The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-09-07

mountain range which we were TO as
cend. The road was so steep that we
had two locomotives, and were pushed
/ UP by cog wheels, working on a rack
rail. The road is so winding and preci-
! pitous that we passed through 20 tun-
nels in miles, the grade being l in Is.
Each tunnel was numbered and at
most of them as the train passed
| through, a guard pulled huge canvas
! curtain over the mouth of the tunnel.
| The brief intervals of open way show
ed the travelled highway, the Nakasen-
| do, or Central Mountain Road, leading
| through this Usin Pass. The railroad
| is well built and well kept.
| There was some delay in arranging
| for jinrikishas to take us across the
hot moorland to the Mampei Hotel, and
still longer delay in the men arranging
all our baggage in one jinrikisha. We
reached the hotel about 7:30 p. m. to
find that some fellow passengers who
travelled lighter than we did had Sc
cured the best rooms. We were shown
to rooms in an outbuilding, to reach
which we had to cross the broOklet
that furnishes water for the village.
But we were fortunate in finding our
fellow passengers to be officers from
the United States Flagship Olympia,
who had known us in Honolulu, and
gallantly offered to exchange with us.
The rooms thus vacated for our benefit
were the best in the house, which is a
Japanese tea-house modernized into an
American hotel.
We are on the upper floor, COM
manding an outlook across the plain
to the range of hills makai. They are
not high, but as we look out to the
right of us there rises a precipitous,
triangular slab of mountain, graSSed
to it's summit The railroad train
scoots along the farther side of the
plain six times a day. Telegraph and
post office connect us with the outside
world. The village of KaruiZawa is of
the ordinary Japanese style, and judg-
ing from the style Of the buildings and
their uses, was supported largely by
the travel on the old highway, for the
Japanese are as restless here as on
Hawaii, going sightseeing from place
to place, and making occasions for an
nual pilgrimages to one place or an
other to see the special attractions pro-
vided, the Towering of different plants,
for which certain places have a special
reputation, or the observance of certain
religious festivals with all the pomp
and, ceremony of a spectacular religion.
The Japanese tea-house in which we
are staying may be taken as good
sample of the style of construction,
though our mattings are covered with
a wooden drugget and we are provided
with spring beds, chairs, wash stands,
tables, kerosene lamps and such con-
veniences of Our own home life. AS
cending the narraw staircase we find
ourselves in a little alleyway, open,
but provided with wooden shutters to
be closed in case of rain. The alley is
only two feet and a half wide, and the
rooms are only a little over seven feet
high. There are four rooms on this up
per story, with a passageway four feet
wide between the two suites of rooms.
The rear sides are plastered and also
half of the rear end of the passage
way. Two sides are enclosed with slid
ing partitions. These are open frame |
work, the small paneS being about |
three inches by eight, covered with a
very tough translucent paper, giving |
a mellow gray light when closed. A
bottom panel, six inches deep, has the
grain of the wood perpendicular. There
are two partitions to each side, sliding |
easily in grooves with very shallow |
ridges, only about an eighth of an inch |
high. One end of the room is divided |
into two sections one an open recess,
where some panelled picture or inscrip
ton is hung. The other section is a
closet with sliding doors. These and
the four sliding doors between the
suites are of paper, not transparent, of
a delicate olive green, dashed with
faint touches of silvery white. The cell
ing overhead is of finely grained wood,
a yellowb brown, like our butternut.
All the wood is smoothly planed and
unpainted. The boards run different
way in the two rooms, and are crossed
by narrow cleats, only an inch square,
running transversely. A freiZe of plas-
ter, about a foot wide is tinted faint
shade of ashes of roses. Below the
freize runs the frame for the partitions,
the upper width Of four inches of some
gray wood; the under, of two inches in
white pine The uprights in the cor
ners, and in the middle of each freize
are of redwood. Over the center of the
middle partition Of each suite is
Japanese inscription, about five feet in
length, one and and quarter in width.
l suppose it is something like our
Welcome" or God bless our home"
The narrow frame is of rosewood, with
in which is an edging Of olive-green
with amber lines, while the
is written with black ink on
a white paper. The floor space is II
feet by r. 1t is the cosiest little snug
gerry I have ever found, and here we
are enjoying the most perfect quiet
and most satisfactory outlook Japan
can offer to a tourist. H.