How cold it was! And what an atmosphere inside the highest shelter, where sleepers had been packed like sardines and the newly kindled fire filled the fetid air with acrid smoke! What there was to be seen we saw--the crater, neither wide nor deep; the Shinto temple, where a priest was intoning prayers; and the Post Office, where an enterprising Government sells picture-postcards for triumphant pilgrims to despatch to their friends. My friend must have written at least a dozen, while I waited and shivered with numbed feet and hands. But after an hour we began the descent, and quickly reached the shelter where we were to breakfast. Thence we had to plunge again into the clouds. But before doing so we took a long look at the marvellous scene--more marvellous than any view of earth; icebergs tossing in a sea, mountains exhaling and vanishing, magic castles and palaces towering across infinite space. A step, and once more the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. But the clouds had moved higher; and it was not long before we saw, to the south, cliffs and the sea, to the east, the gleam of green fields, running up, under cloud-shadows, to mountain ridges and peaks. And so back to Gotemba, and our now odious inn.
We would not stop there. So we parted, my friend for Tokyo, I for Kyoto. But time-tables had been fallacious, and I found myself landed at Numatsa, with four hours to wait for the night train, no comfort in the waiting-room, and no Japanese words at my command. I understood then a little better why foreigners are so offensive in the East. They do not know the language; they find themselves impotent where their instinct is to domineer; and they visit on the Oriental the ill-temper which is really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue--the station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of kow-towing girls; but how to tell them that I wanted a bathe and a meal? Signs were unavailing. We looked at one another and laughed, but that did not help. At last they sent for a student who knew a little English. I could have hugged him. "It is a great pity," he said, "that these people do not know English." The pity, I replied, was that I did not know Japanese, but his courtesy repudiated the suggestion. Could I have a bathing costume? Of course! And in a quarter of an hour he brought me a wet one. Where could I change? He showed me a room; and presently I was swimming in the sea, with such delight as he only can know who has ascended and descended Fuji without the chance of a bath. Returning to the inn, I wandered about in my wet costume seeking vainly the room in which I had changed. Laughing girls pushed me here, and pulled me there, uncomprehending of my pantomime, till one at last, quicker than the rest, pulled back a slide, and revealed the room I was seeking. Then came dinner--soup, fried fish, and rice; and--for my weakness--a spoon and fork to eat them with. The whole house seemed to be open, and one looked into every room, watching the ways of these gay and charming people. At last I paid--to accomplish _that_ by pantomime was easy,--and said good-bye to my hostess and her maids, who bowed their heads to the ground and smiled as though I had been the most honoured of guests instead of a clumsy foreigner, fit food for mirth. A walk in a twilight pine wood, and then back to the station, where I boarded the night train, and slept fitfully until five, when we reached Kyoto, and my wanderings were over. How I enjoyed the comfort of the best hotel in the East! But also how I regretted that I had not long ago learnt to find comfort in the far more beautiful manner of life of Japan!