The Inter Ocean tourists left Yokohama Monday, Nov. 18, having secured new passports for the interior, where the treaty laws do not extend protection or privileges to the foreigner. Our destination was unknown even to ourselves, but as we were astride our wheels it mattered little where we wound up, so long as interesting scenery and incidences were daily occurrences. One point, in main, was to form the center of a circle around which we intended to swing, and that center was Fujiyama, the sacred mountain. To reach the lower slopes of Fuji there are many pathways, but for cyclists there is but one that may be practicably adopted, and that by way of Gotenba, Yamanka and Yoshida, "the route of temples," the course traveled by the native pilgrims to Fuji in summer months. We took a southwesterly direction from Yokohama and came to a well ballasted wagon road, running almost parallel with the railroad, connecting Tokio with Kobe, 400 miles south. We passed through the villages of Fujisawa, Hiratsuka and Oisa, crossing the River Vanugawa, and entering Kodsu, a village of large proportions, at noon. Kodsu is about thirty miles from Yokohama, and it was here we had hoped to eat our lunch and find drinking water in which we could place confidence. The one drawback to tourists in the interior of Japan is water. In their natural condition the waters are pure, cool streams, coursing down snow-clad mountains, miles in the interior, but passing through the villages, their course is diverted into ditches and water-boxes, running through the gutters and sometimes under the houses of the town. The sewerage of surface drains empties into these streams. Cooking utensils and food are washed, fish are cleaned and even dogs drink from and bathe in these gutters. The same system of water supply exists in all of Japan, and after we had struck Kodsu, Mrs. McIlrath and I drank only native-made beer during our stay in the land of the Mikado.