T'he Days of a Man 



nigoo 



0//or 



the 



heights 



Sacred 

 Nantai- 



san 



The 



author as 

 botanist 



too alluring to admit of delay. Accompanied by a 

 wide-faced, muscular, amiable youth with an ex- 

 pansive smile which spread all over his face like sun- 

 rise on a lake, we now started for the heights, I on a 

 stout, good-natured pony whose only vice was a 

 constitutional reluctance to be mounted, at least by 

 me! My idea was to pursue the brawling Daiya 

 River to its lair. We therefore followed close along 

 the north bank all the way, at first over a broad road, 

 then by wooded trails far into the mountains. 



From the end of the highway (where our path 

 diverged) ran a narrow track of iron rails, up which 

 we saw lumbering bullocks of infinite slowness haul 

 cargoes of coal for the great copper mines and smel- 

 ters of Ashio over the pass to the southward. We 

 next came to a tumbling tributary with its hidden 

 Urami Fall, beyond which one has a view of the 

 broad side of the great peak of Nantai-san, a very 

 sacred mountain which no woman is allowed to 

 climb, so careful are we men of the fine points of 

 religion! Nantai-san is an arched backbone of red 

 lava, its evenly sloping sides densely carpeted with 

 firs, the dark green of which is broken and enlivened 

 by a few colorful slides bare of all vegetation. 



Higher up we crossed two or three strearns splash- 

 ing down from the sacred mount, then climbed by 

 many steep zigzags through noble forests affording 

 fine views of the gorge we were leaving far below. 

 Most interesting woods these were — tall crypto- 

 merias, majestic beeches with every grace of bole and 

 "instep," oaks, birches, arbor-vitae, and larch, with 

 alders, elders, dogwood, and other small trees of the 

 north, besides azaleas big and little, then unfortu- 

 nately out of bloom, witch-hazel, witch-hobble, 



L 68 J 



