Thousands of pilgrims flock to it
annually from all parts of the Empire, for it is their sacred
mount and the gods reward such as worship at this shrine. It was
once an active volcano; but there has been no eruption since about
1700, when ashes were thrown from it into Yeddo, sixty miles away.
The crater is nearly five hundred feet deep. Fusiyama stands alone
among mountains, a vast pyramid rising as Cheops does from the
plain, no "rascally comparative" near to dispute its sway.
* * * * *
WEDNESDAY, November 27.
We sail to-day for Shanghai, leaving Yokohama with sincere regret;
nor shall we soon forget the good, kind faces of those who have done
so much to make our visit to Japan an agreeable one. Had it been
possible to remain until Saturday I should have been greatly tempted
to do so to accept an invitation received to respond to a toast at
St.
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