without her.


The roadbed soon left the Shinano plain, across which peered the
opposite peaks, still hooded with snow, and wound up through a narrow
valley, to emerge at last upon a broad plateau. Three mountains
flanked the farther side in file, the last and highest of the three,
Myokosan, an extinct volcano; indeed, hardly more than the ruins of one.
Time has so changed its shape, and the snow whitens its head so
reverently, it would be possible to pass it by without a suspicion of
its wild youth. From the plateau it rose proudly in one long sweep
from moor to shoulder, from shoulder to crag, from crag to snow, up
into the leaden sky, high into its second mile of air. Subtly the
curve carried fancy with it, and I found myself in mind slowly
picking my way upward, threading an arete here and scaling a slope
there, with all the feelings of a genuine climb. While I was still
ascending in this insubstantial manner, clouds fell upon the summit
from the sky, and from the summit tumbled down the ravines into the
valley, and met me at Naoyetsu in a drizzling rain.

Naoyetsu is not an enlivening spot to be landed at in a stress of
weather; hardly satisfactory, in fact, for the length of time needed
to hire jinrikisha. It consisted originally of a string of fishermen's
huts along the sea. To these the building of the railway has
contributed a parallel row of reception booths, a hundred yards
in-shore; and to which of the two files to award the palm for
cheerlessness it would be hard to know. The huts are good of a kind
which is poor, and the booths are poor of a kind which is good.
To decide between such rivals is a matter of mood. For my part,
I hasted to be gone in a jinrikisha, itself not an over-cheerful