and asked if this were the Japan of which I had read. Yet a woman
in this unseemly costume firmly refused to take the 2 or 3 sen
which it is usual to leave at a place where you rest, because she
said that I had had water and not tea, and after I had forced it on
her, she returned it to Ito, and this redeeming incident sent me
away much comforted.

From Numa the distance here is only 1.5 ri, but it is over the
steep pass of Honoki, which is ascended and descended by hundreds
of rude stone steps, not pleasant in the dark. On this pass I saw
birches for the first time; at its foot we entered Yamagata ken by
a good bridge, and shortly reached this village, in which an
unpromising-looking farm-house is the only accommodation; but
though all the rooms but two are taken up with silk-worms, those
two are very good and look upon a miniature lake and rockery. The
one objection to my room is that to get either in or out of it I
must pass through the other, which is occupied by five tobacco
merchants who are waiting for transport, and who while away the
time by strumming on that instrument of dismay, the samisen. No
horses or cows can be got for me, so I am spending the day quietly
here, rather glad to rest, for I am much exhausted. When I am
suffering much from my spine Ito always gets into a fright and
thinks I am going to die, as he tells me when I am better, but
shows his anxiety by a short, surly manner, which is most
disagreeable. He thinks we shall never get through the interior!
Mr. Brunton's excellent map fails in this region, so it is only by
fixing on the well-known city of Yamagata and devising routes to it
that we get on. Half the evening is spent in consulting Japanese
maps, if we can get them, and in questioning the house-master and
Transport Agent, and any chance travellers; but the people know