assembled, and the front row sat on the ground that the others
might see over their heads. They were dirty and pressed very
close, and when the women of the house saw that I felt the heat
they gracefully produced fans and fanned me for a whole hour. On
asking the charge they refused to make any, and would not receive
anything. They had not seen a foreigner before, they said, they
would despise themselves for taking anything, they had my
"honourable name" in their book. Not only that, but they put up a
parcel of sweetmeats, and the man wrote his name on a fan and
insisted on my accepting it. I was grieved to have nothing to give
them but some English pins, but they had never seen such before,
and soon circulated them among the crowd. I told them truly that I
should remember them as long as I remember Japan, and went on, much
touched by their kindness.

The lofty pass of Utsu, which is ascended and descended by a number
of stone slabs, is the last of the passes of these choked-up
ranges. From its summit in the welcome sunlight I joyfully looked
down upon the noble plain of Yonezawa, about 30 miles long and from
10 to 18 broad, one of the gardens of Japan, wooded and watered,
covered with prosperous towns and villages, surrounded by
magnificent mountains not altogether timbered, and bounded at its
southern extremity by ranges white with snow even in the middle of
July.

In the long street of the farming village of Matsuhara a man amazed
me by running in front of me and speaking to me, and on Ito coming
up, he assailed him vociferously, and it turned out that he took me
for an Aino, one of the subjugated aborigines of Yezo. I have
before now been taken for a Chinese!