here for the benefit of the baths, of which six daily are usually
taken. I think that in rheumatism, as in some other maladies, the
old-fashioned Japanese doctors pay little attention to diet and
habits, and much to drugs and external applications. The benefit
of these and other medicinal waters would be much increased if
vigorous friction replaced the dabbing with soft towels.

This is a large yadoya, very full of strangers, and the house-
mistress, a buxom and most prepossessing widow, has a truly
exquisite hotel for bathers higher up the hill. She has eleven
children, two or three of whom are tall, handsome, and graceful
girls. One blushed deeply at my evident admiration, but was not
displeased, and took me up the hill to see the temples, baths, and
yadoyas of this very attractive place. I am much delighted with
her grace and savoir faire. I asked the widow how long she had
kept the inn, and she proudly answered, "Three hundred years," not
an uncommon instance of the heredity of occupations.

My accommodation is unique--a kura, or godown, in a large
conventional garden, in which is a bath-house, which receives a hot
spring at a temperature of 105 degrees, in which I luxuriate. Last
night the mosquitoes were awful. If the widow and her handsome
girls had not fanned me perseveringly for an hour, I should not
have been able to write a line. My new mosquito net succeeds
admirably, and, when I am once within it, I rather enjoy the
disappointment of the hundreds of drumming blood-thirsty wretches
outside.

The widow tells me that house-masters pay 2 yen once for all for
the sign, and an annual tax of 2 yen on a first-class yadoya, 1 yen