344 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA, 
[chap. 
tea-services, clean matting, screens ornamented with poetical 
mottoes, which even when translated were almost nnintelligible to 
us, friendly hosts, and numerous female attendants. If the 
traveller brings his own cook with him, as we did, he can live 
very comfortably, as I have before stated, at such an inn. 
The hot springs which have conferred on Kusatsu its im¬ 
portance rise at the foot of a pretty high hill of volcanic origin. 
The rocks in the surrounding country consist exclusively of lava 
INN AT KUSATSU. 
and volcanic tuffs, and a short distance from the town there is an 
extinct volcano in whose crater there are layers of sulphur.^ In 
the immediate neighbourhood of the place where the main 
spring rises there is a thick solidified lava stream, surrounded 
by tuffs, which near the surface is cleft into a number of large 
vesicular blocks. From this point the hot water is conducted 
^ According to the statement of the inhabitants ; I had not time to visit 
the place. 
