and, though, that small communities
dependent on themselves for enjoyment are apt to feel a little slow and
isolated--almost bored, in fact. But you were saying--?"

"Well, living is not very dear, and house rent is. A hundred dollars a
month gets you a decent house and you can get one for sixty. But house
property is down just now in Yokohama. The races are on in Yokohama
to-day and Monday. Are you going? No? You ought to go and see all the
foreigners enjoying themselves. But I suppose you've seen much better
things in India, haven't you? You haven't anything better than old
Fuji--Fujiyama. There he is now to the left of the line. What do you
think of him?"

I turned and beheld Fujiyama across a sea of upward-sloping fields and
woods. It is about fourteen thousand feet high--not very much, according
to our ideas. But fourteen thousand feet above the sea when one stands
in the midst of sixteen-thousand-foot peaks, is quite another thing from
the same height noted at sea-level in a comparatively flat country. The
labouring eye crawls up every foot of the dead crater's smooth flank,
and at the summit confesses that it has seen nothing in all the
Himalayas to match the monster. I was satisfied. Fujiyama was exactly as
I had seen it on fans and lacquer boxes; I would not have sold my sight
of it for the crest of Kinchinjunga flushed with the morning. Fujiyama
is the keynote of Japan. When you understand the one you are in a
position to learn something about the other. I tried to get information
from my fellow-traveller.

"Yes, the Japanese are building railways all over the island. What I
mean to say is that the companies are started and financed by Japs, and
they make 'em pay. I can't quite tell you where the money comes from,
but it's all to be found in the country. Japan's neither rich nor poor,
but just comfortable. I'm a merchant myself. Can't say that I altogether
like the Jap way o' doing business. You can never be certain whether the
little beggar means what he says. Give me a Chinaman to deal with. Other
men have told you that, have they? You'll find that opinion at most of
the treaty ports. But what I will say is, that the Japanese Government
is about as enterprising a Government as you could wish, and a good one
to have dealings with. When Japan has finished reconstructing herself on
the new lines, she'll be quite a respectable little Power. See if she
isn't. Now we are coming into the Hakone mountains. Watch t