d charge
his stingy neighbor for the smell of his eels. So, making out his bill he
presented it to Kisaburo, who seemed to be much pleased. He called to his
wife to bring his iron-bound money box, which was done. Emptying out the
shining mass of _kobans_ (oval gold pieces, worth five or six dollars),
_ichi-bu_ and _ni-bu_ (square silver pieces, worth a quarter and a half
dollar respectively) he jingled the coins at a great rate, and then
touching the eel-man's bill with his fan, bowed, low and said with a
smile:

[Illustration: A JINGLE FOR A SNIFF.]

"All right, neighbor Kichibei, we are square now."

"What!" cried the eel-frier, "are you not going to pay me?"

"Why yes, I have paid you. You have charged me for the smell of your
eels, and I have paid you with the sound of my money."

THE LAKE OF THE LUTE AND THE MATCHLESS MOUNTAIN.

Of all the beautiful objects in "the land of the holy gods," as the
Japanese call their country, none are more beautiful than Fuji Mountain
and Lake Biwa. The one is a great cone of white snow, the other is a
sheet of heaven-blue water, in shape like a lute with four strings.

Sweeping from twenty square leagues of space out of the plain and rising
twelve thousand feet in air, Fuji, or Fusi Yama, casts its sunset shadow
far out on the ocean, and from fourteen provinces gleams the splendor of
its snowy crest. It sits like a king on his throne in the heart of
Suruga Province.

One hundred and thirty miles to the west as the crane wings her flight,
in the heart of Omi, is Biwa Ko, the lake of the lute. It is sixty miles
long and as blue as the sky whose mirror it is. Along its banks rise
white-walled castles and stretch mulberry plantations. On its bosom rise
wooded islands, white, but not with frost; for thousands of herons nestle
on the branches of the trees, like lilies on their stems. Down under the
blue depths, say the people, is the Dragon shrine (Riu Gu), where dwell
the dragon-helmed Kai Riu O, and his consort, the shell-crowned Queen of
the World Under the Sea.

Why do the pilgrims from all over the empire exclaim joyfully, while
climbing Fuji's cinder-beds and lava-blocks, "I am a man of Omi"? Why,
when quenching their thirst with the melted snow-water of Fuji crater, do
they cry out "I am drinking from Lake Biwa"? Why do the children clap
their hands, as they row or sail over Biwa's blue surface, and say: "I am
on top of Fuji Yama"?

To these questions the Japane