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me, and showed me my reflection in a metal looking-glass, 
where I suppose I was expected to see the lines which sin 
had graven on my face. Next, one of them handed me a large, 
clean, metal howl. Instinct told me that an opportunity was 
coming to satisfy my thirst ; so I took it reverentially in my 
two hands, and the priest immediately filled the howl up with 
Japanese wine (< saki ), which I learnt afterwards had heen dedi- 
cated to the gods. Never did nectar taste so good. After the 
first half pint the priest invited me to more wine, and, feeling 
faint, the offer was readily accepted. Again the offer came, 
but this was too much ; modesty overcame me, and putting 
down twenty cents as an offering to the gods, I withdrew 
to my sandwiches. This was a Japanese sacrament, and I 
must say that I found it very good. The question now comes, 
"YVhat does all this mountain- worship mean ? The reply to it 
I think we find in Buckle, who shows us how the imagination 
of a people has been excited by all great natural phenomena, 
especially those like earthquakes and volcanoes. The terror 
which a volcanic eruption has caused, like that at Unsen, 
when fifty thousand people were slaughtered almost in one 
night, we have historical evidence to show has been the cause 
of many superstitions. The phenomena were so terrible, so un- 
expected, and at the same time so inexplicable, that to account 
for them superhuman agencies were invoked and gods created. 
In Italy and Spain it would seem that it is to these seismic and 
volcanic agencies that we are in a great measure to attribute 
not only the superstitious character of the people, but also their 
poetry and arts. In Japan, however, the most prominent 
result of these terrible catastrophes appears to have been the 
cultivation of superstition. Not only has the religion probably 
been to a great extent an outcome of the phenomena of nature ; 
but if we examine into their literature, and observe their senti- 
mental reverence for antiquity, and the conventionalities in their 
art, we shall see that much of what is so peculiar in the national 
character of the Japanese may probably find an explanation by 
looking in a similar direction. This subject, however, is too 
large to dwell upon here. 
From the foot of the crater to Bojo I calculated the dis- 
tance to be about five miles, and as this point was about half 
way across this portion of the pit the total width would here be 
about ten miles. From a map of the crater, which our host, 
who kept a small shop in Bojo, made for me, the diameter in 
some directions must be fourteen or fifteen miles. This I con- 
firmed by sketching in the position of the crater upon a map 
prepared by the government. Looking on the map, inside the 
space I marked out as being the boundaries of the crater, 
I counted about eighty villages. Fifty of the villages, our host 
