=August 2.=--I feel still ill. I expect it was the relative cold and the constant wet, for all the time the clouds were driving through us. So I walked down the pass and went back to Tokio--a long hot journey. Last summer I described all the varieties of undress one can study in the railway carriage, and as the Kobe express cars are as big as big Pullmans and crowded, you can imagine I did not lack entertainment.
=August 3.=--I went up to the University and the Bank in the morning, and in the afternoon Professor B---- came to tea. He is as talkative as ever, but is now thoroughly disgusted with the Japanese. Their “futility,” their “absurd waste of time,” their “indirectness” irritate him, as they must irritate any one; and he sees no deeper to the things one loves, and which in some degree compensate. He proclaims, infuriated, that all the mysticism that was ever in Japan was brought there by Lafcadio Hearn himself.
=August 4.=--I set off with my bicycle, carrying all my luggage, for a fossil-insect hunt in Shiobara. The train takes five hours, according to the time-table, to go to the nearest station, and after that I had about 16 miles to ride to the haunt of the fossil insects. Fossil insects are shy and scarce, and I am the first to stalk them here, so I came with a double lot of patience; and I believe I remarked half a year ago, I have been so battered and worn in this country, where my impetuous spirit tugs at Oriental passivity in vain, that I have now normally the patience of two Jobs.
The train journey was remarkable only for the small quantity of clothing the passengers in the cushioned second class (pauper as I am, I only once travelled third) considered essential. Then the bicycle began, and as I spun past the jolting _kurumas_ the other travellers engaged, my heart rejoiced, for not only was I safe from their horrors, but I should reach the hotel first and get the pick of what rooms there might be; for it is a hot-spring place, and much frequented in August.
The first half of the journey was nearly flat, and I have described it before, when I came to this place hunting plants; and then the hills began, but the road was splendidly graded, and I rode up all but one with great ease. The road followed the winding valley, and sometimes seemed to hang over the roaring flood of the river beneath, so precipitous was the slope. At each curve of the road a broiling sun shone on me, and at each convex bend there was a waterfall, which seemed to emanate the coolness of hidden ice, and as the road curved and wound in and out like a Chinese dragon’s tail, I did not lack sensations. The beauty of the solitude of a million trees whispering together, of the silvery blue water and the grey rocks, shone with a clearness and brilliance that is so rare in England, and that is one of the chief charms of this country.