ama. It
is in the vicinity of the capital, and is the most prominent object in
the landscape for many miles around. The apex is shaped somewhat like an
eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers to view from different directions
from three to five peaks.

Though now apparently extinct, it was formerly an active volcano, and is
credited in history with several very disastrous eruptions. The last
of these was in 1707, at which time the whole summit burst into flames.
Rocks were split and shattered by the heat, and stones fell to the depth
of several inches in Yeddo (now Tokyo), sixty miles away. At present
there are in its crater, which has a depth of 700 or 800 feet, neither
sulphurous exhalations nor steam. According to Japanese tradition this
great peak was upheaved in a single night from the bottom of the sea,
more than twenty-one hundred years ago.

Nothing can be more majestic than this volcano, extinct though it be,
rising in an immense cone from the plain to the height of over twelve
thousand feet, truncated at the top, and with its peak almost always
snow-covered. Its ascent is not difficult to an expert climber, and has
frequently been made. From its summit is unfolded a panorama beyond
the power of words to describe, and probably the most remarkable on the
globe. Mountains, valleys, lakes, forests and the villages of thirteen
counties may be seen. As we gaze upon its beautifully shaped and lofty
mass, visible even from Yokohama and a hundred miles at sea, one does
not wonder that it should be regarded as a holy mountain, and that it
should form a conspicuous object in every Japanese work of art. It is
to the natives of Japan as Mont Blanc is to Europeans, the "monarch of
mountains."

In summer pilgrimages are made around the base of the summit elevation,
and there are on the upward path a number of Buddhist temples and
shrines, made of blocks of stone, for devotion, shelter and the storage
of food for pilgrims. Hakone Lake is three thousand feet above the sea,
and probably lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. Its waters are
very deep; it is several miles long and wide, and is surrounded by high
hills which abound in fine scenery, solfataras and mineral springs.

HOT SPRINGS NEAR HAKONE LAKE

At this place the mountain seems to be smouldering, as sulphur fumes
and steam issue at many points, and the ground is covered with a friable
white alkaline substance. In many a hollow the water bubbles with cloud