neck, and labouring chest, presents a picture of the most terrible
distress that the worst of diseases can inflict. There is no
intermission even for a moment, and the physician, here almost
powerless, can do little more than note the failing pulse and
falling temperature, and wait for the moment when the brain,
paralysed by the carbonised blood, shall become insensible, and
allow the dying man to pass his last moments in merciful
unconsciousness." {15}

The next morning, after riding nine miles through a quagmire, under
grand avenues of cryptomeria, and noticing with regret that the
telegraph poles ceased, we reached Yusowa, a town of 7000 people,
in which, had it not been for provoking delays, I should have slept
instead of at Innai, and found that a fire a few hours previously
had destroyed seventy houses, including the yadoya at which I
should have lodged. We had to wait two hours for horses, as all
were engaged in moving property and people. The ground where the
houses had stood was absolutely bare of everything but fine black
ash, among which the kuras stood blackened, and, in some instances,
slightly cracked, but in all unharmed. Already skeletons of new
houses were rising. No life had been lost except that of a tipsy
man, but I should probably have lost everything but my money.



LETTER XX--(Continued)



Lunch in Public--A Grotesque Accident--Police Inquiries--Man or