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You are over 12,300 feet above the sea; this slippery, cindery slope below your feet is away up on the summit-ridge that surrounds the sleeping crater.  At this moment you have your back toward the crater and are looking off over the clouds and the surrounding country at the N. E.  That crescent-shaped lake is ten miles away; it is one of a girdle of beautiful lakes nearly encircling the mountain's base.  Tokyo is about sixty miles away in a straight line beyond the lake.  The sea is only eighteen or twenty miles distant at the south, i.e. behind you.

This man with the quaint straw hat and the bag and staff and straw sandals, is a pious farmer come up here with a party of like-minded acquaintances as an act of religious devotion.  It has cost him no small effort, for all the last 6,000 feet of the ascent were over rough, bare paths, up steep slopes covered with sliding masses of volcanic cinders thrown out from the crater in the great eruption of 1708.  Several pairs of those straw-sandals will be worn out tramping over the sharp, cutting surfaces of the cinder-beds before this meditative Japanese reaches home again.  He may not have brought his wife.  There in an old tradition that the guardian goddess of the mountain detests women and resents their coming up here, so fewer women approach this weirdly beautiful spot, but some do venture.

This pilgrim whom you see now leaning on his staff is doing in perfect good faith what his countrymen have done for fully a thousand years:-- he has made the circuit of the awesome crater, he has paid his devotions at appointed shrines, he has watched for the first light of dawn and prayed to the rising sun.  Now he can go home with an easy conscience and the full expectation of good luck sent by approving Powers.
(See Scidmore's "Jinrikisha Days in Japan," etc.)
From Notes of Travel, No. 8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


Two Miles Above the Clouds - View from Summit of Fujiyama; Japan.
Deux Milles au-dessus des Nuages - Vue de Sommet de Fujiyama; Japon.
Zmei Meilen über den Molten - Blid bom Cipfel des Fujihama; Japan.
Dos Millas Encima de las Nubes - Vista desde la Cumbre de Fujiyama; Japón.
Tvȧ mil öfver molnen - Utsikt från spetsen af Fujiyama; Japan.
Видъ съ вершины Фужіямы; Японія.

Transcription Notes:
Need completed transcriptions below the double-line mark. French: àâæ éèêë ïî ôœ ùûüÿ ç German: äöüß Spanish: áéíñóúü Swedish: ȧäåéö Russian uppercase: Я Ш Е Р Т Ы У И О П Ю Щ Э А С Д Ф Г Ч Й К Л Ь Ж З Х Ц В Б Н М Ъ Ё Russian lowercase: я ш е р т ы у и о п ю щ э а с д ф г ч й к л ь ж з х ц в б н м ъ ё Япoнiя.