Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/211

Rh for it stands on a lofty moor, where cows and wild flowers flourish to the joy of European children. Here the wise missionary builds his villa and transports his family in the hot months. Donkeys and bicycles, bestridden by sturdy, blue-eyed youngsters, excite wonder in the meek pedestrian native, while papa, untrammelled by clerical attire, manfully mounts his five thousand feet and gazes into the red sulphureous crater. Has not a local parodist thus celebrated the annual exodus?

Alas! the pagan mountain-god, who when he speaks will fulminate in fire and ashes, has been dumb for more than a hundred years. He allows the preachers of an alien creed to fill their lungs with his life-giving air; he knows that their ingratitude will take the form of denying his divinity. "And yet God has not said a word."

From Karuizawa, without breaking the journey at Ueda or Nagano, we advanced more quickly to lower ground, until the rapid torrent of Sekigawa, which divides the provinces of Shinshu and Echigo, arrested our attention and signified the nearness of our destination. Leaving the railway at the little station of Taguchi, we ascended in rickshaws the zigzag path which conducts the pious to the sacred summit of