best junks, fitted it out for him, and loaded it with
great quantities of treasures and precious stones for Jofuku to take as
presents to the hermits.

Jofuku sailed for the land of Horaizan, but he never returned to the
waiting Emperor; but ever since that time Mount Fuji has been said to
be the fabled Horaizan and the home of hermits who had the secret of
the elixir, and Jofuku has been worshiped as their patron god.

Now Sentaro determined to set out to find the hermits, and if he could,
to become one, so that he might obtain the water of perpetual life. He
remembered that as a child he had been told that not only did these
hermits live on Mount Fuji, but that they were said to inhabit all the
very high peaks.

So he left his old home to the care of his relatives, and started out
on his quest. He traveled through all the mountainous regions of the
land, climbing to the tops of the highest peaks, but never a hermit did
he find.

At last, after wandering in an unknown region for many days, he met a
hunter.

"Can you tell me," asked Sentaro, "where the hermits live who have the
Elixir of Life?"

"No." said the hunter; "I can't tell you where such hermits live, but
there is a notorious robber living in these parts. It is said that he
is chief of a band of two hundred followers."

This odd answer irritated Sentaro very much, and he thought how foolish
it was to waste more time in looking for the hermits in this way, so he
decided to go at once to the shrine of Jofuku, who is worshiped as the
patron god of the hermits in the south of Japan.

Sentaro reached the shrine and prayed for seven days, entreating Jofuku
to show him the way to a hermit who could give him what he wanted so
much to find.

At midnight of the seventh day, as Sentaro knelt in the temple, the
door of the innermost shrine flew open, and Jofuku appeared in a
luminous cloud, and calling to Sentaro to come nearer, spoke thus:

"Your desire is a very selfish one and cannot be easily granted. You
think that you would like to become a hermit so as to find the Elixir
of Life. Do you know how hard a hermit's life is? A hermit is only
allowed to eat fruit and berries and the bark of pine trees; a hermit
must cut himself off from the world so that his heart may become as
pure as gold and free from every earthly desire. Gradually after
following these strict rules, the hermit ceases to feel hunger or cold
or heat, and his body becomes so light that he c