There is but one break in the long walk through flowers and grass--a little tea-house called Naka-no-chaya, whose three pine-trees are distinguishable for a long distance across the moor. All round it there are monumental pillars covered
[Illustration: NAKA-NO-CHAYA, ON THE NORTHERN SLOPE]
with inscriptions, which look like tombstones, but were really erected by pilgrims to commemorate the number of ascents which they have made. The variety of plants which grow and flourish on this slope of fine cinders is truly remarkable. The most abundant flower was a pale mauve scabious, which gave a prevailing tint to the whole moorland, but the most conspicuous was a tall, slender day-lily
[Illustration: THE RED-PINE GROVE AT YOSHIDA]
with a pale yellow flower, which shone like a star in the evening when the color had gone from all the others. A dark purple-blue campanula (_Platycodon grandiflorum_) was also very effective, and a bright crimson pink (_Dianthus superbus_) with beautifully fringed petals. But it would be hopeless to try and enumerate them. I find in a sketchbook a list of fifty-seven which I noted on the way between Naka-no-chaya and Yoshida. A little later in the year this mass of flowers and grass is mown down and carried to the villages at the foot of the mountain.
The last part of our walk was through a grove of grand red pines, which seem to do better on this volcanic soil than anywhere else in Japan, and then across a few fields to the top of the long village street, where we at last found our tea-house and our baggage, and comfortable rooms, and settled down for a night of well-earned repose.
[Illustration: FUJI OVER THE RICE-FIELDS OF SUZUKAWA]
Fuji is quite free from clouds this morning, and in the soft autumnal sunshine every detail is clearly visible as I sit with the shutters wide open and eat my breakfast. The foreground is a level plain of rice-fields, which stretches away for three or four miles to where the first gentle ascent is marked by a line of villages and trees, and in some