as changeless and as free from insult as the tutelary mountain rampart of Akagisan.
There being no hotel near Yamada's dwelling, he secured me a room in a geisha-house, with the result that late revelry made sleep impossible. But a bathe next morning in the rushing Tonegawa, with the exciting diversion of shooting some rapids in a crazy punt, invigorated me and amused a crowd of urchins, who shouted from the bank, "We want to see the naked foreigner!" By the end of the second day I felt at home with the older generation of both families, and was shown over warehouse, mill, and granary. Having not omitted to present miage on arrival, I departed in a shower of good wishes and small souvenirs. Yamada senior, who had never before (so his son declared) been willing to make the acquaintance of a foreigner, insisted on my accepting a roll of habutai (white silk, resembling taffeta), while Tanaka Okusama met me at the station with a parting gift of pickles and poetry. She had made the one, her husband the other. In fact, he had added this haikai to his published works:
"You, like a bird, pass,
Joyous, untrammelled;
Sad our farewell, when
Kiri-trees fall."
