VOILA LA FU-SI-YA-MA ! 
251 
wise, and was consequently now the more surprised to 
tind them our equals in polish as well as in classical and 
scientific acquirements. 
Our time passed pleasantly enough, as we steamed over 
the distance of forty miles, and we were beginning to 
think that some signs of the harbour ought now to be 
lieaving in sight, when we suddenly found ourselves 
within a mile of its very mouth. So beautifully was it 
hidden from the sea, that a strange vessel might have 
“backed and filled” about its locality for days without 
imagining the existence of any such place. 
“ Voil^ la Fu-si-ya-ma !” exclaimed one of the Eussians, 
pointing far down the coast to a magnificent mountain, 
which, suddenly relieved, by a passing squall, of its dense 
envelop of clouds, now lifted its snowy head far into the 
mid-day sky. 
A magnificent sight it was, truly. Imagine a vast 
truncated cone, whose even slope to the northward was 
washed by the rolling waters of the bay, while its 
southern base dropped gradually back for miles and tens 
of miles into the unknown interior. Its snow-capped crest 
reflecting the weakened rays of the evening sun, its un- 
even belt of constant clouds around its centre, and below 
that the distant blue of its sweeping sides, fill up the pic- 
ture. I say, with the Eussians, “ Voihl la Fu-si-3'a-ma!” 
“It is their great object of reverence, I might almost 
say of worship,” continued the Eussian. “You find it 
stamped upon most of their porcelain and lacquer-ware, 
and hung in tapestry about man^* of their altars. Its 
sides, that now look so blue, are said to be remarkably' 
fertile : its summit is always covered with snow, and is in 
